New Zealand Wine:

It has been some time since New Zealand burst onto the wine scene in the 1980′s with their Sauvignon Blanc, which at the time was a complete revelation in comparison to the oak/butter flavor profiles being proliferated by California Chardonnay. At the time their focus on high acidity to keep flavors on the palate for the longest possible time was a unique winemaking event.

What makes wine from New Zealand interesting and unique today you ask? The terroir as the French would say. New Zealand is the most southern wine growing region in the world today. They site approximately the same distance from the equator that Washington State sits north of it, for comparison. This distance from the equator gives the winemakers some unique aspects to build on. Grapes often lose acidity during warm summer days, however in New Zealand their temperature still drops quite severely at night year around, so the grapes actually gain acidity at night. This dichotomy gives the wines their higher acidity and allows for more intense flavor profiles because the grapes can be left on the vine well into the fall without as high of risk as you’d have in other regions. Additionally, as a long thin island(or two island for that matter) nation these natural temperature changes are emphasized by the lands interaction with the ocean.

New Zealand follows the lead of the United States and other new world wine producers by labeling their wine by varietal. To carry a label of Cabernet Sauvignon for example, the wine needs to include at least 75% Cabernet Sauvignon. Winemakers in New Zealand often will go farther then that though, they typically only label their wines as single varietals if they are 100% of that varietal, for example 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Additionally if more then one varietal is used they list them in decreasing order which makes rational sense, but is fairly unique in the wine world.

One area many wine drinkers do wish New Zealand would upgrade their regulations comes with the use of place names. Although there are no laws currently acitve regarding place names, unlike the United States New Zealand winemakers typically list the place as where the grapes were grown.

Ok, so what do they grow? New Zealand grows the typical cast of characters in the wine world. Almost all New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc carries the traditional style from the 1980′s and the winemakers of the region have taken that success and transferred it to other wines. Specifically the Kiwi’s do quite well with Riesling, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. Red wine varietals are not as well thought of internationally, but the opportunity is there to make some truly outstanding Pinot.

In conclusion, if you’re looking to try a wine from New Zealand, try a white wine and specificaly a Sauvignon Blanc. I’ll bet you’ll be happy you did as the acidity and flavor profiles may be quite different than you are used to.

I was reminded of my first impressions of the wine industry by a conversation with my wife yesterday after she returned from a day long tour of Sony Pictures with a group of her high school students. To start, yes not everything in movies is, as they appear which is similar to the wine industry. Things are often not as fancy, sophisticated and pretentious as they seem. I know she enjoyed her trip and I appreciate Sony providing a scholarship for one of her very deserving students whom have overcome so much on their way to college. Very cool that she got to see some of the voiceover effects and part of the Spiderman 4 set being built, let alone being able to hold an academy award….which evidently is quite heavy.

The other thing on my mind from yesterday is the fact that California makes some really good wine. Last night we had part of a very cheap bottle of Merlot marked simply with the California AVA. For more information on AVA’s please click here. So often I think people forget that wine, improves from the company of both good people and good food. Although this bottle wasn’t anything I would ever suggest to a friend, or ship to a club member, we enjoyed it along with each others company.

I hope everyone has a nice weekend! As always please stop by and join our interest list over at Uncorked Ventures.

This weekend gave me a good example to use in that explanation. My wife and I were having dinner with someone who although he enjoys wine, perhaps his palate is not as sophisticated as others are at this time. For example he hates Pinot Noir, drops an ice cube in his white wine etc.

So we didn’t want to spend much on a bottle of wine to bring with us, but we wanted to have a drinkable bottle for ourselves at the same time. Over the years I’ve heard good things about the quality/price ratio offered by some of the wine carried at Trader Joe’s, so we thought we’d give it a try. As a plus since moving we’re now in walking distance of a pretty nice Trader Joe’s, which has an active wine selection.

