Ever since returning from Crushpad Bordeaux to man the helm of Sales Account Management at Crushpad Sonoma, I’ve been searching for  the best vineyard source of Cabernet Sauvignon to create a similar Bordeaux style blend to pair with my 2010 Margaux-based blend.  After sampling all of Crushpad’s 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon production, I focused on the Cabs form the coolest part of the valley, the Coombsville/Tolucay area: Carrefour, Coombsville and Reverence.  Samples from each of these vineyards proved more than “worthy” but the Reverence vineyard stood out as best for my needs.

Once past the vineyard selection (which I though was the hard part), I pulled samples from several barrels to analyze and taste.

Science Guides, But Taste Decides

Armed with my trusty (hobby) refractometer and pH meter, I set off analyzing each sample hoping to get a scientific hint on which sample to choose.  The Brix readings appeared way off due to a bad calibration that I wasn’t able to resolve (but will double check in the lab this week) but the pH range of 3.82-3.66 appeared reasonable.

The color on all of these young samples were mostly indistinguishable with their deep ruby core fading all the way out to a pinkish rim.  One sample, had a touch of garnet in the core but no organoleptic indicators of oxidation.  Two of the samples expressed cassis and ripe fruit, two other samples were layered with a bit of confectionary sugar, and the last two samples gave more red fruit and floral notes — just what I was looking for.  Long tannins and good acidity was displayed by all of the samples.  But the samples offering more red fruit had a touch more vibrant acidity.  Again, exactly the cool climate traits that I desire.

All of these samples were aging in medium toasted barrels used since 2008 from an array of coopers.  The sample that I enjoyed the best, and will secure tomorrow was made by Sansaud.

I can’t wait for the next step:  the Assemblage.

My first order of business after relocating from BDX (Bordeaux) to PDX (Portland) via BOS (Boston), was to attend the Oregon Wine Symposium in Eugene this week.  Below I offer you some interesting tidbits while sparing you the gory details.

Technical Tasting: Ageable Oregon Whites

In this session we were treated with 11 aged white wines from Oregon and 2 aged wines from Germany as a comparison.  My 2 favorite wines of the bunch were the 2001 Argyle Chardonnay and the 1992 Zilliken Saarburger Rausch Riesling Spatlese (Germany) followed closely by the 2004 King Estate Signature Pinot Gris.  I disagreed with the panel’s positive endorsement of the 2002 Amity Gewurtztraminer and 2005 Watermill Viogner and found the Rieslings a bit lacking in the company of the German samples.

Bottom line, I would certainly endorse Oregon’s ability to produce age-worthy white wines.  Chardonnay may be the varietal of choice for aged wines in the future if one is to believe a comment by a viticulturist from another session stating that Pinot Gris is not ‘particularly economically viable’ to grow.

Consumers and Their Purchase Drivers

Of the plethora of mind numbing statistics and PowerPoint Eye-Charts, nothing ground-breaking was reported.  It was encouraging to learn of Oregon’s 2010 growth rate (~18% volume and value).   Other information was obvious to New/Social Media saavy folks like ‘most wine buyers are getting most of their information from Facebook, Twitter or Blogs’.  I left the session muttering the words of Benjamin Disraeli, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”  These statistics are important for business plans and bankers, but at the end of the day, we winemakers must make the very best product we can and make a real, personal connection with our consumers.  I probable could have skipped this session and gone to the bar to network.

Harvest Parameters and Differing Conditions

The most interesting information was given by Russ Smithyman from Château Saint Michelle in Washington.  Their use of remote (aerial) sensing using leaf reflectance to delineate intra-parcel maturity/selection was fascinating.  I was reminded of my friends at Force-A who have developed optical devices to measure photoflorescense in developing grape bunches to evaluate phenolic maturity.  Cool (geeky) stuff.

Drawing Perspective: Three Views on Distribution

This was fun to watch.  What started as a series of factual presentations from a winery, distributor and an outsource sales and marketing company turned into a mild bashing of distributors and enthusiasm for direct-to-consumer.  To Alex Krobin of Thirst Wine Merchants’ credit and from all accounts, he seemed like a standup guy and maintained the middle ground on the debate and basically took the position that “there is room for all of us”.  Adding value to the marketplace versus violation of the commerce clause is what’s at issue.  Only time will tell.  As a producer, determining your raison d’être and go to market strategy early on is paramount.

