Drinking booze in Egypt: an old travel story

After tasting Israeli wines I made a detour to visit Wadi Rum in Jordan.

My trip to Israel earlier this year was all about wine. When my article about Israeli wines finally appeared in Food & Wine magazine, it made me nostalgic about my first trip to Israel, 20 years ago.

I had quit a great job as a newspaper sports columnist, sold all my stuff and was traveling around the world for a year, living out of a backpack.

I hadn't planned to visit Israel. I had a round-the-world ticket on Pan Am (never got to spend the frequent-flier mileage), but Pan Am didn't fly to the Middle East. Besides, I'm not Jewish and all I knew about Israel was that Arabs threw rocks at soldiers who shot at them. Didn't seem like a good time.

I was hanging out in Athens, having a bad time because all of Greece was on strike. Almost everything was closed, there was no public transit, and walking 10 miles to look at ruins before walking back again in 90 degree weather gets old fast.

The star is supposed to mark the actual birthplace of Jesus.

An Israeli in my hostel, Assaf, and I spent a long day walking to some ruins together. He insisted that if I was interested in history, ruins, culture, religion, basically anything at all, I should visit Israel. Jerusalem is the center of culture for Jews, Muslims and Christians. You can see the place Jesus was born, and where he died. What were Greek ruins compared to all that?

He had a point, and backpack travel is all about flexibility. We lugged our backpacks to a ferry terminal and booked cheap tickets on the deck for a 3-day trip to Haifa.

A lot of Israelis were on board; they shared their food with me, which was nice because all I brought was canned dolmades. A shiphand threw away my threadbare towel because he thought it was garbage, which is how I ended up traveling for the next few months with an official Israeli Army towel (no logo, which was just as well).

I spent a week on a big industrial kibbutz called Yagur, which convinced me that Communism will never work because people there greedily hoarded even communal items which were not in short supply, like freshly harvested cucumbers. Most of the other kibbutz volunteers were 17-year-old Americans sent by their Jewish parents to have a life-changing religious experience, which they were doing by partying as loudly as they could in the dorms every night. I found myself defending the dorkiest of them from bullying and hanging out with the few other volunteers over 20. I had thought about spending a month on the kibbutz, but after a week I'd had enough.

I moved into one of the greatest hostels I ever stayed in, in Jerusalem, for 10 shekels a night (this was $5 then), including endless tea, cheap white bread and jam for breakfast, and deep political conversation at any hour. Local college students would come in and take us on impromptu tours.

I won't go into detail on the magnificence of Jerusalem, but Assaf was right: I've now been to more than 50 countries, and there is no more awe-inspiring city in the world. If you like to travel, you really need to visit.

The Old City was tense in 1990 -- way more tense than on my visit this year. One of the two times in my life that I've lied about my nationality came when I turned a corner into what seemed like a dead end and suddenly Palestinians emerged from doorways. I was surrounded by more than 20 men, shorter than I, in dress shirts and ties and looking very serious. One stepped forward and said, "What country are you from?" I said, "I'm from Canada, eh?" (in my fright, I channeled Bob & Doug McKenzie)  The leader said, "You must leave here now." They opened a pathway for me to walk away, and I did.

I drank some Israeli wine in 1990, but it wasn't very good. I remember it being sweet and sloppily made, which is why the high quality of wines I tasted when I visited this year was such a pleasant shock. (Many Americans still think Israeli wine tastes like it did then. Read my Food & Wine article.)

I spent about a week in Jerusalem and then decided to visit Egypt. A bus direct to Cairo cost $17 US, so off I went.

I hated Cairo. The museums are great, with mummys piled floor-to-ceiling, even in the hallways. The pyramids and the Sphinx are awesome. But everything else is unpleasant. The food is lousy, the noise and traffic are unbearable, and everybody sees you as a giant leaky money bag.

But often capitol cities are the worst part of a country (ever been to Jakarta?) I shared a pyramid tour with an American couple in my cheap hotel -- we were extorted by a camel driver, who refused to show us how to get off the foul-tempered camels until we paid up -- and we decided to see another part of Egypt. We picked Alexandria, known for being low-key.

What a great decision. Alexandria has a fantastic history but no obvious tourist sites, so it's really off the beaten path. We rented the top floor of a 12-story hotel -- five bedrooms, three baths -- for $11 total per night, breakfast for three included. We had balconies on all four sides, and were close to the Mediterranean on the north. And the hotel people were so nice; they helped us visit wherever we wanted, and nobody had their palms out as they had in Cairo.

Check out perhaps my favorite travel photo ever. That's me in the green shirt. An entire elementary school rushed to cheer for us when they heard three Americans were in town. I daresay it's different now, but in 1990 Alexandria was a great place to be from the USA.

We were sitting on the balcony at sunset and one of us observed that the only way Alexandria would be more perfect would be if we could get some booze, so we could enjoy a drink before dinner. Bad Egyptian beer is widely available in tourist districts in Cairo, but there aren't really any tourist districts in Alexandria. So we decided to ask the helpful people at the hotel.

If they were disappointed in us, they hid it well. They told us to go to a nearby drugstore and ask. So we did.

The druggist, when asked if we could buy some alcohol, immediately frowned. "Not here. You go around back. Around there," he said, pointing to a dark alley that in 2010 I probably wouldn't enter. He then shut the store door, closed the curtain and threw up a sign in Arabic that must have said "Closed," although I guess "Infidels around back" was also possible.

He had a tiny window to the shop in the back alley. He asked, not pleasantly, what we wanted. We said, "What do you have?" He said, "I have alcohol. What do you want?" The couple got beer, but I said, "What else do you have?" which is how I ended up with a 750 ml bottle of brandy.

The brandy wasn't very good, but three of us finished it easily. So we were back the next afternoon, and we got exactly the same treatment. This time I got orange liqueur, which was horrible. Awful. Imagine crushed-up orange-flavor kids' aspirin with booze in it. We drank it anyway. Did I ever claim I was a discerning drinker? Not in Alexandria at sunset.

I wish I had seen some sort of product list. We stayed a week -- Alexandria was mellow, we were eating well, and man, that balcony with breakfast for less than $4 a day each was hard to beat. Every night we drank something different. The coffee liqueur was probably the least horrible. Only once did we get something so awful we couldn't choke it down; I thought it might be absinthe, but my American woman friend -- a nurse -- said she thought it might be paregoric.

