Davie Piña & Congressman Mike Thompson at the Rutherford Chili Ball

 

Davie's been at it again, getting some recognition from our member of the U.S. Congress, Mike Thompson (who grew up in St. Helena), for his efforts at restoring the Napa River. These were taken Sunday night, August 8th, at the annual "Chili Ball," which is put on by the Rutherford Dust Society (a group promoting the wines and viticulture of the area). Davie wore two hats at the event: he's on the board of that organization, and also helped put on a demo by the Rutherford fire dept. This generally involves letting little kids squirt water out of the fire hose!

  

  

  

Go your own way...

Go your own way . . .

By Ross Workman

There is so much written about wine in the periodicals, and now that the blogosphere is accessible for everybody with a laptop, we are overwhelmed by a sea of conflicting opinions telling us what is right and wrong and how to think about and enjoy wine. For example, I was amazed to learn recently from two impeccable wine pundits that one could never truly understand a wine unless he traveled to the place whence it came and imbibed the atmosphere and culture of the place. Apparently terroir is a broader and deeper concept than we had understood it to be; it affects the drinker as well as the wine. And we mere mortals thought it was what was in the bottle that mattered. And talk about smashing idols, we are also told that the uber wine maven E. Robert Parker himself had written about Spanish wines for years before ever having set foot there! Show me your bullfight tickets before I will read your tempranillo review, or you are just an imposter, according to this newly revealed truth.


I have spent a lot of time with wine drinkers, many of them serious, some obsessed, in Napa Valley tasting rooms, soirees and dining rooms where wine-talk predominates. And I have concluded that, as a law school professor told me long ago, “We all just have to go to hell our own way.” There is just too much variability amongst us mortals for many proffered “truths” about wine to be universally applicable. Some examples might illustrate.


Young wine or old wine? I know two winery proprietors who both love cabernet sauvignon (the California version), but differ completely about when it tastes best to them. One prefers the wines within a year or two after release. The other finds them much better with 8 or 10 years of age, and sometime magical with 15+ years. Both are lifelong winery professionals who fully understand the different charms of a young fresh, vivid cab versus a mature evolved one. They just have different personal preferences. Neither one is wrong; each follows his own lights. It’s like one guy prefers his eggs over easy and the other one scrambled. There is no objective right or wrong here. You go to hell your own way.


Red vs. white. I have recently poured wine for two mature, sophisticated wine drinkers, one of whom said he could only abide red wines and never touched whites. The other exclusively drank whites. Those struck me as pretty limiting stances, but I could not tell either one he was wrong. If I myself had to choose only one type of wine, it would probably be sparkling. Fortunately the choices are myriad.


High alcohol levels. A dinner guest recently told me she didn’t drink high alcohol wines because she didn’t like the taste of alcohol. Since alcohol doesn’t have much taste for me, I asked her what it tastes like. She couldn’t say, but she had been persuaded (probably by an “expert”) that what she didn’t like about a particular wine was the “high” alcohol level. I poured her an un-oaked chardonnay with 14.5% alcohol and a fully ripe, fruit-driven style. She loved it.


Food and wine pairing. What wines “go” with what foods is an absolute minefield of pontification and pseudo-expertise. The myriad possible combinations of food flavors and textures matched with innumerable possibilities of varied wine types and styles produces an infinity of conceivable pairings. Surprisingly, there are “experts” who will pick among these hundreds of possible choices and tell you which ones are “right and wrong.” The forgotten factor in this exercise is your personal preferences and taste memory bank. Your mother fed you different stuff than mine fed me, so we come to the party with different memories and pre-dispositions. Throughout our lives we have accumulated long lists of what tastes good and bad to us. The chances are that your list and mine don’t match exactly. What tastes good to you is all that matters. With your grilled salmon you can drink sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, pinot gris, reisling, gewurtztraminer, pinot noir, syrah, sparkling, zinfandel, or something else, for example. I’ve tried them all and the only one I consistently didn’t like was the chardonnay, but that’s me. Call me a tasteless, undiscriminating Philistine, if you will. But I might call you an elitist out to impose your own preferences on other people.


