Petite Sirah Taste Off – Episode #284

July 30, 2007

Gary Vaynerchuk has been attacked by so many emails to taste Petite Sirah that he has finally caved!

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Comments on this episode(225) Leave a comment ›

“First time viewer…loved it,will be back!…” by maryandroscoe
“I’d probably miss wine scores. I like when they’re representative of …” by ulu ulu ulu ulu
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Wines tasted in this episode:

2004 Trentadue Petite SirahSonoma Petite Sirah
2005 Rosenblum Petite Sirah Heritage ClonesOther California Petite Sirah
2005 Elyse Petite Sirah RutherfordNapa Petite Sirah
2004 Earthquake Petite SirahNapa Petite Sirah

Links mentioned in todays episode.

225 Responses

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July 31, 2007

Scottymatt
Great news with Conan-fantastic PR for the site, you, and wine. A scoring system is and objective way to give recommendations based on your taste profile- and can thus be extrapolated accordingly. Parkerâ€™s scoring rates points on the different aspects of the wine-colour, bouquet, taste, length, ect. Wine Spectators is a little mystery- industry secret.

Once this is known-you can compare. Do not forget- the written word (or spoken) can be mis-leading if constructed by a good writer (or talker)-look at politicians. Points can be documented and compared to see if they are in line when you taste—like what you do. Both system-Score and Discription should be used-Keep up the same style.

QOTD-LIVE on pacific time!.
July 31, 2007

ryan
DUGG!
July 31, 2007

Garret Nagle
I shall watch you three hours after you go on live…. because there is a three hour delay to the west coast!

Don’t be nervous – just think ahead of time some key things you want to say, realize Conan is a comedian and might not ask you the type of wine questions you anticipate, and just go with the flow and enjoy yourself.

The most important thing is to figure out the one main key message is you want to communicate to the audience, and find a way to get it in. I think this situation might be a little like trying to educate tipsy women about wine at a tasting – they might not really be remembering what you’re saying, but you smile and go with the flow.

You’ll be fine because you have a lot of experience ad libbing in front of a camera 5x a week! You’d make any PR guy happy because you understand media and people.
July 31, 2007

TWofPasadena
Gary,

The director of Late Night w/ Conan is Allan Kartun, someone I know and have worked with in the past. Bring him a good bottle and tell him to make you look good (HA!). Way to go!

QOTD: Tivo my friend. It’s the only way.
July 31, 2007

dkeck
Gary,
Glad to have you back. It so true that we are blessed to live in this contry.
QOTD: I like some type of wine scale just because it gives me something to debate with my friends. Tasting notes become all too common unless they have a coresponding reference, meaning and value to the person that is tasting the wine. However, I would like to change the numbering system so that it gives more information to the taster. I would like a scale that would be more quantitative to each sense and an over all score. Like you, I like to sniffy sniff my wine. Tasting notes alone tend to loose a quantitative opinion of what you experienced. Therfore, a wine with a 9/10 on the nose would be important information to me.
July 31, 2007

diego de la p...
congrats on the conan show man!! thats awsome, hope you enlighten conan about wine haha, and give him some sauternes!
nice show today!!!
July 31, 2007

Greg B.
OK Big G! I hit you up about conan last week. I saw it on my Tivo. I have Wine as a key word and your show came up. Anyway, Petite Sirah. I bought from ya the 2003 Wooden Nickel. You gave it 91+ points. I would have given it a little higher, so my question is do you feel that Petite Sirah was any different than the ones you had today?
As far as not scoring the wine anymore. I’ll say this for your fans like me, we benefit from you scoring the Wine. It is our way of weeding thru all the crap. We do appreciate your notes, but without a score I just don’t feel good about purchasing that Wine. Same goes for the Wine mags and that is why I read them. Notes and Scores.

QOTD: I’m a Big Ass fan, but Tivo Baby.
July 31, 2007

Kelly
I’ll probably drink two bottles of wine watching shark week in anticipation of Conan.

