Dave McIntyre's WineLine

DrinkLocalWine.com 2010 and locavore hypocrisy

This week, the Park Hyatt Hotel chain announced that it would bring its annual Masters of Food and Wine event to Washington this June 17-20. Chef Extraordinaire Brian McBride of Blue Duck Tavern in the Park Hyatt in the West End will welcome chefs, sommeliers and winemakers from around the country for a weekend of food and wine that will “focus on the commitment to local farmers and to supporting sustainable agriculture,” according to a company press release. They will visit the Dupont Circle FRESHFARM Market and Virginia's “esteemed” Chapel Hill Farm in Berryville, which raises an heirloom variety of veal called Randall Lineback.

Will they be visiting any local wineries? No.

Will any local wineries be participating in the event? No.

Who is the wine headliner? Dan Duckhorn, of Napa Valley's Duckhorn Vineyards. An eminent name and hard to fault, especially given the obvious cute tie-in to Blue Duck Tavern. But hardly local.

This is a restaurant so committed to local farming that it wants you to know the name of the rancher who slaughtered the lamb you are about to eat. But its commitment to local wine consists of a few good but desultory selections buried in the list at markups (3x retail) guaranteed to render them mere window dressing.

The Park Hyatt is not alone in this hypocrisy. Alice Waters, the doyenne of the “eat local” movement, has organized a series of dinners in DC the last two years to preach the eat-local gospel. Each time, she has served only California and Italian wines.

The locavore movement in DC-area restaurants ignores important advances in local viticulture that should make us locapours as well. This conundrum was a major topic at last weekend's DrinkLocalWine.com 2010 Conference at Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg. The conference, which I helped organize along with Jeff Siegel, a Dallas-based wine writer who blogs as The Wine Curmudgeon, focused on how local wineries can get their message out without relying on the “winestream media” of the major wine mags, as well as how to convince locavores to become locapours.

On that latter point, Todd Kliman, wine and food editor of Washingtonian magazine (and a friend and former editor of mine), argued eloquently that local wineries should not focus on the Holy Grail of wine lists – those at the top-tier restaurants such as Citronelle or CityZen. Such restaurants are designed to impress international and expense-account clients, and so will naturally focus on top-end wines with international fame and high point scores. Local wines will find little room to infiltrate their wine lists.

Interestingly, Kliman derided area restaurants for touting their Randall Lineback veal while ignoring local wines. One restaurant he praised for featuring local wines was Baltimore's Woodberry Kitchen, whose chef, Spike Gjerde, will be participating in the Park Hyatt event. Such restaurants in the middle tier are better target for local wineries, Kliman argued, because they are innovative and often dedicated to the local farm movement to a greater degree than high-end restaurants.

(Kliman is the author of The Wild Vine, a history of the Norton grape to be published May 4 by Clarkson Potter. One of the more endearing parts of the conference was when Bruno and Jane Bauer, two Norton fans from South Carolina, revealed that they had trekked up here in their RV just to meet Kliman, having obtained an advance copy of the book on eBay. “Every winelover should read this book,” Bruno Bauer said.)

As for how to get around the winestream media and its focus on Bordeaux and Napa Valley, the answer was social media. Jen Breaux Blosser, of Loudoun County's Breaux Vineyards, described how she uses Facebook and Twitter to forge relationships with customers and advertise special sales. During February's snow storms, when no one could get to the winery, she offered blizzard discounts – order now, pickup after the melt – and managed to make money even without people coming to the winery. Jim Corcoran, of nearby Corcoran Vineyards, told me that Internet coupons have significantly increased traffic to Corcoran's tasting rooms.

The highlight of the DrinkLocalWine.com 2010 Conference was the Twitter Taste-Off, in which nearly 30 wineries from Virginia and Maryland poured two wines each for about 100 participants, including wine bloggers and writers from across the country.(See my video at the bottom of this post to get your own taste.) Tasters were able to Tweet live, and you can still follow them on #DLW10 and #DLW10VA. Statistics of how many tweets were tweeted by how many twits to how many followers are not yet available – apparently the contractors enjoyed the wine too much. But a secret ballot revealed the crowd favorites to be the Breaux Vineyards 2002 Merlot Reserve for Best Red and Media Favorite; the Chrysalis Vineyards 2008 Albarino for Best White; and the Michael Shaps 2008 Viognier for Peoples' Choice.

Richard Leahy, East Coast editor of Vineyard & Winery Management magazine, commented that the victory for the Breaux 2002 Merlot Reserve demonstrated how well Virginia red wines can age, especially considering the strong competition from so many reds of the excellent 2007 vintage. I was thrilled at the consistently high quality of the wines from both Virginia and Maryland.

