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Vinography: A Wine Blog
Sun May 9 22:52:26 EDT 2010
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2007 Monastero Suore Cistercensi "Coenobium Rusticum" Bianco, Lazio, Italy -

We owe much of modern viticulture and winemaking traditions to the church in some form or another. Even before the last supper's famous entreaty that gave rise to the concept of Christian transubstantiation, wine has been a sacred fluid that was grown and made by various religious orders who had the land, the time, and the knowledge to make it happen.

In the past, most such organizations were the exclusive domain of men, and consequently so were the wines. Even as various religious orders for women have proliferated, it seems that most of those that make wine (or other forms of alcohol) are still primarily male.

Enter the Cistercian nuns of Monastero Suoro Cisterci near Vitorchiano, about 30 miles north of Rome.

The Cistercian order of the Catholic Church, founded in 1098 and also sometimes known in their modern incarnation as the Trappists, have an ancient tradition of closed self-sufficiency and manual labor according to the Rule of St. Benedict. Their goals of reproducing the religious life of the Italian monk some 500 years earlier meant a diet of hard work in the fields, lengthy prayer and study. Autonomous, self-contained communities of Cistercians have a long history of producing wine, beer, and other spirits.

Which is why a small group of nuns in Italy have an organic vineyard that they carefully tend by hand, planted with Trebbiano, Verdicchio, Malvasia and Grechetto. How these sisters managed to find and enlist the help of Giampiero Bea, the son of famous Italian winemaker Paolo Bea, to make their wine starting in 2005, I have not been able to discover. But despite being some distance from the Bea estate in Montefalco, Giampiero now shows up for every harvest to make their two wines that bear a label of his distinctive handwritten style.

Bea and his father, Paolo, are well known proponents of the Italian school of non-interventionalist winemaking not unlike the so called Natural Wine movement that began in France's Beaujolais region. That means that this wine, like the rest of the Bea portfolio is made without any commercial yeasts or additives of any kind, sees no fining or filtration before bottling, and only the smallest amount of sulfur added prior to bottling. I'm not entirely certain if it is also fermented without any temperature controls, but I wouldn't be surprised.

This wine is also an orange wine. Which means that despite being made from white grapes, it is made much more like a red wine, with extended soaking of the juice with the crushed skins of the grapes which gradually impart a deep orange color to the wine. This wine fermented on its skins in stainless steel tanks for 15 days before the liquid was drained off.

Like most orange wines, this extended maceration also exposes the wine to a lot of oxygen, which yields a wine that itself is quite resistant to the effects of oxygen. Not only will the wine last for weeks after opening (if kept cool), decanting for four to twenty-four hours opens it up to its most expressive state.

A coenobium is a colony of a fixed number of cells with little or no specialization, often found in certain kinds of algae. While an odd name for a wine to be sure, the nature of such a colony as a metaphor for both the organic processes of yeast, as well as the nuns who make it all happen seems quite appropriate.

In addition to this "Rusticum" bottling, Bea also produces a straight "Coenobium" bottling which has a higher percentage of Verdiccio and a shorter maceration period, I believe.

Tasting Notes:
Medium copper-orange in the glass, this wine smells of orange rind, honey roasted nuts, and dried cedar boughs. In the mouth it is, like many wines this color, a complex melange of different swirling flavors. Ranier cherry, orange rind, saffron, dried mango, and crenshaw melon all make an appearance. The wine has a firm mineral backbone and wonderful, spritely acidity, and a long, lightly tannic finish that plays out in wonderful aromatics with a hint of salty savoriness. This wine benefits greatly from air, and will reward a full 24 hours of decanting with an even broader aromatic palette and more balanced experience for the tastebuds. Fantastic. Made from 55% Trebbiano, 15% Verdicchio, 20% Malvasia and 10% Grechetto.

Food Pairing:
The lightly tannic nature and robust flavors of this wine, coupled with fantastic acidity make it a great match for nearly any kind of food except charred red meat. I'd love to drink it with a dish of stewed guanciale with scallions over white beans.

Overall Score: around 9.5

How Much?: $26

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

Imported by Neal Rosenthal in New York.

They say the best way to make a small fortune in the wine business is to start with a large one. Actually there are several ways to make a small fortune in the wine business, but today we must add one more: blackmailing Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

As reported in the UK's Telegraph newspaper, apparently the owner of Romanée-Conti, Aubert de Villaine received at least two threatening letters that promised to poison his vineyards unless he forked over the equivalent of roughly 1.2 million dollars.

Apparently the letters, which revealed a detailed knowledge of the vineyards, suggested that two vines had already been poisoned. One of them was ripped out and provided to the police for analysis by the domaine, which of course means roughly one less bottle of Romanée-Conti will be available to the general public from now on. Given the steep prices and even steeper demand for the wine, it's no surprise that global stock markets went into free fall over the last 24 hours.

Thankfully like most extortionists, this one needed brain cells as much as he needed the money, and was apprehended trying to pick up a suitcase full of counterfeit bills in a nearby graveyard.

The long term impacts on the global wine investment markets remains to be seen, but rumors of a deal with Hollywood for a new series called True Wine Crimes has many in the wine world drooling over what they think might be the next best thing for Pinot Noir since Sideways.

Meanwhile Bill Harlan and Ann Colgin issued press releases indicating that they had retained the services of Blackwater Security as a precautionary measure.

Read the full story.

The best wines in the world all share at least one thing in common, and that is a winemaker who brings a unique combination of both vision and passion to their work.

At the age of thirty, winemaker Ron Laughton found himself managing the southern hemisphere's largest cheese factory, and with a total absence of passion for what he was doing. Having grown up on a farm and gotten degrees in chemistry and food science, Laughton worked all over the world for Kraft Foods before being headhunted by an Australian dairy company. His career path seemed as assured as it was unbearable.

"That was about the time they invented the term mid-life crisis, I think" says Laughton. "Just in time for me to have one."

Laughton knew he would never be "gold watch material" but he wasn't clear on exactly what he wanted to do, only that he wanted to do something on his own.

"Given my training there were a few paths I could follow, and wine seemed easier than cheese. When I was thirty or thirty-two I don't know if I really knew what I was doing. Now looking back, I know why I'm here. My maternal forbears were scottish raspberry growers, my paternal ones were iron workers. I have some green genes in me" he explains.

At that point in his life, wine was a somewhere between a passing interest and a passion. He had worked for a time in Europe and had the opportunity to explore the wines of the Old world and compare them to what Australia was producing in the 1970s.

"Along the way I started to have these thoughts, that whilst Australia was making good wine, the flavors were being lost. I saw things in European wine that Australia just seemed to be missing. In particular I fell in love with the Shiraz grape in all its forms. I think it is the most profound grape of them all. As a single entity it has everything, and is very versatile. I knew what Australian Shiraz tasted like at the time, and I was a young smartass thinking I could do better."

Once the idea of making wine began to settle into place in his head, everything seemed to click into place. Just what that "everything" was is a little hard to explain, but it lies at the heart of what makes Laughton tick as a winemaker. Here's how he explains it.

"First, you have to understand that the grapevine is not a native to this continent. It evolved in the Middle East and Europe without us tipping a bucket of water on it. What this said to me fundamentally was that if you're trying to grow grapes and you need to irrigate, you're doing it in the wrong place. It's simple logic, isn't it? To grow grapes the way they evolved to be grown you need a certain amount of rainfall and a certain quality of soil that will retain that rainfall. And if you want the absolute purity of flavor of the grape, you want it growing on its own roots. It's a philosophical choice, but it's an important one for me. As soon as you graft onto American rootstock, you're interfering, aren't you? It's a matter of getting back to the absolute essence of the grape."

So in the midst of his "mid-life crisis" Laughton arrived at an equation that made sense for his life: "I wanted to build my own house, grow grapes, make my own wine and sell it." But more than that, he wanted to make the purest expression of his beloved Shiraz that he could possibly muster.

"To make it work I knew I needed lots of capital and lots of time. But more importantly I needed the desire. I took the bold step of resigning, even with my kids in nappies. And then it had to work. It was only a question of where."

