"We'll be in the Green Room."
I was walking along the sidewalk of a conspicuously calm street in downtown Wilmington, DE, chatting on my cell phone with Gino Razzi, the tireless force behind Penns Woods Winery. It was a Mid-Atlantic November Saturday, which meant intermittent cold rain, but I'd expected the streets to be busier. I was making my way to the swanky-but-elegant Hotel DuPont for lunch with Gino and this year's Brandywine Valley Vintners' dinner keynote speaker, Ravenswood founder Joel Peterson.
Despite the fact that I grew up in Wilmington, I did not feel at all at home.
I'd never been to the Green Room. And I hadn't strolled the streets of downtown for what felt like a dozen years.
I also wasn't a frequent interviewer of winemaking legends, either.
Joel Peterson started the now-ubiquitous Ravenswood back in the 1970s, back when the Internet was a gleam in the eye of military ARPANET developers, well before Sonoma was a winemaking force, and long before Zinfandel was considered the de facto varietal choice of patriotic, red-blooded Americans that it is today. It was hardly an overnight success ("either that, or it was a really long night" Joel told me): Joel maintained a second job to help make ends meet until the early 1990s. Ravenswood now produces in excess of 500,000 cases of wine per year, and its brand is nearly synonymous with budget-priced Zinfandel.
In other words, Joel Peterson is to Sonoma Zin what Robert Mondavi was to Napa Cab, or what David Lett was to Oregon Pinot Noir.
Which prompted my first question to Joel while we worked our way through our Green Room appetizers: Considering the recent spate of departed California wine legends, does he fear for his safety? A-la the ill-fated drummers in Spinal Tap?...
Joel (chuckling): "No... in fact I'm in some of the best health I've been in a long time."
Ice officially broken.
Or so I thought. That's when Joel began to ask me questions (hey, who's interview was this, anyway?), about how I came into the world of wine, and what the sources of my wine passions really were.
Uh-oh.
I was beginning to feel outflanked. And outclassed. Good thing Gino and Joel like to talk, and are conversationalists at heart - "If I could touch on some pertinent topics," I thought, "then I could let the veteran conversationalists take it from there and have some hope of holding my own here..."
Despite the penchant for jeans, plaid, and cowboy hats in his promotional photos, in person Joel comes off much more the scholar than the farmer - mild-mannered, approachable, and with no shortage of lessons from his experience in the wine world.
So pay attention. Maybe you'll learn something...
Of Rising Tides & Sinking Ships
Since Joel was in town to talk to Pennsylvania winemakers, I started off with questions about PA wine. Do PA wines need to get better across the board in order to change their perception in the marketplace? Does a rising tide actually lift all boats?
Joel: "A rising tide takes many forms. When I helped found ZAP (Zinfandel Advocates & Producers), we had maybe 50 people at out first tasting. We had about 10,000 people at our most recent tasting. We [Zinfandel producers] challenged each other in friendly ways, to see who could get the most recognition or the highest-scoring Zinfandel. But a rising tide also creates more boats, and it makes a bigger pond - there are 7,000 wine brands available to consumers right now, it will be exciting to see where the wine industry foes from here."
Gino: "You still may sink! I'm trying to get the group [of PA winemakers] to invest time and credibility in themselves."
Joel: "[In Sonoma] we had a personal recomendation kind of thing. Make it fun, make it friendly, get the wine off the pedestal and onto the table. It's a long - but not painful! - process, and you do it one person at a time."
Hmmm... sounds a lot like social media to me."A rising tide also creates more boats, and it makes a bigger pond - there are 7,000 wine brands available to consumers right now, it will be exciting to see where the wine industry foes from here."
On the State (get it?) of PA Wines
Speaking of PA wines - what did Joel think of them?
Joel: "They range from amateurish, to interesting, to very good. The problem is consistency - no one has broken through the threshold to consistently produce thought-provoking wine year on year.
There are a few tenets to grape-growing. Well-drained soils; a rootstock compatible with the soil; keeping the vine in balance with itself with low production; using trellising matched to the area and moisture; farming moderately and irrigating carefully (moisture in the soil and respiration of the vine are critical); choosing varietals that are resistant to the attacks that you have locally. That's the reason that Cabernet Franc has done well here, with their open clusters and thick skins. Mediterranean varietals could also do well here. I think mainstream grapes aren't as interesting anymore anyway - you have an opportunity to do something special here."
On the Amazing Ever-Shrinking Economy
Many wineries have told me that they're seeing a drop of nearly 20% due to the economic downturn. What's your perspective on the state of the 'wine economy'?
Joel: "The economy will change the scale and nature of wines. There's going to be less outlet for ultra-expensive cult wines made by those funding advances in technology, knowledge and equipment. We're seeing a shift back to less expensive wine. Drinking a $1,000 bottle of wine now will be a bit like fiddling while Rome burns..."
I admitted that my 'sweet spot' for finding excellent wine at a half-decent price was still the $30-$40 range, despite the economic downturn.
Joel: "Yeah, the $35-a-bottle range allows you to do more things as a winemaker: more expensive grapes, different crop levels, different oaks, etc."
"Drinking a $1,000 bottle of wine now will be a bit like fiddling while Rome burns..."
On Whether or Not CA Wine - or the Wine Business in General - is 'Played Out'
Joel: "No. It's a business model now as opposed to an experimental model. It forces you to be really conscious of your quality and your market in ways that you didn't have to before. Consolidation and Big Box stores are now significant players in getting wine out to people. It's created a whole employment policy and new jobs. It's created a whole subset of people who are spinning off into small side businesses, coming out of that secure existence and doing interesting, cutting edge things."
Such as...?
Joel: "They're reviving that individual way of winemaking. My son got little piece of Kick Ranch [editor's note: many WBC attendees may recall meeting Morgan Twain-Peterson and tasting his Bedrock wines), maybe 4 - 6 tons. And they have to figure out "What are we gonna do with this?" And they have a lot of knowledge, capability and experience already.
California wine continue to have high volume, good wines. Then, you'll have a "Burgundian effect" of small producers making really interesting wines with their own following. Some will survive, some won't. Some may become the next Mondavi. I talk to these guys a lot. Most don't expect to make a lot of money from it. They do it because they love it."
Hmmm... sounds a lot like blogging to me.
Joel: "I would have been a blogger had there been a blogosphere!"
