Tasting Notes: 2010 Kunin Wines Alisos Vineyard Guwertzraminer

Appearance: Deep, bright golden yellow.  Legs which slowly slide down the glass back to the wine.

Aroma: A lot going on.  A little acidity, maybe lemon, a sweetness of ripe  fruit and honey, and an herbaceous/earthy aroma as well.

Mouthfeel: Medium-heavy body, leaves kind of a film behind.

Flavor: I get a pretty strong alcohol/boozy note off of this one, along with a kind of earthy/herbaceous/floral/savory note, maybe a bit of bell pepper or other green veggies.  Finish is very herbal/floral, and leaves a lavendar or rose flavor in the mouth well after drinking.

Overall:  Interesting wine.  Fruity and floral without being sweet.  Have to be in the right mood, but could enjoy this wine on its own.  Pairing with food would take some thought, as it is pretty bold in both body and flavor, so traditional fish/chicken/light salad white wine pairings might not work out so well.  The only thing that I find slightly off-putting is the distinct alcohol flavor mid-palate.  As opposed to some other high alcohol wines, where there is a hot feeling throughout, but not a lot of ethyl flavor at any one point, this one has a distinct moment where ethanol is all you're getting, then goes back to its more pleasant flavors.

Tasting Notes: 2011 Villa Maria Private Bin Sauvignon Blanc

Appearance: Light, bright, almost white.  No legs when swirled.

Aroma: Bright, fresh, grapefruit, lemon, a hint of grass.

Mouthfeel: Very light, rolls right over the palate, very drinkable and refreshing.

Flavor:  Complex and varied.  I get everything from a canteloupe or honeydew melon flavor, to grapefruit, to fresh lemon and lime.  A slight herbal, grassy note.  Crisp, but leaves a refreshing citrus note which lingers for a bit.

Overall: Pretty good New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.  Refreshing, light, drinkable, without being one-note or boring.  Great for a hot day, and could probably pair well with a variety of food, but is also drinkable on its own.  Not stellar but for the price, a pretty good buy.

Craft Wine

I saw a post about this on Linkedin a while ago, and wanted to take a crack at answering the question.  Why is it that craft beer and craft spirits have been taking off growth wise, and craft wine does not seem to do the same?  Are there lessons to be learned from craft beer which could help wine do the same?

My basic answer is that, at least in my mind, craft wine does not exist as an actual product distinction from other wines, meaning any attempt at "craft wine" is more of a branding or business model than anything else.  I'll explain below some of the factors that make craft beer the amazing product it is, an then explain why I don't think wine has the same factor.

Craft breweries produce small batches of product. This is arguably the weakest of my points.  There are lots and lots of small batch wineries.  In fact, I would argue that there are so many small batch wineries that it is no longer a valid factor in determining what "craft" wine is.  There are a few large wineries, but by and large, almost all wineries are in the business of small batch production, and the idea of small batch wine production is nothing new.

Craft breweries are focused on quality.  Again, arguably, the problem is not that wineries aren't, but that wineries are.  Almost all wines on the market are produced with quality in mind.  And, in fact, unlike beer, in which quality has just become a factor for most consumers, cheap wine on grocery store shelves is a result of people becoming interested in fine wines, not the other way around.

Craft breweries focus on specialized and skilled techniques.  Wines have always done this.  Working with less ingredients, and less control over the condition of their ingredients, wineries have always sought to highlight, minimize, or eliminate flavors, or to achieve consistency through diverse vintages and growing conditions.  Even the mass produced wines require a lot of testing, tasting, blending, and skilled decisions to produce a consistent product year after year.  Unlike beer, where, given the same condition, one can buy ingredients which are identical and expect the same results, wine by nature is a fluid and inconsistent product.  So whether it is a particular nuance, or a consistent product, a winery seeks to make, there are always skilled techniques involved.

