Forwarding this for a family friend.
If you haven't toured the Summit Brewery lately, here's your chance.
Should be a great night up on the bluff.
Cheers,
Jim
Beer Lovers, where are you? Here is an opportunity to help a great cause
and also ‘get your beer on’.
*Walman Optical is sponsoring an event called Beer for the Cure which will
be held this Thursday, August 27, at Summit Brewery in St. Paul. We can
have a maximum of 150 attendees, yet we have sold only about half that many
tickets.*
*Here are the details:*
- $25 per person including your first Summit pint free. After that, it's
only $2 a pint.
- There is an optional brewery tour
- light refreshments (not dinner) provided
- Thursday, August 27, 6-9pm at Summit Brewery
- the event is open to the public. There is no formal program. It's very
casual.
- tickets must be purchased in advance online at
*http://www.visionwalkrocks.myevent.com/*
<http://www.visionwalkrocks.myevent.com/>
Please reply to this message if you have any questions. Buy your tickets
now! See you there!
--
James Ellingson cell 651 645 0753
Great Lakes Brewing News, 5219 Elliot Ave, Mpls, MN 55417
James(a)BrewingNews.com BeerGovernor(a)gmail.com
FYI from the NYT - OMG, 4 TLAs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/dining/chenin-blanc-makes-an-audacious-un…
Chenin Blanc Makes an Audacious U.S. Return
After 20 years in which the repertoire of American winemakers seemed to
have dwindled to a half-dozen grapes, endlessly repeated, the last decade
has been one of intrepid exploration. Myriad grapes once deemed unworthy or
too esoteric have been rediscovered and revived by winemakers seeking to
make fresh, lively wines that are simply delicious to drink nightly, rather
than ponderous wines aiming for trophies.
Chenin blanc, the white grape of the central Loire Valley, is one of those
grapes achieving new life in the United States. Once widely planted in
California, it had largely disappeared from fine wine regions by 2000. In
the last few years, though, at least a dozen California producers have
started making chenin blancs, joining a handful who never stopped, along
with producers in Oregon and New York.
The Pour
News about the business of wine, beer and spirits.
Drought Brings Soul Searching to California Winemaking AUG 20
Gose Is a Beer That Keeps Summer Cool JUL 16
Outdoor Wine Glasses, and a Bottle for the Picnic JUN 25
Summer Wine: 20 for $20 JUN 18
Corsican Wines Speak a Language of Their Own JUN 4
See More »
Because of its great acidity, chenin blanc is a grape able to make wines
bone dry or unctuously sweet yet fresh, with an entire spectrum in between.
It has the ability to transparently display its place of origin, to age for
decades and to tantalize not just with complex aromas and flavors but with
a seemingly paradoxical texture that can be thick yet delicate, rich yet
light.
Photo
Credit Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times
It used to be a staple in Napa Valley. Until 1996, Charles Krug, for one,
used to make more than 100,000 cases a year of inexpensive, slightly sweet
chenin blanc. Most of those Napa grapes were pulled in favor of sauvignon
blanc and cabernet sauvignon, which offer a far better economic return.
Americans still buy inexpensive sweet white wine, though, if it’s called
chardonnay.
When John Skupny, the proprietor of Lang & Reed Wine Company with his wife,
Tracey, arrived in Napa in the early 1980s, chenin blanc was an important
commodity. “In 1980 there were about 2,000 acres of chenin blanc in Napa
Valley and 1,600 of chardonnay,” he said. “Now, there’s around 7,000 of
chardonnay and 20 of chenin blanc.” Many of those Napa acres belong to
Chappellet, which seemingly alone in Napa has continued to make the wine.
In the 1980s, Charles Massoud of Paumanok Vineyards on the North Fork of
Long Island knew little of chenin blanc beyond the cheap jug wines of
California, which he thought were flabby and uninteresting. When he bought
a vineyard adjacent to his own containing three acres of chenin blanc in
1989, he planned to rip it out. But he didn’t get around to it before the
next growing season and ended up making a little wine, which he liked.
“What we found is that the Loire varieties are really at home here,” he
said. Now Paumanok has nine acres of chenin blanc, and Mr. Massoud’s son
Kareem, the winemaker, makes two versions. The main cuvée, which sells for
about $25, is made quickly to preserve its liveliness. It’s fresh and
exuberant with a savory maritime edge to it, but fairly simple. More
interesting is a tiny lot of experimental minimalist chenin blanc, which
received six months of aging in stainless steel barrels before it was
released. The 2014 had a noticeably richer texture and livelier acidity,
with flavors of honey, lemon and straw.
As of yet, nobody else is making chenin blanc on Long Island. But in
California, the movement is accelerating.
When he’s not at his day job as director of winemaking for Turley Wine
Cellars, Tegan Passalacqua has made chenin blanc a centerpiece of his own
label, Sandlands, which seeks out classic California grapes from old
vineyards. He makes an excellent, beautifully textured chenin blanc from
old vines in Amador County, and has some old chenin blanc in his own
Kirschenmann Vineyard in Lodi.
“Twenty producers have called me this year asking if I have any or know of
any chenin in California for sale,” he said. “The problem is, many old
vineyards do have some chenin planted but not enough for multiple
producers.”
Photo
>From left, Kareem Massoud, the winemaker for Paumanok; his brother Salim;
his parents, Ursula and Charles; and his brother Nabeel. Credit Gordon M.
Grant for The New York Times
One that does is Jurassic Park Vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley of Santa
Barbara County, where about 13 acres of chenin blanc were planted in 1982
on sandstone slopes in an area now adjacent to oil derricks and an
industrial park. A half-dozen or so small producers buy chenin blanc from
Jurassic Park, including Leo Steen, Habit, Birichino, Lo-Fi and Field
Recordings. Of the few I’ve been able to find, I particularly like Lo-Fi’s
2014, tangy and textured with lemon, honey and waxy lanolin flavors.
Not one of the new wave of chenin blanc producers has been making it as
long as Leo Hansen, whose first release on his Leo Steen label was in 2006.
