Snooth Media Introduces Wine Press – Provides Robust Contributor Platform and Streaming Content Viewer for Wine Fans

posted by jchemtob in Guest Bloggers, Partnerships, Press, Snooth, Wine, Wine Industry

Housed on Snooth.com, Wine Press Kick-Off Includes Articles from ZesterDaily.com Wine Experts

(September 14, 2011 – New York, NY)

Snooth Media, home of Snooth (www.snooth.com), the world’s largest wine site, today announced the launch of an innovative, new contributor platform and content viewer, Wine Press (www.snooth.com/wine-press). The new product enables Snooth site users to easily contribute articles, upload photos, take quizzes, start conversations and ask questions. Wine Press also allows users to view the best wine content on the Web, including original content from Snooth and posts from the top wine blogs, all in one easily navigable page.

Wine Press offers Snooth’s 850,000+ community members, and anyone who logs in with their Facebook account, the opportunity to become contributors and bring their wine insights to the forefront. After publishing, each post gets fed into the Wine Press news stream where its placement is then determined by relevancy, community votes, Facebook Likes and Tweets.

“We want to make it easy for anyone to contribute to Snooth.com,” notes Snooth Media CEO Rich Tomko. “Wine Press allows folks who would like to write about wine, but don’t want the overhead of starting and maintaining their own blog, to easily publish their posts on a platform that will seamlessly put their ideas in front of the Web’s largest wine audience. On the other side, we’ve also built a tool that makes it easy for any user to digest the best online wine content customized to their expertise level and interests.”

As part of this new product launch, Snooth has partnered with leading Internet food and drink news site ZesterDaily.com to bring additional expert content to the Snooth community. Articles from their award-winning contributors – Carla Capalbo, Patrick Comiskey and Elin McCoy – will help kick-off the Wine Press launch. In partnership with Zester Daily, Snooth will be hosting a “book-a-day” giveaway drawing from a robust “Wine Library” of books, including select titles from ZesterDaily.com contributors, and one grand prize winner who will receive the entire library

In June, Snooth launched Wine Rack, the site’s foray into social gaming. Interactions logged on Wine Press will be counted toward earning trophies on Wine Rack as well.

Visit Wine Press at: snooth.com/wine-press

About Snooth Media

Snooth Media produces epicurean lifestyle properties that combine innovative technology, strong social elements and quality editorial content. With a reach of more than 10 million monthly visitors, Snooth Media includes Snooth (http://www.snooth.com), the world’s largest wine site; The Spirit (http://www.thespir.it), a comprehensive cocktail destination; What’s Cookin’ (http://www.whatscook.in), a site dedicated to culinary findings and tips; and the Snooth Media Connection, which includes the reach of its distributed content platform. Snooth Media is headquartered in New York City.

About Zester Daily

Zester Daily (ZesterDaily.com) is an award-winning Internet news site covering the culture and politics of food and drink. More than 50 journalists, authors and editors worldwide create the site’s content, including breaking news, feature articles, op-eds, cartoons, videos and more. Zester Daily readers include opinion leaders in the fields of food and drink, politics, environment, health, agriculture and sustainability. Closely followed by the national media and lauded for its excellence, Zester Daily continues its growth since it was founded in 2010. Zester Daily is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA.

Summer Vacation.

posted by Dan in Food, Guest Bloggers, Wine

I spent my summer vacation in New York City and Cape Cod eating and drinking with friends.   I don’t have many sublime bottles to report on, but more times than less the idea of sharing good times with a glass of wine, a beer, or a cocktail is all that you need to have an enjoyable vacation.

I kicked it all off with a family affair.  Not a lot of booze was thrown around.  Just a bottle of Larkmead’s 2008 Tocai Friulano.  This wine was bottled back in May and it is drinking superbly at the moment.  The 2008 white wines, (of those I have tasted from Napa) in my opinion, are a little loose, less focused than the razor sharp 07’s.  But the oily, tropical character of the Tocai with its underlying liquid almond character was quite appealing as it finished with great lemon, lime zest acidity.

The next couple of days found me in and out of restaurants and the homes of friends.  I drank well sometimes and overdrank in others.  A couple of highlights from the trip – First, I visited one of Brooklyn’s top new, hip restaurants, from the Freeman’s folks.  New Yorker magazine has written this spot, The Vinegar Hill House, up as the prototype of a museum if a museum of hip and cool actually were to exist.  I would agree, but then anything in New York City these days is hipper than my farmer/winemaker chic.  [Ugh.]  After a disappointing bottle of Southern Italian white wine, I made the executive decision that we finish the meal, the entrees and dessert with a bottle of champagne.  Here’s the thing – Champagne is utterly and completely underutilized.  Champagne should not be relegated to celebratory events, colleague ‘pours’ or cheap aperitifs.  Champagne needs to be explored more, paired more, enjoyed more often.  And it was on this trip.  See below.

First, I felt obligated to recoup the failure of the Southern Italian white wine and when meeting a dear old muse in my life, at il Gottino in Greenwich Village, we shared a bottle of Valle dell’Acate’s Il Frappato, 2007.  I hadn’t tasted this vintage and on a hot, sticky, oppressively humid summer evening, there is no better wine then the chilled Frappato.  The wine sings with bright strawberry and rose petal notes; it is the best alternative to a Rose that I have ever tasted.  And when it warms up in the glass, it even offers a little spice; I guess you can call this Pinot Noir-lite.

Following the Champagne theme, when I got together with a bunch of buddies from Business School to play poker and after a couple of Campari and Sodas (another staple on this trip – a refreshing, icy, bittersweet way to beat the heat), I went on to polish off, almost single-handedly a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.  I have not spent a great deal of time drinking Veuve and have told myself I should read the book recently published, Madame Clicquot.  Well, I must say, the most recognizable wine label in all the world, doesn’t over-deliver or excite me.  At forty-or-so-bucks a bottle, Veuve offers a little less elegance in the glass than I would expect from such a cost.  Playing poker and drinking Champers while my buddies drank beers, I felt a little sophisticated; I thought it would be a worthy complement to my card playing strategies.  It wasn’t.  Maybe I would have had better luck with a $10 bottle of Procesco or $2 beer.

