Rebel Rose

First of all, I'd like to say that Mark (who seems to be long gone from this forum) is entitled to his opinion. However, this statement is a very good, and clear, example of a misconception that I do take exception to simply because it is still so frequently encountered. It is true that many Frenchmen envy California. Some have moved here to start vineyards and wineries. But at the same time, Italian and Swiss immigrants chose the central coast regions because of its familiar Mediterranean climate and soils, and this similar climate also presents its own set of growing challenges. French producers who have moved here to pursue winemaking have done so not because the climate is easier, but for the creative freedom. Is it a valid assumption that California grapes are pampered? Certainly, some vineyards in this huge region are overcropped or overwatered. There's a lot of so-so wine in California. As in France. And there are many excellent vineyards . . . dryfarmed, headtrained, old vine, stress-irrigated, maintained by hand, etc. These vineyards face blistering spring rains and wind that interfere with pollination and fruit set. Killing late spring frosts (a special concern this year). Cold vintages with autumns that shut down ripening. Heat spikes in summer. Wild boars, bear, deer, all types of fruit-eating birds of which the most damaging is the European starling, gophers, oak root fungus, phylloxera, glassy-winged sharpshooter, gophers, syrah decline, mildew, wells poisoned with boron salt, gophers. Earthquakes. If your well pipe has been S-curved, then you know there's now a new fault right below your vines--possibly an air bubble that may kill the roots of established plants. Flooding rivers in Napa that wash topsoil away and destroy swaths of vineyard rows with heavy debris and mudslides. There are very distinct vineyard and site characteristics here. It isn't the growers who are learning this . . . it's the public--primarily wine writers and sommeliers. Part of the problem is that many people who have never been to California view it incorrectly. I sometimes get phone calls from people who say, "Yes, I'd like to fly into Los Angeles in the morning, visit a few wineries in Santa Barbara, then stop by your place in Paso Robles, and finish with a few stops in Monterey before heading up to Napa." When I explain that they are looking at a 12-hour drive without stops I hear a gasp. People wil begin to understand California terroir when they stop comparing chardonnays from Santa Barbara and Monterey, for instance, and focus on comparing wines that are only a few miles, or even feet apart.

All excellent suggestions. I always think of rich, yet fluffy, with white Burgundy. Love mushrooms. A little butter, not too much. For the salmon, I would stay away from "smoked" and go with storebought gravlax, which is actually lightly cured and has little of the "smoke" character. Whip it up in a blender with the cream cheese, some sour cream, and fresh dill and you've got a simple app. I could be way off here, but I also like ripe exotic fruit juxtaposed with white Burgundy. A small schmear of mango salsa tarted up with ginger, onion, cilantro, cucumber and Hungarian wax pepper (small schmear, mind you) on triangles of puff pastry. (I soak the ginger, pepper and garlic in Tequila for 15 mins. to extract flavor, then drain and combine with the rest of the salsa.) Chicken liver pate and bacon are good too, if sustenance while tasting is your goal. The white Burgs will go nicely with that, but more as a marriage than a flirt. So I would hold off on those until later in the evening if your purpose is to explore the whites first.

An interesting theory, and a traditional one. But what is a "greater stress"? Lack of drainage? Look to clay soils over volcanic hardpan, as in Napa. Too much drainage? Look to steep, calcareous hills like the Santa Rita and Santa Lucia foothills of California. Which are similar to parts of France and Australia, where the Pacific Plate has curled up against a continent, creating marine embayments like the Puget Sound, and then receded, leaving calcareous and limestone rich fossil-studded soils. Early season frosts? Too much rain? Too little rain? Gentle heat and longer daylight as in Washington State and Germany, or less daylight and more intense heat as in central California and the Rhone? It is a pretense that only France "suffers" and therefore experiences more "character" in her vineyards.

Hmm. So bad weather, dryfarming and crows only exist in France? Are these the reasons for vineyard specificity? I think not. Otherwise, Max, I see your point. Perhaps he meant . . . "when faced with equal challenges, viticultural sites will reflect their terroir . . . "?

The owner/winemaker of an old central coast winery came to visit us a few weeks ago. The owner is a tall, elegant first-generation Italian and he told us that in his village in Italy (didn't catch the region), the only time the men drank white wine was when they gathered at the local bar before church on Sunday.

