As a California wine writer, I’ve watched with fascination when a winegrowing region becomes a certified superstar. It happened with Carneros in the 1980s, the Santa Lucia Highlands in the 1990s, and certainly with Santa Rita Hills in the 2000s. Each went from nowheresville (defined as: anyplace not in Napa Valley or Sonoma County) to the bigtime. These regions hit “the tipping point,” the phrase coined by Malcolm Gladwell in his 2000 book of that name. He defined tipping points as “the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable.”

So it was really interesting to come across this blog in the online magazine c-ville, the Charlottesville (Virginia) News & Arts. In it, the writer, J. Tobias Beard, a good wine blogger, exults in the blossoming of the wine industry in his state. Virginia currently has 140 wineries, and “our wine tastes damn good,” he says. (I haven’t had a Virginia wine in many years, so I don’t know, but I’ve heard good things.) The new industry catch phrase, Beard writes, is “Virginia wines are at the tipping point.” But, he asks, a little plaintively, “How can Virginia wine Tip when most Virginians won’t even tip it into their glasses?” Only 5% of all wine consumed in Virginia is produced there.

Beard answers his own question: “[M]ore marketing.  Or better. Or smarter.” He wants state government to spend more on promoting local wines, and he takes particular aim at “those PR people who work for distributors and wineries” who fail to get Virginia wine on store shelves and restaurant wine lists.

I can feel Beard’s pain. California was very lucky in that our industry has been famous for well over a century, and has been able to build on that tradition, not just in the state but nationally and internationally. Virginia, and each of the other states (all 50 now have at least one bonded winery), may produce wonderful wines, but they have their work cut out for them. There is one thing Virginia could do to boost its wine industry, however. According to someone who commented on Beard’s blog, Virginia “sadly has not allowed wineries to sell directly to stores and restaurants in the commonwealth,” the way most of them can in California.  I researched it, and it’s true: Virginia wineries used to be able to self-distribute, but that ended in 2006, when a U.S. District Court ruled the practice unconstitutional. Last year, the Virginia legislature passed a law allowing the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to serve as a wholesaler for small wineries, according to this report from virginiabusiness.com. A new division in the Department can now make direct sales, on behalf of the wineries, to restaurants and stores. Only about half the state’s winery’s have signed on, though, and the biggest wineries haven’t because the law limits them to only 3,000 cases per year. Sounds like a typical bureaucratic mess, in which the distributors’ hand has been heavily applied. All I know is, if Virginia wineries could sell more wine in their state, more Virginians would tip it into their glasses, and that tipping point wouldn’t seem so far away.

P.S. I’ll be down at the Paso Robles Harvest Wine Weekend, moderating a couple dinners, through the weekend. But I’ve pre-posted (is that a word?) a couple posts, and look forward to resuming contact next week. Take care until then.

Yesterday’s Reuters announcement that Amazon.com, the world’s biggest online retailer, will be selling wine starting next month hit the industry by storm. I got through to Terry Hall, the communications director for Napa Valley Vintners, late in the day.
SH: What role is NVV playing?
TH: We held a workshop for 29 wineries on Sept. 4 for them to meet the Amazon folks, and we’ll have another one on Sept. 12, with 50 wineries signed up.
Has Amazon been meeting with wineries in other parts of the state?
Well, 26 states are part of the program, based on reciprocity or on in-market pass-through distribution. Amazon’s been talking to wineries up and down the West Coast. They were in San Luis Obispo and were able to go door-to-door, but because of the number of wineries in Napa Valley, we did the workshops as a member service.
Can you tell me which wineries signed up for the workshops?
That’s not for the public record, but it ranges from small family wineries to large wineries.
Have people been expressing skepticism, or excitement, or what?
It’s information-gathering now.
How will the logistics work?
It’s a traditional Amazon direct-to-consumer model. They’ll use New Vine Logistics, the former wineshopper.com, in American Canyon, which has an incredible fulfillment facility. Amazon will store the wine in a temperature-secured location, and then sell it, through orders from the Amazon hub. Amazon makes money because they buy the wine FOB and sell at retail.
Why would a winery sell to Amazon instead of through their own direct-to-consumer program?
They don’t have to worry about staff or packaging. And Amazon’s staff will be able to make recommendations.
Amazon has a wine staff?
They have a group of wine buyers. The head is a guy named Nate Glissmeyer, based in Seattle. He contacted us for the program.
How much quantity is Amazon expected to handle?
It’s sort of infinite. They’re trying to get as many American wines online as possible.

