Archive for the 'tasting sized pours' Category

Wine circa 1933, LOLz, Cheval Blanc ’47, lite beer — sipped & spit

SIPPED: circa 1933
Fortune.com republished a lengthy archive article from 1934 over the weekend. There’s lots to savor: the author suggests American wine can handily undercut French wine on price, urges an Eastward expansion of vineyards in the US, and notes that Champagne wasn’t considered wine by government policy.

SIPPED: LOLz
“Jay McInerney writes for the 1%–that is, the 1% who are happy he replaced John and Dottie.” A snippet from a hilarious roundup by the Hosemaster. See also: Dr. Conti, Prison M.D.

SIPPED: Cheval Blanc ’47
Well, not by me, sadly! But Sotheby’s is offering the wine (in 750 and magnum!) among others offered directly from the Chateau cellars. How big will the authenticity premium be on the bottles?

SPIT: lite beer
A Bloomberg article suggests the increased interest in wine is, in part, spurring America’s thirst for craft beer. And in Canada, wine’s popularity is growing much faster than the flat suds. Over the past decade, beer sales have slipped while red wine has grown 181%. Maybe one day wine will outsell beer. Now that would be something, eh?

SIPPED: more laffs
A propos of nothing wine, put this NYer humor piece (“Vive la France“) in your queue. Here’s a taste: “In France we do not even have a word for fat. If a woman is obese, we simply call her American.”

Steampunk wine opener, man’s cave, stars, wine bars – sipped & spit

SPIT: Metrokane’s The Rabbit
Install a machine such as in the above video and you will really one-up your neighbors in the corkscrew department.

SIPPED: reading
What? That LA Times is dropping stars for restaurant reviews? I’m 99+ points on that. [LAT]

NO LONGER SIPPING: wine bars
Lou on Vine, the LA wine bar and purveyor of “delightfully armpitty” wines, is closing after six years [LAT]. In Harlem, Nectar wine bar has closed. [Daily News]

SPIT: a man’s cave
Henry Tang, a candidate to be wine-drenched Hong Kong’s next chief executive, may have seen his hopes hoisted on his (illegal) wine cellar. [BBC]

CHOMPED: meat dress? “My favorite way to catch up with friends is to have wine and food nights. We cook together and drink six or seven bottles of red wine.” -Lady Gaga [Drinksbusiness]

PARKENTSTEIN: “I only awarded 19 perfect 100 point wines in THE GREATEST VINTAGE EVER! This is remarkable restraint on my part.” [hosemaster]

TASTEVIN: “A 100-point score for a young wine is just a cry for attention.” -Stephen Tanzer

Huet, Corks, White Castle, Skinnygirl, Quarts-de-Chaume — sipped & spit

BREAKING: After thirty vintages, Noel Pinguet has decided to leave Domaine Huet, the world-class producer in Vouvray. La Revue du Vin de France cites differences with the owners about the role of dry white wine in the production. [larvf.fr]

SPIT: corks
Paul Pontellier of Chateau Margaux has been so frustrated with bottles under cork that have gone bad that the esteemed estate is seeking another closure has begun tests with screwcaps. Maybe he should follow Henschke and say bonjour to Vino-Lok? Also: Ch. Margaux is “very close” to being organic. [Decanter.com]

SIPPED: mmm, brand extensions
A “real” housewife of New York, who was probably thin to start with, is launching a low-alcohol wine called “Skinnygirl.” It builds on the success of her low-calorie ready-to-drink margarita. [Drinks Business] Related, Drew Barrymore is launching a new wine called, Barrymore. And, yes, it includes a pinot grigio! [HauteLiving.com]

Don’t cryo-selection for me, Qaurts-de-Chaume
A new grand cru designation has been approved in the Loire for sweet wines. Yet conflict has shaken the nobly rotten zone as one producer has sued to stop the process at the eleventh hour over “cryo-selection.” [NYTimes.com]

SIPPED: An insight into why White Castle is testing wine: “The burgers cost $2.49, the wine $18.” [WSJ.com]

SIPPED: R&R
Was on break much of the week with family…Back in full next week!

DRC auction, guilty, Messi wine, scouting, charity – sipped & spit

SPIT: bottles of DRC
SIPPED: the power of the internet; credit card return policies?
Don Cornwell, a collector and attorney, posted an impressively detailed assessment of lots that went under the hammer at a London auction last night. Spectrum and Vanquish, the auctioneers, did withdraw some lots but continued to sell others despite statements from DRC’s English and American importers urging buyers to beware. I heard about someone who bid on some DRC knowing all the backstory but was attracted by the (relative) low price; if he finds the bottles to be fake, he will dispute the purchase with his credit card company. For background on the consigner, see winediarst. For tweets from the room, see @Pigeage.

