I am getting a bit tingly about the nascent crop I am seeing out there: Above is Pinot clone 943. I’ve been so used to seeing these vines throw clusters like tiny hand grenades that this is quite a surprise—they are long and straggly for a change. This is potentially the largest Pinot crop I’ve seen at our vineyard since 2006, and the most uniform ever.

Several weeks ago I thought the Grenache was preparing to throw a short crop. No longer: We are going to have plenty of thinning options. I’m thankful to see a potential increase in yield for the Pinot and Grenache after two very short years. The Syrah and the Mourvedre appear to be throwing an “average” crop. The Tannat and Counoise look a little light, as of today. Next steps at the vineyard:

• continued sulfur applications, timed according to disease modeling,
• complete all crown and trunk suckering,
• start the first pass of shoot thinning for density and position, and
• start lifting the lower trellis wires into position as the shoot thinning is completed.

It is hard for me to believe the vineyard is already over a decade old. I’m seeing a little Eutypa in the Mourvedre which we need to manage. Since the very heavy crop load in 2006 we have seen some early decline in Syrah—a vine here, a vine there. The worst affected block was the Tablas Creek A selection on 420A rootstock. The 420A is slower than other stocks to develop a deep permanent root structure, so the timing of the heavy 2006 crop was especially unfortunate for this block, where the vine root system simply was not developed well enough to keep up with the demands. We have been grubbing out the dead vines and replanting for a couple years: This is what came out of the TC/420A block this year.

Overall I am guardedly optimistic that the 2012 growing season is going to be better than 2010 and 2011 were. I’m not alone in this assessment. Kimberly Hatcher of Morgado Cellars sent me in an email the other day:

I am so excited about this weather and how all of the vineyards are looking. I feel so strongly that 2012 is going to be an awesome vintage…

A friend posted on Facebook the other day: “In Hungarians’ eyes an optimist is a person who is poorly informed.” I’m feeling like I could be a bit “poorly informed” regarding this season; perhaps Ms. Hatcher is a little more so.

For these folks, and their 200-year-old forebears, vaccines are bad because they are not “natural.” This is true, but isn’t the point of civilization to rise above the blunt cruelty of nature? To arrive at some higher ground where we, and not Mother Nature, can call a few shots? … One of nature’s charter members is measles, which, even with WHO’s impressive efforts, still kills hundreds of thousands of children annually. Its victims die a slow, miserable, natural death as the virus overwhelms every organ within a few weeks, culminating in respiratory failure. Vaccination has saved tens of millions of lives, more than any other medical invention. It is one of the few health-care heroes out there. Wouldn’t it be more natural for us to be thankful?

This got me thinking about the insistence in some quarters that un-inoculated wine is “better” wine. I am in no way equating the importance or consequences of choosing whether or not to vaccinate children with whether or not a winemaker chooses to add yeast to a wine, or with a consumer choosing to only drink wines with no added yeast.

I AM wondering if there is any intersection between the set of “natural” wine advocates, and the anti-vaccination set.

If there is strong overlap, it would clarify things for me a bit. If there is little or no overlap, that would raise questions for me of coherence and consistence in the philosophy held by “natural” wine advocates.

One day he was visiting one of his customers, a well-regarded Burgundian producer. While he was in the middle of taking an order for corks, the producer gets a phone call from a local restaurant: “Oooh, we have a BIG problem! SIX bottles out of the last case you sent us were CORKED!” Producer: “One moment, please…” and he puts them on hold while he explains the situation to my new friend.

Apparently, this restaurant was calling the producer every week complaining of “corked” bottles and asking for replacements; this AFTER demanding a 10% discount off every invoice against the possibility of returned bottles. With the restaurant on hold, the producer expounded to his supplier that he did not believe the rate of corked bottles was anywhere near 10%, much less 50%.

My new friend asks for the phone: “Hello, I’m a representative of the company that supplies the producer with the corks you are having trouble with. This is very worrying to me! Please, put the bottles with the problem corks aside and I will be right over to pick them up. I want to take them back to our lab and have them tested.”

Restaurant: “Puf…uh…well, two customers who complained ended up accepting the bottles after all…and we used several more in, um, sauces and other cooking…and, well, they are not here.” Supplier: “Then PLEASE, next time you encounter a corked bottle call me immediately and I will come over to pick it up for analysis. We are very concerned!” Restaurant: “OK we will. Thank you.”

After that, the calls from this restaurant to the producer about corked bottles stopped. The producer stopped giving the 10% discount. And the restaurant never complained.

I have heard of restaurants playing this scam, but never anything this egregious. My friend proposed that this game might be more common in France. He explained that businessmen taking their colleagues, clients, and—especially—secretaries out for a meal are inclined to reject a bottle or two in order to show how confident and important they are.

I wonder if this approach actually makes them seem more confident and important to their colleagues, clients, and secretaries (um… no, I don’t).

One of my grower friends, Jennifer Thomson (@ThomsonVyrds on Twitter, and posting here) tweeted today:

Heat spike expected today through Sat. Declining low temps dipping to mid 30s next week. Anyone else willing to bet on repeat 2011 season?

Bet on an exact repeat of 2011? No. I will double down on the beginning of the season being colder and later than 2011. Heck, it already is. But I am preparing for a warm harvest, for a change from the last two years. The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is predicted to finally shift from a cold La Niña pattern to ENSO-neutral this month. From the latest discussion issued by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center:

[W]we continue to expect La Niña to dissipate during April 2012. ENSO-neutral conditions are then expected to persist through the summer. Thereafter, there is considerable uncertainty in the forecast, which slightly favors ENSO-neutral or developing El Niño conditions over a return to La Niña conditions during the remainder of 2012. Because atmospheric impacts often lag the demise of an ENSO episode, aspects of La Niña are reflected in the coming season. Over the U.S. during April – June 2012, La Niña has the following weak influences on the climate outlook: There is an increased chance of above-average temperatures in the south-central U.S., and below-average temperatures in the Northwest.

But after June I expect it to start warming up. And if I am reading it right (“dammit, Jim I’m a winemaker, not a climate scientist!”) the timing of this year’s strong Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) impulses shows similarity to prior warm, dry vintages like 2004 and 2009.

Briefly, back in the late 1990s a few land owners planning to develop vineyards did some very bad things with bulldozers on forested slopes; I recall there was a particularly egregious and visible example on Westside Road outside Healdsburg. This haphazard land clearing led to serious erosion and damage to properties downslope from the offending parties. In response, County officials adopted a set of rules in 2000 to limit hillside clearing and development, and mandate best management practices in order to minimize the risk of erosion. The Vineyard Erosion and Sediment Control Ordinance (VESCO) was modeled on a similar set of regulations adopted by Napa County in 1991.

