The Grumpy Winemaker

How Cold Was This Year and How Does the Winkler Scale work

2011-11-04T13:36:00.000-07:00

The Winkler Scale was developed to classify grape growing regions to help farmers and wineries plant the appropriate varieties for the climate. In summary, it looks like this.

<2500 GDD – Region I – It is similar to Burgundy, Champagne, Rhine, and the Willamette Valley. Recommended grapes include Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Riesling.

2500-3000 GDD - Region II – It is similar to Bordeaux and the Napa Valley. Recommended grapes include all region I grapes plus Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot.

3000-3500 GDD – Region III – it is similar to the Rhone Valley, Lake County, and Lodi. Recommended grapes include Syrah and Zinfandel.

The growing season ended October 31, even though harvest is still going on. Here is the scoop:

Wahluke	3070
Red Mountain	2715
Mattawa	2680
Horse Heaven	2662
Walla	2562
Rattlesnake	2545
Prosser Flats	2199

Wahluke claims 3070 degree days, which puts it into California Region III (Lodi and Lake County) even in a cool year. Nearby Mattawa registered 2680 – somewhat cooler near the river. Wahluke consistently ranks in Region III and is the warmest AVA in Washington.

Red Mountain did well in this cool year with 2715. Horse Heaven came in next with 2662 and Rattlesnake Hills and Walla are virtually tied at 2554 and 2562 respectively. All of these AVAs consistently rank in Region II, just like the Napa Valley and Bordeaux.

All the major AVA’s did okay in this cool year and should produce good wines and in particular Bordeaux reds without vegetative flavors.

Sagebrush Ridge as usual was quite cool with only 2199 growing degree days. Here is the data for the last five years:

2011 2199

2010 2331

2009 2665

2008 2400

2007 2364

It is clear that the Yakima Valley (most of the grapes are grown on Sagebrush Ridge) should be classified as Region I. Unlike what some folks with PhDs from UC Davis say, Sagebrush Ridge is NOT the same climate as the Rattlesnake Hills. It is definitely cooler down there in Prosser Flats. This was not a good year for Yakima Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

Rain was a factor this year with bunch rot with rot-prone varieties like Riesling, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir. The rain award goes to Walla with 1.31 inches during the fall ripening season (September 1 to October 31.) Red Mountain received the least with only 0.33 in.

The first day of frost was almost uniform across the region occurring either October 24 or 25 with the exception of Red Mountain and higher areas in the Rattlesnake Hills. As of November 4 it has not frosted above 1100 feet in the Rattlesnake Hills.

.Chuck Fiola Seriously Injured in Tractor Accident

2011-10-27T16:14:00.000-07:00

Monday night Chuck Fiola, owner of Konnowac Vineyards, was critically injured while loading a truck with grapes from his 18 acre vineyard here in the Rattlesnake Hills. I got a call Tuesday afternoon from Ashley at Flying Trout that the accident happened and that Chuck had been flown to Harborview and was in critical condition in intensive care.

Let me digress a little here. You probably haven’t heard of Chuck or Konnowac Vineyards even though it was planted in the early ‘80s in the Rattlesnake Hills and has been supplying fine grapes to wineries all over the state. The reason is the Wine Commission from their ivory towers in Seattle is only aware of four vineyards in the state. They should get off their fat salaries and see the people who pay their bills. When someone wants to do an article about vineyards in Washington, it contacts the Wine Commission and they give the same four names. Rather than do some research and find a new story, they follow the lead and we get the same old story (yawn) over and over again. Find some new material, guys.

Little is known how the accident happened, but I believe he has one of those forklift attachments on his tractor. He was loading a flatbed truck in the dark on uneven ground and the tractor tipped over on to him, crushing his pelvis.

Ashley indicated that they needed help getting the rest of the crop off for Chuck. I made a couple of calls and within two hours I had four tractors and five crews ready to pitch in. Pat Rawn, Two Mountain Winery and Sheridan Vineyards offered up a crew and a tractor, Bonair was able to spare a tractor and could probably get a crew, Roger Althoff, Tanjuli Winery offered to be a crew boss and coordinate picking, and Joe Hattrup, Elephant Mountain Vineyards offered to take care of it all. In the end, Joe did the whole thing since his vineyard is only a quarter of a mile up the road and the rest of us are several miles away. All the wineries that had contracted grapes (yes, we have grapes here in the Rattlesnake Hills this year – lots of them) were taken care of as well as Chuck’s vineyard.

I think it is a great story about how in a short amount of time, neighbors can rally to help a fellow farmer in need. Thank you to all that volunteered and a big thanks to Joe Hattrup, Elephant Mountain Vineyard for getting it done.

Chuck isn’t out of the woods by a long way. He is still in an induced coma facing more surgery, but we hope he gets better really soon.

No on 1183

2011-10-21T15:12:00.000-07:00

Who is for 1183? Costco Wholesale

Who is against 1183? The Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) and the public employee unions.

The US government chooses sides by the old saw, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” That is why we armed Sadam Hussein, so he could kick the crap out of Iran. I feel the same about this battle. WSWA is definitely the enemy and so are public employee unions, but that doesn’t make Costco my friend. The consumer will only benefit from lower prices due to a smaller selection. If you shop at Costco, you know that you buy what Costco sells, not what you want.

Costco wants to control the market in wine. I’ve covered this before on the previous referendum. They want to import wine from China or wherever and sell it for a dollar a bottle – One Buck Luck I called it.

Do we really want to turn the whole industry over to a couple of big box stores? Do we all want to play, “let’s make a deal” with Costco? I’ve offer Costco some pretty good deals and they don’t even return phone calls. If the Family Wineries of Washington think they can compete in this market all I can say is “Good luck.”

The sad part of this is that the small distributors will be forced out of business. I need my distributors to sell my wine – not Costco.

There are nearly 800 wineries in Washington. If each only offered five wines to Costco, they would have to wholesale 4000 wines. They are not going to do this. They will go big and they will go cheap.

Protect our small distributors and medium-to-small wineries by voting NO on 1183. Don’t swap the state monopoly for the Costco monopoly.

Brix Too Low? Time for a Costco Run

2011-10-13T11:40:00.000-07:00

We have become spoiled with high brix (percent sugar for non-winery people) in Washington State. It is so bad that a restaurant in Walla named itself 26 Brix (or was it 16% Alcohol?). Our philosophy is to make food friendly wines under 14%, so we often have to bring out the Jesus machine. What’s that you ask? Well, Jesus’ first miracle was to turn water into fine wine. It still works today, but now we call it a hose. This year is perfect for natural wines. No messing around.

Winemakers new to the industry (most of them) are freaking out over low sugars this year. I got an email from WSU last week suggesting methods of amelioration (adding sugar for non-winery people.) Blasphemy, you say. The Europeans have been doing it for years. They make great wines with low-sugar grapes. If you really want hot wine, freeze it in a tank and do a freeze distillation. If it’s alcohol you are looking for, that will do the trick.

What winemakers don’t know is that flavor and ripeness are key over raw sugar (read alcohol) power. Do a little math. 21 brix translates into 12.5% alcohol. Wines used to top out at 13% alcohol. It is only with the Parkerization of wine that people expect wine to taste alcoholic like a mixed drink made from raisins and prunes, with no acid (read flabby). I get people all the time in the tasting room, “I am looking for a big red.” Oh, you mean a highly alcoholic beverage that is overly extracted and tastes like prunes and raisins, without varietal character like Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot. Try someplace else.

I am looking to see some exceptional wines this year – more European in nature. Fruit flavors are super this year and the pyrazines are starting to disappear here in the Rattlesnake Hills.

As for the dumb sh!t who wants a big red, gas up your SUV and pray for global warming.

The Day the Music Died or The Music Nazis Are after You.

2011-10-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

Do you play the radio, some CD’s, or maybe the MP3 player in your tasting room? Do you have an event with a band? Beware, the music Nazis are out to get you.

Who are the music Nazis? They are the people that collect royalties for artists and composers for copyrighted work. They are called BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.), ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Artists and Producers) and SESAC (which stand for nothing).

BMI and ASCAP are big. They control most of the music you listen to. SESAC controls R&B and gospel music – probably something you don’t play often in your tasting room, but play one song and you owe!

I’m not opposed to paying artists for their work. They deserve it. But, general licensing fees are shared among the top 200 radio plays – not the artists you are playing. So you might play the Eagles and the money goes to Lady Gaga. It is not a fair system. Radio stations keep logs and the money goes to the actual artist.

Most of you are saying you can just ignore them. Wrong! Not only do they have the power of the law (thank you Congress) on their side, they have spies and lots of attorneys. You are guaranteed to lose if you fight the Music Mafia. They make Al Capone look like a bicycle thief.

How much does the Music Mafia want from you to play the radio? It is unclear because individual deals can be negotiated, but about $2500 per year. The price of their product far exceeds the value.

How do I know all this? Last year we started to get letters from SESAC telling us we had to buy their license. We ignored it because all the CDs we were playing were ASCAP and BMI. Then BMI found out that we had live music Saturday afternoon and they wanted their cut. Well, our live music was a Russian composer and artist who played his own copyrighted music, so we didn’t owe them a dime but they continued to get quite nasty. His music is registered with BMI and he finally called them and told them to back off. He can play his own music and sell CDs at our winery if he wishes. BMI backed off. SESAC continues to send letters.

Frankly I don’t like music in the tasting room, but the ladies do so we had to find a solution. Buying three overpriced licenses was out of the question.

One option is Muzac, the people who invented elevator music for the brain-dead. Muzak takes care of all licensing hassles with your contract. Muzak’s website wasn’t really helpful in figuring out a cost and we really didn’t want to treat our customers as brain-dead wine-drinking zombies anyway.

Our solution was quite simple; SiriusXM Radio for business. All licensing is taken care of by SirusXM, so you can tell the music Nazis to chuck off. They offer a large selection of stations to suit your winery ambience including 30 talk-free commercial free Channels just for businesses. Once you buy the internet radio, the cost is $35 per month with no contract.

And people wonder why I am grumpy!

Washington Wine Industry Loses a Pioneer

2011-09-29T16:53:00.000-07:00

You won’t read about M. Taylor Moore (aka Mike Moore) in any of those slick rags about the Washington wine scene. (Well, you might now as a footnote -an obituary.) In fact, his winery is not even listed on the Washington Wine Commission official web site. Mike died September 27, 2011 at age 55. Mike will be missed.

I could tell you lots of stories about Mike, having known him since the inception of Bonair Winery in 1985. But now is not the time to share those stories. These are the stories that make Washington wine interesting, unlike stories about the latest rock star who appears in every glossy publication with the same boring story about handcrafting ultra premium parkerized wine (and who often goes quietly out of business a few years later.)

I got to know Mike because in the old days, everyone (like the owners and winemakers) participated in every event and we being Bonair were always between Blackwood Canyon and Bookwalter in alphabetical order.

I also got to know his wife and father-in-law. His father-in-law was a set painter for the MacGyver TV series which was filmed in British Columbia. They were regulars at Bonair on their way to Blackwood Canyon.

Mike’s 1986 Pinnacle was his first claim to fame. Later, his chardonnay was declared best in the state by none other than Robert Parker. Mike told me he sold out the day of the announcement.

Mike strived to make wines in the old-world style. I find them reminiscent of the wines of Jura; perhaps a style he admired.

People would ask me if they should visit Blackwood Canyon. I always said definitely yes, but be prepared to stay a minimum of three hours. I thought their visit would be much more memorable than a visit to a corporate-owned tasting room with polite women who announce, “This is a nice white wine.”

So, I propose a toast to M. Taylor Moore – and to all the forgotten pioneers of the Washington wine industry. May they live forever in our hearts and minds!

Yelp Twerps

2011-09-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

Picky picky is about all I can say about people who post on Yelp.com. They are some of the most inane people in the world. Here are some examples from our Yelp comments:

“I would have loved to tried (sic) this winery, but their no dog policy caused us to move on to the next winery” That’s funny. Bung, the Wonder Dog, roams the premises all day. We have a dog park where no leash is required. Oh, you wanted to bring your mutt into the tasting room? All wineries have at least a level III restaurant license. Because we serve food, we have a level II license. Sorry, in the state of Washington, only service animals are allowed in restaurants. Learn the law, dude, and while you are at it get a class in writing.

“I tasted the Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and the Bung Dog Red and none of them did anything for me, they weren't awful or anything like that I just didn't care for them. They didn't taste big and bold and fresh I'm not really sure what they tasted like but it didn't do it for me.” This is definitely someone to listen to. “I'm not really sure what they tasted like” Maybe they tasted like wine; then maybe not? Maybe you expected Peppermint Schnapps? Please don’t write about things you don’t know about. Sorry, I forgot. This is Yelp and every dumba$$ is an expert.

“ the prosciutto wrapped shrimp being bad, I like fresh things” Humm. We call fresh prosciutto raw pork. Is that what you expected – fresh-cut raw pork? We are sorry to have disappointed you, but most people like their prosciutto cured (processed) and aged. (The next day she went to I-Hop, which she loved, and couldn’t decide between the Fresh Belgian Waffle and the Fresh large stack of pancakes.) She says she won’t come back. I hope she can keep a promise.

“The group of us were really bothered by how the older man was really condescending to the woman helping us, as he continued to interrupt her” Okay, it was Michelle’s first day and she needed a lot of information. I apologized to her; after all, she is my daughter-in-law and I love her dearly. Yes, the older man was the Grumpy Winemaker, himself!

“ you step into the tasting room and things start to go south. It has a kitschy old world decor that feels very dated and forced, and you're not quite sure if the space is there to support retail merchandise sales or sampling wine.” Okay, you don’t like the tapestries. They are actually there for a reason. With tile floors and hard walls, the room acoustics are awful, so the kitschy old world décor is at least functional. Lighten up for chrisake. Most people head to the gifts first and wine tasting second. (Read on, you are the alcoholic.)

“It wasn't that busy when we arrived, but the hostess immediately assigned everyone to designated locations at the counter, apparently to make things easier for her than optimize the visitor experience.” Duh, our tasting bar is 50 feet long. So you wanted to be at the far end by yourself for a private tasting. By the time you got served, our hostess would have had to walk 6 X 50 or 300 feet, (100 yards, or the length of a football field to serve you.) Our bar is set up for four hosts behind the counter. When we only have one server, use the section that is open a$$hole.

“ there really wasn't anything that spoke to me. I did buy a bottle of their Cab Franc for us to share on the patio just so I could honor my commitment to buy one bottle at every winery we visited, but I wouldn't have otherwise.” I read your whole thread. You tried unlimited wines at a neighboring winery, commented about the generous pours, and came here and drank a bottle of Cabernet Franc. You need alcohol treatment. Same guy, “You're allowed just four meager complimentary tastes from their short list of standard wine selections.” State law limits us to four ounces per customer. We take over-serving seriously. Probably our hostess limited your portions because you already appeared intoxicated and we should not have served you at all.

It is interesting to switch from a business’ post to the poster’s posts. It reveals a lot about the poster – mainly how stupid and opinionated they are.

Basically, Yelp sucks. The people who post are neither helpful nor intelligent. I would suggest using http://www.tripadvisor.com for recommendations. The people who comment there appear much more intelligent and informative.

Are we there yet, Daddy?

2011-09-01T16:44:00.000-07:00

There is growing concern over this year’s grape harvest and desired ripeness. Here is the Grumpy Winemaker’s best guess.

As of August 31, 2011 we have accumulated 1882 growing degree days (GDD) in the Rattlesnake Hills. Véraison seems to be in full gear finally and we are getting some sugar. In fact, my Black Manukas are California ripe. (California ripe is defined by the stuff you buy in the grocery store and is never really very sweet because it was picked early for shipping.) In a week they should be edible.

Since the failure of Global Warming, which is now climate change, here is my prediction: In the past five years between September 1 and October 15, we have averaged 465 GDD. The least was in 2007 with 417 GDD and the most was 2010 with 498. Taking the average and adding it to the current GDD I get 2347 GDD for 2011. That is my prediction for the Rattlesnake Hills and I am sticking to it.

2300 GDD is the minimum in my experience for ripening Bordeaux varieties beyond vegetative flavors. In other words, we will squeak by and harvest everything by November 1.

I did not have time to do the calculations for other areas. Red Mountain, Wahluke, and Horse Heaven should be fine. Prosser Flats, on the other hand might be a bit short.

Looking for Véraison

2011-08-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

For those of you not in the wine industry, Véraison is not a sexy French chick; it is when the grapes start to ripen. The black grapes take on color and the white grapes turn translucent. This usually happens the second week of August in the Rattlesnake Hills AVA. So far, we have a little véraison in Merlot, Gewürztraminer, and Black Manukas (an early seedless table grape). I have even checked out the big boys’ vineyards where they are cropped back to two tons per acre to make that big, high alcohol, Parker-style wine and they don’t have véraison either. Late harvest Cabernet, anyone?

As you probably already know, it has been a very cold summer in the Pacific Northwest. How cold was it you ask? We count our growing season by Growing Degree Days or GDD. Let’s look at this summer. We have accumulated 1591 GDD between April 1 and August 19. Most people aren’t old timers in the Washington wine industry like me, but I remember the summer of 1993 – known as the summer that never came. That summer by August 19 we had accumulated 1695 GDD. We are about 100 GDD behind the coldest summer in my 31 year career in the Washington wine industry. By the way, there were no spectacular wines from 1993. The newcomers considered 2010 a cool year and we had accumulated 1880 GDD by now. In a normal year we should have about 2000 GDD by August 19. I would guess we are about 3 weeks behind. It looks like Al Gore packed up his global warming and took it back to Tennessee. Climate change, anyone?

Prosser Flats, unlike the Rattlesnake Hills, only has 1356 GDD on August 19. Red Mountain, on the other hand, has 1716 – better, but still no cigar.

We need at least 2300 GDD to harvest Bordeaux varieties, but we would prefer at least 2600 GDD for optimum quality. We are presently getting around 20 GDD per day.The next five days are forecast to be above average and that is good news. A long warm fall can save our butts.

