For my 40 days I will be continuing to post on this blog, although I will probably not post every day. Despite what yesterdays post might lead you to believe, I am attempting to focus more on quality of posts than frequency here. My goal on Vinotology is going to be to post things that I can actually be proud of, so that will likely mean that I only post a couple of times a week. In addition to my blog, I have been working on starting another blog project that I will be launching soon, so some of my writing efforts will go into that. I am also working on writing a novel, and have been writing for a regional magazine as well. Between all of these I should be able to keep on churning out some writing every day over the next 40 days.

If you are interested in joining in this project, you can visit the Facebook page here. We are starting today, but if you don’t see this until later, don’t let that stop you from joining in. This is a really exciting project that will increase the creative output in the world, which is a good thing.

We all have our own things that turn us on. Some guys are leg guys, and some are ass guys. Me, I’m a Syrah guy. Okay, so Syrah and Pinot Noir, but my Pinot fixation is a topic for another day. There is something about Syrah that strikes at the most primal part of my nature. My method for judging Syrah is a simple one, I just wait to see how long my erection lasts after I smell the wine.

When I first decided to move from my home in West Texas, my Syrah fetish might have been a big factor in choosing Washington as my new home. Prior to the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference, I had heard reports on Twitter of how great Washington Syrah was from my friends Josh Wade and Clive Pursehouse, so I was already looking forward to getting my Syrah freak on before I hit the ground. I pretty much spent the whole trip channeling the Ken Marino character Louie (from The State), announcing that “I want to dip my balls in it!” There is definitely a lot of fantastic Syrah in Washington, but not all Syrah is created equal.

Time has a way of refining obsession. While I started my love affair with Syrah early on, over time I started to realize that there were some very specific versions of Syrah that really got me going. Syrah is a variety that can vary wildly in its expression. In a recent Twitter conversation with Trey Busch of Sleight of Hand Cellars (@SofHCellars), we discussed the fact that this could possibly be one of the factors that has damaged the market for Syrah. People might have been turned off by a specific style of Syrah (often Aussie Shiraz is credited for this), or they might just have a problem with the inconsistency of the wines that they taste over time.

For me, the nose of Syrah is a big factor on whether it meets my priapism test. I am always on the hunt for an earthy, meaty Syrah that is not over the top on the jam and alcohol. I recently received a sample from my friend Tamara Belgard at Cana’s Feast Winery in Carlton, Oregon that hit on these notes perfectly. The 2008 Syrah is produced from fruit from Washington’s Horse Heaven Hills AVA. I brought a second bottle to our local Brown Bag Wine Night blind tasting, and even blind I ended up picking it as one of my favorites. The dark fruit, savory meat components, and herbal notes on the wine hit on exactly the notes that I have come to love in a Syrah. The other wine that stood out at that tasting was the 2008 Columbia Valley Syrah from Market Vineyards. I tweeted that “I would make sweet, passionate love to wine number 23.” There is something slightly funky about my favorite Syrah, which means that the wines tend to be very polarizing. The Market Vineyards Syrah seemed to either be a favorite or a least favorite at the tasting. It did turn out to be one of the top wines of the night when the votes were counted though.

Syrah can be one of the most elegant and sexy grapes on the planet. It can also be a bombastic fruit avalanche that leaves you desperate for escape. All of these expressions of the grape make me think of my relationships with various women over the years. Maybe this is why I am so attracted to the variety. The desire to anthropomorphize manifests itself with Syrah in a way that few other varieties can. I find Syrah to be deep with personality and character, with each example having its own unique expression. It does have typicity, but is heavily influenced by the climate of the vineyards it was grown in, and also to the caprices of the winemaker. It is always interesting, and when it is done right it makes me want to dip my balls in it.

Sucking down a cancer stick has become more and more frowned upon in society as a whole, but it has an added scorn among the wine community, and with good reason. I am quite certain that nobody who smokes is under the mistaken impression that it is anything but the vilest of habits. It is a stinky, unhealthy, expensive and generally disgusting thing to do, yet the nicotine nation continues to puff away with abandon. I always get a nice surge of guilt after a cigarette; you know, that post-masturbation kind of guilt.

