From WineWeekly.com: Still looking for something that just screams Valentine’s Day? You have options.

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• Winemaker? Want buzz? Engage your fellow wine blogger
  If you’re a winemaker, do you know the scale of your online presence? Do you know how much online traffic you’re getting? Do you know how important both are? Consider maximizing your buzz potential by engaging the interest of the wine blogging community.
  (tags: wine buzz winemaker marketing blog blogger blogosphere innovation differentiation winehiker californiawinehikes.com)

Establishing an online presence means more these days than it used to. Sure, you can build ecommerce capability into your website. But that alone will not create buzz about your wines, nor any other activity you engage in at your winery operation. So, how are you creating buzz, and how are you planning to do it online?

If you’re not maximizing your online potential, have you considered writing your own blog or hiring online marketing expertise?

Have you considered engaging the interest of the wine blogging community?

If you want buzz, a very cost-effective way to get it is to communicate with your potential customers through the conduit of a wine blogger. It’s like the brass ring on the merry-go-round: you don’t have to reach for it, but if you’re on the ride, why not try?

According to Ryan Fujiu, CEO of calwineries.com,

“Wine bloggers are continuously looking for new, interesting ideas coming out of wineries to write about. If your idea is good, contact as many wine bloggers as you can asking them to write about it (wine bribes work amazing well). This has many benefits beyond the exposure and traffic to your site. Wine blogger links are considered very important in the search engines, and will help increase the page rank of your site. Search Engine algorithms are quite complicated, but the more links that are pointing towards your site, the more traffic you will receive from the search engines.”

Ryan shares a classic example of how wine blogosphere buzz works. As long as you’re riding that prancing horse, I recommend you read what Ryan has to say. Then, reach out for that brass ring.

~winehiker

Last Friday night I invited a few colleagues to my home for a tasting of Argentine Malbec wines. One of those colleagues is Farley Walker.

Farley has been writing the Wine Outlook blog since October last year and has already built herself a loyal following of wine-loving readers. But Farley is also somebody who enjoys poetry, preparing great food, and pouring fine wine in the Thomas Fogarty Vineyard & Winery tasting room. I went to meet her at Fogarty on a recent Sunday after she told me that the supply of one of my favorite Fogarty wines, a 2004 Fat Buck Ridge Syrah, had dwindled to less than one case. We took a tour together of Fogarty’s impressive winery grounds, but not before Farley began to give me the royal treatment with some mighty fine pours.

If you haven’t yet paid a visit to the Thomas Fogarty tasting room, you’ll find an enjoyable experience and an incredible billion-dollar view from high above the San Francisco Bay. And if you’re there on a weekend, you’ll also enjoy Farley’s patience, knowledge, and capable expertise.

In the meantime, you might also enjoy reading about the Malbecs Farley loves best.

~winehiker

P.S.: There are fine hiking opportunities not far from Fogarty Winery. If you’d like to explore those trails, or merely wish to know more about the trails in the area, feel free to contact me, and I’ll share what I know.

• Outdoor Camping Recipes
  Campfire Recipes from the Chuckwagon Diner.
  (tags: food camping recipes menu eating campfire outdoors)

I discovered a story that covers the changes going on in the wine industry and contemplates the effects of these changes on wine consumption among Internet users.

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• “She Mighty Mighty”: the blending of the Basic Juice Crew Red
  An account of the Basic Juice Crew’s blending session of a Rhone-style wine at San Francisco’s popular and notorious CrushPad.
  (tags: wine winemaking basic juice rhone blend crushpad winehiker californiawinehikes.com)

A rain-soaked Bryant street in San Francisco’s outer Mission district seems a fitting scene for an unassuming concrete warehouse. Its public entrance, no more than a recess in a broad wall abutting a sidewalk, appears to disrupt an only in the City incongruity of spray-paint graffiti and trellised vines. Vindu and I clamber down a short stairwell into the bowels of the building to behold what appears to be a basic, bare-bones winemaking operation.

Welcome to Crushpad!

As part of the Basic Juice Crew, we’re about to meet a few of our crew members and blend a batch of 2006 Basic Juice Red, a Rhone-style blend of Grenache, Syrah, and Petite Sirah grapes sourced from Eaglepoint Ranch in Mendocino County.

