Wine Societies Blog

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If I could show you a way to offer your wines in markets where it isn’t being offered right now, direct to trade at NO COST TO THE WINERY EVER…Would that be of interest to you?

We were received with enthusiasm and support from several wineries, who get what we are all about! YEAH! http://tinyurl.com/2eul7q6

The tides turn as they will. Web 2.0 is making way for Web 3.0, or so some say. Goose liver made way for that of the duck, and both have stepped partially to the side for “food foams” and gluten-free morsels. Syrah struggled there for a bit and is making its way back into our hearts.

Things change and people accept new things at every turn. But why? It’s consensus, I tell ya. It’s in politics, in cyberspace and in the airport terminal. We draw conclusions and share them. We’re quite impressionable but in many ways embrace the scientific method, so we accept input, interpret it, process it, adapt to it AND adopt the bits that resonate with our paradigms – and we syndicate. Nowadays, the broadcast tools are fabulously rich in capability, and the creators are on a tear to capture each moment, each segment of attention to purvey the, well, the 3.o version. Heck, I’m all over Hootsuite, even though it took me 12 months to interpret-process-adapt to it, and another 2 months to adopt it. But it’s made for syndication, and the legions of Twitter spinoffs want me to click like a ghoul wants mortals to vex. The best part about syndication? Even during the rolling brownouts (hm. we haven’t seen those in Cali for quite some time), we can syndicate not just with our mouths and hands, but with our energy. I’m getting there, getting there….a-HA! Got there – I’m talking about wine criticism and scoring.

Before you go A.D.D. or groan, please consider this: There are lots of wine critics, and countless ways to learn about wine. Remember, when we encounter a new experience, it’s human nature to reference past stimuli (taken through to the culmination of the “adopt” phase of learning) in order to make a decision. When we say that decision is an informed one, we generally mean that we’ve made comparisons, impartially assessed alternatives – driven a few cars before taking one from the lot. Thus, when it comes to taking a wine into one’s life, many who prefer a little outside help will turn to the wine critic. It helps. It may not be so easy to ask a few friends what their honest opinions are about a bottle before taking the plunge. Not so many of us will throw caution to the wind, and fewer will make a purchase based on place, varietal, vintage, pedigree (vineyard or winemaker). Wine geeks do it, sure. However, the mass media still reigns, and wine critics play just as integral a part in that mechanism as whoever sold turned that hilarious Twitter concept about an inappropriate dad into a television series. Name withheld – I’m sure you know why and what I’m talking about.

I’d like to see – and am beginning to see – a wine world in which critical commentary becomes more and more viral. I yearn for – and am delighted to observe – validation by consensus, communication sped up, trust and appreciation propagated both through oral tradition and the electronic landscape. It’s happening, and we can see the results when we check out what’s happening all over the Internet but, more importantly, process and adopt this data into our own jargon. You may once have heard me rail against the Twitterization of tasting notes in defense of wine writing a la Cussler/Gaiter/Broadbent. That opinion still sticks. I’m advocating for self-empowerment and the practice of embracing one’s own wine opinions, obviously made actionable through sharing and syndicating. Smoke signals, blogs, it doesn’t matter. Isolationists, on the other hand, may actually need the most famous critic they can find to do the thinking for them. Well, they’re alone, and that’s a difficult way to enable population growth.

There’s no all-powerful duo of wine scorers that can ever truly validate the merits of a wine. Advertising muscle is exactly what makes the dictator the homogenous authority. Check your history. And check it again because we can see what goes on when people select the path of self-determination. Informed decisions begin to happen and happen again. And that, in my opinion, is a happening thing. So is wine criticism – for income and for pleasure. I support all wine critics who have something creative and honest to say about a wine so long as they keep sharp (re: taste boatloads of wine). The ones who have the courage to share why their palates are the way they are are even more objective. It’s like going to a great concert with someone who can’t hear high pitches and talking about the show afterwards. There’s so much more to learn about why(s)he appreciated the music, thus knowing when to take a recommendation from this person about the upcoming tuba mosh.

We’ve learned via consensus which critics like what, but 9 times out of 10 the critics don’t tell us what they either can’t taste or are hypersensitive to. But we don’t need to wait for even the critic who can taste everything (like we’d ever find out) before we make our own minds up. As far as I’m concerned and always have been, we can change our minds any time. Gosh, we can even be our own critics and make our relatives our associate wine judges. Barring that, if somebody next door writes about wine, and we like to read about it, shouldn’t we take the time to peruse their latest article before borrowing the lawnmower? It just might be enjoyable, informative and helpful.

Events Details | Family Winemakers of California Tasting 2010 http://ping.fm/O2cAn

Wine Industry Technology Symposium http://ping.fm/AI09u

Lou Kapcsandy is one of the Napa Valley’s foremost winery proprietors in the game today. His wines defy description and embody depth. A comprehensive tasting in November of 2008 revealed more to me than I’d ever expected to learn about the integration of philosophy and winemaking. Generally, a wine writer would be expected to wax prosaic about yet another iteration of the philosophy of winemaking. Not this author – I want to share the visceral items that struck me most about Mr. Kapscandy as well as his wines. We read and hear too much about how this rustic wine was born from an agronomist’s rootsy ideologies, and how that graceful pinot noir reflects the delicate personality of that oenologist. I’ve spent enough time with highly educated and well-travelled winemakers to integrate the passion of it all for myself. You can absorb anything you like as you gambol about the vineyards and formulate what the love of wine means to you. I simply want to tell you about a remarkable human being in the wine business whose life I find inspiring while his wines are some of the best you will find in the United States today.