Just to get this on the record, my smoking has been an on-again, off-again foible that is generally revitalized by negative changes in my environment. I have had long periods of not smoking, interrupted by the onset of stressful situations. When I was laid off recently, I found myself picking it up again – a counterintuitive leap if ever there was one, given that my income had just experienced a significant drop. I am a fairly light smoker, never topping out at more than five or six cigs a day. I have had a field day psychoanalyzing myself (dangerous, I know) to explore the deeper nature of the more addictive aspects of my personality in the light of my smoking habits.

There is a special brand of disdain that we smokers feel among our wine friends. When I was in Napa over a year ago, I had a group of smoker friends with whom I would periodically abscond to “take a walk,” a euphemism that fooled no one. Many of them work in the wine industry, which is a very tightly knit community. Everyone desperately wanted to avoid having their habit become public knowledge. The desire to keep our vice hidden meant that the smokers’ ghettos that now exist in most cities were not hidden enough for us, and necessitated taking a real walk prior to taking our euphemistic one. I guess the bright side is that it meant that we got some additional exercise, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was perpetrating a major social crime every time I wanted to grab a square.

There are some very real reasons why cigarettes and wine don’t go together. The effects of smoking on your ability to accurately evaluate wine can be fairly significant. Not only does it make it more difficult for the choker to analyze wine, they also carry that lovely aroma with them on their clothes to share with everyone else. It is more than a little challenging to get a read on the nose of a wine when everything smells like the Marlboro Man (or in my case, the American Spirit Indian.) It is no wonder that lighting up before going into a tasting will lead to scornful looks from your fellow tasters. I would hate me too.

For some reason, the disdain for smoking has not made its way as deeply into the restaurant culture as it has the wine world. The same negative effects on the palate exist with food as with wine, but an above average number of chefs admit to being regular smokers. Anthony Bourdain, one of the world’s most famous food personalities, is an unrepentant smoker. Bourdain was quoted in a 2007 Time magazine article as saying, “I’m amused by food nerds who say, ‘I’d never eat at a restaurant where the chef smokes.’ Almost all the chefs I know smoke. … I don’t want to encourage anyone to quit smoking. In my experience, it really does make you cool.” The enduring rockstar image of chefs within the restaurant community might explain why the stigma has not made the same inroads within the food world as it has for winos.

I can’t say for certain that this “rockstar” image doesn’t play into my habit. I am not consciously aware of trying to “look cool” when I smoke, but I have always been attracted to the types of figures who would be more likely to smoke. Most of my writing heroes tend to fall onto the Anthony Bourdain and Hunter S. Thompson side of the spectrum rather than the one occupied by Robert Parker. I cut my teeth on punk rock music and Tom Waits, so I guess I should consider myself lucky to not be putting anything worse into my system than nicotine. No amount of anti-smoking ads that draw comparisons between smokers and monkeys will ever be able to replace the image of how cool James Dean looked with a cigarette.

I would like to say that this post serves to announce that I am quitting smoking and that I will never light up again, but I have to admit that this is unlikely to be the case. I know that I should give it up, but I also know that I don’t always do the things I should. I have resigned myself to the fact that I will continue to feel guilty and ostracized for engaging in a behavior that I recognize as unpleasant and unhealthy. I do believe that one day I will give up the habit for good, and I actually hope that the day comes soon. In the meantime, you can find me with my friends in the smokers’ ghettos of America, which are ultimately social prisons of our own making.

Cities can age ungracefully as well. I have often been depressed to make my way through the derelict city square of a once charming downtown. The stories are different for every town; Big box stores clear out all of the local businesses that once occupied the area, or a steady exodus to a larger town caused the area to just dry up and no longer be able to support the businesses. No matter the cause, it is always disheartening to see.

Amidst this sea of desiccated towns, Walla Walla has always stood out to me as a bastion against the unflinching march of modernity. When I first visited the area two years ago, I immediately fell in love with the place. The downtown area has that Mayberry type of charm. It is the kind of place that you visit and instantly feel like community is still alive in America, if you choose to look for it.

My friend William Pollard (who writes the Wild 4 Washington Wine blog) and I left early Friday morning in search of a few bottles of Blacksmith Syrah from Forgeron Cellars (which you can read about on William’s blog.) William had been in contact with the winery, and part-owner and winemaker Marie-Eve Gilla was kind enough to personally give us a tour and tasting at the winery.

