Traveling the (wine) Road Less Travelled

Chances are there is a winery or two near you. Maybe it is a few hours away, maybe it is less. Have you been to visit? Here is a handy link to all or at least most of the wineries in the US: http://www.travelenvoy.com/wine/USA.htm

When we think of US wine, California comes up first for most of us, with Washington, Oregon, and perhaps New York State coming to mind next. While these are the states with the most widely known commercial wine industries, wine is made in almost every state in the US.

Sure, you say, I know that they make wine in my state, but is it any good? Maybe, maybe not. Just because they grow grapes and make wine, it is no guarantee of quality, at least not in the commercial sense. The wines in your state may be simple, they may be expensive for what you get, they may even be more of a novelty than a wine you want to stock your cellar with. They also maybe from hybrid grape varieties.

Most wines are made from grapes that came over from Europe, these are the Vinifera grapes, and they have names like Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, that you recognize. These are not the only grapes. Wild grapes of various types grow all over the world, but especially in the US. Few of these wild grapes make much of a wine on their own, but they grow better than the European grapes do in much of the country. The solution was to marry the traditional grapes with these hardier local grapes, and so hybrids were born.

For the most part hybrids have never caught on. They are popular in regions where the more traditional Vinifera grapes do not grow well. As a general rule, once a Vinifera grape has been shown to flourish in a region, the hybrids move out. This is in great part to a character of hybrid grapes referred to as "foxy." This flavor is the flavor of Welch's Grape Juice, because it is made from the native Concord grape.

Foxy flavored wines, and unfamiliar names have scared people away from their local wineries for too long. If you have not been out for a visit, you are missing one of life's little pleasures. A day of wine touring, with a picnic thrown in, is sure to be more fun than doing chores around the house, and it may even turn out to be enlightening. You may surprise yourself and find a wine you really like. Even if the wines turn out not to be to your taste, the adventure itself is worth the trip.

I will be taking my own advice this summer. Beginning in May I will start a whirlwind tour of the wineries of Nebraska. Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, before returning home to explore the wines of my home state, Colorado. Watch for the reports.

Battle of the Bland or How the West was Won

Would you rather have a consistent wine or a potentially better wine?

In almost every field of human endeavor there are those that strive for greatness even if they sometimes fail, and those that strive for a consistent "good enough" that ensures a product the consumer can trust. Those wines that aim for greatness are memorable, and tend to be worth whatever we have to pay for them, at least when they achieve their goal. Wines that aim for greatness and fail are expensive lessons and few consumers want to take a risk with every bottle they open.

Emerson warns us that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, and indeed the threat of consistency in the world of wine is that we could end up with nothing except bland wines without identifying character. This would rob wine lovers of the joy of discovery and adventure of the unknown, even while protecting our pocket books from disastrous selections. Fortunately, there are many wine makers out there that are willing to take risks, and as we will see, it is just as fortunate there are many that avoid risk.

Greatness almost always walks hand in hand with risk. If you want riper grapes you need to leave them in the vineyard longer, at the risk of the crop being ruined by the weather. If you want more color and intensity in your wine, you need to macerate it longer (leave in contact with the skins) at the risk of waiting too long and ending up with a bitter, overly tannic wine. If you want a wine that can age for years so that it ends up incredibly complex you have to age it in new oak barrels and hold it back for years, at the risk of over pricing your wine and not selling enough to recoup your investment.

If you minimize your risk you may not achieve greatness, but you will probably make a living, and you may be better able to sleep at night. Your wine may not score at the highest levels in the wine publications, but you can create a following that trusts that your wine will be the same from year to year. Those that are looking to make a product the consumer can rely on often turn to technology to help minimize the variables and reduce the risks. While technology can be expensive, in the long run it is almost always a cost effective investment. Low tech approaches tend to be the norm for the risk takers and while advances have helped them to reduce their risks, no technology has yet replaced the hands on approach.

Corporations tend to not be risk takers, and they tend to be quick to adopt the latest technology. Even if a corporation does take risks, chances are it is limited to their flagship wine, and they almost certainly have other brands which err on the side of consistency, to pay the bills. This doesn't mean that smaller wineries inherently have higher quality wines than larger concerns. It all depends on the philosophy of the winery and their winemaker. Some wine makers view themselves as artists, and others as businesspeople, and most probably consider themselves to be a balance between the two.

For those of us that enjoy a bottle of wine with dinner every night, our cellars will mostly be stocked with wines we have decided are consistent, safe choices. Look into those same cellars and you will find a few bottles of wine that we are waiting for the right time to open. Whether the wine is in danger of being too old, or is from an unknown producer or a spotty vintage, we all have wines that we have great hopes for, but also have a nice safe wine as back up, just in case.