Grayson's Wine Blog

I was recently asked to answer some questions about the wines of California by a lovely lady and wine writer named Margaret Swaine who is writing a “State of the Union” type of article on California wines for a publication called Foodservice and Hospitality.  I thought I would share:

Here are some answers for you as the wine buyer for Play. We do go through a lot of California wines so I hope this helps.

1. How are the sales of California wines doing in your restaurant? UP or down from last year.

I don’t track wine sales by region so it is hard to say whether the sales of California wines are up or not from last year. What I can tell you is our wine sales are up from last year, which is directly related to the fact that general sales are up from last year. I always have a fairly good selection of California wines on the list (11 at the moment and that number can climb up to around 20 depending of a number of factors).

 2. If California wine sales are up – how have you successfully promoted California wines? Any special promos, ideas, ways to merchandise them?

We successfully promote California wines the same way we promote wines in general. California is not singled out in any way, nor is any other region, except for Ontario where I believe an emphasis should be placed on supporting good wines from one’s own province. What I look for when selecting wines for the list are wines that represent their regions well, terroir wines; wines that represent value for the money; and wines that are delicious. Many wines from California fit those categories and when they do I often add them to our ever-changing list. The factors I discussed above that affect whether a wine from California will make the list are: what is available to me at that time in the market, which agencies represent the wineries from California well (service, support, knowledge of the particular winery), what kind of wines our menu items would pair well with, and wines that are off the beaten track and interesting. We are a wine bar and our guests are often looking to try new things. We are not really the kind of place that does many special promos but if it makes sense for our style of dining then we would definitely consider something.

 3. Which wineries are making an impact? Any new blends, labelling, packaging, styles, organics that come to mind?

The wineries that I like working with the most from California are (off the top of my head): Ehret, Bonny Doon, Benziger, Waterstone, Lotus, Z52, Gloria Ferrer, Sourverain, Siduri, Walter Hanzel, Seghesio, Birichino, Cambria, Four Vines, Laurel Glen, Nichols, Justin, and I know there are others. These wineries generally represent the place they are from well and offer many delicious wines at various price points.

What matters most to me is what is in the bottle. I am not swayed by packaging or labelling though I will have to occasionally defend an ugly label at a table because of an offended guest. I do like supporting organic, sustainable and biodynamic whenever I can and I love it when a winery is a small operation or it is still family owned. I will do my best to avoid buying Californian wines that are owned by a huge corporation but that is admittedly getting increasingly harder. I think that people over the past few years are beginning to move away from a must-be-from-Napa type of wine buying and I am finding some fantastic wines in regions like Lodi, Paso Robles, Lake County, Monterrey and Santa Barbara and putting them on the list. I have a personal soft spot for Sonoma Pinot Noirs.

4. What styles and price ranges sell the best in your experience? Anything by the glass from California?

 I will often put California wines on by the glass (I have 2 at the moment) and if they are to be viable by the glass options they have to come in somewhere under $23 a bottle. As a wine bar it is the by the glass program that really sells the best but we have many by the bottle as well. . We have a fantastically knowledgeable staff that is able to talk about and sell any wine, no matter how weird and wonderful they may be.

I stay away from wines that have a generic “California” appellation, as I do not find them to be wines with a sense of place. There are some circumstances where this may be an exception but then I am explained the exact reason and pedigree (for example when there is a blend when the winemaker feels that 20% Zin from Lodi might add some juiciness etc.). Otherwise when there is a wine from such a large appellation (160,000 square miles) it takes away one of the things that makes wine so special, its terroir. 

 5. Anything else you’d like to add?

The way I see California wines in the marketplace is that of a very well established region. People generally know what to expect when they order a Californian wine: full bodied, robust, oaked and very New World in style. That being said I think that the trend I am seeing is towards more balance, which is something, that encourages me about the state of Californian wines. More balance means less new oak, less alcohol, higher acid, more food friendly wines and I think that over the past few years that is the direction that more progressive winemakers are going. 

I hope this helps. Let me know if I can clear anything up for you. Thanks for thinking of us for your article. 

