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Vino Manifesto

Nine thoughts on wine

By Jason KallsenCopyright 2011

Jason Kallsen & Twin Cities Wine Education LLC

Introduction to Vino Manifesto

Formulas, lists, and scores abound in our world. How to make the perfect roast chicken in four easy steps. Top ten movies of the year. Tweaking your driving for ultimate gas milage. Top three measurements of happiness (my personal first step: drink wine).

You name it, and there is a program, a formula, or a 'simple way to approach it'. Unfortunately, this mentality has crept into the world of wine. I say unfortunately, because the subjective nature of wine does not allow for the infinite combinations of factors that result in either A) you like the stuff, or B) you don't like the stuff … in the end, isn't that what it comes down to?

Wine cannot be corralled like a sheep, and it cannot be broken down into a formula. Wine is a shape-shifter, adapting and complementing, conflicting and contrasting, all the while refusing to sit still, and thank the wine gods for that! The dangerous trap of thinking youʼve got something nailed is extremely powerful when it comes to the world of wine, for at no point is what you drink will ever be the same again (if that statement seems overblown to you, please read on!).

Welcome to some new ways to think about wine. As the amazing Terry Theise has said, "Don't approach the wine, let the wine approach you."

POINT ONEContext is everything

You're sitting on a veranda overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Not at the Motel Six of Livorno, mind you, but rather an old Italian villa, with marble rails worn glossy from hundreds of years of people leaning out to absorb the view. History drips from every view: the clay tile roofs, the plaster walls, the old oil lamps hanging on the walls. Two hundred feet below you hear the waves of the sea crashing into the rocks, and the spray of sea infuses the air. Your lover tells you I love you. Somebody starts singing something in Italian. Or maybe in the building next door somebody is practicing opera. The meal was perfect, a fish caught that day, and dessert is coming soon. The sun is just disappearing over the horizon, and the candles are being delivered to the table. You inhale, hoping to absorb every molecule of the moment. Your lover reaches for the bottle, pours another splash into your fine crystal, and you realize this is one of those moments of perfection. The scenery, the moment, the food, the love, and linking it all together is the wine.

Fast forward six months. Your alarm clock decided to commit electro-cide overnight, so you wake up late for work. Stepping on the cat as you get out of bed, you run to the bathroom and discover that it wasn't soap you were out of (after purchasing the 48 pack at the warehouse super duper mega store) but rather toothpaste. The hot water heater isn't working, but you're late and have to kick the morning into gear. You are out of coffee. Arriving late for the meeting, your boss sitting next to you says "Is you sweater inside out?" Looking down, you see the closeout tag still attached "$1.99 final price no further discounts." At the cafeteria, the last sandwich available is from last week, and tastes like it. Driving home, craving toothpaste, you think back to that sweet moment in Italy with the opera singer and the fish, and decide to pop that last bottle you brought back with you because it would bring good memories. Arriving home, you find the bottle and hesitate -- I really shouldn't -- but you pop the cork and the sound makes you smile. You pour a glass. You lift it to your nose. And it's not the same.

Context changes the taste of wine, because personal taste changes with context. It's easy to say 'A influences B' … anybody who drinks Pinot Noir right after an espresso can attest to that. But more subtle are the changes that seasons, atmospheric pressure, the company you keep, and other non-statistical aspects bring to the table.

If youʼre still with me, here is another story.

Iʼve had a particular wine from Seghesio Family Vineyards of Healdsburg, California three times. Itʼs a rare wine for them, a Petite Sirah from what they call the Home Ranch (usually just a bit of Petite is added to their Home Ranch Zinfandel but on rare occasions they will bottle the Petite Sirah independently). The Home Ranch is the original Seghesio family property (an amazing vineyard just west of Highway 101 and just north of Geyserville. There is an ingenious extraction there - a pimple on the earth - called Rattlesnake HIll.). On the property lived the family matriarch, Rachel Ann

Seghesio (Peter Seghesioʼs mother) whom I had developed a friendship with after many visits to the property and many meals with her kids, Peter and Camille.

The first time I tasted it I was at the wineryʼs tasting room. I had been going through their Zinfandels, a lot of them, and after about a dozen Zinfandels the Petite Sirah stood out in a lovely way. It was a cold and damp Northern California day outside, about 40 degrees Fahrenheit and fog that refused to lift. That wine, at that moment, was perfect and I bought two bottles. I brought them home and stashed them in the cellar.

