Category Archives: Newspaper Column 2015

Visiting Two Different Indiana Wineries

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Indiana, Newspaper Column 2015

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Carpenter Creek Cellars and Hopwood Cellars could not be more different. Carpenter Creek, in Jasper County, sits off I-65 in north central Indiana in the midst of some of the state’s best farmland. Hopwood is just off the charming brick Main Street of Zionsville.

Grape Sense LogoOne of my goals for Grape Sense is to get to more Indiana wineries than I have in past few years. Grape Sense will offer up a take on the spots throughout 2015. And we’ll revisit some old friends too.

Carpenter Creek Cellars is a three-man partnership housed in a historic barn built in 1919. Winemaker Joe McKinney, a Purdue ag grad, poured the lineup on a blustery, snowy day in late February. The winery sets just a few miles off I-65, the Remington exit. There are enough signs to get you there.

Hopwood Cellars tasting room in converted barn.

Hopwood Cellars tasting room in converted barn.

Most of the fruit for Carpenter wines come from vineyards around Indiana and Lower Michigan. I found the Chardonel to be among the best I’ve tasted in the state. At $15.99 it was light melon and tropical fruit with a soft finish.

The biggest selling wine called Gunny – a Chambourcin/Merlot blend – was sold out. The Riesling was a bit sweet for my palate but the $14.99 Traminette was spot on. The Traminette was rich and smooth, a hint of orange, but not over the top like so many Indiana efforts with the floral grape.

The basic sweet red of Concord grapes, just $11.99, will certainly deliver for sweet wine fans. It was a tad softer and mellow than many. They also make a line of locally-sourced and seasonal fruit wines.

The bottom line, sitting in the middle of a cornfield in an old barn, the winery surprises. I was skeptical but found the wines, even the ones that don’t suit my palate, very well made. The winery has a small plot of Traminette near the old barn but McKinney would love to expand the vineyard holdings. The area feels a bit desolate on the plain but it’s some of Indiana’s richest crop property.

Hopwood Cellars, Zionsville

Hopwood Cellars, Zionsville

Hopwood Cellars isn’t much older than Carpenter Creek but certainly sets in a different environment. Hopwood, 12 E. Cedar St., is located just off the beautiful Zionsville Main Street. It has a cozy tasting room and a really wide selection of wines. Most of Hopwood’s fruit comes from Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan.

The biggest hit for me was a 100 percent bottling of Michigan Chancellor. It’s a hybrid grape known to deliver its strong fruit flavor. The dominant thing in my pour was a wonderful smoke flavor with hints of dark, dried fruit. The Bekkar, Chambourcin/Chancellor, is one of the biggest sellers. It was very nice wine with low alcohol. It wasn’t very memorable but it was quite quaffable.

The best, and most interesting white, on the Zionsville winery list was its Aefen Brucan Vidal Blanc. By the way, Aefen Brucan translates into “Have a Good Evening.” The wine would make any night better. The Vidal Blanc is grown in Indiana and has a very rich and smooth mouth feel with a buttery finish. I did taste two other whites Seyval Blanc and Chardonnay that did not live up to the quality of others on the tasting list.

Visiting two new wineries continues to affirm the quality of Indiana wine remaining on a sharp upward curve.

Rose’, Pinot, & Idiot Legislature

27 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by in Food & Travel, Newspaper Column 2015, Oregon

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There are numerous websites and publications detailing everything happening in the world of wine. Sometimes those issues are worth sharing.

Grape Sense LogoIndiana Senate Bill 113 – The Indiana Direct Shipping bill remains in House committee. The bill would remove the ridiculous 2006 restriction on Indiana wineries requiring a face-to-face purchase before wine can be shipped in state.

CrazyThe bill is a double-edged sword opening up an important stream of revenue for small wineries but increasing the licensing fee from $100 to $500. Contact your local legislator asking the fee be restored to $100 as Sen. Phil Boots intended.

