Bacchus
I came into the wine industry through the winemaking profession. I am going on my tenth year as a winemaker and viticulturist. My background includes culinary school in Seattle, Washington where my wine enthusiasm started. I wanted more understanding of the winemaking industry and attended Washington State University for its Winemaking and Viticulture program graduating in 2003. I then worked as a cellar intern in Washington State, Australia and New Zealand before obtaining a masters degree in winemaking from the University of Adelaide at Wait Campus in Adelaide, South Australia. I worked on the winemaking team for Ernest and Julio Gallo in Livingston, California and most recently as winemaker for Goose Ridge Winery in Washington State. My area of expertise is in value winemaking although I consider myself exceptional in super premium winemaking as well.
What I bring to the blogosphere is insight into winemaking methods, styles and a descriptive analysis of wine faults as well as what I consider to be good wine. At first glance a wine shop can be intimidating and many times one is left with a bad impression of a shop or wine label when let down by the quality upon opening the bottle. I am one of those people who upon his first impression of wine was let down. Gato Negro red wine from Chile was my first real experience with a bottle of wine. It was a gift from my older, wiser sister who is well versed in the areas of food and wine. Excitedly I took the bottle home called a friend over and read over how to critique wine before opening this particular bottle. I think the bottle cost $3 if I remember correctly. I poured the wine into my glass and the red color was vivid and eluded to a grand experience in the waiting. The smell was of ethanol and furniture, the taste was worse, bitter and repugnant. I wondered why people liked this and if this was what wine tasting was going to be like I would not stand for it! It took a while for me to get over that experience as I continued to think about the obvious flaws and if there were better wines out there. I stumbled upon a wine shop in downtown Seattle and saw a label that resembled a baron in grayscale and the varietal read Blue Franc; otherwise known as Limburger from the Austrian grape Blau Frankish. It was full of dark fruit balanced acidity and full palate volume, I was hooked and so my career began with limburger of all varieties.
I continue to study wine flavor profiles and am particularly interested in methods used to inhibit, remove and or hide wine faults. As a winemaker I find it difficult to shop for wines that I have no experience with. Fortunately we do lots of competitor tastings in the wine industry so I keep up with the fast moving pace of wine label evolution. I now have a strong basis of what to look for as far as quality wines are concerned and will do my best to educate the general wine connoisseur with an in depth look at where these wines come from.
