Zev Robinson interviewed by Luiz Alberto & Roy Hersh (Part 2)

On the last day of Roy Hersh’s FTLOP trip to the Douro Valley, I had the opportunity to put Zev Robinson* in front of the camera. Yes!!!
If that was a first (Zev being interviewed), I’m not really sure… But it certainly felt that way… Zev, who was filming and interviewing people during the entire week for his new documentary “Life on the Douro”, was a little “edgy” with the idea of changing places with me (by the way, I loved the idea of being behind the camera!). But after a couple of minutes and a few sips of a great vintage Port, the words started to flow and he ended up saying some very interesting things about his feeling/thoughts about wine.
To make things even better, Roy joined us for the conversation. Here is the second part of it.
I hope you enjoy it.
Cheers,
LA

Now we need your help to finish editing "Life on the Douro".

Here is a message from Zev:

"Our Story:
Life on the Douro is a documentary connecting 300 years of history with the current situation in Porto and the Douro and the recent rejuvenation of the region. Many of the interviewees talk about their family history going back two and three centuries as if they had lived it themselves, in great detail, intimacy and warmth, and often with a great sense of humor as well.

I've been lucky to have such fantastic material to work with - the personal stories, the history of the region, and the breath-taking terraces and scenery - all which has lent itself to my concerns of creating a strong story structure and powerful imagery.

The Impact:The story of wine in general is widely unknown, and if more people would be aware that it is much, much more than just a beverage, I believe there would be much greater interest in it. This is especially true for Portugal, a country that historically has had a wide-spread influence across the globe but is a relatively unknown quantity today. Whereas Port and Douro wines are considered excellent amongst experts, they don't have the same wide-spread reputation as those of other countries.

What We Need & What You Get:
The money will be used for post-production costs including a professional sound mix and color grading, a transfer from the European PAL television system to the American NTSC system, subtitles, and music rights. If I go over the goal, the extra money will be used to defray the costs of setting up screenings and disseminating the film.

The film is almost done, an early rough cut has been completed, and I'm busy refining it. I have traveled to the Douro region four times already for a total of more than 30 days, and will be returning to film for another ten days in July for two or three more important interviews to fill a couple of gaps, as well as get more shots of specific things that the film needs - the old streets of Porto and Gaia, the old railway stations, a couple of wineries, etc.

The film will be finished and start screening this autumn, and I could temporarily skip or skimp on some of the above, but would like to have the best quality possible to show around the world over the next year, and help give the region, its people and its wines, and Portugal in general, the recognition they deserve.

There is the thank you credit on the web site for five dollars, but the basic perk is the pre-order of the DVD for 15 dollars, shipping included. Then there are invites to events that will include premiere screenings, after party with Port and Douro wines (possibly presented by people with intimate knowledge of the region), a thanks on the end credits of the film, and associate and executive producer credits. I'm also offering a series of archival quality digital prints that I have created, each signed and number in a series of 10.

Other Ways You Can Help:Please help spread the word via Facebook, twitter, blogs, etc. If 400 people buy the DVD, then not only is the goal met, but the word about the film, future screenings, and the incredible region, the people and its wines gets out there too. "

Here is the link where you can make your contribution:
http://www.indiegogo.com/LifeontheDouro

And please help us spread the word!!!

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1WineDude TV Episode 34: Save The Children! Also, Portugal Totally Gets Social Media

 Joe Roberts - 1WineDude - chastises Vinos Navarra for making extra work for him (sort of), and profiles Portuguese producer Oscar Quevedo's unique approach to wine and social media.

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One of the pillars of TheWineHub is Wine Tourism. Whether you are a wine maker, or a wine drinker, we all enjoy having discoveries...

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Kid-Free Sunday in Dry Creek Valley

This was our second day of the long and arduous walk from our private cottage across the well appointed grounds of the Honor Mansion (www.honormansion.com) to our delicious breakfast awaiting us on the back deck of the main house. The mimosa of the day today was wild berry. In general I am a bit of a traditionalist believing that this breakfast beverage be mixed with fresh orange juice. However, I may be converting over to the dark side on this one.

Upon loading our picnic lunch into our 2012 motorized vehicle, comfortably equipped with air conditioning, I happened to note to my partner that while it was 11:00 a.m., it was already nearing 90 degrees and the mercury was rapidly heading north. I found this a perfect opportunity to point out that under our current plans at this very time tomorrow we will have already been in our bicycle saddles for more than an hour. Additionally, since we were driving north in our climate controlled automobile on the very same Dry Creek Road on which tomorrow’s bike/tasting tour would be traveling, I noted that perhaps we should do a bit of reconnaissance on route to better understand any possible elevation changes required via pedal power during tomorrows ill conceived trek in the unforgiving heat. I am holding out all possible hope on this one.

