Lousy Grapes

Burt's Best

2012-02-10T23:48:00.000-06:00

There is a man that is so over the top, so larger than life, his very existence is often questioned. He does however, exist. And I somehow got him to agree to be my next guest blogger. Where did we go wrong America that a man like Mark Ruffulo is considered a heart throb? The guy looks like he’d be bed-ridden for days due to a hangnail. At one time America wanted its movie stars to have that shoot first, drink a beer, and say to hell with asking questions later and because the post written by my last guest blogger went over so well, I decided to continue with the theme and have yet another action star give us some of his thoughts about wine. Only in this case instead of a bone breaking martial artist I went with an unapologetic All-American American guy. This gentleman never needed to learn martial arts. His slick mouth and holier than thou mustache has gotten him through the “hairiest” of situations.

Am I speaking of Tom Selleck? Shit no. I’m talking about the mother-fucking bandit himself, Burt Reynolds. What you probably know is that he spends most of his time wearing Neoprene vests and destroying our U.S. interstates with his Trans Am but what you may not have known is that Mr. Reynolds is also a very knowledgeable wine appreciator. Because his birthday is coming up I thought it’d be a good time to get him to give us a few of his thoughts on what wine has done for him in his life. So without further introduction, and on his birthday, I give you Sir Dr. Burt Reynolds.

Wine? Yeah, I’ve been known to drink it. I’ve also been known to snort copious amounts of blow from the ass crack of a shaven donkey. I don’t see anyone wanting me to write about that. I could write about that kind of stuff forever. Or how about the time I powdered a dozen donuts with a half ounce of Molly? I seriously thought I was Lee Majors for almost a week. Not Lee Majors as in his character from The Six Million Dollar Man, but the actual Lee Majors. The guy was unbreakable man. I once saw him nose dive into an empty swimming pool. When he finally came to he screamed “water’s for assholes” and began doing a butterfly stroke across naked concrete. That’s a fucking man if you ask me. Is he still alive? Anyone know? Well if he is dead I bet a syringe, a .38 Special loaded with blanks, a boombox playing a Sinatra tape, his lawyer, and a small Thai boy were all in the room when it happened.

Why does Burt Reynolds like wine? Well, it tastes good, it makes food taste better, it gets stuck in my mustache and provides a little surprise libation later on in the day and most of all, chicks love it.

But I digress. I was asked by the guy who runs this electropage to give some thoughts about some of my favorite pairings. I’m assuming he means pairing wine with food but I only eat two things, jerky (be it beef, rattlesnake, caribou, dog, turkey, honey badger, meerkat, horse, earthworm, nutria, or marmoset) and ice cream sandwiches. It’d get pretty boring talking about the few wines that pair with those food products so instead I’m going to discuss wine pairings with things in my life that I enjoy. Life moment wine pairings, which some may say is a fairly conceptual undertaking. Others may be surprised I even know the word conceptual.

I'm the one in front.

I may as well begin with the most obvious pairing. The 1978 Pontiac Trans Am 10^th Anniversary Edition that was featured in the movie Smokey and Bandit 1-23 and Screaming Eagle Cabernet. Any vintage of Screaming Eagle will do but the most important part of this pairing is that you enjoy it while hauling ass through Texas at unheard of speeds while an entire troop of interstate patrol cars chases you down. The adrenaline coursing through your veins, the scream of multiple sirens, the roar of the 1 mile per gallon guzzling 6.6 Liter engine, and the unreal tannins from the cabernet all marry well into a perfect symphony causing every synapse in your brain to simultaneously explode. Sure oysters Gewertraminer are good, but they’re far from that good.

You no doubt remember my role of Lewis Medlock in the movie Deliverance. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was easily the longest I’ve ever had to go without a mustache because not long after that I filmed White Lightning, which I’ll get to in a moment. My mustache is where I derive most of my supernatural powers. In Deliverance it didn’t make too much of a difference because I was allowed to where a sleeveless neoprene vest during most of the filming of that movie. If the mustache is my number one power animal than the sleeveless neoprene vest takes second place hands down. To get to the pairing I have to remind you all that there is a scene where the actor Ned Beatty gets his manginity taken from him by a couple of ne’er-do-well backwoods types. Ned wasn’t very excited about doing the scene and what it may do to his career so at the time the director promised him an entire case of 1964 DRC which was epic even at that time. Ned agreed to the trade and did the deed and the rest is history. When Boorman (the director) got Ned that case of wine I had him pick me one up as well.

Bottom line is, Ned Beatty’s a complete asshole. He always has been and always will be. You’re probably saying to yourself, “how could a guy that always as nice as Ned Beatty is in his roles be an asshole?” Believe me, the guy would kick his own mother in the shin for half a cigarette if she hadn’t already abandoned him when he was seven. One of my favorite pairings to date includes pulling one of those bottles of DRC from my cellar, popping the BluRay of Deliverance into the player, and watching that infamous rape scene on loop over and over again as I drink that entire bottle, finishing off the last drop as Ned’s bare ass is seen scurrying up that hill for his life. Fuck that guy.

For my third and final pairing I’m really just throwing a guess out there. You remember the movie White Lightning? Yeah, neither do I. Apparently I played a guy name Gator and believe it or not that dickhole Beatty is in that movie as well and surprise surprise, he plays an asshole. The guy was born for the character. He played a cop and I played a guy that was running from him while trying to expose him of being on the take from moonshiners. I learned all this on Wikipedia mind you because I don’t remember a damn bit of it, which is why it led to such a great pairing. The movie took place in Arkansas and that’s where we filmed most of it because the extras are more authentic…and cheap. Toothlessness is rampant and “redneck” make-up wasn’t needed at all. That much I remember. The rest of my memory is hazy though because of my consumption of the number one cash drop in Arkansas. Pot. I then mixed that cash crop with their number two cash crop, moonshine. Boom, kick assed pairing and a good three months of my life are completely gone. But in a good way. From what I’m told I insisted everyone call me Gator even off camera presumably in the interest of remaining in character but it was probably because Gator is a kick-assed name and this was the seventies. Nuff said.

Hope you enjoyed my stories folks. If I can leave you with one more piece of advice…sex while wearing a bolo tie isn’t as cool as it sounds. Good night.

Now a fragrance called Musk of Badass.

(I’d like to thank my fellow wine nerd Barb for giving me the idea for this post. Hope you’ve enjoyed it.)

Two Things

2012-02-09T23:11:00.000-06:00

Coming Soon

Also, I'm very thankful for the Hosemaster's return.

Random Thoughts Till My Next Funny

2012-02-03T21:47:00.001-06:00

Jaded. Unfortunately that’s where I’m at. I try one or more new wines pretty much every day. They come from all over the world, are made in different styles and all of them are setting out to achieve something different. I’m a bonafide wine nerd that wears his obsession on his sleeve. One thing I’ve learned is that us wine nerds gravitate toward one another. After all who else will we share our really bad assed wines with? Who else are we going to wax about how the wines from Napa are becoming so over the top many of them have become a clown suit wearing caricature of what they once were? Then we drink. Drink some more. And then usually drink even more.

I’m as giddy as a school girl when I get to try wines that look like they’re going to smack my face in. Yet if they don’t live up to what I expect I’m not broken hearted. I expect it. I expect most wines not blow my brains out of the back of my head. But when one does, well, I can lose sleep. I’ll walk around in a haze thinking about it, to some degree obsessing over it. This can go on for days.

Wine porno. That’s what it takes. Gnarly, weird, strange…wine porno. I’ve become so desensitized to what most people think of as very nice wine that I absolutely have to take it to the next level. I have to find a wine that has so much character, charm, backbone and balance it’s the vino equivalent of me tying a belt around my neck and having a young Asian girl tug it until my eyes are about to pop out of my head all while she slurps Pralines and Cream ice cream off a giant dildo. For me these wines are almost always old world but recently I had an American Zinfandel based blend that took me to that place and like an abandoned lover I’m still trying to wrap my brain around just what in the hell happened.

The winery has been making wines since the early seventies. In some circles they are known for making insane Zin based blends. In other circles they are known for being one of the wineries that put the American wine scene on the world map thanks to the Cabernet they entered into the judgment in Paris. You should have it figured out by now and that’s good because I don’t mention names on this blog.

The wine I tried was a newer vintage of a Zin based wine they make from fruit located in Gyserville. Pure wine porn. I don’t normally condone the drinking of Zin but this wine has more dimensions than the Twilight Zone. The fruit is obscene and the tannins are like God somehow created a new hybrid between velvet, cashmere, satin, and razors. Working my way through the multiple layers of the damn thing I couldn’t help but feel like and archeologist. There was so much there to excavate.

And I didn’t even want to try at first. A friend and fellow wine junkie insisted and for that I owe him the opening of some other mind-boggler.

If I sound ungrateful I apologize because that is absolutely not how I want to come off. I believe the original point of this whole thing was to eventually get to the point that though I get to try a lot wines and though that has caused me to become leery of or unimpressed by most wines I try, it just makes it even more amazing when I do find something that’s hits me like a storm cloud rolling in.

Steven Seagal Starring In: A Taste for Death

2012-01-16T04:33:00.000-06:00

Because my blog has become more popular and thereby more important and powerful I came up with the idea to invite well-known celebrities who are also well known wine connoisseurs to write guest blogs for me. I try and leave it as an open format for each individual mega-star to discuss wine any way they choose, be it the philosophy of wine, past experiences with wine, favorite wines, a story of a moment made more enjoyable by the presence of a certain wine, or simply in the case of my first guest blogger, the sharing of their most recent tasting notes. Martial arts super-mega star Steven Seagal is a complex man of many talents and tastes. What most people don’t know is that not far behind kicking the living shit out of people and playing the guitar, the consuming and evaluation of wine is one of his greatest passions. So let’s begin!

Steven Seagal’s tasting notes:

I will joint-lock your soul.

So I’m not entirely sure why but the sissy boy cake-roll that runs this site (Dick? Rich? Tommy? Whatever the hell his name is) thinks I should say a little about myself before I get started with sharing some of my more recent wine notes with you.

First off, I’m a master of Aikido, a Japanese martial art founded in the late 19^th century by a man named Morihei Ueshiba. I am ranked as a 7^th Dan in Aikido. What does this mean? It means I can literally break every bone in your body and those of everyone you’ve ever met, all at the same time… while eating a donut. I moved to Japan as a teenager to learn this sacred and violently peaceful martial art because for as long as I can remember I’ve always wanted to be badass.

You may ask yourself, what does any of this have to do with wine. Well, when I got older I moved to California because I wanted to utilize my new-found badassedness to make giant piles of money, Bruce Lee style. I did just that. In 1987 I was in my first movie. However I also wanted to be like Mr. Lee in that, as I made these action movies I was sure to inject a lesson to the masses of just how flamingly awesome I am at destroying the bones and joints of other human beings.

It was around this time I also began learning about and appreciating fine wines. After all, I had come to be in possession of giant piles of money and spending it on ridiculously expensive bottles of fermented grape juice seemed like something that would help not only bring me pleasure but also give me a certain boost in social status. Not unlike driving a brand new Lamborghini Countach into the swimming pool of a local Boys and Girls Club…which I have also done thank you very much. I think that’s enough about me. Let’s talk wine, so here are some of my favorite tasting notes.

1991 Joseph Drouhin Batard-Montrachet : This wine was the exact same color as the piss some guy gave me to use so I could pass the drug test required for me to be on that reality show where I was a cop. Look, I’m no hippy fucking dippy dope smoker but being an over the top, high powered martial artist machine such as myself requires a lot of fuel. That fuel happens to be weapons-grade Colombian cocaine known only as “the mad man.” The nose on this wine reminded me of buttered popcorn left under a movie theater seat. It’s unfortunate but I’d have to say the bottle wasn’t cellared properly and was Half Past Dead. The acidity was still present and there was a balance there but to say the wine was banging on all cylinders would put me On Deadly Ground. Still not a bad experience. I imagine it’d be like boning Kelly Lebrock now and not when I got to bone her back in the 80’s. I gave this wine 3 out of 5 Crane Kicks.

1991 Drouhin Batard-Montrachet

1973 Mouton-Rothschild Jeroboam: It isn’t lost on me that this was the first vintage Mouton was officially a first growth. It’s also not considered a particularly great or age worthy year. I knew the moment I saw the bottle it was Marked For Death. In the glass it looked like flat Diet Coke. The nose had the aroma of an old barn which housed a hidden dead horse. We looked all over for that god-dammed horse and never found the damn thing. Surprisingly the palate wasn’t nearly as bad as the nose let on. The fruit was gone unfortunately but the alcohol co-mingling with the remaining acidity caused a Fire Down Below. I really have nothing all that good to say about this wine. If I were to meet it in a dark alley I would Kotegaeshi it into non-existence. ½ Crane Kick out of 5.

