Who Doesn’t love a good list?

Who doesn’t love a good Pinot Noir?

Who doesn’t love a great Pinot Noir Event?

Here you’ll find all three:

PINOT DAYS SAN FRANCISCO
Saturday, June 16th
200 Pinot Producers
Below is the killer list!
Here’s how you get tickets

Abiouness Wines
Alma Rosa Winery & Vineyards
Alta Maria Vineyards
Amalie Robert Estate
Ancient Oak Cellars
Arista Winery
August West
Bailiwick Wines
Baxter Winery
Belle Glos Wines
Benovia Winery
Bien Nacido Vineyards
Big Basin Vineyards
Big Table Farm
Brandborg Vineyard and Winery
Buena Vista Winery
C.Donatiello Winery
Cameron Hughes Wine
Cargasacchi Wines
Cartograph
Chanin Wine Company
Clos Pepe Vineyards
Clos Saron
Clouds Rest Vineyards
Cornerstone Cellars Oregon
Couloir Wines
CRU Wine Company
Cuvaison Estate Wines
Davis Family Vineyards
De Novo Wines
De Tierra Vineyards
DeLoach Vineyards
Derby Wine Estates
Dierberg Vineyard
Domaine Chandon
Domaine Serene
Donum Estate
Dragonette Cellars
DUNSTAN Wines – Durell Vineyard
Dutton-Goldfield Winery
El Porteno Empanadas
Encanto Vineyards, LLC
Eric Kent Wine Cellars
Expression Pinot Noir
Failla
Farm Fresh to You
Fess Parker Winery
Fort Ross Vineyard & Winery
Foursight Wines
FOXEN
Freeman
Furthermore Pinot Noir
Gary Farrell Winery
Gloria Ferrer Caves & Vineyards
Goldeneye Winery
Grandstand Sports Inc
Gundlach Bundschu Winery
Gypsy Canyon Winery
Hahn Family Wines
Handley Cellars
Hitching Post Wines
Ideal 55
Inception Wines
Inman Family Wines
JCB by Jean-Charles Boisset
John Tyler
Joie de Vivre
Joseph Phelps Vineyards
Joseph Swan Vineyards
Kanzler Vineyards
Keefer Ranch Wines
Keller Estate
Kendric Vineyards
Kenneth Volk Vineyards
Kerrygold Cheese
Ketcham Estate
Kokomo Wines
La Follette Wines
La Rochelle Winery
Ladd Cellars
Landmark Vineyards
Le Cadeau
Longfellow Wine Company
Loring Wine Company
Lost Canyon Winery
MacPhail Family Wines
MacRostie Winery
Mahoney Vineyards
MANZONI ESTATE VINEYARD
Martinelli Winery
Masut Vineyard and Winery
Meiomi
Mercy Vineyards
Miner Family Winery
Morgan Winery
Native9 Wine
New Zealand Winegrowers
Olivia Brion Winery
Olson Ogden Wines
Orentano
Oris-Swiss watches since 1904
Pali Wine Company
Papapietro Perry Winery
Paraiso Vineyards
Parducci Wine Cellars & Paul Dolan Vineyards
Pessagno Winery
Peter Paul Wines
Philo Ridge Vineyards
Poe Wines
Ray Franscioni Wines
Rex Hill Vineyards
richard berridge wine
Riverbench Vineyard & Winery
Roadhouse Winery
Robert John Russo Gallery
Robert Stemmler Winery
Roessler Cellars
Romililly Wines
Russian Hill Estate Winery
Scherrer Winery
Second Glass Inc
Sequana Vineyards
Siduri Wines
Sierra Madre Vineyard
Sinor-LaVallee
Small Vines Wines
Sojourn Cellars
Stoller Vineyards
Stomping Girl Wines
Suacci Carciere Wines
Talley Vineyards
Tantara Winery
Test Winery
Testarossa Winery
Thomas Fogarty Winery
Thomas George Estates
Thorne Wine
Tolosa Winery
Tondre Wines
Truchard Vineyards
Truffle Gateau
Twomey Cellars
Veramonte
VML Winery
Wait Cellars
Waits-Mast Family Cellars
White Rose Estate
Willamette Valley Vineyards
Willowbrook Cellars
Wilson Daniels
Winderlea Vineyard and Winery
Wines of Germany
Wrath
Wren Hop Vineyards
Zagat
ZD Wines

How Awesome is that!!??

Some truths are uncomfortable.

