Robert Mondavi

There have been many fine tributes to Bob already, I'll only share a page of quotes from him. There are some gems here:

http://www.robertmondaviwinery.com/flash/docs/A-Quotable%20RGM%202008.pdf

and share a quote of my own from my Grandmother:

"If you can't say anything nice, say nothing"

and dedicate it to Julia Flynn Siler who, on learning of Bob's passing, had this touching gem:

"The family had made preparations for this day for a long time. Whether his passing heals the family, I don't know,"

I think its times like this that people reveal their true selves. At least she managed not to slip a promo in for her book....

Anniversary of the 1906 Earthquake

Here we are 102 years after the 1906 San Andreas earthquake which shattered San Francisco.

I hear some of you saying..."so what does that have to do with wine?"

Plenty!

But first- attached are a few stereo-optic photos taken right after the 1906 earthquake: notice how everything is pretty much gone (fires consumed most of the wood the quake spared), how the people are living in the streets, and how the then destroyed Fairmont Hotel was reported to have cost JUST $4,000,000 to construct in the first place! These days you can't even look at a lot the hotel occupies in SF for that much cash.
(Thanks to Stuart for sending these photos in...
Click on the photos to see a bigger version, and look at the center of the photo and cross your eyes slightly...and the photo should magically pop out at you...)

...and isn't it nice how the Keystone-esque cops are guarding the safes from the banks?...
And still more damage & people living in makeshift shacks and tents, with no water and no sanitation...(please note how the shack has a horseshoe which is placed the wrong way up for luck...)...
Again, how does this tie into wine?
One of the most common questions when I see people tour wineries is "what happens when there's an earthquake?"
It's usually asked as people are shown around barrel rooms - especially rooms which have the barrels stacked high above the tourists heads...and by people from back east, or at least people whom haven't experienced an earthquake or two.

Well, here's a video of what's possible when you take a stack of barrels 6-racks high and place it on a shaker table for a simulated quake. I should note that in my book, wineries really worried about this possibility use 4-barrel racks for stacking as they're much more stable than the 2-barrel variety are in earthquakes...notice how they fail in the front-back (linear) direction and not to the sides (laterally). (I didn't get any sound on the video...)

As you watch the video and look at the photos, think to yourself of how much it would cost to repair the damages from a quake in these current gloomy-economy times...I mean even the smallest mom & pop winery is worth $10~20MIL.
And even the cheapest house in Napa or Sonoma counties is a half-million dollars each....

Inventory losses for winery case goods alone could reach the $500MIL mark, as they're also stacked high and might be damaged in a quake. Tack on all the costs from damaged buildings, losses to equipment and lost time working the wines, as well as possible losses to life, and the place is pretty much a shambles. Transportation chains broken due to injured workers, damaged highways, overpasses and bridges, etc...
In fact, just a few spots of Silverado trail, highways 29, 12/121, and highway 101 being damaged would cripple the ability for National Guard relief to get through.
If there was also damage to the local airports, we'd be pretty much screwed for a week or two.

What is there for you to do to prepare?
Definitely put together an earthquake kit with all the food & water you'll need for 4~7 days, but also slip a few bottles of your favorite wines in as well...after all, you can't be sure when your favorite wine shop will reopen (if ever), and the comfort you'll get from having something as simple as a good bottle of wine will be priceless in a major event like that (you could also barter it for something else, should the need arise!).
[check out the ABAG website for additional preparedness info]

Shat would the total monetary damages be? The final number would vary greatly depending on the type of scenario that plays out, but it could easily be in the billions.
It might even approach the total from, say, a Katrina-type disaster, though the area affected would be much smaller in scope. But still the possible consequences of a strong quake scenario in the North bay area are drastic.

Beware rising wine prices

I can't imagine anyone still buying super unleaded these days, much less imagine someone buying 38 gallons of it at the same time.......but here it is: the $159 purchase!
Maybe some kid in his new 4x4 thought he'd get a better burn with that higher octane stuff...
Sure as hell wasn't me, as the only things I've ever driven with a 40 gal tank are tractors and vineyard trucks. But that leads me into the next topic: what's gonna happen when diesel hits $4.20 per gallon?

Be ready for increases in the prices of all goods, but I think you'll see that the vast majority of wineries will hold their prices steady for the short term, as most are already structured with their prices well above their cost of goods. That's not to say they don't feel this impact - they do - but they should be able to hold steady for the short term, barring any higher records for a barrel of crude oil. The exceptions to this will probably be for the truly small Mom & Pop wineries which really just scrape by anyways, and the public traded wine companies which have hungry shareholders wanting to hold onto their dividends if not increase them.
Of course, I've gone on record before as stating that wines don't cost nearly as much to make as wineries want you to believe (see this link about Coffaro winery) and how that plays into the image they then market to consumers, even so, there are many wineries which keep their prices down who will not have that extra padding to absorb the fluctuations in the fuel prices...

The problems for the smaller family wineries is one of "where do we get the money for the fuel increases", and it's likely they'd need to raise prices or sell out (not likely that fuel prices will retreat far enough to get them back out of the red), but they may do OK if they have a higher-end flagship or specialty blend they can market for extra bucks. The problem then becomes one of how much of that specialty blend they can possibly produce, and what the market saturation point is.

On the other hand, most of the really large wine companies are already structured to a position where they can more easily move revenues around to keep up with fuel prices, but will see a higher demand from their investors who want to make up for failing portfolios from other market segments which currently are tanking. Couple that with the continued talk of recession (gasp!) - even by the head of the Federal Reserve, and our gutless President Bu$h who strangely DIDN'T see this as a potential problem only a month ago - and you'll see investors start to harp on their "safe" stocks in large wine companies to get them more scratch.

There will still be people who drink outrageously priced wines, and I hereby donate my allotment of Kristal to the likes of the debutantes whom do so (Britney & Paris, do you hear me?)....
But I think it unlikely that those segments of our industry will see growth in the near future...I think the mid range part of the market will make gains as people who otherwise might take vacations don't, and hedge that the economy is likely to drop further before it gets any better.

