I get my fair share of wine samples, with a large proportion coming from California.  This is due mostly to proximity (regional wines), as well as the fact that the CA makes a the vast majority of U.S. wine, hence the large number of CA samples stopping on my doorstep.

Most of those CA samples come with some form of wine information / tech sheets, and when they do, those tech sheets almost invariably contain a vintage report.

An utterly useless vintage report.

The vintage report is often utterly useless because no one ever says anything except that the grapes ended the vintage with optimal ripeness.

It’s become a joke for me, a game almost, to see if any of these press release vintage reports would ever admit that the grapes absolutely fried on the vine this year, or that they ended up greener than an under-ripe banana. It will probably never happen.

So I decided to do CA wine PR folks a favor, and I’ve created a template below that can freely be used as the vintage report for any CA wine! I’ve taken some minor liberties, primarily to make the choices sexier, because let’s face it, sex sells even when it comes to vintage reports.  If you’re in PR, you can simply circle the appropriate response and not have to bother with the rest!  Anyway, you can thank me later!…

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Just when you think that the topic of wine is starting to make sense and really come together for you, you’ll probably encounter the convention of naming large format wine bottles.

That should put you firmly back in your lowly place, since the convention of naming bottle sizes carries on the storied wine tradition of utilizing differing standards in order to confuse the living hell out of you.

I’ve been “thinking big,” as in large format bottles, since I recently won a 3L bottle of Faust 2006 Napa Valley Cabernet via the Palate Press Wine For Haiti auction.

The bottle is gorgeous (see inset pic), and it’s basically a Valentine’s Day gift for my wife, to be opened at our 10 or 15 year anniversary party (probably the 10… we’re not very patient).  The trouble is, I don’t know what to call it.

Before we get into that, I should tell you a bit about Faust itself, I suppose.

Faust is the brainchild of Napa legend Agustin Huneeus, who started up Quintessa, owns Veramonte, and had a hand in making other stalwart Napa wines like Franciscan.  It’s a big wine, but balanced and tight as a drum early on due to it’s massive, dark structure.  It’s like the Darth Vader of Napa Cabs, and is (more or less) Quintessa’s more-affordable-but-still-pretty-damned-good “second wine.” Damned-good… Get it?  Faust… damned… Ok, I’ll stop now…

As far as the 2006 goes, it’s 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot, 3% Malbec, and 1% Cabernet Franc – all from Agustin’s family vineyards in Rutherford and Atlas Peak.  As far as Hunees goes, according to the Faust website, “He also believes that numerical ratings, as they are used today, are an aberration.”  Strong words.

Interestingly (as far as the bottle size discussion goes), I first tried this Faust vintage (via sample) in a 375 ml half-bottle.  I’ve yet to have the wine from a “normal” 750 ml.

Anyway, on to the good and the ugly of this situation…

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Actually, let’s take those in reverse order.

Here’s the deal – I have a love/hate affair with organic wines.  I love the fact that they’re organic and environmentally-friendly; I hate many of the wines because they’re not any good.

And I’m convinced that enough wine consumers have reached a similar conclusion that they actually avoid buying wines labeled as Organic, which is why many good wines that could be labeled as officially organic don’t bother to mention this on their labels (see Alder Yarrow’s take on the subject of Organic wine labeling).

It’s not all organic wines that suck, and there are many excellent, premium wines that farm organically or biodynamically.  But the extreme cases have a loooooong way to go before they will appeal to the average consumer.

Take Stellar Organics for example.  Amazing things they’re doing for the environment and their community.  BUT… they make a line of ‘No Sulfites Added’ wines (essentially, the only sulfites in the wines are those produced naturally in the winemaking process), and the samples I tried of those wines just aren’t very good.  To the mini-review tape:…

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• 05 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley): Wild berry party spoiled by too much green, too little body, & too high a price tag $100 B #
• 05 Freiherr Langwerth von Simmern Rauenthaler Baiken Riesling Spatlese (Rheingau): Stately, clean & just a *tiny* bit cloying. $40 A- #
• 05 Wolffer Estate Claletto (Long Island): Fab Amarone-style Cab from stellar year. Focused black fruits = Awesome. VA = not-awesome $85 B+ #
• 06 Hamilton Russell Vineyards Pinot Noir (Walker Bay): Would be lovely, if not for the prominent & nasty burnt tire & band-aid aromas. $37 D #
• NV Diebolt-Vallois Blanc de Blancs Brut (Champagne): Red apples & baked bread launched at tasty velocity towards your taste buds. $42 A #
• 02 Domaine Des Baumard Savennieres (Loire): Touch of honey & a lot of awesome. W/ that acid, this CB ain’t goin anywhere anytime soon. $30 A #
• 08 Deerfield Ranch Los Chamizal Chardonnay (Sonoma Valley): Give it time & peach & apple will appear. So will the midpalate heat, tho $28 B- #
• 06 Deerfield Ranch Red Rex (Sonoma County): Capable kitchen-sink red blend, but you’d better like black raspberry before attempting! $28 B- #
• 09 Grey’s Peak Sauvignon Blanc (Waipara): Like a barrel full of monkeys. Monkeys made of lemongrass, limes, gooseberries & firm acids. $18 A #

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This week, Alder Yarrow posted video coverage of the Wine Writing & Social Media panel discussion that he moderated at the most recent Wine Writers Symposium held in Napa.

I was fortunate to have attended the Symposium and to have sat in on the panel that Alder moderated.  It’s great to have the video captured for posterity, and in hindsight I’m not sure whether to laugh or to cry at the state of wine writing and its monetization possibilities.

In summary, there have probably never been so many challenges combined with so many potential opportunities when it comes to writing about wine and making any money while doing it.

The challenge is that, as we said in the panel discussion, “the genie is out of the bag” when it comes to free content and wine: people expect to be able to get high quality content about wine on the Internet, and pay nothing for it.  This is putting severe downward pressure on wine writing payment in general.

The opportunity is that the market for consuming information about wine has never been larger, and the price of entry is free, for now.  Personally, I fully expect that market to become saturated, after which it will become expensive to enter, and it won’t expand again for probably ten years.  If you want the details on that, well, you’re gonna have to watch my not-so-pretty face on the video!  Actually, fellow panelists Doug Cook, Steve Heimoff, and Patrick Comiskey make the video well worthwhile despite my inappropriately timed humor.

Would love to know your thoughts on this – please check out the video, and shout out in the comments; where is the future of wine writing and its monetization going?  To hell in a hand basket? Or soaring to new heights?

Cheers!

Last week, I had the pleasure of being the guest on WineBizRadio, the great Sonoma-based wine business radio program with which most of you savvy readers will already be familiar.

I always enjoy riffing with show hosts Kaz and Randy, and I had a fantastic time discussing the recent Wine Writers Symposium (Facebook fan page), Premiere Napa Valley, and “the-wine-life-in-general” (by which I mean wine writing and, more specifically, the inability to make a decent living wage while writing about wine).  Except for that “my voice always sounds more nasally and higher pitched when I hear it on the radio” thing.

Anyway, I thought it would be a fun way to wrap up the coverage on the Wine Writers Symposium and the craziness of PNV (although I’m sure it’s not actually getting wrapped up totally… I’ve got tons I could talk about from those events…).

As an added bonus, in this episode of WBR Kaz-The-Wise explains how any wine blogger can quickly make money, provided they’re not too concerned about ethics. :-)

Enjoy (embedded audio below)…

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