This being the last day of the year, I’m in a look-back mode. The first wine I ever tasted was a sip of Manischevitz from my Uncle Teddy’s glass. I must have been six or seven, and the event was probably a Passover seder. Uncle Teddy was one of those friendly, boisterous guys whom everyone likes and who’s always at the center of attention. I think he offered me a sip of his wine at the table because everybody was watching, and Teddy knew that no matter what I did, it would be funny. I guess it was, because all the adults laughed when I made a face and spat the wine out because it tasted so evil. That may account for the particular loathing I have to this day of table wines, red or white, that should be dry but have residual sugar.

Wine didn’t re-enter my life until my freshman year at college when, away from home for the first time in my life, I went on a rampage. Freed from the constraints of parental oversight, I did anything and everything I could to celebrate my new-found freedom, including drinking. Lots of drinking. I remember well the favorite libation of me and my similarly reckless young friends: Bali Jai. I think it was made by Italian Swiss Colony. Anyhow, it too was sweet, but as I was drinking, not for flavor, but to get inebriated, I didn’t care (and Bali Jai was the cheapest rotgut you could find). A step above Bali Jai were Mateus and Lancer’s. Already I was establishing a hierarchy of wine in my head: I knew they were better wines, but they also cost $5 more per bottle, which put them out of my price range, and besides, I had no need of better wines.

By my sophomore year, I had enough sense to realize that drinking Bali Jai, starting some weekend mornings at 10 a.m., was not a very smart thing to do. So I stopped. Disciplining myself with regard to my alcoholic intake is something I’m still good at (fortunately, given my profession), having developed the habit long ago, and being in possession of a pretty acute radar that warns me when I’m coming too close to doing anything in excess. So wine effectively passed out of my life for more than a decade until I moved to California and re-discovered it, a process I have previously written about.

When I think about my own wine journey, and then look at what’s happening in China with wine, I think of that old saying, “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”, which, if I may so describe it, means that the human embryo goes through successive stages of development, each of which resembles an earlier phase of human evolution. Thus, as the embryo grows in the womb, it looks, first, rather tadpole- or fish-like, then like some kind of small mammal, then finally assume a more anthropoid state until, on the day of birth, out pops a tiny little new human person. I think that in our (human’s) wine-drinking habits, we similarly go through stages, regardless of whether we’re Chinese or New Yorkers. You start off (in most cases) with hideous junk, like Bali Jai, then you realize that wine is inexorably connected with things we value, such as status, fun and the need for love and affection; and as this realization increases, so does your appetite for better wine. This explains why the Chinese, with their nouveau wealth, mix Coca Cola with Lafite–and it also explains why that bizarre phase probably will not last much longer, for the Chinese are fast learners.

At what point, though, does this upward spiral of our desire for better wine result in a tipping point that can blossom into snobbery and elitism? This is a question that deeply interests me, and has at least since my days writing The Collecting Page for Wine Spectator. There, I saw the Dark Side of a love for wine: the self-absorption, the insularity of the Old Boy’s Club and their membership of fatuously bragging egotists, constantly trying to one-up each other, piling up such massive collections that neither they nor their children or grandchildren could ever possibly consume it all. And to what point? I saw men who equated meaning in life with the possession of 19th century pre-Phylloxera Bordeaux or verticals of every vintage ever made of Mouton; but who then called their winetasting dinners with their friends “pissing matches,” a vulgarity but illustrative of their motive for gathering: Who could bring the oldest, costliest bottle, thereby winning the contest and humiliating the losers?

Why wine makes fools of some people, I’ll never know, but it does seem to accompany excessive income, especially when it has been accumulated quickly. Think of all those high-priced athletes and rock stars whose tastes, once they are newly riche, span the gamut from indulgent to merely offensive to downright vulgar. I’m sure they love their Cristal and Lafite, as much as my Uncle Teddy loved his Manischevitz. Yet somehow Uncle Teddy’s love of his wine seems in kind different. He loved his wine for the way it brought people he loved together, and made them laugh and be happy; not, as I have seen in some collectors, to satisfy some inner lack of joy.

