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Post by Mary Baker on Feb 3, 2008 18:46:43 GMT -5
Alice Feiring's new book, The Battle for Wine and Love: or How I Saved the World from Parkerization is creating quite a stir in wine circles. I guess we didn't know we needed to be saved. Thank goodness she came along when she did! ALICE FEIRING is a James Beard Foundation Award–winning journalist whose blog, In Vino Veritas, was named one of the seven best by Food & Wine. Formerly the wine/travel columnist for Time, she writes for the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Condé Nast Traveler, and Gourmet, among many others. She lives in New York City. The book's description from Amazon.com: "I want my wines to tell a good story. I want them natural and most of all, like my dear friends, I want them to speak the truth even if we argue,” says Alice Feiring. Join her as she sets off on her one-woman crusade against the tyranny of homogenization, wine consultants, and, of course, the 100-point scoring system of a certain all-powerful wine writer. Traveling through the ancient vineyards of the Loire and Champagne, to Piedmont and Spain, she goes in search of authentic barolo, the last old-style rioja, and the tastiest new terroir-driven champagnes. She reveals just what goes into the average bottle—the reverse osmosis, the yeasts and enzymes, the sawdust and oak chips—and why she doesn’t find much to drink in California. And she introduces rebel winemakers who are embracing old-fashioned techniques and making wines with individuality and soul. Feiring's book is already receiving stringent criticism from wine circles, although most complaints come from people who have yet to read the book. I have not yet read the book, but I have a few questions . . . The bright cover makes me think the title is a humorous take on other "How I Saved the World . . ." scenarios. So, does the book have a tongue-in-cheek approach to homogenization and the Parker effect, or is it serious? Why mention "Parkerization" in the title? Much of the American wine market enjoys the reviews by wine critic Robert Parker, as well as other top American critics. Why not the "Meadowization" or the "Laubeization"? How can a title including "Wine and Love" be combined with a critique of a critc? Is the book about passion and discovery, or is it a critique of modern wine styles? Why can't Alice find anything drinkable in California? Has she ever just toured the coast in a rented car with the top down and tasted at small family wineries? Or has she only tasted what distributors and winegrowing associations have steered her to? If her tastes veer to Barolo, why bash California? Should I write a book titled, "Why I Love Italian pinot nero and California old vine zin and why I can't find anything drinkable in Argentina?" I guess the title creates questions, instead of answering them or defining the subject. Is this a good thing?
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Post by Mary Baker on Feb 7, 2008 14:31:07 GMT -5
Okay, well, Alice registered and we are hoping she will post some insights here. Granted, the questions above are tough but I think fair, based on the fact that the title alone has created a lot of fluffed fur on the wine geek boards. A thread about the book on the Mark Squires/Robert Parker board was deleted. Another thread on the Wine Spectator bulletin boards has drawn in some pointed questions, but also some unfortunately anonymous snark. I thought these questions were pretty soft, given the testerone-driven controversy already engendered by the title. And on her blog, Alice reiterates, "I want them to speak the truth, even if we argue." Alice, does that only apply to wine? I hope Alice will reply. I have pre-ordered her book at Amazon-- I'm looking forward to a good-natured romp through Europe and an exploration of homogenized wine vs. terroir/vintage driven wines from a feminine perspective. And I believe that "Parkerization" isn't an effect created by any critic-warlock; if it does exist, it was created by spineless, score-hungry producers and is a fault of the industry's core values. And although Alice "doesn't find much to drink in California," an affirmation of "rebel winemakers" would go a long way towards supporting those unsung efforts that are also happening here.
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Post by dongiovanni on Feb 7, 2008 18:05:21 GMT -5
Mary,
Your questions seem very fair to me...I saw a thread posted on the eBob board and it was locked down...
First I agree with you that the retailers went point crazy and they started the trend...because they could make more money...it's all about the money...just look at the title of the book...why use Mr. P's name ? Well the book has to sell and with that name on it the book should do well...this brings me to a question...should Mr. Parker receive some book royalties due to the use of his name ?
