Friday was Claudio’s birthday. And that meant a pull-out-the-stops dinner. As the sole chef on this one (Claudio was busy working in a tax office—part of our freelance shuffle), I got to choose the menu. With spring in the air, I wanted to get away from the heavy meat stews or braises we normally do—the perfect excuse for uncorking some big red wines, like the older Barbaresco cru and Barolos stashed in our basement (there’s a distinct advantage to having a Piemontese husband)—but now was not the time. So fish and chicken it was.

And boy, we had a feast. For our primo, I adapted a Wine Enthusiast recipe for Maryland Crab Cake with batons of zucchini & squash & toasted pine nuts. “This is the best crab cake I’ve ever had,” gushed Linda, our upstairs neighbor. And it was just right—crispy brown on the outside, with a crab interior that was tender and not too compact. (Somewhere I’d read that the trick is to not overwork the crab cakes when shaping them, and that proved right.)

The crab cakes were browned, baked, then served atop a bed of zucchini and squash batons. I added diced red peppers for festive color and topped them with a dollop of mayo with Old Bay seasoning (to spare myself the ordeal of citrus beurre blanc sauce), some argula, and a sprinkling of toasted pine nuts. Delish. The four of us devoured them lickity-split with a bottle of 2007 Chablis Grand Cru Les Close from 14^th generation vignerons Jean-Paul & Benoir Droin, then uncorked a Gavi from Valditerra. Despite living one hill over from Gavi, I wasn’t acquainted with this estate (it’s closer to Novi Ligure, says Claudio, who visited once). But the wine was just lovely, with all the minerality and crystalline clarity that a good Gavi affords.

When I served the secondo, Andrea seemed surprised: “Two dinners!” But we had no problem polishing our plates. This was a lip-smacking Chicken Tagine with Apricots and Spiced Pine Nuts from Gourmet. Only…I forgot to add the pine nuts (the sorry consequence of two bottles of wine.) But it was fabulous anyway, with fresh ginger providing zip and blood-orange preserves adding a scrumptious sweetness that echoed the apricots. This got piled on couscous with more fruit—dried cranberries and prunes.

All that sweetness begged for a wine with ripe, succulent fruit, so a Chateauneuf-du-Pape was in order—a perennial favorite of Claudio’s. (I stayed loyal to the Gavi in my glass, however, which pairedC equally well.)

As a side dish, I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful late-winter citrus now in season.  So here’s my simple concoction, which not only goes great with tagine, but is as pretty as a bouquet of spring tulips.

ORANGE SALAD WITH CILANTRO

Mixed oranges (e.g., Clementine; navel orange; cara cara, a grapefruit-orange hybrid)
Cilantro, finely chopped
Arugula (optional)

For vinaigrette:

2 tablespoon orange juice
2 tablespoon red-wine vinegar
3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon fennel seeds, ground
Cut oranges in thin horizontal slices. Top with minced cilantro and vinaigrette. Serve on argula leaves (optional).

This being a birthday dinner, the coup de grace was a 7-layer chocolate cake brought by Linda & Andrea. The perfect excuse for a Ruby Port from Quinta do Infantado.

Happy birthday, Claudio!

When I heard that Ana Fabiano would be appearing at the Wine Media Guild’s April luncheon, I was jazzed. Last year, I’d picked up her book The Wine Region of Rioja—and didn’t put it down. The photos alone had me flipping through all 240 pages to drink in the stunning scenery, captured in all its sublime, rugged glory.

On a design level, this seemed a coffee-table book; its roomy photo spreads and spacious body font make it easy on the eye. But then I delved into the text, and the content was surprisingly, satisfyingly meaty. Fabiano covers the place and its geography, its rich history, the millennia-long development of Rioja wine, its aging classifications, its modern iterations, and the key bodegas. She does so with an economy of words, but with enough depth to offer new information to Rioja aficionados like me. Having been to the Yuso and Suso monasteries on our Rioja Roundup tour, I particularly enjoyed her synthesis of religious and viticultural histories. She ties Rioja’s emergence to the cave-dwelling mystics, who gave rise to the powerful monasteries in the 11^th century, which in turn built Rioja’s wine infrastructure—expansive vineyards for sacramental wine; roads and bridges to transport pilgrims and wine; and an internal communication system between monasteries in the region that precipitated the spread of information on vineyard care and winemaking techniques.

