Wine around the world

Fifty miles south of the city of Mendoza the valley of Tunuyan feels less like a valley and more like a vast, kneeling supplicant to the immediate, looming bulk of the Northern Andes mountains. Though the valley floor is massive -- sweeping away from the jagged, snow capped peaks in every possible direction as if it were trying to get out of the way of their falling bulk -- you never get the sense that it is very flat. No matter where you stand, the world seems to be constantly tipping up towards (or down away from, as the case may be) the peaks above, leaving the uneasy feeling that somehow if you stopped walking or closed your eyes for a moment, you'd fall over -- nudged off balance by a world pushed aside by the Andes.

The topological uneasiness caused by the very real angle of the alluvial plains of Tunuyan is accompanied by another phenomenon common to the world's most expansive landscapes. The ground seems nearer to the sky; and the two of them together -- the whole wide world -- contrive to make the human observer seem mouse-small in the face of its sheer grandeur.

In this landscape, it can be difficult to fully appreciate what is quite likely the most ambitious winery project on the surface the planet. In the shadow of great mountains, winemaker Michel Rolland, viticulturalist and managing director Carlos Mayer, and some of the world's most famous and influential winery families are building the crown jewel of Argentina's wine world. Clos de los Siete -- a partnership originally with seven investors (though some have subsequently pulled out) -- will be, when fully realized, a semi-collective grouping of world-class wine estates who will each make their own wines while contributing some of their grapes to a single wine produced under the Clos de la Siete name.

Certainly the dirt and pothole-ridden pavement back roads that lead the visitor to the unmarked adobe-style gatehouse at the base of Clos de los Siete do not properly set the stage for the grandeur that lies in wait at the foot of the mountains. Driving past the gatehouse onto the lower roads of the property, which were beginning to show signs of their eventual groomed state when we visited about six years ago, and even seeing the initial views of some of the vineyards and low-slung architectural forms of the wineries, it is difficult to get a handle on exactly what it is you are seeing.

For me, it took a short drive with Carlos Mayer to the top south-western corner of the property, the highest elevation point of the project, to fully understand the real scale of the numbers he was reeling off as we bumped along the dirt roads. 2092 acres of property at 1,200 meters above sea level planted, since 1999, with vines at 2500 plants per acre on a plot of land four kilometers long and two kilometers wide sounds like a lot of vineyard. Until you see it. And then you realize that it's a hell of a lot of vineyard.

As we bumped our way back down to the first of the winery buildings past the neighboring property overrun with head-high gorse and some sort of equally unattractive bush (which Mayer says indicates excellent soil infertility for grapes) I also got the sense of the unbelievable effort it must have taken to transform the landscape to the point at which grapevines (and irrigation pipes, and electrical wires) could be put into the ground. Clearly neither time, effort, nor expense were a barrier to success.

And it took only two steps into any one of the wineries on the property to fully understand how much expense we are really talking about.

Each winery on the property is an exercise in architectural expression as well as the stuff of winemakers' wet dreams. With a literal blank slate (and no doubt, blank checks from the owners) the wineries of Clos de los Siete are the most sophisticated custom winemaking facilities I have ever seen. Fully optimized for gravity flow, precise humidity and temperature control, workflow, cleanliness, and the exacting custom specifications of Mayer, Rolland, and the individual winemakers for each of the families, they would be impressive even without the stylish edifices in which they sit. The buildings themselves express the personalities of their owners, and no doubt their architects as well. From the postmodern Santa Fe visions of artist/illustrator Philippe Duillet (famous among other things for being the art director of the Star Wars films) at the Flecha de los Andes winery, to the low slung modernism-meets-Tuscan-castle of Cuvelier los Andes, to the majestic Boston-brick-warehouse monolith of Monteviejo.

It's all to easy to see only as far as the expression of massive wealth and ambition at play across the landscape here. These palaces here at the ends of the earth can, and likely will by some, be written off as an exercise of ego with no spending cap. But anyone who bothers to stay long enough to taste the wines being made here would have to be dead not to recognize that Rolland and Mayer and the individual winemakers of these properties are without question in the process of setting a new bar for Argentinean wine.

Perhaps the most wildly available product of this project is the wine that bears it's name: Clos de la Siete, a blend that Michel Rolland personally puts together each year from fruit provided by each of the partner wineries. I've tasted the wine for the past six or seven vintages and have been interested in its evolution. What started out as a somewhat lush, accessible wine has become ever more serious, to the point that it now sports tannins that are built for aging, and a flavor profile that really needs a couple of years in the bottle before it will show its full potential.

The 2008 is a blend of Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, and Petite Verdot.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Dark garnet in color, this wine smells of cassis and well oiled leather. In the mouth aggressive tannins wrap the tongue in a leathery fist while flavors of wet dirt, cassis, and dried black cherries fuse into a rich mulch of tastiness. Quite young and in need of 2-3 years of age, this wine will be much more delicious with some time. As it is, those who appreciate something a bit more austere may really enjoy this wine.

