My Wine Post, Part I

I’ve been promising a wine post for a long while. Well, not really promising one, but it seems like every time I write about coffee or beer, I throw in a “Maybe I should write about wine someday. So I suppose that day is today.

And sorry, this is as far as I go. Weed may be legal in my state, but I’m hardly a connoisseur. I’ve heard there are different types of marijuana. Okay, if you say so. Is it the taste? Or the high you get? Or whether you crave Cheeto’s or Tollhouse afterwards? Someone probably knows, but not me. I hit the wacky tabbacky once every three of four years, so it’s hard to judge consistency or differences. And if I do more than one hit, I’m pretty much down for the count.

So wine, it is. What would you like to talk about?

Food pairings? Fuck that. If you want wine with your fucking food, then drink wine with your fucking food. And don’t get me started on the restaurants that are now suggesting beer tastings with food. Oh, you think this salmon pairs with a hefeweizen? Well, hefeweizen tastes like it’s been strained through soiled underwear, so that doesn’t pique my interest in how you prepare your salmon. If I order it with an IPA, are you going to look down your nose at me and clap for your sommelier to come arrest me and put me in posh jail? Wait a second, do sommeliers even make up the bogus beer tastings or did you just ask Fred, the resident lush at the bar? Because I think I’d trust Fred first.

Best varietal? Again, it’s up to you. I personally go for zinfandels when I get to choose, especially a zin from the California foothills. Zinfandels used to have one primary taste profile, but a decade or so ago, I started to see more variety. You can get a jammy zinfandel or a peppery zinfandel. Peppery used to be the norm in the foothills because of all of the volcanic rock up there. But then they started planting more zin vines in the north-facing valleys that get less sun because that’s what was sells better. I don’t mind the jammy, and just like with the IPA craze, I know when I’m bucking the trend in the market. I also like stick shifts  and time travel TV shows, but that ain’t what sells. So I’ve learned to just sit there, drinking my hoppy IPA and my jammy zinfandel while watching the series finale of Timeless, and shut the fuck up.

But man, when I encounter a place that still holds one of their zinfandels back for a bit o’ spiciness, it’s a little slice of heaven.

I know. I know. Who in the world would want to sully their grape juice with a nuance of cracked black pepper, right? You’re not alone. Pepper is for steak, not for alcohol. But, I ask you, what are you drinking WITH your steak. And you don’t have to have steak with your zin. Just think about steak while you’re drinking it, like a vegan who eats tofacon while dreaming of the real thing. If you imagine it hard enough, you can conjure the flavor. If I were a vegan, I’d stick to the booze to remind me of what meat was like. And I’d be one of the weepiest drunks in existence.

If I can’t have or don’t want a zin, though, I’ll probably turn to a syrah. Not a petit syrah, mind you. Syrah and petit syrah are entirely different grapes. You would think the latter would just be a smaller version of the former, but no. That would be too logical, and not intimidating enough for noobs. So a syrah’s got nothing to do with a petit syrah. A syrah is, however, the same thing as a shiraz. Sommeliers gotta sommelier, right?

Petit syrahs are probably the prettiest red wine. A good one is inky, almost violet. And they’re dense. My wife’s a big petit syrah fan. She’ll drink it by itself. I’m usually pretty good with them, but only paired with a steak or a meaty pasta. And yeah, ignore what I just said about no generic food pairings. You should only drink petit syrah with red meat.

My white flavor profile switches around a bit. Depending on the food or the weather or the time of day or my mood, I might want a fume blanc, a roussanne, a vermentino, a suavignon blanc (which, unlike the syrahs, is the same grape as a cabernet sauvignon). If it’s dry enough, I’ll take a Viognier, but most of those are way too sweet. And by dry, I mean the wine, not the weather. Dry is the opposite of sweet. Well, really they never use the word “sweet.” They say off-dry, just to be snooty dicks. Then again, some wineries call their off-dry wines dry because they tend to sell better.

This trend is going on with roses, as well. Roses are pink wines, which used to only be white zinfandels. But over the past few years, a number of the wineries we like have started to make dry roses which are quite refreshing. They’re like red wines that you can drink cold.  Then again, many places just recycled their old white zinfandel recipes and slapped a rose label on it. When we were in Denver last year, Wife ordered two different roses at two different locations, one of which called itself a wine bar. The server listened toWife’s complaint about the residual sugar in the first one she had tried, then brought one out with pretty much the same damn taste.

You’ll note there were two varietals I didn’t reference: those creamy chardonnays and robust cabernets. I don’t mind the latter, if it’s paired right, but any food that tastes good with a cab probably tastes better with a petit.

But that famous white varietal? Pass the chardonnay, please! Seriously. Please pass it right the fuck past me.

And yes, I know all about oak aging and stainless steel and malolactic fermentation and the magic egg that leaves the liquid in constant motion. I’ve tasted the creamiest of chards and the tangiest. And while there are a scant few that I can tolerate, as a general rule, I’ll just skip past that varietal and go right on to the pinot grigio, thank you very much. Unless I’m in Napa and chardonnays are the only whites on the tasting menu and I just paid twenty bucks and only get to taste four.

One time we went wine tasting with a friend and her husband. Wife’s wine tasted with the friend often, but we were a bit skeptical about his wine acumen. He’s a sales guy, so I’m never a hundred percent sure if he has any real reactions to anything. His answer to most question seems to have been play-tested for audiences of strangers who you are trying to build a rapport with. When we asked him what kind of wines he liked, he paused for a second, looked up the answer in his mental rolodex and said, “I really like full cabernets and buttery chardonnays.” Wow, is that what Madison Avenue thinks of California wines? Well, unfortunately for this dude, we weren’t going to Napa Valley that day, so he was shit out of luck on rich cabernets or buttery chards. Hopefully the tasting notes you cross-referenced and committed to memory last night know what to say about a barbera.

You know what? That’s what I should be talking about. Wine regions. Forget pairings and varietals and proper storage techniques.

Wait, did I talk about proper storage techniques? Bottle down. Not straight down, but at a slant. Most wine racks are built for the proper angle, but most people put their wine slanting upwards. Cause it makes the label prettier, I suppose. But the cork needs to stay hydrated, you see. Dry corks crack, and can break when you open them. Even worse, dry corks contract, which lets oxygen in to the bottle long before you try to open it. And once you’ve got oxygen in there, you’re no longer aging wine, you’re making vinegar.

So I guess it’s time to focus on the wine regions. I’ve been to most of the ones in California, and a few more besides. Napa Valley, Sonoma Valley, Paso Robles, Lodi. I’ve sampled some near Walla Walla, Washington and Willamette Valley in Oregon. Each has their own positives and negatives. I don’t think there’s one that can properly be called the “best” region.

That being said, I do have a clear favorite. If you want good wine in a laid-back atmosphere where the winemakers and wine pourers like your company and your business, there’s really only one option. It’s a county in Northern California with acres and acres of vineyards planted on rolling hills. But the county ain’t named Napa, and it ain’t named Sonoma.

Hold on, I’ve got a lot to say on this. Check out Part II if you want to know about the hidden gem that should be considered the “real” wine country.