Science tells us that olfactory creates our most powerful sense memories. This is because smell is the only one of the five senses that travels directly to the forebrain without first going to the thalamus to be processed by the rest of the brain. Instead, olfactory signals travel directly to very specific parts of the temporal lobe. Add to that the fact that the olfactory bulb is part of the brain’s limbic system which is closely associated with memory.

Given the right context, any number of different smells can create a profound life memory. And there is perhaps no more powerful and profound smell than essential oils. If not familiar, essential oils are derived from naturally occurring volatile aromatic compounds found in the seeds, bark, stems, roots, flowers, and other parts of plants and trees. The essential oils processed from these aromatic compounds have long been used in a number of ways including food preparation, beauty treatment, and therapeutic practices. I’ve personally known about essential oils for many years because Carla, my wife, uses them regularly.
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Last month I was teaching an MS Introductory Course in Southern California with good friend and fellow Master Sommelier, Laura Williamson. Laura is currently based in Carlsbad, California. Over the last two decades-plus, she’s had a remarkable career in practically every facet of the wine industry; from retail to owning a tasting bar and restaurant to managing two major import companies to running wine programs at several of New York’s top restaurants. Laura is also very much into essential oils. During a conversation, she mentioned having used the oils regularly for over 20 years. I was curious to learn if her experiences with the oils were the same as for wine. If not, how were they different? To learn more, I followed up our initial conversation with an extended phone interview. Here’s an encapsulation of that call. 

TG: How long have you used essential oils?

LW: I began dabbling in essential oils in 1995, so for over 20 years.

TG: As a Master Sommelier and wine professional, is there any parallel you can draw between your experiences with the oils vs. wine.

LW: I think the two experiences are completely different. For me, essential oils are so much more 3D compared to wine.

TG: When you say 3D, what does that mean?

LW: With smelling essential oils, when I close my eyes there’s a huge, empowering energy that is deep in a way that can’t be found in wine.

TG: Why do you think that is?

LW: That’s a great question. First, I think not all oils offer the same experience. Different proprietors (producers) of oils have different quality calibers that they follow to meet their business prototypes. The oils I use are very pure in terms of the distillation process, so there’s no harm to any of the beneficial constituents gained from the oil. There’s an intense power from the oils because of the way they’re handled and the fact that the standards of production are so high.

TG: Getting back to what you said a moment ago; you mentioned that your experience of essential oils is 3D. Does that mean that wine is 2D for you? It sounds like when you use essential oils, it’s a very deep internal experience. Is your experience of wine considerably different?

LW: Yes, because these oils are a direct extension from a plant. When I say a direct extension, it means a connection where the essence or focal point of the oil has been curated and processed at its peak, or moment of exaltation. I think this “capture,” so to speak, comes across in a more intense way than with wine.

TG: How do you use the oils?
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LW: I began using oils primarily in blends for additions to baths. But there are many other ways to use them. Using some of the citrus or floral oils can add lift and dimension to cocktails. As well, adding a drop of one of the more savory oils like basil, rosemary, juniper, or oregano can put a final touch or very important shift to a dish. A little goes a long way because the oils are so much more intense than dried or fresh herbs. However, if you don’t have fresh basil, you can just add one drop of a good pure, food-grade basil oil.
All the oils I use are food-grade so they can be used externally or internally. There are other oils that you would never take internally. 

TG: Let’s talk about some of your favorite oils.

LW: Geranium oil comes to mind. There’s floral aspects to geranium as well as cleansing and spice aspects. I have some right here and when I smell it, it’s like pure happiness and joy. It’s all about positivity in an intense, almost overwhelming way; like falling into the largest pile of rose petals.

TG: How would you use geranium oil?

LW: I would never use geranium oil on its own. Instead, I use it externally in blends for the bath. I would combine it with other oils such as lavender, bergamot, grapefruit, Ylang-Ylang, and possibly Petitgrain. For the purposes of a bath, a blend like that would be effective for refreshing or reconnecting to the feminine center. All the oils I mentioned are very feminine and uplifting in their energy.

The reason why I love these oils so much is that any time you take the top off a bottle and smell the oil, the essence goes directly into your brain and resets your thought pattern in a such great way.

TG: It seems like for you there’s an almost immediate emotional reaction to smelling one of the oils. True?

LW: Absolutely.

TG: We don’t necessarily get the same thing from wine.

LW: No, not at all.

TG: Do you think it has to do with the purity and intensity of the oils? That these oils are like powerful single notes, so to speak?

LW: I think it’s exactly that.

TG: Pick another favorite.

LW: I’ll pick Neroli. I have a small empty bottle here that I’ve had for about ten years. I’m smelling the bottle now, and it’s like an orange blossom at exaltation. It reminds me of blossoms in the dessert that have the sweetest smell at night because the sun has gone down and there’s a little moisture in the air. The oils are thicker in the air then and you can feel it. Beyond that, it’s like the feeling of cleansing and calming simultaneously; like the purest, cleansed mentality. Those are the thoughts that come to mind.

TG: How do you use Neroli?

LW: I love this particular oil so much that I put it directly on my skin. I use one drop and rub it on the inside of my wrists. You can do the same with all the floral oils. Neroli helps calm the nervous system. It also has an ease about it, a purity. I didn’t mention this before, but there’s also a fresh greenness to it as well, like fresh-cut leaves from flowers. It’s like a dandelion stem that smells really fresh and green when you first cut it. But the prettiness in the oil from the blossoms of the orange gives it a calming and grounding effect.

TG: I’m curious; when you think about this oil, if you close your eyes do you see colors or shapes?

LW: No, not at all. But when I smell this oil I remember living in Tucson with the orange trees in blossom and walking outside at night in the warm spring air. You can feel warmth in the wind and smell the oil wafting in the air; it feels very safe in a kind of supported way. 

TG: What about another favorite oil?

LW: Let’s go to Vetiver. Vetiver is heavy, woodsy, and resiny. The smell reminds me of being in the mountains on a cold fall night after it rains. The bark on all the pine trees is so saturated with moisture that you can smell the soil—the earth--along with a medicinal quality from the bark itself. It’s a combination of earthy, resiny, wet, and medicinal smells.

Vetiver really grounds you. It’s almost like putting a cement block on top of your head (in the best possible way!) in that wherever you are, it feels like you’re not grounded and not going anywhere.

TG: How do you use Vetiver?

LW: Sometimes I use a drop or two in a bath combined with other relaxing and muscle-relieving oils like rosemary, juniper, and basil. The combination makes me feel a connection to the earth. Sometimes I’ll use a drop on the top of my head and rub it into my scalp. It really helps me focus and it grounds me when I’m really busy and doing a million things.

TG: How about another favorite oil; something floral like rose?

LW: Definitely; I have a bottle here called, “Pure Rose,” that’s basically Bulgarian rose. It has the highest frequency of any of the essential oils tested.

TG: When you say frequency, what does that mean?

LW: It means the moment you inhale the oil, your brain reacts instantaneously to it. You don’t have to put it on your skin or do anything else with it. Pure Rose is the most potent oil as far as connecting with your brain. Many studies have been done about oils and how our brains responds to them. When I smell Pure Rose, there’s a complete lift and feelings of freedom, flow, and expansion, and all in a very coddling, peaceful, and graceful manner. It’s like opening a door and everything that should be there is allowed to come in—without anything negative.

TG: The smell of an heirloom rose is my absolute favorite. For me, it’s beauty personified in smell.

LW: Completely agree; it’s extraordinary. The smell of Pure Rose is also very sensual in a peaceful way, and open and accessible in a non-judgmental way. It’s all that translated into one aroma. It’s very powerful.

TG: How do you use Pure Rose oil?

LW: I use it to make an all-natural balm I make with beeswax. I use only a drop in the balm and rub a bit on my arms to disperse it. The balm anchors the aroma and lets the intensity escalate but not get lost on your skin. I’ll also add drops of Pure Rose to a blend of oils that I apply to my face because of its repairing and rejuvenating properties.

TG: How about another oil that’s completely different?

LW: Let’s talk about Clary Sage. When I smell Clary Sage, it’s like a very powerful alignment; there’s a crystalline clarity to dreams, visions, or aspiration that I might have. For me, Clary Sage oil aligns, encourages, and reminds.

TG: What does it smell like?

LW: Clary Sage reminds me of damp woods and wet leaves mixed with fresh linden—almost like a cleansing solution. Think about when you smell Pine Sol and how that powerful pine aroma renders everything sterile. Clary Sage is similar but notched back quite a bit. It has woods, linden, and floral aspects along with earth and wet stone.

Right now, I’m looking at information on Clary Sage in a book I have, and it says the oil is used an anti-oxidant and anti-diabetic, anti-fungal, anti-spasmodic, and relaxant. It’s also used for insomnia, menstrual problems, circulatory problems, and more. It’s very calming and stress relieving.

TG: I’ve googled Clary Sage just now and it has quite an ancient history. It also lists all the properties you just mentioned and many more.

LW: It’s one of my favorites. I do think it’s an empowering oil for women. There’s such a beautiful balance about it.

TG: Let’s pick one more oil to finish up.

LW: I’m going to give you Blue Tansy. It originates from Morocco and has an azure blue color to it. It’s known for beneficially influencing the nervous system. The moment I smell it, it’s incredibly pretty, sweet, and demure. It’s like a pristine mountain place filled with flowers that’s completely untouched. It’s a really different experience from Pure Rose, which seems to go straight to the brain and rebalances you. Blue Tansy is coddling and supportive, like a cashmere blanket around you with the softest flowers underneath you.

TG: What’s interesting to me is how your responses to the oils are complex, layered experiences that are far beyond the experience of wine.

LW: Absolutely, and the fact that these oils also have healing properties. If I could have another career, I would love to dive into essential oils and help others try to experience the power in these oils to help balance what they’re going through in life.

TG: Does your experience with the oils teach you to be present and focused in a way that helps with smelling and tasting wine?

LW: Completely and on a very deep level. Along with yoga, the oils have helped me to be present and confident when analyzing wine in blind tasting. My experience with oils also teaches me to be more confident, open, and ready to literally feel a wine--in a way let it speak to me. Instead of trying to decipher a wine, I try to be present with it and connect with it in an energy sort of way.

TG: If anything, working with the oils might help you focus on scent while bringing other sensory modalities into the experience.

LW: I agree with that completely.
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TG: Laura, thanks so much for your time. I definitely plan to check out the oils you’ve described and to read a bit about them. Cheers!

