Archive for the ‘Wine & Beer’ Category

January 4th, 2010

If it could help end the Cold War…

Having a conflict with a co-worker is tricky. Unlike people you know only socially, co-workers are non-optional parts of your life. If you are totally disgusted and hurt and feel that the mere sight of a particular fellow employee is like several daggers being plunged into your heart simultaneously, still there they will be tomorrow and the next day and on and on into the future. Resolution, it would seem, behooves you, impossible though it may seem.

Well, if world leaders are like co-workers to one another, and I would argue that they are, then the Cold War could be seen as a very good example of just what I’m talking about. So, while I can offer you no advice about any disputes you might be having, I can pass on a little piece of information that I’ve just obtained. When, after decades of standoff and a generation of children who grew up expecting nuclear holocaust in their lifetimes, Reagan and Gorbachev finally sat down to discuss their differences, the wine they shared was called Iron Horse. Can I really say that this had anything to do with common ground the two men soon found? Of course not. But, then again, no one can say that small details don’t matter. A particularly smooth, easy, calming wine could very easily have shifted the mood in the room, I think.

A lot of you come to us on business, perhaps some of you come here with people you don’t like very much. We do serve Iron Horse wines here. You may as well give it a try!

July 5th, 2009

Playing hard to get

The proprietors of the Bearboat Winery have made an unusual marketing choice. They have created a very strong internet presence. There are many, many people from all around the country on all sorts of wine drinking forums, asking why they can’t find any information about this excellent wine that they just drank. There are favorable ratings of Bearboat Wines to be found from more professional tasters and it’s possible to buy Bearboat Wines from a number of different online vendors. The Bearboat Winery itself, however, gives nothing. They have no website, no email address that I can find. It’s possible to find directions to their winery, on someone else’s web page. It seems strange that a winery should be reclusive, but so they are. They’ve created a real air of mystique around themselves and a lot of people are frustrated and confused.

Perhaps the right thing for me to do, then, is to suggest a pairing. Reclusive wines with reclusive authors. With a white I would go with JD Salinger. Franny and Zooey, I think, would be just right. It’s got an easy cadence with just a hint of melancholy that you’ll want the wine to help smooth away. But if it’s the deeper character of a red you want, then Thomas Pynchon is your man. For casual, after work enjoyment, something you don’t need a crystal clear head and a math degree to keep up with, it’s got to be The Crying of Lot 49.

Maybe stay away from their winery, though. I’ve heard nasty stories about what happens when people have, after extensive searches, finally found the two above mentioned genius men, and I would hate for anything like that to happen to one of you. We’ll always keep Bearboat wines behind our bar.

June 5th, 2009

Honest, Rational Attempts at Pinot Noir

The makers of Saintsbury Wine are interested in pinot noir, not quite exclusively, but almost. More specifically, they are interested in proving that grapes grown in the region they grow in, Carneros, can produce pinot noirs as good as their Burgundian counterparts. Both of the founders of Saintsbury are scientists, and the pragmatism and single-mindedness of science can be seen throughout this quest. Right now, for example, the most prominent feature on their website is a review acknowledging the improvement, over the years, of their pinots. The reviewer likes the 2007 product, but speaks favorably about it at the expense of the efforts of nearly all previous years’ wines. But, he goes pretty far into describing pinot noir cultivation in the region and commends Saintsbury for their work in general. Would another winery display such an article so visibly?

And then there are the screw-top bottles. True, Saintsbury makes three classes of wines and the screw-tops are only found on those in the lowest price range, but the lowest priced Saintsbury wine is still $20 a bottle and with Trader Joe’s Two Buck Chuck holding strong with corked bottles, it’s really not industry standard yet. But, here again, nerdy pragmatism prevails over the pretensions of their industry. A top that unscrews is infinitely easier than manipulating a cork, and so they are making wines with screw-tops.

May 4th, 2009

I believe these people are having fun

Normally this newsletter is divided into five sections. Of the five, one is reserved for some activity that I think visitors to the Bay Area might enjoy and another is used to tell you about a nice local wine you might want to sip at our bar. This month I am forced to bleed those sections a little bit because I want to tell you not just about the David Girard wines, but also about the David Girard Winery. There are, very nearby, quite a number of lovely estates where people can go to admire the landscape and tranquilly sip wine. There are lots of ways besides this newsletter to find your way to each of them and I can’t say this is not a great idea. I am not recommending that you go to David Girard because it is the best example of one of those wineries, I am saying that you should go because it’s something different. It’s a place where things happen, I place with a community around it. There are concerts, cooking lessons, grape stomping parties. There’s an audio book swapping library, in consideration of the long drives people take to get there. It’s full of energy and life, as, I imagine, David Girard himself must be. The founder of this winery started off working in a gas station in Detroit, went on to get an MBA, a law degree and a PhD. He taught, practiced law and ran marathons. And at some point along the way he went to France to learn the winemaking techniques of the Rhone Valley. This is the kind of man who makes me wonder if some people get extra hours in their days and just have to keep it secret from the rest of us.

