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Sun Jan 24 12:00:40 EST 2010
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Garagiste Winemakers of Chile: Introducing MOVI -

If I were Hugh Johnson or Jancis Robinson, I could clear my throat and begin my story with a distinguished pronouncement about how I've watched several wine regions around the globe evolve from their infancy to later stages of maturity. But I lack the perspective of someone who's been a professional observer of the industry for decades. While I may not be able to tell you how, exactly, I do know that wine regions evolve over the course of their history, and that Chile finds itself in a particular stage of evolution that most regions probably encounter after a few decades of solid growth.

Chile has recently entered the age of the garagiste winemaker. For those unfamiliar with the term, it originated in the Bordeaux region of France in the mid-1990's, where at the time it was a slightly derogatory term for winemakers who usually purchased grapes from other growers and made small lots of wines in equally small production facilities, which, in some cases, were garages. These upstart winemakers were controversial at the time, not only for breaking out from the traditional chateau model of winemaking (i.e. ownership of vineyards and making wine from a very specific place) but for styling their wines more towards the emerging California style of rich, ripe reds.

These days, garagiste can refer to any small winery operation, whether it be someone who has made the transition from being a hobbyist to selling their wine commercially, or more commonly, a well established winemaker who, in addition to their day job making wine for someone else, may be making a few thousand cases of wine under their own label.

For the most part garagiste has lost any negative connotation it might have once had, and in places like California, such wine operations have become more than commonplace, fueling a whole industry of custom crush facilities that exist to help such people make their wines. That doesn't mean, however, that some who adopt the moniker, or merely resemble it, don't still struggle for acceptance and visibility in their wine industry, wherever that may be.

Which brings me to a recently formed group in Chile called MOVI: Movimiento de Viñateros Independientes (Movement of Independent Vintners). Established on the first of June, 2009 through the launch of their website and a public constitution of their purpose, this group has staked out a position outside the conventions of the modern Chilean wine industry. But in addition to their philosophical stance as smaller, independent wineries in an industry dominated by big players, they also represent the beginnings of a natural diversification that was likely inevitable in Chile's wine industry.

While small winemaking projects have occurred before in Chile (indeed some of the bigger players in the industry began that way) there have never been a significant number of smaller wineries, and especially few that owned no vineyards themselves. Likewise, few Chilean winemakers have struck out on their own and created their own labels. Indeed, this is not only uncommon, it is seen as threatening by some in the mainstream Chilean wine industry. At least two of the founding members of MOVI have been fired from their jobs as winemakers for larger wineries for their participation in the group, and several more have gotten somewhat cold receptions to the news.

While some in the Chilean wine industry have welcomed, or at least made peace with the existence of MOVI, the fact that even a few might see the desire of a talented winemaker to make their own wines as a threat seems particularly backward. Especially when all over the world there are plenty of examples pointing to the value of letting winemakers do their own thing. Not only does it keep the winemakers happy (and less likely to be looking elsewhere for work) their success with their own projects often brings attention (and sales) to their employer's wines. Of course, there will be examples of superstars whose success will allow them to leave their employers and work only for themselves, but that's just the way things go with capitalism.

MOVI, above all, represents the maturing of the Chilean wine industry. While I'm not sure that a movement or an association was wholly necessary, certainly the diversification and experimentation that MOVI represents is very necessary to the evolution of Chilean wine.

I first heard about MOVI from importer Joe Dressner, who suggested I look them up on my trip to Chile, and not 48 hours later I was sitting in the hotel lounge with Max Morales, who runs the popular and comprehensive site AndesWines.Com and he brought them up in the course of our conversation about the current state of the wine industry, and mentioned that he knew them. Five days later, about two dozen bottles showed up at the hotel, and the last thing I did before I left the country was taste through all the wines.

But before we get to the tasting notes, the folks at MOVI were kind enough to answer some of my questions by e-mail, via Derek J. Mossman Knapp, who owns and runs Garage Wine Company, and holds the title of Director of MOVI.

Vinography: Can anyone be a member of MOVI?

MOVI: Movi wants to embrace, not exclude, independent projects. Lord knows we are all very small, and the Goliaths of the Chilean wine business are very, very large. It is a tall order to convince the world we exist, let alone be found on the shelf and find our way to the dinner table in our industry. We need to get to a critical mass if we pretend to create some gravity with consumers.

Vinography: What makes a winery suitable for membership?

MOVI:
Wineries that are:
- small, quality-oriented
- make wine personally, on a human scale.
- craft wine to reflect a particular vision, beyond origin and terroir (which are a given)
- not Fortune 500 companies, not economic groups, and not patrons of convenience.

At our pourings there are no 'promotoras' (read: smiling Barbie-like-bimbos). The owner-maker pours. Above all the owner must have a quintessential passion for the endeavors of growing grapes and crafting fine wine.

To apply for membership a winery must meet the above criteria and send samples that are then tasted by the directors of our organization. Upon entry to the group, each project extends an invitation to receive all of the members at their winery, as a gesture towards cementing themselves into the group. Movis know Movis personally, and we also know and believe in each other's wines.

Movi's twelve founding members (we are now 16) stem from widely differing histories and more than a half-dozen wine-making countries. We are steadfast against homogeneity and insist Chile is anything but stock and standard. Give us some time!

Vinography: What has been the reaction to the creation of MOVI in Chile?

MOVI: Movi launched at an annual wine event at the W Hotel and briskly became a sensation. We didn't do anything so radically different. The idea that wineries could crank up some good tunes, show pictures of their families helping in the bodega (perhaps the photos of our dogs eating grapes was a little over-the-top), share pouring tables, help each other, and get people tattooing the Movi logo on their arm did, however, cause a stir. That tasting was the first time that the public could find many of the wines. Long story short: the restaurants, hotels and sommeliers had a chance to try all of the Movi wines and this was terrific for the lesser known projects in the group. Several hotels and restaurants now have a section of their wine lists devoted to Movi.

Afterwards, Movi was the darling of the Chilean wine press for a stretch, but Movi intentions are long-term and much more profound than the Chilean press let on. They tried to re-coin us as Vinos de Autor and a rather fresh Brazilian tried to ride our shirt-tails naming his distribution company "the association of chilean boutique wineries" or some such nonsense but he is all wet. Movi is the one and only. We are here to stay and we are only just beginning.

The press also reported about two winemakers being fired for being members of the group, amongst other minor scrapes. Movi is not out to play victim nor to create a schism in the wine trade. Movi aims to complement the works of the big trade and trade marketing associations like Wines of Chile, with everything we have: quality, personality, diversity, and that much needed dose of irreverence to complement the consumer's appreciation of Chile. We want the world to know Chilean wine does not come from mega projects alone. The industry needs smaller projects and we Movis are patient people -- otherwise, what would we be doing in wine.

Vinography: Why did the Chilean wine industry need MOVI right now?

MOVI: Movi is a breath of fresh air in a healthy but comfortable and conservative industry known for blue blazers, grey flannels, incessant profit, and industry concentration. That is not the whole truth about Chilean wine and we are here to prove it.

Movi will contribute positively to the Chilean wine trade and most of all, complement existing projects and missions with our own personal signatures and our energy keenly focused, albeit sometimes irreverently, on what consumers want: quality, diversity and personality.

