Up the Valley: The Surreal Thing

What’s most surreal about Auction Napa Valley? Read my column in today’s St. Helena Star…

The Friday opener of Auction Napa Valley always provides plenty of surreal sights, although I hear that the weekend gatherings provide even more.

I’ve heard tales of 110-pound cheetahs lounging on the Meadowood fairway alongside purring Jaguars (the four-wheeled species), of distinguished revelers dousing one another with squirt guns at resplendent dining tables, and of Robert Mondavi modeling a dinner jacket made entirely of wine corks for auction by Jay Leno, fetching $95K. And speaking of emcees, I hear Ryan Seacrest once spontaneously raised 70 grand by inviting 8 bidders to hang out with him backstage at “American Idol.” I wouldn’t know, because such extravagant weekend auction events are above my pay-grade, or more precisely, above my press-pass access.

Still I was thrilled to once again troll the Friday marketplace for signs of Auction Napa Valley’s trademark brand of over-the-top indulgence in the name of warm-your-heart philanthropy.

In past years I’ve spotted Oprah Winfrey, or the specter of her anyway, dressed in blazing yellow and surrounded by a phalanx of large, black-suited bodyguards, her filtered image shimmering like the sun peeking through a forest of towering Versace-clad sequoias. I’ve watched eager, overstuffed crowds descending en masse into the serpentine water-featured caves at Jarvis Winery, like vacationing Disneyland passport-holders waiting to board the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

But I hadn’t seen anything until I saw the Red Room at Raymond Vineyards, which I was privileged to visit this past Barrel-Auction Friday morning, bright and early, for breakfast.

Plunging into this darkened lair from the bright Napa Valley morning sunlight, it took time for my eyes, and then my brain, to process what I was seeing. There was a red velvet canopied ceiling with gleaming Baccarat crystal chandelier, reflective fleur-de-lis flocked wallpaper, and voluptuous red velvet Victorian furnishings just asking for an assignation. Offered for consumption was an abundant feast of breakfast foods and bubbly; the glossy lacquered black bar served coffee and juice to those lacking the moral courage to drink before 10 a.m.

Portraits of seductively-sprawled Marilyns adorned the walls, alongside books on Playboy and Pucci. Corner glass display units offered Baccarat crystal and designer leather goods and handbags. I was puzzled by the purse display, until I remembered a female sociologist telling me that the handbag is a metaphor for certain ladyparts — which makes it the quintessential accessory for the Red Room (although this sociologist carried an oversized, beaten-up leather bucket bag, so what subliminal message was she sending?)

If one assumes, as I do, that the hereafter consists of one’s own individually-themed luxury lounge, not unlike Auction Napa Valley’s Live-Auction lots, then the Red Room surely resembles the future heavenly abode of Hugh Hefner, where he will swap decorating tips with neighbors Sally Stanford, Mae West and Gypsy Rose Lee. What’s so strikingly different about the place, as situated in the Napa Valley, is the uncensored sense of naughtiness it conveys. A Napa Valley winery can be many things — graceful, bucolic, stately, even earnest, but naughty is not in its nature. Where most tasting-rooms would be perfectly paired with a soft-rock concert, a cool jazz combo, or even a country hoedown, this opulent outpost shares a closer kinship with the burlesque peep-shows of Dita von Teese.

Just as I adjusted to all this delightful decadence, hosts Jean-Charles Boisset and the Staglins started speaking. They were engaging, playful and infectiously enthusiastic, sharing stories of early-bird pledges and worthy beneficiaries, of the Staglins’ exceptional efforts to extract extraordinary donations, and of Cabernet-colored nail polish — only $30 at the Auction gift shop. Monsieur Boisset captivated the crowd with French flourish, making everyone present — even lowly “journalists” — feel important to the Valley and to the Auction. “If you are heeere today, you are now members of zee Red Room,” he proclaimed.

I fear his statement was purely symbolic, because I now wildly covet Red Room membership, not only so that I might at-long-last invite someone to “meet me in my favorite dark bar in St. Helena,” but so I can carry the membership credential, which I imagine to be either a crystal credit card, a platinum Playboy Club-type key, or a key fob in the form of a cabernet-red velvet-covered vibrating grape cluster.

Back outside on the expansive lawns of Raymond Winery, there were echoes of the Red Room’s bordello-chic, but this time in tastefully-placed white divans and carved white chairs that glowed in the blinding hot Napa sun. White café table sets sat under sheltering trees, sunlight flickering through the leaves although there was no breeze. There might have been a white peacock in a cage, or perhaps I dreamt it.

