Grape of the Day

It's wonderful when a brand new reader gives you an idea for a post. What happens though when she gives you just enough information to know that you have a topic, but don't know if it is how she wanted you to cover it. To most Americans, when they thing good wine, they think Napa Valley. Wedged among among a number of smaller mountain ranges, primarily the Mayacamas and Vaca, and plentiful bodies of water including San Pablo Bay that provides for the massive diurnal temperature differences in the southern part of the valley, Lake Berryessa in the northeast, and the Napa River that winds its way through the county, its a near perfect setup for growing, in particular, Cabernet Sauvignon that made Napa famous. With its now seemingly permanent drough-like conditions, hot summers with cool nights in much of the Valley, and enough natural sources of irrigation, winemakers are able to produce high alcohol content, ultra-expressive wines the likes of which are rarely seen elsewhere. Wh...

Some foods are more of a challenge than others. Last night was certainly a bit of a challenge -- seared ahi tuna in an Asian style soy-based marinade. Let's see how it worked. For starters, and while you don't have to stick to this, there is some merit, there is an old adage that says that you pair red wine with red meat and white wine with white meat and when the meat is some color in between, you just guess a lot. Well, ahi tuna has red meat and some substance to it, but doesn't do well with the big, bold red wines. It needs something gentler. Then, there is the soy sauce. It is salty. It is bold. It has lots of umami or savory. That's a tough combination. An off-dry sparkling wine would probably have done the job, but we're always restricted to what we have. Or we could go with a wine with high levels of umami. Aglianico comes to mind, but we don't have any Aglianico, at least not that I know of. Well, let's add to the confusion. The US is having a heat w...

Suppose somebody was telling you about the grapes and wines that they like and those that they don't. And, further suppose that the background for those questions made no sense. What do you do? For brackground, I was sitting with someone that I really did not know beyond having made a little small talk previously The setting was a large group dinner and we just happened to be next to each other. The discussion turned to wine and interestingly, I didn't take it there. It started with white wine and I learned that this person likes Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio, but not Pinot Gris. Listening on, I learned that Pinot Gris comes from Oregon and they don't taste as good as Pinot Grigio (yes, they are the same grape as "gris" is French for grey and "grigio" is Italian for grey. The names are interchangeable and in the US, the difference is largely marketing or branding. Moving on to the reds, I learned that this same person sometimes like Merlot and usually...

Back in the olden days, such as perhaps five years ago, the process of determining when to harvest grapes was done much the same as it was hundreds of years ago. Yes, there were some improvement, but they were slow and not dramatic. The tried and true methods of determining when to harvest were having the vignerons and the winemakers walk through the vineyards, look at grapes, smell grapes, and taste grapes. They checked for things like color, skin thickness, and of course, taste. And, they relied on their memories and the good old weather forecasters. Of course, that last aid, the meteorologists have also gotten much better as their models and use of technology has improved.  Back in the late 19 century, a German scientist named Ernst Abbe invented the laboratory refractometer. Eventually, it was found that this little device could measure the brix  of the wine. Essentially, that is the sugar content of the grapes which determines the alcohol potential of the wine. Some winem...

Burgundy, or Bourgogne if you prefer. It's among the great wine regions of the world. In fact, some would say that it has no peer. Certainly, the price tags attached to some of the regions finest wines would suggest that to be the case. But, Burgundy has a scourge. You see, generally speaking, the weather in Burgundy is not my idea of great. It's typically not very warm and there is a fair amount of precipitation as major wine regions go.  If it comes within growing season, there are a few great killers of world-class Pinot Noir. One is the frost that occasionally hits Burgundy right around the time of budbreak. The second is excessive rain. Neither is the worst, however. The ultimate vintage-killer in Burgundy is large hail as it does significant damage to the grapes. And, it has for centuries, several times causing mort estates in Burgundy to declassify their vintages. Enter science. Some brilliant person had an idea. Put up a hail shield. No, we're not talking about a ph...

From preparing the soil to planting and growing and even breeding the grapes to making the wine to bottling the wine to selling the wine, science has affected every part of the wine world. We've looked at a number of these discoveries and innovations over the last 15 months or so, but we've usually done it from the standpoint of a single variety of grape. Let's consider a few frankly widely disparate applications of science and what they have done to the world of wine. We're in 2021. While what we think is making news are things like COVID, politics, influencers, and racial tensions, the one real constant is data. Big data. Really big data. And, it has infiltrated the wine world.  Different people have different ideas of what big data means. Frankly, it depends on its usage and its applications. To some, big data is just lots of data that perhaps we never had before. To others, it is the continuous processing of trillions of pieces of data making observations to change ...