1971 Ridge Monte Bello: This is by far and away the best wine I’ll be discussing on this shithole blog today. This is of course the wine that made an appearance at the 1976 Judgment of Paris. It is a wine that is still tried at many tastings today and is believed to be Above the Law of what is considered the maximum age ability of California Cabs. This wine is truly Hard to Kill. In the glass there was only the slightest of bricking around the rim of the wine but the center was still surprisingly vibrant considering its age. Not a solid garnet but still a good purple none the less. The fruit on the nose of wine had me Under Siege with its concentration. The palate didn’t even let up in the least. The fruit, acidity, tannins; they were all in unison. A symphony of elements which held me Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. This was the first wine I ever had that had so much age on it but was still at its very peak, I was Pistol Whipped upon trying it. I wish all wine could be this good. 6 Crane Kicks out of 5, which is crazy because I’ve proven it takes me only 5 Crane kicks to kill a man. That’s how good this vino is, it’s Out for a Kill.

Well, I have to say that it has been more enjoyable than I expected being a guest blogger for Mitch’s site here. I got to reminisce about good juice while also thinking about how Kelly LeBrock’s nipples did that thing they did when you squeezed them a certain way. I have many more tasting notes and many more stories of my sexual conquests so if Mike is willing to have me back as a guest I’ll just go ahead and make an Executive Decision and say that I’ll have my agent’s assistant give it some thought. Now if you’ll excuse me I have a class full of young Japanese boys whose joints require total annihilation and a sheriff’s office whose complete lack of competence I have to shove in their face every chance I get.

He Eats Goat Cheese, Prepared by the Goat Itself...

2012-01-13T23:06:00.000-06:00

He doesn’t drink wine often but when he does, he drinks Jeroboams of pre-phylloxera Chateau Lafite…all by himself. He single handedly harvested the entire 1961 vintage of DRC by his own hand. He can always be found wearing a suit tailored by any of the greatest suit makers in the world, even while showering and especially in bed. His shoes are made from patent dinosaur leather.

He is, the most interesting Sommelier in the world.

No really, he is.

No one is sure where or when he was born but it is fairly common knowledge that he was immaculately conceived. However, instead of an angel of God coming to his mother in a dream she simply drank two glasses of 1947 Cheval Blanc and POW, the next day he was in the kitchen making truffle dusted foie gras Benedicts using a Hollandaise made from the eggs of a bald eagle he likes to party with on occasion. The dish was of course accompanied by Krug mimosas.

He fluently speaks every language, including all the dead ones. However, he’s not a dick about going out of his way to enunciate certain words in their native language. He says noir, not nowa. He’s just fucking cool like that. It’s unclear whether he was born with his vast knowledge of wine or if he walked the earth like Cane from Kung Fu, learning all he could learn about the ways of enology. What is clear is that he is now the Bruce Lee and Bruce Wayne of the wine world. That’s right, a mega-rich super martial artist with a cape and a vendetta to pour the greatest vintages of the greatest wines down the throats of the deserving. In that way he’s also like Robin Hood but he doesn’t steal because he doesn’t have to. He’s super rich.

What? Don’t ask me how he got super rich. Does it matter? Is it pertinent to the story? Fine, if you must know he got super rich by posting adorable videos of kittens on YouTube and brightening everyone’s day.

In his travels he has tried a wine made from grapes that were grown on a hundred year old vine grown on a steep and dangerous cliff side in Okinawa tended to by no other than Mr. Miyagi. He’s sipped centuries old vino made by hobbits, he’s drank from the same bottle of Absinthe which made Toulouse Lautrec hack Van Gough’s ear off in a fit of blind rage, and he’s tried several vintages that survived the tragic sinking of the Titanic. Bottles he swam down and acquired his self I should add.

He is, the most interesting Sommelier in the world.

James Bond’s character is loosely based on him. I say loosely because Fleming knew if he added all the details the books would be attacked by critics for their lack of believable events.

His favorite wine is the one sitting in front of him so long as he is surrounded by great company. Oh, and said wine isn’t some piece of shit with a penguin or ferret on the label and is preferably aged to the perfect point. Then again that all goes back to great company because only great company is willing to share great wine.

His Liger gets him the newspaper every morning.

He doesn’t need a smart phone. He’s smart enough.

If he chooses to get behind the wheel of a car after drinking it doesn’t matter. Were you not listening earlier? He’s Batman. Batman’s car drives its damn self. That, or Morgan Freeman comes out of nowhere and makes sure his ass gets home safe.

(I would like to take a moment to point out what I did here and to all of my pop-culture savvy readers please bear with me, this is by no means directed at you… Morgan Freeman plays the character of Alfred, Batman’s butler/quasi-father-figure so his appearance ties in with the previous sentence. However, Morgan Freeman was also in Driving Miss Daisy where he was cast as the loveable, patient, and forgiving driver of an insanely racist old woman who needed to go to the Piggly Wiggly more than she had any business to. If there’s one thing the driver of the most interesting Sommelier in the world needs it’s patience, what with all the trapeze artists, sherpas, and the walking talking ball of nose candy that are all going to want to hitch a ride as well. Therefore that joke was a double whammy. Again, I apologize if I’ve offended anyone’s pop-culture reference skills.)

He really, really wanted to drive.

So there you are! Let’s all raise a glass in a toast to a man that, using the words of Hunter S. Thompson is, “One of God’s own prototypes. A high powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”

He is after all, the most interesting Sommelier in the world.

Jay Miller...You Knew You Had it Coming...

2012-01-07T20:54:00.000-06:00

Jay Miller is a man of many different vices. I should know. I’ve partied with him on several different occasions in varing locations such as poolside at a Vegas casino, a cave in France, whitesands Arizona, the Smithsonian, and a wreaked Gruman Albatross on the outskirts of Columbia where we burned bales of mary jane to stay warm. He currently lives in a quaint little hovel in Guatemala. A hovel located at the dark, dead end of an alley which one would never venture down unless they had business to tend to or were perhaps looking for an out of the way place to attempt suicide. He chose Guatemala because of its somewhat close proximity to the areas of South America, the location of the wines he was until recently employed to taste and rate for the Parker machine. He also likes Guatemala because his old lady, an eye-patch sporting former bull fighter (Not a matador mind you. She simply fought bulls for fun) is most comfortable and both of them have no problems getting the local pharmacias to supply them with the copious amounts of Oxycontin and Xanax they require to power their way through their day.

When I arrived at his “bungalow” he answered the door wearing only his boxer shorts and a very old denim jacket which was somewhat out of place as it was over ninety degrees outside. I was paying him a visit of course because I wanted to get to the bottom of the allegations that he was soliciting monetary offers in exchange for visits to a certain winery which he would then write about. Consuela, his one-eyed lover was wearing some kind of bronze bathing suit which she was spilling out of at every imaginable angle. The woman is built like a rhinocerous whose diet consists only of Big Macs. Around her neck was a chain that was fastened to the couch. The chain itself was just long enough that she could easily travel to and from their tiny kitchenette where she was a wizard when it came to making tacos de lengua. Above the couch was some kind of half rat, half gnome looking creature whose sole purpose it seemed was to reload Jay’s hookah whenever it looked as though it was running low, all the while laughing a sceevy little laugh at his surroundings. Jay took his seat back on his couch, retrieved the hose to his hookah and after taking a draw, looked at me with his puffy black eyes.

I took this with my iPhone 1.

“What brings you here? Ohh ohh ohh.”

Jay is a robust man with wild, wavy gravy grey hair an impossibly round face. He enjoys everything in life to be big as well, his women, his cigars, and his bottles of wines. He likes everything big, that is except for his tasting notes. I once saw a tasting note he did on a malbec from Mendoza that was made by Paul Hobbs which simply read “Raspberries. 91 points.” I’m not sure if the simplicity of those notes and that rating was sheer brilliance or crippling laziness. Such is the enigma that is Jay Miller. I’ve seen him in his element and I can tell you he treats his tastings like a college student treats his finals. Parker imposes strict deadlines so usually the night before they’re due Jay will simply line the wines up in a row and rip through them, tasting each one and vigorously jotting down notes like a honey badger in heat all the while snorting high grade government amphetamines to keep him going.

It is no laughing matter when he sets to tasting these wines. In fact it is scary as fuck. Suckling has all kinds of stories about nights he was in the presence of Jay while this was going on. There’s not a doubt in my mind there are memories he wishes he could singe from the inner recesses of his brain forever. Scenes like that never go away unfortunately. They burden you throughout life like herpes. There comes a time in every wine critic’s career when they have to calm down a bit. Take Suckling for example, with his new website featuring Mike D of the Beastie Boys telling us all how wicked dope the Puligny-Montrachet he’s drinking is. Suckling after all was the man that told everyone that he was the man that came up with the term Super Tuscan. And now he may as well be playing WII with the other retirees at the SunnyGlenn Retirement Home in Mobile.

There will never be a moment like that for Jay Miller. As a wine critic he is the Terminator and the A-Team wrapped up in a single package. He’s a ruthless mercenary for hire that will not stop until the wine in that bottle in front of him is kilt dead. Then he’ll go back in time and kill all of that wine’s ancestors all the while throwing out confused, half-dead tasting notes and attaching any random number he can manage to remember through the haze of the PCP laced marijuana he’s been smoking since right after he ate that seven egg omelet for second breakfast. Say what you will about Jay Miller. He may be a Hutt crime lord, a bit on the lazy side, pictured in a denim jacket too many times for it to not be the eighties, or that he smuggles rare birds across the American boarder in his Jerry Garciaesque beard, but the man knows how to live. He burns the candle at both ends while holding a flame to the middle. He knows how to have a good time.

After several long drawls from his hookah we had fully polished our third eye. They were squeaky clean. He was speaking to me but at the same time he wasn’t. He was speaking to my mind.

“I never did it.” His mental voice drilled its way into my psyche. I told him I believed him. I did, I think. Then again the room was beginning to change. Consuela was making strange things happen in that kitchenette and I was afraid if I said too much the razor sharp knife she was waving around like a drunk conductor would come to close to my face. Whatever animal she was carving away at screamed in my mind. An unsettling haze had rested over me. This was more than just the regular Guatemalan Gold we smoked the last few times I visited. We were smoking some kind of high octane hallucinogen no doubt make in the toilet by the freakish gnome thing on the back of the couch. Was it a chupacabra?

When I showed up I was going to crack this story wide open. The big news sources were all over it. Bloggers were going on about it. I felt I needed to come to the lion’s den myself and find out what the real story was. This never happened. What exists at this moment is a series of memories that involve drinking something from a goat’s udder, and taking part in a blood ritual. I also have a memory of possibly killing a man in a dark alley so that Jay and I could suck fresh the juices of his adrenal gland. Then there was the Mayan who led us through a series of caves revealing how all things will come to an end but only to be reborn. I forgot to ask anything of Jay. I never found out the truth and when I came to I was lying face down on the seat of a very old bus that had been painted pink with a toothless woman standing over me waving Chicklets in my face. Mission not accomplished and like a dessert wolf I may never see Jay Miller again…

But what if he did try and scheme a little cash off some Spanish winery? IS this not America (or even Guatemala)? When did we start having values? But the truth and fairness was tossed to roadside you may say. Who said there ever was any truth? Who said fairness dictates the game of wine publishing? I have an idea,maybe we shouldn’t hang on every word some dude says about wine. Maybe we should rally up some of that old American spirit and explore the shelves of our favorite liquor stores in search of things we like. Maybe we could think for ourselves and not be in this predicament in the first place.

We’ll Tak A Cup o’ Kindness Yet, For Auld Lang Syne.

2012-01-04T20:57:00.000-06:00

Now that the total mind-fuck/burning asscapades that is known as OND (October, November, December) in my business is finally over I may now find myself with more time to write about wine. I hadn’t stopped writing all together… I’m a man of many projects. But writing about wine seemed to be a major overkill to what I was spending my long days going through. Deals have to be made, my phone constantly blowing up from clients with questions about our products, and not to mention the uphill battle that is trying to convince someone why they should spend part of their budget on a Mouvedre/Syrah blend from a little known area in the south Rhone rather than blow every last dollar on La Crema or Silver Oak, the two sure deals. Speaking of those two wines, never underestimate the bad taste of the American public. After all, the Chevette was a thing people were inclined to spend their money on.

I’m somewhat of a car guy so it didn’t slip by me when in the late 90’s after Ford bought the controlling shares of Jaguar suddenly their cars began looking oddly like slightly tidied up versions of the Ford Taurus and yet people were still paying copious amounts of money for these things. Well, that’s all La Crema is, a Ford Taurus.

I still had to battle it out with these huge brands with unheard of amounts of advertising dollars and wine keys and t-shirts and all expense paid trips to the wineries with wines made by families, with nothing more than great knowledge and even greater passion. I can’t offer snazzy display racks or promise a hammock to the store with the most Chateau Aney sales but luckily for me the juice speaks for itself and there is a small group of very passionate people out there helping me spread the good word.

I couldn’t do it without them. They all know who they are because I’ve told them and thanked them on multiple occasions but I just wanted to let it be known that the future of truly great wine lies in the hands of people like these. Retailers and bar managers that are beyond willing to take a chance on some little winery they know they’ll have to work their butt off to get moving. I owe my entire success to these folks. Not that I’m wildly successful but I have done what I was told I could never so when I started this job, I’ve help expand the minds and palates of the general population of wine drinkers here in my little corner of this not so sophisticated state I live in.

