In Pursuit of Balance

WINE TALK
21

You’re comparing IPOB to PETA? You are well and truly lost.

22

The IPoB group has a committee that adjucates who is allowed to belong. Not sure who is on it, presumably
RajParr & JasmineHirsch. But they were not permitted back. AndyPeay posted somewhere here on WB
about it.
Tom

23

Exactly the comment I expected you to make. Thank you for being so predictable and reading what you wanted into my post. rolleyes

I’ll ask again - what percentage of members named David are argumentative just for the sake of confrontation? [berserker.gif]

24

I don’t understand what this thread is about.

25

It’s about taking shots at a group of wineries for no good reason.

26

It’s about publicity from overblowing a situation. A common tactic used by news stations and other organizations.

27

Well, we’ve been down this road a fair distance previously. They are a little “precious” and there is the implication that if you’re not with them, you’re somehow not pursuing balanced wines.

They don’t particularly bother me and I enjoy the Pinots made by a number of their “members”. Chances are probably a little better that I’ll enjoy an IPOB Cali Pinot more than a “non”, but it won’t stop me from trying (or excluding) the “non” and making the call based on the juice.

RT

28

In their pursuit of balance they forgot that too much acid and too little fruit creates imbalance.

I’m all for people drinking what they like, but I’m also all for being able to say that what they (IPOBers) like tastes disgusting (yeah yeah that’s an over generalization and some of their stuff is decent for a Monday lunch)…

29

The PETA analogy isn’t too far-flung. An ideological stance carried to an extreme. Perhaps In Search of Insipid Syrah (ISIS) would be more apt in this case, though.

30

Because they come off as trashing the other styles. Its never a good thing to pull the other guy down to get ahead. Just lift yourself up. There is an audience for these wines. Go for it. No need to denigrate the other styles.

31

So maybe Saxum can start an alternative group for all you folks that feel you are excluded by IPOB - they could call it “In Pursuit of Alcohol”. Lord knows there are enough wineries in California that cater to that corner of the market, so it shouldn’t be hard to recruit members. You could do a vertical of Martinelli Blue Slide Ridge Pinot for your first official gathering [stirthepothal.gif] .

32

Well, Loren…I’m not sure this comment really rings true. At least from the winemakers w/ whom I talked to, most just explain that this is the way
I make my wine, but acknowledge there are people out there that prefer high-octane/highly-extracted wines. But, then maybe there are those that do
try to tear down the “alternative” style in order to gain a competitive advantage. Maybe RajParr does, perhaps.
Tom

33

Bob, it’s called Hospice du Rhone and it would be perfect, except the pesky French keep showing up and lowering the overall alcohol percentages. [cheers.gif]

RT

34

Hospice du Rhone doesn’t screen for any particular style and there are plenty of different styles represented within the context of Rhone varieties and the regions where they thrive. The French producers aren’t pesky, they are part of the backbone of HdR. Speaking for myself, I’d stop going if they weren’t a significant part of the event.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with iPOB although it’s a bit idiosyncratic in the choices of which wineries are included and/or dropped from the membership.

-Al

35

Agree with Al’s comments on HdR - while there are quite a few Paso-area producers (and others) with higher-alcohol wines, there are lots of others (including some from the Paso area) with more moderate- and even lower-alcohol bottlings.

Many people seem to forget that IPOB is by no means for exclusively lower-alcohol wines, and never has been. Calera and Native9, to name two examples, have been at IPOB from the start and are not known for being low-alcohol. The IPOB wines actually represent a decent range of styles, though not nearly as wide a range as HdR or other tastings such as Pinot Days.

36

Hmmm…would beg to disagree a bit on that, Ken. If you recall, RajParr (he & Jasmine are pretty much the founders of IPoB) originally came out
against the increasing alcohol levels in Calif wines and banned wines over a certain alcohol level from his wine lists (though he made a few exceptions
for some of his darlings). From that stand he took directly evolved the IPoB wine movement of his. But because he took so much crap over such
a dogmatic/simplistic criteria, he quit couching it in terms of alcohol levels, but in terms over a more defensible/more nebulous/less dogmatic term of “balance”.
There are certainly wines in the IPoB crowd that I would be hesitant to describe as in “balance”, based on alcohol or any other criteria. But, as Al points out,
their criteria for selection into IPoB can seem a bit arbitrary.
Tom

Tom

37

It was at one time all about the alc. I am not sure how much the selection criteria has changed but you could only be considered if you produced a wine sub 14%

38

That may have been true for Raj Parr’s restaurant wine lists, but I don’t believe that was ever the case for IPOB - otherwise Calera and Native9 (and probably a couple of others) would not have been part of it right from the start. Pinots from those two producers are rarely if ever below 14% and some have pushed up near 15%. I generally like their wines, but they always seemed a bit like outliers in the overall IPOB line-up - I’ve wondered whether they were included in the group specifically to show that it wasn’t entirely about low-alcohol wines.

39

Yup, Ken…that very thought has crossed my mind any number of times.
Tom

40

Twomey bought the Monument Tree vineyards some years back. The wines I’ve had from them in recent years (well, the Anderson Valley wines anyway), have been scaled way back. While still somewhere in the middle, stylisticallly, in terms of the wineries in the IPOB list, the Twomey wines are much leaner, brighter…well, more balanced…than they were pre-2011.