Crush 2011
You wait all year and know it’s coming, but it always feels like its sneaked up on you. How can it be harvest already? What happened to summer? However, harvest time it is and at Cornerstone we start picking our sauvignon blanc on Tuesday. That realization wakes you up and you start to notice a few leaves on the ground, the shorter and shorter days and a different type of coolness in the evening air. Fall is indeed arriving.
It’s been an unusual growing season, at least that’s the conventional wisdom. In fact, it’s almost like last vintage, which means its been cool by Napa Valley standards. Is this the new “normal”? In my opinion a little cooler is not a bad thing. Cooler vintages give more balanced wines that are more transparent. Wines that clearly show where they came from. The major problem so far with vintage 2011 in Napa is the cool, rainy weather during flowering and set, which dramatically reduced the size of this year’s crop. Our Howell Mountain vineyards escaped this fate as the later flowering up on the mountain meant they missed the early June storms. Oddly our cabernet franc vineyards in St. Helena, Oakville and Carneros ended up with good fruit sets too as they also bloomed late.
So we head into mid-September around two weeks behind normal. That’s really not too bad: as long as the fall rains hold off long enough for everything to ripen. This, of course, is a very big “if”.
I often think there is an over-reaction to these slightly cooler years in Napa. Anyone whose spent time in some of the world’s most famous wine growing regions knows that Napa does not face the weather dangers those growers deal with on a regular basis. We will ripen our grapes. We will make excellent wines. I truly believe that these “cooler” vintages make better wines in the Napa Valley. However, certain critics who define wine quality by girth disagree with me, preferring wines from hot vintages. That formula is simple:
High pH + High Alcohol + High Oak + High Price = High Points
These cooler vintages excite me because of the opportunity they give us to make truly balanced, elegant wines designed to taste their best with food. The formula above gives you wines that taste out well against other wines, but that don’t marry well with food. I don’t like them: I don’t like to drink them, I don’t like to make them and I don’t like to sell them.
It will approach 90 degrees this afternoon. Perfect grape ripening weather. Just like last vintage I know we’re going to make wines that I love. I can’t wait.
It’s time.
Tweet via CraigCamp
CraigCamp (@CraigCamp) Fight the 100 point #wine score dictatorship: http://bit.ly/oB9s3s Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:45:07
Sent via Osfoora from my iPad
IPNC 2011
Saturday at the International Pinot Noir Celebration in McMinnville starts off with Drouhin, Adelsheim, Lafon, Evening Land, Au Bon Climat and Escarpment. IPNC could very well be the best wine event anywhere.
Sent from my iPhone
How I Came to Love the White Sox, Hate the Cubs and what that has to do with wine
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It is my most valued possession and someday will be passed to my son Colin. For some, expensive watches become heirlooms, but I can’t think of anything more valuable than this old scorecard and the detailed penciled history of that single game that my dad passed on to his son, grandson and certainly great grandchildren after that. On the day he died he had a Manhattan, watched the Cubs, then died in his sleep that night. He would of thought it a good last day. As you can see baseball means a lot to me. So how could I desert the team of my childhood and my father? It happened slowly and took many seasons. Things started to unraveling in 1984 when the Cubs choked in the playoffs, winning the first two in a best out of five against San Diego then going on to lose three straight to be eliminated. On top of this I had started hanging out with some White Sox fans and went to many games on the South Side with them. Also, as is common in Illinois, it was not that my family was without White Sox sympathizers as my grandfather Chester was a Sox fan as is my Uncle Gene. Over the years I went to both ball parks, gradually gravitating to Comiskey over Wrigley. By the early 90’s I rarely went to Wrigley, but I did not actively root against the Cubs. How could I? Then in 1997 it happened, inter-league play was introduced. I actually thought the games would be fun with good sports all around, after all, at the end of the day a Chicago team would be the winner. I could not have been more wrong. I did not anticipate the wrath of the Cubs fans, who, I’m happy to say lost that first series just as they did the 1906 World Series against the Sox, which was the last time they’d played each other in games that counted. It was only this experience that opened my eyes to why I had abandoned the Cubs and adopted the White Sox. The White Sox have to win to draw fans: to succeed. They were just like me. On the other hand were the Cubs who consistently packed tourists into their Field of Dreams stadium (I admit I love Wrigley) who cared little if the home team won or