Ok, that’s not actually entirely accurate; in fact, I was actually called upon to speak AFTER discussion on a “Cantilever Sensor Array-Based Diagnostic Device.”
Which is essentially the story of my “giving a talk at Stanford”; a story I have gleefully deployed for weeks in the service of deflecting the near-endless impositions on my social calendar that I regularly endure:
I’m so sorry, I’d love to join you for dinner, but alas, I am scheduled to give a talk at Stanford that night.
Believe you me, I would love to attend your seminar, but regrettably, I myself am giving a talk at Stanford the very same Friday.
I can think of nothing more enjoyable that attending your gathering, but as it turns out, I’m on tap to speak at Stanford that night, I am so sorry!
So it was a great pleasure to contribute to this event, and on behalf of all here at Ridge Vineyards, we wish a very successful wrap-up to this year’s NMC conference, the 10th International Workshop on Nanomechanial Sensing!
That said, I do not appreciate my prepared text on Golden Nanofingers being usurped by those folks from Hewlett-Packard! Having to riff improvisationally in front of this caliber of crowd required that I draw on previously untapped rhetorical reserves the likes I’ve which I’ve rarely had to summon, and I’m not likely to soon forgive!
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.
The Historic Vineyard Society (HVS) has a Mission Statement I think we can all get behind:
HVS (Historic Vineyard Society) is a non-profit, 501 C-3 organization dedicated to the preservation of California’s historic vineyards. HVS’s Mission is accomplished through educating the wine-drinking public on the very special nature of this precious and depleting state, national and global resource.
Amen!
~
And, the Historic Vineyard Society has a serious roster of talent behind it that I think we can all admire:
David Gates (Ridge Vineyards)
Mike Officer (Carlisle Vineyards)
Jancis Robinson (author and wine critic)
Tegan Passalacqua (Turley Wine Cellars)
Morgan Twain-Peterson (Bedrock Vineyards)
Hallelujah!
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And, the Historic Vineyard Society has an agenda I think we can all support:
The California Assembly Agriculture Committee has unanimously agreed to approve HR 9, a resolution that seeks to raise awareness of California’s living historic vineyards through State recognition of the contribution that these vineyards have made, and continue to make, to the agricultural and social history of California. HR 9 was introduced by Assemblymember Tom Daly (District 69, Anaheim) and is supported by the Historic Vineyard Society. With the approval of the Agriculture Committee, HR 9 will now go to a vote before the full Assembly, which is expected in the next several weeks.
Please demonstrate your support for California’s living historic vineyards by calling, writing or emailing your local Assembly Member. Contact information for the California Assembly can be found here.
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And, the Historic Vineyard Society knows how to mix business & pleasure! Dig this:
Historic Vineyard Society 3rd Annual Vineyard Tour and Dinner Saturday, May 11, 2013 • 1:15 to 8:00 p.m. • Healdsburg, California
Join Mike Officer, David Gates, Bob Biale, Morgan Twain-Peterson, Tegan Passalacqua and special guests as the Historic Vineyard society celebrates historic vineyards in the Alexander and Dry Creek Valleys.
The day will include a tour of four historic vineyards (with bus transportation provided by Pure Luxury) and dinner at Seghesio Family Vineyards. The price is $215 per person, all inclusive of historic vineyard wines, tax, gratuity and a tax-deductible donation to the Historic Vineyard Society.
For more information and to make your reservation, please visit: here
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DELICIOUS SPOILER ALERT!
Straight from David Gates: the inside scoop on WHICH Historic Vineyards event guests will visit! Check THIS out!
“The vineyards we will be visiting are Henderlong (Nalle), Seghesio Home Ranch/Chianti Station (Seghesio), Vineyard 101 (Turley), and the Old Patch at Whitton Ranch (Ridge!). ” –David Gates
Did he just say the Old Patch? Crazy! One of the most fascinating plots of vineyard land in all of California! Dig this:
As James Brown once exhorted you, I know too exhort you …
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.
