This is a difficult time for the business of wine. There are extraordinary pressures that influence the bottom line. And, sadly, these are largely pressures over which those in the industry have no control.

Natural disasters ranging from forest fires and drought, to the increasing concerns over global warming have threatening wineries as they plan for both the near and long-term. The increasing interest in craft beer and the resurgence of cocktails reallocates monies for beverages to those ‘the new and trendy’. A wine glut as new producing regions come on-line will negatively impact long established producers bottom-line. National news media reporting on the negative impact of alcohol impacts all segments of the adult beverage industry. And, now competition from legalized marijuana…

While the threats from foreign producers and environmental impacts are significant (and, worthy of in-depth future discussion), today we will examine growing concern over the impact of cannabis.

Marijuana has been approved for medicinal use in over 30 states and the District of Columbia, and for recreational use in 10 states as well as the District of Columbia. However, marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug by the Federal Government. A Schedule 1 drug is deemed to have no health benefit and a high potential for abuse.

This was not always the case. The medical value of marijuana has been long recognized, but so too has been the potential for the abuse of the drug. Adulteration of marijuana-based products prompted concerns about the safety of the drug (pre-FDA), and films like Reefer Madness served to demonize it. Marijuana was listed as a Schedule 1 substance in the 1970 Controlled Substances Act.

Times have changed. A new generation of politicians, more effective lobbying, and pressure for decentralized decision making have prompted marijuana legalization/decriminalization to slowly make its way through state legislatures. Marijuana now competes for an individual’s ‘expendable capital’.

Let’s look at some numbers. Internet research suggests that the cost of a 1/8 of an ounce of marijuana averages about $40. The product is less expensive in the east than in the west (by approximately 22%). For our purposes we will extend the cost to slightly over $5,000 (wholesale) for a pound of quality marijuana, and $7,500 retail assuming a 50% retail markup. Additional research indicates that a pound of marijuana would allow for the rolling of approximately 640 ‘joints’. The math suggests that each joint has a retail value of slightly over $11.70.

Using a glass of wine as a relative measure, a .750 ml bottle of wine will yield 6 glasses of wine. An equivalent bottle of quality wine would require an expenditure nearly $80 – good wine vs. good ‘weed’. The $80 bottle would be a hard sell for wine retailers attempting to compete with marijuana shops.

Now, this concern about lost revenues assumes evidence that does not exist (or has not been uncovered). SVB on Wine (a blog devoted to the business of U.S. fine wine) argues that for “cannabis to impact wine sales a wine consumer also has to be a cannabis consumer”.  In fact, young (under 21) consumers dominate the cannabis market. There are multiple arguments for why…younger consumer can access marijuana easier than alcohol and once over 21 alcohol is legal and tempered use does not represent an illegal act. In fact, examining the collection of state taxes (SVB on Wine tells us) in Colorado and Oregon following the legalization of marijuana indicated “no change in alcohol consumption”. The greater concern for the wine retailer is not the competition from marijuana but rather the need to effectively sell that $80 bottle or to find comparable (and less expensive) alternatives.

The importance of wine as a compliment to food and as a beverage with a sense of place related to travel and history cannot be supplanted by marijuana. Studies suggest that the ‘half-life intoxicating’ impact of a glass of wine is approximately one hour. By comparison the half-life of coffee is six hours. The half-life of marijuana is 36 hours. The legal, employment, and physical impact of this ‘half-life’ negatively impacts the image, and thus the market, of marijuana. Moreover, in the first months of 2019, marijuana is still a Federally scheduled narcotic with the stigmas that accompany that designation.

There are serious issues facing the wine industry. Marijuana legalization is not one of them.

A few of you have responded to the Eight Years in the Desert post. Don’t let those bottles sit too long. David Phinney believes his wines are ready to drink when you purchase them. I will share some insights from Phinney (and me) regarding some of his other wines in the near future.

A Single Malt from India?

