Showing a little love for Putnam Weekley

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Eden Mylunsch

Eden Mylunsch
Tasting Table ripped the lid off of the whole "natural wine movement" this morning when they wrote about four wine bars around the country intent on making wine safe from spoofulation. Singled out were Lou On Vine in LA, Terroir in SF, Ten Bells in NYC, and they even name-checked Putnam Weekley for his groundbreaking work at Slows Bar BQ in Detroit (did someone forget to add an apostrophe to Slows?).

-Eden (maybe we could all jeebus in the Midwest sometime to eat barbecue, slurp Pinon, and ride the inwardly crashing national wave of natural wine fervor)
 
...Slows Bar BQ in Detroit (did someone forget to add an apostrophe to Slows?).
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perhaps its really Sloughs? Or a Slew of BBQ? "Slow! Slow! Slow!"? (with appologies to 'Est! Est! Est!'...)
 
Putnam is the man. He's talking barbecue, wine, and Detroit on my blog this friday.

I'm guessing graphic design trumped grammatical correctness in this case, or Putnam is just trolling this board.
 
originally posted by Putnam Weekley:
n ˙∆sswooooooooooooooooorod
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I think I have an album by them. Norwegian black metal right? Are you going for the death metal crowd at Slows as well?!? Pretty smart to cover all your fringe groups.
 
There's a huge Scandinavian Metal/Natural Wine crowd in Detroit Metro - a lot of the Lebanese and Chaldeans around Dearborn are especially into it.
 
originally posted by Steven Spielmann:
There's a huge Scandinavian Metal/Natural Wine crowd in Detroit Metro - a lot of the Lebanese and Chaldeans around Dearborn are especially into it.
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Ah yes, 'tis true, I've seen the throngs of youth washing down their halal lamb with some Puzelat while listening to Burzum.

Maybe not, but it would be awesome.
 
originally posted by Steven Spielmann:
There's a huge Scandinavian Metal/Natural Wine crowd in Detroit Metro - a lot of the Lebanese and Chaldeans around Dearborn are especially into it.
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Those wacky Chaldeans! I should've realized that there'd be a community of them in Detroit, too -- they also are ensconced in the Central Valley of CA, where they have a stranglehold on almond production (T Naraghi & Sons), call themselves "Assyrians" and have their own churches and Aramaic language newspapers. My first encounter with them, when I lived in Modesto, left me bemused as I'd previously considered the Assyrians to be a civilization of historical interest only (and with funky beard stylings). The Scandinavian Black Metal connection is a new one apparently, sorta like the crack epidemic among Amish youth.

Mark Lipton
 
You lived in Modesto?? I guess it's better than living in Merced, Coalinga, or Visalia.

-Eden (you weren't there to attend the Gallo management training courses were you?)
 
I think Putnam's great, and wish he'd post more. Photos! Also, since this is an hommage, it would be nice to spell his name right.
 
originally posted by Eden Mylunsch:
You lived in Modesto?? I guess it's better than living in Merced, Coalinga, or Visalia.

-Eden (you weren't there to attend the Gallo management training courses were you?)
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Nope, was employed by the now-defunct Shell Development Ag Division there. We would occasionally get lab techs who'd previously been employed at Gallo who'd tell absolutely horrifying stories about what went on there. As if I needed another reason not to drink Gallo.

Mark Lipton
 
lab techs who'd previously been employed at Gallo who'd tell absolutely horrifying stories about what went on there.
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Debris in the wine? I thought they prided themselves on a 'clean' operation.
 
Those wacky Chaldeans!...call themselves "Assyrians" and have their own churches and Aramaic language newspapers...
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I had never heard of these folks until doing dissertation fieldwork in the suburbs of Paris. There I found an Assyro-Chaldean community that had arrived in France dirt poor but managed to build a giant gleaming church that was the envy of all other ethnic and religious groups (funded through cobbled-together collections from various families) and is now preparing to enter local politics as a bloc constituency.
 
