Lodi Amateur Vintners Assoc. Annual Blind Tasting

Price seems to be a major factor in establishing our expectations of enjoyment of a wine. “You get what you pay for,” is a phrase everyone has heard. But after splurging on a fancy bottle of wine, we are frequently reminded that the price on the bottle more truthfully reflects the winemaker’s expectations of earnings than any enjoyment the consumer might derive from it.  What is the relationship between the price a consumer pays and what they receive?  Can wine enthusiasts effectively distinguish between budget wines and premium wines when tasting blind? 

These were two of the questions that were addressed at the Lodi Amateur Vintners Association annual blind tasting held here at Heritage Oak Winery Thursday, July 24, 2008.  This year the theme was “Pleasure vs. Price.”  The line up included wines in two price categories: those under $10 found at a local supermarket and those over $30 from a local wine specialty store. 

About 40 people participated in this activity, though some couples worked together.  Participants were asked to complete a five question survey while tasting the wines.  The questions were used to determine how the taster perceived the quality of the wine,  their level of enjoyment of the wine, and the taster’s willingness to serve this wine to “an important dinner guest”.  Most importantly, however, the tasters were asked  in two separate questions, to say whether they felt each wine would be found selling for less than $10 at a supermarker or whether the wine would be sold for more than $30 at a wine specialty shop.  To each of these last two questions dealing with price category, the tasters were asked to respond either Yes or No.  A “No” response meant that the wine belonged to another category of a different price range not specified in the question. 

The wines chosen were all of the variety Zinfandel, though the appellation and the vintages varied. Each bottle was bagged in plain brown bag and numbered. Foil capsules were completely removed. Tasters did not know the name of the producers or the price of the individual bottles.  They were only told that the wines were all Zin and cost either below $10 or above $30.  Three bottles of each wine were provided.

The six wines were served in the following order: 1)  Seghesio 2004 Sonoma Old Vine Zinfandel purchased for $32; 2) Ravenswood 2004 California Zinfandel purchased for $8.99; 3) Fetzer Vineyards 2004 Valley Oaks California Zinfandel purchased for $8.99; 4) Lucas Winery 2003 Lodi Zinfandel ”ZinStar Vineyard” purchased for $29.99; 5) Barefoot Non-Vintage California Zinfandel purchased for $5.99; and 6) Michael-David ”Lust” 2005 Lodi Zinfandel purchased for $56.99.

Results: After all the wines had been tasted, the participants were asked to show their responses by raising their hands.  The results here, in percentage terms, describe how the group felt as a whole.  Individuals may have responded differently to any particular question.

By a majority vote, the participants were able to correctly categorize 66% of the wines, or four out of the six. The four that were correctly pegged were the three budget wines and the Michael-David “Lust”. 

The Seghesio Zin ($32) gave the tasters trouble.  While 81% felt this wine was of good to superior quality, the tasters were split on whether this wine would sell for less than $10.  However, only 16% correctly identified this wine as one that would sell for more than $30.

The Lucas Zin ($29.99) was also misidentified, partially due to the fact that one of the three bottles had a slight corky aroma. 65% felt this wine was of superior quality and 60% agreed it was enjoyable, however only 35% correctly identified this wine as belonging to the premium wine category.  The same percentage said it belonged to the budget category. To each of the two category questions, 65% felt the wine should be in a category in between budget and premium.

The Fetzer and Ravenswood wines were both identified as being budget wines with 70% of the votes.  Neither of these two wines received accolades on the enjoyment or quality questions.

The Barefoot Zin ($5.99) was one of the big surprises. 85% of the participants found it to be of superior quality with 75% saying the wine was highly enjoyable.  When asked if this was a budget wine, only 50% responded yes.  When asked if it was a premium wine, 40% said yes.  When asked if they would proudly serve this one at a fancy dinner party to “important” people, 70% said yes. 