lost. The remainder of the seats at Wrigley are filled by beer-fueled bankers/lawyers/accountants/traders with little tattoos hidden under their pinstripes and loosened ties to brand them as the rebels they imagine themselves. It’s hard to take seriously a team that has a stadium packed with people who barely know the score, but never miss getting in their last round of beers. Oblivion makes people accept the idea that any team can have a bad century. The White Sox have to win. The Cubs can wallow in mediocrity and still rake in the dough. Like I said, the Sox are just like me and they’re just like you. Now we get to the part where it has to do with wine. There are a lot of Chicago Cubs in the wine business. Wineries that haven’t hit a home run in years, but still live on past glories and fans that just don’t pay attention to the actual score. They have famous names and play in beautiful ball parks, but most are well on their way to having a losing century, just like the Cubs. Some people must feel that bland is beautiful. You’ll always get more for your money buying wine from winemakers who have to win, who are driven to win. Winemakers and ball teams do not get to the World Series by trying to play it safe. No guts, no glory. Many of the biggest names in wine offer more fame than personality. What’s in the bottle should be more important than what’s on the outside. Wrigley Field is a great package with a famous name, but the quality of what’s inside leaves a lot to be desired. Just because sales are good doesn’t mean the product deserves it. Rooting for the White Sox of the wine world will get you not only better wines: you also get to watch better baseball in the process. Go Sox! |
Pinot Daze
The onslaught that is Pinot Days could not contrast more with the delicate wine being celebrated. Packed into San Francisco’s Fort Mason more than two thousand pinot aficionados tasted the wines of more than two hundred wineries. A significant number of the attendees were giving tasting all of the wines their best shot. The spit buckets were not overused.
While the passion for pinot of both the attendees and the wineries pouring can not be doubted, you can’t help but wonder how the wines themselves felt about the whole affair. No wine can properly strut its stuff in such conditions, but of all wines to run through such a ringer, poor pinot noir is not the one to take such abuse.
The social aspects of these mass wine tastings cannot be denied. A good time is had by all. However, these extravaganzas are no place to make serious wine judgements. We should recognize them for what they are: a good party, not a wine judging. This is not to pick on the Pinot Days folks, who put together a well run and fun event, but at some point people need to start taking these events for what they are, which academically are more related to frat parties than going to class.
Nobody, but nobody can seriously taste and judge so many wines in such conditions. People that say they can are lying more to themselves than anyone else.
Everybody had a great time at Pinot Days including me. I’ll be back next year. These everts are great for building energy for brands and varieties, but they’re just not very educational. Maybe the name can be changed next year to Pinot Party Days. You can count me in on that one for sure. There’s nothing wrong with fun and enjoyment when it comes to wine, what else is it for, but don’t confuse it with studying to get your Master of Wine diploma.
I was pouring our new 2009 Cornerstone Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, which I have decided to release July first. The 2009 is already more forward than the 2008 and I pushed the release date forward because the wine is already so delicious. This mutual project with my friend Tony Rynders, one of the finest winemakers in the country, is most certainly a labor of love. To be able to make Cabernet Sauvignon in the Napa Valley and Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley is a dream come true. Watch for the release information at www.cornerstonecellarblog.com.
Bodega Bay Sunset
Having grown up in the midwest, I never tire of ocean sunsets. This is from a recent long weekend Joyce and I spent on the coast celebrating our anniversary.
Cornerstone Updates: Wine Time Machine
Perhaps this is part of the appeal of winemaking. The ability to be working in the past, present and future all at the same time is as enticing at the wines we make.
The seasonal cycles set our bottling season. Just after winter pruning it’s time to bottle the whites and rosé and ,as bud break flows into flowering, its time to bottle the red wines.
Our 2010 whites and rosé are already in the bottle and are just being released for sale this month. This includes the zesty Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc, Cuveé Musque and the dry, intensely aromatic Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Corallina Napa Valley Syrah Rosé. New for us, and a wine we’re very excited about, is our Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Napa Valley Riesling. Our Riesling is dry as a bone with incredible floral and mineral aromatics and flavors.
