Migration leaves Goldeneye's shadow

I'm not generally a fan of second labels, but there has always been an odd exception in Anderson Valley: I like Migration Pinot Noir better than the main label, Goldeneye.

Now I will no longer have the anguished "What's wrong with me?" feeling of wondering why I prefer the $34 mixed-breed duckling to the $75 single-vineyard lead drake. Migration is becoming its own winery. I can only hope it keeps its focus.

The background is interesting. Both were started by Dan Duckhorn, an underappreciated wine visionary.

In the 1970s, when Chenin Blanc was still big and red wine planters were mostly betting on Cabernet, Duckhorn foresaw the Merlot boom. For my taste, even though he sold the winery in 2007 to a private equity group, Duckhorn still makes some of the best Merlot in California.

Then, in 1990, when almost nobody was making Pinot Noir here, Duckhorn started Goldeneye in Anderson Valley. Here's how long wine companies need to plan ahead -- the first vintage of Goldeneye (1997) wasn't released until 2000.

Goldeneye has always been about a style of Pinot Noir that Duckhorn correctly anticipated would be popular: big, ripe and bold.

"Goldeneye is focused on an American aesthetic of Pinot Noir," says Goldeneye winemaker Zach Rasmuson (left).

Starting with the 2001 vintage, Goldeneye added a second label, Migration, with wines at half the price of Goldeneye's.

I don't know this to be true, but I always assumed Migration got the lesser-valued barrels because that's the way second labels work. However, in this case the lesser-valued barrels tended be the less big and ripe ones.

From now on, Migration will get its own grapes and has its own winemaker, Neil Bernardi (right), an enthusiastic 29-year-old prodigy who has been assistant winemaker at Littorai as well as assistant winemaker at Goldeneye.

Ladies, don't get excited about this hot young winemaker: he's married. It's a nice story, too. Bernardi, a Marin County native, was preparing to intern in New Zealand and his mother was terrified he would marry a Kiwi girl and never come home, so she and a friend tried to set him up on a date with a Sacramento graphic designer they knew was also planning to visit New Zealand as a backpacker. But neither Bernardi nor the woman (Kimberly) was all that interested, though Bernardi did see her photo.

Several months later, Bernardi was in a hostel in New Zealand when he recognized her. Turns out they hit it off immediately and they ended up traveling around Asia for 6 months before returning to California, just as their mothers planned.

Speaking of planning, I asked the winemakers why Duckhorn Wine Company would want to expand like this, and Rasmuson said, "Why let an economic downturn stop us? It's the best time to grow a brand."

Bernardi will get good fruit to work with from famous vineyards including Marimar Torres and Heintz Ranch. Bernardi says the plan right now is not to make single vineyard wines like Goldeneye, which is probably sensible given the turgid market for $75 Pinots. Even $34 Pinots aren't an easy sell, but the Duckhorn umbrella has cachet.

Migration has also released the company's first Chardonnay, Migration Russian River Valley Chardonnay 2008 ($30). It has impeccable fruit sourcing from Dutton Ranch, Pellegrini and Balletto. I like the length of it, and it delivers good lemon fruit with some toastiness and a full, not flabby mouthfeel. I don't know if the world needs another $30 Chardonnay, but I don't bet against Duckhorn.

I had a chance to taste the Migration Anderson Valley Pinot Noir 2007 ($34) against $380 worth of Goldeneye (five wines) with dinner at Wexler's (the cornmeal-crusted skate stuffed with pulled pork is one of my favorite dishes in SF right now).

My favorite Goldeneye wine was The Narrows Vineyard Anderson Valley Pinot Noir 2007 ($75) -- raspberry fruit, soft mouthfeel, turns savory on the midpalate with a hint of white pepper, velvety finish. To me, it was the most Pinot-like of the Goldeneye wines. Yet I liked the Migration Pinot just as well -- typically Anderson Valley fruit-driven wine, with nice cranberry and some savory soy on the finish. Turns out Goldeneye is thinking about giving The Narrows Vineyard fruit over to Migration, though what that means for the pricing, I don't know.

In any case, it will be interesting to follow Migration from this point. Given Duckhorn's savvy track record, I can't help thinking he sees a balance backlash coming and has planned a more restrained Pinot brand to take advantage of it.