Chocolate and wine. The proof that wine-food pairing advice is based on subjective personal preference and not on absolute truths comes with the mixing of bold red wines and chocolate. I know equally experienced wine drinkers who say with equal vehemence that the pairing is an abomination or that it is one of the divine gifts given to oenophiles. The middle ground says that the wine can make the chocolate taste better, but the chocolate cannot make the wine taste better. Perhaps. But these mutually exclusive, strongly held opinions cannot all be right for everybody’s palate. We’re all just going to have to go to hell our own way.


Wine isn’t always necessarily the answer. I have a friend who for the last 45 years has made a very good living with tastes. His pre-eminent consulting practice successfully invents food products for a wide variety of clients, so he has an encyclopedic understanding of what combinations of tastes and textures people will opt for. With considerable detail, he can explain just how wine works as a beverage accompanying a broad array of foods. He can afford to drink anything he might want, but his invariable meal beverage of choice is India Pale Ale, a particularly bitter, heavily hopped ale that British colonialists enjoyed in India. It is an unconventional subjective choice, but it is a fully informed one and it works for him. I cannot tell him he is objectively wrong.


Ripe or austere wine styles? Probably the biggest hoorah in the blogosphere at the moment revolves around the difference between the more fully ripened styles of New World (read California) wines versus the more restrained style of Old World (read European) wines. Without a doubt, they are different. And it is similarly certain that the styles differ in large part based on the climates in which the grapes are grown. Napa’s latitude is about the same as Sicily; Bordeaux is about the same as Vancouver. Guess which one picks their grapes riper? Duh!


You can find a great deal of “expert” opinionating on why the Old World style makes better wine. Or you can look at the market and see what people buy. Even the self-appointed tastemakers who condemn New World style wines as being overly-alcoholic and not up to the refined standard of classic Old World wines cannot change the fact that in the last decades the New World style has been eating the lunch of the Old World wines out there where consumers vote with their own dollars and buy the wines that taste better to them.


What’s going on here is the total subjectivity of wine. I used to work for an old-timer who said the luckiest guy is the one whose absolute favorite wine, which he’d rather drink than anything else, is something he buys for less than $10 a bottle. He preferred zin, himself. In a world of 100 point scale ratings, Masters of Wine, sommeliers with an attitude and know-it-all blogger-pundits, here’s a pretty good rule to live by: If it doesn’t please you, don’t drink it. If it violates conventional pairing wisdom, but you like it anyway, go for it. Unless the “expert” is picking up the tab, drink what tastes good to you. We live and drink in a global wine market, so whatever people like is pretty easy to find. Economics tells us free markets work. Cast off your shackles and enjoy the freedom to please yourself. I do.


Cheers!


Ross Workman

Tony's retirement from the Navy

Even though this weekend is dedicated to our fallen heroes, this note and pictures from one of our wine club members, a living hero, is worth sharing:


Denise;

Good day from the right coast. Last week I retired from the Navy after 25 years of service. I remember from our past discussions, you always wondered what I did…so here is a little taste. The attached photos were taken in front of one of my Riverine Assault Boats. The bad ass looking machine gun in the background is a MK-44 GAU electric mini-gun which fires 3000 rounds per minute. My wife Diane and son Jonathan are in the second photo. Enjoy!

Tony

Congratulations Tony & Family!

============================================

For those of you that did not see my Memorial Day posts from a year ago, please click on these:

http://pinanapavalley.blogspot.com/2009/05/there-are-no-words.html

http://pinanapavalley.blogspot.com/2009/05/memorial-day-weekend-2009-at-vets-home.html

Auction lot dinner with a Cornhole tournament

To go to the Howell Mountain Vintners & Growers Association website, please click on this:

http://www.howellmountain.org/events.html

For the past several years, we have donated a dinner for 12, with games, to the live auction noted above.  When our guests arrive, they are treated to a variety of Piña Napa Valley wines as they socialize right in our winery cellar/tasting room. Then, they are served dinner right in our winery cellar/tasting room. Once dinner is over, the tables are cleared and we have a Cornhole Tournament right in our winery cellar/tasting room, as the dessert bar is brought out.

