It has been a bit hectic over in the land of Purple Teeth. But not too hectic to mention a recent mention in Seattle Magazine's March issue entitled, "How to Become A Washington State Winemaker without Giving Up Your Day Job". And two of three wines produced by Purple Teeth Cellars got mentions for "Top Picks". For some reason, the magazine has not posted the "Top Picks" section of the article to their website but fortunately we have the text right here:

Purple Teeth Cellars 2006 Eaglepoint Ranch Petite Sirah, Mendocino County
One sip of the big, earthy gem might make a case for giving this so-called lesser grape more love. It's got depth, layers of blueberry and black cherry, and a lingering finish.

Pairs with: Roasted duck, burgers, pizza - in other words, it's a versatile food wine.

Purple Teeth Cellars 2007 White Hawk Vineyard Syrah, Santa Barbara County
Jammy and big, this wine packs a wallop of dark fruit flavors, warm spice and rustic earthiness - all characterizing this Rhone varietal's ability to wow without coming on too strong.

Pairs with: A rustic cassoulet or an assertively seasoned salmon fillet.

Obviously this is very exciting news for us and has led to some other opportunities for Mr. and Mrs. Purple Teeth, which we hope to talk about in the very near future. In the meantime, keep on flashing those PURPLE TEETH!

Hope the holiday season is treating all of you well!

As some of you may know, I (@MrsPTC) tend to run a fair amount. One of my regular running buddies is not a huge wine drinker but likes to enjoy a glass or two every so often. We were out running one day and she had mentioned that her and her sister had a breakthrough "red wine" moment and didn't know where to go next. As far as where they were coming from, they tended to stick to mostly white wines – particularly my friend's sister.

So my friend asked if I would be willing to introduce them to some wines that they might like and wouldn't necessarily know to try on their own. Now in Purple Teeth Cellars land, we tend to stick to the "heavier" reds – both in terms of body and acidity. Thus, it didn't make sense to make this a PTC-oriented event. Maybe at some point, they will like more of the style of wine that we make but for now, plenty of fabulous reds are available that may be more in line with their preferences are. That is how we ended up at Pinot Noir.

I had a bunch of ideas race through my head on how I would so this. I am now an "industry person" of sorts in the wine world, so I really wanted to put some thought around how I wanted to approach this event. I immediately thought back to a Food and Wine pairing class that MrPTC and I took at the Culinary Institute of America back in 2007. They had us go through some very tangible exercises to learn about the nuances what makes certain foods work better with certain wines. More importantly, they focused on how the seasoning of the food can make or break a pairing – something I never thought of previously but it makes perfect sense. For the fashion forward folks out there, it is all about how you accessorize the sweater in many cases as opposed to it being about the sweater itself (ok, we'll leave out some of the tackier Christmas sweaters that have been showing up recently on Facebook). Much of food and wine pairing rests on how you "accessorize" the food, whether it is by seasoning or cooking method.

Keeping this in mind, I figured I could do something simple on the food front. Get a bunch of chicken tenders and season them differently. Maybe cheese pairings could be fun too. OK. Now what kind of seasonings and what kind of cheeses? I found some of the more "tried and true" pairings, but also wanted to get some pairings that would deliberately shock the heck out of everyone (READ: CLASH!). But the food part was pretty much worked out. Now what kind of wines to serve?

Obviously we're going with Pinot or close relatives of Pinot based on the criteria my friend gave me. But the issue with Pinot is that it is SUPER hard to find really reasonably priced bottles because it is such a temperamental varietal to work with. Don't confuse this with how it tastes because we do enjoy a bottle of Pinot every once in a while as well. Still – I am trying to figure out how I want to pivot the wine selections so there is some level of consistency and we're doing a somewhat "apples to apples" comparison.

