Cafes & Wineries

Once upon at time, there was but one major event for food and wine enthusiasts looking to experience some of the top chefs and wines of the United States. The Aspen Food and Wine Classic was the ultimate experience for epicures and wine lovers who could afford to attend the multi-day showcase of taste. Other events equally focused on bringing together fine food and wine and the people who love them have followed.

Strangely, for many years none of these events took place in California. Eventually, though, some people realized the travesty represented by this fact, and started an event called the Masters of Food and Wine, which for several years provided credible proof of California’s stature in the food and wine scene, and allowed thousands of people to experience the ultimate food and wine experience.

But through an unfortunate series of events, the Masters went away. One year it was going strong, the next year, it was in Argentina. But there were enough people who had seen, and indeed, been responsible for, the quality of experience that could be offered, and the willingness of so many to attend, to simply let that be the end of the story.

And so last year, a couple of enterprising young men invented Pebble Beach Food and Wine, with the goal of taking the whole idea to the next level. Which essentially means providing the most exclusive and remarkable dining, drinking, and learning opportunities available in the world of food and wine.

Pebble Beach Food and Wine is now in its second year, and seemingly untouched by the current economic situation, at least so far. Despite crashing markets and tough times everywhere, they are still managing to put on an event featuring some of the absolute top chefs in the world cooking for groups of 150-200 people, giving detailed cooking demonstrations, and where sommeliers pour some of the worlds most sought-after wines into waiting glasses.

No matter what your yardstick, it’s hard not to have this event measure up to the title of the ultimate food and wine experience of its kind. They will pour more Cristal champagne this year (including vintages going back most of a century) than any other single event in history — more in 4 days than the entire US allocation of the stuff. They will have Thomas Keller, Tom Colicchio, Daniel Humm, David Kinch, Masaharu Morimoto, David Myers, Eric Ripert, Rick Tramonto and many more giving cooking demonstrations and making elaborate meals for attendees. They will offer the opportunity to taste wines that range from verticals of Domaine Leroy’s Burgundies to 15 years worth of Colgin’s Cabernets. The server to guest ratio hovers around 1 to 5. The sommelier to guest ratio is around 1 to 4. And so on, and so forth, all set amidst the backdrop of Pebble Beach and the Inn at Spanish Bay in Carmel, California.

While this is certainly an over-the-top event, the organizers have incredibly made it as accessible as possible to as many people that want to attend. You can spend $165 to attend the grand tasting — an afternoon of wine tasting where every four or five tables or so you’ll find one of the country’s best chefs making canapes for you to enjoy with your wine, or you can spend $4750 for a package that includes four days of VIP access to any of the events. Every single event is available as an a-la-carte ticket, in addition to being included in their package deals.

If I didn’t have this pesky day job and a little one to take care of, you can bet I′d be down there for the grand tasting at least, especially given the list of 250 wineries pouring (all of which are there by invite only) and 48 chefs cooking. You can see the list, and find out many more details on all the activities on the event web site.

Pebble Beach Food and Wine 2009
Thursday, April 16th - Sunday, April 19th
Pebble Beach Resort
Carmel, CA 93953

Tickets should be purchased in advance on the event web site, and start at $165. Obviously, those wishing to stay for multiple days need to arrange lodging, either at Pebble Beach in conjunction with the event (it can be purchased with your tickets), or elsewhere.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

Review by Alfonso Cevola.

It’s not unusual to pick up a wine book that reads like a journal. But Neal Rosenthal’s Reflections of a Wine Merchant reads like it could have been the personal journey of a score of young folks who entered the wine industry 30 years ago, me included. The confluence of experience was so uncanny at times that I started thinking this guy had climbed inside my head. He may be a celebrated and accomplished fellow in the world of wine importers now, but in the early days many of us traveled the same wine paths and met many of the same people. This book was like finding a shoe box of photographs that had been put in an attic and forgotten. What a treat to open and enjoy.

