In the last two weeks I’ve celebrated both Independence Day and Bastille Day. How, you may ask? Mostly by drinking a lot of wine. But that’s beside the point. Around this time of year, I find myself thinking about the great liberties I enjoy as a wine lover in California and in the United States. In the process I inevitably consider the plight of those poor souls who have the unfortunate luck to have become wine lovers in states where their access to good booze comes only at the pleasure of a cartel made up of puritanical lawmakers and the lobbyists that have them in pocket. While it’s possible to purchase weapons, deadly chemicals, ammunition, and child pornography on the internet and have it sent to your home everywhere in the United States, some people cannot legally order a bottle of wine.

As if this weren’t bad enough, there’s now a movement, even a congressional bill (H.R. 5034) that has as its singular goal, to make sure both that this situation never changes, but also that it can only become much worse for consumers over time.

I know, it sounds crazy, but the folks who profit from making the ordering of wine over the internet a crime are out to make sure that it stays that way. The National Beer and Wine Wholesalers organization has managed to lobby several Representatives to draft what almost every Alcohol trade organization in the country is the most anti-consumer piece of legislation they’ve ever seen.

I wrote about this bill when it first emerged from whatever backroom or cesspool that creates this kind of Congressional perfidy. Since then a wave of opposition to the bill has emerged in this country, and kindled the slightest bit of faith that the backbone exists to stand up to the prospect of having our lives run by those who can afford to pay politicians enough to create laws in their favor.

The bill itself has now been “held up” for a time, and no more hearings are going on about it due to a somewhat mysterious concern over a “constitutional issue” with the proposed legislation.

In the meantime, no doubt daunted by the overwhelming opposition from the public and the industry, the Wholesalers have created HR5034.Org, a web site worthy of the most heinous spin doctors in the industry.

But rather than take my word for the new heights of disinformation that this site offers, I suggest you listen to the guy who spends a lot of his time fighting the good fight for wine consumers everywhere.

Go read Tom Wark’s article that demonstrates just how deceptive the Wholesalers are willing to be in order to make sure that their interests could never be subject to judicial review.

If you’re an adult, legal consumer of any alcoholic beverage, and believe you should have the right to order it on the Internet no matter where you live, you should pay attention to this issue.

We value our freedom as Americans, in particular our freedom to make our lives better by changing laws when they are unjust. That freedom may soon be threatened.

Read more.

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Where to begin with Dom Pérignon? It is a brand, a wine, and a historical figure welded into an idea that has transcended itself to become an icon of culture. Pretty much every wine drinker has heard of Dom Pérignon. Ask them and they won’t necessarily be able to tell you how. But Dom Pérignon universally means luxury, and it means Champagne. It is truly one of the world’s most revered brands.

But of course, Dom Pérignon is more than just a brand. Unlike the Nike logo, which will get slapped on everything from T-shirts to flip flops, the signature shield-like label of Dom Pérignon is only placed on Champagne made in one location, by one house, under the supervision of the cellar master or chef de cave Richard Geoffroy. You will never know exactly how many bottles of it they make, nor will you ever know exactly their winemaking regimen for assembling it each year (other than the fact that they do not use Pinot Meunier, the traditional third grape allowed in Champagne apart from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay).

But what you do know as a consumer, is that when you open a bottle of Dom Pérignon, what’s inside will be good. Moreover, if you are a frequent or even occasional consumer of this pricey Champagne, you will have a very clear idea of how it will taste.

Say what you will about the fact that Dom Pérignon is a brand created by a massive corporation (Moet & Chandon) inside another massive corporation (holding company Luis Vuitton Moet Hennesey), Dom Pérignon pulls off the winemaking equivalent of a hat trick every year. Year after year, the fact that Dom Pérignon can make such consistent Champagne, and Champagne that is so consistently good, to a certain extent renders any epithet concerning corporate scale a purely philosophical exercise.

