Going to School

My blogroll is getting overwhelmed on my Bloglines reader, which is also the basis of the wine and food blogroll on Wine Camp. I’ve tried to get every wine blogger and a lot of food bloggers on there, but I can’t keep up anymore. As much as I want to, I can’t read all those blogs on a daily basis or even get them all listed. On that note, if your blog doesn’t have a link on my blogroll page give me a break and let me know so I can get you listed. It’s my goal to be inclusive.

Without a doubt the volume of interesting wine writing out there there is both overwhelming and exciting. Never has the consumer had so many sources of information. Only so much of this flood can be digested so ultimately you have to pick - you can’t read it all. There is a small group of blogs I consider must reading. I read far more than that, but not a daily basis - there are just not enough hours in the day. Once a week I plough through Bloglines to read as much as I can of the wonderful writing out there, but on a daily basis I keep on eye on my core group of about fifteen or so compelling wine blogs.

What draws me to this group is that I actually learn something new from them almost every time the author posts. Not satisfied just to spew attitude, opinions and reviews, these writers dig deep and have a unique and passionate voice. What is interesting about these writers is that every last one of them is not obsessed with pumping up their stats. Each seems more concerned with saying what they feel rather than simply inflating Google Analytics. There’s not a carny hustler among them - they simply love wine and love writing about it. I’ve just moved this group into my NetNewsWire aggregator on their own so I can be far more focused on the education they offer me.

Here are my favorites:

Appellation Feiring - Alice Feiring is first and formost a writer and it is a pleasure to follow her quest for natural wines. I’m a fan of her book and admire her passion and integrity. Her voice is an important, if small, counterpoint to the mainstream wine media. Thank the wine gods that writers like this still exist. Listen and learn.

Besotting Ramblings and Other Drivel - Peter Leim’s blog is a marvel and an incredible souce of information mostly about Champange, which for me is reason enough to read it. Peter gives a real inside look at Champagne and introduces his readers to the wonders of small, grower producers. Peter has also launched ChampagneGuide.net, which is an indispensable resource for Champagne lovers - and I think that includes almost everyone.

Brooklynguy’s Wine and Food Blog - A food and wine lovers life in Brooklyn. This is what a blog should be all about as you really share their personal wine and food experiences. Most consumers will not have heard of many of the wines he writes about, but he writes about the real deal - wines that have distinctive character and meaning. Really a must read for American wine drinkers who think there may be something “more” out there than what the distribution system and big media wants them to drink. A current wine of the week was Tissot Arbois Poulsard…enough said.

Do Bianchi - Renaissance man Jeremy Parzen is a scholar of the Italian language, a wine and food connoisseur and a rock and roller in the band Nous Non Plus. He has a lot to say and says it well in a couple of languages. Reading Jeremy will teach you what real Italian wine, food and culture means, which is something very different than the Disney version you’ll get in the mainstream wine media. Jeremy is also a contributor to VinoWire, an important source for breaking Italian wine news along with the dynamic Italian wine writer and blogger, Franco Ziliani.

McDuff’s Food and Wine Trail - David McDuff lives in the wine hell of state controlled Pennsylvania, yet week after week writes about wonderful wines and food. We must assume that the state does not control food the same way they control wine. Despite the wine fascist state laws of Pennsylvania, David finds and writes about wines made with real passion and intensity and his love for them comes through beautifully in his writing. If David can get these wines in Pennsylvania not one of us has any excuse not to make the extra effort to find the beauties he writes about.

Rockss and Fruit - You’ll sometimes feel you’re watching NASCAR and waiting for the crash, but Lyle Fass is the go to guy for German and Austrian wines. His Burgundy commentary is worthwhile too, but Lyle is the definitive commentator on riesling and all things German. Lyle thinks acidity is beautiful and so do I.

Sharon’s Wine Blog - We can all hate Sharon because she gets to live in Paris and drink a lot of great French wine, but in spite of our jealously we can live her life vicariously by reading her blog. Sharon digs out real wines made by real people. It may take some work to get the wines she writes about, but it’s worth the search.

Reflections on Wine - Writer Tom Hyland loves and, more importantly, understands Italian wine. Few writers out there tell the stories of the Italian producers and their wines with more sensitivity and accuracy. Tom gets it and you will too if you read his blog. Tom does us all a service by debunking the myopic view of Italian wine you get from the big American wine magazines. If you want to drink wonderful, authentic Italian wines - read this blog.

