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Special Edition: Wine Guerrilla
Wine Guerrilla 2008 Zinfandel Russian River Valley
Wine Guerrilla 2008 Zinfandel Adel's Vineyard Russian River Valley
Wine Guerrilla 2008 Zinfandel Conte Vineyard Dry Creek ValleyThe only wine guerrilla I can name off the top of my head is Mao Tse-Tung Map. But that's another story. The story here is the Zinfandels of Bruce Patch (see, I thought a Bruce Patch was that little ugly tuft of hair Springsteen sports beneath his lower lip--whenever I see it, it makes my breakfast come on up for the Rising). Bruce is the Wine Guerrilla of Sonoma County, a guy who loves Zinfandel, makes Zinfandel, dreams of Zinfandel, wants to make more Zinfandels than Tiger Woods makes holes in blondes. From the 2008 vintage, Wine Guerrilla will have eight different Zinfandels for sale. I don't know, does the world need eight more Zinfandels? I once wrote that it ought to be illegal for a winery to make more than four single-vineyard wines from any one grape, but, in these harsh economic times, I've had a hard time getting the bill past the Senate. So Wine Guerrilla is safe--for now.
These three Zinfandels will be released in February after they are premiered at ZAP. The Wine Guerrilla 2008 Zinfandel Russian River Valley is all sourced from the MacMurray Ranch, the former estate of Fred MacMurray that is now owned by the Gallos. Is it me, or did I detect the faint aroma of Flubber in this wine? (Who doesn't fondly remember the old 60's sitcom "My Three Sons" starring Fred MacMurray as a widower raising his three children Chip, Ernie and Julio?) This is a Zinfandel that will be selling for about $18, and in that neighborhood it represents a huge bargain. Overflowing with the red fruit I often associate with Russian River Zinfandel, in this case red plums, this was satisfying in the way of big, ripe Zinfandel. You never feel cheated when it comes to flavor, richness and intensity. It's about as subtle as an Adam's Apple on a transvestite, but you can't argue with the provenance or the price (like you can with a transvestite). The Wine Guerrilla 2008 Zinfandel Adel's Vineyard Russian River Valley was a much more interesting and luscious Zinfandel, and classic Russian River Zinfandel at that. There's wonderful balance here, with the upfront raspberry fruit supported by the zing of white pit fruit as well as a little bit of pepper and oak. And, like the H1N1 virus, it was at its best the second day. If I had a bunch of this I could get addicted to it. Then, appropriate to the Holiday season, I'd have Adel-vice, Adel-vice, everybody sing!, every morning you greet me... Finally there's the Wine Guerrilla 2008 Zinfandel Conte Vineyard Dry Creek Valley. Much darker and more brooding that the Adel's, it showcases the powerhouse aspect of Zinfandel. Veering more towards the blackberry and bramblefruit end of the Zin spectrum, it unapologetically punches you in the face and calls you girly man. I would have preferred a bit more restraint, a bit more richness and fullness, but for this style of Zinfandel it's darn nice wine. Zinfandel lovers should be aware of Wine Guerrilla if they're not already. Considering the difficulties of the 2008 vintage, these three are worthy of your Zinfandel dollars. When February comes you'll find them here.The HoseMaster Scores: Wine Guerrilla
Russian River Valley Zinfandel 477,256 Points
Adel's Vineyard Russian River 725,129 Points
Conte Vineyard Dry Creek Valley 502,879 Points
Disclaimer: The three bottles were presented to me in a moving and heartwarming ceremony commemorating Guy Fawkes Day. The guy was just fawking with me.
