Arizona Wine

I want to stake a claim—just like a gold rush—in this year 2011— of the emerging wineries of Arizona before they attain world fame. SugarToad recently had the honor of hosting winemaker Eric Glomski of Arizona Stronghold Vineyards to celebrate the wines of Arizona. The dinner was full of storytelling of local history including Indian tales of Geronimo. Mr. Glomski has great respect for the local culture and considers himself a steward of the land—a true pioneer.

The wines of Arizona?—It is like Tuscany had a kid with Rhone grape varietals and got caught up in a gold rush to the Wild West. This is my attempt to describe the terrior and feel of Arizona wines. They are paradoxically rustic and elegant. Fruity, yet not sweet with refreshing acidity, and are great food wines. They are growing grenache, syrah, sangiovese, cabernet sauvignon, mourvedre, sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, and my personal favorite malvasia. The vineyards are up in the mountains, sometimes at 5000 feet above sea level, and they don’t have heat problems, but frost problems!

I first came across Arizona wines from a couple years ago with the wines of Dos Cabezas and vigneron Todd Bostock. Skeptical at first, I tasted a Syrah called “La Montana” from the 2003 vintage and I was sold. Not only do these reds drink well young, but the concentration of fruit and acidity make them great aging candidates.

Mr. Glomski’s business party is Maynard James Keenan, front man for the bands Tool & A Perfect Circle. Together they recently filmed a documentary Blood Into Wine. It portrays the trials and tribulations of starting a winery in Arizona. With Mr. Keenan’s fame, they have obtained a lot of wine press, but, the movie definitively shows he is a vigneron. So if you have a Netflix subscription, check out Blood Into Wine. It’s entertaining, educational, and displays the pioneering spirit of vignerons.

How Sommeliers Mix Sangria

For some reason I have been asked many times in the past gloom-filled Spring weeks how I make Sangria. It must be the flirtatious summer like temperatures upon us. I immediately start thinking of the BBQs I will be attending soon and who will be at them. My ethos, pathos, and logos affect my thought process, and, warranting which type of BBQ I will be attending, warrants the depth of complexity in which I will make said Sangria.

If I am attending an impromptu gathering, my sourcing of ingredients may be limited to the local liquor and grocery store. If I know of a gathering a week or two in advance, the research begins. I offer a couple of solutions on how to make Sangria this upcoming summer season. The beauty of Sangria is there are no right or wrong recipes—Just wrong ingredients!

By wrong ingredients, I mean, please only use freshly squeezed juices, and freshly chopped produce. Most local groceries, like Casey’s Foods in Naperville and Whole Foods, offer pre-cut fresh fruits and vegetables. I prefer to chop and dice my own and it is less expensive. If one wants to cheat and use wrong ingredients which are pre-bottled mixes, wine in a box, and pre-bottled sangrias, please just go to your favorite local restaurant that serves sangria and enjoy it on their patio. Using ingredients that have added sulfites and shelf-stablizers are what give us bad headaches. Fresh and natural ingredients are bodies are able to process more easily.


Traditional Sangria

1-750 ml Argentinean Malbec or Favorite Fruity Red Wine (Traditional Spanish Sangria is usually made with Tempranillo)
½ Cup Contreau or Triple Sec
½ Cup Simple Syrup
1 Orange Diced
1 Lemon Diced
1 Lime Diced
2 Apples Diced

Notes***
Marinate in pitcher for at least one hour and refrigerate.
Serve over ice and garnish with orange slice.
All of these ingredients are readily available year round at any local grocer.
Feel free to add different fresh berries and other fruits to the mix.
There are no boundaries to making sangria.
My preferred Malbec is Crios by Susana Balbo—one can usually find this in the $10-13 range.
Please don’t spend more than $20 on a bottle of wine for Sangria, or use Grand Cru Burgundy.
If you prefer Sangria with white wine, make sure you select a wine with no oak and good acidity. Albarino from Spain works well and is reasonably priced for white wine sangria.
Please remember that this is like a cocktail and the alcohol content is quite high!


