Yesterday I met part of the crew setting up for a night shoot at the main interesection in Calistoga next to the beer pub.  It will have the same script as the original Sideways but a different location and charactors.  I would love to watch it!

They recently filmed at Kirkland Ranch and many other local wineries.

- jim

You probably think I mean Murphys with a dozen tasting rooms in a small Gold Rush town.  Murphys is wonderful and we can’t wait to return, but I have another place in mind.

Near the Central Valley town of Lockford in the Lodi wine region is Vino Piazza – the Wine Plaza. So you would think that it is a romantic Italian plaza in the vineyards.  It is romantic, but it is an old industrial winery complex of huge concrete buildings.  The owner remodeled the run-down plant and some 8 wineries moved into it. Each tasting room is quaint, interesting, cozy, often intimate, and the whole experience, including the restaurant, is EXCITING!

Check out the tiny tasting room inside the old boiler!  (Hint: Visit Stama.)  For bargains, and a lively barista, we taste at Watts. Boitano seems to always have some event going on.  Last weekend they were barbecuing sausages and had a meal to go with their Barbera. The tiny Pasos tasting room often has munchies, and a social atmosphere.  You won’t be bored.

The grapes are mostly from the Lodi and Sierra Foothills regions and the diversity is just fine.  These are all tiny wineries with creative wine makers and strong local followings.

On our Lodi wine region map notice the infestation of markers on the upper right.  That’s Vino Piazza.  Sunday is generally a quiet day in the Lodi region and a great time to visit for a weekday experience.

Modest hotels are available in nearby Lodi but for a not much longer drive you can stay in the romantic Gold Rush towns to the east.  These are close to the Amador and Murphys regions.

- jim

Does wine taste different in different locations and circumstances?  I have long suspected that it does and we are beginning to test this hypothesis somewhat scientifically.  Last June we tasted a Merlot in Ironstone’s tasting room, bought a bottle, and then tasted it outdoors during a picnic less than half an hour later.  It tasted substantially different.  We then took the bottle into our hotel room and it tasted different again.

This is hardly the basis for a great insight by itself, but I’ve been noticing this effect for decades and so have others.  The difference now is that Katya and I are focusing on it more and testing more often.  We are trying to control variables and find a somewhat better measurement system.

The results to date of ours and other research indicate that the following factors affect taste:

1. Physical environment condition such as at home or at an outdoor picnic area or next to a busy highway.
2. Psychological factors such as enjoying friends and mood. Recent research shows the placebo effect is incredibly strong.  What the tasting room staff is telling tasters almost certainly affects the taste. Also ratings and reviews fall into this category, as does peer pressure.
3. Physiological factors such as recent food consumption, wellness, and tasting experience.

Research shows that there is significant bleed-over of neural activity between the senses.  They affect each other to some extent which is probably not surprising.  There is a lot of ambiguity in our sensory perceptions.

There is much research now into the unconscious brain and that may be the most important part.  It seems that much or more processing is done there than what we are conscious of.  More ambiguity.

Study after study for centuries have shown that our senses and memory aren’t very reliable.  With training and experience reliability can increase substantially.  Wine experts could and probably do have a superior ability to sort out tastes.  But what is the possibility that they could have trained away most human brain and sensory variances and deficiencies?  I think it is probably zip.

We need to remember that once someone is committed to a position they tend to stick with it.  That isn’t just stubbornness but often a sincere belief that distorts reality and alters mental processes.  All of us experience it although training can help mitigate this natural human response.  That means the wine expert could think they are tasting the same wine at a different time and place and getting the same results.  That may not be humanly possible though.

So with all these variables just how relevant for most tasters is a county fair gold medal or a rating and review from a wine expert?

For the basics that we’ve evolved to sort out like dry, acidic, or sweet they should be relevant.  When you get to the details like vanilla or a certain berry the relevance drops off quickly.  Various flavors can be tasted in wine but it seems highly unlikely that most folks will taste the subtle favors in the same way and in the same proportions.

