Category: jake lorenzo

by Jake Lorenzo

Last week Jake Lorenzo went to Napa to pick up some glass for my upcoming bottling of Guerrilla Vino. Coming home, it was 2:00 PM, with the lunch rush winding down, so I stopped into a restaurant to say hello to a longtime Chef/owner friend and maybe have one of his legendary meatball appetizers. Chef sat at a table sampling some wine with a salesman and the director of his wine program. Seeing me, he leapt from his chair, gave me a hug and insisted I join them. The salesman poured a Cabernet Sauvignon from Alexander Valley that was lush, complex, full of flavor, and carried by great acidity with a soft tannic finish. We all nodded our heads, “Delicious.”

The salesman said, “And the winery is blowing this out for just $10 a bottle, trying to land by-the-glass placements.”   Chef talked to his young wine director, Bobby, asking what they would charge as a by-the-glass price. With a straight face Bobby replied, “I think it would do well at $22 a glass.”

Jake Lorenzo went off like a plugged fermentation lock exploding from a barrel. I hurtled across the table, knocked Bobby backward in his chair and had my hands squeezing his throat as his face turned red. Fortunately, Chef and two waiters pulled me off him before I had caused any serious damage. Bobby gasped to catch his breath, terror in his eyes as he looked at me.

I admit; it was not this detective’s proudest moment, but for more than 30 years I have been railing against restaurants that used outrageous wine and beverage markups as their primary profit centers. Depending on the size of their glass pour, Bobby was proposing marking up this bottle of wine 10 to 12 times cost. This detective bled for the winery, forced to sell their wine at a major loss, probably in need of some cash flow and to move some products off their inventory. Instead of passing along the savings to their clientele, thus encouraging more consumption (after all a depletion is a depletion) Bobby was gouging the winery and his customers assuming $22 a glass for wonderful Cabernet Sauvignon would seem like a deal.

Jake Lorenzo has always had a hard time with restaurant wine markups. The old standard wine list markup of three times cost caused my blood pressure to rise. When they decided the price of a single glass of wine should equal the cost of the bottle, my fists would clench involuntarily. As I watched glass pours shrink for six ounces to five ounces and now sometimes just four ounces, I needed Jakelyn’s mother or Chuy or some other trusted friend to remind me to breathe slowly until my heartbeat returned to normal.

Surely, I thought people weren’t going to put up with these ridiculous mark ups. Years ago, when restaurant wines started at $30 per bottle, I assumed there would be some backlash. No? When the bottom of the list started at $40 customers would make it known that the price is too high. Still, no? Well, who the hell was going to drink wine with their pizza when the cheapest bottle went for $50? I had counted on the dining public coming to its senses and demanding that restaurants lower their markups or at least provide reasonable alternatives for those of us who love a good meal accompanied by a thrilling bottle. It didn’t happen, and restaurants assumed they could continue to raise prices at will.  At some point a private eye needs to give up. When wine lists climbed to a $60 per bottle starting point, this detective stopped going to restaurants.

Since I rarely go to restaurants now, I didn’t notice that people had finally hit the wall on wine pricing. Several recent surveys show a 15 to 30 percent drop in restaurant wine sales. That’s not all, tourists no longer flock to wineries to taste their wares, wine club members are fleeing like beachgoers in the face of a tsunami. Wineries are laying off staff, closing production facilities, and ripping out vineyards. Local wine is just too damn expensive for many of us, but wine gives us pleasure and is part of our daily ritual, so we scour store shelves for reasonably priced wonders from other parts of the world. Instead of going to a restaurant, we cook a nice meal at home with friends, share a couple bottles of wine and save a fortune.

Let’s get something straight, right off the bat. Jake Lorenzo, private eye, loves a delicious meal cooked by a talented chef, especially when accompanied by a couple bottles of fine wine. Jakelyn’s mom and I aren’t fashion plates, we don’t gamble, nor do we use drugs, so our discretionary spending is focused on travel, food, and wine. A three hour lunch is one of the glories of life, and for decades we have been dedicated to discovering the right chefs, sampling their inventive cuisine, and enjoying those meals while sipping tasty wines.

After a delicious meal, it is customary for us to invite chefs to our table to share a glass of wine. If they are congenial and show a sense of humor, we invite them over to the house, offering to cook for them. Usually, by the time we give them a second invitation, they have checked around with other chefs who have visited us and are willing to come over. For years, chefs have joined us at table, scoured my wine cellar, and wandered through Jakelyn’s mother’s garden

Sadly, it seems this time has passed. Jakelyn’s mother and I rarely go out to restaurants to eat. When a simple meal for the two of us with a single bottle of wine adds up to $200 to $300, we cannot justify the devastating hit on our monthly budget that a couple meals out will inflict. We still want to go to your restaurant, eat your food and support your business, but you need to work with us to get us to come back.

