There are signs the industry is concerned about a Syrah slump and is gearing up to do something about it. In May, Gallo sponsored a Syrah Symposium in Santa Ynez…

At one of the Symposium seminars, I was struck when several of the panelist-winemakers blamed the wine media for Syrah’s failure to win hearts, minds and wallets. “You guys have to do a better job of educating consumers,” one said.

Before I launch into a rant at the folly of blaming anyone - critics, distributors, consumers, God or the weather - for a lack of consumer interest in a variety, let me just say that Steve Heimoff’s blog has been consistently excellent since it launched just a few short weeks ago. Steve updates often, and with compelling content. Be sure to check him out.

So, back to the blame game. Here’s a question for wine producers: Who’s in charge of making sure your wine sells?

If you answer anyone other than “Me” I think a serious re-examination of your business is in order.

Wine Critics

Wine writers shouldn’t be relied upon to advocate for any one region or variety, even though they sometimes do. We’re fortunate as an industry to have talented individuals who are passionately driven to write about wine. But relying on the wine media as a core part of your business model is simply folly. Wine writers write for their audience, not to further the marketing goals of a winery or wine region.

The same goes for wine scores. There are so many other avenues to pursue right now in wine marketing it is simply lazy to rely solely on the tried and true: points and medals. If and when the scores and accolades come, bully for you.

But even if they don’t, many long lasting luxury wine brands have been built without top scores. They did it with savvy marketing, ridiculously great customer service, and good wine in styles that consumers desire.

Bottom line: If your business model includes “make a 94 point wine and sell out,” you’re short both imagination and good sense.

Distributors

The story is similar with distributors. It can be fantastic to have a distribution partner with connections, leverage and years of relationships with buyers out there moving your wine for you and building your brand.

But what are the chances that you’ll enter the industry tomorrow and fall right into such an arrangement? Yeah, good luck with that. For the vast majority of brands, you can’t rely on distributors to build your brand for you, especially if you are small or have a variety that isn’t in fashion at the moment.

Another reason why distributors are often a bad deal is the following paradox: If your brand is strong enough to attract the interest and support of a distributor (which means there is pull demand from the market) you should be looking at turning that brand strength into direct sales and moving to the self-distribution model.

Furthermore, the last thing the sales reps at the distributors want to do is launch a new brand. Believe me. It reeks of effort, and many reps are distinctly uncurious about little known wines and wine regions. They want to move product, make commissions, get recognized and get promoted. They don’t give a whit about your brand, and why should they?

Oh yeah, and the margins suck too.

Consumers

There is only one group you can rely on to help you sell wine, and unless you have direct contact with them, you’ll never be able to actually influence them.

Delighted customers are the only asset you can reliably lean on to help you market and sell your wine. If consumers aren’t recommending your wine, it means you aren’t delighting them. You aren’t exceeding their expectations at every opportunity.

It’s a very tough proposition, delighting customers and consistently exceeding their expectations so that they’ll talk about and recommend your wine. But it’s a tough business, and it’s glamourous enough that everyone wants to be in it.

It seems to me that being exceptional is the minimum threshold to even consider entering such a capital intensive, high risk industry. Which is why comments like the ones reported by Steve strike me as so utterly misguided.

Are these people just totally unprepared to compete?

This is true even among winemakers, several of which have taken up the renewable energy cause and are looking for ways to lessen their negative impact on the environment – whether through eliminating the use of pesticides, creating new types of packaging, cutting back on waste, or tapping into sources of sustainable energy such as wind or solar power.

One example of a winery working on “going green” is Boisset Family Estates, the third largest winery in France. In order to capitalize on the growing trend of young and “casual” wine drinkers, they decided to swap their traditional glass wine bottles for Tetrabriks, boxes made from an aluminum coated paperboard that is commonly used here for milk, juice, soups and even the local plonk. According to the winery, this material helps to protect the wine from oxidation, and another advantage is that the thinner walls allow the white wine to chill faster. This packaging is used for young wines that are meant to be consumed immediately, rather than stored, and therefore ends the discussion on the effect of the brik on aging or the lack thereof of cork or tetrabrik vs. bottle storage.

