Within the borders of Wine’s Metaphysical Country is a complexity of filigree and trellis; a latticework of weft and skein and weave; a many-tendril’d meshwork made of crossroad laid on crossroad, linked to crossroad.
Art meets science here as the past crosses the future over there. Tradition and experiment triangulate and complement. Data mining spreadsheets, fingers spread, dirty nails, the work of fingers, work of hands; a braid of histories. Instinct greeting training; dessucating; pre- and post-industrial entwined.
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Here is Paul Draper, and here is Dan Barber.
Here is Pre-Industrial Winemaking, and here is Farm-to-Table.
In Charles Puglia, we have an embodied ligature connecting The Ridge and The Hill.
Charles Puglia is the Wine Director at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and he is coming to Ridge Vineyards.
The Ridge and The Hill.
As Michael Torino said:
“With the concept of Blue Hill at Stone Barns being a true farm-to-table restaurant, focusing on growing and raising the best possible ingredients, and not so much cooking but handling the product properly, and not using t0o many ingredients in a dish, they may be one of the best fits for Ridge I can think of. Their viewpoint really mirrors our pre-industrial winemaking philosophy, and our decision to include ingredients on our labels.”
This line, I love: Not so much cooking, but handling …
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About Charles Puglia
Charles Puglia has been a professional sommelier for the last 8 years. He currently works as the Wine Director at the highly acclaimed Blue Hill at Stone Barns restaurant in Pocantico Hills, New York. Charles manages all aspects of the beverage program for the restaurant.
Throughout his career, Charles has managed his own beverage programs as well as worked under the guidance of important professionals in the field, many of which have become mentors to him. Prior to working at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Charles held positions that include sommelier at Jean Georges Restaurant in New York City, assistant wine director at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in New York, wine director at Palomino restaurant in Greenwich, CT, and sommelier at Gaia restaurant, also located in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Charles began his career as a sommelier with a simple interest in wine. He began learning through self-education. After spending some time in the field he decided to begin formal education. Charles received his advanced certificate from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust in 2009. He is currently a student of the Court of Master Sommeliers and recently earned his advanced sommelier certificate in August of 2011.
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Charles is the real deal. Authentic, serious, and devotional. And he has a very kind face.
Charles is joining us for #RidgeSomms.
I find this to be so philosophically resonant, so metaphysically relevant, so metaphorically appropriate.
In “Each Moment Is the Universe: Zen And The Way Of Being Time,” Dainin Katagiri says:
According to Dogen, everything that exists is time, so you are time. Dogen uses the phrase “the time has come” to say that time arises from conditions and appears as particular beings. Does that mean that everything appears by chance? No, in Buddhism “the time has come” is known as interdependent co-origination, or conditioned origination.
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For Ridge Vineyards, for Blue Hill at Stone Barns, for Charles Puglia, the time has come.
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The Time Has Come.
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And with that, we invite you to join Charles Puglia, Michael Torino, and all the other luminaries that make up the cast of #RidgeSomms, for an extraordinary two days of all things Ridge, and wine, and food, and Ridge!
If there is one thing I get teased about above all else, it is the fact that I always wear a sportcoat.
In fact, it wouldn’t be far from the truth to say, that literally not a day goes by without someone remarking on my constant penchant for appearing so encoated.
But to borrow a favorite colloquialism: That’s just the kind of guy what I’m.
Which is why I am now very fond of Chef Frank Stitt.
Mind you, I’ve never met Frank Stitt, but I’m going to very soon, because he’s coming to #RidgeSomms. And that makes me very happy.
It makes me very happy for a great many reasons, not the least of which is that, on his restaurant’s website (the very legendary Highland’s Bar & Grill in Birmingham, Alabama), is the following:
Jackets are preferred for gentlemen.
I am now very fond of Chef Frank Stitt.
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As is Dan Buckler.
Dan Buckler, Regional Sales Manager, Ridge Vineyards
Dan Buckler is the Third Jewel in the Ridge Vineyards Triple Crown of Regional Sales Managers.
Like Michael Torino, and like Christina Donley, he is a tireless representative for Ridge, and he too travels a a great many miles.
From Kentucky to Kansas, Utah to Hawaii, L.A. to LA, that’s a full-bore itinerary.
But for Dan, it’s all worth it, in no small part because of something he learned at Chef Frank Stitt’s table.
