Wine

Forever Buffs Wine Program

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Forever Buffs Wine Program Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/07/2022 - 00:00

For Jess Havill (Econ’09), wine is a family affair. He is co-owner and general manager of Bella Grace vineyards, which he runs with his parents and two brothers. Their winery, wine cave and vineyards are located in Plymouth, California, and their tasting room is on the main street of Sutter Creek, California.

“Being able to build a business with my family has been an experience I will cherish forever,” said Havill, who has worked full time at the winery since 2013. “It’s an added benefit that it’s making and selling wine!”

This year, the ��ý�Ļ��Ʒ Alumni Association has paired with Bella Grace for its Forever Buffs Wine Club. Each bottle of the hand-crafted wine boasts CU-themed labels, and purchase proceeds support the university, CU Athletics and the Alumni Association.

Wine club members can pick from two award-winning wines: a sauvignon blanc and a barrel-select red blend.

��ý�Ļ��Ʒ the Forever Buffs wine club website for more information or to join the club.

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Photos courtesy Jess Havill

For Jess Havill, wine is a family affair. He is co-owner and general manager of Bella Grace vineyards, which he runs with his parents and two brothers.

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Wine Absurdities

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 06:00:00 +0000

Wine Absurdities Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/01/2019 - 00:00

Christie Sounart

In 2018, Denver attorney Jordan Lipp (Econ, PolSci’00) and his wife Heather wrote Is There Apple Juice in My Wine?: Thirty-Eight Laws that Affect the Wine You Drink, detailing some of the odd, unique and unknown facts about wine.

Why did you write about wine laws?

Several years ago, while wine tasting in the Sta. Rita Hills [in Santa Barbara], we were looking at the alcohol by volume on the back of a wine bottle, and the wine pourer told us we shouldn’t bother, as the number was more or less made up. We didn’t believe him. In response we told him we had learned in our sommelier class that wineries could put fermented apple juice in their wine. He didn’t believe us.

The next morning, as my wife and I were discussing these two stories, we thought, I’m a lawyer so I could look it up to see what is true and what is not. We came up with a list that morning of 20 or so wine “facts” we wanted to find out if they were true or not. Those 20 items from that morning of brainstorming ultimately became 20 of the 37 chapters of the book.

Where did you get your information for the book?

Fortunately as a lawyer, it was quite easy to do the legal research to look up what are the actual laws governing wine making, wine sales and wine consumption.

As many of these laws are so ridiculous that we’d have trouble believing that they were true had I not done the research myself, we made sure to footnote virtually every statement in the book so readers can easily verify every detail for themselves.

What’s the most absurd law you discovered?

It’s easy to start in our home state. By Colorado law, although not enforced, bars must serve sandwiches (as opposed to just serving pizza or burritos) if they want to serve alcohol. Perhaps the funniest law we found while researching the book is this: South Carolina has a law that wine cannot get you drunk.

Do some wines actually contain apple juice?

Yes, some contain apple juice, or to be more technically correct, fermented apple juice. If the wine label on the bottle lists either a state or smaller location from which the wine came (e.g., Oregon, Napa Valley, etc.), or if it lists the varietal (e.g., Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, etc.) you do not need to worry. But, if you look at your local liquor store, you’ll probably notice some cheap wine bottles or wine cans that do not have either a location or a varietal listed on the container, and it says in small print: “With Natural Flavors.” For those wines, we hope you like apple juice, because odds are that is what you are drinking.

Why is the U.S. drinking age higher than most of the world?

Our country went through a strong neo-Prohibitionist movement in the 1980s Reagan-era. In 1984, the federal government — under the pretense of keeping teenagers from driving from one state to another to buy alcohol — tied highway funding for states with the obligation for states to raise their drinking ages to 21 years old.

What wine fact do you like to share most?

When discussing wine tasting, one of our favorite facts is that it is hard to distinguish a red wine from a white wine when you’re drinking it in a black glass. When discussing what we learned from writing the book, we love to point out that under certain conditions, wineries are legally allowed to water down their wine up to 35 percent (That’s more than a glass of wine per bottle that can legally just be water.).

What should people do first when looking to buy a decent bottle of wine?

Our first rule of choosing a wine is to choose a bottle of wine that won’t give us a (chemically induced) headache the next morning. That can be tricky as there are no ingredient labels on wine, so you cannot tell what additives are in any particular wine bottle. As my wife and I have had so many different wines, we have a good sense of which producers we can trust and which ones we cannot.