Food Pairing:

Overall Score: between 8.5 and 9.
At this point in it's evolution in addition to giving it some air (decant it if you can) I recommend serving it with any variety of charred beef that strikes your fancy.

How Much?: $20

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

I knew it. I just knew it. It was only a matter of time before science finally caught on to something I've known all along: if I drink enough wine, I get superpowers.

Scientists have been getting closer and closer to this discovery for years. Why just a few days ago I got definitive proof that all this red wine I'm drinking will make me live longer and be healthier.

But up until recently scientists still hadn't managed to unearth the true secret properties of wine that have given me the power to tell really funny jokes, be more attractive to women, make everyone like me, and sound a lot smarter than I really am.

I've been covertly working on the right combination of wines to boost these superpowers to an even higher level, where I might be able to use them to fight crime. But now it appears that the gig is up, as we superheroes say.

In addition to the revelation that drinking wine can actually help women control their weight, scientists have discovered that wine (and sake, I might add) turn certain metals in superconductors, and my hopes of mastering the art of levitation (and one of those nifty plasma beams like Iron Man has got) go right out the window.

Pretty soon everyone will be doing cold fusion with a little Cabernet, and I won't be special anymore. That is, until I drink enough, and I become the funniest guy in the room again.

Wine writer Matt Kramer has long been the primary reason I subscribe to the Wine Spectator. I really enjoy his use of words as well as his sensibilities when it comes to the world of wine.

The piece he published today on the Wine Spectator web site (which for some reason I cannot fathom, is actually readable by the general public for once) is a great example.

While it rambles a little more than usual for him, his article "What Makes a Wine Ageworthy" captures part of the essence of what makes wine magical, namely that some wines, given time, transform into wholly different wines that transcend their prior selves.

But as much as I enjoyed this article, I think it reduces the question into terms that are far too stark and rigid for the average wine drinker.

Kramer posits that essentially there are two kinds of wine, those that endure, and those that transform. Fair enough. Not all wines will truly transcend their beginnings in a way that is almost wholly unrecognizable from the way they tasted to start.

But implicit in his argument, it seems to me, is that unless you have one of those wines that will predictably transform (thanks to the prerequisite he describes as "mid-palate density") don't bother aging your wines, or at the very least, don't expect much of them if you do.

Now he didn't say this specifically, and I'm happy to give him enough benefit of the doubt to the possibility that he didn't even mean it. But nonetheless I see an opportunity to step in and make a point here, so I'm going to dive into what I'm calling a gap in his thinking.

You should age your wines anyway.

Why? I'll give you three great reasons.

1. Aging wine, even wine that isn't going to turn into something fantastic, teaches you an incredible amount about wine. Including which wines you might want to age and which ones you might not. But more importantly, you learn what happens to wine over time, you get to experience the characteristics of age and how they show up in a wine. These lessons can be learned without aging your own wine, but they are quite expensive, and I might argue, less pleasurable.

2. Following a wine's progression over time is an intimate and special experience, not unlike watching a person you know well mature and change over time. In addition to the general characteristics of age on a wine, there is an additional pleasure to be gained by watching the specific changes to a wine over time. Kramer describes a wine enduring with the suggestion that it "doesn't really change" -- that reds get a little smoother, and whites oxidize -- but I completely disagree. Even those wines that don't "transform" as he describes them, go through dramatic changes over the course of 5, 10, or 15 years that are fascinating to experience, especially when you can do it consistently. Buying a case of wine and drinking a bottle every nine months is like following a favorite character in a TV series over many seasons.

3. Because even though wine experts like Kramer seem to suggest that the number of wines that truly get better with age is fairly limited, in my experience they are more wrong than right. Ordinary wines -- even $10 wines that you might buy at a grocery store -- can age beautifully if stored correctly. Not all of them will, of course, but based on my own experience aging all sorts of California wines for 10 years (mostly in the $20-30 price range) and the experiences I've had tasting older vintages (1970s, 1980s) of wines that were the high-production wines of their day, there is much pleasure lurking in these older bottles, and in many cases, more than when they were first released.

Now before I get clobbered by people who think it's irresponsible for me to suggest you take your 2010 California Sauvignon Blanc and throw it in a 55 degree cellar for 10 years, I should suggest a couple of basic guidelines.

You'll generally have better luck with red wines than white, but that shouldn't stop you from trying to age whites, though if you aim for whites with higher acidity, you'll likely fare better.

Having a proper cellar, either a wine fridge at the right temperature, or a space that doesn't get hotter than 65 degrees or so is pretty important. Heat will be your undoing in even the most rudimentary of wine aging experiments.

And finally, be patient, have fun, and don't believe the experts when they tell you your wine isn't worth aging. You be the judge of that. But in order to be a competent judge, you need to try it first, and that means at least taking a few bottles and sampling them at intervals.

