Author: lgsjr

Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars

It gets a little confusing writing about Stag’s Leap (https://www.stagsleapwinecellars.com/).  It’s all about the apostrophe.  The district or AVA it’s in is Stags Leap (no apostrophe), a simple statement that stags do leap. Stags’ Leap (with a trailing apostrophe) refers to the leap used by many stags and is also a different winery nearby, best known for its Petite Sirah.  And the leap used by a single stag – Stag’s Leap – is the one we’re talking about here.

Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars is a winery of almost mythical importance in Napa Valley.  Started by Warren Winiarski in 1972, his Cabernet Sauvignon was the winner of the famous Judgement of Paris contest in 1976 that put Napa Valley solidly on the map of Wine Country.  In 2007, Mr. Winiarski sold Stag’s Leap to an international consortium and it hasn’t been the same since.

That last sentence might be interpreted negatively, but it was only intended to say that for the visiting wine taster, the experience is totally different from what it once was.  We make no secret about our nostalgia for the old Stag’s Leap and have written about it in the past.  It was the House that Winiarski built, made of wood and redolent of history.

Today’s visitor will find a modern, architecturally interesting building made of stone and glass.  After you park your car, you approach the building through a garden of desert shrubs.  If that seems a bit strange for Napa Valley, we think it’s just to set you up for the lushness of the vineyards on display behind the building.  As soon as you enter into the building, you’ll be welcomed by a concierge, as they call their greeters, who will first check if you have a reservation and then direct you to an server whoa will introduce you to their wines.  Through a vast glass window, you see some of the most storied vineyards in California: S.L.V. and Fay.  These have been producing top tier Cabernet Sauvignons for decades and each produces single vineyard wines.  (It was the S.L.V. that was the victor in Paris.)  They also make a wine called Cask 23, which combines the grapes from the two vineyards.  There is another nearby vineyard where they raise grapes for Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, but it’s the reds that make Stag’s Leap famous.

 

Visitors are presented with all of these wines.  We recommend that you ask your server to pour all three of the Cabs at the same time so you can go back and forth and compare them.  We also suggest that you ask if they have any of their Artemis Cabernet Sauvignon available.  This wine is a blend of sourced grapes from around Napa Valley.  Call us Philistines but we often like this wine as much as its more reputed big sisters.

On the basis of several visits, we find that the servers are quite friendly but not deeply knowledgeable about the wines they are pouring.  They’re more hosts than educators.  But they are well-versed in the history of the winery and seem eager to make certain that you enjoy your visit to the maximum.

No, Stag’s Leap isn’t what it once was, but what is?  It is only fair to rate the winery on the basis of the experience and the wines that you have today.  And on both scores, a visit to Stag’s Leap rates high.

 

Taking Wine Back Home

It happens so often.  You’re on vacation in Wine Country and you taste a wine that’s just so good.  You must buy some to have as a souvenir of your wonderful trip.  The bottle gets carefully packed in your checked luggage and stored in that special place you have for your best wines.  It’s being saved for a special occasion.  But when that day comes, you open the bottle and…meh.  “What was I thinking?” you ask yourself while you finish the bottle in disappointment.

You hear people say, “This wine just doesn’t travel”.  Malarkey!  That may be true for a well-aged Bordeaux that has accumulated a lot of sediment, but not for a new release that you try at most wineries.

What happened, and what can you do about it?

  • Everything is better on vacation. When you go wine tasting, you become enthralled with the beauty of the vineyards, the friendliness of the server, the elegance of the tasting room, the beautiful weather, some of the above, all of the above.  Your dining room table is very nice, but it can’t compare to the emotional pull of a long-remembered vacation.  The best advice is not to try to remember what the wine was like back then and to enjoy if for what it is now.  But if you must, try to recreate the memory of that special time.  Talk about it, especially with your Significant Other who shared that experience with you.  The memory won’t make the wine taste better but it might make you feel better about it.

