Welcome Home!

posted by Mike in Website Updates, Snooth, Wine Industry

This week we’re proud to unveil two new and exciting additions to Snooth that we think you’ll find extremely useful. The first is our new editorial homepage, and the second is the launch of our much-anticipated articles section. Together, these enhancements kick it up a notch and help make Snooth an even richer online resource for wine.

The new homepage puts the best of Snooth front and center. With a site as large as Snooth it’s helpful to have a starting point that ties it all together. With popular wines, forum topics, news items, food pairings, and easy access to your account, the new homepage is a great place to come whether you’re looking for something specific, or just looking for inspiration.

But the centerpiece of the new homepage is our new articles section. For roughly the past year, Snooth users have been receiving helpful Snooth emails chock full of wine reviews, winery and winemaker spotlights, region profiles, wine deals, and much more. And this week we’re proud to announce it all has a permanent home on Snooth. Starting today, every Snooth email you receive will also be published on the site - meaning you’ll never have to dig through your email to remember the name of that winery, or that intriguing varietal with the funny name… Now it’s all on Snooth and always just a few clicks away.

While we’re thrilled to launch these new features, we’re just as exited to make them even better. We hope to hear your feedback on what’s new, and what else you’d like to see in the future. We also wanted to thank our users who took last month’s user survey. Your feedback was instrumental in creating these features that aim to make Snooth - and wine in general - more enjoyable for everyone.

Cheers!
Mike

The Warden: Georgetta Dane blends at the Big House.

posted by Gregory in Snooth, Wine Industry, Wine

Snooth was happy to be able to host The Big House Wine Company’s winemaker, Georgetta Dane, while she was making the rounds here in New York last week.

Georgetta, originally from Romania and trained in food sciences as well as oenology, happened to fall into the wine business in her home country but is certainly making a name for herself while defining the style at Big House wines.

Some of you might associate the Big House label with the irrepressible Randall Graham who founded the brand. For some two years now it’s has been functioning independently of Mr. Grahams Empire with the desire to continue to provide complex and interesting wines at affordable prices. One way of keeping the value proposition in balance is to avoid competing for the big money wines, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in particular.

In their place Georgetta and Big House wines rely on a vast palette of grapes, 42(!) in total. By drawing on the nuances from each grape, Georgetta builds wines of quality and consistency, a difficult challenge indeed.

While speaking with Georgetta, we were able to review her winemaking philosophy, which she compares to a perfumer.  Each varietal wine at Big House is vinified separately, with the exception of the Big House Pink which is produced via the saignée method, bleeding some pink juice from many vats of fermenting red wines to alter the juice to solids ratio in those reds, adding some oomph to the reds and providing a complex base for the wonderful “Pink” they produce.

Once each wine has finished fermenting Georgetta begins the intricate task of creating the final blend that will become either the Big House White or the Big House Red. In the case of the red there may be over 20 varieties in that final blend. The base is always a big, bold wine full of dark fruits. To that base Georgetta adds a middle drawn from “Italian varieties” that are valued for their “ insane fruit that brings harsh tannins but they disappear into the base.” The final layer of the wine consists of the top notes contributed by perfumed and spicy varieties, perhaps even a floral white to add some lift to the nose.

The process is repeated for the white in much the same manner yielding wines that are full yet deliver a remarkable amount of complexity and even finesse at their price points.

There are two tiers of wines produced by the Big House Wine Company, located in Soledad California with vineyards that surround the Soledad State penitentiary, hence the name. The original Big House wines: White, Pink and Red, represent the “lower tier” while the more distinctive offering: The Birdman, The Lineup, The Slammer, and The Prodigal Son, are the “upper tier”. In addition the Big House Wine Company also represents the Cardinal Zin brand which was sold by Randall Graham along with the big house wines.

While these wines offer great value and are lovely on their own and with food I am hopeful that Georgetta might some day have a free hand with some of the varietals she currently works with. I look forward to trying her, Charbono, Tempranillo and Teroldego!

2008 Big House White

This is surprisingly aromatic with a base of apricot fruit topped with very floral notes that recall viognier and a bright lemon drop tone that is complimented by bay leaf, herb, and powdered sugar notes. Medium full in the mouth with enough acidity to balance the touch of sweetness here. A bit simple in the mouth, it’s pretty front loaded but does return some nice floral character on the moderately long finish. 84pts.