Wine shopping for a civilian

Here’s the dirty secret of many wine writers: we don’t buy all that much wine.

There’s an endless supply of unsolicited samples, and many wineries and importers are happy to send us wines we’re curious about. We do often pick up a bottle of wine for a particular dinner, or a few more bottles of a wine we liked from a tasting. And wine writers are among the most adventurous people ordering from restaurant wine lists.

But while there are exceptions -- Robert Parker is famous for buying wines he drinks at home -- you won’t often find wine writers shopping the way wine-loving “civilians” (to use Jay McInerney’s term) do.

Thus it was a treat for me last week, staying with my friend Myles in New Jersey, to head to Bottle King to help him buy some wine. A big treat. I loved the 30 minutes we spent there, and I’ve got childlike excitement about the wines he bought. I simply can’t wait for his assessment; I want to vicariously recapture my own discovery-of-wine phase.

Myles has only been drinking wine for a few years and doesn’t drink very often. He started with New World reds -- Peachy Canyon Zinfandel was the first wine I poured for him that he adored -- but these days he’s into whites. He doesn’t eat shellfish or spicy food, and rarely eats fish at home; most of his wines will go with chicken, pasta or Chinese takeout. With food, he’s not into exotica, and while he’s willing to trust me to a point, I don’t want to spring a Vin de Savoie on him.

He recently discovered Pinot Gris and likes it -- Trimbach is his favorite -- but he doesn’t like Italian Pinot Grigio. He isn’t a fan of buttery Chardonnay but I suspect that his girlfriend would be if she knew the vocabulary. He thinks he doesn’t like Riesling because it’s sweet. He also thinks he doesn’t like Sauvignon Blanc because it’s too acidic and smells like cat pee. And he doesn’t like sparkling wine because it gives him a headache.

As for budget, he’s been shopping in the $15 range, which is a sweet spot right now. He’s willing to go to $20 but starts to make Tuvan throat singing sounds at about $25.

As a point of pride I wanted to get him wines priced below his current average expenditure. I also wanted to expand his horizons. This is practically my mission in life -- if you think Family Guy is cool, you need to watch Robot Chicken. Single finca coffee is more interesting than country blends. Have you listened to Sonic Youth, Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,“ the Standells? That sort of thing. Wine lends itself to that, but you have to know your limitations. I think the Ramones were gods who walked the Earth, but I know I won’t convince a Beyonce fan of that.

So enough chatter: What did we buy?

First I examined the stacks of wine at Bottle King, which is a pretty good suburban all-purpose store (and you can order many of my selections from them here). It doesn’t have the kind of obscurities I might want, but it does have very good prices and at least a few selections from most necessary regions.

That said, I found the cases stacked in the center of the aisles to be nearly all boring corporate wines, the sort of stuff I would only drink on an airplane. I guess it’s not surprising that this is where most people pick up their wine, rather than the shelves. There’s a saying among wine distributors: “Stack ‘em high and watch ‘em fly.“ The stacks are the lowest-common denominator, mass-appeal wines: the Top 40 of wine. If you’re a top 40 listener, then shop there. Myles is still looking for an obscure Impotent Sea Snakes album (“Too Cool For Rock And Roll,” if you have a copy PLEASE email me.) He needs to shop on the shelves.

I did pick up one bottle from the stacks: Kono Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2008 ($8). It was the last bottle, and I forced it on him because it was a good price and because I like that Kono is actually produced by Maori. He didn’t know who the Maori are, so maybe I started off slowly. But what’s $8 of somebody else’s money?

From the shelves, we started with Trimbach Alsace Riesling 2007, on sale for $15. Myles complained that he doesn’t like Riesling but I counted on his positive connection to the Trimbach Pinot Gris to help me cure him of this misconception.

He was in the market for a California Chardonnay for his girlfriend. They had Ridge -- one of my favorites -- for a cool $54. Maybe if they get engaged. I was depressed by the under-$20 options; most were general California appellation, and you don’t get single vineyards for that money. I settled on the Sonoma-Cutrer Sonoma Coast Chardonnay 2006 ($19), a brand I like that claims to be estate bottled, though whether or not that means it’s an estate single-vineyard in California, I can’t honestly say.

