Grape of the Day

I can't write about a grape today. I've seen too many live videos of what is going in Napa Valley wine country. I have friends there. These are people who work in wine country. Some are proprietors; others are simply wine lovers who work at wineries as operations people, tasting room hospitality people, or winemakers.  If you've been otherwise distracted from this news by other news, this has not to do with COVID or the election or sports -- some of the things that I have seen occupying the news. This is about people. California is wildfire country. In much of the state, the summers are dry to the point of frequently having no precipitation at all. While this is great for producing the big, bold wines that Napa Valley in particular is known for, it also makes the area prone to fires. And, because when those fires start, there is virtually nothing but flammable plant life and scattered buildings in the area, those fires spread. They spread quickly and dangerously. From a win...

Suppose you don't know what country you're in. Is that a problem? Let's ask a local where we are. We don't seem to be able to get an answer, at least not a consistent one.  We were told we were going to Nagorno-Karabakh. Great, we are there. But, where are we really? According to the rest of the world, we are in Azerbaijan. But, every person we talk to here says they are Armenian and they don't want anyone to think they are Azerbaijani. Stopping into what looks like a government building, we get a revelation. This area used to be known locally as the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, but now the Republic of Artsakh. While we are technically in Azerbaijan, we are told that the Azerbaijani government isn't particularly concerned about this mountainous area (Karabakh translates from Armenian as mountainous and yes, I had to look that one up) and they let the Aetsakh people self-govern. But, we are here today not only to learn about this disputed territory -- a land eit...

In the 1970s, the fourth largest producer of wine in the world was Bulgaria. Yet, almost nobody in the western world ever tasted it. Bulgaria was part of the so-called Soviet Bloc and it was the primary wine supplier to the former Soviet Union. Today, Bulgaria is not as prodigious a producer of wine, but the quality has improved.  Today, we are on the Danubian Plain in the north central part of the country, just to the south of Romania where the border is formed by the Danube, west of the Black Sea and east of Serbia. The trip to get here was not easy. We flew into the capital city of Sofia, not an easy feat on its own and meandered our way, through, around, and over the Stara Planina (Balkan Mountains) that runs east/west throughout the entire country. The Danubian Plain sits to the north of those mountains, a somewhat unusual configuration for a northern hemisphere wine region. We're here today to drink wine from a grape known as Gamza by the locals and Kadarka in Hungary. While ...

Today we are in Veneto in the northeastern part of Italy. It's home to Venice on the Adriatic Sea and Verona in its western part and sits in the southern foothills of the Italian Alps. On the coastal plains, the weather is much warmer than in the rest of the region because of the warming effects of the Adriatic and the natural shield of the harsh temperatures from the north shielded by the Alps. Along with Friuli and Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto forms the Tre Venezie , the three regions of what was once the Republic of Venice. Of the three, Veneto is easily the largest both in area and population. While Veneto is home in its cooler regions to perhaps the better known Soave and Moscato, in the coastal plains, they grown primarily red grapes. And while Corvina is the major grape in Amarone, Rondinella also plays a major role sometimes constituting about 30% of the wine. From a growing standpoint, it is a winery's dream. Although it has a parent-offspring relationship with Corvina...

It's time to be controversial. Why? Why not? Among other things, I have writer's block today and needed a topic. This is my 188th consecutive day of writing here and since none of you have been nice enough lately to give me topics to write on, I am just stuck. So, today is my day to be disagreeable. Let's start with all the things I really dislike when I visit a winery. First is the step up and drink mentality. I don't like it. I do not want to walk up to the "bar" and be told to give them [some number of] dollars and pick five wines to taste. I don't know their wines. I am there to learn about them and to see which ones I enjoy. They may have 25 different wines of varying qualities. I am the person who might buy something that I like. Help me. You are there behind the bar. Make this a bit personal. Ask me a question or two. Ask me what I usually like and why . Make a recommendation based on what you have heard me say and your knowledge of your wines. You ...

