On Fire

They tell you where you need to go
Tell you when you need to leave
They tell you what you need to know
Tell you who you need to be

Everything inside
You know there’s more than what you’ve heard
There’s so much more than empty conversations
Filled with empty words

And you’re on fire when He’s near you
You’re on fire when He speaks
You’re on fire, burning at these mysteries

Give me one more time around
Give me one more chance to see
Give me everything you are
Give me one more chance to be near you

When everything inside me looks like everything I hate
You are the hope I have for change
You are the only chance I’ll take

I’m on fire when You’re near me
I’m on fire when You speak
I’m on fire burning at these mysteries
Mysteries

- Jon Foreman

From News.com.au:

A DISGRUNTLED grape grower allegedly plotted to blow up a Victorian winery and make it look like a terrorist attack, a court has been told.
Bergamin Wines and Spirits managing director Steven Bergamin allegedly planned to blow up Gapsted Winery, in northeast Victoria, as a payback for undercutting the price of grapes.

He allegedly struck a deal with an undercover police officer – posing as the would-be bomber – to destroy the winery.

“I want the job done and I want it to look like terrorists have done it,” Detective Senior Constable Damian Jackson said Mr Bergamin had told him.

The brilliant Mr. Bergamin called off the bombing after he learned that the winery he was targeting was going broke.

There’s a lesson in economics here shrouded beneath all the cloak and dagger idiocy. If your grape buyers are suddenly asking for prices on fruit that you find unsustainable, and you can’t find anyone else to sell them to, your solution isn’t to blow up the offending winery, it’s to find a new line of work.

Perhaps pull out the vines and plant some homes. I hear they age well and go nicely with family dinner.

While I may be a skeptic when it comes to BioD practices like this…

Weeds are combated by collecting seeds from the weeds and burning them above a wooden flame. The ashes from the seeds are then spread on the fields, which will according to biodynamic philosophy block the influence from the full moon on the particular weed and make it infertile. (link)

…I have no doubt that terroir itself is a real phenomena. In our area, the obvious thing that we point to as a factor in making our wines taste different than those grown elsewhere is the fog that spills out of the Petaluma gap. It coats our vines in the morning and then slowly recedes, allowing the warm sun to ripen our grapes to (near) perfection (in a good year).

LA Times wine writer Rod Smith wrote a wonderful piece on the terroir of the Russian River Valley without ever actually using the word. It’s a great read and I highly recommend it to those intrepid aficionados of wines that taste of place.

And while I respect very much those in search of meaning and spirituality in their agriculture, my own spirituality is of the more mundane variety. Instead of manure horns and Red Deer bladders, what I need (and don’t find often enough) is a few unhurried, quiet moments alone in prayer.

The first part can be found here. Again the following is copyright 2003 Copia.

“At issue is something that might be called ‘cellar cred.’ As Michael Steinberger put it in the online magazine Slate: ‘If you want to be seen as legit by the Crips, it helps to have a drive-by shooting to your credit. If you want to be seen as legit by wine geeks, you need to be able to shoot a mouthful of Chardonnay in a clean, straight line….’”

“This all seems to imply the existence of an unspoken ‘spitting order.’ Parker acknowledges that, ‘When a lot of tasters get together, there’s some comparison that goes on. It’s like dogs marking their territory – if you can spit farther than another person, in a strong and well defined stream with a tight spiral, it means you’ve got balls.’ Prather comes forward to confess that he’s ‘suffered from the feeling of spitting inferiority. In the company of a master, I had to walk to the gutter several times while he never left the side of the barrel. When I witness something like that, I experience spitting envy.’”

“With regard to spitting prowess, certain names surface repeatedly. For example, Alexis Bespaloff (author of The New Signet Book of Wine) was once declared by Gentlemen’s Quarterly to be ‘without question the greatest wine spitter in America today.’ Maresca, who has tasted with Bespaloff in places that lacked serviceable spittoons, recounts that “in those situations, Alex was never at a loss – he could loft over a peice of shrubbery ten feet away.” Parker says that the best spitter he knows (a practitioner of ‘prodigious ability’) is Peter Bezan, an American broker of French wines. ‘He can reach twelve or fifteen feet with a beautiful arc and a fluid motion,’ Parker says. ‘So to speak.’”