Vinho verde.  Photo courtesy of visitportoandnorth.travel

  • It’s not the same wine anymore. When you tasted that wine, it was young.  If you’ve stored it for a couple of years, it has changed.  Some wines improve with age, but there are many that don’t.  Most Portuguese vinho verde shouldn’t see its second birthday.  A lot of Zinfandels are meant to be drunk when released.  If your save-for-a-special-occasion wine is like one of those, you might want to have that occasion shortly after you arrive back home.
  • You waited too long. Sometimes a bottle just seems to find a spot in the rack that you don’t notice.  Years go by, other purchases are made and then one day you find that special bottle, almost forgotten.  Did it bake in the summers gone by?  Has it reached and passed its peak?  It’s not a bad idea to let some wines age, but it’s a very good idea to remember that you have something special and not let it pass its time.
  • It may be even better than you remember. As noted above, with time it’s not the same as the wine you tasted. If you bought well and stored the wine well, time can often smooth out some roughness and give deep-seated flavors a chance to emerge and reach their peak.  When that happens, revel in the experience and remember the day you bought it.  It’s days like those that make wine tasting so special.

Jerome, Arizona

The State of Arizona is a wonderland for vacationers.  There are the thriving metropolis of Phoenix and its tony suburb, Scottsdale, where you can visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West.  Natural beauties abound.  There are the magnificent red rocks of Sedona, the Painted Desert and more stunning than any other natural wonder is the Grand Canyon.  We encourage you to avail yourself of all the best that Arizona has to offer.

And if you have one more day, we suggest you drive to the tiny village of Jerome.  Once a thriving mining town, Jerome once had 15,000 residents.  But then the mine closed, the people left and it became a veritable ghost town.  Today, Jerome has been revived as…well, there’s no other way to say it, Jerome is a tourist destination.  Not a trap, it’s too much for that.  But it exists only so that tourists can come look at it, eat a meal or two, buy souvenirs and leave.

Jerome as it once was… Photo courtesy of the Jerome Grand Hotel.

So why are we featuring it as a Place to Visit in Power Tasting?  Because there are local wines to taste in Jerome.

…And as it is today.  Photo courtesy of Experience Scottsdale.

Every state in America has vineyards.  The three Pacific states make world renowned wines.  A few others are producing some creditable wines.  It is Power Tasting’s policy not to say bad things about any winery, but we aren’t urging you to make the journey to Jerome just for the wines.  But we do recommend that you make it if you are in the area.

Getting there is half the fun, if your idea of fun is driving up a long, steep road.  You are rewarded for that drive by magnificent views across the desert.  If you’re the one driving, keep your eyes on the road; if you’re a passenger, try not to let your knuckles get too white.

Once you get into town and find somewhere to park, the best thing to do is just walk around.  In some ways, Jerome is small-town America, with the emphasis on “small”.  In another, it’s a lovingly recreated (and somewhat embellished) corner of the now-lost West.  There are no gunfights on Main Street and probably never were, but there are saloons, cafes, galleries and restored buildings.

And there are winery tasting rooms.  Among them are Caduceus Cellars, Merkin Vineyards, Jerome Winery, Vina Zona, Echo Canyon and others.  Most of them offer a fairly wide selection of wines, starting with the expected varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel.  But many feature less common grapes like Aglianico, Nebbiolo, Garnacha and blends of just about anything they can grow.  We don’t think that any of these grapes were intended for production in the High Chaparral, but there are some hardy pioneers who are doing it.

A visit to Jerome may not reward the avid wine taster with a life-changing experience.  But you can have a fun day visiting a restored ghost town.  And when you get home, you can brag that you tasted wines made in Arizona.

Recognizing Bad Wine

When you go wine tasting, you don’t expect to like everything you try.  In most cases, that’s simply a matter of taste.  No winery is capable of appealing to everyone and no visitor is required to like everything he or she samples.  But here we’re not talking about a wine you just don’t enjoy.  It doesn’t happen often but in some rare cases, the wine that’s put in you glass is simply tainted.  Sadly, it happens with bottles that you bring home from the store, too.

Photo courtesy of Sentara Healthcare.

When it happens in a tasting room, it’s fairly important to recognize the flaw in what you’re tasting and report it to the server or the tasting room manager.  They want to know if there’s a problem and prevent shipment of wines that are simply bad.  Each of the following instances has happened to us at one time or another although, as we say, it’s been rare.