Recently several vineyard development proposals requiring clearing of forest in west and northwest Sonoma County have encountered determined opposition from various parties. In response to this opposition, on January 31, 2012 the Board of Supervisors imposed a four month moratorium on the processing and approval of applications for permits for site development on ridgetops, and Level II vineyard and orchard site development on any land that includes the removal of trees. The moratorium was intended to allow the Ag Commissioner’s office to develop new rules amending VESCO, specifically directed to mitigate the risks of erosion and sediment deposition arising from tree removal on slopes, especially slopes with erodible and/or low-cohesion soils. The Board directed that these new rules be explicitly “science-based.”

The Ag Commission doesn’t have staff with the expertise to develop scienced-based regulations in this area, so they selected the geotechnical consulting firm LACO Associates to develop the draft ordinance. Facing a very tight timeline to develop the amendments, the Commissioners office organized a series of separate meetings with LACO and “stakeholder groups” to get input on the new regulations. LACO’s report was released April 5th, and can be found here.

“Environmental Activists” vs. “Agricultural Interests”

Last night was the final public meeting before the Ag Commissioner presents the draft ordinance amendments to the Board of Supervisors on April 24th. Before the meeting I read the draft proposal and the local media coverage, and was looking for a better understanding of the issue. The media tend to present this sort of issue as environmentalists opposing agricultural development. Those present at last night’s meeting did not appear to me to fall so neatly into such facile, shopworn categorizations.

We’re All Environmentalists

It appeared to me that nearly everyone at the meeting is a landowner in Sonoma County. Everyone at the meeting seemed to understand that tree removal increases the risk of soil erosion, and accept the need to elaborate a regulatory framework to minimize the risk of soil loss and sediment deposition in the County’s waterways. It seemed to me that everyone at the meeting supported the ideals of stewardship and responsibility to future generations.

Differences In Emphasis

At the meeting the audience did split into two general camps. One group seems focused on the negative effects of sediment deposition on steelhead and salmon habitat, as well as wider issues of development of any sort degrading riparian habitat and watershed performance. The other group seems focused on the negative effects of complying with new regulations on the viability of the agricultural economy. I would call them pro- and anti-development camps. It seemed to me that some in the pro-development camp put too much emphasis on individual property rights, oppose regulation in general, and are disgruntled that these new regs are going to be passed in some form or other. And it seemed to me that some in the anti-development camp put too little emphasis on individual property rights, feel that the draft regs are too narrow in scope, and are disgruntled that the Board is not re-opening debate on all of VESCO as well as removing the responsibility for regulation of agricultural development from the Ag Commissioner’s office.

Timber Harvest

Some See THIS…

Leading To THIS…

And Then To THIS:

While Others See THIS…

Leading To THIS…

Or To THIS:

When we developed our vineyard in 2000-2001 we developed an erosion control and drainage plan with a civil engineering firm (Atterbury & Associates) that went above and beyond the requirements of VESCO. We have yet to plant the steepest area of our property, and though our development calls for zero tree removal we need to know if and how the new regulations will affect us. I came away from last night’s meeting with a list of questions and concerns to address to the Ag Commissioner and Supervisors:

• Hasty regulation makes bad regulation. I acknowledge the efforts of the working group and am impressed with all that has been accomplished in the short time they have had to develop the draft regulations. However, I see a need for refinement and clarification.
• I don’t see where the issue of overlapping jurisdiction has been addressed. If a project proposes to clear-cut standing forest to develop vineyard or orchard, the applicant must submit a Timber Harvest Plan (THP) to the State Department of Forestry and CAL FIRE for review and approval. I would like to see that County has conducted a process review to assure that VESCO mandates are consonant with THP protocols and that there is no duplication of effort between County and State agencies.
• The working group should definitively state which predictive soil loss model, or aggregate of models, will be used in assessing the risk factors and mitigation measures required for all projects; the choice of model should not be left to the discretion of the applicant. A mechanism for periodic internal review of model effectiveness, and model revision, should be incorporated into the ordinance.
• The BMPs should emphasize the use of soil-building measures, especially cover crops but including mulches, compost and biochar, as well as engineered solutions that encourage sheet flow of runoff contained on the applicant parcel. Engineered solutions that channelize runoff have the potential to deliver flows at higher energies to properties downslope from applicant projects, necessitating cascades of mitigation or creating the potential for tort action.
• The sections in the draft ordinance covering peer review, post-development monitoring, spot compliance inspection, ensuring mitigation if non-compliance occurs, and sanctioning persistent non-compliance are troublingly vague. The Board should define and clarify these areas, and accept public input, before a final vote on changes to the ordinance.
• It seems extraordinary that only Level II applicant projects involving tree removal will be subject to peer review and monitoring. The Board should clarify whether projects with already-approved Level II grading and erosion control plans under VESCO will be required to re-submit to certify that no tree removal is taking place, and whether Level II projects not involving tree removal will be also subject to peer review and monitoring.
• The County needs to assure applicants that the resources are available to process these enhanced applications in an efficient, timely and impartial manner.
• The citizens of Sonoma County deserve a transparent and comprehensive accounting of the sources and uses of the funds necessary to implement this enhanced regulation. The Board should require realistic fees from project applicants to pay for peer review and inspection, but any budgetary increases not covered by fees should be clearly explained to taxpayers.

There’s Always A But…

The local Press Democrat ran this story a couple days ago with the headline “Barrel Tasting Drunkenness Alarms Healdsburg Merchants” where “…merchants said they witnessed participants stagger from one tasting room to another, hanging on benches and even getting sick from too much alcohol.” Observers quoted in the story focused on “younger imbibers” but I think this is a bit unfair. While I would say that the partying crowd does seem to skew younger in terms of sheer numbers, in my experience “the over-served” come from every age group.

Oh, The Stories I Could Tell

I’ve been doing this a long time, serving wine to guests. If I have not seen it all, I’ve certainly seen a lot—more than the average wine lover. I’m the last person entitled to go all judgey and finger-pointy over people getting their drink on. I’ve done my fair share. And I have enabled a fair share in others.

But there’s something about the behavior of hammered guests at wine festivals that goes beyond the pale. Maybe it’s the public nature of the spectacle that is so objectionable.

Not The Image You Want Identified With Your Brand

I’ve said elsewhere and will repeat here: I no longer participate in any of the big wine festivals. The last event we did at Ft. Mason in SF was billed to us by the organizers as “a farmer’s market for wine” where we would be able to engage with and sell to motivated consumers. Then they sold tickets through Groupon, whose cutesy-snarky copywriters promoted the sale as “All You Can Drink – Half Price!” Awesome. The line to get into the venue was 8-wide and a quarter-mile long. We poured WAY more than we sold, the vast majority of it to people who forgot our brand before they got to the next table.

These Are Not The Customers You Were Looking For

Over the years that I did participate in the big events I started to notice something: I saw the same people at every event, year after year. But with very, very few exceptions I never saw them at our tasting room. Not one joined the wine club. Of those that added themselves to our mailing list an infinitesimal fraction responded to invitations to smaller events, or to mail/email offers—even of sale wines. The big-festival-event-goer appears to be a particular demographic; their intersection with the world of wine is centered on these events.