What stayed with me was not the sight of the Red Room, or the lovely winery and its festive food and wine marketplace, or even the fevered bidding at the barrel auction. It was the image of Jean-Charles Boisset clearing out his own wine, just because Garen Staglin asked to use Raymond’s barrel room for the weekend, to raise money for Napa Valley neighbors in need. That’s an image I find absolutely, wonderfully, surreal.

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Up the Valley: Dry Idea

The silent suffering of Napa Valley non-drinkers: today’s Column in the Star

I read an article in the Napa paper about a group of heretics in our midst; nonbelievers living among us disguised as normal Napa Valley dwellers but hiding a dark secret: They hate wine.

It’s not that they can’t drink because of alcoholism or allergies or fear of ending up face-down in the mashed potatoes every holiday like Uncle Lou. Nor are they the conscientious who eschew alcohol on religious grounds, some of whom are obliged to fork over a hefty percentage of their incomes to their organizations — a promise I would have thought more easily extracted from believers under the influence of alcohol.

No, these folks just don’t like the taste of wine, or hate the feeling of being blotto. Apparently 49 percent of Americans share their view and drink little to nothing at all. Few of them are my neighbors. This is largely a one-industry town, and the neighborhood is crowded with those who make, market, or pour wine for a living. Instead of stopping next door for a cup of sugar, you can pop by for a quick glass of wine and find yourself sitting in the kitchen sipping a winemaker’s own vintage — insider access to some of the best wines in the world.

Wine is such an integral part of the culture here that school and hospital fundraisers regularly include barrel auctions, and religious and charitable organizations keep their coffers overflowing by filling funders’ goblets with copious amounts of liquid grape (and not of the sacramental variety). A teetotaler in these parts must feel about as popular as a Sonoma vintner, a glassy-winged sharpshooter or a Republican.

Our wine-weary fellow citizens complain of feeling left out — the perpetual third wheel, the girl left holding the purses at a high school dance. It must be a downer to be forever destined the designated driver, surrounded by sloshed friends and family all slurrily repeating the same only-hilarious-if-you’re-drunk anecdote. The only openly appreciated non-inebriates around here are those mythic available men attending Alcoholic Anonymous meetings, often suggested as the last best hope of single women in the Napa Valley.

I sympathize with the abstinent because, much as I enjoy wines and strong spirits, I find myself increasingly unable to partake of them in large quantities. Of all of Mother Nature’s cruel jokes as the body ages (weight gain, sagging flesh and male pattern ankle baldness, to name a few), a decrease in the ability to hold one’s liquor is surely the most buzz-killing.

Still, age alone may not be the culprit — I have observed several members of the local senior set knocking back repeated snootfuls, although I am beginning to suspect that they have had hollow legs installed along with their artificial joints.

But back to the temperance league, one interviewee in the Napa article mentioned that he hates wine but enjoys a daiquiri or mai tai from time to time. Toward him we can only feel superior, and ask: Would it help if we stuck a paper umbrella in your merlot? I also suspect that those who find wine distasteful have never tasted the good stuff, limiting themselves to jugs, boxes and other dispensary systems involving a spigot. For them we can only feel sympathy, and ask: Would it help if we brought you something with a cork?

I confess, however, to feeling less sympathetic toward those who complain of being improperly rejected for jobs at winery tasting rooms because they had never, and would never, drink wine. It seems a bit like pressing a suit for employment discrimination if you were a lifelong eunuch seeking the position of head of sales and marketing at a brothel.

Of course, one perfectly reasonable excuse not to drink is the expense. Abstinence may not make the heart grow fonder, but it will surely make the wallet grow fatter. And speaking of fat, lots of friends swear off alcohol (briefly) on the grounds that it promotes weight gain, not only due to the wine’s caloric content but for its propensity to encourage polishing off platefuls of french fries with Béarnaise sauce on the side.

Another powerful incentive to limit drinking is the need to avoid driving under the influence. We recall the short drive home from a nearby dinner party, gripping the wheel with trepidation while ticking off a mental checklist of the evening’s wine consumption — what did we drink, when did we drink it, and what was that wine-to-body-weight ratio again?

When I’m serving, I always try to have something for nondrinkers to enjoy, like sparkling cider, gourmet grape juice or flavored sparkling waters. I do not, however, advocate drinking alcohol-free wines. In my opinion, they are just as disheartening as fat-free chips, sugar-free chocolates or adult movies that have had their raciness erased for television. If you can’t — or don’t — enjoy the real thing, why torture yourself with an imitation?