The pesky issue of expanding existing AVAs has again arisen, this time with Gallo’s request to the TTB to expand the Russian River Valley boundaries. TTB announced, through their Industry Circular 2008-4, the proposed expansion late last week, explaining that Gallo Family Vineyards (the former Gallo of Sonoma) is requesting a 14,044-acre increase to the 126,600-acre appellation, or a little more than 10 percent. Gallo’s arguments are that the proposed expansion area lies within the Russian River Valley watershed; that the area historically has been considered part of Russian River Valley, and — perhaps most importantly — that the area “lies directly in the path of the fog that moves from the ocean into southern and central Sonoma County; thus, the same fog influences both the proposed expansion area and the current viticultural area.” Fog is, of course, the central rationale for a Russian River Valley AVA in the first place.

There is opposition to Gallo’s proposal. TTB reports “more than 50 pieces of correspondance opposing the petitioner’s proposed expansion,” with most of the writers asserting “that the proposed expansion area falls outside the coastal fog line and thus has a different climate than that of the current viticultural area.” TTB reports that the opponents “are mostly vineyard or winery owners from the current viticultural area” (although what that has to do with it, I don’t know). TTB doesn’t identify who the opponents are. This sentence in Industry Circular 2008-4, “…the assertions in the [opposing] correspondance were not accompanied by any specific data that contradicts the petitioner’s submitted evidence,” leads me to believe that the proposed expansion will be permitted.

I don’t know whether the proposed extension area is really “coastal cool” or not, and it probably doesn’t really matter. Remember Sonoma Coast? That bloated AVA just proves that, with enough money for lawyers and consultants, you can buy any AVA you want. Heck, they talk about cool coastal influence in Lodi and Temecula! It all makes me revert back to the idea that AVAs are meaningless.

I’m off to Seattle for a few days and will resume blogging this weekend. Meanwhile, please visit my other blog at Wine Enthusiast’s Unreserved.

Premier Pacific Vineyards, the big vineyard development company whose leaders include former Napa vintner William Hill, finds itself embroiled in a heated tussle with local environmentalists, including the Sierra Club and Friends of the Gualala River, over PPV’s plan to develop 1,800 acres of vineyards in the high coastal hills near Annapolis, on the Sonoma Coast. According to a report published in th Santa Rosa Press Democrat, PPV purchased the land in 2004 for $28.5 million. Despite the company’s promise to plant 1 million new trees, critics of the project worry that development will invariably harm the mountainous region’s ecosystem and diversity.

It’s always hard in a case like this to know who’s right. I know from experience that some of the more extreme environmentalists in western Sonoma are basically against any development of the land at all, which seems to me to be an unrealistic attitude. Some years ago, Marimar Torres told me how eco-terrorists repeatedly struck in the middle of the night, vandalizing her property and spraypainting roadsigns, because she wanted to develop a beautiful, organic, highly progressive vineyard in the Green Valley.

But I also know that a big corporate entity can be insensitive and ride roughshod over the concerns of locals. PPV owns many thousands of acres of vineyard from Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino, on up to Oregon and Washington and down into the Santa Rita Hills. When PPV first began development down in Santa Barbara, some vintners there privately expressed their concern that the area’s personality and natural infrastructure might be harmed. Yesterday I asked a friend of mine, who is a player in the Santa Rita Hills, what has been the local reaction to PPV, and he replied, “It is with no hesitation that I say that they have not been favorable shepherds of the land down here.  I fear that a lot of their development has been irresponsible (and dangerous for crews down the road) and they are unscrupulous about taking crews away from other farming companies.”