Duly noted and corrected. Thanks for the heads-up. As someone whose name is misspelled regularly, I should have known better.

-Eden (do any Chaldeans reading along perchance have an extra sword I might borrow to fall upon?)
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
lab techs who'd previously been employed at Gallo who'd tell absolutely horrifying stories about what went on there.
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Debris in the wine? I thought they prided themselves on a 'clean' operation.
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Clean it was, devoid of any trace of what we might think of as "wine." We were hiring those ex-Gallo employees as lab techs because they were so experienced with chemical manipulation. In particular, I recall the description of two-story high ion exchange columns that they'd run their "Port" down prior to adding back those "ingredients" that they wanted in the final product. Romantic, no?

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Rahsaan:
lab techs who'd previously been employed at Gallo who'd tell absolutely horrifying stories about what went on there.
Click to expand...

Debris in the wine? I thought they prided themselves on a 'clean' operation.
Click to expand...

Clean it was, devoid of any trace of what we might think of as "wine." We were hiring those ex-Gallo employees as lab techs because they were so experienced with chemical manipulation. In particular, I recall the description of two-story high ion exchange columns that they'd run their "Port" down prior to adding back those "ingredients" that they wanted in the final product. Romantic, no?

Mark Lipton
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That is so cool. Tell us more. What were they taking out and putting back?

It's enough to make this old chemist want to be a real "winemaker."
 
originally posted by SFJoe:

That is so cool. Tell us more. What were they taking out and putting back?

It's enough to make this old chemist want to be a real "winemaker."
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Oh, you ironical so-and-so. Here's a more complete description. They also had a battery of gas chromatographs and had analytical traces of all their products. With all the peaks assigned, they knew exactly what they wanted in their Port and the proportions needed. So, they'd strip out all the flavorants using the ion exchange column, then add back in the desired ingredients, in the proportions desired. Without any hard data, I'd guess that it was mostly low MW esters being added back in. The irony of it all, according to the lab tech who gave me this description was how good the wine was before all the manipulation began. Consistency is a virtue?

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton: Consistency is a virtue?
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Just for the sake of argument, I would have to say that consistency probably is a virtue when you're working with such large quantities of "Port" at that price point. Look at how the reputation of Charles Shaw Shiraz dropped when people noticed that the recent bottlings weren't nearly as good as the first release (IIRC, that lot beat Penfolds Grange in the Visalia County Fair tasting).

Hell, once I realized that it wasn't the same wine, I immediately went back to buying Grange (and RWT too, for that matter). That's probably cost Bronco Wine Co at least $40 in lost sales, so I'd have to say that consistency does matter.

On the other hand, if Gallo were marketing their "Port" as "Quinto do Clovis" or some such, then I might expect a little more (well, some) character over and above that added by the two-story high exchange columns. But keep in mind that they could probably engineer that into the formula too, so why lose sleep over it?

-Eden (it's been my experience that there's a calming sense of rightness and balance in the world when the evening's last bottle of Thunderbird* tastes as smooth as the first)

--

*"Thunderbird (That's The Word?)"

Thunderbird Thunderbird
The grape of the fruity vine (That's Wine)
Thunderbird Thunderbird
It goes down smooth and fine (So Fine)
Taste the best cost the less
What's the price fifty twice
That's the truth now you've heard
What's the word Thunderbird

Thunderbird Thunderbird
The grape of the fruity vine (That's Wine)
Thunderbird Thunderbird
It goes down smooth and fine (So Fine)
Make's you loose as a Goose
Get's you drunk as a skunk
That's the truth now you've heard
What's the word Thunderbird

Thunderbird Thunderbird
The grape of the fruity vine (That's Wine)
Thunderbird Thunderbird
It goes down smooth and fine (So Fine)
Get a bottle try it out
It'll make you scream and shout
That's the truth now you've heard
What's the word Thunderbird
 
Eden,
You are a voice of sanity in a world spinning out of control.

Thanks,
Mark Lipton
(making a note to stock up on T'Bird on his next return to the ancestral manse in Richmond, CA)
 
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