What do you think? Impossible?!?

The alternative packaging trend gets bigger and reusable: a 2009 Riesling from the Finger Lakes in 20-liter tank will soon be available in NYC.

Known as Gotham Project, the thirst-quenching Riesling is the brainchild of Charles Bieler (above, left), of Bieler Rose in Provence and one of the Three Thieves, and Bruce Schneider (right), of Schneider Vineyards on Long Island. Bars and restaurants will be able to get it from local distributor Michael Skurnik; the only open question is whether it will be available for homes, as rooftops and poolsides beckon…

UPDATE: You can’t see it clearly in the photo, but both Bieler and Schneider are wearing black t-shirts saying “Give them the Finger Lakes.” I reproduce the image here courtesy of designer Steven Solomon. Welcome to New Yawk!

1) As a previous post-er said, rightly, Pinot Noir is a grape. It is not an appellation. Plant Pinot Noir anywhere – in Canarsie, in Wasilla, in Helsinki – if it bears fruit, that fruit is Pinot Noir. The Merlot that was supposedly used in the blend – the Merlot that makes, among other wines, Chateau Petrus – is not a traditional grape in the Languedoc either.

2) That thing we call Terroir: The language that you cite comes from INAO texts, the decrets by which appellations are defined. They are more hortatory than they are useful. The words “tradition” and “typicity” have done more to subvert the quality of French wine than a Gallo-Boisset partnership could accomplish in the wildest of their dreams.

IMHO terroir applies to that which is immutable: the soils, the subsoils, the elevation, the exposition, the opening of the countryside, the microclimate. While finding the right grape variety for a specific place is important, it is not the most important factor: terroir is. Plant Sauvignon Blanc in a Grand Cru vineyard of Chablis, treat it well, and you’ll have a great white wine. [In the name of typicité, such a practice is not allowed by the appellation. -Ed.]

3) As long as we encourage the production of great, terroir-specific wines, there is nothing wrong in allowing a parallel universe of beverage wines. I know that I was not born with a tastevin in my mouth. I started out with Mateus, Lambrusco Riunite and Zellerschwartzekatz (sp?) which had the added attraction of a plastic black cat attached to the neck of its bottle. We all start somewhere. There’s nothing wrong with well-made, reliably pleasant, affordable wines – so long as they don’t endanger “real wines.” In fact, they probably introduce people to wine in a non-threatening way and may lead a large percentage of those people to drink better and more authentic, site-specific wines.

4) And just for the record, I hated Mondovino. It was as simplistic and wrong-headed as this article. Nossiter, hyperventilating with a glass of Chablis on a terrace on the Place de l’Odeon with Charlotte Rampling. Spare me.

SIPPED: gilding the lily
Ah, spring is in the air. And with it come California winery newsletters offering their wines for $74 a case–just the shipping, that is.

SPIT: California values
The Bay Area NYT is the latest to ponder the question of why are there so few tasty value wines from California.

SIPPED: Buffett’s billions
Warren Buffett is getting into the wine biz. Not as a producer, but as a distributor. Through his subsidiary McLane, Berkshire Hathaway is buying the Georgia wine and spirits distributor, Empire, reports Wine & Spirits Daily. I guess Buffett knows where the profits are in wine.

SIPPED: spurious variable?
Wine drinking women don’t get fat! But is it wine consumption that explains the slower weight loss among women in a study? Not necessarily. [Globe and Mail]

SIPPED: subway reading
A twenty-something male in office clothes was spotted reading Wine Politics on the F train! Good thing it wasn’t on Kindle or the Cover Spies wouldn’t have known! [CoverSpy]

Presiding over forty harvests at Monte Bello in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the winemaker and CEO at Ridge, has seen an almost unparalleled run of excellence. It is rare among the top producers of the world not to hit a rough patch, where something just stops working for a string of vintages. But after tasting several dozen wines from vintages dating back to 1968, it’s clear to me that from vines grown on the fractured limestone, Ridge Monte Bello has been able to achieve this rare feat.

