Chapter 79

In my younger days, I went to college and got a degree in history,[1] and now that I work with wine, I’ve happened upon a very subtle way to read history by looking at the vines.[2] This works because winemakers tend to keep making wine even when history is happening all around them, and vineyards change much slower than governments and borders. This is why the Refosco grape grows in equal parts in Italy, Slavonia, and Croatia, because the ancestors who planted this usefully full bodied red in the northern arc of the Adriatic coast called themselves subjects of Venice, then Austria, then France, then Austria again and Italy for, like, a minute, before being divided among three countries on roughly ethnographic lines. For all those hundreds of years as Refosco (or Terano or Teran) became the stalwart of the area, borders ebbed and flowed, but the people and the vines remained the same.

Wine leaves different kinds of footnotes in history too. A century of English dominance over Portugal left behind a slew of Port producers with names like Taylor Fladgate, Churchill’s, Smith Woodhouse, Delaforce, and Croft. Expanding on the English theme, when Bordeaux became England’s main port of entry to their southern French territories, it logically followed that those Bordeaux regions Pouillac, Margeaux, and St. Emilion would become more available, more expensive, more invested in, and more sought after in England than, for example, Cahors, Madiran, and Bergerac, three wines which once stood on equal or better footing than anything in Bordeaux, and suffered their current anonymity only because they’re grown farther from the river’s mouth, and farther from Bordeaux’s economic interests.[3]

This brings me to Welschriesling. This is a high acid, lightly aromatic wine that grows in central and southeastern Europe. It’s rarely the headline grape variety in the regions it grows, but it remains popular on the scale a non-French variety can aspire to. That corner of the world is filled with vines, all over the Pannonian plain, and into the Balkan mountains. In fact, here’s exactly where it grows: in the Trentino-Alto Adige and Friuli regions of Italy, in Austria, all over Hungary, Slovakia and the southern part of the Czech Republic, in Slovenia, Croatia, parts of Romania and a light sprinkle in northern Serbia. In other words, the Welschriesling grape grew in every corner of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and nowhere else. No one knows exactly where it came from, but in time it became something like Riesling in Germany, Tempranillo in Spain, or Sangiovese in Italy, the national grape of a country that no longer exists. I don’t know if this teaches us anything new about history, but it’s pretty cool.

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[1] I decided upon a history major primarily because nothing else struck my fancy before sophomore year, and I had been reading history books since I was small. While I certainly believe in the efficacy of the Liberal Arts, my choice exposed me to ribbing from my engineer friends and indifference from my bank. While you may point out I could have avoided both by becoming a lawyer, my history-degreed lawyer father told me once he would shoot me if I did so.

[2] Or malts. If you ever wanted to know why highland Scotch is more interesting than lowland Scotch, it’s got most everything to do with the degree of control England had over various districts of Scotland after conquest. Cosmopolitan lowland whiskey makers made a thrice distilled, pallid, safe and soft drink to appeal to the London market. The bootlegger highland whiskey makers only had time for one distillation in their hidden stills with English tax collectors roaming, and since they couldn’t sell their stuff in England anyway, there was no need to make the drink safe and widely palatable. Things like this are happening all the time.

[3] The last 150 odd years have seen three episodes that have kicked dirt over the vinous tracks of history and made all this harder. Phylloxera in the 1870s to the 1910s did an incalculable amount of damage to European vine traditions by killing most European vines. What we have today is mostly replanted, and many of the more delicate, rarer vines are lost to history. Communism didn’t help either, stunting most eastern European wine regions to such a degree that most of them remain unfamiliar to us, no matter how famous they were in 1916. Today, along with a generally beneficial rise in the quality of wine, there is a more sinister current of homogenization, to replace the Rkatsitilis, Plavac Malis, Cesaneses, and Carignans of the world with Pinot Gris, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sangiovese and Syrah. The goal is to make a familiar product people will be comfortable with in a market driven by varietal wines, but the result is less variety, and the vines that give us clues about What Happened Here get pulled up.

