We have the good fortune of being on a family vacation in the tropics. But what’s a wine lover to drink?

If you’ve read my book, A Year of Wine, you’ll know that I’m a fan of pairing wine with context, which includes the food, the mood, and the people. So if you’re on sun-drenched vacation, it’s easy to insert any wine, be it fetid or feted, and you’re bound for a great time since the setting is ideal, right? Perhaps. But this trip, I brought my own to make sure we had a good pairing.

Seeing some space in one of our bags, I threw in three wines from the Loire: two bottles of Muscadet and a bottle of Gamay. Low in alcohol, with refreshing acidity, and all under $15, I thought they would do the trick nicely when we grew tired of umbrella drinks and beer. (You can tell I am a wine geek since I was probably the only one bringing alcohol to the islands as opposed to returning with bottles–although I don’t rule that out.) I put them in a three-bottle wine shipper and they were still refreshingly cool to the touch when I unpacked. So I kept them that way by putting them all in the fridge on arrival.

The real stand out was the Domaine de la Pepiere, Clos des Briords, 2007 (about $15; find this wine), a superb wine in its own right that I’ve mentioned before. Throw in a sunset, 80 degrees, grilled fish, family and you really have a perfect wine moment. I rate it 100 points.

What’s one of your 100 point wine moments?

Friend of the blog and über travel blogger Mark Ashley sent in this photo from his flight from Munich last week: yes, he ordered the infamous Rich prosecco in a can! (We captioned their poster girl Paris Hilton last year.) Oddly enough, I’d just been noticing an increase in wine appearing in airline ads from Qantas to Air France to Lufthansa. Your theories as to why are welcome in the comments; perhaps it is because wine is a relatively cheap feelgood for marketing, certainly cheaper than giving you a seat that could, say, comfortably fit a human being.

In a jab at other airlines, Mark writes, “In Lufthansa’s defense, despite the wine being… middling… at least the wine is free.”

I bought two Styrofoam shipping containers at a wine store and filled them with 24 bottles, some collectible, others I could ditch if necessary. Since I was flying United, I was worried; readers have posted comments on this blog about rogue United agents refusing to check passengers with wine. And Paul Gregutt recently wrote about the experiences of some Washington wine country travelers who were only allowed five liters of wine (less than seven bottles) because the airline agent thought the TSA limit on spirits also applied to wine.

Before I hopped in a taxi, I asked the friend I was staying with to print two web pages. First, the United policy on wine in checked baggage, which has no limit, though it does state that wine must be in a “Styrofoam-type” insert. Second, the TSA rules on traveling with alcohol, which state that there is no limit on the amount of wine you can check. I wanted to have these printouts handy in case I got a rogue agent. I also wrote my name, address and flight number on a paper that I put inside the box before I sealed it with packing tape.

At O’Hare, I went straight to curbside to avoid a repeat experience of schlepping a bulky, handleless box any distance, as I have in rental car return lots on previous trips. Fortunately, the skycap was very polite and didn’t even flinch when I replied to his question that it was wine in the boxes. He just charged me $40, the current fee for two bags (the fee will be rising to $65 for two bags after November 10). In my euphoria of not having a problem, I gave him a nice tip.

When I collected my boxes from the belt on the other end, there were no wine stains that I had seen on my luggage the last time, without proper packaging. But there was “TSA INSPECTED” tape on the boxes. I just hope Hardy Rodenstock wasn’t on TSA duty that day.

Funny, but only after I made it home safely did it occur to me about insurance. I usually rely on my credit card to automatically provide me insurance. But because I had cashed in that increasingly useless currency known as air miles for the flight, I paid only $5, the security fee, for my flight. Had the bags been lost, would I have been covered? I asked Mark Ashley, travel guru at Upgrade: Travel Better, and he told me that I would, in fact, be covered because I paid the entire cost of the ticket ($5) with my credit card (but this varies by card, so read the fine print or call for a “legal opinion”). Cheap tix, free insurance, unbroken bottles–I’ll drink to that!

