Hawk Wakawaka Wine Reviews

Being Truly Grateful: The Challenge of Thanksgiving

Wakawaka Chronicles

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Nov 21, 2012

The Complexity of Gratefulness: Remembering Thanksgiving

In first grade, as Thanksgiving approached, we learned the story of its origins–how the pilgrims were on the verge of dying, and the neighboring Indians came to offer corn, as well as how to cook it. The Pilgrims were so grateful, they asked the Indians to stay a while, and in the celebration of their getting along they made a feast. At the time I was fascinated. Touched too by the power of generosity and sharing. The story developed into a Thanksgiving celebration of our own, which included a project.

Each of us were given a paper pattern for making a simple three part vest. We were to lay the pattern onto burlap, cut out the scratching brown weave, and then stitch the pieces together with yarn. I loved this. The care demanded of marking the pattern, followed by the hands-on process of cutting and sewing… perfect. Hands on work was always my favorite. Once we finished the vest a new aspect arose.

The class was going to reenact that original Thanksgiving. We were to choose–did we want to be a Pilgrim, or an Indian, and then embroider icons onto our vest accordingly. Part of the pattern, it turned out, included things like feathers and corn for the Indian vests, or outlines of houses and something else for the Pilgrims. I sat for a long time confused.

My family is Alaska Native. On my father’s side we are Inupiat, which is an Inuit group that happens to be on what is now the Alaska side of the border with Canada. On my mother’s side we are Aleut. Most people haven’t heard of Aleut, it’s okay. But Aleuts are a group of people that come from along the Aleutian Chain of Islands of Alaska, up into the Alaska Peninsula, where the Islands join the mainland. The Aleut are more closely related to the Yupik and Inupiat of Alaska, than they are to the Athabascan, or Tlingit–the two major “American Indian” groups in the state–but really they are their own group of people. In Anthropological, in Linguistic, and in Census terms, neither the Aleut nor the Inupiat are “Indian.” Though “Indian” itself is a problematic usage, I’ll overlook that for now. The point is that, Aleuts and Inupiat simply are not what is called an “Indian” group, though they are Indigenous.

The challenge of the vest for me lay in having to choose my identity–Pilgrim, or Indian.

My family celebrated Thanksgiving every year. We would put together a huge meal, and I would revel in the extra days off from school to play with my stuffed animals, watch the science shows on PBS, and rearrange the furniture of my room. (I rearranged my furniture a lot.) My mom would make several pies, and homemade rolls, which were everyone’s favorite. But, honestly, she made the entire meal every year. We would start the meal in prayer, and then we would eat, without a lot of talking, but with a lot of appreciation for the food. We didn’t eat muktuk or seal oil that day, but we might have had it earlier that same week.

I remember saying aloud in the classroom as I sat deciding, “I can’t be a Pilgrim.” Well then, be an Indian, the teacher and other kids responded. “But I’m not Indian.” It took me more than a day to decide. Eventually I ended up with an Indian vest, and a construction paper feather at the back of my head. My people don’t put feathers on their head or wear burlap vests.

As small as this moment seems, Thanksgiving has made me tense ever since. It’s not that I want to talk about the decimation of Native people. I actually don’t. Nor, (please, god, no) do I want a moment of silence “for the genocide” to start the meal. It’s more that I don’t want to not talk about it as though gratefulness is a monotone focus. It is not only a focus on the positive. Gratefulness, I believe, is a complicated state that flows fullest with recognition of the blessings that come even within the challenge. As well as appreciation for what we might think is simply good.

I am deeply grateful. It’s a kind of miracle that as a Native person I am even alive, our history has been so challenged. I am grateful for the vitality of my family. I am grateful for the wealth of incredible teachers my life has included–both literal in the classroom teachers, and each one of you I meet and learn from. (My first grade teacher was honestly one of the coolest people I ever knew. She used to threaten that if we acted out she was going to pick us up “by the seat of [our] britches and carry [us] to the principal’s office.” I longed to see that happen, even as I desperately didn’t want anyone to act out.) I am grateful for my daughter, that through everything, we have persisted in joy. I am grateful for this little house I have just moved into in Sonoma, and am still unpacking. I am grateful for my sisters’ wonderful families–it does my heart good to know they have such lives. I am grateful for my mother. She is the most dedicated to me, and I learn on a regular basis what devotion means from her commitment to her family and to god. I am grateful for my father. His life is a testament to how much is possible when a person chooses well, determined to succeed.

I give thanks for my friends. I thank god for getting me here. It is my friends god has most clearly acted through. Their willingness to love me through the struggle of making change, as well as the celebration and excitement of my goals coming to fruition–that has made everything I’ve ever done in my life feel possible. A year ago at this time I was getting ready to close my last semester teaching at the university. I had given my resignation and had no good idea what I was going to do. I only knew I wanted to spend my time writing, and I wanted to decide where Rachel and I were going to move, then move us there. That’s exactly what I did this last year–another sort of miracle. Now, I want to focus on us getting settled, on celebrating the connections we’ve started with people, on continuing to grow a healthy liveable income, and on appreciating each other. She is just 13.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow. What a beautiful idea to have an entire holiday devoted to gratefulness. May each of you feel the blessing of this day. Amen.

Regarding Rochioli 2: A Life in Wine, Joe Rochioli, Jr.

Hawk Wakawaka

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Nov 20, 2012

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Listening to Joe Rochioli, Jr.

Joe Rochioli, Jr.

“I am always the first one to work in the mornings. I get my men started, and am usually the last one to leave. I don’t know for how much longer.

“From 8 years old, I helped my dad prune, head prune. The vines were all planted in the 1890s. We would pile up brush between four vines and then burn the brush. We’d sulfur the vines with a big sack–put a handful on top of the vine and it would go poof.” His hands lift up to illustrate. “Everything was planted 8 by 8. But then in the 60s, we started pulling them out.

“I went to college at Cal Poly. I started to go to Davis, but then a guy came by, right here to the ranch, and told us at Cal Poly you learn by doing, and I like that model. I was an Animal Science Major to start. I had all kinds of animals here. Future Farmers of America. I won awards. But I sold my bull, the cows, and all 80 sheep, and my dad gave me $350, and I went to school.

“When I was 12 I was already doing man’s work. I grew up fast. But really I hated to pick hops [the ranch had more hops than grapes planted originally], so I talked my dad into letting me work in fields with the men.

“I worked to put my way through school, and I played baseball all 4 years at Cal Poly. It was difficult to work, play baseball, and go to school. While there I was doing all the crops course electives, and working for the crops department. Later I started with vineyards. For 10 years we were on beans here. Then we moved up to grapes.