The Chilean wine press, in particular, needs needs a push -- some impetus to dedicate more space towards opening up wine to new wine drinkers. They need to take the stuffiness out with the trash. Chile needs to tell more stories. Movis make for great stories.

Vinography: What is MOVI hoping to accomplish?

MOVI: Simple. We want a space on your table. (Well, not your table precisely, Alder, since you probably receive free samples, but definitely your neighbors' tables). We want people to open their minds about Chile. Investigate Chilean wine on the Internet. Read blogs, follow tweets, and find the whole Chile -- including the mavericks amongst the saints. And once in their lifetime, everyone should all come and see us on their airline miles.

Vinography: Are MOVI members' wines different from other wines produced in Chile? If so, why?

MOVI: Movi does not pretend to have any exclusive taste. That would be arrogant and fallacious. And there is certainly no uniformity whatsoever amongst the wines of Movi. Generally speaking, Movi wines surprise-- but only because people have not tried enough Chilean wine.

Are they less commercial? Perhaps. Is this because these are wines created by a person and for personal reasons and that person only found a market for them afterward? Perhaps. Are they generally well-rounded yet not in a manipulated way? Perhaps. The jury is out. You tell us. Ever so slowly people are taking interest. The consumer will have the last word.

* * *

And so now, the tasting notes. It's worth noting that the staff at the W Hotel in Santiago did a particularly lousy job keeping track of the wines that were left for tasting, and we (myself and my two fellow journalists on the trip) suspect that some of the wines may never have made it to us. But here's what we did receive and taste through before we jumped on a plane back to the United States. Many thanks again to Max Morales and Andes Wine for making it happen.

POLKURA
Winemaker Sven Bruchfeld started this small Syrah project in 2002. After a career making wine for other people he says, "It may sound cliché but I wanted to make my own wine, walk my own vineyard, see it grow and make a living from all of that." Pokura means "yellow stone" in the native Mapuche language and references the yellow granite found in the Marchigue region of the Colchagua Valley where the wine comes from. Bruchfeld also makes a Sauvignon Blanc called Aylin from the Leyda region of the San Antonio Valley. Between the three wines (Aylin + the two syrahs) Polkura makes about 5000 cases annually. The wines are imported by Wine Markets International in New York.

2009 Aylin Sauvignon Blanc, Leyda, San Antonio Valley, Chile
Pale blond in the glass, this wine has a nose of warm hay, citrus zest, and fresh apples. In the mouth the wine is brisk with citrus and apple and pear flavors that linger in the finish. Good acidity, but some slight heat on the finish makes the wine end awkwardly. Score: between 8 and 8.5. Cost: $14.

2007 Polkura "Block G1" Syrah, Marchigue, Colchagua Valley, Chile
Inky garnet in color, this wine has a nose of blackberry and cassis, with hints of blueberry. In the mouth it is rich, broad and beautifully textured, with velvety tannins, and flavors of blackberry, blueberry, and cassis that linger in a long finish. Unfiltered as far as I can tell. Lovely, if a bit brawny. Score: around 9. Cost: $40.

2007 Polkura Syrah Marchigue, Colchagua Valley, Chile
Dark garnet in color, this wine smells of black cherry and cedar, with hints of blackberry. In the mouth it offers cassis and blackberry flavors with an underlying earthiness and leathery flavor which is echoed in the texture of the tannins. Moderate finish. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $22

FLAHERTY
Winemaker Ed Flaherty spends his days working at Viña Tarapaca, but at night he comes home to a front yard full of Tempranillo and his wife Jennifer Hoover, who sometimes he may find in their carriage punching down their latest creation. While they are a commercial operation (just barely -- selling their 500 case annual production in Brazil and Chile) Flaherty Wines started when their home winemaking experiments turned serious in 2004. In addition to the fruit they can harvest from their front yard, they buy Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon from the Manzur vineyard in the Aconcagua Valley.

2006 Flaherty Red Wine, Aconcagua Valley, Chile
Dark garnet in color, this wine has a nose of barnyard, cedar, and dried cherries. In the mouth it offers dried cherry fruit, light tannins and a dirt and leather sort of flavor as the wine finishes. Score: between 7 and 7.5. Cost: $25

GARAGE WINE CO.
An unusual project that literally did start in a garage, Garage Wine Co. is the product of winemaker Pilar Miranda, cellar chief Derek Mossman, and co-owner Dr. Alvaro Peña. Miranda's day job is as a flavoring consultant to the cocktail industry, Mossman spent more than a decade in marketing for Chilean wineries, and Peña is a research scientist focused on anti-oxidants and the effects of oak on wine. Initiated by Mossman as a "kind of personal anti-dote to the disappointment of working with Chilean marketing." 20% of each vintage is pre-sold as futures to folks who then get a chance to come help out in the cellar. The wines are made almost entirely naturally, and fermented in oak. The grapes come from long-term contracts with growers, and include enough fruit for about 400 cases of wine. The wines are not yet imported to the United States.

2008 Garage Wine Co. "#18" Cabernet Carignan, Chile
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of gamey meat, huckleberries, and cassis. In the mouth it offers huckleberry, cassis, and cedar flavors with lightly bitter, faint tannins that linger into the finish. Score: around 7.5. Cost: $25.

VINA VON SIEBENTHAL
Located basically just across the street from Errazuriz in the Aconcagua Valley, Viña von Siebenthal was started in 1998 by Mauro on Siebenthal, a swiss lawyer who left a 25-year career to start a winery. The first vintage was 2002, from the estates 60 acres of vineyards. Winemaker Stefano Gandolini, who also makes the Viña Carmen wine (across the street at Errazuriz), makes the roughly 12,000 cases of production, split across six different red wines. Imported by Vindino Wines in San Diego, Puerto Viejo Wines in Florida, and JC Imports in Rhode Island.

2007 Viña von Siebenthal Carmenere Reserva, Aconcagua Valley, Chile
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of cherries and camphor wood. In the mouth it is lean and taut with cherry, cedar, and oiled leather flavors. Moderate leathery tannins emerge on the surprisingly long finish. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $19.

2005 Viña von Siebenthal "Monthelig" Red Wine, Aconcagua Valley, Chile
Dark garnet in color, this wine has a nose of wet earth, sweet cassis, and aromatic cedar. In the mouth it is intense, with cherry, cedar, tobacco, and high-toned notes of berries and a very long finish that I can best describe as a long dusty road. Excellent. Score: around 9. Cost: $55.

2006 Viña von Siebenthal "Toknar" Red Wine, Aconcagua Valley, Chile
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a perfumed nose of sweet cherries, flowers, and raspberry aromas. In the mouth the wine is beautifully composed with bright cherry and raspberry fruit, supple tannins and bright acidity, and a long lingering finish that sweeps in notes of vanilla and sour cherry. Really lovely. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $115.

CLOS ANDINO
Started in 2007 as a personal project by José Luis Martin-Boquillard, Clos Andino produces about 1000 cases of wine, starting with its inaugural vintage of 2006 Cabernet. Martin-Boquillard spent nearly 20 years working as a winemaker for "big conglomerates" before leaving that all behind to focus on Clos Andino. The wine is not yet imported to the United States.

