Do you ever wonder about the real meaning of certain terms on wine labels? Well, so do a lot of other people, which is why the  Federal government is opening up a real can of worms with its announcement that the agency in charge of wine label wording, the Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), is launching hearings designed to reconsider the definition of such terms as “estate,” “estate bottled,” Proprietor grown,” “Vintner grown,” “Vineyard,” “Single vineyard,” “Old Vine,” “Reserve,” “Barrel Select” and a host of others.

(You can read the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking here. Scroll down to Notice No. 109, which will give you a PDF.)

Big news, and about time. For too long, wineries have had too much leeway in their creative employment of such words, which are confusing and can mislead consumers into coming to conclusions about the wines that aren’t true.

Take the term “estate bottled.” Up until now, a wine can be called “estate bottled” only if (a) it is labeled with an appellation of origin, and (b) the bottling winery is located in the labeled viticultural area, grew all of the grapes used to make the wine on land owned or controlled by the winery within the boundaries of the labeled viticultural area; and crushed the grapes (there are some additional restrictions).

That’s reasonable enough, right? Here’s where things get murky. For years, TTB has (in their words) “allowed the term ‘Estate grown’ to be used as a synonym for ‘Estate bottled,’” meaning use of the former would have to conform to the same conditions that govern use of the latter. But “some industry members” now are requesting TTB to let them use “Estate grown” even if “Estate bottled” conditions haven’t been met, since, they argue, “Estate grown” says nothing about bottling conditions.

That may sound reasonable, too, except that you have to wander further into the thicket to understand just how radical this proposed change is. For it all centers around the definition of “estate.”

The problem, in TTB”s words, is that “the regulations do not address or define the word ‘Estate’ or ‘Estates’…”. In other words, the word “Estate/s” means nothing…nada…zilch…and never has. So even though the word seems to convey some sort of authenticity or quality or prestige sourcing, it doesn’t. It’s about as useful as the words “New!” and “Improved!” on a box of soap flakes (and using it so loosely erodes the confidence the consumer has in wines that really are estate grown). Therefore, if “estate/s” is meaningless, and “estate grown” is divorced from its connection to “estate bottled,” then “estate grown” is meaningless. And down the slippery slope we go.

TTB is asking the public to weigh in on these things. On their website, they present a list of fuzzy label terms, and then they ask:
“1. Which terms currently used in wine labeling and advertising should TTB consider defining, if any, and what should those definitions be?
2. Why or why not should TTB consider defining such terms?”

I’ll take a crack at some of them.

“Reserve” and “Private Reserve.” These are routinely and wantonly abused because they have no meaning whatsoever. A wine cannot be a “reserve” unless there’s a “regular” but in case after case, you find there is no regular. So change the law. Make it mandatory that “reserve” is a small percentage of the winery’s regular bottling of that wine.

“Barrel Select.” A true barrel selection means you took a portion of your best barrels, as determined by tasting, and bottled them separately. Unfortunately, most wines labeled “barrel select” don’t seem to have undergone this sorting out process. Change the law to make “barrel select” mean what it says. (The term “barrel select reserve,” which quite a few wineries use, therefore would be an oxymoron.)

“Old Vines.” Consumers think this is some kind of guarantee, both of age and of quality, but it’s not. It doesn’t mean anything. Change the law to make “old vine/s” mean vines that are at least 25 years old; and then make it so that the labeled wine has to contain at least 90% of grapes from those vines.

“Old Clone.” Nobody knows what this means, either, because it doesn’t mean anything. There are no “old clones,” properly speaking. There are “old selections,” but just because a vine is “old selection” is meaningless from a quality point of view. Therefore, change the law. If a winery says it’s “old clone,” make them spell out just what clone or selection they’re talking about, and make them prove that the vines the wine is made from, or at least 90% of them, indeed are comprised of that selection.

The following terms also are meaningless, but we don’t want the hand of government to get too heavy, do we, so I’d leave them alone: “Proprietors Blend,” “Select Harvest,” “Bottle Aged.”

