#brett from boundless

[styusha-10]

Sherlock Holmes was an otherworldly creature indeed. I am no man of superstition, although I vaguely remember my grandmother’s tales of daione sìth. Holmes did not distinctly resemble any of the fair folk, these light, ethereally beautiful golden-haired men and women, and yet somehow he gave the same impression. His smooth, almost catlike movements reminded me of cait-sìth and, in all honesty, during investigations he often was the very picture of a predator pursuing the prey or cat playing with mice. I could easily imagine him in the highlands of my homeland, windy and boundless, as to my mind he had the soul of Scottish winds, but I also understood perfectly well that there was no place for him anywhere except in London, hustling and bustling and pulsating with life, crimes and mysteries.

He was not completely detached from the human world, basically having an excellent understanding of human affections, related to the motives of crimes, such as love or envy, though his knowledge clearly came from prolonged observation rather than from personal experience. He was wise enough to seek my aid when something eluded his understanding, which I prefer to consider as a sign of trust on his part.

He was too theatrical or too aloof at times — traits that I mostly attribute to the eccentricity inherent in genius. He also aged much more slowly than me, but this could easily be associated with our slightly spreading ages and his lack of habit of taking anything too personally, which I am often guilty of. Although in the decade we knew each other, I turned almost half gray, and he remained largely the same, except for a couple of new wrinkles and heavier bags under his eyes.

His voice was the voice of a siren or ben-varrey and he had a natural gift of instantly capturing the attention of everyone in the room with the help of said voice and some kind of internal magnetism, which made people instinctively trust him and obey him.

And yet my favourite of his many noble traits I dedicated myself to immortalise was perhaps his benevolence. With such a mind, such power, it would be too easy to use it for evil, something we had unfortunately seen too many times. His gaze on me which I felt quite often was never heavy or insolent and had not ever bothered me. Clients — those at least who seemed nice and did not irritate him immediately — he treated with kind patience, amiable interest and generous if sometimes mannered hospitality, being rude not out of intention to offend, but simply out of his energetic, eccentric nature.

“I am afraid I have accidentally enchanted you, my dear friend", he suddenly said, somewhat sadly and apologetically, one quiet evening on Baker Street. “That kind of devotion that you show to me cannot be expected from any man under normal circumstances.”

“That kind of devotion,” I thought to myself ruefully later that night, “has nothing in common with sidhe’s enchantments.”

This is my first attempt to capture Jeremy Brett's magnificence, and I feel like I haven't done him justice, so there will probably be other takes. Also first attempt in publishing something on Tumblr and nearly first — in writing in English, so feel free to point out any mistakes.

Following a long and good fandom tradition, I consider Watson to be Scottish, hence the writing of almost all the creatures mentioned in Scots.

The cat-sith, whose existence I learned about unacceptably late and did not change anything much, is hunting in the Scottish wastelands. It has an unhealthy addiction to corpses, so it is recommended to distract him with games and riddles, as well as warmth. Doesn't remind you of anyone? However, while writing, I mostly thought about the classic sidhe, adjusted for, uh, almost everything.

I don't know myself whether he is a magical creature, think what you want. To be honest, being portrayed as a magical creature seems unfair to Holmes as a character — part of his charm for me is precisely the fact that he is human, an outstanding human being.

[adventure-showdown]

What is your favourite Doctor Who story?

The Rescue and The Ice Warriors tied. These are the 10 stories that were closest to making it through and so have been given a second chance

ROUND 2 MASTERPOST

synopses and propagnada under the cut

Marco Polo

Synopsis

Arriving in Central Asia in 1289, the Doctor and his companions join the caravan of the famous Venetian explorer Marco Polo as it makes its way from the snowy heights of the Pamir Plateau, across the treacherous Gobi Desert and through the heart of imperial Cathay.

Propaganda no propaganda submitted

The Keys of Marinus

Synopsis

The TARDIS arrives on the planet Marinus on an island of glass surrounded by a sea of acid. The travellers are forced by the elderly Arbitan to retrieve four of the five operating keys to a machine called the Conscience of Marinus - a machine capable of influencing all minds on the planet - of which he is the keeper. These have been hidden in different locations around the planet to prevent them falling into the hands of the evil Yartek and his Voord warriors, who plan to seize the machine and use its originally benevolent mind-influencing power for their own sinister purposes.

Propaganda no propaganda submitted

The Rescue

Synopsis

The Doctor, Ian and Barbara arrive on the planet Dido. They find a crashed spaceship, the only two survivors of which are terrorised by the monster Koquillion. But who is Koquillion?

Propaganda

god I love this story, its short and sweet, but the implications, the everything of vicki’s life before the doctor, the firey passion with which I hate bennet is boundless, as is my love for sandy. ITS SO GOOD! VOTE FOR IT! (@sandymybeloved )

The Space Museum

Synopsis

The TARDIS jumps a time track and the travellers arrive on the planet Xeros. There they discover their own future selves displayed as exhibits in a museum established as a monument to the galactic conquests of the warlike Morok invaders who now rule the planet. When time shifts back to normal, they realise that they must do everything they can to avert this potential future.

Vicki helps the native Xerons obtain arms and revolt against the Moroks. The revolution succeeds and the travellers go on their way, confident that the future has been changed.

Propaganda no propaganda submitted

The Massacre

Synopsis

The TARDIS materialises in Paris in the year 1572 and the Doctor decides to visit the famous apothecary Charles Preslin. Steven, meanwhile, is befriended by a group of Huguenots from the household of the Protestant Admiral de Coligny. Having rescued a young serving girl, Anne Chaplet, from some pursuing guards, the Huguenots gain their first inkling of a heinous plan being hatched at the command of the Catholic Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici.

Propaganda no propaganda submitted

The War Machines

Synopsis

The TARDIS arrives in London in 1966 and the First Doctor and Dodo visit the Post Office Tower. There they meet Professor Brett, whose revolutionary new computer WOTAN (Will Operating Thought ANalogue) can actually think for itself and is shortly to be linked up to other major computers around the world — a project overseen by civil servant Sir Charles Summer.

Propaganda no propaganda submitted

The Moonbase

Synopsis

The TARDIS arrives in 2070 on the Moon, where a weather control station under the command of a man named Hobson is in the grip of a plague epidemic — in reality the result of an alien poison planted by the Cybermen. Jamie is knocked unconscious and lapses into a delirium, leaving the Second Doctor, Ben, and Polly to fight off a massive Cyberman attack.

Propaganda no propaganda submitted

The Macra Terror

Synopsis

When the Second Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie visit a human colony that appears to be one big holiday camp, they think they have come across a truly happy place. Yet a shadowy presence soon makes them realise that the surface contentment is carefully controlled.

The colony's inhabitants have been brainwashed by giant, crab-like creatures — the Macra. Insidious propaganda, broadcast by the Controller, forces the humans to mine a gas that is essential for the Macra to survive, but fatal to them.

The colony must be saved — but how? The Doctor and his team are up against it, particularly when Ben falls under the influence of the Macra. Can he be rescued from their evil clutches? Can the gas pumping equipment be destroyed, getting rid of the Macra for good?

Propaganda no propaganda submitted

The Ice Warriors

Synopsis

The TARDIS arrives on Earth in a new ice age. The travellers make their way into a base where scientists, commanded by Leader Clent, are using an ioniser device to combat the advance of a glacier.

A giant humanoid creature, called an Ice Warrior by one of the scientists, has been found buried in the nearby glacier. When thawed, it revives and is revealed to be Varga, captain of a Martian spacecraft that landed on Earth centuries ago and is still in the glacier. Varga sets about freeing his comrades and formulating a plan to conquer the Earth — Mars itself is now dead.

 Propaganda no propaganda submitted

The Seeds of Death

Synopsis

The TARDIS lands in a space museum on Earth in the late 21st century, where the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe learn that contact has been lost between Earth and the Moon. In this era, instant travel — T-Mat — has revolutionised the Earth. Its people have lost interest in space travel. The Doctor and his companions travel to the Moon in an old-style rocket and reach the Moonbase, control centre for T-Mat, only to find a squad of Ice Warriors have commandeered the base and plan to use the T-Mat network to their advantage.

Propaganda no propaganda submitted

[cherrylng]

100 Albums To Understand Muse - Part 12 [STYLE Series #004 - Muse (August 2010)]

THE SMITHS Hatful of Hollow (1984) Morrissey's lyrics and quirky verses are laced with literature and sharp humour, while Marr's guitar is subtle and bold. At their core, this was one of the most important UK indie/guitar-pop bands of the 1980s. This album is an edit of early singles AB sides + studio shows, and includes ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’, covered by Muse. -I

THE SOFT MACHINE Volume Two (1969) The second masterpiece by a representative of the Canterbury sound. Songwriter Kevin Ayers left the band and Hugh Hopper joined to create a more experimental jazz-rock sound. The thrilling ‘Hibou, Anemone and Bear’ and the vivid interplay between the various parts is truly exciting. Robert Wyatt's voice is also excellent. -S

SONIC YOUTH Dirty (1992) A lucid alternative rock album by Sonic Youth with Butch Vig of Nevermind (Nirvana), full of sharp sounds in sync with the atmosphere of 1992, with many direct melodies for their work, and recommended as an introduction to Sonics. Ian MacKaye of Fugazi also joined the band. -K

STEVE REICH Music For 18 Musicians (1978) Matthew's 33 dubbing sessions for Glorious were influenced by contemporary music giant Reich. This is a 1976 release, a well-organised ensemble of 18 musicians, including four pianos and four female chorus members, as well as violins, cellos and other stringed instruments. It is minimalist music, but its richness of flavour is boundless. -M

SUEDE Suede (1993) The band drove a wedge between 1992 and 1993 with a series of three sensational singles (included on their debut album) that were steeped in traditional British melancholy and decadence, driving a new wedge into the UK scene at a time when US alternative music was taking the lead. The entwining of the bewitching voice of Brett Anderson and the brilliant, poetic and at the same time passionate guitar of Bernard Butler is a masterpiece. -I

SUN RA Disco 3000 (1978) Although the title says ‘disco’, this is not disco music. It is an improvised, experimental session that defies categorisation and falls into the category of ‘jazz’ but is not orthodox jazz. If you want to listen to this magnificent masterpiece that expresses the universe through sound now, we recommend the two-disc set that includes unreleased audio. -M

SYSTEM OF A DOWN Toxicity (2001) Eccentric mixed metal from an Armenian-American band. Their second album, released in 2001, was their big breakthrough. Singer Serge also invited Muse to join his label and cited Absolution in the shortlist awards, where he was a selector. Matthew, on the other hand, has also acknowledged their influence. -H

30 SECONDS TO MARS A Beautiful Lie (2005) Led by the handsome actor Jared Leto, the band's romantic, emo guitar rock has a lot in common with Muse. On their second album, their biggest hit to date, the band tried their hand at an epic, story-telling concept that could be likened to progressive rock. A series of single hits were released, mainly on US rock radio stations. -H

[alarmalade]

Texas-Louisiana Border Dive Bar

This place is a metaphor for my dysthymia. If everything beautiful is born of wreck, then take me to the salvage yard of my affect. I sit at our booth, waiting for no one. The mortician sits down next to me and explains what happened to the stars: they were shook from the tree of the sky like figs by a heavy wind, and if we climbed up to the roof of the bar, we would see them splayed out there, confused, shaking. I ask him if we should get on the roof and throw them upward, hoping the sky will fetch them. He says all we can do is wait. I hate this sentiment. I’m going to wish upon them, each wish not for the world but for myself, to wind time in the direction of the room where everyone taken early from me sits in a circle of chairs, and someone in the room has just said something so funny we laugh until our sides split and our eyes flood and we become aware of our cheeks and everything outside that room, especially here now, dissolves into cosmic frass.

Texas-Louisiana Border Dive Bar

I’ve been given the key to the boundless pit. I used to think I was better for my suffering. Now I know it ran off with something of mine. The jukebox plays Fast Car. I’ve no plan. Only when I step out into the world, I feel pressure to be more vivid like a surprise lily or a thunderstorm. None of my blood relatives can regulate their emotions. The weather here doesn’t know how anymore either. It’s Whiskey Wednesday, and it will continue to be Whiskey Wednesday until the mortician turns to me and asks if I heard it’s last call.

Texas-Louisiana Border Dive Bar

There’s no ledge for my unwavering bleakness, a place to set it down like a coffee cup between sips, only a table that wobbles for my whiskey neat, and I must mention the water’s pooled so much it’s up to our knees. We don’t say these are the end times anymore. Living through them, we know time is a laugh track, and everything’s a little hurtful in perhaps a comical way. I reach into the water and feel something small, slippery, lift it out: a goldfish, the kind you win at a carnival, the kind that dies the next day. This one still kicks and curls in my hand like a fortune teller miracle fish. I don’t want to know what its movements predict, and nothing is rainbow, rainbow, rainbow, but I let the fish go. They’re cheap, my Dad said about carnival fish, mine at the top of its bowl. You can’t expect them to live.

"Texas-Louisiana Border Dive Bar" by Brett Hanley, featured in West Branch Nov. 2021 issue.

