Bader Beer & Wine Supply Blog

WineMaker Magazine Conference - Skamania Lodge

2009-12-03T17:30:00.000-08:00

This years WineMaker magazine's Annual 2 day Conferences will be held at Skamania Lodge just outside of Stevenson, WA, on May 21st and 22nd, 2010

What a great opportunity for us in the Northwest to attend this conference, and learn more about the art of winemaking.

The local area will be well represented with presenters. I will be giving 2 presentations, one on cleaning and sanitizing, and another on making berry wines. I am looking forward to presenting, as it should be a ton of fun!

Jeff Waddell, owner and Winemaker from East Fork Cellars in Ridgefield will be presenting on the "Keys to Blending Wines".

Norm Banks, Winemaker at Confluence Vineyards and Winery in Ridgefield will be presenting "Cold soaking your way to a great wine"

There will be another 14 speakers presenting on a variety of wine related subjects, including Tim Vandergrift of Winexpert

If you are intestested in attending, they have an "early bird" discount of $499 if you register by March 1st. The conference is $599 after March 1st. Conference registration covers 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches and a Winemakers dinner Saturday night, along with a Friday night wine tasting party. And a few other freebies.

For more information on the conference, drop by the store for a conference brochure, or go to their web site at http://www.winemakermag.com/conference

Hope to see you there!

Paper Tiger Coffee Roasters

2009-10-28T16:04:00.000-07:00

With all the gloomy economic articles in the paper these days, it's good to see some local positive things.

2 weeks ago Filbins Ace Hardware opened in the old A-Boy Plumbing space at 809 E Minnehaha in Hazel Dell. And today Paper Tiger Coffee Roasters opened across our parking lot at 703 Grand Blvd.

Both businesses have one thing in common, and that is owners that are passionate about their business.   Mike Filbin is the owner of Ace, and opening this store has been a dream of his for some time.   Mike worked here on weekends for about 6 years, so I know him well.

Mike has a solid 20 year retail background, is intelligent, and is willing to work hard. Success will come for him with his Ace store.   I stopped by for thier Open House a few weeks ago, and the store looks great. They have an excellent selection of home improvement supplies.   Felida/Hazel Dell residents will benefit by having a local store, no need to drive to Jantzen Beach for stuff.

Zach and Rebecca at Paper Tiger Coffee Roasters love coffee and are dedicated to roasting great coffee.   They have been selling to some coffee shops for some time, but now have their own retail location to sell fresh roasted beans, and fresh brewed coffee. This is a great neighborhood gathering place, nice atmosphere, with a wi-fi hot spot for those of you after some internet time. Stop by the next time you are in the area.

Robert Parker - The Emperor of Wine

2009-10-20T16:54:00.000-07:00

While not exactly a new book, Elin McCoy's book published in 2005 goes into great detail about the influence that Robert M. Parker has had on the world of wine.   I was reminded of this book and Robert Parkers influence again just recently, as we are going through grape harvest here in the Northwest.

More and more of my customers want to "Parkerize" their wines.   What do I mean by "Parkerize"? They want big fruit bombs and overpowering flavors, heavy alcohol, low tannins, etc.

Prior to Parkers influence in the US and the rest of the world, in the 70's and even into the late 80's many winemakers had the view that a moderate alcohol wine that was perfectly balanced to be the best way to make their wine and sell it.   Not too much alcohol, not too much oak, not too much acid, not too intense. The world had accepted wine for centuries that way.

Parker changed everything with his Ralph Nader / Consumer Reports type newsletter, geared toward the wine industry that he started in 1978, where he reviewed wines without the advertising influence of wineries and distributors. His only income was from his newsletter subscriptions. He purchased the wine he reviewed. So his opinions are his own, with no self-serving financial purpose other than increasing his subscriptions (at least to begin with).    If he did not like your wine, you could not buy his opinion. His subscribers soon learned that his opinions were very accurate, and they loyally purchased the wines he recommended. Parker was possibly the first to start a 100 point rating scale, not initially with his newsletter, but something that evolved with time.

