Racy is a word used to describe the amount and style of acidity in a wine. It’s used to describe white wines with high acid, one that tastes vibrant and crisp, and would be applicable to wines like Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc. In terms of the origin of the word, well that beats me. Perhaps a taster thought the vibrancy of the wine was akin to a Ferrari zooming around your mouth. And no, I’m afraid “racy” has nothing to do with anything else.
Is Buying a Vineyard a Good Idea?
Back in the early 1990’s Harry McWatters, the founder of Sumac Ridge winery, was told by all his friends and financial advisors not to buy vineyard land on the Black Sage bench. They thought he was crazy to pay the $3,000 per acre. Fast forward twenty years and Harry was selling that same vineyard for over $200,000 an acre, after making some very good wine from it.
Getting some good advice before you set sail is your first smart move. I can tell you some basic facts about the market. A planted vineyard is currently selling somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000 per acre. The Naramata Bench and parts of the southern Okanagan are on the higher side, and parts of the Similkameen cost less. But you do often get what you pay for, and inexpensive land may cost you more in the long run because of problems with the site.
If you plan on selling the grapes then you’ll have to find a buyer. Buyers usually pay by the ton, and the price varies according to variety and quality. The average prices paid are published by the B.C. Wine Institute every year. Growers often count on producing about 4-6 tons per acre, and selling the grapes for $2,000-$3,000 per ton. But both prices paid for grapes and the tonnages grown can be higher and lower than the figures I’ve quoted.
So if you had a nice little 3 acre vineyard planted to a high quality grape and you cropped it at 4 tons per acre you could probably grow about 12 tons of grapes and sell them at $2,500 per ton. That would create $30,000 in annual revenue.
But of course you’ll have various expenses to manage the vineyard, including things like labour, water and sprays. You can reduce expenses by doing some of the work yourself, but otherwise you could hire a grape grower to take care of it for you. Expect to pay somewhere between $4,000 to $6,000 per acre, or somewhere around $15,000 for your 3 acres, per year.
So in theory you should make a small profit, but don’t forget that actually you’ve signed up to become a farmer. So the weather is now your partner, and some of the severe frosts and winter freezes can be devastating. There are growers that have lost their entire crops in the Okanagan and Similkameen to winter kill in the last few years. No doubt these growers will tell you it’s not a good idea to own a vineyard…
Add to that the fact that disease can cause serious problems, and the market for grapes can fluctuated too. There’s a long list of other reasons that I could roll out to highlight the risks and dangers of owning a vineyard. It would probably put you off.
But what the analysis doesn’t account for is that this is your dream. And who wouldn’t want to own a vineyard, walk through the rows of vines with your dog at your side, tasting grapes in anticipation of the upcoming harvest. It’s magical. And it can work financially.
Just make sure you select a very good vineyard site that minimizes the viticultural risks, ensure it is planted to a grape in high demand, managed by a skillful grower, and get a buyer lined up well before harvest.
A Good Bottle of Wine for $10?
For red wines that’s pretty easy to answer. Malbec from Argentina and Merlot from Chile are the best quality wines on the market that I’ve tasted for under $10. In fact, I’ve often found them to be as good as wines priced at $15-$20 from a host of other countries. The reason that these are such a good deal is because land and labour cost a fraction of what they do in most other countries, and the weather is pretty reliable enabling producers to get the grapes nice and ripe almost every year. If you’re looking for a European wine, I find that Portugal can offer amazing value, although the wines often seem to be much tougher, more rustic, and need some food to soften them up.
When it comes to white wines, it really depends on what type of grape or wine style you like. There are some good German Rieslings on the market for around $10, although these often have some sweetness. Chilean Sauvignon Blanc is the best value for a clean, crisp, snappy white that you can sip by itself. Australian Chardonnay has changed in style and is not as oaky as it used to be, and frankly most people have a tough time telling them apart from a $60 white Burgundy.
The bottom line is that there are some pretty decent wines on the market for less than $10. To put things in perspective, when someone pays over $100 for a bottle they are, at least in part, paying for a dream, an image, or a notion that they want to associate themselves with. Buying luxury goods can make you feel good, and some wineries like to be priced in a zone that is “reassuringly expensive”. Obviously expensive wines can be much better quality than your sub $10 bottle, but sometimes I wonder if the factor of price to quality can be justified.
Working the Vineyard
The most fun I’ve ever had in the last 20 years working in the wine trade has definitely been working vintages. I’ve been fortunate to do a few of them in Bordeaux and Australia, and one in Napa and the Okanagan.
It’s certainly the best way to learn about wine, and I’ve always been perplexed by so-called wine experts that have never done this. You can’t learn everything from a book.
My advice would be to pick a country or a winery where they speak your language. You won’t learn much if you can’t understand a word they’re saying. Next, give yourself a minimum of 3-4 weeks so you can see a good chunk of the process and keep in mind that harvest in the southern hemisphere is in our Spring.
To land a job, simply email dozens of producers in the targeted area offering your services. The directories of all the wineries can usually be found on the national trade associations website, such as Wines of Chile.
