Monday, 30 April 2012
The Nature of the Beast
Wine Clubs
Old World vs. New World in More Ways than just the Wine
In the increasingly close quarters of our global village, Europe is responsible for bringing at least three different substantive and prodigious professional wine journals to market over the last several years. Each is written by a ‘Who’s Who’ of wine experts. Meanwhile, stateside, the U.S. has experienced an explosion of pithiness with amateur wine writers writing online.
This juxtaposition becomes relevant after reading a recent post titled, “Are wine blogs going tabloid” by professional wine critic and writer Steve Heimoff. In his brief post, with a decidedly American point of view, Heimoff summarizes his thoughts with the rhetorical query, “Why do certain bloggers revert to sensationalist stories that don’t, in the long run, matter?”
Good question. The easy conclusion suggests that controversy and hyperbolically bombastic articles lead to attention and traffic.
Certainly, two recent books that I’ve been reading bear out this discouraging notion: Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage and Celebrity, Inc.
Both books cover similar ground in examining how brands can subvert the 24-hour news cycle for business benefit and how the 24-hour news cycle has been subverted by celebrities using easy technology while leading our news culture into tabloidesque territory.
When considered with Heimoff’s point, it is an easy deduction to suggest that 1 + 1 does in fact equal 2 – the sensational does sell and, by proxy, online amateur wine writers are a reflection of our larger media culture.
However, in suggesting this, there is at least one bigger contextual point being missed as well as a caveat. First, it’s an exclusive view that doesn’t take in the totality of the global wine media village and second, while sensationalism may sell, the lascivious isn’t always what’s shared.
No, it seems our schadenfreude and more primal instincts are kept private, while our shock and awe comes to the fore, at least according to one study.
The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania recently examined the most emailed articles on the New York Times web site in March of this year (link initiates a PDF download), looking for the triggers for what causes somebody to share an article, what makes one thing more viral than another?
Their conclusion? Positive content is more viral than negative content, but both, in general, are driven by “activation” – the notion that high arousal (emotive pleasure or outrage) drives shareable content. According to the research abstract:
Content that evokes either positive (awe) or negative (anger or anxiety) emotions characterized by activation (i.e. high arousal) is more viral. Content that evokes deactivating emotion (sadness) is less viral. These results hold (dominance) for how surprising, interesting, or practically useful content is, as well as external drivers of attention.
This brings us back to my earlier mention regarding the European wine journals that have come to market in recent years. Simply, they’re an antidote to the U.S. proclivity for the vapid.
The World of Fine Wine, the family of Fine Wine magazines based in Helsinki and Tong based in Belgium all represent an Old World counterpoint to what can be deemed as the extemporaneous and superfluous coming from the New World.
As Tong publisher Filip Verheyden notes in the Tong manifesto (link initiates a PDF download) :
We live in times of “instant” gratification. If we want to talk to someone, we pick up our mobile phone wherever we happen to be. If we want to know something, we click an internet button. We’re going at 200 km per hour.
What we seem to forget in this race against time is the trustworthiness of this quickly-acquired knowledge, and that is something we have to find out for ourselves. But who takes the time to do it?
…The articles that appear in Tong demand the reader’s attention. You can’t read them fast and put them away; you have to take the time to understand. I’d say it takes an evening to read and think about each article. These are not issues to put in the recycling bin. Even after five years or more, each will continue to convey the essence of its theme…
The World of Fine Wine and Fine Wine magazine are both similarly endowed with length and verve.
My takeaway based on the Wharton research and the stunning dichotomy between what we’re seeing in the U.S. vs. European wine content is two-fold:
1) The sometimes sensational aspect of online wine writers, especially domestically, should heed the research and focus their pot-stirring ways on matters that provoke an emotional response from readers, ideally with a positive consequence – like HR 1161 for example instead of tired, lame attempted zingers aimed at Robert Parker.
2) In addition to a legacy sensibility about the nature and style of wine, the Old World is also drawing a culturally defining line in the sand in how they view and report on wine – it’s with substance, permanence and integrity.