While working at the dairy farm in the state of Victoria, Laughton found himself regularly driving through the countryside between Beechworth and Bendigo and had noticed, thanks to what he calls his "farmer's eye for observation," a deep red soil exposed here and there. With a little research it turned out to be something called Cambrian soil, a finely eroded ancient basalt that had been exposed by the action of a fault which runs through the center of the valley.

Then one day, Laughton and his wife Elva were coming home from a social function and stopped in the village of Heathcote to look in the window of a real estate office, where they saw a small card that simply said "vineyard for sale" with an address. Within 10 minutes Laughton was standing in between a few rows of scraggly, neglected grapevines.

"There was nothing here except this little vineyard that had been planted by the local bulldozer driver of Italian descent. His name was Bruno, and he had planted it with the hope of making some wine at home just for himself. But those hopes were dashed when one of his daughters had a serious illness and he was forced to put it on the market. I met him as soon as I could, and asked him what variety of grapes he had planted. 'dunno,' he said I just asked the local agricultural department what to plant. I can't remember what they told me. Something that ends in a "z" maybe?"

Cue the heavenly choir.

Laughton's hand built, adobe-walled home sits at the top of his small six acre vineyard known as Emily's Paddock, after his daughter. The tiny winery sits just next door, both at the top of a small dirt driveway. These first grapes were planted in 1975, long before the region achieved recognition as an appellation, and long before most anyone else thought of planting grapes there.

Since the very first day that he owned the property, along with the two other vineyard sites he has acquired since (Georgia's Paddock and Cornella vineyard) Laughton has farmed his vineyards organically. Despite his training in the more commercial aspects of agribusiness, the idea of adding anything foreign to his vines struck Laughton as an unnatural mistake. Such an orientation made it easy for him to transition to biodynamics after striking up a friendship with French winery owner Michel Chapoutier who is an outspoken advocate for the practice.

Laughton's friendship with Chapoutier has also led to a joint venture together, a beautiful wine known as La Plieade, named after the distinctive constellation that is visible in both the northern and the southern hemisphere. Laughton has another tie to France -- a small estate in the south of the country where he and his wife spend part of the year, and from which they make another wine under the label "The Agly Brothers."

Laughton's winemaking has the delicacy and deftness that you might expect from someone with such a distinct philosophical vision for what he is trying to achieve. This delicacy is balanced with a certain rusticity that immediately distinguishes the wines from most others in the region, and the natural acidity of his wines makes for distinct and compelling evolution over time. Above all, the wines are incredibly distinctive, with their own strong sense of place, the truest testament to Laughton's vision and the passion he brings to its execution.

TASTING NOTES:

2009 Jasper Hill "Emily's Paddock" Shiraz (Barrel Sample), Heathcote
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of crushed stones and dried herbs mixed with blackberry fruit. In the mouth it is mineral driven and spicy, with a rich earthiness and woody character that linger in a finish that has a touch of bitterness. Balanced and quite interesting. Score: between 9 and 9.5.

2009 Jasper Hill "Georgia's Paddock" Shiraz (Barrel Sample), Heathcote
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of rich cassis and earthy, even farmyard aromas. In the mouth it offers red fruit and blackberry notes with a nice cassis quality on the finish that brings in black pepper flavors. Nicely balanced. Score: between 9 and 9.5.

2007 Jasper Hill "Georgia's Paddock" Shiraz, Heathcote
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of rich blackberry and black pepper aromas. In the mouth the wine has gorgeously chalky mouthcoating tannins and ethereal flavors of blackberry cassis, and a beautiful aromatic sweetness that lingers in a long finish. Somehow delicate and brawny at the same time, which is a remarkable feat. Lovely. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $50.

2007 Jasper Hill "Emily's Paddock" Shiraz, Heathcote
Dark garnet in color, this wine smells of blackberry briar and flowers. In the mouth it is stony in character, with very fine grained tannins that linger in the front of the mouth, while the rest of the wine spreads its wings across the palate. Wonderful cassis and blackberry flavors mixed with a dusty earthiness linger for minutes in the finish. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $50.

2002 Jasper Hill "Georgia's Paddock" Shiraz, Heathcote
Dark cloudy ruby in the glass, this wine has a nose of blackberry pie and stewed cherry aromas. In the mouth the wine is wondrously soft and velvety with tannins fading smoothly into the body of the wine and lovely fruit qualities of cherry and hints of cocoa powder. Balanced and complex, with an incredibly long finish. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $50. Click to buy.

2002 Jasper Hill "Emily's Paddock" Shiraz, Heathcote
Medium ruby in the glass, this wine has a nose of dates and prune aromas with a wonderful cedar note to them. In the mouth it is rich and mouthfilling with sweet cherry and redcurrant fruit that swirls over a bed of stony earthiness and lingers with a fine sawdust quality in the finish. Excellent. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $50. Click to buy.

1992 Jasper Hill "Georgia's Paddock" Shiraz, Heathcote
Medium ruby in the glass and holding great color for its age, this wine smells of smoked meats and candied redcurrants. In the mouth it has developed an incredible sweet quality despite being totally dry. This gorgeous wine hums with a really beautiful redcurrant and cherry note, with cedar and other savory flavors that linger into a very long finish. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $50. Click to buy.

1992 Jasper Hill "Emily's Paddock" Shiraz, Heathcote
Medium cloudy ruby in the glass, with some little signs of age in lightness at the rim, this wine has a somewhat shy nose of leather and hints of bacon fat. In the mouth it offers wonderful cinnamon, orange peel and cherry qualities with still muscular, grippy tannins. Wonderful spicy characteristics linger in the finish. Fantastic. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $50. Click to buy.

2008 Jasper Hill "Occam's Razor" Shiraz, Heathcote
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of ripe blackberries. In the mouth it offers ripe blackberry fruit with hints of cassis, and juicy acidity backed by sneaky, but grippy tannins that have a woody quality. Made by the winemaker's daughter, Emily. Score: around 9. Click to buy.

2007 La Plieade Shiraz, Heathcote
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of sweet perfumed cassis and flowers with a hint of dried fruit. In the mouth it is expansive and broad with blackberry and black cherry flavors and powdery mouth-coating tannins. The wonderfully long finish has a citrus component as well as cedar. This is a joint venture with Michel Chapoutier and is sold as "Cluster M45" in the USA. Score: between 9 and 9.5.

2007 Jasper Hill "Cornella" Grenache, Heathcote
Light to medium garnet in the glass this wine smells of strawberry and raspberry. In the mouth it is exceedingly juicy with fantastic acidity and amazing juicy raspberry and cherry flavors mixed with a light earthiness that lingers along with faint tannins in the finish. Outstanding and incredibly drinkable. Score: around 9.5. Click to buy.

2009 Jasper Hill Riesling, Heathcote
Light gold in the glass this wine has a nose of golden apples and lemon zest aromas. In the mouth the wine is bright and juicy with golden apples and lemon zest. Competent, but not remarkable. Score: between 8.5 and 9.

2002 Jasper Hill Riesling, Heathcote
Light old in the glass, this wine has a nose of apples and petrol aromas. In the mouth it offers lemon juice and bright pears with a nice mineral undertone. Aging very nicely. Score: around 9.

2006 Agly Brothers Red Blend Coteaux du Rousillion, France
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of black cherry and blackberry aromas. In the mouth it is smooth and polished, with lovely blackberry and black cherry flavors with a nice smoky quality in the finish. Made from 60% old vine Carignane (average age about 108 years), 25% Syrah, and 15% Grenache. Score: between 8.5 and 9.

2001 Jasper Hill "Georgia's Paddock" Nebbiolo, Heathcote
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of cherry and dried flower aromas with a lovely note of anise seed. In the mouth the wine is soft and velvety with cherry and cassis flavors with hints of dried flowers. The wine finishes with lovely woody notes and the persistent sensation of powdery tannins. Score: around 8.5.

2009 Jasper Hill "Georgia's Paddock" Viognier, Heathcote
Light greenish-gold in color, this wine has a nose of fresh apricots and lemon zest. In the mouth it is rich and silky with peaches, lemon zest, and golden apple flavors. Perhaps not quite as much acidity as I would like, but amidst the softness there's a very nice set of flavors. Score: around 8.5.

