Gasp!
I can’t even bring myself to write about this. Too shaken LOL.
http://www.decanter.com/news/wine-news/529919/champagne-crop-badly-damaged-by-frost
Wine Country radio makes a gal homesick some days. And if you’ve never been lucky enough to call the California wine country home but want to get tuned in to upcoming trends and local events there are now more options than ever. It’s a perfect way to prepare for a tasting trip. And besides, what could be better than streaming some news from paradise and, you know, hearing about bud break and how the crush is coming?
Favorite picks:
Kaz, a.k.a. Richard Kasmier, of the zany, wonderful, and whimsically surrealistic Kaz Winery over in Kenwood, a very very small family winery that I write about in the guidebook to the Back Lane Wineries of Sonoma. Kaz Winery is, in fact, one of the smallest wineries in all the wine country open to the public, and they said to be are the smallest batch maker anywhere in the county, with just 1-3 barrels of about a dozen wines and ports each year. Lots of reasons to love Kaz, from the lighthearted approach to serious winemaking to the $5 tasting fee and–even if you missed the 2012 Sonoma barrel tasting weekends–a chance to taste from the barrels anyhow. In fact, you can even blend your own wines if you ask very nicely.
But best of all, though, there is Kaz’s “Wine Biz” radio. Kaz has recklessly promised one day to have me on as a guest, and, if I can be witty enough there, surely the next stop will be giving Colbert a run for his money.
Meanwhile, over at Judd’s Hill Winery, the Finkelstein family–Art, Bunnie, Judd, and Holly–also offer visitors the chance to blend their own wines. In fact, they offer a Bottle Blending Day Camp, suitable for adult playtime. They are over on the other side of the Sonoma Mountain, in Napa, on “the Trail” (the Silverado) at 2332. But wherever you are, they keep the wine world informed and entertained with their own wine-country video segments.
And who could forget the inimitable Rock and Roll Sommelier, Ziggy the Wine Gal‘s “Wine Wednesdays,”on The Krush, KRSH 95.9 FM, which is, I am sorry, I brook no opposition or dissent on this, plays the world’s coolest line up of music. The Zig gives the inside scoop of the world of imbibing without borders, and if you aren’t up early enough to hear it live, there are always the podcasts of wine country news.
Over on the AM dial, there’s KVON 1440 AM, which airs Today in the Wine Country mornings, with lots of interesting special guests.
From back in the wineries, I’ve recently discovered both the wines–and the radio podcasts–of the family-owned and operated terrific little winery, Goosecross, over in Napa’s Yountville, which makes wines that are 100% direct-to-the-consumer. That means, if you’re looking for something to take back home that will stump that person who always trumps you on special wine finds, here’s your chance. Direct-to-consumer means: no distribution.
And finally, okay, it’s cheating a bit, but how can I not include the only winery in the counties that is actually called “radio”–Radio Coteau? Because, see, here’s the thing. They might not broadcast, but word is getting around on the street (which is more of less what “radio coteau” means anyhow) that winemaker Eric Sussman is making wines to die for. Check out the February 2012 Wine Advocate write up:
“I was only able to taste a handful of wines from Radio-Coteau, but I will be addressing that oversight in the near future. These are some of the most compelling wines being made in California. Proprietor Eric Sussman pursues organic and biodynamic farming with a focus on cooler, marginal growing sites. In the cellar the wines are made with ambient yeasts and natural malolactic fermentations. The wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered with the exception of the Chardonnay, which is lightly fined. Yields were down dramatically in 2010, mostly because of the lower crop set. The Pinots saw 5 days of cold soak followed by 15-17 days of fermentation. The Syrahs are potentially even more interesting, but I wasn’t able to taste a fully representative set of wines.” – Antonio Galloni
Have other wine-coutnry radio favorites? Be sure to let us know!