Craft breweries honor, respect, replicate, and expand on traditional brewing techniques, and create new styles.  Again, this is the story of most wines.  The wine making traditions have not changed dramatically due to industrialization.  There are more tools available, but the essential ingredients and processes have remained the same.  Also, the "traditional" wines never went out of style or became unknown to mainstream producers because cheap swill (read: Bud Light) flooded the market.  Traditional, high end wines, have always remained in the eye of the consumer, and been the standard other wines try to live up to.  In terms of innovation, every time a wine is made in a new location, or with a new type of grape for the area, it is innovative.  Much of the innovation comes long before the actual wine making process begins, and much of the skilled work involved in wine making comes from trying to achieve a desired result with a given product.

Craft breweries provide a variety of styles, not just a repetition on the same theme.  Again, wine has always done this, being made from several varieties, with each having dramatically different flavor profiles.  The terroir of the grapes, the maturation process (if any), etc. also provide a further level of differentiation.  Wine has never been a single-note product, and so making wine with a variety of flavor profiles is nothing new.

Craft breweries support local economies. There is a tendency for craft breweries to buy as local as possible, to have brewpubs which connect them to their community, and to truly incorporate their brands into their local environments, making it impossible to, say, pick up and move across the country (although it does happen).  More than a tendency, wineries have to be tied to their local environments.  Barley is malted, dried, and sold and shipped as a commodity.  Hops are turned into pellets and shipped around and across the globe.  Yeast can be put in a vial (or a bucket) and sent anywhere.  Grapes are heavy, messy, and perishable.  Meaning you can't really put them in a bag and mail them to Milwaukee or St. Louis.  Yes, grape juice can be shipped.  But it is expensive and messy, and changes the qualities of the product during transportation.  For this reason, wineries are inherently a local operation.  They have always bought local, because it is the only way to do business.  Their operations and tasting rooms have always boosted local economies, and most wine growing regions have huge industries built around wine tourism as such.  In traditional, old world, wine growing regions, the label on the wine actually labels the region, not the product.  That is how intertwined wine is with place.

The biggest reason craft wine will not take off is that wine has always been a craft industry.  Yes, beer started out that way, but for many years, the best known, most sought after beers by the general public, have been mass produced, cheap, light, crisp, drinkable, and very refreshing lagers.  Different brands have flooded the market with products that are all very similar.  The craft brewing industry thus came in and provided a contrast to what was on the mainstream market.

Wine, on the other hand, has always been a little snobbier.  The most sought after wines in the world have always been rare, bold, and highly individualized products.  Mass produced wine only exists because expensive, "classy" wine exists, and wine has always been associated with a certain, high end lifestyle.  The small batch industry is not fighting against the big guys for attention, reputation, or market share, as in craft beer.  Instead, the big guys are entering the world of what in beer would be called the "craft" producers.

That being said, I think that there are a few trends which fit the spirit of craft beer and spirit, and appeal to a similar market, but that I don't think differentiate a wine as a "craft" wine.  The first is experimental varietals, or experimental varietals for a particular region.  New York State wines fall into this group, and are becoming more popular, as do many wines from Santa Barbara County and other non-Napa and non-Sonoma AVAs in California.  While not necessarily more craft in a lot of ways, the wineries trying these out are bold and breaking from the mold of what wine, or American wine, is supposed to look like. 

The other area is sustainable wine making.  As wineries begin to be certified organic, sustainable, etc. there is a craft-like market developing specifically around sustainably-produced wines.

Tasting Notes: 2011 Star Lane Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc

This wine is a Sauvignon Blanc out of the U.S.'s newest (unless I missed something) AVA, the Happy Canyon AVA in Santa Barbara County.

Appearance: Bright, bold, yellow, color.  No legs when swirled in glass.

Aroma: Very strong lemon and grapefruit.  Even when the bottle was opened, before pouring, it gives off a very fresh citrus smell. 

Mouthfeel: Light and smooth, a little bit of tart astringency leaves the mouth dried out at the end.

