Archive for the 'wine picks' Category

Drink like a hipster: pelaverga edition

Pelaverga. Never heard of it? That’s understandable. This is almost an heirloom variety in Piedmont that used to be grown in greater quantity (and even blended into Barolo before it had to be 100% nebbiolo). Now the grape is experiencing something of a resurgence as a handful of producers are bottling the grape on its own and some of those are making their way in minute quantities to our shores.

G. B. Burlotto, a producer in the town of Verduno more known for their Barolo, makes this 2010 Pelverga. The light color is akin to a pinot noir, but the mouthfeel is lighter and peppery tannins undergird bright fruit. It’s not complex as a Barolo but it doesn’t need to be: it’s food-friendly, with though brio to be a fun red this summer.

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Dr. Vino salutes Dr. Shaq


A couple of weeks ago, a 7′ 1″ 325(+)-lb. graduate donned a cap and gown: Shaquille O’Neal earned a doctorate in education. The former NBA star, who left LSU early but finished his bachelor’s degree nearly a decade later because he wanted to make his mom proud, just completed four and a half years of courses and study at Barry University. His thesis studied the role of humor in the workplace and leadership.

Dr. Vino gives a doff of the academic cap to Dr. Shaq Diesel. Now all I have to do to keep up is score 28,596 points in the NBA. Well, what the heck: I raise a glass of wine in his honor and I’ll rate the 28,596 points! To Dr. Shaqtus, Dr. Shamroq, here’s a glass of grower Champagne from Bereche et Fils, their Beaux Regards, a stony, zero-dosage all-chardonnay bubbly. It’s laser-like, which is the kind of focus you need to do a doctorate while also playing in the NBA, doing commercials, offering commentary on TNT, serving as a reserve police officer, being a dad five times over. Nice going Big Daddy! Read more…

Tyler wines and Chateau Your Name

The wines of Tyler winery get a thumbs up from me for the brilliance of the name alone–but also for what’s inside the bottle. I tasted a few of them recently at a trade tasting and was impressed with the lean, taut wines from a land known all too often for buxom chardonnay and pinot noir. (Check out this SF Chron article on some recent goings on in Sta. (!) Rita Hills.) Tasted blind, the balanced 2010 Tyler Chardonnay “Dierberg” would be difficult to place, with minerality not often associated with the Golden State, and a mouthfeel more Meursault than Marcassin. The 2010 Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir exhibits a toothsome quality with red fruit and good acidity. The 2009 Pinot Noir “Dierberg” sees some whole cluster and has tingly tannins with appealing red fruit and a snap of acidity. I’ll be keeping an eye out for Justin Tyler Willett’s wines.

I joked with someone at the tasting that I was probably predisposed to like the wines because of the name since it’s also mine. He told me that he worked at a wine shop way back when. They made a private label wine to sell in the store and to find the name, they looked in the phone book and found that Clark was the most popular name in the city after Jones and Smith. So they named their wine Chateau Clark and if flew off the shelves. But I think that’s what Willy van Shakespeare said: a wine named after you, will smell even sweeter.

Tyler winery
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Commuter cuvee: vin de soif, American style

good cheap pinot

American wine under $15 is a difficult category. And domestic pinot can be downright dicey. And charity wines often sacrifice quality for the good of the cause.

So it was with skepticism that I tried the Grochau Cellars, “Commuter Cuvee” 2010 recently. Sold in Portland at $14.99 with a portion of the proceeds going to a bicycle safety non-profit. It’s actually a gulpable pinot noir with good acidity and the bing cherry note often found in Oregon pinots. It glides in at 12.5% alcohol; if there’s a better pinot noir available in the US under $15, I have yet to try it.

I spoke with John Grochau about how he could offer a 100% pinot noir for a reasonable price. Grochau has cycled at a high level for about 20 years (he even won a race last year) but into the front-of-house in the restaurant business, which led him to make his own wine label, sourcing fruit from various sites around the state and making the wines in Portland. In 2010 he found a vineyard site with 22-year-old vines whose owner was suddenly looking to sell 20 tons of fruit. It was a cooler vintage, which John prefers, but enough for good ripeness (the grapes were 22 Brix). He made this wine in actual barrels, which is decidedly rare for pinots at this price point. He also added some of the wines that he selected out of his higher-end pinots. It’s a low-margin wine, he admits, but he’s doing it again: The 2011, also from a cool vintage, will be released soon.

Thanks to site reader Gabe for pointing out this wine in the comments of a previous post. A perfect wine for National Bike Month!

Thirstday: vin de soif, Christian Ducroux, “Prologue”

Vin de soif. The term captures a wine style–thirst-quenching, gulpable–that delights in the pleasures of drinking wine, not worshipping it. It has to also be somewhat light in body and easy on the wallet to make it really thirst-quenching for me. When I tweeted the term yesterday, Howard Goldberg replied that he only drinks vin de soif on Thirstday.

So today’s Thirstday vin de soif: the Christian Ducroux, “Prologue.” Although it’s labeled as a mere vin de France, Ducroux works Biodynamic vineyards by horse in Beaujolais. This wine is a 2011, a Beaujolais nouveau of sorts; according to David Lillie of Chambers Street Wines, which imports the wine directly and where I bought a bottle for about $15, this is second bottling that has more structure than the first thanks to more contact with the lees. The wine has sediment in the bottle and is somewhat cloudy in the glass. Red berries and hint of funk permeate the aromas. Low in alcohol, this thirst-quencher has a vivacious intrigue that calls out for food.

Francesco Rinaldi, dolcetto d’Alba, Roussot, 2010

Dolcetto, which means either “sweet-ish” or “the one you drink while your Baroli are aging,” is rarely in better hands than it is with the traditional producer Francesco Rinaldi. Many dolcetti have coarse tannins but this “Roussot” 2010 has a seductive roundness to it, offsetting the notes of gentle bitterness and dark fruit.

I give it my highest rating: I’d buy a whole case of this wine. And, at only $15 a bottle, that’s actually within the realm of the possible.

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Domaine de Ferrand, La Ferrande, 2009

domaine ferrand ferrande

To poll at 90 percent is unheard of in a democracy. So it’s a good thing this wine isn’t running for office since all but three out of 30 or so in my NYU class liked it when I poured it this week.

We had a quick tour de France I was looking for an example of a Rhone that would fit within our budget. I opted for this 2009 Cotes du Rhone from Domaine de Ferrand, a small producer in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. “La Ferrande” is a tiny anomaly from the area known for blending since it is 100% syrah. The wine has some definite ripeness to it–indeed, a tad much for me–but the class participants welcomed the layered flavors of fruit, a hint of bitter notes such as coffee and warming alcohol at 14%. And with only 50 cases imported to the US, according to Chambers Street Wines, where I bought it, the class was surprised to learn that it was only $18 a bottle on a case purchase. If the scene were a cartoon, you would have heard tires squealing as they peeled off to score a bottle for themselves.

Moncuit, Roagna, Cascina della Rose, Arnot-Roberts – Polaner highlights

It’s the time of year when distributors and/or importers have annual (or semi-annual) portfolio tastings. These are opportunities for breadth, not depth, as hundreds of current release wines (and occasionally some older ones) are put out on tables, often with the winemaker pouring. Yesterday was the Polaner Selections tasting and I dropped by for a while in the second half. Below are a few impressions and photos.

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