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When I first began preparing for #RidgeSomms, I talked to Dan about his invitees; I wanted to know the backstory behind why these particular individuals had been singled out for invitations. Sure, the bios are amazing, sure the cred is through the roof, but knowing Dan, I knew there had to be personal stories there too. Dan’s like that; a narrative kind of cat.
Here’s what he told me about Frank Stitt:
“I first had dinner at Highland’s in 2002, and Chef Stitt came by the table during the evening. It was a revelation, one of the 2-3 great meals that prompted me to say “I should be selling wine to restaurants instead of shoes to shoe stores”. Highland’s remains one of my favorite restaurants in the USA.”
That’s the Poetry of Buckler; a Carver-esque reconciliation of humility and pride, a Levine-like understanding of work, a Fante-esque sense of one’s own destinies, and a dry Matthews-ian wit.
Dan Buckler is very fond of Chef Frank Stitt.
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Consider these degrees of separation (otherwise knows as The Wine Bone Connects To The Kitchen Bone):
Dan Buckler is connected to Frank Stitt.
Frank Stitt is connected to Richard Olney.
Richard Olney is connected to John Olney.
John Olney is connected to Ridge Vineyards.
So OF COURSE Frank Stitt is coming to #RidgeSomms!
How’s it all work? Like this!
1. re: Dan’s connection to Frank, see above.
2. re: Frank’s connection to Richard, dig this from Frank’s official bio:
“…Stitt’s culinary journey began to take shape when he moved to San Francisco and, as a philosophy student, noticed that beloved cookbooks were taking precedence over the works of Plato and Kierkegaard. He honed his kitchen skills at various Bay Area restaurants, including the kitchen of Alice Waters at her now legendary restaurant, Chez Panisse. Waters introduced him to Richard Olney, who at the time was working on the Good Cook series for Time-Life Books and needed an assistant…”
3. re: Richard’s connection to John; John is/was Richard’s nephew.
4. re: John’s connection to Ridge; John is the winemaker at our Lytton Springs estate!
(as an aside, check the following, from Richard’ Olney’s New York Times Obituary: To his great delight, one of Mr. Olney’s nephews, John, went into the wine business in California, working at Ridge Vineyards in Cupertino.)
So really, it’s truly destiny that brings Frank Stitt to Ridge Vineyars for #RidgeSomms.
Ridge Vineyards is adding ingredients to its back labels.
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“Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.” – Chopin
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The premise is this, that if the raw materials are there, and they’re good, then not that much else is needed.
Son House and a National
Basho and seventeen syllables.
Rothko and red.
Kerouac and an Underwood.
Anonymous Four and Hildegard von Bingen.
Chopin and a piano.
Tenshō Shūbun and ink.
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Pro Tools.
If you’re familiar with it, then you either curse it as a devil, or praise it as a god, but whatever your feelings, it’s hard to dispute the truth of Pro Tools and the music industry.
It changed everything. Can’t sing in tune? Pro Tools has you covered. Can’t play in time? Pro Tools has a drum loop just for you. Third verse should have been the first? Pro Tools can shift that around for you. Need a piano part, but no one in the band plays piano? Pro Tools. Real marimba cost too much? Pro Tools.
And so on.
I may sound cynical, but I’m no Luddite. I was working with Todd Rundgren in San Francisco back in the very early nineties, on an interactive music project. We were still in the CD-Rom days then. I was there at the beginning. I recorded an entire album on ADAT when it was only me and the Grateful Dead team using them. And while my first album was on analog tape, my last one was with Pro Tools.
Pro Tools.
There is a great story about Pro Tools.
The setting? A music production conference. All producers and engineers. No rock stars, just tech geeks. Pro Tools was looming on the horizon; to some, it was the beginning; to others, the end. A team of designers gave a talk. They extolled the virtues of what Pro Tools could and would do. It was controversial. People shouted, friendships collapsed, factions formed. In the middle of it all, a seasoned veteran stood up. The place quieted down. He had a lot of gold records. When it was down to silence, he pointed to himself, and said the word, “Pro.” Then he held up a razor, and said “Tools.” And he walked out.
Buffalo Springfield’s “Broken Arrow” famously took some 60+ takes to create, with all the different sections spliced together; this was how it was done in the old days; tape and a razor. And yes, this was manipulation of a kind, but what’s important is that EVERY note on the final recording is a REAL note, played by a real person, using a real instrument. The song was assembled from native parts, and raw material.