Making consistently world-class Champagne at this scale is a truly remarkable feat. As usual, it helps to start with great raw materials. By virtue of the history and bankroll of its parent, Moet & Chandon, Dom Pérignon has access to fruit from all the 17 Grands Crus vineyards in Champagne (and in particular the 8 core Grands Crus of Aÿ, Bouzy, Verzenay, Mailly, Chouilly, Cramant, Avize and Le Mesnil) as well as the historical Premier Cru from Hautvillers, the site of the Abbey where D. Pierre Pérignon perfected (but did not invent) the process we now call methode champenoise. Each vintage is a blend, or to use the proper term, an assemblage from across the Champagne region. The amount of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir vary each year, sometimes up to 20% with no strict formula.

The assemblage each year has two goals — to embody the spirit of Dom Pérignon, which is to say, remain firmly within the bounds of the house style, and then to also express what the vintage has offered in Champagne. As chef de cave Geoffroy puts it “Each vintage is a unique opportunity to reinvent ourselves and unveil the harmonious dialogue between the expression of nature and style.” Geoffroy is an interesting chap. Trained as a medical doctor, but from a wine family, he eventually decided his heart belonged in the cellar rather than the hospital, and returned to the wine world as a winemaker. He became the chef de cave at Dom Pérignon in 1985, and is the fifth person to hold the title since the winery’s first vintage in 1921.

Dom Pérignon the brand began as merely the library reserve of Champagne house Moet & Chandon, which has been making Champagne since 1743. It was the world’s first prestige cuvee Champagne to be released, and in 1943 it became its own separate winemaking project.

The Dom Pérignon portfolio of wines can be confusing to the uninitiated, especially because of the existence of their reserve Oenotheque line.

Dom Pérignon makes one vintage brut Champagne blend each year, except in those years they opt not to release a wine at all. Since its inception in 1921, Dom Perignon has only been released 36 times. The wine is aged on its yeasts in the bottle for at least seven years before release. Bottles released after seven years get a gold label, and are sold as just plain Dom Pérignon.

However, not all the bottles are released after seven years. Since 1990 some bottles have been held at least three more years (and up to eight years longer) and then released as Dom Pérignon Oenotheque, with a black label. And, perhaps less well known, an even smaller quantity of wines in great vintages are held for up to 25 years and also released as Oeonotheque. Because these wines come from the winery’s library (hence the name) even though the practice was begun in 1990, vintages of Oenotheque go back to 1969.

Finally, in very good years Dom Pérignon also makes a rosé, which is created in traditional style with the addition of red Pinot Noir wine in the final blend. The rosé ages in bottles for at least ten years. Just like their regular champagne, however, an Oenotheque version of the rosé is also made by holding back bottles for extended aging.

A couple of days ago Dom Pérignon announced the release of their 2002 vintage wine, as well as their 1996 Oenotheque bottling. I didn’t get a chance to taste those, but I did get a chance to taste a bunch of vintages spanning two decades at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic in June. While not my favorite top Champagne, I certainly have never met a bottle of Dom Pérignon I haven’t liked, including the 1976 I found under my grandmothers wet bar and cherished until a few years ago when I opened it for some dear friends. The Dom Pérignon style is linear and precise, and a bit steelier than my true preference (which leans towards the yeasty and vinous), but the crystalline minerality that I find in every bottle is hard not to appreciate.

TASTING NOTES:

1988 Dom Pérignon Champagne
Poured out of magnum, this wine is light yellow gold in the glass with incredibly fine bubbles. It smells of wonderfully yeasty, butter cracker and lemon juice aromas with the remarkable perfume of marzipan. In the mouth, the bubbles are merely tickles in a soft wave of silky smoothness. Beautiful, delicate acidity lifts a fine lace skein of gorgeous tart sourdough bread and wet limestone that ripple with supple muscles of lemony goodness. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $300. Click to buy.

