lgsjr – Page 30 – Power Tasting – The Wine Tasting Experience

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 19^th 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.

Crus Bourgeois

When we were young(er) and just beginning to enjoy wine, we thought there were only two sorts of wine: Bordeaux and other. Now, we still love a good Bordeaux and the best of them are among the world’s finest. We knew about the Classified Growths from the 1855 survey but they became more and more expensive, so we drank less of them. And we also recognize that there is a lot of wonderful wine from other countries and regions in France.

Then we discovered the Crus Bourgeois. These are red wines from the Médoc region, which means that St. Emilion and Pomerol, as well as other Right Bank regions are not included. As far back as the 15^th century, these wines were produced on properties of the middle classes, meaning the merchant class, from the cities (or bourgs). The nobility had their grand vineyards and could charge premier prices; the bourgeois were happy just to make and sell good wine.

But the designation became so widely used that there was no reason at one time to believe that a cru bourgeois was any more than plonk. So several times in the 20^th century the growers tried to bring some order to the confusion. In 2003, there was a classification with three levels: just plain Crus Bourgeois, then Supérieur and Exceptionnel. That top tier had only nine châteaux, many of them considered the equivalent (or better) of some Classified Growths. To say the least, the list was controversial and was dropped in 2007 in favor of just one level.

In 2016, they tried again. They returned to the three levels and judged the wines over a five-year period, beginning in 2018. Fairly rigorous standards were published (https://www.crus-bourgeois.com/app/uploads/2020/03/Press-kit-2020-Crus-Bourgeois-du-M%C3%A9doc-Classification.pdf ) and the list was announced this year. Sadly, none of the Crus Bourgeois Exceptionnels from 2003 participated, so such favorites of ours as Chasse-Spleen, Haut-Marbuzet and Ormes de Pez aren’t there.

The selection criteria are rather interesting and are indicative of the direction of the marketplace. Of course, the Cru Bourgeois wines have to meet criteria of taste and aroma. An anonymous blind tasting panel makes the initial cut at what is and is not a Cru Bourgeois. In order to qualify as a Cru Bourgeois Supérieur or Exceptionnel, there are additional considerations. They have to do with the sustainability of the agriculture in the vineyards and winery. They also deal with management’s actions “to optimize the character of the wine (vineyard, harvest, winery, bottling, quality assurance system)”.

A real eye-opener for those of us who might travel to Bordeaux for wine tasting, one of the criteria for the advanced designations is the “quality of reception of visitors”. In other words, to be a Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel, these wineries must offer an exceptional experience for those who come to sample the wine in their tasting rooms. Of course, we at Power Tasting are delighted with this development. The “quality of reception” is an expression of a winery’s attitude towards their customers, not least the ones who care enough to come to visit. The fact that the way they treat wine tasters can affect a wine’s recognition and sales, shows again that wine tasters can affect the market for wine.

Wine Tasters Can Affect the Market

It is well known that wines in many parts of the world taste different than they did a generation ago. Perhaps those with superior taste memories can testify to what wines used to smell and taste like, but all of us can be aware of certain changes. Taken overall, today’s red wines are more robust, more alcoholic, ready to drink at a younger age and more likely to come from a large corporation. Whites are also more alcoholic and more full-bodied; in most of the world, they are quite likely to be either Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc, to the exclusion of other grapes.

How did this happen?

Some attribute this, with some justification, to the influence of wine critics, in particular Robert Parker. Others see the broadening of the market to include younger, less experienced wine drinkers whose tastes run towards boldness rather than subtlety. The trends may be attributable to better science and technology that make bigger, more alcoholic wines easier to produce.

A wine tasting focus group. Photo courtesy of Find Focus Groups.

The simplest answer is that wine producing companies and their winemakers have simply responded to the demands of the wine-buying marketplace. They are catering to the tastes of the people who are buying wine. That makes sense, but how do they know? They surely hold focus groups and monitor retail sales, but these are fairly blunt instruments. Focus groups don’t necessarily tap into a meaningful cross-section of the people who buy most of the wine. And sales figures reflect a lot more than taste. Price, location, pretty labels and bottles, and the dominance of certain distributors also enter into the calculation. How else to explain the past popularity of Two Buck Chuck?

A big factor in influencing the producers is the feedback that wineries receive from visitors in their tasting rooms, who are the more avid sector of the wine-drinking public. Those of us who enjoy traveling to sample wines can offer direct and immediate feedback to the wineries. They can see what people prefer, up close and personal. Do most visitors smile at that unoaked Chardonnay or do they wince and pour it out? Are the people who are enjoying a 16% alcohol Zinfandel just partiers out to get drunk or are they expressing pleasure at the fullness and depth of flavor that extra ripeness bring along with the alcohol?

There are things that we can do to affect the market when we go wine tasting.