I told him he really should compare the California Chard style to Burgundy. He was amenable, but there weren’t a lot of great values in white Burgundy; even village-level wines were over $20. He never had Chablis before so I settled on a Gilbert Pico Chablis 2008 ($18), a brand I haven’t tried. I warned him that these are austere compared to California and should be drunk with food rather than as a cocktail. Still, while I like a good Chablis, this is one of the selections on which I most fear failure.

In contrast, I feel good about putting the Domaine Mardon Quincy Tres Vielles Vignes 2008 ($15) in his basket. I also don’t know that brand, but I think Quincy is a great alternative to Sancerre at a lower price; $15 ought to net a good one. I didn’t tell him it’s Sauvignon Blanc (he doesn’t read my blog); I’ll spring that on him when he likes it.

The Spanish white section was weak, but for the price I couldn’t resist the Dom Bardo Rias Baixas Albarino 2007 ($9). I’m not sure he’ll love Albarino as much as I do, but the risk is low, and sometimes you have to try to expand somebody’s horizons.

My average cost was a little high at this point so I was delighted to see some vinho verdes. I got two: Gazela 2009 ($5) and Casal Garcia 2008 ($5). It’s pretty cold in New Jersey right now, so it’s not ideal vinho verde weather, but the price is right for nights when Myles might want a single glass of wine and would resist opening even a $10 bottle.

Nearby, I also snagged the Skouras White Roditis-Moscofilero 2008 ($8). It would be a bigger hit if he ate more seafood, but at that price it’s a steal even with chicken.

In my discussion of the awesomeness of Riesling and how to look for good ones, I had been depressed to see no Trockens and only a couple of huge-production-looking Kabinetts. Thus I was pleasantly surprised to see a case of Fritz Windisch Niersteiner Spielgelberg Riesling Rheinhessen Kabinett 2007 ($9) near the cash register. Again, not a brand I know, but it’s 8.5 percent alcohol, so he and his girlfriend can drink a whole bottle, which might be a treat.

Just before we left Myles grabbed a half-bottle of Veuve Clicquot NV and put it in the basket. I objected. He said his girlfriend’s birthday was coming up and she liked that wine; otherwise, he wouldn’t buy sparkling wine, as it gave him a headache. I told him that it’s a mass-produced corporate product not even made by the traditional method in that bottle size. I called it the equivalent of Michael Bolton -- that got him where he lives. I insisted that I would find him a better full bottle of bubbly for less than whatever they were charging for the half bottle of Veuve Clicquot, an outrageous $18.

I fingered the Roederer Anderson Valley but instead grabbed the Gloria Ferrer Blanc de Noirs ($15), a longtime favorite of mine. He was still skeptical, but this was the selection in which I’m most confident. Anybody who thinks Veuve Clicquot is good value should switch to this wine immediately.

We ended up with 11 wines for $126 -- an average cost of $11.50, very affordable for everyday use, even with a couple of more special-occasion bottles thrown in. There was more I wanted him to buy: a Falanghina, a Cremant de Bourgogne, an Oregon Pinot Gris. I wanted him to splurge on a Tokaji Aszu 5 puttonyos for his girlfriend’s birthday. But it’s his money, not mine, and I had fun spending it.

Now I can’t wait for the reviews to roll in. Will he find the Albarino too acidic, the Kono too grassy, the Chablis too flinty? Maybe, but we’ve been friends so long that I was the one who introduced him to George Clinton and rice milk for breakfast cereal and shaving cream in a tube rather than a can. So even if the Skouras is corked, I’ve got some goodwill built up. And that Gloria Ferrer is going to earn me even more.

Bitching about airline wine

Today I will fly on Continental for about 12 hours. I'd like to have a glass of wine or two, and for this Continental charges $5 -- even on international flights.

Fine. But if I have to pay $5 for 175 ml of wine, can't it at least be good?

On my way here, Continental offered only one wine, a California Chardonnay called Redtree, made by Ceccheti Wine Co. from purchased grapes. A whole 750 ml bottle of the stuff would cost less than $10 in a store. So why is Continental's markup so high?

