things we hate about wine tastings

The enjoyment of one of the huge wine tastings - ZAP, Family Winemakers etc - largely depends on which side of the table you are standing. The pleasure, when you are pouring, is to meet the people who love your wines. It gives us a chance to tell our story, explain what makes us unique and to make new, and sometimes, as in the case of the New Orleans faction, lifelong friends. BUT, after standing on cold cement for five or six hours one can lose his/her sense of humor as the day wears on and those on the receiving side of the table have now been drinking for the same five or six hours. So, here are some of the things that REALLY annoy those of us who have shown up at an event, paid to be there and are donating our wines and time.

PLEASE don't say:
"What is your best wine?"
"Did you bring anything good?"
"What is your favorite wine?"
"Do you have any white zinfandel?"
"Go ahead and fill up my glass so I don't have to keep coming back."
"Can I have a bottle?"
"I've never heard of you." (we've never heard of you either)

don't wear perfume/cologne
If you are spitting please do it close to the bucket so our literature isn't splashed
don't leave your dirty dishes on our table
don't talk on your cell phone at our table
listen to your friends when they tell you that you've had enough

You must have a list of the things that vintners do while pouring that bother you as well. Let us know what they are.

chicago

now on my third day in Chicago and it's truly incredible. 75 degrees, sunny, clean and very vibrant. wines have been well received and I am sharing a room at the charming Whitehall Hotel on the Miracle Mile so we're walking distance to almost everything. The event tonight is the Wine, Women and Shoes fundraiser for Unicef at the Museum of Contemporary Art so I will be pouring the 2004 chardonnay and the signature zinfandel to the sold out crowd. Meanwhile, we are bar/restaurant hopping our way through town. We've had glasses of the Perata Cabenet at NoMi, flights of champagnes at Cru, an incredible roasted artichoke with a brie and grain mustard sauce at Bistro 110, a sublime skate wing dusted with almond flour and finished in a brown butter at Blue Water Grill, the tuna tartare at Elan and, of course, pizza at Gino's. We are off to "Kevin's" for lunch and will see where we end up from there. And yes, we are selling wine all the while. Sometimes this job has huge rewards like this, building a memory of three wonderful days.

portland

the last three days were spent in Portland, Oregon, getting to know a new sales team, manager and owners. Having only been to Portland once before when it was sunny and warm I was once again welcomed with perfect weather. It was only the stories from the sales reps that told me that it's really not always like that. The downtown scene is amazing with the plethora of restaurants, the new lofts and the sidewalks full of strollers in the evenings. The advantage of doing sales throughout the city is getting to see, and eat in the quaint little neighborhoods. There was a wonderful cheese plate at Curds and Whey, served with a dense fig bread and a fennel puree. The final dinner was at Olea, where the bowls of fresh corn soup were scraped up by all who had ordered it. The seared ahi tuna was served over a diced panzanella salad and the contrast in textures and flavors were fabulous. I am anxious to return and revisit the new wine bar that is just opening where one of the small plates is to be salads on a stick, which is such a great idea I am going to steal it for use at the winery. Thanks to all who dragged me around the city and wined and dined me.

low alcohol wines

Oh please........... all of a sudden there are myriad articles being written about 'low alcohol' wines - meaning anything under 14 per cent alcohol, where it should have been in the first place. These winemakers are saying they are doing something 'special' by making lower alcohol wines, by making them drinkable if you ask me. Wasn't/isn't that the goal all along? When did the public get the shaft by being told/convinced that huge alcohol wines were the ones that had flavor? The high alcohol wines became darlings of the media who traded balance, taste and elegance in for the big bullies of the wine world.
Let's go back and look at a history of GustavoThrace wines from the start in 1996. A simply graph would show that 98% of our wines have been at 14% or under, well balanced and designed specifically to compliment and, indeed, show off the foods you are pairing with them. The one 'huge' wine we made, a 15.8% petite sirah, was repeatedly tasted blind and the highest anyone ever guessed was that the alcohol was, perhaps, 15%. Which is to also say that one CAN achieve a balance with huge, overripe fruit but it isn't the goal to let the fruit get so ripe that you have to even deal with itin the first place. Now wineries are jumping on the bandwagon to shout that they are also making lower alcohol wines and we are just maintaining that we've been doing it all along, sorta nice to be imitated.............

