For some, St. Elmo conjures images of luminous plasma. For others, Rob Lowe’s crisp jawline, and a song by John Parr.
But for Christina Donley, St. Elmo means one thing, and one thing only: Ribeye mid-rare and a half bottle of Ridge.
You may recall Christina Donley from a recent post about Chicago, but one should bear in mind that Chi’s are not the only rails The Donley rides.
Christina Donley, Regional Sales Manager, Ridge Vineyards
As with Michael Torino, Christina Donley is a Regional Sales Manager for Ridge Vineyards, and as with Michael Torino, she covers a great deal of ground.
Behold:
Christina Donley – Regional Sales Manager (NorCal, OR, WA, AK, ID, MT, CO, ND, SD, WY, IA, IL, IN, OH, MI)
That’s hardcore.
~
The St. Elmo Steak House has been in downtown Indianapolis since 1902.
That’s hardcore too.
And, guess who’s dined there? Check this:
Jon Bon Jovi, Neil Diamond, Sammy Hagar, Daryl Hall, Waylon Jennings, Billy Joel, Lyle Lovett, Johnny Mathis, John Mellencamp, Lou Rawls, Paul Shaffer, Brian Setzer, Gene Simmons, Stephen Stills, Michael Stipe, Ann & Nancy Wilson, Neil Young, The Black Crowes, Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Rolling Stones, U2, AC/DC, and Little Feat.
Just to name a few.
But none of that compares to the following testimonial, from The Donley herself:
Every time I go to Indianapolis, I find myself drawn to the bar at St. Elmo’s. Like a moth to a flame. I sit down and order the same thing every single time. Ribeye mid-rare and a half bottle of Ridge. All the bartenders know me by name and treat me like family.
That should be just about all you need to know.
But, just in case you need to know more, it’s worth noting that the St. Elmo Steak House was named a 2012 America’s Classic by the James Beard Foundation. And that Wine Spectator bestowed upon them a Best of Award of Excellence.
But really, all you really need to do is remember what The Donley said. Like a moth to a flame.
~
So are we, at Ridge Vineyards, excited that Dave Poore — Manager & Cellar Steward at the St. Elmo Steak House — will be joining us for #RidgeSomms?
You bet yer boots we are! And we hope you are too!
#RidgeSomms will be a great way for you to get to know more about Dave and St. Elmo, but in the meantime, check ‘em out on Facebook and Twitter:
And with that, we invite you to join Dave, Christina, 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!
Ridge Vineyards is adding ingredients to its back labels.
~
~
“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
~
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.
~
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.
~
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.
~
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.
~
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.
~
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.
I used to live in Chicago. Amazing place. Not climatically habitable by humans necessarily, but an amazing place.
The home of Nelson Algren. That’s enough for me.
But that’s not all.
Heaven on earth for a foodie, where rivers of wine run down the streets, and doghouse bassists hand out ladles for a smile.
Amazing place, Chicago.
Sweet Home Chicago.
Oh … baby don’t you want to go
Oh … baby don’t you want to go
Back to the land of California
To my sweet home Chicago
Robert Johnson may have had a singularly esoteric sense of geography, but in truth it was a prophetic one, as there is most certainly a connection between Cali and Chi.
The connection?
The Donley.
The intrepid Christina Donley. International Woman of Winestry.
Dig.
Look real close at that wrist-band, and you’ll note the words Cochon 555.
I queried The Donley on The Gig, and here is what I dug:
—Have you done this event before?
Yes, twice before. Once in Chicago and then in SF. It’s been about two years since I last participated. See the photo. The bracelet was the event pass.
—Which part of a pig goes best with Merlot? With Zinfandel?
With the Merlot: simple double cut pork chop, grilled to perfection, seasoned with some salt, pepper, and if you want to fancy, fennel pollen. For Zinfandel, crispy pork jowl in steamed buns. Like this. Nomtastic!
—Least likely Merlot pairing that actually works?
The cheese and potato tamales from the Tamale Lady in San Francisco. Delish!
—Best Merlot and junk food pairing?
BBQ flavored Kettle Chips. Duh.
—If Merlot were a band, who would they be? Or conversely, if Merlot was a genre, what would it be? Indie pop? Emo? Pop Punk? BeBop? And, why?
At first I was thinking David Bowie because he walks the line between being soft yet strong, male yet supremely feminine… But then my mind wandered to Big Mama Thornton. I think she is so underappreciated. She embodies power and fearlessness. Her singing was borderline audacious… I see a lot of similarities to her and our Merlot.
Big Mama Thornton Merlot in Chicago. Brought to you by Ridge Vineyards. Endorsed the The Donley. Reprezented by The Erin.
