French Bloom Delivers Flavor and Elegance to DC without Boozy Battles
You want to celebrate. You want to “pop the cork”, enjoy the flavor, but you don’t want the after-effects. The drunkenness. Certainly not the hangover. And women? Of course there needs to be ways to elegantly celebrate even (and especially) during pregnancy. Imagine a pregnant-friendly wine?
It’s a situation that should have been solved already. But now it has and with style. It’s a subtle, elegant, flavorful answer.
French Bloom Re-Invents the Game
Now everyone can share “moments of pleasure” as their website mentions. French Bloom’s organic de-alcoholized chardonnay and pinot noir, alcohol-free French sparkling cuvées combine French tradition with innovation.
French Bloom Co-Founders Maggie Frerejean – Taittinger and Constance Jablonski
The Team Behind French Bloom
Maggie Frerejean – Taittinger and Constance Jablonski bring different and complementary skill sets. Equally important, they bring the desire for the vision and the motivation for innovation.
Through their innovative and female-founded brand, French Bloom gives an alternative and inviting drink to those wanting to celebrate elegantly and differently, making the most of the precious moments shared with friends and family.
If the names sound familiar, Constance is a globally-working fashion model you’ve seen representing Estée Lauder and countless luxury brands.
Maggie is director of the Michelin Guide and married to Rodolphe Frerejean-Taittinger, chief executive of Champagne Frerejean Freres.
Carl Héline, the former head of Champagne Krug, joined French Bloom.
Let’s Taste French Bloom
Le Rosé
Pale pink in the glass. Rose petals, freshly picked red currant, raspberry aromas on the nose. Indulgent white peach notes on the palate. Elegant. The organic French grapes give a nice acidity. Well-balanced complexity of minerality and freshness. Tartness and a rounded balance on the finish.
Certified Vegan- Organic- Halal
0.0% Alcohol
Pregnant-friendly
Low Calorie
Sulfite-Free
No preservatives
No sugar added, 4,2g/ 100ml
A blend of de-alcoholized organic French Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines, organic grape juice, Gensac spring water and natural organic flavors such as lemon.
Le Blanc
Organic French Bubbly, 0.0% Alcohol
Medium golden amber in the glass. Minerality and pear aromas on the nose, that just keep opening and opening. Pear, banana, melon, white flowers. An explosion of complexity on the palate. As the flavors open, Granny Smith apple, spicy citrus. A full-bodied mouth with a luxurious, zesty finish that keeps going.
De-alcoholized organic wine, organic grape juice, French sparkling Gensac spring water, organic lemon juice, organic natural flavors.
Horror Movie Night Cookbook written by Richard S. Sargent
Author Richard S. Sargent joined me for a conversation about food, cooking, horror movies and Halloween. The below conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Find the full, un-edited conversation at our YouTube channel.
What inspired you as far as horror movies go? What’s your all time favorite horror?
Richard Sargent: Wow, that’s a tough one. Yeah, so I would say my all time favorite horror movie is Scream. It’s what got me into diving deeper into horror. My mother actually got me into horror when I was a kid, we would watch a bunch of the old ones after school and that sort of thing, but as I started to discover the newer ones on my own, Scream was the first one that really showed me that there’s more to horror than just blood and boobs.
You’re a filmmaker, an artist, an author, many things. Tell us a little bit about your journey
Richard Sargent: I went to school for theater and film and acting. As most people do New York or LA, I chose New York. I did that for a while. I did a couple of my own indie horror films as well. And then as I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do.
As a side project, because you have to have a side project when you’re trying to break into that field. I thought I love cooking. I love experimenting. I love being creative. Let’s take some culinary classes. So I was gifted some culinary classes and it was really great. And I thought, okay, great. Now I’m going to go work in a kitchen. But the more I thought about that, I realized I would hate it if I had to do it as a day job. I would hate cooking. I put that on the back burner and focus more on the theater and film and all that.
And just kept plugging away at that. When I moved to the West Coast, I became artistic director of a couple of theater companies and had some plays published, that sort of thing.
So my writing and my directing was starting to take off a little bit. I had a little more free time to go back to the cooking thing that I was looking forward to doing. And the way this came together is that I was doing a play with some friends and we were chatting we actually were doing the play, The Woman in Black, and we were chatting about horror and horror films and they felt the way I felt about them initially, that they’re all just and I just couldn’t have that.
I’d seen so many great ones that have changed my life and had so many positive messages. Because horror movies are basically about the outcasts winning. I felt like I’ve been an outcast my whole life, so I could really connect to them. So I started showing them the ones that I thought were important.
I started with my favorites and then dug deeper into the ones that I felt. Told really great stories and had really great messages through these horror movie nights where I would pair an appetizer, a dinner and a dessert, each with its own movie and we would do three movies a night and we would do this every couple of weeks.
Can you talk a little bit about this book’s undertaking and 1-2 lessons that you learned from that process?
Richard Sargent: Absolutely. Yeah, it really was an undertaking. When I started these nights, these horror movie nights myself I just thought they were going to be fun. I just thought we were all going to have a good time.
Then about halfway through, maybe about five or six nights in, my friends were all like, what are you going to do with this? I’m like, what do you mean? We’re just having a good time. And they’re like, no, other people are going to want to do this. I’m thinking about what can I do with this?
Maybe I can start an event service and cater these nights myself? But ultimately I chose to do a book because it’s more accessible and it’s more fun. You get to do it in your own home and invite your friends over and it makes for a much more fun evening. Once I decided that it was going to be a book, it took about two years to compile it all into book format. Retake some pictures, that sort of thing, get it all ready for my copy. So I self published it two years ago and then it got picked up.
So the version that you have and that we’re talking about today is the version that Ulysses Press put out about another year or so later.
So it was about a five year process from the first horror movie night, all the way to the book that, that we’re talking about today.
If I have any tips for people, find what makes your idea stick out. What about your idea do people want to know, be authentic about it and just keep plugging away at it.
You’re going to get frustrated. Move on to another project, take a walk, do something else. And come back when the inspiration strikes, but never force anything. That’s my big thing. You can’t force inspiration or you’re not going to end up with the best product that you could possibly have.
From the five years ago first draft to Ulysses Press version now, how close is the finished product compared to your original vision?
Richard Sargent: It’s very close actually. A lot of things that were changed were just improvements on the pictures. Things are worded differently, more clear, more consistency throughout the book.
Ulysses was really great with the editing process. They kept a lot of what I wanted to do with the book and the whole spirit of the book.
There’s millions of horror movies out there. How did you go from a million down to 60?
Richard Sargent: It really had to just speak to me. It had to be bigger and better than the average horror film. Or at least I had to view it that way.
I studied horror and I studied film throughout my life. I can grasp the difference between your average horror film and something that’s trying to influence the viewer in some way. And those are the ones that I tried to put into the book. I know that 60 is not a lot and that’s why there will be more books hopefully.
I thought it would be a fun start to break newbies in. So rather than just hitting every classic that you can think of: Exorcist, Jaws, I picked a lot of classics and mixed them in with some newer things that had more up to date themes and up to date comments on society, like The Conjuring and The Descent, movies like that.
Not everyone seeing this is a huge horror movie fan. Can you give us any tips or ideas about what makes a really great horror movie?
Richard Sargent: I think it all starts with the characters which then reflects on the script. So if it’s a really well written script, it has characters that A) you care about and B) are telling a story within a story, basically, by living through their story, they’re telling us how we should be living our lives. Of course, we know that because of Scream and movies like that, we know the rules of horror.
Don’t don’t say “I’ll be right back” and all that kind of stuff.
But beyond that, there are things that make a horror film great. It’s a lot of really great being on the side of the outcasts. So if you think of movies like Frankenstein a lot of people will say that the monster is the monster, but the monster is not the monster. The society not accepting the monster Is the real monster.
That’s a film that tries to show us how to accept people who are not like us. Some people may say that science is the monster. I am not that kind of person. But, there’s the commentary in that film too, that maybe we shouldn’t do everything that we are able to do with science.
For queer culture and women’s rights we have films like Hereditary that dive into dealing with grief.
As long as your characters are doing something important, they’re not just playing with a Ouija board, or running into a shed full of chainsaws. As long as they’re making smart decisions,, I think it elevates it to the next level, movies like The Exorcist, obviously, more recently, I thought Barbarian just from last year was outstanding, just in that way of telling the story, that was creative to me.
Ones that stick with you forever. Jaws, a lot of people didn’t want to go in the water after that.
We have a very dinner party kind of an audience. Do you have a favorite kitchen gadget?
Richard Sargent: Yeah, so I had to cook these meals. There were actually some other recipes that I worked on too, for these films that I didn’t put in the book. Everything is trial and error in the kitchen. So I cooked several of these many times until I found the right measurements of everything.
It was a long process in the kitchen, but a fun one, of course.
Maybe it makes me basic, but my favorite kitchen gadget is the slow cooker because you can do so much with it and you can step away from it and work on other things while your main meal is sitting there for hours.
Are there 1-2 recipes in the cookbook that you want to point out?
Richard Sargent: As I like to start any meal, let’s start with dessert. I would say I’m super proud of the pavlova from Cabin Fever, if you’re familiar with the movie. The dish is called The Close Shave, and it is a pavlova with Chantilly cream inside and berries on top, berry compote on top, and it just drips through a bloody wound.
I’m pretty proud of that one, and I got a lot of great feedback. I still have my friends from that horror movie night talking about it all the time.
Another one I’m super proud of is the paella from Broken Lizard’s Club Dread, which is an overlooked horror comedy. Basically, Coconut Pete runs this party island and he has his own special paella, Coconut Pete’s paella, which I tried to recreate with his secret ingredients and I thought it came out pretty well, so I’m pretty pleased with that one as well.
Let me see, appetizers. One that was fun was just coming up with the popcorn for Scream. I tried a bunch of different flavors and a bunch of different ways of doing it and it’s one of the ones that I feel is a recipe, but also a hack. An easy way to pop bagged popcorn and put flavoring on it.
It’s a good one to show that anybody can do what’s in this book. You don’t have to be Martha Stewart to be able to create what’s in this book, recreate it.
When the book first arrived, I was sitting in a room with teenagers and as old as people in their 70s, so it’s quite a range and we were all having fun with it.
As an author, as a creator, how does that make you feel? Was it designed to be a communal experience?
Richard Sargent: Putting things out there always makes me nervous. The feedback that I’ve been getting, hearing people, seeing pictures from people doing their own horror movie nights or just recreating the recipes or just on podcasts and things talking about the clever titles and all that kind of stuff it just makes me feel so good because I was worried that maybe this is just a “me” thing, like I’m just this weirdo super into horror and food. It’s good to know that I’m not. The whole horror community, the whole film community is into something like this.
They they can entertain, they can bring their own friends over. They can be the star of their own show. It speaks to everybody.
Since you are the Horror Movie Night Cookbook expert, can you give us some tips and advice for our next movie night?
Richard Sargent: I’ve done horror film nights where we just all get together and we eat the food and we watch the movies.
I’ve done one’s where we play extra games other than the drinking games. We have costume contests. It’s really how far you want to go into it.
But I would say start early if you’re going to use some of the recipes in this book, start early because there are many things that could go wrong especially if you’re not used to cooking and there are things that could go wrong, things that could burn things that might not set the way you want them to.
Have extra ingredients on hand.
If you don’t like a movie that the recipe is paired with, think about how that recipe could go with another more you like more?
Have fun with it and try it all.
How can we elevate the experience to a Superbowl Sunday level?
