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Wine Writers Symposium 2011: the wine part

March 6, 2011

OK. Most of us were at this year’s Symposium for Professional Wine Writers to polish our writing, search for a niche (there’s one blogger who does nothing but rate the wines at Trader Joe’s. Bless his heart, as they say down South), and find an audience for that niche. But, of course, there was wine provided by the Napa Valley Vintners. The Negress always enjoys the night when they break out the ports and the dessert wines. However, this year she was more cautious than usual. Instead of tasting through everything, she merely drank three wines and stopped. She also took no notes really, figuring that the really memorable wines didn’t need notes. Of the 15 wines served at the fellowship dinner, the Negress remembers one that was a spiky mess, out of balance and just plain funky (and not in the George Clinton sense). Alder Yarrow of Vinography is a more diligent taster than herself, so check out his blog if you crave details.

Benessere winery

a little powerhouse winery tucked away

So, that didn’t tell you much, did it? Well, there’s a reason for that. After the fellowship dinner on Thursday, she and several top tier wine bloggers (the Negress was most definitely the ringer here) broke out a stash of Unauthorized Wine in a series of Undisclosed Locations. There was Vouvray, a cheeky Australian shiraz minus the usual bombast from Down Under and a pleasant late harvest Gewurztraminer. The wine of that night was without a doubt a 6 puttonyo Royal Tokaji supplied by Ben Weinberg of the Unfiltered Unfined blog. The Negress loves tokajis, but had only ever had a 5 puttonyo before this one. Well, she shall never forget this particular honeyed nectar. Dessert wines can be an acquired taste, and the Negress thinks they should replace dessert in the way that sparkling wine should be an everyday wine and break free from the shackles of Champagne marketing. The Tokaji slid down her throat elegantly with honey and some pear flavors. She thanks Ben profusely for sharing it with the gang.

The runup to Premiere Napa Valley also features gang AVA tastings. The Negress skipped those too. She headed over to see Jack Stuart, former Silverado winemaker and current winemaker at Benessere, which is housed in the former Charles F. Shaw winery. If that Shaw name sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the official name assigned to various “buck Chucks.” When Shaw got out of the wine business, the name got licensed. The winery, however, is being put to better use methinks.

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Wine Writers Symposium 2011: the audience part

March 4, 2011

As you may have figured out from the most recent post, the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers was about writing. But what’s writing without readers except a solitary exercise in frustration? The Negress prefers solitary exercises that relieve frustration preferably without involving a Sawzall (All right, she digresses. But that happened close to home.)  Alder Yarrow of Vinography, Doug Cook, formerly of Twitter and currently overseeing AbleGrape, a wine search engine and Joe Roberts of 1winedude, did a panel on using search engines. You may have noticed the

Doug Cook, founder of Able Grape search engine

Doug Cook of Able Grape

somewhat orderly titles here in Negressland of late. They are due in part to what this trio told us about how people search for information online. There are 131 billion searches performed online annually and that figure is increasingly by 46 percent every year. All of our panelists suggested when writing blog posts to put yourself in the searcher’s shoes. Search engines already do that and Google and its ilk have tons of people tweaking search algorithms so they behave more like humans. Of course, repeating “Lady Gaga” or “Justin Bieber” over and over in posts seems like a strategy, but guess what? The search engines are onto you and will banish you from search results for such obvious gaming of the system. One myth for web presences is that more traffic is better. What your goal should be is to connect with people who are interested in what you have to say and nobody else. You want

Joe Roberts of the 1winedude blog

Joe Roberts of 1winedude (pic courtesy of NY Cork Report)

to maximize meaningful interactions. Tag your posts (the Negress does that). Encourage comments (please feel free but no spam. She has an app for that.) Also, limit your blogroll. Yarrow related that he was kicked out of search results because he had a page of links to other wine bloggers. Most search engines see this as a shameless ploy for traffic and will ban you very quickly. Vinography got reinstated to searches but it took some work.

Also, while search engines like repetition, remember readers are drawn to good writing. You may move up in the ranks by repeating “Trimbach Alsace Riesling” 12 times in a 500-word post, but your readers will flee clutching their heads. The Negress admits she knew a bit more about this than some of the Symposium attendees, but she was grateful to the trio for pulling it all together in a coherent fashion. You might have been over your head if to you a computer is just a typewriter with annoyances and think MS-DOS and xywrite are still viable, but let’s hope that’s a decreasing minority in the wine blogging world, Cook has posted the Power Point. Take look for yourself.