I’m on a plane. I can’t complain.
~
And if, when you paint your world, it’s Sepia, then you must know, that our Merlot, will be part of the show, at Sepia, in Chi, on Fri:
Per The Donley, The Erin will be kickin’ the new k-nowledge.
Erin represents us in Chi, and that’s no lie.
And she’ll be gettin’ down to the Brown in ChiTown; Sepia Style on the Tile with her Dial on Smile and her Ah So on Merlot.
***Inside Scoop Alert***
Extry, Extry, dig all about it, straight from the Wine Director’s mouth:
“Your 2010 Ridge Vineyards Estate Merlotwill be paired up with Chef Andrew Zimmerman’s Duck Breast Wrapped In Duck Sausage dish. It will be the accompaniment to the anchoring dish of the night.”
I drive from Santa Cruz to our mountain everyday, and yes, it is a long, strange trip; one sees many, many microclimes en route. That said, there was a certain uniform tonality to the timbre of the morning on this, the 4th of April.
Grey, wet, and cold; a baritonal melancholy serpentining through the tendrils, the song remaining the same, to say the least, though with one beatific exception …
April’s Black Mountain Rainbow
After that, back to the brume.
~
As I made my ascent up Monte Bello Road, I could see my destination, but only barely:
Monte Bello = Beautiful Mountain
That is us there, off in the distance, behind where the two slopes cross. Here it is in detail:
That murky crest is the eastern underside of our vineyard knoll, seen below in rather sunnier circumstances (and from the west, obviously!):
The Knoll & The Umbrellas & The Happiness …
~
Anyhow, as noted previously, today is the 4th of April.
A significant day, as we move slowly into Spring, into rain, into budbreak, into life.
And, a day in which to celebrate the birth of Pierre Monteaux.
Perhaps not a name familiar to most, but certainly a name etched into the walls of the halls of history, if you’re of a certain aural ilk.
For you see, it was Monteaux conducting when Stravinsky’s Le Sacre Du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) debuted; a night, and a work, that inarguably changed the world of modern music forever.
So as we contemplate our own rite of spring, let us remember the music of Stravinsky’s as well, and let us remember it as shepherded to us under Monteaux’s brave baton, on that rarefied night back in 1913.
Let us remember Pierre Monteaux.
And let us all adore the earth.
~
Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Part I, The Adoration of the Earth
There are four people from whom I learned what it means to be a man in this world.
What it means to be a man, and how to be a man.
One of them is imaginary: Rick, from the movie Casablanca.
(Historical note: I got married in white coat and black bow tie!)
The second is my missus. Bless her her patience and her love.
The third was my Grandpa. A scholar, an author, a musician, and a sculptor (Kirk Douglas holds one of the largest private collections of my Grandpa’s work!). I learned so much from him. Perhaps most importantly, he taught me about Lightnin’ Hopkins.
And then there is my Dad.
The greatest, kindest, smartest man I’ve ever known. His love for my Mom and I taught me just about everything there is to know about being a husband and a father, and when I finally got old enough to be able to understand the books he wrote, he became my teacher for just about everything else I hadn’t already learned from him.
And, he is a lover of wine.
~
As a student, you want to impress your teacher. As a husband, you want to impress your spouse. As a son, you want to impress your father.
So when I began at Ridge, it was deeply symbolic for me to begin offering my Dad wine.
Which brings me to the subject of this story. The very first ATP wine I ever gave my Dad.
The 2004 Buchignani Ranch Zinfandel.
Surprised?
At face value, maybe an odd choice. It’s not one of our most famous wines. It’s not the Monte Bello.
But it’s a special wine. It’s a small-production, winery-only wine. And it’s an old-vine vineyard, family-owned and farmed. And its origins go back to Italy (my family and I lived in Italy for quite some time when I was young). And it’s funky. And my Dad likes funky.
So that’s the wine I gave him. And he loved it. And I was happy.
That was years ago. We’ve had many, many, many Ridge wines since then. We’ve had Monte Bellos from the years we lived in Italy, to the year his grand-daughter was born. We’ve had old zins and young zins, Rhones and Bordeauxs. My Dad has even conceded his affection for our Chardonnays, though he remains a red man at heart. And, he’s seen his pronounced disdain for the movie Sideways (after seeing the movie, he swore he’d never drink Pinot Noir again, and commenced buying Merlot by the barrel-ful instead) rewarded by Ridge’s return to Merlot.
But the 2004 Buchignani Ranch Zinfandel remains a special wine for us.
Which made it all the more special that we were able to enjoy another bottle of it this past Thanksgiving. You can read a summary of our reaction here, but suffice it to say it was truly wonderful. Delicious, even.