I didn't sleep well last night. That's not unusual. What was unusual is that I got back to sleep right after 4AM which is when I am normally up for good. As such, I have no superbly brilliant wine thoughts today, not that I ever do. But, what I do have are a few notes and maybe a pearl of wine wisdom along the way. First, for those of you who subscribe to this blog, the good folks who run blogger, that is Google, tell me that the subscribe widget will cease to work after some date in July. If you want to continue to see this blog, you have three ways available that I can see: Bookmark and come to it frequently as in every day Follow me on Twitter @johnhlowell as I push each post out via Twitter Be my Facebook friend (that's people I know) where I also push out each post When I started doing this blog, it was to fill the six weeks of no travel starting in late March 2020 as we all knew that lockdown would be over by early June 2020 at worst (the world has never been so wrong...

I was inspired to write this by an ad that I saw yesterday. It appeared on social media because Google knows everything I do and they sell everything I do and since it would take so much work to even begin to eliminate this, I just live with it and try to laugh. In any event, what popped up in front of me was an ad for a rare grape -- Charbono  -- from a not rare wine company.  I don't know about your area, but around here, this might currently be the single most overstocked winery, if you can call it that, that there is. Every wine list has it and, in fact, many are peppered with. Not just one or two labels, but often five or six. In any event, they are now producing a "Limited Edition" bottling of Charbono. For those unfamiliar, Charbono, despite its Italian-sounding name is not originally an Italian grape. The fine scientists at UC Davis have determined that it is actually Corbeau, a grape indigenous to the area of Savoie in southeastern France in the Alps. Strangely, ...

That seems like a strange question, doesn't it? Doesn't it make sense that if you love Qocka Qocks Qocka's Estate Merlot that you will also love all of QQQ's wines? Well, it does make sense and it is often the case, but it just might not be. Let's explore why you might just love all of their wines, but on the other hand why you might not. Let's start with why you might love all of QQQ's wines if you love one of them. All of them have the same winemaker and the same winemaking team. Therefore, they likely use the same techniques and have the same styles. If they are all estate wines, then all the grapes come from the same general area, i.e., from somewhere on the estate. And, to the extent that they blend, they all have access to the same grapes. Seems simple, right? So, all of QQQ's wines should be pretty similar, huh? Not so fast. That might not be the case. Let's even assume for starters that all of QQQ's wines are estate wines. Maybe the estat...

It's a pet peeve of mine that many restaurants will show wines on a wine list and include vintages, but then substitute other vintages and not say a word about it. Of course, you might be asking who cares? I do. And, I'm going to endeavor to show you why. Before going into that, let's suppose that I order a 2014 Brunello di Montalcino  from a particular winery and our server instead brings out a bottle of the 2015 vintage of the same wine. If our server informs me, frankly, I am going to be thrilled. There has been full disclosure and I am getting what, generally speaking, is an upgrade. On the other hand, if I ordered a bottle of a 2016 "Left Bank" Bordeaux and was presented a bottle of the 2017 vintage from the same estate, I would likely not accept it. We are talking about the difference between a monumentally great vintage and one marked by frost early in the growing season. One had the potential to produce great wine while in the other, winemakers struggled t...

I've noticed it pretty broadly in wine drinkers. When people first start enjoying wine, they tend to like over the top wines whether they be big, bold, very high alcohol content Cabernet or really, really buttery Chardonnay to give a couple of examples. But, when their palates become more refined, their tastes tend to change. In particular, I saw this last night. I was around three people who have tasted a fair amount of wine in their lives. They were talking about white wines and each mentioned four styles in particular -- Sancerre, the eponymous French Sauvignon Blanc from the town that sits on a limestone-based hilltop near the geographic center of the country, Albarino, the grape indigenous to the Rias Baixas ragion of Spain, Riesling, the grape grown mostly in cooler growing regions around the world, and Gruner Veltliner, another cool weather grape known for its complexity in well-aged wines particularly from Wachau, Austria. What do all these wines have in common? None are ov...

Yesterday, I came down fairly hard on bottle labeling, not because I think it lies, although occasionally it does, but because it doesn't necessarily tell you what you want to know. Or, at least the labeling that we tend to look for doesn't really tell you what you want to know. So, there's an easy solution, right? Well, no, there's not! And, a major reason is that there is no consistent labeling around the world. We have one set of requirements in the US, but there is something entirely different in France. And, while most of the European Union labeling is similar to each other, the historical underpinnings of the different countries in the EU make them a bit different. Then, of course, we have all the other wine-producing countries, some major and some far less so. So, how do we get past this? Either we can learn a lot about what we like and how to find it, stick to just a few wines that we like (I think that is incredibly boring), or find friends, family, or wine sho...