~

2008 The Birdman Pinot Grigio

A nice note of almond milk greats the nose followed by a grassy, dandelion note that is more wildflower than green grass. In the mouth there is almost a hint of minerally tannin here with decent acids supporting a round but well balanced mouth feel with nice kiwi fruit and a minty top note that leads to a clean, spicy finish of decent length. 86pts

~

Big House Pink 2008
Still a touch tanky on the nose with some floral notes and lightly jammy strawberry fruit that picks up a bit of nuanced spice, tea, sandlewood and juniper berry. In the mouth this is bright and juicy with a lean, crisp feel that partners well with the slightly earthy, tarry spice tones. Not a fruit bomb but with fresh strawberry and a hint of peach. 87pts
~

~

Big House Red 2006

A touch grassy at first but then gaining a bit more of an earthy edge that evolves into a dried floral tone. Fairly nice wild red berry fruit on the nose with a core of grapy and lightly gamy tones. The bright acids in the mouth help to support nice sour berry flavors and the modest, if slightly angular, tannins add volume in the mouth with a salty, mineral tang on the back end that leads to a surprisingly long finish. A very solid table wine with character. 86pts

The Lineup 2006

A Grenache/Syrah/Mourvedre blend
Very perfumey nose with subtle gamy undertones supporting blue fruits and a snappy Syrah element with a a nice hint of sisal and dried flowers. Nicely balanced in the mouth with a fresh lively feel and intense juicy red berry fruits with hints of spices, cigar box, leather and black pepper adding nice complexity to the black plum fruit on the finish. 86pts

The Slammer Syrah 2006

Another nicely perfumed nose with pepper, tar, wood spice violets and maple bacon all adding depth to the blackberry fruits. Bright and crisp in the mouth with a touch of woodspice brownie up front followed by sweet, but not sugary, red fruits that have a nice vegetal/violet top note that gains intensity but is not off-putting since it offers nice contrast to the fruit. A nice balance of flavors though this does finish a touch short. 87pts

The Prodigal Son Petit Sirah 2006

This smells nicely earthy with a slight edge of char right out of the bottle. Big black grape skin and blueberry fruit are edged with hints of petrol, powdered sugar and bay leaf. This is round and fleshy with plenty of acid to help support the red cherry fruit and nice sandpapery tannins that add a hint of astringency to the mouthwatering mid-palate.  With that blueberry dichotomy of sweet and sour this remains lively in the mouth with good length and volume and a nice finish with a touch of asphalt and hint of woody mintiness reinforcing the slightly rustic quality of the wine. 88pts

Cardinal Zin 2006

A touch stewy on the nose with slow to open notes of macerated cherry with hints of cocoa, pipe tobacco, coconut and eucalyptus. Supple in the mouth with good acids and slightly chewy tannins that are well integrated in the dark wild plum fruits. The back end shows a bit more spicy and wood tones with a touch of woody astringency that adds to the red currant fruit tones on the final. A well rounded and well behaved Zin. 86pts

Gregory Dal Piaz

Community Manager

Snooth

An Ode to Wine Drinking History

posted by Dan in Snooth, Wine Industry, Guest Bloggers

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 Wine Industry, Guest Bloggers

 “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 Snooth, Wine Industry, Wine, Guest Bloggers

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.

Wine Proxies

posted by AdamL in Snooth, Wine Industry, Wine

There’s an ocean of imported wine out there, so how do you know if something is going to be good or not? While a select few people are familiar with individual producers within a wide range of regions, a slightly larger group just has a firm grasp on the main wine producing regions and sub-regions of the world, yet an even larger group knows they like wine from a specific country or knows they want to try it out. When you don’t consider yourself in that first group, you can learn the names of a few respected importers that you can use a proxy for actually knowing the producer of the wine you are about to buy.

Importers are always popping up and going out of business, but there are a number of reputable firms you can look out for. When I walk into a wine store and am looking for a new imported wine to try, the first thing I do is rotate bottles to look at the back label where the importer information is often stored. There isn’t always a logo on the label as there is in this Kermit Lynch example, but the text should be there. In the US, all imported wine must have some designation of what company imported that particular bottle. Different importers may import the same wine into different states or countries and multiple importers may have the right to import a single wine into the same place, so things can get a little confusing.

I’m mostly familiar with the portfolios of California importers, so this list skews towards the left coast of the US but here are a few of my favorites that I look out for. Some of these importers are distributed nationally.

-Chambers and Chambers – a little bit of everything. In Italy, they even use a consultant named Carla Bocchio who travels around helping them find the best producers. I had the chance to interview Carla a while back when she was in town, so will eventually post this interview on the blog.

-Kermit Lynch – French wines. The famous.

-Winemonger – Austrian wines. I’m still learning about Austrian wines, but there portfolio hasn’t disappointed yet.

-Charles Neal Selections – France

-Cape Classics – South Africa. Between these two SA importers, I think they have most of my favorite wine farms covered.

-Vineyard Brands – South Africa

-Domaine Select – a bit of everything

There are a couple of good articles you can read more on this idea of learning the name of an importer in order to discover new wines: Slate and HalogenLife

Terroir, an Addendum.

posted by Dan in Wine Industry, Wine, Guest Bloggers

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 Wine Industry, Guest Bloggers

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 Snooth, Wine Industry, Guest Bloggers

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

Views from Italy

posted by Gregory in Snooth, Wine Industry, Wine

I’ve been documenting much of my days here via posts on the Snooth Forum but to add some color I thought I’d do a little blogging so without further ado, a few photos from the top of the boot.