  • Brett This taint is caused by the presence of a yeast called Brettanomyces, or brett for short. It is a bit difficult to discuss, for two reasons.  The first is that brett is only described in euphemisms, most often as “barnyard smell”.  It’s easy to get the point: Brett makes wine smell and taste really bad.  But the other difficulty is that some people (including winemakers) actually like a little bit of that smell.  And who’s to say much is “a little bit”?  Brett seems more prevalent in Pinot Noir, especially French Burgundies and is much sought after by some connoisseurs.  But if brett shows up in your glass and it’s clearly too much, mention it to your server, but be prepared to be told, “It’s supposed to taste that way.”
  • Corked wine Winemakers are not responsible for corked wine, but cork manufacturers are. There are some fungi in cork trees which may appear when the bark of trees is turned into bottle closures.  It’s a chemical called TCA (2,4,6 – trichloroanisole) or simply TCA.  Once in contact with the wine, it imparts an aroma and taste that is often described as wet cardboard.  Once corked, the wine cannot recover, no matter how long it’s aged or left to air out.  We were once at a renowned winery that is famous for their attention to the science involved in winemaking.  After a tour, we were served in a pleasant tasting room.  And to our dismay, the first Chardonnay served was corked.  We immediately told the server, who was abashed to be sure and she quickly took the cork.  The manufacturer and batch were identified on it.  She took it to the lab people in the back so they could eliminate those corks from future production. That’s why servers should smell the wine before pouring from a new bottle, avoiding serving corked wine to visitors.  This one did not.
  • Wine fault There are some cases in which a wine has an off taste, such as rotten eggs, discarded motor oil or swamp. In our experience, this problem occurs rarely, most often following a below average harvest.  Some winemakers, rather than accepting the fact that they won’t get good wine that year, play with it, adding chemicals and using techniques to “boost’ the wine.  In a few cases, all that effort just makes a poor wine into a bad one.  We well remember tasting the poor 2011 vintage at one of Napa Valley’s most famous wineries.  One of the wines tasted…rotten.  Our server told us that the wine was still young and would improve with age.  We tried using a Clef du Vin to see if age would make a difference, but it didn’t.  We have since been back to that winery, but we’re always on our guard when we taste there.

Testing Your Glasses

Of course, you can always taste wine at home.  We do so every day, with our dinner.  But that’s not the same thing as a wine tasting.  A true wine tasting requires more than glasses and bottles.  It requires attention to the aromas and tastes that emanate from your glass, to the way the glass affects your senses, to the color and viscosity of the liquid and, most of all, to the pleasure one wine gives as differentiated from another.

So since you won’t be in a winery’s tasting room in the immediate future, here’s an idea for having a wine tasting experience in the comfort of your own home.  It will work at any time, and we have tried it out in the past.  It’s particularly fun in these difficult days.

Photo courtesy of Wine Cooler Direct.

  • Choose your glasses. If you’re like us, you probably have a lot of wine glasses.  Some are for everyday use, others for special occasions.  Maybe you have some for reds, others for whites and still others for Champagne.  And perhaps there a few of those little tasting glasses that you might use for dessert wines. For this experience, choose several of them.
  • Choose a wine you know you enjoy. This is no fun with plonk.  (Oh, that’s right, you don’t have any plonk in your cellar.)  No matter how fancy the glass, lousy wine is never going to taste good.  Now pour some of the chosen wine into each glass.
  • Experience the wines in each glass. This is the real effort you need to make.  Don’t just sniff and sip.  Think about what you’re doing and how the same wine differs from glass to glass.  Smell the wine in each glass before tasting any.  Really breathe them in.  Notice any differences?  Try to put those into words.  Now do the same after tasting each one.  Discuss with your significant other.  We have been surprised how much aroma we get from a tasting glass. This is because of the shape of the glass, which wraps around your nose while smelling the wine.
  • Decide which glass you prefer and use that glass for the rest of the bottle. You might be surprised and you might not agree.  That’s okay.  The whole reason for wine tasting is to suss out what you like and don’t like (or at least like less).  And it’s just fine if the two of you like different glasses.
  • You’ll get the maximum advantage of such a test if you can articulate why you prefer one glass over another. “It tastes better” doesn’t say much.  “I get an immediate impact right at the front of my tongue with this glass and the taste seems to linger longer.”  Now that’s saying something, and since everybody’s mouths and tastes are different, it’s not unusual to get different opinions.