The Experts Are the Best Sources of Wine Info and Recommendations
The tendancy to disparage “wine experts” or “wine elite” grows as the role of social media and peer reviews grow. Yet the fact remains that the experts are the best and most reliable source of information on wine. Folks like Eric Asimov, Robert Parker, Jim Laube, Jancis Robinson, Steve Heimoff, Charles Olken, Dan Berger, Lettie Teague, Jon Bonne and other well known experts are the one’s with the experience to best understand wine and best provide well-founded recommendations and critiques. There is no way around the fact that experience = expertise. It doesn’t matter if you are talkinb about archeology, Rock n Roll, cheese, interior decorating or wine.

Expensive Wine Is Almost Always Better
While I realize that, like beauty, taste is in the palate of the beholder, it is a fact that a more expensive wine is likely to be a higher quality wine. The price of wine is generally dependant upon three things: the cost of production, the supply and the demand. More expensive wines almost always cost more to make because the they use better ingredients (grapes, barrels, winemakers, etc), because the demand for the wines are higher, and the supply is generally limited. I’ve argued in the past that pronouncements of quality are entirely subjective. But within the world of consensus understandings, we will almost always understand that more expensive wines are appreciated in greater degree than less expensive wines.

Few People Know What They are Talking About When It Comes to Terroir
We talk a lot about “terroir” and the taste of the soil in this business and industry. We all submit that translating the terroir into the bottle is paramount to the process. Yet the fact is, 99.9% of folks who talk about this sort of thing could not pick a Russian River Valley Pinot out of a line up that also included a Santa Barbara, New Zealand, and Carneros Pinot. And let’s not even talk about trying to identify a Pinot from one vineyard and a Pinot from another vineyard a mile down the road. The implications of this uncomfortable truth are many, not the least of which is the role that faith plays in the area of wine appreciation.

Natural Wine Isn’t Natural
Lots of talk of “natural” wine these days. More producers, retailers, wine bars and events are dedicated to the stuff. But “natural” is to wine as California Sparkling wine is to Champagne. It isn’t that. “Natural” wine is processed grape juice and the processing and manipulation begins in the vineyard and ends with the marketing.

Ratings Sell LOTS of Wine
Despite the constant din of criticism of ratings and the 100 Point rating system in particular, ratings sell big time. And the 100 Point rating system is a huge driver of sales. If you don’t think so, talk to the winemaker that just got their first 95 point rating from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate or the Wine Spectator. Then ask them, would you rather have a string of tweets about your great wine or a 95 point rating from Robert Parker.

Driving the California Wine Routes Can Be Dangerous To Your Health
Driving along Highway 29 in Napa Valley, Highway 12 in Sonoma Valley or Westside Road in the Russian River Valley around 5pm on a Saturday can be very dangerous to your health. The problem is that so many folks who have just consumed way too much wine are on the roads. They may have been sipping, but in many cases it has been an all day sipping affair that is in reality and all-day drinking affair. This uncomfortable truth has yet to affect the local hospitality industry in substantial ways, but it just could in coming years when the next terrible tradjedy happens.

Too Much Wine Marketing Relies On The Idea That “You Can Be Better Than Them”
If you drink this wine, if you consume wines from this area, if you visit this wine region, you’ll be a better, more sophisticated person than your neighbor. That, in a nutshell, is the basis of a great deal of wine-related marketing: being a “wine person” makes you a “better person”. It is not an unusual marketing message. In fact, it is a message common to most luxury good products. But it is a little distasteful.

I wonder if the percentage of couples where both people work in the same industry is higher in Napa Valley than in other part of the country. I wonder this because my Kathy and I are such a couple and as I mentally survey our list of local friends and acquaintances, I note our condition afflicts many of them.

Today is the first anniversary of my marriage to my Kathy. Last year at this time I woke with an air of anticipation, knowing that in a few hours important vows would be exchanged in front of friends and family, public declarations of our commitment to one another would be expressed, our social status would be altered, the solemnity of our new bond would be reiterated and explored by the Rabbi, and I would stand in front of everyone and silently wonder how I got so lucky to have found Kathy while I simultaneously hoped and prayed she would not come to her senses.

The ceremony went off without a hitch and Kathy remained for all of it. We celebrated Kathy not coming to her sense wth a reception where food and wine were liberally dispensed. At that reception were numerous other Wine Industry Couples, a club Kathy and I had recently joined.

There are some very interesting things about being a Wine Industry Couple that I’ve noticed over the past 12 months. But the most prominent thing common to Wine Industry Couples (and likely common to couples who work in the same industry outside of wine) is the way in which your world becomes condensed.

You hear the same gossip, separately. You read the same news. You receive the same invitations to the same events. You work the same events, separately. You face similar occupational dilemmas. You develop a short-hand language for discussing daily happenings.

I cannot tell you how often either Kathy or I say  to one another, “Did you hear about xyz” and the other responds, “I did, Soandso told me.” And the other responds, “Oh, I just saw SoandSo”.