​December is upon us and with it, the rocky calendar of the year is careening to a halt. Thank the gods for that. Calendar 2017 brought huge changes for the Peña-Gaiser clan. After 32 years in San Francisco, we returned home to New Mexico to be near family and to also enjoy a more than slightly reduced cost of living. Needless to say, the move has been a monumental change for the three of us and we’re still trying to find our respective grooves. With that, in keeping with holiday posts from the last several years, I’ve assembled a list of potential holiday gifts for friends, family, and erstwhile conspirators. All are guaranteed to please. As I’ve mentioned many times before, it’s imperative that you give yourself something nice for the holidays. After all, how can you possibly expect anyone to have a clue as to what you really want? Know that I’ve already taken my own advice—and it’s listed below.  

*Disclaimer: rumors aside, the photograph above is not of my new living room. Alas. 

Wildwood Spirits Co.
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Before getting started, pour yourself a stiff drink. A Negroni or Martini is the appropriate prescription for the holiday chaos--and there’s no better gin or vodka than from Erik Liedholm’s Wildwood Spirits. Liedholm, an advanced sommelier based in the Seattle area, is the corporate wine director for John Howie restaurants in Bellevue. He’s also the mind behind the Wildwood Spirits Co., producing outstanding spirits from local ingredients—a farm-to-still concept, if you will.
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Several years ago Erik literally had 15,000 pounds of Washington wheat, gin apples, and Douglas fir shipped from Ballard back to Michigan State University, his alma mater, to gain needed knowledge and experience. There he worked with Master Distiller Kris Burlund to learn the art and craft of distillation.

Today Liedholm produces two bottlings at Wildwood; a vodka called Stark Vatten (Swedish for “strong water”) made from Washington heirloom variety red winter wheat and pure, filtered water; and Kur gin with notes of classic juniper, citrus, Douglas fir, and Braeburn apples. Kur has quickly become my new favorite gin. I compare it to the Rieslings of Dr. F. Weins-Prüm in the Mosel; effusively perfumed, elegant, and subtly textured. It makes a sublime Martini or adds a floral lift and shimmering texture to a Negroni. 

The Holiday Book Bag

The Art of Movement; NYC Dance Project, by Ken Browar and Deborah Ory  

​This is my favorite book of the year. I wrote about Ken Browar and Deborah Ory in a recent post. Their NYC Dance Project features stunning photographs of the world’s top dancers. Every time I open the book, I’m awestruck at the beauty and athleticism of these great dancers not to mention the amazing photography. I also feel a profound appreciation for the years—even decades--of long, intense training that goes into the career of a professional dancer. I often tell people that there is no way to “hack” being a professional taster. Add professional dancing to that list. Highly recommended. 

Artemis, by Andy Weir

​I read Andy Weir’s The Martian in almost ​one sitting a couple of years ago. Weir's new novel, Artemis, is easily as good as his previous effort. The book is set on the moon years into the future after a permanent base has been established. Like The Martian, Weir formats Artemis into shorter chapters that move at a fast clip. The dialogue is witty and profane, the predicaments improbable, and the characters complex if not flawed. A perfect airplane book.

A Really Big Lunch: the Roving Gourmand on Food and Life, by Jim Harrison

Last year novelist Jim Harrison passed away at the age of 76. Harrison was Rabelais incarnate, possessing an enormous appetite for food, drink, hunting, fishing, and the outdoors. I first came across his work years ago in the form of short missives written for Kermit Lynch mailers. A Really Big Lunch is a collection of essays on food and drink that includes some of the Lynch snippets. Of special note is the chapter offering a detailed account of a lunch in France that featured 37 courses over 11 hours. In another chapter, Harrison bemoans his frequent attacks of gout, visits to doctors, and having to cut back from two bottles of red wine a day to just one. Ah, the pity. Curiously, white wine wasn’t serious wine to Harrison. A bottle of white was something to casually share with a mate in a boat while out fishing on quiet waters. Red wine was true wine and none better than Bandol of which two bottles seemed to be Harrison’s required daily ration. Reading A Really Big Lunch is to marvel at Harrison’s intellect and wit with outrageously funny quips pinging here and there throughout like a pinball machine on tilt. 

Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World, by Timothy Ferriss

Uber podcaster and blogger Tim Ferriss is back with another great book that gets a holiday recommendation. Faced with a personal/work catharsis this past year, Ferriss reached out for life advice from dozens of people who have been subjects of his podcast; literally the who’s who of finance, fitness, and practically every other walk of life. He posed 11 questions to them including the following: 

1. What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?
2. What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months?
3. How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite” failure? (this is my favorite)
4. What is the best, most worthwhile investment you’ve ever made?
5. What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the “real world.” What advice should they ignore?

Most responded and some that did took the time to write thoughtful and wisdom-filled advice. Tribe of Mentors also contains hundreds of quotes from a wide range of sources. One of my favorites appears in the first few pages: “Pain is never out of season if you go shopping for it.” As with all other Ferriss books, this is a really good read. 

The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer, by Renée Fleming

Renée Fleming is one of the top operatic sopranos of the last 25-plus years. After reading her book, The Inner Voice, I’ll double down on my comment above about not being able to “hack” certain professions. Hacking opera singing at the highest level is frankly impossible because of the learning curve, inherent complexity, and required duration of time and experience--not to mention having a great voice and brilliant musicality.

In The Inner Voice, Fleming details her storied career from early experiences singing in church choirs and high school musicals to performing on the world’s top operatic stages with the greatest conductors and singers. The book is beautifully written and I highly recommend it to anyone taking the Master’s exam. Why? Because it’s often said that the exam is the most monumentally difficult thing in the world. After reading The Inner Voice, I’ve decided that’s far from true. In reading the book, one quickly discovers that establishing and maintaining a career as a top opera singer is far more difficult than any sommelier exam or competition could ever be.

The Art of Flavor: Practices and Principles for Creating Delicious Food, by Daniel Patterson and Mandy Aftel

Daniel Patterson of San Francisco restaurants Coi and Alta needs no introduction in the echelon of top American chefs. Berkeley-based Mandy Aftel* is one of the world’s top perfumers, known for her layered, beautifully complex scents crafted from all natural ingredients. Combine their extraordinary talents and you have the makings of a unique book—and a great read. The Art of Flavor is part cookbook, part alchemy. It breaks down the major aromatic and flavor components in food with cultural and historical backgrounds, all with the intent of explaining why the best combinations work. To read The Art of Flavor is to gain delicious insight into how the best recipes are constructed—and why they work so well.

*More from Mandy Aftel below

​The Genius of Birds, by Jennifer Ackerman

​In The Genius of Birds, Jennifer Ackerman travels the globe and documents how certain birds rival primates and even humans in their intelligence and problem solving capabilities. I marveled at learning how the New Caledonia Crow—at the top of the Corvid family—can create “tools” on the fly (pun intended) in order to solve a complex, multi-stage problem to gain access to a food source. 

Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman

No other top fiction writer of our time has drawn upon the power of ancient myth more than Neil Gaiman. In Norse Mythology, Gaiman reworks the timeless stories of Odin, Loki, and more with his usual polished storytelling and charm. And who knew that there was a Viking ship made from fingernails and toenails taken from the dead? I read Gaiman’s book in two quick sittings—and then immediately read it again. Highly recommended.

The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected: A Natural Philosopher’s Quest for Trout and the Meaning of Everything, by Marcello Gleiser
 
Brazilian-born Marcelo Gleiser is a world-renowned theoretical physicist and professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College. He’s written and published over 100 scientific papers and 5 popular science books that have been translated into over 15 languages. He’s also the co-founder of the Science and Culture blog 13.7, hosted by NPR. Gleiser is endlessly fascinated with the big questions of existence: the universe, matter, life—and fly-fishing. A Simple Beauty of the Unexpected is part popular science, part memoir. In it pages Gleiser uses fly-fishing to, as he puts it, “find a conduit to the outer world of natural phenomena and the inner world of the self.” Simple Beauty is well-written, thought provoking, and a fun read. 

Aftelier Perfumes
 
As mentioned above, Mandy Aftel is one of the world’s top perfumers, crafting scents from all natural ingredients. Aftel’s website (https://www.aftelier.com) contains a trove of information on scent as well a current listing of over 20 perfumes she personally created. The perfumes range in style from Soliflore (single flower) to Oriental to Woods and more. Each perfume can be purchased in various quantities including tiny .25 ml samples. These tiny vials served as inspiration for this year’s Christmas gift for my wife Carla, who is a fan and devotee of perfumes and essential oils. Recently I ordered samples of a dozen different Aftel perfumes with the idea of having her try them over a period of time and then choosing a favorite.

The first six samples arrived last week. As Carla and I went through them, my reaction to each was a simple and hushed “wow.” Like great wines—especially Rieslings and Burgundies--each of the perfumes, though utterly different in character, impressed with its purity and complexity. Equally as impressive was Aftel’s deft blending of seemingly unrelated aromatics to create contrast and a top-middle-bottom balance in each perfume (think floral, fruit, and truffle-earth notes in a White Burgundy or Rheingau Grosses Gewächs Riesling). The list of Aftel perfumes with thoughtfully written descriptions for each can be found at the following page:
 
https://www.aftelier.com/Articles.asp?ID=252

Audioengine B2 Wireless Speaker
 
I own two pairs of Audioengine speakers. In fact, I'm listening to a pair of the larger desktop A5+’s as I write this. But I’d always wanted a good wireless speaker for the living room/dining room as playing tunes during cocktail hour and dinner is a longtime tradition in our household. Enter the B2, Audioengine’s wireless speaker. Like all Audioengine speakers, the B2 is solidly constructed from excellent materials and attractively designed. When mine was delivered, I set it up and was playing music through it in less than five minutes. The Bluetooth wireless function is outstanding. I can easily stream music to the speaker from my phone from the next room. The B2 also has an auxiliary connection for any iPods, iPads, or other music source. As for sound, the B2 has a built in amplifier and produces a very natural, dynamic sound with good bass and smooth, natural mid-and high ranges; it work well for most styles of music.

www.audioengineusa.com 

June 2014 at the historic Fairmont Peace Hotel in Shanghai. I’m in China for the second of three times that year for a project with colleague Barbara Insel of Stonebridge Research. Our mission is to train Chinese sommeliers and hotel F&B directors on California fine wines.