La Gramiere - Hands down the best winery blog in existence. Passionate and educational, Amy Lillard recounts in wonderful detail their struggles and pleasures on their Cotes du Rhone estate. On top of it they make a damn good wine. Every winery that wants to blog should admire the honesty and personality that Amy brings to her blogging - they’re the real thing. No PR schmalz here.

Pinotblogger - Josh Hermsmeyer should be the poster boy for American winery bloggers. He has involved his readers in the birth of his Russian River Winery, Capozzi Vineyards, and made them partners in his project. Passionate and open, Josh has truly shared his voyage of creation with us. It’s hard to think of a more anticipated wine. Best of all, Josh delivers the real nuts and bolts of what it takes to bring a winery to life - spreadsheets graphs and all. (Pictured above is the Capozzi Vineyard)

This list is not meant to be all-inclusive, nor exclusive, as there are many wonderful wine blogs, but these writers really speak to me and best of all, almost always teach me something. One thing about wine, the more you learn, the more you understand how much you don’t know. Each of these writers is helping me in my ongoing and never ending education on the world of wine.

French Laundry Wildflowers

Just next to the garden of The French Laundry is a lovely garden of wildflowers.

Here Come The Grapes!

Relatively good weather marked the flowering in Napa this year and the fruit set looks good. Here some first grapes are forming.

Leaf Pulling Time in Napa

Mobile Blogging from here.

Workers pull leaves from around the new grape bunches to promote air circulation.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

One, Two, Three

Stain Free

I’ve been drinking some California chardonnay lately - believe me it surprises me as much as it does you. It’s not that I wasn’t drinking any chardonnay as Chablis, Macon Villages, St. Veran and Pouilly Fuisse have always been some of my favorite wines. California Chardonnay was another matter with its heavy oak and more than a little residual sugar. The cheaper the California chardonnay the sweeter it seemed to be. For my taste, sweet and oaky does not go very well with food.

So why am a drinking chardonnay again? Here and there there are emerging a few chardonnays that see no oak aging or fermentation. They spend their time before bottling only in stainless steel. Best of all, the California wines in this category are usually fermented to dryness. Often referred to as “unoaked” they are the exception to the rule as the vast majority of California Chardonnay is either aged in oak barrels or “oak alternatives” (oak chips, oak dust and so on) are added to give that sweet, vanilla oak characteristic that has replaced chardonnay varietal character as the defining characteristic of chardonnay for most wine drinkers. Not that there are not many exceptional wines produced from chardonnay aged in oak barrels (no exceptional ones come from wines made with “oak alternatives”), but the fact that most consumers think that the taste of oak is the taste of chardonnay few producers choose the “unoaked” path.

These “unoaked” wines are everything their oaky siblings are not. They are fresh and bright with clean, firm mineral flavors that are lightly laced with touches of white peaches and key limes. With a touch of refreshing tartness to balance their beautiful California fruit, they are perfect food wines. As another plus they tend to be cheaper than their more rotund oaky counterparts.

Two of my favorite “unoaked” California Chardonnays are:

2007 Iron Horse Vineyards Unoaked Chardonnay, Sonoma County-Green Valley - Firm and bright with a lovely, lively freshness throughout you can tell as you drink this wine that the Sterling family cut their teeth on French wines. While having a lot in common with a fine Chablis or Pouilly Fuisse, the California personality of this wine shows through in the fresh hints of ripe tropical fruit that rides on a firm backbone of acidity and minerality. What a wonderful thing to do with chardonnay grown in the cool Green Valley.

2006 Elisabeth Spencer, Chardonnay Napa Valley, Special Cuvée - Deeper and more powerful than the Iron Horse, but still crisp and firm. Creamy with bright fresh citrus on the nose with and those characteristics flow through the entire wine. Firm mineral flavors are balanced by round pure apple and pear fruit flavors, which are all lifted by the crisp acidity. Very long on the finish, here is proof positive you don’t have to age chardonnay in oak to get complexity.

Chardonnay

Treading Lightly Upon the Palate

Treading lightly upon the earth is fashionable these days, but what about treading lightly upon the palate. There is a time and place for big wines, but on a regular basis something a bit more restrained and thoughtful is good for the soul - and the dinner table. It doesn't hurt if they cost under 20 bucks either. These two gems should not be missed:

2007 Moulin-à-Vent, Cuvée Vielles Vignes, Domaine Diochon - Gloriously bright and fragrant, it's hard to think of a prettier wine. Graceful, delicate yet full flavored and incredibly long on the finish a better match for the chicken we roasted on the Weber you'll not find. Best served on the cool side to highlight the incredibly pure fruit. This is simply a wonderful wine.