SIPPED: punishment
An arsonist who burned a warehouse with $250 million of wine in it gets 27 years in prison. [SFgate]

SIPPED: good vine hunting
Columnist Jon Bonne tracks Tegan Passalacqua, an influential and connected vineyard scout, as he scours remote vineyards in Northern California. Spot the one behind Carl’s Jr.! [SFgate]

SIPPED: more celebrity wine
Lionel Messi shoots and pours: announces a new wine from Argentina to benefit his foundation. [drinksbusiness]

SIPPED: charity tasting
This Saturday, a dozen top NYC sommeliers will help pour dozens of wines in a fundraiser. The big question is whether jeans will outnumber windsor knots–stop by to find out! The charity benefits Wheeling Forward, supporting those living with disabilities. [leduwine.com]

ACI, NYU class, New School talk, Quintarelli

Calvin Trillin has a hilarious post on ACI, a measure with false precision akin to the wine score. Here’s a snippet: “Among people who think of themselves as wine connoisseurs there’s a 61 percent ACI.” What is ACI? Click through to find out… [Slate.com]

Giuseppe Quintarelli, “master of the Veneto,” has died at 84. [NYTimes.com]

Registration is now open for the next session of my six-week wine class at NYU. [scps.NYU.edu]

And next Monday, I’ll be participating in a panel at The New School with Frank Prial, Julia Flynn Siler, Charles Sciccolone and Andy Smith. We’ll be discussing the life and legacy of Robert Mondavi.

USA still #1, NJ, Hitler can’t get Burgundy 2010 — sipped & spit

SPIT: Burgundy 2010 allocations are harder than ever to get, per above video!

CHUGGED: USA remains the largest wine-consuming country for the second year in a row. China rose to the top five for the first time. [thedrinksbusiness]

SIPPED: Americans rejoice as they will soon be able to purchase NJ wines directly! Or that’s how they spun the bill’s passage to liberalize the state’s shipping laws. [NJToday.com]

SPIT: Chinese “8” no longer lucky for Lafite — 08 vintage has tumbled 45% in a year. [decanter]

SIPPED: Collateralized drink obligations. A little leverage with your wine? A NY lender offers loans with wine as collateral: borro.com

SIPPED: Mmm, maps. Parcel-by-parcel in Montrachet.

SIPPED: I offer some wine picks at Men’s Health. You’ll have to get the ab workout advice from them though…

RedNek glasses, Vinturi tested, duty free shopping — sipped and spit

red neck wine glasses
SIPPED: anti-snobbery
What might just be the best-selling wine glass this holiday season? Why, the RedNek wine glass, a Mason jar on top of a candlestick holder as a base. Launched this year, sales have hit $5 million already. Good thing it comes with the lid, making it the travel mug of wine glasses. [CNN]

SPIT: Vinturi aerator
A panel of sommeliers blind tastes wines that have been put through the Vinturi aerator. They admit that it transforms the wine but give three out of four the thumbs down. [bonappetit.com]

SIPPED: bubbly
The NYT tasting panel has some good picks for all your blanc de blancs needs.

SIPPED: malbec, DrBigJ & Stone Temple Pilots?
A new wine shop in Prospect Heights suggests music pairings on their shelf talkers (too bad they also borrow heavily from at least one DrBigJ tasting note without attribution and slap on point scores, instead of pursuing the point-free path). [Village Voice]

SIPPED: carry on
A traveler at Charles De Gaulle airport dropped $60,000 on six bottles of wine. Come on, didn’t he know that there are better values in town? [Metro.co.uk]

SIPPED: investigations
Robert Parker has launched an “investigation” into only what transpired in Murcia. And the Institute of Masters of Wine has initiated an investigation into whether Pancho Campo MW has violated their code of conduct. [DrinksBusiness.com]

Wine jobs: Director of Hospitality, retail store general manager, new store sales associate, magazine intern and more!

Gawker, Starbucks, stinky Brett, sequences – sipped and spit

SIPPED: imitation as flattery?
From the coffee threatdown files: Starbucks will extend its wine bar concept with up to seven locations in Chicago. Make it a venti vino? [SeattleTimes]

SPIT: stinky reporting
A microbial enologist laments the lack of rigor in Decanter and Wine Spectator’s recent reporting of sequencing the genome of Brettanomyces, a cause of feral, animale aromas often considered a flaw. She says that while sequencing is an accomplishment and helpful, but “by no means guarantees a solution to winery brett problems.” [wineoscope]

ANNOUNCED: sequences
Speaking of sequencing, David Schildknecht hit the airwaves to say that Parker told him almost a year ago that Miller was retiring at the end of 2011. [Jim’s Loire]

GAWKERIZED: Recent personnel changes at Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate make Gawker, in typically colorful style.


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