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Wine Writers Symposium 2011: the writing part

February 28, 2011

This year’s edition of the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers was more reality-driven than some past years. Trying to summarize the event can overlook some of the best stuff that shakes out. So the Negress has resorted to an organizing principle she thinks might help. This post will focus on how we wrote. Subsequent posts will focus on the wines official and unofficial (Many thanks to Jon Bonne for enabling the unofficial wine gathering after the vintners’ dinner and apologies to the Meadowood guests we woke up.

Gerald Asher noted wine writer

Gerald Asher at work (photo courtesy of ciaprochef)

More about that later). Our opening speakers were longtime wine writer Gerald Asher

Dominique Browning (courtesy of vanguardscouts.com)

Dominique Browning (courtesy of vanguardscouts.com

and former House and Garden editor Dominique Browning. Each had useful advice for anyone writing about anything. But since a lot of wine writers need their natural inclination to pompousness amputated, this was especially valuable. Browning, who admitted falling into something of a depression when her gig was euthanized, admits she edited wine writing but never did any. She recommended loving what you’re doing and going where that love is. “The only reason to write about wine is to connect others to your particular form of worship,” she said. “There’s no such thing  as being a writer. There is only writing.” Words to live by. She is one of many people who suggested reading your work out loud. She also suggested walking away from the topic if you become stale. You should labor over writing and wear your heart in your copy.

Asher encouraged more reporting. “Writing is the best kind of conversation. You can’t get interrupted,” Asher said.  He also strongly urged the writers to have references, sources and history at their disposal. “Have more than you need.” He also strongly suggested that tasting notes move away from the fruit salad mode. Wine writers should keep more objective notes about tannin and acidity and refer back to those. Focus on the distinctive elements that calls you back to your mindful notes. He cited a recent Eric Asimov piece that questioned the usefulness of fruit-driven tasting notes but noted that Asimov then dug himself a pretty big hole after the sound premise. “Help people understand that wine is a pleasure,” Asher said. He then read a piece of his about the soil specifics of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume on the myth of gunsmoke that was lavish, smart and compelling. The Negress felt humbled.

Corie Brown, former wine writer for the LA Times and proprietor of Zester Daily, a site the Negress isn’t cool enough to be part of, joined Jack Hart formerly the writing coach of the Oregonian for a writing exercise on how to write a narrative piece, in this case a profile. Brown interviewed winemaker Michael Honig, and then set us all to writing the opening of a profile using the material her questions elicited and what we observed about Honig. You  can find the Negress version of  Honig here. You can also read her take on food and wine pairing there to from an exercise conducted by Karen McNeil.

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Wine Writers Symposium 2011: One more stab at ethics

February 27, 2011

The Negress had vowed she would bury the topic of ethics at the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers forever  last year’s version of it (see her version of events in 2010). But this year brought some new faces with rule changes about fellowships and what have you. One of those new faces is W. Blake Gray, who runs the Gray Market Report. Gray is funny and knowledgeable, and does a wicked imitation of video wine twit James Suckling. We were chatting over a glass of wine (shocking for wine writing symposium, right?) when the Negress brought up the FTC ruling about disclosure on blogs of policy on freebies, junkies, etc. Gray doesn’t like this, he said, because newspapers and magazines don’t have to do it and they do a lot of the same stuff bloggers do. He cited sportswriters, saying they got to go to games for free. The Negress used to be a sportswriter. We went around on this for a while with neither side drawing blood and remained chatty through the rest of the symposium.

But, via l’esprit de l’escalier (big French for the extremely delayed riposte), the Negress has come up with a complicated retort that she thinks is effective. First of all, with legacy media (a slightly less depressing term for newspapers and magazines than dead-tree media), there is an implied contract with their readers that has evolved and devolved continuously. Most readers know the guy covering their teams gets to go to games, but it’s not like he or she is eating bonbons and relaxing with a brewski. You write a game story, keep up with team developments and, increasingly,  write blog posts and update a feed nearly constantly. This is work and the access to do it isn’t a perk; it’s a necessity. There was a time when some magazine and newspaper reporters did collude with entities they covered, hiding arrests and drug problems. That happens less and less now, though, a lot of entertainment journalism is constricted by publicist’s demands and reduced access.

