How do I love thee? Let me count the ways . . .

Ranndy: The editing capabilities of this site are limited, especially in the formatting department. Ross submitted this file to me in perfect outline form, but I am not able to duplicate that layout.  I am not about to complain about it (not too much, anyway), because Google generously provides this site for free.  For any of you that might want to view the original document, let me know and I'll email it to you. Now, on to Ross:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways . . .


So wrote the Victorian poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, about her love of a man. The same question is posed here. But about a different object. This is about the love of wine. Let me count some of the ways. For there are so many ways we love wine.

1. We have loved wine for its health benefits. Historically, that sometimes has been because it was not water which was often polluted. The alcohol and acid in the wine kept it relatively free from harmful pathogens, so those who drank it reduced their exposure to water borne illness. Some think this accounts for much of the success of the Roman Legions in conquering, occupying and ruling a far flung empire. The conquered peoples were adapted to the bad stuff in their local waters as the Romans were not. But, by relying on their own wines, the invaders reduced their exposure to illnesses to which they were susceptible. Numerous modern health benefits of wine have been identified in recent decades. Although the alleged benefits are not scientifically proven, all my doctors, save one, drink wine regularly. The outlier plans to outlive me. And I him. We’ll see about that.

2. At a fundamental level, wine is just a tasteful beverage. Love of wine gets way more complicated than that, but one should not forget that the object of our affection is just grape juice, after all; grape juice that has been processed in a way that preserves it. We love it because it is handy, tastes good, comes in lots of different flavors, and makes us feel good. Not many other beverages can say all of that.

3. Like lots of beverages, wine gets consumed in various contexts. Often with food, but also often without it. By itself, we love to drink wine

o To warm us, as with mulled wine


o To cool us, as with wine that is chilled and sometimes mixed with fruit, think Strawberry Bowle in Germany or Clerico on the beach in Uruguay or, yes, wine coolers in America


o To celebrate births, holidays, anniversaries, the launching of ships and other important occasions when sparkling wine is irreplaceable


o To console us over the loss of a loved one at a wake


o To remind us of our faith in religious ceremonies


o To make us happy when we are together


o To cheer us up when we are alone


o The contexts in which we love wine by itself are myriad


I have a friend whose hard and fast rule is that he only drinks wine when he is alone, or when he is with someone. It’s not a bad rule.

4. When we get to the question of how we love wine with food, things get rather complicated. First, in which of the three logically possible modes are we?


A. Food Centered. Sometimes people see the wine as something that goes with the food.


B. Wine Centered. Other times we see the food as something that goes with the wine.


C. Balanced. Still other times we see the food and the wine as being in parallel, separate pleasures, simultaneous, but not necessarily inter-dependent.


Which mode you are in changes how you love the wine.


5. And what you think about the relationship of food and wine, and our love of both, changes in different circumstances. Like, for example


• Wine at a picnic


• Wine at a fine dinner in a restaurant


• Wine at home with leftovers on Tuesday night


• Wine with lunch


• Wine with a festive Sunday brunch


• Wine with salad


• Wine standing up with passed hors d’oeuvres


• Wine with hot dogs at a ball game


• Wine with dessert


• Wine at a tapas bar


• Wine with a lover -- before or after sex (bubbly wine recommended here)


• Wine with a large family meal, say, Thanksgiving Dinner


• Wine at a meal you would rather not be at, say, ditto

 

6. Talking about the love of wine with food, one unavoidably gets to the freighted question of “pairing” wine with assorted foods. We know this is something very special because we don’t “pair” other beverages with food very often. Maybe milk and cookies, tea and crumpets, beer and brats. I can’t think of anything to “pair” with bitter coffee. But with wine there are textbooks, lectures, careers, reputations, professions, friendships, and the ending of friendships, based on what foods to “pair” with what wines.


Maybe the threshold question is whether the decision about what wines we love with what foods is either 1.)Subjective, personal, idiosyncratic and nobody’s business but your own, or 2.) Objective, certain, universal, knowable and deeply involved with Right and Wrong.


If you believe #1, Subjective, then it gets easy. What wine goes with what food is what you like QED. End of game. Go forth and eat and drink together whatever you damned well please. If it tastes good, it is right! If it doesn’t taste good, spit it out! This is the system we all used as infants. There is much to be said for it.


But if you are more comfortable with clear-cut Rules, and believe there is Truth to guide us at the table, and that Experts know what is Right and Wrong, then you are probably going to vote for #2, Objective Truth. But recognize that this is a more hazardous road to travel because the Experts who would lead you do not always agree.