Fabiano’s book was, in short, an excellent companion to what I consider the benchmark book on Rioja, The Wines of Rioja by the late John Radford.

Before lunch I hastened to tell her all this. My comments were music to the author’s ears, it seems, for minutes later, she recounted our conversation in her opening remarks, saying I’d “expected the book to be fluff” (on hearing this, I nearly choked on my breadstick; fluff wasn’t a word I’d used), but she was truly pleased that a reader like me had found the book to be everything she’d intended: information-rich, comprehensive, and travel bait for the Rioja enthusiast.

Why wouldn’t we learn from her? Fabiano has impressive creds as trade director at Vibrant Rioja and brand ambassador for the DOCa Rioja, who has devoted the past 23 years of her life to Spain. She got her feet wet during a junior year abroad in Madrid in 1980, when Spain was crawling out from under the rock that was General Franco, blinking in the light of democracy. In writing this book, she relied on 20 years of personal notes, new interviews with several generations of winemakers, and old documents unearthed from the archives. With her knowledge of Castilian, Fabiano was able to access people and documents that were previously unutilized in the English-language canon on Rioja. And she tapped into a pool of very talented local photographers, whose magic-hour images suggest they were ready to pounce whenever the light was right.

Each of us attending got a free copy of the book. (Thank you, Vibrant Rioja!) Since I already have my own well-marked copy, we at La Dolce Vita Wine Tours are giving this book to the next person who signs up for our RIOJA ROUNDUP tour this September 9-14.

Some of the Rioja line-up at the Wine Media Guild’s lunch

My favorite four

Then there were the wines. Our walk-around showcased 14 Riojas, including three whites and three rosés, with older vintages on the table during lunch. Some wineries I knew; most I didn’t—which isn’t surprising, given the fact that 150 bodegas now export to the U.S. (Compare that to 16 in 1985 to get an idea of the region’s explosive growth.)

My favorite four (just to narrow it down) began with the very first red, a 2008 Crianza from Bodegas Ramirez de la Piscina ($15). This winery was a new acquaintance. Located on a side road near the village of San Vicente de la Sonsierra, they’re within the radius of our Rioja Roundup tour, I’m happy to learn. Though aged 15 months in oak, this crianza represents that juicy, fruit-forward, quaffable style of young Rioja that’s so lip-smackingly good. It’s a consistent prize winner, and I’m not surprised.

Another favorite was Beronia. I liked their 2008 Reserva ($21) well enough during the walkaround, but absolutely adored the 2005 Gran Reserva ($33) at lunch. The dry oak tannins and tart fruit of the younger vintage had here mellowed out and cohered into a complete, beautiful wine. (No wonder it got 93pts from Wine Enthusiast.) Fabiano calls its style “Modern Classic,” with a preponderance of tempranillo (90%) in the blend and some French oak added to the American barrique that’s historically used in Rioja.

Another Modern Classic was the 2005 Muriel Reserva ($21) from Bodegas Muriel in Elciego, long-time grape sellers who started bottling under their own name in 1986. With a delicious dark-chocolate cloak around a berry core, this 100% tempranillo was my top wine of the tasting and a favorite of many other attendees.

I was glad to see Faustino here—like spotting an old friend in the crowd. Despite its huge production (20 million bottles), this family-owned, centenary winery (f. 1861) manages to maintain a high level of quality, as we’ve discovered on various visits to their Oyón estate. We tasted their 2000 Gran Reserva ($38), a tempranillo/mazuela blend, which falls in what Fabiano calls Rioja’s “Classic” style (i.e., sourced from parcels in all three subzones and blending tempranillo, mazuelo, garnacha, and/or graciano, Rioja’s classic quartet). Compared to the other wines, this one had greater tannic grip and a more austere character. Its age—now 13 years—was showing nicely, with notes of tobacco, tomato leaf, and earth.

As Fabiano repeatedly pointed out, the Gran Reservas are some of the best price/quality values around. I’d second the motion. And the 2005s were all stunners. I suspect I’ll be making extra room in my suitcase for those next fall.

Our line-up of joyous, girly girl Beaujolais

Beaujolais don’t get no respect. It’s been the butt of jokes and derision for as long as I can remember.

