Adventures on the Wine Trail

There are several types of wine adventures I undertake. First are the trips to wineries in the East and Midwest, for a cover story in Vineyard & Winery Management. Second are the annual conferences of the American Society for Enology and Eastern Section which I cover for V&WM. Third are the annual Wineries Unlimited trade show in Pennsylvania, and International Eastern Wine Competition in the Finger Lakes, for which I go on the road for about ten days each. Rare but most interesting, are the trips on which I’m invited to “discover the local wine country/industry.” Most rewarding was introducing top British wine trade and writers to Virginia wines.

Highlights:

Rocky Mountain High: Wine Regions of Colorado, June 2006
The German Wine Press Trip, July 2006
The Virginia Wine Experience in London, May 2007
A Riesling Rendezvous in Washington State, July 2007

Rocky Mountain High: Wine Regions of Colorado, June 2006

I awoke at 4:45 to catch a flight via Atlanta and Salt Lake City to Grand Junction in Colorado, courtesy of the Colorado Wine Board, who had invited me on a press trip to the Grand Valley region in the west of the state where most of that state’s viticulture is based. However, despite a crystal-clear sky, this early morning flight out of Charlottesville was cancelled. I subsequently took the long route to Cincinnati, via a two and a half hour morning rush hour taxi cab ride, followed by a five hour wait at Dulles, followed by an hour plus ride in a plane designed for midgets only. By the time the plane left Cincinatti, twelve hours after I’d awoken, I reasoned I could have driven the car there with hours left over, and probably halfway to Salt Lake if I’d kept on driving.
But it’s an ill wind that blows no good, and on the three and a half hour flight, even though it was packed to the seams with bums in every seat, I got to fly first class. A glass of wine on an airplane is always nice, even if served in a plastic cup, if it’s free, and not just a mass-market brand poured out of a mini-split bottle.

I fell into an extended conversation with another Irishman sitting next to me, originally from South Carolinia but now living in Salt Lake City. It was fun chatting and drinking liberally, probably pissing off the righteous Mormon businessmen in the First Class section. He sincerely invited me to come to Salt Lake and go skiing with him and I hope to take him up on it.

I had the seat in the very back row of a Canadair jet connecting to Grand Junction, apparently designed by and for midgets. The seat was so tight I couldn’t even use my lumbar cushion. There was a heat wave on, and when I got to Grand Junction it must have been over 90 degrees despite being 8:20 p.m. I was six hours late; it reminded me of the great Orient Express Fiasco which started my grand wine adventure in 1975; ironically it was just about the same time of June as it was then.

It was a hot day and I was sweaty and tired but I was met by Nora, a cute intern in the Grand Junction Visitors Bureau, who, it turned out, had actually gone to Romania herself during a college glee club tour; small world! I was relieved to walk into the chateau of Two Rivers Winery and find that dinner was still being served. It turned out that there were only two other journalists on the tour; Jerry Shriver of USA Today and a full-time free-lancer, Deborah Grossman, another New Yorker. The other dinner guests included our host Doug Caskey, Executive Director of the Colorado Wine Development Board, Bob and Billie Whitham, proprietors of Two Rivers, Horst Caspari the state viticulturist, and a number of people from the local chamber of commerce and tourism board.

The hospitality at Twin Rivers was a great way to start the exploration of Colorado wines. They only make a caberent, merlot, chardonnay, and riesling supplemented with a caberent port, but the wines have a consistent high quality. The riesling was (typical for Colorado it turned out) very much in the Finger Lakes style; 11.5% alcohol, 2.5% RS, lively delicate peach/apple fruit and clean, racy acidity. The cabernet was surprisingly supple and approachable albeit with fine-grained tannins and drank like a Stag’s Leap district cabernet, quite an achievement for a cabernet from anywhere. The port was smooth and fruity, not too spirity. The dinner was outstanding; the winery is equipped with a catering kitchen, but I didn’t have the heart to tell them I’d crammed a hamburger in the SLC airport between flights, not having faith I’d get any dinner otherwise.

Wednesday began with a dramatic view out the south window to the towering plateau of the National Monument mesa, with the moon setting just above it; I grabbed my camera and got a shot with vineyards in the foreground before the moon set behind the mesa.

It was a hot day so I brought a wide-brimmed hat and a thermos of cold water. First we went to the Grand Valley viticultural research and experiment station where Hors showed us their vineyard and talked about viticulture in Colorado. The main challenges in that state are high soil pH and salinity, vine dessication over winter due to low soil moisture content, and sudden cold spells in fall before vines go into senecense, especially for varieties like syrah that don’t go dormant for awhile. He’s got 30 varieties under cultivation including Norton.

Our first tasting visit was Gray Cliffs in the Grand Valley AVA, near Grand Junction in the west of the state. It was a delightfully charming little winery with a niche specialty in ports. The white port, dubbed “Lippizaner”, is very unique; made from pinot gris picked near 30 Brix, given skin contact, then stop fermented with high-proof spirits around 11 Brix. The wine is spicy and intriguing, reminding one of Rutherglen muscadelle but lighter and fresher. The regular port done in a traditional ruby style is cabernet/merlot and the ’01 version won a double gold in our IEWC this year. It had a fine traditional style; mellow and smooth but good palate weight without being hot or coarse.

Next, we drove to neighboring Grande River Winery just off I-70. The (then) owner Stephen Smith, a gas and oil producer, realized there was a shortage of grapes in the state and consequently planted two vineyards, which supply many local wineries. The vineyard by the winery is 50 acres, about a third merlot (he’s bullish on the variety), with other Bordeaux varieties red and white, and some chardonnay. He also has another vineyard which is planted to Rhone varieties.

We tasted through a range of his wines over appetizers. The most impressive were a white meritage, with the Semillon giving an Australian style of grapefruit waxiness; his red meritage, which was dominated by cabernet franc and very elegant, drinking like a good St. Emilion.

After Grande River we left the Grand Valley heading east, driving past Canyon Wind Vineyard at the mouth of the valley, and climbed gradually up the Grand Mesa, with breathtaking views of the hills and valleys that went on for miles. The terrain changed from scrub brush to aspens mixed with evergreens. Finally we reached Mesa Lakes, a state park with a few small lakes interspersed between rest stops and picnic tables.

Lunch was original and inspired; Colorado fruit wines with deli sandwiches and fruit dip. The air was brisk but the sun was bright and a gusty wind was welcomed for keeping the fat mosquitos at bay. The setting was a graphic illustration of being in Colorado and not California or some other place. Parker Carlson of Carlson Vineyards (who won the Riesling Championship in 2004) had joined us. The best fruit wines were his cherry wine (mellow and smooth), Mountain Spirit blush (highly original blend of apple, pear and raspberry), and a pear wine from St. Kathryn Cellars. I made sure Doug got a group photo of us with a mountain and lake in the background.

Descending from around 10,000 feet heading south into Delta County, it got hot, and we got groggy and sleepy. We had to pass one winery to stay on schedule. By the time we arrived at Jack Rabbit Hill winery, it felt dream-like; a scrub country dotted with large trees that were tapping subsurface groundwater, resembling what I though a lot of Australia might look like, but pretty empty country between mountain ranges. The wind was gusting 30-40 mph, but we welcomed it because it was so hot and dry.

Lance Hanson the proprietor met us and took us into his separately bonded distillery, showing us a neat Holstein still that had a copper top but also had rectification columns to process faster and more efficiently than a regular alambic still. In addition to half a dozen table wine labels, he produces as many labels of eaux de vie.

Hanson was a colorful figure, having retired from the software sales business and wanting to move back to the land (from California). Articulate and animated, he nevertheless had a gleam in his eye and a smile that reminded you a bit of Jack Nicholson, accentuated by the barren landscape and remote location. He and his wife Anna built their house and planted a vineyard, so far the only certified organic vineyard in the state. He’s also in the process of becoming biodynamic certified.

Tasting is believing, and in tasting his wines, it was clear that something in the organic/biodynamic process was producing wines of almost piercing purity and intensity of flavor. The alternative philosophy of Jack Rabbit is echoed in the funky folk art style labels and witty product names like “Upper East Side”. The unoaked chardonnay was unique; with an intense aroma of fresh pear, and a bracing acidity with lingering pure pear nuances on the palate. His next wine was a very successful blend of chambourcin and cabernet franc, “Red Barn Red” His riesling was racy, lean and fresh.