The road to Monte Bello
Born in 1936, Draper’s father was hit hard by the depression and returned to a farm outside of Chicago (Barrington, IL, is now a suburb). He eventually went to Stanford where he studied philosophy; he later worked for the US government in Italy and made some wine in Chile before being hired by the four partners of Ridge—all Stanford engineers—in 1969.

The four-and-a-half mile road to Ridge starts as two lanes. The ear-popping ascent from the floor of Silicon Valley winds under the moss-covered trees, eventually becoming decidedly too small for two cars to pass. That’s about when the first vines appear.

As I arrived at the upper winery one day last week, about 2,600 feet in elevation, the rain was falling. There was Paul Draper to meet me and the dozen other journalists and members of the trade attending the tasting, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Ridge.* Wearing a Gore-Tex shell, and sporting his signature trim goatee with his polarized glasses, dark in the cloudy glare, Draper smiled warmly.

We went into the cool Monte Bello barrel room where we were given two unmarked glasses. Monte Bello, the estate’s top wine, is a blend of mostly Cabernet Sauvignon and some Merlot, but also, in some vintages, some petit verdot. In our two glasses of the just-blended 2009 Monte Bello, we had to discern which one had just 0.9 percent more of one element than another.

The labels that adorn bottles of Ridge wines are models of precision. Retro-chic all-caps, blare the vineyard site; smaller font highlights each grape variety’s contribution to the blend. But nothing is as small as 0.9%. It turned out that the wine that had slightly more lift included the addition of a small amount of press wine. Almost everyone in our group preferred that wine. And it was also the current blend Draper & Co. had chosen.

Fine tuning the blend
The blending process at Ridge occurs in stages. In the February after harvest, most of the wines have completed their secondary (malolactic) fermentation. A group of ten tasters from the winery sits down to blind taste about five flights of six wines, which come from the individual vineyard plots, fermented separately. Each one is given a thumbs up or a thumbs down to qualify for the final blend. (Draper and the Monte Bello winemaker, Eric Baugher, and Lytton Springs winemaker, John Olney, admitted that their votes weigh more.) Interestingly, it is a relative way since only three from each flight can pass to the final round. In this way, each vineyard or block has an equal shot to reach the final wine. In a process known as assemblage, the various samples are then blended and set aside for another few weeks, when a second and final blend occurs.

A crucial part of achieving the consistency at Ridge Monte Bello remains the blind tasting of the various parcels. Draper said that they have also added a blind tasting of previous vintages against the final wine to assure consistency in house style from year to year, something that had escaped them one year in the 1980s.

We got to play along with the assemblage, tracing the blending process in five glasses. The first glass was a big, tight, highly structured wine, St. Estephe-like in its tannins; turns out it was 76% cabernet sauvignon and 24% merlot. Glass two saw the addition of 11% something else that added floral (lavender) aromas—turns out that was 11% petit verdot. The third glass moderated the aromatics but give the wine more depth on the palate—this addition was a dollop of cabernet sauvignon from the Steep Terrace parcel, which almost always makes it in the blend. Another shot of cabernet added more acidity and a final bolt of 7% surprisingly tannic merlot made the 2009 Monte Bello tapestry complete (for now since there’s a final blend assembled in May). The resulting wine, although still tightly wound, has excellent, depth, complexity and aromatic appeal.

The wines that do not make the top wine either end up in the Santa Cruz Mountains wine. At a list price of $42 (although often available from retailers for less), these are quite serious wines for at least a third the price of Monte Bello. The 2006 red has pretty aromas and is approachable now despite a sold core of fine tannins; the 2007 was more tightly wound at this stance and a more serious wine.

