Monday, May 25 2009
Winemaker Magazine Conference
Waiter! There's a fly in my Sauvignon!
It was quite the weekend in Napa. Winemaker Magazine hosted their second annual conference on the 15th and 16th of May. Since I'm a columnist and feature writer for them I got the invite to be a speaker as well. This year I thought I'd do two seminars, one on troubleshooting wine kits and another on a larger topic.
See, I was concerned that at the first conference the audiences for my talks were a little small--100 people ish--and that grape winemakers were missing out on the glory and wonderfulness that is me, by virtue of not being in my target demographic for kit winemaking. So a half a year ago I pitched Brad Ring, Winemaker's publisher, with the idea that I'd do a component tasting for the whole crowd--all 400 of them. He agreed, and I got cracking.
Ha ha ha, I'm such a liar. As usual I pursued my busy work schedule and did nothing to prepare. Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. Fortunately my lack of work ethic stood me in good stead because it gave me a lot of time to think it through and put together a really good program. The only monkey-wrenches in the works were
- A lecture cancellation, which meant I had to do my talks back-to-back in one day
- I had to put together all the wine and tasting samples the day I arrived.
The other thing, of course is sore feet and a scratchy throat from standing and lecturing for a couple of hours, but that's cool--one of the courses I teach to our retailers (Winemaking Excellence 101) has me talking for six straight hours, interrupted only by lunch and exams, so I could handle a couple of hours.
But putting the samples together was quite the circus act. I've only done the tasting for at most 100 people at a time before. Quadrupling that number presented some very interesting logistical challenges. First, we needed almost three thousand plastic cups for the seven different components we'd taste (7 x 400 = 2800!). Second, I had to make up a lot of component solutions. Here's a picture of the set-up.
You can't tell the players without a program
From the top left it goes acid, tannin, oak, alcohol, sugar, white wine and red wine. Each of these is a standardised reference solution, and the drill is you taste the white wine, taste the reference sample, taste the white again and note the change in perception on you palate. Repeat with the red and go through all the solutions. The point of the exercise is to tease out the role of each of the components in the overall flavour profile and balance of the two wines. I like doing this seminar because it's very concrete: aromatic component tastings are very difficult to present because everyone is so differently sensitive to smells. With this tasting it's pretty obvious what flavours there are, and I've yet to present this to anyone who doesn't get something out of it, brand new winemaker or old-time grape winemaking veteran.
Back to the component solutions: I brought winemaking acid, powdered oak and tannic acid with me from Canada. I ran out to the store for superfine sugar, vodka, fifteen-2.5 US gallon jugs of spring water and three cases each of Two-Buck Chuck red and white. The first step, hoofing it all back to my hotel room was amusing. The next step was to get the oak steeping right away. I had a half-pound of oak powder that needed to be soaked in boiling water, like tea. The coffeemaker in my room was a little small . . . eventually I cornered the banquet manager and told him what I needed:
"Can I get a soup insert full of boiling water to take back to my room?" (This is restaurant code for a 3-gallon stainless steel serving cauldron. I know the lingo)
"You want to make soup in your room?" He was (rightfully) a bit puzzled.
I was frazzled and a little silly from travel and sampling. "Yes, soup. Can you also tell me where I can find some hobos?"
"Oboes? You want an oboe?"
"No, transients: people who won't be missed . . ."
Mmm-mmm good!
Apparently my attempt at cannibal humour went over his head, but in half an hour he showed up with a cart hauling a giant four gallon insert inside a serving warmer--it was perfect! I pushed it into my room, which by now looked like . . . well, there were containers of distilled water everywhere, white powder on the desk and bathroom counter, containers labeled 'acid', measuring beakers, a dozen empty vodka bottles and a giant cauldron of evil-smelling black goo on the boil. If a maid showed up I could shortly expect a visit from the DEA and perhaps the FBI. I started to really regret the stupid cannibal joke!
Eventually, however, I got everything done and labelled and delivered to the staging area. We had 30 minutes to set up and get everything poured. The Winemaker staff, and some of my Winexpert compatriots pitched in and ran like madfolk to pour 2800 samples while I prepped my talk and supervised.
Go Team Speedpour!
They did heroic work, and we managed to start only a couple of minutes late. I was a little tense, but everyone was eager.
Crowd waiting to get in to my tasting. They had been promised wine, and weren't leaving without it.
Gosh darned if it didn't come off pretty well. I even managed to slip in a Thomas Aquinas quote about beauty (I have a fascination with historical quotes, and there's at least one in every presentation) and everyone picked up on the subtleties of wine balance and harmony, even if the wine we were drinking was pretty horrible. I confess that I use commercial wine on purpose, to show how completely awful the cheapest stuff is, when compared to a delicious wine made from Winexpert kits!
You call this a seven-course meal?
Technically I was off the clock after that, but I had a couple of meetings and did some stand-up Q&A with folks in the halls and byways. Then I went out for a nice dinner with some friends: Craig and Colin and Wendy, the Winesense folks from Winnipeg were down at the same time as the conference, so we hooked up to chat--purely business, as I'm going there to deliver a seminar in a week or so.
Mrs. Tim, me, Colin, Wendy and Craig. Photo courtesy Wendy.
We went out to Bistro Jeanty, where the food was excellent, the wine list inspired, and the flow of bacon never ended. I'm not kidding: my appetiser, technically a lentil salad had not only pork belly in it, the dish was lined in pork belly, and then topped with a foie gras ragout. Absolutely delicious, it was as rich as eating sticks of butter out of your fist. I chose the cassoulet for entree, which I thought a safe bet. Ha ha ha, the beans were hiding in there somewhere, under layers of rich confit of duck, duck fat, duck sausage and . . . applewood smoked bacon. If it wasn't for all the red wine I would have stroked out right at the table. I smelled like bacon for a week.
Other days brought other delights, like Domaine Chandon, Stag's Leap Winery and Domaine Carneros. Stay tuned.
| Posted by Tim AT 10:55PM | 0 Comments |  |
Post A Comment |  |
 |