The spirits were interesting and worth the drive through the dry hot countryside. First was a mistal, a traditional French blend of apple juice and distilled brandy, which was fruity and strong. The Williams pear eaux de vie was clean, bright and fresh, crisp and dry with pure pear flavors. The peach was broader on the palate but equally clean and true flavors. A cabernet franc eaux de vie was not my favorite though it did have typical plum notes in the nose. My favorite was the “Lone Eagle” riesling grappa, literally the spirit of good riesling; racy, brilliant, flinty, with peach and apple flavors and increadibly bright, taut and lingering finish. The oddest product was a grappa with organic Ethiopian coffee beans added; I didn’t care for that much either. Hanson certainly personifies the rugged individual spirit of the Colorado Wine Industry today.

We drifted down the road feeling no pain, heading east into the looming mountains of the West Elks AVA, which was getting noticeably greener by the minute, with large cottonwood trees, alfalfa fields and orchards. We checked into our B&B with only half an hour to change and shower before heading to the Flying Fork restaurant for dinner with the local winemakers of Delta County and the West Elks AVA.

Delta County and West Elks are higher elevation and consequently cooler with a shorter growing season than the valley floor Grand Valley AVA. Accordingly, the best cool climate fruit in the state is coming out of West Elks, with Chablis-like lemon flinty chardonnays, Finger Lakes-like rieslings, and Burgundian pinot noirs.

The dinner at Flying Fork was memorable, not just for the food. The local community of West Elks growers and winery owners are an electic but close-knit group whom one member describes as an “expat community.” They share a lifestyle in the area that involves good food and wine, great outdoor activities, and lots of socializing. A wine tasting club has grown to over 200 members, who host tastings once a year while everyone brings a bottle, their own glassware and a dish to share.

The combination is a group of growers and winemakers who are looking for a particular pioneer lifestyle, and although very much individuals, are also a community, avoiding the jealous posturing and politics of many other wine regions. Barb and Mike, growers/owners of Slate Point Vineyard are a good example. Their vineyard supplied the state’s first pinot gris, which was vinted by Two Rivers winery into an elegant yet crisp wine reminiscent of Oregon. The fruit is a bit restrained (bottled four weeks ago) but the texture is creamy and crisp at the same time. “This valley is a great place,” enthuses Barb. “We have a slow food chapter here, colleagues in the industry that support each other, and lots of local farmers raising great produce and farm products making for great wine and food opportunities.”

Joanna and Yvonne Leroux are a fun couple. She’s from New York City, he’s from alpine France. “He’s one of the few Colorado vineyards growing French hybrids (Cayuga and Chambourcin), but bought some chardonnay fruit before his own vines were yielding. The fruit was from the Rodgers Mesa vineyard in West Elks. The result is a brilliant Chablis-style chardonnay, crisp and racy lemon and flint. He was honored by the reference, as the Chablis style was his intent. He not only has a passion for wine, but also for the Chambourcin grape. We talked about Dick Naylor in Pennsylvania; he called him on the phone for advice on growing Chambourcin and the generous Naylor complied. I couldn’t help thinking of Mike Fiore, the other champion of chambourcin; his Latin sensibility and good-nature would make him and Yvonne instant friends, especially with the chambourcin link.

Yvonne’s other wine was a fascinating chambourcin port, infused with cherry leaves (an alpine family recipe). He points out that the inky chambourcin has no problem getting color on his site; I explained that the variety is very light-sensitive and that the high UV radiation at over 5,000 ft. of elevation must really help. The port was seductive and haunting, with spicy black cherry and truffle nuances over big black cherry and chocolate flavors.

The fun-loving nature of this West Elks couple is demonstrated by a whimsical frog on the label, a reference to Yvonne’s French background. On the “Apres Vous” port, there’s even a female frog with big lips, a thinly disguised allusion to Joanna. “People said we shouldn’t put a frog on the label, like it would be insulting to Yvonne, but it was his idea,” she explains. “We want people to have fun with our wines,” and why not?

Alfred Eames is a laid-back West Elks community member, making small amounts of fine chardonnay, pinot noir and red Bordeaux blends. The chardonnay demonstrated the same racy Chablis-style seen in other local chardonnays. Eames’ 2004 pinot noir was a fine introduction to quality Colorado pinot, showing many style hallmarks of quality Burgundy; light ruby color, gentle nose of earth and cherries, no obvious sweet new oak or high alcohol (all processed in open top fermenters and finished in neutral French oak). The style is something like a Cote de Beaune not as intense as Pommard, like a village level Beaune or Savigny les Beaune. Rarely, Eames’ Burgundian grape efforts are more successful than those with the red Bordeaux varieties; one bottle of his “ménage a trios” was corked, and another cabernet/merlot blend had some lifted ethyl acetate and VA.

Staggering back from the dinner, we decided to stop in at a colorful century-old local bar for a much-needed beer. The proprietress was anxious to show off her pool room, furnished with decadent Victorian era décor. It was a typical friendly encounter in the valley.

Thursday morning we visited West Elks AVA wineries. The first stop was Black Bridge Winery which originally began as a fruit stand selling the local cherries and peaches which the valley was famous for. Proprietor Rick and grower Lee Bradley explained that adding local wines was an afterthought and now accounts for 40% of business. In addition to their own label, they offer other local wines for sale that don’t have their own tasting rooms, like Eames and S. Rhodes.

For an “afterthought”, Black Bridge is making an impressive start in the Colorado wine business. The pinot noir was very similar to the Eames; Beaune/Burgundy style, with aromatic red/black cherry nose, solid fruit core, firm crisp acidity and no heavy-handed oak. The clone used is the Martini clone, and yields are around 2 tons/acre. The cabernet sauvignon 2003 had a vivid violet/ruby color, with a similarly vivid nose of bright red cassis and cherry. On the palate, it had smooth and rich tannins, with a bright solid fruit core. Tightly wound and young, the wine is young but a distinctive, exciting regional style. The cabernet franc however showed a bit of heat and the muddled flavor typical of warm climate versions.

We then climbed to Stone Cottage Cellars, at 6300 ft. elevation, operating near the limits of viticulture, with a breathtaking view of the West Elks mountains to the south, and the valley below.

One of the most charming small family wineries I’ve ever seen, Stone Cottage is a husband/wife operation by Brent and Karen Helleckson with assistance from their children Stephanie and Jacob, farming seven acres of chardonnay, pinot noir and gewürztraminer, with a still-in-construction stone cottage of a wee tasting room with windows looking out over the vineyard, mountains and valley below.

Yields are low; “we aim for two, but sometimes get one and a half or one ton per acre”, due to low vigor and thin soil. A limestone subsoil helps retain water that runs in Chilean-style open irrigation ditches through the vineyard down the slope, but drip irrigation is installed just in case. They have a cave dug into the hillside which houses barrels, case storage and a bottle filling machine.
Another Burgundian chardonnay (with more visocity and depth like a Pouilly-Fuisse) was followed by an ’04 syrah (not estate fruit), with spicy black cherry nose, rich and concentrated fruit and a spirity finish. More impressive was their estate merlot ’02 farmed at 2.5 tons/acre; spicy basil herb plus red cherry with tight crisp texture, solid red cherry flavors and crisp acidity with good tannic structure; a successful cool climate style to age well. The most memorable and unique wine at Stone Cottage was a dessert gewürztraminer, late harvested at 28-30 Brix but still having 8-9 g/l of TA; foritified to stop fermentation at 11 Brix and finished at 18%. The wine was aged in neutral oak, and features intriguing bouquet of lychee, marmelade/orange rind, cardamom and vanilla. Flavors were typical gewurz with lifted acidity, bright and taut fruit and a vibrant lingering finish. He uses a terpene-releasing yeast (QA23). I bought one to take home.

Continuing a short distance up the road, we came to Terror Creek Vineyard, allegedly the highest altitude operating vineyard and winery in the Western Hemisphere at 6,400 ft., with proprietors John and Joan Mathewson. Winemaker Joan had lived in Switzerland and made wine in the dry Alsatian model. Where Wednesday had been hot, today was decidedly cooler and when we attempted an outdoor lunch, a blast of wind from an oncoming storm forced us hurredly inside. We feasted on a salad of mixed greens, chicken, ginger and goat cheese, supplemented with a generous portion of their gewürztraminer ‘03, fully dry but with the spicy pungency, grapefruit flavors and long, full mouth feel you want in the Alsatian style (their riesling is too dry and alcoholic for me). Their pinot ’03 (14.5%) was also impressive; warm broad cherry nose, with a hint of hickory smoke, and a palate with dense, focused rich red cherry balanced with firm tannins and a crisp dry finish. It was finished in mostly neutral Alliers oak. This wine is far more Burgundian at its alcohol level than most of the Russian River and Carneros pinots these days.