Just think of the whole exercise as spending time with an old friend. That friend may not "transform" into a supermodel, but I say there can be as much pleasure in a careworn face whose divots and dimples you know well as there is in a metamorphosis.

Here are some additional thoughts of mine on the pleasures of aging wine.

I'll admit it. It's probably been at least six months since I've had sake in my mouth. In part, I think that's because even more than wine, I find sake a contemplative drink, and one that is best sipped serenely over a long evening. I haven't had that many evenings recently, and even though tonight wasn't particularly a special night, I opened a nice bottle to go with the steamed fish that we were eating.

There are some clever, even inspiring winery names in the wine world, but for some reason I find the stories behind how sake breweries get their names much more inspiring. Some of that often has to do with the fact that many were named hundreds of years ago. But even more modern breweries can have great stories behind them.

Tentaka brewery, in Tochigi prefecture, was given its name in 1914, when owner Motoichi Ozaki named it "Hawk in the Heavens" after a bird that he had seen in a dream years earlier. Ozaki was a successful liquor wholesaler with a dream of making sake, and when he saw the Yuzukami brewery on the auction block in bankruptcy, he leaped at the chance to create a small brewery that he and his heirs could run. And that's just what they've done for the past three generations.

While Ozaki's grandson doesn't live in the brewery as his grandfather did, he maintains the small production with an eye towards innovation. Among other things the latest Ozaki has moved the brewery's production to be completely organic. This is not as easy as it seems, as organic rice production in Japan is uncommon, especially when it comes to the special rice that is used in sake production.

Up until a few years ago, there were no specific regulations for organic sake, and those brewers interested in the idea, were left to simply say that the sake was "made from organic rice." But these days there are a set of regulations that define organically made sake, of which the most important is the stipulation that the sake must have been made from 95% certified organic rice.

Certified organic rice, as noted, is tough to come by. If only because in order to be organic it must have no pesticides or chemical fertilizers added, and that, you might imagine, is a tricky thing when rice paddies are often irrigated by water that has flown downstream from someone else's rice paddy. It's an analogous problem to some would-be biodynamic winegrowers who can't get themselves certified because their neighbors spray pesticides that blow into their fields.

In addition to producing organic sake, Tentaka brewery has also opted to use an ultra traditional, incredibly painstaking and costly method in their production of this, their top end sake. This method, known as shizuku, is the sake world's equivalent of "free-run juice" except it is quite a bit harder to come by. Whereas in the wine world free-run juice is just all the liquid at the bottom of the fermentation tank that can flow out before the grapes are pressed, the shizuku method involves hanging hundreds of fabric bags filled with the finished mash of sake rice (moromi) in a very cold room to let the sake drip out under its own weight, drop by glistening drop.

Not unlike free-run juice, the sake obtained through this method is the sweetest and purest, but also the most precious, as much less liquid comes through the bags via gravity than from the press.

While make of Japan's prefectures make sake, Tochigi is not as well known, especially for high-end premium sake, compared to powerhouses like Niigata Prefecture. If Niigata is the Napa of Japan, then Tochigi is the upper peninsula of Michigan, if you get my drift. However, Tochigi does have a long history of growing good sake rice, thanks to the three rivers that crisscross the countryside and generally good weather.

This sake is a junmai daiginjo, which means that no additional alcohol was added to the brewing process, and the rice used to make it (the traditional Yamada Nishiki variety) has been polished to at least 50% of its former mass, though in the case of this sake, the rice has been polished to 35% of its former mass.

Full disclosure: I received this sake as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Wonderfully viscous in the glass with bright shine to it, this sake smells of lychee, marshmallows and chocolate milk with a little bit of malt added. In the mouth the sake is smooth and polished on the tongue with a woody, wet bamboo and rainwater character that has a hint of tarragon on the finish. Lovely. Evokes a stroll through a bamboo forest after a rain, as darkness falls.

Food Pairing:
It went beautifully with a Chinese steamed fish with ginger and scallions.

Overall Score: between 9 and 9.5

How Much?: $90 for 720ml

This sake is available for purchase on the Internet.

Size isn't everything, they say, but sometimes it's mighty impressive. The yearly Family Winemakers tasting in San Francisco has as one of its many claims to fame that it is the single largest tasting of California wines in the world. That alone would not be reason for excitement, were it not for the generally exceptional quality of the wines that are on offer, year after year. This year is the 20th anniversary of the tasting.

Regular readers know that this tasting is one of my favorites every year. It provides an opportunity to sample the wares of smaller, family-run wineries, many of whose wines are made in such small quantities that they do not receive wide distribution. Because most of these wines are made in such small quantities, by folks who often take extra care in their creation, a trip around the tasting is a very clear window into the quality of recent vintages in California.

If you've never been to a large public tasting of wine, then this might very well be the best one to experience for the first time. Such tastings are a fantastic way to learn about wine in a way that you simply can't anywhere else -- by tasting many dozens of wines in comparison with one another.