1993 Dom Pérignon Champagne
Light yellow gold in the glass with incredibly fine bubbles, this wine smells of sweet cream and lemon zest with butter crackers. In the mouth the wine has a gorgeous smoothness, a glassiness with a beautifully fine texture. Gorgeously balanced, a sweetness pervades the palate, counterpointed with an almost cucumber greenness mixed with a toasty sourdough quality. A beautifully long finish has a sour leafiness with white flowers. Tremendous. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $190. Click to buy.

1995 Dom Pérignon Champagne
Light to medium gold in the glass with very fine bubbles, this wine has a nose of buttered sourdough toast, wet stones, and lemon blossoms. Honey roasted nuts emerge with some more air. In the mouth the wine has a fantastically satin cloud of mousse with lemon curd and toasted sourdough floating along on a river of minerality. Fantastically balanced and poised, the wine sings through an incredibly long finish with hints of golden delicious apple skins. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $190. Click to buy.

1999 Dom Pérignon Champagne
Light greenish gold in the glass with very fine bubbles, this wine has a nose of wet stones, white flowers, and a hint of warm sourdough aromas. In the mouth the wine is exceedingly silky, with wonderfully bright mineral quality of wet limestone, white flowers, and lemon zest. A long SweeTart finish lingers with citrus qualities. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $140. Click to buy.

2000 Dom Pérignon Champagne
Light gold in the glass, with a hint of green and very fine bubbles, this wine has a bright, mineral-driven nose of sourdough toast and wet rock aromas. Gorgeously smooth in the mouth with a very fine mousse of bubbles that buoy up flavors of bright lemon and crackers, with lemon zest, sourdough and sweet tarts lingering in the finish. Gorgeous acidity, fantastic balance. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $130. Click to buy.

1995 Dom Pérignon Rosé Champagne
Gorgeously coppery salmon in the glass with incredibly fine bubbles, this wine smells heavenly. Full stop. Sit back on your heels and let this sucker wash over you with aromas of orange blossoms, roasted nuts, and what can only be described as liquid limestone. In the mouth the wine has a fantastic, flawlessly smooth texture, with an incredible soft silky mousse of bubbles, and otherworldly flavors of orange peel, raspberries, wet limestone, and a fantastic hibiscus quality that lingers in a long finish. Amazingly poised, perfectly balanced and truly exceptional. A wine that I would love to drink every day of my life. Score: between 9.5 and 10. Cost: $300. Click to buy.

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At two years old, my daughter is already pronouncing her judgement on wines. She does this in one of two ways. She either takes a long sniff in the glass, or she puts her finger into the neck of the bottle, twirls it around and then sticks it in her mouth while putting on a thoughtful expression. Her assessments currently consist of “dis one good” or “no like.” Which means she already knows most of what she needs to be a competent wine drinker.

As you might expect, I have a fantasy of opening some great bottles to share with her when she officially turns 21. She will, of course, be drinking wine long before that in the security of our home and with our supervision. But my hope is that by the time she’s 21, she will not only be interested in drinking wine, but be able to tell the really good stuff from all the rest.

Which is why I’m about to start buying some “birth year” wine for her. She was born in 2008, and some of those wines are starting to hit the market now, especially the whites and the Pinot Noirs.

The question, though, is what to buy?

While my wife and I haven’t yet set a budget for this endeavor, which we will do eventually, I am formulating my strategy for what I want to buy.

The wines have to meet four primary criteria for me to consider buying them:

1. The specific wine must have a track record of improving with age for 15+ years
2. The wine must be from a well-known producer who makes wine to age
3. The 2008 vintage must not have been a disaster in the producer’s region
4. The wine must be something I’d want to drink anyway

This means that I’m not going to be buying just anything expensive from the 2008 vintage.

Instead I’ll be sticking to some very safe bets.

I’ll be looking at potentially buying wines among the following:

1. Taittinger, Bollinger, Henriot, or similar vintage Champagne. The 2008 vintage was decent (not phenomenal) but top producers will have made good wine. The 2008 vintages, however, won’t be released for several years, as most top producers are on 2004 at the latest, with many current releases being the 2002 vintage.