The winery has not stopped there, however. Also driven by environmental concerns, the company’s latest packaging innovation was the launch of the Yellow Jersey brand in a bottle manufactured out of PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) and lined with a special material that is supposed to protect the wines from oxidation – although again they are not meant to be stored for long periods of time. Like the tetra brik, the production of this material reduces energy consumption and transportation requirements. While there is nothing that could ever replace the elegance and desirability of a glass wine bottle, I think that there is some growing interest in experimenting with different types of wine packaging.

For their part, Abadía Retuert’s winemaking process has already been pretty darn “green” for some time. To give just a few examples, they shun the use of pesticides and use wind energy to keep frost off the vines, while the winery itself has a revolutionary design and layout in which actions are carried out according to the natural gravitational flow – thereby consuming much less energy. Most recently, Abadía Retuerta´s latest focus on sustainability and renewable energy resources involves their new hotel project. One of the hotel’s most significant factors includes the construction of solar panels to harness the sun’s energy and use it to heat the water in guests´ rooms – dramatically reducing the hotel’s dependence on “traditional” energy sources.

We’ll keep you up to date on other sustainable practices we’ll be implementing in both the winery and the hotel in the future, but for now, we hope together, we can make a market impact by reducing, reusing and recycling in our own personal sphere.

Adrienne

What is it about a nice cut of New York Strip grilled over an open flame that just makes my mouth water? What is it about simple things that when done right, they taste so good? Take making a martini. Very few ingredients, but when you get a good one, you know it. When you get a bad one, you know it as well. Next time you're in Portland go see Sam at Olive or Twist. He has been making my 209 gin gimlet perfectly for the last year - thanks Sam! This steak is a long those same lines, very few ingredients, but when done right, really good! Here it is, the perfect steak cooked in the Big Green Egg.

Preparation

• Season steak with fresh cracked pepper, olive oil, and sprig of rosemary cut from your garden for both sides of the steak.
• Rub the steak with your hands to gently work in the olive oil and pepper on the meat.
• Place a rosemary sprig on the plate with the steak placed on top of the rosemary. Top the steak with another sprig of rosemary. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour or over night.
• Remove steak from the refrigerator about 15 minutes before you are ready to grill and season both sides with sea or kosher salt (leave the salt with the little girl and the umbrella on the shelf).

Grilling: Our Big Green Egg, Mac, got the call to grill this perfect steak.

• Heat up your grill to 650+ degrees. Put just the steak (not rosemary) on the grill just on the outside edge of the glowing coals.
• Cook 2 ½ to 3 minutes per side, putting nice grill marks on the steak. The thickness of your steak will determine the time that you need to get your desired doneness. At the Nagle household, we like our NY strips prepared medium rare.
• I usually check the steak by touching the meat to see how firm it is. For me, our medium rare steaks have firmness with a little sponginess to the touch. If your steak doesn’t have the feel you like, leave it on your grill with the heat turned off. Your steak will get to the desired temperature you like with the remaining heat left in the grill.
• Let the steak rest off the grill for at least a minute before serving. Sprinkle with chopped rosemary if so desired.

Wine

I have a lot of favorite steak wines, but from Sokol Blosser Meditrina is my go to Goddess! She loves anything cooked on a grill! Chicken, ribs, steak, pork, duck, bison, you name it. I cannot think of something that does not go. Our Goddess of Wine & Health is not only tasty, but versatile as well. Who wouldn’t want a Goddess at their table?

Meditrina and the perfect steak - make sure you have more than one bottle available and volunteer to do the dishes that night…there will not be much to clean up!

Answer...The crystals are the result of tartaric acid, which is the principal acid in wine made from ripe grapes.  They are not harmful and are natural deposits of the wine. 

This suspicious looking substance is also know as cream of tartar.  It is a by-product of the wine used in the manufacture of baking powder.  If you an accumulation of cream of tartar crystals in a bottle of wine, you need only allow the material to settle to the bottom of the bottle before carefully pouring off the clear wine into a clean, fresh container.  Then you can enjoy your wine with complete peace of mind.