Gino: "The position was created from the past success of wineries like Ravenswood. Your success left a space behind that small wineries are starting to fill. You left a footprint of experience and knowledge that they build on and then they add their own personalities to it."
Joel: "The miracle of the wine business now is that people are willing to experiment, and the system for communicating the results and changes are instantaneous. We never had that before in the history of winemaking."
Hmmm... sounds a lot like blogging to me.
I'm starting to wonder if we bloggers are here for a reason...
Cheers!
(images: startupstudio.com, englewoodwinemerchants.com, sugendran.net, fermentingthoughts.com)
The Burgundian Blogging Effect: Joel Peterson & The Future of Winemaking
"No Shortcuts": How Penns Woods is Reinventing Pennsylvania Wine From The Top Down
"No shortcuts - either you do it, or you don't do it. You either believe in yourself and commit to the idea to spare no expenses, or you close your doors."
Gino Razzi, owner and winemaker at Penns Woods Winery, drives his minivan in the same way that he makes his wines. In fact, he seems to do everything the same way that he makes his wines - which is to say, with a driving singularity of purpose.
Either it's done full on, or it's simply not done at all.
This was the primary thought running through my mind as I followed Gino from his winery and wine import business in Eddystone, PA (a stone's throw from Chester, which is sometimes Philly's equivalent of war-torn Beirut) to the idyllic setting of his vineyard and quaint tasting room in Chadds Ford.
It didn't help that Gino takes corners at speeds that would make Mario Andretti proud, or that I'd spent most of the morning tasting samples of the wines that Gino had in barrel (most notably his latest Chardonnay vintage, which, as he put it "might be the best wine I ever made... if I don't screw it up!").
I was first introduced to Gino and his wines via a wine pairing event at Teikoku restaurant near Philadelphia. Gino's Chardonnay blew me away at that event. What I tasted in barrel at the Penns Wood winery had even more promise. My curiosity at exactly how Gino was able to pull of wines of this caliber in PA - hell, for that matter, on the East Coast - led to me scheduling some time with him to discuss his winemaking mojo...
For anyone familiar with the perception of PA wines, it's hard to convey the extent to which Gino may be rewriting the rules of how wine is made here. His wines achieve levels of fruit extraction that have never been reached by some California producers, let alone anyone on the Right Coast. When I arrived at the winery, Gino was preparing for an upcoming tasting that would feature some of his top-end wines. For comparison, he had selected wines such as Chateau Angelus and Puligny-Montrachet. He was prepared to compare his wines with what some consider to be the world's best. Uhm... aren't we talking about wines made in Pennsylvania here?
This confidence isn't entirely a matter of hubris (or insanity, at least I don't think it's insanity). "I want to change people's perception of Pennsylvania wines," Gino told me. While he doesn't expect his wines to necessarily be better than the world's best, "I d0 expect to have [the tasters'] heads blown up when they taste my wine."
It's not that PA isn't without it's winemaking challenges: at 2,000 cases a year, Penns Woods can't break into a market run by an iron-fisted monopoly; with a short growing season, Gino needs vines that encourage quick phenolic ripeness to achieve good color and complexity - exactly the opposite of what most nurseries are providing for California.
The inconsistent continental PA climate doesn't always cooperate with fine winemaking, either. Gino's red Bordeaux style blend, Ameritage, won't be made this year due to the quality of the red grapes. "If you don't have the chicken, you ain't gonna make the soup," said Gino. (It's not all gloom and doom - the whites "are fabulous;" after some time in barrel, a low yielding Cabernet Franc is also looks promising.)
"No shortcuts - you either do it, or you don't do it."
No expense-spared winemaking is pretty much the only winemaking that Gino practices. Not surprisingly, his wines are pricey. "I've been told my wines are expensive - what do you want me to do? When I give something to the consumer, I need to say 'Hey, I did my best.' If it's no good, I won't put it out there."
And as I came to find out, Gino has pretty high standards for "good."
A stone's throw from the Philadelphia airport, Gino is pouring a significant investment into Penss Woods and its final bottlings. His corks run upwards of $2 ("your cork is your insurance policy"); he's installed a horizontal rotary fermenter that ensures controlled skin contact and maximum extraction (it's not cheap), and he donates a portion of the proceeds of every bottle sold. He has a near-obsession with cleanliness (which made me feel bad for his right-hand man, George, to whom Gino was passing cleaning task after cleaning task during my visit), which also doesn't help the bottom line. "I pay extra attention to the cleanliness," he told me. "Everything must be absolutely clean. A clean winery only hurts your pocket."
An immaculate, high-tech winery is one answer to the challenges of winemaking in PA, but Gino was quick to point out that he't not making 'Franken-wine': "There isn't one thing that makes your wine better. It's the adding up of little steps. There's no secret."
Gino's take on Go Big or Go Home winemaking probably came from his roots (ha-ha!) in Italy. Gino grew up around wine. He's from Abruzzi, a large area of wine production in southern Italy. "When I first came to the U.S. around 1971, you didn't find much Montepulciano," he told me. Smelling a potential fortune, Gino started importing the wine - and soon realized why there wasn't much Montepulciano to be found in the U.S. "It was so heavy and tough to drink. America loves sweets, and they like a softer mouthfeel." In other words, nobody bought it.
As Abruzzi evolved from a bulk producer to an area producing fine wines, Gino began importing the newer, easier-drinking wines, which sold enough to support his budding importing business. "I see similar parallels to Pennsylvania now and Abruzzi 30 years ago," he said. "It's a rougher industry. It was done by people with a lot of heart; their enthusiasm was bigger then the available knowledge. They didn't know what grapes to plant, or how to best make the wines. They did the most they could to learn -Eric Miller [winemaker at Chaddsford Winery] was the pioneer - there were no experts or viticulturists around to learn from."
Gino's introduction to Pennsylvania winemaking was not a positive one. "I was not convinced that it was possible to make good wine in Pennsylvania," he said. While consulting at a PA winery, Gino's opinion started to turn more favorable, and he wondered if PA had more to offer in the wine world than he'd originally thought. He called his friend, Italian eonologist Concezio Morulli, and invited him to PA for a motorcycle tour of the local vineyards."I was not convinced that it was possible to make good wine in Pennsylvania"
After seeing the prevalence of expensive (and locally inappropriate) Scott Henry trellis system used on the PA vines, Concezio wasn't impressed ("My God!" he told Gino, "how would you like to work everyday upside-down hanging by your feet!"). He didn't think much more of PA winemaking either, after tasting a few samples from the local wineries.