Next into the bottle will be our 2009 Stepping Stone red wines: Syrah, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, but you’ll have to wait at least six months to taste those when they’re released this fall. For more immediate gratification we have something new for you: Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Rocks!. We have a red Rocks! and a white Rocks!, each are blends of different varieties that will change from year-to-year depending on what inspires us. The defining terms will be delicious and fun. The Rocks! wines are house wines for Cornerstone lovers.
In July, as the grapes are ripening in the warm Napa Valley sun, we will bottle our 2009 reserve selections: Cornerstone Cellars Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, Cornerstone Cellars Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon and our new benchmark wine, The Cornerstone, a blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot, crafted to be a Napa Valley classic. Only 100 cases will be produced and it will be released in 2012 after a year of bottle aging.
There is another time element to this year’s vintage which ties us to an even older vintage, 1991, our inaugural vintage. As we approach our 20th harvest it is thrilling for us to be releasing innovative wine full of personality and the individuality that has always made Cornerstone one of the Napa Valley’s most dynamic wineries.
Starting next week we’ll be pouring our 2010 Stepping Stone whites and rosé in our Yountville tasting room. Please join us for some tastes of the past, the present and some hints of what the future holds: our wine time machine.
Fodder for Criticism
It’s amazing what we Americans have done to wine and, for the matter, food. Somehow we’ve changed one of life’s quiet pleasures into a sporting competition. In the beautiful quote above, importer extraordinaire Neal Rosenthal not only defines the essence of why wine is so compelling to us, but why his selections are matched in quality by a list of importers so small you can count them on one hand. In fact, I could easily spend my life limited to the wines of only two, Rosenthal and Kermit Lynch, and never be bored.
Wine is indeed a social event, it’s what should be for dinner not “fodder for criticism.”
It seems to be a part of the American psyche that we take things that should engage our senses in relaxation and pleasure and turn them into a competition. The television is full of food and chef slap downs. Dining is turned into Monday Night Football and now many self-defined “foodies” spend more time watching people cook instead of cooking themselves. Picking up carry out so you can rush home to watch Iron Chef does not make you a foodie.
Taking time with wine, food and sharing that experience is what makes them such a rewarding part of life. Critics rank wines and taste wines against each other, which is a cruel thing to do to wine of subtlety and grace. Just like in the cooking shows theatrics always win the battle when little time is taken for reflection. It’s the quiet side of wine that needs more attention these days. Its easy to find the biggest and baddest wines, just refer to the wine critics as that’s what their system will give you. Perhaps one of the best parts of the rise of the wine blogging community is there you’re more likely to find someone writing about how a wine makes them feel rather than how they rank it.
When looking for wine recommendations take them from someone who spent some time with them. Tasting dozens of wines a day (or hundreds) is not a reliable way to form a meaningful opinion of a wine and such recommendations must be taken for what they are, meaningless. Does it really matter if the wine you are enjoying so much with your dinner was ranked a few points lower than the wine being enjoyed at the next table? Wine appreciation is about appreciating wine, more accurately about appreciating life.
In the scope of things in today’s world it’s a small thing for sure, but it is exactly those small things that make wine and food so wonderful. Pay attention.
Cristal® Clear
Such is the disclaimer on the new Jaume Serra Cristallino Cava label. Jaume Serra lost a four year court battle late last year where Roederer claimed Cristallino was infringing on their trademark and damaging the reputation of their Cristal® brand.
It’s too bad that Jaume Serra did not file their suit first as I think they have a valid case. Clearly Cristal® does more to damage Cristallino’s reputation than the other way around.
First take Louis Roederer Cristal® , a hideously overpriced, famously bad value preferred by drug dealers, new money and basically anyone who has more money than sense. There are few better examples of a wine that tags you as a wine know-nothing than drinking Cristal® . OK, admittedly Dom Perignon is worse. One thing for sure, when you see someone drinking Cristal® in a restaurant you can be assured they know nothing about Champagne. The pretentious and vacuous Cristal® shares its pleasures mostly with people that could care less about what they’re drinking as long as the name is right.
Then you take Jaume Serra Cristallino Cava, a delightful and refreshing wine that brings lovely bubbly pleasure at an incredible price for a truly pleasant and well made wine. Repeatedly listed in the major wine publications as an excellent value, Cristallino is front and center at many joyous events like weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and divorces. Cristallino brings and shares joy with the masses, otherwise known as us.
Cristal® and Cristallino do have one thing in common: they are both industrial mass-produced wines.