It all becomes quite normal after a while, this similarity of experience and people, places and events. But, having experienced conditions different from Kathy and mine, I’ve realized that being married to someone who works in the same industry results in something quite interesting too: You end up falling into discussions about things outside both your common daily experiences much more regularly.

You can only talk about what’s similar and familiar for so long without coming to a conversational standstill. So, if you enjoy talking with your spouse, and I do, you end up moving to territory that is outside your daily experiience pretty quickly.

I’ve come to the conclusion that how often you talk to your spouse, what you share, how you talk about differences of opinion, how far afield from your normal experiences you are willing to go in talking to your spouse and how willing you are to sit and carefully listen as your spouse dig deeply into subject matter of interest to them, but not to you, will largely help determine how happy you and they remain.

This weekend, after quickly dispensing with a bit of wine industry gossip that Kathy and I had both been subjected to by different people, she sat patiently as I discussed the nuances of the 17th Hole at TPC Sawgrass and that particular hole’s importance to the entire PGA Golf Tour. Kathy doesn’t golf. She doesn’t choose to watch golf. And yet there she sat, listening to me go on about the iconic nature of a single hole of golf and how fear can dictate what happens when a grown man swings a tool for the purpose of hitting a small white ball in a small hole. It was a spectacular display of love on her part.

I suspect Kathy and my approach to navigating the intricacies of working in the same industry aren’t too different from the numerous other Wine Industry Couples that populate this Valley. However, I wonder how many of these spouses can sit so patiently and appear so interested while their mate prattles on about something that is so far outside their own interest. It’s perfectly clear that I married up.

Minors Don’t Buy Alcohol On-line.

And yet, this fundamental fact has gone unnoticed in the wake of a recently released study that looks at minors access to alcohol conducted by Chapel Hill North Carolina and funded by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation.

While this study shows that 8 students attempting to buy wine from 100 unknown on-line vendors demonstrated that 48 out of 100 orders were delivered, the study itself and the media coverage that has followed somehow failed to mentioned that the problem of minors buying alcohol on-line is no problem at all.

First the facts.

According to a study done by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)—not exactly a pro-alcohol organization—minors said they obtain their alcohol in the following way:

1. From a parent, guardian or family member who is 21 or older (26 percent)

2. From someone 21 or older who is not related to the teen (25 percent)

3. From someone under 21 who is not related to the teen (22 percent)

4. Took it from home (10 percent)

5. Took it from someone else’s home (5 percent)

Please note that “online” doesn’t even make it on the list.

Yet, the lead researcher for the Chapel Hill study, Rebecca Williams, had this to say in an interview with ABC News:

“The study provides evidence that illegal alcohol sales are a significant problem.”

In fact this study provides no such evidence. Rather, the study shows that under certain circumstances, when not worried about getting caught (students ordering wine were given immunity from prosecution) and when parents are told about the experiment and not a deterrent, sometimes minors can get alcohol delivered. There is nothing about this information that suggests any evidence of “illegal alcohol sales” being a “significant problem”.

In fact, no member of law enforcement and no member of the alcohol regulatory community has ever even suggested that on-line sales of alcohol to minors presents any existential problem whatsoever.

All this leads us to believe that just like snake oil was never really meant as a means of curing anything, this study was not meant to actually illuminate the reality of how minors interact with sources of on-line wine sellers.

It should also be noted that this new study showed that minors attempting to obtain alcohol on-line were no more successful at it than when they tried to obtain alcohol from a brick and mortar location. When you factor in the huge barriers to obtaining alcohol on-line that minors face, it becomes apparent why minors are not using on-line sources to obtain alcohol. Consider this scenario:

Little Pete wants to obtain some Chardonnay for his weekend drinking with friends. First, we have to assume that Pete thinks ahead far enough to order the wine a good week to two weeks in advance and we have to assume that Pete wants to drink Chardonnay.

Pete must first either have his own or must steal a credit card to make the purchase on-line. Next, Pete must get through any on-line age verification systems on-line. Finally, Pete must have the extra money to pay not only for the wine but for the shipping of the wine and he must find a way to hide this transaction if the credit card is not his.

If Pete is a long term thinker, if he does like Chardonnay, if he does have or has stolen a credit card and if he is confident the transaction will not come to the attention of his parents, he must then be ready to be at the door in a week or two to meet the driver that delivers the wine. If Pete is at home, he needs to make sure he answers the door and his parents don’t and even then he must convince the driver he is over 21 with a fake idea or some fast talking or with the hopes the driver hasn’t been well trained or is somewhat dull.