The second time I tasted the wine I opened a bottle on a fine spring evening two years later. We had grilled beef short ribs that were slow roasted on the grill for five hours. The ribs were perfect, with amazing deep flavor and richness, and the wine cut through

the richness with precision. That evening it was all about the food and wine pairing, along with the birds in the air and the tulips in bloom. It was cool and damp, and it reminded me of the day I bought the wine in California.

The third and last time I had the wine it was after I heard that Rachel Ann Seghesio had passed away. The word had spread quickly but quietly in the wine circles -- the family desired privacy during this difficult time. I went to my cellar, took my last bottle of Petite Sirah out, opened my computer, and drank the wine while looking at photos of the property and memories

of Rachel Ann. Wine with history and family attached to it tastes different in a circumstance such as that. Gone are the adjectives, and gone are the food pairing ideas. In their place comes memories and family and history. To put a score on the wine at that moment would have been sacrilege to the extreme.

Which brings us beautifully to our next idea …

Me and Rachel Ann Seghesio

POINT TWOScores are bullshit

When you examine the infinite possibilities of external influences (stemware, food you are eating, a perfume covered woman sitting next to you), internal influences (how are you feeling today? Sad? Happy? Eager?), and context (let's go back to our veranda in Italy for a moment), combined with the simple fact that we are all human beings and have our own sense of taste I have to ask the obvious question: How the in the hell can Robert Parker, Stephen Tanzer, Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, and other review journals pinpoint the overall quality of a wine into a numerical scale?

The options that conspire in the tasting of wine are like the first four moves on a chessboard. Those first four moves can result in 197,742 possible positions. And in tasting wine, as mentioned when talking about context, there is a huge matrix of

combinations that can either subtly or drastically change what you smell and taste. And this is not quantifiable in the form of a score.

We don't, as consumers of literature, walk into a large bookstore and ask for a 92 point book. We don't, as consumers of music, go onto itunes and simply buy what is popular in every genre. And we don't, as lovers of art, stand in front of American Gothic and say "I dunno … the pitchfork is a bit much and the colors don't pop as I think they should so I give it an 85."

Are there quality levels in wine? Of course! Just as there are in literature, music, and art. But what you are trying to get out of the

wine matters more than what is in the wine, and a score cannot tell you what sort of experience you'll have in a given situation.

Here is a crystal clear way to think of this: if you goal is an intellectual discussion on the influence of climate on the Pinot Noirs of the Pacific Coast that's one thing. If you goal is to get laid it's another. And there is a big difference in what you buy for those purposes.

There is a world of difference between Thomas Kinkade and Rothko. But one is hanging with far more frequency in the livings rooms of America. Does that make it better art? You have two magazines on the nightstand but guess what? Sometimes Iʼm in the mood for The New Yorker and sometimes Iʼm in the mood for Trashy Tales of the Rich and Famous. And that's okay.

Supremely cool endorsement!

So how does this play into wine? Nature craves variety (more on this soon for ideas on building a wine cellar), and it's healthy to have both types of wine available -- the intellectual and the hedonistic (to rip off Mr. Parker's signature term). Find grapes that you like, or producers that you enjoy. Maybe stick to a region that you have found affinity for. However you want to contain your purchases, do your best to only buy that grape, or that producer, or that region's wines until you feel you have an understanding. When you hear a song you like on the radio, a song you have never heard before but you like it immediately, you write down the name. You go online. You buy the song and see some suggestions. You follow a few, and find yourself on the path of a whole new world of music you didn't know existed. Treat wine the same way.

Drinking Puligny-Montrachet, in Puligny-Montrachet. Wine tastes fundamentally different when you are looking at the spot of its birth. Denying that this is an

influence is crazy, and declaring it unimportant is just plain rude. Realize that all wine tasting is done through the lens of your present circumstance.

POINT THREEThere are "Food Wines"

and there are "Fireplace Wines"

As part of my vinous directive to get people out of the idea of scores, I think its important to help give you an alternative. Every single wine I buy falls into one of two categories: itʼs either a food wine or a fireplace wine.