2006 Clos Andino "Le Cabernet Sauvignon" Reserva, Chile
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of sweet stewed cherries and chocolate aromas. In the mouth it offers sawdust, dried cherries, and lightly floral flavors with a long finish. Lacks some freshness that would make it a better wine. Score: between 8 and 8.5. Cost: $ not given.

GILLMORE
Gillmore is now in its second generation of ownership as a small family-run winery. Owner and patriarch Francisco Gillmore made his first vintage of Cabernet Franc in 1993, but since 2001 his daughter Daniele Gillmore and her husband, winemaker Andres Sanchez have been shaping the raw materials provided by Gillmore into something truly tremendous. Those raw materials include family vineyards of dry-farmed 20+ year-old vines in the Valley of Loncomilla. Sanchez is a talented winemaker and consultant, whose career has included and continues to include much international work in places like Tuscany and India. The winery produces a miniscule 2000 cases annually, of which a small amount is imported by Schneider Selections.

2006 Gillmore Carignane Riserva, Loncomilla Valley, Maule, Chile
Medium to dark garnet in color, this wine smells beautifully of violets, mulberries and blueberries. In the mouth it is juicy and bright with wonderful fruit flavors of mulberry, blueberry, and raspberry. Lightly grippy tannins emerge on the finish which is long and, again, gorgeously lush with fruit. Great balance and exquisitely juicy acidity makes this wine a fantastic pleasure to drink. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $28.

2003 Gillmore "Cobre" Gran Reserva, Loncomilla Valley, Maule, Chile
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a gorgeous nose of cherry and cola and cedar. In the mouth it offers restrained but darkly complex flavors of cherries, tobacco, and wet wood. Perfectly balanced with excellent acidity and a nice dark earthiness that lingers along with floral qualities into a long finish. 13.8% alcohol. Outstanding. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $28.

2006 Gillmore Cabernet Franc Reserva, Loncomilla Valley, Maule, Chile
Dark garnet in color, this wine has a nose of cherry, leather, and hints of raspberry. In the mouth it has grippy, leathery tannins with cherry and wet earth flavors but not as much dynamism as it should. Good acidity and long finish with a touch of alcoholic heat. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $28.

2006 Gillmore Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva, Loncomilla Valley, Maule, Chile
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a very nice nose of ripe cherry and black cherry fruit with notes of pencil shavings. In the mouth it is expansive and bright with nice acidity and fine grained tannins that support a core of cherry, black cherry, and wet earth flavors. Refined and juicy, this is a very tasty wine. Score: around 9. Cost: $28.

CALIBORO
Francisco Marone Cinzano is better known in Tuscany than in Chile. There he owns the famous Col d'Orcia winery in Montalcino. In the early 1990's he decided to begin work on a project in Chile because of the potential he saw there. The winery produces a single wine, made by consultant winemaker Maurizio Castelli (who consults on projects in California and Italy), from a single vineyard planted in 1998. This dry-farmed vineyard in the Maule Valley has a mix of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc that we're specifically imported from Europe for the project. About 8000 cases of a single wine, Erasmo, are produced each year, some of which are imported to the US by Palm Bay Imports.

2006 Erasmo Red Wine, Maule Valley, Chile
Medium garnet in color this wine has a nose of mixed fresh herbs, fennel seeds, and dried cherries. In the mouth it is bright and unusual in flavor with a mix of leather, cedar, sour cherry, and raspberry flavors. Good acidity balances very grippy sandpaper tannins and moderate finish. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $30.

2005 Erasmo Red Wine, Maule Valley, Chile
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of black cherry and cedar aromas. In the mouth it offers sour black cherry, wet earth, cedar, and hints of licorice on the finish. Fine grained but aggressive tannins emerge as the wine finishes. With a few years this will mellow and be even better. Score: around 9. Cost: $30.

Between The Rows
I haven't been to Napa in Months, but I'm headed up there in a few weeks and looking forward to sights like this. This time of year the mustard makes for gorgeous scenery, growing up between the rows and catching every ray of light in sight to create a backdrop of glowing yellow for the dark rain-sodden vines -- Alder Yarrow

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For anyone who hasn't been paying much attention or who doesn't really care, the wine industry going through a rough patch, especially here in California. Actually "rough patch" is a bit of an understatement, but more on that later this week.

For now, I'd like to focus on a single, early casualty of the times. As reported in the Press Democrat last week, Roshambo winery will be closing its operations down permanently, and its founder, Naomi Brilliant, will be attaching the winery's name (and attitude) to a little farming operation she has started up on her family's land in the Russian River Valley south of Healdsburg.

Roshambo had already downscaled operations some years ago, selling its sleek modern winery on Westside road to Silver Oak's Twomey brand, and moving its wine production to a custom crush facility, while it opened a tasting room in a shared space in Sonoma and in its hard-to-miss Roshambus.

But now even those vestiges of an operation will be shuttered as Brilliant takes some time away from the wine business, perhaps to contemplate (or perhaps to forget) how things could have seemed to be going so well, and then end so poorly.

Indeed, Roshambo may be a perfect case study of how difficult it is to succeed in the wine business, even when you get many things right.

Roshambo debuted in 2002 with a splash. The winery's rock-scissors-paper logo and brand concept were wonderfully designed, incredibly memorable, and fully exploited for all its irreverence, fun and originality. The winery's production facility just off of Westside road featured sleek, concrete slab and glass construction, falling water, and an art gallery that, last time I was there, featured various bronze sculptures of vulvas and thumping house music. The winery's annual Rock Scissors Paper Championships drew massive crowds, and the brand's presence at wine events was always non-traditional and fun.

In my opinion, Roshambo was simply a fantastic execution of marketing and branding that targeted Millennials, the up-and-coming demographic that promises to be the biggest generation of wine drinkers this country has ever seen. It would be too easy to say that Roshambo was merely a winery ahead of its time. It was perfectly timed to the changing times, and a great counterpoint to the mostly staid marketing that characterizes most California wine.

While I don't know all the factors that led to the winery closing its doors, certainly in part it seems to be a victim of its own early success.The winery facility was lavish, and sized for 50,000 cases of production, which the winery never achieved, though it gamely tried. The winery grew quite rapidly at first, and production ramped to nearly 30,000 cases at one point, I believe. While I don't know what size it was at when the economy fell off the cliff last year, if it were anywhere close to that level the winery would have had a serious problem on its hands, as do many wineries these days with that level of production and most of their wines priced around $20 and higher.

Nor was this a case of wine quality falling short of the marketing. In my opinion the wines were decent, and in recent years, getting even better. With better than decent wines and a great brand, something behind the scenes was most certainly the culprit, whether it be planning, management, or the challenging three-tier system. And, oh yeah, there was that recession, too.

Regardless of the reasons, Roshambo offers a cautionary tale to anyone who believes a winery's success can be assured through marketing. Roshambo's was brilliant, but that was not enough.

You folks are phenomenal. Thank you so much for your support. With your generous donations of both prizes and bids for them, we raised $70,900 for the UN World Food Programme. That's a truly remarkable amount of money, and a testament to the passion and generosity of you, my readers, and the blogging community as a whole.