A couple of years ago our friend Steve Morrison of Sterling Cellars in Mahopac, New York, provided me with a bottle of Amrut Fusion Single Malt Whisky. To be honest I was skeptical. I assumed that this was an effort to dupe unsuspecting Scotch drinkers. And, my sense of place told me that ‘Single Malts’ should come from Scotland. The Amrut does not claim a Scottish origin only that it is a ‘Single Malt Whisky’. However, Steve has an excellent palate and eventually, I opened the bottle. Since that initial taste I have been sure to always have the Amrut Fusion as a late evening/post-dinner option.

Amrut Distilleries produces approximately four million cases of spirits each year. There are a million cases of blended whisky amongst those four million, but there are only 10,000 cases of Amrut Single Malt and only 6-7,000 cases of Fusion. By comparison, Glenlivet, the most popular single malt in the United States sells nearly 420,000 cases in the U.S. each year. Amrut sells its 10,000 cases in nearly 20 countries with a U.S. retail price generally around $80.

The distiller uses 25% peated Scottish barley and 75% unpeated Indian barley. American oak is used during the four-and half-year aging process. Amrut’s master blender estimates that because of India’s warmer climate, “one year of barrel-aging in India is equal to three years of aging in Scotland”. They age the whisky for 4-5 years. They believe the whisky reaches its peak at approximately four years, and “by five years it starts to get too much tannin”. The ‘Angel’s Share’ (product lost to evaporation) averages 11-12% each for Amrut compared to an average of 2% in Scotland. The Fusion is bottled at 50% ABV.

The have made good decisions, in 2010 whisky writer Jim Murray proclaimed Amrut Fusion the Third Finest Whisky in the World.

This is a very approachable single malt. Give it a short time in the glass to open and enjoy sweet spice on the nose with hints of raisin and just a touch of smoke. Those elements continue onto the palate combined with a creamy texture that glides into the finish.

Learn from my reluctance. While India may seem an unusual place in which to find excellent single malt, the Amrut Fusion is excellent.

Recently Joy and I had the opportunity to have dinner with Steve, a close friend from my debate coaching era. We had reconnected through Facebook and discovered that mutually, in our ‘post-coaching lives’, both of us had gravitated to the wine industry.

Even more recently, Steve (the friend) has asked some advice regarding an upcoming wine trip to Italy that he is organizing for a group of enthusiasts. Joy and I had traveled through many of the same regions he was visiting, and he was seeking our insights as to approaches to wine tasting and local eateries. The trip sounds wonderful and has sparked our interest in returning to Italy to sample more wine, food, and culture.

More immediately, while reviewing our notes from weeks traveling through Italy, I remembered that we had multiple bottles of Brunello that had been waiting for decades to be opened. Joy was making lasagna and that, along with the prompt of Steve’s trip, justified opening a 1991 Fastelli. The vintage was modest, and the wine was on the decline. However, we enjoyed it with the Lasagna and reminisced about the trip during the which the wine was acquired and, with great fondness, the amusing wine shop/restaurant owner who sold us the bottle. The quality of the wine was far less important than the memories surrounding the acquisition.

How many more bottles like the Fastelli reside in the recesses of our cellar[GV1] ?  We actually have wine coolers as there are no ‘real’ cellars in the Low Country of South Carolina. And, how many more memories are still to be resurrected? It is time to carefully cull the collection for those bottles. It is time to resurrect memories.

So, what is the right time to open that bottle you have been saving for a special occasion? How special is the bottle? And, more importantly, how special should be the occasion? The warning I offer is – don’t wait too long.

Wall Street Journal wine columnists Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher “invented Open That Bottle Night”. The last of Saturday of February is set aside to “finally drink that wine that is otherwise simply too special to open”. Sadly, as I write this post, I realize that this is not the last Saturday of February. Darn. However, I did attend a neighborhood organized oyster roast tonight. And, I realized that an oyster roast would seem to be an excellent opportunity to open a ‘special bottle’. Luckily, the event felt like it was “the last Saturday of February”.