That night at the Fairmont, I’m hosting a dinner for CEO’s of multi-national corporations. The menu is a multi-course affair melding together western and Chinese elements including such delicacies as sea cucumber—a dish whose flavors and textures almost defy wine pairing. The wine I’ve chosen for the evening’s entrée is the 1995 Ridge Montebello, a remarkably complex wine from one of California’s great terroirs. As I opened, checked, and tasted the bottles of Montebello, I noted that the wine had more than a bit of Brettanomyces. In fact, on a Brett scale of 1-10 it was a solid five.

If not familiar, Brettanomyces is non-spore forming yeast often referred to as "Brett." It’s soil-borne but often gets into winery environments where it can ultimately wreak havoc. The dark side of Brett is a range of off-aromas and flavors including sweat, barnyard, fecal, and medicinal. Think of small, unkempt rodents sporting multiple Band Aids. Such is not always the case. In the instance of the ’95 Montebello, the Brett surfaced in the form of savory/leathery/earthy complexities that lent richness to the texture and length to the finish. No arguments; the wine was simply delicious and sure to please. I doubted that anyone would have a problem with it much less consider it flawed.

Our dinner was not the only gala affair taking place that evening at the hotel. The late Paul Pontellier of Chateau Margaux was hosting a dinner for local collectors in the penthouse. Paul came down to meet me shortly before our dinner started. It would be my only time seeing him as he died unexpectedly less than two years later. I’m still saddened by his passing as I write this. Paul was utterly charming, warm, and gracious. He inquired about our project and generously offered me a glass of 1995 Chateau Margaux. Paul stayed briefly and then had to return upstairs. I then put my nose in the glass of Margaux only to be greeted by—you guessed it--Brettanomyces. I quickly picked up the Montebello and went back and forth between the two wines repeatedly. The Margaux had even more Brett than the Ridge. After a short time I put both glasses down and experienced what I call one of those “alone at the edge of the universe” moments where one is faced with a paradox; something that flies in the face of previous experience that must somehow be reconciled. And I wondered if an important part of the recipe for any great, age-worthy red wine was Brettanomyces. My answer in the moment was, I don’t know.

I still don’t know.

Brettanomyces could be the Pandora’s Box of wine. Everyone’s threshold much less tolerance for Brett is unique and completely personal. Some, including very famous wine critics, have a high tolerance--even preference--for red wines with high levels of Brett. Others, even complete winemaking cultures, have a zero-tolerance for it. To point, I was chairing a panel at a wine competition several years ago. One of the other panelists was a winemaker from Australia. On the morning of day two, my panel drew 30 Northern Rhône Syrahs, all retailing over $35. In other words, expensive wines from top appellations. As we started tasting through the first flight Brettanomyces quickly because a common denominator. The Australian winemaker responded by awarding all the wines “no medal.” When their results for the second flight were the same, I literally called a time out and had the other two panelists take a quick break. I then asked the winemaker what was up with refusing to award any of the wines a medal. They responded by saying any Brett—even trace amounts—was considered a flaw in their training. I then had a quick reality check discussion about context, Brett, and Northern Rhône Syrah. The winemaker grudgingly agreed to reconsider their scores—and awarded all the wines a bronze medal. It was a small victory for context.

Brettanomyces defines how important context is to wine. Both stellar 1995’s from the Shanghai dinner displayed high levels of Brett that would be unacceptable in many other wines. Find the same amount of Brett in an uber Napa Valley Cabernet or top flight Barossa Shiraz and the critics would howl and an immediate inquisition into the hygiene of the guilty winery would be demanded. Find a similar amount of Brett in a white wine or sparkling wine and the universe might be rent asunder, as they used to say in the middle ages. But for some reason—and here we’re pointing directly back to context—high levels of Brett in certain old school red wines is not only acceptable, it’s an expected and a long-established part of the wine’s character.
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My first memories of tasting classified growth Bordeaux from the ‘60’s and ‘70’s always included at least trace amounts of leather, barnyard, and pronounced soil notes which could easily have been cultured out as Brett or its cousin Dekkora. That all seemed to change with vintages in the early ‘90’s when better vineyard management, better quality fruit, better technology in the winery, and climate change resulted in cleaner and more concentrated wines. Gone are the days when each chateau seemed to have its own distinctive micro-biome in the vineyard and winery that was reflected in the bottle. There are, of course, always exceptions--and that too is context. 

C is for Context

Context is the eight-zillion-pound elephant in the cellar. I’ve written about it previously multiple times but can’t stress it enough. Context is arguably the most important part of any wine experience, an equation that also includes the taster and the wine. With any tasting, change the glassware, the temperature of the wine, even the temperature of the room where the wine is being tasted, and the experience of the person tasting the wine will be altered and sometimes radically different.

Context works in any number of ways and not all of them detrimental. One of the greatest wine experiences I’ve ever had was at Trattoria Zà Zà, a student/tourist hangout in Florence. It was the first—and only--time Carla and I have ever been to Europe together. That night we drank newly minted Chianti drawn from a huge cask behind the bar served in clunky glasses. It was—and still is—the most delicious Chianti I’ve ever tasted, and all because of that particular evening, my fabulous company, and the fact that we were in Florence. Face it, if you’re Florence with a glass of Chianti in hand and you’re not happy, you may have issues.

Context reminds us that mood and company are valuable parts of any great wine experience.

Context reminds us that tasting even the greatest vintages while in the throes of frustration, boredom, or anxiety can render the pedigree of the wine moot and the experience less than memorable--or tragically memorable in some cases.

Context reminds us to be mindful of adopting absolutes in the world of wine because the universe will always be willing to immediately show multiple exceptions to the rule. Count on it.

Context also reminds us to be wary of sources using numerical scores because, given the three variables in any tasting experience listed above, how accurate could numbers possibly be?

Finally, context reminds us that sharing wine and a meal with friends and family is perhaps the most satisfying thing we can do. Which takes us to Thanksgiving. 

Coda: Thanksgiving Dinner and Wine

It’s Thanksgiving week. Yesterday I was making my way through various wine things online and came across a blog post by a writer who lamented the fact that, and I quote, “Thanksgiving is the hardest meal of the year to pair wine with.” My reaction was an immediate, “Wait, what?” So to put everyone at ease—and I’m reasonably that sure most are not suffering a catharsis over Thanksgiving wine—here are some simple guidelines for pairing wine with your holiday meal.

Rule #1: drink whatever you like—and that includes beer, cider, or instant coffee. It’s your dinner and your palate so drink whatever you like. Ahem, there’s that context thing again.

Rule #2: not every wine works with Thanksgiving dinner: any wine with too much oak and any red wine with too much tannin could be a problem. Oak and tannin are by far the least flexible elements in wine when it comes to food.

Rule #3: if you like oaky Chardonnays or monster-truck-pull Cabernets refer to rule #1 and go for it. Context strikes yet again.

Rule #4: the huge range of flavors and inherent savory and sweet elements in the traditional Thanksgiving dinner means—and this is in complete opposition to the wine writer above—you can drink practically any style of wine; from slightly sweet Rieslings to dry rosés to crisp, herbal Sauvignon Blancs to supple Pinot Noirs. That’s right; practically everything works.

Rule #5: this is not a rule. What do I recommend for Thanksgiving dinner wines? First, start with good bubbly in the form of Champagne or Franciacorta. It’s the holidays and you deserve it, what with you family coming over and all. Second, Rieslings from the Mosel or Demi Sec Vouvrays fit the white wine bill nicely. Both have tart acidity and a touch of residual sugar that will complement the sweet elements in the menu. Third, Pinot Noirs and Grenache blends are my go-to red wines, especially with the turkey which some have described as "chicken with attitude." Tawny ports or late harvest Zinfandels are delicious with pies, both pumpkin and pecan. Finally, wrap it all up with a touch of Fernet Branca to settle the very large meal--and to also help ponder the beautiful sadness of the holidays.

Cheers!

p.s. Always keep context in mind when it comes to wine. 

Deborah Ory began dance at age seven. Years later she injured herself in ballet class and while convalescing she picked up her father’s camera and started photographing rehearsals. Deborah’s injury prevented her from continuing her dance career and the camera took its place. She would go on to work as a photo editor for House & Garden and Mirabella, as well as do editorial work for Self, Health, Martha Stewart Living, and Real Simple. Ory later married Ken Browar, a renowned fashion and beauty photographer whose work has appeared in Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, and other European fashion magazines. He, too, had passion for dance that originated when he lived in Paris and photographed dancers for the Paris Opera Ballet.

The combination of Ory and Brower’s love of dance with their photography careers was the genesis of the NYC Dance Project (www.nycdanceproject.com). In the last several years the couple has photographed principal dancers from the top ballet and dance companies in New York and beyond in their Greenpoint, Brooklyn home studio where they live with two teenage daughters—also ballet students.

The photographs from the project are stunning. Each shot is meticulously planned—lighting, movement, and even the apparel worn by the dancers. The fruit of Ory and Brower’s labor is their book, “The Art of Movement,” first published in the fall of 2016. It quickly won an International Photography Award for best book. It’s also easily my favorite book of this year.

What is striking about the images is the remarkable athleticism of the dancers—something all too rarely appreciated about ballet. Further, how incredibly hard the dancers work at their craft for long years. Finally, how fleeting their careers are due to age and a high incidence of injury.

​In quotes included in the book, several of the dancers express their gratitude for the project saying how thankful they are that there is a photographic record of their talent for all eternity. That their careers are ephemeral and most of the time there is no record after the fact.

“Time and experience have taught me that this art form is ephemeral. Rather than focus on my fears for the future, I have realized it is best to be in the present and treasure each fleeting moment.”

Laura Halzack, Paul Taylor Dance Company

“The one thing I wish I would have known as a young ballerina was that it was okay not to be perfect. I spent most of my early years as a young dancer being really hard on myself and focusing on the mistakes instead of the victories. This career is very short and you have to appreciate all the moments in it.”

Maria Kowroski, Principal, New York City Ballet

“Dance is very much in the flow, in the moment. Each performance on stage is unique and it will not repeat itself. That’s why I love photography so much because you can remember the moment. Photography freezes the moment in time, especially as it’s very different than the fleeting work that dancer’s do, that’s very ephemeral.”
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Daniil Simkin, Principal, American Ballet Theater

Another common theme from the quotes is the fear of injury and the short shelf life of a dancer.

“My biggest fear is getting injured and not being able to dance the same way, even though I’ve head major injuries before. I’m the only dancer in the world who’s missing an ACL, which is basically impossible. I remember going to the doctor, and I could hear these residents watching videos of me on YouTube, and they asked, 'How do you do this?' I’m a medical anomaly.”