Mr. Hansen, whose middle name is Steen (which happens to be the South
African term for chenin blanc), was a sommelier from Denmark looking to get
into winemaking in California. His reasons for focusing on chenin blanc
were practical as well as aesthetic: He needed inexpensive grapes that
could be produced and sold quickly, and he wanted a grape that would make a
wine of generous acidity.
SH -LA August 12, 2015
Foxen Winery has been making a Chenin as long as they've been around. It's
especially delicious after a couple years of bottle age although...
Irv August 12, 2015
Vinum Cellars has been rocking with a chenin blanc out of Clarksburg since
the late 1990s. At $13.99, you can't beat it.
Scott Everson, RN August 11, 2015
My wife and I liked Lava Vine chenin blanc from Napa. It's hard to beat the
QPR of any South African chenin blanc in my opinion, at least...
SEE ALL COMMENTS WRITE A COMMENT
He found an eight-acre chenin blanc vineyard in Sonoma County whose grapes
had been going to Korbel to make sparkling wine. The Saini family, which
owns the vineyard, ripped out six acres and replaced them with chardonnay;
the remainder it sells to Mr. Hansen, who makes an excellent version, dry
with floral, citrus and honey flavors, which sells for about $20.
The biggest obstacle to wider production of chenin blanc in California is a
limited supply of grapes. About 6,000 acres are planted in the state,
according to the California Grape Acreage Report, but the majority are in
the Central Valley and are used for bulk wines. Still, producers are
finding small blocks and looking forward to new plantings, though the
economics of growing chenin blanc remain an obstacle.
“When talking to growers about planting some chenin vines, the common quote
was, ‘I pulled that out 10 years ago, and I’m not going to plant it again!’
” said Chris Brockway of Broc Cellars in Berkeley. Mr. Brockway found a
vineyard in Solano County that had been abandoned for a decade before being
purchased and resuscitated. He made a 2014 chenin blanc that is savory and
herbal, with a lavender tang and the characteristically thick chenin
texture. Sadly, he no longer has access to the grapes, but he expects to
have new sources in the future.
Other producers are finding a way. Mr. Skupny of Lang & Reed has two small
sources for chenin blanc, one in Mendocino and another in Napa, and he is
committed to making small lots of each. Division, an Oregon producer, gets
some chenin blanc from Washington State. It makes a delicate wine with a
touch of sweetness, what the French would call sec tendre.
Pascaline Lepeltier, the wine director at Rouge Tomate in New York and one
of chenin blanc’s foremost advocates, is impressed that Americans are
taking the wine seriously. She said that making complex, age-worthy chenin
blanc is a commitment that can take years. The right grapes must be planted
in the right places, and the vines require enough age to make wines with
the ability to age and evolve. She has her own chenin blanc project: a plan
to plant a few vines in the Finger Lakes of New York in partnership with
Bloomer Creek Vineyard.
“It’s very different from the Loire,” she said, “and very exciting.”
Email: asimov(a)nytimes.com.
--
James Ellingson cell 651 645 0753
Great Lakes Brewing News, 5219 Elliot Ave, Mpls, MN 55417
James(a)BrewingNews.com BeerGovernor(a)gmail.com
Very Snarky. :)
C,
J
http://hosemasterofwine.blogspot.com/
HoseMaster of Wine™
"[Humanity] has unquestionably one really effective weapon--laughter.
Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution--these can lift at a
colossal humbug--push it a little--weaken it a little, century by century;
but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the
assault of laughter nothing can stand."--Mark Twain
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
EPHEMERA: "The Wrath of Grapes"--Not Just a Lousy Title
Most of the buzz in the biz the past week has centered on Bruce
Schoenfeld’s article in The New York Times Magazine, “The Wrath of Grapes.”
I think the title pissed me off to begin with, though I’m certain that
wasn’t Schoenfeld’s doing. Maybe “Parr for the Coarse” would have been more
accurate. Or “In Hirsute of Balance.” I thought I’d add to the discussion,
though I am also certain that what I say and think is relatively
unimportant.
When I was 42, Raj Parr’s current age, I thought I knew everything about
wine, too. I’ve never met Parr, but he’s certainly well-liked around the
wine world, which I’m happy to note, and not just by adherents of his
winemaking philosophy. At 42, many people reinvent themselves. Parr had
become a celebrity sommelier, the kind of oxymoron that makes me laugh,
like “natural wine.” And the best way to get into the pages of The New York
Times Magazine is to become a celebrity. Parr was smart, a sommelier who
knew to hitch his star to a wealthy patron, Charles Banks. (Does anyone
else find it ironic that Banks began his foray into the wine world with the
money he made as an investment banker (paragons of integrity) with Jonata
first, followed by the purchase of the very epitome of the wines Parr hates
and Robert Parker made valuable, Screaming Eagle?)
Parr’s being front and center in the sommelier world brings a very
distorted image of a sommelier to the public. He’s presented as the
anti-Parker in the piece, the angel on your shoulder, not that big, fat,
evil, 100-Point-Beelzebub whispering nasty remarks in your ear. At 42, I
was damned preachy about wine, too. I wasn’t smart enough to get one of my
wealthy customers to bankroll me through life, but I was certainly right
about wine just about all of the time. Though I never had any desire to own
a winery. And I never assumed it was my job to decide for customers what
wines they were supposed to like. I tried to list wines that were great
examples of their style and appellation, regardless of whether I found them
personally rewarding. I swear, I thought that was the job! Turns out, I was
a crappy sommelier.
Eventually, I learned that what I didn’t know about wine was infinite. This
is still true today. The NYT Magazine piece paints Parr as a visionary, a
kind and thoughtful revolutionary, a wine savant with unquestionable
knowledge, instead of as a man who has had a single idea and has run with
it. That’s not revolutionary, that’s narrowminded. Parr and Jasmine Hirsch
had a simple marketing idea, and it has worked much better than they could
have dreamed it would. Good for them. Now along comes Bruce Schoenfeld, who
pitches an idea to the New York Times, writes a marketing piece for In
Pursuit of Balance, and now Parr is the savior of wine. For another month
or so, anyway. The last winemaker anointed by the NYT Magazine was Abe
Schoener. Who talks about him anymore? Well, aside from Abe.