As I said, it’s hard to know who’s right. In the case of the Sonoma project, it’s on hiatus until an EIR has been completed. And even that might not satisfy some of those involved.

P.S. Please check my final word on the Spectator issue at Wine Enthusiast’s unreserved.

So now it’s official: The TTB this morning finally published a formal notice of rulemaking for a new Happy Canyon AVA in the easternmost reaches of the Santa Ynez Valley of Santa Barbara County. I first heard about Happy Canyon (the name conjures up images of the gods at play in some immortal realm) about ten years ago. It had become apparent by then that the Santa Ynez Valley proper was incapable of producing a Cabernet Sauvignon of high quality. It was too cool, which is why the push into Happy Canyon occurred by grapegrowers like Vogelzang, Dierberg and Westerly. The Santa Ynez Valley grows progressively warmer the further inland you go, so that if the temperature is, say, 94 in the town of Santa Ynez, it might be 98 at Dierberg’s Star Lane vineyard, in Happy Canyon. Those few degrees can make all the difference when it comes to ripening Cabernet.

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The tourists go to San Francisco, Napa and Sonoma. Some even venture into Berkeley. No one comes to poor old Oakland, but they should. We have a beautiful city with the best climate of any major U.S. city (from a Rand McNally survey), and despite the crime statistics, most sections of the city are perfectly safe.

I’ve lived here for 20 years now. Here are 5 cool places I go to and if you’re ever here, you should too.

Nan Yang: The best Burmese restaurant in Northern California, maybe in the whole state. I first discovered this gem when I moved here. It was then located in a little storefront in Oakland’s Chinatown. I quickly became an addict, in particular for the ginger salad, eight treasure bean curd, and (believe it or not), the chicken noodle soup, made not with matzah balls but coconut milk and ginger. Nan Yang is now located in the fashionable Rock Ridge District, not far from U.C. Berkeley, but the food is as good as ever, and founder Philip Chu still presides over the kitchen. (No web site)

Oliveto Cafe and Restaurant: For years it’s been considered one of the top Italian places in the Bay Area, with homemade pastas and salumi. Even though longtime chef Paul Bertolli left a few years ago, his replacement, CIA grad Paul Canales, hasn’t missed a beat. Oliveto’s upstairs dining room, with its views of bustling College Avenue, is where I always meet visiting winemakers when we’re having lunch and tasting. The waiters set us up with big crystal glasses, we take a table in the corner, and no matter what we’re drinking, Oliveto’s food seems to adapt to it. Or the other way around.

Paul Marcus Wines: Just downstairs from Oliveto, in the Market Hall (a collection of little food stores), is this smallish but interesting wine shop, which has been there at least since I can remember. Seldom does a week go by than I don’t stop by for something. They offer a range of small producers from France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Spain, California and other countries, and the staff is knowledgeable and happy to chat. They don’t have a tasting bar, but are starting to have special wine and food pairing events.

Bay Wolf: Well, I don’t exactly hang out at Bay Wolf. It’s too expensive. But I do like to eat there once or twice a year and I have for the last 20 years. Other restaurants come and go; Bay Wolf remains. Founded 30 years ago by chef Michael Wild, Bay Wolf was part of the East Bay culinary scene that also gave rise to Alice Waters and Chez Panisse. Wolf’s idol was Elizabeth David, and the kitchen still sticks to the ideals of seasonally fresh, local ingredients and simple preparation. Bay Wolf also has an amazing wine list, and on any given night, you might run into a famous winemaker.

Vine: One of the neatest phenomena about Oakland is the proliferation of wine bars that’s sprouted up in the last year or so. Who woulda thunk, wine bars in Oakland!! Yet they’re all over the place, and apparently doing well. My favorite is right in my neighborhood. Vine is the town’s hottest wine bar. They use those nitrogen machines to offer dozens of mainly small (500 cases or less) production wines by the glass, or you can buy a “tasting ticket” for $20 minimum. The space is a refurbished old building, with brick walls and loft-high ceilings, and owner Chris Williams is expanding upstairs and outside for summer grilling and barbecuing. The crowd is young, hip and very Oaktownish. They have live music.