Winexpression

The infamous story finally comes to an end, as the main suspect in the horrible wine warehouse fire in Vallejo, Mark Anderson, plead guilty and will be sentenced in January.

Thanks to this plea, I won’t need to testify. Whew

Read [Chicago Tribune]

For additional reading on this story see below.

The distinguished Frenchman starred at me from across the table as I brought the wine glass up to my nose and took a few short whiffs of the clear liquid. He knew what my response was going to be; he has witnessed it again and again. His name is Jean-Sebastién Robicquet and he is the master distiller behind a wine based vodka named CÎROC, the third most consumed vodka on the market and now only footsteps behind the top two “Luxury” vodkas in the world, Grey Goose and Belvedere, respectively. An impressive feat considering the product was only launched in 2003. What makes this vodka different, and how was it able to achieve success so quickly? Is the “from wine grapes” moniker just good marketing?

I reclined at a table in a private meeting room downstairs at the E&O Trading Co. in San Francisco. Jean-Sebastién and the entourage sat across the table and we began.

First the neutral: a grain based vodka cut to 20% abv. (note: when tasting vodka’s, you can add the identical amount of distilled water to your glass to neutralize the ethanol making it easier to taste through a flight and pick up nuances.) Even though the ABV was cut, the aroma was still overwhelmed by a rubbing alcohol like smell with a sharp finish. This is your typical grain vodka that I’m guessing retails for under $15.

Then we tasted two separate CÎROC vodka’s, each distilled from the two grapes that are fashioned together to create the final product. First was Ugni blanc (pronounced eew-knee – blaunk), a more neutral aroma that was less harsh than the grain neutral, but surprisingly velvety on the tongue with a fantastic finish that seemed to linger. Then the Mouzac (pronounced Moe-Zach), a rare grape only found in two parts of the world, Gaillac and Limoux France, and only 5%-7% of which is used in the final CÎROC blend. This is where the incredible aroma is fused into the spirit, with fragrant notes of citrus, apricot, and crushed rock that finish with a full bodied mouth feel.

Finally the last vodka poured was CÎROC, the final blend of Ugni Blanc and Mouzac.

Incréabla!

The infusion of what Jean-Sebastién likes to call the DNA or soul of the grapes is apparent. The story is written with the alcohol, and water is just used to cut the 96.4% abv product down to the much more manageable 40% abv or 80 proof on the label.

The name, like the product, is a fusion of two names: Cime or Summit, and Roche or Rock, inspired by the town Gaillac in France where it is produced. The blue color on the bottle is a throwback to bleu de pastel, formerly used in Gaillac as a dye that now lives on in the pastels used to paint doors, windows, and various items throughout the town. The rooster on the bottle helps one associate the vodka’s origin. France is the area that occupies what was once referred to as Gaul, and a similar variant on that name is used to describe a rooster.

The latest creation are two flavored Vodka’s, Coconut, which reminded me of Malibu Rum without the bite, and Red Berry, which has a beautiful aroma of fresh strawberries, cherry and raspberry. Both of these options are worth trying and are much smoother than most flavored vodka’s I’ve tasted.

From the early morning grape harvest and cold fermentation, to the steam heated coil stills that provide indirect heat during distillation, CÎROC is made with great care and attention to quality. No wonder the company expects to dethrone the overhyped and overpriced competition within the next few years.

Website: [www.cirocvodka.com]

It was announced today that wine.com has released it’s API, which is the framework that allows third party websites to link to it’s extensive online database. This means that some wine related website’s will choose to incorporate information from Wine.com into their site, allowing for more extensive information to be delivered directly to the end user. Think of what Google maps has done for the internet. There are an untold number of implementations of Google’s API on a hoard of different website’s. Wine.com is hoping to do the same thing.

But how many people actually buy wine through online retailers? According to a 2008 study by Vinquest:

U.S. wineries seem to think they sold about 2% of their wine through online wine retailers in 2007. Total sales through this channel were likely in the $200 to $400 million range for 2007

Not much when you look at the overall picture. There is definitely a lot of room for growth in the area. But is this what the average wine consumer wants? Or is it easier just to pick up a bottle from the local merchant or megamart and not have to wait or worry about shipping?

So far it seems the public has spoken.

When budgets are tight, retailers adapt, and in the wine industry, it’s the overpriced wines that need to make the concession.