I’ve been getting into a category of wine I don’t write about much, dessert wines. Although they’re largely absent from my consciousness for much of the year, about this time they start coming in for review, probably, I suspect, for the holidays. Right now I’m drinking and vastly enjoying Quady’s 2009 Essensia Orange Muscat. It’s decadently sweet, and to sip it you’d swear you were transported to some heaven where the streets are lined with oranges and tangerines. At just $25 for a full 750-milliliter bottle (most dessert wines are in 375s), it’s a good value. I could see drinking this wine almost anytime–at lunch with a smoked trout salad or ham sandwich, at 5 p.m. as a refreshing cocktail, even during dinner with a steak. Steak and Orange Muscat? Why not. Professor Saintsbury reports a dinner he served, probably in the late 1800s, at which 1870 Yquem was paired with “consommé and grilled red mullet” and another when “Sauterne, 1874” went with a “Zootje of Sole” and “Mutton Cutlets.” (And as best as I can tell, “Zootje” is a traditional Dutch dish of poached sole and potatoes in a butter sauce.) Then there is the marriage of Yquem with roast beef, a combination that goes back at least to the 19th century, and was resurrected (in Jeremiah Tower’s first book, “New American Classics”), in which he praised Yquem with with a ”rich, aged, perfectly cooked roast beef.”

So Orange Muscat and steak isn’t a stretch.

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I’m reading a terrific wine book, Rhône Renaissance, by Remington Norman, with a forward by Hugh Johnson. Although it was published more than ten years ago, I’d never heard of it, until I found it in a local used bookstore. At $2.99, I had to snatch it up.

It’s definitely in the Johnson mold, hard-covered, good paper, great, detailed maps and written in a literary style (although it is not without typos. I don’t think I ever saw a typo in a Hugh Johnson book). I’m reading the section on Côte-Rôtie and am struck, once again, by the complexities and peculiarities of France’s appellation system. The Côte-Rôtie appellation apparently has been changed several times in recent decades, swelling to far beyond its original 1940 boundaries until it had extended into areas that were patently unsuitable. The result of that was a 1993 readjustment of the boundaries that shrank it back to its present size. It all goes to show how political appellation lines are, although it must also be conceded that, in the best of cases, they rest on firm realities. In the case of Côte-Rôtie, of course, these realities include, most importantly, southern or southeastern exposures and steep slopes. The actual Côte-Rôtie appellation makes a great deal of sense.

What appellations in California make the most sense? It’s easier to list the ones that don’t, which would be most of them. The bigger an appellation is, the less you can say about it, except in the most general terms. “Burgundy” and “Sonoma County” both are big appellations; the former makes a little more sense because the authorities limit the grapes there, so at least you can declare that a red Burgundy will have a certain varietal character. You can’t say that about a red Sonoma County wine, which could be made from any variety in the world. So “Sonoma County” is of limited usefulness, unless you believe that, if it comes from Sonoma County, it must be good.

But just because an appellation is small is equally meaningless. The smallest AVAs in California, by acreage, are Cole Ranch (150), El Dorado (416) and McDowell Valley (540). There’s not much you can say about any of these. (“El Dorado” is not the same as “El Dorado County,” which measures 410,000 acres.) On the other hand, the fourth-smallest AVA in California (I’m going by Wine Institute figures) is Anderson Valley, at 600 acres, and you can definitely point out a distinguishing, and fine, character to its wines. So let’s postulate for now that Anderson Valley is the sine qua non of California appellations.

Another point that author Norman makes in Rhône Renaissance is how, when Côtie-Rôtie had fallen more or less into irrelevance, its boosters did certain things to restore it to its previous greatness. They lured in investment money to replant on the best slopes. They formed a Syndicat, or regional growers association. They created a tourist infrastructure in and around the town of Ampuis, with restaurants, shops and winery signposts. They “brought…media to the region in unprecedented numbers.” Surely, these are lessons some California appellations have learned, and that others are in the process of learning.

If you’re wondering why I didn’t have a new post yesterday, it’s because my #%@&*?! laptop had a nervous breakdown. I was on my last morning in Santa Ynez, and had a post in mind, but for some reason the ‘puter couldn’t figure out how to send it to the blog. I’ve had it with that antique laptop, and figure it was a sign from above to go out and buy a new one. On my way home, I stopped by my friend Thomas Reiss’s graphic design and web design firm, Kraftwerk, in SLO city, and his young, tech savvy staff recommended I buy the new Macbook Air, explaining that the reason it costs so much is due to the coolness factor. Well, I am nothing if not cool, so sometime this week, I’m heading over to the Apple Store with Chuck, who helps me organize the incoming wine but who also knows more about tech stuff than I do. Whether or not a new laptop will result in a better blog remains to be seen, but it certainly make this a more regular blog.