There’s a pattern here if you pay attention. The big alcohol related legislation of the session is Sunday sales but the same thing has happened. The legislation actually failed this week because the liquor lobby (read wholesalers/some retailers) objected. The bill was weighed down with the unruly burden of requiring supermarkets and drug stores to build walls. No one could make this stuff up.

RoseloresRose, How We Love Thee. Dry Rose, and particularly dry French Rose, is one of the biggest success stories of the last decade. For too long pink meant sweet but now pink, or a light salmon color, means great dry French wine.

For the 11th straight year exports to the U.S. of Provence Rose’ wine increased by double digits. In 2014, Rose exports went up 29 percent on volume.

Oregon Stature Grows. The last two years have established the importance of Oregon Pinot Noir above and beyond some of its founders wildest expectations. When the ‘big boys’ start buying up properties it’s easy to label Oregon Pinot a worldwide success story.

Domaine Drouhin started the foreign investment in the 1980s but recently it has exploded. Drouhin bought nearly 300 more acres of vineyard about a year ago. Louis Jadot more recently acquired a 32-acre vineyard and hopes to buy more.

Jackson Family Wines, probably better known to the average consumer as Kendall-Jackson, has purchased nearly 500 acres of Oregon vineyard in two separate acquisitions. They are operating a winery near Yamhill under the name Gran Moraine.

Joseph Wagner, think Caymus, has purchased the Elouan Brand while Bill Foley picked off 35,000 case boutique brand Four Graces.

The interest shows Oregon is making great wine and has a great future. The purists must continue to hope some of these big boys don’t destroy the boutique feel of the Willamette Valley.

Alexana winemaker Bryan Weil sharing barrel tastes.

Alexana winemaker Bryan Weil sharing barrel tastes.

Join Me on Oregon Tour. I’ll be hosting my second trip to Oregon’s Willamette Valley in June. It’s a five-night, four day boutique visit. We taste with winemakers and winery owners, stay in a fabulous bed and breakfast and eat in a couple of Oregon’s best restaurants. The trip is all inclusive one you arrive until you leave.

You can find full details of the wine trip on the Grape Sense blog (www.howardhewitt.net). Click the link at the top “Drink & Eat Oregon” for full details or write me at the address below.

Legislature’s Smoke & Mirrors

06 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by in Indiana, Midwestern States, Newspaper Column 2015

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There is a bill moving through the Indiana Legislature which, on the surface, appears to help Indiana wineries. The Senate approved a measure removing restrictions on in-state shipping by eliminating the face-to-face requirement established in 2006.

Grape Sense LogoBut like the old adage ‘no good deed shall go unpunished’ the legislature resorted to its usual ways of big bucks win and stuck it to the state’s smaller wineries. Fortunately, it’s not too late if wine enthusiasts will reach out to their legislators.

Senate Bill 113, sponsored by Phil Boots, Crawfordsville, removed the silly face-to-face requirement. Boots left the licensing fee at a reasonable $100. But in the Public Policy Committee members boosted the fee to $500.

“So for an Indiana winery, we already have to pay a $500 annual Farm Winery Permit, and now in order to ship wine we’ll have to pay for another $500 license,” said Jim Pfeiffer, owner/winemaker at Turtle Run Winery, Corydon.

PfeifferLow

Pfeiffer

“The idea behind the $500 license is to discourage direct shipping, especially from wineries outside the state.  A few other states have similar laws, such as Missouri and Michigan, two states in which we don’t ship wine due to the cost of procuring their licenses.”

Frankly, I disagree with my friend Jim. The wholesaler lobbying effort could give a hoot about where wine comes from as long as it passes through their hands for their cut. When I asked Boots if the fee was increased simply to appease the wholesaler’s lobby, he said, “Sure.”

And that lobby makes political contributions, albeit small ones in many cases, to virtually every legislator in the statehouse.

The antiquated three-tier liquor system does nothing but cost Indiana wineries profit. If small Indiana wineries go through a wholesaler, they must significantly reduce the cost of the product so the wholesaler, then retailer, get their cut. If the small winery can ship to your door, they make all the profit. And most wholesalers have little to no interest in carrying Indiana product any way.

