Les Blog

Just before Garagiste Mike and I arrived in Las Vegas for the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) convention last week, actor Tim Robbins shot the moon in his keynote address, earning a press blackout and a “controversial” label on his remarks. The only controversy, of course, is that what he said about the state of broadcasting was controversial.

Enough is enough… Now is the time to move away from our lesser selves. Now is the time to stop making money on the misfortunes of others and the prurient and salacious desires of the public.

Amazingly, his speech seemed resonate across the political spectrum. As one Chicago conservative wrote in the comments below the original link in Advertising Age,

Hard to believe I agree with anything Tim Robbins or his odious partner has ever said. However, his speech was a 10 ring bulls-eye with which I fully agree and wholeheartedly support. I always saw him as Crash (Costner) did - “Meat.” But on this particular occaision I applaud his opinion efforts with[out] ambiguity or qualification. Well done Mr. Robbins - try and keep it up.

There’s some hope yet. Well worth the six minutes of your life it will take to watch the highlights here.

Somewhere around 10pm last night, we stretched the last label over the last bottle of 2006 Peugeot, drawing to a close that plucky vintage. It’s kind of like putting the last fin-fold on a paper airplane and then flicking it into space — it could crash, it could sail, but aside from the momentum you put into the construction and the toss, its destiny is now pretty much out of your hands.

Based on what I tasted last night, though, I think it’ll float on the breeze quite elegantly for a while. Into a holding tank, we siphoned half of each of the barrels we’d put the blend into back in the fall, and then added half of the stainless steel container that held the rest of the blend. After bottling that, we siphoned what remained in each of those containers into the tank, bottling until the last dregs dripped through the hose. A pain in the ass, but the idea behind it was that each barrel probably evolved a little differently over the last 7 months, so bottling them one after the other would result in different wines. More critically, the wine stored in the stainless — because it had no further oak exposure after blending — was indeed tighter, so it at least had to be spread around.

We’d never bottled this much wine at one sitting, so while we knew it would be a slog, we didn’t really know how much of one. A few volunteers came early to think through the system, get it set up, and begin the first blend into tank, and then the full complement came a few hours later at 3. While the two blends into tank added to the time, it was, as always, the labeling that took for-effing-ever. We’ve got to figure out a better way to do that. If George hadn’t requested his cases come un-labeled, we might still be sticky with glue.

All in all, though, I think it was worth it. The Peug was remarkably fragrant in the tank, and it laid gracefully in the mouth with lovely ripe fruit, subtle tannin, and a good spine of acidity. Before we added the first portion from the stainless, it tasted round, full, and ready to slide down the gullet; after the tighter product from the stainless, it clenched up again, but it says to me that after a year or so, this one should be exceptionally lovely. That’s borne out by the 2005 Peug, which blossomed about 3 years out.

Mmmmmm… when is 2009 again? Pics from bottling after the break…
Continued …

I just got word from the Bicycle Transportation Alliance that the Garagistes package I donated to their Alice Awards fundraising auction pulled in a record haul: $285 smackers!

Contrats to the lucky (and so savvy) bidder — and thanks for supporting the BTA so generously!

Let’s break out the slide rule. In addition to DVDs of Life in Vine, The Real Dirt on Pinot Noir, and Mondo Ego, the package included a temporal panorama of Garagiste flavors:

2003 Klipsun Cabernet
2004 Peugeot
2005 Cabernet Franc
2005 Peugeot
2006 Merlot
2006 Deux-Chevaux

So, let’s stipulate that the DVDs made up $75 of the price ($25 each - what a deal!). That leaves $210 for the six bottles, or $35 each. Since the 6-pack we donated to the Auction last year pulled in $22.50 each, that’s a new world record!

Start screaming in earnest, Screaming Eagle…

Just back from traveling in California, I learned that sadly, the ultimate prize in the American Wine Blog Awards has eluded us. As emcee Tom Wark put it in announcing the winners, “it was not even close”: Alder Yarrow’s Vinography creamed the competition.

And rightly so. As Tom succinctly notes, “I don’t know a blogger more serious about what he does than Alder.” As I mentioned in a previous post, the guy is tireless — and he actually has a real, and quite demanding job, to boot. We’re lucky to rub the sand out of our eyes and post once a week; he posts with authority and detail pretty much every day. Considering the quantity and quality of what he produces, there’s no question that the award went to the right blog. Congrats, Alder!