What I carried to the community ‘barn’ was a 2016 Napa Valley Quilt Cabernet. Not exactly an ‘oyster wine’, but Cabernet is always comfortable, and the neighbors with whom I shared it were not concerned that a Cab might have been too heavy for the oysters. The Quilt was in no way too heavy for the moment…or the memory.

Enough said … you get the point.

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 [GV1]

David Phinney is an interesting (and irreverent) guy.

Phinney created the Prisoner in 2000. I remember when I was still closely connected to Sterling Cellars in Mahopac, New York, that we were stunned by the depth and the quality of The Prisoner. The package was interesting, and the price was reasonable – it became a phenomenon.

The Prisoner was on the Wine Spectator top 100 hundred list multiple times, and the 385 cases that Phinney had vinified in 2000 had morphed into thousands. Phinney sold his share of the wine in 2010 for $40 million. There were not vineyards and no winery included in the sale. Constellation Brands bought a name for $40 million. Constellation is now producing more than 15 million cases of a wine on which Phinney consulted for a few years.

Phinney also signed a non-compete clause. He agreed to refrain from producing any Zinfandel for eight years. The non-compete clause has expired, and David Phinney is back in the Zinfandel business with ‘Eight Years in the Desert’.

Our local (and favorite) wine bar, Accent on Wine, in Summerville, SC, acquired a few cases of this excellent Zinfandel to enjoy with their wonderful Lunch Bites. We enjoyed both the bottle with lunch and another bottle to enjoy with dinner a week or so later. Ironically, we were invited to participate in a Total Wines video conference with David Phinney soon after. I recognize the concern that many of you who patronize local wine shops may have about a recommendation of a ‘behemoth’ seemingly dedicated to the eradication of local wine shops – that is a conversation for another day. An advantage of a large organization (like Total Wines) is that can connect patrons with people like David Phinney in a variety of ways.

Joy and I enjoyed the video conference. It was a wonderful way for those who enjoy the work of this innovative winemaker to both hear from him regarding his winemaking and packaging process to interact with him via the internet.

Eight Years in the Desert debuted in 2016 with 94 points from the Wine Advocate. Predominately vinified from Zinfandel with significant Petite Sirah and a lesser quantity of Syrah, this is dark red wine with wonderful depth and fruit that offers an excellent finish. The 2017 ‘Eight Years’ is another wonderful wine.

The video conference highlighted a winemaker unconcerned about traditional image. He designs his own (very creative) packages. He directs photo shoots on each of his projects and spends hours on the final product. The result is a label that engenders conversation and attracts conversation. And, David Phinney knows how to make wine.

Track Eight Years in the Desert down (a few thousand cases produced at $40+)…you will not be disappointed.

A detour to Bourbon…

Two trips to the Bourbon Trail in the past nine months clarified the distinctive approach of each distiller to a uniquely American drink and permitted us to sample a wide variety of these corn based and oak aged whiskeys. And, like most wineries, distillers do not undercut their retail partners by selling their products at lower prices than you can find at your local shop. However, if you are lucky, the distillery does make available products that are allocated, experimental, or as occasionally noted, were recently uncovered in some ‘forgotten corner’ of the warehouse. You will not find Pappy Van Winkle or Old Weller, but we stumbled across Lux Row’s Blood Oath Pact 3 in the Spring and a some ‘found’ bottles of Blood Oath Pact 2 a few weeks ago.

The real treat, however, was a gift bottle of Orphan Barrel Rhetoric 25. A shared interest in Bourbon was only recently uncovered in a long-time friendship that began in New York and has continued for more than 30 years. We communicate largely through email and phone from her home in the Mid-West to our home in the Southeast. The opportunity to connect in person over the New Year’s weekend also resulted in the transfer of this unique Bourbon.

Orphan Barrel (owned by spirit giant Diageo) follows the model of Scotch bottler Gordon and MacPhail. Like Gordon and MacPhail, Orphan Barrel is not a distillery, but rather an agency that tracks down ‘orphaned’ barrels of whiskey that did end up in bottles carrying the original distiller’ name. Distilleries do not lose barrels of their whiskey. However, a particular barrel may have a flavor package that the master distiller finds inappropriate to include in a final blend or a distiller may have left the business with some of their aging stock lost in the transfer to another distillery.

