Vino In My Dino

Winespeak: Tannins

July 24, 2015 15:22

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Posts this month focus on what I call ‘winespeak’ which are terms that sometimes are obvious in meaning and others are not. Today’s word is tannin.

Recently I was talking to someone who was learning about wine and all the facets found in the taste of wine. He owns a restaurant and was looking for wines to pair with the style of food (Indonesian). I began talking about how acidity and tannins are the links between a great food and wine pairing because each plays an important role in the interplay between the two. I described tannins to him by saying, “remember when you were a kid and you licked a piece of chalk?” I then compared this feeling on the tongue to how tannins in red wine feel. Dusty, drying, almost gritty. And this is also why wines with tannins pair so well with food, especially rich in fat like cheese, steak, or ribs. It is the astringent quality in them which pairs so well with these types of food.

Where do they come from? The reason red wines are the tannin conveyors instead of white wines is because the reds are fermented with the grape skins-and they are the source of tannins. (White wines still have some tannin but a very low amount.) Tannins add body (a term for another day) framing the fruit and acidity. They also soften with age and become better in balance after a year in oak and more time in the bottle. A little Cabernet Sauvignon in my Dino will go nicely with this grilled steak.

Since you can’t photograph tannins I’ll leave you with a shot of our Cabernet Sauvignon ready for harvest in a previous vintage.

Tags: Pedroncelli, winespeak, wine tasting, Cabernet Sauvignon
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Winespeak: Acidity

July 22, 2015 15:39

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Posts this month focus on what I call winespeak which are terms that sometimes are obvious in meaning and others are not. Today’s word is acidity.

Acidity is what you would call a building block toward balance in wine. Less of it and the wine becomes flabby, too much and your lips will pucker. Levels of acidity start with grapes and depend on the type of climate where they are grown. Dry Creek Valley, for instance, has warm days bracketed by marine fog. The cooling fog layer rolls in at the end of the day and stays sometimes until mid-morning. The combination both ripens and evens the development in the grapes by using a little refrigerator action in the evenings. Wines from warmer regions develop as well but in a different way. It is the reason we as farmers are concerned if the weather is too hot or too cool and the development isn’t all we hope for during the growing season.

Basically wine has two types of acid: malic acid and lactic acid. Well you start with malic and in order to soften this sharp acidity the wine undergoes a secondary fermentation. The malic acid (think tart green apple) converts to lactic acid (dairy or butter essence) and makes the wine easier to swallow. The process is called malolactic fermentation by the way. All red wines undergo this conversion and some white wines do as well, like Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. It all depends on the style the winemaker would like to achieve. And sometimes the decision to add more acid comes into play, depending on the inclination to higher or lower acidity. This year I am hanging my wine tasting hat on high acid white wines-so refreshing and crisp! A splash of Sauvignon Blanc in my Dino please.

Sauvignon Blanc and a close-to-harvest shot from a previous vintage. We're not there yet but getting very close to picking the 2015 vintage!

Tags: Pedroncelli, winespeak, Sauvignon Blanc, wine tasting
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On Vacation

July 10, 2015 15:44

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The grapes aren't on vacation this month. They are turning color (veraison is the term) and beginning their journey to harvest.

Tags: Pedroncelli, Harvest, Veraison
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Winespeak: Color

July 2, 2015 15:48

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Posts this month focus on what I call Winespeak which are terms that sometimes are obvious in meaning and others are not. Today’s word is color.

In the beginning, as the berries develop, they are the same color: green. As they develop color, called veraison, the green pea colored berries turn either purple for red wine grapes or a golden or yellow color for white wine grapes. Color of wine is the first thing you notice when it is poured into your glass. When it is a white wine you have a color spectrum of light yellow to golden brown (this would be leaning toward an older wine). When it is a red you can go from light garnet to deep purple to brownish edged red (also an aged wine). It all depends on the varietal and aging-whether oak or time in the bottle.

White wines often are pale yellow with a tinge of green, just a tinge. As some wines are aged you’ll have a deeper hue of dark gold. Do you know why the wine is so clear? Or have you ever had a cloudy glass of wine? Fining and filtering help clarify the wine so it is clear in your glass. Note: not every winemaker filters wine so educate yourself! The mainstream wines typically are filtered but ask your local winemaker about the process.

Red wines run the gamut of light garnet (think Pinot Noir) to deep purple (Petite Sirah) and many shades in between. As they age, so does the color. Some of the wines from the 1970s I have tried are in the reddish-brown stage. A great way to really see the tones and color of wine is to hold a piece of white paper behind the glass and tilt it away to see the rim of the liquid. Here the background helps to define the color even more.

Enjoy the wine color spectrum as you enjoy your glass of Chardonnay or Zinfandel over the weekend. A toast to red and white wine with a splash in my Dino!

Tags: Pedroncelli, winespeak, wine tasting, Chardonnay, Zinfandel
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Wrapping Up 30 Years

June 30, 2015 15:54

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When my husband Ed and I were talking about what you learn over 30 years working for a family business we agreed it is hard to quantify all the changes because experience and know-how take time.