Curiously, the wines age in American oak barrels, rather than the French oak that acts as a vessel for many of the world’s top cabernets for their first year or two. Draper said that the site provided a European style of fruit and that with French oak, the wines would be mere imitations of Bordeaux and that wasn’t what he was seeking to do. The team at Ridge works with French coopers to source the wood from three forests of quercus alba (white oak) across the US (he wouldn’t reveal which, citing scarcity of the wood). The staves are aged outdoors near the forest of origin for two years, which provides many cycles of wetting and drying to leech out the harshest elements of the wood. (Coopers had tried to bring the wood to California for aging but it was too dry in the summer for Draper’s taste.)

But the real magic of the winemaking is the fact that there is no magic: winemaking occurs with a non-interventionist approach. In an age when commercial yeasts fire the fermentations of a vast majority of the world’s wines, the Ridge wines all occur with only the natural yeasts. Some say that is risky, but at Ridge it is an integral a part of the program. The yeasts appear in the winery and on the skins of the grape; damaged berries get put in the crusher since they are likely to have an abundance of yeasts as they attracted insects on the vine. There’s no micro-oxygenation and no reverse osmosis. The wines resulting from this winemaking are big and flavorful but also gracefully low in alcohol, always under 14%.

In the glass
And how do they age? Gracefully. We tasted fifteen vintages of Monte Bello over the course of one day and had no clunkers. The younger vintages are all tightly wound and will reward with more than a decade of cellaring; the world’s best cabernet assumes a delicacy and refinement that make it very much worth the wait. Of the younger releases, the 2005 stood out as particularly gorgeous with fresh acidity, minerality and youthful tannin under a seductive wrap of dark fruit.

Of the mature Monte Bellos, the legendary 1970 exhibited a gorgeous nose of delicate tobacco with the wine in a lovely place, mature yet still very much alive. This was my favorite of the pre-1990 wines and my second favorite of the night. The 1988 was really sublime with aromas of alluring mint and tobacco and a pinot-like delicacy. It had extraordinary length; I would like to try against top Bordeaux of the same vintage. The 1992 was also a superlative wine showing beautifully. The 1968 was served at the end of the meal with blue cheese. It was not port-like but, then-winemaker David Bennion left it on the lees for extended periods. Rich and ripe and mature it was a rare treat still showing impressively.

But the wine of the night, in my view, was the 1991. This wine has all the pleasure of top cabernet with age from a superior vintage and producer. That evening, it showed a multilayered subtle elegance, with a beautiful blend of mature fruit. The wine’s beautiful arc lingers impressively.

* For those who enjoy the full disclosure policies of this blog, I paid for my ground transportation on both ends of my trip, as well as my flight; Ridge paid for the hotel and meals. The wines were all from their cellars.

60-year-old cabernet vines at Monte Bello Ridge

Vineyard hazards!

With Paul Draper, both live and on the tshirt from Terroir wine bar in New York City. Draper told me that he went to Terroir where the server, upon seeing him, said that he looked better than in real life than he does on his tshirt. I’m sure that happened to Che all the time too.

Coming up in a future post, answers to the question: can Zinfandel age gracefully?

On Friday afternoon, Adam Borden resigned as executive director of the pro-reform group. The Baltimore Sun reported that he had lobbied aggressively for the cause–even calling a delegate’s mother–and ruffled some feathers. They quote him as saying he was resigning because he didn’t want his style to hurt the cause. His resignation letter is reproduced here in full after the jump.

Some key contacts:
Marylanders for Better Wine and Beer Laws and their page On Facebook
Delegate Dereck E. Davis, Chair, Economic Matters Committee
Senator Joan Carter Conway, Chair, Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee
House Bill (80/141); Senate Bill (26/47)

Sent this morning from the Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws:

My name is Adam Borden, and I’m a wine drinker.

I am also the Executive Director of Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws, a non-profit advocacy group trying to legalize wine shipping in our state. Friday, I spoke for the last time in that capacity. I am hereby announcing my resignation as Executive Director effective immediately.