Ridge Vineyards has elected to include an ingredients list on its labels. Here is Paul Draper on why:
At Ridge we call our approach to winemaking “pre-industrial”. We believe that for anyone attempting to make fine wine, modern additives and invasive processing limit true quality and do not allow the distinctive character of a fine vineyard to determine the character of the wine.
Ridge is adding to its labels a list of actions and ingredients to demonstrate how little intervention is necessary to produce a fine, terroir-driven wine from distinctive fruit.
This is philosophy, and this is principle. And this is reason enough.
But not the only reason. Consider safety and health.
Did you know that The TTB (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau) has approved over 60 different additives for use in wine? Some are fairly benign of course, but some are not. Consider Velcorin. It’s approved. And here is just a sampling of what our friends over at PinotBlogger.com found out about it:
Special Remarks on other Toxic Effects on Humans:
Acute Potential Health Effects:
Skin: Causes skin irritation.
Eyes: Exposure to vapor or mist will cause eye irritation.
Inhalation: Inhalation of vapor or mist may be irritating to mucous membranes and upper respiratory tract.
May affect behavior/central nervous system. Symptoms may include somnolence, tremor.
May also affect respiratory system (dyspnea), and metabolism
Ingestion: May cause gastrointestinal tract irritation.
The toxicological properties of this substance have not been fully investigated.
Nice, no?
No.
Want to see all the additives currently approved? Click here to review the TTB’s website.
There is also taste. Do you know what Mega Purple is? It’s concentrate, essentially. Cheap grape concentrate. Sold for about $135/gallon, and added to so many wines it’d make your head spin to see them all. Not enough color in your wine? Mega Purple can fix that. Not enough body? Mega Purple can fix that too. Don’t like the final texture? Mega Purple it. Need some sweetness? Mega Purple again. Oops, bit of Brett get in there? Mega Purple can mask that. Mega Purple: You can put that s*$t on everything.
Dan Berger contributed a great article on the use of Mega Purple in Wines & Vines magazine; you can read it here.
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The first wines were made—or, better said, made themselves—some 8000 years ago between the Caspian and Black Seas in the area that today includes eastern Turkey, northern Iran, Georgia, and Armenia. We can surmise that early hunter-gatherers picked wild grapes. Occasionally, instead of eating them, they may have crushed them for juice and perhaps forgotten them for a week or two. Attracted to the sugar, bees and wasps would have carried yeasts to grapes already broken on the vine by birds or wind; those yeasts fermented the juice. When tasted, it had been transformed—as if by magic or a divine hand—from simple, sweet fruit into something affecting the senses in surprising and enjoyable ways. In the Christian ritual of Communion, this natural transformation became a symbol for wine as the blood of Christ.
Thus begins a new essay from Ridge Vineyards entitled “What’s In A Wine?”. It’s heady stuff at first glance, but upon closer inspection, it’s real, it’s direct, and it’s now. Consider a Ridge Vineyards label:
It’s right there at the letter C. “Yeasts brought to broken, mature berries by bees and wasps.” Just like before Jesus.
But consider all the letters:
A-D are pretty straightforward; not a great deal being done by us in the way of invasion or manipulation. Cutting each cluster by hand? Well, short of waiting for the cluster to fall off of its own volition, that’s about as minimalist as is possible if your intention is to produce wine. Farming practices that protect environment, workers, and community? Well, that certainly involves some proactivity, and verdicts on the methods are certainly subjective. For Ridge, we define sustainability like this:
A system that is sensitive to the environment, responsible to the community, and economically feasible to implement and maintain. These three principles provide a framework and direction to guide our decision-making. Sustainability is an ever-changing target, even a state of mind: improvements can always be made to lessen one’s impact on the planet.
Integrated pest management. Beneficial crop cover. Organic farming. Sap Flow Monitoring.
These are just a few examples. For more, please click here.
C we already discussed. D is pretty much the same. What’s needed is already there. We rely on that, and nothing more. But E is an addition, this is true. How invasive is it? Go back to that TTB list of approved additives. Notice anything? Calcium Carbonate is one of very few items without a restriction associated with it. Why? Because it’s harmless. It’s basically Alka-Seltzer for wine. Settles the acid a bit.
And then we come to F. This is the big one. This is the Firestarter. S02. If there is a line that separates “Natural Wine” from whatever ostensibly isn’t, it’s probably drawn in S02.
