Robert Mondavi was the Patriarch of American Wine

Robert Mondavi passed away last month just shy of his 95th birthday. Surely every wine drinker knows of the man & his eponymous winery, but I'm guessing that not everyone understands the tremendous impact he had on the world of wine. Not just American wine, which he single-handedly drove from bulk jug wines to some of the best wines in the world, but also the global wine business.

Robert had always been an advocate for the fullest expression of the grape. He understood the importance of terroir, and the place wine had in the homes and restaurants of Europe -- it was inextricably linked to food, art, religion, history, and family. This idea put him at odds while running Mondavi-owned Charles Krug winery, a winery his father Cesare had purchased before his death. His brother Peter was purely a businessman -- not interested in Robert's ideas for making truly fine wines. The friction was so great that the family ousted Robert from Krug and forever changed his relationship with his brother and mother. Robert sued for being fired and removed from the board and he won. It took ten years and caused irreparable damage with his family, but this was the single biggest event in Napa Valley since prohibition.

Robert's next step was to start his own winery, modeled after the great chateaus he visited in Europe. It was the first new winery bonded and built in Napa Valley since prohibition. It's a grand structure located directly on Highway 29. It was built with the intention of holding tastings and educating visitors. These concepts were brand new to the valley. Let me repeat that -- wine tasting at the winery was a concept introduced by Robert Mondavi. Limo bus drivers the state over should bow their heads in a moment of silence.

Robert was truly a visionary in the valley. He sought out the best land to plant his vines. For example, he correctly recognized and bought most of the vineyard known as To Kalon to plant to Cabernet Sauvignon. "To Kalon" means "highest quality" in Greek. This fruit would become the benchmark for great Bordeaux-style wines in the valley and would later drive producers to emulate this style.

Robert brought European techniques to the American wine industry. Cold soak fermentations for cleanliness & crispness, open top fermentation for gentleness, and the use of oak barrels in aging. These requisite techniques in today's wineries owe their lineage to Robert Mondavi. All of them have a specific role in the delicate dance of turning grapes into wine, and they were systematically ignored before Robert's dedication to them.

Perhaps Robert's greatest achievement was the role of ambassador for American wine. He wasn't content to simply make the best wines ever to carry a California heritage, he took it upon himself to fly around the country and the world to hold tastings and educate restaurant owners and staff about California wine. You simply didn't see California wine on restaurant lists in our own country until Robert, on his own dime, made the effort to change that.

Maybe the greatest compliment of his dedication to fine wines came from the unlikely partnership with the Rothschild family of Chateau Lafite Rothschild in Bordeaux for the creation of Opus Wine Winery in Napa. Other than the famed Paris Tasting of 1976 where some California wines bested the French in blind tastings, this partnership was the most visible and concrete example that California was on the same playing field with France in terms of truly fine wines. Not to mention the family's partnership with the Frescobaldi family of Tuscany, a 700 year producer of fine Italian wines. Mondavi's hand was touching wines all over the world. He held property in Argentina, Mexico, and the Languedoc region of France. To truly know how respected he was, even in the Old World, Mondavi was awarded France's Legion of Honor in 2005 -- the highest decoration in France.

Practically every great winemaker in the valley worked at Mondavi at some point -- Mike Grgich & Paul Hobbs immediately come to mind. Mondavi set the style for the valley -- opulent fruit, but made with grace & structure. It's slightly ironic that some of the most iconic and hard-to-get wines today come from Mondavi's old property: Screaming Eagle, Schrader, Hobbs, and Harlan come to mind.

And in that last comment lies the great tragedy of Robert's life: the loss of his winery and vineyards to Constellation Brands in 2004 for $1.04 billion dollars. The winery still operates with his name, and in the structures he had designed, in the shadow of the vines he had planted, but the current releases from the winery are not the same wines. It's more than tragic once you know the way in which the winery was lost: Robert was an extremely philanthropic fellow. Following the listing of the winery on the Nasdaq, Robert used the escalating stock price as currency to fund his extravagant donations: The Cantor Art Center at his alma mater Stanford, a $35 million dollar donation to UC Davis for the construction of The Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, the restoration of the Napa Valley Opera House, the creation of The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in Napa (COPIA), and many other projects. When the stock price started to tank (largely because of brand dilution with lower priced wines), any reasonable business man would have renegotiated those donations. Robert was never a good businessman. He was always a man of character, passion, and drive. He begrudgingly agreed to sell his stock in order to meet the promised money to these projects.