Is Cristal® a better more complex wine than Cristallino? Without a doubt, but who cares. What you give up intellectually and emotionally in buying Cristal® is not worth it. Selling your soul to the devil always has its price.
In my opinion it should have been Cristallino suing Cristal® for defamation of character as being associated with the preferred bubbly of drug dealers and superficial pop stars is an insult to a pretty little wine that brings daily smiles to so many at the end of a hard day and that can turn any evening into a celebration.
In seeking the best of the best, those with more money than is good for them are drawn like bugs to a nightlight by brand names promising exclusivity. However, when it comes to Champagne, the big name brands are mass produced products like the perfume and luggage also made by the companies that own them. Think about it. Dom Perignon and Cristal® are sold at every luxury hotel, restaurant and retail store in the entire world. Heck, if you’re in the right neighborhood you can find them at the 7-11. Fake exclusivity is easy to sell to those hungry for exclusivity for its own sake.
Smart wine drinkers avoid such Champagnes and drink the wonderful estate (grower) Champagnes widely available throughout the United States or the excellent super-premium sparking wines now produced around the world, including the excellent Roederer made in California’s Anderson Valley. In between they toss in bottles of Cristallino for fun on Wednesday nights and for big parties. Without a doubt, there would be a lot less joy in the world without Cristallino, but no one would suffer from the loss of Cristal® .
In our refrigerator there is always a bottle of Cava (usually Cristallino) or two and a couple of grower Champagnes. Excellent grower Champagne is easy to find and you don’t even have to know the estate. Just look for those imported by Rebecca Wasserman, Neal Rosenthal, Kermit Lynch and Terry Thiese. However, Cava still stands as the best value in the world of sparking wine. That’s a fact that’s Cristal® clear.
Syrah In My Pinot
All of this just shows the misconceptions of both writers and winemakers. Writers think California Pinot is so big because they put syrah in it while winemakers think they need to put syrah in their pinot to make it big enough to make the writers happy. The wonders the 100 point scale has brought us.
Just because you are the first does not mean that you’re the one and only. Burgundy is not the only correct example of pinot noir in the world. It is only one expression of that variety. It’s always interesting to me that the most ardent defenders of terroir are the ones most loudly damning the robust character of California Pinot Noir. Perhaps they should consider that powerful character is the terroir of pinot noir in California. There is a difference in claiming that a wine does not have terroir and not liking the style of a terroir. Successful California Pinot does not and should not taste exactly like Burgundy. That is only one standard and only one of the many expressions of pinot. California Pinot Noir is supposed to taste like California Pinot Noir.
In his excellent article, Syrah in My Pinot? A Winemaker Responds, Adam Siduri makes many good points, but one stands out. It all his years of winemaking he has never known any serious pinot noir producer to add syrah to their wine unless they openly admit it on their label or sales materials. I’ll add my own thirty years of experience to that and I too have never known any winemaker aspiring to make great pinot noir that added syrah to their blend without being upfront about it. The example of Castle Rock adding syrah to their pinot is simply a producer making a better wine. At that price point you can’t make a decent pinot noir without some help. If you insist on buying pinot noir under $15 your palate should be grateful they blended a bit of syrah in. The strange thing about consumers is that if they just bought a $15 syrah they’d get a great wine at a bargain price instead of insisting on pinot noir that needs to be “corrected” to make it pleasurable to drink. Excellent pinot noir is not for bargain hunters.
This does not mean that pinot noir cannot be manipulated out of showing its terroir as it so often is in California and, for that matter, throughout the world. Just because the natural character of California Pinot Noir is substantial does not mean that all extremes are acceptable. The essential character of pinot noir is its transparency, that unique ability to show the personality of the vineyard where it was grown. This transparency can show itself in wines of many different weights and concentrations. This is clearly seen within Burgundy itself. Vineyard and winery manipulations that obliterate that transparency eliminate the reason to grow and make pinot noir in the first place. If you want to make massive, powerful wines there are a lot better varieties to work with.
The only reason to blend syrah with pinot noir is that you actually wanted to make a syrah to begin with. If you’re a winemaker and want to blend syrah with your pinot you’ve chosen to make the wrong variety. If you’re a wine writer and you want your pinot noir to taste like syrah you’re drinking the wrong variety.
