This weekend I became cultured…but I got better

This weekend spawned a great change in me. I became cultured. I learned how to make my own wine…And then I went to Cabella’s and played shooting and bass fishing games for about three hours while eating elk jerky and wearing my new “Browning” hat.

I was invited down to Classic Winemakers, a winery in down near St. Martin’s University (which we won’t hold against them, one of the owners spent some time at PLU so he gets a pass). Through a coupon on “Living Social” that I’d promote, but you can’t even get it anymore anyway, we got to make 12 bottles of wine for $100. Solid deal if you ask me.

After tasting about 20 different varieties, we landed on a Pinot Noir (one of three different Pinots you can make) and Josh Monti, one of the owners, came in and took us through the process. We did all the work, and he explained what we were doing as we went along, right down to the reason we added oak extract pellets (namely, because a $1200 French Oak barrel wouldn’t really work with a coupon). This is a process I understand more and more winemakers are using, and it was fun to see it in action.

We added the juice, the oak and probably a few more things I can’t remember (if you want to know, go give it a shot! It was a lot of fun), and then stirred them together before creating a vortex in the barrel and adding the yeast.

Once the yeast was added, we sealed it up. The wine will stay at their facility for 4-8 weeks (in the Pinot’s case, four) during which time they’ll keep it under supervision and run tests to make sure it’s progressing nicely.

Once it’s ready to go, we’ll head back down and bottle it ourselves. I even get to design the label, which I’ll tell you right now, is going to be awesome. “A Dragon Fighting an Eagle, but not a Normal Eagle, One Like They Had In The Lord Of The Rings Pinot Noir” is going to be the best thing you’ve ever had. Let me know if you want a bottle!

Also, go check out Classic Winemakers. The prices are great and Josh was great about answering questions.

DeVine Wines Notes: Tastings this week will be on Thursday and Saturday and I’ll make sure to post an update, but sign up for the newsletter on www.de-vinewines.com to get the updates emailed directly to you.

NEXT Wednesday (July 28th at 7PM) will be our next game night, which should be pretty intense. Not to brag, but my team is going for our three-peat.  It will probably be a tough cork to pop though because I hear the mother-daughter squad with a couple wins under their belt is gunnin’ for us, and I have it on good authority that a team of previous champions is now back from fishing in the Arctic and plans on reclaiming their crown.  Let me know if you have any questions or plan on coming! If you reserve a table with me by emailing kevin@de-vinewines.com you’ll get a free appetizer of your choice during the game.

The flavor of my wine will be known as “Sexy”

I think I’ll name my award-winning winery “Giant Eagles Fighting Dragons” Vineyards…

Oh hey guys, I forgot I was supposed to be writing the blog and I was busy putting together my five year plan.

What, you might ask, is my five year plan? Well I’ll tell you, since you were so kind to ask.

1. Go to Classic Winemakers wine-making class in Lacey, Washington and learn how to make my own wine.
2. Use my new-found knowledge of the grape (that’s what real wine experts call it…”the” grape) to start my own vineyard and winery called “Giant Eagles Fighting Dragons” vineyard.
3. Wait 3-to-5 years for my grapes to be ready to and then cash in on my genius.
4. Finally have a legit reason to get my full-back tattoo of a giant eagle and a dragon engaged in a mid-air battle with talons and fire and stuff.

This weekend I’ll be down in Lacey learning how to make and bottle my own wine. I have no clue what this will include but I put the link to the winery’s site above so you can do the research yourself.

I’m just going to show up and sponge up all the knowledge I can, although I don’t know what more they can teach me: I don’t want to brag, but when I was in high school chemistry, the strawberry wine I made won the “best taste” ribbon, and the rumor is that it inspired Deana Carter (listen to more country music, you’ll get the reference).

I’ll make sure to give you a run-down next week about how it went.

In other news: Game Night has been getting so super-awesome that we are going to be hosting it every TWO weeks instead of once a month. You’re welcome.

That means that THIS WEDNESDAY is game night. I want to warn you, my team re-took the crown and my wine rack is full as a result. Does this mean we’ll let someone else win this Wednesday? Absolutely not. We plan on winning again…I’ll get a bigger wine rack.

Side note: My team needs a team name. Something awesome. Any ideas?

I’ll also post this week’s tasting and specials when someone who actually works at the shop gets them to me (yeah, I’m talking to you MOM)…now I’m going to get yelled at for speaking so sarcastically to my mom (sorry mom).

See you soon. Perhaps Wednesday at 7PM if you feel like losing at game night.

If you can beat me, I’ll buy you stuff…but you won’t beat me

I’m probably going to taste some wine this week.

