Dr Vino's wine blog

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]

A couple of months ago, when it was wintry outside, I read a Bloomberg story by John Mariani about the “lovable mongrel” Chateauneuf-du-Pape. I probably had a fire going and old vine grenache, mongrel version, sounded like the perfect thing. Mariani detailed some wonderful sounding wines from Sabon and even one of my perennial faves, the Vieux Telegraphe. But he concluded with this homage for a Chapoutier:

Finally, my favorite of the evening was M. Chapoutier’s 2000 Le Bernardine ($38), made from an estate planted exclusively with grenache. It has a blossoming bouquet that’s almost as wonderful as the complex flavors of the wine. There’s the spice that a good southern Rhone wine should have and enough tannin to ensure a very long life, with each year revealing more and more flavor, layer by layer.

Yummy! I had to order some. So I fired up wine-searcher, and found a retailer who had the wine for a fraction of the price that Mariani quoted. I called the store and asked where the wine had been since release from Chapoutier, presumably going on four years now. The clerk said that it had just been released from the distributor and was properly stored. I bought two bottles.

I poked around on the retailer’s site and found they had the 01 Vieux Telegraphe (find this wine). Mariani described the previous vintage VT as “not ready to drink…The use of large, old oak barrels assures the wine’s big tannins and longevity, and it should be a bold beauty when it matures. It’s well worth cellaring a case.” So I figured why not take a flier on the 01, also a good vintage.

Fast forward a few weeks. We had some friends over and they were thirsty friends Read more…

A couple of years ago I started a project that I called the Real Wine World. No, it didn’t involve locking three wine industry participants in a house and filming them 24 hours a day. Its goal was simply to follow a wine producer, a wine importer, and a wine retailer for a year to get a better look at how the wine biz works.

The participants were Susana Balbo in Argentina, Italian wine importer Gregory Smolik in Chicago, and the small shop Big Nose Full Body in Brooklyn’s Park Slope.

The reason I bring this up now is twofold. First, I have just transfered all the pieces over to this new site, posted to their original dates. You can find the lead-off piece here. And thanks to the new categories function, you can find all the pieces under The Real Wine World. The pieces now have space for your comments!

Second, I thought I should bring closure to the project. Everyone got busy and the project didn’t make it the whole year. Susana Balbo had further demands on her time as she became president of the Wines of Argentina trade association. Gregory Smolik’s career as an independent importer of boutique wines from Italy came to an end but he now brings his passion and knowledge to his new job at the importer Domaine Select. Big Nose Full Body is still lubricating the palates of Park Slopers with free tastings on Saturday afternoons and 15% case discounts every day.

Who knows, maybe we’ll try for a second season of the Real Wine World sometime?!

Are Gen Y wine shops all they’re cracked up to be? Since I’m Gen X (and a wine geek) I had to find a Gen Y person, relatively new to wine to tell me. I posted about this mission and from the replies, I selected Grace Nguyen (whom I have never met) to take the challenge and report back to us.

Our agent: Grace Nguyen, 27….Studied Environmental Economics and Policy at Berkeley….Then became a line cook and pastry cook for five years…Now studying for a Master’s in NYU’s Food Studies program…She wants to learn more about wine…And now, over to Grace, with notes from the field.

They’re calling them Gen Y wine shops because they have one thing in common; they cater to the neophytes of wine drinkers. Customers will no longer have to suffer wine-shop inferiority. A smaller wine selection, wine descriptors by flavor, and printable tasting notes, are some of the recent trends. These shops have taken a new angle and have figured out the reasons why the average person drinks wine: for taste and for dinner.

So let’s see what these shops have to offer. My wine price range: $10-$15. My dinner: chicken with mustard. The recommendation: a 2005 Verdicchio and a 1990 Vouvray from Moore Brothers Wine Company (map it). And a 2004 Corbieres from Bottlerocket Wine and Spirits. Although both shops were eager to help me find that perfect wine to complement my dinner, they offered conflicting recommendations.

