Not too long ago I drank quite a bit of Australian wine, particularly Shiraz. Given that this grape, also known as Syrah, expresses greatness in the Barossa Valley I could not pass an opportunity to revisit this region for this months’ Wine Blogging Wednesday. Our host, Adam from Wine Zag, proposed we look for any wine from Australia’s Barossa Valley but for me only Shiraz would do, much the same way only Cabernet would do for Napa Valley. One other limitation was to choose a wine for $30 USD or less. I’m well aquatinted with great values from Barossa but have not tasted any lately so I was a little concerned as I entered my local wine store to explore the options available this week.
The main reason for my exile from Barossa and most of the wines of Australia of late has been value. There are many great wines made in Australia but far fewer under $30 than in the past (at least it seems to me). Some of this is due to shipping costs; some of this is due to exchange rates. Today the best bang for the (American) buck comes from the Iberian peninsula or lesser known parts of Italy and France. Even California, Washington State and Oregon are bringing the value in these recessionary times. But there still are some producers who are managing to bring the value from Barossa even today.
One of those is Schild Estate, a family run winery in Barossa that over delivers value if judged by the wine I tasted this evening. Established in 1952, this winery produces a range of wines but with an emphasis on Shiraz. And after tasting their entry level Shiraz today, I can see why they lavish so much attention on the variety. It is because it’s delicious.
Tasting Notes:
Schild Estate Wines, Shiraz, Barossa 2009 ($18) – Dark purple in color with aromas of cherry, plum, bacon, and black licorice. Round in the mouth with concentrated blackberry, plum and black pepper flavors finishing with savory tannins. A very nice expression of Aussie Shiraz at a stunning price.
14.5% ABV
Screw cap closure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Score: 90
Thanks go to Adam for hosting this month and for provoking me to taste a Barossa wine and blog about it. Stay tuned for next months edition of our global virtual tasting to be announced soon.
A-List wine critics are the celebrities of the wine geek but we don’t get a chance to learn much about them. Just Google for interviews of Robert Parker or James Laube and you will see very little outside of promotional stuff.
But Antonio Galloni of The Wine Advocate seems to be more open and has been interviewed by Grape Radio and now Steve Heimoff. Steve is himself a noted critic from The Wine Enthusiast so he knows the questions to ask. And his three part interview with Mr. Galloni goes deeper into the lifestyle of a wine critic than anything else I have seen to date. Everything from blind tasting to dental cleaning schedules are covered and I was surprised more than once while reading the series.
The link below goes to the first part. I would suggest you carve out a half hour and read all three parts together. Really fascinating stuff that I will pick up again in a future post.
It was a real treat to run into Antonio Galloni at last Friday’s Vintage Retrospective Tasting at the Rudd Center of the Culinary Institute of America, in St. Helena. I asked Antonio if he wouldn’t mind my interviewing him, and he kindly agreed, for which I am grateful.
Although I was an avid and longtime reader of Dottie Gaiter and John Brecher’s weekly Wall Street Journal wine column, I never have participated in Open That Bottle Night (OTBN). Started in 2000, the event was created as an excuse to open a special wine that remains for whatever reason languishing in your cellar. I have had several candidates for such treatment but when the last Saturday in February arrived I never thought to actually open one of these long forgotten bottles.
That was until this past weekend when I saw someone mention the event on Twitter and decided to take action. The bottle in question is a 1989 Acacia Vineyard Carneros Brut sparkling wine “recently disgorged”. The recently disgorged style was developed by Bollenger in 1961 for their 1952 Bollinger Grande Année. The extra bottle age before the yeast is removed and the final dosage is added gives the wine additional flavor and complexity. And by disgorging the yeast late, the wine also retains more freshness and fruit than if the bottle was aged after disgorgement. Since I received the bottle of Acacia as part of their wine club shipment in 2005 or 2006, I assume the wine was left for a decade or more on the lees in bottle.
Since 1989 is the year of my daughter’s birth, I assumed we would open the bottle a couple years ago as part of her 21st birthday celebration. For one reason or another the bottle remained in the cellar and so I naturally assumed the worst as I plucked the bottle from the rack. I’ve had my share of over the hill wines. Most of the time those blasted plastic corks are to blame but other times it’s simply a bottle left far past it’s proper drinking window. For those of us with collections, this happens more often than you might expect but the Great Recession has greatly depleted my cellar and so these bottles are now much easier to spot. This particular Acacia Brut was a perfect choice for OTBN as there was the chance of magic. I’ve had their sparkling wines before after extended aging and enjoyed them and the promise of a wine disgorged only 8 years ago or so made me optimistic as I eased the cork from the bottle with a satisfying pop.