[pastapizza]

10 Fun Websites to Cure Your Boredom Online! 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90jykY63Ssg If you’re bored or just need a break from the mundane tasks in life, there are tons of cool websites that will help you to pass the time. In this video, I will show you 10 fun websites to help you cure your boredom online. Subscribe! ▶ https://www.youtube.com/@BrettInTech Share This Video ▶ https://youtu.be/90jykY63Ssg 10 Fun Websites That Will Cure Your Boredom https://youtu.be/MXJKcwrOpmc 20 Cool Websites to Visit When You’re Bored! https://youtu.be/GJwBSPxdYOM “Useful Websites” Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLunpbmfrhFAUSPVZqT_-ApAq7x8K_IIBN MORE VIDEOS TO WATCH: o 10 Useful AI Tools You’ll Actually Want to Use - https://youtu.be/fLh0ZaLfPjk o 10 Insanely Useful Websites You Didn’t Know Existed! - https://youtu.be/raiK-_aPouo o 10 Amazon Prime Benefits You Might Not Be Using - https://youtu.be/K7mubx6Dbec o Top 10 Best Websites to Learn to Code - https://youtu.be/O3xoyImi35w o Top 10 Best Netflix Original Movies to Watch Now! - https://youtu.be/CdS0S9U7n4o 0:00 Intro 0:05 Compare Cultural Moments in Time 1:35 Jurassic Park Hacking Simulator 1:58 Comedic Blog Website 2:16 Invisible Cow Game 2:55 Trust Game 3:15 Strange Products 3:42 Multilingual Mini-Game 4:05 Test the Strength of Your Passwords 4:33 Asteroids Clone Game 4:52 Gift Yourself an Award 5:26 New Way to Interact with Books 5:52 60-Second Meditation Tool What Came First?: https://ift.tt/xXa3dmO Jurassic Systems: https://ift.tt/3XKQ0Jw Fail Blog: https://ift.tt/S4gtvlY Find the Invisible Cow: https://ift.tt/OZsEwJ7 The Evolution of Trust: https://ncase.me/trust/ Weird or Confusing: https://ift.tt/a8Jsw2c The Passive Aggressive Password Machine: https://trypap.com/ Weglot Like Magic: https://ift.tt/Ol2kDwe Asteroids Clone: https://ift.tt/cKpjTV9 Arbitrary Awards: https://ift.tt/f5azRKt Talk to Books: https://ift.tt/sThop2V Pixel Thoughts: https://ift.tt/NRDBr5s Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrettInTech Facebook: https://ift.tt/yXDZnUI Brett In Tech is a leading source for the technology that we use each day. Whether it’s discussing computer operating system tricks, the latest tips for your mobile phone, finding out about the newest gadgets, or letting you know about fun websites on the internet, Brett In Tech has boundless topics on technology for the astute YouTube viewer.

[arcdirect]

Celebrating Brett's 50th Birthday with good music!!!

Bumpin' Jazz Funk mix

A bunch of jazzy tunes with a couple of tracks produced by brett from boundless in between. Enjoy.

Hut Strut Roots Reggae mix

Heavy Roots Reggae. In the tradition of Cosmic Love Sounds, Atlanta, GA, live at The Hut!!

[luxurysuccess1010]

Five Myths About The News Business

'Snaps' pay for newsrooms.

"The more site hits an article gets, the more cash it can make from sponsors," one industry watcher wrote in 2018. "This dynamic drives stories that get higher traffic as opposed to greater stories." Even today, Google regularly promotes the estimation of the traffic it ships off news distributers from search.

Be that as it may, as internet publicizing advanced to zero in on information and individualized focusing on, a lion's share of those dollars began to stream to Google and Facebook. In addition, tech organizations have come to overwhelm the entirety of the frameworks for selling and conveying advertisements, with the end goal that in any event, when perusers go straightforwardly to a news site, a large part of the promoting income goes to computerized stages and go-betweens. Studies demonstrate that distributers can get as meager as 50 pennies for each dollar spent on promoting on their locales. EMarketer announced that "almost 33% of US promoter spending on automatic presentation advertisements goes to tech and programming mediators." This is an essential explanation distributers have turned to underscore memberships and different types of direct peruser income.

Memberships alone will pay for news coverage.

Tech analyst Ben Thompson has composed that for neighborhood news distributions, "everything must beginning with the plan of action, of which there is just a single decision — memberships." Likewise, media researchers Jennifer Hoewe and Brett Sherrick as of late stated, "If Americans need to get high-caliber, precise data, they should be happy to pay for it."

Furthermore, numerous distributers are effectively pulling in new memberships. The New York Times as of late passed 6 million advanced endorsers, The Washington Post has around 3 million and there has been remarkable development in membership pamphlets. However, there are limits on perusers' ability to pay for all the reporting they require. "Membership exhaustion" is a wonder that obliges the number of sources perusers are happy to pay for. There are likewise numerous wellsprings of announcing — strikingly nearby TV and business radio — that have no set of experiences of direct crowd uphold, even as their substance moves on the web. In addition, there should be genuine worries about "data disparity" if extremely significant news-casting moves behind paywalls and gets unavailable to expansive portions of people in general. In the event that boundless quality reporting is to endure — and contact the individuals who need it most — distributers should get more monetary get back from the tech stages that control admittance to perusers. Music has demonstrated that it is conceivable to have a monetarily reasonable business that additionally makes content generally accessible.

Newsrooms rely monetarily upon inclusion of Trump.

Its an obvious fact that computerized memberships have expanded for some distributers during Trump's residency, yet connection doesn't really rise to causation. There are solid motivations to accept that the public's general interest in news isn't subject to one man. To begin with, the expansion in supporters at some bigger news distributers was brief, and numerous distributers — particularly more modest nearby sources — saw no critical change in endorsers identified with Trump.

In the interim, however the computerized news crowd expanded 12 percent somewhere in the range of 2015 and 2016 gratitude to the "Trump knock," the development has since eased back, staying up with the previous decade. Neighborhood news distributers have likewise observed expansions in computerized endorsers, however generally little of their substance centers around the president.

Very rich people will spare the news business.

In 2014, CNBC asked, "Would billionaires be able to spare the American paper?" A CNN reporter replied: "Impartial very rich person proprietors have had the option to put resources into inheritance titles and assist them with changing carefully, allowing them to contend." Others have contended that "the last trust in papers is for additional hands-off multi-tycoon White Knights to venture up." Mother Jones didn't care for the pattern however believed that "tycoons are the main plan of action left" for papers and magazines.

Very rich people and establishments are putting resources into and developing the absolute most significant media properties on the planet. Jeff Bezos, the organizer of Amazon, is the proprietor of The Washington Post. Medical services business person Patrick Soon-Shiong purchased the Los Angeles Times in 2018. Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff possesses Time magazine. Yet, there essentially aren't sufficient rich benefactors of information to help an entire industry. What's more, direct guide from the ultrawealthy to the news media has zeroed in on public or large city provincial sources. No white knight dipped in to purchase battling nearby papers like the Union Times in South Carolina or the Washburn County Register in Wisconsin — which had to shade this year. Furthermore, even rich proprietors need their news properties to be monetarily self-supporting.

Further, while affluent proprietors don't regularly endeavor to direct news inclusion, we should all need distributers to be as autonomous as conceivable from settled in political and monetary interests. Warren Buffett, who was a drawn out ally of information, wound up selling his chain of generally little market papers. Also, as Jeff Bezos has noted, and Mike Bloomberg featured, claiming a news property can be a "complexifier" for the two proprietors and newsrooms. Financial autonomy is actually the best way to editorial freedom.

'Spotify for news' will protect news coverage.

Some accept that news coverage's burdens can be settled by news aggregators or packaging projects, for example, Apple News or Google News that permit shoppers to get to stories put out by various distributions from a solitary passage point. Like Spotify, such items offer purchasers an all in one resource to pay for an assortment of information at a lofty rebate. As Vox revealed in 2019, Apple pitched its administration to distributers with the guarantee that it would help "spare news-casting." Surveying its perusers, PressGazette recommended that "there might be an undiscovered market for packaged news memberships."

An ongoing Axios report says the news accumulation business is "detonating," giving a striking antithesis to the reference administrations offered by the tech goliaths, which additionally need to corner this market. In any case, this plan of action has not demonstrated monetarily economical. Pay-per-article item Blendle, hasn't had the option to make money and a year ago demonstrated that it was moving ceaselessly from micropayments. Apple News+ had solid beginning numbers (200,000 supporters at $9.99 every month) except then slowed down. Google News gives traffic however little income to distributers. Flipboard, which permits clients to basically make their own computerized "paper" by choosing themes and sources they'd prefer to see, saw its reference traffic drop essentially lately.

Music streaming works in light of the fact that those distributers have a solid solidified permitting framework that permits them to profit by an all inclusive resource for content. However, in spite of a ton of exertion, news accumulation simply hasn't been an answer.

IF YOU WANT TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE FROM HOME WITHOUT ANY INVESTMENT CLICK HERE.

[kalluun-patangaroa]

Coat by Dunhill

MR PORTER

THE LOOK: MR BRETT ANDERSON

October 18, 2011

Photography by Mr Matt Irwin | Styling by Mr Dan May

Words by Mr Dan Cairns

In all these years of sitting down to chew the fat with pop stars, I have never met one quite as sartorially elegant as Mr Anderson. That's not to say he's a flash Harry when it comes to selecting his wardrobe. Today, the Suede front man and one-time dedicated hedonist, who in the band's Britpop-begetting heyday would take to the stage in hipsters and a see-through blouse, is sporting an understated - though almost certainly high-end - black shirt and designer jeans. Far from being foppish and effete, as those early heroin-chic Suede photographs and videos had led me to expect, Mr Anderson in person is tall, tanned, well-built, unselfconsciously masculine and unmistakably groomed. Who knew?

Looking back on my career, lots of people distrusted the band, and especially me. I definitely regret that

The 44-year-old is here to talk about his new solo album, Black Rainbows, which sees the singer return to the sphere of rock for the first time since his brief 2004 reunion with Suede's first guitarist Mr Bernard Butler, as The Tears. Gone are the instrumentally Spartan and lyrically questioning ruminations of Mr Anderson's two previous releases, Wilderness and Slow Attack. Working with Mr Leo Abrahams, he has returned to the sounds and subject matter that first fired his imagination, and captivated fans, when Suede exploded on to the front pages of the music press in 1992, louche, androgynous and feral. One of the best - and most underrated - lyricists of his generation, he scatters fresh gems across the new album, singing of people with "ashtray eyes" and "carpet burns", his Mr Patrick Hamiltonesque skill for shining a light on the seedy underbelly of disappointed lives as sharp as ever.

Combine Black Rainbows' brilliance with last year's thrilling and rapturously received Suede reunion shows and it isn't surprising to find Mr Anderson in such good spirits, chatting over a slice of Bakewell tart and a cup of tea. Gone is the slightly hangdog demeanour of recent years; today, he's beaming. "Looking back on my career," Mr Anderson says, hindsight bestowing its benefits, "the one thing I have regrets about is that I messed around with the media a bit, and did prance about for the cameras, all those kinds of things - which were fun, and very much part of the whole hype maelstrom about Suede at the time. But lots of people distrusted the band, and especially me, as a consequence, and that did drag attention away from the music. So I definitely regret that. But, you know, what can you do? You're 24, last week you signed off the dole, and you're in a studio in the East End having your photo taken for a magazine cover. And that's kind of fun. You really do think, 'Thank f*** for that - this is a more interesting life than the past three years, scraping money together for cat food'."

THE WORK

Mr Anderson's solo album, Black Rainbows, sees the artist return to the sphere of rock for the first time in seven years

The singer admits that, until last year, he had spent many years refusing to engage with his musical past - rather as, before Black Rainbows relit the fire, he had resisted rock music. The reissue of Suede's back catalogue last year and the band's comeback shows forced him to confront it, however. "I've always had this thing," he continues, "of 'Never look back, always move forwards'." Does he feel as if he's competing against his past? "Oh, definitely. But lots of people, if they've made great work, they're always in its shadow, aren't they? For me, it's [the second Suede album] Dog Man Star. My fanbase is always comparing everything I do with that record. And that can become tiring - until the moment when you think, 'Yeah, Dog Man Star is a great album. What can I do about it?' I mean, I can imagine being oppressed by the past in that way, but at least you have made something great, and can use that as a positive. If you've never made something that casts that shadow, surely that's more worrying."

I was very lippy and out there in the early days, but I'm not embarrassed about it; it's very much part of me

Mr Anderson says he has much more perspective now - and affection, even compassion, for his younger self. "I was very lippy and very out there in the early days, but I'm not embarrassed about it; it's very much part of me, and I quite respect it in a funny sort of way. I mean, I don't want to act like that any more, because I have more confidence in myself, in the different sides of myself; but I still respect the fact that I had the guts to do something that stuck out."

He admits he finds the homogenisation of today's alternative music trying, and blames what he calls "the shuffle culture, which has reduced tribalism". "You can listen to a whole host of eclectic music, and that's wonderful in a way, because it means that lots of new bands are boundless in the way they will pilfer from multiple genres. But there was something to be said for being at school and getting beaten up because you liked punk music. That sort of thing gave a real frisson to being a music fan, and gave you a personal badge of identity."

In their prime, Suede's music was sleazy and dangerous - to the point where you could almost smell it. The best moments on Black Rainbows exude the same sense of ambiguity and menace. "That, for me, is what great music is," says Mr Anderson, finishing his cup of tea. "It's about personality rather than proficiency, that feeling that you've got something of the writer left behind when they've left the room." And with that he is off. Gone, maybe - but a trace of Mr Brett Anderson still lingers.

Black Rainbows is out now brettanderson.co.uk

Leather jacket by Givenchy | Shirt by J. Crew

Coat by Alexander McQueen | Shirt by A.P.C.

Shirt by Balenciaga

Leather jacket by Lanvin | Shirt by PS Paul Smith

Shirt by Givenchy | Trousers by J. Crew

[modernknotartists]

Artemus Salas, my brother and co-founder of Modern Knot, wandered off from this mortal coil last Thursday. Not only was he one-third of our original content creators, every of my creative endeavors from 16 - 26 years old was directly involving my man. He was the very first person who told me that I should be rapping. 

We started Innermitten Music, the first rap group I ever recorded with, in 2001, in the literal wake of multiple deaths within our friend group. It was started in the spirit of brotherhood and friendly competition, giving us an ego-safe space to explore lyrical ability and transparency. Real talk, I don’t know if anyone ever matched him in his ability to clearly convey complex, emotionally-rooted ideas. As McBride, Kase, Menace, QRST, he found an outlet to process unthinkable trauma and express the boundless love he had for both his blood and adoptive families. This man wore his heart on his beautifully inked sleeve.