I lost contact with that couple; travel friendships are so intense, yet so short-lived. Earlier this year, I spent an afternoon with a guy I met at Kibbutz Yagur who found me on Facebook, and that was fantastic. He is the only person I've ever seen again from my visit to Israel and Egypt in 1990.

But I think about that balcony and those sunsets and that horrible-tasting booze all the time.

As a wine writer, I get a lot of free wines to sample. I drink only the ones I like, and pour the wines I don't like down the drain. Visiting friends are often shocked by this. They're used to drinking an open bottle whether they like it or not. But I don't have to, not now.

Once in a while, after I've rejected a wine, somebody asks me, "Are there any circumstances under which you would drink this?" They expect me to say, "If I'm thirsty," or "If I'm on death row," or something like that.

My answer is often, "If I were sitting on a balcony in Alexandria, Egypt at sunset, I would drink this. And it would taste fantastic."

Christmas gift guide for wine lovers

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In "The Devil Wears Prada," the fictitious editor based on Vogue's Anna Wintour gives everyone on her huge Christmas list a bottle of wine.

You really can't ask for a better endorsement of wine as a Christmas gift. Here's a woman who can give scarves, unisex t-shirts, or anything stylish at all -- and she chooses wine.

Of course, she has an army of starving, ambitious women to shop and ship for her. You don't. I'm going to try to simplify your task with suggestions at every price level.

First, consider the basics of a great Christmas gift:
1) Something the recipient will use and enjoy
2) Something he/she wouldn't buy himself
3) Something surprising and fun

Re Point #1: Don't overspend! Most people will NOT open a $50 bottle of wine; they'll think it's too good to drink and will store it inappropriately as a trophy. Obviously there are exceptions, but save money by knowing your audience. $25 per bottle is the limit for what I would spend on anyone who doesn't drink wine at home more than twice a week.
A related point: I'm not a fan of wine gadgets, which rear their useless head at this time every year. There are some great wine accessories, but they're not really gadgets. No wine lover ever has enough glassware; decanters are nice; and if you're spending big bucks, everyone should have a wine fridge. More on this below.

Point #2 means that daily-use supermarket wines are no more exciting than any other product you can buy from the supermarket. Don't spend more than necessary, but do look for something that's not available everywhere.

On point #3: it's cool to expand people's horizons; give some dry Riesling to a Chardonnay lover. But there are limits; you're not going to turn a committed Cabernet drinker into a Blaufrankisch fan with one bottle. Still, it's worth attempting to rock their world, especially at $20 and under, where they're most likely to give something new a shot.

Here are some thoughts at different levels of spending.

$10: The key here is to get something interesting. Portugal and Spain are good sources of interesting wines under $10. From Portugal, I'm a huge fan of Vinho Verde. From Spain, try Marques de Riscal, red or white. For something outside the mainstream, consider a bottle of Fino or Oloroso Sherry, which has the advantage of lasting for more than a night or two after it's opened.
Alternately, one of the few wine gadgets that everyone should have are wine charms: little doohickeys that you attach to the bottom of a wine glass, so you can identify whose glass is whose.

$20: This is THE sweet spot for wine gifts. It's enough money to get a good bottle, but not so expensive that the recipient won't open it.
My top recommendation is for people who visit winery tasting rooms. Buy a case of a wine in this price range that you like, and give a bottle to 9 of your best friends (keep 3 for yourself). This says something wonderful about you: that you were thinking of them and went to some trouble to get a great gift at the source. Moreover, you can taste the wine first and learn its story; it's the best way to personalize a gift.
That's not an option for everyone. So here's the backup plan: A bottle of good domestic bubbly. Everyone should drink more bubbly but most people don't buy it for themselves. Roederer Estate, Scharffenberger, Gloria Ferrer and Gruet all give good value in this price range.

$40-$50: At this price level, I think about bottles that will last more than one night.
Madeira is a great choice because it's indestructible; your friend can open the bottle Dec. 25 and next Christmas, the wine will still be good. The Rare Wine Co.'s historic series is good value.
Tawny Port for me is best at 20 years old, and that's right in this price range. It won't last as long as Madeira, but it should stay delicious for a month or two at least.
It's also a good level to start thinking about spirits. A nice bottle of artisanal Bourbon or Reposado Tequila makes a great gift for somebody who enjoys sipping an occasional nightcap.
And don't forget glassware. You can get 6 good wine glasses from Cost Plus for less than this. Wine lovers always need glassware.

$100: It's rare for me to give someone a single bottle of wine this expensive. I would have to know the person and their tastes. But if I did, I would try to give them a single-vineyard Burgundy or tete-de-cuvee sparkling wine.
You might also consider a themed three-pack, such as three different Pinot Noirs from the same producer.
My number one choice in this price range is probably an upscale Scotch: an 18-year-old, such as Glenlivet Nadurra, should cost a little less than this.

$200 or more: Everyone should have a wine refrigerator; it's a lot more valuable than a case of wine.  Without one, you're at the mercy of the weather, because temperature variation is bad for wine aging, and a single day over 80 degrees can kill your wine.
I have three coolers myself: a 100 bottle unit that cost $1000, a 54-bottle unit that cost $500, and the 21-bottle Air & Water cooler, which at $220 is about as cheap as these things get. The last was sent to me to review; I wanted to see if it would make a good gift.
The short answer is that it would. It has weaknesses: the racks won't accommodate some of today's fat wine bottles, and the "on" lights are so bright that I have to keep paper taped over them.
But the pluses are its low cost, small footprint, quiet operation and light weight. My wife, who could drown standing up in a pool's shallow end, can lift and move it by herself. It's a great gift for somebody who's just starting to get into wine, particularly for apartment dwellers with limited space. Recent college graduates, perhaps?

$500: Rather than a single bottle of wine, consider a hand-blown decanter. Eisch makes some beautiful ones; you could get hand-blown glasses to go with it.
You could also see about a wine from your recipient's birth year. Madeira would be my first choice because it ages so well and would last for a couple years after opening; vintage Port is another good option. That said, the last time I had a bottle from my own birth year, it was a birthday gift, it was a Lopez de Heredia red, and it was magnificent.