Pouring the wine in the flute showed a still vigorous bead of fine bubbles through a rich golden yellow color. Since it was still on the light golden side, somewhat like apple juice, I thought that perhaps there might be something left to this wine. All of these hopes were dashed when I lifted the flute to my nose and got the unmistakable whiff of oxidized wine. But there was still some yeasty bread notes, citrus and almond there so I took a sip over my sink thinking it would most likely be immediately spit out. But the flavors are still actually pretty nice. Some Sherry-like oxidative elements to be sure but also lemon and some green apple flavors that finish clean with bright acidity. The yeast had certainly left it’s mark in palate weight and complexity, as well, with a pleasant nuttiness on the long finish. Overall, the wine has clearly seen better days but is still interesting even with the somewhat off-putting aromas.
Three days later I have another glass siting in front of me as I finish this post. No, this is not a great wine but enjoyable none the less, and I’m quite happy Open That Bottle Night presented an excuse to try it. Otherwise, I’m sure it would have just gone down the drain in 5 or 6 more years. So if you have a long forgotten bottle collecting dust, get a corkscrew and see what you have there. You might just get lucky and discover something interesting.
Jeff Lefevere and I return to review the top wine stories of the past month including tongue-twisting wine names, a disturbing wine manifesto, trends in wine marketing, the stellar 2009 Bordeaux vintage and much more.
Hosts: Tim Elliott and Jeff Lefevere
Topics
If the wine is hard to pronounce, is it worth more?
Randall Grahm is one of the true characters of the American wine scene. A self-styled terroirist, intuitive branding genius and all around eccentric, Grahm has taken his Bonny Doon Vineyard on quite a ride over nearly the past 30 years. After setting out in 1983 to make great Pinot Noir in California, Grahm was drawn to Rhône varieties — long before it was cool — and blazed an innovative trail. Years past and the winery continued to grow particularly at the entry level with the ubiquitous Big House brand. But being a terroir driven vintner who presides over blending sessions in industrial wineries can’t be a lot of fun. So in 2006 Grahm sold the Big House brand to The Wine Group and spun off Pacific Rim into it’s own business with outside partners.
Photo via Twitter
By his own admission Grahm has downsized his once considerable enterprise by a factor of ten and the business model of a modest winery today is a lot different than when he got started. Today the consumer has more tools to help them choose a wine in the store using smartphones and apps like Hello Vino. Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook can connect friends from Barstow to Barcelona in near real time for instant recommendations. And wine distributors, who used to be the winery’s “feet on the street”, have become nothing more than extensions of the sales force for large volume brands like Gallo, Kendall-Jackson and, somewhat ironically in this context, The Wine Group.
It appears Mr. Grahm is well aware of the current realities in the wine market and his own transformation from selling mostly through distribution to mostly direct to consumer after reading a very revealing post on his blog earlier this week. I have the opportunity in my day job to have frank conversations about the wine business but none of these surface here as they are off the record. Seeing similar issues presented in a long-form post on a winery blog is most refreshing and frankly breathtaking. I’m sure there is a bit of added drama at play here and the Dooniverse is not really on the edge of ruin but if it is that would be most distressing. The wine world with Randall Grahm and Bonny Doon in it is much better than the reverse.
So in the spirit of a friend lending a helping hand I offer the following unsolicited ideas for Mr. Grahm and his team to ponder:
Get social - Dude, you have over 350,000 Twitter followers! No other vintner is even close. Use it occasionally to sell your wine. I’d probably also figure out how to convert some of those followers to Facebook Page likes, too (only 5,000 there now). I know you have a social media strategy and do better than most in the wine business but a bit more wood behind this arrow would pay off handsomely at the very least in positive word of mouth.
Embrace Video - Unlike a lot of winery owners you have a rich story to tell with passion and nuance. Use video to get more of your story onto the social web to get some of those Milleninals exposed to your brand. You are sort of dabbling at this now; commit to a regular schedule.
Open A Bay Area Tasting Room - Hate to say it but Santa Cruz is kind of out of the way for many to get exposed to Bonny Doon wines. I’d take my hospitality closer to the customer and look for a space in San Francisco (SoMa, Dogpatch, Haight, etc.).