Living in Sonoma County, one of my all-time favorite events each year is the barrel tasting weekend: when dozens of wineries–including some that aren’t open to the public regularly–throw open the barn and cellar doors and invite people in to taste the wine before it’s officially released. And best of all, if you’re looking to stock up on wine at recession prices, this is the moment in the wine country to place your orders. There are significant discounts for back-lane wine aficionados looking to buy wine the French way: stocking up for the year ahead by going straight to the wine makers.
Why are there such good deals to be had during the barrel-tasting weekends (there are two in Sonoma and others in Napa, which I’ll post too)? Well, it’s not marketing. It’s because barrel tasting is a kind of shared gamble. The wines in barrels are still works-in-progress. You can get a pretty good idea of how the final wine is going to turn out (and learning how a wine develops over time is also part of the fun and the unique experience of barrel tasting weekends). But you won’t know for certain. And neither will the winemakers. So you’re making an educated guess.
On the other side, winemakers, after all, want to know that they have some of their wine sold before they go into the risky (and expensive) summer and harvest season for next year. After all, wine making is half art and half good farming, especially along the back lanes of Sonoma and Napa. There’s an old saying that a great bottle of wine is grown in the vineyard. So from the winemaker’s perspective, offering you a nice discount if you’re buying a few cases in the barrel is a fair deal. They know that last year’s wine is soon going to be on its way to you to enjoy, now that it’s happily aging in the barrels–which frees them up to focus on growing a super wine in the vineyards. And you get a great discount on super wines–wines you get a chance to buy from the winemakers, who are on hand during barrel tasting to answer all your questions.
And trying to get your wines home and thinking you can’t buy a couple of cases? Not only can wineries ship to many states, you can also plan a return trip and take cases of wine back home with you as checked luggage. There’s almost always a “release party” in the fall–a big celebration, with special invitations sent out to people who supported the winery during barrel tasting–when the bottles are ready to make their way to your cellars and table.
This year’s Sonoma event is hosted, as always, by the Wine Road, and there are over 100 wineries participating. Tickets at:http://www.wineroad.com/events/barrel_tasting/3.
I learned this week a bit of good news: I passed. With merit even! Passed what? The Advanced WSET Certificate in Wine and Spirits. After several months of intensive first-hand research, in locales from Napa to the Champagne, Bordeaux, and Chianti, and after the International Wine Center course, about two-dozen students met in a small room on the westside of Manhattan early one Saturday morning back in December to try our noses at passing the examination.
And I have to confess, even as a pretty experienced wine aficionado, I was surprised at how challenging the examination was. There was one section of endless multiple-choice questions, and my take away was that I don’t know as much about Greek wine varietals as I should, pretty clearly. (And equally clearly, that must mean I’ll need to book a ticket for some serious study, right?) Then there were essay questions. Thankfully, the major essay question this year was on the ins-and-outs of Champagne wine, and if there’s one thing I know from my passion for Veuve Clicquot and the life of its founder, the Widow Clicquot, it’s how a great bottle of Champagne it made.
Then, there’s the dreaded blinding tasting part of the examination. We had two wines, one red and one wine, and the students taking the examination were asked to write up a complete set of evaluative tasting notes on the wines–and then you had to be able to tell what the region of origin and the grape varietal was. It is a South African chenin blanc or a glass of Sancerre (which you’d better know is from the Loire and is going to be a sauvignon blanc). Luckily, I spent a summer in Sancerre not too long ago, brushing up on my perennially rusty French at a great language school--and what better way to practice than to go out and talk with the vignerons in the evening?
Now that I have the Level 3 Advanced Certificate, the next stop? Well, it’s all part of my secret mission to someday complete the Masters of Wine–the Mt. Everest of the wine world. Even getting accepted is a challenge, and passing the Advanced WSET is base camp achieved.
Event presented in conjunction with Folger Shakespeare Library’s celebration of women writers including the exhibition “Shakespeare’s Sisters”: talking good books and fabulous women with Stacy Schiff (author of the super biography of Cleopatra out this year) on March 2, 2012, at the Folger Library, Washington DC. Part of the PEN / Faulkner Foundation writer’s series.