One the bright side, unlike some AVAs in the state, we do have grapes!

More Federal Regulation Stupidity

2011-08-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

We have in the past used pyrotechnic devices to protect the vineyards from marauding birds. But, the Federal Government, in all of its wisdom, has classified them as high explosives and we need a bunker as pictured here to store them. Always before, a box of 50 was stored in the pickup where they are used from. See some birds, launch a screamer and they would leave.

I also have to get a federal explosives license, the same one used for dynamite. This involves being finger printed, photographed, and interviewed by an ATF agent.
If I see some birds in the vineyard, I have to go to the bunker and log out a screamer shell, drive back to the vineyard and fire it if the birds are still there. If not, I have to drive back to the bunker and log it back in.
Funny thing, around the Fourth of July, I can buy bigger explosives from the Indians down on the reservation. Yep, M-80’s, no problemo. Or, consider this; I can buy a 5-pound can of black powder from a gun store without a license.
These little ‘bird bangers’ are a pistol launched firecracker or racket cartridge. They contain less than ½ ounce of black powder.
Obviously, I’m not going to build a bunker to store some firecrackers. This year the old shot gun comes out. Next year, I’ll buy a bunch of bottle rockets from the Indians. They can be launched from a PVC tube and should work just fine.
If you are looking for stupidity, look no further than your federal government.

Bureaucrats

2011-07-16T11:57:00.000-07:00

I haven’t been really grumpy lately, until I went to pick up some spray from our local farm store. As usual, I arrived with my 55 gallon drum strapped in the back of the pickup for the Omni oil. Omni oil is highly refined mineral oil (baby oil) with an adjuvant that allows it to be mixed with water. For a lot more money, it comes in an organic formulation for farmers who want to fool city people into believing that ‘organic’ produce is never sprayed with pesticides. Instead, they send hippie children and spaced-out hippie chicks in long dresses out to the fields to pick the leaf hoppers off the vines by hand while rainbows dance overhead. You’ve got to love the myth.
Back to the story. I was informed by Randy that they could no longer fill my drum with baby oil. Due to new federal regulations, I had to a) buy it in 2 ½ gallon jugs, b) 30 gallon drums, or c) rent one of their totes with a minimum of 50 gallons fill. They were out of 30 gallon drums, so I rented a tote and bought 70 gallons – enough for two applications.
The first tote leaked, so we had to get another and transfer the contents into the second one, a somewhat messy process. The appropriate ‘Pesticide label’ was applied to my baby oil and away I went.
When I got home, the back of the truck was covered with oil. Mind you, when I put it in my own container I never spilled a drop. But some dumbass bureaucrat in DC decided that they had a better idea and forced it on the nation. Thank you USDA. I feel safer about my food and the environment already. Keep up the good work. At this rate, our food supply might be safe by 2090 – that is if we have any food in 2090. Maybe that’s the plan. No food is safe food. People can’t get food borne illnesses if they don’t eat. Makes sense to me.
Not only is our country broke, it is broken and since we have the best congress money can buy, there is no hope.
As the Chad Mitchell Trio once sang:
“Should I write my congressman?”
“Each Congressman has two ends, a sitting end and a thinking end. And since his whole success depends upon his seat, why bother, friend?”

Why We Don’t Ship to Texas – or California for That Matter

2011-06-08T13:40:00.001-07:00

One of our local wineries inquired about shipping laws to Texas. Although this information is available online, here is the personal response he got from the nice lady at the Alcohol Beverage Commission:

From: Carolyn Beck [mailto:Carolyn.Beck@tabc.state.tx.us]
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2011 8:34 AM
To: Jim
Subject: RE: Permit

It is $470 for a two-year permit.

You will also be required to obtain a sales tax permit from the Texas Comptroller's Office.

Tax security is required in an amount of $1,000 to adequately protect the state against the anticipated tax liability and may be submitted as a: liquor tax bond from a surety company authorized to do business in Texas, or a letter of credit, or assignment of certificate of deposit or savings account from a Texas bank or credit union. These forms are available on the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission web site at www.tabc.state.tx.us. Once you have been in business 36 months and have paid your taxes timely, you may request an exemption from the tax liability requirement on the Application for Bond Exemption Form C-26. This form is available under "Other Forms" on the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission web site.

You can find additional information about the out of state winery direct shipper's permit here:

http://www.tabc.state.tx.us/laws/texas_wine.asp#shipLawOut

Carolyn Beck

Director of Communications and Governmental Relations

Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission

512-206-3347

Carolyn.Beck@tabc.state.tx.us

Well, that sounds simple, Carolyn. I think every Washington winery will be signing up to sell that one case a year. We wouldn't want to disappoint a customer. Believe it or not, in defense of Carolyn, she doesn't make the law. This is the 'model' shipping law as proposed by the California Wine Institute. The California version is only $10 per year for the license and the tax liability amount is only $500 (cash, no bond, deposited in a California bank payable to the Late Great State of California). I guess California wineries have more money and ship more wine than Washington wineries.

It looks like Texans are stuck with American white zinfandel vinted and bottled by Llano Estacado.

Amerika, land of the regulated and home of the bureaucrat!

Spring Has Sprung in the Rattlesnake Hills

2011-06-03T11:49:00.001-07:00

And yes, the grapes budded out just fine. The old saw that you need to be above 1200 feet was invented in frosty Prosser Flats where that is indeed the magic number. Unfortunately, it is also the summit of Sagebrush Ridge. It does not hold true for the Rattlesnake Hills.

We are expecting a full crop here at the Ch. Puryear Vineyard which sits at 900 feet elevation at the southern border of the Rattlesnake Hills AVA. (No the AVA does not extend down to the Yakima River, nor does it go over the summit of the Rattlesnake Hills into the frosty Moxee Valley.) Our Morrison Vineyard at 1200 feet is also doing well. Hyatt Vineyards, at about 1000 feet, seems to have a full crop even in the bottom of a large canyon.

The only damage we received was in the Touriga Nacional. It sits in the coldest part of the vineyard which isn't probably the ideal location for this variety. Fortunately, I have a cellar full of Touriga Port. We expect about half a crop from this little block. The Pinot Noir block right next to it is fine.

Yes, Patricia, the Rattlesnake Hills is a "real" AVA even though it uses a power line as a boundary just like Red Mountain. It also has some demonstrable advantages over other fine growing regions in Washington.

Now we need those superior growing degree days that the Rattlesnake Hills AVA is known for to ripen this crop.

The Washington Wine Commission Board

2011-05-18T10:07:00.001-07:00

I'm always complaining about the Washington Wine Commission. I just got an email from the Family Wineries of Washington State telling me that there are three positions open on the WWC board. Okay, I am ready to serve!

In the past, the Washington Wine Institute interviewed candidates and recommended them to the State Agriculture Director who is in charge of making the appointments.

My wife and Cathy Preston went through this. At the time there were no women on the WWC board and either of them (both winery principals) would have been a good candidate….except, the WWI already had preselected the candidate before the interview. Half the board walked out during my wife's interview leaving a couple of people to ask questions. It was very degrading. The chosen candidate? A first-year male employee of some club member's winery. Have I mentioned the Washington wine industry is clubby? So, the WWC commission continued as an all male chauvinist organization. (They now have two women on the board, although one is non-voting.)

Back to running for the board. Positions 1, 11, and 12 are open.

"Position One: The Position One appointee must represent a winery producing not less than one million gallons of Washington wine annually. This is a particularly important position given that RCW 15.88.100 potentially gives the Position One member a vote that outweighs all other Commission members votes combined."

I guess that position is reserved for Ste. Mickey himself. It makes one wonder if the WWC isn't just a marketing arm of Ste. Mickey's that we help pay for.

I guess I'll go for position 11.

'Position Eleven: The Position Eleven Member in accordance with RCW 15.88.030 "shall be a wine distributor licensed under RCW 66.24.200."'

Well, I am not a distributor, so I don't qualify here either. My assumption is that one of Ste. Mickey's distributors gets this job, so the ducks can be kept in a line.

Okay, I'll go for position 12.

'Position Twelve: The Position Twelve member is a non-voting member of the Wine Commission that must, in accordance with RCW 15.88.030 represent "a wine producer in this state whose principal wine or wines are produced from fruit other than vinifera grapes." It is not clear to us why the Position Twelve fruit wine producer has no vote while the Position Eleven non-producing wholesaler's representative has a vote, but that is the current law."'

Damn, I don't qualify there either. Why would anyone volunteer to serve on a board with no vote or say? In fact, it looks like the whole board is just a sham, since one member controls the whole board.

Well, Mr. Gregutt, you asked how to improve the WWC. It looks to be an impossible task.

Response to Unposted Response to My Last Blog

2011-04-23T14:18:00.001-07:00

Picture Jack Nicholson in your mind, if you will, and listen to him say, "You can't handle the truth!"

Truth is people do not like to visit wineries with cop cars parked in front or ones with armed mercenaries roaming the grounds. Our guests are not criminals and I think there are better ways of dealing with the few who cause problems – like limit the amount of alcohol poured.

I try to keep this blog a 'reality' show (your words) because most blogs are not. They are 'spin' shows. As Bill says, "The spin stops here." Yes, I try to be humorous because the wine industry as a whole lacks humor. It takes itself much too seriously. Any winery wannabee who reads this blog will have a lot better business plan than if they consult the Washington Wine Commission. If they read this blog and still decide to start a winery, more power to them. I wish them all the success in the world and welcome them to the industry.

As far as 'leadership' (your word again) goes, writing the petition to establish the Rattlesnake Hills AVA was an antiestablishment act in and of itself. (I won't repeat the caustic comments again.) I am not a member of 'the club' and don't intend to be. If you would read more, you would see I wrote a letter in support of the establishment of the Snipes Mountain AVA. I think I support the industry more than the people who wrote letters opposing the RHAVA petition. They did serious damage to the reputation of the Washington wine industry yet they are looked up to as 'the leaders.' I know, the truth hurts.

As for the Washington Wine Commission, a lot of wineries – especially in this region- think the WWC does little more than take our money. (How much money? That's another blog.)

I too served on the WWI board. It has since become irrelevant and not representative of the state as a whole. I now belong to the Family Wineries of Washington State.

I am not going to post your open letter because I think you might want to rethink it. But should you choose, you are welcome to post the original letter or a response to this blog.

The Washington wine industry is mature enough for a frank conversation. Let's see if we can handle the truth.

Spring Barrel Tasting Goes Well

2011-04-18T13:22:00.001-07:00

It was really nice that the people from Puget Sound (aka Seattle to the locals) braved whiteout conditions and avalanches to attend the Spring Barrel event in the Yakima Valley. Numbers were probably up from the old days, but what with so many wineries, attendance at individual wineries was down. We here at Bonair had about 1500 visitors and they spent more money than in either of the previous two years, but it was nothing like the good old days when there were only 30 wineries in the valley and we divided all that money by 30, not 100. (Note to next new winery; divide by 101)

The crowd was younger and there were many more women than men. That is good in two ways. Women make most wine-buying decisions and it is great to see the younger crowd enjoying wines. We really sold the hell out of our sweet Riesling. Our older customers just find it hard to get out of the retirement home when the weather isn't perfect. We really miss them, though. In their place, we had a lot of Latinos, a really important customer base.

Other than a winery with gun toting guards and another with three Sheriff's cars parked out front, I didn't hear anything bad. We didn't have any people we had to refuse to serve due to inebriation and Yes, Mr. Liquor Board Man, we carded all who entered the gates and found not one underage person trying to attend the event. Just in case, though, you have a good solution to a nonexistent problem.

It seems some wineries look upon this event as an opportunity to turn off customers by poor organization and surly regimentation. I think this is the biggest opportunity to gain new customers that we have. This is where they get royal treatment and become returning customers. We even put a sign out on the main road advertising 'FREE Wine Tasting – No Pass? No Problem' just to get people who were tired of shelling out $5 at every winery after buying a $50 pass. I want people to try our wine. The wine will sell itself. I guess if your wine isn't very good and/or overpriced and people aren't buying, charging makes sense. I, personally, would rather pay to taste bad/expensive wine and walk out than feel obligated to buy a bottle.

I still think wineries serve too much alcohol. One winery had seven samples of bottled wine and a port from the barrel. If they were serving one-ounce pours, a person could become looped at just one winery. At Bonair, we used ½ ounce PosiPours and gave people 4 tickets to choose from 9 wines (Two dry whites, three sweeter wines and four dry reds.) The barrel sample didn't require a ticket, so the most a person could get was 2.5 ounces. By limiting the choice to four out of nine, people paid attention to what they were consuming. Only one dumbass said, "Start me at the top." When he got to the sweet Riesling, he was done. No tickets left for red wine. One person commented, "That's not very much wine (½ ounce) for a ticket." And our pourer responded, "How much did you pay for the ticket? (free)." Enough said. The PosiPours were a big help when everyone has a different size glass (like the woman with the giant margarita glass). They are much faster because you don't have to watch and guess when to stop. It is all automatic.

Futures from our barrel, the 2009 Morrison Vineyard, Estate Bottled, Rattlesnake Hills Cabernet Sauvignon, sold well.

So, if you attended or worked Spring Barrel in the Yakima Valley, your perceptions would be appreciated.

I’m Lovin’ It!

2011-04-10T11:03:00.001-07:00

We recently moved into our new downsized house. As part of the downsizing, we ditched the land-line telephone and DirecTV. (It seems the only thing on TV these days is 'reality' shows; be they medical shows about somebody who let their ass grow to the size of Volkswagen Beetle or just some alcoholics from New Jersey getting sh1tfaced in front of a camera while Bruce Jenner looks retarded.) So now I watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on the internet. (Damn, no channel surfing during commercials.) But, I have learned something from a commercial.

What does your $50 bottle of wine and a Big Mac have in common? Here it is and I quote, "McDonalds Big Mac is handcrafted for that one of a kind taste and made just for you!"

Wow, does your precious wine taste like a cheap hamburger? Maybe, just maybe, this hackneyed word can be removed from the winery lexicon once and forever.

You can bet, "I'm lovin' it!"

Where Have All the People Gone?

2011-04-01T11:01:00.001-07:00

Sing to the tune of Where Have All the Flowers Gone? In the old days, spring break was the time for teachers to hit the road and go wine tasting. (Hey, I used to be in education, so any excuse to drink is a good one.) Then the school districts started taking different weeks for spring break, so the crowds were spread over a three-week period. Not a problem, lots of teachers in need of alcohol made for three good weeks.

Then you can add the fact that the number of wineries went from 100 to 600 in a short time span while the number of teachers remained about the same (although with all the new initiatives and lack of funding in public education, the need to drink is much higher.)

This year Mutha Nachur has not cooperated, either. It didn't snow all winter, but decided to make up for it in the spring. As I write this on April 1, Stevens Pass is closed indefinitely due to avalanche danger. Since our main source of wine drinkers is from Puget Sound and must travel over the dreaded Snoqualmie Pass, tourist traffic has been light. Well, look on the bright side. We at least we have lots of irrigation water this year.

Upon quizzing tourists that do arrive we find they are visiting a few wineries in the Rattlesnake Hills, then going to visit a few elsewhere like Prosser Flats or Walla. In the old days, when there were about 24 wineries in the Yakima Valley, people would spend a day seeing all of them in Zillah Zillah, then a day in Prosser, and finish off with Red Mountain. Every winery saw every visitor.

Now we can add a new dimension; $5.00 gasoline. Two years ago when gas hit $4.00 per gallon I bought a Honda Fit so I could still go when and where I pleased. Granted, it only holds about 18 cases of wine, but that would make the trip worthwhile. But people are slow learners. I still see new Yuckon Duhnali Tahoo XLT gas guzzlers. They are great for hauling wine but can cost $100 for a fill up. I can put 100 cases of wine in my Dodge Ram 2500 SLT but I am lucky to get 14 miles per gallon downhill with a tailwind. When I turn on the key it sounds like a toilet flushing. (1.6 gpf by federal mandate)

Spring Barrel Tasting is in two weeks. That is the official start of wine tourism season. We will see if the people come out or not. I'll keep you posted.

I Don't Get It. You Must be 21 to Enter

2011-03-10T17:38:00.001-08:00

Are we talking porn here? At 16 I can walk down the wine aisle at the grocery store. I can sit at a table where wine is being served in a restaurant. I can go into a Washington State Liquor store. I can even drink wine in my parents' house. I can visit hard-core porn sites without a question asked. But I can't visit a winery website.

I have given career presentations to high school students about job opportunities in the wine industry and what they must do to prepare for them, but these students can't do any research online because they can't visit a winery website. (Sure, right, in your dreams) What attorney's brain fart is this? Who the hell are they trying to fool with this nonsense? What's next, you have to use your credit card for age verification to visit Ste. Mickey's website?

Oh, I get the scenario. "Hey Dude, I'm tired of drinking Buttwiper out of a can. This Friday we are having a party up at the gravel pit. I think I will go to Ste. Mickey's website and check out some table wines. Brad is bringing potato chips, so maybe a nice syrah. I prefer Doritos, so probably a full-bodied cab." (Type, type, type www. Stemickey.com.) "What the F***. I'm only 18, so I can't get on. Oh well, I'll pick up twelve pack of Clydesdale piss at the local minimart."

Does this really make sense? I just logged on the Columbia Crest's website as a person who is 111 years old. Wow, this is really secure age verification. I guess I can't sue them if I get plastered with their wine and trip on my walker. I entered the Snap Dragon Winery web site at 119 years old. I guess they think wine drinkers are getting older.

This is even dumber when you click on a direct link into the website from Google. You can skip the charade about being 111 years old. The test only comes when you enter through the 'home' page.

Want to know how to grow marijuana? Just type 'grow marijuana' and click on the first link. No goofy 'age verification' there. Want to smoke cigarettes? Philip Morris doesn't ask your age. Maybe that's because smokers don't live to be 119.

I must be Dense - or Just Cheap

2011-02-28T15:56:00.001-08:00

While perusing the Sunday ads, I came across Freddy Meyer's grocery ads. I'm always looking for something on sale to throw into my freezer for future use. Holy Bat $hit. Freddy is giving away wine. This stuff didn't get 95 in the Expectorator or win a gold medal at the Kansas Livestock Exhibition and International Wine Tasting, but it is all decent wine.