Richard Sargent: Definitely add costumes. Decorate. Fog machines are always fun. Pick the ones that pick the recipes that can make it a more social evening. Maybe ones where you add your own stuff to them. Like the one for Cujo is like a burrito bowl, essentially, so that people can add their own ingredients to it. That gets people up and mingling and having a good time, definitely play the drinking games, but be careful because the drinks are strong.
It’s Halloween season right now. When is the best time of year for the Horror Movie Night Cookbook?
Richard Sargent: All year. There’s no set time. Horror has so many stories to tell. A lot of them are very important that you can watch them all year round.
Get in that spirit all year round. I think that people don’t give horror the credit that it deserves. There are a lot of great films out there that even people that don’t love horror will like. Those are the ones I think we should be talking about. Horror should always be part of the conversation.
A lot of horror films are set throughout the year, so if you wanted to do a horror movie night for Valentine’s Day, you’ve got plenty to choose from, It’s not just for those of us that like to get dressed up one day a year. It’s all year round.
As we wrap up, any final message you want foodies or movie lovers to know about you or this book?
Richard Sargent: I would just want them to know that I really did put a lot of thought and heart into everything that they see in this book. I really didn’t just say, Oh, wow, let’s come up with some gimmicky-looking cookie or something. These aren’t decorations. This is real food and real thoughtful recipes that are inspired by things that happen in the film, things that they eat, things that they do, places they go. For example, in The Descent, they are supposed to be spelunking in the Appalachian mountains. So I used a local dish from the Appalachias as that recipe. These are not just Halloween decorations. These are actual recipes that you can enjoy any time of year. But watch the movie too. So yeah, I would just want people to know that don’t expect cutesy little Pinterest ghost cookies. That’s not what you’re going to get. You’re going to get real recipes like you would in any cookbook. This just has the horror edge to it as well.
Where can we learn more about you? Tell us the website, the social media
Richard Sargent: The book can be found at any local bookstore or online Barnes Noble, Amazon.
If you want to learn more about me, or just maybe get bonus recipes every now and then on my Instagram you can follow the Horror Movie Night Cookbook Instagram, or my own personal one, @rsargent83.
Tell me what you like. And if you host your own, tag me in that sort of stuff. I’d love to see how your recipes come out, what you would change. I’d love feedback. If you do try any of this, please contact me online and let me know what you liked and what you didn’t.
Style, Flavor, Awards: DC’s Favorite New Wine Jøyus non-alcoholic wines has a Secret. Not just for #SoberOctober, but its award-winning tastes help you celebrate all year-long.
Jøyus non-alcoholic wines not only taste like wine, but great wine. With the industry awards to prove it.
Recently I sat down with Jøyus leader Jessica Selander.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. You can find the full, un-edited conversation on our YouTube page.
Can you give us a personal story, maybe that includes the celebration of wine, if you have one?
Jessica Selander: The story is very personal and the funny thing is I get so nervous before talking about things because when I started Joyus, I did not originally [think about] doing things like this, being so face forward.
I thought I would create a product that I was really excited about. Eventually I came to realize, how do I do that without telling the “why did I do it?”
The whole reason that Joyus exists and it influences everything I do is because I’m sober. I quit drinking alcohol 17 years ago now, which just feels like a fantastical amount of time.
For me, it’s been very rewarding. I’m very glad about it. But it was definitely something that was really hard and very personal. It wasn’t something I shared about publicly. So that’s also why this is a journey of getting comfortable talking about my sobriety, my recovery.
I like the taste of wine. I like beautiful glasses. I like the smell of wine. I love the community and people; and hanging out and celebrating. It literally says ’let’s celebrate’ on our bottles. How great sparkling is for summer, but sparkling is such a happy thing.
You know what I mean? Something good happens in your life and people are like, let’s celebrate. Let’s pop some bottles. New Year’s Eve is such a beautiful idea of let’s start over. Whatever happened last year, whatever terrible things went down, there’s a brand new year.
It’s a new idea that we can celebrate either that past year that was good or celebrate the potential of a new year. That’s going to be better and that’s sparkling.
And for me, I didn’t have any options.
I started Joyus nine years ago. People ask me how long the company’s been around and we launched about two years ago. So it took me a very long time to figure it out, to save up the money to do it because as you can imagine, nine years ago, people thought it was crazy.
They’re like, ‘That’s a terrible idea. Nobody wants that’. And I’m like ’I want it’.
Having quit drinking, I had a lot of friends that also didn’t drink. I had a lot of people in my life too, who were just light drinkers – could give or take alcohol. Then I have two kids and there’s a huge percent of the population that quits drinking for nine months [because they’re pregnant], sometimes even longer.
You can get into medications, you’re not supposed to drink on it. Anxiety medication, not supposed to drink on it. Heart medication, cancer treatments. There’s a lot of medical stuff too, that you could go down the list.
So I get a lot of people now who are like, ‘Oh, it’s not alcoholic. It’s trending.’ And that’s a thing now.
Early on in my sobriety, I actually used to drink a lot of soda pop out of glass bottles, and then eventually discovered non alcoholic beer.
Non alcoholic beer is definitely having a really cool movement right now. There’s so many different options for non alcoholic beer, but the beer has always been around.
I was like, this exists and it tastes like beer. What’s up with non-alcoholic wine?
There was one sparkling [non-alcoholic wine] in the entire country and that’s all you could find. There was one white and there was one red and that was it.
For me these options were really sweet. They were very affordable, which is nice, but they didn’t have the complete experience that I was going for. I wanted non alcoholic wine that tastes like wine.
I wanted something that I could bring to a gathering and bring to a get together and have it feel appropriate and look appropriate and just look like everybody else’s [alcoholic] bottles. Smell like everyone else’s bottles that you just wouldn’t even know that it was non alcoholic until you saw it on the label. And that’s what I did.
So after trying to find it for forever, eventually I was like, I’m going to do it myself. And I had no idea that this whole sober curious, non alcoholic world would take off like it has at exactly the right time.
So part of me is very frustrated that it took so long. But part of that too, it was like saving up the money to start the company.
This is a bootstrap company. I like making my own decisions. A side effect after getting to this point is I’m 100% in control of all the decisions, which also means that I can control the quality because [it] is incredibly expensive to make.
Let’s talk about your sober story. What it means to you, how you got there, what your mission is, how that helps others.
Jessica Selander: So for me, I can’t drink alcohol. What happens when I put alcohol in my body is that I make decisions I don’t want to be making.
I tried a lot of things. I tried cutting back and it didn’t work. I tried replacing [the drinks and that didn’t work].
My life became pretty chaotic.
I stopped drinking and once I get my life in order, then everything will be fine. I can drink again.
Then after not drinking for a period of time, I was like, Oh, you know what? There’s actually something to this and it’s something deeper and it’s probably the best thing I ever did, honestly, in my life.
I would not be the person I am today on the inside if I had kept drinking.
I have a wonderful spouse and I’ve got amazing kids and I’m able to be a parent and be a person and do that clear eyed and there’s a lot of my upbringing was not the most positive.
Sober curious, it’s a hashtag now.
I’m not saying alcohol shouldn’t exist. I’m not that kind of person whatsoever.
On a personal level it is so exciting to see other brands pop up. The first time I tried non-alcoholic tequila, it blew my mind. It was amazing. The spirits are interesting because some people build it up from science and some people are de-alkalizing; taking the alcohol out.
So that’s the really interesting thing about this. Normally spirits are completely separate from wine, which are very separate from beer, but in non-alcoholic, we’re all in the same swimming pool and everybody’s doing it differently and everybody’s got their own take and you can try one non-alcoholic whiskey and it’s incredibly different from another one.
Community not competition is one of our core values. Normalizing non drinking is a big one. It’s not necessarily replacing alcohol either. I’ve talked to people in the wine industry who are very offended by the idea of non alcoholic wine. I’m like no, it’s backwards. You’ve got it backwards. Non-alcoholic wine is a love letter to wine. You love wine so much that you still want to have it. You just can’t have this one piece that’s in it [the alcohol], but I want everything else.
I want to cheers that glass with other people. I want to drink that red with a really strong stinky cheese. I want to pop that celebratory cork. I want to Rose all day. I just can’t.
I think that wine is very important culturally. It’s so interesting historically. The process is this fascinating mix of art and science. I love everything about it. Getting deeper and deeper into it too, because I want Joyus to be around for forever and I want to make the best possible non-alcoholic wine.
There’s so much stuff to perfect that I could spend the next 50 years just working on non-alcoholic red – period.
You mentioned you’re seeing other competitors in the marketplace. How many different ways are there to make non-alcoholic wine? Are some ways higher quality than others?
Jessica Selander: I can give tips. Our wine is a dealcoholized or alcohol removed wine, which means it’s gone through the whole winemaking process.
It’s aged, it’s fermented, and then we have removed the alcohol from it. Our bottles also say it’s non alcoholic. Sometimes you’ll see a bottle in the store and it just says non alcoholic on it. It doesn’t say dealcoholized or alcohol removed. They’re interchangeable. That means it wasn’t fermented.
So if you’re looking for a wine that is really going to taste like wine or have that fermented taste, look for dealcoholized or alcohol removed.
[Look at the label on the bottle] look for dealcoholized or alcohol removed, because it could say that it’s a non alcoholic red or a non-alcoholic grape [varietal] and it might just be a juice, that hasn’t been fermented or ages but comes in a wine bottle.
What are your goals in the present moment and in the near future to help your company continue to be a leader in the industry?
Jessica Selander: I think goals are accessibility. Normalizing sober drinking. Making [non-alcoholic bottles] easy to find. We do ship off our website, which is great. We’re shipping from Seattle. We ship everything ourselves. If you’re out East, it’s going to take four or five days to get to you.
Also starting to talk to restaurants, getting into more restaurants is a big one. I’ve had anniversary dinners with my spouse and I’m drinking an Arnold Palmer.
I’m calling restaurants and I’m calling grocery stores and they’re still really skeptical that it can be good and that people want it.
Do you think it’s just audience reaching out? Is there a tipping point?
Jessica Selander: Yes, that really helps having people being in a restaurant and saying, “Hey, what do you have that’s an alcoholic?” Because restaurants are saying nobody’s asking for it.
Here I am double digit sober and I had never gone into a restaurant and asked for it.
I would look at the [menu’s] non alcoholic section, which is always juice, soda pop, iced tea and stuff. If it’s not on the menu, I would never ask them for anything. Here I am for over a decade, not telling them that I want this thing. So we started doing more education on social media and online.
If you walk into a restaurant, ask them “What do you have that’s not alcoholic?”
Just pregnant people alone. There’s a large percentage of the population.
Is there science that says a pregnant woman can drink this and have zero concerns?
Jessica Selander: Yes. So this is super interesting. In the United States we’re the most strict in terms of alcohol. If you go to the UK, they have different, actually higher limits for how much alcohol can be in something. The US’s rules come from prohibition when you can’t sell, make, transport alcohol.
The government said once it gets under 0.5%, it’s not alcohol anymore. So that’s where that number comes from and sometimes people see it and say, “Oh, there’s a little bit of alcohol in this.”
There was a study done in Germany where they tested a lot of grocery store items. What they found was there’s a lot of stuff in our grocery stores that had a little bit of alcohol in it. Very ripe bananas, which we feed to toddlers have some alcohol in them. Orange juice is another one.
American hamburger buns. But it also makes sense, bread, yeast and we have more sugar in our products, right? Bread actually has more alcohol than people realize.
Let’s talk about your wine’s flavors and aromas and the winemaking process to get there.
Jessica Selander: I knew what I wanted and I was incredibly picky about it.
We launched with the sparkling white and the sparkling Rose’ and people were asking for a Rose’ with no bubbles.
I thought it would be easy. It was not easy.
