Through the Grapevine #58
Wine media and just a smidge of commentary
Life Among the Vines - a small update on life in Napa/Sonoma wine country
The growing season is in full swing and the vines are going bazonkers. It’s a new experience for me to be out in the vineyard almost every day, as my job often involves starting the morning with a vineyard tour, and seeing such rapid progress is pretty wild. Picture me doing a little jump of joy as I exclaim, “Ooh! It wasn’t doing this on Monday!”
My excitement while hosting vineyard tours is contagious to some of our guests and perhaps rather bemusing to others, but I figure weirdly enthusiastic provides a better experience than cool and detached.
Speaking of weirdly enthusiastic, I just started studying for my Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW) exam and it’s fun to be back in that academic headspace after a brief break. This is a different organization from the WSET program I’ve been pursuing, and the CSW is roughly equivalent to the WSET Level 3 I already have. So, why bother? Well, it provides a jumping off point for the Certified Wine Educator program that is very appealing to me, and it’s the program that my employer supports. Also, it keeps my study habits and knowledge fresh, because it looks like it’s going to be a while before I can afford the $3,000 price tag that comes with finishing my WSET Level 4 Diploma. Yikes.
The Grape News - wine media I found interesting and accompanying unsolicited opinions
I’m sitting this month out of the Wine Conversations discussion, but there’s some great conversation happening around “authenticity” in wine. Check it out!
Researchers in Spain aim to settle once and for all the question of whether there are any health benefits to wine. Here in the U.S., we will no doubt ignore scientific conclusions and say whatever serves the interests of the current regime; see the new dietary guidelines promised by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
I have been - and still am - critical of tariffs and their potential effect on the wine industry, but for the sake of a balanced perspective, here’s another take from winegrowers in favor of tariffs on imported wine.
I don’t usually mention commercials, but then again I also don't usually see wine commercials. Some algorithm really has me pegged, because one of my streaming services keeps showing me ads for Bonterra and Vins de Bordeaux. It’s kind of wild to see Bordeaux advertising to an American market, and interesting that they mention red, white, rosé, and gold wines. Gold! Apparently Bordeaux has its own take on orange wine.
Your white wine might be crystal clear, but what did it lose to get that way? Dan Berger explores how seeking visual appeal detracts from the quality of white wine. I’m going to double down on this and say that consumers pay way too much attention to the color and clarity of both white and rosé wines, which is one of the reasons these wines are often sold in clear bottles, even though clear glass is susceptible to light strike and demonstrably flattens the aromas and flavors in your wine. Wine involves compounds in suspension. If you filter some “undesirables” out, you also lose some that provide aroma, flavor, and texture. Them’s the breaks. Also, Dan mentions his discovery of Trefethen’s Dry Riesling, which a particular favorite of mine. Do try it if you get the chance.
Halter Ranch in Paso Robles shakes things up in farming and getting their wine to the consumer. In the vineyards, elevated trellising allows for sheep to graze year round, rather than being moved elsewhere during the growing season, as happens at Tablas Creek. Meanwhile, instead of waiting for customers to come to them, they’ve opened tasting rooms in areas with higher populations and traffic. I’m not sure how many wineries can afford to operate tasting rooms in other cities, but it’s an interesting model that demonstrates the importance of finding ways to get our wine in front of people who aren’t trekking out to wine country for tastings (and full disclosure, the winery where I work operates an additional tasting room in San Francisco, so I’m not unfamiliar with the idea).
George Nordahl takes another deep dive, this time into biodynamic viticulture and Korean natural farming:
Before I moved to California, being a “wine person” involved knowing about regions, grape varieties, styles, and perhaps a bit about farming techniques. One of the cultural differences in “wine people” here is the specificity that happens when you live in the place where the wine is being produced. I noticed very quickly that everyone seemed to know vineyard sites, not just wineries or AVAs, and the names of vineyards are just part of everyday vocabulary. I’m still on the learning curve on this one, and if you’re interested in getting on it too, this is a helpful article about the top sites in Sonoma County (and I was pleased to note there was only one that wasn’t familiar).
One of my favorite travel experiences was in Bilbao, wandering the streets packed with pintxo bars, where in addition to your drink, you order a small snack (the pintxo!). Each bar usually offers a variety but has its own specialty, which you can pick out by how quickly they are disappearing into the hands of locals - and locals abound, because pintxo isn’t just a food, it’s a culture of socializing nearly every evening, wandering from bar to bar, trying different foods and drinks and meeting different people along the way. It’s impossible to be lonely there, and I have often wished for a place of similar social, food, and drink culture here in the U.S. Charlie Brown puts her finger on the charm of this phenomenon and the challenge of developing anything resembling it here, primarily because you can’t replicate it with merely a single bar or restaurant.
A delightfully nerdy post about yeast from Kristiane Tommerup at Wine Rambles:
Pretty much every day, someone tells me about some smaller wine region in the U.S. or Canada and how their wines are “not good,” or sometimes, “The whites are okay, but the reds are terrible.” Sometimes they’re not wrong. Every state in the U.S. produces wine, but that doesn’t mean they should. But if my explorations have taught me anything, it’s that you shouldn’t write off an emerging wine region while they’re, well, emerging. Everyone needs time to figure out what grows well in their area and how to support that in the winery. In that vein, I’m pleased to see some attention paid to Cabernet Franc from the Finger Lakes of New York, a region mostly known for whites:
A reflection from Vicky Hampton on the role of wine in mindfulness and grounding in crisis:
Vineyard Maintenance - tending to the business of the blog
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The Best Thing I Drank This Week
It must have been almost a year ago that I made a day trip down to Carneros, the southernmost area of the Napa and Sonoma valleys and the point where they and their respective counties meet.
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