If you don’t know the producers, here’s perhaps the easiest trick, though it only works for Italian wines: We have never had a headache from drinking Italian DOCG or DOC wine, which is the Italian government’s stamp of approval for certain wines. If we see the DOCG/DOC stamp on an Italian wine (usually placed on the neck of the bottle), we know we’re drinking a wine we can trust.

Your favorite glass of wine and food pairing?

Not to be contrarian, but I’m skeptical of wine and food pairings. I love the wines I love. And, I love the foods I love. If I have them together, I try to keep them from conflicting too much, but my goal is to always choose my wines based upon my mood and what wines I love, not what I am eating.

From a science perspective, Cornell University flavor chemist Professor Terry Acree had a great quote about wine and food pairing. Based upon years of research, he explained that wine and food pairing is: “completely contextual, and almost entirely individual.” From my lay experience, I could not agree more. I love Vin Santo and Sauternes, and would happily have either of them with a steak – which is something that would leave many wine lovers and sommeliers simply aghast.

That said, if I could have anything tonight, it would probably be a bottle of wine from the left bank of Bordeaux, France from the 2009 vintage (perhaps a Chateau Lagrange or a Chateau Kirwan) paired with Mimolette and aged Gouda cheeses and crackers.

Who would you love to share a bottle of wine with?

My wife and I have read that astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson is a wine connoisseur. We wrote a blog on trying to make wine understandable to everyone in the same way he makes physics understandable. We would love to have a bottle (or two) of wine with him.

Anything else we should know about you, your book or your career?

The wine book was my third book. My first book was on my other major passion – skiing. While a student at ��ý�Ļ��Ʒ, I was a volunteer ski patroller at the old Berthoud Pass Ski Area, and after the ski area closed I wrote the backcountry skiing guidebook to the region: Backcountry Skiing Berthoud Pass. My second book was a legal treatise applicable to my day-to-day job: Product Liability Law & Procedure in Colorado.

Note: A condensed version of this Q&A appeared in the Fall 2019 issue of the print Coloradan.

Photo courtesy Jordan Lipp/@iStock/eli_asenova (wine glass)

In 2018, Denver attorney Jordan Lipp wrote Is There Apple Juice in My Wine?: Thirty-Eight Laws that Affect the Wine You Drink, detailing some of the odd, unique and unknown facts about wine.

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South of Florence

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 18:00:00 +0000

South of Florence Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/01/2015 - 12:00

Eric Gershon

Michael and Jennifer Schmelzer, brother and sister winemakers, produce premium Old-World wines on a family estate in Tuscany. Don’t be surprised to see the name Monte Bernardi on menus in London, New York, Tokyo and Boulder.

For Michael Schmelzer (Bus’99), the end of spring exams at CU-Boulder usually marked the start of a new season of learning, one you might call the season of seasoning — he would fly to Europe to study at Le Cordon Bleu, the celebrated Parisian cooking school.

One summer he enrolled in a wine course led by a master sommelier.

“The first thing he said is, ‘Don’t brush your teeth in the morning, because it will ruin your palate for tasting wine,’” says Schmelzer, then about 20.

Coursework involved weekend field trips to France’s famed grape-growing regions and daily tastings, plus lectures on fruit spectrums, microclimates and soil subtleties.

Schmelzer had envisioned a life in food, but felt the center of his epicurean world shifting.

After meeting an Englishman producing wine at an Italian vineyard owned by an American, he beheld the life he really wanted — and saw that it was possible.

“Wait, you don’t have to be born into this?” he remembers thinking. “That was the final key for me.”

Schmelzer graduated from CU and went to Australia to study viticulture and winemaking. Today he is the winemaker at Monte Bernardi, the 130-acre vineyard, winery and agricultural estate he operates with his sister, Jennifer Schmelzer(ArchEng’96), in the heart of Tuscany’s Chianti Classico region, midway between Florence and Siena.

Michael tends to the grapes — primarily sangiovese, the region’s defining variety — and the wine. Jennifer, who had a career in construction management and real estate finance, cultivates the business. They produce six estate wines, mostly reds, including their hallmark Chianti Classico Retromarcia.

Monte Bernardi wines are served at Momofuku Ko in New York, Quo Vadis in London, Osteria Beverino in Tokyo and, in Boulder, at Frasca, among other top restaurants. They’re available in 20 U.S. states and more than a dozen countries.