2007 Valpolicella, Nanfrè, Tenuta Sant'Antonio - Like the Beaujolais above, Valpolicella is a name damaged by the ocean of mediocre wine sold under its name. It doesn't seem quite fair to pick on these place names as the majority of wines produced under more revered names like Burgundy, Bordeaux and Napa are just as mundane. In Valpolicella, like all the world's fine wine regions, only a small percentage of the producers make top notch wines. Tenuta Sant'Antonio is one of those producers and this bargain is something to grab by the case. Fragrant and expansive with brilliant fruit and that wonderful Italian earthiness, which makes them so perfect with food. This wine is not only delicious, but very interesting to drink.

It's worth noting that both of these wines clock in at 13% alcohol. For me that's the sweet spot for red wine as it's substantial enough have real texture and depth, but balanced and restrained enough to have more than one glass. Which, as you may not be surprised to learn, I like to do.

Italy, Valpolicella

First Away

Krug Grande Cuvee Is Very Good

Krug Grande Cuvée Champagne is very good. In fact it is very, very good. You could even say excellent. In the case of Krug I guess you could say that is damning with faint praise. For Krug mere excellence is a failure. By reputation and price it should be sublime. It is not. The real problem for me, is that I really believe it once was.

I thoroughly enjoyed Alice Feiring’s book, The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization, and in particular was moved by her chapter on Champagne. It moved me because I am old enough to know what Champagne was and my palate is aware enough to know what it has become. The big name Champagne brands, with a few notable exceptions like Gosset or Bollinger, have all sold out. Today they are led by accountants and marketers instead of winemakers. All the big Champagne brands are run by corporate ownership that implements and believes in the marketing strategies so successfully employed by the perfume companies - that is image is more important than substance. What the bottle looks like and what’s on the label is everything, while what’s inside is an afterthought.

In her book Alice talks about what Krug once was and the empty symbol of conspicuous consumption it has become and it’s a very sad story. Perhaps one of the most offensive things about Krug Champagne these days is the environmental assault their packaging represents. Each bottle is packaged in a heavy, pretentious presentation box. It’s hard to believe that a company could be so unaware of the world around them. On top of the excessive price, anyone concerned at all with the environment should be offended by the packaging of Krug and refuse to buy it on that level alone. Anything that is so sumptuously packaged should automatically set off your internal alarms. If it was so good, why would they have to waste so much money (and so many trees) on the package.

A real litmus test for spotting someone not in the know about wine is that they’re  drinking Krug, Dom Perignon, Cristal or anything from Veuve Cliquot. Savvy bubbly buyers are drinking grower Champagne selections from Terry Theise, Becky Wasserman or other sharp importers. In the topsy turvy world of Champagne the less famous the brand the better chance you have of getting both a good wine and a fair price.

According to wine-searcher.com, the average price for NV Krug Grande Cuvée is $179. Here’s a wine IQ test: Do you buy three bottles of excellent Champagne from the explosion of wonderful grower bottled Champagnes on the market or one bottle of excellent famous Champagne in a fancy box?

Krug used to be the best, now it’s just one of the pack.

Sunday Balloon Traffic Jam

Three balloons crowd a parking lot in Yountville as they prepare for their dawn lift offs.

Flowering Begins in Napa

Here they come. Although only a tiny percentage so far, the vines are starting to flower. This is a cabernet vine near Yountville.

Starting Out Stinky

Pee yew - burnt match aromas, even a bit of rotten eggs. What a wine! Well after a few minutes anyway.

The 2006 Domaine Fouet Saumur Champigny is a beautiful cabernet franc. Spicy and fresh with brush strokes of wild herbs and tiny wild strawberries as it lifts and refreshes the palate. Lighthearted, but not unsubstantial, it is charmingly just powerful enough to let you know this is a serious wine, but is confident enough to not hit you over the head with its own self-importance. This is the kind of wine it’s so hard to find produced outside of Europe. Flat out delicious.

