THE GAZETTE
Wednesday, October 23, 2013 r
Page B-11
Consumers find wine labels to be a sticky situation worldwide Wine labels are funny things. With the hundreds of unique winemaking varietals, numerous different methods and an entire world of unique regions, you would think that wine labels would be designed to be models of clarity in order to assist a consumer in making an educated purchase. If only that were true.
GRAPELINES LOUIS MARMON It is unusual to see European wine labeled with the name of the grapes in the bottle, despite the fact that many in the American market would like to know that information. Instead a Bordeaux or Burgundy label notes the name of the property (“Chateau” or
GENRE
Continued from Page B-7 side Llewyn Davis,” a Coen Brothers film about fictional folk singer Llewyn Davis, due out next month. Thile has contributed vocals and instrumentals to some of the biggest names in country including Keith Urban and Eric Church. Now, Thile is out on a solo tour promoting his latest album, “Bach: Sonatas and Partitas Vol. 1.” The album features 16 tracks — all pieces written for solo violin and played by Thile on his mandolin. The tour kicked off Oct. 1 and Thile will play at Strathmore on Oct. 30, a venue he’s played in the past with Punch Brothers. “The overall vibe I got from the [Strathmore] crowd was that they were there to listen and to enjoy,” Thile said. “Sometimes you get a crowd that’s only there to listen and you feel like a zoo exhibit. Or you get a crowd that’s only there to enjoy and you feel like a deejay or something ... As a performing musician, I want to feel like I’m performing with people and not for them, especially in a solo position, it gets lonely up there.” Though he’s best known as a bluegrass or folk musician, due in large part to his expertise on the mandolin, Thile said releasing a record of classical music didn’t feel like a stretch. “For me, playing Bach is far less about dipping my toe into the classical music genre and more about wanting to interact with great music,” Thile said. “It’s important to note that because the mandolin is toned exactly like the violin, it’s exactly the same ... It’s not quite the leap of faith it might first appear.” Leap of faith or not, Thile’s latest feat is impressive, especially for someone who didn’t grow up playing classical music. “At a certain point along the way, my grandmothers
“Domaine”) and has a smattering of French that tells such fundamentally useless stuff to the average consumer like where the wine was bottled. Italian and Spanish wines mostly follow this pattern. And don’t even get me started about German wine labeling which require an advanced language degree to comprehend. The casual wine drinker may not be aware that Chablis and other white Burgundies are made from Chardonnay, Beaujolais from Gamay, Nebbiolo is the principle grape in Barolo and Barbaresco, Tempranillo dominates in Rioja, and wines from Bordeaux are most commonly a blend of up to five varietals, while the southern Rhone region of Châteauneuf-du-Pape permits the blending of up to 13 different grapes. And that is just the beginning of
both introduced me to Bach and the world of written-down music,” Thile said. “I taught myself how to read music and realized written-down music didn’t have to be stuffy. That was huge.” Growing up in Kentucky, Thile was influenced by folk and bluegrass music, though again, he’s hesitant to differentiate. “When you say bluegrass, one person could think of music started by Bill Monroe ... you say bluegrass to someone else and they think of the old TV show ‘Hee Haw.’” Call it whatever you want, but Thile grew up listening to mostly folk music on radio programs like “A Prairie Home Companion.” His mother played violin and piano as a hobby while his father played the bass and worked as a piano technician. “Listening to music was our family pastime,” Thile said. By the age of 5, Thile was learning the mandolin from renowned mandolinist, guitarist and vocalist John Moore. He also counts bassist and composer Edgar Meyer as a major influence who Thile said “took [him] under [his] wing.” Last year, Thile was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the “Genius Grant.” It’s given annually to between 20 and 40 people in any field who show “exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work.” Oddly enough, Thile, who’s been touring tirelessly for the last several years, said the prestigious grant will actually allow for some down time. “What I’m really looking forward to is the opportunity to take six months off and do some thinking,” Thile said. “I’ve been on output mode for the last seven or eight years. I’m ready to go back to input mode and the MacArthur Fellowship will certainly help me do that.” chedgepeth@gazette.net