Bloggers are not always journalists so fact checking, confirming rumors and being scrupulous aren’t necessarily guaranteed. My policy regarding what I do and don’t do is on this site. I do agree with Gray that more disclosure is needed since, as one dead-tree vet and I discussed, newspapers are increasingly buying pieces from freelancers who take freebie trips while still forbidding their own reporters to do so. Not to mention the increasing practice of health “reports” assembled and paid for by local hospitals appearing on local newscasts with no indication that this is advertorial, not independently reported data.

So, in short, the Negress urges thoughtful skepticism and paying attention. As has always been the case, much is not what it seems.

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Blending my own Napa Cabernet at Conn Creek Winery

February 26, 2011
Blending the 2008 vintage at Conn Creek

Topping off their very own bottle

The  Negress started her Wine Writers Symposium 2011 journey at Conn Creek Vineyards doing something she thinks everyone would love to do and thinks they can do better than anyone else. No, it wasn’t managing a baseball team or running a corporation. She had the opportunity to blend her own signature Cabernet-dominant Bordeaux-style blend using juice from all of the Napa AVAs (the American version of appellations). Her Perry-stroika 2008 was heavy on Spring Mountain fruit with a little Calistoga and Yountville fruit tossed in for grins. Also part of the mix were a touch of Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc. She was pleased with her efforts. However,  when she shared a glass with her fellow fly in the buttermilk Wine Chef Tony Lawrence, he noted she had made the kind of wine she would normally beedistressed by. The Negress noted she didn’t intend to pair this wine with any particular food, just enjoy it after a long day of selling insurance. Lawrence is a wine idea mogul (The Negress loves his winemaker speed dating concept) and has forgotten more wine than the Negress has drunk. So his opinion had meaning to her. But the exercise brought her back to the gulf between a professional wine life and the life of a drinker. When we taste, delving for items on the flavor and scent profile checklist, are we really drinking or are we back in junior high science? In short, do we taste as wine lovers drink? The Negress knows her palate was slapped back to rigor by being in the company of her fellow wineaux (she and 1winedude feel as though the event is a support group, allowing the attendees to geek out and then go back to their normal friends cleansed and able to talk about other stuff). But she admits when her shoes are off and a long day has ended, she abandons the search for damson notes.

By the way, if you want to do this, Conn Creek charges $95 and that includes the bottle you make and keep. If you join their wine club, the cost is 30 percent less and you get the opportunity to compare your efforts their winemakers.

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Fellowship at Silverado Vineyards

February 22, 2011

The Negress believes in full disclosure so she will note here that she is only at this year’s Symposium for Professional Wine Writers thanks to the generosity of the folks at Silverado Vineyards. She was delighted to find out that the winery is friendly with Gary Fisch of New Jersey wine retailer Gary’s  Wine and Marketplace (if you live in New Jersey near Gary’s and aren’t shopping there, you must be a glutton for abusive customer service and high prices). Fisch may have been relaxing in the Silverado guest house while general manager Russ Weis and winemaker Jon Emmerich  were letting her taste some barrel samples.  It doesn’t matter except to note that the Negress likes their taste in retailers.

Silverado Cabernet sampling

Silverado winemaker Jon Emmerich samples some Cabernet

She also liked their wines. In fact, her relationship with Chardonnay was irrevocably altered by their 2009 Vineburg Vineyard offering.  She had tasted barrel samples from their stainless steel barrels as well as the older oak barrels. Emmerich said he used mostly the INOX wine in the ’09 with a touch of the juice that had seen oak. The wine was lean  but well-structured with a touch of pineapple and honeysuckle but a nice hint of minerality. Consider the Negress sold. She will buy some to take home with her. Other faves included the 2006 Zinfandel from Silverado’s Soda Canyon vineyard. at 14.6 abv, it’s nearly ethereal as Zins go but still has the plummy quality that the Negress favors.

Silverado makes an excellent case for blending, a practice the Negress thinks got shoved aside a bit unceremoniously in post-Mondavi American wine. Some wines need a helping verb and a good example of this was a comparison of a barrel sample of Silverado’s 2010 and 2009 Miller Ranch Sauvignon Blancs. The 2010 has about 4 to 5 percent Semillon, and is slated to be bottled in the middle of next month. It’s somewhat more lemony than the ’09 and a bit green. Emmerich noted that the vineyard workers grow tomatoes on some of the unoccupied land and thinks this is a great indication for soil that is SB-friendly. The 2009 has 8 percent Semillon and has more notes of green apple and pear.

