BITS & BOBS

Our trip to Greece made a deep impression on Susie and me. We both loved Crete, especially Chania and Plaka. The food is excellent and the people are very friendly. Yes, they speak English quite well, albeit with a strong Greek accent. We are already talking about going there again in the future. Although I am familiar with some of the wines from this ancient wine-producing country, I came to appreciate more about what they do there in terms of wine. Assyrtiko is the dominant white grape in Greece, and it is on all the restaurant wine menus. One of the more respected red grapes is Xinomavro, which means the black sour. It is so Nebbiolo-like, it’s uncanny. I will focus on some of Greece’s wines on my YouTube channel. You should check out my latest, which features four whites, one being a Retsina.

One thing I have been ruminating on lately is the dangers of taking favors from distributors or wineries in exchange for our time. I’m small potatoes on YouTube compared to some of the top wine YouTubers. So, I have not been offered trips or the like from distributors or wineries in hopes that I will give their products airtime on my channel. The pitfalls of this are apparent. Could I stay subjective if someone paid for a trip for me to go to a big wine event or even to another country? That is a challenging situation, but I get it. It can be expensive to take some of these trips, so if one is offered to have the expenses covered, why not? I’m not saying that one shouldn’t accept such offers; all I’m saying is that if you do, you’d better do some serious soul-searching. I accepted a trip to Europe sponsored by a winery a long time ago. It ate me up inside when I wrote articles about the trip, worried that I was being as transparent and honest as possible. I enjoyed the experience and even interviewed the guide on my YouTube channel. Would I accept an offer like that again? Only after some serious soul-searching!

I’m in a nice place as a YouTuber and writer. The company I work for is willing to help me out with material for my channel and my blog. They support my travels and want to know what I experienced there. In most cases, Susie and I pay our way, which is fine by me. Because Kings Market (the company I work for) is a good customer for our wine distributors, the people who sell to me are willing to provide samples to help with some of my YouTube episodes. They know I will be brutally honest and I believe they appreciate that, even though it means they will not benefit from sales. Some of them watch my channel more than others. I want to give a quick shout-out to Kris from Winebow! He watches most of my episodes and often asks me what I need regarding wine for upcoming shoots. He is always coming up with ideas for me to explore to improve my channel. This, even though in a few cases, I have been quite critical of some of the wines he has provided me for an episode. However, he was quick to remind me that I really liked one of the wines he provided and asked me if I would like to bring it into the store. I appreciate that kind of support from my team of distributors.

Cheers!

Stan The Wine Man

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STAN’S PICK FOR NOVEMBER ’24

I will say it over and over again: Spain produces some of the best wines under fifteen bucks! So many of my picks have come from this country that I’ve lost count. November features one of the biggest food and wine holidays of the year, only rivaled by Christmas. With Thanksgiving coming soon, I had to keep in mind finding a wine that would pair well with turkey dinner and make an excellent everyday choice. When Max from Dickerson Distributing came by with a crap-ton of wines to try to help me find a pick for November, this one stood out as the close-to-perfect red that fit the abovementioned parameters.

Non-Vintage Vega Barcelona Red (85% Tempranillo, 15% Syrah) Spain … $11.

Raspberries, cherries and bittersweet chocolate on the nose. Polished tannins support notes of chocolate, cherries and black raspberries. The wine intensifies on the mid-palate, balanced by fresh acidity. There is a hit of spice on the finish that lingers. This baby has the stuffing to go with food, but not in the least overpowering. Good balance of fruit, tannins and acidity. This baby is meant to drink now and would be a good choice with Thanksgiving at a great price. It is a “10” in the delicious category, making it a big-time crowd-pleaser. This could easily be a staple at my table for an everyday red, especially at this price. (C+/B-)

Cheers!

Stan The Wine Man

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BITS & BOBS

When I ponder Greek wines, a word comes to mind: abstruse. The Greek wine world is certainly hard to understand, and the names of the indigenous grapes are a challenge for someone like me who has difficulty with pronunciation. A simple grape name like Viognier took me two wine guys and a couple of weeks to get right. Yes, today, it flows off my tongue like a pro, but it took some practice. Now, as our trip to Greece has come to an end, I’m doing my best to understand the Greek wine culture and the names of the grapes that grow there. Two red grapes considered their premier varietals are Agiorgitiko (ah-yor-yee-tee-ko) and Xinomavro (ksee-NOH-mah-vroh). Their premier white grape is Assyrtiko, hands down. One of the reasons I know this is not just what I’ve read, which confirms this, but it’s what I experienced in the restaurants that Susie and I went to while we were there. The wine lists are drenched with Assyrtiko as an option for white wines. Yes, there are other choices of course, but Assyrtiko dominates. Being the wine nerd I am, I listened as others ordered their wines. I never overheard someone ordering Retisina, a white wine unique to the Greek culture. No, it seemed that Assyrtiko was the word I overheard the most. Of course, there is a good reason for this. Assyrtiko is a grape varietal that produces dry white wines that cover an array of flavor profiles, from bone dry and mineral-driven to a white that is a bit more tropical with a touch of viscosity. This makes sense since seafood is a staple in Crete and most of Greece in general.