A food wine is one where the acidity or tannin is racy enough that it really could use a complement of fats or proteins to help balance it out. On the white side, many New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs fall into this category -- on their own the high acidity builds up, resulting in a green pepper or (at worst) a cat pee essence. But pair it up with a perfectly cooked piece of salmon, sauteed and simple and not overcooked, and you have fats to help balance the acidity.

Same thing with a tannic monster of a Cabernet or Petite Sirah. Half a glass of many of those wines, on their own, will leave you seeking a gallon of water to rejuvenate your mouth. However, paired with a grilled rib eye steak, and you have balance (which is always, always, always the goal).

Hereʼs a great example of a food wine: Chianti. Made from Sangiovese, a great Chianti is going to burst at the seams with bing cherry aromas and maybe some earthiness. The taste, by definition, should be rather acidic and for some, shrill. Drink half a glass of Chianti and your taste buds will start to unionize and revolt. The harshness builds with every sip, dying for some cheese or slow roasted chingale (wild boar) to balance out the wine. Once you have a bite of the right food, the wine is pushed back into place and the mob scene with your taste buds quietly disappears. A food wine, incarnate.

But there is another category, that of fireplace wines - or wines that do not need any food to balance them out. Lower acid wines such as some new world Chardonnays, Semillon, Merlot, and many Australian Shiraz fall into this category. These are wines you light a fire, pop a bottle of, and spend the rest of the evening staring into the eyes of your lover (or somebody youʼre hoping will apply for the position).

Some wines cross categories, and these are the most versatile of wines. Cotes du Rhone, some Pinot Noirs (especially from Oregon), Viognier, and others can play the dual role of great with food or great without.

But again, context is everything, and that New Zealand acid bomb might be just what the doctor ordered on a hot, sticky, humid afternoon in the summer after (or while) working in the garden. Just watch where you stick that spade.

POINT FOURWho made the wine,

and why they made it, matters more than you think

The influence of the winemaker cannot be overstated, for these are the people that decide through various methods what the wine will ultimately taste like. Yes, where a wine is from is of top priority, but see point number five for more on my opinions on terroir.

For some companies (think big ones here) the goal of the winemaker is to do everything possible to NOT show their talents, which is not an easy thing to do. The goal at many of these big houses is consistency above all else, and if you have a product (read: "widget") that has a huge market share, the last thing the fat cats that sign the checks (or, in the worst case, shareholders) want is something to change. This is understandable, for this is business.

But keep these ideas in mind when you buy any of these brands that are so large they actually have worldwide presence in any store that also carries liquor lolli-pops and large half pint selections. Sounds like a joke but itʼs not. There are some wines that can be found from Mitchell, South Dakota to Salon-des-Provence, France and everywhere in between.

Many wines in the under $8 a bottle category fall into this formula-thinking. They are devoid of character, yet amazingly appealing to the masses. They are the coffee table books of the wine world … quick to flip through and absolutely devoid of intrigue, character, and personality. Iʼm not against them! They serve a purpose, and in the world of wine they have to exist. Fred Franzia didnʼt invent a category when he created Two Buck Chuck, he simply filled a void and good for him for that. But it doesnʼt mean that you or I have to buy it.

For just a few dollars more than the $8 wine that was designed through taste committee and has a label with yet another animal or cute phrase on it, you can buy something from a family with a history, a family that has a dog and two kids and callouses on their hands and that rise early in the morning to do the work necessary because there is nobody else to do it. Southern France in particular is swimming in wines known as “Sunday wines” because thatʼs the one day a week that the proprietor has to work on vines. But even countries that have a reputation for ʻcritter winesʼ (think Australia) have small producers running fast circles around the cumbersome giants. Seek them out. Ask for them. Itʼs not just what you drink itʼs what you stand for.

POINT FIVETerroir exists, but be careful

The French definition of Terroir is beautiful in its simplicity: a particular spot of land gives qualities to a wine that cannot be given by any other spot. The combination of soil type, drainage, exposure, altitude, climate, and a thousand other factors conspire to make a wine that by definition cannot exist from anywhere else.