Ditch That Flash Website - I mean it’s 2012 and a lot of folks have iPads. All of that cute animation can be done in HTML 5.
Spruce Up The Wines - This is the least important on the list but one that deserves some consideration. I have to admit aside from the occasional bottle of Le Cigare Volant I have not tasted through your lineup in a while but a peek at CellarTracker reveals some improvement can be made. These days a $25 wine better taste like a $35 or $40 wine or people will buy alternatives that over-perform their price point.
When I first got started on Twitter I had high hopes of posting frequent reviews there but it never really worked out. It was partially due to the 140 character limit but the transient nature of the medium ultimately kept me only reviewing wines there as part of an organized Twitter live tasting.
But with Pinterest, I think I have found the perfect place to post reviews directly from my log. Each will be linked to the winery ecommerce shop when available. For now I’ll be posting a couple of reviews each day until I reach the end of my tasting log for wines I liked. Some of these might be covered again here as part of full review but you can see my raw notes on Pinterest first.
And you don’t have to be on Pinterest to see the notes, just click on the link below.
This is my fifth time hosting Wine Blogging Wednesday, our monthly virtual tasting event, but my enthusiasm has not diminished with the passage of time. In fact, since bringing back the event from hiatus it looks like the idea might be picking up some steam judging from the entires this month. While many of the bloggers are new, some of the WBW stalwarts from the past also returned.
Another early entry was posted by Jasmine at the Knitting 40 shades of green blog. It’s aways good to see a new perspective from outside the wine blog circle on WBW and Jasmine did not disappoint with a nice review of Barboursville Brut ($17) from Virginia.
Alleigh from A Glass After Work was the second to blog a sparkler from Gruet Winery, their non-vintage Brut ($14). From her review it looks like this will not be the last bottle from this reliable New Mexico producer.
Wine Blogging Wednesday founder Lenn Thompson from New York Cork Report was next with a review of Happy Bitch Wines “Happy Bitch” NV Rose ($12.50). This wine is a blend of 50% Pinot Noir and 50% Chardonnay from the Finger Lakes region of New York with a bit of sparkle added.
Next to post was Xandria from the BrixChicks blog, the first of three there (thanks Ladies!). She selected a Jean-Louis Denois Brut “Tradition” ($15) from France’s Languedoc. From her review, this K&L exclusive seems like a no-brainer for Bay Area or online value seekers.
Girl Meets Glass was next with Fleuraison Blanc de Blancs ($12). Made from Spanish base wine, it is trucked north to the Languedoc where secondary fermentation and bottling takes place. The resulting wine is delicate and might be best used for sparkling wine cocktails.
Next was Bob at 2001 Bottles – A Wine Odyssey who posted a lengthy article covering the non-vintage Evans & Tate “Zamphire” ($21) from Australia and 8th Generation “Confidence” 2010 ($22.50) from Canada’s British Columbia province. While both wines used the bulk process to add the bubbles, BC’s Confidence proved the winner in the flavor department.
Lisa from Wine Muse was next with Pizzini Brachetto 2010 ($17) a Muscato-like sparkler made from the Brachetto grape in the state of Victoria in Australia. The off-dry frizzante-style rose was a hit.
Liza from BrixChicks posted a review of the reliable Napa Valley sparkling wine from Mumm, their Napa Cuvee M ($18). The wine is another winner from this respected Champagne house who has been making sparkling wine in California for 26 years.
Thea from Luscious Lushes was next with a trio of sparklers from California and New Zealand. First up was Trader Joe’s non-vintage North Coast Sparkling Wine ($10) which sounded pretty nice for the price. Next she reviewed the reliable sparking standby from Roederer Estate ($17). And finally tasted Quartz Reef Method Traditionalle NV ($22) from New Zealand. Going for extra credit, Thea blogs another 3 wines in the honorable mention category from Mumm Napa ($15), Gruet ($14) and Gloria Ferrer ($16).
My post was next with another Trader Joe’s exclusive their Albero Brut Cava ($8) which I though was a good crowd pleaser for any celebration.
Posting on Wine Blogging Thursday was Gwendolyn from Wine Predator with pairings of 4 wines with various dishes. Although all the wines seemed to work with their dishes, the Trader Joe’s Blason du Bourgogne Brut Rose, Cremant de Bourgogne ($12) seemed like best wine of the quartet.
So that concludes the seventy-fourth edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday. Overall, 19 bloggers tasted 39 wines from 8 countries. With only a few repeats there are over 30 solid choices for everyday sparkling wine.
