Wash. bloodmobile offers beer to blood donors

“A Washington state blood center is offering donors a deal: Give a pint of blood, get a pint of beer.” Fine for a ragamuffin state like Washington, which has little to offer, besides seafood in Seattle. (What, you like Yakima?) But this is California! We can do better. How about for each ounce of blood, a glass of Chardonnay, some Dungeness crab, and a hunk of sourdough with butter.

Sorry, Dan. I disagree!

I’ll defer to no one in my admiration for Dan Berger, but he’s off the mark when he writes, in yesterday’s Santa Rosa Press Democrat, of “The sad decline of cabernets.” He calls Cab “more than a parody of itself,” a “mediocrity…I cannot figure out why so many people are still buying them.”

I understand, of course, what Dan is talking about. There are a great many bad Cabernets. Without going into too much detail, they’re boring, over-oaked, simple nuisances, and they often cost too much. I, too, don’t know why anyone would buy them. But you could say that about anything in California, including Pinot Noir. Besides, Cabernet is the biggest-production red wine in California, so you’d expect there to be an ocean of plonk. Is it any different in Bordeaux? Je ne le croit pas. On the other hand we have Cabernets to die for. Just in the last 3 months, here are a few that have thrilled me: 2006 Cardinale, 2005 Reserve and Estate from Trefethen, a  pair of 2006s from two wineries previously unknown to me, Redmon and Napa Angel, a pair of ‘06 Hestans (regular and Stephanie), and various bottlings from Rodney Strong, Baldacci and Freemark Abbey. No flies on Frank, as we used to say.

Joel Aiken is looking for work

Did you know he left Beaulieu last June, after 27 years? It was very quiet. There was a minor contretemps with Diageo. “I’d wanted to make my own wine for a long time,” Joel told me. “Diageo said ‘Maybe,’ but it never happened.” He also grew weary of “all the meetings in a company of that size.” When you’re stuck in a meeting you’re not making wine and that’s what he wants to do.

Joel’s new wine project, which is yet to be named, will consist of a pair of 2009s: a Sonoma Mountain Pinot Noir from Silver Pines Vineyard (source of excellent Pinots for Tandem), and a Howell Mountain Cabernet. Joel also wants to increase his consulting. “I can help people in a couple ways at high-end winemaking.” If I was making wine and needed help I’d certainly turn to this former protege of Andre Tchelistcheff. You can reach him at 707-337-0584.

WTF?

Maybe it’s just me, but when a passenger drinks five airplane-sized bottles of wine, then goes into the plane’s lavatory where he takes off his shoes, socks and shirt, and then refuses to come out when flight attendants so request, and then accuses the flight crew of being disrespectful, I’d throw him behind bars without a get out of jail card. His name was Muhammad Abu Tahir, but even if it had been Steve Heimoff, he was behaving like an asshole. Don’t people understand that you can’t do stuff like that anymore? Book him, Dano.

The Pattern Is Changing-Here Come the Storms

That’s the header from AccuWeather describing how the El Nino may finally be kicking in. “It now looks like next week we could be seeing a series of major storms…heavy to very heavy rain and snow over all of California.” (It’s just begun raining here in Oakland as I type these words.) The forecast has all the winemakers buzzing. Once the ground is saturated, how much more precip can it absorb? We want and need the water to end the drought, but nobody wants flooding or mudslides. Stay tuned.

I don’t get it

It’s rare for me to admit puzzlement, but I confess I don’t know why Sarah Palin has agreed to address The Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America’s convention next April. I’m assuming that everything SP does is to get her elected President in 2012. How could this help? Campaign donations, obviously, from a powerful lobby. Sarah and her hubby, Todd, don’t seem like fine wine drinkers to me. More like beer types — not that there’s anything wrong with beer! But why did WSWA invite La Palin? Tom Wark, do you know the answer?

* * * Please help the people of Haiti * * *

I enjoyed Tom Wark’s blog yesterday where he reported on his readership. Tom frequently writes about his inner state of mind — his feelings. Now, you might wonder why a wine blogger’s inner state of mind would be of importance or interest to readers. The readers of a technology blog or one on the petroleum industry might not want to hear about the blogger’s inner life, and might even be put off if the blogger admitted to having an inner life. But for wine blogs, the rules are different, which is proven by the fact that Fermentation remains the most read blog in America.

I think I know why. It’s because wine drinkers are different.

After all, wine is one of the few (legal) consumer products out there that actually alters the psyche of the person consuming it. (Well, maybe you could include chocolate on that list.) When all the swirling and sniffing and tasting is done, the fact remains that our brains get high from a glass or 4 of vino. Our perceptions and moods change, and for the better, in my (considerable) experience. We get more mellow and relaxed, more social, less stressed out. Drinking wine reminds us that the essence of our state of mind is benign and loving — qualities that can get seriously unhinged during the craziness of the business day.

I think wine drinkers, and people in the wine business, have richer and more liberal interior lives than the average person because we drink more. Is that controversial to say? Very well, than I am controversial. Blame it on Bacchus. It may be that wine drinkers were drawn to wine in the first place due to greater creativity and imagination and generosity of spirit. (Why is it that so many religious conservatives don’t drink alcohol, or, if they do, stick to beer or hard liquor, accusing wine of being — gasp — for effeminate, brie-chewing lefties?) The most interesting people I know all love wine. They combine pleasant, funny personalities with an introspective bent, intellectual curiosity and a progressive compassion. There are a lot of authentic people in the wine business. That’s why industry folk read Fermentation. Tom wears his heart and mind on his sleeve, and people relate.

But there is such a thing as too much…

Down in the Peachtree State, a judge ruled that the mistress of a deceased millionaire was not entitled to the $7,900 a month his will bequeathed her, because she was “a canny manipulator who used sex and alcohol to influence [him] into changing his will.” Seems that the guy “was drinking more than a gallon of wine a day by the time he made changes to his will…”. Yikes. I am assuming it was not wine, and if it was, it was Two Buck Chuck, not Petrus.

Best non-wine headline of the week

From the N.Y. Daily News: Neighbors thought dead man on balcony was Halloween display

Sounds like one of those “only in New York” stories, but in this case, it was in El Lay.

The House that K-J Built

Huge wine warehouse soon to open in American Canyon trumpets the Napa Valley Register.

Kendall-Jackson will use the 650,000-square foot building, the size of 9 football fields, to consolidate existing distribution facilities. Background to the story: The warehouse connects to Union Pacific’s rail line via newly built spurs. This will greatly decrease K-J’s carbon footprint because they won’t have to depend on trucks so much. It’s also an economic booster shot for American Canyon, a burgeoning city between Napa and Vallejo. K-J officials tell me that although the huge new facility was planned before the Recession, there are no financial problems. Sounds like a win-win for everybody: K-J, AmCan, the environment. It’s also a throwback to a bygone era: Viticulture developed in the Alexander Valley in the 19th century because the trains ran through it, connecting the North Coast to the Bay Area.

Wine and health? Don’t worry, just drink the stuff

Wine prevents cancer.

Wine causes cancer.

Red wine prevents cancer. White wine prevents cancer. It doesn’t matter.

Wine is good for your bones. Wine is bad for your bones.

Wine protects the heart.

Wine causes heart attacks.

I don’t know about you, but I’m bored with this constant bombardment of the latest, contradictory medical bulletins on wine’s effect on health. People, get a grip! Don’t drink wine just because you think it’s good for you, and don’t not drink wine just because you think it’s bad for you. Drink wine if you like it. You’ll die when you die.

Hello, how are you, now bugger off

The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, in its wisdom, has decided that state store workers have to be more courteous, and is paying a consulting firm $173,000 to train them to say “hello,” “thank you” and “come again.”

This is what you get when you don’t trust the free market to sell alcohol, but give it to state bureaucrats. Well, I’d like to thank you all for reading my blog (and pardon me if I forgot to welcome you). And at the end of this, I’ll say goodbye, and give you a big, bright smile. Please come again, say hi to the Missus/Mister, pat your dog, and don’t forget to have a nice day!

If Bernie Madoff sold wine

he might have come up with something like this, which would justify the life sentence he’s likely to receive:

Seems a British investment bank is seeking wealthy investors to put up a minimum of 500,000 pounds (about $692,000) to buy into a “Bordeaux fund.”

Well, if the conventional wisdom is to buy low, sell high, then Bordeaux just might be a good buy these days. After all, sales are plummeting, and the latest vintage, 2008, seems questionable.

Thoughts on Bill Foley

I wondered why Bill Foley bought Kuleto because,  to be honest, the brand hasn’t exactly been a superstar. The Cabernets are all right, but are under-performing for their price bracket, and the other reds are hit-and-miss. But then, Foley  seems to like investing in wineries that aren’t living up to their potential, like Firestone and Sebastiani. It’s too early to say if he can turn things around, but I think he can. The guy’s got good taste; without taste, all the money in the world is worthless.

Goodbye! Have a nice day, and don’t forget to come again tomorrow!