A Dallas Reality Check For Napa Valley

Went to Dallas but came home feeling as if I'd spent the holiday weekend in Napa Valley. The posh accommodations of The Four Seasons Resort, the addictive bread pudding in the hotel's Cottonwood Room, and the artistic duck dish at Urbano Cafe all had something to do with that sense of displacement, but mostly, of course, it was the wines.

The event was the Dallas Morning News and TexSom Wine Competition, an international judging that drew 3,269 wines, up nearly 600 from last year's total. For the first time, Rebecca Murphy, who founded the competition 28 years ago and who has produced it annually ever since, organized entries principally by place of origin. That is, for example, all syrahs made in Washington state were judged concurrently by a single panel. At most large competitions, all wines of a particular varietal or style are grouped together regardless of where they originated. Thus, syrahs from Washington state, the Sierra foothills and Barossa Valley all might be evaluated together, without judges knowing where they originated.

Within the wine-competition community, however, a move is afoot to arrange classes of wines by appellation as well as by varietal or style. Murphy and other competition directors who are heading in this direction believe that results will be more meaningful to vintners and consumers alike if wines that emerge from a roughly similar climate and culture are compared side-by-side without intrusions by entries from far different winemaking environments. It's putting into practice the belief that a wine should say something of its "terroir," or place of origin. "We've made this change because we believe it is more fair to the wines, and our goal is to highlight the best wines being produced in each region," said Murphy at the outset.

Judges embraced the concept, but not without qualification. Some wondered whether knowing the place of origin for a class of wine might prejudice judges to instinctively look more favorably on varietals from regions with reputations for doing especially well by them (such as pinot noir and Russian River Valley) and less favorably on varietals from shakier terrain (chardonnay out of the Sierra foothills). Ultimately, a detailed analysis of the Dallas results may indicate whether that happened, but even then I suspect any differences will be slight and insignificant, given that seasoned judges are programmed to continually calibrate their perspective. Nevertheless, all we have to go on right now is speculation and anecdote.

By some quirk, I got assigned to the panel that for two days was to taste and rate only wines from Napa Valley, perhaps the nation's most highly regarded appellation. My fellow panelists were all Texans: Dave Reilly, winemaker of Duchman Family Winery in Driftwood, Texas; Christopher Shipp, wine manager of Goody Goody Liquor in Little Elm, Texas; and Don Brady, who grew up in Abilene but now is the winemaker for Robert Hall Winery of Paso Robles.

Napa Valley means cabernet sauvignon, and we had plenty of them. Of the 210 wines we tasted, 90 were cabernet sauvignon. We gave gold medals to 14 of them, or 16 percent, which is somewhat high by customary wine-competition standards, though some Napa Valley partisans are likely to think that's shockingly low. Other members of the panel may disagree, but I think we went into the cabernet-sauvignon class thinking it would be more favorably impressive overall. Our gold-medal cabernets - as well as several silver-medal winners - generally were praised for the generosity of their fruit, their deft integration of oak, their firm spines, and their roundness and accessibility. Almost all the golds were by split votes; those on which the panel agreed most quickly and unanimously tended to share bright cherry flavors, a persistent finish and were more lithe than heavy. At the other extreme, 44 cabernet sauvignons got no medal at all. If I were a Napa Valley winemaker, this is the figure that would concern me most. Why such a disappointing showing by nearly half the field? Few of the wines were clearly flawed, but those that got spurned almost without exception were off balance - tannins were too showy, oak was too dominant, the heat of alcohol too searing. Where notes of eucalyptus and mint might appear, we found instead stalkiness.

The cabernets were mostly from the 2008 and 2009 vintages, 34 of the former, 27 of the latter. Six gold medals went to each, which suggests, in an entirely superficial way, that 2009 is the superior of the two years, though I hesitate to make that flat-out assessment, given the power and grace of so many Napa Valley cabernet sauvignons I previously tasted from 2008. To me, the biggest surprise of the class was that one gold medal went to a wine from 2010. This is really early for a Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon from that harvest to be entered in a competition. (When competition results are released publicly I will do a follow-up posting to identify award-winning players.)