There, I said it. Wine Reference: Check. Now I have more important things to talk about. Much more important things. Important things that affect your life in ways you couldn’t possibly understand.

Game Night.

That’s right, game night.

Next Wednesday is the monthly game night at the wine shop, and you know what? You’re probably afraid. You probably should be. And I’m probably awesome at games.

Just ask all the people who my team beat in Pictionary last month. We’ve been drinking all their wine. If you were one of those people, you should know that it was delicious. I especially liked the $35 bottle of William Church someone was so polite to buy in with. You know that you can buy in for an $8 bottle from the discount rack right? Either way, thank you.

Now, I’ll probably get yelled at for the snarky tone I used there, but this is trash talk, so I don’t care. I’ll do it anyway.

Game Night starts at 7PM on Wednesday the 26^th, and this month we’ll be playing Scatergories. I’d tell you to bring your best team, but it doesn’t matter.

I’m issuing a personal challenge. If anyone beats my team at Scatergories next week, I’ll PERSONALLY buy you a bottle of wine and two appetizers for the night. That’s confidence. You might want to just stay home.

I’ll be reminding you about this on Facebook all week, but I just wanted you to know early…you’re going to lose. If you have any questions on the details of the walloping you’re in for if you come, email me at any time. Kevin@de-vinewines.com. You’re also welcome to join the trash talk on facebook by becoming a fan.

Seacrest out.

Help! My wine has sulfites! Wait, what does that mean?

I made a point of including my email, Kevin@de-vinewines.com on each post, and lo and behold, emails came flowing. Thanks to Dave for the question.

Hey look what I did! It's a wine glass filled with sulfites! That was clever of me.

Question: What are ‘sulfites’ in wine?

Good question Dave. I keep hearing about sulfites in wine, but I don’t have any idea if they’re good or bad, or even a double-agent pretending to be good, and then at the last second turning on you like the first girl James Bond meets in every movie.

So I turned to the experts on the internet. And trust me, I saw a guy wearing a wicked-awesome TRON outfit on Youtube the other day, people on the web know their stuff!

Sulfites, or Sulfer Dioxides, occur naturally in all wine, but mainly, they’re introduced to stop the fermentation process at a desired time. They’re also used to prevent oxidation, kill bacteria and wild yeasts, and encourage quick and clean fermentation in a bottle of wine. In general, you’ll find more sulfites in white wine than red, but the most in sweet dessert wines.

Okay, so what does that mean? Basically, sulfites are what keep wine from turning into vinegar. So thank you sulfites, because this steak would be less delicious with a nice glass of vinegar (I just said that for dramatic effect, I’m not actually eating a steak…its 9:30 in the morning and I’m not a Soprano).

Common Misconception: Organic Wines are sulfite-free. This isn’t true. So get off your high horse. Yeah, surprised? Here’s another bomb: Your Whole Foods $17 slice of pizza might have fetta cheese and artichoke hearts, but it’s still covered in grease. Sorry to rock your world like that.

So are they bad? Yes. If you drink sulfites you’ll die.

Just kidding; For the most part, they’re harmless. The reason you see the “Contains Sulfites” warning on your wine label is that roughly 1% of the population are allergic to them.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. GO JOE!!!

Paula’s More Educated Notes:

Somewhere along the way, in the past 20 years or so, as people became more and more aware of additives in foods, they decided that sulfites were bad. They also heard about someone who was allergic to sulfites and had a bad reaction and that just added fuel to their fire. People started blaming sulfites for any and all maladies associated with drinking wine. This is absolutely unfair.

First of all, without sulfites added to wines, there would be no chance at stocking a beautiful cellar because wines just simply would not hold for years. Everything would need to be consumed in a relatively short period of time. For those of us who have enjoyed some terrific wine from vintages past, this would be a great loss.

Secondly, it is only a very tiny percentage of the population that is allergic to the sulfites in wine. A true allergy to sulfites is typically a fairly serious one; symptoms would most likely be something on the level of an asthmatic reaction. Headaches associated with drinking wine are not usually from a sulfite reaction, unless coupled with some other symptoms. One of the tests we often use is the dried apricot test. If you can eat a single dried apricot without getting a headache, then it is certainly not the sulfites. One dried apricot usually has more sulfites in it than a glass of wine.