Cheers,

Grayson

The economic instability over the past number of years has affected every single industry in one way or another. One way it has affected the wine industry has been an incredible emphasis on what the industry describes as “value” wines or behind closed doors “cheap and cheerful”. There are more and more books written on the subject and it seems that every single wine magazine has at least one article on wines under $15. In fact our friend Natalie MacLean just launched her newest book Unquenchable here at Play food and wine on that very subject. She proudly calls herself a “wine cheapskate”. People are much more aware of how they spend their money and they should be. I can understand this as much as the next person; I just had a baby and bought a house and so every single dollar I spend is analyzed and considered. There have been some very positive consequences for wine buyers as a result of this. There are some wine regions producing premium and very expensive wines who have been forced to drop their prices to where they should have been in the first place in order to sell in this new climate. The strong Canadian dollar has also helped keep prices lower than they have been in a while, especially in relation to American and European wines. One thing we have learned throughout theses turbulent years is that the average consumer still wants to drink and drink well, they just want to spend less doing it.

My worry is that as the trend to drink less expensive wines becomes ingrained in our wine buying consciousness we will start to lose track about what makes wine such a special drink.

When price becomes the most important factor (or in some cases the ONLY factor) when deciding upon a wine then there is nothing to set it apart from any other alcoholic drink out there.  Wine, however, is very special for a number of reasons and we sometimes need to be reminded of that.

In the best cases wine is made from the very hard work of devoted farmers and winemakers. While there are hours of hard work that go into other drinks wine is made from a single harvest. Unlike beer you can’t just buy another tank and make more when demand is high. You have to wait until the next harvest, which you hope is going to be the perfect growing season so that you can do it all over again. Wine grapes are unique in the world of agriculture in that they are so individual from each other. Hundreds of years of trial and error have created a body of knowledge that shows that Syrah tastes vastly different from Pinot Noir and Syrah from one site or region will taste very different from Syrah from somewhere else. We have also figured out which grapes blend well with what and which grapes are beautiful on their own. No one harvest will ever be exactly like another and no fermentation will behave exactly like the last. There is no more complex, interesting, unique or delicious drink out there (a case could be made for coffee, tea, whisky and beer but I’m sticking by wine as the embodiment of those qualities).

There has been a great deal of time and effort spent over the past few years by many of us in the wine business doing our best to make wine more approachable, more fun and less snooty. We believe wine is, and should be, fun. However we can still “demystify” wine while still respecting the fact that it is a very special drink. Wine should taste like the place it comes from and when wine is mass-produced it is stripped of the complexities and subtleties that make it great. Great wines have a special way of telling a story, a story of the growing season in that region in that year, a story of what the winemaker chose for that wine. I am by no means suggesting that prices should not be taken into account. Value for money is one of the important things to look for in wine. I am also not telling you to go out and spend your whole paycheck on expensive wines. I just really believe that when shopping for wines every wine lover should search out more than a deal. There are terroir driven, story-telling, and delicious wines that are still a great deal and they are the most fun to discover. When researching wines search out the wine writers and reviewers who understand that wines should be a reflection of the place they come from and when they taste and smell like their home they inherently tell a story.

I would first off like to apologize for the infrequency of my postings. Conventional wisdom would suggest a “hit the ground running” approach to a new blog but unfortunately life gets in the way. There have been some personel changes at Play and it has taken much of my time. Excuses aside I feel the need to talk about my recent trip to Niagara and Toronto for various wine endeavours. I’m writing this while flying from Munich to Madrid on my way to more wine adventures. I mention this, not in a braggy kind of way, but more to highlight the fact that the more wine regions I visit the more I’m convinced that they’re really getting it right at many wineries in Ontario.

