Editor:

I am very familiar with California wines, because in the 1980s and 1990s, I put more California wines on the market here in British Columbia than any other importer. For many years, I have pleaded to the wineries to cut down on the oak flavor in their wines, and to stop the use of oak staves, dust or chips to flavor the wine. As you know, red wine should be aged in oak barrels to give the wine complexity and finesse, not to make the wine smell and taste of oak. When a wine smells and tastes of oak, it is out of balance.

On Feb. 7., I was invited to a tasting of Sonoma wines here in Vancouver, B.C. I tasted a lot of 2004 red wines, and I am very pleased to say that more than 90% of the wines did have very good balance, and did not smell and taste of oak, as they had in the past.

French and Italian wines have had a big increase in sales….In general, the European wine does not smell and taste of oak.

The wine of California could, in the future, be one of the best wines in
the world.

s/ Hubert M. Demonty
President
Maison Demonty, Inc.
Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Editor:

Linda Bisson should stick to yeasts, and leave the prognosticating to people with a grasp on reality. (See winesandvines.com, Headlines, Mar. 9, "Missing in the Future: Barrels and Footprints?") Anybody who thinks that oak barrels are going away entirely knows nothing about the wine industry. I'm sure that nonsense like this has a titillation factor, but it does nothing to further a reasoned dialogue concerning the future of the wine industry, here or anywhere else.

s/ Keith Roberts
Master cooper
Foster's Wine Estates Americas


Editor:

Regarding "A Warning Label About Nothing" (Opinion/Analysis by Dan Berger, March 2007): Although I thoroughly enjoy caviar (fish eggs) with many wines, especially Champagne, I have not embarked on the practice of consuming isinglass (a form of collagen derived from sturgeon air bladders) in any appreciable amounts with or without my favorite wine. As noted though, I have on occasion past found the need to use isinglass to clarify a wine or two.

Thanks for the article on this ridiculous TTB proliferation of inaccurate and dubious value labels.

s/ Michael Blaylock
Winemaker
Quady Winery
Madera, Calif.

Editor:

Everywhere you turn, there's another article about Michel Rolland putting his mark on wines from every continent. Some of the negative coverage mentioned by Dave McIntyre ("Rolland's Mark on Virginia," March 2007) is doubtless jealousy, tinged with latent anti-French sentiment that seems to pervade the U.S. these days, and which I find groundless and absurd.

Having said that, Monsieur Rolland's work suggests a deeper look--one that McIntyre avoids. And McIntyre is simply wrong when he says that Rolland is controversial because of 2004's "Mondovino." That was a documentary, and relatively few people saw it. It's not the film but what it suggests--with some evidence--that's stirring things up. As the wine business "globalizes" like technology, individuality in winemaking may be going out the window.

McIntyre's not alone in avoiding tough questions: a June 2006 article from a prestigious consumer wine publication said, "He (Rolland) is not a proponent of micro-oxygenation as some suggest, and never has been." Yet a scant 10 minutes into "Mondovino," we see Rolland holding court at Château Le Gay in Pomerol, telling the owner to do just that.

And when the filmmaker notes that not everyone shares Rolland's idea about what makes a wine better, he responds "Yeah, it's called diversity. That's why there are so many bad wines." There's a strong message there.

Even while Patricia Kluge disputes that Rolland makes the same wine everywhere, the article seems not to be about what she, or winemaker Charles Gendot, or CEO William Moses want, but more about what M. Rolland wants: "For the long term, Rolland's goal at Kluge Estate is to unlock the potential...." His goal? Have they none?

To be sure, Rolland's insight and expertness are real, and earned. But it's fair to ask: Can anyone who touches 100 wineries and countless wines every year avoid putting his singular personal stamp on what otherwise might be a very different expression of the grape?

s/ David Gaier,
wine-flair.com
Metuchen, N.J