Writers for the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, Fine Wine Magazine and Decanter, among others, have all taken notice, with Eric Asimov of the Times describing one Monte Bernardi Chianti Classico as “balanced, with flavors of violets, cherries and a touch of oak.”

Says Jennifer, “It’s been the experience of a lifetime.”

As winemakers, the Schmelzers, who grew up in the U.S. and Europe, are traditionalists. They prune vines and pick grapes by hand, age and store wines in large oak casks and favor native yeasts and bacteria as fermentation aids, which they say makes for more distinctive and traditional wines.

They believe low-tech, traditional methods, combined with Monte Bernardi’s high altitude, steep slopes, rocky soils and multiple exposures, result in wines that manifest the region’s full potential.

He remembers thinking: “Wait, you don’t have to be born into this?'That was the final key.”

Yet the Schmelzers are also pioneers: They’re the only Italian producers offering wines in the United States in boxes (Tetra Paks), and one of a still small group of producers bold enough to offer premium wine in something other than a bottle.

Last year they produced about 65,000 bottles (5,400 cases) and a similar amount of wine in Tetra Paks, lightweight, paper-based one-liter containers. About half their U.S. Tetra Pak sales are to restaurants and half to wine shops.

Their bet is that, in the United States, where most wine is consumed within 24 hours of purchase, consumers increasingly accustomed to box wine will sacrifice the aesthetic appeal of a bottle for a greater amount of high-quality wine at a lower price.

One Tetra Pak package costs about the same as a bottle cork, Michael says. The Schmelzers share the savings with consumers, who can get a one-liter Tetra Pak for $14 instead of the $20 it would cost in a 750 ml bottle.

The approach appears to be working: Last year, the Schmelzers sold 63,000 Tetra Paks in the United States, up from 12,000 a few years ago.

To reach Monte Bernardi from Florence, you take the Chiantigiana south for about 20 miles. The buzzing of Vespas in the Tuscan capital yields to olive groves, vineyards and forests of oak. The landscape starts flat, then grows hillier and curvier. You reach Monte Bernardi at Panzano in Chianti — “the bellybutton of Chianti Classico,” says Michael.

The estate has existed as a named place for nearly 1,000 years. Over the centuries farmers there have grown peaches, apricots, grains, barley, oats, clover, potatoes, olives and, of course, grapes.

The Schmelzer family bought the property in 2003, after a three-year search throughout Italy and France. Michael and Jennifer operate the business. Their father, Willi Schmelzer, is chief investor, and their brother, David (ElEngr’00), is a partner. In addition to grapes, the Schmelzers grow olives for olive oil and rent the villa as a vacation home.

Monte Bernardi remains a small operation — one neighboring winery produces 450,000 bottles annually. At the height of fall harvest, the Schmelzers employ about 18 people, including themselves and visiting friends and relatives.

The modest scale of the enterprise allows them to blend the profitable practice of a painstaking craft with an intimate, pastoral lifestyle. Michael lives down the road with wife Claudia and their two daughters, Olivia, 9, and Sabina, 4. Jennifer splits her time between the estate and Rome.“I feel like one of the few people in the world who’s doing what he should be doing,” says Michael, “and enjoying every minute of it.”

Illustration by Eric Hanson; Photography courtesy Jennifer Schmelzer/Monte Bernardi

Michael and Jennifer Schmelzer, brother and sister winemakers, produce premium Old-World wines on a family estate in Tuscany.

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Mastering the World of Wine

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Mastering the World of Wine Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 09/01/2013 - 00:00

Christie Sounart

There are only 20 female master wine experts in North America. Carlin Karr (Comm'08) wants to be one of them.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not thinking about wine,” Karr says.

Karr, 27, is a sommelier at Boulder’s Frasca Food and Wine, a James Beard Award-winning restaurant on Pearl Street with a menu inspired by the cuisine of northeastern Italy and co-owned by master sommelier Bobby Stuckey. Karr works directly with Frasca’s wine director and sommelier Matt Mather to provide customers with perfect wine pairings, sometimes visiting with them for 20 minutes before determining an ideal wine for their tastes from the restaurant’s 65-page wine list. She is in charge of the $250,000-$500,000 wine budget, choosing wines to sell in the restaurant and keeping track of inventory.

“To be able to focus on wine is truly a luxury, and there are so few restaurants that can provide it,” she says. “It’s the coolest job in the world — communicating the experience of taste.”

