Grape of the Day

We haven't been to Spain for a while, so let's take a trip today. Spain is the home of some of the best wines in the world. Ribera del Duero, Rioja, Jumilla, Rias Baixas, just to name a few of the places where you can get incredible wine in Spain. While most of the reds are based in Tempranillo or Garnacha and many of the white wines are Albarino, Spain produces wines from lots of grapes. And, Spain is the third largest wine producing country in the world. It also has more acres planted to vineyards than any other country in the world. And, it has a funny mistake, or at least I would tell you it is. A bunch of young Spaniards in the wine industry got together to create a blue wine. Yes, the wine comes in a clear bottle and it is electric blue in color. I am not going to advertise what it is here, beacuase among other things, I don't want to be accused of encouraging you to own it or drink it, but if you google Blue Wine, I expect you will find it. Here's what you need t...

You want to sell wine to customers, browsers, and visitors, not that all those groups are that different? Give them tastes. That's right. Give them tastes. And, make it an experience. And, you will sell those people wine. Not by the glass. But, by the bottle or by the case. And, you don't have to charge them to taste. or, if there is a law that requires you to charge, charge as little as you can reasonably handle. It's not about making money on the tasting. Trust me; you'll still make money. But, you can't just pour them wine. You have to make it a positive experience. If you do, however, your prospective buyer will imagine that experience every time they drink that wine. They will think about you. They'll come back for more. The other sides, of course, are to either charge a bunch for tasting in which case you will make money on the tasting (but you won't sell much wine) or to fail to make it an experience. How do I know this is true? I've been a part o...

I've heard it from a lot of people. They can't drink wine, and particularly red wine because of the sulfites. They are allergic to sulfites. For an occasional person, this is the case. For most, I say balderdash, bullhockey, poppycock, malarkey. It's just not true for most people. How do I know? Well, I can't be sure. But, you see, wine is not the only product that people ingest that has sulfites. In fact, it's not the only product that you ingest that has sulfites, and in some cases far more sulfites than wines, added as a preservative, i.e, the same purpose as in wine. I don't want to name names as this could be embarrassing for them, but I know of several people that make this claim as to why they can't drink wine, particularly red wine, and by the way, sulfites are not usually used more in red wine than in white wine, eating loads and loads of bagged salad. I know. You think I've lost my mind. This is not a blog about salad. But wait, bagged salad ca...

The more time that progresses, the more that it becomes accepted to use what are sometimes described as techniques to improve winemaking and thus wine. What remains frowned upon are artificial flavors and the addition of non-grape fruits to impart flavors, but other techniques that we have learned about are considered mainstream. Today, we are off to Sicily, high up on the steep slopes of Mount Etna. Here, a Belgian winemaker, somewhat of an oddity in the wine world, named Frank Cornelissen decided that this is the place to make great wine as naturally as it was made hundreds of years ago.  We were here previously in July to taste Nerello Mascallese  and that is also the grape we are tasting today. But, this is different.  Most Nerello Mascallese is produced in Sicily. It's a grape much like Pinot Noir in many ways, but with far more Italian seasonings. We'll get lots of thyme and oregano as well as rosemary, coriander, sage, and perhaps some allspice. Think New York styl...

Some wines have too much alcohol; in fact, they have way too much alcohol. I know, some of you are going to stop reading now because you would tell me that that is the point. In 2020 and now 2021, in partcular, that has really become the point. But, it's not.  If you just want to get drunk, wine is not the fastest way. Remember that Cinco de Mayo when you had fun doing shots of tequila? You don't? Actually, you don't remember anything from that night, but if you did, you would remember that you got far drunker far faster than you could have from wine in a short period of time. So, why dirnk wine? For the flavor perhaps. For the experience. For the ways it enhances food and conversely. Because it makes you feel good not just for the bit of a buzz that you get, but for the sensory explosion. And, you don't need ultra-high alcohol content to get there. Can this be fixed? The problem is that the regions that have been producing really high alcohol content wine are really wa...

If you drink wine when you go out to eat, you will undoubtedly have some strange experiences. Hopefully, after the fact, and possibly well after the fact, you can laugh about them. The curious thing about all of these is that they all occurred at non-chain, at least somewhat upscale restaurants. But, they all did happen and while I can now laugh about them, with any luck you can as well. Let's start with one where the owner who was also the beverage manager was involved. This goes back a bit, so my guess is that even the guilty party wouldn't recognize it. It was a restaurant with good food and a not bad wine list, particularly for the size of the restaurant. We ordered a bottle of decent wine. Not high end, but certainly nothing to scoff at. The bottle was presented and a taste poured. I didn't need to taste it. I could smell the TCA (2,4,6-trichloroanisole), the dreaded sign of cork taint. The bottle was corked. Not horribly, but knowing that the restaurant could simply r...