Stills are very different from sparkling. I’m a balance of “I know what I want. I’m going for this thing and very focused”, but then I’m also balanced with listening. So we do a lot of focus groups. I do want feedback. I do want opinions.
We were working on it. Everyone’s saying it’s good, it’s great. But I didn’t think it was good enough. We were supposed to launch it in summer and I pushed everything back. Back to the drawing board.
What if we did this? What if that? Talking to people, reading science and chemistry books
Was it like working for the right blend?
Jessica Selander: It’s tweaking so many different things and pieces in the blend. But it doesn’t always work out. If you tweak a blend, sometimes other notes will come forward that you’re not expecting, or sometimes you’ve diminished things that you didn’t intend to diminish.
The still Rose is a great example, it didn’t have that click and so I just kept working on it. And that’s the one that won Double Gold and Best in Class in the San Francisco International Wine Competition, which is one of the biggest and oldest blind tastings in the world and the biggest and oldest blind tasting in the U.S.
Can you share any details and lessons you learned taking on the world of winemaking?
Jessica Selander: There’s so many things. We’re not just making wine. We’re wholesale, we’re distributing, we’re direct to consumer. We have so many different facets.
I could talk for hours about how our wines are very low in sugar and they don’t have the alcohol in them. So our [bottles] probably freeze easier than anything else on the market. So shipping during the winter.
I’ve had conversations with other non alcoholic people too. Everybody’s doing it differently and that’s the hard part too, where I feel like there’s a solution for every problem.
We’ve gotten better and better at winter shipping, but it’s not quite there yet. Figuring out what can we ship in that’s going to have thermal protection, but isn’t going to contribute a ton of garbage. We’ve got the most eco-friendly, innovative winter shippers. They’re made of corn.
They’re expensive as hell, but it’s better than styrofoam. We have to keep everything under 50 pounds for UPS and 12 bottles of sparkling is 51 pounds in these corn shippers.
That thermal protection is still not enough, so we added heat packs.
Let’s talk about your wines.
Jessica Selander: We have four varietals. We’ve got our sparkling white, a sparkling Rosé. Still Rosé, a Cabernet Sauvignon. I love our red a lot. The reds are hard. They’re the most complicated; red wine has the highest alcohol content to begin with.
What flavor notes should we be looking for?
Jessica Selander: It’s definitely an American Cab. More fruit forward. It’s not grape juice. It’s fermented, it’s aged in American oak so you’ll get some green-ness to, like forest floor. The longer it’s been open the more tasting notes you’ll get. I like it more and more throughout the week because the fruit notes settle down. Black currant, cherry, some leather
The still rosé, watermelon, a nice floral to it.
Sparkling rosé. Slightly floral. Some orange blossom to it. Blackberry, but some people say raspberry. Some people say strawberry. They’re very summery
I think sometimes tasting notes feel in excess because we all taste things very differently.
Our audience is foodies. Let’s talk a little bit about some of your favorite meals that you think would pair that your favorite pairings with your wines
Jessica Selander: I bake. I come from a big family, so I can pretty much cook anything.
I heard someone say one time that baking was more science. And cooking was more art and I do agree with that.
Let’s talk about the wine competitions. How you see them, what the experience has been like, and of course, what their results have been.
Jessica Selander: I did not know that competition was as big of a deal as it is [which was a blessing]. So what happened was I was beating my head against the wall being like, “They taste like wine!” And my brother said, nobody believes you. You have to enter them into wine competitions. You need to prove to them in their own landscape that you belong there.
So, here’s this competition. The first one, the sparkling rosé won gold and sparkling white won bronze.
Then I looked deeper into what the competition was [and realized it was the acclaimed San Francisco International Wine Competition & World Spirits Competition ]. It was a blessing because I think I would have been scared to do it. Then [next year] I do it with the Still Rose and the Cab. Then hearing back, you’ve got the highest a non-alcoholic has ever gotten and you’re Still Rose is the best non-alcoholic wine of any varietal entered from all over the world.
I was only wondering if it was even going to place, and here it ends up winning the best.
I was at a grocery store [today] I’ve been trying to get into for two years where the head buyer won’t even try it. So it’s [frustrating] but the more of these awards that we stack up, at some point in time they have to not ignore it. They’ll be like, Oh, this is a real thing.
We haven’t [hit that goal], it’s not normalized yet. We’re in over 300 stores and in almost in every state.
If you want more non-alcoholic near you at a restaurant and grocery store, what are the step-by-step, simple direction
Jessica Selander: This is super easy for people.
So if there’s a grocery store or a local market that you shop at already, you just go into the wine department and say, “Hey, what non-alcoholic wine do you have?” And let them know you want it. Verbally say it
It’s the same thing in restaurants. I do it myself now too, where I get the menu and I’m not seeing what the stuff on it. And I just ask and say, Hey, what non alcoholic stuff do you have?”
Tell us how we can learn more about Joyus. Shopping and following on social media.
And on the website, there is this Find Joyus store finder map. So you can look on there and find us closest to you and working hard to add new stores pretty much weekly and email, email us. There’s a contact form on the website. Email. If you’re like, Hey, there’s a store by me. I want them to carry you. Email us. And we will call them and we will try, we’ll do our best and we’ll call them again three months later and we’ll call them again.
New York Wine Studio starts classes this October in NYC, Wine Expert Alan Tardi reveals why you need to Enroll
He’s worked as a chef, a restaurateur, a sommelier, a consultant to some of New York City’s biggest and best fine dining restaurants. He’s also written for magazines and publications, such as Wine Spectator, Wine and Spirits, Decanter, of course, the New York Times.
Today Wine Expert Alan Tardi visits us for a conversation about NYC, restaurants, Italian wine and his new classes starting this fall (October) at New York Wine Studio.
As a get to know you question for everyone out there who loves food and wine and spirits, but they don’t necessarily know your background so much.
You’ve been in the wine world, the hospitality world, the restaurant world for many years. Tell us about a celebration in your life that inspired you to join these industries?
Alan: Sure. First I should say that, when you introduced me, you said I was a chef and a restaurateur and all that’s true. But before I was a chef, I was a cook. And actually before I was a cook, I was a dishwasher. I took a little bit of a break from college and went to Europe and traveled around and then came back and wanted to come visit my sister in New York City.
And so I did. And I ended up staying. And at a certain point, I thought okay, I’m going to go back and finish my undergraduate degree, but I also want to get a job. So I walked into a place that could have been a shoe store or whatever. A gas station. But it happened to be a restaurant.
One of the new, the first restaurants in this area called Tribeca, when it was just starting to take shape and walked in there and said, ‘Hey, I’m looking for a job.’
The person who was in the back that they sent me back to talk to in the kitchen was washing the dishes. And he said, Yeah, I’m the owner. You want to wash dishes? Yeah, sure.
So I started washing dishes there in this restaurant. And then after a while I would, I became a bus boy on the floor. Then when I would come into work, oftentimes the kitchen was a little bit behind. So I would help them out. I ended up going to the kitchen while I was going to school at the same time.
For me, it was a job and while I was going to college in the village after my classes in the evening, I found this tiny little restaurant on Greenwich Avenue in the village called Chez Brigitte.
It was like a counter basically, they had two little tables on the side, but there was a counter there with maybe eight seats. And there was this French woman named Brigitte who was cooking food back there. I started to go there, so I didn’t go home by myself and have supper.
I started to get half bottles of wine from a nearby wine shop and took it to this place, Chez Brigitte. I spoke French. I was talking to the woman cooking there.That was a celebration for me, and I was there all by myself. I would go there after, after my schooling before I went back home.
So that was like a celebration. I would go there two or three times a week. And that was my own sort of really like dining. But it was very casual. It was an open kitchen. But that was my celebration factor. And then after I finished my degree I thought I’m actually into cooking.
I was cooking in this restaurant in Tribeca. And so I went and knocked on the door of a little restaurant in Soho, which was called Chanterelle. It was a legendary restaurant for about 25 years. And the woman, the manager, the wife of the chef, Karen Weltuck, and David Weltuck was a chef.
She hired me. I was the third person. Before that, there were two people in the kitchen. I became the third person in the kitchen doing Garde Manger. Then after six or nine months, I was promoted to he sous chef. So I went from a Garde Manger to the sous chef in this really legendary restaurant.
So that was my celebration.
The fact that you grew up behind the scenes in the back of the house makes me curious.
For a couple – whether it’s a date night, an anniversary or a business dinner,
do you have any tips for how to take that fine dining experience and make it really truly memorable
Alan: First of all, we talk about fine dining. To me, sometimes you have the best experiences in a very simple, very unpretentious place. When I was working at Chanterelle, I was there for a little over three years. Every August, the restaurant would close for the month and most of the staff would go off on a gastronomic tour.
I went with some of my colleagues to France two years in a row. We would go through all the three star Michelin restaurants. At that time, you had to write a letter in French asking for a reservation at a certain time.
You had to reserve ahead of time because you had three star Michelin restaurants, highly sought after. Three or four days a week we would be eating in these fancy restaurants, sometimes lunch and dinner. It’s crazy. But there would be the down days too, right?
When you’re just traveling somewhere, you’re going to a different part. Some of these meals were amazing, that it was a whole new world for me. You get the menu, all the service and the cheese and the wines and everything. It was a great experience.
On the off days, you would just find a place to eat. And sometimes we would go to a little aubergine. I remember one in Normandy, walking into this place. It was just a few doors down from where we were staying overnight, waiting for our next kind of big meal. We went to this little aubergine and they had the most banal dish, trout almondine, right?
Trout almondine. It was in Normandy, however. There were women in the kitchen, not men, and usually in these three star restaurants, it was all male at that point.
I realized that some of those down meal nights and simple places, they had no stars at all. You had amazing food.
The meals were on the same par as some of the best three Michelin restaurants I had. So that was an important distinction for me to make. When you’re talking about how to really create – whether it’s in a very simple environment or kind of more fancy – how to really make it special. I think it has genuinity.
Just being what you are and trying to take care of your guests as best as you possibly can. That can really make it very special. You need to have good food, you need to have good wine, you need to have good service. All of those factors play in. But the most important thing is really trying to take care of your customer.
And I think you can do the same thing at home, your customers, whoever’s coming to your home and you’re going to offer them something and you want to try to make it as special as you can, even if it’s just hamburgers, but that can be really great and memorable.
We’re going to stick with the restaurant for a second, but move toward the wine list.
What are some tips for someone who wants to have a nice bottle out at dinner and they just don’t even know where to start?
Alan: That’s a great question. When I had my restaurant I decided to take a certain approach to the wine program, which was to find the best regional wines that would really best accompany the food.
Many of them were wines that people were unfamiliar with, they were just not among the top 10 that people would go to automatically. This is some years ago when a lot of the wine lists in the restaurant were the most famous ones you see all over the place because people are comfortable with that. So sometimes it threw people off and they would ask questions. What is that? Don’t you have this other one that’s very popular and all over the place?
No, but we have this and – we didn’t always say this – but it’s actually much better and it costs less.
So people would try it. They would take a leap of faith and for the most part they always loved the wines, and they went very well with their food. Not only was I the chef and the owner but I was also the sommelier as well.
We tried to train the staff very well about the wines and inform them. We had monthly tastings with them so they could taste the wines.
If people were really interested, I would come out of the kitchen and explain, make a suggestion based on what they said they liked. Sometimes it’s very difficult for people to explain what they want, so you have to read into that a little bit, but it’s something that really worked.
I know you love Italian wine, you’re an expert in Italian wine. Are there some Italian wine regions that deserve more attention?