Flavor: Very, very, grapefruit forward.  Get a hint of tropical fruit in the middle of the palate, and the finish is back to graprefruit, and lingers for quite some time.  I can't really pick up much past the almost astringent grapefruit flavor.

Overall: I'm not a grapefruit fan, so Sauvignon Blancs are kind of hit or miss with me.  This wine has a pleasent aroma, beautiful color, and a very drinkable, refreshing body.  If I didn't have such a strong dislike of grapefruit, this seems like it would be a great, refreshing, drinkable white on a  hot summer day.  Probably not one that I will personally go out of my way to drink again, though.

Flavor Sources in Beer

So, when tasting anything, it's important to know what you're looking for, and what different flavors came from, and what they mean.  So here is a basic break down of the main flavor sources for beer.  I'll start with the four main ingredients of beer, and then cover some extras.

Water is one of the four ingredients allowed under the German purity laws, and is an ingredient in every beer, and one which is often overlooked.  Having pure, relatively soft water is important to the brewing process, because it allows the yeast to act as expected, as well as the hops, malt, and any other ingredients to express fully.  Certain breweries like their beer to have certain minerals because it provides or highlights certain flavors.  In most beers, water is not a significant source of flavor.  If it does provide a flavor, it will be an earthy, mineral, or metalic flavor usually.  It's important to understand, though, that the type of water used can make it impossible to brew a good beer, or certainly to brew certain styles of beer.  The good news is that modern technology allows impurities to be filtered out, and minerals to be added back in.

Malt is another of the four "pure" beer ingredients.  Malt is barley which has been partially germinated in order to release emylase, which in turn converts starch into fermentable sugar.  Malt provides the bulk of beer flavor, and is necessary for the production of alcohol.  Malt can be dried either just enough to stop germination, or it can be kiln dried and roasted, toasted, charred, or even burnt, to varying degrees.  It can also be smoked.  The degree of toasting on the finished malt determines the color, as well as flavor, of the finished beer. Malty flavors include cereal, bread, corn, and sweetness.  Darker malts can also provide coffee, chocolate, caramel, toasted, nutty, and smokey flavors.

Yeast is the third "pure" beer ingredient.  Yeast turns sugar into CO2 and alcohol, in its most basic function.  The fermentable sugars which yeast consumes, however, have many components which are not directly turned into CO2 or alcohol.  These are protein chains, acids, and other congeners which provide specific flavors, known as esthers.  Certain yeast strains digest certain esthers and reprocess those.  Others are unable to consume those same esthers.  When we talk about yeast flavors, we are not talking about flavors that come from actually consuming yeast.  We are talking about the esthers that particular yeast strains were unable to fully break down, and which remain in the finished beer.  Common yeast-derrived flavor groups are fruit and certain spices.  Almost any fruit flavor is yeast derrived.  Black pepper, clove, and corriander are also fermentation and yeast derived flavorings.  More extreme examples of yeast flavors, coming from wild or deliberately souring fermentation, are barnyard, funk, leather, and even sour or vinegar flavors.  It is important to note that many off flavors are also yeast or bacteria derrived, and these flavors come from processing which has allowed un-intended yeasts access to beer.

Hops are the final "pure" beer ingredient.  They were used primarily as a preservative originally, although with modern techniques, they are no longer necessary for that purpose.  They provide important flavor and aroma characteristics, depending on the variety, as well as at what stage of the brewing process they are added.  Hops can basically provide five things, or, for most strains, and certainly most beers (which use a blend of hops), a combination of them.  Aroma, bitterness, citrus, pine/resin and grassy/floral flavors.  Hop aroma can span the range of the other four, but it is important to note that certain hop varieties, and ways of hopping a beer, can contribute more to aroma then flavor.  It is possible to have a beer with a very in your face hop bouquet which is much more subtle with actual hop flavors.  Bitterness is an overall contribution to hops, and all hops provide a certain level of bitterness, but some varieties, and some beers, highlight the hop bitterness rather than the nuances of hop flavor and aroma.  Citrus hops tend to lean toward grapefruit, and provide a refreshing counterbalance to the initial bitterness.  Pine and resiny hops can vary from straight up spruce/Christmas tree to a skunky, marijuana-like aroma.  Grassy and floral hops can provide a nice aroma and flavor as well.