“I started reading books on French Burgundies. I got it in my head–in France, they can’t produce big [grape] crops… and they’re making the best crops in the world. So, I wanted to plant varieties. Everyone was growing only for bulk wine back then. But I wanted to grow varietals. Dad wouldn’t let me. He made the decisions in those days.

old vine Sauvignon Blanc on Rochioli Estate

“Finally, in 1959 I talked him into Sauvignon Blanc. When I went to Davis I went to get bud wood and they had rows. I started tasting them. They had this one row that had this fig taste to them. So I took all my bud wood from that and planted that. [UC Davis eventually sold all of this bud wood, without record of its origins. As a result, the clone of Sauvignon Blanc located at Rochioli is unknown. The Rochiolis produce an Old Vine Sauvignon Blanc bottling from these vines.]

“In 1961 I tried to talk my dad into Pinot. He said no. He was right. There was no one to buy it then. The wine all went into Gallo. But in 1968, I planted a clone of Pinot Noir. For several years it all went into Gallo’s mixed reds. Same with the Sauvignon Blanc, into their mixed white. But then Mondavi Estate took some. Then Windsor Vineyard. Then Dry Creek Vineyards, in the early 70s–he won a lot of medals for that wine. Then in 1973, I started selling Pinot Noir to Davis Bynum. He won some medals as well.

“In 1972 I planted Chardonnay. Just pulled some of that out. There is still a block of old vines out there.

“I have always been proud of my quality. I started pulling leaves before anyone thought of it. Mainly on the Sauvignon Blanc because it was so bushy no light was getting in. I built a cane cutter in 1960. It was the first cane cutter in the county. I built my own house. It took me two years, but I built it. I built my own bins. Made a hydraulic dumper. That ‘learn by doing’ came through from Cal Poly. I’m still proud as hell. I still want to make the best grapes.

Vivienne and Joe Rochioli, Jr.

“I got remarried, and married my high school girl friend. We ran against each other for Student Body Vice President. She was the first girl to run for that position. I beat her. She said it was the mafia, but I was a pretty good athlete. Football and baseball. I won a lot of trophies.

“I was just a little Italian boy. I couldn’t speak English when I started. My sister and I, we both started at a little one room school house up the road. There were just two Italian kids back then, her and I.

“No one ever came around this area back then. It was really remote. When anyone did, my sister and I would run like hell and get behind the couch to hide. I had to force myself to do a lot of things. I think football helped a lot. I was President of the Grape Growers Association at one point. I forced myself through a lot of things. I was determined. There are a lot of opportunities for people here.”

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Part 1 of this feature on the Rochioli family: http://wakawakawinereviews.com/2012/11/19/regarding-rochioli-visiting-rochioli-winery-and-their-historic-family-vineyards/

To read more on the Rochioli story, check out this comprehensive history by Prince of Pinot: http://www.princeofpinot.com/article/1124/

The Rochioli family is also featured in the Russian River Valley documentary, From Obscurity to Excellence. The release viewing occurs December 1, 2012. For more on the movie: http://www.russian-river-valley.com/ To buy tickets: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/4754299237?ref=ebtnebtckt#

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Thank you to Joe Rochioli, Jr. for taking time to talk with me.

Thank you to Kanchan Kincade.

Regarding Rochioli: Visiting Rochioli Winery, and their Historic Family Vineyards

Hawk Wakawaka

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Nov 19, 2012

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Rochioli Winery & Vineyards: Meeting Joe Rochioli, Jr. and Tom Rochioli

click on comic to enlarge

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I was lucky enough to meet with Joe Rochioli, Jr. and Tom Rochioli, and receive a tour of Rochioli Estate. Tom drove me through the property along the Russian River, then let me taste several wines from their substantial portfolio. Because Tom ferments each block separately, he is able to taste the unique differences between what are otherwise uniformly planted and comparable sections of the vineyard. The soil diversity, as well as clonal diversity that typifies Rochioli Estate, along with the dedicated vineyard management generate quality fruit that have made the Rochioli Vineyards, and their wines highly regarded, and award winning.

More on the Rochioli family story, and their wines tomorrow!

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Regarding Rochioli 2: A Life in Wine, Joe Rochioli, Jr.: http://wakawakawinereviews.com/2012/11/20/regarding-rochioli-2-a-life-in-wine-joe-rochioli-jr/

Thank you to Tom Rochioli, and to Joe Rochioli, Jr.

Thank you to Kanchan Kincade.

Thank you to Dan Fredman.

Russian River Valley’s Unique History: From Obscurity to Excellence, a Documentary Review

Hawk Wakawaka

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Nov 16, 2012

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From Obscurity to Excellence: The Story of Grapes & Wine in the Russian River Valley, A Documentary

a map of the Russian River Valley AVA, approved in 1983; image from Russian River Valley Winegrowers

In 1997 Maurice Joe Nugent began planting grapes in the Russian River Valley, having found his calling, in a sense, after leaving a professorship in Chemistry in order to fulfill his hope of living in California. Within a few years the fruit had proved to be reliable and he found himself enjoying his days driving a tractor about the property, pulling leaves to moderate sun exposure, and simply enjoying his new career. While walking through the vineyard he began to wonder about the history of the place–how did wine in Russian River Valley get so good?

That initial question set Joe off on a quest of talking to people on film–asking them to tell their stories about their life of wine in the area of the AVA founded in 1983, but reaching back to a history of wine production established well before Prohibition. What is remarkable about the project is that Joe succeeds in recording interviews with men that not only lived through Prohibition, but also helped jump start the California wine industry immediately after its demise.

The interviews have been brought together in a documentary film to tell the story of what is now called the Russian River Valley. What this film does well is bring together a wealth of information with the intimate insights of genuine story telling. The interviews shown throughout capture men in the revelry of their memories, offering a glimpse at the lives the people of the area have lived, while eliciting the history of the place itself. In this way, one can’t help but be charmed with how the history is told. At the same time, the movie offers clear insight into details of the industry’s trajectory, along with some, perhaps, illicit implications into the founding of one of the larger producers of wine in the area.

Where the movie limits itself is in a few interviews filmed with less polished technical effect. What becomes clear by the end of the documentary, however, is that those moments offer irreplaceable recordings of men sharing history. The rougher interviews are included for this reason–they are irreplaceable. Some of the figures shown in the story are no longer alive. In this way, the movie is an opportunity to hear from our elders in the wine industry, those any of us in Sonoma County are, in a sense, indebted to.