It's fashionable and damned near required, if you have a wildly successful and famous wine blog, to bestow awards upon lesser wine blogs. I've seen this demonstrated all over the wine blogosphere in recent days; HoseMaster of Wine was even mentioned here and there. I think the BrixChicks gave me something--I think it was indigestion. But it's an honor to be mentioned on another blog--just ask that other blog, he'll tell you it's an honor. You know, there just aren't enough self-congratulatory posts in wine blogdom, if you ask me. And, honestly, when a guy writes a completely useless and uniformed wine blog himself, why wouldn't I be interested in what other blogs he thinks are worthy of my attention! It's the same reason I get my restaurant recommendations from the drive-thru cashier at Burger King. Why I only buy books that feature a blurb from Sarah Palin on the cover and come with their own crayons. Why I only get electroshock therapy from the same doctor as Glenn Beck. It just makes sense.
And since HoseMaster of Wine is clearly in the upper echelon of must-read wine blogs, right up there with Hitler's Wine Diaries and BevMo Sommelier, it's time for me to bestow the Wine Blog Awards of 2009 upon some lucky wine bloggers. If you're one of the lucky ones, be sure to graciously thank me, praise me, and bestow one of your awards on me. So here they are, friends, the HoseMaster's 2009 Wine Blog Circle Jerk Awards.
TOP FIVE NEW WINE BLOGS OF 2009!
Boy, this was really a contentious and tough category. It was hard to narrow it down to only five. There are at least another three hundred that are equally as wonderful as these, but these five struck me as the best and as the ones most likely to garner me some attention for mentioning them. Which is the point of this masturbatory exercise.
Steve Heimoff (www.steveheimoff.com)
First of all, I love a guy who won't allow Tish to comment on his blog! That really helps me feel
comfortable. I never liked her anyway. Steve has nicely catapulted himself into relevance from the obscurity of Wine Enthusiast, where wine reviewers go to die. And there are laughs aplenty when Steve goes into comedy mode. Why it's like he's channeling Alex Trebek! Steve has created a wonderful forum for less-talented people to promote themselves while talking about wine issues as fresh as last June's Time magazine. Tish and Steve
Dr. Vino (www.drvino.com)
Tyler Colman (who, in a lovely bit of irony, is to wine as Gary Coleman is to height) has a refreshing approach to wine. He's always right. If he'd just ban Tish from his blog, he'd be perfect. Dr. Vino posts endlessly interesting columns about impossible food and wine matchups. So the concept is sort of like Match.com, with the food playing the part of the loser blogger who just wants to be loved. Why it's an honor just to be able to mention Dr. Vino, an honor he knows he bestows on every reader when they visit his blog to share in his unrivalled hubris.
1WineDude (www.1winedude.com)
You'll be astonished at the Dude's ability to crank out post after post and make them sound exactly like they've been cranked out! This isn't as easy to do as you might think. Something original and interesting tends to slip in accidentally. Not at 1WineDude! Dude keeps it predictable and cliche, which the wine marketing people love! And it's just so surprising that a Social Media darling is so quick to preach about the power of Social Media! Totally fresh and unexpected. Don't be surprised if one day he works for Wine Enthusiast. I don't think Tish is allowed here either--a tip of the cap to the West Coast 1WhineDude, Steve Heimoff.
Mutineer Magazine (www.mutineermagazine.com)
If there is a better argument for saving our trees than Mutineer Magazine, I've yet to find it. Like the endless cocktails it promotes, it's a crappy mix of filler, wasted space and pathetic attempts at hipness. Its cutting edge is as sharp as your Dad's old lawn mower. Want to identify a trend once it's already dead? Here's your guide! Written with the sharpness of Muhammed Ali and the vocabulary of your eight-year-old niece, it certainly makes you wish you were drunk when you read it. Where's Tish when you need her?
Palate Press (www.palatepress.com)
So, you ask yourself, where do I go to find the finest wine writing on the web? Isn't there somewhere I can go to be amused, entertained, informed, engaged? Not here! Palate Press is proudly mediocre, a choir of voices from the School for the Deaf. There's really no sense in surfing wine blogs, spending all that time searching for an original voice, when you can just go to Palate Press and discover how dull the wine blogosphere is with once click of your mouse! Want provocative articles, well-written and compelling? Buy the New Yorker. Want to understand why wine writing today is largely ignored? Then Palate Press is for you. And it's all Tish all the time!