I propose restaurants start locally. Forget about trying to attract the rich and famous and work on getting your neighbors to walk through the door. Have at least one night a week where you waive corkage. This would allow us to sample your food and drink decent wine but still have enough money to pay the electric bill. Try one night a week where all the wines on your list are half price. Believe it or not, wine lovers appreciate good wine with delicious food. Give them the opportunity to try wines a bit beyond their reach. You’ll still make plenty of profit, and you’ll have customers returning regularly. Actively search out inexpensive wines that you love and add them to your list at reasonable markups so your customers can enjoy them as well. When you get deals on wine from desperate wineries, share some of the savings. If your cost is $10 per bottle, charge $30 on the list and $8 per glass. You’ll still make three times cost, but you’ll make your customers happy.

As much as you want to push strange tasting natural wine, or rare, exotic varietals, drop a few from your list to honor local, historic pioneers still pursuing the dream. Were it not for their struggles and success you probably wouldn’t even be here, and after corporate entities had their way with the California wine business, there aren’t many family wineries left.  Every Napa restaurant should be selling Storybook Mountain Zinfandel, Lang and Reed Cab Franc and something from Frog’s Leap. Shouldn’t any Sonoma County restaurant have Pellegrini-Olivet Lane on its list or maybe Rochioli? Doesn’t Tobin James belong on every list in Paso Robles along with a Dusi Zinfandel? Adam Tolmach has been making great wine from the very beginning. His wines deserve a place on any restaurant wine list from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara. Learn your history. Honor the pioneers. They are not getting any younger.

Happy hour is your friend. A few selected dishes along with some interesting wine and beer selections will encourage people to try your food. Bring back winemaker dinners that are bargain priced instead of $150 and up. Wineries are desperate to deplete mounting inventory. They’ll give you a deal to feature their wine with your food.

It could work. What have we got to lose? Times are tough. We’ve got to try something. Restaurants and wineries should be partners in providing a great experience for people who love food and wine. We should work together for a common goal.

It could work.

Jake Lorenzo

From the Library, July 2008        

In the late 1960s, the first California varietal wines to grace this detective’s palate came from the new Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville. I had no idea where Oakville was since I was often mired in my daily commute from Santa Monica to East Los Angeles where I was teaching Hispanic kids to read in English. Teaching got me into drinking, and drinking led me to the wine business.

By 1977, Jake Lorenzo had moved, with his family in tow, to California Wine Country. It was certainly one of the best life decisions I have ever made. In my 30 years’ working in the wine business, I never passed an evening with Robert Mondavi. I shook his hand a couple of times, had a couple of superficial conversations and in the very early days spent many a delightful evening listening to the superb music at his summer concerts.

He was a big man, tall with a booming voice and an enthusiasm that matched, but more than anything Mondavi was a salesman and a dreamer. His dream was to sell a pile of California wine, and his pitch was to take on the established, great wines of the world and challenge them “mano a mano” with his upstart varietals.

Robert Mondavi would march into the greatest restaurants in the world. He would plunk his bottles down on the table, order some of the famous First Growths off the list and insist that his guests taste the wines side by side, knowing that just having his bottles on the same table as the great wines of France lent them an air of legitimacy. He would smile his snake-oil grin and concede, “We’re not there yet, but some day soon our California wines will be as good as theirs.” Then he would pay the bill, tip large and move to the next grand restaurant to repeat the show.

Mondavi was our ambassador to the wine world. He pushed his winemakers to compete with the finest wines of the world because he knew that was where the money was. He was imaginative, insistent, clever and decidedly American in his brash, trash-talking challenge of the established icons of wine. His surprising legacy is that he not only convinced the French and Europeans that California could compete with them, he convinced us that our wine was as good as theirs.

Every California winemaker will be forever indebted to Robert Mondavi because he took the high road in trying to sell his upstart wines, and that high road was to dedicate his efforts to quality.

Mondavi’s passing reminds me of others who have left us, others far less famous but not necessarily less important. Next year will be the 20th anniversary of Tracy Toovey’s death. Tracy exemplified the enthusiasm, dedication and sense of wonder that comprised the wine industry in the ’70s and ’80s. Tracy worked as the cellar master at Grand Cru Winery. The hours were long, and the work was very difficult. Pay was not much higher than minimum wage.