2. Alsatian Riesling from producers like Zind Humbrecht, Marcel Deiss, or Trimbach. The 2008 vintage in Alsace seems to have been a fantastic one, and these Rieslings age forever. As a bonus, compared to some of the other wines on my list, they will be relatively inexpensive.

3. German Riesling from producers like Donnhoff, Muller-Catoir, JJ Prüm, and Muelenhof. 2008 seems to have been a slightly better vintage in Germany than it was in Austria, and these wines are fairly ageless. A great German Riesling with 20 years of age on it is a truly gorgeous experience.

4. Barbaresco and Barolo from producers like Giacosa and Giacomo Conterno. These are producers that make great wine in just about any year, and the 2008 harvest was pretty good in Italy’s Piedmont region. The Barolo’s won’t be available until 2012 at least, but the Giacosa’s Barbarescos should be available next year.

5. A very select few (only because I can’t really afford many) red Burgundies from producers that really knew what they were doing in 2008. It was a tough year in Burgundy, but top producers can make great wine in all but the most disastrous vintages, and 2008 was far from that. I’ll take a look at Faiveley, Prieur, Denis Mortet, and others, while fantasizing about being able to afford to buy Armand Rousseau.

6. One or two Brunellos, because Ruth would want me to and because when aged well, they are so fantastic. However, a massive hailstorm hit Montalcino in the fall of 2008, and many producers lost 20-40% of their crops. Hopefully, skilled producers were able to recover, though prices will no doubt be up. If I’m doing particularly well when they’re released in 2012 or 2013, I’d love to own a couple of bottles of Soldera Brunello, but more likely I’d be buying folks like Il Poggione, Poggio Antico, Col d’Orcia, Poggio di Sotto, etc.

7. A bottle of Chateau Climens Sauternes. It’s my favorite.

8. A couple of bottles of Williams-Selyem and Rochioli single vineyard Pinot Noirs from the Sonoma Coast and the Russian River Valley.

9. A couple of bottles of Cornas or Hermitage from the Northern Rhone, and a couple bottles of great Chateauneuf-du-Pape from the Southern Rhone. While 2008 was a tricky vintage in the Rhone, I expect good things from folks like Clape, Chave, Thierry Allemand, Chateau Beaucastel, and Chateau Rayas.

10. Maybe, just maybe, one bottle of Cos D’Estournel Bordeaux, which is one of my favorites that I can somewhat afford, a bottle of Heitz Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet, which I absolutely adore with 20 years of age on it, and perhaps one or two others from Napa. The really good Bordeaux is too expensive.

So that’s essentially my wish list for now. It’s a hard list to make as there are so many, many great wines out there that can age well. It could have included Lopez de Heredia whites and reds from Spain, some Aglianico-based wines from Campania, some whites and reds from the Loire, a select few reds from Australia…. But my budget is not limitless, nor is the space in my cellar, so it is what it is.

What do you think? Have you bought “birth year” wines for your kids? What did you buy, and what was your strategy?

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For Sunday’s World Cup final, let’s pay vinous homage to South Africa, first-ever African host of the month-long games.

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One of the nice things about having so many high quality wine blogs around is that on occasion people write articles that I was going to write, and simply save me the trouble. I had been sketching in my mind an article about the phenomenon of Flash Sale wine web sites — you know, those sites that sell closeout wines in limited quantities for deep deep discounts — but Jeff over at Good Grape wrote a very nice piece about them yesterday that says most of what I was interested in saying.

Jeff contends that a shakeout of these sites is coming, and points to the acquisition of Woot! by Amazon.Com last week as a harbinger of greater consolidation and/or lots of fallout in this space.