We also got to meet Steve Rhodes, another colorful West Elks character who makes red Bordeaux varieties, blends, an unsuccessful gewürztraminer, and several pinot noirs including single vineyard labelings. We liked his single vineyard pinot most of all, which had an intensity and spice reminiscent of Pommard, but I frankly told him that the oak innerstaves he was using in his neutral French barrels were still masking the purity of the pinot fruit with a bit too much heavy texture. His fruit and winemaking are sound, and if he can back off on the oak even more, he may make the best pinot east of the Sierra Nevada.
His red Bordeaux blend was good but I really liked his 2004 cabernet franc (from the Grand Valley), with solid spicy black cherry and plum fruit and smooth tannins. This was the best Colorado cabernet franc I’d tried yet. Rhodes was an immigrant from Marin County in California, and seemed to waver from being a real estate mogul to backcountry winemaker. According to the guide to Colorado wines, Rhodes intends to be remote and is only interested in selling his wines to “real wine people” which is part of why he’s not interested in a public tasting room; also he wants to remain small and probably cultivate a cult reputation. An articulate, intelligent and passionate winemaker, though.

After lunch we left the West Elks region heading east into the mountains, crossing a ridge at 8,500 ft. and descending into Pitkin County, home of Aspen. After checking into a dive motel (all the rooms were booked for miles around due to the Aspen Food & Wine Classic), we caught a breather and a nap, then dressed up for dinner in Aspen with a group of Front Range Colorado winery owners and other journalists.

We dined at a Pinons, a very good restaurant and had lots of good Colorado wines we hadn’t tried yet. Some of the best included: Whitewater Hill Vineyard (unoaked ’05 chardonnay and ’03 merlot), Trail Ridge gewürztraminer ’05, Winery at Holy Cross Abbey riesling (a skillful American blend) and reserve merlot with 6% cabernet franc; and the Stone Cottage Cellars ’03 West Elks chardonnay.

After dinner, the early tastings of the Aspen Food & Wine Classic were underway, and Deborah invited Jerry and I to crash the Wines of Spain tasting. Imagine my surprise finding myself a near-celebrity when I was introduced to Melanie Young, head of the New York PR agency that helped me get photos for the Spanish wine technology story I coordinated with Andrew Holod in the MW class. I also got to meet Senor Falcon, head of Marques de Grinon, who was mentioned in the article, and I promised to get him a copy. I was introduced to Kristin Naepaala who heads Wines of Spain, who knew I had coordinated the article and was much more polite than when I was soliciting her for leads on getting Spanish wineries to enter IEWC; and I was approached by account execs for Rias Biaxas the Galician wine region, asking if I was interested in doing a story on their region. Well….send me some Albarino and we’ll talk.

I found myself regretting not being able to stay for the rest of the event; the Food & Wine Classic had a festive celebrity atmosphere about it, and a chance encounter in one tasting had led to a lot of networking. But, I knew V&WM wasn’t interested in a consumer event, and I was getting wined out and needed some down time. But, I had the idea of pitching a consultancy to Kuvy, where they could get a grant from the state for me to get on the wine seminar program for next year, doing a tasting of Colorado wines, which would give them a lot more credibility and visibility, especially since Kevin Zraly had just invited me to be a regional editor for Colorado and other states for the second edition of his Guide to American Wines…

I left Colorado full of positive impressions of the great Western landscapes and fine local wines made by dedicated, passionate winemakers, hoping to return again.

The German Wine Press Trip, July 2006

Getting invited to do a five-day tour of German wine regions, at no expense to me, is like winning a contest for riesling fans on writing an essay called “nobody drinks better riesling than me.” I gave out a Homer Simpson “whoo-hoo!” when I got the news. Actually, I was invited by the account executive who handles the German Wine Bureau in New York, when I called his office asking for info on my article for riesling. In fact, great things happen when I write articles on riesling. When I contacted Kevin Zraly to ask for his comments on riesling for the same artricle, it led to a conversation where he invited me to collaborate with him as a regional editor for the second editor of his new Guide to American Wines, which I just turned in. In 1999, a tour of Niagara and Finger Lakes wineries led to a three-part series in V&WM; soon after turning it in, I was invited by Rob to work full-time for the company.
There were six American wine writers on the trip; two from San Francisco (Charles and Angelina), one from St. Paul (Rob), one from New York City/Brooklyn (Joe), and one from Dallas (Julie) aside from me. The trip was promising and organized: we’d fly to Frankfurt, visit wineries in the Rheingau, then drive to the Mosel, then to the Rheinpfalz.

Getting to Frankfurt was an egregious fiasco worthy of comparison to “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”. I had a flight from Richmond to Philadelphia, then direct from Philly to Frankfurt. When I arrived in Richmond, on a hot, humid afternoon, I learned the flight had been cancelled on account of thunderstorms. I was re-scheduled on a flight four hours later, but it was out of Dulles, and I had to drive like a fiend nearly three hours to get there. Then, the cops almost ticket my car while I tried to check my luggage, I left my boarding pass at the counter when I was told of the impending ticket; while getting the boarding pass, my lumbar cushion fell out of my bag, and then I saw it going through security ahead of me; by the time I got through, some rat had stolen it. I reached the gate with about two minutes to spare and no dinner; when I tried to board with my first class ticket, a German stewardess said in front of everyone, “you have a first class ticket but you paid economy, so we downgraded you.” To top it all off, somehow I lost my cell phone. I figured, things could only get better; luckily, I was right.

I didn’t really get any sleep on the flight, but didn’t expect to really. I was worried when I reached the “meeting point” at the Frankfurt airport 45 minutes late (nobody knew of my flight change) and nobody or notice was there waiting. After about half an hour, I heard a guy ask someone next to me if he was with the wine group, and was relieved to hook up with Joe Delissio, of the River Restaurant in Brooklyn. Not long after, the driver reappeared (he had picked up the two San Franciscans and Rob from St. Paul but had neglected to leave a sign), we met Julie from Dallas, and headed to the hotel in Wiesbaden.

As Mark Twain remarked that the coldest winter he ever spent was a July in San Francisco, the hottest week I remember spending was in Germany in July. All Europe was in the throes of six week heat spell, approaching the scale of 2003, and no relief in sight. It was in the low to mid-90s the entire time, and as if driving around with half-assed air conditioning in a van, tramping around vineyards in the sun and tasting wine all day wasn’t exhausting enough, the hotels had no air conditioning at all, thanks to the thrifty Germans. They didn’t even have ceiling fans, and the windows are almost impossible to fully open. The only relief was taking cold showers. Luckily for me, I knew the European hotels don’t do sheets and blankets, but a fun combo version of down-filled comforters. This is great in the winter, BUT NOT IN A HEAT WAVE!! So, I knew enough to bring a sheet, but sometimes I didn’t even use that, it was so hot.

The temperature exacerbated tensions in the group, and we all seemed to revert to high school dynamics. There were six of us and three circles of compatibility; Rob and Joe rode in the back of the bus and seemed like the Hawkeye and Pierce of the tour. Angelina and Charles, the San Franciscans, sat together and gossiped in whispers like middle school girls. I would have enjoyed talking more with Julie, a friendly girl with a very good attitude about life, but she wanted to sit in the front due to dizzy spells, so I sat next to Ulrike, our very capable, organized, friendly and resourceful German guide, but somehow found it hard to be relaxed and natural.

The first evening we went to Schloss Vollrads, one of the great estates of the Rheingau, formerly owned by a noble family who had been electors of the Holy Roman Emperor. The Kabinett level of ripeness was first mentioned here in 1758. They make a wide range of wines, all from the same estate, and the stylistic variations are based on vineyard site and timing of harvest. The drier “trocken” and “halbtrocken” versions are popular with status-conscious German consumers who think that sweeter wines are only for girly-men. It was impressive to taste their “Grosses Gewächs” or “great growth” label, which was like a dry spätlese; richly extracted, ripe fruit but full and strong from higher alcohol, and excellent to match with the food we had for dinner. In a surreal twist, an excellent blues band was performing on the property, with a female singer who was belting it out impressively; it seemed incongruous for the setting.

The next morning we drove to Johannishof, a small family estate with 50 acres of vineyards on and near the actual Johannisberg which was used as a synonym for riesling in the U.S. until recently. Johannes Eser, a friendly man who had worked as a winemaker in Texas, of all places, tasted us through a line of eight wines.