The wine journal genre is littered with great tomes of memories, from George Saintsbury to André Simon to Kermit Lynch. Rosenthal’s book, like Lynch’s, is significant in that many of the people he evolved with are still making wine. And we can still enjoy those wines.

Italy, France, California. Some of the classic wines from these countries that we now consider iconic are uncovered in this book. For instance, Ezio Voyat’s 1961 Chambave Rouge is still a precious red. Neal offers a wonderful exposé of native reds grown in early California, such as the Zinfandels from Shenandoah Valley. His wistful recollection of a young Napa Valley and the pre-boom innocence of rolling up and down Highway 29, and his infatuation with Domaine Ferret and the wines and women of the domaine are all memories that I have, too.

Reflections of a Wine Merchant is divided into fifteen chapters. They vary, from revealing dealings the author has with producers to philosophical meanderings. There are chapters titled simply “Terroir,” which explain Rosenthal’s view of such things, and ones like “Carema, Bees and Friendship,” which delves more deeply into the author’s relationship with a winemaker. They′re intertwined so that the author avoids getting too tedious or too syrupy.

Neal doesn’t weight his memoirs with extracurricular activities. No searching for love or epiphany in the vineyard with a bull’s horn. Rather, Neal’s a man’s man. Tall, handsome and swarthy, he is a Sam Shepherd, larger-than-life character looking for the great wines of his times. And along the way he makes lifelong friendships we get to share.

He loves wines in the state in which he finds them. His affection for a vivacious California wine is as unrestrained as his ardor for Montefalco. His appreciation for Burgundy is more as the young acolyte poised to learn, than as one with all the answers, looking for winemakers who’ve agonized over every little thing they did in the vineyard and the cellar.

But as the title clearly says, this is a book by a wine merchant. One who became a very important taste-maker. In fact, many of the wines he brought to America are still talked about in the cellars and back rooms of wine stores by young sommeliers and wine merchants. And while some salesmen may throw out a Parker score to sell certain wines, a wine from Rosenthal’s selection needs none of that. They have their own provenance.

When it comes to his wines, Rosenthal does not over-deliberate in what he’s looking for. This is a contrarian view from so many wine writers today, who look to validate their own tastes and preferences in the wines they choose. You might say, shouldn’t a wine writer, or anyone for that matter, naturally gravitate towards the wines that reinforce their beliefs? No, Rosenthal is looking for a larger measure of excellence.

Rosenthal does it with happy innocence. He is joyful when he finds a naturally made wine or a wine that has minimal intervention by the winemaker. But I didn’t get the sense that he woke up every morning with a mission to find those wines, come hell or high water. Rosenthal has spot-on instincts. He doesn’t have to beat the reader over the head with dogmatic verbalizations that morph into some monotonous mantra. He knows quality when he tastes it, and the natural wines that he comes across resonate with his soul. In that sense, this book is more a narrative of exploration and discovery than hypotheses and deduction. The joy of sex rather than the mechanism of it.

In terms of the book’s overall construction, my inner editor would have wanted to see a little more editing. Some of the writing is choppy. Some of the facts are not always consistent — I don’t recall hearing that Verdicchio was Umbria’s most commercial wine, for instance. A fact checker and an editor looking at this book more as the lyrical story it is might have smoothed out the writing. The information is wonderful and historical, but it would have benefited from a little better rhythm to establish the path of the story, the better to sing the high notes in key.

Reflections of a Wine Merchant also mirrors this fellow wine traveler’s deep love for the land and the farmers. And because of Rosenthal’s connection to the place and the people, the wines that follow don’t need explaining. They exist to be loved. Rosenthal performs double duty by not only telling the stories that resonate with so many of us who made a similar journey, but by providing all of us with an amazing portfolio of wines that we can enjoy and fall in love with on a regular basis.

Neal Rosenthal, Reflections of a Wine Merchant, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2008, $16.32, (Hardcover).

