First and foremost, SAZ in the Cellar is a wine resource site. It is my intent to blog about wine, share ideas on enjoying and appreciating wine, and provide links to other resources on wine. I believe my upcoming book, Wine Sense(s), fits into that concept. Therefore, I will be providing the occasional update on the status of Wine Senses(s) and post on other wine writing. I will also provide reviews and links to other wine blogs and books that I find useful and expect you will enjoy to broaden your wine reading. Over time, the Resources page and sub-pages on this website will provide references to other wine blogs and books, and wine-related products and services that hopefully will be of interest.
But the focus of my blog posts will continue to be on wine tasting and enjoyment. We will review wines, match wines with food and also provide useful tips for buying wine, storing wine and most importantly, drinking wine. These ideas are being consolidated into the book and should provide you with a great read in the coming months. I have found that in blogging about wine and then researching and writing a book on wine that I learned a great deal – much more Continue reading →
With the Internet and social media, there now exists a global forum for distributing and sharing information. Everyone can become a writer, a blogger, or an educator. Unfortunately, just providing the medium to communicate, does not make everyone a good communicator – in fact, far from it. Too many people now can publish without the filter of an editor, a reviewer or a publisher. While this has allowed for the success of a few great writers who would not have otherwise been found, it has mostly just added pages to the web of limited or no value.
There exists a lot of crap on the ‘net, some of the material incorrect or worse, misleading, and some of it vitriol and hurtful, if not downright shameful. The Internet provides a public forum, and recreates a town hall setting where issues can be raised and debated. I find this exciting and a leap forward – not backward – in communications and relationships. Yet, too many people hide behind an avatar, or feel they can be disrespectful in addressing others 12,000 miles away without recourse. This sometimes turns the public forum into the ‘pubic’ forum unfortunately.
I thought about writing a wine blog for almost a year before actually writing my first entry. My bride who writes DAZ in the Kitchen asked if I would consider being a guest blogger as she did not have time that week (almost 18 months ago) to write her post. With trepidation, I agreed and 30 minutes later had an article which at least would help my wife avoid the need to write something herself that week. What was exciting was that two people commented positively on the entry and provided me encouragement that maybe I did have something of value to share.
Yet, through having done a lot of wine topical reading, it was clear that (1) I was not a professional writer as many are who make it their career, and (2) I am not as knowledgeable on wine topics as many others are that I admired such as Jancis Robinson, Campbell Mattinson, or James Halliday. These individuals are great writers and experts in their field. I read a brilliant article yesterday entitled “Halliday’s last O’Shea” by Mattinson in Voracious: The Best New Australian Food Writing edited by Paul McNally. It was so powerful, I was shaking and delighted in every word Mattinson shared with us about the unique dinner and wine drinking experience that he, Halliday and others partook in. (Halliday’s generosity also comes through on wanting to share such a great bottle with friends which in my opinion makes Halliday a wine enthusiast instead of a wine snob as judged in my article “Wine Snob versus Wine Enthusiast – which one are you?” even though in either case, Halliday must certainly be considered a wine expert! Expertise has nothing to do with being a snob or enthusiast – attitude does!
But these individuals – Robinson, Mattinson and Halliday – have written multiple books, write about wine as a full-time profession and are absolute experts in their field.
So the question remains, “What gives me the authority to write a wine blog?”
First of all, I actually do not need authority. I am not requesting anyone to buy anything, or to even take the time to read my posts. That is clearly and entirely up to them. And the number of posts and comments continues to grow, so I feel good that it appears to be of value to a community of like-minded readers out there.
I write because I enjoy writing and it helps me organize and challenge my thoughts and views with regard to wine. I also provide a “common man’s voice” which strikes an accord with my audience (you don’t need to worry about me providing non-essential information to the 99.999% of us who will never, ever be able to try the ’27 LeTache!). Therefore, there does seem to exist an audience who is interested and finds value with what I have to say, at least to the point of them investing several minutes to read what I write.