So set aside a few hours on Sunday August 23rd, buy a ticket, and enjoy some of the best that California has to offer.

Family Winemakers Public Tasting
Sunday August 23rd, 3:00 PM until 6:00 PM
Festival Pavilion
Fort Mason Center
San Francisco, CA 94123-1382

Tickets are available for $55 in advance online. Any remaining tickets will be sold at the door on the day of the event for $65. But for the next nine hours, you can get tickets for $45. So if you read Vinography on a Sunday, you might be in luck.

Trust me when I say you want to buy a ticket in advance. Also trust me that you want to park far, far away from Fort Mason and then cab, walk, or take a bus to the event, as street parking, or even parking in Fort Mason's paid lot can be quite difficult.

Finally, do yourself a favor and observe my tips for large public tastings: wear dark clothes; leave the perfume or cologne at home; come with your stomach full; drink lots of water; plan which wineries you want to visit using the list on the web site, and for Pete's sake, SPIT! You may think that you need to swallow to enjoy the experience, but you really don't. You'll be able to taste many more wines and will actually learn something, instead of ending up a stumbling drunken fool that the rest of us make fun of.

I visited McLaren Vale in March of this year, to get a deeper sense of the place and the wines. I had a great time, but the whole while I was there, I didn't really get the sense that I was in a valley. McLaren Vale is indeed a valley, but barely, and is a sort of lumpy one, defined more by the fact that there are some areas of uplift to the North and South, than a real sense of "valleyness" if you know what I mean.

But in the heart of McLaren vale, there is a real valley. Or perhaps more accurately, a gorge -- with steep slopes plunging down to a river that flows to the Gulf of Saint Vincent a few miles away. This fissure in the midst of the McLaren vale is the Onkaparinga River National Park, a 700-acre bit of wilderness in the midst of a world-class wine growing region.

Perched on the lip of this gorge lies a 19th century farmstead, with an old stone barn, and the scrubby stumps of olive trees hinting at the harvests of the past. It was here that a young (and still young) Justin McNamee decided to go out on his own as a winemaker, and where he now practices what he refers to as "feral winemaking" in a building that is a registered historic landmark.

Justin is a great example of one of my favorite kinds of winemakers, whose enthusiasm, energy, and passion for what he is doing simply oozes out of his pores. With his shock-wild head of curly hair and ready smile, he comes across a bit like the Carrot Top of the wine world, not the least of which for his tendency to use the word "booze" instead of wine in almost any context, from fermentation, to the number of bottles consumed with fellow winemakers the night before.

Consequently, his small, rustic tasting room and the front porch of the rehabilitated old barn are about as great a wine country experience as you could hope for. The rock and roll, and often cold beer, mixed with the infectious energy of McNamee, are what make Samuel's Gorge a true gem of the McLaren Vale.

The personality, charm, and what appears to be an uncanny stamina for partying, would mean nothing, of course, were they not backed up by good wine. For all his affable, casual humor, McNamee is a serious and even soulful winemaker. That's where the "feral" part comes in.

Peek around the corner of the tasting room bar, past the tiny closet of an enology lab, and instead of rows of gleaming steel tanks, you will find two large fermentation... boxes, made out of ancient inch-thick slate, each about 120 years old, sitting in the shade of the barn. In these primitive tanks, McNamee makes three red wines each year: Grenache, Shiraz, and Tempranillo, all with ambient yeast fermentations, lots of time "on the skins," no fining, no filtration and an awful lot of sweat. The vineyards, those that are irrigated at all, generally use reclaimed water, and those that McNamee owns are farmed with an (uncertified) regimen that falls somewhere between organic and biodynamic. The amount of new oak barrels used in any given vintage is generally well below 20%

"A lot of people couldn't make wine the way I do," says Justin. "It would frustrate them. It's just too loose -- more grungy than squeaky clean. I call it feral. It's just a willingness to stand back from it all and let things happen. My style is more organic -- I make spur of the moment decisions. The term garagiste or artisan is loosely applied to what I do, but I'm really about culture -- the culture of where wine comes from, the same way that the slow food conventions are about the origins of food. Like churning butter. In the 'old school' is where you find flavor."

"I'm less about trying to be everything to everyone," he says, when asked what he's trying to achieve with his small winery. "I decided I wanted to work with McLaren Vale reds. This place as a juxtaposition between intensity and brightness, driven by sunlight and coastal breezes. The wine is about flavor concentration at the vibrant end of the spectrum. Every glass delivers sunshine. I want to show you... for you to come away from the region knowing some of the quirkiness we've got in the region"

McNamee describes himself as on a journey, and like many feels like the destination is irrelevant. He's now on his 23rd harvest in Australia, with a couple years spent in Napa and three vintages in France.

