Wine Blog for Sensible Appreciation: WineZag

Wine Blog Confessions

As the 2012 wine blogging season kicked off, three notable wine bloggers weighed in with wine blogosphere predictions, analysis, and reflections. In the last month, Steve Heimoff, Tom Wark, and Alder Yarrow posted their opinions on the evolution of the wine blogosphere, sustainable wine content creation, and/or why they blog. I regularly follow these guys because they write with authentically developed voices. I can't always relate to all their points of view, but the content is usually entertaining. Heimoff heralded and pivoted off a recent Jason Calacanis claim that "blogging is dead and stupid people shouldn't write". Heimoff suggested, as indirectly and gently ...

Grower Champagne Makes Sense

The last few years taught me that Champagne is wine, not just bottled fireworks poised to explode on special occasions. Champagne's food and aperitif friendliness are more interesting to me now than at any other time during my twenty seven year wine zag. I used to zag around Champagne while others zigged straight at it. I wanted to love Champagne, but couldn't. Bubbles distracted my ability to detect flavors while effervescence made it challenging for wines to linger comfortably in my mouth. I deemed myself a wine misfit. Champagne prices were always relatively high and it never seemed to make sense investing ...

Wine In Vessels Photo Series

As crazy as it sounds, I really like to look at wine; in shops, cellar tanks, barrels, wine cellar racks, and especially proper glassware. When you think about connecting visually with wine after juice leaves grape, vessels are non negotiable. Unless, of course, spilling all over your rug or tablecloth produces perverse visual jollies. Wine just doesn't easily hang out. It can't lean up against a bar or sit on a stool ready to cheer up the person next to it. It requires something wood, steel, glass, cement, or clay...something to prevent it from just falling apart; whether the wine ...

Pleiades XX, Thackrey, & Local Three: Authentic Collision

Some wine is described to be authentic. I have been meaning to build a working definition of authenticity for my own clarification and finally managed to squash a prolonged streak of procrastination after discovering ($25 ****) Sean Thackrey's Pleiades XX on Atlanta's Local Three Kitchen & Bar wine list. This adjective that has blossomed into standard wine enthusiast fodder, bandied throughout critical wine circles with head-spinning frequency, will no longer be taken casually here. Research turned up these words and phrases to collectively define authenticity: devotion to genuineness truthfulness of origins true to one's own personality ...

Wine Rock Star-Part 2

You don't have to be a Rock Star to drink wine like one. Rock Star Winos beguile fame, demagnetize paparazzi, leave crowd-free wakes, and sign no autographs. Being a Rock Star Wino with the juice to indulge audiences in sensory, intellectual, and emotional celebration is unassuming and simple. So, if you read Wine Rock Star- Part 1, my reflex to Dave McIntyre's routine wino tips, you are now ready and equipped to take your show on the road with Part 2. Without really knowing if any legitimate Rock Stars drink wine just like this, here are two performance formats that will deliver ...

Wine Rock Star-Part 1

I just finished reading Dave McIntyre's recent piece in the Washington Post about ways to enjoy wine more in 2012. He delivers a handful of useful, but ordinary suggestions for etching a couple more garden variety notches into your wine bedpost. Honestly, I was hoping for more. Alas, a missed opportunity to share some geeky unknown rituals living at the edge of extreme rock star wine indulgence. I was in a San Juan, Puerto Rico Salsa club last week and overheard somebody mention how the locals dance like rock stars. I wished someone from the local Salsa mafia had dragged me onto ...

2011 Wine Highlights Part 2- Wine Community

When I launched WineZag in 2009, I did it under a founding motto of "wine is a lubricant for human connection that holds no bias." The essence of my wine appreciation has always transcended the juice, gravitating to the center of human bonding and relationships that are accelerated by shared wine experiences; either during dinner with a few companions, over time with kindred vinous comrades, or for fleeting moments along a lifetime path of wine discovery. Business associates, winemakers, tasting groups, retailers, collectors, importers, PR professionals, chefs, maitre d's, and journalists make for a rich wine community that I am ...

2011 Wine Highlights Part 1: Wine & Restaurants

While the best wine and food might still appear on my table over the next couple of weeks, 2011 is quickly shutting down like newly bottled Bordeaux and I catch myself reminiscing over the year that was in wine and food. These musings must not be mistaken for a quintessential nor ultimate reminiscence of global wine and food headlines, but instead a personal replay of the year's top newly discovered gems and pinnacle moments of advancing appreciation. And if you are inclined, check back later this week for the second installment of this year end personal log: 2011 Wine Highlights Part ...