Ashley Bouder, Principal, New York City Ballet

“I wish I had known how to take care of my body when I started dancing. Dance is an extremely physically demanding career and it is really important to be good to your body because it is your instrument.”

Tyler Peck, Principal, New York City Ballet

Perhaps the most intriguing insight from the various dancer’s quotes is how only through hard work and great repetition is it possible for one to be “free” onstage and create in the moment. Fana Tesfagioris from the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater calls it like "flying.”

“Doing a show and knowing that I just left everything on the stage, like my guts are on the stage, is literally euphoria. It’s the best feeling ever. When I am able to be totally in the moment and free on stage, that’s pretty rewarding!”

Isabella Boylston, Principal, American Ballet Theater

“I wish more people knew what it felt like to actually dance. I’m not referring to the difficulty of learning a technique or a combination. I mean the part that comes after everything clicks. When your most focused mind, your most moldable body, and your truest spirit all intertwine at the highest level. That point will look different for everyone, of course, but I wish everyone could attempt to reach it at least once. It can literally feel like flying.”
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Fana Tesfagioris, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater

Tasting and Flight

​Several weeks ago, I was in Santa Fe for the Wine and Chile Fiesta, easily one of the top smaller wine and food festivals in the country. On day two, I was fortunate to draw the assignment of tasting through a flight of 2005 Burgundies with friend Mary Margaret McCamic, MW. The 2005 vintage—a warm one for Burgundy--was initially praised by the press. After 12 years it was a good time to revisit it. First up were three whites from Chassagne, Puligny, and Corton Charlemagne. With the exception of the Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru "Les Folatières" from Paul Pernot, which showed oxidation probably due to storage issues, the other two wines—the Vincent Girardin Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru "Les Blanchots Dessus" and the Camille Giroud Corton-Charlemagne--showed beautifully.

The five reds that made up the rest of the flight were 1er crus from Volnay. All were superb showing the soft voluptuous core of fruit, intense earthiness, and firm tannins the appellation is known for. However, the third wine, the Henri Boillot Volnay 1er Cru "Les Frémiets," gave me pause. When I first put my nose in the glass, a cascade of dried rose petals, dried red fruits, black tea, autumn leaves, and wood spice appeared within the first few seconds. I then internally “saw” shades of red, orange, and gold—autumn colors--and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A--which to me has always sounded like fall—started playing internally. All this sensory information quickly morphed into a memory three decades old of being at Chateau de Chenonceau in the Loire in late October and walking down a long tree-lined lane awash in brilliant autumn afternoon colors. The image above is a very good representation of the memory.

How does smelling a wine become color, music, and abstract memory? For some who are synesthetes, crosstalk between the senses is involuntary, habitual, and not always pleasant. I am anything but a synesthete, but there are times when I experience wine as colors, shapes, and even sounds in the form of music. These experiences are infrequent and anything but predictable. I think they occur for a very simple reason: I’ve tasted thousands of wines over the last 30-plus years, and for practically all that time I’ve used a very structured framework—the MS deductive tasting grid—to perceive and experience wine.

Like the dancers above, many years of “work” with tasting has sharpened my perceptions and hardwired sensory information into my long term memory to the extent that olfactory and taste impressions can at times quickly—almost instantly—be associated in very abstract ways to other senses and life memories. In a way, working in such a narrow, strict, and disciplined way for a long time has “freed” me to be able to do just that.

These associations may come down to the part of the tasting experience that is subjective. I’ll save that for another post, but I will state at this point that I believe around 30% of the tasting experience will always be highly personal and therefore subjective. To point, my perception of the various fruits and some non-fruit components in any wine will always be based on my life memories--which are again completely personal and subjective. The rest of the tasting experience, from a wine’s color to various impact aromas to the structural elements, can be quantified and agreed upon by anyone—especially those with an experienced palate.

Perhaps it’s this 30% of the wine experience that creates the potential and opportunity for crosstalk and “flight.” That with enough experience and repetition, impressions from a given wine might ignite internal responses that involve colors, sounds, feelings, and abstract memories.

Should you expect to find colors, music, and memories in a glass of wine? I can’t answer that. Everyone may have the same nervous system but we’re all wired differently. Does one need to taste thousands of wines to be able to experience sensory “cross talk”? I’m not convinced but I do believe that one has to at least be open to the possibility of these experiences actually happening in the first place. A quick strategy might involve asking questions internally when tasting. After all, that’s what we do constantly--but not necessarily consciously. It’s called thinking. The questions might include:
​ 
“If this wine were a color, what would (could) it be?"

“If this wine had a shape to it, what would (could) it be?”
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“If this wine was like a song or piece of music, what would (could) it be?" 

No guarantees here, but it’s definitely worth exploring because it can make one think and associate in ways not previously experienced--and that’s worth the price of admission.
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Much like dance, the ritual of tasting wine goes back thousands of years. The act of putting our nose into a glass connects us to civilizations long past and symbolizes one of nature’s great gifts to man. I will never tire of smelling and tasting wine. With each glass comes the potential to make new connections and the possibility of taking flight.

The NPR feed on Facebook has just alerted me to the fact that I need to pencil in September 23rd on my calendar. You might do so as well. Why? Because powers supposedly wise are predicting the apocalypse—the end of the world—on that day. Again.

On the 23rd, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter will be aligned around the constellations Virgo and Leo along with the sun and moon. Some biblical literalists are absolutely convinced that this particular planetary alignment has long been foretold in the Book of Revelation and signals the end of time, which will come after great destruction and turmoil.

Reading about yet another prediction for the end of the world did give me pause. What if it was true? Not sure about you, but I wouldn’t be pleased. With the end imminent and nothing to be done, one might quickly experience the inevitable emotional boomerang of shock, outrage, despair, apathy, and finally, reluctant acceptance.

It goes without saying that one would have many intense “I love you, man” conversations with friends and family. But soon we might even find ourselves actually looking forward to the last 24 hours before the big show. Then there’s the last meal. Now that would be important. Mind you, it’s not to be confused with the last supper or one’s last meal in prison. This last dinner would have to spectacular seeing how it’s literally the final meal before all of humanity and god’s creatures go poof. By the time dinner rolled around one would certainly have a ravenous appetite because, let’s face it, one really never would be this hungry again.
​
With a universe of cuisines to choose from confusion and paralysis could quickly set in, what with the world ending and all. Focus would have to be the key. I personally would steer clear of any brash ethnic extravaganzas which might create digestive disturbances that would, well let’s face it, never happen. I’d also avoid any uber fancy Barbie food pageants of teeny tiny food on enormous plates, no matter the chef or the venue; too much maintenance and too little time. Instead, I’d go for the jugular of gustatory experience, the basic of basics, the urtext of fine dining. The menu would look something like this: 

A Meal for the End of Time

Oysters

I remember dining at an excellent seafood place in Singapore called “No Signboard” (because, there literally is no sign on the front of the restaurant) and my tablemates tucking into the most gargantuan oysters I’ve ever seen (as big as a toaster). The very sight of these monstrous bivalves was, needless to say, alarming. Eating oysters from and in a tropical climate is wrong. It’s also violating the universal law of not eating anything bigger than your head. For me the oysters would have to be small, delicate, and with just a touch of brininess. Kumamotos are my favorite. Six, please.

Wine Pairing

Champagne, of course. I’m a huge fan of blanc de blancs Champagne with oysters so I’m thinking that a beautiful vintage of Salon or Krug Clos du Mesnil would be perfect.

Caesar Salad

Yes, I know the salad should follow the entrée. But it’s the end of the world so the règles de la cuisine be damned. Here I’m choosing the most abused member of the salad family that usually appears on the table as a mess of soppy greens slathered in a gloppy white substance the content of which could be several molecules away from plastic with croutons fashioned from leftover dry wall. Regardless, a well-made Caesar is my go-to salad and a thing of beauty. The romaine has to be fresh, vibrant, and crisp; the dressing has to be tart with a more than a bit of citrus cut; the croutons have to be small and crunchy; the cheese a good Parmesan. And don’t hold back on the anchovies, please!

Wine Pairing

We need an intense, mineral-driven, and bracingly acidic white here with little or no oak: a young vintage of Raveneau Le Clos or Künstler Hochheimer Hölle Grosses Gewächs sounds just right. The latter is oh-so-appropriate.

Bacon

A bacon course? Why? Because we can--and we should. After all, bacon is vitamin “P”; it makes everything taste good. But we’re not talking about any bacon here--only serious bacon from a heritage breed of hogs like Berkshire will do and simply roasted. Jamón Ibérico would also do in a pinch. In fact, let’s have both!

Wine Pairing

A great vintage of La Tâche or Leroy’s Le Musigny will do nicely.

Steak Frites

The ultimate entrée: a bone-in 24-26 ounce strip steak with an outrageous amount of marbling like Kobe beef done over a very hot grill medium-rare with a touch of charring on the exterior. The fries have to be twice-done in goose fat or duck fat and finished simply with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. Perfection.

Wine Pairing

There are too many great reds to choose from but I’d narrow it to three: a monumental vintage of Bordeaux (’45 Latour or ’61 Cheval Blanc), California Cabernet (’74 Heitz Martha’s Vineyard or Ridge Montebello), and an extraordinary vintage of Penfold’s Grange or Henschke’s Hill of Grace. Yes, all three.

Cheese

Once again too many choices, so I’d narrow it down to just three favorites. They’re like a trio of scandalous dwarves: Epoisses (stinky and runny), Stilton (salty and pungent) and a fine aged Reggiano Parmesano (crumbly and bit corrupt). 

Wine Pairing

A trio of weapons-grade botrytis wines is the only solution here: great vintages of Yquem, Royal Tokaji Aszú Essencia, and Robert Weil’s Kiedricher Gräfenberg Beerenauslese Goldkapsul.

Pot du Crème au Chocolat

With the end of world literally just around the corner the last morsel of food would fittingly be chocolate, one of mankind’s greatest achievements. My only requirements here are that the chocolate has to be outrageously good and the texture of the pot de crème like a weightless wisp of silk.

Wine Pairing

I’m going counter-current here with a great young vintage of Fonseca or Taylor’s; 2011 immediately comes to mind.

Coda

After dinner, we’d make our way to an arrangement of lawn chairs in the front yard. I’d pour myself a very large Fernet Branca accompanied by a Montecristo No. 2. 