What happens if this hypothesis is true?  The whole professional wine ratings and reviews concept falls apart.  Those pretty wine medals hanging all over tasting rooms are bogus.  Much of winery marketing collapses.  Wine snobs will have to realize they have no greater ability to enjoy wine flavors than the average taster.  They are just having a different experience.

So what would be the future of wine marketing and validating taste to consumers?  Simple, the best approach is to have consumers rate and review and after enough data is collected a consumer would have a fair idea if they should try the wine.  Thousands of tasters, tasting in hundreds of different circumstances and with different influences, will set a useful trend or bell curve.

The most important result is that the average taster will be free to enjoy wine without the burden of suspecting that some expert will point out their failures.  Everyone is an expert for their tastes and circumstances.  The only real authority is you.  An “uneducated” taste is just as valid as an “educated” one.

Is it more fun to have an educated taste?  You need to decide that.

- jim

I’m sure that most wine bloggers sense that the days of wine subject dominance by the old media gang of Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, Parker, etc. is coming to a slow end. Many California vintners definitely want their influence to end.

What started me on this post was a growl from the owner of a winery in the Temecula Valley. He was displeased that I shot a couple of photos of his crush in progress. He’s “sick of coffee table book publishers” and others trying to “ride the back of the wine industry”. In other words, those of us doing the industry’s marketing with our own time and money are nasty parasites.

I’ve met about 200 vintners in the past year and this guy and a woman owner at a winery in El Dorado County were the only negative reactions I’ve had. The vast majority are wonderfully supportive. Still, I was a bit insulted and started thinking about us wine industry parasites.

I’ll develop the story a bit.

While GPS mapping hundreds of California winery tasting rooms last year for my www.winequesters.com project dozens of vintners requested that I add features to the site that would help them escape Parker, et al. I’ve added a variety of ratings and reviews features to help them do just that. Now their customers can rate their tasting experience, the wines, and other marketable features like landscaping, picnic areas, and architecture.

Customer ratings and reviews is testimonial advertising and the best there is. Yelp and other sites are also offering these features to a lesser extent.

So ratings and reviews is being democratized.  Bloggers are chipping away at the rest of the content that the old wine media offers. Where once the industry had a few voices we now have at least hundreds. This makes it much more difficult for vintners to work the media but those who master our new wine media will win.

Will wine bloggers and Web sites eventually kick old wine media butt?  Yep.  As I tell vintners around California, each blogger has a much smaller audience than the old media but collectively it is growing and this form of communication is more personal and trustworthy. It is more effective than the old media and cheaper. It also fits the way humans evolved to learn. The old media will eventually die on the vine.

As a vintner look at it this way. Any industry would be delighted to have a horde of free bloggers and Web sites creating buzz and generating sales. It saves the wine industry hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and marketing costs.

In some 40 years of tasting in California and around the world I’ve never cared what Parker, Spectator, or the others have to say. I pay attention to personal recommendations. From my observations I believe that the vast majority of tasters feel the same way.

Maybe if you don’t live in a major wine region then Parker and the magazines are important. However, with all the Web sites and bloggers available you now virtually live here and get all the latest scoop.

So let the old wine media shrivel up and die on the vine. The messy and uneditable barbarian wine blogger hordes are marching through wine regions around the world and munching up every bit of information efficiently, effectively, and free for the tasters and the industry.

- jim

During our video shoots we’ve noticed a few recent changes at wineries that are noteworthy:

1) Silver Oak in Napa Valley just opened their new tasting room.  The wonderful old one burned and they built a whole new winery.  My opinion of the new tasting room?  The old one was more intimate and cozy but the new one is nice.  I expected something more interesting than a big hall-style room.

2) Hall Winery in Napa Valley should be well along with their new Frank Gehry winery and tasting room.  We drove by and saw little happening.

3) Alpha Omega in Napa Valley is close to completion of their major renovation and landscaping.  The fountains are a nice show from Highway 29 south of St. Helena but not on the order of the Bellagio in Las Vegas.  Nice architecture and nice tasting room.  Recommend a visit.  Our profile photos are outdated now.

