Of Wine and Leaf
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Kevin Godbee - Jul 9, 2013
- 5 min read
Russ Ouellette
All living things are products of their environment. Anyone who was raised Jewish or Catholic knows the meaning of guilt intimately, for example. The same holds true for most products made of naturally growing items. This is why pipe and guitar makers are so choosy about the wood they use. Another interesting parallel is wine and pipe tobacco. Note the spelling- W-I-N-E. Pipe guys are frequently known to whine about tobacco, but that’s the wrong homonym.
Both grapes and tobacco are very sensitive to soil and microclimate. Now, I’m not a real oenophile; I’ll leave that to Greg Pease, who’s really knowledgeable about wines, but I enjoy them. That said, I’ve heard people mention that with some grapes, a particularly dry growing season is conducive to higher sugar content, which will obviously have a major impact on wines made with them. Seasonal growing conditions will also have a big impact on tobacco’s sugar and nicotine content, the size and color of the leaf, and many other things.
How and when both items are harvested will make a difference as well. It takes a skilled grower to know when either should be harvested, and the methods can vary. Grapes can look ripe when they’re not, and the timing is critical because they stop ripening when picked. Tobacco can be stalk-cut (the entire plant is cut and hauled to barns) or primed (rows of leaves are removed from the plant at various intervals). Grapes need to be carefully stored under proper conditions before beginning to process them into wine. Tobacco has to be cured and aged following harvest, and different types are treated with varying methods- air, sun, flue and fire-curing of the leaf produce distinctly different results, and the curing process is tailored to the variety of tobacco.
Some wines may be made from one type of grape from a given year, but it’s more common to make wines that are blended from different varietals, and even from varying years. This is done to help produce consistency from one year to the next. It may also be done to create more complexity by combining disparate wines that have distinct characteristics.
There are certainly a number of parallels with tobacco, here. Although some folks might be quite happy smoking a straight, unblended Virginia from one crop, most smokers prefer mixtures of various types of leaf to create depth and for the individual elements to complement each other to produce a more satisfying result. Similarly, combining tobaccos from different years will help with consistency. I usually combine leaf from consecutive years in a gradual transition to try to keep flavors as steady as possible. General Cigar, when making Macanudo, will cold-store leaf from different years together to allow the flavors to marry while lessening variations.
White, red and blush wines don’t only owe their color to the hue of the fruit itself, but in how the grapes are processed. Leaving the skins of darker grapes in the pressed juice will impart more color, and the amount of time will affect the intensity of the shade, but red grapes can produce white wines if the skins are separated from the juice right away.
Tobacco Growing in Virginia
Here’s another way that both products are alike. There can be differences in leaf color based upon strain, the growing conditions and how the leaf is harvested, but the way it’s cured, fermented and aged will affect the tint as well.
And there’s another parallel, since I just mentioned fermentation- both wine and tobacco have to go through the process. In both cases, fermentation has a major impact on flavor and body. Too little fermentation in either case produces a result that will be noticeably "off", and too much can have disastrous consequences also.
Aging has a significant impact with either of the two. Wines generally have a minimum of time that they should age before they’re truly enjoyable, and most will continue to improve for a long period of time. At some point, however, flavor may decline, and all of this waxing and waning will vary depending upon the type of wine. Additives can also change how a wine will age, and the commercial "drink now" wines have more of these to keep the wine from degrading, but it will also stunt the maturation.
Likewise, tobacco will change with age. Virginias tend to get sweeter, Burleys undergo a more subtle change, Latakia softens. Blends will exhibit some very interesting transformations with time. Many Virginia blends with Burley and/or Perique added will develop some truly intriguing deep fruity notes with time.
Cabernet Sauvignon Grapes Growing in the Napa Valley at The Robert Mondavi Winery
Both end products are best enjoyed in moderation. With a little too much wine in you, it won’t make a significant difference whether you’re sipping a Beaujolais nouveau in November, or Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill in your basement. I think (and this is purely my opinion) that part of the reason that some people smoke only one blend, while others are constantly switching things up is that the single blend smoker is probably puffing all day long, and his/her tastebuds have become so acclimated, and to some degree, abused that the flavor becomes secondary.
One final observation- the vessel is of vital importance with wine and pipe tobacco. A wide opening for a wine glass allows more oxidation, which works well for some wines, while narrower glasses restrict the process. Narrow champagne flutes are made to keep the effervescence in the wine for a longer period of time.
In a like manner, pipe geometry will have an impact on the smoke. Wide bowled pipes, like the pot shape, tend to allow the flavor of Latakia blends to really blossom, while taller and more narrow chambers seem to get the most out of Virginias. Not everyone ascribes to this concept, and that’s fine, just as it’s okay to drink red wine with fish, if you prefer.
