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..

Background Wine Education

     Definition: three-tiered distribution system = winery sells to a distributor, who in turn sells to a restaurant or retail store, who in turn sells to the consumer. Three transactions = three tiers. Federal Excise Tax is collected from the winery at the first transaction; State Excise Tax is collected from the distributor at the second transaction; Sales Tax is collected from the restaurant or retail store at the third transaction; Bob’s your uncle.
     Tied-House-Laws, enacted by various states right as Prohibition ended in 1933, prohibit a single entity from holding both a distributor license and a retail license at the same time. Almost all of these states require that alcohol-for-sale go through all three transactions in their state. During Prohibition the Mob was very well vertically integrated: they produced the booze, and distributed it themselves to their own retail outlets. So the goal of Tied-House-Laws was to dis-enfranchise the Mob. No problem. The Mob said, “We’ll just hold the distributor license, and thus control a primary choke-point on the pipe bringing alcohol-for-sale into the state.” California is fairly unique in that it does not have Tied-House-Laws.
     Selling wine direct-to-consumers is often a very important strategy for small wineries. It makes tremendously good sense on several levels. First, the winery gets to keep all the retail dollars. That means they only have to make half as much wine per dollar of revenue compared to a winery selling through the three-tiered distribution system. Second, because they get to communicate directly with each customer, the winery can impart much more information about their wine. This story is at least half of the total package when it comes to a customer’s enjoyment of the product. And finally, wineries selling direct-to-consumer get the opportunity to contact a customer several months after that customer has made a purchase to ask, “Would you like to buy another bottle?”

Top Winery Descriptions

     Historically there are three really impressive direct-to-consumer winery operations in California, all using different techniques, and all aimed at separate slices of the market. Windsor Vyds features a very aggressive telemarketing program. Their hook is you can get your name on the label if you buy two cases. Clearly their target market is businesses looking to give a bottle of wine as a gift to clients. Windsor is just south of Healdsburg in northern Sonoma County. Navarro Winery is in the Anderson Valley, on the ocean side of the mountains, in Mendocino County. Run by a husband and wife team with extensive advertising experience (she a former copywriter; he the former owner of Pacific Stereo), they have always aimed higher up the wine-knowledge pyramid using a sophisticated direct-mail program. Their short postal mailings are masterpieces of homespun, intelligent information with an understated, one-color, New England seed catalogue look to them. For example, a picture of a young cat tentatively picking its way amongst bottles and glasses, with a caption which reads,”Don’t pussyfoot around. These bargains won’t last.”
     Sattui Winery is in Napa Valley, just south of St. Helena. Certainly the biggest financial success of the three, Sattui has always aimed at the mid-section of the consumer pyramid. Started in the early 1970’s, Sattui’s first loan application to Napa Valley Bank based his business model on a simple, yet brilliant concept. “We will be the first property with picnic facilities on the right-hand side of Hwy 29 as people drive north into St. Helena,” the paperwork said. Customers could buy a bottle of wine, a sandwich, and sit under a shady tree. The wines were all from Sattui. So Dario (nee Daryl) got 100% of retail on the wine, plus full retail on the sandwich. Heavy traffic on Hwy 29 paid dividends ~ it has always been a nightmare to turn left across Hwy 29. And it keeps on giving. Today there is a large branch of the famous New York delicatessen Dean & DeLuca right across Hwy 29 from Sattui. But Dario posts conspicuous signs saying, “No pedestrian traffic across the roadway.” He’s right. It is mildly dangerous. But his self-interest couldn’t be more obvious.