“You’ll want something earthy with a little acidity. You don’t want too much fruit, especially with mustard.” The clerk at Moore Brothers suggested the Vouvray Aigle Blanc 1990 at $25, and although apologetic for suggesting a more expensive bottle, he couldn’t stop praising it (find this wine). “It’s earthy, with hints of mushrooms, slight fruit, and just enough acidity. It’ll go very nicely with chicken and mustard.” It sounded sincere enough.
Read more…

A politician from Ontario is taking a bold stand: he wants wine to have the honor of being sold at 7-eleven.

Kim Craitor, a Liberal member of the Ontario provincial parliament who represents Niagara Falls, introduced a private member’s bill to free wine sales from the iron grip of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO).

Blending wine and provincial patriotism, Craitor doesn’t want just any wine sold in the 3,000 convenience stores in the province, only wine from Ontario. The CBC reports:

“The proposed legislation applies only to wine containing 100 per cent Ontario grapes, which means “it’s not blended, it’s not mixed with foreign grapes,” he says.”

The legislation has little chance of becoming law since it does not have the support of the provincial government. Maybe Craitor could persuade them to vote for it with the promise of more than just wines from Ontario.

CBC, Fort Frances Times

The gleaming 72,000 square foot Whole Foods Bowery, opening today, has a “fromagerie” complete with an aging room. Cheeses come from Neal’s Yard in London, French affineur Hervé Mons, and some American classics such as Jasper Hill. The cheese manager was formerly at Artisanal Premium Cheese. There is a French fry station, a culinary center for classes and events, and two dining areas including conveyor-belt sushi. They can sell beer, local micro-brews and national macro-brews.

But there will be no wine.

Yes, it’s time for another edition of “New York’s crazy wine retailing laws!”

Law #1: Thou shalt not have more than one wine retail license in the state of New York. This is the fourth Whole Foods in Manhattan and the seventh in New York State. None of the NY stores sells wine (you never know what might happen if you could buy Sancerre the same time you buy Camembert), unlike Whole Foods stores in renegade states California, Illinois and Texas–where, I hasten to point out, levels of social unrest are no higher than in New York as a result of selling wine.

Whole Foods did have a wine retail license at their Columbus Circle location when it opened. They pulled the pulled the plug on that location voluntarily if somewhat mysteriously–there was something about it not being a street-level entrance, another instance of NY wine retail craziness. Apparently, WF still has the right to transfer the license to another location. Which brings us to…

Law #2: Thou shalt get down on bended knee and ask locals for the privilege of selling them wine. As Eater.com has been chronicling in their excellent series on the “drying of NYC,” this law affects bars and restaurants a lot more. Think about it: bar opens in your neighborhood, spills loud people into streets while you are trying to sleep. Fair enough, that could be worth getting riled up about.

But a shop? People go in, buy wine, take it home to drink it. It’s closed by 9 PM. I fail to see how that can cause angst in the neighborhood. Unless of course you are a competing wine retailer and you are attempting naked economic protectionism.

And apparently that’s what’s really happening. According to the NY Sun, Frank Geresi who owns local wine shop Elizabeth & Vine fears Whole Foods as a wine shop. He said “If I were a small hardware store and you were Home Depot, who would come to me to get a hammer once you moved in?” Nice try, Mr. Geresi: hammers are commodities and Whole Foods isn’t a discounter.

I don’t doubt that if Whole Foods got permission from the Community Board for the at-grade store-next-door-to-the-store that they would do a good job filling it with tons of interesting, biodynamic, organic or otherwise natural or even local wines. Look at all the TLC they’re putting into the “fromagerie” after all. And it would be convenient. But anybody who’s been to a WF in another state that does sell wine knows that you pay for that convenience: shopping around other wine stores will cut probably 15% off your wine bill.