It was nice tasting the ’04 against the ’05 vintage. They are yin/yang contrasts; the ’04 being a cooler vintage with more subdued fruit and obvious minerality, while the ’05 is a richer, riper vintage. It was also nice tasting wines with obvious terroir from the spiritual home of riesling in the Rheingau; while the wines were ripe with yellow apple and white peach flavors, there was definitely a fine minerality beneath the surface supporting the fruit. I wanted to buy two wines but only had cash on hand for one, the Johannisberg “V” (vogelsang) Kabinett ’05, which had a classic minerality that Johannisberg is famous for. The nose had white peach with a hint of tropical fruit, delicate on the palate but fresh and fruity with a long, mineral finish.

We then drove up to the actual Schloss Johannisberg, through which the 50th parallel ran, and got a fantastic view from the summit. To the south the vineyard rows ran down the hill; more vineyards stretched on the flats to the Rhein river about a mile away. To the west, the Rheingau vineyards gave way to the hills rising above where the Rhein turned north, and where the Nahe region starts; across the river to the southwest was the Rheinhessen region. We also saw in the courtyard a statue commemorating the discovery of the spätlese in 1775. Being good Germans, the vineyard workers always waited to begin the harvest until they received official orders from the lord of the estate. In 1775, for some reason, the courier was delayed. The workers refused to begin the harvest until it was official. Their reticence led to the accidental, but fortuitous discovery of late harvest riesling. When the orders finally arrived, they picked the now shriveling grapes, but when the wine was tasted, everyone was amazed with its rich fruitness and the concentration the botrytis mold had induced.

We set off for the Mosel, taking a ferry across the Rhein, under the cliffs of the Rudesheimer Rottenberg, one of the few vineyards with a visible sign, and one that clearly evoked its name in the red shale soil.

We drove up the hills of the Nahe toward the Mosel valley, but the van transmission protested too much, and we had to abandon the vehicle. Fortunately, it was a short walk to a gas station (and fortunately for the women, a shoe store), where we were relieved to find the first air conditioned building in the country. It was also interesting to see how cheap the prices were for table wine in the EU. The Schloss Johannisberg sekt was only 11 Euros; there were wines for 2 and 3 Euros. How can you make money at those prices, I wondered.

Back in the van, we drove through forests of evergreen and birch, and I reflected we must be on the cold plateau above the steep Mosel river valley. Somehow, images came to mind of tanks, and soldiers advancing and retreating, in this land near the French border.

Our first stop was a kilometer or two beyond Berkastel on the Mosel, at Dr. Loosen. Fortunately, Ernie Loosen himself was there, though he seemed not to remember me from when he had been keynote speaker at Wineries Unlimited in Lancaster a few months ago. He was engaging, sharp witted and intense as ever, and we tasted our way through his whole line of wines, served with a German version of pizza and a plate of excellent and varied cheeses. We started with his basic “Dr. L” kabinett-style Mosel riesling, all the way up to his Wehlener Sohenuhr ’05 TBA, which was mind-blowing.

Ernie is an outspoken traditionalist, but with his wild hair and big round glasses and animated style, has the comportment of a mad scientist, one of our group observed. He showed us a 19th century map that the British wine writer Stuart Pigott had uncovered in the estate archives, that showed all the vineyards of the Middle Mosel, with different shades for different quality grades, proving that in the past, there was a terroir hierarchy in Germany as there is in France. He says that everyone made wine the same way in the 19th century, and the only difference was the quality of the site, which should return to be the way wines are distinguished today.

Ernie had three educational aids to show us; the three major soil types in his vineyards in the region. The first was blue shale, for Wehlen and Bernkastel; the second was the red shale of Erden, in his Prälat vineyard, and the third was red volcanic rock of the Ürziger Würzgarten. These determined the subtle differences in flavor between the wines, he said.

He was however critical of the new terroir movement in Germany adopted by the VDP to use “Grosses Gewächs” for Great Growth, because of the stipulation that it only be used to designate dry wine. “You should taste the vineyard through the ripeness grades,” he says, and that means a Great Growth should be allowed to be sweet. He’s also contemptuous of the many winemaking aids on the market today; “If you get it right in the vineyard, which is the hardest part, why do you need all these gizmos?” They’re only there to cover up bad grapes or incompetent winemaking, he says.

Loosen wines are clean, pure and very expressive of Middle Mosel perfume and freshness. There are complexities; in addition to yellow apple, pineapple and peach, I also found red currants and herbs in some of the wines. As they got sweeter, it wasn’t like they tasted sweet, but more like all the elements got more concentrated and intense; the acidity rose in direct proportion to sugar, as well as the intensity of fruit flavors, and I felt an amazing density and palate weight that wasn’t tiring because of the freshness of fruit. Here are notes for two of my favorite wines:

Erdener Prälat 2005 Gold Capsule Riesling Auslese (declassified beerenauslese): Nose: delicate pineapple citrus, complex mineral notes. Fat, rich, dense, sweet but concentrated, long finish, the botrytis comes out in the acidity. Incredibly rich but elegant.

Wehlener Sohnenuhr Riesling TBA 2005: Only ten cases (minus one bottle!) Delicate, lovely nose of elegant botrytis riesling. Palate: fresh apricot, marmelade, 35% RS but acid is there, smoothly integrated balance and elegance. Rare experience of top quality and style. I think Ernie said the retail in the U.S. would be $250, and why not?

After tasting 15 of Ernie’s fine wines I was grateful to check in to the hotel, get a cold shower, and change my shirt, before we went back out in the heat to meet Johannes Selbach of Selbach-Oster, just down the street from Bernkastel. Johannes has a calm, deliberate manner, speaks excellent English, and is intimately acquainted with the myriad of details of his business, from the blue shale terroir of his Zeltingen vineyard to why screw cap closures are OK for some wines in some markets but not others (like the Japanese who have issues with the connotations of screwcaps).

First he told us about his estate and his cellar. His house was wired for electric outlets and switches near the ceiling, on account of occasional flooding from the Mosel. Before tasting his wines, he took us for a drive up the dizzying grade of the Zeltingen hill behind the winery, until we reached a sort of flat place next to a shale outcropping. We were facing south over a 65% grade, with the shining light reflected up the steep shale slopes of the Mosel, and the black rock absorbing the heat; on a summer day in the ‘90s, it was plenty warm. A grand vista to the west showed similar steep slopes of staked riesling vines receding in the distance, with the tight curve of the river and steep slopes reminiscent of the Alleghenies.

Johannes showed us the hail damage from a storm that had recently passed through; damaged berries had brown circles where powdery mildew spores had begun to spread. He calmly estimated that he had lost between 30-60% of his crop for the vintage.

We then drove down to the base of the vineyard just above the river, where the found a crude staircase that we huffed and puffed up, back to where the van had been before. He only gets 1.5-2.5 kg (3.3 – 5.5 lb) of fruit per vine on this steep slope of loose shale; pickers only get $6/hour for their labor. He jokes that he takes tough customers who drive a hard bargain for a walk up this staircase for them to get perspective on the cost for making fine riesling in these conditions. It certainly gave us an appreciation for the patient husbandry of the estate growers of the Mosel.

Johannes’ wines were not as immediately appealing as Ernie’s, but had depth, nuance and complexity. Part of the reason was that he uses native yeast, like many other estate producers who believe this gives the wines more complexity. He also uses a blend of large neutral oak fuders and stainless steel, because the high acid and low pH of the wines, along the reductivity you get with native yeast, needs the micro-oxygenation from wood to round and smooth them out. The bouquet of his wines was frankly stinky, but if you knew that was from the native yeasts, you could swirl the glass and wait for it to blow off, and it was worth the wait, with all kinds of nuances of fruit and minerals beneath.

We went to a nearby restaurant and had a fine dinner, but sweltered near to death from the lack of cool air, even a ceiling fan, while enjoying Johannes’ wines. One of the more original food matches was a set of three different foie gras with one of his rieslings. He’s a generous man, and before we ended the evening, gave us a few of his wines to divide up between us. I was glad to score the ’02 Zeltingen Sohenuhr Spaetlese (dry), for the extra bottle age.

The next morning, we drove east, to visit with producers in or near the Mosel tributaries of the Saar and Ruwer rivers. The Middle Mosel wines have a richly elegant perfume and delicate ripeness, but the Saar and Ruwer wines add an exciting variation in terroir. It was impressive and somewhat dizzying looking up the steep valley slopes at the terraces clinging on the loose shale above.