Tracy was gentle and kind, but he was fiercely determined to make fine wine and he took immense pride when his attempts succeeded. Tracy, like most of us in those days, lived and breathed winemaking. We hadn’t come from families with wine history, and we were eager to make up for lost time. We all held wine tastings, traded wine and shared any wines we could find from other countries. A chance to taste some of the great wines from France or Italy would see a whole group of us piled into a car going to San Francisco, even if it meant having to work at the winery over the weekend to make up for lost time.

When Tracy got married, the ceremony was held at Grand Cru Winery. Lance Cutler performed the nuptials. Mark Stupich, Jeff McBride and Ray Kaufman all sang in the choir. The guests made up a “who’s who” of working winemakers and cellar rats, and the sheer amount of wine consumed would have made Robert Mondavi confident about the success of California varietals in the future.

Over the next few years Tracy and his wife had two kids and bought a tiny house in Glen Ellen. Most evenings and weekends he would work on the house, adding on bedrooms or a dining room or installing new handmade kitchen cabinets. He planted some vines in his backyard and made wine from those grapes. Tracy worked at a job he loved, passed his time with a family that he worshipped, and spent time exploring hobbies and interests that intrigued him.

In 1989 Tracy Toovey, like the rest of us, had been in the wine business for more than 10 years. We had seen demand for our wines grow and grow. We had been through one ill-financed expansion after another. We had learned our lessons about cold stability, heat stability, malolactic fermentations and Brettanomyces infection. We reveled in harvest, groaned on the bottling lines and enthusiastically shared each new bottling with our contemporaries as soon as they were bottled. Life was good.

Then, for Tracy Toovey, life was over. Tracy was murdered on April 14, 1989 at the winery by Ruben Salcido who was reportedly drunk and coked-up. Salcido ended up killing seven people including his wife and two of his children.

For Grand Cru Winery, the aftermath was not their finest hour. They refused to even pay for health insurance for the surviving Toovey family. Cellar rats, vineyard workers and other winery workers in Sonoma Valley stepped into the breach. We signed petitions donating one hour’s pay each year so that Tracy’s family would have continued health care.

The harvest of 1989 was one of the rainiest on record. It was as if the sorrow over Tracy’s death had opened up the tear ducts in the sky, and it couldn’t stop crying. The mud was so deep in the vineyards that it would suck the boots right off your feet. Whole blocks of Chardonnay grapes rotted to nothing on the vines.

In 1989 most of us in the wine business were young, strong, passionate and in love with our jobs and our lives. To lose Tracy–someone our own age, someone with a family like ours, someone who shared our aspirations–was a devastating blow. It made us think. It made me think about life, family and what is truly important.

Robert Mondavi had a dream, and he will be remembered in history books for achieving that dream and creating the California wine industry as we know it. Jake Lorenzo says that Mondavi never would have achieved that dream were it not for the likes of Tracy Toovey. It was the dedication and enthusiasm that hundreds of workers like Tracy brought to the wine industry that gave it the extraordinary spirit that lifted it into the 21st century.

Tracy Toovey had a dream. He never got to see it through. But he changed Jake Lorenzo’s life, and without you knowing it, he changed yours too. Robert Mondavi can have the history books. Tracy has this detective’s heart. I hope you are lucky enough to have memories of him tucked into yours as well.  wbm

by Jake Lorenzo

Wine Business Monthly has decided its readers no longer need the insights provided by an aging winemaker/detective. They clearly gave little thought to the financial needs of that same aging writer, but that is the way of the world. It’s been two months since this detective has written anything, but the time has come to say something.

So, Jake Lorenzo sits at the keyboard gazing through the window at our glorious backyard garden, which after weeks of backbreaking work is 90 percent cleared of winter weeds. Hummingbirds flit about the bright red/yellow bulb flowers that dangle like Christmas ornaments on the maple bush. The Green Goddess lilies are in full bloom, orange poppies glow in the sunlight and purple lilies have started their ascension. Spring is upon us. Life goes on.

Today is St. Patrick’s Day and I spent the morning making a SO₂ addition as I racked three carboys of Pinot Noir Nouveau. I topped my barrels of 2025 Pinot Noir and Syrah, and I transferred a couple cases of Guerrilla Vino Pinot Noir from the winery to my house cellar. I went to the garden, harvested both lettuce and arugula, washed and cleaned them, and put them into the refrigerator. I walked down to Ye Olde Public House and had a solitary Guiness enjoying the idle conversation of unfamiliar bar mates and bartenders. Life goes on.

It’s not like this detective has been idle during this period of gainful unemployment. The days of madness that encompassed Christmas and New Years were loaded with friends, fine meals, and good times. We had eight for our traditional Christmas dinner of Prime Rib with Yorkshire pudding, spread out company through the week and celebrated New Year’s Eve with 14 in attendance for our traditional Dungeness Crab Feed (cooked like Cajun Crawfish.)

