The Next Big Thing

I don’t like to poke fun at the Wine Lover’s Page because it’s such an incredible resource (I especially love their wine quotes page), but I was kind of chuckling over their wine nutrition charts and thinking “Too much information!”

But, wait. I think I feel a little egg dripping down my face. I’d barely wiped that smirk off my face when I came across this report that the Treasury Department is considering requiring charts very much like what the Wine Lover’s Page had posted. Argh!!! Do you think anyone is primarily motivated by nutrition when they elect to drink a glass of wine??? I certainly hope not! Frevvin’s sake…

The good news: if you take a look at these charts, you’ll notice the glorious absence of fat and carbs (and low cholesterol, too!). Who knew? The ultimate diet drink!

The bad news: Unfortunately, those aren’t zeros by the calorie count. Please don’t remind me…

As you read on, you basically see a bunch of zeros, which implies that wine has no nutritional value. Fair enough. Nutritional charts tend to be generic and non-specific to the particular food, just as this chart isn’t wine-specific and doesn’t include the polyphenols that seem to be so good for us. Will the Treasury Department include the goodies along with the baddies? Do we really need this information? Just asking…

I know I’ve had my moments of obsession about wine’s influence on my ever-increasingly Rubenesque physique. So, I look at wine like I do any other food and have a vague idea about how much that glass of wine is ratcheting up my daily intake. Some calories are more fun than others and I’d much rather get my calories from wine than a Coke or even a piece of boysenberry pie (ouch!). But, do I need to know that the wine in my glass has trace amounts of thiamine, riboflavin and niacin? No, I do not.

On a sort-of-related note, Pinotblogger recently posted an amusing item about how California wine makes us eat more. Yikes, what a thought!! They served the same wine to a bunch of people and told half of them that it was from California and the other half that it was a North Dakota wine. The California half ate 12% more than the other half.

Of course, what’s really interesting is the psychology of the whole thing. Why is a glass of, supposedly, California wine more of an appetite stimulant and more relaxing than a glass that we think is from North Dakota (it also mentioned that folks tend to stay at the table longer when they’re told it’s California wine)? Lord knows, the ingredient labeling would look about the same. As usual, it’s all upstairs. We’re hard-wired with the idea that the California wine is better, and therefore we’re having more fun and should eat more and stick around at the table awhile longer, too.

It may not be fair, but since North Dakota’s first winery was bonded in 2002, it just doesn’t seem to get a whole lot of attention from the media. But, think of the implications there. It looks like we taste what we expect to taste – big surprise, right? Keep that in mind next time you’re contemplating breaking the bank to track down a bottle of Petrus or Maya or some other cult wine. Ah – the eternal question: just how good can a bottle of wine get?

On the other hand, here’s the next big thing! It’s the great, new wine diet! If you want to lose a few pounds but you really don’t want to give up your wine, just convince yourself that the wine’s from North Dakota. You’ll eat 12% less, probably drink less, too, and the pounds will melt away! Bon appetit!

Breakfast of Champions!

Well, this is fun. The Austrian government has come down on wine producers for an ad promoting the leading wine of the country, Grüner Veltliner. I’m not so sure about government intervention and I don’t pretend to have formal education in marketing, but you gotta wonder how people who do have the education came up with a misguided campaign like this. Were they mainlining G.V. when they came up with this stuff?

I guess being delicious just isn’t enough these days. Its supposed attributes include being an “anti-depressant ideal against the usual Monday-morning blues.” Does this mean we’re supposed to have a belt of Grüner Veltliner with our Cheerios, or maybe Muesli, before we hit the Monday morning commute? Maybe it’s better to stick with giving away T-shirts.

And when the industry came under fire for being such knuckleheads they promptly shot themselves in the foot again by coming out with a position paper “Admitting the necessity of responsible approach to the subject: and “went to great lengths pointing out the positive effects of moderate wine consumption, the important role of wine in Austrian cuisine and culture” – so far, so good – “and its significance as an icon of a hedonistic lifestyle.” Boom!! Ouch! Perhaps something was lost in translation here, or these marketing geniuses should be looking for a job.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of hedonism I think of wild-eyed Romans rolling around on the floor and the fall of the empire, like this definition from Dictionary.com:

1. the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the highest good.
2. devotion to pleasure as a way of life: The later Roman emperors were notorious for their hedonism.
Synonyms: sensualism, libertinism, debauchery, dissipation, carousal.
Antonyms: puritanism, asceticism, abstemiousness, self-denial.

