Libation Station... "The Wine Shop Chronicles"

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Terroir vs fruit foward...

Here I am again, stuck in this place between a rock and a hard place... well, maybe a rock and a jar of blackberry jam. Living under a 3/4 year canopy of foggy soup, one forgets that just eastward over the mountains exists a wine country drenched in 17 hour a day summer sun and then cooled down at night enough for acidity to work its magic on the fruit. I can't help but to think that with euro-earth oriented winemakers, the juice coming out of the wine valleys along the Columbia River would be monumentally expressive of the same characteristics of juice that has been produced over the last 2000 years in more traditional growing and crushing regions. But then that wine would not be Washington wine, would it?

That's the great thing about regionality. It's not just about the soil or climate. It's about the people. Remember people? Too many times I get caught up with wine geeks over terroir attributes and we forget that culture has a big role in what gets made, how, and why it is sipped or quaffed. Washington wine drinkers are basically quaffers. We like the wine ready, fruit forward and in sizable gulps. The bottle is likely to be drained the day it is opened, so sampling the way a wine continues to express itself throughout the week is a moot situation. Our banks like their money on time once a month and winemakers need cashflow. The combination makes for the style of winemaking currently dominating the Washington landscape. And the irony in all this? The terroir and climate is perfect for this style.

So as I wonder through the shelves of our shop, looking for gaps and quagmires to fill or thin, I can't stop feeling the pull of eloquence, elegance, and subtlety the wines of France, Italy, and Spain consistently offer. This is where my palate has migrated over the years. I sometimes want to jettison all the over-extracted sun-pummelled high-octane fruit bombs out the door in favor of the more delicate and silky. And then I remember where I live and the people I live with and I see how presumptuously arrogant that train of thought is. When I sip a Cabernet or Syrah from Walla Walla or Yakima, I am instantly connected to the people who work those fields, crush the fruit, bottle, stack, ship, market, pour, and taste. Bills are getting paid, on time. To me, and specifically in this new world, that is artisanship in its fullest.

So beware all ye wine snobs. At 500 wineries and growing and with world markets synchronizing the way humans live, toil, and play, Washington wine could possibly be on the verge of something huge in more places on the planet than just here at home.

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Posted by RM Dustin :: 8:22 AM :: 0 Comments:

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Cabernet Franc...

Is this grape ever being presented in style from one end of the spectrum to the other. And yet with all it's ability to thicken under a bombastic sun near to or beyond hyper-ripeness, to then be over extracted and then oaked into oblivion, I still love what it can express on any given day. Eastern Washington Cab Franc is such a monster. Huge viscous fruit with notes of blackberry jam, current, maybe even some blueberry. And even then there is still some smoke and tobacco and green bell pepper. What a dance.

But if you really want to delve into the subtlety of the varietal, then you must venture to The Loire, or have it come to you in the form of a bottle from Anjou or Bourgueil. These Cab Francs are not built for speed. They require ample time to open to display their fruit. In the meantime, they push forth notes of green bell pepper, leather, and tobacco in an oh-so roasty-toasty way. We had a Chinon last Saturday night at the Bistro San Martin, sharing bits of lamb and venison between each others' plates. The wine was in the background melding it's structured tannins and balanced acidity against the meat fats and sauces. I could have died and then been resuscitated at the last second. I don't remember much beyond that point. My guess is my friends let me go unconscious and revive on my own, considering the look on their faces right before I checked out. When the patrons are displaying far-away orgasmic pauses embedded within their expressions between bites, then the right palate button has been pushed.

The Loire Valley plays on the fringe of ripeness inducing temperatures. If the summer was a hot one, then the grapes fully ripen and along with the cool nights, the acidity rises. This can give the Cab Franc a little extra terroir funk... one that can really go incredibly well with the gamier side of meat. Beware colder than usual vintages. The juice really gets thin and acidic... still not bad, but for a fruit-forward culture as ours, it may set you teetering back on the heels looking toward Spain.

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Monday, January 28, 2008

let it snow...

Today I was supposed to be in Seattle, in what I call the dungeon of delights, a place where possibly the most refined wine mind and palate in the region exists to provide residuals of the import war spoils of Italy and France for resale and ultimately... consumption. And it snowed hard, at least in our neighborhood. If you've never been there, it is an amazing experience. I've written about it before so I'm not going to re-delve into detail. Let's just say, it is a place to taste the finest of wines in air full of cigarette smoke, and where you can be called an English cunt while you order $2000 of juice, and that won't really bother you. And it snowed....

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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

when geeks collide...