Daily weeding in January was broken up with chores. I had to put a new roof on the shed because it leaked when it rained. That revealed some rot, so a couple of beams got replaced along with two side panels. I pressure-washed the whole shed, primed it and then repainted it. It’s looking great for the upcoming summer.

By then it was time for Jake Lorenzo’s birthday, so we escaped the Northern California rains for two weeks of sunshine with friends in their Cabo San Lucas home overlooking the Pacific Ocean. We watched whales frolic in the Pacific, leaping from the water to splash back into the ocean again and again. Fleets of tourist-filled boats chased them until the whales grew weary and dove deep to be left alone. We weren’t as close, but still had a magnificent view, leaning on the edge of the pool with palomas in hand.

Each night, we’d wander down to town for a great meal, visiting old favorites like Farol 16, JM Steakhouse, or Invita Bistro. We did our mandatory crawl to Vas Que Vuelas for tlayudas followed by Tacos Ramiros and his incredible suadero. We were thrilled to find Mesa de Luna, a brand new favorite to add to our regular rotation. Guacamole y Pork Belly Chicharron, Aguachile de Costillas, Roasted Beet Carpaccio, and incredible Grilled Octopus all served with homemade tortillas, bread, and desserts. Some things don’t change and two weeks in Mexico is always good for the soul, even when the government unleashes its soldiers on the cartels inciting a round of setting vehicles on fire to disrupt traffic patterns.

We spent late nights deep in discussions, and since our hosts and the other guests were in the wine business we often pondered the downturn in the wine business. We made it a rule to never talk about the wine business while drinking wine, So Jake Lorenzo offered his theories while imbibing mezcal or tequila. Jakelyn’s mom stuck to a bottle of McCallan 12 Scotch, which she timed out perfectly to finish on our last night.

Typical causes for wines decline came up in our conversations. Wine was too expensive as were the tasting fees. Boomers were drinking up their cellars instead of replenishing them. Young people weren’t drinking. Tariffs were increasing costs. There were too many vineyards, grapes, and wineries. All good plausible causes for wine’s downturn, but this detective inserted something else. The population is too concerned with its health.

Granted, this is not original to Jake Lorenzo. I got most of my information from Dr. Iggy Calamari, inventor of the wine powered pacemaker. Dr. Calamari cited studies that show being fit is today’s biggest status symbol. One third of Americans said they’d like to live forever. They get real time health tracking from wearables that can run blood results on Chat GPT. Consumers are focused on their health, and they are being told that wine is unhealthy.

It’s not enough for people to feel good, they want to look good too. These days looking good is being skinny. One out of every eight adults, 15.5 million people in the United States, are using or have used GLP-1 medications like Ozempic or Wegovy to help control their weight. Dr. Calamari warns that GLP-1 medications target all pleasure centers in the brain. They don’t just reduce your desire to eat, they can reduce your desire to gamble, go out to events, or drink. If you are using GLP-1s, then you are likely drinking less than before. The desire to drink occurs less often and when you drink you drink less.

Whatever you think of President Trump, his policies have had a devastating effect on tourism in the United States. This past year, we welcomed 11 million fewer tourists than the year before. The U.S. was the world’s only major travel destination with a decline in international tourists. Take 15.5 million people on GLP-1 drugs and remove an additional 11 million tourists looking for a good time from the wine drinking equation, and you’ve got a good start for a downturn in consumption.

This detective thinks this focus on personal health is unhealthy. I work in my garden to grow my own organic vegetables, so much of what I eat is healthy I stretch my muscles when I reach for a bottle of wine on the top shelf of my wine cellar or when I crouch down to select bottles from cases on the ground.  I get enough exercise walking to my local wine shop to buy wine.

After years of experience, I am convinced that drinking wine relieves stress, that having a satisfying meal with friends contributes to our well-being, and that spending time with friends is essential for living a rewarding life. I’m glad people want to be healthy, but we must bring moderation to bear on this emphasis on personal health. The true benefit of being healthy is to enjoy life. Wine helps us enjoy life. Life goes on. Pull a cork today, it’s the best you can do for yourself.

by Jake Lorenzo

Back in the day, when Jake Lorenzo was a working professional winemaker, I would get to the winery before sunrise during harvest. I’d unlock the front door, take a few deep breaths, then fling the door open and sprint through the winery to unlock and open the gigantic sliding barndoor in the back. Once outside, I’d fill my lungs with cool morning air, congratulating myself on not suffocating in all the carbon dioxide that collected overnight from the fermenting tanks.

