Red Hills AVA

Just to the northeast of Calistoga in Napa Valley lies Lake County. Within lake County is a sub-appellation called Red Hills. Lake County was the first major wine grape growing area in California with a history dating back to the end of the 19th century. As with so many other promising places and wineries, the growers and wineries were wiped out during the black hole of Prohibition. Folks planted mostly pear and walnut trees to get by.

Fast forward to the 1960s and we see some grapes growing again in Lake County. There are now about four dozen wineries and over 100 growers of grapes who sell on contract to other wineries out of the area.

Red Hills is a sub-appellation within the Lake County AVA. It lies on the southwestern shore of Clear Lake, the largest natural lake in California and the oldest lake in the United States. The local volcano, Mt. Konocti, is responsible for most of the soil types in Red Hills. Obsidian, pumice, clay/gravel, all combine to provide a unique sense of place for this area.

Add to that the altitude of vineyards starting at around 1300 feet and rising to almost 4,000 feet, and there are many factors that go to creating wonderful grapes and wines.

The elevation creates diurnal temperature swings of often 40 to 50 degrees. The steep slopes create breezes which help keep fungus and rot to a minimum. Many of the vine problems found at lower altitudes are not an issue in Red Hills.

Vineyard soils often have high levels of calcium which helps grapes retain acidity to create balance in the finished wines.

The area's altitude places most vineyards above the fog layer coming in off the Pacific so early morning sunlight gives extra hours for slow ripening at cool temperatures.

Wines of Red Hills tend toward great purity of fruit, exquisite balance, moderate alcohol levels and reasonable prices. What more do you need?

Vines are young, with most showing under ten years of age. As these vines mature we will see greater intensity of fruit and complexity on the palette.

While reds do well here, Sauvignon Blanc is a real winnner, showing citrus and tropical fruits with good acidity and elegant balance. New Zealand watch out-someone's gaining on you!

We'll have some more on Red Hills and Lake County later. But for now, go buy some wines from the area and see what I am talking about.

Some Suds

This is a picture of picking hops in the bad old days. How uncomfortable does this look? But from the past we derive the future and that's what this post is about.

This past week at Le Cordon Bleu Atlanta there was a competition for students. The focus was on using beers of Flying Dog Brewery in original recipes. The winners will be posted on their web site. We were lucky enough to have Eric Warner, one of the premier craftbrewers in the US, as a judge in the contest.

It was great to see the enthusiasm, creativity and interest from future chefs in creating some really good dishes using beer as a key ingredient. Some were more successful than others, which is to be expected. The better offerings displayed a finished flavor that fully incorporated the beer in the overall recipe. The better recipes allowed the taste of the individual beer to come through as well as being integrated in the dish.

Eric is a great speaker and loved judging and meeting the students and a million thanks to him. Despite a busy schedule he took time to speak to my Beverage class the next day. Throughout his visit there was enormous interest in the competition and in the students to learn more about good beer.

This was, I think, indicative of how good beer will progress in the years ahead. Craft beers are where wine was in the 1980s as far as market share and public interest. The sleeping giant of American consumers is waking and an awful lot of that interest will be increasingly focused on craft beers. Recent sales show that while industrial beers sales are flat at best, craft beers are increasing at rates of around 30-45% per year.

I see this as part of a general trend that is also reflected in the swelling of interest in slow food, naturally raised beef, pork and lamb and poultry as opposed to the horrors of factory farming, and a passion for people to feel a connectedness to their food.

There is a deep seated need in people to be a part of their environment, part of the land, and this most basic need is evidenced through our food. It is no accident that people are starting push back against frankenfoods, hormone and anti-biotic laced meat, chemical fertilizers and pesticides that do so much damage to the natural world.

Craft brewing is part of this and the beers produced help give people a real sense of being connected to their food. It is reassuring to know that somewhere there is a real person supervising the brewing; and taking a personal interest in his or her products. All is not faceless and spiritless mega-corporations. Ever notice how many beers are increasingly going organic? Same idea.

So support your local craft brewer and brew pub. These folks represent a return to one the most personal aspects of society. They deserve everyone's support. In five years, people will be talking about beers the way they now talk about wines. Be a part of this wholly positive movement.

Prossit!