I've written before about when wine industry people get together to sample an importer or distributor's wares. Some tastings can be very enjoyable, some can be extremely boring, and some can be more than enlightening with little having to do with the quality of the juice. One predominant issue, and there are many not so lesser, is the constant struggles of a small wine shop to be able, within the boundaries of the law, to differentiate itself from grocery outlets, chains, and big box discount behemoths. Our greatest competitor is the dreaded duo of convenience and minimal markup. We have to somehow convince enough of the wine buying public within the reasonable proximity of our shop that we offer more value and that it is worth the extra effort and expense for a visit. Recent experiences at beginning of the year has redefined the rules as still being "same-old-same-old."

Distribution basically is still adamant about making sure all the wine they sell is everywhere on every shelf except when it is politically advantageous to withhold from non-preferred clients or sell all to preferred ones. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred those preferred clients have more than enough cash to buy that type of favoritism. I really have no problem with that premise. Business is about relationships and following the money is all about business. My problem is, the law does not allow me to try to get the same wine from someone else when one avenue has been shut down or I have found the distributor to be less than responsive to our needs, and maybe that wine isn't available via other distributors because of contractual agreements, but at least, I should be allowed the ability to try alternatives. I think they call that a free market. I think it would put an end to an amazing amount of abusive leveraging.

At last night's tasting event, another issue cropped up with independent retailers like ourselves and large buyer employees. The pissing and sniffing factor of who knows what about what can get off the scale. Egos run rampant in all industries and companies but people can get real territorial when it comes to a product that is defined by taste. I made a comment that I was not particularly impressed with the quality of a local winemaker's supposedly gold medal winning Roussanne with respect to price and was told I probably did not understand the varietal or my tasting environment was somehow contaminated. It was hard for me to really dismiss the attempted slant because I knew at some point, this wine expert might be told to move the newly discounted 40-pound bags of Alpo to a different shelf. I must have a different concept of contamination than some. It might also explain why none of the other reputable independent wine merchants were not mingling at the same tasting.

We are still new at this. But we definitely are learning.

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Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Sake Tasting...

Libation Station
Sake 101 Tasting
Saturday Jan 12, 2008 (08? Ack!)
1pm-3:30pm

Domo Arigato... I believe that means "thank you very much" in the land of the rising sun and why could that possibly be relevant with regard to a small wine merchant perched near the ever fluctuating shores of the Skagit River? Are the proprietors learning a new language and in a ridiculous manner using this medium to practice in? Could it be something to do with a specific beverage made from multiple fermentations of rice, one that is really not rice wine, but more like beer in that the beginning element is a grain and not a fruit? Could it be Libation Station is adding another product to their line of already palate tingling quaffs and is in the midst of a mini marketing ploy to kick off its introduction to their shelves?

This particular food friendly libation, normally served hot to mask the imperfections of lower quality grades will be served chilled (as this is the good stuff) this coming Saturday in our shop and with sushi type munchies to pair with the different styles. Amy Coffey with Triage Wine Importers will be here explaining the nuances and offering up her infectious smile. If you would like to sample some comparisons of "the good stuff", we hope you can make it. There will be no Sake Bombs (a shot of sake dropped into a glass of beer to be consumed immediately in a chugging manner by people in after work bars who hate their jobs). Oh, and this is a freebee courtesy of Triage.

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Wednesday, January 02, 2008

over hangin'...

We slept off and slept on wherever and whatever we landed upon, horizontal in manner and quite sofa prone, with a disconnected incommunicable phone and remotely armed for a real time maximum bowl updates. I'm not sure why beyond trying to fill whatever part of the brain, to distract from the pain of that which was still not quite functioning. The cat incessantly perched on my skull as she knows quite well how to agitate when tolerances are in a weakened state. We thought a short forced hibernative shutdown would be enough to reconcile our biological imbalances, to realign mechanisms for reasonably efficient blood flow. Ha!

There was this incredible chili with a sneaky heat that warmed the bones from head to feet, opening a portal, one for the poisons to escape from... or to. I was leaving the directionality up to them as any decision making was not going to happen on my end of the spectrum. So there I be, one giant cumin and pepper induced oozing pore and I could've had more, but that meant getting off the couch and reheating the pan.

It was a new day yesterday but an old day now and synapses continue to misfire and the medulla oblongata lies pulseless, dormant... cinched, pinched with tourniquet force as the spine refuses to link up... an interface without a place to connect to. Didn't someone say we were too old for this behavior? We ignored them, right? We celebrate to achieve this state and damn if we don't always succeed. And we'll do it again next year at a drop of a hat... because we are too old not to. Besides, the next time a wayward thought spent mortar might not be so aptly positioned as not to maim and put a damper on the whole bloody evening...

had to be there....

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