"For me, this journey was about engrossing myself in other cultures, and making a lot of cockups. It's a journey of figuring out what king of booze I really want to make. I spent 9 years at Tatachilla doing things the big way, and then I was ready to go back to hands-on winemaking. I wanted to dive into a place and a culture. Here in McLaren vale we're blessed with an incredible heritage, as well as such a happy community. It's wine culture."

In keeping with his tendency to do things his own way, McNamee uses real cork in his bottles for his wines, when nearly all of his neighbors have long abandoned it for screwcaps. "I'm very fond of cork," he says, "but we're on the bum end of the world. To get good [cork] product out of Europe is very very hard. You have to be close to your producer and deal directly with them. I get mine from Spain."

Samuel's Gorge makes about 2500 cases of wine a year, and has recently begun producing a Riesling and a Gewurztraminer from Tasmania, about which McNamee is very excited. But that's par for the course for him.

Both McNamee and his wines have a disarming and charming energy to them, and I recommend both the bottles, and the ancient barn they're made in to anyone who wants a taste of Australia's true soul.

Note that several of the vintages I've tasted below, thanks to soft demand, are not currently available in the US.

TASTING NOTES:
2009 Samuel's Gorge Riesling, Tasmania
Pale gold in the glass, this wine has a nose of bright stony pears washed by the rain. In the mouth it is crisp and bright with pear and hints of lychee and wet stone. Wonderfully clean and crisp, with a laser-like precision. Score: around 9.

2008 Samuel's Gorge Tempranillo, McLaren Vale
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of wet dirt, bright black cherry, and wet wood planking aromas. In the mouth, the wine offers flavors of old leather and cherry and raspberry. Bright acidity and lightly aggressive tannins embrace undertones of wet dirt and a long finish of rich dried black cherry and a hint of black olive savoriness. Distinctive and interesting. Score: around 9. Cost: $40. Click to buy.

2009 Samuel's Gorge Tempranillo, McLaren Vale
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of stony, leathery cherry with some wonderful floral overtones. In the mouth it is lean and bright with cherry, and a fantastic, earthy-leathery note. Good acidity, nice balance, fine tannins. Some lovely dried flower aromas emerge on the finish. Score: around 9. Cost: $40. Click to buy.

2007 Samuel's Gorge Shiraz, McLaren Vale
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of bright blackberry fruit aromas mixed with a wonderful, savory umami character. In the mouth the wine possesses rich black cherry and cassis flavors, with great balance and excellent acidity framed by restrained, but supple tannins. Nice long blackberry fruit scents in the finish. Score: around 9. Cost: $40. Click to buy.

2007 Samuel's Gorge Grenache, McLaren Vale
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a really bright nose of cherry, raspberry, and english toffee notes that make the mouth water. On the palate the wine is really juicy and bright with cherry, raspberry, cocoa powder and mulling spices. Faint, but persistent tannins hang around the edges of the mouth and a nice hint of vanilla emerges on the finish, but given only about 5% new oak barrels, this aromatic note is coming from the grape. Lovely. Score: around 9. Cost: $40. Click to buy.

One of my personal goals includes constantly educating my palate. I do this to both learn to be a better taster and to know more about wine, but also because, like every other wine lover, I'm out to find the next greatest wine to drink.

I try to encourage my readers to do the same thing, and the main way I do that is to push them to go to large public tasting events, where they can try dozens and dozens of wines side by side.

For me, there is a sharp dividing line in my past. The time before I went to such tastings, and the time after I went to such tastings. Before attending these big events, my deepest education about a wine variety or region came from visiting somewhere. I'd go on vacation and tour some wineries, or I'd head up to wine country for the day, and I'd probably end up tasting 30 or 40 wines in the course of a few days. Or maybe I'd hold a blind tasting of a particular sort of wine with a tasting group.

Such activities were incredibly valuable in my ongoing development as a wine lover, but they were patchwork, at best. For instance my sense of what Zinfandel tasted like, what made good Zinfandel better than bad, and who the best producers were was the sum total of my experience buying a few bottles, visiting a couple of wineries that made Zins in Sonoma, and a tasting with friends where 8 people each brought a bottle. In short, my belief that I knew what Zinfandel tasted like, and how I felt about the grape was made up of probably 40 different tastes of the stuff.

Compare this scattershot (and utterly typical) experience with going to the ZAP Zinfandel festival for four hours and tasting 90 different Zinfandels from producers you've never tried before. And then doing that every year for a few years.

There's just no way for the average wine lover of modest means and modest drinking tendencies to learn nearly as much about wine on their own as they can at one of these big wine tasting events.

Which brings me to the 18th Annual Monterey Winery Association tasting coming up in a couple of weeks.

Monterey is a very interesting wine region, and one that most people don't know anything about. Some might call it "under-rated," others "up and coming." I'm not sure I know it well enough personally to pass judgement in any authoritative sense. But what I do know is that I have had some really excellent wines from the region, which proved to me that it should be taken seriously, and that I should get to know it better.