How can anyone make an absolute statement that she can't find a wine to drink in CA...that's just wrong and anyone with common sense would easily dismiss her comment...
I think the wineries in CA could set a blind tasting and then come talk to me...Alice makes such a bold statement...like you said drop the top and road trip, yet when people make such blanket statements they are often too proud to give it a try...only because they know they are right...
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Post by alice on Feb 8, 2008 14:17:29 GMT -5
Hi There, thanks so much for asking me to show up. Am very happy to take on these or any questions.
THE COVER: Turns out that the art department came up with the cover based on the title. The result was chick lit. Barnes & Nobles agreed with me, Harcourt decided to tweak the cover. At least it's not pink! And we're all very happy.
TITLE: Here's the deal. This book is very, very personal. The way I put it? One day the wines I loved started to disappear from the universe so I went on a journey to find out how this could happen, who was behind it and what does love have to do with it all. Along the way there are characters and wine luminaries, friends, serious discussions about the secret of stems in Burgundy, adventure, car chases as well as heartbreak after the demise of an intense eleven-year relationship.
ABOUT MY FEELINGS FOR CALIFORNIAN WINES
When you read the book you'll find out why. But I could have said the same thing about Argentina, but California --especially with UC Davis--is an important part of the overall story.
But, for me? The answer is the overall reliance on flavor interfering technology, irrigation: high alcohol, manipulation, too much fruit, too much wood, too expensive, too few naturally made wines. I actually have been trying to find a magazine who will send me in search of wines I can enjoy. I want to make discoveries. Right now I still like Calera, Edmunds St. John, Navarro, Dominus and their second label is okay and so is Grgich since they went bioD. But for me it’s a short list. Do I believe California CAN make wines that suit me and other Europhiles? Yes.
Let me know if I missed some angles, or perhaps there are more questions?
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Post by Mary Baker on Feb 8, 2008 18:12:23 GMT -5
Thank you for joining us, Alice! A chick lit cover? That is so 'not' you. Nor, I think, would it appeal to your fan base. Plus, pink marketing is already dead on the floor, as it should be. But 'How I saved the world . . ." does lend itself to a humorous or hyperbolic cover I'm afraid. Did they ask you for suggestions? Car chases. I love it. That's a good teaser. Your book sounds like a combination wine romp, mission, and autobiography. Would that be close? Now, about California . . . I think it's undeniable that there is currently a huge fashion in uber-rich red styles right now. The wines are plush, frequently have some residual sugar, and are drinkable upon release. They also appeal to the high disposable income people (DIP's) who outsource their personal taste. But I think this tide is beginning to ebb. People are still complaining that California chardonnays are over-oaked butter bombs. That was the big "it" fashion of the 1980s and early 1990s. But now, everywhere I look, the same producers are now belting out stainless steel, non-malo, native yeast versions. California is in many ways a fashion and lifestyle driven area. But at the same time, California is a huge region. Huge. And it's the same state that gave us Berkeley, Esalen, Zen golf, surfing, and much of the organic food movement. You can't shake a stick around here without hitting a small non-interventionist winemaker with a sustainable vineyard. But by definition, these wineries are seldom available outside the state (or a limited number of outlets). They are frequently overlooked by the major critics and publications. Wine Spectator's submission form says right on it that wines should be "readily available in distribution." There's also a disclaimer that new wines may not (read, probably not) be reviewed. So the only way to find these terroir and vintage-driven winemakers is to drive up the driveway, pat the dog, and ask to taste the wine. How do these unknown wineries sell their wine, you ask? California is a tourism state, so even outside of Napaland we get excellent traffic in wine adveturists. In fact, more than Napaland. They get the wine snobs and uninformed masses. We (the rest of us) get people looking for a real getaway . . . visit the vineyards, stay in a winery inn, golf, kayak, fish, and surf. If you do make it out this way, give me a heads up, and I will arrange some personal tours for you at wineries that I think you will like and find interesting. And affordable. It'll be fun. Maybe even fodder for another book. Road tripping with Alice? Alice with Her Top Down? Have you thought of contacting Appellation America? They are ALL about terroir. Each region has an assigned writer/editor, but they might be (they should be) interested in hiring you to do a road trip/discovery series of articles.