A quick Google search took me to a wine blog dedicated to Trader Joe’s wine, Jason’s wine blog. It’s an impressive site, unlike a lot of wine blogs(this one included) he really gets to the point even offering top 10 lists of his favorite wine for each season at TJ’s. If you’re going to be buying a bottle of wine at TJ’s, I’d highly suggest giving his blog a quick glance…you’ll be glad you did.

Ok, so the selection was pretty picked over when we showed up(around 4pm on a Saturday) so we weren’t able to find anything that Jason had previously recommended as a Buy It….so we tried a label called Epicuro, which he has said he likes.

What we ended up with was the Benevantano Aglianico 2007. My overall impression was that it was worth the $5 we paid for it. On the nose it didn’t offer much, the overwhelming taste was a dark cherry, the texture was quite velvety which was nice. I’m sure a lot of people would describe the wine as smooth….given some of the more traditional Italian wines and their tendency to be overly tannic I was surprised by the bottle. Would I buy it again? Not really sure. Perhaps if we needed a 12th bottle to make a case, although I do think there are going to be other, better options even in that price range. It isn’t that I didn’t think the bottle was a good value, simply that it was neither interesting nor memorable. At any price range I want to have some experience with wine, so this bottle didn’t do it for me.

As always please visit us over at Uncorked Ventures. Have a great week!

I believe I’ve talked a little about Copain before in this space, but I am a fan of much of the wine they make and their winemaker Wells Guthrie. He has a rather unique style for the area and has really been at the forefront of pushing other winemakers to attempt to control the alcohol levels in their wine. Much of the wine that Copain makes ends up with alcohol content 1-2% lower then the competition. They’re able to do this by being very careful about where they source their grapes(usually colder climates) as well as how/when the fruit is harvested(middle of the night when possible to control heat transfer during fermentation).

From a business to business perspective I appreciate the way that they’ve treated us as a start up and as a consumer I greatly appreciate the fact that their wines occupy a range of prices starting at around $20 for their Tous Ensambles series. I do believe they leave some money on the table on a number of their wines which are sold in the $40-$50 range-which are consistently great values many scoring 90+ ratings from Parker and the Wine Entusiast.

Ok so about that Pinot…..as good as I remember it. In fact maybe a bit better given the 6 months or so of rest as well as the thirty minutes of decanting(yeah, yeah I know not ideal). On the nose it’s hard to pick up individual flavors, but it definitely is a dark berry type of smell. On the palate it is noticeably brighter then you’d imagine with cherry being the predominant flavor-the structure of the wine is quite good and really shows Wells ability as most Pinot’s don’t hold up this well.

Overall at around $50, to me it is a clear buy. I am an unapologetic Pinot Noir fan(both because of the flavor profiles and the story of the grape itself) which comes sometimes much to my business partner and father in laws dismay, but I will be interested in comparing this Pinot to some of the more highly hyped Oregon versions.

Lastly I would be remiss if I did not mention where the Monument Tree moniker comes from. Monument Tree is a vineyard about a two hour drive north of San Francisco. Since Copain aims to trim alcohol levels they source fruit from both the Central Coast of California(think on the ocean just north of Santa Barbara) as well as some of the cooler valley’s north of SF. As you can see Monument Tree vineyard is named after a redwood tree which still stands in the middle of the vineyard.

As always thank you for reading-I look forward to making the announcement soon about our initial shipping date.

To start we’d like to say a short thank-you to Sarah and Chris for hosting and providing food-it’s was a nice event and we hope to do it again sometime soon when schedules allow.

We had a group of about ten people tasting, we tasted everything blind in combination with appetizers that included prosciutto wrapped figs, bread, cheeses and other various items…all of which were very good.

We started the evening offering two different Napa Valley Chardonnay’s. The first was purchased from Beverages and More for around $22, it was a 2005 Bouchaine Napa Valley Chardonnay. The second was a free sample sent to me from Prime Vineyards in Napa. Prime sent over their 2008 Chardonnay.