Perhaps the last great compliment for his wines came last year when Wine Spectator listed the family's last offering, a 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, as one of the top 10 wines of the year.

We sadly mourn the death of this iconic figure. The patriarch of American Wine. Every glass of wine you enjoy, no matter if from Napa or Tuscany, was somehow touched by the standards and traditions that Robert Mondavi brought to the table. We will be holding a tasting at The Cask Room on June 18th of the family wines of Robert Mondavi. We'll be taking a portion of the proceeds to gift to his Copia center for wine education. I can't think of a better way to celebrate this man than to drink his wine and donate money to the project that he was most passionate about.

Wines are going green!

It's Spring, and everything is turning green. I guess that's why it's the perfect time to have a reminder of protecting Mother Earth. We have just passed the official Earth Day, and seemingly every day we see somebody reminding us to recycle and "go green." The wine industry has increasingly been following this trend, not simply to save the planet, but to make better wine.

You may have seen the terms "organic" or "biodynamic" on a bottle of wine or in some literature, so I thought that I would take this timely opportunity to explain what those terms mean, so that you can confidently "go green" with your wine purchases.

I'm sure that it's no surprise that agriculture today uses a multitude of pesticides, fungicides, and other chemical-cides to help control and guarantee the health of the crops. But, it wasn't always this way. If you've ever picked up a Farmer's Almanac then you might know that it's chock full of moon phases, tidal information, and other information vital to agriculture. This publication has been produced since 1792 -- but, somewhere along the path we lost our way and have tried to use science and technology to control Mother Earth.

Organic wines are very simply wines that contain grapes grown conforming to the National Organic Program guidelines. These guidelines prohibit the use of all of the aforementioned 'cides, plus outline what may or may not be done in the winery. That is, little or no manipulation of wines by reverse osmosis, excessive filtration, or flavor additives (such as oak chips). Many organic winemakers also prefer wild yeasts for fermentation. There is one tricky situation to watch for: "wine made with organic grapes." These wines started out with organic grapes, but the winery did something in the processing to lose the "certified organic" status. This something is most often the addition of sulfites. Now, sulfites occur naturally in wine, so no wine is sulfite-free. But, most winemakers add sulfites during vinification to enhance this natural preservative. So, if you are sensitive to sulfites, certified organic wines may be something worth searching.

Biodynamics is like organics on steroids. Rather, it's not simply the absence of chemicals, it's a complete change in the way the grower works with the land. All of those things that were naturally occurring and later suppressed are reintroduced to the land. Earth worms, bees, bugs, natural washes, cover plants, birds, bats, chickens, goats, etc. are all welcomed back to the particular ecosystem that was in place before someone decided to drop in some Pinot Noir. Other key elements of biodynamics are the burying of a cow's horn full of manure in the Fall and the use of crushed quartz in the field. Animals help to control the plant growth and the insect population, plus in the case of chickens, their manure helps to fertilize the crops, and their eggs are used for fining the wines as well as feeding the workers breakfast.

Biodynamics has been credited to Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. He introduced this holistic and self-sustaining method of farming during a series of lectures in 1929.

Quite frankly, I thought of Biodynamics as organic hippie farmers until yesterday. It always struck me as odd to bury a cow horn with manure. I had been led to believe that this was ritualistic -- not necessarily related to anything useful in the farming process.

So yesterday I met with Katrina Fetzer who is in charge of marketing her dad's wines under the "Ceago" label. Her dad is Jim Fetzer, formerly of the ubiquitous Fetzer Wines which he sold in 1992. Ceago has been from the beginning about biodynamics. In fact, they were the first U.S. winery to be certified biodynamic. She gave me a crash course in biodynamics, most importantly correcting my misconceptions about the aforementioned strange rituals.