Of course it’s frustrating. Of course sometimes I feel as though I’m banging my head a against a wall but when my boss told me that our sales for the year are up 21% It made me feel pretty damn good about all the hard work. I don’t feel as though I’m hocking a product. I feel as though I’m trying to start a revolution and many in this business say that that’s my downfall. We’re all supposed to go in there with our heads down and our pencils in hand with a list of our deals and GET THOSE BOXES ON THE FLOOR.

Not me.

I want to sell a potential great experience for someone. I don’t want people to take the wines I sell home and drink them with their TV dinner as they make out their next day’s agenda. I want them to open the bottle, be stopped dead in their tracks, and contemplate what they have in the glass before them, who made it, and how insane it is that a simple fluid can bring so much joy to life. I don’t sell boxes; I sell poetry in a bottle and just the other day I was reminded that poetry in a bottle doesn’t keep the light bill paid. I’m managing. Kermit Lynch probably has lights on at his place. I also imagine Robert Kacher, Josh Jensen, and Neal Rosenthal all have the lights on at their places as well. It’s a harder gig. A road less travelled but that’s the way I’ve always chosen to live my life. I work hard, sleep well at night, and get to enjoy great bottles of wine with great people whose company I very much enjoy.

And that’s what this little post is all about, a toast to all of you who make my job enjoyable, to those of you who whether you’ve ever met me or not understand where I’m coming from, to those of you who like me, are trying to spread the good word on great wine, and to those of you who live for that next time the hairs on the back of your neck stand up because you’ve found an enological treasure. Thank you all so much for a great 2011 and here’s to an even better 2012! Keep trudging ahead and preaching to the masses that great wine doesn’t have to be expensive, have a fancy label, or even be anything they’ve ever heard of. Great wine is everywhere, hiding in the smaller spaces, taking up less room on the floor, but it’s there. After this past year I’ve never been more confident that the average American wine consumer is beginning to come around and see things the way we do.

Happy New Year everyone!

Sparkle This!

2011-12-28T23:24:00.000-06:00

There’s yet another holiday on the horizon. Even though lately I’ve felt like I’m in up to my wazoo with these holidays and the running around like a half-crazed jackal that spent time fighting in the jungles of Vietnam. This is the last week and so as things calm down I’ve been able to take off the horse blinders I use keep my eyes on the prize of making these folks buy large quantities of my wines while they have the money to toss around. With my new found awareness I’ve seen a trend that really makes me want to kick some strangers in the junk.

Call it bubbly, sparkling, fizz, happy juice, elixir, or mimosa fodder, but for shit’s sakes if it isn’t from a small, very specific region in France, don’t you fucking dare refer to it as Champagne. Champ is something that is very near and dear to my heart. I love it like I loved the Millennium Falcon toy I possessed for a brief time as a child. As a grown assed man I believe it’s inappropriate to take bottles of Champagne with you and sleep with them under your pillow but if my wife would allow it I would probably do it.

I love them in every form. From the crisp blancs with citrus and biting acidity to the bready, heady bombs that make you feel like you’re in a 60’s bakery in San Fran. I spend a lot of my time learning about and studying these wines with passion and when it comes to tasting them, gusto.

So that’s why it pisses the ever loving shit out of me when I’m standing in a liquor store and someone comes in searching for a “Champagne” called Andre Cold Duck. Fuck you man. Do you realize if this was the mid 1800’s and we were living in Napoleon III’s France you would be drawn and quartered, then beheaded for that shit? You’re lucky this is America and our founding fathers saw it fit to give you the freedom to be as ignorant as humanly possible.

Where's the A-Team when you need them?

Why does this bother me so much? Well, let’s see: there’s a good chance that the bullshit you’re calling Champagne didn’t even go under the intense scrutiny which Champagne has to endure during the process of making it. It absolutely wasn’t made from the grapes of vines that are located in centuries old vineyards. In many cases it wasn’t stored and meticulously riddled by a man who has a job his father most likely held before him and his father’s father held before him. A man that travels through an underground cave containing racks of champs and gives them a quarter turn two by two with the speed and precision of someone who was bread to do this one and only job. By the time he comes to the end and has riddled every last bottle it’s time for him to start over again.

All this so that a second fermentation can take place in the bottle thanks to yeasts which were added after bottling so that the champ will have its tiny bubbles. Once that is finished, disgorgement, a process where a temporary cap is removed, the yeasty afterbirth is removed, and bottle is recorked and ready to be shipped.

This sounds like a drawn-out, expensive, pain in the ass process doesn’t it? That’s because it is. And that Andre you just called Champagne was made from some bullshit grapes someone scraped off the bottom their shoe at some point. Then it’s fermented in giant tanks that are most likely used to mix rat poison in the off season. After that the still wine that is produced is moved to a bottle where a clown with iron strong lungs gained from years of blowing up those skinny balloons takes a neon green bendy straw and blows bubbles into the wine until it has reached a satisfactory level of bubbliness. The bottle gets its cork and voila…you have herpes.

I know, Champagne is expensive but there are some fantastic sparklers made using the methode champagnoise where the producers use all the steps I listed above about how Champagne is made. Many of these wines are still bullshit but there are some that are absolutely amazing and deserve the attention of even the most scrutinizing bubbly connoisseur. They come from California, Spain, Italy, and even regions of France not in Champagne such as the Loire. They offer magnificent value and still have all the goods one would expect out of great bubbly. If you’re a baller on a budget, go in to your favorite wine shop, find the paid wine nerd and ask him or her about these wines, they’ll be able to point to the good ones…but for good sakes don’t call them Champagne.

Baby Trippin'

2011-12-07T23:17:00.000-06:00

About three weeks ago I endured one of the roughest 32 hours I’ve ever been through in my entire life. What is it about Colorado Springs? As I write this I just remembered that the last time I was in that town was the visit where I sliced my eyeball while trying on sunglasses at Target. And that wasn’t even the worst thing to happen to me on that particular trip. I also had one of the most amazing dining experiences I’ve ever had…only to then get food poisoning from some questionable Ranch dressing I put on some pizza earlier in the day and lose every bit of it to the porcelain gods. The Tokaji we had with desert was 5 PUTTONYOS for shit’s sake! A libation damn near fit for a Czar and here I was losing it all out both ends into the toilet of a Fayetteville bound, prop-engined puddle jumper. So yeah, CO Springs hasn’t been good to me lately.

This trip wasn’t quite as bad as that one but still…

So what was I doing in CO Springs in the first place? Well, thanks to the help of my little brother I got to take the Level 1 Court of Master Sommeliers Course that was sponsored by the Broadmoor. If you’re not familiar with the Broadmoor it is a very large, very old resort that is located not far from the downtown. It’s a five star resort which contains within it five star and four star restaurants. The place is The Shinning old. No shit, there’s a bathroom there I am terrified of using because I’m afraid the bartender’s going to appear out of nowhere and tell me to kill my entire family.

The class went off without a hitch. I learned a little, had a very good time, and most importantly I passed. This is where the fit hit the shan. It was about five o’clock Tuesday night that we found out the results and I was very pleased to learn that I passed. That night we ate at an amazing Italian restaurant downtown. The meal would have been perfect except it took a little longer than necessary to come out. At one point after waiting almost forty-five minutes between the salad course and the entre my brother, who’s the sous chef at the Broadmoor’s four star restaurant The Summit, excused himself to use the restroom. While he was gone I told my dad that the wait was ridiculous and I was going to get us some free desert.

Before you start moaning I was in the restaurant biz for sixteen years so this is a task I can understand. As soon as my brother sat down he said,”

“What? Our food’s still not here? Fuck this we’re getting desert.” Great minds think alike. At that moment as if he could read our thoughts the owner came over and explained the hold-up, over busy and understaffed for a Tuesday night. It happens. He offered to give us fifty percent off our bill. Here’s the thing, there was nothing wrong with any of the food. The service was great and the fact that the owner himself came up to offer his apologies made both me and brother understand immediately that it was an honest hold back. No restaurant owner I’ve ever known is going to throw his neck on the chopping block because his wait staff fucked up and forgot to fire an order or his kitchen dropped a plate. This was a situation that was seriously beyond their control and like I said my brother and I having done the restaurant thing for so long, we completely understand. Shit I still have anxiety dreams about these kinds of situations. I actually had two that night after dinner.

We told him thanks for the offer but we’ll just take desert and after dinner espresso on the house and call it square. We’re not total dicks. It was a good thing to because everything was amazing, including the company I had so really the free desert was just our way of saying, “hey, we know some shit’s fucked here and we’re not going to totally let you get away with it. So give us some free shit.”

After dinner my brother, dad, and I spent a couple hours checking out some Action Figure Therapy and called it a night.

My dad’s phone rang at five in the morning. Neither of us answered so then my phone began ringing. I had a wife at home that was eight months and one week pregnant. It didn’t take me long to put two and two together. As soon as I answered the phone my mom was on the other line with a speech she seemed to have pre-prepared and rehearsed as it was very monotone and clam.

“Hey Nick, we’re at the hospital and Michelle’s…” That’s as far as she got before I began wailing like a banshee. I knew I would be devastated if I missed my second child’s birth but it’s more complicated than that and I have a terribly overactive imagination. My wife had to have an emergency C-section for the birth of our first daughter because she was breech. The hospital we like to use doesn’t allow natural births after a C-section so we were scheduled to have a C-section for our second little girl on the 29^th of November. When I heard the words Michelle and hospital in the same sentence my imagination went into over drive and I pictured bursting and rupturing and me left to raise a toddler on my own accompanied by crushing sadness. Like I said, overactive imagination.

What was really happening was that my wife was having contractions and wanted to get to the hospital to make sure the baby didn’t show up early, which would have been strange because neither my wife nor I show up early for anything. My mom was calling merely to tell us that we needed to load up the Jeep and get on the road. Yes, we were in a Jeep. If you’ve ever driven a Jeep you know that they have a limited top speed. They cruise wonderfully but don’t necessarily get up to said cruising speed all that, quickly.

We traveled through half of Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma in that Jeep. Both of us kept our nose to grindstone. My dad was plugging away miles like a champ and I was on the phone with clients selling wine and trying to get everyone covered for the upcoming holiday all while stand-up comedy was jamming on the Sirius. Looking back on it now it seems somewhat blurred. There were a lot cuss words thrown at random fast lane slowmos and several deep calming breaths.

A Taco Bell stop, bag of Twizzlers, eighteen-wheeler fire, five gas stops, and thirteen hours later we rolled into Fayetteville. By then the doctors told my wife that the situation was averted and they sent her home which was good because it gave her a chance to eat and take a shower before she really had to buckle down and have a baby. I just realized I’m currently experiencing PTS Syndrome as I type this in. I’m not even the one who had the baby cut out of me so I can’t imagine.

I was home for maybe an hour before we loaded up the car and headed back to the hospital where we were informed that ready or not we were having a child. My wife had to endure a couple of hours of labor while the doctors and nurses got everything prepped for the arrival of our baby. Typical of a man I sat there dumbfounded and wondered aloud what I could do to help which I already knew the answer was stop asking and allow yourself to be squeezed or punched during the contractions. I wanted to do so much more but as a man my hands were tied and my wife’s not the type to sit and take a feeble sputtering of encouraging words. I should say right here that, ladies I know we seem like useless logs during childbirth but that’s because we aren’t really genetically equipped to cope with all we see going on around us in that situation. A torrent of pain is flooding our senses and we’re not sure how to deal with it because as men we are taught through organized sports that when someone is in pain you just slap them on the ass and tell them to buck up and walk it off. That doesn’t work in this scenario thus causing us to be at a loss for what to do.

At 10:16 on the evening of November 16^th Juniper Eve Musial came into the world, tiny, healthy, and with a full head of hair. Yet again my world had changed in ways that even now I am only beginning to have an inkling of understanding about. Within 28 hours I had become a CMW and a father of two. Life can be a serious of events being hurtled at you continuously and looking back I can’t help but pat myself on the back for making it through without any major meltdowns. Life is good folks. Life is good.

Chardonnay nay nay!

2011-12-05T23:25:00.002-06:00

Chardonnay. I’m not sure it’s possible for me to both love and despise something as much as I do this singular varietal. It’s old, noble, stoic, and yet it grows all over the fucking place and apparently it’s not overly fickle. Maybe that’s why oenologists stick it in the ground every chance they get and wine makers can coax a plethora of styles out of it.

It has the potential to possess beauty and finesse, a silent film star not easily forgotten. It can also be a slapstick whore of a wood bomb. A bombardment of Jackie Mason jokes. The wine can silence the most discerning of critics while also helping a xanaxed out housewife cope with her own self created drama. Chardonnay is to some degree is a chameleon. However it can also say a lot about the person who drinks it.

In the movie The Neverending Story the hero Atreau comes upon a mirror that is supposed to reflect the true soul of those who gaze into it. Chardonnay does the same thing. You may imagine a great person, a man or woman of great influence and taste but if you have a one dimensional California chard in your glass with porno levels of oak aging then you in reality are merely a shell of a human being. Sitting there, drinking what the casestack at the front of your favorite liquor store is telling you to drink. Wake up donkey, the grape in your glass has the potential to be a Ferrari yet for some reason you choose to drink a wine that’s a Fiero instead.