It seems to me there is a lot left out of the piece. That might be an
editorial decision, or it might have been the author. The piece quotes
Parker’s rant about Raj Parr, but fails to note that the rant was several
years old. That seems purposefully slanted editorializing. It fails to note
that Raj Parr doesn’t make Domaine de la Cote or Sandhi wines, which would
seem to me to be important, especially to the vast majority of the readers
of the piece who would certainly come away believing he does make the
wines. Does he make picking decisions? Does he just tell Sashi Moorman how
to make the wines so that they reflect their sites? Does he tell Sashi to
make wines without any style? “Hey, Sashi, I’m detecting some style in this
Pinot Noir. Knock that shit off.” And what about talking to some of the
producers Raj Parr and his tasting committee have turned down for inclusion
to IPOB? They might have something interesting to say.
I don’t like the tone of the piece. But Schoenfeld is a talented writer
(even though he hates the HoseMaster, for which I am deeply grateful), so
the tone must be deliberate. Stuff like Parker being “hefty and bearded”
while Parr has a "teddy-bear physique.” He could have reversed those
descriptions and they’d be accurate, too. The tone shifts back and forth,
depending upon which side of the balance fence he’s writing about. Parr’s
parts are lullabies, sweetly rendered and cherubic. The other parts are
almost dismissive, and certainly skewed. And I know skewed. Steve
Matthiason is a dreamer, an ethical man who follows his wine beliefs at his
own expense. Doug Shafer lives among the grandiose architecture of Napa,
whereas Steve lives in a farmhouse. See that? Grandiose vs. Farmer Steve.
It’s propaganda, a NYT Magazine celebrity piece, plain and simple. And when
a PR piece is written by someone talented, it’s just that much more
effective, and that much more insidious. Yes, a piece should have a point
of view, and Schoenfeld is entitled to his. It’s just that his point of
view, illuminated by the hyperbolic subtitle, “A band of upstart winemakers
is trying to redefine what California wine should taste like — and enraging
America’s most famous oenophile in the process.” is so clearly sympathetic
to one side at the expense of the broader picture.
Try making one of Parr’s “virtually flavorless” wines and selling it in the
supermarket. Oh, that’s right, Santa Margherita did that twenty years ago.
Unlike Matthiason’s wines, it won’t make you think. It will make you drunk.
Try selling wines under 14% ABV in the supermarket. Oh, wait, just about
every wine mass-produced for supermarkets is under 14% ABV. Why? Because
you pay a lot more in taxes for a wine over 14% ABV, and that kills your
bottom line. Are those great wines? They are to the folks who buy them.
Maybe that Parr is on to something.
I’ve had a lot of fun at IPOB’s expense, and, to their credit, they’ve been
gracious targets. Jasmine Hirsch is a sweetheart, and has always been
generous to me. I’ve also insulted and satirized Robert Parker, and he has
been equally gracious. It’s weird to me how Schoenfeld’s article paints
Parker as responsible for what’s wrong with California wine, because, in
truth, there is nothing wrong with California wine. And if there were,
Parker would only be responsible for how it’s sold, not how it’s made. Are
there wines that were made tailored to Parker’s palate? Yes. They were
lousy and almost always scored lousy. Will there be more wines made
tailored to Parr’s palate? Not very many, I’d guess. And that is a blessing.
What Parr really represents is the culture’s awareness of wine as something
more than an inebriant. This is relatively new to Americans. Few people in
my generation thought about terroir, including winemakers. You were
basically unable to make “Parkerized” wines back then, so you didn’t.
Cabernet Sauvignons from Napa Valley in the ’60’s and ’70’s were all under
14% ABV, many were under 13%, just not by choice. Now people are thinking
about the differences between wine and Great Wine. All this is fantastic,
and it helps give meaning to wines like Sandhi. It also gives meaning to
wines like Carlisle and Bedrock and Spottswoode, too. There’s not just one
way to make Great Wine. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who tells you otherwise
is a fraud.
I’m just sorry that Raj Parr and company were anointed by the Newspaper of
Record. I’m glad for them, they’re all very nice people, and I’d love to
have a puff piece written about me in that magazine. But for the vast
majority of folks who read the NYT Magazine, that piece is very misleading
and misguided. It implies California has made stupid wines for decades
because of one critic, which is simply untrue. And it implies that Raj Parr
is some kind of visionary, while in truth he’s more Don Quixote tilting at
windmills.
Posted by Ron Washam, HMW at 7:00 AM
Labels: EPHEMERA, Wine Essays
48 comments:
Bill Ward said...
Spot on! Especially loved the part about there being no one way to make
great wine. Hope we have some great wine together soon.
June 2, 2015 at 8:26 AM
Clayton Lewis said...
Thanks for saving me time and energy today! I didn't want to search for the
NYT Magazine, read the article and then find no juicy,juicy gossip within
the piece. I may now go back to my regularly scheduled happy-go-lucky wine
world workday...
June 2, 2015 at 8:27 AM
Thomas said...
Right on, Ron.
I couldn't have--well maybe could have--said it better, but you did quite
ok!
By the way, the newspaper of record has been sliding off its pedestal for
quite some time, especially with the Sunday Magazine. It's saddening.
--
James Ellingson cell 651 645 0753
Great Lakes Brewing News, 5219 Elliot Ave, Mpls, MN 55417
James(a)BrewingNews.com BeerGovernor(a)gmail.com
>From the NYTimes (Better formatting and some pictures on the web site.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/magazine/the-wrath-of-grapes.html?_r=1
The Wrath of Grapes
A band of upstart winemakers is trying to redefine what California wine
should taste like — and enraging America’s most famous oenophile in the
process.
By BRUCE SCHOENFELD MAY 28, 2015
In the steep hills of Central California near Lompoc, on a slope that runs
along Santa Rosa Road, two vineyards lie side by side. To all appearances,
the Sea Smoke and Wenzlau properties occupy one continuous parcel of land.
The vines are indistinguishable; they grow in the same soil and get the
same sunlight. Nevertheless, grapes planted only a few feet apart end up in
bottles of pinot noir that have little in common.
