ArrivederLa

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It was a serene experience. Peaceful and focused. We waited and he arrived seeming almost bemused by our presence. For us he was already a deity, which was a title he did not seek for himself, nor one he needed.

It was a cold spring morning and we could just see our breath as our eyes swept over the gentile beauty of Valpolicella. The air around us was hazy with the smoke of burning vine cuttings and the blossoms were just breaking on the trees. Just then his daughter appeared and led us down into his cellar. After a short wait he arrived surveying the group with a casual curiosity.

Over the next hour and a half he talked softly and smiled gently. For him it was enough to let his wines do all the talking. He was not looking for the deference with we treated him, but it fit him well. As always in such a group some did not understand what they were tasting, but he took no offense at their lightness any more than he did at those who where too ernest in their worship.

We tasted through the entire gallery of his creations. Their greatness requires no comment here

When we left I was the last to go. “Ringrazie, arrivederLa,” I said. I stood a good foot taller than the great man, who then reached up and patted my cheek and said, “bravo.”

We live in a “ciao” world, but to say “ciao” to such greatness just seemed wrong.

Ringrazie e ArrivederLa Signore Quintarelli

Pictured above is that tasting with Signore Quintarelli in the spring of 2000

Wine and Food

Thanksgiving brings up the usual stream of articles recommending wines for Thanksgiving. This exercise has obviously gone too far as writers now reach for extreme examples just to be “different” rather than sticking with something that actually makes sense.  Amarone? Grenache? Possibly, but why in the world would you go so far out? The matches for the traditional American Thanksgiving dinner are simple: lighter reds and fuller whites. Common sense and a little knowledge is all that’s needed.  Pinot noir or gamay (Beaujolais) and chardonnay or riesling if you like a little sweetness with the potentially dry bird. With the literally thousands of variations of these varieties there seems little need other than personal taste or a bored writer to practice this new extreme matching reality show. Also, not every menu demands complexity in wine. Mounds of turkey, sweet potatoes and stuffing requires refreshing beverages, not equally ponderous ones. Cool, fruity and zesty are more pleasurable than a wine as ponderous as the meal. 
 
Perhaps all this extreme matchmaking is due to the fact that wine writers taste most of the wines they review without food. This is a very strange thing if you think about it. After all, wine really has no other purpose than to be part of a meal. Critics give wines points based on how they taste against other wines, not how they taste with dinner. This fact alone tells you how pointless points are when it comes choosing what wine to buy. 
 
In all honesty I don’t drink wine without food: with the notable exception of sparkling wines. I just don’t get it. The first sip of wine always has me thinking about what bite of food is going to follow. The idea of a chardonnay or cabernet as a cocktail is beyond me. When I’m getting ready to cook I’m doing one of two things: either I’m looking for something to go with a particular wine or deciding what wine to have with the menu I’ve selected. The concepts of cooking, eating and wine are so tightly intertwined in me that I cannot separate their experience in my mind. I can’t even imagine why you would want to. 
 
A beautiful veal chop thus led me to a bottle of 2009 Tendril, Tightrope, Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, the new release from my friend, winemaker Tony Rynders. Tony is making two Tendril pinots:  “White Label”, a blend of his vineyard sites and Tightrope, a special barrel selection.  The veal chop got the Milanese treatment and the wine was perfect with the dish and it was perfect with the wine. A very nice arrangement.  The only breadcrumbs at hand were panko so the chop was even crunchier than usual. I’d do that again.  The Tightrope’s tart acidity in the proverbial velvet glove was just the right foil to the breaded and fried chop. Being the foil is the wine’s job.
 
Only sixty cases of 2009 Tendril Tightrope were produced and you can only buy it from the winery at www. tendrilwines.com. The $64 price tag is a bargain for a wine of this depth It will be worth putting away for a few years to let it grow up. However, for Thanksgiving I’m recommending the more subtle 2009 Tendril White Label Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. It’s more forward and fruity than the Tightrope and certainly such an American meal deserves an American wine. However, with less than 400 cases produced not many tables will be lucky enough to be graced with a bottle this Thanksgiving. 
 
 Matching food and wine is about the combination of personal taste and common sense. There’s no reason to go to extremes: unless you have to write an annual Thanksgiving wine matching article that is.

 

Night Harvest: Talcott Vineyard Cabernet Franc in St. Helena

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Never Boring

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Their shrill barking woke me from whatever dream I was having. A pack of coyotes was having a debate in the vineyard outside my window. In my sleepy stupor I tried, but could not remember the day of the week. It sounded like dozens of them, but it was probably just a few being particularly rambunctious. Suddenly the report of a rifle echoed sharply across the valley and the coyotes were silent. Just a few hundred yards from our house, in the other direction, the first crew of cooks were arriving for work at The French Laundry. Such is life in Yountville during harvest. There is this incredible mixture of nature and urban sophistication, which only intertwines so completely in the Napa Valley. The reason I could not remember the day was simple: during harvest all days are the same. There are no regular patterns, hours or life. It’s exhausting, stressful and the best thing that happens to you every year.