Finally, the speakers would be moved from the living room to the front steps to play tunes for the end of time. What music would fill the air those last few precious minutes? Here are some initial thoughts:

1. “Stairway to Heaven,” Led Zeppelin: NOT
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2. “It’s the End of the World as We Know It,” R.E.M. - possible!

3. “Quartet for the End of Time,” Olivier Messiaen: good thinking but it’s too long and complicated.

4. Beethoven’s Ode to Joy from the 9th Symphony: gets my vote. It’s a good tune, repeated several times, and everyone can join in or just hum if they don’t know the words.

Everyone, hope you’re having a good summer. It’s been a busy one on this end. Between work, travel, and our getting ready to move, there’s been precious little time to write. To point, after living in San Francisco for 32 years, Carla, Patrick, and I are moving back to New Mexico at the end of the month. Carla and I are originally from N.M. and we’re moving back to the Albuquerque area be near family and to also be able to actually buy a house, something virtually impossible given the current San Francisco real estate market.

The following then is a re-post of one of my favorite pieces from several years ago. I hope you like it. I’ll be writing the next post from the “Land of Enchantment.”

Cheers!
 
The Evolution of a Palate

“A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.”

Shakespeare from Twelfth Night

Some years ago, I interviewed Yosh Han, an internationally known custom perfumer. Like previous interviews with wine industry colleagues, I wanted to deconstruct Yosh’s internal strategies for olfactory memory given that the range of possible aromas for perfume is exponentially greater than wine. I wasn’t surprised to discover that Yosh’s strategies for remembering aromas were entirely based on visual and similar to most of the wine professionals I’ve interviewed. In a second session, Yosh helped me create my own personal scent. We started with more than 50 vials of different aromas. Over several rounds, I narrowed down my favorites to just seven: peppermint, rosemary, violet, waves (marine note), aloe, night queen (jasmine), teak, and something called washed suede. Yosh then blended them and tweaked the percentages until we both liked the results. The final scent, at least according to my wife Carla who knows infinitely more about perfumes and essential oils than I ever will, is a unisex scent that could be worn by either men or women. For the record, she likes it—a lot. 
​
Afterwards I asked Yosh what aromas she liked best; what were her favorites. I wasn’t surprised to hear her say that she liked practically everything as long as it was of high quality. She immediately asked me what kinds of wines I liked best and I had to give the same answer; I like practically any style of wine as long as it’s balanced and made well. But that hasn’t always been the case, and that got me thinking about how my tastes in wine—my likes and dislikes—have changed over the last 30-plus years. It also made me ponder how one’s palate undergoes an evolution of sorts over time. With that in mind, here’s a completely un-researched, undocumented, and otherwise reckless account of the evolution of a palate.

Warning: the following may contain elements of sarcasm, droll humor, parody, and otherwise snarky commentary.  

Phase I: Katy Perry
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Wine as liquid confection. The wines from Phase I are often pink or white in color and slightly-to-moderately sweet in style. Recently we’ve had Muscat in all its various forms as well as a new category of sweet red wines. Both initially left the industry scratching its collective head while scrambling to get tanks filled and labels catchy enough to be commercially appealing. It seems as if every generation finds a way to give itself permission to drink fruity and slightly sweet wines and the Moscato/sweet red thing is no exception. That’s simply because most of us, self-included, started in the way back machine of our wine careers by initially drinking wines that were off-dry to quite sweet and hopefully balanced by enough acidity so as not to resemble, well … Katy Perry. For me those were ‘70’ incarnations in the form of Lancer’s and Mateus rosés, odd vinous creatures called “wine coolers,” and the likes of Blue Nun, Reunite Lambrusco, and White Zinfandel. Not surprisingly, most were mass-market brands produced by entities possessing the mega-funds to promote on TV and in print media. Don’t get me wrong, everyone has to start somewhere and remember that anyone drinking any kind of wine is good for the industry. At this juncture, it’s only fitting that I quote my Mom who once said, “It takes all types to fill up the freeway.” And of course, she was right. Ultimately though one hopes that the Katy Perry crowd moves on to at least Phase II. But if they don’t it’s all good; no harm no foul. 

Phase II: Rombauer

Editorial note: I am NOT bashing Rombauer Chardonnay or the good people at the Rombauer winery in any way, shape, or form here. They make good wine and they do a good job. Everyone should be as successful. Got it? Good. Moving on. 

What does Rombauer Chardonnay have to do with Phase II of the evolution of a palate? Simple: it’s all about novice drinkers graduating from innocuous, sweet mono-chromatic wines to a full-bodied single varietal wine with layers of intense fruit and the first taste of new oak, the latter of which will likely become the crack of their wine drinking world. Inhabitants of Phase II also usually become very interested in what they’re eating in terms of quality; this despite the fact that they will consume mass quantities of Chardonnay with any and everything including red meat. Eventually many in the Phase II club will crave for even more intensity and discover red wines. And like every toddler boy who first learns to walk, they won’t walk but will instead race full-bore, pell-mell directly into …. Cabernet Sauvignon!

Phase III: Monster Truck Pull

Having developed a serious oak habit wine now becomes a full contact sport for newly minted members of Phase III. More often than not, it’s a guy thing--no make that a group of guys thing as in a group of guys in the backyard having just consumed half a grilled steer and the better part of case of very expensive Cabernet. Now they’re moving on to cigars, Port, and the inevitable and emotionally awkward, “I love you, man” moment. For denizens of Phase III, if it doesn’t have 15-plus percent alcohol it’s not wine. They tend to eat lots of red meat and often develop a serious fortified wine habit because after all, Port is really loud wine too! Needless to say, the hangovers experienced by Phase III members can be legendary. The discovery of amaro is therefore common in this phase and often a medical necessity. I discovered Fernet Branca while in Phase III and it saved my life on just such an occasion. Alas, parenthood and advancing age can take their toll on members of Phase III. But a certain percentage of them experience a life-altering vinous moment at some point and move quietly into Phase IV. 

Phase IV: Oh Blinding Light

In Phase IV the wine drinker moves from full contact to nuance because of a beautiful sadness of life moment usually in the form of a great bottle of Burgundy. Instantly wine goes from collision to filigree and along with this blinding light moment often comes the realization that the “where” of a wine can be more important than anything else. Such mystical moments sometimes occur while traveling to so-called sacred vinous environs such as Burgundy, Jerez, and the like. Initiates of Phase IV also cross an invisible line from “eat to live” to “live to eat.” Planning dinner while having lunch is a common affliction. Potential downsides to Phase IV often involve becoming a hopeless and equally insufferable Francophile snob with the victim never returning to a balanced vinous state. Extreme cases involve joining various wine societies or clubs that require secret handshakes, wearing pastel sashes with medals and ribbons, and even—god forbid—the donning of long Obi Wan-like robes. With their recent spiritual conversion, Phase IV rangers are notorious for demeaning big-ass Cabernets—the same big-ass Cabernets they were only recently hoovering at an alarming rate. Further, they may take to slamming any wine for having too much alcohol or for not being authentic, whatever the hell that means. Ahem.  

Phase V: It’s a Small World

Phase V is really an extension of Phase IV. Here the individual has their first great Riesling experience and with it the blinding realization that wines with residual sugar can be cosmic—as great as any wines on the planet. Moreover, these same delicate, slightly sweet, and acid-crazy wines are among the most versatile food wines that exist. Phase V regulars often drink more white wines than red and crave what is in reality insane levels of minerality and acidity, regardless of what’s in their glass. But they also “get” simply made country wines with the right intensity of fruit and a good acid balance (that acid thing again). And if they haven’t discovered Champagne and top quality sparkling wines (think Franciacorta) in Phase IV, they do so with a vengeance in Phase V. Italy looms large for red wines in Phase V for the acid/minerality thing. Oddly enough, Phase V’ers will put up with higher levels of VA and brett to get their fix. 

Phase VI: Even the Irish

The above quote from the brilliant Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles, one of my three all-time favorite movies. Those who make it to Phase VI have traveled full circle in palate evolution in that they like practically every kind of wine as long as it’s well made; from shockingly acidic Brut Zero Champagnes to bone dry and austere VORS Palo Cortado Sherries to pyrazenic Cabernets from Coonawarra to VA-laced old school Barolo to decadently succulent TBA’s from Austria or Germany. Everything! As Mayor Olson Johnson of Rock Ridge once did say, “Aw, prairie sh*t. Everybody!”

Some years ago, I was in Heathrow waiting to fly home after several days of meetings in the UK. After catching up on e-mail, I looked for a place to grab a quick sandwich. As I wandered through the food court I spotted a cafe called Giraffe whose motto “live eat live” was boldly posted in multiple places. How could I refuse? I quickly found a seat next to an enormous plant. After a few minutes, my server showed up. She spoke with the slightest trace of an accent. I placed my order for lunch and she returned quickly with drinks in hand. I asked where she was from and she said that her name was Anna and she was from Kraków. She went on to say that it was a beautiful city and that I absolutely had to visit at some point. I told her I was from San Francisco and she said she had always wanted to go there but it was extremely difficult because an expensive visa was required. 
 
Small talk accomplished, she took off to scour the rest of her station and I turned my attention back to the restaurant at large. The bustling Giraffe sat at least 120 people and was an incredibly busy place with an endless stream of singles, larger parties, and moms with small squawking kids ensconced in various Dr. Seuss-like vehicles guaranteed to block any and all transit. The turnover was frightening with everyone needing to be served RIGHT NOW so they could make their flights.
 
Amidst all this dining frenzy was Anna. After watching her work for a short time, I quickly realized she was bionic. Anna moved quickly and effortlessly from table to table, taking orders, serving and clearing, all the while smiling and conversing with diners as if the whole thing was no big deal and just an easy dance. After a few minutes, I had fantasies about cloning her and negotiating a huge contract with a big corporate restaurant group back in the states. Visions of a massive pile of cash danced in my head. With an army of Annas I could, dare I say it, rule the world.
 
I sat back and thought about Anna and what made her such an all-star at her job. What made her so great? What about her was so different from most people who work in airport fast food places, people who seem like they’ve been condemned to the cocktail lounge in hell with no promise of a return shuttle? The first thing that came to mind was that she was utterly unafraid of hard work. OK, so a lot of people are more than happy to work hard but the wrong person in this particular job would end up hating life almost instantly because it was so insanely busy and the pace never let up. Aside from the work ethic, what made her so different from the endless herd I’ve seen working in fast food joints over the years? Why was she such a valuable employee regardless of whether the management was clued in or not? After further observation, I came up with several reasons:
 
First, she made genuine eye contact with everyone she spoke. She didn’t fake communicating with anyone. She was, in short, completely HOME, which brings me to the next point: she actually listened to what I was saying even after the order had been taken. Though she was constantly moving like a hummingbird, whenever Anna stopped and chatted she came to a complete halt and put all of her attention on listening to me. You have to know that a zillion things were going on in her head at the same time. At first, I thought it was my irresistible charm but then quickly realized that she did this with everyone at every table. 
 