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Post by Mary Baker on Feb 8, 2008 18:27:32 GMT -5
QUICK NOTE:
Alice just sent me an email saying she is on her way to Spain. She may not be able to reply to questions until after the 17th, but please feel free to comment or ask questions in the meantime.
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Post by alice on Feb 9, 2008 9:54:39 GMT -5
Mary, No, they didn't ask me about my suggestions. But for the next book (tops down adventure or whatever) I will definitely present them with my ideas before they even get to the drawing board. It was a beginner's mistake for sure.
The take on the book is pretty accurate, though by the time chapter three comes around the reader has a good idea what kind of wine techniques I'm not fond of and what my idea of natural wine is. I don't think my life is at all interesting enough to warrant a memoir or autobiography but this is my journey to my palate and to a revolution that is of the moment, in wine. This I find extremely exciting.
What I find when I travel in California is a wide range of interpretation of the word 'non-intervention wine making.' For example, I don't like extended cold soaks. I don't like enzymes or inoculation for malo or the addition of super food, which even those, like Turley or Wells Guthrie who believe they are low interventionists, use. I have talked to winemakers, small guys, who believe they are non-intervention and use micro -ox. I have found very few, (there's a pinot guy out your way, can't remember his name, very delicate Mercurey-like pinots. Nice stuff) who have the nerve to make an wine of delicacy. I remember zinfandel from the 80s and the early 90's fondly. I looked for the edge, for the character. Post 94 most zin (and everything else) fell into the jam pot. And then there are the clones, another story.
I would love to revisit Paso, and hit the road for this story. I think it could be incredible. I believe that Appellation America has their own writers. I have a feeling they wouldn't take kindly to me!
Yes, I am off to Spain. But around through mid-Sunday and back on the 17th.
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Post by alice on Feb 9, 2008 12:58:57 GMT -5
(By the way, thanks for the offer. I just might take you up on it!--Alice)
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Post by Conner Cooke on Feb 20, 2008 15:00:35 GMT -5
What I find when I travel in California is a wide range of interpretation of the word 'non-intervention wine making.' For example, I don't like extended cold soaks. I don't like enzymes or inoculation for malo or the addition of super food, which even those, like Turley or Wells Guthrie who believe they are low interventionists, use. Alice, I can understand your not liking micro-ox or cold soaks. But do you really think you're being fair to exclude ML inoculation and yeast nutrients? Not all of us little winemakers get to ferment indoors. Some of us have to line up our fermenting bins outside (covered with lids or sheets, of course) and when temperatures drop to 20-30 deg. at night, it would be impossible to get a ferment going without a little nutrient or ML starter. Perhaps it's not the technique you should avoid, but the visits to well known, large, and highly hyped producers like Turley and Copain. If you're looking for something with more finesse, there are plenty of wineries like that. But you won't find them by reading the wine boards and guides.
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alice
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Post by alice on Feb 29, 2008 10:12:10 GMT -5
I'm not really religious about this, it's just my preference. However I also believe in the right that a winemaker should do whatever they need to do. However, in the old world school, ML would just happen when the weather warms up, no?
I do believe that when ML happens naturally it gives another slant on the quirks of the vintage. But it is up to the wine maker to decide what kind of risks they can (and want to ) take.