I truly hope my friend finds the peace in death that he never could in life. I hope his family can find peace and hope in that notion. My heavy heart goes out to his daughter, to his mother, and to all of his adoptive brothers and sisters. This man had the longest hugging arms in the game, and I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve felt those long arms embracing us all at once over the past few days. I know he didn’t want this to hurt like it does, but if my grief can be traded for his relief, I’m not the least bit reluctant to make that trade. I don’t say that lightly; this man will be so fucking missed.

Very soon, I will be making a collection of our recorded works available for download and streaming. Until then, I will be turning the bottle all the way upright to this jam. I love you brother. Give Steve, Brett, Kieth, Matt, Mike and everybody else our love. Tell them we miss them.

[awesomelephuoclocblog-blog]

Pixamattic Review – Produce Unique Visual Content To Instantly Attract Buyers

https://lephuocloc.com/pixamattic-review/

Pixamattic Review

PRODUCE UNIQUE VISUAL CONTENT TO INSTANTLY ATTRACT BUYERS

Presentation

These days, nothing on the web gets more idea than mouth-watering visual plans.

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[atqh16]

Set Precedents

Matt Murdock & Franklin “Foggy” Nelson

Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Fix-it, Also me screwing it up, two parter.

AO3

Foggy came into the world with all intents and purposes, to be the best version of himself that he could be. He didn't always have the self confidence or unwavering faith in himself to take the risks that he needed to to get there. And in a way that was what Matt was to him. Inspiring, confident, boundless, almost flighty in how he always flew too close to the sun, always trusting that he could be near enough to never get burned. Always trusting that his wings would take him as high as he wanted and never thinking for a second about how much it would hurt to fall. And he fell and it had hurt and Foggy hurt with him because why had he not tried harder to warn him? Why he he not tried harder to call him back? Why had he not tried harder to ground him when he saw the sun beginning to peak behind the clouds. But Matt had fallen and even worse was that no one had caught him and Foggy had to watch him beat back at every helping hand that came to close and somehow that hurt worst because a grounded Matt was one Foggy had never known. Had never earned the apprehension to meet. And Foggy had tried his best to help him fly again. To help him from making decisions that would ground him for the rest of his life.

"Did you tell Brett that I was planning to kill Fisk?" Foggy chokes on his beer, placing it back on the coffee table with his pizza slice and tries really hard not to look and feel guilty. "I may have hinted that a mutual friend might do something he would regret" He waits for the outburst. The bridled anger behind curled fists and stiff shoulders. The indignation that Foggy had the audacity to meddle in his life, his choices, his integrity. As if Foggy hadn't thrown his chips in with the lot the second Matt had turned up to their dorm room and fate decided they would be best friends for the next half of a decade through all the bad career decisions, homicidal life choices and grief over assumed deaths. Foggy holds his breath in anticipation for the next tense argument that might have Matt be the one to storm out of the apartment this time. Because just because he was back or they had worked together again and were planning to in the future didn't mean that Matt would start to understand why Foggy felt the way he did about the Masked Man being his best friend. Even if Foggy himself had made it clear that he would try to understand why he did it in the first place. In all honesty it wasn't that Foggy didn't understand his best friends motives or that Matt wasn't trying to understand his. It's that Foggy still couldn't accept that Matt might get himself hurt. Would probably get himself caught or killed and that Hell's Kitchen didn't have a right to demand Matt take the risks he did to make it a better place. But instead he understood and accepted that Matt wanted to take the risks in the first place. That he wanted to be what the city needed and that it was already too much a part of him for Matt to let go without clamping his teeth down and keep on flying ever closer to the sun because that's where he truly felt alive. Where he truly felt like he was what he had been born to be.   But was it really so hard to understand that it was difficult for Foggy to bear the fear or seeing his best friend fall again? To sleep nights where Matt visited him bloody and broken and possibly wake up mornings where Matt was six feet under and rotting. Was it so hard to understand that Foggy didn't want to lose Matt not only to deaths waiting hands but also to the abyss that was the mask should it swallow him with its rage and cynicism and utter lost of faith that the laws they've worked so hard to uphold truly mattered as little as flimsy wet parchment. Was it so hard to understand that Foggy didn't want to lost his best friend? So he waits with a thumping beat in his chest only to be surprised when Matt turns to him with a sigh instead of a huff. "I'm not mad at you Foggy", he says. Swirling the almost empty content of his beer bottle in his hand in absent minded swirls. "To be honest I'm sort of grateful you did" There's a beat of silence and..... "Jesus Christ Matt, the next time you wanna express your gratitude can you not make it look and sound like you're about to bite my head off?!" That has Matt letting out a chuckle. It's easy, relaxed. In a way it hasn't been between them for a while now. "Well with all the head biting you've done on my part I figured you deserved a little bit of suspense" "Ha.Ha. You're hilarious. I think stand up might be a calling for you", Foggy takes a swig from his beer, his own mildly frailed nerves starting to calm. "So what changed?" He prompts. The atmosphere between them familiar enough now that he knows this is territory he's allowed to walk on. That this was more of an invitation from Matt than he'll ever get. Matt lets out an amused hum, "After what happened- with Electra, midland circle, Fisk, you and Karen coming back despite everything", the last part he adds in a gentle quiet tone, "I think it sort of hit me how much you've always grounded me. How you've Always sort of made sure I never went too far. I know I've always... I'm not...", He hesitates. Foggy wonders if Matt is trying to hold back the urge to look away. This is strange grounds he knows, for Matt to bring up his flaws unprompted and without prodding. It has nothing to do with ego but instead a sense of self preservation. Of being gaslighted your whole life into believing that showing weakness meant that you weren't worth being cared for. To be noticed and seen. It was bad enough that his blindness was something he could never hide and instead had to manoeuvre around in order to live his life. But it was worse when people tended to realise that the whole charming duckling and confident facade was in fact a facade. A way for him to feel like he has something over others that they could never take. A sense of assurance over who he is and what he was, stupid decisions be damned. He owns up to them. Doesn't let them tear him down. He can't. But foggy has never gawked at his flaws or treated him differently for it. Has never even seen his blindness as a handicap that made Matt difficult, just different. To him it was simply having a friend who had to live in the world a little differently but ultimately it didn't make him a hindrance, merely something to be understood and treated as a person undefined by it. Foggy has always tried to see him for who he is. He realised in the past few weeks that he had never appreciated that enough. So he looks Foggy straight in the eyes -or tries his best to- and takes a deep breath "I know I haven't been the most reliable friend lately. That I've been taking risks and decisions that i didn't think through about how it would effect you and the firm. Especially after you trusted me enough to be your partner and be daredevil at the same time. I just wanted you to know that I do appreciate it. That you trust me but you still hold out a net anyway because you still can't take the chance the I might get hurt. I get it. And I'm grateful" The urge to duck his head after that speech somehow intensifies but the need melts away when he feels Foggy life his arm to clasp his shoulder in a reassuring grip. As if he could somehow tell Matt in that simple touch how much he did it not only because he cared - because Foggy always cared so much for his friends even if they didn't deserve it- but also how Matt was worth caring for regardless of what he thought. "Thank's buddy. But no need to thank me. It's what family's for" And that right there is what makes Foggy so dear. That even when he's angry or upset. Even when he disagrees with Mats decisions he's still there. Still willing to embrace Matt with all his might and reassure him that he still belonged. That he still had a home no matter what. Because if Matts a bird and the sun is what he chases, then Foggy is the air and wind that lifts him ever higher. Pushing him even when his wings tire and pulling him down when the flares burn to harshly and most importantly always pushing him forward. And then Foggy dies and suddenly there's nothing left to keep him afloat.

[meireviewproduct]

SHOPLLY REVIEW

Home: https://mei-review.com/shoplly-review/

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[seanpatricklittlewriter]

The Final Blog Post of 2020

Greetings, friends. It has been a while. 

I think, as it has been for so many of us, 2020 is going down as a year where I accomplished pretty much nothing.I had big things planned for 2020, as I am sure a lot of you did, and they just… did not happen. Most of the downhill slide started in March, when I accepted a third-shift job. My body did not respond well to working third shift, and it sapped me of just about any will do to anything. I spent my days asleep, and my nights hovering through a weird twilight state where I was awake and doing things, but I was not happy about it. On my days off, I could barely function, and I started getting little fits of narcolepsy. After a doctor’s appointment, I mentioned these issues, and the doctor told me that someone who has the sort of thyroid and metabolic conditions that I have should not work third shift because it throws my whole system into whack. 

So, I’m looking for a new job, a better job (hopefully), and something that I actually look forward to doing. If nothing else, I’ve learned that money isn’t as important as actually enjoying your work.But, with this job, and the pandemic, of course, all my routines were knocked out and I have been struggling to figure out a new routine. I used to be able to write at home back when I lived in rented apartments. Since I bought a home, I’ve found it difficult. There is always something around the house that needs doing. I found a refuge at my local Culver’s restaurant. I’d go in, get a diet Mt. Dew to drink, and kick over 3-5 hours in my favorite booth grinding out pages. Now, with that not exactly being a favorable option, my writing output has decreased to almost nothing. A sentence here. Maybe a page or two, if I was lucky. The inability to generate a solid routine has made the story harder to solidify in my mind. So, it’s been a rough year is what I’m saying. 

I’m still kicking, though.

As is traditional, I like to list a few things that I found that brought me some joy this year and share them with you, as maybe you might like them, too.

Movies:

--I have not watched a ton of movies this year. The last movie I saw in a theater was “1917,” which I enjoyed greatly. It was an excellent WWI film, and the fact that they made it look like it was done in a single take was a masterstroke. It was beautifully filmed, and almost every frame could be a painting. Well worth the time. 

I also just watched “Soul” on Disney+. There was a lot reminiscent of “Inside Out” in “Soul,” but “Soul” was a much quieter, more existential film. I liked it a lot, but it wasn’t one of Pixar’s best outings. 

I watched George Clooney’s “The Midnight Sky” the other day. It was a long, dreadfully slow, and ultimately pointless film. I did not care for it. Most of the other films I’ve watched this year were fairly forgettable. 

They were titles on streaming services that have been out a few years, but never generated a lot of noise. 

Television: 

I watched a ton of television this year. What the hell else was I going to do, right? I’m sure most of you are in the same boat. Anyhow, I have long believed that TV has become superior to films in the last few years. Better characters, better stories, and the time to tell those stories. I prefer episodic television to just about anything film has given us in the past few years, so here’s what I was watching this year.

--“19-2” (purchase four season on Amazon Prime):  If you’ve watched “Letterkenny” on Hulu, then you must be familiar with Jared Keeso, who plays the central character Wayne. Keeso won some awards for a Canadian cop drama called “19-2” before he made “Letterkenny,” and I can understand why. This is a fairly dark, but realistic cop drama about the 19th Precinct in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and deals with the new guy (Keeso) transferring into the precinct from a small town and dealing with his new partner (Adrian Holmes) and the rest of the flawed members of the station in addition to dealing with policing duties around the city. One thing I liked about the series is that it never got away from the day-to-day grind of policing in a big city. The characters’ story arcs had to be worked in around the calls and patrols. The first episode of the second season of “19-2” deals with the precinct responding to a school shooting. It is, by far, one of the finest hours of television I’ve ever seen. Chaotic and hurried, brutal and bloody. It’s everything that keeps your eyes glued to the set. There were only 38 episodes of “19-2,” but I could have watched another four seasons of it. It supplanted “The Shield” as my favorite cop drama. Well worth the time.

--“The Queen’s Gambit” (Netflix): I’m not going to add anything original to this that hasn’t already been written by other people. This highly lauded limited series was well-written and acted, and it actually made competitive chess interesting. Anna Taylor-Joy was excellent in the lead role, and the costumes and sets were fantastic.

--“The Uncanny Counter” (Netflix): My mother watches an insane amount of South Korean TV shows. I don’t know why. She is the butt of many jokes because of this. However, “The Uncanny Counter” is a pretty cool series that feels like an indie comic book. The premise is a group of Grim Reapers run a noodle shop and fight demons. However, the show is much more complex than that. The characters’ stories are all intertwined in odd ways, and it’s very watchable. 

--“Hospital Playlist” (Netflix): Another show my mother suggested was the sappy, and almost twee hospital show “Hospital Playlist.” This show is a fairly soft, airy, and cute little hospital drama about five doctors who have been friends since medical school. They’re all heads of their respective departments now, and they work at the Yulje Medical Center. While the show centers around the five main characters, there’s a whole slate of other doctors and interns who add to the story. Inevitably, the show is about life, love, and death—like any other hospital drama. However, the core group of friends also get together once a week and play music to relax, so there is a cutesy pop song at the end of the episodes that plays into a montage of that week’s story wrapping up. The characters in the show are very likeable, and that’s about the best thing this show has going for it. Each episode is like 90 minutes, and there are 12 episodes in the first season, but I watched them all, and I hate to admit it, but I’m interested in seeing what season 2 will bring.

--“Upload” (Amazon Prime): Greg Daniels of “The Office” fame created and produced this series about the Singularity, a hypothetical point in the future when we will be able to merge our consciousness with a computer, and thus physical death will mean we have a chance to live a digital afterlife where we can still interact with our loved ones on the earthly plane through VR. The show is funny and extremely intelligent. It’s satire and commentary wrapped up in a solid existential premise. 

--“Star Trek: Discovery” season 3 (CBS All Access): I’m not going to write a ton about ST:Disco, but I will say that season 3 is the first season that felt like “Star Trek” to me. It’s one of the few shows that I have actually looked forward to week-to-week.

--“The Mandalorian” season 2 (Disney+): Like ST:Disco, this is one of the few shows I actually looked forward to. The first couple of episodes felt like the series was in a bit of a rut, but the last three episodes made it all worthwhile. Total fanboy moments abounded. 

