Dr Vino's wine blog

SPIT: Bling champagne
An unnamed source cites declines of 50-85% in champagne sales with pricey stuff hit hardest. The story by Alice Feiring in this weekend’s WSJ. magazine also suggest price wars may be imminent. (Lack of) Money quote comes from Roberta Morrell, a NYC retailer: “The trouble with dropping prices is how will they raise them?”

SPIT: reporting on Champagne
An article on JancisRobinson.com criticizes recent coverage of Champagne’s 2009 harvest. Main quibble: “After the harvest there will not be masses of grapes left to rot on the vine.”

SIPPED: changes in Chicago
Sam’s Wine & Spirits closed their South Loop location last month and now will close their Highland Park store. Meanwhile, Illinois now has an increased tax on wine, rising $0.13 per bottle to $0.28. As a result, distributor Rocky Wirtz has sued the state. Five other states recently raised taxes on wine.

SIPPED: Binge shopping
Annual wine sales at big box stores in France bring out “legions” of consumers. Carrefour sold six million bottles during its sale last year. [AP]

Yes, even though the economy is down, some people are not out!

For exhibit A, we turn to an anonymous clubgoer who, according to the blog Guest of a Guest, spent $20k on a methuselah (six liters) of Armand de Brignac. Yes, Ace of Spades, so 2006! But still going strong, apparently. NY mag’s Grub Street terms this bling spend an example of “douchebauchery.”

For exhibit B, we turn to the Charles de Gaulle airport, where an anonymous Christmas eve shopper (desperate for a gift?) dropped 46,423 euros ($65,013) during a wine spending spree! Bloomberg details what he brought the the register: “a Cote du Rhone [sic] La Tache from 1991 and several bottles from the Bordeaux region, including a Lafite Rochschild bottled [sic] in 1947 and a Chateau Latour from 1976.” Paper or plastic? Seriously, this dude needed to think of structuring his gift so the recipient could spend the $65k at auction, where all the deals are!

With little new wine bling rolling out for this holiday season, I had a brief encounter with the bling of Christmas past. No, it wasn’t the $10k white gold Dom Pérignon jerobaum we brought you (photographically, at least) last year.

Instead, a few days ago I stumbled on an actual bottle of the Hennessy Beauté du Siècle cognac (find this cognac). Introduced last year in its display case designed by ten artists using mirrors and molded aluminum (!), the cognac is supposedly hand delivered in a limousine by one of the directors of LVMH when a bottle is, in fact, purchased. I twisted the Baccarat crystal bottle around in its holder (I didn’t lift it because I thought it might trip a sensor and since I’m not Indiana Jones, I didn’t have a 750g bag of sand to put in its place). There’s no label, save for the government warning! Ah, the surgeon general’s reach escapes no one.

Perhaps there is an aluminum lining for those interested in purchasing: introduced at €150,000 last year, the price has gone down based on exchange rates alone!

The sound of corks popping may be replaced by the sound of pins dropping: the next victim of the financial crisis appears to be the lavish holiday party. Morgan Stanley has nixed theirs. News Corporation sent theirs to the cutting room floor while ABC News is planning something more modest. Another financial services firm retains the Christmas spirit but cut the Taittinger and is adding something else (a bull market for prosecco and cava?), to trim the per person tab at their party according to the Times. The (no-)money quote: “Nobody’s ordering caviar as a first course.”

What’s your company doing this year to cut back, if anything? All the Dr. Vino interns were disappointed that this year’s magnum party has been downsized to a 375ml party. But hopefully we will all have something to cheer after the election!

Carlsberg, the Danish brewer, has announced the release of a $400 beer called “Vintage No. 1.” According to Bloomberg, the beer, which costs 357 times more than the regular Carlsberg lager, “has been developed to challenge luxury wines in the gourmet restaurant market and capitalize on rising individual wealth.”

But don’t they know that bling is only allowed in wine country! (OK, maybe cognac too.) How dare them try to pry our white-gold encrusted jerobaums out of our wine stained fingers! Bling beer, you’re on notice!

Related:
- “Research subjects think more expensive means better wine!”
- “Are restaurants pushing wine for profit?”
- More on notice

BREAKING: Behavioral economists at Caltech attached an EEG to the heads of 21 volunteers who knew not much about wine, fed them one milliliter of cabernet through a tube and the only thing they told them about the price, which wasn’t always accurate! Guess which one they always thought was better? The more expensive one, even when it was the same wine!

For a summary of this study, check out this BBC account, the best I’ve seen (with blog-worthy reader feedback too! And thanks to readers Grayman, Brian, Stephen and Terry for sending in versions of the story.).

Unfortunately using price as a proxy for quality happens all the time in the world of wine. That’s why, for example, Ace of Spades $300 nonvintage Champagne sells out when it tastes remarkably like the $50 version from the same producer. Hmm, maybe that’s why no samples of it were available during Vinexpo, a savvy crowd of trade tasters? Examples also abound of new producers who release wines at high prices in an attempt to signal quality that may or may not be there.

But, fortunately, price and quality are not always perfectly related. Just last month I poured two wines for participants at a tasting. One was quite a storied Napa producer and another was an unheralded producer from some dustbowl in Spain. They could see the bottles and some knew the Napa name. Which did they prefer? The Spanish one. And when I told them it was $15 vs $115, they rejoiced!