In the Ruwer Valley, we visited the penultimate estate, the Maximin Grünhäuser, which had been one of the great monastic wine estates and was first mentioned in records dating to the times of Charlemagne.

The vineyard should be called the vine-mountain, for it’s an imposing, impressive hill towering over the river valley, with vines planted running straight up the slope. There are several sub-vineyards on the hill; the Bruderberg, named after the monks; the Abtsberg, named after the abbot, and the Herrenberg, named after the lord; they rise in quality and aspect accordingly.

The proprietor, Dr. Carl von Schubert, took us to a fine lunch in the nearby village, featuring sole in an avocado cream sauce, and amused himself by serving us older kabinett and spätlese wines and asking us to guess how old we thought they were. Nobody guessed these wines were from 1983 and 1986 respectively. Even with low alcohol around 8%, the high extract (dissolved solid matter) and acidity preserve these wines years after fat chardonnays have fallen apart.

Dr. Schubert took us in his Landrover up to the vineyard, where we got spectacular, but somewhat dizzying views of the valley to the south; his estate with a swimming pool was far below, several hundred feet, and it looked like we were looking down a vineyard ladder from a helicopter. The view up at the vineyard from the estate was likewise startling in its verticality. The vines here have to be worked by a caterpillar tractor, as the slope is too steep for wheel vehicles.

It was a thrill tasting wines with Dr. Schubert. He naturally focused on the excellent 2005 vintage, and we went through the sweetness grades, all the while the wines retaining the light freshness and complex green apple minerality typical of the terroir. The highlight was the TBA (trockenbeerenauslese) 2005, which, although it was about 25% residual sugar, had a correspondingly high acidity, and also concentrated the minerality, so that it was intense but not crass, exquisitely balanced, reminding one of the quiet intensity of the late Beethoven string quartets. I realized that I’d never be able to afford this wine, and also that it would live as long as I am likely to.

The next day started cool but quickly warmed up. I was not in a pleasant mood after having spent the night stretched out panting on the plain sheet I had packed for that purpose, since the hotel had no A/C and the window only hinged on the bottom, opening at a 20 degree angle and no more.

We headed east into increasingly steep territory until we arrived at the town of Leiwen, home of the top-notch winery St. Urbanshof, run by the family Weiss. We were met by the fluently English-speaking and urbane Nik Weiss, who told us of the variety of their wines sourced from Mosel, Saar and Ruwer sites. I asked if they were the Weiss family who had named the 21-B Weiss clone of Riesling, and he confirmed it, saying it was named for row B, vine 21, which was in fact right out the window. His father in fact had founded Vineland Estate winery on the Beamsville Bench of Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula specifically to showcase how he felt this clone of Riesling could operate in the New World, and I had remembered it from researching my Riesling story for V&WM in 1999.

The most interesting part of the visit was his explanation of the Erste Lage movement, of producers from the VDP (German Prädikatsweine Union). The current 1971 German government wine classification, he explained (as had Ernie) is purely based on sugar must weight, with no consideration for variety or vineyard, which is the basis for the French AOC system. Research in 19th century documents had revealed a classification system based on the best vineyard sites, and the Erste Lage movement (copying the parallel movement of Grosses Gewächs first started in the Rheingau), was an attempt by producers to return to labeling and grading wines based on vineyard site, a pretty sensible system in a very northern growing region where aspect has a significant impact on ripeness.

Accordingly, he wanted to highlight wines from vineyards like the nearby Leiwener Laurentiuslay, which could be seen across the Mosel, a sheer hill of green vines facing southwest to capture the maximum amount of late summer sun. Erste Lage wines are harvested fully ripe, then fermented to dryness, a radical departure from what Americans are used to with the higher grades of German wine always being sweet, while the inferior ones are dry. We tasted the wine, and it was intense; lots of fruit but also a solid mineral backbone with lots of acidity. This was not a sipping wine but would showcase a world-class meal, and also needed time to evolve in the bottle.

We then left the relatively cool Mosel river valley to head over to Deidesheim in the Rhinepfalz. The mountain ridges we drove over reminded me of the Appalachian Plateau in Pennsylvania, but it was sweltering hot and the mini-bus had not been equipped to cool a bus full of people in such hot temperatures. When we arrived in Deidesheim, it was hotter than it had been in the Mosel, and sure enough, no air conditioning was to be found again; the only way of staying cool was to shower in cold water until one felt cool.

We relaxed outside to stay cool that evening, drinking wine and sharing stories of our past. The whole dynamic seemed to be reverting to a high school outing with Ulrike, our friendly chaperone.

The next day we visited the impeccably neat vineyards of Lingenfelder, then the original Liebfrauenkirche in Worms, from which the ubiquitous Liebfraumilch was named. Friedrich Wilhelm, the proprietor of P.J. Valckenberg, explained that his firm is the oldest (and one of the largest) exporters of German wine to the U.S., and branded wines like Liebfraumilch are a big part of his portfolio. I was so grateful to his thoughtful wife for serving us chilled cucumber soup to mitigate the effects of the heat.

In the hot, sweltering van on the way back, a few of us, on the high school trip wavelength, started singing “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” by Billy Joel (“A bottle of white, a bottle of red, perhaps a bottle of rosé instead”). Three of us were really getting into it, when a passive-aggressive writer from San Francisco, apparently not enjoying the music or the heat, asked us to be quiet. Joe, a sommelier from Brooklyn, goaded him by asking “What’s that, you can’t hear us?” and we kept singing. The passive turned aggressive when he suddently screamed, “SHUT THE F_ _ _ UUUUUUUP!!!” We were all shocked into silence until Joe skillfully segued back into humor by offering him some candy to improve his mood. Too much wine, too much heat and not enough flexibility can lead to ugly scenes.

Even after returning to the hotel, I walked down the street to the tasting room of the impressive heraldry and medieval grandeur of the Von Bühl estate. They were already serving a group, but I joined in and enjoyed communicating in German, buying an Erstes Gewächs (the system in the Pfalz) dry Riesling from a top vineyard, Forster Pechstein.

Fortunately for me, I was able to bring back a half case of hand-picked German wines from several of the estates we had visited, ranging from the ’02 to the ’05 vintages, by packing them in an empty gym bag I’d brought for that purpose, and loading it into the overhead luggage. This was only a week or so before Al Quaeda attempted their makeshift firebomb by way of hydroxide and something else disguised as a sports drink. From that time on, traveling with wine would be much more of a hassle.

The Virginia Wine Experience in London, May 2007

The Virginia Wine Experience in London, or “Jefferson on a Bust”
A personal and professional highlight in my career promised to be the Virginia Wine Experience in London. A brainchild of owner Patrick Duffeler Sr. and winemaker Matthew Meyer of Williamsburg Winery, the idea was to take the best Virginia wines to showcase at a trade and media tasting in the capital of the wine world. The publicity of favorable reviews from writers like Jancis Robinson, Hugh Johnson and Stephen Spurrier would confer instant credibility for Virginia as a wine producing region, simultaneously doing and end-run around the pompous, smug cigar-smoking editors of some consumer publications in the U.S. who can’t be bothered to take regional wine seriously.

The Virginia Wine Experience in London, LLC was formed and six Virginia wineries paid $2,000 each to become board members. I was named Executive Director, and Courtney Darden of Williamsburg Winery appointed Vice Chair and Secretary, Patrick Duffeler II as treasurer. Other Board members included: Tony Champ of White Hall Vineyards, Andrew Hodson of Veritas Vineyards, Stephen Barnard of Keswick Vineyards, Chris Pearmund of Pearmund Cellars, and Kristi Moses Murray of Kluge Estate Vineyard & Winery.

The task was to organize a trade and media tasting at Vinopolis, the City of Wine, run a qualifying round to get good Virginia wines, invite leading wine trade and media to the tasting, hire a PR company to get the word out about our organization in the U.S. and a separate firm to drum up turnout in the U.K., make a good impression with the people at the tasting and get their comments to use subsequently, and finally, publicly promote the tasting after the fact.

We had a challenging set of tasks; we met as a Board for the first time on January 5th, and had less than four months to get from nothing to the event. We later found that we had two post-tasting promotional events fall into our laps; we could exhibit at no charge at the Jamestown 400th anniversary celebration on May 11-12, and at the America’s Cup of Polo on the same day. We’d pass out flyers listing all the participating wines and wineries, branding the event and its participants as the best in the industry.

It was quite a daunting logistical and public relations challenge, my organizational skills and experience with both Wineries Unlimited and IEWC gave me a lot of confidence, the board members were cooperative, and Four Leaf Public Relations did a great job getting press releases to the right people.