Next month look for Joe from 1WineDude to take Wine Blogging Wednesday in a totally different direction which he will announce early next week.
WBW 74 by the numbers
Bloggers: 19
Wines Tasted: 39
Countries Represented: 8
Least Expensive: $8 – Albero Brut Cava
Most Expensive: $22.50 – 8th Generation “Confidence” 2010
There was a news item last week that got me started on a long-ish post about who really determines wine styles; critics, winemakers or consumers. Long post short, I think ultimately consumers determine wine styles but it takes a bit of time for the industry to respond.
That’s what makes this Decanter story so interesting. Not only do consumers in the U.S. and Europe prefer lower alcohol wines but in China, “…91% of drinkers saying their desired level would be 8.5-10.5% by volume.”
There is no doubt China will play a very large role in the international wine trade and their influence is already noticeable in some sectors. Will this lead to lower alcohol wines? I think it will.
The alcohol content of wine is the major priority of wine drinkers across three continents, new research shows. In research commissioned by German wine trade fair Prowein, analysts Wine Intelligence canvassed 1000 regular wine drinkers in the US, China, Germany and the UK.
Sparkling wine is thought of by most American’s as a luxury to be consumed on special occasions like weddings, graduations and New Year’s eve parties. And that’s a shame since sparkling wine is so versatile at the table, pairing with a wide variety of food, made all over the world and available at every price point. Perhaps it’s just too difficult for most wine consumers to get their heads around this wine as the best examples tend to be delicate and acidic with yeasty minerality that takes some getting used to. But the rewards are worth the effort to really get to know, and love, sparkling wine as it brightens up even the most challenging day.
This is the 5th time I’ve hosted Wine Blogging Wednesday and I’d like to write my theme was calculated to take advantage of the bubbly consumed yesterday for Valentine’s Day. It actually had more to do with my desire to find some new values in sparkling wine to enjoy this spring and summer where I intend to drink (and blog) a bottle each week. I chose the $25 price point to keep the wine selections inclusive of the entire world knowing this might be a challenge, but doable, even in Champagne. But it was the under $10 price point that most interested me since this means “everyday” to most of us.
So my search took me to Trader Joe’s, the value grocery store that has a reputation as a decent place to find wine values. While TJ’s might not deliver great wine values since they became the house of Two Buck Chuck, their sparking wine selection is still pretty solid. So after looking at their Crement de Bourgogne choices I have had, and enjoyed before, I picked up a Cava for just $7.99 as my choice tonight.
Albero Brut Cava ($8) is an exclusive of Trader Joe’s here in the U.S. made by Bogedas Iranzo, the oldest Spanish winery dating back some 677 years. Before you think Christoper Columbus drank sparkling wine from this estate, a quick aside to the history of bubbly.
Although wine with bubbles has existed since antiquity as a by-product of fermentation, it was only until glass blowing technology could withstand the pressure in the bottle before this style really emerged. Counter to the legend that this wine emerged in Champagne from the cellar of monk Dom Pérignon, sparkling wine was actually first made on purpose in Italy in 1622. But it was glass blowing technology developed in England in 1662 that made this country the true founder of sparkling wine almost 80 years before Dom Pérignon first drank “stars”.
Cava is the name given to sparkling wine made in Spain. It mostly comes from the Penedès region in Catalonia, just south of Barcelona. Like in Champagne only certain grapes are allowed in Cava but until recently these have only been native Spanish varieties. Keeping it old school, the Albero Brut Cava is a blend of Macabeo, Parellada and Xarel-lo.
The wine is golden straw color with a medium bead of fine bubbles that dissipate quickly in the glass. It has green apple, stone and baking bread aromas. Bright apple and citrus flavors finishing dry with hint of minerality and nice acidity on the finish. A nice crowd pleasing sparkler at a good price.
11.5% ABV
Natural cork closure Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Thanks go to Wine Blogging Wednesday founder Lenn Thompson for asking me to host again. I’m looking forward to next month already.
This week stories about the 10 year anniversary of Charles Shaw wines began to hit the news. If there is a single wine brand I get asked about by people not into wine, it’s this Trader Joe’s success story. The funny thing is the story of Charles Shaw started over 35 years ago but few have written about it. Look around on the web a bit and you can piece together a tale of a man of vision who made well regarded wines in Napa Valley only to lose his winery and brand. In the end, however, Shaw returns to winemaking in an unlikely appellation. This is his story.
