Reading Between the Wines

When Georgia Ford stomps into her brothers’ bar in California in a wedding dress with no groom in sight, it is fair to say she’s having a terrible day. Coming home to wine country was supposed to stabilize her in her hour of crisis, but instead she finds her parents’ marriage (and their biodynamic winery) on the brink of collapse. Will they sell out to the mega-brand Murray Grant, and will its founder’s grandson, Jacob, help or hurt her family’s future? Join the Fords as they all try to avoid the path of regret and look forward to new possibilities. Today we are sipping a 2018 Peay Pinot Noir from the Sonoma Coast (near our story’s setting) -  an expressive organic Sonoma red wine with notes of orange zest, berries and butter, elevated acidity and a spicy finish. Learn about the complexities of biodynamic winemaking, when spirit meets matter, including the phases of the moon, time of the day, weather patterns and a surprising number of cow parts used in remarkably specific ways.

Have you ever dreamt of being a travel journalist with a swanky magazine that would fly you around the globe to document your exploits? Poppy, our novel’s heroine, did! She even achieved her lofty goal but found herself unfulfilled by her life. When she considers the last time she was truly happy, Alex, Poppy’s former travel buddy, enters our story. While these two went to the same college and are from the same Ohio town, they couldn’t be more different. Thanks to a chatty photographer, Alex and Poppy’s adventure to Croatia was the “most beautiful and worst trip.” Because their trip to Croatia was pivotal, we joined them by sipping a hearty red from the Croatian Istria region: a 2019 Teran by the winemaker Fakin. It presents notes of blackberry, black cherry, gunpowder and black pepper and once sipped becomes tart and mineral forward. Croatia has been cultivating grapes for 2,500 years, so they have learned what grapes each of the four regions, Slavonia, Danube, Dalmatia, and Istria, grow best. Croatia is just beginning to share what they have learned with the world.

Our wine mystery keeps traveling the world to Dubai, Hong Kong, Bordeaux and Portugal uncovering motives and phylloxera intrigue. Malcolm, Corvina and Brian uncover a remedy developed for a phylloxera outbreak before the outbreak breaks out. Tres suspicious! There are also shadowy investors buying patents for this remedy that would have no value until those nasty little aphids are put into action destroying the vineyards of the world. Can our heroes get to the root cause and save the world’s wine from phylloxera? Listen to this second podcast to find out. What we can tell you without spoiling the novel, is that when phylloxera actually decimated wine crops around the world in the late 1800s one Texas man, Thomas (T.V.) Munson, was hailed as the conquering hero for developing over 300 disease resistant grape rootstocks that were grafted into the world’s grapevines to make them phylloxera resistant. He is truly an unsung hero, so we lift our glasses to him today…filled with lovely Texas wine of course! We are saluting Munson’s passion for viticulture with two more William Chris wines: a 2020 Artist’s Blend Red, made with four single vineyard Rhone style grapes, and Black Jacques, a red dessert wine made in the Madeira style. The Artist’s Blend brings the character of all the grapes combined to create a peppery, smoky, fruity red that coats the drinker’s mouth. The Black Jacques, on the other hand, is sweet, caramelly and balanced, like a heat-soaked version of an ice wine. Enjoy!

When flying winemaker Corvina Guerra visits a vineyard in Italy that is burning its vines due to a phylloxera outbreak among its roots, she makes it her mission to figure out how the aphids got there and investigate just how far the infestation had traveled worldwide. As an outbreak could contaminate her family’s vineyard and end her own career, she is determined to figure things out. Corvina partners up with Bryan Lawless to travel to vineyards around the world to research and share their findings. Texas has its own hurdles to winemaking, harsh sun and significant frost among them. William Chris has taken on this challenge and leaned into hearty grapes that can not just survive, but thrive in these stark conditions. Today we are tasting a 2020 Roussanne and a 2018 Mourvèdre from the vineyards in the Texas high plains. The Roussanne is a white wine made for red wine drinkers because it has dry, hearty depth and coats the drinker’s mouth much like a red. The Mourvèdre is a red variety made with the grapes of 6 different local vineyards creating a complex layered flavor and a smoky/peppery finish with the added bonus of extended maceration of the grape skins to add to the mouthfeel.

Addie should have listened to her mentor  that told her never to make a deal with a spirit after dark in Villons, France,. We follow the story of Addie LaRue through 300 years of being perpetually 23 years old and forgotten by every person she encounters. She experiences some of the best and worst of the last three centuries in Europe and North America unremembered, until the owner of The Last Word, Henry. Addie was able to build a relationship with Henry because he had also made a deal. Will she be able to finally make a mark on the world? Or had she already?

Much as Addie made a difference in her short time with people by inspiring them, wine has been associated with art for centuries. Winemakers are artists, artists create while drinking wine and art openings always serve wine. Today we are tasting a Vina Bosconia 2009 from Lopez de Heredia in Spain. Notes of red fruit, dusty leather, dill, chocolate, wet soil, vanilla and spices unfurl slowly after an acidic first sip.

In our story and our wine choice, prepare to have your biases challenged and your heart opened.

