Label of the Month: Hard Row to Hoe Vineyards

Hard Row to Hoe Vineyards

For a winemaker, after years of strategy and sweat, it takes a certain level of bravery to make the decision to completely rebrand yourself. One winery had just such chutzpah. Hard Row to Hoe Vineyards, formerly Balsamroot Vineyards (Lake Chelan), brought new life to the label by introducing colorful local history in sepia tones. The new brand is a giant pun. It can refer to the hard work that goes into vineyard work, but more than that, it sums up the story depicted on the label.

ApresVin Grapeseed Oils

Indigenous cultures are reputed to use every part of a kill, right down to the ear bone on a buffalo. Enter ApresVin, who just couldn’t stand to see any part of a wine grape go to waste. French for “after the wine,” ApresVin has adapted European expeller presses to squeeze all the juice out of select vineyards’ leftover grape seeds. With a little abracadabra and some flavoring, the result is a series of dipping oils made from 100% pure varietals.

The oils are really tasty. The 2007 Yakima Valley Chipotle Merlot oil is surprisingly spicy on the finish, and the 2007 Yakima Valley Roasted Garlic Chardonnay oil would make a perfect appetizer for an Italian meal, the kind that makes the meal unnecessary. There’s also Lime Riesling, Mélange a Trois, and others, each of which offer the kind of surprise you get by reading the solution to an Encyclopedia Brown mystery.

Label of the Month: The Ghost of 413

The Ghost of 413 is one of the brain children of Woodinville wine country mini-celebs Mark Ryan McNeilly and Chris Gorman’s Giant Wine Co. label. With multiple faces, the blends, varietals and reviews change; but the eerie, well-suited label stays the same. An elegant black and white label with basic Times font requires a closer look, as the name is repeated in a ghastly, raised print haunting the title from the background. Nicely played and without excess, McNeilly and Gorman’s The Ghost of 413 label made an impression on the shelves and has disappeared until its next reappearance near the end of 2008. -Erin Thomas

Wine Wipes

Anyone who’s ever over-indulged in the reds at a wine party, and found themselves frightened by their own dark smiles in the candid photos that were taken that night, can now find relief in a new product called Wine Wipes. It’s an Oxy pad for teeth that promises to remove the red wine stains from your toothy grin.

In a small container not unlike a compact of blush (it even has a mirror on the underside of the lid), the round wipes are to wine-stained teeth what moistened towelettes are to fingers after a rack of barbecued ribs. These things actually work, and the container is small enough to slip into a pocket or a handbag.

Just find a private place to use them, because there’s really no graceful way to scrub your teeth with these in public—it’s less subtle than blowing your nose. Wine wipes don’t taste any too pleasant, but still, the chance to avoid purple teeth in mixed company makes this clever novelty worth looking into.

Info at: www.winewipes.com. -Doug Haugen

Breathable Glass or Hot Air?

In Italy, wine is traditionally consumed out of whatever glassware is handy, typically a juice glass. That’s just how they roll. In Germany, however, they apparently drink out of living, breathing stemware. Not really, but it sounds better than saying “polymer-coated” stemware.

Eisch Glaskultur, the David to Reidel’s Goliath, claims that the Breathable Glass, a patent-pending treatment that Reidel turned down and is now suing over, actually shows “signs of aeration equivalent to the same wine that has been decanted for one to two hours.” Ronn R. Wiegand, Master of Wine and Master Sommelier (he’s a badass), is quoted as saying that “[He] was especially impressed – Remarkable!” Others are quicker to dismiss the technology as a gimmick, including Reidel.

Revelry “Tube” Wine

It takes a certain level of bravery to tap wine out of a giant tube of lipstick, but we’d suck wine out of a cactus if that were possible. On second thought, tall and sturdy with a bladder full of two liters of wine inside, I could have felt a certain kinship with the Revelry Vintners cask wines, and I was curious to get to know them. But, that was no easy task.

