California wine industry ignores dire climate change warnings

Areas in red are projected to be unsuitable for wine grapes by 2050

Earlier this week the National Academy of Sciences published a major peer-reviewed climate change study with a handy color-coded map. And the future of California looks red hot by 2050, with most of Napa Valley unsuitable for premium grape growing.

I saw this on the TV news in the morning. There are wire-service stories from other states about it: people in Montana are excited about being the next Bordeaux. So I went to Wine Business.com, my go-to for wine news, expecting to see lots of California industry reactions.

I saw Steve Heimoff, who I don't believe to be a Tea Party guy, essentially denying that global warming in California is happening. And other than that, nothing.

Granted, global warming doesn't sound so terrifying after northern California had back-to-back cool years in 2010 and 2011. But still, with land prices at well over $200,000 an acre, you'd think people would be more worried. What's Napa Valley land going to be worth if the grapes aren't suitable for premium wines? Why isn't this a big deal?

Take a look at that map of the northern West Coast. Red areas are ones where wine grapes are grown now that are not projected to be suitable by 2050. Green areas are suitable now, and should stay suitable. Blue areas are currently too cold for wine grapes, but are expected to be suitable by 2050. So the overall picture for the West Coast is pretty good, especially for Oregon. Washington could face disruption but unlike California, it should gain a lot more vineyard land than it loses.

Server says, "Let me take that wine away" and disappears

We were eating the $65 pasta tasting menu at Flour & Water in San Francisco, and I had ordered the wine pairings for $45.

On our last pasta course, the server came over and asked, "How are you enjoying that?"

I answered honestly, "I hate this wine."

A 2003 Calabretta from Mount Etna, it was tired and tasted merely of ash, wood and tannin. Calabretta ages their wines for a long time in neutral oak tanks and Eric Asimov raved about the '02, calling it "lively, energetic and pure, with deep, rich mineral and fruit flavors." I guess the '03 was uninteresting because of vintage variation, but after reading Asimov's note, which bore no relation to the wine I tasted, now I wonder if it was flawed.

She said, "Let me get that away from you." She snatched the wine glass and disappeared. That was it. No replacement, no question, no conversation. Nobody ever asked why I hated it.

My wife and I were stunned. "Wow," was all we could say.

This is modern wine service, I suppose. Flour & Water isn't cheap, but it's selling a casual experience, not a formal one. And $45 for the wines I received was rather cheap, in the good sense, even with the one dud. The pours weren't generous, but most of the wines were interesting and went well with the food. I particularly liked the 2009 La Biancara di Angelino Maule "Pico," an orange wine with great mouth presence and flavors more like dried apples and mangos than what you expect from grapes, with the rabbit raviolini.

At a high-end place, I would expect the sommelier to offer a taste of something else I liked better with the final course. (I would have been happy with a small repour of the previous wine, the 2011 Cascina Val de Prete Barbera d'Alba.)

Here, I suppose they don't have any obligation to replace the wine, or even to discuss it. I didn't say the wine was flawed; I said I hated it. I was surprised by what followed, enough to blog about it. But I'm not sure what they should have done differently.

What do you think? Should the server have done something differently? Should I have?

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The marketplace value of Jancis, Galloni, Asimov, McInerney and Matthews

Dinner with Galloni: more valuable than dinner with Jancis?

There's a charity auction for victims of Hurricane Sandy going on right now through Sunday afternoon, and that's a good deed and you should consider buying some wine. But what's really interesting is the price of dinner.

Four wine writers -- Jancis Robinson, Antonio Galloni, Eric Asimov and Thomas Matthews -- volunteered to have dinner with guests for the highest bidder.

In a different category ("The Good Life"), there's also a dinner with Jay McInerney.

This is a marketplace decision on which critic is what, most interesting? Most influential? Has the best table manners?

There is only a little variation in the offers. All five meals are at Danny Meyer restaurants, and I'm not a New Yorker so I don't have an opinion on which is best. With Robinson you get a bonus wine writer, Nick Lander.

You're allowed to bring five guests with Robinson, Matthews or Galloni; three guests with McInerney; but only one with Asimov. That's a big difference but I'm not sure the impact on pricing is predictable: fewer guests will depress group bids, but the dinner with Asimov will be the most intimate.

So who do you think will attract the highest bid?

Washington makes great Gewurztraminer

Chris Dowsett makes great Gewurz

Gewurztraminer has probably the lowest success rate of any good wine grape in the world. When it's right, it's delicious and unique: aromatic, with rose petal notes and a lovely mouthfeel. But the batting average of Gewurz winemakers worldwide is lower than Brendan Ryan's.