Speak up. Let the server know what you like and why. If you get a chance to chat with the winemaker or the tasting room manager, be vocal about your likes and dislikes.
Ask questions. If you have been familiar with a wine for a long period of time and it seems different to you now, it’s fair to ask if that’s the case and why it’s happens. Not all tasting room employees are knowledgeable enough to answer these questions, but if you are just a little persistent, they’ll find someone who is.
Vote with your wallet. If you particularly like a certain wine, buy some right there in the winery. If you really like the broad production of a winery, join their wine club. The bean counters (or are they grape counters?) in the back office are acutely aware of who their locked-in buyers are and what they like.

Wine tasting voyagers have the power to influence what wineries produce. So go ahead and use your power. That’s what Power Tasting is all about.

Pézenas, France

Pézenas is a quiet commune of 8,000 souls, nestled in the uplands of the Languedoc. As with most villages in that region, wines are made all around it, mostly blends of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre. Because of the schist soil, the wines there tend to be a bit stony. If you are in the region for wine tasting, you should also stop to visit the village.

The local tourist people make a big deal about Molière, who lived there for awhile in the 1650s. His great acclaim came in Paris later on, but the people of Pézenas claim him as a “local boy made good” to this day. You’ll find a statue of the great playwright across from the Brasserie Molière and the Grand Hotel Molière. There’s a pretty row of cafés there, but they’re rather touristy.

Along the Cours Jean Jaurès in Pézenas, with the Collégiale Saint-Jean in the background.

You should definitely explore the eateries in Pézenas. On the advice of a local gentleman out walking his dog, we had a superb three-course meal, with wine, for under fifty euros for two people. Just taking a coffee along the delightfully decorated main drag, the Cours Jean Jaurès, and you know you’re in France.

On that same street, the Piscenois (for so the local inhabitants call themselves) host a grand outdoor market every Saturday. It takes up the entire center of town and is well-attended by the townspeople and tourists alike.

All the above are great reasons to visit Pézenas. Best of all, nestled within the charming village is a medieval one. It has been preserved, cleaned up and adorned with the sorts of shops and galleries that tourists seem to adore. Yes, we could have done with a few less chocolateries, but it is fair to say that people in the Middle Ages must have walked these narrow streets to buy their bread and olives, so why should we scoff at the commerce that makes this little corner of history possible.

The town square in medieval Pézenas.

You enter through a stone portal on the aforementioned Cours Jean Jaurès and you find yourself carried back eight centuries. You have choice of streets to follow. To the right you’ll eventually find yourself in the ancient town square. There you can stop for a meal or a drink and pretend to be a few centuries older than you are. From there, too, you can choose from among several streets, alleys really, in which to wander.

The ancient ghetto of Pézenas.

Everywhere you turn, you’re likely to find something to delight your eyes. Here there’s a fountain, there a statue, up the street a merchant’s house that you’re welcome to inspect. We found most moving the ancient Jewish ghetto. Yes, even then, even here, discrimination flourished. Of course, today this section holds housing for all who can afford it.

That is the overall attraction of Pézenas. Side by side you find the contemporary, memories of greatness and a wonderfully preserved bit of long-ago times. And all surrounded by the vineyards of Languedoc!

Ferrari-Carano Vineyards and Winery

As you drive along Dry Creek Road towards the northern end of the valley of the same name, you suddenly come upon what appears to be a Tuscan villa. It is, in fact, the Ferrari-Carano winery, which they call Villa Fiore. Regular Power Tasting readers know that we are not big fans of Napa palaces, even when they are in Sonoma County. But we make an exception for Ferrari-Carano. Why? Because it really is lovely and they don’t rub your nose in how wonderful they are. They don’t pretend to be a Persian temple or a medieval castle. They just serve wine in a very pretty setting.

The Ferrari-Carano winery. Photo courtesy of Ferrari-Carano.

Before you enter, you pass through well-planted and maintained flower gardens. The gardens are dotted with statuary; don’t miss the one of the seated wild boar. You haven’t had a drop of wine yet and you already love the place.

The view from Ferrari-Carano’s terrace. Photo courtesy of Sonoma County Tourism.

Once inside, you have several choices. On the main floor they serve their mass-market wines, which are the bulk of their production. Downstairs is what they call the Enoteca, where Ferrari-Carano’s top-end wines are served. Finally, you can sit on their terrace – oh, excuse us, Il Terrazzo – and sip while looking over some of their vineyards. That view really is beautiful and should be taken in whether you taste on the terrace or not.

We recommend that you try the wines in the Enoteca. For one thing, they are their better ones but are also more expensive. That’s relative, though. In these days when it is common for a winery’s top bottles to go for three digits, it’s refreshing to go wine-tasting somewhere where the most expensive current release wines go for under $70. We don’t review wines, just the tasting experience, but it is fair to say that we usually find some wines we like and often buy a few bottles to take home with us.

That tasting room is well appointed and we have found the servers to be more knowledgeable. (Or perhaps they just more enjoy talking about the reserve wines.) On one wall is a painting that is reproduced on the label of Ferrari-Carano’s Bordeaux blend, Trésor, and is worth more than a glance.

There are many wineries, even ones we like, where we taste their wines quickly and then move along our way. Ferrari-Carano was built for lingering. The fact that the tasting fees and bottle prices are reasonable may inspire you to travel up Dry Creek Road. The villa, the gardens, the fountains and the art are quite admirable and combine to invite you stay and sip. We recommend that you accept the invitation.