Alfonso Cevola is the Italian Wine Director for the Glazer’s family of companies, based out of Dallas, Texas. Alfonso is a Certified Specialist in Wine and a Special Contributor to the Dallas Morning News, The Well Fed Network and The Sommelier Journal. His wine blog is On the Wine Trail in Italy, posting every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. He also recent began another blog, called The Blend, covering wine and spirits.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

Review by Alfonso Cevola.

It’s not unusual to pick up a wine book that reads like a journal. But Neal Rosenthal’s Reflections of a Wine Merchant reads like it could have been the personal journey of a score of young folks who entered the wine industry 30 years ago, me included. The confluence of experience was so uncanny at times that I started thinking this guy had climbed inside my head. He may be a celebrated and accomplished fellow in the world of wine importers now, but in the early days many of us traveled the same wine paths and met many of the same people. This book was like finding a shoe box of photographs that had been put in an attic and forgotten. What a treat to open and enjoy.

The wine journal genre is littered with great tomes of memories, from George Saintsbury to André Simon to Kermit Lynch. Rosenthal’s book, like Lynch’s, is significant in that many of the people he evolved with are still making wine. And we can still enjoy those wines.

Italy, France, California. Some of the classic wines from these countries that we now consider iconic are uncovered in this book. For instance, Ezio Voyat’s 1961 Chambave Rouge is still a precious red. Neal offers a wonderful exposé of native reds grown in early California, such as the Zinfandels from Shenandoah Valley. His wistful recollection of a young Napa Valley and the pre-boom innocence of rolling up and down Highway 29, and his infatuation with Domaine Ferret and the wines and women of the domaine are all memories that I have, too.

Reflections of a Wine Merchant is divided into fifteen chapters. They vary, from revealing dealings the author has with producers to philosophical meanderings. There are chapters titled simply “Terroir,” which explain Rosenthal’s view of such things, and ones like “Carema, Bees and Friendship,” which delves more deeply into the author’s relationship with a winemaker. They’re intertwined so that the author avoids getting too tedious or too syrupy.

Neal doesn’t weight his memoirs with extracurricular activities. No searching for love or epiphany in the vineyard with a bull’s horn. Rather, Neal’s a man’s man. Tall, handsome and swarthy, he is a Sam Shepherd, larger-than-life character looking for the great wines of his times. And along the way he makes lifelong friendships we get to share.

He loves wines in the state in which he finds them. His affection for a vivacious California wine is as unrestrained as his ardor for Montefalco. His appreciation for Burgundy is more as the young acolyte poised to learn, than as one with all the answers, looking for winemakers who’ve agonized over every little thing they did in the vineyard and the cellar.

But as the title clearly says, this is a book by a wine merchant. One who became a very important taste-maker. In fact, many of the wines he brought to America are still talked about in the cellars and back rooms of wine stores by young sommeliers and wine merchants. And while some salesmen may throw out a Parker score to sell certain wines, a wine from Rosenthal’s selection needs none of that. They have their own provenance.

When it comes to his wines, Rosenthal does not over-deliberate in what he’s looking for. This is a contrarian view from so many wine writers today, who look to validate their own tastes and preferences in the wines they choose. You might say, shouldn’t a wine writer, or anyone for that matter, naturally gravitate towards the wines that reinforce their beliefs? No, Rosenthal is looking for a larger measure of excellence.

Rosenthal does it with happy innocence. He is joyful when he finds a naturally made wine or a wine that has minimal intervention by the winemaker. But I didn’t get the sense that he woke up every morning with a mission to find those wines, come hell or high water. Rosenthal has spot-on instincts. He doesn’t have to beat the reader over the head with dogmatic verbalizations that morph into some monotonous mantra. He knows quality when he tastes it, and the natural wines that he comes across resonate with his soul. In that sense, this book is more a narrative of exploration and discovery than hypotheses and deduction. The joy of sex rather than the mechanism of it.