First we had to send out letters notifying all Virginia wineries of our intentions and inviting submissions for the qualifying round. Andrew Hodson of Veritas Vineyard volunteered his facilities for accepting shipments, and I spent many hours shivering in the winter cold opening, sorting and re-packing wines for those going to the competition, then separately to Williamsburg Winery, the consolidation point.

Tony Champ of White Hall volunteered his winery for the qualifying round wine judging in February, and I pulled together a panel of experienced trade judges as well as my old W&M classmate and wine writer David McIntyre, with Dr. Bruce Zoecklein of Virginia Tech presiding.

Frankly, both Tony and Bruce were shocked as the flights were judged to realize that fully a third of wines submitted were rejected. Some were deemed stylistically too awkward, clumsy or non-representative of the elegant sophistication we wanted to present, but most rejected wines were obviously flawed, showing that too many winemakers and winery owners simply don’t understand the parameters for minimally acceptable commercial wine.

However, we had a broad range of fine wines that passed, from excellent methode champenoise sparkling wines, to chardonnays, viogniers, and even a couple of riesling and hybrid whites, to a range of red Bordeaux varieties and blends, to the native Norton, and a few cryo dessert wines and a port.

Press coverage was good; Dave McIntyre published an online account of the judging in The Washington Times, while Hearst writer Dan Freedman put a story in the Miami Herald. As the London event drew near, we got a page-long story in the Washington Post and also the Richmond Times Dispatch. Following the London tasting, NBC 29 News filmed a segment that ran for almost ten minutes, out at White Hall, and I got a chance to explain the concept and our reception on local TV.

To make things more complicated, Board member Chris Pearmund had family connections with Hampden House, an English country manor house dating to the Norman Conquest. It was decided that we’d have two tasting events, one at Hampden House, and the other at the huge London wine venue Vinopolis, in the heart of “Dickensian” London in Southwark.

Winemaker Matthew Meyer of Williamsburg Winery did a good job consolidating the qualifying wines and shipping them from Norfolk, through U.K. customs and getting them delivered at Hampden House.

At Dulles Airport, in the C concourse, I found Vino Volo, a franchise airport wine bar, and was relaxing with a glass prior to the red-eye flight to London, when Patrick Duffeler II and Courtney Darden of Williamsburg Winery walked in. We all enjoyed a glass of wine and savored our coming adventure, and were pleased to see that a couple of Virginia wines were on the list. I gave my card to the waiter, told him what we were doing, and to follow up on the progress of the event at our website, www.vawineinlondon.com.

Part of my carry-on luggage was a desk-sized bust of Jefferson, which I wanted to bring to the tasting as a prop at check-in, also commemorating Jefferson’s second term two hundred years ago, and honoring him as the father of American viticulture; “We could, in the United States, make wines as good as any in Europe; not exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good.” This whimsical notion turned out to be quite a liability when I tried schlepping the bust through turnstiles on the London underground, in addition to my suitcases.

Once in London, we all hung out together and resolved to stay awake as long as possible to fight jet lag. It was clear but chilly in early May, and we walked to Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, then down to Westminster. We walked past the houses of Parliament and got a nice view of the Thames, then went to the cathedral where we were shocked to see Martin Luther King, Jr. at the top of a group of the saints in stone above the west door.

We went to a pub hard by the Thames and ordered pints, only to find they were badly reductive and stinky; I still had some American pennies in my pocket so we tried the copper penny trick, but you can’t swirl a full pint like you can a half-full glass of wine, so it didn’t work too well.

We took the train to the country, then caught a cab to get to Hampden House, but the Indian taxi driver hadn’t been there before and had to flag down a compatriot and get directions in Hindi to figure it out, and even then we had to stop at a pub for further confirmation. Hampden House was a grand edifice, looking much like the typical English country manor. The owner of the place attended the tasting; he has a lot of money, wears a suit right out of the Monty Python accounting sketches, and also has quite an interest in wine, including an impressive cellar, I’m told. Also attending were someone who works for Lafite Rothschild, a couple of importers, and Steve DeLong.

I’d met Steve in 2005 while we were both in Washington D.C. taking the exam for Certified Wine Educator through the SWE. Steve developed what can be described as a periodic table of grape varieties, featuring about 100 major red and white grapes. the table works by moving from right to left in level of acidity, and from top to bottom in density or palate weight, a brilliant conception. It turns out he’s an American who lives in London, so when the VA Wine Experience came up, I naturally thought of him and invited him to the first tasting where he could write a blog entry on his website prior to the second tasting.

Steve was as good as his word. He explained on the blog that he had some trepidation about having to be polite about some lame regional wines but in fact was impressed. Steve’s website is international, so it allowed him to get in on the ground floor of the VWEL prior to the Vinopolis tasting but also alert all his U.S. readers about VA wine.

To our surprise, most of the British tasters at the Hampden House event seemed to prefer the white wines to the reds, but then Virginia winemakers have gotten much better at managing alcohol and oak levels in whites since 2000, while the reds may be harder to distinguish from other regions for U.K. drinkers.

Recpetion at Hampden House was largely positive, and we ended the tasting pumped up for the tasting at Vinopolis. Little did we know that the split tasting venues would almost lead to disaster.

I set up the reception area with a book for people to sign in. We had a big banner, “The Virginia Wine Experience in London”, draped on the wall, and a laptop computer running scenes of the VA countryside, next to the bust of Thomas Jefferson. The van driver carrying the wine from Hampden House to Vinopolis had to come south from the countryside, into greater London rush hour traffic, across the Thames and snake his way into Southwark, then find the correct loading dock in the vast Vinopolis complex. He said he knew the way and would leave with enough time to make the opening of the tasting at eleven, but we might have known the whole situation was a setup. We had asked him to arrive by 10a.m., but when ten passed, then ten thirty, then ten forty five, feeling nervous went to feeling desparate, then feeling despair. I began singing a little mantra of despair to myself; “fuck me, fuck me hard, fuck me,” etc.

Fortunately, Ann Brown from Kluge had a bottle each of their wines that weren’t in the shipment, and the Hodsons pulled out wines they intended to give to relatives, and we actually had something to show when the event officially opened at eleven. Naturally two professionals showed up right at eleven, looking all chipper and ready to taste wine. As Basel Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, I had to explain that we didn’t actually have the wine as such, just a couple of bottles, and the rest would come soon if they were only patient, etc.

Well of course that didn’t go over well, but when the idiot truck driver finally found his way to the correct loading dock at 11:35, and we all scrambled like fiends to get the wines on the correct tables, none of the VIP guests had yet arrived, and so few people realized how close we came to disaster.

Steven Spurrier came around noon, and Andrew Jefford, standing in for Jancis Robinson who sent her regrets, and also Stephen Brooks from Decanter. Our impresario, Sophia (long ‘I’) Gilliat, acted as hostess for the VIP guests which were either major trade buyers or wine journalists. We had some music allegedly played at James Madison’s home Montpelier, so between that and the bust and video, had some sort of “Virginia” atmosphere.

Hugh Johnson was long anticipated and came right as we were about to close at 5PM, so I gave him the speed tour of the tasting, with two wines from each table. He was surprised and delighted with what he found, especially varietal petit verdot which he had never seen before.

It was an honor to escort Johnson around the tasting, and also to meet Steven Spurrier and Andrew Jefford, two of the wine writers I respect the most (Spurrier organized the legendary “Judgement of Paris” tasting in 1976). In e-mails following the event, Spurrier explained how impressed he and his colleagues were with Virginia wines which he described as “mainstream in quality but refreshingly not mainstream in alcohol.” It validated my suspicion that the English wine writers were fed up with high alcohol, low acid wines from the New World and would be glad to find a breath of fresh air in the New World with wines that were both ripe but balanced and refreshing, and the Virginia wines we sent did just that. The best publicity outcome from the experience was that months later in September, Jefford published a lengthy, detailed account of the tasting in Jancis Robinson’s weekly column space in the Financial Times of London. He had e-mailed me for information about the beginnings of vinifera cultivation in Virginia and I did a lot of crash research in Pinney’s History of Winemaking in America, v. I, to get him correct information. He included the history of wine at Jamestown, through Jefferson at Monticello, to the contemporary industry, and it was the most impressive publicity for Virginia wines to date.

