John Marshall Chapter of the American Wine Society

AMERICAN WINE SOCIETY
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John Marshall Chapter

JUNE MEETING: Get The Hots for Merlot, presented by Mike Schlosser

Mike Schlosser tripped us down memory lane last month, revisiting merlots after all these years. Merlots are on the AWS [American Wine Slurpers] prescribed list of wines to be examined this year, and the scorings of our chapter were to be compiled, analyzed and entered into a national database. Winners will receive letters from John Ashcroft.

Mike opened the evening with an observation that “There are no bad wines; only bad wine tasters.” That, as they say, emptied the dugouts. When the dust settled, we tasted, and sure enough, there were no bad wines, but there were a few out there at the margins. The prescribed wines were as shown in the table below.

Producer	Region	Cost	Comment
Bogle	Sierras, California	$7	Voted best-value and a harbinger of wines from the region
Smoking Loon	Napa, California	$7
St. Francis	Sonoma, California	$17
St. Emilion	Bordeaux, France	$15	In spite of its auspicious roots people couldn’t wait to hate this one. ¡Quelle fromage!
Sterling	Napa, California	$17	This won our Miss Congeniality Award and was the favorite of the evening.
Franciscan	Napa, California	$17
Chateau St. Jean	Sonoma, California	$19
Wild Horse	Paso Robles, California	$15
Crozes Hermitage	Rhone Valley, France	$19	Social wine. The first bottle was oxidized, and the second wasn’t much better. Bad wine critics.

The evening was blessed with a visitation from on high. A bird flew thru the open door, and thinking he had died, headed straight for the light, spending the rest of the evening flapping around the light bulbs in the rafters. We invited him to stay, but Mike insisted that if he comes around again, he’ll have to join the national AWS and pay dues like everyone else. The resolution was adopted, and we all went home.

Our Diva of Delicacies, Jennifer Crafts, surprised us with some newbies this time: homemade cheese tarts, made with fontina cheese and parmesan crusts, sprinkled with sun dried tomatoes. Also on the menu were pepperoni slices and something Scandinavian called bergenost cheese. Life just keeps getting better.

JULY MEETING: Spanish Wines: North, East, South, and West, presented by Fletcher Henderson ~ Grace Cathedral, The Plains, Virginia; Social – 6:30 p.m.; Meeting – 7:00 p.m. (PLEASE RVSP if you plan to attend!)

Following a loooong hiatus, Fletcher “Smile” Henderson returns to church next week with a new take on Spanish wines. Although “Rioja” has been his middle name, Fletcher's presentation on Sunday will cover not touch the “R” word. Fresh back from Espana, the scales have apparently been lifted from his eyes and he can now see. Rioja is still there, but so are these other things. Has there been a religious conversion? Is he throwing us a red herring? Will he pull out the rioja at the end to blow the comparisons away? “Those who know don’t speak, and those who speak don’t know,” says Fletch, flashing a zen smile. All I know is what he told us last month:

We'll be going through some whites and reds, leading off with a Cava. The new generation of Spanish winemakers has created a new fruit-driven style with complexities that reflect the distinct terroirs from the Iberian Peninsula’s four corners. And, he suggested bringing some extra pennies, juuuuust in cast there are Spanish wines available for purchase after the hands-on demonstration. Sounds like a must-do to me. I’m getting in my reservations right now!

It has been observed that RSVP’ing works wondrous well. Jennifer knows about how many people to feed, presenters know how many bottles of wine to bring, and now Mary Anne has devised a simple system that takes all the angst and dread out of the process. Simply click on this link: http://www.aws-va.org/john-marshall/RSVP.htm and you are whisked to a special place where all you do is insert your name. And it is done. Try it out right now, why don’tcha.

Directions:

From D.C., take I-66 to Exit 31, The Plains.
At the first stop sign, turn right.
Go 3 miles to the stop sign at the T-intersection in downtown The Plains.
Turn left, then go 2 blocks.
You can’t miss it — it’s the only cathedral in town.

AUGUST MEETING: Nuthin’ ~ Take the Month Off!

As is our wont at AWS–John Marshall, August is a month of rest, to reflect on wines great and ghastly, to visit a local winery, perchance to dream. Of owning your own winery one day. Good luck.
We will reconvene at the church the 2nd Sunday of September ― the 12th, as it happens this year ― at 6:30 p.m. to renew acquaintance and regale each other with bawdy stories about what we did last summer. And, at 7:00 p.m., we will somberly assemble in the sanctuary of the cathedral to break bread, taste wine, and sing praises. Halleloo.

Coming in August: Vintage Virginia Wine Fest, August 21st and 22nd, at the new location in Long Branch, Virginia, near Winchester ― way out west. It’s actually about 20 minutes further than The Plains but easy to find, and the site is populated with trees, a nice touch in the heat of August. The June fest went very nicely if you disregard the rain the first day that turned parts of the grounds into a mud-wrestler’s dream. That certainly won’t happen in August.

There were many new wineries represented in June, including Kluge and Keswick, the much-vaunted Estate-with-a-capital-e wineries, whose entry-level products will cost you a week’s pay. Also appearing were some interesting up-comers like King Family Vineyards, which won the 2004 Governors Cup last month with a sensational Cab Franc. Taste them all for free in August ― after you’ve bought your ticket, of course. See what you think of the new location, location, location. I think you’ll like it.