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Post by Mary Baker on Mar 21, 2008 21:22:18 GMT -5
However, in the old world school, ML would just happen when the weather warms up, no? Well actually, probably no. At least, not with any more reliability than in the new world. Here in the NWd, ML spontaneously happens frequently, especially as the weather warms up. just because a barrel is 'old world' does not mean it's going to magically take off when the weather warms up. Given the various factors that can suppress ML fermentation--pH, acidity, temperature--I don't think that 'old world' barrels are any less prone to sluggish ML than 'new world'. Typically, what many 'natural' winemakers do would be to take a starter sample (about 1 liter) from a successfully fermenting barrel and either transfer it directly to a sluggish barrel, or use it to start a jug of foaming, ferming ML wine. Does pulling an active ML ferm from one barrel and using it to inoculate a 'starter' (ala sourdough) consititute a truer, natural, terroir-driven approach? Probably. The option--available to both NWd and OWd producers--is to rip open a baggie of ML bacteria and warm up a new starter. But there may indeed be a special terroir-truism that comes from using natural ML starts, and restarts transferred from barrel to barrel. But the thing is . . . NWd producers also do this . . . we frequently have ML fermentations starting spontaneously, as do our neighbors. It's a fact of cellar life. Not endemic only to a few square hectares of the world . . . So I guess the question then becomes several more . . . do more NWd producers go immediately to processed ML product? Are we looking at internationally marketed wines produced in large commercial quanities? Or the small, artisan producers in California who would be the equivalent of Euro-style wine farms?
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Post by windsurfer on May 7, 2008 10:43:27 GMT -5
There's an article in the LA TIMES this week: California wine? Down the drainWritten by Alice Feiring . . . "But until the overthrow is complete and more California vintners give making real wine a go, I'll always have France. " Well, I hope she has plans to translate her book and publish it in France. It doesn't look like she'll have much readership in California, or indeed the west coast, at this rate . . .
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Post by Conner Cooke on May 7, 2008 13:27:52 GMT -5
"But take heart, Golden State, you're not alone in making what I consider to be undrinkable wine. About 90% of the rest of mondo del vino has been similarly corrupted. Mercifully, there are still a few beauties made, mostly in France, by vignerons who could care less what the critics think or even what the public thinks it likes. Instead, they make wines of authenticity"Wow. I don't know what to make of this statement. At first I was offended, as I am partial to California wines. But actually, she's right. Only about 10% of the wines I encounter are ones that I find to be really fascinating. I wouldn't say 90% are swill, are she does, but there's a large middle percentage that are what I think of as 'gringo' wines--wines that have had all the spice and character taken out of them, and they become mediocre and boring. Sometimes high alcohol is a factor, sometimes it's not. For me, the problem with this kind of hyperbole is that it makes Alice sound really uninformed. I get the impression that she likes to road trip around France, meeting with vignerons and their families, tasting the wines in situ, and learning first hand about their farming practices. But I also get the impression that she has never really visited California in the same way, and therefore, as Mary has pointed out, would not be acquainted with the small, artisanal producers who do not need to pour their wines at New York trade shows. So I have to conclude that if she is so willing to diss California wine--on what experience, exactly? But if her only real experience is with French wine, then she would better serve us all by sticking to France, rather than lecturing Caliornians on the wines, regions and producers they know very well. So I have a few more questions for Alice . . . Do you drink/like zinfandel? What regions and varietals are you referring to with your sweeping statements? What are the palate markers you use to identify a "real" wine? How accessible on the west coast are these "real" wines you've discovered? (Because who knows, I could still be converted . . . ) And a question for Mary . . . are you going to review Alice's book when it comes out?
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Post by Mary Baker on May 7, 2008 13:48:03 GMT -5
Yes, I have ordered Alice's book and it's on the way.
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Post by Mary Baker on May 7, 2008 14:02:26 GMT -5
I have just received a copy of Eric Arnold's book First Big Crush, which I will be reviewing later today or tomorrow. Arnold worked his first crush in NZ, and he points out in the book that NZ winemakers and drinkers prefer a bigger, riper style of Sauvignon Blanc that Americans. So they bottle up their grassiest, most citrusy lots for exports, and retain the riper, rounder fruit for their continental bottlings.
I also had an interesting conversation with some wine club members who have just returned from Chile, and they had similar observations regarding what Chileans like in their home turf wines compared to what they bottle for export. It isn't so much a matter of quality as it is a preference in taste.