The conclusion is anything but. However, as the world becomes a smaller place and the U.S. and our wine media becomes a part of the world chorus, losing lead vocal, I would hate for our place in the gallery to be rendered completely voiceless based on a lack of substance which is the seeming trajectory that we’re on.
It’s just a thought…
If you’re interested in seeing an example of Tong’s long-form think pieces, you can see examples here, here and here.
Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/old_world_vs._new_world_in_more_ways_than_just_the_wine/
Alan Kerr?s Vintage?s April 14th Release ? Tasting Notes
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A Wine for Tonight: 2010 Saviah Cellars The Jack Cabernet Sauvignon
A Wine for Tonight: 2010 Saviah Cellars The Jack Cabernet Sauvignon was originally posted on Wine Peeps. Wine Peeps - Your link to great QPR wines from Washington State and beyond.
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Protected: The Zinfandel Festival 2012: A new AVA to be reckoned with
Source: http://www.beyondnapavalley.com/blog/the-zinfandel-festival-2012-a-new-ava-to-be-reckoned-with/
Sunday, 29 April 2012
New Wines from South Africa
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Australian Wine: The Once and Future King?
You’ve never heard of Campbell Mattinson: He’s a young, urbane Australian wine wordsmith who forsakes the academically erudite and plaintive wine writing style of legends past for a muscular writing style that is jocularly loose yet incisive, showing every bit of the wunderkind talent of his global English-language contemporaries, Jamie Goode and Neal Martin.
Likewise, you probably haven’t heard of Mattison’s *new* wine book, Thin Skins: Why the French Hate Australian Wine first published in Australia in 2007 and now just released in America.
Seemingly stillborn upon its October publishing date in the states and updated with a scant epilogue where the author notes, “The headiness described in the early passages of this book is now long gone,” the book formerly offered in situ context on the boom and looming bust of the Australian wine landscape and is now something of an ipso facto think piece on the manifested reality.
With recency in absentia as one negative checkmark, Thin Skins as a body of work brooks no favors for itself either. Even when first published four years ago, it represented a compendium of articles and profile pieces, individually quite good, but collectively never quite transcending its constituent parts, especially one that supports the premise of the title. And, unlike its subject matter, time has not aged the book into cohesion.
Worse still, brought to the U.S. market by publisher Sterling Epicure, the book is likely supported with little more than the gas it takes a truck to drive a meager allotment of books to an Amazon.com warehouse and the dwindling number of Barnes & Nobles that still populate the landscape, a veritable line item in an editors’ fourth quarter publishing spreadsheet under the header, “wine.”
Thin Skins seems destined for a hastened half-life and quick retreat to the remainder bin at Half-Price Books…it’s an ignoble fate heaped upon by my damnation.
But, I’ve feinted purposefully, misdirecting by caveat because, despite everything I’ve mentioned having some inherent truth(including the author being very talented), Thin Skins is a wildly entertaining book that delivers on providing a teasing glimpse into a distinctly Aussie viewpoint on the factors that led to the Australian wine boom (Parker points, market forces, greed and drought) and in so doing the author makes three key points worth repeating:
1) The Aussie wine industry, save for its Gallo-like equivalents, is NOT happy about their country’s production being viewed globally as syrupy supermarket plonk
2) Our U.S. perception IS NOT reality regarding Australian wine; their wine industry has an abundance of refined, terroir-based wines from small vintners
3) The Aussie wine business will rise again on the international scene (in an entirely different form).
One key takeaway for me from the book is that Australia is remarkably similar to the U.S.
In the U.S., some reports indicate that 90% of the wine sold is “corporate” wine, the kind found at supermarkets across the country. However, what IS different is that 90% of our national conversation about wine focuses on the 10% of the wine production that ISN’T in the supermarket i.e. everything non-corporate – the boutique, artisan and interesting.
Yet, when it comes to Australian wine, we don’t continue our conversation about the small and beautiful. Instead of talking about the superlative, we view their entire country production through the lens of the insipid, the Yellowtail and other critters that cost $6.99 at Safeway.