From Obscurity to Excellence: The Story of Grapes & Wine in the Russian River Valley shares the history of pre-Prohibition immigration and migration to the then-remote area of Northern Sonoma, the post-Prohibition boom, and the quite recent move from bulk wine to a focus on quality, resulting in the development of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay as the area’s grape figure heads. Best of all, the movie manages to share this history alongside the charm of real people that impacted the success of the wine industry in Sonoma.

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From Obscurity to Excellence: The Story of Grapes and Wine in the Russian River Valley will celebrate its release on December 1, 2012 at the Wells Fargo Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa, CA.

For more information about the movie visit the movie’s website: http://www.russian-river-valley.com/

To purchase tickets for the December 1 screening (some of the people interviews in the film will also be present at the screening): http://events.pressdemocrat.com/santa_rosa_ca/events/show/293052645-russian-river-valley-grapes-and-wines-movie

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Thank you to Joe Nugent for including me in the pre-release screening, and for taking time to talk with me.

Thank you to Kanchan Kinkade.

A Report on Tragedy and Comedy: Red Hook Winery, A Guest Post by Abe Schoener

Hawk Wakawaka

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Nov 14, 2012

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The following is a guest post written by Abe Schoener, winemaker of The Scholium Project, and one of the founders and winemakers of Red Hook Winery, Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York. The text of this post has also been shared with his Scholium Project mailing list.

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A Report on Tragedy and Comedy, by Abe Schoener

Dear Correspondents–

I am writing you from Red Hook, Brooklyn, on a beautiful warm sunny day. I wish that I could send a hundred photos. There is so much tell you and words are not enough. I am writing from a pier with water on both sides– the south side looks across the Red Hook Channel of the Upper Bay of New York Harbor to Staten Island and Bayonne, New Jersey; the north side looks across the Buttermilk Channel to Governor’s Island and the Statue of Liberty. Wild ducks live near the breakwater shore; ferries, tugboats and their charges ply the water constantly. These days, we see a lot of police boats and Coast Guard cutters racing across the water. This is because we are at the center of a zone of water-born devastation.

I work at a winery here on this pier. I helped to found a winery in Red Hook in 2008, and I have spent many wonderful days here, making wine from New York grapes. I have learned so much from and with my friends and colleagues and have treasured both the experience and our accomplishments. It is not enough to say that there is a world of difference between making wine in Brooklyn and in Napa. I will leave it to your imagination. But what you must know is this: we have found some amazing vineyards sites in the warm, fertile soils of Long Island, and we have made some wines as good or better than anything I have made in California. I will save details for another message. When the storm hit New York, Red Hook was like a breakwater. No zones in the storm’s path in NY suffered worse damage from the raging waters. On the morning that the waters receded, my colleagues reported to me that the winery had been destroyed and that all was lost. Within another day, I got a somewhat more studied (and optimistic) report. We had no power, no doors to close, no working equipment. But very few of the wines, fermenting or in barrel, had been been flooded by water or swept away. It was a miracle. We are still not sure how much might have been contaminated indirectly (through the barrels staves, by swirling vapors), but we knew that we had a new task: no matter what the final result, we must work to save everything that we could.

I flew out as soon as I could. Meanwhile, Mark and Christopher and Darren and Ben and 20 volunteers cleared the tumult of barrels and swept away the fruit spilled everywhere onto the floor. On the fourth day, we began working on the wines again, in the dark, using headlamps and flashlights. We tasted everything and made a triage chart. Some wines still needed pumping over; most were at the end of their fermentations and needed to be drained away from the skins and seeds. We began work draining the tanks of red wine by gravity, into large open vessels that we would then bucket out of to fill barrels. Over the next couple of days, we drained the puncheons of white wine by gravity, bucket, and eventually by a tiny generator-powered pump. Yesterday, we finished draining the puncheons of red. Except for one still active Cabernet fermentation, every wine is now safely down to barrel. We don’t know how much wine is spoiled, how much contaminated– but in a certain sense we do not care. We had work to do.

Why am I telling you this? I learned an important lesson, reflecting on my colleagues and friends working tirelessly in the cold, dark stone warehouse that is our winery. Among us for three days was a winemaker from Piemonte who had originally come here to promote his wines to the important New York market. Instead, he showed up one morning at the winery and could not stay away. For three days, he held hoses, swept the floor, filled barrels. He could not stay away and nor could we– even though none of us had any assurance that we could finally save anything. Our work was in a certain sense an end in itself.

Winemaking is an act of devotion: devotion to the wine in front of you, still young and needing your husbandry to reach its best completion; devotion to the grapes, the grapes harvested to make wine at your hands; but most of all: devotion to the vineyards and the people who own and farm them. None of us had any doubt: we had a natural and irrevocable responsibility to make sure that the grapes grown by Ron Gerler and Joe Macari, by the Matabellas and by Sam McCulloch, that the fruit of their vines, harvested at length, after months of tilling, pruning, thinning, mowing– that these did not go to waste. Storm, hurricane, flood, absence of power, a forklift that would never lift again– no excuse, no impediment: we had a responsibility to make the very best wine and make sure that a whole year’s life in the vineyard was not in vain.

Our devotion flows from the fact that the essence of winemaking is not something silly like blending or ordering the right barrels: the essence of winemaking is preservation and transformation. Both of these can take place with the least of our intervention or supervision; this in turn emphasizes that we are not creators but shepherds.

We were in that cold, dark building for four days– Luciano, from Monforte d’Alba, with other responsibilities in an important market; Talia, a writer with deadlines; Allison and Matt with restaurants to run- we were all there for the same reason. No shepherd would abandon a flock on a stormy hillside. Not his flock, not his neighbor’s. When you take on certain tasks, you accept certain charges and responsibilities and they take residence in your bones. It is wonderful to feel that charge, so deep and so viscerally; and wonderful to respond to it.

This is a report on the close of harvest. Normally, I would not report on Brooklyn– it is another venture, not Scholium. But I rushed from California to come here, leaving my noble and precociously wise interns in charge of the Scholium winery. And my mind has been forced to reflect on two places at once, but one truth. The harvest in California has been my best ever, in every respect. The quality of the fruit, the quality of the wines, the youthful interest of the wines (some of them are already fascinating!), the happiness and efficiency of our work– never have I had a year like this. And my friends and colleagues who grow grapes and make wines– all of them are celebrating. This year, there was no suffering in Napa or Sonoma or Lodi or Suisun– only gratitude and elation.