The best wine region to experience true terroir is the Mosel Valley in Germany, with the Riesling grape. These wines rarely are aged in oak (rather, stainless steel), they do not go through malolactic fermentation (a second and natural fermentation many wines go through that converts the green-apple like acids to milk-like acids), and they are old and established vines from old and established vineyards. In other words, pretty much everything is a level

playing field besides the vineyard site itself. The winemaker is, for the most part, taken out of the equation because Riesling is a ʻtransparentʼ wine -- a wine that gets screwed up the more you fuss with it. Taste through different vineyards in the Mosel in glasses that are side by side (invite ten friends over and everybody throws twenty bucks in the hat, and be sure to rent enough good stemware so you can have four or five wines in front of you at once). Ah, terroir!

But wait ... letʼs talk about another bastion of terroiresque banter: Burgundy. Iʼve said it many times and Iʼll say it again: great Burgundy is one of the best reasons to be a wine lover. Nowhere else in the world has terroir reigned as supreme, and the vineyards of Burgundy are famously cut up into little sections, often owned by many families at the same time. Once, on a trip to the region of Aloxe-Corton (home to some of the best Burgundy vineyards) a producer proudly showed me his half row of vines in a three acre vineyard. Beaming from ear to ear, he laughed and said “Isnʼt it lovely? I still

Examining the “Rutherford Dust” of Frogʼs Leap Winery

cannot believe my good fortune to have this vineyard. It is truly some of the greatest terroir.” Later that night at a wine bar in Beaune I tasted his wine, and it was haunting and delicious and sensual. Earthy, mellow, detailed, everything that Burgundy should be. But then I tasted his brotherʼs wine, the wine made from the other half of the row. It too was earthy, it too was detailed, but it was a different wine. It had more dark color, and a bit of dill on the nose, showing evidence of oak aging. Curious, I tried a third wine, from a different producer but the same vineyard and the same vintage. Another animal entirely. Tannin abounded, overwhelming the fruit, and the wine obviously needed some time to come together. No hint of the earthiness existed.

Terroir does exist, but the moment a winemaker or vineyard manager makes any decisions involving the grapes, it changes the game. Simply pruning vines has a huge impact. Do you fertilize? Do you prefer an earlier harvest or late hanging fruit? What sort of yeast do you choose for fermentation (or do you do a wild fermentation)? Are you adding or adjusting any acid or tannin levels? Do you add a bit of sugar to help boost the alcohol (a practice far more common that you would think)?

In the end, itʼs the old nature vs. nurture argument, and itʼs a great topic of debate if you find yourself cornered by a wine snob.

Core samples from Burgundy. Terroir demonstrated.

POINT SIXYou save money by going to

a good wine merchant and paying a bit more, Instead of the discount center and paying less

Why? Because a good wine merchant will have a higher batting average.

Say you buy one hundred bottles at a year at an average of $15.00 a bottle.

At a wine merchant, you get suggestions, ideas, and an insider's scoop on what is new and spectacular. For the sake of argument, let's say 90% of his or her selections are, in your view, above average. One hundred bottles a year @ $15.00 a bottle = $1500. If ten percent of them are under-performers, then that equates to $150 of the purchases. Your new cost per bottle that you enjoyed is $16.50.

At the super mega warehouse airplane hanger store attached to the even bigger mega warehouse furnishing and grocery store, you don't get any help or suggestions other than the 'talkers' otherwise known as 'silent salesmen' begging you to pay attention to their 104.62 point rating. The wines purchased by such as store have to be produced in enough quantity for distribution, which means you have no access to truly limited, artisan, gems of the wine world. (A lovely trick in these shops is to have the big names of big wines prominently displayed to make you think they are the end-all-be-all of wine departments. Donʼt let it fool you ... the number of cases of Opus One, Silver Oak, and Veuve Cliquot produced annually would astound you and in my humble opinion the quality of those wines show it.)

Anyway, you buy your one hundred bottles at $15.00 each, but if twenty five percent of them are underwhelming, your cost per bottle enjoyed raises to $18.75.

Bang for the buck is the goal, and I firmly believe that a wine merchant is the way to go. Sometimes people buy a bottle at the merchant then go out of their way to find it on sale somewhere else. That's okay, because competition is healthy, but at the same time when you patronize somebody other than your chosen fine wine merchant you may be missing out on the next great thing. Just saying. The choice you make about where to spend your money is far more important than you may give it credit for.

