August has proved to be what I always expect in the San Juan Islands. Screw essential travel, the tourists are coming to the San Juans in hordes. I say good for them. Covid-19 has not been an issue here and the only cases that have come here are almost entirely from locals, not tourists. I am in no way downplaying this pandemic, but let’s move on and forward. Sweden has done an excellent job with herd immunity, and they seem to be coming out of this with a strong economy and community. They are nearly back to normal. I know a lot of you are sick of all this, and just want to be able to walk out your door without a mask over your face. I’m with you on that one! We will get there, don’t lose hope and please don’t get used to wearing a mask.
August is the second Washington Wine Month of the year, March being the first and original. I continue to wonder why we have two. I still struggle to get behind August as Washington Wine Month. I love the wines from our great state and see no reason to act desperate by including another month to promote them.
We have a thousand wineries in Washington State and Chateau Ste Michelle still dominates the Washington wine scene. They have so many different labels, that it is hard to keep up. I will say that Chateau Ste Michelle has really taken the canned wine phenom seriously. I recently did an episode on canned wines and found some surprisingly good ones from Ste Michelle. Check it out.
I have read quite a few articles declaring that wine tasting notes are of no value to the consumer. They claim with great bravado that tasting notes are useless and will soon be extinct. I beg to differ. On a weekly basis, I have customers who tell me how much they love to read the tasting notes that I write for the wines in the store I work at. It helps them in their decision to buy a particular wine. I think there could be a couple of reasons why wine writers make such claims about tasting notes. One, they probably don’t like writing them. Tasting notes are not the easiest task in the business. They can be tedious for sure. They have to be true to the wine itself and if they are not, the consumer will see right through them. Another possible reason is that they are not good at it. To describe a wine in writing takes a bit of skill. You can’t just write that A plus B equals C. They need to be somewhat clever so that you do not bore the reader to tears. They also need to be candid. If a wine is high in acidity, a tasting note needs to highlight that, so the reader isn’t surprised when they buy it. Terms like bright in the mouth, crunchy, lifted on the palate, or mouth-puckering work well. Anything to let the consumer know what they are in for. If that is not what they want in the wine they drink than they will not make the purchase. That’s okay with me, I want my customer to be happy. Tasting notes are far from extinct and they are very useful to the consumer if written correctly.
Cheers!
Stan The Wine Man