I'll tell you right off the bat that if you live in the United States, you can't buy this wine. It's currently not imported. Those of you who live in Europe or Asia may be able to get your hands on it, but not much leaves Australia.

What is the point, you may ask, of reviewing a wine that most will not be able to buy?

Firstly, the wine is delicious, and worthy of a review on its own merits alone. But more importantly, the wine represents a very under-appreciated Australian contribution to the world of wine: old vine Semillon.

Australia's Barossa Valley, of course, offers a treasure trove of ancient vines of all kinds, but especially Shiraz, for which it has become quite famous. Originally settled by mostly German Lutherans fleeing religious persecution in the middle of the 19th century, the valley was divided up into small townships, and within those, large individual family plots of land which were inevitably planted to a whole lot of things, including wine grapes.

Originally, most of those grapes went to make fortified wines, like most of the country produced for many years, and consequently among other things, the settlers planted Semillon. This was all but a requirement, given that it was among the most widely planted grapes in the world at the time. While the oldest and most celebrated of Australia's Semillon can be found in the Hunter Valley outside of Sydney, Barossa has slowly been rediscovering pockets of its old Semillon, as well as planting new ones.

Eclipsed by the monstrous attention paid to the old vine Shiraz in the region, Barossa Semillon has largely escaped the notice of the broader wine drinking world outside of Australia. While I had personally tasted a Barossa Sauvignon Blanc or two with some Semillon blended in, before my recent press trip to Australia I hadn't paid much attention to the white wines of the Barossa, assuming that the heat that made for such ripe and juicy Shiraz might not be so beneficial for white varieties, especially those with thinner skins like Semillon.

But then I tried this wine and some fireworks went off.

In point of fact, after Shiraz, the two most widely planted grape varieties in the Barossa are Riesling and Semillon, and thanks to the hills and various microclimates around the valley it is possible (though not necessarily easy) to make high quality white wines. Barossa is not really as hot as it might seem, and some of its whites are hidden gems.

St. Hallett Winery was started in the 1940's by a good Lutheran family of butchers, who like so many of their fellow farmsteaders grew grapes on their property. The Lindner family decided to name their winery after one of the early land surveyors in Australia's history, but why the "St." prefix was added to the name is not entirely clear. Originally St. Hallet made some red table wine that they used in their sausages and other meat products, but primarily focused on Port-style fortified wines that they would sell in bulk to traders who would ship them off to slake the never-ending thirst of Europe at the time.

Starting in about 1970 the Lindner's decided to start making some Shiraz and Cabernet table wines, as Australian consumers had begun to transition away from the sweeter wines that made up the bulk of consumption up until that point. Encouraged by their successes, the family modernized the winery in 1989 for full commercial production. Despite now being on the larger side, the winery continues to produce most of its wines in small, open top fermentation tanks.

While the winery produces its share of red wines, St. Hallett has become known for its white wines, and in particular for its Semillon and Riesling. The wines are currently made by the young Toby Barlow, with help from senior winemaker Stuart Blackwell. Barlow made his way to winemaking via a degree in Philosophy and some philosophical wanderings that took him "back to the land" where one day he woke up and realized he wanted to be a farmer more than he wanted to be an academic (or a government agent -- another career he flirted with for a time).

St. Hallet, like many Barossa wineries both big and small, doesn't own much vineyard land itself. Instead it sources grapes from a total of 63 different growers, and from those sites, makes about 140 different lots of wine each harvest. While many of these lots are combined to make the winery's higher production wines, the focus on making different vineyard blocks separately seems to be a sort of insanity that passes for tradition at St. Hallett.

But to the extent that such incredible efforts can yield wines like this one, with its main-line of electric lemonade, there may be method to the madness.

This wine was the first of many Barossa Semillons I tried on my recent trip, and it was among the best of them. Utterly unique in character, it represents a side of the Barossa I had never seen before, and a side that all but the greatest fans of Australian wines have probably never seen.

So while my American readers can't buy this wine, I offer it up at the very least as encouragement to keep your eyes open for bottles with the words Barossa Semillon on them, with the hopes that you'll latch onto a good one someday and thank me.

Tasting Notes:
Pale green in the glass with a yellowish cast, this wine has an utterly fantastic nose of waxy, sappy lemon verbena and crazy floral notes. In the mouth the wine is beautifully juicy with an almost tannic structure surrounding electric flavors of mineral, lemon zest, verbena, and lemongrass. Wonderful delicacy characterizes the palate, thanks to good acids, and a fresh chamomile aroma lingers in the finish. Sadly not available for sale in the US.

Food Pairing:
I would love to have tried this wine with the sole meuniere I made the other night, as I think the flavors would have been a wonderful match for the browned butter and lemon in the sauce.

Overall Score: between 9 and 9.5

How Much?: $18

This wine is currently unavailable in the United States.

California Pinot Noir lovers take note. Wine lovers with a free weekend, listen up. It's Spring, and the wine events are coming fast and furious. It seems like every week there's a new wine tasting to go to. But some are more worth paying attention to than others.

Anderson Valley is known for two things in California, and not coincidentally, it has more or less two major wine tasting events per year. The first, the International Alsace Varietals festival took place a few months ago, and I was sadly prevented from attending.

The second is the annual Pinot Noir Festival, which it looks like I'll also be unable to attend, much to my disappointment. But if you're a fan of Pinot Noir and you don't have plans for the weekend of May 15th, I seriously recommend it. It's definitely worth the three hour drive.

Not only is this a gorgeous time of year in the Anderson Valley, but the Pinot Noirs on offer include a few of the better ones in the state. This isn't a huge tasting, and consequently you'll find very few huge wineries there. Instead you'll find a bunch of small, dedicated growers and producers pouring their (mostly) small production wines.

The event includes a technical conference and BBQ on Friday May 14th with speakers that include wine writer Jordan Mackay, winemaker Greg LaFolette, Jim Klein of Navarro Vineyards, Dan Sogg former editor of the Wine Spectator, and several other scientists and winemakers.

Saturday features the grand tasting and winemaker dinners, and those who choose to stay through Sunday can wander around to the many open houses hosted by the valley's wineries.

Participating wineries include: Baxter, Black Kite Cellars, Breggo Cellars, Brutocao Cellars, Cakebread Cellars, Drew Family Cellars, Elke Vineyards, Esterlina Vineyards, Expression 39, Foursight Wines, Goldeneye Winery, Grant Family Wines, Greenwood Ridge Vineyards, Handley Cellars, Harmonique, Husch Vineyards, Jim Ball Vineyards, Lazy Creek Vineyards, LIOCO, Londer Vineyards, MacPhail Family Wines, Navarro Vineyards, Phillips Hill Estates, Philo Ridge Vineyards, Roederer Estate, Scharffenberger Cellars, Skewis Wines, Standish Wine Co., Toulouse Vineyard, Waits-Mast Family Cellars, Williams Selyem, Zina Hyde Cunningham, and more.

The full conference details can be found on the event web site.

13th Annual Anderson Valley Pinot Noir Festival
Grand Tasting
Saturday, May 15th, 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Goldeneye Winery
9200 Highway 128
Philo, CA 95466
707-895-3202

The $95 tickets to the Grand Tasting can (and should) be purchased in advance online. The Friday technical conference will cost you an additional $95 (yes there is wine to taste at this event), and winemaker dinners vary in price.

If you are driving up for the event, I recommend giving yourself a bit of extra time to get there. Perhaps drive up in the morning and have some breakfast before the tasting.

I've often decried the pig-headed idiocy of the French government in its persistent cowing to the lobbying interests of puritanical organizations like National Association for Prevention in Alcoholism and Addiction. Here in America, corporations have our government in their pockets. In France, it's the anti-alcohol zealots, who nearly succeeded in getting the government to ban web sites about wine from the internet (thankfully, some common sense prevailed).

And people wonder why per capita wine consumption has plummeted by 50% in France over the past decade according to some sources?

Consequently, I was quite intrigued to read a study that was recently sent to me by an organization called SOWINE, which polled over a thousand French citizens ages 18 to 65 on about their information consumption habits when it comes to wine.

Here are some of the results that the French government should really be paying attention to:

70% of consumers think wine should be treated differently than other alcohol.

63% of consumers think of themselves as "neophytes" when it comes to wine.