Photo via Napa Valley Wine Blog
Charles and Lucy Shaw settled in St. Helena in 1974 returning from France where he became fascinated with the production of Beaujolais using the whole cluster fermentation method. Back in those days, the Napa Valley was a vastly different place than it is now with perhaps 50 wineries in the appellation (today there are over 450). Like other new winery owners of this era, Shaw and his wife bought land and planted a vineyard just outside of St. Helena in the middle of Napa Valley. In all, Shaw farmed 70 acres of vines with the majority on the valley floor and about 20 acres on Howell Mountain. Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Gamay were produced garnering accolades for quality.
While the winery made other varieties, it was Gamay and Sauvignon Blanc that were the lynchpins of the Shaw lineup when they opened the winery in 1979. Shaw had developed a love for Gamay while in France, particularly the nouveau style made by carbonic maceration or whole berry fermentation. This technique was not used in California in the 1970′s so Shaw was a pioneer in it’s practice. Beaujolais has always flown under the radar with American consumers and continues to be amoung the best values coming out of France today even with unfavorable exchange rates. But their nouveau style, sold with great fanfare on the third Thursday in November, is viewed by most as a curiosity, others as a marketing stunt and a few as a joke. So hanging your hat on making Napa Valley Gamay Nouveau was not the best business plan. And while a more serious version of the wine was also made getting $8 a bottle proved to be a challenge when well respected Cru Beaujolais was selling for the same price or less. Consulting winemaker Ric Forman, who helped craft the style of Charles Shaw Gamay, summed it up later, “It was unfortunate that his idea didn’t work. It was the wrong product.”
Running a winery is a capital intensive business and by the late 1980′s the Charles Shaw Vineyard & Winery was under extreme financial pressure. These pressures took their toll on the Shaws’ marriage and in 1991 the two were in divorce court. Since Shaw’s wife’s inheritance was used to finance the winery she took over and Charles Shaw left the wine business with nothing more than hard won experience. A year later, Charles Shaw Vineyard & Winery filed Chapter 11 and was eventually sold off in pieces to pay creditors.
This is when the story of Charles Shaw, the Trader Joe’s wine brand, began. Fred Franzia of Bronco Wine Company based in California’s Central Valley purchased the brand name for a reported $18,000 in the early 1990′s. This is not uncommon in the wine business where wine brands with good reputations are purchased and revived later with bulk wines vastly different from their first incarnations. It is unclear why Franzia sat on this brand for a decade before reviving it for Trader Joe’s in 2001.
There are a number of urban legends about Charles Shaw wines that date from the first limited releases in 2001 and 2002. The first anomaly was the 1999, 2000 and 2001 vintages were nearly simultaneously released and quickly sold out. Rumors of fire sales due to airlines selling off stock after September 11 when corkscrews were banned made the rounds. A nasty divorce forced the liquidation at a loss was another story; somewhat closer to the truth but a decade too late for 1999 vintage wines to be sold. The true story is one of wine economics where a huge wine glut created an opportunity in the bulk market that Fred Franzia exploited.
The initial releases of Charles Shaw wines created a sort of reverse wine snob cult. I remember hearing stories from friends in Southern California of people showing up at Trader Joe’s, buying a bottle of each variety in stock and immediately tasting each in the parking lot before buying what they liked by the case. In those days Trader Joe’s had some fairly drinkable private label wines but it was their branded wines sold at closeout prices that were the real values. I once bought some Ridge Merlot at $4.99 a bottle when we lived in LA in the early 1980′s that was an extremely good value. So the use of the Charles Shaw label and not Trader Joe’s was a stroke of wine marketing genius. And from memory the first vintages of Charles Shaw were actually pretty good, most likely the result of savvy bulk wine purchases and good blending. Today the wines are less exciting but certainly more consistent in style made from mostly Central Valley grapes Franzia grows or controls. Highly mechanized agriculture combined with highly mechanized winemaking keep cost low. Selling directly to Trader Joe’s also eliminates another cut of the profit which keeps the selling price at $1.99 or $2.99 a bottle depending on where you live in the U.S.
The result is over 50 million cases of Charles Shaw wines have been sold in the past 10 years. For many this is their everyday wine and while the wines are not very exciting to a lot of us wine geeks they are certainly almost always worth the price charged. And they have created a market for other extreme value brands such as Cameron Hughes and Castle Rock to bring vastly better wines at somewhat higher prices.