In terms of the book’s overall construction, my inner editor would have wanted to see a little more editing. Some of the writing is choppy. Some of the facts are not always consistent — I don’t recall hearing that Verdicchio was Umbria’s most commercial wine, for instance. A fact checker and an editor looking at this book more as the lyrical story it is might have smoothed out the writing. The information is wonderful and historical, but it would have benefited from a little better rhythm to establish the path of the story, the better to sing the high notes in key.

Reflections of a Wine Merchant also mirrors this fellow wine traveler’s deep love for the land and the farmers. And because of Rosenthal’s connection to the place and the people, the wines that follow don’t need explaining. They exist to be loved. Rosenthal performs double duty by not only telling the stories that resonate with so many of us who made a similar journey, but by providing all of us with an amazing portfolio of wines that we can enjoy and fall in love with on a regular basis.

Neal Rosenthal, Reflections of a Wine Merchant, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2008, $16.32, (Hardcover).

Alfonso Cevola is the Italian Wine Director for the Glazer’s family of companies, based out of Dallas, Texas. Alfonso is a Certified Specialist in Wine and a Special Contributor to the Dallas Morning News, The Well Fed Network and The Sommelier Journal. His wine blog is On the Wine Trail in Italy, posting every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. He also recent began another blog, called The Blend, covering wine and spirits.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

Three emails that arrived recently:

1- I am going to Italy next month. We will be visiting Florence and wondered if there were some wineries we should visit. What should we see?

2- I am new to wines and Italian wines as well. Our family eats together at least four nights a week and I am trying to find a wine that we can enjoy with our meals. There are five of us and four who are old enough to drink wine. Do you have any suggestions?

3- I love wine and want to be in the wine industry. Could you tell me where I could start out?

1- If you are going to Italy during the Easter holiday there will be times when the wineries will be unavailable. Vinitaly goes from April 2-6 and then there is Holy Week, Easter and the day after Easter. So the first half of the month is taken up with a wine fair and a national holiday. I would suggest you go to Florence, enjoy visiting museums and eating out and don’t worry too much if you don’t get to a winery. If you do want to go into the Tuscan countryside try and find an enoteca like the National one in Siena. There is also a good regional tasting room in Greve as there are also ones in Montepulciano and elsewhere. These will be open and can be fun and instructive. But Italy is a country of vineyards, so it won’t be difficult to come into contact with wine. That is the beauty of Italy, wine is everywhere and you don’t have to look so hard to find something that has to do with wine. Just enjoy the moment and the country and the people and the food and the wine will be right there with them.

2- If you are on a budget and are looking to find wine you can drink on a daily basis, I would start with something basic, like a basic Chianti or a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo for a red and a light white, maybe a Soave or an inexpensive southern white from Italy like a grillo or a falanghina. Plan on spending $8-10 a bottle for a decent wine and budget it like you would vegetables or protein. Look for sales, find a merchant or a little store where you can find good values. In most large towns there is an Italian store, like Claro’s in Southern California or Jimmy’s in Dallas. These stores have a clientele who are used to drinking wine on a regular basis, so they are looking for values. Remember wine is an integral part of the Italian lifestyle and it doesn’t need to be a Barolo or a Brunello every night. That’s what they have Dolcetto and Rosso Toscano for. Above all, remember to take the time at the table to enjoy the whole experience and the wine will taste much better.

3- If you want to be in the business a good place to start in a restaurant. Be a server; find a place that has a good wine program. Usually folks from the trade will frequent it and you will have the opportunity to network and move your way through the industry. Another way is through a retail store or even a market that has a good wine program, like Whole Foods or Stew Leonard’s in the Northeast. If you want to get on in the wholesale end, those companies usually have an entry level that most folks starting out have to go through. The steps usually are an orientation period, a trainee period, possibly a merchandising position and then a route assignment that is usually a route that is saved for beginners. Once one goes through these steps then one is assigned a route that can make a little more money. Another way is to work for a smaller or start-up company. These usually are a good way to meet the important accounts in your area and get to know if you can develop a rapport with the players. If you can and do it well, then you will be valuable to any wholesaler, as these key customers are major players and every company vies for their business.