Finally, two things and they were very, very subtle but they could have been the source of Anna’s magic: every time I asked her a question she smiled in response and leaned in very slightly when answering. Combined, those two responses gave the impression that she cared about what I was saying. Aha! Perhaps this was the key. She not only cared about what I was saying but she probably cared that my experience at the fabulous Giraffe was a good one. That alone set her apart from practically everyone else and made her an all-star; the fact that she not only provided great service—but she actually wanted to take care of the people she waited on.
 
It's not often that one has the kind of dining experience I did at the Giraffe, regardless of the level of restaurant. But at certain times we’ve all been there, be it a simple bistro or a three-star fine dining establishment. Meals that can only be described as, for lack of a better term, “magical.” Where everything about the meal, from the ambience to the food to the service, is incredible. I believe that service is the most important part of the dining equation; that a service team who shows empathy, compassion, and the desire to take care of the guest can override practically anything else and create the possibility for one of these rare magical dining experiences. The question then becomes, how to create an environment of hospitality/caring vs. basic serving and further, how to train a service staff to do just that. I'm convinced that a culture of hospitality in a restaurant has to come from the top--and no one knows how to do this better than Bobby Stuckey. 

​Bobby Stuckey, MS and Being a Hospitalian
 
Bobby Stuckey, MS, is a Boulder-based wine professional and restaurateur. Stuckey’s career spans well over 20 years with stints as the wine director at the Little Nell Resort in Aspen as well as The French Laundry in Yountville. In 2004 Bobby and friend, Chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, opened their first restaurant, Frasca Food and Wine, in Boulder. The concept of Frasca is based on the wines and cuisine of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. In 2011 Stuckey opened Pizzeria Locale, also in Boulder, an upscale casual contemporary pizzeria inspired by the traditional pizzerias of Naples.

​Bobby’s 2014 TED Talk about his philosophy of service is legendary in the restaurant world. Recently I spoke to him about it as well as what he calls, “being a hospitalian.” 

TG: Your Ted Talk is truly inspirational. Everyone in the industry should watch it. In the presentation, you use the phrase “hospitalian.” How do you define it?

BS: There’s a lot of great service people, but they might not necessarily embrace empathy for the guest or even their co-workers. Hospitality is how you make someone feel and not just the guest in the dining room. It’s something you have to do all the time. If you’re a sommelier, hospitality applies all the way down to the distributors who are calling on you as well as the delivery people. You just can’t turn it on when you walk on the dining room floor. Again, there’s a lot great service people out there but they’re not always great hospitalians. We’ve all been in great restaurants where they’ve hired the best mercenary servers—people who have all the right technical moves. But do they honestly, authentically care about their guests?

TG: How do you train someone to do that? Further, how do you hire someone to do that?

BS: I’m not saying it’s easy. Being authentic about hospitality is really hard because it’s totally against a lot of situations we deal with. We tend to be defensive people and most of us don’t constantly think about the other person. That’s what hospitality has to be; thinking outside and not about yourself. At the restaurant, we have long pre-service meetings—45 minutes--and there’s a piece about hospitality in the meeting every day.

TG: The average age of students in the MS program seems to be going down and people seem to have less and less experience on the floor in service. How can you train someone to really serve, so they take all the attention off themselves and put it on the guest?

BS: I think it’s important for someone just getting into the business without experience to realize that it’s going to be a long road. Very few industries even talk about this, but in the restaurant business to become a top professional is always a long road.

TG: At the end of the Ted talk you implore the audience to become good hospitalians; that it’s not just for restaurants only. Say something about that.

BS: I’ve been around a lot of doctors in the last few years because my Mom was going through some health issues. She's back to great health now. But many of those doctors didn’t have hospitality or empathy for what patients were going through. It’s crazy. How is it that at Frasca we’re going to care more about a guest being stuck in rush hour traffic trying to make their anniversary dinner than an oncologist with a cancer patient? I’ve seen some great doctors too—but not often. There are so many places where hospitality can be used effectively. I think CEO’s and leaders of companies could be better at what they do by adopting hospitality. Often we hear about companies where there’s a cut throat mentality. This comes from the top down. But you can create an environment of hospitality where people are great to their co-workers.

TG: What can someone do in his or her everyday life to be a hospitalian?

BS: There are so many chances to do it. You can start when you’re in line waiting for a cup of coffee. If practiced every day, it’s something that gets into our rhythm. No one’s perfect; people are going to have bad days; non-hospitalian days. But if you can do it a little bit every day, it can become really impactful. I’m really passionate about it.

TG: I’ve eaten at Frasca several times and each time when I walked in the front door it was like entering a zone. It’s like you’ve walked into a place where you feel that the staff is really going to take care of you.

BS: We’re into it. I’m lucky to have a group of employees that have embraced the whole concept.

TG: One more question: how did you come to be this way? What’s the source?

BS: I just remember being a bus boy and that I wanted to care about the people I worked with as well as the people I served. So the idea of hospitality, even though I didn’t call it that at the time, was something I was always thinking about. As I’ve matured, I hope I’ve gotten better at it.

Here’s a link to Bobby's TED Talk. If you’ve not seen it, it’s a must.

​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH2L_uNkt-Y

Since its inception in late 2005, the goals of the Certified Sommelier Examination have always been the same: first, to provide the hospitality industry with a much-needed basic sommelier certification. Second, to introduce students to the MS examination format. I first wrote a post on advice to students taking the Certified Exam in early 2014. Since that time, the exam has undergone numerous revisions. I thought it might be useful to update the post for students taking the exam this year.
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The exam itself has always been comprised of three parts: tasting, theory, and service:

• Tasting: a blind tasting of four wines, two white and two red, with the student filling out a written grid based on the MS Deductive Tasting Method. The grid and testable grapes for white and red wines can be downloaded from the MS website.
• Theory: a 45-question written test combining multiple choice, short answer, and matching questions.
• Service: sparkling wine service in some form with students being asked questions about various beverages that might be served during the course of a meal as well as questions about food and wine pairing. 

With the following, I’d like to offer some advice to students who are preparing to take the Certified Exam, especially those taking it for the first time. 

Disclaimer! The following is my personal advice to students taking the Certified Sommelier Examination. It does not, in any way, reflect the policies of the CSMA or its Board of Directors.

Tasting Examination

The Certified tasting examination consists of tasting two white and two red wines and filling out a written grid based on the Deductive Tasting Method, first taught in the Introductory Sommelier Class. The grid requires the student to input information concerning a wine’s color, aromas and flavors, the presence of minerality and/or earthiness, and the use of oak. Further, the grid asks that students assess the structural components of the wines in regard to the levels of residual sugar, acidity, alcohol, and tannin for red wines. Finally, the student is asked to deduce the best possible conclusion about the wine given the sensory information gathered. The conclusion includes the type of climate in which the grapes were grown, old world vs. new world style, the actual grape variety or blend of grapes, the country of origin, and relative age of the wine. 

It goes without saying that a good deal of practice is needed to become proficient at using the grid, not to mention tasting in general. The grid itself can again be downloaded for practice from the CSMA website. Also posted on the site is a list of testable white and red grapes and countries of origin that could be used in the exam.

One other important bit of advice about the tasting grid now used for the exam vs. those used previously; be sure to fill in every line. With the current grid students are being tested on recognizing various components in a given wine as well as when certain components are absent. Thus filling in a “No” answer for an aroma/flavor that’s missing in a wine is just as important as answering “Yes” because the aroma/flavor has been recognized. In other words, don’t leave any of the lines on the exam blank. Otherwise, here is further advice in preparing for the tasting segment of the Certified Exam:

• Color: it’s important to know the major colors for white and red wines. Knowing the difference between straw, yellow, and gold is important for white wines; likewise, being able to tell the different between purple, ruby, and garnet for red wines is important.
• Descriptors: be as thorough as you can in examining the wine for families/kinds of fruit and any non-fruit descriptors. Often students will hone in on one or two flavor descriptors and leave out important pieces of information about the wine—information that could help identify the wine.
• Work on expanding descriptors for fruit and non-fruit. If anything, use the exam grid as a checklist and look for all the kinds of fruit and non-fruit listed in the wines.
• Structural components: be as precise as you can in calibrating the level of acidity, alcohol, and tannin. This is best practiced by establishing “low” and “high” for acidity, alcohol, and tannin. Examples in actual wines could be Beaujolais Villages vs. Barolo for tannin, Alsace Gewurztraminer vs. Clare Valley Riesling for acidity, and Moscato di Asti vs. Port for alcohol. 
• Oak vs. no oak: this is one of the more important aspects of basic tasting--being able to assess the presence of oak aging in a wine or lack thereof. Once again I recommend calibrating oak usage by establishing extremes. This is because the brain recognizes extreme opposites quickly as in the difference between the colors black and white vs. gray in the middle. With respect to oak, tasting a non-oaked Chablis or Macon vs. a heavily oaked California Chardonnay will easily establish the two extremes. 
• Earthiness vs. no earth: use the same technique above—calibrating with extremes. One can also use the same wines listed above (Chablis vs. California Chardonnay) or another pair of extremes such as Chinon vs. a Napa Merlot or Chianti Classico vs. a Barossa Shiraz.
• Old world vs. new world style: this is a deduction based on the presence of earthiness along with the levels of alcohol and acidity in the wine as well as the use of (or lack of) new oak. The exercise above of using pairs of wines for earth vs. no earth will help.
• Climate: assessing the possible climate of a wine can be done by reviewing the levels of alcohol and acidity as well as the ripeness level of the fruit. The general rule is that wines from grapes grown in warmer climates have higher alcohol and relatively lower natural acidity vs. wines from cooler climates, which usually display restrained levels of alcohol and higher levels of acidity.
• Varietal recognition: this arguably is the most challenging part of the Deductive Tasting Method and the MS tasting exams as well. It requires the student to practice with the tasting method over an extended period of time. It also requires the student to assemble and memorize a list of “markers” or common attributes that can be found in specific grape varieties and wines. Good sources for grape variety markers can be found on the Guild of Sommeliers website (guildsomm.com) as well as my blog (timgaiser.com/blog).