As an old winemaker, I remember the days when wine quality was based a lot on winemaking skill, not just the quality of the grapes. Those days are gone in the supermarket; although alive and well at some boutique wineries. The wines you find on the shelf today are technically perfect.

Someone once asked me, "Why doesn't Gallo make good wine?" I answered, "Because they chose not to." (Actually, Gallo does make some nice wines, but avoids the "ultra premium" market because there is no money there. Gallo has the best enologists and technology in the world and can make anything they chose to make.)

Back to Freddy. WOW! Look for the orange tags. I can have Ste. Mickey, Columbia Crest, Fetzer, Two Vines (Columbia Crest redux), Yellow Tail (all guys like a little tail now and then), or Bandit for $5.99. but wait, that's not all. If I buy six bottles, they will take off 10%. So for $32.35 (the price of one bottle of ultra-premium, hand crafted, award-winning, ultra-hyphenated, blah-blah wine) I can have six bottles which is almost a week's worth - well, more like three or four days' worth of wine.

Okay, so you are a wine snob. For $6.99 ($37.75 a week) I can get Red Diamond (Columbia Crest Redux part deux), Hogue, BV Coastal Estate, Snap Dragon, or Bear Flag.

The list goes on. I can get Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Zinfandel, Riesling, Syrah, Gnarly Head (I'll take some of that!), or sparkling wine for under $10 per bottles.

I've already exposed Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. What does it take to convince you the glory days of the wine industry are over? People are now having fun drinking wine. It's great to buy a bottle for $5.99 and find it is a really good wine. If it is, you go back and stock up with a case. Oops, there goes my wine budget for one bottle of Bobby Parker's sacred wines you can't find anyway. So, if it wasn't so great. It's alcohol. What's the problem, dude?

If you see some winery whose marketing plan is to sell to 'upper end restaurants and wine shops' please refer them to this blog. They need to get a bottle of Hot to Trot. Just $8.99 at Freddy's.

The Rule of 100 or Can the Wine Industry Survive - Anywhere?

2011-02-18T11:32:00.001-08:00

Without giving reference to this blog, I got a national rebuttal straightening me out on some facts they thought I had missed - or did I?

My chastisement was for comparing Washington grape/wine prices to California's San Joaquin Valley grape/wine prices. I suppose I shouldn't compare Washington grape/wine prices with Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, Spain, France, Italy, or South Africa, either. The bottom line is Washington wine is sold in a global market (although few wineries export) and our 700 wineries must compete with everyone - not just the boys and girls from Napa and Sonoma. The last I heard was that a paltry one in five bottles sold in the state was produced in the state.

They think Washington should be compared with Napa and Sonoma, to which Washington compares quite favorably. Not only does Washington produce a similar quantity of grapes, it produces a similar quality of grapes at more favorable prices. I can't argue with that reasoning. We should be kicking butt; but we are not. Most Washington wineries do not have California distribution where they would compete on the home turf with Napa and Sonoma. Add that to the fact that Washington wine prices do not reflect the lower grape costs.

The assumption is that things are just hunky dory in Napa and Sonoma - which they are not. Some of the most spectacular failures have occurred there. How about a $34 million investment going on the block for $11 million. Old brands have disappeared. Grapes that were begged for now go begging. There is trouble in paradise. I just don't blog about it because I am not privy to gutter talk from there.

Let's look at the price comparison. Napa, predominantly Cab I assume, sold for an average of $3,067.62 per ton. The average price for Cab in Washington was $1,297. Since Ste. Mickey's buys most of the grapes in the state, this is probably close to what they paid. At this price they are a very successful company. They also buy packaging in quantity, have a great image, and are sold nationally. Small wineries usually pay WAWGG which was $1500 or oft times a lot more for a famous vineyard. They buy clunky European bottles at exorbitant prices because the Wine Enthusiast likes heavy glass (well, they used to.) They put $.90 corks in these bottles and are self distributed. Washington cannot support 699 wineries with this marketing plan. I don't think California can support 3000 wineries either but someone else needs to weigh in on that.

Is the Washington industry a house of cards ready to collapse? Well, not all the way, but at least a few hundred. The bottom line is that unless some basic facts change, the number of Washington wineries will dramatically decrease. I've covered these points before, but will summarize them again.

1. You might sell 200 cases to your friends at $480 per case, but unless you have a lot of rich friends don't plan to expand to 2000 cases at that price point. Winery owners must keep their prices competitive or stay very small. Under $15 seems to be selling well and under $10 even better. This is the new reality. Retailers and restaurants are refusing to talk to 699 wineries individually. Getting a distributor, which means going three-tier, is becoming a necessity. Getting a distributor big enough to get in the door and one small enough that you don't get lost in the book is becoming impossible.

2. Grapes are already a low value crop as pointed out by growers. But, growers need to be aware that wineries can't command stratospheric prices for their wines anymore. Growers need to know that wineries have slim margins, too. I don't see average grape prices falling dramatically (they can't), but I do see marginal vineyards taken out and wineries demanding pricing that is closer to state average.

3. Most restaurant wine lists in Washington are still predominantly California. Until the Wine Commission can change that, our markets are very limited in the state where most of the 699 wineries sell. It's not that Washington wineries aren't trying to compete. I know of one winery that is chugging out off-branded stuff to Trader Joe's and selling a ton. Another winery has a $6 red on the shelf in Seattle. The Washington wine industry just lacks clout in the form of marketing and distribution to compete with California and the world.

Maybe these new wineries are more aware of reality than I think. Keep it small, keep it tight and keep costs under control. You will never be a rock star, rich or famous, and neither Robert Parker nor the Eric and Andy Show will make or break you. But, you can make a decent living in the wine business with a good marketing plan.

Probably what bothered this blogger the most was that I indicated the demise of wine publications as being part of the demise of the old wine industry paradigm as a whole. Can the market really support all those Advocates, Enthusiasts, Presses, and Spectators? Now that hits home.

The Rule of 100 or Can the Wine Industry Survive - Anywhere?

2011-02-18T11:29:00.001-08:00

Without giving reference to this blog, I got a national rebuttal straightening me out on some facts they thought I had missed - or did I?

Sagelands - the End of the Story

2011-02-13T14:47:00.001-08:00

Put a fork in it, it's done. Friday, the new owners of Sagelands and Canoe Ridge called the winemaking staff together and told them to pack. As Arnold said, "You're terminated." All of the bulk wine will go to Precept Brands. There are no plans to reopen what was once the most successful tasting room in the state.

According to Yakima County records, the property still belongs to DIAGE DIAGEO CHATEAU & ESTATE WINES and the land and building are valued at $860,250. I think this property is listed for sale, but I have been unable to verify the listing.

While I am at it, add another one to the list. An unnamed Benton County winery with vineyards in the Horse Heaven Hills is for sale for $1.5 million. Their annual sales are 5000 cases (sound familiar?) and their bulk inventory is over 16,000 cases dating from 2007. Judging from bulk wines offered in the Wine Country Classified, I would guess they have a leased tasting room in Prosser - not far from Olsen Estates. Their wines range in price from $26 to $38 per bottle. At $30 per bottle, their inventory is worth about a $5.76 million. It sounds like another case of easy money in the wine biz. But wait, that's not all. They have accolades "from Robert Parker, Wine Spectator and regional ratings, awards and accolades." Don't we all.

Following other bloggers - especially ones who secretly read this blog (More on this guy later.) - no one realizes the problems facing the Washington Wine industry - least of all the Washington Wine Commission. Yes, there are three new wineries in Zillah. If I were looking for tasting room sales, I would say these wineries are ideally situated. Getting distribution is another matter. Getting accolades, that's easy; just give away a lot of free wine plus shipping.

I'll say it again. The Easter Bunny isn't real and the goose that laid golden eggs is dead. The glory days of the wine industry are over. The American wine drinker has matured. He/she no longer needs Bobby Parker and the likes to tell them what is overpriced, unavailable and good to drink. Well-crafted wines under $20 sold through the tasting room have a chance if you are in real wine country with real vineyards around your tasting room. Don't make 40,000 gallons and hope distributors in 9 states can sell it for $30 per bottle just because Bobby Parker said it was good. If you are entering the wine business, you better have a solid business plan and know how to keep costs low - especially grape costs. Growth to 1000 cases is probably reasonable, but beyond that, you need to take market share away from someone else and that someone else might just have Napa Valley on the label. Remember, I can buy $35 cabs from the Napa Valley for $12 at Grocery Outlet.

Is Wine Tourism Dead in Washington (State, not DC)?

2011-02-10T19:49:00.001-08:00

No, but I think we can kill it in the next couple of years if we keep trying. Blame it on the Napa Valley. Back in the early years (how early I don't know because I came on the Napa Valley scene in 1969) the Napa Valley Wineries - I think there were four - came upon this idea of enticing customers to their doors by giving free samples of their product, much like Costco does today. The wineries thrived and more people got into the game and thrived. That induced the 'get rich quick' while becoming a 'rock star' mentality to enter the wine business. Free wine tasting in the beautiful Napa Valley became a burden. First, the wineries tried to slow the visitors down by making them take a tour of the facilities. You got to see such things as, "This is our wine press (wow, that's cool, it looks a lot like my destemmer/crusher; these guys must know something I don't know)." After the tour, you received a free tightly controlled tasting of about four wines - five or six if you knew how to say 'gewürztraminer.' Over the years, people outwore their welcome by tasting but not buying. "Hey, I know where we can get $hitfaced for free. Wanna drive up to the Napa Valley?"

Fast forward, Napa Valley wineries started charging for tasting - and charging a lot. Personally, I am not against charging for tasting from a consumer standpoint. I like to go to tasting rooms around the country, check out the products, get ideas and come home. I am not really interested in buying much of the wine, most of which is way overpriced. So, my wife and I pay one tasting fee, taste the wine, say 'thank you,' and leave. Since we have paid for the sample, I do not feel obligated to buy any $hittty overpriced California wine. (We don't do wine touring in Washington because it is plain boring and the tasting rooms are just too uppity.)

Recently, my neighboring wineries have started complaining about the lack of wine tourists and at the same time they have started charging for tasting. Hummm? How did I start this blog? Didn't the Napa Valley wineries start giving free samples to entice tourists to their tasting rooms and didn't they start charging because they had too many?

American public education is a sham (I am an ex school administrator, so I know firsthand.) Obviously, they don't teach the law of supply and demand in public schools. Here is a recap for all of you under 50. If demand for your product is down, you don't raise the price of that product. If on the other hand, like the Napa Valley, demand exceeds supply, you can charge whatever.

One neighboring winery just implemented a non-refundable tasting fee. Twelve people came to our tasting room after happily parting with $60 - and not buying any wine. The next group was very unhappy and didn't taste wine at aforementioned winery. They asked the person behind the counter, "If we buy ten or eleven bottles, will you refund the tasting fee?" the answer was absolutely, "No. The tasting fee is non-refundable." These are lost customers who will never go back (nor will we send our customers to any winery that treats people this way). They told us the whole sordid story. Of course, the guilty winery is not aware of this PR debacle because we aren't' about to tell them. "Why?" You ask. It goes back to public education. They don't teach about Napoleon any more. HUH? FYI, Napoleon (some French guy) had a bad habit of shooting the messenger when the messenger brought bad news. So this winery is happy in the fact that it a.) lost customers permanently and b.) made $60 on tasting fees - and no one will tell them any different.

So tasting fees are killing wine tourism. What is $50 to $100 to taste wine all day at strip malls, park and drink wine villages, and warehouses? Well, I can go skiing at White pass all day for $35 (weekdays over age 64) and have a lot more fun. In fact, with the new expansion into Hogback Basin it is incredible! Okay, I spent $5 for a microbrew at the mid-mountain lodge with a beautiful view of Mt. Rainier out the window. I could have had wine, but they only had Kiona and Portteus.

So, the second way to kill wine tourism is to turn it into a business. Everybody and their dog has a tasting room from downtown Seattle to Bumфuck, Nowhere. Wine tasting used to be fun (it still is in California) but it has lost its meaning in Washington. "Let's go visit wineries this weekend." "Oh yeah, big whoop. Why don't we do South 6th street in Seattle. It's free and we might get mugged or something exciting like that. It's a warehouse district just like Woodinville, you know."

Let's look at the modern tasting room. First, it must look like someone's living room with a fireplace, sofas, a coffee table, and some overstuffed chairs. At the back of the 'living room' is a bar with a snooty young to middle-aged woman who says things like "It costs $10 to taste." And "This is a nice big red wine." Why do all wineries move their living rooms into their tasting rooms? No, it doesn't make me feel at home. It makes me feel like I am in your home - UNIVITED!

So, with a combination of charging for tasting and boring tasting rooms, I think we can get rid of this nonsense called wine tourism. Who needed it anyway? The Napa Valley 50 years ago? That is so ancient history.

When will Costco start charging for samples? You try to answer that with an American education.

Disclaimer: Bonair Winery offers free sampling of four wines from a list of seven of the regular releases. They charge $5 to taste four of the seven reserve wines. For $5, you get a larger tasting glass and the fee is refundable with purchase of a reserve wine.

The Rule of 100 or Can the Washington Wine Industry Survive?

2011-02-01T15:34:00.001-08:00

I get this magazine called American Vineyard which is usually a quick read, but the December 2010 issue really caught my attention on a subject that has had me wondering for a long time. How is Washington going to compete in a very narrow market for wines over $15? Yes, I know the Washington Wine Commission said there is no limit to the price you can charge and as long as you charge enough, there is no limit to the amount of wine you can sell at these inflated prices. The recent fall of Whitman Cellars and Olsen Estates might point out this fallacy. They were both limited production operations, somewhere around 5000 cases, but at $40 per bottle, they penciled out to 2.4 million dollar per year operations. The banks bought into it.

Then the crash hit. Wine drinkers found out that they can get good wine for under $15 - in fact a lot of those $40 wines on closeout. Folks, wine drinkers are never going back. The American wine consumer has matured. Wine magazines, competitions, wine societies (the members now arrive in walkers and wheelchairs), Bobby Parker, et al are passé, caput, finito, done. For those of you wineries waiting for the rebound, the tooth fairy doesn't exist and there is no Santa Claus, either. Sorry to have to be the one who told you.

How does the 'Rule of 100' work? According to the article, 'SJV Winegrowers Cheerful' (for those who don't know, the SJV is California's biggest wine region and the source of Chabless, Hardly Burgundy, and Two Buck Chuck.)
The rule of 100 works like this: if you pay $100 per ton for grapes, you need to charge $1.00 for your wine, $300 for grapes and $3.00 for your wine and so on. Since most wine is selling for under $10 per bottle, the most a winery can pay for grapes is $500 per ton if they sell to a distributor or $1000 per ton if they sell through the tasting room only.

This is how it works for the grower. The San Joaquin Valley grower produces 14 tons to the acre on a highly mechanized block of grapes. He get $400 per ton or a yield of $5600 per acre. The Walla Walla farmer hand prunes and trims to 2 tons per acre and gets $3000 per ton for the grapes yielding $6000 per acre. The growers are both making similar money. That's fine and dandy.

The wineries are a different story. The mega winery in Modesto can sell its wine nationally for $4.00 per bottle (or less because of the scale of the operation). The Washington winery has to get $30 per bottle and sell it within the state because they lack national distribution. If it is sold by the winery directly to retail/restaurants, it hits the shelf DOA at $44 per bottle. (Handcrafted, ultra premium, award-winning, Wine Expectorator score 95, blah, blah, blah, just like every other bottle on that shelf.)

The most a Washington grape grower can hope to ripen every year in a warm area like the Rattlesnake Hills or Horse Heaven Hills is about 4 tons to the acre. Working this backward from a needed $6000 yield per acre, the grower must get at least $1500 per ton for grapes. The winery must get $15 per bottle, so it hits the shelf at $21.50 (self distributed) which is not a good price point, but $14.99 at the winery tasting room will work - assuming your tasting room can sell a couple of thousand cases per year.

Looking into my cloudy yet crystal ball, I see the Washington wine industry shrinking dramatically. There will be spectacular failures like Whitman Cellars or quiet closures like Olsen Estates. I see the amount of land dedicated to wine grapes leveling off or even declining.

I see wine tourism (visiting wineries in real wine country like the Rattlesnake Hills or Red Mountain - not 'park and drink wine villages', strip malls, or industrial parks) continuing to do well and you will see more wineries using the wine bar concept (sell your own wine in a bar atmosphere) in order to sell their product directly to the consumer at a good profit. I'll call that the 'brew pub' model.

It's not about the wine, it's about the experience. Wine is just another food commodity. Would you walk down row of industrial roll-up doors to taste over-priced canned green beans? I hope the Washington Wine Commission gets it someday.

Yakima Valley Is Not for Cabernet (or other Bordeaux reds)

2011-01-30T16:08:00.001-08:00

The final growing degree days (GDD) are in and it pretty much tells us what Ste. Mickeys knew a long time ago when they moved their red wine sourcing out of the Yakima Valley - It is too cool to consistently grow Bordeaux varieties in the Yakima Valley. 2010 proved this point well when the Yakima Valley was the coolest growing area in eastern Washington with only 2331 GDD - far below the amount of heat needed for non-herbaceous reds.

Here are the results by AVA:

AVA	2010 GDD
Yakima Valley	2331
Walla Walla	2558
Rattlesnake Hills	2603
Red Mountain	2753
Horse Heaven	2759

Last year the warmest AVA title was given to the Rattlesnake Hills. This year it goes to the Horse Heaven Hills. Red Mountain came in second both years. These are all good places for premium red wines. (As a footnote, most of the Horse Heaven Hills wineries and some Wahluke Slope wineries have winery facilities in the city of Prosser (Yakima Valley). This does not make them Yakima Valley wineries per se since their fruit does not come from Prosser Flats.)