Clos Rougeard 2007- A Wine List Automatic

Pouring over wine lists before meals is the ultimate public foreplay. In advance of fine dining reverie, the hunt for favorites, values, rarities, ultimates, and classics is my secret little indulgence. It's a moment of truth that determines the tone of an evening's meal. I remember the same jittery excitement stepping into Coney Island's Luna amusment park when I was eight years old. What will it be today? The decisions were never easy. Last night at the Slanted Door in San Francisco's welcoming Ferry Building my wine list foreplay was stopped cold in its tracks. ****1/2 $55 2007 Clos Rougeard Saumur-Champigny is ...

Erpacrife Nebbiolo-Best Sparkling Wine Ever?

Rarely do the polarizing forces du jour swirling around wine's combustible circles, like new world vs. old world, traditional vs. modern, or natural vs. unnatural(?), create radically new standard bearers overnight. Each corner in the world of wine is too steeped in history, nature, method, and skill to be knocked out in a single round. So how is it four boys formed a friendship at the oenological school of Alba and followed their radically experimental vision to produce ***** $75 Erpacrife Nebbiolo; possibly the best sparkling wine ever? Four pals from an Italian wine school situated between Turin and Genoa stealing sparkling headlines? Move over ...

3 Reasons Puech-Haut Prestige 2009 Is Top Holiday Wine

Imagine the convenience of someone delivering two cases of one very perfect red wine to your front door every year at the start of the holiday season. Not 100 point and $6,000 a case perfect, just perfectly versatile, delicious, and affordable red wine for all the usual and familiar holiday situations. Something to serve at oversubscribed holiday parties, a bottle you can be proud to wrap up as a last minute gift on your way to a friend's house on Saturday night, a wine to uncork on a merry Tuesday night alone at home, or even something great to serve at ...

5 Reasons Winery Mailing Lists Fail Consumers

Winery mailing lists live at the crossroads of privileged access and blind consumerism. High demand, limited release, and cult wines combined with unnavigable distribution challenges to spawn a "mailing list" culture that left some wineries with powerful sets of marketing and distribution crutches. At its most functional, direct to consumer marketing makes it easier for small wineries (short on leverage in traditional distribution channels) to move wines into the hands of eager consumers. And at the surface, the system appears to work for consumers and winemakers alike: Consumers: steady access for devoted fans willing to purchase every vintage at non-discounted prices ...

Calvet-Thunevin Hugo On Turtle Creek Mansion List

[caption id="attachment_9047" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Mansion on Turtle Creek"][/caption] Once again I found myself staring at a classic wine list, this time at the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, that was deep in severely marked up classic Bordeaux, Burgundy, and California Cabernet. Looking for an after dinner bottle to enjoy with some colleagues did not call for $300 California Cabernet, $600 Burgundy, nor $1,000+ Bordeaux. As usual, I took cover and turned to the back of the list in search of values under $100 from less venerable regions of France, Italy, and Spain. The hunt turned up one of the most ...

Top Three Wines – Roagna, Huet, and A Donkey & Goat

The fact these three wines rose to the top of an epically long list of compelling wines place them in a class of their own. One is from Sierra Foothills vineyards and a small young Berkeley, California winery while the other two are firmly ensconced in their old Barbaresco and Vouvray regions. A bonus to last month's wine discoveries are their service to this month's holidays. The remarkably flexible and food friendly 2009 Huet Clos du Bourg Sec is for serious chenin blanc fans needing something something white to work with the tapestry of flavors that traditionally confound holiday table pairings. The 2003 ...

Wine Writing Styles Reflect Culture

There is no surprise that Do Bianchi author Jeremy Parzen, whose wine and food credentials drip with immersion and cultural understanding, recently managed to illustrate old world vs. new world wine writing styles in utterly poignant fashion. In his post about the differences in European and American wine writing genres he brings new light to the divide by offering metaphoric "good vs. evil" wine language. It's also no surprise that the differences in writing styles Parzen defines aligns with the cultural drivers and wine styles of countries separated by more than an ocean. As Parzen describes, it begins with the cultural imperative ...