If your name appears in the list below as one of the winners, I will be contacting you over the weekend with instructions on how you can claim your prize (I will put you in touch with the folks that offered it, and you can coordinate).

For those who offered prizes, I will also be in touch to let you know how to proceed.

Congratulations to all the winners, and I hope you enjoy the fruits of your generosity. If you happened to bid on other prizes besides wine related ones, you can find the master list of prize winners at Chez Pim.

WB01 Dinner with NY Times Wine Critic Eric Asimov
Winner: Sonya Philip

WB02 The Brunello Experience: A Week's Stay at Il Palazzone in Montalcino Tuscany
Winner: Liz Mortensen

WB03 Sustainable Napa from Clif Family Winery & Holme Grown Wine Tours (incl 6 bottles)
Winner: Alejandro de Jesus

WB04 2 Nights and Wine Tasting in Santa Barbara Wine Country (incl 6 bottles)
Winner: Josh duLac

WB05 Two Magnums of Wine from Soter Vineyards (incl 2 bottles)
Winner: Christina Arndt

WB06 The Old School Wine Collection (incl. 6 bottles)
Winner: Anya Naschak

WB07 The New Guard Wine Collection (incl. 6 bottles)
Winner: Ori Kushnir

WB08 Wine Book Bonanza
Winner: Lynne Newton - Carlson

WB09 Magnum + Case of Verge Syrah, and a Tour of Bradford Mountain (incl. 13 bottles)
Winner: Thomas Pantelis

WB10 Wine Bottle Hurricane Lanterns from Savoring Thyme Gifts
Winner: Ursula Pieper

WB11 Two Nights + Dinner +Tour in Tuscany at Il Borgo at Castello Banfi
Winner: Ori Kushnir

WB12 Cape Ardor Collectors Executive Wine Gift Set (incl. 3 bottles)
Winner: Ligia Ortega

WB13 Banned in 'Bama Wine Gift Box (incl. 8 bottles)
Winner: Jeffrey Petree

WB14 A Case of Your Own Custom Blended Wine
Winner: Cindy Ruth

WB15 Stolzle Decanter and Four Wine Glasses
Winner: Ligia Ortega

WB16 Happy Canyon Wine "Horizontal" (incl. 14 bottles worth $584 retail)
Winner: Susan Brodie

WB17 Wine Jewelry, Wine Book gift package from WinewomenPSP
Winner: F Brooke Clendaniel

WB18 The Twisted Six Pack (incl. 6 bottles)
Winner: Leigh Iwanaga

WB19 The Twisted Tour and Pick Any Bottle (incl. 1 bottle)
Winner: Hank Shaw

WB20 Vinography as Your Sommelier for the Night (incl. 4 bottles)
Winner: Randi Axelrod

WB21 Brazilian Cachaças Tasting Set (incl. 5 bottles)
Winner: Jason Dietz

WB22 Dinner with Randall Grahm, a Special Bottle of Wine, and His Latest Book
Winner: Margaret Pillgrim

WB23 VIP Wine Country Tour with VIP Hostess Alana Gentry aka Girl with a Glass
Winner: Renee Kuo

WB24 Cashmere and Cabernet From Wine Valet
Winner: Deborah Bower

WB25 Magnum of Torbreck Wine plus Private Vineyard Tour
Winner: Edmund Thralls

WB26 A Wine Vacation at Meadowood Resort in the Napa Valley
Winner: Christina Sorenson

Some people like to go to flea markets, where they will spend hours wandering around the stalls hoping to stumble on something wonderful. I spend hours wandering through huge public wine tastings in much the same way, and every once in a while I stumble across a winery that I've never heard of nor seen before, whose wines pull the needle off the record and bring me up short in breathless surprise.

When I first tasted the wines from Jemrose in just such a fashion, they immediately impressed me, not just because they were so high quality, but also because they had achieved such quality in their very first vintage. Clearly this was a producer that had nailed the right combination of place, farming, and winemaking right out of the gate.

Jemrose is the dream of James Mack and his wife Gloria. After a career in advertising, Mack purchased about 20 acres of vineyards in Bennett Valley, the smallest of Sonoma's AVAs (American Viticultural Areas). For the first few years after purchasing the property in 2002, Mack and consultant winemaker Andy Smith (of DuMOL and Larkmead) made some limited bottlings from select vineyard blocks to get a sense of what they were able to do with the four vineyards that made up the property. Together with viticulturist Greg Bjornstad, they arrived at the right combination of vineyard and cellar techniques that they felt achieved a balance of the qualities they were looking for, and in 2006 the winery bottled its first commercial vintage.

Because Smith had obligations elsewhere that prevented him from assuming the duties of head winemaker, Mack brought on Michael Browne of Kosta Browne winery to make the wines on a longer term basis, and in 2009 Mack teamed up with entrepreneur Keith Jaffee as a partner in the business.

The winery's four distinct hillside vineyard blocks are planted with primarily Rhone grape varieties (Viognier, Syrah, and Grenache) as well as a little Merlot, which seems to do extremely well in Bennet Valley's volcanic soils. Under Bjornstad's direction, the densely planted vineyard is farmed with a minimum of irrigation and an eye towards lowering yields, which rarely get above 3 tons per acre.

The fruit is hand-harvested and rigorously sorted before winemaking begins. Fermentations are made with native yeast whenever possible, and often with a portion of whole clusters for the reds. Most wines are aged in a majority of neutral and used French oak barrels, with a small percentage of new oak, resulting in wines that speak more of fruit in than of wood. The wines are all bottled unfined and unfiltered.

The tiny Jemrose portfolio of wines (only about 1500 cases made in total) demonstrates a wonderful common thread of excellent acidity, balance, and freshness throughout all the wines. I highly recommend them.

Full disclosure: I received these wines as press samples.

TASTING NOTES:

2008 Jemrose "Egret Pond Vineyard" Viognier, Bennett Valley, Sonoma
Pale gold in the glass this wine smells of cold cream and dried apricots. In the mouth it is silky and heavy on the tongue, with flavors of dried and fresh apricots, mixed citrus zest, and a tart kumquat finish that has a tiny bit of alcoholic heat. 275 cases made. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $32.

2008 Jemrose "Egret Pond Vineyard" Late Harvest Viognier, Bennett Valley, Sonoma
Light yellow-gold in the glass, this wine has a heady nose of peaches in syrup. In the mouth the wine is not as sweet as the nose might suggest, with flavors of ripe apricots, honey, and a nice floral note on the finish. Not particularly complex, but some decent acidity keeps the wine from being too cloying. 48 cases (375 ml.) made. Score: around 8. Cost: $28.

2007 Jemrose "Foggy Knoll Vineyard" Grenache, Bennett Valley, Sonoma
Medium garnet in color with strong purple highlights, this wine has a gorgeous nose of spicy raspberry and strawberry fruit. In the mouth it is juicy and bright with great acidity that makes flavors of cherry raspberry and strawberry dance on the palate with notes of cocoa powder on the finish. Above all, this wine is simply delicious. 150 cases made. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $38.