$1000: Hire a private chef to cater a meal at your friend's house.
Or, buy a 6-pack of age-worthy wine. Know your audience: it's easy for me to say fine Burgundy, but most folks who receive gifts in this price range would much prefer a 6-pack of well-regarded Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons.
A gift certificate for a top B&B in wine country is a great gift if you know your recipients will travel there.

$10,000: For this amount of money (plus travel expenses) I will come to your house and sing "Puff the Magic Dragon" while pouring you and your guests a wine I personally select for its deliciousness.

$20,000: Same as $10,000, without the singing.

Dry Riesling is a family tradition at Müller-Catoir

My column for Wine Review Online this month is about how global warming is affecting two different German regions, the Pfalz and the Mosel.

This is a column bonus, an extended interview with Martin Franzen, winemaker for the excellent Pfalz winery Müller-Catoir, which makes some of the best dry Rieslings I tried.

"Dry wines were never under 60% at this estate," Franzen said. "But we sold only off-dry wines in America in the '80s and '90s.

"Germany has started to produce outstanding dry wines. We have reached a level that didn't exist in the '80s and '90s. Climate change helped us. It wasn't possible to vinify dry Rieslings at this quality in the '80s. The climate was too cold and it wasn't possible to get the structure we can today."

Something that's not obvious about German wine, unless you follow the writings of Terry Thiese, is how many people there are committed to terroir-driven, low-intervention winemaking. This is also a recent development.

"In Germany we lost the philosophy of terroir in the '60s and '70s," Franzen said. "We didn't work in such detail in the vineyards, and we didn't pay as much attention to the good vineyards."

Why? Franzen blames the bad post-World War II economy, which led to a focus on cutting costs and increasing production. This is what brought the world Blue Nun.

"We have recovered the things our grandfathers knew," Franzen said. "The biggest technology changes we've made are to be able to press and work in the cellar like in the 19th century. We've changed to smaller tanks. We also reconstructed our cellar with traditional 1000-litre wooden barrels. With these barrels you don't need special temperature control."

Franzen doesn't have to research in books to find out how his grandfather made wine: his family owns a tiny winery in the Mosel region.

"I learned a lot from my father, who made Rieslings that were very much on the point and were not so easy to understand, but that aged very well," Franzen said. "My father had an oak press over 100 years old. He had some oak barrels and nothing else at all. He made wine with no pumping. His tradition was maceration, one day. He learned it from his father, and it makes the best Riesling. No temperature control. These are Rieslings that show well after four or five years."

"In the Mosel region, my father made dry wines in the '70s. He made over 50% dry wines. He knew that you had to use the best grapes for the dry wines. Normally in the Mosel, the best grapes are used for the residual sugar wines. But if you want to make a dry wine in the Mosel, you have to use the best grapes. Here (in the Pfalz) it's possible to make a dry wine with other grapes. There's a little bit lower acidity."

"We work here with a modern press but the philosophy and the treatment of the grapes is the same. My father didn't have modern education and he didn't know about it, but he felt it."

But not everything is back to the past. Franzen has farmed organically, uncertified, for the last several years because he believes it gives him better quality.

"We work more in the vineyards today. In the past we didn't make this 'green harvest'. We are outside more now. We select more."

Franzen let me taste a trivia question (I hope he's right, because I don't have access to all of Robert Parker's scores). The question is: what was the first German wine to get 100 points from Parker?

The answer: A TBA (trockenbeerenauslese) made from Rieslaner, a hybrid of Riesling and Sylvaner that actually has more acidity than Riesling. I liked it, but I liked the winery's dry Rieslings much more; unlike the TBA, a special-occasion wine, they're superb, complex wines that would sit well on the table at practically any meal. Parker's 100-point wines are rarely the winery's best. (I'd love to share my own scores of the wines with you, but that's what Wine Review Online is paying me for.)

What I really wanted to taste was one of his father's wines: the winery name is, of course, Franzen. But his father is retired and he didn't have any on hand.

"He is 78, and I didn't come home to make wine. We had to close the winery. That's the modern times."

And yet, sometimes the past is modern again.

(Read the Wine Review Online column here.)

Vintage charts for California are worthless

Vintage charts make a lot of sense for Bordeaux, and to a lesser extent for much of Europe. But for California, they're worse than worthless. Here's why.

The idea of a vintage chart comes from English aficionados trying to get a handle on which French wines to collect. And in France, they're still important, even though Frank Prial of the New York Times declared them dead a decade ago.

But California is not France. Magazines that breathlessly talk about the '07 California Cabernets -- and decry the 2010 wines before any have been released -- are at best mindlessly wasting space, and at worst misleading their readers.

There's not a single vintage in California over the last decade I would avoid, and not a single vintage I would rush out to buy either. It all depends on the winery -- and that's completely unlike France.

It's not just because French weather is unpredictable year-to-year. In France, many regions are planted with grapes that won't ripen in poor years. So a bad year really is a bad year, with many wines that aren't (or shouldn't be) released.

Moreover, very good years in France are strikingly universal. When I visited Bordeaux in 2009, every winery's 2005 tasted better than every winery's 2004 and 2006. It was amazing how consistent this was. And every winery's 2003 was noticeably overripe. I don't need to know anything about two Bordeaux wineries to know how to choose between a 2004 Chateau Mysterio and 2005 Chateau Beret on a wine list.

This simply isn't the case in California for two main reasons: 1) The weather isn't as extreme here. We don't get much spring hail and summer rain. 2) Very few grapes are actually planted in marginal areas.

As a subset of point 2, consider this: the main variety covered in vintage charts is Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Napa Valley is not Bordeaux -- it's hot, dry and sunny. In the few areas that aren't, notably Carneros, vineyards have mostly grafted their Cab over to Chardonnay or Pinot Noir. Most Napa Valley Cab vineyards aren't at risk of not ripening, even in an unusually cool year like 2010. They might not get ultra-ripe this year, but that's exactly why I think 2010 will be an exceptional year from some Napa producers.

Sure, there are Pinot Noir grapes out on the Sonoma and Mendocino coasts that won't ripen this year. I'm getting tweets every day now from people worried about grapes in fringe vineyards.

But more than 99% of the grapes in California are planted in areas comfortably warm enough to ripen -- even in a year like this. Do you think Lodi Zinfandel and Paso Robles Syrah aren't going to ripen?