For example, we used to know that “red wine with red meat and white wine with white meat” was an immutable principle. But then it was revealed that Pinot Noir was sometimes OK with veal. And actually pretty good with salmon, which isn’t exactly white. Or red, for that matter, either. And what the hell is going on with Coq a’Vin? Isn’t that really chicken in red wine? Truthiness is not simple.


Turns out it is pretty hard to pin down a lot of the rules that the Experts will agree upon. There are just too many variables and too many Experts. We’ve got red wine, white wine, pink wine, sweet wine, dry wine, slightly sweet wine, high acid wine, low acid wine, high alcohol wine, low alcohol wine, young wine, old wine, fortified wine, oxidized wine, maderized wine, still wine, sparkling wine, sorta sparkling wine, etc., etc. And the variables on the food side are even more diverse!


Enter now the Experts. Some come from the food side of the equation; they cook food or do something with it. Other Experts come from the wine side, they open a lot of bottles, taste a lot of wines, sell it, study with other Experts, write about wine, or sometimes they even make wine. What you can say about them all with certainty is that they are all individual human beings with their own unique personal taste memory banks, food histories and likes and dislikes. Their mothers fed them different things growing up. So maybe it is not surprising that the Experts don’t all agree about what wine pairs best with what food. Here’s the Dirty Little Secret: the Experts are just like you and me, only more convinced they know what is Right and Wrong about what wine you should love with what food.


The acid test of the dissimilarity of Truths is the pairing of red wine with dark chocolate. For some people it is a match made in heaven. Winery tasting rooms sometimes offer chocolate to taste with their finest wines because they think it will mesmerize you and you will buy the wine. For other people, the combination is an abomination that induces gagging and makes both the wine and the chocolate taste worse than either would on their own. And there are Experts on both sides of this chasm. Remember the Dirty Little Secret!


7. One thing we love about wine is the endless variability it brings to our mouth. Every pulled cork or unscrewed cap is potentially a new taste adventure. Even if it is a wine with which we are familiar, the context or the company or the food or even the weather can make the wine taste different. Also the wine itself is changing over time. You may like it better next year, or regret you didn’t drink it last year, but it will probably be different. And again, there is no right answer. Just as some people like their eggs soft boiled and others hard boiled, some people like younger wines and others like older wines. How can we say one person is Right and the other is Wrong? Although you might find an Expert to tell you when the wine will be at its “peak”, your own opinion about when the wine tastes best to you is the best answer to optimum aging of a wine.


There are lots of ways we love the wine. You might even find some of them in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry, reprinted here for the sheer love of her skill with words. After all, Robert Louis Stevenson called wine “poetry in a bottle.”

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.



Grape juice can never match that. But it’s a hell of a beverage! Don’t we love it?


Cheers!


Ross Workman

Announcing Isa Ceja Montoya!

Isa Ceja Montoya

Congratulations to Griselda & Macario Montoya!

 (Macario is our Assistant Winemaker)

Macario sends the following message:

Isa was born Dec. 13th at 6:14am

She weights 7.14 pounds and is 19.5 inches tall.

Griselda and baby are doing great.

* * * * *

Babies, Babies Everywhere!

Tristan Moffit

1 year old on Thanksgiving day

Son to Gerry & Denise Moffit

(Denise is our sales Manager)

Ilaria Anna Monticelli

3 months old
Daughter to Anna & Mario Monticelli

(Anna is our Winemaker)

Reid Laidlaw

10 months old

Son to Kristen & Mike Laidlaw

(Mike is our Wine Educator)

And lastly:

Blake Barkas

5 months old

Son to Peter & Christin Barkas

(Blake is Grandson to Ranndy & Cindy)

Hey Waiter! There’s alcohol in my wine.

Hey Waiter! There’s alcohol in my wine.

By Ross Workman

It is getting increasingly easy to get an argument going about whether some wines have too much alcohol in them. This is largely the result of New World (read, California) wines being made from grapes picked at a higher degree of ripeness than was traditionally common in Old World (read, European) wines. The argument is usually that the more austere, less ripe style of, say, 11-12% alcohol wines is better to drink with food than is the fruit forward, fully ripened style of, say, 14-15% wines.


Probably the styles resulted from the climates where the grapes were grown, rather than some pre-determined optimal alcohol percentage. More northerly growing areas are generally cooler than growing areas in more southerly latitudes and therefore have a harder time achieving the same degree of ripeness. (Obviously we’re talking Northern Hemisphere here.) Some regions have more cloudy, rainy days during the growing season than other areas do.