The Cornhole Tournaments have become a regular activity at many of our events. 

I've described the game and talked about it in 2 previous posts:

Cornhole Craze Expanding West!

http://pinanapavalley.blogspot.com/2009/08/cornhole-craze-expanding-west.html

AND

“We’re here for a good time”

http://pinanapavalley.blogspot.com/2009/08/were-here-for-good-time.html

We held the latest Auction lot dinner and Cornhole tournament on Saturday, May 22, 2010.  We must be doing something right, because many of the folks that contributed to the purchase of this auction lot, have been involved for the last 3 years. 

This is what this year's group looked like:

They are diverse, fun loving group with a common thread;

The Oakland Police Department.

The Cornhole Tournament winner this year was Gordy.

Not that he's competitive, but Kyle, last year's winner spent several minutes checking my math on the scoresheet after placing third.

And even though much wine was consumed,

we were not concerned when this group headed home.

Because these two gentlemen (James & Erik) loaded them all into their Escalade limos for the ride home.

James, the business owner, was formerly with the Oakland PD.

We thank them all for supporting the auction that benefits the

Howell Mountain Elementary School.

The Wine Club Deck (Finale)

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Joe & Lori (Sis) Bauer

for coordinating the photos and even bringing the various hats & props.

John & Julianne

Placerville

"Make My Day - Pour Me a Chardonnnay"

Good thing that we now have a Chardonnay!

Jason & the 4 foot Paella pan

Cousin Joanne and Omar Cruz

The ever pleasant Jeanine Layland

Yogi and fans

Ranndy with Denise, Our Sales Manager

And with Anna, Our Winemaker

And with Cindy, his Commander in Chief!

The Wine Club Deck, Part 3

More Club members, friends & volunteers...

Norma & Roger

Woodland Hills

Aletia, Bottle Top (Anna) & Jennifer

The Wild Women of Southwest Ranches, Florida!

Nancy, Michael, Scott

Michael works with us and his folks are from Katy, Texas

Macario (our assistant winemaker) with his lovely wife Griselda,

and the too cute for words, Isa

Nadine & Jay

San Ramon

Dave & Andy

Ithaca NY, San Francisco

Petrus & Liz, Carolina & Art

Bay Area

Carolina & Art

Pablo Ceja (Griselda's Dad), Carolina & Macario

Pablo & Macario

Can't read the names too well, here folks - Guessing:

Tim, Ann, Maurice & Kurt

Brisbane

Volunteers Colby with Father-in-Law Mark

Volunteers Samantha (My cousin Joanne's daughter) &

Dave (My brother Larry's Son-in-Law)

Volunteers Dave & Jeanine

Cousin Craig & his niece Sam

(Stay tuned for the final installment)

The Wine Club Deck, Part 2

More Smiling Faces from our

Howell Mountain, Buckeye Vineyard Cabernet release party

(Some of the writing was a bit hard to read,

Please correct me if any of the info below is in error)

Alan, Lynn & Tyler

Reno/Napa, Berkeley?

Bill, Sally, Carol, Stan

Mill Valley

(Wine Club Members "Forever")

Ran, T. Man D.

El Dorado

Dev, Tal, Peg, Will

San Ramon

Joanne, John

Roseville

Adele, John

Napa

Rick & Joanne

Gold River, Sacramento

MB, La Patty, PJ, Pest(?), Big Red

Alhambra & San Rafael

Allan & Susan

Benecia

Allan & Susan (2)

Benecia

Vanessa, Dalia, Mom, Belen

(Ceja Vineyards - Napa)

Bill & Stan

Mill Valley

Anna (our winemaker) & Allan

Napa & Benecia

Joe, Tammy & Chuck

Sacramento

Janet, Chris & Felix

Danville

To be continued...