The Desert Wine Guy - Review Of The Wine Of The Month Club

        

Paul Kalemkiarian Sr. & Jr.

                                                          
                             
   Today I going to write about the wine club that I belong to. If you go a quick Google search you will find that there are many, many wine clubs that you can choose to join. When I was first started looking for a wine club it wasn't easy do to the many choices.  I ended up choosing the wine club that is currently the topic of our review, The Wine Of The Month Club (http://www.wineofthemonthclub.com/). For the purposes of simplicity for the remainder of this article I will simply be referring to it as "The Club". I will explain more in the next paragraph. Before I go into the review however, I want to disclose one important item that I feel I must in order to be above board with you guys. The owner of The Club, Paul Kalemkiarian Jr has agreed to send me a bottle of wine in exchange for a review of that particular wine. Paul has sent me the "Porto Kopke 10 Years Old Tawny" from Portugal that I will be reviewing next. One other thing I want to let you guys know is that before I even thought of contacting Paul, I was already a member of The Club myself and believed that it was worth getting into an agreement with Paul and talking favorably about. Remember I am paying full price each month for The Club myself so it must be good or I would have already cancelled. One last thing that I would like to mention. I would like you, my readers to know that I am from Brooklyn, New York and am from the "Old School". I will never sell myself or the name of The Desert Wine Guy out to anyone. My reviews whether on wine, or as in this case a wine club are my true opinions on whatever subject I am reviewing. The reason I am saying all this is because I want to let you guys know that as always I will continue to review all wines and anything else I decide to review and give my sincere, honest opinion. I also do not like wines or services or for that matter dislike wines or services simply because the person owning, pouring or as in this case, giving me the wine is nice or friendly, I do not work like that. I will not even let the politics of the Vineyard owner, wine maker or company owner effect my reviews on a product. I myself came to Paul with the proposed arrangement because I felt that The Club was something that I could actually support because as I have already said, I have actually belong to The Club myself. Now that I have been straight with you my readers lets get into this because this article is something that I do want to share with you all.
   Let's start learning about The Club by first hearing what attracted me to joining it myself in the first place. Before The Desert Wine Guy was created and before I joined or for that matter even heard of The Club I was not what you could call a wine drinker. I occasionally had some wine but it was just not my thing. If I was drinking I would drink some beer and that was that.  The one thing I noticed at that time, as well as today is that The Club didn't send out what you would call "big name wines".  I didn't recognize any of the wine labels that I was sent. To be honest at the time I thought that was a big drawback to The Club. I mean other clubs were sending to their customers big name wines and because they were big name wines they had to be better, right? I mean who wouldn't want a Robert Mondavi wine or an Ernest & Julio wine? Well guess what, once I really started learning about wine I realized that simply name alone does not mean anything. Because I wasn't really a wine drinker the wines that I received from The Club simply sat in a small kitchen wine rack on the counter. You know the kind of rack I am talking about, I think we all have at least one. I'm talking about the wine racks that K-Mart and Walmart sell. The ones that are just used for decoration. My membership for The Club eventually expired and I ended up not renewing it and The Club was forgotten about. A few years later as The Desert Wine Guy started to take shape. I started to open these wines and drink them and do you know what I realized? I realized that these small, (I guess you could call them Boutique wines) were very good. I ended up drinking and eventually reviewing these wines and loving them. By this time the wines were a few years old and the wines had time to develop in the bottle. Most of the wines were so good I would get with the particular winery to purchase another bottle or two and I was informed that the wine was no longer available, I guess since they were