Our first stop was at Mauritson Winery (www.mauritsonwines.com) just north up Dry Creek Road from Healdsburg. We were met by a very friendly and informative tasting room person by the name of Jan. She took us through a wide variety of their wines, highlighted by the ones made by grapes coming from a relatively new California AVA known as Rockpile. Mauritson is the only winery to have vineyards at Rockpile, which is unique for it’s dry farmed, rough terrain growing conditions at higher elevations. This means that the grapes need to be heartier to survive, and consequently will carry more flavor. Indeed that is the case. We loved a wide variety of their wines, ended up buying more than a case, and joined their wine club. Great people! Great wine!

Our next stop was Dutcher Crossing Winery (www.dutchercrossingwinery.com), one of many new wineries that have popped up in this valley over the past decade. Our friends at Honor Mansion arranged a private tasting here. The folks at Dutcher Crossing were prepared for us having set up a nice spot at one of their picnic tables in the back yard, located under a trellis well equipped with misters to help keep us cool. It was worth the warmth as the views were spectacular overlooking their vineyards with the hills in the background to the west. The very hospitable service and wonderfully balanced 2008 Maple Vineyard Zin contributed to our enjoyable picnic lunch.

Returning to the car in the seemingly 133 degree heat I took yet one more opportunity to envision out load to my partner where we may be tomorrow at this time, laying dehydrated on the side of the road, under our bikes. Alas, still no change of plans, yet.

Our last tasting of the day took us to a smaller family owned winery back toward Healdsburg, by the name of Unti Vineyards (www.untivineyards.com). While Unti had a considerably more modest tasting room compared to some of the big names in the area, the tasting room staff, including one of the owners, George Unti, was very well versed in their wines, style, grapes, and culture. Beyond all that they make some very good juice as well.

A short drive back to the mansion, and it was time for a bit of an afternoon snack up at the big house. While relaxing in the shade of the 164 degree afternoon we decided on a quick match of croquet in order to get scorching hot prior to a dip in the pool. I thought that this would be an excellent opportunity to allow my partner to get a good sense of the afternoon heat. This did not seem to phase her. 20 min later I was the victor and to the pool we went.

Dinner. Ah, dinner. No cheese pizza tonight. I was treated to a spectacular 8-course feast at Cyrus (www.cyrusrestaurant.com) in downtown Healdsburg. What a fabulous event. 2-1/2 hours of tasting food in a way that you may never again. Along with the 8 courses, and a few extra tidbits snuck in between them, they paired 8 different wines to perfection. Their selection were extremely varied and arrived from around the world, with a nod toward old-world style. If you have the opportunity, this is a must stop.

Over indulged, we retired for the evening with still no change of plans for tomorrow’s insanity.

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Kid-Free Saturday in Napa Valley

We awoke in our private cottage on the grounds of Honor Mansion in Healdsburg, CA (www.honormansion.com). Strolling past the croquet field and swimming pool we found breakfast awaiting us on the very pleasant garden deck outside the main house. The pond full of fat and friendly koi was a charming backdrop to our delicious fare.

I quickly understood that this place was going to be somewhat of a roadblock for our wine tasting week. The combination of understated beauty, delicious food, casually efficient service, and simply peaceful surrounds was going to create a large pull whenever we think of venturing out to hundreds of wine tasting options. Oh, did I mention that they do not allow anyone on the premises that is under the age of 16 years old?

Alas, we did finally get on the road around noon bound for the infamous Napa Valley. We decided to pay homage to the common namesake of the region on our first tasting day leaving our northerly nook nestled between Alexander Valley, Russian River Valley, and Dry Creek Valley. We drove the beautiful, winding road over the hills to the southeast toward Calistoga.

We cruised through Calistoga south and cut over to the Silverado Trail with our day’s ultimate goal of Rombauer Vineyards (www.rombauer.com). This well established, signature, buttery California Chardonnay is THE favorite of my partner, and was the driving force behind today’s extended road trip to the south. The friendly folks at Rombauer did not disappoint. They have a valet meet you at the top of the long drive in order to better manage the volume of cars, buses, and stretch limos. Once inside we found the crowded, but manageable tasting room where we were greeted by multiple welcoming and knowledgeable staff. The 2009 vintage of their Carneros Chardonnay was as consistent as we could recall over the past many years’ vintages. After my partner enthusiastically signed up for their Chardonnay wine club (in bewilderment of how she did not accomplish this during our last visit a few years back), and purchased a case of the “Danville Crack” as it is affectionately known by the frequenters from the east bay of the city, I snapped a photo of her in front of the stars and stripes painted bull on the way down the drive and back onto the Silverado Trail.

