A home run for Wine Spectator- Talia Baiocchi is a now a weekly blogger and will provide a different point of view and most likely a very different audience.
Cool story on Ketan as well.
Very cool! It’s especially interesting to see some early Cali coverage in stark juxtaposition to Laube’s voice. Big value-added!
+1 big fan, congrats to Talia and to WS!
Yes, this is a fantastic move. Talia will bring an exciting, fresh perspective to the magazine.
Interesting that he wants to plant new vinyards and use head trained vines (bush or goblet trained). I know in Paso, several new vinyards are head trained. I asked about this in Spain and Portugal and no one is interested in planting new vinyards with goblet training. I’m assuming it’s because the soils are so low vigor already there they don’t need a low vigor pruning method.
Vines will be somewhat “head trained” its going to be planted at a density of 4x4 and trained in an eschals (sp?) style….much like is done in the northern rhone. Some blocks will be planted denser than that and all will be dry farmed. These choices were derived from looking at the evolution of wines in napa……i believe that the general assumption about larger more extracted wines was born in a place purely of winemakers choice, but i don’t THINK thats the whole story. Earlier ripening rootstocks developed in france (where they were needed) became popular after the whole AXR debacle in the 80’s, winemakers trying to make wines that were interesting from vineyards that were young due to all of the replanting, fruiting zones being uniform with VSP, and a general american attitude maybe had something to with the sea change as well. Looking back when most people farmed their own vineyards, made their own wine i think you found choices that were rooted in honesty….because their success and failure was more personal and probably felt a bit deeper due to their actual blood and sweat being spilt. Vineyard management companies nowadays will tell you that planting at X density or a certain way is the only way to go, and i think a large part of that has to do with the uniformity of equipment they own and the skill set of their labor force. They want everything to be uniform so their operation runs smoothly, which is great when your running a business, but i believe this is more than just work or a business. A lot of people will say that the way i am planting this vineyard is wrong and thats ok….i might be wrong, but i don’t really care either. To me life is about taking chances and honoring those that came before us, and hopefully this vineyard will be rooted in both. I could be wrong in all of this, but you plant a vineyard and hope for the best….and it will be the generations after you that will truly begin to understand the place you chose….because it takes lifetimes to being to know anything about a vineyard.
but generally speaking life is ridiculous and fun……so we are going to be ridiculous and try and have some fun…we will see what happens!!!
ok off the soapbox now!!! Talia is the one who deserves to shine…she’s rad and i am glad WS is opening their view
“the older i get the less i know for sure”- some wise old dood
Good for her but - who is she?
An expert. Worked one harvest 6 years ago in the Piemonte and made cold calls for Italian Wine Merchants. With a resume like that, she is a perfect fit for WS. She can give a fresh, young person’s perspective, not clouded by years of relevant experience…
She doesn’t have Suckling’s 29 years of experience, tasting from a villa in Tooscany, so she must not have a valuable perspective.
On a more serious note, Talia’s got chops. She’s done a good deal of travelling and a fair share of tasting alongside the creme de la creme in the biz. She has a knack for the written word, knows wine, and can translate that knowledge to the consumer without dumbing down the topic. What more do you want from a guest blogger?
Zippy prose style bitchslaps most experience IMO. Can’t recall the last time I made an effort to read Suckling or Laube but I am interested in the young guard of NV so I found this to be good stuff.
I’ve heard that Talia’s wine glasses are only 93 points.
I read her blog entry. She looks like someone who you’d want to read. But she starts out with stuff like this:
His sentences are coated in transcendentalist residue, made modern by his Midwestern-tinged California drawl and affection for the f-word.
Please.
And then her original thoughts about Napa - It didn’t carry with it the sort of edgy, counter-cultural allure of some of Europe’s less-trodden regions. It was, to be frank, uncool.
Clearly she wasn’t there in the 1970s and 80s before land went to $100,000 an acre. I guess it was cooler then. But once those people got successful, they ceased being cool. Only Steve Jobs was able to pull off the dual roles of success and coolness?
Seems like her opinions are based on the big corporate places because there are many producers still who aren’t getting big press and hiring expensive PR people. And once she found some “cool” people, Napa became almost like Willamsburg, Brooklyn? Here I go out of my way to avoid the cool hipster sorts.
Anyhow, the piece is a nice ode to Ketan, who I do wish much success.
Dood - if you’re successful, it will be at the expense of your cool quotient! Nonetheless, I look forward to trying your wines. Best.
Nice to see you here Ketan.
The people I talked to in Portugal were viticulturalists. They have some very old, terraced mixed plantings, but also newer Guyot plantings. The newest plantings are going to higher density, much like the rest of Europe; but block planting. Not quite the romance of the old hand tended, hand built terraces.
Yeah, pretty much. After him, the best you can do is Hank Scorpio. He was the first wealthy man to wear a sport jacket with jeans. Now, they all do it!
Interesting article. Except the facts are wrong. He didn’t build his cabin from the ground up. He bought the place. It was built in 1906. I lived there for years. And it certainly isn’t on the top of the mountain. Diamond Mountain is significantly higher than the 1750 feet elevation of the cabin. Even the pool area, put in about 1956, up the hill, is still far below the top.
I know these are details, but if you want accuracy, details count.
I wish him well on his project. It takes a lot of time, patience, and yes, money, to fight your way through the Napa County bureaucracy, and this land is ideal for quality vines, and hopefully, fine wines therefrom.
This is quite the dumpster dive. Considering the post is about Talia Baiocchi and you keep referencing “He”, I am guessing you have a beef with the linked article about Ketan? What’s the story here?
Who’s on first and what are we talking about here?
And what are ‘facts’ but something that gets in the way of a spun story?
John S.F.,
Facts…
The cabins from 1906 were torn down except for one which we rebuilt from the framing up, and an additional was built from trees we fell and milled and built from scratch.
The cabins sit at 1690 ft. Elevation not the 1750 you say since you are splitting hairs…but the property and highest vineyard block goes to 2000’ which is on the ridge line…might not be the exact top but pretty close.
Did you live at this property or one close by? If it is this property I would love to hear some of the stories and your experiences from the mtn…always interested to know more about history!!!
You should come by for a visit sometime since you know where it is…would love to have a beer with you.
Thanks!
Ketan
Talia was one of the good guys at Italian wine merchant. That was back in the day where I actually felt like they were more interested in keeping a good customer relationship and not just selling bottles at 30 percent above normal retail. Talia was also one of the few sales people that I trusted to simply give a dollar amount to and that she could pick the bottles out for me, of course this was at the beginning of my journey through wine before I realize with my own tastes really were. That said she’d never steered me wrong and to this day I pull bottles from my cellar that she put there and enjoy them a great deal. Her insights and knowledge were priceless to me as a beginner. That being said, and considering how many years she has been growing in knowledge and experience since that time, I would say she’s probably one of the best moves Wine Spectator could have made.
Post #15 is such messed up thread necrophilia it is silly.
John S.F., please choose to actually honor the real names policy on this board.
Disrespectful. Out of bounds. Get a clue.