Very soon Vindu and I are joined by Robin Van Vliet, Aaron Olson, Alan Baker, Daniel & Corinne and, all the way from Puerto Rico, David Rodriguez. Strangers for the most part, we are aware that negotiating our blend could prove difficult. But ours is a lively bunch, and our sense of engagement during our session of sipping and voting is to become quite pleasing. Indeed, rather than pursue argument and gratify ego, we quickly settle into a high humor that allows us to revel in this process of education, this art of making wine.

Yes, some of us are swallowing our baby vino.

Over the course of the next two and a half hours, with the superb and patient guidance of winemaker and Crushpad ambassador Kian Tavakoli, the eight of us would experiment, negotiate, and agree on the proportions of our three Rhone varietals. What we came up with in the end were two distinct possibilities.

Before we could blend, however, we needed to taste each wine individually. We found the Grenache to be characterized at first by a brick-like color and a stemmy, cedary, aromatic nose. Deep but tight, with a taste of cola and nutmeg spiciness, we felt it would stand up well to the presumably more intense and structured Petite Sirah. The Syrah appealed to the group with an incredible depth of body, fruit, and length that belied its septic tank nose; Kian described it as a teenager with pimples. Having not yet tried the P. Sirah at this point, and not being quite the fan of the cola presence in the Grenache, I was fairly certain that the Syrah would be a major player in our final blend.

Ah, and then we tasted the Petite, it’s beautiful intense purple color and earthy cherry-berry notes grabbing many of us instantly. With an aroma that already seemed finished coupled with amazingly good acid and tannin, we found the Petite to be quite good on its own yet not so overpowering that it would distort the final blend if it should contain more than 5% Petite Sirah.

Having done a little advance reading, I understood that the trick to the blending process is to start from the extremes and oscillate toward the middle of the range until an optimal blend is achieved. While we were aware that the process can call for a fair sequence of tasting to hone in on the ultimate blend, we agreed to the premise of a blend ratio that would contain at least 50% Grenache.

And so to start, we shot for 70. Our first blend ratio was 70% Grenache, 20% Syrah, and 10% Petite Sirah. And it was an instant “No”. Not enough body, too much cola, and too much backbone. So we backed off.

For our second blend, we nearly doubled the amount of Syrah to create a 60-35-5 spread, and found it much more likable. Body was now present, and the blend was softer and more concentrated with a nice liveliness of fruit. But we continued our momentum toward the middle.

Our third blend, a 50-40-10 proportion, examined the Syrah more fully. It enjoyed a great color, but with much less aromatic quality from the Grenache, we realized we had gone too far; Blend #2 was our apparent benchmark.

For our fourth blend, we examined a 60-30-10 ratio and realized we had backed too far on the Syrah. We definitely wanted more Syrah for its fruit and mouthfeel. And there was still too much cola presence for my taste. Again, Blend #2 was our benchmark, yet we knew we were getting close.

I suggested a 58-34-8 ratio. Kian picked up on that suggestion and, using his graduated cylinder, concocted a Mystery Blend that he asked us to comment on and identify. Nope! We had moved too far away from our benchmark. The aromatics had grown fainter and were being dominated by the power of the Syrah. We liked the backbone offered by the Petite Sirah, though, and determined that at 56-37-7, we were almost there. 60% had been good for the Grenache in Blend #2, and 7% seemed to work at the moment for the Petite.

Our sixth effort, a proportion of 60% Grenache, 33% Syrah, and 7% Petite Sirah, appeared to be the winning blend. Compared to Blend #2′s 60-35-5 spread, it offers more tightness without losing body and fruit. We discussed the tightness aspect and agreed that if we were to drink it today, Blend #2 would be our choice. Upon Kian’s suggestion, however, and with 12 or so months of oak barrel aging ahead prior to bottling, we agreed that Blend #6 will offer more depth of structure that will integrate better within the oak.

Kian agreed to bottle four samples each of Blend #2 and Blend #6, and Robin plans to ship a pair of them to Beau Jarvis, our Basic Juice Crew leader who, being a working sommelier in Salt Lake City, could not attend our blending party yesterday. I also suggested that, because he’s a winemaker, Jeff Stai of Twisted Oak Winery also receive a shipment. That leaves two pairs of samples for two other members of the Crew who could not be present. (Speak up now via CrushNet, team, if you want to obtain one of these two samples.)

Once all the votes are in (and if anyone’s listening, I vote for Blend #6), Kian will begin aging the blend in a Zebra-staved barrel that combines new and older American oak, with bottling slated for Spring 2008.