Undaunted, in 2002 Gino sent some PA grapes to Asti in Italy for analysis. The result? "They told me, 'the grapes are really good - go ahead and make wine out of them.'" Gino purchased grapes from Jan Waltz in Manheim, PA and crushed about 7 small lots. The resulting wine was "absolutely phenomenal." Gino blended Cabernet, Petite Verdot, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Carmenere, and Sangiovese - the Ameritage was born. When Smithbridge was ready to sell their 38 acres of Chadds Ford vineyard, Gino saw an opportunity to expand production and help recoup some of his ever-increasing costs.
Anyway, weren't we speeding on our way to Gino's vineyard? The picture there wasn't anywhere near as rosy as it was in the winery.
Gino is starting with a decent base - 30 year old vines, on much more PA-appropriate VSP trellising, planted in stony, clay and loam soil. "The stones are a pain," he said, "but they're great for the wine."
That's where the fun ends.
Previously, the vines were poorly maintained, planted too low to the ground (promoting fungal problems) and permitted to grow way, way too long. In some places, the vines are planted a staggering distance from each other in their rows. There is clearly still a lot of work to be done.
Gino and I strolled through the vineyard as the autumn chill started to take over in the air. We were picking and tasting what grapes remained on the vines - those that hadn't been harvested, or stolen by the birds, anyway. "It reminds me of when I was seven years old," he said with a smile, "going through the vineyards in Italy after the leaves fell, looking for the leftover grapes."
The taste difference between the clusters on the lower portions of the vine and those at the top (called "Seconds") was staggering. The fruit on top was clearly under-ripe, in stark contrast to the sweet, luscious berries closer to the ground. "I told the guys at harvest, anything above the third wire, don't pick it. Look! Not even the birds want the ones on top!" exclaimed Gino as he tossed a small cluster onto the ground. "Can you imagine if I put it into my wine?"
When you get three barrels of wine from thirteen rows of Chardonnay grapes, it's no wonder the wine is expensive. I asked if biodynamic practices might help the situation. Too risky, according to Gino - especially considering the unpredictable Mid-Atlantic weather - and there's too much work to be done in the vineyard before considering a big change in farming technique.
For now, there is much mojo in Gino's wines (the upcoming whites especially, which have tropical fruit notes and good minerality), even if there isn't too much mojo in the vineyard. Drinking Penns Woods Amertiage, it's easy to appreciate the expense and effort that's going into each bottle.
Whether or not the rest of the winemakers in PA, or on the East Coast, will be able to consistently rise above their vineyard challenges and rally behind Gino's vision of no holes barred premium winemaking... well, we'll just have to sip, wait, and see.
Cheers!
(images: 1WineDude.com)
"A Sense of Urgency": The Reinvention of Opus One from the Ground Up
"Every living thing at Opus One, whether it be person or grape vine, needs to have a sense of urgency."
It was yet another gorgeous, sun-filled day in Oakville, the fog having completely burned off, the sunshine making quick work of the remnants of the previous evening's chill still present in the air. I was trying very hard not to hate everyone who lived in the area. I'd also not had adequate time to absorb enough caffeine to put myself in an appropriate (aka "sane") state of mind - my appointment with Opus One began at 9:30 AM. That's, like, what, three hours before I should be awake when in CA after a night of "extreme" wine tasting ?
Michael Silacci, Opus One's winemaker since 2004, was addressing a small group standing in the vineyard lots adjacent to the famed winery building that, from highway 29 either looks like a temple to modern viniculture, or an invading spacecraft (depending on your point of view of Opus' wines). Dressed in jeans and a fleece, he was obviously feeling at home in the vineyard. I think he'd probably had more coffee than me.
I was on a 'technical tour' of Opus, with a group that included winemakers and interns from local wineries (Harlan, and Tandem), representatives from winemaking properties in Argetina, France's Medoc, and Australia, and little old me (at the invitation of Roger Asleson, Opus' Director of PR). Roger had previously extended an invitation to tour the winery, and "drill down to another level of detail to show what we’ve been working on in the vineyards and in the cellar for the last several years."...
Full disclosure: I've long been a fan of Opus' wines. But even for hard-core fans there is no escaping the criticism that Opus has, at times, under-delivered for their price-point. In my experience, this negative perception is driven primarily by two factors:
1) Disappointingly inconsistent `98, `99, and 2000 offerings, produced during a time when their previous winemaker "wasn't as present" (according to some of the Opus staff) - while those same wines remained expensive enough to be out of reach for many wine consumers.
2) Opus' uncanny ability to receive rating scores in the low 90s from the establisheed wine magazines, prompting consumers to wonder why they should pay twice the amount for Opus than for higher-scoring, neighboring Napa wines....even for hard-core fans there is no escaping the criticism that Opus has, at times, under-delivered for their price-point...
Standing outside of the winery, my thoughts moving slowly from coffee to the possibility of a wine tasting, someone in our group asked Michael about the appropriate level of winemaker involvement in the vineyard. Michael squinted in the early afternoon sun, holding his hands above his eyes to block the growing potency of the incoming rays. "The best thing that you can put in a vineyard is your own two feet," he answered. "We spend a lot of time in the vineyard. We have people here who do both viticulture and viniculture."
Maybe things were a little different around here.
Another difference at Opus that would have been blatantly obvious to even the casual observer: some of the vineyard plots were completely empty; others were nursing young, small, and fragile new vines. According to Roger, Opus is embarking on a 25 year program to "replant nearly the entire vineyard."
If Opus is trying to reinvent itself, it's doing it literally from the ground up.
After finding himself with a glut of interns, Michael put them to good use, evaluating and scoring 266,000 vines in all four parcels of Opus' estate vineyards, and creating a digital map of vine health. The results spurred the redevelopment program, the data and helped to gain the buy-in of the program from the shareholders. The vine pruning is now all Guyot, and kept fairly low to the ground, to better control vigor and discourage carbohydrate storage. "The vines are becoming more resilient, and I've noticed a difference in the texture already," said Michael.
"Every living thing at Opus One, whether it be person or grape vine, needs to have a sense of urgency."
More vineyard changes are afoot, but less obvious than the above ground replantings. Vine nursery quality control systems have been put in place, as has a redesigned water management system better suited to the gravelly veins that span out under Opus' vineyard soil towards the Napa river. In the brightening sun illuminating the young vines, Michael explained that the new system "encourages the roots to grow as quickly as they can and as deeply as they can."