It’s old. Its history is as muddled and argued over as a presidential candidate’s past. At one time it was thought to be in some way related to pinot noir or pinot blanc. The Syrians claim the grape is from the Middle East but the French are fairly adamant about it being one of their own. The French do in this case have some grounds to believe this. According to DNA fingerprinting of the grape done a UC Davis it is believed that Chardonnay is a cross between Pinot and Gouais Blanc. It is believed the Romans introduced Gouais Blanc to Eastern France from the Balkans. Meanwhile not far off the French nobles were growing their beloved Pinot and there’s a very good chance that a little cross breeding happened due to the close proximity of the grapes. Thus the bastard that is Chardonnay was born.

Chardonnay is considered to be a very neutral grape. It can do whatever the winemaker wants it to do. It can be cultivated to be a pure expression of terrior, it can be grown on young vines have all kinds of winemaking “magic” done to it so that it can taste of crisp granny smith apples, or it can have the ever loving shit oaked out of it so that it can convey flavors reminiscent of fake buttered popcorn found on the floor of a movie theater. It’s all in the hands of the winemaker, what they want to coax from the grape, who they want to please, and above all how much money they want to make.

In my opinion chardonnay can be split into two different groups: shitty chardonnay (aka Cougar Juice) and delicious chardonnay. I’m not a purist or an oakist or a burgundy humper. I’m a person that believes chardonnay can have many different dimensions and what matters most above all else is class and balance. I’ve had a burgundy made by a winemaker whom I respect very much that was such a buttered stick it actually made me angry that I put it in my mouth. In his defense the wine was made that way to attract the American market and help him bring in some dollars so that he could continue to produce of the greatest Nuits St. Georges I’ve ever had. On the flip side I’ve had a chardonnay made by a set of twins in the mountains of Santa Cruz that was heady and ethereal. Drinking it was an experience I won’t ever forget because before that moment I didn’t realize so many flavors could be integrated into one glass of liquid.

Shitty chardonnay is usually stacked up at your local liquor store. It can be cheap but it can also be ridiculously expensive as well. In fact, some of the most popular chardonnays on the shelves here in Arkansas are very American and very expensive. Women with too much make-up and at least one piece of leopard print clothing buy it by the case. They have special refrigerators powered by liquid nitrogen at their humongous Nuevo French Country-style house that gets their chard of choice down to a drinkable forty-three below zero. They then drink gallons of the stuff while they try outfits on the Snickerpoodle their husband just bought for them because he feels bad about banging the nanny that seven times. Shitty chardonnay has tons of oak. So much oak it hurts. Every sip is like letting Mark McGuire hit you in the mouth with a Louisville slugger and the only reason I can think that these people drink it is because it’s some sort of penitence for being so soulless and vapid.

But over-oaked chardonnay is not the only kind of shitty chardonnay. There’s also the up and coming “Unoaked Chardonnay”. It exists as if to say, ”hey, you remember that one time how you read in that wine magazine that oaked chardonnay isn’t hip anymore? Well look here, it’s your favorite brand of chardonnay now without the oak…you know, like Diet Coke.” And it costs the same amount of money. That’s the best part! The assholes at Mer Soliel have taken the biggest expense out of their winemaking process and still sell their junk for the same price. I actually commend them for this. It has a certain Project Mayhem/Fight Club feel to it. Like they’re selling these women’s fat asses back to them in the form of soap.

Delicious Chardonnay. What can be said about it? It comes in many forms. Yes, it can be oaked. It can also be unoaked, neutral oaked, unorthodox oaked, whatever. The key is BALANCE. GOOD INTEGRATION. Loveliness. Personally I have no one preference. I love Chablis, dig the hell out of the Maconais, get down with the wines of the central coast in Cali, get a boner for Beaune, I even love a little chard made in Gascony by a guy that’s known for his Armagnac. It doesn’t matter where it’s from or how it’s made as long as the sum of its parts equals a thing of tasteful beauty.

That’s what chardonnay should be all about. It’s a noble grape that get taken advantage of far too often but that’s ok because the people that make cougar juice probably sleep well on their beds of money but hopefully the people who make real chardonnay sleep well knowing they are contributing to wine culture with works of art. Maybe they sleep well because they actually get to drink and enjoy their own creation from such a historically rich and beautiful grape. It must be a hell of a feeling.

P.S. It’s also used in Champagne. So Boom!

Dysfunctional Holiday Winos

2011-12-03T23:32:00.000-06:00

It’s that time of year again. The time when everyone in the wino blogojohnnysphere gives you their opinion about what wines will go best with your ChrismaKwanzHanukah dinner. This year, I’m no different. So here are some of my favorite Holiday pairings.

First things first, what do people eat for these holidays? Honestly, I have no fucking idea. You could stuff more turkey in your maw if you want. That seems to be a favorite. Another favorite is a large chunk of maple glazed pepper-corned bacon-wrapped pineapple covered ham. Yet another option is some kind of beef roast. Lately there has been a rise of popularity in preparing several Cornish game hens. This way each and every person gets to eat an entire bird. All by themselves.

There are a over one hundred million thousand different wines you can pair with any one of these dishes and I’m going to offer up some of my very favorites. I’ve picked these wines because of their mother-fuckin’ versatility in pairing with any kind of food items as well as their ability to get you so bone-eyed that you can tackle even the worst family dysfunctional situations you can imagine. So here we go:

*MD 20/20: I’m not even sure why I’m mentioning this one. It’s an obvious no brainer. With a huge selection of flavors including Banana Red, Buck Bunny, Electric Melon, Rope Burn, Antique Leather Glove, and Grandfather Grape, there’s an MD for any type of cuisine that may be gracing your holiday spread. A lot of people out there think the MD in MD 20/20 stands for mad dog. In that they are wrong. What it really stands for is Mogen David. Mogen David is Kosher. So it’s also a wonderful selection for the Hanukah feast. Now, you could go for the non-fortified wines also made under the Mogen David label but why be a pussy about it? You can drink less of the MD and get the warm fuzzy feeling that makes the holidays so damn special. Word to the wise though, studies have shown that consumption of more than five bottles of Mad Dog can lead to hearing loss and blindness in one eye but only about fifty-three percent of those cases are permanent. I like those odds.

*Night Train: Let me ask you this. Do you hate the shit of your family? If the answer to that question is yes then Night Train is for you. This isn’t the last train to Clarksville. No one’s going to meet you at the station. In fact, it seems the only people on the train are the original members of Guns and Roses. They love the stuff. They can never get enough. How does it pair with turkey? Horribly. But after just two sips you won’t give a shit anyway. Also, you know that cousin you hate. Night Train will give you the courage you need to beat him or her with a baseball bat repeatedly. Just make sure you have a place to get rid of the body because that’s one thing Night Train doesn’t do, hide murdered family members. I contacted the PR department for Night Train and they agreed that is a shortcoming in the formula they have professionals working around the clock to fix it.

*Buckfast Tonic Wine: Haven’t heard of this wine have you? That’s ok. It took the brilliant minds at Bumwine.com to turn me on to this one. It’s made by monks so you know it’s good. This wine isn’t on this list as something to be matched with Christmas dinner. This is a wine that is meant to go with Christmas breakfast. In fact, if you replace the uc from Buckfast with rea you have Breakfast. But that’s not the real reason you should start your day with a bottle of two or this. The real reason according to Bumwine is because every bottle contains 281mgs of caffeine which is roughly equivalent to eight cans of Coke. Did I mention it’s made by monks? A holy wine for a holy day and holy shit it may make you beat the tar out of your mother-in-law. Drunk for breakfast, mother-in-law situation handled, win win. Merry Christmas.

*Big Daddy: You’ve never heard of this one you say? Not surprising. It’s made right here in the great state of Arkansas. I noticed these days it actually comes in a bonified Bordeaux style bottle but there was a time when it came in a pint bottle, not unlike MD 20/20. I picked this wine as a possible holiday food pairing because it will make a great patriarch to any dining experience. You don’t even have to drink it, just set it at the head of the table and go about your dinner as it sits there and silently judges your life decisions. It loves you but it’s not afraid to wield a belt or leave a cigarette burns on unexposed areas of your body when you’ve been acting up. It knows that a sock with a Valencia orange in it doesn’t leave bruises no matter how hard it lays into you. Not to worry, Big Daddy will always show the love just as you think you’ve had enough. You’ll stay around because big daddy loves you and he always will. Now sit down and have some roast but you’d better save some of those motherfucking mashed potatoes for him or so help him…

Thus concludes my obligatory wine and holiday food pairing tips. I hope this helps you wade through all the different choices that are available on the market today. I find all of these are classics with which one can never go wrong. Here’s to you and yours enjoying your holiday season and remember be save and responsible while celebrating. Cheers!

Thanks for the inspiration and information http://bumwine.com.

Wookified

2011-11-27T14:22:00.000-06:00

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away there was the birth of a grape that was born of a wild yet roughly sophisticated breed of hairy beast. Born on the planet Kashyyyk of high birth the grape was destined in its own way to change the world. Aglianico’s actual birthday is attributed to the year 200BBY.

Unfortunately, not long after Aglianico experienced it’s coming of age the Imperial Forces lead by Darth Vader himself decimated the birth planet of Kashyyyk. Destroying its largest cities and finally moving storm troopers in to enslave the survivors.

Aglianico was one such survivor. He was an unruly and prideful grape. They were never going to contain him and they should have known it. It was about this time that Aglianico orchestrated a large-scale breakout of his countrymen. The breakout was successful but Aglianico was captured by an Imperial TIE fighter lieutenant named Han Fucking Solo. (A lot of people don’t know that’s his middle name and nowhere is it documented except on Wikipedia where I just changed it to that.) When Han brought Aglianico before his commanding officer he was told to kill the grape. Han was able to convince his supervisor (the Empire seemed more a uniformed corporate structure rather than a military structure) that Aglianco had much more worth alive than dead. It was with this act that an eternal friendship was forged.

Not long after, Han and Aglianico were able to escape their servitude to the empire, but not without bounties on their heads.

After their escape, they did what any defected military guy and his hairy grape buddy would do, they smuggled things. You know, like drug mules. Their first big break came when they won a souped up YT1300 light freighter that was known as the Millennium Falcon from Billy Dee Williams in a card game. The ship was so well modified Han and Aglianco were allegedly able to make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.

Their ship was chartered by two men in a cantina one day to run them to Alderaan. Many events followed and Aglianico and Han were locked in to helping what became a revolution against the evil empire. It was a fierce war and one particularly trying episode involved Aglianico having to carry a droid model C3P0 around in a back pack as it whined incessantly like some kind of wussified butler. The rebels eventually pulled off the win with the destruction of two Death Stars and the prophecy of Aniken Skywalker eventually fulfilling his destiny and restoring balance to the force. At least temporarily. Agliancico came out a bonified hero. However, with the war being over, best friend Han Solo found himself a princess to shack up with and he was left alone, knee deep in Ewoks. It was time for Aglianico to do something different.

Oh, in case anyone’s lost, the grape Aglianico, is a wookie.

The war had been fought and won. All of Aglianico’s friends were settling in or in Skywalker’s case going a little further off the deep-end. He was ready for a change in scenery. He decided the best place for him to travel then was to a then primitive little planet which housed a grouping of city-states known as Greece. Grapes like Aglianico love it in dry warm places like Greece. Sure they’re big hairy grapes but I bet your big hairy cat sits in the window seal until you can smell his hairs singe.

No?

Well mine does that shit. And that further proves we may need to get him on some kind of medication.

His time in Greece was rather short lived and he soon found himself in Italy. The Romans loved Aglianico. Pliny the Elder went on and on about it. Aglianico hasn’t moved around much since. He must really be a fan of Italy and that’s okay because he’s a hometown hero to them. Basilicata in southern Italy is where he enjoys spending most of his time but he can also be found in Campania.

Aglianico has been dropping in to America as well. The wines are dense, dark, and full of tannins which allow them to age very well. They can live for a very long time. The grape is one of the oldest in the world. The fact that it is still in existence is a tiny miracle in and of itself. Leave it to the dedication of individual farmers who love something so much they won’t let it die. Aglianico just kept forging ahead through much diversity and for a very long time. It’s a fossil grape whose inner wookie is by some standards quite beastly but there is still much sophistication and grace there. Something fashioned from lead that still somehow manages to be elegant.

Time Machine....Again

2011-11-10T20:41:00.001-06:00

I've decided to take my search for a time machine to a new level. I posted this on Craigslist because I thought maybe I'd get some response. It was quickly flagged and removed no doubt by some bible beating baptist-slurpping dillhole so I'm going to have to repost it someplace cooler then where I live. You know, like anywhere. Here it is nontheless. Enjoy.

Wanted:

I need a time machine. I don’t really care how old or new it is as long as it’s in good working order. I realize time machines can take many shapes and sizes, phone booths, DeLoreans, Police Callboxes, etc but I’m not picky. In a perfect world the time machine would look like a 1989 Chevy Camaro IROC-Z28 or a big model of a dinosaur. A time machine that looks like an extinct creature from the past, I can appreciate the irony of that one. However, even if your time machine looks like the non-convertible version of the Chrysler LeBaron, I may be interested in buying it.

Yep, they exist.

Money’s not an issue. If you are in possession of a time machine I am more than capable of buying it off you at a reasonable price. I understand such a machine won’t be cheap but seeing as how I am the heir to a global dildo manufacturing enterprise, I have money to spare.