2009 Molines Chardonnay and SAZ in the Cellar messy desk
And I have some areas of expertise that even the experts mentioned above do not have that I can share. I have a place in the Hunter Valley, and have made some great and intimate relationships there and have drank wines from the private cellars of the best Hunter Valley wineries and wine makers, and have learned much of the lore and unique aspects of the Hunter Valley and its characters. The wine pictured above that I am drinking while I write this post is a 2009 Molines Chardonnay. This wine is a beautiful medium bodied Chardonnay that is the product of Robert and Sally Molines (proprietors of one of the very few Hatted restaurants in rural Australia called Bistro Molines) chardonnay grapes from their property, crafted by wine make PJ Charteris who until recently was the chief wine maker at Brokenwood, and is annointed as one of the six famous “new generation Hunter Valley wine makers.” (Chateris nows has his own winery in New Zealand which produces great Pinot Noirs which is also taking more of his time and is worth checking out.)
The only way to get any of this great Molines Chardonnay is to either buy it through the restaurant or become friends of Robert and Sally and get some directly from them. Robinson, Mattinson nor Halliday will be able to describe this wonderful wine to you, explain where and how to get it, etc., but SAZ in the Cellar can! Therefore, while certainly limited, I can educate others in a few areas that world renown experts cannot!
In part two of this post, I will be reviewing discussions I have had with Dr. Ian Harper who has published “Economics for Life” and Blake Stevens who published just last week “Still Stupid at Sixty” on their assessment of the authority they have to write. Both questioned if it existed, both questioned if they had a story worth telling and the ability to tell it, yet both have created riveting and useful books that are of great benefit to many others. Their authority rings through loud and clear.
I am taking my authority from the growing number of page views and good comments, plus the fact that I do this as much for myself as I do for others, and from the wines I drink and the stories they tell me.
[Note: There was an error when trying to link to Halliday’s Wine Companion, so once that is resolved, I will update this entry to provide that link.]
I must admit that I have a true avocation for wine. I enjoy wine on its own, with food, and to share with friends. I also enjoy reading about wine and learning more about how it’s made, where it is best made, how to buy and store it, and how to drink it.
Over time, I have developed a deeper appreciation for the exquisite and multi-dimensional nature of wine and it has become an important part of my life, but no more important than my faith, my job, my friends, my passion for reading on a wide variety of topics, and a general zest for life overall. I have been able to achieve a deeper experience and understanding of the wines I drink, and that has enhanced some of my other experiences. For example, we are having a chicken and mushroom risotto for dinner tonight. My wife makes a really good risotto (you can view the chopped-up chicken and mushrooms below)!
With the chicken, Parmesan cheese and mushrooms, I knew I wanted a rich, aged chardonnay to go with it. I selected my last bottle of the 2003 Saddler’s Creek Reserve Chardonnay. (Look at the beautiful golden color of a perfectly aged white wine!) I did so because I have had a few bottles previously and felt it would pair beautifully with a chicken and mushroom risotto, and I also knew the bottle should be drunk in the next few years and I did not want to wait too long or it might go off. Fortunately the wine was perfect and I am drinking some as I write this posting. We paid $10 per bottle for the wine as Saddler’s was trying to clear older inventory and we bought the last 8 bottles they had. But it drinks like a $130 bottle of Penfolds Yattarna or a decent Montrachet. This turned out to be one of the best buys of my life!
As you can tell, I put a bit of thought into buying the wine in the first place and also when to drink it and what food to drink it with. Some people would claim “I take my wine too seriously, so I must be a wine snob”, but I hardly think that is the case. To me it is a natural passion or avocation as I mentioned, much like others have a passion for working out or art or literature. Because I have developed a bit of knowledge over the years, it has become much easier to select a good (and good valued) wine to go with an everyday dinner. And I put more thought into the wines that match up with dinners when we host our “Single’s and Strays” dinner parties, have friends over, or a special birthday or anniversary. (BTW, all birthdays and anniversaries are special!) But then, most of those events become special occasions and lifetime memories. Does that make me a wine snob? I don’t think so.
