Category:Regional wine

Warren Winiarski returns to Colorado

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Warren Winiarski
Yes, Warren Winiarski made wine in Colorado, and here is the label to prove it.

How incredible would it have been to talk writing with Ernest Hemingway? Or, for a painter, discuss technique with Michelangelo? Or, for a baseball player, pitching with Sandy Koufax?

I had a similar experience in Colorado this spring, when I spent a couple of days talking and judging wine with Warren Winiarski, one of the handful of people who helped transform the California wine business from its regional roots. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, California was not all that much different from what Virginia or Texas is today. Along the way, he produced the winning red at the 1976 Judgment of Paris, where California wine bested the French in a blind tasting that changed the way the world saw California wine.

That visit is the subject of a story I wrote for the on-line wine magazine Palate Press. Among the highlights:

? Winiarski made wine in Colorado for Ivancie Cellars in the late 1960s, shortly before starting Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. Ivancie, founded to bring the idea of wine to the middle of the country, was 40 years ahead of its time. Says Winiarski — and echoing how many regional winemakers over the years?: “We underestimated how difficult making wine in Colorado was going to be. The wine was good, but the idea just never caught fire. ?

? The winemakers who attended a seminar with Winiarski (and where I was lucky enough to sit on the panel with him) were almost wide-eyed listening to him dissect their wines. Most importantly, he was polite, enthusiastic, and constructive in his comments, something that doesn’t happen enough often in a business that can get very snarky (and especially when the subject is regional wine).

? How can you argue with this winemaking philosophy? “Are you making a dancing slipper or a boot? What’s in your head? How do you follow through on what’s in your head? What do you want the grapes to become

Seminar photo courtesy of Michelle Cleveland, using a Creative Commons license; Ivancie label courtesy of Colorado Wine Press, using a Creative Commons license.

The Washington state lesson in drinking local

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

local wine trendsToday’s riddle: Which local wine was ignored, overlooked, and regarded as not real wine? The answer: Washington state wine, which got so little respect that a bartender at a Pasco restaurant once told me there was no such thing as Washington wine.

Hence the story I wrote for the Beverage Media trade magazine — that today’s best regional wine states are in much the same position that Washington was in two decades ago. Which means that retailers and restaurateurs who aren’t paying attention are missing a good thing (right, Texas?). The story ?s highlights:

? Too many still don’t understand how popular local is. It has been a “hot topic” in the National Restaurant Association ?s annual chef ?s survey since at least 2010, and local wine was the second biggest alcohol trend.

? It’s just not that wine is made in all 50 states, but the Wine America trade group reports that the number of regional wineries in the United States increased almost 12 percent between 2011 and 2014 — in the aftermath of the recession — and almost doubled since 2005 — during the recession.

? The business types who are part of the three-tier system have figured it out, which kind of surprised me. The biggest regional producers are distributed by the biggest companies in the country; in Texas, for example, the two biggest distributors in the state handle most of the state’s best-selling wineries. It used to be almost impossible, even just 10 years ago, for a local producer to get a distributor.

? Retailers who support local make money off of local. Marketview Liquor in Rochester, N.Y., carries some 800 New York wines, and that ?s not a new thing ?the store has invested in local since it opened 33 years ago. How long ago was that? Not even I was writing about regional wine then.

? Quality has improved, too, even if no one wants to believe it. Washington’s wines are among the best in the world, and so are New York rieslings, Texas viogniers, and Virginia red blends.

Is Texas wine at a crossroads?

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Texas wineTexas wine may be approaching a crossroads, something that was evident during the 31st annual Lone Star International wine competition this week. That’s because some of the best wines at the competition weren’t Texas, but included California wines sold by Texas producers. Which is not supposed to be the point of what we’re doing here.

Years ago, when a lot of Texas wine left much to be desired, what happened this week wasn’t unusual. Or, as I told the competition organizer when I first judged Lone Star in 2005, “Give us better wines, and we’ll give you gold medals.”

Given the revolution in Texas wine quality and production over the past decade, I had hoped those days were gone. But the uneven quality of many of the wines I judged, this year and last, has me wondering. Has Texas wine reached a plateau, where quality isn’t going to get any better given the state’s resources and climate? Or is something else going on?

After the jump, my take on what’s happening: Continue reading →

Oregon’s example for the regional wine business

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Oregon's example for the regional wine business
Christopher Mazepink: “It’s all about Brand Oregon.”

Those of us who care about regional wine are often frustrated by its “me first” approach, the way too many wineries act like little kids who hog all the toys. It’s always about what they want, even when that’s not what’s best for regional wine.

