Interview With A HoseMaster, Part IV

In this edition of "Interview with a Hosemaster" I answer questions submitted by loyal HoseMaster of Wine readers. If you have any questions for the HoseMaster, please be sure and include them in your comments and you may be included in the next edition! If your question is selected you may receive two tickets to the next Wine Bloggers Conference, or their equivalent cash value of Not One Thin Dime.


What does it feel like to have one of the least successful blogs in America?

I don't know, ask TheWineWhore.

How does one measure success in wine blogging? That's a bar that's set lower than a midget teabagging Glenn Beck. Put all the readers of all the wine blogs on any given day together and what would you have? The lowest percentile of the SAT's. Factor in the reality that 75% of every blog's readers are other bloggers, and, basically, the whole wine blog world is like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, a whole bunch of loudmouths trying to shout over each other, only less dressy. Which brings up another thing--I know it's hard to think about, but, basically, when you're reading any blogger's words, whether it's the HoseMaster or Steve Heimoff or Tom Wark, you have to imagine that they wrote those posts in their underwear, which would explain the stains. My point is, we are all little fish in a little puddle, the kind your poodle makes on the kitchen floor when he's happy, and the notion that one can measure success on that scale is a little like trying to measure the atomic weight of farts. In more ways than one.

And who starts a wine blog thinking about success? Every wine blogger knows there's no monetary reward in blogging. You'd make more cash standing by a freeway exit with a sign that says, "Homeless Wine Blogger--Any Attention Welcome!" Most bloggers just seek praise, and lots of it. Praise for their discerning palate, praise for their agility with words, praise for their originality of thought. And a lot of that is forthcoming. From other bloggers who expect it in return. The wine blog world is one big praise orgy--you stick it in another blog while one is being slipped into yours and everybody leaves with that wonderful feeling of having just been screwed. Which further explains the stains.

But to answer the original question, I love having an unsuccessful wine blog. The successful ones mostly suck.


What are your least favorite wine appellations?

As I do with people, I try to find the best in every wine. And every appellation produces the occasional interesting wine just like every blue moon there's an original thought on WannabeWino. But since you asked...

Temecula
Temecula is the poster city for the Save Our Pierce's Disease Foundation. Who the hell buys these wines? Drunk Millienials out wine tasting on the weekend, I imagine. Temecula isn't a wine growing region, it's an amusement park for the brain damaged. Has any wine publication ever done an article like "Temecula: Wine's Best Kept Secret," or "Temecula: Tuscany Without the Scores?" Is there a restaurant north of San Diego County with a Temecula section on its wine list? That wants to sell wine? There are more than 50 wineries there now! Fifty! Man, it's like Yankee Stadium urinals. Tasting room in Temecula

Lodi
I go to ZAP every year. I love Zinfandel, and I'm always on the lookout for producers new to me. I search the ZAP program for names I'm not familiar with and when I find one, the next thing I check is its appellation. If it's Lodi I avoid it like hot oil wrestling on "The Biggest Loser." Yeah, I know, there are lots of old vines in Lodi! I know, I've seen them, they all have court-ordered Do Not Resuscitate affidavits. Palm Springs has lots of old people, Scottsdale has lots of old people, Miami Beach has lots of old people--old living things go where it's too goddamned hot for healthy, vigorous things. Lodi Zins are more baked than a Humboldt State College reunion.

Wachau
OK, I'm ignorant, but it's like I just ate asparagus and peed into a Riesling bottle.


What do you do with all the free wine samples?

In 18 months of doing two incarnations of HoseMaster of Wine I have received a total of four bottles. I take this as flattery. Wineries send samples to professional reviewers whose scores may affect their sales in a positive manner. To counteract any lukewarm reviews, they send samples to bloggers they know have little experience, proven sycophantic behavior, and the vanity to feel flattered at gifts of free plonk. It doesn't matter what the blogger says about the wine, no one cares, especially if you know something about wine. Wineries just want to be mentioned, to be ubiquitous, to see their name mentioned as often as Paris Hilton or Angelina Jolie or Jesus H. Christ. They call this marketing. Wineries pay marketing people obscene amounts of money to come up with lists of the dullest and most pathetic wine bloggers, and then they send them each a couple of bottles of wine, watch their Google Alerts fill their Inbox, and then sit back and watch sales inch downward. Hell, the wine isn't selling anyway, might as well give it away, then convince yourself you're marketing your brand. The music industry ruined payola for everybody, there are hardly any wine critics on the take, unless you count free trips, helicopter rides, lavish dinners, fake friendship and free balloon animals as payola (pish-tosh, it simply has to be that way), so what road is left to wineries but seeking reviews from unqualified and inexperienced reviewers? Make better wines? Nah. Too much like work.