Chapter 78

As I become more familiar with the local wine folk in Oregon, they start to invite me to things.[1] One of the most important work functions in the wine industry is the trade tasting,[2] where the makers meet the sellers and singe their palates while getting them tipsy. For all you people out there who suspect that I don’t have a real job, I’m here to tell you that these tastings count as real work, and take a good deal more discipline, training, and professional comportment than, say, your average beer tasting.[3][4] “Yeah right”, all of you just said, but I contend that it actually takes a fair amount of discipline to spit out fifty sips of fine wine in row, accounting for probably $300 worth of reddish saliva; that it takes a lot of training to be able to judge the quality of a wine on a palate that’s already had thirty-odd wines pass over it, and more comportment than you have to exchange pleasantries with winemakers while scanning for the nearest bathroom so you can wash out the wine they just poured with the strong house paint and model glue note in it.

So what did I learn from this year’s Chehalem “Mountains to Metro” event? I saw an AVA[5] come of age. No longer relegated to the obscure vault of Oregon’s older, funnier, Willamette sub-regions. I know I’ve always liked Chehalem Mountains wine, but the consistent level of quality I could taste, from the older producers, from the newer producers, from the middle aged wineries large and small, was good to taste. Here are some particulars. Anne Amie is an excellent place to look for creamy wines. When I tasted their reserve Pinot Noir, my first thought was of the Frangelico-laced whipped cream my mom makes. There was fruit in there too, and enough body to warrant a social security number, but that earthy-creamy note was the lasting one. Even their Pinot Blanc was creamy.[6] Artisanal Wine Cellars makes small amounts of lots of interesting stuff, but Brandon and I tasted the Tempranillo, because we think our store should carry more Tempranillo, because I haven’t talked to a southern Oregon winemaker[7] in the last three years who hasn’t at least thought of planting Tempranillo, and the value of brand recognition that can come with dominating a variety that no one else in the United States focuses on is impossible to overstate. Anyway, this one was very good. Had I written notes, I would tell you about it,[8] but really all I remember was that it was rich and balanced and complex and you should try it because I said so. Beckham and Longplay are two wineries run by people who work way too hard. Andrew and Annedria Beckham came into the business on a teacher’s salary, and while they continue to teach, they also plant the vines, farm them, make the wine, do their own marketing, and are building their own tasting room. Todd Hanson of Longplay says this on his site “Although Todd wears the accounting, marketing, compliance, purchasing, strategic planning and webmaster hats for this venture, he thinks of himself as a farmer first.” Oh, also, both he and the Beckhams have kids. The wonder of it all is that wines from both wineries were excellent; Beckham made a fresh styled Rose and Pinot Noir with good balance, while the Longplay Pinot Noir is intense, fruity and floral with awesome midpalate, while the 2009 Chardonnay, as acid driven as any white Burgundy, also has a note of ginger on the nose, which is brilliant. I feel like a failure just thinking about these people, let’s move on. Blakeslee had some of the most ‘AVA correct’ wine, a rich fungal mushroom and potting soil note combined with intense red fruits, one of my favorites.[9] Colene Clemens blew me away with the silkiest wine of the show. I jote down some notes. For the Estate Pinot Noir, I wrote, “earth, intense fruit”; on the Reserve Pinot Noir I wrote “Olive, earth, strawberry” and for the Victoria Pinot Noir I wrote “earth, chocolate, black cherry”. I don’t mean to blow you away with the sensitivity of my palate here, but to point out something important. So often, the more expensive bottles offered by the winery will taste like bigger, oakier versions of the less expensive wines, but won’t really say anything new, they’re just louder. Each of these three Colene Clemens wines had a distinct character, clearly connected by their style and terroir, but complex enough to stand apart from each other, which is what this business is really all about.

I nearly finished up with Styring’s Petite Verdot, because I’m a sucker for nerd wines, and it was blueberry and rustic earth that reminded me of some serious Italian wines from Campania[10] I’ve had. I finally finished up with what remains one of my very favorites, Anam Cara, because after fifty wines, after all the tannic Cabs and sweet Pinot Ports, on top of dozens of Pinots Noir and Blanc, I could still tell the Anam Cara Estate was an Anam Cara Estate, mouth filling and mushroom earthy and a fruit laced finish that doesn’t. It’s moments like that I really start to hate my job.

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[1] Or they invite my boss Brandon, and he brings me along. I like my boss.

[2] Ranking just behind growing grapes, making wine, bottle making, selling wine, serving wine, distributing wine, and educating about wine, but just ahead of vineyard tours and wine critique.

[3] “WoooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

[4] Actually, these can get pretty nerdy too, but just as Ultimate Frisbee players cling to old traditions of amateurism and fair play as the sport tries to figure out if there’s big time commercial potential, so the beer intelligencia maintains a spirit of just-drink-it-ness, even as they actually become every bit as buttoned up as wine folk.