Good comments, John. This gives rise to a thought that perhaps terroir is most easily distinguished when one is comparing vineyards from the same region. After all, when comparing regions that are widely separated geographically, the additional factors of winemaking tradition and meteorological differences come into play. So perhpaps it is always easiest to say, "this vineyard tastes different than that one . . . " when tasting similar/same wines in the same region. I know this holds true for some of the zinfandel and Rhone vineyards we source from here in Paso Robles. We know that Bella Vineyard, a Sauret clone, always has a tobacco-like profile, and that Alto Pomar Vineyard (grenache, syrah, mourvedre) always has a leathery funk, and Benito Dusi zinfandel always has a lighter, brick-like color but layers of briary pepper. But when asked to compare any Paso Robles producer to a Napa or Sonoma counterpart, I am always stymied as to where to begin . . . Napa is volcanic soils from North American plate geology, and Paso is calcareous soils from Pacific plate geology. Napa has north-south valleys, Paso has east-west wind tunnels. Napa gets more rain, but the clay soils and shale underbellies have poor drainage; Paso gets less rain, but the calcium-rich soils drain almost too well . . . So the viticultural and winemaking traditions of each region are entirely different, given the challenges producers face. Are these all aspects of terroir? Surely. But it becomes far more difficult to ascertain where the road forks, and why.

1. The usual, and some unusual, sparklers with a celebratory breakfast. 2. A 3 am post-crush meal of omelette and wine. 3. My black kitten, Diablo, leaps into our bed with . . . a live mouse!! Which he turns loose so he can play with it. And in the ensuing pandemonium and shrieking proceeds to lose it in the bedclothes! So at 5:45 am I am having a little tipple of the house viognier/roussanne blend. Who needs the other 7 reasons . . .

It was supposed to rain here today, and wine regions to the north of us are getting a little rain. I spent the day in sweats and a baseball hat, ready. But I would need a quantum rain gauge to measure the few drops that fell. My leaking garden hose threw out more precipitation than this rain storm. And now the weather forecast has been downgraded to 10%. Hopefully, we will get a half-inch or so tonight. Yesterday we planted some irises and wildflower starts along the creek by the wine barn--the soil was black and wet, but ordinarily this time of year it would be underwater. We have already tilled the cover crop in the zinfandel under, and we are going to starting mowin' n' hoein' the syrah. More signs of badger activity in the zinfandel--I hope there will be enough water to encourage him (her?) to stay.

We charge a $3 fee to taste 5 wines from the list. We were one of the first wineries in our area to charge a fee, and so for the first two years after we initiated it I would frequently get calls from other wineries. We keep our fee low, because we view it as a filter, and $3 is all that's required to make it work. It makes people stop and consider. If Gramma would swill down free wine even if she doesn't like it, now she'll opt to take Little Bradley out to the swing. Couples decide to share. Also, we don't collect the fee upfront, and we waive it entirely if a couple or individual purchases wine. There are now wineries in our area that charge $8-10 for tasting and do not return or apply the fee upon purchase. It's sad that most people still try to pay the fee after they've purchased their bottle, but it gives us a chance to wave graciously and chirp, "Oh no, don't worry about it." Which makes both us and the customer feel good. And we waive the fee for trade people, birthdays, engagements, if we like you . . . Conversely, my tasting list clearly states the fee at the top of the page and the phrase "one fee waived per bottle purchased." That gives us the option to get literal about it if we are visited by a limo full of clattering bridesmaids. I learned that lesson early on when one person would buy a single bottle in order to get the whole group's fees waived. I don't allow buses at all. And only a few limo companies; they must be approved. And I still charge the fee when people do arrive in limos or trolleys or guide vans. It annoys me to the bone when these groups think that they should taste for free and still not buy wine. Ninety percent of the time a limo/van group are the worst customers. But all in all, I think it's sensible for a winery our size to be gracious, yet cautious and sensible when it comes to pouring samples.

In more developing news an enterprising housekeeper and her boyfriend lift a premium selection of fine wine: The article points out a rising number of thefts and concern among fine wine customers. Wine industry innovations in bottle identification are focused more on preventing fraud, not theft. My recommendation? Buy a glass etcher, and etch your initials or another personal identification into the bottle itself, making it easier to trace if it is stolen.

Adam, I believe you are right about the widespread use of cork in wine flasks, but there is (reputedly, I don't remember where I read this right now) a history of limited use of cork in the Baltic region dating back much further. However, wine flasks or bottles used to be sealed with a variety of stoppers--glass or clay mainly--and seated with hot wax or in some cases, pitch. Some of these seals may have been strong enough that a blown bottle would crack at the base, where there would be more surface area for the wine to push against, more exposed irregularities in the glass, and the weakness of the seam between the wall of the bottle and its base.