And more to the point, why can't they make a better wine available?

Last year I flew coach on Qantas and was served -- for free -- St. Hallett Barossa Valley Shiraz and Tyrell's Hunter Valley Chardonnay. On Air New Zealand coach I was served -- for free -- Allan Scott Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. These are wines with regional character from good wineries, and all would be well worth $5 a glass.

Why can't Continental offer something like that? A Sobon Zinfandel, for example -- they're only about $12 retail for a full bottle and they're excellent. Or how about a Beckmen Santa Barbara County Rhone blend? I would happily pay $5 for a miniature bottle of one of these. Heck, I'd even buy two.

I don't mean to pick on Continental because it's actually one of the best US airlines when it comes to food. American, if I remember correctly, offers sweet wines with cute labels from the Wine Group, also for purchase. Delta, United, US Air, none of them are known for wine selection. I'm only mentioning Continental because it's my airline today.* (And actually, the flight was great -- excellent service, great film selection, palatable food. Just the wine problem.)

If US airlines insist on charging international fliers for wine, I just don't see why they can't make arrangements to have something better. Maybe they could have a reserve tier for $10 a glass. I just spent $10 a glass last night in a restaurant, as I'm sure most international fliers have done, and I might grumble about doing so on a plane, but I would do it for something good -- it darn well better not be FishEye Merlot.

Spirits are a better deal -- $5 for a Bombay Sapphire, Skyy or Jack Daniel's isn't bad. But I don't generally drink spirits with a meal. I would buy both a bottle of wine AND a postprandial liquor if the former weren't so weak. Continental would make even more money from me. Instead, I'll keep my credit card in my pocket until the meal is done.

Sigh. I just hope nobody on my plane beats me to the one miniature of Glenlivet on board.

Thinking about drinking in Jordan

I just spent 6 great days in Jordan -- the kingdom, not the winery -- and while I didn't drink much there, it's a lot easier to find wine, beer and liquor than you might imagine for an Islamic country.

A few general observations:

* The only restaurants that serve alcohol are oriented toward tourists. However, you can sit outside at these with a bottle of wine, and nobody appears to take offense.

* Towns of decent size have openly operating wine and liquor shops, with signs in English and contents clearly visible from the street. This is a big contrast to Egypt, where I bought booze from the back door of a pharmacy and was treated with open disdain by the men selling it; probably like what buying condoms was like for married men in the 1950s. In Jordan I felt no stigma.

* That said, I did not personally observe any Jordanians drinking. But I didn't see any scorpions in the desert either; that doesn't mean they're not there.

* Whiskey is the main imported spirit, and you can get it from all the major countries: the US, Scotland, Ireland. The local spirit is Arak, a rather rough anise liquor, but I also tried a pretty decent Jordanian whiskey that was a bit on the sweet side; it reminded me of a sweeter Irish whiskey.

* There is a Jordanian Christian winery, Mt. Nebo. Sorry folks, I didn't try it. It didn't seem more available at tourist restaurants than cheap Chilean or French wine.

* US wine was reasonably well-represented; Gallo was there, and so was Wente (go Wente!) You could easily buy cheap wines from France, South Africa and Chile. I did not see any Aussie wines, surprisingly.

* Of course, the best wine country closest to Jordan is Israel. Israeli wines are quite good these days (I learned this tasting scores of them at the Israeli wine expo*), the country is at peace with Jordan, and it has to be cheaper to truck wine over the border than to ship it from Chile. Yet I did not see any Israeli wine -- or for that matter, any Israeli food products. There are food products from all over the Arab/Islamic world: figs from Turkey, dates from Saudi Arabia, sardines from Morocco. But I saw nothing written in Hebrew.

* I'll be writing a lot here about Israeli wines very soon. One disadvantage for bloggers like me who sell articles to publications is that I need to figure out what angles/stories I want to get paid for. There's probably a meta-article in that, but I'm not the one to write it.

* That said, Jordanians accept Israelis in a way that Egyptians don't seem to, even though they've been at peace a lot longer. Israeli bus tours go to Petra every day but I also ran into several Israeli backpackers who said they felt like Jordanians had gone out of their way to be friendly to them.