Many of you may be thinking to yourselves, “but the time machine hasn’t been invented yet.” You know nothing of time travel. The future will most likely be a dystopian hellhole albeit one with time machines. The residents of this sad future will most likely use their time machines to escape their crushing society by coming back in time to the most coolest time of all, right now.

Think about it, the economy may suck by our standards but in the future, due to inflation, a Snickers bar will cost $1.2 million. Also, the government will be a bipartisan nightmare where voters are forced to choose between a 120 year old tortoise with mind control and an empty beer can.

Now is a good time to be alive for someone with that kind of scratch. Real estate can be had at rock bottom prices, there are self-serve frozen yogurt places all over the place, and naked pics of Scarlett Johansson have just surfaced on the internet. As you know, it’s all downhill from here.

You don’t want to sell your time machine? Can I rent it? Can you give me a ride? There’s only a few things I want to do.

1. Invent the iPhone.

2. Touch one of young Sophia Loren’s boobs. Have you seen old pictures of her boobs? Seriously, they don’t make real boobs like that anymore.

3. Bet my savings on the 42-1 underdog Buster Douglas when he fought Mike Tyson in 1990.

4. Take martial arts lessons from Bruce Lee.

5. Use my new martial arts skills to punch Chuck Norris in the face for saying he doesn’t think Bruce Lee was a better fighter than him.

6. Hang out with Pink Floyd during the making of Darkside.

7. Punch George Lucas in the face for f-ing with Star Wars.

8. Party with Teddy Roosevelt.

So there you go. Please contact me if you’re interested in either renting or selling your old time machine to me. If you intend to sell, pictures would be appreciated. If you’re only willing to give me a ride I could care less what it looks like. It would be awkward if it was shaped like one of those coin-operated porn booths but to get the above things done I’m still game to ride along.

Grenache. It's Not Just Your Dad...It's Your Mom Too. What?

2011-11-03T09:39:00.000-05:00

Grenache is the quiet storm in your glass. It is prolific in appearances in wines from around the world. It too is a Spaniard. Not sure what it is lately but I seem to be running across, writing about, and loving the shit out of many varietals with Spanish roots. It’s the Rhone. When it comes to the Rhone they’re like “hey Spain, give us your tired, your weak, your poor huddled masses so that we can then press forward and make brain meltingly good vino.”

First off, I love you Grenache. In any form you want to take, blanc or noir it doesn’t matter. I want to have your babies.

Reader, don’t read what you just read. That was intended for Grenache’s eyes only. Now for you dear reader, here’s a tiny exploration as to how Grenache came to be the kudzu* of the grape world.

No matter where in the world it ends up Grenache commands respect. In the southern Rhone it is King. It is the major ingredient in Baumes de Venise, which is poor man’s Vacqueyras, which is poor man’s Gigondas, which is poor man’s Chateauneuf-du-Pape. A wine fit for the pope himself…at one time…back in the 1400’s. It has great importance in the southern Rhone. As I said in an earlier post Mouvedre was the first king of the Rhone but when Phylloxera came through and devastated many of the vines Grenache was the one left standing, like Uma Thurman at the end of Kill Bill. Standing there in some kind of form fitting leather suit one would have to have made at a creepy leather shop owned by a guy named Spyder, blood stains from her enemies covering her. Grenache is one hot mean mother fucker.

           There’s a good chance that the varietal hails from Aragon. A reason why it may have spread so insanely is that it was believed to be cultivated in all the places under Aragon rule. It made its way fairly easily through the Pyrenees into the Rhone and Roussillon. By the early 19th century the grape was prevalent in these areas.
          It was even introduced to the Aussies in the 1800’s and because of this they have some very old vines producing some very nice Grenache with character and panache.
          It ripens late and needs hot dry conditions. There’re only a handful of places in the US which are currently growing it, the San Joaquin Valley perhaps being the best known.
          I don’t know, Grenache can be whatever the wine maker and or super conglomerate behind its sells want it to be. This grape can produce wines that are like rough silk in a glass. Wines that command attention from anyone attempting to call themselves a vinofile. It can also take the form of an obscene frit bomb with no heart, no soul. A cyborg wine sent from the mothership to enhance the calm and not challenge the average palate.
           What’s funny is this is the type of behavior I normally chalk up to the American winemaker but I’m seeing more and more of these wines come out of Spain of all places. Safe, cheap, eye-catching label. Grenacha, buy some today for your tailgate party. Look, the label even has fire all over it. Don’t touch…for it is muay fuego.
          Not that’s their no longer good Grenaches coming out of Spain. There are, but look hard and buyer beware if it’s the new juicy style you want to avoid.
          The surprise is some of the Grenache coming out of Australia. I’ve had some very pleasing GSM’s from down under. It was one of the first varietals introduced to Australia and there are wineries their producing world class examples of the wine.
          Right now I have a 100% Grenache that is made by one of the very best producers of CdP in the Rhone Valley. As you know I don’t drop names on this site. If you know anything about the wines of the southern Rhone than you’ve heard of this guy. It’s dark like old ink. There’s a blackness in its center which morphs somehow into a deep and intense purple at its edges. It’s looking right at me, and it’s very strange. Why the hell isn’t Grenache labeled as the Michael Jordan of grapes? It soars by itself but then can harmoniously blend with other amazing grapes to create wines of such beauty. It’s synergy, which is jargon. It’s a team player with superhuman talent but you can’t win six championships not being a team player and allow the other varietals to shine through with what they have to offer. Grenache is the silent master of trades. I’m becoming convinced that Grenache may be the answer to all my problems.

          Damn you Grenache. Why the fuck are you so damn nice all the time? In a way Grenache is kind of a smaller more chilled syrah. Syrah is out hitting the juice and pumping iron from the moment it wakes up, hitting at least three hours of cardio all while fitting at least two Brazilian jujitsu classes in there somewhere. Meanwhile Grenache woke up, did some sit ups, several pushups, and ate some fruity pebbles. Its schedule’s clear. Maybe some golf later or wakeboarding if it stays warm. Mouvedre may stop by later with some of the creeper but neither of them wants syrah to find out because he’s a dick. Yep, pretty good life for Grenache.

*Not familiar with Kudzu. Then you must not be southern and or Japanese. It’s an ivy that was originally planted in south for aesthetic reasons as it was known to find perch and grow on almost anything, including old Ford Edsels. Having problems with the neighbors’ late sixties singlewide devaluing your early nineties doublewide? Plant some kudzu nearby and voila, your eyesore has been covered by a very aggressive looking plant.

New Grape City

2011-10-29T23:09:00.000-05:00

           I’ve become inspired recently. I have to say I very much enjoy writing about individual varietals. Instead of cooking something out of some cookbook every day, I’m going to work my ass off to release a new post about a varietal once a week.

           This is a challenge to myself. I’m going to do this until I either run out of grapes or just get bored with it, whichever comes first. But right this moment I’m boatloads of gung ho about it. Like that movie about working with the Japanese to build cars in an American plant that starred Beetlejuice. Every week I must learn about and write a, whatever the hell this is I do, about it. Essay? Blog? Blossay?
           Anyway, there’s no telling where I may I go with this. Some obscure grapes will be getting airtime but so will all the hits, Cab, Pinot, Aglianico, you know the grapes everyone drinks say, during breakfast or perhaps when they are feeling a little under the weather. Then I’ll also be hitting you with Arneis, Nebbiolo, Zwigelt, and other grape names my spellchecker doesn’t believe exists.
          I will be a fair and equal opportunity grape biographer. The nobles will be getting written about alongside the proletariat. Maybe I’ll be able to fit other blogs in between as well but the main goal is one blog, one week, one varietal. I will discuss, make fun of, give praise to, and most likely consume wines fashioned for the weeks grape so I can really take this to a candy coated dark place. I could just as easily consume a wine that will allow me to achieve true zen in which case we could take this thing to a platinum, cloud shaped space ship.

What the fuck does that have to do with anything?

Exactly.

Wish me luck....

Mouvedre...Madness Insues.

2011-10-21T20:55:00.001-05:00

While you sat there getting softer it crouched in the bush getting stronger. Waiting for the opportunity to get its giant, hairy man paws around your throat. Only then to gently pull you close and caress you while your face is buried in its beastly armpit. Good lawd what a delicious armpit.

It goes by many names. Alicante, Bon Avis, Chernet, Drug*,Colossal, Tire Droit, Pinot Fleuri, Monastre, Mouvegue… It’s the Carlos the Jackal of the grape world. In Portugal they call it Mataro. In Spain it’s Monastrell. In France it’s known as Mourvedre. It’s a grape known for its tannic edge and soaring alcohol level as well as midnight purple color. When researching this wine, both its history as well as it teeth staining capabilities, I came across many a descriptive like animalistic, gamey, barnyard, horseshit, widowmaker, yellow cake plutonium, cranial scrape, etc. It’s an unchained monster of wine. You remember when Ron Pearlman played Beast in that show Beauty and the Beast from the late eighties; the show which also had the dude that played John Conner’s mom in Terminator 2? It’s like that.

It comes from Spain. Possibly originally cultivated there by the Phoenicians but later was known to come from the town of Murviedro, near Valencia. At some point in the Middle Ages it began appearing in the Rhone Valley in France. It was heavily grown in the 19th century but was hit particularly hard by the Phylloxera epidemic of the late 1800’s and has since take a back seat to Grenache. However in recent years much more mourvedre is being planted in and around the Rhone and it’s becoming easier and easier to find a brain explodingly good 100% Mourvedre from France.

          But I digress, let’s talk first about Monastrell. It got its name because it was a favorite crop of the monasteries in Cataluña. It is currently the fifth most planted grape in terms of acreage in Spain. I was surprised by that bit of information. It came from monasteries? How did that happen? The monastrells I’ve had from Spain bounce all over the Spectrum of Gnar, a system of measurement I use to convey the earthy barn animalness of a wine. For instance, I’ve had a young and barely aged monastrell that would sit at about a 1 on the Gnar Spectrum, which means it’s has almost no turd-like characteristics and is instead a soft yet charming, pansy of a wine. I’ve also had a monastrell with a Gnar level of 9. A dangerously high position on the spectrum because anything over 10 will make you most likely crap your pants due to its heavy inkiness and graininess. Seriously, sometimes I wonder if they accidently left some of the skins in there.

And it was good.

          As mentioned earlier, in France it is grown mostly in the Rhone Valley and surrounding areas as well as Provence where it‘s made into Bandol. There are even some winemakers in the Costieres de Nimes making 100% Mourvedre wines. They are unapologetically fierce. If they were a person they would drive one of the armed vehicles from Road Warrior, surround your village, and ask you to “just walk away.”
           So what’s the appeal you ask? Well, allow me to further personify this varietal. As time goes by it becomes softer, easier to take in and get along with. Have you seen Sugar Ray Leonard lately or for all your MMA fans, Randy Couture? Lately, they’re coming across as soft spoken teddy bears. These are men that used to make their living beating their opponents so fiercely that a colostomy bag became a way of life for them. Yet, there comes a time in a tough person’s life when there is no more reason to be so aggressive. Life, time, and experience have mellowed them out. It happens to all of us. I’m no longer the hard drinking, chain smoking young man who worked the doors at the local “entertainment district” (which is just gentrified talk for the place where all the bars all), silently waiting for my chance to twist some out of control drunk’s shoulder joint into a position nature and physics never intended.
          Look at Mourvedre in the same way. As a young buck it’s going to want to punish your palate for even thinking you can get away with drinking it at a young age. It’s got a chip on its shoulder because so many refer to it as a “mixing grape”. The mixing is the workhorse end of it. But lay it on its side and let it age, let it work out all its issues including the Christmas it’s dad got it a carton of cigarettes and told it to man up and start paying rent, or that other time it wreaked it’s 10 year anniversary Trans Am with the 6.6 Litre V-8 because some asshole in a Taurus pulled out into his lane while he was racing up the interstate and 140mph. There’s a lot of angst this wine needs to work out.

Seriously, when it does finally settle down, and it will take several years, what you have left is a scarred and charming wine with so, so many stories to tell. It’s no longer trying to punch a hole through the world but the grit is still there and now it has experience to boot. If aged Mourvedre was a person you happen to grab a stool next to at the bar the stories would go on forever while you sat, mesmerized, and listened to each and every single one of them.

It’s made so wonderfully in many places in the world. When seeking it out, try and find a bottle that’s got some age and maturity to it, (unless you posses a time machine, which still has a questionable usefulness). They’re not easy to miss; it’ll be the one wearing the vintage GnR shirt yet sports a short haircut and only a three day growth of beard. It’ll look edgy but its check book is still balanced.
If you make the mistake of picking a mourvedre that’s too young you may wake up one morning to find your mini-van has been hijacked and all the waffles in the freezer are gone. I’ve lost sleep over great mourvedre. Complex, silent, and fierce but still beautiful and charming especially as it gets on in age. One could say it’s the Clint Eastwood of wine. So what do you say, you feel lucky punk?

*No shit, according to the Vitas International Variety Catalogue.