When I first took over Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws 15 months ago, I always knew consumers wanted wine shipping. What I neither knew then nor could have imagined was just how substantial our group would become. During my tenure, MBBWL has increased its membership from 1,500 members to over 20,000. Our elected officials have been inundated with calls, emails and faxes pleading with them to finally make this a reality. Not just fine wine drinkers are upset that wine cannot be delivered. I received an email last week from someone who is angry that he can’t send a bottle of wine as a gift to someone … and he doesn’t even drink. Period.

Wine shipping is not just a consumer issue. Our supporters are also county governments, chambers of commerce, economic development agencies, wineries, retailers, gift basket makers, entrepreneurs, farmers, grape growers … the list goes on and on. The only people not on this list are the liquor wholesalers, who refuse to this day to meet with us. They do not want wine shipping because it would amount to 1% of the wine sold in the state … and these are wines they don’t even carry.

Sure, they espouse arguments that seem legitimate like worrying about the kids, the difficulty the state might have in collecting taxes or the detrimental impact on local liquor stores. These arguments like all their others are smokescreens. They are cover for the plain business interest driving their motivation. They will stop at nothing to maintain their stranglehold on Maryland’s liquor supply and fear that wine shipping is the proverbial “camel’s nose under the tent” that would loosen their profitable franchise.

Who are these “barons of booze” to quote the Washington Post? The two main distributors in this state are estimated to supply 70-80% of the total liquor and wine in Maryland. It is a duopoly. These companies are enormous, operating in multi-state jurisdictions and grossing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. It is estimated that they and their friends have contributed to the campaigns of over 80% of the Maryland General Assembly.

Many in leadership have said that 2010 is NOT the year to debate wine shipping. Why not, I ask you? Because our leaders fear angering what is arguably the most generous political patron in the state at a time that every incumbent Delegate and Senator desperately needs campaign funds.

But all of this is not news to any of you. If the wine shipping debate truly rested on its merits alone, our elected leaders would have passed it long ago. Instead, the bill has been hijacked by the liquor lobby. Friday, we announced that we came to a critical common understanding with our opponents on this issue. We can finally agree on one thing: they want this bill killed more than anything else. They will stop at nothing to see it defeated rather than work on a meaningful compromise. No matter the thousands of constituent letters and telephone calls, no matter the prominent levels of support throughout the state, no matter the logic of our arguments, our elected leaders are hard-pressed to challenge the liquor lobby.

I am still an optimist. I have not given up hope. There are so many good people in the General Assembly who want this to pass that I still continue to believe that 2010 can be our year. Direct shipping will not create world peace. It will not solve our budget crisis (though it will indeed help). Nonetheless, direct shipping will do so much good for so many people all over Maryland that I know its day is just around the corner.

In the course of growing and building Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws, I have pursued a grass-roots approach. Rather than play an inside game, we have gone directly to voters around Maryland to inspire them to take action. We’ve always played by the law but not always by the rules of Annapolis. As a result, my advocacy for this issue has sometimes rubbed politicians the wrong way. My own state senator from the 43rd District, Joan Carter Conway, is probably the most notable example; however there are others.

Because I care so much about this effort and about seeing Maryland enter the 20th century, let alone the 21st, I announce my resignation today. I hope my stepping down will in some small way advance the cause, allowing others to pick up from where I leave off. I would hate for my involvement in this legislation to be the reason for its demise one more year. Paul Hoffstein, a dear friend and fellow wine lover, will be taking over as interim director until someone more permanent can fill the position.

I want to be clear, though, that my resignation is in no way a concession of defeat. Nor does it mean that I will stop advocating for direct wine shipping, which I believe in wholeheartedly and have dedicated more time to than I can possible quantify over the last year and a half. I have taken no money from the organization and stand to gain nothing from the passage of this legislation.

I stand before you to deliver this message, “With my resignation today, there is NO reason that I know of, with the exception of the all powerful influence of Maryland’s liquor lobby, that this year’s direct wine shipping bill should not become law.”

If I have any regret about what has happened, it is only that I have not been able to share this news with any of our thousands of supporters before now. I want to thank each and every one of them for their continued dedication, especially those here today to testify on behalf of the house bill in Economic Matters this afternoon.