Bill Pfeiffer tracks another panel's ratings

If the class of cabernet sauvignon left us less that awed, the class of blended red wines based on traditional Bordeaux grape varieties like cabernet sauvignon, petit verdot and malbec left us ecstatic. Of the 13 entries, five got gold medals, an exceptionally high 38 percent. Another five got silver medals. Each gold-medal wine delivered what we were looking for in the cabernet-sauvignon class but only occasionally found - a combination of heft and vitality. These were wines with more moves than "Dancing with the Stars," more persistence than the winning team on "The Amazing Race." Their core was earthy and meaty, their fruit rich yet bright. More than once, "Old World" came up to describe their styling; these were not "fruit bombs," all assertiveness, but spoke more of finesse and complexity. In this competition on this weekend, these blends represented both glory and potential for Napa Valley.

Aside from a "textbook" pinot grigio, a couple of vibrant sauvignon blancs, and a surprisingly strong class of chardonnay (22 entries, five gold medals, five silvers), the rest of the Napa Valley field was pretty much a letdown. Only four pinot noirs and two syrahs were entered, and none won a gold medal. Merlot was the most disappointing class. We tasted 24 and gave just one gold medal; 16 got nothing at all. All the metal the eight zinfandels could muster was two bronzes.

Bottom line: If I actually were to visit Napa Valley on a shopping expedition in the near future, I'd concentrate on Bordeaux-inspired blends and cabernet sauvignon, and leave the pinot noir and zinfandel for other regions.

More Sugar, More Alcohol, But Why?

Over the past two decades, alcohol levels in California wines have risen sharply. This must be because grapes at harvest are riper today than they used to be, and the reason for that is global warming, goes the conventional thinking.

Not so fast, say three researchers of the University of California, Davis, and a collaborator with the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Canada.

Hang time vs. climate change

The four have been doing their homework, which has involved accumulating and analyzing a dissertation's worth of data concerning the sugar content of wine grapes at harvest, temperature fluctuations during the growing season, planting patterns for new vineyards and the alcohol levels of wines on the market.

In a 25-page paper for the latest issues of the Journal of Wine Economics, they conclude that higher sugars and consequently higher alcohol levels in the resulting wine are due less to climate change than the modern practice of letting grapes hang on the vine longer than in the past.

The paper - "Too Much of a Good Thing? Causes and Consequences of Increases in Sugar Content of California Wine Grapes" - is long on complicated mathematical formulas and precise detail but short on forthright conclusions and provocative interpretation. It's a study that begs for a sequel, and the authors indicate that more research is in order.

One solid conclusion they draw is that sugar content of wine grapes at harvest and alcohol levels in the finished wines have expanded hand in hand. Between 1980 and 2008, the sugar content of California wine grapes at harvest rose from an average 21.4 Brix to an average 23.3 Brix, a nine percent increase. In looking for a trend concerning alcohol content of wine, they turned to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Canada, which tests every wine it imports to the province. The board examines several characteristics of each wine, including alcohol level. In comparing alcohol figures from 1990 and 2000, the researchers found that the average alcohol percentage rose by .3 percent, with white wines showing a larger increase (.38 percent) than red wines (.25 percent). "This increase in alcohol percentage is consistent with an increase in the sugar content of the grapes used to make that wine of .55 degrees Brix, on average," the paper states.

The researchers also conclude firmly that the rise in sugar content and alcohol level can't be attributed to climate change. "Our data do not show a substantial rise in temperature between 1990 and 2007, as measured by the heat index," they state. "Our results imply that warming average temperatures in the growing season did not contribute substantially or significantly to the increase in sugar content of California's wine grapes during the almost 20-year period 1990-2008," the paper iterates later on.

If not global warming, what accounts for the increases in sugar and alcohol? Here, the paper speculates more than concludes. Cultural changes in viticulture could explain the increase, they suggest, noting that over the past two decades new kinds of rootstock and clones have been introduced to California. Denser vineyard plantings and new trellising systems also could be a factor. They don't say it, but the implication is that new vineyard practices help grapes more efficiently generate sugars. The fruit possibly accumulates plenty of sugar before it reaches ideal phenolic maturity, thus prompting winemakers to let it hang longer on the vine before picking than has been the custom.