A word about practicing tasting: make sure you are working in a tasting group as the dynamics of a good study group are essential to learning and improvement, not to mention the camaraderie and shared experience. 
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Finally, I’ve written about tasting and preparing for the MS tasting exams extensively on my blog. I’ve found that smelling and tasting wine is completely based on one’s memory; not only the memory of the various aromatics and flavors in wine but the combination of these components that make up the complete profile of a grape or style of wine. If memory is the key, then students can—and absolutely should—work with their own personal memories of these components and varietal profiles apart from actually tasting wine. I strongly believe that practicing memory of the components and profiles of grapes and wines is just as important and beneficial as actually tasting them.  

Theory Examination

The CMSA philosophy of theory curriculum has a lot to do with what a sommelier theoretically could be asked tableside by a guest about any beverage served in the restaurant. Emphasis is placed on wine, but beer, spirits, sake, and aperitifs are important as well. No mystery that geography is vital to a sommelier’s body of knowledge; knowing where a wine is produced down to a single vineyard (if necessary) is paramount to success in the MS program.

Example: if a guest is asking about a vintage of Savennières “Clos de la Coulée de Serrant” from the producer Nicholas Joly, the sommelier/student should know the following about the wine:

• It’s a dry white wine
• It’s made from the Chenin Blanc grape
• The Clos de la Coulée de Serrant vineyard is located in the Anjou region of France’s Loire Valley, specifically in the AOC/AOP of Savennières
• The Clos de la Coulée de Serrant is actually a single vineyard AOC/AOP itself
• Owner Nicholas Joly is one of the major proponents of biodynamic farming

Once again, it’s important to note that MS theory exams focus on geography and being able to connect grape varieties to styles of wines made in specific places. From there students also need to study country and regional laws, classifications, terms about grape growing and winemaking, and major producers for important wines such at prestige cuvée Champagnes.

Service Examination

The MS title is all about being a world-class sommelier and thus service is a vital part of the Certified Sommelier Examination.

*A thought: with the increasing popularity of the sommelier profession in the last few years due to movies, TV, and other media, more and more non-industry people are taking the Certified Exam after taking the Introductory Course. Many have little, if any, experience working the floor. It’s imperative for them to somehow get the needed exposure/experience of working the floor—as in serving wine in actual restaurant--to have any chance of success with the exam.

The service segment of the Certified Exam is based on Champagne service. Here safety is key. There are any number of ways to open a bottle of sparkling wine or Champagne incorrectly—even dangerously—but only one way to do it right. Here are some vital pointers to do just that:

General Service Points

• Remember to serve from the right and to move around the table clockwise—ALWAYS--even if just returning to the service station.
• Never reach across a guest’s space to place or clear glassware or serve wine--even if the chair is empty.
• PRACTICE CARRYING A TRAY. This is the one part of service that cannot be faked. If you don’t regularly work with a tray, lots of practice will be needed for an exam setting. Odds are you will be nervous. Practice!

Mise-en-Place—Setting Up

• Fold two—and ONLY two—serviettes for service. One will be used for opening the bottle and the other will be left on the bucket tableside if a bucket is used for service. In other words, don’t fold all the napkins on the service station.

• Always line the tray with an unfolded cloth napkin; no fancy origami folds as they result in an uneven surface on the tray almost guaranteeing you’ll lose glassware in a spectacular fashion.
• Place the glassware consistently at each cover. Placing a glass at the point of the knife is the most straightforward method.
• Place glassware starting with the host or the person to the host’s left. Placing glassware is NOT gender specific so one trip around the table clockwise will suffice.
• Place two under liners or coasters to the right of the host; one for the cork and the other for the bottle in case the host decides to keep the bottle on the table.

Opening the Bottle

• Watch where you’re pointing the bottle when opening. Never point the bottle at the table or anyone else in the vicinity. Doing so is dangerous and cause for deductions on your exam score.
• Always place a serviette over the top of the bottle when opening. Drape a serviette over the top of the bottle when opening to prevent spilling any wine if the cork exits the bottles suddenly and tragically.
• Never take the top of your hand off the bottle when opening. This is utterly crucial to opening the bottle safely and properly. Loosen the cage ONLY after placing a folded serviette over the top of the bottle and then holding both serviette and bottle FIRMLY. After loosening the wire cage, slowly remove the cage and cork at the same time by twisting the bottom of the bottle back and forth. Remember, the cage is NEVER removed before the cork. 
• Open the bottle as quietly as possible. A no-brainer. This is proper wine service and not the end of a Formula 1 race. Opening a bottle of sparkling wine quietly is a matter of practice and repetition.
• Present the cork to the host on an underliner, which has been placed to the host’s right.
• Wipe the top and lip of the bottle with your serviette after you’ve removed the cork and before pouring a taste for the host.

Serving the Bottle

• Hold the bottle with a still wine grip. Do NOT hold the bottle with your thumb in the punt of the bottle when pouring; this method does not provide enough control and stability and the odds of dropping or losing control of the bottle increase significantly.
• After presenting the cork, pour a 1-to-1.5 ounce taste for the host. Wait for them to approve the wine and then serve the table in the following order: lady guests first and then men. If there is a guest of honor, he or she is served first, then lady guests, gentlemen, and the host last. Remember, the host is always served last regardless of gender.
• Fill the glasses at least ½ to ¾ glass full with a maximum pour of an inch below the top of the glass.
• Fill the glasses one at a time with a maximum of two pours for each glass; partial pouring and/or going around the table multiple times is not allowed.
• Make sure the pours are even!
• Gage the pour level/amount based on glass size and number of glasses to be poured so you don’t run out of wine.

Service Exam Theory

• Work on major cocktails, aperitifs and after dinner spirits. Lists of all of the above are on the Guild site (guildsomm.com). Study cocktails and aperitifs by category, i.e., vodka cocktails, gin cocktails etc.
• Food and wine pairing: have specific wine recommendations with producer and vintage in mind.
• Be able to take a specific style—be it a high acid red wine or a white with residual sugar—to multiple places in the wine world.   
• Above all, know why the pairing works! Be able to explain why a wine works well with a specific dish in terms of the structural components of the wine (i.e., high acidity, lack or oak or smooth tannins). It’s the entire point of selling a specific wine with a certain dish. 

General Service Advice

• Taking care of the table is paramount. Even though you’re in an exam setting remember that you are a sommelier and your job is to take care of the table—NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS. In a real life service situation, you do not have the luxury of freaking out or giving up on a table or “failing.” Your job is to take care of the guest and give them great service. The exam should be no different. Take care of the examiner(s) as you would any guest in your restaurant. To do so will translate into success. 

There is perhaps no more contentious term in the wine world than terroir. The mere mention of the word can send the listener into a state of uncertainty, confusion, trance, or agitation--even fury. Trying to nail down the definition of terroir can be just as challenging. Over the years, I’ve heard the word defined as microclimate, soil type, brettanomyces, poor winery hygiene, old barrels, even disposable income.

No surprise then that the terroir camps are decidedly split: on one side are those that ascribe to the notion that a wine—if not overly manipulated in the winery—is intimately connected to its place of origin. That one can “taste” the vineyard in the finished product. On the other side are those who cry foul, bulls**t, and more, claiming that any sensed connection between wine and place is a quaint hallucination more often than not due to winemaker influence. To the latter, Alex Maltman, geology professor at the University of Wales at Aberystwyth, has written two excellent articles for Guildsomm.com on vineyard soils and geology. He has strongly put forth the maxim that mineral content in a vineyard soil is not absorbed through plant material, a.k.a. vines, and therefore cannot contribute to the aromas and flavors of a finished wine. No argument there.

Some colleagues dismiss terroir outright as the effects of sulfur, post-fermentation and bottling. That quickly brings to mind Meursault and Bordeaux Blanc, both of which often display a whiff of mercaptan on the nose. The brett-terroir argument is also tempting with of any number of old school Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Rhône wines; some profoundly complex, even temporarily life-changing. However, if I try to adopt the position of the naysayers, it simply doesn’t work. There will always be a universe separating Raveneau from Rombauer, and Rochioli from Richebourg--and not just because of brett or sulfur. Regardless, however we define it, connecting terroir to wine has always been problematic simply because no one has ever been able to prove a scientific link between the vineyard and wine in the bottle.
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Until now. 

Biome Makers

“The microbiome is essential for making nutrients and minerals available to the vines to pull from the soil. Different yeast and bacteria species, through their metabolic activity, also generate or liberate sensory molecules on the grapes and in the finished wine.”
 
Biome Makers
 
I first started working with Francisco “Paco” Cifuentes last fall. Cifuentes is an ex-Silicon Valley biochemist originally from Madrid. He left the corporate world with the goal of creating a Spanish portfolio comprised of small, family-owned estates that farm organically or biodynamically. My job was to taste through the wines with him to assess quality for potential portfolio inclusion and to put together tasting notes. Over the course of several tastings, we worked through more than fifty wines from two dozen-plus estates in Ribeira Sacra, Rioja, the Penedès, Priorat, and more. Much to his credit, Paco—for a non-industry person—has a very good palate and practically all the wines he presented were spot on and very good representations of their appellation. His company, called Whole Wine, is just now releasing wines to the Northern California market (www.wholewine.com).

Last month Paco told me about a colleague who was a principal in a company called Biome Makers, an agriculture-technology startup with offices in San Francisco and Spain. Biome Makers develops tools and products to map the microorganisms present in different environments. The firm uses “WineSeq”, a DNA sequencing and machine learning-based technology, to evaluate the microbiome in a vineyard soil. “WineSeq” reveals the vineyard microbiome that, through the fermentation, influences the finished wine with specific chemical compounds. Needless to say, the concept is both extraordinary and revolutionary.

Recently I met with Adrián Ferrero, co-founder and CEO, and John Dimos, PhD, GM of the company, to learn about the technology and its potential application. Here is our conversation:
 
TG: What was the technology you’re using originally designed for? Where was it developed and how long has it been used?
BM: WineSeq technology leverages advances in DNA sequencing and advanced computer learning. DNA sequencing was first developed in the late 1970s as a basic research tool to identify genes and gene mutations. The technology developed slowly until the 1990s, when it then was used to map the human genome at a cost of three billion USD. Since then, the cost of DNA sequencing has dropped and it’s being used broadly in healthcare settings and spreading into other industries like agriculture.
 