Maybe the Austrian version is tamed down a bit like this one from WordNet:

1. the pursuit of pleasure as a matter of ethical principle
2. an ethical system that evaluates the pursuit of pleasure as the highest good

In either case this is a most unorthodox way to lend credibility to their stated goals of promoting responsible marketing and moderate consumption.

I’ll admit to using “hedonistic” as a wine descriptor on very rare occasion – you know – for one of those wines that is so good that you need to go to confession after indulging in just a taste? Ah…

Anyway, I guess these guys are just doing what we humans seem to do best: putting our foot in it only to find out it’s quicksand. I think we should all go out and buy a bottle of Austrian Grüner Veltliner. A nice, cool glass of G.V. sounds awfully good right now and we can hope they do the same for us when it’s our turn to look like our industry is chaired by graduates of clown college. Prosit!

Rating the Ratings

Here we have a wine critic who’s puzzled about how to approach a wine that got a 90 from Parker (this critic was also put off by the fact that the wine was rated by one of Parker’s employees rather than Parker himself) and an 84 from the Wine Spectator.

Every critic has his methods, but this one strikes me as odd, and adds to my long list of concerns about the 100-point ratings scale.

#1: Why did he seek out the opinions of others before tasting the wine himself? Sometimes you can’t avoid hearing things about high-profile brands, but it seems to me the critic should approach the evaluation without pre-conceived notions whenever possible. His write-ups include scores from other publications, which is a good, democratic idea, but he himself should start out by tasting the wine blind.

#2: His conclusion that “Someone is right and someone is wrong” regarding the 90 vs. the 84. And this, on a 6-point spread. Is anyone ever right or wrong when it comes to evaluating something that we eat or drink? Or read? Or take in at the theater? Life would be a lot simpler is this wasn’t subjective, but it is. And I don’t see a big discrepancy in that spread. Just a different take.

An 84 vs. 90 communicates to me, right or wrong, that the wine must be at least a clean, well-crafted representative of the type. Beyond that, it seems that the style suited Mr. Parker’s guy better than it did the Spectator’s. They each have a right to their opinions. We may or may not agree.

Recently, I was researching wines for a staff tasting and discovered that a highly regarded, fairly pricey Merlot we wanted to taste got a 94 from Robert Parker and, hang on for this – 78 from the Wine Spectator – pretty much a slap in its $65.00 face. Once we tasted it, we began to understand why. The “herbal note” that you expect from Merlot wasn’t subtle – it was something akin to vegetal. It was big and luscious, very clean and well made, so we respected it, but most of us weren’t crazy about it. How do you fairly score a wine like that?

Something like that definitely needs descriptors so that those of us who aren’t vege inclined can make another selection. That’s the fatal flaw in the phoenix rising from the Wine X ashes. Justwinepoints.com goes to the ridiculous extreme that “nothing else matters”. Just the points. But numbers don’t tell you what it tastes like. I appreciate their wish to be unpretentious and concise, but it actually seems rather egotistical to suggest that we will like it simply because they say “98″. For instance, in the category of sparkling wine, the 2003 Schramsberg Cremant received 98 points. Period. No comment. So, some unknowing enthusiast might run out and buy the Cremant to go with his oysters on the half shell, completely unaware that this particular wine is sweet. Yuk! I don’t care how “good” it is – no sweet wine with my oysters, please!!! It “matters”.

I’ve already ragged sufficiently on some of the other problems with numerical ratings such as the producers of the world being at the mercy of a small handful of powerful critics and questioning how one differentiates between an 89 and a 90.

So, the debate rages on. I know that some of the flowery, over-the-top descriptors are more laughable than informative. That sort of self-indulgent writing can send you running and screaming to the numerical scores. But, don’t you think most reviewers are genuinely trying to be helpful? From the vast sea of wine publications, there’s no doubt you can find a writer or two whose tastes and sensibilities are somewhat aligned with yours, whether or not they use points. And if it tastes like a 94 to them and a 78 to you, who is right? Not that they’re mutually exclusive, but couldn’t some well-chosen words give you a better idea of what to expect in terms of aroma and flavor and whether there are any characteristics that may be controversial? Or if the critic views the wine as an outstanding or poor example of the type? Numerical ratings? I guess I’d give them a 71.

