October 2008 Archives

A great deal has happened in the last week. The syrah has come in. The mourvedre has come in. I've had a falling out with Sal the winemaker. I've reconciled with Sal the winemaker. Sal has informed me the grapes are mediocre. Sal has informed me the grapes might be pretty good.

 

My questions about Sal started when he sent me an invoice for picking up grapes and barrels as well as for some used barrel racks he sold me.

 

Some time back Sal had agreed to sell me the racks for $20 each, a good price. When it came time to finally get the racks in August the price had gone to $35. When I asked him about it he said:

 

I should have mentioned, I bought 80 newer racks for $35 each. I still have enough of the older racks for your needs. They're the same rack, just not as pretty. I'll have your barrels on the racks for $20 each

 

OK, fair enough I guess. When I got an invoice it was not from GV Cellars but from Galvan Wine Services, an entity I'd never heard of (Sal's last name is Galvan). The invoice was generated from a typical cheap accounting program like QuickBooks or something, but what struck me was the Invoice number: 1001. It is common to being invoice sequences with 1001, just like checks in a new account, and I have a strong suspicion that there had not been 1,000 previous invoices cut by Galvan Wine Services. So I was the first. This struck me as strange, as if Sal was using the winery resources and then marking them up to me on the side with his shiny, new (and fictional?) wine services company?

 

I paid the invoice but informed Sal I wouldn't expend any more funds to anybody until I saw a contract from the winery for the crush services. He agreed to have it for me upon my scheduled visit, actually meant to be tomorrow. When I was first discussing the crush with him he mentioned all the contracts had to be in and signed by mid August to ensure a place (this is standard for crush contracts), so of course we're way behind. I didn't give it that much thought but as the months went on I was wondering what's going on.

 

I was getting antsy about the syrah and the main motivation behind my scheduled special guest star cameo up North was to look at the Syrah vineyard and pull the trigger on the picking. I knew the vines were shutting down, so I wanted to identify the ripest and just get those damn grapes in.

 

Last week Sal visited the vineyard (which is literally across the street from the winery) he decided the grapes were ripe and instructed Steve the vineyard owner to pick. So the syrah came in.

 

After the syrah was in Sal sent me this update:

 

Steve Worth brought in 5.78 tons and the cut off for the break down on custom crush pricing is at 6 tons so I sent a couple of our pickers out with him to pick enough to get you over the 6 ton mark.  This guarantees your CC price at $650/ton instead of $950

 

This seemed odd to me. Why not just charge me for 6 tons? I decided to give Sal a lecture on tier pricing, based on my experience writing software to do said tier pricing.

 

It went like this:

 

When something is price tiered by volume any tier price is available to the
client as long as the minimum qty is used. What this means is even if I
brought in say, 4 or 5 tons, the pricing would be $650. However I would pay
for 6 tons. The way tier pricing is set up of course, paying for the smaller
qty at the higher rate is usually more economical (although not at, say, 5
tons in the GV example).

However when something comes in at .22 tons under a price tier it's
essentially irrelevant - just charging me for 6 tons would have been
standard practice.

OK end of accounting lecture ...

 

Big mistake.

 

I received back a scathing email, essentially impugning my grapes, myself and everything related to my wine venture. In addition Sal stressed that I could not store my wines after December that I was out of there, evicted, find somewhere else.

 

It was not a great thing to wake up to Monday morning. My initial reaction was outrage and naturally I composed many scathing emails in my head to really put him in his place. However if I've learned one thing over the years, it's not to do things in the heat of the moment that may impact you for a long time to come so I decided to calm down and think through our new situation. To complicate things Sal's vineyard manager was picking up the mourvedre grapes that very day.

 

In the midst of his vitriolic email Sal had stressed he would do a professional job on my grapes, but was his heart in it? Would he "forget" to cold soak the grapes? Would he "forget" them out in the sun? These are all thoughts that go through the mind of the stressed out wine entrepreneur.