2007 Jemrose "Gloria's Gem" Proprietary Red, Bennett Valley, Sonoma
Dark garnet in color, this wine has a nose of sweet black cherry and cassis aromas. In the mouth it is explosively juicy with black cherry, cassis, and blackberry flavors. Faint powdery tannins creep around the edges of the wine and good acid makes it quite easy to drink. A light minuteness marks the finish. Lovely. An unusual blend of Merlot and Syrah. 125 cases made. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $65.

2007 Jemrose "Cardiac Hill Vineyard" Syrah, Bennett Valley, Sonoma
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of blackberry and white pepper. In the mouth it is taut and rippling with muscular, fine grained tannins that support beautiful cassis and blackberry fruit through a lovely finish. Delicious. 550 cases made. Score: around 9. Cost: $38.

Currently these wines are made in such small quantities that they are not readily available for sale in internet wine shops. The pest place to purchase these wines are on the winery's web site.

The New Green
For the most part in the Northern Hemisphere, the vines are sleeping -- their long bare canes waving in the winter wind. Soon those will fall under the deft hands and sharp blades of workers who will leave the vines ready for the new growth that will burst forth in the coming months. Andy Katz gives us a preview of what is to come -- Alder Yarrow

INSTRUCTIONS:
Download this image by right-clicking on the image and selecting "save link as" or "save target as" and then select the desired location on your computer to save the image. Mac users can also just click the image to open the full size view and drag that to their desktops.

To set the image as your desktop wallpaper, Mac users should follow these instructions, while PC users should follow these.

PRINTS:
If you are interested in owning an archive quality, limited edition print of this image please contact photographer Andy Katz through his web site.

ABOUT VINOGRAPHY IMAGES:
Vinography regularly features images by photographer Andy Katz for readers' personal use as desktop backgrounds or screen savers. We hope you enjoy them. Please respect the copyright on these images.

It's that time of year again. I know of no other event that seems to bring out the inner wine lover in so many San Franciscans more than the annual ZAP (Zinfandel Advocates and Producers) Festival. It never ceases to amaze me how many people turn out with such enthusiasm for this single varietal festival. Don't get me wrong. I love Zinfandel -- unabashedly so. But I tend to forget how many other people do too. Especially those that live in San Francisco.

Of course it's not just San Franciscans that turn out for this one-of-a-kind weekend. People come from all over. The Zinfreaks crawl out of the woodwork, so to speak, and march their way into San Francisco to celebrate their grape of choice, along with the rest of us who sometimes wonder where the rest of these folks hide themselves the rest of the year.

But come one, come all, there's plenty of Zin to go around.

The annual ZAP festival is comprised of several events. The week begins on Thursday January 28th with the Good Eats and Zinfandel Pairing, a walk around event that features dishes prepared by chefs from all over the U.S. specifically designed to match Zinfandel wines. Attendees can wander from station to station with glass and plate in hand trying different combinations of food and wine until they find their favorites (or until they topple over like plump rabbits in a food coma).

Friday features a series of seminars that allow attendees to taste flights of wines in a guided fashion with commentary from winemakers, as well as the Evening with the Winemakers. This event features a live auction for charity, a pre-dinner tasting, and a sit-down dinner with winemakers. You can buy some great wine while giving to charity, and then you can have a great meal while a winemaker pours a selection of their wines and answers all the questions you ever might have about making Zinfandel.

And finally on Saturday, the ultimate San Francisco wine tasting begins. Starting at 2:00 PM, the floodgates open and hundreds of Zinfandel wines are available to the public for tasting. There is simply no other opportunity like this to educate your palate about Zinfandel as a wine, and no other chance to so easily discover new Zins for yourself.

The event tends to get a little crazy as the afternoon progresses, both in terms of the size of the crowd and its level of inebriation, but don't let that stop you from showing up early, enjoying yourself, and then making your exit before the sloshing and stumbling begin.

Especially because you might get to go to the tasting for free

I've got four tickets to give away to the Grand Tasting on Saturday, January 30th. All you have to do in order to win is get creative. I'll give the four tickets to the folks that provide the best/funniest/most heartfelt/strangest/etc. explanation in the comments section of this blog about why they should get a free ticket to the tasting. I'm the sole judge and will pick the best four submissions based on my own arbitrary criteria. Be sure to leave me your e-mail address in the field provided. I'll accept submissions until January 21st.

Have fun!

ZAP Zinfandel Advocates and Producers Festival
Grand Tasting: Saturday January 30, 2010
Doors open to the public at 2:00 PM (members can get in an hour earlier)
Herbst and Festival Pavilions
Marina Boulevard
San Francisco, CA 94123 (map)

Tickets for the Grand Tasting are $59 if purchased in advance (which you should do most assuredly). If any tickets are left they will be $69 at the door. Tickets for other events range from $95 to $210 depending on the event. ZAP members receive discounts on all tickets. For more information about the event and to purchase tickets, please see the ZAP event web site.

Tasting tips: I recommend wearing dark clothes that you won't mind getting a drop or two of red wine on when someone accidentally jostles your glass (or theirs). I recommend showing up with a full stomach, drinking lots of water as you go, and spitting instead of swallowing. You ain't got any taste buds in your throat, and if you want to learn anything you need to stay sober. Otherwise you'll be one of the drunken fools that everyone makes fun of at 4:30 PM on Saturday.

See you there.

Every time I review a wine from some little producer whose wines I adore, I experience a pang of regret, because I know that by writing about these wineries and their wines, I only make them more expensive and harder to acquire for myself (and others). I do occasionally get e-mails from ticked off wine lovers bemoaning the fact that I've divulged one of their secret sources for great wine.

But that's just an occupational hazard for me, and doesn't outweigh the joy of being able to say things like this: Listen up people. There is some seriously amazing wine being made in a little out-of-the-way place in the northernmost part of California's Sierra Foothills AVA (American Viticultural Area). At the hands of soft-spoken resident winemaker Gideon Bienstock, Renaissance Vineyards is making small lots of Bordeaux and Northern Rhone style wines that are pretty much unlike any other wines being made in California -- in a really good way.

Renaissance Vineyards is not some upstart young winery that is pioneering new things in a new region. Rather, they are more like a wild-eyed hermit, that disappeared into the mountains years ago to live in the valley that he believed was the promised land, showing up in town every once in a while for supplies. Some people have known about them for years, but for others, the idea of a winery out in the middle of nowhere, CA elicits the scratching of heads.

German winemaker Dr. Karl Werner discovered the vineyard potential of the steep hillsides of the North Yuba river valley in the upper reaches of what was not even yet the Sierra Foothills AVA. It was not until 1987 that the appellation of the Sierra Foothills came into existence, and by then Renaissance Vineyards had been making wine for 8 years.

Just how Renaissance Vineyards and Dr. Karl Werner starting making wine in North Yuba is quite a unique story for a California winery.

In 1971 an organization known as The Fellowship of Friends, already well established at that time, purchased nearly 1300 acres in North Yuba County in the Sierra Foothills. The Fellowship of Friends was, and continues to be, a religious organization that many regard as a cult, built around the charismatic founder Robert Earl Burton who serves as the spiritual teacher of the organization. Its members tithe 10% of their gross monthly income to the organization, which has used those funds since the mid Seventies to completely transform this land into a spiritual retreat for the organization. One that also happens to have a very large, very impressive vineyard.