On the other hand, Pete could call his friend, Carole, who is 21 years old, and ask her to simply go down to the store and buy him some beer. The other option is sneak the stuff out of the parents liquor cabinet while they aren’t around.

No….Minors don’t buy wine on-line.

Of particular concern is another portion of the Chapel Hill research that seems to indicate that the researchers have an agenda. Toward the end of the discussion part of the paper they note that by “working at the federal level to cut off vendors from their established shipping and payment-processing partners could, as it did with ICVs (Internet Cigarette Vendors), lead to an increase in vendors going out of business and a substantial decrease in vendors using banned shippers and payment processors.”

I have a hard time believing that the administration at North Carolina at Chapel Hill would endorse a study that concludes actions that could “lead to an increase in vendors going out of business”.

To address the fact that in the Chapel Hill study it was determined that 48 of 100 orders placed by minors did actually occur, we can offer some happy news: decreasing this number is a pretty simple process that requires no legislation, no hearings, no hyperbolic claims of an epidemic and no outrageous claims by researchers. It merely takes some additional training in ID checking by common carriers and the continued increase in use of on-line age verification services.

What we have here, in this study, is evidence that a potential problem does not exist and to the extent that minors can order wine on-line, their ability to actually get it is easily diminished by some simple tasks.

Unfortunately, this study will be used and abused by those who see on-line wine purchasing as a form of competition they do not like and as a means to burnish resumes by appearing to have uncovered a problem that does not exist.

Barry Nolan over at Boston Magazine makes a point that flies in the face of what many politicians will tell us:

“The business sector actually desires regulation and corruption.”

Interestingly, his primary evidence for this seemingly counter-intuitive conclusion is the wine industry, and particularly the Massachusetts regulatory scheme:

“Massachusetts is one of the few states where you can’t get a special bottle of wine delivered to your house by FedEx or UPS. Some may try to tell you that this is because people are looking out for your well-being. But unless you were just born yesterday, you know it’s actually because Massachusetts’ liquor wholesalers are trying to protect their profit margins and burden their competition with regulations. They don’t want competition from out-of-state wineries. As the Globe recently pointed out, since prohibition:… ‘liquor laws in Massachusetts have tilted in favor of the only group with the money and organization to shape them — the wholesalers who distribute alcohol to bars, restaurants, and package stores.’ “

I would contend that those who defend protectionist regulatory schemes like the three tier system, based on the idea that we all were born yesterday, play a significant role in the cynicism and disgust that plagues our political culture today.

As the Boston Magazine article points out, it’s not merely the wine industry in which smoke screens consisting of cries of “protect the public” arise from those protected by the regulations they ask for. Other industries possess similar poorly cloaked cries by the protected that their protections are good for the public. But, what I know is the wine industry…so, I’ll stick to that.

For many years, wine and beer wholesalers anxiously informed lawmakers, the media and the public that if direct to consumer wine shipping were allowed, minors would actively consume more alcohol, state tax coffers would be ripped off by bootleggers, and the entire regulatory system, “that has served us so well for so long,” would fall to pieces. None of this came true and those who bought into and extolled these claims now look particularly stupid.

But in all these cries about drunk children, lost taxes and a broken regulatory system, the promoters of this dystopian fantasy world never mentioned that their concern for the public good also happened to square up perfectly with their own economic interests. What do you know?

The result was that you got these really weird discussions in state committee hearings, at meetings of alcohol regulators and in the media where where the possibility that direct shipping of wine was really a potentially dangerous thing was actually discussed, when everyone knew it was not a dangerous thing. Everyone in the discussion, from wholesalers to alcohol regulators to politicians and even those that wanted to ship direct indulged in a conversation they knew was off point, rather than addressing directly what was at issue: whether it was good policy to reward campaign contributing wholesalers with the restrictions on competitive commerce, while screwing consumers, retailers and wineries.

This discussion of winery to consumer shipping is over. No one talks about the practice of winery to consumer shipping in this surreal way, with the exception those in a few states like MA. There is still silly and surreal talk about retailer to consumer shipping as that battle rages on, despite the fact that a retailer shipping wine across state lines is in no way different than a winery shipping wine over state lines to a consumer.

Today, the focus of the con artists that would replace “our own interests” with “the public interest” in discussions of alcohol regulations has turned to a doubly surreal subject matter: “Deregulation”.

Recently The Center for Alcohol Policy held a sparsely attended forum in Michigan to discuss alcohol policy in that state and nationally. A number of public officials, industry representatives, researchers, lawmakers and others spent an entire day essentially discussing how important it was to hold firm in the face of “deregulation” efforts. They sat in the metaphorical circle, pointed their mouths at each other, and spewed on about how public safety would be endangered, how people would fall into abusive patterns and how states would loose significant revenue if any changes came to the three tier system. There was not a dissenting voice in the room.