 

I sent Sal a short response expressing my dismay at his feelings and assuring him I would move the barrels out in December. Since I needed a report on the weight of the grapes, as well as hopefully a lab panel I decided to wait a day and then maybe sent him another email asking for this data, hoping he'd cooled down. In the meantime I sent a query to Armando at Fess Parker. I had met with Armando originally to discuss crush services; we had both decided I was too small an operator for that but he had mentioned that they could perhaps help me

afterwards in terms of storage and bottling.

 

Armando seems to be a consummate pro; he had been sympathetic to my crazy wine venture, probably having seen it many times. As I reflect ion the difference between the organized, state-of-the-art Fess Parker operation and the frantic chaos up North it certainly brings up some questions in my mind as to where these barrels should ultimately be, Sal's eviction notice notwithstanding.

 

Armando emailed me back in the affirmative, so there was one option. In the meantime I recounted the whole sad story of my falling out to my girlfriend Adina and my Berkeley bud Jason, 2 supporters and close observers of the venture. They were both shocked at the latest plot twist and urged me to reconcile with Sal.

 

After spending Tuesday mulling it over I decided to call Sal directly and apologize. We had a long chat, during which Sal regained his original enthusiasm for the project, which seems to involve, as usual, a lot of self-advertising. At least he's back on it; clearly having an adversarial relationship with him would be a disaster.

 

Syrah watch 2008 continues. The national events of the last several weeks have roiled the economy and placed the entire wine venture in jeopardy. With the collapse of the financial system credit markets have frozen. This impacts me two ways: first, the software work has completely dried up, and it happened fast. 6 weeks ago I was confident that I would make enough money from consulting to sail through a second round of grape purchases and custom crush charges, in addition to other requirements, such as eating and paying the mortgage. Now I'm wondering if my soon to be dwindling savings account (which includes funds earmarked for Ritual Wine Company) will be used solely for living expenses.

 

The second fun fact is that my chances of getting some sort of a loan have dropped close to zero. A bank will not take a flier on a barely capitalized wine venture in a time of economic contraction and unavailable credit. This has me depressed and distracted instead of focusing on the issue at hand, the current crush. It almost seems pointless if I can't do another crush next year, and that's the way it's looking in my worst case scenario.

 

Speaking of the issue at hand, my fears about the syrah failing to ripen also continue to fester. During the period between committing to the syrah and beginning the various expenditures (barrels, additional grapes, etc) I seriously considered abandoning the venture while I still could. I have been glad I stuck it out but if this unknown syrah vineyard bites me I may be back to weighing an exit. Yes, I share the national malaise, as well as my personal syrah malaise.

 

This past weekend I attended the bi-annual SB County Vintners Association wine festival. The vintners association puts on two of these events every year - the spring festival is called the Vintners Festival while the one in fall is called "Celebration of Harvest". The format and participants are largely the same - there are a number of local wineries and eateries proffering samples, there's a silent auction with rare bottles (usually large format) and other goodies (dinners, tours, etc). Bands play. People drink and eat. People drink some more. My friend AJ and I go every time; it's always fun and I get to meet up with a lot of friends and acquaintances in Santa Ynez Valley, as well as sample the latest wine offerings from both the established producers and new upstarts.

 

I had a chance to talk with Blair Fox this time around. Blair Fox is the head winemaker at Fess Parker (recently hired I believe), which didn't interest me. What did interest me is that he also his own label and is known as a syrah specialist. I made my way over to the Blair Fox Cellars Table; there were three vineyard designate syrahs on offer.

 

Blair Fox himself is a burly, somewhat biker looking guy, but in a very clean-cut way; he was happy to talk to me about syrah, a topic that has been on my mind for some time.

 

I asked if all his grapes were in - it turns out his last lot had come in just the previous day. Were they shriveled? Yes indeed, although I think "puckered" is the word we syrahistes prefer. So there are some other late ripeners out there.

 

Blair works with pretty small lots, enabling him to pretty much hand make everything and do manual punch downs for all the syrahs. It's nice when you have the day job supplying the cash flow (and winemaking facilities). Something to keep in mind, since 2/3 of my syrah will be in a big tank with electric pumpovers. Luckily syrah loves abuse.