Every now and then, at some point in the breathing, sprinting, and recovering, a fruit fly would get caught in my throat. This detective’s writing cannot do justice to how terrible a feeling that is, but every winemaker and cellar rat knows exactly what I am talking about. That distressing scratchy tickle of the fruit fly desperately trying to escape while you choke and cough and swallow is a discomfort never forgotten.

Because Jake Lorenzo is not just a detective, but also a winemaker, I know quite a bit about Drosophila melanogaster. Fruit flies eat food that is decaying. They live in trash bins, compost piles, and any place overripe or rotting fruit is available. Fermenting wine is especially attractive to fruit flies. A female fruit fly can lay up to 500 eggs in a single batch, and those eggs can move through their growth cycles to adulthood in as few as eight days. Then you have 500 fruit flies, with each female capable of laying 500 eggs per batch, so a small number of fruit flies can explode into an overwhelming infestation seemingly overnight. Rotting fruit is loaded with germs, which flies pick up on their bodies and transfer wherever they land. That’s why this detective hates fruit flies, especially when they land in my glass of fine wine, rippling the surface while flailing away like drowning synchronized swimmers.

I bring this up because last night this detective had an open bottle of 2023 Shiraz from Ministry of Clouds Winery standing on my butcher block kitchen island. The neck of that bottle was covered with a dozen fruit flies. This is inside Jake Lorenzo’s house . . . in December. I’ve had fruit fly issues during harvest, but in all the years we’ve lived in Sonoma, we’ve never had swarms of fruit flies inside our house, certainly not in December. When I dragged Jakelyn’s mother into the kitchen to witness this infestation, she calmly proposed, “I wonder if it has anything to do with all the unpicked grapes left on the vines.”

There it was: a plausible explanation. The fruit fly invasion could simply be an unintended consequence of the plummeting prospects of the wine industry. Wine prices were too high, baby boomers were dying off, young people were sucking down kombucha cocktails instead of wine, whatever the purported causes, wine sales had tanked. Wineries decided to make less wine, at least, until their over-stuffed inventories came more into line with actual demand. If wineries make less wine, they buy fewer grapes. Grape growers lose buyers, they have no place for their grapes, so the fruit hangs forlornly on unpicked vines rotting in the open, inviting fruit flies to have a field day.

Unintended consequences and fruit flies are the least of our problems. If growers aren’t selling their grapes, then wineries are making less wine. That means equipment suppliers are suffering as well, because wineries making less wine don’t need new tanks, or barrels, or as many corks, capsules, and bottles. It could be the wrong time to build that new warehouse, upgrade the computer system or invest in that self-operating tractor.

The wine industry is suffering, and the unintended consequences of a laboring wine economy have caused Wine Business Monthly to notify this detective that no matter how revealing, humorous, and popular they might be, this will be the last Jake Lorenzo column published by Wine Business Monthly.

For 21 years, they have encouraged Jake Lorenzo to tell his tales of life in the Wine Country. They allowed me to introduce Jakelyn’s mother, Chuy Palacios, Dr. Iggy Calamari and dozens of my other friends and acquaintances. It has been this detective’s mission to continuously remind people that a key component of the wine industry is the joy of doing the work and making the product. If you aren’t having fun making wine and sharing that joy with friends, then what’s the point?

I would like to thank everyone at the magazine for allowing me to say what I had to say and letting me do it the way I chose. They never edited my tales or tried to temper my sometimes outlandish views. This detective knows Jake Lorenzo has loads of fans, because you come up and tell me how much you appreciate my friends and my sense of humor. I thank you for your encouragement and support. These years of writing have allowed me to publish six books simply by sharing tales about our friends, table, and cellar. It’s been a great run. Jakelyn’s mom and I are thankful to have lived it.

Jake Lorenzo is not disappearing, but I am taking a bit of time off to recharge my batteries, restock the wine cellar, and decide upon my next move. I am leaning towards a blog, so I can keep writing. I think I’ll charge one bottle of wine a year for access. If shipping proves too expensive, you can deliver your bottle to me in person. Maybe we’ll sit on the porch and drink it with some food. There is no telling who might drop by. Whatever you do, do not use Jake Lorenzo as a dumping ground to normalize your ballooning wine inventories. My neighbors will not be happy if trucks full of wine pull up to my door, so don’t bring more than you can carry.

So, if you want to keep up with Jake Lorenzo and my friends, send your email address to me at jake@winepatrol.com. I promise no ads or hassles, just notices about when I post new stuff.

You might enjoy checking our website, winepatrol.com as well.