If you've been a regular reader here, hopefully you've learned quite a bit about a variety of things wine. Unfortunately, an awful lot of what you've learned doesn't help you when it comes to perusing a wine list. So, you are at a new restaurant and you look at the wines they offer and you don't recognize a single one. How does that happen? What do you do? Perhaps there is nothing on the list that says Chardonnay or Merlot or Malbec. There's undoubtedly nothing that says tannic or acidic and it's unlikely there is anything that says oaky or citrusy. So, you're stuck. But should you be? Recall that when we took our 16-day tour through Napa Valley, we did learn that each American Viticultural Area within Napa Valley produces wines that have their own characteristics in common. So, if you saw Rutherford AVA red wine, while you might not know exactly what it is in it, you could guess. You might guess that these would be Bordeaux-style grapes in a structured,...

It's an important decision for a winemaker -- how do you want your barrel? Sessile oak, pedunculate oak, white oak? New, once used, twice used (neutral), more than twice used (far less expensive)? Light toast, medium toast, heavy toast? If it was used previously, what was it used for? All done by natural processes or perhaps less expensively using an expedited process? Or, do I want oak at all? So many questions. So many choices. It's a bit like ordeing hah browns at Waffle House. Do you want them scattered and smothered? Or perhaps peppered? Or capped? But Waffle House hash browns are what they are. We, after all, are talking about wine and here, the choices are not to be considered with levity This, after all, is life or death. At least, it might be life or death of someone's taste buds for the night. Let's start with the choice of barrels or not. Should we use an oak barrel or some other veesel and why or why not?  Technically, it's not the barrels that impart fl...

How much is it worth to have the name of a vineyard on a label? Seems pretty simple, doesn't it? I grow a few grapes in my backyard and I put John's Vineyard on the label. That should increase the price I can charge for a bottle by what -- perhaps negative five dollars? But, not all vineyards are alike. In Napa Valley, one of the most storied is the To Kalon Vineyard to the west of Highway 29 in Oakville. Originally planted by H.W. Crabb in 1861, when a label says To Kalon, the price jumps up. In fact, if you use grapes from Tuck Beckstoffer's part of the To Kalon Vineyard, there is apparently now a tie-in between the price of the grapes and the price of the bottle. And, those bottles are not inexpensive. Most are priced at more than $150 for a standard 750 ml bottle and many are far more pricey than that. To my knowlegde, the parts of the vineyard not owned by the Beckstoffers is owned by Robert Mondavi Wines and Robert Mondavi is owned by global behemoth, Constellation Br...

There is a website, and I am not going to publicize it here, that touts that when you buy expensive wine, or even moderately priced wine, you are paying too much. And, I read an article in Smithsonian this morning that suggested that targeted uses of what I am going to call wine shortcuts produces wines that people will like.  What that article suggests is that bulk wine producers spend their money trying to understand what their drinkers want and then they produce it, inexpensively. So, for example, you like your wine purplish. Add some purple coloring. People like sweetness. Add some artificual sweetener. It's inexpensive and it caters to their focus groups -- the focus groups made up of people that I am guessing drink wine because it's cool, but would really prefer something different. Yesterday, I wrote about clove and how clove aromas and tastes get into some wines . Honestly, when I wrote yesterday, I did not have today's post in mind, but I suppose I could have. If ...

Clove. It's sometimes used as a descriptor in wines, primarily red. And, more than anywhere else, you'd be most likely, at least in my experience, to find it in higher end Rioja wines and of course those of Burgundy. So, where does it come from? Red wines from Burgundy are going to be Pinot Noir. Red wines from Rioja are predominantly Tempranillo. Best I can tell, those grapes are not related. And, clove comes from the clove tree. It's an evergreen and it is indigenous to southeast Asia, not exactly a major wine-producing area and certainly not close enough to Burgundy or Rioja to for the wines from those regions to absorb the clove through the air. Even if they could, there are other wine regions far closer and they would get the clove first, but they don't. So, it must be the chemistry. I was interested in understanding this, so over time, I learned a little bit about what is going on here.  Clove, as well as cinnamon, nutmeg, bay leaf, and basil, has a lot of a guaia...