Over the last couple of years I’ve talked this issue over with a number of other proprietors of limited-volume brands. Most of them are saying the same thing I am: the big wine festival is a singularly poor way to build a brand identity. They are bailing, as I have.

This limited anecdotal evidence does not make a trend, but what if this is the start of a trend? Will we get to the point where only the big, industrial producers show up for these festivals? Would anybody care?

The overhead sprinklers were running full blast at Beltane Ranch when I drove by this morning. Maybe they were testing the frost protection. But at Landmark they were definitely irrigating the new Rhône block by the highway—I could see the spray from a popped emitter as I drove by.

I’ve been thinking of the role that soil moisture might play in the timing of budbreak. Accepted wisdom is that the vines start to push when the soil temperature in the shallow root zone is consistently above 50° F. Does wet soil warm and retain heat better than dry soil? I’ve postulated that there is a day length rescue mechanism to assure that grapes ripen even in a cold year. Might there be a similar day length trigger for budbreak in a cold and/or dry year? Inquiring minds want to know.

Hermelando was out doing repair and maintenance on the frost emitters today. The crew was finishing tying of canes and cordons. In the last week we completed our semi-annual re-planting of damaged or diseased vines (you can see milk cartons in the image below of the Pinot HVS block, with the Pinot Calera block behind it).

F**k Discounts

No I really mean it: f**k ‘em. Much as I don’t like to start a post on a negative, I’m just so done with discounting. No, we are not going to haggle on the price of that bottle of Pinot—I will sell it to you at a discount if (and only if) you join the wine club and accept at least one shipment before you cancel. No, you can’t have a free tasting unless you make a $50 purchase (update: no free tasting, period). I’m already selling into wholesale at FOB pricing, so no I will not cut another 20% off—and yes, I know you are trying to sell in a market where every SWS rep is giving away three cases to sell one. OK, I will negotiate on the 3-case minimum drop to get by-the-glass pricing, but no, you can’t have it at the BTG price unless you are actually pouring it by the glass. And on, and on…

Thankfully, it looks like the market is starting to come to me—at the retail level anyway people are increasingly accepting of front-line pricing. I have even been able to roll back some of the price cuts we had to take just to stay in business when the Great Recession hit.

We’re not out of the woods yet, and if the stories I hear from friends are any indication the Recession may have spawned a new and persistent consumer demographic who simply won’t purchase anything unless they think they are getting a “deal.” Not that long ago I overheard a group outside the shoe store next to our shop, commenting on the “SALE” sign in the door: “Are they kidding? 10% off? I won’t even walk in unless they are selling at least at 50% off.” Ugh. Thank you for not coming into my store, either.

“But Wines Are SO Expensive! Why Won’t You Sell To Me At A Discount?”

This morning Ryan O’Connell posted on “What Is A Wine Really Worth?” where he points out different scenarios on wine pricing from the producer’s perspective. He says:

I belong to the supply-based school that says you take the cost of making wine and add a bit. …you add up the cost of viticulture (or grapes if you’re sourcing fruit), the cost of vinification, the cost of elevage/aging, the cost of bottling, the cost of shipping, the cost of storage, the excise and local taxes, and the cost of marketing/selling, and then add a bit for each person in the chain of custody that brings the wine to the consumer.

Our pricing model is a little more complicated, but not rocket-science-complex. First I lay out what percentage of product I believe I can sell direct-to-consumer (DTC) at full retail and at discounted retail (wine club and case discounts), and to selected retailers at wholesale. (Note that I entirely leave out selling at FOB into distribution—these days the entire middle tier is so dysfunctional when it comes to small wineries that there is no point courting distributors. It’s a waste of my resources for the return distribution offers.) Then I look at our burn rate: cost of goods and overhead costs: salaries, marketing, rents and other expenses, taxes, debt service, etc. Then I figure out how many cases I have to sell in each category across our mix of price points to cover our burn rate. That is my sales bogey. Clearly the more I can move at DTC (and loyalty-discounted DTC) the fewer cases I have to sell to hit that bogey—and the more likely it will be that there will be a bit of profit to pass through to myself and to my investor partners.

Back in the day I worked for an ex-fighter pilot. During a discussion of our enterprise-wide crop forecasts he said: “In bombardier school, they taught us to ‘measure it with a micrometer, lay it out with a ruler, and hit it with a sledgehammer.’” To a degree that is how our pricing/sales model works; being a small, single-vineyard operation we are more at the mercy of the whims and vagaries of nature than bigger wineries. Regardless, we need to hold the line on the pricing we have set because that it what we have to make to stay in business. Top line to bottom line, discount pricing makes it that much harder to keep the doors open.

“Then Why Do I See Your Wines On Discount Sites?”

A month or so ago I had a wine club member in the shop. As we were wrapping up our transaction he stepped into my office and whispered: “Is everything going OK? I saw one of your wines on a discount site and wondered if you were having money troubles.” No more than usual, I assured him. I went on to discuss with him how we move a tiny fraction of our wine through these outlets, and given the discount pricing (essentially around FOB) these sales represent an even smaller fraction of our revenue. “Then why do you do it?”

In a word, marketing. Every one of us producers of ultra-premium wine caters to a tiny slice of the incredibly long tail of the wine consumer demographic distribution. Consciously or not, in order to grow our sales (or even to maintain them flat) we rely on a continuous trickle of new buyers who decide to trade up from entry-level wines. We have thanked the large industrial producers and gateway wines like White Zin and Moscato for introducing people to wine, and prayed that enough of these casual consumers would “get the bug” and trade up to keep us in business.

This modality is still in play. But the discount sites offer small producers a more targeted approach. No doubt the majority of buyers on these sites are there for the deal; maybe they are even part of the persistent new demographic I mentioned above. The difference from the gateway wine approach is that this demo has already traded up to a degree, and they are being contacted directly by the discount sellers. And a few of these buyers are going to taste the wines we feature, get excited, and trade up further—perhaps even to the extent of looking specifically for my brand—ready to pay retail. This is way more powerful than just praying that the random entry level graduate is going to stumble across my brand.

Every Bottle Moved Through Discount Sites Represents a Direct Appeal To The New Buyer

Every dollar lost relative to the retail price of that bottle is a dollar spent on marketing, and arguably a far more effective marketing dollar than one spent on print ads or medal competitions. We are leveraging the huge mailing lists of the discounters—renting their list for a day or two, for what amounts to a tiny fraction of what it would cost to buy a mailing list—and we incur no hit with the potential new customer for filling their inbox with ads. The discounters take that hit for us.

The downside is the certainty that some consumers are going to think that because we are placing wines on a discount site we are having financial difficulty. I’m putting up this post to address that mis-perception. We are not. We are hoping to reach new and potentially loyal customers.

I’m also putting up this post to let my readers know that tomorrow, Saturday March 17th, 2012, my friends at The Wine Spies are going to feature our 2004 Los Carneros Library Selection Pinot Noir. Today in our Salon we are pouring one of our 2003 Pinots. People are loving it, and spending $58/bottle for it. I won’t be pouring the 2004 Carneros as a Library Selection in the Tasting Salon until some time next year. Tomorrow only you can buy it from the Spies for something like $40. So stock up. And after you fall in love with it, come visit us in Sonoma. Or at least check out the website.