Square pegs in round holes don’t work any better than they used to.
Blue Nose, Blue Blood
We brought home some fabulous Bluenose bass from New Zealand this time, but whatever we bring home from there is always delicious. Why? Why are some merchants so much better than others? The fish at Osprey is more-or-less the same price as Whole Foods just down the road, but it is always, always better. Certainly it is more expensive than the seafood offerings of Safeway, but food that is inedible is never cheap enough.
The “why” is simple. They care at Osprey. They care in a way you just don’t see behind the counter at a chain, even at the level of a Whole Foods. At the likes of Safeway it’s not an issue of excitement as they have little interest or knowledge in what they’re selling.
It’s always amazing at Osprey as, in spite of the fact they deal with fish day in and day out, they’re excited about today’s special arrivals. It’s that ability to be excited that makes them go out of their way to have something to be excited about.
What’s happened to that excitement in the wine industry? Cynical buyers, loaded with attitude, but with closed minds who have already decided what wines are the best by the time they’re twenty-five. Their counterpoints are ego driven, “lifestyle” wineries more interested in points than quality, which pump out over-oaked, high octane, insanely priced fruit bombs. All of the above driven by someone else’s pointed opinion instead of their own. True enough there’s a lot to be not excited about.
However, once a month, I get a package that reminds me that there still exists, in the increasingly corporate wine world, merchants filled with passion, excitement and energy that is all their own. That package is the monthly shipment I get from the Kermit Lynch Wine Club, one of the privileges of living in California.
Each package is a voyage of discovery. Not that I do not know some of the wines that arrive, but each shipment is an inside look at the mind of the Kermit Lynch company. The energy and commitment in that collective mind is clear in the quality and distinctive personality of each bottle that arrives.
For about $40 a month you get two bottles of interesting wine. While that should not be an unusual thing, it is, and the arrival of each package makes me think about the wines we make. As always, there is no greater compliment you can give a wine than it makes you think. Any wine that costs more than $10 a bottle should at the very least make you notice you are drinking it.
Kermit Lynch, Osprey and merchants like them are the blue bloods, the royalty of the merchant class. While it is said you get what you pay for, it is more than that. There are many places to get above average, but there are few places where you can travel together as excited explorers sharing the energy that discovery brings to those that share in the adventure together.
You’ll never get this experience at Cost Plus, Trader Joe’s, Costco or any chain operation. You’ll also not save any money by shopping at these chains unless you insist on buying overpriced, industrial wines that are only pretenders to the throne. Yes, if you want to buy Silver Oak these are your places. However, the Osprey’s and Kermit Lynch’s of the world are the ones offering true value.
There’s a sucker born every minute. Don’t be a sucker. Buying smart means not buying hype. It also means not buying on price alone. Smart buyers buy based on price and the energy and effort the merchant puts into bringing them the very best.
A Kermit Lynch selection with an Osprey selection makes not only for a wonderful dinner, but money well spent.
Apple Wine
For most of the quarter century since then I loved technology, but wrestled with it trying to get done not only what it was supposed to do, but what I dreamed it would do. Most of those years it was like hot-wiring a car to get even basic things done. I made many an heroic effort to make things work the way the ads promised, yet it was always a struggle. I remember one night in a hotel in Florence ripping the phone wires out of the wall and directly connected them to my laptop to get my email over a brutally slow dial-up connection. Another long night was spent reloading the complete Microsoft Office Suite back on my computer at 4 a.m. - all 30 or so floppies taking several hours - so I could make a Powerpoint presentation in the morning after my hard drive unexplainably blew up. It was like only getting to taste Lafite as a barrel sample: sure it was good, but you knew damn well it was going to get a lot better.
I went through them all: Blackberrys, Treos, Windows this an that, Mac those and these and they only teased me with their potential and never lived up to their advertising. I was frustrated and addicted: until now. For the first time it my life everything is working. My all Apple tool chest includes a MacBook Pro, iPad and an iPhone all tied together with Gmail, Dropbox, Instapaper and Evernote. What has happened is that no longer do I have three devices, but one device with three different user interfaces.