Batten Down The Hatches!

Quick! Lock the doors! This is a warning to our comrades-at-arms, our friends and fellow bloggers at Pinotblogger, Dover Canyon, Twisted Oak , especially to Wineries of Napa Valley and so many others: BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES! Spread the word! The threat of Spring Break is upon us and they’ve got plans. And if they don’t “got plans”, there are people out there with the unmitigated gall to give them ideas.

I’d actually thought we were maybe past this – that is, the throngs of liberated students rolling into wine country looking for a cheap drunk – because, frankly, wine-tasting isn’t as cheap as it used to be.  But maybe these kids have more money. Here’s the carrot that’s been dangled: A student blog at Arizona State U. suggested that “If boozing is high on your list of priorities this spring break…” that they come see us and that “The people there (Napa) were very nice,” Thames says, “and they want to get you drunk.” I figure the average college student can extrapolate that these same enticements apply to Sonoma, the Sierra Foothills and Paso Robles or any other wine country that may fall victim.

It brings back haunting recollections of my early days in winery hospitality when everything was free. Huge bus-loads of college kids would pull into the parking lot of my former employer on weekends aiming to get as drunk as possible and doing unspeakable things on the beautiful winery lawn. Not to mention the humiliation to which they subjected that poor, lovely, very womanly nude statue – nuff said. And for Spring Break, just multiply this by, I don’t know, 100? Oy!!!

At the time I recognized the irony of our feelings toward the dreaded “college kids” because, like most of my colleagues, I was barely out of school myself and was, in fact, taking night classes in winemaking at Napa College. But we all agreed that no matter how much beer we drank on the bus, none of us would ever behave that way in public. Hmmmmm…

There’s one thing in the article that I can endorse: We are nice, this rant aside. And we love college kids. Maybe that’s because we can’t accommodate busses here at Goosecross. We tend to get our “kids” 2 or 4 at a time, and are nearly always glad they came. Besides – these folks are our future. And of course we still remember how much we looked forward to cutting loose a little for Spring Break.

So, just 2 points of etiquette for those who are, indeed, making Spring Break plans to go to wine country so you won’t feel like a schmuck when you get home (and bearing in mind that camera-phones proliferate):

1. If you want to get roaring drunk, we understand, please just do it in your room (don’t drink & drive!!).
2. Mind your manners on the lawn! Or whatever equivalent…

And for our winery brethren: You’ve been forewarned. Battle-ready positions!

Sulfites Give Me Headaches?

Do sulfites give me headaches? No, but they sure make me cranky.

It happened again. I popped into the tasting room to get a bottle of water and overheard some people telling Jose, the Tasting Room Manager, that they “usually only drink French wine because it doesn’t have any sulfites so they don’t get headaches from it”. Jose and I exchanged glances and smiled wearily. We both knew he had a good 10 minutes ahead of him to tactfully try to set them straight, and that they probably still wouldn’t believe him. He’d much rather talk about the vineyard source that gives the wine that nice anise aroma or help them decide where to have lunch. I had to fight my knee-jerk irritation. What I really wanted to do was scream “Who keeps perpetuating these myths???!!!” It was better for me to take my water and leave.

Two things wrong with their statement:

1. All wines have sulfites regardless of country of origin.
2. Sulfites don’t give you headaches.

Now, let me back up my statements with facts from a much better source than my own humble self.

Regarding point 1, Andrew Waterhouse of the University of California at Davis, one of the best wine schools in the world, stated that European and American wines both tend to average about 80 parts per million (ppm) total sulfur, some more, some less.

Regarding item 2, the same Andrew Waterhouse stated unequivocally that there’s absolutely no indication that sulfites cause headaches. He suggests you eat some colorful dried fruit to put this to the test. The bright color testifies that the fruit has been treated with a hefty dose of sulfur, far, far above 80 ppm. If you don’t react to that, you don’t have a problem with sulfur. He even invited people to write to him if they believe they have compelling evidence that their headaches are caused by sulfur.