Walked the vineyard a couple hours on Monday in balmy spring weather; again—nothing. No budbreak, no woolly buds, barely any budswell out on the ends of the canes of the precocious clone 943 Pinot. I was happy to see wet soil down to 3″-4″ digging under the vines, but we still need to irrigate. The canes in the young vines are still too brittle to tie down.

An unseasonably cold frontal system dropped in Tuesday. We got no rain from it (bad) but it was breezy enough through the night to mix out any chance of frost (good). The winds died yesterday afternoon and we have sub-freezing temperatures at the vineyard just before sunrise today. Time to go take another walk, looking for green, holding my breath until we get through frost season. Apparently budbreak has started somewhere in Sonoma, just not at our Estate.

We Pruned Early

Over the last three vintages we didn’t start pruning before the middle of March, and didn’t finish before the end of April—even into May. Part of the reason was frost control—I wanted to see buds pushing at the ends of the prior year’s canes before pruning, to give the vines up to a couple more weeks where the closed buds at the base of the canes might weather a potential frost.

This strategy may have saved us some crop, but in 2010 and 2011 we still experienced some damage and loss from late frosts. And because the vines started growing late they finished late as well. In all of the last three vintages we had significant rain before I got the last of the fruit off.

I’m tacking to a new course in 2012. Even though the latest ENSO forecast suggests that the current La Niña will dissipate by April…

Because the strength of impacts in the United States is not necessarily related to the exact strength of La Niña in the tropical Pacific, we expect La Niña impacts to continue even as the episode weakens. Over the U.S. during February – April 2012, there is an increased chance of above-average temperatures across the south-central and southeastern U.S., and below-average temperatures in the northwestern U.S. Also, above-average precipitation is favored across most of the northern tier of states (except the north-central U.S.) and in the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys, and drier-than-average conditions are more likely across the southern tier of the U.S.

…in other words, I’m going to expect another year with the potential for late-season frost. For the last couple years, banking on late pruning to protect the crop has proved not to be a sure-fire strategy, so this year I plan to rely entirely on our overhead sprayers for frost control (and may the mercies of heaven aid us).

In 2012 we started pruning the Mourvedre on the slope in January, moved to the Tannat and Syrah, then the Counoise and Grenache, followed by the old-vine Pinot, and finishing last week with the young-vine Pinot.

Where’s The Rain?

Everyone in Northern California is asking where our winter rains and snows have disappeared to this year. The high pressure ridge that usually sets up along our coast in September-November has arrived two months too late to help us with harvest—and has done a spectacular job of keeping winter precipitation to the north of us. With only 11.2″ received to date, this is the driest winter I have recorded in 15 years (less than 2007: 13.7″, 2001: 14.9″, 2008: 16.7″ to date). We are at just 48% of average and the next couple weeks look to continue dry.

The pruning wounds have started to bleed in the deep-rooted old-vine Pinot but not in the young vines. The canes in the young vines are still too dry and brittle to bend and tie, and it appears there is not enough water available in the shallow rooting profile of these vines to get them going. There is no prediction of rain in the 2-week forecast. We are probably going to irrigate in the young vines this week.

No Budbreak Yet

I have been out looking for budbreak since we started pruning—it has been a pretty warm season so far. Today it is forecast to reach 77° F and we expect two more days in the 70s before the next cold front. I spent an extra hour this morning walking the rows looking for ANY evidence of budswell. Nothing. So the immediate plan is to water the young vines soon, hope that this limbers up the young vine canes so we can tie them down before the buds start to push, and be ready for frost.

In a couple of weeks we have our big annual partners meeting in Houston. This weekend was an opportunity to talk about the heart of the business, without profit & loss statements, spreadsheets, or PowerPoint presentations—and to introduce the winery to new friends. All interspersed in discussions of politics, minerals, oil & gas exploration, and relationships (yes, guys do talk about these things, obliquely perhaps).

We’ve shared a few nice bottles of wine, too—among them: 1999 Merus, 2007 Ladera Cabernet, and a 2009 Emeritus Pinot. I’m thankful that the guys still think our wines are fit to be poured alongside these stunners. We had a pretty spectacular meal out last night. If you find yourself in Breckenridge do yourself a favor and check out Ember.

Define What Is “Better”

In any discussion of wine, in order to get beyond endless argument over personal opinion there has to be agreement on what constitutes “better”—exactly what is it that makes wine A superior to wine B. This is a non-trivial question that seems to be completely glossed over in the discussions of the merits of wine reviews. In my opinion, in a general sense there is no answer to this question. But my opinion aside, in order to put numerical values on wines there must be universal agreement on the value to be assigned to specific attributes. Simply put, in a research setting the first and most important question is: “what is the goal of this project?” For example, we might say “Chardonnay that shows more minerality, fruitiness, lack of vegetal notes, and creamy texture is better; our desire is to increase these attributes in our wine, so what can we do to increase these attributes?”

Set Up The Experiments

Perhaps we could explore the effects of canopy, crop load and irrigation management in the vineyard. Or maybe we could study options in fruit handling, processing temperature, juice settling, yeast selection, barrel choice, and lees stirring in the winery. First we have to define what are we willing to change, and then rigorously produce wines that reflect the range of these options as closely as possible to how we would treat them in routine production. Ideally, we would do this over several vintages to eliminate uncontrolled seasonal variables in the results.

Train The Tasting Panel

Aye and here’s the rub. Training the tasting panel—more than one person; my preference is for 5 to 7 experienced tasters—is the single most critical control point in assuring that the evaluation of experimental results has any meaning. In the research setting, reference standards for the attributes being tested for must be established, e.g. from the example above: “this is what we mean by ‘mineral,’ this is ‘fruity,’ this is ‘vegetal’ and this is ‘creamy.’” Reference compounds are dosed into neutral wines, and the panel members are drilled to develop their ability to recognize them. If a reference can’t be reliably identified it has to be dropped from the trial. If a member can’t reliably identify a standard obvious to the rest of the panel, that taster has to be removed from the trial. (I recall hearing that Ann Noble at UC Davis used to reward her tasting panel trainees with cookies when they got good at picking out particular attributes. I never found that motivation all that useful, but then the panels I trained weren’t hungry students.)

Present The Trial

This is the easy part. The setting needs to be well lit without distracting sights, sounds, drafts, or especially aromas. The glasses need to be all the same and well-cleaned, without any residue of the cleaner. Importantly, the wines to be evaluated need to be presented to the panel on more than one occasion (3 to 5 seems to be optimal) and these evaluations should be made at the same time of day in each instance. Of course the samples are presented blind and in random order. Reference standards need to be included in the blind presentation—these are to control for panel members having a bad day; if a taster who is usually good at identifying the attributes fails on the standards, their results should be excluded. When I would evaluate a multivariate trial, the tasting sheet for each wine would have the attributes listed, with a 100mm long straight line next to each and the words “low” and “high” underneath the lines to the left and right, respectively. The tasters were required only to put a mark on the line indicating their perception of the intensity of each attribute. The protocol I most often employed was to present the trial wines in ensemble; the tasters were allowed to smell all, taste all, smell all again, and then mark their sheets. The trial wines were presented in different orders for each taster and in each tasting session.

