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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I’m thrilled to be hosting the next Wine Blogging Wednesday (#67) right here on 1WineDude.com, which will take place on Wednesday, March 24th!

I haven’t hosted a WBW event since November 2008 (WBW #51), so I wanted to make sure that I had a really cool theme for the event – and I think the one that WBW founder Lenn Thompson and I agreed on is pretty cool and will generate some great discussion.

The Theme

This month’s WBW theme is Seeing Red For the First Time.

To participate, you’ll need to pick a red wine that you would use to introduce a white wine drinker to red wines for the first time.  Think of a person that only ever drinks white wine, and answer the question: What Red Wine would I use to convince that white-wine-only person that they should also drink reds?

Include a review of the wine, and be sure to tell us why you chose that style of wine, or that wine in particular (or both).

We’ve deliberately kept this theme open-ended so you can go as crazy as you like in your choices.  ANY still red wine is eligible (including Rose wines, provided that they’re made primarily of red varieties).

Would you ease them into the world of reds with an off-dry Rose? Or go full-bore and knock their socks off with a classic, expensive, explosive fruit bomb?  You decide!

The Logistics

The way that WBW works (in summary): You get a wine that lines up with the theme, you review said wine, post your review and related thoughts, and send a link to the host, who will then summarize the event and write a wrap-up with a link to your review.

So, to participate in this round of WBW, post a comment to 1WineDude.com on or before March 24th (either comment on this post, or to my WBW post that will appear on March 24), and include the link to your review.

Easy-peasy-nice-and-squeezy.  Please spread the word, this one is going to be fun and has the chance to introduce many of us to Reds that we might not otherwise be trying – and that’s always a good time!

I know that I’m looking forward to reading what you come up with!

Cheers!

(image: matteogonet.com)

When it’s cold outside, as it has been the last few weeks in the Mid-Atlantic, one craves a wine that is… warming, big, bold.  When there’s a blizzard, as there was in the Mid-Atlantic not too long ago, one doesn’t reach for Orvieto; one reaches for something, well, just… obnoxious.

Bone-warming wine calls for dark color, big fruit, and – most of all – hot toddy levels of booze (at least).  So naturally, one raids the zinfandel area of the sample bin. At least, that’s what one does when one is 1WineDude and one has my sample bins.

What came out, though, was actually not a sample but a bottle of 2004 Zinfandel wine I’d purchased myself for $50 in Sonoma a couple of years ago, from Wellington Vineyards.

At 15.5% abv, it certainly fit the bill for “potentially obnoxious” but what really pulled me in was the fact that when the vines whose fruit eventually produced this wine were planted, St. John’s in Newfoundland was on fire, St. Petersburg was incorporated in Florida, Benjamin Harrison was president of the United States, and a new small company called General Electric was founded.

The year was 1892.

Now that is some old vine ‘Old Vine’ Zinfandel…

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I’m sorry, but someone had to say it.

Men should not wear cowboy hats.  Well, most men shouldn’t wear cowboy hats.

They’re not cool.  Cowboy hats look cool on approximately 0.002% of the U.S. population, and most of those are women, so sorry guys – chances are you are not in that population subset.

As evidence, I submit two photos from the Rocca Family Vineyards website.  As is evident in the following examples, Patrick Swayze-style hair appears infinitely cooler than covering that same hair underneath a cowboy hat:

There is wine involved in this, of course – happily, Rocca Cabernet, from Napa’s Yountville area, is a darn sight tastier than Rocca’s cowboy hat-sportin’ fashion sense…

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I should just cut to the chase and tell you that the first releases from Rossi-Wallace border on beguiling, and that you should buy them now if you can, especially given their limited production.

But that’s just downright boring, right?  So, I feel obligated to kind of, you know, spruce it all up a bit.

I’ve been sitting on samples of the inaugural releases of Rossi-Wallace’s 2007 Napa Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for months – well, not literally sitting on them, of course, just quietly ignoring them in my cellar… ah, you get the idea…

I suppose that’s a sad commentary of just how behind I am in tasting samples.  A sadder commentary still is that I wasn’t already familiar with Rossi-Wallace’s winemaking team, despite the fact that  Ric Forman and Cheryl Emmolo have been involved in Napa wine in some way/shape/form for 40+ years.

Clearly, their time and experience have been very, very well-spent.

Rossi-Wallace’s namesake is a clever combination of the names of Forman’s and Emmolo’s red-headed mothers – just so you don’t confuse this post’s Carrot-top-reference in the title (we’re NOT talking about the comedian who seems hell-bent on trying to become a  Thundercats’ Liono look-alike wearing a tuxedo).

I could regurgitate the information on their website and press materials about the care and techniques they brought to bear on the first releases of their new label, but you’re smart folks and you can read all of that yourselves.  The bottom line is that if you like your Chardonnay and Pinot Noir to have the in-your-face, indelible stamp of modern, bombastic California winemaking, then these are NOT the wines for you…

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I love you people – you sure have some intelligent opinions!

My open discussion on whether or not 1WineDude.com should implement a rating system for its wine reviews generated just a teeny bit of discussion… as in over 70 comments worth of discussion!

There was a poll as well, for those who prefer to have their say without commenting. 

The results?

The poll ended up over 60% favoring the addition of ratings (see the previous post for an explanation of how those ratings would work). 

The comments had a slight majority in favor, with the remaining roughly comments falling into the following groups (in descending order of responses):

• It’s your blog, do whatever you want.
• I don’t like ratings but I’ll forgive you if you use them.
• Please, please, please do NOT do this.

Despite the fact that the majority of responses to the wine rating question were in favor, the mix of poll results and comments didn’t strike me as the type of majority that implies a Dick-Cheney-style voting “clear mandate of the people.”  I’m not sure it feels right.

So what am I gonna do?

Well… I’m gonna compromise…

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