March: out like a lion

And here just a few weeks ago I'd jinxed the season by mentioning that it didn't feel like we were likely to get a frost this season.
And then the weather report came out on Saturday night suggesting that we might drop well below freezing on Sunday night...

And so we did....the frost alarm here went off just after midnight.
Not that it woke me up. Frankly, when I know it's coming I can't really fall asleep anyway.
I already had the coffee pot ready to go, and as I was only drowsy I knew it'd only take a quick cup to go with me in the truck to get me fired up. There's a lot of adrenaline that shoots into your system when you have 2" shoots already out on the vines and the temp's dropping below freezing - fast. This really is the danger zone for all growers, a time when everyone needs to be extra cautious to make sure your crop isn't lost to a late frost which kills the buds off. Those shoots in the photo above are really in danger on a night like Sunday's.

I turned on the sprinklers at midnight when it was just dipping past 33°, as I knew that was just the start! The lowest temp I registered was 27 °F @ ~4 AM, and even at sunrise the temp hadn't climbed back out of the danger zone yet...
It wasn't until a little after 9 AM that I turned off the water system, and by that time I had used about a foot of water out of the irrigation pond.

Luckily we've had a decent amount of rain this year (so far...we still need another 7.5" to be at our "normal" level), and the pond has plenty of ammo in it to fight a snap frost here or there.
But my frost protection pond is also my irrigation pond for summer, so I'd rather not see too many of these incidents - not only because it puts the shoots in danger of getting frosted & wilting, but also because it means I don't have as many options when we hit a warm dry snap in the summer or just before harvest. As it is, there's no harm done...this time.
Woe to those whose system fails, whether it is a fan system or irrigation setup, as there's no real way to recover from losing your most productive buds to frost... once the cold air has done its damage, your coming harvest is pretty much shot for the affected vines....

So here we had March, which came in like a lamb with warm temps, heading out like a lion.....albeit a quiet lion, without much in the way of noise (storms), but certainly a dangerous situation for the coming crop.

75th Anniversary of Prohibition's REPEAL !

Saturday 3/22/08 is the Septuagesiquintennial (75th) anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition!

And I'll bump my post from 2005's anniversary for the occasion:
"Don't let this happen to you!"

Every year I take a few moments to reflect on where we are now, thanks to all the hard work and sacrifice of those Americans who had to weather the crappy social experiment that was prohibition...
After all the corruption which took hold of the country, and drove people to all sorts of bad behavior to get what they wanted, we must remember that the "noble experiment" was foisted upon the nation by various Social Conservatives who had worked hard to bend public perception to their own end. They created and reinforced existing stereotypes to work their evil on our society. Luckily, not too many other societies have been so naive to follow our 20th Century experiment.

Yes, the "teetotalers" of the various Temperance Unions and movements were the architects of almost 14 years of HELL for this country...despite the fact that many of them no doubt believed they were doing "God's work" in getting alcohol outlawed.
Little did they think how strong the desire for drink by people who were moderate consumers when they decided that it was the only way to save families and individuals from "drink". Thank God we've learned from the past, and won't be going back in that direction again.

At least we won't if ALL of US pay attention, and continue to call the Neo-prohibitionists on their false claims as them make them.

Now all we have to do to truly be free of the legacy of prohibition is to put the final nails in the coffin of the three-tier system, and free up interstate shipping. But before we do that, sit back tomorrow evening with a good glass of your favorite wine or beer, and enjoy the freedom to consume!
Legally!

Savor Sonoma, cheers & jeers

This past weekend was the Savor Sonoma wine tasting event, and after inviting several friends to this barrel tasting event for the umpteenth time, I thought it'd be a good post if I had everybody gather all their impressions at each winery and put it all together. Here's a run-down of what the group found to be the best (& worst) of the weekend.....tasting staff and volunteers were all very helpful, except where noted otherwise...

Cheers:

Mayo Family and Collier (at Family Winemakers in Kenwood) tied for the best overall performances, and the 2-for-1 special at Collier was fantastic (bought a case of the '04, got a case of the '03 FREE!....now THAT's marketing!), and the winemaker at Collier was a hoot!
Mayo was very good overall, with very drinkable sangiovese, chard, and viognier. The petite sirah was a tad aggressive, but would do well with a bit of age on it, and the cab franc was classically (read as "old world") less-ripe than most of the other cab francs produced these days in California, so a nice change on that varietal. The Meritage and Cab were both put together very well, and could use a few years to pick up some bottle bouquet. The port was excellent, and was "futures" worthy.

Eric Ross Winery had a very nice "light style" pinot, which was also worthy of buying futures, but the rest of their wines were not all that exciting. I'm still surprised Gallo hasn't tried to sue them for having a black rooster on their label...perhaps they're waiting to see if the Chianti Classico organization in Italy will take care of that for them...

Valley of the Moon had the best food pairing, with a tomato-bread soup that paired perfectly with the wine. The recipes were available on postcards for everyone to pick up if they wanted...another nice touch. The syrah they were sampling wasn't all that great, otherwise they were good.

Muscardini had some nice wines, the Unti Syrah was good, as was the sangiovese and the "Tesoro" blend, which we grabbed a few bottles of for dinner that night.

VJB...in a tent outside the tasting room right on HWY 12 in Kenwood, we felt a little like we were going to be hit by a car careening off the road at any time, but the wines were good: both their primitivo and the Dante blend were very good to excellent.

Jeers:
Ledson......has been much better in the past, not very impressive this time around. Also, the "kid" who was pouring behind the bar was, well... the best phrase is "somewhat lit". And as he poured us all a Brett ridden petite sirah, proclaiming how "...most wines need quite a bit of time before they're ready, but this wine's ready to drink right now. Really just an excellent barrel of wine..."
Right. It was poured out directly into the spittoon, and I even opted for a fresh glass, but was disappointed by receiving another Brett wine, this time a Cab.
(So, if you're going to have a wine event, make sure your employees aren't drinking more than your guests, and make sure they know the difference between Brett and complexity from aging!)