If passed, with or without the higher fee, some legislators will brazenly thump their chest for helping out small Indiana business. That is a crock of you know what and Boots agrees.

Boots

Boots

“There have been a lot of people say (… the legislature has given then taken away,)” the Crawfordsville legislator said. “That’s the highest license fee in the nation. It will not help the real small guys. They can’t afford that.”

Boots is encouraging supporters to contact House members and get the fee restored to $100. I’ve visited nearly half of Indiana’s 70-something wineries and have learned a few things about the economics. There are probably a very small handful of Indiana wineries which can afford another $500 license.

The committee moved the bill with a 9-0 vote then the full Senate passed it with a 40-10 roll call. It’s now in the House Public Policy Committee.

You can help by writing members of the House Public Policy committee and your own representative. Thomas Dermody is chair. Timothy Wesco is vice chair. Committee members are: Edward Clere, Sean Eberhart, Todd Huston, Matthew Leman, Jim Lucas, Ben Smaltz, Matthew Ubelhor, Philip GiaQuinta, Terri Jo Austin, Charlie Brown, and Vanessa Summers. You can easily find their email and phone numbers on http://www.iga.in.gov website.

Write these Reps, write your Rep. ask they set the fee in Senate Bill 113 at the original $100 and help all 70-plus Indiana wineries.

Legislature Could Boost Wine Sales

30 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by in Indiana, Newspaper Column 2015

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UPDATE: The bill passed the Indiana Senate this week, 40-10, and now goes to the House. I’ll have an update this coming week on the bill’s status. I’ve also learned of some controversy of an increase in the licensing fee – $100 to $500 for Indiana wineries if bill passes.

Wine enthusiasts have read about the great wines of Huber, Butler, Oliver, and Turtle Run wineries in Southern Indiana. But what if you’re reading Grape Sense in Marion or Peru Indiana? You just can’t pick up the phone and order some wine to try these great bottles. It’s prohibited by state law. And let’s admit, it’s a long drive.

Grape Sense LogoThere is seldom good news in Indiana on direct shipping laws but there is hope in the ongoing session of the Indiana legislature. Current law, in place since 2006, requires consumers to visit on site and make a face-to-face purchase before they can order online. It hurt Indiana wineries significantly when enacted and winery owners are excited it could disappear.

Such statutes used to be fairly common across the country but are now disappearing. Indiana Senate Bill 113, introduced by Crawfordsville Senator Phil Boots, would require customers to provide name, address, phone number and proof of age but remove the onsite restriction.

The good news is the bill passed out of the Senate Public Policy Committee, 9-0. But Jim Butler, who often is involved on behalf of Indiana wineries on governance matters, knows there is still a long way to go.

Jim Butler

Jim Butler

“It’s a great start, but the session is never over until the last hour of the last day, and as you know adult beverage legislation is always a labyrinth,” said Butler, who owns a winery near Bloomington. “Back in 2006 we lost the shipping rights that we had had for over 30 years and as a result we lost about 90 percent of our shipping business and have never really regained it.  This bill will be a great help to our customers as well as us as a business.”

So any Hoosier who supports free commerce should support the bill. You need to encourage those ‘pro-business legislators’ to support Senate Bill 113.

Besides killing profit, the 2006 change created more bureaucracy for Indiana wineries, which already are burdened with regulations and mounds of paper work.

Huber, Ted

Ted Huber

Ted Huber, one of the state’s biggest producers and most-visited wineries, said the current system has been a mess. “Obviously, this type of tracking is cumbersome and complicated,” he said. “It is hard for Huber’s to track Indiana customers among the other visitors that we have traveling through from other states.

“This process becomes frustrating to our Indiana guests as they often leave our tasting room and forget to sign the affidavit.” Huber’s welcomes more than 500,000 annually.