When a grape is sometimes referred to be the name of an Appellation d'origine Controllee (AOC), they must do veritable magic there. Well, while it's not common, Syrah is sometimes referred to as Hermitage (the H is silent). What is Hermitage? To understand its origins, we need to go back to the early 13th century when a knight named Gaspard de Stérimberg, having been wounded in battle, or at least so the legend says, begged of the queen for a place to heal. He was told that he could do so on a smallish hill in the northern Rhone region not too far south of Lyon. Staying there, according to legend, mostly by himself, for most of the rest of his days, the same legend says that he was known as L'Ermite (or the hermit). So, his home, the chapel built on the hill to honor his legend, and the hill itself became known as L'Ermitage or Hermitage. The hill itself is largely granite and quite steeply sloped. Grapes are planted on the southwesterly facing slopes so that they are e...

Since Syrah is thought to be native to France, specifically the so-called northern Rhone region, we're going to spend the last two days of our Syrah tour in the northern Rhone. Today, we make our return to Côte-Rôtie , having visited previously when we tasted Viognie r.  What is Côte-Rôtie? It's an  Appellation d'origine Controllee (AOC) where the vineyards are planted on ridiculously steep slopes, many at 60 degrees, facing the Rhone. While the wines here are red, we visited here when we were tasting Viognier because two grapes are allowed in these wines -- at least 80% must be the red grape Syrah and up to 20% can be from the white grape Viognier. The resultant wine is what you get when you blend bacon with flowers and toss in just a bit of effervescence. The climate here is unusual. Winters are quite wet and the cold mistral winds that sweep off of the Mediterranean blow constantly through the winter and often into spring. It's common that these winds howl with sust...

Today was one of our shortest trips ever. We headed barely to the east from Montsant  to get to Priorat. In fact, they are so close that one of the highlights, other than the winea , of Priorat is Montsant Natural Park. One of the big differences, though is that while Montsant is a  DOP ( Denominación de Origen Protegid a ), Priorat is one of two (along with Rioja) wine regions in Spain given the highest designation of  Denominación d'Origen Qualificada (DOQ). What this tends to mean is that you pay more for your wine. But, is there a difference? In Priorat, summers are long, seemingly endless and hot, typically around 35C/95F during the day, but winter winds from the north make them quite cold, although that cold is shielded somewhat by the mountains to the north and is warmed by the mistral winds from the east. The soil here is volcanic, generally red and brown slate, filled generously with mica crystals. The mica, mostly near the surfact of the soil, has the property o...

Let's fly to Barcelona today. And, when we land, we're going to head to the west just a bit. We're in a relatively new wine region known by the name of its local mountains, Montsant. Montsant first acheived DO ( Denominación de Origen) status earlier this century and got promoted to DOP ( Denominación de Origen Protegida ) when the Spanish Agriculture Ministry decided that was a more appropriate and distinguished term for its wine regions. It's the second highest accolade for wine region in Spain with the other being held only(see tomorrow) by Priorat and Rioja. The vineyards in Montsant have been planted mostly on the sides of the Montsant Mountains among alive groves and somewhat dense forests. Despite being technically in the mountains, we're not really that elevated as we are near the Balearic Sea. The lowest vineyards in Montsant sit at around 200 meters/660 feet while the highest may be up at nearly 800 meters/2640 feet. The soil is somewhat diverse throughout...

We're off to Ventura County, California today. Why? WE're going to taste some of the world's finest Syrah and while we are at it, if we're lucky, we're going to taste some of the other grapes here as well. You've never heard of Ventura County wine? That's not a surprise. This is not an area exactly laden with wineries. In fact, where we are headed today, most of the vineyards are actually in Santa Barbara County and some are in Ventura County, mostly in a tiny little town called Oak View. The remainder are in the Santa Rita Hills slightly to the north. But, that doesn't matter. This is a very special trip, and sadly, it is 100% vicarious and always will be. From Santa Barbara Airport, we head almost due east along "the 101" as they call it in California.Most of the ride is right along the bay coming off the Pacific Ocean. Just to our north, the Santa Ynez Mountains loom large. To understand the wines we are tasting today, it's useful to int...