Following is most of the text from a KEYNOTE ADDRESS I subsequently gave on “Four Hundred Years of Virginia Wine and Counting”, given at Rappahannock Cellars on Thursday, June 7th, in a fundraising event for state Senator Mark Obenshain and Delegate Gilbert

The Good News: Virginia Wines an International Success
The slogan “Virginia: First in Wine”; was true 400 years ago, and for wine quality, is possible again today, as the Virginia Wine Experience in London demonstrated with the admiration and respect Virginia wines won from the British wine trade and media.
The documentation of the 400-year history of Virginia wine is clear; Acte Twelve of 1619 proved that from the beginning, the Virginia Company intended to make viticulture a foundation for its commercial success (probably known at the time as “ye Quicke Buck”). As we know, due to phylloxera and other problems, viticulture with ungrafted grapevines failed, and tobacco became the cash crop of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson the father of American viticulture, imported Italian vineyardists who planted classic varieties at Monticello and nearby Colle (now Jefferson Vineyards). Despite failures by his predecessors, he was enthusiastic at the potential; “We have every soil, aspect and climate of the best wine countries…We could, in America, make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good.” After two decades of his own failures with ungrafted European vines, Jefferson prophesied the rise of the norton (as yet undiscovered) with advocating the culture of native grapes; “It will be will to push the culture of this [Alexander] grape, without losing efforts in the search of foreign wines which will take centuries to adapt to our soil and climate.”

At the time of Jefferson’s death, a Dr. Norton discovered wild grapes growing along the James River near Richmond, and found they could be grown and ripened successfully to yield a quality table wine. Dr. Norton’s Virginia Seedling, simply norton or cynthiana as it became known, went on to produce an internationally acclaimed wine called “Virginia claret” produced by the Monticello Wine Company in Charlottesville in the 1870s. Norton then spread west to Missouri and Arkansas with the settlers, and was re-introduced to Virginia in the early 1990s, and is now making fine wine here again.

Today with the grafting of European scions on American rootstock, Virginia now has a successful wine industry with over 120 wineries, nearly 300 family vineyards, is the fourth largest wine producer in nation, (second largest in the East), and, the most promising new American wine region for leading British wine writers, thanks to Virginia Wine Experience In London.

The Virginia Wine Experience In London was a private initiative conceived by Williamsburg Winery with the support of five other winery board members; Pearmund Cellars, Kluge Estate, Keswick Vineyards, Veritas Winery, and White Hall Vineyards, with myself as Executive Director. Held to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Jamestown Settlement, the Virginia Wine Experience In London was intended to showcase that Virginia, which was “First in Wine” in English North America, has risen from the ashes; not only producing wine, but world-class wine. We decided to hold it in London, because that’s where the most influential opinion shapers in the wine trade and media are based. It’s the New York of the wine world; “if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”

In my opinion, the Virginia Wine Experience In London was the most successful public relations project for Virginia wine to date (full details including the wineries and wines that participated are online at www.vawineinlondon.com). In five months, we went from nothing in January to notifying wineries, having them enter and ship wines, recruiting judges, find a judging venue (White Hall Vineyards), have Dr. Bruce Zoecklein of Virginia Tech preside at the judging, getting out a press release of the 68 wines that qualified to go to London, lining up the contract with the London venue Vinopolis, arranging for consolidation and shipping of the wines to Britain and payment of taxes and duties, sending out invitations and getting public relations teams on board in two countries, inviting the most prestigious wine writers and trade members in London, and then waiting in a panic for the deliveryman who didn’t arrive in time to have the wines by the start of the event.

Praise from the London Wine Trade

Luckily the wines did arrive and almost nobody noticed the glitch, and when the bigwigs came, saw and tasted, they were all impressed not just with the quality but the style of Virginia wines. “Really liked the whites; elegant, subtle, fragrant, intelligent use of oak,” wrote Christos Ioannov from Criterion Wine. “Sparklers very promising; loved the petit verdot examples. Some fine chardonnays and white blends, good cab francs too,” wrote Carol Whitehead, AWE, CWW with Marstowe Wines Consultancy. “Good to taste something a bit different from the U.S.,” wrote Nick Room of the major retail chain Waitrose. “Great variety, francs fantastic. When are they available?” asked Nick Williams of Morgan Stanley.

Steven Spurrier (who engineered the famous “Judgment of Paris” tasting in 1976 with California vs. French wines that launched an international reputation for California wine) came and tasted whites for two hours, then went to lunch, tasted reds for two hours, spat everything out, and wrote careful notes. “An eye-opener for chardonnay, especially viognier, with lovely meritage blends,” he wrote, adding that he found Virginia wines “mainstream in quality but refreshingly not mainstream in alcohol content”. The Brits and many other consumers are fed up with high alcohol, low acid flabby wines from the West Coast and other warm climate regions, and so Virginia wine stood out like a breath of fresh air for them. Also, we have regional specialties like viognier and cabernet franc, which position VA as a high-quality wine region with distinctive wines.

Hugh Johnson, author of the annual pocket wine encyclopedia and the World Atlas of Wine, came right at 5PM; I took him on a “power tasting” of two wines at each table; he was visibly surprised and impressed. He was delighted to find varietal petit verdot; he commented that he’d never seen one before, tasted the Veritas ’05, said it was “lovely” and asked if he could take a bottle with him, which Patricia Hodson was happy to oblige.

On September 1st, Andrew Jefford, one of the top wine and spirits writers in the U.K., published an account of the Virginia Wine Experience in the Financial Times of London, using Jancis Robinson’s regular column space. The piece not only mentioned his mostly positive impressions of the tasting, but incorporated a lengthy, detailed review of Virginia wine history from the beginning of the Jamestown settlement, thanks to information I had e-mailed him prior to publication. “Wines To Make a Founding Father Proud” was the most successful press promotion of Virginia wine to date, coming as it did from a highly respected U.K. wine writer in a world-wide publication.

A Riesling Rendezvous in Washington State, July 2007

In June, a year after the Colorado wine press trip, I had the opportunity to visit the Columbia Valley of Washington State for the first time, followed by attending a remarkable conference at Chateau Ste. Michelle north of Seattle, called “Riesling Rendezvous.” I arranged with fellow MW colleague Amy Mumma to stay in Ellensburg, and meet her on Saturday, where we’d tour the vineyards of the Yakima Valley.

I few into Seattle and rented a car, and visited the Pike’s Place market area where I eat lunch at a funky Left Wing café (“bus your own table”), and walked around the colorful area before finding to my chagrin that my car had been ticketed, although there were no meters on the block. I drove east across a remarkable floating highway, up and across the breathtaking Cascade Mountains, where snow could still be seen at mid-summer. Sure enough, the climate changed dramatically on the east side of the divide, where the land dried out quickly and the lush coastal rainforest gave way to fewer and fewer evergreens, and dried grass. I checked into a Super 8 motel in Ellensburg, and met Amy and her husband Jeff, a landscape architect, and we had dinner at the only restaurant in eastern Washington with a Wine Spectator Award wine list.

I brought a Virginia pinot noir (possibly the best made yet) by Afton Mtn. in 2004, and Amy deduced it was likely from New Zealand, such as Martinborough or Marlborough. I gave her high marks for the guess, but was pleased to surprise her with the high quality and Mercurey style of this Virginia pinot.

She told me about being the head judge for the annual Women’s Wine Awards in France, in which she won the professional category last year. We laughed a lot.

The next morning we drove down a steep canyon through which flowed the Yakima River, reminding me a lot of the Colorado trip from last year. It opened up into the wider lower Columbia Valley, which was hard to establish as wine country because vineyards alternated with farms, feed mills, and non-esthetic agricultural enterprises. Just for a hazing joke she took me to a faux chateau which I’ll call Chateau le Tacky, which featured the most bizarre and tacky labels, appropriately matched with bad and bizarre wines.

Fortunately things only got better. We stopped at Kestrel Vineyards, which Amy just wrote a cover story for V&WM to be published next month. Their wines are ripe but stylish and not over-oaked (except the sangiovese a bit). The ’06 steel fermented viognier is bright with tropical fruit balanced with good acids, and the red Bordeaux blends are elegant. I tasted their old vine merlot and cabernet, decided to buy them before inquiring the price; my eyes almost bugged out when, even with my industry discount, they rang up to nearly $90 total.

The winemaker took us into the cellar and we admired his still-stabilizing old vine Wente clone chardonnay, best of Old and New World styles, and barrel tasted a fine cabernet franc, but the most impressive was a barrel sample of the ’06 malbec, with sandlewood aromatics and ripe blueberry flavors.