2-Quill-Ya Sangria
This is a recipe we have been working on for a short while now and found the inspiration from the kind folks at Hum Liqueur…

2 Cup Mezcal or Tequila (we like Mezcal because the agave is usually smoked!)
2 Cups Hum Botanical Liqueur
2 Cups Agave Nectar
2 Cups Malbec Red Wine
4 Limes Diced
1 Whole Pineapple Diced
2 Red Bell Peppers Diced
3-4 Jalapenos Diced (depending how much heat you like)
Several Sprigs Cilantro or Seasonal Herbs to Garnish

Notes***
Crush and muddle all fruit in bottom of pitcher.
Make sure all seeds are removed from fruit.
Pour in Alcohol and stir, let marinate for at least an hour
Serve over ice and garnish with herbs.
Agave Syrup is just like honey and can be found at almost any grocer.
Mezcal is just like Tequila, but does not come from the Jalisco Province in Mexico.
Hum Liqueur may be procured at Binny’s Beverage Depot if you are in Chicagoland.

Somm—O—Logue 1: Champagne Comes From Champagne! (A Somm—O—Logue is like Psalms from the Bible, but by a Sommelier)

Wedding season is upon us…

1. Champagne Comes From Champagne!

This sommelier will argue that Champagne growers and producers are the most passionate vignerons in the world. Their vineyards have been the battlefields for many wars, including a pair of worldly ones. Napoleon even had a mountain top leveled there to have a banquet at Vertus. Champagne is actually a village or region about 90 minutes northeast of Paris. The sparkling wines from Champagne are highly regulated by the French Government. They are very protective of the secondary fermentation that occurs in the bottle giving Champagne its famous bubbles!

Methode Champenoise, or Champagne Method, is very arduous and labor intensive. Champagne can only be made from three grapes chardonnay, pinot noir, and pinot meunier. Chardonnay is a white varietal and the pinots are red varietals. There are many styles but two common ones are “Blanc de Blanc”and “Blanc de Noirs.” Blanc de blanc literally means white from white and is made exclusively from Chardonnay. Blanc de noirs literally means white from red and is made from the red varietals.

Most Champagnes are blends and the grapes come from multiple vintages, hence NV or non-vintage. Chardonnay brings a crisp acidity to the blend. Pinot Noir brings richness and texture. Vintage Champagnes, like Cuvee Dom Perignon, are declared usually three times per decade and the grapes all come from the same year. Most Champagnes in America are labeled brut, which are dry, and there are dessert Champagnes, which are labeled demi-sec or doux.

Sommelier Humor—I did not come up with the following, but stole it from a sommelier I use to work with/trained me how to be technical. My favorite Grand Cru Village is Bouzy—and—my Favorite Premier Cru Village is Dizy! Yes, these are actually classified wine growing villages of Champagne. What Champagne do Sommeliers drink? Krug! Krug does make the greatest Champagne in the World.

There are many cost effective alternatives to Champagne like Spanish Cava or Italian Prosecco. Many traditional Champagne Houses have purchased vineyard land in California and built wineries. They are producing sparkling wines using Method Champenoise, but at half the cost. Mass produced sparkling wines are essentially still wines pumped with CO2 gas and bottled. (Just like Coke—Yikes!) So remember—Champagne comes from Champagne!

Willamette Tour Part 3—Know Your Potstill

I became completely lost on the back roads trying to find Ransom in Sheridan at the very southern end of the Willamette in the foothills of the Coastal Range. Several dirt and hilly roads later I had arrived to a forty acre farm and distillery. I was greeted by the winemaker/distiller Tad Seestedt and his team with pizza topped with locally foraged mushrooms and local red wine. Life doesn't get any better then this.



There were two barns—one for the wine and one for the pot stills per Federal regulations. You can't make wine and spirits under the same roof. Honestly, I am more intrigued with the gins Tad and his team produce then the wines—they are amazing. I am constantly trying to understand the entire process from start to finish. Meeting the artisans that distill the spirits I admire is always inspiring and helps me find my passion for what I do.