The fluid interaction of these three devices has totally changed the way I manage my wine information. The volumes of wine notes taken over thirty years are being scanned into Evernote, where they become searchable PDFs. The word searchable is the key as it means I can actually use them. No more do I have pockets full of loose notes from every wine I taste. Now I just take a quick photo with my iPhone, which I also put into Evernote, where I add my tasting notes. Articles of interest are clipped into Instapaper for reading when the time presents itself on my iPad. I am sure I am reading twice as much as before. This ability to collect and find all my wine information is not only changing my wine experience, but that of wine drinkers everywhere.
This ability to create your own personal wine encyclopedia reduces an individuals dependence on one or two wine media gatekeepers. It makes it easy to grab information from anywhere and everywhere to come up with your own opinion based on many voices instead of few. This is a very good thing for small wine producers or those of distinctive styles so overlooked or actively excluded from coverage by established wine media. Information is indeed power.
Apple wine is very user friendly.
Tosca, Ithzak and The Adams Family
This artistic immersion began at the top with a performance of Tosca at the incomparable Met in New York, followed by a Nathan Lane romp through The Adams Family on Broadway and completed by the inspired clarity of Itzhak Perlman in recital in San Francisco. As with most things that inspire me these performances made me think about wine.
Tosca gives you restrained, confident power and emotion. The slightly naughty vaudeville of The Adams Family is all fun and escape. The delicacy and transparency of the Perlman piano and violin duets challenges you to focus on pure art stripped to the bone. These experiences were enjoyable each in their own way and each has their own purpose. It would be pointless to compare them, but that’s exactly what is done with wine. The exactitude of the 100 point scale only denies the beauty of each vinous performance.
It was easy for me to see the wines I love in these three performances: Tosca would be something like Corison
I would no more think of ranking Tosca against The Adams Family than I would scoring La Tache against a Beaujolais Villages. Each has its place and time. It is simply boring and boorish to compare and contrast such wines. They are to be enjoyed in their moment and in their proper moment each is a 100 point wine.
There is no more important word in wine than transparency, the ability to see through each aspect of its character and personality. Opulence and power are wine’s pop music - Lady Gaga vs. Puccini. While Lady Gaga may win the popularity contest it does not make her great art. Religion too easily achieved is not very spiritual.
“Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you.”
Cornerstone's Artist in Residence to be Featured on Public Television
CORVALLIS — For the second time in three months, a mid-valley artist will be in focus on an Oregon Public Broadcasting TV show.
Corvallis-based painter Janet Ekholm, who has made a name for herself with her boldly colored works, will be featured on “Oregon Art Beat” on Thursday, Feb. 3, at 8 p.m. The OPB program will document Ekholm’s vision, creativity and style.
Ekholm studied art history in France in the 1970s and immersed herself in impressionism and the other great periods of French art. She later lived in Turkey and said the influence of Turkish folklore can be seen in her work today. Ekholm first worked with colored pencil but gravitated to rich oil pastel works that often showcase vibrant colors and female subjects.
“I love painting the human figure, especially the female figure,” she said. “I want to celebrate the inner strength and grace of women, surrounded by the things that matter to them: the simple pleasures of the home and the beauty of nature.”
Ekholm’s work is on display at various West Coast exhibitions, including the Art on the Boulevard Gallery in Vancouver, Wash., and at Cornerstone Cellars in Yountville, Calif. A full perspective of her work can be viewed online at www.janetekholm.com.
Haymaking and Grape Picking
We’ve been blessed in San Francisco to have two extensive exhibitions of works from the famed Impressionist museum in Paris, the Musée d’Orsay, at the de Young Museum of Fine Art. In the first of these two exhibitions one work haunted me a bit more than some of the others. That work was Haymaking by Jules Bastien-Lepage. In this piece the exhaustion of the agricultural worker at the end of the day is powerfully portrayed.
In California and most agricultural states the majority of the real work is done by Mexicans who risk arrest and face the brutal prejudice of Americans (none of whom seems to want the jobs they take) to earn a living for their families. If you think you have any idea what they go through you are lying to yourself. From the most expensive California wines to Two Buck Chuck, none would exist without these workers. This is a concept that few consider as they sip their expensive wine in an even more expensive restaurant while raging on about how we should be building a wall along the Mexican border. It seems that good taste in wine does not improve the conscious of those drinking it. When we take a sip of wine, it seem the least we could do to remember and honor those that sweated to bring it to us.