[5] American Viticultural Area, I wrote more about this in chapters 47 and 48.

[6] And tasted like a very fine version of Hawaiian punch

[7] Full disclosure: Though the tasting was for Chehalem AVA wineries, many of these wineries bought grapes from other regions, because there’s really no good place to grow Tempranillo in the Willamette Valley,

[8] and if the winery had notes I would crib them and claim them as my own, but no such luck.

[9] And some of the best graphic design on their bottles of the whole region.

[10] the toe.

Chapter 77

Wingifa: noun, Old English: “wine giver”

I enjoy being liked. This is why I bring wine when I go to other people’s houses.[1] I am not the first one to think this way. Gift giving lies at the very core of Anglo-Saxon civilization.[2] The epic poem Beowulf was one third of my college thesis, and what does Beowulf spend his time doing when he’s not tearing monsters in half like the UFC cage match we all secretly wish we’d see,[3] diving to the bottom of a slimy pool to bust up some angry mom,[4] taking on level 87 dragons all by himself, or winning every cock measuring contest under the sun at the apparently endless Anglo-Saxon feasts? I’ll tell you. He was throwing together the most awesome gift baskets ever hauled into a king’s bawn; exhaustively enumerated torques, swords, crowns, anklets, chainmail shirts, shields, jewels, necklaces crusted thick with jewels, swords crusted thick with jewels,  and heaps of gold and silver in solid chunks stamped “MY GOLD GIVER ROOLZ”.

Why did he habitually give away half his spoils? Why did kings in tern shower their thanes with the same goodies? While this seems like an inefficient and tiresome cycle of re-gifting, the fact was that a warrior’s power was exactly measured by the quantity and quality of the gifts he gave. The nome-de-plume for kings, as mentioned above, was “Gold-Giver”. Since most of what Beowulf gave away was war spoils, it was something like a declaration of awesomeness, or “This is what happened to the last bad dude who messed with me, his whole fiefdom is lying on my Gold-Giver’s  floor, and most of it is just going to get tossed in the attic until it gets re-gifted anyway, so you better straighten up before it’s my job to straighten you, if you catch my meaning.” Gift giving, in other words, used to mean something.

I have discovered in my short career in wine that I work with the best gift fodder ever. Unless I’m a total idot[5] and bring wine to a recovering alcoholic,[6] it’s acceptable for every situation, and the infinite diversity in infinite combinations[7] that wine offers means I can generally pick just the right wine for the giftee, which makes them happy, and proves my awesome.[8] A win win situation. Plus, because the stories and the nerd factor of the wine carries more value than the price, I can do this without spending a lot of money or swimming to the bottom of the Baltic Sea to wreak all the sea monsters.

Some people still think this way. The Japanese are almost as intense about gift giving as Beowulf was. I’ve sold wine to Japanese twenty-somethings who clearly had never had a sip of wine in their lives shell out fistfuls of Hamiltons[9] to buy the good stuff for their parents. Every time I try to help someone pick out “Oh, nothing special. Just a gift”[10] I can’t help but think we should try to re-learn old habits.

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[1] Sometimes I bring beer and Whiskey too.

[2] I’m about to tell you how I know this because I studied this in college, there might be footnotes.

[3] And which would be the last UFC fight ever held, because everyone involved with or saw that blood explosion extraordinaire would spend the rest of their lives in therapy.

[4] Beowulf was so hard he actually fought and beat a woman scorned who was actually a hell beast. Damn.

[5] When I was 12, one of my friends said something dumb, I turned to him dripping condescension, and said, “You I-D-O-T”. I think that was the last moment I ever took myself completely seriously.

[6] There’s no way to save this situation. It’s the worst party foul there is that doesn’t involve heroin.

[7] God I’m a nerd

[8] Of course, if I ever did present someone the gore-caked torque of some thane-slaying kin’s-bane warrior, whom I had murdered in manly combat, that would also make me look pretty good.

[9] If you ever wonder where $10 bills come from, they come from Japan.

[10] Which is code for “cheap” and “I don’t care that much”. In fact, sometimes they actually say with their mouths “I love them, but I don’t love them that much.” To which I reply in my head, ‘you clearly don’t.’

