Review: English Estates Winery

A few weeks ago, my husband Burtle and I took a drive on a very rainy Saturday and sent to English Estates Winery in Vancouver, WA. This was the last of the Clark County wineries that we had not gone to, and yet it was the first one in the area.

English Estates Winery is next door to a rock quarry named the English plant, so English is actually more a neighborhood name than referring to the United Kingdom. The winery does grow some of their own grapes, though the city is starting to encroach.

They have a barn in which they have worked on, expanded, and set up the formation and tasting room. The tasting room impressed Burtle so much that he called it the best tasting room he had ever been in. Color wise, it was done up in mustard colors, kind of Tuscan, but it had exposed wood beams, and an area with a fireplace and winged back chairs to give it an English feel. It was very cozy. Being an older building, the concrete floor did slope a little, but when the built the bar, they built the bar level despite the floor. It does give a little bit of an optical illusion.

English Estates Winery is very different when it comes to their wine, so it isn’t like 99% of other wineries in the area. When we went, they had three white wines, a Monte Carlo, Moscato, and a Friday Night Blush. The last two were sweet. They specialize in pinot noir and pinot noir blends, and they don’t put the pinot noir in oak barrels. It kind of left for a softer red wine, though maybe a little less flavorful than I’m used to (unsure if that is pinot or the lack of oak, since both are rare for me). They also have a large selection of eight fortified nectars, where they take a wine, add back in some brandy to stabilize the wine. This higher level of alcohol allows them to add back in sugar without fear of the yeast eating the sugar. They had flavors like Moscato, pinot noir, and raspberry. Some are sweet, and some are semi-sweet.

Last of all, English Estates Winery offers their wines in the traditional 750 mL bottle, or a 3 L bag in a box (BIBB). The bag option is becoming more popular, as you can pour yourself a glass without having air enter the package. This means that you can drink from it indefinitely without spoilage, unlike normal wine bottles.

Overall, I was impressed. While they aren’t really near the other wineries in the county, they offer something different and unique, and for those reasons I recommend visiting them.

Cider Geek vs Snob Part II

The timing is a little weird, but about five minutes after I published yesterday’s blog about been a cider geek/snob, then this news article about “5 Hard Ciders Guests Will Like Better Than Beer” comes across my desk. I thought, so here is a chance for me to try and be more geeky and less snobby about what I consider less than desirable ciders. The author, Jason Notte makes the following suggestions:

• Magners
• Woodchuck
• Original Sin
• Samuel Smith’s
• Crispin

So my first reaction is that all of these ciders are rushed. That is to say, they are made more like beer in that they are bottled within six weeks from the start of fermentation. Someone who makes cider more like wine will let it age for at least nine months. But these cider producers work in volume – they don’t have time for aging, and rushing also cuts down on the amount of equipment they need. Secondly, and I could be mistaken on this but I don’t think so, these ciders are made from concentrate. In order to operate year round, they take the apple harvest and crush, press, and concentrate the juice so that they can rehydrate in the off season like May and ferment it. Thirdly, and I did verify this one, they all run an unnatural 4.5%-5% AVB with the exception of Original Sin, which is a more natural 6%. Unless they are using poor quality apples, the cider should naturally want to be a 6% AVB. This means to me that they are diluting it down or stopping fermentation prematurely. Either way, it is pasteurized to be shelf stable to prevent the yeast from consuming the rest of the sugar. This also means it is going to be a little bit sweet, yet maybe have more of that “apple flavor” people think cider should have (wine does not taste like grapes, so cider shouldn’t taste like apples). So overall, these techniques are very mass production factory work instead of small scale craft making.