It's from the French for trader: negociant. We write about them today because they are influential in the wine world. In fact, if you drink a lot of wine, it would be surprising if there were not a fair amount of negociant wine among what you drink. It's just as likely that you don't know it. And, it's similarly likely that you don't know what it means. Let's clear that up. In wine terms, a negociant is a person or company or brand or label that buys grapes from growers, often what you might think of as leftover grapes and often inexpensively, and then makes wine from whatever they get their hands on. If the wine is labeled with an AOC or DOGC or AVA, or the like, it will have met the requirements for that particular appelation. But, the mere fact that you loved a particular wine in 2020, for example, does not mean that you won't love the same bottling in 2021 even more or that you might find it undrinkable. Such are negociant wines. So, how do you know? Som...

No we're not in Portugal. We're staying in Hungary. And, today, we are exploring a grape that while it sounds like it is Portuguese in nature, it's name actually was changed to Portugieser to avoid a European Union conflict with Porto (or Port wine from Portugal).  You see, the former name of this grape was Kekoporto. And, the Portuguese thought that the Hungarians who grow most of the world's [now] Portugieser were trying to improperly benefit from the similarity of the name Kekoporto to Porto or Port. Funny thing. Nobody can find any link between this grape and Portugal. None at all. More likely, it arrived from Austria (recall that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a country claled Austria-Hungary) or perhaps even the southern part of what is currently Germany. But, it has flourished in Hungary, particularly in the southern part known as Villany, near to the Croatian border. In the traditional production of Portugieser, it is aged primarily in stai...

Just the other day, we went to Hungary . And, while we diverted just a bit for an "important" post, we haven't left Hungary. From our Saturday adventure with a rare red wine, let's use today to try out a white grape that outside of eastern Europe is almost as rare. While this grape is grown outside of east central Europe and there, it predominates in the Eger and Villani regions of Hungary, if you were in other areas, you might see this grape labeled Welschriesling (romanic Riesling). Despite the name, however, there is no indication that this grape is at all related to Riesling. Grape varietal names come from unusual origins. And, this one is no exception. Legend has it that some unknown soul way back when thought this grape had a lot of similarities to Riesling and gave it a related name and it stuck. Olaszrisling likes cooler climates. In particular, cool nights and lack of daytime heat spikes are critical. So, where grapes that love hot sunshine are often planted ...

It's Valentine's Day and of course, you are sharing wine with your valentine. And, it shouldn't just be any wine, you should plan this out. If you are going out, your are already likely getting robbed blind because this is one of those days on which people feel the need to go out and so demand exceeds supply and that means prices go up because they can. This is when restaurants charm you with their prox fixe dinners that include the expensive items that they have in stock, but can't move on other days. So, be ready for the mormal dinner to be "upgraded" with fine caviar, real truffles, Knipschildt chocolates or at the very least, Godiva, and pule (cheese from donkey milk ... no, I'm not kidding). So, what are you drinking with all this? Since it sounds like dinner without wine pairings is already going to be at least several hundred dollars per person, let's do wine pairings as well. Assume we are starting with caviar. Caviar is salty, really salty. An...

Imagine a grape that once flourished. It grew far and wide in the Carpathian Basin spanning a good bit of what is now Hungary, western Ukraine, Romania, and Slovakia, and bits of Poland, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia at the very least. For centuries, Fekete Jardovany grew and it grew plentifully.  And, then in the second half of the 19th century and the phylloxera mite struck and Fekete Jardovany, along with a number of other grapes, was wiped out, except that some enterprising ampelographers saved a limited number of seedlings. In 2004, one winery in the Villany region of Hungary decided to experiment with Fekete Jardovany and a few other essentially extinct grapes. Of all of them, this one showed the most potential, so this winery, slightly to the west of the Danube and nearly at the border with Croatia decided to make a wine from it. To their knowledge and mine, this is the only winery in the world using this grape. And, we're fortunate enough to have a bottle. Yes, in real life...

Have you ever taken a really good whiff of Riesling? Particularly Riesling with some age on it? What do you smell that you likely don't smell in any other wine (you might smell it in Chardonnay, but if you do that Chardonnay is really bad)? You smell petrol. Gasoline. Petrol sounds nicer than gasoline. Before we get into what's going on with Riesling, we need a little wine encounter story about petrol and Chardonnay. Just to humor you because true funny stories are way funnier than made up ones.  We were in southern Arizona. We're not talking near Tucson. Compared to where we were, Tucson is northern Arizona. We were close enough to the Mexican border that at one point, we encountered the border patrol driving, thankfully sober, in our rental car. That I recall, we were in the Arizona town of Nogales whose closest neighbor is Nogales, Mexico. In any event, we did head north just a bit, not very much. Because within 15 miles of there, there are a bunch of wineries. One in pa...