Anyone else looking to do the same should consider attending the annual tasting put on by the Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association coming up on August 7th. Held in the historic Customs House plaza in downtown Monterey, a stone's throw from the bay, the tasting features somewhere between 40 and 50 different wineries pouring about 200 different wines.

The event includes live music, a silent auction, a coopering demonstration, exhibits and displays, and a raffle. This time of year tends to be gorgeous down in Monterey (provided the fog stays away) and this event could be a great excuse to spend the weekend down there and enjoy the coast.

Monterey County Vintners & Grower Association - 18th Annual Winemakers' Celebration
Saturday August 7, 2010
1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
20 Custom House Plaza
Monterey, CA 93942-1793 (map)

Tickets are $45 per person (or $50 if you want to taste with a Riedel glass you can keep) and can be bought online in advance.

My usual tips for such public tastings: wear darker clothes to avoid stains from spills; get a good night's sleep; come with food in your stomach and drink lots of water; and spit if you want to actually learn something and enjoy yourself.

If there's one thing about a winery that is likely to earn my immediate respect it is what you might describe as consistency of vision. Some of my favorite wineries not only make great wine, they have been making great wine in much the same way for decades, according to a deeply held philosophy that pervades everything they do.

This sort of conviction, married to excellent winemaking, is not as common in California as you might think, but there are few who could argue against Ridge Vineyards as one of the finest examples of such a fusion of skill and conviction.

The Ridge story begins in the earliest decades of winemaking history in California, when in 1885, Osea Perrone bought 180 acres of ridgetop land in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Carving out terraces into the rolling hilltops, he planted vines and constructed a winery which he named Monte Bello, and made his first vintage in 1892. After a couple of decades, the winery went the way of many California wineries under prohibition, and had to wait until 1940, when the property was purchased and replanted with, among other things, Cabernet Sauvignon.

In the early Sixties, a group of Stanford Research Institute scientists bought some fruit to make their own wine, and were so pleased with the results, that they bought the estate and rebonded the winery in time for the 1962 vintage. By 1969, the winery was producing about 3000 cases per year, and the original owners were joined by Paul Draper, the winemaker whose name has now become synonymous with Ridge Vineyards.

A philosophy major in college, Draper spent time in the Army in Italy before a stint in the peace corps in Chile during the early sixties along with a college buddy named Fritz Maytag, who would end up making his own name in beer and in wine as the owner of the Anchor Steam Brewery and York Creek Vineyards. Together, Draper and Maytag began their first, self-taught forays into the world of winemaking with grapes from a local vineyard.

These early experiments would prove formative in many ways, and when Draper returned to the U.S. his focus was entirely on winemaking, and by chance he managed to reconnect with his engineer friends from Stanford who jut happened to be looking for a full-time winemaker. Draper was an excellent candidate. The Stanford connection aside, in just a few short years Draper had become a competent home winemaker and was an easy choice for the role.

Despite the prodigious task of modernizing a winery that was essentially still operating out of an antiquated facility, Draper also set to work making his first real commercial wine. To say that his first efforts were notable might be understating the case. When a young man named Stephen Spurrier organized what would be the most famous tasting in the modern history of wine a few years later, one of the wines he chose to represent California was a 1971 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon -- merely Draper's third vintage as a winemaker and the only red wine included from outside the already famous Napa Valley growing region.

Since that tasting, the Monte Bello Cabernet has become one of the state's iconic wines, just as Ridge Vineyards has become one of California's classic wineries. With the addition of their Lytton Springs vineyard and production facility in Sonoma's Alexander Valley outside of Geyserville, the winery has established itself as a preeminent ambassador for both Sonoma County wines as well as the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation.

The Ridge Vineyards portfolio has long been focused on Zinfandel (the winery's first vintage being 1964) with a couple of Chardonnays and, of course, the famous Monte Bello and Estate Cabernets added to the mix. Ranging from $15, to $150, the wines are relatively easy to get ahold of, and each continues to evidence the dedication to quality that Draper has mantained for more than forty years.

The winemaking at Ridge has not changed much over the years, and emphasizes work in the vineyards as opposed to work in the cellar. Having said that, the winery tirelessly experiments with techniques to improve quality, whether that is trying new kinds of barrels or different yeast strains for fermentation. In a lesser winery, without the guiding hand of someone like Draper, this might result in wines that were all over the map from year to year. But at Ridge, these experiments aren't passed on to the customers, they are learning exercises for the winemaking team, and the successful techniques or technologies are adopted after years of tinkering, and only if they help Draper and his team get even closer to their ideals for their wine.

Ridge is relatively unique in its continued use of a large amount of American oak in its wines, in particular for the Monte Bello Cabernet, as opposed to the French oak that dominates California and most of Europe. Sometimes fermentation takes place with ambient yeasts, while others are innoculated. I have a great deal of respect for Draper's lack of dogma when it comes to winemaking. For him, it seems, quality and honesty win, and there is no specific formula that will always get there.

