Expensive viticulture, ribald personality. Can wines truly reflect both? Does PN need to improve over 8 years in btl?

Wine Education Background

     Gary Pisoni is a wonderful incarnation of a colorful, eccentric lineage of wine personalities in California. They go back a long way, and they’re legendary. Agoston Harazthy, who claimed to be a Hungarian Count, and reputedly died in Nicaragua while trying to cross a crocodile-infested stream on a small tree limb. Paul Masson, who delighted in hosting sparkling wine baths for actresses at his Saratoga mountain winery during the waning years of the Victorian age. His successor, Martin Ray, who sold shares in his winery (Mount Eden) to investors, then denied them access to the property, while pricing his wines at three times more than any other examples on the market. Dr. David Bruce, Randall Grahm, Jim Clendenen. Mike Grgich, always ready with a double-entendre, and a staunch claimant to never having owned a pH meter. Or my favorite, Marilyn Otterman (Sarah’s Vyd), who always responded in interviews as two separate people: as herself and as Sarah. Marilyn was such a delight. She always described her wines in the female gender. As in, “My Ventana Chardonnay is always the center of attention at parties. You know, all boobs and hips. Whereas my Estate Chardonnay is more reserved, tall with a Greek nose. She hangs back, and waits for maturity on your part.”
     It’s an extensive thread ~ completely wacked out, and further distinguished by the fact they ALL made (or make) excellent wine. Gary Pisoni fits right in. He reminds me of Mario Batali: tuxedo shirt and madras shorts; catnip for the high-end collector and socialite crowds …

Read this entire post, including information on the World of Pinot Noir festival, descriptions of 6 current-release Pinot Noirs from Pisoni Vyd grapes, and 6 older examples, on the Stanford wine blog.

3-session fine wine class, San Francisco, 19 – 20 – 21 Mar. Two hours each session. Objective; not promo.

San Francisco Vacation

Bruce Cass Wine Lab Weekenders are three-session, fine wine classes at historic Fort Mason in San Francisco with plenty of free time for participants to see the sights, and to partake of the abundant SF culture. Call it a Wine Education Vacation in America’s most romantic city. Trees have been sprouting flowers for three weeks in San Francisco. Grape vines will start pushing buds by the time class starts. Temperatures are in the mid 60ºs; with frequent sunny days and crystalline clear skies ~ a formula for the most magnificent views.

Wine Event Description

     The California & Pacific Northwest Weekender is three seminar sessions each with sophisticated lecture and slides, plus 12-15 high-quality wines in each session adroitly chosen, and painstakingly acquired, to illustrate points from the lecture when tasted side-by-side. Retail value of all the wines tasted is nearly $2,500. Total class fees are $259 single; $479 couple.
     This class will cover all the important growing regions of America’s Left Coast, explaining how they differ in climate and topography, and how those differences show up in the flavor of the wines. Moreover, additional emphasis will be placed on differences in regional lifestyle, which result in price disparities and varied food matches. Handouts will recommend places for visitors to stay and eat when touring these districts.
     Find full course outlines and examples of previous course wine lists on the Wine Lab website. Also find convenient places to stay in San Francisco, entertaining restaurants, and fun leisure activities in the Bay Area. You can even print out maps for San Francisco Wine Bar Walking Tours.

Future Wine Classes

     Weekender wine classes are taught several times each year in San Francisco. After Calif & Pac NW this March, Fundamentals of Taste & Smell will be taught May 21 – 22 – 23. [It will be repeated August 13 – 14 – 15 in Nevada City, about an hour east of Sacramento, up in the Sierra Foothills.] Then a specialty class, comparing the best wines from the Old World with the best from America and the Southern Hemisphere (Europe vs. New World) will be held in San Francisco on Halloween weekend in October. That’s right. Halloween in San Francisco. Everybody should do it once in their life..

Shaded canopy = v strong herbaceous nose. Bottle-age gives great complexity against evergreen backnote.

Tasted in Art & Science of Fine Wine class in Menlo Park (see Class Descriptions). Wine sells for around US$100, but would be hard to find in an American retail store. I use this wine to illustrate a lecture point on pruning and trellising decisions. The wine is very unusual, and not everybody likes it, but personally I always find it enormously impressive.

Background Wine Education

     1998 Wynn’s ‘John Riddoch’ Cabernet Sauvignon is from Coonawarra in the state of South Australia. Many people consider Coonawarra to be Australia’s finest Cabernet district. It is about a day’s drive south of Adelaide, and perhaps two day’s drive west of Melbourne. In short, it is way-the-hell-and-gone away from civilization. The first time I visited, in 1980, the only pub in town was still divided into separate men’s and women’s sections ~ smoke in either. Of course that was nearly two generations ago. The point is Australia has a very meager viticultural labor force under any circumstance, and Coonawarra’s isolation exacerbates the situation there.
     Things have changed somewhat in more recent vintages, but in 1998 anything a machine could do to replace manual labor was something the vintners of Coonawarra employed machines to do. That would be the polar opposite of (say) Chile, where men do so much of the work machines do in Australia. Up through at least the 1998 vintage, in Coonawarra the vines were frequently hedged rather than pruned. ‘Hedged’ implies something akin to a military haircut. Read Post »

Class compared 1994 + 1995 vintages. Clear advantage 95. Better acid, much more distinct bouquet. Steak house wine.

Wine Classes

     Tasted in Art & Science of Fine Wine class held in Menlo Park (see Class Schedule). Beaulieu 1994 and 1995 Private Reserve Cabs are priced around $150 per bottle (if available) in most fine wine stores. Reference year-to-year California growing conditions on this website under Useful Wine Info – California Vintage Reports.

Wine Education Background

     Beaulieu ‘Georges de Latour’ Cabernet Sauvignon is a classic of the American landscape, and has been for a very long time. Originally crafted by the legendary Andre Tchelischeff, from grapes grown on Napa Valley’s Rutherford Bench, the wine was famously aged in 100% American oak. That gave the wine a considerable relationship with Bourbon Read Post »

2008 Fess Parker: intense fruit, conc in mouth, honey-butter overtones, AND under $20. Fried chicken w/ yams.

Wine Market Background

     In class I often extol the virtues of Sauvignon Blanc by pointing out there are several world-class examples priced between $15 and $19. I then exclaim, “There’s no such thing as world-class Chardonnay under $20!” And I do believe that statement to be true. At least it used to be. Which is not to say there haven’t always been a handful of eminently pleasing Chardonnays priced under $20. It is just that competition amongst Chardonnays has always been so much more intense than it is in other white wine varieties. In America, Chardonnay outsells both Pinot Gris (Grigio) and Sauvignon Blanc individually by a factor of four or five. Good Chardonnay can easily command $20 to $40 a bottle, and great Chardonnay commands $50 to $100. The only reason for a winery to price a very fine Chardonnay under $20 would have been when they needed to sell 50,000 cases of it, or if they had very limited confidence in their sales and marketing capacity. Of course, this Recession economy is creating many unusual, and enjoyable surprises for buyers.

Wine Education

     There are several justifications for the expense of a good bottle of Chardonnay. First, the grape itself is not particularly distinctive. It doesn’t have the unique aromatic signature of (say) Gewürztraminer. Nor does it have the strong flavor of (say) Sauvignon Blanc. That means concentration is doubly important and, in Chardonnay, that translates to lower yield. Lower yield means higher price per ton. Whether one gets three tons per acre in Sauvignon Blanc, or five tons per acre, the distinctive flavor is still going to be fairly obvious. Not so with Chardonnay. Taking a Chardonnay vineyard from three tons/acre to five tons/acre would have an effect Read Post »