As I begin my last post of 2007, I must first apologize for the 2-week lull on this blog. I could use the excuses of holidays and illness… for now I’m just going to let it go and hope that there are still a few of you left out there reading this.

I actually did have a vinous topic picked out for this post - the same one that I wrote briefly about last week on The Vines’ Blog, regarding the feeling I sometimes get that prohibition never really ended in the United States. But I’ve realized that year-end summaries seem to be the norm on both blogs and major news sources this last week in December, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to summarize my own year and the birth of this blog. If you really want to hear what I have to say about wine shipping regulations, click here.

Anybody reading this knows that 2007 has been a significant year for me, full of many of changes. Last year at this time I was living in Brooklyn Heights, working hard for Winebow, and looking forward to spending New Year’s Eve in a cold New York City with Noah, who I’ve known since age 4. I was enjoying the life I had - in fact it was one of the best NYEs I ever spent in the city. But already I began to realize that it was time for a change… I was spending too much waiting for the subway, too little time using the languages I’d dedicated all of my schooling to learn, and getting far too many tension headaches. Those of you who haven’t spent a lot of time in New York may not be familiar with irrational ’subway rage,’ but I can tell you that once you start to take it home with you at the end of the day, it’s time to take a break from the rat-race.

So I began to explore my options. I considered traveling the world for a year and working a harvest in each of the major wine regions, and toyed with the idea of formally studying oenology (wine-making) in France. Then, as spring came, I planned a trip to Argentina, to see if the lifestyle was as appealing down here as I’d been led to believe, the economy as accessible, and the growth in the wine business as intense as it seemed to me from my vantage point in NYC. I spent almost 2 weeks here in May/June, and gave my notice at work a week after I got home. I was about to set off on my ‘walkabout’, which would eventually lead me back down to the southern hemisphere.

(As I keep going here, I’m going to be providing links to some of my old posts. I haven’t had the resources to build an archives section on this blog so unfortunately you can’t normally go any farther back than my 10 most recent posts, which at the moment take you only as far as my return to Argentina in October. Assuming that there are people reading this, and that you’re not all in my immediate family, I thought some of you may be interested in how it all began. At its inception, this blog was somewhat of a travelogue as well as being a digital shrine to oenophilia, and it was chronological.)

So I left my bubble in NYC at the end of June, and spent July bumming around the East Coast with friends and family: Brooklyn - Norwalk - Providence - Norwalk - Brooklyn - Cape Cod. Or something like that. I was more tan than I’ve ever been, and more Zen.

I began August with my first real road trip - Norwalk, Connecticut to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where my sister was at the time 8 months pregnant. 4 days alone in the car, 13 states, and a great many playlists, it was an amazing experience. While this blog was not even a thought in my head yet, I did write a bit about this drive when I returned to Albuquerque in October, to meet my niece. Here’s that post - ‘These 50 States of Wine.’

I divided most of August between Albuquerque and San Francisco, with side trips to the Colorado Rockies and Yosemite National Park. When I got back East in early September, just in time for the Jewish New Year, this blog was born. My first real post was timely (if I do say so myself), dispelling some of the myths surrounding Kosher wine. The link of course will take you there.

The second day of the Jewish year 5768 (yes, I had to look that one up) found me on a plane to Paris, where I stopped over before continuing on to Provence and my first harvest, at Domaine de Trevallon. This was certainly the newest of the new experiences I had during my journey; I did manual labor for the first time in my life, lived for 2 weeks in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and learned a great deal about wine. I picked up some blogging momentum as I wrote about my experiences there with ‘Le Journal des Vendanges’ parts 1, 2, and 3, and I had fun painting as clear a picture as I could of my alternate reality amongst the vines with ‘A Day in the Life.’

From there, I went on a short side trip in Italy, which was more about nostalgia and gastronomy than anything else, but all the more valuable for that. 3 days in Milan, a quick stop in Bologna, and 2 days in Rome, then back stateside to meet the little one in Albuquerque (only 2 weeks old at the time!), pack a larger suitcase, and come to Argentina to search for my next step. After a week in Mendoza and then a month in Buenos Aires, I found it here at The Vines of Mendoza… the rest, as they say, is history.