"Still others claim that higher sugar at harvest is simply a style choice, with no underlying physiological reason to be found in the vineyard," write the authors. In other words, growers and vintners could be responding to a market that they see as preferring wines with ripe flavors and lower tannin, "attributes associated with grapes that are picked at higher degrees Brix."

In an email exchange, James Lapsley of the Department of Viticulture & Enology at the University of California, Davis, one of the four authors, says, "We are saying that sugar levels at harvest have gone up much faster than have temperatures, and thus the major point driving this must be a management decision." That decision could be motivated by one or more of several factors, from an aesthetic goal for the wine to the price for the fruit.

Beyond debunking the link between global warming and higher alcohol in wine, the paper scatters a few intriguing factoids among its findings, to wit:

- "In 1985, only 19 percent of California table wine carried a varietal label, but within 15 years, by 2000, varietally labeled wine accounted for 71 percent of all California table wine by volume." Who would have guessed that the change has been that quick and that reaching? Time for a backlash, perhaps, which could help explain the current rise in blended wines bearing proprietary names.

- Thirty years ago, more than half of California's wine-grape acreage was in the southern San Joaquin Valley. By 2008, however, the region was responsible for just a bit more than a third. During that span, total wine-grape acreage in California rose 59 percent, but in the San Joaquin Valley it grew by just 8.5 percent.

- By percentage, no wine-grape region in California has grown more impressively over the past three decades than the Sacramento/San Joaquin River Delta, where acreage expanded from 17,355 acres in 1981 to 49,558 acres in 2008, a jump of 185 percent. Other fast-growing regions are the North Coast counties, up 128 percent from 55,474 acres in 1981 to 87,726 acres in 2008, and the Central Coast, where the acreage has doubled, from 41,015 acres in 1981 to 82,600 acres in 2008.

- In 2008, incidentally, the North Coast accounted for a little less than 10 percent of all grapes crushed in California, but the value of that fruit commanded more than 38 percent of total revenues for the state's crop. The Central Coast grew 9.4 percent of the tons crushed and accounted for 18.8 percent of revenues, while the Delta delivered 17.1 percent of all grapes crushed and drew 13.5 percent of the revenue. The southern San Joaquin Valley, meanwhile, accounted for 61 percent of the harvest but not quite 27 percent of the revenue. This helps explain why a bottle of cabernet sauvignon with a "California" appellation costs, say, $7, while a cabernet sauvignon with a "Dry Creek Valley" appellation will command $40 or so.

- In comparing the percentage of alcohol on wine labels with the actual alcohol content of the wine, as measured by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the researchers found "some remarkable discrepancies." "On average across 7,920 observations of California wines, the actual alcohol percentage (13.35 percent by volume) exceeded the declared alcohol percentage (12.63 percent by volume) by .72 percent by volume," states the paper. The researchers didn't further explore this difference, but they did speculate on its cause: "It seems unlikely that wineries are making consistent errors of this magnitude in measuring the true alcohol content of the wine. One possibility is that wine producers may be attempting to avoid tax, given that tax rates vary with alcohol percentage; another is that there may be marketing advantages from having label claims of alcohol percentages that are consistent with consumers' expectations for given types of wine; a third is that they simply cannot be bothered getting it right."

Social Media: Give Me A Break

Bacchus, surviving just fine without social media

In many respects, the wine business is like any other business. Somebody makes something, somebody buys it.

In several ways, however, the wine trade stands apart. From start to finish, no business may rely more on personal relationships. The vineyard handshake that seals a deal between farmer and vintner more often than not ends with two or more people clinking glasses of the wine that emerged from that trusting pact. And then they talk about it.

In between, winemakers preside over winemaker dinners, court distributors and restaurateurs, manage wine clubs, pour at community tastings, and tend to customers in their tasting rooms.