My friend and I went to the local wine store that has a pretty good selection. After looking around at Burgundies, Oregon Pinots and California Pinots, I decided on the 2007 vintage and the price point of $30-$40. I'll say that for an introductory wine tasting, that's kind of high for me, but even at one of the best wine stores in Seattle, we were struggling to find bottles. And I wanted to do Old World (Europe) vs. New World (US) in the comparison.

I settled on a Burgundy (Pinot is the main red grape there, so when someone is talking about a Red Burgundy, it's Pinot, and when someone is talking about a White Burgundy, it tends to be Chardonnay), an Oregon Pinot, a Northern California Pinot and a Central Coast California Pinot. I then decided to throw in a mystery wine from the personal collection just to see what would happen – a Barbera from Piedmont, Italy. Barbera is a "relative of Pinot", so I thought that might be fun. And all of the wines were going to be put in brown bags, which meant that everyone would taste their wines blind. Ooh, the mystery!

So 5 wines, 5 cheeses, 6 chicken preparations with olives, crackers and brownies (MrPTC is a fabulous baker) makes for some crazy logistical planning for 10 guests!! You need a boatload of wine glasses, for starters, so we needed to improvise a bit. We had cheeses that were cow, sheep and goat. They ranged from semi-soft to firm, and were from different countries. The chicken prep went from simple (EVOO and salt) to cayenne pepper/black pepper. And if you are doing the math, it was a fair amount of combinations to try. It *MIGHT* have been a tad overambitious on my part – LOL. Oops.

I liked watching everyone just notice the differences in the wines that they normally wouldn't think would be all that different. After all, with the exception of the Barbera, they were all Pinots! They can't be *THAT* different. Some people thought they liked the low alcohol and lightest wines, and when the truth was revealed, they ended up enjoying just the opposite the most! Some of the folks didn't care too much about the pairing aspect and just enjoyed the laughs, which was great too! Isn't that what food and wine is about anyway?

Questions were asked and answered about palate cleansers, varietal differences, how to engage a sommelier at a restaurant without feeling stupid (we spend a lot of time answering this question to family and friends – for the record, the "somm" is there to HELP you not rip you off), current relevance of food and wine pairing rules, etc. It was really an enjoyable evening as we got to give some ideas to our friends about wine and help break down any misconceptions about it. Our hosts were fabulous and gracious, and I hope the clean-up wasn't too terrible.

As luck would have it, the next night we were invited to a dinner at a very good friend's house, who also happens to be a "somm". And of course, other "somms"/wine industry folks were present so we were definitely back in the land of being amateurs again. They were all really fun and cool, and were very keen on what we are doing at Purple Teeth Cellars. They share their knowledge of their industry freely and likewise, they were very interested in the tasting experiment that we did the evening before as some of them are studying for advanced certifications in wine.

Do we have a great life or what?!?!

As always, thanks for tuning in and check out the most recent newsletter on specials on the PTC webstore!

It has been a busy year for us and, as always, a whole lot of fun. We wanted to send a quick note to our supporters and newsletter subscribers about some new developments along with some existing deals. It is getting close to the deadline to order wines for Thanksgiving, particularly if you live on the East coast.

We have created a new automatic discount on orders of 6 to 11 bottles at 10%. We have also increased the case discount (12+ bottles) to 15%. All orders can be placed by visiting Purple Teeth Cellars and clicking on Wines.

We still have our very popular Purple Teeth Cellars Wine Sampler Trio with shipping included. It is a great way to try our wines and see which ones you enjoy the most.

Finally, we have gotten a lot of questions about a white wine. We decided to play along in 2010 and are fermenting a Viognier which should be a fabulous addition to our Rhône family.

As always, we are thankful for your support of Purple Teeth Cellars and wish you a safe and happy holiday season.

Marc and Jill
Purple Teeth Cellars
http://www.purpleteethcellars.com/

Purple Teeth Cellars tends to stay out of the political fray. We tend to promote causes that encourage people to drink more red wine because it's good for you and stuff like that. But over the past year, a couple of issues have arisen that have caused us to be more vocal on the political side. And some of our friends have asked us where we stand on some of the recent distribution issues pertaining to alcohol.

