4:58- Class is approximately 30% full. I imagine most people are either tucked into bed with a nice bottle of Chianti or out on the drillfield preparing for the snowball fight. Boyer is not here yet.
5:49- I lied. He just walked on stage. And some student just hopped on stage to talk to him about wine, probably. People are lining up to share stories and laughs.
5:01- CLASS BEGINS YAY
5:01.5- He offers to let us go to the snowball fight. I hope he doesn't. I want to learn. Apparently Presidents Sands will be there.
5:02- Some guy bought an 89-scored wine for like $8. He's incredulous, and Boyer calls it bull-hockey. Rating systems are relative, and "If you're like me, you don't give a shit about them!" -Boyer
"Obviously, it's marketing" -Boyer
Most places won't even list their scores unless it's an 88 or higher, which really makes the whole system stupid. 90% of wines are rated 88-92, so what difference does it make?
The Boyer 3 Point method
0- Undrinkable. Flawed wine. "It's simply unpalettable, it leaves a nasty taste in your mouth" -Boyer
1- Everything else.
2- "I want more of that stuff. If a bottle of 2 is open, I will drink it all. I will not want to share it, if it's at a public function I will try to steal it." -Boyer
Apparently, he shared this method with Gary Vay-Ner-Chuck, and Gary made fun of him for it. I say go Boyer, Gary gets on my nerves.
Daily Knowledge Fact! Legally, you can't sell alcohol for less than you bought it. (Retailers)
"I should've recorded that, that was a pretty good rant." -Boyer
5:12- "How can you tell which wine to buy that will be good to age for 1- to 12 years?" You just need to do your homework.
At our age and our budget, if we want to start buying wine to age, start with the Rhone region. Chateauneuf du Pape, etc, those wines will buy relatively inexpensive and age for a while. Good stuff.
For example, Bordeaux- the grapes harvested in 2014 are of that year's vintage. Right now, they're sitting in vats or about to be put in oak barrels. By 2016, they'll hit the shelves, but they'll still be very young. You can buy them and sit on them.
"It's like anything else, it's an investment." -Boyer
By the way, New Money in China has been buying up all of the Bordeaux wines even before they've been produced. The prices for Bordeaux are going to be inflated for the next decade or so. So, switch to a different region for a while.
Gruner Veltliner (overwhelmingly made into a white table wine)
Regions: Austria (King Grape), Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Australia, New Zealand, Oregon, New York
aka Cooler growing regions
Flavor Profile: LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT crisp, fruity, citrus/peach, mineral, stone, flinty, subtle white pepper, herby, veggie-ish... etc. Acidic.
"You CAN'T spend a lot money on this. You can seek out and try, but you can't do it." -Boyer
"I'm a big fan, especially in the summer time. They're good with sausages, too. Dammit, I'm hungry now. WHY do I always do this with you people? OK, class dismissed." -Boyer
Cooler regions mostly grow white grapes, because red grapes need a longer growing season than a cold area can manage. You see reds coming from much warmer places.
Do cold regions make drier wines? Not necessarily. It's entirely up to the wine maker. Any region, any grape, it's done during the fermentation process and the wine maker has the ability to kill the yeast and control the dry/sweet toggle bar.
Cabernet Franc (Parent grape to Cab Sav)
Regions: Bordeaux (France), Loire (chinon, France), Italy, Hungary, California, Washington, Virginia, New York, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand
Flavor Profiles: Much lighter than it's bold-bodied cousin, Cab Sav. Herbal! Tobacco, black currant, plum, raspberry, bell pepper, licorice, asparagus, cassis, cedar, smoke, briar (a kind of woody/herbaceous sensation that is distinctly NOT oak), pencil shavings, black olive... contributes finesse and lends a peppery perfume to blends with more robust grapes
Each state in the US has at least 2 wineries. Even Alaska and Hawaii. And in most places that aren't tropical, every country state has started getting into wine making and grape growing (even the middle east)
"Cabernet Franc is Virginia's best grape. Cab Franc does quite interesting things in VA that it doesn't do elsewhere on planet earth." -Boyer
It has unique herbal components that aren't present in Cab Francs from other places around the world.
"You should start doing this now that you're in wine class. Go outside and randomly pick up shit and eat it. Like gasoline. I've drank gasoline. I've actually tried diesel to see the difference between it and gasoline." -Boyer
VOCAB!
Varietal wine- overwhelmingly made of one grape
It takes about a million bucks to start a winery. It takes 5-7 years to get a full crop of grapes, and you don't know if they're good until then. At that point, you owe a shit ton of money, so you charge $20 a bottle because of it. Hence why Virginia wines are so expensive, because they're small operations that are trying to stay afloat.
A couple good Virginia wineries:
Barbersville Vineyard
Veritas (on Afton Mountain)
5:48- More Basic Wine History
The grapes we love are historically from the Russian/Georgian border. That's where this exact plant came from.
"Grapes are the most successful plant in terms of distributing itself around the world from one specific source." -Boyer
Where is it now? Damn near everywhere! Mostly in the mid latitude sections of the earth (15-30 degrees southernly and northernly)
Fossilized pips and stems and broken wine jugs have been found that date back to 6, 7, 10,000 B.C.E. Wine predates the construction of the Pyramids at Giza and written history.
Why is wine so studied?
It's more than a commodity. There are religious implications, significant economic impacts, and symbolic importance. It's seen in art and literature very frequently. It's the most referenced commodity in the bible.
Lots of old civilizations had gods dedicated to wine.
"Olives are really important, but they don't have their own god. Wine does. Grapes do." -Boyer
"Moses, when he got off the ark, planted a vineyard." -Boyer (he's not a religious man, as you can tell)
All great wines start in the vineyard.
"Even a master winemaker can't make gold out of dog shit." -Boyer
5:57- The Plant
-Highest sugar content ratio of any other fruit
-Have tannins (helps wine age better)
-Easy to squish
Typical Grape Composition (on average)
75% Water
22% Sugars
Acids (Tartaric, Malic, Total 1.1%)
.8% Nitrogenous matter
.05% Phenolics
.5% Minerals
.55% Other matter
The growers in the vineyard constantly watch the acid/sugar balance as harvest nears. As sugars increase, acids decrease. This border is different for different grapes and isn't an exact formula.
What's in a grape?
-Seeds (aka pips, are full of the bad kinds of tannins and trace amounts of cyanide, similarly to apple seeds)
-Skin (contains the tannins, so must be treated with care)
-Pulp (contains all the juice)
Get the juice without smashing the seeds!
Grapes are wild all across the northern hemisphere. North America has more species of grapes than Asia and Europe. They're EVERYWHERE. But Vitis Vinifera is the one we most often turn into wine (99.9% of the world's wine). They rest are all edible, but they're not quite right for wine.
THE END.
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