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 . . .”

Listing the Pennsylvania award winners

This list and link are courtesy of Jennifer Eckinger, of the Pennsylvania Winery Association, whose help has been so valuable in my getting this blog off the ground.

2008 Keystone Wine Competition

When: March 1, 2008
Where: Crowne Plaza Hotel, Cromwell, Conn.
Conducted by: Amenti Del Vino
Entries: 354
Winners: 180 - 79 bronze, 60 silver, 35 gold, 6 double gold, 4 special awards

BEST WINE IN COMPETITION
2006 Cherry Valley Vineyards Marechal Foch
BEST RED WINE IN COMPETITION
2006 Cherry Valley Vineyards Marechal Foch
BEST WHITE WINE IN COMPETITION
2007 Pinnacle Ridge Winery Riesling
BEST FRUIT WINE IN COMPETITION
2006 Rose Bank Winery Apple Mulled

For further results, including a listing of all award-winning wines of the 2008 Keystone Wine Competition, visit pennsylvaniawine.com/Awards.aspx. That link includes not only all the winners from the recent Keystone competition, but lists Pennsylvania wines that have earned recognition in other regional and national competitions dating back to 1999.

A chat with Fridays Creek's Cleary

The photos are courtesy of Fridays Creek Winery. They include (clockwise from above) a waterfall in front of the building; the remodeled portion of the original tobacco barn; grapes on the vine; the tasting room (bar); and vines and the winery building.

Frank Cleary of Fridays Creek Winery in Owings, Md., has had about two years to see first-hand all that's involved in running a winery. Fridays Creek opened in August 2006.

One are the rules that wineries in Maryland live by. "I am just amazed at what a tangled
web [it is]," he said of the state's wine laws during an interview Thursday. "Maryland wine laws are just as royal mess, I dont know how else to say it, and it really needs to be something that is looked at from a consumers standpoint."

Much of what Cleary was refering to was covered in this Baltimore Sun piece that was published March 31, 2008.

"I'm [also] really just flabbergasted at which the speed of the new hybrids are coming about," Cleary said.

One thing that Cleary doesn't expect to see is the state's capacity ever catch up with its demand for grapes, an issue covered in this Capital News Service story. "There will never in my opinion, ever be excess capacity [of grapes] in the state of Maryland," he said. "California and New York have excess capacity of grapes to winemakers; but both of those, of course, Califronia is 100, 150 years old in its grapegrowing and New York, I”d say, is 75 or so years old in their grapegrowing capacity. That’s not something I can see in the foreseeable future as far as excess capacity."

On the other coast, Russian River Passport debuts

While this blog is directed toward what is happening in this region, it doesn't preclude my looking nationally for stories and events that wine drinkers here would find interesting. Such is the case with the inaugural Russian River Passport Weekend, scheduled for the first weekend of June in the northern California.

The Russian River Valley is the largest of 13 appellations that make up Sonoma Wine Country, according to the Web site, and includes more acres of vineyards than Napa.

I e-mailed a couple of questions to the Passport site and within a couple of hours received these answers from Eric Hall. The photo, by the way, should be credited to Chris Knapp.

Q: How many passports are you limiting this to and what prompted you to start this event?

A: One thousand passports this year, and I’ve been doing a October event called Pinot on the River (see www.pinotfestival.com) for the last 5 years, and a lot of the local wineries make some great non pinot wines, that I thought would be great to get people up here to try them too!

Q: Modeled after something others are doing?

A: The “Passport” model is a well understood one out here, and there a many successful ones in California., the Russian River area did not happen to have one tho.

Q: For those traveling from our neck of the woods, are any hotels tying into this?

A: Yes see www.russianriverpassport.com/accomodations.html

Q: How far apart are all these wineries? Be one of those events I'd love to try all, obviously impossible in one weekend. Seeing how it goes and then judging whether to expand it to more weekends next year?

A: I’d that end to end, they are within a less than 10 mile radius. Hard to say whether we’d expand the days, more likely just more wineries.
Thanks!

What follows is the release. For me, something to circle on next year's calendar.

Russian River Passport Weekend
June 7 & 8, 2008 40 Wineries - Great Wines, Food & Entertainment
40 acclaimed wineries from the famous Russian River Valley will open their cellars to wine lovers in the first Russian River Passport, to be held June 7-8, 2008. The event will showcase the wineries, vineyards and exceptional beauty of the Russian River Valley wine region.
There are more than 150 wineries and 300 growers in the Russian River Valley, all producing a variety of world class wines to please any wine lover. The goal of the Russian River Passport is to introduce these wineries - both large and small - to wine lovers and partygoers from all over Northern California.

Winery locations will also feature great food and/or entertainment for their guests.
Since Russian River Passport is limited to only small number of participants and offers access to many smaller wineries that normally have no public access, it allows participants a chance to speak to and connect with the winemakers and vineyard owners on a personal level, and learn more about the history and topography of Russian River Valley and its wines.
For more info, either e-mail Info@passportrussianriver.com or visit passportrussianriver.com.

Passports available here (and by contacting participating wineries) Saturday, June 7, and Sunday, June 8, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Your ticket will grant you access to all of the following:

· Commemorative wine glass
· Wine tasting at up to 40 wineries
· Prerelease, library and limited edition winery-only wines
· Discount pricing on select wines
· A wide variety of great food and desserts.
· Live music
· Tours
· Wine Education directly from the people who make the wines
Ticket InformationTo purchase Advance Tickets: weekend pass $89 (direct from wineries) Saturday or Sunday $59 (online only).