“These are robot wines, rolling off the assembly line, millions and millions of them,” wrote wine importer Kermit Lynch in Adventures on the Wine Route. “When I see wine writers taking the current formula Beaujolais seriously…awarding points and stars, discussing the ‘banana’ aroma, I want to scream, THESE ARE NOT LIVING WINES.”

Lynch hammered out this screed back in 1988, but in the 25 years since, Beaujolais has yet to find its superhero defender, its redemptive plot point or way into the hearts and minds of wine conoscenti. A simple bistro wine, it’s not the kind of thing that’s featured in professional wine tastings in New York, so it rarely crosses my path. (I’m not at all opposed to summer quaffers—au contraire—but I usually turn to Italy for these: basic Chianti, Valpolicella, Ciro…)

That’s why I was delighted when Lynn Abell offered to host a Beaujolais Cru tasting for our bimonthly wine club. The idea was to give Beaujolais a fighting chance by focusing on its best wines: the 10 cru that lie on the granite-based soils in the northern half of the appellation, a 67-square-mile zone above Lyon.

The crus comprise just a fraction of the whole. Factoid: Half of all Burgundy wine is Beaujolais. And half of all Beaujolais is Beaujolais Nouveau—the “assembly line” wine that Kermit Lynch was dissing, which arrives with such great fanfare at Thanksgiving.

Cru flash cards

Being a Beaujolais novice, I picked up some ABCs, starting with this fact:  Beaujolais crus do not include the word ‘Beaujolais’ on the label. So we all need to write these names on flash cards and memorize them: Brouilly, Côte de Brouilly, Régnié, Morgon, Chiroubles, Fleurie, Moulin-à-Vent, Chénas, Juliénas, and Saint-Amour—the 10 cru, strung south to north along the meandering Saone River.

Reading up on Beaujolais and the gamay grape before our tasting, I uncovered a few more interesting tidbits. In A Carafe of Red, former Gourmet wine writer Gerald Asher explains how the Beaujolais Nouveau phenomenon took shape soon after France introduced its AOC laws in 1935. “Growers were still shipping barrels of new (and probably fizzy) Beaujolais to Lyons as recently as the 1930s,” he writes. In bistros, the wine went straight from barrel to carafe. When drunk in its infancy, Beaujolais was a charmer: “tender yet sprightly…redolent of peonies in full flower—as seductive as any wine can be.”

But that practice was curtailed when France’s new appellation laws clamped down on such freewheeling, undocumented selling. WWII intervened next, definitively breaking tradition. The Vichy administration’s restrictions were revoked in 1951, when authorities fixed December 15 as the date when AOC wines could be sold. “Too late!,” cried Beaujolais growers who’d traditionally sold some of their fresh-pressed wine soon after harvest. They lobbied for and obtained a waiver that allowed them to release en primeur wines one month early, on November 15. For commercial motives, that date was changed in 1985 to the third Thursday of November. As Asher euphemistically notes, “The arrival of the new wine in far-flung places could be tied to a weekend during which everyone could enjoy it.” (“Or tie one on,” as club member Michael Shroeder translated.)

I was particularly interested in reading how Beaujolais has evolved in style over the past half-century. That’s what set Kermit Lynch off. He quotes Jean-Baptiste Chaudet, a post-war wine merchant, recollecting Beaujolais being “very light in color, at times really pale, slightly aggressive, even a touch green, and rarely above 11 degrees alcohol.” Chaudet decried the overproduction, lazy cellar techniques, and heavy-handed chaptalization that changed Beaujolais entirely, raising the alcohol several degrees and making the wine “supple” instead of “young, light, and aggressive. ”

Indeed, all the wines we tasted were between 13 to 13.5%. It’s impossible to know how much is due to global warming, which has affected all of Burgundy. But undoubtedly sugar plays a part.

The thing is, today’s wine drinkers prefer “supple” over “aggressive”. We certainly did. There was one Kermit Lynch wine at our tasting—a 2010 Chateau Thivin Côte de Brouilly—and not surprisingly, this was the lowest alcohol (12.5%) and most tart of the lot. Pale in color, its bouquet was delicate, reminiscent of strawberries (“strawberry lip gloss,” I jotted in my notes). But it was more linear than plump, and it fell to the bottom of the list when we voted for our favorites. (For a differing opinion, see Eric Asimov’s “Looking for Renewed Magic in Beaujolais.”)