A 25-year redesign commitment during an economic downturn? Isn't the stock market squarely in the toilet? Most CA wineries that I've talked to that have seen their fine wine sales drop upwards of 25 percent.
"We're not seeing a softening," Roger told me earlier that morning. "We still can't get Opus One to everyone that wants it. People are still 'lining up' for our wines, but the line is maybe half a block long, instead of being three blocks long."
Turns out this is due to yet another change at Opus, one that helps them get their wines to where the money is: over 30% of their sales are overseas, via négociants in Bordeaux who in turn sell Opus on the international markets. Using négociants avoids cannibalism between Opus' markets, and affords them more agility than most large wineries in distributing their wine to areas of stronger sales, better weathering the current stockmarket slide.
It was early, and I was low on coffee, but certainly thinking clearly enough to wonder: if your shareholders have approved a 25 year replanting program, and you're not hurting for cash, then what's with the sense of urgency?
"We went from relying on the team from Mondavi, and using their equipment, to having nothing - and having to put a team together quickly," said Michael. A bit of background: since the sale of Mondavi's wine holdings to Constellation Wine Brands in 2004, Opus One has had to do things differently. Things like buy new equipment, and make totally autonomous decisions in vineyard management, sales & marketing, and administration. It now seems Michael's personal mission is to keep momentum behind those changes, and reward individually accountability in the vineyard and the winery, without losing site of the vision established for Opus One by its founders.
Opus One's origin story is a tale now well-familiar to most California wine lovers. In 1978, the late Napa pioneer Robert Mondavi teamed up with the late Bordeaux iconoclast Baron Phillipe Rothschild (of Mouton-Rothschild, the only 1855 classified growth ever to get promoted to Premier status), to create a joint venture a stone's throw from Mondavi's winery in Oakville. The two men sealed the deal via a handshake in the Baron's office, which also happened to be the Baron's bedroom, where he did "90 percent of my business" (my kind of Baron!).
Their idea, Opus One, aimed to use New World fruit (and technology), balanced with Old World Bordeaux winemaking, to produce (according to Mondavi) a wine of "bottled poetry," made by "a vibrant business instiution designed to last a hundred years and more. We had only one criterion: The Best." Whether or not Opus One has lived up to that original aim is a matter of "love-to-hate-it" conjecture: a topic that well-off wine consumers love to debate ad nauseum, and pundits love to dismiss outright (even if they've never actually tasted the wine).
Fast-forward to 2004: Michael has been named winemaker, Opus One (along with the rest of the Mondavi wine empire) is part of Constellation Wine Brands, and Michael is sitting on jury duty, day-dreaming about how to raise engagement at the recently sold Oakville icon. It's long been known in the corporate world that higher engagement leads to higher quality products and better business results. And higher engagement starts with getting employees psyched about their day-to-day work. During his jury-duty day-dreaming, Michael decided to challenge the Opus One employees - all of them - in an interesting way: In an effort to encourage independent decision making and "cross pollination" of roles within Opus, small teams would be formed across all functions (including cellar & vineyard management, PR and accounting). Each team would be responsible for a small amount of wine - all aspects of that wine - from vine to glass. Decisions on every aspect of the vine and wine would be made by the teams themselves, not by Michael. Even though each team had only a small amount of vines under its remit, their total would potentially equate to a few hundred thousand dollars worth of wine at retail....Whether or not Opus One has lived up to Mondavi's original aim to be "The Best" is a matter of "love-to-hate-it" conjecture: a topic that well-off wine consumers love to debate, and pundits love to dismiss (even if they've never actually tasted the wine)...
How did the staff take it? "They're scared to death!" Roger told me. They've got a decent track record, though: so far, their lots have made it into the final blend of either Opus One or the estate's second wine, Overture.
"The more you challenge people, the greater they rise to the occasion," Michael told us while standing in the midst of Opus' large, engraved (and nearly spotless) tanks on the winery's ground floor. "What's the 'pectin' [in winemaking]? It's humans. People hold it all together." Renewed by their newfound sense of ownership, the staff's input has started to change other aspects of Opus' winemaking. "We went from racking based on a calendar to racking based on how the wine is developing" explained Michael.
Our group strolled along the outer edge the winery, where Michael showed us some of the new (and also engraved) harvesting equipment that Opus One had to procure when Mondavi was sold. About 60 percent of harvesting is now done at the ungodly hour of 3AM PT. Why would Michael torture Opus' vineyard workers in this way? "In the evening, the vine rehydrates, and that extra intake of water helps to dilute the sugars," resulting in lower alcohol levels for the finished wine. "It's also better for the cellar, since they have fruit at 8AM, right when they get in." At least the bleary-eyed harvesters are given hot chocolate, lattes, and coffee during the proceedings (now a harvest-time tradition at Opus)."We want to be around in fifty years, one hundred years..."
We worked our way out of the warn Northern CA sun and down into the grand chai, Opus' Rothschild-inspired barrel room. Michael likened it's semi-circular windowed view to a nursery, and the barrel-staining process (used to hide spots left over from barrel sampling) to a bib. "Let's go in and see our babies" he said as he led us into the chai.
Changes are afoot in that quiet, reverent space as well. To minimize the potential of bready off-aromas, lees wine is no longer used to stain the barrels. Wood rails were removed to cut down on moisture retention, and other anti-microbial actions are in progress. The barrel coopers (all 14 of them - "they're a part of our team" said Michael) are brought in at regular intervals for a complicated series of barrel sample tastings that help determine the best blend for the finished wine. Why all the complexity?
"We're constantly trying to fine-tune what we do," explained Michael. Extending the nursery analogy, Opus' all-French oak barrels are single-layered before racking, to maximize attention to the "babies" during the most formative first 8-9 months of their little lives. From there, it was onto the adjacent tasting room, to see if all of the attention, changes, and raised engagement actually make a difference where it most counts - in the wine.
Earlier in the day, sans coffee but buoyed by how pleasantly everyone treated me at Opus, I asked Roger Asleson how he felt about the perception that Opus One has underperformed. "We want to be around in fifty years, one hundred years," he answered. "The key is balance" - of the wine, of Napa with Paulliac, of providing approachable, excellent wine now and experimenting for the long term goal of being "one of the best wines in the world." While the current criticism is important to Opus, in terms of a 100-year timeline, "it's a blip on the radar." No questioning the Bordeaux influence in that statement...
