With all this attention to ethics and disclosure over the past few days, I have also been thinking about wine ratings. No, not writing descriptions about wines and if I like them or think they are good values, but the numerical score.

Quite by chance, I received an email today that included a link to a wine review site I had not visited before, Pointless Wines. The author’s thesis is pretty simple. He reviews wine and does not award points like some of us do. There are also some interesting articles about the 100-point system that, when I triangulated with a post Ryan did a few days back, gave me pause as I return to writing reviews.

How important is the score to the reader of the review?

I know, we have discussed this subject before here but, without beating a dead horse, would it really matter too much if I just left those scores out from now on? After all, “The web should be something different.“

Food for thought, anyway.

My last post started a great discussion about disclosure and transparency, so it is in that spirit I will write a bit about my background as a wine writer.

In short, I have no credentials. Although I have a B.A. in communications, I didn’t take any journalism classes. My MBA did nothing for my love of wine but perhaps provide a bit more income when I was in the corporate world. Nor have I ever taken a formal wine education course; not even those $25 ones offered by good wine stores. All of my knowledge about wine has come from tasting different wines over the past 25 years. I’ve also read quite a few wine books. I should also point out that my quest began with jug wines and I progressed to “fighting varietals” and it was only in the past decade that I really broadened my wine horizons and developed my palate.

From the beginning, however, I preferred New World wines for their pure fruit. My love for Zinfandel came within my first year as a wine newbie where Sebastiani Zinfandel was my main choice for $2.50 a bottle. This was back when Sam Sebastiani was still the winemaker for the eponymous family winery and this wine was a simple, but true version of the variety. For special occasions I splurged on bottles from Lytton Springs Vineyard and Ridge Geyserville. I also tried the odd bottle of Bordeaux which seemed thin and disappointing when compared to Napa Valley Cab.

Years past and my income increased to a point where I was able to enjoy better and more expensive wines. This is really where I really took a turn into wine geekdom and set the table for starting this blog and podcast in December 2004.

My tasting process for bottles reviewed normally is held in my home over a 2 or 3 day period. I use the same Riedel stemware for each wine tasted and try each wine with and without food. My notes are a composite over this period. When I taste at wineries or large tasting events, I only try the wine once. Each of these reviews should be judged as first impressions for the wines in question.

No matter the venue for tasting, all reviews presented here should be taken as just my opinion and not replace your own experience with the same wines.

Last Friday night I had the opportunity to meet-up with Alder Yarrow of Vinography for a glass of wine and discussion at San Francisco’s VinoVenue. I put the subject of wine blogger ethics on the table and we discussed it while enjoying an unremarkable, but still very nice Mosel Riesling.

I wanted to have this discussion face-to-face and not via email because the subject is nuanced and I wanted to somewhat debate the issue in real-time. I’ve always been on the side of transparency, so I’ve disclosed I’m in the wine trade and who pays for the wines I review for some time now. As long as I continue to do this, I reasoned, readers and listeners would take this into account when evaluating the recommendations I make here.

But Alder questioned whether or not a member of the wine trade could actually be objective no matter how transparent the writer is. At the time I — somewhat naively in retrospect — shrugged off this position as a difference of opinion but this idea has continued to reverberate in my head for nearly a week now.

Can I truly be objective about wine here if I make my living marketing and selling wine?

To avoid any conflict of interest I do not review the wines I am marketing nor do I blog about the business of the winery (not directly, anyway). But I am aware that should I review another Napa Valley wine and rate it lower than say, 85, it might appear that I am trying to benefit the brand I am working with. No matter how much I assure you that this is the farthest thing from my mind, I know that some will assume an ulterior motive.

So the only solution here is to stop reviewing Napa Valley wines or give up wine reviews altogether.

I don’t like either of these options simply because wine reviews and recommendations have been a part of the DNA of Winecast from the very first post and podcast. From incoming links and search engine referrals I know that these reviews are popular draws to this blog. Further, I have never considered myself to be a wine critic but a wine lover who writes about wine. It’s just a subjective opinion and readers can judge for themselves.

But Alder’s words are still ringing in my ears. Before doing anything rash I’d like to hear from readers and other bloggers about this issue. Shall I stop reviewing wines that could be considered competitive with my day job, stop reviewing wine altogether or hang it up and stop blogging and podcasting? I know that any of these will hurt a lot because I really love doing this but ethics are very important to me and if what I write here is considered tainted by my association to the wine business then I would be willing to take this course of action. It’s really up to you.

Note: sometimes comments are put into moderation so please wait before re-posting. Frequent participants will see their comments posted immediately.