And the winners are…

Instead, the group’s wine of choice was the 2009 Domaine Pascal Brunet Morgon, sourced from the granite- and schist-rich soils of Côte du Py.  In my mind, this was in a class by itself, possessing a structure and minerality that made it resemble—how shall I say this?—regular wine. I missed the flirty charm and fruity aromatics of gamay and, for that reason, was less smitten than the others.

My favorite of the tasting

To my mind, the wines that really sung were those that offered the prettiest fruit and the most floral aromas. These were the ones that flaunted the essence of gamay, like proud girly girls. My top picks were the 2009 Dom. Tranchand Fleuri Vielle Vignes, which offered a noseful of violets, reminding me of my grandmother’s guest bathroom, with its rose soap and dried-flower sachet; the same vintner’s 2009 Saint Amour, which added a grapey scent to the floral base, like a trellis of ripe Concord grapes in your flower garden; and—topping my list and #2 for the group—the 2009 Dom. Chevalier-Métrat Brouilly Vieilles Vignes (above). Made from 50-year-old vines, this offered an intense bouquet of peony, grape, and plum, and its higher acidity supplied a nice, food-friendly tartness. Whereas many of the wines were lovely at first blush but stopped short, this had some length and seemed the most complete wine, while retaining the charm.

These Beaujolais make me smile. And not just because of their reasonable price (all $17 to $18). Friendly and winsome, they’re perfect companions for a pleasant summer afternoon or an al fresco supper. And that gets my respect.

The makeover: Out with the old (left) and in with the new

You’ve got to hand it to those Chianti Classico producers. They don’t rest on their laurels. Even though they’ve got the most famous wine name in all of Italy, they don’t coast. Instead, they’re busy as beavers changing and updating virtually everything they do, from vineyard to cellar, raising the bar ever higher.

That’s been going on for few decades now. It desperately needed to be done, as any babyboomer will attest. (We survived not only sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, but thin, weedy Chiantis.)

Now everything’s changed. Every time I visit the region—about twice year—it’s clear that Chianti Classico is a land of overachievers. And god bless ’em. They’re constantly tinkering with vineyard density, trellising, and clones. And they’ve gradually changed Chianti Classico’s very identity, moving it from its original 1860s recipe (sangiovese, canaiolo, and colorino, plus a softening splash of white malvasia or trebbiano) to today’s big-tent definition that includes not only blends with international grapes, but also pure sangiovese, that fine-blooded but temperamental Arabian stallion of Tuscan grapes. Even in the blended Chiantis, the trend is towards ever-increasing amounts of sangiovese. (The white grapes, meanwhile, have been unceremoniously pushed out of the tent for good.)

Gone with the wind: the old Chianti fiasco

The revamped rooster & 3-tier system

Paul Wagner of Balzac Communication said it well when introducing the seminar accompanying the Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico Grand Tasting, held in New York last week. When teaching Chianti Classico, he noted, “it’s less like medieval history, which doesn’t change too much, and more like slang or modern English, which changes continuously.”

Last week we learned more change is afoot. As announced in a jazzy video, the black rooster has gotten a makeover and now the trademark has a “livelier, more contemporary” look.

But behind the window dressing, there are deeper changes: Consortium president Sergio Zingarelli of Rocca della Macie announced a new three-tier pyramid for Chianti Classico, which goes into effect in 2013.

The bottom tier is your basic Chianti Classico, now dubbed Chianti Classico Annata. Other than that word annata (meaning vintage), nothing much changes here; it’s still 12 months of aging. This entry level indicates a fresher, fruitier style of Chianti Classico.

Next rung up is Chianti Classico Riserva, a category that’s been around for awhile. It requires double the aging (24 months, including three in bottle). The riserva label suggests a more powerful, age-worthy wine—one that uses better grapes, possibly more time in wood, and definitely more oomph.

New is the top tier: Chianti Classico Gran Selezione. This requires grapes to be estate grown and estate bottled, and aging increases to 30 months. Both it and the riserva have updated, presumably intensified “chemical and organoleptic parameters,” per the consortium. Gran Selezione will clearly be the grand master of Chiantis, perhaps intended to challenge its rival to the south, Brunello di Montalcino. (In a price/value comparison, Chianti is already the hands-down winner.)

Is this new three-tier system good? No doubt most Americans will blithely ignore it. But for those who do pay attention, it could be a blessing.