And then a winery in Brooklyn is demolished and a whole year’s harvest threatened. It made me think right away of the two sides of a coin, inseparable. And made me think of the emblem of the Theater: two masks together, Tragedy and Comedy, inseparable. And this in turn made me think of a very important line in Plato’s Symposium, a beautiful dialogue about love, but also about drinking. The story ends with Socrates compelling his two remaining drinking companions (they had drunk the others under their couches) to agree that “it is in the power of one and the same man to know how to write both comedy and tragedy.” This line has always mystified me and spurred me to thinking, but I never felt that I understood it fully, or knew why this question brought the dialogue to a close. I still do not; but I feel somewhat closer, brought closer by my recent experiences in agriculture, in winemaking, in working in a harbor: in other words, by having my hands and my feet, and my heart and my head, in the physical, unbending world of Nature– not in the filmy, pliable world of books. I learn every year how close the wedding-celebration of comedy is to the funeral march of tragedy. Winemaking– like farming– is shepherding, but it is always no more than a breath away from spoilage.

Thank you for reading such a long message. Just let me know when you want to hear less from me.

With very best wishes
Abe

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Red Hook Winery is offering “Survival Packs” — collections of their wine, still intact, available for sale. To find out more visit their site here: http://redhookwinery.com/

To read more on the history of Red Hook, and the impact of Sandy on the area plus the winery, check out this thoughtful post by Allon Schoener: http://the-reluctant-angeleno.blogspot.com/2012/11/channeling-destruction-wrought-by-super_14.html

To hear more from Abe on the state of things at Red Hook Winery, check out this podcast with Levi Dalton on _I’ll Drink to That_. Episode 42: http://illdrinktothatpod.com/

Considering Carmenere: A Wines of Chile Tasting for #BlogChile

Hawk Wakawaka

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Nov 7, 2012

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Wines of Chile ‘Terroir Master Class’ Tasting

To help bring awareness to the differing regions of Chile, and the unique expression of wines from these regions, Wines of Chile organized a tasting bringing together wines of 4 different grapes, 3 expressions each for a total of 12 wines.

Chile offers a unique environment for growing wine for multiple reasons. Most distinctive among them is the phylloxera free environment offered by the desert to the north, the mountains to the east, and the water everywhere else. Chile is essentially land locked so that the louse cannot sneak into the country via wind, animals, or other natural vectors, and the government keeps agricultural supplies in strict quarantine to protect the vines from human error. Grapes, then, are grown on their own rootstock throughout the country.

As described by the winemakers hosting our experience through the tasting, Chilean wine is about drinking the wine now “because you will be happy” but with the understanding that the wines have the ability to age as well.

I was pleasantly surprised by the focus on value in many of these wines. Following are descriptions for the twelve wines.

Sauvignon Blanc

Sauvignon Blanc from Chile has done well at catching attention in recent years for offering a lean, clean focus with a wealth of fruit. I have to confess these whites are not my style. However, these wines are also a recognizably popular style, offering consistent quality, and are generally an expression of value.

Vina Casablanca Nimbus Single VIneyard 2012, Casablanca Valley $13. This is a delicate wine with an elegant focus, bringing out the character of lily and nasturtium with citrus blossom and zest. There is a lightly salty texture on a soft palate. This is a value wine. The Nimbus was made with a slow fermentation, and kept on lees for a creamier texture.

San Pedro 1865 Single Vineyard 2011, Lyeda Valley $19. There is a creamy nose and palate here showing cooked asparagus, white grapefruit citrus, with light tomato leaf on the palate alongside white grapefruit, white pepper corn, and light evergreen. This is a clean, crisp wine with a long finish and a generally vibrant palate. The 1865 Vineyard offers limestone, and good proximity to the coast.

Casa Silva Cool Coast 2011 Colchagua Valley $25. The Casa Silva vineyard rises at 1300 feet elevation directly above the ocean. The wine carries a tomato leaf nose with creamy back note, light lily and light mango. The palate is vibrant, with a strong green leaf and green onion aspect carrying through to the finish. The flavors showing here include citrus blossom, light pepper, and pink grapefruit.

Pinot Noir

PInot Noir has developed as a more recent interest in Chile, with plantings beginning in the 1980s in newly established cooler climate areas of Casablanca, San Antonio and Bio Bio.

* Emiliana Novas 2010, Casablanca Valley $19. The Emiliana Novas Pinot was one of the stand outs of the overall tasting–the value on this wine is impressive. The overall presentation offered here are like an archaeological dig of texture and flavors. You get a lot for $19. The nose is vibrant with rhubarb, light strawberry-raspberry without being sweet, and touches of smoke. The palate offers red berry and rhubarb, smoke and cracked pepper. There is a cohesive structure with vibrant acidity and medium smooth tannin, and a generally clean presentation.

Cono Sur 2009, Casablanca Valley $32. The nose of this Pinot is earthy, with smoke, a mix of red and dark berries, and light cracked pepper. The palate carries the textural, light tar influence of lees, with vibrant red fruit acidity, smoke, and dark earth rich soil. You get here a long smoke finish, up acidity, and medium tannin.

Morandé Gran Reserva 2009, Casablanca Valley $18. More than the other two Pinots, this one wants to be opened and given time with air to allow the flavors to settle and come together. Without that time it presents as disjointed. There is a sense of sea water, red fruit, smoke, and both red and dark berry here on a textural palate. Give this wine some time to enjoy it properly.

Carménère

Carménère has captured a unique role in Chile thanks to its accidental history. Planted extensively through the country under the guise of Merlot, Carménère took a foothold in the South American state while being actively ignored in its home country of Bordeaux. Prior to its true origins being discovered, the Merlot of Chile became known as offering a unique presentation in comparison to the Merlot of elsewhere. To investigate the phenomenon, a vine scientist was brought in to study the unique Chilean Merlot clone. Unique clone indeed! It turned out more than half of the Merlot harvested from Chile was actually Carménère! While it had seemed to go extinct in Europe it was going strong in South America.

Interestingly, Carménère takes a similar story in Italy where it had been planted in the North as what was believed to be Cabernet Franc. It is now understood that most of what has been taken to be Cabernet Franc in areas like Friuli-Venezia Guilia and Veneto is actually Carménère.

With its unique presence in Chile attention has turned to developing the overall quality of the fruit in the region. The grape demands extended hang time plus warm climate to ripen optimally, and likes clay for growing in.

Many consider the bell pepper elements common to the grape undesirable. In too strong measure it can overwhelm other aspects of the wine. However, in good balance with earthier elements and some fruit, I find it pleasant and a nice up note to lift the wine. The three expressions we tasted from Chile were good examples of how interesting wines of the grape can be.

We were able to ask the winemakers how well they expect their Carménère wines to age. They consistently said that on a good vintage and a quality wine, Carménère would readily age 10 years, but could be expected to do well longer. They also expressed that their favorite pairing for the variety is spicy curry or Mexican food.