I am not yet a cynic and pray that our elected leaders will prove me wrong. With so much support and so many legislators behind this year’s bill, I continue to believe that 2010 will be our vintage. Thank you.

Tastefully yours,

Adam Borden
Former Executive Director
Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws
4315 Underwood Road
Baltimore, MD 21218
Tel: (443) 570-8102

http://www.mbbwl.org

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mbbwl
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mbbwl
MeetUp: http://www.meetup.com/Marylanders-for-Better-Beer-Wine-Laws/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1873279
Donate: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=2184279

Maryland is also home to 38 wineries today. Seeking to jump-start the domestic wine industry after Prohibition, the US Department of Agriculture turned to this mid-Atlantic state, opening an experimental winery in Beltsville, Maryland. Even though it was not long-lived, today’s wineries follow the early trail blazed by the Feds. The only problem: they cannot ship their wines to consumers in-state or out-of-state. In a recent survey (pdf), all but one winery respondents found this to negatively affect their business.

The keys to reforming the laws that have kept Marylanders locked out of the wine cellar for several decades may be within reach. Although the legislation has been introduced every year since 1981, Adam Borden, executive director of Marylanders for Better Beer and Wine Laws, says that this year it has majority support in both houses.

But the legislative path is not without roadblocks. Who has screwcaps big enough to stand in the path of this legislation? Senator Joan Carter Conway, chair of the Health and Education committee, threatened to stifle the bill in committee despite six of nine members being co-sponsors. But today, a committee in the House will hear testimony on the issue.

Robert Parker, Maryland’s best-known wine consumer, will not be testifying today since he is traveling, according to Borden.

Marylanders for Better Wine and Beer Laws and their page On Facebook
House Bill (80/141)
Senate Bill (26/47)

SIPPED: a new look
Eric LeVine, who won the voting here to become the wine person of the decade, has rolled out a gorgeous, comprehensive redesign with new functionality of cellartracker and on the URL grapestories.com.

SIPPED: Recovery
Chile’s wine industry is digging from the massive earthquake. According to an official statement from Wines of Chile the total damage 125mln liters, 12% of last year’s harvest, and valued at $250 million. They state that the industry’s exports “will return to normal within a very short period of time and without major difficulties.”

SIPPED: the ride continues
Consumers have filed a class-action lawsuit in California against E&J Gallo over the faux pinot, Red Bicyclette. [PRweb.com]

I’ve often asked why and replies generally come in the form of the producer’s desire to have the wine liked for the quality as opposed to the methodology per se. Or, where organic in spirit, a common reply has been a dislike for administrative costs of filing and/or wanting to maintain the flexibility to spray if necessary.

An academic paper presents findings that may not lead to more eco-labeling: Certifying a winery as organic or Biodynamic will raise the price of wine 13 percent but putting that on the label will see the price fall by 20 percent.

Magali Delmas and Laura Grant, of UCLA and UCSB respectively, examined 13,400 California wines from an eight-year period ending in 2005 to reach their conclusions, which will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal Business & Society. It’s certainly possible to quibble with their data: only 28 of the all-California wineries were certified and only 16 of the wines in the data set received the eco-labeling. The wines were expensive (about $37 a bottle) and the quality bump, as measured by WS scores, was slight (less than one point) as well as low, scoring less than 84.

They explain the premium for certification largely as the good will recognition akin to club membership. It would be interesting if they could explore quality further as I think that could be more convincing than the social effect in explaining the premium.

To explain the discount for labeling, they cite various winemakers who say that “organic” remains a stigma in the eyes of consumers. Such a comment seems oddly disconnected with the current era of Whole Foods and local and sustainable foods; younger consumers don’t see it as a stigma, I’d venture to say.