Benziger. How could I NOT stop by the Sonoma bastion of all things biodynamic?
Ok, to be fair, they had a very nice Sauv Blanc barrel being sampled, which was paired extremely well - most of us felt perfectly- with a slightly spicy asian noodle salad. I also hold their stated desire to farm as responsibly as possible in high regard. But the rest of the wines were average to disappointing, with both the BD wines being Brett tainted. Not a great advertisement for the potential for BD which they preach so loudly...

As we made for the exit, I recognized one of the gals behind the bar as the one who'd helped some guests and myself a few years back...and for a moment I panicked that she recognized me also, as my friends stopped to taste what she had to offer behind the bar.

This I should explain: on that particular occasion years ago we had gone to their tasting room for my guests' introduction to what BD was, and how the resulting wines turned out. We had tasted thru the wines available at the bar, and had opted for the "premium" reserve tasting. We paid our money and shuffled into an adjacent room where this gal got into the whole BD is the best-thing-since-sliced-bread was invented, and how the wines we were about to imbibe were fantastic, low-yield vineyards, and how no better example of what quality wines BD could produce. Long story short, we tasted thru the first wines with not much comment, happy to let her go on-and-on with the winery's spiel...until she poured what she assured us was the finest of their offerings: a BD cab sauv from McDowell (?) vineyard. I was the lucky schmuck who got the first pour, and before she had gotten the glass poured for the person next to me, I was pouring mine into the spittoon. It never made it closer than arm's length from my face - it never was tasted.
At this point she stops pouring, aghast & with a unique mixed expression of disbelief and utter shock, said "That's our best wine...".
My reply was "No. Thanks, but I can smell band-aids and barnyards as soon as you started pouring. That wine's contaminated with Brettanomyces yeast."
She haughtily countered with "It's a style...." (as if I was an idiot she could pull that crap on.).
Flatly I replied, "No it's not...it's a contaminant yeast which is producing those aromas. There's no fruit to be found in here...what's next to pour today?"
The pissed off look on her face spoke volumes.
Needless to say, our tasting ended soon afterwards...and we broke for the parking lot...

How this all ties in: This same lady just this past weekend, while pouring a BD wine for one of my guests which was Brett ridden, started waxing about how great a wine it was, and about the exquisite fruit it came from. My pal, quick to get the strong band-aid odor wafting from his glass baited her by asking "what is it that you smell in this?"
Her reply - "All that makes this vineyard special, the terroir of the site."
My pal persisted "It smells quite strong..." to which the gal replied "That's the soil you're smelling..."
He poured it out & took her to task by saying "No. That's Brett making that band-aid smell, NOT the soil!".
(I felt quite happy with myself, as though I'd just completed some magna opus, hearing my pal stand up for himself to this snotty lady...)

Here it was several years later, and I found my party walking out of the tasting room - again - and this particular pour staff gal still hasn't improved either her demeanor or her knowledge base.
If indeed she DOES know what Brett is, then she needs to improve her delivery to people so she's not continually talking down to them. It was just insulting.

I think she's had enough of the company Kool-aid, boys...
PS - it's time to change your staff out when they can't offer anything but a scowl to your patrons...I don't recall her smiling once the entire time we were there. Frankly she looked like she'd just swallowed a live scorpion.

Better luck next year...I hope....

the Myth of Price: Sex and Wine

Eliot Spitzer, the soon-to-be-EX Governor of New York, provides an excellent reminder of the fallacy of "high price equals quality"...

A recent article on MSN provides the story, one which even Freud knew to be true and which still bombards us everyday via marketers who wish to present their product as superior: Charge more for it! (click on the photo for the link)

Where he spent $1,500 and upwards for the "company" of a woman, one has to wonder how much better the experience was than with FIVE $300 Vegas hookers - not that I would know...and I don't intend to get too graphic here, as this blog is about wine...although the similarities in how both products are positioned price-wise is tempting....
No. Must...resist...temptation...!

But really, what was he paying for - exclusivity? I mean a bottle of Chateaux Petrus will run you something in the $1,500 to $2,000 range, and that would be pretty exclusive as they're only 5 glasses worth in each bottle (so around $300 to $400 per glass). That's pretty exclusive. But the only thing exclusive about a hooker is...well...nothing really, by definition anyway...

The placebo effect mentioned in the article clearly demonstrates that price matters to us - subconsciously - and that it then colors the experience as we perceive it.
Could it really make a $20 bottle taste like a $200 bottle, if that's what we paid for it? Probably not, but we might THINK it does when we taste it, and therein lies the power of the price tag.

I personally know of a past obscure winery which had several different labels of what was essentially the same wine, but placed in different price tiers. And you know what? The label with the highest price and most upscale presentation almost always sold out faster than the others. It's not a perfect example, because the wines in question were sold in restaurants where people are easily led down the path of price equals quality, and in the higher $$ per plate establishments is where this was reportedly happening. But what was weird was the fact that the wait staff seemed to prefer the higher priced wine when they were tasted through the wines by the distributor. Part of that can be ascribed to the spiel the marketer sold them at that time, but that the impression persisted even after the staff had time to taste the wines on their own later was most impressive. So not surprisingly they would then recommend that wine more often when asked by customers.

This is why I always counsel people starting into the wine tasting world to ignore price and focus on quality as YOU perceive it. This way the "overpriced" average wines that someone is trying to foist on you as quality product are lost in the shuffle if there's a better tasting wine to someone at a lower price.

For my take on Mr Spritzer, my thought is a quote I heard years ago..."there is no virtue so great as to be beyond all temptation."
Sadly that also applies to wine producers, aspirin manufacturers, car companies, etc...

March...a time for vigilance

Well, I guess now there's no arguing that Spring is here.

With daytime temps hitting the mid 70's, and lows in the high 30's, the trees and flowers have started blooming across the countryside. The air is thick with the smell of all the flowers, and even those dormant old vines are starting to look as if they may bust forth from their winter sleep very soon. Insects have reawakened, and have begun to buzz about the various nectar rich flowers.

Now I may seem a bit alarmist, but....this IS the time of year that we've seen the first attempted incursions of some nasty pests into our area, and the glassy-winged sharpshooter (GWSS) is the primary concern. The "normal" route of attack is for the pesky buggers to try to hitch a ride on ornamental shrub shipments which are coming up from southern California to various nursery's here in the north bay. These days we also have to be vigilant for the light brown apple moth, as well as the transporting of the grapevine mealybug from place to place.