Forgeron is a great example of the way that Walla Walla has embraced its history. The name of the winery is taken from the French word for “blacksmith”, and is a reference to the fact that the winery is positioned on the site of a former blacksmith shop in Walla Walla. Before they built on the site, the owners found hundreds of horseshoes, which they buried in the foundation for good luck. There is a romance to the image of the skilled artisan blacksmith wielding his hammer to create something that has utility. The name was purposely chosen to call attention to the artisanal nature of the winemaking process.

Marie-Eve Gilla is originally from Paris, and in talking with her it is clear that she is acutely aware of the importance of preserving history. She has the European perspective on history that differs so wildly from the view that most Americans possess. She told us that one of the things that she loves about Walla Walla is that they have done a good job of maintaining the heritage of the area. As a winemaker, you can gather that this perspective spreads to her craft. In her winemaker bio she is quoted as saying, “My wines have a sense of place. They reflect their terroir, which is a composite of the vine location and the grower dedication.” Anyone who spent a few minutes talking to Marie-Eve would be infused with the same passion for terroir and history that has long been a part of the French mindset.

Although modernity can often lead to the destruction of the more traditional elements of a location, this is not always the case. Our next stop was a wonderful example of a modern winery that has had an additive effect to the culture of the area. It is hard to imagine a more modern winery than Long Shadows Vintners. The winery takes an innovative approach to winemaking that involves the creation of multiple micro-wineries under the umbrella of a single facility. They produce Washington wines with several international partner winemakers. The results are extraordinary wines that are expressive of some of Washington’s finest fruit, but that are created by some of the world’s most renowned winemakers. The facility itself is a testament to modernity, from the beautiful Chihuly glass that adorns the tasting room, to the varied state of the art winemaking tools that are used in production. The building can be seen as a metaphor of what the winery is doing. The building is an ultra-modern rectangular building with large amounts of glass that is dramatically set within the natural contours of the bucolic landscape. There is something about the scene that speaks of the modern world playing nicely with the natural.

Even with its starkly modern approach to winemaking, Long Shadows still acknowledges a historical perspective. The name even references a look towards the past. The winery is creating something new here in Washington, and is doing so by incorporating some of the people who have cast long shadows within the wine world. The key to their amazing wines seems to be the respect that this group of international winemakers give to the “Washingtonness” of the fruit. All of the wines feel like beautiful expressions of Washington grapes, rather than overly manipulated wines that speak more about the winemaker than the place.

From the very modern Long Shadows Vintners, we worked our way to one of the most historic wineries in Washington State. The image of L’Ecole 41’s iconic schoolhouse tasting room has been a part of the Washington wine world for almost 30 years. Until recently, the wine labels had all featured an illustration of the schoolhouse, which was built in 1915. The drawing was produced by an 8 year old named Ryan Campbell as a part of a contest. Although the winery has recently updated the labels to a more “grown-up” design, there is a clear sense of reverence about the history of the winery. The new label features a painting of the classic schoolhouse. The winery acknowledges its history, but is adapting to the modern market.

It is clear that there is a love for both the winery and for the Walla Walla community when you talk with Tasting Room Manager Brandon Kubrock. The winery produces wines from both the Walla Walla AVA, and from the larger Columbia Valley AVA. Tasting through these wines, and especially their vineyard specific and estate wines, really shows their attention to letting the place find expression in the final product. You will find common threads that run through the wines from a specific location from one vintage to the next, an indication of the care that is given to preserving the terroir of the vineyard in the wines.

The preservation of an area’s history is not something that happens by accident. Left to run its course, our modern world is in a steady and consistent march toward a bigger and more centralized climate, typified by strip malls and Wal-Marts on every corner. Catie McIntyre Walker, the owner of the Wild Walla Walla Wine Woman shop in Walla Walla, told me that there was a time when the downtown area had started to thin out, with many businesses moving into the malls that were springing up around the area. Fortunately, the people of Walla Walla seem to have noticed the trend occurring in their city and took action to stem the tide. The city has managed to avoid the homogenous feel that many small towns have succumbed to by maintaining the rich history and culture of the area. In short, Walla Walla remains one of the most rewarding wine country experiences that Washington has to offer.