Alan: Absolutely. I love wine from all over the place. Initially I spent time in France, delving into the wine regions there and they’re amazing and superb. When I was working at Chanterelle after the two first years going to France and the three Michelin restaurants, the third year I said maybe I’ll go to Italy and just try that out.
When I actually went there, it totally blew my mind. We rented a little house outside of Siena and explored the area. We went to a fantastic restaurant and it’s still in existence, La Chiusa, in a tiny little village called Montefollonico.
That really blew my mind completely. Because it was in an old olive oil mill, outside of this tiny little village up in the hills. The food was both very traditional and also very kind of cutting edge. They were trying to expand a little bit, but there was a really great balance of that. I actually went back there to do a stage, a summer stage working in the kitchen.
What really blew my mind was the fact that everything there was local. It was right, very close to Montepulciano and I would go walk in the vineyards. A lot of the food they got was made from grapes in the vineyards outside the restaurant. And the cheese was the pecorino.
The cheeses in Tuscany were made locally and everything was from that particular area. This was long before farm to table.
So it was a tremendous experience and that was just the beginning because Italy has 20 different regions, each one of them very different.
We think of Italy’s being old, the ancient Romans and the Etruscans. That’s true. But Italy is a country just a little bit more than a hundred years old. 150 years old. It was formed in 1861 bringing together the Italy that was once where it was fragmented after the fall of the Roman Empire.
Up until that point, you had all these different city states that had their own language, their own identity, their own cuisine, their own architecture. And while it’s been now collected into one country, each region is very independent and different from one another.
It’s changing a little bit now. At one point the dialects were very strong. When I moved to Piemonte. In the village where I lived for over 12 years, when I moved there in 2003, most of the people – who are over 50 years old, spoke Piedmontese as their first language. They had gone to school, so they learned Italian, but they spoke Piedmontese whenever they could.
In Italy there’s an incredible diversity of different places within the country. And it goes into the wine. The wines are very different. The grape variety, there are more grape varieties in Italy than most any other place.
I appreciate how you fit all these areas together: the wine, the food, the identity of the people themselves. When people Google you, they can find a lot. Your videos, your books, your webinars.
What do you think is a tip to being a great speaker when it comes to food, wine, travel, these types of genres?
Alan: I feel like I’m very humble, especially when you’re talking about wine, there’s always something new to learn and it never really stops. So I’m learning too, as I go along..
I approach it as I want to learn about something myself. Then I want to explain it and talk about it to other people and fill them in on it as well, because it’s exciting for me it might be also interesting and exciting for other people.
The other thing is really trying to share that information in a meaningful way. I’m not trying to be an expert. I just want to share that excitement that I’ve felt myself.
Tell me how your background and the learning we’re talking about informed your decision to launch the New York Wine studio?
Alan: As you alluded to, I’ve been teaching for quite a while. All these things just happened almost organically. I didn’t say I’m going to become a restaurateur or a chef. I just started. From there, I really got interested in wine because there’s a very strong correlation between wine and food.
I got really interested in wine. I was doing a lot of panel tasting with Wine and Spirits magazine, whose office was very close to my restaurant. Josh Green, the editor there and a friend of mine for quite a while. At one point he said, Hey, do you want to write an article? I said, sure. So I started writing for them a lot and it just went into other venues as well.
Teaching is the same thing. I started giving presentations at wine conferences like Society of Wine Educators annual conference I started teaching around 2015 for the Wine Scholar Guild. I was teaching for about six years.
I’ve been doing it in many different forms. Italian Wine Scholar. French Wine Scholar and Spanish Wine Scholar as well.
I thought maybe it would be a good idea to offer this program, the IWS, Italian Wine Scholar program, in New York City. No one is doing it here. Why? Why is that? So rather than doing it online, I thought it would be really great to do it in person. Where you can actually interact with the students that are there rather than just having them in the background on a computer from many different places in the world.
So I wanted to offer that along with wine because that’s a very important component. Obviously, if you’re talking about wine and explaining different Appalachians and different growing areas and different winemaking traditions, it’s good to be tasting the wines while you’re learning about that.
I came across a place that was willing to host these presentations, a beautiful wine tasting area, right in midtown Manhattan, close to Grand Central.
In addition to the Italian Wine Scholar Program, to start things up, do four individual classes that are theme oriented.
Is it fall and spring, or what’s the schedule?
Alan: Right now we’re going to be starting this fall beginning in October, I want to ease into it. I’m not loading up an entire schedule of things, but I’m going to be offering part one of the Italian Wine Scholar program, because There are two parts to this certification program.
The first part of the Italian Wine Scholar program will be this fall. Six 3-hour sessions live in-person with wine once a week during October and November.
Then to add something else, in the evenings, we’ll be doing four courses. One in October, two in November, and one in December. Two hour courses with wine, as well, and they’re not regionally driven, they’re thematically driven.
The first theme class is going to be: the many faces of Sangiovese because Sangiovese is a grape variety, Italy’s most widely planted grape variety, and of course it’s very closely tied to Tuscany, where there are at least five major appalachians that really focus on that grape variety.So we’ll be showcasing 10 different San Gervasio based wines. Five of them from Tuscany and then other San Gervasio based wines from other regions that, that really featured that like Umbria and Marche and even up in the north, Romagna, which is part of the Emilia Romagna region. Emilia and Romagna are completely different places.
There will also be individual classes on volcanic wines, Appassimento wines, which are wines that are made from grapes that have undergone this drying process.
Then also sparkling wines, which I’m a big fan of. My second book was about champagne and I’m really deeply into champagne. It’s going to involve sparkling wines from three different countries.
It sounds like this might be the most in-depth Italian class you can find in Manhattan.
Alan: To be careful, I would say it is “one of”, the most comprehensive program in Italian wine anywhere.
This program has not, has never been offered in New York City. It’s kind of a first time for that. It’s very comprehensive. It covers all 20 regions, all of the significant Appalachians and there are many of them.
All of the significant diverse grape varieties and I say significant because it might even be a little bit more now in the Italian National Register of Grape Varieties. Many people think that there are more than 2,000 different grape varieties. They just haven’t been genetically defined before.
Because it’s so deep with knowledge, it’s great for trade. New York City is a huge foodie and restaurant dining scene.
Alan: If you want to have all these post nominal certifications, that’s good. Nothing wrong with that. The most important thing, however, of course is knowledge and understanding. that you can use if you’re in the trade.
The understanding, the awareness of wine that you can then transmit to your customers in a restaurant or to your customers in a wine shop where you’re selling to.
It’s a very comprehensive program, but you don’t have to be in the trade to do it. There are a lot of people who are just really fascinated and interested in wine. This is certainly a great comprehensive program for people who just are really fascinated by Italian wine and they want to learn more about it.
What are the goals for the New York Wine Studio? What’s the future for you? What’s the future for the studio itself?
Alan: For me, it’s this and I’m very excited about it. I like this sort of counterpoint between the really focused credential certification course with an exam at the end, and then the other ones that are more mixing it up and comparing / contrasting these different wine regions.
Next spring I plan to do Italian Wine Scholar Part Two. There’s also an introductory course, used to be called Italian Prep, now I think it’s called Italian Essentials. It is for people who aren’t ready to jump into a whole certification program with all that detail, but it’s an introduction to Italian wine.
I would also love to do the French Wine Scholar, along with some additional classes in the evening.
Tell us where we can find more. Websites? Social Media?
Alan: Check out the website www.NewYorkWineStudio.com. It talks about the programs, the IWS program with the schedule mapped out and the four individual classes.
Incredible Bordeaux wines from Chateau Haut Grelot leads the way with Julien Bonneau
Today Chateau Haut Grelot’s Julien Bonneau visited to talk Bordeaux winemaking, their legendary wine region, his family’s pioneering legacy, his favorite food and wine pairings.
Chateau Haut Grelot’s Julien Bonneau
Can you tell us a little bit about what inspires you about the wine business? Maybe a memory or wine celebration.
Julien: As you imagine in Bordeaux, or even in France, most of the wine business is a family business. It’s very father and a son or daughter. There’s always this kind of takeover.
Chateau Haut Grelot’s Bonneau Family
I grew up with my father and he was always into wine, tasting wine. ’Oh, you should smell the wine and making me discover the wine from when I was a very young child. And so I didn’t want to take over the company.
I didn’t wanna take over the story about the wine, but I had one weakness: I love wine actually. I like wine very much, so it was very hard to say no.
Chateau Haut Grelot
I don’t want to take over. But I like wine anyway. I went to business school. I went to New Zealand and England to learn the wine trade. It was a very nice experience.
Then I came back to the wine business and started again to make wine, to discover the wine business through the company. That was probably my first step. When you start taking a foot in the wine business, then you never go back.
Obviously, it’s a passion to grow and grow because making wine is like growing a child. You start from the vineyard and then you go to making wine and then to age the wine in barrels. Then you put it in a bottle just to show your wine to your customers.
Chateau Haut Grelot’s Julien Bonneau
Looking at your winery’s history. 1920, 1927 was a big year for your vineyard. 1975 was a big year for your father.
Can you tell us a little bit about the background of the vineyard? Up to the more modern technology your vineyard has pioneered.
I’m the fourth generation in my family’s wine business. So my grandfather used to have cows for breeding. Vineyards, asparagus, as well. So it was just a culture after the war.
My father started in 1978 and he focused on the wine business.
He wanted to make and grow quality wine. Very tasty wine. [His goal] changed a lot of things about the process of winemaking to develop very aromatic, long aging. So we started to make a range of wine: white wine, rosé, a bit sparkling as well.
He went to see the customer directly in the north of France, in Europe. He tried to sell directly and not through negociants. That’s the main story because in AOC Blaye which is north of Bordeaux on the right bank of the river, negociants were necessary through the distribution to sell the wine.
The big challenge was, ‘No. You don’t want to pay more for my wine, I’m going directly to the customer. I don’t want to go and to carry on sitting through a negotiation because you don’t trust me on quality wine and you don’t pay more for the wine. So we’ll stop sending to negociants. And go directly to the customer, private customers, wine shop, restaurant, wine importers.’
That was 1984 and 1985. It was a very different direction. It changed a lot compared to what happened in Bordeaux at that time. We started to control our distribution. From that time, he developed a lot of quality wine, he invested in new vineyards, bigger and bigger, and also buying some barrels and new equipment to make very good quality wine.
He loves saying ‘I was the first in 1990 to make green harvesting.’ Green harvesting is cutting some grapes in August. So one month earlier than the harvest to remove a bit of quantity and to make better quality. So he removed grapes in the vineyard to produce better concentration on the grapes left on the field.
That was his focus, it was an improvement in quality wine. From that time, we carried on. What I changed is, I make more wines, different wines, different quality wines. But still focusing on quality wine. I do more than 30 wines – different quality, colors, and winemaking process.
Let’s talk about your region, and how those elements inform the wines that you’re making?
Julien: We are located in AOC Blaye, north of Bordeaux, one hour driving up.
On the right bank of the river. So opposite to Saint-Estèphe, you have AOC Saint-Estèphe, you cross the river, the main river, and you are in AOC Blaye.
Where we are located we are mostly very gravelly. We have two types of terroir. For the red grapes Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec.
Gravelly soil to help have early harvesting and early maturation for nice harvesting. The second is more on clay soil, for the Sauvignon Blanc for the Semillon and Muscadet to make more powerful wine. Two very distinguished terroirs.
The climate is very moderate, oceanic influence but also very warm during the summer. We are very hot right now. It’s a very hot summer so that’s helped a lot to have very ripe grapes.
North of Bordeaux is quite hilly so it helps to have very nice exposure to the sun. For us, it’s very important to have ripe grapes. So we need to look for the sun and remove the leaves in front of the grapes. It helps to keep the freshness in the wine and still have very ripe grapes.
