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While answering some comments lately I decided to address the issue of Texas wines. Thanks to David for bringing this up (though TX wineries may not be thanking him!).

I’ve recently relocated and don’t live in TX anymore. Yet, even when I lived there I didn’t drink much TX wine. IMHO, Texas Hills Vineyards was the only one making anything close to comparable in wines I’m used to drinking in terms of reliability and taste. However, the main problem with TX wines is the cost of TX wines! It’s rather discouraging that these inferior wines are $5-$6 more per bottle than most CA wines that are better in almost every facet. Once the TX wineries get the pricing thing figured out they can begin to lure more wine drinkers to their wine, particularly, locals. Incidentally, as I recall, Texas Hills Vineyards also grows Lavender, which my wife was very impressed with.

Now, having said all that TX wines are head and shoulders above any CO wines I’ve tasted thus far! With time other regions including Texas and Colorado can produce good wine but they are not there yet!

Popularity: 65% [?]

Been way too long since I’ve written a post. My apologies to you.

Thanks to Russ over at Californiawinehikes.com for awarding this review of his site the #1 prize - a case of wine!

I’m currently thinking of ways to “redistribute” at least a portion of this prize to the readers here. If you have any cool ideas that would promote this site and would be fun to participate in please let me know by leaving a comment on the About page.

Kudos to the WannaBe Wino as well for taking the runner-up spot. Megan does a fantastic job on her site and I feel lucky to have won out over her. Keep up the great reviews and consistent posting Megan!

Again, many thanks to Russ! We’ll be in his area in Spring of ‘08 and will do the aforementioned Redwoods Hike and will follow it up with a review at that time. If you like the outdoors and wine then it seems you can’t go wrong by contacting Russ and booking your very own California Wine Hike!

Popularity: 69% [?]

What’s in a wine glass? Hopefully, wine!

What makes a wine glass? The shape.

Don’t believe me? Heck, I didn’t believe it until the other night.

We were drinking a very nice bottle of wine and waxing poetic about the various flavors and tastes and smells in this wine. Out of nowhere my wife asks me to trade glasses with her. “What for?” I ask. After all, I have my favorite wine glass that I drink out of and she has her favorite glass that she drinks out of. However, the glasses are different shapes.

Forget about the fact that both of these glasses have white wine in them. You know that as a Level 4 I rarely drink white wine. Our glasses were full of red wine! My glass is on the left and Robin’s glass is on the right.

My wife always likes to show me up about her wine glass and tease me about how attached I am to mine but I indulge her and swap glasses for a taste of wine. What followed was interesting…I got a different set of tastes from her glass than I did from my own glass. She experienced the same thing.

Hmm…looks like those Riedel people are on to something after all.

But why did it taste different? My immediate discovery was that I was able to put my nose further into her glass than I was my own. This led to different aroma qualities as well as the fact that when I took a drink/taste I wasn’t required to tilt my head back as far as when I drank from my own glass. This results in the wine hitting further back on my tongue initially and therefore producing a different set of flavors. They weren’t entirely different but they were different and enhanced.

When drinking out of my own preferred glass I can’t get my nose in as deep and my head tilt causes the wine to hit the front of my tongue first. This results in some different, enhanced flavors.

What I noticed with the wine we were drinking at the time (review to come over the weekend) was that with my glass I noticed more fruit flavors and with her glass I got more of the earthy flavors. It was an interesting experiment and one I will try again.

Go here for a peek at the Riedel Sommelier series of glasses and try this out the next time you’re drinking wine!

Popularity: 100% [?]

Tom Wark ran a survey a few weeks ago about wine bloggers, wine reviews and consumer choices. I took the survey myself and was looking forward to seeing the results.

Tom released some of those results on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 and I’m not surprised at what I saw. However, I did want to point out a few things.

According the the results over 65% of the respondents admitted to having purchased a wine based on a review they read on a wine blog. Is that a scary thing? What if the blog is the Redneck Wine Review?? Who would buy a wine recommended by a self-proclaimed Level 4 Redneck?

I think many people would and that’s why I started this blog in the first place.

Let’s be frank, there are much better wine reviewers out there than me. People who are professionally trained, have decades of experience, whose palates are fine tuned instruments, education and worldly travels, etc. But, isn’t that the problem in the first place? Do the vast majority of wine drinkers have those types of resumes and skills? Heck no! That’s why many wine drinkers are put off by such reviewers, such professional palates.