At any rate, I digress from what I wanted to talk about, which was my Santa Barbara trip. It was a quickie, mainly for an upcoming Wine Enthusiast article on what I’m calling “winemaker dives” — places where winemakers hang out with each other. These aren’t fancy white tablecloth restaurants where they do winemaker dinners or host important clients. They’re greasyspoons, hash houses, rock and roll bars, tacquerias and pizza joints, the kinds of places you and I frequent. Well, I do, anyway. And I had a great time. You’ll read all about it in the February issue, but we went to this funky old barbecue joint way up in the hills where the bikers lit up doobies and a hippie duo cranked out some pretty good Delta blues. That night we ate at a great pizza joint in Los Alamos that was packed with enough winemakers to teach a semester of undergrads at U.C. Davis.

Most of the talk in Santa Barbara was about the vintage, of course: the wild, crazy ride that’s been  2010. The mantra goes like this: bizarrely cold spring and summer. Massive heat spike in August. Then back to cold. Then last week’s rains, fairly heavy. The one bright spot is that right now we’re experiencing a welcome week’s worth of warm sunshine. As of this past weekend, I was told, there’s still Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to come in, as well as a boatload of Syrah. The Santa Rita Hills vintners were cautiously optimistic; so were the inland winemakers. My impression is that the Central Coast will have an easier time of it than the North Coast. But, as winemaker after winemaker emphasized, 2010 has been a challenge, in which vintners and growers alike had to rise to the occasion. One interesting comment from a winemaker was that, when everybody else was opening their canopies to expedite ripening during the cold months, he didn’t. “I knew the heat was coming,” he explained. “It always does.” As a result, he avoided the sunburning so common throughout the state. Or so he claimed.

A bunch of us also had a chat about the merits of labeling wine Santa Barbara County, or using the smallest appellation to which the wine is entitled. (The county’s other appellations are Santa Rita Hills, Santa Maria Valley, Santa Ynez Valley and Happy Canyon.) Some winemakers felt that they should use only Santa Barbara County, in order to promote the region to consumers. I, personally, feel that you should always use the most distinct appellation you can; but, on the other hand, my position is a critical and esthetic one, not a commercial one. I don’t have to sell wine. The winemakers do. So if they don’t want to use the smaller appellations because they feel it’s counter-productive, I have to respect that.

The Santa Barbarans also tend to feel overlooked by consumers. They think the average wine drinker doesn’t understand how good their wines are. They also think that the wine press doesn’t pay them enough attention, a belief with which I concur if we’re talking about certain well-known magazines. I myself have devoted lots of time and attention to Santa Barbara County for a long time, and I hope to pay it even more attention in times to come. This is a very important and very distinctive California winegrowing region, and it’s only going to get better.

I’m still very much enjoying and learning from Rajat Parr’s new book, “Secrets of the Sommeliers” (co-written with Jordan Mackay), although I could live without his constant swipes against California wines.

Parr is at his best when writing, of course, about his beloved Burgundy. Whenever I read good writing about Burgundy it turns me on, for the explanation of this region surely is one of the most rigorously intellectual in all of winedom. Who among us doesn’t remember the first times he was taken, through the written word, on a tour of the famous slopes of the Cotes d’Or, by a writer who knew what he was talking about? In my case, my first tour guide was Alexis Lichine who, although a Bordelaise (he owned a couple of chateaux), knew Burgundy in his blood. I must have spent dozens of hours close-reading the Burgundy sections of his immortal “New Encyclopedia of Wines & Spirits”, memorizing the appellations controlées, studying the map, understanding the millennial history, and wishing I could have the opportunity “to perceive the difference between a…Charmes-Chambertin and the contiguous Clos de Beze,” which, sadly, didn’t happen nearly enough.

It was those tiny, mystical differences between vineyards and parts of vineyards so close to each other that inflamed my mind. I took it as part of God’s plan for an ordered Earth that it should be so–that the Pinot Noir grape (and to a lesser extent the Chardonnay) grown in Burgundy should express itself in so complex a tapestry, in what is really a fairly compact region.

Parr takes us over much the same territory as did Lichine, albeit in language not quite so poetic. Reading Parr on, say, Vosne-Romanée, the old fire returned to light up my brain. The old passion was rekindled, as it was when, in 1982, I bought (for $30!) my Lichine “Encyclopedia.” But I reflect also that there’s a huge difference between then and now, in terms of how I apply the knowledge of Burgundy to the situation of Pinot Noir here in California.

It was the particular French genius for (or obsession with?) classification that provided the underpinnings of my fascination with Burgundy, and in the 1980s there was no reason why I, or anybody else, would have been blamed for believing that California too would someday be organized into communes and villages and premier and grand crus. They might not be called by those words, but we would someday have identified the precise slopes where our Vosnes and Cortons and Chambolle-Musignys grew, and even the tenderloins within them in which our Bonnes-Mares and La Taches displayed exquisite grandness.