Let’s talk about your winemaking process.
AOC Bordeaux or AOC Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux, we have very strict rules. We need to have the vineyard on a hill. You need to respect 6,000 bottles per hectare of production.
Then we have nine months of winemaking before bottling it. So for us we make one year, even sometimes two years after, focusing more on quality wine.
AOC rules are just a basis. We try to make higher quality by aging and also to decrease the quantity of grapes per hectare to focus on sun contact for the grapes to have very ripe and very juicy grapes before harvesting. So we are very much challenging and controlling this aspect.
For example, in September, I walk every day, all my vineyards, just to check on the quality.
We try to get the aroma window. According to the evolution of the aroma on a grape, on a palate, we say ‘the window is there’, so we need to get it. It’s not only analysis from a laboratory, but it’s mostly from the palette. ‘How’s it taste?’
It’s the same as when you cook, you taste your sauce all the time.
Let’s talk about your wines. Can you talk us through some of the wines that you have?
Première Cuvée Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux
Première Cuvée Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux
Ruby red in the glass. Lovely nose with red berries, vanilla and spicy flavors. Very drinkable. Fruit forward with medium body. Well-balanced with long and aromatic finish
Château Haut Grelot Sauvignon Blanc Côtes de Blaye 2022
Château Haut Grelot Sauvignon Blanc Côtes de Blaye 2022
Classic Bordeaux blend: 90% Sauvignon Blanc, 5% Sémillon & 5% Muscadelle. Floral, crisp, elegant. Exotic fruit on the nose with grapefruit and wild herbs. Generous citrus on the palate. Full body, almost velvety with a decadent finish.
Perfect to pair with seafood, chicken, fresh salads and cheese boards.
Pin Franc Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux, red wine
Pin Franc Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux
Big gush of red fruit, red currant, raspberry, blueberry on the nose. Big body, well-balance. Very muscular with silky and structured tannins. A long finish.
Enjoy as an aperitif or pair with game, pigeon, lamb, turkey, or as a dessert with chocolate.
Chemin de l’Estuaire Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux
Chemin de l’Estuaire Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux
Powerful, bold, muscular. 100% cabernet sauvignon. A v ery special bottle, aged for 16 months in small oak barrels. A lush, velvety mouthfeel with medium tannin and a long, vanilla finish.
Boir Pour Voir 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux, Orange Wine
Boir Pour Voir 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux
100% Sauvignon Gris
On the nose, citrus and orange zest aromas. Light body, light tannin. A tart bitterness on the palette with medium finish. Enjoy as an aperitif, or pairs with hard cheeses and desserts.
Julien: We have a wide range of wine. But I’m going to start with…
[Première Cuvée Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux, red wine]
Which is very fruity wine. This one is more classic Bordeaux style.
For the white is [Château Haut Grelot Sauvignon Blanc Côtes de Blaye 2022].
For 90% and very fruity, juicy, very aromatic fruit, grapefruit, and also passion fruit and it’s very easy drinking very easy drinking, very crisp.
The red is 70% of Merlot, 30% of Cabernet sauvignon. Wine aging on the lees a bit just to bring a bit of fatness. Strawberry character.
Both wines are very drinkable. Don’t need to age too much. Lovely with sushi, seafood, tuna, all fish. It works pretty well with meat. So that’s my two first classic range of Bordeaux style.
Then I have Parfum, which is 100% Malbec. [Chemin de l’Estuaire Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux]. Fruity, easy drinking, not too heavy as Argentina wines or Malbec wine. It’s more of a freshness and very licorice character.
The Cabernet Sauvignon is aged in barrels for one year, very select grapes.
We make a very good balance between the fruit from the Cabernet and the barrels. From aging typical from wine. That’s two different wines which is this one a bit more on the liquorized fruit freshness side, and this one is very elegant.
Lastly is orange wine. Bois Pauvoir, which is a sauvignon grape. [Boir Pour Voir 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux]
The story of this wine was Bois Pauvoir. It’s orange wine. I never made it before, but I wanted to make a wine which says let’s try to see how it’s going. And that means in French, “let’s try, you will see.”
Going back to cooking, what are some of your favorite things to eat with these bottles?
Julien: I’ll say for Sauvignon Blanc, this one is lovely with tuna. Rare tuna. Even tataki tuna. It has a very fresh character, very nice acidity and it’s very well matched with tuna.
This is one who can match pretty much with many things, but if you like pasta with tomato. Easy drinking freshness. Very drinkable. Not too heavy and you have acidity in a tomato with pasta and that keeps your freshness.
It pairs well with game. I like pigeon with a side of onions. Even lamb is very nice. It works pretty well with white meat. You can say beef as well. Roasted beef on a barbecue with carrots and peppers.
That’s very long, which is very a bit unusual, but it’s lovely with cheese. Even with fish in tomato sauce. Sea bass or grilled octopus. Yeah, it could be a very nice match.
How can we find more about you and your wines?
It would be fantastic to go on Instagram and follow us and follow our story about how we try to develop in the U.S. You can also visit our website to learn more.
NBA Hall of Famer Tony Parker shares his dinner party secrets, favorite french summer escapes and the future of the Rose’ Revolution.
In his incredible basketball career, Tony Parker earned four NBA Championships with the San Antonio Spurs, was selected for six All-Star teams and named MVP of the 2007 Finals.
But these days, his passion for food and wine is keeping him even more inspired.
Starting as a boy growing up in France, the memorable dinner parties he hosted during his NBA days, his summer escapes to French Vineyards during the off-season.
It’s no surprise that now he diving into the French wine world, buying Château La Mascaronne in Provence with legendary business partner Michel Reybier.
A magnificent adventure for the next vintage of his life’s journey.
Château La Mascaronne Rose’ COURTESY OF CHÂTEAU LA MASCARONNE
Today I sat down with Tony Parker (over audio-only speakerphone) for a conversation about dinner parties, french vacation, getting busy in vineyards, and the future of Rose’ wine.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. The full conversation can be found on our YouTube channel.
Also, the podcast version is here:
You’ve been diving into the world of winemaking with Michel Reybier and his team. Can you talk a little bit about the adventure, any surprises or lessons?
It’s been amazing. I always wanted to invest in a project like that. The first time I tried wine was when I was 17 years old. I wanted to keep learning about it and get my knowledge better around the wine world. And so when I was 19, I finally made enough money to afford all those great wines.
I was lucky enough to play for a coach who loved wine, had a huge collection, was reading wine magazines every trip. And so that’s how we bonded. As I got better, in my knowledge of wine, I started to invite all the best [people] in San Antonio to come to do a nice dinner at my house with Coach Popovich, and then the next day I would invite them to a Spurs game.
Château La Mascaronne COURTESY OF CHÂTEAU LA MASCARONNE
Then during the summer I started making trips to the vineyard. I started to know them better. Because in the wine world, obviously, you have great families. They’re super passionate. And that’s how I started; working on my allocation and the good bottles, the Reserves.
Tony Parker and Michel Reybier – SEBASTIEN CLAVEL
When I retired I wanted to be more involved. But it’s very hard to invest in the wine business because it’s either in the family for generations and generations. Those big companies buy everything. And so I was very lucky, through mutual friends I met Mr. Reybier and after talking for six or eight months, we decided to become partners. Now I’m a proud Owner / Ambassador / Everything.
You mentioned the wine dinners you had in San Antonio. Just for us massive foodies, can you help us fantasize for a moment?
What kind of food was served? What kind of wines were poured? Can you take us back to those nights?
I had a private chef. My private chef would work with the vineyard. We tell them who’s coming, how many people, which bottles and what year they will send us.
Then they will work with my staff to make sure we make a menu accordingly, to make sure that everything is matched with what we are drinking.
So when the [dinner party] came to my house, we tried [the vintages] 1969, 1982, 2000 and 2009. It was unbelievable. Great bottles, great vintages.
And for me, I’m very lucky too because I’m born in 1982 and it’s one of the best years for wine, especially in Bordeaux. So every time I visit a castle in Bordeaux, the employees are always super happy because it’s a good opportunity for them, as the owner, to open an ‘82 [vintage].
Most of the time, they’ll come and say thank you to me, saying it’s [their] first time trying an ‘82 [vintage]. Because nowadays, they don’t open those 82’s a lot.
You’ve hinted at your sports background, obviously you have become a master. Is there any lesson that you mastered in sports that you’ve brought into the wine world with you?
The passion and the work ethic. Obviously in the wine world I will never try to be and talk like a Sommelier, they studied for that. Even if I have good knowledge and I’ve been working with vineyards. And I’m learning all the time, especially since I’ve been owning vineyards. I did Harvest. I did the assemblage. Which is when you try all the possible [options], and you decide what the wine is going to be.
Tony Parker and Michel Reybier – SEBASTIEN CLAVEL
I’ve been working with great directors. Our director is unbelievable. The director at La Mascaronne, she’s great too. And so for me, it’s been great knowledge, and a great learning process to learn even more about wine.
What inspired you to choose the partner with Chateau La Mascaronne?
When I met him, I knew he was huge in the wine business and obviously it brings a lot of credibility when you work with somebody like Michel Reybier because he’s been at this for so long and he’s the owner of one of the best wines in the world with Château Cos d’Estournel.
That’s how I knew him and that was big time. When he talked about La Mascaronne, he bought it from Tom Bove.
Back in 2006, when I started going on vacation every summer, I started drinking Rose’ with my brothers and my friends. We love rose’ in the summer.
That’s when Miraval took off. Brad Pitt bought it with Angelina [Jolie]. He bought Miraval from Tom Bove.
Tony Parker at Château La Mascaronne COURTESY OF CHÂTEAU LA MASCARONNE
So [I thought] if Tom Bove hit that property perfectly with Miraval, for sure [it can happen] with La Mascaronne, it’s just a matter of time before we can do something amazing.
What’s next for you as far as the wine world goes?
Our premium rosé just came out from La Mascaronne. Only 3,000 bottles.
We’re working on more premium one’s now. I think that’s where things are going with rose’s. All these big companies and all the knowledge that they get from the red wines is coming into the Rosé world, where the Rosé is going to get better and better.
For more information on Tony Parker and La Mascaronne:
Moscato d’Asti Brings Perfect Summer Flavors to Midtown Manhattan Lunch
A perfect welcome to the season as Summer truly begins.
On June 19, Consorzio Asti DOCG and Marina Nedic from I.E.E.M. hosted a masterclass and Moscato d’Asti DOCG tasting at Midtown Manhattan’s Il Gattopardo Ristorante
Cha McCoy led the discussion with: Giacomo Pondini, Director of the Consorzio Asti DOCG and representatives from the wineries: Luigi Coppa of Coppa, Stefano Chiarlo of Michele Chiarlo, Marco Dogliotti of La Caudrina, Gianpiero Scavino of Vignaioli Santo, Stefano Ceretto of Ceretto and Andrea Costa of Marenco.
Sommelier, Public Speaker, and Beverage Programmer Cha McCoy led the discussion with a panel of experts, including: Giacomo Pondini, Director of the Consorzio Asti DOCG and representatives from the wineries: Luigi Coppa of Coppa, Stefano Chiarlo of Michele Chiarlo, Marco Dogliotti of La Caudrina, Gianpiero Scavino of Vignaioli Santo, Stefano Ceretto of Ceretto and Andrea Costa of Marenco.
Consorzio Asti DOCG History and Importance
The Consorzio Asti DOCG was founded in 1932 for the protection, enhancement and promotion of their wines. Based on their efforts, Asti received the DOC in 1967 and the DOCG in 1993.