The Michael-David “Lust” was identified by 100% of the group to be a superior quality wine.  90% stated they would be proud to serve the wine to someone important.  Only 10% felt is was a budget wine and 90% correctly identified this as a premium wine.

Conclusion: In most cases, the group was able to determine the price category of the wine by tasting.  They correctly identified categories of two thirds of the wines.  This may say more about the budget wines than the premiums, however, because 66% of the lower category were identified where only 33% of the premium wines were.  One might conclude that it is easier to spot a cheap wine. 

However, in terms of enjoyment and appreciation of the quality of  the wines, the group enjoyed/appreciated all three of the premium wines to a greater extent than the three budget wines.  This statement includes the two mis-identified premium wines, which the group agreed were both enjoyable and of high quality. 

So maybe you do get what you pay for.  But the truth is, you can spend all you want, but there are some darn good wines out there for $5.99.

Hummingbird Central

There is something about this piece of land here at Heritage Oak that attracts an impressive variety of wildlife. It has a lot to do with the presence of the Mokelumne River, which boarders the property for a mile on the south and south-eastern sides, and our twenty acres of native oak woodland.  Wildlife is so prolific here that one Mothers’ Day a few years back, I spotted and listed over fifty species of birds alone.

For me, however, the most incredible wildlife population is not along the river or in the oak woodland.  It is the hummingbirds found on the patio at the winery itself.

  This time of year, in mid-July, we have up to four species.  The most common one is the Black-chinned Hummingbird.  He’s a feisty little guy with a green back and black throat.  Because the Black-chinneds nest around here, the majority of the hummers we have right now are their young, like the one shown on the left above.  Anna’s Hummingbirds are also frequent visitors.  They are a little larger and have green on their backs and wings. Though they nest here, they are out numbered by the Black-chinneds by about ten to one. 

The other species we have here in July is the Rufous/Allens’s hummingbird.  These are migrants and are here for just a few weeks.  They stop by for a break enroute from summer breeding grounds in Alaska, Canada and the California coast to their favorite winter vacation spots in Central and South America. They arrive tired, hungry and with absolutely no patience for my lazy, go-nowhere Black-chinneds.

Carmela has done a wonderful job with the garden.  She seeks out plants that attract hummers and butterflies.  However, it is my job to take care of the feeding stations.  The population has grown to the extent that I employ four of the 30 ounce Perky Pet feeders in separate locations about 10 yards apart, and this time of year the birds are emptying three of these feeders a day. ( I estimate our hummingbird population to be around thirty birds on the assumption that each bird consumes about three ounces a day for a total of 90 ounces.) It is part of my morning ritual: make a cup of espresso, read the paper, mix up a batch of nectar for three feeders. I put one cup of sugar to every 30 ounces of hot, hot water, then stir until it is all dissolved.

This is the kind of hobby that takes space and effort. Our eleven feeders occupy an entire shelf in the kitchen.  I need a large supply because some are always dirty, some are in the washer, some are hanging on the patio and I need to have some to replace empties. Everyday I have to tend to my feeders and spend a fair amount of time washing, rinsing, sterilizing, mixing, filling clean ones and replacing  the empty ones.  When shopping, we look for sugar on sale and stock up.

Visitors to the tasting room get a kick out of watching our hummingbirds zip backand forth as they chase each other with threatening screeches and angry chirps.  Occasionally they launch into aerial displays, diving in wide arcs at breakneck speeds while coming perilously close to the ground.  On a pleasant afternoon, people frequently buy a bottle of wine, borrow some glasses and sit on the patio just to enjoy the entertainment.  I find it ironic that people find it peaceful to watch a these tiny, hostile, impatient critters, whose lives are anything but peaceful, zoom about on wings that beat 80 to 120 times per second.

Our hummingbirds are such a fixture around here that we have an event every other Friday evening based around them.  It goes from the end of May until the first of August. Carmela makes dessert, I play the piano, and people come to sip wine, watch the hummingbirds battle it out while the sun goes down.  We call it Wine, Music and Hummingbirds.  Not a poetic name, but it fits.  Wine and dessert are $5 each. Music, sunset and feathered entertainment are free.