Emmerich and Weis went over their learning curve that led to the 2007 Mount George Vineyard Merlot. They only make about 5,000 cases of it, and it’s the antithesis of every indifferent Merlot that leaves your palate feeling fuzzy and dull (The Negress has likened drinking substandard Merlot to chewing on an Army blanket). The Silverado duo realized they had spent a very long time trying to make Merlot behave like Cabernet Sauvignon. Upon changing their thinking, their Merlot became brighter, with red fruit  and a delicacy that’s addictive. The Negress rates this a strong buy, but that’s only likely if you’re in the Silverado wine club. Production is only 5,000 cases.

Her tasting closed with the 2007 Solo, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon grown on different parts of the property. It runs about 14.9% abv, which makes it a lightweight compared to some Napa heavyweights. But this wine can cozy up to food and not instantly induce a headache. Well-balanced and with enough tannin to guarantee some real aging potential, this one is also a keeper. Bad news for the Negress’ Chicagoland pals, Binny’s doesn’t carry Silverado wines. Call them up. A lot.

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In which the Negress attempts to earn a living and help people

February 20, 2011

The Negress had to do something. Her money was dwindling and being out of work for a nearly two years was dulling her ability to embrace reality without sweating and wincing. So she started going to gang interviews with insurance companies. Insurance agents are salespeople, and she had done some of that in Maryland while working for the state’s oldest winery. She also knew the writing thing was not exactly a way to earn a living anymore with content mills and people writing all over the Internet in a masturbatory, worthless fashion that had reduced payments even for those who knew better. Knowing better doesn’t seem to count for much these days. So now the Negress is selling insurance and spends much of her time with the people who keep the country running –home caregivers, bell operators, sheriff’s office people, day care providers. Many of them are union folks, and their friends and family are also part of her daily landscape. The Negress hears heartbreaking stories and hopes what she’s selling can help. In some cases, she knows for sure that it can.

My home away from home

A place of good food, fine wine and great use of space

The hours are long and, perhaps a related event, she’s on new medication which requires liver function tests every now and then. Fatigue is a companion but she works for people who deride yawning and want her to work very hard so she can kick back in 10 years on her residuals. The Negress would love to do that, but some days she’s not sure she will live long enough to make it happen.

As Livia Soprano would say, “Oh. Poor you.” Clearly, a renewal of purpose was essential. So the Negress decamped to California since she won a fellowship to the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers. Her liver has mixed feelings about the trip, but her spirit is soaring even though she is exhausted. She’s been to the Ferry Building, eaten at Gott’s Roadside (a turkey burger this time since her butt is now spilling over into neighboring airline seats), had that amazing chicken coconut milk soup at Manora and is resting comfortably at the Palace, which is responding to the recession by deeply discounting its lovely rooms. The Negress hasn’t had much wine since the Equality Illinois gala  and a trip to Gino’s North for yummy thin crust pizza (thin crust is the real food of Chicago, not that deep dish crap). She did manage a pair of Pisco sours and a $6 margarita and they felt lovely. But she’s conserving her strength to the point of even having a Diet Coke at Gott’s.

She returned to the Palace using her Muni transfer to take another of those lovely historic trolleys on Market Street (the Negress passed two from Milan, which kind of made her want to knit something) . Well fed and dosed with Peet’s Coffee, a nap was in order. There’s also a larger question to ponder in the next post, which will most likely be from the Silverado Vineyards, the sponsor of my fellowship.  Do my liver’s misgivings need to be taken seriously?

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The Negress gets her groove back

December 15, 2010

While the Negress was in DC this past weekend for the New Organizing Institute’s Roots Camp, she drank a nice White Hall Vineyards Virginia Pinot Gris. But this weekend wasn’t entirely about wine. After arriving in Chicago and realizing that being underemployed left her with ideas aplenty and time to burn, the Negress volunteered for the Jan Schakowsky Congressional campaign. Schakowsky is a dynamite woman, smart, funny and committed to progressive issues. I walked through neighborhoods hanging door tags and talking to people. I watched some awesome break dancers perform at the last weekend of one of Evanston’s two farmers’ markets (markets here do not stretch into December with temperatures in the single digits being a major deterrent). I called voters and made my case for Schakowsky and most of the rest of the Democratic slate. I had people hang up, get profane and decline to talk. But for all those outcomes, there were some moments of genuine connection. She won here race easily and is now giving the Fiscal Commission the hell they so richly deserve.

