FLXcursion

I decided on a little bit of an insane whim to attend this Riesling conference called FLXcursion for fully vaccinated wine professionals in the Finger Lakes. I don’t make Riesling for my brand or my consulting clients, I’m only a fan. I’d never been to this part of New York and it’s a slow time for me at the wine lab sort of in between summer bottlings. It sounded like fun. This is what frequent flier miles are for, right?

The event was great and I’m so glad I made the effort to attend. The organizers are two winemakers – Oskar Bynke from Herman J. Weimer and Kelby James Russell from Red Newt and Empire Estate. It is so inspiring how their dream for this conference became actualized. The organizational execution was top notch. This year’s professional conference included 170 people – a mix of winemakers, wine retailers, importers and distributors all of us connected by our love of Riesling.

The Smith Opera House is one of the oldest operating performing arts theaters in the United States. It is recognized by the National Register of Historic Places and has been called an architectural gem by The New York Times and the Smithsonian. photo credit: Smith Opera House

Most of the seminars were held in this old timey theater in downtown Geneva, NY – they built these little tables that fit over the top of the theater seat arm rests to hold a Jancis Robinson wine glass, spit cup and the individually aliquoted samples of Riesling perfectly at temp. We sat socially distanced all over this theater pouring for ourselves. The lunches and dinners were under tents outside with grilled Cornell Chicken, mustardy German potato salad, fresh shaved fennel and celery. The last night we had currywurst which was a treat.

The wine quality was outstanding. I am excited to put together some lineups from these Finger Lakes producers I met for tasting group – it is super impressive what they are doing in a climate that is literally the opposite of eastern Washington. The wines I tasted were snappy and bright, joyful and thoughtfully crafted. Then the unicorn Rieslings from around the world were ridiculous. Delicious Austrian Rieslings I can afford!??! (see my Instagram post for details) 2018 Dr. Loosen Erdener Treppchen Riesling GG!! 2017 Selbach-Oster Berncastler Badstube Spatlese!!!  2007 Nicolaihof Steinnriesler Riesling!!! 2018 Maximin Grunhauser Abstberg Kabinett!!  

With Jean Boxler in Niedermorschwihr on an epic bike trip through Alsace with my buddies from Dujac and JJ Prum back in 2006

This map is hanging up in my lab

me walking Abstberg in 2009 learning what Alte Reben means

But ... also … and this is what made this particular conference so great … the topics of the seminars were super interesting. My favorite and the most polarizing session was one called “F*** Terroir” hosted by the Disgorgeous podcast folks with Miguel de Leon. Earlier this year, Miguel won the first Michelin sommelier award for his wine program at Pinch Chinese in NYC. I was not familiar with their podcast before this but I’ve listened to a couple of them now and I appreciate their intentions. Maybe we’ll do a Disgorgeous podcast tasting group like the Levi Dalton themed one I was running back in the pre-pandemic days.

These guys asked a lot of super challenging questions that I had never before heard articulated about generational wealth, who is excluded from land owning, what it means when we celebrate terroir and worship American land that really was stolen from indigenous people who were here before any European winemakers arrived. The discussion was very provocative and it felt like a “brave space” to check your privilege and reframe the concept of terroir. Miguel de Leon suggested it was similar to asking the question What is God? Expanding the definition to include so much it almost becomes meaningless? Like it’s so expansive and inclusive it is everything and everywhere? What isn’t terroir? (answer: sulfur dioxide haha jk kinda for reals though) In his wrap up Miguel said they were “preaching the gospel of Riesling to the choir that is willing to sing along” - a phrase I found so lovely I wrote it down in my tasting notebook.

Used with Shitty’s permission

Other seminar topics included a memorial tribute to the styles of Riesling that have fallen out of fashion like Feinherb (a “crushable” if you will, low alc% off dry style that I daydrank in Germany and can almost never find here), classic dry Kabinett (“a wine you can drink yourself sober on” – to quote Ernie Loosen), or white wine blends of Riesling with Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris and other grapes. I am a massive admirer of the field blended white wines of Marcel Deiss so yeah that was me in the choir, singing along at the top of my lungs now. There was another super interesting session about wine and social media including the instagram genius @shittywinememes (she goes by Shitty) and an important and thought-provoking session about exclusivity and discrimination with black women wine professional panelists who shared racist experiences that were happening to them in real time at this conference. This shit happened at the dinner last night. Grim but more evidence that I’ve got to do the work and be better.

Thanks to the magic of connecting through zoom, (one of the few upshots of the pandemic… well that and my houseplant conservatory) many of these seminars included folks like Jancis Robinson MW remote from London, Stuart Pigott calling in from an ancient hotel in Burgundy that had the wifi of an ancient hotel in Burgundy, Kelli White from Napa, Dominik Sona from the Pfalz, Leo Alzinger from Wachau, Sam Barry from the Clare Valley. And then live and in person we had two German wine gods from the Mosel, Ernie Loosen in red jeans and Johannes Selbach, who was wearing regular pants when he said my Chenin blanc triggered the feeling of wanting to swallow and drink more. I feel like I did a good job of receiving this as the massive compliment that it is.

After tasting 30+ extremely acidic white wines each day during the seminars, (it hurt to brush my teeth – so nervy – the enamel damage is real) then we drank more Riesling at dinner and then even more at these after parties which I crashed and 100% without question I was the oldest person in attendance every night. Not enough sleep, not enough water. #noregrets. It was fun to bond with my colleagues from Washington state who made the trip out with me and to make new friends.

Imagine Withnail and I, but in upstate New York and with Ernie Loosen.

what it felt like waiting at the bus stop with my friend Nick Caluori from DeLille for the 6 hour ride to NYC Port Authority on Wednesday morning

photo credit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGUuZJj7WwI

The journey to New York City

When you are motivated by a sense that life is so short that you become hella impulsive and start pivoting like it’s your job, and ok let’s say you are too cheap to rent your own car or arrange proper transport like a grown-up … maybe you’re from the West coast and you don’t understand how far away Geneva, NY is from Manhattan and your vague improbable dream of a getting a ride with some nice NYC somm, just sitting politely in their back seat because they’re driving back to the city anyways yeah sure, they can give you a ride… when that plan backfires I mean totally falls through, then you by any means necessary it you take a Greyhound Bus for 6 hours to Port Authority in New York, rest stopping at a Burger King in Pennsylvania (#eastcoastgeography).  Sleep deprived, dehydrated, and hungover with a massive headache and sensitive teeth, calf muscles cramping up in a bus seat fitted with power outlets that do not work (this made it worse), mouth breathing in the N95 mask because the stale pee smell was exactly that bad, still, we got no regrets over here.

Thanks very much FLXcursion for the great event! Let’s cheers to Riesling!

https://www.stitcher.com/show/disgorgeous