* Jordanian food, while safe and competent, didn't exactly make me crave wine. With the exception of one nicely grilled and spiced fish I enjoyed at Blue Bay in Aqaba, I had mostly the same stuff over and over: stale pita bread, hummus, grilled second-rate meat, fool (a bland bean dish, not the object of Mr. T's pity), falafel. The one thing that shines there are the sweets: variations of baklava, with some interesting versions with sweetened cheese. But those call for cardamom-laced coffee, not wine.

* I did my part for Israeli-Jordanian wine relations by quaffing a bottle of Yarden Galilee Syrah 2005 in the Wadi Rum desert out of plastic cups that had previously held sweetened sage tea (the Bedouins are not big on glassware). I can't offer reliable tasting notes under the circumstances, but I will tell you that few bottles of wine have ever felt more special.

I shared the bottle with three people. Taylor is a not-religious Massachusetts Jew who had just spent several weeks touring Israel for free as part of a program to encourage American Jews to emigrate. He had never been outside the US before and had never spent more than $10 on a bottle of wine (the Yarden sells for about $30 US). Suzanne is a drifter from Alaska whose degree is in anthropology and is finding herself through travel and odd jobs. She also could not remember having a $30 bottle of wine. Elsa, from Sweden, is just 20 years old and is in Jordan teaching the Bedouin how to farm organically. This is ironic because they already farm organically, but they learned to apply for volunteer labor from an organization called WOOF. Elsa had just arrived and her duties were mostly washing dishes. She's young and beautiful and one of the cousins of Zedane, the Bedouin whose camp I stayed at, is attempting to recruit her to work for him, irritating Zedane. She was feeling guilty about causing a rift and really welcomed a couple calming plastic cups of Yarden Syrah. She was the only one other than me who had had a $30 wine before.

We sat on bedding that we dragged out of the tents, staring up at the stars while I tried to answer questions about what made some $30 bottles of wine taste so much better than the cheapest wine in the store (this had always been Taylor and Suzanne's previous purchase strategy). One of the Bedouins observed us but declined our offer of a cup; he was satisfied with a hookah in his hookah tent. We discussed hopes, dreams and trails followed. It was just such a bottle in France more than 20 years ago that sparked my own love of wine, and I could hear my youthful self in their appreciation of this one.

Please forgive my selfishness in writing this, but part of my pleasure in writing about wine is the thought that maybe somebody out there will read something I write and enjoy wine more for it. I am so jaded about the actual bottles of wine, though; it's nothing for me to open 25 bottles of wine for a tasting and then pour all but one down the drain. Here, with one good bottle selected almost at random -- a gift/sample from Golan Heights Winery winemaker Victor Schoenfeld, but not necessarily the wine of his I would have bought -- I could see and hear a new appreciation for wine develop in some people I shared a tent with. I have to say it was better than writing.

Sparkling Sauvignon Blanc

Here's an unusual wine I found in New Zealand: Sparkling Sauvignon Blanc!

It's not a freaky experiment by some tiny winery. Lindauer is a brand owned by Montana Wines, the largest winery by far in New Zealand (and in fact, Montana is owned by Pernod Ricard). I don't know how much sparkling Sauvignon Blanc they make, but I saw this stuff everywhere on the South Island, including on some wine lists in tiny local pubs.

The first time I saw it, I bought a bottle ($8 NZ, less than $6 US) in a supermarket and immediately took it back to Tombstone Backpackers to share with the proprietors. I confess that I thought I'd mock it, and $6 is a small price to pay to have a good wine joke to tell.

In fact, I liked it, which shouldn't have surprised me because I love Sauvignon Blanc and I love sparkling wine. Who knew these two great tastes are great together? What's next -- sparkling chocolate?

Anyway, it tastes exactly like a good mass-produced Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc -- passion fruit, some fresh herb, gooseberry -- and has bubbles. As most bubblies in this price range aren't very good, I think it's great value, and am not surprised by its widespread acceptance in Kiwi country.

The wine geek in me wondered how it's made. Most grapes grown for sparkling wine are picked early to maintain their acidity through two rounds of fermentation. But when you pick Sauvignon Blanc early, it's extremely herbaceous. That's why when I bought it, I expected it to taste like sparkling bell pepper (ewwww). But it didn't.