Having said all of that, I’m going to go enjoy the last day of 2007. It’s 80 degrees in Mendoza… all in all, a good end to a great year. May the next one bring each of us all that we seek… and may we all drink too much bubbly tonight.

December 31st, 2007 | vita | 1 comment

(Note: This is adapted from my first post as a regular contributor on The Vines’ Blog, where I will now be posting as well - hopefully at least weekly. There may be thematic similarities, but here you’ll find more of me, more geeky wine info, and less sales pitches. The adaptation, this time around, got pretty long…)

Well boys and girls, it’s that time of year again: time to listen to the moving sound of Champagne corks popping. Bubbly, time for bubbly! At least, that’s how most people see it; more sparkling wine sells in the United States in the month of December than almost all of the other months of the year combined. Champagne, Cava, Prosecco, Spumanti… each one sparkles. And, come the end of the year, each one sells.

As such, I thought this a timely opportunity to explore the differences between all of the above, and more importantly to talk about how they can be enjoyed the rest of the year. For me, it’s always time for bubbly - I’ve even been told recently that nobody likes sparkling wine as much as I do. While that’s certainly not true in the circles I move in, maybe I’ll be able to convince some of you to join us in continuing the party into January - and through the rest of the year.

It seems I cannot order sparkling wine in a restaurant anywhere in the US without being asked what it is that I’m celebrating. Can’t one just celebrate a love for bubbly, is that not enough? Pay homage to the best way of starting a meal? There is also a common mindset that there’s no place for sparklers at the table - another misconception I’d like to address. Have you ever tried a dry sparkling wine with spicy Thai food, for example? No better way to cleanse the palate. Bubbly with pizza? Beer is good, but try that one! Then of course there’s seafood… almost nothing is better than a bone-dry sparkler with shellfish. Mollusks and bubbles: YUM.

Now, let me be clear: there is certainly a place in every party for a bottle of bubbly (or a case or two, depending on the crowd…). Who doesn’t like to celebrate to the sound of corks flying through the air? One of my greatest challenges when I started learning formal wine service was remembering to open the bottle silently. Where’s the fun in that?? In Madrid, where I once celebrated New Year’s Eve, they like to take it one step further - not only do they send the corks flying at midnight, but the wine as well. Never have I been so wet at the beginning of a New Year… good thing I started drinking (long) before they started spraying!

As much as sparkling wine is festive, however, it’s also wine - there’s a great deal of variety at every level of the category, and it can fit in with many meals. White or Rosé, sweet or dry, there is a time and place for everything, and subtleties among each of the above categories. One can even learn from tasting it after the bubbles have gone: you’ll find that the good stuff is still good, and that which is not, well you can actually identify the flaws. (The same goes for tasting still white wine at room temperature, by the way.) When given the chance, it’s always fascinating to taste the same blend produced as a still wine and a sparkler side by side, although not many producers offer that.

So, what’s the difference between Champagne and Cava, anyway? Prosecco and Spumanti? Why do some of us get so defensive if you use ‘champagne’ to describe wine from California, or Mendoza? These are questions I’ve gotten many times over the years, and and the answers comprise one of my favorite oeno-diatribes. Some of you have probably heard it - maybe even while sharing a bottle of bubbly with me.

First, and most simply, Champagne is actually the name of a political region in the northeast corner of France, from whence the real stuff comes. It shares a border with Belgium, is only a couple of hours from Paris, and grows primarily the Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier grapes. It is there that the “traditional” (or “champagne…”) method of making sparkling wine was born.

When talking about different methods of making sparkling wine, really what we’re talking about is where the bubbles come from, and there are basically three different processes used. Many inexpensive sparklers are made in the “tank” method: still wine is produced, placed in a steel tank that is able to withstand high amounts of pressure, and CO2 is pumped in. Simple. I like to call this the “soda” method - it doesn’t mean the wine will be bad, but it does mean that the bubbles won’t last very long.

