A Little Wine News: Good and Bad!

First the good news:

I recently announced that a shorter version of my newspaper column Grape Sense would soon start appearing in Indianapolis' weekly news and entertainment paper, NUVO.

My first piece ran today and is up on their website. The editors very much want a local and Indianapolis focus. Since the column has never overlapped much of the Indianapolis market previously, they were fine with me re-purposing a couple of columns I suggested.

The first one running was my story about River City Winery winning the Indy International Wine Competition's top honor. Here is the link to the NUVO site and my column.

The column, and an occasional feature, will run at least twice a month. It's great to have Grape Sense in the Indianapolis market. NUVO is a free distribution paper of more than 40,000 copies.

And now the bad:

Vino 100, Columbus, OH., is closing its doors. The Vino 100 concept is a national franchise the plays heavily on flavor profiles and a consistent look from store to store.

Like any good shop, the Columbus store was driven by its owner Liz Avera. Liz is knowledgable and friendly. She had built a good customer base. The store was located in the affluent Westerville suburb of Columbus.

I don't know what went wrong with my friend's store or perhaps it was just a matter of careers as much as business.

But this seemingly successful store illustrates a point I've made over and over. Support your near-by wine shops. You don't need to buy wine at big-box stores for $1 a bottle less. The small wine shops will educate you, inform you and make you a smarter wine consumer.

It's a sad day when any small shop closes, even if so far away. But don't think the Vino 100 story is unique. There are small shops in Indiana struggling to keep their doors open. Go buy some wine!

 Send comment or questions to: hewitthoward@gmail.com

Indiana Wines Wins Competition's Top Honor

A gold medal here or a silver medal there boosts wine sales. Some wine enthusiasts dismiss medals under the ‘too many competitions to count’ excuse.

But one Indiana winery just picked off an historic honor that was unprecedented. River City Winery, New Albany, won the best wine of the Indy International Wine Competition with its 2011 Vignoles.

“This is huge,” owner/winemaker Gary Humphrey said. “This is just not Indiana. Nobody from the Midwest has ever won that honor.”

Now, before you dismiss an Indiana wine competition please note the annual contest is the third biggest in the U.S. and draws 2,600 entries from 41 states and 14 different countries. It was quite the historic moment for Humphrey and Indiana wine.

Vignoles is a hybrid grape grown widely in Indiana, Missouri, and other states. It is often used for dessert wines but also makes a nice semi-sweet wine. It often has hints of peach, pear, or apricot on the palate.

“This was first time we’ve done Vignoles so we nailed it,” Humphrey said. “We didn’t manipulate it very much in the vineyard at all. Actually the birds almost got it and we were in the vineyard picking within two hours of seeing that.

“Once it got into the cellar, we really pushed the envelope keeping it cold and doing very cold fermentations and arresting the fermentation. That keeps all that fruit flavor in there. Halfway through the fermentation I had nothing but a grin. I knew we’d have a wonderful wine if we didn’t screw it up. We spent the next few months trying not to screw up. Once fermentation was complete, that wine was excellent.”

Humphrey with his 20011 Vignoles

Before you go out looking for Humphrey’s Vignoles it’s important to note he doesn’t distribute his wines. He makes more than 3,000 cases a year for his River City Winery and Restaurant in downtown New Albany along the Ohio River. The business opened in the spring of 2009.

“We don’t distribute and we have no plans to distribute,” Humphrey said. “We’re not in the bulk industry. We’re not going to make 20,000 cases to make a profit. We’re trying to keep it small with most of our batches under 500 gallons. We try to experiment and work different tanks, yeasts, strategies, see what works and what doesn’t. Then we blend or don’t blend and then make our changes for the next year.”

The 2011 Vignoles is a lovely wine with a hint of sweetness (2.5 percent residual sugar). Probably the most unique characteristic of the wine beyond the fruits mentioned above is a hint of banana. That surprised Humphrey during the tasting process until Purdue’s Professor of Horticulture Bruce Bordelon said that can be a trait of some Vignole wines.

What jumps out of the glass is remarkable freshness and extremely well-defined balance. The wine sells at the winery for $28. 

Humphrey has no plans to significantly increase his production. His restaurant has become a popular spot in New Albany behind the work of Executive Chef Nicholas Davis. The next door building has been acquired for expansion of the winery and restaurant.

Humphrey also makes two outstanding Chardonel wines, one barrel aged and the other aged in stainless steel. Even his obligatory Concord offering is significantly different getting aged in Kentucky Bourbon barrels.

 Selling only from his business and in a restaurant setting allows River City to charge a bit more per bottle. You can buy wines to take home.

Next time someone bad mouths Indiana wine, they just don’t know the facts.

Send comment or questions to: hewitthoward@gmail.com

Difference in Medals, Magazine Critic Points

For the states not on the west coast a wine competition medal can move bottles of wine out the door. But it’s a little different story for the big boys out west.

I’ve written in recent days about River City Winery’s incredible win for best overall wine at the Indy Wine Competition – the first ever for an Indiana or Midwest winery. That’s going to help Gary Humphrey sell wine. He knows it too. He jumped the price the minute he got back to New Albany.
While that may seem like capitalizing to some consumers, so what? You believe the great California or Oregon wine producers don’t bump their prices or the next vintage if they get 95 points from a publication like Wine Spectator? Sure they do!

Dan Crank, Willamette Valley winemaker

I’ve guest judged at the Indy Wine Competition several times and again this year. One of the judges on my panel was Willamette Valley Vineyards winemaker Dan Shank. Dan was funny, extremely knowledgable and anxiouis to share his insights and opinions. Just my kind of guy!