By the way, here's a little household hint for cleaning a greasy aluminum pan with cream of tartar:  Add one tablespoon of cream of tartar to the pan filled with water and boil it for a few minutes.  Rinse and wipe clean!

Wine works wonders, even with its by-products!

A side note about Mountain Spirit Winery's wines as it relates to this subject...

Many people who frequent our winery and purchase our wines know that Mountain Spirit Winery always performs cold stabilization on all our white wines.  In this process, we drop the temperature of wine in a tank almost to the freezing point, at which point we add potassium bi-tartrate crystals to encourage precipitation of the tartaric acid.

Over several weeks, the tartaric acid crystals precipitate to the bottom of the tank.  We then "rack" off the clean wine, leaving the crystals behind.  We then do freeze testing of the clean wine to be sure all crystals have precipitated.

It is absolutely true that the crystals in the wine do no harm, but they can be distracting, especially if someone is not certain why they are in the wine they are consuming.  We have heard stories about customers thinking such crystals are glass!  For similar reasons we also heat stabilize our white wines to remove excessive protein which can form a haze in the wine.  We would rather not have anything take your attention away from just enjoying our award winning wines!

Phew!  That's about all the chemistry I can stand right about now.  Time for a glass...

Mike

We’ve been a bit fanatical lately about Fumé Blanc. Our flagship white is the heart and soul of our winery, and we’re on a mission to tell the world just how fabulous this wine is.

Yesterday, we took our zealousness one step further by hosting a retrospective tasting of some of our oldest Fumé Blancs dating back to the 1973 vintage. The last time we did this was 16 years ago on the 20^th anniversary of the winery. So, it seemed high time to gather some of our favorite writers and wine educators to help answer the question:

Does Fumé Blanc age well?

In attendance were: noted wine writer Dan Berger, Leslie Sbrocco, author and wine consultant to The Today Show, Sara Schneider, Sunset Magazine, Linda Murphy, Decanter Magazine, Virginie Boone, Press Democrat, and radio personality, Ziggy “The Wine Gal” Eschliman.

We broke the tasting up into two flights. The first consisted of the winery’s Sonoma County Fumé Blanc from the past three decades: 1973, 1977, 1982, 1983, 1989, 1992, 1998, 2002, and 2007. The second flight consisted of a 10-year vertical of our single vineyard estate bottling, called DCV3 vineyard. This incidentally, is the backbone to our main bottling and is from the winery’s original Sauvignon Blanc vineyard planted in 1972. It’s a historic vineyard (the first to be planted in the Dry Creek Valley after Prohibition) and a wine, author Paul Lukacs included in his book, The Great Wines of America: The Top Forty Vintners, Vineyards, and Vintages.

Talk about a trip down memory lane! A unanimous favorite was the 1977, still rich and vibrant with notes of dried cardamom and cilantro. It was the perfect example of the “Italian Deli phenomena” whereby the bright citrus fruit flavors are replaced by the smells of a wonderful old Italian delicatessen (green olive, oregano, rosemary). One taster added chamomile tea as a descriptor. I couldn’t help but think back to the year 1977. It was the year of my 8^th grade graduation. The NY Yankees won the World Series, Jimmy Carter was elected President, and Elvis Presley died.

Another favorite was the 1983 vintage. Few of the wines exhibited the intense “CP/AP” aromas that are often associated with the Sauvignon Blanc varietal. If you aren’t familiar with these highly technical terms, I’ll give you a hint. One is reminiscent of cat urine the other, underarm body odor. Need I say more?!

We then paired these “moldy oldies” (my term for older wines whose labels are a bit weathered from being in the cellar so long) with Fumé inspired dishes for an alfresco lunch in the picnic area. It was a beautiful day and a gentle reminder that holding onto Fumé Blancs, if made in a crisp higher acid style with no oak and no malolactic fermentation, can yield some beautiful results.  

So, the moral of the story is that Fumé Blanc can age very well indeed. If you find yourself with an older bottle, do not despair. Crack that baby open and brace yourself for the wonderful possibilities of a mature Sauvignon Blanc.