Wineries often take on additional “cellar rats” at harvest, and if you can show you are keen and reliable then sooner or later someone will take you on. If you offer to work for free then the replies come back much faster… Some of the places I worked at gave you accommodation, meals and a small payment.
The critical thing is to find a winery that will let you move from one task to another, so you get to work in the vineyard sampling grapes, then working the crusher/destemmer/presses, managing ferments, working in the barrel cellar and the lab etc.. That way you’ll maximize your learning experience. Don’t get stuck picking grapes for a month.
Your best bet might be to make friends with a visiting winemaker to a local wine festival. When you’re asking for a job in person you’ll have more chance of success, especially if you smile pretty.
Food and Wine Pairing – An Introduction
There are several useful guidelines in food and wine matching that you may want to consider. The whole point is to make both the food and the wine enhance one another, so the experience is even more pleasurable. It should be a happy marriage, where both compliment and neither party is too over-powering.
One of the most important guidelines is to match by the intensity of flavor. Some foods, like spicy Asian dishes, can be very strong and so it is important to have a powerfully flavored wine to stand up to them. Chilled German Riesling, Gewurztraminer from Alsace, or a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc can stand up to powerful spicy foods, and also have the benefit of being more refreshing than a red wine because of the service temperature.
On the other hand, more delicate foods pair better with less intense wines. Oysters and Muscadet, crab and Sancerre, smoked salmon and bubbly are some good matches.
Another useful tip is to pair food and wines according to their weight. If you have heavy food, like a steak, then it generally pairs better with a fuller bodied red wine, like a Cabernet or a Merlot. If you then put a peppercorn sauce on the steak you are increasing the level of flavor intensity, and so now maybe an even more powerful red, like an Aussie Shiraz or a California Zinfandel, would work better. On the other hand, you can take my word for it that oysters and Shiraz don’t make for a happy marriage.
Highly acidic foods can be tricky to pair with wines. The important thing to know is that high acid wines taste softer when paired with dishes containing a lot of citrus, or tomato. Many Italian red wines can be quite acidic, but when they are drunk with pasta in a tomato sauce, or a Pizza, they become much more enjoyable. So when in Rome, do as the Romans. That’s to say, look for the classic regional pairings.
Finally, there is a myth that red wines pairs well with all types of cheeses, but this is simply not true. For soft cheeses, like chevre, the ideal wine is a crisp dry white like a Sauvignon Blanc, which can cut through the creaminess of the cheese. This can be a great way to start a meal, served as an appetizer.
There are some good books on food and wine matching, like “What to Drink with What you Eat” where these guidelines are explained more in-depth, along with several others. Given that you might be eating and drinking for a few more years, it’s probably worth buying.
Managing Your Wine Cellar
To help manage your wine cellar, go to www.CellarTracker.com and all your questions will be answered. This is an excellent site that has become the most popular wine website in the world for managing your cellar. There are hundreds of reviews on thousands of different wines so you’ll be able to decide when it’s time to crack each bottle.
In wine, as with many things, timing is everything. Drink a wine too early and it may not be ready to reveal its full potential. Wait until it is too old and it won’t have the energy it once did.
But fine wines can be very odd creatures. I remember opening a thirty year old red Burgundy at a family dinner, and it smelt and tasted terrible. I thought it was dead, and we’d waited too long. So I started pouring several bottles of it down the sink. I ended up leaving some wine in one of the bottles and, out of curiosity, tasted it the next day. It had evolved into one of the greatest red Burgundies I’ve ever had. Sorry Mum…
Alcohol in wine
The alcohol degree is one of the key things I always look at on the label. When I was 19 my motives were different from today, and naturally back then I was looking for a low alcohol wine so I could still do my homework.
But today I look at the alcohol degree because it can tell you so much about what a wine will taste like. The more sugar there is in the grape, the higher the potential alcohol. So if the grape comes from a hot climate it will typically have become very ripe, and contain a large amount of sugar that can be turned into alcohol.
Conversely, if a grape was grown in a cool climate, or comes from a cooler vintage, then the amount of sugar will be much lower and the alcohol degree in the wine will be less.
So how does that change the taste of wine? A Chardonnay from a cool area, such as Chablis, will have less alcohol, less body, greener fruit flavors, and crisper acidity. Don’t forget that in the ripening process acidity comes down as sugar content builds.
If you have a Chardonnay from a hotter climate, which will result in higher alcohol, there will be riper flavors in the wine. Also, there will typically be more body and a degree of sweetness, however subtle that may be. The high alcohol wine will also have a certain warmth on the palate, noted by the heat on your breath.
So if I see on the label that the alcohol degree is low to moderate (generally 12-13%) then I have an idea of the level of body, ripeness, sweetness, and acidity in the wine. If I see it is 14% or more then it should be a full bodied wine with riper flavors, some warmth from the alcohol and a touch of fruit sweetness.
Unfortunately you can’t try wine before you buy it. So you have to use everything you can on the label to get a general idea of how it might taste.