But in the meantime, our Crew had gotten along rather famously. Robin and David (a.k.a. Zensolo on CrushNet) had each brought some fine bottles to share with the Crew, and David suggested we dine at La Ciccia Restaurant on the southern edge of Noe Valley, a quite wonderful little place with excellent service and a fine presentation of rustic slow-cooked Sardinian-style foods. (La Ciccia’s wild boar and mushrooms, folks, is not to be outdone.)

While the wine flowed, we spoke of our blend. I floated the possibility that our blend may turn out to be more than just Basic Juice, and if so, what should we then call it? Superlative Juice? I’d earlier considered that whatever town in America which corresponded to our blend ratio as a zip code could perhaps make our label choice for us. But that notion had seemed too silly while I was sober at the blending table. It was only after an hour at La Ciccia gabbing away with the Crew that the idea seemed to take on some merit. Via wireless technology at the table, however, we discovered that there is no 60337 zip code in these United States.

That’s when the idea of “Basic Brick” began to form. After all, the blend’s dominant color, an aspect imparted by the Grenache, is quite brick-like. And, like the venerable 70′s dance tune says, this Brick House is mighty mighty. Imagine the other patrons in the restaurant as, with merry satiety, the Crew began to sing those words! Yes, I believe they loved us in that restaurant as we made our way out the door.

And so we have a mighty idea: the Crew must get together in six months at Crushpad for a sampling of our barrel. Daniel and Corinne have volunteered to later continue that party at their home, and the Crew will want to be there. By then, Crushpad will have moved to their new, larger facility on 3rd Street and the Basic Juice Crew, whether coming from Michigan, Kentucky, Utah, or Puerto Rico, should have plenty of time to plan a rendezvous. This Crew member will see you there.

~winehiker

For more about Crushpad, please see my follow-up post, Crushpad moves into new digs and new horizons. For more about the wine we’re making, please see my follow-up post, The Mighty Mighty Basic Juice Crew Red is “en barrique”.

• Thus the Winehiker enters the glamorous world of winemaking
  The Basic Juice Crew was born with the idea of creating a Rhone-style blend from grapes sourced at Eagle Point Ranch of Mendocino County. Tomorrow, we blend!
  (tags: wine winemaking crushpad rhone blend basic juice crew winehiker californiawinehikes.com)

I was in a real quandary about joining Beau Jarvis’ Basic Juice Crew. Or was I merely facing a conundrum?

In truth, I was sipping Conundrum when my buddy Vindu alerted me to Beau’s visions of winemaking glamour. You see, even though Beau lives in Utah where he writes the Basic Juice wine blog, he felt compelled to put together a team of budding winemakers at CrushPad, the notoriously popular winemaking facility for the Do-It-Yourselfer in San Francisco’s South of Market district.

And thus the Basic Juice Crew was born, with the idea of creating a Rhone-style blend from grapes sourced at Eagle Point Ranch of Mendocino County. When all is said and done, Vindu and I and everyone else on The Crew will end up with a case each (or more) of a Syrah-Grenache-Petite Sirah Juice Crew Red. But not before most of the crew convenes tomorrow in San Francisco to do a bit of sipping and spitting, mixing and matching to create our blend.

As you might imagine, I’m pretty excited about tomorrow’s activities; this is my first foray into winemaking, and I expect to learn a lot.

While I haven’t yet met any of the crew, some are notable, including Alan Baker, podcaster of Cellar Rat fame, Jeff Stai a.k.a. “El Jefe” of Calaveras County’s Twisted Oak Winery (you just gotta read his twisted blog), Lenn Thompson of New York’s LennDevours blog (Lenn is a finalist in the 1st annual 2007 American Wine Blog Awards’ Best Single-Subject Wine Blog category), and Tim Elliott, the first podcaster to grace the vinosphere. And of course there’s Beau Jarvis himself.

A pretty impressive bunch. Even if they won’t all be there tomorrow to help create the blend, I know they will be there in spirit, and the rest of us will make sure they each receive a sample bottle of our final blend to satisfy their collective vicarious wine jones.

After tomorrow afternoon’s experiment is complete and the crew has agreed on the proportions of our 3-grape blend, I’m sure we’ll be ready to head over to Slow Club where we’ll order from the dinner menu, pay the corkage, and yak it up. And, after bottling and about a year and a half of barely tolerable waiting, I suspect The Basic Juice Crew will want to get together again to see how it all turned out.

~winehiker

See the follow-up story titled “She Mighty Mighty: The Blending of the Basic Juice Crew Red.”