The Wine Story

     A couple weeks ago I went to a ‘futures’ celebration at Sattui. I’ve always been a fan of his Preston Vyd Cabernet Sauvignon, but I’d never actually toured the facilities, choosing instead to shop for deli supplies at the Napa Valley Olive Oil Mfg. Co. on Charter Oak St, and to picnic in a small park by the Napa River. For some reason I assumed the Sattui event would be a sit-down meal with a thorough (call it ‘tutored’) explanation of the wines. Wrong. That’s not his clientele. My first ah-hah moment came as I drove into the winery. His guests were tailgating with bottles of beer in the parking lot. Okay. Good time crowd. Sattui had more than 50 wines on offer, with buffet-style food service. Fifty seems like a lot of wines, but consider the business model. It is like an extensive delicatessen, restaurant, souvenir shop and wine store all mushed up together. Only every wine is a Sattui wine, so they produce one (or seven) of every category imaginable.
     The game with this loyal clientele is discounts. If one purchased multiple mixed cases, one could realize 25% to 30% off the stated retail prices. And Dario himself was on-hand to strongly urge immediate purchases. “Tomorrow prices go back to normal,” he cautioned the crowd. I‘m a little skeptical. Twenty-five percent off a mediocre California Riesling priced at $20 doesn’t seem a huge savings to me. Nor does 25% off a 2009 Merlot priced at $45 when you pay now, but don’t take possession of the wine for another two years. As with most large, walk-around ‘tastings’ careful comparison of the wines was not the order of the day. Spittoons were everywhere, but for the most part unused. The pour staff was friendly, good-looking, and largely ignorant of where half the single vineyards were located. That said, they did gamely make up plausible fictions to cover their lack of background. A good time was had by everyone. And the cash registers sizzled amidst lively debate about which combinations would result in the deepest ‘discount.’ I met several charming people, enjoyed myself thoroughly, but went home empty-handed. Next time perhaps I’ll wear an athletic mouthpiece, artistically enhanced so my teeth announce, “Let’s party” when I smile.
     Dario Sattui meanwhile has earned enough money over 35 years at this game to build a separate venture called Castello di Amorosa further north on a hillside in Napa Valley. It is modeled on a 12th century Italian castle. See picture below. Pretty good biz, especially for one built on the concept of the picnic.

Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleadings I denied…

Wine Background

     Zinfandel prices have risen dramatically since the early 1990’s when the first one costing double figures appeared. Higher prices mean more expense can be lavished on artistic production. That means better barrels, but it also affords the opportunity to harvest by hand with several passes through the vineyard.
     Zinfandel has large clusters, and it is notorious for ripening unevenly. Many people believe the grapes need to get well past 24ºBrix to exhibit the variety’s signature boysenberry aroma. But that much sugar pretty much guarantees alcohol in the mid 15’s, and acid that will require a supplementary adjustment. No problem for us cult-Zin cowboys, but what of those sissies who demand balanced table wines?
     One answer is to pick a quarter of the crop aiming for 22.5º-23ºB. That fraction of the finished wine will supply a crisp core, a solid backbone, for refreshing length and bottle-aging potential. Then make a second pass through the vineyard a week later aiming for half the total crop at 24º-24.5ºB. That fraction will be the foundation wine: good texture; good flavor; complex aromatics. Then get the final quarter of the crop a week to ten days later at 26º-27ºB. This final fraction will have wonderful berry-like intensity. By itself the final fraction would be alcoholic and flabby, whereby in the blend it will be structurally saved by the initial fraction, and still contribute a spectacular burst to the nose.
     No one could profitably sell such a wine for $8.95 a bottle. No matter. I’d happily pay $25 to $35 a bottle for it, and I think most critics would as well (possible exceptions being Messrs. Parker and Laube).

Wine Event Description

     The 19th Annual Z.A.P. festival was held last weekend in San Francisco. I went hoping to find a couple new, or little known, producers making bargain-priced gems. No such luck. Although I do have to plead palate fatigue. [Note proper spelling, all you wine copywriter aspirants. It’s not pallet, as in something moved by a forklift, nor is it palette as in the board on which painters hold their pigments.] I tasted about 60 wines, walked several miles, and eyeballed an unusually large number of tall women in short skirts with boots. That’s a worthwhile three hours, but it’s well below 10% of the wines on offer at ZAP.

Wine Recommendations

     Noteworthy in the value category were Sierra Foothills wineries Cedarville and Miraflores, along with St. Amant which is a Lodi winery closely bordering the Sierra Foothills’ 800-foot contour-line boundary. Cedarville is about 2,500 feet of elevation, and their Zin reflects this more restrained, more elegant pedigree. It has nice fruit, but more in the red than black spectrum, and more of the eating-out-of-hand persuasion than the stewed or jammy flavors often encountered elsewhere. At $17 you couldn’t beat the price of Cedarville Zin with a police baton. St. Amant makes their best Zin from very old vines grown on sandy Hanford Loam soil at Mohr-Fry Ranch. It is riper and more effusive than Cedarville, but doesn’t step over into the realm of short and bimbo-ish, as so many Lodi Zins are wont to do. St. Amant is also attractively priced at right around $20.
     Perhaps the biggest bargain at the ZAP festival was the 2006 Heritage Zin made by Jerry Seps from Storybook Mountain Vyds. This is the wine produced every year by a different ZAP winemaker from the collection of exceptional old vine cuttings taken from around the state, then grown as a research project in Oakville. Dr. Seps (he formerly taught History at Stanford) is a very talented winemaker whose own wines command $40 and $50 a bottle. The Heritage Zin though, sells for $25 a bottle, and was being offered for $18 on the day of the ZAP festival. That opportunity alone was worth the cost of admission ~ consider hem lengths a bonus.

Wine Critique

     Some stars at ZAP shine more brightly than others. And some don’t shine at all. I always find it entertaining to compare the standard-bearing warhorses of the past to new challengers. The comparison is not blind, of course, and I readily admit a fondness for the brands such as Ridge, Rosenblum, and Seghesio who have been around through the tough times. They are not cheap, as they were in the 1980’s when I drank so much of them. But today they make such reliably great wine, that I always look forward to tasting their new releases.
     Many new entrants seem to operate in an imaginary world separate from the sweaty rabble of the marketplace. How else to explain nouveau riche winery owners today asking $40 a bottle for their very first release, which smells like damp hay and feels like sandpaper in your mouth.
     Zinfandel is a grape that rewards experience, particularly with any specific vineyard. It takes more than a couple vintages to learn a Zin vineyard’s tricks. A good example from ZAP were the three 2007 wines offered from Hartford Court in western Sonoma County. In the past these wines from very old vines have seemed pinched, minerality taken to a raspy extreme. Not so the 2007 wines. While different from each other, all three had a family resemblance of deep, well-integrated marionberry roundness. The slight alkaline edge, which says old vines to me, merely served to pull them back from unseemly generosity. All three were wines which simultaneously expressed the enthusiasm of California’s warm summers, and the gravitas of a multi-generational vineyard lineage.

Benefit Auction of Wine Experiences

     The 11th Annual Young School Benefit will be held this Saturday (6 February) at Quintessa Winery in Napa Valley starting at 5:30 pm. Much of the action will occur online. Catalogue and proxy bidding forms can be found at the Forever Young Benefit website.
     Founded in 1991, Young School is a private non-profit, non-denominational, Montessori-derived program for children ages 6 through 12 years old. Young School operates as a ‘one-room schoolhouse’ in quarters rented from a church. It follows a ‘tutorial’ approach to education, where children are tasked on their abilities and interests. The School has a 12-1 student-teacher ratio, and is respected for its rigorous academics, complemented by frequent field trips, enrichment in foreign language classes, and music programs, as well as community outreach. Distinctive about The Young School is the fact students spend their recess and P.E. time outside as a group, with all ages interacting equally and enthusiastically. The Young School is pledged to keeping its tuition low to offer an affordable alternative for a classics-based, high teacher-student ratio school.
     The School’s non-profit tax ID number is 68-0338995.