My next stop was Locanda Verde, Andrew Carmellini’s new place in the Greenwich Hotel.  The day prior to my visit Frank Bruni at the NY Times gave the spot a solid review and two stars.  Not sure if any chef/owner would consider two stars a good review, but I debated a friend whether or not a person should (or does a person) in NYC live, breath and eat by Bruni’s reviews?  I was curious.  Let’s think about the demographic profile of the New York Times reader.  I’ll pass on projecting my views, and just give you them right from the online media kit from their website; Median age 50.  Individual Earned Income, $71K.  The latter is an interesting number considering, according to the NY Times, 68% of their readers own their own homes.  Can that be in NYC or the Tri-State area if the earned individual income is $71K (or the average HHI is $114K)?  Maybe I have been away too long, but I thought real estate was expensive in NY!?!?  I digress.  Anyhow.  Enough of the Times audience profile.

The restaurant, wholly Italian, from apperitivi to amari, from banquet to bar, it looked and feeled like a popular French Bistro cut out of the American imagination of what a French Bistro should be, but instead of French food, it served Italian.  After living in Italy for a year and eating and drinking my way around, I will say, I approached nothing that looked like this place.  But this is New York, and New Yorkers live with a certain expression that goes beyond the realities of the world (and good for them for that).  Anyhow.  I arrived at 5 pm and by departure at 7 pm, the place was wall-to-wall, its fair share of tourists, hotel guests, business suits and stylish types filled the seats and ate the modern take on crostini and such.  I waffled on what wine to order, passing on a white from Quintarelli to linger over a bottle of Vie di Romans Flor di Uis – a massive white blend that is seductive on the nose, textured on the palate and refreshing on the finish.  After looking it up online, the wine contains (Tocai) Friulano, Reisling and Malvasia.  It is a serious white wine. And an aspirational wine when I think about the white blend I will be producing this year that has its influences in North East Italy.

I was off to Cape Cod next and spent three days visiting old friends while putting back some Sam Adams, more Campari and Soda, a few rum based drinks, vodka and soda as the nights drew long and a little white wine here and there (did enjoy a 2007 La Cream Chardonnay, a high-quality, value Chardonnay hitting all the tell-tale characteristics as the wine warmed up in the glass).  When the weather is warm and humid and the smell of sea salt is in the air, chowder, cod cakes and lobster adorn your plate; it is way too hard to think about drinking red wines.  And as noted by the choices above, you can see that I didn’t drink much wine at all.  It was a good escape.

However, upon returning to Brooklyn before shuffling back to California, I convinced myself to wine well over my last supper in the City.  I write this on the plane, with last night’s dinner in Brooklyn lingering on the mind.  I visited Franny’s with my mother and friends.  Franny’s is exclusive Italian pizza and wine.  I brought a bottle of Kerber Friulano with me, only to be confronted when I popped it on the bar that it was already on the restaurant’s list.  The bartender was gracious enough to let me know we could definitely open it for a $25 corkage fee (and the waitress was later thanking us for bringing an “Italian” wine; well I had to thank my friends for gifting it to me a week earlier when we ate at Vinegar Hill House).  So, I wasn’t going to let the restaurant staff’s graciousness down by just consuming our wine.  I picked out an aperitif wine, a 500mL bottle of Edi Kante Chardonnay, 2005.

I was excited to try this wine, been reading about Kante for some time but never experienced his wines in full.  I will say the Chardonnay was subtle, was shy and stony, was on the knife-edge of elegant, rusty, honeyed ageiness. I kept sticking my nose in the glass and tried to extract more from the wine and the wine responded, drawing me deeper and bottoming out; enticing me to come back another time.  This is the essence of a great wine – it lingers and leaves you with a desire for more.  Unfortunately, 500 mL and four people doesn’t account for much, but I will be back.  Onto the Kerber. Here’s the thing I have learned with some artisanal white wines from Friuli (and I should have taken this learning into account), there tends to be a period after bottling, what I have found to be about two years, that could be considered a ‘dumb’ period in the wine.  The wine is completely shut down, a bit backward and turning in on itself.  There is no fruit, just creamy, reductive characters and shyness.  I am baffled by this and need to explore it further; and when I have the ‘winemaker’s’ answer, I will report in full.

After sharing four or five appetizers from eggplant with golden raisin and pine nuts lathered in oil to artichoke crostini, we moved on to our pizzas and a bottle of 2006 Cos Cerasuolo di Vittoria “Pithos”.  The Pithos is made in terracotta amphora housed under ground and goes after all the ancient Roman winemaking techniques via the Sicilian grape varieties – Nero d’Avola and Frappato.  The wine jumped out of the bottle immediately with spicy red licorice wrapped in barnyard meat and funk. There was a touch of dried herbs, a la vermouth in the mouth and again a spicy, bitter cherry finish on rather soft tannin and good acid backbone.  The wine, which I haven’t consumed since I lived in Sicily, was quite a treat and a good value considering a bottle of Radikon or Gravner made in similar style will cost you almost double on the retail shelf.

So, that is it.  My plane is on descent into San Francisco airport.  And I am happy to be back in California, counting the days until harvest has me knee deep in red and white wine grapes.  T-minus….

Dan Petroski is Assistant Winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley. Dan has an MBA from New York University and worked as an Ad Exec in New York for several years, before switching it up and trading his suit for a move out west

An Ode to Wine Drinking History

posted by Dan in Guest Bloggers, Snooth, Wine Industry

In my last post, I wrote about the dilemma I am facing in naming my personal wine project.  I said that I am 99% sure of what that name would be.  And before I unveil it here and my reasons why, let it be said that this is no press release in the vein of Snooth’s Wine Pairing application.  Kudos to the team for another quality extension of the brand that brings the wine world under rule.