But, to use this space more in its intended way, if you can’t get away, and have to settle for drinking your Girard wine in our bar, you’ll be drinking the creation of an overachieving, fun-loving, perfectionist. It’s not like it’s going to be a bad glass of wine!

April 4th, 2009

A Pleasant Bit of Hubris

There’s something pleasantly simplistic in the Conn Creek Winery’s presentation of itself. Go to their website and the first thing that catches the eye, before any history or photo or romance of any kind, is a bold statement. “Conn Creek Winery: The Best Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from Carneros to Calistoga.” This does not appear to be a quotation from any wine publication. It is not supported by any of the other text on the page. It simply stands alone, an assertion made by the makers of said cabernet sauvignon that they feel to be objective, stand-alone truth.

Another thing about this winery that catches my fancy is that they make a red called “anthology,” because it is made of a mixture of all the different red grapes they grow. I like this name, it reminds me of those fat, heavy tomes I lugged around in college that purported to contain the best of, say, all of American literature. Implying, as such a book did, that I need look no further than what I had already in my hands for anything of value on the subject, I felt safe in a knowledge that I was getting educated. Even if I later learned how much richer it is to read all of Leaves of Grass, instead of just the passages deemed “most significant” by those who named themselves authorities, still I appreciated being spoon-fed a little at first.

The clear and easy arrogance of this winery is comforting to me. I know that I if I choose one of their wines, I will get something good, if not deep and nuanced. I don’t always have the energy for deep and nuanced. I’m sorry to admit this if I’m alone, but I don’t think I am.

March 4th, 2009

Savvy or Sloppy?

In our modern world there are a few products so associated with a particular brand that the brand name has become the common name for the thing itself. Kleenex, for instance. Sometimes I buy Puffs, sometimes I buy the Walgreens brand, but whatever the name on the little packet in my purse, I’ll always call it Kleenex. Q-Tips are maybe even a better example. Outside of my own personal usage, I hear some people ask for tissues, some for Kleenex; the two seem interchangeable. On the other hand, and I don’t know what your experience is, I’ve never witnessed a request for a cotton swab. Q-Tip is the only way I have ever heard anyone refer to the little paper sticks with cotton on either end, except to occasionally call them “ear thingies”.

Today another one of these took me by surprise. Maybe this is actually common knowledge, but it’s totally new for me. I wonder if I’m educating you or if you’re rolling your eyes at me, but I’ve just learned that Jacuzzi is the name of the guy who invented the system of pumps that turns a warm bath into therapy. I found this out because I drank a Pinot Grigio called Jacuzzi and thought, in addition to its being very good wine, that it was pretty funny for a winery to name itself after a hot tub. It turns out that the Jacuzzi family came to California from Italy and started making this wine years before their name became a household word. These people are the masters of engineering relaxation! So, here’s my free time plan from now on: A Jacuzzi in the Jacuzzi. I encourage you to join me.

February 4th, 2009

Supreme masters of tranquility

In our modern world there are a few products so associated with a particular brand that the brand name has become the common name for the thing itself. Kleenex, for instance. Sometimes I buy Puffs, sometimes I buy the Walgreens brand, but whatever the name on the little packet in my purse, I’ll always call it Kleenex. Q-Tips are maybe even a better example. Outside of my own personal usage, I hear some people ask for tissues, some for Kleenex; the two seem interchangeable. On the other hand, and I don’t know what your experience is, I’ve never witnessed a request for a cotton swab. Q-Tip is the only way I have ever heard anyone refer to the little paper sticks with cotton on either end, except to occasionally call them “ear thingies”.