Chapter 76

I like to present myself as the ultimate authority on wine, a font of knowledge everyone should consider their first, last and only resource on what to drink.[1] But every now and again, I realize there’s something I forgot,[2] a hole in my palate.

To be sure, there are still plenty of holes in my palate. I’ve never tasted Petrus, Tokaji Essenszia, 1700s Madeira, or Grand Cru Corton Charlemagne.[3] Nor have I had any wine from Poland or Gran Canaria or Lebanon. Some of these holes I intend to fill before I’m done, some I’m happy to leave unfilled.[4] One of these holes I started filling just yesterday, Zinfandel.

What kind of American hasn’t had a Zinfandel? I’m basically a communist for even admitting this, but it’s mostly true. Sure I had Zins when I was too young to care, probably something like a Ravenswood, but I haven’t had so much as a drop of Zin since I came to France.[5] So I took one home the other day from Southern Oregon, a Solena Zinfandel from 2007. Here’s what I wrote.

“Pronounced nose of stewed blueberry, boysenberry, sandalwood, juniper berries, fennel, wild berries, a little heat from the alcohol, a whiff of dandelion and an intense note of rose petal.[6] The palate: off-dry (on account of the alcohol), medium minus acid, medium minus tannin, medium plus alcohol, medium plus body, very silky texture, blueberry, elderberry,[7] dried cranberry on the medium finish.”

I felt like I needed a cigarette after drinking this wine.[8] It was very friendly. I can imagine someone not liking this wine, but only if they were deeply unhappy people who also don’t like sunshine and democracy and freedom and Sunday afternoon barbeques. I think I should drink more Zinfandel.[9]

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[1] Belgian style ales, Lagavulin, Bandol, and Indonesian coffee. You can stop reading now.

[2] Like last week’s post, for example.

[3] Nor am I likely for a while. Let’s just say that after I’m done with my bucket list, my kids shouldn’t expect much inheritance.

[4] I was born with enough wine snob in me that I don’t think I’ve ever tasted Gallo, and since I’m generally happy and don’t want to die, I think I’ll skip Mad Dog 20/20.

[5] I’m sure this obscure Shakespeare reference is totally opaque to everyone not named Welch who didn’t include Kenneth Brannaugh’s Band of Brothers speech in their high school cap stone, but it entertains me every time I juxtapose trivial statements on that particular moment of uncontrollable anger, so I’m going to keep doing it.

[6] The cliff notes nose: “Like smearing your face with blueberry juniper pie and trying to cram a whole bouquet of roses up your nose.”

[7] No shit, I really know what this smells like. Kind of like a sharper, dustier blackberry.

[8] Or an STD test.

[9] Red Zinfandel. White Zin is still an obscenity, and we shall never speak of it again.

Chapter 75

Last Sunday afternoon, I stood on the lip of a ridge at about 1500 feet, bracing against a cold spring wind with the heart of Willamette Valley wine country spread out beneath me under a quilt of sunshine and rain showers. This moment, while not quite the burning bush, or even Constance Pass,[1] was a neat reminder that I’ve made some good choices in life, and proof that – after some fits and starts[2] – I’ve finally figured out how to go to wine country.

Do: Stay overnight. This one is not totally mandatory, but then, neither is going to Florence when you’re in Italy, but you will wish you did. There’s nothing that makes winery hopping less fun more quickly than trying to jam seven wineries in before 4pm[3] so you have time for the two-hour drive home. Much more fun to drive in a lazy manner, drop your bags off at the B&B,[4] wander up to main street and find the last tasting room of the evening before dinner.

Do Not: Get your heart set on one thing in particular. Hazards abound throughout wine country. While it is mostly Candyland where the streams run thick with wonderflonium, every season has its warts. Summertime brings crowds, so unless you enjoy bumper to bumper traffic and shoulder to shoulder drinking, be prepared to step off the beaten path, so far as that’s possible in an industry  so proud of its off-the-beaten-pathedness. Autumn comes with busy winemakers. Most smaller wineries shut down to the public for a couple days at harvest, because harvest means a week of 20 hour days, and if they had to deal with pampered wine club members on top of that, the murder rate would spike every October. In wintertime, the crowds disperse and many tasting rooms roll up the carpets and hibernate with the vines. In spring, the nature can do funny things, like flood the roads and make tasting room inaccessible except by canoe[5]. Call ahead, and have an open mind.