(photo of folks enjoying wine and good times at Twisted Oak Winery by Lydia.)

For our Pinot Noir vines, this is the most important time for good weather (other than Harvest, of course). The tiny clusters flower only for a short time, 2 weeks at most, and bad weather (hail, heavy rains, or anything that could knock the blooms off of the clusters) could be catastrophic. However, we've had some of the best weather all year lately - and since bloom is approximately 3 weeks later than normal due to our wet, cool Spring, we feel very fortunate.

As of right now, everything looks great for a Harvest starting the first week of October. Full steam ahead!

Of course the devil is in the details. First off people have to be open to being educated. Then the material needs to be presented in an interesting and memorable way, and that’s not easy. Remember your High School Chemistry teacher? Exactly.

As much as I believe in online wine sales and the power of blogs and social media, the best chance for real education is in the tasting room. People are there because they want to know more and, if given the right information in the right way, formerly casual wine drinkers can be turned into well-informed brand ambassadors.

There’s no doubt at all that face to face interaction in tasting rooms remain the best way for wineries to educate consumers and, as a result, sell more wine.

Education Outside the Tasting Room

But there are other opportunities for wineries to make wine information more easily comprehensible. Robert Parker revolutionized wine ratings by using a system of scoring that people already had a high comfort level with: the 100 point scale.

I wrote back in 2006 in a post titled How Wine Data Sheets Should Be that producers can do the same thing with the various chemistry data that we collect about our wines.

It seems pretty obvious to me: If you’re going to provide the information because you think it has value, why not make it accessible? Why not put the numbers into context that folks can instantly grasp. Like this:

So far only Twisted Oak has embraced such a system. Jeff even improved on the whole idea by adding descriptors to each side of the number line, giving even more context. Twisted Oak’s Geek Sheets are the best in the biz in my opinion, and it would go a long way toward educating consumers everywhere if more wineries used a number line to convey the difference between a TA of 3 g/L and one of 7 g/L.

Proof That Context Is Vitally Important

And if you think that context isn’t important, you’re just talking crazy. Look at the recent research just published by Harbertson et al in the latest issue of the AJEV regarding tannin concentration in red wines. Describing the study, here’s what they had to say:

The purpose of this study was to establish normative ranges for tannin in commercially available red wines…a key undertaking because no single winery laboratory would be likely to perform such work and make the results widely available.

A perfect example of public funding for applied wine science. And all aimed at giving the industry a larger context for understanding the results of the tannin assays they have run on their wines.

My question is: if producers need this information to understand the chemistry behind our wines, why the heck aren’t we also giving it to consumers? This is low hanging fruit, and we should grab it.

Based on Harbertson’s research on pinot, I can add this cool little visual aid to Capozzi’s slate of wine data graphics:

If you know of any other producers educating consumers in creative ways outside the tasting room, especially about wine quality, please leave a comment and let me know. They need to be recognized and encouraged!

Remember pH in high school science class?  I remembered that acids were not as corrosive to skin as bases were.  And that was about it.

Until I got seriously into wine making.  With wines, pH can have a great impact on how a wine tastes, looks and lasts!

Simply stated, the lower the pH in a wine, the more acidic, sharp, or clean a wine will taste.  A wine with a high pH will taste flat or lacking in acidity. 

Here's a question for all you wine trivia buffs out there.  What is the average pH of wine? 

Any guesses? 

It's right around 3.5 or perhaps just a bit lower.  It's this low pH that helps wines be stable in that a low pH tends to naturally inhibit spoilage. 

The pH of a wine affects its color.  Red wines with low pH appear more red while wines with a higher pH have a blue or purple case, even when quite old!

Wine with a high pH will not only lack crispness, but it may also have "off" flavors like a metallic tin can or worse.  Also a high pH wine will contribute to that not-so-great vinegary smell in the wine.

Now you know more than you ever needed to know about wine and pH.  Just wait till you can access that bit of information at just the right time.  Won't you look like a wine superstar!

Mike