No such thing as bad publicity?

There are some out there that believe this to be the case and maybe they're right. Unless you've got something like this helping you out. Here's the entire article:

Family picking grapes finds burned body

Associated Press

NORCROSS, Ga. - Gwinnett County police are investigating after a family picking grapes in a vineyard near Norcross found a burned body.

The family was picking grapes about 6:30 p.m. yesterday when two children -- ages eight and ten -- found the body.

Investigators say the body had been at the scene overnight and that it had been set on fire.

The Gwinnett County medical examienr will perform an autopsy. Authorities have NOT released the name of the victim."

Nice.

This just in.... - Part 2

Further proof of how far we haven't come:

"The poll, commissioned by the Australian wine producer McWilliams, revealed huge insecurities about wine. Two thirds of people said they would not send back wine they were unhappy with in a bar or restaurant for fear of looking stupid.

Only half the 1,000 respondents understood the term "oaked" - with some believing it meant acorns were used as an ingredient rather than it being the description of wine fermented or aged in oak barrels.

Almost two thirds did not understand the term "full bodied" - a wine with a strong, satisfying quality and taste. Some suggested that larger grapes were used to make it.

About 70 per cent did not know what "appellation" meant, with a fifth believing that apples were used in the production process rather than it being a guarantee of quality and geographical origin."

And this poll was conducted in Britain where, historically, wine has played a greater role in the day to day life of the average citizen.

I can only imagine what the average American thinks about the matter.

Note to self: George Washington was the first president of the U.S. and appellation has nothing to do with apples.

Don't get high on your own supply

Rule Numero Uno for any aspiring drug dealer, legal or otherwise. Or at least, one would think. Apparently, not everyone got the memo on this one.

"Jonathan Sebastiani, who was named president of 360 Global Wine Co. after the Napa company purchased his family's Sonoma Valley winery in June, is on leave from his $250,000-a-year post and it is unclear if he will return, said Joel "Jake" Shapiro, 360 Global's chief executive."

At the risk of being coy, let us on to the real goings-on:

"Sebastiani's absence began Sept. 1, the same day he was arrested at 8:30 a.m. in St. Helena on suspicion of public intoxication...

8:30 in the damn morning?!? I like to drink as much as the next guy but good lord...

"Sebastiani had been placed on probation following a July 2004 incident in Marin County, when he was arrested after crashing his Land Rover at the intersection of Highway 37 and Harbor Drive"

Sweet... and then again:

"Thirteen days later, Sebastiani was arrested in Hood River, Ore., for driving under the influence of alcohol after his vehicle struck a stop sign. "

At least he struck the stop sign...

Asked whether he was aware of Sebastiani's legal troubles when he hired him, Shapiro would only say "We believed in Jon."

I believe in Jon, too...I believe that he's rung up the hat trick and still hasn't learned a damn thing. Don't mean to sound unfeeling but isn't California the state with the '3 strikes, You're out' rule...The same rule that put a dude behind bars for life after his third strike? He was caught stealing a slice a pizza.

Gotta love it.

This just in....

Most people still don't know shit when it comes to wine.

Yet another article confirming this fact, however sad but true it is. And while I am more often than not referred to as an elitest or snob, I can't help but glean more than a hint of the same from some of the things written in the article. For example, the sub title of the article:

Survey finds majority believes most white wines get better over time

I wonder why? Could it be that of all the useless information that is plastered on the P.O.S. (and I don't mean 'point of sale') that is the back label, the lifespan of the wine, arguably the single most important fact, is nearly non-existent - save for Ridge Vineyards and maybe a few more. Granted this article is in PressDemocrat and they have a rather captive audience already, but the CA wine industry is not alone in this.

Of course, there are very obvious reasons why this information is missing. Would you shell out anywhere from $35-$150 for wine that realisticly has 1-3 years for the whites and 1-8 for the reds. I think not. And obviously, there are few winemakers who are 1. Honest enough, and 2. Willing to put their money where their mouth is. I find this is extremely unfortunate and it serves only to propagate people's insecurities.

