Wine knowledge: make it or fake it

I am a firm believer in drinking any wine you like with any food you like and figuring out the fun way which things taste good together. In particular, I drink sparkling wine with everything from pizza to pb&j to Pinot Noir. (What pairs better with wine than wine?!) However, wine and food pairing tools like this one at Nat Decants are super fun to play around with. By the way, Natalie MacLean is a wonderful writer and down-to-earth wine expert. Poke around for some of her articles online.

So here are some good combinations I picked out for you using her little pairing generator:

With kangaroo, try a Cabernet Sauvignon. With beef jerky, Syrah. Nachos call for Zinfandel or Champagne (duh). Donuts (jelly-filled or with sprinkles) are best with icewine. Chile-scented chocolates are a great match for Port. Yes, of course, she gives a few options for bacon: beer, whiskey, Tempranillo, Pinot Noir, Shiraz. Nothing for bacon chocolate, so go experiment. P.S. Vosges makes a dark chocolate bacon bar now, and it’s better than the milk one, with more subtle smokiness.

And here is another wine tool that’s right up my alley: The Silly Tasting Notes Generator. It works much like a Mad Lib. Select “extra-silly” and then try it out at your next dinner party. Also useful for coming up with band names and song lyrics. I’ll leave you with a couple of of my results:

Overbearing almost hoppy Merlot. Drops strawberry candy, longingly elegant licorice and dainty tangerine. Drink now through whenever the cows come home.

Remarkable almost freakishly evil Pinot Gris. Hints of roast pork, meandering earth and strong-willed raisin. Drink now through never.

Je suis confused. What does it mean?

I’ve encountered a surprising number of people who don’t know what Je Suis means. I’m trying not to judge. I’m going to save you a trip to Google Translate: Je Suis means I am. In French. No, I’m not French, but my grapes are French varietals and were aged in French oak, and isn’t French just so luscious and sexy? If you had a tofu company, with Spanish varietal tofu, you might call it Yo Soy. Which is also a palindrome.

BUT I just discovered that Je Suis also means I follow, from the verb suivre. As in, I follow the wine. How great is that?!

Shall we use it in a sentence?

Je suis le sommelier. Meaning 1.) I am the sommelier (and I like to pour Je Suis Wine  2.) I follow the sommelier (because he always chooses Je Suis Wine)

Good! Now go home and practice. Sip and repeat: Je Suis Syrah. Je Suis Petite Sirah. Je Suis content.

Webspinning Spider Mites

Doesn’t that sound like some fantastic Harry Potter creature? Yeah, well that’s what my new Grenache vines appear to have. I found these tiny little bugs and white hairy web things on the underside of some of the leaves, so I did some research on grape pests and these guys seem to match up the best. Aphids were my second guess but, to be honest, the name is not nearly as cool. Check out some of the other things that like to mess with grapes:

Bot Canker, Botrytis Bunch Rot, Crown Gall, Downy Mildew, Eutypa Dieback, Phomopsis Cane and Leafspot… J.K. Rowling, are you getting this?

I’m pretty bummed, actually, and not sure what to do other than hope that the bugs scatter when the rainy weather starts up. Here’s the kind of advice that you can find online: “Manage webspinning spider mites in a vineyard by integrating biological, cultural and chemical controls.” I think I understand biological and chemical controls, but cultural? Are you telling me that I need to take my vines to the opera? Because I will, you know.

I’m not really into chemicals, and we all saw how well my biological experiment with ant control worked out, so maybe I’ll look into tickets to Otello. I’ve transplanted Blanc et Noir into temporary planters, so I may have to buy three seats.

jesuiwine.com, relaunched

Welcome to those finding their way here from the jesuiswine.com! For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, check out the redesigned, reconfigured, really much better website: www.jesuiswine.com

To appease the SEO gods and make things easier for my thirsty customers, the new site features faster loading, a frequently updated news section, testimonials, recent press, etc. etc. yum yum. It’s also really easy to order wine. Please do.

Want to get your own review up there? You know the drill. Shoot me an email at info@jesuiswine.com or just leave a note in the comments section here.

Bonjour Grenache

I know that I just got married, but…. I’d like to introduce you to the newest members of our family. Meet Grenache Noir et Grenache Blanc:

Awwww

Looking Up

Glamour Shot

Aren’t they cute? Yes, some people get puppies, some adopt kittens, but I’m beaming over my two leafy babies here, a gift from my aunt and uncle. They’re clippings from the world-class Tablas Creek Vineyard, and they shall henceforth mark the beginning of the Je Suis Vineyard. Or maybe SIP Vineyard. (Those are my new initials. Perfect, no?) My project for the next few days is to figure out how to care for these little guys and keep them alive in Oakland. Voila–I own a vineyard.