It strains credulity, however, to suggest that predominant alcohol levels in a region are the result of testing or comparing various alcohol levels’ compatibility with food and selecting the level which was judged best. It is much more likely that, because the climate resulted in certain alcohol levels in the wines, people got used to how wines of those levels seemed to work with the foods. What was available became what people got used to.


The Old World established the standard wine styles and the New World initially copied them. So 20 or 30 years ago Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon had alcohol levels much closer to Bordeaux cabs than they do today. And they were more austere and came initially with harsher tannins than they do now. California winemakers were probably modeling their wines on the traditional standard setters from Bordeaux.


But, in the last decade or so, New World wines have moved to a riper style with more fully developed phenolic compounds and fruitier flavors that result from picking grapes later and at higher sugar content than was the practice in former times. This style also is capable of producing a more unctuous mouthfeel with polished, gentler tannins than the harder edged, less ripe wines. Since the riper wines are easier to drink closer to the vintage date than they used to be, they allow you to enjoy the fresh, vivid flavors of fully ripened fruit instead of the evolved, but more subdued, flavors of an aged wine.


Many winemakers will argue that this is the natural style for California wines. This is the way wines taste when made from fully mature grapes in the California climate. Full maturity, they will say, may be different another climate, but I’m not making wine there and this is what nature gives me here.


Wine writers and sommeliers that are critical of higher alcohol wines are usually people with highly trained palates who are familiar with a great many more wines than most consumers are. By their trade, they have experience with both New World and Old World styles. What some of them are telling us is that they prefer lower alcohol wines with food. That’s fair enough; we all have our own opinions. How I like my eggs or my steak cooked is purely my choice; there is no right or wrong about it. Same thing goes for wine preferences.


But sometimes the experts’ opinions are put in more categorical terms like “High alcohol wines don’t go well with food,” as if there was some objective standard of what tastes right and wrong to everybody. I don’t know where such a standard would come from and I don’t believe there is such a standard. The only standard of what tastes good to you is what you happen to like.


To see how completely reasonable people can differ about the tastes of wine with food, ask a selection of your wine drinking friends how well they like chocolate with cabernet sauvignon. I know very wine-knowledgeable people with diametrically opposed and adamant opinions on that pairing. And it is not possible to say either group is right or wrong.


I also know a few people who prefer lower alcohol wines, but mostly not for food compatibility reasons. They just feel that their own capacity for alcohol is so low that they feel the alcohol’s effects faster than they want to when they drink riper, high alcohol wines. I drink both high and low alcohol wines and personally don’t find that a 10% wine is any better with dinner than a 15% wine. For me, other factors than alcohol drive my preference for one wine over another.


There is a theory that we humans are hard-wired to prefer ripeness. We certainly do so with the fresh fruits we eat. Everybody prefers a ripe strawberry, melon, peach or grape to an unripe one. And if we prefer ripe grapes to under-ripe ones, it is not surprising that we prefer the wines made from fully ripe grapes instead of wines from not quite fully ripe grapes.


Being used to fully ripened wines, I am often disappointed by the thin flavors and textures of less ripe wines. I suppose if I had grown up on 11% wines I might feel a bit overwhelmed by the big wine style of a 14% cab or a 15% zin. But, fortunately, there is plenty of wine in all styles available, so nobody has to drink what he doesn’t like. We live in a globalized wine market where most of us have a greater selection of wines from all over the world than was ever available to any king, prince or czar of a century ago.


So I think it is pretty pointless to tell people that “High alcohol wines don’t go with food.” For many people they sure as hell do go nicely. And, if they don’t work for you, you don’t have to drink them.


Cheers!


Ross Workman

Visitors come for more than just the wine

People are attracted to the Napa valley for many reasons,

the premium wines, wonderful weather, beautiful views and fresh air to name a few. Recently a young visitor from the south bay area came to the Napa Valley to visit family in Yountville and take photos of this year’s magnificent fall colors in the vineyards. Sarah Bauer took photographs throughout the valley and one of her stops was Piña Vineyards were she could take advantage of the hillside views of the valley floor. She has sent along the following photos of her visit to Piña Vineyards.

 

Sarah is 21 years old and lives in San Jose. She received her AA in Liberal Arts last year from West Valley College and earlier this year transferred as a junior to San Jose State University to study Graphic Design. She recently began her first business venture ‘Bauer Art’. Besides photography, she also enjoys drawing and painting. You can view some her recent drawings and paintings on her blog at:

http://bauerart.blogspot.com/