Wines to Watch Part 1

There are several interesting areas that received good press reports over the last several months. What I am about here is to summarize some of these items and give you ideas for further pursuit of some good wines.

MICHIGAN: Never in my wildest fantasies did I think Michigan would be getting national recognition for their wines. Cherries and cherry pie? Sure. Great blueberries? Sure. Gas guzzling car? Well......

But now the state's burgeoning wine industry is racking up positive press left and right. What does best here are grapes that like a tough climate or can be shown to advantage with less ripening than others. The varietals that come to mind are riesling and pinot gris, AKA pinot grigio. Riesling seems to actually like lousy weather, which is why it does well in Germany. Alsace is is more user friendly but at the 48th or 49th parallel that can mean different things to different grapes. In Michigan the wines produced have lots of structure and a mouth filling tartness coupled with a ripe fruit nose and palette that belie their place of origin.

Pinot grigio can show well if picked early, as many Italian growers do voluntarily. In Michigan, the cooler temperatures can be a blessing in that a consistency of style is not difficult to achieve due to more problematic ripening conditions than in the Veneto region or even Trentino/Alto Adige.

With an aggressive and informative professional association, these wines are making headlines on a regular basis. Look for more news from Michigan in the next couple of years and vines achieve maturity and new wineries get started.

TTB Strikes Again

As many of you know the task of assigning appellation names in the US is the responsibility of TTB-Tobacco and Tax Bureau. In addition to having the "wrong" government agency in charge of this task, this agency has gone back on its own stated principals and rules at the behest of some well connected and extremely prosperous wine companies.

The issue is the use of Calistoga as an appellation name with the requirements as set forth by the TTB itself in the naming of such regions. The companies involved are misleading consumers by implying that their wines come from Calistoga in Napa Valley. There is an 85% rule that says if a specific region and vintage appear on a label then 85% of the grapes used for that wine must come from that region and vintage. A couple of companies decided not to abide by the rules the TTB established.

The TTB also built in an exception clause stating that if the brand was established before 1986 then the name could remain. Both of these companies were started after this rule went into effect and chose to ignore the rule. Now they say that by enforcing the rule TTB set forth that they would suffer economic hardship and, incredibly, TTB is seriously considering theior pitiful plea.

There was a public comment period before a final determination was to be made.

So what we have is a government agency whose job it is to establish PLACE names for the origin of wines saying, in effect, "Well, we really did not mean what we said and all you wineries who chose to abide by the law, goody for you. But these guys have lots of money so we'll make an exception to the exception that they knew about when they established their brand names and let them call their wines by whatever geographical name they want because we will not enforce our own rules especially when these guys are well connected here in Washington and Sonoma County."

Do some leg work to find out what that last comment meant.

If TTB ignores their own rules the entire validity of the AVA system comes into question. There will in effect be no viable national standards for origin of wines. In an industry where, around the world, people are seeking a sense of place in their wines and other food products, we have a Federal agency populated by political appointees negating this movement by consumers everywhere.

It is reprehensible to me to have the very agency responsible for integrity in the source of wines show such appalling disregard for honesty and their own established rules.

Shame.

Catching Up

It has been a while since I wrote my last entry. This is do in large measure to the fact that I was prepping for my, hopefully, last exam for the Diploma of the WSET. The Unit Three Exam, given on January 7 in New York was... interesting. I was well prepared but you never know when there is so much information to be covered-all the wine regions and all the wines of the world. 

We had two, 6-wine taste panels with varietal, location and quality levels involved. Then came the essays: Question one was required and we then selected four of the following six topics to answer in detail. 

Results will not be available until sometime in April.

In the meantime, I had my first article published on Appellation America.com with the topic being unusual Georgia varietals planted based on the terroir of the North Georgia mounntains.

My January/February column for Forsyth Living is on Wines of Austria, some of my favorites.

Plans are also to have the CIA, Culinary Institute of America, alumni magazine Mis en Place publish an article on my wine intensive at the Rudd Center in Napa this past September.

I was in Paso Robles after my wine intensive and conducted and interview with Mr. Justin Barnard of Justin Vineyards as well as Mr. Jason Haas of Tablas Creek. The Haas interview should come to the surface soon. Justin Vineyards Vineyards a little later. More info when it is available.

Take a look at my redone web site. I changed many things and I think it is the better for it.

More to come soon.