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Post by Mary Baker on May 13, 2008 12:12:28 GMT -5
The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization
Alice Feiring ___________________________________________
The font of the title is pleasantly wacky, and the title itself promises a dream-like escapade in which Feiring daydreams herself “saving the world” and falling in love with a superhero winemaker. Not a bad concept.
This is not a journalistic effort like other recently released wine books, To Cork or Not to Cork, The Billionaire’s Vinegar, First Big Crush, Wine and Philosophy. This is a personal essay on a personal point of view. The book is a small-format book—hardbound, 5 ½ “ by 8”, 158 pages exclusive of acknowledgments and index, and can easily be read in a few hours.
In the introduction she says, “I am hoping to intrigue those who want wines that truly have a story to tell. Once people experience these wines and winemakers, once they know that wine truly does have soul and character, it will be difficult for them to cozy up to wines made by the numbers and not from the heart.”
I hope that this book fulfills her mission.
Unfortunately, Feiring’s odyssey doesn’t begin with a pleasant daydream—it’s more like a nightmare litany of everything wrong with the wines landing on her doorstep as she prepares to work on a project for Food & Wine—and she places the responsibility for these bland wines squarely on the doorstep of wine critic Robert Parker. Her negativity doesn’t exactly draw one into the story. I would have preferred that the book begin with a chapter introducing a favorite vintner or biodynamic grower—a glimpse of what Feiring loves, is passionate about, and is perhaps in fear of losing. This would have drawn me into her story and given me something as a reader to care about. Instead, she begins with her personal history, from sniffing her food as a child to becoming a self-declared vinous prodigy.
The subject of Robert Parker is not tangential to her book. In the first 25 pages (the introduction and part of the first chapter) Parker is mentioned by name 48 times, and referred to by pronoun just as frequently. Despite Feiring’s objections that she is not gunning for Parker, she definitely has an allergy to the wine critic, perhaps because of early formative experiences in a wine shop, which would have undoubtedly exposed her to the influence of ‘lemming’ purchasing based on scores.
Feiring is apt at describing winemaking processes in a way that wine novitiates will enjoy and understand. Her description of the function of yeast is enjoyable to read, although she includes gross oversimplifications, like claiming that “designer” yeasts create specific aromas and flavors, similar to adding single essences in a perfume.
Initially, the book appears to be a series of personal essay-adventures, in which learning and self-challenge would be explored, and a journalistic series, in which open-minded and fair coverage of an issue should be stressed. But Feiring relates only adventures which confirm her mindset, and her journalism is ill-informed and biased. I think she may have taken on a tiger by writing a provocative book that tackles processes she doesn’t understand and has not taken the time to research.
On the topic of zinfandel, Feiring repeatedly blames the demise of her favorite style of zinfandel on Parker’s 95-point “love poem” to Turley’s Hayne Vineyard Zinfandel. According to Feiring, winemaker Helen Turley’s long hangtime approach and resulting high scores single-handedly gave rise to a New World propensity for overripe, “stupid” wines. However, Turley Wine Cellars is owned by Larry Turley, and his sister Helen Turley only made the wines for the first year and a half of the winery’s existence. After that, the wines have been crafted by winemaker Ehren Jordan, and Helen went on to plant a vineyard and create her own brand, Marcassin, where she produces only cool climate chardonnay and pinot noir. I think it’s a bit of a stretch . . . okay, it’s basically a torn ligament, to lay the blame for big alcohol zinfandels at the door of one wine from one winemaker who is more attuned to working with varietals other than zinfandel.
Feiring never addresses a common consumer phenomenon—a distaste for ‘peppery’ zinfandels. Zinfandel has a characteristic spicy herb or peppercorn flavor. But a number of zinfandels are produced in such a way that the distinctive pepper is toned down, blended away, or manipulated out of existence. Surely Feiring must have experienced this in her wine shop experience and her travels. The move toward producing “cabalicious” zins which suit the unadventurous palate has been, in my opinion, far more damaging than zinfandel’s reputation for high alcohol.