Latest Posts

Wine Blog Confessions

Tweet As the 2012 wine blogging season kicked off, three notable wine bloggers weighed in with wine blogosphere predictions, analysis, and reflections. In the last month, Steve Heimoff, Tom Wark, and Alder Yarrow posted their opinions on the evolution of the wine blogosphere, sustainable wine content creation, and/or why they blog. I regularly follow these guys because they write with authentically developed voices. I can’t always relate to all their points of view, but the content is usually entertaining. Heimoff heralded and pivoted off a recent Jason Calacanis claim that “blogging is dead and stupid people shouldn’t write”. Heimoff suggested, as indirectly and gently as his style allows, that topical expertise is required to blog about wine and the new Web 3.0 environment will filter out marginal wine content creators and “sharpen the research and writing abilities of the bloggers who remain, making the wine blogosphere a more professional platform.” Wark... [Read more of this review]

Grower Champagne Makes Sense

Tweet The last few years taught me that Champagne is wine, not just bottled fireworks poised to explode on special occasions. Champagne’s food and aperitif friendliness are more interesting to me now than at any other time during my twenty seven year wine zag. I used to zag around Champagne while others zigged straight at it. I wanted to love Champagne, but couldn’t. Bubbles distracted my ability to detect flavors while effervescence made it challenging for wines to linger comfortably in my mouth. I deemed myself a wine misfit. Champagne prices were always relatively high and it never seemed to make sense investing time to develop a deeper understanding of the region and its wine. After all, the whole affair was about a luxury beverage designed for something other than regular consumption. Right? Bordeaux felt entirely more accessible when I was picking spots to invest my very limited wine budget back in the mid-eighties. Knowing that I was getting Montrose, Leoville... [Read more of this review]

Wine In Vessels Photo Series

Tweet As crazy as it sounds, I really like to look at wine; in shops, cellar tanks, barrels, wine cellar racks, and especially proper glassware. When you think about connecting visually with wine after juice leaves grape, vessels are non negotiable. Unless, of course, spilling all over your rug or tablecloth produces perverse visual jollies. Wine just doesn’t easily hang out. It can’t lean up against a bar or sit on a stool ready to cheer up the person next to it. It requires something wood, steel, glass, cement, or clay…something to prevent it from just falling apart; whether the wine is being made, stored, or consumed. This thing I have for ogling wine leads me to take pictures (lots of them) of wines in their vessels. Nothing too special, just iPhone photos. Captured correctly, wine in their vessels tell stories, stir imagination, and tease senses. Lonely vessels, or sometimes in concert with others, create scenes. They tell you what might be coming... [Read more of this review]

Pleiades XX, Thackrey, & Local Three: Authentic Collision

Tweet Some wine is described to be authentic. I have been meaning to build a working definition of authenticity for my own clarification and finally managed to squash a prolonged streak of procrastination after discovering ($25 ****) Sean Thackrey’s Pleiades XX on Atlanta’s Local Three Kitchen & Bar wine list. This adjective that has blossomed into standard wine enthusiast fodder, bandied throughout critical wine circles with head-spinning frequency, will no longer be taken casually here. Research turned up these words and phrases to collectively define authenticity: devotion to genuineness truthfulness of origins true to one’s own personality conforming to original character and attributes adherence to originality lack of falsehood This urgency around authentic clarity was driven by the reappearance of Pleiades in my glass, a wine and winemaker emanating high beams of authenticity,... [Read more of this review]

Wine Rock Star-Part 2

Tweet You don’t have to be a Rock Star to drink wine like one. Rock Star Winos beguile fame, demagnetize paparazzi, leave crowd-free wakes, and sign no autographs. Being a Rock Star Wino with the juice to indulge audiences in sensory, intellectual, and emotional celebration is unassuming and simple. So, if you read Wine Rock Star- Part 1, my reflex to Dave McIntyre’s routine wino tips, you are now ready and equipped to take your show on the road with Part 2. Without really knowing if any legitimate Rock Stars drink wine just like this, here are two performance formats that will deliver wine experiences even the most jaded wine enthusiasts would clamor over: The Three Wine Comparison Never serve one glass of wine at a time with dinner. Rather, set out three identical glasses and compare the wines against each other. Never pick just a white and a red wine. Instead, pick three whites and three reds. Or, just three reds or whites or rosés. Most importantly, make sure... [Read more of this review]

Wine Rock Star-Part 1

Tweet I just finished reading Dave McIntyre’s recent piece in the Washington Post about ways to enjoy wine more in 2012. He delivers a handful of useful, but ordinary suggestions for etching a couple more garden variety notches into your wine bedpost. Honestly, I was hoping for more. Alas, a missed opportunity to share some geeky unknown rituals living at the edge of extreme rock star wine indulgence. I was in a San Juan, Puerto Rico Salsa club last week and overheard somebody mention how the locals dance like rock stars. I wished someone from the local Salsa mafia had dragged me onto that floor and showed me the right moves, similar to the way I hoped McIntryre would have slipped me a rich, more cranked up idea or two for truly drinking wine like a rock star in 2012. While San Juan Salsa rooms are infectious happy places, joining the coordinated dancing masses can be entirely intimidating to uninitiated rookies like me, lacking experience, heels, tight black clothes, and... [Read more of this review]