--“Ted Lasso” (Apple+TV): Strangely enough, a sitcom based on a single-premise joke from a series of Superbowl ads from a couple years ago is, hands-down, my favorite new show of 2020. Jason Sudeikis of SNL fame plays Ted Lasso, the former head coach of the Wichita Shockers college football team who is hired to be the head coach of FC Richmond, a Premier League Football team in England. Initially Ted is hired by the new owner of Richmond, who happened to have won the team from her ex-husband in a messy divorce. Her initial goal is to have Ted unknowingly destroy the team, but Ted’s boundless optimism and true concern and care for his players flips the script. This is the show that 2020 needed. It is funny and joyous, and it’s another feather in Bill Lawrence’s (Scrubs, Spin City, etc…) cap. I watched this show out of a sense of loyalty to Bill Lawrence, but I ended up LOVING it. The fact that Apple renewed “Ted Lasso” for two more seasons immediately is very telling about how good this show was. Highly, highly recommend.

Music: 

I barely listened to anything new this year. Not many bands I liked came out with a new record, and I was usually listening to podcasts or watching TV instead. However, there were two albums that came out year that I would note.

--Kyle Kinane, “Trampoline in a Ditch”: Kinane’s newest stand-up album, recorded in Madison, Wis., is a fun jaunt through Kinane’s weird sense of humor and excellent writing style. This record had me and my daughter laughing out loud on the day it came out, and I’ve listened to it several times since. Kinane’s writing is so good, I pick up subtle jokes on additional listenings. 

--Brett Newski, “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down”:  Milwaukee Dork Rocker Newski put out another solid album this year. Check out the video for “Wha’d Ya Got to Lose?”

Podcasts:

Spent a ton of time listening to podcasts at my third shift job. I’m not going to write a ton about them individually, but here’s the list of the podcasts that got the most listens from me:

--Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing, Colossal Podcast --Fake Doctors, Real Friends --Timesuck --Scared to Death --Office Ladies --Unexplained --Lore --Cabinet of Curiosities --Haunted Locations

Books:

I probably read the fewest books I’ve read in ages this year. I’m usually good for 20-40 books a year, and this year—I just did not get there. I maybe read 12 books this year, and that bothers me. I just could not focus on reading. However, much of what I did read, I enjoyed. The best of those are as follows: --Craig Johnson, “Next to Last Stand” --CJ Box, “Winterkill” --Joe Ide, “IQ” --Sebastien de Castell, “Crownbreaker” --Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, “Crooked River” Anyhow, I hope some of those media suggestions will bring you some joy. We sure could all use some in 2021, no doubt. In the meantime, do continue to stay safe and healthy. Take precautions. Don’t throw caution to the wind. My plans for 2021:  --Lose weight (as usual) --Finish the second Abe & Duff novel --Maybe finish another of the several novels on my desktop --Get a job I don’t hate --Make it to 2022 Here’s to hoping I have some good news about Abe & Duff in 2021. Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year. --Sean 

[wineanddinosaur]

VinePair Podcast: American Wine Has Boundless Potential

American wine has never been in a better place. Wine is now being made in all 50 states, and the map of exceptional wine regions has expanded well beyond California. From Virginia to Michigan, New Mexico to New York, Texas to Idaho, American grape growers and winemakers are finding exciting new sites for viticulture and, in many cases, unfamiliar varieties that are greatly expanding the boundaries and potential for domestic wine.

On this week’s VinePair Podcast, Adam Teeter and Zach Geballe are joined by VinePair tastings director Keith Beavers to give an overview of the current landscape of the American wine industry in conjunction with VinePair’s American Wine Month. They discuss the emerging wine regions in Paso Robles, the Columbia Gorge, and the Great Lakes, and ponder what America’s love of wine tourism will mean for these regions and others moving forward.

Listen Online

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Or Check Out the Conversation Here

Adam: From the Ritz Cracker display at Publix, I’m Adam Teeter. You don’t get it? But no, really from Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter

Keith: From Brick City, I’m Keith Beavers

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, very confused, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair Podcast. Zach, how are you confused? They had a press conference last weekend where Rudy Giuliani came live from the Four Seasons Total Landscaping instead of the Four Seasons Hotel.

Z: I guess…

A: So I’m coming live from the Ritz Cracker display instead of the Ritz Carlton.

Z: I got you. I feel like we’re like a week and a half late on this joke, though.

A: No, I think it’s good. I still think it’s hilarious. We’ll have to wait to see what it sounds like to the listeners, but anyways guys, so this podcast is all about American Wine Month. The month at VinePair, we’re devoting to all things U.S- made wine. I really want to thank our sponsors Virginia Wine, CakeBread Cellars, Domaine Carneros, and 3 Girls.

And I’m excited to talk to both of you about wine. Keith is our guest host, VinePair’s tasting director, for this week. But before we jump into that, we’ve been doing a pretty fun segment at the top of the show every week now about what everyone’s been drinking recently. I’m assuming you guys have been drinking some dope shit as of what happened last week. So Keith, what about you first?

K: Well, some dope shit is correct, Adam. Well, you know, American Wine Month at VinePair, I’ve been deep, deep, deep into American wine. And I’m really excited. I love Virginia wine, and I’ve been tasting some seriously great Virginia wine, and a lot has been sent to us. And it was kind of great. On Saturday, after the big announcement, I sat and drank a bottle of Jefferson Cabernet Franc from the area in which Thomas Jefferson allocated vineyard space, south of Monticello, to actually try to make America a wine-growing nation. And somebody came and they bought the property and they’re doing great things, and it’s just an amazing, beautiful Cabernet Franc so it kind of made sense. And I listened to the Jimmy Hendrix “Star-Spangled Banner” while I was drinking it.

A: Sweet. Zach, what about you, man?

Z: Well, I’ve also been on the American wine train, as I often am. And I think for me this past week, it was a lot of Willamette Valley Chardonnay. So Pinot Noir in the Willamette gets a lot of press, obviously. It’s by far what’s most widely grown and made there, but I’ve been really excited about Chardonnay from the Willamette and in particular a bottle from a producer called Cooper Mountain. Their old-vines Chardonnay, which I think date back to the late ’70s, some of the oldest Chardonnay plantings in the Willamette that are still in use and it was f****** delicious. So, I didn’t pair it with any music, Keith, I’m sorry. Well, pretty much all that gets played in my house these days are the songs my 2-year-old is obsessed with. So unless you really want to know how well Willamette Valley Chardonnay pairs with songs about bucket trucks and skid-steers, that’s another podcast.

A: Please, tell us more. So for me, that Saturday was a day I busted out the top stuff. And I’d had this bottle of Champagne in my house for a while and we just said, f*** it. So I opened a bottle of 2006 Pierre Jouët Belle Epoque Blanc de Blanc and it was awesome. ‘Cause I went out into the park in Fort Greene. Spike Lee was DJing, which was amazing. There was like a crazy amount of energy. And we just sat in the park myself, my wife Naomi, and Josh, who co-founded VinePair with me.

And we just drank the wine and it was really fun to watch everyone. And then people were sharing, you know, glasses and passing stuff back and forth. We had other things, too, but that was like the bottle that we popped first. You know, and it was just, you know, really memorable. And we actually, like, we brought coupes out with us.

It’s like whatever, let’s go full agro here. Just bring the glassware. And it was awesome. I mean, it was just a lot of fun, so that was, that was the most memorable thing I drank last week. Although I will say there was one other amazing experience I had, which was earlier in the day, actually that morning before everything got called, and this is why I was with Josh because I live in Brooklyn and Josh lives in Manhattan, so we don’t normally just find ourselves together when a random event like this occurs and everyone just decides to run out to somewhere and start drinking. But we had a meeting in the morning with Brian, this amazing entrepreneur who founded the sake distillery in Brooklyn called Brooklyn Kura, which now has pretty quickly over the past few years become known as the best Sake distillery outside of Japan. Sorry, sake brewery, and I’d never been to a sake brewery before, actually.

And first of all, the sakes were really delicious, but again, what do I know? I think they were very delicious. I enjoyed them, but I very easily admit that I don’t know a lot about sake, but these pleased my palate. And it was really cool to watch the process until I go back in the back with him and sort of understand how they’re actually making sake. Have either of you ever been to a sake brewery before?

K: No.

Z: I have, yeah, there’s one down in Oregon that I’ve been to.

A: It’s so interesting to watch what they’re doing. I didn’t realize how many people now are making more artisanal styles. Like, growing more artisanal-style rices in certain parts of the country. There’s a lot of really cool rice coming out of Arkansas, which I never would have thought of, and it was cool to watch. They don’t have the machine there that actually refines the rice. They’re actually able to still take advantage of the fact that there’s a lot of commercial sake distilleries in California. He was explaining all this stuff that we’re used to as Americans that sort of turned us off of sake, like the really warm sake bomb-type stuff.

None of that’s made in Japan. That’s all being made by Japanese companies, but in California, which I also didn’t know. But they have all these facilities where they can refine the rice. So they sell them to other people. But then there’s this one guy who he said is a little nuts, out of Chicago or maybe Indiana who’s started to set up his own sake place as well. And he went and bought his own refining machine. So he’ll take some of the more artisanal stuff and then sell them back to people like Brooklyn Kura.

K: This is insane.

A: It’s crazy. But then they soak the rice forever in water which I didn’t realize. And then the thing I didn’t realize is then they cook the rice and then they let a mold grow on it, and it’s actually the mold that creates the sugars that allows the fermentation.

Z: It’s really cool, too, because it’s like this weird kind of simultaneous fermentation. Well, not really two fermentations, but the Koji is producing the sugar out of the starch of the rice at the same time as yeasts are fermenting the sugar. So as you maybe saw some in-process as I have, it absolutely does not look like something you would want to ingest. It’s horrifying.

A: No, it doesn’t. Yeah. It’s literally like they’re just letting mold grow on rice and then when they go to brew it, it then comes out the way that it is, but he also had us taste some wild stuff. So first of all, another thing I didn’t realize was that sake doesn’t really age. He said that it can, but not in a way that you would think about with wine or things like that. Once it’s basically a cold temperature, it is what it is. He said there’s some funk, there’s some people doing some stuff in Japan where they are letting it sit for years and years. And it just changes. It just may not be the thing that everyone wants to drink. I kind of think it becomes a thing where like at the same time now people have a taste for Brett and stuff. It’s like, you get a taste for that kind of like weird funk that develops after the sake gets old. There’s definitely like a small population of sake drinkers that like that, but not a huge group. But that was super interesting to understand. And then they actually dry-hopped sake. And he poured it for us. And I literally thought that I was drinking liquid grapefruit juice. It was the craziest thing I’d ever tasted. And it was pink because it pulls out the colors from the hops, which is weird because hops are green, but for whatever reason, it ends up a pinkish-orange color, and they almost sell it as a rosé. And then of course they’re doing other stuff too. Like they’re making like a Pét-Nat sake. I was like, here we go.

Z: You really were in Brooklyn.

A: Yeah. I was in Brooklyn. I was in Industry City. But yeah, just shout out to them ‘cause they’re doing really cool stuff, and I thought it was delicious.

K: What was the alcohol on the dry-hopped?

A: It was like 12 percent or something like that. 12, 14. So, I mean it’ll hit you, but not in the way that other things will, it was very tasty.

I was very impressed and they’re of course trying to make sakes that they’re not encouraging you to then use as a spirits substitute for cocktails and stuff. Their whole goal is to have you drink the sake as it is. And also their big push, too, is to take it out of the American idea that you’re supposed to have it in those little short sake glasses. They obviously serve theirs in wine glasses and in smaller ones, more like what you would think of a white wine or something at a wedding. That’s kind of the way I think of what glass size they use. But he explained to me, too, where the small sake glass comes from, and it has nothing to do with aromas or anything like that. It’s that in Japanese culture, the more you’re serving the guests, the more pleasure it gives you. And so if it’s a smaller vessel, you have to serve your guests more often. And so that’s the only reason the sake glass is small, because we would constantly be refilling your person’s glass. And so that’s you showing yourself as being a very good host. But of course, Americans, as Brian joked, we see that glass and we’re like, “Sweet! It’s a shot.” We just throw it back. But yeah.

Z: This has been super interesting and I look forward to next year’s American sake month.

A: I know. Totally. But yeah, thanks Zach. You didn’t get the Ritz Cracker joke, now you’re just hating on my sake stuff.

Z: No, no I’m just saying let’s transition.

A: Well, yeah, let’s talk about American Wine Month. So I mean, all of us, we’re from different parts of the country. I mean I lived in the South for awhile. Then went to school in the South and moved up here. Zach you’re from the Northwest and then obviously went to school in New York. Keith’s from all over. Maryland, New York. So we’ve all sort of traveled a lot. And I think what’s really interesting about the United States is that first of all, as we know, there’s bonded wineries in all 50 States. As we noted, Zach, before we started the podcast, just being a bonded winery doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re making wine from vinifera, but they are making some sort of wine. But there’s really cool stuff happening all over the country. And I think what’s so exciting about it, is that it shows it’s not just about three or four of the regions that probably everyone knows. And there’s really amazing stuff coming from everywhere. And I guess my question to both of you guys to just start this is: Is there such a thing as American wine? What do you think American wine is? If someone said to you American wine, what would you immediately think of?

K: For me, I believe American wine is wine made from grapes that are not from here, by people that are not from here. We all came from somewhere else to be here, unless you’re an indigenous culture. And I think that American wine for me is defined by the ability to grow vines that are meant for the soils in which they’re grown in. And the wine is made in such a skillful way that it represents that area, whether it’s a Viognier, whether it’s Petit Manseng, whether it’s Cab Franc, whether it’s Grüner Veltliner, it doesn’t matter. In Texas they’re doing Tempranillo, and people dig it, but they’re also making fruit wine, you know? So I see American wine as this sort of Wild West mentality, but now finally with more information about science and technology, focusing more on the soil, more on where we grow grapes, why it’s good to grow them there. And then, making good wine. So that’s how I see it. And we’re not done yet. The Petaluma Gap in Sonoma was awarded in 2017. In Washington State, I just found out two weeks ago, two more AVAs were awarded in the Columbia Valley. So we’re still working on it, but I think that’s kind of what defines it to me.