Feiring’s premise, while not accurately supported, is still valid. It is true that high scores for the unusually big wines of the early 1990’s fostered a rush toward longer hangtimes. Wine is not immune to fashion, and Parker’s Wine Advocate was not the only critical influence in shaping trends. Paul Draper’s early experiments with massive tannins in zinfandel created a winemaking rush to produce highly extracted, tannic zins. When Draper announced that he had changed his mind about that style, it disappeared overnight (except in our cellars where the experiment is perhaps ongoing). High scores in the 1980’s for a handful of oaky, buttery chardonnays created a juggernaut of butter-bombs, which is not surprising given the acreage planted to this variety in California.
I was personally aghast when I started reading chapter two. Feiring rolls her luggage off the plane in Paso Robles, and before she has left the tarmac she mentions controlling winemakers and Clark Smith at Vinovation in Sonoma—a controversial man and a controversial firm that promote making wine by the numbers, a concept that riles more than a few winemakers in Paso Robles. Feiring apparently visits only one winery, which she describes as a megacommerical, ultramodern winery that uses acid additions, tannin additions, wood chips, enzymes, and pretty much everything Feiring considers evil. And then . . . apparently . . . she gets back on the plane and leaves. She then visits UC Davis, where she learns more about topics of which she disapproves.
At UC Davis, Feiring asks, “The taste of biodynamic and organic and natural is one that appeals to a whole slew of people. The taste of the other kind of wine, one that I view more as a beverage than an art, appeals to another group. Shouldn’t both kinds of winemaking be taught?” A UC Davis professor tries to explain that they teach the science and mechanics of winemaking, with the clear implication (at least to me) that once the technique has been mastered, the student may return to the Tao of simplicity. But Feiring insists that natural winemaking should be “taught.” After her observation that we often enjoy the taste of a natural product more, I can’t help but wonder . . . if it were strawberries or tomatoes or donuts . . . which would we enjoy more? The worm-infested product of a pot-smoking earth muffin who took a class in natural baking and gardening, or the product of a student who mastered the science and techniques of baking or gardening and made an informed choice to produce a pure, healthy product?
She criticizes UC Davis for not “teaching” natural winemaking and for not offering classes in “Old World” solutions. She doesn’t understand why only the science is taught. “You can’t be accepted to the Yale drama school if you don’t have some sort of inner artistic fire.” Feiring studied for a masters degree in dance and movement therapy. So perhaps she has a point. If there are dance courses in ancient rhythms and natural movement (which to me, would mean no shoes, no clothes, and no music . . . nothing added other than the body and a floor), why not winemaking classes in inner fire, how to be talented, and natural winemaking?
Feiring is at her best when she relates her adventures and tasting tromps through Europe, primarily France. Of course, she whole-heartedly believes everything she is told there, but her adventures are charming and convincing. And in Europe, she features both the large commercial productions and the small, single-vineyard producers who farm organically or biodynamically. For the most part Europe is portrayed as a haven for multigenerational harmony with the land.
Throughout, Feiring makes sweeping proclamations regarding the craft of winemaking and how it should be done.
On one page she says, “sustainable agriculture is based on chemical farming,” which is categorically untrue.
Among her disapproved additions she includes “yeast food (based on urea)”. But not all yeast nutrients are urea-based. Many small wineries use yeast nutrients that are simply yeast hulls, which are high in vitamin B and absorb autotoxic byproducts (which would only be toxic to the yeastie-beasties by the way, not to humans). It’s the equivalent of vinous dry compost. She did not explore the concept of urea at all—she only shudders—and is therefore apparently unaware, and her readers uninformed—that urea is a product of carbon dioxide, water, aspartate, and ammonia. Although it occurs in the human body, it is also a naturally occurring product of inorganic combinations, and it is also produced by invertebrates, insects, plants, yeast, fungi, and even microorganisms. So she praises biodynamic vineyards, which plant dung-filled cowhorns at the end of vineyard rows under a full moon, and inflate deer penises. But a small California winery that adds a little yeast and fungus poop to their fermentation is somehow selling out to the gods of corporate manipulation?