Blackberries are ripe!

This past weekend we had a Hoffman Family reunion here at the winery.  About 60 people from all over came to the event.  It was great to see all the aunts, uncles, cousins, their children and their children’s children. After lunch, most of them went down to the beach with the intention of floating down the river and playing baseball out in the meadow. But almost everyone got side tracked by the  blackberries. It was fun watching them get buried in the blackberry bushes while they gorged themselves.

Picking blackberries has always been a summer tradition for me.  One of my fondest childhood memories of my Grandma Hoffman was joining her to pick them one summer morning.  We started out early in the morning and walked out past the barn and corral where the sheep were kept, and turned south down the lane that led toward the bottomland.  I remember her wearing a wide brimmed straw hat that tied under her chin with a scarf.  She took with her a pair of gardening gloves and I soon learned why.  The berries were growing along the fence line there in great profusion.  She chattered away as she picked, instructing me on how to go about the task.  I’m sure most of the berries I conquered ended up in my mouth.  I remember being somewhat intimidated by the task, but Grandma knew what it was all about. In no time we had enough for a pie. 

That was the start of a long relationship with blackberries.  They were also part of my life as a teenager.  We lived in town then, but the family farm was just a few miles away.  I remember using the promise of the sweet, savory fruit to entice any girl I happened to fancy to join me on an outting.  If I got turned down after mentioning the need for long pants and sleeve shirts to keep the bugs and stickers off, I figured she probably wasn’t the girl for me anyway.

As an adult, I’m proud to say that my two fine sons were raised on blackberry pie.  Fresh fruit pie is a tradition in our family and we eat it anytime of day.  We’re talking scratch here.  We’ve got an unspoken rule that says no store-bought crusts are allowed in the house. Apple pie is great, but when  blackberry season arrives, I’m the first one out the door, bucket in hand.  I use a cherry picking bucket with a harness that holds five of those little green plastic berry baskets. That way I can use both hands to get the fruit.  I go armed with clippers to get the extra canes out of the way, and wear plenty of clothing.  Grandma Hoffman taught me well.

If you happen to read this before the end of July, come out and help yourself.  Stop by the tasting room and I’ll tell you how to get to the best spots.

Thanks to my son, Robby, for the photographs. He’s a pro, literally. Visit his website at www.roberthphotography.com for more of his stuff.

Lodi Amateur Vintners host Riedel glassware tasting

The Lodi Amateur Vintners Association brought Tanya Seibold, the Northern California Winery Sales Manager from the Riedel Glass Works, to make a presentation to club members about Riedel stemware at their regular meeting on June 18, 2008. The event was held at Heritage Oak Winery, with the business portion held in the tasting room and the presentation held in the covered area in back. About thirty people were present.

For the presentation, Tanya used four pieces of  variety-specific stemware from Riedel’s “Vinum Extreme” collection, including pieces designed for Cabernet Sauvignon,  Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Riesling.  The four examples used were leaded pieces of machine-made stemware.   These are shown here.  From Left: Cabernet, Pinot Noir, Riesling, Chardonnay. 

My first impressions was the unusual shape of each piece.  “”Harumph! Moonware!” I thought when I first saw them.  I picked up a glass. The lead obviously added a surprising amount of density, but it felt good to hold.  It was well balanced and very comfortable in the hand.

Tanya had set a place for each person with a place mat, and on it had put each of the four Riedel glasses plus one more. The fifth glass was an empty 9 ounce tasting glass which she referred to as the “joker”.  Each of the Riedel glasses held wine.  The Chardonnay glass held Chardonnay, the Cabernet glass had, well, Cabernet. (You can see where this is going.)  Can anyone tell me what was in the  Pinot Noir glass?  But here’s a surprise: The Riesling glass had Zinfandel.  I guess it also doubles as the piece for Zin.  She instructed us to swirl the wine, breathe in the aroma, then taste the wine.  At that point we were encouraged to describe the experience.  She helped a lot.  A lot of heads were nodding while she talked about the flavors and aromas. 

