Dr Vino's wine blog

As we are in the home stretch of holiday entertaining, the question at the forefront of every host’s mind regarding wine is no doubt “when should I serve the good stuff?”

There are several approaches.

1. Serve the good stuff first. This sort-by-price approach has the benefit of creating a strong first impression. And some guests might only want one glass anyway so this ensures they will get something good. However, wine style matters. Don’t lead with a humongo Napa cult cab–those kind of wines you have to work into.

2. Serve the good stuff second. This is my preferred strategy. I like to open with a strong wine that is intriguing yet not overwhelming. Good picks for whites are: a wine from greco di tufo using an indigenous grape of southern Italy; a pinot blanc (such as Leon Beyer); a bubbly; or a wine from the Savennieres region of France. Then you and your guests will be ready for a great red, either light bodied such as a pinot noir, or a big red, such as a cabernet sauvignon or a syrah. I’d recommend two bottles for four people as a good ratio for a dinner party. Then have a decent third wine in reserve, what I call “balast.” Solid stuff, but easy on the wallet as well as the palate (check out my lists of wines under $10).

3. Start with great stuff and keep it flowing. Who can argue with this approach? Just serve the wine by style–lightest bodied to fullest–and everybody will be happy.

4. Serve no good stuff. A sad strategy and one to avoid. However, some family get togethers may require quantity over quality.

Happy holidays!

-Dr. V

tags: wine | dinner parties | serving wine

When you’re giving a gift this holiday season–or any time of year, actually–you want it to scream class. Unless, of course, you are giving it to insufferable relatives when you’d probably opt for quantity over quality.

Here is a list of a few reds that will impress the most distraught holiday hosts. They have three things in common in order to qualify: great presentation value (bonus points for heavy glass); great taste that is way above their actual price; and under $20 retail.

Ex Libris, Cabernet Sauvignon, Washington State. $15. find this wine
Bottle: heavy! Cabernet: classy! I really have no idea why this wine is priced so low (I found some for $13)–perhaps it is the Washington State discount? Whatever it is, seize it now and give in abundance. I have a half a case already. Fans of the Da Vinci code will especially like this wine because of the label.

Blue Franc, Shooting Star, Washington $12 find this wine
Who would ever think about marketing a wine from a grape called Lemburger? Sounds awfully cheese-like. Well, Jed Steele has taken on this Herculean task with aplomb. Lemburger is also known as Blaufrankisch in Austria so he played off that and designed a handsome label with an old 50-franc bill–you remember, the blue one? Nice bottle, beautiful label. The slightly unusual aromas of forest floor make this perfect for the artsy host who likes to venture off the beaten path.

Drouhin, Moulin-a-Vent, 2005. $16 find this wine
Gamay was such a threat to pinot noir that Phillip the Bold banned it from Burgundy in 1395. Scoop up some of this food-friendly red that hails from Beaujolais, the poor man’s Burgundy. I recently had this in a restaurant where it worked very well with seared tuna but this versatile wine would do well with ham and sides at a feast too. Bring this one to your uncle who reminisces about wines that don’t hit you over the head with alcohol and tannin.

Clos de los Siete, Val de Uco, (Argentina), 2004. $15find this wine
The elegant, understated label with its seven point star (there were seven founding partners of the winery, including Michel Rolland) and heavy bottle help this mostly malbec blend pack a punch–both as a gift and in the glass. Do NOT give this to your elderly uncle who is used to drinking claret.

Montesecondo, IGT Toscana rosso. 2004 $14 find this wine
Great whimsical label with a toad (prince?) and a crown. The story here is that the producer was ready to age the wine in barrel but stopped and aged it in stainless steel tank instead. The action resulted in a wine too light in color to carry the Chianti DOC but the wine in the bottle is a star, with surprisingly vigorous tannins. 13.5% alcohol.

Chateau de la Bourree, Cotes de Castillon, 2003. $14 find this wine
This label has gold print and lots of grand words and medals on the label. Of course producers can use this to try to hype up completely mediocre wines. But in this case, the La Bourree delivers once you pull the cork as well with an alluring balance of fruit, acidity and tannin.

Chateau de Cadillac, Bordeaux Superieur, 2005 $10 find this wine
producer pain does not always equal consumer gain. But many producers in the humble appellation Bordeaux Superieur have fallen on hard times. I don’t know the backstory at Ch. Cadillac, but a nice label, solid notes of Bordeaux make this one perfect for your Caddy-driving uncle in Florida.

And, lest we forget…
Tres Picos, old vine grenache, Borja, Spain, 2004. $12 find this wine
I served this wine at a wine tasting party for my mom’s 65th birthday recently. This was one of the popular favorites there. It costs $12 but tastes like $25 or more. This grenache comes from old vines (I called them senior citizen vines for my mom and her friends) and has wonderful berry notes combined with faint sweet notes and a light pepper on the finish. It is a value knockout. And you probably could knock somebody out with the extremely heavy bottle. Bonus gift points for that.