So to New York officials: down with state laws limiting licenses! And to the Elizabeth & Vine: drop the resistance and let WF in! Just step up your game. Get great wines. Offer great prices and service. Heck, offer shipping to increase your reach. Who knows, WF selling wine in the neighborhood might just make more people in the neighborhood want wine. And to Community Board 3: do your bit and help make wine more accessible in America. Grant them the license!

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The fact that the enomatic, a $10,000 machine that spits out wine pours, has landed in New York is not news (unlike in Fairfax, VA): Union Square Wines installed six of the machines when they moved to their new location (map it) last summer. What’s news is that it is the only store in New York to do so. Why?

You can largely thank New York’s confusing laws on wine retailing, which prevent charging for wine samples among other things. In states with more permissive laws on tasting, enomatic machines can be spotted in wine shops that charge for samples. But in New York, charging anything for drinking on premises requires a different license. Thus it’s hard to make for a retailer to make economically viable the expensive piece of burnished stainless steel that is the enomatic. (But it does mean a lot of free wine for consumers around town.)

But Union Square Wines took the plunge and I decided to put them to the test. I strode in last weekend and asked for a card. Not so easy, it turns out. You have to be an existing customer–it’s structured as a “reward” system. Well, I’ve bought wine at the store before, I replied. “But do you have the card?” Ah, no. A purchase is required and each dollar spent accumulates 5 points, which can be deducted from the card at the enomatics.

So seeing that 40 points could get me a couple of tastes, I splurged on an $8 wine. Then I had to take my receipt to another desk across the store (no plans for streamlining this at one register) where a staffer mercifully took pity on me and gave me 200 points instead of the 40 I was due.

Then I hit the machines. The pours were SMALL. But they were FRESH. It only took me a shot of riesling, gewurztraminer, some rustic French red, and a bonarda from Argentina to realize that the number of points deducted was the equivalent to the price in dollars of the whole bottle. Too bad I didn’t have enough for the 225 point Barolo in the front room. Net-net the enomatic is a way to get fresh, free wine served on demand. Just, for the sake of the NY regulators, don’t think of it as a bar!

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On a related note, the WSJ had a story yesterday about the potential demise of the bar car on Metro-North trains. Installing enomatics on the trains could be an excellent use of the machine that substitutes capital for labor.

tags: wine | free wine | nyc

This just in from a Washington, DC tipster:
The new Whole Foods store that recently opened in Fairfax has a secret wine tasting room and cellar upstairs from their main floor wine area. It’s not marked or advertised but upstairs are dozens of by the pour/nitrogen flushed bottles of all manner of wines in all price ranges. The customer buys a card that is inserted into the card reader at the selected wine and then designates the pour size. The cost by the pour is deducted from the clients card. A great way to sample some primo vino and I expect it will evolve into a destination for those that really want to expand their horizons in what would otherwise be inaccessible wines! I need a machine like that at my house!

A call to the store revealed that, yes, the store has ten of the Italian “enomatic” machines that substitute capital for bartenders. Each machine costs $10,000 and holds eight bottles. The 30-seat upstairs “enoteca” with a “bridge view” of the store itself is not so much a secret as it is yet to be signposted–the store opened on January 17. Props to you, tipster, for having sniffed it out.

Pours are available in one, three, and five ounce sizes and range from $1 to $30 an ounce for the 1996 Domaine de la Romanee Conti Echezaux (find this wine: WF price is $600 a bottle; another nearby vendor has it for $350 if you decide to go nuts and buy a whole bottle). Cheese and olive plates can be ordered from downstairs–no word on when this food delivery will be automated. Perhaps the best news is that the members of the George Mason community and other locals will be able to tap the vino seven days a week from 11 AM – 9 PM.

Whole Foods Market – Fairfax (Fair Lakes)
go to beer and wine department at the back and climb the staircase
4501 Market Commons Dr
Fairfax, VA 22033
Phone: 703.222.2058

tags: wine | whole foods | enomatic