That said:

• I think Magners has decent flavor, partly because it is an Irish cider. That is to say, America cut down all of its cider apple trees, so the American cider makers are using inferior eating apples.
• I find Woodchuck too sweet, and would recommend Original Sin instead.
• Samuel Smith’s Organic cider has a flaw in it that I have people drink for learning and as a party joke. Therefore, if someone is not looking to learn cider flaws, or is not in the mood for a party joke, then skip it.
• Crispin can be decent with the classic ciders, but I find their advertising “over ice” bizarre, and they also add a lot of adjuncts like honey, maple syrup, and more so that it doesn’t taste like cider anymore. This has me really has me questioning if they are challenging the beer market, or the malt beverage market. Instead, if you are lucky enough to live in an area that sells it, I would sort of steer people toward a company out of California that Crispin bought out – Fox Barrel. If they are going to add adjuncts, then it is going to be other fruits, but I just overall feel better about the product.

So, out of that list of five, I have two yes recommendations, and three nos.  I would like to believe that this makes me more of a geek than a snob, but maybe I have one too may nos?

Geek vs. Snob

We were out one evening at a pizza parlor with some friends and their friends, and one person in the party was the son of a winemaker. One of the women, who wanted to drink some wine, asked him which wine he recommended. None of them, he said. Period. He didn’t even offer up a suggested beer or cocktail, and this woman either had to drink nothing, or ignore his advice. What a snob.

And yet, my husband Burtle and I find ourselves in similar situations. Burtle wants to be a beer geek, but he says the line is sometimes blurry between that and being a snob. Both really know what they are talking about, and both can be picky. It just feels like being a geek is someone who says, “Oh man, I was really hoping for something better, but I’ll take what you have, happily.” A snob won’t make that compromise, or they will drink it unhappily.

I fight the battle with cider myself. There are a lot of times that I’m at a brew pub, and they only have one cider, and I think it is an inferior cider, but I still drink it. Though, admittedly, there are a few that are starting to creep into my view as not really drinkable, so I might skip it and drink nothing. I guess that is pushing me into being a snob. But there are other times where I’m with people and they ask my opinion on what cider to get, and I’ll encourage them to try those same ciders I don’t care for because I think they need to start developing their taste somewhere, and those ciders are easier to find. I can warn them that I don’t care for them, but maybe their taste is different, so they might like it. Maybe that pulls me back to geek level?

The New Cider Tour Map

I have mentioned before that I was trained as a map maker. Most of my work is actually analysis, like studying demographics at a place or relationships between places.

A year ago, I went through and created a tour map of drinks I had reviewed, places I had been, or production sites that seemed interesting. Originally, I did it in Google Maps, but it always felt wrong to me. See, I’m used to working with some really expensive software from Esri, whom I lovingly call the Microsoft of the mapping world. I’m used to having different datasets displayed on top of each other with the option to turn on and off layers. Only want to see cideries? Turn off everything else. Want to see cideries and meaderies? Turn the meaderies back on. Google would not allow me to do that, but Esri finally got a free online webmapping site up that allows me to control the data in a way that I’m used to doing. To boot, I also have a dataset which I upload and share, where as Google liked to strip out information when I tried to download and share. I’m not downloading anymore, just uploading.

So with that all said, I am now rolling out the first converted map: North American Cider Production Map. Check this and more out in the section Tour Maps.

PBS’s Prohibition

Next week, on January 16, 2012 mark the 92 years since the Volstead Act was ratified and became the 18^th Amendment to the US Constitution, being about the beginning of a 14 year era known as Prohibition.

Last October, PBS aired Prohibition by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. It took me a little bit to get around to watching the 5 ½ hour show, which was available at my library. It kind of covers the era from about 1840s through the 1930s from all angles.

Interestingly, in the 1800s, there were saloons, where only men went to drink. As a result, women were very instrumental in having Prohibition come about, partly as a safety measure for their security, safety, and the wellbeing of the family. Men would take their wages and spend it all down at the saloon, and perhaps come home drunk and beat on everyone. The battered family would starve because he spent his paycheck in an age where women did not work outside the home. There were other sides to the debate, such as Anglo-Protestant Americans being against alcohol, trying to save the drinking immigrants, but the idea of a space where only men went and how women protested is interesting to me. In addition, when Prohibition was in place, women actually began to go places to drink. It created a shift creating more gender equality, while creating a shift in space by closing saloons and opening female friendly speakeasies.