I have many more awards to bestow. It's the least I can do to give a lift up to all the tireless and wonderful wine bloggers out there now that I'm one of the elite and powerful wine bloggers. To all of the recipients, Keep up the good work! And welcome to my world! The world of relevant Social Media! Share the fantasy!
The past year at HoseMaster of Wine has been about The Million Point Scale (which gives me 999,999 more points than Fox News--their only point is ignorance is covered by the First Amendment) and The M.S. Conspiracy (wiggling my once private dick at every passing sommelier wannabe), about Jess "Huckleberry" Jackson and Gary "the Human Stain" Vaynerchuk, about 82 posts and about 82 posts too long. I've taken potshots at just about everyone in the wine and blog business who I think deserves it, and a bunch that didn't. Along the way I may have said six funny things. But, hey, somebody has to be the jackanapes around here.
I rarely step out of the HoseMaster character on this blog, and, believe me, the HoseMaster is a fictional character, just like Tiger Woods, but Christmas is a time for gratitude and reflection. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea why I continue to crank out this garbage week after week. There's no money in it, there's no fame or glory in it, only nine people read it. Wine blogs, I've come to believe, are, for the most part, tools for self-promotion--not the promotion of the enjoyment and culture of wine, but the self-promotion of the clown writing the blog. And I'm not interested in self-promotion. Self-abuse, sure, that's an area I like to keep my hand in, but not self-promotion. So why do I continue to throw blog grenades at all the fools, spend countless hours writing "humorous" posts, waste enormous energy trying to come up with something original to say a couple of times a week? I'm an unemployed idiot, that's why.
I began this blog because I was bored and felt some primitive urge, more peristaltic than anything, to express myself. The attention barking of a lonely poodle. When I began to look at wine blogs I was dumbfounded by what passes for thought, writing and wine tasting skill. I searched and searched for writers and found typists. I went looking for originality and found the same old stuff in April, May and Jejune. I thought it would be fun to have a little fun with the whole thing. And it has been fun, though perhaps not as fun as I'd hoped. Turns out it's a lot of work. This is what so many wine bloggers discover and why, gratefully, so many of them abandon their blogs. Wander through the blog list over at Fermentation and it's like walking through an abandoned shopping mall; you can hear the echo of your cyber-footprint as you walk by empty shell after empty shell, the bankrupt sounds of yet another really stupid idea. Really, when you think about it, who needs another B. Dalton Books or Spencer's Gifts? But wine blog lists are filled with them.
But as we near Christmas and the end of 2009, I wanted to say thank you to a few people specifically, and to everyone in HoseMasterWorld in general.
Thank you, Kathleen. My wife, surely the object of much pity, has steadfastly encouraged me to keep working on HoseMaster of Wine and put up with all of my self-loathing and frustration, the job requirements for writing comedy. It is your laughter and love that have inspired me to work week after week at this foolishness, and I am grateful to be married to you. I never knew Beauty until I stepped inside your heart.
Thank you, My Gorgeous Samantha. Everyone who reads this blog and Samantha Sans Dosage thinks that Samantha and I are old friends. We've never met. We began an online mutual admiration society which blossomed offline into a very meaningful and powerful and wonderful relationship. Samantha is a woman of enormous talent, courage, wisdom, kindness, love and wit. If the only thing I had received because of this stupid blog was my love for Samantha it would have been far more than enough. When this blog goes the way of the polar bears, shot by Sarah Palin, I'll still have my Samantha.
Thank you, Tom Wark. Ask most wine bloggers who gave them the best advice and the ones who don't say "Jack Kevorkian" all say Tom Wark. When I began HoseMaster of Wine last year it was Tom's notice that drove my traffic and gave me some motivation to continue. I think he might be the only blogger who likes when I make fun of him, surely the sign of a quality human being. And all of the advice he gave me about blogging was wise and given unselfishly. Thanks, Tom. You still owe me lunch.