For their part, wine enthusiasts plan entire holidays around tours of wineries. They might visit half a dozen in a day, find something they like that they’ve never tried before, and learned about the making of wine and the people behind it, sometimes from the person who actually made the wine. In contrast, no one returns home from a weekend in Silicon Valley raving about this or that laptop they tested in a tour of computer shops. (Or if they have, please send me your notes; I’m in the market.)

Given all this interaction, an observer might conclude that the wine business is perfectly poised to take advantage of “social media.”

But it isn't doing much of that at all, according to an essay posted the other day by wine blogger Alder Yarrow. He is positively indignant about the failure of the wine trade to capitalize on social media. His lament was windup to a pitch for Vintank Social Connect, an online tool to help wineries “monitor their brand presence in the sphere of social media, and to engage with their customers in this space,” Alder says. “Any winery in the world that does not have a free account on this service, and does not spend at least an hour or two every week using it, is dumber than a bag of hammers,” Alder claims. (Despite his blunt advice, Alder says he has no vested interest in Vintank.)

I don't know Vintank Social Connect. It's a club that won't have me as a member because I'm not affiliated with a commercial winery, which in wine journalism is a no-no. Thus, I have to take Alder's word that Vintank Social Connect may be "the single greatest gift that anyone has given the wine industry since the invention of the steel fermentation tank." If it's that significant, winemakers will find it and use it, if they see a need to.

They just might not see a need to. With wine sales perking along quite robustly despite a deep and prolonged recession, why should they? Winemakers are savvy to the reach of the Internet, even if they don't much keep their websites up to date. An online presence is virtually essential to maintain a vibrant wine club, to say nothing of sales. Aside from that, if winemakers are failing to exploit social media the fault may not be so much with the wine business as with social media. Sure, it has potential, and, yes, it's had sporadic spectacular impact, but in this instance it may be failing to acknowledge and respect just how different the wine trade is.

Let's back up for the moment to consider what is meant by "social media." I rather like Alder's definition: "Social media are those channels of interaction on the internet where the public has a voice. Any outlet at which an ordinary person, free of charge, can say something, create a piece of content, react to something that someone else has created, or establish relationships with people and companies falls under the banner of social media." Think Facebook, think Twitter, think blogs. They all can be fun, enlightening and effective. Excuse me, however, for my skepticism of whether social media will have much influence in building brand awareness and loyalty in the wine trade. More traditional and more personal means of doing that have been practiced for years, and winemakers and wine enthusiasts seem happy enough with them.

Consider for a moment a graphic that a Facebook friend of a friend posted on the same day that Alder posted his essay. It lists the "16 types of people on Facebook," starting with the "lurker" ("never posts anything or comments on your post, but reads everything") and ending with the "rooster" ("feels that it is their job to tell Facebook 'good morning' every day"). The thread that ties the 16 together is cynical, but it also rings true: A lot of people participating in social media aren't that crazy about being social; they're the party guests who try to monopolize a conversation, drift off without contributing anything, or otherwise aren't much interested in a meaningful exchange of thoughts.

Maybe a substantial segment of the wine trade recognizes or senses this from dealing so often with people, and thus is hesitant to jump on the social-media bandwagon. Just how much personal interaction does a person need before realizing that too often it's a one-sided pontification rather than a discussion?

Ever notice how a seemingly disproportionate number of California winemakers pursue fly fishing, rebuild vintage cars, bake bread and keep second homes on the isolated coast of the Sea of Cortez? Why is that? What these pursuits share and may represent is a longing for occasional escape and solitude. A fish, a car, a loaf of bread and a cactus doesn't talk back. A respite from chatter could be in order. In a career that involves so much socialization, who can fault winemakers for being chary of social media?

New Players On The Los Cabos Wine Scene



Ricardo Martinez in the new El Wine Shop

 I see that northern California finally is getting some rain and wind to go with winter's typically chilly temperatures. That means, I'm sure, that more northern Californians will be flying south to take advantage of the sunny and balmy weather here, in Los Cabos, at the southern reaches of Mexico's Baja peninsula. For wine enthusiasts among the immigrants, I'm here to help.