WINO WISDOM: Stand By Your Cork.

I’ll say this one more time, then it’s offline for me. When we come back in September - mushi-mushi: change of subject. We tilt on a new windmill.

Folks, I’m concerned about the future of corks. For real. Corks are under siege from every direction, and unless someone stands up, they’ll go the way of the dodo bird. Corks stand accused of spoiling good wine: 2% of all wine was claimed in the old days, but today you hear as much as 10%. Some wineries have switched to plastic corks for their white wines, but several wine makers ― serious players like Penfolds, Rosemount, and Lindemans ― have announced they will bring out their best wines topped with ― I gag as I write this ― screwcaps. Same things you see on top of cough syrup and soda pop. True, the forefront is led by Aussies and Kiwis, but there are advocates in this country too, the most vocal probably being one of my favorites from the Santa Cruz mountains, Bonny Doon Vineyards.
Big deal, you say, “What does it matter what goes on top? It’s what’s inside that counts.” True, true and true, I agree, but, here’s what the cork means to me.

Go to a nice restaurant some time, read the wine menu, and order a bottle of wine. Shortly, your bottle appears, presented to you by a fat man in a cummerbund with a brass cup hanging around his neck. He is called a sommelier. Sommelier is a French word for, guess what ― smeller. [French is a simple language, based largely on English.] With great aplomb and panache, the s’mellier whips the cork out of your bottle and presents the cork to you on a platter. You are invited to smell it, squeeze it ― I like to examine it with a jeweler’s loup ― to determine that it is indeed intact. The s’mellier pours some of the wine into the brass cup, smells it, drinks it. Then, he tells you it is, “Tres bonne, monsieur – parfect!” He pours your glass and those of your friends. What if it’s Thunderbird? Or the wine really is corked? No matter. Parfect, monsieur. He then holds his cup out for a tip. You drop a quarter in there, or if you’re feeling really generous, a Sacagawea silver dollar.

Now, I ask you: “Where in this 21st century US of A can you find delightful silliness like this? And what’s a s’mellier going to do when they bring out screwcaps? Who’s going to hire him with a resume like that. He’ll be as useless as those people in restrooms who hand you a paper towel and look for a tip.”

There’s more. What about inventors? Corks have been with us for 500 years, and for 501 years, the greatest minds among us have addressed the question, “How do you get ’em outta there?” We have gleaned the corkscrew in a dozen configurations as well as the two-pronged “ah-so.” We have hypodermic needles that inject air into the bottle and blow the cork out ― that’s exciting. In recent years, we gained “The Rabbit,” which has two handles, pulleys, a canister of propane, and a very serious screw. I still haven’t figured how it works, but I know it’s lethal. In years to come, it will be responsible for more poked eyes than a legion of little boys with BB guns.

That’s the fun: showing your mastery over all these devices and this arcane problem, this cork wedged in this bottle. Men swagger, women swoon, the world becomes a better place for a few minutes as he masterfully removes it. Where’s the romance in a screwcap? Even a baby can open them. In fact, they’ll have to make them childproof, and then no one will be able to open them. And, if we abandon the cork, what will all those great minds turn to? Inventing more diabolical mouse traps, that’s what. Or WMDs.

Ninety-four percent of Americans drinking wine don’t know if it’s corked or not. So who’s complaining? Wine critics, that’s who. Not the wine fans but the wine snobs. Listen to one now. I give you “the god of wine,” critic Robert J. Parker himself, describing a wine recently:

Inky/purple to the rim, it offers up provocative aromas of minerals, black and red fruits, balsamic vinegar, licorice and smoke. It traverses the palate with extraordinary richness as well as remarkable freshness and definition.

Huh? What rubbish! No one talks like that. Another wine critic of note, Jancis Robinson, hates the man. I don’t blame her; if he talks the way he writes, I’d hate him too. And her writing is not much better. So why do we cater to these people?

I’m a wine fan, and here’s how I feel about it: When I discover a wine that is corked ― which almost never happens because my nose ain’t so good ― when I am presented a bottle of wine proven to be corked ― I love it! It’s like discovering an “Easter egg” in your software, where you hold the Control key down while clicking on the Help menu and a nude babe flashes on the screen ― a little present inserted by the programmers. And, that smell of wet cardboard in corked wine? It reminds one of nights slept on park benches, waking up mornings in a dumpster. The good life of old. I’m sorry but I can not get worked up about corked wine.

Wine producers cry about how corked wines are killing their bottom lines. Here’s my bottom line: by the power vested in me, the Mullah of Merlot, I hereby declare jihad on the Great Satan screwcap! I enjoin all wine fans to eschew them with me. Verily, eschew them. Just don’t buy them. Boycott the bejeezes out of them.

Furthermore, I herewith issue my first fatwa on the infidel Bonny Doon. Doon is to be shunned and scorned until they renounce this blasphemy. Don’t buy their wines or their t-shirts. Sorry, Doon. I like your wines, love your graphics, but this is way bigger than function or money. It’s a way of life, a last bit of romance in a techno-mechanical, money-driven world. An anachronism that makes no utter sense at all. And like the other anachronism, the dodo bird, it deserves to go on. Just for that reason.

It is done. See you in church Sunday!

Mental Note to Self: Do your RSVP. Do it now. Click the link. Maybe there will be an Easter egg.

Your humble scribe,

~ Bruce ~

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