There are 6,800 producers with over 9,900 hectares of vineyards. Production reached 60 million bottles of Asti Spumante and 42 million of Moscato d’Asti, under the leadership of the Consorzio. Over 90% of the production is exported. Moscato D’Asti and Asti Spumante share the same DOCG.
Moscato d’Asti DOCG comes from Moscato Bianco (Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains) strain of grapes. One of the oldest known varieties of wine grapes and grows in the Piedmont regions of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato, a zone located between Italy’d Ligurian Coast and the Alps.
Moscato d’Asti is only slightly sparkling (called frizzante) and low in alcohol (5% ABV). It is vintage dated and suggested to be drank by the vintage date.
How Moscato d’Asti is produced
The technique for Moscato d’Asti has become known as the “Asti Method”. The fermentation of the grape juice is stopped earlier so that sweet wines do not lose their character and retain high sugar content. The method does not include secondary fermentation.
Moscato d’Asti is a wine that is can be enjoyed on its own or paired with desserts and appetizers from seafood to nuts and cheeses.
Tasting Incredible Moscato D’Asti
Today we were fortunate to taste through several examples of incredible Moscato D’Asti. With each on, aroma, tastes, and food pairing inspire your palette.
Moscato D’Asti “Moncalvina” 2022 Coppo
Moscato D’Asti “Moncalvina” 2022 Coppo
Moscato D’Asti “Moncalvina” 2022 Coppo. The vineyards are in Canelli. The wine is made from 100% Moscato Bianco di Canelli. The soil is calcareous marl and the vineyard is at 250 meters above sea level.
Straw colored with subtle green reflections. On the nose, floral notes along with peach and pear. Fresh, elegant and aromatic on the palate with a light fizziness. A great pairing for cakes, cookies, fruit based desserts.
Moscato D’ Asti “Nivole” DOCG 2022 Michele Chiarlo
Moscato D’ Asti “Nivole” DOCG 2022 Michele Chiarlo
Moscato D’ Asti “Nivole” DOCG 2022 Michele Chiarlo The vineyards are in the historical area most suited for Moscato Bianco. The soil is of sedimentary marine origin, white and sandy.
Brilliant straw yellow in the glass. Elegant, tropical fruit aromas with peach and apricot. Fine bubbles and a crisp finish. Excellent pairing with fresh pastries, add some strawberries and peaches.
Moscato D’Asti “La Caudrina” 2022
Moscato D’Asti “La Caudrina” 2022
Moscato D’Asti “La Caudrina” 2022 Azienda Agricola Caudrina The vineyards are located in Castiglione Tinella at 280 meters. The soil is marl-limestone and the exposure is south/southwest. Harvest is by hand.
The nose reveals notes of lemon, candied mandarin and subtle white fruit. The palate has a supple almost velvety mouthfeel. But a slight acidity provides balance with minerality. Candied white peach, white flower, orange blossom. Pair it with flaky desserts like tarts and strudels.
Moscato d”Asti “Vignaioli” Di Santo Stefano” 2022
Moscato d”Asti “Vignaioli” Di Santo Stefano” 2022
Moscato d”Asti “Vignaioli” Di Santo Stefano” 2022 Ceretto The vineyards are in Santo Stefano, Belbo, and Calosso at 300 – 350 meters above sea level. The soil is whitish loose marl composed of clay, sand and silt.
Straw-yellow. Vibrantly fruity nose which is aromatic and persistent as though it’s playfully tapping you on your chest to pay attention to it.. Beautifully balanced mouth with jasmine and honeysuckle, low alcohol, acidity, crisp freshness. Pair it with a flaky crusted pie or tart.
Moscato D’Asti “Scrapona” 2022
Moscato D’Asti “Scrapona” 2022
Moscato D’Asti “Scrapona” 2022 Marenco Vini. The vineyards are in Bagnari Valley and Strevi at 320 meters above sea level and the soil is calcareous marl. Grapes are manually selected and harvested at the beginning of September.
Intense straw yellow color. Delicate stone fruit nose with subtle balsamic hints on your second approach. The sweet, slightly viscous. Touches of almond on the finish. Pair it with nuts and soft cheeses like brie.
An incredibly afternoon of discovery and tastes thanks to: Consorzio Asti DOCG, Marina Nedic from I.E.E.M., Cha McCoy, Giacomo Pondini, Il Gattopardo.
DC is celebrating this summer, Give Champagne Jeepers a Taste.
It’s easy to fall in love with champagne. Life celebrations. Work success. Life’s best memories (hello weddings, anniversaries, babies, birthdays). If you’re ready to try a new champagne, this is for you.
Today we had the amazing opportunity to talk (via zoom) with Jeeper Champagne’s Camille Cox. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. For the full conversation, visit our YouTube channel.
Can you share a favorite memory where you celebrated with champagne?
Oh, there’s, God, there’s so many. I can’t even begin to tell you. But the one thing I can say is that you always should carry champagne because in victory you deserve champagne and in defeat you need it. That was Napoleon Bonaparte, if I’m not mistaken?
I think my most memorable toast with champagne are personal victories And, of course, business victories as you can imagine. I’ve been selling champagne for a very long time, and I can name a couple that come to mind. One of them a few years back was getting business at the Delta Airlines lounges. Putting another maison there. At the time, the house that I was working for at the time that was a big victory in itself. And just little victories in life each and every day. Every day is a celebration.
It’s all relative in how you look at it and how you live your life, but I think every day calls for champagne, to be completely honest with you.
I love that, ‘Everyday calls for champagne’. Jeeper has an interesting story behind it based on the end of World War II.
Can you give us just a very brief history lesson of Jeeper that brings us up to present day?
So, as you know, many champagne houses have great stories, and that’s the great thing about Champagne. Every Maison has their story and the fact that you get to go back and find out how it became is super fascinating to me.
When I had the chance to join Jeeper, I went back to look at the story. A family started making champagne in the 1800s. It had its heyday and then it floundered. It changed hands for quite some time. Then a gentleman by the name of Armand Goutorbe, who was working his family vineyards, had to be called to war and ended up in a house in an undisclosed location because everybody was fighting against the resistance at that time.
He happened to be holed up in a place with some American soldiers and they were being bombed and consequently they were all trying to help save each other’s lives. History tells us that Armand was a gentleman who took it upon himself to risk his own life, to pull some American GIs away from the building that was going to be bombed, possibly losing their lives.
In doing so, he impeded his leg and went back to looking over his vineyards in Champagne. The hills aren’t high, but they’re steep. His leg impeded his day-to-day operations. The US army got ahold of the story and some of the soldiers that he saved wanted to pay tribute to him and in all humbleness to thank him for saving their lives. So the US military gave him a Willie’s Jeep, and he rode around in the villages and he became known as “Mr. Jeeper Man”. Two years later, he said, I think I’m just gonna name my vineyards Jeeper. So there it was born Jeeper in 1949 because of a wonderful gift that the US Army bequeathed to him.
We still have the Jeep today on property.
Can we talk about the terroir of the region?
We are located in Faverolles et Coëmy, a commune near Reims in the north-west of the Champagne region. In the Montagne de Reims, the Côte des Blancs and the Marne Valley.
We are mostly a chardonnay house and we use Chardonnay as our primary grape.
We make eight different wines under the Jeeper label. We have two great certifications for being biodynamic and organic. Our flagship for the winery is our Blanc de Blanc. Our bottles are color coded in terms of the labels so that they stand out significantly to consumers.
That area has cool nights. A little bit of frost, but beautiful, pristine, crisp grapes from those regions, from the sub regions in Champagne. We own about 80 hectares. We don’t buy any grapes. We use our own grapes. We have the capacity to make 3.5 million bottles, but we hope to make more with some partnerships that we’ve kind of acquired.
Having Michel Reybier as a new partner with Nicholas, the current owner of and partner, who makes the wines too. Nicholas Dubois makes us stand apart from that we’re not right in the middle of Reims. We’re out there, believe it or not.
So when you come to Reims, you’re not gonna see us. You’re gonna have to get on the train or take a little cab and make it to Jeeper.
I love talking about process. Our audience is a mix of very basic drinkers up to connoisseurs.
So can you share a little bit of the process and how, how, what, what makes your champagne so unique?
What makes us a little bit more unique is a lot of champagne houses only use steel vats. We’re still kind of old school. We do use some Burgundy barrels. We have one of the biggest barrel rooms behind Krug and Bollinger. We have about 1200 barrels that we use. So for instance, our Grande Assemblage, which happens to be our brut non vintage, we age 20% of the chardonnay that we use in that blend for two years in used burgundy oak barrels and then we do the aging of the lees. We lay it down for about four years. So that’s two years for the 20% Chardonnay laying down for two years. Then the four years makes it a total of six years. So you get a totally different taste. There’s a little bit of maturity there with the oak barrels.
It’s something completely different. I’ve worked for houses that were stainless steel, so this is something new for me as well too. The aging process, there is some lactic, it just depends on which cuvee we’re speaking about.
Withholding our wines a little bit longer. We’re not big production, we’re not a grower champagne house by any means. We’re just over the hump as a boutique champagne house. We’re just getting started here in the United States. Our biggest production and where we sell the most champagne is in France.
But opening up the United States, it’s tough to build a champagne brand in the US, believe it or not. It’s super tough.
You have to find a way to differentiate yourself, what makes you stand out. I think that’s Jeeper having the name and the story and the total difference of not having stainless steel aging, and that we’re malolactic and that we do use oak barrels in some of our cuvee’s.
One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is a few weeks ago when I had the chance to actually taste through the bottles, they did have such a unique taste.
So let’s talk about the actual bottles.
I’ve mentioned the Grande Assemblage, which is our brut non-vintage. It’s a green label, and I just told you a little bit about that. But the one that is our flagship is our Blanc De Blanc.
I think our bottles are beautiful. We have a patent on the bottle. People notice how easy it was to take off the foil.
So there’s still a little label underneath the foil that says Jeeper, which is kind of neat for us and it speaks volumes because it doesn’t leave you a mess or end up getting paper cuts from the foil cuts.
The Blanc de Blanc is big, full-bodied, rich. Also super elegant. It’s clean. It’s crisp, even though it has a big mouthful.
Our champagnes are the categories in the last 7 to 10 years that have really ended up getting some traction. I think people are walking away from the norm. They’re walking away from big commercial houses because they wanna see what else is out there.
Their curious is curiosity’s sake and I think it’s really helped the champagne business. I think the champagne business has always been cyclical, but in the last 7 to 10 years, it’s really gotten a hold and people are really embracing champagne to great success
Because there’s so many beautiful wines out there, so many different styles and so many cool things that you can learn. I think the more the people, because of the terroir, I always say that champagne is a reflection of the mood of the terroir.
Champagne, the terroir from where we are, its chalky soil limestone. It lends itself to so many different characteristics in the wine. We’re not a big vintage champagne house. 2008 was probably one of the best vintages of the century. It was gone in a flash. With our 2008, we age it for 12 years on the lees. It’s 88% Chardonnay and 12% Pinot Noir. So there’s that wonderful characteristic and it has a little maturity on it, a little oxidation.
I’m a vintage champagne girl and a no dousage champagne girl so this one fits the bill for me, but it may not be for everyone’s taste profile.
I can always tell at the beginning when I’m doing a tasting with the two lead wines that you start off with in Champagne, what someone is gonna like in the rest of the range. It never fails me. It’s always about 95% full proof.
It’s so subjective. The 2008 for me is interesting. We’re getting ready to release a new release of Blanc de Blanc coming in May, which I’m super excited about. It’ll be no dousage.