That is what I thought in the 1980s, at any rate. Today, it’s a very different story. We have superb Pinot Noir regions scattered for hundreds of miles, from the Anderson Valley down to the Santa Rita Hills, from Fort Ross to the Santa Cruz Mountains, from Carneros to the Santa Lucia Highlands. Far from having a single range of hills to understand, we have multiple valleys, even whole mountain ranges that have just begun to be poked and prodded. We have, too, a vastly greater range of clones, rootstocks, farming techniques, barrel regimens and winemaking practices available than the Burgundian vignerons ever did, each of which minimizes the contributions of terroir, making them harder to discern. I could go on and on about all the reasons why classifying California Pinot Noir, at least in the way it’s done in Burgundy, will never be done.

Does that leave me disappointed? No. My expectations from the 1980s have turned out not to be achievable, but then, I had many fantasies back then that never panned out. There is, though, a definite satisfaction in knowing that, although things here are much more complicated than I, or anybody else, thought, still, we as a state have reached the point where I can taste masterpieces like Merry Edwards’ 2007 Meredith Estate, Lynmar’s ‘07 Five Sisters, Byron’s ‘08 Nielson, Samsara’s ‘08 Las Hermanas, and appreciate them for what they are, even though they don’t seem to be arranged into any sort of coherent order (and even despite Rajat Parr’s back-handed compliments).

And who’s to say that the dream is truly dead? It won’t be my generation that finally and fully explains Pinot Noir in California. It won’t be the Millennials, because even if they have writing careers of thirty years or more, vintners and growers still will be scratching away in our appellations like chickens looking for a tasty grub. I think we may be able to make sense of some of our AVAs sooner than others–the Santa Lucias seem more logical than, say, the Sonoma Coast. Westside Road may someday be plotted out in a more or less thorough way. We may have some clearer understanding of the Santa Rosa Road corridor in the Santa Rita Hills, brief as that place’s viticultural history is.

But much work remains to be done, and one thing wine writers will have to be careful of is not to jump to unwarranted conclusions, just because they sound good and are easily repeated. In a day and age of instant truthiness, spread virally over the Internet, writers should avoid parroting something that somebody else said. That’s not how the Burgundians understood their land. It took them a thousand years, and from what I’ve read of their history, they were in no hurry. Neither should we be.

A good cause to support…

My friend, David Le, is hosting a fundraiser for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of the Bay Area. It’s on Sat., Oct. 16, at his Garden Hortica garden center in Oakland, 668 Seventh Street, near Jack London Square.

The winery organizations of Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo County last night held a promotional dinner in San Francisco, the first time the organizations had collaborated, in a move that could mark a new era of increasing cooperation between such entities.

The dinner, at Spruce, was hosted jointly by the Paso Robles Wine County Alliance and the San Luis Obispo Vintners Association. Both have in the past “done their own thing,” so to speak, although the former has, in my experience, been much busier in hosting consumer events, while the latter — SLO County — has been a bit reticent.

It seemed to me there must have been a reason why the two organizations finally decided to get together — and it’s pretty obvious what the reason was and is: the economy, and the dour state of the wine industry. Tensions between rival wine regional organizations are nothing new, of course. Look at the skirmishes over Sonoma County’s new conjunctive labeling law, which is likely to be signed into law by the Governor any day now. (I blogged about it last month.)

I think in the case of Paso Robles and SLO County, Paso did such a good job establishing its reputation over the last ten years that they must have thought there was little to be gained, and perhaps much to be diluted, by conjoining themselves and their reputation to that of the county as a whole. And for that, you have to credit the P.R.W.C.A. and its skilled leadership, not to mention the vintners of Paso Robles. They’ve done a really tremendous job.

As for SLO County itself, my hunch is that they felt they didn’t really need to market themselves. Instead, they seemed to let their appellations — Edna Valley and Arroyo Grande Valley — and the fine wineries within them speak for themselves. SLO County placed its bet, as it were, on being a cool climate wine region, and it may be that they wanted to distance themselves from Paso Robles, which is perceived as hot.

But those calculations were thrown overboard when the economic climate turned sour. I don’t know who approached whom, in this case — who did the wooing and who was the wooed. I don’t know if any of the member wineries on either side said, Wait a minute, this isn’t really that good a deal for us. Certainly last night, all was happiness between the representatives of the two regions.