So, the Negress thought, why not use her skills for good instead of mere commerce (although there is nothing wrong with that, of course)? So she headed off to Roots Camp where she and about 1,000 progressive activists networked, caucused, held sessions, swapped contact information, Tweeted up a storm and felt, for a couple of days anyway, like we could make a difference.

My new Corporate American identity

You can buy this valuable person

 

I’ll put in a plug for an effort you can be part of in your community. The Coffee Party (you can find them on Facebook and through this link) are planning a “For the People” effort to unpack the negative consequences of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which declared corporate “speech” as no different from citizens’ speech. So, from Jan. 20-22, many of us are declaring ourselves a new ethnicity/gender/orientation. We will all be Corporate Americans, and the preamble of the Constitution will be changed to reflect  “We the people, and the corporations,” etc.  Satire is encouraged and planning is going on now. The Negress is in the process of putting out bids for the naming rights to her new identity. Enough with being the Chronic Negress. I could be the true Go Daddy/7-11/Yoplait girl.

Go thou and do likewise.

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The Negress eases into Evanston life with wine from Priorat and Jumilla

October 11, 2010

The Negress has been pleased with Evanston so far (good bike shop, yarn shop and Peet’s, can you ask for more?) and began life once the wine was unpacked running through some of that fabulous 2009 Bonny Doon Ca’ del Solo Muscat ( $16, at the top of the endangered wine list since Randall Grahm sold the vineyard),  some Casa

Art abnd good wine oh why not?

Taste White label by Barbara Krueger

Lapostolle Sauvignon Blanc ($10-$12) (I’d give this to the miners once they are above ground) and a weak and compromised Novella Chardonnay ($6) from Trader Joe’s via Paso Robles. More like a Tweet than a Novella, this is the kind of wine that gives all wines a bad name for its thinness and indifference. Luckily, the 2007 Taste  White ($30) from Bedell  relieved the palate damage inflicted by that crap. A blend of 58% Chardonnay, 16%  Sauvignon Blanc, 15% Viognier, and 11% Gewurztraminer with a little time in oak (8 months or so) renewed my love for blends.

However, with baseball postseason action heating up and the Raiders limping along as usual, the switch to reds was on. The Negress had bought this 2005 Carles Priorat ($14) awhile back, and it drank pretty well.  Since most Priorat wines triple the price with no exponential increase in quality, she cannot recommend this enough. Stock up if you can find it. More ubiquitous and also charming is the 2008  Casa Castillo Monastrell ($10) from Jumilla, one of Spain’s overlooked regions for drinkable value wines. This feels rich on the palate with enough tannin and balance to keep it out of Frankenwine territory. It’s also a reliable bargain and pretty easy to find.

Recently the Federal Trade Commission started strongly suggesting that bloggers disclose favors or freebies they have accepted. The Negress usually does this and it doesn’t take long since she mostly hews to not accepting samples or junkets. However, she does accept trade discounts on occasion and, like a lot of committed wineaux, she revels in case discounts. Also, starting with this post, she’s adding the most important number in the wine world — price — to all of the wines she writes about. She knows you’re smart enough to do the rest of the math yourself.

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When the palate goes South, the Negress heads West

September 19, 2010

Instead of blogging to live, the Negress has been living to blog. Once a decade or so, the Negress gets a whopping summer cold and 2010 was the year for this particular malady to revisit her. As a result, she couldn’t taste much in the way of wine since she couldn’t smell anything. The one exception was Caymus Conundrum, which is a pretty ripe and scented white that seemed to cut through the catarrh. Anyway, while coughing and sniffling and drinking the occasional beer, the Negress finalized her plans to move to the Chicago area. She found an awe-inspiring apartment in Evanston, and started the machinations of mail forwarding, moving goods and what have you. A trip to the Windy City yielded some potentially interesting opportunities that should bear some kind of fruit sooner than later. A detour to New York, New Jersey and environs

My newest favorite team

South Side rules even though I will live on the North Side

blended great friends, great food and some serious business involving the sale of art (if you know anyone who wants to buy a Sam Gilliam, e-mail me and I’ll put you in touch). The Negress is weary but did find time to visit Sushi Cherry, a gluten-free sushi place in Lakeview that’s lovely and excellent and cozy. It’s BYOB so she procured a bottle of Casa Lapostolle 09 Sauvignon Blanc, which paired perfectly with the sushi.

This much is sure: The Negress will remain a fan of the Nats, the Raiders (sigh) and the Devils, but will add the White Sox to her teams of choice. How can anyone root for the Cubs?

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