Happy New Year! I’ll be back here on Monday morning!

Of my 100 highest-scoring Cabernets in 2010, only nine were not from Napa Valley or its sub-appellations. I guess that says something and it’s not particularly surprising. The majority bore the basic Napa Valley AVA. Of the Napans with more specific appellations, the numbers were, in descending order:

Rutherford: 14
Howell Mountain: 7
Diamond Mountain: 4
Oakville: 3
Stags Leap, St. Helena, Spring Mountain, Atlas Peak: 2 each
Calistoga, Yountville, Mount Veeder, Oak Knoll: 1 each

It would be imprudent to draw conclusions from these numbers. For one thing, in any given year there could be more Oakville wines than Rutherford wines on the list; these things have a randomness to them. There also are a number of Napa Valley Cabernets I simply didn’t review this year, for various reasons, mainly because I can’t review them all. Nobody can. Nobody can even be aware of them all. Then too, the Cabs I reviewed in 2010 ranged from the 2004 vintage right up through 2008. A wine that made the top 100 with its 2005 vintage may not have done so in 2006.

I found it a little surprising that there was only one Mount Veeder on the list, but then, there are relatively few producers up there. Less surprising were the lower numbers from the valley’s southernmost areas–Oak Knoll and Yountville–and its northernmost, Calistoga. Napa Valley’s sweet spots obviously are right in the juicy middle, and also in the mountains.

These considerations in my mind were aroused when I read Tom Wark’s blog the other day. It’s a very long post–his lengthiest ever?–but worth reading, if for no other reason than that it resurrects, Dracula-like, the notion of some kind of ranking or classification, especially for Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Now, I am not writing this just because the notion of classifying California wine is always destined to stir the pot and get everybody all riled up. It’s really not even worth discussing anymore, and as much as I respect Tom (and he knows it), his idea of a “Committee of Elders” is as silly and fictional as the Bene Gesserit from “Dune.”

But Tom took as his starting point the analysis by Leo McCloskey in which Dr. McCloskey warns of the commoditization of Cabernet Sauvignon to the point where prices will be forced to drop, thus putting Napa Valley in the embarrassing and unsustainable position of producing an expensive product that  people aren’t willing to buy anymore.

This is the real issue about Napa Valley Cabernet, not classification system fantasies. Dr. McCloskey does make some interesting points (although I cannot fathom why he writes, “Over one decade the number of 90-plus point California wines dropped 50% in Wine Spectator,” as if Jim Laube scores were the entrails of chickens, containing divine clues. What in the world does Jim’s scoring history have to do with the commoditization of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon?).

I’ve wondered ever since I’ve been in this business how so many Napa Valley Cabernet wineries manage to stay in existence. Well before this recession, I wondered about it. I remember in the early 1990s there was another recession and everybody was predicting this huge shakeout. It never happened. The current recession is much worse, and there’s a lot more Cabernet planted now than in 1991, but if you think about it, we haven’t seen a massacre in Napa Valley, not yet anyway. Somehow, wineries manage to get through tough times; and keep in mind, a lot of those Napa Valley winery owners have awfully deep pockets from outside the wine industry.

They say that history tends to repeat itself. If that’s true, Napa Valley will do just fine. On the other hand, there are such things as “tipping points” (Dr. McCloskey himself refers to one, for Chardonnay), which are paradigm-shifting events that do indeed have radical consequences. I just can’t see Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon being at a tipping point, personally. Bordeaux has been through far worse, and for far longer, than Napa Valley–world wars, Hitler, empire changes, all that minor stuff–and somehow they’ve survived. So, I suspect, will Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon–even without a classification system.

My readers have asked me to kindly refrain from politics here at steveheimoff.com, and I generally do, reserving that kind of stuff for my Facebook page (where we frequently get pretty fierce!). But an article I just read in the Dec. 18 issue of The Economist has got me thinking about the plight of undocumented farm workers (including vineyard workers), and that, combined with the unfortunate refusal of Senate Republicans earlier this month to even consider the Dream Act, has me riled up enough to politicize, just a bit, on my blog.