One thing I’ve learned in my years thus far on earth is that people don’t like to be intimidated. They don’t like to be talked down to. They don’t like to feel uninformed, uneducated…unworthy. How many of us would feel many of those things tasting and reviewing a wine next to Robert Parker? I’m holding my hand up.

As I said the results don’t surprise me. Take what you read here for what it’s worth - just one Redneck’s opinion about any given bottle of wine. But hey, I’m not any better than you, don’t know more than you, buy wine in the stores just like you.

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Popularity: 40% [?]

This is the 3rd installment of a trip down memory lane about my first visit to Wine Country. You can catch up here for Episode 1 and Episode 2.

Friday June 30, 2006
After a relatively short night that involved more coma than sleep we arose the next morning to cram in a few more things while we were in the bay area.

We first had breakfast delivered to the room and then headed out across the bridge Sausalito. I had been there once before but it was a new experience for Robin. What a cool little town Sausalito is. We walked the main street shopping here and there. We got a coffee and marveled at what it must be like to live in this place. We decided that if the 3 of us got 2 jobs each and put the 2 dogs and 1 cat to work we might be able to afford to share a garage apartment somewhere near San Francisco or Sausalito.

One of the few things I bought that wasn’t wine or chocolate was a set of photos from the Mark Reuben Gallery in Sausalito. He has a neat little store off of the main street and we probably spent an hour in there looking at all the vintage photographs he has. I bought 3 different photos of Denver Bronco players before/during/after Super Bowl XXXII including a classic shot of Elway in the locker room after the game with an ear-to-ear smile. I can’t find it at his online store presumably because I bought it! He does still have a shot of John Elway near the end of SB XXXIII.

Around lunch time we headed back to the Archbishop’s Mansion to pack up and head to Wine Country. Finally!!!

After a quick stop at Walgreens for some snacks and Pepto Bismol (not necessarily in that order) it’s about a 40 mile drive from the Mansion to the Motel 6 in Petaluma.

How could we go from staying at a Mansion to the Motel 6? We chose to do it that way so that we could spend our money on the limo drive through Napa and Sonoma instead of spending big at a hotel. It was a fair trade off and there is just nothing like touring Wine Country in a limo, not having to worry about driving, tasting/drinking as much wine as you want, getting tossed around in the back as the driver speeds through the valley, there is nothing to compare it to!

In any event we checked into the Motel 6 and headed a few blocks down the road to Starbucks for a quick pick-me-up before our next jaunt over to Bodega Bay. What a very cool place that is! Here’s a picture of Robin nearly getting blown away by the winds coming off the bay. Jerri used to do a bit of camping around the area and pointed out several landmarks and camping locations. It seemed to be growing with some construction going on at both ends of the main drive and we just hope it doesn’t lose the charm when that’s all done!

Robin was driving us nuts by singing at every quiet moment. The Muppets song Mah Na Mah Na was the tune and Robin was replacing the scat-like Mah Na Mah Na words with “Bodega Bay!”. To this day whenever any of us hears that song we all sing “Bodega Bay!”

We stopped in for more wine at Gourmet Au Bay where we watched some very skilled windsurfers surf in and out of the bay. I think in my next life I want to own that place. What a spectacular view and lifestyle. We must have fit right in because one of the locals walked over and started talking to us like she knew us! After a minute she realized she didn’t but was very nice nonetheless!

We then enjoyed our final meal of the day at the Tide’s Wharf where I had a fantastic lobster dinner! We got a table at the window and sat back to take it all in. What a great trip! If it ended here it would have been a vacation to remember. But we still had 2 more days to go!

We called it an early night and drove back to the Motel 6 to get some beauty rest and prepare for our trip to Napa.

Saturday would be filled with wine tastings, great cheese, George the Limo Driver and our first In & Out Burgers experience. Stay tuned!

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What is California Wine Hikes? Well it’s exactly what the name says!

California Wine Hikes is a website offering guided hikes, wine tastings, fine dining & accommodations in the California wine country. The primary angle of the site is as a wine country vacation destination. The thing is, the destination changes depending on what type of vacation you want.

Russ Beebe, the founder of the business, has found what I think is a spectacular niche involving vacations, hiking and, my favorite, wine! California Wine Hikes is actually a tour company that allows Russ to combine hiking and wine tasting. The company currently offers 19 different tours ranging from EASY to STRENUOUS hiking levels and the opportunity to take in spectacular scenery and excellent wines.