Sauvignon Blanc bud about to break

This time I only had a day and a half in Niagara and only managed to fit in two wineries but it was very much worth the drive. This was the first time I wasn’t there at harvest time and I assumed there would be much less going on but I was wrong. I happened to be there on May 10^th which coincides with a very important occurrence in Niagara wine county: bud break. This means that all those slumbering vines that had been forced into a coma by winter’s sub-freezing temperatures are finally waking up. The sap starts to flow and the vines use all that pent-up energy to create the buds that will quickly become the shoots that will hold those beautiful grape clusters that will be he nurtured, picked, crushed, fermented, oak aged, blended, bottled and then cellared, ordered, opened, and drank.  You can see then why bud break is so important. My guide for this exciting time was Stratus Vineyard’s Vineyard manager Richard Blackadder. I had been forewarned the night before by J.L., Stratus’s winemaker, that Richard was going to be putting me to work in the vineyard and so I dutifully showed up with my very pregnant girlfriend (a Stratus employee) at 9am the next morning to work. I think there was a combination of pity for preggo and the usual kid-glove approach to sommeliers but Richard took it very easy on us. He took us on an educational and entertaining tour of their 62 acre vineyard. The main job at this time of year (depending on vine trellising decisions) is tying the vine shoots (last year’s wood) to the wires so that when the new shoots pop up they can be easily managed. We did tie back a few Sauvignon Blanc vines and I will therefore take total credit for how great Stratus’s 2011 Sauv Blanc is going to taste. We did leave the majority of the work to the experts. These experts were a great group of Jamaican dudes who work very hard in the vineyard year after year. It was really wonderful to see how much attention and care is devoted to every step of the creation.

Uh oh! Sommelier in the vineyard

That afternoon, after a very good lunch at Stone Road Grille (a must-do when visiting Niagara) we headed to Toronto for and event called Somewhereness. This was a joint effort between the 6 Ontario wineries, who founded the Somewhereness organization, and Vintages. These wineries had invited 4 more to the party so what transpired was a summit of 10 of the most terroir-driven winemakers in Ontario getting together to talk about their wines and their regions. The event kicked off with a very educational discussion of why exactly terroir, or “somewhereness” the Wine Spectator-ized version of the word, matters. Presenting this was Italian wine expert Ian D’Agata. What I was most impressed with was how un-dumbed down it was. This was an event for the general public, not for sommeliers and he went into the discussion with the belief that the audience he was speaking to had a brain, which is where I feel some wine events falter. We then got to hear from all 10 winemakers while sampling their hard work. The overarching theme of the night was a celebration of wines with a sense of place. These were wines which represent the region and vineyards from which they came. I will be devoting much of this blog to the importance of this notion of terroir so I won’t go into too much detail here but suffice it to say the “somewhereness” of the wine is absolutely crucial to how special it is. This will not be the kind of blog that touts the next big $8 general list wine that tastes like it could have come from anywhere (as my friend Charles Baker would say “no-whereness”). There are lots of people doing that already. What I will always try to do is celebrate the wines that reflect the place, climate, traditions and hard work that make wine such a special beverage.

Norm Hardie speaking passionately about the terroir of Prince Edward County

The experts. Stratus' Jamaican vineyard workers.

That being said I will be spending the next 9 days chasing this very special beverage around Spain with a very good friend who happens to import wine (I am quoting him as saying “I don’t know, man. I’m just here for the booze. You can quote me on that”). We will be visiting 6 wine regions and tasting hundreds of wines who tell a story and I plan on sharing them with you.

Wine flight at Somewhereness

Happy Drinking!

Grayson

Two years ago a good friend gave me a magnum (a 1500mL bottle of wine which is double the size of the standard wine bottle) of Cave Spring’s Cabernet / Merlot Reserve from the 2002 vintage. I think for most of us it’s hard to find an occasion which warrants a special wine in such a size. So why not Easter dinner? A time where food is celebrated and generally involves a menu with many, many ingredients. This is exactly why I opened the aforementioned bottle a couple weeks ago. It was a bottle I had in my cellar at home that I felt needed to be opened sooner rather than later. I worried it might be getting a little over the hill. In hindsight my worrying was unnecessary.

When a wine ages it goes through many stages and how it goes through these stages depends on a number of factors.  These include:

• The winemaking (obviously)
• The vintage (more specifically the condition of the grapes from that particular year which is dependant on the weather and how the viticulturalist reacted to that weather)
• How well the wine has been cellared (temperature controlled, out of direct sunlight, on it’s side)
• The closure (the cork vs. screwcap debate is endless)
• The grape variety or blend of varieties
• The size of the bottle (Magnums age slower than 750mL’s and half bottles age quicker because the amount of air in the neck of the bottle is roughly the same in all three so the air to wine proportion matters in the aging)