The bottom line is that everybody has to work together to get us through this mess. I know there’s always going to be some residual tension between regional organizations, especially those that are contiguous or nearly so, or in the same county. There’s rivalry between Napa and Sonoma, even between Rutherford and Oakville. But it’s a healthy rivalry, like the Red Sox and the Yankees — good for both teams, good for baseball.

The one thing I wonder about, in the case of SLO County, is whether the idea of an entire county marketing itself makes sense anymore. Counties are so big. They contain multitudes of terroirs. In every winegrowing county there are many rooms, each different, which makes it harder for a county to present a coherent message about its wines. In SLO’s case, aside from Paso Robles, they do have the Arroyo Grande and Edna valleys, which are utterly distinct places, within themselves and compared to each other. When you promote SLO County, does that tend to diminish Arroyo Grande and Edna? If SLO’s reputation rises, will wineries within Arroyo Grande and Edna be tempted to put SLO on the label, instead of their smaller valleys? Will we see conjunctive labeling come to SLO the way it did to Sonoma?

This all signifies that California’s appellations and the system in which they operate are undergoing profound changes. Regional leaders are rethinking their approach to almost everything related to marketing and P.R. In an economy as tough as this, they’ve got to pull every rabbit out of every hat they possibly can. There will be mistakes made, but I think it’s a good thing that the regional associations are showing greater signs of cooperation than in the past, and I applaud Paso Robles and SLO County for taking this step.

I’m going to write a piece on the Atlas Peak AVA in the January, 2011, edition of Wine Enthusiast, so I’m not about to spill the beans here! But I do want to segue into a topic I was reminded of during my drive around the mountain, yesterday, when my host was Jan Krupp, one of the partners in Stagecoach Vineyard.

He was talking about how the growers and winemakers on Atlas Peak want to be better known, since the general feeling (with which I agree) is that Napa Valley’s other mountain AVAs — Diamond, Veeder, Spring and Howell — are more famous and esteemed than Atlas Peak. Although there are some pretty good historic reasons why that is so (and I’ll write about them in January), it set me thinking about AVAs, their reputations, and the role the media plays in establishing the latter.

If you think about it, AVAs, or appellations, are basically political entities. Yes, they’re supposed to be based on real soil and climate patterns, and, yes, the U.S. Treasury Department, which has the responsibility of okaying them, makes petitioners jump through a lot of hoops to prove their case.

But what many people don’t know are all the compromises involved,  especially over precisely where the boundary lines are. I’ve never heard of an AVA application to Treasury that didn’t take years of wrangling over who would and who wouldn’t be included. And, as those of us know who’ve covered California for a while, some of the AVA lines make no sense at all. Jan Krupp, from a high point on his property, pointed out one of the Atlas Peak boundary lines to the west, and it seemed to go right through the middle of a field. Nothing at all to suggest why one side is Atlas Peak and, an inch away, you’re entitled only to “Napa Valley.”

So I wonder. Since Atlas Peak is an official AVA (since 1992), do we assume that there is something called “Atlas Peak terroir” simply because it’s an appellation? And do we media hounds then go out seeking that “Atlas Peak-ness” and, lo and behold, “find” something we dub “Atlas Peak terroir” ? Because, after all, if that’s the way things work, it’s pretty bass-ackwards, IMHO.

We stole, err, borrowed our AVA system from the French, who have had a lot longer to figure out appellations that are small and compact and really do make sense. I have no doubt that there’s a Côte-Rotie terroir. I believe there’s a Chambolle-Musigny terroir. Ditto for Pauillac. But then you have a day like I did, traversing up and down the mountain, looking at it from various perspectives, and you appreciate how complicated things really are up there. Different elevations, exposures, different soil patterns and, as Kan Krupp informed me, different weather patterns. When you throw in, on top of that, that some growers are less diligent than others, and some winemakers pay less attention to detail, you can see that defining “Atlas Peak terroir” is not as easy as it seems.

And yet, that’s never stopped wine writers from trying! As I will, when I write my article. For those of you who don’t have the pleasure of being employed as a wine writer, you should know (I’ll probably be killed for revealing this) that we take a sacred oath on entering the profession: “I swear to Tchelistcheff that I will discover terroir within every single appellation, and will faithfully write about it.”

I’d love to hear from some of my fellow wine writers: Do we sometimes write about appellations as if they’re God-given and must therefore possess some inherent truth of terroir? Is there more of a marketing angle to appellations than a natural one? Or do appellations actually have singular personalities that we can all agree upon?