Now Serving 500 Wines by-the-glass!

I had to respond to a critical review of our wine bar last week mentioning that we didn't have a "great selection" of wines by-the-glass.

This is essentially what I wrote, but I thought it worthwhile to talk about on my blog for education's sake...

Any establishment that has more than 20 bottles of wine by-the-glass is playing games to be able to make money on those wines and to get them into your glass. The only problem is, they don't care about "when" those wines hit your glass. Only, that they eventually will. And, many of them, or most, if we're being honest, don't give a shit about "how" those wines show once they hit your glass. Heck, one of my competitors once served me a glass of Pinot on a Tuesday that was opened on Thursday. When I asked the owner -- not a server -- to smell the wine, he couldn't tell that the wine was oxidized beyond enjoyment.

Many of these places will very gently put the cork in the bottle, with about 2/3 of the cork still outside the bottle, and simply leave them on the counter over night(s) until they sell. Some may stick those bottles in the refrigerator, bringing them out every day in hopes of selling them (warm/cold/warm/cold). Some still have paid tens of thousands of dollars for machines that continuously pump inert gas into the bottles to ward off oxygen, enemy #1 of wine. They're trying to steal another day of use at your expense.

It doesn't even have to be a place with 20+ wines on the menu. It could be your favorite corner bar with six wines on the menu to satisfy the occasional customer who doesn't want a car bomb or a pint of Blue Moon. There's a place in East Village that I love, but I'd never order wine there -- they keep all of it in a commercial fridge at 38 degrees!

In any case, if you're not going to sell the wines the day you open them, and they're truly not going to hold up until day #2 (which the vast majority won't), then these establishments are either selling you wine that is already "gone" or they are selling you wines which are not showing the way the winemaker or Mother Nature intended for you to taste them.

In the case of the latter, think about it. The wine is aged in barrel/bottle (likely) in a controlled fashion until ready for release. The enclosure type (cork, screw cap, etc.) has a pretty predictable role in the aging of the wine. Once you open a wine, it begins its pretty quick degradation into oxidized grape juice. You can slow that down by keeping oxygen, light, and heat away from it, but at this point, it becomes something different than what the winemaker wanted to show you. Those wine bars popping up with machines are showing you these types of wines: wines with a bit of softening from initial open, then you not only are not getting the freshest just-out-of-the-bottle flavors (because oxygen has softened the flavors between the time the enclosure is opened and the time the inert gas starts pumping into the sealed bottle), but you are getting an almost "mummified" version of that wine with no predictable aging, but rather, kind of a state of suspended youth, in a place somewhere between "fresh" and "dead."

I believe that having a glass or bottle of wine is a journey that you take. It's an implicit contract of sorts, between you & Mother Nature. When you start to prolong the life of a bottle of wine, you start to see different things, most likely not intended, than you would if you simply open a bottle, have four glasses, and then recycle the bottle. Remember that Stephen King novel called Pet Cemetery? If you don't, the theme was that if your pet (or friend) dies, take them to this special cemetery & they'll come back to life, only slightly different. In the novel, they become homicidal. I'm not saying these wines will try to kill you, but why take the chance? ;)

That is why we don't have more than 15 wines on our list at any time. 75% of the wines we sell would not last to Day #2, and so those wines go home with the owners, employees, or they go down the drain at night's end. The other 25% that do last to Day #2 may in fact be better with some oxygen, and we'll tell you in detail why that is. Heck, we'll even pour you a new bottle versus Day #2's bottle so you can see for yourself.

As I said to our reviewer referencing us not having a "great selection" of wines: I'd rather showcase 15 wines that show as well as they possibly could, than to sell 50 wines living on borrowed time: flat & soft, and without all that Mother Nature has put into those grapes. I believe we owe it to the folks who work their butts off working the land, gently processing the fruit, and then waiting for those wines to mature to the point that they're ready to be shared with the rest of the world.

You can decide for yourself. Swing by tomorrow night (Thursday, Feb. 3rd.) & I'll pour you, for free, a Napa Cab that was opened immediately versus one a few days old kept on gas, and one kept in a fridge. You tell me what experience you'd rather have.