That’s why it was so refreshing to Oregon winemaker Christopher Mazepink talk about how far Oregon wine has come in the past 15 years, and why it has come so far so quickly. Fifteen years, given the centuries-long history of wine, is hardly any time at all.

“We put Oregon’s wine industry out front, before the individual brands,” says Mazepink, the winemaker at Archery Summit who was in Dallas for a big-time wine tasting. “It’s all about Brand Oregon. That’s pretty unique in the wine world.”

That approach, he says, has paid off in Oregon’s popular and critical acclaim. Yes, it’s important that the state’s wine quality has improved over the last decade and a half, and that it has become one of the world’s great producers of pinot noir. But it also matters that Oregon winemakers work together, help each other, and generally avoid the sniping and backbiting that plagues much of the regional wine business. It’s something I saw all too often during my time with Drink Local Wine.

“When I travel with Oregon winemakers, we don’t throw anyone under the bus,” says Mazepink. “We understand that what’s good for one winery is good for all of Oregon wine. It is Brand Oregon, and that’s what we talk about before we talk about our wineries.”

Would that more people in regional understood that approach — that it’s not wineries or even regions within a state that matter in the long run, but the entire state and everyone who makes wine in it. After all, it’s not that don’t have an example, because Oregon has demonstrated that it works.

Colorado Governor’s Cup 2014

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Colorado Governor's Cup 2014Ten years ago, when I first tasted Colorado wine, I spent much of my time being polite. As in, “This is nice. Thank you for letting me taste it.”

Those days are long gone, as was amply demonstrated last weekend during judging for the fifth annual Colorado Governor’s Cup. The red wines were exceptionally strong, and though the whites weren’t as good, they were technically sound and professionally made. In the regional wine business, that’s an accomplishment.

The best reds were cabernet franc and petit verdot, two Bordeaux grapes that do well in Colorado and that the state’s winemakers have taken to with enthusiasm (and especially cab franc). My panel gave a gold and double gold to cab francs, and a gold to a petit verdot. And the best wine of the competition was a petit verdot, from Canyon Wind Cellars. The results are here.

The wines were varietally correct, but also distinctive and reflected Colorado’s terroir — not a lot of fruit, more dry than a California wine, yet complex and very long. This is not an easy style of wine to make, but the state’s winemakers have made great progress figuring out how to work with their terroir over the past decade.

Finally, a few words about my pal Doug Caskey, who oversees the Colorado Wine Board and has run the competition since it started. One reason I enjoy judging this event so much is that Doug brings together judges who understand that Colorado wine isn’t French wine or California wine and isn’t supposed to taste like it came from those places. Sadly, too many judges downgrade wines that are “different,” which has nothing to do with quality, but with a preconceived notion about what wine is supposed to taste like that borders on snobbery and elitism.

The two people on my panel, Tynan Szvetecz and Sarah Moore, were terrific in this respect, and it was a pleasure to judge with them. I’m always lucky to work with people who put up with my idiosyncrasies, and they were no exception.

Idaho understands regional wine marketing

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

The Wine Curmudgeon, despite regional wine’s tremendous success in so many other areas, still despairs about local wine’s inability to market itself. The preferred method remains wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’ that the Winestream Media will take pity and announce to the world that it’s OK to drink local wine. Which will happen when the Wine Spectator hires me to eliminate scores from its reviews.

Fortunately, the Idaho wine business understands this. The Idaho Wine Commission recently released a marketing video that does pretty much everything that regional wine marketing should do. It’s subversive, it’s funny, and it sells the product on its own merits without the usual local wine marketing foolishness — appeals to snobbery, invoking Napa Valley, and using phrases like world class. Plus, it only cost $7,000 to produce.

The video is about a minute too long, but that doesn’t mean it’s not effective. Would that Texas, where the current idea of wine marketing is to do none at all, made something this clever with the only criticism that it’s too long. The video is below, and marvel that no one thought of something like this before.

Doc McPherson, 1918-2014

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Doc McPherson, 1918-2014
Doc McPherson, left, and son Kim, who owns McPherson Cellars in Lubbock — drinking and talking about wine.

One of worst parts about this job — probably the worst — is writing posts like this. Obituaries are bad enough, but how do you sum someone up in 300 words in phrases optimized for Google’s search robots?

You can’t, and especially when it’s someone like Doc McPherson, the retired Texas Tech chemistry professor, World War II bomber navigator, Peace Corps instructor, and one of the three or four people who made the Texas wine industry possible. So I’ll just write, and Google be damned. More, after the jump:

Continue reading →