"The burying of the female cow horn has a very specific purpose: to produce the best compost possible. Tests have shown that the horn is a better host to microorganisms than plastic, glass, or other containers. We pull the horn out in the spring and take the mixture and add it to hot water. The mixture is spun for an hour in each direction, creating a vortex and multiplying the microorganisms. Then, we spray the fields with the best humus mixture we could hope for" she told me. "We do the same with crushed quartz. It is buried in the Spring and follows the same process as the compost. Then we spray it on the land in the wet season to help protect against fungus and to aid in photosynthesis."

The resulting wines made at Ceago are about as clean as you can get. I think the difference shows: The wines have texture. It's certainly refreshing to know what did and did not go into those wines.

Why not go green this month and seek out some organic/biodynamic wines. There are quite a few from Europe, and an increasing number from right here in California. Other than the fantastic efforts from Ceago, I would recommend Robert Sinskey of Napa, and Benziger of Sonoma. Let's help fix the planet one glass at a time...

To Cork or Not to Cork?

There's a huge problem in the world of wine and it doesn't rhyme with Shoe Luck Truck. Up to 10% of the bottles released by any given winery contain a compound that spoils the wine. It's called trichloroanisole, or TCA for short. You may have heard of it by its informal name "cork taint" or "corked" as in, "man, this '85 Petrus is corked! Bummer!"

How do you tell if a wine is "corked?" Smell it. If there's a musty/mildew-like aroma then the wine you were about to enjoy has been tainted with TCA. Sometimes the wine smells like wet dog, wet cardboard, or moldy newspaper. Unless a shaggy dog made the wine in a rainstorm, chances are you're going to be mad.

The production of TCA in wine is complex, but I'll use my mad science skills (ha!) to boil it down for you: airborne fungus around corks mixes with chlorine meant to sterilize it and creates TCA.

If you encounter such a wine you should take it back to where you bought it and the retailer almost assuredly will replace it and send it back up the distribution chain to the winery. If they don't, find a new place to buy wine. You won't want to drink it because all you will smell & taste is that musty wood. This is really what you are testing for when presented with the small pour of a new bottle at a restaurant. You obviously don't want to accept a tainted bottle of wine. Especially not at restaurant prices.

The notion that any industry allows a 10 percent failure rate strikes me as slightly insane. Kind of like casting Eddie Murphy in anything anymore. Enter the Screwcap.

We all know the Screwcap. Perhaps you first met it with a bottle of Boone's Farm Sangria in college, or heaven forbid, a bottle of NightTrain Apple Wine from Circle K. With that kind of history, it's no wonder that the Screwcap is fighting an uphill battle as an alternative to natural cork.

But, I'm here to tell you that the Screwcap may be the best thing to happen to a bottle of wine since Robert Mondavi entered the business.

Screwcaps avoid the problem altogether. Screwcaps also help to ward off oxidation which is the 2nd leading killer of a bottle of wine after your's truly.

I can hear all of you asking "why aren't all wines released in screwcaps then?" The short answer is the stigma. Plus, you can't exactly use that fancy corkscrew anymore. But, times are changing. The more people understand the problems with cork the more they'll seek out wines in screwcaps. Then, the more the industry will understand that the stigma is disappearing and be willing to change their practices.

There is another reason that some winemakers avoid the screwcap -- especially French winemakers: a small amount of oxygen enters through natural cork and helps to age the wine, or so it is believed. The argument against screwcaps for them is that the seal is too perfect and the aging process will be stifled. This is just a suspicion because it will take years to see how wines in screwcaps age. But, there's some alternatives on the horizon just for them. New types of liners used in the seal can allow a controllable amount of oxygen into the bottle to help soften the wine over time. Maybe this will finally win them over.

You can help the cause by not furrowing your brow when you hear that fun crackle of the metal closure. You can further help the cause by seeking out bottles in this better type of closure. Plus, you'll have a way to save that unfinished bottle for another day. I don't have that problem, but I hear that some people may.

Where the Sun Shines Through the Mist

San Diego is lucky to have a premier winegrowing region right in its backyard. Mention Temecula to someone and memories of warm afternoons spent sipping a chilled Chardonnay or a decadent Dolcetto come to mind, but few people likely know the history of the region and the special attributes that make it such a unique place to grow grapes. In fact, the Luiseno Indians had a word for what makes this place special: Temecula -- "Where the Sun Shines Through the Mist."

The mist is the primary reason that grapes do so well in this region. What does mist have to do with ripening grapes? Well, ideally grapes do best when the days are very warm and the nights are cool -- and that's exactly what conditions prevail in this southern corner of Riverside County. Temecula sits on a 1,400 foot plateau with direct sun & very warm days. Fortunately, cool & moist ocean air drifts in through the Rainbow and Deluz Gaps of the Coastal Range in the afternoon, cooling the grapes. You see, warm or hot days alone are not going to necessarily make the best grapes. Otherwise, Phoenix would have a burgeoning wine industry. You need some cool temperatures at night to slow down the ripening of the grapes and lock in some of that mouthwatering acidity.

It was precisely these conditions that brought Mission Padres east from Capistrano to plant the original vineyards in 1820. It would be another 150 years until vines for commercial wines were first planted. Vincenzo Cilurzo, an ABC-TV Emmy Award winning Lighting Director, and his wife Audrey purchased a 100 acre parcel with thoughts of retiring and making some wine. A weather study he saw indicated the region had the same climate as the mid-Napa area. So, in 1968 the Cilurzos planted the first commercial vineyard in Temecula: 40 acres of premium Petite Sirah and Chenin Blanc. Ely Callaway of Callaway Golf fame came in a year later and began his eponymous winery.

It wasn't until 1984 that the area was officially recognized as its own American Viticultural Area -- something very special and important to consumers, as grapes from specific areas tend to have their own unique charms. Prior to this designation, wines from the region were classified as more generic South Coast wines. Officially, the region encompasses 33,000 acres, but only 1,300 are currently planted to vines.

Recent history in Temecula shows that the region has been facing some enemies -- shrinking the acres planted by as much as 45% over the last ten years. The first enemy was Pierce’s Disease. Leaves on vines with Pierce's disease will turn yellow/brown and eventually drop off the vine. Shoots will also die. Then, after 1 to 5 years, the vine itself will die. This vine killer is carried by the glassy-winged sharpshooter which has migrated from the South Eastern U.S. Tragically, the bug helped destroy over 1,000 of the 2,300 acres of vineyards in the late 1990s. Fortunately, steps have been taken to isolate and combat this devastating pest.

The other enemy has been urban sprawl. The Inland Empire region is one of the fastest growing housing regions in the country. Thankfully, the Temecula Agricultural Conservancy, a non profit public benefit corporation, was formed with the primary mission of preserving vineyards and open space suitable for vineyards. The agency works with the County Supervisors as they implement new zoning ordinances by holding open space, vineyards and/or conservation easements, ensuring that the land remains in vineyards in perpetuity.

The good news is that new rootstock has been planted and is better matched to the strengths of the land. There is too much opportunity cost now to growing the wrong grapes, so the twenty-plus wineries that call Temecula home have started to focus on the grapes that flourish in Mediterranean climates similar to Temecula: Syrah, Barbera, Sangiovese, Dolcetto, Viognier, and many more. Moreover, several of the wineries are purchasing grapes from other areas in California to vinify in Temecula. Callaway, for example, is buying some fruit from Napa and Santa Barbara to bolster its portfolio.

Of course, the best thing about Temecula is that it's so convenient to visit and sample the wonderful wines. We are very lucky to have such a beautiful and diverse collection of vineyards so close to San Diego. The best way to learn about Temecula wines is to try them all! Look through the mist to find some new favorites!

Kids & Wine Cellars

It's amazing the way something that happens in your life triggers thoughts about something seemingly unrelated. This just happened to me after the birth of our first child, Ella Grace, last week. I should be thinking about the years of love & hard work ahead of us -- and I am -- but I also am strangely thinking about cellaring wine. Before you judge me as the uber-lush I sometimes appear to be -- let me explain...

The English have long had a strong relationship with French wine. And to love French wine means that instant gratification is usually not associated with that love. You need to hold most French wines for years until they become slightly drinkable let alone expertly aged.