Local sommeliers should take note. Your customers have.

You can read other participants’ accounts of the conference at DrinkLocalWine.com.

Wines from Where?

Wines are now made in all 50 states - but would you know that by looking at a typical wine list or store shelf?

Andrew Stover, the hyper-energetic millenial generation sommelier at two hip Washington D.C. restuarants, is trying to change that perception. Working with a D.C.-area distributor, Stover is bringing high-quality and high-value wines from aorund the US to the DC-area market. These include Arizona Stronghold from Cochise County, Arizona, and Sawtooth Vineyards from the Snake River Valley in Idaho.

Let go your prejudices. I did - I'd never heard of Maynard James Keenan, the rock star behind Arizona Strongholds. I didn't let that stop me from appreciating these delightful wines.

You can read more about it in my wine column in The Washington Post.

America's Southernmost Winery

It was cold and rainy on the August day when I visited Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, as the remnants of a tropical storm lashed the eastern side of the Big Island. I caught a glimpse of the Kilauea crater and the steam plume rising from the Halema’uma’u vent before a thick fog and lashing rains descended and obliterated any hope I had of stunning vistas or photographs to take home.

So I decided to visit a winery.

A mile or so off the main road that leads to the park, Volcano Winery is tucked into a blue-collar rural suburb.  (A suburb of a volcano, to be sure.) “America’s Southernmost Winery,” the sign at the gate boasts, and another placard at the end of the driveway points to “Wine-O Parking.” My kind of people.

The winery, opened in 1993, gets quite a bit of tourist traffic, judging from the tee-shirts, hoodies, and other wine-related tchotchkes on sale. And there are several wines to taste, unfortunately presented in little plastic thimbles that make it impossible to smell the wine. (Could that be intentional, I wondered? Larger glasses with the winery logo were for sale.)

They do grow grapes here – a few rows of Symphony vines stood outside the store, the slowly ripening grapes heavily netted against predators such as birds and curious tourists. The winery planted some vinifera varieties, including pinot noir and syrah, a few years ago, but they haven’t yet borne a crop. More on that later.

“You’ve probably heard this before, but these are better than I expected,” I said to the two women who poured me samples and told me about the wines. (Distressingly, I find six weeks later that I did not record their names.) That’s a common reaction, they said, though most people say the wines “are not as bad” as expected.

The wines included two “estate” wines made from Symphony grown on the Big Island. The 2008 dry Symphony is quite pleasant and flowery, but not oily and over-the-top like Symphony can be. The 2008 Mele, picked later, is slightly off-dry but not at all cloying. It would make an excellent aperitif or partner for cheese. Both cost $16.

From there the wines got really interesting. Volcano imports grape concentrate from California to make its Volcano Red ($17), a non-vintage labeled blend of several grapes spiced with jaboticaba berries grown on the island. I struggle to describe the wine, as it doesn’t fit a ready frame of reference, but it’s quite tasty, with the berries adding a woodsy, spicy note. I’d serve it slightly chilled as a fun warm-weather red.

The Volcano Blush ($16.50) blends Sauvignon Blanc, Palomino and Colombard (again, from California) with the jaboticaba berry. It’s exotic, peppery and a tad sweet, like a power fruit drink with a kick.

Hawaiian Guava Wine ($16.50) is just what its name suggests – those same three white grapes with yellow guavas grown on the island. The winery uses the entire guava – skin, fruit and seeds – pureed and fermented on its own before blending with the wine. It is oddly delicious, starting sweet but finishing dry and nutty. (All that from a thimbleful! Well, okay, maybe two or three thimblefuls.) I brought a bottle home to pair with our annual Chinese Thanksgiving feast. (Don’t ask.)

Macadamia Nut Honey Wine ($17) is similar to meade, but not syrupy. It tastes like a macadamia praline that hasn’t hardened yet.

The winery’s Web site now lists an Infusion Tea wine, but that wasn’t available when I visited. Too bad, I’ll bet it’s pretty good.

Here’s my 4-1-1: If you are visiting Hawai’i and its Big Island, plan some time to detour from the national park to Volcano Winery. It’s worth the visit, and not far out of your way.

Hawai’i, you might imagine, presents unique winemaking challenges. The winery originally planted 14 acres of Symphony vines, but only seven acres are still bearing. And that pinot noir? They had hopes of gathering a harvest this year, but in March, just as the vines were flowering, the trade winds from the East stopped, and the steam from the Halema’uma’u Vent on Kilauea, normally blown off to sea, settled instead over the mountain and Volcano Winery’s vineyards. The heat burned the flowers off the vines.