By this time (around 3pm) we were quite hungry. No McDonalds, Wendys, nor KFC today. We proceeded over to hwy 29 and began our trudge down through the holiday weekend traffic in search of a small, chef owned and operated locale by the name of Cook (www.cooksthelena.com). Unfortunately, we missed it amongst the parade of cars traveling the wine road. We ended up grabbing a quick snack at Dean & DeLuca (www.deandeluca.com), rushing to make the 3:30ish tasting cutoff at Frog’s Leap Winery.

Following a few misguided turns we did finally arrive at a very full Frog’s Leap Winery (www.frogsleap.com) . This was one of my choices because I recall their anti-establishment attitude within the Napa Valley, their “green” approach to grape growing, and their zest for having fun, highlighted by their tag line, “Time’s fun when you're having flies”.

In the middle of the last decade they erected a new tasting room building on site, which truly is a tasting building as opposed to a room. Lots of understated, open spaces, with a large deck overlooking a back yard hosting a bean bag toss game. Uniquely, each visitor is offered their own tasting at a private table accompanied by a small plate of cheese & crackers. We were fortunate enough to get Robbie as our tasting educator. He was full of information and stories to delight. The wines were all a bit unique for Napa, as Robbie explained that Frog’s Leap is not interested in chasing Robert Parker’s points, nor whatever medals their neighbors may be collecting. This resulted in us enjoying a Chardonnay that was not so buttery; a Merlot that was a bit more complex than a simple, easy-drinking red; a Cab that was quite complex yet did not strike us as the typically big, bad, bold Napa Cab; a Petite Syrah that had an incredible amount of smoke, almost reminding us of a fine quality of a single malt scotch; and a smooth, slightly peppery, not jammy Zin with which we walked away with a few bottles to enjoy at home with a future summer bbq.

Throughout the 98 degree day we periodically discussed my partner’s prearranged plan to do an 18 mile bike/tasting tour of Dry Creek Valley this coming Monday. Many years ago my partner did a wine tasting trip via bicycle up the Silverado Trail. She has mentioned to me on countless occasions over the years that this was a terrible error which should never be repeated. Today I have been reminding her of this prior drunken pump up the trail, along with my significant concern for dropping dead of heat stroke somewhere up the Dry Creek Road. Currently, it seems to be falling on deaf ears.

The wine and heat ultimately were exhausting. We returned to our temporary home for a much needed nap.

To close out the day we dined at Zin Restaurant & Wine Bar (www.zinrestaurant.com) in Healdsburg. We started with some yummy beer battered & fried green beans and then proceeded on with a great home-style meal of grilled hanger steak, onion rings, and creamed greens on my partner’s plate, while my plate presented braised short ribs, cold corn salad and horseradish mashed potatoes. We paired our meal with a locally made spicy zin by Big Jim, who happened to be dining across the room – a 2008 Dark Horse Zin (www.darkhorsewine.com) . It worked perfectly.

Lots of re-hydration upon return to our oasis, and sleep.

Parents’ Kid-Free Week in Healdsburg, CA

I am not a fan of blogging. I prefer my off-work experiences to be away from computer screens. That said, it has dawned on me that my partner’s and my recently begun experience has been long in coming, and jealously cherished by so many of our family oriented friends that perhaps this experience may be helpful to TWH readers that simply are looking for fun as opposed to knowing the chemical breakdown of the soil from where the cab franc grapes were planted.

We reside 1 hour from the airport. We departed our house 5 hours prior to flight time, as we needed to drop off the dog at the kennel (which is not on the way), stop and feed the kids (which is not on the way), drop off the kids at my sister’s house (which is not on the way) and proceed to the airport, covering approximately twice as many miles compared to driving directly to the airport. (By the way, thanks sis.)

You get the idea. I will not go into the unfortunate travel details of my airplane seat partner needing to occupy half of my generously sized coach seat along with her own, nor the 1-1/2 hour car rental experience, nor the “smart” phone GPS inadvertently taking us into the heart of San Francisco on the Friday night of July 4^th weekend. As many of you all know, the only things that were important during this expedition were that we did not need to carry the made-for-kids roll along bag, we did not need to find the one bagel counter in the airport, we did not need to apologize to the row in front of us for the seat-kicking episode, we did not hear “when are we going to be there”, and we did not need to accommodate teenage music options on the car radio.

Okay, enough of this.

We arrived in the square of Healdsburg for the first time around 8pm on a beautiful Friday night to find a nicely active community engaging in food, drink, and conversation from just about every open establishment. Despite my partner’s acquisition of a plethora of guidebooks, I had failed to identify my preferred dinner stop while riding shotgun on the way up from Oakland. With that failure she proposed Willi’s Raw & Seafood Bar (www.willisseafood.net) which name she vaguely recalled during her significant researching hours last month.