What struck me in the photo above was the ballet-like symmetry which flowed through this crew as they worked. They are picking Stewart Vineyard Merlot just south of the town of Napa. The wine from these grapes is beautiful and they are a part of it.
Blogging Forward
Blogging forward? Moving forward indeed, but perhaps it is more like leaving blogging behind. Years of blogging has left its calluses. “Been through the wars have we,” as Monty Python said. However you phrase it, as you will see from the gap between my last post and this, it was clear that for me blogging about wine had become, there’s no other word for it, boring.
There seemed to be real wine wars in the past and they made my blood boil. Boil and rant I did about the ridiculous idea of giving points to wines, the destruction of terroir by those same critics giving the points and the sad dulling of the American palate by the wine mass marketing machine using those points. At some point in the last year I realized I no longer cared about slaying these windmills and once that happened trying to hammer out three or four blog posts a week became more a burden than a creative outlet.
I’ve decided the only creative outlet that matters to me anymore is to create an environment where I can craft meaningful wines. By meaningful wines I mean wines that mean something to me. Then it is up to me that find people that share my vision and take pleasure in what we have created at Cornerstone Cellars in the Napa Valley and at Cornerstone Oregon in the Willamette Valley. I’ll take points when we get them, you’d have to be an idiot not to, but achieving those ratings is not my goal. My goal is to make wines that light up people’s eyes when they drink them. I believe that there are more than enough like-minded people out there that will love what we do and buy our wines. So points be damned and we’ll follow our own vision instead of theirs.
I’ll take one last shot at the 100 point wine rating system just for old times sake. I don’t care who the taster is, but if you take twenty-five wines from the same place, variety and price range and have someone taste and score them, then repeat the same tasting five days in a row changing the order of the wines every day you will get statistically different results. The results you get will only prove one thing: that such ratings produce statistically unrepeatable results. As the results can’t be repeated they are worthless - except for one thing. Points are very valuable for selling wine publications, which is the only reason for their existence. As with any database: garbage in, garbage out. Humans are not infallible tasting machines - no one, nowhere, no how.
One reason to be less upset about the big print wine magazines is that they’re doomed. Not to pick on wine magazines, but they are unlikely to escape the fate that is going to change that entire industry. My guess is within five years they’ll be more-or-less exclusively online publications and will have had their power diluted by online publications that may not even exist yet. Kicking them on their way down seems like a waste of energy. It’s time to admire them for what they were and what they achieved, not rant against them for what they have become.
There is also the natural passing of time that is changing things. A recent departure from The Wine Spectator found several beats replaced by more sensitive voices notably that of James Molesworth. Over at The Wine Advocate the contributions of Antonio Galloni, Neal Martin and David Schildknecht have transformed dramatically the range of wines receiving attention and high scores. Perhaps balance is being restored to The Force after all.
So as I move this blog forward you’ll find no more rants here. Hopefully you’ll find thoughtful commentary on my experience in trying to create compelling terroir-driven wines on the west coast of the United States and my feelings on other wines that inspire me and compel me to put the feelings they give me to words. Instead of shorter posts and wine tasting notes you’ll find longer pieces appearing three to four times a month instead of the more blog-like staccato of that many a week.
What you’ll also find heavily featured is my wine country photography. There is no better way to bring the feeling of making wine to you than images of the experience itself. High resolution images from my Nikon will be mixed with on the spot iPhone snapshots and videos that I feel will help bring the world of wine alive to you.
There will also be a lot more food on Wine Camp. While wine is my profession, cooking is my avocation. Like most passionate hobbyists I can’t talk, or write, enough about the object of my affection. Cooking to me is both pleasure and therapy as nothing takes away stress like preparing and enjoying a meal.
What will be gone from Wine Camp is criticism, there are more than enough Grinches out there in the wine blogoshere already. The critics role will be replaced by that of a wine lover. There are a lot of new bloggers out there whose blood is boiling and they can have the job. Last night’s dinner was a garden fresh caprese followed by pan-roasted duck breast and Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk washed down with 2005 Domaine Forey Nuits-Saint-Georges - now that’s an interesting story and the only kind of story you’ll find at www.winecampblog.com.
The Burgundy Report
Beaune Because I can – lingering over Beaune and its vines; premier cru by premier cru…
link: Summer 2010
If you’re buying Burgundy and not reading The Burgundy Report you’re a fool.