Remember, if you have a question for the HoseMaster, aside from questions of taste, please submit them in a comment. Perhaps you'll be featured in another edition of "Interview With A HoseMaster!"

Interview With A HoseMaster, Part III

What are you looking for in a wine?


Often I'm looking for backwash. Is it just me, or do you often find little pieces of food in your glass of wine, like a piece of bread or a little hunk of fat? I never really believe the waiter when he tells me it's just the amuse bouche. Hey, if I want to amuse a bouche I'll drop my pants and solicit sympathy giggles.

Oh, you mean what kind of qualities am I looking for in a wine! Ooooh, I love it when I ask myself this question. It's a really good question, and it calls for a very philosophical and poetic answer filled with literate allusions, vague terminology, and cool language that means nothing to anyone else but me. So it's like an Obama speech.

I like to think of my mouth as a wet laboratory, and the wines that I open are given little lab coats, sanitizer, and tiny little name badges before entering. Be careful, I warn them, the floors are slippery. Many of them fall anyway, they come crashing down in my wet laboratory and are swept away down the dark rabbit hole of my esophagus. But the ones with balance, the ones that are graceful and supple, they hang around the wet laboratory and carry out amazing experiments, though no animals are ever harmed in my wet laboratory tastings, and rumors of experiments on twins are patently false, patently false. Balance is key, for a wine that slips and falls on its bunghole is not a wine with the legs to go far, not a wine you want anywhere near the precious Erlenmeyer flasks of your trained palate. No, it's balance I'm looking for. I want wines that have the balance of a Baryshnikov, a Nureyev, a Molotov (one of those flaming ballet guys), a Mazeltov, not a wine that dances like a white guy in a thong too small for him.
Rudy enjoyed many a wet laboratory.

Are there any grape varieties you don't care for?

I've read varying estimates on the number of different varieties of vitis vinifera that are made into wine in the world, anywhere from 10,000 to 6,000 to the Wall Street Journal's best guess of 994.37. So, of course there are a couple I don't care for.

Gruner Veltliner--who drinks this crap? I don't like Austrian wine any more than I like skiing in Cote-Rotie. Every time I drink a Gruner, and I've tasted far more than I needed to, I'm thinking, "Hell, I could be drinking some killer Riesling from Alsace and instead I'm stuck with this pathetic glass of Windex." But I'm a guy, so I finish it anyway and pretend I like it. Like you do when you force yourself to have sex with a woman you know you shouldn't be having sex with so you think about Halle Berry the whole time in order to consummate the whole deal. So drinking Gruner is like that without the erection. This is a grape that is quickly losing its cachet, and the Gruner the better.

Petite Sirah--OK, it's a hybrid, like a Prius, and hybrids are trendy, and I have had a Petite Sirah here and there that I've liked, and that I would drink given that my choice were it or Gruner Veltliner, but, sorry Valvoline fans, I don't really much like Petite Sirah. Drinking it is like watching Jay Leno--it's just loud, predictable and overhyped. It's fine that others like it. Hell, people like professional wrestling, American Idol, Oprah and lots of other mind-numbing, insipid nonsense, why not Petite Sirah? Just not for me. Give me Durif any day of the week.


If you could visit one wine-growing region you've never visited, where would it be?

Austria.


What's the most difficult job in the wine business?

Oh, that's a tough one. I think it's the person who writes the back labels on wine. Sure, viticulture is hard and demanding work, making barrels is hot and difficult, but coming up with those little wine haikus on the backs of bottles is really hard. Of course, in the good old days there weren't any back labels; now not only do most California wines have them, but also most of the women who make and sell them. I could show you pictures. Right, using this while operating heavy machinery can be hazardous to your health. Back labels came about mainly because of the anti-alcohol lobby that forced the "Contains Sulfites" warning and the health warning onto bottles of wine in an effort to scare folks away from the wonders of the grape. Not wanting to put those party pooping warnings on the front label, wineries created back labels. And as long as you have a back label you might as well use it to wax ecstatic about your winery in 25 words or less. And now, of course, it's become a place for the ubiquitous bar code. But never buy wine with a bar code! Screw the sulfites, it's wines with bar codes that will kill you. Buying a wine with a bar code is like buying milk a week past the expiration date, or looking for romance on Match.com--you know it's damaged goods but you're trying to get off cheap.

All hail the back label writers! They spend hours and hours writing for little or no pay, they never feel the need to check for typos or grammar, much of what they say has been said a thousand times before and better, and no one ever reads their work.

Bloggers, these are our brothers!

Interview With A HoseMaster, Part II

Why aren't you attending the Wine Bloggers Conference?


Sadly, it fell on the same weekend I have my electroshock treatments, though the featured speakers are an adequate substitute.
My Green Lantern costume is at the dry cleaners.
I never taste wine in a room where people are typing.
If I want to hear about the future of blogging I'll listen to Kurt Cobain.
They may have changed the sheets in my usual room at the Flamingo.
I'm allergic to sanctimony.