A Query About Time Travel

2011-10-09T21:50:00.002-05:00

        I don’t claim to know anything about time travel. I don’t read good and I sure as hell don’t know how to do math. What I do know about time travel is that it has something to do with being a time lord, traveling the speed of light, wormholes, DeLoreans, or being Scott Bakula. Possibly all five. I also know that being or doing any one of those things doesn’t mean that you will end up in the place and time that you’ve intended to be in.
         What does this have to do with wine you ask? Everything damnit. Too many times I’ve gotten a bottle of wine that needs years of aging before it reaches its true great potential and here I have to store it in some semi-cold dark and damp place for years and years before I can even open it. It makes me feel like a major douchewitz. Now I’m up to my ears in bottles of Bandol and Vacqueyras, among others, that I won’t be able to drink until 2025. According to the Mayan calendar that’s a good thirteen years after we're all dead.
       So what if time travel were possible? Wouldn’t that be great? But here’s my real query and perhaps one of you physicists out there can answer this for me. If I were to fashion myself a time machine out of an old telephone booth* (remember those?) and go forward in time, would it be possible to bring the bottle of wine with me when I travel or will I have to hide it in a special place to be relocated upon my arrival? In essence I guess what I’m asking is will inanimate objects age while being subjected to the rigors of time travel? The reason why this is a concern to me is that there’s no telling what the future holds. If I hide a bottle of 2009 Cos D’Estournel in some undisclosed spot and hope for the best who’s to say that when I arrive to its location twenty years later life as we know it won’t already be completely annihilated by a league of super alien who’s senses are so acute they can locate first and second growth Bordeaux from miles away even if they are buried under miles of concrete and steel? They need the bottles of wine to fuel their intergalactic space hoppers and will stop at nothing to get it.
       Don’t get me wrong, the whole end of humanity thing would suck also but don’t forget I have a time machine. Once I finish enjoying my super badass bottle or ten of perfectly aged wine me and my iPhone would hope back on the time machine and go back in time to the seventies, where I will then “invent” the iPhone and make a gazillion quadrillion dollars. Plus, I’d get to drive one of those awesome vans with portal window on the side and a mural of a lone grey wolf howling at the moon on the back without anyone thinking I’m some kind of creepy child molester. It’s a win win.
       So if any of you are familiar with the way quantum time travel works please get back to me as I am currently fashioning a Flux Capacitor out of some of those rope lights that movie theaters use to light their center aisles. I’ll need any advice you can give and as a reward for your efforts I will be happy to hide a bottle of 73 Ridge Monte Bello in your kitchen cabinet. In fact, look there now…

*I feel I should explain to the fellow nerds here that I am of course referring to the time machine from the most glorious movie Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and that I am not in fact one of those people who think the Tardis model TT Type 40 Mark 3 from Dr. Who is a phone booth. I’m well aware of the fact that it is a police callbox.

Crazy Like A Fox...That Seriously Needs to Have It's Head Checked.

2011-09-18T21:41:00.001-05:00

What I’ve got here is an obsession. People who aren’t obsessed with something don’t spend the better part of their waking hours thinking, talking, and writing about something. Other people are obsessed with things. I have a very good friend that is obsessed with learning martial arts. My brother is a chef and is very much obsessed with food as well as its preparation. As a matter of fact he visited me recently and he said something that never occurred to me even after my sixteen years in the restaurant biz. He believes restaurant people in general have little obsessions. Though I’d never come to this conclusion on my own I completely understood what he meant.

At the first restaurant I ever worked one of my jobs was to check all the salt and pepper shakers in each server’s section and top off the ones that needed it. One of the servers didn’t like the shakers to be too full because he believed they would get jammed up and not work so if you filled the shakers on his tables you had to be sure to leave a little space or he’d get pissed because he’d have to go back over them all and empty out a little from each one. Obsess much?

As my wife has pointed out (on several different occasions) my server obsession was the extent to which my clothes were pressed. This is something I’ve carried into my new job as well. I can’t explain it but my shirts have to have that razor sharp crease down the arm and my pants need to look like they were run over by a steam roller. It’s nearly comical.

But my alpha obsession, the grand poo-ba of all my obsessions is my overall determination to learn everything I can about wine and try as many of them as possible. Even the shitty ones. I collect them; I go out of my way to taste them; I search far and wide for anything new. This is more or less what consumes my days and nights. My family first; then in a distant but still substantial second is wine.

Mark, my brother, told me about the sommelier at the restaurant where he works and his habit of stashing bottles of wine in various low key spots throughout the cellar. They are in inventory and accounted for but they aren’t on any of the wine lists offered at any of the restaurants throughout the resort at which he works. These wines have been stashed for some reason but why? I think I know why.

Another wino who runs a very nice wine program here where I live said she does the same thing. She has an entire shelf full of bottles in her restaurant’s cellar which she has taped off so the staff knows not to fuck with those wines when she’s not around. They are all rare bottles of long gone vintages she has stored away for just the right table with just the right occasion. None of these bottles can be found on her list and only a select few even know they’re down there. In some cases it may be a wine that suddenly experienced a vintage change or even a wine she bought on closeout from one of the distributors and will never be available again. She, like me and the other gentleman who works with my brother, are showing early signs of hoarding.

When the Show “Hoarders” shows up to one of our doorsteps we’ll be there, wearing a bathrobe and having to embarrassingly defend the mounds of wine and detritus as we explain why all this clutter is necessary. The psychologist will be there waxing about why it’s important to get rid of some of the wine laying around, stacked on shelves and lying on the floor, as he or she has to climb through bottles of Cheval Blanc and Gevery-Chambertin.

“I don’t give a fuck who you are,” I’ll say. “Stop standing on my pile of Puligny-Montrachet.” And when 1-800-Got-Junk shows up to try and discard my preciouses…there will be blood.

What got me started on this…whatever this is…was when my father, who is uninitiated, asked me why. Why gather all these lonesome bottles and keep them in the dark and pine over them and sweat them and why not just drink them? After all, isn’t that wine is all about, the enjoyment? And I couldn’t really give him a straight answer. I could not answer his question in a way that neither I nor he found satisfying. I have my ideas. The main one being is that we aren’t talking about wines like Hob Nob or Glen Ellen. Those are wines that no matter the vintage they will taste like the same crap they always do. We’re talking about wines that vary from vintage to vintage because it’s not a matter of a man and a machine making good wine but instead a matter of man befriending and listening to nature in order coax good or great wine out of the fruit that is given them, from their own land, picked by their own hand. When a vintage is gone, that shit’s gone forever. Wine is art. It’s consumable art that can’t be hung on a wall and enjoyed by all of mankind for centuries, an art that is born from a team of man and nature/God. The grapes are grown, picked, mashed, fermented, aged and them bottled and what comes next is up to the winemaker. What are the grapes telling them to do? How will they respond?

When or where will it be appropriate to drink this art? That’s a daunting question. Picasso didn’t complete his painting The Absinthe Drinker in 1903 then take it to a dinner party and run a knife through it for the pleasure of his guests. That’s and absurd notion. However there are art collectors who have accidently ruined masterworks. That is the wino’s dilemma every time he or she opens a bottle that can no longer be easily acquired at the local wine gettin place. They are destroying a masterwork with every pulling of the cork which leads to many questions they must ask themselves. “Is this right?” “Will it be enjoyed by these people?” “Do I really have the right to be the one to pour the last bottle of this wine?” Maybe even the last bottle on earth.

It’s nerve racking. And bottles get stacked and stacked and stacked until eventually you realize you have to do something with them or they’ll die, and that is the saddest fate of any great wine. I’d rather serve a wine to a Bluetooth-wearing-at-the-dinner-table douche than to see it die.

I hope in all this there’s an answer to the “why” question my father posed to me those several days ago. Obsession. We are the keepers of a piece of consumable art which has to be shared with someone who can truly enjoy what it has to offer. Not some super wine geek or palate nerd but anyone under the sun who has the ability to understand what is in the glass and can share with others while also being able to keep the memory of that wine well preserved in their mind. Because even though the wine itself may be gone, we want the memory of it to last forever and that’s the only way the art form of wine will become at least, somewhat permanent.

The First Three Letters in Carignan are C-A-R. Cars are Awesome. So is Carignan.

2011-09-07T22:54:00.002-05:00

Carignan is the blue collar backbone of so many of the wines I really enjoy. It doesn’t need your applause. In fact it thinks you’re a pussy. It just stands over there doing an often thankless job of being awesome. The carignan vines in southern France are getting old enough this grape is really beginning to come into its own. When it gets full steam, you better cover your balls.

I’ve had wines made from this grape in many forms now. Wines from the Rhone, Costiers de Nimes , Carinena, California. All of them are smashingly different from one another. It’s a varietal that is slowly and methodically positioning itself for total world domination.

It’s a Spaniard. Which explains a lot if you ask me. It originated in Aragon, which is located in northeastish Spain. The Argonese* love their Carignan. Well, at least they loved it enough to use it as a blending grape in their Riojas. After the great Spanish/Italian porn fest of 1363AD* the grape began popping up in Sardinia.

In the seventies Carignano del Sulcis received its DOC in Sardinia. Carignano is the same as carignan. If you figured that out on your own, congratulations, you speak Italian. SO Sardinia may have been the first place carignan was cultivated to make its very own wine. Carignano del Sulcis is still produced today to much fanfare. After Sardinia it’s not entirely clear how this grape propagated so far and wide. I have a theory that it’s because of its whorish tendencies. Seriously, the stuff grows on the side of the road in France. Shit, I have some growing out of the floorboard of my Blazer.

Then something awesome happened. The grape began getting cultivated in Algeria. The French came to realize that the climate there was great for growing their “children under the stairs wines”. You know, wines that you can’t really murder because that would be wrong but you also don’t want them messing up the dinner party you’re throwing for your new boss. It was the perfect scheme. Invade a country, plant grapes, and import grapes to yourself. Sure France had the means to grow this grape on their own soil but why bother? They needed as much space as possible for the Cabernet and Merlot that was being planted on the edge of the border of an estate that was once a prominent Bordeaux Chateau until a tragic dairy cow explosion. Thus, they can charge more money for the finished product. I see it all the time, a bottle with the word Bordeaux slapped somewhere on the label but after closer inspection you come to realize the wine actually hails from some guy’s basement in Floirac.

Algeria was forced to wrestle with its new identity as a “country” throughout the sixties and seventies and upon receiving their independence they told the French to go F themselves in the A and grow their own damn Carignan.

And so it came to be that the French began growing their own damn carignan, mostly in the southern part of the country. The French needed carignan so they would have something to dump into their cheap Languedoc wines. They also needed it for Rhone wines as well as for use as an ingredient in a very popular foot salve. The shortage, thanks to the persnickety Algerians, nearly almost became a slightly big deal.

But the French are a tenacious lot and just like they perfected the art of Mime, it seems they are perfecting the art of making carignan into a great wine. As the vines get older the grapes they produce become more luscious with fruit and chocolate but no lack of backbone to let you know that it’s a serious player. Slap just the right amount of oak on that juice and we have a situation that is totally my kind of situation. Keep an eye on these French Carignans because they really are beginning to come into their own. That and if you’re not careful they’ll steal the change off your dresser.

In California carignan is grown in such a super secret way that they added an e to it for further emphasis. That’s right. CARIGNANE. Get some of that. It’s what the Californians do, and then they pour it in with a bunch of Zinfandel and Petit Sirah to create a wine that says, “Hey you, shut the fuck up and get drunk on this shit right here.” Some of these blends can be a seemingly impossible combination of layers each shinning in its own way while still falling in line to form a cohesion. However, many of them seem to taste like the third day of being trapped in a coal mine with a canary that farts a lot.

I’m not really sure how or exactly when Carignane made its way to California. There exist these vineyards known as “mixed black vineyards” which are a dumping ground for vines that are picked, fermented, and turned into wine together. Some of the vines are zinfandel, some carignane, and some wookie, which is a little known grape from the planet Kashyyyk. When fermentation is done the wine is drained off into giant bottles and labeled Gallo Red Burgundy. If it sounds less then appealing it’s because it is. Not all Cali carignan blends are trash either though. I’d list some here but as you know that’s not my M.O.

So let me wrap this up real quick. Carignan is awesome. It blends well and in some cases it can stand alone, prideful and noble. It’s the little grape that could and no doubt we’ll be hearing about it more and more in the near future. However, this doesn’t mean I want you go out and buy any of this wine. Stay away from it, that shit’s mine. I just thought you may like know how good it is. That’s all.

* That’s for real. That’s what they call themselves.

** Reference needed for this.

The blog post where I discuss how shoddy my spelling and grammar is.

2011-08-30T22:27:00.002-05:00

The title’s a joke. I need to make that clear because I know that I make actual mistakes like this all time. I am the type of writer that badly needs an editor. I make grammatical mistakes all the time and since I’m my only editor, it makes for some pretty interesting f-ups. Furthermore, since I take this blog about as serious as Mr. Miyagi takes John Kreese’s karate skills, I usually leave my f-ups alone unless they disrupt the flow of a joke or I’m suffering from crushing boredom some night.

Does this make me less of a writer? Probably. Currently this self-publication is the only way I’m being published so if anyone were to read this blog and see how horrendous it can really be it may affect their overall outlook on my abilities. I’ve known many writers in my time and they all come in many variations. Some are bad-assed spellers with no grasp of grammar whatsoever, others are great at stringing words together but they spell them wrong more often than not, and then you have people like me who form coherent thoughts but botch the process of getting them to paper in a multitude of new and exciting ways.