But 61% think that some level of knowledge is important to appreciate wine, and 78% believe it is important do do research before buying (14% currently use the Internet to do that research).

Roughly 28% of the population reads blogs or bulletin boards, and of the population that do, roughly 21% read blogs about wine.

Twice as many people use the Internet than print media when it comes to researching wine (though the vast majority report relying on friends and retailer recommendations as their primary source of advice).

60% percent of the people who do research about wine online end up buying.

In the face of such data, it's quite surprising that a country that depends so heavily, both economically and culturally on wine would still be debating a topic like, say, whether there ought to be wine appreciation classes available for college students (who can all drink legally by the time they get there at age 18).

Those against such classes suggest that it will lead to binge drinking, which is as reactionary as people suggesting that teaching football in American schools will lead to an epidemic of concussions.

Hopefully, intelligence will eventually prevail against ideology, but the track record of the French government when it comes to wine isn't particularly encouraging.

Whenever I hear the term Chartered Accountant, I can't help but think of Monty Python:

Counselor: Well I now have the results here of the interviews and the aptitude tests that you took last week, and from them we've built up a pretty clear picture of the sort of person that you are. And I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that the ideal job for you is chartered accountancy.

Mr. Anchovy: But I've been a chartered accountant for the last twenty years! I want a new job. Something exciting that will let me live.

Counselor: Well, do you have any idea of what you want to do?

Mr. Anchovy: Yes, yes I have.

Counselor: What?

Anchovy: (boldly) Lion taming.

"I'm about as dispassionate about economics as I am passionate about wine" says winemaker Dave Powell between cigarettes and some good natured sniping at any and all in the wine world he disagrees with. The son of a chartered accountant, Powell grew up in Adelaide and eventually managed to find his way to Adelaide University where he began a study of Economics. But like many who seem destined to be winemakers, Powell eventually found his true calling thanks to an uncle who introduced him to wine for the first time.

Powell quickly realized that there might be more marginal utility in pursuing his growing passion for wine than the lifetime of boredom that Chartered Accountancy seemed to hold. Occasional weekend trips to the Barossa Valley became extended absences, and Powell began spending his holidays as a traveling cellar rat, working harvests in California and Italy, with a brief but impression-filled stint as a lumberjack in Scotland.

After the requisite set of global wanderings, having acquired the basic understanding of the trade, Powell returned to the Barossa to find full time work at Rockford Winery in the little town of Tanunda. While relatively small, Rockford winery, under the guiding hand of winemaker Robert O'Callaghan, has been a proving ground for a number of top Australian winemakers. In the 1980's as the country was taking a turn towards larger, corporatized production, O'Callaghan was dedicated to working with dozens of small growers in the Barossa Valley, many of whom owned plots of ancient vines.

Tutored from O'Callaghan's experience and inspired by his focus on preserving the old vineyards of the Barossa (many of which were being ripped out in favor of higher production plantings) Powell began dreaming of his own wine label, dedicated to making wine from some of the valley's oldest vines.

Powell had become quite handy in the vineyard, and soon concocted a scheme that only a young, aspiring (and broke) winemaker might devise. He approached a number of old farmers, whose vineyard plots ranged from poorly kept to completely neglected, and offered to nurse them back to health in exchange for some of the fruit. By 1992 Powell had several farmers convinced to participate, and in 1995 he made his first miniscule quantities of Shiraz, Grenache, and Mataro (what Australians call Mourvedre) under the label he called Torbreck for the forest where he worked in Scotland.

Powell's vision for his winemaking efforts was influenced heavily by his tastings in France's Rhone Valley. Inspired by the power, grace, and ageability of those wines, Powell set himself the modest goal of honoring the rich viticultural heritage of the Barossa Valley with wines that could hold their own against any of the world's best wines. Powell's barrel-chested frame carries his convictions well, and he confidently claims that, fifteen years later, he has met his goal. The only thing he needs he says, "is another twenty years to prove it to everyone else."

Even without the benefit of being able to taste a thirty-year-old bottle of his Shiraz, It's hard to argue with him. Torbreck's wines are without question some of the best made in Australia, and in my experience, they age beautifully (see my notes on a couple of 1998 vintage wines below).

Torbreck launched to almost instant acclaim from many wine critics, but especially from American critic Robert Parker, who became one of Powell's chief advocates on the global stage. Over fifteen years the winery has grown to its current size of about 55,000 cases, which is down roughly 30% from its height in 2005. In the current economic climate, Powell is making less wine mostly, he says, as a result of no longer making or selling excess juice to others.

His deep love of the Rhone also prompted Powell to buy land quite early in the evolution of Torbreck, where he planted white grape varieties, with the logic that if the red Rhone varieties did well, so would Viognier, Marsanne, and Roussanne. The winery's portfolio includes these as well as the reds for which it is much better known.

These days, Powell is more an executive chef than a line cook. He rarely punches anything down personally, and has to ask his winemaking crew which tanks contain which wines, but the wines continue to display the unerring confidence that has characterized them for years. In some ways, this may be as great an accomplishment as the leap to winemaking stardom that the brash, younger Powell made a decade and a half ago. He jokes "they just trot me out for dinners and tastings these days" with a glint in his eye, but it's clear that Powell would never be content as a simple figurehead. In addition to running his business, he continues to experiment as a winemaker, most recently with a wine he calls "The Natural Wine Project" made without sulfur, as well as with a wine called The Laird, made from what Powell says is the single best Shiraz vineyard in the world (which he's been trying to get his hands on for years). He is just about to release the first vintage (mostly in Asia) at the jaw dropping price of $400 a bottle.

Because of the high scores Powell receives from Parker, many wine drinkers lump his wines in with Mollydooker and other such brands that rode a wave of consumer obsession with huge, often sweet, fruit-driven wines. While Powell's wines are undeniably powerful, they are simply in a different league than these other jammy fruit bombs. Torbreck wines, like the Cornas, Condrieu, and Hermitage that Powell holds up as inspiration, are muscular but not beefy, pleasurable even as they lean towards profound. They betray a confidence that compels attention even as it transports the drinker.

TASTING NOTES:

2009 Torbreck "Woodcutters" Semillon, Barossa Valley
Light gold in the glass, this wine has a nose of waxy lemon peel aromas combined with a light floral note. In the mouth it is bright, with a stony mineral quality, lemon peel and floral notes and a really nice, long lemony finish. Quite tasty. Score: around 9. Cost: $16. Click to buy.

2009 Torbreck "Roussanne Marsanne Viognier" White Blend, Barossa Valley
Light gold in the glass with a distinct greenish cast, this wine has rich aromas of apples and peaches with hints of white flowers. In the mouth the wine has a gorgeously silky texture with apple and peach flavors tinged by a bright lemon curd juicyness that lingers through the finish. Score: around 9. Cost: $32. Click to buy.

2009 Torbreck Viognier, Barossa Valley
Light gold in the glass, this wine has a perfumed nose of candied lemon and ripe peach skin aromas. In the mouth it is wonderfully juicy, with excellent acidity and a nice balance of lemon curd and peach flavor -- the latter being nice and subtle. A silky texture along with these nicely balanced flavors makes this a pleasure to drink. Not available in the US. About 75-100 cases made. Score: between 9 and 9.5.

2009 Torbreck "Saignee Mourvedre" Rosé, Barossa Valley
Light coppery red in the glass, this wine has a nose of rosehips and sour cherry fruit aromas with hints of orange peel. In the mouth the wine is quite silky with the faintest hint of tannin and flavors of raspberry, rosehips, and cherry that leave a citrus oil tartness in the finish along with a stony edge. Produced from a single vineyard of Mourvedre, 60 years old, barrel fermented with native yeasts, with six months of barrel aging. 600 cases made. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $22. Click to buy.

2009 Torbreck "Cuvee Juvenile" Rhone Blend, Barossa Valley
Medium to dark purple in the glass, this wine has a nose of grapey cassis and blueberry aromas. In the mouth it is bright with blueberry and cassis fruit that has a note of concord grapes. Faint tannins, and a nice sweet aroma on the finish. Made entirely in stainless, or as the winemaker Dave Powell says "never seen a splinter of wood." Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $21. Click to buy.