UPDATE: if you’re traveling with just a few bottles, several commenters on the previous post recommended a product called the Wine Skin, which looks very good.

Related: “Puzzle of the day: where can you fly with wine in the USA?”
“Poll: bringing wine home in an age of baggage charges“

The 28 wineries in Ulster, Dutchess, and Orange counties have launched a new web site to boost awareness of their new but old region. They claim “the country’s oldest vineyard can be found in the Hudson Valley,” dating back to 1677. Whoa! Them’s fightin’ words!

While the site offers itineraries, history and links to wineries, I have to wonder about the authenticity of one of the pictures. Consider this picture on the left, from their site. Compare to the photo that we pondered earlier on the right, which is a cellar in Hungary with the distinctive red banding on the barrels and the bare bulb illumination.

If the cellar depicted on their site is REALLY in the new/old Hudson Valley, then I will go to that winery and visit!

Because I was flying on United, I was a little wary. A previous commenter on this site had noted that the airline had confiscated his wine even though it was in his checked luggage. (Their policy now states that all wine in the hold must be in a Styrofoam shipping container even if it is in luggage.) So I didn’t want to splurge on too many bottles or any at too high a price in case they were taken away.

I put six bottles in a cardboard carrier and put it in my wheelie duffel. When I arrived back at Laguardia, my six pack had turned into a a five pack and my bag smelled like a winery. Fortunately, the pinot washed out without a problem.

I’ve put a lot of wine in my luggage over the years and thus far escaped unscathed. But it can’t hurt to use a little extra padding–or even use that Styrofoam shipper! Click through for a gory picture of my broken bottle–and of a funny celeb I saw making a spontaneous gate announcement in the terminal.

Related:
Bringing wine home from your travels
“Puzzle of the day: where can you fly with wine in the USA?”
“Have wine, can travel”

As wine geeks are wont to do, we brought a case plus a few bottles on our Adirondack adventure. The wines were from different producers and I bought them from different retailers. We had enjoyed several of the wines in the preceding two weeks and decided to share them with our relatives.

Yet several of the wines tasted too advanced. And we’re talking some 06s and 07s, which shouldn’t be advanced at all.

So what happened? I’m not sure. We did stop for a three-hour lunch with some friends on the way. I parked the car in the shade but when we returned, it was in the summer sun. I’m tempted to say this stint was the cause of our wine woes. But I’ve received so many wines via UPS that must have had even more exposure to the heat of summer than that. Do you have a theory?

Fortunately, the wines were diminished but not destroyed and some seemed unaffected. But as a precaution, I might bring a cooler next time we are going to make a stop on a trip like that. Assuming I can fit it in the car with all the kids’ gear etc!

Dear Dr. Vino,

If you had to take a bottle of American wine to Bulgaria that reflects the most recent trend in American winemaking, what would that bottle be? I want to take a bottle to my key participant in my academic study (who is one of the best winemakers in Bulgaria) when I head out next month to the wild Balkans. If this is an impossible question to answer, forgive my boldness (& ignorance) and please ignore it!

Impossible–never! It’s a great question, actually. I thought about American wines recently for a piece that I contributed to on Forbes.com about ten independent wines from the good ole US of A. I’d probably take one of those. Many of them actually run counter to the trend in higher alcohol levels so I’d point out that they are, in fact, anti-trendy, or the beginning of a new trend, perhaps. And then maybe bring a Turley that I’m trying to get rid of just for laffs.

What about you? Which wine would you bring if you were in this reader’s shoes?

“Nah,” he replied. I appreciated the honesty!

It turns out that trip was the last of a golden era, the era of “free” checked luggage. Now almost all airlines charge $25 for a second bag and American Airlines continues the Ryanairification of American air travel by imposing a $15 fee on the first bag. (Southwest, of all airlines, still allows two checked bags at no additional charge!)