Evaluate The Data

I would slap a ruler on each line and measure where each mark was located: 0mm to 100mm. Each record in the data set comprised the session ID, the taster ID, the trial wine ID, the attribute ID and the associated intensity “value.” A first cleanup pass on the dataset would scrub the records for session/taster/attribute combinations where reference standards were poorly identified. The references I used were usually pretty obvious, so I somewhat arbitrarily set the cutoff at 60; e.g. if a taster failed to identify a standard with an intensity value of 60 or more, their session results for that attribute were excluded from the data set. Finally, I fed the data into statistics software to crunch the numbers. The most robust results came from principal component or factor analyses; non-parametric methods that maximize the variance in the observational data, and then rotate the experimental treatment axes relative to the observational vectors. In the example above, say if the wines produced from different crop loads grouped along the vector for perceived minerality, or perhaps the vector for perceived fruitiness, we could conclude that crop load affects these attributes of the wine.

I don’t own any of the data I generated from my days as a researcher, and I worked for private companies that did not publish the results of the work I did. So to illustrate this kind of analysis I have lifted a pretty decent graphic from a published study exploring the effects of yeast selection on the attributes of Sauvignon Blanc: I leave it to the (very) interested reader to look deeper into this statistical approach.

The Bottom Line

What I have tired to convey here is not the method, but rather a sense of the level of rigor I believe is necessary to perform an objective evaluation of wine—to be able to conclude with reasonable certainty that one wine is “better” than another, according to some specific definition of what constitutes better-ness. Would it surprise anyone to find that I view any expectation of inviolate veracity for 100 point scores to be hopelessly naive? Given the work I have done, I have earned the right to tell y’all that any insistence that someone reviewing many wines a day can approach tasting with this level of rigor and reproducibility is misplaced to the point of irrationality.

In The Trenches

I have huge respect for anyone who reviews wines for a living. It is hard work. In the argument over the meaning of scores—inflated or not—I come down on the side that scores are a shorthand valued by a culture that views everything in terms of a competition and shuns relativism. I truly believe that most if not all reviewers would prefer not to use scores if they had a choice, but that consumers demand them. I also believe that a certain slice of consumers are 100% to blame for the expectation that scores must reflect some sort of absolute. I don’t see a single reviewer claiming omniscience, infallibility, or the inviolability of their scores or evaluation methodologies. And I don’t fault wineries for touting scores to move their product—that’s just good business sense. But anyone who buys by scores and truly expects that anybody’s 96 is objectively “better” than an 88, every time, to every person—as the sage said, there’s one of them born every minute.

Yeah, I said it. Oh yeah, I really did. Sucker.

Today I was reading the February 2012 issue of Road & Track magazine (in paper, thank you—I’ve been a subscriber for nearly 40 years) and was struck by this bit from the opening “Road Ahead” column by Editor In-Chief Matt DeLorenzo:

‘What’s a good car?’ It’s a common question put to enthusiasts, yet impossible to answer because invariably part of the reason it’s asked is to validate the questioner’s own opinion. What really is a good car? More often than not, you end up engaging in Socratic dialogue to find out the person’s needs or wants before settling on an answer.

A better question is what car do you love? The beauty of this approach lies in its subjectivity, as opposed to the objectivity demanded by the ‘what’s a good car’ question. If someone is seeking your opinion, shouldn’t the answer be more subjective than objective? This also opens the door to allow passion to enter the discussion rather than simple data.

You can love a car for many reasons, both ration­al and irrational, the latter being eminently more fun than the former. So… we’ve decided to bring you a loose collection of cars we love. We aren’t saying these are the definitive best cars in the world, but rather cars worthy of not just your attention, but more importantly, your affection.

Subjectivity. Passion. Fun. Affection.

I could not agree more with Mr. DeLorenzo. As he suggests with cars, the joy of wine appreciation is sucked out by the “simple data” implied by scores. I have come to realize that James Suckling gushing “I’m 100 points on that!” is more expressing enthusiasm and emotional honesty about a particular experience than he is saying “this 100 point wine is objectively better than that 96 point wine.” Score inflation? Wines getting better? No, I don’t think either. I think that reviewers are just getting more enthusiastic about wines they love.

I wish reviewers would give up the pretense of objectivity. If we acknowledge that when a reviewer gives a high score it means they love that particular wine—no more, no less, and with no expectation that that score fits in a wider, objective context—we would all be happier. Kumbaya.

Here we are again. The difference this time around is that there is a hard number on the lips of the critical:
The narrative being pedaled suggests that wines over this level generally are problematic, inferior, out-of-balance, not true-to-type, lacking: terroir, focus, complexity precision, nuance, etc.

I disagree.

And I’ve commented here and elsewhere that I have noted zero interest in the topic among the visitors to our Tasting Salon. But the “over 14% sucks” meme has a life of its own, it’s out there, it won’t die; sort of like “the President is a foreign-born Muslim.”

Because of this persistent media attention, I figured that it was bound to happen—sooner or later—that one of my guests was going to comment on the “high” alcohol levels on the labels of my wines.

It happened like this. Three nice people came in and tasted through the five wines I had on offer: three Pinots, a Châteauneuf-du-Pape-style blend and last, a varietal Syrah. They seemed to be enjoying them. After the Syrah one of the guests asked “What’s the alcohol on these wines?” I answered “between 14.5% and 14.9%” and a couple of them started muttering “oh, that’s high—so-and-so won’t drink it.”

I politely asked them if they could have guessed that the wines had alcohols approaching 15% without being told, and each of them admitted “no” they couldn’t have. One commented that “…these wines don’t taste hot.” I explained that ethanol doesn’t really taste hot, but that other alcohols do—propanols, butanols, pentanols, etc. and their esters and oxidation products, collectively called congeners in the distillation biz.

These fermentation products are more likely to be produced by yeast under stress, and high initial sugar as well as high final ethanol concentrations are potent stressors, as are nutrient and co-factor deficiencies. In my winemaking I go out of my way to minimize the stresses on yeast (though not so far as to throw diammonium phosphate—DAP, a source of ammonia—at every ferment) and so the levels of these congeners are low in my finished wines. No “heat” on the palate.

I further explained that in fact few of my wines finish fermentation much over 13.5%-14% but they pick up as much as 1%-1.5% during barrel aging. This is because we have a dry barrel cellar. Inside the barrel there is 86% water and 14% alcohol, while outside there is an average of 30% water and 0% alcohol. To a first approximation, the thermodynamic drive for water to leave the barrel is over 3x what it is for alcohol, and so over the course of 2+ years aging in barrel the alcohol level of the wine inside actually goes up.