Because, let’s face it, it’s hard to know what’s inside a bottle of Chianti Classico, given the variables of blending, maturation, and microclimate in this sizable wine zone. And no one can possibly know all the Chianti producers and their house style firsthand. There are 365 consortium members who bottle their own wine—one for each day of the year. That’s a lot of Chianti to taste through. So clues like Annata, Riversa, and Gran Selezione just might help.

All in a day’s work

Pat’s picks

At the walkaround tasting, where 26 Chianti Classico wineries showed their wares, that range in style was apparent. And so was the overarching quality.

I gravitated toward some old friends who make what I consider benchmark wines: There was Casa Emma’s lovely and amiable Chianti Classico 2010, a traditional blend (with 10% canaiolo and malvasia nera) that always foregrounds ripe red fruit—a perfect lunch wine. Moving up the ladder was Capannelle’s Chianti Classico Riserva Capanelle 2007, a pure sangiovese that’s as refined as the Relais-quality hotel on their property, and Fontodi’s sought-after Chianti Classico Riserva Vigna del Sorbo 2009. Despite its dose of cabernet (5%) and 24 months in new oak, this cru from the conco d’oro or golden bowl of Panzano is an exemplary Chianti Classico, showing the finesse that characterizes this high-altitude subzone.

Good old Ruffino keeps stepping up to the plate with its 2007 vintage of Chianti Classico Riserva Ducale Oro. (2007 was a fantastic year in Tuscany, by the way, and the winemakers said 2012 looks good as well.) It was a pleasure to taste Ruffino’s top Chianti Classico again—this one blended with 20% cab/merlot—and see how it’s so consistently elegant and supple. (For more on this historically interesting estate, see my story Time Traveler: A Day with the Ambassador of Ruffino, in the March/April 2013 issue of Tastes of Italia.)

Finally, I was pleasantly surprised with Rocca della Macie’s Chianti Classico Riserva Famiglia Zingarelli 2008, a modern blend with cab and merlot (5% each). I admit I’d previously shied away from this estate because of its huge size. (At 3- to 5-million bottles annually, it’s the fifth largest winery in the zone.) But by gosh, this was my favorite wine during the seminar, and it appealed again during the walkaround. And no, that wasn’t just because owner Sergio Zingarelli is the new DOCG head (nor because his father, Italo, produced dozens of spaghetti westerns). I liked its mouth-watering acidity (sangiovese’s benchmark) combined with fruit as sweet and ripe as grandma’s cherry pie. Ripples of earth and tobacco gave it that old-world Tuscan touch that I find so appealing. I’ll be looking for this wine at restaurants next time we’re in Chianti.

And that, folks, will be this coming July on our  Tuscan Wine Treasures tour. So join La Dolce Vita Wine Tours there, taste Chianti Classico in situ, and see for yourself how far it’s come.

Saint Francis preaching to the birds and blessing Montefalco

“Tell us about the tannins,” said one wine writer through stained, inky teeth. By this point in our Montefalco Sagrantino tasting, everyone looked as though they’d been slurping denim dye—a sign of the power of this indigenous Umbrian grape, which possesses polyphenols that are off the charts. (Drink up, health nuts.)

The theme of this month’s Wine Media Guild luncheon was “Wines from Montefalco,” and the tannin question was addressed to Marco Caprai, one of six winemakers in attendance. The Arnoldo Caprai winery, founded by Marco’s father, is an acknowledged leader in the appellation, and their efforts garnered Wine Enthusiast’s 2012 European Winery of the Year award. (“It’s fantastic for a little winery from a little region in a little village,” Marco said with endearing modesty.)

So, what about those tannins? They’re clearly a hallmark of the grape. During our walkaround tasting of 3 whites and 16 reds before the sit-down lunch at Felidia, people were wincing and talking about stripped enamel as much as they were the blackberry flavors and oak spice, despite the fact that these wines had some age, being from the 2004 to 2007 vintages. (The DOCG requires one year in wood and 29 months overall. But 2008 is the vintage currently on the market, so it’s evident that most top producers hold them back at least three years—for good reason.)