In the chapter on Rioja, “Every other winery I had visited had finished [fermentation] but here fermentation stopped when the wine wanted it to, not when the winemaker stopped it.” What a befuddling statement. Every other winery in Europe? Or every other winery in Rioja? How do the winemakers stop the fermentations? And why? How do the finished wines differ?
“Modern wine folk like fast ferments—a week, maybe two weeks at most,” she says. Which kind of fermentation? Which modern wine folk? Everyone? We are all pretty much under the age of 60, as it gets harder and harder to move barrels around with age. Why do winemakers prefer faster fermentation? Is she aware that many California productions frequently ferment for six months or more, if you include malolactic conversions and finishing those last few points of primary? Does she even understand the properties of fermentation well enough to comment?
Among the evils of modern wine processes, she includes fining with gelatin, or as she calls it, “finishing.” But she doesn’t mention that in France, as elsewhere in Europe, the use of bull’s blood, eggs, milk and Irish moss have been used as finishing agents for centuries. Nor does she mention that gelatin is produced from bones and is completely natural.
On the subject of barrels, she says, “ I am no winemaker, but I wondered: Didn’t they know that those barrels could also make wine extremely bitter?” Feiring loves “authentic” old wood tuns, and continually disparages wineries that have brought in “new, small barriques”. She also adores thick, black mold growing on the cellar walls and surfaces and considers it a sign of an “authentic” wine cave. But there is no mention of brettanomyces in the book, and no mention of anisoles infecting the wineries and barrels. At all.
Regarding a 1987 Tondonia, “[Parker] said the wine had ‘early maturity,’ meaning it got old before its time.” But the Wine Advocate indicator ‘early maturity’ means the wine is in a stage of early maturity. This error invalidates her criticisms of Parker’s views on this wine, and shows a gross ignorance of her nemesis’ scoring system.
At one point she lambastes the “super-duper” Parker scores on young Barolos, calling them hard, flat, and chewy although she had been told they were made in a “modern” style to drink young. These, she laments, were a far cry from her “beloved 1968 Giovanni Scanavino.” However, she had drunk the ’68 Scanavino with friends in 1980—when the wine was twelve years old. Did she assume that a “young” Barolo should be perfectly balanced in its first year of release?
In the next to last chapter, “My Date with Bob,” Feiring gets all prickly when Parker simply won’t converge to her point of view. Parker points out that more wine is actually being made naturally today, and that there are many more organic and biodynamic vineyards than when he began reviewing wine. But Feiring will have none of that, referring back to the Paso Robles winery that claimed on its website all grapes were hand-harvested and handled as little as possible, but according to Feiring then corrupts their production with tannins and acids, as if this is proof that all Paso Robles wineries, and by extension the entire New World, are liars and cheats.
If there is romance in this book, I couldn’t find it. She refers to her string of relationships with names like Mr. Straightlaced, and her earth-shattering breakup with The Owl Man warranted one or two paragraphs.
If Alice Feiring ever shows up on my winery doorstep . . .
I will fire up the 1965 baby blue Mustang convertible with its rumbling Flowmaster pipes, roll down the top, and force her to visit small Paso Robles wineries with me as her guide. She will visit Caparone, where the wines are so natural they have hair in their armpits. Pipestone, where Jeff Pipes farms biodynamically and tills his vineyard with a horsedrawn plow. Fratelli Perata and other small, generational vineyards where you trip over the tricycles on your way to the door and wonder if you are in Deliverance-meets-Disneyland.
And perhaps she will meet a swaggering vineyard owner in cowboy boots, hat and silver buckle who will find her irascible, red-headed, outspoken charm irresistible. The kind of man who will never tolerate a nickname . . .
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Post by Conner Cooke on May 30, 2008 10:14:35 GMT -5
A critical review, but fair I think. I've been following the comments on your blog Mary and I think you've been very open-minded. I'd still be interested i hearing Alice's responses to my questions above. BTW, how are sales of her book going, does anyone know?
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