Sea Smoke’s top releases sell for more than $100, and its intensely
flavored wines receive all manner of critical acclaim. But the winemaker
who leases the Wenzlau vines next door — Rajat Parr, a former sommelier who
is a coowner of two wine labels, Sandhi and Domaine de la Côte — can’t
understand why anyone would drink them. He believes that the grapes are
picked far too late, when they’re far too ripe, and that the resulting wine
is devoid of both subtlety and freshness. Parr does things differently from
his neighbors at Sea Smoke, starting with when he harvests. “Our wines are
fermenting in barrels, we’ve gone home,” he says, “and they haven’t picked
a berry yet.”
Sugar content, which determines alcohol levels, rises as fruit ripens.
Parr’s wines are full of aromas and flavors that admirers compare to things
you would never think to connect to wine, like the leafstrewn ground in a
forest. To Parr, and a growing number of likeminded colleagues, such
nuance becomes impossible to achieve when the wines are too alcoholic; it’s
6/9/2015 The Wrath of Grapes - NYTimes.comhttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/magazine/the-wrath-of-grapes.html?_r=1
2/12 as if the lilting flutes and oboes of a symphony have been drowned out
by a slash of electric guitar. He prefers an alcohol concentration below 14
percent and often far lower, depending on the grape variety, as opposed to
the 15 percent and higher that is common in California. So Parr harvests
his fruit iconoclastically early. “If you pick a grape off the vine and it
tastes yummy,” he is fond of saying, “you’ve already missed it.”
Early one recent morning, Parr took me to La Côte vineyard, several miles
inland from the Pacific Ocean. The sun was shining when I left Santa
Barbara, where the temperature was headed for the 70s. I knew Parr
preferred sites that were far cooler than the surrounding area, but it
hadn’t occurred to me to bring a jacket. By the time we reached the
vineyard, rain was falling hard. The temperature was 49 degrees, and the
whipping wind made it feel colder. Grapes grew all around me, but it was
the least hospitable vineyard I’ve ever visited, more like a gathering spot
for Celtic druids than a setting suitable for the cultivation of fruit.
As we hiked past stickfigure vines, their leaves shivering in the gusts,
Parr explained that he wanted the specifics of the place — the shale in the
soil, that cutting Pacific wind — to be evident in the taste of the wine
itself. He hates the idea of blending topquality grapes from different
vineyards into the same bottle, which many producers do. Those wines might
taste good, he admitted, but they lack depth and intrigue. “I don’t believe
in the ‘best’ — that the best grapes from different areas come together and
create the ‘best’ wine,” he said. “I think there’s more to wine than that.”
Most California winemakers, it’s safe to say, are trying to produce
something more like Sea Smoke than Domaine de la Côte. Before Napa Valley’s
emergence in the 1980s, highly regarded wines were made in regions — mostly
various places in France — where cool, wet summers tended to undermine
agricultural efforts. The standout vintages were from the warmest years,
those infrequent occasions when grapes reached full maturity before being
picked. In California, where sunshine is abundant, ripeness is rarely an
issue. Fully ripe wines are possible not only once or twice a decade, but
just about every year.
If ripe wines are considered good, many California producers reasoned,
those made from grapes brought to the brink of desiccation, to the peak of
6/9/2015 The Wrath of Grapes - NYTimes.comhttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/magazine/the-wrath-of-grapes.html?_r=1
3/12 ripeness (or even a bit beyond), should taste even better. That
logical leap has created a new American vernacular for wine, a dense,
opaque fruitiness well suited to a nation of Pepsi drinkers. More sweet
fruit, more of the glycerol that makes wine feel thicker in the mouth, more
alcohol. And by extension, more pleasure.
Pleasure is a matter of opinion, of course. But for three decades, the
tastes of mainstream American wine drinkers have been shaped by the
personal preferences of one man, Robert M. Parker Jr. A 2013 inductee of
the California Vintners Hall of Fame — as a reviewer — Parker has been
anointed by The Atlantic Monthly as “the most influential critic in the
world,” all genres included. As it happens, he has made a career out of
championing exactly the style of wine that Parr and his colleagues disdain.
In my conversations with them, no phrase elicited more derision than
“Parker wines.” It was shorthand, fair or not, for wines they deem
generically obvious and overblown.
Until a few years ago, if you wanted to drink a wine with a European sense
of proportion, you bought a European wine. In 2011, in reaction to an
American marketplace that they perceived to be dismissive of California
wines made in anything but the superripe style, Parr and Jasmine Hirsch of
Hirsch Vineyards in Sonoma County began soliciting members for a loose
confederation of pinotnoir producers called In Pursuit of Balance. The
group, which charges a $900 annual fee, conducts what amounts to a
political campaign on behalf of viticultural restraint. Most of its 33
members — located from Anderson Valley, about 100 miles north of San
Francisco, to Santa Barbara — make modest amounts of wine, somewhere
between 40,000 and 60,000 bottles a year. That’s too small, typically, to
have much of a marketing budget. But by joining the group, which stages
tastings around the country (and sometimes abroad), they’re able to reach
the consumers who are most likely to appreciate their wines.
In recent months, many of these have started appearing in shops and on wine
lists. At some restaurants in Brooklyn and certain San Francisco
neighborhoods, for example, theirs are the only domestic wines available.
The success of this nonconformist group, a sort of guerrilla movement
against the California mainstream, has prompted invectivefilled exchanges
6/9/2015 The Wrath of Grapes - NYTimes.comhttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/magazine/the-wrath-of-grapes.html?_r=1
4/12 on Internet bulletin boards, blogs and Twitter feeds. Partisans fight
over alcohol levels, the proper role of critics and whether restaurants
should be trying to influence their customers’ tastes by carrying only
certain styles of wine.
At its core, though, the debate is about the philosophical purpose of fine
wine. Should oenologists try to make beverages that are merely delicious?
Or should the ideal be something more profound and intellectually
stimulating? Are the best wines the equivalent of Hollywood blockbusters or
arthouse films? And who gets to decide? Standing at the rear of a
glassenclosed atrium in TriBeCa one morning in February, Parr looked out
over more than a thousand wineglasses, each partly filled with pinot noir.
