The Best Whisky of 2010?

As the year comes to close, I begin to reflect on some of the great whiskies of 2010. From the Pappy Van Winkle bourbons to the 1989 Limited Edition Black Art from Bruichladdich, it seems as if each year brings a new wave of interesting, amazing and sometimes unconventional bottlings that are only around for a few weeks, Those of us lucky enough to secure the goods will be able to cherish them for years to come. Recently I have started to read some interesting blogs and trade publications that have gone to the edge and claim one as the “best” of the year. I’ve always had a hard time with this concept due to the fact that at Bounty Hunter, we only offer the “best”. If it’s not great, we don’t sell it. Trying to pick a single malt that is better than another, is like trying to argue that Wayne Gretzky was better at hockey than Michael Jordan was at basketball. Okay, maybe that's a bit extreme, but even if I tried to stick to a region, take Islay for instance, I would be hard-pressed to pick a Bruichladdich over a Lagavulin because they are stylistically different. Neither is superior, they’re both great for different reasons.

All I can say, is that at the end of the day (and year) I am going to sit back, kick up my feet and sip some of the best dram out there. It could be the Compass Box 3rd edition “Flaming Heart” or the new 1994 Glenrothes - it will depend on my mood at the time. What would you consider to be the "best" whisky of 2010?

--Stefan Matulich, Spirits Buyer

Edna Valley - Smokey Reds and Textured Whites

Unlike Napa Valley over the past three decades, Edna Valley’s reputation has rarely superseded its tiny size. That’s a shame, because this 35-square mile American Viticultural Area (AVA) in the middle-southern Central Coast has quietly been turning out some of the most interesting Chardonnays in the state of California. And, in recent days, some dynamic Pinot Noirs, Syrahs and Rhône-style whites, too.

Although viticulture was brought to the Edna Valley by Spanish missionaries over 200 years ago, it has only been in the last 30 (-ish) years that this scrub oak and cattle-dominated landscape has been replaced by wave after wave of lolling vineyard. The Niven family, who planted Edna Valley Vineyard’s Paragon Vineyard in the early 70s, were some of the first modern-day vintners to recognize that the region’s climate and soils were a veritable Eden for Burgundian grapes like Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Rich with 25-million year old marine shells, sand and clay as well as volcanic sediment from an ancient 14-volcano chain that begins in Morro Bay, Edna Valley is a transverse (east-west running) region shadowed by the Santa Lucia Mountains to the northeast and the San Luis Mountains in the South. Unlike the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, the mountain ranges frame the region’s eastern flanks and therefore provide no buffer for the Pacific Ocean breezes rushing into the valley from the west. Pockets of hills surrounding the valley capture and preserve these damp, chill winds. In other words, this is no catch-and-release program. The result is that Edna Valley typically has the longest growing season in the state. New shoots tend to bud as early as the first of February – one to two months before most Northern California vineyards – and because spring and summer stays long and mild, grapes ripen well into mid-to-late October.

When farmed wisely, such long vineyard hang-times can yield lusciously mature fruit. The best Edna Valley Chardonnays possess a voluptuous texture along with a mouth-tingling acidity that stops the wines from moving into fat and flabby territory. The same goes for many Pinots coming out of the region (although, more often than not, we prefer the Pinots coming out of the Arroya Grande AVA, Edna Valley’s southeast neighbor). In recent years, too, growers have discovered that grapes like Syrah and Viognier also respond well to the long, consistent season, yielding smoke and spice reds and textured whites similar in complexity to the cool climate wines of France’s northern Rhône Valley...but with a ripeness that is altogether Californian in style.

Of course, one of the most notable qualities nearly all wines from this tiny Central Coast AVA seem to possess is that they tend to give you plenty of juicy bang for your buck. Because they’re often made in equally tiny production, though, the challenge is often in finding these great value reds and whites. Not to worry. We have our team of Bounty Hunter Scouts constantly on the lookout for the most delicious gems.

Schramsberg Comparitive Tasting 2010

Give credit where credit is due. If a winery wants to be included in the conversation of “world-class”, it needs to prove itself against the heaviest hitters. The folks at Schramsberg do that on a regular basis with a series of blind tastings, one of which I was invited to recently. It involved a small group – the winemaking team and enologist and winery president Hugh Davies – and a handful of friends in the trade. For this

particular session, it was me representing Bounty Hunter, a sommelier from New Zealand and two local winemakers. It was 9AM on a Monday morning, and fizz was on the breakfast menu.

