MICHELIN ASKED ME IF I WANTED TO BE A GRAPE INSPECTOR

Should I Do It, Although I Fear Being Squeezed?

Inspector Cru Seau, wine sleuth

The good rubber people at Michelin asked me to be one of their California wine inspectors. But they said, not before ’33. You remember ’33? That year marked the end of Prohibition – the period in the U.S. which remains a great stain on this country. Although, there were likely no wine stains to be found anywhere around here for 14 years, which is a triumph, of sorts.

Anyway, I suggested to the tire folks that they initiate their 3-grape Cali winery guide before 2033 because by then we might be back in Prohibition 2.0; which will leave us inspectors judging bathtub wine or heaven forfend, non-alcoholic raisin wine. Truthfully, I’d still be all in on that. Because who can forget the Saturday Night Live bit when after a half-hour painstakingly squeezing tiny raisins into a tiny glass for Belushi & Ackroyd, they had the temerity to ask for another.

Getting back to the new Michelin wine guide. I requested they begin in ’27, which would commemorate, a hundred years on, the 1927 Yankees, maybe the greatest baseball team of all time. On that club, Babe Ruth was a notorious drinker, although wine was likely not in his prodigious diet; nor wine was likely on Mickey Mantle’s mind in the ‘50s. The Mick was another infamous Tankee great.

But I digress again. As part of my training for the Michelin job of Inspector Cru Seau, I’ll be carrying a small spade and a Ball jar so I can surreptitiously sneak into a winery’s vineyard and put some of its soil into the jar to ascertain if said winery’s loam is agronomically “clean”. My hands will get dirty no doubt, from the dirt, when the vineyard manager yells, “Hey, whatta think you’re doin’ there?” I’ll be struggling to get the damn clasps to align and close the jar’s rubber seal and lid. Parenthetically and as part of my expense package, Michelin, being in the rubber business, will furnish the rubber thingies for free! A great bennie, that.

Another criterion (or is it criteria?) of Michelin’s protocols is to ascertain a winery’s technical mastery. Has the winery mastered its flaws? Also, according to the formidable Esther Mobley writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, Michelin will knock down a wine if it has “natty” qualities.

What the hell does that mean? It means that I’m going to have to bone up on all things natty. Which will include, I’m certain, listening to Marley’s “Natty Dread”. And do I get to dress nattily? Is there a wardrobe stipend?

Next in Michelin’s benchmarks (tread marks?) comes “Identity.” They will want to know if the wine expresses “the personality, the sense of place, and the culture behind them.” Ergo, terroir.

This is in my wheelhouse, my bailiwick and in my purview, which is probably why Michelin picked me to be Inspector Cru Seau. Somehow they dug up the fact that I was the Napa Valley correspondent for the long-lamented AppellationAmerica. You remember AA, right? It was perhaps America’s first online wine magazine, in which appellations and terroir reigned supreme.

I was charged to hold individual tastings of each of Napa Valley’s regions. We squeezed into the narrow part of one of San Francisco’s flatiron buildings where we tried to determine the organoleptic terroir-driven differences between the appellations. This was in about 2006 before consumers knew anything about such wine esoterica. Three years later, AppellationAmerica bit the Rutherford dust and was no more. They couldn’t figure out how to monetize the damned thing.

One hopes, when I become Michelin’s Inspector Cru Seau in several years, they figure out how to make money from the Grape Guide. At least, you can guess the color of the cover no doubt -- burgundy. Tire-some.