We then headed to the tiny Red Mountain AVA a few miles east, where you can get a physical sense of being in wine country; the land rises above the river, you can see vineyards for miles around, and a few wineries are strategically clustered close enough for a tangible sense of wine-ness. The view from the balcony of Kiona Vineyards shows the Yakima River in the distance with vineyards stretching impressively around and the curve of Red Mountain to the northwest. Their chenin blanc, regular and icewine, were the best whites, and their lemberger the best I’ve had.

L’Affinity is a high-end, stylish and ultra-premium small boutique winery nearby, making an impressively stylish range of wines including a white blend of semillon and viognier, cabernet and merlot, but especially impressive, a Walla Walla AVA syrah (which I bought) and an eight-barrel bottling of syrah at $55. I bought the Walla Walla for $25.

We tried stopping at the elegantly appointed French country house winery of Hedges, but they had closed moments earlier at 4:30 and the shutters were tightly bolted. The final place we visited was a tiny winery called Tapteil, which was a grower with 50 acres bottling a mere 400 cases annually. Aside from a couple of “blue hair” wines, it was all red Bordeaux varieties and blends. All were estate bottled with the Red Mountain AVA, and all had an amazing terroir character which was like Pauillac in the New World; cigar box, cedar, earth and spice but with good acidity. It was a hard choice but I bought their 2001 blend, mature now, of 68% cab sauv and 22% merlot, which was pretty close to a Pauillac ratio anyway; for $25 it was a real deal.

The people at Tapteil were so nice, they invited us to join them for the Red Mountain weekly grower’s barbecue up the bluff at a neighbor’s vineyard. Half-cut oil drums on stands were already smoking up when we arrived, and a friendly, rustic crew of sunburnt locals arrived, bringing bottles of wine and good cheer. The weather was unusually cool and so we tasted red wine and chatted, and everyone had a great time as the sun gradually set behind the overcast clouds and the coyotes yipped in the distance. We drove back northwest to Ellensburg but straight into the sun at mid-summer and 45 degrees latitude, and saw Mt. Adams to the southwest, impressively clad with snow, and thousands of square miles of near-desert fading into the twilight.

Sunday I drove west into the Cascades, rainfall and the cool northwest Pacific coast. After wasting two hours at the airport waiting for a hotel shuttle, I finally got to the Westin in downtown Seattle with only an hour to spare before the bus would take us to the conference in Woodinville. I was impressed that not only was Chateau Ste. Michelle picking up the tab for journalists, but that they were paying for digs as elegant as the Westin.

Waiting for the bus I chatted with a number of people I knew; Paul Lukacs from Washington D.C., Kirk Willie who is Ernst Loosen’s U.S. agent, Ernie himself, and others I met getting off the bus; Mark, the winemaker at Sweet Cheeks Winery in the Willamette Valley whose riesling won Best White Wine and ; Best Dry Riesling in IEWC this year, Wilhelm from P.J. Valckenberg winery whom I’d met last year on the German press trip. At the winery I found others I knew who were staying on-site because they were speakers; the Macinskis, Peter Bell and Johannes Reinhardt from the Finger Lakes, Don Neel from Practical Vineyard & Winery who I thought had been bought out, and it quickly felt like home. We dined on heavy hors d’oeuvres and Ch. Ste. Michelle wines from the Horse Heaven Hills AVA, then went outside where we shivered in the cool Pacific weather of mid-summer while listening to a benefit concert.

Day One of the conference proper showed a sell-out crowd of about 100 people, attendees ranging from three continents and New Zealand, to some of the most respected producers and moderators in the industry, like James Halliday from Australia, Mary Ewing-Mulligan MW, Bob Campbell MW, and Stuart Pigott, a surprisingly young Brit whose book I’ve read, now living in Berlin. Pretty much anyone who was anyone in the world of riesling was there, it was stimulating and an honor to be in such company.
Unfortunately, just as I’d dressed for cool weather during IEWC and it turned out to be near record heat, I didn’t dress warmly enough for Seattle, especially because all sessions were held in the very cool barrel cellar. Luckily I had my IEWC fleece but I wasn’t the only one who was cold.

A rather dry discussion of riesling and boring recitation of each wine’s parameters by its winemaker, presaged the realization that this would be a riesling marathon; two sets of 14 rieslings before lunch, more wine with lunch, and a post-lunch set of 14 rieslings. The challenging part of the marathon wasn’t tasting and spitting, it was listening to the producers with their one-upmanship of how many centuries their winery had been in business (the state winery of Wurzburg won by dating to the twelfth century).  For dinner, we had an impressive menu featuring the various wines of Chateau Ste. Michelle, but I was not impressed with Eroica, the ultra-premium Columbia Valley riesling joint venture with Ernst Loosen, because it was both low pH and high in alcohol, with no moderating fruit, and the meritage red had the same problem, but the kitchen was impressive.

One wine which riesling writer Steve Pitcher and I were both impressed by was one of the most controversial of the conference; the Pacific Rim riesling, by Bonny Doon Vineyards, was actually a blend of about 70% Columbia Valley fruit, and 30% German riesling, but we both thought it was excellent. I asked the winemaker if this wasn’t an “anti-terroir” wine, being a two-continent blend, but his answer was that as a Frenchman, he respected the concept of terroir very much, and that’s what led him to make the blend he had, where each component was complemented by the other and the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. You could argue with the concept, as some of the Germans did, but it was hard to argue with the wine.

The second day saw a brilliant sunny day for Seattle, and we all had a stunning view of Mt. Rainier, snowclad at mid-summer, in the distance. The wines in the morning tasting were more impressive; a set of North American rieslings was of uniformly high quality and fine regional distinction between Finger Lakes, Michigan, Willamette Valley and the Columbia Valley, as well as the Niagara Peninsula and Okanagan Valley in Canada. Following was a tasting of Old World and Australian (?) classic wines, also excellent and also finely showing variations in terroir. Ernst Loosen pointed out that there “is no German riesling” as a single entity, since it varies in both style and terroir from the various German riegions.

At lunch, which featured a variety of rieslings from both Old and New Worlds, I pulled out Shep Rouse’s Dechiel reserve label of riesling from 2006, the first time he’d made that label, and poured it for Stuart Pigott, Bob Campbell MW, Finger Lakes winemakers and others, and it got some favorable comments.

After lunch the marathon aspect of the conference set in. We’d already had 30 rieslings in the morning plus tasting a half dozen at lunch. Now we had before us 16 botrytis-affected Rieslings, ranging from the dry Grand Cru Alsatian style (concentrated and brilliant), through the classic German sweetness grades, to the amazingly rich Ch. Ste. Michelle Single Berry Select TBA-style, dark copper in color, sweet but also with bracing acidity, to the exquisitely rare and surprisingly elegant Urziger Wurzgarten TBA, with a whopping over 30% residual sugar level, but which nevertheless retained a fresh minerality and delicate spice found in the same wine in lower sugar levels. By the time we were finished tasting and discussing, it reminded me of the time I attended a dessert wine tasting at the Tuscarora Mill in Leesburg 20 years ago (six desserts with several dessert wines each), in which by the end, it was hard to decide if I was in heaven or hell.

The marathon continued however, when we left the tasting by bus back to Seattle, only to arrive at a sculpture garden where all the producer panelists at the conference would be pouring their wines—all 166 of them! I felt like a contestant in the Riesling Olympics. There was a space for each wine and its tasting notes in the program, so it wasn’t just a marathon for tasting, but for writing wine descriptions. I had no intention of tasting all 166 wines (the two and a half hours flew by pretty quickly), but I made a brave effort, especially concerning the 1976 beerenauslese from Schloss Schonborn, and a 1971 beerenauslese from Schloss Johnannisberg.

Riesling fatigue was setting in for some; I heard Stuart Pigott saying to someone under his breath that “I think I’m reaching the saturation point”, and another riesling writer said “this is almost too much riesling”, but didn’t want to be quoted as officially saying it. I just laughed and kept on going, as long as there were spit buckets, the fresh and lively character of riesling just didn’t tire me out. When we finally got on the bus back to the Westin, I challenged any “hard-core” riesling fans to join me in drinking a bottle of riesling grappa I’d brought, but even the Aussies refused; I had won the Riesling Olympics.

At the hotel that evening, I fell in with the Australian-dominated crew from Quail Ridge Winery in B.C., and were joined by Sean O’Keefe of Chateau Grand Traverse, a chap named Christian representing Schloss Johannisberg, and Mark from Sweet Cheeks winery and his girlfriend; we went to a nearby restaurant, drank some very hoppy beer followed by a rose champagne and stayed out until midnight, bringing a memorable and fun conference and wine adventure to a close.