The story of my descent into boredom is a long and sordid tale, filled with self-imposed limitations and prohibitions that have kept me from really writing in my own true voice. You see, I haven’t been entirely honest with you. From the very beginning of this blog I have, to some degree, been writing for someone else. Sometimes this has meant that I wrote something because I thought that it would get a lot of page views. Sometimes it meant that I would curb the way that I wanted to write something because I thought that it wouldn’t go over well with people. I don’t swear a lot in my daily life, but I have often resisted the urge to use certain language to avoid being too off-color. The end result of all of this is that I often would rip the guts out of what I was writing to try to broaden the appeal of a post, which always ended up leaving me with a feeling of dissatisfaction with the finished product.

After having spent the last couple of years writing on this blog, I have finally reached the point where I really don’t care about writing to keep everyone happy and to make sure that the wine samples keep flowing. I’m finally ready to just write for myself. That’s not to say that I don’t care whether people enjoy my blog. I’ll always enjoy writing something that people get into, but I’m just tired of performing the written equivalent of trying to get Aesop’s ass across a bridge.

So what does this all mean? I will probably get back into doing some of the kinds of posts that I used to do, although I will probably approach them from a somewhat different angle. I’m going to make myself more vulnerable through some of the posts that I have planned, so anyone who decides to join me for the ride is going to get to know the real me better, for better or for worse. You probably won’t see me writing about social media and the wine industry too much, or the effect of Robert Parker on the wine world, or Steve Heimoff’s most recent tirade on bloggers, because I frankly don’t give a shit about those things. There might be a case where I find some human element to something in that arena that I do care about, but I generally feel myself holding back my lunch from returning on me when I read, let alone write, about such well-worn and tiresome topics. I don’t want any of this to sound like I’m judging people who do write about these kinds of things. There are obviously a lot of people who are interested in them, they just don’t appeal to me.

Given my lack of consistency with Vinotology over the last year, I know that this message will not really make it to very many eyeballs, but I’m okay with that. I felt like I needed to explain myself to anyone who will read this, but ultimately I am just excited to get down to writing in a way that I find creatively fulfilling. I am looking forward to starting to build something honest on this site, and I know that it won’t be for everyone. At least it will be something that I can be proud of.

I started off my Saturday morning helping my good friend and Wine Society mucky-muck Scott Abernathy with the setup of the room that would house the annual Gala Wine Tasting that wraps up the Festival. The tasting was held at the Three Rivers Convention Center, a large facility that is adorned with a row of Mercedes and Cadillac vehicles on the back wall. This was my second year to volunteer with the setup of the facility. There is always a race to get everything in place to make sure that the space is ready for the wineries to get settled in their booths and for the stream of people that will begin to file through at 7:00pm.

The event itself is a great opportunity for wine lovers to taste a wide variety of fantastic wines from Washington, and a few from outside the state, including Oregon and Montana. There are also a number of local restaurants that are showcasing their culinary skills to the attendees.

Since I was busy manning the Thomas O’Neil booth the entire evening, I didn’t have much of an opportunity to taste any of the other wines or sample food, although my sweet wife did bring me back a plate with a few tasty items, and my friends at Katya’s Bistro also saved me some of their wonderful food. As the new kids on the block, the festival was a fantastic opportunity for us to introduce ourselves to the members of the local wine community who were not yet familiar with us. The response to the wines was very positive.

I really enjoyed my first opportunity to pour at an event like this one. I always love talking with people who love wine, and I had the opportunity to do just that. Having access to so many people in a short amount of time is not only an enjoyable experience, it is also a great opportunity to raise awareness of the winery within the local community. I’m already looking forward to my next experience with a large public tasting.

There’s really not much that can be said about this year, other than it has been another weird one. Like last year, summer got off to a later than normal start. We did get some heat during the summer here in Eastern Washington, but it was for a relatively short amount of time, and didn’t seem as intense as I understand to be typical. The weather has recently taken a drastic plunge, sending temperatures beneath the freezing point during the nights. Because of the uncharacteristic summer, all of the grapes are coming in somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 weeks later than normal. With the freezing temperatures starting up, there is a mad dash to get the grapes in as quickly as possible to avoid any damage to the fruit. This makes for some fun times for winemakers who are going to have a somewhat compressed timeline for making wine.