The front of the thick cardboard tube is perforated in the front where you’re supposed to open it, but those dotted lines mean nothing when you’re straining to tear it open. Persistence is critical to get to the wine, and once you’ve succeeded in gouging out its bellybutton, a spigot is waiting to be pulled out and locked into place, perfectly sized for the neat hole that was supposed to be there. Once out, the spigot is really quite handy if the tube is placed at the very edge of your counter or table—gravity lets it shoot into your glass with gusto.

Cinema: Bottleshocked & Merloved

Wine is becoming quite the Diva, now making appearances on the Big Screen. Even after all of the limelight that Sideways gave her, she is insatiable. She aims to dethrone the self-proclaimed King of Media Howard Stern. The first step is setting the record straight.

Enter Merlove, the now-showing and soon-to-be-released-nationwide documentary that celebrates Merlot as a varietal following the one-two punch that Sideways dealt when Miles, the movie’s protagonist, emphatically states outside of a wine bar, “I am not drinking any f**king Merlot!” Well, that just about did poor Merlot in, causing sales of the varietal to plummet dramatically while Pinot Noir experienced a bit of a boon, shall we say. We all know now that Miles’ prized bottle of ‘61 Cheval Blanc was a Merlot-Cab Franc blend (well, duh.), yet the damage was done.

Label of the Month: WilRidge Winery

I have a soft spot in my heart for the Roman depiction of a satyr. Because they are creatures created in the vein of Dionysus, god of wine and inebriation, satyrs are often described as hedonists, ever prowling for the pleasures of the flesh. Human torso above, goat legs below, the image of a satyr can conjure up fears of the mystical, biblical, or childhood nightmares of the dark. However, like many of the said evils of the world, it turns out that these nymph-loving Pan wannabes are just out to have a good time. The Wilridge winery logo and label, with its simplicity and unmistakable iconography, inspires me to do the same.

The Winerd® Game

By Greg Brisendine

The Goods:

Wilridge 2002 Klipsun Vineyards Merlot
Senoj Estates 2005 Passport
Columbia Crest 2005 Horse Heaven Hills Cabernet Sauvignon
Harlequin Wine Cellars 2004 Pinot Noir

The Players:

Josh: WINO Publisher. “I’m gonna kick your ass in this game!”
Doug: WINO Editor. “First comment with suggestive overtones: 9:32PM.”
Sarah: from The Tasting Room. “Don’t have a shot of Jameson before playing this game.”
Greg: Freelance writer. “Is my scooter safe on this street?” No.
Lucy: Dog and door guard. “Woof.”

The Results:

The drinking game grows up! Good for wine newbies, good for the well heeled wino. Buy this game, buy some wine, play and drink with friends.

The Details:

Imagine if you will: The Publisher and the Editor of the swanky new WINO Magazine, their pal who works at The Tasting Room, a freelance writer they found on Craig’s List, and a board game about wine. Upon acquiring the aforementioned game, the WINO guys (as some call them) came to the immediate conclusion that playing the game will help them kill several birds with that one stone: hanging out with an esteemed new writer, drinking some wine, and writing it all off as “work.”

Label of the Month: Vin du Lac

By Michaelle Boetger

One of the first wineries I visited upon my arrival to the Northwest last summer was Vin du Lac in Chelan. Not only is this lakeside town picturesque, but this quaint winery sits on a hilltop rising 200 feet overlooking the lake. The wine labels at Vin du Lac feature illustrations from Lisa Pettit; they’re whimsical and fun. Each wine features a different design and a different set of characters; and whether it’s a couple on a tandem bike, going for a picnic or even kayaking, each is like its own work of art. On her website Lisa says that “the designer in me leads me to create linocuts for more simple, high contrast imagery, and the child in me loves to doodle the details in the more elaborate etchings and to color the monotypes.” The designs give the labels a professional look, yet make it approachable for this vineyard that makes small lots of award winning wine.

Michaelle Boetger is a graphic designer based in Moses Lake, she specializes in logos, corporate identity, brochures, direct mail, advertising, you name it! See her website at www.michaelleboetger.com to see her work.

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