Despite having the word "Year" in its title, this article is not another cheesy 2008 recap post. Especially considering that I don't need another one of those, since I've posted about 240 of them in the last several days. Or something like that, anyway.
I will not be recapping 2008 here, but I will be renaming 2008.
In terms of measuring wine blogging success, 2008 was The Year of Dr. Vino, a.k.a. Tyler Colman. Come to think of it, 2007 was nearly the Year of Dr. Vino as well, considering Tyler received a James Beard nod for his writing that year. So, basically Tyler is kicking all kinds of ass in the blogosphere, but what made 2008 the Year of Dr. Vino was Tyler's superbad onslaught (both on and) offline with the release of two (very good) printed books.
You would probably expect a PhD holder in Poli-Sci to be a decent writer, so it's no surprise that the books are well-written. What is surprising (to me, at least) was how accessible Tyler's books are for the novice wine aficionado, and how well his blog writing style, which consists primarily of short articles that focus heavily on interactivity with his readership, translates to his longer format works. Capturing that accessibility is not a skill that most of the academics that I know posses.
While Tyler can be a quiet voice online (case in point, how is there justice in the universe when my twitter account has more followers than Dr. Vino's??), he was all over traditional media in 2008: in addition to publishing two books, he could be found in the pages of major newspapers and wine mags, as well as on television. For example, Tyler is a semi-frequent guest on FOX Business, discussing the impact of the recent economic downturn on the purchase of luxury items like Champagne (see inset pic for how I might have handled this situation if I were Tyler).
This significance of this sort of credibility (not to mention shrewd brand building) should not be overlooked. Tyler is quietly - and successfully - positioning himself as an erudite opera-goer to Gary Vanyerchuk's Joe 6-pack. Both are important, and both are signaling the establishment of a new breed of experts active in the field of wine appreciation.
I won't go into detail about Tyler's first book release, Wine Politics, because with a 9-month old baby that will start screaming to be fed at any moment, I simply don't have the time, except to say that it's a compelling work that those fascinated by wine should check out, especially considering how dependent the world of wine is (and has always been) on the world of politics.
I will say a bit more about Tyler's second book, however, A Year of Wine: Pairings, Great Buys, and What to Sip for Each Season, which Tyler sent to me several weeks ago, and which I've only recently gotten a chance to read (before you flame me for being lazy, remember: 9-month old!).
It's not that A Year of Wine presents novel information that has otherwise eluded many of the other excellent books for budding wine geeks already on the market. In fact, it doesn't really present anything totally new, even though it does have incredibly useful information (for example: how to successfully navigate the wine list when at an important business dinner for the first time).
The masterstroke is that A Year of Wine is a wine intro book penned by someone who has so garned so much credibility both on and offline. Put another way, Tyler speaks both Internet and brick-and-mortar.
While it can be enjoyed by just about anyone who is new to wine, A Year of Wine is probably best suited to those who already know what they like in their wine, but are looking to understand wine more fully and want a different approach then learning the basics and then exploring each region in order of importance / volume of production (which seems the typical layout for most wine reference material). A Year of Wine reflects Tyler's post-grad writing style, but might also appeal to a much younger audience (see pic below - though this author had to remove A Year of Wine from that reader, as she'd found it compelling enough to begin eating the pages).
Anyway, if I have a criticism to level at Tyler (and of course I do, because I'm incorrigible), aside from a distinct lack of overall mentions to 1WineDude.com on his blog, it's that Tyler needs to take his focus on interactivity with his blog readership and devote similar focus to his interaction within the community of online wine writers, retailers, and wineries. His voice is quiet within that space - it could benefit significantly from Tyler's wisdom and experience, and his penchant for keeping things honest. Tyler, we need ya here, man!
Cheers!
(images: amazon.com, foxnews.com)
A Year of Dr. Vino (A Book Review... Sort Of...)
Top 5 1WineDude Chateau Petrogasm Reviews of 2008
While I'm in the Cheesy End-of-Year recap mood (this is the last one on 2008, I swear), and enjoying the remainder of my holiday break with my family, I thought I'd offer up my Top 5 Chateau Petrogasm reviews of 2008.
If you're not familiar with the Chateau, you can read my take on their back story. If you love wine, you need to be checking out Chateau Petrogasm from time to time.