This is why California vintage charts are worse than worthless. They're a shorthand that will convince some consumers to avoid perfectly good wines while creating artificial interest in other wines that aren't any better. To me, bad information is worse than no information.

Let me try an analogy. Suppose you're at the DVD shop and you have a chart that says all movies with George Clooney are good while all movies with Kevin Bacon are mediocre -- that's a fair approximation of what wine vintage charts say. So you pass up "Frost/Nixon" and "Mystic River" and instead rent "The Men Who Stare At Goats." Your loss.

I believe vintage charts exist for the same reason that every Valentine's Day we're subjected to a barrage of stories about pairing wines with chocolate. Editors like to schedule certain types of stories to fill out a calendar. The Bordeaux vintage report matters, and this is America, so let's do a California vintage report. And since we have these reports from every year, let's put them in an easily portable format with our publication's name on it.

Let me ask you this: When was the last year California had a year so bad that many wines weren't released? I'll tell you -- 1998.

I was one of many writers who panned that vintage when it came out. And I was wrong.

The '98s that are still around are drinking great; the '97s -- a universally lauded vintage -- are mostly dead. One of the few times that back-to-back California vintages were really different, and the media got it wrong. We did so because we didn't recognize the age-worthiness of the tighter, more tannic '98s, and we thought the sexier '97s were more exciting. But we were wrong, and you shouldn't trust us on this issue any more.

So I'm going to go out on a limb and predict this very unpredictable 2010 vintage for Napa Valley Cabernets: Most good wineries will make good wines. Some will make great wines. Some will inexplicably -- or explicably -- not be up to snuff. Amazingly, this is exactly the same as 2009 and 2008 and 2007.

If you want "drink/hold" recommendations, you have to know the style of the winery, because Corison wines will outlast Shafer wines no matter what vintage they're from. That has nothing to do with quality or point scores, because Shafer makes good wines in the full-bodied style. But how can a vintage chart that combines the two give good recommendations on either?

So throw away your California vintage charts, folks, unless you really enjoyed "The Men Who Stare At Goats."

Blog Writing 101: How to self-edit

Yesterday I posted a poorly written item. I screwed up an interesting interview with an NFL player-turned-winemaker by refusing to self-edit.

I had two different stories, and should have written it that way. Instead, I threw everything together.

Today I'm posting this meta-post to show others the error of my ways, hopefully so you can avoid the same mistakes.

Here are three links:
Original post: The meandering brain dump
Rewrite #1: The question story
Rewrite #2: The winemaker profile

Now, how did I get from the lousy original post to the rewrites?

It didn't take long -- less than 15 minutes (not counting time needed to write this). I added almost no copy; it's all subtraction.

If you're taking Writing for Social Media or a similar course, and want to delve into it, look at some of the things I took out.

I took out redundancies. Why say the same thing twice? Or again and again?

I took out my pretended fear at the interview subject hitting me. In real life, if an ex-NFL player hit me, I would get back up on my knees and thank God for securing my financial future before shopping around for a lawyer.

Moreover, it undermines my online persona. Am I a coward? Maybe in real life, but I don't usually play one on the Internet.

I wrote a bad lead to the original post; the story is not about Buddy Ryan. Terry Hoage worships him, so he's worth including, but I probably lost half my readers with the first sentence.

I took out NFL minutiae, such as the years Hoage played for each different team. It's visually distracting, particularly that early in the story. And this is not an NFL blog.

One thing I did add was a link to Hoage's website. That should be de rigueur; I just forgot.

Hoage's question was the whole reason I wrote the post, but I took forever to get to it. And then, while I'm happy enough with my own answer to it, I didn't give my readers a real chance to answer it. Ending away from the question is a conversation killer on a post that was supposed to be a conversation starter.

If I had it to do over again, I could run just the question post -- that's the stronger post about wine, and this is a wine blog. I could also run both posts on separate days.

For me, though, the best solution would have been to cross-pollinate on multiple online platforms. I could have offered an expanded football player-turned-winemaker post to Wine Review Online or Palate Press, and used the shorter question post on my own blog as a way to plug the other site.

So I blew a good posting opportunity. At least I've created a teaching opportunity.

Did anyone learn anything from this?

Hoage rewrite #2: the winemaker profile

Terry Hoage

Terry Hoage played defensive back in the NFL for 13 seasons; now he's a grape farmer and winemaker in Paso Robles.

He played for Buddy Ryan, known for his ultra-aggressive defenses, on three different teams: the Philadelphia Eagles, Houston Oilers  and Arizona Cardinals.

Hoage played for other coaches too, but he never stops talking about Ryan, whose goal was to hurt and terrify the opposition. He even named his top-end $50 Rhone blend wine, "The 46," after Ryan's defensive scheme.

"It was fun to see the fear in the quarterback's face," said Hoage, who recalled that for one particular game, his orders were on the first five plays, no matter where the ball went, to hit wide receiver Michael Irvin as hard as he possibly could. "He didn't show up the rest of the game," Hoage said.

So how did a defensive back become a winemaker? Hoage has a degree in genetics from University of Georgia, so he's no tackling dummy. He and his wife Jennifer, a New Orleans native, weren't looking to get into the wine industry at all; they just wanted a farm community where they could raise their kids, but both spent enough time in cities that they wanted nearby urban pleasures like good restaurants.

Hoage played for the 49ers in 1993 and liked California, but didn't see himself in Napa or Sonoma. One day he was driving through Paso on his way someplace else; he stopped for lunch, and liked the feel. Soon he was asking around about property, and found a spread that included 5 acres of Syrah that had been planted for John Alban.

Paso is still a small enough community that Hoage already had friends; one was Saxum's Justin Smith, who promised to mentor Hoage in winemaking if he bought the property.

Shortly after buying it, Hoage was offered a coaching job in Tennessee by Jeff Fisher, who had recently become head coach of the Tennessee Titans. "Football is transient," Hoage said, not wanting to follow Fisher around the country from job to job as he had Ryan when he was playing.

Ironically, Fisher is now in his 16th season in Tennessee, and the coach who accepted the position Hoage turned down is now defensive coordinator. And Hoage is out working in the fields. I hope he's loving it; he seems like he is.