We also now have a partnership, as I mentioned, one of our owners, Michel Repier. There’s a gentleman by the name of Tony Parker, who’s a former four-time NBA champion. A hall of famer. I was just with him a couple weeks ago. Super, super person. He told us his story about where he came from and how much he loves gastronomy. He’s French. A lot of people don’t realize that. He’s from Lyon, and I’m sure the Parisians would beg to differ, but Lyon is supposedly now the gastronomy capital of Paris. So we have him as an ambassador; a gentleman who really loves wine and is very enamored with it, wants to roll his sleeves up.
He’s helped us with our Rose project that we have in Provence, but helping me with Jeeper as well. It’s a great collaboration. It’s been great for me, for the brand, for helping us build the brand here in the US because we’re building our distribution network.
Which is not an easy thing to do, as I can tell you having done it for many years. So we’re looking for new partners that want to build a brand with us who we want to be on the ground floor with. I feel like the people that bring you to the party are the people you need to stick to.
It’s easy to be a fair weather friend, but I am all about loyalty and building a brand with someone. And making it happen. The wine business is exploding, so there’s a lot of opportunities out there. It’s just finding our niche and letting people know the story and taste the wines.
I don’t know that champagne gets enough love when it comes to food. Let’s talk about food pairings.
A previous maison I worked for didn’t want us to suggest pairing champagne with chocolate or strawberries. I think that fallacy of Pretty Woman when she’s having her “floor picnic” as she called it in the movie. She’s drinking champagne and having strawberries – they are very acidic. But I think it’s really what you want to do.
Do I think it’s the best pairing? Absolutely not.
I’ve gone through this with many chefs in the past where I’ve asked them not to use chocolate or strawberries, and [while they weren’t happy with that] luckily they did talk to me at the very end of it, but they weren’t very happy. But there’s so many great things out there that you can pair champagne with and the new thing is, Champagne and chicken fried chicken.
As a southerner, I’m a fried chicken lover. It’s an incredible pairing.
I also think sea salt potato chips with a non-dosage champagne are absolutely fabulous. But let’s look at the classics. What about ratatouille from France? You know, something that you don’t really ever think about. It’s always the ones that are there that you can think about.
Gratin potatoes are an amazing pairing if you’re a big potato lover as I am. It’s just great. So I think the sky’s the limit depending on what it is you’re drinking. Of course, no dosage champagnes aren’t gonna be great with everything. I also love Dim Sum and champagne, to be completely honest with you.
So all the pairings that are non-traditional, if you will, kind of thinking outside the box. Really making it an opportunity to see: where you can take it? Are you gonna push the limit? I’m all about pushing the limits on a lot of things. Nobody should be chastised for that on any level.
So if somebody likes what they like, they like what they like. I think the traditional [concept] many years ago: Are you having chicken for dinner? You can only have white [wine]. I love the fact that that’s out the door now.
People learn more and more about wine every day. They’re so enamored with it. I think the pandemic gave us all an opportunity to stop, take a minute, take a breath, slow down, maybe enjoy things or get into things that we didn’t have the time to do. I think gastronomy is one of them.
People now love to make food at home. People love to drink wine at home. We saw that with the pandemic. There’s a lot of opportunity, everywhere you look. I like the classics. I’m a foodie.
But I love food and I think drinking it the way you want to drink it and the way you want to enjoy is paramount. Paramount. I don’t think there should be any rules put around that on any level.
As everyone’s hearing the Jeeper story and getting to know your bottles, what can our audience do for Jeeper Champagne?
Helping Jeeper is to buy some [bottles] where we’re distributed. Give something new a chance. Wherever you buy wine, take an opportunity to just treat yourself to something completely different because you never know what’s gonna happen.
It could end up being your favorite wine and you just don’t realize it. Expand your opportunity and your horizons, and that’s what life is all about.
Think outside the box. Live a little, okay. You, you bought a bottle, but there’s some great champagnes out there that are really economical. We know we’ve taken a little bit of a price increase, but treat yourself, you’ll be glad that you did. I think it, it expands your horizons and makes you see so many other things you didn’t see
Where can we find Jeeper Champagne on social media to follow?
Oregon Wine shares incredible new vintage with Winemaker Aaron Lieberman from Iris Vineyards
Sure, Oregon Wine is world-famous for its Pinot Noir. And rightly so, as the area produces incredible expressions of the varietal. But that’s not all they can do.
Award-winning winemaker Aaron Lieberman wants the world to taste and discover all of the incredible wines from the area including Iris Vineyards’s new Pinot Gris which has won acclaim several years in a row.
Today, Winemaker Aaron Lieberman from Iris Vineyards sits down over zoom to talk about his inspirations, his favorite wines, food pairings and what’s next for Oregon Wine.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Find the whole conversation on our YouTube channel.
There’s so much to go over with you because you’re in a great area of Oregon.
Last year we had the privilege of covering the 2022 McMinnville Wine Classic, your Pinot Gris won Best in Show and Best White varietal.
According to press announcements it’s the first time ever for a Pinot Gris. What was it about that bottle and that year that brought you so much acclaim?
The vintage we won that on was the 2020, and I think our Pinot Gris is fairly consistent. So I actually personally felt that the 2021 vintage was better than the 2020. What I think is going on there is that in our growing area Southwest of Eugene we have our vineyard in what’s called the Lorane Valley. We’re a relatively high elevation vineyard compared to the rest of the Willamette Valley. We get a lot more hang time on our Pinot Gris, which allows more flavor development and preservation of acidity, as well as slower and lower accumulation of sugar.
So we ended up with a higher acid, lower alcohol wine that’s very expressive in terms of fruit flavors.
I wanna let our audience know a little bit about your background and what brought you to where you are today. Your education in soil and winemaking, but I hope you’ll touch on your Peace Corps time, and your work in Guatemala with soil education.
As I was finishing up my Bachelor’s Degree at Oregon State University, I became involved with a couple of different grad students, helping them with their research projects, basically. At the beginning of my junior year [I had already] switched my major from Pre-Vet to Crop and Soil Science.
So the projects I was working on with these grad students involved soil research. One of these grad students had been in the Peace Corps and talked about it frequently and also had a professor who had been in the Peace Corps. They both inspired me to look into it and do it.
I ended up going to Guatemala. The project I worked on was called Corn and Bean Seed Improvement and Post Harvest Management. We were trying to counteract the invasion of commercial corn seed into Guatemala and Latin America. It’s replacing the land raise varietals or the traditional varietals of corn. We were working with those traditional varietals to improve their performance in the field by selecting the plants that were growing well and were the most disease resistant.
The program started four years before I got to Guatemala, so I was the third volunteer and we were really showing some really good results.
Something I love about winemaking is such a mix of science and magic, or science and artistry. And it sounds like science is very strong with your background and the magic that you bring to the bottle.
Yes, I would agree with that.
So let’s switch back from Guatemala. You’ve got some great soil types. Let’s talk about how you use the soils in your region to bring such delicious flavor, characteristics and aromas.
In our vineyard, we do have some Jory soils, and I think most people who know about the Willamette Valley know that Jory is the preferred soil in the region particularly for Pinot Noir.
Our vineyard is dominated by Bellpine soil. Bellpine is kind of an analog of Jory, but it’s formed in sedimentary rock rather than basaltic rock or volcanic rock. So there’s some significant differences in the chemical makeup of the soil that contributes to the flavor difference in our Pinot Gris compared to some others.
The last time I visited, what I heard overwhelmingly from the winemakers is you have to be okay with inconsistency year after year.
I want my wines to represent the area that they’re from and the varietal from which they’re made and different weather during each growing season as part of that representation.
So based on the weather and the level of ripeness of the fruit and what we’re tasting in the grapes before we bring them in, we will make some adjustments to how we do the vinification to try to push it in one direction or another, to be at least somewhat consistent.
Let’s talk about the wines themselves.
Let’s start with the Pinot Gris. The comment I hear the most is white peach. That’s new. I usually hear pear, red apple peel, quite a bit of citrus.
Commonly I get stone fruit comments on our Chardonnay. Whether it’s our still Chardonnay or our Blanc de Blanc.
Then there’s the Brut Rose, the Pinot Noir 2021, the House Red Blend. A lot of people will remember 2020 and how that vintage went for us. I refer to that year as the worst year of my life.
Let’s talk a little bit about what made it such a bad year.
We had beautiful weather during bloom. I started to feel like it was going to be a really great vintage. We’re seeing a really modest crop load and smallish berries, which leads to more fruit forward. Right around Labor Day, the major fires started. Smoke came into the valley for about two weeks which was extremely disheartening.
In the Willamette Valley that was really our first experience with that level of damage to the fruit. So a lot of people were scrambling, worried, and ultimately didn’t produce Pinot Noir in 2020.
We made less than we had planned. We applied some techniques to mitigate the smoke effect.
Can we talk about what you did to mitigate?
Well, there are two things that helped the most. One, we sent some grapes to California to go through a process called flash. It’s a kind of thermovinification method where the must is heated to 80 degrees celsius and then pumped into a vacuum chamber that boils at a much lower temperature. The water and the skins of the grapes “flashes” to steam in the the vacuum chamber. That steam carries away a lot of bad things. Those things are responsible for the bulk of the smoke effect that you might find in a wine.
Then following vintage and some aging, we did some reverse osmosis to remove the smoke effect from the rest of our wine.
At the tail end of vintage, I had surgery for appendicitis. As I was about recovered from that, I got covid right at the end of 2020.
Fortunately ’21 and ’22 were very similar to 2020 and how the vintage started and ended up, we had some really beautiful fruit and beautiful wines. I’m really excited about ’22 based on what we have in barrel right now.
Some people approach wine from a food and wine pairing point of view. I’m not sure if you are a chef or a home cook, but do you have any suggestions for great food pairings for some of your bottles?
I think with our Pinot Gris, I really enjoy seafood.
It’s really good with salad. Brut Rose, I always say if you’re making a dinner and you’re not quite sure what wine to serve with your dinners sparkling wine is always a a crowd pleaser. It’ll go with dishes from salad to steak or pizza. The acidity of sparkling wines makes them really versatile in any kind of food. Fatty foods in particular pair well with more acidic wines, kind of a palette cleansing.
For our Pinot Noir, traditional pairings like salmon and chicken.
When you’re going through a year, from growth to harvest, what are the traits or elements that get you excited saying it’s gonna be a good year?
Last spring we had a couple of fairly severe frosts after bud break and it was an interesting year because of that. We ended up, to everyone’s surprise, with a vintage that was quite nice and yields that were not really affected by the frost. The vines bounced back with their secondary and tertiary buds set fruit, set a really good crop. We got a nice batch of wine out of it.
If we get into harvest in the rainy season, sometimes your hand is forced and the grapes start to get ripe, the skin softens an they become more susceptible to botrytis and other bad things that you don’t want.
But ’22 was nice. We weren’t really forced right up until the end. Around October 20, we had the first big rainstorm come in. 20% of our fruit still hanging. We brought most of it in before that big rain.
But I think we had really good ripeness even at that point.
You’ve been doing in-person and zoom wine tastings, do you have a favorite part of that wine tasting process?
My favorite part, without a doubt, is just when I see somebody tasting my wine and the look on their face shows me that they’re really enjoying it. That’s a big reason why I’m in this industry, what we do makes people happy.
Do you have a certain memory of including either your wine or someone else’s wine in a great celebration?
Several memories. My father and I had a wine business of our own from 2002 to 2015. [A few years in] we had a celebration at a steakhouse in Portland. I ordered a Puligny Montrachet off the menu. I still remember that wine quite vividly and how impressive it was. That changed my mind about chardonnay in some ways.