Yesterday we got in the first fruit since I started working with Thomas O’Neil Cellars. We received a mid-afternoon delivery of about a ton of Viognier grapes from Art Den Hoed Vineyard. Under ideal conditions, those grapes would be dumped directly from the bin into a chute that would funnel the fruit onto a sorting table, which would them feed into the press. This is where the challenge of being a small winery comes into play. We don’t have a sorting table. We don’t have a chute. That means that all of the sorting and feeding into the sheet has to be done by hand. This is a very time consuming process, comprised of taking the grapes out of the bin, putting them into a small bucket, and then dumping the bucket into the press. It’s also hard work, bending over the sides of the bin as you work your way to the bottom.

Despite, or possibly because of, the difficulty of the work, there is something intensely satisfying about hearing the juice from the grapes dripping down beneath the press, and watching as that juice is pumped into the nearby tank. It is the first step in the process that will take that juice and turn it into a thing of beauty. I couldn’t help but think about the time a few months down the road when we will be tasting the 2011 vintage of our Viognier, and I will be able to look back and know that some of my effort went into making that wine. I’m sure that some of this feeling is because I’m still new to working with wine, and will probably wear off as I have been working at the winery longer, but for now I am just going to enjoy it.

As many of you know, I moved to Washington about a year ago to pursue a career in the wine business. While I have had a lot of opportunities to get more involved in the wine world since moving here, the chance to really get into the wine business has eluded me for the most part. I am happy to announce that I have finally joined the ranks of those employed by the wine industry, and have accepted a position with Thomas O’Neil Cellars, a small local winery here in the Tri-Cities of Washington. I will be working as their main marketing guy, as well as having the opportunity to work on the production side of things a bit. It’s been a long time coming, but I am looking forward to having the opportunity to help some great people grow their young business.

Since arriving in Washington I have had the opportunity to meet some great people who are involved in the industry, and Tom and Tricia O’Neil are two of the nicest people that I have ever met. They are passionate about wine and have really built something great at their tasting room. They have created a wonderful place for people to enjoy some wonderful wines, jam out to live music, and just generally enjoy everything that Washington’s wine country has to offer. I am very excited about the opportunity to join their team, and I thought that this blog would be a good place for me to chronicle my entry into the wine world. I will definitely be telling you more about the winery itself in future posts, but I don’t plan to use this blog as a marketing wing of the winery. Vinotology has always been about me sharing my love of wine, and I want it to continue to tell the story of my wine journey.

I feel like this new chapter in my life will add something very personal to the blog. I want to share the story of people who are working in the wine business, from the perspective of a newcomer to the industry. I hope that you enjoy following my new adventure in the coming months, and I thank you all for the support that you have given me since I started the blog originally. I look forward to sharing this new phase of my life with you.

If there is anything that you have always wanted to know about the inner workings of a winery, send me an email at ben@vinotology.com and I will see if I can dig into your questions and get a post up about it.

Cheers!

Ben

They folks at the Wine Bloggers Conference didn’t give the guy the blogger of the year for nothing. This post from the 1 Wine Dude blog is worth 100 points itself. As a person who has fallen prey to “Blind Collection Mode” back in my baseball card days, I think Joe hits the nail right on the head. Really great post, plus anything that references the movie Joe vs. The Volcano is alright by me.

So, as I was reading this post from my good friend Josh Wade, I was overcome by intense sadness that I will not be able to make the trip to Virginia for the Wine Bloggers Conference this year. Although I am really happy to be out here in Washington, the transition hasn’t really been a smooth one. Although I’m settled in with a good job now, the consistent income just came a few months too late to make a trip to Virginia realistic. Even sadder is that I am not alone in missing it, as I have seen a number of the other 2010 attendees are also not making it, including my buddies Steve Paulo and the Wine Biz Radio guys. I guess there is always 2011. Sigh.