So how is his wine?

"We want our wines to be fruit-forward," Hoage said. "I don't see the point of making a wine that doesn't taste like it was made from grapes."

Terry Hoage Vineyards "The 46" Paso Robles 2007 ($50) is a 50-50 blend of Grenache and Syrah that's so ripe that it smells sweet, although it doesn't taste it. It's a straightforward palate blitz of ripe black plum very much in the New World style, but it's also eminently drinkable. You can order it here.

Hoage rewrite #1: The question story

Terry Hoage

A former pro football player tackled me with the toughest question I've faced in wine this year.

Terry Hoage played defensive back in the NFL for 13 seasons; now he's a farmer and winemaker in Paso Robles.

Sitting next to Hoage, even in a nice restaurant, is like facing a blitz. He wears grubby clothes from harvest and won't take polite demurrals for an answer.

I was yakking about the natural wine movement, which hasn't made a lot of headway in Paso Robles. I don't remember what I was saying people should try -- biodynamic farming, dry farming, wild yeast; it doesn't really matter.

Hoage's question was this:

"If you like a wine, is there anything you could learn about it that would make you not like it anymore?"

It's a fantastic question.

If I like a wine already, I guess I don't care what was done to it in the winery.

That means that if the wine tastes good -- keeping in mind that my "tastes good" isn't the same as Jay Miller's -- and I later find out it was treated with oak chips, reverse osmosis, fining with fish bladders, or even (sigh) blending with unlisted varietals (hello, Pinot/Syrah), I forfeit my right to complain once I give it the thumbs-up.

I might not buy such a wine, if I know that stuff beforehand. But once it's in my glass, and I like it, I'm not going to unlike it. That would be hypocritical.

However, there is a whole category of stuff I could learn about a wine that would make me unlike it, and all of it has to do not with winemaking, but with farming.

If I learned a wine was made from vineyards heavily sprayed with herbicides and/or pesticides, I would unlike it.

If I learned the winery washed its chemical waste into a river, I would unlike it. If the winery abused its grape pickers, I would unlike it. (This could also apply in a winery but cases are rare.)

If a proprietor bulldozed pristine forest land to plant the vineyard, I might unlike it, depending on the story. And I confess, I'm enough of a wine geek that if I learned the winery grafted over 100-year-old vines of some native variety to, say, Chardonnay, I might just unlike it.

Here's a heavy implication. Writing about wine, I want as much accurate information as possible. But what if there's a story like this? The winery would be better off not telling me.

So what would you do if you first liked a wine, then found out that how it was made goes against what you believe in? You're a hypocrite one way or the other: either you forswear your palate, or your beliefs.

I told you it was a tough question. Terry Hoage still hits hard.

How would you answer it?

What bothers you about wine? Hard-hitting question from an NFL veteran

One of Buddy Ryan's hitmen tackled me with the toughest question I've faced in wine this year.

Terry Hoage played defensive back in the NFL for 13 seasons; now he's a farmer and winemaker in Paso Robles. He played for Ryan, known for his ultra-aggressive defenses, on three different teams: the Philadelphia Eagles (1986-90), Houston Oilers (1993) and Arizona Cardinals (1994-95).

Hoage played for other coaches too, but he never stops talking about Ryan, whose goal was to hurt and terrify the opposition. He even named his top-end $50 Rhone blend wine, "The 46," after Ryan's defensive scheme.

"It was fun to see the fear in the quarterback's face," said Hoage, who recalled that for one particular game, his orders were on the first five plays, no matter where the ball went, to hit wide receiver Michael Irvin as hard as he possibly could. "He didn't show up the rest of the game," Hoage said.

Sitting next to Hoage, even in a nice restaurant, is also facing a blitz. He wears grubby clothes from harvest and won't take polite demurrals for an answer (you may not believe this from reading my blog, but I'm usually reasonably good at politely dodging direct questions.)

I was yakking about the natural wine movement, which hasn't made a lot of headway in Paso Robles. I don't remember what I was saying people should try -- biodynamic farming, dry farming, wild yeast; it doesn't really matter.

Hoage's question was this:

"If you like a wine, is there anything you could learn about it that would make you not like it anymore?"

Hoage asked me this question more than a month ago, and I still don't have a great answer. But it's a fantastic question.

There are heavy implications for what I've come to call "alternative wine writers" -- my vine-hugging colleagues at Palate Press, passionate wine bloggers like Dr. Vino and the guys at New York Cork Report, et al. I'll get to those in a moment.

First, I owe Terry an answer; I don't want him to show up in San Francisco and body slam me. So here goes:

If I like a wine already, I guess I don't care what was done to it in the winery. Gulp.

That means that if the wine tastes good -- keeping in mind that my "tastes good" isn't the same as Jay Miller's -- and I later find out it was treated with oak chips, reverse osmosis, fining with fish bladders, or even (sigh) blending with unlisted varietals (hello, Pinot/Syrah), I forfeit my right to complain once I give it the thumbs-up.

I might not buy such a wine, if I know that stuff beforehand. But once it's in my glass, and I like it, I'm not going to unlike it. That would be hypocritical.

Partly this comes from spending nearly 10 years of my life in Asia, where you come to expect the question, "Do you know what it is that you're eating?" This is how I discovered, for example, that dog tastes better than cat. I'm sorry for the doggy I had in stew, and I won't knowingly order it, but I'm not going to disgrace its memory by retracting my initial verdict that it was tasty.

However, there is a whole category of stuff I could learn about a wine that would make me unlike it, and all of it has to do not with winemaking, but with farming.

If I learned a wine was made from vineyards heavily sprayed with herbicides and/or pesticides, I would unlike it. That's the biggest one. There are a few others.

If I learned the winery washed its chemical waste into a river, I would unlike it. If the winery abused its grape pickers, I would unlike it. (This could also apply in a winery but cases are rare.)

If a proprietor bulldozed pristine forest land to plant the vineyard, I might unlike it, depending on the story. And I confess, I'm enough of a wine geek that if I learned the winery grafted over 100-year-old vines of some native variety to, say, Chardonnay, I might just unlike it.

Now here's the heavy implication. Writing about wine, I want as much accurate information as possible. But what if there's a story like this? The winery would be better off not telling me.