A wine made from grapes harvested at “optimal” ripeness and put to barrel at 13.5%, in our cellar may well end up near 15% when it is ready to go to bottle. This is not the same as harvesting the grapes over-ripe. Not only do these wines not taste hot, they don’t taste raisined.

Anyway, the offshoot was that these folks bought a case of wine, and intended to put some of in front of their “I won’t drink any wine over 14% because wine over 14% all tastes the same” friends and see what they think. Awesome.

“I have never seen anything like this…”

I heard this sentiment expressed by more growers and winemakers during the 2011 harvest than ever before in my 25 years of doing this. I said it myself any number of times. It’s not that any one thing about this vintage stood out on its own as unusual or unprecedented. What was unusual was the additive effects of the sheer number of unusual factors.

I brought experience to bear on the problems we faced. Also, I was very lucky. Our wines have turned out well. So as we sail into 2012 here is my look back at the wild, wonderful 2011 (n.b.—long post ahead).

For many the defining event of the vintage was the rain October 3rd-5th. For 72 hours before and 72 hours after that storm, there was not an idle picking crew anywhere in the North Coast. The gente were working around the clock, sleeping in their cars in two-hour shifts. A cottage industry sprung up around supplying them food and drink on-site. At one point I saw as many trucks on the road towing porta-potties as there were trucks hauling grapes. You could hear the tractors and see the light bars moving through the fields all night long. I had never seen anything like it.

I heard chilling anecdotes; one was of a large Chardonnay vineyard in the Petaluma Gap that rotted overnight. They could not deliver on any of their negotiated contracts, and ended up selling the entire crop for pennies on the dollar to Central Valley producers with flash détente machines. Ouch.

Joel Peterson of Ravenswood was quoted in Drinks Business:

“It was the most fungus-filled, botrytis-filled vintage I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been working a long time. Napa Cabernet never got ripe; it was a very bad year for Napa and Mendocino. We had to sort our Cabernet and Merlot in the field and crush straight away – I’ve never had to do that before. We lost 40% of our crop to the rains. There will be some awful Cabernets – green, oxidized and botrytized. The quality of 2011 will depend on who sorted well.”

Talking with Steven Tanzer, Joel had this to say about sorting:

“I learned that the cleanest fruit doesn’t always make the best wine… [W]e performed different levels of sorting on the same fruit and fermented each batch separately… Up to 10% damaged fruit did not seem to affect the taste of the resulting wine adversely…”

Alder Yarrow quoted Cameron Hughes winemaker Sam Spencer in
Vinography:

“There’s a lot of really fucked up wine out there.”

<Is it wrong that this quote gives me a little shot of schadenfreude? I suppose I’m being a bit petty, but it does.>

Then I found this evocative encapsulation of the vintage, as experienced by winemaker Abe Schoener, writing in The Wine Cellar Insider:

“The ancient Greeks called this kind of experience deinos—terrible, but amazing too… The report this year: Harvest is wonderful, a joyous culmination, as it always is. But it also reveals itself a much more serious event, holding the possibility of terror, catastrophe.

Sounds pretty crappy all around, right? Well—it was, and it wasn’t. The 2011 vintage was difficult, yes, and there will be less volume than average produced by wineries in the ultra-premium segment of the market. But I believe many of those wines will surprise and delight.

Quoting my friend Tyler Thomas, writing a nuanced piece in his blog over at Donelan Wines:

This vintage also reveals wine’s resiliency. We like neat categories – to say that a vintage is either great or not great; but this is silly. Despite the climatic factors that led to a difficult year and some poor quality, there will be plenty of great 2011 wines. The pleasure of wine is not necessarily robbed by rain or rot or similar challenges. While many grapes were lost, many perfectly suitable grapes remained, dying to be made into perfectly suitable wine.

As Tyler has, I’d like to do what I can to get ahead on the public relations front before the gatekeepers write off the vintage or damn it with faint praise. Herewith, my own bullet points on the most wonderful, terrifying vintage in my experience:

• The year started out benignly: post-harvest 2010 we had a wetter-than-average December, dry January, normal February. But the we had a very cold, wet March with frosts in April and May. The cool weather–and our late pruning–delayed budbreak at our Estate vineyard, but not enough to avoid minor crop-limiting frost damage to early shoot growth.
  
  
• Then came a surprisingly cold, wet June; rains at the end of the month smashed records dating back over 60 years. During flowering we had rains and temperature swings that ended up drastically reducing the amount of fruit that ultimately set in our vineyard. This was a critical period for growers throughout the North Coast. The rain hit those vineyards that set early just at cluster closure; this proved to be disastrous later in the year as Botrytis rot got started inside the clusters. Our fruit was weeks behind and berries had just started to swell; there was little chance for rot to get started inside the clusters.
  
  
• On a positive note, at 41.4″ total rainfall 2011 was the third wettest growing season I have tracked since 1998 (56.2″; 2006, at 48.5″, was also wetter than 2011). Due to the timing of the rains and the cool weather we didn’t observe any water stress in the vineyard until the middle of August, when we made our first irrigation of the year. This is unusual—in a normal season we might start in early June. I speculate that this encouraged very deep rooting on our young vines planted in 2009 (a good thing).
  
  
• For whatever reason(s), this year physiological ripeness in the fruit preceded sugar accumulation. Usually, we have to use canopy management and irrigation to slow the rate of sugar increase in order to allow the skin, pulp, and especially the seeds to fully mature. This year it was not an issue—acids, seed and skins ripened first; all I had to wait for was sugar and flavor.
  
  
• What was an issue was a very unusual spread in cluster maturity. On the same shoot we observed first crop where one cluster would be through veraison while the second cluster was not yet through berry sizing. I saw some of this in our Pinot in 2005, but in 2011 it was present in every variety at our vineyard. We had to drop nearly half the already sparse crop to even up the ripeness as much as possible. Nevertheless, there was more spread in ripeness between clusters in 2011 than we expect to encounter in a “normal” vintage.
  
  
• I also observed an unusual reversal in the order of senescence between the canopy and the crop. In every other vintage I have experienced, the basal leaves in the canopy turn yellow and may start to drop before the clusters get ripe (as in 2008, for example). Not so in 2011. This vintage, the berries started to fall off the clusters while the leaves were still green to the bottom of the canopy. I have no idea what to make of this, either in terms of a physiological explanation or as a predictor of quality.
  
  
• Even if we could have assembled a picking crew before the rain, it would not have mattered. The Pinot just was not ready. After the rain we sent the guys through looking for rot and dropping rotted clusters. The worst damage was in the heritage Haynes Vineyard selection block, where we dropped about one cluster every other vine.
  
  
• After the rain we had a string of warmer days, which pushed the Pinot along. We started harvest on October 19^th, over 16 days later than our late start in 2010. The Pinot harvest confirmed my predictions on yield—we barely averaged one ton/acre across all the Pinot, yields less than 50% of average. Justin, who has spent the last three vintages working for high-end producers in Napa, said he had never worked with such clean fruit. We do all our sorting in the vineyard, so we don’t need to at the winery.
  