Adjuncts are basically any ingredient not included above that is added to a beer at any stage.  Some adjuncts, like wheat, rye, oats, sorghum, or other grains, or fruits (basically anything with natural starch or sugar) can be used along with malt to make the mash before fermentation.  Some are added after fermentation.  Those ingredients can have very different effects depending on when they are added.  Adjuncts can cover a very wide range, from spices to fruits, to chilli pepper, to chocolate, to vanilla, and coffee.  Some (fruits, spices, chocolate, coffee, nuts) are meant to enhance or highlight flavors already found in certain styles of beer, while others (chipotle peppers, etc.) can create a whole new flavor experience.

Aging/packaging/processing can also affect flavors.  Most obviously, barrel aging a beer can affect the flavor tremendously.  The age and the oak itself will contribute a lot of flavor, texture, and aroma contributions.  Frequently, because of the expense of barrels, the relatively low retail price of beer, and just because of the special contributions, beers are aged in barrels which previously played host to wine, brandy, bourbon, or other spirits.  These barrels can contribute both a higher alcohol content and interesting flavors.  Processing beer can affect the flavor as well.  Is a beer filtered, fined, centrifuged, or served en lees?  Lees are dead yeast cells, which are often left in some beers, particularly wheat beers.  If they are removed, the exact method can affect flavor as well.  If a beer is bottle/keg/can conditioned, served on cask, or force carbonated, or some combination of them will affect mouth feel and flavor, as will the exact gas blend used. 

Hopefully this is a good start to developing a beer palate, and knowing the important contributions that each decision a brewer makes can have on the final product.

Tasting Notes: North Coast Barrel Aged Old Rasputin

Appearance: Pours a deep, dark, almost black brown.  Nice, coffee colored, creamy, foamy head, with decent retention and a little bit of lacing.

Aroma: Booze, chocolate, caramel, in that order.  Smells much sweeter and more chocolatey than the non-barrel aged version of the same beer.

Mouthfeel: Full bodied, but not sticky or syrupy.  Creamy texture.

Flavors: Boozy, coffee, just a hint of chocolate and caramel sweetness.  Lingering, bitter/burnt coffee finish.

Overall: Definitely a special beer.  Complex, with a lot going on both on the nose and the palate.  Similar enough to the unaged version that it is recognizable, but definitely smoother, richer, and a little more complex.  Definitely not a sweet beer by any means, but also not quite as dry or harsh as an unaged Old Rasputin.  Would be a great beer to drink with a special meal or a very special, equally rich dessert.

Tasting Notes: 2011 DaVinci Pinot Grigio

Appearance: Light, clear, straw-yellow.  No legs.

Aroma: Bright floral, lemon, mineral notes on the bouquet.

Mouthfeel: Light, rolls right through the mouth.

Flavors:  Crisp, dry, smooth.  Slight green apple or pear notes, without being overly tart.  A tiny bit of a grapefruit acidity.  Bright floral finish, which doesn't cut off right away, but doesn't linger either.

Overall:  I really liked this one.  Manages to be light, crisp, dry, and refreshing, without being boring.  Lots of different flavors here, but still pretty clean flavor-wise.  Usually I need food to really make a pinot grigio grab my attention, but this one stood out on its own.  Would be great with food, but also great to drink outside on a hot summer day.

Should I age xx, or drink it right away?

People often wonder they can or even should age a particular bottle, whether it is beer, wine, or spirits.  The answer is, it all depends on the particular item.