The group didn't set out to have a vineyard to begin with, but one of its early disciples was a man named Dr. Karl Werner, who in addition to being a devotee of the spiritual teachings of the organization, also happened to be a very accomplished winemaker back in his home country of Germany. Apparently on his first visit to the Fellowship's property, he recognized the potential for grape growing, and his enthusiasm for the project, as well as the attraction of the craft itself, convinced the organization to undertake a vineyard development project that lasted several years -- clearing, terracing, and planting the hillsides with vines. The first harvest took place in the fall of 1979.

Today the organization continues to own the vineyard, but is perhaps less involved than it was in the past. Dr. Werner passed away in 1989, just after the winery's first commercial release, and after being run for a time by Dr. Werner's wife Diana, winemaking operations were turned over in 1994 to Gideon Bienstock who has spent the last 13 years transforming Renaissance Winery from a broad, almost experimental winery, to a more focused winery with a clearer vision of what it wants to accomplish.

Dr. Werner's vision was originally for a winery that combined the best of the Bordeaux and the German traditions, which meant that a lot of Cabernet, Sauvignon Blanc, and Riesling were planted to start. Over time, Bienstock discovered that Rhone varietals performed particularly well, and now the winery focuses primarily on Bordeaux and Northern Rhone varietals. In addition to "learning the terroir" as he puts it, Bienstock has gradually increased the focus of the winery, reducing yields, reducing production, phasing out the use of commercial yeasts, pump-overs, fining, filtration, sulfur use, and cold stabilization. In addition he has moved the winery to 100% organic viticulture, and has introduced some Biodynamic farming techniques in the most recent vintages.

If you ask him, even after 13 years of winemaking, and nearly 20 years of experience in the Sierra Foothills, Bienstock will tell you that he is still figuring out the terroir of the area, which he believes to be quite possibly the most remarkable of any in California. But as someone who has been tasting the wines pretty regularly for the past few years, I can tell you he's had it dialed in now for some time.

"Some time" means at least since 1995, only a year after he took over as full-time winemaker, and the year of one of the winery's current releases. Not content to be the sole winery in what is now its own North Yuba AVA, under Bienstock's leadership Renaissance is defying all the common sense of traditional winery marketing and release schedules. To wit: this 2001 wine is their current release, and several other of their current releases date back into the 1990s.

The only other winery in California that I know of which approaches this sort of delayed release program is Kalin Cellars, whose current releases are typically aged about 10 to 12 years. To any normal winery, such delayed release dates would be financial suicide, but Renaissance vineyards has never operated like a normal commercial business.

Leaving aside the financial and operational considerations, such a move takes guts, and a particular vision for what your wines can be and ought to be. From Bienstock's perspective, it's a simple question -- he lets the wines tell him when they're ready. "We originally scheduled the release of our '95 Cab to be around 2004 or 2005 but the wine was still completely "dormant" and did not cooperate with that idea, so we had to postpone it until 2008," he says.

This sort of intuition and old world thinking pervades Bienstock's winemaking, resulting in wines that are strikingly unique in character and personality, not to mention long-lived. The winery currently has two sets of releases, those older wines that it has chosen this year to release, and more current vintages that follow a more traditional release schedule. Both are exceptional in quality, and worth the time and effort required to seek them out.

Most wines undergo very long fermentations, the reds in open-top oak fermenters with frequent hand punchdowns, the whites in stainless steel. Oak aging, which some of the late harvest wines receive as well, is done primarily in a combination of French and American oak between 1 and 5 years old. Some of the top reds are aged for up to 30 months in barrel before bottling.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Dark ruby in color, this wine smells of cherries, lilacs, and cedar aromas. In the mouth it is incredibly aromatic, with soaring flavors of cherry, cedar, floral notes and hints of darker deeper earth and leather. Muscled, suede-soft tannins hug the palate and linger as the wine finishes in a resonant way. Excellent.

Food Pairing:
Relatively low in alcohol with wonderful acidity this wine will pair well with lots of things. I'd be utterly content drinking it with slow braised beef short ribs over polenta.

Overall Score: between 9 and 9.5

How Much?: $45

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

Great travel writing should do more than simply paint a picture of distant locations and suggest how they may be experienced. At its best, the travelogue should transcend its itinerary and offer a deeper, more meaningful narrative than one might expect to experience themselves should they find themselves in the writer's footsteps one day.

George Taber's new book, In Search of Bacchus: Wanderings in the Wonderful World of Wine Tourism, ultimately fails to satisfy. That the book should be so ordinary and uninspiring was a huge surprise given the tremendous enjoyment I got out of the author's previous two works, The Judgment of Paris and To Cork or Not To Cork. Taber is a gifted writer and researcher, but this latest book, which recounts his travels to the "twelve most beautiful and fascinating wine producing regions around the globe" in the space of a year suggests he may be a better historian than adventurer.

It may be that In Search of Bacchus simply works better in theory than in actual practice. The idea of taking one of the world's foremost wine journalists and sending them around the world as a wine tourist seems like it might be viable as a means of generating a good story. But in execution, the book really doesn't come off well, and it reads like a project that was forced to become a book, rather than a story (or series of stories) so good they had to be told.

This awkwardness surfaces in the very first few pages of the prologue, which profiles a rich a venture capitalist and wine nut named Ed Zimmerman. The sole purpose of these first five pages seems to be proving to the reader that people get really passionate about wine, and providing an opportunity to evoke the name and spirit of Bacchus, the Roman God of wine, in search of which Taber supposedly spent his year of travels outlined in the remaining chapters of the book.

Most of those remaining chapters' titles begin with the phrase "Diary of a Wine Tourist" which I suspect may have been the original (more accurate, and probably too-boring-for-his-publisher) name for this manuscript. These installments, each corresponding to one of the twelve regions that Taber visited, are filled with clear, technically well written prose, relevant facts and histories, profiles of individual wineries, recommendations for the better wines he drank, and generally very little excitement, drama, passion, or profundity.

In all the travel writing I've ever read, it seems that authors have a choice to make in their role in the story. Either they set themselves up as a lens trained on the world and use their talents to paint that world evocatively in a way that transcends the place they are describing, or they themselves become a character in their own story, and we as readers get to learn as much from their reactions, emotions, and passions as we do the situations in which they find themselves. Somehow, Taber seems to have done neither in this book. He appears as a character, relating his experience in the first person, but other than a few exceptions like his bungee jumping experience in New Zealand or frustrating attempt to blend a wine, for the most part he's just a pronoun that moves from situation to situation.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the book's most satisfying moments are those when Taber shifts into a more expository zone to chronicle the early days of Robert Mondavi's pioneering rise to prominence in Napa or the geography and political history of Chile. Each of the wine regions is introduced with a more expository chapter that is followed by another relating Taber's actual experiences visiting the region. These regionally focused chapters are the ones that contain the most compelling writing, but many end up being mostly short profiles of different wineries and businesses that provided Taber with hospitality and services along the way.

The last two chapters are by far the best of the book, and they provide an interesting portrait of the history and current state of the winemaking in the Republic of Georgia, as well as a short description of Taber's participation in a supra or feast after cracking open a fresh batch of wine. Georgia is regarded by many historians as the best candidate for the birthplace of winemaking, and the region's traditional methods of making wine in big clay amphorae buried up to their necks in the earth are fascinating.