/mike

The Complete NBC Executive's Guide to Port Wine

Well, I couldn't say "idiot" or "dummy," could I? Let's just leave it at that. Yes, this is a wine blog, but I'm going to pull out my trusty soapbox to weigh in on the Conan vs. Leno battle. Let's just say this has been an entertaining couple of weeks for monologues on all of the shows. I am a Conan guy, but I always thought it was a strange thing to pull Leno off in his ratings prime and shoehorn in the wonderfully lowbrow humor of Conan. Actually, the only thing I liked about giving Conan the Tonight Show was that maybe I could get up to Universal easier than way back East to see the show live. Looks like I won't have the chance. I think Leno didn't orchestrate this. It was the NBC executives. The loser here is Conan, who looks to have truly wanted to honor the Tonight Show legacy. But, we'll see him on Fox or some other network soon. I hope he didn't sign away his right to call the NBC executives out for perpetuity for being such knuckleheads. Well, let's get on with this entry all about your favorite fortified wine from northern Portugal.

As I write this, the rain is streaming down in San Diego -- and a perfect excuse to bust into the 20 year Tawny sitting on the shelf.

What's the difference between Ruby & Tawny, Vintage, LBV, Colheita, and dated Single Quinta Vintage Port? Well, fresh off our tasting/education with Taylor Fladgate last week, I thought that I'll spell out the process in a very concise format so that even a moron could understand it and use it to impress their friends & family!

What is Port wine? Easy. Port wine is a fortified wine from the Douro region of Portugal that has been "shipped" through the city of Porto or Oporto, depending on your language.

What does fortified mean? Well, Port wine begins just like any regular wine. The grapes are grown, harvested, pressed, and allowed to "macerate" with the skins (unless it's a white port) for just a few days. The wine begins its initial fermentation, only to be stopped quite abruptly by the additional of a distilled spirit, which most of the time is a brandy. When you add something with the high level of alcohol like a brandy, the first thing to happen is that the yeast doing its work on fermenting the sugars to alcohol are instantly killed. Most ports are allowed to ferment to about 5% alcohol before the 40% brandy is added. What you're left with is a wine with high alcohol (~20%) and a good amount of residual sugar (r/s, if you want to sound cool).

Why the hell would you want this? Who thought this up? Very simply, it was the English. During their long war with France, England looked to their seaport allies for many things, including wine. Unfortunately, the wine didn't have great closures and would spoil before making it to England. Thus, the idea of "upping" the alcohol to protect the wine on its voyage. A happy accident -- much like Champagne.

Alright, now that I understand Port wines, what are the differences between the different styles? At this point, nothing. All port wine is finished in the same way. Much of the pressing of the grapes are done by foot. This is because much of the Douro was without electricity until 1979. The juice gets a little taste of fermentation, then it gets punched in the face with the addition of brandy. Where then does it go? Wood vats called "pipes." All port wine stays in these wood vats until the second spring after harvest. It is at this point that each individual port house makes the decision to...

Declare a Vintage!

That's the goal with all of your port. Declaring a vintage means putting the year of harvest on the label, waiting for the scores from Parker & Speculator, and then jacking up the price to get the most from your juice.

But, the better houses only declare a few vintages per decade, and even when they do, they pick only the best juice, sometimes a fraction of their entire harvest.

If they declare a vintage, the wine goes into bottles for aging & eventual sale.

What happens to all of the juice not included with the vintage, or all of the juice in a non-vintage year? Well, one or more of the following happens:

1. Wine is bottled and offered for sale. This is called Ruby Port. Hey, isn't that the same as vintage port? Yup, except that the date can't be put on the label. It's non-vintage vintage port. This is usually the least expensive port.
2. Wine is bottled & held back for a few more years (4 to 6 total years) and sold with a date on it. This is Late Bottle Vintage, or LBV for short. The idea here is to offer a non-vintage expression of one vintage with proper minimum age on it to enjoy on release. These wines sell for a fraction of a normal vintage year with the benefit of being ready to drink.
3. Wine is bottled, labeled with a vintage, but not from a vintage year. This is Single Quinta Vintage Port. The house wants to showcase their best wine from the single estate and designate it with a vintage year. These wines typically sell at a steep discount to vintage years, but can be the 2nd most expensive of the ports.
4. Wine is put in small barrels for some time. If the wine from one year's harvest gets mixed with one or more other harvest years, this is what is known as "Tawny" port. The age on a bottle of Tawny represents the "average age" of wines in the mix. A 10 year tawny would have an average age of 10 years, and a 40 year would equal an average age of 40 years. We tried a 40 year tawny at the Taylor tasting that had its oldest harvest year as 1909!!! Tawny ports usually have a brownish tint and are much lighter in fruit and much more pronounced in nutty, butterscotch, and marzipan flavors.
5. The last port, and one of my favorites (other than the first 4 favorites) is kind of a cross between #2 and #4. Colheita ports are those from non-vintage years that spend the first few years with all of the wine, but when a vintage doesn't get declared, the wines go into barrel -- for a long time! The amount of time is determined by the customer. The wine doesn't get bottled until a customer orders it. Don't think of the customer as an individual, but more likely an importer of wine from another country. They'll bottle it, put the date of the harvest year (not a vintage), and ship it. These wines to me are the best example of one harvest, along with barrel aging, making it a cross between ruby, tawny, and vintage, all in one!

Are we clear on all of this, or did I just confuse the hell out of you?

Oh, one more thing. I posted a question on Twitter about the difference between Ruby & Tawny port -- in one word. Nobody got it right. This is right from Robert Bower, 7th generation of the Fladgate family. The difference is: Air. Ruby's are bottle aged, Tawny's are barrel aged. The slats in the barrel allow oxygen in to accelerate the "aging" of the ruby ports. This softening would roughly equal in a very short time the aging you'd see in a bottle over a very long time.

So, there you go. All port starts out the same. All ports start out as Ruby ports. The path after the first two years is where things get different.

And, this entry is done, the rain in East Village, at least, is looking biblical in its rate of speed, and my glass of wine is empty. I think it's time to steal another pour ;)

/mike

Recession Proof Wines

While the politicians and policy makers figure out how to fix the economy, it should already be quite apparent to everyone that times are a bit tighter than normal. Of course you don't want to stop drinking your favorite wines, beers, and cocktails, but you'll need to be a bit more shrewd in order to help offset the rising costs all around you.

One of my favorite adages about wine is from Napoleon: "In victory, you deserve Champagne, in defeat, you need it." Therefore, with the spirit of that saying, you either need wine more now than ever, or you deserve it. Or both. Let's talk about some of the best values out there right now.

Everyone has their favorite producers, but I like to empower my friends & guests to start thinking in terms of "region" & "varietal." That is, once you know for example that you like Pinot Noir from Santa Barbara, but not so much from Santa Monica, you'll begin to unlock the treasure trove of wineries waiting for you to discover.

I am defining a wine value as a wine that retails in the $8 - $15 range.

I'll say right now that if you're looking for value from California, you are going to be sorely underwhelmed. Land prices, insurance prices, distribution margins, and a host of other factors conspire to keep the wines from our state at a pretty high baseline price. I would say that for most of what is coming from a defined AVA in the state, not from a more generic appellation such as Central Coast or California, those wines are priced north of $20 -- not the value that we are looking for. There are some anomalies: Paso Robles puts out some nice blends in the $15 range. Same with Amador & Lodi up near the Sierras. Lots of Italian heritage means plenty of Zinfandel, Barbera, and Sangiovese. Actually, anytime you follow the Italians as they made their way around the globe, you will almost always find some great wines with some great values.

Probably the best place in the world for value right now is Argentina. I'm sure you all know that Malbec is the adopted red grape of Argentina, but have you ventured out to taste the incredible Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, or Charbono from there? How about the incredibly aromatic and refreshing Torrontes? You'll easily find incredible wines in this price point. And lest you think that this is some johnny-come-lately wine region, you should realize that they've been making fine wine down there for far longer than we have here in America.

Chile also offers an incredible bang-for-the-buck, with the star varietals being Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Carmenere. Chilean wines have a distinct "funkiness" to them (for lack of a better word) -- almost a weed or wet earth nose. Some people love this funkiness. I would just decant the wine a bit and enjoy the incredible fruit & structure left behind. And, if we're talking "funkiness," I'd be remiss to not mention South African wines. Chenin Blanc is what they do best, but the Shiraz and other reds are incredible values if you can find them. And decant them -- to take off that funkiness. Pinotage is the premier grape down there, but I find it to be almost always awful.