In Oregon, there’s a lot more chardonnay coming out of the Willamette Valley now is a good thing, but it’s still been an uphill battle for producers to get that chardonnay wine passed the gatekeepers, the distributors.
You go to a distributor and they’re like, “Everybody drinks California Chardonnay or white burgundy. They don’t know about Oregon Chardonnay. And when you say Willamette Valley, everybody thinks Pinot Noir, which is great. But we’ve kind of pigeonholed ourselves with that. There are a lot of other nice things that can come out of this valley like Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. So we have some work to do on the marketing and publicity to let people know.
Any lessons your winemaking team has learned this past vintage that you can share?
I think that happens every year. Let’s not assume that I know everything because I learn stuff every year as well.
One of the things that I really stress with people who are working for me during harvest, is the importance of fermentation temperature.
It’s with white wine, with aromatic whites in particular. You really have to keep the temperature under control. Yeast likes to get hot and ferment fast, so you have to keep those ferments cool, whatever the method is if you’re in stainless with jacketed tanks or if you’re in barrel and you’re taking the barrels outside at night or wetting them down to keep the temperature down. It’s super, super important.
With the white wines, you get a temperature or a fermentation that’s too hot and you end up with a wine that’s like generic white wine. It doesn’t have varietal character left in it, that’s something I stress a lot.
Then when you talk about red wines, the style of red wine that you’re making is so dependent on a lot of things, but temperature is a big thing. So if you do a cool ferment on a red wine, you’re going to have a red wine that’s fruit forward and aromatic, but it’s not going to be very extracted. It’s not gonna have a big tannic backbone to it. In that way it would be out of balance.
Like with our Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, we do a couple of different fermentation methods that end up having different peak fermentation temperatures and then we blend them together to get a wine that is crowd pleasing, easy balanced. So one of my big things is temperature.
Are there any topics in winemaking that you wish got more attention?
The fact that I don’t do this alone. If I didn’t have a team behind me doing the right thing and supporting production in the winery, starting with our vineyard and our vineyard manager, who is amazing, grows amazing fruit, all the way through to the marketing team selling the wine or promoting the wine and the sales team selling the wine. I think it’s really important for people to understand that it’s really a team effort. I’m the winemaker, I get the publicity, I get the recognition but there’s no way I could do it by myself.
I’m sure you talk to young winemakers all the time. Is there one huge piece of advice you would give a young winemaker from all your experience?
A big thing would be, and I’ve made this mistake when I was a young winemaker, if you’re about to do something to a wine and you think you know what you’re doing, but you’ve never done it before, make a phone call.
Ask another winemaker that maybe has had the experience and has done that. You’ve got a 5,000 gallon tank of wine and you’re gonna do some kind of adjustment that you’ve never done before. Get some information first.
Building network, building community, reaching out to those with either more experience or more diverse experience.
Yes. And in most wine regions, it is a community and people are happy to share their information to help the next guy out. Because ultimately, if we’re all making really good wine in the Willamette Valley, that enhances our reputation as a region. So I think it would be a big mistake for us not to share information.
Let’s talk about where people can find more information.
On Iris Vineyards website and social media. Our website is IrisVineyards.com and our handle on every social site is @IrisVineyards.
So thank you again for your time, and it was, it was great to have this conversation.
Summertime is hot weather, light meals and adventures outside. All of which pair incredibly well with white wines.
That’s why Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen decided to write a book featuring 1000s of white wine grapes that wine lovers should try. Some are very common, some are very obscure. But they’re all worth a taste – seriously.
Mike DeSimone, Jeff Jenssen’s new book White Wine Book
Today Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen sat down (over zoom) for a conversation about wine, travel, food and more!
Note: the below interview has been edited for length and clarity. The full interview is available on YouTube, with clips in this article.
We’re talking about your new book “White Wine” today, available now on Amazon and we have a lot of questions. But first, welcome to the conversation and thank you both for being here.
Thank you. Thank you. We’re thrilled to be here.
For anyone who’s new to wine, these two are absolute wine GOATs. They’re the experts. They’ve written some great books in the past, and their new book is absolutely amazing. Over the past week I’ve had the chance to show it to a lot of people in my life and what I’ve loved about it is everybody from the wine geek all the way down to people who are barely wine drinkers, have all found really interesting reasons to love the book.
In the book you mention the word “invitation” several times. You include casual tasting instructions, the food pairing index, the white wine checklist. You do such a good job of making the wine approachable.
How important was it when you were building this book, the idea of making it approachable?
Wine always is very mysterious to people. And it doesn’t have to be. We really believe it. It’s kind of like our mantra. Open up a bottle of wine, sit around a table together, and there’s some conviviality and communal, you know, and, and communality in that bottle. So when you sit down in a circle and you’re having a glass of wine together, all of a sudden, we’re not so different.
So one of the things that we really wanted to speak to is to make wine approachable. One of things I really appreciate what you just said, is that people from all levels, from wine geeks to wine novices, we specifically set out to write this book with enough information that the geek will be really happy and enough information to intrigue the novice to wanna learn more.
We’ve always said this is the kind of book that you would buy for your Dad who happens to like wine, or you would buy it for yourself or buy it for a girlfriend or a buddy that wants to learn more about wine.
But I will tell you that we’ve been honored; our last book, Red Wine (amazon.com), was actually suggested reading list for people who were studying to become Masters of Wine. So we wrote this book with that idea in mind because we’d like this book to be a reference for Master of Wine students.
I think a lot of people may not realize just how much wine you might taste in an average year.
When we are tasting wine, whether it’s for a book like this and we’re trying to decide what gets include, or when we’re writing our articles, it’s very easy for us to open up 30 bottles in a day.
But there’s also traveling, going to wine regions, and walking into a winery and visiting four wineries a day where people can pour you anywhere between 3 or 4, up to 20 glasses.
One of the things that we have to make a distinction is how much wine do we taste and how much wine do we drink.
Because when we taste wine, we may open 30 bottles, but you just have a sip, you swirl it around your mouth, you get your impression, and then you spit it out. So you can actually taste 30 or 40 wines in one sitting. The alcohol that you actually absorb in your mouth is probably equal to one glass of wine.
We really have to maintain our wits about us when we’re writing books and tasting notes. And then out of those 30 wines, we’ll choose one or two to put in the fridge and drink with dinner.
So the difference between drinking the wine and tasting the wine is a big difference. Our neighbors absolutely love us because we have these bottles with [2 inches] out of it and put the cork back in and give it to them. So they’re very, very happy. But I think one of the things that we had to do for this book is taste.
There’s about 2,000 recommended wines. I’m gonna say we we tasted close to 5,000 [wines]. Not everything made the cut.
That’s incredible. So speaking of those 5,000, how do we prevent palette fatigue?
One thing for both of us is we both drink sparkling water.
Also, we eat very simple things just to clear the palette, wipe some of the tannins from it. We’ll eat sliced baguette or plain water crackers. That kind of thing. Also, try to break it up. Don’t drink the same style of wine over and over, because you’ll stop noticing the subtleties between them.
It’s training too. I can’t run a marathon tomorrow because I haven’t trained for a marathon, but I can taste 30 wines or 40 wines tomorrow because I’ve trained my palette to discern the differences. So it’s kind of like an athlete, it has to do with training to prevent fatigue.
So staying on the idea of tasting for a second, how do we talk to a winemaker? Any tips for a less-experienced wine drinker?
One of the first, and an easy question to ask, is how much did you make of this wine? Because that actually gives you an indication of how special the wine is, right? If somebody says, ‘Oh, we make a million bottles of this every year.’ Maybe it’s not so special.
If they say, ‘Oh, we only made 2,000 bottles of this and it comes from one special vineyard, that sometimes opens up the question of how special it is.
Another question is, if it’s a blend, if it doesn’t say on the bottle that it’s Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio, and you just know that it’s a white wine, you can ask what grapes are in this.
But people who visit wineries should ask questions. Take that as an opportunity to learn. Read the book White Wine, get some knowledge, and then you go to a winery, go out to California, go to New York State, go wherever you go, and visit a winery and talk to the winemaker and talk to the people who are responsible for making the wine. They’re very generous with their time. They want you to be informed and they want you to enjoy their wine. So do your homework and then learn some more in person, and then go back and read our book again, because you’ll learn a little bit more.
Your White Wine book is a mammoth undertaking. There’s a lot of information in there. How did you create all of this?
I think actually we were lucky in that we’d already written Red Wine. We worked with our publisher. We actually walked in, knowing that some of our prior books were a little bit text heavy, and said, ‘Hey, we want to do some graphics. For the flavor profile, there might be a picture of a peach and a rose and a lemon. For the food pairing, you’ll see a little plate of pasta and a pig and a steak.’
We worked with the same editor again. We had the structure already so that was a blessing.
When our editor came to us and said we want to publish this book, we were so excited. But then we looked at each other and said, we don’t have a lot of time to write this book. Let’s let, how, how are we gonna do this? You know? So we divided and conquered.
If you love wine, you’re gonna love this book, whether you’re a novice or above.
My old boss used to tease me because back then I enjoyed white more than red. Why doesn’t white get the respect that red does?
You know, you’re very right. We had to fight for this book.
I’m an equal opportunity white wine and red wine drinker and rose, because there are wines for different occasions. Sometimes when you’re having a big heavy steak, you want a red wine, but a lot of times we’re trying to eat lighter, more vegetables, lighter cuisine. It’s summertime now. Lighter white wines really go with those foods.
There’s so many grapes in this book. Is there one lesser-known grape that you want the world to know about because it’s an amazing discovery?
We have a holiday coming up this weekend. By the time this is posted, it will just have passed. This coming Sunday is International Pošip Day, and Pošip is a wine from coastal Croatia. It grows in Dalmatia and on some of the islands. It’s this wonderful, delightful, fresh, crisp, citrusy white grape from Croatia that we don’t see a lot of in the US. It’s in more major urban markets. It’d really worthy of attention.
Were there any unexpected surprises as you created this book?
When we did Red Wine, we did single varieties and regional blend styles, like Rioja which can have three or four different grapes in a bottle and Bordeaux can be up to six different grapes. That actually includes sparkling wine we covered in Red wine.
We covered only nine regional blend styles and 41 single varieties in White Wine. I just did account. I believe we have 14 regional right grape styles. So things like White Bordeaux, White Rioja fall under a style that’s not necessarily one grape.
Is there a message that you haven’t been asked that you would love to share with a wine loving audience?
You can always learn something. Keep learning, keep asking questions.
Sometimes there are some really interesting questions that people come up with.
We are wine experts, we’re authors of six wine books now. We write for different publications. We’re mast head at two different magazines, so we really kind of know what we’re talking about, but we don’t know everything.
So, being able to understand that and admit that, wine is a continuous, ongoing journey and learning about wine is what makes it very exciting. So I’m really happy to have been on the journey so far and I hope have a lot more years on this journey to learn more about wines I’ve never tried.
So thank you so much for your time. Tell us where to find you, where to follow you, your social media websites.
We are on Facebook and on Instagram as World Wine Guys. We have a website, www.WorldWineGuys.com for a lot of our articles and videos we’ve done over the last 13 -14 years.
Go to www amazon.com and put in three words, white wine book, it’ll pop up.
And then as you scroll down under, ‘Usually bought together.’ It’s our white wine book and our Red Wine book.
We’re not the beginning and the end of wine knowledge. There are so many of our colleagues that we respect deeply. So there’s a lot to learn from everybody.
All I can say is that’s what we’d like for people to learn more, enjoy wine, open a bottle of wine with your family and friends and you know, we kind of drop all of our guards, we drop all of our pretenses and the world will be a lot better place.