BRANTLEY GUTIERREZ
Chris Thile of the Punch Brothers will perform at Strathmore on Oct. 30
a long and confusing list. American origin wine labels are better but still can be incomplete and misleading. US Department of Treasury regulations permit the use of a single varietal name, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, on the label as long as at least 75 percent of the wine is made from that varietal and it all originates from a single location (appellation). What composes the other 25 percent is left to the imagination or a search on the winery’s website. And the wine’s alcohol content can be equally as vague since the number on the label and the actual alcohol by content (ABV) may vary by law. So a wine listed as 13.3 percent ABV may really range from 11.8 to 14 percent, while those stated as 14 percent may truly be 15 percent. Doesn’t look like much but alcohol content is important to many
consumers since it implies a certain style of winemaking and knowing the ABV may influence purchasing decisions. Another issue is the use of undefined terms on the label such as “reserve” and “barrel select.” What exactly does “old vines” mean? 25 years? 50 years? Older than the winemaker? And how much of the wine needs to originate from these vines to achieve this designation? The Treasury Department has been considering tightening the use of such terms since 2010 and are scheduled to make a decision sometime next year. Until any new regulations are implemented, we will still see nebulous jargon including “estate bottled” and “old clones” on the front of bottles The label on the back of the bottle can be more helpful by providing fur-
ther information about the grapes, location and winemaking approach. But sometimes they are just meaningless marketing stories matching the misinformation seen elsewhere on the bottle. Many labels are creative and entertaining, adorned with artwork, animal illustrations, and even braille or “scratch and sniff” stickers that may entice a purchase of an unfamiliar bottle. Some wineries haven’t ever changed their labels while others replace their designs annually. Clearly front labels are critical to wine marketing, but is there any reason why they cannot be more accurate and informative? We all would benefit from a bit more clarity regarding the varietals, ABV and the terms on the front label, which could only enhance consumer’s comfort and facilitate sales.
ROOTS
Continued from Page B-7 previous album, “Understanding What We’ve Grown to Be,” peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart. Moore said he wasn’t surprised the album did so well. “I don’t mean that to sound cocky or full of myself,” Moore said. “When the CD is done and John Feldmann [who produced the album] is telling me how great of a record it is and I’m listening to it over and over while it’s going through the mixing phase — I guess I just really believed in the CD. So when we had a really good first week, it wasn’t like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s what I expected,’ but it wasn’t like this massive shock to me. I was really happy that our fans really enjoyed it the way that I do.” We Came As Romans formed when five high school guys from Troy, Mich., decided they wanted to play music together. The lineup has changed over the past few years, but Moore said being able to go out and do their own thing has really helped the band stay together. “Everyone has their different techniques or habits on the road,” Moore said. “Like today we have an off day, and I’m the only one sitting on the bus. Kyle [Pavone] is out visiting some extended family, Eric [Choi] stayed with some friends last night, Andy [Glass] is in our hotel room … I think he’s doing some T-shirt designs, and I just saw Dave [Stephens] walk back from somewhere. I mean, everyone just kind of keeps themselves occupied on days off. It’s just a really good day to refresh and recharge yourself. After touring
Metal band We Came As Romans is set to play the Fillmore Silver Spring on Tuesday. for six years now, we’ve all found the things that help us replenish that energy lost throughout the week of playing shows.” Moore didn’t grow up with heavy metal music. In fact, it wasn’t until he joined the band that he started listening to the kind of music We Came As Romans plays. “When I first joined the band eight years ago, I did not listen to any heavy music at all,” Moore said. “If there was music with screaming in it, I would fast forward the screaming part. It was OK that my band was doing it — it was cool because it was my band — but I didn’t like it when any other band did it. I don’t