Z: Yeah. And I think Keith you capture a really important piece here, which is what I often think about as well, which is this idea of — whether you want to use the Wild West metaphor — or to me, it’s just this idea that there was no existing wine culture in this country in terms of growing or consuming until quite recently. And some of what did exist was wiped out by Prohibition and it was slow to recover. And what’s been really exciting for me about American wine is that we are now at a place with the industry where it’s so much more developed and mature than it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. So that not everyone has to feel like they have to make a wine that refers to Europe. I mean, yes, the varieties, the cultivars, the clones, and of course the species itself is European in nature, but we are not necessarily seeing wine regions in the United States feel too confined by established European styles by saying, “Oh, well in Bordeaux, they plant these X number of varieties, and so those are the only things we can plant here.” Obviously you still see a lot of that. I don’t mean that those wines have disappeared. Of course they’re still very popular and rightfully so, but you do see experimentation with all kinds of different varieties and people saying, “Well, why can’t I grow a Spanish variety and a French variety and an Austrian variety and a Croatian variety all in my vineyard? I think they’ll work here. I want to make wines that are of these various styles or from these varieties. And I can do that.” And that’s a freedom that just does not exist in most other places. Few other places in the new world have similar spirits, but here in the U.S. we have this almost endless amount of land that could be potentially converted to viticulture, should someone want to do it.

A: Yeah, I think that’s true. I think the other thing that makes American wine so interesting is that this country is just so big. Every state is almost its own country. So, what works in the Finger Lakes may not necessarily work in Texas. But that’s OK  because there’s other things that can work. And I think the thing that started to define American wine for me, which I really like, is that over the last decade, two decades even, there’s become less of a focus by a lot of the really top producers — and then everyone else has followed — of having to make a wine in America that tastes like a wine from the Old World. It’s like no, the Cabernet from Napa tastes like Cabernet from Napa. There’s less of that now. I remember even early on in my wine journey, I would go to the North Fork and the winemaker would say like, yeah, we’re really going for a Right Bank Bordeaux. And now you don’t hear that as much here. Why aren’t we saying no, this is a North Fork wine, right? This is what it is. And becoming more confident that, yes, we can take the grapes from Europe and the wines don’t have to be copies of the wines from Europe to be considered high quality and to be considered best in class and all of those things. They can be their own thing.

K: And what’s cool about that is the fact that what we did was, in trying to emulate European wine, we created our own styles. Which is really kind of cool. I mean, I know the meritage thing never really took where, you know, in California there was this word called meritage. And if you had a meritage if you used all the Bordeaux varieties and stuff, but we ended up making our own stuff and created our own style, which is really awesome.

A: Totally.

Z: Yeah. And I think actually to the point that you were making, Adam, as well, I think even more excitingly now, not only do you not hear wineries, and wine producers, wine regions say, “Oh yes, our wines are comparable to the wines of ‘pick your French region of choice.'” But even something like Napa, which is obviously an American wine region, I don’t even hear as many wineries, say, “Oh, we’re making a Cabernet like a Napa Cab.” There is a real understanding that what makes a lot of these parts of the country that are growing grapes and making wine so exciting is that they are their own thing. And yes, there’s going to always be some similarities. I mean, to some extent the character of each of these varieties or blends is going to show through, but it’s cool that whether you’re in Virginia, or Washington, or Oregon, or Texas, or Arizona, or any other place, I think the more that producers in those places can be comfortable saying, “We think we’re making a wine that’s really representative of this place and of these varieties of this place, of this vintage.” Those are the wines that I think all of us get excited about. And the wines that are harder to get excited about are someone who’s trying to make a replica of something that already exists. I mean, yeah. If you can make a wine that tastes like Château Margaux and it’s way cheaper, I guess that’s cool. But really the most exciting thing for me is to make a wine that is clearly and interestingly of the place it’s from. And this country has a lot of interesting, cool places. As you mentioned, Adam, it’s this incredibly vast country with incredibly different geology, climates. All these things that make for incredibly remarkable wine regions. And we’re just still scratching the surface. I mean, Keith, you mentioned how there’s new AVAs being awarded all over. And I mean, I was excited to see that Hawaii has now petitioned for its first AVA. The only wine I’ve ever tried from Hawaii is a pineapple wine, which was actually kind of good. But this is vinifera to be clear. But I think that’s super exciting and like, we don’t know. There’s all kinds of possibilities still out there. And the cool thing about wine is that it rewards exploration and experimentation and taking a chance. Of course, not all of them will work out, but there’s always that possibility.

A: My question to you guys is, over the last decade, we’ve seen new regions in Europe that have always existed, but have popped really big in the U.S. and more money has flooded in. So I’m thinking about, for example, like the Jura right? All of a sudden, a bunch of somms are talking about it and it was everywhere. Sicily, specifically Etna. And then all of a sudden, now you have Burgundy producers buying land there. You have Barbaresco and Barolo producers buying land there. What do you guys think? If there was a region that you think was going to pop next in the U.S. and you think, “Oh my God, this is the region that’s going to pop. And every single person is going to realize how great it is, and there’s gonna be money flooding in there.” Is there one or could you think of one?

K: Yeah. I mean, what’s cool about Washington State is it seems to be a really big — what is it, the second largest wine-producing region in the country? And there’s been some very significant investments there starting from back in the day. And I think we’re already seeing investment in Virginia. So to think of a brand new space —

A: No. I’m not saying brand new because you look and Etna existed forever, right? It just, all of a sudden, who knows what it was? It was someone saying like, “Oh my gosh, these are like Burgundy. And all of a sudden, everyone just started dumping money. Right? And it became the thing people were talking about. I’m just wondering, what are a few regions in the U.S. we think that there could be or, maybe there isn’t yet. Maybe there is, I agree with you that the thing I think is most ripe for it is Washington. And that’s honestly just because for whatever reason, Zach might think I’m kissing his a** right now. But for whatever reason, like that stage has flown under the radar for a really long time for no explainable reason.

Z: Allow me to explain why.

A: Please, because the explanation I’ve always heard is that Oregon just got there first or whatever, and people start talking about the Pinot Noirs, and people just forgot that Washington was there, but I’m sure there’s a better explanation than that.

Z: Well, I think that the biggest thing that’s changed about the wine industry in my time in it, and the way that consumers tend to think, is one of the things that worked against Washington for a long time was that it had no clear cut variety or style of wine that was the signature. And there’s certainly plenty of famous and highly priced Washington Cabernets and Cabernet-based blends. Pre-“Sideways,” there was a lot of emphasis on Merlot and I think Washington Merlot is actually really an exciting wine, for sure. But the strength of Washington is almost like the strength of the U.S. in a microcosm. It’s the diversity and it’s all the different things that can be made. And we’ve only, I think just in the last few years reached a place where in the American wine market, there’s actual interest in a lot of different kinds of wines, a lot of different varieties, a lot of different styles.

And so there are still the diehard “I only drink Pinot Noir. I only drink Cabernet. I only drink Chardonnay” folks, but most wine people that I meet these days or talk to, they’re interested in trying something new. And that’s where I think Washington has an incredible possibility, which is to say, “Hey, we are growing over a hundred different varieties.” There are people focusing on all kinds of different things in this state. There are wineries that focus exclusively on Spanish varieties. There are wineries that focus exclusively on white wines from the Rhône Valley and south of France. There are wineries that do just about everything in their own way in various different sizes. And the thing, to come to your question about a region, Adam, I actually think that one of the most exciting places in the country and a place that I think the same kind of people who got excited about the Jura are, or will be excited about, is the Columbia Gorge. And the biggest reason for that is that it is such an incredibly unusual appellation and growing region for Washington. So it’s on the border between Washington and Oregon. And unlike the vast majority of Washington, it’s actually relatively cool and a little bit more wet. So it isn’t as much of a sort of high desert environment like much of Eastern Washington. It’s much more like the Loire Valley in France in terms of its climate, but with a very different geology and a lot more elevation. And so you’re seeing people make amazing whites from both well-known varieties like Chardonnay, but also Grüner Veltliner. People are doing interesting things with Tocai Friulano and then you’re also seeing a lot of interesting cool- climate style reds, which has not been a big thing in Washington State for sure. But there’s interesting Pinot Noir there. There’s amazing Gamay, you’re seeing people do fun things with Cabernet Franc. And, and as you move to the eastern edge of the Columbia Gorge, you do get a little bit more of what we associate with the rest of Washington. So a little bit hotter, but you still have that real river influence. So it is its own area. And what’s cool is you have all the other things that I think draws people to places like the Jura is the producers are all pretty small. There’s no big wineries. So the wines are niche there, and they’re small production. And unfortunately it makes it hard to find some of those wines around the country, for sure. But for people who are interested in exploring, it’s an area where there’s a lot of interesting small- to medium-sized wineries who are doing fun things. And that’s definitely one area, again, because of my proximity is part, that I think is ripe for more discovery around the country.

K: Well, I think based on your question, Adam, this is I mean what it sounds like to me is the United States, we’re still working on it. You know, we have a lot of work to do because in 1980, the first AVA was awarded to Augusta, Mo.  And then eight months later in 1981, the first AVA in California was awarded to Napa Valley. And since then, we’ve had 224 AVAs across the country. And for a long time, like I said earlier, people were forcing vines into soils that didn’t really work so much. But I think it’s not really about what the next exciting region is. I think it’s more about how we, as an American wine drinking culture, approach the places that exist. Maybe for example, Temecula has awesome wine. No one knows Temecula. Paso Robles.

A: I was waiting for it.

K: There it is. I am in love with that AVA. I think it’s an absolute phenomenon that it kind of flies under the radar because there’s a few brand names that are jiving on the American market that you can find in supermarkets in wine shops. But there’s also stuff that you can’t really get outside of Paso. Just like there’s things you can’t get out of Temecula, and things you can’t get out of Columbia Gorge. So I think that one of the things — and again, we’re in a pandemic and it’s different, but that’s not gonna last forever.

I guess what I’m saying is, we get to go to these places and see what these skilled winemakers are making. And I think the next thing with American drinking culture is to explore the diversity of the wines in the area. Let’s get people into Long Island Grüner Veltliner. And the thing is if you can’t get it, well the DTC, the direct-to-customer thing, is getting a little bit better. I think that celebrating what’s fun, and that in doing so we can actually educate the American wine consumer on more varieties, different kinds of cultivars and stuff. Like what’s Grüner Veltliner? Well, it’s this Austrian variety and it’s really awesome in Long Island, you know? So I think that’s where we should go next.

A: Yeah, I think, what’s difficult for people and I would say, you know, the best advice I could give about American wine is, don’t be scared to take a risk. And don’t turn your nose up just because you hear of a state and you’ve never heard that it makes wine before. Because I guarantee you there’s someone in that state making really great wine. Like when I’ve heard people be like, “Oh, Connecticut, they make wine? That can’t be good. Or New Jersey, New Jersey makes wine?” I mean I literally have not, which is a shame, ’cause I’m so close to New Jersey, there’s apparently a lot of amazing wineries in South Jersey. Yeah. You’re in New Jersey in Brick City, or Pennsylvania in Lancaster County, where my wife is from. She’s from Lancaster the city, but in the county, there’s an Amish guy that ripped up his farm and planted vineyards. And honestly, he makes a Merlot that’s amazing.

Z: I think the other area to think about and I’m super excited about, Adam — I think you and I like jokingly mentioned this way back in one of our very first podcasts – but it was like a lot of the states around the Great Lakes area where I think there’s really interesting potential, whether it’s in Michigan or potentially even in Wisconsin. As things start to change climatically, and as places get a little bit warmer potentially and drier during the summer, I think one thing that America doesn’t have a lot of are classic wine regions that are near large bodies of water that are not oceans. And when you compare that to Europe, the Finger Lakes are the one exception and we think the Finger Lakes are super exciting in part because of the possibility that that kind of viticulture provides. And I think you could see some really interesting wine coming out of those States in the next 10 to 20 years. I know one of the challenges for a lot of those areas is that traditionally they get so cold over the winter that there’s only a few varieties you can really plant that are cold-hardy. But, I think you’ve seen more and more development in understanding rootstocks and, and ways to shelter vines. That’s an area that I have my eye on. I think I’ve tried a couple of Rieslings from Michigan. That’s the extent of what I’ve tried from the Great Lakes, but, I’m really excited to see if there’s more investment and interest in putting some time into those.

K: Left Foot Charley and his no-residual, no-RS, no-residual-sugar Riesling from just North of Traverse city is just incredible. And what’s awesome is his winery is located in an old asylum. They took this asylum up in Michigan and then it closed down and they were repurposing it. It’s really intense.

A: Yeah. I mean, I think there’s a lot of opportunities, right? I mean, we’ve talked about Virginia a bunch. Obviously they sponsored American wine month, but we’ve been hot on Virginia for a long time. I think there’s a potential for it to be one of the great wine regions of the country. And especially on the East Coast, there’s a lot of stuff happening there that’s really exciting. And especially as the vintners are getting more up into the mountains, into the actual Shenandoah Mountains, they’re finding the cooler temperatures. They just have to deal with more stuff, and that’s the thing that’s going to be difficult, right? As some of these wine regions expand, how much are we going to be willing to also be OK with some of the things they need to do to be able to make good wine?