In the underground tasting room, Michael poured the 2005 and 2004 vintages for our group to sample. Seated at the circular "reserve" tasting table, sipping the wine, the conversation naturally became more intimate. The group members asked Michael what he thought of the big wine magazine scores for these Opus vintages (both received 90 points in Wine Spectator).
"I don't make wine for scores," he answered, "I want to respect the vineyard. I'm looking for balance. I want people to imagine it's as if they're reading poetry."
When you don't differentiate based on scores, you can do it based on price point, which has been both the boon and the bane of Opus One since it released its first vintage for $50 a bottle (a then brazen amount)."I don't make wine for scores. I want to respect the vineyard. I'm looking for balance. I want people to imagine it's as if they're reading poetry."
At 25,000 cases, poetry can sometimes be difficult to pen. Balancing early approachability with long-term aging potential adds to the trickiness. My take on the tasting: it was almost like trying two entirely different wines. And both of them were very, very good.
The 2005 was the thicker of the two, all black plum and pepper at first, with mushroom and blueberries coming a few moments later. The mouthfeel was noticeably smoother than the 2004, the finish was long with an almost BBQ like char. After a few minutes, mint leaf was jumping out of the glass. Its acidic structure made it more approachable than the 2004 as well.
The `04 was classic CA Cab: currants, black tea leaves, plum, and a bit of french bread aroama floating on top (ok, maybe that last bit isn't exactly classic CA). The tannic structure was firm, as was the acidity, suggesting a long, long life ahead. The finish was ridiculously long - I think I can still taste it - with toffee and brandy notes. A few minutes later, black licorice took over. It's like an elegant eighteen wheeler (if there is such a thing) - a wine built for the long haul.
If poetry means being able to appreciate an effort as a work of art, with unfolding levels of complexity, returning to find new and interesting elements each time you revisit it, then I'd say these wines were pretty close to being poetic. Whether or not it's $160+ worth of being poetic will, undoubtedly, still be matter of "love-to-hate-it" conjecture.
I can hear the pundits debating it already...
Leveling too much criticism on Opus One based on price and magazine scores, rather than on experiencing the wine itself, might be missing the point. "We're not photographers, we're film makers," said Michael, referring to the winery's long-term view, which seems to be shared by everyone that I ran into at Opus.
Earlier that day, while touring the winery laboratory, the noises of various analysis equipment humming away in the background, we asked Michael if the current bio-dynamic craze might come to influence Opus. Turns out they are experimenting with bio-dynamics already, but are still looking for the right balance, using one of their best vineyard lots.
Experimenting on a prized lot? Isn't that a bit risky?
Michael seems easy going about the potential dangers, and I wondered if his laid back demeanor belied a more intense passion to drive changes at Opus, or at least hid the trepidation of having to convince shareholders that this kind of risk-taking is worth it. If it made him nervous, he sure didn't show it.
"If you don't put something at risk," he said, "you're not going to take it seriously."
For now, the risks seem to be paying off, for those who can still find - and afford - a bottle of his Oakville poetry.
Cheers!
(images: 1WineDude.com)
Who's Afraid of Big Bad Brett?
If you're talking Brett as in Brett Favre, then not me - I'm a Steelers fan, baby!
If you're talking Brett as in the yeast Brettanomyces, then that's a different story entirely. Lots of wine folks are scared of that puppy. And with pretty good reason - chances are that if you've ever had red wine, you've run into Brett. And unlike the Steelers rushing, hurrying and sacking the other big, bad Brett, when you run into brettanomyces, it's you that could be the one on the wrong side of that meeting...
The trouble with brett is that it's not all bad (although the jury is still out in the wine world on this one). In small enough amounts, brett creates compounds that potentially add interesting complexity to a wine, with smokey, spicy elements (yum!). Too much brett, and you have reduced fruit aromas, and wine reminiscent of medicine, Band-Aids, and stinky barnyards (yuck!)...
Like a boring dinner guest, brett is notoriously difficult to get rid of. (Crap, did I just end a sentence in a preposition?). It's been found lodged deep into the staves of new oak barrels (one of its favorite hideouts), to the point where no cleaning will ever get it out. And it can basically chill out in a dormant state for long periods of time until it finds food (in the wine) - and it doesn't need much food to get its party started.
What's a winemaker to do?
Well, there are plenty of cleaning techniques that help the situation, and some winemakers will carefully rack and test their wines at each stage of the winemaking process to minimize the impact of brett on their finished wines.
But there is something else that they can do to minimize brett. The trouble is, it goes against conventional marketing wisdom in the chase for high-scoring wines on the hundred-point wine scale!
They can harvest their grapes earlier.
According to a recent article on Sommelier Journal magazine, harvesting grapes earlier reduces the pH levels, which brett doesn't like. Lower pH levels also help to make anti-brett initiatives (like using sulfer dioxide) more effective.
The trouble is, if you harvest earlier, your grapes can't achieve the raisin-like ripeness and high alcohol extremes favored by some point-giving wine critics out there.
Just sayin'.
Reduce Band-Aid action, and increase the amount of lower-alcohol, elegant red wines available in the marketplace? Hmmm... I'm sooooo in on that, baby!
Cheers!
(images: maximumgrilledsteelers.com, vignaioli.it, jackstrawspizza.com)
A Pennsylvania (Wine) Revolution (Penns Woods Wine Tasting)
A shot has been fired in the world of Pennsylvania winemaking.
And it's a portent of a revolution in how wines are made in PA - and for that matter, how wines are made in all of the East Coast U.S. wine regions.
A bold statement? You bet. But I mean every word of it. And yes, I am totally sober as I write this (a condition I plan to remedy by sampling some heavy reds later this evening).
And if you taste some of the wines from Penns Woods, the brainchild of Italian winemaker and importer Gino Razzi, you might end up agreeing with me.
I had the pleasure of meeting Gino and sampling his wines during a recent first-rate tasting event at Teikoku Restaurant. Now, before you write me off as having gotten wined & dined so that I would waste several minutes of your life with a recap of a drunken Penns Woods love-fest, you need to know that I did not care for all of Gino's wines.