"The idea that wines get better with age is ingrained in our consciousness, whether we like it or not," said John Gillespie

With all due respect, I must call B.S. The saying that caused said ingrain-ment is this: "...like a fine wine, it only gets better with age." I'm sure you would think it a matter of semantics, but the word 'fine' means something, and even moreso in the context of wine. Granted most people aren't aware of the difference and this is something I am trying to overcome every day.

"The confusion is particularly understandable given that certain white wines, like some chardonnay, often do improve with age, Fredrikson said."

Bring on the emails, I don't care. I'll give you two guesses which region in the world Msr. Fredrikson is referring to with the 'some Chardonnay' comment. I guaran-damn-tee you it ain't the Russian River Valley.

"The Wine Opinions survey asked which moderately priced white wine consumers would bring to a casual dinner party. Assuming the same brand, price and varietal, they were asked whether they would bring a wine with a vintage of 2004, 2002 or 2000.

Only 16 percent said they would purchase the 2004 vintage, arguably the "freshest" of the group. Twenty-eight percent chose the 2002 vintage, while fully 44 percent said they would choose the 5-year-old vintage."

And why might the findings be what they are? Could it be that every jackass with a word processor and somebody willing to print could not/would not keep running on at the mouth extolling the virtues and masterpiece that was the 2000 vintage, or the .97 or the .94 and so on. Seriously, I know people that re-financed their homes to get the money for these wines. At the end of the day, it seems a bit excessive, regardless of how much I love wine, and how much money I spend on it.

Here's the really interesting part:

The remaining 11 percent said they would probably choose a wine with no vintage date.

I am seeing more and more NV table wines (i.e. non-sparkling) particularly from France but Marietta Cellars 'Old Vine Red Lot #???' comes to mind. Reckon if any winemakers out there will take note of this train of thought (apathetic/indifferent). I mean that in light of this information will the various wineries recognize a niche instead of using the info to monkey around with the laws and regulations in an obviouos attempt to screw the growers and further the practice of pawning off sub-par shit on unsuspecting consumers...

Currently, 95 percent of the grapes used to make vintage-dated wines must have been harvested in that year. The federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is considering a proposal to reduce that percentage to 85 percent for certain wines, but not others.

Guess not.

Immigrants in Arizona?!?

I know this is ground breaking news to some, but it looks like somebody's new in town and their setting up shop in Arizona:

Little bug could mean big trouble for Arizona wine industry

That little bug they are referring to is none other than the glassy-winged sharp shooter, and the fine folks in California are quite familiar with its handy work. You see this little bugger (sorry for the pun) carries a thing call Pierce's disease and grape vines are exactly down with the program. As it turns out, they (the vines) die pretty damned fast.

"There's no question," Callaghan added. "It could annihilate much of what we do. There are always problems, but not something in this order."

That's from Kent Callaghan of Callaghan Vineyards in Elgin, Az. I have not had the chance to taste his wines and if doesn't do something pretty quick, I likely won't for a while to come.

I must say I find the sense of 'surprise' more than a little surprising. This is a know pest in CA. and has been for some time. I would think it only a matter of time until this insect made across the border. And I guess that time has come.

One bit of advice, Mr. Callaghan: Start stringing up fence. The last real breakthrough I saw on combatting the sharpshooter was to hang netting around the vineyard somewhere around 17-18 ft tall. It seems cruising altitude for this insect is somewhat lower but they can't take the thin air way up there.

Click here for some sweet video of the article

File Under : WTF?!?

Earlier this morning I caught a bit of George Carlin on the boob tube. I have an earnest reverence for this man as he seems to be both a master of the obvious and incredibly insightful at the same time. Not trying to draw any comparisons only stating this because his cantor put me in a somewhat similar mind set.

Along the lines of the oxymoron-ic conundrums people ponder every day (How do you know when sour cream goes bad?, drive on parkway/park in drive way), I came across a similar question about wine. The subject of the 'Non-Vintage Champagne'.

Speaking with a friend earlier, she remarked about how whe didn't want a particular NV because it used to be a '90' and now it's only an '88'. Readers of this thing blog will know my immediate reaction but that is only the beginning. The gears started (and are still) spinning in my head and so I thought it might make good fodder.