small production wines I had waited to long to drink them and I was out of luck. WOW that was terrible. One day I am sitting in my Loft doing a review of a wine that did not come from The Club but was from a small winery that I had never heard of and I started to think about The Club and the great wines I received from them. It was then that I decided to rejoin. I was now on the path to learning and discovering everything I could about wine as well as to go on to develop two small backyard Vineyards. I started to grow in my wine knowledge and experience. Prior to re-joining I thought of the great wines that I received from The Club. What I believed at the time was "bad" wine simply because they were from small Vineyards ended up turning into my "great awaking". I looked around the internet and saw that there are many wine clubs that I could join but those early memories that helped plant the seeds of The Desert Wine Guy had a major influence on me and I went to The Clubs website and saw how Paul loved wine and was so willing to share that love and teach his customers about wine. I also remembered just how great those early wines really were. A quick check of The Clubs website clearly shows that. There is everything from videos of interviews of winemakers that Paul has conducted to educational articles on wine. Paul interviews fellow Bloggers and is a wealth of knowledge. There is a link to wine news article of interest. Paul has his own wine blog with recipes and articles on individual wines. Paul also has a shop where you can purchase great wines. There is also a gift shop where you can purchase gift baskets, gift certificates and wine accessories. I recently purchased the Wine Tasting Party Kit that has everything and I do mean everything to host your own tasting party. They charge $29.99 for the kit and I truly believe it is worth every penny. Here (http://vimeo.com/53347603) is the link to Paul's review and description of the kit. There  is a little something for everyone who has any interest in wine or for that matter knows anyone who has an interest in wine. Paul also has 6 (yes I said 6) different levels of wine clubs to choose from. There are 4 clubs for those who want 2 bottles each month, 1 club for those who want 6 bottles every other month and 1 club for those who want 12 bottles every 3 months. From the person who is just developing an interest in wine or is already a casual wine drinker all the way up to the wine expert there is a club for you.  As an example how great the prices are if you take the Classic Series Wine Club for example, you are getting 2 bottles a month for $37 which DOES include shipping. That is a little over $18 dollars a bottle. I, myself am signed up for the Cellar Series Wine Club which is 6 bottles a month for $86 which also includes shipping. No matter what club you join there isn't just wine that comes with each shipment. There is also a color glossy magazine that tells you about each wine you receive such as who made the wine, where the wine is from and what to look for in the wine. There is even information as well as what foods to pair each wine with. Included with each shipment is a newsletter (which is really a magazine) also. The color, glossy magazine which is entitled "The Tasting Room" discusses things such as terroir, climate, grape variety, winemakers' history, cellaring conditions, as well as temperature settings for storage and service, recipes and more. One other item I would like to add is that when you e-mail Paul he actually e-mails you back, and quickly. Prior to working with Paul I have e-mailed him a few times and even though he is very busy especially with the holidays he has gotten back to me very quickly. I am also very regularly getting e-mails from him as to great buys he is offering on wines. When I say great buys that is what I mean. One example is $9 two day shipping which is going on right now (ends the 21st) . One other important point to make is that I haven't seen any e-mails from other companies related to the wine industry that I have not, myself initiated. What I am saying is that I have seen nothing to lead me to believe that Paul sells your e-mail address, this is good. One other great thing I must mention is that there are no dues to pay. If you get tired of receiving great wines from The Club, just let Paul know and that is it. I have also done some checking on the internet about The Club to see if my great experiences with The Club are common experiences or if I am just lucky. What I found out is that everyone has nothing but great things to say about The Club. Here is a link to Yelp