As I perused the site I found one tour in particular that caught my eye: Romp Through the Redwoods. Having always wanted to see the great Redwoods I can tell you that when I do I will do it through Russ and California Wine Hikes! For a very reasonable price you can enjoy a moderate level hike and visit a local winery when you’re through.

Here’s an excerpt of the tour description:

One-Day Hike & Wine-Tasting Tour: 8 moderate mi., 1000′ elev. gain
Hiking a loop through this mystical Santa Cruz Mountain watershed differs from other, more modern San Francisco Bay Area hiking locales. It’s easy to see why the unmaintained character of this place, with its many downed trees and ungraded slopes, can make this loop hike one of the more rugged hikes in the area. Which, for many who have come to know me, is precisely why it’s one of my favorite places to take my winehiking guests.

If one of the existing tours doesn’t fit your style or timing or budget Russ gives you the option to customize your very own California Wine Hike. Bring a small group of friends or family (or both) and enjoy each other’s company as well as a great vacation with California Wine Hikes.

In addition to the normal business angle Russ has a great blog on his site as well. There are tasting notes, wine reviews, tasting venues, winehiker trails and information about reviewing his site, California Wine Hikes where if you do a review you have a chance at winning a case of really good wine.

Incidentally, he’s also running a promotion right now where you can win a bottle of 2004 Dominus Estate just by signing up to the RSS feed. The exciting thing about it is that if Russ grows his list to over 600 subscribers the winner will get 6 bottles instead of 1! Contain your excitement though as from what I can tell the current number of public subscribers is 35. Quite a ways to go yet.

Technically speaking I really like the site and the fabulous promotion ideas Russ has. It’s obvious to me that in addition to his primary business of wine hikes Russ has a good handle on SEO and blog promotion. I also think that California Wine Hikes is a perfect example of niche marketing. In today’s environment where everyone is trying to find some unique niche to market to Russ seems to have hit a home run.

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Here is the second installment of Wine Country Revisited. If you missed the first one you can catch up here.

Thursday, June 29, 2006 - Noonish thru 2am

So after leaving the Buena Vista and the Dirty Martini bar we take a ride down Lombard Street. It’s one of those things that I had seen on TV and to drive it is something else. There was a line of people waiting to drive down it and most weren’t too friendly about keeping their place in line as people were cutting and didn’t really care what what anybody else thought about it. The guys in this black truck did cut in front of us. I tried snapping a couple of shots on the way down and this is the best one.

Jerri then gave us a tour of some pretty cool places around San Francisco including the Presidio, the Cliff House and Ocean Beach before heading to our one-night stay at the Archbishop’s Mansion. The place was pretty cool. It has themed rooms though I can’t recall which room we stayed in or which room Jerri stayed in (but Jerri can probably recall if she’ll comment). The place offered some wine and cheese around Happy Hour time and we enjoyed some in the Parlor where there was a chandelier that was used in the movie Gone With the Wind. Robin is a huge fan of the movie and was purely delighted to be drinking wine beneath it!

Wait, isn’t this supposed to be about Wine Country?? It is…I know…hang in there with me. It will be worth it I promise!

We drank some wine and had a bite or 2 of cheese and catch a cab to Kuleto’s in the Financial District for dinner and drinks. We started out at the front bar drinking some good Syrah and eating marinated olives, pickled garlic and other finger foods when 3 guys to our left strike up a conversation. We talk about Texas and Colorado and SF while one of the guys makes eyes at Jerri. They seem to travel a lot and are in town for a medical convention. Eventually, our table is ready and we stuff ourselves with a great dinner and a couple more bottles of wine. Now we are primed and I mean PRIMED for a night out!

Around 10pm we catch another cab over to Bix where it’s standing room only and we somehow make our way to the bar and I continue drinking Syrah while Robin switches to, you guessed it, dirty martinis and Jerri switches to Cosmopolitans. Somewhere along the line I lost count of the number of drinks we all had but we had a great time debating what the butler in the huge painting to the left of the bar was thinking.

As we’re about to wrap up the evening we are accosted by the same 3 guys we met earlier at Kuleto’s. It turns out that they are salesman for surgical instruments used in female-only procedures; hysterectomies and such, yeah, THAT was a comfortable conversation! The one is still trying to pickup Jerri and she’s having none of it. After being rebuffed multiple times he finally reveals that he’s married and the gang catches the cab before us. Jerri later claims to have known from the minute we first met these guys that she knew he was married even though he wasn’t wearing a ring. This still baffles me but you just can’t question a woman’s intuition!

The point of the evening is that nobody can remember specifics. We remember the salesmen, the paintings and the drinks (nameless syrah) but we’re all a bit foggy on the details.