Roundup: Wine Refrigerators

Wooooooey, it’s a hot one here today! It’s also been a while since I’ve given you any wacky wine gadgets to drool over. That makes two good reasons to do a little roundup of super cool wine cooling… coolers. I don’t actually have one (I’m a little worried about the bottles hiding out on my floor), and would actually prefer a custom-built cellar with secret passageways. But, you know, if someone wanted to give me a wine refrigerator, I’d think I’d be OK with any of the following:

Perlick 72-in Refrigerator + Beer Dispenser + Wine Reserve

They call it the “Ultimate Home Entertainer’s Tool.” I call it common sense. Who doesn’t want (up to three) beer taps next to their wine collection?

GE Monogram Walk-In Wine Vault

“The GE Monogram Walk-In Wine Vault offers stainless steel walls and doors, a touch-screen console with label scanner, inventory software database, and redwood racks that can handle more than 1,000 bottles (singles, magnums and crates).” Oh. Yeah. Throw in a retina-scanning security feature and I’m all over that.

I just want to mention that one of GE’s smaller models features “privacy glass.” You can turn the glass door from transparent to opaque when company comes… so your wine doesn’t get embarrassed.

Marvel 18-Bottle Champagne Cellar

It only holds 18 bottles, which is silly, but I would be pretty happy to have 18 bottles of bubbly in the house at all times. Also, their description is just so poetic: “The glide-out racks, fronted in gleaming stainless steel, are wider and deeper to gently cradle champagne bottles. Recessed lighting elegantly showcases your collection.” I’m a sucker for copy.

And because I was sorely disappointed with the lack of fun features on most the fridges I found, I’ve come up with a list of add-ons for my ideal wine storage compartment. Maybe someone could start working on these.

- Programmable tags indicating who gave me the wine and when.

- A function that shoots out the perfect bottle when I tell it what I’m having for dinner. (My taste preferences pre-programmed first, of course, and kept separate from Oren’s.)

- Alarm to deter wine-thieves. Preferably one that says, “Wine thief, you’ve met your match,” and then shoots corks at their face.

- Mood music upon opening. And a voice greeting me with a French accent. No, British.

- A one-glass-at-a-time pouring and storage function for bottles I don’t finish.

- Nibbles. I like to eat while I decide what to drink.

To market, to market

I attended a wine marketing seminar at Crushpad this weekend. It was worthwhile just to meet some of the other crazy people who do this sort of thing (ie, start a wine business) and hear their success stories, but there were also some speakers who gave excellent advice. Elaine Marshall’s discussion of electronic marketing was particularly interesting. (Think: Can Twittering actually lead to sales?) Here were my main takeaways/action items (eww, that’s such a job-y phrase) from the afternoon:

1. I need to rework my website for search engine optimization and sales conversion (meaning, make it easier for search engines to find Je Suis Wine and for customers to buy Je Suis Wine.). Pretty excited for that, actually.

2. It’s time to bite the proverbial bullet (goldfish crackers here filling in) and bring my wine to some restaurants. One hundred percent direct sales — that’s you guys — is a lovely idea, but very, very difficult, so let’s see if we can’t get some sommeliers interested.

Trying not to get discouraged, but it’s annoying that in my day job I’m a very successful marketer of food products, while with Je Suis, I fluctuate between lost and unmotivated. I know that wine can’t sell itself, but Je Suis had so much personality… I guess I thought it might just charm its way out of storage.

But enough negativiwhining, be on the lookout for the new and improved JeSuisWine.com coming soon!

Forget journalism; We’d rather be drinking.

What’s black and white and red all over? Wine clubs run by the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Wall Street Journal, for starters. Looking to up their revenue streams, it seems that major papers are turning to the kind of content that can’t be guzzled for free online. It’s actually a brilliant idea, especially considering the trust built up over decades in the knowledgeable folks behind the food and wine sections.

But how strange if all the papers were to collapse and only their wine clubs remain! The next generation might grow up associating the New York Times with small-batch California Chardonnay. Will our children never know the squeaky feel of newspaper ink on their fingertips? I’m not sure if I care, but it makes me a little nostalgic. Dr. Vino and his readers offer some interesting perspective in the wine clubs as convenient vs. impersonal debate. As for certain local papers, well, let’s just hope that the quality of the wine beats the quality of the reporting… (ouch!)