4) The Castle, actually Castello di Amorosa, is now open off Highway 29 just south of Calistoga.  It is a WOW place with a rustic medeval market and even live chickens running around.  Other than the parking lot you will think you’ve dropped into 14th century Europe.  OK, the view of Sterling on it’s hilltop brings you back to Napa 2008.  It is a must see at $15 / person for five tastings and a self-tour.  We have it marked on our GPS map of Napa Valley but no profile yet.

5) Italian Swiss Colony is BACK!  Well, not the brand, but the wonderful and now ancient tasting room in Asti just south of Cloverdale in the Alexander Valley is back in operation thanks to Cellar 8.  At one time long ago just about everyone who drank wine knew of the tiny town of Asti.  The tasting room would be open to midnight and busloads visited the huge wishbone tasting bar.  Cellar 8, a division of Fosters, renovated the tasting room and I strongly recommend a visit.  They have a picnic area outside with views of the upper Alexander Valley and even a couple of old train coaches.  We have them mapped but no profile yet.

6) Also in Alexander Valley there is a new tasting room in Geyserville for Route 128 Winery.  Pete and Lorna Opatz have been in the vineyard business a long time and are breaking into the retail wine trade.  Very personable and definately worth visiting this upstart, cozy, and friendly tasting room.

7) Geyserville has always been a little backwater in the wine tasting trade.  Suddenly it is seeing phenominal growth with now 3 tasting rooms in operation and one more working on it.  That is a doubling of tasting rooms in only a few months.  OK, not much by Healdsburg, Murphys, or Los Olivos standards but hey, this is sleepy little Geyserville and our favorite wine country hang-out.

- jim

Not everyone is aware of the wonderful sparkling wine road trip experience in the lower Napa Valley and Carneros. All of these fine producers of sparkling wines can be visited in one day from the San Francisco Bay Area:

• Domaine Chandon – Napa Valley
  
• Mumm Napa Valley – Napa Valley
  
• Domaine Carneros – Carneros
  
• Gloria Ferrer – Carneros

Mumm is a traditional tasting room on Napa Valley’s Silverado Trail.  It has a nice view of the vineyards and mountains.  Domaine Chandon is nestled in oaks on a hillside overlooking Yountville with great landscaping and an indoor view-bar and outdoor tables with food available.  The post-modern design is unusual and interesting.  Domaine Carneros is a large French chateau style building with indoor and outdoor tasting and great views of the lower Napa Valley.  Gloria Ferrer is Spanish owned and features indoor and outdoor tasting with spectacular views of the Carneros region and the lower Sonoma Valley.  Small munchies are available but they are no substitute for lunch.

All the sparkling wines / champaignes are great of course and the ambiance at each one is outstanding.  This is a road trip that won’t be forgotten! Please see the Wine Questers’ profiles for more information.

- jim

I sense a bubble.  Only a couple of years ago $18 a bottle was commonly available in tasting rooms in most California wine regions.  Now $26 is the lowest price almost everywhere.  Winery tasting rooms are being added to all regions at a rapid pace.  Little Geyserville in the Alexander Valley has gone from two to four tasting rooms in the last few months, and nearby Healdsburg is up to 24, at least as of a few days ago.

I’ve seen a lot of booms go bust.  The recent housing and mortgage collapse was easy to see well ahead of the loud pop we heard not long ago.  I sense over-investment in the wine tasting industry and increasing consumer resistance to prices.  It will happen and is unavoidable.  Whether we have a gentle correction or a painful one is a big question.

As usual in business booms the last businesses into the game will be the first to fail.  They are usually under-capitalized for a prolonged decrease in business and usually have paid inflated prices for resources and usually with heavy debt.  They don’t have the option of lowering prices to adjust to the market.

There is a ceiling to how much tasters are willing to pay and it is being explored now by wineries in all regions.  Interesting times should soon be coming to the tasting industry.

- jim