Because of this delayed gratification, it became custom for English parents to stash away extra bottles of the juice every year of life for their children. That way -- each child will inherit a perfectly aged cellar of fine wines once they reach adulthood -- and the process will be repeated with their children once they become parents.

What a wonderfully romantic & practical ritual! Why don't we Westerners follow this custom? Are we selfish? Or, is it that we want instant gratification and therefore spend our wine time mostly with New World wines? Yes, it's emphatically the latter.

We love the full fruit of California, Australia, and South American wines. Who needs or wants to wait seven, eight, or more years until a wine becomes drinkable? Not us. But guess what? Some of those same wines become even better with age! They begin their life in the bottle fresh & full of fruit flavor -- unlike many of their Old World counterparts -- but they experience softening of some of the rough edges and the flavors steep in the bottle over the years yielding something possibly even more wonderful. Think about the way a soup needs time for the flavors to meld together to make something even better.

My point is that even if you buy entirely New World wines, you might just want to buy an extra bottle or two of what you like to stash away for a future date. Now, the trick obviously is that not all wines improve with age. Holding a Paso Robles Zinfandel for 10 years might yield something much like balsamic vinegar. But, stashing a big old Merlot from Alexander Valley might just blow your mind in 15 years.

How do you know which wines will age and which won't? Well, there is no absolute answer. You'll need to use resources such as Wine Spectator, Wine Advocate, and the many great community sites like CellarTracker.com to figure it out. One of my favorite things to do is to buy two or three bottles of each wine that I want to try. I'll bust one open immediately and enjoy it -- noting the density of flavors and the structure to help determine how long it will age and what it might taste like in the future. This is obviously a skill learned over time, but you'll have a blast getting there! Then, stash the rest of that wine and keep track of it using CellarTracker. The community there will all contribute information about what the wine was like when opened, letting you watch & react to changes in the wine that you want to see.

I am going to buy as much of the great 2005 Bordeaux vintage that I can get my hands on, because that wine will be sublime in the twenty or so years before my daughter gets ready to drink it. And, I'll continue to save wines for her every wonderful year until that day that I can open a bottle and toast it with Stephanie & Ella. I challenge you to help me adopt that wonderful tradition. You'll not only provide your kids with a perfectly aged cellar, but you'll also be able to enjoy some expertly aged wines, and become a wine expert in the process.

Chocolate & Wine: Not always a good match

Valentines Day is right around the corner and there is usually a large amount of chocolate exchanged in the name of love.

Wine and Chocolate seem like such a natural couple. Like Bogey & Bacall, Tracy & Hepburn, and Marge & Homer, we naturally assume that wine and chocolate are perfect matches. But, this couple is more like Al & Peggy Bundy -- they mostly don't match, but when conditions are right, there is a warming sense of chemistry. That is to say that because of the chemistry of chocolate and the chemistry of wine there are going to be some qualities of each that clash, mute, or become more pronounced. The trick to matching wine & chocolate is to find those couples that enhance the great qualities of each without showing the bad. Isn't that the trick with us, too?

I can easily say that most of my customers and friends drink red wine. Red wine usually contains a fair to heavy amount of tannin. Tannins are astringent, bitter plant polyphenols that either bind and precipitate or shrink proteins. Tannins come from the skins of the grapes as well as the barrels in which wines age. They are a desirable component in wine because of their antioxidant nature. That is, the tannins help to protect the wine from spoiling due to its interaction with oxygen. Tannins also play an important role in the mouthfeel of a wine. They provide that drying sensation on the insides of your cheeks and gums. Technically, that drying feeling is a result of the tannins in the wine attaching to saliva proteins in your mouth.

Tannins are not really found in white wines because the skins do not macerate (or soak) with the juice at all. Red wine becomes red in color and bold in flavor because of the maceration with the skins. The tannins are a chemical component of making red wine.

Guess what? Chocolate also contains tannin.