In the recent media flap about allergen labeling on wine (fish, eggs, wheat, etc.) owner Leo McCloskey of Enologix was recently quoted in the media as being unequivocally in support of this law--which I found interesting, especially as his laboratory would benefit financially. A while back, he responded to a post on the Goosecross Cellarss blog. The conversation started out politely, but deteriorated rapidly. (Trust me, start at the beginning and scan all the way to the end—you won’t want to miss the fencing, and the last post by Goosecross CEO David Topper.) I followed up with an opinion piece on our winery site, titled Ego and Enologix. Although Mr. McCloskey has not posted, the two discussions share one or more posters. I heartily recommend that you read these public comments before continuing the discussion here. It will only take a few moments, and you will understand why I raise the following questions: Is Enologix poised to become the "American version of the French A.O.C. since it is winemaker based"? Is Enologix going to become the "consumer's score" as one poster claimed repeatedly? Are wineries who don't submit to critics and who don't use Enologix' services "going around the consumer"? What is McCloskey's vision? A visit to his website indicates many of the standard laboratory, winemaking and consulting services. What makes him unique is his quality matrix based on critic's scores. But is his vision to offer more than a wine consulting service? Is it his vision to grow, through working with fine wine clients, into replacing individual critics with artificially intelligent scores? It's all very muddled to me.

Fun and useful is what it's all about. Last year I sat down with a group of about eight other women winemakers in my area to taste some dry rieslings. We were using the Davis 20 point worksheets, but found it woefully inadequate. As women, we also wanted to gauge the "fun" factor in the wine . . . would it make a nice picnic quaffer? A good pairing for Thanksgiving? Does the packaging appeal to us? So you see, even wine professionals aren't always interested in dry, succinct wine "notes."

I think I see what you mean, Don Giovanni, that there are two types of terroir: vineyard specificity, and regional typicity. (Also, for anyone who was faked out by the transmutation of Don's thread into this one, I apologize. I was in the midst of merging that thread with this one when I was bumped offline.)

John Z: I believe Craig was being a little tongue-in-cheek. Check out his Wine Camp blog (see link above) and you will see that Craig is a very independent thinker and acclaimed wine writer.

As it happens, rose' has been on my mind a lot this week. Summer is coming . . . Last summer, Dan (my SO) was visiting Stefan Asseo at L'Aventure Winery here in Paso Robles, and he came home with 6 delicious bottles of Stefan's rose' as a gift for me. I blew through those bottles; the wine was incredibly good and went with all our light summer fare--antipasto plates, shrimp, pasta salads, etc. When I hoped to get more, I discovered that Stefan was sold out. Lesson learned: I am starting my rose' shopping in April! And in keeping with that theme, Gabriella Opaz at Catavino has declared April to be "Spanish Rose'" month. But the catch is, you have to taste and compare a Spanish or Portuguese rose' to any rose' of your choice from elsewhere. Sounds like fun, huh? Catavino also has their own forum, (I love the "virtual tasting" graphic). Does anyone else have rose' on their wine shopping radar?

I agree. The 'practice' involved in writing wine notes is an expanding experience in itself. One learns to pay more attention to the various levels of wine enjoyment. John's system is a very good one, and although it may seem non-intuitive, it's a good one for beginners, because it's thorough. Ultimately, however, it's like poetry, the more we learn, the less we need to say, and Jim's friend has captured the spirit of prosecco perfectly.

Your commentary on this is well-expressed, and one of the best and most succinct I have encountered. I also agree on the dilettante issue. There are "layers" of customers in this group. Some are just wlling to pay more than necessary to be assured of an impressive wine, but that's okay, because they are also not spending their children's college education on a wine hobby. And there are people who are willing to, and certainly can, pony up for the trophy wines, but they do so because they really, really want them. And then there are the "flippers" who are into it for secondary market profits. And there's another group--there are individuals in affluent areas of the world who make a very good living as wine consultants, charged with buying, stocking and inventory for personal wine cellars. One wonders if the owners really care about the wines in their cellar or are even aware of what they have . . . I'm not knocking the economic model, but doesn't it make you want to stretch out your arms and wail, "Nooooo . . . ." as these wines disappear into the black cavernous reaches of an indifferent cellar?