Prohibition was actually an amendment to the Constitution, as people at the time believed that this was the only way, since no other amendment had ever been overturned. Historians, however, talk about how it is ironic it is that the Constitution is about limiting government for the sake of personal freedoms, and Prohibition limits personal freedoms. One historian commented something to the extent that, “If you wanted people to brush their teeth, outlaw toothpaste. People will then start secretly brushing their teeth.”

Ultimately, Prohibition failed because people who supported it thought people would obey just to obey. Very little money was actually set aside for the enforcement of the law. People still wanted their alcohol, which created an illegal black market. This black market paid off a lot of officials, which really created an age of uncertainty and corruption.  Police would turn a blind eye to the distilling distribution wars that were happening, powerless to stop them. Also, once you have people breaking one law, it makes them less likely to follow others. And if you cops are corrupt and not enforcing one law, they may not enforce others.

I am obviously simplifying this era too much, but the show Prohibition walks you through all this and more, talking about the times, specific people and events, terms, culture, politics, and much more. For instance, Prohibition actually brought about today’s modern system of lobbying. Most of it is historians talking with black and white photos being shown and ragtime music in the background. I also like it how a few people are interviewed who lived in the times, or whose parents were somehow involved in either side of the battle. Prohibition is a well done, informative show about America’s history with alcohol during the 1840-1930s.

Hobbyist Moonshinin’

Max Watman, in closing of Chasing the White Dog, basically swears off being a distiller/moonshiner, even if he was only doing a pint at a time. He struggles with the “moral ambiguity” of being a hobbyist distiller, equating to something like a person who grows marijuana for himself and friends, which is different than someone who sets up a marijuana farm business. He did acquire some moonshine, the stuff made for pure profit, and said it was awful and needed to be regulated for health and safety. The stuff a hobbyist would make isn’t for profit, and he argues that it should be legalized. He says that with the way current laws are written, where one household can make not sellable 300 gallons of beer or wine a year (I was lead to believe it was 200 gallons, but maybe the laws changed), if you took all 300 of those gallons and distilled them at 10% conversion rate, you would have 30 gallons of spirit. He then alludes to the suggested idea that spirit sales would not decrease because people would want to test it out against store bought stuff (I have heard this to be a myth in New Zealand, where home distilling is legal, and supposedly spirit sales did not decrease). Watman thinks that if the government is really that scared about losing its tax money, hobbyists should have the option of paying $150 licensing fee a year without the ability to sell their spirits.

I have to say, I like this thinking. I recently poured five gallons of cider down the drain because it had a yeast film infection I couldn’t seem to get rid of. If I had bottled it, the infection would have come back. I could have pasteurized it, but I’m not set up to do that many bottles. Not that I’m set up to do distilling, either, but it would have been something new. And five gallons would have ended up as half a gallon of apple brandy, if that. Not only that, but in 2010, I made about 50 gallons of cider and wine, and I only did 40 gallons in 2011. I think, maybe if I could distill, I would ramp up production to make maybe a gallon of spirits (10 gallons more of cider?) a year, because I honestly don’t drink spirits that much. I sip cider and wine, but I down a cocktail. So the way I drink is faster, and my body just can’t handle the higher alcohol. However, I would be making pommeau.

Thing is, I’ve seen stove top stills in stores, and it wouldn’t be that hard with the internet to either buy one online or find plans to build one, which is what Watman did. I also do not think I would be caught by any authority. I know that sounds cocky, which is exactly why I can’t just be a moonshiner. There is a chance that I would be caught, and then I could never open my cider house, and who knows what other issues that would create with my career, and even that of my husband’s.

Oh, but I wish I could!

