Chilton - Adventures with old vines: a beginners guide to being a wine connoisseur

A Beginners Guide to Being a Wine Connoisseur

Richard L. Chilton Jr.

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

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Copyright 2017 by Richard L. Chilton Jr.

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chilton, Richard L., 1958 author.

Title: Adventures with old vines : a beginners guide to being a wine connoisseur / Richard L. Chilton Jr.

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017023127 (print) | LCCN 2017023639 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538106143 (electronic) | ISBN 9781538106136 (hardback : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Wine tasting. | Wine and wine making.

Classification: LCC TP548.5.A5 (ebook) | LCC TP548.5.A5 C49 2017 (print) | DDC 641.2/2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017023127

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Acknowledgments

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A s with anything in life, writing a book is not a singular pursuit. Many people provided me much-needed help and counsel. For that I am deeply thankful. My best friend and wife, Maureen, who for thirty-six years has put up with a lot of swirling, tasting, and lugging wine home after our many vineyard trips. Her enthusiasm for my passion is great and her palate is even better. Many thanks go to my dad, Richard Sr., who after a distinguished career in advertising has published eight books on baseball and football. He showed me the value and power of the printed word, a real gift. Gabby Stones help with the research and writing of the wine profiles was invaluable, as was her counsel with editing and making sure I was on point. She is a great friend and true lover of wine. Lacy Kiernan, a very talented young photographer, who agreed to work with me and provide navigational skills in obtaining the rights to our photographs and taking many of the pictures for this book. Her skills are great and I am sure you will be hearing about her in the future. Jessica Murphy, my very dedicated and exceptional assistant, was nearly flawless in her typing and understanding my written word. She never wavered, draft upon draft. Jeff Smith, my co-partner at Hourglass, and our very talented winemaker, Tony Biagi, who made sure that my description of how wine is really made was as crisp as a good Sauvignon Blanc. Susan McEachern and Rebeccah Shumaker, my editor and her assistant, who were steadfast and patient with their advice for me on how to turn this book into a reality. Many thanks to the late Al Hotchin and his colleague Geraldine Tashjian from the Burgundy Wine Company for introducing and teaching a young guy the seductive pleasures of Burgundies. Many thanks to all the vineyards from around the world that provided pictures for this book.

Introduction

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M y wine journey started in 1976. I was living with my family in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, in an old house that, like many houses of that era, had to be retrofitted with a bomb shelter and equipped with three weeks of food, water, and provisions in case of a nuclear attack. Once the threat had diminished, these shelters fell into disuse, so my dad lobbed out the question, What should we do with ours? It was a dark, dank space that housed a good many spiderwebs and much mold. In the past it had been used as a darkroom for photography, but I immediately shot back, Lets turn it into a wine cellar. My dad, largely a spirits drinker, agreed under duress from both myself and my brother Chip, who was working at a well-known local wine shop (as a part-time job) and who had suggested that he was eligible for great employee discounts. We immediately started filling the cellar and tasting wines from all different wine regions. I felt it would be important for future success if I knew my way around the wine industry, so I plunged in and immersed myself in the myriad of information that was around in those pre-Internet days. Robert Parkers Wine Advocate was just starting up, and his in-depth analysis of wine regions was a big help. I tasted and studied, tasted and studied, starting with Bordeaux, then the Rhne, Burgundy, and other French regions. With every tasting and bottle of wine that I tried, I discovered how much I loved the experience but also how little I knew. At that moment, I realized that wine connoisseurship was not just an open-and-shut wine book but rather a wine journeyan endless stream of vintages, wine varietals, bottle variation, and marriage with different kinds of foods. No two wines are the same, just as no two palates are identical. That is what makes the experience so much fun and immensely rich to share with others.

In 2006, I had the good fortune to co-found the Hourglass Wine Company, when my partners Jeff Smith, Michael Clark, and I purchased a significant yet unbranded fifty-eight-acre vineyard in St. Helena (Napa Valley), California. We subsequently merged with Jeff Smiths small, four-acre, super-premium Cabernet Sauvignon estate vineyard, Hourglass. Over time we created one of the leading multiple varietal vineyards in Napa Valley. Once I took the plunge from wine lover to wine producer, my journey started reaching new heights.

This book, which is a compilation of my wine experiences over the past forty years, is a primer for all those just starting on their wine journeys. The vineyards that I highlight as benchmark wines are listed not necessarily because they are the most expensive, most prestigious, or most popular, but rather for their unique places within the wine world, and the fact that no wine connoisseur could fully enjoy his or her journey without tasting these wines and having a memory marker as to their distinctive styles. Some are very expensive; some are not... the expensive wines should be shared with a group of other wine connoisseurs in much the same fashion as people get together in book clubs to enjoy the stories. You really need only one glass of each of these wines to record the style and taste for your scholarship. Taste and study, taste and study, go region by region enjoying and experiencing the true excitement and joy that wine can bring. You have started a lifelong journey that will bring marvelous pleasure and satisfaction. I hope this book helps to demystify the process and stimulate your interest.

Good luck, and always remember to pull the cork.

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Getting Started and Buying Wine