BLOGSCHU

Blood and Wine

A few weeks ago, I received the following email from Heinz Gundlach, the sixth generation winemaker of Weingut Gundlach, est 1825, and great-great-great-great-great nephew of Jacob Gundlach, founder of Gundlach Bundschu Winery:

My Name is Heinz Gundlach, I am a winemaker with my own winery in the middle of Germany, right next to the Rhine Valley, established in 1825. One of our ancestors, Jacob Gundlach, was a winemaker too and he emigrated to America in 1856, to take german and french grapes over the ocean, to set up an own winery and to plant the grapes in Sonoma Valley. So our roots are more or less from the same origins. Our winery is still in the same Family Tradition meanwhile with me as the leader and winemaker.

At the beginning of May 2009 my daughter and I are going on a short trip to San Francisco, and on this occasion it would be fine to visit your winery in Sonoma Valley. Please let us know if this is possible.

Surprise is an understatement. We knew Jacob's father had made wine and beer, but we had no knowledge of this distant cousin or his winery.  We've long joked that there are no Gundlachs left, that once Charles Bundschu married Jacob's daughter, the Bundschu genes took over the family tree. So we were pretty excited to meet our first Gundlach family.

My whole life, I've known the few photos we have of Jacob Gundlach - the deep set eyes, arrow-straight nose, full beard and severe countenance. Meeting Heinz was a bit like seeing a ghost - same eyes, same nose, but with a broad smile. His blonde daughter Sarah would easily fit in a Bundschu family photo.  My dad and I spent a whole day last week showing Heinz and Sarah around Rhinefarm and learning about the wines and history of our German family, becoming progressively more amazed. Six generations on both sides of the family, still farming grapes, making small-lot, hand-crafted wines on two continents. Incredible.

Jim & Jeff Bundschu, Sarah & Heinz Gundlach

Art, Commerce, Commerce Wine

Was flattered to read that Goodgrape cited my recent blog on Art and Commerce. It prompted an in-house comment that it might be nice if relate some of these postings to wine, since in that one (and most others) I didn’t. I am incredulous, but capitulating all the same. After all, I am a vintner….

So consider this a ‘part deux’ of that first post. And the smell of it. Turns out that completely coincidently, I spent all of a recent morning in the Miletus of our little valley, the place that plays a sizable role in much art/commerce wine talk among winemakers in the greater 50 states and beyond. The place was none other than the offices of Enologix. It was a perfect opportunity to taste some very good wines and blatantly, if quietly, ponder the art-commerce-art question specifically as it pertains to wine.

Few in the wine world elicit such passionate debate as does Enologix founder Leo McCloskey. Many say he is a maverick genius for bringing an industry famously (and some would say purposefully) ambiguous in its ability to objectively define quality a tool to do so and then having the cojones to challenge them to use it . Others describe him as a pariah whose efforts will lead to total homogenization of premium wines. In lay terms, Leo and his team analyzed samples of thousands of critically acclaimed (‘90+”) wines, and then developed a proprietary and quantifiably measurable index that will indicate wine’s potential score very early in its life (even as fruit). Winemakers hence can use the analysis, plus his subsequent winemaking input, to gear their process toward making a wine that will achieve the highest possible critical score. At the crux of the debate is how/whether the artistic integrity, individuality and intrinsic quality of wine that is made according the unique vision of a winemaker is eroded when the process is changed to reflect the end objective of producing a wine geared toward achieving a specific, quantifiable critical rating. An argument about the intrinsic quality of a movie-making process that involves adjusting story lines in response to focus groups versus one that is about fulfilling the unique vision of a director would be similar.

As for me personally, 6th generation and all, I have a fairly well-established leaning towards the independently derived. There are certainly exceptions, but in general I gravitate toward art, music, writing, restaurant meal, whatever, to be the specific vision of its creator. If I like, I jump on the bandwagon and become a promoter of the people behind it, and if I don’t, I don’t. Not sure that makes me different from too many people. I was brought up with (and remain attracted to) the notion that wine, at least at our level, is the same in that at its best it absolutely reflects not only the specific attributes of where it is grown, but also the skill, talents and tastes of the winemaker and his/her team.

For many it ends there and it is simple; winemaking is an art. It is ultimately up to the winemaker to make what tastes best to him (and possibly his team), and the market will applaud or not. Any other approach is a step away from true individual expression and towards a MCD (mass common denominator).

As nice as it would be to see things that clearly, I am not quite there. A key aspect of all this is that the wine (the book, the album, etc.) has to be worth someone spending money for. And in our segment of the industry, as much I might like it to be otherwise, it still holds true that the fastest way to confirm value in the mind of consumers is through third party critics. Even if consumers themselves don’t pay attention to them, the people they buy wine from do, and hence the influence trickles down. Critics matter. It would be foolish for anyone in the business of making wine to sell to dismiss an opportunity to seriously increase the likelihood of a good rating without major consideration.

Serious consideration is where I have been for the last decade. I have come to believe that Leo and his team are extremely talented, and truly are motivated by the potential success of current and future clients. I have also come to view the tools that Enologix offers as a very useful gauge of how your vineyards, wines, and taste preferences stack up versus the specific likes of the wine critics. And I begrudge no one for employing them as a guideline to winemaking. All that said, my stake is firmly in the ground as a producer of independently derived, spiritually and sensually fulfilling vineyard reflective wines, and I could never feel right about driving our wine style toward a certain numerical value, unless that value reflected a flavor profile that we determined was ideal.

One last non-wine follow up to the original Art/Commerce post: Adam Lambert, whose version of Mad World I praised in that post for being a union of art and commerce, is still bringing it on American Idol:

Shaking up Charleston

The spring 09 GB Wineclub Revel is in the books, and it was one for the ages.

Every spring we host a Wineclub Revel in some locale other than Sonoma. It takes place over a long weekend, and though we always keep the specifics of the daily agenda a surprise, it always encompasses experiencing local color, culture, cuisine and of course lots of GB wine.

This year our destination was Charleston, South Carolina, where, we met around 60 WOMers (our term of endearment for our club members) for a weekend of fun. Highlights of the trip included:

• A tour of the Middleton Place Plantation, where we were given two tours of the beautiful place, one focusing on the family that developed it and another focusing on the slaves that worked there. Truly fascinating stuff.
• A performance from a Gullah singing and dance troupe
• The Bundschu Olympics
• A history based treasure hunt through the old city.
• A feast of all feasts at McCrady’s, one of the hottest restaurants in the South
• A killer dance party at the Blind Tiger, a hipster SC dive bar.
• And most especially, camaraderie with old and new friends alike.

I have always said that one of the main reasons I love this business so is the fact that wine (at least our wine) really does attract a wide variety of incredibly interesting, fun-loving people, and this group was a living embodiment of that. The trip is a chance to really get know each-other and celebrate the fact that we live in such a varied and rich country.

Not quite getting the steps

True southern fried chicken

WOMers gather for competition