Well, I’m mending my ways, friends. A lot more is coming in the weeks and months ahead….

First: in the wake of the 10 Year anniversary of September 11th, please check out my very first blog (archived) called Why Wine Matters? I first wrote these ideas down in my journal just days after September 11^th…..I can’t tell you how many times I’d been on the top of the World Trade Center…..I used to consult for Windows On the World (the  restaurant at the top) and  was Kevin Zraly’s substitute teacher for the Windows Wine Course. So many memories….Anyway, that blog captures much of my philosophy of the meaning of wine.

To change subjects: I promised some thoughts on the third “BIG” concept in learning about wine (see Blog June 15, 2011). Complexity.

Complexity is the holy grail. Complexity is what takes wine out of the immediate and makes it a sustained pleasure. Let me explain. Complexity is the phenomenon of having to taste a wine over and over again because the wine reveals itself sequentially over time.  As such, complex wines cannot be evaluated in one sip. We must sit with them. Wait and see what flavors emerge in 10 minutes, in 20, in 45. Complex wines slow us down; they cause us to have great conversations while we are drinking. Complex wines hold the element of surprise. A wine you thought you disliked on first sip, all of a sudden changes course, and now you’re compelled to finish the bottle. No other beverage has this ability…has this power. To me, one of the most fascinating aspects of this is: we never know how long a critic spent with a wine. If a wine is truly complex…if it reveals itself over time…if the critic spent just one minute tasting it in a line-up of other wines…then what?

Today I’m off to a seminar in San Francisco on Champagne Jacquesson with the winemakers. I hope it takes a lot of time.

We’ve got lots of new projects whirling around at Karen MacNeil & Company, sorry for the delay in posting. That said, we’ve got our fingers crossed that you’ll be hearing a lot from us this Fall.

In the meantime, check out this piece in the Daily Beast about yours truly…but also about the phenomenal changes that we’ve seen in the wine industry in the last several years. It’s hard to fathom the sheer amount of wine information that comes to us today…But I’m excited. American wine culture is moving to the next stage. And we’re all on for the ride.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/22/karen-macneil-of-bottlenotes-com-on-the-gender-difference-in-wine.html

If you had to say one thing that has changed the landscape of wine in America, what would it be?

I had about an hour of their time. Can one teach anything of real value in an hour, I wondered?

As I thought about this, I realized one of the things that makes wine so overwhelming.

People amass thousands of separate wine experiences over years, each experience becoming a single sensory data point. And then at some point, they try to figure out something —anything—about wine from all those disparate experiences. But it’s virtually impossible to do. Lacking any sort of framework or organizing principles, all those experiences remain just that—separate experiences. A thousand glasses of wine; but not an ounce of understanding.

SO: merely tasting wine with my new friends would have been, in my opinion, next to pointless. That would just have been giving them five more wines to add to the list of the hundreds they’d tasted over the years. And they’d still “know nothing.”

As I thought about this, I began to wonder. Are there, say, ten key big ideas that, if you understood, would give you the framework to understand all the wines you’d drink the rest of your life?

I think there are. I decided to tackle three that would be on my list: structure, complexity and ripeness.

Here’s some of what I shared about structure.

1. Understanding structure is critical to understanding any of the “powerful” red varieties: cabernet sauvignon, merlot, syrah, nebbiolo, tempranillo, malbec, to name a few. I just don’t think you can understand these wines unless you understand structure.     
2. While structure is hard to articulate, you can easily taste or sense it —and the lack of it. The wines I used to demonstrate this were a Beaujolais-Villages (no structure) and a wine I adore: Lagier Meredith Syrah from Mt. Veeder (lots of structure).
3. So what is this thing, structure? It’s the sense you have that the wine has a well established form. I think of it as the architecture of the wine. (A wine with a great structure will often remind me of the soaring outlines of a cathedral). The French often describe structure as the skeleton of the wine, as opposed to it’s flavor which they describe as the flesh.
4. Where does structure come from? In white wines, it usually comes from alcohol or acidity; in red wines, it comes from tannin, a component in the grapes’ skins and seeds. Thus, wines with a lot of tannin (like cabernet) also have a lot of structure.  Beaujolias is made from gamay grapes and gamay does not have much tannin. As a result, Beaujolais lacks structure; it feels more flaccid in the mouth (though its flavors can certainly still be attractive).
5. Generally speaking, an impressive structure is something you find in fine, expensive wines, not in bargain carafe quaffs, however serviceable they may be.   
6. And finally, structure matters when pairing wine and food. Foods with a lot of structure themselves—like a meaty, thick steak–need wines with commensurate structure (like cabernet), or the food experience will dwarf the wine experience.

Coming soon: complexity and ripeness, two more of the ten big ideas that make learning about wine easier.

I admit I would never want to miss the Oakville tasting. The cabernets, when great, soar and crescendo in waves of what seems to me like an ethereal drama of blueberry and violet. They can harness California’s biggest goal: to somehow capture elegance and power, all in the same glass.

But this tasting set up more questions than it answered.

The big tasting itself was preceded by a two hour  “masterclass” composed, surprisingly, of just  three wines (to be honest, this does not constitute a masterclass in my opinion–especially given that recent educational masterclasses around the world have included ten times –or more–the number of wines). Nonetheless the three wines were remarkable and delicious. More on them in a minute.