Lydia is a bookshop owner in Acapulco, MX; when a new customer, Javier, begins frequenting her shop, Lydia charms him with her love of books and becomes the ‘queen of his soul’ (not his heart…that is reserved for his wife). When Lydia’s husband writes an exposé revealing Javier to be the new cartel jefe known as ‘The Owl,’ she assures Sebastian that they will be safe. She is so wrong. This begins a journey to El Norte fraught with peril and sacrifice aboard La Bestia, a train heading north and then coyote-run through the desert on foot. It is heartbreaking and triumphant, but most of all unshrinking.

We are sipping 2017 L.A. Cetto Petite Sirah from the Guadalupe Valley. This winery includes an immigrant story as the original Cetto forefather left Italy for Mexico to make wine in Tijuana. This bold, acidic, tannic wine has notes of plum, blackberry, fig and earthiness, and it will pairs well with braised meat, ribs, or a hearty casserole.

Dawn’s life had always been about transitions, as an Egyptologist and later as a death doula, she helped bring understanding and purpose to the slow slide from life to death. Her passion for ancient relics was interrupted by her own mother’s untimely passing and her taking custody of her younger brother and soon thereafter the birth of her daughter, Merit. 15 years later, she is sent on a quest by one of her dying clients, Winn, that will change her life forever. Dawn must face the past and the man that she left behind in Egypt and contend with all of the passions she put on the back burner to take care of others so long ago. Surviving a plane crash helps her to have perspective on her choices and she realizes what is most important to her. Today we are going to sip a 2018 Courbis Cornas which has been described as ‘a 93 point syrah with plump minerality that is well-balanced with notes of smoked meat, dark fruit and chocolate’ on its shelf talker. What is a shelf talker, you ask? The artistic descriptions in front of a wine on the shelf of a wine shop. Think of it like a dating profile for your wine. Which bottle would you like to spend the evening with? They will interpret for you the more complex attributes and help you go home happy.

This episode was recorded before the current climate with Russia and the Ukraine.  We struggled with if we should release this episode and decided that given the storyline of the book, we should move forward.  

Over the last couple of years, many of us can relate to the idea of house arrest, but Count Alexander Rustov was imprisoned in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow for 32 years for an anti-Stalin poem written in 1922. We get to see this slice of life from a 100 square foot room in one of the poshest hotels in Russia where Alexander dines in restaurants, gets his weekly cut and shave and makes friends over the years, especially with Nina, a little girl who grows up around the hotel. Nina ultimately asks the Count to watch her daughter, Sophia, while she goes to extricate her husband from prison in Siberia. There are romances, infidels and intrigue throughout Rustov’s time at the hotel, along with Châteauneuf du Pape, a very special wine; we sipped a 2009 one from Bosquet des Papes. It suits this story well because we see the deepening of Count Alexander Rustov’s character over 32 years just as this wine deepens in complexity over time, developing notes of red fruit, leather, rosemary, sage and scrubland. Aerate this wine and allow its story to unfold as you prepare a feast of sausage, lamb, game or chargrilled cauliflower to pair with it. It’s worth taking the time.

When Lillian got a letter out of the blue from her high school friend Madison, she never imagined she’d end up nannying for Madison’s 10-year old step-kids Bessie and Roland, twins who spontaneously combust when emotionally agitated. While the kids aren’t harmed in the process, everything they touch is destroyed. Madison’s husband Jasper has high political aspirations, so Lillian and the kids are relegated to the pool house to keep his image intact while Lillian starts troubleshooting the kids’ affliction. Will Madison and Lillian stay friends or will their employer/employee relationship make that impossible? Troubleshooting like Lillian does with the twins is necessary for wineries as well. Planting at higher altitudes, planting at aspects facing the sun, dry farming, hail cannons and drip irrigation are all problem solving methods vintners use. The Tablas Creek Winery, who produced the 2018 Red Blend we are sampling today, created a 120 acre California farm specializing in Rhone Valley grapes. The winery is at an altitude of 1,000 ft and they are organic and biodynamic, a method employing the assistance of sheep, alpacas, donkeys, owls and bees…how’s that for resourceful wine-making? All that innovation has resulted in an unfined/unfiltered wine with notes of black pepper, dark chocolate, black cherry and soy sauce best enjoyed with a hearty beef meal.

Paul Stewart, a Scottish food writer heads to Tuscany to tame his writer’s block and get re-inspired by Tuscany’s food and wine. What could go wrong? When your rental car company sets you up to take the fall for a car theft, plenty! Paul’s newfound friend from the plane ride sets him up with another rental company, but all they have available is a bulldozer which Paul drives through Tuscany, changing how he sees the countryside and how the people see him. He rescues a fellow author/damsel in distress, Anna, from a ditch and helps a local vintner, Tonio, to relocate his grape vines 500 meters into the 5,200 acre Brunello region, allowing him to charge a premium for his beautiful Rosso wine. Along the way, Paul discovers rustic Tuscan food and a romance he was too close to see. We are sampling a similarly complex 2019 Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona Rosso di Montalcino made from the same grapes as the Brunello in the story, but they are grown outside the 5,200 acre appellation area. This wine is organic and bold, with earthy tannins making it a wine for pairing with red meat or a red sauce like bolognese. There are notes of black cherry, violet, blackberry, tomato and dusty leather. The Ciacci Rosso may not command the high price point of a Brunello, but you may just experience the region like Paul Stewart with an open mind and a curious palate.