In that previous post I queried for some feedback and received a few consistent comments pertaining to the ease of remembering the brand name, the ease in pronouncing it and its ability to be distinguished.*  Words like class, simplicity and minimalism were jousted around.  These defining words can do just that, not only define the brand but also, in my opinion, describe the (label) design.  A hook about this wine I am creating is that it will be a small production effort that will be sold to friends and family, a few select retailers and restaurants in NYC and the Bay Area, California.  I have acquired contracts on six tons of grapes and am looking at a potential 300 cases of white wine.  Not enough to get lost on the shelves of your local supermarket or super wine store.  This doesn’t justify an obscure name choice or design, but the limited supply helps with the early stages of marketing by avoiding the clutter.  My wine will be a hand-sell because of the nature of its composition; I will be producing a unique white wine blend with some (relatively) obscure Italian grape varieties at its core.  That being said, does the “name” mean as much as the fit (with the consumer’s palate, the sommelier’s palate or the restaurant’s wine list)?  Only time will tell.

So, it is time to tell.  The winery name will be “Massican.”  And its flagship blend, which on paper at this time, will consist of Tocai, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Ribolla Gialla will be “sub” named “Annia.”

What?

Massican.  Named after the coastal mountain range on the Southern Italian peninsula in the region of Campania.  Mount Massico garnered its mythological fame from a story of Bacchus’ travels when he was looking for a getaway after the “Carabinieri” (Italian police) were after his ass for being a cult-wino-instigator.  In this particular story, Bacchus took refuge in the foothills of Massico with a farmer named Falernus.  Bacchus was so enamored with the farmer’s generosity that when the farmer slept, Bacchus waved his magic Riedel Urn and turned his host’s hillside fields into the most sought after white wine grapes in all of Italy.  Today that DOC is called Falerno del Massico and is home to Campania’s seductive Falanghina.  My great-great Grandfather was also born in these foothills outside of the city of Caserta.  His father was a farmer who was jailed for this or that and sent his only son to the United States before WWI ensued.  During his imprisonment, the crook asked his neighbor to tend his farm.  When he was released, the neighbor did not want to give the land back.  So, he was stabbed and the criminal in my genealogical tree returned to jail.  Mythology, reverence and personal history all play a part in this (relatively easy to pronounce) name.

Since the wine doesn’t have a grape variety to distinguish it by, I will designate the wine with the name “Annia.”  Annia has two meanings.  First, it is a derivative of my mother’s name, Ann (who drinks her wine with ice cubes, even red wine, and I love her for it).  And it is also the name of the ancient Roman High Priestess, Paculla Annia, also from the region of Campania.  Paculla Annia was hunted in the Second Century BC because she was the forebearer in the flesh of what we know today to be etymology of what we consider the “Bacchanal” cult.

For you shrewd wine types, you will say, the grapes you chose, Dan, are not indigenous to your naming convention.  Yes, that is true.  But it is hard to find Falanghina in the United States, so I am attacking the Italian style of white wine production from its most prominent region, and as I have said earlier, I truly appreciate and enjoy drinking the modern style of wine coming out of North East Italy.  Although my naming convention doesn’t hone into this region’s history, it claims a history in Italian wine and, as described, a personal history.  So, I leave you with it and the words of Horace:

“… whether you bring complaints
or jokes, or brawling and insane
love affairs, or easy sleep,
or whatever purpose you preserve choice
Massico, worthy to be removed on an
auspicious day, descend,
bids me uncork [sic] wine.”

-

* A note about naming.  “Snooth.”  Not ‘smooth’.  Or what I originally linked it to, “Sleuth” (as in investigated).  Philip told me that it was the nickname for the town he grew up in England.  Maybe he can explain it here.
Dan Petroski is Assistant Winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley. Dan has an MBA from New York University and worked as an Ad Exec in New York for several years, before switching it up and trading his suit for a move out west

What’s in a Name?

posted by Dan in Guest Bloggers, Wine Industry

 “That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Really?

If I introduced you to the rose bushes in my garden and I called them, Skunk, Vomit and Sulfur, would you really take to them with a walk away feeling of delicacy and charm?  And in that we find wine’s least charming characteristic – the power of persuasion.  Anyone can pull their Pinocchio from the glass and blurt out something rather interesting or silly  and, almost immediately, you will pick up on that same character if you are sniffing the same wine.

How does this pertain to a name?  Well, in launching my new venture I have the inevitable task of naming my wine.  This is a process that I have thought about over the years; even when I had no desire to make my own wine and label it as such.

I could tell you what I like to drink and why; however, unlike the old saying, “the journey is the destination,” in hindsight I have always felt it to be the other way around – the destination (the words and snapshots in your journal, the airline ticket stubs, the restaurant matchbooks) should incite memories of the time spent or the feelings endured.  When you are dealing with a luxury, packaged good (as pricey wine can be categorized) the hope is that the name, the label, the brand identity makes a connection that either brings you to another place or helps you identify with the thoughts and inspirations of the winemaker behind the wine.  [Note: That is just my opinion and aspiration.]

So, I am torn as to how I want to present myself with this wine.  I know in today’s day of Technology ADD, a brand needs to be dynamic and changing; offering its core essence but evolving with the times.  But for me, the dilemma is deeper.  Do I care about keeping up with the Twitterati?  Or do I want to achieve something that is timeless in its place and presentation?

I concede in my willingness to possibly accept the inevitable evolution of a brand identity, and, therefore, I have accepted the fact that the first attempt may not be perfect in all its parts.

For me, at the moment, ideas are swimming somewhere between an Ivy League education reamed of Humanities, Ancient Greek and Roman studies and all their encompassing esotericism, ethereal character and intellectualism with my modern day appreciation of minimalism, simplicity and elegance.