Do: Enjoy the view. Wherever it is, wine country tends to be quite pretty. If you hold yourself to a tight schedule and ignore the rolling hills, forests, cliffs, vistas and dirt, you’re missing the point of going there. I know the Willamette Valley pretty well, so as we drove around it, I could name the Eola Hills to my right, the McMinnville AVA to my left, and the Coastal range in the distance. When we stopped by the roadside to look at a vineyard[6] we held the crumbled red clay in our hands. You go to wine country to get a sense of where wine comes from, and if you ignore the place and only pay attention to the thing, you just wasted a lot of money.

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[1] As described in Chapter 54.

[2] And, as Maggie Harrison at Antica Terra will attest, some very embarrassing mishaps.

[3] Sorry Maggie! Boy golly, your wine is awesome, and should be patronized by all my readers!

[4] I love B&Bs. It might be the most civilized way to travel ever invented, and it should mean something that this advice comes from a basically poor 27 year old guy. If you’ve never stayed at one, consider this my gift to you. Stay at a B&B. Make sure they have an ironing board.

[5] And populate the valley with godless killing machines.

[6] Something we would have done if it wasn’t nut shattering cold, but I’ve done it before so it counts.

Chapter 74

I often here people say something like “Oh, I don’t like to drink things I haven’t tried before.” This statement cuts across all strata of the wine drinking spectrum. Initiates are afraid of wasting money or of being fooled by dishonest salespeople[1], and old hands fire it off as the opening salvo in the fight for oenopedic[2] dominance. I’m sure these people would be surprised to know that I almost never buy something I’ve tasted before.[3] The way I see it, with thousands of wineries and thousands of grape varieties and hundreds of regions, if I’m going to get a handle on this wine thing, I can’t be getting stuck on cab sav and char.

If you want to qualiticious, pricelicious wine, go to the stuff you’ve never heard of. That bottle of Barolo looks great, but the Rueda right next to it is 70% of the quality at 30% of the price. If you love Pinot Noir but you’re tired of those prices, pick up the lonely Sicilian Frapatto sitting on the second shelf from the bottom. A pinot Gris lover might discover that Chasselas, Rkatsiteli, Assyrtiko, and Furmint are just as delicious, and will impress the crap out of your friends for much less money. The wine economy is just like anything else, people charge what the market will bear, so when everyone asks for the Haut Medoc and the white Burgundy, what do you think will happen to the prices of these wines? Does this mean that Puilly Fuisse and Fronsac have nothing to offer?[4]

Here’s an example. Two wines.

Wine 1 had a medium plus nose of raspberry, plum, currant, earth, slate (or graphite), a hint of green bell pepper. On the palate, silky, dry, relaxed acid, medium plus soft tannin, medium plus alcohol and body, medium length. The flavors were of stewed fruit, currant and plum and the raspberry had transmogrified into a single lonely strawberry. Good quality.

Wine 2 had a pronounced nose of marachino cherries, cooked raspberries, clove, cinnamon, and a touch of mint. On the palate, dry, medium plus acidity, supple full tannin, high alcohol, full body. The flavors were of plum, slate, grape jelly, blackberries, tarragon. medium long and intense finish.

Can you read these notes and guess which of these wines is the $13 Apaltagua Estate Carmenere and which the $40 Orin Swift Machete?[5] Which one was better? It’s harder than you might think. I’m forever telling you to expand your palate,[6] but it won’t just be good for your soul and your dinner, it will save you money.[7]

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[1] Nothing offends salespeople more than being accused of dishonesty. Well, except dishonest salespeople.

[2] Oenology: things to do with wine. Oenopedic: word I just made up that means “encyclopedic knowledge of things to do with wine”.

[3] Sometimes I buy two or more of the same if I want to revisit the wine as it matures. This doesn’t conflict with the point I’m about to make.

[4] Don’t answer that. I’m saying questions at you to make a point.

[5] There is actually a way. Orin Swift would never make anything but a ‘pronounced’ wine with a ‘long’ finish.

[6] Copyright, Gary Vaynerchuck, WLTV, 2006-2011

[7] Unless, like me, you find that you like everything and start buying a lot more wine.

