Dr Vino's wine blog

All right, Chicago people. No doubt you have cleared your post-work schedule and are ready to drop by the hip and happening Juicy Wine Co tomorrow from 5:30 – 7:30!

Fun vino-philes, local bloggers of note, and many others that I haven’t met before have let me know they’re coming. Get your weekend started on a good note–hope you can make it!

When: Friday, May 11, 5:30 – 7:30 PM
Where: Juicy Wine Company, 694 N. Milwaukee Ave. (bet Chicago and Erie)
Who: you – and feel free to bring a friend!

See the original posting.

Chicago. Good weather. What could be better? How about a meetup on May 11?

I’ll be in town and look forward to meeting anybody who can make it. We can try wines by the glass (or any bottle from the shop with a $15 corkage fee–or “chill out” fee as they call it) together at the newish and hipster Juicy Wine Co. They have charcuterie and cheeses available.

The meetup is simply a chance to meet in the real world, off the internet, with wine enthusiasts, in particular, readers of this site and people who’ve taken my wine classes at the U of C. There’s no charge other than what you order at the bar. Consider it a happy hour. Or two.

So get your weekend started with fellow vino-philes! Post a comment or drop me a line at tyler [at] drvino [dot] com if you can make it. I look forward to seeing you there!

When: Friday, May 11, 5:30 – 7:30 PM
Where: Juicy Wine Company, 694 N. Milwaukee Ave. (bet Chicago and Erie)
Who: you – and feel free to bring a friend!

On Saturday at the University of Chicago, we had a fun time “critiquing the critics.” We discussed what is certainly one of the hottest hot-button issues in wine, the use of scores, and assessed a variety of other ways for evaluating wine. We tasted our way through ten wines and munched through some artisanal cheeses and breads.

The wines were from a range of styles and included bubbly, red and white. Some of the faves were:

* Bisol prosecco, NV (about $13; find this wine). Controversy came with this wine with high praise from Wine & Spirits (93 points) and faint praise wine Wine Spec (86 points). The yummy sparkler got a thumbs up from the group.

* William Fevre, Vaudesir, Grand Cru Chablis, 2004 (about $45; find this wine). I didn’t even realize that Rovani/Parker tasted Chablis but Rovani slapped a 93 on this one. ‘Tis good. Wonderful minerality with delicate acidity, which makes for a very nice mouthfeel and it has an excellent finish. No unanimity on this wine to be sure, with others preferring the American chardonnay, but I thought it was excellent, if pricey.

* Deisen, shiraz, Barossa, 2002 (about $50; find this wine). A brawny shiraz from down under with 15% alcohol. Parker 94. The class loved it with no dissenters. While the wine is very user friendly as far as shiraz-ma-taz is concerned, I found the alcohol to be somewhat off-putting.

* Castano, Hecula, monastrell, 2004. (about $10; find this wine). This is a darned good value vino since many participants thought it was at least $30. It’s got hints of that mourvedre gamey-ness and I think it could do with a few years in the cellar to tame it a bit. But still, it’s vigor would be great with game or grilled meats.

* Dominus, Napa, 2003 (about $100; find this wine) This was the most critically contested wine of the day with a huge spread between Parker’s 95 and the Wine Spec’s Jim Laube zinging it with an 81 (a score so low that the Wine Advocate would not even publish it). Laube didn’t even grumble about TCA, the usual cause of his zingers, simply going with the “disappointingly dry and austere.” I poured it blind and there were lots of pros and only two cons before I revealed the “controversy.”

It was a hedonistic afternoon. If you’re interested, there may be a couple of spaces left for my next class in May. Hope to see you there!

Eric Asimov’s trying to eliminate my job!

In his column yesterday (which is currently the #3 most emailed on the site), the NYT chief wine critic and chief wine blogger says that the best thing for wine newbies to do is find a trusted wine shop and put $250 of your wine budget in their hands and walk out with a case of wine. It’s better than even taking a class he argues.