American wine consumers would be rightfully indignant if the world viewed our wines not as we do, a rich tapestry, but as industrialized plonk from the San Joaquin Valley.
This is where Australian wine is at today—a ‘perception is reality’ mistake of colossal proportions.
While offering an abundance of stories from small producers along the way, Mattison suggests that while it may take time, with Australia having 162 years of winemaking history, the day will come, sooner rather than later, when Australian wine forsakes its near-term reputation and is viewed on the world stage as a wine producing country that can proudly stand next to its New World peers.
I wrote recently that I’ve noticed a slow change in tenor from American influencers regarding Aussie wine, they’re becoming more sympathetic, they’re starting to speak less dismissively and more optimistically and holistically about Australian wine, discussing the merits and great diversity in the land of Oz.
Recent Symphony IRI sales data bears this out as well. According to a Shanken NewsDaily report from this week, Australian wine in the $15 - $19.99 category rose 23% in September. In addition, growth is coming from varietals not named Shiraz (see also syrupy supermarket plonk). Instead, Semillon, Riesling and Pinot Noir are showing growth.
Still, it’s not the land of milk and honey here in the states for Aussie wine, as it once was. Overall sales are down by volume and dollars, but as Mattinson alludes the correction in the U.S. market isn’t going to be pretty, but it will be healthy and it’s quite possible that Australia will decrease in overall volume and dollar sales from persistent decline at the low-end for years to come as the high-end grows, but not at a rate to replace what was lost.
The net sum of that doesn’t balance a spreadsheet, but it does balance mindshare.
Pick-up Thin Skins if you want to get turned on to a great wine writer while also enjoying a greater understanding of Australian wine – where it has been and where it’s going—perhaps not as a future King, but definitely not in its current role as court jester.
Campbell Mattinson’s Wine Site: The Wine Front
Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/australian_wine_the_once_and_future_king/
Field Notes from a Wine Life ? Power Structure Edition
Odds and ends from a life lived through the prism of the wine glass…
Naked Wine and Occupy Wall Street
It’s not hard to notice the parallels between the natural wine movement and Occupy Wall Street - both are valid causes sorely lacking coherence and a rallying point that would move them from fringe head-scratcher to mainstream momentum.
• Natural wine is about purity of wine expression—shepherding grapes grown without chemicals to the bottle with as little human manipulation as possible, representing the place where they came from in the process.
• Occupy Wall Street is about re-calibrating the world’s best economic system – capitalism—to preserve the middle-class, the labor force that has allowed the U.S. to create the most productive economy in the world.
Neither movement represents fringe radicalism as some would have you believe. I look at both as being valid inflection points and, at their core, about keeping a balance between big and small, allowing every man and woman an equal opportunity at pursuing success around their particular truth.
What reasonable person would deny the validity of either if not clouded by confusion?
One idea well-conceived and well-communicated can change the world, but, unfortunately, both the natural wine movement and Occupy Wall Street are prevaricating from their essential truth, rendering them both toothless and feckless.
No need to crib from Che Guevara, but appealing to base logic and the common denominator would do both movements some good.
Just one man’s opinion…
On the Aussies, Redux
A few weeks back, I noted how the Australian wine industry was poised for a rebound in public perception due in part to two things happening in concert – public backlash to Yellow Tail wine, what I call the, “Derision Decision,” and an unspoken coalition of influencers recognizing Australia’s artisanal wine production – the antithesis of Yellow Tail. I cited recent sympathetic mentions from Jay McInerney in the Wall Street Journal and Dan Berger, wine writing’s current patriarch, as proof points.
You can add to the list of sympathetic mentions about artisanal Australia with recent mentions from Jancis Robinson and James Suckling.
Don’t sleep on Australia. It’s making a comeback slowly, but surely in public perception.
Tim Mondavi and Wine Spectator
Thomas Matthews, the Executive Editor for Wine Spectator magazine (WS), has commented on my site a few times. Each of these instances has been to protect or project Wine Spectator around its editorial goals.