POINT SEVEN Know how to find a good wine merchant

So if Iʼm telling you to go to a store that charges more. Interesting concept, huh? How do you vet them? How can you tell if a store has your interests first and foremost, rather than just trying to run through a huge pile of Chateau Cashflow because they are making high margins on that wine?

Go to every liquor store and wine shop in your immediate local area. What youʼre looking for is a clean wine department with a dedicated employee for wine available most of the time. Going to “Bobʼs House of Booze” might not be the best plan, but you never know (every great wine geek has to start somewhere). Stick your nose in (yes, pun intended), poke around, and go with your gut. No need to buy anything yet. Youʼre only trying to whittle it down to three stores.

Itʼs surprising how some stores that you wouldnʼt expect to have a great wine selection really do (and vice-versa). There was one store in my local area that was tiny, cramped, and odd. It used to be a Diary Queen or something like that ... and about twenty years ago somebody remodeled it and jammed a ton of liquor into it, mostly pints of vodka. About ten years later he sold it to a local retired pro hockey player who was looking for something a guy with two bum knees could do, and lo and behold this pro hockey player had a penchant for wine. Over the next three years he jammed every possible top name into that store. If you wanted Gaja, Shafer, Rayas, and Penfolds Grange he had them. You would have never guessed the treasure trove that box held unless you went in and knew what you were looking at. Then two sad things happened: the guy had no idea how to market what he had, and (get ready for this) he stood all the bottles up. There they stood, corks drying out, for years. The best wines sold over time, but even today it stands as an archeological wine tomb. If you want some 1990 Gaja Barbaresco that is completely oxidized, let me know because I know where to find it.

Anyway - back to point - how to find a good merchant. Visit one of your three finaliats and tell the wine employee you have $40 (flash a couple of Andrew Jacksons for dramatic mafia-like effect), that you need three bottles of wine for the weekend, and you are having smelt with peanut butter (or whatever) for dinner tonight. See where they take you. Do they point and grunt and say “Thatʼs pretty good over there.” Or do they take you to different selections? Do they expand on your question -- what types of wine do you like? How are you preparing the smelt? Do you want all for one meal or some for other dishes? Take mental note, keep the receipt, and head home.

Once home, take the receipt and put a big plus or minus on top based on the experience shopping there. Also, before you forget, write a quick description of the person that helped you so you know who to find later. Now pop the bottles over the course of a week, and again mark a plus or minus on the receipt for each wine. Did you like the wine or did you not? Just a knee jerk reaction. Whether or not you liked the

wine is not the determining factor for the store. But this is a good way to keep track of things (see point #8 for more on keeping track of what you drink).

After you have done this with five local stores, pick one. Pick the one that seemed to have your interests first, the one that asked lots of questions, the one that showed passion. And now, without any variation, shop for wine only from that store for the next four months, always trying to work with the same employee. Get to know him or her by name. They might not remember your name (the best stores will see hundreds of people a day) but I guarantee you they will remember your face and what you like. In my years in retail I had “Cotes du Rhone guy”, “Chardonnay chick”, and “Papa Port.” And whenever a great new Cotes du Rhone, Chardonnay, or Port came in I would wait for these customers with baited breath to introduce them to the Next Great Thing.

This is what a good wine merchant does best -- getting to know you and your taste to show you great new wines as they arrive.

This cannot happen if you hop impatiently all over town trying to save fifty cents.

Donʼt forget -- the goal is a high wine batting average. The fact that you make a new wine friend is simply a bonus.

“The Muscle” at Thirst Wine Merchants, Fort Greene, Brooklyn NY

POINT EIGHTBuying a fancy 'Wine Journal' is a

quick route to wine insecurity

Go to any high end gift shop (you know the kind ... shelf upon shelf of stuff that you donʼt need but everything in the store makes you feel good so you convince yourself that a $28 pot holder with images of Paris on it will make your life better) and youʼll find the “Wine Accessories” section. What started five years ago with just a few items has now blossomed into its own department.

Youʼll see wine stoppers with little birds on top, wine glass charms to make your party that much better, various wine trivia card packs, and the always present “Wine Journal.” This is usually a truly beautiful book. Old photos or interesting drawings abound. Maybe the first ten pages are an essay by some Master of Wine or something like that ... an essay on the beauty of wine and why it makes you more attractive and caring and sensible and interesting. You think “I really need this, Iʼm going to take wine seriously, I going to start finally keeping track of what Iʼm drinking.”