As travel season kicks off with $4-a-gallon gas this Memorial Day, many wine enthusiasts might be giving thought to how we’ll bring wine home from our travels. UPS certainly looks better with these new airline surcharges (no schlepping!). But then there’s the heat of summer to contend with and it’s withering effect on wine–at least the short airline trip would minimize that.

If your travel takes you to a domestic winery this summer, how will you bring the loot home?

Related: Bringing wine home from overseas

“We make a red wine.”

Normally that’s not the sort of statement that raises an eyebrow in Napa Valley. But when one vintner told me that at dinner one night last week, I had to taste it for myself.

The vintner in question was Peter McCrea who owns Stony Hill. While most Chardonnay in the region receives lavish oak treatments and has high alcohol levels, Stony Hill Chardonnay is aged in 40-year-old (and therefore neutral) barrels and has 13 percent alcohol. His other two wines, a Gewurztraminer and a Riesling, roll in at 11.24 and 11.65 percent alcohol respectively. And at $21 a bottle, the wines stood out for another reason from the Napa wines.

Not your average California whites. Which is why I jumped in a car with another wine writer and drove up to the winery the next day in pursuit of the red nobody has ever tasted outside of the winery: Stony Hill Syrah.

The clouds hung low across the valley as we approached the driveway. It was drizzling on the leafless manzanilla trees, covered in green lichen. The driveway twisted and turned for two miles, first through the woods but as we climbed, rows of vines punctuated the forest, which had become dominated by evergreens.

The small winery lies 600 feet above the valley tucked into the forest. In the 1950s, the McCreas cleared an area to build a swimming pool and used some of that wood to build the winery. Many barrel rooms today are built for show as well as function but this rustic room housed only a few dozen barrels in a decidedly un-showy manner. Honestly, one of the barrels stamped “Diener & Roth, Stuttgart” looked as if it had traversed the seven seas and barely lived to tell the tale.

“So do you ever get new barrels?” I asked Peter.

“Yeah, when one gets a hole in it,” he deadpanned. Or perhaps he was being serious as some of the barrels are over 40 years old.

We wandered back to the house where his parents had lived. Apparently there’s a commanding view of the valley from the deck but we weren’t able to see it with the drizzle. Peter and his wife, Willinda, had decamped for the town of St. Helena some years ago and the house on the hillside was mainly for receiving visitors. It was very neat and clean yet not updated, kind of like my grandmother’s lake house before she died and the house was sold and torn down with a mega-mansion put up in its place. I had the feeling the same thing could easily befall this place someday.

Some other wine writers form the conference joined up with us as we started the tasting. First was the Gewurztraminer 2006, which has only a whiff of the grape’s characteristic spice and is a lean, non-Alsatian rendering with notes of lychee and pear. (By the way, I later saw this wine available at Taylor’s Refresher—yes, I went to the location in the Ferry Building—and thought how I’d like to try it with the fish tacos.) The 2006 White Riesling was up next and is, according to Peter, “bone-dry.” It has a big attack with good minerality and a pleasant finish.

The Chardonnay is the most planted grape in the vineyards. And the resulting wine, vintage 2005, was most un-Californian, with no malolactic fermentation to make it creamy and no new oak barrels to make it butterscotchy. It was straight up Chardonnay, unadorned, expressive of the grape and the place with the sprightly acidity of green apple and quite a persistent finish. At the dinner the previous evening I had picked the wine out of a lineup of three Napa chardonnays simply by the aroma because it is so distinctive. I’d like to try it in a lineup of Chablis. I’d also love to see how the wines age but unfortunately the winery has no more library wines so post a comment with your experience if you’ve tried a Stony Hill with some age on it.

Just for laffs, I asked Peter if he ever thought about converting to the creamy, coconutty style of chardonnay. He said “our 2,500 mailing list members would go batshit if we did!” Indeed. Consistency is assured thanks to the old vines and the fact that Mike Chelini has been making the wines since 1971.