Concha y Toro Marques de Casa Concha 2010, Cachpoal Valley $22. WIth 100% Carménère in this wine, it carries the most fruit focus of the three. The nose starts with the characteristic bell pepper element and opens into bacon fat, cassis, red berry, and light cracked pepper. On the palate there is a fresh water element layered into an ultra rich, slightly heavy palate. This wine wants to be decanted and given time to open up and unfold. There is a nice texture and movement in this wine opening into cooked down fruit, and hints of cocoa.

Carmen Gran Reserva 2010 Apalta-Colchagua Valley $15, 5% Carignan. Again, this wine wants to be decanted and let rest to open up. The initial breath gives distinct green pepper with light sulfur elements and a strong palate with intense flavor. The wine opens into light camphor and squid ink with distinct red fruit, pepper with spice, and a bread finish. This is a young, still tight wine. With air it opens up into a lot of richness and the acidity to carry it through–the Carignan helps provide some of this.

* Koyale Royale 2009, Colchagua Valley $26, 8% Petit Verdot, 7% Malbec. The most distinctive elements show on this wine. There is a lot of layering, and pleasant focus offered through this wine and it drinks beautifully into the second and third day. The green pepper element on the nose presents as refreshing, alongside a lightly bready character. The palate is intense with bacon fat, cassis, light clove, light bread, dark fruit and smoke. There is a distinctive textural finish here, and grippy tannin that is also pleasant. This was one of the stand outs in the tasting for its overall quality.

Cabernet Sauvignon

Though Chile has become associated with Carmenere, it is actually the success of Cabernet Sauvignon that brought attention to the red wines of the country. Cabernet Sauvignon helped show other areas of the world that Chile could produce quality red wines, thus bringing further interest in the rest of the wine industry of the area as well.

* Maquis 2010, Colchagua Valley $19. The value on this wine is utterly impressive. This wine offers a lot of sophistication for the cost. You get pencil lead, light green pepper, chocolate, and green leaf raspberry with a meaty, rich palate, and a medium long tang finish. It is still a young wine with a tight presentation, give it some open time if you choose to drink it now. This wine was one of the stand outs in the tasting for its value.

Ventisquero Grey 2009, Maipo Valley, $29, 6% Petite Verdot. The nose here carries dust and deep red and purple fruit, leading into a vibrant, gripping, and stimulating juicy mouth. The flavors bring a mix of dust, red and purple fruit, green leaf, and graphite, with a spice and light tar medium-long finish. Let this wine have some age or some air.

Los Vascos Le Dix 2009, Colchagua Valley, $65, 10% Carménère, 5% Syrah. This wine wants age and air. Decant it and let it open if you choose to have it now. A fresh green pepper, and light cassis nose moves into a strong palate of spice, dark fruit, cassis, cocoa and tobacco with both a juicy and grippy body. The tannins here are smoothed, giving the roundest and smoothest presentation of the three Cabernets. The Le Dix comes from over 80 year old vines. It would be a perfect pairing for a grilled rib eye steak.

***

To read more about the wine regions of Chile check out this map and click chart from The Wines of Chile: http://www.winesofchile.org/chilean-wine/wine-regions/

Thank you to the Wines of Chile for including me in this tasting. Thank you to the Fred Dexheimer and the winemakers for discussing the wines with us. What a treat!

Thank you to Amber, and Morgan for their work facilitating the event.

Thank you to Lori Tieszen and to Emily Denton for extending the invitation to me.

Oregon and California Chardonnay for Fall, for Katherine

Hawk Wakawaka

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Nov 5, 2012

4

Chardonnays from Northern California and Willamette Valley Oregon

Katherine asked if we could feature Chardonnays for Fall. So, several of us got together and tasted through a range of examples from Oregon and California. The goal was to taste wines from a mix of price points, that avoided oak bomb problems, while still showing a range of styles and generally up acidity, with each known to be a good example of the style in which they’re made. Part of the intention was also to bring together wines from Oregon with wines from California. The resulting collection drew from 7 Willamette Valley, Oregon wines, and 5 from Napa and Sonoma counties in California, plus 1 from the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. Following are descriptions for each of the wines.

Along with Katherine’s request, the Antica Terra Aurata was the bottle that inspired this tasting. My sister and I were lucky enough to meet with Maggie Harrison earlier this summer and taste the earlier presentation of this same wine. Knowing the Aurata was about to be released I decided the best way to share it with friends was by showing it alongside other well-made Chardonnays. The opportunity to enjoy multiple wines side by side affords a different style of insight into the wine than simply drinking one on its own does (I drank more of these on their own later).

Cheers!

click on comic to enlarge

Willamette Valley, Oregon Chardonnay

Antica Terra Aurata 2010 $75. The Aurata is vibrant, clean and stimulating. Its presentation is well-tuned, offering a feminine while racy mouthfeel that gives simultaneously a polished textural element and a bunch of mouth stimulation. This wine offers presence in the mouth. It avoids dominating your palate, while at the same time pulling you to attention with interest. What this wine does well is bring together rich flavors with swift structural movement and nice textural mouthfeel, all together avoiding any sense of heaviness or overwhelm. There are elements of caramel and citrus blossom, light candy powder, white and pink grapefruit, and meyer lemon. 12.9% alcohol. Vibrant acidity. Long finish.

Brick House 2009 $30. Though Brick House red wines are often well thought of and appreciated, the 2009 Chardonnay does not show the same advantages. The 2009 drank chunky and disjointed with a heavy blanket of reductive funk on the nose that marred the fruit characteristics lingering in the background, then the finish bottomed out and disappeared. Decanting or air does not help here. The wine simply drinks like it is trying to be something it isn’t. From what I know of Brick House wines and have read of this one in particular I am wanting to believe the effect might be bottle variation. Still, for this price I have to be honest and warn, be careful. 13.6% alcohol.

Cooper Mountain Reserve 2009 $15. The Cooper Mountain Reserve wins the value challenge. The Reserve takes fruit entirely from the Cooper Mountain estate, blending fruit from vines planted in 1978, 1982, and 1999, after fermentation and aging through a mix of stainless and old oak. The presentation you get here is well balanced with a rich while delicate, well-integrated range of flavors on a hardy backbone of structure. You get caramel and light spice on the nose coming through with citrus blossom, light beeswax, and hints of toast. These carry into the palate culminating in a great zing finish, and a mouth tightening after finish. 13% alcohol, medium acidity, medium-long finish. Cooper Mountain grows both organic and biodynamic certified fruit.

