Gary Vaynerchuk gets back into the wine game...

The 2015 edition of Premiere Napa Valley saw a fundraising record for the Napa Valley Vintners. PNV15 also saw the return of Gary Vaynerchuk to Napa on the ninth anniversary of the first episode of WineLibraryTV. Gary helped his father successfully bid on 11 lots (840 bottles) to a tune of $377,000 ($449 per bottle). Gary energetically tasted with vintners during the barrel tasting prior to the auction and frequently posted selfies to Twitter (without the aid of a selfie-stick). I caught up with Gary briefly after the auction to discuss WineLibary's purchases and the possible return of WineLibraryTV.

Wine Library's Gary and Sasha Vaynerchuk at Premiere Napa Valley 2015

Initial thoughts on Premiere Napa Valley 2015

Premiere Napa Valley 2015

Last week's Premiere Napa Valley (PNV), the fundraising auction for the Napa Valley Vintners (NVV), brought in a record $6.05 million, just surpassing last year's previous record of $5.9 million. Napa Valley wineries donated five-, 10-, or 20-case lots that were then exclusively auctioned off to the trade. The barrel tasting and auction at the Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone campus in St. Helena capped off a bacchanalian week in the Napa Valley just as the vines were beginning to spring back to life for the 2015 vintage. The average wholesale price per bottle sold was an astounding $286. The top bidder was Total Wine & More, who purchased 25 lots of the futures for a total of $836,000.

The most expensive lot, which also happened to be one of my favorites, was the 2013 BRAND Napa Valley "Double Barrel Elevation 1588" Cabernet Sauvignon. Sixty bottles of this cabernet sauvignon from Pritchard Hill sold for $115,000 to a corporate finance firm based in Zurich, Switzerland. The frenzied bidding brought BRAND proprietor Ed Fitts to tears when it was all said and done. Two other lots earned $100,000 for a mere 5 cases of wine. Only six lots failed to sell for more than $100 per bottle, three of which were white wines, including a very interesting sweet Scuppernong from Spiriterra Vineyards. Even though I enjoyed it, the unusual wine made from Vitis rotundifolia grapes was a peculiar addition to the cabernet sauvignon-dominated field.

Thursday and Friday were filled with various preview parties around the valley. After missing it last year, I was able to make it to Vintage Perspective Tasting of 2010, 2011, and 2012 cabernets as well as the 2003-2009 library tasting. I also went to preview receptions for Chateau Boswell (a random group of "most celebrated winemakers"), Coombsville Vintners & Growers, Pritchard Hill Wineries, Women Winemakers, Oakville Winegrowers Association, FlyWine (bottles premium wine in 100 mL TSA-friendly bottles), and Winemakers of Brokenrock Vineyard. I had planned on attending a few other receptions, but time and wine just got in the way.

The barrel tasting portion of the auction on Saturday morning showcased wines mostly from the 2013 vintage and the attendance was quite a big smaller than last year. Cate Conniff, the communications manager for NVV, told me that invitations to media, trade, and wineries were cut across the board because too many people were packed into the venue last year. It was refreshing not feeling like a canned sardine this year. Compared to the similar 2012 vintage offered at the previous auction, the 2013s were successful across the board. Ripeness and concentration were not a problem for Napa producers in 2013. To my palate, the wines were marked by good fruit flavors and strong tannins. The 2013 wines tended to be less opulent than those from 2012 and more restrained. As goes with saying for any barrel tasting, the wines were not finished products, so no final assessment can be made. That being said, the wines that really impressed me did so with their aromas, balance, and refinement as opposed to power and density.

Wine Libraries (not the Gary Vaynerchuk kind...)

I was going to start this post off by saying all wineries need to have wine libraries. Many of the liquor stores in Denver are in fact libraries of just the type of wines that shouldn't be saved for future consumption. Too often when I've gone into an off-the-beaten path shop I've seen bottles of $5.99 merlot from vintages in the early 1990s just sitting there sullenly on the bottom shelf. Perhaps they'd make decent salad dressing now, but should not still be offered for sale as wine. Despite wines like these that need not be unopened past their third birthday, more wineries ought to keep wine libraries. There are several reasons to do so.

First, saving a few bottles (or cases) of a wine has an important research application for a winery. All too often I see wineries with less than a handful of released vintages claiming their wine will drink well for 20-25 years. This may be the case, but there is no actual evidence that it will be the case. Sure, a winery can't wait 25 years to make the claim that their wines will actually last a generation as a serviceable beverage, but at least tasting a few wines after they've been laid down for a few years will provide some evidence of such claims.