Wine Open

Today’s column in the St. Helena Star…

I confess to being bipolitical, meaning I swing both ways — from liberal to conservative — depending upon the issue. Not that there are definitive distinctions between the two these days, with conservatives legislating personal freedom and liberals waging war all over the place.

I miss the days when you could clearly tell a conservative from a liberal, not just by their politics but from across the room at a party: the conservative being the fellow in matching bow tie and suspenders, the liberal rocking a ponytail and wearing bicycle clips on his corduroy bell-bottoms.

And while we’re stereotyping, I often perceive conservatives as secretive, possibly the result of their years of expense-account padding, while liberals are prone to over-sharing, relating details during dinner about their childbirth experiences that would make a gynecologist queasy.

But this stereotype was recently tested when I was stymied by a supposedly liberal government department surprisingly hell-bent on keeping me in unemployed ignorance: the office of the first lady of the United States.

I was asked by the editor of an international wine magazine to provide a list of the California wines most commonly served at White House state dinners over the years. Given the current administration’s commitment to open and transparent government, this sounded like a relatively easy task.

But that was before I met the stonewalling women of the first lady’s East Wing press office who, after much confusion concerning the person in charge, brusquely informed me that the information I was seeking would not be released, knowledgeable persons would not be made available for interview, and I should buzz off.

You see, the White House was criticized when it was revealed that a wine served to the Chinese president in 2011 was reselling for $399 a bottle. And so the long tradition of releasing names of wines served at state dinners — wine paid for by the taxpayers, mind you — was terminated, and the information is no longer made available to the public.

I’ve always admired the first lady, and her commitment to veterans and to exercise and to children eating veggies off the White House lawn. I’ve even heard that she selected certain wines for Christmas because they were made by women winemakers. So I’m certain that if she and I could chat about this over tea and her favorite low-fat snack bars, we’d have it sorted out in no time and she would ensure that our wines had their moment in the spotlight. But her press office — not so much.

It made me wish, as I often do, that we had Britain’s queen as our head of state. For one thing, there would be no doubt about precisely who was in charge: some placid palace undersecretary for wine, spirits and silly hats who would rebuff me, but in a silky British accent. I would then simply consult one of many royal-watchers’ treatises on the subject, such as: “Wines of the Greater Americas, West, As Served by Her Majesty on the Occasion of Entertaining Visiting Dignitaries, Volume I: the Pre-Drip-Irrigation Years.”

Meanwhile, back in the Republic, we the people employ armies of snooty conservationists, butlers and ushers busily dusting the Limoges while eagerly awaiting inquiries about wines served during the Johnson administration that will never reach them. Some poncy silver-polisher could easily rattle off California wines featured at Capitol events, unless he is the one who let slip the cost of that $399 bottle and is now serving as chief usher at Guantanamo Bay.

And just when did it become appropriate to answer criticism by announcing a future intention to hide the facts? Why not simply serve Two-Buck Chuck to the next visiting dignitary, and hope the bitter aftertaste doesn’t lead to global thermonuclear war?

In desperation I consulted a congressman’s office, and was told by a frustrated staffer that he would have an easier time providing the name of the first lady’s shoe designer than the identity of a California winemaker.

Have no fear; in the grand tradition of American journalism, I did some Internet research, called everyone from the Vintners association to the Star staffers to individual wineries, and with invaluable assistance from the Napa Wine Library was able to reconstruct a partial list. The magazine editor seemed pleased.

But why this post-traumatic-press-related oenophobia? Surely people object to the amount spent on helicopters and rocket launchers, too. This was an opportunity to shine a light on a few California wineries in a magazine read around the world.

But that mattered little to a White House criticized, justly or not, for serving a nice bottle of wine to the president of a country that owns the mortgage on ours. And if you can’t stand even that medium-low heat, maybe you should go back into the wine cellar and chill.

Semi-Pro

I know we are neck-deep in a jobs crisis, but it seems I hardly ever meet anyone who has one job —  they usually have two or three.  I guess that’s just what it takes to cobble together what can laughingly be called a living these days.  Or maybe it’s a good sign; perhaps more people are pursuing their passionate avocations, and paying for the privilege with some nice income-producing or benefits-providing vocations.  Certainly that’s the case with the wine writers I met at the recent Napa Valley Professional Wine Writers Symposium at Meadowood.  My recent column about that experience is in the Star, so read it here!  If you can find time between your three jobs, that is.