Go get yourself some wine grapes and wine. For this experiment, I am going to suggest white wines and white wine grapes. And, I want the grapes to match up with the wines. In other words, do not bring me a bottle of Chenin Blanc, but no Chenin Blanc grape. This is an experiment, so we need to have some level of rules. Speaking of rules, I am going to set one more. One of your grapea and therefore bottles of  wine has to be Gewurtzraminer. No, I don't know where you are finding all these grapes. Frankly, I've never seen Gewurtzraminer grapes at my local Publix or Kroger. Costco doesn't carry them, nor does Sam's. And, when I lived up north, I couldn't get them at Pathmark or Stop n Shop or A&P. I checked in the Philadelphia area and Wegman's doesn't have them and out west, Safeway doesn't either, but I am sure they exist and I am sure you can find them somewhere. Trust me. You can't find them? This blog is all a dream anyway.  But, you can get the...

Yes, I know. You saw the first two words and you were waiting for veritas. Pliny the Elder is purported to have said that in wine there is truth except he didn't say it in English. But he might as well have used the title of today's post -- in wine there is chemistry. If you drink alcohol and you loved chemistry lab, you just have to drink wine. It should be a rule. I'm sure you think I've lost my mind. And, in fact, you probably think that most every day. But, I'm going to get you there. It starts in the nose. When you're in a chemistry lab, you smeel stuff. Some of those smells are really pronounced. One of the first that made a big impression on me, at least that did in a good way, was benzaldehyde. I can't recall what we were using it for, but we had it in a lab that I worked in. Benzaldehyde has that sweet smell of almond oil.  How pronounced is is? Well, find an almond scented product. Food. Cosmetic. Look at the ingredients. Benzaldehyde is going to b...

Wine curation. I suppose you could call it that. Essentially, it is the selection of a collection (a collection can be as small as one, I think) of wines. And, if someone is doing it for you, then they are your curator. That's simple so far, right? I had the idea to write about this because someone I knew years ago started a business as a wine curator. No, I didn't know her from the wine world. In fact, when I had young kids and I was the in-charge guy at summer swim meets, there were many hot and humid Monday evenings when I put her on the starting blocks. But, I digress. So, you engage a wine curator because you want wines that you will like better. Isn't that the same as going to wine shop or a liquor store, or a supermarket or package store that sells wine and asking for help? Yes, in a way it it. But, if it is your trade to curate wine, then you are finding wine, often through your connections for other people who are willing to pay for that service. But, since most of...

Some people drink wine to get drunk. Admit it; either you are one of those people or you know someone who is. We all know that person if we are not one. And, we all like to feel that bit of relaxation or even euphoria, there are better reasons to drink wine. How do I know? If your sole purpose is to get drunk, you can find a cheaper way. Go buy the cheapest bottle of tequila you can find, for example, and drink beyond your tolerance. And, do not get behind the wheel or anywhere near it. I drink wine because I like the taste. I like the senation. I like the experience. I revel in what is different about one wine, unique about another, and how it became what it is.  But, what I really enjoy about it is the social context. With a very rare exception, I do not drink wine by myself. Or, if I do, it will almost be just one glass. That is, just something to slow down tension or to accompany my food. But back to the social context, consider how much more fun something can be when you share...

This year's Super Bowl attendees are very fortunate. It looks like it could be an exciting game and there just aren't that many tickets available. But, while I've been a football fan for way longer than I've even ever heard of wine, this is not a football blog. However, before I move on, it's important to note that Super Bowls XXI, XXV, XLII, and XLVI are the really good games to remember. The rest were just football games. With this year's Super Bowl in Tampa, game goers are blessed with having a Super Bowl near one of the world's greatest collections of wine you might ever experience. And, the same place has steak and great desserts and a few other foods as well. Bern's Steak House is a legend in Tampa, and frankly, outside of Tampa as well. Founded in the very early 60s by a now deceased man by the name of Bern Laxer, they have simply the wine list to end all wine lists and, the wine is very reasonably priced as restaurants go as well. As we leave the...