All of our fruit at Bonair winery is from our estate vineyards in the Rattlesnake Hills, but we have been labeling the cheap stuff sold in Seattle as Yakima Valley, reserving the Rattlesnake Hills label for our barrel-select wines. In light of this information, I am seriously considering relabeling our inexpensive reds as Columbia Valley. There are lots of areas in the Columbia Valley that are warm enough to grow Bordeaux reds that do not have a more specific AVA or a wine might be from a combination of AVA's where cab grows well. The generic Columbia Valley is not all bad.

Let's reserve Yakima Valley for cool-climate reds like Pinot Noir and nice whites like Chardonnay and Pinot Gris. This will start to give some credence to the AVA's of Washington.

I'm Back

2011-01-30T11:17:00.001-08:00

Thank you all for cards, calls, and visits. They were deeply appreciated. We are doing well. Life is for the living and you must go on. After a vacation in Puerto Vallarta, I am back and ready to start grumping about the Washington Wine Commission, the industry in general, and crazy wine writers with thesauruses that are way too big.

The Tasting Room Shuffle or Watch out Latah Creek and Arbor Crest!

2010-10-25T17:05:00.001-07:00

The Washington wine industry never ceases to amaze me. First, Walla Walla moves to Woodinville to the point that Woodinville is overcrowded with wineries - so many in fact that the established Woodinville wineries are upset that they no longer enjoy the foot traffic they received in the past. The number of wineries definitely grew faster than the number of visitors.

So what is a Woodinville winery to do? Well, while the rest of the state in moving in, they are moving out; trying to find new locations that are not congested with sandwich board wineries. (Remember the picture that was worth more than a thousand words.)

A friend of mine has three (adult) children in the wine business. They were among some of the earlier Woodinville crowd. They just opened a tasting room in Ballard after seeing visits drop in Woodinville. I talked to their father last week and I understand they are doing quite well.

Where else to go? How about the capital of Northern Idaho, Spokane. Yep, Woodinville wineries are opening a tasting room in downtown Spokane. It will have live music and be a wine bar scene.

It must really be bad over there because one Woodinville winery is opening a tasting room in - get ready for this, sit down and take a deep breath - Zillah.

So, if you are planning to open a tasting room in Woodinville, you might think again. Clarkston has not been taken yet.

Harvest Update in the Rattlesnake Hills

2010-10-18T10:55:00.001-07:00

We picked Malbec last Thursday. 23.4 brix and a pH of 3.4. By the end of fermentation the alcohol should be around 13.6 and the pH near 3.6. These numbers are perfect for a winery that makes table wines (under 14% alc.) as opposed to dessert wines (14% and above.) We didn't have to bring out the Jesus Machine and perform a miracle. The fruit was perfectly ripe (no vegetative flavors) and after a cold soak, the fermentation has started on schedule.

We will finish Chardonnay today and probably move on to our lower block of Cabernet Sauvignon tomorrow. We had a light frost Sunday night that toasted some leaves in the lower areas, but most of the vineyard is nice and green. The forecast is for warmer nights and cooler days. That's fine.

Mid October Harvest Update

2010-10-14T19:50:00.001-07:00

We are into harvest in earnest now and sugars and acids are perfectly balanced, but we are not to the more difficult varieties yet. Already off is Merlot, Chardonnay, and Gewürztraminer. Other than a weekend of rain, the weather has been benign to almost helpful. Grapes always taste better harvested in sunshine. Chardonnay 23.2 brix, pH 3.4 with tons of tropical fruit. Some of the best I have ever seen. The Merlot is fermenting nicely and you'd swear we put sweet cherries into the bins. The fruit is incredible. Malbec comes off tomorrow. It tastes great on the vine. What with 2581 growing degree days, I think we are already beyond veg and we still have 17 more days in the season.

Although there has been frost between the rows, the temperature at vine height has been in the high 30s. We don't have wind machines in our vineyards, so we depend on the benign weather of the Rattlesnake Hills. We are forecast for the mid to lower 30s with lots of sunshine for the next seven days.

I noticed on another blog that Elephant Mountain and Dubrul both have harvested Merlot, but listed it as Yakima Valley fruit. Not a good year to ally yourself with Prosser Flats. Both vineyards are in the Rattlesnake Hills. I am not aware of any Merlot being picked down in the valley yet. We purchased some grapes in 2005 from the Faire Acre mother block above the Roza Canal east of County Line Road just east of Bouchey Vineyards. Sagebrush Ridge had 2514 growing degree days in 2005. The wine was so vegetative that we could not bottle it under the Bonair label, so we sold it to Joel Tefft for his box wine. He complained it was the worst vegetative bulk wine he had ever purchased, but he was able to blend it away and we are still friends.

With all the wet weather, bunch rot has cut the crop, but is not a problem since we selectively hand harvest. It has shown up in Riesling (always), Chardonnay (rare), and Pinot Noir (rare in eastern Washington). Pinot Noir is a thin-skinned, tight cluster variety. I wonder how the boys down in the Willamette Valley are faring?

Here are the Growing Degree Days:

AVA	8/31	9/30	10/14
Rattlesnake Hills	2264	2475	2581
Yakima Valley	2044	2241	2321
Horse Heaven	2410	2629	2736
Red Mountain	2428	2643	2735
Walla Walla	2220	2432	2536

Ripening Bordeaux Reds in the Yakima Valley is going to be problematic.

There was fog in the foggy bottom today. Without wind, it can get deeper every day. We have wind in the forecast so it should remain sunny.

What Does Costco Really Want?

2010-10-12T15:19:00.001-07:00

Costco sponsored I -1100, but what is the hidden objective. Stay tuned, I'm gonna tell ya. (You knew I would.)

You would think after a year of blogging I would run out of topics to be grumpy about, but so far that isn't the case.

Costco sued the State of Washington (Granholm) to break up the three-tier system. After all, Costco is a wholesaler. It says, right there on the outside of the store, "Costco Wholesale." So what's the prob Rob? Well, Costco is really a retailer. Can't be both in the wine biz in Washington State. Well, Costco kind of won Granholm, but didn't really. You have to be an attorney to understand it all.

They killed the three tier system in Washington, sort of. Now any winery in the country can become 'self-distributed' in Washington in a pseudo-three-tier system.

But the big prize is killing 'three tier' altogether. Costco wants to become importer, distributor, and retailer all in one slick Kirkland Signature operation. Why you ask? Well, look around any Costco. Where is all the stuff made? If you guess France, you are mostly wrong. French yes, 'fabrique au chine.' Oui!

Costco wants to bring in cheap wine from China without the middleman. If you think 'Two Buck Chuck' is cheap, wait for 'One Buck Yuck.' The ultimate goal is to bring Chinese wine (or anything else cheap) into the country and sell it at rock bottom prices.

Now, the Costco twist. Will you be able to buy a bottle for one dollar? No way, José. A case for $12. Not in your lifetime. Costco will package it in a 16 pack 4X4 box weighing 48 pounds. Since they love packaging so much, each 16-pak will contain four cardboard four-packs. (Remember 24 pack cases of Coke - 30 pack cases at Costco.) Yep, a cube of wine for just $15.99. One Buck Yuck.

How long will it be before Wal-Mart introduces their Chateau Doublewide for $1.88.

Auditor: Washington Wine Commission Wastes Public Money

2010-10-02T10:15:00.001-07:00

How in the hell did this one slip under the radar? I knew I wasn't getting my money's worth from the Wine Commission, now I can see why. They were spending my money on lavish travel by the executive director and on parties for staff.

Rather than rewrite the story, you can read it here from KOMO News. Or, read the actual audit report from Brian Sonntag, State Auditor. Or my favorite Seattle Newspaper, the Stranger.

As you know, I am no fan of the Washington Wine Commission. I have quoted Paul Portteus many times, "We in the Rattlesnake Hills have become successful in spite of the Wine Commission."

The (Tacoma) News Tribune picked up the story, but not the Seattle Times, the state's largest newspaper chain which includes the Yakima Hairball Repulsive and the Walla Walla Onion Bulletin. (Motto: we only reprint the news we find on AP.) Even the Dry Shitties Herald didn't catch the story and they are usually up on things. Maybe it is their ties to Wine Press Northwest.

The Wine Commission recently brought a tour of wine buyers to the state. Did they visit the Rattlesnake Hills. No way. We are their Moriarty.

Basically, the Wine Commission is an advertising arm of Ste. Mickey's. Yes I know my paltry thousands of dollars don't compare to the millions poured in by Ste. Mickey's, so don't comment on that. Just let it be known that the small wineries are being screwed by the Wine Commission.

Let the Crush Begin

2010-10-01T15:33:00.001-07:00

Wow, the weather gods have smiled upon us with daytime temperatures in the 80's and warm nights. The warm nights are essential in reducing acid. I noticed Hyatt was picking Merlot here in the Rattlesnake Hills on the 29th. Our Merlot in the Rattlesnake Hills tested over 24 Brix today and we are picking on Monday.

A lot of people are picking Merlot. I saw this article. http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2010/09/23/1180242/grape-harvest-gets-late-start.html. Gary Figgins harvested their Merlot at 24.5 Brix and talked about the old days of low alcohol. Man, am I getting old. I have been in this business way too long. I remember the old days of 'low alcohol' too. 21 brix yields 12.2% alcohol and was considered enough. 22 brix yields 12.8% alcohol and was considered perfect, and 23 brix would result in 13.3% alcohol - a little high; the resulting wines would be judged too alcoholic. Using the .58 conversion factor, 24.5 brix yields 14.2% alcohol. Oh well, I guess 'low alcohol' is relative in Walla Walla where 16% is the norm.

Here is the scorecard as of September 30, 2010.

AVA	31-Aug	Sep-10
Rattlesnake Hills	2264	2475
Yakima Valley	2044	2241
Horse Heaven	2410	2629
Red Mountain	2428	2643
Walla Walla	2220	2432

It appears that all AVA's in the state have passed the magical 2400 GDD, except the Yakima Valley at 1199 feet elevation on Sagebrush Ridge. (Sorry to report, the higher you go on Sagebrush Ridge, it doesn't get warmer, even if you have a PhD from Yoo Cee Davis and think it does.)

Barring an early frosts like last year, it is stacking up to be a really good year for red wine regions and not bad for the white wine regions like the Yakima Valley.

Dan Berger Says Spit - I Say Gross

2010-09-20T20:12:00.001-07:00

I just got the new issue of Winepress Northwest and read Dan's article on wine touring. While most of his advice on touring wine country is very sound, I disagree with one point - SPIT.

Dan and I have judged 150 wines in one day on a professional tasting panel and spitting is de rigueur. No ifs, ands, or buts. The absorption through your oral membranes may put you over the limit, but, we're professionals.

Tasting at a public tasting room is different. First, take Dan's advice and only visit four or five wineries in a day. MAX. Each winery should pour about 5/8 oz. unless they use those ridiculous muhungous Riedel glasses, then to get appropriate color, the winery must pour about 1.5 oz. Regardless, swirl the wine, sip, inhale over the wine, slurp, swish, gargle or whatever, sip again and pour out the rest. Don't spit in public! It is f*cking gross to the staff and your fellow visitors. Your total intake of alcohol for the day, given four wines times five wineries and only sips, not drinking the whole sample, will be no more than ten ounces. Way under your impairment limit for the whole day. (Woodinville might be different where you can see five wineries in five minutes.) Remember Dan, not only do we spit, we never finish a sample!

In order to limit your alcohol intake, in addition to limiting the number of wineries, is to limit yourself to four samples MAX. Sample only wines of interest to you (that day) and ignore the other 15. We have a $5.00 charge at Bonair Winery for our reserve tasting, but if you say, "I'm only tasting Merlot today," I'll bet your sample will be free - if you don't change your mind!

Speaking of wine snobs and spitting, Bonair Winery is not on the Connoisseurs' (remember my definition of Connoisseur and city sewer? Basically the same, they are both full of sh*t.) list for visits, but occasionally we get them. This weekend we had two groups of sewers.

The first tried the Pinot Noir. Really bad, so my wife opened a second bottle. Ugh, a little better, but it tastes like port. Hum, dry Pinot Noir in 100% new French oak tastes like Touriga with 12% residual sugar aged in neutral barrels. I would have laughed them out of the tasting room. The problem here is that most wine tasters in Washington don't know sh*t about non-Bordeaux reds. Please don't impress me with your ignorance. I know Bobby Parker says all wines should taste alike - basically micro-oxygenated Bordeaux reds, but I disagree.

Group two, rattled their glasses vigorously down on the counter around and around then lifted them two feet to their noses and made really stupid comments about the wine, like, "it must be bottle shocked." Swirling your wine on the counter and then raising it to your nose will guarantee that all aromas are blown off by the time you get it up to your snot source. I have never seen a professional wine taster do this (unless they have a Petri glass covering the wine until it reaches the nose.) In professional tastings, the wine is gently swirled near the nose and smelled several times - quietly and unobtrusively.

People who know wine will not make stupid statements. I know because I have poured a lot of wine for people who know wine. They will make intelligent observation, not derogatory comments meant to impress their equally stupid friends, and ask questions. I have even had people question politely that a wine might be corked - by God, these people are usually right. (FYI, we open many bottles on a weekend and since our cork taint is so low, they are not individually evaluated.)

If you don't know sh*t about wine, keep your Butwiper trap shut!

And you wonder why I am grumpy.

Initiative 1100 or 1105 or To Booze or Not to Booze?

2010-09-19T12:56:00.001-07:00

The Washington Wine Institute (aka Ste. Mickey's Good Ol' Boys' Club) is supporting the distributor sponsored bill 1105. The Family Wineries of Washington State (FWWS) is supporting 1100 (The Costco initiative.) (Truth in blogging: I am a member of the FWWS, mainly because I don't qualify for Ste. Mickey's Good Ol' Boys' Club. I'm a Bad Ol' Boy!) Frankly I don't know why either organization is supporting either bill. I think I will vote 'NO' on both.

I am in favor of getting the state out of the booze biz, but why tie wine to a booze bill? I don't buy a lot of booze anyway, so I don't care who sells it. If I ever decide to drink booze, I will buy a still.

Quantity discounts (1100) are a good thing. The state has no business in regulating the sales price of wine. We, at Bonair, just passed our state audit (with flying colors) and one of the things the auditor was looking for was consistent pricing of wine to all wholesale accounts. Since we use distributors, it was a no brainer. But, why not give someone a break when you drive 200 miles to deliver ten cases as opposed to one case?

Is charging for shelf space going to put Washington wineries out of business? A vintner was on TV the other night stating that if 1100 (or was it 1105? Even I get confused.) passes he will out of business in three months. It is probably true that he will be out of business in three months, but the real reason is that Washington has more wineries than it can support.

Here is an interesting (at least I think so) historical view of shelf space.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3d8zAAAAIBAJ&sjid=TTIHAAAAIBAJ&pg=6951,5851849&dq=safeway+wine&hl=en

John Cartales, a staunch neoprohibitionist, was the district manager of Safeway stores in the Northwest. He was promoted to head the Northern California region for Safeway. Scanning software had just been installed in stores and managers had new information. John Cartales led the charge to get devil rum off Safeway shelves.

Northern CA Safeway stores had the largest selection of wines at the time, but the problem was that the major brands were scanning better than lesser known offerings. So, as the article states, Johnnie C. (Go Johnnie, Go) removed wines that weren't scanning. The wine section shrank and you could only find brands like Gallo, Franzia, and Almaden. (What ever happened to Mad Al?) You want Napa Valley? Hey we got Napa Valley right here. CK Mondavi. It says St. Helena right on the label. California Hardly Burgundy? St. Helena is in the Napa Valley and the Napa Valley's in California, right?

So, as the wine section shrank and the remaining brands scanned well all should be right with Mr. Cartales and Mr. Safeway. A funny thing happened on the way to the grocery store. When people wanted a good bottle of wine they had to go to a different grocery store. While they were there, they tended to fill up their carts with stuff on the regular grocery list, the one that resides on the refrigerator door. (Unless you have (sigh) stainless steel (sigh) appliances, but that fad hadn't started back in 1994.) Overall sales (groceries, soap, and dog food) dropped at all Northern California Safeway stores. Mr. Cartales had to bring back non-scanning wines so the shoppers would return to shopping at Safeway.

The point? Costco wants to charge for shelving wines. So be it. Only large brands will pay stocking fees and the selection will dwindle. Costco, now the largest wine retailer, will find itself in the same place Safeway found itself way back in 1994. Our Costco in Union Gap has a lousy wine selection already. I can't imagine it getting any worse. (Imagine the worst. You will never be disappointed.) One whole wall is dedicated to Yellow Tail and the good wines are all overpriced - nothing under $11. Trader Joe's and Grocery Outlet have much more interesting selections.

Back to Safeway. As I write, our local Safeway store in Toppenish (take the 'h' off the end of Toppenish and you have TopPenis - go Wildcats! #1 in the league!) is in the process of reducing SKUs (Stock Keeping Units). Combine that with overpriced produce and I have basically stopped shopping there. Zillah Food Center, the local grocer, has added SKUs (dry salted capers - go Big John!) and has hired a new produce guy who sells the same or better produce for about 1/3 the cost of Safeway.

So will slotting fees destroy the wine industry. I think not. Anyway, don't Washington premium wineries only sell to "upper-end wine shops and restaurants, or is it upper-end restaurants and wine shops?" This whole boondoggle could be a godsend for wine shops who carry special wines!

Harvest without Al Gore (September 15 update)

2010-09-18T08:47:00.001-07:00

After a cool start, September has had a few warm days near normal. Growing Degree Days still seem to be on the short side. On the bright side, the birds have arrived and we are getting some good sugars. If we were making a dry Gewürztraminer this year we would be picking today. Acids need to drop a little and pyrazines need to give way to ripe flavors and we will be ready to pick reds in the Rattlesnake Hills. We still have six weeks left in the season.

The Horse Heaven Hills and Red Mountain seem to be the place to be this year with the Rattlesnake Hills following. The Yakima Valley (Sagebrush Ridge) and Walla Walla Valley seem to the places not to be.