A couple weeks ago I posted a poll to determine the best day to record a special listener questions edition of the podcast and tonight was the most popular choice. Since I didn’t post earlier, I have pushed out the recording two weeks in order to line up a few guests and give listeners a chance to think of a few wine-related questions.

So hold the date of April 18th at 9:00 pm EDT/6:00 pm PDT. You can join by either calling +1 724-444-7444 or downloading the TalkShoe software on your computer. The Talkcast ID is 23964. Hope to have many of you join me live and I’ll also release a higher quality recording after the event.

I’ve written quite a bit here about Twisted Oak winery but feel compelled to post once again as they continue to do interesting things from a marketing point of view. The latest is a commercial running on a local radio station in Calaveras County. California where the winery is located. Every winery wants to bring in both a local audience, who might become regular customers, and those from the surrounding region visiting on weekends. Most times this means inexpensive print ads in various visitor guides and stocking brochures around town but El Jefe is also doing a radio spot to drive customers into his tasting room.

On one hand this seems so 20th Century in the age of iPods but even I will switch from “AUX” to the radio when coming into an unfamiliar area to pickup local news and information. If a spot for a winery came on during those times I would certainly take notice and probably stop by the winery if I had a few extra minutes. And there is additional utility for the ad if the marketer posts an mp3 version on his blog that will gain much more exposure there than on the radio.

The bottom line for me is anything that continues the conversation about your winery is money well spent. Nice one, El Jefe!

Push play to listen: mp3

Note: This is a cross-post of my “weekly” article at Good Grape. I’ll be posting there a couple times a week to catch up this month.

I’ve been doing some work recently that got me thinking about how much a wine’s price is determined by the actual quality of the wine in the bottle and how much by the demand created through marketing. Aside from a few very rare exceptions, wine needs to be marketed to be sold. This is normally done through retail stores, the winery tasting room, to wine clubs and increasingly through online wine merchants. All these add to the costs a winery has to pay in order to get their wines to the customer but they are not the main cost driver; the grapes are.

If you are Fred Franzia making his famous “Two-buck Chuck” you are paying about $100 a ton for your over-cropped Central Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. The yield per ton is probably something like 7 tons per acre which doesn’t produce the most concentrated fruit. That ton of fruit will make around 60 cases or 720 standard bottles so Fred’s got around 14 cents per bottle in fruit costs. Now you can start to see how he can make money selling it for $1.99 at Trader Joe’s. Contrast that with the premium producer in Napa Valley who spends $6,000 a ton on fruit and up. There the yield is between 3 and 4 tons per acre that will produce a more concentrated, complex wine. Assuming the same 60 cases are made, the Napa Valley producer has around $8.30 in fruit costs. Not too bad if the wine will be selling for $50 or $60 a bottle but still 60 times more costly than Mr.Franzia’s wine. But this post is not intended to be a forensic dissection of the wine cost structure, for that, visit my friend Vini.

So getting back to the wine in the bottle, the basic difference is in the quality of the fruit and cellar treatment (i.e. new oak barrels vs. chips, aging time, etc.). For producers making the finest wines they tend to spend a lot more on these items but in the final analysis the most extravagant producer might have something like $30 of cost in each bottle produced. Since distributors buy at an average of 40% off retail, this wine would sell for a minimum of $57 a bottle assuming a 10% winery profit. But what if this wine is priced at $150 or $500 a bottle? Well, the profit margin is certainly higher but there are probably higher marketing costs, as well.

As I learned last week, there seems to be a point where price and quality diverge. The reputation of a winery, bolstered by glossy treatment in the wine magazines and 95+ Parker scores also help to push the demand, and price, for these wines. But are they the best example of a certain wine region or variety? Well that, my friends, is in the eye, and palate, of the beholder. You might think Screaming Eagle is the zenith of Napa Cabernet while I prefer what Ladera is doing for a lot less. Preferences aside, there are many great quality wines from all over the world that compete for our hard earned wine dollar. What really separates them is not the quality of what’s in the bottle but the demand that is created for those bottles. That, in a nutshell, is the essence of marketing… at least in my book.

We have all been there. You open the bottle and pour your first glass. The color is almost always fine but you know you are in trouble as soon as you smell the wine. Musty, no fruit, flat, wet cardboard… yes, my friends, you have a corked wine on your hands.

This is caused by a cork tainted with Trichloroanisole, or TCA for short. Some also blame barrels and contaminated wood in the cellar but to me it’s mostly the corks fault (after all, we don’t call it, “barreled”). Somewhere between 3 and 7% of all wine sealed under cork are affected by this problem and there is not a whole lot a winery can do to prevent it but adopt screw caps.