Cooper Mountain Old Vines 2010 $30. Cooper Mountain’s Old Vine bottling draws only from the fruit of the 1978 plantings of Estate Chardonnay, grown via organic and biodynamic certified farming. Even at the higher price this wine offers value. It is one of the most pleasing of all the wines tasted offering a smooth mouthfeel, and clean presentation. The nose offers citrus blossom with light melon undertones, chamomile and orange blossom, with hints of graphite. There are elements of butter cream pastry and meyer lemon plus lime blossom here with a pleasing bergamot finish. 13% alcohol.

Domaine Drouhin Arthur 2010 $28. The Arthur was split into two lots with half fermented in French oak barrels (30% new), and the other in Stainless Steel, then blended after to create a wine with rich flavors and a more delicate body. Domaine Drouhin consistently offers well made wines, and this chardonnay drinks as though it is made by someone that knows precisely how to work with the grape. It offers a clean presentation with good acidity and a breadth of flavor. There is a light cedar and nut touch to the nose with floral and orchard fruit elements, a smooth mouthfeel and lingering finish. 13.9% alcohol.

Evesham Wood 2011 $18. The value on this wine is impressive. You get a lot for your money here. The nose offers citrus and lily flowers, carrying over into the palate with nutskin, and dried sage alongside notes of mace and light wax. The Evesham Wood offers a smooth mouthfeel with medium alcohol (12.5%), medium+ acidity, and a medium finish. Erin Nuccio, and his wife Jordan, have recently taken over the Evesham Wood project, after producing Haden Fig at the location since its beginning. Erin’s wines are worth keeping an eye on as they show good quality, while doing well at maintaining value.

St Innocent Freedom Hill Vineyard 2010 $24. The scent of movie house and microwave popcorn–the butter and salt of it–stood out most for me on this wine. It lessened with air, but was there still when I revisited the wine again later that first day, and again on the second day. There is a citrus blossom finish with a zing to the after finish. The wine was made in older oak, with full malolactic fermentation. 14% alcohol.

Northern California Chardonnay

Donelan Nancie 2011 $45. The fruit from Donelan’s 2011 Nancie comes from a blend of three vineyards offering a mix of older vines, and some elevation plantings. There is a rich and smooth mouthfeel here with a good mouthwatering stimulation of movement. The wine presents a vibrant nose of citrus blossom, very light butter, faint hints of leather and mushroom, all carrying forward into the palate with a tingling finish. The wine is barrel fermented and goes through partial malolactic fermentation. This wine though still young, drinks with sprightly complexity now. 13.7% alcohol.

J. Rochioli South River Vineyard 2009 $75. The South River Vineyard Chardonnay from Rochioli Vineyards offers 100% Hanzell selection fruit. Rochioli is one of the few vineyards outside Hanzell itself that has this particular clone, regarded as a heritage clone of the plant. The South River Vineyard chardonnay represents a very small production site specific wine from Rochioli Estate, one of the practices the winery is known for. This particular chardonnay represents the wine with the most apparent oak flavor influence in this tasting. In that way, it is the richest flavor profile offered, while avoiding any issues of ‘oak bomb.’ The nose offers chamomile, hints of cut grass, meyer lemon, orange blossom and light butter. On the palate there is a showing of integrated light butterscotch and butter with a touch of scotch whisky alongside chamomile and orange blossom. 14.5% alcohol.

Massican Gemina 2011 $45. The Massican Chardonnay uses all Hyde Vineyard fruit, and gives the most focused presentation and most fragrant nose of the tasting. The wine is also a rush of vibrancy in the mouth, with ultra clean flavors. Its flavors and nose are tropical, and floral without being cloying or sweet. The layers open as the wine warms giving tropical and white grapefruit with lychee notes. The wine offers a zingy round and textural finish. The Massican offers the most distinctive acid focus of the wines tasted. I like the vibrancy of this wine now and want to taste it again in a few years when the acidity has calmed some. No malolactic fermentation occurred here. Only 85 cases produced. 13.6 % alcohol.

Matthiasson 2011 $25. Another example of impressive value, the Matthiasson Chardonnay is a stand out for what it offers at the price. It utilizes all clone 4 fruit from an old riverbed vineyard in Napa Valley–the result is a well-focused wine with a smooth mouthfeel offering vibrant floral and spice elements alongside orchard and citrus blossom, and dried white sage notes. There is also a very light caramel toast here. The wine offers medium+ acidity with a medium-long finish, and 13.5% alcohol. I like the feel and flavor of this wine now, and also look forward to tasting it again with the complexity offered from more time in the bottle. This wine is a stand-out.

Ridge Estate 2010 $30. Ridge Estate, from the famed Monte Bello property, offers a glimpse at classic California chardonnay style–before the oak bomb stereotype became a norm. There is a richness of flavor here riding a spine of acidic focus. You get vibrancy and breadth of flavor both. The wine brings together round, lush flavors focused on citrus and hints of pear, with touches of butter, and a zippy finish of mineral salt. 14.2% alcohol with tingling acidity, and a medium-long finish. Ridge is known for allowing natural, wild-yeast fermentation and malolactic fermentation in barrel. 10% new oak.

Rochioli Estate 2010 $50. The Rochioli Estate chardonnay offers a rich presentation with the juiciness to carry the flavors forward. The nose shows toasted brioche with light nut, orange and pear blossom, hints of pear, and bergamot. The fruit and floral qualities carry over in the palate with the sense of toasted brioche and light caramel alongside. Rochioli integrates the most apparent sense of oak flavor elements from the wines tasted, and shows how to do so in an integrated overall presentation with balance. This is a rich wine, but has the movement to carry the flavor. It will also do well with additional age allowing the brioche and caramel elements to deepen further. 14.5% alcohol.

***

The Antica Terra, Cooper Mountain, Donelan, Massican, Matthiasson, and Rochioli wines were provided as samples.

Thank you to Katherine for requesting a chardonnay focus.

Thank you to Tyler, Joe, Davis, and William for tasting the wines with me.

Being Delectable: How a Data Guru, and Entertainment Engineer Went Deep Into Wine

Hawk Wakawaka

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Nov 1, 2012

2

Building Delectable: Alex Fishman and Aaron Vanderbeek Brainstorm

“What Can We Do To Make the World a More Delicious Place?“ The conversation started over breakfast in May a year ago, at Gramercy Park, in New York City. Alex Fishman had just returned from half a year working in Dubai, and his long time friend, Aaron Vanderbeek, just happened to be visiting the city on vacation from San Francisco.