Related: “The best affordable wines you’ll never have this Thanksgiving” [Dr. V]

tags: wine | wine gifts

Until my post in the next couple of days about gift wines, here are a couple wine pick articles that should tide you over:

* NPR: Holiday wine. Bryan Miller offers some solid, general suggestions. No audio. But you can listen here to the hilarious Amy Sedaris taking a literary drinking quiz! No wait, take my pop-culture wine quiz!

* WSJ: The inveterate John & Dottie present a case for under $150–now that’s my kind of thinking! (See my case of fall wine picks or last year’s wintry case) Unfortunately their picks are not available online, only in the dead-tree edition or behind a pay barrier, but I do recommend the general idea of giving a well-chosen mixed case as a way to give a gift that makes an impact–and not just on the carpet where it lands.

Also, taste some wines free of charge tonight at Astor Wine & Spirit: “small grower champagnes,” their “French favorites,” and some of that throat-warming fire water, cognac, including some XO Tesseron from the 20s, 50s, 70s, and 90s! All free, the first two with discounts for wine purchased. 6-8 PM today. I’m just sorry I can’t make it. Map it.

tags: wine | wine | new york city

Little-known factoids for Americans about Italy: The country shares a border with Austria. Pinot grigio isn’t the only pinot from Italy–pinot noir (nero) is grown too.

Put those two factoids to your use and try the excellent Hofstatter Meczan pinot nero 2005. Grown in the foothills of the Dolomites in the Alto Adige region, where a German dialect is more spoken than Italian, this wine that is light in color has excellent fruit, acidity and finish making it hugely food friendly.

A couple of weeks ago, we discovered this wine at Otto enoteca and pizzeria during a Saturday lunch. We ordered a quartino and had the bottle opened at our table–always a nice touch to ensure freshness (I mentioned this aspect of quartinos and carafes here). I searched for it online when we got home, found it locally for under $20 a bottle, and promptly ordered a case. We have been serving it to our guests ever since and have not yet managed to pull only one cork in an evening.

I also threw in a bottle of their 2005 De Vite pinot grigio–the other pinot (find this wine). It has such appealing notes of stones and flowers (stone-crushed flowers?) that want to order more. I just found it for the ridiculously low price of $11. Excuse me while I open a new browser and load some into my electronic cart…

Imported by Domaine Select Wine Estates.

tags: wine | food and drink | pinot noir

Lucarelli, Primitivo 2004 from Puglia. $6.97 find this wine
In the heel of the boot that is the Italian peninsula, the hot plains of Puglia have typically produced prodigious quantities of wine. Quality is creeping in now as the effects of the world wide glut are being felt. This Lucarelli Primitivo is an intersection of the two themes: good quality at a low price. These 60 year old vines yield primitivo, a grape that is a relative of zinfandel. The resulting wine is a real crowd pleaser with round fruit followed by persistent, faintly spicy finish. It’s light enough to try with pasta, but would love some grilled meat. What are you waiting for? Start searching for this value vino!

Texier, Cotes du Rhone, 2004. $10 find this wine
I pulled out this wine as a “third bottle” one evening because I expected it to be big. But it was lean. And very food friendly. I poked around the web and found this comment from the importer: “Eric Texier and his wife, Laurence, studied nuclear science in France and in Illinois.” oops, that wasn’t the important part. Take 2: “He vinifies all of his Rhones as if they were Burgundies. His touch is therefore light, and involving cold maceration of all reds…and the gentlest, non-filtered, gravity powered bottling possible.” Aha! Well, it certainly is an unusual CDR, but good nonetheless–and Texier is tres sexier at $9.99! Importer: Louis/Dressner.

Evesham Wood, Blanc du Puits Sec, Eola Hills, 2005. $13 find this wine
While I was in Oregon recently, I tried this excellent organic pinot gris. Russ Raney adds depth to the wine by blending in 15 percent gewürztraminer, which makes it a terrific aperitif wine. It has the floral notes of pinot gris with a hint of the lusciousness of gewurtz all with minerality and refreshing acidity—I’d like to taste it blind against some Alsatian whites, or forget that, with some seafood! The only bad news is the limited availability of the wine. But based on this taste, I’d be very willing to cobble together an order of his very reasonably priced wines from Russ at the winery directly. eveshamwood.com (503) 371-8478