So what about the elusive Stony Hill Syrah? We had to jog Peter’s memory about his pledge from the previous evening but Mary, who runs the office, ducked out and returned with the fabled bottle. There’s a small vineyard by the garden that was once planted with Zinfandel and about five years ago was replanted to Syrah. The wine is just for consumption at the winery and at the McCrea home. It’s only 13 percent alcohol, light in color and an attractive wine, highly gulpable. It lacked the depth of, say, a good St. Joseph. But if you were to expect a red wine from Stony Hill, this is what it would be.

Peter let slip that they actually have a five-acre bloc of Cabernet Sauvignon in their highest vineyard. They sell those grapes today but maybe one day we could try a Stony Hill Cab—even more elusive than the Syrah.

If you want to visit Stony Hill, make an appointment for M – F 9 – 5 at 707.963.2636.
Skinflints unite: not only are the wines affordable but the web site says the tastings and visits will always be free! StonyHillVineyard.com

The whites are available at retail as well as the winery.
Search for the Stony Hill Chardonnay, Stony Hill Riesling, or Stony Hill Gewurztraminer

Some more shots:

My new bud Jordan Mackay taught me how to do sepia tone on my Canon Elph SD800 IS — thanks, Jordan!

While you may not be able to touch Wynn’s nuts in Las Vegas, the Meadowood resort in Napa encourages you to pull the corks on the wine in the room.

Even though I wondered briefly which wine goes with Kettle chips, I managed to make it through my stay for a wine writers’ conference last week without opening a bottle in my room. But I was tempted since the wines were some top examples of local offerings at incredible prices. Consider the Joseph Phelps Insignia 2001 for $145 in the room when it can’t be found for less than $130 in a store (find this wine), if at all! While they are not all steals (the Sinskey Carneros Pinot Noir was $55 in room compared to $25 in a store) there were other, lower priced wines too: Plumpjack Chardonnay for $65 in room and about $50 in a store (find this wine) and the sparkling Schramsberg blanc de blanc is $35 in the room and about $25 in a store (find this wine). And free in-room wi-fi to run your own price check!

I asked the affable Gilles de Chambure, Master Sommelier and Director of Wine Education at Meadowood about the pricing and quality of the wine in the rooms, he said “we want people to pull the corks.” Indeed!

One negative about the beverages at Meadowood, however, was the abundant pouring in the dining room of one-liter glass bottles of Acqua Panna, a water imported from Tuscany. With bottled water available from five miles away in Calistoga I was tempted to break out my carbon calculator…

Last week I posted a wine travel puzzle: despite the FAA liquid ban, how could you actually bring a bottle of wine onto a commercial flight in the US?

With the ins and outs, please welcome friend of the blog, Mark Ashley, proprietor of the excellent travel blog Upgrade: Travel Better.

In the US, the rules are pretty clear. The rule requiring 3-ounce bottles (or 100ml, which is more than 3oz., but TSA rounds up for convenience) prevents you from bringing 750ml bottles through security in carry-on luggage, indeed. But as some have noted, stores like Vino Volo — after security — will sell bottles in the terminal.

But internationally, the rules seem to vary on the whim of the local airports authority. Pattie’s comment on the original posting is a case in point. My own experience in Munich last year (detailed here) was very much the same. Flights to the US had an additional checkpoint — after the initial security scan — where airport personnel removed otherwise “legal” items.

I wrote to the Munich Airport, and posted their answer, but alas, they just played pass-the-buck and incorrectly blamed TSA.

Best bet remains the cargo hold. Styrofoam, despite its environmental impact, is your best bet for transporting wine on planes.

