{"id":107,"date":"2012-03-15T23:22:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T23:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lospilareswine.com\/production\/a-review-of-los-pilares-on-do-bianchi\/"},"modified":"2015-04-20T21:44:24","modified_gmt":"2015-04-20T21:44:24","slug":"a-review-of-los-pilares-on-do-bianchi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lospilareswine.com\/production\/a-review-of-los-pilares-on-do-bianchi\/","title":{"rendered":"A review of Los Pilares on Do Bianchi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Pilares: Not so Natural but delicious in San Diego (it\u2019s a small world after all)\"los-pilares\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

<\/h1>\n
\n

it\u2019s a world of laughter, a world or tears
\nit\u2019s a world of hopes, it\u2019s a world of fear
\nthere\u2019s so much that we share
\nthat it\u2019s time we\u2019re aware
\nit\u2019s a small world after all<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I used to love that song as a kid (and still do) and I would sing it over and over and over again\u2026 my favorite ride<\/strong><\/a> at that twentieth-century experiment in social engineering otherwise known as Disneyland\u2026<\/p>\n

It was only natural (small n) that I would get a call asking if I\u2019d like to taste the first bottling by Los Pilares<\/strong><\/a> in San Diego after our friend Alice Feiring wrote about the wine glowingly on her blog<\/strong><\/a> the same week that Tracie P<\/strong><\/a>, Georgia P, and I were visiting my hometown (La Jolla High School<\/strong><\/a> Class of \u201985).<\/p>\n

When the call (and connection) came, our friend \u2014 cancer survivor, author, local radio personality, and vibrant life force \u2014\u00a0Chrissa Chase<\/strong><\/a> informed me that she wanted to set up a tasting and a meeting with one of the winemakers, a nice gent named Michael Christian<\/strong><\/a>, a retired lawyer who, like many in his generation, grew tired of drinking concentrated, overly oaked, and excessively alcoholic Californian wines.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the excitement that followed Alice\u2019s post<\/strong><\/a> (and calls expressing interest in representation from the Garagiste and from one of the top distributors of Natural wine in California, said Michael), the San Diego folks began calling the wine a \u201cNatural\u201d wine.<\/p>\n

But when I sat down with Michael \u2014 a super nice guy \u2014 I discovered that, in fact, the grapes had been sourced from local growers whose \u201cNatural\u201d credentials would surely be questioned by the Natural wine elite (had they been consulted). And of course, the wine had been inoculated for malolactic fermentation \u2014 a red flag among the self-appointed Natural wine auditors.<\/p>\n

After a thirty-minute discussion on the Natural wine dialectic, the Natural wine elite in our country (a club I don\u2019t belong to because as Groucho Marx once noted, \u201cI don\u2019t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member\u201d), and what makes a wine Natural (as per Eric the Red\u2019s recent op-ed in the Times<\/em><\/strong><\/a>), I turned to my host and her guest Michael and said, \u201cwho the hell cares if it\u2019s a Natural wine or not? Let\u2019s just taste it!\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought the wine \u2014 a blend of San Diego-grown Grenache and Carignane<\/strong><\/a> \u2014\u00a0was delicious: bright and fresh, with a lot of cinnamon and spice in the initial impression, giving way to ripe berry and red fruit flavors. And like Alice (I hadn\u2019t yet read her review when I tasted it), I loved the low alcohol content (12.5%). Michael noted that the cool 2010 harvest in California allowed him and his partners to achieve the ripeness they wanted without the high alcohol. I liked the wine so much that I convinced Michael to sell me a bottle ($24) to taste with Tracie P at dinner the next night.<\/p>\n

Maybe the folks in San Diego have come to the Natural wine discussion a few years late\u2026 Maybe the word itself Natural<\/em> is just too sexy to resist. Ultimately, whether a wine is Natural or not is now irrelevant, especially considering the vitriol that the discussion has generated (the exact opposite of what Natural wine should mean, in my view).<\/p>\n

In the end, the important thing to remember is\u2026<\/p>\n

There is just one moon and one golden sun<\/em>
\nAnd a smile means friendship to everyone.<\/em>
\nThough the mountains divide<\/em>
\nAnd the oceans are wide<\/em>
\nIt\u2019s a small small world\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Los Pilares: Not so Natural but delicious in San Diego (it\u2019s a small world after all) it\u2019s a world of laughter, a world or tears it\u2019s a world of hopes, it\u2019s a world of fear there\u2019s so much that we share that it\u2019s time we\u2019re aware it\u2019s a small world after all I used to…Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","post_format-post-format-link"],"yoast_head":"\nA review of Los Pilares on Do Bianchi - Los Pilares<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.lospilareswine.com\/production\/a-review-of-los-pilares-on-do-bianchi\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A review of Los Pilares on Do Bianchi - Los Pilares\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Los Pilares: Not so Natural but delicious in San Diego (it\u2019s a small world after all) it\u2019s a world of laughter, a world or tears it\u2019s a world of hopes, it\u2019s a world of fear there\u2019s so much that we share that it\u2019s time we\u2019re aware it\u2019s a small world after all I used to...Read More\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.lospilareswine.com\/production\/a-review-of-los-pilares-on-do-bianchi\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Los Pilares\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-03-15T23:22:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-04-20T21:44:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.lospilareswine.com\/production\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/los-pilares.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"432\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"287\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jay\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jay\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.lospilareswine.com\/production\/a-review-of-los-pilares-on-do-bianchi\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.lospilareswine.com\/production\/a-review-of-los-pilares-on-do-bianchi\/\",\"name\":\"A review of Los Pilares on Do Bianchi - 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