Tasting Kit

                                                    (http://www.yelp.com/biz/wine-of-the-month-club-monrovia) so you can see for yourself. I could find no negatives about the club. One interesting (and I think nice) thing about The Club is that almost every wine I have received from them I can find no review on line about. Not that this means anything but with the power and vast amount of information on the internet I found that interesting.
   In closing this article out here is my advice to you if you are looking to join a wine club or if you already belong to a club and are looking to expand your wine tasting and knowledge.  I recommend that you at least give The Club a try. If you love to taste the wines that are made from the Vineyards you never hear of as well as few that you have and love the experience like I do then I believe you have found the perfect wine club. If on the other hand even you are locked into the big name wines and believe they are the end all be all of wine choices then it is time to expand your horizons and venture out from your comfort zone. I recommend that you to join The Club and at least give it a try, I think you will be glad that you did.

                                                                                                                   The Desert Wine Guy



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The Desert Wine Guy - How To Prune Your Grapevine

Dormant Grapevines

                                                          




   Winter is coming and for some of us (not for us in Vegas yet) it is already here. Those of us who grow Grapevines know that just because the leaves might be gone from the vine this is not the end of  keeping up on them. Now is the time to perform maintenance in order to ensure that our vines remain in good condition and that the coming season will be a healthy and productive one for  them. This time of year our vines are getting ready to go into what is known as the "Dormant" stage. In this article we will discuss what dormancy is and why the grapevine goes Dormant in the first place.  At this time of year we have already had the harvest and the Grape Juice is starting on it's way towards becoming Wine. That leaves us with our final step of the season and that is Pruning. What is pruning and how and why we prune? That is what we will talk about today. All information we will be discussing is in relation to wine grapes. For table grapes there may be different ways to prune and I recommend that you do some research on that specific topic. At the end of this article I have placed two links to a couple of great videos on pruning. I recommend that you check them out, everything is explained in a way in which a beginner can understand and learn. I think the best place to start a discussion on pruning is at the point the vine goes dormant since we don't want to prune prior to that stage. Let's begin by explaining why a Grapevine goes dormant in the first place.
   Why does a Grapevine go dormant in the first place? - To put it simply, a Grapevine goes dormant to survive an event or events (in this case coldness) that are happening or about to happen. The Grapevine goes Dormant to basically defend itself and it does so by reserving all it's energy and redirecting it to only the basic processes it needs to survive. It does that by not expelling energy on leaves, grapes or growing Canes (branches). During the dormancy stage the vine will actually appear to have died. If the vine is indeed Dormant it is not dead but kind of in a sleep phase.  If you really think about it, the grape itself is only in reality a way for the species to propagate itself anyway. That is why there are seeds in grapes. We will not discuss G.M.O products since these are not natural, normal or healthy and require mans intervention to create and propagate.
   So what is pruning? - Pruning is simply the process of removing parts of the plant (in this case a grapevine) that for reasons of vine health and productivity are  no longer needed. That sounds simple right? Well that's because for the most part it is simple.
   Why do we Prune? - Why we prune is also simple. We prune in order to prepare the vine for the start of another growing year. The old wood that the vine grew is simply not needed.  Since there will be new wood that grows the coming year there will be too much call for the vine to spread it's energy to support parts of itself that it doesn't need. This unneeded use of energy by the vines will draw nutrition away from the reason we grow them in the first place, which is to grow grapes. For us and the Grapevine this wasting of energy or resources will result in an inferior crop of Grapes. Without Pruning there will be too many clusters of grapes and the grapes themselves will be small. One other important reason we Prune is because Grapes will only grow on first year wood. In other words the wood (Canes) the vine grew in the past year will no longer grow grapes. Can you also imagine what the vine would look like if we didn't remove or Prune it? The vine would grow out of control.
                                                          