During the walkaround, I gravitated to the more accessible Montefalco Rosso, a blend of sagrantino (65-75%) and sangiovese (10-15%) that’s rounded off with a splash of something else: merlot, barbera, cabernet, and montepulciano are all permitted. I took a particular liking to Antonelli’s Montefalco Rosso 2009 ($20) and Caprai’s Montefalco Rosso 2010 ($23). The latter, in particular, had buckets of fruit (comparatively speaking) and a delicious cherry-candy core (thank you, sangiovese).

But then at lunch, the Montefalco Sagrantino (always 100 percent sagrantino) lost its gladiatorial aggressiveness and opened up enough to be a wonderful team player with the dishes that Felidia’s magnificent chef had prepared: risotto with mixed funghi, to which a dash of coffee powder had been added (“we’ve discovered it goes with sagrantino,” the chef later told me), followed by duck wrapped with prosciutto on a bed of spinach and lentils. Mmm, mmm, good.

L-R: Winemakers Marco Caprai, Peter Heilborn (Tenuta Bellafonte), Paolo Bartoloni (Le Cimate), Guido Guardigli (Perticaia)

As we chowed down, my favorite sagrantinos were Le Cimate Sagrantino 2008 (n/a), from a new winery founded by third-generation grape growers (their Umbria Bianco was also superb: an unusual 60/40 blend of vermentino/grechetto, called Aragon, which offered all of vermentino’s enticing macchia aromas, minerality, and sapiditá, but with a plusher finish that went on forever); and also the Colle del Saraceno Sagrantino 2008 (n/a), coming from Montefalco’s smallest winery, according to Myla Botti, wife of winemaker Francesco Botti. This tasted very old-fashioned in a good sort of way, like some of the grandpa-style primitivos that use whole clusters containing ripe, green, and raisinfied grapes. It seemed late-harvest, and yielded some of those same coffee notes that our chef had detected. “No, the harvest is normal; the secret is in the vinification,” Botti explained when asked. “We stop fermentation with a few grams of sugar. That gives it a smoothness that balances out the tannins, which we don’t want to lose.” Aged three years in stainless, then one year in large Slavonian oak, the wine still packs 14.5% alcohol, despite that touch of residual sugar. “It would have no trouble going to 19 to 20 percent,” she said.

And in fact, sagrantino’s thick skins and abundant sugars explain its history as a passito dessert wine. Made this way at least since Roman times, sagrantino’s history reminds me of the recioto of Valpolicella—another Roman-originated dessert wine made from the drying of thick, waxy-skinned grapes, which can endure this kind of abuse without shriveling into desiccated jawbreakers. We tried Colle del Saraceno’s Sagrantino Passito 2008 (n/a) with dessert, and it was indeed a nectar suited to wine critics and gods (nectar is Latin for “drink of the gods,” derived from the Greek néktar, a compound of nek or death, and tar, overcoming).

My husband has been pushing to add an Umbria tour to our roster at La Dolce Vita Wine Tours for some time now. This tasting certainly has bolstered our rolodex with some new names I wouldn’t mind visiting. But for me the capper was Myla Botti’s involvement in the monastic church of San Francesco in Montefalco. On my one trip to the region a dozen years ago, we had the good fortune to visit when the cathedral’s magnificent fresco cycle The Life of Saint Francis by Benezzo Gozzoli was undergoing restoration. Miraculously, the church allowed visitors to climb the scaffolding all the way to the top and stand nose-to-nose with Saint Francis and his peers in the capella maggiore. Here one could see a level of detail in Gozzoli’s fine brushwork that was invisible to human eyes below: the weathered skin on Saint Francis’s face, the feathers on his aviary congregation, the individuals leaves on lollipop trees and blades of grass. God was the artist’s intended audience, and here we were, sharing the view mostly intimately. Perhaps we shared the sagrantino, too. The passito was most likely the sacramental wine in these parts.

Myla invited us back, saying she’d give us a tour of the cathedral, now fully restored. And, of course, she’d pour us some good Montefalco afterwards. That’s a pilgrimage worth taking, I’d say.

Napa’s Culinary Institute of America, host of numerous Meadowood sessions

“The central defining element of a novel is, ‘And then…?’ ”

That quote comes from E.M. Forster by way of James Conaway, one of the most inspiring speakers at last week’s Professional Wine Writers Symposium at Meadowood in Napa. It’s as true for nonfiction writing as it is for novels, and it even holds for wine writing—though, in my opinion, too few wine scribes follow that code.