The Prime Chardonnay came out with a score about 5% better than the Bouchaine.

We asked everyone to score each wine on sight(2pts), aroma(5pts), taste(9pts) and overall quality(4pts).

Prime scored 1 point better in total than Bouchaine on average per taster, however most people thought that although Prime had the potential to be a much, much better Chardonnay it was too young to be a real winner. Additionally, although the nose of the wine was outstanding, the taste was too tropical for most people’s tastes. We came to an agreement that both wines were probably being oversold by a few dollars.

To me, I see a lot of potential in the Prime Chardonnay. Yes, the flavors are complicated, but given their success with the wine’s nose and their Cabernet Sauvignon (coming later) it is a wine I will be tracking over their next few vintages. I’d also like to try the wine after it had been set down for a year or two to see how the flavors evolve in that time. I do give them a lot of credit in that they didn’t follow the standard Napa Chardonnay route and simply make the main flavors consistent with oak/butter….the experimentation is something that I think can lead to much better wine down the road.

We had assumed that the white wine tasting would end up being more of a warm up for the reds as we’ve spent much more time working to find workable red wines for our club. We were happy to see that a small, boutique winery was able to come out with better scores then a nationally distributed wine. In some way I felt that started to legitimize our business model.

Matt is running down some options for Uncorked Ventures to be able to ship into three tier states. Three tier is basically bureaucratic nonsense meant to make sure the distributors make their cut of the money, but the idea is that a winery sells their wine to a distributor, the distributor sells to a retailer and the retailer sells directly to the consumer. As you can imagine, for a 3rd party wine club this isn’t a good set up for us. Unlike a few of our competitors we won’t be breaking the law in any state, there are some options for us to ship directly to our customers in places like Florida and New York which employ the three tier system. We hope to have partnerships set up at some point in the next couple of weeks.

On my end, although still largely focused on SEO efforts (up to #4 for our first search term), I have also been planning for our first wine tasting even this Friday evening. I’m a little disappointed that my wife will miss the first part of the tasting, but being able to bring together a group of 10+ people who know wine (only 2 of which I know) is going to not only be a good opportunity to get feedback on the wine that we have sourced, but also an opportunity to pick up a few new clients. Frankly, having some data about the wine is going to be something I’ll want more of moving forward. We’ll be pouring a combination of wine we’re planning on shipping, wine we’ve been sent as a sample and wine we frankly think is over-hyped.

Ok, so I digress quite a bit. Let’s talk some about my first day in Napa.

Our day started with an 11am appointment at Larkmeade Vineyards. Although my business partner had made this appointment I was interested to try the wine from Larkmeade for a couple of reasons. To start they’ve received some great scores from every professional wine judge. Their 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon received 94 points from Robert Parker and has had a string of 90+ point vintages since the year 2000 when the modern age of Larkmeade effectively began. Some basic research also informed me that they were a main supplier of fruit to the likes of Duckhorn and Cakebread. I know if I owned the winery, my competitors would be hard pressed to purchase my best grapes.

The history of Larkmeade is heavily tied to that of the Valley itself and San Francisco. A short version goes something like this: Lillie Hitchcok Hoite (yes, the tower in SF is named after her) started the winery sometime between the time she bought the land in 1875, and 1885 when the local newspaper (the St. Helena Star) made mention of the winery called Larkmeade Cellar. Fast forwarding a bit, Larkmeade was one of the 7 initial members of the Napa Valley Vintners Association: names that include Beaulieu, Mondavi, Louis Martini and the Napa Valley Wine Co. The winery itself was sold in the 1950’s….but the family kept the vineyards. They started making wine again in 1990, with current operations being finalized in 2000….including a new tasting room in 2006. It’s a beautiful spot by the way as you can see from the pictures.