2006 Torbreck "The Steading" Rhone Blend, Barossa Valley
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of richly oiled leather, cherry and raspberry aromas. In the mouth it is incredibly juicy with cherry, raspberry and incense flavors. Lovely supple tannins balanced by fantastic acidity make this a complex wine, with a finish that sails on for minutes. The wine spends two years in old oak barrels, with a mix of American and French oak. Fantastic. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $32. Click to buy.

2006 Torbreck "Les Amis" Grenache, Barossa Valley
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of cherry and raspberry fruit aromas that have a gorgeous spicy chocolateyness. In the mouth a lovely suede-like texture and fantastic acidity make flavors of leather, cherry, raspberry and mixed spices seem utterly sexy. This medley lingers with notes of cassis and cherry in the finish. No trace of the two years this wine spent in new French oak. Made from a single vineyard of 110 year-old grenache. Outstanding. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $150. Click to buy.

2006 Torbreck "The Pict" Mourvedre, Barossa Valley
Medium to dark garnet in color, this wine has a nose of cassis and mulberry aromas with a lovely spicy chocolate quality. In the mouth it is fantastically balanced with an incredible texture made up of both a silky quality and supple mouthcoating tannins. Flavors of cassis, mulberry, and blueberry with a juicy bounce to them all linger through a really nice finish. Fantastic. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $130. Click to buy.

2009 Torbreck "The Natural Wine Project" Grenache, Barossa Valley
A recent experiment in winemaking without added sulfur, this wine is dark purple in the glass. The wine smells of cassis and red miso and some sort of electric blueberry thing that is quite compelling. In the mouth the wine has an absolutely amazing texture -- think of velvet times ten -- with fine powdery tannins and fantastic acidity. Rich cassis and blackberry and blueberry fruit swirl in a lovely bouquet with that fabulous texture through a very, very long finish. Score: between 9 and 9.5.

2008 Torbreck "Woodcutter's" Shiraz, Barossa Valley
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of blackberry pie, cassis, and a hint of kalamata olive. In the mouth the wine possesses a nice weight and a velvety texture wrapped around blackberry and cassis flavors. A saline, kalamata olive character stays nicely in the background under the fruit. A nice earthiness and woody quality linger in the finish with cassis aromas. Here's a secret: this vintage has declassified Runrig Shiraz in it (the winery's top bottling) since the 2008 vintage was not to winemaker David Powell's standards. Score: around 9. Cost: $20. Click to buy.

2007 Torbreck "The Struie" Shiraz, Barossa Valley
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of blackberry and cassis aromas with a hint of kalamata olive aromas. In the mouth the wine has a fantastic suede-like texture and supple tannins that wrap around flavors of cassis and blackberry fruit. Nicely balanced with great acidity, the wine soars through a blackberry scented finish. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $50. Click to buy.

2007 Torbreck "The Celts" Shiraz, Barossa Valley
Dark garnet in color, this wine has a nose of rich dried black cherry aroma and a hint of prunes. In the mouth it offers dried cherry and black cherry fruit with notes of blackberry briar. Nice persistent tannins linger with the juicy prune quality in the finish along with a light savory umami note. A small production wine not for sale in the US that winemaker David Powell makes with his kids, who prune and pick and help with the winemaking. Score: around 9.

2006 Torbreck "The Factor" Shiraz, Barossa Valley
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of earthy blackberry and black cherry fruit. In the mouth the wine has a rich aromatically sweet blackberry and cassis character with a beautiful earthiness and light umami note that lingers with the brawny, muscular tannins through the finish. Made from 60 to 90-year-old vines. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $90. Click to buy.

2007 Torbreck "Descendant" Shiraz, Barossa Valley
Dark garnet in color, this wine has a nose of cool cassis and blackberry aromas with a gorgeous white flower note over the top. On the palate the wine is smooth and silky with a bright cassis and lightly peachy quality that is backed up by a wall of burly tannin and woody-briary flavors that sits at the side and front of the mouth. Aromatic peach and white flowers float through the finish. Excellent, but this wine needs a year or two to come together a little better. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $100. Click to buy.

2006 Torbreck "Runrig" Shiraz, Barossa Valley
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of rich chocolate, black cherry, and cassis aromas. In the mouth, the wine has a fantastic seamlessness about it, a merging of the earthiness and velvet of the tannins with the boysenberry and chocolate of its soul. A lovely chocolate covered raisin and muddy earth note linger in a very long finish. Made from vines with an average age of 127 years. A tiny bit of Viognier is added to the final blend. Outstanding. Score: between 9.5 and 10. Cost: $200. Click to buy.

2005 Torbreck "The Laird" Shiraz, Barossa Valley
Dark garnet in color, this wine has an incredible nose of blackberries, cassis, and violet aromas. In the mouth the wine is explosively juicy with an incredible melange of cassis and blackberry and black cherry flavors. A fantastic aromatic sweetness suffuses the wine and is welded to incredibly supple muscular tannins that are themselves lifted and tightened by fantastic acid balance. The finish is minutes long and stunning. A note of espresso and vanilla that is clearly oak driven can be traced through the wine, but it is subtle and appropriate. Fantastic wine. 400 cases made, perhaps none of which will make it to the USA. Score: between 9.5 and 10.

1998 Torbreck "The Steading" Rhone Blend, Barossa Valley
Medium ruby in the glass, with a hint of orange on the rim, this wine smells of bacon fat, cherry and raspberry aromas. In the mouth the wine has a piercing brightness to it, with really juicy cherry and raspberry fruit and fantastic garrigue and lightly savory characteristics that make it easily mistakable for a Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The tannins have become smooth and polished and the acidity still makes it gulpable. The finish is long and gorgeous. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $90. Click to buy.

1998 Torbreck "Runrig" Shiraz, Barossa Valley
Dark garnet in the glass with NO hint of its age, this wine would, by sight, easily be mistakable for a current vintage. The wine smells unbelievably of chocolate and black cherry and hints of dried herbs. In the mouth the wine is explosively juicy with slightly tangy black cherry mixed with forest floor and a fabulous floral note that hangs almost at the edge of perception in the finish. Closing your eyes it has the sleekness of wild cat in the dark. This is an absolutely stunning, knock you on your ass good wine, that is clearly aging beautifully and will for another 10 years without question. Score: around 10. Cost: $200. Click to buy.

They say "Cabernet is king" for a reason. Even with the surge in interest for Pinot Noir in this country, if I ever bring a bunch of wines to a party, the first wines emptied are almost always the Cabernet Sauvignons. People love them, and with good reason. When good the offer a wonderful combination of power, finesse and fruit. It also helps that they taste like cherries, a flavor which most Americans seem to love.

Despite California being home to massive quantities of Cabernet Sauvignon, there aren't many opportunities for members of the public to taste a lot of them. For whatever reason, most public tasting events seem to focus on less mainstream grape varieties: Zinfandel, Pinot, Rhone Rangers, Petite Sirah.

Apart from the massive Family Winemakers festival, where one can find a lot of good Cabernet, there is really only one other event that I know of where Cabernet lovers can really get their fill, and that is the upcoming Cabernet Society tasting.

Founded in 1991, the California Cabernet Society has a simple mission: "expanding worldwide regard and appreciation for California Cabernet Sauvignon." Every year they put on a tasting for the trade and media to sample the latest vintage, and then after a few hours, they open up the hall to the public.

On Monday, May 3rd, in the very classy Bently Reserve building in the Financial District, members of the public will have a chance to taste over 100 barrel samples of the 2009 vintage from lots of different wineries in Sonoma and Napa.

Some really excellent producers will be there pouring wine, and the venue, as I said, is pretty nice. I'd go if I didn't have this pesky day job.

California Cabernet Society Tasting 2010
Monday, May 3, 3:30 to 5:30 PM
Bently Reserve
301 Battery St.
San Francisco, CA 94111

Tickets are $45 and should be purchased in advance online.

My usual tips for public tastings: get a good night sleep; dress comfortably in dark clothing to avoid wine stains; drink lots of water; come with food in your stomach; and spit if you want to learn something.

Parking in the area is tricky, so take public transportation or park under the Embarcadero mall.