This particular wine is a wonderful example of what Ridge Vineyards is known for, and does best. Made from fruit picked in seven different vineyards around Sonoma County, it can be thought of as a quintessentially Sonoma wine, offering the broad flavors of the county, and a glimpse into the history of winemaking in the region. This historical connection comes from the broad blend of grapes that go into the wine, which mirror the old "mixed blacks" vineyards that the earliest Italian immigrants planted when they arrived. Harvested all at once to make what is today known as a field blended wine, these patchwork vineyards and the Vino Tinto they produced are an incredibly important part of the state's wine heritage.

This wine which debuted in the 2001 vintage, is a field blend only in spirit, as the lots that make up the wine are fermented separately before blending. No added yeasts are involved in fermentation, however, which takes place in stainless steel tanks. The wine is transferred to 100% American Oak barrels, of which about 33% are new, and after secondary fermentation, the wine ages for about 9 months before bottling.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of black cherry and cassis fruit. In the mouth the wine offers bright black cherry and cassis flavors wrapped in a blanket of faint velvety tannins. Chocolate and blackberry emerge on the finish. A blend of 74% Zinfandel, 11% Petite Sirah, 5% Carignane, 4% Mourvedre, 3% Syrah, 3% Grenache. 14.2% Alcohol.

Food Pairing:
This is a very well balanced wine that will go with a wide variety of foods thanks to its good acidity. Anything grilled, from spring onions to lamb would be a great pairing, and if you've got anything with a hint of spice give it a go.

Overall Score: around 9

How Much?: $17.99

This wine is available for purchase online.

Serious wine lovers in the San Francisco Bay area get several opportunities each year to indulge their passions for wine. Large, themed tastings like the ZAP Zinfandel Festival or the recent Pinot Days are great opportunities to get a sense of a certain varietal and the quality of the recent vintage in California and events like the upcoming Family Winemakers are an opportunity to taste wines from smaller producers.

It is quite rare, however, despite the nearness of the appellation and the saturation of wine in the Bay Area, for consumers to get the opportunity to get an in-depth or comprehensive look at the wines of Napa Valley. Perhaps it's just because Napa wines don't need much marketing help, or perhaps it's because the Napa Valley Vintners association exhausts itself with a few major events each year, but there just isn't a real good opportunity for members of the public to survey the breadth and depth of wines from the Napa valley.

Unless, that is, you happen to be a member of the Napa Valley Wine Library Association (Hint: you can become a member for just $75).

The Wine Library is just what it sounds like: a library with books about wine. Started in the early Sixties by a group of winery owners that realized the irony of having a public library in the heart of Napa Valley that possessed virtually no literature or resources about wine, the library association was built on donations of money and books from Napa's wine families over four decades. Now occupying a special section of the St. Helena public library and even owning a small vineyard out behind the building, the Wine Library Association is a membership organization that gives its members access to these materials, some of which are rare and historic, as well as to annual tasting events.

Each year the organization hosts a two part event: On Saturday they offer a full day seminar on a specific topic, often a certain AVA or certain varietal, and then on Sunday they offer a tasting event showcasing a specific varietal as represented by nearly 100 wineries in the valley.

This year's event will feature an all-day seminar on August 14th at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena entitled, "From DNA to Dinner: All You Wanted to Know About Cabernet." Led by UC Davis professor Emeritus and vintner Carole Meredith, the event features Cabernet paired with a multi-course lunch from the teaching kitchens at the CIA.

The following day, Sunday the 15th, around 80 wineries will pour their recent vintages of Cabernet (with a few other varieties thrown in) in the grove at the Silverado Country Club. If you've never been to the grove at the Silverado Country Club, it is an idyllic place for a wine tasting, even during a hot Napa day.

"That's all well and good," you may be saying, "but this is a members-only event and I'm not a member of the Napa Valley Wine Library Association." That's true. But a check for $75 sent in advance, or a check for $80 on the day of the tasting will do the trick. Membership is available on the spot, and covers the tasting plus any others that you choose to go to for the rest of the year. If you'd like to attend the seminar on the 14th, there is an additional cost of $150. Or, if that is the only part of this event you'd like to attend, non-members can just go to that for $175.

Sound like a steal? It is. Unless you're a member of the trade that attends Premiere Napa Valley, or someone willing to pay in the hundreds or even thousands for a package at the annual Auction Napa Valley, there is generally no other way to get the opportunity to taste so many Napa Valley wineries in a single setting. If you're serious about learning more about Napa wines, especially if you're interested in some of the less famous wines of the valley, this is an event you don't want to miss.

For those of you who make decisions about such tastings based on what you think you'll get a chance to taste, here is the list of wineries and the wines they'll be pouring (PDF).

