Taste Wines from Charles Smith!

Wines from Charles Smith & K Vintners
Thursday, October 23rd
6pm-8pm


Charles Smith of K Vintners has always a reputation of, er, intensity. He doesn't suffer fools gladly. If that is true, I'm still not sure why he hasn't punched me in the face yet. Maybe he figures I won't survive it; maybe I'm not worth the trouble. But there are certain people around whom I have the ability to act the ass, repeatedly, in many, varied, ass ways.

About a year ago, Smith was visiting my town. He was an hour and a half late, and we were almost done tasting his entire line of wines when he finally showed up. Maybe I was in a bad mood (it had been a tough week), maybe I figured Charles is the kind of guy who’ll get a kick out of a perfect stranger flipping him some crap. Maybe I’d had a bit too much to drink.

But I started flipping him some crap. “What’s with the big red truck?” I bellow (Charles has arrived in a big red truck), “did you always want to be a fireman when you grew up?”

“No, no,” he protests, “that’s all they had at the rental car. It was ridiculous; it took forever,” he insists. I start in with the people standing around him, insisting that the reason he was late is that he had demanded a big red truck and it took a while to find one.

Charles wonders who I am. Someone introduces us and I point out that we met before. Next up? “Why is it so many Washington State wines have problems with volatile acidity and Brett?” I ask. Charles looks at me for a while before I finish that thought. “I’m not saying your wines are like that, because they’re not,” I add helpfully, “but that makes them kinda rare among Washington State wines.” He takes a deep breath.

Then he talks about how alcohols are getting out of control in Washington (I think things are worse in California) and a lot of winemakers don’t really know what they’re doing and think that making their wines without enough sulfur (because certain critics think they should) somehow makes those wines better when it just makes them dirty.

He’s right, of course. And he may look like Sammy Hagar’s long lost skater brother but he knows exactly what he’s doing and he’s making delicious, big, powerful, dense wines and they are not at all dirty.

Things are going better. We’re drinking some K Vintners Syrah (K Vintners is his winery) when I just have to say something. “You know, I really hate your wines,” I say. “What? Really? he stammers.

“Yeah, I hate your wines because they always commit suicide in my cellar.” The look in his eyes is getting, well, faraway. “Yeah, it’s true,” I continue, “the last time I bought some Morrison Syrah, I was really proud of it. So I took it downstairs to the cellar and I squeezed my four bottles into a little space on top of some of my American Syrahs and Zins, where they could sleep for a long while. And when I went downstairs a week later, there was a broken bottle of Morrison right in the middle of the floor.”

“I couldn’t believe it, so I jammed the other three bottles even farther up into that space and left on a trip. When I came home and went downstairs, there was another bottle of Morrison busted all over the floor. I was starting to freak out, so I jammed the last two bottles as far back, way on top of the wine racks as I possibly could, so that they were actually in the space underneath one of the stairs, right up against the wood.”

"So when I come home a week later, there’s another bottle broken on the floor.” No one’s laughing, but I’m coming to the point of my story. “It turns out that my kids are bouncing down the stairs and the more I jam the bottles against the tread of the stairs, the more any well-aimed teenaged foot is going to dislodge the bottle and send it screaming to the floor.”

Nervous laughter all around. Me, I’m delighted with this story. “Because of that,” I finish with my flourish, “I hate your wine.” Charles smiles at me. Maybe he’s a genuinely nice person; maybe he’s smart enough not to mess with a crazy/drunk person. I was thinking about telling him how the last bottle, the one that didn’t break, turned out to be corked, but every now and then, I exhibit common sense. Not often, but now and again. I left.

This Thursday, a nice selection of Charles' wines will be on offer: K Vintners Viognier, K Vintners Cougar Hills Syrah, K Vintners The Creator and Holy Cow Chardonnay, a crisp tangy, unoaked style of Chardonnay.

Cheers,

Doug Frost, MS MW
Master Sommelier & Master of Wine