Good on Thomas for not being afraid to get in the ring. Certainly, WS takes its fair share of shots from the wine chatterati, mostly with grace and aplomb.
Lest I cast myself as anything but objective, I should note that James Laube’s article on Tim Mondavi and Continuum in the current issue of WS (November 15th issue) is everything right about what mainstream wine media can offer wine consumers that online wine writing (mostly) doesn’t –long-form, depth, first-person access and an effort that takes weeks and not hours.
Laube’s piece is excellent - well-written and balanced; acknowledgement thereof is in order.
Besides the Wine
Jordan winery has two wines – a Cabernet and Chardonnay, but they really have a triumvirate in terms of things to buy. Jordan focuses on food and wine as being partners at the table and, to that end, any purchase from Jordan should also include their olive oil. Wow!
The Jordan olive oil makes Trader Joe’s EVOO seem like Two Buck Chuck, comparatively speaking. A little whole wheat Barilla pasta, some homemade pesto using the Jordan olive oil and some artisan bread in five minutes a day and you’re assuredly living the good life. The rub is I wouldn’t pour the round Jordan Chard with the pesto, probably a Sauvignon Blanc, but don’t let that dissuade you from picking up their olive oil – it’s good stuff.
Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/field_notes_from_a_wine_life_power_structure_edition/
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No one wants to watch wine movies
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Domaine Pierre Usseglio
But I [...]
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Honig Wine Dinner at Blue Ginger
I say laser-targeted because I love Honig's wines and I love Blue Ginger.
Honig is a Napa producer of a freaking delicious Sauvignon Blanc, a Napa value benchmark Cabernet, and a spot-on higher end Cabernet bottling (Bartolucci). I enjoy the style of their wines year in and year out and they deliver value across everything they produce.
Blue Ginger is hands down our favorite restaurant in town. They always seem to deliver a good time whether you sit in the lounge, sit down for dinner, or attend a wine event.
Here's the lineup:
Wednesday, February 29 at 6:30pm
Shiitake-Ginger Mushroom Broth
with Twice Stuffed Yukons
Cabernet Sauvignon Demi and Thai Basil Oil
To make a reservation: 781-283-5790 ex. 18
For more information: http://ming.com/blueginger/upcoming-events/honig-wine-dinner.htm
Here are my tasting notes on prior vintages of Honig wines:
- 2009 Honig Sauvignon Blanc - USA, California, Napa Valley (8/15/2010)
Oh my what a delicious wine. If you're looking for a wine to share with guests who don't usually drink wine I think you might find them guzzling this one with delight. And for guests that do drink wine, if they're not adverse to a little fruit-forward, slight sweetness to their wine I think they'd appreciate this one too.
If we take Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc as the baseline for new world SB and subtract the edgy zingy pungent aromatics and replace it with new world tropical goodness- I think you have this wine.
Depending on the mood you're it might suit you very well. (90 points) - 2007 Honig Cabernet Sauvignon - USA, California, Napa Valley (6/21/2010)
This wine so completely aligns with the flavor profile I'm looking for in a Napa Cab- I love it. Ripe blackberries that fade into deliciously savory dusty tannins. The finish is a bit short but it tasted so good I didn't care. (93 points) - 2004 Honig Cabernet Sauvignon Bartolucci - USA, California, Napa Valley (3/16/2010)
This was pretty darn good for my palate. Hard to say it was worth the money (the baseline Honig Cab is pretty good). But it didn't disappoint and I enjoyed it very much. (93 points)
Further Reading:
Saturday, 28 April 2012
Coming Up: Patz & Hall Wine Dinner at Legal Harborside
On Thursday, February 2nd Legal Seafoods is offering a 4-course wine dinner with Patz & Hall Winery owner Donald Patz. If you haven't been yet, this is an opportunity to visit their flagship Legal Harborside location which includes 3 levels of dining in an ambitious harborside dining mecca in Boston's Seaport District.