So what does this vintage mean to us? It means another debate with Mother Nature, much like the coyotes outside my window had last night. As winemakers we all bark at the weather, but in reality we live within it and in the end treasure what we have been given each and every year. Like a parent we don’t have a favorite child, but revel in their differences and the memories of their unique strong and weak points. The critics will give this harvest a rating, but numbers have no soul and harvests, like all things in nature, do.

So what should you expect from a wine or from a vintage? I think you should expect personality. Those who rank vintages by number in the modern era miss the fundamental character of wine and truly do not understand wine itself. The question should never be what is the greatest vintage of this wine can I have with my dinner tonight, but should be what vintage will taste the best with my dinner tonight. The disaster vintages of days past are no more due to the dramatic advances in enology and viticulture over the last decades. On top of it we live in the Napa Valley where, let’s face it, the weather is never really that bad. The ranges of vintages today runs more from producing earlier or later maturing wines and from bigger or more elegant styles. It’s a fact of the matter in the Napa Valley an overly hot vintage has a more negative impact on wine quality than ones that are overly cool.

It often strikes me that critics want all vintages to be the same. I cannot think of anything more boring: or unnatural. Tomorrow morning at 4 a.m. we start picking our Talcott Vineyard Cabernet Franc in St. Helena. It will make a wine different from last year and from the one it will make the next. I would not have it any other way.

2011 Harvest: Napa Valley

2011 Harvest: Napa Valley

Crush 2011

It’s time.

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.

How I Came to Love the White Sox, Hate the Cubs and what that has to do with wine

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I love the White Sox. I hate the Cubs. A strange situation as I grew up a Cubs fan and my mom still loves them, watching every game she can. My dad loved the Cubs and they were my introduction to the Majors. There’s nothing quite as heartwarming to me as the memories of my parents taking me to Wrigley Field as a child. As I write this, just behind me is a framed scorecard of a game they took me to on August 24th, 1962, a day after my 9th birthday. Warren Spahn pitched for the then Milwaukee Braves. Hank Aaron hit a home run in the 4th. Lou Brock was playing centerfield for the Cubs (they made the brilliant trade to the Cardinals in 1964), Billy Williams was in left, Santo was at third, Atlman was at first giving Ernie Banks a day off.  The Cubs lost ten to one. On the other side of the scorecard  are the autographs of Ernie Banks, Don Landrum and Ken Hubbs, who was at second that day. I’m sure few remember Ken Hubbs. He was star to me, but he was killed in a plane crash in 1964 after only three seasons that included becoming the first rookie to win a Gold Glove and National League Rookie of the Year. Hot dogs were 30 cents, PBR 35 cents, cigarettes 35 cents and cigars went for 10 cents, 15 cents or 25 cents depending on how much of a connoisseur you were. 

 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 noise was deafening. In front of me stood someone with purple teeth and a strange sort of necklace with a large wine glass where the locket should have been. The man with the Riedel necklace was talking rapidly to me. I could pick up about every third word. I heard him say, “ mmummmble brix mmmaa clones mmmumms alcohol ssssooumnos terroir.” No matter, these things are very predictable and I fired up my stock answer. He took a big sip, swirled and sniffed and swallowed. Spitting was not on the agenda in spite of the more than two hundred pinot noir wines in the room. 

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. 

Cornerstone Updates: Wine Time Machine

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Just as the vines are thinking about flowering in vintage 2011, we are preparing and finishing the 2009 vintage reds for bottling. In wine you always are touching the past and the future simultaneously. It’s hard to think of an industry where your key focus for the month is something you’ve made two years before that you won’t sell for another whole year.

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

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“We have to protect what’s best about wine. It is ancient in our civilization, it is a perfect mix of the intellectual and the sensual, it enriches our lives. The beauty of great wine is that it lives inside of you after you’ve had it. It’s a stimulus for memory. What it tasted like, but more importantly, what it made you feel, why you drank it, what you talked about while drinking it, and with whom. Wine is a social event, not fodder for criticism,” Neal Rosenthal.

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

“Jaume Serra Cristallino is not affiliated with, sponsored by, endorsed by, or in any way connected to Louis Roederer’s CRISTAL® champagne or Louis Roederer.”

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

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The recent brouhaha over at Palate Press starting with an offhand Twitter comment by wine blogger Remy Charest and ending (maybe) with an article by winemaker Adam Lee of Siduri called up the frequent under-the-breath reference insinuating many California Pinot Noirs are so big due a dollop of syrah. It’s rather a silly idea if you think about it. Why? It’s already there, no not the syrah, but the syrah character. No additions are necessary.

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

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This time it was Blue Nose. It was always something, but it was always something special. There are places to buy things and there are places where it’s an adventure to buy things. One of those places is Osprey Seafood in the town of Napa. 

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.