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:
I had the pleasure of hosting Paul Draper and two wonderful guests yesterday for what was not only an excellent tasting, but an enlightening conversation.
The topics were, amongst other things, the recent changes rung at the Wine Advocate, the Asian Palate, Singaporean wine collectors, and most importantly, tea.
Is it possible it all comes down to structure in the end?
I experienced a certain oeno-satori over the course of the evening’s conversation; my moment of clarity came as the talk turned on tea.
How do you take it? What sort do you drink? Do you drink tea at all?
Consider black tea. Strong, high in tannin, often wants milk, sugar, maybe lemon.
Consider oolong. Subtle, soft, aromatic; drunk on its own, reverentially.
Are these in fact the bookends of the wine palate?
The idea grew exponentially in my head.
Sweet, flavored teas?
Chai? Twig Tea? Gunpowder?
And what of coffee drinkers?
I’ll posit a theory: tell me your feelings for tea, and I can pick your perfect wine.
–
The tasting itself was lovely; a few selections I’ve tasted with some degree of regularity of late, and a few gems I was happily re-introduced to …
I was fairly engrossed in the conversations, so rather neglected the bulk of my tasting note duties, but I did manage to jot down a few snapshots …
2011 Ridge Vineyards Geyserville (just bottled, not yet released)
Excellently savory aromatics: notes of pemmican, jerky, and myriad swirls of sweet and savory umami layers, w/ a touch of bacon smokiness playing against a fascinating underlayer of pistachio-esque duskiness and herbaceousness … Very fruit-forward and perfumed palate profile, redolent of raspberry sorbet and crushed flowers … heading into the finish the fruit notes darken slightly, into more of a boysenberry pie vibe … acidty is warm and pleasing on the finish, and the tannins are expertly finessed … overall, a Geyserville driven by a well-integrated reconciliation of bright fruit on top, and savory umami notes downstairs …
1997 Ridge Vineyards Geyserville (from the vaults)
Aromatics that play pleasantly light wood notes (sandalwood/balsawood) against dried fruit/fruit compote/pannetone autumnalities, with a striation of sweet fruit leather in-between … the mouthfeel is full and viscous/full-bodied and fleshy, dominated by mid-tone plum character and hints of boysenberry and blueberry extracts … the finish is marked by settled acidity and still-firm tannins … a cellared Geyserville in excellent condition; will appeal most to those who enjoy a richer, sweeter, full-bodied style, yet also appreciate the secondary hallmarks of age … An excellent bottle …
2010 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello (My “first” Monte Bello! See: http://bit.ly/YzNqnf)
Almost impossibly complext aromatics, running a gamut from more umami-esque notes of bacon, soy, and teriyaki, through dark blue and black berry notes, to rich herbalities evoking tobacco, anise, and clove … Add to this a minty herbality, a complexicating weave of mineral and crushed rock, and a subtle waft of sweet and yeasty bread dough … Mid-palate is driven by three classic tiers: eucalytpal herbaceousness in the attic, black fruit on the main floor, and rooty herbs in the basement … structurally, the wine evidences a sophisticated acidty, with serenely coated tannins … this Monte Bello is, in short, complex, integrated, and amazing …
2008 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello (from the vaults)
On the nose; sweet red fruit, red apple skin, classic notes of chalky minerality and limestone, with a slight and subtle umami layer matched against some pistachio herbality and a trace of grenadine-like tartness … the mouthfeel is soft, round, supple, and velvety to the point of being sexual … the fruit characters are largely of a mid-tone variety; red apple on the high side, pluot flesh in the middle, blueberry down below … the finish is distinguished by soft and smooth structure, gentle acidity, warm and coated tannins, and an overall smoothness the bespeaks excellent craft and sophisticated development … One of my favorite Monte Bellos from the oughts …
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.