There are questions that I get asked frequently? "John, do you like California wines?" "John, what do you think about Australian wines?" "John, are Chilean wines good?" The answer to any of those questions can be positive or negative. But, really, there is no answer. Those are all big regions. And, even within those regions, there are multiple wine regions which often are large regions themselves. So, to use Australia as an example for starters, it's a very large country. Even if we leave out Tasmania and there happen to be some really excellent Tasmanian wines, Australia is a great expanse. You don't believe me? Try driving from the eastern wine regions to the north of Sydney to the western wine regions to the south of Perth. You might drive faster than I do or faster than Google thinks people drive, but if you don't stop to refuel, eat, sleep, or visit a rest room, you're still looking at a nearly 2 day trip by car.  Imagine driving for n...

We got a very late start today due to hours and hours of Zoom, everyone's favorite hindrance in 2021 to enjoying our travels around the world to explore the world of wine. So, we're going to have to hop on our supersonic jet with a special smaller plane eject system to get us to Pannonhalma.  For those not familiar, Pannonhalma is both a town and a wine region in western Hungary. Located about as far to the south by southeast of Bratislava as it is to the west of Budapest, Pannonhalma has, at least to most people, far more historical significance than it does wine significance. But, from a wine standpoint, this is a somewhat unique area. We'll come back to that later. Starting with the somewhat morbid, we can visit the Pannonholma Archabbey where we can find the heart, but not the head or body of Archduke Hapsburg, the last crown prince of Austria Hungary before its dissolutions with the end of World War I. The Archabbey and the accompanying Benedictine school sit high on a...

I guess I've been on a roll about this lately. Is there something magical about blends? And, for that matter, what is a blend when it comes to wine? Isn't almost all wine a blend of one sort or another, unless, of course, that wine is made from grapes of a single variety all gathered from the same plot having been picked together on the same day at roughly the same time? Two puppies from the same litter have different characteristics, so why would two grapes from the same row not have different characteristics? All that said, there are different degrees of what we might refer to as blending. For purposes of today's post, we are talking about conscious decisions by winemakers to blend some combination of different varieties of grapes and or the same varieties from different vineyards. Why do they do this? Consider the write-ups from winemakers of their reasoning for different blended creations. One might say she added Petit Verdot to her Cabernet Sauvignon to add some purple...

If you are like me, you see ads all the time and maybe receive emails as well trying to entice you to buy special wines. They might talk about highly-rated special vintages of special wines that are difficult to find. And, for that dual dose of special, you might have to pay special money. Should you? Is it worth it? Likely, it depends on who you are, how discriminating you are, and how large your wallet is. For most of us, and I am sorry to tell you this after all the money that you or I have spent on getting that better wine, the answer is no. Not maybe, but no.  We spent time over the last several days with a dear friend who we had not seen for a while. This friend is pretty discriminating about wine. And, within the last year, she had the opportunity on somebody else's wallet to enjoy a 1982 Chateau Lafite. 1982. Left bank. One of the most legendary vintages ever. First growth Bordeaux. Discriminating palate. I think she described the wine as interesting ... good. Now, you migh...

I've certainly heard this more than once or twice or three times. If you don't know what to pair with local foods, try local wines. But, is there really any merit or logic to that? There is. Particularly if the food is truly local as compared to a dish, for example, popularized on the Greek island of Santorini, but prepared in, say, Argentina. What's with the local? Consider a dish that is truly local to your area. The key ingredients came from your area. So, the vegetables might have been planted in the local soil. The meat came from animals raised locally or the fish from local streams. Similarly, the grapes having been planted in local soil will carry the same terroir markers as the dish. People who have been with us for two months or more will recall our reporting on terroir fingerprints , the very unique characteristics that allow really fine and experienced tasters to be able to identify the vineyard that was the origin of the grapes simply by the taste and smell. I...

As I said or at least implied yesterday, we were looking forward to our wine tasting, but a bit apprehensive. Hotel wine tastings are often bad and many times, I have found the people running them know far less than the students -- at least this student. So, when we walked in, I was pleasantly surprised by Erick, the head Sommelier for the property. While not yet certified, more than anything that was due to the infrequency of testing opportunities in Mexico and the even further infrequency due to COVID. Apprently, there is a single CMS testing site in the country and CMS comes to Mexico City about every two years in normal times. We were offered a choice of several different tastings and we chose the "International" one. The pours were advertised at 95 ml (about 3.5 ounces apiece) and I think that was fairly accurate. We were not cheated on the pours. Leading off was a Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough in New Zealand, 2017 vintage. Honeztly, while I've had this win...