Excellent point, Eric. I am not an expert on Bordeaux . . . Do you feel the classifications are still useful as long term indicators of quality? Or are they regarded more as royal figureheads?

After considering the ungodly amounts of money that some people spend on wine, I realized that nearly all of the winemakers I know have very humble personal collection spaces--generally just some Home Depot shelving in a cool corner of the winery or an outbuilding. In keeping with that tradition, our personal collection is a hodgepodge arrangement of boxes, wooden boxes, and antique riddling racks (used in Champagne production) in the root cellar under our house. You can see one of our temperature and humidity monitors in the photo below. What is your "wine cellar"? A gnome closet under the stairs? A half-basement? Or have you recently rennovated a room in your house to hold your precious allotments? What's your prize wine? The one you hesitate to open until the perfect moment? Or do you have a sentimental favorite that is probably plonk, but you find yourself reluctant to toss?

'Florida Jim' is definitely the high bar for wine writing around here. I hope to someday write like him . . . And I agree that I like knowing the pricing on wines I am not familiar with . . . then I can decide if I would like to track it down, and perhaps buy a small quantity.

I've been wondering lately what members here find useful in wine tasting notes? Do the typical berry-cherry and secondary notes give you a good sense of the wine? Do you want to see more information on balance, weight, and finish? Or on food pairing possibilities? Would you like to see prices included? (With of course, the caveat that we understand the prices will fluctuate given your locale.) Since this is a culinary site, I suspect that our members are looking for slightly different information on wines than would be found on a wine-specific site or publication. But this gives us an opportunity to do some genre-busting note posting. Why not dare to be different? Am I wrong to fear that our large membership is afraid to post here because they assume that: a) wine notes should be only be written by the super-experienced b) wine notes should be stuffy and pompous, and c) wine notes should only be written on "important" wines? So, if this forum were to offer more tasting notes, what you like to see as a reader? And if you were to (gasp) write a tasting note, what would you like to offer?

I think this is all a bit of a stretch, but it's very likely to happen since the burden of proof is shot back to the winemaker to prove that these substances are not in the wine, and how can anyone prove that with 100% certainty? As for wheat gluten leaking into the wine . . . food grade wheat gluten is used to seal the barrel heads into the barrels . . . if the gluten is leaking into the wine, then the wine would be leaking out of the barrels . . . Anyone who has popped the head off of a barrel, as we have many times, can show you that the wood around the seal is fresh and intact. There has been no contact with the wine at all. (WARNING: Scaremongerers at work. Please check your common sense at the door.) God forbid that anyone actually proposing this type of labeling should be forced to actually touch a barrel. Furthermore, one member of our family is highly intolerant to gluten--cannot consume it in any form, but she is an enthusiastic and democratic wine drinker, and has consumed an impressive share of Dover Canyon inventory. Of course, that doesn't prove that 1 in a million people might have a gluten intolerance reaction while drinking wine. The other compounds mentioned have been in use in natural winemaking for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. However, that doesn't negate the logic that perhaps people have died while drinking wine and that death could have been avoided had they known there was a molecule of sturgeon in their wine. Of course, they would also have to know they were allergic to sturgeon . . . Aside from the fact that we will have to bottle all our wines in magnums in order to get all the required language on the bottle . . . If we have to do this, then when, I say, when will catsup manufacturers be required to list bug parts and eggs?

We covered this topic briefly in our threads: Wine 101: Sulfites, Nothing to sneeze at! and Tannins But it seems this topic deserves its own discussion . . . there are a lot of theories, but little to no proof as to what causes wine headaches, as demonstrated in today's article in the Austin American-Statesman: Experts differ on the cause of headaches from red wine Frankly, this theory doesn't hold water for me at all, since Bisson is clearly out of touch with modern winemaking on any scale. ML bacteria is often started under a heat lamp by any size winery, large or small. It's easy to do, and it ensures that all your barrels get started at more or less the same time. But the next expert also disagrees with Bisson's theory: And part of the compounds found in winegrape skins and seeds are tannins--which brings us back to the discussions we had here on Tannins and Sulfites.

Hi, John! Thank you for joining us, and for the informative post. I, too, had been told that the punt evolved with champagne under glass, and was then adopted by other bottle makers, but I had never given the history of glass much thought (other than trying to memorize the names of all the French, Italian, and Champagne big bottles ) And I see you have mastered the art of linking in your very first post. Bravo! For those of you who have not "met" John online yet, he is a New York/Finger Lakes winemaker.