Finally, if you’re able to get your booze onboard, from an in-terminal shop or the creative solution that Bob suggested, you’re still not necessarily allowed to drink it. American carriers will glibly cite “FAA rules” prohibiting the pouring of self-catered alcohol. I’ve never seen that regulation in print. Bottom line: You might be lucky if you ask a flight attendant if it’s alright to open a bottle of your own wine. International carriers are likely to be more lenient than American ones. But even then, don’t count on it.

Related: “Wine: you CAN take it with you when you go (home)“

As we are in a busy travel time of year, some wine enthusiasts may be wanting to travel with the juice (no, Barry Bonds, fermented grape juice) and most will be frustrated. But it is possible!

The puzzle of the day is thus: where (and how) can you bring your own wine into the cabin with you on a commercial flight in the US?

Comments are open.

Related: “Wine: you CAN take it with you when you go (home)“

Where was the small man with the big hat? Or was it a big man with a small hat–and even bigger vines?

I stopped by the Cavas Wine Lodge in Mendoza, Argentina last spring after it had just opened. Proprietor Cecilia Diaz was showing us around the new lodges interspersed among the vines with breathtaking views of the Andes. This guy rode out and started doing his thing but posed for me to take a picture. Cecilia said that he had worked there forever so they kept him on when they bought the property and gave him a new bike. And, no, he wasn’t very tall, in fact.

Nice guess, Luiz, with Zuccardi in Mendoza! In fact, I took another photo of Jose Zuccardi gesticulating wildly under his similar trellis system. They grow them vines big there!

It was a wide range of guesses that emerged in the comments including: Golan Heights; Bekka, Lebanon; Brazil; Rias Baixas, Spain; Greece; Portugal; California; the Swan and Barossa Valleys of Australia; Thailand; and “the outback region of Mukwonago, Wisconsin” (thanks, Gary!).

There were good captions for the photo too, including “Frodo Baggins better destroy that damn ring or I’m going to be making wine for that sulky serpent Saruman!”

So without further ado, thanks to a roll of the dice at random.org, the winner of The Emperor of Wine is: Philippe Newlin! Congratulations, Philippe! And thanks to all for the participation and humor.

You can read more on my trip to Argentina. And send in a photo if you’d like to stump us the next time.

Are you in Paris today during the 24-hr public sector strike and wondering what to do? Why, set up a wine-drenched itinerary of local wine shops! Check out my brand new map of Paris wine stores–and wine bars that sell wines to go!

I give you the scoop on over 40 places including my faves, ranging from neighborhood places to super-luxury stops. If you’re a local looking for “natural” wines or a tourist looking for wines you can’t find at home, click through to start setting up your own itinerary for your next visit!

Paris wine shops, a map

Is one of yours not on the map? Drop me a line with the address and why you think it should be included.

Related: Bringing wine back with you from France
Paris/France wine round-up
All posts in French wine
The map room

Josh wins a complete set of books by my wife, Michelle, in the Urban Babies Wear Black series, including the New Baby Baby’s Journal, and the black onesie/tshirt. Do Sonoma babies wear black? Time will tell…

Thanks to everyone who submitted very cute photos. One of the other finalists, Amy, has her own winery in the Rhone and put up a posting related to this thread. Amy sez: “I can certainly tell you that here at La Gramière we couldn’t get along without kids! They are always an enormous help to us during harvest, and they add such a wonderful esprit to the whole event. So here are some of my favorite kid photos from our past 3 harvests…”

One final vignette: I was on a panel with Joel Peterson of Ravenswood Winery last week and he told a story about grape ripeness. Thirty years ago he would throw his son on his back and walk through the vineyards to check the sugar levels with his refractometer. The best measure for ripeness, he found, was simply to pass a grape back to his son, Morgan: if he ate it they were ripe, if he spit it out, the grapes had to stay on the vine a little longer.

So here’s to responsible kids and parents at wineries, something (nearly) everyone can raise a glass to!

Related:
“Kids at wineries: let the voting begin!”
“Kids at wineries, a photo contest”
“Poll: should kids be banned from wineries?”
Urban Babies Wear Black