Paul Roberts, director of BOND (and former wine director of all Thomas Keller Restaurants, including Per Se in New York and the French Laundry in the Napa Valley) was the moderator of a panel, and the “mind behind” much of the philosophic substance of the class. On the panel itself (with one each of their wines) were Phil Coturri, winegrower for Oakville Ranch; Mary Maher, Vineyard Manager of Harlan and BOND; and Kirk Venge, owner with his father Nils, of Saddleback Cellar and Venge. (Central casting would have had a field day. Respectively: wild haired biker man meets diminutive blond meets tall, smiling guy next door).

As for Roberts himself, the man is a great thinker and has a great palate. I totally respect him.

But here’s what I didn’t get.

Roberts made the case that Oakville is the epicenter for THE greatest Napa Valley cabernets.  (Those are my words, not his; but he did invoke the Pauillac comparison a lot). OK, I thought to myself, there ARE, lot of great wines made in the small appellation of Oakville. And indeed, Roberts presented thoughts and data to suggest that Oakville was, more or less, synonymous with great terroir.

Then came the wines, the discussion, and finally, revealingly, the prices. The Oakville Ranch 2006 cabernet (beautiful richness and elegance) was $60. The Venge “Saddleback” 2006 (smoky, rustic, and broad on the palate) was $125; and the BOND “Vecina” 2006 (stunningly vivid fruit, with great purity and power) was $300.

Later, I asked Roberts why—if Oakville was an extraordinary place across the board—there’d be a five time price differential.

His answer was that Oakville was akin to the Burgundian town of Gevry Chambertin.  And that Gevry Chambertin  is a great place categorically—but within that place, there are the greatest sites, the grand crus (presumably BOND commanding $300). The premier crus and village wines? Well, they trail in a grand cru’s wake.

Hmmmm. The monks of Burgundy conducted the largest, longest (seven centuries), and most systematic viticultural research project ever undertaken. The very notion of terroir as the core concept of viticulture stems from their painstaking work.

Can Oakville play the Burgundy card? Does anyone have the gravitas of ground—the winegrowing experience of centuries–to know that there are “grand cru” sites within any California appellation?

Given, some of the wines that day in Oakville were amazing. But many were not.

I now wonder what role—if any—humility plays in the California wine industry…. 

KM

The Five Most Impressive Wines of the Oakville Tasting*

(Based on the interplay of elegance, balance and structure)

Futo 2008,    $140

Gargiulo Estate “OVX” 2008,   $190

Plumpjack Estate 2008,   $80

Screaming Eagle 2008,   $1500

Stanton Vineyards 2008,   $75

*Some wines—notably Opus One—were not tasted, because the supply ran out early.

Prices are approximate.

The primordial way the wine smells…a certain animali scent. Or the way a wine can heighten the senses—like the brush of a hand along skin. A wine can, if it’s the right wine, engulf you in its waves of pleasure. It’s all very sexy. 

I was thinking about these ideas a few nights ago because of the tango. 

To set the scene: I was in Mendoza, at Catena Zapata winery, a surreal Mayan-inspired mecca of sorts for the modern Argentine wine industry. Just after midnight, as we stood drinking  Catena’s meltingly delicious late harvest semillon, a man and a woman, entwined in each other, moved, in raw desire, across the sweeping marble floor. It seemed somehow embarrassing to watch them. But I couldn’t take my eyes away. The power of all that sensuality combined with painstaking grace was spellbinding.

 And in that moment, I got what Argentine malbec is missing.

 It is powerful to be sure. Its body flows broadly and thick over the palate. The flavors can have an oozy dark sweaty mystery to them. It’s all there—almost. 

Argentine winemakers seem hell bent to make malbecs as concentrated, powerful, and syrupy as possible.

 But aren’t the most sensual and complex wines of the world the ones that also possess grace?

 Maybe what Argentine winemakers need now are tango lessons. 

 The Five Best (Tango-informed) Malbecs or Malbec-Blends So Far:

(All form Mendoza)

 *Alta Vista “Alta” 2007

*Renacer Malbec Gran Reserva 2008 

*Catena Zapata Malbec “Nicasia” 2007 

*Terrazas de los Andes Afincado Malbec “Las Compurtas” 2007

*Cheval des Andes 2006

*Alma Negra “Misterio” 2007 (alas, a mystery. The producer won’t say what the grape varieties are in the wine, but I assume there’s at least some malbec here)

Fantastic wines appeared, and with them, larger and louder conversations. Until the moment… I could feel it coming… when one of them asked: so, how did you get into the wine business?

The table fell silent, and I thought to myself: shall I give the one sentence answer or the three sentence answer or the real answer?

To be truthful, over the last several years, I’ve often wondered myself why I’m in the wine business. After all, almost any reasonably smart person could make a lot more money in another field. Yet, countless times (and here was another one), people who earn three, maybe five, maybe ten times as much as I do say they’d trade places in a minute.

So what is it about wine?

I’ve come to think it is this: wine is one of the last true things. In a world mechanized to madness, a world where you can’t do anything without overhearing somebody’s cell phone conversation, a world where innocuous emails all exude infuriatingly false urgency–in this world, wine remains utterly unrushed. Still (thankfully) mysterious. The silent music of nature. For seven thousand years, vines clutching the earth have thrust themselves upward toward the sun and given us a transformative liquid in return. And so it is that wine ineluctably connects us to that earth. We don’t have to do anything. We drink… and the bond is there.

Wine matters because of this connection. Wine (and food) cradle us in our own humanity. Drinking wine–small as that action may seem–is an affirmation. It reminds us of other things that matter: love, friendship, generosity.

I took a sip of the Raveneau Chablis Montee de Tonnerre, and hoped I could attempt more than the one sentence answer.