The Center for Alcohol Policy is a creation of and funded entirely by…wait for it….beer wholesalers.

This is a perfect example of the kind of thing that Barry Nolan at Boston Magazine is talking about in his article when he notes that “Some may try to tell you that [they] are looking out for your well-being. But unless you were just born yesterday, you know it’s actually because…wholesalers are trying to protect their profit margins and burden their competition with regulations.”

It’s also an example of public policy experts and politicians and regulators playing along with the industry’s nonsense because they see something in it for themselves, be it more campaign contributions, more grants for studies of England’s drinking culture that are of limited value other than for propaganda purposes, or as a way to protect their positions in the alcohol regulatory establishment.

So, here’s the rule you need to be aware of:

Whenever an alcohol industry person advocates a policy by saying that it is good public policy or that they are simply looking out for the public good, but don’t make note of what sector of the industry the policy they are pushing will help, they are almost certainly assuming you were born yesterday.

Don’t give them a pass. Point out their hypocrisy. This is particularly important if you think of yourself as a consumer since those who play the “You Were Born Yesterday” game have never taken into consideration what is best for consumers, but rather only their own bottom line. That makes them not only enemies of reason, but also enemiies of the marketplace and the consumer.

The Wall Street Journal makes a good point. When buying wine online—Buyer Beware!

Actually, the WSJ Digital Network made a number of good points in a video featuring Tom Geniesse, owner of New York City’s wine shop Bottle Rocket Wine & Spirits, in which advice is given on how to buy wine on-line.

I haven’t seen a good video primer on how to approach on-line wine buying in some time. This particular video hits a lot of the high notes that novice on-line wine buyers ought to keep in mind:

1. Indeed, Buyer Beware

2. It’s best to know the wine or the seller before hitting the “purchase” button

3. Look for lots of detail about the wine in any on-line or email offer

4. Ratings are helpful, but remember, they are generally one person’s opinion.

These are all the points that Geniesse makes in the WSJ video. And they are good ones. They got me thinking about the wide spectrum of points that ought to occur to folks before they buy on wine. So, let me add the following to Geniesse’s points

1. If you have never heard of the marketer or store or winery involved in a wine purchase, do a bit of research first. At the very least, Google the marketer, store or winery and look for numerous positive endorsements of the seller

2. Check the price. Is the deal coming through your email or featured on-line a good one? You can do this on-line using wine-searcher.com or Snooth or other price comparison sites. But take the few seconds it might use up to make sure the deal is as good as it seems.

3. Look for Endorsers if You Don’t Know the Wine. If you don’t know the wine that has piqued your interest, then look around and discover if anyone else does. Cellartracker.com is a great place to see what a wide variety of consumer palates think of a given wine. You may find the vintage being offered was a dud. Or, you may discover you are looking at a wine that is dearly loved and coming at a great price.

4. Get a phone number. If I can’t call the people with whom I’m looking to spend money, I don’t spend money and these are words to live by, particularly with an on-line purchase. There are any number of reasons you may want or need to contact the sellers. Make sure you can

5. Have the wine delivered in the quickest way you can afford. The fact is, the wine you ordered could easily end up sitting in a hot truck that will render it un-tasty. The faster it gets to you the less likely it is you will end up with cooked wine.

6. Don’t buy inexpensive wine on-line. If the wine costs less than $10, it’s likely that you can find it in a nearby store. Do so. The costs of shipping are likely to make the wine much more expensive on a per bottle basis and by purchasing it at a local store you don’t have the risk that it is damaged in transit. More expensive wines tend to be more difficult to find and this is one of the main reasons folks shop online—they can’t find what they want locally.

The reasons so much wine purchasing has migrated on-line are many. It’s convenient now with efficient logistics. It’s easier to find exactly what you want in an on-line environment simply because your local wine shop can’t stock all the wines there are to sample. You can easily search for the best price on-line. Of course, buying on-line doesn’t put you face-to-face with a real person with whom you can talk out your preferences. So, there are trade offs. But there is no question that on-line purchasing is here to stay and likely to grow. So, if you buy on-line, do it right.

“The advantages is to enjoy the drunk sensation with none of the harmful effects of alcohol on the body.”

This sounds a bit like a description of love.

It’s not. It is a description of a new product called “Wahh”created by scientists that allows a user to administer a dose of alcohol via aerosol spray to the mouth that gets the user INSTANTLY drunk—but, the effects wear off in seconds.