Here's what to expect if you plan a winter retreat or spring break in Cabo San Lucas, San Jose del Cabo or one of the resorts or timeshares along the 20 miles of coastline between the two settlements:

- Argentine and Chilean wines dominate the local market, in both restaurants and grocery stores. By and large, their quality is superb, their value even more impressive. Solid South American brands like Cono Sur, Morande and Santa Julia readily are available in such stores as Costco, Soriano, City Club, Chedraui, La Europea and Mega.

- California wines almost solely are limited to such mainstream producers as Kendall-Jackson, Sutter Home and E.&J. Gallo, in particular Gallo's Barefoot brand. By and large, brace yourself for sticker shock even for wines that in the United States generally are priced at $15 or less. They're apt to cost a third more here, largely because of permit fees and taxes levied by the Mexican government, as well as shipping costs.

- Cabo San Lucas has a fine wine shop in the expansive if somewhat stuffy and dear Vinoteca along the Carretera Transpeninsular on the north edge of the city; it's right in front of the Home Depot set back from the west side of the highway. The only branch of Costco in Los Cabos also is in Cabo San Lucas, also on the west side of the four-lane, not far from Home Depot.

- The real retail wine action in Los Cabos, however, is concentrated along a short stretch of the Carretera Transpeninsular in San Jose del Cabo, just a short walk from such beachfront resorts as Barcelo, Cabo Azul, Posada Real and Holiday Inn. Within about a mile along the east side of the highway are four stores whose selections of wine are extensive enough and intriguing enough to delight just about any enophile.

The four, incidentally, include Walmart. I'm not kidding. In Mexico, Walmart officials seem to have adopted a far different wine-marketing attitude than they have in the United States, where the selections run to mass-produced wines that while cheap also are pedestrian. The San Jose del Cabo branch of Walmart, on the other hand, has one of the broader and deeper wine departments in the region. Yes, it includes plenty of cheap brands, including Beso de Vino, 3 Blind Moose, Black Swan, Lucky Duck and Barefoot, but it also includes an almost equal number of premium releases, such as a Mexican cabernet sauvignon under the Teziano label for 621 pesos (about $50 in U.S. currency at the current rate of exchange) and the reserve "409" Ribera del Duero from the producer Condado de Oriza for 1,209 pesos (about $93). I've yet to see those kinds of choices at a Walmart in the U.S., but I wouldn't be surprised if Costco's success in the marketing of premium wines is giving Walmart's directors an incentive to head in that direction.

- This short stretch of the four-lane also includes Carlos Fernandez's La Casa Del Vino, where he stocks only wines made in Baja California, principally from the Valle de Guadalupe just northeast of Ensenada. At any given time he's apt to carry more than 100 wines, providing anyone curious about the state of Mexican wine with plenty of material for tasting.



El Wine Shop, San Jose del Cabo

 - The newest player among wine merchants along this concentrated stretch of the Carretera Transpeninsular is El Wine Shop, a small but snazzy store tucked between the Mega supermarket and the cluster of galleries called Villa Valentina. Open just a month, El Wine Shop is an outgrowth of the wine importing and distribution business ECM de Vinos in Los Cabos. Business partners Ricardo Martinez and Alberto Cubilla had talked for years of opening a wine shop, and the San Jose del Cabo branch is the first of five or so that they hope to launch throughout Mexico over the next few years.

Here, their selection is drawn from throughout the world, with California represented with more variety and more upscale brands than is found in other wine shops in the area. When I stopped by the other day for the first time, a bottle-shaped blackboard that takes up much of one wall listed the Caymus Vineyards 2006 Napa Valley Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon for 2,400 pesos (about $185 U.S.; in California, BevMo sells it for $160). Other choice West Coast wines include the Pahlmeyer 2008 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay for 1,680 pesos ($130), Randy Dunn's Feather 2006 Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon for 903 pesos ($70), the Morgan 2009 Santa Lucia Highlands "Highland" Chardonnay for 420 pesos ($32), the Rubicon Estate 2006 Rutherford Cask Cabernet Sauvignon for 1,404 pesos ($108), and the Hess Collection 2009 Napa Valley Chardonnay for 399 pesos ($31). To balance out the selection, Martinez and Cubilla carry several everyday wines, such as the Delicato white zinfandel for 133 pesos ($10).