The thing is that, like so many wines like this, when the cork is popped and the wine is first poured into the glass they can be a bit stinky. The free sulfur, which is added to virtually all wines, can be a bit pungent as it takes some time to escape (blow off) and for the slight reductive characteristics of the wine to open and clean up letting the real character of the wine show through. Wines like this are waiting for something. Like a genie waiting to get out of his bottle, minimally processed wines, like this excellent Saumur Champigny, are waiting for oxygen to finish the winemaking process. After five minutes the sulfur had disappeared. After ten minutes the fruit unfurled itself in the breeze and after fifteen minutes I had an exceptional, exciting and rewarding wine in my glass. Yes, I had to wait, but if they scrubbed it clean in the cellar before bottling this wine would have never reached the pure complexity it achieved by being a bit stinky for the first few minutes. Cramming wine into a bottle is a torturous process for a natural wine. To live for a long time in the bottle it needs to be deprived of oxygen. To fully live again it needs time to breath and let the clean air back into its lungs. You have to wait for such wines to catch their breath before drinking them.

We live in a time when consumers expect things to be squeaky clean with no effort on their part. To achieve this we give up a lot. When you cut off all the edges of a wine you end up with round, dull wines. The winemaker can really only complete 95% of the winemaking process. That last five percent is up to the consumer. If you can’t become part of the winemaking process and contribute to the last steps required to finish a wine you’re doomed to industrial wines with the souls ripped out. They may be clean, but they have no heart. On the other hand, if you are willing to become part of the winemaking team and finish the job by serving the wine properly you’ll enter a whole new world of wine, which you are a part of instead of being passive spectator. Natural wines need time and care and only you can complete the process started by the winemaker.

Heirloom tomatoes may look ugly, but they taste great. Natural wines can be a bit stinky at first, but with a little patience they blossom into beauties. Superficial charms do not make delicious wines or tomatoes.

Cabernet Franc

Enthusiastically Born Again

Not so long ago I railed against The Wine Enthusiast for being a boring copy of The Wine Spectator. Not that the writing was exactly the same, but because the format was a duplicate - down to the embarrassing black tie wine orgies of those with more bucks than knowledge, palate or taste, but possessed with a perfect memory for points. So I ignored The Wine Enthusiast for years, after all, what was the point of reading a bad copy of The Wine Spectator.

Recently several things have made me reexamine my prejudice against The Wine Enthusiast, some of which were driven by self-interest, but most were inspired by my admiration for their efforts. Mainly there is the bravado and talent of the Wine Enthusiast’s West Coast Editor Steve Heimhoff, who has argued his positions with intelligence, passion and consideration for the opinions of others, on his own blog, on Twitter and on other social network outlets. While there are many print journalists who try, Heimhoff has engaged the online community with energy, honesty and mutual respect and is now reaping the rewards of his integrity with mainstream exposure and expanded respect.

For whatever reason, The Wine Enthusiast has discovered its reason for being. I don’t know when or why it happened, but I’m very happy that it did.

A Really Goode (PR) Job

A Really Goode Job - Select Your Favorite Video

Some people just get it. Interactivity is what's it's all about these days and most PR types are driven crazy by the lack of message control when it comes to working the wine bloggers. Then along comes Sonoma's Murphy-Goode and shows them how it's all done.  Murphy-Goode throws a 10k a month (lottery numbers by blogging standards) dream job out there and in the process gets ten times that in positive press. Bravi to the Murphy-Goode folks for doing it right and with class. By the way, that guy in in the video is Hardy (pictured left) of the excellent Dirty South Wine Blog and I'm sure he'd appreciate some of your votes.

Vineyard Irrigation - Napa Valley

VinTank and Wine Social Media Whitepaper - Wine Business News

Here is a must read for anyone in wine marketing. Vintank has made an important first step in trying to understand the new world of selling wine on the internet.

Napa, CA May 7, 2009 — VinTank, in partnership with wine industry consultant Derek Bromley, has released a whitepaper profiling social media companies impacting the wine industry. Researched and written with the intent of helping wineries make sense of a vast and confusing medium, the paper looks at the largest social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) as well as the almost 30 wine social networks battling for the attention of online wine consumers, ending with an overview of the wine blogosphere. The free whitepaper is available for download at www.vintank.com/VinTank_SocialMediaReport.pdf.VinTank and Derek Bromley Release Wine Social Media Whitepaper - Wine Business Newshttp://www.winebusiness.com/news/?go=getArticle&dataid=64381

The Wine Skewer

http://wineskewer.wordpress.com/

You’re Tishin’ me! Lord knows (unless he’s a wine collector) there’s all to little humor in the wine world. If you’ve seen the latest flames on the wine forums you know what I mean. W.R. Tish, known only as Tish to his readers, delivers wit and wisdom in his wine writing and now on his own blog (link above). Tish, former editor of The Wine Enthusiast, is as passionate about wine as he is funny about the absurdities that surround it. This is sure to be good reading.