The biggest problems are sugar and acid. Gewurz is a cool-weather grape that ripens suddenly and can become bitter, flabby and too alcoholic if the grapes are left on the vine for just one hot day too many. Alsace probably makes the best Gewurztraminers in the world, and still they're risky to buy unless a sommelier vouches for them.

It's an interesting contrast to Pinot Gris, a forgiving grape with a much higher batting average but lower slugging percentage. Pinot Gris is safer to order, but it's likely to deliver a single at best, whereas Gewurztraminer, after swinging and missing a dozen times, sometimes slugs one into Triples Alley.

I was in Washington last weekend at the same time as John Mariani, a wine critic for Bloomberg News who tasted a dozen wines and declared that the whole state's wines pack a "high alcohol wallup, little else."  I don't write many blog posts about a single wine I like. But what the heck: considering how little Gewurz is made in Washington, the Gewurz I loved -- Dowsett Family Celilo Vineyard Columbia Gorge Gewurztraminer 2011 ($22) -- gives me a much greater ratio of wines tasted/all wines made than Mariani, and he writes for Bloomberg! And unlike Mariani I actually interviewed the winemaker, so what the heck.

Is it crossing an ethical line for a critic to make wine?

Wine writers not named Galloni have to struggle to make money; I can tell you that from personal experience. But in order for the public to trust you, you have to draw a line somewhere.

Paul Gregutt raises an ethical question with his new wine brand, Waitsburg Cellars.

Gregutt has reviewed Washington wines for years, for the Seattle Times, Wine Enthusiast and other publications. He continues to be the Enthusiast's main Washington critic, and in fact his venture got an Enthusiastic post from his colleague Steve Heimoff.

Here's the thing: Gregutt's wines are being made by Precept Wines, Washington's second-largest winery.

Wine Enthusiast has known about this situation since last summer, when the deal emerged.

"I'm not going to be reviewing Precept's wines," Gregutt said Thursday. "That would be a clear conflict."

The question is, is it still a conflict to review other Washington wines?

Unknown Washington Syrah tastes better than 100-point wines

Chris Peterson

Chris Peterson's first vintage of Avennia Syrah sat beside a $250 wine from Chapoutier, two 100-point wines from Parker and Spectator, and 4 other wines with better credentials than it Saturday at a panel tasting in Seattle called "Washington vs. the world."

All the Avennia Syrah had going for it was it was the best wine on the table.

Peterson, formerly co-winemaker at DeLille, was lucky to get the grapes for his inaugural vintage from one of Yakima Valley's best growers, Dick Boushey. "I like Chris. He's very serious, and he's very low-key," Boushey says.

That's true. I was one of the presenters, I sat next to Peterson, and he said the least of anyone on stage.

Me, I talked about ratings and value. 2000 Leoville Las Cases got 100 points from Spectator, 98 points from Parker, costs $350 online, and it was a simple dark fruit wine with a short finish. I'm not sure I could pick it out of a lineup of $15 Bordeaux Superieur. One woman in the audience pointed out that the wine was tight and might be delicious in 20 years. OK, but is that what one expects from a 100-point wine: hopes and excuses? I asked for a show of hands from people who thought it was worthy of 100 points: zero.

Thoughts on the Wine Advocate suing Antonio Galloni

The front page of Galloni's new website

The Wine Advocate sued Antonio Galloni in federal court yesterday, accusing him essentially of stealing intellectual property, most of which he created.

The lawsuit alleges:

"After repeatedly ignoring plaintiff's request for certain of the articles and tasting notes that defendants regularly provided, and were owed, to plaintiff, defendant's fraud was revealed when they informed plaintiff they were no longer working for plaintiff and would be retaining the aforementioned articles and tasting notes for their own benefit."

It also alleges:

"As a result of defendants' actions, plaintiff has lost, and will continue to lose, subscribers to its publications for, among others, two main reasons:
a. First, plaintiff has not received from defendants the highly anticipated tasting notes and articles regarding wines that subscribers expect to be in The Wine Advocate. The absence of certain scheduled tasting notes and articles has resulted, and will continue to result, in lost subscribers.

b. Second, as a result of defendants' improper use of plaintiff's confidential subscriber information, defendants have been raiding plaintiff's subscribers and directing them away from plaintiff's publication and toward defendants' website."

I'm not a lawyer, so I can't say whether the suit has merit. But it does raise a few interesting issues:

* When I interviewed Galloni earlier this year, he said more than once that the business structure of the Wine Advocate was such that he and Neal Martin worked there as independent contractors. The quotes didn't make the final article -- Galloni had a lot of interesting things to say, and that didn't seem as significant then. But it will be the center of his defense. Moreover, he won't be saying it again anytime soon as his lawyers will tell him not to talk to the media.

* The crux of the suit is apparently Galloni's unpublished tasting report of Sonoma County wines, which he started working on while at The Advocate. A note on Galloni's site reads: