And while we are focusing on apple trees,

here is a shot of one of our MANY old apple trees at our Woodland WA place. Finnish immigrants planted these trees up to 100 years ago. They are standard trees (when did dwarfing rootstocks come into use?) so they are too tall, but wow just look at those flowers!

Wine Inflation

Wine's up in price by 8.4% in restaurants over the past six months.

And yet interest paid on savings is less than half a percent, and the published inflation rate is less than 1%.

The runup in the cost of a glass of wine is mostly due to the economic recovery and a growing shortage of wines. That is surprising, as there was a large glut of wine until recently.

Read the article here.

You can still save a lot by taking your own bottle to the restaurant and paying corkage. Even with corkage as high as $25, you will likely save money. And don't let the server fill your glasses--that is your job. You are the best person to know if and when you and your guests want more wine; if your server just pours the wine arbitrarily and repeatedly, it can waste some wine and prevent the opening in the glass that you may be waiting for.

Wine as a living thing

Wine as a living thing? Well, yes, it is born and it dies and it can get sick and it has personality, but it can't pay taxes or make babies (on second thought, sometimes it can make babies ;)

I mean it's a living thing in the same sense that the Constitution is a living document: It is always changing over time.

And before we castigate only poor Mr. Pinot Noir for its ephemeralissitude, its changeability, let us realize that most wines change over time. Long-keepers will climb, slowly, into greater balance and harmony, their fresh fruit flavors subtly morphing into non-fruit flavors, and finally they begin the long, majestic march into decay. A sprightly white wine will settle down and come together in its first few months in bottle, and if it is a short-keeper (think Viognier, or Prosecco), its freshness will fade into blah within a year or two. And every wine with big tannins will get smoother as those tannins find each other and chain up into lengths so long that our tongues can no longer detect them (think about that! getting bigger, in order to become invisible!)

And some wines are like the screwballs uncorked from the pitcher's mound: they change in unexpected directions, and sometimes identical bottles will diverge from each other and then come back together, inexplicably.

This is why we must view wine scores as approximate snapshots in time. It is why a 92 point wine might seem unimpressive when we drink it, whereas an 82 point wine might blow us away before or after it's scored.

Is there volition in Evolution? Can we do anything but be amazed, and keep trying to learn?

Happy Spring!

2012 Bordeaux futures, and why the Chinese "Lafite Bubble" popped

The 2012 Bordeaux futures are coming out, at great discounts from previous years. This is happening for two reasons:
a. The 2012 growing season saw poor weather in SW France, and many of the lesser chateaux made poor wines. However, early scores for the better wines (First and Second Growths, and some others) are surprisingly high (such as 95-98 for Lafite).
b. Wealthy Chinese businesspeople  and people in government there are under pressure to stop spending a lot for wine at business and government functions. Whereas, a few years ago, they would drink several Lafites at a business lunch (!), now they buy at that level occasionally or not at all, and are asking their wine brokers to find them good wines for $6-$20 (which is a space I have worked hard to develop, for my own customers).

There are some (relatively) good values in 2012 Bordeaux. I'll search for them and offer some, as the price is not likely to go any lower in this improving economy.

Read the Spectator article here.

Siberian Apple

Most apple blossoms are white, but on this Siberian Apple they are pink. Very pretty. The apple is small and tubular/elongated with red skin and dark pink flesh.

The rebirth of Spring!

Lest we forget what is the miracle of the rebirth of Springtime, I attach a photo of my New York Muscat vine budding out, in Portland OR in 2013. From within the dead-looking stick, the juices of life flow to meet the sun. Through these tiny leaves will erupt many feet of shoot growth, and clusters of fruit! Little wonder there is a grape variety (not the one in this pic) called "Phoenix"! 

Let's all take a moment to dwell on how lucky we are to be a part of this rebirth, and let's think on how we can rebirth ourselves, and what we can do to help preserve a healthy Spring for all (humans,and flora and fauna).

P.S. - Notice how the bud erupts above that darker ridge running perpendicular to the cane? If you are rooting a grape vine cutting and you aren't sure which end is the "leaf" end and which is the "root" end (and it absolutely does matter, critically), you can figure it out easily just by knowing the leafbud is above that crossing ridge in the cane. Stated another way, from that crossing ridgeline, the leaf's bud is on the "leaf end" of that ridge, so the roots will emerge from the other end of your cutting.

Ouch: Resveratrol's benefits are limited to thin drinkers

Red wine's health benefits are blocked in persons who are overweight.

Read about the study here.

Growing grapes? Consider hoyos.

Look at this:

(photo credit: canarywinecompany.com)

Yes, those are holes dug out of volcanic soil, in the Canary Islands, which protect the grapes from wind and also collect some dew and the occasional raindrop.  This is yet another fascinating example of adapting to local conditions in grapegrowing. Just don't try it in western Oregon ;)

And: That is a Malvasia grape, a popular white grape that is almost unknown in the US.

Ecological effects of vineyards pushing into new places

See this article.

As the heat builds in the southern climes, vineyards are pushing northward. Whereas the Romans grew winegrapes in southern Britain, for 2000 years afterward it wasn't possible, until starting about 10-20 years ago, winegrapes are making a comeback there. In southern British Columbia, vast areas have been planted to winegrapes, with great success, in areas that were formerly just grassland/desert. Places like Greece and southern Spain will be the losers (as might also be Napa Valley).  In the Willamette Valley our grandchildren may see  Pinot Noir give way to Syrah, and Pinot might become more successful around the Puget Sound.

It would be wrong to bet against such trends.

Meanwhile, the planting of vineyards in former wild places does have an impact on flora and fauna. That can be mitigated somewhat by use of modern hybrid grapes, which require less or no spray to control fungal and other diseases, and by using organic practices and avoiding irrigation. But the grapegrower must fence to keep out animals like deer, and this changes the ecological system. Study is needed to learn how to minimize the adverse effects of such changes. Perhaps vineyard areas need to remain surrounded by woodlands and grasslands that remain accessible to wildlife. This is what we have at our Woodland WA vineyard, the Epona Vineyard.

(the photo is of a vineyard in Cornwall, England. Photo credit: The Guardian, UK.)

Bloomberg wrong on wine

John Mariani writes wine for Bloomberg. I think this piece by him is way off base:

He mentions just a few higher-priced Washington reds and finds them one-dimensional, too big, and too hot (alcohol too high).  My inference (perhaps he didn't quite mean this) was that he dismissed all WA reds with a broad brush.

Hmm.

I have had so many great WA red wines. They are nuanced, deep, not too alcoholic, and a great value compared to the CA or French wines which Mariani probably prefers. I've never thought much of Woodward Canyon's wines--every time I try them I come away underwhelmed. And for Mariani to refrain from mentioning some of Charles Smith's greater wines, while making an offhand reference to his $10 Riesling, is the height of ignorance, as Smith's top-end wines are outstanding. And why no mention of Cayuse or Quilceda Creek wines? It's almost as if this guy was hired to do a hatchet job on WA wines. No one who understands good wine could fairly write what this guy wrote.

Keep drinking WA wines! Maybe if the arrogant outsiders stay away for a little longer, we can continue enjoying great wines at lower prices!

Finding wines that you will probably like: a step in the right direction

A company has created software which aggregates your and other wine tasters' scores on a wine, and uses the data to predict whether you will like certain other wines.

That is a step in the right direction, but a better predictive product would merely use our personal preferences for the following spectrums:

Fruit Ripeness: from banana/green/peppery through red fruits, through purple fruits, through black fruits, to raisins and tar.

Body: from thin to rich/fat

Residual Sugar: from bone dry to super-sweet

Acid (quantity of acid): from flabby to sharp

pH (strength of acid): from weak to strong

Complexity: from simple to layered

Aromatics: from none to faint to lush olfaction

Finish: from none to long

Tannins: from young and sharp to aged and subtle

These would be adjusted differenly for white and red wines, of course. And some of those spectra are matters of personal preference, whereas others are more clearly "good" or "not as good," but you usually can't find a long finish in a super-cheap wine. At any rate, once we knew our own preferences on those spectrums, then if each wine label were labeled to show those spectrums with that wine's marker in each category, we would have a good chance of knowing if we would like that wine. We will always know the price, of course, so we can compare price to the various qualitative data points, and voila! we are out of the wine woods and we are an educated wine consumer (as to that wine).