In all the discourse, chatter, ranting, and analysis that has followed the release of “The Howard Report,” I believe that something very, very, very important has gone missing in the conversation.
Depending on your feelings for and/or about Post-Industrial, Digitally-Globalized & Centralized Corporate Capitalism, you’ll either find the report to be a snooze’s worth of Duh!, or a ghastly shock.
What seems to unify the responses however, is an unnerving presumption of division.
What is this all about?
The Howard Report is a study called “Concentration in the U.S. Wine Industry,” and it comes to us from a team at Michigan State University led by Associate Professor Philip H. Howard. The gist of the results are this, that “just three firms … account for more than half of the wine sales in the United States.”
Now, while some of the responses to these results have been fundamentally analytic in nature, and primarily focused on issues related to questions of choice in the marketplace (for an excellent example of this approach, see wineeconomist.com), the vast majority of commentary seems to run more along the lines of seeing the results as a bit of a cautionary tale.
Alder Yarrow summed things up rather neatly on a recent post at his very fine wine blog “Vinography.” The post was titled “Is The Wine Writing World Out Of Touch?” and it concludes with the following line, “Keep writing about the good stuff for the people who care to read about it, but don’t forget the big picture, folks.”
Which is a very good mission statement of a kind, and his premise “ that a lot of people writing about wine are quite out of touch with the average wine drinker in America” is likely not inaccurate.
But with all due respect to both WineEconomist and Vinography, my focus is elsewhere.
What concerns me is this, that the fundamental focus driving almost all the post-report chatter seems to be trained on divisions; everything seems predicated on the notion that there is somehow a divide between one kind of wine drinker and another. If I may presume our Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello to be a somewhat rarefied offering, then perhaps one could say, everything seems predicated on the notion that there is somehow a divide between the Arbor Misters and the Monte Bellos.
But I suggest that to focus on the divisions is to miss something truly vital, in fact fundamental, about wine, and why we drink it.
Why not look instead for that which UNITES the Arbor Misters and the Monte Bellos, as opposed to what purportedly divides them?
Because if you do, what you’ll find is the very most important thing of all about wine.
The Experience.
The Experiential.
This, THIS, is what wine is all about.
And it is exactly THIS that unites us all, because at the end of the day, this is what we ALL go to wine for, this is why we include wine in what we do. It is the experience that counts.
The couple that sits down to share a bottle of Arbor Mist together is seeking no less a degree of romance than is the couple that opens and shares a 20-year-old Cabernet from a well-stocked Napa-centric cellar. The holiday host that serves Arbor Mist to guests alongside their home-cooked dishes offers no less a degree of hospitality than does the host who brings up something rare and collectible from their vaults. The brown-bag encased bottle of Arbor Mist covertly circulating through the downtown cooperative art gallery reception delivers no less a degree of conviviality that does the winemaker-signed winery-only auction item decanted with panache by the artist to inaugurate the uptown gallery reception. The Arbor Mist poured before hitting play on the DVD player for a weekend night of One Step Beyond reruns in pajamas contains no less a degree of magic than does the wedding-year library wine tasted 30-years down the road, at the vows renewal ceremony.
The point being, we include wine in our rituals because wine is our liquid of ritual, and when we select a wine, we are making a gesture in pursuit of experience.
And we ALL do this, with EVERY wine.
So for wine writers, yes, do keep writing about the good stuff. But remember that “the good stuff” is not the wine itself, but the theater of experience in which wine plays a part.
And as for the drinkers of wine, remember that we’re all in this together, and we’re all seeking the same thing.
A beautiful experience.
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Trumpets and violins I can hear in the distance I think they’re calling our names Maybe now you can’t hear them, but you will If you just take hold of my hand
Oh, but are you experienced? Have you ever been experienced? Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful…
–Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced?
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To read the original “Howard Report” please click here:
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.
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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?
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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?
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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”)
ki/ 