And Charles Shaw did get back in the wine business a few years ago making Riesling in Michigan under the Oerther Vineyard label. Let’s hope this venture works out better for him than his experience in Napa Valley.
It’s rare when network TV and wine come together but when it does I take a look. I’m not a regular viewer of Undercover Boss but might be after this episode at Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates. New President Rick Tigner works at the bottom of this organization and learns a lot. And he does the right thing after these experiences.
K-J is a very savvy marketing organization and in one episode really humanizes the brand. I think they will sell a lot of wine this week as a result.
Rick Tigner, President of Kendall- Jackson Wine Estates, causes a shutdown when he struggles to maintain pace on a bottling line, and is shocked by comments made by a delivery driver.
This podcast predates iTunes so when it started only a portion of my shows appeared on the feed. After I posted my latest podcast I decided it made sense to consolidate all the shows into the iTunes feed with all future podcasts published in mp3 format. Down the feed to Winecast 33 are enhanced AAC versions; below that are again mp3 files. All will play on your iPhone or iPod and many other devices.
So far 98 podcasts have been published with the 99th slated for next Sunday.
Winecast is a podcast aimed at promoting the enjoyment of wine for both beginning and more experienced wine lovers. Each show focuses on a wine variety, region or producer and provides listeners with background, tasting notes and related subjects.
This is the premier episode of This Month in Wine, a monthly discussion about what is going on within the wine world from a consumer and insider perspective.
Hosts: Tim Elliott and Jeff Lefevere
Topics
What’s up with Good Grape?
Is wine blogging on the decline?
Wine Trends & Predictions for 2012
Value Replaces Cheap
Wine Regulation Reform Continues
Sweet Wines Continue Growth
Blends Come Back in Vogue
Green Packaging Booms
Chinese Wine Market Continues To Show Influence
Recovery of Wine Market
Low Alcohol Wines
Natural Wines
Events
Wine Blogging Wednesday 74, Feb. 15th, Value Sparkling Wine
Dark & Delicious, February 17, 2012, Alameda, CA
San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition Public Tasting, February 18, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco
While searching for something else this week I came across this random video of an Italian blogger who did a short video interview with Michael Mondavi. Mr. Mondavi’s answer to a simple question about wine bloggers shows he really gets how we fit into the wine conversation. The best part is the last 10 seconds so I won’t spoil it. Worth a minute of your time.
One of the wine trends from 2011 is the rise of Champagne with American consumers up over 20% from 2010. Another trend was Moscato coming out of nowhere to become nearly an overnight success. This could be in part due to the charms of the lightly sparkling frizzante made from this grape in Italy.
Sparkling wine is one of the most versatile at the table with styles to pair with nearly every dish. From bone dry to sweet, single variety to blend, sparkling wine is something we should all drink more of. And it’s made all over the world using the classic process perfected in Champagne. In Germany it is known as Sekt, Spain calls it Cava, in Portugal it goes by Espumante, and in Italy Spumante covers a lot of ground. But great sparkling wine is also made in the New World with world class wines coming from California, New Mexico and Australia. I even hear some very nice sparkling wine is being made these days in England, the country who started the style back some 400 years ago.
So the theme of Wine Blogging Wednesday 74 is Value Sparkling Wine.
Just pick a sparkling wine from any appellation, made from any grape but make sure it sells for $25 or less a bottle (€20, £16). This should open up a lot of interesting selections, from Crémant de Bourgogne, to Cava, to California & New Mexico sparkling, sparkling Shiraz, to even well chosen grower Champagne. Just post your notes by February 15th and ping me @winecast on Twitter or email me with your link at winecast (at) gmail (dot) com. I’m hoping we can once again circle the virtual wagons and taste some great bubbly.
There was a good story in the Wall Street Journal recently about the rise of Muscat, the sweet white wine made all over the world but closely associated with Italy where it is called Moscato. Last year this grape took off growing nearly 80% in sales from the year before. Nobody in the wine business saw this coming and prices for Muscat grapes and wine have gone through the roof.
Have wine consumers switched from dry wines to sweet wines nearly overnight? Is this a sign of The Apocalypse?
Looking a bit deeper into the story there have been signs of consumer preference for sweeter wines. A decade ago tankers of Australian Shriaz with a slight addition of concentrate to add residual sugar weaned Americans off Coke and into wine. If you browse your local wine store or supermarket you will also notice more “sweet red” blends on the shelf than ever. And I’ve seen a rise in sweet Riesling lately as well.