When I first read this it immediately sounded to me like one of the odd features of a society in decline described dystopian tale of the future; something that the narrator describes in passing to drive home the decadence of the society in question. The article continues:

“The ‘Wahh Quantum Sensations’ delivers just a miniscule dose of alcohol – 0.075ml – directly in to your mouth, but thanks to the aerosol effect, the effect is instantaneous. With a typical drink containing 40 to 60ml of alcohol, the scientists say it would take a thousand sprays to get the equivalent amount of alcohol into your system.”

This device goes on sale in Europe soon for 20 Euros and will deliver 20 doses.

I’ve never been a big user of drugs. Nor have I actually indulged in alcohol all that liberally in my life. But, I am not without experience in the effects of a variety of mind altering substances. This experience tells me that this new device will be an immediate hit when it comes to market. It will sell out where ever it is sold. It will be the center of parties, the active ingredient in newly devised games and will be a constant on every college campus in America.

It is also likely to be regulated out of existence.

Phillipe Starck, the designer of the Wahh noted yesterday, “The question is how to do good without doing harm. Wahh is an alternative that offers the idea of ​​intoxication without its adverse effects.”

This begs the question, what is the “good” of this device and what is the harm?

I’ve always contended that if you could make a wine that mimicked in every way —taste, aroma, texture—the greatest wines in the world, but did not contain alcohol, the majority of people would still choose the alcohol-laden beverage. I believe this is the case because I believe that one of the great attractions of alcohol is that it is magic. Ingest it and it physically changes you in ways that can be felt and observed and heard by the user and that this transformation brought on by the magic substance can be witnessed by others. Alcohol, as well as other drugs, have a near alchemic affect on the user.

This alteration of the mind and body that comes with the use of alcohol in its many forms is, I believe, at the heart of the fear and scepticism that society has directed at alcohol and drinking. Sure, the stupid stuff we humans do when experiencing the effect of alcohol causes many to possess disdain for drinking alcohol. But go to the heart of the matter and it is the remarkable transformative effect alcohol delivers that repels and worries so many.

I’ve never been surprised or confused by the disdain for alcohol that many religious communities possess. Here is a substance that has a sure and obvious effect on a person; a real transformative effect that often soothes trouble minds and bodies or acts as cloak covering ones troubles; something that is supposed to happen when you embrace the holy spirit—but doesn’t always happen. Many religious folks understand alcohol as a usurper.

But, in order to feel the effects of alcohol, one always had to work at it. Even with spirits one would need to throw back a couple quick shots, then wait to feel the effects if that’s what was desired. And wine takes even longer and even more to get the user where they often want to be. With this new product, there is no more waiting. Granted, the effect is apparently momentary, which means that it is unlikely to to encroach on territory claimed by wine, beer and spirits. Nonetheless, Wahh brings on the magic transformative effects of alcohol without the work: instant alchemy.

Even if the Wahh is shown to have no harmful side effects, I’m having a hard time imaginng how it won’t quickly get the attention of government agencies who will respond quickly to the calls of the prevention community to ban the product, or at least regulate it in the extreme.

The “Counter Culture” of the 1960s and early 1970s got its name because many of its facets ran counter to prevailing wisdom and the prevailing culture. Near the center of the Counter Culture was the use of drugs to alter one’s view of reality. We saw how this offset culture went over with the mainstream. This new product is meant to do one thing: alter one’s reality, albeit, for a moment. There is no reason to believe it’s use  won’t be viewed in the same way marijuana and LSD were viewed by the mainstream.

What’s really interesting is that it appears that altering one’s consciousness is not always viewed as bad. It’s only when something is ingested to that affect when the recoiling begins. For example, roller coasters change the way we feel and experience the world. They are just fine. Fun houses, with their skewed mirrors and tilted floors do the same. They are OK. But ingest something that fucks up your perspective and society starts to worry not only about the existential threat, but about the spiritual effect.

Wine’s ability to alter our mind and body largely gets a pass and always has for a number of reasons: It’s made from the benign and tasty grape, it has been an important part of many cultures, it has provided medicinal effects, it tastes delicious and its manufacture has added substantially to economies. But when you strip away all this, you have a mind altering substance.

Wahh is a straight forward mind altering substance without anything  like history, culture, and economies to protect it from the ire of those who worry about easy alterations of the mind. What makes it unique is the instant arrival of its effect and its equally—apparantly—retreat. This makes it a toy. But a toy that will need to be highly regulated if it arrives on our shores.

What I’m looking forward to—besides trying the Wahh—is the intellectual excursion that will be taken by those who will argue to ban or highly regulate the Wahh. Given the mind altering effect is quickly gone, how will it be argued that the Wahh is too dangerous to be easily sold and used? Taking leave of one’s senses can lead to dangerous outcomes? That’s too purely a double standard when set net to so many other experiences. The health risk? Maybe, if it exists. At the very least we will see its use banned by minors who, it will be said, are incapable of handling an alteration of the mind, no matter how brief.