The matter of S02 is probably one of the most misunderstood issues in the contemporary world of wine, and truth be told, I’m not going even come close to solving the mysteries here. What I am hopefully going to do is clarify the language of F.
Smallest S02 addition needed to maintain vineyard character.
What does that mean? Or, more specifically perhaps, how much is smallest, and how does that maintain character?
Thomas Ulrich wrote a tremendous article in Wines & Vines recently (January 2013), entitled “Going Native, Very Carefully.” In it, Ridge Vineyards winemaker Eric Baugher details with astonishing specificity our winemaking processes, and in particular, our handling of S02. To the question of how much, there is this:
“The winery team adds 30-35 ppm of SO2 to the must (at crush) to select for native Saccharomyces and limit the growth of bacteria that could spoil malolactic fermentation.”
—and this—
“To reduce the risk of oxidizing or spoiling the wine, the winery team adds small amounts of SO2 before crush, immediately following the completion of malolactic fermentation and during each quarterly racking thereafter. According to Baugher, a small dose of sulfur dioxide is 5-10 ppm. For him, the amount of SO2 depends on pH and residual sugar-aldehyde formation produced by any in-barrel springtime fermentation.”
To get at some of the technical detail above, I direct you to an excellent article by Shea A.J. Comfort; you can find it here. In the meantime, to get to the real nitty-gritty, the important thing to know is this: ppm stands for parts-per-million. Parts-per-million. Meaning, 30-35 ppm is … not much. Numerous sources will confirm that the total SO2 allowed in wine in the US is 350 ppm, and in the EU it is 160 ppm (for red wines). So again, 30-35ppm is … not so much.
So why add it at all? This is where the “maintain vineyard character” part comes in. Paul Draper spoke to the issue in an excellent interview posted on Alice Feiring’s site “The Feiring Line.” Consider the following, excerpted from said interview:
The difference of opinion over natural wine often occurs over the use of SO2. Of course we have the problem that EU regulations allow an addition of 10ppm and US regulations allow 0ppm addition for “organic” wine. That problem is really beside the point as an addition of 10ppm in virtually every case is insufficient to keep the natural process on the proverbial straight and narrow in order that the wine will consistently express the distinct character and quality of its site. Of course that presupposes that the site is sufficiently good terroir to provide that character and quality in the first place. My experience of growing fine wine and of tasting wines made with 0ppm to 10ppm is that unless the minimum effective level of SO2 is used the wines will not consistently express terroir. Given that, that expression or the attempt at that expression is essential to what I love about wine, we carefully analyze the wine to determine that effective minimum level.
If I can offer a translation of sorts, I believe the gist to be this: At Ridge, we add just enough S02 to PREVENT anything changing the flavor of the juice, as opposed to adding S02 specifically TO change the flavor of the juice.
And that is the A to F of a Ridge label.
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We provide other resources as well. Consider a “typical” wine page on our website, say, for the newly-released 2011 Ridge Vineyards Geyserville (the wine whose label we analyzed above). Scroll down the page, and you’ll find this:
Winemaking
All estate-grown grapes, hand harvested. Destemmed and crushed. Fermented on the native yeasts, followed by full malolactic on the naturally-occurring bacteria. 16.9mg/ liter calcium carbonate added to ten small fermentors to moderate acidity; minimum effective sulfur (30 ppm at crush; 92 ppm over the course of aging). Pad filtered at bottling. In keeping with our philosophy of minimal intervention, this is the sum of our actions.
That’s it.
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We have considered health and safety. We have addressed taste. We have discussed terroir and vineyard character. There is also a bit of the activist behind it all. In a recent e-mail, Ridge winemaker Eric Baugher wrote the following, as regards additives and ingredient labeling:
We feel, by listing our ingredients, we can bring the issue into the consciousness of consumers. Not that we want to make enemies in the industry, or attack any wineries for what they might add to their wines, we are looking to consumers to become more knowledgeable about these additives and practices by volunteering this information on our labels. If they begin to make their purchasing decisions based on the level of purity of the wines they drink, then it possibly could have an effect on making those wineries think twice before they add something.
And in a letter Paul Draper recently penned on the matter, he wrote:
We refer to winemaking at Ridge as “pre-industrial” – an approach that involves the use of native yeasts, hand-harvested, sustainably grown grapes, naturally occurring malolactic bacteria, and a small number of natural ingredients used in making fine wine over the last two hundred years. We are hoping to encourage other fine-wine makers to provide a list of ingredients for their customers.