Now that’s terroir.

This is the second annual Regional Wine Week, with bloggers and writers reporting on local wines – you can find their reports and blog posts at DrinkLocalWine.com, and on Tweeter at #dlw09.

Regional Wine Week - half way point

If you haven't yet checked out REGIONAL WINE WEEK on DrinkLocalWine.com, you should. We've got harvest updates on the Finger Lakes and Niagara from Lenn Thompson's New York Cork Report, plus a post from Paul Vigna on how the bad economy has some prime Pennsylvania vineyard land languishing on the market. Rémy Charest has reported on the current scandale in Canadian wine - a legal loophole that allows wine from elsewhere to be labeled "cellared in Canada". Brian Kirby is scouting out some exciting developments in Maryland. And Richard Leahy writes about wines produced from goofball grapes that will surprise you with their quality.

Remember - Think Globally, Drink Locally. And support Regional Wine Week by visiting DrinkLocalWine.com!

Loudoun County - DC's Bedroom Community AND its Wine Country!

Loudoun County in Northern Virginia has been experiencing the same growth in number of wineries as the state overall. Three of those - Tarara, Boxwood and Sunset Hills - are leading a new wave of quality improvements. Read about new and exciting developments in DC's Wine Country in my feature in today's Washington Post Food section.

And here is my video with Todd Thrasher, sommelier of Restaurant Eve in Alexandria, Va., discussing our favorites from a tasting of 28 Loudoun County wines. Warning - the video is long, about 10 minutes, and I never really figure out what to do with my hands. And someone should give Todd a tissue. But after all, this was only 2 days after I got my nifty new Flip videocamera, so I was really really new to this.

Regional Wine Week Starts Tomorrow! (Oct. 11, that is … )

Regional Wine Week starts tomorrow, Sunday, October 11, and we’ve got an exciting lineup of bloggers and writers who will be writing about their local wines and wineries they’ve experienced on their travels around this great land. Remember, wine is now made in all 50 states – not just the West Coast! You might not know that if you rely only on the major wine publications, so let’s light up the blogosphere with reports on “wine from around here.”

So where will you be able to find these scintillating and fascinating reports, you ask? They will be linked at DrinkLocalWine.com, the Web site “Wine Curmudgeon” Jeff Siegel and I created last year for the first Regional Wine Week. Bookmark it and return throughout the week (and afterwards!) to see what new articles have been posted. Then you can discover some of the underground wine writers who are chronicling your local wine scene. If you're a Washington Post reader, you'll find my feature on Loudoun County, Virginia, wines in Wednesday's Food section.

Jeff and I will also try to remember to update our Twitter feeds #dlw09 and alert our Facebook friends and fans of DrinkLocalWine.com of new postings throughout the week.

Just as a tease, I will report on my recent visit to a winery that makes this singular boast on its welcome sign:

Can you guess? Leave a comment if you think you know. Then check in here and at DrinkLocalWine.com to find out.

It's Harvest Time!

The grape harvest is in full swing throughout the Northern Hemisphere. In my column today in The Washington Post, I give insights into how harvest is progressing in Bordeaux, Virginia and California – plus my monthly “Recession Busters” recommendations of eight terrific wines that cost $10 or less.

And don’t forget that next week is the second annual Regional Wine Week, during which bloggers around the country will write about “wine from around here, wherever ‘here’ might be.” These will be linked at DrinkLocalWine.com. Look for my Washington Post Food section feature next week on the quality explosion in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Regional Wine Week Coming, Oct. 11-17

Calling all wine bloggers! The second annual Regional Wine Week will be October 11 through 17. This is the week we encourage all wine bloggers, newspaper columnists, radio or TV talking heads, to feature “wine from around here – wherever here happens to be.”

Regional Wine Week was created last year by Jeff Siegel (The Wine Curmudgeon) and myself to highlight the impressive growth in quality of wine that is not made in the usual places (such as California, Oregon and Washington State.) This year we are hoping to get 50 or more bloggers to participate, and we will link to their posts on DrinkLocalWine.com. By leveraging Facebook and Twitter, who knows how many people we’ll be able to reach!

So if you blog about wine and would like to participate, please let us know. If you know someone who blogs about wine, please forward this post as an invitation for them to participate.

This is an exciting time for local wine – the Eat Local movement is beginning to realize that Drink Local is a logical part of any reasonable campaign for local agriculture.

