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Winetology Wednesday with Jonny Cigar

By Jonny Cigar on April 10, 2013 / No Comments / Categorized Featured, Interviews, Winetology Wednesday

The Interview: Iconic Wines

 Birk O’Hallaran and Karl Ante

Interrogated by Jonny Cigar

I’ve always wanted to have my own talk show—grew up watching Letterman and am still convinced I could do a better job than Carson on the Tonight Show (if only they’d let me host along with Don Rickles). For now, we begin my interviewing career here on The Bloggery at Underground Eats. Vinos and Diners, meet Birk and Karl of Iconic Wines:

Karl Ante (left) and Birk O'Hallaran of Iconic Wines

Birk O’Halloran grew up in Colorado a few miles from Odell’s and New Belgium Brewing. Drinking craft beer early on in life gave him a “snobby palate.” Karl Ante, his partner in Iconic Wines, met Birk in college at Cornell. Both travel between NYC and Napa and work with Dan Petroski (Larkmead and Massican) who is their consulting winemaker. Yee, who are keyed into the alternative dining culture of Underground Eats, would do well to know these gents, for they are on the roster and their wine is fu#$ing delicious.

Jonny: What was your path to Iconic Wine? Give me the jazz.

Birk: I didn’t start paying attention to wine until I took 18 months off of hotel school to live in Portland and later New Zealand. After hotel school, I enrolled in the International Wine Guild under MW Claude Robbins and equipped with my Ivy League education began interviewing at wine shops just to get my foot in the door.

Eventually I met David Weitzenhoffer and Laura Supper the owners of A.I. Selections. I really wanted to work for them. During my interview I fed both he and Laura drinks until they were drunk enough and said I could join. Been with ‘em four years now.

Iconic came out of a trip Karl and I took to Sonoma in 2010. At a wedding I met Steve Matthiasson and told him I wanted to make wine (He’s the 2012 Food & Wine Winemaker of the Year)—unexpectedly Steve offered some fruit from Michael Mara vineyard, a four acre plot where the likes of Arnot Roberts, Broc and Abe Schoener source grapes. Flattered, I told him I would just ruin it—but Dan Petroski (Larkmead and Massican) stepped in and offered to consult gratis to get Karl and I started. We couldn’t resist.

In 2010 we made 104 cases of Heroine Chardonnay, we sold out in about 4 months.  For the 2011 vintage we got Dan on payroll and made 450 cases under the full label Iconic Wines.

Jonny: You’re clearly a comic book fan – what’s up with the labels?

Birk: I love comics, I still read them and admittedly this project was a great excuse to call up an artist I love and commission a label. We work with Tom Feister to do the character design and the current vintages are done by Ming Doyle (Heorine and MM) and Cliff Chiang (Secret Ingredient and Secret identity). I probably spent as much of life dreaming about being a winemaker as a super hero so it just somehow seemed a perfect fit.

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Winetology Wednesday with Jonny Cigar

By Jonny Cigar on March 20, 2013 / No Comments / Categorized Uncategorized

NOTE:  We recommend reading this week’s, ahem, “special” Winetology Wednesday whilst drinking copious amounts of wine.  Happy #WW everyone.

CELEBRITY WINE TASTING WITH JONNY CIGAR

(A short one-act play)

At rise of lights, Jonny Cigar is sitting at a table, surrounded by an astonishing and unnecessary array of wine glasses. Sitting next to him is Taylor Swift. Next to her is Chris Brown. Next to Chris is the spirit of Dean Martin. All are sniffing wine, per Jonny’s instructions.

JONNY:

(After rapidly sniffing three seemingly random glasses of wine):

Taylor! What do you smell in that glass?

TAYLOR SWIFT:

Which glass?

JONNY:

(Suddenly melodramatic):

You and your goldilocks – O – let down your hair so that I may climb it and rescue you from–

TAYLOR SWIFT:

What?

JONNY:

(Catching himself and turning back to an angry taskmaster):

I said, glass number seven, dammnit! Sniff! Now, tell me what you see.

TAYLOR SWIFT:

What I see? Don’t you mean tell you what I smell?

JONNY:

Nie! (Jonny spits wine all over the floor, Taylor cries. Jonny moves on to Chris):

Mr. Brown!

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Winetology Wednesday with Jonny Cigar

By Jonny Cigar on March 6, 2013 / No Comments / Categorized Featured, Winetology Wednesday

HOW TO GET A JOB IN THE BEVERAGE INDUSTRY

Here’s a fun fact for you:

I’d like to take this Winetology Wednesday to share the details of a very exciting campaign launched by Mutineer Magazine. I was invited to be an Advisory Board Member, which I translate as a Drinks Career 101 Booze Prophet, spreading the good news of potential employment to all who are unemployed or underemployed. And if you are underemployed, you know what I mean—like the time I worked a very respectable full-time job at a play-publishing house in the Flatiron, raking in about $1,000 a month, living in Astoria, Queens. I used to fret over buying M&M’s, let alone $5 bottles of wine, and admittedly it was two-buck chuck that got me through it all.

And no one told me how to get myself into the wine industry. I had to start a clandestine operation bringing wine to the people, then spend 5 months of my adult life living with my mother-in-law, away from my wife, working harvest, just to kind of figure it all out.