The Wahh is something relatively new. And something relatively interesting.

Almost all of my wine tasting education has been practical. That is to say, what I know about evaluating wine and how I evaluate wine has resulted from tasting wine a lot. Beyond that, my inquiries into the practice of wine tasting and evaluating wine has been done on a philosophical and aesthetic level. That is to say, I’ve done a good deal of reading and thinking about the epistemology of wine or what it means to embrace a “position” concerning what is “good” wine or “better” wine.

These guys however have introduced me to something quite new in the world of wine evaluation. But hang on. What Master Sommelier Tim Gaiser wants to explain to you from his work with Tim Hallbom of the Everyday Genius Institute may seem daunting at first given the way it is described via the Sommelier Journal’s headline on the story:

Olfactory Memory and Submodalities: Unlocking the Hidden Code of Tasting

It would be a little foolish of me to attempt to re-explain what Gaiser lays out in the above article. It’s pretty complex stuff that requires you think about the connection between aroma, taste, memory and a form of mental image retrieval and manipulation that connects it all

That said, consider this:

“Olfactory memory is triggered by internal visual images….The structural qualities of these images, or submodalities, are of critical importance….Professional tasters can keep multiple images of different aromas in mind at the same time. Once we create an image, we quickly move it to another location in our inner field of vision to make room for more. When we’ve found all the aromas we can, we mentally step back from the montage of images we have created to assess them collectively, identify or evaluate the wine, and, ideally, enjoy it.”

The article in Sommelier Journal give concrete examples of how this method of wine evaluation works by looking at the visual image field that wine experts Karen McNeil and Evan Goldstein create in evaluating wine. It’s a fascinating perspective on wine evaluation that holds great potential not only for the wine professional and wine aficionado, but also for marketing and education.

This article is highly condensed version of a much larger explanation of how we can evaluate wine more successfully using this approach that is laid out in The Everyday Genius Institutes’s educational module, “Taste Wine Like a Pro: Think Like a Genius Wine Taster”

The subject of how to taste and evaluate wine is gargantuan and takes into account not just the neurological processes that are discussed in this article, but also issues of judgement, terroir, the philosophy of aesthetics and, for some, cultural palate preferences. What’s outlined here, however, is a method of undertaking critical evaluation of wine that I’ve not seen explained before. That fact that it is modeled out by Tim Gaiser along with the behavioral scientist Halborn is what gives the technique the kind of authority you ought to consider more than enough to drive you to at least read through the article, if not investigate further.

I am always excited when I see an article or blog post on-line that was written in response to something on this blog. At the very least it means someone is reading me. Even better, it could mean that what I’ve written inspires someone. More Better: It could mean they took my thoughts seriously.

So, I was pleased to see that Janice Cable over at “Inside IWM” (IWM = Italian Wine Merchant—a GREAT wine merchant) had a long and thoughtful response to my various thoughts on “natural” wine. And her thoughts in turn inspire me to respond here with comments and clarification.

After acknowledging some of the definitional problems with the term “Natural” and appreciating the way the term can be abused by marketers, Ms Cable writes: “In short, it’s hard to define “natural.” And perhaps it’s this very slipperiness as applied to natural wine that Tom Wark of the Fermentation blog has taken to task so repeatedly and so vehemently.” In the end, she isn’t in agreement with me that the “natural wine movement” is a gimmick.“

Actually I’m not concerned with the difficulty of defining the term “natural”. Rather, I’m concerned that the use of the term “natural wine” is unjustified, that many of its champions are willing to denigrate what they would consider “non-natural” wines for the sake of promoting their own wines and that champions of “natural wine” are unwilling to use far more accurate words, terms and phrasing to describe what they are doing in order to take advantage of the positive connotations of the term “Natural” despite the unjustified use of the term in the first place.

As for the wines that fall under this unjustified heading, I think they are just great. I think it’s wonder that more and more winemakers are determined to use more non-interventionist techniques that have been incorporated into winemaking by artisan winemakers now for years. I think many of these wines are tasty as all get out.

In defense of the “Natural” wine movement Ms. Cable goes on to say:

“I…dislike the ‘purple’ taste that often accompanies seriously manipulated wine. It’s a thing, and maybe it’s pretentious, but all things being equal, I like a wine that’s made with minimal crap added to it.”

I don’t know what “purple” tastes like, but that may be a deficiency in my own palate/vocabulary skills. But I do know that wines that are not marketed as “natural” or organic or biodynamic do not necessarily have “crap” added to them. Unfortunately, the impression that many champions of “natural” wine are keen to see left with the wine trade and wine consumers is that if it’s not “Natural” it has “crap” in it and may even be dangerous for your health. I have previously offered up a number of such comments and can point folks to these and others that indicate what I’m talking about.