Second, wineries need to document the results of the choices they made between bud break and the time the finished wine is bottled. If the entire production is sold, a winery will have no way of knowing how the acid adjustment or the spinning cones (or the non-interventionist approach) turned out. Holding back a few samples is necessary for finding out how the wine changes with age. Some people call it drinking, but in the wine industry it should be called research and development. Wineries should always try to be improving on their most recent vintage and there might be no better way than drinking their wines when they have aged.

Third, and maybe most important for consumers, library wines means library releases. Reserving more than a few cases allows a winery to re-release wines that may be their customers weren't able to buy on release. Many consumers don't have the patience or the ability to hold on to wines until they're at their peak, so being able to buy directly from the winery a few years down the line has its advantages. Knowing how a wine ages is often a key piece of information consumers use when trying to decide on how much of a currently release to buy. One of a winery's advantages is charging a premium for library wine. As long as a the premium isn't outrageous, it's a win-win situation for the winery and the consumer.

Scherrer "Shale Terrace" Zinfandel, Alexander Valley AVA

Without library releases I wouldn't have had the opportunity to drink the 2005 Scherrer "Shale Terrace" Zinfandel I enjoyed on Independence Day. There is something to said about having perfectly aged wines as your first experience with a winery. I bought a few new releases and a few aged bottles. The Fourth of July seemed like an opportune time to open one of the zinfandels. This wine was not like the zinfandels most consumers are used to. Big, fruity young wines is kind of zinfandel's character in the wine world. The Scherrer was starting to show a brick color and the aromas were more secondary in nature than most zins. The fruit was still there, but extra few years in the bottle (and in the winery's own cellar) allowed the wine to develop more toffee and savory flavors. It was still a big wine, but exceptionally smooth and complex. Complexity is often one of the characteristics critics use when determining quality, and yet somewhat ironically in the world of barrel tasting and futures complexity may take several years in the bottle to reveal itself. So, to wineries, I urge you to keep more of your wines held back. Taste them yourselves and re-release them a few years down the road. Consumers, next time you're at a winery I urge you to ask about their library program. Buy a bottle and experience what a few years of aging can do.

Colorado Wine Shines in the National Spotlight

April 2011 might have been a very big month for Colorado wine. At the beginning of the month, the purveyors of DrinkLocalWine.com announced that the 4th annual Drink Local Wine Conference will be coming to Colorado in 2012. Dallas wine blogger Jeff Siegel (the Wine Curmudgeon) and Washington Post wine columnist Dave McIntyre created the site to promote the quality of the wines, grapes, flavors and opportunities offered by regional wines. This conference will bring several dozen wine writers from around the country to Colorado in order to explore all that is Colorado wine. Writers will tour wineries, taste Colorado's vinous delights and take part in a "Twitter Taste-Off" where attendees will taste and tweet about their favorite Colorado wines. This conference could do a lot to show the world what Colorado grapes have to offer.

Not only was that announcement a move in the right direction for the Colorado wine industry, several weeks later, wine personality Gary Vaynerchuk,  made his way to the Centennial State to promote his new book, The Thank You Economy. At the book signing, Vaynerchuk, formerly of WineLibraryTV.com and currently appearing on DailyGrape.com, was given a bottle of Guy Drew Vineyards' 2007 Metate by an enthusiastic guest at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver. The following day before his trek to Boulder, Vaynerchuk taped episode 26 of his Daily Grape (see video below) while tasting the bottle of Colorado wine. After briefly describing Colorado's wine history, Vaynerchuk sampled this blend of cabernet sauvignon and syrah and was blown away by its quality. Hundreds of fans commented on this video and many were interested in where they could find wines from Colorado. Drew, according to a Grand Junction Sentinel article, has already sold 10 cases of the 300 case production offering to viewers of the video across the country. Other wine writers, including ColoradoWino and Sourgrapes, have cited the Vaynerchuk video in their posts. When major wine personalities like Vaynerchuk take note of Colorado's wines, consumers will reap the benefits.



Unfortunately, not everyone is buying what Colorado is selling. In a conversation in the comments section on one of Steve Heimoff's blog posts, Steve states that he was in Colorado several years ago and "found most of the wines inferior." He also claims that the reason he doesn't review Colorado wines is because no one pays him to do so. He fails to realize that many consumers may actually be interested in wines from places other than California (see comments on Daily Grape episode 26). While I enjoy reading Steve's blog, every once in awhile I find his holier-than-thou attitude a little frustrating. While he did offer to review Colorado wines if I sent him a case, he would only do so on his blog, but not in the more widely distributed Wine Enthusiast Magazine. If you make great Colorado wine and want Steve to try it, let me know. If you are a Steve Heimoff fan (or critic) and would like him to explore non-California wines, let him know. Like all wines regions, Colorado offers a spectrum of wine styles and qualities, and together we can continue to show the world that some of Colorado's wines are truly world class.