The format was blind for the winery staff, meaning they knew the wines in the flight but not the order. For the rest of the guests, it was double-blind… we didn’t know anything about the wines being poured other than they were all tête-du-cuvée (the winery’s top-shelf offering) sparkling rosés from top producers. 11 glasses were lined up in front of each of us along with a sheet of paper listing the following criteria: color, aroma, palate and rank. We were to carefully evaluate each wine and turn in our sheets so that a group ranking

could be compiled. Following the tabulation, each wine would then be discussed beginning with the group’s least favorite and finishing with the overall winner. This was both a chance for the group to share their personal impressions of the wines along with allowing the winemaking team to clarify their internal vocabulary about certain flavorelements and characteristics. One taster’s baked cherries is another’s cranberry tart… that sort of thing.

There were some surprises as you can see below, but note how well the host’s wines fared. It’s pretty impressive when you consider the competition. I’ve listed my personal ranking along with the retail price the winery paid as a frame of reference. I’ve also listed the group’s combined rankings with the aggregate scores to gauge the separation between each finishing position. Keep in mind that this is like a golf score relative to total points… lower is better. Also note that there are only 10 wines listed as one bottle was corked. Tragically, that bottle was Krug Rosé.

1. 2000 Schramsberg “J. Schram” Rosé - $130 (Group Rank – 2nd, 37 points)
2. 2002 Louis Roederer “Cristal” Rosé - $500 (Group Rank – 1st, 26 points)
3. 2002 Perrier-Joüet “Fleur de Champagne” Rosé - $300 (Group Rank – 5th, 44 points)
4. 2000 Taittinger “Comtes de Champagne” Rosé - $200 (Group Rank – 8th, 63 points)
5. 1998 Schramsberg “J. Schram” Rosé - $130 (Group Rank – 3rd, 41 points)
6. 1999 Bollinger “Grand Année” Rosé - $200 (Group Rank – 6th, 46 points)
7. 2003 Roederer Estate “L’Ermitage” Rosé - $70 (Group Rank – 4th, 42 points)
8. 2000 Villemart “Grand Cellier Rubis” Rosé - $105 (Group Rank – 10th, 73 points)
9. 2000 Moët et Chandon “Dom Pérignon” Rosé - $375 (Group Rank – 7th, 62 points)
10. 1998 Veuve Clicquot “La Grande Dame” Rosé - $275 (Group Rank – 9th, 65 points)

So what’s to learn from this little tasting session? Well first, it’s clear that our hosts are making some phenomenal wine. The group put the two Schramsberg wines at positions 2 and 3. Lesson two is that the price tag doesn’t always translate into palate pleasure. While Cristal was the clear winner, it’s also $500/bottle. Frankly, it had better deliver the goods for that kind of scratch. Conversely, there were some very spendy, name brand wines that were pretty roundly panned by the tasting panel. Granted, it’s only one group’s opinion, but Hugh Davies commented how consistent the results have been with this lineup across different tastings around the country. And last, and maybe most important for the consumer to keep in mind, is that rosé isn’t always necessarily better. To that point, the Bounty Hunter staff tried a bottle of ’98 Veuve Clicquot “La Grande Dame” the previous week that was phenomenal. It was the star of the show among another lineup of high-end fizz. But as you can see above, it’s much pricier pink brother got beat up pretty badly by the tasting panel. Sometimes, you just have to pull the cork to be sure. It’s all in the name of research after all…

--Rhett Gadke, Wine Director

2010 Harvest Wrap-up

Justice Cabernet Sauvignon Grapes

Well, we wrapped up a helluva harvest this year. Mother Nature threw everything but locusts at us, but we managed to bring in our Justice and Waypoint fruit in prime condition... the real problem is there just isn't much of it. A cool, wet spring had a lot of people panicking that their grapes wouldn't get ripe (luckily our vineyard managers don't get sweaty palms), so they started pulling leaves to let sunlight reach the clusters. Then what happened? We might have well have been in Tucson for about five days. Fruit started burning like an Irishman in Ixtapa.