As happy as I may be to be out of Ol' Man Winters' grasp, I would've preferred to have a few days of hard frost to make my life easier as far as pest management is concerned. And although we did have some cold weather -as well as a little more snow on the ridges than usual- it never really seemed to get that cold, or cold-enough to put an icy foot on the pests' little necks....
Even though an occasional late March frost (or Alaskan cold front) isn't out of the question, it's hard to envision one happening when the daytime temps are as high as they are now. If we'd had more of a penetrating frost during the winter, then maybe there would be a few more damaged vines, but less pressure for farmers to spray very heavily.
The slight increase in the number of damaged vines from winter frost is something I'd be willing to sacrifice every once in a while to help control the little SOB's, but that's due to the fact that I advocate pruning late and can compensate for some damaged buds here and there. Mind you, I'm not wishing there was an ice storm like we sometimes see damaging Florida's citrus crops, or the current winter storms we see across most of the rest of the country right now...just a little deeper cold snap back in late December or early January.

There's been more rainfall this year but we're still about 10" short of where we should be (I'm showing 28.5" so far since July of last year). That usually isn't a problem since March will dump ~7" of rain on average, and April and May both contribute ~2" each to the season's total....but the cold weather is pretty much a memory for this season.

See these posts for more information on the pest threats we collectively face!
2007/03/more-bad-news
2007/02/napa-sharpshooter-alert
2005/04/vigilantes-wanted
2005/04/update-on-sharpshooter-vigilante-post

2007/06/Vine mealybug threat

And here are the IPM websites for each of the pests:
GWSS - sharpshooters
Light Brown Apple Moth
Grapevine Mealybug

Amazon joins wine shipping debate

Amazon.com is joining the interstate wine shipping debate...and in a huge way!
By looking to ship wine via internet sales, they are joining the ranks of other relatively smaller retailers (e.g., Wine.com) which are already doing this. But while the folks at Amazon aren't divulging their long-term motives, it's easy to extrapolate their move as one to become the largest online wine retailer - and they have the mechanism in place to do just that, once they can nail down the model to move it into the buyers' hands....

Their strategy is starting with adding wine onto their existing fresh food (groceries) delivery in Seattle (called "Amazon Fresh"). But while this seems pretty innocuous form the onset, it would look to be only a test shot being fired over the bow of neo-prohibitionists and distributors whom wish to keep this area of commerce for them selves.

One of the benefits of the way that Amazon is doing this right now, is that with a fresh produce delivery, well...you have to have a delivery person, and therefore direct consumer contact as the goods are delivered. This allows for confirmation of the buyers' ages by any said delivery person, and completes the "handshake" to ease fears of those who are worried that teens will be using the service to illegally get wine & booze.

Leave it to a large, well oiled internet shipping machine like Amazon to bring the argument back to a national level - a position this topic hasn't enjoyed since Granholm vs Heald !
Sure, Costco continues to take states on one-by-one, but if Amazon expands it's delivery service to a national level, and can continue to provide this "handshake verification of buyers' ages....well, what're the neo-prohibitionists and distributors going to have left to complain about???

Frankly, I can't really imagine any other Internet Giant doing this...as the sales of all their other items will buoy any shortcomings in cash flow until the project takes off. The only thing I can envision on the same scale would be if eBAY suddenly decided to implement an age verification system and allow online bidding for those hard to find '45 Margaux.....

Grab a fork, pop a cork!

You've got to give credit where & when it's due - and today the winner is....[drumroll...]
...Costplus!


This wine series is created by someone else for Costplus, obviously, since they don't have their own winery operation, and custom labeled for the shelves. These shown are all California origin, but who knows, maybe they'll expand it to include foreign wines as well. I'm not sure yet who it is who makes it for them, but that is really beside the point...

Making wines marketed to the foodies who already run into the likes of Costplus, Whole Foods, etc., strikes me as really well done by linking the "suggestion" of pairing food & wine with the graphic of meat cuts on the label. And the tag-line they use - "Grab a fork and pop a cork..." - is an instant classic!
And with an ad price of just $7.99/btl, certainly not something that would break anyone's bank by trying it (this raises a few questions in my mind, as most serious "established" foodies tend to fall into the "wine snob" camp and might dismiss this wine based solely on it's bargain basement price...though it likely would draw the attention of "budding foodies", and those foodies with a more adventurous spirit and less pretension...
Although drawing in Ma & Pa Kettle, or whomever, into trying wine with meals is the actual objective, and on that point the marketing is very effective).

In fact, I can see a whole line around this, with a lamb graphic for Syrah, Pork for Gewurztraminer and some Pinots, etc., tailored to the tastes of the wine manager for the brand. Perhaps even to the point where the label offers suggestions for specific cuts of meats...
Classically, the wine suggestion would entail taking the method of preparation and any sauces into play as well as the meat source category, but the idea is intriguing!
In my mock-up below, perhaps the Cab in question has some oak and smoke along with a nice tannin level, and would pair well with some steak, or other thinner cuts of beef.
Of course, I'm still in the "drink whatever you want" camp, and routinely ignore classic food & wine advice (last night I had BLT's with a cheap Pinot Grigio...), but even so, I can see where this sort of marketing would be really effective, and perhaps dramatically reduce the public trepidation over committing to a particular wine for fear it doesn't pair with what they are planning to prepare.
What really needs to change is the perception that wine needs to be paired properly to be enjoyed at all... which belief is sadly prevalent in western popular culture.
Cheers to Costplus for attempting to make wine "fun" and "foodie-friendly"!
Even if that ends up only being "budding foodies"...

The Noble Fluid: time & place

I spent a few well earned weeks on a trip to Italy in the past month. Mostly it was for pleasure, but I did manage to get some wine tours and meetings with vintners into my schedule.


Primarily I was in Rome for the wedding of a harvest intern who came over to work with us for two consecutive harvests. Vittorio was extremely talented, and when I got the invite to see him & Annalise get hitched in Rome I took the opportunity for yet another Italian road trip.