Both Hemingway and Fitzgerald had a professional editor. As a matter of fact it was the same man. Not that I compare myself to Hemingway. After all, he was a hater of words and I love words. I just don’t know many of them. Fitzgerald on the other hand, with his Gatsby and his “high white note”, if he needed an editor then by god who am I to go around spelling words good and writing sentences all proper like?

I guess in a way I do have an editor of sorts. My editor is Bill Gates. Whenever I sit down to type these words into this word typing machine/porn-getter that I have here, Bill swoops in to correct any typos, misspellings, or grammatical errors by highlighting them with a rainbow of squiggly lines. When one of my essays only has three or four squiggly lines in it, it is then, and only then, that I know it’s ready for print. One day this system may be flawless but it currently can’t read the words as they pass through my mind and type them for me, and until then it is only a farce. It also seems to have a real problem with homonyms. But so do I for that matter.

So this post is the literary equivalent of one of those “please excuse or mess” signs you see at stores and restaurants that aren’t so insanely crushed by the current economy that they can afford to have some remodeling done. My blog is perpetually remodeling. I’ve noticed recently an uptick in readership and for that I am extremely grateful. Would I like for this to be my job one day? Sure. Do I have the tenacity to be an everyday blogger? Sure. Do I have the tenacity to be an everyday blogger as well as working a fifty hour week, keeping a constant eye on a toddler, picking up any duties that may make my pregnant wife’s life a little easier, and writing about other non-wine related things that make me laugh to myself? No. I don’t. I love writing about wine and I really do love this blog but I also love NPR, even though it puts me to sleep everytime I listen to it. It's okay to love things that are flawed. As much as I love writing about wine I also really enjoy writing about what would happen if the Russians taught polar bears how to use an AK-47. Besides, all of this is meant to be for fun right? Right.

So new readers as well as old, if any of my glaring grammatical errors or misspellings are causing you discomfort as you peruse my little corner of the blogosphere I am totally open to suggestions for a good editor. As long as he or she is free.

Malbec Is, But It Was, and Always Has Been

2011-08-19T16:06:00.002-05:00

               Wow, Malbec. Where the hell did you come from? I mean it’s not like you stealthily moved into the wine game and slit its throat from behind allowing the empty husk to slide down your side while you plotted your next move. You walked onto the scene in plain sight with sparklers on your head and confetti blowing out of your ass and yet it still has taken a long time for the mainstream to notice you were there.
              I bought my first malbec six or seven years ago. It was either Tripichie or Los Voscos, I don’t remember. I also remember paying $4.99 for it and liking it enough to want to explore the varietal further. The liquor store I frequented at the time, which was my very favorite for finding weirdo wines, only had three malbecs. The previous two mentioned and of course, Norton. I bought one of each and set to do some serious “research”. I remember liking the wines because of their rusticness. They had backbone with cojones the size of cabernet but there was something more old world to them, like the inside of a cab driven by a transplanted New York taxi driver. Sure you’re in a familiar place but the smell’s still different.
              Malbec you sneaky bastard. These days I have to search far and wide to find those old school malbecs that made me first notice the charm these wines can possess. Even the Malbecs from the old school are no longer old school.
              Wait; allow me to make an interjection here. When I used the phrase old school malbec in the above paragraph I was speaking of old school South American Malbec. Actually, thus far I have been speaking only of Malbecs from Argentina. They grow Malbec in France as well. Lots of it. And for a very long time. If Argentinean Malbec is Neo, then French Malbec is Morpheus. Which pill would you take? The one that allows you continue to live in your comfortable existence, surrounded by lies. Or are you going to take the one that leads you to the truth? More on that in a moment.

Michel Pouget is the man we have to thank for introducing Malbec to Argentina in around 1868. I could give you three guesses as to Michel’s nationality but we’ll save the time and say he’s French, which means he pronounces his name ME-shell, I’m not judging, that’s just a factual statement. The reason for Michel’s visit was because the then President of Argentina, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, wanted to change the country’s wine industry and he asked Michel to bring some varietals over from France he thought would be successful. Malbec was one of them and there you have it. So the Argentineans have been making malbec for a very long time. Long enough one could argue that terrior could be established and since the pioneers of the industry were from the old world these wines should all have old world flare. Right? Then again the same could be said for the U.S.

I don’t want to make any assumptions as to whose fault it is, this permutation of Argentiniean Malbec from the endearing funkhole it once was to the polished dynamo it has become. Are the wine makers buying new equipment and learning the new ways so they can appease what the American palate thinks it wants? Are conglomerates coming in, buying everything in sight and churning out more of the same wine that puts the greenbacks in the bank for them? Is it something more sinister?
I’ve had malbecs from Argentina that could be mistaken for the wines from California. I enjoyed the shit out of them. With their huge fruit, mind-boggling tannins, chocolate, maybe a tinge of a barn in the distance, a mere whiff caught from a breeze. Hell, I loved them. However, there’s a huge difference between those wines and the malbecs with so much residual sugar people are snapping them up instead of merlot, so they can have that savvy edge at their dinner party, yet still not offend their guests.

One of our own little showdowns.
No declared winner that day yet two distinctly
different styles.

I for one try and offend my guests every chance I get. Who gives a crap what they think anyway am I right? No, no worries, hang with me and you will drink well yet you may also play my guinea pig for a bottle or three.

“Yes, I like Pinotage because it smells like NASCAR.”

          I don’t believe little critters have shown up on bottles of Argentinean malbec just yet. Though, I do recall seeing one the other day with a Gaucho on it. He wasn’t even killing a bull or grilling or riding a horse or anything. Nothing. I’ve seen the Bourdain episode in Argentina; I know what those guys are all about. This guy was just standing there as if he had nothing better to do. It’s pure and simple marketing you idiots. You have the Gaucho standing next to a slain cow draining it out, only instead of blood…its wine. Huh? Huh? What do you think? The label says the experience that awaits you in this bottle is pure Argentinean badassitude, maybe even straight from the neck of a cow. Boom! I should have been on that show Mad Men.
              Let’s talk old world Malbec. It comes from France. They grow it in Bordeaux but really the big show is in a region surrounding a city in southern France known as Cahors. The region’s been growing grapes since before Jesus was born. Literally. In 1971 it was awarded its AOC which maintains it has to be at least 70% Malbec and no more than 30% of Merlot or Tannat.
              In these regions we find Malbec is tannic. They call it the black grape of Cahors because the wine can be very dark. It’s almost all backbone with fruit hiding behind a curtain somewhere like in head shops where they keep all the really mean looking bongs but it takes age or a unique season to coax the fruit out and bring on the balance. The balance will come and believe me the experience can be so much grander. They taste old. They taste like history. They taste special.
              It’s a shame. An outrageous proportion of the Malbecs on the shelf come from Argentina. We’re starting to see them in Washington as well but in my opinion, verdicts still out on those. It has become the marketers little darling and though I’m not at all objected to a lot of those Malbecs, many of them great wines, I like to know the root of things, and I wanted to share it with you all.
               Did you hear that? It’s Cahors. It wants you to buy its wine. It’ll cost a bit more but pair it with any kind of fresh slain red meat and you sir or madam, will be the hero of your next carnivorous dinner party. It’s also fun to do side by sides. So if you really want to nerd out get out there and find an old world and a new world malbec and let them duke it out in a battle royal. My only suggestion would be try and keep the wines in a similar price range. A seven dollar bottle of Gascon will only piss you the hell off having to dink it against a Coutale.

Charles Bronson

2011-08-12T23:42:00.000-05:00

Charles Bronson was an angry man. His hair was angry. His mustache was angry. And the large caliber hand cannon he carried around with him was the angriest of the fucking bunch. One could say that to cross paths with Charles Bronson, one would have to have a Death Wish.

Was he part Asian? No wait, according to the wiki he was Lithuanian. His father was the descendant of some kind of shamanistic super race whose origins can be traced back to Genghis Kahn and the Mongolian hordes. He had the blood of a group of people so tenacious they tore down part of a wall that’s big enough to be seen from outer space, just to fuck with the Chinese a little bit.

So moving along to Death Wish. Who in their right fucking mind would kill Charles Bronson’s wife? Sure he was just an architect but any moron could see right through that personae. The man was a specially ordained killing machine.

What wine pairs well with a reluctant but gifted vigilante? My votes go to the wines of the Costieres de Nimes. These wines are reluctant heroes as well that can be large caliber and out fighting for redemption. Being a region that was considered the mixing grape workhorse of the Languedoc finally the super geniuses at the INAO came to realize that the wines more resembled the neighboring region of the Rhone then they did anything the Doc was producing. Nimes produces big syrah which usually contains parts of Carignan, Mouvedre, Grenache, and so on. One hundred percent Mouvedres and Carignans are being produced there as well.

It’s a young region. It has a lot to prove. Like Charles Bronson some of the wines from Nimes desire to smash your face in. It’s a different kind of smash your face in, not one that comes by the hand of a man consumed by revenge fueled rage but instead it’s as if you somehow got hit in the face by a rainbow.

Did I mention I’m talking about a pairing here? That’s pretty awesome, here I am going on and on about Charles Bronson and passively aggressive wine and I haven’t even told you what this is all about.

I’m pairing wines From the Costieres de Nimes with the Movie Death Wish.

So get some wine from the Costieres de Nimes. I don’t normally suggest wins but since I want your wine/movie pairing to be top notch I’ll throw a few suggestions your way. Anything from Mas De Brassades or Mas Carlot will go wonderful with this movie. The two wines are owned and maintained by a husband wife team, he on the Bressades end and her on the Carlot side. The wines are blends of cab and syrah or syrah and Mouvedre. I would also have to suggest Chateau Guiot Numa Syrah, but really this is all about you so get on out there and look for a Costieres de Nimes you feel will most match up with your lifestyle.

          Next it’s time to secure your copy of Death Wish. For the pairing to really sing you have to make sure you have the original Death Wish as that is the one we are covering. Any of the other Death Wishes though they too are very important to cinema won’t work as well as the Nimes wines and would require specialized pairings of their own.
          Put your laser disk in the player and hit play. When opening credits begin rolling go ahead and open your bottle of wine. Pour a glass and swirl and sniff while the Bronsons are in Hawaii. Your nose will be met with a deep calmness. The calmness of vacation with a loved one. I only want you to take in the aroma during this part of the movie, don’t take a drink. When you see Jeff Goldblum’s face you can prepare yourself for that first sip and when Goldblum and his hooligans break into the Bronson family apartment take your first sip of your Nimes wine. Big. To some maybe even to big. It matches the rage and fear being played out before your eyes but in both cases you something tells you you have to carry on.
          The wine maintains its edge through the scenes where we begin to see Bronson make the transformation into a mustachioed angel of vengeance. But then there’s a change. As Bronson becomes more comfortable in his new found calling the wine too begins to glide across the palate a bit smoother. The depth of character is becoming clearer and we realize that what we have here is a hero that was thought to be ordinary but comes out of its shell and turns into a phantom badass. I’m speaking of the wine of course.
          Bronson and the Nimes wine have become intertwined into one. They’re tough and respectable and murderous and at the same time they aren’t your Bruce Willis or your Haut-Medoc Bordeaux. They can be your own little secret. A lot of people don’t know this but Death Wish almost won some awards.
          At the end of the movie Charles Bronson is at the train station presumably waiting on a train because he was kicked out of the city for being too badass. After breaking up a fight on the platform he looks at one of the young punks and makes a shooting motion with his hand. By this point you should be at the end of your bottle. There should be a warm fuzzy feeling in your belly and the hairs on the back of your neck should be out of control right now. You witnessed two beautiful things at the same time, the continued commitment of the everyman to risk his own hide to clean the streets of the filth which clings to the urban streets of America, and a very serious and unapologetic wine which has been opened long enough to unveil its true self. I believe if these wines had hands, they too would be out there every day stabbing the shit out of miscreants.

Been Gone For So Long

2011-08-09T23:34:00.001-05:00

               A lot of people take a month off work at a time. Teachers. They get like three months off at a time.   Professional athletes, they time off also. So I figured i'd take a month of wine writing off. I wrote about other things mind you, like my swashbuckling southern fried revenge story, why the IROC Z-28 may have actually been brought to earth by a species of super aliens, and about how my wife’s Subaru makes hypnotic humming noise on the interstate which allows me to reach theta level brainwaves and instantly time travel. These are mostly unwine related articles so I’ve taken a little hiatus from LousyGrapes. I’m only hoping the disappearance didn’t affect my tenure here at this site, it’s going before the board later this week.