CAN YOU PLEASE LEAVE A SUGGESTION AS TO WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD COMPARISON AS AN OLD WORLD WINE?!?
July 31, 2007

life's too short...
P Syrah, syrah, whatever will be will . . . uh, whatever. Sorry, had a Julie Andrews moment there. re: Conan, sure, bud: Wife’s outta town. Why not stay up late, have a glass, watch two irreverent class clowns go head to HUGE MELON HEAD CONAN BEAST. Heh, I actually like Conan quite a bit, and thought things would go SOUTH when Andy Richter left. Thing is? Conan finally came through and shined–do you remember how the guests used to love to talk to Andy Richter and ignore Conan during the “silent shot” as they went to commercial? I do. I felt bad for big head: the guy’s a genius. Just like his former boss, Al Jean, Exec. Producer of the Simpsons, and a kid who I used to sit behind in Algebra II and Trigonometry class. Guy was a genius, and used to SLEEP in class, and the teacher never said a word to him. Used to talk to me, though. Interesting… Anyway, I digress. re: no numbers, and only adjectival action, well, that’s how you started the show, right? You didn’t assign numeric ratings? I dunno, it doesn’t really matter, I s’pose, but I think people will tend to want the numbers. Thing is, numbers show how good it is to you–AND you use tasting notes. If you just use tasting notes, it’s really just one dimension less. OTOH, I’ve been nailing your ratings within a point for a while now based on your tasting notes, so I pretty well know how you’re going to score it based on your verbal grade. eh. Anyway, cool, and cheers on the Conan spot!! He’s a pretty over the top personality–and super smart–so don’t blow it. Just kidding. Dude, it’s TOTALLY okay to blow it.
July 31, 2007

Fred
Dude,, Just heard,, Conan!!!
So Cool!!!
Note to self,, get Tivo!
Is NBC going to let you run the bit on your site, or are they going to hog it all?
July 31, 2007

Pauly
QOTD: oh, and I’ll be watching live but have set-up my DVR, just incase!
July 31, 2007

Pauly
hey gary, welcome back from eastern europe. just curious about how you repeatedly mention about “fruitiness” and “as if it were created in a lab” with new-world wines…what do you really think these wineries are doing with their juice? Do you think wineries are mixing additives of flavor into their wines to give us what they think we want and expect? How do YOU think they get this flavor?

Definitely do away with the ratings because if we are truly going to change the wine world, we need to change it starting from the bottom!
July 31, 2007

E
PS – you ought to bring Conan a colortini in honor of the late great Tom Snyder.
July 31, 2007

E
Miro Tcholakov – he’s Bulgarian, I think.

Interesting opening comments re thunder content … I was rummaging around locally a few weeks ago and noticed a Guenoc petite sirah (they seem to have gone from a $15-20 label to a $10 label; were they bought out?) and the thing that intrigued me was that it was only 12.5% abv – noteworthy for a California red of any stripe, astonishing for a petite sirah. Anyone have any experience with the stuff?

Texting yourself to remember what you’ve had is a great idea as long as you can manage OK after several different glasses. Not the easiest thing in the world, that.

I don’t care too much about numbers; every time I try to use the 100 point scale it’s more a matter of 80 to 90 (90 if it’s incredible) but if people want to drink bottles of points, that’s their business. Let ‘em have their fun, I don’t mind. I know what to look for in that context anyway, so no harm done.

QOD: that sounds like cranking good fun.
July 31, 2007

Jaroni
Have fun on Conan. Should be great, highly entertaining.

QOTD: Have to go against the tide and say get rid of Parker’s weird 100 point scale, which is really a 20 point scale, in that it only uses 80 to 100 points anyway. So maybe just go with a 20 point scale, or none at all. Seems like you are gaining in success and you could afford to use a scale that makes sense to you. This would truly be “changing the wine world”, breaking out of that Parker 100 point thing, doing what is logical to you. 20 points seem like enough.
July 31, 2007

Adam
I’m still not sure if I’ll be trying a petite sirah anytime soon, but it’s good to get some info on this very interesting wine.