Getting comfortable in your own skin: I am who I am. When I took a public speaking class many years ago I learned the how-tos of presenting our story to a crowd but it took me a while to be myself. Some additional coaching by my husband Ed helped to find my voice but the experience of doing it over and over again made me the most comfortable, becoming more confident over time. While traveling to markets my dad had established, I’d hear stories and urban legends about him. He, like me, is an introvert, and had his ‘on the road’ persona JP that was known far and wide. I blazed my own trail and I appreciate the time it took to shape my story.

Family business means family is your business. A while ago I went to a seminar and learned the statistics are against a family business succeeding beyond the second generation, by a large margin. Yet my family-with great thanks to the first two generations-has prospered now to the third generation. Taking care of each family member will be challenging as we get to the expanding fourth and fifth generations but the lesson learned is family is your business.

Really know wine and love it. Know it like the back of your hand. I love wine-all kinds especially Champagne with a capital C. I have spent my life tasting through our wines and have what we affectionately refer to as a Pedroncelli Palate. Having a house palate is great but a bit limiting because there are so many more wines to discover. I often find myself at wine events advising new-to-wine tasters to try everything because you can always pour out the wine and move on to the next one. You have to start somewhere!

30 years of working in my family’s business has gifted me with a deep knowledge of our family’s history as well as that of the Dry Creek Valley. I wouldn’t trade it for anything and am thankful for the opportunity to continue our legacy. A toast to 30 years with Zinfandel in my Dino.

My sister Cathy and me at a tasting in 1988-as far back as I will go!

Tags: Pedroncelli, family business, Dry Creek Valley, family
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Two Virtues and a dash of Intuition

June 19, 2015 15:59

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Finding out the best way to go about working side by side with family developed certain attributes in me. Working with my cousin Richard in the tasting room, where we were literally side by side, I learned we both have completely different personalities and different ways of telling the story. I realized it was okay to have our own stories because they were told from our experiences.

In the early years of working with my dad, I was impatient, thinking I had a better idea for one of our wines and couldn’t understand when the answer was ‘no’. Over time I realized I needed a different approach. I developed a plan and I called it ‘planting seeds’. When I want to discuss a new idea with him I plant seeds of ideas. We have a chat and I usually float an idea I have knowing there won’t be a quick solution-we’ll both take time to consider it and work through the variety of outcomes a change in the line-up of wines would make or in how we market a particular wine.

11 years ago my husband joined the marketing and sales staff. Since then, and even before this time, we worked on the ‘after hours’ approach to home life. Meaning the time it took to walk our dog was the only time we discussed business outside of office hours. It has worked well-but sometimes we slip into the ‘did you hear about what happened in the office today’ followed by an apology for bringing up work at 9pm. Patience and wisdom have been my teachers over the years. Intuition kept me out of trouble. A splash of vino in my Dino helps. Maybe tonight it will be our Wisdom Cabernet.

Throwback photo from a wine club gathering in 2001.

Tags: Pedroncelli, family business, family, Cabernet Sauvignon
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Learning by Example

June 12, 2015 16:03

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As I mark my 30th year in the family business of wine, my post today is a reflection on learning the ropes of sales and marketing from my dad. Once I graduated from the tasting room to the office I began to learn the intricacies of the wholesale business through my dad Jim who had established this network over the previous 30 years. He and his brother John had hit their stride at this point in the second generation’s story; vineyards and production had expanded and there was wine to sell. The beauty of my dad and uncle’s partnership was they had divided the business almost in two with John taking care of the vineyards and winemaking and dad heading up the selling side. They met in the middle when one or the other overlapped. These meetings are legend among us because they literally met in the yard between the offices.

So I took a page from my dad’s book and plunged into his end of the business. Plunge is the right word-I had no idea what I was doing but soon put my degree in English to work because I began producing a newsletter which in turn helped me to communicate our story to wholesalers and customers alike. I also began to travel much as my dad had traveled. During this time the Sonoma County Winegrowers put tours together and sometimes it was a week or two in various US markets. One moment I cherish to this day is when Rodney Strong (himself!) walked into one of the event venues where the wines weren’t in place yet and trade would soon be lining up to taste. He said to the small group of winery reps “we are all in this together to promote our county so let’s get to work (delivering the wines to all the tables)”. From that point forward I have seen working with other wineries to broaden the message and working together as the ultimate one-two punch of marketing a region.

I learned to present wines at sales meetings, to develop materials the market needed and to find the right balance of what was actually needed-this was during the days before internet and you shipped pounds and pounds of sales kits, back-cards and fact sheets. If you visit our case goods warehouse there are some relics of those days stored there even now. There are some great moments and cringe-worthy moments during these formative days-sometimes my enthusiasm or impatience ran over and are stories for another post. A toast to learning by example with some Zin in my Dino!

Another throwback circa 2005. Stepping back in time is fun-less grey hair! Oh, Ed is the guy next to me. We have worked side by side for 13 years.

