Dr Vino's wine blog

I recently bought the 2007 Lafarge Bourgogne rouge ($30; find this wine) and popped it open on a Friday evening for Mrs. Vino. With the delicious pinot noir in our glasses, light in color with excellent balance between acid and youthful tannin, the weekend was off to a great start. Then our neighbor dropped by to collect his son and, in no time flat, the bottle was empty. Our sipping wine got gulped! Good thing that fun wines are for sharing.

When I was speaking with Becky Wasserman recently, the Burgundy-based exporter of this and many other wines, she suggested to get to know a Burgundy producer by their Bourgogne rouge, a sort of house calling card for a relatively low entry point. In the case of Domaine Michel Lafarge, I’ve also had the chance to try the recent vintages of his Volnay; the 2006 has great snap and the 2007 has fine balance. So, good advice.

A previous evening Mrs. Vino and I enjoyed the Lafarge Bourgogne Passetoutgrain 2007, “L’Exception” ($24; find this wine). Passetoutgrain is the rare red Burgundy that allows grapes other than pinot noir in the wine since it is a blend that includes gamay. In this case, the grapes are interspersed in in the same vineyard (a field blend, as it is known) of fifty-five year old vines. They are harvested and fermented together. The resulting wine combines the gulpability of gamay with the structure of pinot. While I preferred the Bourgogne rouge, this is still a fun wine–as such, this switch-hitter is good for a relaxed evening of sipping but still a good choice in case any gulping neighbors drop by.

SIPPED: headline writing
“Baboons give Chardonnay a thumbs up,” was a recent headline on timeslive.co.za. Nice. How many baboon thumbs up could catch on as a new, powerful wine evaluation method. (See our previous baboon coverage.)

SIPPED: market disarray
“Bordeaux” and “discount” rarely appear in the same sentence. But with Diageo’s retreat from the Bordeaux marketplace, possibly over $100 million worth of wines are looking for a home, including the unloved 2007s. One buyer predicts a “bloodbath” (again); Bloomberg cites “a consensus” among retailers that the deals will last about six to eight months. Will this signal the end of the American market leading the way for Bordeaux?

SPIT: the old way (wine sales)
Another Bloomberg story focuses on the travails of the high-end wine market. One producer in Monterey, Chris Cutler, dropped his distributor and started selling directly, lightweighted his bottles, and lowered the price of his pinot noir from $49 to $35. His reaction? “It was the best decision I made.”

SPIT: Varietal labeling; SIPPED: the old way (winegrowing)
The process of growing different varieties in a vineyard, harvesting the grapes that ripen at the same time, and co-fermenting them is coming back. Check out this piece in the LA Times.

SPIT: oak; BITTEN: the hand that feeds
Seven bloggers went on a sponsored trip to Piedmont to taste some wines made from the barbera grape. They were served oaky “important” wines and juicy, entry-level ones. Their criticism of the first category was so loud that it made paper (local and national)! Tom Maresca, also at the Barbera meeting, has the tale.

SIPPED: social media satire
Blogger Hardy Wallace has a send-up of wineries’ latest obsession, using Twitter and Facebook to hype useless wines. His fictional case in point: Crazy Bear charbono-nay. [Dirty South]

SPIT: the old way (jobs)
Someone has fired up the robo-dialogue video machine again! This time we have an NYC sommelier who wants to quit and move to Walla Walla to start a winery. Check for the definition of winemaking… (via candidwines)

Paul Draper is, without question, one of the world’s great winemakers. Even though he has every reason to be an egotistical blowhard, he remains humble and democratic in spirit, asking sincere questions of those around him and quick to point to his team as the reason for the winery’s success. It may sound absurd to think that a winemaker’s personality is as discernible in the glass as the terroir, but that combination of curiosity, humility, and respectful excellence comes through in the wines of Ridge Vineyards.

Presiding over forty harvests at Monte Bello in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the winemaker and CEO at Ridge, has seen an almost unparalleled run of excellence. Read more…

In 1993 Englebert Prieler, an Austrian vintner, decided for the first time to bottle a single-vineyard wine from the grape variety Blaufränkisch. When it came time to sell the wine, he priced it the same as his better known Cabernet Sauvignon. However, the Blaufränkisch bottles languished unsold until a Swiss collector bought them all as a block. Adding insult to injury, the asking price at the winery was only 20 schillings (about 1.50 euro) a bottle.*

Things have changed. The 2006 vintage of that same wine, a fuller style of Blaufränkisch, now sells for about $130 per bottle in the U.S.

While Blaufränkisch is hardly a household wine term, it has risen from nothing in 1995 to, well, more than nothing. Read more…

I had heard about the fires in Sonoma 2008. But I had never tasted them.