Actually, I don’t really consider the issue of undocumented farm workers to be a political one, in the sense of partisan politics. I mean, whatever your politics, you have to eat, right? And with at least 40% of all of America’s crop workers being undocumented, mostly Mexicans (with other estimates ranging up to 90%), that means most of what we eat (and drink) has been processed, at some point in some farm, orchard or vineyard, by someone who is sin papeles (without official U.S. papers). (Note: just about all the facts I state here are from The Economist article.)

It has been more or less proven that American citizens will not perform agricultural labor. Only the blindest and most cynical opponents of immigration reform argue to the contrary. Studies show that, of those Americans who are willing to stoop down, bend over, work in unendurable heat and cold, skin their hands to bleeding, break their backs and do other uncomfortable and unhealthy work connected with crops, most of them demand wages and benefits (such as health insurance, pension contributions, paid vacations and so on) that are so high, the price of a head of lettuce would skyrocket to $10, and Two Buck Chuck would cost $8. I think the most disingenuous argument in politics (and there are some pretty disingenuous arguments) is that, if we sent all the undocumented farm workers back to Mexico, their places would be taken by grateful unemployed Americans willing to work for minimum wage. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.

The Economist article illustrates vividly and compassionately why these people cross the border illegally to come to America. It’s not to “come and dump” babies, as some Republicans have crudely and hatefully stated. Children born on American soil, regardless of their parents’ status, have been considered citizens at least since the 14th Amendment was passed, in 1868; it is true, also, that there are serious rumblings in the Republican Party to undo the 14th Amendment supposedly in the interests of “national security,” but, since “national security” can be used as an excuse for almost anything, you have to wonder why the same people who want to deport all the undocumented workers also want to deny their American-born children citizenship. Can there be other, less respectable motivations going on? Yes, there can.

My main problem with ideologues is that they are so addicted to what they perceive as the correctness of their ideas that they fail to consider the implications of what would actually happen if their ideas were implemented into law. Who exactly is going to tend the fields and pick the crops if the right wing of the Republican Party succeeds in frightening Americans enough to actually legislate some of these wild concepts (not that I believe President Obama would sign them). As for the Dream Act, well, it makes so much common sense, and seems so compassionately the right thing to do, that it was absolutely right for President Obama to vow to continue pushing for its passage in 2011.

As I said earlier, I can’t for the life of me see why this issue of undocumented workers and their children has become politicized to the extent it has. You’d think that a country with the I.Q. of a doorknob would figure out that (a) the undocumented workers aren’t going anywhere, (b) there’s no way to make them leave, (c) most of them just want a better life as do we all and as did our ancestors, (d) our food economy would collapse instantly if they did go back to Mexico (and who would clean our hotels and office buildings?) and (e) if their kids satisfy all the Dream Act’s requirements (brought to the United States before they turned 16, are below the age of 35, have lived here continuously for five years, graduated from a U.S. high school or obtained a GED, have good moral character with no criminal record and attend college or enlist in the military), they’re more likely to be model citizens than a good many kids who were born in this country to legal citizens.

Every time I travel to wine country, I see and meet the workers. The wine industry could not possibly exist without them. I would not presume to ask an owner or winemaker if he or she knows whether all the employees are legal; but I have to assume that some of the workers are not, especially the ones who get hired by the day. The situation as it stands is lousy. These people live with fear and stress of arrest and deportation even as they pick our grapes and radishes and beans. I hope that each one of you, if you agree with me, will contact your Senator and Congressperson, find out where they stand on the Dream Act, and urge them to support it, if they don’t already. And I hope you’ll also find it to your practical advantage, if not in your heart, to support some kind of path to citizenship for the millions of these sin papeles who sweat, bleed and hurt so that we may eat and drink.

