Homework: browse a wine store

"You'll verify what you've learned." Steve tells us that labels that would have stumped us a week ago are now full of useful information. But man, I wish I knew then what I knew now. In the 90s, I visited many wineries and attended large and small wine-related events and trade shows as part of my job, and it's all making so much more sense now, even after only four days.

The hot tip of the day: If you get a chance to talk to the winemaker ["and in this business, you will, I guarantee you"], ask him about canopy management. You'll be his new BFF.

For clarification:
About the Chateauneuf-du-Pape: the "Côtes du Rhône" is the general winemaking district, and Chateauneuf-du-Pape is the specific town, and there are dozens of producers. The wine is a red blend, predominantly grenache, and virtually all of it is wonderful, according to Steve.

And about the ranking system in Bordeaux: the "first growth/second growth" applies only to wines of the Medoc region, on the western side of the river. The other areas of Bordeaux, Graves, St. Emilion, Pomerol, Sauternes and Barsac, have their own classification system.

And about the Nouveau Beaujolais: well, it's gamay beaujolais wine, made by a process called carbonic maceration: the wines are not crushed, but put as whole clusters into the fermentation tanks; the resulting wine is almost still grape juice, very fruity and perky. The tradition around it, that it is released on the third Thursday in November (by law — only about six weeks after it's bottled) and no other wine can be released until the following January (by law), is the result of heavy lobbying by Georges du Boeuf (the guy with flowers on his labels) and other Beaujolais producers: it's all about the marketing. A party for party's sake, and buy a case, while you're at it.

We did Rhône, and then a quick history of California wine production. Rhone is in southeastern France, very close to the Mediterranean. The northern Rhône is home to syrah, "Côte Rotie" and "Hermitage" are the most notable AOCs, and the wines are distinctively spicy and powerful. There's also Condrieu, where they grow viognier, a full-bodied tropical and floral white wine, difficult to grow, that was recently all the rage in California vineyards. Apparently that fad is fading but the varietal is still noteworthy. From the southern Rhône, we get blended wines, primarily grenache, with Chateauneuf-du-Pape being the most famous and typical example of the style. Both the southern and northern Rhône wines have been models for many California winemakers. Steve said that Randall Grahm at Bonny Doon was one of the first to try to make grenache in the Rhône style with his "Le Cigar Volant". There's a long story that went along, having to do with a law prohibiting the landing of flying saucers in the vineyards of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, which I won't relate here.

We've been regularly reminded this week of the long-standing traditions which surround viti-and viniculture in all the important winemaking regions of France. California winemakers shook it all up beginning in the 1970s, and we got a real quick history lesson to get us up to speed. While grapes were planted alongside every mission that Junipero Serra established, they weren't vitis vinifera, the wine grape. California winemaking in the European style began after the Gold Rush ("because wine is part of the 'good life'"), but along with French cuttings, we brought phylloxera to California. Replanting was required in the 1880s, the concept of resistant rootstock being firmly established, but there was a depression in the US, along with the beginnings of the temperance movement. As Steve said, a winemaker would look around and say, "The economy sucks, there's bugs in the vineyard, and we're all going to hell. Where's the incentive in that?" So most vineyards were abandoned.

After WWI, there was a large influx of Italian and other Southern European immigrants to California, and they brought an agricultural focus to their wine production, especially in the Central Valley. Wineries like Gallo, Rossi, and Cribari were established, and they made huge volumes of relatively low quality wine.

Steve attributes the explosion of winegrowing in the Napa Valley and vicinity to the Baby Boom generation. "The best educated generation anywhere, at any time" began to rediscover Europe: a cheap vacation spot made more attractive by the fact that their parents never wanted to hear about it again, having lived through WWII. European literature and certainly cuisine became the hot topics, and wine goes right along with that. And the American producers were free of the shackles of thousands of years of tradition. The way grapes were grown, the way wine was made and bottled, were revolutionized by American innovation.

Stainless steel tanks. The manipulation of fermentation temperature. Styles of cultivation. We're influencing the Old Masters now, in many ways.

The Paris Tasting of 1976 rocked the wine world. It was a shocking event where French judges tasted California and French wines, side by side, blind, and voted the California wines best. It put us on the map.

Today we tasted seven Rhône wines, beginning with an "off the beaten path" white Chateauneuf-du-Pape, a Guigal Condrieu ("one of the great names in the Rhône valley"), and "something pink," a Taval rosé, "the way rosé is supposed to taste." When we taste our wines, we smell first, describe what we sense, and at Steve's word, pick up our glasses and taste. With a mouthful of wine, he makes the universal sign for "crazy person," spinning his finger in the air around his ear, but what he really means is "Swirl it around in your mouth."

We had three reds: a "Côte du Rhône," a negociant wine that Steve said poorly represented the typical wine of the region; a Chateauneuf-du-Pape that was "classic" in size, body, weight and tannin, and a Crozes-Hermitage, a spicy syrah that begged for leg of lamb. And we finished up with a Muscat de Beaume de Venise ("Every country does something with Muscat"), another dessert wine but much lighter than the Barsac from yesterday. This would work with biscotti, berries, and a fresh triple-cream cheese.

In the middle of the wine tasting, we got off the track and talked school politics. We've received several notices recently about changes in policy (new standards for prerequisites, discontinuation of the cafeteria program), all with the caveat of "in the ongoing spirit of change," or something to that effect. Similarly, Steve mentioned the reconfigured schedule for wine then business, for which we are the guinea pigs, apparently. "What actually are these changes we keep hearing about?" I asked. And it turns out that we have a new school President, and a new Vice President. Steve was surprised that we were unaware of these changes, saying, "They've done a great job of keeping senior staff in the loop." He added, "Now understand, I'm a pessimist, but I think that these changes are going to bode well for you in the long run. Our new administration is concerned with improving the reputation of the school." I asked how the current administration was different from the previous one. "The former president was an accountant," he said.

Say no more.