Can one accomplish both while teetering on the imagery of Tiepolo and Richard Serra? I hope so.

But, if you know me, I tend to stand against the pretension (of wine) albeit appreciating the history of the wine and its craftsmanship – from the technical and traditional to the irreverent and risk taking.
So, how does one portray the personality of the product and the varied personality of the person behind the product?  That is the dilemma.

I am 99% certain of the name of the wine brand and the “sub names” of the white wines I wish to create.  However, I would like to hear from you, my faithful and flawless readers, what attracts you to a wine label?  I’d love to gather your thoughts and comment on them and my decision in the next post.  Thanks in advance for your time and generosity of opinion, I look forward to hearing from you.

Dan Petroski is Assistant Winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley. Dan has an MBA from New York University and worked as an Ad Exec in New York for several years, before switching it up and trading his suit for a move out west

Bennett Valley & Chalk Hill

posted by John in Guest Bloggers, Snooth, Wine, Wine Industry

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a blog on Snooth.  It also has been a while since I’ve done anything with the pages I curate.  If you don’t know I curate the Sonoma County and Sonoma Valley webpages.  One way to address both of these pages and get a blog in is to talk about two of the smaller, lesser known sub-appellations in the region.  I give you Chalk Hill and Bennett Valley.

Bennett Valley is a sub-appellation of Sonoma Valley and is located in the Sonoma Mountain chain that leads up towards Santa Rosa.  It is almost an extension of the Sonoma Mountain sub-appellation.

Chalk Hill is a sub-appellation of the Russian River Valley.  It is at the east end of the appellation running up against the Alexander Valley appellation and Knights Valley appellation in the Mayacamas Mountains.

I’m going to tell you a little bit about both.

Bennett Valley

History
Bennett Valley is one of the newest appellations in Sonoma County.  In fact, it is one of the newest California appellations.  The application for the appellation was filed in October of 2001 by the CEO of Mantanzas Creek.  Mantanzas Creek is the ‘anchor’ winery of the appellation.  The appellation was granted in December 2003.  I don’t know for sure if that is a record but it is very fast.  According to information I read, there was on opposition.

The area shares a lot of it’s formative history with Sonoma Valley and Sonoma in general.  Grape growing recorded as far back as mid-1800s.  Many of the original vineyards farmed by immigrants and used for local wines.

Geography

Bennett Vally is, well, a valley.  It is one of the smallest AVAs in the Sonoma County with only 650 acres currently planted out of 8,140 acres available.  For comparison, Sonoma valley has about 60,000 acres planted.   It is a valley that is part of the Sonoma Mountain chain that runs along the west side of Sonoma Valley.  It is surrounded by three different mountain peaks: Taylor Mountain (west), Sonoma Mountain (south) and Bennett Peak / Bennett Ridge (east).  Finally to the north is the city of Santa Rosa.

Bennett Valley, like a lot of the area, around it has volcanic type soil and is a cool weather climate.  It’s unique feature, which separates it from the surrounding areas, is cool air is  channeled into the valley from the north by the peaks via the Crane Caynon / Grange Road wine gap.  The air has no where to go but settle in the valley.

Grapes, Wines & Wineries

You would think with a small amount of land planted that there wouldn’t be a lot of variation of in the grapes being grown.  If you did think that, you’d be wrong.  It planted mostly with Merlot, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Syrah, with lesser amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc, Barbera, Grenache, and Sauvignon Blanc.  You can even find a bit of Petite Sirah, Sangiovese and Zinfandel.

Why should you care?

Bennett Valley is one of those lesser known special places.  It is one of those places that is coming into it’s own.  It is home to a well known and respected winery in Mantazas Creek and a lot of smaller family owned wineries. The growers there provide grapes to some of the best known California names including: Stag’s Leap Cellars, DuMol and Caymus.

Links

Bennett Valley Grape Growers Association

Bennett Valley @ Appellation America

 Bennett Valley @ Wikipedia

Bennett Valley @ Calwineries

Chalk Hill
When people say the name Russian River the first thing that comes to mind is Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  That is a fair assessment as that is what the Russian River Valley is known for.  So, when people hear that Bordeaux style wines are being made in Russian River Valley they think someone is smoking some funny cigarettes or they just made a mistake.  The truth is, it is being done in a sub-appellation called Chalk Hill.

History

There isn’t anything outstanding about the history of Chalk Hill.  It wasn’t one of the first places that grapes were grown in California or even in Sonoma County.  It has, like a lot of places in Sonoma, growing grapes.  The Chalk Hill AVA was founded in 1983 when people realized this wasn’t Russian River Valley.

Geography

The Chalk Hill AVA covers about 33 square miles (85 square kilometers) and is situated at the eastern side of the Russian River AVA.  It has about 1,600 acres (650 hectares) of planted vineyard land with about a 1000 of that planted.  It is mostly rocky volcanic ash based soil and the elevation slopes upward the farther east you go.  The AVA ends on the western slopes of the Mayacamas Mountain. The elevation of the AVA ranges from a low of 200 but is as high as 1300 feet.  Unlike the rest of the Russian River Valley AVA, the Chalk Hill region is relatively warm due to the influence of a thermal belt that runs through the area.  Harvest time in Chalk Hill often takes place in September while harvest in the surrounding regions usually takes place in October.

Grapes, Wines & Wineries

Chardonnay is still the most grown grape in Chalk Hill.  But there is an increasing amount of Bordeaux varieties like Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec and Merlot.  Like many regions in California people experiment by growing different grapes, other grapes that are grown in Chalk Hill include: Pinot Gris, Sangiovese and Sauvignon Blanc.  With the warmer climate and big variation in altitude it is possible to find an area suitable to a lot of different grape varieties.

So what wineries are in Chalk Hill that you might know?  How about J Vineyards and Rodney Strong?  Yes, they are both in Chalk Hill with, of course, Chalk Hill Estate.
Why should you care?