Chapter 73

Anyone who has ever watched the Super Bowl knows that beer is “La boisson de choix pour d’hommes vrais ”.[1] I totally agree, to a point,[2] but not to the point the titans of American beer want. There are two kinds of beer: Industrial beer, headlined by Budweiser and Coors and Miller and PBR and so on, and there is Craft beer.[3] Though industrial beer actually has a pretty interesting history and speaks to important themes in American history, one of those themes is how America euthanized its own vibrant culinary culture, which is depressing, and not what I like to write about. In any case, there’s only so much you can say about Pilsner style beer that’s been drained of personality.

I’m lucky, because I live in the Pacific Northwest. Oregon, Washington, and Idaho are where American hops come from,[4] so every grocery store has a substantial beer section. That said, hops are a more portable ingredient than grapes, so craft breweries are free to pop up further afield, in California, Alaska, Maine, New York, Wisconsin, wherever there’s an audience receptive to fine beer.  Here’s a couple.

Chatoe Rogue “Good Chit” Pilsner, Oregon, 2011

Nose of fresh wheat, light oatmeal, earth, apple, and pear notes; medium minus intensity, but persistent, fresh and pure. Head is light and large bubbled. Palate is medium bodied, low acidity, medium minus alcohol, pure barley flavor, bitter kick on the finish with a note of tea leaves.

The Bruery Saison Rue, Belgian Style Ale, California, 2011

Color: medium amber; nose is of sweet malt[5] with light hint of coffee. On the palate, medium plus body, silky mousse. More sweet grain flavor, persistent coffee note, dried leaves on the finish, hint of rosemary spice.

Alaskan Brewing Co. Smoked Porter[6], Alaska, 2011

Black in color. Nose of very sweet grains, smoke for days, dark chocolate, orange rind, buckwheat honey. Palate is full bodied, soft mousse, strong orange honey note, bitter dark chocolate, and the very long finish is dominated by smoke, with a caramel accent.

My point with these notes is that beer has about the same potential for complexity as wine, and if we’re talking about flavors per franc, beer is a better value. There is a lot of good beer out there to drink, and as much as all those hommes vrais’ out there would make fun of me for saying,[7] it’s worth thinking about too.

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[1] “The drink of choice for real men”

[2] When we consider drink, some people are shockingly sexist. I have fielded the question “what should I get that a lady will like?” which is an unvarying synonym for “what’s sweet, simple and fruity”. I usually respond to this with “I don’t know what you mean by that” even though I know exactly what he means by that, and it irritates me.

[3] This category labored under the name ‘micro brewery’ for a long time, but it was always ill-fitting, because some craft breweries have never been that micro, and since in Europe, they’ve never really done anything else but craft brewing, it’s wrong to attach such a specific label to such a large category.

[4] Complete breakdown: Washington leads the way with 77% of the total. Oregon, which was once the leader in total production, has 15%, and Idaho has 8%. If anyone asks, Oregon’s hops are better, because the less severe climate of the Willamette Valley allows the hops to produce a better flower set, so there’s more diversity of flavorful oils, thus more potential for complexity.

[5] Is ‘malt’ cheating? It feels a little like calling a cabernet wine flavored, but hey, I’m still working all this out. Maybe ‘wheat’ would be a better name.

[6] Some beer people might sneer at this because it’s not ‘true’ beer, and doesn’t have the flavors beer ‘should’ have. This sounds the same to me as people who turn away from ice wine because wine shouldn’t be sweet. More for me, I say.

[7] Again, more for me. And watch out you folk who just want a mindless shot of whiskey or a cup of coffee, I’m coming for your drinks too.

Chapter 72

I bought a Riesling at the shop the other day because I’ve been working at my map, and I finally finished[1] the Mosel River, and Riesling has been on my mind even more than usual. I saw a nice 2007 Spätlese from the Treppchen vineyard in Erden.[2] I brought it home and opened it for dinner the other night, and wrote this:

“Nose is medium plus intensity, apple, pear, white blossom (hyacinth), petrol, spice, salt, earth, a developing nose. Palate is sweet, pronounced acidity, medium minus alcohol, medium body, medium minus length, flavors of sweet apple, hint of slate and dry earth. Drink or hold,[3] very good stuff.”