A large part of a sommelier’s work is being hospitable to guests. Hospitality often can be the most difficult part of the job, especially when a customer is spending $200-$300 on a bottle of wine and expectations are high, Karr explains. In order to remain as professional as possible, she keeps notes on each customer and their wine orders to remember them the next time they come into the restaurant.

“There is a romance in wine,” she says. “It can be very elusive.”

Prior to graduating from CU, Karr had never had an interest in wine. She was introduced to the complex world of wine while attending culinary school in San Francisco in 2008.

“Once I started learning about wine, I became obsessed with it,” she says. “I dropped out of culinary school and started studying wine on my own.”

She passed her first two sommelier exams, but having no previous restaurant experience she had difficulty finding a job. Friends from CU introduced her to Matt McNamara (Mgmt’04) and Teague Moriarty who were opening Sons & Daughters, a restaurant in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood in spring 2010. New to the food industry, they took a chance on hiring Karr as their general manager and wine director. With the trios’ collaboration, the tiny restaurant earned a prestigious Michelin star.

Ready to rid herself of the long hours and stress of restaurant management after two years, Karr decided to focus solely on wine. In early 2012 she was connected with Stuckey — who left renowned California restaurant The French Laundry in 2003 to open Frasca in Boulder. He was impressed with her talent.

“She is one of the most motivated young people I’ve ever been able to work with,” Stuckey says, adding that he wouldn’t be surprised if she became a master sommelier by the time she is 30. “She’s the real deal.”

The word “sommelier” translates from its French origins to mean a restaurant steward or server in charge of wine. However, the Court of Master Sommeliers was established in England to improve the standards of wine knowledge and service, and exams were created to grant certification to sommeliers. The first successful master sommelier examination took place in 1969, and today there are only 201 master sommeliers worldwide. Four rigorous exams are required to become a master sommelier, and each one takes years of daily studying.

After three years of prepping, Karr passed her third exam in April on her first try, a rare feat. She immediately began studying for the final invite-only test, which she believes could take her up to five years of preparation. For exams, Karr must know everything about a bottle of wine — from the history of its region and the soil in which its grapes are grown to its producer and the exact flavors that should compose the wine. She also needs to be able to blind taste the wine and correctly identify it.

Karr, one of Wine & Spirits magazine’s “Best New Sommeliers of 2013,” practices blind tasting weekly at Frasca to be up-to-date on the ever-changing world of wine. At home, her walls are plastered with maps of the world’s wine regions, and the floors are littered with boxes of meticulously written flashcards. Dozens of wine journals, books and articles fill the rest of her downtown Boulder apartment. Every wine she has ever tasted is dutifully archived in one of her many notebooks.

“There are people who spend their entire lives trying to become master sommeliers,” she says.

Despite the difficulty in becoming a master sommelier, Karr believes that anyone can learn how to taste and recognize wine. It’s about being open to trying a variety of foods to expand your palate and committing taste to memory, she explains, adding that taste and smell are subjective. A certain wine that smells distinctively like peach candy to her, for example, smells completely different to her colleagues Stuckey and Mather.

“It’s not an elusive talent,” she says. “It’s just identification [of taste].”

As a young woman in a male-dominated industry, Karr feels she brings a fresh perspective to the wine world. She hopes someday to expand her talents in other ways, perhaps getting into the media aspect of food and wine and becoming a food writer.

“The wine world is my oyster,” she says. “There are so many stories to tell.”

Photos by Glenn Asakawa

What does it take to become one of the world's leading experts in wine? Ask 27-year-old Carlin Karr.

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Buffs Boost Boutique Vineyards: Winestyr

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 07:00:00 +0000

Buffs Boost Boutique Vineyards: Winestyr Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 03/01/2013 - 00:00

Christie Sounart

With the launch of their business Winestyr, Robert Wilson (Fin’06), pictured in the middle, his brother John Wilson (Jour’06), right, and lifelong friend Scott Washburn (Fin’06), left, have one strong intention: to elevate the visibility of small, niche wineries.

Since January 2012 Winestyr has connected small wineries across the country directly with consumers. It also makes it simpler and cheaper for an individual to purchase unique wine online. Robert says a consumer will never pay more than $10 for shipping, and the wine comes to them directly from the winery.