Over the past few years I've partaken occasionally in an entertaining spectator sport: watching wine bulletin boards implode under the weight of their own inhumanity.

The self-destruction of most topical online forums, I have come to believe, is only a matter of time. The physical remove of online messaging, coupled with our tendency towards knee jerk responses, mixed with the difficulty in reading emotions in plain text, doused with a liberal dose of pricks and know-it-alls spells disaster for most of forums over time.

I liked checking in on the Mark Squires Bulletin Board, hosted by Robert Parker, from time to time just to watch the display of hubris, petty tongue-lashing, immaturity and hyperbole, occasionally mixed with an interesting opinion or two. I think I made about 30 posts on the board over the course of the last 5 years, but I read my way through thousands of messages, most often with a shaking head, wondering how on earth people managed to continue taking part in such mayhem.

But the mayhem ends today. Visitors to the Mark Squires bulletin board today were greeted by a message that the forums will be closed until April 27th, and when they re-open, they will be available only to paid subscribers of eRobertParker.Com and the print version of the Wine Advocate.

In short: the party is over.

Of course, as is common with all such communities, several splinter groups had already broken off to found their own forum sites over the past four years, thanks in part to the irrational and draconian tactics of site administrator Mark Squires. Squires earned the nickname "Chairman Mao," along with the lifelong enmity of scores of members who found themselves banned from the site without explanation, and in the worst cases, to forever to have their names automatically replaced with asterisks whenever they were mentioned on the site after their departure.

In the past year or two, the site played host to an increasingly vocal opposition to Squires' tactics on the board, as well as to a growing base of both subscribers and guests who were using the forum to criticize Robert Parker and his cadre of contributors, most notably Jay Miller, whose tendency towards high scores made him a favorite punching bag. The last thread I read on the site, a few days ago, included about 12 pages of ankle biting about the fact that Parker had given a very low score recently to a wine that one of his contributors had rated very highly.

My own professional opinion (now wearing my hat as brand experience expert) is that Mark Squires and his actions on the bulletin board did untold damage to the reputation and brand of Robert Parker. He made countless enemies of those who would have otherwise spoken highly or at least favorably of Robert Parker, and created a culture that left a sour taste in the mouths of many more.

It's not clear exactly why the forums will now only be available to those who pay. The official explanation provided contends that the site has become "extremely costly" to supervise and maintain, but it's hard to imagine how that could be the case, or more specifically how kicking off half of the members would make it substantially cheaper to do so.

Did Parker and his contributors tire of criticism by members that were not loyal subscribers? Were they sick of blogs like this one linking to the excruciatingly long battles of ego and pride that characterized such simple discussions as whether context actually matters in the evaluation of a wine?. Was this an easy way of once and for all separating the forums from the brand and the presence of Mark Squires? Or is this move simply a decision to serve only "our loyal subscribers through a more focused effort on them."

We'll never know for sure, but this move at a time when the bulletin board seemed to be losing steam certainly raises many questions, including whether it will thrive, or whether even paying members will find other outlets for their discussions.

There were enough good discussions on the Parker forums to make me somewhat sad to see them go -- friends would send me a gem every once in a while. But even the very best discussions required sorting through so much bile, inside jokes, and machismo that it's hard not to feel a certain sense of "good riddance."

Those of you who have already fled elsewhere, where is your favorite place to engage in flame wars and civilized discussion about wine these days?

On my recent press trip to Australia, not 24 hours after getting off the plane I found myself winding down country roads amidst the pastoral rolling hills of the Yarra Valley. I arrived mid-harvest, to friendly, purple stained hands, and sighs of relief at a vintage that everyone felt was one of the best in several years.

Not long after arriving in the valley, I spent an hour or two above it, getting the lay of the land from the air, and getting a chance to survey the damage from the deadly wildfires of 2009.

The destruction wrought by the blaze was astounding, with countless acres of blackened trees stretching far into the distance, flanked by fresh green undergrowth. Most of the wineries that escaped destruction still lost most of the vintage to smoke taint, though there were some small miracles for a few. One vintner showed me the only patch of vines that were burned at his property, yet they had managed to spring back to life and yielded fruit for the 2010 harvest.

For those unfamiliar with the region, Australia's Yarra Valley is a small winegrowing area about 80 miles to the East of Melbourne in the state of Victoria. The Yarra Valley is the oldest winegrowing region in Victoria, boasting vineyards established in 1838, shortly after the founding of Melbourne and the state of Victoria itself, and a vibrant wine industry that became quite famous by the turn of the 20th Century. Shifting preferences towards fortified wines as well as regional economic trends led to the disappearance of wine production in the valley between 1921 and the early 1960s.

The Yarra Valley is billed as one of Australia's cool-climate growing regions -- with maximum summer temperatures notably cooler than both Bordeaux and Burgundy -- but the region's climate can sometimes include a long slow "indian summer" which is the prime determinant of whether the Bordeaux grape varieties planted there manage to fully ripen.

I was in the valley during this period of warm, breezy fall, and could appreciate the magic of Pinot Noir having been harvested weeks before, while the Cabernet and Cabernet Franc were just about ready to bring in.

My trip above the valley led me to be able to say that there really is no one specific valley when it comes to the Yarra, and no real uniformity even within the Upper Yarra and the Lower Yarra regions. The land is folded and bumpy and pocked and sloping, interrupted by ridges and ravines, and crisscrossed by creeks. The soil types are varied and complex, and there is some debate about what really characterizes the best vineyard sites, but most agree that the vineyards with the more northerly aspects tend to be better, and those with some more elevation and slope tend to be the best.

The region, which represents roughly 2% of Australia's vineyards and 0.5% of the wine production by volume has about 85 wineries. Interestingly, most are on the smaller side, and many do not export. In fact, quite a number of wineries sell only through their "Cellar Doors" which is the Australian name for their tasting rooms.

I had a chance to visit with several wineries in the valley, as well as sit down to a tasting of a number of smaller production wines made in the area. The notes below are some of my favorites.

TASTING NOTES:

2008 Giant Steps "Sexton Vineyard" Chardonnay, Yarra Valley
Palest gold in the glass with a very nice shine, this wine has a nose of cold cream and nice golden apple aromas. In the mouth the wine is smooth and rich, with a gorgeous acid balance and nice apple, pear, and lemon flavors. Really nice yellow grapefruit lingers in the finish. Score: around 9. Cost: $20. Click to buy.

2008 Giant Steps "Arthurs Creek Vineyard" Chardonnay, Yarra Valley
Pale yellow gold in the glass, this wine smells of green apple and lime zest. In the mouth it has a bright mineral and lime zest quality. Wet stones and citrus pith linger in the finish. 300 cases made. 35-year-old vines. Score: somewhere between 8.5 and 9.

2008 Oakridge "864" Chardonnay, Yarra Valley
Pale greenish gold in the glass, this wine has a nose of floral, lemon zest aromas. In the mouth it is rich and bright with really juicy acidity and lemon and grapefruit pith flavors with a very nice lime note on the finish. Score: somewhere between 8.5 and 9.

2008 Punt Road Chardonnay, Yarra Valley
Pale green-gold in the glass, this wine has a nose of lemon zest and wet stones. In the mouth it offers unripe pear, crisp mineral notes, and a hint of woody bitterness on the finish. Score: around 8.5. $20. Click to buy.

2006 Yering Station Reserve Chardonnay, Yarra Valley
Pale green gold in the glass, this wine smells of buttered popcorn, jasmine, and cold cream. In the mouth it is super bright and juicy with gorgeous lemon and buttered sourdough vanilla, and cold cream. Wonderfully juicy and eminently quaffable this is a wine you want to drink all night long. Delicious. Score: somewhere between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $42. Click to buy.

2008 Gembrook Hill Pinot Noir, Yarra Valley
Lightly ruby in the glass with hits of orange at the edge and some cloudy haze, this wine has a nose of bright cranberry and red apple skin. In the mouth it has a wonderful red apple skin, raspberry, and cinnamon quality. Orange peel, cloves, and a tiny bit of heat emerge on the finish that suggests a tiny bit of volatile acidity. Very interesting and distinctive. Score: somewhere between 9 and 9.5.