I agree that such a shakeout is inevitable, but I disagree with Jeff about when. From everyone I’ve talked to, the amount of excess wine inventory on the market is truly massive. The consolidation in distributors in this country (from 7000 to 700 in the last 20 years according to Barbara Insel of Stonebridge Research Group) combined with the drop in demand for wine over $40 means that there are thousands of smaller wineries with millions of cases of expensive wine out there that most retailers, restaurants and distributors aren’t touching with a ten foot pole.

These wines will need to get sold somewhere, as they can’t just sit around. They not only have to get out of the way for the next vintages that need to sit in the warehouse, they need to be turned into cash to pay for labor for the harvest, barrels for the next vintage, and all the other cash intensive aspects of keeping a winery going. For more detail, see my article: The Coming Carnage in the California Wine Industry.

How much inventory is out there? No one knows the complete answer, but I think it’s plenty enough to easily support another year or two of these deep discounters, who will continue to proliferate (I know of two more waiting in the wings about to launch) until, as Jeff says, they start going “poof” just like the wine.

Until then, there are some amazing deals to be had by anyone who has the means to be buying wine in this economy.

Here’s the list of the deep discounters / closeout artists / flash sales for wine that I know of:

Wine Woot!
Wines ’til Sold Out
Wine Spies
Cinderella Wine
Wine Heist
Vinfolio Flash Sales
Cellar Thief
Winery Insider
Wineshopper
Vinobest (French)

Read Jeff’s article.

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At the risk of oversimplifying things past the point of reasonableness, I’d like to suggest that there are really two kinds of wineries in Napa Valley. Those that have been made great in modern times and those that were great long before Napa Cabernet cost more than even $1.00 a bottle. There are a handful of wineries that must be considered some of the valley’s historical treasures, and those that continue to make excellent wine (not all do) are to be treasured even more for it.

The famous sign that welcomes the world to Napa Valley hosts a quote by author Robert Louis Stevenson: “…and the wine was bottled poetry.” In the early 1880’s Stevenson took his honeymoon in the northern end of Napa valley, and wrote about it in a book called the Silverado Squatters. In it, he describes his visit to the property of German immigrant Jacob Schram:

“Mr. Schram’s, on the other hand, is the oldest vineyard in the valley, eighteen years old I think; yet he began a penniless barber, and even after he had broken ground up here with his black malvoisies, continued for long to tramp the valley with his razor. Now, his place is the picture of prosperity: stuffed birds on the verandah, cellars far dug into the hillside, and resting on pillars like a bandit’s cave: all trimness, varnish, flowers, and sunshine, among the tangled wildwood. Stout, smiling Mrs. Schram, who has been to Europe and apparently all about the States for pleasure, entertained Fanny in the verandah, while I was tasting wines in the cellar. To Mr. Schram this was a solemn office; his serious gusto warmed my heart; prosperity had not yet wholly banished a certain neophyte and girlish trepidation, and he followed every sip and read my face with proud anxiety. I tasted all. I tasted every variety and shade of Schramberger, red and white Schramberger, Burgundy Schramberger, Schramberger Hock, Schramberger Golden Chasselas, the latter with a notable bouquet, and I fear to think how many more. Much of it goes to London - most, I think; and Mr. Schram has a great notion of the English taste.

In this wild spot, I did not feel the sacredness of ancient cultivation. It was still raw, it was no Marathon, and no Johannesburg; yet the stirring sunlight, and the growing vines, and the vats and bottles in the cavern, made a pleasant music for the mind. Here, also, earth’s cream was being skimmed and garnered: and the customers can taste, such as it is, the tang of the earth in this green valley. So local, so quintessential is a wine, that it seems the very birds in the verandah might communicate a flavor, and that romantic cellar influence the bottle next to be uncorked in Pimlico, and the smile of jolly Mr. Schram might mantle in the glass.”