Tanya then asked us to pour the remaining Chardonnay into the joker glass and repeat the process.  Most of those present were pretty much dumbfounded.  What had been a fairly elegant wine in the first glass became an ordinary one in the second.  The same procedure was repeated with each of the other three wines, with the resulting discussions being pretty much the same.

“What if you have Zinfandel in the Chardonnay glass?  someone asked. 

“I knew someone would ask that,” Tanya said.

We went back to the Zinfandel and re-tasted it.  She then directed us to pour the Chardonnay into the joker and replace it with the Zin and taste it again.  Here the difference was not as striking as when comparing the Zin glass with the joker glass, but there were subtle differences.

“How does Riedel make a glass that improves the enjoyment of wine?” was the next question.

Tanya explained that each bowl was engineered to enhance the wine in a variety of ways. First, because these pieces were made of leaded crystal, they have tiny, imperceptible bumps and protrusions on the inside of the bowl.  As the wine is swirled, it is volatilized by the protrusions, making the bouquet more pronounced. 

Next, the shape of the bowl, perhaps the most obvious feature of each piece, does several things.  Its design effectively captures the bouquet and retains it so that it can be thoroughly inhaled and appreciated. Each is large enough to allow the taster to inhale the aroma of the wine while tasting it.  That’s right.  You get your lips on the rim and your nose in the bowl, engaging not only the five flavors the tongue picks up, but bringing into play the 100,000 separate scents the human nose can detect. 

Finally and most interestingly, the bowl of each variety-specific piece is designed to deliver the wine to that portion of the palate that will be most perceptive to the flavors of this specific wine.  For example the Chardonnay glass delivers wine to the middle and then down the sides of the tongue to emphasize first the richness and body of the wine and secondly the acidity and fruit components.  The Cabernet glass delivers the wine across the tongue to the back of the palate, where the tannins are perceived.  This notion still amazes me. I thought that if the wine glass got the wine to my mouth, and across my lips, its job was done.  Apparently Riedel stemware also directs traffic.

“How much does one of these glasses cost?” This question Tanya answered with a stunning piece of logic: People think nothing of spending $25, $30, $50, sometimes $80 or more on a bottle of wine. They then take it home and store it in a temperature controlled cellar that costs anywhere from several hundred to thousands of dollars, and then spend more money on energy to keep the wine under optimum conditions.  But then they turn around and serve it in stemware that costs five dollars.  What does that do to their investment in wine?  It seems the nice folks at Riedel will tell you the quality of the stemware should match the quality of the wine.  If you routinely serve wine that you paid $50 for, you should be serving it in stemware that matches that price per glass. “A worthwhile investment for life-long pleasure”, she says.

Each of the pieces used in the presentation sells in a box of four for around $118.

LAVA President Jim Schweickardt summarized the presentation, saying “This is nothing short of astounding.”

I agree that the difference the Riedel pieces make is remarkable.  Now my problem is where am I going to put all these pieces of fancy stemware I need to buy.

If by chance you read this and would like to try the experience yourself, contact Tanya at tanya@riedelusa.net.

Wine Club Barbecue June 21, 2007

Who would have known when we picked this date back in February that it would be 102 degrees that day.  June is a tricky month.  We should have expected surprises. 

About 15 people showed up for our first Heritage Oak Wine Club event June 21, dispite a dire weather forecast: Hot.  We assembled around 4 PM.  A lot of us immediately went down to the Mokelumne River and stuck our feet in the 55 degree water.

Some thunderheads rolled through and it actually rained for about five minutes.  Great big drops hit the water with a splat!  That is unusual here in central California during the summer. The nice thing was that the temperature dropped noticeably after-wards and it turned into a very pleasant evening.

The Bartlam family showed up in force.  Tyler immediately took a chair down to the river while younger JP played in the sand. My mother Joanne Hoffman joined them after closing the tasting room at 5 PM.