So, you know, in Virginia, they have to deal with a lot. And there’s a lot of humidity and stuff like that. And so being 100 percent organic is almost impossible, whereas it’s very easy in Napa. So is “sustainable” going to be enough? Right? Are we gonna be OK if they spray once or twice a year? ‘Cause they have to. I don’t know what it’s like in Texas. I just know Texas is super hot, but maybe it’s a dry heat. I don’t remember where it becomes a dry heat. So there’s gonna be things they have to do. There’s gonna be things that they have to do if we want to be able to have some of these different wine regions succeed. I think it’s crazy that we haven’t seen more. You look at certain regions like New Mexico, right? And the success of Gruet, and how amazing those sparkling wines are. And the fact that we haven’t had others yet, or I’m sure there are, but just other people haven’t followed in a really dramatic way. It surprises me to be honest. And that’s why I asked my original question, which was, you know, where do you guys think the money is going to come from, or what region do you see your money flooding into? And I wonder if it has a lot more to do with bias, right? Because there’s this amazing sparkling wine being made in New Mexico. And yet all the brands aren’t flooding in to be like, “We should be doing that, too. Look at what they’re doing.” This is a quality of wine that we can’t believe they’re being able to produce. And at this price point. Whereas when someone says, you know, Italy and Etna and everyone is like, “Oh yeah, of course Italy! Yeah. Dump the money in.” Or all of a sudden it’s like that bias of well, of course, it’s the Old World. And so they’ve always been making wine. So yeah, we all forgot about this region, but it’s always been there and is it easier for some people to accept for whatever reason when honestly, if you can produce great wine in a region, like why does it matter how long that region has been producing wine? Especially because if you look at the Sicilian history of producing wine, for a very long time, it was very, very bad. So how did that change? And the only thing that I can think of is the bias, that European bias.

Z: And I think the other piece of this is one thing we haven’t talked about and I don’t mean to get into a long conversation about, but a part of the American wine experience also has to do with tourism and visiting wineries. And I do think that one of the reasons you’ve seen a bias towards certain parts of the country is because those are places that are convenient for tourists, that are otherwise accessible, that are beautiful. And it may be the case that the beauty of the high desert in New Mexico, I think is actually very striking, but it’s not as much of an obvious tourist destination as Napa Valley. It also doesn’t have the density of other stuff to do. So I’m not saying there’s some reason, there’s a bad reason for that. And I think sometimes it’s hard to disentangle in the U.S. the difference between regions that are great wine destinations and great wine-producing regions. And those two things can be synonymous, but they’re not always, and some of the places that I’m excited about as regions that could produce great wine may never be places that are high on anyone’s travel list.

And that is also true in Europe, to be fair. I mean, I love the wines from Emilia-Romagna and I love the food from Emilia-Romagna in Italy, but it is not a pretty place. It’s basically flat and full of pig s***. And so, not every winery, and not every wine region is going to be beautiful or easy to access. But I think what we should be asking of these regions, whether they’re new or old, is that they be focused on quality and on producing the best wine they can. And it’s our job as journalists, as drinkers, to find those wines, to talk about them when they do merit discussion and to mention if it’s a great tourist destination or not, but you know, we’re all finding obviously in this year without tourism that there are other things that matter.

K: Well, the thing is the Finger Lakes is not easy to get to. And the Niagara Escarpment is not the easiest thing. It’s seven hours from New York driving, but it has become one of the national focuses of one grape: Riesling. But I think we can do it. It’s just a matter of, like Adam said, the bias. We need people to focus on it. And that’s the thing. In Europe, Sicily was mostly known for bulk wine, but there was always a small producer making awesome shit in Sicily. There’s always somebody down in Victoria  making great wine and then one day is like, “Oh my gosh, I actually have people seeing me now.” It just takes a long time. And Gruet, it is unfortunate, but that was a very special thing where this guy from Champagne, the family comes over and sees potential there. And I wonder if they found the best spot for those, but nobody wants to compete with the amount of amazing wine they make there. Or Arizona, I mean, I had an amazing Malvasia from Arizona, and the AVAs in Arizona are not too far away from the large cities. So I think it just takes time, and we are a young nation. We’re only 240-something years old. We had 10 years of Prohibition. We weren’t really getting back into dry red wine and even white wine at all until the late 1960s. We’re still kind of figuring it out.

And I think that it makes sense that we would attach ourselves to “OK, well, Pinot Noir that’s Willamette. OK, I’m gonna do that.” “Cab that’s Napa. I’m gonna do that.” “Riesling, that’s Washington — well, now it’s New York. OK.” And we needed that. That’s kind of how the point system came across as these are things that America needed at a time when we were just trying to re-understand what we lost for 10 years. And I think that it’s just a matter of time before we really get a sense of this, but there’s an excitement that has to happen to make it happen when Virginia has been making wine for a long time. Jim Law has been there since like what, 1978? And Adam, you and I got to know Jim Law, like what, six years ago?

A: Eight years ago. I mean, before I started VinePair. Yeah I mean like eight or nine years ago, I think you’re the one who introduced me to him or somehow we found him together. And he’s highly respected, but then again he doesn’t care about being known outside of Virginia.

K: Right, but he mentored a bunch of people who do care. And you know, of course Barboursville helped, too. That’s I guess one of those investments where Barboursville was like, “OK. We see there was a family. We see what’s going on. We see we want to invest in that area.” I just think it’s going to take some time, but what’s cool about it is it’s very exciting. It’s very exciting. I think that in the future, we’re going to have more wine coming from the United States that is going to be more diverse and more fun to explore. I mean like, I’m going to go back to Paso real quick, Adam, if you’re cool with that.

A: No, please go back to Paso.

K: Paso is in this little plain area, and it used to be a place where the whole story is, outlaws could go into Paso and not be bothered ’cause it’s in this little patch of nothing. And actually, it was founded by two dudes and Jesse James’ uncle, actually. And it is this place that has always been sort of disconnected from everybody else. And when it became known to the rest of the United States, it was known mostly for Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel. But when I went to Paso, I drank, there’s a grape called Clairette that is a blending varietal from France. I drank a Clairette that was 15 months on the lees, like a Muscadet. And it was absolutely delicious. I had a Picpoul de Pinet, which is another native grape from the southern part of France. I had a Falanghina that was absolutely stunning. And it was made in skin fermenting as an orange wine. My mind was blown. So I had to go there to actually enjoy it. And I’m hoping that at some point we can actually figure out, like you said, Zach, figure out this tourism thing. That’s who we are as a country. Tourism is what we do. And I hope we can figure it out because there’s so much to be had in these small little pockets of America and these little AVAs. I mean, I know Paso is huge, but I’m telling you like other places that might have stunning, amazing wine, like Malvasia from Arizona, but it’s just not on the market.

A: No, I think Zach’s point about tourism is really important, ‘cause I do think that’s what’s helped a lot of the regions, and I think that that’s what then causes your mind to be blown because you show up there and you have a great meal and every wine region needs one good restaurant, you know what I mean? Just something to tie it together, because I remember when I first went to Paso, driving down the coast, and like no winery really had a place to tell us to go to for lunch. This was eight or nine years ago. And there just wasn’t really an answer. So we wound up going to what was an OK cafe and, I was like, “Oh man, there’s such potential here.” Once they get that high-end restaurant, or once they get that place where it all goes together, because that is what Napa and Sonoma have going for them. That is what other regions have going for them, is just this ability to give you that one 360-degree experience.

K: And now Paso finally has it.

A: Exactly. And so, I think that matters, as annoying as that is. It does. But there’s just so much stuff, I mean, just talking we could talk for another 45 minutes about it, so much stuff about American wine is really exciting right now. And the best thing is to just get out there and try to drink it. And if you can’t get out there now because of the pandemic, totally understandable. So get online and just read as you were saying, Keith. Yeah. And hit up DTC, read our reviews. We try to write about a lot of different wine regions. If you’re an American wine region that we don’t write about, get in touch with us. We want to taste your wine, send it to us. Send it to Zach too, ’cause you know, he’s in Seattle. But yeah, I mean, we want to taste your wine. I mean, I think we have no bias here, and I think that’s the thing that’s most important for anyone thinking about getting into these other regions is, don’t go in with bias, because I’m promising you, there’s someone in these regions who is producing really, really great juice.

K: I’m getting a Müller-Thurgau from Oregon coming in tomorrow.

Z: There you go.

A: Crazy. Well, guys, this has been an awesome conversation. Keith, thanks for being our guest co-host this week. Zach, I’ll see you right back here next week.

Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits, VinePair produced by myself and Zach. It is also mixed and edited by him. Yeah, Zach, we know you do a lot. I’d also like to thank the entire VinePair team, including my co-founder, Josh and our associate editor, Cat. Thanks so much for listening. See you next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: American Wine Has Boundless Potential appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/american-wine-podcast/

[johnboothus]

VinePair Podcast: American Wine Has Boundless Potential

American wine has never been in a better place. Wine is now being made in all 50 states, and the map of exceptional wine regions has expanded well beyond California. From Virginia to Michigan, New Mexico to New York, Texas to Idaho, American grape growers and winemakers are finding exciting new sites for viticulture and, in many cases, unfamiliar varieties that are greatly expanding the boundaries and potential for domestic wine.

On this week’s VinePair Podcast, Adam Teeter and Zach Geballe are joined by VinePair tastings director Keith Beavers to give an overview of the current landscape of the American wine industry in conjunction with VinePair’s American Wine Month. They discuss the emerging wine regions in Paso Robles, the Columbia Gorge, and the Great Lakes, and ponder what America’s love of wine tourism will mean for these regions and others moving forward.

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Adam: From the Ritz Cracker display at Publix, I’m Adam Teeter. You don’t get it? But no, really from Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter

Keith: From Brick City, I’m Keith Beavers

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, very confused, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair Podcast. Zach, how are you confused? They had a press conference last weekend where Rudy Giuliani came live from the Four Seasons Total Landscaping instead of the Four Seasons Hotel.

Z: I guess…

A: So I’m coming live from the Ritz Cracker display instead of the Ritz Carlton.

Z: I got you. I feel like we’re like a week and a half late on this joke, though.

A: No, I think it’s good. I still think it’s hilarious. We’ll have to wait to see what it sounds like to the listeners, but anyways guys, so this podcast is all about American Wine Month. The month at VinePair, we’re devoting to all things U.S- made wine. I really want to thank our sponsors Virginia Wine, CakeBread Cellars, Domaine Carneros, and 3 Girls.

And I’m excited to talk to both of you about wine. Keith is our guest host, VinePair’s tasting director, for this week. But before we jump into that, we’ve been doing a pretty fun segment at the top of the show every week now about what everyone’s been drinking recently. I’m assuming you guys have been drinking some dope shit as of what happened last week. So Keith, what about you first?

K: Well, some dope shit is correct, Adam. Well, you know, American Wine Month at VinePair, I’ve been deep, deep, deep into American wine. And I’m really excited. I love Virginia wine, and I’ve been tasting some seriously great Virginia wine, and a lot has been sent to us. And it was kind of great. On Saturday, after the big announcement, I sat and drank a bottle of Jefferson Cabernet Franc from the area in which Thomas Jefferson allocated vineyard space, south of Monticello, to actually try to make America a wine-growing nation. And somebody came and they bought the property and they’re doing great things, and it’s just an amazing, beautiful Cabernet Franc so it kind of made sense. And I listened to the Jimmy Hendrix “Star-Spangled Banner” while I was drinking it.

A: Sweet. Zach, what about you, man?

Z: Well, I’ve also been on the American wine train, as I often am. And I think for me this past week, it was a lot of Willamette Valley Chardonnay. So Pinot Noir in the Willamette gets a lot of press, obviously. It’s by far what’s most widely grown and made there, but I’ve been really excited about Chardonnay from the Willamette and in particular a bottle from a producer called Cooper Mountain. Their old-vines Chardonnay, which I think date back to the late ’70s, some of the oldest Chardonnay plantings in the Willamette that are still in use and it was f****** delicious. So, I didn’t pair it with any music, Keith, I’m sorry. Well, pretty much all that gets played in my house these days are the songs my 2-year-old is obsessed with. So unless you really want to know how well Willamette Valley Chardonnay pairs with songs about bucket trucks and skid-steers, that’s another podcast.

A: Please, tell us more. So for me, that Saturday was a day I busted out the top stuff. And I’d had this bottle of Champagne in my house for a while and we just said, f*** it. So I opened a bottle of 2006 Pierre Jouët Belle Epoque Blanc de Blanc and it was awesome. ‘Cause I went out into the park in Fort Greene. Spike Lee was DJing, which was amazing. There was like a crazy amount of energy. And we just sat in the park myself, my wife Naomi, and Josh, who co-founded VinePair with me.

And we just drank the wine and it was really fun to watch everyone. And then people were sharing, you know, glasses and passing stuff back and forth. We had other things, too, but that was like the bottle that we popped first. You know, and it was just, you know, really memorable. And we actually, like, we brought coupes out with us.

It’s like whatever, let’s go full agro here. Just bring the glassware. And it was awesome. I mean, it was just a lot of fun, so that was, that was the most memorable thing I drank last week. Although I will say there was one other amazing experience I had, which was earlier in the day, actually that morning before everything got called, and this is why I was with Josh because I live in Brooklyn and Josh lives in Manhattan, so we don’t normally just find ourselves together when a random event like this occurs and everyone just decides to run out to somewhere and start drinking. But we had a meeting in the morning with Brian, this amazing entrepreneur who founded the sake distillery in Brooklyn called Brooklyn Kura, which now has pretty quickly over the past few years become known as the best Sake distillery outside of Japan. Sorry, sake brewery, and I’d never been to a sake brewery before, actually.

And first of all, the sakes were really delicious, but again, what do I know? I think they were very delicious. I enjoyed them, but I very easily admit that I don’t know a lot about sake, but these pleased my palate. And it was really cool to watch the process until I go back in the back with him and sort of understand how they’re actually making sake. Have either of you ever been to a sake brewery before?

K: No.

Z: I have, yeah, there’s one down in Oregon that I’ve been to.