Put the journal down and step away. Trust me on this.

Hereʼs why: nothing you write can be as beautiful as that leather bound journal is. Youʼll sit down with the first bottle of wine that you are going to wax poetic about. You fill in the blanks: vintage, producer, vineyard, region, country, grape/s, color, initial aroma, second aroma, first taste, second taste, finish, overall impression, guestʼs impression, food you are having with it, and more. And then you put your quill pen down (the quill pen you also picked up at Chic Boutique) and realize youʼve only filled in about 20% of the page. There are another eight lines to fill in under “initial aroma”! Not to mention the joy of trying to remove a label in one piece and glue it into the book.

Trust me ... buying a fancy wine journal is a quick route to feeling inadequate and making the wine world seem too daunting to learn. So what do you do instead? Read on.

POINT NINEKeep track of what you drink with a

clean, simple, easy method

Instead of the leather bound “Cellar Journal” buy yourself the much more pedestrian but utilitarian alternative: the spiral bound notebook (or, if youʼre feeling flush, maybe a Moleskin notebook, or if youʼre a techie some sort of app ... just make sure itʼs not a fancy wine journal of an app).

Here is the information you need to jot down with every wine you taste. Yes, this is the complete list:VintageProducerName of the wineDo you like it or not? +/-, sad face/happy face, good/bad, yum/blah, whatever

Of course you can add more flourishes if you wish (my wife uses cartoon like happy and sad faces), including more detailed notes. But donʼt get bogged down in the depth of details. Playing the wine adjective game soon gets old. What you really need to jot down is simply if the wine gave you pleasure. Plus or minus. Yes or no. Thatʼs all. This is a personal list, not one for the whole world, so show your opinions.

The best part of this method is that when you are first getting into wine, you remove yourself from the stress of the description.

Once you have ten or twenty wines jotted down with your knee jerk reaction recorded, return to your chosen wine merchant, the one you carefully selected earlier in this series, and show him or her your notes. A good wine merchant will be able to decipher your tastes better than you can. Maybe you show a leaning towards old world wines with little or no oak. Maybe Chardonnay alternatives turn out to be your thing. Regardless, once a track record is shown in your notes then your trusted merchant will be able to raise your wine batting average even higher.

Final thoughts and a plug

There are people out there that say we donʼt really need wine. Food personality Andrew Zimmern somewhat famously said, “People wouldnʼt buy it if it didnʼt make them drunk.” He might be right. (AZ is a recovering alcoholic and has a fascinating story of hitting rock bottom and re-emerging to become who his is today. Heʼs on my extremely short list of “extremely cool people” and is worthwhile to follow him via blog or twitter.) Maybe for some that is true. Maybe for many that is true. I donʼt know.

What I do know is this: wine, more so than any other product (and especially more so than any other beverage) can be an adventure in a bottle. You can invite some friends over and take a world journey with just a handful of wines. You can visit Germany, Australia, Argentina, Oregon, and France all in one night for under $50 total. With a range of vintages you can dive into history as well. What was that season like in Sonoma County? Guess what ... you can not only taste and smell it but you can internalize it.

Donʼt lose sight of the amazingness of this. The geography of wine is fascinating, and taking the time to learn even just the slightest bit about a region or producer before popping the cork will add volumes of insight into your life. The same can be said of food. The next time you have the opportunity to cook, say, Beef Bourgogne take the time to learn a bit about Burgundy ahead of time. If you just bought some fancy pasta from Italy, simply type the name of the town into Wikipedia.

Every bottle is a journey, and every bottle has a story to tell (even if itʼs a story of woe ... try a 2002 wine from Piedmonte for instance). For some wines, like the “please the masses” mega-production wines itʼs a story of industrialism, chemistry, and consistency for which there is a place for an Iʼm not knocking them. If they open the wine door for people, then thank you.

But for many others, itʼs about reflecting upon what happened in one particular place during one particular vintage, seen through the lens of the winemaker. Itʼs a photograph (literal capture), or maybe a painting (personal interpretation). Taking the time to give respect to what went into making the art is something we all need to do more of.

Jason KallsenSaint Paul MN & San Francisco CA, 2011www.twincitieswine.comwww.jasonkallsen.comtwitter: @jasonkallsen