Jacob Schram was indeed a penniless barber. At the age of sixteen, to avoid being drafted into the German army, Schram set off to find his fortune in the New World, on a steamer to New York, where he first apprenticed as a barber, and then south to the Caribbean, across Panama (no canal yet) and then on a ship to California. Shaves and haircuts, trims and tonics, paid his way until he reached the Napa Valley, where he set up a barber shop in Napa City, found himself a wife named Annie Christine Weber, and settled down to a life of modest prosperity.

In 1862, as the government was beginning to offer land grants to spur development, it occurred to Schram that that he might trade one sort of shears for another, and with his savings, he purchased 200 acres on Diamond Mountain, and slowly began to plant vineyards.

Schram, and some of the others that made up this earliest wave of Napa viticulture, benefitted greatly from the coincidental completion of the transcontinental railroad in San Francisco. Large numbers of Chinese immigrants who had be “imported” specifically to work on the railroad were fanning out from San Francisco looking for work. Many found it in the burgeoning vineyards of the Napa Valley, including the Schram farm, where they helped plant the vineyards and dig what would be Napa’s first underground wine caves.

By the time Stevenson visited in 1880, the winery had 50 acres of vines and was producing roughly 8000 cases of wine per year. When Schram passed away and his son took over the family business in 1905, the winery was producing more than 25,000 cases of wine.

And then…. the first World War and Prohibition finished off what was left of the Napa wine industry after the Phylloxera epidemic just a few years earlier. The winery was sold to an investment firm, and Schramsberg wines were no longer sold.

Over the next few decades, the winery changed hands several times. Some of the owners started producing wine again, and in 1951, the current owner, Douglas Pringle revived the Schramsberg label, and began producing wines, including sparkling wine. In 1957, the property was designated a state Historical Monument, and in 1965, Jack and Jamie Davies — he a successful executive, she an art gallery owner — purchase the property with a grand dream: to make world class sparkling wine in California.

And for more than forty years, the Davies’ family pursued that odyssey with remarkable success. Schramsberg Vineyards indeed became an icon not only of the Napa Valley, but of California and the nation. From the first use of Chardonnay for sparkling wine in the U.S., to one of the earliest uses of the traditional Methode Champenoise for making sparkling wine, Schramsberg was an early pioneer of American sparkling wine.

Today, after the passing of both his parents, the Davies’ son Hugh continues their legacy and presides over the production of some of the finest sparkling wine made in America.

The winemaking for the estate’s roughly 60,000 case production begins with grapes from the estate’s original acreage, as well as many contract vineyard sources for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay around Sonoma and Napa counties. Whether owned by the Davies family or farmed on contract, all of the grapes are carefully farmed and picked by hand. The winemaking involves a portion of the grapes (depending on the wine) fermented in barrel. Portions of the wine are also aged for extended time in the barrel, and these barrel aged wines are then used as blending components in several of the winery’s bottlings.

As with Champagne, the wines undergo a secondary fermentation in the bottle deep in the cool, humid caves that were dug by Chinese laborers more than 150 years ago. As the bubbles are forming during this second ferment, the bottles are “riddled” or turned to allow the yeast to accumulate in the neck before it is disgorged and the bottle topped up, corked and sealed for sale.

There are very few sparkling wines in America that can begin to equal the quality and complexity of Champagne, but Schramsberg is unquestionably among those few. With a few years of age on it, their top bottlings can hold their own among many tete-de-cuvees from France. While I enjoy their commercial bottlings, I have perhaps been most impressed with some small bits of very late-disgorged wines that the winery often makes available at the annual Premier Napa Valley auction for the trade. These wines, which have 10 or more years of aging on their lees are truly world-class and among some of the best wines I’ve tasted from Napa Valley.

Full disclosure: I received these wines as press samples.

TASTING NOTES:

2002 Schramsberg Vineyards “J. Schram” Sparkling Wine, North Coast
Light greenish gold in the glass with very fine bubbles, this wine smells of unripe apples, lemon zest, and chamomile. In the mouth it is tart and edgy, with sour lemon zest and chamomile flavors that meld with a light yeastiness. The wine has a somewhat angular and slightly bitter cut to it that makes me think it would benefit from a little more aging. It’s juicy however, and quite refreshing. A mix of 83% Chardonnay and 17% Pinot Noir. Score: between9 and 9.5. Cost: $100. Click to buy.