Moving more to the old world, Spain and the south of France are still pumping out incredible values that defy the Euro/Dollar conversion. Tempranillo is found in almost all regions in Spain, and you really can't go wrong with it. From the meaty & dried fruit versions in Rioja, to the huge lipsmacking bombs coming out of La Mancha & Ribera del Duero. Wine values from France, you say? Sure! Once you get outside the Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, and Alsace regions, many incredible values show themselves. The Languedoc region in the south of France is the world's largest growing region (700,000 acres). They produce everything from Chardonnay to Syrah there, and the nice thing for American consumers is that the wines typically are labelled by varietal so you know what you are getting -- no Little Orphan Annie decoder ring needed. These wines are frequently sub $10, so take the time to explore what is available. One of my "go to" wines before I was in the business was a simple Cotes du Rhone. While the press really loves the wines of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Hermitage, and other notable sub-appellations of the Rhone, very similar aromas & flavors can be had for under $10 from the more generic Cotes du Rhone appellation. This region is where Grenache & Syrah marry into something so wonderfully flavorful and sublime, but with enough character to stand up to most food dishes.

In fact, if you're looking for a magical dinner under $20 for you & your sweetheart, swing by BevMo or Trader Joes for a CDR, and use the rest of the money to buy mussels & french bread. Steam the mussels over some of the wine with some shallot & garlic, and use the bread to enjoy the remainder of the broth. You'll be transported to a French cafe without the hassles of passports & Euro conversions.

Of course, there's plenty of other great stuff out there from the likes of Australia and Italy, but we'll talk more about those next month.

You can absolutely find & enjoy some incredible wines without letting your wine budget go the way of the gas budget. Cheers!

There's a Mad Scientist loose in the cellar!

In my blog last month, I talked at length about the 100 point system used to rate wines and its impact on the wine industry. If you recall, the point system essentially puts a numerical score that is absolute and static on a product that is constantly changing from minute to minute. It's also representative on one person's sole subjective opinion. It's dumbing down the appreciation of wine for the attention deficit connoisseur. Most of all, the point system has indirectly created a monster: wines being created to attain a score, not to be the expression of the grape or the vineyard from which the grapes came.

Wines with a score of 90 points or greater can sell for hundreds of dollars a case more than wines with scores less than that. It is in the best interest of wineries trying to move product to have that magical score -- because it's instant credibility and creates a vortex of demand. But, how do you get a 90 point score?

Enter Enologix, a Sonoma-based firm whose client list includes a virtual who's who of the wine industry. Founder Leo McCloskey used his doctorate in chemical ecology from UC Santa Cruz to identify about 84 chemical compounds, 32 in reds and 52 in whites, that account for the majority of aromas and flavors in wine. Knowing how these compounds interact with each other, and knowing what kind of resulting wines come from those interactions, McCloskey started to feed a database with the recipes for different wines. Once this data was compared to the scores from Robert Parker, you could easily chart the type of wine that scored highly with Parker, and unlock the quantities of those chemical compounds that comprise high scoring wines. Voila! He's reverse-engineered winemaking!

Enologix runs a very secretive shop -- bordering on Dr. Evilish paranoia. Clients sign a NDA for the privilege and presumably very costly process of working with McCloskey's firm.

The process begins in the vineyard. While most wineries use hydrometers to measure brix (sugar levels) to time harvest, Enologix customers deliver grapes once a week to the lab where the grapes are pressed into a quick "laboratory wine" which is then analyzed with a liquid-liquid chromatograph connected to a spectrometer to measure those 84 chemical compounds. The lab reports back to the winery letting them know when to pick.

Once the juice is pressed and in the barrel, Enologix continually monitors the fermenting juice, measuring those key compounds, and recommending changes to the winemaker to get the wine to match those magical profiles.

McCloskey defends his work as being a 21st century solution to centuries old farming methodologies; however, he is cognizant some may wave a finger at him and call him a heretic.

The irony in all of this is that Robert Parker thinks great wines are made in the vineyard. They are expressions of the place where they grow. Expressions of the terroir. He believes in using natural yeasts for fermentation. He believes in not fining and not filtering the wines -- those processes rob the wine of its character -- its soul. Yet, winemakers the globe over are violating all of these centuries old tenets of winemaking in order to get a better score from Parker.

They are making wines in the lab because they have to.