Everyone has to start out at the beginning, even the experts. Oh, the stories I could tell you…

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

Associated Press
A Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst said Friday fast-food and other quick-service operators will likely continue to take customers away from specialty coffee retailers as consumers search for more affordable options.

Analyst Steve West said in a note to investors that Peet’s Coffee & Tea Inc., Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s Corp. could be big winners in the “coffee wars” through 2009

Original post by Robert

IRVINE, Calif., March 27, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ —-As part of its strategy to capitalize on the growth of the wholesale specialty coffee market and its strength as a premier roaster and distributor of the world’s finest coffees, Diedrich Coffee, Inc. (Nasdaq: DDRX) today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement with Praise International North America, Inc., an

Original post by Robert

Great wineries not only make great wines, they do so consistently. This year-in-year-out maintenance of quality can prove quite difficult, especially for wineries that practice winemaking in a so-called “non-interventionalist″ manner, allowing the vintage to show through the fruit, and allowing the fruit to control the winemaking process. The fact that the world’s best wineries manage to make good, even great wines in difficult vintages makes them truly worthy of reverence, and is a testament to the skills of the farmer and the winemaker.

There are only a handful of wineries in California that, in my opinion, can produce consistently great Pinot Noir, year after year, decade after decade, but there’s no question that Williams Selyem ranks near the top of that brief list. Their name on a label of Pinot Noir is as close as I know to a guarantee of quality.

Williams Selyem was founded in 1981 by Burt Williams and Ed Selyem, two friends who started making wine together in their garage in Forestville, California in the late seventies just because they loved the stuff, wanted to drink more wine together, and loved a challenge. A few years later, what started as a hobby became an avocation, and in a few more years, a cult phenomenon. Over the course of a decade or two Williams Selyem winery played a major role in establishing Sonoma County as a premier winegrowing region, and establishing California as a world-class Pinot Noir producing region.

Surprisingly, the two didn’t start with Pinot Noir as a goal. They were more excited about Zinfandel (which William Selyem still makes) but it was ultimately Pinot Noir that captured the majority of their attention, and the attention of the wider world when their 1985 Rochioli vineyard Pinot Noir was the winner at the California State fair in 1987, and the winery was simultaneously awarded the designation Winery of the Year.

At that point Williams Selyem was still just two guys in a garage, marshaling an army of friends to meticulously hand pick, hand sort, and hand crush small lots of grapes from what were at the time, relatively young but clearly very high quality vineyards. They quickly found themselves with the demand, and the capital, to invest in a proper winery.

By the early Nineties, William-Selyem had become one of Sonoma County’s first cult wineries. People were waiting years to get on their mailing list, and the wines were selling out before they ever got the chance to hit retail stores. But about that time, Burt and Ed were ready for a break after nearly 20 years of winemaking, and sold the winery to its present owners, John and Kathe Dyson in 1998. While the ownership and winemaking team has changed, the demand for the wines has not.

Currently the winemaking is done by Bob Cabral, Lynn Krausmann and oenologist Adam Goodrich, with little deviation from the strictly minimalist approach taken by the founders. Even today, no mechanical pumping is ever done to the wine, nor any filtration, and the wine is aged in a mix of French oak of which about 50% is new. Babied through the entire winemaking process process, apart from a forklift and a press, nearly everything is done by hand by this small group of individuals under Cabral’s careful direction.

