Errazuriz uses high tech to redefine "ripeness"

The traditional view of how grapes ripen

Usually when a winery applies a high-tech approach to winemaking, it is to get grapes riper. This was practically the only focus of wine technology of the past 20 years, and is a  major reason our wines are now so high in alcohol.

Here is a refreshingly different story: an enormous export-focused winery in Chile that has applied high technology so they can pick their grapes earlier -- at a different definition of ripeness.

It says something about today's wine market that lower alcohol can be an objective.

Errazuriz makes 16 million bottles of wine a year, most of which it sells in the northern hemisphere, so it cannot take a philosophical stance unless it's also commercially viable. In other words, sure, they can make wines that they like, but those wines have to be wines that sell.

A Brief History of French Reaction to The Wine Advocate

1978: Qu'est que c'est?

1981: If you want to apply your untrained palate to appreciate our wines, we will not actively prevent you.

1982: Monsieur, with Burgundy, you should be grateful we send you any wine.

1984: Pardon? Monsieur? Allo? You are praising the wrong vintage. Silly American.

1987: Monsieur, we are afraid you do not understand wine. These numbers are all wrong. You have third growths higher than first growths! Do you not understand geography?

1990: What is this nonsense about California making perfect wines? Monsieur, you go too far.

1993: You have insulted Burgundy wines for the last time. Our lawyers will see you in court. You are no longer welcome to bathe in our foie gras.

Right-wing website's wine club may be violating U.S. law

Wine clubs are a profit center for several media organizations, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Most wine clubs are pretty similar: they include a lot of private-label wines, generally given generic names like Lone Pine Hill or Bramble Ridge to try to sound authentic.

The Daily Caller's wine club is different. The Daily Caller is a right-wing website and accordingly its wine club is unabashedly right-wing, calling one of its private-label wines "306 Wine," with the following marketing language:

A reminder of the number of electoral votes (306) that President Donald Trump won on November 8th, 2016. Your trophy for your victory in the great election of 2016 has arrived. When dawn broke, our flag was still there and we turned our map red.

That's fine. I'm not a Daily Caller reader and don't share its politics, but I'm glad that it's promoting wine drinking. It's the other wine on its website (here's the site) that may be violating U.S. law.

A really stupid wine article, annotated

This article just won a big award: Stupidest Wine Article of 2017 So Far! (Plus craziest Oreo creations!)

I don't like to pick on people for writing stupid wine articles. I have written some stupid stuff over the years; write enough words publicly, and it will happen.

But a well-funded publication like Food & Wine has editors who should have torpedoed the article I'm about to tear apart. The magazine is moving to Alabama, and maybe this article is a harbinger of the crap publication its owners want it to be; I don't know. I only know about this article, which in addition to being poorly reported, ends up being profoundly anti-wine, so the gloves are off.

Here's a link to the article. Go print it out because when the editors read this post -- and someone will forward it -- the article may be deleted. (UPDATE: It has apparently been deleted. I have screenshots but I think I'll just let this one die.)

First, the headline: "This $10 Supermarket Wine Just Won A Big Award"

That might be interesting news if it were true. Problem is the wine that the writer is about to sell didn't actually win anything.

Why I decided not to post tasting notes

Like a beach many miles from the sea: what a Roero Arneis vineyard looks like before planting

This month my column for Palate Press is about Roero Arneis. It's an interesting story and I'm not going to tell it here. What I do want to talk about here is tasting notes and scores.

I have tasting notes and scores on all the wines I recommended at the end of the article. Normally I would have appended them. That's how mainstream wine writing works, and that's fine.

In the case of Roero Arneis, I felt that there is an ideal taste profile, which I describe in the article. I like that taste profile a lot. Sure, there are variations within it, and I could write my tasting notes in such a way that they all sound very different. And there are variations of quality. 

There are several reasons I decided not to run tasting notes: the first two regarding the nature of wine tasting, and the others because of the relationship between wine consumers and the media.

1. The wines were tasted under very different circumstances

Austerity is in for Napa Carneros Chardonnay

Remember when Carneros Chardonnay was buttery? Those days are mostly over.

Recently I took part in a private tasting of more than 30 Napa Carneros Chardonnays under WSET rules, which I wrote about here. I was supposed to be paid (check IS in the mail, right), but the downside of that is, I couldn't keep my notes. All I have is the general impression, but it's a powerful one.

Austerity is in for Napa Carneros Chardonnay.

None of the wines we tasted had the rich, buttery taste Rombauer has made famous. (Note: We didn't actually taste Rombauer, though most of its grapes come from Carneros.)

Even more surprising, very few wines tasted of French oak. Sometimes people put "oaky and buttery" together as a descriptor, but they are very different. Malolactic fermentation that causes butteriness is often prevented in the world's greatest Chardonnays, whereas toasty oak is more often a welcome component. But most of these wines tasted of citrus fruit, alcohol and acidity.

At the end of the tasting, I wondered if this is the best path for Carneros Chardonnay.

My favorite Canadian wines from Northern Lands 2017

For three days every two years, cosmopolitan Edmonton is the capital of Canadian wine, unless* (see below)

Canada's wine scene just keeps getting better. I had the opportunity to blind-taste a lot of fine wines at the recent Northern Lands event in Edmonton, and I came away particularly impressed with the semi-cool climate varieties, especially Pinot Noir and Syrah.

Given their quality, Canada's best red wines are also good value by world standards. The wines I'm going to recommend here can generally be had for $30 to $50. There aren't many very cheap Canadian wines, but on the other hand, Canadian wineries can't get away with charging Napa Valley prices, even for terrific wines.

The wines I list here are all available in the U.S. through a single California-based importer, WineVIP. Most of the vintages are a bit behind the new releases I judged, but the prices are in some cases cheaper than they are in Canada.