We visited Legal Harborside this past summer and were impressed. The first floor dining room offers casual dining similar to most Legal Seafoods and opens up nicely to the water in warmer months. The second floor offers a more refined dining experience and is where this wine dinner is going to be held. The third floor is a ritzy club scene that wouldn't be out of place in Vegas.
The location also includes a marketplace on the first floor as well as some unique features. Like Catch and Release trout fishing right in the restaurant.
I had a bottle of 2009 Patz & Hall Pinot Noir recently that really blew me away. 93 points for me - here are my notes:Medium-full bodied magenta. Aromatically beautiful with rich strawberry, red raspberry, and fresh clean earth which translates brilliantly to the palate. Silky texture balanced nearly perfectly with acidity and just a touch of tannic grip.
A benchmark California Pinot Noir from and iconic pruducer. Highly recommended.
Here's the menu for the wine dinner:
Hors d? Oeuvres
Tuna Tartare with Yuzu Aioli on Rice Crisp
King Crab Skewers with Wasabi Mayo
Patz & Hall ?Dutton Ranch? Chardonnay, Russian River Valley, 2010
First Course
Bacon-Wrapped Scallop
parsnip pur�e, smoked maple vinaigrette
Patz & Hall ?Zio Tony Ranch? Chardonnay, Russian River Valley, 2009
Second Course
Grilled Loch Duart Salmon
black beluga lentils, braised artichoke, smoked tomato
Patz & Hall Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast, 2010
Third Course
Braised Beef Shortribs
Creamed Cavolo Nero
Patz & Hall ?Pisoni Vineyard? Pinot Noir, Santa Lucia Highlands, 2008
Cheese Course
Comt� Gruy�re
spiced nuts
Patz & Hall ?Pisoni Vineyard? Pinot Noir, Santa Lucia Highlands, 2000
$135 Per Person
(excluding tax and gratuity)
For more information or to make a reservation:
http://www.legalseafoods.com/index.cfm/page/Patz-and-Hall-Wine-Dinner/cdid/45005/pid/43564
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SEO Services
Social Connections are still about people not stats
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Littorai Wine Dinner at Legal Harborside Boston
Legal Harborside in Boston is offering a paired dinner featuring Littorai Wines. Owner Ted Lemon (featured in the video above) is scheduled to be on hand to present his wines.
WHAT: On May 9th, Legal Harborside will team up with Ted Lemon, owner of Littorai Wines, for an exclusive four-course wine dinner. A vineyard known for producing world class chardonnay and pinot noir, Littorai Wines was founded in 1993 on the north coast of California between Sebastopol and Freestone in western Sonoma County.
Video Credit: A visit to Littorai from WinoBrothers on Vimeo.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/r1csLW4AwlQ/littorai-wine-dinner-at-legal.html
The electricity of creativity
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Deal Alert: 2009 Sanford Pinot Noir
Over the holidays I had a bunch of nice wines out to share with family. None drew more praise than a bottle of 2007 Sanford Pinot Noir.
Here are my notes on the 2007:
For me, this wine finds that elusive intersection between tasting really good and being high quality. Slightly darker than your average Pinot Noir. I get rich dark cherries, ripe strawberries, and slightly sweet baking spices on the nose. A really enjoyable mouth feel - ample presence but silky smooth. Higher than average viscosity: It's rich but has tremendous finesse. Never gets heavy. A real beauty. At 5 years of age, this is showing very nicely.
I liked it a lot. Guests went so gonzo for it I don't see how I could score it any lower. I don't think I've ever heard so many collective raves for a wine from this crowd [that appreciates wine].
93/100 WWP: Outstanding
It's hard to find this wine south of $30 regardless of vintage. In looking around a bit I found an amazing price on the 2009 vintage. 2009 is a great vintage for California Pinot and given the track record of this producer I'm willing to take a chance on buying some without tasting it first.
The price is $20.99/bottle at Esquin Wines, eligible for 5% off a straight 12 bottle case. Some retailers sell half bottles for more! (they assure me these are full bottles) Shipping costs vary depending on your location but top out at $44 for a case shipped to the east coast (they don't ship to MA, that would be illegal). $23.60 fully loaded or less depending on where you're located.
Esquin is based in Seattle and has a sister e-commerce site at MadWine.com. This wine is a newsletter special and isn't available online. The best way to order is old school over the phone:
Esquin Wine Merchants at 888-682-9463
Deal hound friends will note that this wine doesn't show up on wine-searcher.com without Wine Searcher Pro. Pro adds listings for retailers who don't sponsor their listings on Wine-Searcher and the ability to create email alerts for wines matching your desired criteria. For example you can create a listing for "2009 Kosta Browne Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir that ships to MA for less than $60". That search might never turn up anything but it's worth a shot!
I'd love if you subscribed to The Wellesley Wine Press if you like hearing about wine deals like this.
Question of the Day: What do you think of this deal? Find any other good ones lately?
Friday, 27 April 2012
Wine labels done right, a discovery at VinCE
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Phelps Pastiche Ritchie Creek Rochioli Rosenblum St. Clement
Deborah Harkness On Wine Blogs, Vampires and Writing
Chardonnay Sauvignon Blanc Riesling Chenin Blanc Pinot Grigio
Wine Event Announces Winners
The Rise of Muscat, a Sign of The Apocalypse?
The Rise of Muscat, a Sign of The Apocalypse? originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.
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Will China?s Influence Lead To Lower Alcohol Wines?
Will China’s Influence Lead To Lower Alcohol Wines? originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.
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Thursday, 26 April 2012
The electricity of creativity
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Veggie burgers ? impossible food-wine pairing?!?
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Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Pinot Noir Syrah or Shiraz Zinfandel
2007 Pomerol
Charles Shaw: What A Long Strange Trip It?s Been
Charles Shaw: What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.
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Tablas Creek Talley Whitehall Lane Chardonnay Sauvignon Blanc
Wine Gift Baskets
A golden opportunity for all wine
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Short term wine storage: How warm is too warm?
With quite a bit of wine in-flight across the country as spring shipping season is in full swing I've also been wondering whether those shipments might be exposed to more heat than we'd like.
It got me thinking I might be overreacting a bit.
The wine sitting on a retailer's shelf has, in some cases, been through much worse. Who knows what weather that wine was subject to when it was shipped? And how long as it been sitting on the retailer's shelf in a room that's usually air conditioned but likely hits the mid-70Fs during the warmer months?
And what about my friends who live in warmer climates? Wines stored on the counter spend most of their life in the high 70Fs. How long until those wines are spent?
I know first hand how extreme heat can destroy wine. When we were moving from Arizona to Massachusetts a few years back I had a couple boxes of wine in the $30-$60/bottle range. It wasn't enough to warrant exploring separate climate controlled transport - or so I thought - so I just shipped it with the rest of our household goods. The wine was totally cooked. Some wine seeped out of the corks as I could see on the capsules. The wine tasted lifeless and like stewed vegetables. After popping 2 or 3 spoiled Sterling SVRs (that blew me away at the winery) I was thirsting for anything fresh and clean. Anything!
So, for short term storage, how critical is it to keep wine cool? Here's Wine Spectator's Dr. Vinny weighing in on a similar question:
Is it OK that a bottle of wine was exposed to a temperature of 70-75 degrees for 24 hours? Answer: http://bit.ly/GH5HXoMy take is that I'm comfortable keeping wine in the mid-70Fs for a month or two. But if it's going to be longer than that I'd seek out some way to keep the wine cooler. Especially for nicer bottles that merit mid-term aging.
Question of the Day: What's your take on this?
Passionate About Western Pinot Noir? This Might Be For You...
PinotReport focuses its coverage on Western Pinot Noir - which translates to mostly new world wines outside of Pinot Noir's traditional home of Burgundy. The publication is put out by former Wine Spectator Senior Editor and President Gregory Walter who lives in Sonoma. His coverage of nearby producers is extensive, but he also devotes time to Oregon, New Zealand, and other areas known for Pinot Noir production.
Seeing that there was a publication out there devoted exclusively to new world Pinot Noir was intriguing to me. Unlike other categories it's not exactly clear which professional critic's voice is most authoritative in new world Pinot Noir.
I follow James Laube from Wine Spectator closely, but he only covers California Pinot Noir and has a lot of other categories to cover as well. Harvey Steiman covers Oregon Pinot Noir for Spectator, and has turned me on to a lot of great values, but Oregon Pinot Noir has been disappointing to me. I always looked at Robert Parker's reviews of Pinot Noir as half-hearted. As in: If it's outside of Bordeaux, Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Napa, it's second tier. Antonio Galloni has picked up coverage of California Pinot Noir along with seemingly everything else for Wine Advocate so I doubt he'll have much time to focus on the category.
Burghound does cover California Pinot Noir but I'm predisposed to suspect it's through the lense of how well it exudes Burgundian character. The Prince of Pinot looks promising even though he doesn't score wines. I'll have to take a closer look at each of these.
But PinotReport is uniquely positioned in this space.
I reached out to Gregory last fall and asked for a trial subscription for the purposes of writing this review and I've been following along with new issues since.
Each issue starts with opening thoughts which usually focus on the current vintage or the state of the Western Pinot Noir market at large. The bulk of the content follows a format that should be familiar to Wine Advocate readers whereby the winery's story is told along with some editorial thoughts on the quality of the current releases. Tasting notes for each wine reviewed along with prices and numerical scores on a 100 point scale follow. A typical issue is around 10 pages long and features wines from a half dozen producers. New issues are published about once a month.
I'm a big believer in blind tasting so it's encouraging to read that "All wines were tasted blind and scored before knowing anything other than that the general region they were from." I think this is particularly important when assessing various bottlings from a given producer. If any reviewer is presented wines in ascending price order I can't help but think they're going to be predisposed to liking the more expensive wines more.
PinotReport seems to navigate the situation successfully. For example, here's his note on the entry level Sojourn appellation bottling. Assuming the first sentence is what was written during blind tasting and the second sentence is his thoughts after revealing the labels it makes me take special note of the favorable rating of this more affordable bottling:
Sojourn Cellars
Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast 2010
Medium-deep ruby color; deep, earthy cherry and spice aromas; deep, complex cherry flavors with many layers of spice, anise and earth notes; silky texture; great structure and balance; long finish. Complex and many-layered Pinot that is a testament to the fact that an appellation blend in the hands of the right winemaker can as good or better than a vineyard designate.
925 cases made $39 Score: 95
Print and online subscriptions are available. Each new issue is announced online with an email to subscribers which contains a link to download the content as a PDF. Back issues are also available for download. Search capabilities could be better, but full PinotReport tasting notes are available on CellarTracker under Professional Reviews for subscribers.
I'd love to see the content delivered as a gorgeous interactive eBook. I always enjoy reading the latest issue of Spectator with a glass of wine. I'd like to extend that experience to other publications but a PDF doesn't quite have the same feel as a glossy magazine. Maybe reading it on an iPad would help (I don't yet own one but I'm tempted).
Walter's enthusiasm for the subject is evident which in turn makes reading each newsletter enjoyable. He has a wealth of knowledge yet never talks down to the reader. My sample size is small but I think he tends to be more generous with the big scores than some other critics. Once you account for that his palate seems very well calibrated with mine. Your mileage may vary of course!
Overall I'd rate PinotReport 92 points. Content so laser focused it's hard not to like. Expertise and experience on the subject delivered in a warm likeable tone. I get the feeling it would be a ton of fun to go wine tasting through Sonoma with Greg, and I think PinotReport provides a window into what that would be like.
So check it out: PinotReport.com
You can also find PinotReport on Facebook: PinotReport
And follow him on Twitter: @PinotReport
Question of the Day: Who is your most trusted source of new world Pinot Noir reviews?