David Hirsch poured me a sample of his 2008 “The Bohans-Dillon” pinot noir at the recent trade tasting of his New York distributor. And guess what: it had a smoky notes swirling around the dark cherry fruit. If you like chipotle or a peaty whisky, and you like California pinot, I predict you will love this wine! (The smoky taste can come in non-blaze years from the “toast” level of barrels.) If you don’t but want to keep it in the Hirsch Vineyards portfolio, then perhaps try one of the 07s, such as the pricier “M,” which is smoke free.

Describing that hot summer when the fires came in July, Hirsch said that “we almost died of asphyxiation.” He added that people like to “drink pinot and talk terroir.” Well, he said, this was the terroir of 2008. By contrast, he said that 2007 was “a blessing.”

Here on the blog, we previously discussed geologists who debunked “minerality” as coming from the soil. But this smokiness in the glass appears to have come from the fires! Putting the “air” in terroir, one might say.

For more on smoke and de-smokifying wines, check out this story in the SF Chron or this one at Forbes.com.

The weather is rapidly changing: one day, fall; the next day, snow! Here are two natural wines from France that have you covered.

Arretxea, Irouleguy 2005 about $20
This hearty red pairs well with rich foods and cold weather. Although not big and boozy (only 12.5% on the label), the main grape is tannat, which makes wines that are often opaque in their inky purpleness with tons o’ tannins. This wine, from the French side of the Basque Country, is a delicious wintry treat, with brooding notes of black cherries, tar, stones and smooth but substantial tannins. Their white is also very good even if a recent vintage was denied the appelllation (again, a condemnation of the appellation system, not the producer). Importer: Kermit Lynch.

Tissot, Arbois, Poulsard, vielles vignes, Jura 2006 about $17
And if you’re feeling more autumnal than wintry, impress your friends with this natural Poulsard. I tried a bottle and loved it and went back for more. And then I poured it for friends not so into wine, but only after trying to deter them by cautioning them that it was a wine geek’s wine. That just fanned their flames of desire. Fortunately, they really liked it too. In the glass, the wine throws a head fake: light in color and transparent, it also has a pretty, tannic structure. Throw in some notes of dried red fruits, autumnal earthiness and excellent balance with acidity, and this certified Biodynamic, no sulfur beauty may even impress your non-wine geek friends. Importer: Wildman & Sons.

Another six-week session of my NYU class just wrapped up last week. I poured about six wines per class around various themes (if you’d like a one-night class, register for the holiday wines session on 12/10). Here are some of the popular and/or notable choices from the term:

Pinon, sparkling Vouvray NV (about $19): I poured a bubbly in almost every class; this one was unanimously liked. How could it not be? It is gorgeous bubbly with delicious aromatics and a balance between acidity and delicate residual sugar. It will be on my Thanksgiving table–and in a white wine glass.

Hirsch, Veltliner #1, 2007 (about $15): Refreshing, with good acidity and a hint of that snap pea character of Gruner, this wine got lots of thumbs up, particularly for the price.

Produttori del Barbaresco, Barberesco, 2005 (about $33): I poured this wine the first day to illustrate tannins. While the taninns were actually more muted than I had anticipated, the wine was wildly popular. Many Nebbiolo fans were made from a sip of this wine. It does benefit from some air; another bottle that I bought was still going strong on day two.

Domaine Guion, Cuvee Prestige, Bourgeuil, 2006 (about $12): After our discussion online about cabernet franc, the polarizing grape, I had to add this wine to the following lineup. All but four people really liked it (about 90% of participants); I love it too for the good acidity and interesting tannins and have been buying it by the case.

Ridge, Three Valleys, Sonoma (about $23)
This blend of mostly zinfandel fermented with natural yeasts has 13.8% alcohol, refreshingly low for a zin. The class really liked its lushness and didn’t find it as overextracted as some of the other wines. It’s also a good value, available online for less than I paid for the class.

Luzon, monastrell, Jumilla, 2008 (about $8): This wine was funny since it was the cheapest wine we tasted for the day, yet the most popular as people reached for their pens to scribble this one down. To me, it didn’t have a lot of individuality but certainly was not the worst example of monastrell I’ve ever had (ahem, Sierra Carche).

Search for these wines with wine-searcher

Does a wine from a box taste any different from the same wine in a bottle?

I recently led a tasting and we were able to put this question to the test. I poured the Domaine Grand Veneur, Cotes du Rhone, reserve, 2007 from a bottle (retail: $14) and a three-liter box ($45) and served them blind in two glasses. (search for this wine)

The assembled group couldn’t really discern one from the other. While everyone agreed that the wine was a good value, some people preferred one over the other but the reasoning was all over the map. Although this sounds like a non-finding, it is interesting that neither format outpaced the other even though one format is decidedly less expensive per ounce/glass.

I look forward to trying this experiment again but it is difficult to find the exact same wine packaged in two different formats. Domaine des Estezargues, Cotes du Rhone 2007 and apparently there’s one from Washington State; hit the comments if you’ve done a tasting like this or know of other wines in both formats for our further experimentation.