They are currently making two gins. The first and most famous is the Old Tom. A gin style light brown in color from its oat/corn based mash and is then aged in oak casks. I got to barrel taste some of the gin and taste the oat based mash. The mash tasted just like oatmeal. Old Tom is a style that would be common during the Civil War Era. The other Gin they produce is called Small's, an American Dry Gin that would be common before 1850's. This particular gin is clear and has Oregon raspberries and leaves in the botanicals.



At the restaurant we are currently making two cocktails with Ransom Gin. The first is a classic Old Tom Martinez. It is argued to be the original martini with Sweet Vermouth and Marischino Liqueur. The second is made with Small's Gin and is called the Toad's Cup, a play on the British cocktail the Pimm's Cup. We take Small's Gin, add fresh raspberries, top with our housemade ginger beer, and garnish with a cucumber. It is refreshing and clean for the upcoming patio season.

Willamette Tour Part 2—Smell the Soil

I first stumbled across the sub-AVAs of the Willamette Valley in 2005. The real reason I went to the Willamette is to collect soil from all of its sub-AVAs. McMinnville, Eola-Amity, Yamhill-Carlton, Dundee Hills, Chelahem Mountains, and Ribbon Ridge—I think that’s all of them and I collected soil from them all—It took a couple days, wondering aimlessly from winery to winery.

At SugarToad, I have two mason jars full of terrior I am quite fond off to represent the Pinots from the 2008 vintage . The first is from the Red Hills of Dundee. The J. Christopher “Dundee Hills Cuvee” 2008 represents the volcanic red jory quite well. Dark Cherries with a barnyard to cedar quality is quite prevalent in the wine. In conversations with the winemaker Jay Somners, I learned how Pacific Northwest Salmon perhaps is not the best pairing—or maybe overdone—and the salmon brings out a metallic quality in the wine. A better fish pairing might be Alaskan halibut or diver sea scallops with a secondary pork element with pinot from Dundee.



The other mason jar consists of a more loamy soil from the Chelahem Mountains from the Bergstrom Winery***. Though the Bergstrom “Cumberland Reserve” Pinot Noir 2008 comes from several vineyard sites, one can definitely smell and taste the juicy black cherry to cola notes in the Missoula Flood influenced soils. (That childhood trip to Yellowstone is all making sense now.) After tasting this alongside some grilled blackmouth salmon, I found this to be a better salmon pairing then the pinots from Dundee.

***For sake of argument of the Armitage Crew, Bergstrom is Ubaldo's favorite Pinot of 2006-7.

Willamette Tour Part 1

First Stop—a pilgrimage to Eyrie. David Lett started it all by planting pinot noir in the Red Hills of Dundee back in 1966. With the sun setting, the landscape of the Dundee Hills looks like a Martian landscape. The red jory soil has literally rusted over the years. The wines of Eyrie are rustic and the bottle I purchased I unwittingly left in the hotel room—Yikes!

Second Stop—A trip through Eola-Amity Hills on a clear day will yield great scenic panorama with Mt. Hood as a backdrop. This was just outside Brooks winery who recently had one of their rieslings served at a Whitehouse State Dinner...the one that was crashed...

Cheese Anyone? This Bears Fan is still bitter about the NFC Championship game and is attempting to boycott all Wisconsin cheese and dairy products. Oregon is a great understated dairy state. I visited two cheese companies. The Willamette Valley Cheese Co. produces organic cheeses at the southern end of the valley in Salem and Tillamook is a coop right on the Oregon Coast...the Tillamook Highschool mascot is a cheesemaker...

Questions a Sommelier is Asked with Great Regularity

What is a sommelier?

Essentially, the head wine steward. We study wine and all things wine. It derives from the middle French word sumnier (sumner?), which means the summit. The sommelier is in charge of the King’s most important processions, which in France, is wine. We assist with selecting wines for guests and, by some people’s standards, know way too much about fermentation.

How does one become a sommelier?