Reidel is surely the world’s largest manufacturer of quality stemware (and some wares without stems).  We’re not sure how many different types of glasses they make.  We looked at their catalog and stopped counting when we realized that they make hundreds of different kinds.  No one, maybe not even the Reidel family, uses hundreds of glasses but if you do have several in your cabinet, it’s a lot of fun to test them with the same wine, one next to the others.

 

The Perfect Winery

With wineries shuttered in California and much of Europe, it seems somehow wrong to review a particular wine tasting establishment this month.   (Was it only a month ago that we were happily writing about Far Niente?)  So we have taken a backward glance at all the wineries we have visited over a lifetime of this wonderful diversion of wine tasting and suggest our idea of the perfect winery visit.  If there is a winery in heaven, this is it.

The perfect winery would definitely be situated in the midst of a verdant vineyard.  You’d enter the property up a long driveway, with vines on either side.  And of course, we’d be there in early September, so the vines would be heavy with grapes.  A good example can be found at Trefethen, in Napa Valley’s Oak Knoll AVA.

Photo courtesy of Château Pichon Baron.

The building itself would be real, not a castle built to impress winery visitors.  Chateau Montelena in Calistoga is probably the most beautiful we have visited.  It was a rich man’s mansion in the 19th century and has been used for winemaking since the 1970’s.  Of course, it might actually be a castle, or rather a château.  There are many such to be found in Europe, especially in France of course.  It’s tough to choose just one, but we are especially taken by Château Pichon Baron in Bordeaux.

In addition to the beauty of the building, the perfect winery would have an artistic or cultural attraction at a level consistent with the quality of the wines.  A tour at Mouton Rothschild includes a visit to their museum of wine art, but we cannot think of a winery-cum-museum that can top Hess Collection in Napa.  The display of modern art, mostly abstract, would be right at home at any art institute in the world.

Photo courtesy of the Hess Collection.

The tasting room would not be a bar.  It would look like and feel like a plush but refined salon with beautiful furnishings.  You’d be welcome and made comfortable, with a server who has a great deal of knowledge not only about their offerings but about wine in general, a real sommelier or educator.  There are many tasting rooms like this that we’ve been lucky enough to see in our travels, but Jordan in Alexander Valley sticks in our mind as our favorite.

And then there would be the wines – what wines!  In the whites, there would be Dry Creek’s Sauvignon Blanc and Etude’s Heirloom Chardonnay.  Beringer Private Reserve would be the Cabernet Sauvignon they’d serve, and the Bordeaux blend would be (naturally) a Bordeaux from Château Margaux.  There would be some Boisrenard de Beaurenard for Rhone-style red wine.  Sangiovese fans would be treated to a well-aged Biondi-Santi Brunello and those with tastes for Spanish wine could enjoy a Vega Sicilia.  Oh, yes, there would be Château Yquem for dessert.

Photo courtesy of Château Yquem.

Hey, you can’t blame us for dreaming, especially in times like these.

 

 

A Fantastic Place to Visit

Each month Power Tasting features a Place to Visit.  It’s in Wine Country somewhere, but is not necessarily wine-related.  We’ve taken you to small villages, medieval cities, a trade show and great wine bars.  This month, we’d like to suggest that everyone take a very close look at a very special place: your own immediate neighborhood.

We live in Manhattan’s West Village sector.  When it’s not raining, we take brief walks and we get to see our neighborhood in a very different way.  The streets are almost deserted, both of cars and pedestrians.  There are more people in the park than we’d like, so we avoid it most of the time.  Some people are wearing masks; most aren’t.

But it’s still New York and it’s still spring.  We don’t know a lot about flowering trees but we think Google is telling us that the white ones are calley pear trees and the pink ones are well, pretty pink trees.

We’re walking along streets we don’t usually take.  Even though West Street is on one side of our apartment building, we don’t usually walk there because there’s really no place to go.  Normally, the traffic on this major artery alongside the river is quite heavy, so a walk amidst the fumes isn’t very inviting.  But with the traffic almost all gone, it’s more pleasant, even though there’s still nothing very interesting along it.  But with our horizons shrinking in, we have found a little spot where the city has planted a mini-garden and a park bench, sadly often occupied by a homeless fellow.  There are a few restaurants we have pledged to try when the city re-opens.  And we’re seeing the back end of the Whitney Museum, a view we don’t usually get.