Which means I am ESPECIALLY excited for April First Friday, because we’re going to be sharing this very special wine with our guests.
I should confess though, that the experience is likely to be bittersweet for me. There is almost none of this wine left, and we are pulling the last 5 cases from Reserve just for this event.
Which means, if the wine shows anything like it did last Thanksgiving, there isn’t likely to be much left after Friday.
Please join us on the first Friday of each month for an evening affair of delicious wines and small bites. While this is a Member Event, we are more than happy to host guests of our members as well!
Members with shipments available for pick up at this event: ATP-Monthly (be sure to note that you are picking up on your RSVP)
Today, I remember Mad Thad. Born on March 28th, 1923. He would have been 90 years old.
A Michigan man.
He played with everyone, a true populist. The democracy of Hard Bop. Dexter Gordon, Milt Jackson, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Oliver Nelson, Sonny Stitt, Ben Webster, Count Basie, and more.
In 1957, he recorded “Mad Thad.”
On that album, he played with my man Doug Watkins.
The Hard Bop of Watkins.
On that record, a cut called “Quiet Sip,” written by Thad himself.
Tonight, Mr. Jones and me, we don’t go in for the myth of Spanish dances. We know their names are not Maria. We don’t want to be Bob Dylan.
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!
~
For the above lovely bits of Steinbeckian arcana, I am indebted to Buzzle, and Interpolations.
~
“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
I was early, by intention. I wanted to absorb the air, the space, the mojo.
Ghosts of Shamans past — silken-shadowed, proud and twirling — wove the naked canes with threads of dripping gossamer.
In my car, the metal murmuring beneath me.
The music came on. Ornette Coleman.
Frantic, frenetic, almost borderline atonal. Strange against the hazy blues and grays weighting down the coming sun.
Then the track changed. Beauty Is A Rare Thing. The long, lone, keening wail of saxophone, the prophesizing rumble of the toms, the gravitas of bass drops, all the spaces in-between the lonesome spaces.
Beauty Is A Rare Thing.
I drove towards the crest of the mountain; to the exalted limestone histories, to the winery, to the ghosts of Shamans present, past, and future.
I am constantly amazed by the ways landscape is destiny.
Dawn behind the valley of the fog. Dawn beyond the yawning of the crush pad. Dawnlight just beginning with the One Tree Hill …
We turn away to face the cold, enduring chill As the day begs the night for mercy love
~
Almost reassuring to me now — the pathway through, and to, the holy Monte Bello belly — this, my moment, this, my third Assemblage year.
Through the darkness, through the lightness, through the barrels …
…to the crystal choreography of history in the waiting …
This is Assemblage.
~
One-hundred-thirty acres, give or take. Acreage that begins some thousand feet above the valley, then stretches towards the heavens for another thousand more, and more than several hundred feet on after that.
Bramble stream, white rocks jutting out. Heaven cold, red leaves scarce. No rain
up here where the mountain road ends, sky stains robes empty kingfisher-blue.
Harvest began on the tenth morn of September, and concluded on the sixteenth of October; the day the cabernet grapes on the knoll bid farewell to the gnarled arms of their lowly-slung progenitors.
Two-hundred-eighty-tons of grapes picked off the mountain, whittled patiently down to only twenty-eight blocks, and then down again to twelve lots after that. Twelve lots to make up our control.
And so the rounds begin.
—
I.
Two glasses before you. In one glass, the control. Twelve lots worth of juice from off the mountain. In the other, the addition. One lot worth of hope of making history. Which is which, you do not know, and so you taste. And smell, and taste, and taste again, and smell again, and look, and think, and smell, and taste, and contemplate, and contemplate. In the nose, on the lips, on the tongue, down the throat, drip by drop, strained through teeth, rolled on tongues, swished and spat, and left to linger, and the pen is in your fingers, and the pen is on the page, and it goes scratching ‘cross the page …
… you dig for words, and lay on words, and search for metaphor and simile; descriptor, adverb, poetry. The clock maw gapes in rhythm, all the Tell-Tale Hearts at table — disparate rhythms harmonizing — beat the pounding of the wine-blood in your ears. There’s no more time left, no more wine left, on the left page is Glass A and on the right page is Glass B; which gets your minus, which your plus? You finally choose, your secret vote, it’s done, it’s done, you did it, there, it’s done, you made your vote, the tasting notes — like pagan chants — begin to be read out, aloud; first the first chair at the table …
Nine at the table. No tie possible. The first round is as close as close can get, four to five, five to four; the B Glass takes the lion’s share of votes, by a note, but the winemakers both come out for A. Lift the veil, it’s the addition! The addition in Glass A, the winemakers’ final say, on and through, to Round Two, and thirteen lots now. The addition is the Cabernet from blocks that we call Fosters, at the south end of the old Torre boundaries.