Wines and Experiences on Offer

     There are so many benefit wine auctions these days, the general category can certain not be considered newsworthy. In many instances purchasers are blatantly seeking publicity. Which I suppose is a just reward for paying thousands of dollars to a good cause in exchange for a $50 bottle of rare wine. And, of course, there is the opportunity to rub shoulders with a large gaggle of equally well-heeled individuals.
     What makes the Young School Benefit newsworthy is the creative, and diverse set of wine-related experiences which go on the auction block. To wit:
     – Tasting experiences and wines from Abreu, Araujo, Arietta, Aubert, Bond, Castello di Amorosa, Harlan, Kongsgaard, O’Shaughnessy, Drinkward-Peschon, Phifer Pavitt, Dunn, Outpost, Retro, Turley, Barnett, Cain, Frias, Guillliams, Hollywood & Vine, Juslyn, Peacock, Pride, Schweiger, Sherwin, Stony Hill, Togni, and many other fine vineyards).
     – A trip to Washington D.C. including lunch with Congressman Mike Thompson in the Members’ Dining Room, passes to the House gallery, tours of the Capitol and Supreme Court and accommodations at the Henley Park Hotel and a dinner at BLT Steak.
     – A day of visits to local artisanal food purveyors and dinner at Amy & Jerry Giaqunta’s home, prepared by Deborah Pollack of Local Eden with a dessert finale by Bouchon Bakery’s chef Matt McDonald, co-hosted byAnne-Marie Failla and Ehren Jordan.
     – An abalone dinner in Storybook Mountain Winery’s redwood grove, with abalone freshly caught and prepared by a Young School teacher, complemented by Storybook’s wines.
     – A pheasant hunt with architect Peter Collins and vintner Stu Smith.
     – a yacht trip to a San Francisco Giants game with the co-founders of Alpha Omega, Robin Baggett and Eric Sklar.
     – Several events for children, including a ride in St. Helena’s antique fire truck and a father-son golf class at Napa Valley Country Club.

     Tickets to attend in person are $100/person, only in advance, from the website or by calling (707) 967-9909. The catalogue is also online, and people can proxy-bid from anywhere in the world. Last year the biggest bidder was sitting at home in New Jersey. See also www.BiddingForGood.com.

Wine Quiz

Name the oft-ridiculed pioneer who, legend would have it, brought Zinfandel to California from eastern Europe. He didn’t do it, but the part of the legend about where he got the grapes tracks very closely with the truth. Hint: He reputedly died while trying to cross a crocodile-infested stream on a narrow tree limb.

Zinfandel is so very California. It’s an immigrant, like so many other residents. It has flourished here, like so many other immigrants. It’s unique, yet it can appear in many guises: from chilled, blush-colored quaffers to inky black, semi-sweet after-dinner head-bangers which just invite everyone to leg-wrestle. For decades its most prevalent form was cheap, honest, workingmans’ red wine sold in half-gallon jugs (big discount if you brought your own jugs). Zinfandel goes great with slow-cooked pork, and even better with the blues. In Europe Zinfandel has done for American wine what Levis did for pants.