I usually only get out to the Champagne once or twice a year, but I was able to spend a week or so out in my soul home this May, as part of the birthday celebrations for a certain big round number (gasp). And of course what visit to the Champagne would be complete without a trip along the way to see my old haunts at the Veuve Clicquot tasting room in Reims? Some of my friends had never been, and if you haven’t either here are a few photos to tempt you. Though when champagne is on offer, who really needs tempting? Some photos here of the underground caves that run for hundreds of miles beneath the city of Reims. They were used by the knights Templar for all sorts of shenanigans in the Middle Ages, by radicals during the French Revolution (and I’ll bet monarchists too), by clever winemakers who knew that they were the perfect temperature and humidity for storing bubbles, and by regular folks trying to escape the massive bombings of the city of Reims during the First World War. You can see in one of the photos here the “street signs” painted onto the walls of the caves during the war, giving people directions to the underground, war-time hospital station. Reims is 45 minutes on the TGV out of Paris, and for the first time in ages and ages all the scaffolding is finally off the cathedral of Notre Dame in Reims as well. It’s the first time I’ve seen it–or anyone has in a long while–in its restored beauty. Will be back out in August, and the vignerons say that due to the warmer than usual weather the harvest will be a full month early. Perfect timing.
Breaking news. Know you’re all on the edge of your seats. Shipwrecked Veuve bottle at auction went for $41K. Apparently you’ve all let me down and really aren’t planning to surprise me. Huh. Wow. I mean, unless someone moved to Singapore and hasn’t mentioned it yet? LOL.
Last week in the Champagne, I was able to get my first–and hopefully not my last–glimpse of one of wine history’s most fabulous finds in recent history: one of the shipwrecked Veuve Clicquot bottles. We all know by now that these sunken treasures were found by divers on the bottom of the sea in the Baltic, off the coast of the Åland Islands of Finland. The most recent historical evidence suggests that they date from the 1830s or 1840s–and that means that they are bottles the Widow Clicquot herself would have crafted. The name of the sunken ship hasn’t yet been discovered, and until then the precise date, their destination, and the name of one seriously disappointed purchaser will all remain on hold.
Two of those bottles will be auctioned off tomorrow, June 3, along with several lots of rare Veuve Clicquot vintages offered by the maison. Proceeds will go to charity, and the auction house Acker Merrall & Condit, have set a minimum price of 10,000 euros for the lots. But experts anticipate that they may go as high as a 100,000 euros a bottle. Needless to say, I am actively encouraging all my friends to buy me a bottle.
For those of us who can’t make it to the Åland Islands this week for the auction (and what, miss the Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic in New York?) but want to see one of the special bottles, one will be on display–this year only–at the Veuve Clicquot maison in Reims, France. You have your holy grail out there maybe. I know where to find mine. ;–)
Thanks to my friend, author Hannah Holmes, for calling my attention to Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld’s plans to launch a book-scented perfume. According the press reports: “Paper Passion, which will be sold inside a hardcover book with the pages hollowed out to hold the flacon, will be developed with Berlin perfumer Geza Schön, who told the paper that ‘the fragrance will have a fatty note,’ probably along the lines of linoleum, and that he was taking his inspiration from the smell of printed and unprinted paper.”
I write a book on Chanel’s No. 5 perfume. Lagerfeld is inspired to create a book-scented perfume. Coincidence? LOL.
Acker, Merrall & Condit and the Government of Åland Present A Historic Shipwreck Champagne Auction…
The shipwrecked Veuve Clicquot from the early nineteenth century goes on sale at last.
I’m not absolutely, totally sure where Åland is, beyond the general Baltic region. But there’s one thing I am certain about–never in my life have I coveted anything so purely as this. Just one bottle.
Well, let’s make it two. We’ll drink one and save one. I mean, no point in dreaming on the cheap…