Among the more eyebrow-raising deals he’s seen in the past several weeks have been half bottles of Joseph Phelps Insignia Napa cabernet 2002, Wine Spectator magazine’s wine of the year, wholesaling for a mere $10 each (the wine’s release price for a full-size bottle was $150; retailers jacked the price even higher once the wine received its distinction)

Read [Forbes.com]

Photo: Sausalito Police Department

You never know what might happen after you click the publish button. In a post that appeared nearly 4 years ago, this site covered a piece of news that shocked the wine community on the suspected arson of a facility in Vallejo that housed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of wine. The latest developments (yeah I know, the San Francisco Chronicle got the name of this site wrong, I’m emailing them about it…) include comments made on  this little blog by carlmwormwood who authorities say is actually the suspect, Mark C. Anderson, a.k.a “Joe Sausalito”. These comments will be included in testimony against Mark when he goes to stand trial.

Prosecutors said in recent court filings that they should be able to show the Internet postings – made at winexpression.com [edited for accurate spelling], a site geared toward oenophiles – to jurors because they revealed Anderson’s “consciousness of guilt.”

Here is an excerpt of the comments on this site (click for full comments):

Hasn’t anyone ever looked into the other people at Wines Central. Their manager there was involved in over 5,000-6,000 cases of “missing” Pride Mountain wines about ten years ago….

…Jack Krystal didn’t own WinesCentral, he was bankrupt and needed the insurance to get out of town.

So there you have it. It’s still pre-trial, but the facts are there, and this blog is now a part of this events history.

Crazy.

After the fantastically fair method of choosing my favorite people to give books to, I have decided on our winners!

Actually, that isn’t how it happened. To keep it fair, I printed everyone’s name onto a sheet of 8×11.5, cut small evenly spaced rectangles out, dropped them upside down in an empty cardboard cup, added some cream and sugar, and had a workmate reach in and pull out the winners:

1. Kimmers

2. Jenny T.

3. Zimmerwoman

4. Les E.

5. Jeff S.

6. Marisa

Congrats to all! I’ll be sending you an email with the list of books to choose from as it dwindles down.

Hopefully you will find these books just as educational and entertaining as Winexpression. One of my favorite’s is Hugh Johnson’s A Life Uncorked.  Pieces of his passion helped me appreciate the tales and emotions that are included in every glass. Passion for Pinot is a great coffee table book, with awesome photography provided by the senior sharpshooter on the project, Bob Holmes. Bob is one of those guys that delivers fantastic captures while not being over the top. His composition, attention to detail, and fantastic understanding of the medium makes each page he contributed to a pleasure to gaze at, and for longer than you planned. And of course, my fellow blogger and amigo, Dr.Vino, offers a great piece of work with his latest book A Year of Wine.

If you didn’t win (basically if you’re a loser) and you would still like one of these books, clicking on the link above gives me credit for your purchase and I can continue to pay the enormous hosting fee required to keep this top tiered website running and feed my starving children all at the same time!

Thanks again to everyone for all of your comments! I guess I’ll have to find those notches Emeril is always talking about and kick it up to one of them.

-jatemack

Four score and two thousand one hundred and eleven days ago, this wine blog first graced the world with it’s presence. In a lack luster post with minimal verbiage and a link that now points to a broken page, the blog set a standard that it has continued to uphold down to today.

This site still remains a hobby for myself, and as a means to inform my friends of wine news, values, and the occasional rare find. Are there better wine bloggers out there with more dedication, a better grasp of grammatical syntacticationality, and more time on their hands? You betcha! But, that doesn’t mean I’m throwing in the keyboard or slowing down. On the contrary, I believe this medium is constantly developing and I plan on progressing with it.

Here’s to another 6 years.

P.S. For actually making it to the end of that rant, you are automatically entered in our free book drawing! Just leave a comment below (anything really, a smiley is fine) and you’re in. Six winner’s will be selected on Tuesday morning, September 1, and you can pick any book below (first come first served, the first winner will be able to choose from any book, the second will be down whatever the first person choose, and so on).  I’ll update this post Updated with a more extensive list of books to choose from:

Wine For Dummies (For Dummies (Cooking))

The Wine Bible

A Year in Wine

Passion for Pinot: A Journey Through America’s Pinot Noir Country

The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine

WineWise

A Life Uncorked

Noble Rot: A Bordeaux Wine Revolution

The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr., and the Reign of American Taste (P.S.)