Background wine education

     Thanks to DNA research by Dr. Carole Meredith at U.C. Davis, we now know Zinfandel grapes came from Croatia, an island off the Dalmatian coast to be exact. They are the same as the Primativo from Puglia, the heel of the boot in Italy, but they didn’t come from there. In fact their route to California ran parallel in time to the route they took across the Adriatic to southern Italy. During the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Zinfandel grapes were taken to a garden at the Emperor’s Court in Vienna. From there they traveled to the US, and show up in nursery records near Boston in the 1820’s. Eventually they were taken around the Horn by English sea captains, and appear in nursery records near San Jose, California during the early 1850s. Zinfandel has a thin skin and large, compact clusters. It was not prized in Croatia, because Summer rains split the skins, which in turn rotted the clusters. Arid Summers in California were just what the doctor ordered. Prior to the mid-1980’s Zinfandel was California’s most widely planted premium red wine grape.
     To wit: Zin comprised 20% of California’s red grape acreage (at 23,500 acres) in 1962; but under 8% in 1983; rising again in 2007 to 11% (52,360 acres).
     There are fascinating reasons for this trough in the acreage curve for Zinfandel. Prior to the early 1990’s a bottle of Zinfandel couldn’t command double figures in the US. Much beloved by college students, and Italian restaurateurs, it was nevertheless caught in a self-fulfilling, circular prophesy: you can’t make great artistic wine if you can’t sell it for more than $10 a bottle. By the early-1980’s Zinfandel vineyards were being ripped out all over California, including many wonderful 80-year-old vines, because the price of the grapes barely covered the cost of maintenance and harvest. Serendipity is a marvelous thing, but in this instance it also reveals a disgraceful chapter in America’s wine consumption history. Artistically valuable, ancient Zinfandel vineyards in California were actually saved by the White Zinfandel phenomenon. The irony of it makes my skin crawl. Nevertheless it is true. Demand for simple (virtually indistinguishable), slightly sweet, blush-colored pseudo-wine called “Zinfandel” across America rescued vineyards which today are making $45, serious red wines.

San Francisco Wine Festival

     The second essential ingredient in resurrecting red Zin was a creative, sophisticated marketing outreach program called Zinfandel Advocates and Producers. ZAP is a noteworthy effort which today’s proponents of social networking would do well to examine. It is not simply a Trade organization, although it was originally pulled together by a modest number of wineries concerned about the possible extinction of this remarkable, traditional grape variety. The extraordinary feature about ZAP is its 6,000 consumer members, who deserve as much credit as the founding wineries do for pulling the grape variety back from the edge of the abyss, and launching it on a newly ascendant trajectory. ZAP’s three-day celebration in San Francisco each year at the end of January is that effort made manifest. This will be the 19th convocation. Visit the ZAP website for tickets and registration.

     The Grand Tasting on Saturday fills two piers at Fort Mason from 1:00 pm to 5:00. Parking is not even worth considering. Either take a bus to the foot of Van Ness (say the # 35), or park your car near some restaurant to which you’d like to return in the evening, and take a taxi. Or park in the lot below Ghirardelli Square and walk over the hill.
     There is also an auction Thursday night at Fort Mason, and two events Friday at the Mark Hopkins Hotel: educational flights of wine in the morning; and a dinner with inventive Hawaiian chef Beverly Gannon in the evening.
     Proceeds from the festivities go toward two worthwhile causes. One is an attempt to create a $500,000 endowment for the Donn Reisen Memorial Scholarship. Donn was a much admired marketing exec at Ridge Vyds who died somewhat tragically a couple years ago. The scholarship helps students wishing to attend the Wine Business MBA program at Sonoma State. The second cause is a rather smaller amount of money to fund a research effort ZAP initiated with U.C. Davis back in 1995. It is called the Heritage Vineyard, one acre in Oakville, Napa Valley. Today there are 90 different Zinfandel cuttings planted in the Heritage Vineyard, representing 12 regions throughout California, all taken from especially good vines that were at least 70-years-old. The Heritage Vineyard is an important repository of genetic material, and a valuable tool for future study. It also produces grapes. A different winemaker member of ZAP is chosen each year to vinify the Heritage Vyd Wine, which is then sold exclusively at the Thursday night ZAP tasting. Since its inception, ZAP has put $330,000 into the Heritage Vyd.

     I will do a post in February singling out some good quality Zin producers newly discovered at the ZAP party. Assuming no one molests me there.

This Christmas give your relatives or business clients something they’ll recall every time they taste a great wine. Give them a Gift Certificate to a completely objective, non-promotional, purely educational Wine Class. They will be thinking of you hundreds of times each year for decades to come.