At Larkmeade we were fortunate to have an appointment at the same time as Dana Jackson whom was at Larkmeade doing research for his new IPhone Application called AOC Travel Guides. One of, if not the most impressive wine applications I have seen for the Iphone it will help you plan your trips in wine country. He takes time to give you information on less known locations…do you really need to be told about French Laundry? If you’re from the east coast though you might be interested in the most family friendly wine tasting rooms, or the best Mexican food cart in Sonoma. His app also gives interviews with winemakers and true insider information that most people won’t get during a normal tasting experience. To me, it is bound to be a success and for the $4.99 that he’s planning on charging, I’m sure you’d be happy with the purchase instead of an old, out of date travel book that you spent close to $20 for.

Can you tell I enjoy new media?

Ok, so how about the wine at Larkmeade? I was extremely impressed by the Estate Cab Sauvignon, especially at the price point they are charging. Their proprietary red is also a very, very good wine. We were impressed and enjoyed having the chance to see their operation up close. I love history and having a chance to see a historic Napa vineyard that is producing true world class wine, in a gorgeous setting is an experience I think any wine lover would enjoy. After a quick stop in by the winery general manager, Collin, they also poured a sample of their Salon red wine, which I believe they are currently sold out of. It’s complex, but simply put an amazing wine that I’d rate higher then the estate Cab Sauv. I was very impressed by the quality and also the quality/price ratio we saw at Larkmeade.

After Larkmeade we headed out to lunch at the All Season Café in downtown Calistoga. The meal was good and the price was right(around $10 per plate).

Since we had been so appreciably late on our previous meeting with Audelssa, we decided to make sure to leave ourselves enough time…..especially since their ranch is back on the South-West side(or Sonoma side) of Mt. Veeder. The drive was an interesting one as we wound our way through backroad after backroad and both of us being convinced multiple times that we were not only lost, but would probably never find it. As it turns out, the ranch is fairly easy to find and well worth the trip. From most of the ranch you can not only see the city of San Francisco, but also the Golden Gate Bridge. As Matt said when it was pointed out to us(it appears surprisingly far away from the city because of the angle) Very Cool. Pictures can’t do it justice.

We tasted through an entire range of their wines, again and were impressed by what we found. They are perhaps trending completely right bank with their entry level blends, which I find to be a good thing. We have found three bottles that we plan to source for our different wine clubs, which is an impressive number for a smaller production winery.

After tasting with Mike we were on the way to the car and asked for a short tour. There was quite a bit of activity outside with grapes coming in, being sorted and samples being taken from fermenting grapes. At this point we were introduced to their winemaker Erich who was kind enough to give us a quick tour, talk a little about his winemaking philosophy. We enjoyed the conversation and really realized the next afternoon how similar the winemaker styles are at Audlessa and Alpha Omega, both of whom believe in longer fermentation cycles and only naturally occurring yeast.

After finishing our conversations and driving off the mountain we got ourselves checked into our hotel.
Matt and I finished our night at Barbers Q. One of the best BBQ experiences I’ve had. We split (yes, split) a sampler platter which has ribs, sausage, brisket, pork, onion ring strings…..we added a side order of fries. The fries were great, everything else was among the best BBQ of its type I’ve ever had….except the brisket which fell below what I’ve had in trips to Texas. The brisket was much better the next day…more on that later….but yes we are there two days in a row.

All together it was a very enjoyable day, it was nice to see and taste Audelssa again…Larkmeade is a standout and good company always makes the trip more fun being it Matt, Dana or Mike from Audelssa.

Monday will be an interesting day. We have two meetings in SF to help get our permits moved along. Frankly I’m glad I can be there for them and I do agree with my business partner Matt in that these two meetings are going to be the most important part of the trip.