Ms. Cable ends with this:

“For all of these reasons—personal, professional, and ethical—I don’t see natural wines as a marketing gimmick. Sure, it can happen. But mostly it’s about an informed choice about what we put in our bodies, whom we want to support with our money, and what happens on the earth around us. I know how I make my choices, and when I can, I opt for wine made by people who understand the fragile beauty of nature and who honor it.”

I think she’s written an excellent essay here and I recommend it. But I would be remiss in not pointing out that even this moderate and personal expression of her preference and appreciation for “natural” wines implies that if it’s not natural, it’s not unlikely to be of dubious content.

Finally, there is an aspect to the way the champions of “natural” wine talk about their object of affection that presumes to suggest that only these “pure” and “raw” wines can play the role that fine wine is supposed to play: to tell the story of the terroir in which the wine’s grapes were grown. Consider this nugget:

“Natural wines are as diverse as the places they are made. Natural wine lovers are people who celebrate this diversity. Conventional wines have little or no sense of terroir, because it is all but destroyed by conventional winemaking practices.”

What is “conventional” winemaking? Is it the same as “industrial” winemaking? It is entirely different than “natural” winemaking or only a little different? If commercial yeasts are used year in and year out on a specific single vineyard wine and if that wine displays similar characteristics year in and year out, must that characteristic be a result of the commercial yeast used to ferment the wine?  If a bit of RoundUp is used on weeds, will this obliterate any terroir that might be displayed in the wine? If the wine is fined with some natural element, will this obliterate any display of terroir in the wine? We rarely if ever get specifics when claims like the one above are made. We don’t have wines being named.

To argue that you must indulge in “natural” wines in order to taste terroir is every bit as silly and denigrating to winemakers around the world as is suggesting that what “natural” winemakers are producing is natural at all.

UPDATE:
Another example of a “Natural Wine” champion that does more than imply that anything but “natural” wine is artificial. This time it’s accusing any wine not made with natural yeast to smell artificial and like shower gel. I wonder if this producer can guarantee that none of the yeasts floating around his vineyard and winery are manufactured? More marketing of one’s own wine by denigrating others. What’s worse, the claims are unsupportable. #nastyhabit

Over at The Eater, Talia Baiocchi is a bit offended, or at least disheartened, that America’s most powerful wine buyer doesn’t believe that wine is much more special than toilet paper or tin foil. Talia, a keen observer of the wine world and a very good marketer, has reason to be offended by this.

Talia’s moment of virtual head-shaking comes in response to a CNBC video featuring Annette Alvarez-Peters, Costco’s head wine buyer, who responds to an interviewer’s query about wine perhaps being more special thant toilet paper or tin foil with: “I don’t think so”.  Alverez-Peter’s conclusion is, “People can look at it that way. But at the end of the day, it’s a beverage.” I suspect that more than a few other lovers of the grape were equally offended upon learning of this view of wine held by the wine buyer at Costco.

Here is a woman responsible for the selection from which vast numbers of Americans will choose their wine. Costco is the leading retailer of wine in America. And she doesn’t think wine is that special…or at least not much more special than toilet paper.

Now, I’m not much of a connoisseur of toilet paper, but, like with wine, I can tell the difference between ordinary toilet paper and superb toilet paper. And I suspect that Ms. Alvarez-Peters is no different than me.

So all this begs a somewhat important question: Does one need to hold a feeling of reverence for wine in order to successfully choose a selection for the buying public? Given what we know about the success of the Costco wine program and about Ms. Alvarez-Peter’s disposition, the answer is certainly “no”.

Though it’s fairly clear from the CNBC video that despite her view of wine being not any more special than toilet paper or tin foil, Ms. Alvarez-Peters does know a little something about wine. But more importantly, she knows a good deal about what her customer base wants from the wine selection in her hundreds of Costco stores around the country and that this knowledge is far more important than possessing a reverence for wine.

So, all this begs an important question: What are the paramount requirements for a professional wine buyer? I think we can break them down to this:

1. Knowledge of your customers’ desires
2. Knowledge of the product
3. Knowledge of buying and market trends

I honestly don’t think that if there is a 4th on that list, that it is likely to be a reverence for wine or the view that wine is any more special than most other consumer products. No matter where I shop for my wine, I don’t need the person putting the wine on the shelf to have any special love for wine. What I need is for them to put the wines on the shelves that I want and understand why I want them. Beyond that, they need to be able to answer my questions and understand why I ask them. I won’t be be clasping my hand in theirs, bowing my head with them, and praising the magnificence of the bottles.