Thought for the Day

I came across this snippet while browsing a wine board and it sums up rather nicely how I view wine and the wine world right now.

“We all go through changes in taste . . . and that’s part of the fun of wine. . . . I’m not impressed with being impressed, anymore. I think when you’re 25 you’re impressed with being impressed. That is, you get a little older, things that seemed impressive maybe aren’t so interesting after all.” —Littorai winemaker Ted Lemon, interviewed by Grape Radio. It brings to mind the Terry Theise Manifesto—“Beauty is more important than impact. Harmony is more important than intensity”—but to see the idea gain traction in California is a real man-bites-dog story.

—Keith Levenberg

Clos Pepe

Some pics from our recent visit to Clos Pepe Estate Vineyards in the Santa Rita Hills.

My first customer. Hey, the shit is free.

Bottling!

Here's a short video from the other day of the bottling of the '07 Zin. We bottled 24 cases in rapid fashion thanks to everyone's help. We also bottled two wines for Amelle - Zin and Pinot! Look for them soon from Eric Buffington - very impressive stuff.

My first label for the 'hobby' zinfandel. What do you think? The next label will switch out the grapes for the stadium facade.

Good News

After fourteen months of being my "finicky mistress" (see post from 10/15/08), the '07 Zinfandel has finally finished mlf and is now completely dry. Eric has sulphured the barrel for me so it will rest comfortably until bottling in February. Now, we are having some fun creating some labels and hope to have them ready in time. Our excitement was really kicked up a notch last week when Ed's Sandler wines arrived and we were able to try his Buck Hill Zin from bottle. Not surprisingly, we love it!

Also, the '08 Keefer pinot noir is finished as well. No residual sugar (rs) and mlf is done. Everything about this wine has been perfect so far. I simply cannot wait to pull a sample in February. Recently, I have been opening up Keefer pinots from wineries such as Failla, Siduri, AP Vin and Loring (as you might imagine, I am pretty familiar with the Freeman Keefer's ;-) ) to get a feel for the flavor profiles with various clones etc. Tough research but it needs to be done!

It's been a great year in wine and life. I want to wish everyone well during the holidays and the new year. Merry Christmas!

Zinfest

We had a great party with 60-70 folks attending. The blind tasting I set up attracted about 25-30 participants and the results were very interesting. I asked everyone to rate five wines from their favorite to least favorite. My '07 Zin was clearly the most controversial wine in the lineup. While five people rated it their favorite, nine people thought just the opposite! One fellow kept commenting on how much he hated it! lol

I guess such differing opinions are likely when I chose to serve a non-finished barrel sample alongside some zins from some of the best winemakers in California like Mike Officer and Ed Kurtzman. So, while it was a fun tasting, I'm not sure I gained any valuable information from the experiment. There didn't appear to be any clear-cut favorite with some people liking the $11 Cline Zin more than the Carlisle (a 93 point Parker wine). Others preferred a Maryland zin that I personally didn't care for at all.

All in all, we had a great time and that's I all I was really hoping for.