At worst, Gino's wines were over-manipulated, over extracted, Parker-point-chasing fruit bombs (2005 Merlot Reserve); or, just plain unnecessary (2006 White Cabernet, a rose that somehow kept astringency without offering much in the way of fruity goodness).
But at their best... Gino's wines are nothing short of the opening salvo in a PA wine revolution. A shot that is sure to have reverberations felt as far away as VA, Long Island, or wherever quality wines are trying to be made in the U.S. right coast.
Because at their best - most notably the 2007 Chardonnay - Gino's wines are that good. Not "good, for a Pennsylvania wine" good. They are "stand up to any U.S.-made wine" good...
While I'd been interested in trying Gino's wines ever since I read Craig LeBan's enthusiastic review of Penns Woods, I wasn't expecting any miracles. We're talking about PA, after all, whose future seemed to best lie in unique expressions of Cabernet Franc and the brambly Chambourcin. When I saw that the dinner at Teikoku was being prepared by Iron Chef Takao Iinuma (pictured, left), and was bookended by Wakatake Daiginjo Onikoroshi sake and gelato covered in 50+ year old Modena balsamic vinegar made from trebbiano grapes that goes for well over $40 / ounce, as far as I was concerned if the accompanying Penns Woods wines were any good, it would simply be a bonus.A shot has been fired in the world of Pennsylvania winemaking. And it's a portent of a revolution in how wines are made in PA - and for that matter, how wines are made in all of the East Coast U.S. wine regions.
I'd expected a quiet spot in the corner where I would be able to take a few tasting notes. Instead, I was given the honor of sharing the winemaker's table with Gino, wine guru John McNulty, consultant Heather Wright of Cellar Door Imports, West Chester foodie Mary of WC Dish fame, and talented WC Dish photographer Sugendran Ganess, among others. One of the best things about sharing a wine event with a crowd that irrepressible (outside of the fun factor), is that it saves me from having to be irrepressible myself, and afforded me a few moments to reflect on Gino's wines - which through the course of the dinner were wowing me nearly as much as the food.
As soon as I had a whiff of the 2006 Sauvignon Blanc, I was almost speechless. Sure, it has some of that PA 'grit'; but this wine delivered an improbable amount of citrus fruit. I scratched my head... did these grapes honestly ripen in southeastern PA?
When Gino decided to make wine in PA, he told us, he sent some of his grapes to trusted associates for examination. The news Gino received back was that he should go ahead and make wines with his PA grapes, because they had levels equal to the quality of the grapes that produce his high-scoring Italian-made montepulciano d'Abruzzo.
I was brought down by the Merlot. It tasted of raisins and the varietal character felt masked - overdone and over extracted, I thought. And then it hit me again - how the hell did he get so much fruit out of these wines? No one in PA has been able to do that since, well... ever.When Gino decided to make wine in PA, he told us, he sent some of his grapes to trusted associates for examination. The news Gino received back was that he should go ahead and make wines with his PA grapes, because they had levels equal to the quality of the grapes that produce his high-scoring Italian-made montepulciano d'Abruzzo.
The two wines that really drove things home for me were the Ameritage red blend and the Chardonnay. According to Gino, year on year he may not have any idea exactly what grapes will go into his Ameritage, but year on year "I promise you, that wine will be good." And he delivers. Was it a tad manipulated? Yes. But it was also very, very good, at par with (or better than) similarly-priced red blends I've had from CA, WA, and southern France. The hint of nebbiolo gave a small, delicate polish aroma to the wine that countered the intense fruit nicely. Nebbiolo? In Pennsylvania?? Is this guy nuts?!?
Gino was insistent that there was no secret to his approach: he wants to make world-class wines in PA, and he has invested the capital (physical and mental) to do so. He uses expensive, ultra-modern equipment to extract the maximum amount of fruit from his grapes. He hires consultants that charge more for a few vineyard visits than most PA winemakers clear in an entire year of doing business. And he uses new (= very expensive) French oak barrels to impart complexity to his wines.
The shining result of this work is the 2007 Penns Woods Chardonnay. John McNulty (pictured, far right, with Gino and the Dude) introduced this wine as "a home run." My tasting notes for the Chardonnay have two words that really stood out when I went back to them to pen this article:
"A revelation."
This wine had tropical fruit, just the right amount of oak and creaminess, and was big - and I mean BIG - on the palate. It finished long and strong with minerals, almost like wet rocks. Tropical fruit? In Pennsylvania?? This was one of the best Chardonnays I'd had in the last three years outside of France. I was stunned. Maybe it's not as steely as a great Chablis, or as complex as a Montrachet, but it aims to kick no less ass than the French big boys.
A Revelation - for me, anyway. Actually, it's more like a Revolution.
The word is out, and if you want to hear it, just pick up a bottle of the Penns Woods Chardonnay, pour a glass, and listen to what that fine wine is telling you.
PA can make world-class wines.
It's now a fact - and if Penns Woods repeats this over multiple vintages it will be indisputable - and not just a dream of a few passionate individuals. Gino has fired a well-aimed first shot. Will any PA wineries return the volley? Time (and a good heap of venture capital) may tell...
Cheers!
(images: members.aol.comliv18thc, sugendran.net)
The Future of Small Wineries in America...?
Forbes.com ran an interesting (and sobering) article this week about the future of small to medium wineries in the U.S. (primarily CA, WA, & OR).
What this article says is that, due to the proliferation of wineries, wine brands, and distributors (5000+, 7000+, and 450+ respectively - in the U.S. alone), consolidation is inevitable. Throw in the escalating fight for retail shelf space (usually won by the largest players with the most retail muscle) and skyrocketing land value prices in those aforementioned states, and you have an industry almost ripe for the picking. According to the Forbes.com article, a recent study by Silicon Valley Bank estimates that over 1000 of wineries in those states may change ownership in the next 10 years.
This is not just a situation impacting the U.S. Global competition is creating large wine brand conglomerates with global reach. And rising land prices are certainly not unique to U.S. wine properties - just check out Noble Rot to see what land value and inheritance taxes are doing to the Bordeaux wine area prices, which eventually are driving smaller players out of the market (and ins some cases, out of their family properties) entirely.
With all of this going on, you'd think that Internet wine sales might help to level the playing field for these smaller players.
And you'd be wrong. Way wrong...
Why? Because antiquated wine shipping and alcohol sales laws, as well as unfair state licensing fees effectively prevent many smaller wineries from selling their products online.