Now about my fellow alternative wine writers: I'm now on the record that if I like a wine, I'm not going to go negative because I learn it was made with oak chips. But I know several wine writers who decry technical shortcuts like this. So what would you do if you first liked the wine, then found out that's how it was made? You're a hypocrite one way or the other: either you forswear your palate, or your beliefs.

I told you it was a tough question. Terry Hoage still hits hard.

Which reminds me: How was his wine?

Terry Hoage Vineyards "The 46" Paso Robles 2007 ($50) is a 50-50 blend of Grenache and Syrah that's so ripe that it smells sweet, although it doesn't taste it. It's a straightforward palate blitz of ripe black plum very much in the New World style, but it's also eminently drinkable.

"We want our wines to be fruit-forward," Hoage said. "I don't see the point of making a wine that doesn't taste like it was made from grapes."

So how did a defensive back become a winemaker? Hoage has a degree in genetics from University of Georgia, so he's no tackling dummy. He and his wife Jennifer, a New Orleans native, weren't looking to get into the wine industry at all; they just wanted a farm community where they could raise their kids, but both had spent enough time in cities that they wanted nearby urban pleasures like good restaurants.

Hoage played for the 49ers in 1993 and liked California, but didn't see himself in Napa or Sonoma. One day he was driving through Paso on his way someplace else; he stopped for lunch, and liked the feel. Soon he was asking around about property, and found a spread that included 5 acres of Syrah that had been planted for John Alban.

Paso is still a small enough community that Hoage already had friends; one was Saxum's Justin Smith, who promised to mentor Hoage in winemaking if he bought the property.

Shortly after buying it, Hoage was offered a coaching job in Tennessee by Jeff Fisher, who had recently become head coach of the Tennessee Titans. "Football is transient," Hoage said, not wanting to follow Fisher around the country from job to job as he had Ryan when he was playing.

Ironically, Fisher is now in his 16th season in Tennessee, and the coach who accepted the position Hoage turned down is now defensive coordinator. And Hoage is out working in the fields, stopping occasionally to pose tough questions for wine writers. I hope he's loving it; he seems like he is.

I also hope I answered him sufficiently, because if not, I guess I better start running now.

Defining wine terms: Some proposals

What does "old vine" mean to you? 25 years? 75 years?

As I posted Tuesday, the federal government is considering defining the word "estate" on wine labels, which could force brands like Beringer Founders Estate to be renamed.

The same notice in the Federal Register listed 15 other terms the TTB is thinking about. These are at an earlier stage than "estate," which could be defined as soon as January. But they're a big deal for wineries with names like Concannon Vineyard.

The 15 terms are: Proprietor grown, vintner grown, single vineyard, vineyard, orchard, farm, ranch, proprietors blend, old vine, barrel fermented, old clone, reserve, select harvest, bottle aged, barrel select. There are also a few combos like "single orchard" and "single ranch."

As with "estate," the feds are asking for public comment on all of these. And we have until January 3.

Here at Opinions R Us, I'm going to get the debate rolling on all, even "old vine" and "reserve." Feel free to post your own opinion below -- or, go right ahead and tell the TTB. Here's the link. (It's Notice No. 109, click on "comment form.")

Proprietor grown (used by Hanna Winery and Bryant Family Vineyard): I propose this -- "All grapes used to make the wine must come from vineyards owned by the proprietor." (Would any consumer really care about this?)

Vintner grown: I don't find anybody using this now. And it's so vague, like Vintners Blend, that I don't see any reason to define it. Think about (Ravenswood) Vintners Blend for a moment -- what wine is NOT a vintners blend?

Single vineyard: The TTB writes, "It has been the position of TTB that the use of the designation 'Single vineyard' on labels and in advertisements is appropriate only if 100% of the grapes used to make the wine come from one vineyard." That's perfect -- stay with it. And apply it also to "single orchard" and "single ranch."

Vineyard: There are two issues with defining this term -- what is a vineyard, and how can the word be used?
The first is easy for me: If grapevines grow there, even if it's a hothouse in Alaska, it's a vineyard.
The second, though, could cost The Wine Group a lot of money in new stationery for Concannon Vineyard, a brand name for a winery based in Livermore that actually has a vineyard named after the founding Concannon family, but makes the great majority of its wines from other sources.
I'm sorry to keep picking on The Wine Group, which inherited the name when it bought the brand. But I would outlaw this type of name; it's potentially deceptive when there's no need to be. They can rename the winery "Concannon."
Proposed definition -- "The word 'vineyard' as part of a proper noun on a wine label must refer to a specific vineyard, and 100% of the grapes used to make the wine must come from that vineyard unless otherwise specifically stated; i.e., 74% Smith Vineyard, 26% Jones Vineyard. 'Vineyard' and 'vineyards' may be freely used as non-proper nouns as long as they describe areas where grapevines are grown."

Orchard: This applies to fruit wines more than grape wines. It's hard to see somebody using it to deceive grape wine consumers because it doesn't have strongly positive connotations; would you be more excited about Jones Orchard Chardonnay than Jones Chardonnay? But fruit-wine consumers also deserve to know what they're getting; Jones Orchard Apple Wine sounds much better than Jones Apple Wine. Define it the same way as "vineyard."

Farm: Are there Boones, and do they have a farm? I guess we should try to protect the Boone's Farm consumer, because I'm sure that right now when they buy Blue Hawaiian they imagine a pastoral place where all the Blue Hawaiians are raised and crushed -- or is it bled?
But seriously, I see some potential for deception here, especially as the back-to-land movement has more consumers looking for responsibly grown produce. "Jones Farm Chardonnay" does sound more appealing than "Jones Chardonnay."
Sorry, Gallo, I suggest the TTB issue the following definition, similar to 'vineyard': "The word 'farm' as part of a proper noun on a wine label must refer to a specific farm, and 100% of the fruit used to make the wine must come from that farm unless otherwise specifically stated; i.e., 74% Smith Farm, 26% Jones Farm. 'Farm' and 'farms' may be freely used as non-proper nouns as long as they describe areas where fruit is grown."
Of every term on this list, this is the one least likely to be defined because Gallo and the Wine Institute will fight like hell to protect the Boone's Farm brand. Maybe the Wine Institute will settle for getting Boone's Farm safely grandfathered in.