When we have gotten into Hudson River Park on a bright sunny day, we see New York in suspended animation.  There’s the biergarten that will hopefully return with warmer weather.  An interesting statue of the New York symbol, the Big Apple.  The river itself, with fewer boats than usual.  Two long piers, one that reaches well into the Hudson and provides stunning views of the city.  Remember, all these sights are not more than ten minutes from our door, on foot.

We live along the Hudson River

New York is all about BIG.  But these days, we’re seeing New York in miniature.  We take the time to notice the 19th century row houses, the cobblestone streets, the tall, new glass-and-steel apartments and the chipping paint on some of the older ones.  We know those things were there before but now we’re seeing them as the only parts of outdoors that are readily available to us.  Quite frankly, we look forward to the time when we will walk by these things without taking special notice.  When we’ll smile at passers-by, not walk into the street to avoid breathing the same air as they do.  When we can board a plane and go wine tasting.

It will be better someday.  But our neighborhood will always be a place to visit.  And then, when you do, you’ll be able to stop in a trattoria for a glass of wine.

Staying Home

Like everyone else, we’re staying home. Yes, we go out for walks around the neighborhood and in the park across the street.  But there are still too many people about and not enough of them are wearing masks.  So mostly we’re indoors.  Here are some wine-related activities we’re engaging in (different than usual in some respects) that you might be doing as well.  And please send your ideas for other blues-chasers to lgsjr@powertasting.com or leave a comment here.

  • Zoom happy hours Since we can’t get together with friends, we do it virtually. We held a Passover-commencing event, with red wine in hand.  A few days later, it was an Easter family gathering (in French) with a Champagne toast.   We all wondered why we didn’t do that more often.  We’re setting up two-on-two happy hours now with friends far and wide.  Yes, we know all about the potential security problems with Zoom, but we haven’t experienced them.  If Beijing wants to listen in to our friendly conversations, we can live with that.
  • Raiding the stash We suppose that most Power Tasting readers always have some wine at home and they’ve put aside a few bottles that they consider “special occasion” wine. With Passover and Easter in the past month, there were a few occasions that were indeed special.  But then there were evenings that were, well, just Tuesdays or Thursdays.  We’d make a little nicer meal and open one of those stashed-away bottles.  It’s hard to feel celebratory these days, but a great wine does dull the pain.

Photo courtesy of The Spruce Eats

  • Pizza night We sorely miss going to restaurants, and we bet you do, too. A lot of our favorites said they’d be open for pickup and delivery. That doesn’t seem to be working out too well for them, so they’ve stopped.  But pizzerias have always had a delivery business, so some but not all are still going.  We’ve been ordering on Friday evenings.  Some of the pizza places in our neighborhood have wine as well, so we order from them, if only to help their revenue a bit more.  One had a pretty good Nero d’Avola, so we bought a few extra bottles before they stopped delivering.  Another had a pretty poor Primitivo; we’ll stick with our own wine the next time.
  • Having an occasional digestif Cognac and Armagnac are wines, so to speak, if you push the boundaries of drinks made from grapes rather far. Whiskey and Rum would be wine if grapes grew where they make these liquors.
  • Ordering more The California wineries depend heavily on tasting room traffic for their profitability. Without us wine tasters stopping by, they’re not doing as well.  We’re getting a lot of sales phone calls from our wine clubs, and even from some wineries we have visited but are not members.  We’re doing our bit by joining another club and buying a bit more than usual.

Far Niente Winery

If you plan to visit Far Niente (https://farniente.com) for a tasting – and it is a very pleasant visit – there are a few things you should know.  For one, you really do need an appointment.  Tastings are restricted to no more than eight people at a time, which enhances the experience for those who do make reservations.  The second is to consult a map.  Maybe Google has improved its map service recently, but our experience is that following the GPS on your phone gets you way, way lost.

The Far Niente winery.  Photo courtesy of Far Niente.

Once you have found your way there, you’ll encounter a beautiful stone manor.  It is palatial, but it’s not a Napa Palace.  It’s a home that was built in 1885 and restored in the late 1970’s by Gil Nickel, the ancestor of some of the current owners.  It is surrounded by acres of gardens and the estate is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

On arrival, you are given the sense that you are guests in a gracious home.  There is no bar to belly up to; rather you are in a salon with a large table at one end set not for dinner but for a few glasses of wine.  Once all the visitors are assembled, you are given an introductory lecture on the history of the estate, the winery and Far Niente’s approach to sustainable agriculture.  You are then led on a winery tour.  It’s a fine enough tour, but with regard to winemaking it is generally similar to those given at other top-end wineries.  There is only so much variation on the theme of growing grapes and transforming them into wine.