Those wineries that do brave the insanity of interstate sales have a heady task in front of them - according to the Forbes.com article:"A winery shipping a single case to each state that allows direct sales (there are now 37) would have to submit 725 forms to conform with sales, excise and state income taxes."
That's not a joke.
This totally sucks, on two counts.
I've contacted the campaign centers for the presumptive 2008 U.S. Presidential nominees, Senators Obama and McCain, to find out where they stand on the issue of interstate commerce and wine sales.
So far, I've received nothing but canned responses... but I'll keep trying in the hopes that they answer, because for a geek like me this issue is part of the larger problem of archaic bureaucracy negatively impacting the economics of U.S. citizens. Watch this space...
Cheers!
(images: autocrisis.com, ecu.edu)
Hail to the King, Baby (Robert Mondavi 1913 - 2008)
Most of you reading this will have heard by now that Robert Mondavi, patriarch founder of the Robert Mondavi winery enterprise, died on Friday, May 16, at the age of 94.
By the time this article posts to the web, there will probably be hundreds of well-written obits. available on the Internet.
Most of them will talk about how Mondavi literally redefined the world of winemaking by taking his (at the time far-flung) vision of putting California on the map as a fine wine locale - and making it a reality.
Most of them will talk about his charitable giving, and focus in his later years on establishing vital centers for the progression of art, food, and wine, most of which is chronicled in the book Harvests of Joy.
But I don't think too many will venture into the Dark Side of Mondavi. How he squandered the family enterprise, for example, or how his lavish giving my have contributed to the downfall of his family-run business empire.
And you know what? That is totally okay by me.
Why?...
Because for every single thing that Mondavi screwed up, he did about one thousand things right.
Mondavi's place in the world wine lore of history would be solidified if he was remembered only for establishing one of the world's most successful wine businesses. But when you factor in that he literally conceived of - and then implemented - the modern CA wine industry, taught the U.S. how to make low-cost, high-volume wine of consistent quality, actually made friends with the French, and almost single-handedly introduced wine into the lexicon of the idea of "fine living" in the U.S., you have something else on your hands entirely.For every single thing that Mondavi screwed up, he did about one thousand things right.
You have a veritable doer of great deeds.
A legend. A titan.
A King of the U.S. wine industry.
Oh, by the way, he did all of that stuff after he was 50 years old. You know, when most people have stopped working and have moved onto perfecting their golf games.
Is there a downside to all of this Kingliness? Sure.
Just as George Lucas' Star Wars changed movie-making forever for both good and bad, Mondavi's influence will forever be felt in the world of wine - both in making decent wine accessible to the masses, and in influencing the Parker-ized fruit bomb clones that currently flood the wine market.
Would you take that trade off? I certainly would.
Seems to me a small price to pay for the wine Kingdom of plenty that Mondavi was able to establish. Now, to the best of my knowledge I've never changed the world. But I imagine if I did, that I wouldn't necessarily be able to predict all of the minor negative ramifications of my good deeds. Can you fault the guy for not being a clairvoyant on top of being the King?It's never too late to do great things.
The chasing of Parker scores is peanuts worth of collateral damage compared to that.
If I had to boil it down, I'd say that the Mondavi era hasn't really taught me anything - at least, not anything I didn't already know from my experience with another "King" - King Lear.
In Shakespeare's Lear, the title character redeems his humanity - but only in the moments before his death at a very old age.
The lesson?
It's never too late to do great things.
All Kings die - even the ones that are larger-than-life. But great deeds? Well, those don't slip away quite so easily.
Hail to the King, baby!
Cheers!
(images: media.sacbee.com, nytimes.com, timeout.com, hd.org)
What Makes a Wine Great? Maybe Not What You Think!
What makes a wine great?
I don't mean great as in "pretty tasty, I like it, it's got a nice beat and I can dance to it" great.
I mean eye-popping, life-changing, "the heavens opened ancient mythology style" great.
That's a tough question, even for those of us in the wine biz, because so few of us have actually tasted a truly great wine.
I'm going to give you my view of what makes a wine great - and it's probably not what you'd think.
But before I do that, I need to set the record straight about how I think greatness is judged in the first place...
Winemaking is more art than science. If you disagree with me on this one, then I invite you to read my previous post on the subject.
If you still disagree with me, then you might want to skip the rest of this article entirely, because the rest of this post will be drawing parallels between winemaking and art. For those of you who couldn't stand art class, I apologize in advance!
Personal preference doesn't matter. I don't like pilsner beer. Does that mean that all pilsners are no good, or that they can never achieve greatness? I love the works of Picasso. Does that mean all of Picasso's art is great? When you stop to think about it, it's obvious that greatness has nothing to do with any one individual's personal preferences (not matter how highly that individual might regard his/her own opinion...).The light red wines of Medieval times would no doubt seem watery and insipid to our Parker-ized palates.
Collective preference does matter. The collective consciousness of a given society and its era in time does matter when it comes to greatness. This is borne out time and time again in 
art history - and in the annals of wine history as well. If you flip through the pages of Ancient Wine, or the superb Story of Wine, you will learn that the wine of the ancient Greeks and Romans likely would be too cloyingly sweet for our tastes today. The light red wines of Medieval times would no doubt have seemed watery and insipid to our Parker-ized palates. Times make the society; and societies make the collective decision on greatness.
Material matters - but not that much. Is a Picasso painting "greater" than a Picasso sculpture, just because the medium is different? Probably not. In wine, while some grapes (such as Concord) may never make truly great wine, it's pure folly to discount any one of the "noble" grape varieties when it comes to greatness - all of them are capable of making a great wine. Unless you mixed them altogether. That would probably suck.Is a Picasso painting "greater" than a Picasso sculpture, just because the medium is different?
Nature matters - and so does nurture. Old World winemakers will tell you that terroir - the nature and place from whence a grape came - is the determinant of whether or not the resulting wine can be great; the winemaker's job is to interfere as little as possible with the natural process. New World winemakers will tell you that it is trough savvy vineyard practices and the use of modern technology in the wine cellar that greatness is achieved. They're both right - start with a great pedigree, and finish with great care, and a wine may just achieve greatness.
So how can we measure a wine's "greatness?"
In The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil offers 5 criteria that can be used to determine if a wine is great. Her take is as good as any other, so I'll share a synopsis of it here:
Not a bad list at all. I think it's missing an important element, however. To me, the most important.
