WINE: Wine-tasting videos with an attitude

By Mike Dunne, Sacramento Bee

Originally published 03:00 p.m., May 20, 2008
Updated 06:03 p.m., May 20, 2008

Gary Vaynerchuk has put me in a tough spot, and it has nothing to do with the pronunciation of his family name.

That's "vay-nur-chuck," which he reminds viewers whenever he posts a new video on his Web site, winelibrary.com - which is often.

Over the past couple of years, Vaynerchuk has developed into one of the more popular and passionate presences on the nation's wine scene, solely through his madcap tasting videos.

His shtick is simple: Sit on a couch or at a table, have a New York Jets spit bucket off to one side, and taste and compare a handful of wines. He talks so fast and so furiously that he pauses only to spit.

His appeal is his in-your-face Jersey attitude, his imaginative and entertaining descriptions, and his eagerness to embrace unconventional as well as mainstream wines.

His mission is to get people to think outside the wine box - and even inside the wine box. He wants people to experiment, to try wines they've never considered, to explore unfamiliar territories.

His segments are a bit too breathless and too long, but, hey, there's always the pause button.

Now Vaynerchuk has come out with the most entertaining wine book of the year so far. His Gary Vaynerchuk's 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight and Bring Thunder to Your World (Rodale, $19.95, 236 pages, softcover) stomps onto the wine scene with the same cocky brio as his videos.

His descriptions are visceral and amusing: "Overall, this wine is extremely gamy. I feel like I'm a hunter and I just killed a wild boar and ripped it open and took a bite. But before I did, I think I spread strawberry jam all over it. Man, that was a strange thing to do, but it really worked."

He sprinkles through the text definitions of his shorthand descriptors; e.g., fruit bomb is "a wine in which an abundance of fruit is the primary flavor, often at the expense of additional complexity."

Vaynerchuk loves fruit bombs, he's undaunted by wines with high alcohol, he's keen on dessert wines, he appreciates high-value wines and - good for him - he enthusiastically endorses blends.

He likes big, ripe, forceful wines so much I'm surprised he isn't a New York Giants fan.

On a recent flight to Riverside, Calif., I got so excited about several of his 101 wines that by the time I hit town, I'd marked 10 I wanted to try at the first chance.

I made my way over to what locals claimed was the finest wine shop in Riverside, La Bodega Wine & Spirits, and with the help of a clerk combed the shelves for the 10. We didn't find a single one.

Thus, I'm conflicted. I'd really like to recommend that people run out and spend "20 bones" - another favorite Vaynerchuk expression - but I fret that most of the wines he lauds will be difficult if not impossible to find out West.

He's done a commendable job of making the book potentially helpful, in large part because the wines invariably are current releases. Unfortunately, however, many of them were made in tiny lots, or only a small portion of the production is being imported to the U.S. How many of those will get west of New Jersey is anybody's guess.

But I could be wrong, so I'll hang on to my copy of the book for whenever I hit a wine shop.