2008 Giant Steps "Gladysdale Vineyard" Pinot Noir, Yarra Valley
Light ruby in the glass with hints of orange at the edge, this wine smells of cranberry and raspberry. In the mouth it is silky and wonderfully textured with cranberry and raspberry flavors. Super faint tannins creep around the bright orange peel and juicy. lightly woody flavors. Nice finish. Score: around 9.

2008 Mac Forbes "Woori Yallock" Pinot Noir, Yarra Valley
Cloudy light ruby in color, this wine has a nose of bright raspberry and floral notes. In the mouth it is beautiful and crystalline in its aspect, with bright raspberry fruit and faint tannins. Wonderful, airy finish with very delicate qualities. Outstanding. Score: somewhere between 9 and 9.5.

2008 Tarrawarra Estate Pinot Noir, Yarra Valley
Light to medium ruby in the glass, this wine has a wonderful perfumed nose of sweet cherry and cedar. In the mouth the wine is smooth and cedary, with sweet cherry and raspberry quality (though the wine is dry) with a nice long cedar finish. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $22. Click to buy.

2008 Jamsheed "Silvan" Syrah, Yarra Valley
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine has an intense growling nose of Jaegermeister or some other weird herbal woody tincture -- chinese medicine? -- that makes it incredibly distinctive. In the mouth it offers blackberry, woody-stemmy, cocoa powder and lightly grippy leathery tannins. Great acidity, and wonderful oiled leather with cloves on the finish. Score: somewhere between 9 and 9.5.

2008 Giant Steps "Harry's Monster" Cabernet Sauvignon, Yarra Valley
Medium to dark ruby in the glass, this wine has a nose of rich black cherry aromas. In the mouth it is rich and broad shouldered with dark cherry and wet earth flavors stretched across a musculature of tannin. Wet dirt and tobacco notes drive the long, aromatically sweet finish. Concentrated but very balanced. Score: around 9. Cost: $40. Click to buy.

2005 Yeringberg "Yeringberg" Cabernet Sauvignon, Yarra Valley
Dark garnet in the glass this wine has a gorgeously perfumed nose of cherry, tobacco, and dark chocolate. In the mouth it is beautifully balanced with cherry and cassis flavors with gorgeous soft tannins and a cedar note on the finish. Score: around 9. Cost: $39. Click to buy.

2006 Yering Station Reserve Shiraz Viognier, Yarra Valley
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of white flowers over blackberry pie. In the mouth it is beautifully silky with velvet tannins that wrap around flavors of blackberry, cassis, and a light briary greenness that all seem to float above the palate with an effortlessness that makes this wine incredibly easy to drink. A light woody coffee note emerges on the finish that is quite appealing. Balanced and delicious. Score: around 9. Cost: $33. Click to buy.

I love broadening my own wine horizons, and I'm always surprised at how narrowly most non-wine-focused media see the world of wine. So I was quite surprised to see a whole segment today on CNN all about Georgian wine. No not the Southern State. The country.

The country of Georgia hosts one of the oldest winemaking cultures in the world, and is regarded by some as the birthplace of winemaking. Georgian wine, of which I've had a scant couple of bottles in my life, comes in many varieties, but they are most famous for their tradition of long macerated wines fermented and stored in huge terra-cotta amphorae called kvevri that are buried in the ground up to their necks. These practices are currently being borrowed (honored?) by a small number of winemakers outside of Georgia, most notably Josko Gravner, whose orange wines are very dear to my heart.

In this nice little segment, reporter Ivan Watson visits a couple of wineries to taste wines out of the kvevri and it looks like a lot of fun. It's great to see CNN off the beaten travel path, and wonderful to see them highlighting a wine region so rich in tradition and history.

Unfortunately, CNN perhaps not being so wine savvy, hasn't done a great job of fact checking their sources, as the number of vinifera grape varieties (the primary source of most fine wine) in the world that is quoted in the story at 3000 is actually much closer to 10,000. While Georgia should be proud of their 500 (of which 38 are officially sanctioned for grape growing, according to Jancis Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine), they certainly don't represent one sixth of the known varieties on the planet.

No matter. Georgia is still cool, and so are their wines.

Check out the video.

I went to South Africa about 2 years ago on a press junket and fell in love with the place. A stunning landscape, wonderful food, and amazing potential as a wine region left me with the desire to return. In particular, though, I was struck by the value for money that many of its wines offered, and the diversity of styles and grape varieties that seem to be grown successfully in its varied climates.

If you're like me, traveling there without someone else footing the bill is prohibitively expensive, not to mention time consuming. But you needn't trek all the way around the globe to get a taste of South African wine.

In a little more than a week, a group of South African wine importers is putting on two public wine tasting events, one in Los Angeles, one in San Francisco. I'm a bit of a broken record about these public tasting events, but let me say one more time what an opportunity they represent to learn a lot about a wine region, discover new wines to buy, and just generally educate your palate.

This particular event will showcase more than 100 wines from about 50 producers from South Africa, most of whose wines are readily available, or easy enough to find with a little effort on your part. The wines will be accompanied by food from Radio Africa and Kitchen, and apparently the tasting venue will also showcase African art.

Celebrate South Africa Wine Tasting: Los Angeles
Monday May 3rd, 7 PM to 11 PM
Vinoteque on Melrose
7469 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90046

Celebrate South Africa Wine Tasting: San Francisco
Thursday, May 6th, 6 PM to 10 PM
The Box SF
1069 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

Tickets for both events are $30, and should be purchased in advance online. You can find links to the ticketing web site as well as more information on the online press release for the event.

My usual tips for such public tastings apply: get a good night's sleep; go with food in your stomach; wear dark clothes to avoid wine stains; drink lots of water; and if you want to learn something and enjoy yourself, SPIT !

I'm in a pissy mood. At first I thought it was because I ordered a Pinot Noir tonight at a restaurant that wasn't as nuanced as I had hoped. But the more I leveled with myself, the more I realized it was really because I got the following e-mail today that I've been gnashing my teeth over, so to speak, for a number of hours:

Dear Alder,

In accordance with the Federal Trade Commission, below is Rodney Strong's digital influencer agreement. To receive future releases of Rodney Strong Wine Estates wines for possible review, please review and reply YES to this email. To decline, reply NO, but understand I will no longer send you wines.

Please do not alter the subject line. Please know that I am sending this to all my media contacts, whether you blog or not. Everything seemingly gets online one way or another.

RODNEY STRONG WINE ESTATES
DIGITAL INFLUENCER ENGAGEMENT & CODE OF CONDUCT AGREEMENT

Rodney Strong Wine Estates is committed to compliance with laws and regulations that govern the prevention of unfair, deceptive or misleading marketing practices between brands, bloggers and other digital influencers.

Our goal with these guidelines is to continue to work in a transparent manner with influencers like you who share our core values. This 'Digital Influencer Engagement & Code of Conduct Agreement' document merely codifies our current best practices.

Please know that we greatly appreciate your voluntary participation with us and we do not require any influencer to blog or discuss Rodney Strong Wine Estates, its labels, products, initiatives or events related to the company regardless of any material compensation.

Because we believe true advocacy can never be purchased, we do not pay for editorial placement. However, we do provide free product, host regional meetings and sponsor Sonoma County wine education trips for qualifying journalists, bloggers and other digital influencers.

In order to remain compliant with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) blogger guidelines, Rodney Strong Wine Estates respectfully requests that you adhere to the below listed disclosures and best practices.

Standards of Conduct in Working with Rodney Strong Wine Estates:
* We ask that you disclose in each post if you received free product, a trip, or any other material compensation received from Rodney Strong Wine Estates.
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* Any blogger who receives any material compensation from Rodney Strong Wine Estates shall comply with the Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising published by the Federal Trade Commission.

Tips on compliance:
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We want to have a long, mutually beneficial relationship with you and would be happy to answer any questions you may have about the FTC disclosure guidelines.

If you are in agreement with the above guidelines, please reply YES to this email.

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Public Relations Director
Rodney Strong Wine Estates

This well written letter is, of course, in response to the recent FTC ruling that so many of us in the wine blogosphere wrote about a few months ago. In case you missed it, the FTC stated that it would henceforth be able to fine and prosecute both the bloggers who fail to disclose when they are writing about a product that they received for free, as well as the company that provided the product.