When you get to Heaven, what is it that you want to say to God?

Couldn't you have given me a bigger penis?


What's the best way to get into the wine business?


Start a blog, kiss winery butt, what you don't know fake, find suckers to get behind you, apply for a job at a big corporate winery as social media consultant. Repeat every six months. Consult your doctor before attempting, ass kissing can be dangerous for those with HIV, gum disease or the least bit of integrity.

Actually, there are many ways to get into the wine business, none of them advisable. It may be your passion, but it's everybody's passion it seems. There are too damn many people in the wine business as it is--find another line of work that's not so crowded. Surrogate for root canals. Enema blogger. Circus washroom attendant. Ombudsman for Wall Street. We don't need more fools in the wine business. We're overstocked.


What wine blogs do you read?


I must spend three to four hours a day reading blogs. I even use Google to translate blogs--and those are the domestic ones. I hate to single out favorites, there are so many. I read Vinography for my diabetes. I'm a huge fan of 1Wine Dude--I've never missed a post. Never read one, never missed one. When I think my personal life is a mess I head on over to Fermentation to be comforted that I'm way better off than most. And then there are so many "undiscovered" gems out there in cyberspace. If you haven't already, you should read WinePimp. WinePimp solicits wine from wineries and guarantees he will give them a positive review, but if they don't send him a percentage of the sales of that wine he promises to beat them like Rihanna. Hilarious! First guy to figure out how to monetize his blog. Then there's BrettMaverick, who writes about his love for Brett and how it got him a gig as a major wine critic. Claims he invented the 100 point scale. And when I really want to learn something about wine I read Doyouwanttoreallylearnsomethingaboutwine. I've learned a lot about wine from reading blogs, but this one tops them all for valuable wine info. Of course. It's written by a guy who's worked in a wine shop for three years! Way overqualified. I smell an AWBA in his future.
See question #2: If Rihanna can do it, why can't God?

Why do you continue to blog when so many people wish you'd stop?


My idea for "monetizing" HoseMaster of Wine is to get everyone to chip in and pay me to stop. Or, alternatively, if every winery in California sends me a free sample I'll quit. I promise to say something nice about all of them. But not in a blog. I'll be talking to myself. Which, when you think about it, is exactly the same as blogging. Just less typing.

Interview With A HoseMaster

How did you get started in the wine business?


Many years ago there was a television show called "So You Think You Can Vomit?" that auditioned and judged ordinary folks who believed they could have a career in the wine business. Contestants were asked to display their wine talents in front of a panel of three distinguished judges--Andre Tchelistcheff, Robert Lawrence Balzer and Arlene Francis, who, for some reason, always wore a sequined mask. I appeared on that show in 1963 competing against a young Hugh Johnson, Jerry Mathers and an orangutan that Mr. Balzer had mistakenly married after a long evening tasting Cognac. The orangutan won (creating another game show scandal as well as ending the monkey marriage to Balzer--Mr. Balzer became a Borneo Again Christian after that) but I was a very popular second place and went on to my distinguished and interminable career in wine.
Robert Lawrence Balzer (a driller, for sure) after his conversion.

What's your favorite grape?


I get asked this question a lot. And it's odd because I don't really like grapes. I like wine. And so few wines taste like grapes these days. What's up with that? Winemakers spend so much time making their wines taste like apples or peaches or blackberries or plums, but not grapes. I don't want them to taste like grapes, but why don't they? Just another sign of the over-manipulation of wine. Sheesh. Just once I'd like to taste the damn grapes in the wine.


What was it like being a Sommelier?

It's pretty much the stupidest job in the world that one can get paid for aside from porn actress. Though the two jobs have a lot in common. I used to put a lot in my mouth that I didn't want to. And I was often naked, but that's a different story. Sommelier must be about the most overrated job on the planet. What do they actually do? Taste a lot of wine, buy a few, then sell them. Sure, you have to be well-schooled when it comes to wine, but it's not like if you don't know the answer to a question a patron asks you about wine you can't just make up an answer. They haven't the slightest idea you're making stuff up. A guy once asked me if his wine had been fined and I told him, "Yeah, for being late to practice." And for some inexplicable reason you are accorded an amazing amount of respect. So, really, it's a dream job. People think you're special because you're a sommelier, that you know the secrets to food and wine pairing, that you can taste a wine blind and identify it down to the cork supplier, that you're sophisticated and worldly when all you really are is a wine porn star and all the wineries are fluffers. Man, I miss that gig.

Are you an M.S. or an M.W?


No, but I am a member of Al Qaeda. Which has a much tougher course to get in. Though it's still judged by Larry Stone.

Have you ever faked an orgasm?


Yes. But only when I'm alone.