This particular wine had spent it’s time in barrels and in bottle very well. Although 2002 was a terrific year for Niagara grapes what I was particularly worried about were the fruit flavours in the wine having disappeared. The technical way of discussing the evolution of a bottle of wine is to discuss the primary (the fruit flavours), the secondary (flavours derived from how the wine was fermented and initially aged, ie oak use), and the tertiary flavours (the flavours that develop in the bottle as the wine becomes older). Examples of tertiary flavours in a bottle like this Bordeaux-blend include cedar spice, leather, tar, coffee and earth. This wine was at it’s peak or close to it. This is ideal and when it happens you have a wine with a beautiful balance of primary, secondary and tertiary flavours. The Cave Spring Cab/Merlot still had lovely black currant and blueberry fruit flavours, there was evidence of oak but it in no way dominated the flavours. It acted like a frame holding the wine together and it leant a nice cedar and toffee component. The tertiary flavours were poking through too. Particularly leather and there was a touch of a dusty, dried-fruit mouthfeel which demonstrated the tannins had dropped nicely and had integrated into the wine. It was definitely better with food and especially since we had braised pork ribs with homemade BBQ sauce (that’s right, for Easter, I have a pretty great Mom).  

Of course this ends up being an issue of preference. Some people get really excited when the tertiary flavours dominate, especially in Bordeaux blends. Some people love the uber-fruit bombs that some wines can be in their youth.

Bottles in Cave Spring's cellar in Jordan dating back to the 70's

Generally speaking we drink wines very young in North America. If you have a little patience it’s always fun to buy a few bottles of the same wine and put them somewhere cool and forget about them. We’re about to see many of the 09 whites from Niagara released and since it was a bit of a cooler vintage I would jump on 09 Rieslings. The acidity levels stay high in cooler years and this helps Riesling age. In Niagara this is usually balanced out by a bit of leftover sugar to round out the acidity. Riesling is one of the best cellar whites so why not buy a few and open one every year to discover what happens when they are left to age. For reds it’s going to be very interesting to see the 2010’s in a couple years. Especially the later ripening Bordeaux blends and Syrahs. There is a lot of hype surrounding the 2010 vintage as a whole and they should end up being pretty cellar worthy as long as it’s a trustworthy producer.

 There are many other factors to consider when discussing aging wines and in discussing wines from Niagara and I will gladly tackle those topics is future posts.

Cave Spring use a mix of different types of oak to age their wines. Here's one of their Hungarian oak barrels.

Upcoming posts:

Speaking of Niagara I head there on Monday to spend some time in the vineyard with Richard, Stratus Vineyard’s Vineyard Manager and to see what’s new with winemakers J.L. Groux and Charles Baker.

On Tuesday I’m attending a conference called Somewhereness on the importance of sense-of-place, or terroir, in Niagara wines with 10 of the most terroir-conscious wineries. There should be lots to discuss after that and I couldn’t be more excited.

http://www.somewhereness.com

(Disclaimer: the post you’re about to read isn’t nearly as exciting as the title would suggest)

One of my favourite things to do as a sommelier (and admittedly something I don’t do enough of) is taste through all the wines by the glass side by side. This is what I did on Saturday night at 2:30am once most of the staff had left. I do this to get a little perspective as to how balanced and varied the by-the-glass program is. By-the-glass (BTG) is, by far, the most important category we have in terms of wine sales. It changes the most, and, therefore, needs the most frequent attention and consideration.

I got to thinking this might be a good time to explain how and why I choose the selection of wines we have BTG for Play.

Mainly I am looking for variety in a couple of ways…

Price:

 The easiest, and first, category I look for in terms of range is price. It’s really important for me to have, as often as possible, a white wine and a red wine by the glass that’s $7 (per 5 oz). One of the really fun challenges to find is really tasty super-values. Not everyone who dines with us at Play is there for life-changing wine experience and I want to be able to provide a delicious value-driven glass of red or white. It’s also important that these selections are good enough to stand on their own for the wine fans who happen to find the selection interesting. The BTG price usually tops out $13-$14 but that totally depends on what’s available. We’ve been known to put on some $15 glasses if the wine is special enough. I really feel that’s a lot of money to pay for a glass of wine and therefore it must be pretty amazing. We all work hard for our money and if we’re treating ourselves sometimes then I really want it to be worth it. 