The Many Faces of Malolactic Fermentation

OK, this will most likely only be interesting to me.  But, I really enjoyed Sigrid Briand and James Osborne’s talks on Malolactic Fermentation.  Not a moment too soon as next weeks UCD winemaking lectures cover MLF.  Of specific interest was the issue of co-inoculation.  Rodrigo Laytte’s of Château Kirwan (see The Art of the Blend with Château Kirwan’s Rodrigo Laytte) explanations of the benefits of co-inoculation where confirmed by both speakers. Additionally, if I understood correctly, co-inoculation can protect against Brettanomyces and can reduce vegetative notes.  They did warn, however, that wine that endured MLF showed reduced color and pigmented polymers.  This could be an issue for unstable colors in Pinot Noir.

All About Filtration

Consumers have lately been conditioned to prefer/request unfiltered wines.  Unfiltered == Better == Artisinal == Complex == “Insert-Your-Own-Quality-Descriptor”.  This talk and tasting presented traditional and cross-flow filtration and gave us an opportunity to taste the differences.  Of the 2 Pinot Noir wines we were shown, 3 samples of each were given: Unfiltered, Cross-Flow Filtered, Cross-Flow and Sterile Filtered.  The wines were well clarified and impossible to detect visually.  The unfiltered wines generally displayed more tannic qualities.  Preferably speaking, I preferred Cross Flow and Sterile filtered version of Wine 1 and the unfiltered version of Wine 2.  Given that this was my first experience of head-to-head comparison of filtered and unfiltered wines, I can’t form an opinion.  I think that I’d have to try it on my own wines before making a conclusion.

More like the season of buying stuff that you don’t want in order to appear charitable.  But is it generosity, guilt or something else that drives this giving?  Did you really need that 3lb tub of cookie dough or gallon size tin of kettle corn that your coworkers were selling for their kid’s school fundraiser?  Did you buy out of obligation or to invest social capital which you’ll redeem for your kid’s soccer team’s candy bar sale next month?

This and NPR’s story, ‘Selfish’ Giving: Does It Count If You Get In Return?, are the impetus for this post.

I would love to help your kid’s school buy new textbooks, offset the costs of a trip to Washington, DC or provide the soccer team with new uniforms.  Since I don’t want anything in return, I am not willing to buy something that I don’t want.  I’d be happier to just give you the portion of the proceeds of the purchase designated to the cause.  What could it be, $1, $2, or even $3?  I have a better idea.

Affiliate Aggregation

WBUR sort of does this when they ask you to “start your Amazon search” from their website.  As an Amazon affiliate, a percentage of your purchase of the Twilight Series, a Digital Camera or a Kindle is paid to WBUR.  They didn’t try to sell you any of these things.  You bought them on your own while also supporting something that you care about.  One way they are trying to increase membership is by partnering with Azigo, which will alert you of member discounts while you are surfing the web.

eScrip is one of several companies that run school or group fundraisers.  They have hundreds of retail affiliates offering cash-back on purchases to your charity.

Combining Azigo’s tools and eScrips affiliate channels, a charity could allow me to donate to their cause by buying anything I want from wherever I want.

Given our post-crisis consumer behavior, this is bound to be a more effective way of fundraising through charitable consumption.  Consider this, 10% commission on a Kindle is $26.  That’s quite a few tubs of cookie dough.

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Group buying has been all the rage for quite some time.  Evidenced by the $250 million valuation for “Collective Buying Site”, Groupon. If you are still one of the uninitiated, like I was this past spring, the idea behind group buying sites is quite simple.  Each day the site presents an unbeatable offer if you and a few hundred of your closest friends go in on the deal.  OK, you don’t even need to know these people as long as the minimum threshold is reached.  Brilliant idea, in fact.  I love it.  However, I have yet to find anything that tickles my fancy. Spa treatments are nice but don’t qualify for my lax list of needs.  I don’t necessarily care how much I’m saving if it’s for something that I wasn’t necessarily looking for in the first place.

Which brings me to something that I am passionate about, buy often and frequently share my purchases with friends.

Wine!

Go into any quality wine shop and you are presented with volume discounts; 10-15% for 6 bottles or even up to 20% for a case of 12 bottles.  I would even bet that your local wine shop would also be willing to offer volume discounts if you asked nice enough (Caveat being if the margin afforded to them by their wholesaler can support it).  It would appear on the surface that the retail wine industry is already conditioned for a “group buying” business model.

Why hasn’t someone done this already, you ask?

(wine.woot.com is trying but I am told that their legality is questionable and they can’t offer deals to certain states — MA being one.  And at least for me, it offers the same unappealing products as Groupon.)

For many reasons but primarily because federal and state liquor laws (shipping across state lines) makes them unattractive and sufficiently burdensome for the seasoned business person or investor looking for simple, uncomplicated businesses with minimal (known) barriers that will scale.  I know because I have spoken to dozens of entrepreneurs, investors and wine merchants over this past year and they tell me as much.  But when I speak to would-be consumers, they love the idea and would sign up tomorrow if possible.

So, how do we make the improbable, available?

I have many ideas.  None of which scale necessarily but all are definitely replicable for particular locales.

I am looking for help/interest from producers, importers, wholesalers, and/or retailers.  You can reach me at rodneygagnon [at] me [dot] com.  Reach out and I’d be happy to tell you more.  And please tell me if someone has solved this conundrum.  I’d love to hear about it and work with them.

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Over the summer, I read Seth Godin’s latest book Tribes.  Tribes makes the case that it has never been easier to create and lead a tribe around a product, a cause, or in the case that I would like to make here, music.  In it, Mr Godin references Kevin Kelly’s blog post on The Technium, 1,000 True Fans, where Mr Kelly argues that an individual artist only needs 1,000 fans to make a living as a full time musician. He cites strategies musicians like Jill Sobule employ to “underwrite” their music production.  This is analogous to technology startups conducting market research before spending millions creating a product that nobody wants.

But, what if you’re name is not Jill Sobule and you haven’t invested years (with the aid of the old establishment) building your brand?  This begs more to Mr Godin’s premise that with social media this becomes a much easier task than ever before. However true this is, every musician would need to employ the same, or largely similar, tactics.  And then convert casual admirers into “true fans” that will presumably plunk down $100 a year for whatever they produce.  Let’s hope that they are prolific creators because a $100 is not exactly milk money.  And, an effective social media (self-promotion) strategy demands a considerable time investment leaving little time for the plethora of content that I’ll expect for my $100.

This model is very difficult to sustain and to scale for an individual artist.

Idea: Coopetition

Coopetition is a way a group of artists can form a collaborative to benefit from the effort of the group and from economies of scale.

Let’s Call it: BandOfBands.com

At BandOfBands.com, I (the consumer) can join the tribe of a group of artists by “subscribing” to their channel.  I can download or stream (see Pandora, iTunes Genius Mixes or Apple buys Lala for why this will be important) content from my american folk music tribe.  From time to time I also get exclusive content, tickets as well as limited access to the artists.  Assuming that there are 10 artists in the channel, I feel that I’m getting a pretty good deal for my $100 a year.  Admittedly, the BandOfBands needs to acquire 10x the “true fans” they would otherwise need on their own but I contend that it’ll be easier as a combined effort.  Individual artists will always out grow the group making way for up and comers.  As well as deadbeats will be naturally jettisoned by the tribe.

For more ideas and dialogue on this topic, check out the great people at Musicians for Music 2.0. They have all forgotten more about the music industry than I’ll ever know.  I’ll defer to them to determine the efficacy of Coopetition and BandOfBands.com.  And whether it already exists.

I was recently chided for reading “nothing but self-help” books.  Even though I wouldn’t be able to find the Self-Help section in the bookstore if you paid me.  I am guilty of primarily reading non-fictional books on entrepreneurism, leadership and self-actualization, but I wouldn’t think to classify them as “self-help”.  I am perpetually seeding my mind with inspiration in the form of books and film like today.

I just watched Clint Eastwood’s latest film, Invictus, about how Nelson Mandela boldly unified his country through sport and inspired a team to achieve more than they ever thought that they could.  He gave them motivation through a greater purpose than simply winning Rugby’s World Cup.  If this type of experience is considered by some as self-help, so be it.  I’m inspired and motivated into action.

No matter where you find it, we all need to be inspired to be more than we are now and to create something bigger than we ever thought we could.  If you are inspired by Twilight or Harry Potter, who am I to criticize you.  I only care that you find your own inspiration and dare to be great.

If you are more of an Invictus kind of person like me, I’ll leave you here with William Ernest Henry’s poem:

Invictus

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My mountain bike gears haven’t been this gunked up since rides in San Diego County with Greg Nesler. There were times when I felt that the next pedal stroke would break a sprocket or two free and it’d be a long walk back to the car.

Grit is an impediment to mountain biking but a necessity to break free from the confines of corporate culture and succeed in Free Agent Nation.

Several months ago I participated in a Grit Study.  The premise of the study was to measure an individual’s “passion and perseverance for long term goals”.   I just received my score last month. According to my age group, I am average.  As hard as this is to accept for a person like me (see Know Thyself: Part 1 & Know Thyself: Part 2), accept it I did.  In fact, I have embraced it and plan to Crush It in 2010.

It’s never too late for resolutions.  I resolve to put more grit in my gears in 2010.

What will Mr. Spacely do without us.

So, what are you doing?