You can follow along my travels in more detail here, but I’ll briefly put a few of these photos in context

When I arrived in Italy I went basically from the airport to the Sella estate in Lesson, Northern Piedmont. We tasted a few wines with Cristiano the winemaker before visiting the summer home of the Sella family, now siting preserved but unused. A photo from thetop floor balcony shows the warmth here, check out the palm tree, as well as the encrouchment of housing that has virtually replaced the vineyards in this area.

Sella makes wines from Lessona and Bramaterra, The soil in Bramaterra includes sand of volcanic origin and some decomposed porphyr but the sand, and rock it’s derived from accounts for the significant differences between the two wines. both wines are made in a very traditional way and are aged in the Sella cellars in large, neutral wood, though some new oak has been used on some wines.

I’ll of course add tasting note for the sella wines soon but we had a great visit and i know a shipment of wines is on way to the US as we speak so I hope you al keep an eye out for them.

Our Next day began with a visit with one of my favorite producer, Mauro Mascarello of Giuseppe Mascarello. We tasted the line-up chez Mascarello along with renowned Italian journalist Franco Ziliani. As usual this was a high point of my trip. The wines were great, as they tend to be. We toured the cellar after the tasting where, among other gems, lay future vintages of the famed single vineyard Monprivato aging comfortably in their large wood botte.

Of course it could be argued that these large ovals aren’t really large botte. I don’t think that Franco and Mauro were actually arguing that while we took a look at these really large botte, out of commission for over a decade but still a fixture in the winery!

The botte are not the only contains that are throwbacks to another era found in the Mascarello cantina. Both 13.5 liter quarter brentas and these awfully attractive damigiane, look at those tin labels, how cool is that, are still used regulalry to help manage quantities of wines. i want to manage one right into my cellar. Heck, I’ld even take one empty!

Afer the cellar tour we went to da Felicin for a great lunch when we had the chance to blind taste a few great and very surprising bottles of wine. A very humbling experience for all involved as no one really got any right.My guesses from left to right:  1993 La Morra from Rivalta, a 1988 Barolo from Monforte, a 1978 Barolo from Barolo, and finaly a 1974 from who knows. the wines totally outperformed and that was probably due to the fact that they’ve spent all the life in one place after having been moved a few kilometers. What a lovely lunch and a humbling experience.

After lunch we were treated to a tour of the cellar where we got a chance to see some of the wines we didn’t drink. Suffice it to say we had a blast taking a look around at treasures like these.

After lunch, it was a long lunch so after lunch it was 5, we headed back to Alba for the welcome reception for the Alba Wine Exhibition. Along the way we stopped by to take a look at Mauro’s Monprivato vineyard. I have another shot of the vineyard from Cannubi that I’ll post tomorrow but looking north from Monprivato  one can see the wonderful Bricco Boschis estate of the Cavallotto family.  The winery is centered on the top of the ridge and all you see is Bricco Boschis, well pretty much.

Further to the west and a bit further north is Alberto Racca’s tenute Montanello. certainly a new operation but one with roots going back over a hundred. the facilities were once the Cooperative winery for the village of Castiglione Falletto and occupies a wonderful vantage point overlooking some of the great crus of Castiglione.

I’m cheating a bit now as we jump ahead a day to Monday night when we ended up in the village of Barbaresco for an afternoon tasting and dinner at Antica Torre. Since we had about 90 minutes to kill between the tasting and dinner we decided to take a walk out of the south of the village to visit some rather renowned vineyards. For example here we are looking back towards the village and you can see Moccagatta under the houses that line the top of the ridge and beneath that Paje.

Here’s a closer look at Paje. You might notice how lush and verdant the vineyard in the middle is. That’s Roagna’s organically grown vineyard producing exceptional wines while in totally harmony with the naturally occuring ground cover that help to prevent the landslides that have plagued this region recently. Good for the wine, good for the environment and good for the terrain. Why doesn’t every vineyard look like this?

We continued down the road until we came to the fork that divides Faset on the right from Asili on the left. We went up the right hand road and walked up to the top of Bricco Faset. We then went down through the vines and turned back to take this picture of Bricco Asili, just the crown of this hill.

We made it over to the road that heads down through the vines and under Bricco Asili and went around the corner where we ended up under Martinenga with Asili to the left and Rabaja to the right. Perhaps the most important slope in all of Barbaresco and that’s the photo that did not come out! I did however get a photos of these unusually high pruned old vines that lay at the bottom of this famed slope separating these vineyards from the Rio Sordo  which lies just beyond the stand of trees on the background.

We climbed up through Rabaja and Asili and let me tell you I will never forget how steep these vineyards are. It has been a great start to this trip and I have alot more to come. I’ve got some great video of the vineyards as well so help put them all in context. I hope you enjoyed this little bit and I look foward to my next installment. Until then Ciao!

Gregory Dal Piaz

Community Manager

Snooth