I will jump to the end now, and go back to review a few of the details. Simply put, Willi’s Raw & Seafood Bar is now one of my favorite restaurants of all time. It was nothing short of an outstanding experience.

Please allow me to share one personal self-awareness with you. I am a very critical person. I do not dole out compliments easily, and most especially when it comes to food and beverage. I share this with you so that you may better understand how thoroughly impressed I was with our dining experience.

Upon arrival Willi’s Raw & Seafood Bar (note that there is a Willi’s Wine Bar of the same ownership here which may very well be just as fantastic) we found a crowded venue full of seemingly happy, kid-free diners. This required us to wait a bit at the bar due to our lack of a reservation. This was fine as I was looking for a cold beverage to quench my well traveled thirst. Unfortunately, I found the beer options significantly lacking. This drove me to the specialty cocktail list as I was not quite ready to dive into my week long wine experience. While considering this liquid election, my partner introduced me to the extensive menu, overflowing with unique small plate selections. The Kumamoto oysters on the half shell jumped right out as they are one of our favorites (no need for a basket of bread, nor American cheese filled quesadillas). With this initial choice, my partner selected a habenero infused vodka mixed with cantelope & melon. This is most definitely not my style of libation. However, since I was thirsty for something cold and it sounded like a good pairing with the oysters, I said, “make it two”.

As expected, a very fu-fu looking, bright orange martini-style drink was placed in front of me. At that point I was just happy that it did not have a little umbrella, nor flower in it. Once past my initial evaluation one sipped confirmed that I had made a good choice, and it did indeed go fabulously well with the Kumamotos.

Once escorted to our table, we selected 4 more small plates to share. They were all fantastic. My favorite was a tuna tartare with jalapenos, cashews, coconut milk, and ginger. This simple 5-ingredient dish that required no cooking, was absolutely scrumptious. We followed this with marinated chicken skewers with aji amarillo, mango mustard, & toasted pine nuts, which was nicely complimented with roasted asparagus in white miso butter and a melted cheese plate with chorizo and cilantro pesto, accompanied by Fritos. All of this was fantastic.

Neither my wife’s affinity for heavily oaked chardonnays, nor my preference of big, bold cabs was going to work with this eclectic grouping of deliciousness. Therefore we chose to go with the most versatile of whites in the form of Sauvignon Blanc. We did a nice comparison of two half bottles – a 2009 Bennett Valley Grey Stack (www.greystackcellars.com) and a 2009 Groom Adelaide Hills (www.groomwines.com) . While the Groom was very pleasant, the previously unknown (by us) Grey Stack was a perfect 10 along with our fabulous meal.

No more time now. We must venture out in our 2 seat, no room for kids, convertible and taste some new liquid grapes.

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One of the pillars of TheWineHub is Wine Tourism. Whether you are a wine maker, or a wine drinker, we all enjoy having discoveries...

TheWineHub exists to help you with that. 

NEWEST WINE LOCATION SPECIALISTS ANNOUNCED

17 Wine Professionals Become Certified WLS Specialists, 11 with Distinction 

The new class of WLS was announced yesterday. It was great to see some familiar names on the list, such as our good friend Kent Benson, who passed with merit... Great job guys!

To get more information or to enroll the program to become a specialist in Port and Champagne, please visit the Center of Wine Origins website: 
http://www.wineorigins.com/?page_id=34

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One of the pillars of TheWineHub is Wine Tourism. Whether you are a wine maker, or a wine drinker, we all enjoy having discoveries...

TheWineHub exists to help you with that.

 

Applications for the first year of its 2011/12 study program.

The Institute of Masters of Wine* is now accepting applications for the first year of its 2011/12 study program.

Please click on this link if you are interested:
http://www.mastersofwine.org/en/education/study-programme-applications.cfm 

* In Pursuit of Excellence

Master of Wine is recognized as the highest achievement in the global wine community and equips those that have attained the qualification with a unique understanding of and set of skills for dealing with all aspects of the business of wine.

For more than 50 years the Institute of Masters of Wine has been promoting professional excellence and the highest educational standards in the art, science and business of wine: leading to the qualification of Master of Wine. From its beginnings in the British wine trade in 1955, the Institute’s membership now spans 23 countries while its education, examination and events programmes are conducted annually on a worldwide basis.

http://www.thewinehub.com/
One of the pillars of TheWineHub is Wine Tourism. Whether you are a wine maker, or a wine drinker, we all enjoy having discoveries...

TheWineHub exists to help you with that.