When I re-tried our $7 glasses on Saturday I was happy. The Angel’s Gate Gamay is a great representation of Gamay in Niagara. It’s fresh and vibrant with just enough vanilla to round it out. Totally a seafood red. The Cote Est is a beautifully aromatic and crisp white blend from the South France. The perfect aperitif white.

Flavour Category:

For an interesting BTG program there has to be lots of variation in how the wines taste. In whites I look for at least one oaked, a couple with varying levels of residual sugar, a couple in the dry and refreshing category and a couple that are in the weird and wonderful category for the adventurous.

On Saturday I was mostly happy with the variations in whites. Stratus’ Tollgate White as the oaked,  the rose and the Sancerre as crisp and fresh, Gruner and Grenache Blanc as weird and wonderful, the only thing I felt missing was a something with a little more sweetness. Problem solved: I ordered a delicious off-dry German Riesling on Tuesday.

For reds I analyze them in a similar way to the whites except I’m not looking for sugar. All the reds are basically dry. In the fresh and light category I had the aforementioned Gamay and there’s almost always a Pinot Noir. Right now I’m using a smoky and strawberry-jam filled Pinot from New Zealand which is a great step up from the Gamay. Medium bodied and medium intensity is usually the challenge and I normally look to the Old World for that. My favourite South of France go to, Rubellis Corbieres, is out at the moment so Kasaura’s Montepulciano D’Abruzzo from Italy is a great BTG replacement. I liked the big bold reds we have right now but the vintage changed on Laurel Glen’s Reds, a Zinfandel blend, and the tannins are higher so what I felt was missing in the red side of things was something a little more juicy. I also felt there were a couple reds which were a little too similar. All great wines but tasted a little too much alike. I’ll switch some things around as I get them in this week and we’ll be good again.

There are obviously many more things to consider when I choose the BTG pours but these are the main ones. I also always think about menu items, both current and upcoming and which wines I tasted this week with agents that wowed me. I consider what the weather is like or turning into, making sure there isn’t too much region overlap. I also like changing the wines which I’ve had on BTG for a while.

Hope to see you soon for a great glass of wine. 

Cheers,

Grayson

Hi, I’m Grayson. I am a 28 year old professional sommelier and restaurant manager at a wonderful small plates wine bar and restaurant in Ottawa (play food and wine). I have the privilege to lead the best service staff in town. I also teach Sommelier Advanced in the Algonquin College Sommelier program. 

I’ve been meaning to start a blog for a while now (with much insistance from friends and loved ones) and a big reason it has taken me so long is this very blog post. I have a lot to write about and am very excited to do so however it is this introductory post that has caused some anxiety.  I consider myself very fortunate that I can make a living  in the wine world because I know that there are a lot less interesting jobs out there. Consider this a glimpse into what it is like to be sommelier everyday. 

I have a lot of opinions regarding wine that will inevitably shine through. I believe wine can be beautiful and like anything that is beautiful there are often bastardized, mass produced, less interesting versions of it. The wines I want to focus on are wines that taste like the place they come from. Wines with sense of terroir. Wines made by people whose passion come pouring out of the bottle with the wine. These are the wines that I get excited to share with people. That being said it’s important to not forget how much fun wine can be. It is created for our enjoyment, first and foremost, and it’s crucial that we always remember that. 

What I’m hoping to accomplish:

One thing that makes the world of wine so special is that it is always changing. Just when we wine geeks think we’ve got it down there is a new harvest in the Southern Hemisphere, or someone brings in an obscure and, until now, unknown Italian varietal, and then it’s Fall and the harvest starts in the Northern Hemisphere and then there’s a new wine region that pops up out of nowhere. As a wine professional I’m never going to know it all and that’s exciting for me. What I get to do for a living is keep on learning. This is what I want to share with this blog, the ongoing education. I have access to some great people in the wine world, with great stories and I believe their knowledge and stories should be shared. To a lesser extent I will touch on food, beer and cocktails. 

Ottawa is a great wine city. Another goal of this blog is to highlight what is happening in the Ottawa wine scene. This will include events and occasionally reviews of great wines that are at the LCBO (there are lot of those blogs out there and therefore this will not be a main focus).  I will also welcome comments and suggestions. 

I expect this blog to take on a life of it’s own and I will roll with the punches. Thank you for reading. I will do my best to be interesting.