Have you ever been to the Black Hills of South Dakota? We're talking the border with Wyoming to the northwest of Rapid City. Specifically, let's visit the town of Spearfish. It's a small town, by virtually any standards. Once a local home for the Sioux, when gold was discovered in 1876, the local Gold Rush was on and the Sioux gradually had their land taken over.  While we sometimes talk about history, this is not a history blog. And, when we go to our local wine shop, well, I don't know about you, but I have never asked my local wine merchant if they have any great South Dakota wine. In fact, I've never seen a review of a South Dakota wine, heard of any of the northern US winemakers talk about their penchant for South Dakota grapes, or even make an association with South Dakota. But, I googled it and there are some South Dakota wineries. And, based on the names of the wines, I would categorize their clientele as bikers. For example, when your best seller is called ...

We've been talking about the effects of terroir lately -- the place, the climate, the soil, the sun exposure, and more. And, when we think of tropical flavors, we think of the tropics. But, in white wine, that's not necessarily the case. Let's see what really does happen. Let's consider  Cariñena in northeastern Spain. The white wines from this area of Zaragosa are distinctive for the tropical fruit flavors in them. Why? Tropical flavors tend to come from polyphenols and glycerol. And, chemically, those compounds come to the fore more naturally in nature in warm temperatures. Here, we are in the warmest region in Spain, at least during the day. But at night, it gets quite cool, even in the summer. In fact, while daytime highs in the middle of summer are often in the range of 95F/35C, overnight lows in those same days can easily be as low as 45F/7C. That is an absolutely massive change in temperature. This locks in the tropical flavors originally brought out by the summe...

We often hear about grapes grown at high elevation. Bottles, often those from Chile and Argentina, well up the slopes of mountains in the Andes frequently tout that altitude. Great! Who cares? Likely you and I should. If you read through this blog, you'll often see that wines come from a variety of valleys. That doesn't mean that they are literally grown in a valley, but they are grown in a region called a valley. What this means almost without exception is that the region is characterized by one or more rivers and often by lakes as well. And, the more proximate an area is to water, the more likely it is to have morning and or evening fog. And, fog cools. But, at high elevation, it's likely that the grapes are above the fogline. So, they don't get much of the cooling act of the fog. In fact, the fog shields those grapes from what is going on closer to sea level. Perhaps you are a skier. I'm not, but I know about the part I am about to talk about. Spend a beautiful d...

During our two-week plus adventure in Napa Valley, we spoke an awful lot about the diurnal temperature changes, but we did so in a way that made it seem that it should be obvious what was going on and why it is important. But, that's not exactly the case. Today, we're going to peel back the onion a bit, but keep that onion far from the wine because I don't generally like wine with onion notes in it, and explain why diurnal temperature change matters and in doing so show how it makes Napa Valley one of the perfect growing areas in the world. First, what is it? Diurnal temperature change is exactly what it sounds like or at least it does if we know what all the words mean. In a nutshell, how different are the daytime highs and the overnight lows? Why do we care? Let's get a little bit geeky. You remember your junior high school/middle school life sciences class where you learned about things like photosynthesis? If you're as far removed as I am, it might be time to go...

George Yount is reputed to have planted the first grapes in Napa Valley way back in 1836, before the Gold Rush, before cinnabar and silver were discovered in Napa Valley, and frankly before what is now California had a whole lot of people. My, how things have changed. The Yountville American Viticultural Area (AVA) while not the same thing as the town is centered on the town of Yountville. The small downtown is renowned as a great shopping and dining area and has been in the news quite a bit lately as lobbyists and politicians dine at legendary restauranteur Thomas Keller's French Laundry. I understand it's worth it for foodies, but I wouldn't know. Personally, we have preferred the much lesser costs at the nearby sister restaurant and bakery, Bouchon, where you can get some amazing foie gras and bread to serve with it. But, we're not here to talk about food, unless of course, it is to accompany wine. What exactly hath George Yount wrought? Sitting close enough to San P...

The volcanic soil from nearby Atlas Peak made for wonderful planting areas for Pinot Noir. The elevation above the fogline made it the most sun-kissed area in all of Napa Valley. The proximity to San Pablo Bay combined with that elevation made it the coolest AVA in Napa Valley. What a perfect combination for Pinot Noir. First planted for commercial purposes in 1980 and achieving AVA status in 1988, Wild Horse Valley, the smallest AVA in Napa Valley and actually extending into Solano County, was home to only one winery, but a number of vineyards. Ideal for Burgundian style Pinot Noir in California, the area supplied many high-end local wineries with their Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes to give them both a Napa label and the desired complexity.  During the very late spring and earliest part of summer 2020, Napa firefighters were dispatched both north and south to Humboldt County and Santa Cruz County to fight wildfires. And, then it happened. The Napa-Solano fire sturck a mere few ...