Today another one of these took me by surprise. Maybe this is actually common knowledge, but it’s totally new for me. I wonder if I’m educating you or if you’re rolling your eyes at me, but I’ve just learned that Jacuzzi is the name of the guy who invented the system of pumps that turns a warm bath into therapy. I found this out because I drank a Pinot Grigio called Jacuzzi and thought, in addition to its being very good wine, that it was pretty funny for a winery to name itself after a hot tub. It turns out that the Jacuzzi family came to California from Italy and started making this wine years before their name became a household word. These people are the masters of engineering relaxation! So, here’s my free time plan from now on: A Jacuzzi in the Jacuzzi. I encourage you to join me.

January 4th, 2009

The Comforts of Regulation

I am aware that Americans have traditionally been against British rule-making. I understand that our great nation could even be said to have come about because of this opposition. I get it. But I just found something on the website of the first British winemaker I’ve seen so far in the Napa Valley that was so comforting to me: Lists of wine rules and instructions. On the Sterling Vineyards website you can learn not only which glasses to serve which wines in, but precisely to what point on the glass you should fill them. There are instructions for carrying your wine home from the winery. There is a formula for calculating how much wine to buy for a party. And, in the terminology section, I learned, finally, what it means when a person talks about a wine’s “body”. (It’s the experience of the weight of the wine in your mouth, although I have to admit that I considered making you go find out for yourself.)

It’s so great in America that we get to do things as we like. If a tradition doesn’t suit our personal comfort and immediate happiness, we just let go of it and do what feels good. Sometimes, though, I have to admit to wanting to know a little more about the rules and traditions that I’m letting go of. Maybe I will always prefer to drink wine out of the plastic Ringling Bros. cup I’ve had since I was ten, but at least now I know that big, bowl-like glasses are designed to let a maximal amount of oxygen interact with the wine and thus enhance its flavor.

Next time you’re with us, try a glass of Sterling. Maybe it’ll be stiff and unimaginative, but just maybe it’ll be solidly, reliably good.

November 19th, 2008

An opening argument

I wonder if most kids with their Playstations and Wiis and crazy interactive worldwide live cyberspace games have ever even heard of Atari. There was one in my house, but we were just at the cusp of that first technological shift and our Atari was quickly replaced by Nintendo. Atari is grandfather to all these electronic games, though, and to have been one of its originators is to have secured a very comfortable place for oneself in the world. This is a good quality to find in a winemaker, I’ve learned.

Dennis Groth, who founded the Groth Winery with his wife Judy, was one of the leading figures in the original Atari company and when that company was sold in 1984, the Groth family became free to live on principles. For example, the power of Atari money allowed the Groth family to pass on labeling any of their wines “Reserve” for the years 2000-2004. This decision cost them $5,000,000. To them it was worth it not to sully their label with wines they knew to not be of a high enough quality to call “Reserve”. Another family might not have been in the position to keep their bar so high, but the Groth’s can afford this kind of standard bearing.

I know that there are layers and layers of political and philosophical discourse under what I’ve just written. I’ve possibly offended some of you. Why not discuss it over a glass of wine? I hear Groth is pretty good…

October 18th, 2008

Prejudice and my desire to attack

I think the only way to begin writing about the Ferrari-Carano winery is by admitting that I chose it this month with slightly disingenuous motivations. With the global economy having, yet again, fallen victim to the greed of a wealthy few, I opted for the winery with Ferrari in its name, hoping for the chance to be a bit snide. I picked the wrong winemakers, if this is what I was looking for.

The first surprise about the Ferrari-Carano winery is that, although this is the rightful name of the enterprise and, as such, it is used liberally in everything they write and do, no mention of the name Ferrari comes up in any of the stories about the foundation or management of the business. Carano is the name of the couple that started the whole thing up in 1979. But the Ferrari? The best I can do is to speculate that they tacked it on as a sort of a goal for themselves. Cultural associations with the name Ferrari are rich and plentiful, as I demonstrated by choosing them this month. In bad economic times, greed and decadence are what I think of. In a world going green, inefficiency and waste also come to mind. But in 1979, Ferrari would have been a gleaming jewel of a name to try to live up to.

And speaking of inefficiency and waste, because that is partly what I was looking for here, I would guess that there is approximately none at this winery. What they seem to be moving toward is a full restoration of the natural environment, with some vines in the middle. They are integrating sheep and cows, as an alternative to pesticides. They have bees for fertilization. They have nesting boxes and perches to attract the birds that will keep away rodents. They are replanting the native trees. They use only biofuels in all of the vehicles on the property. They pave their roads with tree sap. If I was looking to indulge my cynicism at someone else’s expense this month, these are not the right people. I might even have a little less of it to vent on someone else.