 

All three of the Blair Fox syrahs were great, possibly my three favorite wines of the festival. Usually a pinot noir gets my best-in-show award but the Blair Fox syrahs were just that good.

 

In the midst of my wine venture I have continued to be much the same wino I've always been. I like to go fairly long periods without drinking much. I get into shape, I feel clean, I'm a little bored. These are offset by periods of intense consumption. Such as the last 6 days or so. Naturally I have considered my potential lifestyle change. If the wine thing works I'm not going to wake up, have a strong cup of coffee and diddle my computer all morning. It will be off to the winery, vineyard, sales call ("Please buy a few cases of wine, Boutique Wine Shop Person") or who knows what else.

 

Darren, one of my teachers in my final wine class, Lab Analysis, remarked often that since becoming a wine industry professional his taste for fine wine had gradually waned; He is in fact a spirits man at this point. Naturally he offered the qualifier you would expect: "I still like wine". This wasn't convincing; the fact that he needed to say it implied the opposite.

 

This alarmed me a bit. If the price of success in the wine industry is the loss of my general interest in wine, that price is too high. It was curious hearing Darryl say it and I realize that there must be quite a few wine pros who don't like wine. Why should they? It might make them even more effective if they didn't like it - no sloshed tasting room employees stealing sips all day, or even better, no sloshed winery staff.

 

So I've thought about it. I think about all the successful and dedicated wine pros who have kept their enthusiasm and wonder for fine wine, and discovering more of it. I'm convinced they're in the majority. I will be one of them. I also plan to be a totally sober winery employee, assuming the as-yet theoretical winery. That's important.

 

One of the funny things about my college wine experience is that when I moved to Solvang part-time I consciously decided I would not drink wine regularly. Even though I was in the heart of my favorite wine region, I was here to learn, and study, and not to blow a ton of cash on Mike's wine fantasy camp.

 

I did it too. I was so worried about falling into one of my bad wino habits that I didn't have so much as a glass of wine for several weeks after starting school. I dropped some weight, I started jogging once a week (this was big, believe me), my attendance and attitude at class was impeccable. What drinking I did when in Solvang was mostly reserved to various class functions. By class functions I mostly mean various tastings or parties by the winemaking class, all of which were great fun (I was around 18 people who at least equaled my own wino proclivities).

 

I should mention a wine soaked class "function" that really was a scholastic learning experience: the intro class took a field trip to Sunstone Winery, a very chic family winery, and they lined up their whole catalog for the class to taste. That's right,18 tastings coming right up, with the assistant winemaker there to tell us about them. We then took a tour of the winery; they were in middle of crush and Sunstone's generosity was really something. A field trip like that just makes you feel good.

 

I completed my first semester with straight A's (Should not be overestimated. Most everyone got an A), minimal wine consumption and a welcome expansion in my wine knowledge.

 

There was a huge gap between the first and second semester. This was the holiday season, meaning I changed from a lean, mean learning machine to a, yes, partying guy. By the time the second semester started I had also contracted a vicious case of the flu that took me 2 weeks to recover from. In the meantime, I had gone from 2 ½ courses to one (actually ½ semester courses). The winemaking course was only 8 weeks, and the Lab Analysis course was 8 weeks as well; they overlapped slightly but what it meant was just one course active at a time. I was dead set on completing the winemaking course, so I was going to resume my part-time residency. I could only find the Lab Analysis course as an additional wine course to complement the Saturday morning winemaking class. Lab Analysis was Wednesday night, so in the weeks that they overlapped I would have serious downtime. And in any case I would leisure time on my hands in any case, since just going up and coming right back down was too grueling, plus I liked hanging out at the Solvang house.

 

The main thing someone like me does with leisure time in the Santa Ynez Valley is drink a little wine here and there, so I gradually got into the habit of visiting wine bars and restaurants much more frequently than the previous semester.

 

The unanticipated wine consumption came about from the winemaking source. While we had spent the first semester visiting vineyards, tasting grapes, bringing in grapes to process, we now had 5 barrels of finished wines, happily aging in casks right next door. Part of the class, naturally, was to occasionally taste what we had, and proffer predictions on ultimate style, further winemaking strategies (Filter? Fine? Blend? Throw out?) and anything else related to dealing with our inventory.

