Sunday, February 9, 2025

The Glories of Another Garagiste


In our current age--that is these terrifying last few weeks of Muskocracy--it's especially good to remember the wonder of a world writ small. Not everything has to be about huge numbers (of dollars, or corruption, or case production). Enter one of my annual favorite events, the Garagiste Wine Festival. This year we were fortunate enough to attend Friday's "Rare and Reserve Kick-Off Party," even more kicky as it featured a buffet of Cajun delights from Clean Slate Wine Bar. Chef Melissa Scrymgeour rocks it, even at the catering level, especially as she's sure to feature something for those who don't do meat (in Cajun that's spelled p-o-r-k). This night it was Gumbo Z'herbes, rich, redolent, and full of everything that grew green. This repast was perfect ballast for an evening of serious wine tasting.

In case you're new to what Garagiste means, it refers to folks who might, and sometimes do, make wines in their garages. We're talking tiny productions--you can't pour at the festival if you make over 1500 cases per year. For comparison, Meiomi--which some people consider wine--makes over 2700 cases of their sweet Pinot a day

That means what gets poured at the Solvang Veterans' Memorial Hall is made as passion product, as experiment, for the love of wine and agriculture and the hope to please people. That's highlighted even more on Friday, as winemakers pour their rare and reserve--older vintages, barrel samples, stuff so limited in supply that you couldn't buy it if you tried to bribe someone. But it does give you a beautiful picture of what creative, committed folks are up to in the wine world.

At least on this evening, most of what was poured was red, and much of that was more, let's call them chewy varietals--think Tannat, Tempranillo, or two grapes that despite their names aren't tiny in the slightest, Petit Verdot and Petite Sirah. Much of it was from Paso Robles, too, which might explain the grape choices--it's a lot hotter up there. So Fuil Wines' barrel sample of 2024 Sauvignon Blanc from Vogelzang Vineyard truly did stand out, but might have even in a more crowded white wine field. For as Chryss put it, "I want it to be summer, drinking this wine." And the red-heavy focus didn't stop the occasional oddball, like Winespread Panic Cellars 2022 Mourvèdre that looks light as a rosé, comes in at 12.9% ABV, and they suggest you chill. Owner Mitch Cahoon was happy when I suggested it was a summer porch wine, responding, "You can pound that shit!" Now that's not your usual marketing ploy....

But if you want the usual, you don't attend Garagiste. Instead you get things like Exprimere Wines, whose website has pages for both "Philosophy" and "Science & Art." The name, btw, is Latin for "to express or intone" (it just sounds like a fancy way to say experiment). What made their two pours rare was 2022 was their first vintage, and what you get is two Santa Rita Hills Pinots (I was told from Peake Ranch), that then gets trucked up to Sonoma where they do their magic. The Mia ferments at a cool temp, while the Persey gets exposed to some outdoor sun/heat during ferment. The former is lighter, racier, the latter richer, deeper. Given all the rest of the winemaking is consistent, it really does seem like some controlled experiment after all.

Then there's Boyd Shermis at Tomi Cellars, natty in his striped sports coat, sharing a no longer available Interlaced, a Syrah/Grenache blend. While a combo of those two Rhone grapes isn't anything new, Tomi's is, as they blend older Syrah, to give it more time to round and age, with younger Grenache. The result is a non-vintage wine with components from (in this case) 2019 and 2020. The result is a fully integrated delight. (There is a new NV blend out now, don't fret, but don't wait, either, as Tomi tends to make wines in 25 case increments.)

Speaking of small, we sampled the Pinot Noir and Syrah from Etnyre Wines, whose vineyard is a massive two acres in the SLO County AVA only 3.5 miles from the Pacific. Talk about complete care and control. Talk about cool climate, ocean effect. The Etnyres also had the good fortune to lean on more established wineries in their region to get started, with Alban clones for their Syrah and Talley Rosemary's clones for their Pinot. (People in the business can truly play nice.) Pouring library offerings, the 2016 Syrah was a true standout--gamey in that good Rhone way, with plenty of blueberry fruit and spice and a long finish. 

Garagiste also often gets to show off how those with day jobs in the business working for bigger concerns still run their own tiny labels. Take Sapien Wine, run by Trevor Bethke. He's also assistant winemaker at Cordon Wines and consulting winemaker at Buellton's Easy Street Wine Collective, so he's a busy man. But he's also got a crazy background with degrees in Biochemistry and Bioanthropology. Add it up, especially when he's accessing grapes like Pinot from Fiddlestix and especially an iron fist/velvet glove Grenache from Kimsey in Ballard Canyon, and you've got impressive, elegant wines.

Our only regret Friday was knowing we weren't coming back to do the full tasting with even more winemakers pursuing their visions on Saturday. 

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

A Review of Neko Case's "The Harder I Fight the More I Love You"

 

Given she’s enchanted by fairy tales, it’s only fitting that Neko Case’s memoir The Harder I Fight the More I Love You leaves its readers following breadcrumbs tossed in a dark forest. Sure, many of the typical milestones of the rock ’n’ roll book get visited—childhood record purchases (Best of Blondie, “We’ve Got the Beat” 45), the agony and ecstasy of the road (on bad sound systems: “Your voice sounds like it’s being piped through a thrift store whale’s carcass into a pirate’s wet diaper. Ahoy, bitch!”), the tease and sleaze of a failed major label signing. But don’t come to the book expecting an album blow-by-blow or much dirt or gossip. This is really a book about art—how and why we make it and need it. That involves digging, a care to ever reconsider the past, a drive to outrun whatever hunts and haunts us, from the Green River Killer to familial trauma. And a hope to be fiercely feminist—at one point she rightfully laments, “How do women have any space left inside us with all the shit we swallow?”

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on February 5, 2025.

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

A Review of "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman" by Robert Hilburn

 

A tunesmith with a con, not a song, in his heart, Randy Newman is a quintessential American composer. And like America, what a bill of goods Newman sells us: racist rednecks and drop-the-bomb political science, feel my pain anthems and a testy Old Testament God.

He gets away with singing from the viewpoint of these twisted characters for a slew of reasons. Despite a fiercely appreciative fan base, he’s never been able to sell himself; flying outside the radar of Top 40 has freed him from attacks from the irony-impaired, except for his one hit, an infamy that was, uh, short-lived. (His best known song, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” beloved heart of the Toy Story films, never got released as a single, fyi.)

But those who are in the know get to know people they might never have otherwise. His lyrics, despite the humor that mostly means we laugh ’cause we don’t know what else to do while squirming, give voice to those we’d rather not hear from, like the sweet promises of the slave trader in “Sail Away,” the N-word dropping titular Southerner in “Rednecks.” But the true dignity these characters get are from the tunes. From a family of film composers, and multiply nominated for Oscars himself, Newman invests a cinematic quality to his melodies, providing each song with a kind of back-story.

A Few Words in Defense of Our Country, Robert Hilburn’s new bio of Newman, means to make the case for Newman as one of the great artists of our time. Throughout the book he interpolates encomiums from esteemed figures, and he kicks that off with none other than Dylan himself (he’s a Nobel Prize winner, you know). Hilburn is not here to bury Newman but to praise him, setting up with his prologues a two-pronged attack—Newman as prescient, penetrating American Jeremiah, sagely realizing the root of our national original sin is racism, and Newman as brilliantly funny.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.