Thank you, Charlie Olken. When you spend a career admiring someone's work and then find that they like yours, it is very satisfying and meaningful. Thanks, Charlie, it was an honor to meet you, and a blast to travel to Livermore and taste wine with you. Your comments on my blog lend me some of your credibility, which I can never repay. Again, as with Samantha, your acquaintance, which came because of this crap, has enriched my life.
Thank you, Anonymous 1. I know who Anonymous 1 is in real life, if you call that real, but you know him as the guy whose comments are funnier than my posts. So, yeah, thanks Anonymous 1.
Thank you, Marcia Macomber. I love your comments, I love your participation, I adore you. I still wish you'd write a chapter of The M.S. Conspiracy though. And meet me for a drink some day.
Thank you, Arthur. You lend an air of dignity to this cesspool and I appreciate it. I see your name in my comment section and I don't know what to expect. Keep makin' me nervous.
So many others who comment now and then. Diane, my Wine Bitch, I adore you. Erin, where are you, have you forsaken me? Don't let your blog go under. K. Mahoney, my newest friend, a woman with but an initial, thank you for being here. D J R-S, my Puerto Rican Fan Club, thanks for your kind words. I do very much appreciate each and every one of you participating in my foolishness and pantagruel.
To all of those who I may have offended in the past six months, thank you for understanding that it's all in good fun. Like all truth.
And to all of you who read HoseMaster and wisely choose to remain faceless, I hope I've given you a few laughs this past year. Thank you for reading and telling your friends. I hope I can bring everyone a few more smiles in 2010.
Merry Christmas!
Ron Washam
Clos Rougeard 2005 Saumur Champigny 
True confession time. There are countless things I've never done that I feel destined to do. Maybe we all feel that way. For example, I've never played Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet." I've never faced a little chin music from Nolan Ryan. I've never wiped that smirk off Alex Trebek's face. I never married a Walloon. Oh, there's still time yet for me to do all of these things, maybe even memorize the Bible in Pig Latin ("Et-lay ere-thay E-bay ight-lay"), but what's really fun is to finally discover something you didn't even know existed, have the curtain rise on your ignorance and the extinguished lamp on your porch finally turn on. Like the first time you heard Portugese Fado music, or smelled your own toejam. I was unfamiliar with Clos Rougeard until just the other night when I opened a bottle My Gorgeous Samantha had sent me for some special occasion or other, probably Be Kind to Animals Week. Clos Rougeard, it turns out, is one of, if not the, greatest red wine producers of the Loire Valley. How come I'd never heard of it before, much less tasted it? This was a gigantic hole in my wine knowledge, and, believe me, it takes one to know one. Clos Rougeard is one of the great Cabernet Francs in the world, and up until a day or two ago I knew nothing about it. Sort of like being an astronaut and never tasting Tang. On the basis of this one bottle, I'm now a huge fan. It was intriguing and seductive from the first sniff. In many ways it really reminded me of Burgundy, ethereal and earthy, I kept smelling truffles, and slow to reveal itself. But once it started opening up it was quite complex and intriguing. Like most great wines it showed elegance and restraint and purity. I wanted to let it open up even more, but I couldn't stop picking up my glass and tasting it. Tart cherries, truffles, a pinch of spice and a long, long finish. It was addicting, in the way of Burgundy, enchanting and powerful at the same time. It cast a spell on me. And this is Clos Rougeard's least expensive, youngest vines bottling! Holy crap. I need to try their "Les Poyeux" and "Le Bourg!" Thank you, Samantha, I have a whole new outlook on Cabernet Franc and Saumur Champigny. And my own ignorance, which is an appellation to rival the Upper Mississippi River Valley AVA in size.The HoseMaster Score: 845,299
Disclaimer: HoseMaster of Wine is taped before a live studio audience, and yet still needs canned laughter.