I mean, who could resist, right? Even if I did think they were crazy for having a wedding in February (they got lucky & the weather was gorgeous for the ceremony & reception) - I think the main reasons they didn't wait until early summer was that Anna's father is in poor health...and probably the fact that Vittorio didn't want to wait any longer...

As always, I found the Italians welcoming and willing to share every aspect of their culture. And I also met a wonderful older German couple which hit it off really well with my party...so much so, that we altered our plans a bit so we could spend the last part of our vacation with them.
And it was over wine and fantastic food that I heard some great stories about how they grew up (both were born ~1940, and lived in what was to become West Germany) in a post WWII Germany, how they had family on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and (unbeknown to me) how in the first few years after the war people could go back and forth over the border and trade relatively freely with each side.

The most interesting stories were about how they still had wines from the eastern side in those early days, but were sending more to the other side than ever came west...
Eventually, the "curtain" was lowered more forcefully, and people really couldn't cross the border anymore - if you were able to get permission, you certainly didn't return to the eastern side!

"You are born into a certain time and place...it becomes you, and you become it. There is nothing you could ever do to change that..."

On the topic of European history, I count myself as "informed", but certainly not an expert...and it was fascinating to have such eager teachers with first hand experience ready to answer each and every question of ours. They had been wine buffs since their early adulthood, and started our conversation about "the Noble fluid" (a phrase at which I first cringed) with the feeling of history which permeates everything the Europeans do. After all, they asked, how can you separate yourself from the context of your own life?
Every action in their home towns when they were growing up was juxtaposed upon a cityscape made up of new buildings right next to older sections of town where the buildings were more than a thousand years old...

"(The weight of history) is really wonderful, yet it can suffocate, too."

They said many times that they didn't really wish to change anything, but that when change was needed, it tended to take longer because of "everyone's sense of history", and that it was especially true of the wine industry.
And while they talked of their new found love for an occasional California Sauv Blanc, they also flatly rejected wines which were too ripe in their opinion as trash - but that mostly came down to the prices they pay for New World wines in Germany, as they said they wouldn't feel too bad getting a bottle every once-in-a-while they didn't like, if they hadn't just dropped so many euros to pick that disappointing bottle up.

Great people, and fantastic wines.
More later on this when I have some time to look back at what we drank & where (some of it is still blurry!).

Happy B-Day, Rudy Steiner!

An historic day!

The 147th Birthday of Rudolf Steiner!

Born Feb 25th, 1861, we can see from the following astrology chart that he was destined for greatness right out of the womb....

Note how the "inter-connected-osity" of his planetary alignment provided a superior complex polygonic network of communication pathways -an über-functionality, if you will- allowing him to commune with Nature and discern Spirits the rest of us can only sit back and marvel at!
Why even the lowliest inorganic elements were not immune from his powerful psyche - we read of his wonderous, momentous interrogations of Sulfur, Nitrogen, and Phosphorous!

But anyway, enough of that nonsense!
So here's a glass of our best raised to you, Rudy, without whom I wouldn't have nearly so much in life to lampoon!
Uhhhh, I don't believe the producer was BD...sorry about that...
*** Not that it would matter, but I have no recollection where I found that chart on the 'net. Not that a fact like that would change any - and I mean ANY - description you wanted to attach to it....
And what of the fact he shares that birthdate with untold numbers of others? Then that description would effect EVERYONE who shared that same birth chart. So perhaps the question shouldn't be "Didn't his astronomical chart indicate he was unique", but rather "where were all the people in the world who should've shared his amazing attributes due to being born on the same date at the same time disappear to"?
I mean, really, why weren't there 6,000 (or more!) Steiner-esque philosophers unleashed upon this world on the day he was born? Or do we need to talk about how this sort of psuedoscience (both astrology & biodynamics) is bunk...?

Sensitive crystalization of Wine

It's a new year, and intelligent people will continue to find differences of opinion between themselves as they have throughout history.
In fact, even though we find ourselves another year away from our superstition ridden past, it's not uncommon to find otherwise reasonable people who might still hold onto "quaint, old fashioned" ideas - like astrology actually being accurate, etc.
But to find that the number of people who are turning their backs upon science, and reverting to "populist psuedoscience" as evidenced by the "sensitive crystallization" movement within the wine industry, is...well, an "ill omen".

For those not familiar with the practice, wine is mixed with a solution of copper chloride, dried at 95°C (~205°F), and the resulting crystal pattern is interpreted.

Amazingly, the pattern is supposed to reveal the inner strength and harmony of the wine. Yet more amazing is that reasonable people seem to be suspending their critical thinking processes, and start believing that it actually IS doing what proponents claim.

Along those lines, Domaine Laflaive has results posted for a rather interesting experiment - sensitive crystalization of a vintage 2000 Burgundy...

From the picture above on the right, we see a wine which is obviously damaged after being scanned with a supermarket scanner (from the article posted on the Domaine Leflaive website). The "tell-tale" marks in the crystal which are so important are the ones which breakup the even visual flow. But do they really portend such ill omens as the article concludes? If you allow your wine to be scanned by an optical scanner at the local market, is it really going to be "dumb" for 10 days following it???

Personally, I can't speak to the types of optical scanners they were using, but I find it highly unlikely that a quick scan - which takes what, 1/3 of a second? - would have such a profound affect on the wine...
For another article on the subject, look at the post on Appellation America, where some enquiring minds experimented with crystalization...unfortunately, they don't seem to ask the all important question - "is all this reproducible?"...there are side by side shots of crystals, and the conclusions are boldly stated on the basis of those pictures. But how many times did they do this? Are all the results similar, or did they cherry-pick results that reinforced the views they wanted to see? Are the results due to something like dust motes settling on the plates causing the odd patterns? I just can't see drawing these conclusions from a single set of slides, and hopefully they have plenty of other trials that were faithfully replicated on much larger scales so that they had a larger database to come to these startlingly profound conclusions...

It's one thing to draw conclusions about the state of a wine by looking at the crystals it leaves behind, but what really are you examining? The amount of acid in the wine? The amount of non-volatile compounds in the wine like tannins and color compounds in the wine? To really baqck this up, you'd have to have enough of the bottles to replicate the crystal trials, AND actually taste the wines to back up the conclusions they come to.