Atmosphere: Party Time

This article is the first of what will be an irregular series on how the atmosphere at a winery and its tasting room influences the wine tasting experience, your appreciation of the wines, and the impressions you keep when you look back on your visit and the wines you tried. We may overstate the case occasionally to make a point, but our thoughts on the subject are drawn from years of experience.

There are sectors of Wine Country where the reason to go seems more to party down than to gain an understanding of the products made there. Some of these are in up-and-coming areas that attract a lot of young people. In that regard, Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone and many Long Island wineries, both especially on the weekends, come to mind. But we have come across this same atmosphere in older, more established regions, such as Napa Valley, as well.

Long Island’s Winery Dogs. Photo courtesy of CrypticRock.

What are the hallmarks of a party winery? The most prominent seems to be rock or rap music, played very loud. On Long Island’s North Fork, there are quite a few wineries that feature live bands on the weekend. And they’re not top tier either; more likely they’re the local bar band.

Another clue is pizza by the pool. There are some wineries that have pizza ovens on premises and others that let a pizza truck pull up outside. We have nothing against either pizza or swimming pools. In fact, we like both very much. But not with a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, which may cost more than $100 a bottle, in our hands and with the noise around us.

And that’s the point: No company that’s serious about its product should cheapen its brand. The wines appropriate for a party atmosphere are light, fruity and refreshing. They are in the league of what you might expect to drink in a bar where the choice is only red or white. We all drink them from time to time, but we wouldn’t make a special trip to try them. For those who do, the objective is the party, not the wine.

It saddens us when we come across wineries that make high-quality wines (at top prices) that act more like hosts than winemakers. As we understand it, they think it helps them to differentiate themselves in a crowded tourist market. But as a representative of Long Island’s Pellegrini Vineyards told us, “No one stands out if they all do it. We’d prefer to differentiate ourselves on our wine.”

If you are interested in discovering great wine and instead you discover that a party has broken out, there are several things you can do. One would be to get back in the car and go elsewhere, but then you might miss some fine wines. But are you really missing them if you can’t enjoy them as they deserve? We submit that great wine just doesn’t taste the same when there is extraneous distraction all around.

Perhaps there are some quiet corners of a tasting room where you can sip your wine in peace. That does work, but it is likely that service will be slower, because the personnel are taking care of the party crowd.

Another tactic is to avoid visiting on weekends, which isn’t a bad idea on its own merits. Many of the wineries only get the party going then, so peace and quiet prevail the rest of the week. In some cases, even on weekdays the music is loud and the pizza is available, but the partiers aren’t there so it’s not as bad.

We assure you that if you do visit one of these party palaces, it will be the party you remember years from now, not the wine.

Red vs. White

In certain European corners of Wine Country, there are laws that determine what sort of wine can be made there. To use two examples near each other, in the Northern Rhône winemakers in Condrieu must only make white wine. Down the road a piece in Cornas, they are restricted to red wine and only Syrah at that. We Americans (and Australians and Sicilians, too) are more used to visiting wineries in our own country, where almost all make both red and white wines.

Now, we at Power Tasting have a preference for red wine. We have been known to say, only half facetiously, that white wine is something to do with your hands at parties. But when we enter a tasting room, we are almost invariably offered a glass of Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay to begin our introduction to their wines. Should we go ahead and sip something we’re less likely to enjoy or skip right ahead to the red wines?

Photo courtesy of Bay Ridge Wine & Spirits

There are good reasons for either decision. Among those in favor of trying the whites are:

It’s worthwhile to be open-minded. It’s not as though we dislike white wines, we just don’t like them as much. So if we try it, we might like it. After all, we do eat dinners of fish and salad, especially in the summer. It’s a good idea to develop our noses and taste buds for the wines that go with those meals, too.
You learn a lot about a winery by sampling the complete range of a winemaker’s art. If we are particularly enamored by, say, the Cabernet Sauvignon at a particular winery why not try the Sauvignon Blanc as well? We’re pretty sure that the winemaker didn’t consider it an afterthought. Care and attention go into all the wines. No one goes to a concert and listen only to the violins, so why leave out a part of what a winery has to offer?

On the other hand…

Don’t waste your precious alcohol capacity. If we are going to be tasting all day, we are going to take in a lot of alcohol. We have techniques to preserve sobriety (sharing, pouring out, sipping gently and others) but we – and everyone – need to be conscious of the risk and of our own level of intake. So if we know at the outset that we won’t enjoy white wines as much as reds, there’s a good reason not to add to the load.
The idea is to enjoy yourself. We go wine tasting for many reasons and education is indeed one of them. So if we do take some white wine, we are being broadminded and dutiful. But are we having fun? If the answer is “no”, then maybe it’s not worth doing. It’s wine, for Pete’s sake, not spinach.

As can be seen, there’s no universally correct answer. We tend to go both ways, often with both white and red wine early in the day and only red as the shadows get longer. And of course if you favor white wines over reds, all the above applies in reverse.