A SURPRISE OUTBURST; OUTCRY OVER CRU BOURGEOIS
The intensely competitive, crowded wine world forces wineries into a continuous struggle to distinguish and stratify themselves by quality and reputation. In the New World, with its free wheeling ways, this is easier than the rigidly traditional Old World. Nowhere is the process more cumbersome than in France. Hampered by decades, sometimes centuries old systems of codified classifications, French attempts at novel wine re-assortment can sometimes amount to no less than social revolution. I recently came across a striking example of this with the comfortably familiar Bordeaux classification of Cru Bourgeois, a trademark that’s been around since 1934 with a[...]
THE STATE OF ESTATE; LESSONS FROM SCHUG
In the unregulated, mishmash world of special labels used by California wineries one that often slips by is Estate. It is an innocuous word, somewhat neutral in what it evokes, certainly less lofty than Reserve, Special Reserve, Limited Release or countless obscure single vineyard designations. In all my years of wine exploration, I have not paid much attention to this word, until now, after a tasting of some older Pinot Noirs from the well respected Carneros winery, Schug.The tasting, held at the winery in a special cave with a long dining table, was led by their winemaker Michael Cox. It[...]
WITNESS HOW SAUSAGE IS MADE; THE PUBLICATION PROCESS
As I prepare my second book for publication I am increasingly realizing that a writer's life revolves around three phases with each project, writing itself being one of them, but less than a third. The mechanics of submitting for publication, the second, is grunge work, with numerous stumbles along the way. The longest phase is post-publication publicity, which, for most projects, never ends.I am currently deep within the grinder of the publication process. This has its own various stages. Self-publishing removes what for most writers is the most daunting first step of the process: finding a publisher. With Dogmeat, my[...]
WHO INVENTED “VARIETALS”?
"I can't make out the varietal!"This is a common utterance in our Friday night blind tastings when we are stomped with a puzzling bottle of wine, members of our group rarely offering easy to identify examples. As we struggle to make sense of the puzzle swishing on our palates, our minds are programmed to fit the experience into memory categories based on varietals. When we can easily identify the varietal we are more than half way to solving the conundrum: the identity of the wine.We are not the only ones whose wine knowledge is founded on contrast between varietals. So[...]
TITLE TROUBLES
Two months ago I ran into Bob Lawrence, a local pathologist and erudite socialite. He was dining at Wine Wizard's with his elegant wife Eleanor. Bob loved my book Dogmeat and penned a positive review for it on Amazon.com. I told them that my new short story book was ready for publication. When they asked me what the title would be I said Appassionata, and told them what the flagship story entailed. They surprised me with a firm response that they would not buy a book with that title, nor would others. This touched off a rare crisis of confidence[...]
CHENIN BLANC RENAISSANCE? WHO KNEW!
Eric Asimov, a wine columnist for the New York Times penned a recent article, published last August, in which he announced a renaissance of Chenin Blanc in the United States. Apparently a dozen new California producers have joined those who never quit making Chenin Blanc, and they, along with others in Oregon and New York State, are driving this revival. The news caught me by surprise, for not only did I not know about this, but more surprisingly, I didn’t notice the decline of the varietal. New World Chenin Blanc has been off my radar for decades. Lettie[...]