We're well into the Holiday Season, so what better time to rummage through my voluminous hate mail? It always warms my chestnuts to receive thoughtful venom this time of the year. We spend so much time during the holidays communicating affection and gratitude to those we love, but so often we forget to express our heartfelt contempt for the people we wish were dead. I feel lucky that I inspire so many to unabashed and heartwarming hatred. Here are just a few samples from the ol' HoseMaster mailbag.
I've been expecting this letter, but was genuinely moved when I finally received it.
Dear Mr. hose,
where do you get off making fun of me? your always calling me a trained chimp, or a clown, 
and I don't appreciate it because I'm not a clown or a chimp--you're the trained chimpie, DoucheMaster! I'm a wine internet star and i know more about wine than you'll ever know about chimps. For example, can you just stick your nose in a glass of Italian priorat, say something funny about how it smells, like maybe you say it reminds you of the time uncle larry made you rub him and there was that funny kind of chlorine smell coming from him, and then give the wine a number? maybe one of your chimps can do that but I bet you can't. DoucheMaster of Wine at work
You don't want to mess with me, Mr. Master, i rule the Internet and my little boy toys at Wine Enthusiast gave me an award to prove it. I'm the next Parker and with just one little podcast i can sell whatever crap i decide to. nobody reads your little excuse for a blog. i sniffed one of your posts and i told everybody it smelled like the time i had Jancis Robinson on my show, i bet you never even met him (yeah, people think it's a she, but I know better, i was there), and had eaten some bad borscht and she made a lot of faces but it wasn't that bad, but your post reminded me of it and I gave you a 76! So there.
be sure and let me know if some wine rag gives you an award so i can send my collection of ice wines to hell to store them at a freezing temperature.
happy holidays
Gary Vaynerchuk
Sometimes the letters are just short and to the point...
Dear HoseMaster,
I'm not dead, OK? But if I were dead I'd come back as a Zombie and eat your brain for lunch. With a nice bottle of D'Arenberg 2002 Dead Arm Shiraz which I rated 96 Points--last tasted 6/08.
And your Million Point Scale is stupid too. Who ever heard of a million words on a spelling test?
In vinum illis est meus verum,
Robert Parker, Jr.
And I can only be flattered when someone takes time out from their busy schedule to honor me with their prose.
Dear Ho's Master,
Somewhere there's a pair of Port tongs with your name on it, and one day you'll have a tong tattoo around that pencil neck of yours. This is the wine business, you terroirbag, and we conduct ourselves civilly. We don't post insulting remarks about wine and people on the Internet; we don't lampoon distinguished figures in the industry; we don't pull our metaphorical pants down and fire pooty rockets at wine critics! We only say nice things. Didn't your mother, Rosemary must have been her name, ever teach you the wine blogger's creed, "If you can't say something nice, say something stupid?"
In case you hadn't noticed, these are hard economic times. Many wineries have cases and cases of $150 bottles of wine just languishing in their cellars. Some winery owners in Napa have actually had to go to Mustards for dinner!! Mustards! And you sit at your keyboard and make fun of them! Wine critics are losing their audience, their clout. Where once they sold truckloads of admittedly overpriced wines, their very recommendation enough to start a ten-year waiting list for yet another cult Cabernet Sauvignon, now they brag about moving crap that sells for under $20. Bragging about it! It's our #1 Wine of the Year! Imagine their shame, the disgrace the economy and thoughtless bloggers like you have brought upon them. What next? The New York Times Book Review puts a Dan Brown novel on it's Ten Best List? The Playmate of the Year is Helen Turley? The Oscar goes to Tom Cruise? At a time when midgets rule the Earth, is this a time for your two pathetic cents?
Your blog is disgusting, and everyone who reads it needs to get a Home Lobotomy Kit for Christmas. I just hope you get what you deserve for Christmas, Ho's Master, the worst thing that can happen to a guy like you. Success.
Merry Christmas,
Robert Mondavi
PS--Like RP says, we ain't dead!
Wine Guerrilla 2008 Zinfandel Russian River Valley