Like Bennett Valley, Chalk Hill is one of those stealth AVAs.  It is an AVA with great grapes and wineries.  If you are the type of person that knows a secret that other people don’t you want to know about Chalk Hill.  The great thing about it is that you can find all wine in one area.  It produces a bit of everything, Burgundian and Bordeaux wines in 33 square miles.  Oh yeah, don’t forget the sparkling wine courtesy of J Wines.

Links

Chalk Hill @ Appellation America

Chalk Hill @ Wikipedia

Chalk Hill @ Calwineries

John Andrews is a software product manager during the week and is a professional Tasting Room staffer at Loxton Cellars in Glen Ellen, CA on the weekends.

Terroir, an Addendum.

posted by Dan in Guest Bloggers, Wine, Wine Industry

Last week, Greg posted a spot-on treatise on the Terroir debate.

Between Greg and the readers who commented, there was enough meat in their words to satisfy those seeking the Executive Summary and those hoping to take a peek behind the curtain.

Greg’s comments reminded me of the wineanorak, Jamie Goode’s “Terroir” chapter in his book “The Science of Wine.”  Goode dedicates the entire second chapter (which follows ‘The biology of the grape vine) to the Terroir debate.  If a respected wine journalist is going to commit an entire chapter that early, front and center, in a book about Wine Science, then we must realize that this ethereal thing we call Terroir is and will always be up for debate.

Terroir is religion for some and bunk to others.  The notions of Terroir are deep rooted, no pun intended, shunned by those who don’t have it and celebrated by those who do.  But the comments regarding winemaking styles having an impact on the eventual representations of said dogma are true.  It is a constant debate in these parts of California as to whether Terroir exists.   Nature’s forces will never allow two wines from two different parts of the globe, even if they are from the same grape vine lineage, to taste the same.  However, the goal is that the man made impact in the vineyard and in the cellar respects his or her natural surroundings.  That being the hopeful representation of the winemaker’s motives, the conversation ensues amongst us whether or not one, five or twenty-five wines that are produced from the same vineyard will reflect the essence of that vineyard.  We hope so, but….

When a winemaker harvests grapes with a 30% sugar to water ratio and places those grapes in a fermentation tank with the intention to bleed off (what the French call ‘saigner’) the juice that was created naturally from the sorting, de-stemming and transferring processes before the ‘cold soak’ (the pre-fermentation maceration that allows the grape juice to extract non-alcoholic, color concentration along with textual and aromatic components), how much of the vineyard’s character is going to remain in the wine?  Wait, we’re not done. What usually follows this style of winemaking is the addition of pre-fabricated yeasts, water, tartaric acid and nutrients to promote a healthy fermentation.  But is that really healthy – to attempt to put back everything that was taken out of the grape?  This process is where the hand of the winemaker comes into play and knowing this, you ask, where’s the Terroir?  Where is the ‘sense of place’ as Greg D. and Greg T. point out in their comments?

This begs another question, using Greg’s example of North Coast Pinot Noir and its stylistic components – if a winemaker is stylistically apt to pursue, as Greg calls, a ‘low acid, fruit bomb’ Pinot Noir does placing a vineyard designation on the label mean anything anymore?  If one is fortunate to source fruit from some of the storied vineyards in Sonoma County are they just using the vineyard as a marketing tool?  Probably so.  And if you, the consumers, are fortunate enough to taste a number of the same wines made from the vineyard designated, it will be up to you to decide which wines you appreciate, but will you ever really know, because of different winemaking styles, the sense of place that the vineyard is offering?  Probably not.  And that is a sad state of affairs if you believe that a wine could be marketed in such a way to promote itself through association.  So now the debate comes full circle to some comments I made on this blog back in April regarding the disclosure of winemaking techniques.

As Sir Walter Scott said: “What a tangled web we weave, when first we [practice] to deceive.”

Similar to Greg, I started out one way and finished another.  But in truth, that is the beauty of wine.  We will all share our own opinions sometimes vehemently, but the truth is in the palate of the beholder.  Drink well and enjoy.

-

Here’s a quick addition to this post that is quite interesting and falls in line with this debate.  In yesterday’s Wine Business e-mail newsletter they reported on Wine Intelligence’s new research that queried wine drinking consumers about their familiarity with worldwide wine producing regions.  Some of the results are startling.  With only 31% and 29% of American drinkers aware of French wine regions Cotes du Rhone and the Loire, how is it possible that the balance would ever know the Syrah and Sauvignon Blanc “terroirs” of said regions, even if they put it in their mouth?!?  My favorite tidbit from the report asked consumers to write the first thing that came to mind when they saw the name of a wine region.  “When Marlborough was shown, the most popular response was “cigarettes”; for Chianti, the film Silence of the Lambs was one of the most frequently repeated [responses].”  Egad.

Dan Petroski is Assistant Winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley. Dan has an MBA from New York University and worked as an Ad Exec in New York for several years, before switching it up and trading his suit for a move out west

Another New Wine?

posted by Dan in Guest Bloggers, Wine Industry

It’s June 2009.  I ventured off four years ago this month to pursue my interest in wine.  It was a curiosity and a possible career change then, now it is a daily passion that, not only, fills my heart, hands, nose and mouth, but also pays my bills.  In just a few short years I have been fortunate to make the successful transition from wine drinker to winemaker.  Along the way I have seen a proliferation of new wine labels enter the market.  Some have screamed to success, some are starting off strong but inevitably won’t endure – not for lack of passion or entrepreneurialism, but for a market that has been exponentially flooded during the boom years of increasing wine appreciation. From what I can tell and what research has told us, wine appreciation has not waned, but it has become a sad state of affairs for committed winemakers as the current economy is hovering somewhere between purgatory and nuclear destruction.  The market now seems to be sputtering, spitting, trading down, dining out less, and BYOB’ing when splurging was once a status symbol of the wine (drinking) strivers. Only the strong will survive, no?  Only the realists will realize that a simple drink marketed as an elixir of ancient times modernized will weather the reduction of profits, the refinancing of loans, the sale of family businesses, the savage shake of waking from a lifelong dream.