As it turns out, it takes a big wine company with its fingers in many areas to make this wine a reality. The grapes come from different regions, and Montana has enough of them to spare to make this wine without worrying about hurting its main product lines.

The wine is only 85% Sauvignon Blanc, which is picked at 21.5 Brix, not really underripe for Marlborough. Adding 14% Chardonnay and 1% Pinot Noir (both from Gisborne) makes it drinkable bubbly in a number of ways. The Chard was picked at 18.0 Brix, so it both brings down the alcohol (the wine is a reasonable 12% alcohol) and helps boost the acidity. The Chard and Pinot go through full malolactic fermentation, giving the mouthfeel some roundness.

A spokesman for Pernod Ricard said there are no plans to export this to the U.S. anytime soon, so you'll have to fly to New Zealand to try it. But if you are there, give it a whirl. I did, and look at the impression on me!

Deep Purple: Wine, not old rock star semen

If you've encountered a groovy-looking bottle of Zinfandel in your local Target store called "Deep Purple," you might be wondering if there's some connection to the '70s band that recorded "Smoke on the Water."*

* (If you're wondering about my headline, please see the band's 2007 comeback album cover, at left.)

It seems plausible, because the label design is just so nostalgic for the days before progressive lenses were necessary. Without my glasses I could barely tell that the label has pairing suggestions like "Drink me with pizza burgers and brownies." (Hippies weren't too uptight about commas.)

In fact, the name and label were dreamed up by wine industry veteran Terry Wheatley, previously VP of sales & marketing for Trinchero (the folks behind Sutter Home.)

Wheatley and PR guy Tim McDonald , one of the nicest men in the industry,
put together the company Canopy Management. All their wine names are fun: Middle Sister, Promisquous [sic], Monogamy. You'd expect that from a pair whose previous collaboration was a Chilean wine called Oops.

What's new for them is their level of involvement in creating the wine, which is made at the custom crush facility at Adler Fels in Sonoma County. McDonald -- who says one of his first albums was a Deep Purple album he bought in 1968 -- plays a large role in sourcing the grapes.

Most novice wine producers start by making wine they love, or wine they believe they can sell, and then find a market for it. Wheatley and McDonald were too smart for that. They had Target lined up as a client before the wine was ever made. And they made 8000 cases of Zin because that's how much they had orders for.

In fact, the Zin is only a small part of the company's portfolio, which has reached 100,000 cases in less than two years. So you'll be seeing a lot more Promisquouty, or however you misspell it, at a grocery store near you soon.

The Deep Purple wine is Zinfandel from Lodi from grapes purchased on the bulk market. It's easy to make a pretty good wine this way these days because the market for grapes is so weak. Moreover, McDonald has a special, unusual emphasis.

"These days everybody is looking for super-ripe, ultra-ripe Zinfandel. Fruit bombs," he said. "I like my wine more balanced than that. So I can pick up wine that people are having a hard time selling at a good price, and it's just great. Some of this comes from great old-vine vineyards with low yields that just don't kick up the sugars (and alcohol) to what the current trend is. I'm perfectly happy with these. The alcohol is 13.6. You just don't see that anymore."

For $12, Deep Purple is a pretty good buy. I'm tired of reading wine writers (Eric Asimov) complaining that there aren't any good American wines under $20. You just have to look harder. Deep Purple is the way Zinfandel used to be back when Deep Purple had its pick of underripe groupies -- spicy, medium-bodied and savory, with red fruit flavors and an earthy, tarry note. It ain't Ridge, but it ain't priced like Ridge. If it's successful, the quality might go down, because right now McDonald has his choice of bulk wines and doesn't have an onerous production quota. But the '07 and '08 are space truckin' in the cutout bin.

My first question for Tim wasn't how do you make the wine -- I could have guessed that without asking -- or how did you get Target to carry it. Instead, I wanted to know, "How come the band hasn't sued you?"

Turns out McDonald has trademarked Deep Purple as a wine, and that under US law, there's no possible confusion between products. Despite the recent album cover, one is an aging rock band, and the other is a fresh young wine.