For more on Paul Draper and the concept of Pre-Industrial Winemaking, please click here, but for the purposes of this post, I hope the following definition will suffice:
Pre-industrial winemaking begins with respect for the natural process that transforms fresh grapes into wine, and the 19th-Century model of minimum intervention. When you have great vineyards that produce high quality grapes of distinctive individual character, this is not only an environmentally and socially responsible approach, it’s also the best way to consistently make fine wine.
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The point is, in the end, it’s for you. We want your wine to be healthy and safe. We want it to taste good. We want it to be unique. And we want it to be honest. We want you to know the pro, and the tool.
We want the wine to be symbolic, and we want it to be transformative.
We want it to be Son House and a National; Basho and seventeen syllables; Rothko and red.; Kerouac and an Underwood; Anonymous Four and Hildegard Von Bingen; Monk and a piano; Tenshō Shūbun and ink.
For myself, as someone who writes nearly daily about wine, this is an exciting time of year, a season of awareness for wine-inspired prose.
It is a time to redouble efforts to experience the great diversity of voices on offer, to luxuriate in the excitement of the new, and to remember the pleasures of the legendary.
It is a time of discovery for me, a time in which I find, just when I thought I knew a little something about wine & the culture of wine, that in fact there are worlds upon worlds upon layers upon worlds of which I am still unaware.
And it is a time of reconnect, in which I return to some of my original heroes in the field, and remind myself once again why they’re so good, and why they have been so influential to me.
And to be honest, it is a time of friendship, something I never envisioned or expected when I began writing this blog. Back in April of 2009, I had no idea what I was doing, or where I was going. (Which is possibly still the case!) Yet here I am in 2013, proud and happy to note that some of my great friends are … wine bloggers! I am happy to say that I have truly gotten to KNOW a great many of these writers — some virtually, many in “real life” — and the annual Wine Bloggers Conference has become, amongst other things, a rare and special opportunity to see again familiar folks whose company I truly enjoy.
But most of all, this is an opportunity to celebrate achievement.
So if you would, please join me in the nominations process, and take a moment to acknowledge those whose passion for all things wine, all things cultural, all things artisanal, serves to ignite you in your own life, chimes the Zen Awareness Slap inside the halls of your own temple, reminds you again and again and again that wine is our Liquid of Ritual, and that nothing less than memorable will suffice.
Nominate one of these writers. Nominate many of these writers. Nominate many of these writers for multiple awards. It may be a small gesture on your part, but it would mean an awful lot to a great many wonderful people.
That he is one of California’s (and the world’s!) greatest writers is well-known.
That he shares a birthday with Freddie Keppard – King Oliver’s great rival in the jazz days of old — is perhaps not so well-known.
That one of his great novels — Tortilla Flat — has at least 148 direct references to wine is perhaps even less well-known than that.
But that John Steinbeck favored late-night snacks of Chili, Tuna Fish on Crackers, and Red Wine is perhaps the finest wine needle in this literary grapestack.
Cheers to you, John Steinbeck! I certainly know with what book, and what snack, I shall be spending my evening!
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For the above lovely bits of Steinbeckian arcana, I am indebted to Buzzle, and Interpolations.
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“Two gallons is a great deal of wine, even for two paisanos. Spiritually the jugs maybe graduated thus: Just below the shoulder of the first bottle, serious and concentrated conversation. Two inches farther down, sweetly sad memory. Three inches more, thoughts of old and satisfactory loves. An inch, thoughts of bitter loves. Bottom of the first jug, general and undirected sadness. Shoulder of the second jug, black, unholy despondency. Two fingers down, a song of death or longing. A thumb, every other song each one knows. The graduations stop here, for the trail splits and there is no certainty. From this point anything can happen.” –John Steinbeck, from Tortilla Flat
Napa Valley may be the first place that comes to mind when you think of California wine, but there is no place like the Santa Cruz Mountains. That’s where you’ll find Ridge Vineyards, and one of the world’s most legendary wines: Monte Bello. Christopher Watkins, Manager of Retail Sales and Hospitality as well as the Author and Host of 4488: A Ridge Blog, discusses how the people and the place all combine to make bottled poetry. Speaking of poetry, Watkins has also published a book of his verse. You’ll find his unique perspective on art and language to be the perfect guide for this journey.
