Tuesday, October 27 2009
Tour 2009
If planes were powered by crying babies, they'd go 9000 miles an hour
It's been a bit since my last update, but I swear I've been using my time productively. I'm writing this entry on a flight to Minnesota, en route to Raleigh North Carolina (did you know that babies can cry in five-part harmony under the right circumstances? Neither did I until today), headed to the beautiful US south for more Limited Edition consumer events and store visits.
Gary, pouring the Petit Verdot
Last week was great: on Monday I did a tasting event for Candlelight and Wine on Vancouver Island. I've known the owner, Gary, for what must be a decade now, and I can always count on him to do a great job with the program–he really gets the whole Limited Edition idea and throws himself and his store into it. There were around 100 people in attendance at a local community hall, which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. The drive out was cool, with winding roads through fields and forest, with occasional glimpses of shoreline unbroken by housing or development. It's amazing what's in your backyard, when you pay attention to the journey and not the destination.
The lecture portion went well–for the last few years I've been skipping my 'How to Taste Wine' segment (you can see it on my Youtube video here) but I did a quick survey of the room to see if anyone wanted a refresher, and sure enough they did. It's a bit of a schtick, but a little humour con help convey the importance of proper tasting modality and methodology. It usually gets a laugh too. Who knew my stint in stand-up comedy would prove to be one of my most powerful job assets?
Yeah, pretty much everyone who knows me, I guess.
Big fans!
After the lecture and tasting portion and a bunch of informal Q&A afterwards (I'm always impressed that after 20 years people are still asking new questions, not just same-old) with the folks I packed up and hied back to downtown Victoria–where I managed to snag some Noodle Box for dinner (good noodles are the key to living a good life) and hit Spinnakers for a quick pint. Turns out they have a bartender there who looks exactly like Dwight Yoakam, the poor man, but I got there just as half the staff was getting off-shift so I got to sit in on a gossip session about the local brewing/beer scene, always fun.
The next day it was back home for paperwork and officey stuff, and to pick up our projector screen for my next lecture. We've got a six-footer which is okay for small halls (I generally prefer something bigger so people with less-than-perfect eyesight, me included, get to see my slides but it works all right). With the help of our faithful marketing munchkin, Kelly, we did an event for Glenda and Pauli of Von Euw Brew.
Joe, you behave for your Aunt Kelly, you hear?
(A note about Kelly: despite her less-than towering stature she's a trouper, pulling many times her own weight at Winexpert, making sure I get to play the part of rock star while she does the heavy lifting. As a measure of my respect I made her godparent to my chattel, Joe Coffee, and she takes care of him when I'm out of town. A man doesn't just entrust his coffee plant to anyone!)
Sorry, you have to listen to me talk before you can have wine
Von Euw is in Abbottsford, a 'burb of Vancouver where an awful lot of my relatives settled over the years. Despite my cheap teetotal relations, the Von Euw folks do a bang-up business and a really great job winemaking. Their tasting was in a community centre that usually specialised in senior events and adult daycare (man, every time I see that phrase I think, 'That sounds like heaven, especially snacks and naptime') and initially I was a little confused. I arrived early to set up and saw over a hundred people, rather rich in years, enjoying a meal together. It wasn't until I went around to the side entrance that I saw the lecture hall and the room set-up. Whew!
Glenda is really excited about the tasting!
And a nice hall it was: just the right size for slightly over 100 folks, raised stage, sound system, good chairs, etc. It's the little details that all add up to a good event. I actually dispensed with the microphone: it's still early in the season and my voice is fine (when I remember to project, I can be terribly inconsistent) so I did my Barrymore boom and it seemed to carry well. Von Euw's customers were a lively bunch, and had some good questions afterwards too.
One of the things that I've been putting into the talk is a plug for the Vinturi wine aerator. Some of Winexpert's authorised retail partners are offering it as a bonus item for people who order five kits. That might seem like a lot of wine kits even for a lovely wine gift like that, but they're a special case. Not only are they handsome and well-made, unlike a lot of gadgets I've seen as giftware over the years, they actually fulfil a useful purpose.
Looks like James Bond could use it to shoot lasers
The biggest issue wine made from our juice and concentrate kits have has nothing to do with the raw materials, our winemaker or the practices of the folks who make them, either in on-premise operations or on their own at home. It has to do with age. Almost all commercial wines have a full year of age when you see them on the wine shop shelf. There are some exceptions, like Beaujolais Nouveau, but they pump that stuff so full of chemical stabilisers and gum Arabic and sugar that it's not really wine, more of a 'wine-like beverage'. Blech!
Very few consumer winemakers age all of their wines for a full year before tasting them. Not that I can argue that as a purveyor of products: steady turnover is what keeps me in cheese sandwiches and coach-class airline tickets. Wine is a living beverage, even after bottling it continues to go through biochemical processes that profoundly change its flavour, aroma and appearance, sometimes so much so that it seems to completely transform the wine from a pleasant but thin and light beverage into a lush, rolling blockbuster of flavour and richness. I swear, I hear about it every single day, when folks find a two year-old bottle they've forgotten and try it.
Now, there's one thing that can help a very young wine out if you are having a wine-related emergency and need to crack that month-old Shiraz (these things happen), and that is aeration. By getting some air into the wine it can drive off some reductive compounds (essentially sulphur-based compounds in the wine) and let the wine 'open up' to express more character and aroma. Traditionally the way to aerate wine is to decant it into a glass or crystal decanter with a wide base, to expose the maximum surface area of wine to oxygen exchange.
Help prevent wine emergencies! Don't let this happen to you!
With wine-related emergencies this isn't always possible: they can sneak up on you so fast (Tuesday always seems to pounce on me with no warning) that there's no spare time to decant the wine for an hour or two before dinner or guests arrive. The Vinturi is a clever little gizmo that funnels the wine through a small chamber and then drags air along through it, kind of like a wacky straw cum Supersoaker. Blitzing oxygen into the wine like this gives it a boost to the aroma, drives off any bottle stink and if the wine is a wee bit gassy (a tiny bit of fizz is common in wines bottled very young) it can shake the bubbles out–a very good thing since trapped CO2 also holds sulphides in it as well, making the wine smell . . . well, gassy, really. And it really is a handsome gift: the Vinturi's retail for sixty bucks in a lot of places (individual dealers may sell for less) and who doesn't need five more wines for their cellar?
Thanks to all the folks who came to the tastings last week, and the people who put it all together and made it happen–I really do have a fun job.
Now, it's off to Raleigh and Atlanta. Last time I was here I had some amazing sushi in Atlanta, not the first place I think of when I'm thinking raw fish, but surprises are everywhere. However, I'm much (much!) more interested in Barbeque. I hear that Georgia and the Carolinas occasionally have some, I've had KC, Texas, Louisiana, and a lot of what is mislabelled 'Barbecue' when it should have been called, 'grilled animal parts with sweet red sauce on top'. I'm hoping that some kind souls can set me straight on which is the best version. I may not be smart, but I'm willing to learn, especially if it involves sides of slaw and beans.
| Posted by Tim AT 2:08PM | 0 Comments |  |
Post A Comment |  |
 |