Two thumbs up for OnThEdge Charbono

Threw a couple more questions at Pat Savoie after posting her last response, one on what kind of bargains were coming out of New Zealand/Australia, and also asked her how insulated Pennsylvania would be to price hikes since the state had already established good relationships with the markets in California and the Old World. Here's her reply:

"Not that there aren't values in Aust and NZ -- they have gone out of their way to price for the US market -- but prices have crept up. I don't see the level of value that exists in other areas. Yellow Tail at $6 or $7 is not a value to me.

"Yes, in PA you have to power of the state buying machine to hold prices down. One of my favorite wines was accepted by the LCB -- OnThEdge Charbono. The Wine Media Guild of NY, of which I am co-chair, had an all-inclusive Charbono tasting earlier this month (all 14 producers!) and the 2005 OTE was one of the favorites."

The making of Bedlam

Ed Boyce and his wife Sarah O’Herron note on their Web site that the idea of growing vines and making wine became increasingly appealing as they considered a destination for the next chapter in their careers. The researching and traveling to other vineyards only strengthened that commitment, so they bought a parcel in Mt. Airy, Md., and planted their first grapes for what would be called Black Ankle Vineyards in 2003.

That, Boyce says in a phone interview Wednesday night, was a significant hurdle to cross.
“You know, when you go into the vineyard business, the biggest and scariest decisions come first,” he says. “It’s where to plant and what to plant and then you have 50 years where you can’t change either one.”

Five years later, both no doubt are more relaxed about their decision. Entering their first batch in the Maryland Winemakers’ Choice Awards, Black Ankle recently walked away with three gold medal, including top honors for a white blend they call Bedlam.

Boyce spent much of the interview taking listeners through its evolution, how their intent to mix together their four white grapes – chardonnay, viognior, gruner veltliner and albarino – took on a new dimension when they discovered a visitor among their plantings of syrah.

“Two hundred vines turned out to be what we call our white syrah, a nursery mistake,” he says of the muscat vines. “We just decided to keep them. So we have a few hundred vines of Muscat.” Not perfect for these climes, he notes, but it "adds a really nice little spice and fruit component to the wine.”

On top of this success comes the opening of the tasting room in what they hope will be mid-July. It’s an endeavor that you can follow via a sequence of pictures appearing on the Web site. The most recent photo, taken earlier this week, is posted with this story. “All down the line we’ve tried to sort of sit back and say, ‘What do we have on the farm that we can use to build this building?’ and it’s turned into a very interesting . . . I think we’re very proud of the way it’s turning out.”

Happy birthday Woodhall

From my friends at Woodhall Wine Cellars in Parkton, Md., this note from the June newsletter:

"It doesn’t seem possible, but Woodhall has reached the quarter century mark. And to celebrate it, we’ve decided to run a two week birthday party beginning July 19th and ending on August 1st. For the whole period, there will be a gigantic sale on selected Woodhall wines (Pinot Noir, Rose’ of Sangiovese, Chardonnay 2005, Cabernet Franc, Tuscano and Angler Red) and on weekends we’ll be conducting special wine and food tastings and other surprises in the winery. More on that next month."

If my wife and I have hung around at any winery on a regular basis, it has been this one, located just off I-83 about 20 minutes south of York. There's a restaurant on the premises and lots of nice people -- take a bow Al, Debbie and Chris, to name a few. Like virtually every winery we've visited in both states, we're greeted there with a big smile and answers to all our questions. And, of course, lots of wines to choose from. Congrats, guys.

Savoie: Rough time for Old standbys

Following up on Tom Ward's recent comments regarding the impact of the weak dollar and other factors on the cost of a bottle of wine -- particularly the cases coming from abroad -- is this response from wine author and journalist Pat Savoie, a wine columnist for Primetime A&E magazine. My appreciation to Pat for checking in.

She writes in an e-mail:

"Wine prices. Afraid there is no good news either from the Euro-bloated Old World or the wineries of California, which have worked their way through what was a glut of plantings and supply. The overproduction has dried up. Frost has imperiled the '08 crop. The Euro continues to float at high-water mark, and importers and retailers, many of whom have tried to keep prices down, are now passing along the exchange-based price increases.

"In addition, the rush to plant new vineyards in CA has tapered off as land, vines, supplies and labor costs have increased, which means the supply is not increasing, so the value of grapes will climb.

"However, despite the economy, consumers don't seem to be trading down to less-expensive wines, probably because wine has insinuated itself onto the tabletop-- as part of the meal. I've seen research indicating that people are drinking more wine at home as restaurant prices continue upward. In fact, the highest sales growth is in wines priced at $12 a bottle or more.

"So, a good strategy is to focus on wines from areas that are not smacking down the dollar. Argentina and Chile are sources of good value wines. Portugal, despite its Euro currency, also offers a lot of great wines at bargain prices. South Africa is a great source. In the US, consider wines from NY's Finger Lakes and Long Island or from Virginia, Oregon and Washington.

"Or, start drinkng all those Old World wines you have been saving."

Heading into Tuscany? Let Vittorio take you

Glimpses of the LaSala Winery and Fiaschetteria
del Chianti eatery.