Pinnacle's Knapp on wines and winemaking

You might say that April was just bubbly for Brad Knapp of Pinnacle Winery in Kutztown, after receiving the news a few weeks ago that the Finger Lakes Competition awarded he and his winery eight awards. This international competition gave his BRUT rosé a double gold. In addition, Pinnacle Ridge (see below) won two silver and five bronze medals. Knapp said you can't base your year on the awards you win. "I try not to get too wrapped up in the awards and try to not use them as a guide for how I'm doing," he said during a lengthy interview earlier this afternoon. Knapp talks about everything from the fun and drudgery of the winery work to the Day in the Vineyard program that will be held June 7 and June 8 at Pinnacle Ridge -- which will include Knapp and the winemakers from nearby Clover Hill Winery and Vynecrest Winery -- to naming three of his own favorite wines.

I have taken the release about the Pinnacle awards from the Pennsylvania Wine & Wineries Web site and have pasted it below:

Competing against over 2,300 wines worldwide, Pennsylvania, though considered neophyte in the wine community at large, once again proved itself as the serious albeit, upstart contender with this award shared only by 36 out of nearly 500 winning wineries. This year, 1600 medal winning wines in total were selected by the competition’s forty wine judges. The Finger Lakes Competition is one of a few US based International Wine Competitions and allows winemakers to not only show off their wines against the Californians and the New York wineries but those in Canada and abroad as well. This competition is nearly 10 years old; and this year, about 2300 wineries participated drawing from 44 United States and 14 countries worldwide.

Pinnacle Ridge Winery’s BRUT rosé is produced via the ‘methode champenoise’ the traditional French method for making sparkling wines, often casually referred to as champagnes. The use of this ‘methode’ is rather distinct because few wineries outside of Champagne, France produce bubblies in this traditional, classic style. Pinnacle Ridge, touching back to the cultural legacy of champagne making, opts to make its sparkling wines in a very, rustic and hand-made fashion including operating out of the historic farm’s old potato cellar, now champagne house, as it is essential to keep the pressurized bottles cool at all times. Pinnacle Ridge Winery’s proprietor and winemaker Brad Knapp has been producing these classically styled bubblies since 1993.

What makes a BRUT rosé? The style selected for the production of this vintage is a rosé produced out of black, Pinot Noir grapes harvested from the estate vineyard at Pinnacle Ridge Winery. The fruit is carefully hand-picked and whole berry pressed as per the “Methode Champenoise”. The delicate juice is cold fermented and allowed to settle for approximately six months prior to the second bottling. The wine ages for two years before being finished in the traditional way. The resultant wine shows a delicate, salmon-color and is crowned with a frothy wreathe of bubbles. Although the color and festive nature suggests that this indeed might be a sweeter bubbly, it is not. It is a true Brut and its light and delicately soft character makes it appealing to virtually any taste palate and a terrific partner to any meal or celebration.

Upon hearing the news about this extraordinary win, Brad Knapp responded, “We’re very pleased with this prestigious medal. Sparkling wines are receiving more and more accolades and were proud to be part of the Finger Lakes Competition and proud to receive this award.“

Pinnacle Ridge Winery could not just walk away with only the Double Gold for this bubbly from the competition, it was graced with additional accolades from this competition such as a pair of SILVER MEDALS, one for its 2005 VERITAS, which is a hearty red blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon and the other for its 2006 MERLOT. BRONZE MEDALS showered five of the winery’s other varietals: 2007 TRAMINETTE, 2007 NAKED CHARDONNAY, 2007 CHAMBOURCIN ROSé, 2006 CHAMBOURCIN as well as one of the winery’s other signature bubblies: CUVEE CHARDONNAY.

This is not only tremendous acknowledgement of the quality winemaking by an individual winery in eastern Pennsylvania, but an exceptional representation of how far winemaking has evolved in both Berks and Lehigh Counties. PINNACLE RIDGE WINERY, located outside of Kutztown, is an active member of both the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail and the Berks Country Wine Trail and is a beloved destination to many customers per year - over half of whom are tourists who have come to see and enjoy this area of Pennsylvania and its burgeoning wine community.
PINNACLE RIDGE WINERY features many award-winning wines, but for the champagne lover, it is well-keep secret that it is one of the few wineries in the state of Pennsylvania that produces quality sparkling wines. PINNACLE RIDGE WINERY and winemaker Brad Knapp, winner of over two hundred wine awards at the state and international level, has been delighting wine lovers old and new since 1993. The Knapp family and staff are proud to be able to preserve beautiful countryside landscapes and the agricultural heritage of Pennsylvania farming through the growing of its own grapes in its nearly 15 acres of grapes from its Kutztown and Kempton vineyards.
For more information about the winery and its wines, please visit: www.pinridge.com or email: pinnacle_ridge_winery@yahoo.com

More Mondavi

Saw this testimonial to Robert Mondavi on the winedude's blog site linked off winebusiness.com. And my shout out to regional wine owners for reaction to his death brought this take by Carl Helrich of Allegro Vineyards in The Brogue, Pa.:

"Interestingly, Allegro had first-hand experience with the Mondavi Wine Machine. In the early, back when Opus One was just announcing what the name of the joint venture with Mouton-Rothschild would be named, Allegro was making a wine called "Opus 1". And neither entity had secured rights to the name in PA. Mondavi sent his lawyers to PA, and an agreement was struck. Allegro would stop using the name for a cash settlement. Additionally, there was a gentleman's agreement that Mondavi come to a press conference and taste Allegro's wines and say that they were good. The hope was that the guy who put CA on the map could do the same for PA. Mondavi never showed.

"Secondly, one of Mondavi's great business innovations was to make wineries a tourist destination by offering winery tours. This was a great business model for most wineries. Unfortunately, I curse his name every time I get a phone call from someone wanting a tour, knowing full well that they don't want to buy any wine.

"He was a great business man. Good wines, great marketer. Helped our industry more than any one individual. I just wish he had been less capitalistic and more wholistic.