2006 Schramsberg Vineyards “Blanc de Noirs” Sparkling Wine, North Coast
Pale greenish-gold in the glass with medium-fine bubbles, this wine has a nose of unripe apples and quince aromas with some smells of wet stones. In the mouth it offers crisp and bright flavors of baked apples, lemon juice, and wet stones. Great acidity and hint of sourdough yeastiness round out this delicious wine. 100% Pinot Noir. Score: around 9. Cost: $28. Click to buy.

2006 Schramsberg Vineyards “Blanc de Blancs” Sparkling Wine, Napa
Pale greenish-gold in the glass with very fine bubbles, this wine smells of citrus pith and wet stones. In the mouth the wine is quite delicate with lemon juice, wet stones, crisp ripe apples, and the barest hint of brewers yeast. The wine finishes cleanly with lingering flavors of lemon zest. Very, very tasty. 100% Chardonnay. Score: around 9. Cost: $25. Click to buy.

In addition to the wines above, Schramsberg makes 7 other sparkling wines and some Cabernet under the J. Davies label.

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A funny thought crossed my mind: Nowadays, I generally PREFER to see a screw cap on most bottles of wine.

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One of the minor gigs I have landed as a result of my verbal flailings around these parts is as a nominating judge for the Vintners Hall of Fame, an ongoing program of awards hosted by the Culinary Institute of America. Gig is clearly the wrong word for it, of course, as that has some connotation that there’s some form of compensation. No, mostly what I get to do is sit around and talk with people who generally know a lot more about the history of California wine than I do.

Here’s how it works. Every year, the nominating committee gets together and sifts through the hundreds of worthy names to try to come up with a selection of a few people who have had the greatest impact on the California wine industry. Yes, I know, the award should therefore be called the California Wine Hall of Fame, but we’ve hashed that one though every year, and the Vintners Hall of Fame is what it will stay, despite not every inductee being a vintner. But I digress.

Our job as the nominating committee is to arrive at a list of maybe a dozen or two dozen people that then get presented to essentially every professional wine writer in the country to vote on.

The nominees fall into two categories: Pioneers (folks who have been dead for more than 10 years), and everyone else. Beyond that, the criteria simply have to do with the scale of impact that the person has had on the California wine industry (i.e. large). Inductees can be growers, scientists, journalists, retailers, most anything in addition to winemakers.

Here’s the list of everyone that we’ve inducted so far:

Leon Adams
Gerald Asher
Maynard Amerine, Ph. D.
Andy Beckstoffer
Frederick and Jacob Beringer
Brother Timothy
Al Brounstein
Darrell Corti
John Daniel, Jr.
Jack and Jamie Davies
Georges de Latour
Paul Draper
Ernest and Julio Gallo
Randall Grahm
Miljenko “Mike” Grgich
Agoston Haraszthy
Jess Stonestreet Jackson
Charles Krug
Zelma Long
Louis P. Martini
Carol Meredith, Ph.D.
Justin Meyer
Robert Mondavi
Gustave Niebaum
Harold Olmo, Ph. D.
Andrè Tchelistcheff
Carl Heinrich Wente
Warren Winiarski

The question is, who should be next? The inducting committee is meeting next week, to begin assembling the list. We keep track of the list of folks that don’t make the final cut each year, so we’ve got a good starting point, but it occurs to me that all you readers may have some good ideas.

Who do you think has had a disproportionately large impact on the entire California wine industry, to the point that they need to be memorialized in a bronze plaque in the historic barrel room of the Greystone castle in St. Helena? I’m particularly interested (personally) in names not associated with Napa and its history, which is slightly over-represented in the existing Hall of Fame.

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