Next in the hierarchy of bubbly comes the “Metodo Italiano,” or “Charmat Process,” which was created in Italy by Eugène Charmat in 1907 (thanks, Wikipedia) and is most commonly used in the production of Prosecco - a sparkling wine made in the Veneto region of Northeastern Italy from the grape of the same name. This process is something of a compromise; the bubbles are born in a tank, but naturally, as carbon dioxide is released during a secondary fermentation. This creates a natural effervescence, with longer lasting bubbles, and the wine is bottled under pressure to conserve them. Asti Spumanti, a sweet sparkler made in Piedmont in Northwestern Italy, is also typically produced this way.

But Champagne, the real stuff, shines above all. It can make your mouth tingle with pleasure even after several glasses, mesmerize you indefinitely… Soft yet structured, there is truly nothing like it - and this comes from somebody who loves ALL sparkling wine! It’s easy to pass off Champagne-centricity as mere snobbishness, but I assure you: not all bubbles are alike. Just for the record.

Champagne is made from various blends of the three grapes I mentioned above: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. A “Blanc des Blancs” is made from all Chardonnay, and a “Blanc des Noirs” is made from Pinot Noir and/or Pinot Meunier, both of which are red grapes. However, as the wine spends no time with the skins, which contain all the color, the wine is white. (The exceptions to the color rule are few, and esoteric). When unspecified, as is the case with most Non Vintage, Brut Champagnes that you see on the shelf, the wine can be any combination of the above. Rosé can be made either from brief contact with the skins of red grapes, or by blending a small amount of red wine (usually Pinot Noir) into a white wine.

During the Champagne Method, the wine is placed in a bottle with a small amount of yeast, which initiates a secondary fermentation. It is closed with a “crown cap,” which is what we’re used to seeing on a bottle of beer - there’s no cork yet, and this is probably the same bottle you are pouring it from. And then it starts to get pretty cool.

As the fermentation is carried out, and CO2 released, the bottles go through a process called riddling, which was invented by a certain Dom Perignon at the beginning of the 18th century. The bottles are placed in a rack (or a machine, nowadays) where they are slowly (and I mean slowly - the process can take 6-8 weeks) angled downwards, until eventually the bottles are upside down and all of the sediment is settled in the neck. The neck is then passed through a cooling solution, so the sediment solidifies into one piece; the cap is removed, and…. it is all pushed out by the natural force of the CO2 within the bottle. I’d love to hear the sound that makes - you think popping corks is fun! Although I don’t think you’d want to get hit with that one.

This process is called disgorging, and it obviously this leaves some empty space in the bottle. What this space is filled with determines how sweet the wine will be - the bottle is topped off with the “dosage,” which is wine made from the same blend as what’s in the rest of the bottle. This contains various levels of sugar (or none at all). “Brut” means dry, with only a minimal amount, “Brut Zero,” or “Brut Nature” means there is none. From there it goes on to be “extra sec,” “sec,” “demi-sec,” or “doux,” from driest to sweetest. (”Sec” in French means “dry;” “doux,” means “sweet”). There are actual numbers and sugar levels associated with each of these terms, but I don’t know them and I wouldn’t bore you with them if I did. As it is, I’m wondering if anybody made it this far in their reading.

So, this New Years, however and wherever your bubbly was made, I hope you enjoy it. And hey - remember that you don’t have to wait until next December to try another one. Send those corks flying.

December 16th, 2007 | vino | 5 comments

As I get more settled in here in Mendoza, with 2 weeks down at The Vines of Mendoza and an apartment of my own now, my focus - and that of this blog - turns back to vino. It’s about time, no?

Every Wednesday at The Vines we have a blind tasting to choose wines for our tasting room, and for sale online in our store and wine club. This week was my first; not only was it fascinating, but I’ve since been engaged in several conversations about the idea of blind tasting, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts on here.

A blind tasting, quite simply, means that you’re tasting wine without knowing what it is. Usually the bottles are covered in aluminum foil or concealed in paper bags (classy, right?) - there aren’t really any blindfolds or closed eyes involved. That would be a hell of a lot of fun but also probably pretty messy. In this case the wines are poured before we even sit down and the bottles put away.