As a wine educator (with three classes this week), I have to object! But he does make a good point–two good points, actually.

First, my objection. In my classes, I select wines, organize them thematically or stylistically, pair them with food (granted, just cheese, bread, and occasionally olives not a full meal), show maps, images, and talk about the politics, people and history of a wine. We also talk about how to find the best wine buys locally, wine-friendly restaurants, where to taste wines for free, how to serve, and much more. The two hours fly by. And all participants get to talk, sip, and discuss, so there is a social aspect as well. So don’t write off classes too quickly, even for newbies! They can have much to offer.

But Asimov still has a fundamentally good point: there’s no substitute for learning through tasting. Not everyone will have wine classes available near them or perhaps the time to take a class so then I absolutely agree that you should put your money where your mouth is via a local retailer. This lowers the barriers of entry so that anybody can do it, regardless of level of wine geekdom.

The second good point that Asimov makes is to trust a local retailer, hopefully two retailers. Why? Well, for one, they have the wines available to sell you. Many times you can read about great sounding wines on the web or in print but then you can’t find them near you. Trusting the retailer doesn’t lead to that frustration.

Moreover, you can have feedback. Unlike a critic whom you may never meet, you might visit your retailer once a week or once a month. So there’s accountability. They want to make you happy and keep you coming back, not sell you wine a hedonistic fruit bomb if your preferences run more toward the earthy and the minerally.

But one subtle distinction: the custom case is the way to go over the pre-fab case. Many wine shops put together cases at various price points or for different flavor preferences. While these sometimes can be good, I’m always leery that they are putting wines that need to “move” in such cases. When you choose a staffer to put together your case for you, not only is it more customized, but it’s more likely to be wines chosen simply on their merits, rather than economic reasons.

So, why are you still in front of your computer? Get thee to a shop!

Related:
“Add some juice to your wine dollar: buying tips” [Dr. V]
“Making a case: 12 gift wines” [Dr. V]

Geography is now less of an excuse for not taking a wine class with me this spring!

Critiquing the critics, University of Chicago, 4/14, 2:30 – 6:30
We review different styles of wine evaluation culminating with YOU being the critic in our tasting. Details and registration

Red, white, and green wine, University of Chicago, 5/12, 2:30 – 6:30
While organic food is all the rage, organic wine has arguably lagged behind. We assess the various shades of “green” wine and then put our knowledge to the test and see if we can taste the difference. Details and registration

Wine emergency! How to navigate a wine list, NYU, 3/22 6:30 – 8:30
The business dinner. The big date. Avoid making them a wine emergency as we navigate wine lists–and taste!–with confidence. Details and registration

I hope to see you at one of these one-day sessions! News of a Chicago meetup forthcoming…

tags: wine | wine classes

With the Super Bowl looming on February 4, some wine geeks may be wondering what to drink during the event — while others may be wondering how they can win some wine.

Betting and sports have a long (March Madness) but limited (Nevada) tradition in the US. But it is only thanks to Las Vegas we have an indication of what the odds are of one team winning over another. The most common indicator is the “spread” or number of point margin of victory of one team over another. In this year’s Super Bowl XLI the Indianapolis Colts are the favorite by seven points over the Chicago Bears.

Thus a fan of the Bears could take seven points, see her team lose 21-17 but still win on the bet. You win while the team loses. This suboptimal outcome means that your bet is not aligned with your enthusiasm for the team.

I put this puzzle to my friend who writes about sports on Gothamist and he advised me of the “moneyline,” which awards different values to bets while not offering any point spread. Thus if your team wins, you win the wager. The moneyline for the Superbowl is Indianapolis -240 and Chicago +200. That means that to place a $240 wager on the Colts in Las Vegas would win back your original wager plus $100. A $100 bet on the Bears would yield the original wager plus $200.