Although the two aforementioned red varietals are a big deal in Greece, it is becoming a trend there to see a lot of GSM (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre) style reds on the wine lists at restaurants and in wine shops. Grenache and Syrah, in particular, are taking hold in this country. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with this, especially since the wines in this category I tried while I was there were very impressive. However, Xinomavro has a special place in my heart. It will be a subject I focus on in upcoming YouTube episodes. It is so much like a Nebbiolo; it is almost uncanny. I plan on doing a blind-tasting episode in which I will pit Xinomavro against Nebbiolo to see if I can tell the difference. Yes, they are that close in flavor profile. There is so much to write about now that I’ve had the Greek wine experience. I will spend some extended time on this blog expounding on this subject. I hope you enjoy the upcoming articles.

I spend some time watching other wine critics/educators on YouTube. I have three that I like the most, and although I don’t watch all their posts, I find them very interesting. However, something disturbs me, and I’m not exactly sure how to broach the subject. When does making money doing what you love, start to override your passion? This is something I ponder quite a bit. I have an intense passion for helping wine drinkers find wines that are well-made and fit most people’s budgets. I also have an aversion to receiving favors from distributors and wineries in return for spending my time reviewing their wines. This is a bit of a sticky wicket that I grapple with regularly. I know there are folks in the wine world who make a career out of education and entertainment in this field. Many of them are on YouTube. The question is, how many become greatly influenced by what they receive from distributors or wineries? I’m not sure, of course, but it is something I want to spend time writing about on this blog and talking about on my YouTube channel.

Cheers!

Stan The Wine Man

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BITS & BOBS

It’s two weeks before Susie and I fly to London, followed by our trip to Crete. The jitters have started, and the countdown is hard to avoid. Of course, we want time to slow down. However, Tempus Fugit has never been as accurate as it is now. Before we head out, I plan on shooting a couple of YouTube episodes featuring Greek wines. Greece is one of the oldest wine-producing countries in the world. Their culture and way of life have been influenced by their involvement in wine and winemaking. I’ve been reading a book entitled “The Wines Of Greece,” written by Konstantinos Lazarakis, a Master of Wine. It is quite an intriguing book that goes into the history of winemaking in this country and the many unique grapes (basically unique to Greece) grown there and made into wine. Grapes called Mavrodaphne, Assyrtiko and Agiorgitiko. I look forward to presenting some of these wines on my YouTube channel and looking deeper into their winemaking culture when Susie and I go there. There will be lots to talk and write about.

I’ve been using TikTok quite a lot lately to document what I do on a daily basis at my job. It’s been fun, and a lot of people have been interested in what I do at the store. I will use TikTok extensively on our trip to Greece. I love to share what I learn, and this avenue, along with Instagram, is an excellent tool for sharing my adventures. It’s interesting that many folks my age do not understand or use social media. For some reason, they are fearful or just don’t want to take the time to fool with it. Everyone has an interesting life in one way or another. Sharing what you are going through is intriguing and many of you would be surprised at the people who will watch, either out of curiosity or because they like you and want to see what you’re up to. Our community here in the San Juans are huge Facebook users. I like to tap into that as well.

There are two things I am going to focus on over the next few months. Increasing the readership of this blog and growing my YouTube channel. People are very interested in the wine world but love to have the information delivered in a style that is not snobby or too technical (maybe that’s redundant, I’m not sure). If you’ve watched my channel on YouTube, you will find it genuinely blue-collar in terms of delivery. You will also find that my pronunciation (primarily of French wine names) can be, at times, classified as horrible. Believe me when I tell you that I try my best. Phonetically, it’s a challenge for me. Sometimes I wish I had some cool accent that could hide many of my bloopers. Unfortunately, I have your basic American slang and a knack for getting foreign wine names wrong. I guess there may be some charm to that and I hope my viewers don’t hold it against me. I will continue to hone my abilities in this regard and hopefully limit my vernacular blunders to a minimum.

This is the first time in a while that I’ve stumbled upon my wine pick of the month early. I put on a wine event at the local Yacht Club, and it was at this tasting I found an amazing red from France that knocked my socks off for only ten bucks. That is a challenging task. Ten dollars is a stupid price for any wine that can deliver as this wine does. Of course, I’m not letting on what it is until the first of October. What’s interesting to me is that the sales rep who suggested this wine for the event had no intention of presenting it as an option for my pick. It happened entirely by chance. I think it should be a goal of each rep who calls on me to bring a wine that will nail down that spot at the front of the wine aisle where I place my pick for each month. My criteria for making this choice is what I refer to as the eighty percent rule. What does that mean? I will write an article about that in my next post.

Cheers!

Stan The Wine Man

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