The resort that we are currently visiting advertises a lot of events. One of them is a wine tasting. We like wine tastings, so we are going to try it out. The worst thing that could possibly happen is we drink really bad wine and learn nothing and have something to laugh about later. While waiting though, I can reflect on what we should expect from something like this. Of course, the bar was raised very high on one of the first of these we ever did. It was in the cellar at a fine hotel whose highest end restaurant had received a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence and was given to us by an Advanced Sommelier preparing to take his Master Sommelier test. Yes, we tasted wine. Contrary to the belief of many, however, the purpose of one of these is not to get drunk. The purpose is to taste wine, to experience wine and to learn about what you are tasting. That's why the early one was so special.  In it, we learned about differences in oak barrels, the rules of AOC Chateauneuf du P...

I've heard it tons of times. Our [insert name of grape] doesn't taste like [insert name of same grape]. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Before we get into that, I think the key here is what someone is trying to tell you. They are trying to say, for example, that their Chardonnay (or some other grape) doesn't taste like Chardonnay. They are trying to tell you that if you don't like Chardonnay, this is the  Chardonnay for you.  To me, that is strange. Why would you feel the need to drink Chardonnay if you don't like Chardonny? Would you eat collard greens if you don't like collard greens? Suppose someone told you that their collard actually taste like tomatoes which you happen to love. Would that make you want to eat those collards? It might, but why would you buy them if you could just as easily buy tomatoes and not have to doctor them to taste like tomatoes? Well, this was the story last week  I was looking on a wine list for a Rhone style red wine, but the...

I had an interesting experience last night. At a group dinner, we had two bottles of wine ultimately for our table. The first was an excellent selection -- a somewhat well-aged Brunello and the second was a recommendation of the gentleman who introduced himself as the sommelier. We'll come back to that. The list was quite expansive and quite expensive given the wines. But, for example, it's not often that you see an 07 Penfolds Grange on a resort list. But, the markups on these wines were just nuts. Back to the sommelier. I had my suspiciones when he began opening the first bottle. He did do the foil cut somewhat properly and placed the removed foil in his pocket. So far, so good. But, then it was time for him to uncork the bottle. I noticed his light blue wine key. While that in and of itself is not a determining indicator, light blue is not usually the corkscrew of choice for experienced somms. He placed the bottle on the table and insterted the tip of the thread into the cor...

This is a strange topic for a post. If you're reading this, you came to read about wine online. But, since this is something I do frequently, I thought I'd write about it. The simple fact is that just like many other places on the internet, the proverbial wine section has a lot of crap to it. You do remember what came out of it when Yogi Berra and his good friend Abe Lincoln has a conversation about the internet, don't you? If you missed that conversation, Honest Abe told Yogi not to believe everything he reads on the internet and Yogi replied that he undeerstood that half of it is true, half of it is false, and the other half is made up. They must have been reading the wine articles. And, frankly, some of it comes from people who are alleged to have expertise in the area. Other interesting tidbits come from self-proclaimed experts. When you do read online, particularly if you are going to make a buying or drinking decision based on what you find on the internet, it's r...

Suppose you go into a wine bar with a kitchen. What should that establishment be? I'm going to answer that question first. It's up to the proprietor. The proprietor sets the theme and if they want to be sucessful makes sure that said them appeals to their guests. Where I am less flexible though is in how the menus should be put together. Suppose the proprietor chooses to make this a restaurant that happens to be a wine bar. That's okay. But, if that is the case, the wines should complement the food. So, for example, if the food is Italian, perhaps the wine should be as well. And, even if it's not, it should be wine that can work foods and seasonings that are quintessentially Italian. So, make sure you have wines that go with things like olive oil, tomatoes and tomato sauces, oregano for starters. You get the picture. There are things that go in Italian foods and your guests who care should be able to find wines that complement those foods well. Now, let's switch it ...

It strikes me as a bit odd. While many established, well-known wineries grow just a few varieties of grapes and focus on a relatively small number of wines, some of the newer wineries, foten with newer winemakers and newer proprietors do the opposite. They grow seemingly every variety of grape known to man, make some as varietal wines and others parts of blends and have a website adorned with perhaps 20 to 30 different bottlings. Who is that winery? What is that winery? How can we know what to expect from them? I'm reminded of some episodes from the TV show "Shark Tank" when the sharks are turned off by an entrepreneur's busines because as a start-up, they have hundreds or thousands of SKUs. In wine, it is even a bit different than that. The grapes themselves cannot possibly fit the same estate. Perhaps they are importing (from other vineeards) grapes or juice, but how can you grow, for example, Syrah (a very warm or hot weather grape) and Zweigelt (a cool weather gra...