 

  

 

 

Rad Bartlam cooled his heels with some Heritage Oak Red.

 

 

 

 

Norma Mettler agreed the 2007 Sauvignon Blanc was a big hit.  Also seen here is Dawn Worthen, Laura Mohr and daughter Katelyn.  

 

  

 

 

While Pat Byrne fills us in, Norm Worthen and I took a break from cooking Tri-tip and chicken on the three Webers I brought down to the beach.

 

 

 

Jim Rott and Mark Mettler figure the best strategy to deal with the heat was to not move any more than necessary.

 

 

Thanks to all who showed up, particularly to Dawn and Norm, who came early to help set up, cook, clean up and be generally supportive.  Not shown in photos is my hard working wife, Carmela, without whom, none of this would be possible, and Sally and Leonard Humphries, their daughter Liz and husband George.

Weather wrap-up: The thunderheads continued to rumble around all evening.  The next day the news was fill with stories of all the fires that were ingnited.  Over the next few days, that number grew to over 1200 separate fires.  They are still burning today, two weeks later, and the air is still full of smoke.

The imaginary hat rack

It seemed like an easy transition.  Wine grape grower to winery owner, in fact, seemed logical.  We had been growing grapes for decades. My father had taken over from his father in the late 70’s, and after I quit teaching elementary school and joined the family farming operation in 1982, my father and I had made the transition from growing table grapes to wine grapes. 

And I’d certainly had plenty of experience making wine.  After years of be a large scale amateur wine maker, that part didn’t seem to be an obstacle.  So the notion was let’s build a winery and spend our time chatting with customers and selling them wine made from our fruit.

Yeah, right.  The truth is that it has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my 57 years.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not sorry we did it. And I still think it was the right decision.  The value of grape crops in the Lodi, California region hasn’t developed much past what it was fifteen years ago.  The three or four big wineries that buy the majority of the grapes that come out of this area still control the prices of our fruit and  keep the clamps on any upward movement. So this decision to build a winery was one of economic survival. 

So in 2006 I met with engineers, filed for construction permits, talked to general contractors, submitted fees and filled out applications.  Finally, in May of 2007 we broke ground and constructin began. During this phase of the winery, an odd thing happened.  Over night a hat rack appeared on the construction site.  It was a tall one- free standing- and it shadowed me whenever I was in the building. No hats on it, just lots of pegs sticking out on all sides.  At first, I wondered if someone had just left it there, but after a while I began to get suspicious. After an inquiry or two, I figured out that no one could see it but me.  And then, as soon as the winery was operational, suddenly my fantasy hat rack was full of hats.

The hard part about this new life has been discovering what my job is now.  What do I do next?  What is  the nature of my role around here?  Problem solved. Go to the hat rack. In any one day I go from TTB Compliance Officer to Tasting Room Manager to Wine Club Director.  Other hats hanging on the rack are those labelled Head Wine Maker, Events Coordinator, Vice-President of Promotion and Advertising, Lab Technician and, of course, Cellar Rat.  That last one’s my favorite. 

Summer blooms at Heritage Oak

I have help.  My wife, Carmela, keeps the tasting room clean and full of decorated flowers.  She has done a wonderful job landscaping the patio between the house and the winery.  And during events, she coordinates the food and its display. 

My mother, Joanne, has also shown what a trooper she can be, volunteering to work in the tasting room four or five days a week, freeing me up to run errands or play the piano for our visitors.  She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, having, after 82 years of life, read everything and been almost everywhere.

I think our children, Matt, Rob and daughter-in-law Natalie will come on board with time.  They’ll need to move closer but for now each is following his own path, which I totally understand.

For now we are finding our way here.  Each day is a new one, and the challenges are fresh and always changing.  In the meantime, I see there are still lots of unlabeled hats on the rack.  Hey, I just discovered one that has ”Winery Blogger” written on the front.  How come all these dang things are just my size?!