Ranch: Are there cattle at Oakville Ranch? That said, unlike "orchard," I don't see how "ranch" has a strongly positive connotation for consumers of any beverage other than milk. Until we start partying like they do in Mongolia, leave it undefined.

Proprietors Blend: A South African winery uses this. It's the same as "vintners blend": meaningless. Leave it undefined.

Old vine: This is a can of worms.
I think this term should be defined. It is clearly used to sell wine and it resonates with consumers. Moreover, because there's no definition, it can be used on any wine, even if the vines were planted during the George W. Bush administration.
But how to define it? I could write an entire post on it.
First, you have to think about how many years it takes vines to develop "old vine" character, which differs by grape. For Pinot Noir it might be 30 years, but for Carignane it might be 75. (I don't choose Carignane randomly; for me, the quality difference from old vines may be the greatest for this variety.)
Then you have to handle the issue of replanting. Many vineyard blocks have been replanted piecemeal as vines die. This is not a nefarious marketing move -- it's simply farming.
I'm not a farmer; we need input from farmers on this.
But as a consumer, here's the outline of a definition:
" 'Old vine(s)' may only be used on the label of a wine where at least 75% of the grapes used to make the wine come from vines that are more than 50 years old."
It's an arbitrary number, 50 years. But for many grape varieties, 30-year-old-vines aren't old; they're middle-aged.

Barrel fermented: This is a no-brainer. "Barrel fermented may only be used to describe wines that have been 100% fermented in wooden barrels."

Old clone: A few small Zinfandel producers use this -- Boeger, Alderbrook, Thornton, Vin Nostro. I have no idea what it means, and I'll bet consumers don't either. But it makes me think of R2D2. Leave it undefined.

Reserve: Is there a more meaningless word on wine labels?
I've seen private-label wines -- basically bulk-market juice -- called "reserve" when there is no non-reserve.
The problem is that many consumers think "reserve" means something special, mainly because every tasting room tells you it does.
What is a "true" reserve? Is it made from grapes from the best section of the vineyard? Is it a selection of the best barrels? Is it aged longer? Or is it just priced higher?
(Side point: these days the cheaper non-reserve is often better, because the reserve wine is made for fans of oaky, low-acid wines.)
In theory, "reserve" should be defined. It is in Rioja, to consumers' benefit (Rioja Reservas are great value). But until recently every winery there made the same style of wine -- elegant wines from Tempranillo -- so a definition was easy. Even now that some Rioja wineries make "vinos expresivos" -- big New World Reds -- "Rioja Reserva" still has a specific meaning.
This will never be the case in California because we have so many different types of wine from different grapes. A rule made for Reserve Cabernet probably would involve types of oak and length of aging, and should never be applied to Reserve Sauvignon Blanc.
My best solution is to issue a vague definition that would give wineries some pause about simply slapping the word "reserve" on any ordinary bottle and charging more.
How about this: "The word 'reserve' may only be used on a label if a winery makes multiple wines in a vintage from the same variety, and the 'reserve' wine represents a wine which is differentiated from the others in a way that demonstrably indicates the potential for higher quality."
If I were a lawyer specializing in writing regulations, I wouldn't be wine blogging for free, so feel free to show me a better way.

Select harvest: A few Riesling producers use this, and it makes sense given that Riesling vines are often harvested multiple times. It's not "late harvest"; it could be the earliest harvest.
I don't know how special this term is for consumers; you have to be a Riesling geek to get it. Leave it undefined.

Bottle aged: If the wine sits in the bottle for a week awaiting shipping, does that count as bottle aged? It should. The term is supposed to imply that the winery holds the wine until it's ready to drink. But it's another term that I don't think has much power over consumers, and let's face it, it's always accurate, unless we're talking about Black Box Wines. Leave it undefined.

Barrel select: Should this mean that the wine was made from the best barrels from a vintage, or that the winery put the wine in the best barrels that it bought that year?
I think it means the former. But I don't know how you could legislate which are the "best" barrels: Robert Parker and Jancis Robinson would never agree.
I would define it thus: "The term 'barrel select' may only be used for wines which were aged in wooden barrels." As consumers, we do expect that much.

Why expensive wines taste better: Psychology 101

I have a bachelor's degree in psychology, which isn't useful occupationally unless I want to work as an orderly in a prison psych ward.

What it is useful for is understanding some basic underpinnings of behavior, such as why critics don't like your favorite wine, and how wineries get away with charging $500 a bottle.

Have you ever noticed that no fans ever complain about lousy music concerts, yet critics frequently give them poor reviews? Are critics just curmudgeons?

Maybe, but there's a psychological principal at work that's also in effect every single time you buy even a glass of wine.

It's called "cognitive dissonance." I'll try to explain it the way I remember it from my undergraduate days.

There was an experiment in which college freshmen were asked to spend two hours doing a very boring task; putting round pegs in round holes, if I recall correctly.

They were divided into three groups. Some people were paid $20 (this was a lot of money back then). Some were paid $1. And some were not paid at all, but were told they were volunteers. All were told their payment (or non-payment) before they started pegging.

Afterwards, everyone was asked to rate the enjoyment of the task.

Which group do you think said it was the most fun?

I suppose I should make you scroll down or something, to delay the surprise.

Stall.
Stall.
Stall.

OK, here's the answer: The group that was paid $1 found the task most pleasurable. And the group that found it the most boring were the people paid $20.

Why? The answer is "cognitive dissonance," which is the tension of holding two irreconcilable thoughts at the same time.

The task was, objectively, boring. People who were paid $20 could easily explain to themselves why they did it: they wanted $20. They rated the task as the most boring. People who were volunteers could tell themselves they did it to advance science. They found it less boring than the $20 group, but still somewhat boring.

But people who were paid only $1 couldn't explain to themselves why they spent two hours putting round pegs in round holes. Their brain held two dissonant thoughts: "This task is dull" and "I'm only getting $1 for it." The second statement could not be changed. So the brain modified its belief about the first. People decided they were having fun; otherwise they would be fools for agreeing to do it.

You can probably already see how this applies to wine appreciation. But I'll spell it out.

If you're paying for wine -- or food, or concert tickets, or a Caribbean cruise -- your brain knows the price. And you know you're not stupid. So if M.I.A. sounds off-key, your brain can change its evaluation to "charmingly spontaneous."