Napa Valley Wine Library Association Member Tasting
Sunday August 15th
Silverado Resort and Country Club
1600 Atlas Peak Road
Napa, California 94558
707-257-0200

Annual membership dues for the Association are $75, or $80 if purchased at the door. Only checks and cash will be accepted, I believe, so stop at an ATM or bring your checkbook. Additional details on how to get membership in advance and on the event can be found on the Association's web site. Please note that the location for the Saturday event is the Greystone Castle in St. Helena

My usual tips for such outdoor public tastings apply: wear loose fitting but dark colored clothing (but keep in mind that it may be very warm for the outdoor tasting). Eat a good meal before going and drink lots of water while tasting. Decide in advance which wineries you would like to visit, and make sure to spit rather than swallow the wine to make sure you get a chance to enjoy (and remember) a number of wines.

Once upon a time, I went to Argentina looking for the good wine. Frankly I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about when it came to Malbec. Most of the ones I had tasted here in the US were mediocre. Only a select few rose to the level of excellent, and none to the level of amazing. Yet there was a long stream of proclamations from various people (you know, the ones whose opinions "count" when it comes to such things) that Argentinean Malbec was the next greatest thing.

Scratching my head, I traipsed off to Argentina looking for the promised land. Or promised bottle, as the case may be.

And I found it. We had a lot of great Malbec while we were there, and really got a chance to appreciate the Argentinean skill at high altitude viticulture.

There was one wine region that we didn't visit however, and we've been kicking ourselves ever since, as we've had several stunning wines from the province of Salta.

Tucked up in the northeast corner of Argentina, Salta is a wine region quite unlike any other. Its vineyards may very well be the highest altitude vineyards in the world, and its high-desert climate offers some of the greatest diurnal shifts (daytime-nighttime temperature changes) in the western hemisphere. Add to that a spectacular red rock, Wild West landscape, and you've got one of the most unique wine countries in the world.

And we missed it. A painful fact made all the more evident every time I try a new wine from Salta.

This wine, however, is not new to me. Ever since I tried the 2005 vintage, I've been a fan of Bodega Colome.

The land that is now known as Bodegas Colomé has been farmed since long before anyone kept written records. There were certainly well established farming communities of natives when the tendrils of the Incan empire reached down into the valley in the 15th century. When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, the area was so well populated and organized it took them 90 years to gain control of the valley. In the course of their conquest at some point vine grapes were first planted, and the area has had some level of grape cultivation ever since.

Bodegas Colomé now farms some of the oldest vines in Argentina. Significantly younger than 16th century, but 150-year-old pre-phylloxera, own-rooted Malbec and Cabernet vines are nothing to sneeze at. The estate's 250 acres of vines from old French cuttings also hold the claim of being some of the highest altitude vineyards in the world, with the highest being more than 8500 feet above sea level. As if ancient vines and near alpine conditions weren't enough to distinguish their grapes, Bodegas Colomé also farms their vineyards biodynamically. The natural yields from these vineyards rarely top 1.6 tons per acre, and the oldest vines provide a miniscule .6 tons per acre of fruit.

The winery was founded in 1831, most likely by the governor of Salta province at the time. His daughter was responsible for the planting of the vines imported from Bordeaux, which have been farmed continuously by her descendants ever since, making the winery the oldest continuously operated producer in all of Argentina. In 2001 the winery was purchased by Donald Hess and his Hess Group company, a Swiss corporation that owns the Hess Collection winery and art museum in Napa.

This wine is made from 85% Malbec, 8% Tannat, 3% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Syrah, and 2% Petite Verdot all grown at altitudes between 5500 and 8500 feet above sea level. A portion of the Malbec that goes into this blend comes from the circa 1854 vines on the estate. The grapes were hand harvested in very small groups (25 pound boxes) and sorted by hand before destemming and crushing. Because of the high altitude, fermentation takes longer to begin with, but in addition to a sloooooow fermentation, the grapes were given a 25 to 30-day cold extended maceration period before fermentation was allowed to commence. 50% of the wine was then transferred to French oak barrels where it underwent a secondary fermentation, with the other 50% undergoing the same fermentation in tank. These two lots were then blended together and aged in French oak (30% new) for 15 months before bottling.

Having tasted this wine every vintage for several years, I can say that it is becoming a little more serious. Cabernet has been dialed back and replaced with Tannat, which is giving the wine a more tannic edge. While I don't love this 2008 as much as I have some other vintages in the past, this wine remains one of the most consistent values from the region.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Dark purple in the glass, this wine smells of rich cassis aromas with a hint of burnt match. In the mouth, leathery tannins wrap around a core of cassis, cocoa powder, and a deep graphite and wet dirt flavor that rumbles around in the basement of the palate for a while. Cassis and the texture of the tannins linger on the finish. A young wine, that will likely improve for a couple years in the bottle. 14.9% Alcohol.

Food Pairing:
If there's one thing to eat with the rich red wines of Argentina, it's beef. How about charred rib-eye shish-kabobs with red onion, bell peppers, and mushrooms?

Overall Score: between 8.5 and 9.

How Much?: $24

This wine is available for purchase on the internet.