Figure #1 - Makeup Of The Grapevine

  How do we prune a grapevine? - The first thing we should know is that there are two types of wine grape pruning. There is Spur or Cordon pruning and Cane pruning. We will start first with Spur Pruning and explain what it is. To help you visualize this I would like to refer you to Figure #1 please use it as a quick reference guide for the makeup of the vine. The first part of the vine I want to draw your attention to is what is called the Cordon(s). The second part of the vine I want to draw your attention to is the Canes that are coming off of the Cordon(s). This is where we will focus most of our attention for this article. In a properly pruned (Spur/Cordon) Grapevine the Canes or Renewal Spurs will be fist width apart from each other, which is approximately 6" (see figure #2). When we first plant the vine we don't worry about pruning because our main goal is to develop the roots of the vine. We need to ensure we develop proper roots in order to start the vine off on it's life of making quality grapes as well as to allow the vine to do what it needs to do which is to grow strong and disease resistant and develop strong Cordons. Some growers would even argue that even in the second year we don't prune but that is open to debate. However long you wait to prune is not the focus here so we will move on to proper pruning technique. By the way, depending on the varietal you will probably want to prune using one particular method over the other. Since we are talking about 1st or 2nd year vines here it is important to determine first if we are even happy with the quality of the vine itself. If you have a vine that is sparse in growth or has buds spaced far apart with many dead Buds then we may actually want to pull that particular vine out and replace it. Remember that Grapevines are long term, they can live for many, many years and we want to ensure that we start off with only the strongest ones. 
   Spur Pruning - To begin with we will discuss Spur or Cordon Pruning. To help you visualize this I would like to refer you to Figure #2 again. Cane Pruning is popular in vines that tend to have medium to high vigor. Classic grape varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah are most often spur pruned. Let's start with learning what a Spur is. A Spur is simply what is left after we cut a Cane off leaving only 2-3 Buds on it (see Image #1 again). The Cane once cut down has now become a Spur. From this Spur will come new Canes the following year. It is very simple actually. As I have said in an earlier paragraph the Spurs should be fist width (6") apart from each other. This Spur also is sometimes also called a "renewal Spur". There are some other things to look for when Spur Pruning. Just because a Cane (future Spur) is growing does not mean that this is the Cane we want to keep on the Cordon. If there are two Canes growing in the same area and one is very skinny or either does not have buds spaced properly or do not appear to be healthy then we would look to cut that bud off at the Cordon and choose another one. We want to eventually have healthy Canes or Spurs that are appropriately spaced on our vine. Inspect the Canes by looking at the Buds on each Cane to determine if the Cane appears healthy. We also want to ensure that the Canes we pick are also growing in the proper direction or at least located in a position that we can reasonable re-direct into the right direction. The Cane we pick should be about Pencil thickness. That is it for Spur Pruning, it is that simple.
                                        

Figure #2 - Spur or Cordon Pruning

    Cane Pruning - Cane pruning (see figure #3) is considered best for low vigor vines such as in Burgundian-styled vineyards (Pinot Noir, table grapes and other lower vigor, cool climate grape varietals). Cane Pruning is also very simple. The first item to note is what is called the "Head". The Head is basically the area of the vine that originates our Canes. There are no real Cordons established in Cane Pruning since what would develop into Cordons is cut off at the end of year and replaced by new wood (Canes) that have grown the past year. In order to Cane prune you would take two strong (also pencil thick) Canes that come from the Head and twist one along along each side of the head onto the Fruiting Wire. Aside from the pencil thickness criteria some other criteria we should be looking for is the following. Remember once grown or twisted onto the Fruiting Wire we will be pruning the Canes to ensure that we have the proper 6" spacing. These next year canes will be coming from the Head of the vine. Simply put you will look at the Canes that have come off the head of your vine and pick the next years Canes that will grow to wrap around the Fruiting Wire. The two canes from last year will be cut off at the Head. The Canes that we cut off will be cut leaving Two Shoots coming from the Head of the vine. These also should be properly positioned as well as proper size and shoot positioning. These two other Canes that are not on the fruiting wire should be cut back to two Buds.
                                                     

Figure #3 - Cane Pruning

     I hope that you guys have learned about the process of Pruning. I trust that I have answered some questions that you might have had on the pruning of your Grapevines. Here are the video links I came across on YouTube that I think will really help and further explain the whole Pruning process. Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um9p1eiGiwI) is a link that will show you exactly how to Spur or Cordon prune. This next link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfd2V5DFDo0) will show you how to Cane Prune.
   OK everyone, it is that time of year again. This will be the last blog of this year and I just wanted to wish everyone a great new year. I hope that this year was productive and happy also. PLEASE everyone, if you go to a holiday party or celebrate a little to much get someone who has NOT been drinking to drive you home. Once again everyone, have a great new year.

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                                                                                                                    The Desert Wine Guy