Book Review: Chasing the White Dog

I recently finished reading Chasing the White Dog by Max Watman, published in 2010. “White dog” is the term used for unaged whiskey, as all distilled spirits are clear until they have been aged in wood barrels, which is when the spirit turns gold. Watman takes you through moonshine history, research, interviews, and his own attempts at making moonshine. And when I say “moonshine,” I mean not licensed for distilling.

The book is laid out in such a way that Watman takes you through a chapter with his interviews, history, and research, followed by another chapter about his own personal experience. The quality of the two is so vastly different when read by somebody who does homebrewing and makes wine and cider read it. Watman’s research side is thorough, entertaining, and sometimes even poetic. He makes an excellent history book writer. However, juxtaposed to his own personal experience, he seems to have skipped doing research on fermentation. He is so anxious to distill that it is like he learned to run before he learned to walk, and he doesn’t understand why he is having problems distilling as a result. For example, my biggest problem happens when he attempts to make hard cider to distill into “apple jack.” Wrong – applejack is cold distillation. What he is doing is making apple eau da vie. He says the cider stinks, which he doesn’t know could have been avoided with the use of yeast nutrient. He thinks he has a ruined batch after about maybe a month, and procrastinating for another two months or longer, is surprised when it becomes clear and tastes better. That’s because cider really should not be consumed before three months, and if he waited nine months total, it would be even better yet. This holds true for any wine. I will give him points for knowing that adding sugar to apple juice to make cider will not gain him any friends among the craft-distillers with that method.

However, if you can get past his trials, he does a considerable amount of research on moonshine history and how today’s perception came about. He also researched court cases and sits in one one, and tours the areas that these happen. What is kind of neat is that he also attempts to find people who drink moonshine along with those who enforce laws and do NASCAR. These stories are all very amusing and he manages to write some poetic lines, though sometimes he gets a little off topic.

If you know nothing about making beer and wine, then I think you will find Chasing the White Dog an entertaining read about modern East Coast liquor enforcement. If you do know something about making beer and wine, then I think you will find this book entertaining with a dash of annoyance.

Meme Cat

2011 in Review

Looking over this last year, I definitely kept slowing down as the year went on, sort of reflecting my busy schedule. Something had to give. Admittedly, I didn’t do as many fruit wine fermentations this fall, and I accidently missed all the apples from the homestead that I used last year. 2011 was a year of procrastination for me.

But it was also a learning year. I made a switch from bottling my cider in wine bottles as a still drink to bottling in champagne bottles as a carbonated drink because it really did taste better.  I also got my hands on 16 gallons of good cider apple’s juice, which has natural tannin, so I’m excited to see how that turns out. I expanded into fermentation of other stuff, such as making my own yogurt, and I took a class on distilling.

It was also a year of exposure for me. I’ve been giving away my cider now to friends and family. I’ve been participating in a wine group. Probably most exciting of all was serving my cider to the public at the MashFest last summer. This exposure has also brought in an invitation to be paid to teach twice a year how to make cider at a brew supply store.

I’ve been blogging now for two years. To date, I have posted 412 times counting this post, and I have gotten over 23,000 views. This year, even though I cut down on the number of postings I write, the number of people viewing my website went from about 20 a day in 2010 to about 50 a day in 2011, and I also picked up 15 followers. Thanks!

What are people reading about? Well, the favorite is still pears in alcohol.

My best viewership for a single day was originally set in 2010 when I talked about some Washington State liquor store initiatives. That record for best viewership in a single day was broken when I wrote about the newest Washington State liquor store initiatives. Go figure – politics draw readers instead of chasing them away.