Part of the reason for the discount, they argue, is consumer confusion over the various labels and certifications, particularly since so few wines qualify for the organic standard, thus only qualifying for the looser “made from organically grown grapes” standard. They also show that consumers have little knowledge of Biodynamics with only 17 percent of respondents in a previous study being familiar with the term and only eight percent having tried a Biodynamic wine. (Of the respondents who were unfamiliar with the term, the single largest response as to what it meant was that it was genetically engineered or modified.)

What do you think–why is there an apparent discount for eco-labeling as opposed to eco-certification?

Delmas, M. and Grant, L. Forthcoming. “Eco-labeling Strategies and Price-Premium: The Wine Industry Puzzle.” Business and Society. (pdf)

Chile has a large, export-oriented wine industry. Some of infrastructure, particularly in the regions of Maule and Rapel (including Colchagua), has been damaged or destroyed. Contacted via email, Lori Tieszen, executive director of Wines of Chile USA, says that Jose Manuel Ortega reports “devastation” in Maule and that his winery sustained some damage; Julio Bouchon of J. Bouchon, “is safe but his beautiful old winery is leveled,” Tieszen writes. In 2006, the Oxford Companion to Wine described Maule as “slowly changing its reputation of growing only bulk wine.”

“One can smell wine along the roads in front of the wineries. Tanks laying, collapsed buildings, barrels and glass everywhere,” winemaker Sven Bruchfeld told James Molesworth, wine critic for Chilean wine at Wine Spectator magazine.

Molesworth has been tweeting what he hears from wineries (follow his feed for the latest). Another source told him, “Big damage to the industry. Millions of liters on the floor.” He also tweeted that Montes and Lapostolle were hit hard in Colchagua, an area that had seen lots of investment in the wine indsutry. Feel free to add news in the comments if you have updates.

Depending on the region and grape variety, the harvest has already started or was scheduled to start soon in the country.

Here’s the video’s pitch on why winemakers should use enzymes:

Major wineries produce large quantities of wine and as a result need to optimize their capacity by reducing production times. [image: hand harvesting] Enzymes are used by these larger wineries to speed up production process. Small wineries on the other hand are more interested in using enzymes to produce a higher quality of wine, particularly when the grape quality isn’t the best.

Other quotage comes form their enthusiastic client, Ch. Tour Prignac, who says that they use it “to produce optimum quality and obtain a color fitting to a great, age-worthy wine.”

They later elaborate that their products, under the VinoFlo name, offer deep colors and flavor intensity.

SPIT: California bargains
Mike Steinberger contemplates the puzzle of why so few “superstar” winemakers in California make wines under $20. We discussed the lack of tasty California values last year in relation to Fred Franzia, and heard from wine importer Bobby Kacher and winemaker Patrick Campbell.

SPIT: urban winemaking
Crushpad, the pioneer urban winery in San Francisco, has announced it will move its operations to Napa where its main supplier has space. Of note: two-thirds of their clients are commercial wine brands. [NYT]

SIPPED: innovation
While New York is debating selling wine in grocery stores (and foods in wine stores), Pennsylvania, where the state still owns all the wine stores, gets wine bars in supermarkets! Groc-o-pubs anyone? [Philly.com]

SIPPED: footy!
Unruly winery visitors in the Finger Lakes will get yellow and red cards. [WENY]

SPIT: truth
A shocking piece on Slate.com reveals that during Prohibition, federal officials “ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking.” But instead it accounted for 10,000 fatalities. Unmentioned in the brief story, but maybe people were on to the scheme and that helped account for the rise in home winemaking during Prohibition?

Styrofoam is popular with retailers and wineries shipping wine because it cradles and insulates the bottles. While it is ultralight, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of the shipment, it essentially never biodegrades. I always try to bring my Styro shippers back to a store so that they can be used again before their life taking up space in a landfill. One store, Grapes the Wine Company, actually includes a pre-paid label so consumers can return the empty box back to the store via Fedex for reuse and a store credit. Corrugated cardboard inserts are recyclable but they are quite heavy, increasing the carbon footprint. Pulp inserts are light and biodegradable.

