Perlis Picks – The New Wine Rules by Jon Bonné

January 20, 2018 by Michael Perlis

A few years ago, Jon Bonné’s book The New California Wine became one of my favorite books on wine. I think some people looked at that book as the author telling people that these are the only wines you should be drinking out of the vast selection available to us. Instead, I took Mr. Bonné’s intent to be to advise his readers of which wineries he felt were most involved in pushing the boundaries of quality winemaking in California.

Admittedly, I especially appreciated Bonné’s theme as I tend to gravitate towards wine outliers myself; often those who don’t follow the standard rules.

So, I was somewhat surprised by the author’s latest book, which is all about rules. I expected to dislike this book, but I liked it – a lot. Truthfully, the “rules” read more like suggestions to make your wine-life easier, whether you be a possibly intimidated wine novice or a seasoned wine lover. And as the book reads like suggestions, the reader can feel free to choose which ones works best for him or her.

Some of the “rules” that resonated with me were…

Rule 1 – Drink the rainbow.

It’s easy to get in a rut of one color [red, white or pink] or even one varietal [sayeth the Zin Fan]. That’s a good way to do it, if you want to miss a lot.

Rule 6 – There’s a difference between “fruity” and “sweet.”

While the author tries to not get hung up on technicalities, this is a good one to remember. They definitely mean different things.

Rule 14 – Organic and biodynamic mean something specific. Natural means a different thing.

I like this one because, ironically, these terms mean very little to me as to whether I select a wine for my own drinking. Although it does make for interesting conversation while sharing a glass or two of it with fellow wine drinkers.

Rule 17 – Stop worrying about sulfites.

I love this one for all of you who complain that the sulfites gave you a headache when it is really probably because you drank too much.

Rule 23 – No two bottles of wine – even of the same wine – are exactly alike.

So many factors can contribute to bottle variation, from conditions at the winery to conditions with the consumer and anywhere in between. It is just a fact of life and what contributes to wine being so interesting.

Ditto for…

Rule 25 – The occasional faulty bottle of wine is a fact of life. Don’t let one ruin your day.

Something I need to remind myself of sometimes.

The author also provides a very nice explanation of what the various faults [corked, cooked, oxidized, brett, etc.] are. Personally, I’ve found that people can be sensitive to some faults more than others; for example, “oxidation” is my pet peeve. I also am reminded of a conversation I was having with a WSET-2 graduate [no, not Eve] who was describing a flawed wine she had tasted and said “It was corked; it was totally oxidized.” When I inquired which it was [corked or oxidized] I was met with a blank stare.

Rule 26 – A wine’s price rarely reflects its quality.

As long as we’re not talking about bargain supermarket plonk, I tend to agree. Although I still think you are more likely [but not guaranteed, of course] to get a better bottle by spending the extra bucks.

Rule 42 – Never judge a bottle by its closure.

If it were up to me, all wines would have twist-off caps.

I’ll stop with that one. There are a lot more rules in the book, 89 in total. This book is definitely worthy of your time, not just for the rules but also for the large amount of useful information that the author manages to include in a fairly small space.

Michael Perlis has been pursuing his passion for wine for more than 25 years. He has had the good fortune of having numerous mentors to show him the way, as well as a wonderful wife who encourages him and shares his interest. After a couple of decades of learning about wine, attending events, visiting wineries and vineyards, and tasting as much wine as he possibly could, he had the amazing luck to meet Eve Bushman. Now, as Contributing Editor for Eve’s Wine 101, he does his best to bring as much information as possible about wine to Eve’s Wine 101 faithful readers. Michael is also Vice President of Eve Bushman Consulting (fka Eve’s Wine 101 Consulting) http://evebushmanconsulting.com/ and President of MCP Financial. Michael can be contacted at michaelthezinfan@aol.com or michael@evebushmanconsulting.com.

Perlis Picks: Mollydooker Part Two, the Conversation with Sparky Marquis

October 26, 2013 by evebushman

Mollydooker – part 2

http://www.mollydookerwines.com/

My conversation with Sparky Marquis of Mollydooker:

First of all, let’s get one thing clear – Marquis is pronounced “mar-KWIZ”. So go back and reread last week’s article with the correct pronunciation in your head.

I really wanted to know what Sparky felt were the driving factors in Mollydooker’s success, especially in the United States, when so many Australian producers seem to have foundered.

Now there is a lot of detail on the Mollydooker website – a LOT of detail – explaining much more than I could hope to put in this article. I encourage everybody to explore it as there is much interesting information. I just want to report on here what Sparky and I discussed.

The answer really seemed to come down to just a few things: consistent high quality, a customer base that provides better marketing for them than any marketing campaign could, and a little thing called the “Mollydooker shake”.

The consistent high quality is what Sparky refers to as the “WOW” factor, when the customer is drinking a wine that he/she feels is two quality levels higher than what the bottle cost. Sparky says this is accomplished by first achieving the desired “fruit weight” using their “vineyard watering programme”. Only grapes that result in wines that have the right “fruit weight” (which Sparky said is a measure of how long the palate experiences the “silky sensation of fruit before feeling the prickly sensation of structure”) are selected for Mollydooker wines, and it is the measure of fruit weight that determines which level of Mollydooker wines the grapes are used for.

Sparky said he applies three rules to Mollydooker wines:

Would I drink a glass of this?
Would I drink a bottle of this?
…by myself?

To this end, he and Sarah rarely drink any other wine than Mollydooker, preferring to monitor solely what is going on with their wines rather than being concerned about what other winemakers were doing. (They do occasionally have some Jack Daniels.) Sparky said if more winemakers spent time drinking their own wines, they would probably stop making some of them.

Customer support is, of course, critical to Mollydooker’s success. Sparky said they do very little real marketing. Instead, their customers act as ambassadors for the brand. Key to this is Mollydooker’s great customer service. I’ve had my own interactions with Mollydooker’s staff, including Sparky’s mother Janet, and have always received outstanding treatment. Sparky said that wine is different from other products in the way it connects people and contributes to relationship and friendships. Their approach to customer service is just an outgrowth of this.

Even though Mollydooker does minimal formal marketing, Sparky spoke at a marketing seminar recently, where he said he told the attendees: You can market whatever you want as long as everything you say is true.

And the fans of Mollydooker clearly believe this. So, the goal is to get more fans, and to keep them happy. One of the ways they are currently doing this is with a promotion called “Empty the Warehouse – Lips on Glasses” wherein Mollydooker is subsidizing its distributors to enable restaurants to offer Mollydooker at close to retail pricing. More “lips on glasses” results in more ambassadors for Mollydooker.

And, of course, there is that Mollydooker Shake. Have you heard of it?

According to Sparky, it really started because he wanted to be able to drink wine with his sister, who is highly allergic to sulfites. So, he searched for an alternative preservative and settled on nitrogen. But, Sparky said that the downside was that the nitrogen “flattened” the flavor. The solution they came up with was to open the bottle, pour, out a small amount, close the bottle, invert it and shake it, and then open the bottle to release the nitrogen. The Mollydooker Shake was born.

Sparky related the story where early on in Mollydooker’s history he was meeting with his wine distributor at a restaurant in Hawaii, and performed the Mollydooker Shake on all the wines prior to having the representative taste them. Little did he know that Hawaii’s #1 wine writer was also dining at the same restaurant, and she was surprised to learn that he was Sparky Marquis, as she had previously told her dining companions that the man shaking the bottles must know nothing about wine. That’s when Sparky knew he needed to pass this information on to his customers.

An article about Mollydooker wouldn’t be complete for Eve’s Wine 101 readers without discussing the fact that all Mollydooker’s wines are bottled under screwcap. I asked Sparky how he deals with those who are still opposed to that type of closure, and he replied he had essentially given up, as there was no rational opposition. Sparky said they had recently opened up several older wines from his winemaking days with other wineries, to share with employees at the Mollydooker Golden Oldies dinner, held at the Marquis household for employees with more than five years of service. The wines had all been sealed with natural cork, and they all showed some sign of deterioration, with a large percentage of them clearly suffering from cork taint.

Sparky said that, in his experience, one in 12 wines bottled with natural cork have cork taint, with another 2 out of 12 wines suffering from what he referred to as “stealth cork”, which while not showing all the negative attributes from cork taint, had been negatively impacted enough to make the wine taste off.

So, the decision was made from the start to only use screwcaps. At first, they did use cork on their top of the line Velvet Glove bottling, but that ended with the 2009 vintage.

The mention of Velvet Glove brought up the accident in 2011, when a full container of the 2010 vintage was accidentally dropped and destroyed, at a value of over $1,000,000. And, even though it was insured, it was still a pretty devastating occurrence, as Sarah and Sparky saw a huge portion of their flagship wine destroyed. But, Sparky said “The outpouring of support and worldwide empathy was so humbling it changed our lives.”

Photo from the Cambodia charity project

But, even before that, Sarah and Sparky had realized how fortunate they were and felt the need to give back. What started in 2008 with creating a special bottling of their Two Left Feet wine called Sip it Forward for which all profits would go to the Transform Cambodia project, they decided that wasn’t enough and now donate a portion of their overall profits to organizations such as:

Transform Cambodia

Mercy Ministries, USA

Hutt St Centre, AUS

Chester County Futures, USA

Sparky ended the conversation sounding somewhat amazed at how fortunate they had been. They had started Mollydooker from nothing, achieved incredible success, and had the opportunity to give back. The fact that he took the time to talk to me at 6:30 AM his time to accommodate my schedule, the same week that he had been talking with Marvin Shanken of the Wine Spectator about finalizing plans for the upcoming New York Wine Experience, meant a lot to me.

Occasionally, Sarah and Sparky host winemaker dinners in the U.S. I’ve always seemed to miss their previous visits, but am looking forward to the next time they are in Southern California, probably sometime early next year. I’ll let you know when it is happening.

In the meantime, go out and get some Mollydooker and give it a shake. I dare you!

Michael Perlis has been pursuing his passion for wine for more than 25 years. He has had the good fortune of having numerous mentors to show him the way, as well as a wonderful wife who encourages him and shares his interest. After a couple of decades of learning about wine, attending events, visiting wineries and vineyards, and tasting as much wine as he possibly could, he had the amazing luck to meet Eve Bushman. Now, as Contributing Editor for Eve’s Wine 101, he does his best to bring as much information as possible about wine to Eve’s Wine 101 faithful readers. (2013 Update: Eve and Michael announced Eve Wine 101 Consulting. Info is here: http://evewine101.com/press-releases/) Michael can be contacted at michaelthezinfan@aol.com.

Michael Perlis asks: To Cork or Not?

May 18, 2013 by evebushman

Recently, my esteemed colleague Rusty Sly published an article expressing his preference for the use of corks over screwcap closures for wine bottles. In the interest of presenting another viewpoint, I would like to say that my own preference is firmly on the side of twist-offs. Although admittedly my own household is split on this issue, as my wife Karen prefers the romance and tradition of corks.

In no way am I criticizing Rusty’s argument. (There is no way I can even address his presentation of the chemical issues — he’s the scientist, not I!)

Contributing Editor Michael Perlis

But, with regard to the issue of the need for cork closures for long-term aging of a decade or more for fine wines, my understanding is that the vast majority of wines aren’t aged for any great length of time, or even have the structure to be aged. And I know for me personally, aging a wine beyond seven years is the exception rather than the rule. So, why should this small minority drive the industry?

I agree with Rusty that corks are not the only cause of TCA contamination, but I expect they are the major contributor. And corks can have other issues as well, such as breakage and crumbling. And twist-offs are just so darn convenient.

In addition, I think we have a duty [maybe even a sacred one?] to encourage people to drink wine, including bringing new wine drinkers into the fold. I wonder how many newbies have tried a wine, found it tasted “off” and not realized it was “corked”, and then just thought they didn’t like that wine, winery or even wine in general.

All that being said, I am really no expert on this subject except for my own experience. So, I turned to my friend Stillman Brown, owner/winemaker of Stillman Wines and Zeppelin Winery (www.zeppelinwinery.com). This is what he had to say:

“The idea that corks should ‘breathe’ is a canard; it’s not controllable and the maturation of wine in the bottle is anaerobic; this is sound theory, and has been shown in French and Australian experiments with corks and screwcaps.

Corks have physical defects, and can dry out in low humidity storage conditions.

The only problem with screwcaps is the physical vulnerability of the seal, which is a very small area on the top of the bottle; this can be simply remedied by improved bottle and screwcap design.

Agglomerate corks that are made from fine cork particles flushed with supercritical CO2 and then fused with food grade plastic, and neutral food grade plastic corks, are also superior to ‘natural’ i.e. cut single piece corks; the issues of pressure and rebound are easily solved.

If you want more oxygen in a wine, leave it in the barrel longer or micro-ox it, but don’t rely on a little piece of cork to leak the ‘correct’ amount of oxygen over the course of years.

Blaming reductive aromas on the perfect seal of the screwcap is a cover for imperfect winemaking, not to say that sulfur compounds are perfectly predictable.

I have been hearing the cork industry’s claims and promises for almost thirty years now, and their time should have been up before that. But screwcaps are for bums, right?”

So, I guess there is room for debate. What’s your preference?

Michael Perlis has been pursuing his passion for wine for more than 25 years. He has had the good fortune of having numerous mentors to show him the way, as well as a wonderful wife who encourages him and shares his interest. After a couple of decades of learning about wine, attending events, visiting wineries and vineyards, and tasting as much wine as he possibly could, he had the amazing luck to meet Eve Bushman. Now, as Contributing Editor for Eve’s Wine 101, he does his best to bring as much information as possible about wine to Eve’s Wine 101 faithful readers. (2013 Update: Eve and Michael announced Eve Wine 101 Consulting. Info is here: http://evewine101.com/press-releases/)