I don’t have the attention span to write a “Top Stories of the Year” story, but I like reading them from other people. My publisher, Adam Strum, does this every year. Here’s his “Top 10 Wine Stories of 2010,” from the Dec. 15 Wine Enthusiast, and it’s a pretty good one from somebody who actually has a worldwide perspective.

More locally, I asked my Facebook readers, many of whom are in the industry, the question, “What are the biggest California wine stories of the year?” and, as usual, they weren’t shy about replying. Here are a couple of the more interesting comments. If I have a reply to the comment, I’ll put it in italics. I’m also naming the senders (I warned them in advance I would), although in some cases, I really have no idea who they are. Such is the nature of Facebook friends!

– The discount flash sale that is changing how consumers are purchasing and wineries are selling and connecting with consumers. (Eric Bolen) I think Eric is referring in general to lower prices, but in particular this makes me think of how certain top end [i.e. expensive] wineries, unable to sell all their wine, are selling it to third parties/negociants, who then re-label them. Consumers will never know where the wines came from, because of confidentiality agreements. There are some stunning Napa Cabernets I’ve had lately for $20-$25 that I would swear are as good as $80 stuff.

– The rise of natural wine and the associated movement. (Beau Carufel) Snore…

– The lack of coverage by big wine media towards HR 5034. (Michael Fraschilla) He may be right; I haven’t really studied this. Tom Wark is certainly doing yeoman’s work in bringing this to people’s attention at Fermentation.

– The irony of the emergence of Grenache in comparison to the lack of luster for Syrah. (Marshall Tilden) Disagree! First of all, there is no “emergence of Grenache” with respect to Syrah or anything else. Not that I can see, anyhow.

– The end of the blog, Steve, as even the young embrace FB. People seem to want their news short and sweet. Also, bloggers don’t get the respect published writers enjoy, understandably! (Kathy Marcks Hardesty). Kathy’s a dear friend, but her report of the demise of wine blogs is exaggerated. My numbers keep going up and up. And there’s no conflict between blogs and Facebook. They’re for different things. I do both.

– Norcal’s weird vintage. Scorched fruit. What survived and what flourished? (Joe Herrig) Adam Strum commented on this too. It was a weird vintage, and not just in NoCal. By the way, Joe Roberts nominated the weird weather too.

– “James Suckling creates new James Suckling website about James Suckling, with wine scores by James Suckling.” (David Honig) No comment. Actually, David’s comment was considerably longer than the snippet I published here. I omitted the more libelous parts.

– How about naming the wine writers that didn’t write a book in 2010? There should be 1-2? (Melanie Bianco Ofenloch) I can name two: Joe Roberts and me! Oh, and Harry Waugh, No, wait, he’s dead.

– Either the purchase of Justin by Fiji Water -or- The loss of Cosentino Winery. (Brad Roen) Both big stories, but not THE biggest of 2010.

– Foley buys Sonoma. (Chris Donatiello) Mr. Donatiello is the proprietor of C. Donatiello, an excellent Russian River Valley winery.

– Foley buys California. (Lori Narlock) Ms. Narlock is media relations manager at Wilson Daniels Ltd.

– Washington outscores, out-values, out-points California! (Paul Gregutt) Mr. Gregutt, my esteemed colleague, is the Pacific Northwest editor for Wine Enthusiast Magazine, and is entirely without bias when it comes to Washington State wines. Not!

– The emergence of the Heimoff Blog as the soul & conscience of the wine industry. (Jim Caudill) I don’t make this stuff up, kids. Mr. Caudill is PR director at Hess Collection.

On Christmas Day, Maxine made eggs Benedict for brunch, and then for dinner Marilyn served honey baked ham with all the trimmings (including scalloped potatoes) and so I had about a year’s worth of fat and calories and cholesterol all in one day. But what the hey, it was Christmas, a time to cast care to the winds and not worry about anything. Maxine and Keith drank coffee laced with Kahlua for brunch. I refrained from the Kahlua, because I had to drive to Marilyn’s afterward, over the beautiful but treacherous Santa Cruz Mountains that separate San Mateo from the sea, and there was a good-sized rainstorm coming down. Two good reasons to keep my blood alcohol level to absolute zero while driving. When you crest the mountains via Sharp Park Road, all of a sudden the Pacific sweeps into view, with Pedro Point to the south and whitecaps smashing up against the coastal rocks, and it can be hard to keep your eyes on the twisting road. After all these years of living in California, I still think, “There’s the edge of the western world.” In other words, to paraphrase Dorothy,  I don’t think we’re in The Bronx anymore.