He had some great insights in how professional judge such competitons.

“The first thing is to figure out if there are any flaws in the wine,” he explained. “There are some pretty obvious things that can happen  to wine . Winemakers can go down the wrong path and those wines are flawed. So we’re going to dock those wines. Then we want to reward things that are very varietal specific,;if you capture the essence of a varietal then we want to reward you and give you a gold medal.

“It’s not whether you like the varietal or not. We had rhubarb wines and maybe you don’t like rhubarb, but it tasted like rhubarb. They did their jobs so you want to reward that.”

And while Dan enjoys judging these competitions, he admits the medals are more important in some areas of the country than others.

“That’s true, there’s a lot more competition and a lot more people have been doing the same varietal for a long time on the coast.  So the magazines and periodicals become a little more important to sell our wines. That’s a whole different game because those guys when they rate wine they don’t taste them blind so there’s a lot more to that dance. There is marketing and presence in the industry to consider.

Here in the Midwest a ribbon from a prestigious competition like the Indy Wine Competition can really help you out and help drive sales. But for me to take a ribbon home to Oregon from the Indy Wine competition, it’s not as big a selling point. We’re looking for the affirmation of the periodicals.”
But Dan confirms what I’ve heard for years – medals mean sales. Jim  Butler, at Butler Winery near Bloomington, told me that after he won best varietal for his Rose a couple of years ago, that it was gone in a hurry. And that included three price hikes!

Medals mean sales and affirmation of a good product. Don’t overlook awards when you visit a winery but don’t take them as a guarantee either.

 Send comment or questions to: hewitthoward@gmail.com

Indy Champion Vignoles Isn't River City's Only Gem

New Albany, In. - Indiana wine as a whole, and River City Winery in particular, made some real history last week. Gary Humphrey was the first-ever Hoosier winemaker to produce the Indianapolis International Wine Competition's top wine.

River City 2011 Vignoles was judged the best glass of wine out of 2,600 entries from 41 states and 14 countries. Indiana has had a variety win before when Butler Winery claimed the top Rose, but never the best over-all wine in the competition.

For one thick-headed day I tried to figure out how to visit the winery and snatch a bottle of the prize winner. It took most of the day for the fog to clear and remember I had business in Kentucky Tuesday and could easily come back through New Albany to River City Winery and Restaurant.

Humprhey pouring his wines

I have to admit, though River City has been around for about three years, I had seen the name but knew little about it. Humphrey has a unique business model - his winery tasting room is also a full-service, chef-driven restaurant. He does not have any distribution though he does participate in some wine festivals. If you want a bottle of that award winner, you can only get it in New Albany.

That approach allows him to do a couple of things. First, he can charge a bit more per bottle in a restaurant setting than most wineries can charge in a tasting room. But he also doesn't have any ambition to become a major player state wide, he just wants to make great wine.

Humphrey also honors the community's history on his labels and in helping lead a downtown revival. I'm going to be writing my newspaper column about River City this week.

Chef Davis' crabcakes! Yummy!

But the Vignoles was something really interesting. I tasted, tasted again and had a glass with some incredible crab cakes. It has a remarkable freshness you just seldom get from any wine. That had to catch the judges' eyes. It also had this quirky little hint of banana - yes, banana - that really set it apart from other Vignoles. Now, it has 2.5 percent residual sugar. Some wine lovers will find it a tad on the sweet side. It's not Frosted Flakes sweet, nor traditional Concord grape sweet, but it is sweeter than a lot of wines. But that said, it was a beautifully crafted wine.

The wine retails for $28 a bottle. Humprhey admitted he learned from others that such a win might be a once-in-a-life-time thing. So he did what almost every big winner always does, he bumped the price pretty good. Let's just say the wine was under $20 before last week. I certainly can't find anything wrong with that!

Gary, who maintains his job as a New Albany police officer, recently purchased an adjoining building and has started renovations to expand the kitchen, dining area and add private meeting rooms. The location is downtown with beautiful exposed brick walls and tremendous grub. The winery is in the basement.

Pizza like this Feta/Spinach one has become a signature dish

At one point, Gary disappeared and came back with Executive Chef Nick Davis. Davis is a local who graduated from Louisville's Sullivan Culinary School. The 23-year-old head chef buys local ingredients and has all sorts of ideas he'd like to try when he gets a bigger kitchen.

I had the best crabcakes I've ever had in land-locked Indiana. Davis added a wonderful bed of corn, black-eyed peas, herbs, and a hint of cayenne for a real kick.

The Vignoles isn't Gary's only interesting wine by a long shot. He's working to perfect Riesling he buys from Kentucky and admits his red wine "program" isn't quite where he wants it yet. He did pour a traditional Bordeaux blend that was "okay" to my palate but showed tremendous potential if he can find a consistent source for Cab, Cab Franc, and Malbec.

As most wine folks know Hoosiers like sweet wines. There is hardly an Indiana winery that doesn't make a sweet Concord wine. Gary makes one too but he takes the wine and ages it in Kentucky Bourbon barrels for a unique finish. It weighs in at 7.5 percent residual sugar but tastes like much less. It is truly unique.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I will get an update online in the next few days about all of Indiana's winners from the Indy competition. Oliver Winery won the Governor's Cup for most wins and title of Winery of the Year. We'll break down the other awards soon.

Send comment or questions to: hewitthoward@gmail.com