Today Rob and I hosted about fifteen writers for a wine-tasting. We tasted a variety of wines from top-shelf to rock-bottom. The idea was to learn how a wine snob would approach wine as opposed to a hard-nosed detective. I asked Rob to find some flawed wines as a contrast to the good ones. As a non-wine geek, I have learned that I can tell the difference between bad and good wines, but that mediocre and good are harder to tell apart.

He arranged the afternoon into three flights of wine. Each flight looked at a different common style of wine. Here’s the fact sheet he prepared for the folks who attended today.

Rosés

Sutter Home
White Zinfandel (rosé)
California, 2006
As the bottle proudly proclaims, this is the original “White Zinfandel”. While certainly not the first rosé produced from Zinfandel, it was the first made is the light-bodied sweet style and marketed aggressively. It is produced from Zinfandel grown and vinified in California´s central valley on a prodigious scale. It is a true mass-market wine.

Domaine Sautereau
Sancerre rosé, Côtes de Reigny
Loire Valley, France, 2006
Situated in the village of Crezancy this 18 hectare estate has been producing wine for 9 generations. Sancerre is primarily of producer of Sauvignon Blanc but Pinot Noir is also grown to make red wine and occasionally rosés such as this one.

Chardonnay

Frameworks
Chardonnay, Oracle Vineyard
Willamette Valley, Oregon, 2003
Included today as an example of an overtly flawed wine. It has been “cooked” in transport. Wine is a living substance and poor handling can injure or kill it. This is one gross example of such abuse.

Domaine Dujac (Druid)
Meursault, Le Limozin
Burgundy, France, 2000
Domaine Dujac is a highly respect producer of red burgundy in Morey-St. Denis. This is an unusual example of a white, which is produced from purchased grapes of the Le Limozin vineyard (a village cru but one of premiere cru status). This is Chardonnay but made is a racy and refined style.

Ferrari-Carano
Chardonnay
Alexander Valley, 2005
California Chardonnay - big, buttery, oaky. Love or hate it, this is what built the California wine industry into what it is today.

Cabernet Sauvignon

Barton & Guestier
Vin De Pays, Cabernet Sauvignon
France, 2003
This is a typical inexpensive table wine, a style produced around the world for everyday consumption. A comparable American example would be Charles Shaw (2 buck Chuck) from Trader Joe’s. Grapes, or juice, or even finished wine is purchased, blended and bottled by some entity which then sells the wine under its own brand. Occasionally, one finds a pleasant bottle in this category but they are intrinsically generic.

Mayacamas
Cabernet Sauvignon
Napa Valley, 1998
While this winery is within the Napa Valley appellation, the vineyards and winery are near the top of Mt. Veeder at an elevation of 1,800 to 2,400 feet. Robert Travers, the winemaker, strives to make intense, long-lived wines in the tradition of great red Bordeaux which express the personality of the vineyard - the terroir. Like nearly all Bordeaux, this is a blend with small portions of Cabernet Franc and Merlot added to the Cabernet Sauvignon for balance and complexity.

I suspect we will do another of these. The thought at the moment is to do a vertical flight (same wine, different years) to show how wines evolve. Also we’re thinking of pouring the wine in three different types of wine glasses to show how the vessel can impact the flavor.

What would you want to get out of a wine tasting for writers?

The September 2007 Doctor Who magazine reviews Short Trips: Destination Prague which includes my story, “Suspension and Disbelief.”

The highlights:

For this latest Short Trips anthology the editor, Steven Savlie, has roped in an experienced group of writers to create a more self-consciously literary collection than usual, one that suggests voguish, city-themed short story compilations rather than the esoteric, sci-fi themes of past Short Trip collections. As a result, and by locating all of the stories in Prague of the past, present and future as opposed to the rather wider canvases of other Short Trips, Destination Prague succeeds in feeling quite different from its predecessors, with a consistency of quality and stylishness that has not always been evident.

…

There are some very fine entries here. The opening story Midnight in the Cafe of the Black Madonna with its alien elephant trying to prevent genocide, sets the bar high, while the funny Dogs of War, spooky Spoilsport and haunting Suspension and Disbelief stand out.

I thought I couldn’t get any more tickled about this sale, but, yowza! my story is “haunting” and among those that “stand out.”

And yes, after hearing a rumor that my story was mentioned, I did troop down to the closest book store and pick up a copy of the magazine. I mean, Doctor Who!