 

Here is what is most interesting about being next door to all this wine. Not only did the class own the wine, but there were at least three classmates entrusted with the key to the winery facility. They were liberal with loaning the key or providing and it soon became common for a late morning barrel sampling session for those of us so inclined. The morning drinking is not a good habit to get into, but I enjoyed it. It was really the only time in my life I have drunk alcohol before lunch. And honestly the tastings were frequently directly related to the class curriculum and I learned a lot. Frequently but not always of course.

 

The Lab Analysis class was on the second floor of AHC's spanking new science building, about 100 yards from the winery. The Lab Analysis class was two hours or so. The first half was lecture, the second half was lab time. There was a 15 minute break between each half.

 

You can guess what started happening. There were about 10 of us from winemaking class in Lab Analysis and ... we needed to check our wine. It's right there. What helped our justification for essentially drinking during school was that the lab time was chaotic, with the whole class (about 25 people) crowding around the instructor demonstrating a typical lab panel for wine or grape juice. These demos left a lot of us completely confused, so there were even a couple of occasions towards the end where we stopped going back to class and just lounged around the winery facility enjoying our barrel samples. It was great camaraderie, and those lab sessions were driving me crazy.

 

It was funny how I went from sharpened idealist ready for knowledge to a tipsy part time student who was drinking during each of his (admittedly wine-based) classes. Will the same arc occur in a winery - starting a crush working hard, eagle eyed, focused, only to be lying around 6 months later experiencing the inventory firsthand more often than not?

 

Nah.

I'm in a holding period between the Grenache fermentation and the syrah harvest. The syrah is the crux of the whole venture so naturally I'm a  little tense. Combined with the stress of the financial collapse and various family issues I'm all atwitter these days.

 

Sal has revised his opinion of the Grenache somewhat, from "bubblegum" to "I'm liking it much better". This is good news, assuming a substantial qualitative upgrade from "bubblegum" to "much better" than bubblegum.

 

Roger my Syrah contact emailed me yesterday with his outlook on the pick date: at least 2 more weeks, maybe 3. As long as it gets there it's fine with me - I just want some ripe syrah at this point. Roger has asserted repeatedly that the syrah grapes have to be shriveled to really be ripe. Shriveled is really one small step from itty bitty raisins so it's a fine line.

 

I have never personally harvested syrah. I have harvested cabernet sauvignon, sangiovese, pinot noir, chardonnay, merlot and a bit of pinot grigio. Admittedly my experience with harvesting firsthand is very shallow - of all the grapes that  have fallen to my deft clipper moves Sangiovese is the only one I have personally harvested more than once.

 

The best grape I ever personally picked, in terms of market value, is without a doubt the Kathryn Kennedy cabernet sauvignon. Kathryn Kennedy Cab sells for around $150 a bottle by now I think and at the time (1998) it was already well over $100 per bottle. All of my harvest experience is directly related to either my experience with Kathryn Kennedy Winery or the AHC winemaking course.

 

The history of the Kathryn Kennedy winery is unique and iconoclastic. Some time ago Kathryn Kennedy divorced her wealthy developer husband. I don't know the terms of the settlement but I do know she received their home in Saratoga. More than a home, though; it's a home on about 12 picturesque acres, in the heart of one of California's most desirable "town and country" communities. Saratoga is a very wealthy community of rolling hills dotted with what could be described as gentleman haciendas - large ranch estates dotted with fruit and nut tress, vineyards, and one or several very nice houses.

 

Kathryn Kennedy received one of these in her divorce settlement. She decided to plant a cabernet sauvignon vineyard on 7 acres on the lower part of the estate. She had decided to reinvent herself as a winemaker. Within a few years Kathryn Kennedy winery was operating out of a building on the estate and it was essentially a one or two person operation for many years. The winery only produced one wine: a 100% estate bottled Cabernet Sauvignon. It was very expensive. Production was very limited. That's about what I know of the original history.