Spirits.  In general, spirits are high enough in alcohol content that the effects of aging them in a bottle will be minimal.  They are  not as volatile, or subject to as much chemical change as lower proof beer and wine.  Most have been aged in wood, or filtered, to the point that most cogeners have fully developed.  It's still not a great idea to keep them around too long, especially once they're opened, but they are less subject to change over time than beer and wine.

Beer.  As a general rule, beer is best drank fresh.  Beer is low proof, and has not been distilled, or (generally) aged.  The higher residual sugar and water, along with other chemicals which are still left in beer, make it fairly volatile.  Light and oxygen are both bad for beer.  Saying heat is bad for beer is a bit of an oversimplification.  Temperature changes are bad for beer.  So if you do plan on hanging on to beer (whether just for a couple of weeks or during long term cellaring/aging) keep this in mind.  A beer cellar or closet is probably the best place for it, as it will be protected from light and stay relatively temperature stable.  The most common way I've seen people mistreat beer is to buy it cold, let it sit out for a few days, put it in the fridge, then move or take it somewhere else, or just run out of space in the fridge, leave it out at room temperature for a few days, and then put it back in the fridge.  This is asking for trouble.

Now, notice that I said that as a general rule beer is best when fresh.  Some beers are meant to stand up to aging.  How do you know if yours is one of them?  Five things: hops, alcohol, body, aging, and a couple of yeast situations.

Hops will be the most counterintuitive of these.  Hoppy, bitter beers do not age well and are best consumed as quickly as possible, especially fresh hopped or dry hopped beers.  Weren't hops originally put in beer as a preservative, though, you ask?  Yes, they were.  In fact, hoppy beers are certainly safe to drink after some time.  But 1) modern brewing and packaging ensures that even beers with low hop profiles are pretty shelf stable, and 2) what we now call "hoppy" beers use hops for flavor and aroma.  As an agricultural product, and, basically an aromatic flower, hops change as they get old.  They no longer have the fresh, bright, crisp flavor and aroma they started with, meaning that while they're perfectly safe to consume, they lose the characteristics that they gave the beer and begin to taste and smell stale.

Alcohol Higher alcohol beers tend (although hops trump this, so don't try to age an Imperial IPA!) to age better than lower alcohol beers, for a couple of reasons.  Aging will tend to mellow and round out the boozy flavors that some barley wines/quads/etc. will have.  Also, as mentioned in the notes on spirits, higher alcohol means less volatile (at least in terms of flavor and aroma changes).  These beers will develop and change with  time, especially since most high alcohol beers also have a fair amount of residual sugar and fruity esters left in them, unlike spirits, but will not entirely change their nature.  They area also high enough in alcohol that most yeast and bacteria will not attempt to continue fermenting the beer.

Body Bigger bodied beers tend to age better.  Whether from alcohol, sugar, or dark roasted malts, big beers mean big flavors.  You don't want to lose that (and won't), but sometimes a mellowing, rounding out that comes with aging does a big beer good.

Aging If a beer has been aged by the brewery in wood, it usually means two things: 1) the recipe was designed with aging in mind, so there won't be any harmful effects to letting it sit a little longer in the bottle, 2) The aging process has already started, and so the effects of aging will not take a turn for the worst.  Any negative chemical or bacterial reactions would have taken place in the barrel, and you wouldn't have the beer at all.  So, it's a safe bet that most barrel aged beers will be good after a little extra time in the bottle or keg as well.

Yeast In general, spontaneously fermented and bottle/barrel conditioned beers are good to age.  Spontaneous fermentation allows a) oxidation, and b) wild and unpredictable yeast activity.  These are two things you worry about with aging a beer, and if it has already held up to deliberate exposure to these two things, chances are, they can't do a lot more harm.  The stuff that wild yeast and bacteria eat is probably already gone.  As for bottle/barrel conditioned beers, they are deliberately bottled or kegged with active yeast so that the beer continues developing.  Allowing the yeast to remain active will allow the beer to continue to develop over time (until the yeast has completely died off) and provide for a more interesting brew.