When sunburn happens to the degree that it did this year, there's only one solution: lose the raisins. Be it in the field or on the sorting table, there was a lot of shriveled mess to send to the compost pile. That's where it's awfully nice to have high-tech sorting tables shaking out the unwanted stragglers and eagle eyes to pluck out the rest. Then we were left with nothing but beautiful little berries to send to the fermentation tanks. We just wish there were more of them.

--Mark Pope, Founder & CEO

The Kingmaker

We gathered to hear the kingmaker speak. Robert Parker has been called the most powerful critic (of any sort) in the world, and it’s hard to argue the point. I can think of no other industry with such a sharp tip on the pyramid of critical review. Think about it. In food, film, travel, etc., writers all play a role in a sort of democracy at work. But Robert Parker? He’s the only one who can take an obscure producer to stardom with the stroke of a pen. Let’s say you’re making 200 cases of a Grenache blend in Paso Robles that no one has ever heard of before. Now let’s say that Parker tastes said blend and stamps it with a “98-point” review. You will sell out within hours. It’s literally the equivalent of one movie reviewer plucking an indie film from obscurity and having every theater that picks it up sold out for months. Or a single food reviewer causing a reservation overload at a new restaurant with calls from around the country. Which is amazing… and kind of insane, truth be told.

After his annual tasting tour of Napa Valley, the Napa Valley Vintners invited their members for a Q&A session at the venerable Rutherford Grange with The Critic. I personally wanted to hear what he had to say about the ’08 vintage in Napa (as did most folks in the room based on the applause that followed his proclamation of a “fabulous” year). But I was also curious to hear what sort of questions the people whose livelihood he was impacting with every review would have for him.

What followed was a wide-ranging flow of conversation from why no one can sell Syrah to the Asian market as a legitimate force to the ongoing competition with the Old World for consumer acceptance. (The answers were essentially: No one really knows, you have to have a footprint in Asia to compete with the French and European wine lovers will never take American wine seriously because they have an ingrained bias and are hopelessly provincial). But the session was also an interesting look at what makes Parker tick.

His big break moment came back in the early days of his publication when the vast majority of the old guard writers proclaimed 1982 Bordeaux to be a flop vintage, and Parker went the exact opposite direction. He turned out to be right, of course, and the wine business would be forever changed for it. He still reminds his readers (of which there are a shockingly low 55,000) that his reviews are just his opinions. He is also steadfastly not for sale. His insistence on paying his own way is legendary, as is his absolute refusal to accept advertising in any form. So criticize the critic all you like, but even the most ardent Parker detractors can’t question his integrity.

The irony for me is what he didn’t say, in this case about what may be his most controversial - and widespread - contribution to the critical field… the infamous “100-point” system. What was then a novel concept is now employed by most American critics (with varying degrees of laughably implied precision). But although he didn’t specifically say it, I got the sense that the point system may be his Frankenstein’s monster. Parker writes some of the most detailed tasting notes in the business, and yet most people never read them.

Which brings us to the role of the world’s most powerful critic going forward. He has over the last decade or so assigned certain regions to his team of understudies. He no longer reviews Italy, Australia, several prominent regions of France, etc. (the volume of producers wanting a Wine Advocate review is far too much for one person). So what happens as Parker perhaps considers retirement and the majority of reviews in a given year are not penned by the man who started the publication? It will be interesting indeed to see who steps in the fill the void. Frankly, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see one individual critic with such influence ever again.

--Rhett Gadke, Wine Director

Sonoma Decanted

When people talk about Sonoma as a wine region, most often they are referring to the entire, sprawling, Northern California county, which consists of 13 American Viticultural Areas spreading out across one million acres of land (Note: That’s twice the size of neighboring Napa).

In wine terms, Sonoma County starts with the Alexander and Dry Creek Valleys in the north, follows the Russian River into the Russian River Valley to the east and ends in the south with Sonoma Valley and Carneros, the latter of which rests partly in Sonoma County and partly in Napa Valley. Tucked within these key Valleys are smaller AVA’s (including a Sonoma Coast, Sonoma Valley and a Sonoma Mountain AVA), all of which seem to have their own unique microclimates perfectly suited for very specific grape varieties.