Amongst the ascent of financial chaos, another wine will come to market in the late Spring of 2010.  It will be a white wine.  It will be a risky endeavor.  On one hand it will not be a wine for novices.  On the other hand, it will be a blend of grape varieties with the hope of promising a new, unique approach of what white wine could be – modern, stylistic, spirited, sharply focused, textured, nuanced; different – taking the best of what California vineyards (and terroir) has to offer and approaching the winemaking with intellectual verve and passion.

I am starting my own label, Ladies and Gents.  I will be sourcing my fruit from a handful of California’s preeminent appellations and some lesser known ones.  My goal is to bring in as many grapes as I can weather and let them tell me what to do next.  My approach is to mirror the burgeoning success of the new-wave of white wines coming out of North East Italy with a Californian winemaker’s bend.  I adore the new world approach of producers Lis Neris, Volpe Pasini, Terlan and Venica & Venica and their use of classic and new world grape varieties, blended and vinified.  My hope is to channel their wines on Californian ground.

It is a risk.  But one worth taking. The economy has nose-dived and many producers are pulling back, down-sizing or shuttering completely because of the arrival of the financial Four Horsemen.

But in each and every thing, one must find the essence.  And the essence of this financial zeitgeist should be opportunity.  Take a look at the markets.  Find an opportunity.  Fill a hole.  The hole I am filling is in myself.  I reared my pursuit on a love of unique, memorable and affordable wines, and I hope that the 2009 vintage can satiate my goals to add a wine of said descriptors to the mix.  In previous posts over the last year I have offered an insight of winemaking techniques and processes.  In my future posts I hope to do the same, but with personal insights on the process.  Wish me luck (and buy my wine upon release).  Details to follow….

Dan Petroski is Assistant Winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley. Dan has an MBA from New York University and worked as an Ad Exec in New York for several years, before switching it up and trading his suit for a move out west

Bottling Day

posted by Dan in Guest Bloggers, Snooth, Wine Industry

Below is the third and final installment of bottling our 2008 Tocai Friulano and 2007 Firebelle. As promised, here is an attempt at presenting the process with photos. At the bottom of this posting is a link to photos on the Kodak website – the photos you will find there (and some below) were taken by Joshua Liberman. You can find out more about Josh’s photography on his website.

Larkmead is a relatively small producer. On average, we’ll make 8,000 cases a year. Our facility is not set up to bottle our own wine. The main reason for this is that it is expensive to own, maintain and manage a bottling line, especially since it is only used a couple of times a year. Therefore, when it comes time to bottling our wines, like many small producers, we will bring in a ‘mobile’ bottling unit. The beast of an 18 or so wheeler is outfitted with all the necessary automated devices – a filler bowl to fill the bottles, the filling machine, a corker, a capsule put-er-on-er (don’t really know if it has a name), the label machine and two technicians who manage the process professionally.

Depending on the truck you hire for the day, you can bottle up to 400 cases of wine an hour, that’s over 6 cases a minute. Although the process is fast and loud, it is ridiculously efficient with a focus on quality. To manage the day, you will also need about nine freelance workers to help get the empty glass on the truck (two guys), the finished wine in the case box (three ladies), and the cases labeled (two more ladies) and stacked on pallets for transport to storage (two more guys). And you will need a forklift driver (myself) to move pallets of empty glass and finished wine in and out of the way.

So, as mentioned, the empty glass gets pulled off a pallet and put on a conveyor.

From here the empty glass bottle is sparged with either Argon or Nitrogen to displace the oxygen in the bottle. The bottle is then filled with wine (the wine gets to the truck by the use of a pump that is hooked up to a tank inside the winery). Once the bottle is full of wine, it is corked.

After the wine is corked, it slides down the line and a capsule is placed on the bottle.

The capsule is larger then the neck of the bottle, but it is spun and the air is vacuumed out of the in between space and the capsule is collapsed for a snug fit before it is sent to be labeled.

After the wine is labeled, it circles the other side of the truck and is placed in case boxes. Pictured below is our team manager, Hilda, who, with her team, circulate and work the starting and finishing aspects, as noted above, throughout the day. In this photo Hilda is packing our first ever, half-bottle (375 mL) offering.

Please check out the Kodak website for more detailed photos of the process. And although the day is long (I’ll arrive with the truck’s technicians at 6 a.m. – we’ll begin bottling at 8 a.m. – and leave, post clean up, at around 6 p.m.), there is always something to do during bottling, but there is one particular Larkmead cellar hand that gets to sleep on the job, my dog Sophie.

Dan Petroski is Assistant Winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley. Dan has an MBA from New York University and worked as an Ad Exec in New York for several years, before switching it up and trading his suit for a move out west

Ten Great Brunch Wines To Try This Mother’s Day

posted by Alyssa in Guest Bloggers, Wine

Explore these ten sparkling and still wines, perfecting pairings for brunch on Mother’s Day or any Sunday!

Mother’s Day is the perfect time of year to both honor the mothers in one’s life and to contemplate the perfect wines for Sunday brunch.

Since brunch can by definition include breakfast and lunch foods, the wines that are perfect pairings for the meal are wide-ranging. Nonetheless, there are a few consistent go-to’s that are really perfect for the meal.

Sparkling Wine
With its effervescence and sometimes subtle sweetness, sparkling wine is probably the #1 brunch wine, and all the more perfect for Mother’s Day in the spirit of celebrating mom.

Prosecco is often an ideal brunch choice: it is affordable, often has subtle sweetness from traces of residual sugar, and its often fine bubbles literally dance on one’s palate, making it a welcomed, gentle approach to the day and meal. La Tordera Prosecco  is particularly delicious; it includes small amounts of Chardonnay, enhancing the wine’s creamy character. It offers gentle flavors of white peach and honeysuckle, making it a truly perfect way to begin a meal and perhaps your Mother’s Day.