All of those people who said that the Rattlesnake Hills has the same climate as Sagebrush Ridge are just plain wrong. Sagebrush Ridge is only at 2044 GDD, good for Chenin Blanc, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir, but definitely not Cab Sauv country.

Walla Walla is a great school of winemaking, but it is turning out to be problematic as a growing region. They have accumulated only 2220 GDD, making gains in the last several days. The big problem with Walla this year is rain. Unseasonable thunderstorms have hit northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington this year. Rising 30,000 feet or higher in the air, these storms are visible from the Rattlesnake Hills AVA. Tracking them on Nexrad radar shows lots of rain and hail. In comparison, the Rattlesnake Hills AVA has had 2.47 inches of rain the growing season while Walla has had 6.40 inches. Rumor has it that the grapes aren't even through veraison and are showing signs of rot.

For those into numbers, here are the GDD accumulations to September 15.

AVA	GDD
Rattlesnake Hills	2264
Yakima Valley	2044
Horse Heaven	2410
Red Mountain	2428
Walla Walla	2220

This might turn out to be a good year for food friendly wines. It is definitely going to be hard to make desert wines (Any wine over 14% alcohol is classified as a desert wine by the TTB) the kind the wine expectorators like. Wine drinkers rejoice. Wine collectors take a sabbatical.

Congratulations to Madsen Family Cellars

2010-09-13T20:16:00.001-07:00

I'm not grumpy all the time, but I think I do a good job of staying grumping most of the time. But, when good things happen, I get happy. Case in point:

We recently got an email from our friends Dana and Sandi Madsen, owners of Madsen Family Cellars. We have known Dana and Sandi since before they opened their winery and they have become good friends. We have even done some custom work for them since we have all the expensive toys and they were just beginning. They started the winery so Sandi could quit teaching and run the winery while Dana still worked in construction. We all know how construction is going what with Osama bin Obama stimulating the economy. (Finger f***ing might be a more appropriate description for stimulation.) (The newspapers report a rosy picture, but insiders say you bid a "shovel-ready" project at cost, subtract 20%, and you will come in third. The people creating "jobs" are losing money and eventually will lose their businesses. See, I can still be grumpy.) Short story: Sandi is still teaching.

Seems Dana and Sandy submitted their wines to the Wine Commission for the judging by Jay Miller for Bobby Parker's Wine Advocate. Bonair Winery had the same opportunity, but, being from Zillah Zillah, we knew we didn't have a snowball's chance. The Wine Commission would probably hide the bottles. They outwardly admitted, not all wines would be tasted. Duh, no wines from Zillah will ever be tasted by a national writer. They don't want to endanger the image of Washington wine.

Anyway, I hope Sandi doesn't mind me sharing part of her email. It is great!

"Dana and I find ourselves in another small puzzle. Last spring we received a mass email from the WWC inviting us to submit wines to some guy they'd come up with who was a reputable judge and who'd give some kind of feedback. It was free, and we thought, "Hey! we might get some useful input on our wines!" so we sent several wines off, and then time passed and we forgot all about it.

So Friday, we got an email from somebody in California wanting to know who our Florida distributor is, and we emailed back that we don't have one. And he emailed us and said he would like FOB on our entire portfolio (and what the heck does that mean?) and his interest was based on our recent review in Parker's 190 for the 07 Destiny Ridge Cab.

We thought ???????. What is Parker's 190? What's an FOB on our portfolio? Who IS this guy? So I googled Parker 190 and found out it was Robert Parker and issue 190 of the Wine Advocate. Yikes! Deeply curious as to what was said about our cab, we hopped into the car with the dogs and drove to Barnes and Noble, and Borders (first stopping to walk the dogs along the Percival Landing boardwalk bordering the marina) and of course, neither store carries the Wine Advocate.

So this morning, we betook ourselves to our winery and there we received an email from the Red Mountain grower who's selling us Cab Franc this year with our contract, but also congratulating us on our scores (plural)from Parker. Curiouser and curiouser.

So we've asked around and no one over here seems to be into Parker. We certainly don't want to subscribe either, but we would like to know what this reputable judge (who turns out to be named Miller, and apparently is Parker's reviewer here in the NW, but we wouldn't have recognized his name anyway)said about us. Probably would have been too intimidated to submit wines if we'd known who he was. I know you aren't into Parker either, but do you happen to know anybody over there who does follow him who might be persuaded to divulge what was said about us?

We're feeling a little Red Riding Hoodish right now--two dweebs out toddling in the woods, and who'd have thunk that that big wolf was lurking behind the tree? Dana in retrospect thinks maybe the Wine Advocate was mentioned but he thought Parker was the Wine Speculator. or Spectator. Or whatever. We didn't think we were submitting wines to be scored in a national magazine. Pretty scary. And kind of exciting."

Kind of exciting? It couldn't happen to nicer people. Oh, and where is their winery? Walla? Nope, Woodin'? Nope. It is in Olympia. I wonder if Paul Gregutt included them in his new book? (Love to hear from you Paul, I know you follow this blog.)

It is sooooo cooool when the small guy makes it big! Congratulations to Dana and Sandi! Today I am not grumpy! I am very happy. The little guys won!

Ps. I don't subscribe to the Wine Advocate either.

Washington's Fading Wineries

2010-09-06T10:10:00.001-07:00

Bloggers are following the Washington wineries for sale, or those that have just closed their doors like Yellow Hawk, but there is a disturbing number of 'fading' wineries. I personally know of four - maybe five. What, you ask, is a fading winery? It is a winery that is neither for sale, nor closing, nor in bankruptcy.

Fading wineries won't crush this fall, or if they do, they will crush a minimum, maybe just whites in order to have a full line of wines while the reds sell down. They can use the cold weather to cancel grape contracts. (How convenient is that?) They will continue to be in business until the inventory is depleted. Then they will simply close their doors. "Hey, wasn't there a winery here last year?" "Yeah, we stopped, but we didn't buy any wine."

Why would a winery fade? Simple. The federal government requires a bond on all wine stored at the facility. Federal taxes have to be paid when the wine is withdrawn from bond. State taxes need to be paid when it is sold, also. Winery owners simply do not want a 4000 case personal wine cellar. Only 200 cases per year may be withdrawn for personal use tax free.

Another reason for fading is the fact than many wineries have little value other than used equipment and maybe a building. They have no distributor relations, are self-distributed to a few retail accounts (you know, the usual upper end restaurants and wine shops), and the owner is tired of playing winery.

Many of the first generation winemakers are getting ready (or would like to get ready) to retire. Wineries require a lot of work. The hours are long, the rewards few, and the money is scant. Sure it is a good living for an owner/winemaker/tasting room worker, but there are other things they would like to do other than clean up crushed grapes at 1:00 AM.

One big winery is just picking up its toys and moving back to Oregon. Their vineyard is up for sale. One mega corporation is trying to get out of the wine business altogether focusing their energy on their forte, spirits.

Winery wannabes don't have any money, so they plan to be garagistes until Paul Gregutt makes them rock stars - or maybe they will just fade away at some future time if Parker doesn't discover them. 500 cases of ultra-premium, hand-crafted, award-winning wine can be stored in your garage pretty easily if you park your car outside.

What with all the wineries for sale, the sanest exit strategy might just be to fade away. Here today, gone tomorrow.

Did Global Warming Go Away?

2010-09-03T13:58:00.001-07:00

Okay, Al Gore cheated on his wife and is no longer flying around the world in his private jet exhausting greenhouse gases and hot air speeches. Growers up and down the Pacific Coast are wondering if we will even ripen grapes this year without old Algore.

Growers are concerned that they won't be able to produce those 27 brix raisins the wineries use to produce 16% dry wines with residual sugar that Parker likes. Wineries could care less. They are taking the year off and not buying grapes to adjust inventories of overpriced parkerized wines.

Here is the view from the Rattlesnake Hills AVA and the Yakima Valley AVA. (Note to wine bloggers: this article is scientific and involves numbers (OTHER THAN YOUR OPINION BETWEEN 80 AND 100)and demands comprehension. It will require more than your 40-second attention span, so click off now.)

1993 was set to be the coldest year since grapes have been widely grown in the Yakima Valley. I remember going on vacation in September and finally giving the order to pick the last two weeks of October, bringing in the grapes as fast as we could process them. We were still getting grapes from Sagebrush Ridge (Roza AKA Prosser Flats) back then and the wines were quite vegetative, although the Morrison Cab (Rattlesnake Hills) was quite good. On August 30, 1993 Buena Station (the coldest in the Rattlesnake Hills AVA) had accumulated 1842 degree days. The Morrison Vineyard is quite a bit warmer, but there were no comparable stations in 1993. Roza Station had accumulated 1748 degree days. It takes at least 2400 degree days to properly ripen Cabernet Sauvignon. By October 31 Roza had reached 2752 degree days, which is above average. Buena reached 2797 which is also above average. A long warm fall saved our butts.

1999 was truly the coldest year in recent history and the year all Yakima Valley reds were dissed by the wine expectorators. The wines from Sagebrush Ridge were noticeably vegetative. It was this year I started thinking about forming the Rattlesnake Hills AVA to separate our grapes from the vegetative Prosser grapes. By August 30, Buena Station had accumulated 1992 degree days while Prosser only accumulated 1724. By the end of the season Buena reached 2394 and Roza accumulated 2204. Even though it was warmer at the end of August, by the end of the year, 1999 was actually worse than 1993.

2009 was a fairly average year with the heat coming late in the season. The wines were pretty typical for the region. By August 30 Buena Station had accumulated 2453 degree days and Roza had only accumulated 2151. In 2009 the Rattlesnake Hills was the warmest AVA in the state, beating Red Mountain, Wahluke, and Horse Heaven Hills. This chart summarizes the confusing numbers.

station	Buena		Roza
dates	Aug. 30	Oct. 31	Aug. 30	Oct. 31
1993	1949	2797	1956	2752
1999	1922	2374	1724	2204
2009	2440	2954	2139	2665
2010	2029		1842

So where are we in 2010? Buena Station has accumulated 2029 degree days and Roza has only accumulated 1842. We are pretty optimistic about the chances of having nice ripe flavors and non-vegetative wines from the Rattlesnake Hills. As you can see by looking at 1993 and 1999 a lot can happen between the end of August and the end of October. It is not a year to label your Bordeaux reds with the Yakima Valley AVA. If you object to Rattlesnake Hills, opt for the generic Columbia Valley.

One Picture is Worth 1000 Words

2010-08-23T17:21:00.001-07:00

Welcome to Washington Wine Country!

Woodinville looks like the place to be. I could be winery #10 and cash in on all the free publicity from the Washington Wine Commission.

I don't know about you, but I would go with the balloons or maybe even a big helium wine bottle.

Does the first guy in the morning get the sidewalk for his reader board or did he slip that in later?

Are the trucks in the background full of grapes from Walla Walla?

The sky looks gray. What is that all about?

Are the vineyards just behind the fir trees?

Woodinville wineries make hand crafted, award-winning, ultra premium wines - big deal, so does everyone else.

With a $10 tasting fee, that is a $90 visit with nothing to take home but a hangover.

With this much wine, who needs skid road. No wonder the Washington State Liquor Control Board is getting very strict about samples. Let's see, 4 one-ounce samples times 9 wineries equals…… Oh hell, who's counting?

An Open Letter of Thanks to Robert Parker, Jr. and the Wine Spectator

2010-08-22T16:51:00.001-07:00

Thank you for believing all that propaganda from the Washington Wine Commission and determining that great wine cannot be made in the Yakima Valley. I owe the success of Bonair Winery to you.

Why? You ask. Well, I didn't become a 'rock star' winemaker and the winery didn't gain a cult following so we didn't price ourselves out of the market. Our customers are wine drinkers, not wine snobs. They are Boeing employees - including some senior vice presidents - but all wine drinkers, not wine collectors. They are the working class people of Puget Sound who know what they like and don't have to chase some impossible-to-get overpriced jam-juice in a bottle. They don't need an expert to tell them what to drink. Thank you also to our loyal customers in Puget Sound who come back year after year to buy cases - not collector bottles.

When we planned our winery back in the early '80s, we did not plan on becoming rock stars or getting rich. I was a school administrator and tired of the rat race. I wanted to raise the kids in the country. I loved wine and making wine. No one was getting rich in the business back then. (Sebastiani and Almaden, are faint memories) We just wanted to make a simple living with a simple life-style. I only applied for jobs as an elementary school principal where I could grow wine grapes. I applied in Paso Robles, Sierra Foothills, Sonoma County, Willamette Valley, Southern Oregon, and the Yakima Valley. I was lucky to land in the Yakima Valley and especially the Rattlesnake Hills. When we started, we self-distributed Riesling in Seattle for $3 per bottle, which Pike and Western sold for $4. Leonetti cab at the time went for $12. Imagine, a bottle of Leonetti Cab for only 3X Riesling price (and I'm not talking Dr. Loosen!) Wine was much more affordable back then - before the investment bankers, Parker, Wine Spectator et. al. got involved. The only wine writer of significance was Jerry Mead - Mead on Wine.

I got a call from my friend Harry Alhadeff, founder of many Washington brands like Apex, the other day and we discussed the future of the Washington wine industry. Harry is a firm believer that the good times will again return and it is important to cut production and hold on to price point. I, on the other hand, believe the wine business in entering a new (old) reality. Winemakers will no longer be rock stars. Wineries will not have waiting lists to get on the waiting list to buy wine. And because of worldwide competition, wine prices will remain low.

I saw this ad http://bizbuysell.startupjournal.com/Business-Opportunity/Outstanding-Boutique-Winery-of-Award-Winning-Wines/551918/ on the web and it started me thinking. $20 to $50 bottles of wine and a $3 million dollar inventory. At $20 per bottle that is a 12,500 case inventory in a 3000-4000 case production winery. That looks like a four-year back up to me. There is no equipment or real estate listed. I'm sure no reasonable offer over the $3 million for the inventory will be refused. Reason Selling: Other interests. It seems to be easy to lose interest in owning a winery these days.

I think my neighbor up the road has lost interest in playing winery and rumor has it his winery is for sale for $1.1 million.

Remember the new economy, where you didn't have to make money, you just needed investors with lots of money? Sorry, the new economy went south and probably took a lot of overpriced wines with it. It, like overpriced wine, is not coming back.

You heard it here, folks, the new paradigm is here and it's the old paradigm. If you don't have a viable tasting room (and ones in Walla Walla and Woodinville are looking dicier each day) and you can't compete at the under $15 (preferably under $12) price point, you better not be in the business. A few cult wineries will remain, but if you aren't one already, you ain't gonna be one.

But, if you love hard work and the smell of the cellars, you can still make a decent living as a winery owner. I do.

Give the Wineries a Break

2010-08-11T15:17:00.001-07:00

Truth in blogging statement: I belong to the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers. (WAWGG). These comments do not necessarily (hah, not at all) reflect those of WAWGG or other members.

The WAWGG suggested price list and estimate crop size just came out. Since this is a confidential publication for members only, I cannot divulge the contents, but I will comment on trends.

If you follow this blog, you already know that the pipeline is backing up for wineries, many of which are downsizing or going away. Many wineries are still trying to sell the 2005 vintage. I doubt if they want to buy a lot of grapes to sell in 2015 - or later.

Wineries must crush something to keep their small producer credit, so everyone who plans to stay in business must crush a couple hundred pounds. Get it: a couple hundred pounds, not a couple hundred tons.

So, with wineries cutting back on production, it looks like the crop is predicted to be up a modest 4%. This translates into about 375,000 cases more wine to sell (not counting the cutback). I assume the Washington Wine Commission is working hard on selling it in Tokyo for $36 per case - that is what we have been offered for export wine.

Many suggested prices remain the same, although a few have gone down slightly - Pinot Gris is down over 5%. Cabernet Sauvignon continues to climb, up by over 3%.

At the current price, a winery must get $10 for a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, just to make a minimum profit. Through the three-tier system, that puts the wine on the shelf at $20 - a price point that isn't moving very fast these days.

It seems like in this market, where the world is dumping its wine on Washington consumers, that the WAWGG would take a more, uh, conservative view to pricing. But, I already know of urban wineries who have signed contracts for grapes at prices way above WAWGG. God, we love those suckers over here in eastern WA. They don't have a clue. They only know what they read in Paul Gregutt's book. Everyone over here knows where you can find good grapes for a good price. I had a winery friend who paid 50% of WAWGG on delivery and the balance to state average when the final figures came out in January. In years of glut like this, he made out like a bandit. State average tends to be about 70% of WAWGG.

WAWGG pricing is merely a suggested price, although many contracts use it as the standard. I know when we were buying grapes - before becoming an estate winery - we agreed to pay WAWGG prices. Of course Ste Mickeys doesn't pay WAWGG, but you have a contract with them it is worth real money year-in year-out - and if you have a lot of grapes, only Ste. Mickeys can use a lot of grapes. Garagistes use, at most, ten tons. It's hardly worth the hassle - well, unless you con them into $3000 a ton.

My advice to urban wineries and wannabes, negotiate a fair price, but if you need some grapes at WAWGG prices, I have some to spare. Just email me for availability. We'll even through in a custom crush.

Buy Washington Wine or Else!

2010-08-06T20:32:00.001-07:00

My dire prediction is that if the people of Washington don't start buying Washington wine, the industry will be the shadow of its former self in three years. Only one bottle in six sold in the state was made in the state. (The Washington Wine Commission is feebly working on that this month, but I haven't seen a surge in sales.) Wineries are going broke, many are for sale, and some just don't have anything to sell, so they will just quietly go away. Mike Lempriere somewhat follows the history of the Washington wine industry and here is his list of defunct wineries in the state http://www.vintners.net/wawine/misc/defunct.html. I'm sure the list is not up to date since Mike is a busy guy, but it shows you that owning and operating a winery is not an easy business.

Okay, so the wine industry was oversold here in Washington; as well as California and probably Oregon - not sure who drinks all that expensive Pinot Noir. Everyone wanted to be the next Leonetti or Quilceda Creek. The wine market has become a lot more realistic in the past year and I'm sure those two wineries are doing fine, but the wanabees who priced their first ever, over-oaked, VA-coated, oxidized Cab at $50 a bottle because Parker just doesn't bother with reasonably-priced wines, are sucking gas. Their friends still have that $600 case in their cellar, hoping like you said, it will get better because it can't get any worse. They aren't buying any more.