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How do you feel about podcasts? Do you listen to them? Are you a subscriber, or a casual drop-in? Do you follow just one, or many?
I’m pondering podcasts.
Somewhere in the past decade –decade-and-a-half maybe– the vitriol around wine took on a new and bizarre ardor. “Wine Snobbism” seemed to have become a truly terrible personality affliction, and its alleged purveyors, practitioners, and carriers were earmarked for a stunning panoply of recriminations.
I have voiced opinions on this, and matters related, in a previous post (available here), so won’t redraw the argument again, but suffice it to say, the tangible backlash to the perceived pervasiveness of the purportedly rampant snobbism took on new intensity, whelping dizzying iterations of professedly antidotal solutions: Wine For Morons,Wine For Those Who Can’t Read, Wine For The Cheap, The Dolt’s Guide To Wine, The Gauche Grape, and other such condescending fare.
Fortunately, into this fray comes Jameson Fink, one of the most level-headed hosts ever to grace the educational stage.
May I present the following “mission statement,” the text of which comes from the description for Jameson’s new and excellent podcast series Wine Without Worry:
Does a leather-bound wine list send an icy chill up your spine? Does walking through a wine store feel like navigating a sinister labyrinth? Put aside your anxiety and join Jameson Fink on Wine Without Worry as he serves up a flight of experts to demystify wine. It’s a relaxed look at wine, with helpful tips and insight to bring your confidence level up, and keep the wine flowing.
Do you know why I like this? Because it acknowledges that one might be intimidated, but it does not condescend. It is clear, straightforward, and honest. It is kind.
Which is pretty much Jameson in a nutshell.
But add one more word: professional.
Jameson Fink is a pro.
In my life, for myriad and whatever reasons, it turns out that I have been interviewed many, many times, about many, many things. And interviews are tricky. At best, they are often perfunctory. At worst, they can be awkwardness and torture and misery and frustration and embarrassment and tedium and awfulness. But every once in a while, they’re not only enjoyable, but actually interesting, informative, and refreshing.
Such was the case when Jameson Fink interviewed me for his Wine Without Worry podcast. Jameson is intelligent, and he does his homework. He is quick on his verbal feet, and he runs deep with content. He is clever, and he knew well ahead the full scope of what he wanted to cover. He is funny and snarky in equal measure, but long on respect and devoid of hollow irony. In short, he was a consummate host, and an excellent interviewer.
For the answer to an 18-letter wine destination, a fully unexpected Fiddle Faddle reference, and a rich look into all things Ridge, Wine, and The Santa Cruz Mountains, I heartily encourage you to check out the following episode of Wine Without Worry, hosted by Jameson Fink, and humbly featuring yours truly:
Napa Valley may be the first place that comes to mind when you think of California wine, but there is no place like the Santa Cruz Mountains. That’s where you’ll find Ridge Vineyards, and one of the world’s most legendary wines: Monte Bello. Christopher Watkins, Manager of Retail Sales and Hospitality as well as the Author and Host of 4488: A Ridge Blog, discusses how the people and the place all combine to make bottled poetry. Speaking of poetry, Watkins has also published a book of his verse. You’ll find his unique perspective on art and language to be the perfect guide for this journey.
Oh Susanna! Don’t you cry for me, cuz I’m goin to Monte Bello with Estate Cab on my knee …
And by Susanna, of course, I mean Susanna Hoffs; she, of The Bangles, who formerly noted that, as opposed to Monday, Sunday was in fact her Funday.
Not so I.
Monday is my Funday.
At least this most recent one was.
This Monday most recent, we had cause to open, pour, and taste a SEVEN-VINTAGE-VERTICAL of Ridge Vineyards Estate Cabernet: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and the not-yet-released 2010.
To be honest, this may have been one of the best tastings I’ve ever been involved with; these wines just tasted extraordinary!
So, “standard” tasting notes were simply not going to cut it. This was too special, too powerful, too spiritual.
Thus, “One Word Tasting Note Rock, Paper, Scissors!”
How does it work?
You partner up with another taster, and you taste a wine together. And together, you become as the Haiku artist becomes:
“He is like a tuning fork placed before a vibrating one of the same frequency. When he contemplates the impassionate, living object he immediately realizes its quality just as the sound from the tuning forks will become audible. He is in a state of aesthetic resonation, a harmonized whole of all the meaningful experiences he has had, brought to bear upon the moment of aesthetic contemplation.” — Kenneth Yasuda, “Japanese Haiku: Its Essential Nature and History”
And then you count to three, a la Rock, Paper, Scissors.