Lou owns the prized State Lane Vineyard in the Yountville corridor of the Napa Valley, the parcel that provided Beringer Estates its prime fruit for two decades. California wine enthusiasts know the fundamental quality of this cabernet sauvignon, and those that recall the inaugural 1979 vintage tend to get a bit choked up when they face the fact that those bottles are probably consumed by now. All in all, not a bad piece of land, to have fun with an understatement. The acquisition of such a remarkable supply of world-class raw materials isn’t the point of focus herein, yet after I discuss the history of the man at the helm of this vineyard, we’ll see confirmation that good things happen to good people.

Lou’s past is a tapestry of incredible circumstances, narrow escapes and spectacular fortune. He grew up in Hungary and encountered the typical personal choices a young person must make in early adulthood, but he endured additional trials foreign to most of in today’s comfortable Western world. Hungary was dominated by Stalinist communists in those days. The Cold War was raging and the tribulations of Communist rule had its fierce grip on Hungarian citizens young and old. The working class had found a certain level of power against the ruling government and the conditions of what it means to live in a violent police state. Militias battled municipal security cells and executions were a reality. The citizens were winning their sovereignty back and were well on their way back to the freedom and self-regulation they’d earned near the end of the 19^th century. Then, the winds changed direction and the withdrawing Soviet troops were ordered to return to Budapest with a vengeance. After about three weeks in the fall of 1956, Hungarian citizens’ hopes vanished and those who weren’t killed were able to escape the country. A quarter of a million refugees found various escape routes, and one of these defeated but fortunate individuals was Lou. Looking back, one must consider whether defeat on one front can really imply defeat in all areas of a person’s life. Lou Kapcsandy proves the success of the human spirit, the juxtaposition of preparedness, skill and luck.

One of Lou’s talents was soccer. Once he found his way to Austria, still in hiding from government mercenaries, he realized that he’d been recruited – auctioned off behind his back, in fact! – to play soccer for Real Madrid, Spain’s formidable soccer team. This offer was not so good, given Spaniards’ ongoing problems with Stalinism at that time. Lou rejected that offer, as well as subsequent entreaties by professional soccer recruiters in Italy and Germany. All this time, as today’s version of headhunters were begging him to play his beloved sport on a national level, he was festering in an Austrian internment camp! For further information about the conditions refugees experienced in camps, one need only look to the abundance of documentation to realize what Lou’s nineteen months as not much more than a prisoner were like. He was sponsored by the International Student Union during this time, and they constantly sought opportunities for him to emerge into any suitable society that would afford him the basic freedoms he’d need to thrive on his own and find a niche in which to settle, autonomous despite having had his homeland ripped from him.

Lou found a way for him to come to the United States, albeit penniless, and his intellectual skills earned him an engineering degree and a subsequent post with Union Carbide in New York City. Just when the ironies seemed to exhaust themselves, Lou was drafted to the U.S. Army, but he didn’t yet hold citizenship. His marksmanship and skill with a hand grenade had been observed, though, because he’d been a fairly high ranking organizer of the citizens’ revolt back in Budapest. In just under three years, he received extensive training and went from a drafted infantryman to an 82^nd Airborne Division Green Beret.

Let’s fast forward through several successful years in the New York chemical business, the formation of a family, 25 years in the Seattle construction business, retirement in 2003 and many benchmark wine experiences in California. Lou forged friendships with the early Valley pioneers like Martini, Kornell, Heitz and Tchelistcheff, and he touts a certain ’68 to be the greatest cabernet sauvignon ever produced in California.

After reflection upon what he’d like to do in retirement, Lou made nearly half a dozen attempts to make vineyard deals, to purchase just the right piece of land that would enable him to create world-class wine on par with what he’d enjoyed the world over. In 1999, through a process of information sharing and intelligence, Lou was able to purchase the State Lane Vineyard. He had to perform soil tests secretly because of the immense pressure and intrigue of making an offer on historic land like this. The immaculate, tightly-spaced Bordeaux varietals occupy 15.5 sustainably farmed acres. Four primary wines are produced in an incredibly clean facility featuring a beautiful sorting table, an astounding cellar and a pristine barrel room protected by a high-tech alarm system. Kapcsandy’s Estate Cuvee resonated and built complexity on my palate that even exceeded the front- and mid-palate intensity that I thought couldn’t get more pleasurable. There are flavor components in all of these wines that defy logic, as there is no lavender or eucalyptus at the periphery of the vineyard. No fudge brownies either, but you’d just have to be there with me to have your own palate judgment regress like mine did. Smiles and wonderment replace stilted conversation about phenolics, and criticism fades to bliss when one takes in the sheer experience of tasting Lou’s wines with him. Of course, it also helps that his consulting winemaker is Denis Malbec from Chateau Latour in Pauillac, Bordeaux, France.