Lucky for us, several of these conditions tend to overlap.  IPAs and pales tend to be light, crisp, young, hoppy, and very deliberately fermented using cultured yeasts.  Barley wines, imperial stouts, quads, sours, etc. tend to meet more than one of the conditions I've listed for "good for aging" beers, and are usually good candidates

Wine
Rules for wine are actually not that far off from beer, but a little more simplified.  First of all, remember to keep them temperature stable and out of the way of light.  Second, I don't think there's anything in wine that has quite the same negative reaction to time that hops do, so you won't necesarily totally ruin a wine by aging it.

In general, you'll want to drink light bodied wines, especially crisp, bright, citrusy ones, pretty young.  They will tend to mellow, smooth, and become more one note over time.

On the other hand, big wines with richer, dark fruit flavors, especially ones high in tannin, will usually benefit from aging.  As with beer, anything (white or red) which saw the inside of an oak barrel is probably a good candidate for further aging as well.

Collecting/future value
Now, the one thing to note with all three of these things, especially with whiskey and wine, and it's starting to be true of some beers as well, is that aside from quality, there is a certain value to a bottle held onto for a while.  Simple supply and demand.  A 25 year old scotch or bourbon is going to be hard to find, and, to the right person, worth a lot of money.  An interesting note about wine production is that low yields often produce the best wine.  A bottle of a particularly scarce, but high quality vintage can be worth a lot of money.  Some craft and monastic beers are so hard to find that they are worth a lot of money, especially months or years after their production.  The above tips were written based on drinkability and quality, not on monetary value.  So if you are a collector primarily looking to make money, or  simply have the pride in having a valuable cellar, you can probably pay less attention to them.  That said, 1) collecting booze for the sake of future value is risky.  You are banking on the fact that a particular brand or vintage will hold value in the future.  Tastes change.  While a rare spirit, wine, or beer is probably a safe bet, keep in mind that producers change production levels, or sometimes tastes just change.  2) If it tastes like shit, it's really not worth anything to anyone.  Pliny the Younger is a very rare, triple IPA from Russian River, released once a year.  This gives it an inherent value, and might tempt some profiteers (if it was available in bottle) to tuck away a bottle and try to sell it in the off season.  They'd be out of luck, as this beer is meant to be drank young and would only deteriorate with time.  In fact, the brewery allocates kegs only to those bars who commit to tapping it in the month of February, to avoid people jeopardizing the quality of the product to take advantage of its scarcity.

Hopefully this has been a helpful guide to when products might benefit (or not) from cellaring or aging them in bottle.

Tasting Notes: Barefoot Pinot Grigio

Appearance: Very light, white-ish, a touch of green.  Poured almost effervescent, with bubbles rising as it poured.  No legs when swirled.

Aroma: Mild, but a touch of lemon and grapefruit.

Mouthfeel: Light, rolls right off the tongue, but not as light as some pinot grigios.

Flavor: A little more fruit than I was expecting from a pinot grigio.  A bit of lemon, also a little bit of peach, not as much minearlity as I was expecting, and actually slightly sweet.  Finishes with a slight alcohol flavor, and a little bit creamy.  Not a sharp, crisp finish, but also doesn't linger.

Overall: Interesting wine.  Not as awful as I was expecting for something under $6.  In fact, I actually kind of liked it.  Definitely not true to the pinot grigio varietal though.  Although lighter than a chardonnay, it was not as light or drinkable as most pinot grigios.  Instead of the rich, mineral notes, it had a lot of fruit, and was actually slightly sweet.  Personally, I love pinot grigio with food, but usually find it a little too light and kind of boring on its own.  This wine would probably not pair well with typical pinot grigio pairings, but is actually kind of enjoyable on its own.  Definitely not the greatest wine, but for a $6 bottle from Barefoot, not the worst either.