Can you buy wine with no added sulfites? Yes, you can, from any country including the US and its absence will usually be screaming at you from the label. But that doesn’t mean that the wine doesn’t contain sulfites. Sulfur is a by-product of the fermentation, albeit a small one, but all wines contain at least a few parts per million.

Wines with no added sulfites are difficult to come by because the vast majority of winemakers, including those who farm organically, find that their wine isn’t very good if they don’t add small amounts. Of course, we’d all like to make wine without adding the sulfur but so far we’re just not technically sophisticated enough to pull it off. The wine tends to have a short shelf life without it. Of course, there are those who disagree. Best way to hunt down some of these no-added-sulfite wines is online. Give ‘em a try!

Do all countries add sulfur? Absolutely, and the Europeans were the first to figure out that it’s a smart thing to do. Sulfur and wine have been partners in winemaking since at least Roman times – first as part of the seal, then as a barrel purifying agent and later as an outright additive.

Sulfur levels are generally lower now than they were a few decades ago because, with modern sanitation methods and winemaking techniques, we can get away with less. Typically, a bottle of Goosecross wine contains about 30 ppm at bottling time. The legal limit in the US is 350. Dried fruit may contain over 1000 parts ppm.

To be fair to this couple who were talking to Jose, it’s reasonable to assume that they think American wine is alone in adding sulfur because, up to very recently, America had a labeling requirement that European wines didn’t: if the wine contains 10 ppm or more, a warning must appear on the label regardless of where it was made. I’m happy to say that any wines made or sold in the EU, bottled after 11/25/2005, will have the same warning. The regulation is the same as that of the US. So, it means that when you go shopping for wine anywhere in the EU, you should see the warning on most whites and young reds by now. Austalia has a similar requirement. When you buy wine in Melbourne, you’ll see a reference to “preservative 220.”

I don’t like being fair when I feel so cranky. Buzzing around the internet to see what is said on the subject, there’s lots of good information, but misinformation also abounds. Especially about the headache thing. So, we can’t be cranky. We have to be fair and patient and explain. By the time we’ve explained it to every wine drinker on the planet you know what? They’ll figure out how to make good wine without adding sulfites!

Have Some Fish Wine with your Fish

Why don’t we just put a warning label on everything that says “Life is dangerous.” Already our wine labels warn us about sulfites, birth defects and unspecified “health problems” and now we have to list fining agents?  Which aren’t really ingredients at all?

There’s actually a draft for a new federal regulation that will require that if we fine with egg whites, isinglass or casein we state that the wine contains eggs, fish or milk respectively. I hope we still have room on the label for the name of the producer, region and variety.

We all know that the most dangerous thing about wine, by far, is the alcohol, but by all means, let’s talk about milk protein! This stuff drives me crazy for a number of reasons.

One is the government as nursemaid thing. It’s so embarrassing…

Another is that the burden of proof that these fining agents aren’t actually ingredients is on the producers, yet according to the Wine Institute “there are no methods available for testing the presence of eggs, milk, wheat or fish in wine…” But, we all know that the fining agents are added to remove something else. If there’s any trace left, it’s minute. If they insist on a regulation like this they should establish the level at which the substance must be listed as an ingredient, like the 10 parts per million for sulfites, and devise a way to measure it.

And that leads to the confusion issue. Many winemakers feel this requirement is misleading, since the fining agents aren’t actually ingredients. I hope no one expects to benefit from the calcium in casein!  But, following the history of sulfites and labeling, folks will think we’re the only ones who make wine with fish (or clay or milk protein) if we’re the only ones with the labeling requirement. Yuck! Talk about a marketing issue.

And that leads to competing in the global market. This can’t be good for sales, plus it raises labeling costs. I can almost hear our competitors snickering in disbelief. Of course ultimately, regulations like this hurt all of us.

This, from a country that permits blending wine from Australia into “American Wine.”

But, it’s still only a draft. If I understand it correctly, the comment period is over and some kind of decision will be made by the end of the year.  Perhaps reason will prevail…

Are We All A Bunch Of Snobs?