2010 Wine Classes

in San Francisco and Palo Alto.
     All these classes are three sessions. They meet in the evening from 7:00 pm to about 9:15. We taste 12 to 16 wines in each session, all side-by-side in groups of two or three. There is 30 to 45 minutes of well prepared lecture (with handouts and slides) each night.

Fundamentals of Taste & Smell Series $229 single / $429 couple
     Very popular class. Good place to start. Everyone has a good time.
     Three classes offered: Mondays, starting late January in SF; Tuesdays in July in Menlo Park; and Thursdays, starting in late September in SF.

The Art and Science of Wine $249 single / $469 couple
     New class. Covers all the general factors of climate and soil which define regionality in wines, and how those influence the taste of the major grape varieties. Also teases apart grower and winemaker decisions to show how these affect wine style.
     Two classes offered: Wednesdays, starting mid-February, in Menlo Park; and Tuesdays in April in SF.

Specialty Regional Classes
     Four separate classes covering all the major producing regions of the world, what wines they do best, and why. [see Class Schedule on this website.]

Weekender Wine Classes in San Francisco

     These are also 3-session classes, except they meet over a single weekend to encourage out-of-town visitors. Class totals about seven hours out of the whole weekend, so there is plenty of time for seeing San Francisco’s famous sights. Class on Friday starts at 7:00 pm, but Sat is from 5:00 pm to 7:15, and Sun is 11:00 am to 1:30. [Our website has pages of recommendations for places to stay, eat, and enjoy leisure activities. We even have maps for Wine Bar Walking Tours.]
     CA & Pac NW is taught in March; Fundamentals is taught in May; and a specialty highlights class, Europe vs. New World, is taught over Halloween Weekend at the end of October (how very San Francisco).

Wine Education Vacation

in the Sierra Foothills.
     Nevada City is located about an hour east of Sacramento, about halfway to Tahoe and Reno. Since the 1860’s Nevada City has been the cultural centerpiece of California’s Gold Country. There’s live music, good restaurants, a great deal of art, quaint B-n-B’s, boutique shopping, wonderful scenery, and myriad outdoor activities. Everything about Nevada City screams “Romantic Weekend Getaway.”
     We’re offering seven fine wine events to add that touch of sophistication which will draw your “Let’s take off for the mountains” invitation back from the lurid precipice.
     Four Friday night Varietal Classes starting at 7:00 pm: Feb 12; Mar 12; Apr 9; and May 14. Nevada City is about 2,600 feet of elevation, so it’s just below the serious snow line. Then we will do a Fundamentals Weekender in August. Then two Regional Classes Oct 8 and Nov 12. [See website for suggested restaurants, accommodations, and fun things to do.]

Wine Education Gift Certificates

     If you give a friend, relative, or business colleague a Gift Certificate this Christmas for our classes, they can employ it any time they want during 2010. Moreover, it can be for any dollar amount you choose – just phone (415) 512-9318 to make those arrangements. The recipient can apply your Gift dollars to whatever class suits their interest and schedule. Gift Certificates are quick and easy. They can be sent to you or to the recipient electronically – so this deal can be concluded right up to the last moment. And the classes are a real good time – everyone enjoys themselves.

Darrell Corti operates an Italian Deli in Sacramento and writes the most erudite deli newsletter in US for gourmets. In May I wrote the following review of his quarterly newsletter:

The newsletter is an extremely erudite compendium on the background behind many of the unusual items produced for Corti Brothers, and on how to use them. Lemongrass – ginger sauce; herbed salt from Sicily; a thin-skinned cannelloni bean grown in Pescadero; Sherry vinegar from Spain; Persian cookies; where to dine in Tokyo; a creamed honey ~ these are just a smattering of the topics in the latest newsletter alone. It is about the only piece of promotional mail that I always look forward to reading.

I just discovered the online archive of his newsletters so I thought I would share that link with my readers.
Order unique foods to pair with wines and for cooking, and learn about gourmet foods.