The concept for Winestyr emerged in 2010. Robert was preparing to move to England for a master’s degree program but was inspired by the idea for Winestyr when his father, Jack Wilson (Mktg’72), lamented the fact that boutique wineries often were inaccessible to the public. Ecstatic about his new business concept, Robert put his master’s degree on hold.

“I never thought I’d have a good enough idea to be an entrepreneur,” Robert says. “The fact that I had saved money and cut my financial responsibilities [for England] set the stage to start a business and really jump head first into it.”

With the success of craft breweries sprouting around the country, Robert wanted to bring the same model to wineries. He had some knowledge of the wine industry because of a brief stint selling wholesale wine to retailers in Chicago after graduating from CU-Boulder.

Scott joined Winestyr after working as one of the original account executives for Groupon in Orlando and John, an attorney, became the “key legal piece” for Winestyr. With the crucial business and legal assets secured, the company became a reality. Robert became a certified specialist of wine in February 2012 by taking a difficult wine-based test ranging from wine chemistry to worldwide wine regions.

Scott, who helps with the acquisition and sale of wines, says he loves developing personal relationships with the winemakers.

“It’s been challenging, exciting and rewarding,” he says. “At the end of the day, we really just want to provide a great experience for customers and help wineries gain exposure.”

The trio travels to the West Coast at least once a year to seek out unique wines, doing the remaining wine acquisition via phone. They launched with 20 wineries in their marketplace and continue to be selective as the company grows.

They promote their company through digital advertising, social media and word-of-mouth.

“There is a prevailing sense to root for the little guy,” John says. “That’s who we’re out there to help.”

Learn more at www.winestyr.com. Get $10 off your first Winestyr purchase
of $50 or more with the coupon code “Buffs” at checkout.

With the launch of their business Winestyr, Robert Wilson, John Wilson and lifelong friend Scott Washburn have one strong intention: to elevate the visibility of small, niche wineries.

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Running and Wine a Winning Combo

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Running and Wine a Winning Combo Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/01/2011 - 00:00

William Allen Baltz

Who would have thought that running and wine paired so well? Matt Dockstader (Bus’78) did and in 2004 produced the first Napa-to-Sonoma Wine Country Half Marathon.

“My vision was to produce a scenic race in a special part of the country that would appeal to people of all ages and abilities,” says Matt, who lives in Sonoma, Calif. “In the process we’ve uncovered and developed a niche market of runners and wine enthusiasts that continues to grow.”

His company, Destination Races, produces five wine country half-marathons — 13.1 miles — attracting more than 40,000 participants. It partners with hotels, wineries, visitors bureaus and other local businesses to make the races true destination events.

Matt came up with the idea after working on a committee to bring the Olympic Games to San Francisco in 2003. However, at times the logistics seemed overwhelming.

“We are producing major sports and entertainment events, including a race, a health and fitness expo, a wine and music festival and other ancillary activities all in three days,” he says. “A lot of moving parts need to come together at one time.”

With the help of dedicated volunteers and a small part-time staff, he prevailed. The icing on the cake is the trademark post-race Wine & Music Festival where runners join teammates, friends and family in the Sonoma plaza to celebrate, receive awards and sample wines from some of the finest wineries in the region. Runner’s World magazine selected Napa-to-Sonoma as the best half-marathon finish in a 2008 issue.

Matt expanded his Wine Country Half Marathons into Santa Barbara and Healdsburg, Calif., the Willamette Valley in Oregon and Loudoun County, Va. He credits his success to his education and life experiences at Boulder.

“My CU business education taught me the critical importance of planning, innovative thinking and persistence,” he says. “I also met so many diverse people from all over the country, just as I am doing now in my business.”

Randee Kadziel (MEdu’76), 59, and her daughter of Park City, Utah, ran the Napa-to-Sonoma and Santa Barbara Wine Country Half Marathons together in 2008 and 2010, respectively.

“Running these races was a special experience for my daughter and me,” says Randee, a breast-cancer survivor.

The winner of the inaugural Oregon Wine Country Half Marathon was former CU runner Stephen Pifer (Geol’08), who on Feb. 11, 2006, became the only Buff to record a sub-four-minute mile. Patty Roberts Rogers (Psych’96), a four-time All-American in track and cross-country at CU from 1992-96, was the 2007 Napa-to-Sonoma women’s champion.

Who would have thought that running and wine paired so well? Matt Dockstader did and in 2004 produced the first Napa-to-Sonoma Wine Country Half Marathon.

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