Black Ankle Goes to Bethesda

Fans of the Bethesda Central Farm Market will have a chance to taste some local wine with all that local produce this Sunday, Sept. 13, from 9 am to 1 pm, when Black Ankle Vineyards will be pouring and selling their new Leaf Stone Syrah. According to market organizer Mitch Berliner, it is the first time a winery has been allowed to participate in a farm market in Maryland.

That may seem strange, considering a vineyard is nothing if not a farm. But of course, we’re talking alcoholic beverage here, so the laws and politics are different.

Berliner said he wanted wineries to participate in his market because wine should be part of the “eat local” movement. He picked a good winery to feature – Black Ankle just won the Maryland Governor’s Cup for the second year in a row with its 2007 Crumbling Rock, a Bordeaux-styled blend. Not bad for a winery that just opened its doors in 2007. The 2006 Crumbling Rock won the Governor’s Cup last year.

The 2007 Leaf Stone Syrah is no wallflower – it took “Best of Category” as best syrah in the recent Atlantic Seaboard WIne Competition, and created quite a buzz among the judges, including me. (“Leaf Stone” is another way of saying “Crumbling Rock,” and is emblematic of the soil at the Black Ankle vineyards, near Mt. Airy.)

As I wrote about Black Ankle a year ago in The Washington Post: “This is not your father’s Maryland wine.”

Don’t miss this chance to taste the wine, because you won’t see Ed Boyce and Sarah O’Herron, the husband-and-wife team behind the winery, at the farm market on a regular basis. Maryland law only allows a winery three special permits per county per year, and this is using up one of Black Ankle’s, Boyce said.

Berliner hopes to change that when the Maryland legislature convenes in January. It could be an exciting year for Maryland wine lovers, with hopes high that the legislature will also ease restrictions on having wine shipped directly to consumers’ homes.

For now, though, taste the Leaf Stone Syrah on Sunday. If it catches your fancy, there will also be a Farm Market dinner on Monday, Sept. 14, at Redwood restaurant in Bethesda Row, featuring Black Ankle wines. Cost is $75 per person.

For more info: http://www.bethesdacentralfarmmarket.com/ and http://www.blackankle.com/

DLW Conference Gets the Message Out

The DrinkLocalWine.com conference attracted about 70 people from around the country to discuss ways to promote regional wines against market preconceptions and the vagaries of the distribution system. The day culminated in the “Texas Twitter Tasteoff,” which you can follow on Twitter at #dlw09.

The audience at Le Cordon Bleu Institute of Culinary Arts in Dallas included local wine enthusiasts, Texas grape growers and winemakers, and bloggers not only from Texas but from as far afield as Colorado, Arizona, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and even California, many of whom tapped away at their laptops during the presentations and the tasting. Bloggers were a key audience for the conference – after all, DrinkLocalWine.com was created last year (by Dallas writer Jeff Siegel, aka “The Wine Curmudgeon,” and myself) as a portal site to link to bloggers covering regional wines from around North America.

And bloggers are an idea channel to reach regional wine’s key market – millenials. Richard Leahy, East Coast editor of Vineyard &Winery Management (the best wine magazine you’ve never heard of), made a persuasive argument that millenials are more open-minded about regional wines than older drinkers because they don’t care about which wines are endorsed by Robert Parker or the Wine Spectator and they want to experience wines for themselves rather than let someone else tell them what to drink. Fer Servadou, anyone?

Leahy, who blogs at RichardLeahy.com, also argued that wineries should avoid planting cabernet and chardonnay simply because of their popularity and focus on grape varieties suited for their climate. For our Texas hosts, that meant Mediterranean varieties such as tempranillo or sangiovese, Leahy said.

This ruffled Greg Bruni, winemaker at Llano Estacado, the second-largest winery in Texas (which boasts 177 wineries altogether, despite having fewer than 4,000 acres planted to vines). Bruni said any winery that wants to be commercially successful needs to grow cabernet because the consumers want to drink it.

Indeed, Bruni poured a delicious cabernet during the Twitter Tasteoff – at $12 a bottle it represents a tremendous value. That said, several wineries poured delicious tempranillo. And perhaps in the spirit of harmony, the winning red at the tasting was a tempranillo-cabernet blend from Inwood Estates in northern Texas.

The other winners included a racy and vibrant pinot blanc from Flat Creek Estate, a “port” styled sweet red from Sandstone Cellars, and a nearly unanimous crowd favorite, a “Madeira” from Haak Vineyards & Winery made from an exotic hybrid grape called blanc de bois.

Many people asked me, “Where are you going to do this next year?” Any wine regions want to step up?

The Texas Twitter Tasteoff