Chateau Turcaud, Entre-Deux-Mers, white 2005. $11 find this wine
The Entre-Deux-Mers region of Bordeaux is a misnomer. It’s not between two seas, as the name states, but between two rivers. This wedge of flat land between the Garonne and the Dordogne Rivers used to produce a lot of boring wines but the economic crisis in the area is starting to invigorate the area as a whole. This dry white, a blend of sauvignon blanc (50%), semillon (45), and muscadelle (5) is great value vino from Bordeaux. Luscious notes of pineapple layer on top of crisp acidity giving the wine a great mouthfeel. It’s an excellent companion to potato-leek soup. Mmm, fall is here. Consider this a wine for between two seasons, not seas.
Importer: Fleet Street Wine Merchants

Zero manipulation, Peterson winery, California, 2003. $12 find this wine
I love the text on this label: 78% Mendocino County carignane, 14% Sonoma syrah, 8% Sonoma mourvedre. They even stick the vineyards on there too but I won’t bore you those. The point is, information! Love it! In the glass, it is a red, light color but not lacking in aromas of garrigue, leather and spice. It has good balance on the palate and is a very food friendly red for the fall. And zero manipulation, who can be against that?

Powers,
cabernet sauvignon, Washington State, 2002. $11 find this wine
If some entry level cabernets have too much raw tannin, then, ironically, this wine called Powers is a way to throttle back. A blend of cab from four vineyards in Washington State, the wine maker also added a gob of syrah and a blob of merlot from organically farmed vineyards. With a little age on it now, the resulting blend is smooth yet substantial and a good match for the beefy side of this fall’s dishes.

Vinho Verde, Fâmega, NV $4.49 find this wine
I have always thought of vinho verde as something of a wine curiosity since it’s neither green as the name would imply nor a still wine because of slight effervescence. Heck, it’s hardly even a wine by today’s standards since it has only 9 percent alcohol! But after years of scoffing at vinho verde I tried this one—not of my own free will, of course, but it mysteriously ended up in a case of wine that I ordered on line. I’m glad it did. It is a fantastically easy drinking aperitif wine with a sort of bluish hue, bubbles, and good acidity. With the low price and low alcohol, you could really put some of this away. And at under $50 a case—too bad summer is almost over! Importer: Admiral Wine Imports, Cedar Grove NJ.

Lafazinis, St. George, Pelopennese, 2004. $10 Find this wine
Greek wines have come a long way. This light summer quaffer hails from the blazing sun of the Pelopennese. Made from the Agiorgitiko grape (chalk up another one for the wine century) with no oak, the light bright red fruit shines through followed by a slightly tannic finish. Try chilled with anything you’re eating al fresco. Importer: Sotiris Bafitis.

Los Planos, Syrah, D.O. Carinena, 2003 $8 Find this wine
These planes of Spain may become known mostly for their syrah. This 6,000 case offering from the team behind the old-vine grenache of Las Rocas, has a similar unctuous, big style. Leather and dried herbs on the nose and blackberries on the palate, this syrah is going to be a huge crowd pleaser-and at this price, you can afford to pour it for a crowd. To make it fit better with the summer weather, try and chill it a few minutes before pulling the meat off the grill. Importer: Eric Solomon.

This list is updated weekly.
See the previous complete list of ten wines under $10.

Wines over $12 that are still good values:
Il Corzanello, $14. A delicious white wine from Tuscany. Read more.
Gerard Boulay, Sancerre, Chavignol, 2005. $21 find this wine

In compiling a list of recommended wines most writers balance ease of finding wines with simply good wines. In this list, I have done away with such even-handedness. I have compiled a list of excellent and affordable fall wines—ones that, sadly, you will probably never find.

What the heck is the point of making such a tantalizing but impossible list? Well, hopefully I am overstating the difficulty of finding the wines and you can actually find them. But even if you can’t, perhaps you will like the sound of some of the wines and ask for them by name—or a wine in a similar style—at your local store. Or you could always drop me a line if you have a question about similar wines.

For starters on the white side, it’s sauvignon blanc time. What?!, I hear you exclaim? Those are for the deck in the summer! Au contraire mon ami, the food friendliness of these wines make them great all year. In the fall, I especially like sauvignon blanc made with a bit more heft, which can come from some light oak aging or the terroir. A great food pairing for all is a potato-leek soup.

Grochau Cellars, GC, sauvignon blanc, Rogue Valley, Oregon, 2005. $19 find this wine
John Grochau is part of a new wave of American wine makers. He still works in the front of house at Portland’s Higgins restaurant but decided to make a wine. He sourced the first sauvignon fruit from some friends’ vineyard and made the wine at a winery where he also works in making wine. He gave this first SB vintage a little bit of malolactic fermentation and aged it on the lees in three year old barrels—all that giving it a fuller mouthfeel. Yet it has underlying notes of tropical fruits such as guava and melon that make it delicate and appealing. Sadly, limited availability means this is one to watch more than to drink. For more info: gcwines at msn dot com

Woodward Canyon, sauvignon blanc, Walla Walla, 2005. $20 find this wine
This wine sees no time in oak but still has an excellent weight and mouthfeel. I asked the winemaker, Rick Small, why that is and he said it had to do with the warm conditions of the vintage. The wine has a beautiful balance between fruit, acidity, and lushness.