Sitting neatly between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, Santa Barbara, California has been described as the American Riviera. It is known for its high-end tourism industry as well as being an outpost for many of the Hollywood elite. While its Euro-centric origins are Spanish (Portuguese explorer Joao Cabrilho was sailing for the Spanish), by the early 19th century, Santa Barbara had become a Mexican territory. Early in the Mexican-American War, however, fell without battle to US troops and was annexed as part of the US in the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo that ended that war in 1848. Two years later, California became a state and within the succeeding ten years, the population of Santa Barbara exploded, more than doubling. The climate of Santa Barbara is somewhat unique and actually quite stunning. Because it sits essentially parallel to the westerly breezes coming off the Pacific Ocean, it gets the moderating effects. So, it's weather is neither as warm in the summer...

In Paso Robles, a small town in San Luis Obispo County, California, they grow olives and they grown grapes. With those geapes, they make wine. Originally known for its natural hot springs, it was founded from a land grant obtained by a bunch of Mexican-American war veterams, one of them an uncle of Jesse James. At the site of one of those springs, local businesspeople built the El Paso de Robles Hotel just before the turn of the century. The spa there became a healing place for the rich and famous. Jack Dempsey went to recover from his fights, the Cubs and Pirates had spring training there and lavished in the springs and Ignace Paderewski, the legendary Polish pianist, unable to play the piano because of the arthritis in his fingers had his arthritis cured there ... or so he said. The weather here is typical of places where big, bold, California red wines are made. With cool rainy winters and dry, hot summers with temperatures often reaching 43C/110F amid fairly constant sunshine, they...

It's heritage is strong. Syrah in Sonoma County can trace its lineage from 1880 when John Drummond returned from France. He brought with him cuttings of Cabernet Sauvignon from Chateau Lafite, Pinot Noir from Beaune in Burgundy and Syrah from the hill known as Hermitage. As a viticulturist in Sonoma Valley, Drummond became the father of Sonoma County wine. Heading north from San Francisco, we cross the Golden Gate Bridge and take Highway 101 North into Petaluma. From there, California Highway 12, the Sonoma County Highway winds around the rolling hillsides seeking out the lighter grean leaves, the long plant canes, and the relatively (for noble red grapes) loose bunches of grapes. As we learned yesterday, Syrah craves long, bright, warm sunshine. So, we look to the south-facing slopes where they are exposed to sunshine during the growing season from early morning into evening. The climate in Sonoma is ideal for producing big, rich Syrah. With almost no summer rain in a typical year...

The eastern part of the State of Washington has what might be called interesting weather. But, it sets up perfectly to grow certain wine grapes, Syrah among them. Winters are cold and often snowy. Summers are warm, often hot, during the days, but cool at night, with almost no rain and lots of days with seemingly endless sunshine. Add to that that most of the land is undulating and sloped and it sets up perfectly for Syrah. Syrah loves the sun -- lots of it. It is hearty enough to live through the sometimes rough winters here, but to also withstand the heat that often makes it to 40C/104F for a few days during the summer. It thrives on the 20-25C/36-45F temperature drops at night. And, it hates rain during growing season. All a grower needs is to find a south-facing slope to plant on and everything is perfect to grow Syrah. What do we mean when we say Eastern Washington? After all, you'll never find a label saying Eastern Washington American Viticultural Area (AVA). Essentially, it...

Tasting some of the world's finest wine can be difficult work. Well, maybe not, but getting from one wine region to another certainly can be. To get from Margaret River on the Indian Ocean coast to Barossa Valley in the southeastern part of Australia is a difficult task. Drive 3 hours from Margaret River to Perth, fly another 3 hours from Perth to Adelaide, and then drive an hour north and slightly east into Barossa Valley. It will be worth it, though; I promise. The Rhone region in France is generally thought of as the home of Syrah (Shiraz in much of the southern hemisphere). But, the Syrah vines in the Rhone area were ravaged by the phylloxera plague in the mid-19th century. The little root louse destroyed many of the plantings there. But, phylloxera has never made it to Barossa Valley, so many of the vines here are well over 100 years old. The weather here is exceptional for growing Shiraz. Overnight lows in the winter are typically around 5C/41F and almost never go below 0C/32...