So I'd like to add something to Karen's fantastic list: Great wine is like great art, or a peaceful meditation, or even a great life lived to its potential with humility and true grace.
Great wine is a Mystery.
By mystery, I don't mean a problem to be rectified, a secret to be revealed, or a puzzle to be solved. I mean a Mystery like the seat of human consciousness in the brain, the origin of life, the feeling of love, and the nature of pure being.
Great wine is a true Mystery, because it is greater than the sum of its parts in a way that synthesizes our mental, physical, and spiritual selves; connecting us to ourselves, to each other, and to a place and time, and to the earth. The greater the wine, the less likely it is that any words will be capable of adequately describing the experience.Great wine is a tiny miracle of the universe that cannot ever be fully explained.
Now, before you all start sending me lava lamps, crystals, or patchouli, remember the words of Albert Einstein - "There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle."
Which one would you pick?
Cheers!
(images: winefront.com.au, clevelandart.org, restaurantlacaravella.com, macedonian-heritage.gr)
So You Want To Own Your Own Vineyard? (How to Be a Wine Geek, Part III: Winemaker Interview)
(images: delawaretoday.com, gophila.com, vinology.com, newdaleville.com)
"It is my life's work to identify and bring out colors, smells and flavors that not only typify my region but are also delicious." - Eric Miller, Chaddsford Winery
A few months ago, I started a mini-series of posts about how to become a 'wine geek' (see Part I and Part II for more background). This post is the (long overdue) third installment of that series.
The ultimate wine geek is probably the winemaker - what budding wine geek hasn't (at least for a minute or two) entertained the thought of growing their own grapes, and making and selling their own wine?
I went to the source to get an insight into what it's like to run your own winemaking operation. Following is a short interview with winemaker Eric Miller, proprietor of PA's most celebrated winery, Chaddsford.
I asked Eric to reflect on winemaking after celebrating Chaddsford's 25th year. The result is a fascinating look into what it really takes - passion, know-how, and a fair amount of luck - to make and sell your own wine...
From the point of view of an experienced Winemaker: what resources do you feel give wine lovers the most 'bang for their buck' as beginners just exploring wine, and then as more experienced wine consumers?
The best resources for a new wine drinker: avoid tight-assed views stuck on old world rules and regs. I teach a twice annual class on what wines taste like, the words to describe them with an international selction under the primary headings of: light fresh fruity dry (white annd red), light fresh fruity sweet (iIonly show a white), med to full body dry white, med to full body red usually a cab, pinot, syrah or shiraz, and a fortified sweet red like lbv porto.My suggestion would be to get the terms down in an environment like that. If that is not available just go to the myriad of shops that do tastings and begin to get vocabulary in tune with taste. If that is not available throw a series of parties and have a hell of a range of wines for friends and you to taste. The important thing is to taste like a banshee.
"There are few printed publications or blogs that are tuned to the beginning wine drinker, unless you want to begin with prejudice or excess info."Or if the new-be is really bold go as close to the source as you can. Winelovers like me will talk eagerly to someone truely interested. (you get a dozen newbes together and iI will speak). There are few printed publications or blogs that are tuned to the beginning wine drinker, unless you want to begin with prejudice or excess info.
What are the most essential resources for you as a Winemaker (excluding your own know-how and expertise)? I.e., the top 3 or 5 resources that you could not live without, and to which you find yourself returning on a regular basis?
What I do to learn is to formulate questions. That is so hard. Then what I do is put it on paper, see how it looks and put together a budget. Then I contact industry friends to see who is working on those topics and send my agenda. When the serious know someone is serious he or she will find time to chat.
To learn about the restaurant industry I read "restaurant wine review". To learn about production I scan "practical winemaker", "the american society of enology and viticulture" and "vineyard and winery management". To understand what it means I make a date with our enologist and she gets excited or answers and shuts me down. Or I call our state viticulturalist, and he either answers me or sends me on down the line. It is never easy.
After 25+ years of successful winemaking, what advice would you give to wine lovers that want to expand their knowledge of wine? What advice would you give to those that may want to someday enter the wine trade?
I do not have 25 years of succesful winemaking. I have 25 years of trials and some successes. I would say to those who want to learn wine to make the hard decisions about what they want: is it sales or production? One needs to know a bit about either but the disciplines require a life time to get good at. Especially in this varying east coast climate."Climate trumps all but judgment."
Here we are faced with climate change for most vintages and to produce wines typical of the region (and not colored by infections) the first critical thing is to know the effects of site, soil and climate on the development of non-terroir affectations. Climate trumps all but judgment. Being an east coast winemaker today is a commitment to research. I need to be bled dry of information by someone with a depth of technical understanding of the chemistry of our soils, the effects of our climate on what the vine uptakes and how a vineyard should be established so controls are limited. I have limited interest in how to sell. My simple mind says that in today's world of wines we have simple divisions. Superstars that have cult status to carry them, mass marketed products and regional wines with only local interest to carry them.
The future of a successful marketer is to move a lot of wine off the shelf. That's a matter of money and marketing. My future is as a local product with regional identity. It is my life's work to identify and bring out colors, smells and flavors that not only typify my region but are also delicious.
In the course of time I have made wines that a) do not taste like California wines or are from California, Australia, Italy or cost less than 12 bucks a bottle and so are rejected by a significant number of wine drinkers b) suck and I will never be forgiven or tried again c) are exemplary examples of this region and fit the wine-model of only the most broad-minded or uninitiated wine drinker.
"Any good winemaker, if you want my recommendations for someone thinking of getting into the biz, has gotta love delayed gratification. Be bold. And never, never, never, never never, never quit."What that means to those who want to sell wine might be to avoid anything that is new and not-yet-established. Or it might mean that those who see the next big thing will become recognized clairvoyants. How can i make recommendations?
I have been revising my thinking about how best to handle tannins and acidity and fruit character in terms of soil amendments and cultural practices and pressing and timing of malo-lactic fermentations and frankly my attention is gravitating to '08 and '09 releases and analysis of tissue and soils from this growing season in terms of the '08 vintage.
Any good east coast winemaker, if you want my recommendations for someone thinking of getting into the biz, has gotta love delayed gratification. Be bold. Find other winemakers who will talk and keep on trying. And to quote my new friend, Patrick Feury, and Winston Churchill - never, never, never, (Churchill has a tommy gun in this photo) never never, never quit.
How about you ask me the same questions in 10 years?