Many wineries will just go away. After all, they have a few hundred cases in inventory, a bunch of amateur winemaking equipment, and a garage or rented ministorage unit. Others, like E.B. Foote with a long history, will try to sell. Olsen Estates with little history is for sale for $3.4 million which includes a nice new building in the Prosser Autopark.

Even with Paul Gregutt's new book, Walla Walla is fading away. The first question people ask at the Yakima Valley Visitors center is, "How much farther is it to Walla Walla?' When told it is another two and a half hours, most opt for staying in Yakima and visiting the Rattlesnake Hills. Sure, Walla Walla is pretty and quaint, but the AVA is nothing to write home about. It is far eclipsed as a serious growing area by the Horse Heaven Hills, Rattlesnake Hills, Wahluke Slope, and Red Mountain. The generic Columbia Valley produces most of the grapes in the state, and fine grapes they are.

Yellow Hawk is for sale. Canoe Ridge and Sagelands are up for grabs - look for those listings real soon.

Right now, the number of new wineries in the state pretty much equals the number of wineries shutting their doors, keeping the number around 700 - give or take 50 wineries on any given day.

A winemaker friend was just told by his agent that the new $9.99 wine in Seattle is now $6.99 or $3.50 a bottle to the winery. It's hard to make any money at $42 per case - especially if you are buying grapes at WAWGG price or above. I mean, you can bring out the Jesus Machine, but for only about a 10% addition. It was a miracle back in Canaan and it still works, but not enough of a miracle to sell wine at those prices.

So, I implore all you bloggers (bloggers conference people) to buy Washington wine. Help save the industry! You could do something positive for a change.

The Magic of Woodinville

2010-07-24T16:49:00.001-07:00

I was reading the Summer issue of Wine Press Northwest and in the unread ads in the back, I noticed that a lot of the Walla Walla wineries now have tasting rooms in Woodinville. I guess when Steve Burns left the Wine Commission he left Walla Walla high and dry.

How magic is Woodinville? It is hard to get a handle on. I hear of wineries having $30,000 weekends every weekend and I hear of wineries having $500 weekends and wondering how they are going to pay the high-priced rent. Chateau St. Mickey's is of course the big attraction with its château and manicured grounds. I was told by an inside source (a big inside source) that this winery did over one million dollars a year in the tasting room in the early '90's - before they separated the tasting bar from the cash register. Things go downhill rather rapidly from beautiful Ste Mickey's to garage doors in industrial parks. How romantic is that? Or even the more upscale non-winery storefronts in a mini-mall - next door to Pan Gucks Wok and Chinese takeout. Does your wine smell of sesame oil or is that from next door?

I guess I am old school. I learned to love wine tasting in the Napa Valley in the early '70's. I have purchased a case of 1971 Cabernet Sauvignon from Joseph Heitz himself. Louis Martini has poured samples in my glass while sharing the experience behind the bar. Those old Italian guys were great!. No flaccid blonde broads saying, "This is our ultra-premium-hand-crafted-award-winning Cabernet." Unfortunately, I never met Robert Mondavi, but I toured his winery in 1970 when it first opened .I have had picnics at Robert Louis Stevenson State Park with fresh crab from Fisherman's Whorf, artisan bread, Marin County Cheese (Camembert to be exact), and local Napa Valley wine. I guess I just don't get the 'park your car and get shit-faced' wine tasting mentality of today. (Wine bloggers, here is your mention in order to up my hits. I know the only people who read wine blogs are wine bloggers. Please understand fully the content of this paragraph. Wine tasting is not about the wine, it is about the experience. Since mentioning the Bloggers Conference, I have had 89 visits and your average attention span is 41 seconds. Your attention span is pathetic, but on par with any twit on Twitter. How can you consider yourself a writer if you cannot take time to read? In addition, all of you were too chicken to comment. In case you don't get it, I am reaming you a new orifice.)

Now addressing the wannabe winemakers. Yes, those people who still want to get into the wine business as a 'life style.' If I were to do it over again what would I do differently? Remember, I have 25 years of experience in the business. I can't name all the wineries that have come and gone in those 25 years. Flaming supernovas that burned out fast. They listened to the Washington Wine Commission (Steve Burns), the Wine Spectator, Robert Parker, et al. They located their wineries in Seattle, Walla Walla, Prosser Flats, and the Dry Shitties - all the places that these people promote. Follow the crowd and it will follow you. Wrongo Buckwheat.

Well, I wouldn't do anything differently. I would still locate in the Rattlesnake Hills AVA near Zillah, the nearest REAL
WINE COUNTRY to Puget Sound. We are the pariah of AVA's to the Washington Wine Commission because as Paul Portteus says, "we have become successful in spite of the Wine Commission." We are two hours and fifteen minutes from Issaquah - about the same time it would take you to get to Woodinville on a clogged freeway. And, the sun is probably shining over here. It is the only AVA where you can experience the early '70's Napa Valley atmosphere where the owner pours the wine and the ambience is amazing with, yes, the grape vines that grow the wines. Duh, we have our vineyards around our wineries.

Do I want you to locate your wannabe winery here? Probably not. We already have over 20 wineries in the AVA, although some still want to designate their Bordeaux reds as vegetative Yakima Valley reds. (yes, I love weeds, green beans and asparagus - just not in my Cabernet Sauvignon.) There are 17 wineries in the Rattlesnake Hills Wine Trail Association. When it gets to 20, I will vote 'no' to all new applicants. In a weekend, you might realistically see 10 wineries. Twenty wineries in the organization still gives me a 50-50 chance of being visited. Get over 50 wineries like Wine Yakima Valley and you are so diluted you don't have a chance in hell of being visited - about one in five.

So, what are your chances of being visited in Walla Walla? Less than one in ten. (10/100 = 1/10) What are your chances of getting visited in Woodinville? About one in six, but it is hard to count the number of wineries in Woodinville (over 60) - and there are more every day. You do the math. I will go with 1 out of 2 in the Rattlesnake Hills.

I don't know why success makes me grumpy. I should really be happy, but I really hate to see people fail because of someone else's stupidity. I also hate hearing the same old story from the same old people over and over.

Want to Make Your Blog Popular?

2010-07-14T10:17:00.001-07:00

Hey, it's easy. Forget about wine, because nobody reads wine blogs except wine bloggers and to my knowledge they don't actually drink wine, they just speed taste and get drunk on hard liquor at night. What if a blogger actually talked about wine, something in the way of "it smells like burnt Macaoan Oak." Actually, a wine steward said that to me before wine bloggers existed. I was really impressed. I was in Macao last year and didn't see a single oak tree but it still sounds cool. Paul G. has my permission to use it in his next review. Pardon the digression. Wine bloggers write for each other. It is a mutual admiration society. If you don't believe me, read the comments to the posts. It is a bunch of blogger bragging about who they know and telling inside jokes. Have you ever seen a comment, "jeez, thanks for the wine recommendation. I'm going down to the Zillah Food Center and pick up an $80 bottle of Chateau Walla Squared and have it with Foie Gras tonight. You know the Toppenish Safeway has it on special this week."

If you don't believe me, check this out. http://hosemasterofwine.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-i-learned-about-blogging-in-walla.html. I particularly liked numbers 6 and 8. I think I am violating #6, but I did mention Walla Walla, so I am okay on #8. But, if you still don't believe me, read the comments. I think it was Abraham Lincoln (who, by the way, used to blog on the backs of envelopes) who said "blah, blah, blah and that blogs of the bloggers, by the bloggers, for the bloggers shall not perish from the internet!"

So, to up my hits and make Google Analytics light up, the blog was about the Walla Wall Wine Bloggers Conference and wine blogging in general. If you don't believe me, I will report my analytics next week. I'm going to have one of the hottest wine blogs on the web - just talking about blogging - not wine.

Wine Boogers Conference aka Wine Bloggers Conference (WBC to insiders)

2010-07-06T12:42:00.001-07:00

Well, the big Wine Bloogers Conference is over and it looks like everyone is pretty well done congratulating each other and posting about how great their friends are. It seems to be a large mutual admiration society that gets together once a year - in the meantime, they read each other's blogs and comment. No one else would read that boring trivia.

The Rattlesnake Hills, Washington's neglected AVA, didn't get any coverage, although they visited DuBrul Vineyard which is in the AVA, but since Wine Yakima Valley was operating the tour, they didn't mention that the big wines coming from this vineyard are not representative of 'Yakima Valley' (read Prosser Flats or Sagebrush Ridge) wines. From wines labeled Yakima Valley, you should expect excellent crisp whites like Chardonnay, Riesling, and Pinot Gris as well as cool-climate Syrah and Pinot Noir. Expect vegetal character in Bordeaux reds. They picked DuBrul because it is in the Rattlesnake Hills AVA and produces great wines.

So, it was a non-event for Bonair Winery. I spent the weekend in the tasting room serving about 400 paying customers and selling few thousand dollars worth of wine. (15 cases of our Pinot Noir blend called Bung Dog Red which sells for $78 per case.)Beats the hell out of standing behind a table pouring free wine while talking to dumbasses who have never heard of you. Trust me, the Washington Wine Commission has determined long ago who is important and who is not. It is a waste of time and money for non 'in' wineries to attend any of these events be it the WBC or Taste Washington, or the Children's Auction.

Bloggers are so obscure and there are so many wines, it just isn't worth the effort. There is no chance of a payoff "The Bonair Sunset was an outstanding replacement for insipid white zin," The Booger for the Paducah Gazette. Wow, great, of course it will never be available in Paducah. Worse yet, someone could really sabotage you. "The Yakima Valley Cabernet tasted of green asparagus, under-ripe bell peppers with overtones of horse sweat," Yakity Yak self-appointed wine blogger.

The only way to get recognized is to sell wine under $10 and get shelf-space in QFC, Fred Meyer, and AG stores. Forget the "wine shops and upper-end restaurants." I don't think social media will ever have the sway print media used to have. Today's wine drinkers are smarter and know more about wine. They know if they pay over $20 they are not getting more value. Plus, there a so many wines nobody cares. Wineries need to get used to the fact that wine is a food product and winemakers are not rock stars. It is a business. How many canned bean bloggers are there? Bush's - yumm, my favorite!

Paul G. has an interesting forum going, but most of the responses are as boring as the blog writers own blogs. It's sort of a Point Counterpoint, but not as funny as SNL.

I love Chinese Glass

2010-07-06T09:23:00.001-07:00

Every morning my wife asks me what I plan to do today. The answer is simple and always the same, "I plan on getting drunk." Ever since I was demoted from winemaker to vigneron, I don't plan my days. Work always finds me. I don't have to look for it. I actually thought I was getting a promotion until I found out 'vigneron' is a fancy French term for flunky.

This morning at 7:45 I received a call from Bill, my winemaker, that the foil dispenser was not working and he needed me, le vigneron, to hand apply the foils on 4600 bottles. Thank god for short-run days.

It was our first run with our new Chinese glass and it gave me a chance to examine the quality up close, one fu©ƙ1ng bottle at a time. I was amazed. The glass was beautiful with a nice full punt and polished finish. The light reflection on every bottle was mirror perfect. (I remember watching St. Gobain 9952 go down the line. It was like watching life in a fun house mirror.) All the corks seated perfectly and the boxes from our supplier, Saxco, actually closed perfectly. We probably saved 50% on case glue alone. Trying to seal boxes from California Glass, Saint Gobain, and Consumers takes gobs of glue -and more gobs of glue.

Doing menial jobs gives the Grumpy Winemaker a lot of time to think - probably a bad idea. I wondered about the US wine industry as our American wine was put into a Chinese glass by an Italian monoblock, followed by me placing French foil capsules on the Chinese bottles before the Australian labeler put - you won't believe this - US-printed labels on the bottles. I guess you can say we make 'world-class' wine.

We tried a Seattle printer who gave us a good price, until we bought all the dies only to find the price double the next year - thinking we would be too dumb to switch. Plus their 'rubber stamp' labels can't compete with offset. Flexo sucks. Label One in Portland still treats us well.

My son, Joseph, does catalogs for an outdoor company. All of the catalogs are printed in Asia. I wonder how much longer we will have our labels printed in the Yoonited States? $4.55 per case is a lot of money when you have to sell wine in Seattle for $9.99. Every penny counts for the wineries as bottle manufacturers are finding out the hard way. The wine industry is not a cash cow ready for milking. I think I said that before. Grumpy people tend to be repetitive.

St. Gobain will continue to make glass in Seattle as long as they cut great deals with St. Mickey's. They have pretty much said they don't want our business of 7500 cases a year. But sooner or later, even St. Mickey's will discover the quality and price of Chinese bottles - if they haven't already.

One thing was a little suspicious about the bottles. They looked a lot like St. Gobain 9432 (Mister Rogers, "Can you say 'identical'? I knew you could. I like the way you say 'identical'.") - only cheaper. If I worked for St. Gobain in Seattle, I would be looking for a new job real soon.

Gov'mint Warnin'

2010-06-29T20:50:00.001-07:00

Are you aware that the Government Warning: in bold and larger than 2mm on US wine bottles is illegal on wines sold in Europe? Why? Well, Europe has a 'truth in labeling' requirement. No opinions or false statements can be placed on European wine labels.

What you say? The US Gov'mint is always right. Well, not in this case. Let's examine the Gov'mint warnin'.

ACCORDING TO THE SURGEON GENERAL:' at 2mm or larger pint all in caps making it less readable, states that this is not scientific fact or evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. It is one person's opinion. And to top it off, I don't think that person is either a surgeon or a general. What war did they fight in? Would General Petraeus qualify? Who do they cut up in their spare time? Would you let them operate on you?

'WOMEN SHOULD NOT DRINK ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES DURING PREGNANCY BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF BIRTH DEFECTS." I knew there was an explanation for the French. Just kidding. Fetal alcohol syndrome is caused by massive ingestion of alcohol - usually vodka - by brain-dead whores who ingest more than a bottle a day. I do not recommend drinking while pregnant, but unless you want your kid to turn our French, it doesn't seem to make that much difference if you drink in moderation - and why wouldn't you only drink in moderation ALL THE TIME.

Here is a test. Read the following list of words:

MacMillan
MacIntosh
MacArthur
MacHinery

Okay, so you might be sober enough to catch the last word.

"CONSUMPTION OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES IMPAIRS YOUR ABILTY TO DRIVE A CAR OR OPERATE MACHINERY." I definitely don't drive after I think I have imbibed a little too much, but I have been known to try to operate MacHinery and he doesn't work as well as he does when sober. So my best advice is to get her drunk and stay somewhat sober so you can still operate MacHinery.

"AND MAY CAUSE HEALTH PROBLEMS." And may not. Wine drinkers are healthier than T-totallers. They are also smarter, but that may be a confusing demographic. Wine is an historic beverage and has basically lead to civilization. Look at places where wine is not regularly consumed like Kentucky and Saudi Arabia.

I'll bet you never thought you would see those two places in the same sentence!

Now do you know why I am grumpy?

Website Designers Suck

2010-06-17T16:52:00.001-07:00

About once a week, someone wants to make Bonair Winery famous by redesigning our website. I admit it, I do our web design and I am not a professional web designer - if there is such a thing. It's the age old problem of people thinking wineries have money to burn and they really don't know the business.

Do you want to become the next (name omitted famous Walla winery)? We just designed their website and you can be as famous as they are if we design your website. Hasn't (name omitted famous Walla winery) been famous since before the internet? Isn't Bonairwine.com one of the oldest winery websites on the internet? Anyway, I looked up (name omitted famous Walla winery) website to get some ideas. On my DSL connection, granted, not the fastest in the world, but not dial up either, it takes a full minute to load a curtain going up on a window. Then, I get to click to enter the site. Most of my visitors tracked by Google Analytics only spend about a minute on the site - the maximum attention span of the average American idiot. Why would I want an intro that lasts longer than a person's attention span?

Do you want your site to be in the top ten on Google search? Tell me, what key word are you talking about? I am already number one for 'Bonair Winery.' If you are so good, if you have eleven winery clients, whose site becomes number 11? They can't all be in the top ten.

Do you want to sell more wine on the internet? Well, I can ship to Washington, Minnesota, Alaska, and Florida. Why would I want to invest in a lot of money in generating more business which is illegal to sell to? How dumb is that?

Do you want more people to attend your events? Well, no, our events are by invitation only, so changing the website doesn't change who gets invited. In fact, if they really did their research, they would find our events page refers you to http://rattlesnakehills.com/events.htm which lists all the events in the Rattlesnake Hills Wine Trail.

What do I want my website to do? Not a whole lot. It is there for people who know us and have questions like, when are we open, what wines are available, and yes, if you live in our selected few states, you can order on line. If you are new, it has a map and directions - ones that actually work, not like Tom Tom which routes you to a dead end. It is easy to update, because I have the programs to do it. I can add pictures, change pictures, and rewrite text. Websites are for conveying information, not for entertainment. Go to You Tube for that. The quicker they answer a question, the better they work.

So, don't try to sell me something you don't know about. That makes me grumpy. The wine industry is not a cash cow ready to be milked.

US Bottle Manufacturers Try to Go out of Business - and Will Probably Succeed

2010-06-10T17:29:00.001-07:00

Enron took a cue from the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973. During this trumped-up crisis, oil became scarce and prices soared. Oil companies made a killing because oil consumption in the US actually rose during the 'embargo.' There never was a real shortage of oil, just the perception created by the oil companies and President Nixon. The saying, "Oil crisis means higher prices," became common vernacular.

During the California Energy Crisis of 2000 and 2001, Enron took the lesson from the oil embargo of 1973 and closed down a lot of generating plants for 'maintenance.' This phony crisis created a shortage of electricity and as we know, "Energy crisis means higher prices." Enron made a killing - for a while.