Lou’s knowledge and experience is solid, as evidenced by the most impressive wine collection I’ve seen in the western United States. He told me, “When people ask me how I could know what good wine should taste like, I show them my cellar.” Lou has the palate and the in-depth technical knowledge coupled with relationships throughout the Californian and European ubervinosphere to know no limits to what his grapes can produce. I think you’ll rarely meet a person with such rich history and life experience. I will not go the pithy route and say that you can taste Lou’s passion or that a time-lapse slideshow of the Hungarian years will addle your synapses while tasting his wines. It just happens to be the case that Kapcsandy wines are remarkable. That’s just a matter of fact. Yet the point I want to make about Lou is one that differentiates his persona from the constructs we’re programmed with as regularians. We go to wine country and are generally faced with a zany, mini-mall mindset underlain with the most disturbing departure from classicism, agricultural integrity and humility. The neon often reminds me of Branson, and I can’t tell you how many of you I’ve tried to help experience the real deal here among the vines of California.

Lou Kapscandy is genuine. He honors all people, and there’s no political discussion you can have with him that reveals any speck of –ism. I didn’t feel unworthy, imposing or lowbrow as this man invited me into his home and gave me two hours more than originally scheduled. Heck, as I met Mrs. K working on their family business at her desk that evening, it was me who felt overdressed. With such mileage and zest for life, such respect for humanity and the earth, I feel as though visiting with Lou and poring over his terrific wines was nothing short of inspiring and celebratory. When I asked him for permission to casually chronicle my memorable visit with him, he said, “I don’t know why. I’m not sure that I’m all that special. I just want to make good wine.”

There you go – some thoughts about a special man who makes great wine. I definitely got lucky, and it’s my aim to spread this luck to you.

~ Yours,

Christian Lane

This is not a test. It’s just something for us to exercise, to keep sharp on.

Q1 : How many cases of traditional one-ounce pours does it take to keep a crowd of 3,000 people happy?

A1: About 10.

Q2: If someone says to you, “Could you give me more than just a taste this time?”

A2: First, let’s look at the qualifier ‘this time’. How many more times will it take with this person? As many as it takes to make a new friend. On the second pour, I believe one should take it to three ounces (eyeball it, study the regulated pours at your local watering hole – you’ll get used to seeing the amount). Then, without question, romance this person. You never know. (S)he could be scouting for the next best thing on behalf of a C-Level wine buyer, or… or anything. The possibilities are endless. Get a business card and/or handshake. Make it a reciprocal experience. Again, make a friend. Don’t sweat the “inventory loss” because human interaction is the true commerce to seek.

When you pull up your bootstraps and hit the road as a wine rep (meaning for your own wines, mainly), don’t be too concerned about giving wine away for free. Yes, there will be people at these events who take advantage of the situation and simply drink. Yet there’s something unique about where they went to drink, yes? And if you’re savvy (you’re in the wine biz, so you ARE sporting a certain finesse anyway), you’ll see this freebie-seeking lookie-loo lush from a mile away, knowing that IDs were indeed checked but that chronological age doesn’t necessarily mean everything you want it to mean at this moment. Take the good with the not-immediately-obviously-good. You’re marketing.

There are often two perceived choices to make when in this situation:  1) Roll over and take it like a victim, thinking of the whole affair as nothing more than schlepping 38 pounds all over Kingdom Come and pandering to the masses whilst your profits are thrown to the swine, or… 2) Make friends. Brand. Deal with it. Spread good vibes. Make friends. Make memories for people who just might be your next ten-year wine club member. Brand. Tell the story. It’s the story that wins the day.

My philosophy – remember the SAT? = is thus:

If you can get rid of this analogy ————  customer: transaction

and replace it with this ———————–   client: relationship

you may find that just because you don’t see a credit card in that moment, you’re bound to be “burdened” with entering ten orders the next week, so long as you’ve left everyone with a positive impression. Don’t forget to BRAND because that’s the world we live in. Those of you with children, you get it when you consider what television can do to stultify, stupefy, STUPIDICATE a toddler left in front of it all day long for years on end. Many kids can identify products and sing jingles long before they even know how to spend money. It’s the world in which we live. Attention spans are but a glimmer, for now, so if you want to sell wine – sell yourself first.

And they said there wasn’t going to be a math test today. They were right – this is just an exercise.

List of Celebrities Who Own Commercial Wineries

By: iPost Media

The trend of celebrities owning wineries and vineyards is not a recent phenomenon, though it has certainly garnered more attention.

While some celebrities, such as the British musician Sting, American actors Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, British soccer star David BeckhamVictoria Beckham, own vineyards and wine estates solely for personal use, some celebrities are leveraging their name recognition as a selling tool in the wine industry. Today celebrity-owned wineries can be lucrative business endeavors. In 2007, Nielsen research of supermarket and his wife wine purchases showed that sales of celebrity wines were up 19% over previous years.