Wine Blogging

Photo Camp: Old Vines - Yountville

Deflation

Nebbiolo

A Barolo/Barbaresco tasting anywhere close to home is sure to attract me like a magnet. Is there anything more elusive than great nebbiolo? Outstanding examples of pinot and cabernet from around the world have long ago proven themselves, but nebbiolo from the Langhe Hills of Piemonte remains unchallenged.

The turf wars of traditionalist vs. modernist have calmed in recent times. The new wave has backed off on all the new oak and over-extraction (not yet far enough in my opinion), while the old guard is producing wines with softer tannins due to better vineyard management.

The St. Helena Wine Center hosted the following tasting last week. It was a bargain at only $20. I am always amazed more people don’t come to take advantage of such opportunities. The tasting:

Sottimano, Langhe Nebbiolo, 2006 ($24) - I bought three bottles and should have bought more. Perhaps the greatest value in nebbiolo anywhere, the Sottimano family could call this wine Barbaresco and sell it for four times as much. However as the vines are “only” fifteen years or so old they’ve decided to just sell it as Lange Nebbiolo. High toned, concentrated and still closed, this wine needs three for four more years to show itself. Sottimano is the most intelligent and light-handed of the modernists in the Langhe today. Simply great wines across the board.

Mauro Molino, Barolo Gallinotto, 2004 ($48) - The Molino wines are less over-the-top oaky these days and much better for it. Not my favorite style, but very well made and their wines show more nebbiolo varietal character than they did in the past. A very good wine at a very fair price.

Moccagatta Barbaresco Basarin, 2004 ($65) - I just could not find much to like here. Just not to my taste, but they’re a serious winery that deserves respect.

La Spinetta Barbaresco, Vigneto Gallina Vursu, 2004 ($120) - Ever see the huckster selling sham wows on late night TV? He must be the marketing director of La Spinetta. This is an almost silly wine at a price that would be silly too - except that some people actually pay it. A rip off. Why would anyone pay $120 for this wine when you can buy a great Zinfandel (which this wine tastes more-or-less like) for a quarter of the price. Anyone who drops $120 on this wine is a fool. The wine version of the Emperor’s New Clothes.

Paolo Scavino Barolo, Bricco Ambrogio, 2003 ($62) - I have never really liked these wines, but respect Paolo Scavino for his passion and dedication to making great wine - that is just not to my taste. Unlike the cynical La Spinetta, which just went out to create wines that would get big points and big bucks, Scavino really believed in his vision. Happily he too has throttled back and is making more graceful wines. This wine is very good - very modern, but still tasting of nebbiolo and the Langhe Hills. If you like the modern style, this wine is for you, not the over-everythinged La Spinetta and it’s half the price to boot.

Mascarello Barolo Monprivato, 2003 ($88) - The nose just blew me away on this wine. Could this lifted, elegant and expansively delicate nose really be from the hot, hot, hot 2003 vintage? This is just a glorious wine and easily the best 2003 Barolo I’ve tasted. Sure their 04 is better, but this wine is nothing short of outstanding and a great accomplishment in such a hot year. This wine should really not be touched until 2013.

Rinaldi Barolo Brunate, 2004 ($150) - Well if you’re going to drop $150 on a wine you might as well get perfection and this wine is about as close to perfect nebbiolo as you’ll find. From a very, very great vintage, Rinaldi took the extraordinary fruit they got from the “Grand Cru” Brunate vineyard and got everything they could out of it. A true classic that should be aged for fifteen or more years before drinking. Today it’s all closed, tannic and promise, but this wine will deliver big time.

Oddero Barolo, 1996 ($70) - If a wine can cost $70 and be a bargain this is it. The 1996 vintage has proven itself to be among the very greatest vintages in Barolo and Barbaresco. However, if you think this wine is ready to drink you’re wrong as it’s still closed and young and needs many more years to reach its peak. Yes, it’s wonderful to drink now, but in five or six more years it should be astounding. If you think about the price of this wine in the context of how good it is and that it is already thirteen years old, I think you’ll agree this is a bargain. That a famous critic rated the flabby 1997’s higher than the regal 1996 vintage is a cruel joke on consumers.