“The Alpha spitter of Australia is said to be Len Evans – a man who, as creator of that country’s first wine column in 1962, is known Down Under as Mr. Wine. Evans himself, however, humbly concedes the crown to Rosewood winemaker Bill Chambers – explaining, by way of an excuse, that his rival possesses ‘an unfair advantage: He’s missing two upper teeth. I’m the best that has no gap.’ (Parker dismisses this category as ‘phony spit. I have a slight gap myself,’ he points out, ‘but I don’t use if for spitting.’)…â€?

“Spittoons are almost always on the table at American tastings, which typically offer nothing more elaborate than empty ice buckets, rendering inevitable the hazard of ‘splashback’ (likened by Alan Richman in GQ TO ‘a grenade going off in a paint factory’). A recent and encouraging trend in the U.S. is the provision of personal spit cups – preferably opaque – to cover the distance between one’s face and the public pool. Tom Hill, wine maven of Los Alamos, New Mexico, bravely employs a small portable urinal (colored red and mysteriously named ‘Little Johnn’) designed for use by airplane pilots; when it’s half full, he empties it into the communal receptacle. In Europe it’s common for spittoons to be situated in the aisles between tasting tables, often equipped with an oversized funnel emptying into a concealed drum or tank.�

“‘Sloppy spitters can get right on top of it and let the wine drizzle down their faces,’ says the approving Parker, who also relates the fact that , ‘In Bordeaux, they have these extraordinary high-tech troughs with running water – almost like elaborate latrines. Some of the places are like state-of-the-art schoolrooms, with desks that have their own sinks and spigots.’ At the other extreme (e.g., Burgundy), cellars are often outfitted with only a sawdust-filled bucket or a gravel floor; and in wineries all over the world, tasters expectorate unceremoniously into drainage grates in the ground.�

As a companion to the previous post on making wine standards, and in an attempt to further promote the Hospices of Sonoma Pinot event later this month, below are excerpts from a fun article on spitting when wine tasting.

Note: In this post I’m going to quote liberally from David Darlington’s hilarious article “The Spitting Image: How Wine Fanciers Express Themselves Through Expectoration.” I fear that I have quoted too much for fair use purposes, but I’m unable to find a copy of this online anywhere, which is a terrible shame. In any event, the following excerpts are Copyright 2003 Copia.

“The Scene is a model of genteel refinement: a roomful of discerning gentlemen and ladies, well-heeled adults elegantly attired, sitting at tables draped in white linen, each person pacing an arc of glasses partially filled with red or gold liquid, specially shaped to showcase the best qualities of the beverages under consideration. The silent participants take copious notes, scribbling expertly as they examine each wine – peering at its color against the light, swirling the liquid to release its perfume, raising the glass slowly to the nostrils and finally taking a sip into the mouth, holding it there for some seconds while working the oral tissues to unlock every nuance.”

“Finally when the character of the noble elixir has been exhaustively apprehended, the enophile purses his or her lips and propels a glistening stream of sputum into a foaming pitcher of spit, the contents seething with saliva discolored by the digestive process. What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing at all. Spitting may be greeted with censure in most sectors of Western society, but in the wine world the opposite is true. As Jeff Prather – managing director Azalea Springs Winery in Napa, and a former senior merchant for wine.com – attests, ‘Public spitting suffers from the stigma of lower-class, tobacco-chewing behavior. But in the context of wine tasting, spitting is not only acceptable; it’s preferable…”

“The idea, of course, is to avoid getting drunk. ‘If you spit out every mouthful,’ advises English wine journalist Jancis Robinson in her book How to Taste, ‘you’ll be amazed at how much more legible you tasting notes are…”

“The Wine Advocate’s Robert M. Parker states the case more succinctly. ‘If I didn’t spit,’ Parker avows, ‘I’d be dead.‘…”

“…[T]he higher one travels in the world of wine, the greater status is assigned to expectoration. For the recent initiate, even the common consumer, spitting wine out is nonsensical; why bother with alcoholic beverages at all if not to enjoy their effects? For the professional, though, inebriation ranks lowest on a wine’s list of attributes – especially when it impedes one’s ability to appreciate the others.”