Headaches associated with drinking wine are usually caused by the histamines in the grapes, or even something as simple as overdrinking, dehydration, lack of sleep… People often tell me that they don’t get headaches when they drink wine from Italy or some other place in the world. That may be true – grapes grown in different regions have different histamines. Just as your doctor may tell you to move to a different location for your health – the same is true with grapes. Add to that the fact that when in a different country, the laws on what needs to be on a wine label are different. Just because a wine does not say that it contains sulfites, does not mean that sulfites are not added! Its amazing how much a few words on a bottle, or lack of words in this case, can change our perception of the wine and how we feel when we drink it. The best advice I have is that if you find yourself getting headaches often from either a particular varietal of wine, or a particular region of wine, try a few different things. First – make sure you are drinking responsibly and don’t overdo it. Second, make sure you are hydrated before you drink. I also like to make it a personal rule to have a glass of water for every glass of wine I drink. Finally, try wines of a different varietal or the same varietal from a different region. I think most of you will be surprised to find out that maybe you can drink Chardonnay after all – or whatever wine has been giving you problems!

Hopefully this clears up some of the confusion still floating around about sulfites. And remember – just because it has a chemical name does not mean that it is bad!

Give me a shout with any questions you might have. Kevin@de-vinewines.com

The DaVino Code

I’ve been lied to. So have you America (And I say “America” because clearly the blog for your neighborhood wine bar has a national readership). This is a scandal so deep, it spans centuries and crosses oceans. But don’t worry; I’m about to go all Tom Hanks for you.

But before I do: “The DaVino Code”? That was nice right? It’s like a gift. It’s like I can’t control it. But back to the scandal.

Did you know that different countries call the same grape varietals different names? I know! It’s like they don’t even speak the same language! How am I supposed to become a wine expert when I don’t even know if the two bottles I’m comparing are the same thing or not?

I recently discovered that Mourvedre and Mataro are THE SAME GRAPE. So I did some digging in ancient and sacred archives called “Wikipedia”.

And the mystery started to unravel. This was just like the scene in DaVinci Code where Tom Hanks finds the dead guy’s writing on the back of the Mona Lisa…only I’m in my office with headphones blaring Tom Petty and pretending to stare at a spreadsheet…oh, and I’m better looking.

Turns out “Mourvedre” is the French name for this grape that is used to make dark, rich red wines and rosés.  “Mataro” is the name used in Portugal for the same grape and “Monastrell” is the Spanish name.

There’s gotta be a reason for it, so I started looking around. I found a few more names for this same grape. But just a few:

Alcallata, Alcayata, Alicante, Arach Sap, Balzac, Balzar, Benadu, Beneda, Beni Carlo, Berardi, Bod, Bon Avis, Buona Vise, Casca, Catalan, Cayata, Caymilari Sarda, Charnet, Churret, Damas Noir, Drug, English Colossal, Espagnen, Espar, Esparte, Estrangle-chien, Flouron, Flouroux, Garrut, Gayata Tinta, Karis, Maneschaou, Marseillais, Mataro, Maurostel, Mechin, Monastre, Monastrell Menudo, Monastrell Verdadero, Mourvedre, Mourvegue, Mourves, Murvedr Espar, Negralejo, Negria, Neyron, Pinot Fleri, Plant De Ledenon, Plant De Saint Gilles, Reina, Ros, Rossola Nera, Spar, Tintilla, Tire Droit, Torrentes, Trinchiera, Valcarcelia, Verema, Veremeta, Vereneta.

And that’s copied and pasted from Wikipedia so it’s GOTTA be true.

Basically anything from national pride, language barriers, accents used in oral histories, preference, ego, and just about any other part of the human condition contribute to this. Grapes are named the different things for the same reason most of the world uses the metric system and the US uses inches and feet: people are stubborn and do things their own way.

Maybe this helps. Maybe it doesn’t. People could be creating a very distinct taste that’s unique to their grape simply because it’s their grape…But maybe not.

I couldn’t get a straight answer out of anyone in the 20-minutes of internet research I did, so I did what any self-respecting man would do: I asked my mom.

“It’s really hard to say because there doesn’t seem to be a benefit to it,” mom (aka Paula Shively, owner of DeVine Wines) said. “Unfortunately what it does, at least here in the US, is confuse and possibly hurt sales because although someone may have heard of a mourvedre, and may even love it, they see mataro or monastrell and think they don’t know the grape. It keeps people from trying a bottle of wine they might really enjoy.”

To that, I say be more adventurous and trust the shop owner or vintner who suggests a new wine to you. They know their stuff and seldom steer you wrong.

My take on the grape names: who cares what it’s called? I had something the other day called a “parsnip” and I didn’t know what I was eating, but you know what? …ok it was gross, but then I washed it down with a glass of really good wine, and I have no idea what kind of grape it was.

So it turns out that my conclusion wasn’t as exciting or faith-shaking as Tom Hanks, but it was a lot more delicious. See you at the tasting this week!