I’m a new fan of Conaway, and I haven’t even read his books yet. (But I’m heading to B&N posthaste to buy his 1992 best seller Napa: The Story of an American Eden and its 2003 sequel The Far Side of Eden: New Money, Old Land, and the Battle for Napa Valley.)

Conaway epitomizes the kind of long-form narrative nonfiction that I love and aspire to. Something that sets scenes, establishes characters, and moves them through environments and conflicts. Writing that approaches wine through people and the culture they create and populate. It’s precisely what I want to do with my own wine writing, even in magazine form.

Did this conference get me charged up? You bet. There’s nothing like a week of talking shop with fellow writers and editors to get energized and re-set one’s compass. I managed to connect with editors from Wine Enthusiast, Decanter, and the travel magazine Afar, which has the kind of first-person writing that’s right up my alley.

As my high school English teacher Clyde Coon used to say, the best way to learn to write is to read. So, in addition to Conaway, I gathered a list of recommended reads that begins with Hugh Johnson’s A Life Uncorked, GQ’s Alan Richmond, Corie Brown’s Zester Daily, the Smitten Kitchen and Lot18 blogs, the aggregator Longreads.com, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life, and stretches on from there.

I Want My YouTube!

An all-day session on video production by Storycellars got me jazzed about learning iMovie. While 60 to 90 second videos (the sweet spot for YouTube) might be down the line for me (honestly, I’ve got only so many lives to live and hours to learn), I do see iMovie as a way to repurpose the zillions of photographs I’ve shot during our 13 years of La Dolce Vita Wine Tours. Expect to see a short iMovie on each of our tour itineraries.

For those of you in my shoes—comfortable with a DSLR, but video curious—here’s a short list of low-cost gear worth knowing about that was mentioned during the seminar:

• Zoom H1 digital audio recorder ($95) for usable sound (forget about your iPhone mic)

• Foam-core board ($6) or Impact 5-in-1 collapsible reflector ($25–47) for bounce light

• PluralEyes for audio sync / sound slate ($199)

• GoPro camera for timelapse and wide shots (shoots up to 4K) ($200–400)

• Tip: Use a 100mm focal length for interviews, set to 320 ASA. When doing a walk & talk, stay wide to maintain focus

• Killer Tracks for royalty-free music

• Lynda.com for tutorials about editing software and how-tos

Our Storycellars instructors put together this 90-second video of Meadowood 2013 for our farewell dinner, which nicely encapsulates the vibe of this event. But as proof that entertaining video needn’t be so polished, another panel showed William Shatner’s crazy, low-rent Brown Bag Wine Tasting—as addictive as cat videos, and just as cheap.

“Don’t quit your day job”

While it’s nice to get motivated, this conference also dumped a bucket of cold water on our buzzing brains. In the conference’s most-tweeted panel, Wine Enthusiast editor Susan Kostrzewa presented figures on pay rates gleaned from 20 wine journalists. On average, those scribes bring in only $15–25K from wine writing (mostly from print), which constitutes just 10-25% of their annual income. The balance comes from wine education, consulting, judging, or wholly unrelated work. Their word rate is $1.50 maximum; more typical is 25¢ to $1/word.

Pathetic, in other words. And this is for established wine writers. The data sent shivers through the room.

After Susan recounted these sobering facts, we did something interesting. All 55 of us were given a remote-command unit that could instantly tabulate survey results and produce a pie chart. What this live survey showed was another jaw-dropper:

• 44% of those attending the Professional Wine Writers Symposium earn less than $5K a year on wine writing.

• The vast majority (43%) get between 1–10% of their income from wine writing (mostly for magazines; the web pays little to none). Only 19% derive most or all income (75–100%) from their chosen métier.

As Vinography’s Alder Yarrow later quipped, “Don’t quit your day job.”

Since mine is La Dolce Vita Wine Tours, I have no intention of quitting. But neither do I plan to give up my other paying occupations: film writer for American Cinematographer and freelance copyeditor for Elle. I suppose I take some comfort in knowing that I’m not the only wine writer who gets scandalously low rates. And I’m reassured to know that virtually everyone—including the most successful, established writers at this event—are spinning multiple plates, just like me.

This was my second time at Meadowood, and I feel I’ve found my peer group. It’s nice to belong—even it that means sharing the pain along with the satisfactions of the wine-writers’ life.