  
• Tannat and Syrah came in as beautiful as I have ever seen. That left our late-ripening varieties to bring in: Grenache, Mourvedre and Counoise. Another shot of rain was forecast for November 4^th which I was sure the vines could have weathered. What concerned me was the hard frosts forecast for the nights after this rain. The flavors were there in these varieties, even if the sugars were low. I decided not to risk frost damage and pulled the trigger on picking the last of the crop November 3^rd. This made 2011 the most compressed harvest I have ever done, at just 15 days for start to finish. And the yields in all the varieties were down just as much from averages at the Pinot was.
  
  
• The decision to pick turned out to be the right call—the vineyard was subjected to over 4 hours of temperatures in the mid-20s F on the nights of the 5^th and 6^th. Driving north through Kenwood on the 7^th the vineyards looked like a war zone from frost damage. When I arrived at our Estate I discovered over two-thirds of the vines scorched, as though nature had licked the canopy with a flame thrower from above.
  
  
• This was not a vintage to take chances in the winery. No stems or whole-cluster. More SO₂ than I would ordinarily use. Fewer punchdowns. Following my normal practice, all ferments started on indigenous microflora, but everything was also inoculated with cultured yeast between 12° Brix and 8° Brix to assure a rapid and clean end to fermentation. Ferments proceeded rapidly—most finished in less than a week. I took advantage of the residual heat in the musts and inoculated for malolactic before pressing. All the wines were through malo within days, allowing me to add a second dose of SO₂ earlier than usual, thereby protecting the wine from potential color degradation.
  
  
• The wines all ended up with less alcohol than in previous vintages. Not only was there less sugar in the grapes when they were otherwise ripe this year, but the so-called “conversion ratio” for fermentation—the observed percentage of final alcohol achieved from the measured starting Brix—was also lower. On average I see conversion ratios of 0.59±0.01 for most of my ferments, but this year none topped 0.55; a number of my colleagues mentioned seeing the same thing. No explanation.
  
  
• Lower alcohols aside, post-malo acid levels were as low, and the pH levels as high, as though the grapes had been harvested at 25° Brix rather than at 22°. This is supporting evidence that the grapes were at full physiological ripeness at the lower sugar levels.
  
  
• Expecting that the wines will be more elegant than powerful, I have backed off on the fraction of new wood the Pinot is being aged in, from 50% in an average vintage down to 25% for 2011. As has become standard practice for me, the wines from the Rhône varieties will see no new wood during aging.
  
  

So there we have it. A difficult, late, compressed, low yield, low alcohol vintage—one that has given us elegant wines. And I have to say that, so far, these wines show higher quality and more character than I could have hoped. That’s no myth. That’s just fact.

]]> http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2012/01/2011-vintage-not-that-bad.html/feed 0 http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2012/01/2011-vintage-not-that-bad.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/winemakernotesblog/mnYV/~3/1S-oHjNfnkA/natural-wine-myth.html http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2011/12/natural-wine-myth.html#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:17:04 +0000 John M. Kelly http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/?p=2493
Tom Wark recently posted a criticism of the “natural wine movement” on his blog, titled “Authentic Wine and Mistaking the Tail For the Snout” where he says:

In many ways the “Natural Wine” and now “Authentic Wine” movement is well behind the curve. Winemakers the world over have long embraced the notion of exposing terroir and connecting a wine to the plot of land from which it derives. Sustainably farmed vineyards proliferate all over the globe. Minimalist cellar techniques are common place. Native Yeasts have long been favored by many winemakers without even knowing there was such a movement as “native wine”.

Those currently pushing the idea of “Natural Wine” think they may be on to something transformational and important when in fact what they have done is mistaken the tail of the dog for its snout.

I commented the following, and felt it sufficiently cogent to re-post here, with edits for clarity and some elaboration.

I don’t think the “natural” wine promoters are the tail wagging the dog, or that they are behind the curve. The natural “movement” is marketing, pure and simple, and marketing is myth-making – myth-making as in: “creating an appealing narrative from whole cloth.”

The basic truth is that there is nothing – nothing at all – new here. As Tom correctly points out, every practice espoused by the “natural movement” has genesis in and persistence throughout winemaking history, everywhere in the world and without interruption.

Industrial winemaking is new, as is industrial farming of all sorts, and it has the same aim: to make an inexpensive, reliable product of adequate quality continuously available to the broadest market. There is nothing wrong with that.

Industrial winemaking irrefutably is not driving out more traditional winemaking. If anything, more wines produced by traditional methods are being made, and are more widely available, than ever before.

The marketable myth is that “natural” is David to the industrial Goliath. The second part of the myth is an explicit logical fallacy, the marketer’s tried-and-true appeal to tradition: older ideas are better, simply because they are older. Both David vs. Goliath and appeal to tradition have strong track records of reliably gulling the susceptible consumer.

I also believe that some of the compulsion to “go natural” among my cohort is pushback against the so-called “international style” of winemaking. There is no question that a certain fraction of wine from nearly every winegrowing region is heavily manipulated in order to garner higher scores. I suggest that the objection is not to the manipulation itself, but to the high market appeal of the result. So the third part of the “natural” myth is directed at discounting the value associated with the “international” style of wine.

The final element to the “natural” myth is the redemption narrative. Everyone loves the story of the Damascene conversion: “I used to make industrial wine, then I made wine heavily manipulated to get high scores. One day the scales fell from my eyes and I saw the evil of my ways. Now I follow the dao of ‘natural’ and I have been redeemed. Love me; love my wines.” Ahem. I mean – amen.

Wine is the product of artifice. Therefore, at one level “natural wine” is an oxymoron. On another level, for those of us who “…quietly do [our] job, with great skill and a light hand, with no funny astrological stuff…” (quoting from another comment on Tom’s post) it is a tautology.



The Follow-Up

The interested reader can trace the evolution of my winemaking philosophy–which I call “pre-emptive minimalism”–through this blog. My friend Stéphane Vivier (winemaker at HdV and Vivier Wines) espouses a similar approach, which he calls “lazy” winemaking. Our common belief is that in our winegrowing we should seek to only simplify.

We seek to achieve more by doing less. We edit. I have a plan for every wine I make that I start to formulate months before harvest. Once I get the grapes in the barn, I ask myself at every step: “is this necessary?” “Do I need to do this now?” I’m always looking for something to not do. It takes discipline to actively do less. We refuse to follow an externally-imposed discipline, a voodoo prescription or a one-size-fits-all certification checklist. Our winegrowing is adaptive (a highly effective strategy in vintages like 2011 – to be explored in a future post).

This is the reality of “natural” winegrowing: exercising our hard-earned skills to figure out when and how to do less. It is not to blindly follow some prescriptive/proscriptive formula. To paraphrase Voltaire: ideology is the enemy of the practical.