know why. The first few months of being in my band, back when I was 16, it was weird because I got exposed to all these heavy bands at once. “The typical band that every musician and everyone in a band that plays heavy music likes and loves was influenced by Montrose.” Montrose was a heavy metal band based in California in the late 1970s with former Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar as the lead singer. “I honestly think it’s just that they did it better than every single band I listened to and every single band that guys in other bands have listened to. They
DOUGLAS SONDERS
were a huge, huge influence to my band.” Moore said he hopes audiences and fans really pick up on the message behind the band’s songs. “It’s different from what a lot of bands are doing,” Moore said. “When we first started with it, it was different than what pretty much any other band was doing. The heavy music scene wasn’t near as developed as it is now, but when we started, there weren’t a lot of bands at all trying to put out the message that we had. And that’s just been our thing ever since.” wfranklin@gazette.net
SCOTLAND
Continued from Page B-7 in retail stores. The event is sponsored by the Scotch Malt Whiskey Society of America. “My father is a connoisseur of whiskey — I’ll be reporting back to him,” Fowlis laughed. Fowlis grew up in the Outer Hebrides, a string of islands that buffer the Scottish mainland from the North Atlantic. The islands have been producing Harris tweed for hundreds of years. “It’s become incredibly fashionable,” said Fowlis about the fortunes of the old and durable material. “You can see it on the cover of ‘Vogue.’” The islands are the last place in the world where people speak Scottish Gaelic as their first language, said Fowlis, who grew up hearing it around the house along with English. But it wasn’t until she began studying classical music at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow that she began singing and researching traditional Scottish music. Clans, she said, used to engage poets to write elegies for chiefs who had died and songs of praise for their successors. “They had a really strong oral tradition, and many of the songs were never written down,” said Fowlis, who also sings work songs about fishing, churning butter and milking cows. Traveling with her and her band to BlackRock is her husband, Eamonn Doorley, who speaks Irish Gaelic and performs with the traditional Irish band Danú. A Celtic language, Gaelic diverged over time in Scotland and Ireland but today the two still share many of the same words. Fowlis said she and her husband speak both versions at home with their children. “We all understand each other,” Fowlis said. The BlackRock concerts will feature traditional songs, some of them hundreds of years old, accompanied by guitars, fiddles, bagpipes and the bouzouki, a lute-like instrument from Greece that became popular in Ireland in the 1970s. “It works well with our scales and moods, it fits into our melodic structure,” she said.
PHOTO BY MICHELLE FOWLIS
Scottish singer Julie Fowlis will perform traditional Gaelic songs accompanied by instruments on Friday and Saturday at the BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown. Fowlis sang two songs in English for the Disney/Pixar animated movie “Brave.”
JULIE FOWLIS: MUSIC OF THE SCOTTISH ISLES n Performances: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday n Scotch tasting: 6 p.m. Friday n Gaelic workshop: 5 p.m. Saturday n Where: BlackRock Center for the Arts, 12901 Town Commons Drive, Germantown n Tickets: $32 for performance only; $65 for performance and tasting. Workshop is free. n For information: 240-912-1058; blackrockcenter.org; juliefowlis.com
Fowlis will talk about some songs from the stage, but also let the sounds and rhythms of other songs speak for them-
selves. “Some people don’t want to know [what the words mean],” she said. “They just want to let the music to wash over them.” In the same way that Harris tweed is enjoying a renewed popularity, so is Scottish Gaelic, in part due to the Fowlis’ broadcasts on the BBC and her touring in the United Kingdom and overseas. In 2008, she was named Scotland’s first Gaelic Ambassador by the Scottish Parliament, an honor she treasures. “There’s been a resurgence in the last few years,” she said. “It’s finding its place in the modern world.” Fowlis’ singing helps preserve her culture and she’s glad it also entertains audiences. “We love what we do,” she said. “I hope everyone enjoys [the concerts] and has a laugh, and experiences something of Scotland on their night out.” vterhune@gazette.net