Alex Fishman: How Big Data Operates Behind Learning & Loving Wine

Alex Fishman, Delectable co-founder, enjoying life on the go

Not all that familiar with wine at the time, Alex Fishman and his girlfriend had happened upon a bottle in the Dubai duty free shop that they enjoyed. They wanted to remember the wine to purchase again later, but reading the label to sort out the basic information–producer, type, vintage–was daunting. How could they learn more about a wine, if it was hard just to identify what wine they’d enjoyed? It occurred to Fishman that other consumers likely have similar trouble. He was struck with the challenge of how to make it easier.

Fishman’s work history has sorted its way through the realm of big data. In illustrating the reality of such work, he references the success of Paypal. Fishman explains that what that company did better than any other ecommerce money exchange site at its inception (Paypal got started in the late 90s, becoming a subsidary of Ebay in 2002) was fight and prevent online fraud. At the time Paypal started, numerous online money exchange companies were in operation. The difference was that while other exchange sites relied on artificial intelligence to spot fraud activities, the people behind Paypal recognized that anyone determined to defraud consumers would be smarter, more innovative than a programmed computer. Paypal chose, then, to use computers for what they did well–querying and sorting vast collections of data–while people worked with those computers to exercise their human assets–spotting patterns and anomalies in online behavior. The combination worked, setting Paypal as a leader in online financial exchange and security.

The Paypal model led to applications in other forms of security as well, including national security and border protections. The company Palantir, where Fishman worked, was born. What Palantir did was extend the financial security model that Paypal had delivered, into national border defenses to fight terrorism, increase the safety of international monetary exchange, and track crime. Included in Fishman’s trajectory with the company was six months working in Dubai, developing security solutions appropriate to the social environment there. But after several years of working in the realities of border security both in the United States and abroad, Fishman began wanting to use his skills to improve the richness of everyday life within a country’s borders. He decided to return to New York.

Aaron Vanderbeek: The Life of an Entertainment Engineer

Aaron Vanderbeek, Delectable co-founder, on the verge of infectious laughter

After completing an undergraduate education in a Music and Mechanical Engineering double major, Aaron Vanderbeek began developing nano fabrication techniques for the production of memory cards, or d-ram, with the company Samsung. Though he did incredibly well at the project, he realized his heart wasn’t singing from the work, and he decided to return to graduate school to move his career in a direction that tuned in closer to his interests. Carnegie Mellon offered a Master’s Program in Entertainment Technology, offering their advanced students the opportunity to dive into deep study of multiple avenues of entertainment from Theatre to Amusement Parks to Video Games to Television, in order to learn the fundamentals behind creating entertainment. The result of the program was to give successful students the confidence to design all different types of entertainment through all different mediums. That is, what Vanderbeek learned through the program were the foundational skills needed to design experiences.

In completing his Master’s, Vanderbeek made it his goal to find his way to San Francisco to live and for work. The move led to him working for companies in the city first to design hard-core gamer entertainment, like Dante’s Inferno, and then after, mobile social media games. The experience led to Vanderbeek applying his skills with building entertainment systems to the realm of interactive software and social media. Then Fishman called.

A little over a year ago, in May, back in the United States, Fishman decided to call his friend, Vanderbeek, hoping to schedule a Skype chat to catch up. By coincidence, Vanderbeek was actually visiting New York at the time so instead of video conferencing, the two met for breakfast. Fishman began relating his interest in working for the sake of life within borders, while Vanderbeek talked about his work in video game design. By the end of breakfast the two had realized a common goal–to make life more delicious–and brainstormed the early stages of an answer to the question of how to do just that. As the meal came to a close, Vanderbeek made Fishman a deal. If Fishman would move to San Francisco, Vanderbeek would quit his job so the two could work together. By September, a year ago, the two had incorporated their new company, Delectable.

Delectable: The Wine App, 2.0

a screen capture of my recent Delectable wine diary as the system identifies a Vermouth I posted. I’ve been trying it out and been acting tricky, posting pictures of other drinks besides wine and images with lots of corks or multiple bottles. Delectable’s id’ing softwear really does always work. Amazing. This image shows only one screen within the program. Other page views of the app show what friends have been drinking, or recent activity, among other things.

Together, Fishman and Vanderbeek built their iPhone App, Delectable 1.0, offering a way to help users identify and remember wines. The original design allowed users to take and store a photo of a bottle of wine to build a kind of wine diary for bottles to be remembered later. The remarkable element of the app though went beyond simply storing images–the app identified and named the wine for you, recording the producer, vintage, and exact wine type–alleviating the kind of confusion originally felt by Fishman in the duty free shop in Dubai. Since the release of version 1.0, the pair have gone on to develop a Delectable team with other engineers, both from the tech and the wine side, to assist in expanding the functionality of the app.

Today, November 1, marks the official release of version 2.0. With the upgrade, Delectable expands the program to a more community based experience. Much like Instagram, a user on Delectable can share an image to their online community with comments as desired. However, while on Instagram you simply post a picture, on Delectable the wine in the image is identified for you. But further, what Delectable 2.0 does differently is not only identify the exact wine, but also offer a simple rating system for that wine with room to type in comments, and a way to purchase it again. The Delectable team works with the best possible source for locating requested wines at no additional cost to the user. What the Delectable 2.0 app does, then, is combine Image-identifying software with the benefits of social media and online retail, all in your phone.

As Fishman and Vanderbeek describe it, they believe wine is to be shared and enjoyed. Their goal, then, is to make every step of the wine finding-and-buying process easier for the consumer to help increase that enjoyment, while also helping the consumer to connect to smaller wine producers to share in unique experiences. In their view what differentiates Delectable 2.0 from many other wine apps is the source of information and income.

Other wine apps generally make their money, and therefore also direct their marketing, based on resources directly from a wine seller–be it a producer brand, an importer, or a distributor. The reality of that is that mostly larger companies can afford such efforts, and as a result it is often larger producers that direct what is marketed, mentioned or sold on other wine apps.

The difference with Delectable is that it is individuals that get to post for themselves the wines they enjoy, whatever those wines happen to be. Since each user also decides for themselves who they want to follow on Delectable, individuals on the Delectable platform are driving what wines anyone is or isn’t exposed to, rather than marketing companies directing such influence. It isn’t that users can’t post wines made or sold by larger groups–indeed users can share any wine they enjoy. It’s that what is posted is directed by the consumers themselves. In this way, Fishman and Vanderbeek see themselves as helping to fill a gap in the wine world–the opportunity for consumers to connect more directly with wine made from smaller producers.

***

Congratulations to Alex Fishman and Aaron Vanderbeek, and the entire Delectable team on today’s official release of version 2.0!

The Delectable 2.0 app is free. Check it out!

If you are interested in downloading the app you can do so in the Apple app store here: del.ec/download?ew

Thank you to Alex and Aaron for taking the time to meet with me. Thank you to Julia Weinberg.