Editor’s Note: Sorry Parsnips, I was just kidding because you have the funniest and nerdiest of vegetable names. You were actually very good. Also, parsnips are a member of the carrot family….ANOTHER vegetable that is lying to us!

Hook & Ladder Tasting Notes…okay fine I missed the tasting

I learned a lot of things during Saturday’s tasting. Mainly, that with any glass of wine, you can sound smart by saying the following things:

• It has a very strong currant aftertaste (no one ACTUALLY knows what currants taste like).
• Wow! What a diverse palate! (if anyone argues, just roll your eyes and scoff like they’re missing some blatant aromas).

In all honesty, I missed the actual “tasting” on Saturday because I was playing basketball. It was a nice weekend, give me a break. I felt it was important to include a disclaimer here because when I showed up late, I was informed that I would be chastised by several readers who actually came. Still, I wandered in with a buddy about two hours after the tasting ended, and luckily they still had each variety.

Hook & Ladder Winery is located in Santa Rosa, California and was started by a firefighter and his wife. Why is this important? Because it’s awesome, that’s why. I’m not married, but I’ve seen a lot of sitcoms in my day, and almost none of the wives in those sitcoms would respond well if their husbands said “I’m gonna retire…let’s spend our savings and make some wine.” Claire Huxtable would be PISSED.

We started the tasting with the Chardonnay, which was good. I don’t know anything about white wines, but I liked it. We were able to pull out some of the flavors, one of which was actually listed in the tasting notes (I felt like I should win some kind of prize for guessing right). Butterscotch. It took me a few seconds to think logically, but then I asked “how can a wine have flavors of butterscotch? That’s not something you grow.” My secular knowledge of wine would suggest that the grape ONLY pulls its flavor from the earth around the vine. As usual, I was wrong.

Apparently, the wine-maker has a huge say in what the barrel-maker gives him/her to store his wine in. The level of toast on the oak barrel can greatly impact the flavor of a wine. In recent years, Chardonnay-makers had started to move away from oak barrels, but there’s resurgence among purists now.

“Why try to change it?” My mom rhetorically asked. “If you don’t want to oak flavors, don’t drink chardonnay. There are plenty of other wines that don’t use oak.”

Their grapes are all grown just north of Santa Rosa in the Russian River Valley, which gives them a really diverse assortment. One end of the valley is on the coast, which gives a wetter, cooler, foggy climate, and the other is a dryer, desert-like climate. The coastal grapes have a longer growing season and are allowed to fully ripen and develop deep, rich flavors (great for Pinot Noir…apparently).

I’ll buy this explanation, because even with my limited wine knowledge, I really liked and appreciated the Pinot. Most of the Pinots I’ve have before have a little bite to it; almost an acidic value. But the Hook & Ladder didn’t. It was deep and rich. It also left a taste of cherry with you. Which is good to know for cooking: If you get a really strong flavor like that, you’re usually safe to cook using that ingredient. This wine would go great with a cherry-glazed salmon or something along those lines.

Their blend, the “Tillerman’s Red”, was just as complex and very good as well. They combined Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Sangiovese grapes with Cabernet Sauvignon. When reading the notes, this wine had flavors of raspberry and “cherry-tobacco” which sounded unappealing to me. When I tasted it, I could easily pull out the cherry-tobacco flavor, but surprisingly, it was great! It wasn’t overpowering, but led to a really rich finish, and I would compare it closer to the smell of cherry-pipe tobacco before it is lit.

Finally we tasted their “Station 10 Zinfandel”, which had some blackberry, boysenberry and plum flavors. This wine apparently goes great with a barbecue, which I can see after tasting it, but it left me with a bitter taste…not the wine, that was really good., Just the fact that they’d recommend zinfandel instead of a beer for a barbecue. What have we come to America?

All the Hook & Ladder wines are sold for under $21, and of the ones I tasted, are all well-worth the price. Stay tuned to find out what this week’s tasting will be.

Prosecco: TOTALLY not Champagne…I guess?

I had my first tasting this weekend, and it probably took longer to understand what I was drinking than it did to learn anything else about it…but I survived.

Being Easter weekend, we decided on a “champagne toast”, but we didn’t even drink champagne…apparently. Do you sense the skepticism? That’s because I think they were playing a trick on me. Not that I complained; my glass was full one way or another.

Instead of champagne, we drank something completely different called Prosecco, which, roughly translated, is Italian for “exactly the same thing as champagne.”

I believe the conversation as I was handed my first glass went something along these lines:

Kevin: Champagne?

Paula: No, this is Prosecco.

Kevin: What’s that?

Rich: Basically champagne.