Williams Selyem’s success as a winery has afforded it the luxury of being able to make no compromises when it comes to winemaking, which includes the ability to be a bit more European about working with the wine — the wine takes as long as it takes — to ferment, to age, to sit in the bottle. The wines are aged in a mix of new and old French oak barrels, usually averaging around 60% new, depending on the nature of the vineyard. They are almost always bottled unfined and unfiltered.

The Williams Selyem style of Pinot Noir is marked, in particular, by a lightness of color, especially compared with most other California Pinots. This paleness, along with the often crystalline quality of the fruit makes for an easy comparison to top Burgundies.

TASTING NOTES:

2006 Williams Selyem “Flax Vineyard” Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley
Light to medium ruby in the glass, this wine has a delicate, almost sweet nose of pure raspberry fruit, like someone vaporized the ripest raspberries you could imagine. In the mouth the same sort of ethereal quality pervades the wine. Crystalline raspberry and redcurrant flavors, held aloft by incredibly balanced acidity and hints of light tannins linger into an indescribable finish that gets spicy the longer it persists. My handwritten notes feature the phrase “Hot Shit!” underlined and circled twice. This is the sort of wine you take out the second mortgage on your house to buy as much of as you possibly can. Score: between 9.5 and 10. Cost: $54. Where to buy?

2006 Williams Selyem “Rochioli Vineyard - River Block,” Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley
Light ruby in the glass, this wine has a beautiful earthy nose of wet mud and raspberry fruit tinged with scents of violets and orange peel. In the mouth it is beautifully textured, silky slippery smooth, in a way that sneaks around the corners of the mouth where it peeks out and splashes the palate with raspberry fruit and globs of mud, leaving me with the distinct impression that I know what this patch of ground tastes like. Sustained through a gorgeous lengthy finish, the fruit rings like a struck bell. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $75. Where to buy?

2006 Williams Selyem “Allen Vineyard” Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley
Light ruby in the glass, this wine smells of clean, pure raspberry with a hint of briary green leaves and a notes of brown sugar. In the mouth, it is slippery and smooth with beautiful flavors of raspberry, forest floor, and this fantastic sawdust note that reminds me of the scent of recently hewn redwood planks. The finish persists with great length and pleasure. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $74. Where to buy?

2006 Williams Selyem “Hirsch Vineyard″ Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast
Light garnet in color, this wine has an elegant nose of raspberries, cherries, and crushed herb aromas. In the mouth it is equally as elegant, even distinguished, with gorgeously textured flavors of raspberry, red apple skin, hints of citrus oil, and a woody undertone that provides a base note to the brighter flavors. Perfectly balanced, this is a beautiful rendition of Pinot Noir that gives ample time to reflect as much in its long finish. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $72. Where to buy?

2007 Williams Selyem Pinot Noir, Central Coast
Light garnet in the glass, this wine has a bright, crystalline nose of cranberry and Bing cherry aromas that are immediately arresting. In the mouth it is super sexy in its silken texture, and juicy with an aromatic sweetness that offers flavors of bright cranberry mixed with a bit of cedar. These flavors vibrate and swirl in a sort of electric crackling Tesla coil of fruit and then taper slowly, languorously through a very long finish. Most definitely the best version of this particular bottling I have ever had. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $34. Where to buy?

2007 Williams Selyem Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley
Light garnet in the glass, this wine has a delicious nose of cranberry and raspberry aromas with just a slight hint of green wood. In the mouth, it is smooth and satin textured with a nice core of cranberry, raspberry and cherry cola flavors. Great acidity makes for an overall juicy impression, and a nice finish seals the deal. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $46. Where to buy?

2007 Williams Selyem “Westside Road Neighbors” Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of forest floor, raspberry, and orange peel aromas with some suggestions of exotic woods the more I smell it. In the mouth it is bright, with an elegant mouthfeel and a delightful shifting mix of flavors that range through raspberry, tart cherry and redcurrant. These slide, water-like, as a layer over a foundation of dark loam and that hint of green wood again that sneaks in through the very nice finish. A mix of six vineyards that surround the Williams Selyem property: Rochioli, Allen, Flax, Bucher, Litton, and Bacigalupi. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $67. Where to buy?