The Orphan Barrel whiskey stock was found at the Stitzel-Weller Distillery Warehouses in Kentucky. The Stitzel-Weller Distillery, founded by Julien Van Winkle, operated until 1972. Many of the brands (including Old Weller, Pappy Van Winkle, Rebel Yell) had been sold off prior to the closing. The warehouses, however, continued to serve other distillers. Diageo reopened the facility in 2014 and today produces Bulleit Bourbon at the Shively location (just outside Louisville, Kentucky).

Orphan Barrel has released six limited edition bottlings of the Rhetoric. Aged from 20 to 25 years, with 25 the final release. Each whiskey has offered unique flavor packages. These changes in flavor would likely be a result of the location within the warehouse that each bottle was stored rather than the mash bill.

The mash bill is the percentage of each grain utilized in the distillation process. Rhetoric offers nearly 85% corn and a very low percentage (6) of rye. The remaining 8+% is barley.

While some critics argue that the oak dominates the nose, I found caramel notes on the nose, and a nice blend of sweet spices and chocolate on the palate. The finish is a little short, but the total package is very pleasing.

Unlike many long-aged Bourbons, the Rhetoric does not overwhelm the senses with oak.

There is still some of the Orphan Barrel 25 on the shelf, and the price is very attractive when compared to other 20-25-year-old whiskey.

I need to talk about the Willamette Valley…
Joy and I have had the pleasure of visiting Napa and Sonoma many times over our decades of enjoying wine and traveling to better understand the nature of the terroir and the quality of the people producing those wines. Our first visits to Napa/Sonoma were easy affairs. You generally planned to arrive in Napa Valley on a Sunday evening, and you arranged to leave the region by Friday afternoon. The ‘valleys’ were crowded on the weekends with many San Franciscans traversing Route 29, the Silverado Trail, and Sonoma’s Healdsburg while on day trips tasting wines.

During the week the Valley(s) were much quieter. You could find Jack Cakebread offering his extraordinary Chardonnay in a modest Rutherford tasting room and you could talk music and wine with Bruce Cohn while tasting his Olive Hill Estate Cabernet in another modest Sonoma space fronted by a gravel driveway lined with exquisite olive trees.

Things have changed in Napa and Sonoma. Wine tourism has become a big business, and the struggle between development and sustainability is reaching a critical juncture. These are concerns for discussion another day. Napa/Sonoma generate nearly $60 billion yearly to the California economy (by way of comparison, Disneyland generates $5.7 billion). The economic issues are important to understanding the future of the region.
Things are different in the Willamette Valley. Although within a half hour of Portland, the Willamette Valley has not been discovered by, or yet infected by, the wine tourism of Northern California. However, there is evidence that changes are coming. The town of Dundee is routing trucks around the quaint downtown. Wineries are opening tasting rooms along the former truck route, and there are plans for new hotels/motels. However, the Willamette Valley is not yet a battleground between restaurants and wineries for your attention and dollars.

The Willamette vistas are stunning, and wineries are dispersed across the valley with working farms as neighbors and buffers. Winemakers talk glowingly of their neighbor’s wines and encourage you to visit them.

Virtually every wine is Pinot Noir (with a few Chards and other whites for variety). The tasting room conversation focuses on terroir and farming technique. The experience is reminiscent of an older and a more user-friendly Napa and Sonoma. There are both wine ‘corporations’ and farmer-winemakers peacefully coexisting.

It is inevitable that the region will be discovered. The craft brewers of Portland are, as noted, just a half hour north, and Seattle (with their own set of brewers and vintners) just three hours north of Portland. Between Portland and Seattle there is plenty of non-wine options (in Seattle, the Art Museum, Pike’s Market, and Pioneer Square, and the Japanese Garden in Portland are worth your time).

However, this is not a travel blog, this is a wine and spirit’s blog. Wine discussion will follow shortly.