But even these interesting chapters suffer from the general lack of energy that characterizes the whole book. Harsh it may be, but the book comes across as simply tired -- somehow missing the passion and excitement that might actually inspire the reader to visit these regions and try to follow in Taber's footsteps. Taber unquestionably possesses great skill as a journalist, but it is unfortunately not as evident in this project.

George Taber, In Search of Bacchus: Wanderings in the Wonderful World of Wine Tourism , Scribner 2009, $19.80, (Hardcover).

Wine lovers in Beantown, listen up. Right about now you may be wondering just what you're doing freezing your keisters off in the depths of yet another winter. But January provides at least one good reason: the Boston Wine Expo.

There are very few reasons that I'd venture out to Boston in the middle of winter, but let me tell you, the Boston Wine Expo is almost enough of a reason for me to jet on out there from San Francisco. Almost, but not quite. However, if I lived anywhere within 100 miles of the Boston, I would be at the Seaport World Trade center on January 23rd and 24th.

The Boston Wine Expo claims to be the largest public wine tasting event in the entire country. I don't know if that refers to the crush of people who usually attend this event or the folks that are pouring. 440 different exhibitors pouring more than 1,800 different wines. is definitely a lot no matter how you slice it.

There are so many different options for what you can do (seminars, guided tastings, food pairings, dinners, concerts, you name it) and what sort of tickets you can buy to do them (reasonable to super expensive), I'm not even going to try to summarize what's on offer. Go check out their web site and figure it out for yourself. What I would be most interested in personally are the grand tastings where you get to taste a lot of wine, and their special Grand Cru Wine Lounge where you pay more to taste a lot of even better wine.

If you enjoy wine there's very little excuse not to go have a looksee at what is certainly the best opportunity to educate your palate that you'll get all year, let alone in the dead of winter.

The 19th Annual Boston Wine Expo
Saturday January 23 and Sunday January 24, 2010
1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Seaport World Trade Center
200 Seaport Blvd.
Boston, MA, 02210 (map)

Tickets range in price from $85 for a day of tasting to $175 for a full pass, and they get more expensive after Saturday, January 16th. Buy them online in advance to save money and avoid standing on lines when you get there.

And remember my tips for making the most of these large public tastings: get a good night's sleep before hand; show up with a full stomach; wear dark clothes; drink lots of water; and for heaven's sake, SPIT !

Fall Leaves
One of the things that I miss most about where I grew up in Colorado is the Fall colors. The Aspen trees as shocks of gold in clearings between the dark firs always bring a smile to my face. The closest I get in California these days are the changing of the leaves in wine country. This image captures so well the beauty of the light and the leaves and the carpet of gold and red that can give me a little solace in Autumn. -- Alder Yarrow

INSTRUCTIONS:
Download this image by right-clicking on the image and selecting "save link as" or "save target as" and then select the desired location on your computer to save the image. Mac users can also just click the image to open the full size view and drag that to their desktops.

To set the image as your desktop wallpaper, Mac users should follow these instructions, while PC users should follow these.

PRINTS:
If you are interested in owning an archive quality, limited edition print of this image please contact photographer Andy Katz through his web site.

ABOUT VINOGRAPHY IMAGES:
Vinography regularly features images by photographer Andy Katz for readers' personal use as desktop backgrounds or screen savers. We hope you enjoy them. Please respect the copyright on these images.

Every budding wine lover faces what can often seem like a daunting mountain to climb. There are so many wines in the world to learn about and experience, it's not hard to feel overwhelmed. It's also quite common to feel a certain sense of frustration, the kind characterized by an ambition that far outstrips our own means to fulfill it. Many of the wines that passionate wine lovers wish they could taste are simply out of reach -- too rare, too popular, and too expensive.

When I was first starting out in my journey down the roads of wine, the most mysterious and inaccessible wines for me were from Burgundy. My budget allowed for spending $20 to $30 on a bottle, and when it came time to try some French Pinot Noir, that didn't really (and still doesn't) buy me very much. I heard people talk about the magic of Burgundy, heard them whisper exotic names in hushed tones, and I so desperately wanted to know what they were talking about. But as a twenty-something kid with only so much disposable income, I had no way of unlocking that box.

What I didn't have for so many years, but so desperately wanted, was an opportunity to taste some of Burgundy's greatest producers, side-by-side. What I really wanted fifteen years ago, was La Paulée.

Often referred to as the greatest Burgundy tasting held outside of France, La Paulée is an annual event started in 2000 by sommelier Daniel Johnnes in the spirit of an event known as La Paulée de Meursault, which has been held, in some form or another since 1923 in and around the commune of Meursault in Burgundy, France.

The French version began as a communal dinner among wine producers, and evolved into its modern incarnation as an extravagant lunch that follows the Hospices de Beaune wine auction every year. This luncheon (to which I have never been) is really more of a feast of wine that begins in the early afternoon and lasts well into the evening. It is marked by good food and in particular, by incredible old Burgundies brought from the personal cellars of all who attend.

It was this spirit of conviviality, as well as this passionate consumption of what he considers to be the world's greatest wines, that prompted Johnnes to hold his own such celebration in New York. In the 8 years since it began, this celebration has evolved into one of the most exciting and sought-after wine events in the world, and in particular, one of the best opportunities for members of the public to taste top Burgundy wines outside of France.

On Saturday, March 13th, the La Paulée Grand Tasting will be held at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, and for $275, you can taste a lineup of Burgundies that should make any serious wine lover weak in the knees. The list includes some of the region's best producers, as well as a special selection from the village of Meursault. If you're not familiar enough with these names to know, trust me when I say that the opportunity to taste these wines is well worth the $275, considering that several of the bottles poured, if you were able to find them at all, would cost you north of $500.

The Grand Tasting will feature mostly 2007 wines and a few 2006. But Burgundy is only really good once it has some age on it in my opinion. For those who agree with me, and who are willing to part with a little (OK, a lot) more money, the Gala Dinner following the tasting will be the opportunity to taste older vintages from the producers attending, but also to sample wine brought from the cellars of the many attending wine lovers, in keeping with tradition. That opportunity costs $1400, and is purported to be like dying and going to heaven for those who love Burgundies. Other events this year include a seminar run by Allen Meadows of Burghound, a chance to compare 3 vintages of select producers' wines, a lunch with wines donated by top collectors, and more.

In these tough economic times coming up with the money to attend a tasting like this can be a challenge for many, which is why this may be the first year that it takes some time for the event to truly sell out (though at least the dinners and other events probably will eventually). Two years ago, even tickets to the Grand Tasting were hard to come by. I usually post about events a couple of weeks before they happen, but to make sure you get a chance at tickets, I'm writing about it now, 2 months ahead of time.

If you can figure out where to come up with the cash, it is quite a worthwhile event for anyone seriously looking to educate their palate, or quench an obsession.

La Paulée Grand Tasting
Saturday, March 13th
12:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Westin St. Francis Hotel Grand Ballroom
335 Powell Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Tickets for the Grand Tasting are $275. Tickets for the other events run from $135 to $2750. They all can be purchased online.