Let's go surfing today. Seriously. If you like the really big waves, there are few, if any, places any better to ride them than the Indian Ocean coast of Western Australia. But, while it sounds like fun, we are not in Western Australia to ride the waves. We're tucked in the far southwestern corner of Australia. While this is not a huge wine-producing region of the country in terms of volume and there aren't a whole lot of wineries here whose names you'll see on bottles at your local neighborhood liquor shop that happens to sell wine, a meaningful portion of the premium level wines of Australia come from Margaret River. The weather here doesn't change a whole lot. From the heat of summer to the cold of winter, the mean daily temperatures only vary by 7-8C/13/14F. And, nights are not much cooler than days. And while some 45 inches of rain fall in a typical year, only about 8 inches of that falls during growing season. If you're looking for a point of comparison in...

We took the long flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg. It's non-stop, but it's brutal. It feels like you leave in one year and arrive in the next no matter when you set out. Exiting the airport, we detoured just a bit to the north to Pretoria and then drove southward towards Cape Town, but taking the route near the small landlocked nation of Lesotho (pronounced luh-soo-too if you care) through Bloemfontein and then southwest to Cape Town.  Why?  We wanted our trip to go through all three current capital cities of South Africa. And, our ultimate destination, Stellenbosch, is just to the northeast of Cape Town. Arriving in Stellenbosch, we see an area that reminds us in many ways of California wine country. Turn to your left and you see a winery. Turn to your right and you see a winery. And, not surprisingly, when you see a bottle of wine that comes from Stellenbosch, they are often quite remarkable; on the other hand, they are often quite remarkable in a bad way. How do you know...

It's known by a few fistfuls of names and is produced in wide variety of places all over the world. Today, we start a tour with the grape most commonly known as Syrah. But, perhaps you don't know it by that name. There are many others. In Australia and often in South Africa and occasionally in other places, it's Shiraz. Some of the other more common names for the grape are Marsanne Noir, Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage, and St Joseph.  They're all the same, at least genetically. But, considering that some of those names are restricted to smaller areas, the price may vary significantly. When it's called Hermitage, bring your wallet, your checkbook, and a few credit cards. When it's called Shiraz, it's often very budget-friendly, but not all the time. Legend has it that the grape was first discovered in Persia, now Iran. The ancient capital there was Shiraz and therefore possibly the name. The French, of course, would have pronounced it a bit differently, and ther...

Tomorrow, we'll be back to our travels, but today, it is our duty to finish the alphabet. Of course, the second half of the alphabet is tougher than the first half. In the first half, the biggest burden is probably the letter J, but in the second half, we are stuck with Q, V, X, and Z. But, we shall persevere. N is for Negociant -- I've spoken of them frequently. A negociant is simply a wine merchant. They go from vineyard to vineyard, buying grapes or juice, already pressed and they blend them. What is their quality like? Sometimes it's really good; other times, it's really bad. Negociants became a bit of a rage in Burgundy, the two best known being Louis Jadot and Charles Drouhin (you thought they were estates?). In the US, the name that first comes to mind is Charles Shaw, he of two-buack-Chuck. O is for Oeschle -- In German wines, the law is filled with requirements for Oeschle. While we measure the sugar content of US grapes in brix (many US vignerons choose when t...

We're grounded today because ... well, because I said we're grounded. I just don't have the energy to travel, vicariously or not, to some faraway place. I don't have the energy to think about a grape I haven't written about. But, I'm going to make an effort to be remotely educational or entertaining anyway. So, somewhat in the spirit of Sue Grafton, here we go. A is for appassimento -- You're probably not surprised just looking at the word and pronouncing it to yourself that this is an Italian term. While it is used elsewhere, its primary usage is in Valpolicella where it's part of the process of making Amarone. After grapes are harvested, they are placed on straw drying mats or sometimes on bamboo racks to dry them. In the case of the finest Amarone, this process may go on for several months. It serves to concentrate the sugars and gives the Corvina and Rondinella the raisiny notes so common in Amarone. B is for botrytis cinerea usually simply botrytis ...