For those unaware, Non-Vintage (aka N.V./NV) is a designation used most famously (but not exclusively) in the production of of Champagne. For the sake of this rant, I am speaking of the wines of the actual region of Champagne, but it doesn't really matter. I feel fairly confident in saying that for the vast majority of you reading this, the overwhelming majority of Champagne or other sparkling wine that has ever crossed your lips has been non-vintage. NV is, in a way, Champagne's way of having it's cake and eating it too. In short, it permits the folks in Champagne to use wine(s) from various vintages to create a consistent wine year in and year out. Logically speaking, it is a must, given how far north Champagne is and how difficult/unpredictable the weather can be. The idea being that when a 'vintage' is declared (i.e. there is a year on the bottle), the wine is/should be qualitatively better. While this is often true, it is by know means absolute.

What I find curious is three-fold:

1. Most people, if they are aware of a vintage, become nearly obsessed with buying only said year.
2. Most people, were they aware that the wine was a blend of multiple years, would think lesser of said wine.

So, in the event I have yet to convince you that points and ratings are a total exercise in mastubation, I submit the following. Most of you have probably had Veuve Clicquot, Perrier-Jouët, etc... While you may favor one over the other, I would think you (and me, and just about everybody else) to be hard pressed when declaring that one bottle you had was superior to another within the same house. This is not because your palate is not qualified to do so, it is by design.

The idea is not that far removed from the major fast food chains some people enjoy in this country. The Big Mac in Savannah better be the same Big Mac in San Fran as it is in Chicago. I'm not suggesting that McDonald's and Lanson are at all similar but the point is the same: Consistency. And this is not an easy task. Keep in mind that there are most definitely different cuvées (blends) for different markets. This is done primarily through the dosage and if you want to know what that's all about, may happ I'll write about it. Suffice to say, Vueve in the U.K. is a decidely different wine than you would drink at a UK basketball game.

So back to the points. How can a wine, that is designed to be more or less the same year in and year out, garner (sometime drastic) different scores? The most obvious is that the winemaker was asleep at the wheel, or getting high on his own supply. This is nearly impossible. The amount of money in Champagne and the money it generates is astronomical. There are too many cooks in the kitchen to allow it to happen. Second, is the basic raw materials the winemaker had to work with. There is some leeway here, but (a la the money) steps have been taken to ensure that a Big Mac is a Big Mac. Third, time in bottle. Like many wines, Champagne will change as it ages. This change can be good or bad, rarley indifferent. There are a few others but I assume I have made my point.

Lastly, the one that makes my head explode: If you agree with only a little of the things I have put forth, why would a NV wine really ever need to be revisited? As it turns out, it really doesn't. Looking at Parker, he has reviewed 101 NV Champagnes, with less than a handfull being tasted more than once. And the span of the scores are from 85 to 95, with the mast majority in the 89-91 range. And those tasted twice or more, the scores don't fluxuate more that 3-4 points. The lesson, Parker likes the wines that he likes, more than likely they will be consistent and either way, your not Parker so who gives a shit?

The bigger problem lies in the myriad of jokers publishing ratings these days. That, coupled with the complete intellectual/critical laziness practiced by 99% of the wine stores in this country, makes a recipe for disaster. The average retailer will keep looking for the highest score possible, regardless of who it is or what their qualifications may be. It's the viniferous equivalent of the old "I saw it on TV, so it must be true." Meanwhile, perfectly good Champagne collects dust until some monkey gets around to recognizing it.

Sorry for the rant, just stop worrying about points, damnit!!

If you saw it in a movie....

you probably wouldn't believe it.

I promise, I'm not making this shit up. Somebody else may have and hence, the joke's on me but somehow I doubt it.

"We want to make 7-Eleven a destination for wine consumers by offering quality, value and convenience," said Mark Herron, 7-Eleven's manager of alcoholic beverage sales. "Wine sales are growing and, with the addition of our affordably priced premium brand, Thousand Oaks, we expect to increase our share of the expanding wine market."

Alright, I'll give on the 'destination' bit as far as 7-11 is concerned, but a 'destination' for what?

"Like some of our other popular proprietary brands, Thousand Oaks will be a high quality, great-tasting wine available only at 7-Eleven." (emphasis T.t.S.)