Learn more about the event on the official web site.

As some of you know, I'm in the process of helping to write a book. It's not my book, per se, but I'm one of a group of authors that are helping to create a massive global wine atlas that will cover the world's major wine regions. I'm the guy in charge of Sonoma and Marin counties.

I've spent the last couple months doing a lot of tasting, a lot of digging through my past tasting notes, and a lot of reaching out to wineries to verify addresses, etc. And what I've experienced in the process is quite shocking.

The American wine marketplace has changed and is changing dramatically. I can't speak with full authority about the global marketplace, but I suspect some of the same changes are occurring everywhere. The way that people learn about, buy, and experience wine is changing, thanks to both demographic trends and technology evolution, as well as fundamental shifts in the distribution, marketing, and economics of the wine industry.

What this all means for the wine world is not fully clear, but one key fact has begun to be quite apparent. In order to survive, wineries are going to have to fundamentally re-think who their customers actually are, especially here in the United States.

Since the beginning of the modern wine industry in this country many, even most wineries only needed to care about who their distributor was and the strength of their brand in the marketplace (in addition to the quality of their product, of course). The strength of their brand and the power of their distributor mostly determined how much wine they sold.

No longer. These days it's hard to even get a distributor to carry your wine, and if they do, they're not likely to do a whole lot of work to sell it. Mostly they'll expect the wine to sell itself (better have big points). And for the last 18 months, if your wine is over $50, well then you can pretty much just forget it unless it has 97 points (or something like that).

The way to sell wine in the 21st Century will be to build relationships (and a lot of them) with end consumers. The customers of the 21st Century are the Millennials. They're young, they're wired, and they're used to getting what they want, when they want it online, and that includes communicating with the people, and yes the brands, they care about.

Wineries need to start connecting with people. Building an intimacy that really is not there now. And that doesn't mean selling your wine only on a mailing list. Having a highly allocated wine that is sold to mailing list customers is not the same as actually building relationships with them (though I do know a few high-end wineries that do a great job of establishing relationships with all their buyers).

So back to my experience calling and e-mailing more than 150 different wineries in Sonoma county over the past couple of months. I was astonished to find how many wineries didn't answer their phones during their stated business hours; didn't return phone calls even when the message made it clear that the topic I wanted to discuss was an opportunity for publicity; and didn't return e-mail messages asking for information.

Granted, I'm a journalist, not a customer waving dollar bills saying I want to buy a few bottles, but if I were a prospective customer and got this kind of response, I certainly would have had a hard time spending my money.

I'm happy to say that at least all the wineries had web sites (which wasn't true until just a couple of years ago). But many of the sites were out of date (meaning they didn't actually list the winery's current releases); a few failed to list phone numbers or e-mail addresses; and probably close to 50% of the wineries that offered public tasting rooms hadn't bothered to place themselves in Google Maps so that customers could easily find them.

In short, though my experience is not necessarily a perfect test, in my opinion many wineries are failing to facilitate even the most basic relationship with an individual consumer. And if they continue to do this, I predict that in the absence of very high scores from the critics, they will find their customers going someplace else.

Should one of your New Years' resolutions be to broaden your wine horizons without breaking your wine budget, one of the places worth exploring would certainly be Beaujolais. Much maligned, or at the very least avoided -- and rightly so -- by many wine lovers whose experience with Beaujolais consists of a glass of banana-scented Nouveau in November, the region actually produces some truly wonderful wines that can be tremendous values.

The Beaujolais region has seen a renaissance of winemaking in the past decade, with many serious, small producers trying to make wines that have much more in common with its parent region, Burgundy. This means eschewing the methods and principles that are employed to make massive quantities of Beaujolais Nouveau, and instead focusing on growing and vinifying the region's lovely Gamay grapes like any sensible person would if they wanted to make really high quality wine.

And that is precisely what the team behind Potel-Aviron has tried to do. Nicolas Potel has made a prominent name for himself in the past few years as a new star negociant of Burgundy. For those unfamiliar with the term, that means he owns no vineyards, and instead buys grapes (and occasionally finished wines) on contract from growers, which he uses to make wine. Potel's top Burgundies have become hot items for collectors in recent years, though as a result of some investment relationships gone bad he is now no longer associated with his eponymous label.

Presumably, however, he continues to work in partnership with Stephane Aviron to produce the wines of Potel-Aviron. Potel and Aviron met studying winemaking together in Beaune (though apparently Potel dropped out, while Aviron finished) and became friends. Aviron's family has worked in the wine business in Beaujolais for some time, so when one day Potel needed to get his hands on some good Gamay, he called up Aviron. That first collaboration must have gone well, and the following year the two struck up a partnership around a simple goal: to make some of the best wines possible from the region.

Together they sought out six groups of some of the oldest vine Gamay in the region and established contracts with the owners giving them complete control of the farming. Drastically reducing yields, and whenever possible farming organically, the two have produced some of the highest quality fruit in the region from these 40- to 100-year-old vines.

The fruit is sorted rigorously at the winery (when possible they like to make the wines at the location the grapes are grown to minimize the handling of the fruit) and treated the same way they would treat their top Pinot Noir fruit. Fermented in small lots, sometimes with whole clusters and always with native yeasts, the wines are coaxed through to completion and then aged in traditional Burgundy barrels, of which at most only about 20% are new. This aging, which lasts at least 10 months, is quite uncommon, even among those who are trying to make serious wines in the region. As a result, their wines are quite profound, with the texture and complexities of Burgundy instead of the cloying fruitiness of their bad brethren Beaujolais Nouveau.

This particular wine comes from the village of Fleurie, and is made from fruit grown in two separate vineyards. The first is an east-facing vineyard from the northern part of town closer to Moulin-a-Vent, with 50 year-old-vines planted in slightly richer soils. The second is a more southerly-facing vineyard from across town with 55-year-old vines and very powdery, nutrient-poor soils.

This wine represents a great example of how wonderfully expressive "cru" Beaujolais can be, and in particular the delicacy and finesse that Fleurie can produce.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Light garnet in color, this wine smells of dark chocolate, exotic flowers, and mulberries. In the mouth the wine is soft and bright with excellent acidity, subtle black cherry, mulberry, and light floral aromas that carry through the airy finish. Undertones of wet wood, light tannins, and a gorgeous texture round out the package. Quite nice. One of those wines that, when encountered at a dinner party, makes you want to tuck the bottle under your arm and disappear into another room to finish it yourself.

Food Pairing:
While this wine is elegant enough to serve even with more delicate fish, it also has the backbone of complexity and hint of tannin to do wonders with roast chicken, quail, or even braised pork.

Overall Score: around 9

How Much?: $19

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

You people are awesome. Thanks to your help as donors, bidders, and all around generous humanitarians, as of midnight on 12/31/09 when the Menu for Hope raffle closed, we raised $77,900 for the UN World Food Programme. Every single cent of that money is going to poor farmers in Africa, and you deserve a round of applause.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Now, the waiting begins. Check back here on Vinography or on Chez Pim on January 18th for the announcement of the winners!

Hope your 2010 is off to a wonderful start. Thanks to you, mine most certainly is.