Before the night is over, well…let’s just say that only 2 of us remember the cab ride home! I won’t say which one of us it was who couldn’t remember but I will say that I vividly remember the Asian cabbie getting all 4 wheels off the ground on the way back to the hotel on one of those steep downhill roads. Kinda like in the opening sequence in the Streets of San Francisco with Michael Douglas. It was crazy!

I think we woke everybody in the hotel up as we ssshhhed each other and the ladies giggled all the way to our rooms.

Well, it was a long day and it was still only Thursday and we still haven’t gotten to Wine Country. Rest assured that we make the trek to Petaluma where some interesting things happen at a Motel 6, a visit to Bodega Bay and a crazy limo ride with George through Napa Valley.

Tune in next time!

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Great post over at Grape Thinking about the size of wine bottles.

The idea is that medium and large wine producers could benefit from making wine available in smaller sized bottles…kinda like what you see with wine coolers, Jack Daniel’s mixed drinks, Zima and many other girly type products. While there are some good arguments for it like not getting screwed on a crappy bottle of wine that you paid good money for I’m not sure that unless you can buy those smaller bottles individually - not in a 4 or 6 pack - it would be of any benefit other than sealing an unfinished bottle for the next day.

Funny thing is I always thought that the traditional 750ml bottles were already, as my best friend calls it, “Individual Sized”. If you want to talk about bottles that are too large for everyday buying, storing and drinking look no further than Italy. While I haven’t been there myself my wino buddy Mark was stationed in Germany for several years (with a stint in Iraq, thank you for your service!) and made several visits to many of the more popular wine regions in Europe.

While in Italy visiting a winery he observed a kid of 18 or so ride up on a bicycle to the front of the winery. There were what appeared to be gas pumps out front and the kid had 2 large bottles (1-2 gallons each) on baskets over the rear tire of the bike. He pulled the pump handle and began dispensing wine into these 2 large bottles until they were full. He sealed them and off he rode. I guess he had some kind of unlimited club membership!

Mark’s other experience while at that winery was the unique tasting environment. Mark and his wife were each handed a glass and pointed in the general direction of a dozen or so vats of wine. They were free to taste whatever they wanted, unattended, unlimited. Beats the hell out of waiting in line at some wineries in Napa and paying for a taste!

In any case I feel that the current wine bottle size is perfect. Making it smaller could cause issues with other wine drinker friends over who gets what is left of what is deemed the best bottle in the 4-pack (if its a flight) and more bottles of what already can’t be recycled.

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It’s been just over a year since my first trip to Napa and Sonoma, aka, Wine Country. I had such a blast on that short vacation that I had to relive it with the 4 other people I went with. We spent a few hours discussing it and I thought it was worth sharing for others that may be making their way to Wine Country.

What follows is a series of posts recapping the visit, the struggles to get a rental car, the perils of useless limo drivers, an unforgettable night at Bix, 2 of the best lunches I’ve ever had and they were on-the-go, Sooz and downtown Petaluma.

This is installment #1 of 3-5 thoroughly enjoyable posts you’ll get to read.

Thursday, June 29, 2006 - 6am thru noonish
We caught an early morning flight from San Antonio to San Francisco, non-stop. Wahoo! We hate layovers.

We arrive sometime around 10am and make our way to the rental car section of the airport…the dirty underbelly of the parking garage.

There are 3 of us to begin with and between the 3 of us and all our bags it’s determined that a minivan is best suited for toting us around. You can be sure that I did not vote for the minivan. I vaguely remember saying, “convertible” and “sports car” but the sensible side in us (the ladies) won out. I am there with my wife Robin and our close friend Jerri. Jerri drives a minivan everyday so this was a good fit for her.

Jerri goes to the counter to get the keys while Robin and I wait in the parking garage near where all the minivans are parked. While we were waiting a porter somewhere between 90 years old and … oh, I don’t know…dead? backs a Subaru Forester right into a concrete post. He doesn’t even notice, or at least pretends not to. He gets out of the car and walks off like nothing happened. I take a quick peek at the rear of the Subaru and see that the damage is not severe. We got the van with a navigation system and headed for the wharf.

Since Jerri lived many years in or near SF she is our guide at Fisherman’s Wharf and the rest of the city. We drive up the wharf and decide we’re up for an early lunch at McCormik & Kuleto’s. It’s about 11:20am and time for the first glass of wine. I get a Syrah that I can’t remember the name of (theme building here). We eat a fantastic lunch while enjoying the view, watching swimmers in wet suits, freighters on the water and homeless people walk the street.