Compare this pipe dream to today's wine label, which often tells us almost nothing about the above criteria. The winemaker knows all that info; why not share it with us?

You can read the article here.

2012 Bordeaux Right Bank (St. Emilion): Mixed Bag

In the Portland, Oregon area, where 2012 went down as a very good vintage, and the Pinot Noirs are expected to be full of fruit and rich, due to great summer and harvest weather (though with some drought stress/raisining, in some vineyards). However, in France it was quite different:

The weather there was "appalling" at the beginning of summer, with hailstorms in April, rain for most of June, and a heatwave in week 3 of August, during which temps in Bordeaux reached 42C (116F) which caused the vines to shut down and the fruit to burn. Then it rained on the harvest.

Yet many of the better chateaus will make wine that is very drinkable. But it is not a year for Bordeaux futures.

The occurrence of a year like 2012 in France (or 2011 in Oregon) makes the great years (2008 and 2012 here, and 2009 and 2010 in France) all the more special. There is a reassuring harmony to the ebb and flow of good and poor grape years, which serves to remind us of what is good in life, what is special, and what is worth holding onto.

The entire article can be found here.

The photo is of St. Emilion, the queen village of the Right Bank. So lovely to visit (we have, and fell in love with the old buildings, the hilliness, and the people), and the Merlot-dominated wines can be exquisite there. (Photo credit: TripAdvisor.com)

Smoke from 2012 wildfires in Washington state a factor for wine quality?

This is interesting: Wildfires in eastern Washington last summer (2012) put a smoke haze over parts of the state for days. Smoke particles can come to rest on grape skins, and thus end up in the finished wine (I suppose the smoke could be rinsed off, but that is not practicable in the case of many tons of grapes and it could dilute the wine flavors, and if the smoke somehow binds to the grape then you have an unremovable flaw.

However, the Walla Walla wineries don't think they were impacted by this; I'm not sure where the smoke clouds were located.

Apparently the effects of smoke on wine will increase with the wine's age, so any damage won't be known right away. The damage would be worse with red grapes, where the smoke flavor could obscure the fruit flavors. However, since some white winegrapes are aged in burnt barrels (that's behind the name "Fume Blanc," for example), smokiness in a white wine can be a plus. And in a small amount it's just another beneficial flavor in a red wine.

We should know, over the next few years, whether and to what extent any WA wineries were impacted. Meanwhile, funding for remote firefighting is dropping, and the number of fires is increasing . . .

Read the article here.

[photo credit: Al Feldstein. Amazing artworks of his can be seen here.

Pesticides in Wines; this is another reason why we should move to hybrids!

(Source: The first part of this post is lifted verbatim from portlandfoodanddrink, which can and should be found here)

We’re all gonna die! Nine out of ten French wines contain pesticides. According to a study in the wine trade journal Decanter, pesticide residues were found in the vast majority of 300 French Wines. 90 percent of samples contained traces of at least one of the chemicals.

Some wines contained up to nine separate molecules, with ‘anti-rot’ fungicides the most commonly found. These are often applied late in the growing season.

…Since 2008, France’s Ecophyto national plan (involving the study of the ways in which organisms are adapted to their environment) has sought to cut pesticide use by 50% by 2018.

From Mother Jones -

Encouragingly, all of the individual pesticide residues appeared at levels below limits set by the French environmental agency. But some samples turned up with as many as nine separate pesticides. And as I’ve written before, groups of pesticides may have so-called “cocktail” or “synergistic” effects—that is, a pesticide mix may be more toxic than the sum of its parts. As Pascal Chatonnet, head of the research firm that conducted the test of French wines, told Decanter, “There is a worrying lack of research into the accumulation effect, and how the [pesticide] molecules interact with each other.”

Plus, as Chatonnet pointed out to Decanter, “we should not forget that it is not the consumers who are most impacted by this, it is the vineyard workers who are applying the treatments.”