***

Here's another article which plays up the "wonders" of BD...and has this wonderful quote:

"A small, but still dramatic, example: composting according to the actions of both lunar and solar forces. "If you want to do compost at the right time, you have to look at the earth" and the things that exert an influence upon it. "The earth is connected to the sun -- you can see that by looking at the seasons. In the springtime, it's getting warm, the plants are shooting up, growing. The earth is 'breathing out' -- exhaling, pushing. Things grow." Then, "In the summer, there's a big change -- the plants stop growing and put all their energy into the fruit. Once the fruit is picked and gone, the vines lose their leaf and go into dormancy." At that point, "You've got all this energy which is actually moving toward the center of the earth. The vegetation above the soil dies, but the soil is reawakening. The earth is 'breathing in.' That's the best time to put compost on top of the soil."

There's an even better spot in the article where the French born vinyardist for Bonny Doon states that the vines take mineral up from the soil for the "minerality" effect that some wines exhibit, but then totally contradicts himself only a moment later by saying that the vines don't actually take up minerals into the wine....

Confused, at best, would be the most charitable way to characterize the views...
Another photo from the Leflaive article (just for fun)...

Biodynamic wine guidelines

BD (biodynamic) wines are better for you and don’t have any "nasty additives", right?

What’s the difference between "BD wine" and "Wine made from BD grapes"?

Can someone "spike" his BD wine with common "organic" wine?

From the DEMETER website come these delightful documents to help us all understand what they're attempting!

First, since I’ve parodied this topic many times before, I feel it important to note that I really do want to know what all the fuss over BD wines is about. And to the point of this post, I’ve been rather frustrated by the lack of specifics when BD proponents and producers talk of these wines.

We now have something a bit more detailed to work with: DEMETER USA has a Wine Standards document posted on its website. That should provide us with a good foundation to decide what is and isn’t allowed in BD wine production. (I'll try to help by translating the more "interesting" phrases in the document... but to view it in its entirety please use the link provided above).

The Standard is of 16 parts, and not surprisingly, the first part is relegated to establishing the vision of the BD wine movement. It also contains the single largest caveat/disclaimer of the document:

Now isn’t that a kicker?

That warning is there to put the producer on notice that BD in NOT a panacea, and that even using it and its associated “spiritual science” you still won’t be able to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. Also, that since you won’t be able to use some of the common “traditional” winemaking techniques to adjust your wines that other producers can employ and still call your wine your wine BD. They expect to have variation from one vintage to the next, so big producers who try to minimize those variations by blending on large scales may be out of luck

But you might end up reading it thus: IF you happen to have a fantastic vineyard which churns out fruit to make a wine which in your eyes is exactly what you want from the start without manipulation, then BD would be happy to ride along on the coattails of your successes!

One would assume from that statement that blending from one vintage to another is verboten (currently allowed under TTB reg’s @ 15% max), but that restriction sadly remains unstated…so its anybody’s guess on how that’s handled for any given wine.

§2 defines the various types/categories of BD wine, as well as placing some restrictions on how the DEMETER name/ BD branding may be used and products labeled.

DEMETER recognizes two distinct categories:
“Biodynamic wine” (explicit)
“Wine made from Biodynamic grapes” (explicit) …

[The document then goes through much of the remaining restrictions applying them to both classes, so the points between them are few, but significant ones at that.]

This same section lays out what it means to be “Biodynamic Wine”, and states curiously, …

(§2.a) “...Common manipulations such as yeast addition, enzyme addition, acidity adjustment, tannin addition, oaking and chappalization (sic) are not permitted.” (See “Oaking”, below…)

However, that doesn’t apply to “Wine made from Biodynamic grapes”, where you can add yeasts and ML bacteria, and can even adjust acid and or sugar as needed, so long as…

(§6.b) “Justification for acid and sugar adjustment must be documented.”

What was that?
Would “it tastes better with the extra acid” be sufficient justification?
What qualifies that addition to be made? Do we need prior authorization, or just to scribble a note to ourselves “wine needs acid” before we do it?
How long does it take for DEMETER or one of its reps to get back to you, in the event you need to make a time-sensitive adjustment?

The door is left wide open on that point…

And there’s no real difference between the acids you can add as a BD producer and the acids you’d be allowed to add if you were a conventional producer: citric, ascorbic and tartaric are all currently allowed under TTB reg’s - depending on what type of wine you are making. The restriction for the BD producer is that those acids must be either organic or BD in their origin (conventional producers can use synthetic...not that there's anything wrong with that...).

And yeast nutrients CAN be added to any/all BD wines, provided it doesn’t contain DAP (see below) and is otherwise approved of by DEMETER.

What is explicitly forbidden is the use of any material which has a GMO (genetically modified organism) origin, either directly or through the process of its manufacture. Also expressly prohibited are;

Diammonium phosphate (DAP) – a yeast energizer (Steiner feared man-made ammonia!)

Isinglas (swim bladders from Sturgeon, which they have errantly called “Sturgeon gall bladders (isenglas)” in the document),

PVPP (polyvinylpolypyrrolidone) – a clarifier which is added then filtered out of the wine (I think they did this because it is synthetic…but that wouldn’t explain why they later allow polypropylene and nylon filtration membranes to be used…curious, eh?)

Blood – classically used in the Rhone region of France to clarify wines (but not currently done to my knowledge)

Gelatin (because of the animal origin, though again that’s curious as they allow –nay require- you spray your vines with various concoctions made using bovine intestines (from BSE free countries), skulls ([only bone] from cows [less than 1 year old], pigs or horses), and stags' bladders (not originated from North America, for whatever reason...) [see link].

Neither class of wine is required to go to bottle unfiltered. In fact, there are no real restrictions on filtration, other than the glaring omission of cross-flow filtration. Unbleached pad filters can be used for any BD wine. So can DE (diatomaceous earth), gold filters (I don’t know anyone who’s using those – and it would be kind of a waste anyways…), and the aforementioned polypropylene and/or nylon cartridge filters (standard industry issue there…).