Does Macedonia make wine? Of course, it does. Perhaps the most famous Macedonian of them all, Alexander the Great, had his own wine servant. That's right, he had a servant whose sole functions were to make sure that Alexander had wine and to serve it to him.  Imagine that. Today, as one of the former Yugoslublics, as my son used to call them (nations or republics that came about from the breakup of Yugoslavia after the death of Jozef Tito, Macedonia is a smallish (far, far larger than the countries we have visited the last few days) nation just to the north of Greece. The most important wine region in Macedonia is Povardarie in the north central part of the country, so let's go there.  Sitting in the Vardar River valley in the foothills of Baba Mountain, Povardarie is known for its scenic beauty and its local wine. People hike there and people make wine there. As far as I know, that's all they do in Povardarie (I'm sure the locals would dispute this). The area in and ar...

Yesterday, we were in a small European country. Let's go from small to tiny. At 61 square miles, the Most Serene Republic of San Marino (yes, that is its name) is only about 12% larger than Denver International Airport. But, since they don't produce wine at DIA, there is clearly no point in being there.  Why San Marino? What is it? Where is it? It's a country within a country -- landlocked within Italy less than 15 miles from the Adriatic Sea, it sits primarily on the steep hillsides of the Appenine Mountains. To hear some of the data about the nation, you would think it's the closest place to paradise. It's a wealthy country with remarkably low unemployment, no national debt, and it runs a budget surplus every year. And, did I say they produce wine? Here is the bad news. If you want to drink Sanmarinese wine, you have to go to San Marino. They don't export it. Never. Not even to Italy.  Since it is surrounded on all sides by Italy, it's not at all surprisin...

It's time to travel to Luxembourg to drink the locally produced wine. Barely larger in area than Jacksonville, FL, and somewhat less populous than that sprawling city, it's also one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And, it has only one airport, so that's where we are flying in. The weather here is quite cool, rarely getting up to 27C/80F during the summer, but generally staying above freezing during most of the winter, although temperatures do plummet on occasion. However, the all time record high temperature there is below 35C/95F while the record low is -17.8C/0F. It's a lowland country, and from a wine standpoint, perhaps the most important note is that it borders Germany along three rivers, one being the Mosel or Moselle. The grapes grown here are almost exclusively white, Pinot Noir being the only red grape produced enough to make a data listing. Among the whites, the dominant grapes are Muller-Thurgau (originally bred by a man named Muller in the canton o...

Go to the northernmost part of the Rhone River Valley in France and you arrive in Côte-Rôtie, a tiny A ppellation d'origine C ontrôlée (AOC) once considered almost a waste of space in the world of wine. Even into the 1970s, quite modern by French wine standards, Côte-Rôtie wines were largely thrown together by negociants , wine merchants who buy grapes or even the juice after pressing of many different vintages and parcels and blend them together. Sometimes, they get praiseworthy wines and sometimes they are flat out undrinkable. It's not an AOC like Chateuneuf du Pape  where winemakers can make their names through blending of a dozen or more varietals. In Côte-Rôtie, they are limited to just two -- Syrah and Viognier with the Viognier not exceeding 20% of the total. And, to add to the difficulty of producing wine of the Côte-Rôtie AOC, the Syrah and Viognier must be cofermented, i.e., fermented together. Translated literally, Côte-Rôtie means roasted slope...

This morning, we are flying to Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador. From there, we are heading about 90 mintues southwest to the coastal town of Playas. There is no winter here. There is no summer. Instead, they have a wet season and a dry season. But, because there is no winter and therefore no grape dormant season, they harvest twice every year. How great is that? Once in Playas, however, we have an interesting trek to say the least. We head on a bumpy dirt road between palm trees, banana plantation and cacao plantations before arriving at today's winery.  The soil here is rich with calcium. The sea breezes cool the area just enough that they are able to grow a variety of different grapes. Typical daytime highs run about 25C/77F. Nights are much cooler, but there is not the slightest threat of dormancy let alone freeze. There is one thing lacking, however, and this would appear to be from the complete lack of seasons. Without the long days of summer, the grapes are never able ...