Up The Valley: Semi-pro

• Laura Rafaty
• Mar 1, 2012

I am reliably informed that serious journalists, as opposed to we humor columnists, are distinguished by a deep knowledge of their subject matter and exhaustive verification of their facts. And while I never let a lack of knowledge stand in the way of my opinions, I try to harvest as many low-hanging facts as 20 minutes spent randomly surfing the Internet can produce. Enter Wikipedia, a collaborative online encyclopedia apparently founded on the principle that if millions of volunteers toss in information they read elsewhere, and this information is consumed and regurgitated to suggest a consensus, then Truth might accidentally emerge. I always assume that the bulk of any Wikipedia entry was lifted from the term-paper of the grad student who sat next to the contributor 30 years ago, that contributor now being a 50-year-old flabby former barista living with his parents and writing under the pseudonym Cindy4u. Still, Wikipedia’s definitions are much pithier than those of the fuddy-duddy dictionaries and far less likely to include the sort of complexity and nuance that might cloud the subject and cause my articles to exceed their 750-word limit.

To further bolster my journalistic bonafides, I attended last week’s annual Symposium for Professional Wine Writers at Meadowood. This confluence of world-class wine journalists, bloggers, website floggers, magazine editors, former magazine editors, cookbook authors, book publishers, writing coaches, and new media gurus is co-sponsored by Meadowood Napa Valley and the Napa Valley Vintners. The best local events often involve the NVV, which is to wine enthusiasts what Steve Rubell and Studio 54 were to disco queens, although passage past their velvet rope must be based more upon pocketbook and palate than glamour, judging from some of its scruffy-whiskered winemaker members. Far from highfalutin, our hosts created an atmosphere of conviviality in which even the biggest stars were accessible and forthcoming, if occasionally formidable. Picture baseball camp for wine scribes, except that instead of practice pitching a curve ball with Goose Gossage, you practiced pitching a feature story to Decanter, Wine & Spirits and Uncorked.

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Like most events where strangers gather, it resembled high school. The cool people immediately congealed, separating themselves from the rest of us like gourmet balsamic from off-brand olive oil. The usual types emerged: the ultra-driven strivers shoehorning themselves into conversations with editors, the popular darlings flitting about swapping business cards, the true believers burying their noses deep in spit cups to avoid eye contact, and the starstruck who couldn’t believe they were in the same room with both Eric Asimov and the Shafer 2003 Hillside Select Cabernet (and other rarities). Overall the group was enthusiastic, friendly and kind, and we soon relaxed into an easy camaraderie, remaining hopeful even as Symposium founder and nurturer-in-chief Toni Allegra reminded us that the average writer earns $9K per year.

It made me wonder: who becomes a wine writer, anyway? Were they born picky, their first words being: “Mother, I find this chocolate milk smooth on the palate, soft, full-bodied and rich, yet lacking maturity”? Were they finicky in high school, attending keg parties wearing smoking jackets and swilling Champagne? It appears they were always articulate observers, a tad on the sensitive side. These were not the bullies who shoved you into your locker and stole your lunch money — those guys became venture capitalists and bought wineries. These were good kids, super-smart achievers, with a bit of rebellion at the finish. They edited the yearbook or ran student government, but also drummed in rock bands or smoked pot behind the gym — until they discovered wine. One writer admitted that she had been in the color guard: “you know … not quite a cheerleader.” And while many had grown up to become respected and widely-published, few were able to support themselves through writing alone. Does this mean they are: “you know … not quite wine writers”?

According to Wikipedia: “a semi-professional athlete is one who is paid to play and thus is not an amateur, but for whom sport is not a full-time occupation, generally because the level of pay is too low to make a reasonable living based solely upon that source.” Broadly applying that definition, many of us would be considered semi-pro nowadays. Still the wine writers maintain a high level of professionalism, even if they seem a bit obsessive, fretting about botrytis and blithering on about tannins and acids and bouquets when any normal person would just say “yum.” Some don’t actually drink the wine, yet all are compelled to taste, evaluate and report, even if they can’t be entirely certain anyone is reading. In a world where everyone’s a critic, there is nothing amateur about them. And that’s a fact.

 (Laura Rafaty is the owner of PennalunaNapaValley.com, a resident of St. Helena, an attorney and former theatrical producer, and an author and columnist. Read more at laurarafaty.com)