Thus wine geeks who are fans of the Bears could bet a $10 wine with a friend and Indianapolis supporter who would put up a $22 bottle of wine. Say, a Texier Cotes du Rhone 2004 (find this wine) for a Heinrich Mayr-Nusser 02 Lagrein Riserva (find this wine)? Or raise the stakes to double those price points if you are so inclined. But at the end of the day–or football season–the best way to celebrate friendship might just be if you had to drink the bottle together.

Assuming, of course, that you both are over 21 and live in Nevada.

The original version of this post appeared on January 27, 2006.

tags: wine | superbowl | Chicago Bears | indianapolis colts

This is not a beer blog. But we can commiserate with our hops and barley brethren and sist’ren on occasion. (I even posted about French microbrews this summer.) Looking at a recent story about beer is especially important since it sheds light the political construction of alcohol markets in the US.

The Chicago Reader has a cover story about how the owner of Bell’s, a popular beer from Michigan, has withdrawn from the large Chicago market because of distributors. Roll the tape:

Until October Bell’s was distributed in Chicago by Union, which is owned by National Wine and Spirits. (NWS is currently enmeshed in court proceedings; NWS vice president Greg Molloch says a gag order prevents him from commenting for this article.) Bell was happy at NWS. But according to state law, NWS was entitled to sell Bell’s distribution rights to another wholesaler without his approval, and a few months ago it decided to do just that, in a deal with Chicago Beverage Systems— the Miller distributor in Chicago. CBS is part of Reyes Holdings, the biggest beer distributor in America and, according to Crain’s Chicago Business, the biggest privately held company in town.

…People in the industry are skeptical about whether CBS can properly distribute these smaller brands. “What they do, before they started dabbling [in regional beers], they did very well,” says Laura Blasingame at the Map Room. She buys Heineken and Amstel from CBS. “Those brands are hard to mess up. CBS takes care of beers that don’t need as much love. I understand why Larry Bell would be nervous. I don’t know if they really know how to handle craft beer.” CBS officials didn’t answer questions on its approach to distributing craft beer.

State law says that a distributor can drop (or better yet, sell the rights to) a brewery at any time. But outside of identifying “just cause” like gross professional misconduct— such as selling beer past its sell-by date—there’s no easy way for a brewery to dump its distributor.

Check out the whole story. It has sad parallels to the wine biz…

Thanks, Mark!

tags: wine | beer | the business of wine

Read it and weep–former coach of the Chicago Bears, Mike Ditka, has a new wine called “Mike Ditka Kick Ass Red.” [wire story]

Assuming that “kick ass” refers to the quality in the bottle and not an alcohol level higher than a Hail Mary, this is the first celebrity wine I’ve ever seen to include a direct testimony to quality on the label. In fact, it even trumps the need to talk about grape varieties! Hmm, $50 a bottle…I guess it’s not for tailgate parties.

UPDATE: the wine is a blend of zinfandel, syrah, petite sirah so it will have heft. A pinot grigio and chardonnay are also planned. No word on whether those are kick ass.

tags: wine | mike ditka | football

“I realize it’s subjective, but there need to be some guidelines that say, in order for a restaurant to get three stars–and I’m not talking about anyone in particular–you need to have a wine list.” -Paul Kahan (Blackbird, Avec) in a chef’s roundtable in November’s Chicago magazine. Hmm, nobody in particular? How about Micahel Carlson at Schwa, which is BYOB?!

“Anybody who wouldn’t have a wine program is leaving so much money on the friggin’ table, you’re crazy! That’s where all the money is.” -Charlie Trotter, same roundtable. How long until Michael Carlson gets a lease on a bigger location and gets a wine program?

“Beer, wine and liquor-based concoctions often have profit margins more than double those of food — making them just the ticket for a restaurant’s sagging bottom line. And the timing is right: Americans’ alcohol consumption, after dropping for nearly two decades, is on the rise again — due in large measure to recent effective marketing campaigns by wine and spirits makers.” -Wall Street Journal, 10/12/06

tags: wine | chicago | byob | wine | charlie trotter