Tuesday morning we’re planning on heading out fairly early. We’ve debated doing some formal tastings with small producers we’re interested in, but given the number of wineries we have mutual interest in already, we may simply go and taste a few places with the intention of approaching them formally around the new year. Again, we won’t ever ship something we wouldn’t buy for our own cellars and getting out in the field is an important part of the wine club business. We don’t ever want to simply wait at the office and only work with suppliers that ship us samples, we want to be out there, literally looking for new, high quality wineries before anyone else knows about them.

Wednesday brings us the real reason for the trip and something I’m incredibly excited to have the opportunity to do. We’ll be working a day of harvest at Alpha Omega. Exactly what we’ll be doing, we honestly have no idea, but we have heard that Cab Franc and Merlot are close to ready to picked so given good temperatures over the weekend, we may get to be involved with some interesting red wine grapes.

For me personally, I’m also interested in having the chance to compare and contrast the set ups at Alpha Omega and Eagles Nest. I know the two wineries would both freely admit that they probably don’t have much in common and I honestly don’t expect to find much of anything in common at all, but I think it will continue to give me an idea of the challenges facing the wine industry and of course the triumphs.

I think the more I can understand the process and ultimately the concerns of winemakers and their staffs the better we’ll be able to tailor our business to insure our customers(both domestic and international) get the highest quality product each and every year no matter how good, or bad, the overall economy is.
Thursday brings a sort of family obligation, which I won’t mention here (it’s a good thing, that I’m happy to be there for) and then my wife will arrive on Friday.

All in all, I’m very excited for the trip….we should have plenty of pictures and blogs both during and after it has concluded.

What comes up for us in the next 60 days?

To start I’ll assume what we’ve heard about the permitting process is accurate and that we’ll have all of our federal paperwork completed and our paperwork with the state of California will either be approved, or be very, very close to being approved. We’ll certainly have our warehouse location built out completely and ready to store wine. I also believe we’ll be on the first page of Google for at least two of our target search terms. Lastly I think we’ll have made significant progress with our export side of the business, which has probably taken more a back seat over these past 60 days than we originally planned.

We’re certainly moving forward with that process as quickly as possible, with some help both from world trade organizations as well as the US government. At this point, it looks like we have our options for export down to three countries each one with its own tax, ease of forming a business and geo-political concerns.

Of course we’ll keep you updated. Again, thanks for reading.

We did watch an interesting movie last night that made me think that patience is a virtue that I need to continue to work on. Czech Dream is the story of two student filmmakers that use a government grant to advertise the opening for a new Supermarket (basically a Costco it seems) in the suburbs of Prague. So there isn’t a Supermarket, the whole thing is a hoax. About 4,000 people show up for the opening, my wife and I were nervous watching the movie because with that many people being upset, we thought the filmmakers were going to have to run out of there. In effect, nothing happened, the people just wanted the filmmakers to explain themselves….it was a drastically different reaction then you’d expect in the states. That’s not to say better, but I can’t imagine an American saying that it is a nice day and it was nice to take the bus 45 minutes to walk around a field and see the scaffolding of a fake store. To me, although they don’t state it implicitly, the filmmakers were trying to make the point not to let the governments heavy advertising affect them in terms of the upcoming vote in the Czech Republic should become a member of the European Union or not.

The advertising campaign itself was interesting to see, their logo was quite different (as you can see in the above picture, it’s the bubble) but their ads were posted everywhere and said things like “Don’t Come” and “Don’t Spend”…..their tv commercial had a man telling the camera that in his Supermarket he didn’t want any ugly women working there.

I’m not sure if there is anything that we can learn at Uncorked Ventures from the advertising campaign, but it has made me aware that there are plenty of ways to advertise your product. I think as of now we have a pretty standard campaign as far as the wine industry goes, except that we’re giving much greater access than any other wine club I’m aware of. We’re also focused on smaller wineries which is unique because it not only takes more effort on our part, but also because it cuts down on our profit margin.

I’ll continue trying to think of any possible ways to use, the counter-culture type messages that were so effective in the movie, in advertising for our wine clubs and export services.