It took years to finally get to Europe, but once we got there in January the biggest surprise was the beauty of Florence, Italy. Rome, of course, deserves its accolades. There's nothing like Venice either. But we could have stayed a week in Florence, in part to see EVERYTHING and in other cases to see some things twice, like the incredible view accessed from a high spot across the Arno River at Piazza Michelangelo, and the centerpiece of that picture-perfect spot, the Duomo. It was at the Piazza that Vittorio Del Bono Venezze picked us up in his van on a springlike January morning and gave us, since we were his only guests that day, what amounted to a private tour of Chianti country.

That included a few hours walking around the estate at LaSala Winery, sitting in our own classroom in the tasting room while Hilary took us through the basics of savoring and appreciating a glass of wine, then stopping at an eatery called Fiaschetteria del Chianti in the town of San Casciano in Val di Pesa and wandering down into the cellar for a Tuscan meal. It's of one of several restaurants that Vittorio uses as a place to stop between wineries to fill the tummy and interact with his passengers. You felt worlds away from reality downstairs, a hideaway composed of brick and stone. The final stop was Villa Carfaggio, settled amid the Tuscan hills. In that Vittorio was a perfect guide, this is a chance to say thanks and plug his service, which still includes the Chianti Classico tour on Mondays and Wednesdays starting at 9.45 a.m. and on Thursday starting at 10 a.m.

Vittorio wrote in an e-mail that, like almost everyone else, he's been hurt by the cost of the Euro for Americans. "The weak dollar has affected my business . . . 20%," he said. "Now people are more inclined to get my semi-private tour instead of the private one that it is getting too expensive." And the cost of fuel? "The gas price for the moment [has not] hit my business."

Maryland announces Winemasters' winners

Courtesy of Kevin Atticks of the Maryland Wineries Association, a link to the 2008 Winemasters' Choice Awards following a gathering of winemakers and winery proprietors in April.

On the holiday, a bit of a global perspective

Tom Ward says his interest in wine began to grow in 1980 when he started working in the advertising and marketing field. Seven years later, he took on the role of building the subscriber base for a publication called Wine Advocate, under the direction of Robert Parker Jr. The two of them remain friends; in fact, Ward wrote in an e-mail, “Keep an eye out on the wine news … [Parker] just did a wine tasting on the Great Wall of China!”

Since 2000, Ward has been working full time in the wine trade, largely in sales and extensively with imports. “I helped to set up and run an import company [Vinocopia],” he wrote, “did a lot of work for the Australian Trade Commission, all done as an ‘independent contractor’ under the company name Green Tree Wine Company. He also has been working with winemaker Paul Smith, whose OnThEdge Winery in Calistoga, Calif., includes former Eagles and St. Louis Rams coach Dick Vermeil as a partner. Those include the Jean Louis Vermeil line of wines, which pays homage to the ancestors of Vermeil that, prior to Prohibition, used to own and farm that same Napa Valley land.

Ward responded quickly to my e-mail inquiry about how the weak dollar is affecting imports and whether buyers might see any trends during what figures to be a summer long on crisis and short on stability. He wrote:

“I just checked historical data Paul. The Euro on May 23, 2001 was worth just under 86-cents US; it now takes a little more than $1.57 US to buy a Euro. That is an 83% increase in the value of their currency.

“I was an Economics Major in college and studied under two great professors who were trained at the University of Chicago, so I understand market financial dynamics quite well. Our current administration has always favored a weaker dollar to drive down the cost of US produced goods overseas. Not an opinion…they have made plenty of statements supporting this position. What is scary (and this is commentary) is that we are now at the mercy of market forces that could prevent us from getting back to any of level of relative equilibrium, and indeed could make the gap more dramatic, for years to come.

“In terms of how that has affected the price of imported wines, the brunt of the dollar devaluation has been picked up by (1) foreign wine producers and (2) the wine trade, especially importers. I haven’t formally studied pricing changes on imports, but I’d venture to guess they have only increased about 1/3 versus the 83 percent valuation swing in the dollar; that’s a rather wide margin discrepancy.

Just some things to consider . . ."

The obvious follow-up question was two-pronged: How much longer will producers and importers carry the load before the burden switches to the consumer, and for American consumers looking for bargains, how steady will prices remain on South American and Australian wines?

Ward responded within a couple of hours: “Actually South American wines haven’t gone up as much in price because the Argentine and Chilean Peso have remained stable versus the US Dollar relative to the dramatic changes of the Euro,” he said. “But there is another factor; consider that prime Napa Cabernet Sauvignon fruit now goes for $6,000+ a ton. That translates to almost $10 per bottle. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but that is just the cost of fruit! Now factor in oak (another $4 per bottle for French Oak, again thanks to the weak dollar), two plus year aging, cost of bottles, labels, corks, capsules…you get idea. The cost just to produce the wine is probably $20+. Then the winery has to make a profit, the distributor has to make a profit, the retailer has to make profit – voila, you are at $55 a bottle.

“Alternatively, I have a Spanish producer I’ve represented whose family has owned the vines going back to 1640 (documented). Low tax structure, government support, etc, etc. … they can put out a 90-point Wine Advocate rated wine that retails for under $20 a bottle. Now in reality they are assuredly selling it at a lower price point than they would like to because they, like every producer in the world, want very, very much to be in the U.S. marketplace. Life is a series of tradeoffs, and their presence in the US market is what helped to get them in front of the Wine Advocate and help to build their brand for many years to come.

Lots of dynamics at play . . .”