Through the Grapevine #83
Reviving the weekly review of wine news and just a smidge of commentary, for July 1, 2026
Life Among the Vines
Now that I’m through the latest WSET exam, I’m determined to get back to regular writing! By this point you might be forgiven for forgetting this blog exists, but hopefully some of you will still be out there. A brief note on the exam: this was easily the lowest point in my WSET Diploma journey thus far, and I will not be at all surprised if I failed it. I can resit it and I’m not feeling too terribly set back by the whole thing, but I haven’t struggled much with my studies until now. Being humbled by the sparkling wines unit - a subject on which I thought I had a very good grasp up front - is, well, humbling. The current plan is to resit the exam in October if necessary, and begin my final unit at the same time, spurred on by discipline inspired by learning that I cannot in fact prepare thoroughly two weeks before an exam.
Meanwhile, flowers have turned to grapes in the vineyard, and some of the Zinfandel are even beginning to change color. We’ve had inconsistent weather this year: early heat in March, rain in April, cold in May, and variable but cooler than normal in June. As a result, the fruit hasn’t set entirely evenly, and I’m seeing a lot of what we call “shatter:” clusters with open sections from berries that never set properly. If you’re dependent on a small amount of fruit, this can be a serious problem, but in many wineries it’s not a crisis situation. Those of us who normally drop a significant amount of fruit anyway to force the vine to focus its energy on quality rather than quantity will just keep the fruit we have, and perhaps wineries that buy grapes will buy more of them - which, given the surplus of fruit around Napa and Sonoma, could level out the market a bit. Here’s hoping.
At home, we’ve planted a few vines of our own and are valiantly trying not to kill them. In a couple of cases we’ve already failed, one having fried in the sun and another the casualty of a Labrador who just loves a good stick. Several seem to be coming along nicely, and hopefully in a couple of years we’ll have grapes, and I will have learned a bit about hands-on (but extremely small-scale) viticulture.
The Grape News
I am very much a wine snob about what I drink, but I try very hard not to be a snob about what other people drink. Yes, I have to try. It’s a struggle to remain silent when people rave about mass market sugar bombs. And I do work to quell my snobbery, because I know they don’t necessarily know all that goes into making a bottle of wine, and the market in the U.S. being what it is, it’s highly likely they’ve only seen the limited, almost entirely mass-produced brands that exist in their local grocery or liquor/wine store. But my internal monologue is more like, “I like McDonald’s fries too, but there are so many other kinds of potato preparations out there, and a lot of them are made in much more responsible ways for the Earth, the economy, and our bodies, and they are more closely related to an actual potato, and they last longer than two minutes and honestly taste better.” I was reminded of this constant battle by this piece from Everyday Drinking:
There has to be some stance that is neither being mean to people about their wine choices, nor pretending that all wine is equal in quality or impact. I suspect the difference lies in the impact portion; I don’t care as much about whether people drink things I like as I do about how what they consume affects the world around them, and I care even more about that within wine than I do in other areas, because wine happens to be my little sphere. Sometimes that’s likely to make me about as fun at parties as the guy who can’t stop popping up over the charcuterie to tell everyone why he’s vegan. Alas.
When I am guiding tours past gnarly, fifty-four year old Zinfandel vines, people often ask if that make them “Old Vine Zin,” to which I have been resigned to answer that “old vine” is mostly a marketing term with no strict definition. But now the Old Vine Registry is changing that with a new seal available to verified vineyards and adaptable to indicate that they are over 35, 50, 75, 100, or 150 years old. The importance of the seal still mostly lies in marketing, but it’s marketing with accuracy and accountability. Thumbs up.
Speaking of marketing, I’m cooking up a piece about wine ratings for the near future, but in the meantime I’m going to point you over to this insider debate on Instagram between Monte Rio Vineyards winemaker Patrick Cappiello and wine critic Jeb Dunnuck (and their respective supporters). Listen, I think ratings have a certain usefulness to consumers who have to shop without a lot of personal knowledge or guidance, and who can’t taste the wines before purchasing. I also think they tend to be weighted heavily toward the tastes of individual critics and the styles of wine that are seen as most marketable, and I don’t love what that does to small, independent producers who can’t pay to play and may not be making wines to meet the status quo. PS, Patrick is in the process of opening a wine bar called the Siren’s Cellar in Jenner, CA, way out on the coast of Sonoma County, and personally I’m very excited to support it. If you’re out this way, let me know and I’ll meet you there.
Another topic I think about often working in the Napa Valley: the “love to hate” (or “hate to love”) attitude many wine people have about Napa wines. I feel it myself, in my eye-rolling about the waitlists, allocations, and unreachable tasting fees and bottle prices that imply status in the Napa Valley, even while I work here and love so much of what is happening in wine here. Winemakers across the spectrum fiercely defend their own style, as they should, and nearly all claim they are making wines “of this place.” Karen MacNeil muses about this and about the affects of climate change on wine style:
Vineyard Maintenance
Thanks again for hanging in there; I know it’s been a quiet couple of months. I have some posts in the works, and if you have anything you’d like me to cover, please don’t hesitate to drop it in the comments or email me at stacey@justasmidge.me. Cheers!
omg my favorite blog is back
I’m glad to find you here again — and hoping that your testing went better than you fear.