Not to be outdone, in 2006 the glass bottle manufacturers of the United States decided they wanted a bigger cut of the rising world of sky-high wine prices, so they shut down half the furnaces in the US for phony 'maintenance.' After all, "Bottle crisis means higher prices." Wineries were required to preorder their glass one year in advance to be assured of deliveries. Wineries received monthly notices to buy now because the surcharge on the surcharges was going up next month. The glass companies made a killing -for a while.

This seemed a good strategy at the time. Remember, US corporations have no long-term vision. They are into short-term profits only. Chinese glass at the time was clunky, not very round, and the corks sometimes didn't fit. Canada was in on the scheme and Mexico couldn't produce enough glass to meet demand. We were able to get Mexican glass that year.

In the US, it takes ten years to build a factory. Five years to fight the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, and the Democratic Party. Five more years fighting local petty bureaucrats for permits and building code design. So, the only new glass plant in the US, Cameron Family Glass, failed.

In China, things are different. Drive down a boulevard in Shenzhen on Monday and you will see a vacant lot. Drive by on Tuesday, and you will see heavy equipment. Drive by on Wednesday, and you will see cranes erecting a building. Drive by on Friday and you will see people working at the brand-new state-of-the-art bottle factory. No bullshit environmental impact studies or NIMBY neighbors.

Because they tried to stick it to us, I have no loyalty to American bottle manufacturers - most of whom are French-owned anyway. Our next shipment of bottles will be all Chinese. We save $2 per case. On cases that sell for $56, that $2 goes in my pocket. They are nice looking bottles with a slight punt - much nicer than the flat-bottom overpriced low-end US bottles. We have run Chinese glass on our line for other wineries and it works fine. US industries take note: the Chinese don't try to sell shoddy products at inflated prices for short-term gain. Their goal is to create world-class products at low prices and eat your lunch.

I think American bottle manufacturers deserve to go out of business because of their greed, just like greedy wineries that charged exorbitant prices for wine deserve to go bankrupt. Enron got what it deserved. Unfortunately, BP, Chevron, and Exxon* are still screwing us and they aren't even using petroleum jelly. (Okay, so they are using lubricant to screw the Gulf Coast, but that is different.)

And you wonder why I am grumpy.

*Exxon is a combination of Esso (the original name) and Nixxon, as a thank you to the president for the oil crisis and obscene profits.

Organic Farming Involves a lot of BS

2010-06-06T09:55:00.001-07:00

It's Sunday. I know it is Sunday because my neighbor is spraying his organic nectarines. Organic farming requires weekly spraying. I'm not sure what he is spraying. It might be sulfur, oil, or copper sulfate. Copper sulfate is extremely toxic to fish and animals, but since it can be mined from the earth, it is an organic pesticide. Buy it at Whole Paycheck market.

City people think of organic as braless hippie chicks in long dresses and their bastard children picking bugs off the vines. Who hasn't picked tomato worms from their backyard tomato vines? Well, modern organic agriculture is big business and the 640 acre organic block sits next to the 640 acre convention block. My neighbor had a good thing going. He is a good farmer and puts out a quality product, but last year the largest grower in the state came on the market with 1100 acres of organic nectarines. The market went caput. Organic farming is no longer for hippies living off the land - or small farmers trying to find a niche market. Organic farming is big agribusiness. I suggest you read The Omnivores Dilemma, by Michael Pollan.

I think conventional farming is safer. Remember the parents who bought their child organic apple juice because it was safer? The child died from e. coli that came from the manure spread on the organic orchard. Synthetic fertilizers don't pose that hazard. My fear is that when I buy conventional lettuce I might be getting organic, because when the organic market is saturated, organic produce is simply diverted into the lower priced conventional market. Maybe we need a 'certified safe conventional' label.

We don't use copper sulfate on our vineyard because it will eventually poison the soil, but if our vineyard were classified organic, we would be spraying Bordeaux mixture which contains copper sulfate. Sulfur also changes the pH of the soil. Our soil is alkaline which limits the vegetal growth of the vines. Using sulfur over long periods of time in large amounts will acidify the soil and act as a fertilizer to the grapes, lowering the wine quality in return.

Pesticides got a bad name back in the 1950's when DDT (synthetic) and lead arsenate (organic) were used without regard to the environment. Today, in the Yakima Valley we suffer from poisoned soils from apple orchards that would have been classified as organic because they used lead arsenate as a primary pesticide. These heavy metals are poorly water soluble and are persistent in the soil for years. Just because it comes from the earth, doesn't mean it is safe. Mother nature, by nature, is very toxic. A list of all organic chemicals can be found here. I find it interesting that synthetic chemicals are organic and organic chemicals are inorganic. Go figure.

I calculate that it would take three times the diesel to farm our grapes organically. First there is mechanical weeding under the vines. One tractor can do about 1-2 acres a day. We have 35 acres, so one tractor would be dedicated to weed control, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Synthetic chemicals have a spray interval of 14 to 21 days and are sprayed at rates of ounces per acre. Organic chemicals have a spray interval of 7 days and are sprayed a rates of pounds per acre. Using this much diesel is not earth-friendly. Sustainable farming involves making the most earth-friendly choices by balancing all factors.

Hence, we farm sustainable, but not organically.

Pet Peeves part deux

2010-05-27T10:50:00.001-07:00

People who want to 'just go down the list' of 12 wines. (and don't spit.) 'Start me at the top. I don't give a rip because I ain't buying anyway.' Drinking and driving is illegal. So is being drunk in public. The winery can, should, and will cut you off.

People who 'refresh' their palates between wineries with mint gum. Mint only destroys the sensitivity of the palate for about two hours. Eat a jalapeño while you are at it. Have a cinnamon latte to wash it down.

People who sneak out the door when you aren't looking and leave without even saying thank you. Canadians are notorious for this, eh. If there is no charge for tasting, common courtesy suggests you buy a bottle of wine at each winery to keep tasting free. If you really don't find something you like, at least say "thank you" before leaving. Don't tell us you will look for our wines in Bumbfuck, New York. You won't look and we won't ever be there.

People who say they are 'just tasting' and will be back tomorrow to buy. Sometimes this is true, but most times it isn't. To not sound like a jerk, just don't say it. Say "thank you" instead. When you show up later to buy, the tasting room employee will be pleased to see you and he/she will not have had a single bad thought about you.

People who think they can get all wines cheaper in Seattle. Large wineries have this problem where grocery stores will use their wines as a "loss leader" in order to get you to buy over-priced items while you are in the store. The store doesn't let you taste every wine on the shelf. Tasting rooms are expensive to operate. You probably won't even find the wine in Seattle. Buy it on the spot or say "thank you." before you leave. If you really like it, you can buy more later in Seattle. Actually, some of our wines are cheaper in Seattle. We will tell you which ones are. Our best wines are not available in Seattle.

People who pretend to be 'wine writers/bloggers' or otherwise take copious notes. We will treat you like any other customer - well, maybe not quite as well because you are announcing you are not buying. There are about four wine writers that count. They don't go wine tasting secretly to discover new wines for you. (Sorry to burst your bubble. The Easter bunny doesn't exist either.) Steve Heimoff isn't going to show up at Bonair with a notepad. These guys arrive on paid junkets and most wineries only get to 'kiss the ring' (isn't the Latin word for ring, 'anus?') and present their wine at a central location. Nowadays we don't even do that. We just submit them to the Wine Commission which uses them to party.

People who brag about what expensive wines they drink/own. Wine is food. Get over it.

Three men is business suits that burst into the tasting room who only want to taste the most expensive wines, but are afraid to buy anything because they don't know anything about wine and don't want to look foolish in front of their colleagues. This usually happens at the end of the day after a conference or meeting. I always admire the guy who buys a bottle of Sunset because he likes it. He has balls.

Uncontrolled children who proceed to dismantle the tasting room while their clueless parents taste wine. We have threatened to give away free goldfish to the children for being so 'good.' Hopefully, the parents will see the irony. Who will be the ogre when they have to flush the damn thing down the toilet?

People who drink beer (if you can call Buttweipper beer) between wineries. Admit it, you are an alcoholic. Get help.

Sagelands, You Read It Here First

2010-05-23T13:14:00.001-07:00

Now the story is starting to come out of the closet. The Wine Spectator picked up on it (probably by secretly reading this blog) "Diageo Shutters Rosenblum Winery, Moves Production to Napa" http://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/42703 The article goes on to state, "The company declined to comment on specific brands or facilities potentially for sale, but its U.S. wine division also includes labels such as Sagelands, Echelon, Canoe Ridge, Jade Mountain and Dynamite, as well as a partnership with Edna Valley Vineyard."

What with Covey Run teetering on the edge of collapse http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2010/05/10/daily65.html it could be a dismal year for wine grape growers in Washington State.

But that doesn't seem to make a difference to people. Everyone still wants to get rich in the wine industry as indicated by this article http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gnKg3X4B3PcKtkftwFE2sa-VRb-QD9FRHPSO0. What are these people thinking (or smoking.) Haven't they heard the old joke?

How do you make a small fortune in the wine industry?
Start with a large one!

Fred Franzia continues to run his bottling line day and night. When he runs out of Bakersfield wine, he pumps out wine from Australia. I predict a significant shrinkage in the Washington wine industry in the next few years. Most Washington wineries are not big enough to get out-of-state distribution, yet the Washington Wine Commission continues to ignore the home crowd in favor of national and international distribution. A few years ago, only one bottle in six consumed in the state was produced in the state. I think the WWC now says they have it up to one in five.

Sagelands Saga Continues

2010-05-14T08:44:00.001-07:00

The repairs to Sagelands tasting room are complete. (Remember, my cousin did the work.) It is ready to open, but it is not. Word has it the winery (not the tasting room) was open for wine club members during Spring Barrel Tasting.

Now the street talk is that Sagelands and Canoe Ridge are both for sale. If Diageo is pulling out of Washington, maybe it is time for real 900 pound gorilla to move in. How about some Columbia Valley Hardly Burgundy? There is going to be a glut of grapes on the market this year. It would certainly be better than California Hardly Burgundy. Walla Walla could become Modesto North, or the new Sonoma. Gallo Walla Walla has a certain ring to it, well, at least a lot of l's.

I don't make this stuff up, I just report what other winemakers are saying here in the Rattlesnake Hills. This is strictly gossip. Maybe the nice PR man from Diageo will clear things up again for me or tell me the asking price.

Pet Peeves from the Tasting Room - part one

2010-05-05T11:43:00.001-07:00

People who ignore the dump bucket and pour their wine into the water pitcher. We are used to this and when we catch it, just quickly whisk the offended pitcher off to the sink to be washed. But now we are smarter. We don't put out a water pitcher. Water coats the glass and is difficult to remove. The previous wine is more like the next wine and rinses cleaner. If you must rinse, we will use the next wine.

People who rinse between each sample. Rinsing is not necessary between samples. In fact, the water at 0% alcohol and zero taste affects the next wine more than the previous wine would. Only rinse when you go from red back to white. Again, we don't provide pitchers any more.

People who fill their glass with water and rinse between samples. This usually happens on festival weekends when you don't have enough people to keep the dump buckets emptied. Folks, it doesn't take eight ounces of water to rinse ¹/₁₀ ounce of wine from a glass. Hence, no more pitchers.

People who can't dump water on the ground. During event weekends when people have their own glass, we put a rinse pitcher outside for people to use because they usually tasted red wine at the last winery. They carry the full glass into the tasting room asking us to dump it for them. I know people from the city always put things down the drain. Here in the country, we spit and piss right on the ground.

People who ignore the dump bucket on the bar and look around to pour their rinse water into a waste basket. Okay, if this sounds petty, but just try dumping a quart of water into your paper-only waste basket at home or work. Clue: it's a yucky mess. No more pitchers! Do you get the pitcher, mister?

People who only drink "red" wine thinking it some sort of sign of sophistication. Sorry, you are only impressing us with your ignorance of wine. All wines have their place and there is nothing 'superior' about red wine. In fact, it is easier to make red wine than white wine. Any idiot can make a decent red wine in his garage (and probably get $40 a bottle for it.) White wine is prone to oxidation and needs expensive tanks and refrigeration. Garagistes don't have an 8-ton refer unit sitting outside.

People who try to impress you with their (lack of) knowledge. We hear some doozies. If the person behind the counter is well-trained, you will come across as a buffoon. If they aren't well-trained, they will just think you are full of shit.

Large groups who arrive unannounced. It sounds fun, get together with 12 friends and go slam the local tasting room which has only one person on staff that day. In fact, arrive at the same time as the group of ten chooses to arrive so no one gets any attention. Please call ahead if you group has more than six to make sure you can be accommodated.

Large groups of disinterested relatives who don't really like each other's company, but went wine tasting as a diversion. This is the corollary to the above. One person suggested they go wine tasting because he/she was going crazy cooped up with these idiots. So, let's go wander indifferently around the tasting room and make other people hate us too. Beats the hell out of sitting around discussing the weather.

People who bounce all over the tasting room. A corollary to the above. Your server tries to keep track of you and what you like. When you wander off and come back to a different server, they have to start all over getting to know you.

People who bounce all over the wine list, first tasting a sweet Riesling then going to a Chardonnay. Wine lists at wineries are usually in some sort of order. If you are unsure of the order, just ask for guidance. Plan your tasting and only taste those wines you are interested in and do so in the proper order. (I suggest a limit of three.) Do not say "surprise me" or "what is your best wine?" We don't make bad wine; well sometimes we do, but you will never taste it.

Do you have any? Please post them.

The Law of Unintended Consequences

2010-04-29T14:29:00.001-07:00

Wine Yakima Valley came up with a really good idea, or so they thought. Why not upgrade the annual Spring Barrel Tasting to a class event and charge $35 to attend. This fee would encourage wineries to upgrade their offerings, since people paid good money for the ticket and would have higher expectations, and it would weed out the riffraff. After all, only serious wine tasters would pay $35 for a ticket to sample wine from the barrel along with ultra-premium, hand-crafted, award-winning, micro-oxygenated, wines.

We here at Bonair Winery are not members of WYV, but we roll out the barrel anyway since people aren't aware that there are two organizations and each is not cheap to join. Next year, Bonair is considering being open, but not doing barrel sampling that weekend. After all, we have our Barrel Tasting Rattlesnake Hills Style the weekend before. Barrel Tasting Rattlesnake Hills Style is a fairly quiet event with serious wine drinkers trying to beat the party crowd the following weekend. And BTRHS remains a free event. We appreciate the fact that our visitors come to sample and buy wine.

On SBT we had to deal with 5 full-sized buses, several smaller buses, and an untold number of limos. Buses are the biggest problem. I wouldn't be too grumpy if they drank real beer on the bus, but they drink a fermented rice beverage called Buttwiper made by a company call Andhowsyourbush?. We have a person meet each bus to tell them it is against state law to bring alcohol onto the licensed premise. We also tell them if they appear in the least intoxicated we will not serve them. Then they appear at my tasting station with a Buttwiper soaked Riedel glass (that's class), a wrist band, and tell me, "just pour me anything." Meaning I don't give a shit as long as it is alcohol. "I paid for this binge and I'm out to get smashed." One bus claimed one of our pourers was not friendly (imagine that; faced by 50 unbeer drinking alcoholics) and promised not to return next year. Unfortunately we didn't get it in writing, but if you are reading this, thank you, you won't be missed.

Cutting down the amount of alcohol is the only way to bring WYV's SBT under control. (Some wineries have several barrel samples!) plus all the bottled wine. (Don't forget the Cores Light, brewed with Rocky Mountain goat piss, on the bus or in the motor home.) I would recommend that each winery choose a barrel to sample, a corresponding bottle sample, and one other wine. Three samples total at each winery.

In Grumpy's opinion, charging for the event has turned it into a prepaid, all-you-can-drink free-for-all drunk. "I paid my money, I have a wrist band that looks like I escaped from a mental hospital (or am staying at a time-share condo) and now I'm out to get my share of all the booze I can consume."

Mother Nature Smiles on the Washington Wine Industry - or Is This Just Another Cruel Joke?

2010-04-27T11:18:00.001-07:00

Paul Gregutt was worried about the early spring in Washington wine country. Things seemed to be two or three weeks early which would subject the tender grape shoots to weeks of killing frost. As soon as April rolled around things cooled down quite a bit and we officially had bud break April 18 here in the Rattlesnake Hills, at most only six days early. The forecast is for moderate nighttime temperatures through the next week, I have never seen a grape-killing frost in the Rattlesnake Hills after April 24, so it looks like we are home free. Or are we………?

Last Winter Mutha Natured smiled on us again. Yes, Canada came to visit, but the jet stream was not really strong and the temperatures in Canada we not that cold before the event. We recorded -1^o here at the winery which is one of the colder places in the Rattlesnake Hills AVA. Grapes were hardy down to -4^o to -6^o, depending on variety, so there was no damage. Looks like a great year for growers who will all have a full crop.

So what's not to be happy about? Well, the upcoming glut of grapes on the market. Winter freezes weed out new vines over old mature vines. Spring frosts damage those vines planted in lowlands where they should never have been planted anyway. The combination cuts quantity and improves quality at the same time. This year everything will produce, including those several thousand acres of new vines that people planted in order to get rich in the wine industry.

Each August the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers (WAWGG pronounced 'wag') publishes a confidential price list for growers to use in negotiating prices with wineries. It will be interesting to see what WAWWG comes up with this year. Of course, urban wineries are unaware of this publication, so they pay ridiculously high prices for grapes and that is really good for growers. They laugh out loud all the way to the bank. What with wine sales over $20 stalled, it will be interesting to see if these garagistes even crush. I had a fellow winemaker who waited for the state average price report to come from the USDA in December and that is what he paid for his grapes because it was usually lower than WAWWG. Good grapes can always be found for reasonable prices. Wineries need to balance their costs with keeping growers in business.

I just got the Wine Business Classified and there are some scary items listed for sale. For example: 250 tons 2010 Red Mtn grapes available (that is a lot of garagistes). 50,000 gallons 2009 Wahluke chardonnay available. (the ABC movement got them!). '08 barrel aged Cab, Merlot, and Syrah for sale. (Damn, production beats marketing again!).