 Let's go to another largely unexplored wine region -- Zimbabwe. Once known as Rhodesia and named after Cecil Rhodes of Rhodes Scholarship fame. The country was one of the homes of apartheid where the minority Whites were legally considered superior and they were segregated from the native and majority Blacks of the area except when using them for slave labor. The uprising of the very late 1970s and in to 1980, however, led to the establishment of the independent nation of Zimbabwe. For the first 37 years, it was led by the authoritarian regime of Robert Mugabe. Since his resignation under pressure, i.e. arrest, in 2017, the country has been led by fairly elected officials as it moves toward  being a Democratic state. It's a picturesque country known to tourists for its widlife preserves and for Victoria Falls. While not the highest waterfall in the world (that honor goes to Angel Falls in Venezuela), it's thought to be the largest as it forms a natural divide between the n...

Did you know they make wine in Cabo Verde? Did you know that there was such a place as Cabo Verde? If I told you it was Cape Verde to most Americans who have heard of it, would that make a difference? We're going there today to taste the local wine and it's going to be quite the trip. Well, we're not just going to the tiny archipelago nation, we're going to the smaller island of Fogo to the west of the main island of Santiago. To get there, we need to fly into the capital of Praia. Leaving from our base in Atlanta, we hop on a plane to JFK in New York. From there, it's off to Mohammed V International Airport in Casablanca, Morocco (CMN if you're into airport codes) and finally and finally into Osvaldo Vieira International Airport in the Cabo Verde capital of Praia. From there, we are taking a boat ride to Chã das Caldeiras, a tiny community sitting in the crater of the volcano Pico da Fogo. Commonly known simply as Chã (plain in English), this community has fewe...

Who ever would have thought we'd find a great wine region fully 80 miles north of the northernmost points in the state of Washington? Even more astounding perhaps, who would have thought that we would find great warm weather grapes there? Today, we're in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, the province of Canada that forms the westernmost Canadian border with the so-called lower 48 of the United States. While it's a large area, most of the wineries sit quite close to Okanagan Lake or one of the number of smaller lakes that appear to be simply adjuncts of the namesake to the wine region. Grpae growing for the purposes of wine is thought to have begun in the region in the late 1850s when a Catholic mission established there needed wines for the Sacrament. A number of smaller wineries sprung up around there, but when Canada enacted Prohibition, nearly all of those wineries died. After Prohibition, the new wineries that were established in Okanagan made mostly fruit wines ...

It's one of the oldest winemaking regions in the world. Until the middle of the 19th century when phylloxera  killed off many of the vines, it was among the most important wine regions in the world. But, then it faltered until the Communist regime was forced out. But, Hungary's wine country has some really important characteristics for growing great wine grapes. With cool, wet winters and warm, dry summers, and with a mix of limestone and volcanic soils, the climate if wonderful for growing all but the warmest weather grapes. The soil adds significant acidity and minerality. So, what do we know? We know that Hungary has 22 wine growing regions (comparable to AVAs in the United States), but 4 of those 22 are far more worthy of study and wine consumption than the others. Each of those 4 has its own character and each grows its own grapes. Starting on the Croatian border in the southwestern part of the country, we travel to Villany. Here, the summers are warmer than in the rest of...

Lebanon is one of the  oldest wine producing regions in the world. Legend and even recorded history, at least according to those can interpret and place ages on old drawings and containers say that it goes back 9000 years. And, in Lebanon, if you want the best wine they have to offer, you go to Bekaa (Beqaa in Arabic) Valley. Roughly 20 miles to the east of the capital city of Beirut in the far eastern part of the country, Bekaa Valley is the most fertile part of the larger Great Rift Valley. Situated between Mount Lebanon to its west and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains shielding it from the east, the valley has the characteristic Mediterranean climate with warm, nearly arid summers, but cold winters with often considerable snowfall. Everywhere in Bekaa Valley that is fully shielded from the sea is also largely shielded from rain making for ideal grape producing weather. The terroir in the Bekaa Valley is quite varied (not unlike many other valleys that might have (in US terms) multiple...