Call for reviews

In the Richard Avedon exhibit at SFMOMA yesterday, one of my favorite prints was a shot of the dancer Rudolf Nureyev’s foot, rooted sturdily, vertically to the ground by the tips of three toes. The piece was entitled dance, en pointe, and indeed it was very much to the point, as I’ve been thinking again about wine ratings and point systems.

By now, you know that I’m not a fan of the subjective rating of wines by numbers or points nor the Parkerization of American tastes. The experience of drinking wine is too personal and too colorful to whittle down into a single figure based on one person’s, or one magazine’s opinion. So here I run into a dilemma: To submit my wines for official review would go against my brand ethics, but to receive a high number from a well-known publication might go a long way towards boosting sales.

Luckily, one of the merits of this vast blogosphere in which I type is that, as compared to traditional media, many more people have access to wine reviews written by a much wider range of wine drinkers, from Joe Schmoes to connoisseurs. So my solution, I think, will be to identify wine bloggers whose reviews best fit into my imagery-rich, snobbery-free ideal and send them a bottle to try. The other nice part about this approach is that the readers of those blogs have likewise identified the writers as having a tasting vocabulary and style that resonates with them, so that partly takes care of the subjectivity issue.

I’d also like to ask anyone who has tried Je Suis Syrah to send me their own impressions. Give me some adjectives, paint me a picture, describe in your own words how you felt when you drank it. I’ll post your impressions on the blog and the website, where they will collectively serve to describe the World of Je Suis and tempt all those future Je Suis-lovers with what they’ve been missing. (And who knows, maybe this will spark your own wine-writing career!)

Leave your review of Je Suis Syrah in the comments section here, or shoot me an email at info@jesuiswine.com.

By the way, I recommend poking around Chateau Petrogasm, where a single image serves as a description for each wine. In their own words, “No matter how hard we try to reproduce a wine (whether by words or art), we will always fall short. Hence, nothing can stand in place for a particular sip of wine, not even the second sip. This is precisely what makes traditional wine reviews bankrupt and, at the same time, makes wine so pleasurable! … It would be just as dubious to describe in great detail each component of the painting, as we often do with wine. (“A man with blue pants and a loose white shirt stands on a beach, which from what I can tell contains grains of sand in the following colors: . . . .”) Since the enjoyment of wine is clearly a subjective experience, it cannot be described by words alone. Using abstract art to convey both the experience of drinking and the impression of a wine, we can move beyond the limits of words. And, if a wine smells overbearingly like honeydew, then we must trust that honeydew will stain one’s imagination and thus the image.

What is a wine worth?

With the economy the way it is (when you figure out exactly how it is, please let me know), there’s been a bit of balking (yep, I’ve heard the balks) at the idea of paying $45 for a bottle of wine. So, I thought it was about time to address the value issue. Value. In the retail marketing biz, that’s is a word that gets tossed around like spring mix in a salad spinner, but value — or perceived value — is something that helps all of us make purchasing decisions, whether we know it or not. And let’s be honest, I’d like to sway your purchasing decisions over in this general direction. So, without further ado, I present to you the factors that make my when a good value, a.k.a:

WHY TO SPEND $45 ON A BOTTLE OF JE SUIS WINE

1. It’s all in the fruit — Better grapes make better wine. It’s a simple concept, and one that we’re all familiar with in regards to ingredients in food. Why does Chez Panisse make a better salad than Chili’s? Among other things, their salades begin with the freshest, highest-quality produce. It’s the same with wine. Je Suis grapes come from the finest vines in one of the finest vineyards in California, making them some of the finest grapes in the world. There’s some good heritage in that bottle.

2. Pure talent — It isn’t enough to start with the best grapes, you also need to have the know-how to turn them into beautiful wine. The winemakers who helped craft the Je Suis wines have won awards for their skill and worked for such wineries as Clos du Val and Opus One. These guys are artists. No, they’re artistic geniuses.

3. Knowing where your food comes from — Oh yeah, hi, I’m the owner of the company. Maybe you know me personally, maybe you’ve been following along online, maybe you joined my Facebook page because you thought it was for fans of French indie film. In any case, you probably know a little something about the story behind the wine. That’s a whole caseload more than you can say about any of those wines on the shelf at TJ’s, right?

4. A transporting experience — No no, I’m not talking about the cab you have to take home from the party where you’ve had too much wine. Je Suis offers a chance to relax and spend some time focusing on your senses, your dreams, the conversation, the sunset, whatever you like. It’s a moment outside of normal life. In short, a little taste of luxury. And by the way, $45 for some bona fide liquid luxury with a side of great memories isn’t all that bad.

5. It tastes really, really good. The proof is in the taste buds, my friends.