Tags: Pedroncelli, family business, family, Sonoma County, siblings
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You Have to Start Somewhere

June 10, 2015 16:08

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As I reflect over 30 years of working for my family I think one of the important parts of working with them was having the option of choosing my course, my direction. I know I am very blessed because we don’t always get to choose our path. In my case I had a degree in English with a Writing Emphasis, I had been raised at the winery, and now I was entering into the business from the ground floor, the tasting room. It was a good beginning and gave me a chance to immerse myself in the day to day winery stuff, plunge into wine education and listen to people as they shared their wine experiences and more importantly their preferences. The tasting room at that time was in the front of our case goods warehouse. I remember my commute to work was on foot-from the apartment below the offices where my great-grandparents once lived; working in the middle of winter in the warehouse-you can imagine just how cold; learning tips from John Soule, tasting room host since 1968; having a rush of guests followed by boredom when there was a lull; local winemakers and growers stopping by to talk about how exciting it was that Dry Creek Valley was now an official American Viticultural Area (granted in 1983); the countless conversations about who liked which wine and why; the poster (made by my cousin) with the tagline ‘Don’t bite the foot that stomps your grapes’. I realize now I was following in the footsteps of my grandfather who ran his tasting room out of the wine cellar, building his network in the same way. At the same time I was learning the basics, I was also storing away experiences I would share as part of telling my story in the coming years. Learning to be patient when Peter from LA (who was a lawyer) walked in at 5:02pm and stayed for an hour or helping people to correctly pronounce Pinot Noir (it was the wild west in those days-Americans were being exposed to varietal names rather than the standard 'Burgundy'). A toast to the early years, from my Dino to yours.

Each photo takes a step back in time-by the end of the month will be the real 'throwback' of 30 years ago. This was taken in 2005.

Tags: Pedroncelli, family business, Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County
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Training Wheels: 1985-1995

June 5, 2015 16:12

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I’d majored in English, without plans on a wine career, and now was changing direction and going to work for my family. I was eager in those early years of my employment to learn as much as possible and of course put all this knowledge to work right away. Night classes had me studying viticulture and wine marketing. I joined trade groups like the Wine Road to network and widen my scope. A Tasting Class at UC Davis opened my eyes to the many nuances found in white and red wines. My own Pedroncelli education would take the next ten years learning the family ropes, going from tasting room to the office, as well as the industry’s intricacies. By the time I joined in, my dad had been developing our wholesale network for 30 years. I was hard pressed to come up with something other than ‘I’m the daughter of the owner’ and it took time to develop my own voice, my own way of telling our story. I went from being an introvert to an extrovert when I realized no one buys wine from a shy and tongue-tied person, family member or not. I will admit there are times I cringed from some of the situations I found myself in. These days I usually refer to myself as an extrovert by profession because my preference is to fade into the background. Being a perfectionist helped spur me on and made me even more determined to tell a compelling story after a few false starts. The years have refined me to say the least.

Let's go to the 'way back' machine to refresh your memory with a few milestones between 1985 and 1995: the market moved from jug wines to varietal wines, grape prices doubled, ‘fighting varietals’ were introduced, the French Paradox changed the way American’s embraced wine and consumers demanded quality over quantity. It was a time when we were adding varietals like Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot to our line of wines and replacing Chenin Blanc, Gewurztraminer and Johannesburg Riesling. These were exciting times to be in the business and I will toast these with a splash of Sauvignon Blanc in my Dino.

On the road-doing my thing. With Scott Gayman, our broker in the Northeast.

Tags: Pedroncelli, family business, Market Work
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It's a Family Thing

June 3, 2015 16:26

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Here I am 30 years after making the decision to work full time for my family’s business. Today I am remembering a conversation between my dad and me when I was asked to consider full time work for the winery. We were standing in the Case Goods Warehouse, I was helping out on weekends and living in the East Bay. The place is important because, after all these years, I now realize this was where my dad lives and breathes Pedroncelli, where you will find him at any time of the year either on a forklift or counting cases. He had a plan and I would soon be part of it. So my first thought was how my degree in English would benefit working in this industry and for my family. Come to find out, my liberal arts education came in mighty handy. I went from staffing the Tasting Room and focused on learning the business from the ground up (what is the difference between Zinfandel and Cabernet, viticulture and winetasting classes, learned the importance of the Dry Creek Valley appellation) to Brand Ambassador where the world is my market and sometimes my office chair is 30,000 feet up. What does 30 years working for a family wine business look like? You work closely with family members, taste countless wines, find my voice and then tell our story to thousands of people, travel too many miles to count, give tours of our vineyards again and again without it ever getting ‘old’, live our lifestyle, see the next generation set in place, write millions of words. I can tell you it has been fun, exciting, challenging and rewarding. Sit back and relax as the next month covers a few of the highlights over the years. I’ll toast my Dino, where it all started!

Tags: Pedroncelli, family business, Market Work
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