In Pursuit of Balance

[Jenise]

Good WSJ article by Jay McInernay, or however you spell his name. Gives one hope.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914204579392923398134680?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304914204579392923398134680.html

Good WSJ article by Jay McInernay, or however you spell his name. Gives one hope.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914204579392923398134680?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304914204579392923398134680.html

Yup...good article, Jenise. Thanks for the link.
As for the IPOB movement, folks like Parker and Olken seemed to be threatened by it. There's no reason they should be.
As RajParr points, there is no good definition of what "balance" is in these wines. He & his buddies get together and taste a bunch of
these Pinots/Chards and "annoint" the ones they feel display balance and are then allowed to pour at the IPOB tastings. They seem
a bit fixated, to me, on the alcohol levels, though. OTOH, these winemakers don't seem to be declaring/aggitating that their way of making
Chard/Pinot is the only way...just that it's the way they prefer to make their wines and the wines they like to drink.
Unfortunately, the focus of the IPOB crowd is on the Burgundian varieties. Simply because RajParr is the "decidinator" for the group.
I think they should be a bit less parochial in their view. In fact, well before the IPOB crowd was founded, BobLindquist & SteveEdmunds (and others)
did a seminar in Sebastopol focusing on Syrahs that display balance. Alas, nobody seemed to pick up that ball & run with it like Raj did.
Maybe somebody could convince him to take the hand-off & include Syrah?? Probably won't happen.
His Sandhi Chard/Pinots are very/very good, IMHO.
Tom

I had the Ceritas Pinot yesterday (mentioned in the article) and among the 20 or 30 I tried, it was up near the top, as was a Kessler-Haak and a couple of Fogline Pinots (these last two are new wineries to me). They all had great acidity and freshness.

I think it is ironically amusing that Jay McInerney is out looking for balance.

Then, there's this: http://www.coolchardonnay.org/

I think it is ironically amusing that Jay McInerney is out looking for balance.

What, he should still be looking for Bolivian Marching Powder?

Mark Lipton

I think it is ironically amusing that Jay McInerney is out looking for balance.

What, he should still be looking for Bolivian Marching Powder?

Mark Lipton

I think wine is easier on the septum.

Glad Jenise brought this article to our attention. Jasmine Hirsch is a charismatic representative for Sonoma Coast wines and I am now on the Ceritas and Kutch mailing lists (although I had trouble ordering from Jamie Kutch this spring due to software problems.) The most recent Hirsch Chardonnay I tried (during Triangle Wine Experience earlier this month) seemed to me to be brighter and more balanced than some I have had in the past vintages.) There is room in the wine world for both the big, bold, jammy, high-alcohol wines and the more restrained, lower-alchohol wines and I'm glad there are prominent wine people advocating for the latter. I will post later on a wine tasting fundraiser I held at my church last Saturday and we tried four Chardonnays from four different regions of which I would say two were in the I.P.O.B. mode, one was somewhere in between in style and one was more oaky and fuller-bodied (although this was was actually labeled at lower alcohol than two of the others in the tasting.)

[Jenise]

JC and Jim, you both mention Ceritas. A Ceritas chardonnay was easily the best domestic chardonnay I've ever had. I'm fairly sure it had a single vineyard name, too, like Ross Porter, or Porter Ross. I look forward to tasting their pinots some day.

[David M. Bueker]

Porter-Bass

[Jenise]

Porter-Bass

Ha! But hey, give me credit. That's pretty close for a Dodger fan.

[David M. Bueker]

Heck yeah. It was close enough that I knew what you referring to.