Ignore the scores and discover the mystery of wine for yourself. You'll be amazed, delighted, disappointed, and horrified. But, what a wonderful journey it will be!

Vineyard Place rates 89-92 points

Wine ratings. Are they good for the us, or are they taking the fun & discovery out of wine drinking? Yes to the latter.

You have seen them: Wine Spectator gave this wine an 88, Robert Parker gave that wine a 93, Wine Enthusiast gave another 92 points, Stephen Tanzer rates one at 84, and Wilfred Wong gives everything 88+ points (he does work for BevMo -- of course they want you to buy everything -- why would they let him rate lower than that?).

So what? What does the rating really tell you? It's a snapshot of what the wine critic thought of the wine, in a familiar 100 point scale. That's it. It doesn't mean that you'll like the wine. Unless you know that your palate is exactly the same as one of the critics (very unlikely), the score should mean as much to you as your unused stock options for pets.com

Let's back up and talk a bit of history. Wine critics have been around for centuries -- writing guides, newsletters, and hosting classes. But it wasn't until the 20th century that any kind of "grade" was given to a particular wine. Those grades took the form of stars (one to four, usually), or more commonly a 20 point rating system.

It wasn't until Robert Parker burst onto the scene in 1982 that wine writing would be forever changed. Robert had correctly identified a fundamental problem with wine writers: they were so tangled with the industry that you couldn't trust their reviews. They were accepting dinners, and trips to wine country, and free bottles so often that you had to question their objectiveness.

Parker started his "Wine Advocate" newsletter with the explicit intent of becoming the Ralph Nader of the wine world. He would not accept any of these gifts, and he would pay his own way through the wines he tasted. His reviews, often occupying pages for each of his reviews, became the gold standard for wine reviews. Along the way, he added the 100 point scale, meant solely to use as a quick comparison to like wines. And in doing so he forever changed the way people buy wine.

Having done a lot of research on Parker, I know that he never intended for the score to be the focus. We are kind of an ADD nation -- looking for the quick answer or the bottom line, rushing to the next shiny object to focus our attention. Parker still writes his ultra lengthy reviews for The Wine Advocate, and is a very successful author as well: He penned the definitive guides to Bordeaux, Burgundy, and the Rhone. But most people likely have never read any of that. They just know that Parker gave this wine a 92, so it must be worth buying.

His 100 point system became so popular and so powerful that prices started to move up or down instantly after review. The other players in the wine writing world had to co-opt it. Now, everyone has a 100 point system. The only difference is that Parker still writes exhaustively about the wines he tastes, while the others throw a Zagat-type paragraph with 3 or 4 adjectives to accompany their score. Sadly, the score has become the focus.

This column is too short to go into all the reasons why the scoring system is bad, but suffice to say that scores can't be compared to one another; that is, a 90 point Cabernet is not the same as a 90 point Chenin Blanc (the first a good score for a Cab, the latter a great score for a Chenin). And, a Parker 90 is not the same as a Wine Spectator 90. Certain grape varietals never achieve the classic scores of 95+. You won't see a Pinot Grigio there or a Zinfandel. Why? If someone makes a perfect example of a Zin, shouldn't it warrant a score of close to 100? Only the premier grapes or regions get to play in that exclusive sandbox. Which begs the question, "if certain varietals have a handicap, how useful is a global scoring system for comparison?"

Everything is relative. Relative to the person tasting & his/her palate, relative to expertise, relative to the implicit benchmark used to grade against. Everything is subjective. There is no piece of paper you dip into a wine that gives you a reading of the score. Even the scoring system has changed. Parker used to give points for color, for balance, for bouquet, etc., adding all the parts to get the final score. Now, he magically pulls the number out of the air and with the stroke of his pen (or mouse) he makes or breaks a wine.

I'll go into more detail about scoring and show you all some interesting data behind it next month that will make you question motives and usefulness. I humbly suggest you ignore the score when looking at these publications and focus on the tasting notes. That's where you will start to realize whether or not a particular wine might be a good match for your palate. Better yet, temper all of that and explore some new wines yourself. The more you drink, the more you'll know your palate. You'll know whether you like or despise Pinot from Oregon, and whether anyone can make a great Cabernet in Paso Robles. Once you start to unlock those skills, you'll never need the score crutch again.

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...