Their goal is to stock more than 200 wines, and their inventory already looks to be nearing that total. Still to arrive is a selection of wines from Berkeley wine importer Kermit Lynch, as well as a new stockpile of zinfandel from Lodi's Klinker Brick Winery, for which Martinez and Cubilla have found a surprisingly strong local market.

Many of the wines they carry also are available in Los Cabos restaurants, but not necessarily in other wine shops, with which they don't want to compete out of concern about jeopardizing the distribution branch of their partnership. Several Italian, Spanish and French wines are available only at El Wine Shop. Among Mexican wines, they carry several releases by one of the more experienced wineries in northern Baja's Valle de Guadalupe - Monte Xanic. They also offer an assortment of artisan Mexican beers (Rosarito Beach, Bufadora, Cucapa and Tempus), as well as brews of the local Baja Brewing Co., and they are just starting to stock small-lot tequilas.

The design of the place is a light interpretation of industrial chic, with wines displayed in shipping crates and the counter and its backdrop built with wooden slats salvaged from about 40 forklift pallets. El Wine Shop is open 11 a.m.-7 p.m. daily except Sunday.

Competition Results Reinforce Reputations

As mosaics go, the 84 glasses in front of each judge formed an intricate, colorful and telling picture of the nation's wine trade at the start of 2012. The arrangements constituted the sweepstakes round of the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition in Cloverdale this past Friday. Each of the 84 was a best-of-class wine, deemed worthy of serious consideration for one of the competition's five top honors - best sparkling wine, best white wine, best pink wine, best red wine, and best dessert or specialty wine.

Of the 84, more than half - 52, to be precise - were red. Of the 52, nine each were cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel, eight were pinot noir, six were merlot, five were syrah/shiraz, and four were blends based on traditional Bordeaux grape varieties such as cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot. Why were so many nominees from these six styles? The breakdown reflects the production and popularity of the six, which the Chronicle competition aims to make manageable by dividing into price categories, such as pinot noirs $30 to $34.99, and zinfandels $50 and above. In contrast, less-popular varietals generally were grouped into one class, regardless of price, such as tempranillo, sangiovese and barbera, with only one each going into the sweepstakes round. That would seem to improve their odds of winning the big prize as partisans of one or the other of the mainstream varietals split their votes over their favorite interpretation of, say, zinfandel or pinot noir.

Best red wine

That isn't how it worked out this year, however. The red-wine sweepstakes went to a cabernet sauvignon, the McGrail Vineyards & Winery 2008 Livermore Valley Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon ($36). This outcome won't surprise anyone familiar with the Livermore Valley's long history of growing cabernet sauvignon of both force and finesse. The McGrail wasn't even the only Livermore Valley cabernet sauvignon in the sweepstakes round. Another was the Bent Creek Wines 2009 Livermore Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($25). Just one of the cabernets was from Napa Valley, widely regarded as the nation's most esteemed producer of the varietal. That just one cabernet from the area made it to the sweepstakes stage also should come as no surprise, however, given that Napa Valley vintners generally are loathe to enter their pricier cabs in blind competitions, calculating that they have nothing much to gain if they win and a whole lot to lose if they don't. Also not surprisingly, the only Napa Valley cabernet in the sweeps was the most expensive take on the varietal, the Black Stallion 2008 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($65).

Three of the cabernets in the finale, incidentally, were from the northern Sonoma County appellation long respected for especially lush yet graceful takes on the varietal, the Alexander Valley. They were the Carruth Cellars 2009 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($32), the Dutcher Crossing Winery 2008 Alexander Valley Cooney Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon ($43) and the Trione Vineyards & Winery 2007 Alexander Valley Block Twenty One Cabernet Sauvignon ($58).