So it was with a great deal of skepticism that I scrutinized the following wine hack sent to me by a reader. Since it was published in the Los Angeles Times, I will give it the benefit of the doubt but it seems unbelievable.

Basically, the article calls for pouring the corked wine over plastic wrap in a pitcher and soaking for a few minutes. The author claims that the TCA is attracted to the plastic and once the plastic is removed the wine can be enjoyed without this defect. This is either the greatest wine hack of all time or an elaborate hoax. I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has tried this with or without success.

Until I try this on my next corked bottle, Vino Emptor

In my travels last week I read Make magazine volume 9 and an idea occurred to me that might make some sense to explore. What if there was a Make for wine?

For those unfamiliar with Make, it’s a quarterly publication that chronicles all sorts of technology hacks, scientific experiments and crafts that use electronic parts as their basis. It’s sort of like a 21st Century update of what Popular Mechanics did in the 1960’s. For example this issue features how to make a guitar amp out of a box of Ritz crackers and $5 worth of parts, a bullwhip and how to make a video podcast.

Another data point came in my aggregator just yesterday with an impassioned plea for the wine blogosphere to be different from Ryan at Catavino. I agree and taken together have some ideas about the future of Winecast.

What if I transformed this blog into an online magazine with articles on wine regions, tasting notes, podcasts, home winemaking techniques and wine hacks? How about if an event calendar was added along with recipes and ways for readers to contribute content? I think it would be a lot like what Make is for their niche and something I’d like to do.

Now the project of figuring out how to deliver all this goodness begins… but I do have some ideas

There are many stories in the history of Napa Valley that capture our imagination but the tale of Charles Shaw is one of urban legend. Shaw, a dentist from Chicago, started his eponymous winery in 1974 and produced some good quality wines from Valdiguie, Gamay Noir and Pinot Noir. In those days these grapes where blended and sold as either Gamay Beaujolais or Napa Gamay to suggest the wines of Burgundy’s Beaujolais area. From accounts at the time, the Charles Shaw Gamay Beaujolais was one of the better versions most likely because the wine contained the true Gamay Noir of Beaujolais. These grapes are now used in Andrew Lane’s Gamay Noir reviewed on Winecast 70.

Years past and Shaw struggled to make a profit as more well known varieties emerged from Napa Valley such as Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. After a divorce in 1991, Shaw sold the winery assets and vineyards to Charles Krug and the brand name to Bronco Wine Company. That would have been the end of the story if Bronco’s Fred Franzia hadn’t pulled the brand from mothballs in 2002 to make the wildly successful “Two-buck Chuck” available at Trader Joe’s markets across the U.S. These wines, made from Central Valley grapes, are bottled at Bronco’s Napa, California factory to provide the word “Napa” on the label. Many consumers have been unfortunately misled by this and assumed the wines are actually from the prestigious Napa Valley AVA and are unbelievably good values. Out of curiosity, I have tried many of these wines and found them to range from simple but drinkable (Shiraz, Merlot, Cabernet) to strange (Sauvignon Blanc) to flabby and thin (Chardonnay). But for $2 a bottle, I guess you get what you pay for.

I wouldn’t be writing this review if for not a chance encounter with Dr. Shaw while in Napa this week. It seems he is not very happy with all the success around the wines that bear his name so he’s out to prove that world class wine can bear a Charles Shaw label. His trademark lawyers have even found a loophole that allows him to use his name and not go the way others have after selling their brand name. It seems that Bronco only had a 15 year exclusive on the name and Dr. Shaw is wisely making some subtle changes to the winery name and label art to help consumers distinguish the new wines.

Made from grapes grown in Napa Valley these wines are made in very small quantities and are only available to the discerning few on a mailing list. From the four barrels of Chardonnay I sampled this week, I expect these wines to attract a significant cult following. Also produced are a Carneros Pinot Noir and Gamay Noir from Napa’s Oakville district.

Charles F. Shaw Winery, Chardonnay, “Old Vines”, Wild Horse Valley, Napa Valley 2006 (Barrel sample) - Pale straw color with floral pineapple, flint and toasty oak aromas. On the palate there are complex layers of butterscotch, fig, apricot and pear flavors that are very well balanced. A truly magnificent Chardonnay that will surely reclaim the Shaw name in the wine world. No word on the release price but I expect it to among the highest in Napa.

12.5% ABV
Natural cork closure
Score: 92-94

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