A: It’s so interesting to watch what they’re doing. I didn’t realize how many people now are making more artisanal styles. Like, growing more artisanal-style rices in certain parts of the country. There’s a lot of really cool rice coming out of Arkansas, which I never would have thought of, and it was cool to watch. They don’t have the machine there that actually refines the rice. They’re actually able to still take advantage of the fact that there’s a lot of commercial sake distilleries in California. He was explaining all this stuff that we’re used to as Americans that sort of turned us off of sake, like the really warm sake bomb-type stuff.

None of that’s made in Japan. That’s all being made by Japanese companies, but in California, which I also didn’t know. But they have all these facilities where they can refine the rice. So they sell them to other people. But then there’s this one guy who he said is a little nuts, out of Chicago or maybe Indiana who’s started to set up his own sake place as well. And he went and bought his own refining machine. So he’ll take some of the more artisanal stuff and then sell them back to people like Brooklyn Kura.

K: This is insane.

A: It’s crazy. But then they soak the rice forever in water which I didn’t realize. And then the thing I didn’t realize is then they cook the rice and then they let a mold grow on it, and it’s actually the mold that creates the sugars that allows the fermentation.

Z: It’s really cool, too, because it’s like this weird kind of simultaneous fermentation. Well, not really two fermentations, but the Koji is producing the sugar out of the starch of the rice at the same time as yeasts are fermenting the sugar. So as you maybe saw some in-process as I have, it absolutely does not look like something you would want to ingest. It’s horrifying.

A: No, it doesn’t. Yeah. It’s literally like they’re just letting mold grow on rice and then when they go to brew it, it then comes out the way that it is, but he also had us taste some wild stuff. So first of all, another thing I didn’t realize was that sake doesn’t really age. He said that it can, but not in a way that you would think about with wine or things like that. Once it’s basically a cold temperature, it is what it is. He said there’s some funk, there’s some people doing some stuff in Japan where they are letting it sit for years and years. And it just changes. It just may not be the thing that everyone wants to drink. I kind of think it becomes a thing where like at the same time now people have a taste for Brett and stuff. It’s like, you get a taste for that kind of like weird funk that develops after the sake gets old. There’s definitely like a small population of sake drinkers that like that, but not a huge group. But that was super interesting to understand. And then they actually dry-hopped sake. And he poured it for us. And I literally thought that I was drinking liquid grapefruit juice. It was the craziest thing I’d ever tasted. And it was pink because it pulls out the colors from the hops, which is weird because hops are green, but for whatever reason, it ends up a pinkish-orange color, and they almost sell it as a rosé. And then of course they’re doing other stuff too. Like they’re making like a Pét-Nat sake. I was like, here we go.

Z: You really were in Brooklyn.

A: Yeah. I was in Brooklyn. I was in Industry City. But yeah, just shout out to them ‘cause they’re doing really cool stuff, and I thought it was delicious.

K: What was the alcohol on the dry-hopped?

A: It was like 12 percent or something like that. 12, 14. So, I mean it’ll hit you, but not in the way that other things will, it was very tasty.

I was very impressed and they’re of course trying to make sakes that they’re not encouraging you to then use as a spirits substitute for cocktails and stuff. Their whole goal is to have you drink the sake as it is. And also their big push, too, is to take it out of the American idea that you’re supposed to have it in those little short sake glasses. They obviously serve theirs in wine glasses and in smaller ones, more like what you would think of a white wine or something at a wedding. That’s kind of the way I think of what glass size they use. But he explained to me, too, where the small sake glass comes from, and it has nothing to do with aromas or anything like that. It’s that in Japanese culture, the more you’re serving the guests, the more pleasure it gives you. And so if it’s a smaller vessel, you have to serve your guests more often. And so that’s the only reason the sake glass is small, because we would constantly be refilling your person’s glass. And so that’s you showing yourself as being a very good host. But of course, Americans, as Brian joked, we see that glass and we’re like, “Sweet! It’s a shot.” We just throw it back. But yeah.

Z: This has been super interesting and I look forward to next year’s American sake month.

A: I know. Totally. But yeah, thanks Zach. You didn’t get the Ritz Cracker joke, now you’re just hating on my sake stuff.

Z: No, no I’m just saying let’s transition.

A: Well, yeah, let’s talk about American Wine Month. So I mean, all of us, we’re from different parts of the country. I mean I lived in the South for awhile. Then went to school in the South and moved up here. Zach you’re from the Northwest and then obviously went to school in New York. Keith’s from all over. Maryland, New York. So we’ve all sort of traveled a lot. And I think what’s really interesting about the United States is that first of all, as we know, there’s bonded wineries in all 50 States. As we noted, Zach, before we started the podcast, just being a bonded winery doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re making wine from vinifera, but they are making some sort of wine. But there’s really cool stuff happening all over the country. And I think what’s so exciting about it, is that it shows it’s not just about three or four of the regions that probably everyone knows. And there’s really amazing stuff coming from everywhere. And I guess my question to both of you guys to just start this is: Is there such a thing as American wine? What do you think American wine is? If someone said to you American wine, what would you immediately think of?

K: For me, I believe American wine is wine made from grapes that are not from here, by people that are not from here. We all came from somewhere else to be here, unless you’re an indigenous culture. And I think that American wine for me is defined by the ability to grow vines that are meant for the soils in which they’re grown in. And the wine is made in such a skillful way that it represents that area, whether it’s a Viognier, whether it’s Petit Manseng, whether it’s Cab Franc, whether it’s Grüner Veltliner, it doesn’t matter. In Texas they’re doing Tempranillo, and people dig it, but they’re also making fruit wine, you know? So I see American wine as this sort of Wild West mentality, but now finally with more information about science and technology, focusing more on the soil, more on where we grow grapes, why it’s good to grow them there. And then, making good wine. So that’s how I see it. And we’re not done yet. The Petaluma Gap in Sonoma was awarded in 2017. In Washington State, I just found out two weeks ago, two more AVAs were awarded in the Columbia Valley. So we’re still working on it, but I think that’s kind of what defines it to me.

Z: Yeah. And I think Keith you capture a really important piece here, which is what I often think about as well, which is this idea of — whether you want to use the Wild West metaphor — or to me, it’s just this idea that there was no existing wine culture in this country in terms of growing or consuming until quite recently. And some of what did exist was wiped out by Prohibition and it was slow to recover. And what’s been really exciting for me about American wine is that we are now at a place with the industry where it’s so much more developed and mature than it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. So that not everyone has to feel like they have to make a wine that refers to Europe. I mean, yes, the varieties, the cultivars, the clones, and of course the species itself is European in nature, but we are not necessarily seeing wine regions in the United States feel too confined by established European styles by saying, “Oh, well in Bordeaux, they plant these X number of varieties, and so those are the only things we can plant here.” Obviously you still see a lot of that. I don’t mean that those wines have disappeared. Of course they’re still very popular and rightfully so, but you do see experimentation with all kinds of different varieties and people saying, “Well, why can’t I grow a Spanish variety and a French variety and an Austrian variety and a Croatian variety all in my vineyard? I think they’ll work here. I want to make wines that are of these various styles or from these varieties. And I can do that.” And that’s a freedom that just does not exist in most other places. Few other places in the new world have similar spirits, but here in the U.S. we have this almost endless amount of land that could be potentially converted to viticulture, should someone want to do it.

A: Yeah, I think that’s true. I think the other thing that makes American wine so interesting is that this country is just so big. Every state is almost its own country. So, what works in the Finger Lakes may not necessarily work in Texas. But that’s OK  because there’s other things that can work. And I think the thing that started to define American wine for me, which I really like, is that over the last decade, two decades even, there’s become less of a focus by a lot of the really top producers — and then everyone else has followed — of having to make a wine in America that tastes like a wine from the Old World. It’s like no, the Cabernet from Napa tastes like Cabernet from Napa. There’s less of that now. I remember even early on in my wine journey, I would go to the North Fork and the winemaker would say like, yeah, we’re really going for a Right Bank Bordeaux. And now you don’t hear that as much here. Why aren’t we saying no, this is a North Fork wine, right? This is what it is. And becoming more confident that, yes, we can take the grapes from Europe and the wines don’t have to be copies of the wines from Europe to be considered high quality and to be considered best in class and all of those things. They can be their own thing.

K: And what’s cool about that is the fact that what we did was, in trying to emulate European wine, we created our own styles. Which is really kind of cool. I mean, I know the meritage thing never really took where, you know, in California there was this word called meritage. And if you had a meritage if you used all the Bordeaux varieties and stuff, but we ended up making our own stuff and created our own style, which is really awesome.

A: Totally.

Z: Yeah. And I think actually to the point that you were making, Adam, as well, I think even more excitingly now, not only do you not hear wineries, and wine producers, wine regions say, “Oh yes, our wines are comparable to the wines of ‘pick your French region of choice.'” But even something like Napa, which is obviously an American wine region, I don’t even hear as many wineries, say, “Oh, we’re making a Cabernet like a Napa Cab.” There is a real understanding that what makes a lot of these parts of the country that are growing grapes and making wine so exciting is that they are their own thing. And yes, there’s going to always be some similarities. I mean, to some extent the character of each of these varieties or blends is going to show through, but it’s cool that whether you’re in Virginia, or Washington, or Oregon, or Texas, or Arizona, or any other place, I think the more that producers in those places can be comfortable saying, “We think we’re making a wine that’s really representative of this place and of these varieties of this place, of this vintage.” Those are the wines that I think all of us get excited about. And the wines that are harder to get excited about are someone who’s trying to make a replica of something that already exists. I mean, yeah. If you can make a wine that tastes like Château Margaux and it’s way cheaper, I guess that’s cool. But really the most exciting thing for me is to make a wine that is clearly and interestingly of the place it’s from. And this country has a lot of interesting, cool places. As you mentioned, Adam, it’s this incredibly vast country with incredibly different geology, climates. All these things that make for incredibly remarkable wine regions. And we’re just still scratching the surface. I mean, Keith, you mentioned how there’s new AVAs being awarded all over. And I mean, I was excited to see that Hawaii has now petitioned for its first AVA. The only wine I’ve ever tried from Hawaii is a pineapple wine, which was actually kind of good. But this is vinifera to be clear. But I think that’s super exciting and like, we don’t know. There’s all kinds of possibilities still out there. And the cool thing about wine is that it rewards exploration and experimentation and taking a chance. Of course, not all of them will work out, but there’s always that possibility.

A: My question to you guys is, over the last decade, we’ve seen new regions in Europe that have always existed, but have popped really big in the U.S. and more money has flooded in. So I’m thinking about, for example, like the Jura right? All of a sudden, a bunch of somms are talking about it and it was everywhere. Sicily, specifically Etna. And then all of a sudden, now you have Burgundy producers buying land there. You have Barbaresco and Barolo producers buying land there. What do you guys think? If there was a region that you think was going to pop next in the U.S. and you think, “Oh my God, this is the region that’s going to pop. And every single person is going to realize how great it is, and there’s gonna be money flooding in there.” Is there one or could you think of one?

K: Yeah. I mean, what’s cool about Washington State is it seems to be a really big — what is it, the second largest wine-producing region in the country? And there’s been some very significant investments there starting from back in the day. And I think we’re already seeing investment in Virginia. So to think of a brand new space —

A: No. I’m not saying brand new because you look and Etna existed forever, right? It just, all of a sudden, who knows what it was? It was someone saying like, “Oh my gosh, these are like Burgundy. And all of a sudden, everyone just started dumping money. Right? And it became the thing people were talking about. I’m just wondering, what are a few regions in the U.S. we think that there could be or, maybe there isn’t yet. Maybe there is, I agree with you that the thing I think is most ripe for it is Washington. And that’s honestly just because for whatever reason, Zach might think I’m kissing his a** right now. But for whatever reason, like that stage has flown under the radar for a really long time for no explainable reason.

Z: Allow me to explain why.

A: Please, because the explanation I’ve always heard is that Oregon just got there first or whatever, and people start talking about the Pinot Noirs, and people just forgot that Washington was there, but I’m sure there’s a better explanation than that.

Z: Well, I think that the biggest thing that’s changed about the wine industry in my time in it, and the way that consumers tend to think, is one of the things that worked against Washington for a long time was that it had no clear cut variety or style of wine that was the signature. And there’s certainly plenty of famous and highly priced Washington Cabernets and Cabernet-based blends. Pre-“Sideways,” there was a lot of emphasis on Merlot and I think Washington Merlot is actually really an exciting wine, for sure. But the strength of Washington is almost like the strength of the U.S. in a microcosm. It’s the diversity and it’s all the different things that can be made. And we’ve only, I think just in the last few years reached a place where in the American wine market, there’s actual interest in a lot of different kinds of wines, a lot of different varieties, a lot of different styles.

And so there are still the diehard “I only drink Pinot Noir. I only drink Cabernet. I only drink Chardonnay” folks, but most wine people that I meet these days or talk to, they’re interested in trying something new. And that’s where I think Washington has an incredible possibility, which is to say, “Hey, we are growing over a hundred different varieties.” There are people focusing on all kinds of different things in this state. There are wineries that focus exclusively on Spanish varieties. There are wineries that focus exclusively on white wines from the Rhône Valley and south of France. There are wineries that do just about everything in their own way in various different sizes. And the thing, to come to your question about a region, Adam, I actually think that one of the most exciting places in the country and a place that I think the same kind of people who got excited about the Jura are, or will be excited about, is the Columbia Gorge. And the biggest reason for that is that it is such an incredibly unusual appellation and growing region for Washington. So it’s on the border between Washington and Oregon. And unlike the vast majority of Washington, it’s actually relatively cool and a little bit more wet. So it isn’t as much of a sort of high desert environment like much of Eastern Washington. It’s much more like the Loire Valley in France in terms of its climate, but with a very different geology and a lot more elevation. And so you’re seeing people make amazing whites from both well-known varieties like Chardonnay, but also Grüner Veltliner. People are doing interesting things with Tocai Friulano and then you’re also seeing a lot of interesting cool- climate style reds, which has not been a big thing in Washington State for sure. But there’s interesting Pinot Noir there. There’s amazing Gamay, you’re seeing people do fun things with Cabernet Franc. And, and as you move to the eastern edge of the Columbia Gorge, you do get a little bit more of what we associate with the rest of Washington. So a little bit hotter, but you still have that real river influence. So it is its own area. And what’s cool is you have all the other things that I think draws people to places like the Jura is the producers are all pretty small. There’s no big wineries. So the wines are niche there, and they’re small production. And unfortunately it makes it hard to find some of those wines around the country, for sure. But for people who are interested in exploring, it’s an area where there’s a lot of interesting small- to medium-sized wineries who are doing fun things. And that’s definitely one area, again, because of my proximity is part, that I think is ripe for more discovery around the country.