One ray of light in Lettie Teague’s article is that, “The biggest audience for Moscato is the ‘Millennial’ generation between 21 and 30 years of age,” according to research from Gallo. Further, these new young consumers, “found their own way,” and were not converted by any marketing push for the grape. As I wrote earlier in the week, my wine journey started with Muscat when I was in my early 20′s. Once wine became a part of my life I wanted to learn more which led to other grapes like Gewürztraminer and Riesling. Eventually not all of these wines were sweet and I got into Chardonnay, and later, Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon.
I think Millennial consumers are just getting started with wine and will move past this sweet Muscat phase in a year or two. Until then we will see sweeter wines continue to grow as wineries jump on this trend. The sky isn’t falling; the wine market is expanding and for the first time the Millennial Generation is showing its impact.
I first found out about Wine Blogging Wednesday in late February of 2005 when Andrew from Spittoon sent me an email inviting me to participate in WBW 7. Back then the wine blogging world was a small group of sites and we frequently commented on each others posts and traded emails. I was intrigued with the idea of a monthly virtual wine tasting event and have participated in 46 of the 72 past events, hosting 4 times. This month’s host, the writer behind the Corkdork blog, has asked us to revisit the wine that first sparked our interest in wine.
My story starts in 1979 when I was in college. At only 19, I was under the legal drinking age in California where I was born and went to school but I spent summers in upstate New York where the drinking age was 18 at the time. Over the summers of 1979 and 1980 I tried just about every form of alcohol but settled mostly on beer as mixed drinks never appealed much too me and the wine I had locally was mostly from Taylor and not very appealing. Since I was summering in Rochester, New York just a short drive to the Finger Lakes AVA you might think it was this regions’ wines that sparked my interest first but, sadly, it was not. But my early experiences while in New York did plant the seeds that bore fruit when I turned 21 and was back in California.
After a couple years studying film at UC San Diego, I transferred to California State University at Chico. This was about a 3 hour drive to Napa Valley but as college students we had plenty of weekend time and my Datsun got very good gas mileage. We also heard wineries didn’t charge anything for tasting which fit our budget perfectly. So one Saturday not long after my 21st birthday in late 1981 my girlfriend and I drove to the Napa Valley to wine taste. Back in those days I knew nothing about wine. In fact, I was so ignorant that I mispronounced most of the grape varieties (Meer-lot, anyone?). It was with this lack of sophistication we ventured up Hwy 29 and pulled into our first winery. If memory serves this was the Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville where we not only got an interesting tour but a very informative guided tasting. And the wines tasted pretty good, too, particularly the whites (Mondavi Fumé Blanc is still a sentimental favorite). I also remember visits to Sutter Home (pre- “Home of white Zin” days) and Louis Martini on this first visit. We liked a lot of the wines with our favorite being the Sutter Home Muscat (now somewhat ironic given Muscat’s resurgence in popularity over the past year). Anything white and sweet filled the bill. Everyone starts someplace.
Months past and we revisited Napa Valley a few more times. As we gained a bit more knowledge and confidence we visited new and different wineries. One of these was Grgich Hills Cellar right off the main highway that runs north to south on the western side of Napa Valley. This was in early 1982 and the winery had only been open for 5 years. I remember entering the nondescript tasting room and tasting their Chardonnay. And while this wine was very good it was their Zinfandel that first sparked my interest in wine. Poured by a jovial man in a beret, the wine burst with red fruit on the nose and in the mouth finishing with supple tannins that seemed to melt like bittersweet chocolate. I had tried Zinfandel before but this wine was the first that truly spoke to me and compelled me to learn more about the variety. It was a couple years later that I figured out the man in the beret who poured me this Zinfandel was none other than winemaker Mike Grgich.
Four years later the second wine spark happened. By then I was working for Kodak and we had lived in Rochester, New York for a year and a half. This was the time I first discovered Finger Lakes Riesling and we spent many weekends tasting along the wine trails there. But it was not the local wines that produced this second spark but a well-known Napa Valley Cabernet. Over the previous 4 years I had read several wine books and had tasted a lot of wines. And while I still liked Zinfandel quite a bit drinking Lytton Springs vineyard as often as I could afford it, Cabernet Sauvignon was my latest obsession. I read all about the top Napa Valley Cabernets and drank Bordeaux as often as I could. I had received an award at work that was a gift certificate to a nice local restaurant with a very good wine list. I thought I might find a nice red Bordeaux to match with my prime rib as there were not a lot of California Cabernet on upstate New York wine lists even in the mid-1980′s.