I think that those of us who love wine (and really, what are you doing here if you don’t) will agree that “corked” wines, or those afflicted with trichloroanisole (TCA) are nothing if not ugly. Sean Sullivan has an interesting post on his Washington Wine Report blog that talks about his experiment in tracking corked wines throughout his tastings. The numbers have been right around 3% thus far, which is in line with what I have heard listed as an average rate for TCA in wines using natural cork closures. Sean asks what the acceptable rate is for TCA, and I’m pretty sure that all winemakers and consumers would agree that 0 would be a good number. Unfortunately, cork taint happens, so we have all just had to learn to live with it, or else switch over to all screwcap closures. Such is life.

The night had consisted of a steady stream of Lucky Strikes and copious quantities of beer. The cool night air of an early summer evening in Denver had descended on us like an albatross, driving most of the crowd indoors. I pulled on my black hoodie with the punk rock band name plastered across the front in red and white, and settled in for another cigarette.

Life on my own in the “big  city” hadn’t been everything that I had expected. A feeling of disorientation seemed to have become a permanent fixture in my life, and even my closest friends were growing tired of my moping in the wake of my most recent failed relationship. I had staked my claim on a small section of the apartment balcony and was nursing a PBR and some self pity. I got some kind of perverse enjoyment out of my melancholy being set to the soundtrack of good times from inside the apartment.

As I leaned up against the railing around the balcony, I would watch the guests who came and went from the party. Most of them were friends from work or part of our little inner circle, but every once in a while an unfamiliar face would make an appearance. In the middle of a circle of late arrivals I saw her. She was like some kind of punk rock goddess, dressed in loose army green pants and a wife beater shirt that didn’t quite conceal the black straps of her bra. Tattoos ran all the way down her arms, to her wrists that were adorned with chains and the the remnants of a color-ringed tube sock.

For a second I forgot about my evil ex and wished that I hadn’t committed myself so steadfastly to exile from the world of the living. Maybe I could just go in for a little while. I wouldn’t have to party, but my friends were right, I should be moving on. This constant mopey John Cusack routine was really not healthy.

While I was trying to work up my courage and vanquish my excuses, my vision emerged from the front door, swigging directly from a bottle of Champagne. She looked over at me in my self-imposed Elba and asked, “Can I bum one of those?” Her voice had the weathered sound of someone who had taken in more than her fair share of smokes in her time. I muttered some kind of affirmative response and she walked towards me. I shook a smoke from the soft package. “Luckies, eh? Well done.” she said as she lit up. I had never really been much of a wine drinker, in fact I had never had any wine with bubbles before, but I sipped from the bottle when she offered it to me.

“So, you just out here enjoying the evening or what?” she asked through an exhalation of smoke. I made a snap judgment that it probably wouldn’t be the best idea to tell her that I had actually been brooding over an ex-girlfriend for the last two weeks, and instead chose to reply that I was enjoying the evening and that the moon was really beautiful tonight, or something to that effect. “I like your band.” she pointed to my shirt. “Oh, that’s not my band, I just listen to them.” I blurted out. She chuckled, her voice horse, “I know, I didn’t mean that I thought that you were in the band, just that I liked the band on your shirt.” I nervously took another swig from the bottle and handed it back to her. “That stuff’s pretty good.” I changed the subject quickly. “Yeah, it’s not bad.” she lifted the bottle to her lips. “I stole it from my dad’s wine room.” she stated matter-of-factly.

We talked as we finished off the bottle. We started with innocuous topics like our jobs, what kinds of things that we did for fun, the bands that we listened to, and other icebreaker topics. The bubbles were starting to go to my head, and I was deeply in thought planning my next move. I wasn’t really thinking clearly, but I thought I could probably try something involving reaching for her hand  to test the waters, but before I could start the maneuver another person joined us on the balcony. My punk rock Helen of Troy turned to look at the new arrival, a black haired girl wearing a button up skater camp shirt and cargo shorts, and asked her if she was ready to go. The new girl leaned down and kissed my champagne thief on the lips and said, “Yeah, I have to get up early in the morning.” and with that my goddess said goodnight and walked away.

I sat for a few minutes in silence, peeling away at the French label on the bottle in front of me. After a while I pulled out another cigarette, and lit it with a sigh. “Figures.”

Images taken from Cutcaster and from Tank Girl