K: Well, I think based on your question, Adam, this is I mean what it sounds like to me is the United States, we’re still working on it. You know, we have a lot of work to do because in 1980, the first AVA was awarded to Augusta, Mo.  And then eight months later in 1981, the first AVA in California was awarded to Napa Valley. And since then, we’ve had 224 AVAs across the country. And for a long time, like I said earlier, people were forcing vines into soils that didn’t really work so much. But I think it’s not really about what the next exciting region is. I think it’s more about how we, as an American wine drinking culture, approach the places that exist. Maybe for example, Temecula has awesome wine. No one knows Temecula. Paso Robles.

A: I was waiting for it.

K: There it is. I am in love with that AVA. I think it’s an absolute phenomenon that it kind of flies under the radar because there’s a few brand names that are jiving on the American market that you can find in supermarkets in wine shops. But there’s also stuff that you can’t really get outside of Paso. Just like there’s things you can’t get out of Temecula, and things you can’t get out of Columbia Gorge. So I think that one of the things — and again, we’re in a pandemic and it’s different, but that’s not gonna last forever.

I guess what I’m saying is, we get to go to these places and see what these skilled winemakers are making. And I think the next thing with American drinking culture is to explore the diversity of the wines in the area. Let’s get people into Long Island Grüner Veltliner. And the thing is if you can’t get it, well the DTC, the direct-to-customer thing, is getting a little bit better. I think that celebrating what’s fun, and that in doing so we can actually educate the American wine consumer on more varieties, different kinds of cultivars and stuff. Like what’s Grüner Veltliner? Well, it’s this Austrian variety and it’s really awesome in Long Island, you know? So I think that’s where we should go next.

A: Yeah, I think, what’s difficult for people and I would say, you know, the best advice I could give about American wine is, don’t be scared to take a risk. And don’t turn your nose up just because you hear of a state and you’ve never heard that it makes wine before. Because I guarantee you there’s someone in that state making really great wine. Like when I’ve heard people be like, “Oh, Connecticut, they make wine? That can’t be good. Or New Jersey, New Jersey makes wine?” I mean I literally have not, which is a shame, ’cause I’m so close to New Jersey, there’s apparently a lot of amazing wineries in South Jersey. Yeah. You’re in New Jersey in Brick City, or Pennsylvania in Lancaster County, where my wife is from. She’s from Lancaster the city, but in the county, there’s an Amish guy that ripped up his farm and planted vineyards. And honestly, he makes a Merlot that’s amazing.

Z: I think the other area to think about and I’m super excited about, Adam — I think you and I like jokingly mentioned this way back in one of our very first podcasts – but it was like a lot of the states around the Great Lakes area where I think there’s really interesting potential, whether it’s in Michigan or potentially even in Wisconsin. As things start to change climatically, and as places get a little bit warmer potentially and drier during the summer, I think one thing that America doesn’t have a lot of are classic wine regions that are near large bodies of water that are not oceans. And when you compare that to Europe, the Finger Lakes are the one exception and we think the Finger Lakes are super exciting in part because of the possibility that that kind of viticulture provides. And I think you could see some really interesting wine coming out of those States in the next 10 to 20 years. I know one of the challenges for a lot of those areas is that traditionally they get so cold over the winter that there’s only a few varieties you can really plant that are cold-hardy. But, I think you’ve seen more and more development in understanding rootstocks and, and ways to shelter vines. That’s an area that I have my eye on. I think I’ve tried a couple of Rieslings from Michigan. That’s the extent of what I’ve tried from the Great Lakes, but, I’m really excited to see if there’s more investment and interest in putting some time into those.

K: Left Foot Charley and his no-residual, no-RS, no-residual-sugar Riesling from just North of Traverse city is just incredible. And what’s awesome is his winery is located in an old asylum. They took this asylum up in Michigan and then it closed down and they were repurposing it. It’s really intense.

A: Yeah. I mean, I think there’s a lot of opportunities, right? I mean, we’ve talked about Virginia a bunch. Obviously they sponsored American wine month, but we’ve been hot on Virginia for a long time. I think there’s a potential for it to be one of the great wine regions of the country. And especially on the East Coast, there’s a lot of stuff happening there that’s really exciting. And especially as the vintners are getting more up into the mountains, into the actual Shenandoah Mountains, they’re finding the cooler temperatures. They just have to deal with more stuff, and that’s the thing that’s going to be difficult, right? As some of these wine regions expand, how much are we going to be willing to also be OK with some of the things they need to do to be able to make good wine?

So, you know, in Virginia, they have to deal with a lot. And there’s a lot of humidity and stuff like that. And so being 100 percent organic is almost impossible, whereas it’s very easy in Napa. So is “sustainable” going to be enough? Right? Are we gonna be OK if they spray once or twice a year? ‘Cause they have to. I don’t know what it’s like in Texas. I just know Texas is super hot, but maybe it’s a dry heat. I don’t remember where it becomes a dry heat. So there’s gonna be things they have to do. There’s gonna be things that they have to do if we want to be able to have some of these different wine regions succeed. I think it’s crazy that we haven’t seen more. You look at certain regions like New Mexico, right? And the success of Gruet, and how amazing those sparkling wines are. And the fact that we haven’t had others yet, or I’m sure there are, but just other people haven’t followed in a really dramatic way. It surprises me to be honest. And that’s why I asked my original question, which was, you know, where do you guys think the money is going to come from, or what region do you see your money flooding into? And I wonder if it has a lot more to do with bias, right? Because there’s this amazing sparkling wine being made in New Mexico. And yet all the brands aren’t flooding in to be like, “We should be doing that, too. Look at what they’re doing.” This is a quality of wine that we can’t believe they’re being able to produce. And at this price point. Whereas when someone says, you know, Italy and Etna and everyone is like, “Oh yeah, of course Italy! Yeah. Dump the money in.” Or all of a sudden it’s like that bias of well, of course, it’s the Old World. And so they’ve always been making wine. So yeah, we all forgot about this region, but it’s always been there and is it easier for some people to accept for whatever reason when honestly, if you can produce great wine in a region, like why does it matter how long that region has been producing wine? Especially because if you look at the Sicilian history of producing wine, for a very long time, it was very, very bad. So how did that change? And the only thing that I can think of is the bias, that European bias.

Z: And I think the other piece of this is one thing we haven’t talked about and I don’t mean to get into a long conversation about, but a part of the American wine experience also has to do with tourism and visiting wineries. And I do think that one of the reasons you’ve seen a bias towards certain parts of the country is because those are places that are convenient for tourists, that are otherwise accessible, that are beautiful. And it may be the case that the beauty of the high desert in New Mexico, I think is actually very striking, but it’s not as much of an obvious tourist destination as Napa Valley. It also doesn’t have the density of other stuff to do. So I’m not saying there’s some reason, there’s a bad reason for that. And I think sometimes it’s hard to disentangle in the U.S. the difference between regions that are great wine destinations and great wine-producing regions. And those two things can be synonymous, but they’re not always, and some of the places that I’m excited about as regions that could produce great wine may never be places that are high on anyone’s travel list.

And that is also true in Europe, to be fair. I mean, I love the wines from Emilia-Romagna and I love the food from Emilia-Romagna in Italy, but it is not a pretty place. It’s basically flat and full of pig s***. And so, not every winery, and not every wine region is going to be beautiful or easy to access. But I think what we should be asking of these regions, whether they’re new or old, is that they be focused on quality and on producing the best wine they can. And it’s our job as journalists, as drinkers, to find those wines, to talk about them when they do merit discussion and to mention if it’s a great tourist destination or not, but you know, we’re all finding obviously in this year without tourism that there are other things that matter.

K: Well, the thing is the Finger Lakes is not easy to get to. And the Niagara Escarpment is not the easiest thing. It’s seven hours from New York driving, but it has become one of the national focuses of one grape: Riesling. But I think we can do it. It’s just a matter of, like Adam said, the bias. We need people to focus on it. And that’s the thing. In Europe, Sicily was mostly known for bulk wine, but there was always a small producer making awesome shit in Sicily. There’s always somebody down in Victoria  making great wine and then one day is like, “Oh my gosh, I actually have people seeing me now.” It just takes a long time. And Gruet, it is unfortunate, but that was a very special thing where this guy from Champagne, the family comes over and sees potential there. And I wonder if they found the best spot for those, but nobody wants to compete with the amount of amazing wine they make there. Or Arizona, I mean, I had an amazing Malvasia from Arizona, and the AVAs in Arizona are not too far away from the large cities. So I think it just takes time, and we are a young nation. We’re only 240-something years old. We had 10 years of Prohibition. We weren’t really getting back into dry red wine and even white wine at all until the late 1960s. We’re still kind of figuring it out.

And I think that it makes sense that we would attach ourselves to “OK, well, Pinot Noir that’s Willamette. OK, I’m gonna do that.” “Cab that’s Napa. I’m gonna do that.” “Riesling, that’s Washington — well, now it’s New York. OK.” And we needed that. That’s kind of how the point system came across as these are things that America needed at a time when we were just trying to re-understand what we lost for 10 years. And I think that it’s just a matter of time before we really get a sense of this, but there’s an excitement that has to happen to make it happen when Virginia has been making wine for a long time. Jim Law has been there since like what, 1978? And Adam, you and I got to know Jim Law, like what, six years ago?

A: Eight years ago. I mean, before I started VinePair. Yeah I mean like eight or nine years ago, I think you’re the one who introduced me to him or somehow we found him together. And he’s highly respected, but then again he doesn’t care about being known outside of Virginia.

K: Right, but he mentored a bunch of people who do care. And you know, of course Barboursville helped, too. That’s I guess one of those investments where Barboursville was like, “OK. We see there was a family. We see what’s going on. We see we want to invest in that area.” I just think it’s going to take some time, but what’s cool about it is it’s very exciting. It’s very exciting. I think that in the future, we’re going to have more wine coming from the United States that is going to be more diverse and more fun to explore. I mean like, I’m going to go back to Paso real quick, Adam, if you’re cool with that.

A: No, please go back to Paso.

K: Paso is in this little plain area, and it used to be a place where the whole story is, outlaws could go into Paso and not be bothered ’cause it’s in this little patch of nothing. And actually, it was founded by two dudes and Jesse James’ uncle, actually. And it is this place that has always been sort of disconnected from everybody else. And when it became known to the rest of the United States, it was known mostly for Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel. But when I went to Paso, I drank, there’s a grape called Clairette that is a blending varietal from France. I drank a Clairette that was 15 months on the lees, like a Muscadet. And it was absolutely delicious. I had a Picpoul de Pinet, which is another native grape from the southern part of France. I had a Falanghina that was absolutely stunning. And it was made in skin fermenting as an orange wine. My mind was blown. So I had to go there to actually enjoy it. And I’m hoping that at some point we can actually figure out, like you said, Zach, figure out this tourism thing. That’s who we are as a country. Tourism is what we do. And I hope we can figure it out because there’s so much to be had in these small little pockets of America and these little AVAs. I mean, I know Paso is huge, but I’m telling you like other places that might have stunning, amazing wine, like Malvasia from Arizona, but it’s just not on the market.

A: No, I think Zach’s point about tourism is really important, ‘cause I do think that’s what’s helped a lot of the regions, and I think that that’s what then causes your mind to be blown because you show up there and you have a great meal and every wine region needs one good restaurant, you know what I mean? Just something to tie it together, because I remember when I first went to Paso, driving down the coast, and like no winery really had a place to tell us to go to for lunch. This was eight or nine years ago. And there just wasn’t really an answer. So we wound up going to what was an OK cafe and, I was like, “Oh man, there’s such potential here.” Once they get that high-end restaurant, or once they get that place where it all goes together, because that is what Napa and Sonoma have going for them. That is what other regions have going for them, is just this ability to give you that one 360-degree experience.

K: And now Paso finally has it.

A: Exactly. And so, I think that matters, as annoying as that is. It does. But there’s just so much stuff, I mean, just talking we could talk for another 45 minutes about it, so much stuff about American wine is really exciting right now. And the best thing is to just get out there and try to drink it. And if you can’t get out there now because of the pandemic, totally understandable. So get online and just read as you were saying, Keith. Yeah. And hit up DTC, read our reviews. We try to write about a lot of different wine regions. If you’re an American wine region that we don’t write about, get in touch with us. We want to taste your wine, send it to us. Send it to Zach too, ’cause you know, he’s in Seattle. But yeah, I mean, we want to taste your wine. I mean, I think we have no bias here, and I think that’s the thing that’s most important for anyone thinking about getting into these other regions is, don’t go in with bias, because I’m promising you, there’s someone in these regions who is producing really, really great juice.

K: I’m getting a Müller-Thurgau from Oregon coming in tomorrow.

Z: There you go.

A: Crazy. Well, guys, this has been an awesome conversation. Keith, thanks for being our guest co-host this week. Zach, I’ll see you right back here next week.

Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits, VinePair produced by myself and Zach. It is also mixed and edited by him. Yeah, Zach, we know you do a lot. I’d also like to thank the entire VinePair team, including my co-founder, Josh and our associate editor, Cat. Thanks so much for listening. See you next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: American Wine Has Boundless Potential appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/american-wine-podcast/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/vinepair-podcast-american-wine-has-boundless-potential

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