In several other instances, the sweepstakes round also verified the high standing of particular regions for particular varietals. Five of the eight pinot noirs in the finale were from the Russian River Valley. Of the nine zinfandels, four were from Dry Creek Valley and two were from Lodi. The only gewurztraminer in the running for best white wine was from the Finger Lakes district of New York, and it ultimately was declared the competition's best white wine; it was the Dr. Konstantin Frank 2010 Finger Lakes Gewurztraminer ($25). Of the 12 chardonnays in the running for best white wine, five were from various appellations of the Napa Valley, four were from the Central Coast. The only barbera to compete for best red wine was from California's Sierra foothills, the region generating the most buzz for the varietal. It was the Boeger Winery 2009 El Dorado Barbera ($17), a wine featured in my weekly column for The Sacramento Bee this past fall. In all, 54 barberas won medals in the judging, 26 of them from the Sierra foothills.

Of the 84 best-of-class wines up for sweepstakes consideration, 18 were from Sacramento's backyard - the Sierra foothills, the Delta and Lodi. Two each were from Michael-David Winery of Lodi and McManis Family Vineyards of Ripon. Among best-of-class wines, however, the strongest performance by a local winery was turned in by Charles B. Mitchell Vineyards of Fair Play in El Dorado County, which had three wines in the sweepstakes round: Charles B. Mitchell Vineyards Fair Play Estate Madame Omo's Pure Sunshine ($12), Charles B. Mitchell Vineyards Fair Play Monsieur Omo's Red Sunshine ($12) and Charles B. Mitchell Vineyards Fair Play Cotes du Consumnes ($12).

In addition to the sweepstakes winners already mentioned, the Gloria Ferrer Caves & Vineyards 2006 Carneros Blanc de Blancs ($28) won as best sparkling wine, the Bernard Griffin 2011 Columbia Valley Rose of Sangiovese ($12) won as best pink wine, and the Castello di Amorosa 2010 Anderson Valley Late Harvest Gewurztraminer ($35) won as best dessert or specialty wine.

A total 5,667 wines from 1,379 American wineries were entered. California wineries, naturally, were responsible for most of the entries, but wines from 24 other states also competed, giving an indication of the spread of the nation's wine trade. A public tasting of award-winning wines will be at Fort Mason in San Francisco on Feb. 18; for more information, check out the competition's website.

Wine Writing Draws A Fresh Crop Of Talent

I'm back. More importantly, I like to think, this here blog is back. I've been in Thailand; the blog has been in Blogger limbo. As I packed for my trip I forgot to renew the annual fee for my domain name. When the due date arrived, Google was quick to disable it. And very slow to straighten out the issue and get the blog back online when I returned. Fortunately, a real-live Google support person in Canada worked diligently and patiently to help correct the issue, which proved much more complicated than it should have been.

On the up side, the interruption gave me a chance to catch up on some of my reading. A big chunk of that involved going over the submissions of 41 applicants seeking 10 fellowships for the annual Symposium for Professional Wine Writers at Meadowood in Napa Valley. For several years now I've been one of three judges who review their writing and pick the 10 we feel are the most deserving candidates. Each submits two examples of something about wine they have been written. Many have been published in newspapers or magazines. Some are raw manuscripts. They can be feature articles, scripts for podcasts, blog postings, essays and the like. We don't know who wrote them or where they might have been published. We are to judge them primarily for writing quality, knowledge of wine, how informative, entertaining and inspirational their approach is, and their potential.

In the past, the packet that symposium director Jim Gordon dispatched to the judges has left me more disappointed than uplifted. Much of the writing was uninspired and trite. Candidates too often returned to the same tired topics; they rarely took risks. This year, however, the writing, by and large, was a pleasant surprise. Rather than write of Napa Valley and Bordeaux, they addressed such underappreciated regions as Madeira and the Languedoc. Rather than cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay, they wrote of moscato, marsala and even scuppernong. Here's how I put it to Jim when I turned in my scores:

"Wow! What happened this past year? This batch of fellowship candidates is the strongest ever, to judge by their writing examples. Almost without exception, the reporting and writing is smarter, clearer and more balanced and compelling. Several examples are fresh and daring in subject matter and approach. Their subjects are more diverse, and their articles, scripts and posts show more personality, more timeliness, more details and more color, with a much firmer grip on the topic at hand. A more professional attitude runs through the stack of material, but without sacrificing the enthusiasm that wine generates. Wine writing clearly is attracting people well grounded in related topics - science, travel, food - and for that the future of the craft is looking pretty bright this morning. In short, the screening was tougher than ever. On my tally sheet, six of the 41 writers scored in the 90s, 21 in the 80s. Only one was below 70. Sure, there were some organizational shortcomings, and some over-writing, but these generally were with raw manuscripts, not published works, and a competent editor could help rectify those."