Anyway, here are my top picks from my 2008 CP submissions:
5) `97 Chateau Leoville Barton
This wine was so refined and pleasant, it reminded me of a stately butler with impeccable manners. Ok, so I'm weird.
4) `04 Titus Chardonnay
Oak, oak and more oak. And maybe some more oak thrown in for good measure.
3) `00 Chateau de Sales
Well, this one generated quite a stir. I swear that I did not intend to portray a mouse humping berries. And yet, as we used to say in undergrad English Lit, "the subtext is there, man!" What I was trying to portray was that there was some brett lurking in all that berry fruit and... ah, just forget it...
2) `00 lo Zoccolaio Single Estate Barolo
Nothing says sexy girl in a dark smokey bar quite like Barolo. At least, that's how I saw it, especially after drinking three glasses of said Barolo.
And my Number 1 pick from 2008:
1) `06 Yellowtail Shiraz/Grenache
This one also generated a lot of discussion. I won't tell you here what I thought about this wine, as a picture is, after all, worth a thousand words. But I will say that, when poured during a practice blind tasting I took for one of my WSET exams, I barely picked out that it was a Shiraz. Just sayin'...
Cheers!
(images: ChateauPetrogasm.com)
Looking Back on 2008: Days of Wine and (Sometimes Dead Black) Roses
As we begin 2009, and start the time-honored tradition of incorrectly dating the first few bank checks of the new year, I find that I sense a bit of a rant coming on.
And this coming just after I wrote about relying on gratitude and attention (a.k.a. mindfulness) to help you truly appreciate wine as an expression of art (both the wine itself, and your enjoyment of it, for what is a wine without someone to enjoy it but so much unfulfilled artistic potential?).
Shame on me.
But it will end with love. I promise.
I think there is another component to enjoying wine that needs to be added to those I outlined in the post linked above, and that component is Gumption.
You will need grit, spunk, guts, and determination to get past the detractors, nay-sayers, and general sourpusses that you may encounter along the way on your journey to wine appreciation. Don't kid yourself - they are out there, and they must have some stake in keeping the average Dude and Dudette from appreciating fine wine, because they take any and every opportunity they can to screw it up for you. They do this either by telling you that your opinion doesn't count, is naively misguided, or isn't worth a hill 'o beans because it doesn't conform to some arbitrary standards that they have set forth themsleves.
You really need to ignore these people. They are like an illness that infects your wine appreciation, and if left to fester can kill it outright. The kicker is that the world of wine is so full of wonderful, generous, and pleasurable people that it would be a shame to let a few bad apples spoil the bunch, as they say.
I mention this because I lived through it in 2008. Well over six months later, so-called pundits are still talking about the Rockaway non-incident (more on this - both background and aftermath - can be heard on WineBizRadio.com). The only thing I can offer at this point is this:
For those of us who are wine writers (and I include any serious wine bloggers in that company), we need to remember something - We write about wine. It's not that important, and neither are we.
No, really. I'm serious.
It's just wine, people - it is NOT saving someone from a burning building, curing a wasting disease, or landing a crippled airplane. We so need to get over ourselves...
Why on earth am I drumming this topic up again? It's just to show that whenever you put yourself out there, take a risk, or try something new, you will run the risk of people (usually the ones who haven't done anything themselves) putting you down.
The wine world is no exception. Happily, for every detractor in the wine world, there are at least 10 great people who will help you, share their knowledge with you, and cheer you on.
How do I know this?
I've spent the better part of 2008 trying to expand as much as possible my knowledge of wine, be it through winery visits, reviews and sampling of fine wines, seeking wine certifications, or just hanging out with great writers, contacts who have become real friends, or talking to movers & shakers in the wine world. In a word, it's been amazing.
So many great things have happened for me since I opened up my own personal world to the world of wine that it would be literally impossible for me to recap them in one blog post. My world is exponentially larger and more full of joy for having hit the wine road with almost reckless abandon. You don't need to bring a thing with you on this journey - plenty of people are willing and waiting to help you along your way.
I simply cannot imagine my life without my wife, my daughter, my music, and now my contacts in the world of wine. If that's not a testament to all of the wonderful people out there working in wine today, then I don't know what is.
And for that, I will always be deeply grateful for 2008 - warts and all!
Cheers!
(images: sunsetgun.typepad.com, dailyphotobutcherfortheworld.blogspot.com, polyvore.com)
Best Posts of 2008 (Yet Another Cheesy End of Year Recap!)