All of this will have downward pressure on grape prices which will adversely affect growers. Time to rip out the old vinifera and plant, well, uh, plant what everyone else is planting - whatever that might be. That's what farmers do.

Confessions of a Blogging Winemaker

2010-04-20T09:41:00.001-07:00

Grumpy (entering blog confessional), "Forgive me father for I have sinned."

Blog Priest, "Yes son, what have you done this time?"

Grumpy, "Well, I had sex with this girl, no wait, that was a long time ago. I already confessed that several times. I, well, I wrote in my blog that I would no longer enter wine in competitions, and I succumbed to sin and entered one. You see, it wasn't really my fault. Christopher Chan, who heads the Seattle Wine Awards, personally invited me to enter our wines. He said 'he would love to see our wines' in the competition this year. Perhaps he read my blog is was just tempting me."

Blog Priest, "And what did you enter, my son?"

Grumpy, "Well, I noticed they had an 'under $20' category and the 2007 Bonair Yakima Valley Merlot and the 2008 Bonair Yakima Valley Chardonnay are available for under $12 in the Puget Sound area. They haven't' taken off like the 2008 Bonair Yakima Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. I thought that under $20 price point might separate Bonair from the big fat Walla fruit bombs. You see, our wines are food friendly and under 14% alcohol. In fact, Father, the Merlot would go well with stale crackers. You might consider a couple of cases. But now I have reservations what with all the re-labeled Walla stuff that they are trying to move at $15. It's the same as the $30 stuff. The under $20 category might be crammed with hundreds of expensive wines re-labeled to be dumped cheap!"

Blog Priest, "You are forgiven my son. Drink three white zinfandels and one California hardly burgundy. Bless you my son."

Grumpy, " Whoa Father, I didn't think lying on your blog was that serious. That is a terrible penance."

Blog Priest, "Make that two California hardly burgundies."

First Wine to Score 101

2010-04-15T15:46:00.001-07:00

The Wine Expectorator, in a press release and news conference, announced that in the May issue they would feature the first wine to score over the once sacred limit of a perfect 100. "This wine is incredible!" a spokesman for the Expectorator commented. "It will set a new standard in winemaking for all wineries to aspire to." Though he did not reveal the name, variety, or origin of the wine, he further stated, "to find out the name of the wine, you will have to buy the magazine. After all," he continued, "isn't that what it is all about? There were only 1000 cases produced, so the chances of a schmuck like you getting a bottle are basically zero." The grapes were picked at 27 brix. The wine has been micro-oxygenated to remove all varietal character and it was stored in 200% new French oak. The empty bottle weighed in at 1.42 Kg and the cork was an astounding 5.72 cm long. He did admit that the high-scoring winery had purchased the full-color inside front cover, the inside back cover, and the back cover of that issue. He vehemently denied any collusion between the editorial staff and the advertising staff saying it was merely a coincidence, "They are a regular advertiser."

Robert Parker was not available for comment, but a secret source close to Mr. Parker said he was livid that someone should dare exceed the 100 mark he created before him. He reportedly threw his Riedel wine glass across the room, smashing it against a bottle of 1961 Lafite given to him by the winery for his last round of inflated scores. He vowed to "get even" by finding a wine that rated at least 102. Our source hinted, "Don't be surprised if it goes as high as 104."

When asked the impact on the consumer, the Expectorator spokesperson responded, "This wine will be the new standard for consumers who don't know shit about wine to aid in choosing a wine that will impress their friends. It will give wineries an incentive to produce more expensive wines and buy more advertising with us. We all know those wines rated 90 to 95 are pretty ho-hum and available at bargain rates at Grocery Outlet. Now, if you don't score at least a 97, you are not in the game. It will continue to supply the consumer with high priced wines that they have to beg to purchase. This in turn will aid wineries that have waiting lists to get on the mailing lists."

When grilled about the rating of Bonair Wines, the spokesperson replied, "I have not heard of that winery. They do not advertise with us and they don't send us free wine for our parties or to use as gifts for our expensive escorts."

How to Advertise and Promote Your Winery

2010-04-09T16:28:00.001-07:00

Everybody wants a piece of the winery action. After all, wineries are cash cows that just need to be milked, right?

Yellow Pages: When people go wine tasting, they will just look in the yellow pages under wineries. Wrongo Buckwheat. Have you ever looked for wineries to visit in the yellow pages? Anyway, we get a free listing in the places to visit section of the phone book which might be useful to someone bored to death of porno movies in a hotel room.

Newspapers: usually these are sold two ways. 1) the business card ad at the side of some even being promoted. Or 2) the thank-you ad for promoting the builder that built your tasting room. Neither is targeted enough to gain any results. I have put redeemable coupons in newspaper ads in the past. The only good part was I never had to redeem a single coupon! Always track your advertising dollars.

Magazines: These usually come as business card type ads around a map of your geographic region. The only problem is that the Rattlesnake Hills AVA has been so badly treated in the press, no one wants to support these rags, so we don't even get a map or get a request anymore. The Rattlesnake Hills Wine Trail is trying a series of ads, tied to some editorial ink, in the Washington State AAA magazine. This should be fairly targeted to the group of people we want to reach. Advertising in wine mags just gets lost in the myriad of tiny ads jammed on each page. If you can't afford at least a half-page, it probably is money down the tube. Print advertising is good for magazines, not wineries.

Brochures: The Rattlesnake Hills Wine Trail publishes an annual brochure listing all 17 wineries. This brochure is available at visitors centers around the state and we pay for distribution at freeway rest stops. Stop at the top of Snoqualmie Pass to take a whizz and pick up a brochure with a map to the wineries. This seems to be pretty targeted advertising.

Freeway Signs: Don't think these work? Think again. Bonair Winery tries to find the sources of our visitors and believe it or not, "I knew there were wineries in the area and I saw your sign" is a common response. You have to be open quite a few days a week to get one, but it is worth is cost.

Visitors and Convention Bureaus: Not only does this get you in good with the local tourist people, they promote members at the visitors information center - especially if they know the visitors will have a good visit. Bonair Winery just signed up for a back-lit sign to go on the wall of the local VIC. There website is a source of many referrals to our website.

Radio & TV: "Hi, this is Jack from KRAP. Do you know you could reach thousands of customers by supporting this ad, 'Bonair Winery is proud to thank our local law enforcement officers this Fourth of July for getting the drunk drivers off the road.'" What the hell are they thinking? Drunk drivers drink Buttwiper in cans, not fine wine. No, we don't encourage driving while intoxicated nor do we want to support your radio station whose readers are either cops or people who drink bad beer.

The Wine Commission: This is a really expensive advertising cost from which we receive little or no benefit. About 1% of our website traffic is generated by them. The Yakima Valley V&C, and the Rattlesnake Hills Wine Trail generate far more visits, but by law we have to send them the largest share of our advertising budget every year. Their board is a bunch of 'good ole boys' from everywhere but the Rattlesnake Hills. I haven't heard from them in over a year.

Enter Competitions: This is a complete waste of money. The entry fees and shipping fees add up fast. Then there is the free wine; usually 4 bottles of each wine entered. Enter three wines in a competition and you just gave away a case. Best of all, nobody gives a rip. See why we don't enter anymore.

Send Wine to Magazine Reviewers: This sounds like a good idea. A 95 from Paul Gregutt in the Wine Enthusiast should really boost sales. Maybe it would, but the best I have received from reviewers was a 91 and a best buy. The wine didn't fly off the shelf. In fact, nobody seemed excited except the staff. We were elated. The opposite end of that sword is an 81. Hopefully, nobody reads this either, so it shouldn't hurt - except the staff of course.

Google Pay per click: This works well for the Rattlesnake Hills Wine Trail. I am just starting a campaign for Bonair Winery. There are thousands of prospective customers in Portland Metro and Puget Sound who have never heard of us. Hopefully, we can reach them through targeted advertising like Google.

Sell wine cheap: Believe it or not, this seems to be the best advertising - only if the wine is good and ours is. After 25 years, we are finally gaining brand recognition in the Puget Sound market.

Give Wine to Events: We recently received this email:
"I host the Del Sol Classic Horse show in Del Mar California. We traditionally support our local wineries and give away 9 cases of wine during our three horse shows each year to our VIPs. Our shows reach over 600 people daily from the Southern California area who compete in the Hunter/Jumper world. Would you be interested in donating your wines for your chance to promote yourself and our pleasure to support you? Please feel free to email or call be to discuss. I am happy to come visit to discuss further opportunities."
So local includes Washington wineries now. I'll bet everyone jumps on this one.

If you have any other ideas on how to lose money in the wine biz, let me know.

Why Walla Walla Became the Ultimate Washington Wine Country

2010-04-03T11:39:00.001-07:00

Before you get a bug up your ass, nothing in this blog is meant to demean or disrespect the Walla Walla wineries or their wine. It is merely my perspective of how the phenomena came about and what the future may hold.

It all started with Dr. Walter Clore who noticed that Walla Walla had the mildest winter climate in Eastern Washington. Since winter kill is the main problem with growing grapes here, he surmised that the Walla Walla Valley would be the best choice for locating vineyards. He didn't check the actual highs and lows, just the average. When we have a polar outbreak, Walla Walla is the coldest place in Eastern Washington. In fact, in 1996 it was 61^o on January 14 and -21^o on February 2. That kind of swing is tough on grapes. Because it sits under the Blue Mountains, it is subject to late spring and early fall frosts.

Back in the mid '80s there were four very good wineries in Walla Walla: Leonetti, Woodward Canyon, L'Ecole 41, and Waterbrook. This made for a good reputation for the region as opposed to the Yakima Valley which had many more wineries in a larger area and quality was hit and miss. Sometimes more miss than hit.

Then Steve Burns arrived fresh from California to become the head of the Washington Wine Commission. Steve didn't like the Yakima Valley. What with its dry dusty climate, white-trash trailers, and barren hills, it looked more like Bakersfield to him than Napa. Walla Walla on the other hand with 20 inches average annual rainfall and forests on the Blue Mountains looks a lot like Napa. Well, as close as you can get in Eastern Washington. Steve was in love with Walla Walla.

The first year here he brought a bus tour of wine writers and other hot shots through the Yakima Valley to Walla Walla. As they passed the reservoirs that feed the irrigation canals that water the grapes in the Yakima Valley, they were aghast! Look at all those dead tree stumps exposed by the lake drained to grow grapes in the Yakima Valley. The Yakima Valley must indeed be an evil place. Steve never made that mistake again. The next year, he chartered airplanes to fly the buttheads directly to Walla Walla eliminating completely that scene of dead trees, dry lakes, and the hot dry ride through the Yakima Valley.

Steve was a product of the dot-bomb era. He said, "There is no end to the amount of high-priced wine you can sell and there is no limit to the price you can charge." I assume that he meant if it was from Walla Walla - not the Yakima Valley.

Articles (or should I say an article) began to appear in magazines and newspapers around the country. I say one article because it was the same article over and over. Just a regurgitation of the Wine Commission press releases. Californians in the industry must not have felt very threatened by the Washington wine industry which was comprised of a 1200 acre AVA, 4 hours and 30 minutes from any metropolis. Never mind there were 11,000 acres of vinifera in the Yakima Valley and lots of new plantings in the Horse Heaven Hills and Wahluke Slope. The story was Walla Walla.

More than a place to grow grapes, Walla Walla became a school of winemaking, a very popular one at that, making New-World style wines that the critics loved - high alcohol fruit bombs, dry (with some RS of course), soft integrated tannins, and boatloads of French oak. Just what Parker ordered. More than 100 wineries opened shop in Walla Walla on this good news. "We'll all get rich," they thought.

It became a standing joke in the Yakima Valley that all Steve could say was, "Walla Walla Walla Walla Walla……." Then Steve Burns up and moved back to California, so the cheerleader was gone.

Then came $4.00 gasoline. Walla Walla is 273 miles (4 hours 31 minutes) from Seattle. This really cut into the number of visitors to Walla Walla. Restaurants closed up.

Then came the new wine order. Ultra-premium wines for $20. Premium wines for $10. Good wine for $7.00 and everybody is buying high end Napa Valley Estate-bottled wines at Grocery Outlet for $5.00 ($4.00 with a 20% case discount).

Restaurant visits dropped sharply and sales of high end wines dropped even more dramatically. Wineries who based their sales on 'high-end restaurants and wine shops' found themselves without a market.

But the dream lives on (tongue in cheek) in this really funny (perhaps all too true) video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcjVfXBxvdg produced by Gramercy Cellars in where else? Walla Walla. Enjoy!

Taste Washington

2010-03-30T15:52:00.001-07:00

The big Taste Washington was this weekend in Seattle. This is the biggest wine event in the state. I hope it went well for all involved. Why wasn't I there? If Quiceda Creek and Leonetti don't go, why should I?

Bonair Winery has attended this event for years, from its inception at the old Paramount Theater. From a promotional point of view, it never had any value for our winery. I was looking at the list of over 200 (I didn't count them) wineries and all are trying to push $20+ bottles of wine in a market that buys Three-buck Chuck at Trader Joes.

The event used to be free for wineries, I would attend because they had a great oyster bar and I love oysters on the half shell. They limited us to three wines and asked us to bring two cases of each. So for a while I lugged six cases from the parking lot into the hall and placed them under the table. I poured one bottle of white and two bottles of red and lugged five cases, 9 bottles back to the car. I thought trading three bottles of ten-dollar wine for an unlimited oyster bar was a good deal. The last time I went, I showed up with a mixed case and took nine bottles back to the car. That was a lot easier, but the oyster bar wasn't as good - no European flats.

They used to have a pre-event for the trade. (Maybe they still do. I didn't even read the literature they emailed me.) Supposedly, this was for sommeliers, wine shop owners, and buyers for QFC. This was a joke because the trade didn't care, so they gave their tickets to friends so they could get in free. There was actually less interest in the wines during this pre-session than during the public session where people actually shelled out $75 per person to get in. These people were there for the free food and booze courtesy their friends with connections.

The last time I went, Steve Burns was still the head of the Washington Wine Commission. He placed all of the Walla wineries in one location and the Yakima Valley wineries in another. Because Steve had so effectively marketed Walla, the people flocked to that area. Those poor wineries poured out of their six cases of $80 wine in no time. (They were not happy about that! $5760 in free wine.) Then people wandered over just looking for booze. I spent the afternoon with this conversation (I kid you not).

Person, "Bonair, I've never heard of you. Are you new?"

Grumpy, "Well, that's relative. In Europe wineries are hundreds of years old. This is our 25th anniversary. We started in 1985. We were the 29th winery in Washington. We are one of the oldest wineries in the state, but from a world view, yes, we are new. Have you been living under a rock or are you just stupid? You know, Ron White says you can't fix stupid." (Actually, they had been reading press releases from the Wine Commission or articles written from those press releases which don't acknowledge Zillah exists, so I should be more forgiving of their ignorance.)

Person, "Where are you located?"

Grumpy, "We are in Zillah Zillah." (I thought doubling it would emphasize the meaning, maybe making it magic like Walla Walla.)

Person, "I've never heard of Zillah. Where is that?"

Grumpy, "On your way to Walla, Buttbreath. You drive right past it. It's about halfway between Walla and Seattle on Interstate 82. Two hours and fifteen minutes from Issaquah. Have you heard of Issaquah?"

Person, "I'll look for your wines in the grocery store." (on a cold day in Hell) That makes me feel really good since (at that time) we only sold in a few wine shops and at the winery. I hate condescending people.

Grumpy, "Yeah, right! Don't look too hard. You might strain your eyes."

As a tracking incentive, I gave out discount coupons for any wine purchased at the winery. None were ever redeemed. Note to wineries: Always give out tracking cookies at promotional events! See if they really work for you. Give big ones like buy one bottle and get a second of equal value or less for free. Don't worry, it won't cost you a dime.

Now it costs $175 to $225 for wineries to attend. If 2000 people attend, that is ten persons per winery. Divide $225 by ten and you get $22.50 for each person who has the above inane conversation with you. Per person, this is really expensive advertising.

Wine Writers for Local Newspapers are Shills

2010-03-26T17:36:00.001-07:00

Back in the old days when the Washington Wine Commission still brought people to Yakima, I had dinner at Birchfield Manor with a bunch of wine writers accompanied by Simon Seigl, who was head of the Wine Commission at the time. I sat across the table from the writer from the San Francisco Chronicle. I'm sorry, I wasn't impressed enough to remember the gentleman's name. I just remember that his wife and I had a nice conversation after he became inebriated and his face fell into his half-finished plate of food. This was circa 1988.

Before he crashed and burned into his food he informed me that he wasn't interested in any wines that were not available in the Bay Area. I have heard this line a lot from local/regional wine writers. It's not my job to tell you what's new and exciting, I just report on what schlock the distributors give me.

If you are not out to find something 'new' for your 'news' paper, then why do you exist? Maybe this explains part of the demise of the newspaper business overall. Newspapers have an attitude that it is not their job to find news, just to cut and past stuff from the wire service and print a fish wrapper. They regurgitate (or fall into) what other people feed them

So if this guy wasn't interested in the wines he was tasting on the tour, why was he even here? Ah yes, the free vacation. In the business we call them fam (from familiarization) tours. Perks of the business. Like the Parker boys trip to Argentina.

These writers are shills of the distributors. The distributor finds wines he is interested in selling, then he gives free samples to the wine column guy and he pumps up the crap the distributor wants to sell. No wonder the wine selection sucks in many parts of the country. Instead of the wine writer telling the consumer of new and interesting wines he/she discovered on his/her fam tour (read free vacation), causing the distributor to go and seek new and interesting wines, the columnist merely rubber stamps the distributor's selections. The article comes out like this:

"My friend, Bob, from Big Brand Wine and Spirits has just brought in some new and exciting wines from the San Joaquin Valley in California. Mind you, these are not new wineries, but just new labels from the Callo Brothers. I particularly like the Cesspool Creek Chabis. It has hints of urine with dog vomit on the finish. 95……"

I sure wish I could remember that guy's name.