Here are the all-time top 10 most viewed posts I have written (this does not include homepage hits and scrolling through my blog though multiple posts):

1. Pears in Alcohol. This had more than twice the amount of hits than the number #2 posting. I still think the hits are because of USA Pears, whom I linked to, but I’m not complaining!
2. The 2010 write up on the Washington State Liquor Initiatives 110 & 1105.
3. It looks like some people want to read about me on the About the Candle Wine Project.
4. Cider Review: JK Scrumpy Farmhouse Organic Hard Cider
5. Making Wine with Whey
6. Cold Crashing Explained
7. My Eco-Lawn
8. My (pathetic) Apple Grinder that I retired after just a few grindings.
9. My (wonderful) Italian Apple Grinder that I will probably cry over when it breaks down on me.
10. Building an Apple Press

While I do try to specialize in cider, I do tend to wander and research and write about other things that inspire me, and this top ten kind of shows me that it’s okay not to be focused on one thing. People will read what I write, or not. As long as I’m inspired is the important thing, because then people wouldn’t read a thing. So here is to hoping I am inspired to write a bit more in 2012, and maybe actually start tackling getting my winemaker’s license.

Further reading: 2010 in Review

Book Review: A History of the World in 6 Glasses

I almost got a minor in British history, so I am able, depending on the author, to sit down and read a history book. I picked up A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage because it was on a library recommendation table. This book covers three alcohols: beer, wine, distilled spirits, and then moves into three non-alcohols: coffee, tea, and soda pop, and how they all shaped the world. Examples include:

• While beer and wine were probably discovered at the same time, beer was the dominate drink at first because pottery had not yet been invented, which was needed for winemaking.
• Wine took over as the dominate beverage with the Greeks, who would drink it watered down so that they could have free flowing thought without fighting.
• Rum production helped lead to the American Revolution, as the colonists were buying molasses from the French colonies in the Caribbean, so the British started the Molasses Tax.
• Coffee was the anti-alcohol, though it was at first met with a lot of resistance as being just as evil.
• Bricks of tea was used as currency in ancient China, and China only sold tea originally to the British in exchange for silver, as they were uninterested in European goods. This lead to the Opium War.
• Soda pop was an industrial revolution experiment, and the creator of Coca-Cola, John Pemberton, chose to put his medicinal concoction originally in wine but made the switch to in soda water instead of alcohol because the City of Atlanta, where he was, had a two year Prohibition in 1886.

I find this a fascinating read that is written not too dryly. However, I sometimes feel like Standage did a lot of research on one aspect of a topic, formed a good thesis, and gave it lots of support, only to kind of rush the conclusion and/or decide to stop researching. For example, he goes from how coffee houses started the French Revolution, but wraps up with to just two paragraphs on coffee today. It was a bit awkward.

Overall, though, I found this to be a fascinating read, and I would recommend this book to any history buffs.

Redneck Wine Glass

Normally, I don’t do holiday bazaars. Actually, I’m a bit of a Grinch who prefers Thanksgiving to Christmas. Christmas is 1) a lot of work to put up decorations only to take them back down 2) expensive for having to buy the decorations, and 3) a pain to shop for presents for people in a society that buys all the time, leaving nothing for gifts. Holiday bazaars are an extension of that, where half of everything there is Christmas related, and the other half just seems cheap. Somewhere in there is maybe 5% interesting and useful, like soap, but admittedly, I have a hard time wading through all that other stuff just to find the 5%.

But I did go to a bazaar, and I actually saw something that is cheap, but interesting and useful. Whimsical is probably the better word. Perkins Woodworks, who also does recycled art, was selling “wineglasses” made out of jars. Actually, I don’t really think I know any wine drinker who would drink out of one of these, but I could totally see someone serving cider in one. Also, I do know of breweries that will sell beer in jars, so maybe they would like these, too.

I figured that they were made from using epoxy glue to attach a jar to a candle stick holder, so they won’t exactly be dishwasher friendly. I started looking in stores for candle stick holders, and after five stores, I finally found something that might work, though I’m a little nervous that it doesn’t have much of a lip to act as a base. I started trying out different jars, and found that ones that are straight up and down look better, though I did have one little jar that looked cute, like a brandy sniffer. I also realized that all the jars I had are pint jars, and the original was smaller.

Redneck Brandy Sniffer?