This was the fifth annual In Pursuit of Balance tasting in New York, held
for the benefit of perhaps a hundred retailers, journalists and sommeliers
and a few winegeek consumers who paid $125 each to hear dialogues about
sugar levels, crop thinning and the Burgundian mindset. Onstage, panel
after panel of winemakers extolled the benefits of modest alcohol levels.
(These included, in addition to enhanced aromatics and more subtlety and
elegance, the capacity for a drinker to consume more wine before getting
drunk.) The speakers were in such ideological alignment that I might have
been watching a campaign rally. “That’s when a light bulb went off in my
head,” one panelist, Bradley Brown of Big Basin Wines, said of his epiphany
after drinking a particular bottle of Burgundy. “It has to be possible to
make more perfumed — more aromatically driven — wines in California.”
Beside me, Parr nodded vigorously. Now 42, with a teddybear physique, Parr
spent nearly two decades serving wine and putting together wine lists for
some of America’s most highly esteemed restaurants. Born Rajat Parashar in
Kolkata, India, he Anglicized his surname to Parr and later became an
American citizen. But he never embraced American wine. In the early 2000s,
he recalls, he drank a syrah from the Rhone Valley in France with another
sommelier. Like other Rhone wines, it impressed him less with its fruit
flavor than with its hints at things that couldn’t possibly be in the wine:
roasted meat, freshly turned soil. He liked how the wine felt in his mouth,
crisp rather than 6/9/2015 The Wrath of Grapes - NYTimes.comhttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/magazine/the-wrath-of-grapes.html?_r=1
5/12 weighty, and how the wine evolved as he drank it, one sip after the
next. These, he knew, were hallmarks of bottlings from the finest regions
of Europe. When he wondered aloud why similar wines weren’t made in
California, the other sommelier said it simply wasn’t possible. “That stuck
in my head,” Parr says. “California is a big place. How was it not
possible?” In Pursuit of Balance is controversial in wine circles. The name
itself is polemical. It seems to imply that those outside its ranks don’t
mind if a single attribute of their wines (sweet fruit, perhaps, or
alcohol, or the flavors that result from prolonged aging in oak barrels)
dominates the rest. Aware that being on the intellectual side of a debate
against pure pleasure tends to make his group look severe — the
“antiflavor elite,” as Parker likes to call them — Parr took the stage in
TriBeCa to spread good feelings. “It’s not a movement,” he said. “It’s just
a discussion among friends.” Moments later, the moderator of a following
panel, Ray Isle of Food & Wine Magazine, pushed back. “I had understood you
were actually creating an IPOB church,” he said. In fact, group members do
tend to proselytize, which befits a sectarian splinter group trying to
challenge established orthodoxy. They point out that Parker’s influence has
been so strong over the past quartercentury that he has actively altered
winemaking techniques — not only in Napa but also in regions from Europe to
Australia. To sell expensive bottles, producers needed access to the
American market. And to get that, they needed Parker. In 1978, while
working as a lawyer for a Baltimore bank, Parker started a newsletter
called The Wine Advocate. The name played off his occupation as an
attorney, but it meant more than that. Convinced that many highly regarded
producers were passing off thin, unappealing wines as fashionable, he
created a 100point scoring system and then wielded it like a truncheon. He
awarded high numbers to wines that tasted the way he believed good wines
ought to taste. He punished others with scores in the 70s and 80s and
biting insults to match. Today, The Wine Advocate, which has some 50,000
subscribers, provides detailed descriptions of wines it rates to help
readers gauge if their 6/9/2015 The Wrath of Grapes - NYTimes.comhttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/magazine/the-wrath-of-grapes.html?_r=1
6/12 preferences are similar. Nevertheless, by attaching a precise and
easily understood score to the commentary, Parker gives the impression —
purposeful or not — that he isn’t merely communicating his personal
reaction to each wine but quantifying its intrinsic value. For American
consumers, the idea that the quality of various wines can be compared as
easily as batting averages or stock quotes has proved irresistible. “People
would walk into wine shops with the name of a wine and Parker’s rating, and
not one word about the style or character of the wine,” says Michael
Mondavi, whose father, Robert, is largely responsible for spreading the
fame of Napa Valley wines across America. “Just because of the two digits
he’d assigned to it, they’d buy it.” Parker’s taste has always been broader
than his detractors like to admit. “It’s simplistic to say that Bob just
wants fruit bombs,” says Jeb Dunnuck, who writes reviews for The Wine
Advocate. But the wines that receive Parker’s highest scores — those 98s,
99s and 100s that have turned previously unknown producers into cult
favorites — are typically the most intensely flavored and come from places,
like Napa, where the grapes are most consistently ripe. For wine regions in
some of the warmer areas around the world, the lure of Parker’s endorsement
was overwhelming. “Spain went through a time when a lot of wines were being
made a certain way in order to get a score,” Ashley Santoro, the wine
director of the Standard East Village restaurant in New York, told me
during a break between sessions at the Balance tasting. When local
distributors came calling at her former restaurant, they were so certain
that Santoro would want their wines, they often assumed she didn’t need to
taste them. Parker liked them — what else mattered? “They’d walk in,”
Santoro said, “hand me a sheet of paper with a list of scores and say,
‘This got 98.’ ”
--
James Ellingson cell 651 645 0753
Great Lakes Brewing News, 5219 Elliot Ave, Mpls, MN 55417
James(a)BrewingNews.com BeerGovernor(a)gmail.com
Greetings,
Our friends Mark and Gloria are part of a fund raiser this Sunday at the MN
Fair Grounds.
SAPAS is the St. Anthony Park Area Seniors. Event includes BBQ from Giggles
Campfire
Grill and beers and ciders from ten plus area craft breweries including
Insight, Urban Growler, and Summit.
Live Music from three bands and a silent auction.
Hours are 3 to 6 p.m.
Address is Cooper St and Lee Ave in Falcon Heights (Fairgrounds)
Cost is $35 in advance and $40 at the gate.
Parking is free.
Great food, great beer, good fun and all for a great cause.
Cheers!
[image: Inline image 1]
--
James Ellingson cell 651 645 0753
Great Lakes Brewing News, 5219 Elliot Ave, Mpls, MN 55417
James(a)BrewingNews.com BeerGovernor(a)gmail.com
Shocking the Italians found something to "discuss". :)
C,
J
It's been a very scary week for prosecco fans.