I discussed this with some other wine aficionados and we felt that a wine snob had the following characteristics:
Wine Snob
They bragged about the excellent wines they had, but never found the opportunity to share the wine with friends or to give a bottle to a friend
They want to have you admit to them having a superior knowledge of wine over you – they are as uninterested in sharing their knowledge as they are their wines – they just want to ‘show off’.
They talk a great deal about how much they have paid for expensive wines, and seem to only drink expensive wines
Whereas a wine enthusiast, we felt, had the following characteristics:
Wine Enthusiast
They are happy to share wine, either by contributing a bottle, or by asking all who share to chip in for a special bottle of wine, or by setting some rules to have each person bring a bottle according to the rules established
They listen to others and want to learn and also share their knowledge and are excited to help others develop an appreciation of wine and mature as a wine drinker and possibly collector
They get as much and even greater pleasure out of finding a ‘cheap’ but great wine and would rather drink that than an expensive bottle of wine
We have two friends who are studying to become international Masters of Wine (MW). An international MW costs about $200,000 to buy, taste and compare wines to develop an internationally acclaimed palate and ability to compare and describe wines to others. (There are only about 475 MWs globally!) They are also professional wine judges (in addition to their full-time jobs), but in no way are they wine snobs. They get great excitement over finding a Canberra (ACT, Australia) Sangiovese for $20 per bottle and a Marsanne for $15 which they have introduced us to. A wine snob would not even try a wine from Canberra, yet alone a wine under $20. We have had a 9-hour lunch at their house (he is French, she is Australian – what can I say?) and we bring over wines we really want to share with them and they pick out wines they really want to share and introduce to us. These wine may be in the $10 – $20 per bottle range or they may be $40 – $60 per bottle, but it does not matter – what matters is sharing our wine, our knowledge and our friendship with each other.
I therefore, prefer to call myself a ‘wine enthusiast’, not a ‘wine snob’. How about you?
In my last post entitled “My first wines”, I discussed how and when I started drinking (fake) wine during my university days and real wine during my graduate school days.
For the next 10 or so years (approximately 1978 – 1988), my wine drinking experiences did not evolve much. I enjoyed decent enough wine, and had a few great wine drinking experiences which showed me how ethereal wine drinking can be. Unfortunately one was truly wasted on me. As a favor for a friend, I wrote a pretty complex COBOL program for him after he complained his company’s IT department could not understand and deliver what he needed. He paid me $400 for the effort, but was so delighted that when I had him over for dinner and celebrated the success back in 1978, he brought over a bottle of 1961 Château Lafite. I think we drank it while eating beef strogonoff or something of the like. I just did not have the palate for great wine back then.
I also started to travel more internationally for work and was introduced to more varieties of food and wine. I remember once getting upgraded to First Class on Singapore Airlines and being served a 1975 Château Brane-Cantenac and really enjoying it. (The whole experience of First Class on Singapore Airlines in the late 1980s was a great experience!) I then found and bought two bottles of it while going through the Frankfurt Airport a few months later.
But the 1961 Chateau Lafite and the 1975 Chateau Brane-Cantenac were exceptions to my wine drinking, not the norm. However, they did provide a taste of how great wine drinking could be and generated more enthusiasm for drinking good wine as a regular activity.
It was really during 1988 – 1990 when living in New Zealand and drinking more wine with meals and out with friends that I really started to enjoy wine more. New Zealand is know for some great Sauvignon Blancs and Pinot Noirs, and has an excellent wine growing industry. Drinking more wine on a almost daily basis became the norm.
Then when I moved to Australia in 1997 for a long project, I started to collect and drink far better wines (including having a business dinner with 18 bottles of the 1986 Henschke Hill of Grace (for 14 of us!) – but that is a story for another posting!). I was fortunate to have a few good friends like Michael Axarlis and Rob Tudor who had very good palates and an appreciation for fine Australian wines and they got me headed in the right direction to better understand and appreciate how many different and great Australian wines there were.