Wine labeled “Biodynamic wine” must be restricted to a single vineyard estate, but can be of various blocks within that vineyard –provided they are BD farmed vineyards (see my post on single-vinyard-wines here). Regarding blending and topping-off (§10.b) BD wines are stated that this “should be done using wine made from BIODYNAMIC grapes.” I think they meant MUST , not should…though that means you could top a BD wine with BD or organic wines, or maybe even conventional wines – though that would really not be in keeping with the spirit of BD production…

OAKING

This point made above of not allowing “oaking” is misleading – under §7, titled “Oaking” we see the following applied to BOTH classes of BD wines: “§7.a) Oak may be provided by using oak barrels or oak chips. Chips should be barrel grade.”

Ok…first things first. Get your document in order so you don’t include self-contradicting propositions. Secondly, it’s pretty hard to classify chips as “barrel grade”, they’ve been through a chipper, and are unevenly toasted, etc….

To paraphrase the old anti-Chicken McNuggets ad “chips are chips”. Frankly, you’re never really sure where they came from or how they looked before the got ripped apart.

So I guess I’ll have to settle for anything other than barrels and chips being outlawed (that being oak extracts and oak powder)…otherwise its still business as usual!

STANDARD PRACTICES

Fining and filtration still can be done. Bentonite and egg whites are still possible agents for that. Most of the language that is included is the document merely outlines what would be considered “industry standard” practices – like the use of food grade equipment. Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) can still be used, up to a total level of 100 ppm, which is lower than the TTB reg’s 350 ppm total sulfite level for conventional producers (my experience is that most conventional table wines in the US hover around 25~35 ppm free sulfite, and 100~120 ppm total sulfite).

CONCLUSION

What we see is an attempt to minimize the influence of the winemaker in making the wines. What I also notice is that despite all of the protestations of the adherents of the system, it is rife with “standard industry practice” and manipulation. Glaringly open manipulation still exists. Other production restrictions also apply as general Demeter production standards are evoked as well, but those can be boiled down to prohibiting the following: GMO products or products made via a GMO, irradiating, fumigated (except for N2 & CO₂), and pretty much any treatment involving microwaves. Other restrictions also apply –see the links below for full details.

DEMETER Wine Standards (US)

DEMETER Processing Standards (INTL)

DEMETER Production Standards (INTL)

DEMETER Beer Standards (INTL)

Brett-barrel revisit

It's been a bit since I posted, and for good reason.
With the nights being as cold as they have been, it was perfect weather to shut down the vines, and therefore a perfect time to get out and prune all the vines before the start of the wet weather. Having just finished with that -actually I got lucky and finished on Sunday morning, as the rain was just starting- I can now relax (just a little) and get back to blogging, amongst other things around the cellar...

The weather is turning, and we should see around 2 inches of rain this week, and I'm glad not to be in a rush to get back in the vineyard for a few weeks.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand: Brett and barrels.

One of the points in my previous post was to point out that new barrels coming in from a cooper are probably not the source of Brett entry into the winery because of the high temperatures and the length of time that they are held at those temperatures. I still think that makes quite a bit of sense. But after talking with a friend of mine, I found he has examples of staves and barrels which have large cracks where Brett most certainly find refuge when the barrel was cleaned!

In the photo below, the areas circled in red are longitudinal cracks on the interior of the barrel from when the barrel was made (the whitish-pink deposits on the staves are tartrate crystals). The stave in the middle is intact, from the same barrel as the others, but doesn't have these flaws....
You might ask "so just how bad is this?"....
In a word, "unacceptable"...in fact this barrel should have been rejected and sent back to the cooper, never to be filled with wine. The flaw on the lower stave is about 7" long, and 1/2"deep.

Sawing the stave in half reveals what really is the problem: debris, lees, tartrate crystals, etc...
In other words, the perfect reservoir for molds and brett to hang about and reinfect any other wine ever put into it. Even with ozone, it's doubtful that this area ever was cleaned properly.

Cracking off the overhanging wood, you can look directly at the scum residing underneath it:
This is a problem when inspecting all barrels when they are coming into your cellar: looking through the bunghole, you only ever see half the barrel. And it's really not practical to take a head off of each barrel to inspect the interior before they're used.

Brett spores may have found their way 8mm into the staves in some instances, but the idea that there are barrels in your cellar which will be repositories for brett regardless of what you do to clean your cooperage is just damned scary.

For what it's worth, my friend said that this particular barrel was French oak from a French cooper, and had never contributed to any brett lot that he could remember. What a miracle that seems like when looking at what they were dealing with! Sure, every barrel is somewhat unique as they're made from wood, which by its nature is of variable density, grain, etc....
But this barrel never should have left the cooper to start with.

Perhaps Matt Thompson is onto something after all when he states that it isn't in the coopers interests to be looking for brett...or perhaps to overlook many things that they might think will go unnoticed upon arrival. Like cracked staves...

Biggest bottle - ever!

FLASH !!
"Biggest Bottle of Wine ever produced in Australia Exported to USA."

New York - Biggest bottle ever to leave the Southern Hemisphere filled with Aussie Shiraz, results in immediate wine shortage on the Australian continent. Aussie producers herald the idea as a new way to use up excess supply of Alice Springs Sparkling Grenache, or other non-market performing blends to help keep the bulk market in balance.

"What really put the corker on the deal, was the slogan Yanks had coined years ago: one bottle a day is all we ask", says Richard "Dickie Bull" Bulldoon, winemaker for Perth Pink Wines, LLC.

"...mind you", Dickie continued, "repeat sales are a bit soft, but we're comin' out ahead with each sales."

"Plus we can market ourselves as a small boutique winery since we only have enough wine to fill a thousand of these bottles each year, so the snob factor works on two levels: not only do you own the biggest bottles ever made (as well as a full tenth-of-a-percent of the annual output of New South Wales), you also own a bottle from a producer who has a client list with only a thousand entries on it. No mass mailings here, eh?! Each one has it's own container to be shipped in, usually by bulk sea carrier. But I'm sure they taste exactly the same as they would if you drank one right at the winery - even though they've gone through the tropics & Panama to get to you..."