On Wednesday, Robert Cremonese, an executive at prosecco producer Bisol,
told Drinks Business that bad weather in several Italian wine-growing
regions may have caused prosecco production to drop enough to spark a
"global prosecco shortage." Since then, news outlets across the world have
picked up the story, warning of higher prices and empty shelves at liquor
stores.
But in a phone call with The Huffington Post on Friday, Domenico Zonin, the
CEO of Zonin, Italy's largest privately owned wine company, said that
there's no cause for alarm. Though Zonin acknowledged that heavy rains
dampened grape growth in some areas last year, he doesn't think it'll end
up making a serious difference in prices or availability.
"I don't think there will be many problems, frankly," Zonin said.
"There are some wineries that might have a little less prosecco than they
need, so they say there will be a shortage," Zonin continued. "But I think
if there is a little shortage, it will be not a big problem. It will be
just for a short period. A very short period."
The potential trouble period, Zonin and Cremonese agreed, is this summer,
when supplies of the 2014 vintage could run low. But Zonin noted that the
2015 vintage will be released shortly thereafter. Though he admitted that
no one will be able to say exactly how large this year's grape harvest will
be until it ends in September, he said that the vineyards that supply his
company's grapes have been reporting good progress so far.
"For the moment, what we're seeing from the vineyards is that the
production is pretty good," he said. "There are a lot of grapes. The spring
was good. We have to wait to see how the weather is over the summer, but
for the moment, the number of grapes is high."
One reason some have predicted a shortage is that global demand for
prosecco has risen sharply over the last several years. Consumers have
increasingly embraced prosecco as a cheaper, easier-to-drink alternative to
Champagne; it even passed its French rival as the best-selling type of
sparkling wine early in 2014. The spike in demand has put pressure on
prosecco producers to amp up their output.
But Zonin said that changes to Italian regulations on the use of the word
"prosecco" have allowed more vineyards to produce wines destined for the
sparkling wine, helping the industry keep pace with rising demand.
And let's be real: in capitalist economies like America's and Italy's, true
shortages are extraordinarily rare. We have a highly effective mechanism
for dealing with situations where demand exceeds supply -- price hikes. And
Zonin doesn't even think those are likely.
"For 2014, I don't think there will be a rise in price," He said. "Not
significantly, anyway."
In short? Don't worry. There probably won't be a global prosecco shortage.
And even if there is, there's a very easy solution: buy cava, Champagne or
American sparkling wine.
--
James Ellingson cell 651 645 0753
Great Lakes Brewing News, 5219 Elliot Ave, Mpls, MN 55417
James(a)BrewingNews.com BeerGovernor(a)gmail.com
For your amusement, from the UK.
Aldi's Four Pound Toro - no mention of Two Buck Chuck!
C,
J
It’s a corker! Red wine costing £3.59 and sold at Aldi scoops international
award
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149036/It-s-corker-Red-wine-costin…
By Daily Mail Reporter
Published: 18:40 EST, 23 May 2012 | Updated: 18:41 EST, 23 May 2012
Stonking plonk: Aldi's Spanish Toro Loco Tempranillo 2011 (above) has won
an international award despite costing just £3.59p
Stonking plonk: Aldi's Spanish Toro Loco Tempranillo 2011 (above) has won
an international award despite costing just £3.59p
Some dinner party hosts might feel insulted if a guest turned up with a
cheap bottle of plonk from Aldi.
But a panel of experts has named a wine sold by the budget supermarket for
just £3.59 as one of the world’s best.
Its own-brand Spanish Toro Loco Tempranillo from 2011 excelled in blind
taste tests alongside reds costing nearly ten times as much.
Judges at the International Wine and Spirit Competition awarded it a silver
medal, describing it as ‘fruity, rounded and appealing’ with hints of ‘nice
bright cherry’.
Tony Baines, from Aldi, said: ‘We work closely with some of the world’s
leading wineries so we can deliver high-quality own-label wines to our
customers.
‘It is fantastic that our commitment to quality has been recognised by as
prestigious a group as the International Wine and Spirit Competition
tasting panel.’
He added: ‘We’ve always known our wine range has got a lot of bottle and
now it looks like the experts agree.’
The supermarket’s red wine was compared with several older, more expensive
ones, including a £31.15 bottle of Costa di Bussia Barolo Riserva DOCG from
2005.
The Toro Loco Tempranillo 2011 hails from the Utiel-Requena region in the
province of Valencia, Spain.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149036/It-s-corker-Red-wine-costin…
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
--
James Ellingson cell 651 645 0753
Great Lakes Brewing News, 5219 Elliot Ave, Mpls, MN 55417
James(a)BrewingNews.com BeerGovernor(a)gmail.com
FWIW. No mention of drug use.
Few people on the planet have lived the kind of globetrotting and
adventure-filled life that chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain has.
You can probably learn a thing or two from the man.
1.) “Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.”
2.) “If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I
urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if
you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from
them – wherever you go.”
3.) “Don't lie about it. You made a mistake. Admit it and move on. Just
don't do it again. Ever”
4.) "What nicer thing can you do for somebody than make them breakfast?"
5.) “Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you
change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in
return, life - and travel - leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those
marks - on your body or on your heart - are beautiful. Often, though, they
hurt.”
6.) "You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together."
7.) “Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
8.) “Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final
resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom...is
realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go."
9.) “I don't have to agree with you to like you or respect you.”
10.) “Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.”
11.) “We know, for instance, that there is a direct, inverse relationship
between frequency of family meals and social problems. Bluntly stated,
members of families who eat together regularly are statistically less
likely to stick up liquor stores, blow up meth labs, give birth to crack
babies, commit suicide, or make donkey porn. If Little Timmy had just had
more meatloaf, he might not have grown up to fill chest freezers with Cub
Scout parts.”
12.) "Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.”
13.) “Luck is not a business model.”
14.) “There’s something wonderful about drinking in the afternoon. A
not-too-cold pint, absolutely alone at the bar – even in this fake-ass
Irish pub.”
15.) “Under 'Reasons for Leaving Last Job', never give the real reason,
unless it's money or ambition.”