A corner of Far Niente’s antique car collection.

But a tour at Far Niente has a unique attraction.  At a certain point in your tour you are ushered into a large garage – really more of an indoor parking lot – full of Gil Nickel’s collection of antique cars.  There are race cars, delivery trucks, touring cars and a few motorcycles and a Rolls Royce.  You are invited to ogle these perfectly maintained specimens, on the basis of “look but don’t touch”.  Rarely would we complain about moving on to a tasting, but you don’t get to see cars like these every day!

The tasting itself is a seated affair at the aforementioned table in the salon.  There will be a recent vintage Chardonnay, often a Pinot Noir and always one or more of Far Niente’s justly famous Cabernet Sauvignons.  Each wine is carefully explained by your host/guide/server.  Little extras, like a dessert wine from their sister vineyard, usually appear.

If there is any negative to your visit, it’s the somewhat heavy sales pitch of Far Niente’s wine club.  Joining is, of course optional, but just a brief mention might suffice.

This winery, nestled in the foothills of the Mayacamas, is a destination for those who enjoy the total winery experience, with fine wines as the main draw.  From cars to Cabs, it’s well worth finding your way there.

VinExpo New York 2020

This month’s Places to Visit article is about a place most wine lovers can’t visit.  It’s a trade show that was held in March in New York City’s Javits Center for the international wine trade.  As Power Tasting’s reporters are considered to be “trade”, we were able to attend and are pleased to offer our readers an account of what the event was all about.

Part of the French pavilion at VineExpo New York 2020.

It was mostly about the business of wine.  In particular, growers from all over the world sought importers and distributors so that they could sell their wines in the US, especially on the Eastern Seaboard.  And of course, importers and distributors were looking for new producers without the expense of travelling overseas.  [VinExpo New York occurred on March 2 and 3, after the coronavirus had begun to spread but before it was the worldwide crisis it has become.]

Wines were displayed (and tasted) from all over the globe: France, Italy and Spain being the most prominently positioned, but Brazil, the Czech Republic, South Africa and Georgia also had sizable exhibits.  (That’s Georgia from the Caucasus, not from Dixie.)  There was a huge tasting area for organic wines.  There were also numerous exhibits of wine accompaniments, such as glasses, barware and preservation systems.

Jeffrey Franklin of the Society of Wine Educators discussing (and tasting) with Armelle Cruse and Paul Maron of Cru Bourgeois du Medoc.

There were also many lectures and curated tastings.  These were split between sessions that were clearly for those in the wine business, such as a panel discussion sponsored by Wine Spectator on “The Changing World of Wine Retail in the US” and others that were about wines from certain locations, such as the Czech Republic and Sonoma County.  Not surprisingly, the lectures that included tastings were the ones most widely attended.

So what was to be learned that is of interest to (shall we say “non-professional”) wine tasters?

  • Wine is a business and internationally it’s a big business. From the casual buyer to the connoisseur, wine drinkers buy hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of wine each year.  We learned that this market is expected to grow to more than $400 billion by 2023.  As a group, we wine tasters have some economic clout.
  • Some very good wines are being made in places other than those we’re accustomed to. Brazilian sparkling wine?  Not bad.  Czech Muller-Thurgau?  Worth sipping.  With wine being made in all fifty of the United States, we Americans shouldn’t be surprised by other countries’ entry into the market.
  • Small producers have a tough time breaking into the US market. Of course, this does not come as a shock.  With the shipper, the importer, the distributor and the retailer (or restaurateur) adding their costs to the price of a bottle, it is either not financially feasible for many small wine houses to sell here or for many customers to take a chance with a virtually unknown wine.
  • There’s more to the wine business than wine. Somebody makes money selling the rack you store the wine in, the gizmo you use to pull out the cork and the glasses you sip it from.  Of course, you knew that.  But seeing it all in one place reminds us that there’s an awful lot of money needed to get the wines we love get from the vine to our tables.