 

Kathryn Kennedy Winery came to my attention because I was such a fan of Ridge Winery and their ATP wine club. Since I came up every year for the 4^th of July wine club party I stayed overnight in the area and spent the next day tasting at the other local wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains. There were not very many, and still aren't.

 

When I first started coming up for the Ridge event I had studied a map of the local wineries to see where there was additional tasting for "Day 2 - Santa Cruz Mountain Debauch". In the mid 1990's there were perhaps only about 7 or 8 wineries with tasting rooms, and a handful more that had no tasting rooms. One of the ones that captured my attention was Kathryn Kennedy Winery, essentially due to its complete mystery: There they were, on all the maps of The Santa Cruz Mountains appellation but:

 

There was no public tasting room

There was no tasting or touring by appointment

There was possibly no retail distribution

There was one wine - the hyper expensive Cabernet Sauvignon, as pricy as the Ridge Montebello Cab. The Montebello is the most pedigreed wine in the appellation by a good margin, not only going back 40 years but even selected for the famous 1973 Paris tasting.

 

Thus the name Kathryn Kennedy stuck with me over the years. Every time

I looked at an updated vineyard map of the area (there are new winery and vineyard operations popping up in California constantly) the story for Kathryn Kennedy stayed the same. There they were on the map, but: no tasting, no looking, expensive cabernet.

 

I became connected to Kathryn Kennedy Winery through their Syrah. Syrah? I thought they only made Cabernet. When I had last checked in on them that was the case but a few years later I was reading something or other on wine (perhaps on the internet) when a passing reference was made to the 1996 Kathryn Kennedy Syrah, in very complimentary tones. Kathryn Kennedy! I couldn't believe it. I still had a deep curiosity about this mysterious place. The syrah was $38, so although definitely high priced, much less than the triple digit cab. I called the winery and spoke to winemaker Marty Mathis, who is Kathryn Kennedy's son.

 

Kathryn Kennedy had recently retired after years of turning out her Cabernet and Marty had taken over. Marty had ambitious plans for the winery operations. Kathryn Kennedy was already middle-aged when she started the winery but Marty was in his early 30's and had grown up essentially at the winery. It was time to spread their wings.

 

Marty was affable and happy to chat about winery things in general. I had been so curious for so long that all of my dormant interest was now reawakened, and I quizzed him about winery stuff. We chatted for a bit and he remarked that, yes, the syrah was just great. He got the grapes from an old farmer who had a large parcel of farmland right above the Kathryn Kennedy Estate. The farmer was a distant cousin of the Mondavi family and at one point he'd been advised by family members who would know that he should tear up some of those low income nut tress and plant sangiovese and syrah. He had done so a few years ago and now Marty was getting some nice syrah grapes.

 

I ordered a bottle and awaited it with great anticipation. It showed up in a week or so and I took over to my parents' house. They both like a nice glass of wine and my mother is a top cook, in a hearty Central European (i.e. Czech-Slovak-Hungarian) kind of way. I don't recall what we had for dinner but I still recall the taste of the Kathryn Kennedy 1996 Syrah, Maridon Vineyard. Let me put it this way: The Kathryn Kennedy 1996 Syrah, Maridon Vineyard is possibly the best California syrah I have had, and a world-class red wine contender, in my world at least. My stepfather, who was 83 at the time, usually limited himself to 1 glass of wine per meal; he over 2 glasses. This sounds trivial but I can assure you that he stuck to his 1 glass rule religiously (usually). I in fact enjoyed bringing a whole parade of killer wines over, to try to move him into that second glass (it did happen, but very rarely) but although his compliments were copious, his will was strong. With this syrah he poured himself a third glass. He and I were murmuring about the towering quality of this wine through the whole meal. My mother thinks this sort if wine geekery is silly, claiming to not know the difference between various levels of quality. She didn't turn any down either...