I've a hunch why the material overall was more professional this year: Word has gotten around about the strength of the program that Jim coordinates. This year's program, for example, includes presentations by Eric Asimov, chief wine critic of The New York Times; Guy Woodward, editor of Decanter magazine in London; Joshua Greene, editor of Wine & Spirits magazine in New York City; Michael Gelb, author of "How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci"; and Antonia Allegra, a culinary and writing coach who several years ago founded the symposium.

This year's symposium will be at the posh Napa Valley resort Meadowood Feb. 21-24. For more information, check out the symposium's website. Incidentally, I've no vested interest in the gathering; my involvement is voluntary. I've never attended, but Jim has extended an invitation to do so, and I hope to one of these years.

Losses To Wine Culture, Here And Abroad

- Grab a hat. Practice your dance steps. Prepare to share or at least hear giddy stories about the jovial and colorful Ralph Kunkee, who died last month. Officials and graduates of the Department of Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis, where he had a long and influential career teaching and researching the microbiology of wine, have settled on Jan. 7 as the date for a memorial service and celebration of the life of Ralph Kunkee. It begins with the memorial service at 11 a.m. in the Buehler Alumni Center at the southern reaches of campus, to be followed by the celebration in the Sensory Building of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science. Organizers stipulate that persons who plan to attend must register here so they can be sure to have enough food and wine for everyone. There will be no charge for the events. More information is to be posted on the department's Facebook page. The dancing, incidentally, no doubt will be to the Village People's "Y.M.C.A.," with which Ralph Kunkee liked to cap a party.

- In this homage, veteran wine writer Dan Berger reports that plans also are taking shape for a memorial service for another grand old man on the wine scene, writer and teacher Robert Lawrence Balzer, who died last week at 99. In addition, Michael Rubin, a seasoned Napa Valley wine publicist, posted this telling anecdote on his Facebook page:  "I think they invented the phrase 'one of a kind' for the late Mr. Balzer. One of his charms was the ability to laugh at himself. He told of a wine trip to Australia back in the 1970's. Somewhere off tracks way back in a wine region that took a small plane to reach, he'd gone to lunch with his hosts in a local pub. Often attired in eye-catching garb, he was wearing bright red pants, a checked red vest and a large red bowtie. He said he was in the men's room standing at a unrinal when a dusty local in blue jeans and boots walked in, gave him a thorough up and down look and said, 'Say, mate. Wore on a bet, didin't ya?' Rolbert knew everyone, at a time when that was possible, and his books on California wine remain classic historic looks at a sleepy industry before the explosive 1970's and onward. He wasn't alone in thinking he'd make it to 100. A personality from a very different time." Also, the Wine Spectator's James Laube provides this affectionate and comprehensive look at Robert Lawrence Balzer's impact on the California wine trade.

- Thailand isn't exactly recognized for its wines, but it does have a nascent winemaking trade. One such brand goes by the name Mythical Garden in Thailand, Radee in the United States. The wines are made with fruits other than grapes, notably mangosteen, pineapple and litchi. I was looking forward to visiting the facility where they have been produced during a forthcoming visit to Bangkok, but just learned that the plant was inundated by about five feet of water during the city's prolonged recent flooding and has been abandoned. Production may resume eventually, but for now it's on hold, says one of the principals behind the product. In the meantime, persons looking for a rare kind of wine during the holiday season - and one that basically is about to be extinct, at least for awhile - they best get over to the grocery store Corti Brothers, where Darrell Corti still has about a case each of the mangosteen ($31.50) and the pineapple ($27); the litchi is sold out.