So imagine my surprise when I saw Heitz Cellars Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet from the 1974 vintage on the list. And it was even available by the glass at the absurd price of $25 for a small pour ($52 in 2012 dollars according to WolframAlpha). It took me only a millisecond to order this glass since we were spending Kodak’s money and I couldn’t imagine ever seeing this wine by the glass again (I haven’t). And the wine didn’t disappoint. I still remember the aromas of mint and eucalyptus that this vineyard is known for along with tobacco and a pleasing earthiness. In the mouth this wine defined Napa Cab to my developing palate. Cassis, blackberry, and spices finishing long with great balance. I can’t remember the level of tannin but I think they were still settling down as the wine was only 12 years old at the time I tasted it.
I would have liked to have revisited one or both of these wines but I’m afraid the Heitz Cab is selling for $800 a bottle and I would bet the current vintage of Grgich Hills Zinfandel is vastly different than the 1978 or 1979 I tasted at the winery. But I don’t think this matters much as these wines live in my memory as turning points that made me want to learn more about wine. Eventually this led me to start this blog in order to have a place to send friends who were always asking about which wines to buy.
Without Wine Blogging Wednesday I probably would not have told this story. Thanks go to the Corkdork for hosting and for a great theme. A lot has changed in the nearly 7 years I have participated in Wine Blogging Wednesday but there is nothing like it. Hopefully this will again be a monthly feature here if we get enough bloggers participating.
Whatever sparked your deeper interest in wine, please join us on January 18th for the next edition of our monthly virtual tasting. All you need to do is post your thoughts and/or tasting notes somewhere online (your blog, Google+, Tumblr, Posterous) and let the host know. I hope we will find many great stories of wine enlightenment in the process.
I have written quite a bit here about Sideways, a rare film that somehow combines wine, humor and middle age crisis into an Academy Award winning package. But until recently I had no idea how close Sideways came from never being made. In a series of posts by author Rex Pickett over at the Stage 32 blog he recounts the twists, turns and luck required to get his book published and the film made. Five parts have been posted so far with the final post coming this Thursday.
This is really not a wine story but one of perseverance and the inner workings of Hollywood. But I find the story absolutely fascinating. It also appears this story might be told in a documentary film; I have embedded the spec trailer below. If you are a fan of Sideways, I suggest you check this series out.
View Channel
Not too long ago I drank quite a bit of Australian wine, particularly Shiraz. Given that this grape, also known as Syrah, expresses greatness in the Barossa Valley I could not pass an opportunity to revisit this region for this months’ Wine Blogging Wednesday. Our host, Adam from Wine Zag, 
That was until this past weekend when I saw someone mention the event on Twitter and decided to take action. The bottle in question is a 1989 Acacia Vineyard Carneros Brut sparkling wine “recently disgorged”. The recently disgorged style was developed by Bollenger in 1961 for their 1952 Bollinger Grande Année. The extra bottle age before the yeast is removed and the final 
Jeff Lefevere and I return to review the top wine stories of the past month including tongue-twisting wine names, a disturbing wine manifesto, trends in wine marketing, the stellar 2009 Bordeaux vintage and much more.
This is my fifth time hosting 
So my search took me to 
Sparkling wine is one of the most versatile at the table with styles to pair with nearly every dish. From bone dry to sweet, single variety to blend, sparkling wine is something we should all drink more of. And it’s made all over the world using the classic process perfected in Champagne. In Germany it is known as Sekt, Spain calls it Cava, in Portugal it goes by Espumante, and in Italy Spumante covers a lot of ground. But great sparkling wine is also made in the New World with world class wines coming from California, New Mexico and Australia. I even hear some very nice sparkling wine is being made these days in England, the country 
There was a 
Months past and we revisited Napa Valley a few more times. As we gained a bit more knowledge and confidence we visited new and different wineries. One of these was Grgich Hills Cellar right off the main highway that runs north to south on the western side of Napa Valley. This was in early 1982 and the winery had only been open for 5 years. I remember entering the nondescript tasting room and tasting their Chardonnay. And while this wine was very good it was their 
So imagine my surprise when I saw Heitz Cellars Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet from the 1974 vintage on the list. And it was even available by the glass at the absurd price of $25 for a small pour ($52 in 2012 dollars according to 