 

My interest was even more piqued. I ordered 2 more bottles. Now, even today a $38 California Syrah is definitely a slightly pricy (although, alas, not at all uncommon) item. In 1998 it was, for all I know, the priciest California syrah, certainly one of the dearest at least. KK would never be a cheap date. And I couldn't afford to go crazy on the quantity, although there are always wines you look back on and say "yeah, it cost a lot but I sure wish I'd gotten (2? 3? 20?) times as much".

 

The next 2 syrahs were, yes, great, prodigious, amazing. By this time I wanted to experience this operation firsthand. I had spoken with Marty again subsequently and we were on familiar terms so I called him and offered my services for the upcoming crush. He readily accepted my offer of free labor.

 

I rented a motel room in Cupertino for Friday and Saturday night and rolled up bright and early at 7:00 AM Saturday morning. I was quickly put on grape picking duty - Marty had specified that weekend because the lynchpin estate Cabernet vineyard was to be picked and crushed. Off I went to the estate vineyard, picking the grapes along with a for-hire crew of Mexican farm workers.

 

Marty was running pretty lean for his crush operations. He had one full time employee at the winery, who was there to supervise the picking crew, ferry bins back and forth, prepare for the crushing and fermentation, etc. In addition there was an old friend of the family, a man in his late fifties, who helped out every year. And me.

 

Throughout the course of the day I picked grapes. And more grapes. Marty brought in a nice lunch, accompanied by various Kathryn Kennedy wines. In the last few years he had expanded the winery's offerings considerably, by now offering a pair of whites, some additional cabernet and cab franc blends, a malbec blend and of course the syrah. He would also be taking some of Charlie (syrah) Maridon's sangiovese that year. The lunch tasted great, as it always does when you've been doing manual labor all morning, and the wines were generously poured. In the afternoon it was off to the Maridon vineyard to pick sangiovese. I was by now tired of picking grapes (at this writing I am permanently tired of picking grapes. It doesn't take long) and wondering if I had trekked up just to spend a weekend as a migrant worker.

 

Thankfully by mid-afternoon the grapes were all picked and waiting in several bins outside the small winery building, a barn like structure roughly the size of 2 suburban garages. Marty's permanent employee left at 5:00 or 6:00; in the few hours leading up to the welcome dinner break Marty's friend and myself moved carboys (Sparkletts bottle sized containers frequently used for keeping topping wine or aging small experimental batches), rearranging barrels and yakking about Kathryn Kennedy Winery. Following dinner the crush would commence - roughly 12 tons of cabernet grapes.

 

Dinner tasted as good as lunch, since I was even more  tired now, and we drank more tasty Kathryn Kennedy wine - all the offerings were very good, although not up to the standards of the syrah. We were not offered any of the syrah or estate cabernet with the meals, nor would I expect any.

 

The three of us had a relaxing dinner, capped off by tasting barrel samples of something or other (Malbec Port seems to stick in mind but I don't really recall). It was dark by now and Marty cranked up the floodlights and hard rock. Time to go back to work. The bins were waiting outside the winery building: the crushing took place outdoors.

 

The winery had a very small, slow crusher. Marty told me that this assured gentle handling of the grapes. It also assured slow handling of the grapes. Marty assumed the position near the top of the bin and shoveled grapes into the crusher. The family friend and myself were positioned at the crusher to make sure things didn't jam, pulling stems out of the apparatus and crushed grapes, etc.

 

By about 8:30 Marty had run out of energy and I took over the grape shoveling. It was terrifically strenuous work but I enjoyed doing it (at first). It felt good to commune with grapes in this way, and have a direct hand in initiating the winemaking process.

We finally finished after 10:00, music still blaring (I guess the neighbors were used to the crush time noise levels), all of us completely exhausted. The next day I was to rendezvous with Marty at a separate facility up the road in the mountains where he made his whites and stored his barrels. It was to be another full day of hard work.

 

Since I wasn't coming back to the winery Marty gave me a case of wine for my hard work; I really had expected only a bottle or two but he was more than generous. Included in my booty were 2 bottles of 1995 estate Cab (!) and 3 more of the magical 1996 Syrah, as well as a nice cross section of the current releases.