They recommended and I started to collect some bottles including the 1992 Penfolds Grange, 1996 Lindeman St George, 1996 Penfolds 707, 1998 Bannockburn Pinot Noir, 1995 Yarra Yering Dry #1, etc., etc. I started to learn to appreciate some of the differences between different wines from different regions, different vintages of the same wine, and how sinful it is to drink a wine too early or too late in its maturation process.
When I moved permanently to Australia in 2000, I started to collect and sample even more wines and have been loving it ever since. For a while, I was so hooked on the quality and value of Australian wines that I drank very little of anything else. However, during the last several years, I have now been appreciating a broader variety of French, Spanish, Italian, and American wines.
Probably the biggest lesson I have learned through 35 years of wine buying and drinking is not to buy too much of a single wine and limit your tastings to a limited set of wines, as exploring the vast variety of great wines is a joy in itself, and no matter how much you really enough a particular wine, there is always a better one to be found.
I started drinking alcohol while at university during my first year. I used to drink vodka (because my dad did) gimlets while playing cards, beer while playing softball, bowling and other activities, and wine when we had nothing else. My first ‘wines’ were not wines at all per se, but homemade concoctions my father and brother used to whip up with sugar and some flavoring. Therefore, we had an assortment of flavored wines including apple, orange, dandelion, potato (which I think was just vodka under another name!), and others.
My dad and brother made this wine over several years until the cost of sugar rose too high. I also think they got tired of cleaning up after numerous bottles exploded because they did not really understand the fermenting process! I would then bring these wines to university to drink as required. The ‘Shipley Vineyard’ classic was a bottle of the 1971 Orangeato. My dad had some leftover Orange wine and leftover Potato wine, mixed them together, fortified it with a bottle of 100 proof vodka and bottled up four bottles. The only remaining bottle in existence, sits in my friend’s wine cellar next to his prized Nepalese Plum wine!
We also used to buy Boone’s Farm wine, a low-level brand within the E & J Gallo Winery (my God, how bad it must have been to be considered the bottom of the Gallo wine tree!). It came in Apple and Strawberry flavors and cost about $0.93 per 750 ml bottle.
The point of my wine (and other drinking) during university was to get inebriated on alcohol, not to enjoy the flavor of the wine or the experience of wine drinking with friends – we were just getting bombed! It was not until I entered graduate school at the University of Minnesota that I started to drink real wine. I am not sure why or how, but I assume some friend introduced me to wine drinking and I felt it a pleasurable things to do with a meal or while studying or being involved in other activities. Fortunately, there was a wonderful wine store near the University campus called Surdyk’s. I did not realize and certainly was not in a position to discern what a great wine store Surdyk’s was at the time.
The people were really helpful and friendly, provided great advice on wine, and steered me towards very good valued wines. This was during the time when Chili was just emerging on the global wine scene and I was able to find some great Chilean reds for $3 – $5 per bottle. I also was told by one of the staff to buy some of the 1977 Dow Vintage Port and I got two bottles. I had one bottle several years ago and it was beyond superb. I am pretty sure I paid only about $12 – $15 per bottle for it then, and it was one of the great buys in my life! That was just the type of place Surdyk’s is. That whole experience changed my life and I started to experiment more with wines, pay a bit more and start to enjoy it more.
Therefore, it was visiting and getting help at Surdyk’s that got me on the journey to finer wine drinking. Last year, my wife and I were visiting Minnesota again to see my parents and I went by Surdyk’s. It looked and felt the same and I told some of the staff how much I appreciated their help some 35 years ago and what a great store it still is. They also introduced me during that trip to the 2009 Hugel Alsace Riesling for $22 in the US which is an outstanding value. I have since bought a dozen in Australia (where it was $30 per bottle) and it is a great, great Riesling.
In my next post, I will explain how my ‘fallow’ years as a wine drinker, but how I was introduced to several great wines which provided a true appreciation for how great an experience wine drinking can be, and how I became a real wine enthusiast while living in Australia, one of the great wine countries of the world!