QOTD: Dude, you’re gonna rock out with your Conan out! I will most definitely be watching live, as well as the TiVo thing too.
July 31, 2007

Totte
Congrats on Conan…

QotD : I guess the show will air in Sweden in a couple of weeks…IÂ´ll look out for it.

Swedish T
July 31, 2007

wtvLurker
gary, assuming there exist some petit sirahs that are not new world style, could you pick out one or two and taste them in a future episode since we only saw new world today? like Robert F, i have had the bogle petite syrah and recall it as like todays wines for around 8 bones.

numerical scoring: if the spirit moves you.

conan: will try to catch it live. no dvr/tivo. ask him if he’ll let you post a video of the gv segment for those of us that miss it live.

congrats and knockem dead.
July 31, 2007

BK
Welcome back Gary!
great episode. I am a fan of Petite Sirah, and Syrah and well…all wine. I may be in trouble.
AND Conan, seriously, you are going to kill. Congrats, that is huge in so many ways.
Keep the numerical scores. We all enjoy them and the ones that get “it” take them with a grain of salt. The tasting notes are what we base our opinions off of, but I personally enjoy the scores. Much like tasting notes, scores are subjective and are driven by ones own personal palate. Keep the scores, they are educational and do bring the experiance together. Plus I like it when WS gives something a 94 and you give it a PAZZZZZZZ. Mainly because James Laube is probably seeing his pockets empty with every episode.
QOTD: I will be watching live, no doubt.
July 31, 2007

Smith MBA
Opie & Anthony Reference, keeping it real even when going big time with Conan.
July 31, 2007

A
Please keep the scores. Even though it’s not perfect, it’s better than not doing it at all.
July 31, 2007

Jake
switched from Jaroni to my real name. this site deserves a real identity. QOTD: I have to go against the tide here and say you can do away with the points. I have found that they never help, at least not with my palate. A few good tasting notes help me more and have been more reliable. It seems as if you want to do away with them anyway.

If anything, switch to a 20 point scale. 20 points is all you need. Parker’s scale doesn’t even really get started til 80 anyway. It’s basically a 20 point scale. You seem to be gaining in success, and thus you can afford to use whatever scale you want, or no scale at all. Use what is truly logical to you. To me, breaking away from Parker’s weird 100 point scale — where you don’t even really use the first 80 points — would be a good step toward “changing the wine world”.

Have fun on Conan. Two entertaining guys on one show, should be great. Relax and have fun, but I don’t have to tell you that. Bring him a nice bottle and see if he’ll have a glass with you on the air, I dunno. Peace.
July 30, 2007

L from Cape Cod
Great news Mr. V, knock em out. I will be watching live.
July 30, 2007

john maki
I can’t believe you would seriously give up rating the wines you taste!
I can see debating different wine scales – stars, puffs, 1-10, 1-100,
or verbal descriptors of quality; and along with that some value correlation, but “the show” would lose a lot of it’s value without this. Unless -
you want to become a smell and taste educator and make sure we all agree on
what our senses tell us (reveal to us) about wine.
Anyway, DON”T DO IT!

So what makes these Petit Sirahs all the same? when every other variety of wine has such variance? Have you only picked too small a sample, or are there so few made? I’m not sure I get it yet…
July 30, 2007

nougat
Gaz, you are in my WHEELHOUSE tonight – Petite Sirah, Conan, Twix…very exciting.
About Petite Sirah – I love the more tannic, old world versions that you absolutely must lay down for a few years (Foppiano), although I’ve had the Trentadue and I’m sitting on a Rosenblum.
About Conan – My jaw is only now able to close since I heard your great news. He’s the funniest late night host, so I will be there at 12:30 with glass in hand and hand down pants(that’s the way I watch good TV).
About Twix – May be the best American candy bar.
Good stuff, knock ‘em dead.