The plastic sleeves that Astor uses, branded as Air-Paq, are both light and recyclable (though they are resin code 7, which many municipalities don’t recycle). Their staff inserts the bottles in the sleeve, then use a gizmo to inject the air and seal the sleeve (you can see a scintillating demo video here).

Reached via email, Andrew Fisher, owner of Astor, pointed out that it is much more space-efficient in their shipping area than Styrofoam, since there is just a plastic roll and a compressor. He elaborated, “Since Astor produces its own electricity and recaptures the waste heat to provide heating and cooling for our space, it seemed both incongruous and inconsistent to cling to Styrofoam shipping materials.”

Each bottle rests in an independent sleeve from the others so it can also be separated and used again for your wine travel needs. Or, if you have two boys like us, they each can put them on a hand and have a sword fight!

Related: “Poll: Styrofoam or cardboard for your wine shipping?“

The “impossibility” of the pairing centers on two things: 1) kimchi and spices and 2) a culture clash that came up in our previous discussion about whether wine (and alcohol) should be seen as a complement to the food or as a “palate cleanser,” a role that the high-octane soju often performs at Korean feasts.

Playing sommelier for the evening, I selected a range of wines including bubblies, aromatic whites, and some reds. The actual selection is often limited by the practical consideration of which wines you can actually find in your market. I chose the wines from Garnet Wine & Liquors, a store near the residence of the repast. Here’s a copy of the order:

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to try all the wines (there were only 14 people). We started off with the two bubblies, both from Roederer but one from California’s Anderson Valley and the other from Champagne, as a way to highlight the differences between the two regions. Paired with the dumplings, they both were good and popular but I preferred the cut of the Champagne. It also worked well with the jeon later in the meal, I found.

Moving to the table, we had a smorgasbord of Korean delights. I poured the aromatic whites and the Hermann J. Wiemer pleasantly surprised people who were programmed not to like either gewurztraminer or New York wines. The Van Volxem riesling fro the Saar was a big hit. I also brought a Lucien Crochet Sancerre to try the acid/mineral pairing and although the wine itself was good enough, it kind of bombed with the food (I should have tried it with the kimbap though).

The fruit and acidity of Pierre Chermette Beaujolais Vielles Vignes worked well. By the time the grilled beef bulgoki came out, so did Bonny Doon Le Pousseur syrah and the Ridge Lytton Springs zinfandel. I had chosen these on the “palate cleanser” end of things but the syrah seemed overshadowed while the zin was impressive and quite popular. In the end, I even tried a soju and it wasn’t as frightening as I had feared!

Thanks to some suggestions on the previous thread, our hosts even had some delicate white kimchi (baek), which was quite delicious on its own. I think I had already had the soju at this point so forgot to pair with wine…

Anyway, Korean food may have some challenges for wine pairing but they can be overcome! We had fun and I look forward to more experimenting of this kind in the future. Give it a try because even if you are a wine geek who still feels it is impossible, then there’s always the fallback: drink first, eat later.

Fried dumplings
Chicken yakitori [japanese inspiration]
Beef skewers (do you know bulgoki?)
Squid/spicy sauce
A variety of “jun” (pictured, right) which is something like potato pancakes but with fish, beef, vegetables, or seafood
California roll or ”kimbap” which is rolled “maki” with veggies/beef
Side vegetables – pickled, salad-like

Apparently it is impossible to pair Korean food with wine! And I’m not just saying that. Consider this comment from sommelier-to-the-max, Rajat Parr (from What to Drink with What you Eat): “I love Korean food, but it’s hard to have any kind of wine with it unless you have a Vinho Verde or something that’s really high in acid…the acidity in kimchee just kills wine and it’s all over.”

What do you think: do you buy the high acidity suggestion? Or do you prefer something aromatic and off-dry? How about bubbles? Or something slightly oxidative? Do reds work? Or is pairing Korean food with wine impossible!?!

Related: “Kimchi: impossible food-wine pairing?“