But it turns out that the band shops at Target, because shortly after the wine's release, McDonald got a call from the band's manager, who was very excited about the wine, in a good way. He wanted to know if there were opportunities for joint promotions (no, not THAT kind of joint. Well, maybe not.)

McDonald shipped a band member a bottle of wine, though he hasn't yet heard whether or not it inspired the group to burn down a recording studio. So we might yet see "This Deep Purple concert sponsored by Deep Purple!" Now if McDonald can just use his smooth PR skills to tell them there have to better ways to announce your availability to groupies than that album cover.

Wine does not go with chocolate!

How can every food magazine and lifestyle magazine in the world be wrong?

The issue is wine with chocolate. This time of year, as we approach candy producers' favorite holiday, you can see articles everywhere on the topic.

Why? It's simple. Valentine's Day gives editors a theme to assign in February, which is otherwise a bleak, short month, especially for food as so few things are in season.

Every wine writer has had to do a wine-with-chocolate article (yes, I've served that sentence). Many food writers also. More often, you get some general lifestyle writer who really doesn't know either well, but just knows she likes both.

The point is, this is an editor's story, not a food or wine expert's story. If you pay me $1000 to write a wine with chocolate article, I'll do it, because I'm a whore freelance writer. And I know you won't pay me $1000 if I write that wine doesn't go well with chocolate, so I'll go out of my way to find a few examples that aren't terrible.

My friend Sara Schneider of Sunset magazine has done just that here: This is the kind of article I would write, if you paid me. She has played the potential pairs in as positive a way as possible: Darker chocolates, sweeter wines. It's true that this is much better than a Russell Stover box and a bottle of expensive Cabernet. If you like eating squares of 70%-and-higher dark chocolate, and you have some Vin Santo sitting around, that's actually pretty good together.

But she can't ask the basic question, which is this: Why pair wine with chocolate at all?

Does everything you put in your mouth have to go with wine? Can't you enjoy wine with dinner, and chocolate afterward?

Chocolate is not the worst of all foods with wine -- that would probably be chili peppers. But it's on the "difficult" list with artichokes, pickles, peanut butter, asparagus, Jello, etc. I could do a "wine with artichokes" article if I had to (Sauvignon Blanc), but it's unlikely I would ever do it more than once. Wine with chocolate, though, runs every year, everywhere.

While I was at the San Francisco Chronicle we did a huge pairing tasting of chocolates with every wine reputedly good with chocolate: Pink sparklers, Merlot, Zinfandel, Cabernet, Port, Sherry, Vin Santo. I liked Vin Santo best of all; other than an Israeli pomegranate wine I had once, it was the best wine I've ever had with chocolate. Some of the other combos weren't offensive. But our main conclusion was that in almost every possible combo, the wine and chocolate are both better separately, and in more than half the cases they were awful together. And we were using good dark, supposedly "wine-friendly" plain chocolate -- not the filled bonbons most people eat.

So why do you keep seeing these perky "Perfect Pair For Valentine's Day!" stories?

It has become a self-fulfilling story: editors and unknowledgeable writers read the "wine with chocolate" article in other magazines and they just know it must be accurate. There's no money in contradicting conventional wisdom. I won't get paid for writing this unless thousands of people click on the Google ads on the right. I think I get 5 cents per click. So if 20,000 people click on the ad links, I will make as much money as if I had sold out and written another perky "wine with chocolate" article that I could cynically pound out in an hour, because the advice never changes.

I must add that you also see wine and chocolate paired in tasting rooms all over Napa Valley. Why? It's simple -- after the first winery visit of the day, most people are drunk and can't taste well anyway. Chocolate is good; give 'em some chocolate and they'll buy anything. I don't blame marketers for doing whatever they can to sell their wine, but it does help propagate this fallacy.

Folks, if you want to drink wine with chocolate, or artichokes, be my guest. Just know that you're being manipulated by the magazine industry.

If you don't believe me, I challenge you to do this: taste the wine. Pay attention (take notes, even if just to give it a rating of excellent, very good, whatever). Now taste the chocolate. Also, pay attention to how much you like it. Now, taste the wine again. Is it better? Worse? You tell me.

(Next up: There is no Santa Claus, and I'm not sure the Tooth Fairy is actually gay.)