And then you give voice to your one-word tasting note; your audibilized vibration, your harmonized whole.
And then, with time, you may seek common threads in the spontaneous vibrations of your respective tuning forks.
I was with my colleague Sam Howles-Banerji.
We began with the 2004 Estate Cabernet.
1, 2, 3:
Soulful Mushroom
Commonalities? Obvious! Just two other ways of sayin’ Funky!
Jazz. having an earthy, blues-based quality or character.
funky 1 (ˈfʌŋkɪ)
— adj , funkier , funkiest
1.
(of music) passionate, soulful; of or pertaining to funk
2.
authentic; earthy
3.
stylish and exciting; cool: funky jeans
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Next up, the 2005 Estate Cabernet.
1, 2, 3:
Incantatory Terrier
Common Themes: Incessant, Devotional, Hypnotic
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2006 Estate Cabernet
1, 2, 3:
Horse & Buggy Velvet Mineral
The thread? Contrast; the rusticity of horse-drawn old-fashionedness amidst a fresh, new spring day – velvet & mineral
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2007 Estate Cabernet
1, 2, 3:
Country Biker
Common Theme: The wild open spaces! Freedom! Limitless possibilitiy amidst boundless beauty! An internal code of honor, a rhythm and law all its own.
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2008 Estate Cabernet
1, 2, 3:
Carnival Punk Rock
Commonalities? Condensed, concentrated, intense; distillation of raw passion; decadence and excitement
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2009 Estate Cabernet
1, 2, 3:
Racy Largesse
Thematic unity? Expressive and generous sensuality
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2010 Estate Cabernet
1, 2, 3:
Pistachio Ice Cream on the beach
Sunset
Ok, that first one is hardly one word, but the commonalities here are really quite fascinating … That two wine tasters, upon tasting a specific wine at the indentical time, should then each, interdependently of the other, audibilize the idyll … aesthetic resonation indeed.
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And that, my friends, is One Word Tasting Note Rock, Paper, Scissors.
And that, my friends, is our 7-vintage Estate Cabernet Vertical.
Very early on in my tenure at Ridge Vineyards, I made the decision to play only The Jazz in the Monte Bello Tasting Room.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, this decision was noted and noticed by a notably wider circle than just the one comprised of my colleagues in the tasting room. Of particular note, it was most decidedly noticed by the man who was not only my boss, but also the then-president of the company, Donn Reisen.
Donn Reisen
It was a gift of innocence, I suppose, that had largely left me unworried about bothering Donn up to that point. Of course I’d heard a rumor or two; how he’d once harshly berated a staffer for inappropriate application of a flashlight during decantation of a library Monte Bello, for example.
Yet still I blundered on unawares, too green to worry, too naïve to be afraid.
And then along came Donn.
One afternoon, there he came, strolling in, in that shambolically purposeful yet hobo-esque way of his, right into the middle of the empty mid-day tasting room, as I was wiping down counters and re-arranging menus, and listening to The Jazz.
He ambled in, paused at the very center of the rug that was in the very center of the room, and cocked his head towards a corner of the room where there was perched a small speaker. And he listened. Listened as Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” streamed through the pulsing mesh of the small black screen.
John Coltrane
And after a miniature eternity, he then turned to me and said, “I think the saxophone is the most expressive of instruments; the most like the human voice. It’s beautiful.” And then he walked out.
That was over four years ago, but I still feel the mojo of that moment as if it were yesterday.
Not the moment of Donn approving of the music.
The moment of Donn feeling that music, recognizing in it something that connected directly to his own humanity
There is something so potent about this sort of recognition, this moment of cognizance that something outside of oneself somehow not only speaks to oneself, but is oneself.
Kindredity. A made-up word, of course, but one whose meaning, is, I believe, a clear one.
Kindredity: A state of feeling kindred to something else; related by descent, associated by origin.
This was, I believe, Donn’s state while listening to “A Love Supreme” in that moment.
—
And I wonder now, as I ponder on this all, if that isn’t in fact what draws us to wine itself in the first place?
Is it somehow true that the wines we love the most are the ones we somehow find ourselves in? The ones which induce this state of kindredity?