Costs listed above are the release prices of these wines. In addition to the above wines, Williams Selyem produces single vineyard bottlings from the following sites: Peay Vineyard, Weir Vineyard, Bucher Vineyard, Ferrington Vineyard, Coastlands Vineyard, Precious Mountain Vineyard, Litton Vineyard, and Vista Verde Vineyard.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

Light Through Grapes
In a miraculous chemistry shared with so many bounties of the natural world, grapes take the light of the sun and fuse it into something special, as if they were the opposite of prisms. Light here is both a source of life and of illumination, inseparably so. And I don’t know about you, but looking at this image makes me hungry. And thirsty. — 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.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon lately, one that has become observable to me as the number of unsolicited wine samples I get continues to increase. More and more new wineries are taking a shotgun approach to the market, spewing out wines and seeing what they can hit.

Usually my wine samples come in a compact little box, with one or two or four bottles carefully nestled inside, along with a note or a press release or whatever the winery wants to send me about the wine. But with some frequency I am now getting huge case boxes, rattling and squeaking with their styrofoam innards, with twelve bottles in them, each one a different wine representing the first vintage for a brand new winery.

These hulking boxes are usually topped with a cheery press release and media kit proudly proclaiming the birth of the new winery, dedicated to making high quality wines that are great values and true expressions of place, or some other nonsense like that. I find myself asking the question, what the hell are these people thinking?

Seeing a brand spanking new wine label slapped on 12 bottles of 12 different wines from 12 different places says to me: we didn’t know what to do so we tried a bit of everything. These wines are invariably at a mid-to-low level of quality. And while the people making them are clearly not trying to be the next artisan winemakers of California, I guess I′d expect them to start small and branch out, rather than canvassing the market in one shot. Wineries that have been around for decades, with expansive vineyard holdings have the history, and the pedigree to support a large portfolio of wines. A brand new winery with such a portfolio just seems a little too big for its own britches.

Maybe I am a little old fashioned to be suspicious of such efforts. Certainly most consumers never see all 12 bottles lined up like they end up on my kitchen table for tasting. But all the most successful brands start by establishing an identity of trust and value with a certain level of focus. Once this identity is established, customers will trust the brand as it expands in new directions. We’re talking brand expansion not brand explosion.

Perhaps most discomfiting, these new brands are often (though not always) trying to sell themselves with an air of authenticity. They want to tap into the soulfulness of wine. And it’s these suggestions of special quality, sense of place, and deep appreciation for what a particular grape and region have to offer that seem completely undermined by the sheer variety of the company’s initial offering. It’s psychological to be sure, but I can′t help but think that most of these companies, and the customers they’re looking to serve, could do with just a little bit of focus.

There’s nothing wrong with a grand vision of a robust portfolio of wines, but trying to bring it to market in a single step seems like a recipe for lousy wine and erratic sales. Not to mention really hefty shipping charges when you decide you want someone to taste your inaugural vintage.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

What a confusing time. I have spent the better part of the week out in the trade and I have a headache. We are nearing the end of the first quarter and Vinitaly is just around the corner. What I have encountered this week, some of it has been good. Some of it has been downright bewildering.

Earlier this week my bees hive became overpopulated and the hive split. The new colony hovered over a tree limb as a storm approached. I love my bees they keep my yard healthy and happy. And they keep the hornets away. The bees are productive, usually gentle creatures and I like working around them in my yard.

Bewitched
Likewise, this week when working out in the market, I ran into a group of young sommeliers, the future leaders of the wine scene in these parts. They were an energetic bunch of fellows who really seemed to be excited about the wine business. One wine several of them flipped over was a simple Moscato d’ Asti. We’re talking a 5.5% sweet fizzy wine. Not exactly like the 1988 Pichon Lalande that was on the table. But some of these somms just went nuts over this wine. That does my heart good, because to be able to appreciate a low alcohol, sweet fizzy wine for what it is gives one the ability to embrace all kinds of wines.