Wine Spectator’s Ultimate Guide to Buying Wine, Eighth Edition

The Science of Wine

The Concise Wine Guide

The Sommelier’s Guide to Wine: A Primer for Selecting, Serving, and Savoring Wine (Sommelier’s Guide to Wine: Everything You Need to Know for Selecting)

THE RULES

One entry per person please. Open to U.S. residents only. No entries after Tuesday morning at 8:00 AM PST will be accepted. The winner’s will be announced Tuesday, randomly chosen posts from the comments section of this page! Once the first winner makes their selection, that book will no longer be available from the list, and subsequent winners will have a smaller selection to choose from. Some links may be pointing at the wrong edition of the book, but for the most part, I believe we are pretty accurate.

Update: Comments are closed! The winners will be announced today and notified via email.

Ever wonder how all the Cristal poured on the ground in rap videos was made? Take 1637 seconds and find out!

From the seemingly menial tasks in the vineyard throughout the year, to the selection of the lots that make it into the final blends, this film documentary is a well produced look at one of the most influential wine estates in the world, and the process it has established to produce it’s prized fluid.

The film was produced by TAC Creative on behalf of Maison Louis Roederer.

Watch it here. [dailymotion.com]

Snuggling close to selling half a billion bottles of Charles Shaw, 66 year old Fred Franzia has got his right foot on the gas and isn’t braking for anything.  He’s a determined man with a simple yet unpopular approach to the wine business: sell an ocean of wine at a price people laugh at.

Guess what? It’s working.

Snobs can come up with a gazillion reason’s for you to avoid Franzia’s wine’s, but, much like there assertion of his quality, they just aren’t that good. There is nothing wrong with opening a bottle of wine that costs less per gallon than most people pay for bottled water, and sipping it to contentment. A few extra digits in the online statement is a welcome site for most wine lovers today.

Which brings me to the article that prompted this post, found here [abc.com], and the review I’ve been meaning to post on a wine from Australia under the Crane Lake label of Bronco Wines, Franzia’s Company. This wine was sent to me as a press sample, and after tasting it, I picked up a case at my local Trader Joe’s. (I took a picture of the display in the store, but I got scolded by internal watch, so I won’t post that for fear of legal ramifications.) Note that in no way do I benefit from sales of this wine, just a recommendation for people that would like a nice summer wine, which, brings me to a little change in my standard review language. Below are two styles of reviews, one, the normal format found here at Winexpression, and two, the seemingly more fitting review style I envision Fred using when he tells people about his wines.

1.

Wine: 2008 Down Under by Crane Lake South Eastern Australia Chardonnay
Price: $2.99 Suggested Retail
Alcohol: 12.5 % ABV
Notes: Light straw in color, stone fruit, mineral, apple on the nose with a crisp well balanced palatte and zesty finish.  Lightly buttery and food friendly.
Score: B+ 88 pts

2.

2008 Down Under South Eastern Australia Chardonnay
$3
This great tasting Chardonnay is a nice way to travel to Australia without flying, boating, or swimming, and an excellent way to cool off on a toasty summer afternoon.

Update: The makers of Australia’s most identifiable bottle of wine, Yellow Tail, are suing over the Down Under label. Dr.Vino has the skinny.

Forego that afternoon cup of Joe for a more relaxing glass of wine at Starbucks 15th Ave. Coffee & Tea. The Uber Caffeine dealer opened it’s first location under the new name and will serve from a rotating wine list priced from $5- $7 a glass and beer offerings from $4-$5 at 3 test stores in Seattle.

‘Starbucks decided to build a new type of coffeehouse that would serve customers throughout the day, and in the true spirit of a traditional coffeehouse this store would serve beer and wine’

This coffeehouse design is reminiscent of a European mercantile and draws inspiration from the original Starbucks location opened in Seattle’s Pike Place Market 38 years ago. It’s eclectic and raw, featuring locally sourced and reused materials that are one-of-a-kind.

They decided to offer the following wines to start:

Gruet Blanc de Noirs, New Mexico
2007 Wallee Brook Pinot Gris, Oregon
2007 Drouhin Macon-Villages, France
2007 Delas Cote du Ventoux, France
2006 DeLoach Cabernet Sauvignon, California

and the following beer:

Stella Artois
Red Hook Brewery

Blackhook
ESB
Slim Chance

Widmer Brothers

Broken Halo IPA

Alaskan Amber

The overall idea seems good, building these stores on is what people original wanted in a coffeehouse. But can this corporate powerhouse break into the hearts of those who choose local?

The Seattlest [Seattlest.com] wrote some first impressions of the store.

15th Ave Fact Page [Starbucks.com]

streetlevelcoffee.com [Official Website]