We believe in free choice when it comes to purchasing alcohol. Simple. What that means is that we believe that everyone (over the legal drinking age) should have the right to purchase whatever they want and where they want. That means that consumer choice should dictate what is in your local stores or what you are able to receive at your home.

In WA state, 2 initiatives have been put forth to essentially put the state out of the liquor business. Yes, the state of WA not only regulates liquor sales with taxes, licensing, etc., but they are also the only folks allowed to sell liquor. This means that THEY control what we are able to purchase on our shelves. If we like a particular beverage – let's take the lovely Nocello, we have to hope that the state has deemed it worthy enough to carry that beverage in their stores. If liquor sales were controlled by private retailers, then consumer demand would dictate what is on the shelves, and hence what is available for us to purchase.

I know a few of you have asked about how we voted and what the difference is between the 2 initiatives. Per the site – http://thelivingvotersguide.org, here are the 2 initiatives:

Initiative 1100 - liquor (beer, wine and spirits)

• This measure would direct the liquor control board to close all state liquor stores; terminate contracts with private stores selling liquor; and authorize the state to issue licenses that allow spirits (hard liquor) to be sold, distributed, and imported by private parties.
  
• It would repeal uniform pricing and certain other requirements governing business operations for distributors and producers of beer and wine.
  
• Stores that held contracts to sell spirits could convert to liquor retailer licenses.
  

WHAT THIS MEANS IN REALITY: The state stops selling liquor. Places like Costco, Safeway, QFC, etc. are now able to negotiate better pricing because they are able to sell liquor, as opposed to the state not negotiating any favorable pricing for consumers. Purple Teeth Cellars supports this initiative and voted 'yes'.

Initiative 1105 - liquor (beer, wine and spirits)

• This measure would direct the liquor control board to close all state liquor stores and to license qualified private parties as spirits (hard liquor) retailers or distributors.
  
• It would require licensees to pay the state a percentage of their first five years of gross spirits sales; repeal certain taxes on retail spirits sales; direct the board to recommend to the legislature a tax to be paid by spirits distributors; and revise other laws concerning spirits.
  

WHAT THIS MEANS IN REALITY: It is SIMILAR, but different than 1100. The distributors still have their monopoly and are able to still act as the middleman to the consumer by selling to Costco, Safeway, QFC, etc. So while it may be a step in the right direction by taking the state out of the liquor business, it does NOT remove the monopoly of the distributors. Purple Teeth Cellars does not support this initiative and voted 'no'.

Note that there have been a few red herrings thrown out there as to why WA State should remain in the liquor business. One of those arguments is very similar to one used for another piece of legislation that Purple Teeth Cellars hates – HR5034. People who want to restrict choice use the excuse that it will promote underage drinking. Yeah, ok. These supermarkets have too much money at stake to lose their license to sell alcohol if they let underage people buy booze. Plain and simple. It's one of those "you win the battle (making the quickie sale to the 18-year old) and lose the war (ability to take in millions of dollars in revenue because you lost your license" situations.

The reality is that this focus on restricting choice is "all about the Benjamins", and not about looking out for public safety. Did you know that six (6) companies control distribution of over half the wine and spirits in the entire country, and want to keep it like that! Yep, you read that right – six companies control 50% of the wine distribution in the US. We have blogged about HR 5034 here and found out that the NY Times recently published an article about the absurdity of it here.

Purple Teeth Cellars has always maintained that if you do not want to purchase our wine because you are not a red wine fan or the price does not work for, that's fine. At least you are making a choice. But when you cannot make the choice to either buy or to not buy our wine, that is where we have a problem.

And with that, Mr. PurpleTeeth and I are off to take care of some very important PTC business. Stay tuned. And whatever you do, if you have the right to vote, please exercise your right and submit your ballot on time!

Thanks for taking the time to solicit our opinion.