With 2009 breathing down onto our collective necks, I thought I'd offer up a recap of the best 10 1WD posts form 2008.
Sure, it's cheesy. But can I offer you a tangential reference to the movie Best of the Best 2, which was also cheesy but starred Eric Roberts and Wayne Newton? That's gotta count for something, right?
No? Crap... never mind...
The only qualifying factor for determining which posts are on this list is my own personal whimsy. New Year's is not a time for precise science. It's a time for getting giggly on some bubbly.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the recap, especially if you find articles here that you haven't perused before on 1WD.
And I wish you & yours a fantastic - and safe - start to 2009!
- Does This Wine Make Me Look Fat? (Part 1)
- Help! My Wife Only Drinks Bad Chardonnay! (3 Ways to Rescue Her from Wine Hell)
- 20 Things About Life I've Learned From Drinking Wine
- 5 Reasons Why Smoking Kills... Wine Appreciation
- 10 Free Wine Web Resources You Probably Aren't Using
- Stop Picking on Robert Parker (The Subjectivity of Wine Ratings)
- Why Wine 2.0 Isn't Quite Ready For Prime Time (Yet)
- A Turn on High Voltage Wines
- "No Shortcuts": How Penns Woods Is Reinventing PA Wine from the Top Down
- "A Sense of Urgency": The Reinvention of Opus One from the Ground Up
(images: hornblowerholidays.com, imdb.com)
The Dude's Top 10 Most Interesting Wines of 2008
Sure, it's another cheesy end of year wrap-up post.
But you know what?
I dig these recaps - call it a guilty pleasure. It sure beats writing an entire new post and trying to come up with compelling content (hey, it's the end of the year... I'm tired, man!).
Actually, there was nothing easy about compiling the list that I'm about to give to you, and I'm sure the inclusions and omissions will piss some people off somewhere. That isn't my intention, and this is not a best-of list by any stretch of the imagination.
The following presents my Top 10 Most Interesting Wines of 2008.
It is NOT a list of the best wines released in 2008. It is a list of wines that I tasted in 2008, and found the most interesting this year. They are presented with a synopsis of my tasting notes, and my reflections on why they were included in the list. Some of them I bought, some of them were media samples, others were tasted at events. No one gets special treatment once the pen hits the notebook that logs my tastings.
The list is not based on scores or any other numerical rating. The wines were chosen based on my tasting notes from all of the wines that I tasted and recorded in 2008. Bear in mind that I am not employed as a wine critic, and I do not taste thousands of wines per year. I did, however, taste well over 400 wines in 2008, which I think is probably more than the average bear. I will leave it to you whether or not the Lush designation is applicable in this context (I did spit... sometimes... at least twice...).
What I'm hoping to do here is clue you into something unique, different, or of exceptional quality for the price - as I see it in the wine world. Hopefully you will find it useful. Anyway, without further ado, here they are...
10) 2006 Benton-Lane "First Class" Pinot Noir (Willamette Valley): Layers of strawberry jam, cherry cola & vanilla. Pure heaven with salmon cakes.
I agonized over the #10 spot in this list - as you can imagine, there were about 50 wines that could have gone into this first slot. I went with the Benton-Lane because,well, it surprised me. It surprised me in that it was one of the biggest, heftiest Willamette's I've had in terms of structure, but still managed to exude a definite sense of place. Balance, baby, balance.
9) 2005 Opus One (Oakville): Supple, hedonistic & built for long haul. Mint leaf & spices floating over black fruit suggest great things to come.
Was the inclusion of this wine a reflection on my tour of Opus this year, and my frank and detailed discussions with their staff? Well.... duh. Of course it is (despite the fact that one visiting intern thought that I was Gary Vaynerchuk... I had the same reaction as you: "Uhm... What?!!??").
And that's okay, because wine is an experience and is influenced by the circumstances under which we drink it. But this wine is no slouch, and it had one of the best senses of balance I've tasted in a long time - between Old World & New World styles, between primary fruit and secondary aromas, and between early accessibility & ageing potential.
8) 2002 Penns Woods Ameritage Reserve (PA): Bord'x style blend from PA. YES, IT'S FROM PA. Fig, prune, cedar, probably their best vintage ever.