What do you say, is a higher priced wine always better? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments.

It’s too bad that the researchers’ next project is about pain–I was hoping they would repeat the wine quality test with Parker scores. I bet it would have an even higher correlation with perceived quality than price!

Image used with permission from DeLongWine.com

This ancient land was known for precious metals and wine–a fine pairing for any society! If we were teleported there right now, we could try wine from gold or silver vessels while wearing gold-spangled robes. And you thought wine and bling was sooo 2007!

In fact, some residents were so rich that they were buried with their gold wine service. And some were so kinky as to be buried with their servants or horses. But that doesn’t concern us.

Get a load of that silver cummerbund thing above! The scene depicts some grand poobah, complete with five o’clock shadow, getting served wine. Peeled grapes coming up next, no doubt.

Archaeologists have also unearthed a shrine to the god of wine complete with a large, ornate bronze cauldron presumably filled with the fruits of the vine.

Where was this ancient land? And why is it timely now? Win our respect and admiration–and a link back to your site if you have one–by being the first with a correct answer in the comments below.

UPDATE: We have a winner–in record time! Read more…

Last year at this time, I wrote a post called “Give the gift of big red,” which suggested giving wines big in flavor profile and in heavy bottles. However, since my research into the carbon footprint of wine, I’m reformed. Now I know that magnums (1.5 liters) produce less carbon dioxide emissions per ounce of wine than regular bottles because of the more favorable wine-to-glass ratio.

So this year, here’s a list of impressive magnums that will impress your friends and relatives–and even with the bigger bottle, they’ve got a smaller carbon footprint. Providing they drink it all, of course.

While there are many magnums that are ridiculously priced since they are a favorite of collectors, these are in the realm of reasonable, under $100. All prices are for magnums.

Pierre Peters champagne, $90 (find this wine). This champagne is a “grower champagne,” made by the people who grew the grapes (unlike the big houses who buy grapes from the 10,000 growers in the region). It’s from Mesnil, the home to big names such as Krug and Salon, so the vineyard site is excellent. So is the resulting Champange, a blanc de blancs, which I have served many times this year to guests and once from magnum to a class. Great bling at a fraction of bling price! Magnums are particularly good for aging so feel free to keep it for a few years.

Pepiere, “Granite de Clisson,” Muscadet 2005, $40 (find this wine). This producer is a leading quality in the area where the Loire river meets the sea. The wine is his richest and smoothest thanks to two years of aging but it still has good, zippy acidity to compliment seafood such as oysters. It’s also a doubly green wine because the grapes are hand harvested from an organic vineyard.

Schloss Lieser, Riesling Spatlese, Mosel, 2004, $68 (find this wine). I stumbled on this bottle in a wine shop and couldn’t resist it. The Riesling magnum is long and fluted and towers above other magnums. I served it at a party last weekend and the crowd loved it and had fun pouring from such a long neck. The wine has a whiff of flintiness on the nose but had a beautiful balance of light sweetness and acidity on the palate.

Dard & Ribo, Saint-Joseph, 2005, $68 (find this wine). I almost didn’t get a chance to taste this wine because I served it at a party and the revelers almost finished it off before I got to it. But fortunately I did since the wine inside the magnum is terrific with a great balance of red berry fruit, tannin and acidity. This is also a “double green” wine since it is totally natural and this producer is a staple in the trendy natural wine bars of Paris. It makes an especially good gift for someone named Joseph as I found out at the party where a friend named Joe tried to run away with the bottle.

Niepoort, 1997 vintage port, $65 (find this wine). Vintage port is generally very expensive with recent vintages pushing $100 a bottle. Magnums, however, get a significant discount presumably because nobody can drink that much sweet wine in one sitting. Tip: have a party and serve it at the end with some Stilton and it will be an amazing farewell. Another tip: drink as much as you are able and decant it into a regular sized bottle and recork where it will stay good for a good while longer. Whatever you do with it, the stout bottle is an impressive gift.

Choose your Christmas magnum wisely.

Tis the season for one thing: bling!

Item 1: Hennessey has launched Beauté du Siècle, a limited release cognac for $150,000 euros ($220,000; find this cognac). A blend of 100 year old cognacs yadda yadda, it comes in a Baccarat crystal bottle (of course!) and a display chest that “was made by 10 different artists using mirrored glass and melted aluminum” according to Decanter. A member of the Hennessey board will deliver it personally to whoever buys it–in a stretch Hummer, I’m sure! Any bets on which city will see the first delivery? I’m going with Moscow.

Item 2: A bottle of whisky fetched $54,000 (including commissions) at auction in NYC. One of forty bottles, this 1926 Macallan was housed in a humble wood box. Half the bids came in from overseas.

Item 3: It pays to shop around for bling! A reader writes to say that Sherry Lehmann has a Methuselah (6L) of Dom Perignon 1995 for $9,999 instead of the previously discussed jerobaum (3L) for $17,000 at Crush . Only drawback: it doesn’t have the white gold bling since “This rare bottle is packaged in its own locked case with a metallic finish to preserve and protect this fine wine.”

Item 4: bonus bling for 2008! As tucked away in a quick mention here, the new, 250-case 1995 Krug Clos d’Ambonnay (find this champagne) will be coming out for $3,000+ a bottle.

Related: “Judge this cognac by its bottle“