Paul says Glass A just seems racier.
II.
A tenth taster joins, raises the threat of a tie, but as the voting is revealed, it’s six to four. Glass A is the addition once again, and earns the passage once again, but this time on the strength of a majority. And what was added? It’s a co-fermented block of Cabernets: Sauvignon and Franc, from South Twin Peaks and Upper Gate, north of the winery, on the old Perrone ground.
I am with the As, and Eric Baugher says this wine will be a hundred-year wine, and the talk turns to juniper, to jazz, to anthocyanin …
III.
At fourteen lots, the roadblocks block the road, and the control cannot be shaken; seven-two, the final tally, and Will Thomas says Glass A shows as “broad-shouldered” …
IV.
Still fourteen lots as we begin, and when the round ends, we will still be at fourteen; a seven-two vote once again. In the last round it was Eric in minority, and this time it is Paul, but all let commonwealth prevail, and the majority prevails, and the control survives yet another challenge.
Paul voted “no” because the wine was just “too perfect,” just “too lovely” … and Kyle Theriot is the first to speak of velvet …
V.
Another close vote — five to four — but an addition has emerged; South Slope North! La Cuesta clone, maybe an acre, in the ground in ‘eighty-eight, at 6.33%, a small addition, but addition it will be, it makes the cut, takes the control to fifteen lots. I was on the wrong side of this vote, of Paul and Eric, and of Will, who said the wine, this time, was “tall, but not broad-shouldered” …
VI.
Four to five, the vote this time, coming out for the control, but then there’s Paul with his plus on the addition. I’m with Paul, as is Shinji, as is Karen; I wrote “elegant and playful,” Paul says that he likes the “power and the elegance” … It’s Merlot, from Le Vasseur, from the high side of the old Torre vineyards.
VII.
The seventh round, and the control is sixteen lots. Sixteen lots, and what do you get? One more addition doth the final round beget! A 3.6% addition, Cabernet from Circle Hill, and we have made it up the hill …
Fish don’t fry in the kitchen; Beans don’t burn on the grill. Took a whole lotta tryin’, Just to get up that hill. Now we’re up in the big leagues, Gettin’ our turn at bat. As long as we live, it’s you and me baby, There ain’t nothin wrong with that.
~
And now, 2012 is in the big leagues, and we’re going to see if it can holds its own, in the last round of the day, in the vertical display, cinq Monte Bello in a line, the ’11, ’10, and ’09, and the ’08, that magic vintage, liquid music, holy water, magic birth year of my daughter, making five tall and broad-shouldered wines …
~
This is it, The First Assemblage. To be tested, and tried again, to be sure, but for today, the testing done, seventeen lots safe and sound, a Monte Bello for the ages.
The statistics:
55% Cabernet Sauvignon
26 % Merlot
11% Cabernet Franc
8% Petit Verdot
Were it to stand, we’d be looking at some four-thousand cases …
~
As in years past, as I emerge from the barrel room brume, from the effluvium of grape and mystic poetry, I am weary.
In the company of pirates, monks, spelunkers, I’ve been searching, with my brothers and my sisters I’ve been searching, with the mendicants and beggars, I’ve been searching, at the altars, in the gutters, I’ve been searching.
Oh Ornette, your hymn, a horn
with a halo ‘round the reed
Oh, Beauty Is A Rare Thing indeed.
__
__
__
The players:
Will Thomas, Viticulturist, Lytton Springs
Kyle Theriot, Viticulturist, Monte Bello
Shun Ishikubo, Assistant Winemaker, Monte Bello
Shini Kurokawa, Production Assistant, Monte Bello
Heidi Nigen (Round II), Marketing Manager
Christopher Watkins, myself
Amy Monroe, Hospitality Coordinator, Monte Bello
Karen Leeds, Director of Quality Control/Chemist, Monte Bello
Eric Baugher, VP of Winemaking, Monte Bello
Paul Draper
To you all, deep bows.
~
Attributions for excerpts and quotes above, in order of appearance:
Ornette Coleman (the song “Beauty Is A Rare Thing”)
Ron Rash (from an interview with the author on NPR)
U2 (from the song “One Tree Hill,” lyrics by Bono, music by U2)
Wang Wei (from the poem “In The Mountains,” translated by David Hinton)
Ja’net Dubois and Jeff Berry (from the song “Movin’ On Up,” theme song for the TV Show “The Jeffersons”)
~
For essays on previous Assemblage Tastings, please follow the links below:
