For the love of wine

Last night I watched a 60 minutes story about scientists that managed to put Resveratrol in a pill.  

My first thought was, this is great! Another story about the benefits of drinking red wine.  I recalled that a 60 minutes show 17 years ago titled The French Paradox, set off a steady upward trend in wine consumption, I thought, this must be a good story for wineries.

The French Paradox, the apparent French health, longevity and lower rate of heart diseases, despite a diet reach in butter and meat, was attributed to regular consumption of red wine.  One particular ingredient in red wine, Resveratrol, was identified as the magic ingredient.  The race was on to put it in the al- American convenient package, the pill.

Now the scientists would have you believe that you would need to drink thousands of bottles of wine a DAY, to match the benefits of one pill. Hmmm, I wonder how the French manage that?

Of course, any reminder that wine consumption, in moderation, is good for you, is a good thing. I’ll take that. Especially since the government makes you put the opposite claim on a label.

I do have a little problem with a pill, though.

One can’t swirl and sniff a pill, you can not enjoy a pill’s aroma, flavors, body and mouth feel, nor can you admire it’s legs as it goes down and settles at the bottom of a glass after each sip. A pill, can’t make you appreciate the company of others as well as a good glass of wine can. Well at least not that pill, unless there are other ‘active ingredients’

So, take your wine in a Pill if you think it may make you live longer, however, wine in a glass will make you live happier!

Cheers.

The label of our hobby wine is Domaine Carlotta.  Domaine, of course, refers to a property with vineyards that produces and bottles it’s own wine. We do have a few grapevines in our back yard here in Berkeley but fruit from better wine-growing regions go into our wine.  However, since the wine I’m referring to here is for our own consumption we didn’t worry about the technicalities.  

Carlotta is the name of the street we live on.  In a side note and much more interesting story, Carlotta is also the name of the Belgium-born wife of the Austrian archduke Maximilian who served a term as Emperor of Mexico during the early 1860’s.  His term, during a short French intervention in Mexico, was cut short by his overthrow and assassination.  

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Carlotta Empress of Mexico

Our next door neighbor and his friend (both Cal professors of Mexican descent) reminded us of this colorful bit of history while we were discussing current and potential names for our wine.  The Mexicans apparently had nothing against Carlotta, in fact they rather liked her.  They were simply rejecting foreign rule and had no choice but to kill her husband.  Carlotta, as a result, suffered profound emotional collapse and slipped into a state of paranoia upon her return to Europe which haunted her until her death.  That makes for a good story to tell when asked about our wine label; however, truth is, we really named our hobby wine after the street we live on.  

Now we are working on the name and label design for our 2 Pinot Noirs that will be released and available commercially later this year.  We considered keeping Domaine Carlotta; after all, that is where we got started making wine.  Besides, if we needed to spice things up a bit, we had the great story and images of intrigue and drama surrounding Carlotta, Empress of Mexico.  

Ultimately we decided, heck, you know what, we have our own genuine, even intriguing, female figures in our own interesting family history.  This is what inspired our entry into winemaking and eventually inspired the name we’ve chosen for our new release:  Stomping Girl Wines.  We founded Stomping Girl last year in honor of Uzi’s grandmother who started the family winemaking tradition and recruited Uzi’s sister, then a child, to stomp grapes during harvest.  Nowadays, we don’t stomp the grapes, of course. Rather, Stomping Girl is used more in a figurative sense represented by our daughters and myself, involved in the winemaking alongside Uzi.  We are confident it represents our family and our wine as well.

Boy, was Christmas a bonanza when it comes to books! I have been reading non-stop thanks to my in-laws, Kathryn and the Berkeley Public Library.  (By the way, re: Kathryn’s and my friendly disagreement, I agreed to only purchase books I consider as reference books, or a classic must haves, and use the library for the rest.)

The books I read over ‘winter break’: 

The Billionaire’s Vinegar, by Benjamin Wallace, thank you Eric Cohen (daddywinebucks.wordpress.com) for the recommendation.  I could not put it down, gone in 72 hours.   The book traces some of Bordeaux’s Chateau Lafite bottles that were supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson and were sold at record prices at auctions and privately.  It has everything–mystery, international intrigue, and obscenely rich people paying obscene amounts of money for very old wine.  There are elaborate wine auctions, multi-day wine tasting, gourmet dining extravaganzas with all the big names in the wine world–critics, writers, collectors and winemakers.  The amount of detail is mind boggling.

Red White and Drunk All Over, by Nathalie MacClean.  Loved it. The woman loves wine and it shows.  I mean, not just the whole lifestyle nonsense with the semi-euphoric fruit bowl descriptions you get from some wine writers.  She is funny too.  Check out her instructions on how to properly open up a bottle of  Champagne.  And her lovely recounting of her experiences in Burgundy, starting with a Domaine De La Romanee Conti private tasting; thru her experiences as a sommelier and finally to a ‘damn the torpedoes’ dinner with Jay McInerney.  Reading this book is like listening to a good friend telling entertaining stories.   Part way through the book I had a nagging suspicion that Ms MacClean has been snooping around my house. How else could I explain that I have just about every book she mentions?  I can almost understand the references to several of the wine books I own and Kermit Lynch etc. etc., but, when she mentioned the Long Tail by Chris Anderson,  I knew something was up! Fess up Nat!

The Emperor of Wine , by Elin Mccoy ,a fascinating tale of how an unknown lawyer from  Monkton, Maryland, Robert M. Parker Jr., became the most influential wine critic in the world.  Creating an almost religious following, he changed the way wine is made and eventually created what appears to be a backlash movement (see The Battle for Wine and Love)  against his preference for big, fruit forward, high alcohol wines. Very detailed and thorough writing by McCoy who used to be  Mr. Parker’s editor  at Food & Wine magazine and hence had unprecedented access to him. Regardless of which side of the Parker debate you fall, this book is a must read.

The Battle for Wine and Love, or How I Saved the World From Parkerization, by Alice Feiring; I had high hopes as I walked down to Kermit Lynch and bought the book (I missed the book signing in August, darn!)  While a good read, I came away slightly wanting.  Given the ambitious title, I was hoping for some convincing arguments to be made.  Instead, most points came down to a difference in taste preferences. Based on the title, I had hopes that Ms. Feiring would use the opportunity to make a good case against the homogenization of the wines currently underway, in her opinion, to impress the mighty palette of Mr. Parker.  I was hoping she would make a logical and convincing case against the creation of McWines and in support of diversity of wine styles.  She didn’t in my book.  For me, the book was also too diluted by anecdotal stories of her love life. Maybe that was the point of her approach, that wine is like love—you may encounter many disappointments before finding your one true love.  Not sure.  But it seems the search is still on for someone to save the world from “Parkerization.” 

Uzi wanted a wine thief for Christmas.  A fancy hand-blown glass wine thief to replace the plastic one he’s had for the last six years.  The theory is that if wine tastes better in a fancy wine glass, like a Reidel, maybe it will also taste better from a classy glass thief. 

Ever tried to track down a wine thief?  Conjures up images of empty wine bottles strewn along a trail of red footprints, doesn’t it?  No, a wine thief is a tool used to draw out small amounts of wine from a barrel for tasting.  Lucky for me there happens to be a Berkeley business that makes hand-blown glass objects and tools for labs…including wine thieves.

Regarding his theory, the glass wine thief may not affect the flavors and aromas of the wine like the shape of a wine glass will do, but it does enhance the barrel sampling process:  it shows off the color of the wine and it just looks great.  Uzi shall never have to taste a barrel-drawn sample of our wine from a plastic utensil again. Just don’t drop it on the concrete floor!