In 1983, he wrote a newsletter full of superlatives about the 1982 vintage in Bordeaux. Words like: stunning, blockbuster, fantastic, heavyweight were his descriptors of the vintage.   What he loved about these wines is that they were much bigger, chewier, more robust and also full of alcohol.    His newsletter that year promoting the vintage cause a huge surge of futures purchasing of the vintage.   Prices also followed suit in going up as vintners realized the demand for the 1982 Bordeaux wines.    Of course, in the future this became the short term goal for many wineries. Those that did not follow made less money.

Wine sales were heavily influenced by his ratings, and since he seemed to love the big wines, the world's wineries evolved to make wines that they thought Robert Parker would love.   Fast forward from the mid 80's to today, and many wine drinkers think that the wine world was always this way.   But it has only been the past 25 years or so that the wine world changed to the big, heavy, fruit bombs with tons of alcohol.

So those of you who did not get you grapes to ripen as much as you would like, just make a nice, clean, balanced wine and you will be rewarded.   Don't let anyone tell you that your wine is not worthy if it is not the big wines of the Robert Parker world.

I would not be surprised if the next new trend in the wine world is to go back to a more balanced wine world.   And that would not be all bad.

Grape crop update

2009-10-05T17:29:00.000-07:00

This years grape crop looks to be a bit above average, with sugars coming in a bit above normal, and mostly good acid levels. Grape volume does seem to be spotty, which is to be expected with amateur grape growers.

There are literally "tons" of grapes available from vineyards in Oregon and Washington this year. The crop is good, and if you read the article in the Oregonian yesterday, some wineries are cash strapped and not buying as many grapes as in the past, leaving an excess supply. In fact some may not be even able to afford to buy empty wine bottles to get the 2008 vintage out of their fermenters. The culprit is partly the relatively poor 2007 vintage, and the lesser wine that was made.

So those of you looking to buy grapes this year, search Craig's list and other places on the web to get your grapes. Prices are still holding steady so far this year from what I can tell. But the horrible economy this year may be taking down the weak wineries in the local area. Not good for anyone other than those looking for cheap grapes not commited to wineries.

I grew up in farm country in North Dakota, and listening to the farmers back there taught me that unfortunately many farmers are always chasing the next new crop with a high price, but timing is everything. Guess it right, and you make serious coin. Guess it wrong, and you lose serious coin.

Case in point was about 8 to 10 years ago, when Oregon Pinot Gris became instantly popular, the price of Pinot Gris grapes was over $1000 per ton. So the next few years a large amount of Pinot Gris are planted. By the time the vineyard was mature enough to harvest 3 years later, so many new vineyards were producing that the price fell to $300 a ton that year. Pinot Gris has stablized since then, but some farmers lost a lot of coin.

This all means it may be a great time to buy grapes the next few years.

Cheers!

Steve

20th Anniversary of the Limited Edition program

2009-10-05T16:37:00.000-07:00

This year is the 20th anniversary of the Winexpert Limited Edition program. Here at Bader Beer & Wine Supply we have actively participated for the past 12 years.

This is a great program for those winemakers wanting to try unusual wines from around the world. It has exposed us to wines that are rarely heard of, and of up and coming wine regions in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and re-introduced us to the Mosel valley in German, the Alsace region in France, and more.

We will be again doing a formal tasting of these wines this year, but change things up a bit. We will have Dave Laroque of Winexpert giving us a food and wine pairing presentation of this years wines on Friday, November 13th at 7 pm at the Pearson Air Museum. Tickets will be $20 here at the store.

I have seen Dave give presentations 2 times in the past, and he is great. He is an incredibly knowledgeable foodie, with the ability to make all food sound wonderful. I am excited to have him present to us this year.

If you want to expand your food and wine knowledge, be sure not to miss this event.

Cheers!

Steve