The class of pesticides that showed up most often were fungicides. According to Decanter, vineyards occupy just 3 percent of French farmland, but account for 20 percent of the nation’s overall pesticide use and 80 percent of its fungicide use.

A 2008 study found similar amounts in wines from Australia, South Africa and Chile. Interestingly, the author didn’t find any studies of the pesticide levels in American wines.

[Kenton writing:] The hybrid grapes (or "modern varieties") I'm working with don't need antifungal sprays in the PacNW. Thus, there is no chance of fungicide residue in the wines from such grapes. Yet another reason to switch from vinifera to hybrid winegrapes!

Botanical wine corks?

Nomacorc is developing a cork made from sugar and corn. No, really. At first it will be blended with their current oil-based plastic synthetic cork material, but the hope is that eventually the entire cork can be made from plant (vegetative) products. The material will be made in a variety of porosities, enabling different rates of oxygen intrusion, at the preference of the winemaker.

Awesome!

Read the article here.

I wrote this:

Wines, much like people, are continuing expressions of the climate in which they were raised.

[photo credit: 123RF ]

We're Number One!

The U.S., that is.

And I'm not talking about our public debt.

We're #1 in wine consumption. Other countries drink more wine per capita, but we drink the most by total volume consumed. Americans consumer 13% of global wine consumption now. Foreign wines make up 35% of all sales here.

Read the article here.

[photo credit: archive.citycaucus.com ]

Why are some winegrapes blue, yet the wines are purple or red?

I couldn't have answered this for you, but Mr. Alex Fullerton, a winemaker and friend, came to the rescue. I quote him:

Anthocyanins (the main pigment in red wine, red cabbage, blueberries, and many other things) are responsible for both the blue color in the grapes' skins and the purple color of the wine. Anthocyanins have a double bond that is formed at one of two different locations of the molecule depending on which location is more favorable, resulting in the molecule having two very different shapes it can take. In high pH it is more favorable for most of the molecules to twist one way resulting in blue hues, while in low pH it is more favorable for most of the molecules to twist the other way resulting in red/pink hues. The skins on the Monastrell grapes are very alkaline resulting in the blue color while the wine is more acidic (but not extremely acidic, maybe around pH 3.8) causing a purple color (roughly half of the pigment is blue and the other half is red, red + blue = purple). A very acidic Burgundy on the other hand with pH under 3.5 will appear very red.

And, from Wiki:

Anthocyanins (from the Greek words for "flower" and "blue") can appear red, purple, or blue, depending upon the pH. In flowers and fruits, anthocyanins make the color red, blue, or purple, in order to attract pollinating insects (in the case of flowers) or predators (in the case of fruits, which need predators to eat and then disperse the seeds in the fruit).


There is nothing cooler than science.

[Photo attribution: Shutterstock.com]

Washington wine vs California wine

Summarizing from a very interesting article:

California grows about TWENTY TIMES more tons of grapes than Washington. (And yet, WA is #2 behind CA! so no other state comes even as pathetically un-close as does WA to CA.) But Washington's harvested grape prices are more than California's. That is because CA makes so much cheap (jug) wine. When we compare just Napa or Sonoma to WA, it's very interesting:  The tonnage for all of WA is about the same as for either Napa or Sonoma. But the price per harvested ton in WA is only 28% (!) of the price in Napa! This is because of Napa's stratospheric land prices, and its premium prices for top brand names.

Given all the great scores for so many WA wines, you can see why I believe that WA is making great quality wines for the cost. For the most part, CA just can't compete on QPR (quality price ratio). Many of your wine dollars need to be going towards Washington wines!

Washington Grapes

For the first time, in 2012 Washington State saw more red grapes picked than white.

The big four Washington wine grapes are:

1. Chardonnay (36,900 tons)
2. Riesling (36,700 tons)
3. Cabernet Sauvignon (35,900 tons)
4. Merlot (34,600 tons)

Nothing else comes close to those in WA, although there are enough other reds grown there (Syrah, Malbec, Cab Franc, etc.) that overall the reds edged out the whites for the first time.