A Cult Above

Bryant Family Vineyard makes one of Napa’s -- and the world’s -- truly top tier Cabernet Sauvignons; it’s one of Napa’s cult wines. It’s the only wine Bryant makes and they do it with the utmost care and skill. Barbara Bryant, co-founder and former owner of the winery, has fused her love of wine, food, vineyards and people to produce the new and beautiful Bryant Family Vineyard Cookbook, the proceeds of which go to one of her beloved charities, the Bowery Mission in New York. You’ll see my name in the book, but only because I assisted Barbara with her introduction. The book belongs to Barbara, her co-author Betsy Fentress, and the nation’s top chefs who admire the wine and gave their recipes for Barbara’s cause. This is a truly wonderful gift book, because it is all about giving.

The Bryant Family Vineyard Cookbook, $50, Andrews McNeel Publishing.

Enjoy What You Enjoy

I once gave a friend a case of Napa Valley red wines, all priced from $25 to $40 a bottle. After she'd had the wines for some time, I asked her how she was enjoying them. She seemed a little reluctant to talk about it and I discovered after a little prodding that she, her husband and some neighbors who enjoyed drinking wine together had conducted a blind tasting of some of the wines I had given her plus the infamous "Two Buck Chuck." The winner? You guessed it.

I would suspect that most wine experts/professionals/writers would roll their eyes at anyone preferring Two Buck Chuck, but I thought, if a $2 bottle of Central Valley wine satisfied them more than a $40 Napa Valley Zinfandel, more power to them (and to the producers of Two Buck Chuck) – think about how much more money they would have for vacations, flat screen TVs or whatever brings them bliss. It wouldn’t be my choice, but if it works for them…

I also knew that my friend -- like someone who graduates from a thin, soggy McDonald's hamburger to a made-to-order restaurant burger of quality beef and real cheese -- would taste her way through my case of quality wines and probably have a greater feel for the nuances and layers of flavor in such wines as well as some curiosity about what other wines taste like. She might actually trade up after the experience. Someone who graduates from McDonald's to a better burger might never try the $30 foie gras-stuffed burger at the pinnacle of hamburger cuisine, and my friend may never ascend to Bordeaux First Growths or Burgundy Grand Crus, but she would probably appreciate wines beyond Two Buck Chuck someday.

And even if that’s not true, she’s enjoying the wine she and her friends like -- that’s what important. Sometimes I wish my tastes would be satisfied by a $2 bottle -- it would make my life easier and my wine drinking habit much less expensive.

What do I think of Two Buck Chuck? It’s like a McDonald’s hamburger: a quick, easy way to sate your hunger, but you’re not exactly left yearning for that next bite… or bottle. But if I needed an inexpensive wine to serve at a fundraiser, I’d be buying it by the case.

A Sense of Place ...

I lived in the Napa Valley for five years from 1998 to 2003 and entered wine writing there so it’s the wine region I know best and write about most often. Recently I wrote a story for Decanter, the British wine magazine, about how Napa is attempting to stay relevant and attractive not only in a weak economy but in an increasingly competitive world wine market.

It’s not the first time Napa has faced hard times, it happens cyclically, in fact, and this time it comes when American wine drinking is at an all time high. In the past, high-end wines like Napa and Sonoma were relatively unaffected. But as we all know by now, consumers are looking for value wines to help salve their financial wounds these days. Napa makes a plethora of very good wines, as well as some incredible wines, but they have not been particularly known for good value for some time now. I don’t know what the average price of a Napa bottle would be (I tried to find out, but found no one who was anxious to say), but I would guess it is $40 or more, with many Cabernets in the $100-and-up-range.

I’m sure the present fall-off in sales is causing some discomfort at the ultra-premium or luxury brand levels, but Napa, the centerpiece of U.S. wine production, is not about to go out of business. So what are Napa producers doing to stay in the game?
Emphasizing terrior, or Napa’s unique sense of place, has always been both a strength and a selling point, and it is no less so today. After all, Napa cannot be duplicated anywhere else. It’s micro-climates, great variety of soil types and other growing conditions make Napa the high-quality wine growing region it is. Thirty or so years of good publicity hasn’t hurt either and for the last decade, making a point of Napa’s unique terrior and its steadily growing army of expertly trained and talented winemakers and viticulturalists has been a big part of that publicity campaign.

For more on what Napa is doing to stay fresh and vital in the wine marketplace, see my story in Decanter magazine’s California supplement, which comes with the September issue, out now.