I was skimming here and there and found this interesting post in “Life’s a Picnic”. Very enjoyable reading, but what really got my attention was Greg’s reluctance to visit a winery because he was convinced that the people would be “too serious and snobby.” And this from a foodie, if you take a look at his posts.

ARGHH!!!! Mortally wounded! After all these years in winery hospitality, at wineries big and small, reading that we’re so perceived makes me break out in a cold sweat. I have invested considerable effort in dispelling this “serious and snobby” thing over more years than I care to admit and, when I was in a position to influence others, I coached them to be unfailingly kind, helpful, informative and, most importantly, FUN! Wine is about a lot of things, but in the end it’s about fun, isn’t it?

Anyway, he was going, with some trepidation, to meet the winemaker at Periscope Cellars in Emeryville, CA. He observed that “The surroundings are certainly not like the palatial settings of the North Counties, more like a big old military bunker…”

And he was delighted to find out that the Winemaker was actually fun to be with. “While having serious credentials and experience he is far from snobby. Brian seems part guy next door, part artist and part mad scientist. He is generous to a fault with his time and seems extremely happy to be doing his wine thing.”

You know, that description fits a whole lot of winemakers I’ve known. I think what people forget when they see all the fancy architecture is that we’re still an agriculturally-based business, and that the work is physical! Sure, there are ivory-tower winemakers and high-flying consultants, but they’re much more the exception than the rule. Most of us in the wine industry are just ordinary people who choose to make our living in wine because we love it.

For those of you who like wine but believe as Greg does, I hope you’ll reconsider and hit the wine trail again. I’ll acknowledge that wine brings out the worst in some people, and those are the folks you want to avoid. And yes, you can find very formal situations with intimidating tasting rooms and astronomical tasting fees, but if you investigate a little, you can also find little places like ours that are off the beaten track. You may not find a grand villa, but you will find that lots of us are genuinely glad to see you, show you a good time and answer your questions without a hint of pretense. Plus, we’ll pour some seriously-fine wine (without taking it too seriously).

It may mean getting off the main highways and onto the sideroads or up in the hills, but that just makes an ordinary outing more like an adventure. COME ON DOWN!

Dumbing down of wine labels and wine?

I’ve been (casually) following the discussion on blogspot.com regarding new-world vs. old world, and something Trish said in New World vs. Old World Part Deux caught my attention. She was troubled by her own observation: “People want at-a-glance labels, suggested pairings, critters, playful names and specified grapes. They don’t want micro-appellations, regular-size appellations or any appellation, for that matter. They want wine. Just wine. So many people don’t really care where it comes from or about the traditions and geography behind it.”

I think it depends upon the consumer. Representing a high-end producer here in the Napa Valley, I find that our customers care very much where the grapes came from, want to understand viticultural practices and are fascinated to know what part of Europe the variety hails from so they can draw the comparison.

The folks who want and need simplified labels are entry level consumers and I don’t blame them. This is a complicated subject, even for those of us who like to think we know something about it – just think of the first time you tried to decipher the label on a German wine or a bottle of Burgundy! Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to simplify the label and make it kind of fun by way of using critter labels or whimsical names for wines under $15.00 or so.

My opinion has always been that all roads lead to Napa Valley Cabernet (my own personal bias – you could just as well say all roads lead to fine Bordeaux). I’ve heard people make fun of White Zin drinkers, but not me. I say “Go for it!” I figure they’ll get bored eventually and maybe try a glass of Pinot Grigio and begin to move on.

Recently, I hosted a delightful young couple from Scottsdale who said they didn’t know much about wine, and yet they’re interested enough to have watched all 2 hours of Mondovino (oy!). We spent probably a good 10 minutes talking about the threat of winemaking becoming globalized and wine character homogenized. We came to the conclusion that while there’s some evidence of it in the low end, and there are even fine wine producers who care more about getting a 96 from Parker or the Wine Spectator than they do about producing a style that’s uniquely their own, there will always be small, artisan producers who try to capture that wonderful and mysterious sense of place.

And the really encouraging thing is to read about the Millenials, who are characterized as a generation that wants to know where its food and wine comes from and doesn’t mind spending a bit more for quality. That can only be good for the future of small producers with high standards and fortunately, while we may not produce much volume, we proliferate all over the world.