I'm going to make this really easy: If the wine you are drinking is making your mouth dry, and the food you are eating is making your mouth dry, then what is the overall sensation during this experience? Your mouth is really dry! Put another way, what's the best way to counter a dry wine? Match it with something that's refreshing, or in the case of tannin, match it with something with a lot of protein which will lighten the load your saliva plays in the tannin exchange. That's why big dry reds like Cabernet Sauvignon match so very perfectly with a big old steak.

There's another way to get some refreshment from the drying effects of tannin in chocolate: Pick a red wine with a higher level of acid. The acid will promote saliva creation and will match and overpower the amount of tannin in your mouth. Italian wines are extremely high in acid (think Sangiovese from Tuscany).

Alright Mr. Science, then what are the best matches for wine & chocolate?

The universal match is Champagne. The high acid and effervescence will be a refreshing counter to the dry chocolate. The bubbles will also keep your palate clean -- leaving you to truly experience the layers of flavor in the chocolate. Port wines are also great matches for chocolate. The flavors of dried fruit, caramel, and fig, coupled with the syrupy mouthfeel make for a great interaction with chocolate. These are your best bets to match with plain chocolate.

If you're trying to match chocolate to a specific wine, try to find a truffle or infused chocolate that matches flavors in both. Those ubiquitous chocolate covered cherries would match very well with everything from a Sonoma Pinot Noir to a Napa Merlot. How about a truffle filled with passion fruit? Why not try a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. How about chocolate infused with ancho chile? Fire up a big old glass of Malbec from Argentina.

Matching wine with food is really all about the pleasant commonalities of flavors or interesting contrasts. It's just the same with wine & chocolate.

You can find some great matches. You'll also encounter some bad combinations. Now, you have a little background that can help you. As always, the only way to know is to try it and see if the result is what you hoped for. If not, keep trying! There's plenty of chocolate in the sea!

New Year's Resolutions & Wine

New Year's Resolutions

Here we go again. It's a new year and much like Punxsutawney Phi -- the groundhog who predicts a long winter or early spring by his shadow -- we collectively measure the hedonism of the holidays and prior year by the shadow our figure casts on the windows we pass.

Hardcore diets and new memberships to the local gym ensue, as well as an all-or-nothing severing of ties to our friends at Mondavi & Penfolds.

This shouldn't be the case. There are plenty of reasons to keep a moderate amount of wine in your new relationship with food & beverage.

Sure, wine has some calories (about 100 for a five ounce pour). But, did you know that wine serves as a digestive aid? Or that wine may help prevent food poisoning by killing harmful bacteria (according to a 2003 study by the American Journal of Gastroenterology).

Those are some of the immediate effects of pairing wine with your food. But, there are some fantastic long term effects associated with moderate wine consumption.

Scientists have long known that a moderate intake of alcohol, and red wine in particular, is associated with a lowered risk of heart disease and other benefits.

Resveratrol is a chemical compound found in the skin of grapes and in red wine and is conjectured to be a partial explanation for the French paradox, the puzzling fact that people in France enjoy a high-fat diet yet suffer less heart disease than Americans.

There's also promising results from studying women who drink wine regularly. Carotid arteries, which carry oxygenated blood up through the neck to the brain, benefit from the alcohol in wine. When plaque builds up in the carotid vessels, it acts as a kink in the fuel line, and the lack of oxygen to the brain can lead to a stroke, causing symptoms such as blurred vision and slurred speech. According to a study in Stroke and Neuroepidemiology, moderate wine consumption can lead to improved cognitive performance by helping to keep the carotids clear, just as other studies have found that red wine helps keep the arteries around the heart clean.

Sold? If so, let's talk about what to drink. Maybe it's time for a resolution to break the "comfort zone" you use in wine.

Stuck on Chardonnay? Try a beautiful Viognier (pronounced "VEE-ohn-yay") from Paso Robles like the stellar 2005 Calcareous Viognier ($20). Viognier is a French grape that originates in the Rhone Valley. It's responsible for some of the most exciting (and expensive) wines in France, but the global market penetration of this varietal is still tiny. Values abound in New World plantings of this grape. Viognier is an incredibly aromatic wine -- usually with scents of fresh flowers, orange blossoms, and a crisp minerality. Its feel in the mouth is very similar to Chardonnay -- creamy pear & honey, with a biting citrus component. It pairs extremely well with food. And best of all -- it's not Chardonnay! You'll have something new in your wine toolbox the next time you entertain friends!