Kevin: Why don’t they just call it that?

Paula: Because that’s not what it is.

Kevin: Huh?

Sound like an Abbot and Costello bit? A little…Am I too young to be making Abbot and Costello references? Maybe.

The Prosecco we had was Fantinel Prosecco, which I can safely say is the best (read: only) Prosecco I’ve ever had.  You can find it in stock at DeVine Wines for under $15.

Prosecco is an Italian version of sparkling white wine that is very similar to champagne, and has only recently become popular in the states as a substitute. According to my folks, Prosecco used to be a much sweeter sparkling wine, and was more closely related to Asti Spumanti than champagne, but the Prosecco wine-makers have really stepped up their production techniques in the last 20-years.

Prosecco, which is considered an inexpensive alternative to nicer bottles of champagne, is popular in Italy as a daily option. They even sell the cheaper brands in tall boy cans. It’s the Italian version of Miller High Life, which we all know is the champagne of beers.

Here in the states, we don’t exactly sell it on tap at a ball game, but Prosecco is just as easy to find as champagne. One thing I can say about it is that it was very dry, which I liked. It also seemed a little lighter than the champagne I’d had before, and I didn’t feel a sugar-style buzz like you can with champagne…although I’m not exactly comparing it to top shelf champagne either.

Which leads to the next thing I learned: Most of what you know as champagne isn’t actually champagne either. Apparently any sparkling white wine was allowed to slap a “champagne” label on it until recently, when the law was changed to only allow sparking white wines from the Champagne Region of France to be called this. However, there are a few select producers of champagne that AREN’T in the Champagne Region who are grandfathered in because a.) They use the three grapes that true champagne consists of (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier), and b.) They make some wicked awesome bottles of champagne (sorry guys, Cooke’s and Cold Duck…not on that list).

All in all: I liked it. Prosecco made a great breakfast drink…which is only okay because it was Easter, don’t make a habit out of that. Stick with your triple venti non-fat caramel macchiato.

I’ll be at De-Vine Wines Thursday night, trying out some wine maker’s creation, although I have no clue who it will be yet. I’ll post the details when it gets closer to Thursday.

Shoot me an email if you have any questions, or if there’s a specific tasting you’d like to suggest they offer at DeVine Wines: kevin@de-vinewines.com

Wine comes from grapes, right?

Thanks for checking out the DeVine Wines Blog!

Is it a vase?

Before you read too far, I want to make a disclaimer: I am not a sommelier. I am not even an employee of the wine bar. I don’t own a decanter, nor do I know what a decanter is (best guess? Some kind of cheese sandwich).

Last time I was in DeVine Wines, Jim asked me what I thought of a specific bottle and I replied, in as classy and pretentious of a voice as I could muster, “Jim, the hint of grape in this wine is breathtaking.”

If you came looking for an expert’s opinion on new vintages and the best way to show your dinner guests the oaky undertones in your Bordeaux, or even the right way to smell your wine (which I hear is important), you might be in the wrong place.

The bar t-shirt screams classy

My name is Kevin Shively. My folks Rich and Paula own DeVine Wines, and while this may lend you the notion that I inherited an innate palate for the finer things in life, don’t be fooled: I spent the majority of the last decade in Helena, Montana, sampling the best Pabst Blue Ribbon in a tall boy can that my dollar could buy.

I’m completely uninitiated as far as wine-tasting goes, and at dinner the other night, I was telling my mom how uncultured and primitive that made me feel as a human being. I told her that it was her responsibility as a parent to educate me and make me a sophisticated, suave and respectable member of society. Naturally we decided that I couldn’t get much more suave, but I could easily learn how to drink wine the right way.

The next twenty minutes of conversation were dedicated to her telling me why I couldn’t do this with a box of Chablis from the minimart.

Enter the DeVine Wines blog.

She’d been toying with the idea of a blog as it was, but this presented a unique opportunity. As a writer, I wanted to help out with the logistics, but we landed on the idea of me completely quarterbacking the project.

Each week, I’ll go into DeVine Wines for one of their different tastings (Thursday and Saturday afternoons, call for times). The blog will take you through this journey with me. I’ll share what I learn, what wine myths there are, and most importantly, how you can get into drinking and tasting wine without feeling like a Neanderthal for not knowing how to swirl your glass the right way.

These are the things I want to learn as well, and through the process, hopefully not develop an affinity for tweed jackets and scarves.

Thanks for reading, and if you come across any questions, please feel free to let me know and I’ll ask during my next tasting. If you’d like to join us for the next tasting, email me at Kevin@de-vinewines.com and I’d be more than happy to let you know the next time I’ll be fumbling my way through the process.