Alt+Wine

Today, Friday February 12th, 2010, Alt+Wine is celebrating one of the most incredible creations - complete with sensational rise to fame and embarrassing demise - the beverage industry has ever had. In the 1800’s, at least. (Let’s be honest, it’s no Crystal Pepsi.)

It’s Coca-Wine!

A LITTLE HISTORY:

Coca-Wine became an international sensation starting in 1863 when a Corsican entrepreneur named Angelo Mariani created his version of Coca-Wine, Vin Mariani. It soon became the “prescription” of choice for all the European A-Listers of the mid-1800s whose ranks included Queen Victoria, Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, King Alphonse XIII of Spain (pictured below), Alexander Dumas and even President William McKinley.

The craze soon hit the US where our friend Theodore Metcalf in Boston took a swing at it. Another American that embraced Coca-Wine was pharmacist John Pemberton, who made his own version named “Pemberton’s French Wine Coca” and marketed it as an “intellectual beverage” and “a most wonderful invigorator of the sexual organs.”

In 1886, Atlanta introduced Prohibition, so Pemberton replaced the wine with sugar syrup. And thus was born “Coca-Cola: The Temperance Drink.” (According to cocaine.org, it is now official Coca-Cola company policy to deny the existence of the drug in any of its past recipes.)

Soon Coca-Cola was being prescribed to patients with a morphine dependency, and low and behold, they were becoming addicted to BOTH.

So let’s take a look at this, shall we? The effects of US Prohibition, along with the rise of the mafia and ridiculous shipping laws that still exist today, included widespread legal drug use and subsequent dependency.

Why am I not surprised?

Join Alt+Wine as we celebrate this scandalous and illustrious beverage. For the next few hours, anyway.

While the day I spent in Santa Maria, CA at Cambria’s vineyard & winery this week was generally awesome, my mind was blown by the story of a clone.

photo by Leah Hennessy © 2010 All Rights Reserved

As a good-to-know before reading on, grape clones are cuttings of existing vines that share identical genetic make-up. Meaning: take a famous vine in France, cut a piece off of it, stick it in the ground, grow a new vine from that. That new vine is a clone. Basically. (If you REALLY care to learn more about grape clones,  here’s some more info.)  Different clones have different characteristics, so producers that are planting vines pick clones based on what kind of wines they ultimately want to make. Got it?

While up at Cambria, I was able to learn quite a bit about the clones they chose to plant in their Pinot Noir vineyard (aka Julia’s Vineyard). I was able to learn this stuff because I kept interrupting owner Barbara Banke and winemaker Denise Shurtleff with questions. LOTS of questions. Fortunately, they were happy to answer. Or at least very patient with me. (I like to think it was the former.) While Cambria has several different clones planted throughout the vineyard, I was drawn to the story of clone 667.

I had the opportunity to try the Cambria’s 2007 Clone 667 in the tasting room - that’s when I fell for it. Barbara said her son has decided it should be called clone 666, and I have to agree. There really is something tempting and a bit sinful about it.

In the glass, I smelled what I would describe as a faint smokiness and ripe cherries -  maybe a cranberry or two. There was something I was smelling in the glass that made me stop and think for a second to try and identify it: sugar cookies. I swear. Well, I was ready for all of that when I took a sip but WAIT. The first thing I tasted in my mouth was the fruit - especially ripe blueberries! As it rolled around in my mouth I also picked up more of the cherry flavor, but also got some dark fruit, like blackberries, as well. It was very smooth, and the slight drying sensation of the tannins gave the wine a velvety feel. Just when I thought I had gotten everything this wine had to offer, I swallowed it. AND THERE IT WAS. The bacon. Just a teeny bit, and only once the wine had left my mouth, but it was definitely there. To add to everything, the finish (aka aftertaste) was pretty long and delicious. A wine with this many layers would be described as “complex” by the Wine Powers That Be. I was hooked.

After this tasting I heard the story of clone 667 at Cambria. Pinot Noir clone 667 tends to be a go-to for grapegrowers these days, and everyone at Cambria had high hopes for it. They first planted the 667 vines in 1998, and in 2002 they began their experiments with it as a wine. Back then, Denise described the wine as “animalistic.” In the glass, it smelled like meat - specifically bacon. “You would smell bacon, smoke, barbecue, even bacon fat,” she says. And though she loved what it brought out when blended with other clones in wine, it did not seem destined for the spotlight.

Until 2006. That’s when it grew up. All of a sudden, the wines made from grapes harvested in 06 started showing a fruity sexiness that simply wasn’t there before. After that, clone 667 was a star, complete with its own label and releases.

You gotta love a celebrity that remembers her roots - and the 2007 Clone 667 shows us where she comes from with that little bit of bacon at the finish. Once you know the story behind it, tasting Cambria’s 2007 Clone 667 is like listening to an underdog’s acceptance speech after winning the Oscar. You know what I’m talking about. When the brand new A-list celeb is clutching her statuette, marveling over the fact that 2 years ago she was living out of her car, and she’s thanking the manager at the 7-11 that let her park there overnight and use the bathroom. It’s like that. Only delicious.

While searching through the interwebs today, I came across THIS:

This AMAZING Twilight Wine Package features 12 bottles of Vampire wine and the original Twilight movie DVD. For $150. This is being offered through the online store… wait for it… wickedwinesonline. YES IT’S TRUE.

While wickedwinesonline offers more than just Vampire wines (others include Sasquatch Cellars and Blue Tongue), the reason it is my new favorite store is its creation and subsequent shameless marketing of this particular package.

Not only has the site created some INCREDIBLE artwork, but the product description is in the form of personal correspondence to “My Dearest” from a 300 year-old vampire and self-declared “romance aficionado” who signs his letter with only “V.”

Below, I am including an excerpt of this letter:

My Dearest, 

I would like to invite you to join me and enjoy a Vampire wine tasting experience while watching one of the best vampire movies ever; Twilight.

…

I handpicked 12 bottles from 6 different vampire grape varietals in hope that you my dear will fall in love again, like I did so many times in the past centuries.

Who is this mysterious V.? Did he really fall in love that many times, or did he just crush a lot? Why hasn’t he bothered to keep up with punctuation trends in the last 300 years if he enjoys personal correspondence so much?

It’s questions like these that weave themselves into the siren’s call that is this Twilight Wine Package. I’m intrigued. I don’t usually buy wine online, but with an x-factor like this, it is surely worth the hassle. Stay tuned…

Eternally yours,

L.