              But as we all know absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. It also causes blurred vision and a tendency to wrestle with small dinosaurs.
              So what’s happened these last fourish weeks I’ve been MIA? Tons. The first half of the summer was good times…goooood times. My little girl took a swimming class, I got to drink a lot of beer, and my parents moved here from DC which is exciteing because both my wife and I like my parents. Then the temperature got up in to the 190’s. It was so hot in Arkansas until today that people’s eyes were melting in their faces from heat exposure. I’m not sure where I heard that but it seems like legit info to me. I know theres a problem when the walk from my front door to my car causes my shirt to be so drenched in sweat I have to change into a dry one when I get there. I then drive around with one vent on my arms, one vent on my feet, one vent on my face, and one vent positioned to shoot cold air up my nostrils at all time. The core must remain cool.
             I then spend the day driving through the equivalent of a giant Russian steam bath all the while getting in and out of my car and spending just enough time at each account to insure that when I get back in my vehicle it’s like plopping my ass on an oversized George Foreman grill someone left in the microwave. My wine bag has a side for whites and a side for red but it doesn’t matter because this time of year the entire bag has Kool-Packs crammed in every nook and cranny. I probably use eight or nine Kool-Packs a day. That's just the ones in my bag, it doesn't include the three or four I have in my pants.
            The heat makes me drag ass…Which in turns make my days longer because I still have to hit all my accounts and I tend to linger at the ones that have the air cranked down. I have to make sure and take in plenty of water or it gets even worse. By the end of the day I’m so exhausted that all I want to do is lie on the couch and plug into some streaming Netflix.
           And thus my wine writing has suffered. There’s been a lot of wine in my face as of late and a lot of self imposed learning because I do have my wine test getting ever so close. I study wine, I read a detective novel, I study wine, I drink wine, I read another detective novel, I study wine, then I finally get around to rambling my way through some kind of a blog cuz I’m still going strong, but in many more directions than before.
           In truth I have some very good stuff lined up for you guys and it feels good to be back at the old blogohelm. Temperature of 89 tomorrow so my energy has returned; will to dive headfirst back into this wine thing restored.

Riesling...Not Just For Schnitzel Anymore.

2011-06-26T22:04:00.000-05:00

We just got the new Terry Theise catalogs, which is one of my favorite times to be in this business. It’s like Christmas and Festivus had sex with my birthday and these wonderful catalogs are the spawn they produced.

           If you aren’t familiar with Terry Theise let me fill you in real quick. He’s a serious wine importer with a sense of humor. He specializes in wines from Germany, Austria and the farmer fizz of Champagne. He’s been going at it for several years now and is known for his palate and passion. He imports his wines because there is obviously a deep love (boarding on obsession) for them. Every year he cruises through the vineyards and samples all the new vintages. When he’s done with his yearly trip to this personal Mecca he sums up his findings in a series of catalogues.
            But what is a wine catalogue you ask? Well there aren’t half naked boys and padded bras for tweens anywhere in them and they consist mostly of text and not pictures. One could say they are closer to a literary magazine that tries to sell you stuff rather than a catalogue as we know them today. It’s fitting because Mr. Theise released a book this past year where he puts the ruminants of his mind about wine to paper.
           In past years his catalogues have been light hearted and a bit silly. Admittedly I’m only past the introduction of his German catalogue but there already seems to be more of a sense of doom about them this year. Not doom in that he feels his adventures are coming to an end but more like our own doom if we don’t begin falling for these wines the way he has. There has always been a sense of street corner, soapbox pontification to his writing but it seems as though this time he’s asking “really? Do I really have to go over all this again? I shouldn’t be able to keep these wines in stock but with each new year it seems that the demands of the wine buyers/sellers have begun to borderline on the ultra obscure.” When was the last time you had a great wine from Uzbekistan? Who really cares?

Wine sellers may be cultivating a case of wine ADD in the average consumer. Most industry wine nerds worth their weight are familiar with Terry Theise or at the very least familiar with the wonderful wines Germany and Austria have to offer but the average consumer is not. There may be a weekend wino that the last time they went to a store they were turned on to the Schloss Gobelsburg, a wonderful Austria affair if I say so myself, but the next time they go to the same store the wine spec has them trying a steely white from Hungry. Perhaps they get the impression that the way to learn about great wine is to ocean hop back and forth like an amphetamine driven hotel heir. If you find you really liked the Gobelsburg but you still want to expand, try on other Austrian Rieslings for size. That’s what Mr. Theise thinks. Also that the other Austrian Riesling you try on for size is also one of his imports.

I’ve been doing this job for a little over a year which is exactly how long I’ve been chasing these wines. There’s so much to learn which I admit is a little daunting at first. Sure most of the bottles tell you what it is you’re drinking be it a Riesling, Gewertz, or Wiess Burgander, but from there it can begin to get a little confusing. I know my ripeness/sweetness levels so no worries about taking an Eiswein to a sushi party. So there’s the grape, the ripeness, and at times even the region or municipality the wine is from will makes its way into the name. For example, I sell a wine which goes by Kruger-Rumphf Munsterer Kabinett. I’ve caught German wine nerds wandering what the Munsterer was doing on the label. It’s actually a city in the Northern Rhine. Same goes with Zeltinger, from the municipality of Zeltingen-Rachtig in the Mosel region. Confused yet? I was a long time ago. Displaying the town or region of origin on the label is no different than when we label a Napa cab as being from Oakville. It’s easier for us to picture where exactly that wine is from because it was spawned at a closer region that is a bit more familiar to us. No doubt the Germans know that Niersteiner is from the municipality of Nierstein located in the upper Rhine valley.

Confusing? Yes. Worth all the confusion? Definitely. My suggestion to the budding Germanophile would be to teach yourself the ripeness levels. From driest to sweetest you have: Troken, Halb-Troken, Kabinett, Spatlese, Auslese, and Eiswein. When these terms are known you can at least have a sense for what’s in the bottle (also my spell check is going insane right now). It’s a good start because the beginner may not need to know every little town where their wine may be from. As one becomes more proficient they may come to realize they like the fresh petrol of the Mosel more than the floral aromatics of the Rhine. Then they may come to realize wine from a certain region of the Rhine may express a hint of petrol underneath all the lime and flowers, giving said wine a “best of both worlds” feel.

Another way to know you’re getting a great German wine is to look for the Terry Theise Selection mark on the back label. If he imports it there’s a good chance it’s the best possible expression of any wine from its hometown. I’d had many, many German Rieslings before I ran into this portfolio and I was a hard-nosed Alsace fan. I still love the wines of Alsace but lately, their souls haven’t sung like these German wines do. The mercury is rising so I suggest you go out and grab a kick ass bottle of German (or Austrian) white wine and thank me later.

The Art of Rant

2011-06-12T22:24:00.000-05:00

Saturday (10:20pm)

I don’t believe my job to be difficult. It’s easy to sell great wine, especially when you’re selling it to people who love wine and all of you get to sit together and drink said wine as I ask, “so you want to buy this shit or not?”. It’s hard to sell bad wine and unbelievably it can be either harder or easier to sell mediocre wine. Allow me to elaborate. A lot of bad wine, really horrible wine, comes in really fancy bottles. Showy bottles with eye catching labels that caress the iris and invite it to come hither. These bad wines can cost anything from five dollars a bottle to one hundred and thirty or more a bottle. There are a lot of new wines unleashed on the market with some kind of gimmick attached and there are others that were wonderfully made at one time but have become devastatingly boring since they reached the point they were allowed to rest on their laurels and in both cases there are a lot of salespeople withholding the samples.

I am blessed in my job that the company I work for represents winemakers and importers who truly love the craft and the aura, the enigma that wine is and I feel a kindred spirit in many of them through their craft whether I’ve met them or not. When I have a glass I am confident that we are all going down the same rabbit hole together in search of the rest of the story.

I worked a wine tasting tonight dubbed The Art of Wine which is probably the biggest in my home state of Arkansas. Over one hundred reps from distributors all over the state and wineries all over the country converged in one spot to pour several hundred wines for several hundred eager winos. Some were there for the juice, some to be seen, and some were there for the buzz, but my favorite guests were the ones that were there for the story…and of course the juice that the story goes behind. We recognize our own immediately. I am often mistaken as a salesman. Then I’m seen as a true wineaux who through some stroke of luck or whatever you want to call it has stumbled upon a job where he gets to sell wine he truly, deeply loves, and then it is realized I am a salesman for sure.

Salesmen like me don’t make a world of money. I drive a thirteen year old S-10 blazer that is hard on the gas but lovely on the reliability and I go from place to place and hand sell wines that then need to be hand sold. What I need for that is passion. I have to find people that already have passion, inspire passion in those who don’t, and nurture passion in the ones who are just catching on. It’s a very exciting time for me. I sleep very well at night but my family and I have to make other sacrifices to make do in this life and at times it’s a burden on me. The guys who sell Gallo products and Constellation products drive nice cars and have toys. I don’t question their happiness but they do have eight different bosses telling them what to do each day and not every one of those bosses is in collusion with one another. It must be hard.

I have one boss. She gives me as much leeway as I need to go out and continue expanding territory and getting wines no one has ever heard of, without the benefit of a fancy label and flashy promo, just good. Fucking. Juice. That means samples. That means stories. Wine is a story. I realized tonight I have several of them, from the first bottle of Guigal Chateauneuf I ever had that was given to me by a waiter at the first restaurant gig I ever worked, because the table said it was too gamey and he himself stuck to beer. I can’t relay enough how much that fucking bottle changed my life.

Then I found myself telling another story about a man who worked at the famed Domaine Romanee-Conti for a few years before moving back to California and driving around in a VW bus in search of the perfect place to grow pinot which he now sells under the name of Calera.

Then it occurred to me, maybe that’s the reason why I’ve been such a fan of great wine for so long. I fucking love stories. Great wine in most cases has a great story behind it and here I am getting to tell stories, both my own and those of others to help advance the excitement and desire for yet another great wine experience. Yet another great wine story. There sure are a lot of jackasses in this business who don’t get that fact. That asshole from an earlier post was there. They’re the kind of folks just licking their way up the corporate latter and they get to have bigger houses and drive much nicer cars and I understand that to them, it’s just a gig. Something to do for money and when the going gets rough, the rough sells more Sutter Home.

Which leads me to my next idea. America buys a shit ton of Sutter Home (and other such wines), but not because they have bad palates or because Sutter Home is inexpensive and inoffensive. Sure, many of them go that route because that’s the easiest way they’ve found to get a bottle of wine that’s cheap and safe and familiar. There’s usually a giant stack of it right by the front door of the liquor store. Yet I have an account that sells more wine from an up and coming yet still somewhat obscure region in France known as Corbieres then they do both Yellow Tail and Little Penguin COMBINED. Is that because their clientele is savvier? More advanced in their wine love? Perhaps to some degree, but it also has to do with a staff that pulls together and does an amazing job in forcefully educating the average wine buyer into going for the wine which has no cartoon on the label, is the same price, and is somewhat daunting in trying to wrap your brain around what it is they are actually buying.

“So this is a cab/merlot blend from Australia. Now what’s this other bottle here?”

“Well that’s a Carignan, Syrah, Grenache blend form the Languedoc which is located in Southern France. It’s beefy without being too old world. In fact, real Francophiles to some degree shun it for being not old world enough but it’s perfect for anything you want to grill on the barbecue and it’s very easy to enjoy. Not to mention it’s a buck or two cheaper than that Aussie blend.”

“I’m going to go with the blend from Australia because we like it. Thanks though.”

It’s a heart-breaking wine exchange. But coming out of the woodwork are the ones who are willing to throw out the dice and take a chance on something new and exciting and then I get excited that they are excited and then we all end up in this happy little world together buzzing about these wines. I often find myself driving away from these accounts or these tastings with a huge smile on my face thanks to these people. It makes it all worth it and gives me hope that maybe here in my little neck of the woods we are all evolving in our passion for wine together. We are all making steps to get outside of the safe zone and try more wines than ever. It’s such a great time for it. Thanks to climate change and the impending end of the world there is an abundance of great juice being produced at multiple points on the globe.

It’s not just about Cali or France or Italy anymore. South America and the eastern U.S., Canada and even the Middle East are beginning to produce wines worthy of a deep bow. If one day in the near future you have a Cab Franc from some appellation you’ve never heard of and it has blown your mind out of the back of your head and completely ruined the paint in your kitchen, there’s a possibility you can blame Canada.

It’s now 11:06 and I’m wine tasting drunk so I’ll have to reread this again in the morning to make sure it makes any sense at all but I hope I can sum it all up here: I love wine, I love stories, I sell wine for the little guys and holy schnikes do I love it. Dear God please help me find the way to continue on this track (ever –expanding family in tow), and Johnny Appleseed my little corner of the earth with just enough GREAT wine that sleep comes easy and I can continue to keep my family happy and fed.

Sunday (9:46pm)

I have just gone back over this and realized that though half of it sounds like the testimony of some kind of frothing lunatic who was asked to write a brochure on wine sales that would appeal to the 1950’s reader, I like too much of it to delete, yet not enough of it to go through and give a lift to. I like the rant about the story in relation to wine and I wanted to share this unchanged (with the exception of the overly horrific grammar and spelling errors) manuscript. Afterall this is still a blog. Not all of us can be fancy-pants James Suckling with his fancy-pants editors.

I don’t even have any pictures. Truth is it was quite dark and very drum-and-bass techno-y in the room I was in so really most of my concentration had to go into talking up the awesome folks who came out to see me and beating away the other reps who were trying to drink all my Gaston Chiquet because they knew to the bottom of their souls their Clicquot was heartless, and being served far too cold. I also have an old iPhone, not the one with the flash but the one that Qin Shi Huang used to beat off the Mongolian Hordes. The one picture I did take was so dark and blurry I decided instead to send it off to another site as proof of the Chupacabra.