Dr Vino's wine blog

There was a state dinner last night at the White House–the eighth for the Obamas–in honor of visiting Japanese PM Shinzo Abe. About 200 people attended, new china was revealed (above), and “Iron Chef” Masaharu Morimoto was in da haus. Recall that Obama and PM Abe ate at the counter of sushi master Jiro Ono last year, so they clearly like good food.

But what vin-quiring minds want to know is…what were the wines? Would this be a lucky 8 for PM Abe given the lackluster wines the White House wine steward served previously?

The full menu is reproduced below so you can see the wines with the various course. The headline is that the head of the Sonoma Marketing Board (is there such a thing?) must be grinning like a cheshire cat since it was an all-Sonoma lineup. A vinous grand slam (or wait, with three wines, would that only be a triple?). First up was 2013 Ryo-fu Chardonnay from Ken and Akiko Freeman, followed by the 2010 Morlet Family Vineyards “Joli Coeur,” a pinot noir from the Sonoma Coast, and finally, the 2007 Iron Horse “Russian River Cuvee.”

While Sonoma is a wonderful place, It’s not clear what was driving Daniel Shanks, the White House Usher, in featuring the all-Sonoma lineup: there are other great places making wine in America. I personally would have included a domestic dry riesling as a white because there are some good ones now; they are also spring-y and pair well with Asian foods. And Luc Morlet, wow, one of his wines hasn’t been featured since…oh, last year’s dinner for Francois Hollande. Again, same comments as Sonoma: there are a lot of great pinot noirs being made in the US, so why the repetition, Mr. Shanks? And Iron Horse is frequently served (btw, this specific wine is not on their web site so it could be a sweet sparkling wine, which Shanks has served previously).

The champagne toast was replaced by a sake toast. Full menu follows below: Read more…

President Obama just wrapped up a four-country swing through Asia. There was lots of diplomatic talk, to be sure, but inquiring food minds want to know what of the local cuisines Obama got to sample. Thanks to the official food feed (?) of the White House on Twitter, Obamafoodorama (aka Eddie Gehman Kohan), we have some of the foodie details of his trip. The real culinary highlight must have been dining at Sukiybashi Jiro where owner and sushi master Jiro Ono served Obama and Prime Minister Shinzō Abe. Must have been tough to score that rez!

We always enjoy taking a look at the wines poured at state dinners at the White House. But at the state dinner in Manilla, we have the official menu but no wines listed. You know what that means: “impossible food-wine pairings” meets “leaders and liters”! Readers new and old are no doubt salivating as if it were grower champagne and kumamoto oysters! In the absence of word on the actual wines served, here is a combination of two of our favorite themes and the chance for you to play sommelier! Un, deux, trois: voila! The menu from the Philippines: Read more…

Game time: see if you can correctly identify the photo of an official state wine cellar with the correct country, US, UK, and France.

Okay, okay, it’s photographic hyperbole — but the White House really doesn’t have a wine cellar to speak of. Downing Street (top) buys the wines on release and stores them for official occasions. Buckingham Palace has some terrific wines too as you may recall that when Obama went there on a state visit, the Queen uncorked some DRC and ’63 port. The Elysée Palace (middle) has an impressive cellar, as you might expect. The White House, by contrast, procures wines for state functions on-demand so rarely serves wines with much age on them.

The relative paucity of the White House wine cellar has its roots in our country’s love/hate relationship with alcohol: loved it so much that it became a political issue leading to Prohibition. While the shadow of Prohibition looms over the industry in the form of restrictions interstate shipments (among other things), the fact is that Americans are into wine now, as witnessed by instagram feeds or the fact that per capita consumption has increased for 20 consecutive years. So a big chunk of America would probably take pride in having some decent American wines slumbering in the White House basement.

How likely is that to happen? When pigs fly. The UK and France have both reduced their wine collections recently in the name of austerity. China introduced a ban on expensive alcohol at state banquets in the last quarter of 2011. And with an economy that’s not exactly firing on all cylinders here, there’s no way the White House would engender criticism for that kind of expenditure. Still, an American wine lover can but dream. Maybe, as a matter of national pride, Bill Koch could endow the White House with a starter collection of well-vetted wines from his cellar? Read more…

Breaking from tradition, the White House announced the wines to be served at tonight’s state dinner honoring President Francois Hollande and Madame–oh nevermind. So instead of engaging in subterfuge or speculation, we have the list. Here they are: Read more…

President Francois Hollande has many notale differences from his predecessor. But the one that most concerns us: he actually likes wine.