Thanks to Kevin for the idea for this article, because until he suggested it, I didn’t really think about all the similarities between wine and pipe tobacco, but it’s been an interesting thing to investigate. Now that I’m doing my final edit, I’m doing it with a hefty Latakia blend in an oversized prince with a glass of late bottled vintage Port…in moderation, of course.
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Russ Ouellette is the blender/creator of the Hearth & Home series of tobaccos for Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe and www.pipesandcigars.com in Bethlehem, PA. He has been a pipe smoker and blender for over 30 years, and enjoys feedback from the pipe smoking public. You can reach Russ at russo@pipesandcigars.com or by calling 1-800-494-9144 on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9 am to 5 pm and Friday from 1 pm to 5 pm. |
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
Well there’s nothing like a touch of the plague to usher in the changing season. Leaving the airport just when the first advertisements for all things pumpkin spice began to appear—lattes, muffins, shampoos, trash bags, and myriad other concoctions—so, too, my ability to breathe freely disappeared. The unfortunate side effect of losing one’s sense of taste and smell for weeks is the utter inability to enjoy tobacco. Not that I consider myself an expert on anything but my own tastes, but be forewarned that this review was made with mildly impugned sensory equipment. Just when a comforting pipe was most needed, its comfort was denied. Be that as it may, the road to recovery found me limping along on one lung this past month, trying to wrest the particulars of two blends on offer from Sutliff: the latest 175th Anniversary blend, Silver Quarter, as well as their spooky seasonal Maple Shadows II. Silver Quarter is a new style on offer from Sutliff, their first coin-cut blend. 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The tin notes are, forgive the pun, on the nose for a good VaPer blend: mild tart sweetness peeking out from behind dried hay and slight chocolate undertones, with a lightly tannic finish of weathered oak. It is always a joy to prepare a coin cut, my preference being to put a few in my palm and vigorously warm my hands together to fully break them apart. These well-formed discs pack and light easily, and smoke with little prodding to the end of the bowl. For technical points it scores well—it smokes light, and it’s easy to tend the ember. While it gets sharp after a few quick bowls, pacing should be heeded to easily smoke down to the heel without inviting bite. Of the flavor, though, I am left a bit wanting. There are tart and high notes aplenty, but very little of the lemony citrus I would anticipate, as well as scant midtones; they tend more toward the red wine-vinegary and sour. 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With a sweet coffee or tea to accompany, the aftertaste of the maple is reinvigorated on the palate […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 632. Our featured guest on tonight’s show is the host of the Pipe & Tamper Podcast, Mike Murphy. Brian and Mike will have an extended chat revolving around the days before, during and after the Las Vegas International Pipe Show. We will hear about their travels to the show and the anxiety of Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida at the same time while running a show and not knowing if your house is going to be there when you get home. In the end, the show went great and our homes survived, although many others in Florida were not so lucky. We’ll have clips from the show, and shoutouts to other podcasts and vlogs that were broadcasting from the pipe show.
Vegas Baby The show started out strong on the 14th floor hospitality suites hosted by the Vegas Pipe Show and Smoking Pipes as well as room hopping to carvers, estate sellers, and vendors to pre-game for the festivities. If you’re interested in what that looks like I’ll refer you to last years pipe show round up. I circled with Brian Levine to get the totals in comparison to last year: This year’s show numbers: 108 Exhibitor tables, 445 attendees, 3,250 Raffle Tickets, 100ish dinners, 172 Rooms in the Hotel. Last year, by comparison, 107 exhibitor tables, 425 attendees, 2,200 raffle tickets, 104 dinners, and 175 rooms on Friday and Saturday nights. We were at capacity, basically, when it came to vendor tables and the dinner, so there is no physical room for growth at this point except for attendees. That said, we filled that smoking lounge to the brim. New Carvers Spotlight Garret Woo (Pipes by Woo) How long have you been carving? Garret: I’ve been carving since 2021, and I’m guessing your next question is probably how’d you get started carving? James: Yes. Garret: In 2021 I took a break from my full time job – that included machining and assembly work and I thought maybe it was time I made something that I would like and I started looking at youtube and Instagram and putting together my shop. I did struggle on the stems to start and there was a lot of failure at the beginning. James: How many pipes have you made so far? Garret: I number my pipes, so I just finished up 186. James: What is your favorite shape you’ve been making? Garret: I really dig Canadians and pipes with longer shanks and lovat Canadian blends. I like to play with different shapes of stems on the longer shanked pipes. The billiard would be my go-to shape but I want to learn more techniques on freehanded shapes. I like to put brass and copper adornments on my pipes with my machining background it helps. James: What is the craziest thing you’ve seen at this show? Garret: The first thing that comes to mind is the table over there with C-Pipes with the shapes and the size and petiteness and the intricate details they did. You can check out what Garret is working on by going to his Instagram. Stefan Cashwell James: how long have you been carving? Stefan: about 3 years. James: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at the show? Stefan: The Adam Davidson pipe with the clear shape and the bamboo—I don’t know if it’s 3D printed or what, but it’s amazing. James: What’s your favorite shape to do? Stefan: That’s a tough question. I think they’re all the same shape, but what’s fascinating is that Dublin, volcano, and blowfish are all the same depending on how you turn them. Playing with that, with all its variations, is a lot of fun. My favorite accent to use is also horn; it’s finicky, but it’s a great accent on pipes. You can check out Stefan’s work on his Instagram. Science: Meet Pipes I chatted with Chris from the San Diego Pipe Club; he started off doing stem replacements for estate pipes but also improved the airflow. James: How are you doing 3d printing? What is the thought process? Chris: It’s a 3D-printed pipe with a briar insert. The design is a calabash meets a Peterson system meets a metal Falcon/Kirsten radiator style. It is a bottom draft smoking bowl like a radiator like those metal pipes. The inside chamber is a calabash. The stummel and accent rings in the stems are all 3d printed. The insert is briar, olive wood, or I have the potential to use meerschaum as well. This idea came about through the San Diego Pipe Club, wanting to see if we could 3D print a pipe and being curious about the technology; I have a printer and design ability, so here we are. James: What’s the type of plastic you’re using? Chris: It’s all PLA plastic, a renewable potato starch plastic that is food-safe. The stummels are printed with a plastic that has wood in it 40% wood fiber, bamboo, rosewood, ebony, redwood, and walnut are the woods I’m printing. For the accent rings I just got a new material that I’m printing that has 40% copper, so its real metal that you can sand, and polish the same as wood filament. The stems are 3d printed as well. The concept is renewable and cheap from a production standpoint, with the ability to make a very high quality smoking pipe based on the experience. By combining the calabash system pipe and bottom draft hole and using 3d simulations to see airflow, I can see where I’m having eddies and ripples in my current, and see where my moisture and all the particles are dropping back out from a vapor to a liquid. Most people who have tried these say the stems are clean, and they don’t even have to run a pipe cleaner afterward because everything collects at the bottom. Chris has also been experimenting with color-changing plastics so you can see the hotspots. Chris said he was able to use this to slow down his cadence, which, of course, could mean you could get a slow-smoke training pipe to teach yourself to perform better. If you’re interested in learning more or want to check one out, you can contact him on Instagram: Copper Beard Pipe Works The Negative Space The show was buzzing about one specific pipe, which had everyone guessing how it was made. I chatted with Adam Davidson briefly about it. James: How did this idea come to fruition? Adam Davidson: Smokingpipes.com had an expo back in August open to all of the makers they carry. The theme was to make a pipe utilizing bamboo. Given that the last time we had the expo I made a smooth Almond with three bamboo shanks, […]
Another nice article from Russ. I like that he touched on the use of glassware to bring out flavors and nuances and the similarity of this to bowl shapes lending themselves to certain forms of tobacco. I also appreciate his thoughts on the agricultural nature of the grape and the tobacco leaf and the use of blending with both products to maintain consistency and develop complexity.
I’d also add that, often times, a wine is improved by the process of decanting it, as is tobacco often improved by proper drying.
I am a oenophile so, of course, I found this article fascinating. Well done, Russ.
The only point I would quibble with is the following:
“Aging has a significant impact with either of the two. Wines generally have a minimum of time that they should age before they’re truly enjoyable, and most will continue to improve for a long period of time.”
In fact, very few wines have the ability to get better with age. The structure and balance of the wine will be the primary factors in determining whether a wine will benefit from aging, and very few wines have sufficient tannins and acidity to benefit from aging. While these attributes are found more often in red wines than white wines, the reality is that only a very tiny proportion of wines truly posses these characteristics. In this regard, it might also be suggested that the impact of the winemaker’s skills on whether a wine produced will age well is much greater than the impact of the blender’s skill on whether a tobacco blend will age gracefully.
Fine article Russ and like you did at the end of your story, my preference is for a glass of Porto with a pipe. And I am well aware of the
Pipe Whiners as well. LOL
Between you and Mr. Pease with your most recent articles, I’m ready for a drink! Seriously though, I’ve learned more about tobacco from this magazine’s articles than the guy at the local cigar shop already, and that’s saying something.
Thanks for the article Russ. I really appreciate the thought and effort put into writing of this caliber. The accompanying illustrations are wonderful too. The many parallels between the two fields are fascinating.