Yes, in today’s crowded market many producers, retailers and consumers are looking for differentiation between industrial wines and those made on a more human scale. Labels help. So if my “natural” colleagues are selling more wine by convincing people they are part of some new, transformational “movement”–more power to them. There are plenty of non-winegrower industry types actively supporting and promoting that marketing myth. No doubt there is a segment of the consumer demographic that filters their wine experience through this myth.

But please, in the name of intellectual honesty, once and for all let’s recognize that “natural” is nothing more than a construct, an artificial narrative, a myth that is used to sell wine. It is not a mantle of righteousness.

]]> http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2011/12/natural-wine-myth.html/feed 10 http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2011/12/natural-wine-myth.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/winemakernotesblog/mnYV/~3/WUwxhPNhc_I/wine-aeration-fail.html http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2011/12/wine-aeration-fail.html#comments Wed, 21 Dec 2011 23:19:55 +0000 John M. Kelly http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/?p=2501 A while back I did a post titled “To Decant Or Not” where I expressed opposition to the idea that decanting (other than to remove a wine from sediment), aerators, or blenders improves wines subjected to that treatment. In my post I suggested that “improvement” is relative, and that not everyone would agree. Writing for Smithsonian, Lisa Bramen picked up on that bit from my post and finished her piece with:

…if you want to try decanting, go for it. If you like the results, keep doing it. If you don’t, or you can’t tell the difference, don’t bother. Decanting, as with everything about wine, is a matter of taste.

Today Tyler Colman (Dr. Vino) brought attention to a piece on Bon Appetit where one of those aerator thingamajiggys was used on four different wines, which were presented in blind pairings with the un-aerated wines to a panel of three New York sommeliers. The take home message?

“The [device] definitely does something, but in three of four cases it turned the wines–each quite different stylistically–into less desirable versions of their former selves… This group of sommeliers unanimously agreed that the risk isn’t worth the occasional payoff.”

No this was not a rigorous trial, and there is no statistical significance to the results. But it is one more point in the meta-analysis, and one that supports my position–don’t decant or aerate if you don’t have to.

[Incidentally, I realize this is my first post in two months. Did you miss me? Hah! I didn't think so. Well, there was harvest, and then there was bottling, and then there was our first big Wine Club shipment to get out since February. Excuses, excuses. Anyway, unlike Jeff Lefevere I have not retired from writing (miss you, Jeff) and with the holidays upon us I have more time out of the office, and plan to wrap up and post several pieces I have in the works. Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year! Happy holidays to all.]

]]> http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2011/12/wine-aeration-fail.html/feed 3 http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2011/12/wine-aeration-fail.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/winemakernotesblog/mnYV/~3/La3DhMCyW9M/the-greatly-exaggerated-demise-of-syrah.html http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2011/10/the-greatly-exaggerated-demise-of-syrah.html#comments Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:07:15 +0000 John M. Kelly http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/?p=2459 For the past several years when I have shown our wines to distributors, brokers and retailers I have heard the refrain: “Pinot? Sure. Blend? Maybe. But I (we) can’t move any Syrah… especially not at your price point.” It seems to me that many (most?) critic types have piled on, at the very best damning with faint praise many examples of New World Syrah, and parroting the laments of the middle tier.


Not So Fast

Simply put, in my experience these people are out of touch with our consumer demographic.

I admit that I responded to the despair of wholesalers and retailers over Syrah, and cut our production in half from one vintage to the next. Well, surprise—the current vintage sold out last week, months before we had anticipated. We had even imposed a 15% increase to the retail price. Paradoxically, this increased the rate of sales on the wine in our tasting room. Since then we have been selling the previous vintage without pause.

I sort of saw this coming. Back in April we were pouring our Estate Pinot, Rhône blend and Syrah for the SF Vinters Market at Ft. Mason. To our astonishment, visitors to our table asked to taste the Syrah first, by a margin of 3- or 4-to-1. At the time I thought it might be relevant that the crowd seemed to trend younger than usual for these events. Since then I’ve concluded that age is not a factor—my observations suggest one does not have to be a Millennial to appreciate our particular expression of properly-aged, no-new-oak, cool-climate Syrah.

So, hey gatekeepers! It’s past time to give up the tired “Syrah doesn’t sell” meme. Syrah DOES sell. You guys are just a day late and a dollar short to realize it.

]]> http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2011/10/the-greatly-exaggerated-demise-of-syrah.html/feed 14 http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2011/10/the-greatly-exaggerated-demise-of-syrah.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/winemakernotesblog/mnYV/~3/BmAYtR6Ihho/here-comes-the-rain.html http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2011/10/here-comes-the-rain.html#comments Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:58:06 +0000 John M. Kelly http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/?p=2437 Here comes the first rain of the season. The radar loop shows a slow eastward progression; most of the motion is southwest to northeast. Forecast total rain accumulations have increased from yesterday’s projections. Dislike.
]]> http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2011/10/here-comes-the-rain.html/feed 16 http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2011/10/here-comes-the-rain.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/winemakernotesblog/mnYV/~3/ZH7pPl8puy0/2011-vintage-quick-harvest-update.html http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2011/10/2011-vintage-quick-harvest-update.html#comments Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:18:56 +0000 John M. Kelly http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/?p=2427 Sunday afternoon; outside the overcast is increasing and westerly wind rising as the first of a series of cold fronts approaches the area. Rain on tap for tomorrow and then for Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Forecast has advanced the timing and decreased the amount of rain expected from the system.

We really don’t have anything ready to pick at the Estate vineyard. There is some Grenache at 21.5° Brix that I could pick for a customer who wants some less ripe for Rosé but finding a crew to do the work is impossible just now.

The reason we can’t get a crew is that everyone around us is panic-picking. The coming storms have been forecast for over a week. A lot of folks realized that their fruit would not hold up under even a little rain. Much North Coast Zinfandel already had Botrytis in it from the rain we got at the end of June—right before bunch closure in this variety. One friend told me he sorted out at least a ton of Botrytis clusters from a 4-ton Zin pick today.

Apparently some Russian River Pinot has the same problem. And in Carneros many growers did not do any leaf thinning to open the canopy, nor put out any sprays to protect against Botrytis, before the threat of rain materialized. It seems that every available crew in the area is working around the clock, picking anything that’s even close to ripe, then moving to the next block to leaf-strip before the tractors move in to spray.

I think we are in better shape. All our varieties are really clean so far this year–no mildew, no Botrytis. We opened all our canopies over two weeks ago, and then protected with Elevate^®. Most of our varieties have really open clusters, especially the Syrah, Mourvedre and Pinot—even the Grenache. Counoise and Tannat are tight, but these are thick-skin varieties—less susceptible to rot.

My Rosé customer was going to bring in his own crew to pick tomorrow, but has had to reschedule because the receiving winery has zero tank space available as they filled up with all the Chardonnay thay have brought in. No worries. Our stuff will still be beautiful on Thursday. The forecast is for a return to our normal dry pattern. And Jean-Marie thinks his crews will be available to pick for us. I might even bring in some Syrah.

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