So it may come as somewhat of a surprise that he is trimming the presidential wine cellar, putting 1,200 bottles–about 10 percent of the stash–on the block. But at least it’s for a good cause since the sale at the end of May will go toward a cellar rehab.

The cellar has some gems, as you might expect, including 1990 Petrus. But all the wines have the patina of the state functions. Virginie Routis, chef sommelière of the Palace, made the selections about which wines to put on the block. Kapandji Morhange will start the sale on May 30.

Thanks to a 2012 posting on La Feuille de Vigne, we have some intel on who liked what at the Elysée:
* Charles De Gaulle created the wine cellar
* Madame Chirac had a weak spot for Pauillac wines, which explains why they are overrepresented.
* St. Estephe? The site credits these selections to Mitterrand.
* Burghound? That was Valérie Giscard d’Estaing who was a member of the Chevalier du Tastevin. Read more…

The BBC has a story out on the UK Government’s wine cellar, valued at about $5 million. Needless to say, it puts the dinky White House collection to shame. (Check out the slideshow from the London vaults.)

One item that grabbed some attention in the vinosphere is that they served Obama a wine their tasters had described as “soapy” at his last state dinner at Buckingham Palace. In 2008, they wrote, “Slightly soapy odd palate – hope it comes round. Review in 2011.” Upon review in February 2011, they wrote, “Not soapy, but harsh acidity.” Then the wine was served at the May 2011 state dinner. The article does not note the feedback, if any, from the Palace.

So what was the nasty wine? Well, digging through our “Leaders and Liters” series, we can inform the vintelligentsia that it was the 2004 Domaine William Fevre, “Les Clos,” a grand cru site in Chablis. (Find this wine at retail.) You can check out a few critical reviews here, where the scores ranged from 92-96 points, and none of them used the word “soapy” or comments on the acidity in a negative way. In fact, they bandy around terms such as “star of this extraordinary line-up” at William Fevre, “show-stopping,” “suave,” “seamless,” with an “incredibly intense finish that reminded me more than a little of a great Corton-Charlemagne.” (Whew, that read like a Zagat tasting note.) Clearly premature oxidation is an issue with white burgs, but harsh acidity is not commonly a premox note.

So, what say you: should the White House be offended that they were served a wine their internal tasters panned? Or is the BBC trying to gin up some controversy since the wine has a pedigree and was well-reviewed? See the rest of the wines served at the state dinner. Pity we don’t have the tasting notes for the rest of the wines–would love to have seen how their tasters reviewed the 1990 Domaine de la Romanée Conti, Echezeaux or the ’63 port–such dogs!

Which corks will pop at the lunch immediately after President Obama’s second inauguration on January 21? With Charles Schumer as the chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee planning the inauguration festivities, wine enthusiasts could anticipate that New York wines would make a showing. Indeed, two appear on the menu: the 2009 dry riesling from Tierce in the Finger Lakes will accompany the lobster and Bedell Cellars’ 2009 merlot pairs with the bison. While I haven’t tried these wines, it’s refreshing to have estate wines from New York at the event instead of California wines dominating.

However, there’s some outrage that Korbel is being poured and in the fanfare announcing it where it was touted incorrectly as “Champagne.” While that is a valid point, let’s not lose the real focus here: they’re pouring Korbel at the inauguration! If a sailor offered such plonk to Neptune, the sailor would be practically baiting ramming whales, storms, broken masts and scurvy. The wine is not representative of the exciting things happening in California wine today. Granted, there are surprisingly few quality sparkling wine producers. But finding a good one shouldn’t be too hard for a committee whose members just averted the fiscal cliff. Now, if only they could bring us back from the edge of this vinous precipice.

Thomas Jefferson is often known in wine circles as the best friend that wine enthusiasts ever had in the White House. He might even have been the sommelier-in-chief since he frequently poured wine at official functions (he abhorred whiskey, the main drink of the day) and had wine vaults built below the east colonnade for his collection. At that time, entertaining expenses came out of the president’s own pocket; a story in the now-defunct Wine News once put the valuation at $11,000, or about $200,000 in today’s money.

However, Jefferson was also complicated and deeply hypocritical argues an op-ed in yesterday’s Times. While Jefferson maintained that men were “created equal” in the Declaration of Independence, he continued to own slaves at Monticello for fifty years after the Declaration even while some (but not all) of his contemporaries freed theirs. And to make the connection to wine, there was this passage in the op-ed:

[Jefferson] sold at least 85 humans in a 10-year period to raise cash to buy wine, art and other luxury goods.

The article doesn’t state whether this was after his presidency. But it does reveal the economic basis for at least some of his wine purchases, which casts the real Jefferson bottles in a different light.