But the critic sitting in the back row didn't pay for the tickets. He's there to do a job, and his brain knows that. If the concert is bad, that doesn't make him a fool for going.

Think about this: How often do you like the warmup act at a concert? Much less often than the main act, right? Maybe the warmup acts really are much less good -- but also, your brain knows this band is not the reason you paid $60 for these tickets.

I get a lot of free wine, and I pay for wine frequently also. Even though I'm aware of cognitive dissonance, I still think I'm more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to a so-so wine I order by the glass in a restaurant over a wine I taste in a professional setting. I'm paying for it, I'm no fool, it can't be THAT bad.

There are several implications here:

1) Why do fans of a wine (Kendall-Jackson Vintners Reserve Chardonnay, for example) like it more than critics? Simple: they're paying for it.

2) The more money the wine costs, the more powerful the effect of cognitive dissonance. You can freely diss Two Buck Chuck, but that overripe $60 Syrah? It must have some good points. Many Napa Valley vintners understand the implication of this: Charge more, and while the wine might be difficult to sell, people who do buy it will like it more.

3) Why does Robert Parker give higher scores to wines than other critics? To his credit, he is well-known for paying for a lot more wines than any other critic. He chooses what to pay for, he doesn't taste blind, and I submit that even for a man whose palate is as consistent as anyone in the business, cognitive dissonance is at work.

4) Why does wine taste better in the tasting room? There are other factors at work as well, but consider this potential dissonance: "I drove out of my way to get here and chose this winery over its neighbors. Plus I paid a $10 tasting fee." Cognitive dissonance is a good motivator for every tasting room to charge a modest fee. (Sorry, consumers.)

5) Why don't professional critics rush to embrace funky, expressive wines, especially those in niche categories? We don't have to; we don't have the cognitive dissonance of "I paid $12.99 for this no-added-sulfite 'organic wine' and it smells like feet." Mmm, feet.

6) How do the Bordeaux first growths get away with those outrageous release prices -- over $500 a bottle for some? In Hong Kong, people are thinking in Cantonese, "I paid $900 for this wine. And I am no fool. This is so worth it." Cognitive dissonance knows no language barrier.

One last point: You've been reading my blog now for maybe 3 minutes, instead of drinking wine or looking at online porn or calling your loved ones or eating dark chocolate. Think of all the great ways you could have spent that 3 minutes.

Isn't this the most interesting blog you've ever read? Tell your friends. They're no fools either.

Tasting notes: Giants World Series victory

I was headed out to dance in the streets last night when my wife asked, "Aren't you going to bring some bubbly?"

What was I thinking? I had watched the game at a friend's house and we had of course drank bubbly there, a tasting-room-only Navarro Vineyards wine which we opened because an indigenous Northern California wine seemed appropriate.

I had been thinking to drop into a bar for a cocktail or three, slap hands with strangers, perhaps make that silly corpse-thanking-God gesture Brian Wilson delivers after every save.

But crowded celebrations are the worst time for a beverage geek to order a drink. ("Excuse me, you haven't muddled that enough.") And nothing I could get in a Mission Street bar was going to be as appropriate as the bottle of Deutz Champagne Brut I had in the fridge.

I hadn't planned for the Giants to win -- I always have a bottle of Champagne in the fridge. You just never know when you're going to need it: personal best on the treadmill, finding a dollar on the train, a particularly lovely sunset. We go through a fair amount of bubbly in my house, but as soon as I open one I chill a replacement.

(Perhaps my favorite quote from the hundreds of wine articles I've written was from Ravenswood founder/winemaker Joel Peterson, a guy who struck it rich making red wine: "After I turned 50, my goal was to have a glass of Champagne every day. I'm doing pretty well at it.")

So I grabbed the bottle and a couple of plastic wine 'glasses' designed for camping and headed to Mission Street, where people were, literally, dancing in the street for the first time since Barack Obama was elected.

I can't get over the political overtones of last night's Giants victory. Fox kept showing us the gloating George Bushes, senior and junior, during the Rangers' win in Game 3. We got to see their smug mugs as the Bush who devalued my "W" threw out the first pitch in Game 4.

We also saw Texas local television reports on games in San Francisco that focused on the horrifying fact that people smoke marijuana here. And there's the crowd contrast: in Texas, it was like a PTA leadership conference -- lots of fresh-faced Caucasians in red-white-and-blue uniforms. The Giants' crowd was their nightmare -- multiracial longhairs with fake beards in panda outfits.

If Texas had won this series, it would have been just like the 2004 election all over again. And today we're apparently going to undergo exactly that, as much of America seems to think the Republicans didn't ruin the economy enough when they were in charge before.

Longhaired free thinkers have won few battles in American history. They didn't beat Nixon, they didn't stop the Vietnam War, they haven't gotten us out of Iraq or Afghanistan. The kind of crowd you see at the Giants game -- well, we always lose in the end. Like the Giants, who had never won the World Series since moving from New York 52 years ago. Sometimes we think we have a victory (2002 World Series; electing Obama) but it always goes south before it's over.

Naturally the TV network of the World Series was Fox, ready to capture once again the ascendancy of social conservatives, with the Bushes at the helm.

And then -- Edgar Renteria, a Colombian immigrant, took the supposedly unbeatable country-boy Cliff Lee (hobby: hunting) deep. Tim Lincecum, wolf-whistled at in Philly and skipped in most interviews by Fox because of his propensity for saying naughty words (i.e., "fuck yeah!"), was superb.

Fox only showed one second of concern on George W. Bush's face. One second, yet for me it was the visual highlight that summed up the larger context of the whole Series. San Francisco won one. Misfits, castoffs, leftists, dope smokers, immigrants, guys dressed as nuns -- we went to the heart of Texas and won.

Yes, I drank Deutz Champagne on Mission Street last night, and slapped hands with a firefighter in his truck, and danced to a drum circle. There wasn't much residual sugar in the Deutz -- it was elegant, with subtle toastiness and a long finish. So it would be a cliche to say the taste was sweet, and inaccurate besides.

It was satisfying. It tasted like, for one day, the America I wish this country could be: letting our hair out, laughing with our neighbors. I grabbed the Deutz because it was the bottle I had handy, but forever after when I taste it, I'll taste victory.