For real, I'll admit that I have endulged in the culinary delight that is the 7-11 microwave burrito (maybe twice and that was on tour) but can anyone honestly imagine the scenario of someone seeking out the corner 7-11 to find a bottle to go.

College kids the country over will now be able to satisfy their munchies, but a half gallon on high fructose carbonated crap, and a shitty bottle of wine to boot.

Better yet, I'm sure it's only a matter of time until 7-11 bypasses the bottle altogether and simply has a spigot from which you can refill your 'Big-Swill'.

Right on.

The ideal closure?

I have no interest in stirring the soup on the cork/synthetic/Stelvin discussion so save the emails for another day. I did, however, have a rather interesting situation the other day that might make some think twice about their position.

A client calls and asks me to put together two cases of mixed whites within her budget. I said give me a few minutes and I'll have it all put together. An hour later, she shows up after closing her store. As per usual, I offered to go through my selections for her but she said not to bother. She has been a client for some time and we have developed a pretty good understanding of our respective tastes. She pays, I load the wine, and everybody's happy.

Well, it turns out that she didn't care for a couple of the wines I had picked out. She loaded up the bottles in a box the next morning, threw them in the back of her car and went to work.

Now, let's play a little Three Card Monty.

Tell me which bottle spent nearly 10 hours in the back of a SUV in Savannah, Georgia during the first week of September:



The answer: All Four

When the client opened the trunk and saw what happened, she realized that the wine was gone. At first sight, I thought she had opened both of the rosés and put the 'corks' back in. Actually, the corks were pushed out via the pressure. Look at the picture again. Those shiny silver things are the tops of the capsules that were literally 'blown off'. The temperature inside the SUV must have somewhere between 120-130 degrees. (The second rosé is lower because I had a friend who wanted to see how it was holding up - It was rancid.) In and of itself, this is not all that suprising or unusual. Synthetic closures are nearly famous for this. What is more interesting is the alternative.

Only when I brought the bottles back into the shop, did I realize just how hot these bottles had gotten. Literally, they felt like they had come out of an oven. And remarkably, the Loimer (the two bottles with the Stelvin (screw-cap) closure) showed absolutely no sign of leakage. The bottles were completely dry and ullage (fill level) was dead on with bottles sitting in my cellar. At face value, there was no indication that those bottles had experienced 'less than ideal' storage.

What's the point?

For all the lip-flipping about cork taint and the evil of all things natural, there is a down side. While looking at a cork freshly pulled from the bottle is not an exact science, it can give one an impression as to the life of said bottle. Striations along the cork can indicate temprature fluxuation. Full saturation/Sponge-like consistency of the cork can indicate extreme temperatures and/or cork failure. In short, the cork is in a sense, a witness. With screw-cap, there is no such thing.

And to play devil's advocate for a second, this could be spun as proof to the seal that a Stelvin closure creates - seriously-damn-tight. But at the same time, I can't help but wonder how many bottles under Stelvin have seen the back of a delivery truck in South Georgia during the summer and been passed on to unsuspecting consumers.

I'm not saying there's some kind of conspiracy but if you saw bottles #1 and #2 (from left to right) at your local wine shop, which one would you buy?

Something to think about.

Things are looking up

As per my previous post, I had suspended blogging for a bit. I am happy to say that I have accounted for just about everyone that I know in the greater New Orleans area. Thankfully, when the word to get the hell out of Dodge, my people listened.

And ultimately, that's the lesson learned here. When they say get out, get out. I live in Savannah and truth be told, we are overdue for a serious storm here.

When (not if) the time comes, I will be out of here.

A little perspective

I apologize for the lack of posting as of late. I have spent many days and have many friends in the greater NoLa region. As such, I've been a bit pre-occupied with tracking them down. For the most part, many of them are accounted for. However, a few are not.

I know that I am not alone on this front.

It's one thing to be a jaded bastard and take that attitude toward the web. It's another to be left wondering as to the fate of some very good friends. As per the title, certain things seem rather petty.

I feel like an ass piping off about this wine and that, when people I know, and people I love are without water.

There are posts to come, and one day things will get back to 'normal', but until then, regardless of religion, say a word to someone or something for the people of New Orleans.

Godspeed.