Work, work, work, and more hard work. Most sommeliers notice strange things that others don’t notice. For instance, the strange smells that occur as the seasons change. Become a first class notic-er. Next, get a job at a restaurant that sells wine. Finally, research constantly and ask a lot of questions. Grape Juice and Geography! Always taste! Then one may or may not gain the rank of sommelier. I strongly advise if you don’t want to work Saturday nights, please don’t become a Sommelier. I have had two Saturdays off in the last two years. One must also have a strong sense of humor.

You must have a difficult life—you do get to drink all day, right?

Yes, we are constantly tasting wine, but not all the time. Most accomplished sommeliers work similar hours to chefs. My bed time reading currently consists of 3 different books on the history of pinot noir, and that is just one grape. We spend about an hour behind the scenes for every hour that we are on the restaurant floor doing prep work, researching, training staff, ordering wine, cellaring wine, polishing glassware, etc. Every time l have invited an enthusiast to taste with me alongside an accomplished winemaker, they usually start getting bored and rolling their eyes when wine geekdom kicks in and we start talking about wind patterns, micro-climates, and soil. Tasting wine is mentally and physically exhausting.

This sommelier doesn’t sleep much. We don’t take vacations or call in sick. We respectfully decline wedding invitations. I’ll probably have to pass on those front row seats you offered me as a gift to see Bono at Wembley Stadium—airfare included. A college friend used to find it amusing to leave messages on my cell phone with offers like “I have 3rd row seats for the Cubs game” and “hey, you want to go see Ben Folds Five this Saturday.”

Sommeliers take sabbaticals, not vacations, to wine growing regions to visit vineyards and winemakers. We avoid wineries that see limo traffic. If one is going to tasting rooms to get drunk, one is going for the wrong reasons. Clarification needed—If one is chauffeured around in a limo because they have a fear of driving like Alfred Hitchcock, that is okay. My recent trip to Oregon netted me several hundred pages of notes that I am still sorting through and mason jars full of soils from the sub AVA’s of the Willamette Valley. As I opened my luggage from the bags I checked with Southwest from my return flight to Chicago Midway, I found notes saying my bags had been searched. I had placed the books I procured from Powell’s in Portland on Pacific Northwest Geology next to the soil samples. I wonder if the security guys figured it out?

What is your favorite wine?

Never answer a question with a question. This sommelier seems to have heard this response from many school teachers. My response to my favorite wine is a series of questions. Who am I with? What season is it? What am I eating? Who’s buying? If money is no object, I’ll be drinking Grand Cru White and Red Burgundy from my favorite Negociant Domaine Leroy, or perhaps a 1983 Chateau Margaux, and maybe Chave Ermitage. Sommeliers have expensive tastes. But, on our days off this sommelier usually drinks artisan spirits or craft beer that is local—Two Brothers and Goose Island are two great Chicago area Breweries. This sommelier’s favorite white varietal is sauvignon blanc and favourite red varietal is syrah. In the fall I might give a totally different answer since at the time of this entry we are approaching Spring.

What do you think of scores and critics?

Robert Parker who? Wine Dictator what? (Joke) Sommeliers are not critics, but are trained to objectively assess wine for quality and faults. One’s sweet is another’s dry. One’s definition of full bodied is another’s medium body. Some critic’s “style” is biased in one way or another. We are happy to support the enthusiasm that Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator generate to the general public. They help to educate and provide a great platform for the wine industry as a whole. I don’t care what score a wine may or may not get.

When interviewing clients we are trained to ascertain what styles they prefer and interpret their wine vernacular. We do constantly read reviews and research what is hot in the current marketplace. Good scores and reviews can drive the price of wines quickly. Sommeliers are constantly researching wines to be ahead of the critic curve and prefer to support the little guy.

Why don’t you start a winery?

I’ll start right now if you write me a check for $10 million. Take a leap of faith. Oh, and by the way, we won’t break even for ten years and that’s if we are lucky. Banks will always say that a restaurant is the worst investment one could possibly make. Well, making wine is worse. The economics of producing decent wine in Napa Valley: $100,000 an acre for good vineyard land—need at least 10 acres—$75,000 per acre to plant vines—the vines won’t yield any decent grapes for 4-5 years—the winemaking equipment is not cheap either—couple hundred grand there too—scratch my head—missing a few other items.