Happy Halloween! Or, And Now for Something Completely Different (and a little random): The Heritage Madrone, a Bonus in the Wine Writer’s Life, for Shiloh

Hawk Wakawaka

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Oct 31, 2012

1

The Oldest Madrone in Sonoma County, Likely in California

On the Western ridge overlooking Lake Sonoma stands the oldest known Madrone in Sonoma County, believed to be the oldest in all of California. The tree is over 300-years old and measures approximately 11 1/2 feet in diameter about the base. In such remarkable state, it’s registered a Heritage Tree, which means it stands as a protected growth, treated and maintained only by those certified by the county to handle treasured plants.

Madrone do not typically spread so wide at their base, instead usually growing up for a distance before then branching into an open canopy. But the heritage Madrone grows at a curve where the crest turns into the slope of a hill. It is believed that because of its position at the arc of a slope the structure of its trunk started differently than others might.

In 1995 I happened into a seminar on past life regressions being led by a woman skilled in what she called “Vibrational Healing.” Generally curious I decided to participate, and then found out she also needed someone to demonstrate her techniques on for the group. I volunteered. Though deeply skeptical that I even had past lives to explore, I was also quite willing to experience the process directly and share in the intimacies of what was discovered.

Since I’d practiced meditation before, the Vibrational Healer was able to bring me into a conscious trance state easy enough. After guiding me through the initial steps, the Healer began asking me questions to move me through the reality of my previous incarnation and discover together who I was.

During the question process I simply remember feeling a deep, grounded, incredible calm. The kind of consistent steadiness in the feeling persisted through the duration of the regression experience for me. The Healer would ask me questions about the life I was experiencing and within that steady calm I would answer. Every step of the way I felt an incredible ease. As we moved through the stages of the life I could also feel nuances of other lives around me–other beings alive near me–but the entire experience was marked by a lack of visual stimulation and little focus too on sound. At times I could see the color of things moving, but it was like I felt the movement more than saw it.

I found out later that this steady calm I was feeling was actually coupled with a long period of low level anxiety for the Healer, and a sense of uncertainty for those observing. It turned out the way I was responding to the session, both in terms of the slowness of my responses, and the kinds of answers I was giving, were unlike anything the Healer had experienced before, or read about, after more than 30-years “in the business.” While I was pleasantly relaxed in my steady state, others in the room were perplexed. I could feel a sense of their confusion from within the trance I was in but more than that was a clarity that it wasn’t something to worry about. The confusion would work itself out, and in the meantime all of us were quite okay. We could just continue as we were, okay. The overall feeling was carved by that combined sense of knowing my own state, while understanding at the same time we were all together. Whatever we happened to be doing both were true–I was simply me, and we were in it all together.

Finally, the Healer decided she had to ask me a direct question. None of the tricks she had to sorting out when in history, or what sort of person I was had worked. So, at last she simply asked if I was human. In my happy calm, I laughed and said, no. Still perplexed, she asked me if I was an animal (she told me later people often regress to animal past lives), again, I said no. Finally after some series of questions I told her that of course, yes, I knew who and what I was. I was a tree. It hadn’t occurred to me to worry or say such a thing until this point in the session. I also knew I wasn’t an oak, but I had a shape kind of like one, with bark like oak in places. There were berries instead of little nuts, and I’d helped grow many small ones [younger trees]. I told the Healer that because my human self didn’t know the name my kind of tree, I wouldn’t be able to name it for them then.

The Healer told me later she’d never had someone regress to a tree, nor even heard of anyone having a past life as a tree. By the end of the session, we also discovered that my life as a tree was actually still existing. Though my tree had started its life long before my human had, the two of us were coexisting. We were in our lives together, even if we hadn’t met. In that sense, my tree life wasn’t a past life at all, but a concurrent one. Whatever may happen through the rest of my life, there was always a tree-me out there somewhere.

The steady calm I felt during that session was a gift that stayed with me. Whatever else I may think of the idea of past lives, or past life regressions, that feeling is something I’ve always been grateful for. I have to admit too in some weird way I draw strength from imagining I could be living two lives simultaneously, and endless humor in thinking that while Shirley McClaine is lucky enough to have been Cleopatra, I get to be a Madrone near the California coast.

The Heritage Madrone resides on the Gustafson Estate about 13 miles from the Pacific Ocean, looking over the intersection point of the Dry Creek Valley and Rockpile AVAs. It’s one of the loveliest trees I’ve had the fortune to meet, a bonus in the midst of visiting vineyard sites and interviewing people in wine.

Folk viticultural knowledge tells us that Madrone are markers for a good place to grow grapes. In the right place Madrone grow deep and steady roots, but require good drainage in the midst of an available water table. That is, they grow where water is provided but doesn’t pool, much like what grape vines need.

A few weeks into November I’ll be doing a series on the Dry Creek Valley AVA. I’ve been lucky enough to visit a range of interesting sites, and to interview people important to the history of the AVA as well over these last few weeks. In the meantime, for Halloween, I thought I’d share a bit of silliness and good fortune–the haunt of a spirit older than any of us, the Heritage Madrone.

Cheers! Happy All Hallow’s Eve!

Happy International Champagne Day!!

Hawk Wakawaka

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Oct 26, 2012

9

It is Champagne Day, Everybody!

My favorite thing: champagne.

All over the world today there are events planned of people getting together to drink wines from that special chalky region of France that makes such lovely bubbles.

Ever wonder how they do it? Here’s a comic that goes over the basic steps of Methode Traditionnelle, or Champenoise.

click on comic to enlarge

There are also various requirements regarding time spent on lees to add richness of texture and flavor (residual yeast left after fermentation), and overall aging. But the comic gets at the big steps of the production process.

Following are a few graphic tasting notes of some favored champagnes.

Champagne Reviews

click on comic to enlarge

Plans tonight?

Remarkably, I’ve never drawn reviews for some of my very favorite champagnes. I’ve made a point of drinking grower’s champagnes often (the wine itself is done by the person that also grows the grapes, something not all that common in the region, as most grapes are sold for wine made at a higher production level than grower’s champagne implies). My sister and I started the project years ago, and sharing in it with her has added to the rich sweetness of the experience.

Plans for tonight? If I had my way I’d share each of the Egly-Ouriet champagnes tonight with friends and loved ones.

I hope you enjoy your Champagne day!
Cheers!

***

Want to learn more about champagne–the region and the wine? You couldn’t do better than Peter Liem’s Champagne Guide. The site is well worth visiting, and subscribing to. Check it out here: http://www.champagneguide.net/

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