Anyway, I made up for my abstinence once I got to Marilyn’s, where I would be spending the night. Started off with a couple flutes of champagne. On her dinner table there was more champagne, Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc, and I think there was a Cabernet in there too; I wasn’t really keeping track. Nor did I care what I drank with what, which puts me fully in agreement with Matt Kramer, who made some waves a few weeks ago with this column, in which he basically and properly argues against getting too mental with the wine and food pairing thing.

The day before, my L.A. friend, Howie, had called to ask for my suggestion of what wine to serve some friends he and Athena had invited for dinner. Howie knows as much about wine as I know about his profession, producing hip hop music, which is, essentially, zero. I patiently told him to please not stress, to just open whatever seemed likely to work with whatever, and to refrain from calling me in the future with lame questions. (We go back a long way; I can speak frankly.) Wine writers do get asked these kinds of things all the time:

Which is better with the lamb chops, Cabernet or Pinot Noir?
I’m having friends over who know about wine. What should I serve to impress them?
I’m dating this girl who’s into wine. What will she like?

I mean, in most cases these questions have no answers, and even if they did, they can’t be answered in the abstract anyway. There are three reasons why people ask us writers questions like these:

1. Their insecurity.
2. Their perception of us as gurus.
3. The Frankensteinian myth manufactured by the industry that there are certain rules about wine that only barbarians ignore.

As with most things in life, there’s some truth to all three, but there’s also a lot of hype. People are insecure about wine. Why wouldn’t they be?  Even professionals are insecure about wine. Sommeliers try their best to get the food pairing thing right and they still strike out often as not. So it’s understandable why people would turn to writer/critics for advice, especially if they happen to be old friends. We have been portrayed–or we portray ourselves–as more knowledgeable than most people, which happens to be true, as far as truth goes. As for rule #3, we’ve all grown up with the “red wine with steak, white wine with sole” thing, and there’s some truth to that, too.

But I think the reason why writer/critics sometimes get a little impatient with the questions is that we get asked them all the time, and we sense, behind the questions, in the minds of the questioners, a level of anxiety that’s antithetical to the spirit of eating and drinking and having a good time with friends. If you’re paying $200 for a meal at Masa’s (for one; double for two) the wine pairing damned well better be perfect, assuming you can tell the difference between perfect and merely good. But that circumstance is the exception to the rule for most of us; you can’t bring the level of scrutiny and heightened expectation to a home-cooked meal, or to a meal at an ordinary restaurant, as you do to Masa’s. Instead, you relax your standards, lower your expectations and enjoy. I think that’s the biggest difference between the European and American approaches to wine. We make such a big deal about it; they don’t. If there’s some Bordeaux left over from the roast beef and you’re onto the fish course, you don’t freak out and demand Sancerre or Muscadet. It’s not the end of the world. The wine-and-food-pairing Gestapo isn’t going to bang down the door and haul you off to the foodies’ concentration camp.

Late at night at Marilyn’s, as we watched a truly bizarre movie called Exit through the Gift Shop, I drank some of the Sauvignon Blanc, which was from Napa Valley, with vanilla ice cream and a scoop of leftover stewed fruit Marilyn had prepared as a side dish for the ham. I don’t think any sommelier would pair Sauvignon Blanc with ice cream and stewed fruit, but you know what? It was delicious, I didn’t care, there was nobody to impress, and it was so good that despite the calories and fat and cholesterol that had proceeded it I marched right into the kitchen for a second bowl. And another glass of Sauvignon Blanc.