I was talking to Scott Barber, who was named Texas’ best sommelier in 2008 at Texsom. Scott lived in Italy for a time and loves to talk Italian wine. I was hoping to see him on this day, so it was fortunate that we ran into each other. He really has a passion for Italian wine in a genuine way. Such a contrast from a certain wine director that I have been struggling to find a communications equilibrium with. But more on that down in the post. Scott, born in a great year for Barolo and Aglianico( 1968) really encourages me to keep climbing the mountain.

Bothered
During a lunch with an Italian supplier friend of mine, she related an incident that happened to her. She went into a retail store to get a couple of bottles of her wine. She needed some to show to clients. She knew what she wanted. A sales clerk approached her and asked if he could help her. When she told the fellow what she was looking for, he attempted to try and sell her away from it. “What if I was a consumer? What kind of message would that send?” she said. Well, she was the consumer, and the message I took from it was that the wine she had come in the store to buy, the one she liked and wanted, wasn’t by the behavior of the clerk, thought to be a very good wine by the establishment that was stocking it. So if one of the wines that was in the store someone who worked there didn’t like it or was trying to sell the customer away from it, why would anybody have any confidence in that person to sell them something else? In other words, why would a store have a wine in stock if they didn’t have some small belief in the validity of that wine? I’ll tell you. The store has a private label, which has a greater profit margin on it and probably an incentive for the guy on the floor to push it. Ok I understand that. But how about this: a customer walks into a wine store looking for a specific bottle. The clerk helps them find that bottle and then says, “If you like that wine, we also have this wine which you might also like.” He validates her taste and marries it to his other product. Bingo, a clean double. Ah, if the world only ran like I wanted it to.

Bewildered
But here’s the one that really blew my mind this week. One of the somms that I ran into works at a little spot. This spot decided to change up their wine list, “freshen it up”. They removed a wine from the list that I liked a lot, a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. In a year this little spot bought 117 cases of the wine. Over that time the gross profits in dollars, for that one wine, was over $40,000.00. But they took the wine off the list, because they wanted some new faces. Were the customers tired of the product? Doesn’t seem like it? I went and talked to the owners, seemed like they understood what I was saying, seemed to agree. But is the wine back on the list? Not as of this time. Young somm just says it’s the owner’s decision. Young somm, if you don’t give good advice to your owner, you’ll be out of a job someday. That’s really the bottom line on that argument. Unless you like being unemployed.

There’s another hot restaurant in a tony part of town. Can’t get into the place. Two hour wait. Won’t take reservations. Young chef gets lots of ink. Young chef has worked in a fair amount of places in a short career. But young chef is “hot”.

Young chef told wine people, “I’m tired of all you wine salespeople coming into my restaurant and taking up the time of my bar manager. It’s just wine, why are you all making such a big deal of it? People don’t come into my restaurant because of your wine; they come in here for my food.”

Some of these wine purveyors had been coming into his restaurant and spending a fair amount of money on his food. Why would they go back? I’m not interested in stepping into the place. But this kind of thing has been happening a lot lately. Brash and arrogant egos getting in the way of good business decisions. They come- they go. I’ve seen hundreds of them. I’ve gone to funeral of chefs who died before they were 40, because they thought the rules didn’t apply to them.

So, yes we aren’t quite on the wine trail in Italy on this one, but this is part of the Stations of the Cross we have chosen to carry up to our Mt. Calvary. You think they’d listen to some of us silverbacks.

Well, at least I’ve got Scott and guys like him to help me bear that rugged old cross. And somewhere I have to dig out that old ’68 Monfortino and pop it for the young bees buzzing around my hive.

Photos by Diane Arbus

Original post by Alfonso Cevola