Anyone following 1WD will NOT be surprised by the inclusion of this one. This wine, for me, helped to redefine not only what PA wine is capable of, but what East Coast wine is capable of, and how well some areas of the U.S. can implement an Old World style of wine.
7) 2004 Sonoma-Cutrer "Les Pierres" (Sonoma Valley): When isn't it a pleasure? Flint, lemon curd, citrus peel, roses, apples, cream. I could go on.
I'm including this wine in my list because I'm astounded at Sonoma-Cutrer's consistency. This is probably my favorite U.S. Chardonnay, and to date is still my favorite Chard. globally, and I'm actually more partial to the Chablis style so if you can figure that one out please explain it to me so I don't feel as though I'm going insane. Anyway, this wine has never disappointed me, and the `04 peels away layer after layer of complexity as you drink it.
6) 2001 Hugel Gewurztraminer Vendage Tardive (Alsace): Viscous, loads of citrus, lychee, & autumn leaves. Holy Hannah it's good! But not cheap.
As a wine geek, I like to think that I can appreciate a wine made for wine geeks. And this, my friends, is a wine geek's viscous dream. I have a sweet tooth, and while this wine certainly delivers in its touch of sweetness, the slam dunk is how the sweetness and acidity are balanced by the intense fruit and the funk-a-junk-funkiness. It's the kind of wine that makes some people say "Hmm... I'm not too sure about this one...," but has the wine geeks licking their lips in delight. Score!
5) 2003 Vinoptima Gewurztraminer (Ormond, NZ): Yowza! Oil, lemons, honey, orange blossoms, spice. I could sniff this stuff for *days*...!
You know that you're liking a wine when you realize, after 7 or 8 minutes of smelling it, that you love it but you've yet to even take your first sip. There is nothing shy about this Gewurz, and the only downside is that the booze might knock you out before you've gotten enough of this wine. Best dry Gewurz. I've tasted all year. And yes, that's two Gewurz's in a row. On purpose.
4) NV Laurent-Perrier Grand Siècle (Champagne): Like fresh-baked almond bread with honey. A minor triumph of grace & strength. Excellent stuff.
I tasted this wine at an industry event, and it stood out for me above dozens & dozens of other wines that I tasted that night. Powerful, but graceful as well, it's like... it's like seeing a tamed pet panther wearing a diamond-studded collar. You're not sure how they did it, but you're damn interested!
3) 2005 Le Premier Pas Domaine Le Pas de l'Escalette (Cot. du Languedoc): Harmonious blend of S. Rhone grapes. French red without the shackles.
What do you get when you lift the AOC burden of varietals, blend percentages, and vinification and viticulture techniques from French winemakers? In the case of this wine, you get as much creativity as any New World wine, with a deliciously well-integrated result. Hey! France!! Give Us Free!!!
2) 2005 Volta Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley): 1st vintage, limited run from Howell Mtn. fruit. Lush as all get-out, with lazer-focused tannins.
I have a soft-spot for Volta this year. They're fans of the blog. They're nice peeps. And I was the first to ever review their wine in the media. They've since gone on to accumulate an impressive array of accolades from palates much better and more influential than mine. And they deserve it, because this wine is a tour de force of just how good Howell Mountain fruit can be when you treat it right. To get it that right on the first try is quite an achievement.
And now... the #1 most interesting wine that I've tasted in 2008... (drumroll ensues)...
1) 1999 Gutzler Vintage Riesling Sekt Extra Brut (Rheinhessen): Stellar trad. method bubbly with peach, apricot, & non-stop creamy yeastiness.
No, it's not a typographical error. Yes, I did actually mean to list a sparkling German Riesling as my #1 most interesting wine tasted in 2008. Yes, I am sober as I type this.
No other wine in 2008 threw me for quite as high arcing of a loop as this one. What this wine did was prove to me beyond a doubt that Riesling is the noblest of all white wine grape varietals, with a purity of expression that, in the right hands, has the capacity to shine through in any format, whether it be dry, sweet, still, or bubbly. In the words of my main man Michael Broadbent:"German wine-lovers may place Riesling first, but I place it second (to Cabernet Sauvignon) in the hierarchy of noble grape varieties. Like Cabernet Sauvignon, it has consistent strength of character which shows through even after transplanting."
Number two, with a bullet!
There you have it. Now, back to my frantic holiday madness...
Cheers!
(images: 1WineDude.com, wineaccess.com, binendswine.com)