Imagine that you own a small, somewhat upscale, but neighborhood focused restaurant. You're not in the middle of a big city, but instead out in the suburbs. And, while your clientele does drink wine, you can only sell so much of it. Some customers don't drink alcohol, some are beer drinkers, some are spirits drinkers, and some drink a mixture of things. All that said, you want to have enough wines on your list to keep your wine drinking clientele happy. So, that's a mix of reds, whites, sparkling at a variety of price points.  To complicate matters further, you're in area where a half dozen or so distributors call on you and they all want some of your business. You've found something you like about most of them or their product selection, so you have historically done business with the majority of them. Then came COVID. And, as we emerge from the pandemic in different stages in different areas, you, just as your competition does, want to maintain and grow your custo...

We go to the store, be it a wine shop, a liquor store, a supermarket, a package store, or even convenience store looking to buy wine. Perhaps we see bottle tags touting that this wine received some particular score from some critic. When we see that the score started with a 9, our eyes perk up and if the digit after the 9 is a higher one rather than lower, hearts beat faster. We very rarely see that coveted 100 point score because there just aren't that many of them and most wines that get them have such limited allocation that you and I will not likely see them. According to the legends that go with those rating scales, 100 is supposed to be reserved for a perfect wine, 95-99 for extraordinary, 90-94 for excellent, and so on. Each critic has their own way of assessing a wine. Wine Advocate, for example, puts a real premium on ageworthiness. You might not care. Wine Advocate also likes fruit forward wines. This might not be your style. Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast seem to hav...

Once reserved for people skilled in winemaking and for royalty, ownership of wineries, estates, domaines, and pretty much everything related to a wine brand has become a staple for celebrities as well. With the significant growth of the industry, investment in wineries has become a way for them to grow their wealth whether their level of participation in the project is particularly active or simply lending their name as an influencer.  Influencer you ask. Well. depending on your personal taste in celebrities, if you are not a wine afficionado, are you more likely to buy a wine associated with Angelina Jolie or with Thomas Rivers Brown? Carmelo Anthony or Andrew Ericson? Another name that has come to the wine forefront recently is Kylie Minogue. Apparently, she is an Australian-born singer and actress. Now, she is in the wine business. And, in the last year, her wines have sold about 100,000 cases (that's more than 1 million bottles) and data indicate that more of them than not have...

When we think California wine country, or at least when I do, I think of the areas that have become really famous with the average American wine drinker. I'm not talking about some of the newer up and coming areas. I'm not talking about places like Santa Rita Hills where cult wines might fetch hundreds or evern thousands of dollars. I'm talking Napa Valley, and to a lesser extent, Sonoma.  A number of factors are coming together at once and I fear that the wine industry there that has seen meteoric growth could be heading for a downfall.  Why? When you combine price, climate, natural disaster, and the rise of other areas with the internet and the ability of consumers to easily get wine from those other areas, California wine country could become its own worst enemy. Now, I don't actually know something in particular here that nobody else knows. I'm just a blogger who writes without doing any real research. That said, this seeming calamity makes sense to me. Let'...

For those of you who have been reading here for a while, you might recall that I spent nearly a week on German Riesling. If you were really paying attention and have a good memory to go with it, you'll recall that the levels of wine within the German pradikat of qulaitatswein  are based on must sugar levels. So, generally speaking, the more sugar in the must, the higher the level on the quality scale. While doing this, we learned that, in order from least expensive to most, the German heirarchy is, and has been for years, Kabinett (good enough for the winemaker to keep in his own wine cabinet), Spatlese (late harvest or fully ripened), Auslese (even more late havest), Beerenauslese (selected harvest of berries), and Trockenbeerenauslese (dried berries selection or the grapes held so long on the vine and so overripe that they have shriveled to the point of drying out). Got it? All makes sense? It took me a long time to learn all that and to remember the order and to know which notes...

You're in a restaurant. The wines are priced all over the place. You'd like to find an excellent wine without paying a massive price for it. How can you do this unless you actually know all the wines and know how they should be priced? Often, it's not as difficult as you might think. Start by eliminating all the names you really know unless you just so happen to find the wine you really want in which case this exercise is pointless. Typically, the wines that people really know fall into that category because they show up on everyone's wine list. And, they are there on everyone's list because restaurants can move them. So, they don't need to price them really well. Next, eliminate every wine from regions that are familiar to you. Chances are, if they are familiar to you, they are familiar to lots of customers and people tend to buy what is familiar. So, in particular, if you are in the US, start out by eliminating wines that say Napa or Sonoma. Even where they ar...