TG: Could you provide a brief description of the process--one that can be understood by sommeliers.
BM: The first step in WineSeq’s process is to isolate the DNA found in a soil sample. We’re able to purify DNA from all microorganisms, yeast, and bacteria, present in that soil sample. The exact sequence of this entire pool of DNA is then read by a machine. Because the genes of every species are unique, we can then look at the DNA sequences and identify which species of yeast and bacteria was in the starting soil sample, and their relative abundance.
 
TG: How important is the microbiome of a vineyard to the finished wine?
BM: The microbiome in a vineyard has many functions. It maintains a healthy balance in the soil to prevent disease, or can cause a disease if a particular pathogen is present at high levels. The microbiome is essential for making nutrients and minerals available to the vines to pull from the soil. Different yeast and bacteria species, through their metabolic activity, also generate or liberate sensory molecules on the grapes and in the finished wine.
 
TG: Is the connection between the microbiome and character of the finished wine what we call “terroir”?
BM: The microbiome is a dynamic and integrative biomarker. The microbiome is influenced by agricultural practices, soil chemistry, soil history, vine variety, and weather. It’s quite possible that the microbiome could serve as an objective measure of ‘terroir’ as it integrates all influences on the vine itself, and carries over into the cellar.
 
TG: Does the microbiome directly influence varietal typicity?
BM: This is a possibility that we’re studying. We’ve found an association between varieties and particular microbiome fingerprints. It’s quite possible that the variety affects the microbiome just as the microbiome affects the variety, and that this two-way influence is an important component of varietal typicity.
 
TG: Can we map qualities of a specific grape variety given a vineyard - microbiome?
BM: Today we can use the microbiome to predict how grapes will behave in a natural fermentation. We can detect species that will add character to the wines, as well as potential spoilage species. Because a third to a half of molecules involved in a wine’s smell and flavor come from microbial metabolic activity, there’s tremendous potential to predict flavor profiles with foreknowledge of the microbiome.
 
TG: How can the technology help keep vineyards healthy?
BM: The microbiome is composed of all microbial species, both beneficial ones and potential pathogens. WineSeq can detect the full microbiome and the relative proportions of each species within that ecosystem. Detecting imbalances or the presence of pathogens early, before there’s a visible manifestation on the vine, gives the grower the opportunity to implement preventative measures.
 
TG: What do you want the sommelier community to take away from knowing about the technology and your company?
BM: We would like the sommelier community to join the WineSeq community and contribute to explain and communicate the value of the microbiome to consumers through a glass of wine. The microbiome could be an objective biological measure of terroir, and sommeliers are perfectly suited to help us connect it with how the wine is experienced in the glass and how to communicate it.

Going Forward
 
Could the work of Biome Makers be the missing link in explaining what we call terroir? I strongly suspect so. Adrian and John are now starting to work with Paco on a long-range project. The goal is to map the vineyard soils of 10 different producers in the Whole Wine portfolio, conduct microbiome analyses, and connect the data to wines produced from the vineyards. We’re planning a seminar to be held in San Francisco this fall to introduce the project and the technology.

Stay tuned for details. 

"There's always room for a story that can transport people to another place."

J.K. Rowling

Last November I was in Idaho’s Snake River Valley working on a project with the Idaho Wine Commission. My task was to visit winery tasting rooms and be a “secret shopper” of sorts, taking notes on the various wineries visited. The end goal was to present my findings to the commission and its members at their annual conference in February a few months later.

Idaho now has 52 wineries with over 1,300 acres under vine producing an average of 164,000 cases a year. The Snake River Valley, an AVA since 2007, has a unique climate. The combination of an average elevation of 2,880 feet, semi-arid climate, rich volcanic soils, and a compact—and very intense—growing season make for wines of considerable intensity that offer purity of fruit and high natural acidity.

On a brisk Saturday morning I drove to the Snake River Valley, about an hour from Boise. My first stop was at Ste. Chapelle, the state’s oldest and largest winery. Afterwards, I had several, much smaller producers to visit. The first on the list was Bitner Vineyards, a winery in the Sunny Slope region near Caldwell. I turned down a long winding drive into the winery. No other cars were in sight and the place looked almost deserted. No mystery as practically all the wineries in the valley don't open until noon on Saturday—a detail I somehow had missed on the itinerary. Undeterred, I tried the tasting room door only to find it locked. After knocking lightly a couple of times, the door was opened by Amy Bitner. She explained that the winery wouldn’t open for almost half an hour but I was welcome to come in and wait. What happened next was a one of my best tasting room experiences ever.

Amy and her colleague were in a mad rush to clean up from a big fall release party the night before. After making chitchat for a few minutes, she decided pour for me wine even though it was probably the last thing she wanted to do. While she was cleaning and setting up for the day, Amy poured all the current releases for me describing the wines in detail. She then went on to tell the story about her dad and how he started the winery years before. It went something like this:

Ron Bitner is originally from a small town in Idaho with a population of less than 200. He went to the College of Idaho before pursuing a master’s degree at Purdue where he studied entomology, focusing his work on one kind of bee--the blue orchard bee, a pollination bee. Bitner would go on to get his Ph.D. in entomology from Utah State where he studied the leaf cutter bee—a bee he would work with for his entire career. After finishing his doctorate, Bitner worked for Pioneer Hi-Bred, a large seed company, for over four decades as a pollination consultant.

In 1979, Ron was looking for a home for his family back in Idaho. He knew about the Sunny Slope area of the Snake River Valley from his experiences there growing up. He purchased 15 acres there later the same year. At the time, there were only two wineries in Idaho, Ste. Chapelle and another smaller, now-defunct producer. Bill Broich, the first winemaker for Ste. Chapelle, lived on the next property. He told Ron that the part of the lot he had just purchased with a south-facing slope was potentially a world-class site for Chardonnay. Bitner didn’t even know what Chardonnay was at the time. But Ron took Bill’s advice and the family planted two acres of Chardonnay later that year. In the years to come, Riesling and other grapes were added with the fruit being sold to Ste. Chapelle and other wineries.

All that changed in 1995 when winemaker Greg Koenig initially purchased fruit and then offered to make wine for the family. The first releases made by Koenig were in 1997 from the ’95 vintage. Eventually an old tractor shed with an added deck became the winery and tasting room. In the years since, Koenig has continued to be the winemaker, production has gradually increased, and the Bitner wines have found a broader market. 
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Ron had always wanted to have a wine that would showcase his family’s vineyard; a grand reserve of Idaho. In 2010 Koenig made three barrels of a Petite Verdot-Syrah blend that would come to be called, “Mi Tierra.” Mi Tierra translates as “my native land” or “my roots.” The wine reflects the unique terroir that is the Snake River Valley and the Bitner vineyards. It also pays tribute to Ron’s long career working with the leafcutter bee. No surprise that bees figure prominently on the label. Without doubt, Mi Tierra is one of the most striking and attractive wine packages I have ever seen. The wine is outstanding too. 

Story and Branding

How important is “story” to the success of a winery? I asked longtime friend and colleague Paul Wagner. Paul is the founder of Balzac Communications, a successful industry PR Company based in Napa. Over the years, one of the things Paul has repeatedly told me is how important the role of storytelling is to marketing and selling wine. When I called him about this post he began by saying, “I’ll go back to my experience as a teacher. In the basics of communication, we teach and learn by using stories and not by quoting numbers or data. Students remember stories when they don’t remember facts. They repeat stories in a way that they never repeat facts. Storytelling has proven to be just as effective in selling wine as in teaching history or anything else."

I then asked Paul how important storytelling was to his work with winery and other industry clients. He responded, “It’s one of the first things we do when we sit down with a client. We try to get them to explain who they are. My latest mantra is, 'don’t tell me how you make the wine, tell me why you make the wine.' What a consumer really wants is to share that expression, that dream. We think winemaking is either an art or a craft. In each case we need to understand the person behind creating that art or craft, the same way we want to know what Beethoven was thinking when he wrote one of his symphonies or what was Picasso thinking when he painted.”

I immediately wondered how storytelling could work in the case of a winery or wine group that clearly made commercial wines. What could the story possibly be then? He answered by telling me about the time when he and his team helped launch Red Guitar, a Garnacha blend from the Navarra province in Spain marketed by Constellation. He said that initially they were told that the company had gone to Navarra and sourced some very good wine from local producers. So there didn’t seem to be much of a story. He continued, “When we called the people who were making the wine and talked to them about where the wine came from, it turned out that there was a wonderful story. Back in the 1950’s, a single nobleman owned the entire region. All the vineyard owners at the time were sharecroppers working his property. Then the local Catholic priest organized all the farmers and managed to get the church to front them the down payment for the land they were working. He then negotiated with the owner so the farmers could purchase their own vineyard and have a say in the land as time went on. That’s a great story and it made for really interesting reading.”

My last question to Paul was about storytelling and how it applies to the sommelier world. In most cases, the window of opportunity to sell a glass or a bottle is less than a minute, much less thirty seconds. Does storytelling apply to selling wine on the floor? He answered, “Absolutely, it’s much more effective. No one has ever walked into a restaurant and said, 'I’m looking for wines made from volcanic soils.' However, if the sommelier turns to the diner and says, 'There’s a great story behind this wine,' that’s all they have to say. The diner will want to hear the story and it doesn’t have to be 22 minutes long. You can tell a good story in less than a minute if you know how to tell it. That’s what people want. I always say that the biggest fear any consumer has when they buy a bottle of wine is that someone else at the table will say, 'Why the hell did you buy this?' An answer of 17 months in French oak with full malolactic fermentation and calcareous soil doesn’t really answer the question; at least not like saying, 'my mother was born in this village or this wine was made by a guy who works the vineyard only using horses for farm equipment.' Any of those sorts of stories will be a far more interesting and compelling reason that the bottle is on the table than the alcohol content is 14.3%.”

I’m inclined to agree with Paul completely and for more than one reason. A quick inventory of some of my favorite wines inevitably brings up a good, even great story. Bernkasteler Doctor? Etna Rosso? Clos Vougeot? All have great stories.
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As sommeliers and industry professionals, it’s all too easy for us to geek out about the minutia surrounding a given wine, spouting numbers about R.S., T.A, and the like; numbers that are almost always meaningless to our guests. In doing so we quickly lose touch with what could be the most interesting facet of a wine—the story behind the bottle. It’s these stories that can help forge a connection between the guest’s experience and the wine; a connection creating memories that last for an evening if not for years afterwards.