It is more than a mirror, more than wishful thinking. It is not so easy as “I think I’m bold and strong, and so I like a bold and strong wine” or “I’m sensitive and complex and I prefer my wines the same.”
And it is more than mutual attraction, more than compatible idiosyncrasy. It is not so easy as “You’re mysterious and I’m attracted to mystery” or “You’re powerful and I’m submissive.”
If the poem’s narrator and the poem’s dolphin are somehow united in “the ancient mammalian rite of recognition,” what is the modifier of rite when the same sentence becomes about wine? When a taster and a wine are somehow ritually united, what describes the rite?
What is our kindredity with wine?
–
I wish I could ask Donn now what I didn’t know then. But alas, I cannot. He is gone.
What I can do, is turn to the great Chinese poet Wang Wei …
Dear stone, little platter alongside cascading streamwater, willow branches are sweeping across my winecup again.
And if you say spring wind explains nothing, tell me why, when it scatters blossoms away, it blows them here to me?
–
Snowy Stream, by Wang Wei
(The poem above — “Playfully Written on a Flat Stone” — was translated by David Hinton, and can be found in his book “The Selected Poems of Wang Wei”)
I lived in New York once, and then left, and then moved back and lived there again. That should tell you something about my feelings for New York.
That said, I lived in Northern California once, and then left, and then moved back, and I am now here to stay. That should also tell you something about my feelings for New York.
That said, my missus and I have maintained our subscriptions to The New York Times and The New Yorker.
Meaning, I read Eric Asimov.
Because, as the great and wise Tom Hill says, he has original thoughts. And because, as I say, his heart and his palate are in the right place.
So when Eric wants to talk Zinfandel, I want to listen.
Particularly because Eric doesn’t normally much like Zinfandel.
Fortunately, it turns out he likes ours.
It was an odd quest Mr. Asimov recently set out on; a search for Zinfandels evidencing restraint.
Zinfandels that exhibited freshness, energy, and balance.
Fish in a barrel, or Nessie in the Loch?
They searched, they selected, they tasted. The results?
You could say we were mildly disappointed by our tasting. Certainly, lower alcohol levels by themselves are no guarantee that a wine will be lively and energetic. Yet we hope that more zinfandel producers will embrace the notion that wines can be both agile and intense rather than aiming simply for blockbuster power.
Ok, sounds like it didn’t go very well, right?
Not so!
They did indeed find the wines they were hoping for, just not a great many of them. But the ones they did love, they really loved. And they weren’t even surprised to be loving them. Dig this:
Our No. 1 wine was no surprise. For decades, Ridge has been making great zinfandels from its old-vine vineyards in Sonoma County, and the 2010 from Lytton Springs in Dry Creek Valley was yet another. It was hefty enough at 14.4 percent but beautifully structured, nuanced and refreshing.
I knew I admired Eric for a reason!
In all seriousness, I do indeed admire what he’s done here, because he is raising vital questions relevant not just to the world of wine, but to the world in general. Inadvertently perhaps, but he is raising them just the same.
What he is really doing, is asking us to face our definition of power.
What is power?
As a species, we’re pretty feeble in many ways. We cannot fly like birds fly. We cannot “breathe” under water as fish can. Our eyes are weak, and we cannot see in the dark. Our ears are weak, and we cannot hear long distances or wide pitches. We cannot hibernate like bears, nor run as fast as cheetahs. Our skin is fragile; it protects us from neither heat nor sun. We do not live as long as turtles.
What we can do, or should I say, what we do have, is brains. Big brains, with big thoughts in them. And by virtue of our brains, we have achieved a unique sort of power in the world.
But what is important, what is so very important to remember, is the origin of this singular power. It is not a power rooted in physical strength. It is not a power rooted in size, or velocity, or scale. It is not a power of oppression, or violence. It is a power of nuance, and complexity. It is a power of responsivity; compensational in nature, conciliatory in spirit. It is a power of compromise, humility, and respect.
It is a power of observation, a power born from the act of seeing the world, and striving to find a place in it. It is an integrative power.
Misused, it becomes all the things it is, in fact, not. It becomes violent. It becomes oppressive. It becomes ugly. It becomes destructive. Eventually, it ceases even to be power. It becomes merely a weapon.
There is power in a haiku. There is violence in a gun.
Drink freshness, energy, and balance.
Drink haiku.
Before the white chrysanthemum the scissors hesitate a moment.
ki/ 