16.) “It’s very rarely a good career move to have a conscience.”
17.) “The way you make an omelet reveals your character.”
18.) “Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals
in one’s life.”
19.) “Good food and good eating are about risk.”
20.) "They're professionals at this in Russia, so no matter how many Jell-O
shots or Jager shooters you might have downed at college mixers, no matter
how good a drinker you might think you are, don't forget that the Russians
- any Russian - can drink you under the table.”
21.) “If you look someone in the eye and call them a ‘fat, worthless,
syphilitic puddle of badger crap’ it doesn’t mean you don’t like them. It
can be – and often is – a term of endearment.”
22.) “Without new ideas success can become stale.”
23.) “But I do think the idea that basic cooking skills are a virtue, that
the ability to feed yourself and a few others with proficiency should be
taught to every young man and woman as a fundamental skill, should become
as vital to growing up as learning to wipe one’s own ass, cross the street
by oneself, or be trusted with money.”
--
James Ellingson cell 651 645 0753
Great Lakes Brewing News, 5219 Elliot Ave, Mpls, MN 55417
James(a)BrewingNews.com BeerGovernor(a)gmail.com
FYI, from the Strib w/ an endorsement from Bill Ward.
Looking forward to Sunday.
C,
J
Best local wine blogger - Jon Thorsen - 2015 Best of MN
May 13, 2015 — 10:27am
Working under the rubric “Thumbing Your Nose at Bottles Over $20,” for
years, Shakopee’s Jon Thorsen has tirelessly touted inexpensive wines that
provide good value, amassing more than 200,000 Twitter followers and 25,000
Facebook likes. And he’s the “Reverse Wine Snob” only in his “off” hours,
when he’s not raising a family of three kids and working as senior director
of Northern Tool & Equipment’s catalog and database marketing. His efforts
have propelled Thorsen to No. 5 on VinePair Wine Web Power’s list of the
industry’s top social media influencers.
reversewinesnob.com
--
James Ellingson cell 651 645 0753
Great Lakes Brewing News, Mpls, MN 55417
James(a)BrewingNews.com BeerGovernor(a)gmail.com
Discuss, Debate, Enjoy.
C,
J
Wine Headache? Chances Are It’s Not the Sulfites Since the government
insisted that wine labels include a “Contains Sulfites” warning, folks have
been blaming the compound for their wine headaches. Very likely, finds
Lettie Teague, the cause is something else
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/wine-headache-chances-are-its-not-the-sulfites-…>
By
Lettie Teague
March 13, 2015 8:48 a.m. ET
93 COMMENTS
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/wine-headache-chances-are-its-not-the-sulfites-…>
*THE LATE SENATOR* Strom Thurmond was famous—some might say infamous—for a
good many things, including a marathon filibuster against the Civil Rights
Act, but the South Carolina congressman’s most lasting contribution may be
the two words found on every bottle of wine sold in this country: Contains
Sulfites.
ENLARGE
Illustration: Aad Goudappel
The fiercely anti-alcohol senator successfully lobbied for this particular
warning to be part of the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, a continuation of the
so-called War on Drugs. Never mind that the average bottle of Cabernet
contains far fewer sulfites than, say, a can of tuna or a bag of dried
fruit, products that carry no warning at all. (A glass of wine contains
roughly 10 mg of sulfites; two ounces of dried apricots, 112 mg.)
This back-label notification has led to a great many misunderstandings
among those who attribute health problems, primarily headaches, to sulfites
in wine
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/are-sulfites-in-wine-bad-for-you-1408056869>,
specifically red wine. Over the years, I’ve received many letters from
readers lamenting the headaches they’ve suffered due to their alleged
allergy to sulfites.
Often as not these readers wrote in the hope that I could recommend a
“sulfite-free wine.” Alas, I could not, since there is no such thing as
wine completely free of sulfites, which are inorganic salts produced as a
byproduct of the fermentation process.
More On Wine <http://topics.wsj.com/person/T/lettie-teague/7318>
- Red-Wine Blends Trend: More Than Just Flashy Packaging
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-red-wine-blends-trend-more-than-just-flashy…>
- Madeira: The Historic Portuguese Wine That’s Hip Again
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/madeira-the-historic-portuguese-wine-thats-hip-…>
- Lettie Teague Takes On Ten Wine ‘Truisms’
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/lettie-teague-takes-on-ten-wine-truisms-1423838…>
- In Search of a Wine With Star Quality
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-search-of-a-wine-with-star-quality-1423253410>
Message in a Bottle
- Michael Paterniti on Alessio Vermouth di Torino Rosso
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/michael-paterniti-on-alessio-vermouth-di-torino…>
- Christina Nichol on Croft Quinta da Roêda 2012 Vintage Port
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/novelist-christina-nichol-on-croft-quinta-da-ro…>
- Charles Yu on St. George California Reserve Agricole Rum
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/novelist-charles-yu-on-st-george-california-res…>
It is important to note that sulfites are also commonly added
post-fermentation to combat oxidation and stabilize the wine. Many
winemakers use sulfur dioxide, potassium metabisulfite or some combination
of both. The latter is also used in a broad range of foods, from potato
chips to shrimp (fresh and frozen) to lemon juice, like that in the small
plastic lemon I have in my refrigerator—and perhaps you do too.
Advertisement
My plastic lemon doesn’t carry a sulfite warning, and until approximately
10 years ago, neither did wines sold in Europe. This may be why some
American wine drinkers who’ve traveled abroad believe European wines
contain no sulfites (another issue I am asked about quite often). They do,
but European governments only recently required that wine labels
acknowledge the fact.
A reader named Diana emailed me a few months ago about a sulfite-related
encounter she’d had with a snobbish (and misinformed) sommelier in
Salzburg. The sommelier told her that regulations required European
winemakers to add sulfites to bottles for export, which is why Americans
got hangovers from European wines stateside. This is, of course, false and
hopefully not a reflection on the knowledge and trustworthiness of Salzburg
sommeliers.