This kind of tasting can be for mere entertainment, or to test your palate - to be humbled (and occasionally encouraged) by your knowledge of wine when the label is taken out of the picture. Where is the wine from? What grape(s) are in it? How much does it cost - or how much should it cost? Do you like it, without the power of marketing and a pretty label?

It is always surprising what the results are when a group of people gathers to sample wine without any knowledge of what it is, even more so when they are all wine professionals with strong opinions about vino. I’ve tasted with some extraordinary palates, but my experience is that nobody’s perfect, although some people truly do have more naturally sensitive taste buds than others. Really, though it’s more a matter of frame of reference - the more wines you’ve tasted, the more likely you are to recognize them. You learn that certain varietals are more easy to distinguish than others: Cabernet Franc with its characteristic bell pepper, Sangiovese with its black cherry. Pinot Noir tends towards strawberries and red fruit, Sauvignon Blanc wherever it’s grown has strong grassy notes, not to mention the common descriptor of feline urine. (Yes, seriously.) Classic Albarino has a lovely brininess from all that Galician sea air.

In the case of our Wednesday tastings here, we have a specific purpose and not really enough time for lengthy descriptions, as I was reminded when I started my first tasting by taking copious notes. We aren’t there to write wine reviews - we’re there to decide if we wanted to buy any of it! There are 8 of us, and 12 wines that we sampled this week; the idea is to taste as thoroughly but also as quickly as possible, with limited verbal notes and a numeric overall score of 1-10. We’re told only the varietal and vintage of each wine, and instructed not to talk (that was a challenge for many of us). After we’ve tasted through them all we go around the table and announce our scores, work out the average for each wine, and are told what it is that we’ve sampled.

Now, this is where it gets fun, especially for somebody new to the group as I am - when you take away all of the associations not only do you learn about the wine in its pure state, but you also get to know your companions’ palates, and are reminded about the subjectivity of wine. For example I was fascinated to learn that Mariana (our lovely tasting room manager) and I have almost identical palates, despite wildly different experiences, and that in many cases our scores were quite different from those of the people across the table. Of course in a situation like this it’s good to have a variety of tastes at the table, but it’s always a thrill to find a matching palate, especially given all of my recent travels, and how far I am from where I originally learned about vino. It might also make building wine club shipments much easier! Knowing my own palate and that of my colleagues is necessary, even if sometimes it only teaches me what NOT to buy. I have to know both myself and my market, and where the differences lie… as I’ve said many times on here, just because I love it doesn’t mean you will. Or more appropriately, in terms of blind tastings: just because I’m fond of a winemaker doesn’t mean that all of his wines are great, especially when they are separated from him; a winery that grew a cult following a decade ago and started getting premium prices doesn’t necessarily mean it’s still worth it after 10 years, a change of ownership, and a new winemaker. Even if the label still looks the same.

That’s what I mean by taking away the associations.

Blind tasting is an interesting exercise, and people often feel differently about it. My friend Pablo, who came to visit me in the tasting room on Wednesday evening, believes that tasting wine without the context of price is unfair - that there is no such thing as good wine, only that which is good for the price. While I think I know where he’s coming from I really cannot agree; in my opinion blind tasting is one of the single best ways to learn about wine, and it really all depends how you’re looking at it. Of course price matters, especially so in this context - I’ll even confess that a couple of my notes the other day ended with “decent - depends on price.” But I’m buying it, and selling it, and there’s so much more to it than that. In any case, there is such satisfaction in tasting a wine, loving it, and then learning that it costs a fraction of what you expected; on the other hand, it’s always educational to sample a wine, hate it, and then learn that it sells for $100 a bottle. These things are necessary, as far as I’m concerned, to keep things in perspective. And also to price things appropriately! Price is a function of the cost of creation, certainly, but also of demand…

Hey, kids, this is one you can even try at home: have a dinner party, and hide the labels. See what happens - just promise to write some of it down, so you can tell me about it.

December 9th, 2007 | vino | 1 comment