After lunch we take in the view and get a first-hand look at several people sleeping

on the steps of a small amphitheater. There is what appears to be a field trip for several classes of 7 year olds and they don’t even seem to notice the people sleeping on the steps; even when one wakes up and fingers a Vienna Sausage out of a can, licks her fingers and rolls back over for some more prime time sleeping! We eventually make our way back to Ghirardelli Square where I buy a 5lb bag of assorted chocolates that I will enjoy for the rest of the trip!

Since we’ve had a little time to let lunch settle and work up a new thirst we walk down to the Buena Vista for Irish Coffees where a guy who looks like Jack’s dad from LOST lines up 6-8 coffee cups drops in sugar cubes, pours in hot coffee and whiskey and uses a special wrist motion and a spoon to mix them all up. He’s very efficient as he can do all 8 cups in about 90 seconds.

Before leaving the wharf area we stroll around “shopping” and found a cheese store near/at the cannery. Both ladies love cheese but decide to wait until we get to Dean & Deluca’s to get the good stuff. Robin is a martini drinker as evidenced by this photo taken outside of a bar called Dirty Martini. We always try to bring her back from the dark side but I’m afraid it’s too late.

The day is just getting started and a night of too much fun is on the horizon. Check back for the next installment of Wine Country Revisited when our heroes take a ride down Lombard Street, continue to drink no-name syrahs and have multiple run-ins with a gang of surgical instrument salesmen.

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Popularity: 10% [?]

According to a self-proclaimed “Level 5″ I know there are 5 distinct levels of wine drinkers. He shared this information with me and my wino buddies a few years back. Read over the descriptions of each and determine what level you are.

Level 1 - White Zinfandel

This is the level that most wine drinkers start at. The White Zinfandel level is easily achieved as it seems to be the most popular wine available at restaurants and is typically very affordable (read: cheap). It is normally very sweet and unoffensive and therefore appeals to the masses. I’m ashamed to admit that I started on White Zin many years ago in a restaurant. At least the lights were dimmed!

Level 2 - Fruity Whites

The natural progression from White Zin is to the fruity whites. Again, these are obviously sweet and fruity, have lower alcohol levels and appeal to the masses. In this level you’ll find wines such as Gewurztraminer, Riesling, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc and the ever-popular Chardonnay. Level 2’s are easily spotted as they proudly drink Chardonnay and look down their noses at Level 1’s.

Level 3 - Fruity Reds
Once Level 2’s get tired of drinking over-oaked chardonnay they start to branch out and look for other fruity wines. This leads to Level 3 and fruity reds. This level also includes blush and rose wines. Some of the more popular fruity reds include Pinot Noir, made somewhat mainstream in the movie SIDEWAYS. Movies are typically dumbed-down and SIDEWAYS was no different in making the primary wine drinker a Level 3. They should have made him a redneck! Some lighter Zinfandels and Merlots fall into this level too. Yes, it’s true: Zinfandel is a red wine!

Level 4 - Robust Reds

These wine drinkers have progressed through the first 3 levels and proudly drink the bold, robust wines that Level 1 through 3 drinkers can’t hack. These wines typically exhibit much higher alcohol levels, tannin levels (the stuff that makes you suck your tongue against the inside of your front teeth) and often have more complex tastes. The fruitiness of the wines still exists but the sweetness is neutralized by the tannins and other flavors. Wines in this level include Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz/Syrah, Zinfandel, Carmenere, Malbec and some table wine and blends including Meritage. Some might put Merlot and earthy Pinot Noir into this category as well but not me.

Level 5 - Appreciates All

Level 5’s have achieved the top of the scale in wine drinking. They believe that all wines are good, some just better than others and can sometimes be seen drinking white wines. Of all the Level 5’s that I know, which is about 4 or 5, they still drink red wine 90% + of the time. I think they drink whites purely for show and to prove that they do appreciate all and are Level 5’s. Level 5’s also have vast knowledge of varietals world-wide and can easily talk about the different wine regions and share their experiences from previous phases of their wine drinking days such as when they were in a Spanish or Italian wine phase.

Now, I’m sure to get slammed as something less than a level 5 just for spelling this out and it is true that I’m a proud Level 4. Also, I’m just a redneck who doesn’t have that much experience in worldly wines or other levels so if you have something to correct me on, add to or you simply want slice me up with your keyboard please leave me your comments!

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