The usual suspects have lined up against the change with tired arguments which have never been proven to have merit. The Indiana Beverage Alliance represents retailers and wholesalers and doesn’t want to lose any business. While that’s understandable, don’t we all support a free marketplace?

“There are lots of Pinot Noirs on the shelf at Indiana retailers,” said Marc Carmichael on behalf of the Alliance. Sure there are lots of choices on those shelves. But Indiana wines take up a tiny portion of the inventory of most retail outlets. If you want to drink Indiana wine, shouldn’t you be able to buy it conveniently?

You can bet the underage-drinking crowd will chime in with their hysterics. Such organizations do an important and great job educating young people about alcohol. That argument gets most of us who support direct shipping de-regulation the most riled up. There is no documented evidence this has ever happened – any where!

Today’s column is a call to action, winos! Contact your local legislator and ask them to support Senate Bill 113 and to change this terrible anti-business law.

2015 is Year to Explore, Travel

20 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Newspaper Column 2015, Uncategorized

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The annual year-end column is normally a listing of my Top 10 wines of the year. Not this year, there are too many lists out there already. Instead, much like the days as an old newspaper editor, here is a collection of random thoughts you might test to improve your palate and wine enjoyment.

Grape Sense LogoDrink Different
Since launching Grape Sense in 2007 I’ve probably written “drink different” hundreds of times here and on the wine blog. Specifically, get into a wine shop or liquor store with a wide selection of wines and don’t rely on the grocery for all your wine purchases. Shops with a good selection of wine will have plenty of choices you’ve never tried.

For example: If you dislike Chardonnay, try the unoaked Chards and splurge a little on Chablis. Seek out French Rhone red wines. Novice wine consumers would be hard pressed to find better value wine than the delicious French Rhones made of Syrah, Grenache, and Mouvredre. They’re wonderful with food or on their own and often in the $12-$16 range.

Drink more South American wine in 2015. Argentina and Chile continue to produce wines which seem to improve with each vintage. Everyone knows of Argentinian Malbec but look for a Bonarda for something different. Bonarda will often have many of the same taste characteristics but a bit more of a smoky hint on the palate.

Don’t be afraid of Indiana wines. Nothing frustrates me more than the “oh, those are sweet wines” response when Hoosier wines are mentioned. Yes, most big Indiana wines haul in the vast portion of their bottom line from sweet and fruit wines. But Bill Oliver, Ted Huber, and others are making drinkable dry reds which get better with every vintage.

Educate yourself
Most wine drinkers want to enjoy a glass now and then and probably don’t have the same interest as a wine writer. But to really understand wine visit a vineyard anywhere and take a vineyard tour. You’ll learn more about wine surrounded by grapes than you will in 20 tasting room visits.

Lobby your Legislator
Indiana is the last of the 50 states banning Sunday alcohol sales. The issue is going to be addressed in the coming legislative session. It’s finally time. Grass roots support makes a difference when it’s overwhelming. If you don’t think so, just think back to last year’s incredible reaction – pro and con – to the legislature’s actions on the gay marriage fight. Your voice matters.

Wine Travel
A wine vacation can be lots of fun and you’re almost always in a beautiful location. A simple trip would be a nice two or three-day visit to Traverse City. Explore the wineries of Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsulas. If you’ve never been to Napa/Sonoma, make 2015 the year you check that off your bucket list. Whether you are a casual or very serious wino, Napa/Sonoma is a terrific vacation.

Or just take a Saturday and visit two or three Indiana wineries.

My favorite wine trip is Oregon’s Willamette valley. The Pinot Noir is world class, the food is amazing, and the vineyards are stunning. You’re also just a little more than an hour from one of our country’s most beautiful natural wonders, the Columbia River Gorge.

I’ll be leading another trip to that area in June after last year’s very successful first visit. More details to come soon.

Ask Questions
Thanks to all the readers who wrote in 2014 asking specific wine questions, wine travel questions and more. I’ll always respond. My email is at the bottom of today’s column.