Lance Silver of Tobin James opines on wine

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Kathleen and I received our Spring shipment from Tobin James day before yesterday ... KILLER deal, BTW ... 8 bottles plus a gift, all reds, for $125 ... all reserve or single vineyard wines with the exception of one ... but I digress ... Lance Silver, co-winemaker with Tobin James, had a nice piece on wine and I thought I might share part of it with my friends on WLDG ... quoting Lance -

"Maybe I'm speaking a bit too passionately, but I feel that one of life's miracles is wine. Wine grapes were put on this planet for one reason - to make wine. Table grapes are for a totally different purpose and are a completely different grape than the vitis vinifera grape or wine grape. These small, tannic skinned, seed filled grapes have little use for consumption as grapes. Long before humans figured out what to do with these beauties, Mother Nature and science answered the question by allowing natural yeasts to proliferate in the vineyards and attack the ripe grapes and ferment these grapes into wine. Animals had figured it out though, as they loved to eat the fermented grapes. Deer in particular love Cabernet grapes with a good tofu burger (they are vegetarians after all). Fast-forward to modern mankind and the only thing that has changed is that we have attempted to perfect the process.

As part of the miracle, these grapes make wine taste like many other fruits. I am always asked why or how a wine can taste like plums or peaches or blackberries ? My first reaction to this question is to respond with a typical Tobin James tongue-in-cheek answer such as we grind up cherry stones and spread them in the vineyard. The vines absorb the cherry flavors this way and the flavors show through the wine. Most people accept this answer without question and usually say 'Wow !' My next comment to them is, 'would they like to buy some of my valuable ocean front property in Kansas for a really reasonable price ?' But seriously, it is quite the miracle that wines do what they do. A wine made from plums tastes like plums (I love plum wine). A wine made from apples tastes like apples. A wine made from blackberries tastes like blackberries. However, a wine made from wine grapes tastes like plums and cherries and blackberries and apples and a zillion other flavors. Anything but grapes ! Amazing, huh ?"

My own love affair with wine will be 38 years old next weekend ... what a long wonderful trip it's been ! And I hopefully look forward to many more years of wonderment and discovery ...

Thanks, too, to all of YOU ... this is a "trip" one is better off not taking on his own ... "so much wine - so little time !"

Clink !

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Bill, thanks for posting this. I missed reading it when you first put it on line -- I love the line about spreading cherry pits in the vineyard. Wow indeed. :-)

I wonder why he doesn't post his stuff online on the website.

Thanks again, Bob

Lance is one super dude. He always appears when when we go out there, and makes sure we taste the things he wants us to, regardless of what they are pouring for the others! He also waxes eloquently on the subject while we taste.

The whole group sounds like a bunch of really nice people, Carl -- a very friendly website. Thanks for the feedback.

Very interesting story.

I belonged to the Tobin James wine club for about a year and half, and I agree that their semi-annual wine shipments are quite a good deal. However, if you don't really like their wines, then it's not such a good deal for you. I found that I really only liked about half their wines or less, so I dropped out.

Interesting enough, our tasting group had a Zinfandel tasting last night, and I just happend to have a bottle of 2002 Tobin James Charisma Dessert Zinfandel. This is a rather pale wine; it looks almost like a Tawny Port in color. It is not cloyingly sweet, and was actually rather pleasant.