More important, only a tiny percentage of the U.S. population—less than
1%—actually suffers from true sensitivity to sulfites, and these people are
invariably chronic asthmatics, according to David Lang, M.D., chairman of
the Department of Allergy and Clinical Immunology of the Cleveland Clinic
in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dr. Lang told me that in his 28 years of practice, he’s seen only one
person who had “true allergic reactions” to sulfites. Such reactions, he
added, typically involve shortness of breath and wheezing, not headaches.
“Sulfites have been around for centuries and have been very
well-tolerated,” Dr. Lang pointed out.
Non-asthmatics who come to Dr. Lang with sulfite-related fears might
actually be allergic to something else in the wines, such as proteins or
histamines. What’s more, white wine contains more sulfites than does red,
so those who suffer from “red-wine sulfite allergy” may be reacting to
tannins, which tend to be more significant in red wine than white.
I asked Dr. Lang how he tests whether a patient is actually
sulfite-sensitive. He performs what he calls provocative dose testing,
administering capsules of small amounts of sulfites in successively higher
doses every thirty minutes, and closely monitoring the patient’s reaction.
‘‘Sulfites have been around for centuries and have been very
well-tolerated.’’
—allergist David Lang, M.D.
This is the only viable test because blood or skin tests cannot detect a
sulfite sensitivity, said Beth Corn, M.D., associate professor of medicine
at New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine and part of the faculty of the
Department of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Dr. Corn sees quite a few
patients who believe they have wine-related allergies; the real problem, in
some cases, probably has more to do with excess alcohol intake than
sulfites. “Sometimes patients tell me they don’t have a reaction to wine if
they stop at one glass,” said Dr. Corn, who replies, “Then, why don’t you
stop at one glass?”
Oregon-based winemaker Rollin Soles of Roco Winery in Willamette Valley has
fielded his share of allergy-related questions from wine drinkers. Before
founding Roco, Mr. Soles was head winemaker at Argyle winery for many
years, where he made high-quality sparkling wine as well as Pinot Noir and
Chardonnay.
Some tasters told Mr. Soles that, while most sparkling wines gave them
headaches, his never did. Mr. Soles asked where they drank sparkling wine.
Often as not, the answer was gallery openings or weddings, where the
cheapest sort of wines are often served. Inexpensive wines often have
sugars added to boost the alcohol content, and this added alcohol is often
what causes the pain.
These headache sufferers were also likely drinking sparkling wine without
eating. Drinking even a modest amount of alcohol without food is a sure way
to a headache.
The anti-sparkling mind-set is similar to the prejudice against red wines
that presumes they are the cause of sulfite-related headaches. Mr. Soles
cited a study conducted in the early 1980s by Cornelius Ough, then a
professor at University of California at Davis. Professor Ough was
interested in tracing the source of red-wine headaches and devised a study
in which people with a history of red-wine sensitivity were served both red
and white wines as well as white wines colored red. He found that tasters
had no more adverse reaction to red wine than to white.
For drinkers who do have a reaction to sulfites or an unshakable fear of
one, there are wines with no added sulfites, known as NSAs, which I decided
to try. I found about half a dozen bottles in my local wine shops,
sometimes in a “no sulfites” section, despite the fact that no-sulfite
wines don’t actually exist.
The NSA wines were so hard to find at the ShopRite store in Little Falls,
N.J., I asked the salesman to lead me to them. What did he think of the NSA
wines? He wasn’t impressed, although he said that the 2013 Badger Mountain
Chardonnay, from Washington state, was better than the rest. So I bought a
bottle of the Badger Mountain and a few others, both white and red,
including the 2013 Mother’s Choice Organic California Red, which has the
words “Contains No Detectable Sulfites” emblazoned on the front label just
under an ersatz portrait of Whistler’s mother holding a wine glass.
The faux “Whistler’s Mother” was the best part of the wine, which was
devoid of any character or flavor and possessed a flat, tinny finish. The
same was true of the next two reds, but none were as terrible as the
whites: the 2013 Pacific Redwood Organic Chardonnay, Frey Vineyards Organic
“Natural White” Table Wine and the recommended 2013 Badger Mountain
Chardonnay. They were among the worst wines I’ve ever had. All three looked
and tasted like old apple cider and smelled oxidized. Upon tasting the
wines, a friend of mine said, “Bring on the sulfites!” There wasn’t a
single NSA wine from my selection that I could recommend.
Off Duty’s Half Full
<http://online.wsj.com/public/search?article-doc-type=%7BHalf%20Full%7D&HEAD…>
- Floral Spirits Deliver a Delightful Bouquet
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/floral-spirits-deliver-a-delightful-bouquet-142…>
- Plaid to the Bone: Scottish-Style Ales
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/plaid-to-the-bone-scottish-style-ales-142429102…>
- Mixing Cocktails With Sherry
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/mature-content-mixing-cocktails-with-sherry-142…>
- Craft Spirits From Unusual Locations
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/craft-spirits-from-unusual-locations-1418941829>
I called a winemaker friend, Kareem Massoud, at Paumanok Vineyards in the
North Fork of Long Island, for some professional insight. Mr. Massoud
wasn’t surprised to hear my report of the undrinkable wines. “Those wines
are completely naked, from an oxidation point of view. They have *no
*protection
at all,” he said. “Any winemaker worth his salt knows that wine is
susceptible to oxidation.”
I mentioned to Mr. Massoud that several bottles carried advice to
refrigerate or store them in a cool, dark place, and that the shop in which
I purchased them was actually quite warm, no doubt hastening oxidation. Mr.
Massoud wasn’t surprised by this either. “Once a wine is out in the market,
there is no guarantee of the storage conditions. Even when you buy from the
producer, there’s no guarantee,” he said.
Mr. Massoud has heard complaints about sulfite allergies over the years but
thought wine drinkers should probably focus on something else, such as
alcohol. Wine has alcohol. And too much alcohol can cause headaches.
Perhaps that’s the warning that Senator Thurmond should have lobbied for
instead.
See wine videos and more from Off Duty at * youtube.com/wsj.com
<http://youtube.com/wsj>.* Email Lettie at * wine(a)wsj.com <wine(a)wsj.com> *
--
James Ellingson cell 651 645 0753
Great Lakes Brewing News, 5219 Elliot Ave, Mpls, MN 55417
James(a)BrewingNews.com BeerGovernor(a)gmail.com