Because Sonoma County runs along the Pacific Coast, the entire region is heavily influenced by the cool fogs rolling in from the sea. In the morning, these fogs come in thick and wrap themselves around the mountains, snaking into the valleys. Inland regions, like Alexander Valley, only experience light mists of these fogs, while more western-lying regions, like the Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast are often blanketed in dense, low-lying clouds.

Such climactic variation, coupled with its potpourri of ancient bedrock, volcanic ash, chalk and sandstone soils, means a host of grapes do well in Sonoma County. The tiny, 16-mile long, two-mile wide Dry Creek Valley is home to some of the most compelling Zinfandels in the state, while its eastern neighbor, Alexander Valley, turns out complex Cabernet Sauvignons to rival nearby Napa Valley. The more coastal influenced Russian River Valley, Green Valley and (further south) Carneros AVAs are known for their richly elegant Pinot Noirs, Chardonnays and sparkling wines. Rising above the fog line high above the Pacific Ocean, the Sonoma Coast AVA is praised for its fine Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines, as well as some incredibly nuanced cool-climate Syrahs.

And what about the Sonoma Valley? Bordered by the Mayacamas to the east and the Sonoma Mountains to the west, the city of Sonoma stands on the southern end of the valley. It was here, in 1845, that the leaders of the Bear Flag Revolt took over Mission San Francisco Solano and claimed California for America. It was also here that Spanish monks planted some of the first vineyards in Northern California. Today, no one grape dominates the region often referred to as the Valley of the Moon. It’s a fertile valley rich with winemaking history and short on pretension. Just real farmers, making some really good wines.

Wine Clubs

A simple search of the web uncovers a bewildering array of wine club offers. They basically fall into four major categories – clubs offered by wineries featuring only the products they produce, clubs offered by retailers and specialty wine shops, clubs affiliated with organizations – non-profits, credit card companies, Alumni organizations, etc. – and companies specifically offering only wine clubs for sale.

Which one is best for you depends on a myriad of factors, including quantity shipped in a year, price point, variety, customer service, and quality. The most important of these are quality of the wines and the customer service experience. Let’s look at each category’s pros and cons.

• Winery clubs. The good news is that you usually know exactly what you are getting. The bad news is that you know exactly what you are getting. With a few exceptions, wineries tend to produce the same wines year after year. The best ones strive for consistency in their products, understanding that yearly fluctuations in climate can impact a wine’s flavor profile. If you join one of these clubs, you will mostly likely get the same wines year after year. However, as someone once said variety is the spice of life – these clubs can get a tad boring after a year or two.
• Retailers and specialty wine shops. These clubs usually offer the best selections in terms of variety and wine quality. The best ones have wine knowledgeable staff who select the wines based upon what it actually tastes like, not just what they happen to have an overabundance of in their warehouse. One of the key factors in selecting one of these establishments to give your wine dollars to is customer service. Do they have a real person I can talk to if there is a problem with the wine, the shipment, my credit card? Sadly, many do not, which can lead to a very frustrating experience.
• Affiliate clubs and wine club only businesses. The two of these are lumped together because while you think you may be having your favorite PBS wine expert involved in the wine selection for your affiliate club, the actual selection and fulfillment is usually done by one of many companies who specialize in creating wine clubs for both their own interests as well as affiliate marketing. Quite often, these have wines that are what we call “one offs”, ghost label excess wines purchased and labeled specifically for the lowest price point with little regard to quality and true value – what we at Bounty Hunter call “taste per dollar”.

What makes us different? We have the expertise in selecting only the best wines for our wine clubs, wines that deliver great value at their price point, wines that taste like they should cost much more. We have the variety and affordability in our nine proprietary clubs, so you can get up to 36 different wines to taste in a single year. We have the customer service support that extends from our in-house personal sommeliers (Wine Scouts as we call them) to our fulfillment staff. We stand by our products, and, if you don’t like what you get, we want it back. We tell you the stories behind the wines, introduce you to the people behind the products, the families with terroir and fermentation in their DNA. And, if you want more, we can often satisfy your craving for a few more bottles of that certain wine that woke up your palate.

Not that we are biased, but we are convinced we have “the best damn wine clubs in the business.”