If you’re more inclined to stick to a more classic sparkling wine, Champagne itself is always a wonderful brunch pairing, and particularly sparkling rosés. With its light ruby color, it blends in perfectly with a table filled with juices and flowers; a bone-dry brut rosé is an extremely versatile sparkling beverage, one that can readily pair with either omelets or salads, locks and bagel or fruit salad. Ayala Majeur Rosé Champagne offers up flavors and aromas of red fruits such as strawberry, raspberry, and red plum, which are wonderfully balanced with the fine beads and elegant effervescence trademark of an Ayala Champagne.

If mom or the fellow brunch guests are  big fans of a sparkling wine that’s truly on the sweet side, Castello Banfi Rosa Regale Brachetto d’Aqui  is an ideal choice. Deep rose color, from the exquisite Castello Banfi in Tuscany, it is superbly feminine and wonderfully sweet without being cloying, offers flavors of juicy, ripe raspberries and strawberries.

Still Rosé
If sparkling wine is not the preferred choice of mom or the brunch crowd, rosés are offer a great alternative. Like Brut Rosé, still rosé is a particularly great brunch wine, as it too can be bone dry or juicy and slightly sweet. Some of the world’s most elegant rosés come from Provence, France, specifically the Bandol region. Bandol rosés are often cantaloupe or light pink in color, lean, and almost universally elegant. Domaine Tempier  makes one of the most renowned rosés from the region: light salmon in color, with subtle notes of peaches in cream, it is also beautifully packaged, making it perhaps a perfect Mother’s Day gift let alone brunch wine selection.

Similar in packaging and style to Domaine Tempier’s rosé is Napa Valley’s Sullivan Vineyards “Pink Ink.”  Slightly ruby rose color, the Pink Ink offers the expected strawberry notes with less expected but welcome hints of pear and Meyer lemon.

On a totally opposite end of the rosé spectrum but equally delicious is Pretty Sally’s Rosé of Cabernet. A rosé of Cabernet is the “red wine lover’s” dream rosé: it is dry, hearty, and has juicy raspberry flavors throughout. Would work well with a range of brunch foods, from Eggs Benedict to bacon!

In Depth: 10 Perfect Brunch Wines

Here are ten affordable brunch wines from around the world, perfect for your Mother’s Day brunch. All wines were chosen by Alyssa J. Rapp, the Founder & CEO of Bottlenotes.com

La Tordera Prosecco NV
Close to Venice, the Prosecco Wine Road of Valdobbiadenne, Italy abounds with beauty. Its hillside vineyards, top-notch family wineries, stellar local eateries, and pristine accommodations make it a dream destination for vacation. You can travel there virtually this Mother’s Day while sipping on La Tordera Prosecco. With trace amounts of Chardonnay, La Tordera offers gentle flavors of white peach and honeysuckle and a creamy finish.

Ayala Rosé Majeur Champagne NV
Owned by Bollinger, Ayala produces Champagnes of equal caliber but only a fraction of the price of its parent company. Ayala Rosé Majeur is a beautiful pink color and offers up flavors and aromas of red fruits such as strawberry, raspberry, and red plum, which are wonderfully balanced with the fine beads and elegant effervescence trademark of an Ayala Champagne.

Bollinger Brut Rosé NV
One only hopes that the legendary grande dame of the house, Mme. Lily Bollinger, would have approved of this new wine. She apparently had misgivings about putting the family name on a rosé Champagne, which in the early 20th century was associated with bawdy houses. Banish the thought: Bollinger’s first-ever non-vintage rosé is sexy but definitively high class. At $100 a bottle, it’s a superbly elegant gift for mom or to toast mom over brunch this Mother’s Day!

Castello Banfi Rosa Regale Brachetto D’Acqui NV
Rosa Regale is superbly feminine and wonderfully sweet without being cloying, offers flavors of juicy, ripe raspberries and strawberries. Deep rose in color, it also makes the perfect visual accent for any brunch table, and is a dynamite pairing for an array of brunch foods, including quiches, glazed hams, and omelets.

Paul Chollet Brut Rosé Sparkling Wine Cremant de Bourgogne NV
A sparkling wine is not nearly as common from the region of Burgundy as Champagne. Nonetheless, Paul Chollet Brut Rosé sparkling wine from Burgundy makes for a tasty brunch pairing, like many a brut rosé. Since it’s made solely of Pinot Noir, its mouthfeel is round and supple. A perfect pairing for bacon, Eggs Benedict, or Quiche Lorraine.

Domaine Tempier Bandol Rosé
Domaine Tempier is one of the most established and iconic châteaux of Provence. Its signature Bandol rosé of the 2006 vintage offers pretty floral perfumes, pretty pale pink color, and classic stone fruit (peach, nectarine) and strawberry notes. Its ultra elegant packaging makes it a great gift for mom in addition to a lovely wine to enjoy with Mother’s Day Brunch.

Sullivan Pink Ink 2006
In 2001, the Sullivan Family began collaborating with their current winemaker, Philippe Langner, trained by two of Bordeaux’s most respected winemakers, Michel Rolland and Jacques Boissenot, for the family’s wines. Pink Ink is the team’s first foray into the world of rosé. Slightly ruby rose color, the Pink Ink offers the expected strawberry notes with less expected but welcome hints of pear and Meyer lemon.

Pretty Sally 2006 Rosé of Cabernets
Beautiful watermelon color, Pretty Sally Rosé is one of the most elegant from the New World. Aromas of cantaloupe and strawberry on the nose evolve into a delightful, juicy raspberry flavor. A rosé of Cabernet is the “red wine lover’s” dream rosé, and works well with a range of brunch foods, from Eggs Benedict to bacon.