 

I slowly drove back to the motel wondering how I would muster the strength for another day; I really felt the exhaustion deep in my bones. After a predictably sound night's sleep I managed to be up bright and early the next day; Off I went to the to the remote facility. On my way out there it started raining and by the time I got there it was a full deluge. Since much of this facility's operations took place outside, the day's activities were cancelled. I felt like I'd gotten a reprieve from the governor, as just driving out there had reminded me how tired I was from the day before.

 

Thus I really only worked 1 day on the Kathryn Kennedy crush, and received a handsome package of wine. I felt slightly guilty about this (but not too guilty). I developed a hernia shoveling all those grapes, which helped to assuage any bit of guilt I might have felt.

 

In addition to my souvenir hernia another result of my weekend with Marty was the termination of my corporate IT job when I came in Monday morning. I had been slated to be let go for some time, and the person who had been hired to "re-engineer" the company (a popular and abused term in the nineties) had been treating me as persona non grata since he'd arrived six months previously, I had skipped work Friday and had only told my assistant of my general whereabouts. Apparently re-engineering guy had flown into a rage when hearing about my wine crush weekend. I'd been waiting for the axe to fall so it was no great shock to finally get fired; between my first crush experience, the hernia and the firing it was quite a weekend.

 

Before the Kathryn Kennedy experience I'd never really handled wine grapes close up. Cabernet grapes are very regal - handsome small bluish-purple globes that feel velvety to the touch. I was struck by the contrast between the Cab grapes and the Sangiovese I picked later in the day. In contrast to the deluxe Cabernet package the Sangiovese really were just ... grapes. They didn't look any different from table grapes; even the color was banal - a typical dark shiny purple you might see at your local grocery store compared to the impeccable bluish pastel of the cabernet.

I though about these and other grapes when Roger told me about the mandatory shriveling required for ripe for syrah. Yes, they're all different. Any skepticism I might have towards this shriveling idea was mitigated by a few bunches in the vineyard that had already shriveled. Lo and behold, these forlorn looking specimens tasted much better than the healthy, fulsome grapes that dominated the vines - the shriveled shall inherit the Earth.

 

About this time I had dinner in a much touted local wine bistro in Glendale, near my house (I live near the Los Angeles - Glendale border). Myself and a friend had taken a third friend out to a birthday dinner. The wine list featured syrah from , yes, Michael Larner's vineyard. My teacher, whose name I had been dropping until fairly recently, was represented. The syrah was excellent and it turned out to be a label run by the bistro's wine director - the bistro features a wine shop and attendant wine bar in addition to the main restaurant. We called him over to compliment him on the wine and of course I remarked that I had taken a class from Mike Larner a few months ago (there I was back to dropping that name. At least it was legitimate this time). He knew Mike's family and had gotten a line on the grapes a few years ago, so we chatted about Santa Barbara grapes in general and dealing with the Larner Vineyard grapes specifically. The wine director / winemaker guy mentioned, sure enough, that he had learned in the last couple of years that the syrah grapes had to literally shrivel up before they could achieve full ripeness and be ready for harvest; since I got this tidbit of knowledge directly after visiting the vineyard the week before I continue to be optimistic about the ultimate ripeness of my syrah grapes.

 

As a postscript to the Kathryn Kennedy experience, all of the wines in my case ranged from good to superb, with the exception of the estate Cabernet. As has happened to me so often, I was sorely disappointed by a highly touted Cabernet/Bordeaux , both bottles not showing much of anything. I even waited until 2003 to open the first cab, just to let it age a bit. My expectations were low by the time I opened Cab number 2 two years later and it tasted identical to the first one - my first impression was no fluke.

 

The 3 syrahs Marty gave me were all fantastic. The following year the price was hiked to over $60, thus ending my relationship with it. I did go up to the winery a few years later for one of their rare public events and managed to taste the current syrah offerings. It was a blisteringly hot day, so tannic red wines were not really hitting the spot. The event was outside and my whole time there what I really wanted was a cold beer.

 

 I just took a quick look at the Kathryn Kennedy website and sure enough the Maridon Syrah continues to be on offer, at $65.