Blind Muscat's Cellarbook

Down-Home Summer-Weight Wine

Here at subterranean cellars, we spent the Fourth of July bottling wine with a couple dozen friends. In this case, the wine in question was a Grenache-based red blend of Rhone grapes including some Syrah, some Mourvedre, some Petite Sirah, even a touch of Zinfandel, kind of an honorary California Rhone variety.

Modestly, I named the bottling Chateauneuf-du-Pat, in a double tribute: to the great wines of that charmed spot in the southern Rhone, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, “the new estate of the Pope,” the magically stony vineyard zone established in the 14^th centaury by a breakaway batch of Popes who took up residence in Avignon and left behind a winemaking powerhouse; and, of course, an homage to moi, incorporating part of my last name. It was remarkable how many of my friends didn’t get the reference.

Best Pest Video

Wine industry trade shows provide wonderful insight into the sometimes mysterious world of wine. Nothing cuts through the intentional obfuscation of the marketing departments like a stroll past the rows of tanks and the stacks of barrels, the demonstrations of cleaning equipment and the array of pumps, the shelves of “natural” additives and racks of electronic measuring devices. Blind Muscat’s idea of a breath of fresh air.

And so it was this past week up in Portland at the trade show attached to the annual meetings of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture. But I was saddened to discover that my new favorite vendor, one I only discovered this past January at the Unified trade show in Sacramento, wasn’t there: The Rodenator.

The Generic Napa Press Release

In addition to writing articles with my byline on them for various magazines, I pay some of the bills with commercial wine writing—websites, press releases, tasting notes for wine clubs, that sort of thing. Last week I was on the verge of such a gig, working with a publicist who had gotten a feeler from a Napa Valley wannabe winery and needed a writer to help tell their tale. But it turned out that the potential clients’ plan was 1) hire someone to make a wine that the Wine Expectorator would rate at 95 points, and 2) hire someone to make up a good story about the winery. The publicist declined the gig—good for her—and I’m reduced to doing a blog posting.

So in honor of this past weekend’s Napa Valley Wine Auction, and as a public service for those prospective cult producers who have no clue, here is my—free!—template for the Generic Napa Cabernet Press Release:

David Jones, Gone Too Soon

The Bay Area wine writing community is mourning the passing of David Jones, arguably the hardest-working—if not the most famous—of our fratern/sorority. David died in his sleep June 3 after a year-long fight with ALS—Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, an incurable wasting syndrome more romantically known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

David was smart as a whip, more energetic than a firecracker, possessed of one of the most astute palates on the planet—and one hell of a nice guy. He wrote for more magazines and ‘zines than anyone could count, judged up and down the state, and played an essential, under-the-radar role with an outfit called WineWorks, the plumbing and wiring that got so many writers together in one place with so many wines over the years for tastings that nobody could pull off on their own.

Why Size Matters

Wednesday’s installment of the email wine and spirits industry press release links from Business Wire carried two intriguing stories about wineries that are doing something for the environment, one flashy, glitzy and way cool, the other boring and mundane—and ultimately more important.

Statistical Revelation

Further proof of the wonders of accidental information.

While working on some writing about Spanish and Portuguese wine this afternoon, I had occasion to go out to the Wine Institute website in search of some statistics on world wine production and consumption. The production rankings were familiar:  France, Italy, Spain, the US, Argentina, and so on. But the per capita consumption figures made my day.

In Praise of Kit Wines

When both of you who read this blog last tuned in, I was promising to head off to a conclave of home winemakers in the Sonoma wine country. Sure enough, I spent Wednesday and Thursday with home grape maven Peter Brehm, touring vineyards in Sonoma and Napa from which he supplies grapes to folks all across the continent, and then Friday and Saturday inside the Sonoma Doubletree yakking with homies from hither and yon about the intricacies of doing it in your garage.

Free the Homies!

Blind Muscat hates it when he has so much paying work to do that he can’t get around to giving it away for free on his blog. Quel bummer.

But here’s a story worth ripping out of the wine world headlines: the fight to make sure home winemakers can deliver a bottle or two of their hard-won products to an off-premise (away from their garages) location and put them into competitions. Without, that is, running afoul of The Law.