Croze 2004 Rosé of Cabernet
Avatar Vineyards Croze rosé is a ripe, refreshing rosé made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. It offers bright, candied fruit aromas, and is slightly on the more tart side with light cranberry and pomegranate flavors, a welcomed contrast to a range of brunch foods, from Eggs Benedict to bacon, grilled vegetables or vegetarian omelets.

Zacherle 2006 Rosé of Syrah
Winemaker Nile Zacherle makes hand-crafted wines of excellence, whether Viognier or Syrah, under the Zacherle brand. His dry rosé of Syrah is made in the traditional French saignée method, offering lovely aromas and flavors of strawberry seed, candied lime, melon, and peppermint. Gamey notes characteristic of the Syrah grape linger underneath and lend depth before charming notes of cinnamon dust complement the finish. With just 78 cases made, Zacherle rosé is extremely limited-production, thus a perfect gift for a wine-loving and wine-collecting mother this Mother’s Day!

Alyssa J. Rapp
Founder & CEO
Bottlenotes, Inc.

Bottling Prep, Part 2

posted by Dan in Guest Bloggers, Wine Industry

I left off in the last post  talking about the process of “racking” a wine in preparation for bottling.  I also detailed some chemistry information about wine that winemaking types need to think about – not only the chemistry before the wine is bottled, but also its make-up throughout its development.

By the time this is posted on Wednesday I will have cases and cases full of wine.  And I promise in two weeks time you will see a photo essay of the bottling process. I am just not that tech-savvy to propose posting this in real time.

Today, we are bottling our Tocai. It is a small, limited production dry, white wine from 125 year-old vines.  We’ll make just about 120 cases from the 2008 vintage.  This Tocai is the North East Italian variety and brings all the best wild flower and citrus blossom to the nose and floral herbaceousness that is characteristic of the wines from the Friuli region.  We will also be bottling our Merlot based blend, Firebelle, from the 2007 vintage.

On Monday morning at 7:00 a.m. my glass (i.e. empty bottles) arrived.  Stacked on pallets in our branded boxes, 84 empty cases to a pallet.  Since last week, deliveries of labels, corks and capsules have been arriving as well.  My small cellar space has been overrun with packaging. Like any packaged goods brand manager, vendors were kept in touch with over the year – since the prior bottling; kinks were worked out and changes were made.  The most consistent change each year is to our labels.  The most obvious change is the vintage date and the current wine’s alcohol level.  And if the wine is composed of a different blend (e.g. Firebelle – Merlot, Cabernet and Malbec), the grape variety information and percentages have been updated.  For our Tocai, we decided to add an image to the label to memorialize the history behind the vines.   So, some wholesale changes were made and proofs were scrutinized and press checks were attended.

With regards to corks, when buying, we set up trials with our vendor.  These trials consist of smelling corks from different bales (i.e. lots) in order to check for quality – or more importantly, TCA (i.e. the chemical name for a natural fungus that is present in wood based products and we know commonly as “cork taint”).  A cork trial is a great aromatic tester because TCA comes in varying levels of impact. With low alcohol wines, if TCA is present, the impact is more profound.  With higher alcohol wines, e.g. Cabernets, there is a chance, even if there are minute traces of TCA (registered in parts per trillion) in the cork, it will not be discernable in the wine.  TCA is mainly recognizable as wet cardboard or wet dog, or, in lesser instances, as muted fruit profile or heightened menthol character.   So, for the trial the corks are soaked in low alcohol, boxed white wine (Franzia, I believe) over night.  Each cork is in its own individual vile of said wine and poured into wine glasses upon arrival.  We’ll smell ten or more corks from each bale and test five to ten bales in one session. We’ll have a control sample and the goal is to smell the glasses of wine and look for the bales that produce the least amount of impact in the wine’s aromatic character.

Covering the corks are the capsules. Last year we changed our capsule provider, for quality and price reasons, and we were able to secure a higher quality for a better price.  Unfortunately, last year, tin prices sky-rocketed, and if you add in the fact that we purchased our capsules from a French producer while the Euro to dollar conversion was peaking in the 1.50’s, it was an expensive accoutrement. We also buy our glass from France and our corks from Portugal, thus the currency conversion rates last year increased our entire packaging costs for our 2006 wines.   [The conversion rates also impacted our French Oak barrel purchasing.  Barrels that were $500-$600 a piece in 2003 and 2004 are now hovering around the $1,000 mark.]

For example, the rough costs for packaging a single bottle of wine are as follows:

Case Box: $0.15
Glass: $1.30
Corks: $0.60
Labels: $0.25
Capsules: $0.20

On top of this, you need to factor in your grape costs, your harvest costs, your vinification costs (i.e. fermentation yeasts and nutrients), your barrel costs, your time, labor, chemistry analysis, bottling prep, and the act of bottling itself. [You will see in the next post, we use a mobile bottling service which charges around $0.30 per bottle.]

Overall, the cost of producing a bottle of wine, for us (and this differs based on the choices each winery makes), is roughly, give or take a dollar, $10 per bottle.  That does not include the overhead (turning the lights on in the morning, etc.) and the marketing and sales expenses associated with the wine).  So, when it comes down to it, our wine is fairly expensive to produce – almost 3x the price of the average bottle of wine purchased in America.  However, in a Napa Valley comparison, on a QPR basis, our wines tend to be in the top tier of value wines even at $50-$60 per bottle.  I shutter sometimes when I think about this, because when I was a consumer of wine, not in the business of producing wine, I used to think of buying wine at this price point as a luxury.  Now it is value based on the wines I drink these days.  Sorry for the aside.

So, wish me luck today and the next couple of bottling days over the course of the next week, because this is the last chance to have any control of your wine’s development.  I am looking forward to the next post, full of pictures to elaborate on the process.  Until then, drink well, the luxurious kind or not.

Dan Petroski is Assistant Winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley. Dan has an MBA from New York University and worked as an Ad Exec in New York for several years, before switching it up and trading his suit for a move out west