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Winetology Wednesday with Jonny Cigar

By Jonny Cigar on February 20, 2013 / 2 Comments / Categorized Featured, Winetology Wednesday

10 AWESOME WINOS ON TWITTER

In no particular order, whatsoever, here are 10 of my go-to winos to chat with, follow, re-tweet and antagonize on Twitter. They are informed, informative and are valuable, upstanding Twitizens (Twitter+Citizen). I place a lot of value one those who can act as resources for hot button issues and who also have an opinion and unique voice that they own—not an easy thing to accomplish through the written, online word.

If you’re all about the fermented grape juice, follow these cats:

Keith Beavers (@evwgnyc)

Self-described: “I am a wine geek. I am a wine lover. I am a business owner and a New Yorker. This is my city and I love it through and through.”

I know Keith in the real world too, having spent many-a-Friday afternoon with him “tasting” through some serious vino at ABC Wine Co in the East Village. He’s a genius with wine knowledge and has a great energy – seek him out!

Steve Heimoff (@SteveHeimoff)

Self-described: “California Bureau Chief for Wine Enthusiast, Blogger, Human Being”

Steve is a force to be reckoned with and his blog is full of great opinions and it’s fun to read through the comments on each post. We shared correspondence over email, but have never met in person. Though, I feel like I met him because he appeared in Maynard James Keenan’s “Blood Into Wine,” shot on such hi-def cameras everything appears to jump off the screen, including Steve.

Randall Grahm (@RandallGrahm)

Self-described: “Founder, Winemaker, Terroirist/Vinarchist and Prez-for-Life @BonnyDoonVineyd, Defender of Misunderstood and Underappreciated Doon-trodden Cépages of the Earth”

Just love Graham’s tweets. He’s sharp. He’s sarcastic and he’s the only person in the country (world?) trying to grow vines by planting seeds. Alder Yarrow wrote about that in October of last year here.

Ken #Wine (@alawine)

Self-described: “…about wine.”

I met Ken at a wine event in Healdsburg in late 2011. It was one of those moments when you recognize someone from the Internet you’ve never met in person—déjà vu? No! Twitter friends! He’s an avid wine-Tweeter and he always seems to find some of the best articles, and news-bites floating out there on the web. He asks good questions too, which gets the vine-mind churnin’.

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    Filming of a live stream broadcasting of ToutSuite Social Club

Winetology Wednesday with Jonny Cigar

By Jonny Cigar on February 6, 2013 / 1 Comment / Categorized Featured, Winetology Wednesday

SAY WINO, WHERE WERE YOU DURING THESE LIVE-STREAM WINE-INFUSED EVENTS?

Gone are the days when you, faithful drinker of wine and seeker of wisdom and truth, had to travel to far-flung distances, planning your trip with rotary phones and old Road Atlas maps, hoping to discover the winery of your dreams (as approved by Frommers, the Michelin Guide, or your faithful Zagatian cohorts). Today, your good friend The Internet and some tech-savvy gurus have introduced an array of online forums specific to the advancement of consumer-winemaker interaction.

I present to you my top three favorite live-stream platforms and encourage you to find time in your calendars to join one of the live discussions via your Twitter handle, as is often the manner of corresponding:

ToutSuite Social Club (@ToutSocial)

Based in downtown Napa, CA, Susan Quinn and Didier Loustau launched ToutSuite Social Club in July of 2011 to connect people with their favorite makers of food, drink and lifestyle brands – from anywhere in the world. Live shows feature rockstar panelists interacting via multi-channel video conferencing with real people tuning in from around the world to engage with top celebrity “makers.”  You might be at home in your favorite cozy chair, wine glass in hand, winemaker of that wine in the ToutSuite studios, and if you’re joining in as a video-panelist, you get to engage and interact with the person who created the booze you are sippin’ on. The quality of the video, coupled with multi-camera angles makes for a very exciting experience. Google Hangouts can take a hike.  Go here and get on the mailing list.

In Pursuit of Balance (#IPOB) (@BalancedPinot)

In an effort to inspire debates and discussions of two staple varietals—Chardonnay and Pinot Noir—Rajat Parr of Michael Mina and RN74, and Jasmine Hirsch of Hirsch Vineyards have introduced In Pursuit of Balanc.  IPOP hosts live-stream forums that feature impressive panelists (like Rajat himself and Jon Bonne, the wine critic at SF Chronicle) who take part in a moderated discussion during which you can tweet questions in real time. Get on their mailing list to be notified of upcoming #IPOB tastings. NOTE: Two seminars for your live-streaming pleasure are happening today, Wednesday, February 6th, with live broadcasts from Los Angeles at 10am PT (1pm ET) and 11:30am PT (2:30pm ET).  Learn more here.

Charles Communications Associates (CCA) BrandLive Platform (@CharlesComm)

The folks at CCA want to engage anyone who happens to be a critic, writer, blogger, influencer, writing about wine but lives far from wine country. With an invite to partake comes samples, shipped to your door, and at a designated date and time you can log onto the BrandLive platform to watch a livestream closed-circuit Q&A. While it is closed-circuit, you can still tweet questions/comments, which are read to panelists by a moderator. I partook in this Hourglass tasting and some cool cats were involved and tweeting, like Joe Roberts, the wine guru of Playboy.com, and George M. Taber who authored “The Judgment of Paris.”  Send a note to press@charlescomm.com to get on their invite list or visit here for more info.

Swirl well, sip often and above all, think after you drink,

-Jonny Cigar, Wine Ambassador to the Stars  (@NobleRotNYC)

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