But enough about winners; what about us? Is there any way we can slip past the Vinography juggernaut next year? Well, I have a plan: we compete in categories which Alder can’t possibly enter, and therefore win. For example:

• “Best Overall Wine Blog Produced in a Basement”
• “Best Use of ‘Ent’ and ‘Van Halen’ in the Same Post”
• “Best Blog with Worst French Grammar” (see “Les Blog,” for starters)
• “Best Red Sox Coverage in a Wine Blog”
• “Most Disgraceful Use of Sex To Sell a Post about Wine Machinery”
• “Blog most likely to be Sued by a French Car Manufacturer if it is Ever Unwise Enought to Turn Pro”

What, those aren’t real categories? Damn. We’re doomed…

Sadly, aside from the wine-colored halo its amiably vain title character wreaths around himself in the title sequence, this piece has nothing to do with wine. So I won’t be insulted if you just give it a look, rate it highly, email it to all your friends, and think on it no more…

It’s a piece I made for the City of Portland to help launch its first foray into “bike boxes” (special areas at intersections reserved for bicycles to help prevent accidents), titled “On the move with Mr. Smooth.” Its audience is car drivers — since everyone agreed that bikers would easily figure it out on their own, we decided that the best use of the minuscule budget would be to weight the messaging heavily toward motorists. The basic idea: wrap a few key messages in a tongue-in-cheek storyline that didn’t feel like a standard, lecturing PSA. It’s meant for online distribution only.

Does it work? Since it’s a public policy issue, it’s naturally been the subject of some heated comment, but thankfully, the reviews seem to be generally positive. And, uh, no publicity is bad publicity, right? Right?

What’s your review? Take a look and let me know what you think…

American Blog Awards voting ends at midnight tonight (March 28th), so if you’ve enjoyed reading our scrappy little blog, please consider throwing a vote toward our quixotic quest for “Best Overall Wine Blog.”

Do it, or we’ll drink this wine. Oh. Okay, do it or we’ll drink this other wine. Uh…

Here’s the ballot. Thanks!

Asimov posts this week on how, when, and whether to introduce minors to wine. Could it be that, as a place to learn about drinking, the family home beats the frat house?

“The best evidence shows that teaching kids to drink responsibly is better than shutting them off entirely from it,” he told me. “You want to introduce your kids to it, and get across the point that that this is to be enjoyed but not abused.”

He said that the most dangerous day of a young person’s life is the 21st birthday, when legality is celebrated all too fervently. Introducing wine as a part of a meal, he said, was a significant protection against bingeing behavior.

What is the evidence? In 1983, Dr. George E. Vaillant, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard University, published “The Natural History of Alcoholism,” a landmark work that drew on a 40-year survey of hundreds of men in Boston and Cambridge.

Dr. Vaillant compared 136 men who were alcoholics with men who were not. Those who grew up in families where alcohol was forbidden at the table, but was consumed away from the home, apart from food, were seven times more likely to be alcoholics that those who came from families where wine was served with meals but drunkenness was not tolerated.

Put that way, it seems obvious, but the post is thought-provoking, and I’m not the only reader who thinks so. The Pour normally sees 30 or fewer comments per post; this one had over 300 in a day. Among them are plenty of anecdotes and arguments pro and con, including not a few sobering perspectives from alcoholics. This being the Interwebs, there’s also plenty of sanctimony, hysteria, anger, inapt analogies and rhetorical overreach—the Human Comedy as it plays out in comment threads.

Puritanism and hedonism are the yin and yang of the American Way, so drinking, and thinking about drinking, will always be good blog fodder. But reasonable people such as ourselves can draw a couple of modest conclusions from this particular go-round: to the extent that parents can influence teenage drinking by providing a model of appreciation over intoxication, they should; and—it is delightful to report—adolescents who develop discriminating palates are more likely to turn up their noses at rotgut. Turn your kids into wine snobs, people. It’s the responsible thing to do.

The McQ household is a few years away from universal wine consumption, though Siobhán, one of our five-year-olds, will sneak a taste if given the opportunity, and proclaim it good. Smelling is permitted without restriction, however, and I am pleased that my daughters’ noses are keen. Offered a whiff of a 2005 Mission View Zinfandel, a full-bodied wine redolent of overripe red fruit, Siobhán noted that it smelled “like a thousand rotten strawberries.” That’s my girl.

(Photo nicked from here)