football season

The University of Wyoming website has a countdown clock, ticking off the seconds until kickoff on September 1st. As a Cowboy groupie, everytime I see that getting closer and closer I am thrilled to be so close to footabll season once again. Following a team around the country means I will be in at least 7 different states in the next couple of months and that means a different style of cuisine indigenous to each of those states. What am I looking forward to? The San Diego State game means a trip to Carino's pizza in La Jolla. The Air Force game means champagne on the deck of the Cheyenne Mountain Resort. The Ohio game means I've got something new to find. The Boise game means some of the best vegetarian foods in the country. All of the games in Laramie mean only one thing in a state where they take their beef seriously and the prime rib is beyond belief. The games themselves offer a variety of hot dogs, hamburgers, nachos in various formats and, because they are college games, no beer! Which makes the pleasure of a glass of wine following the games that much more enjoyable. What is your favorite football stadium memory?

porcini mushrooms

One of the best things I found on a recent trip to Italy was Porcini mushroom bouillon cubes. The brand was called STAR and they came just like the type of bouillon cubes we buy here in a small box of eight cubes. Just smelling through the box at the store promised the richness that each cube held. I tried many dishes with them while in Italy and then brought two boxes home, wondering if the drug sniffing dogs would ravage my bags. Last night they came out again - perhaps it was the bottle of Italian Pinot Grigio we were drinking that induced the memory - So into the saute pan went a pound of chopped mushrooms along with a chopped onion to soften in butter. Then added a large package of fresh baby spinach, a big splash of the 2003 GustavoThrace Chardonnay that was open, a cup of half and half and a porcini mushroom bouillon cube and some s&p. Cooked a bag of papardelle noodles till just al dente then threw them into the sauce to absorb a bit of the liquid. We ate, legs curled up on the couch, out of warmed bowls, savoring the flavors and memories of Italy.

Family Winemakers

Today is the first day of the two day marathon Family Winemaker's pour at Fort Mason. Some 350 wineries will be pouring their wines, trying to somehow differentiate themselves from the other 349 that surround them. We are always on the other side of the table, the ones there smiling, pouring, teaching and meeting new consumers and business partners. How do you, on the other side of the table, make the decision to stop at an unknown, to you, table to taste? Being a tiny winery we watch as the crowd approaches: What are they looking for? Their favorites? The most famous? The winery owned by friends? The unknown? The most rewarding time of a huge pour like this is the last couple of hours when our table becomes crowded because,"I was told you had the best - name a wine varietal - here." That means so much more to us because as the crowd becomes 'friends' over the duration of the pour they freely offer advice to anyone standing around them. So, out of the sea of wines available we love it when they come to our table because someone else at the show has sent them to us. If you've never gone you don't want to miss this event.

figs and wines

It seems that you either love or hate fresh figs. I think it's more of a texture thing than a taste preference, I mean who didn't eat Fig Newtons growing up? The tree in the garden is laden with them now and I waiver between letting them get one day riper and plumper or risk letting the birds get to them. So, I've been picking them when they are dark purple, heavy and still firm to the touch. So what to do wtih them and what wine to drink with them - which is always the question when dealing with any food I am presented with. The choice of wine will, of course, be determined by the way in which the particular food is prepared. In this case we fired up the grill, split the figs in half through the stem, slathered the cut halves with a meyer-lemon olive oil and grilled them, cut side down until hot and then plated them with a heavy drizzle of a balsamic glaze. This was one of those 'lick your plate' dishes - the next time I would crumble a fresh goat's cheese over it as well just for a bit more of an acid balance. We were drinking bubbles when we started (which, in my opinion, goes with everything) but switched to our red table wine, The 3rd Bottle, to finish up the figs. The 3rd Bottle is a blend of merlot, cabernet and zinfandel and that melding of flavors really complimented the variety of flavors on the plate. If you have a fig tree or know someone who does try the combination above and let me know your thoughts.

it's always something!

well, here goes...........Gustavo wanted the winery to have a blogspot which, of course, meant that I was going to be the one doing it. Having not done this before I will attack it with the same approach that I used to learn to drive the forklift at the winery, just get on and do it!

As the grapes turn color and become sweeter I am excited for harvest and all of the excitement that brings but it also means that the birds are attacking the grapes on my arbor at home and dropping purple bombs all over the place. I have vines at home just so I can watch the progress of the season on a daily basis, progressively tasting as they become sweeter, a race to get into the bottle that they don't even know they have entered.