"...and best of all, you never have any of these babies returned to the winery! I'll tell you that will never happen, not at a ton [metric] each! And who cares 'bout wine quality either?! By the time they drag the cork out of that monster, they're so tired they'd drink any old swill or plonk...
Say, we're still off the record, right mate?"

New barrels unlikely source of Brett

From an article on Decanter.com, we have a theory that new oak barrels are the source of Brett infections in wineries...that "infected wood" has been harvested, and that...

“[Consultant winemaker Matt] Thomson believes that the incidence of brettanomyces has increased in recent years. 'I think it's a relatively new thing in many Old and New World regions,' he said, adding that he thinks the increase is, 'partly down to new wine styles that are low in acidity and relatively high in residual sugar, but also due to increased demand for new oak barrels.' ”

Should this be a concern?
Doesn't nearly everyone use some new barrels somewhere in their production - so, potentially this is a huge issue, right?

For decades wine makers have noticed that Brett infections tend to be caught in wines from new oak barrels - but does that mean the infective yeast was already in the barrel to start with?

I don't think so....

This theory has been in the "folklore" of winemaking for quite a while - it's nothing new (weird that wine makers would employ the "it-can't-possibly-be-MY-fault" type of argument, but I guess that's just human nature...). In fact I ‘ve posted before upon the research work done which showed that 2/3 to 3/4 of wines produced in the EU were contaminated with Brett, and a healthy 50% of all wines were above 425 ppb (the generally accepted threshold for 4-ethylphenol detection for the "average" person), which shows that this is not a “new” problem. But let's delve a little deeper into this subject, and see what we come up with...

• barrels are toasted to temperatures of roughly 200~400°F, and usually this is done with an open flame (though electric heating elements are also used)
• the barrels are likely held at toasting temperatures for 10 to 45 minutes depending on the "house style" toast, or specific toast level requested by the winery, which should be plenty long and hot enough to incinerate any beasties on the wood
• some toasting techniques DO release and/or create sugars from breaking down the wood, some of which may be caramelized by the toasting "style" employed
• the process of toasting can also create low levels of 4-ethylphenol and 4-ehtylguaiacol which are two of the signature compounds of a Brett infection
• these aromas are released in the highest concentrations during the "death phase" (decline) of the population, so detection of the aroma by tasting usually means it is too late in the cycle for prevention - rather you are finding it at the "corrective action" stage
• Brett yeast does seem to like sweeter wines, and lower acidity levels, so there is a viticultural aspect to this problem if fruit is “overly ripe”
• the offending aromas are linked to the presence of caffeic, ferulic and caftaric acids which are at higher levels in less ripe fruit
• contaminated cooperage and other equipment can transfer the dreaded organism from one wine to another undetected, until a later date when the wines "stink"
• vineyards can have a "natural" population of Brett, and equipment used to pick those blocks can bring it into your winery, as well as be a source for cross-contamination of other fruit picked with the same equipment if it has not been properly sanitized beforehand
• infected, but yet undetected, wines can also contaminate larger blends when combined with otherwise uninfected wines

Having seen my share of Brett problems, I can testify to their variable nature (some wines are more noticeably “afflicted” by the yeast, and there is a vintage-to-vintage variation for vineyards as well – though my experience is that past offending vineyards tend to remain infected at some level, that is when the infection can be traced back to a single vineyard or block of fruit). Some varieties like syrah are much more prone to the infection, possibly due to levels of the precursor acids available, and the presence of more sugars attached to the tannins & cyanidins (color compounds). Certainly white varietals are almost never infected (detrimentally) as they don’t really contain those acids, tannins and cyanidins, and therefore can’t be used to produce the offending aromas by Brett.

While true that Brett is noticed more in newer cooperage, this may be two-fold: first, there are already produced compounds of the same nature that Brett produces which may help more people to detect the problem by raising the overall level, and second, there are as previously noted more sugars available for the yeasts to live on (these leach into the wine in the first year of use), which may help larger populations grow – and subsequently generate more of the offending aromas as those larger populations die off. Some varietals have higher levels of the base acids that Brett uses to form the aromas, so are more likely to produce noticeable “faults” later on, and also younger wines still have some sugars attached to their tannin and color complexes (called glycones) which also may be an energy source for Brett when they detach from said complexes as young wines age.

The overall likelihood that the yeast is traveling into the wineries via new cooperage is –at best- doubtful. While it cannot be discounted entirely, it would be surprising since it’d be likely that specific coopers would get reputations as producing those infections, which hasn’t happened to date (I would note that some coopers do have a rep for producing barrels with a Brett aroma from their house toasting styles, but that those barrels are not then always linked to wines which show Brett character or infections later on). Also extremely doubtful is the possible survival of yeast organisms through the toasting process – though that does not mean the barrels couldn’t be contaminated when they were being handled after the toasting as the heads were being put onto them, or during the inspection phase. Important to note that only the interior of the barrels are toasted, and while the entire barrel heats up, only the interior could be considered “heat sterilized” in my mind. The Brett yeasts conceivably could still be on the exterior of the barrel and be introduced by accident when the barrels are handled later. Again, we’d likely see a string of problems all consistently pointing back to a particular cooperage, which isn’t my experience.

Lastly, there is cellar sanitation and “traditional practices”…this is yet another of those modernity vs folklore conflicts…

There is a noted high-end winery in Napa which uses spent lees from their red wines to “paint” the bilges and bungholes of their new barrels red on arrival. Ostensibly, this is used to make an even covering of the barrels, and add a little visual character to their cellar (I have one report that tourists were told the practice “illustrated the winery’s commitment to pay attention to each and every barrel in its care”, whatever that means…). Unfortunately it results in each and every barrel so treated to be twice risked for further infections: once by the fact that other wines which were contaminated but not detected with Brett may now be literally spread all over the new cooperage, and twice by the fact that even if clean wines were applied to the new cooperage, the barrels would now have a food source available for any mold/rogue yeast/what-have-you organism to colonize the barrel and possibly get transferred not only into that barrel itself, but also across to other barrels and blends, etc, as Providence might desire…

It would also not come as a surprise to regular readers that this same winery in the example has been panned by me before, due to the high levels of