“‘Nothing tips off professionals to the presence of a novice more quickly than a dry spit bucket,” discloses Jeff Prather, and Michael Micheli – tasting room manager for the Robert Mondavi – Confirms that, “To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone spit on a public tour.’ Tom Maresca, a New York wine writer recalls a tasting attended by some representatives of the Beaurea of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms – who swallowed everything that they tasted. “The rest of us found it rather amusing that these people, who were in charge of regulating the industry, all got drunk,’ Maresca remembers.”

Part 2 tomorrow…

It looks like Ken Verosub, the former conductor of the Terroir 2006 Express, has hopped back on the train:

Dear pre-registrants,

I am pleased to report that the dean of the College of Letters and Science and the dean of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences have reached an agreement that makes it possible for me to resume my association with Terroir 2006. Information about the conference can be found at http://terroir.ucdavis.edu. I encourage you to consider attending this grand event.

The original post seems to have disappeared, but the post dealing with the reasons for Verosub’s departure from the event are still around.

Myself, I’m going mainly for the field trip and the gala dinner at Beringer Winery. Should be delicious.

An emergency broadcast message just interrupted our newscast to announce that flooding of the river at levels above 46 feet has been projected. Everyone in low lying areas along the river have been ordered to evacuate immediately.

Hopefully the storm tonight will go easy on us and homes will be saved.

Test

Due to a string of storms, one of which will hit tonight and tomorrow, the Russian River is reaching near record levels of flooding. According to the Press Democrat:

Heavy rain continuing today. Up to 8 inches of rain could fall in some areas between Thursday and tonight. Another storm may arrive Sunday.

Russian River: Expected to flood by 7 a.m. today at Guerneville and hit a 44-foot crest at about 2 a.m. Sunday. Flood stage is 32 feet. Flooding also expected at Hopland and Healdsburg and on the Napa River at Napa and St. Helena.

The real damage however is occuring in Napa where all time record flooding is occuring. According to news reports over 1000 homes are inundated with water in the city. Thankfully, no deaths in Napa and Sonoma have been reported.

Unfortunate news for the River Rats. 

"The Russian River is expected to hit flood stage at 32 feet in Guerneville about 7 p.m. today and to crest at about 36 feet early Thursday and begin dropping immediately." – The Press Democrat

Happily we’re in no danger of being flooded out. We’re situated high on a hill and the river meanders safely along its circuitous route through the valley just northwest of our location. 

Not only that, but the flood doesn’t look to be too severe. Historically it doesn’t look like it will make the top ten.

1. Feb. 18, 1986: 48.56
2. Jan. 9-10, 1995: 48.01
3. Dec. 23, 1955: 46.95
4. Dec. 23, 1964: 46.85
5. Jan. 1, 1997: 45.10
6. Jan. 5, 1966: 42.53
7. March 10, 1995: 42.24
8. Jan. 27, 1983: 41.63
9. Jan. 24, 1970: 41.2
10. Feb. 1, 1963: 40.95

As the forecast above mentions, floodwater is predicted to recede by Thursday morning. That should be good news for those hardy souls living in the low lying areas of the Guerneville and Cazadero areas.

This is new to me, and provided me minutes of enjoyment. Silly Wine Tasting Notes Generator.

Hat tip to Jennifer Rosen’s blog for the pointer.

Here’s one it gave me using the extra silly setting:

 "Raw and astounding Pinot Noir. Resembles grog, over-ripe wart ointment and corpulent ganja. Drink now through graduation."

It might be fun to use these on tasting menus once in a while, just to liven up things up.