Of course the thing that galled so many about this ruling is that it specifically exempted print journalism, in a truly mind-numbing double standard of gargantuan proportions.

It's no wonder then, that Rodney Strong, perhaps one of the more frequent shippers of wine samples to bloggers, feels the need to offer this bit of (quite well done) ass-covering digital contractualism. If I were them, I'd do it too.

The requests that they make of bloggers are quite reasonable given the FTC ruling, and for most serious wine bloggers, something they've been doing already.

It pisses me off to no end, however, that they aren't forced to do the same with the print journalists of the world, who in turn, have no obligation to meet any such standards of conduct.

Not that it's their fault, but it also pisses me off to be talked to this way by a winery, as if thanks to the FTC we now need to have some sort of contractual relationship, when that is the last thing I want to have with any winery. Despite the very appropriate language about how the winery does not expect anything but honesty, and never requires anyone to write anything even if they do receive a sample, they damn well are requiring what amounts to a verbal contract with various terms and conditions.

I'll be interested to see whether this becomes a common thing, or whether it is merely the overly cautious action of a large company that suffered some unanticipated public controversy in the past for a sample campaign to wine bloggers.

But until I start getting letters like this from everyone that wants to send me a wine sample, I've decided it feels far too... yucky. Which shouldn't be a reflection on the winery, just a reflection of the overall situation caused by our friends in the government. So for now, that's a big NO, from me, Mr. Larsen. I'm sorry you felt compelled to write it, but you did a good job considering the utter inanity that prompted it.

Importers, distributors, country trade commissions, and individual wine regions have long put on tastings for the trade and media to showcase wines in the hopes of increased sales and better media coverage. One of the most encouraging trends I see in the wine world continues to be the proliferation of such tastings available for the general public.

Let's face it, even someone who has a bottle of wine with every meal only gets a couple hundred tastes of different wines every year. And most people tend to stick with the wines or grape varieties that they know. No matter how adventurous the palate, there aren't that many opportunities to learn what you like and what you don't like during the course of normal consumption of wine for pleasure at mealtimes.

Instead of consumption for pleasure, those interested in wine need to consumer for education, which is where large public wine tastings come in. The chance to sip and spit sixty, eighty, even one hundred wines for the price of a couple of bottles represents an unmatched opportunity to educate your palate.

The latest opportunity for such an education is around the corner in San Francisco. On May 3rd, the Austrian Wine Marketing Board is bringing a whole lot of Riesling and Gruner Veltliner to town for you to taste, along with cheese and various Austrian finger foods.

Austrian Riesling, in particular, is one of the world's greatest food wines and anyone who isn't that familiar with it should take this opportunity to find out why. Likewise, you might decide to discover why Gruner Veltliner is so popular with sommeliers in this country.

Austria Uncorked 2010 San Francisco
Monday, May 3rd - 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
The Officer's Club
1 Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA 94123 (PDF map)

Austria Uncorked 2010 New York City
Wednesday, May 5th - 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Tribeca Rooftop
2 Desbrosses Street
New York, NY 10013 (map)

Tickets for San Francisco $60 and New York tickets are $70. Both should be purchased in advance online. Use the code: AUSTRIAEB at checkout to get a $15 discount !!!

For those who may not have tasted a lot of Riesling in one sitting before, the wine is quite acidic and can make your teeth hurt after a while. Drink lots of water and eat as you go to minimize this effect. My other public tasting tips also apply -- get a good night's sleep, make sure you have some food in your stomach before you taste, and be sure to spit so you can learn something as you go, instead of getting schnockered after 10 tastes.

You know how some entrepreneurs seem to start businesses in their sleep? They create a company, make it profitable or sell it to someone, and then it seems like a week into their "vacation" they're starting another one, and another. The most successful of these seem to have the Midas touch, with each business more successful than the last, as if they can't help but make tons of money.

There's an analogue to this type of personality in the wine world, and it is readily demonstrated by one Steve Clifton. Clifton is best known for his partnership in Brewer-Clifton wines with friend Greg Brewer, but in the last ten years he has started no less than three different successful wine labels, as if he just wanders around and they seemingly fall out of his pockets.

It would seem like incredible luck if Steve Clifton wasn't so clearly a guy who knows what he's doing.

After falling in love with wine in college as a waiter in Italian restaurants, his love continued to grow through the 1980's as a young musician and aspiring nightclub owner. In the early 1990's Clifton started making wine in his basement and took a series of jobs in wine sales and marketing where he met Greg Brewer, who was following much the same path. Together they decided to start a winery focused exclusively on combining their love of Burgundian varietals and the appellation in their back yards: the Santa Rita Hills.

Getting fruit from what they called "extreme vineyards" in the appellation, Brewer-Clifton rapidly shot to recognition as on of the best producers of small-lot Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the region.

You would think that Clifton would have his hands full managing one of the hottest new labels in Santa Barbara County, but a few years later he started playing with Rhone varietals, and then suddenly the world was chasing after another new label: Alder Wines (no, they did not ask me before they started it).

Sandwiched in between these two projects, Clifton apparently couldn't restrain his affections for Italian wines or for an Italian educated woman named Chrystal, so he married her and started Palmina Wines, though not necessarily in that order.

Palmina is a small family run operation -- Steve makes the wine and Chrystal manages the books -- focused exclusively on Italian varietals grown in Santa Barbara County. Chrystal's fluent Italian has helped the couple build relationships with a number of Italian producers who have helped the couple keep their wines true to the old world styles and techniques appropriate for each varietal, whether that be fermentation in steel or old oak vats, avoiding malolactic fermentation for whites, and aging (often) with a minimum or complete lack of new French oak. This is important, because Palmina is both literally and figuratively breaking new ground in California in its attempts to grow some lesser known Italian varietals.

The winery produces Malvasia Bianca, Traminer, Tocai Friulano, Pinot Grigio, Moscato and Arneis, along with several Nebbiolo-based and Barbera-based wines; a Sangiovese and Merlot blend that utilizes the passito method of drying grapes before pressing; a couple of Dolcettos, and a blend of Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Refosco among others.

In addition to being quite delicious and true to the characters of their grape varieties (something which I find lacking in many California renditions of traditional Italian grapes), Palmina wines are especially noteworthy for what I consider quite fair, even value-based, pricing. While they are not made in huge quantities, they deliver quite a bit of pleasure for their price tags.

I had the chance recently to taste four of the newest releases from the winery, and though they don't represent even 30% of the portfolio, I liked them well enough to justify this writeup.

TASTING NOTES:

2009 Palmina Wines "Honea Vineyard" Tocai Friulano, Santa Ynez Valley
Pale green-gold in the glass, this wine smells of green apples and wet stones. In the mouth it is crisp and bright and stony with unripe pear, lemon juice, and nice rainwater notes on the finish. Bright and true to the character of the grape variety. Would be difficult to peg as a California wine if tasted blind. Score: around 9. Cost: $20. Click to buy.

2007 Palmina Wines "Alisos" Sangiovese, Santa Barbara County
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of sweet cherry and red licorice aromas. In the mouth it is soft and velvety with the tart sour cherry and sandalwood of the Sangiovese and a distinct rich cherry and plummy note of Merlot (of which there is a bit blended in). The sour cherry lingers in the finish with nice acidity puckering the mouth and the lightly grippy tannins lingering in the corners. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $28. Click to buy.

2005 Palmina Wines "Mattia" Red Blend, Santa Barbara County
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of very pretty cassis and blueberry aromas. In the mouth it offers blueberry and cassis flavors with a nice leathery undertone and a woody note that lingers in the finish. Light tannins. 55% Refosco, 30% Cabernet Franc, and 15% Merlot. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $30. Click to buy.

2005 Palmina Wines "Stolpman Vineyard" Nebbiolo, Santa Barbara County
Light to medium garnet in color, this wine has a gorgeously perfumed nose of violets and sour cherry aromas touched with a beautiful sweetness. In the mouth the wine has a beautiful lightness on the palate and incredible... drinkability. Nice acidity, beautiful, restrained raspberry and cherry flavors with cedar and violet notes linger on an airy finish. Fermented and aged primarily in big old oak barrels. Score: around 9. Cost: $40. Click to buy.