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you’ve seen something of an evolution in my approach to Riesling. The first thing I learned about Riesling beyond “It’s a German grape” was that it’s not always sweet. I then spent the first few chapters of this blog yelling at people for liking sweet Riesling,[4] because “true” Riesling is bone dry. This was a keen illustration of the danger of having a little bit of information. Now, I still enjoy my bone dry Rieslings, and I still push it on people who want a dry white wine and look at me like I’m an idiot when I recommend a Riesling, but I’ve since learned that the world of wine is always more complicated than I think it is.[5] To be brief, Mosel Riesling is sweet[6], Rheingau is dry[7], Nahe falls somewhere in between, Rheinhessen and Pfalz are mixed bags, but trending drier.[8] My apology to anyone I wrongly condemned.

My point with this Mönchhof Riesling is that sweet Riesling can be arrestingly good wine, and as I sat drinking it, I could tell my partner Lilly about how the iron tinted red slate of Treppchen vineyard gives the wine all this rich mineral character; sharp acidity even in a rich and nearly lusciously sweet frame; and that interesting spice component that I couldn’t quite pin down, but felt a little like pepper and a little like an Asian spice whose name escaped me. All these things were characteristics I knew to expect from that bend of the river between Urzig and Erden. I won’t say I felt the waft of a warm summer afternoon in Germany,[9] but I know now that if I was in Germany feeling such a waft, I could be standing in a vineyard, and I know what the wine from those vines tastes like.

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[1] More or less

[2] Just making sure you’re paying attention

[3] We drank

[4] I actually still enjoy doing this, but only because I can be kind of a dick.

[5] My early posts were full of brash declarative statements. Now I usually qualify most everything I say. Sometimes it gets on my nerves somewhat, but there’s almost never an alternative, because there’s almost always at least one exception to most rules.

[6] Unless it says ‘Trocken’ on it. See previous note.

[7] Unless it’s Trockenbeerenauslese or Icewine. See previous previous note.

[8] And redder, for that matter.

[9] Because saccharine prose is meaningless and stupid unless it’s really good.

Chapter 71

One of my secret worries when I’m writing notes for wines is that there’s no sure way to know that the wines are getting a fair shake. The mouth is a strange and temperamental place, where barely conscious factors can interfere with the data stream on its way to the descriptive mind.[1] External factors like barometric pressure have an influence just as internal factors like pressure at work, or pressure in your sinuses, and there’s no totally reliable way to account for all of them.[2]

I went for evidence of this problem in my notes, and it didn’t take long to find it.  Here’s my description of a 2010 Picpoul de Pinet,[3] written in a very good mood when I was doing a head to head tasting last fall.

“Nose: salt, more salt, salted lemons, grapefruit, nose piercing acid, malolactic softness.[4] I am dying for fish. Palate: strong apple note on entry, mineral undertones on mid-palate and a little acid tingle. Finish, the grapefruit comes back strong.[5]”

I pretty clearly enjoyed that, and I was in a mostly focused descriptive mood.[6] Here’s another wine, a 2007 Walla Walla Barbera I opened up for dinner, one I remember liking a so much that I bought another bottle of it later, which I almost never do. It was something like a Thursday in the spring or early summer, and we had spaghetti and meatballs with it, which was a totally perfect pair.

“Nose is dark fruit, a small alcohol spike, plum, cassis, some Darjeeling tea. Palate is very smooth, milk chocolate, cacao nibs to coffee with dark fruit.”

I liked both of these wines a lot. They had surprising complexity, interesting and unusual notes, and the subtlety that separates ‘meh’ from ‘ooh’. The only difference between these two notes was my degree of focus,[7] and you can see what a difference it makes. See how apple, lemon and grapefruit replace ‘dark fruit’. If I was describing these wines to customers with these words, the Picpoul would sell ten times faster than the Barbera. Context is always important.

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[1] Putting sensory data into spoken words has got to be one of the least important things people use their brains to do. I say this because it’s always hard, like trying to decipher a baseball game on AM radio while you drive through the Cascade mountains. In evolutionary terms, this makes sense. When you’re in the woods trying a new berry, it does no good to get poetical about the nuances of raspberry and the hint of camphor on the finish if the berry is insanely bitter and you’re now dying. Nor does it any good to be able to describe the feeling of getting mauled by a bear.

[2] Don’t drink when you’re sick.

[3] Which is even more fun to drink than it is to say.

[4] This means soft texture and a faint butter note.

[5] I wrote in the margins, “summon fish to this dish”.

[6] Although I did start thinking about Sailor Moon for some reason.

[7] Some day I’ll try to remember to drink something when I’m angry or depressed. Oddly, when I’m in these states, I almost never feel like drinking.