Ken Musso casts an imposing shadow. Standing over six feet, this former fire chief is broad shouldered, bald, and carries himself with the assuredness that few men have. He is also a great winemaker.
I went to work for Ken as a tasting room manager for his winery, Due Vigne di Famiglia in Clarksburg, California, about fifteen minutes outside of Sacramento.
While he focuses on italian varietals (he is kinda known as the California Nebbiolo guy), he also produces a phenomenal Napa Cabernet Sauvignon.
This is where our story begins.
The 2012 Napa Cab was in the barrel, about to be bottled, and I wanted a taste. I’m actually not a huge fan of barrel tasting. The idea of tasting wine before bottling and trying to predict the qualities it will present years from now feels like cheating. Can you imagine catching Van Gough halfway through Starry Night and making a judgement? Seriously, I’ll leave it to the winemakers. This situation was different, though, the Cab being so close to finding its way into the bottle. I grabbed a wine thief and snuck over to the barrel.
I dipped the wine thief into the barrel, placed my thumb over the open end, and extracted the single-barrel Cab into my glass.
As I put my nose into the glass I could tell something was desperately wrong. Vegetal notes. Green bell pepper. All those attributes should be gone at this point in the process. My first sip confirmed it. The whole barrel was flawed and I am the lucky guy who had to tell Ken.
I apprehensively called him over. I tell him about the barrel. He towers over me with an expression of concern that I have never seen before. He knows I have a decent palate and that I am a fairly serious person. I wouldn’t call him over for a joke. Tensely, he grabs the wine thief and pours himself a taste. He breathes it in, looks at me curiously. He tastes the Cab. A look of relief on his face.
“You got it all wrong. Try it again.”
I was confused. I know what I smelled, I know what I tasted…I wasn’t wrong. I tasted it again. Same result.
“Again…”
Same fucking thing.
“Again,” he said, a little agitated.
This time, just as I put my nose to the glass, with great authority and confidence (and a not a little derision) he said:
“CEDAR-LEAD-PENCIL”
The paradigm shift in my head was a loud and deafening boom. Time stood still and many things happened all at once.
First, the vegetal, pyrazine notes vanished… replaced by a note of cedar. More like an ethereal note of cedar. It moved through my olfactory like a whispery ghost. Next, and more pronounced, was the pencil lead, slate infused wood. I could see the #2 dance around in my head.
Ken is still looking at me and I can’t think about that. Something important is happening and I can’t let it go yet. Was it the power of suggestion? I know I have certainly done that to my customers from time to time. But, while plausible, it is something else.
Ken is still looking for my reaction.
No, It wasn’t the power of suggestion. How did I miss it in the first place? Cedar, lead, pencil? Who the fuck comes up with that? Any person who writes tasting notes is a pretentious asshole. I should know, I’ve written many of them.
Ken staring.
Cedar-lead-pencil.
The slow movement of time.
It hit me like a soft pillow wrapped around a brick wall. Everything we smell and taste goes through our olfactory and then to the brain. But, where does it go in our brain? To the logic center? No. It goes to our memories. And through our memories and experiences our brain tries to interpret the experience.
Wait for it.
That means that the person who has more experiences, better (more) memories will have an easier time exploring wine.
I was never the kid in the back of class chewing on my pencil. I simply did not have the recall for those notes and my brain did its best to reconcile the experience I was having with Ken’s Cabernet. Cedar became vegetal, lead pencil became some pyrazine inspired note.
“Sorry, Ken.”
Ken gave me a knowing, and somewhat relieved, smile and walked away.
In my head I floated in the wake of what just happened. “Knowing” did not help me decipher the wine. My previous wine experiences made me come to the wrong conclusion. Memory, not logic, fuels the experience.
It was my first existential wine moment.
How do I fix this? How do I get better at examining wine?
First, do not start with a preconceived idea about what the wine “should” taste like. Every wine is different and is only loosely connected to the varietal it comes from.
Second, have more experiences. Eat as many different kinds of foods and flavors as you can. Take a hike through the forest. Breathe the salt air from the ocean. Places have aromas. Travel. You bring your whole life to every tasting.
Thirdly, in the moment, take the time to explore the memories that come to you while tasting (not just wine). These explorations allow more insight to various aromas and flavors you didn’t know you could experience.
Up until that day, my Instagram handle was “Tales From the Tasting Room.” Upon understanding how I was beginning to appreciate wine, that wine was coloring how I see and interact with the world, I created a new handle that would be more than an IG account, but rather a persona. A more accurate descriptor of who I was becoming: Existential Wine Guy.
p.s. You can check out the wines of Due Vigne di Famiglia here