You don't need to cut out wine to begin a healthy new you in 2008. Just like anything in life, moderation is the key. Enjoy the New Year!

Wine Snobs & Winos

My name is Mike. I am a Wino.

Webster's defines "wino" as someone addicted to wine. It also has the word "derelict" in there somewhere, but I'll take poetic license with my definition. To paraphrase JT, I'm bringin' wino back!

I think the difference between a wino and a wine snob comes down to intent. Both are crazed aficionados of the juice, but one would just assume drink & enjoy the stuff without the requisite pretentious jargon and ritual. The snob will measure him or herself with how many cult Cabernets they've consumed, or which obscure sub appellation in the Old World they can throw on the table. The wino will smile knowingly (is he questioning my fanhood?). The wino knows that it's the sucker who buys into only what the magazines and critics of the world have to say. Because there are far more interesting stories and bottles between the lines. Isn't it more fun & rewarding to rate your own wines?

Wine is such a beautiful thing. It's natural, after-all. Grapes left to die on the vine will become fermented with the natural yeasts that develop on the berries. Yet, there is some belief out there that holds certain winemakers in such reverence truly due to artists and thinkers. Yikes! That almost sounded a bit snobby. Therein lies the difficult line one has to walk in the wine world. You want to appreciate it, and debate about it, but in the end, it's all about how the wine smells -- how it tastes -- and how it feels in your mouth. And everyone can do that. Nobody is born with some kind of bionic palate. Nor is anyone born with a full understanding of the growth classification system in Burgundy or Bordeaux. But, it doesn't matter. Those facts are out there to study if that's your thing, but you certainly don't need to bore yourself with it to understand and appreciate wine.

To be a true lover of wine, all you have to do is drink. The more often you drink, and the more you vary what you drink, the more you'll understand your palate and whether you'll likely adore a new wine or not before even drinking it. And, if you keep some kind of journal after your wine adventures then you'll quickly zero in on what makes your soul feel warm & fuzzy!

That's the kind of power and liberation that I want for all wine lovers. When you truly understand that it's the grape varietal and where it's grown that matters, you'll unlock all of the power to rarely be disappointed with wine.

We Americans are at a supreme disadvantage to this theme. We are bred by Madison Avenue to think of everything as a brand. Coke is a brand. Apple is a brand. Robert Mondavi is not a brand. The brands do everything in their power to make the same product over and over again, identically, in order to promote allegiance by the consumer. Not discounting chemistry, but virtually no winery can consistently put out the same product. Mother Nature changes every minute. Decisions made by the growers as to when to pick change every year. Even when the wine hits the bottle -- it starts its long journey of change, eventually turning into a wonderfully awful vinegar. Winemaker Randy Pitts of Harvest Moon says "great wines are made in the vineyard." Andrew Murray describes his role as winemaker as "...a lifeguard watching the grapes go bad."

When I hear someone say "I love Joseph Phelps Insignia" I think to myself "...this wine lover had a great experience with one or more bottles of Insignia. What she really loves is a Bordeaux-style blend of Napa grapes." That's not to discount the experience, but rather expand the options. Guess how many bonded wineries there are in Napa? 510. Guess how many of those make a blend like Insignia? I don't know. But I'm betting it's a bunch! The point is, Insignia is an expression of a blend of grapes that very much is the calling card of Napa. If you think Insignia is the only worthwhile wine, then you're easy to please and not very adventurous. Because I'd rather take the $200 that one bottle goes for and try eight different wines from the region. You'll likely find a better wine. And, just because one Insignia gets called the Wine of the Year by a magazine does not mean that forever thereafter that wine deserves the praise and price it currently has. Mother Nature dictates the quality of the harvest. And, the sun doesn't shine only on one side of the villa. Everyone in that region growing the right grapes for that region should share in the bounty of a great harvest, whether they charge $20 or $1,200.

Once you let that notion sink in you'll be liberated from the shackles of expensive wines and innocuous experiences. You'll be a knowledgeable wino. A very dangerous thing!