Movia, sauvignon, Brda (Slovenia), 2004. $22. Find this wine
I wrote about this sauvignon blanc earlier but it has a vibrant (bio)dynamism that lives on in memory. I’d love to taste it alongside the others from Pac NW but this one has a hauntingly long finish. Read my other comments about this wine.

Il Corzanello, Paterno e Corzano, 2005. $14. find this wine
The blend of mostly trebbiano and chardonnay is unoaked so it has great purity of fruit. The wine has wonderful concentration, with notes of minerality and crisp acidity, with a rich midpalate and a long finish. Although only 800 cases are produced, some is exported to the US. Try it with hard cheese, such as pecorino.

Albert Mann, Gewurztraminer, Alsace, 2004 $17. find this wine
Gewuztraminer is hard to pronounce but a very rewarding food pairing with spicy foods or even an aperitif wine. This Albert Mann has fabulous tropical fruit aromatics but then a refreshing crispness on the palate followed by faint spice. If you are scrounging for a glass of wine to have with that turkey sandwich on the day after Thanksgiving, pour a glass of gewurz.

Reds

Joseph Drouhin, Morgon 2005. $12 Find this wine
When most people think of Beaujolais, they think of Georges Duboeuf. Well, say hello to Joe, Joseph Drouhin that is. This cru Beaujoais bears little resemblance to the nouveau stuff that is airdropped on the world on the third Thursday of November. Instead, it actually has depth. Bold berry notes are followed by a bolt of acidity followed by a pleasant finish with notes of white pepper. This Morgon will make a great pairing with the Thanksgiving meal using the acidity to zap the sweeter dishes and enough heft to enliven the more boring ones. CAUTION: I tried it with trout and it was a disastrous pairing—stick with cheese and turkey day fare. 13% alcohol. Importer Dreyfus-Ashby.

Abad Dom Bueno, Bierzo, 2003 $12. find this wine
Bierzo is an off the beaten path region growing an unheard of grape, mencia. Good luck finding this one! But if you do you will be amply rewarded with a great value. Inky purple in color, it has notes of virbrant red fruit on the palate overlaying a pleasant minerality, and long and well-integrated finish.

Tir Na Nog old vines, McLaren Vale, 2004. $20 find this wine
Grenache is an easy drinking red thanks to a light sweetness and a faint spice on the finish. I thought that this grenache from old vines with an unpronounceable Celtic name was a spoof since the first time I read about it was when fellow wine blogger Winesmith wrote that it was Stephen Colbert’s favorite wine. But lo and behold, I found it and tried it and it is great juice! Sanctus Stevenus is now a wine picking guru! With a crispness that is often lacking in Aussie reds, you’ll never know that this balanced wine with a long finish has 15.5 percent alcohol—at least for the first few sips. Importer: Australian Premium Wine Collection.

Bethel Heights, Casteel Reserve, 2004 $40. Find this wine
Pinot noir and fall go together well. In fact, so well that I am going to do a future post with more pinot picks. Sadly, you tend to have to pay up for pinot more than you with other grape varieties given its relative scarcity and fickle nature. Light in color in the glass, this wine has a beautiful delicacy of rose petals and a pleasant tannic spice on the long finish. It would go great with turkey but could even stand up to other fowl from the season. Made with sustainable vineyard practices.

Crasto Douro, 2004. $17. find this wine
If the Inuit people have dozens of words of for ice, because it is so important for them then Tempranillo must be important too since it has so many names. Known by that name in La Rioja, drifting to the Duero River it becomes known as Tinto del pais and then Tinto roriz once you cross into Portugal. Call it what you will, this luscious red from 50 percent tinto roriz is an absolute steal at $17. The wine sees no oak and possesses a rustic blend of dark fruits, brambles and leather and has juicy, soft tannins. If you are looking to move up the quality ladder of the new wave of dry table wines in the Douro, Crastao is making terrific wines all the way to their top wine—over $100 a bottle! Pairing: mmm, stew.

Whitman Cellars, Narcissa, Walla Walla 2003. $24 find this wine
Walla Walla, Washington may be remote, but the wine prices are running up fast. Fortunately that’s because the quality is on the rise too. This cab-merlot-franc blend has great character and is a reasonable value to taste the terroir de Walla Walla. Try to order it directly from the winery. www.whitmancellars.com

Dessert
Malamado Mendoza, 2004 $10. find this wine
Jose Antonio Zuccardi loves to experiment. One of the few organic producers in Mendoza, he also makes way more than just malbec, Argentina’s signature red. To wit, this late harvest viognier that is both tasty and very affordable. I poured it after a recent dinner expecting the women to prefer it (as was the case when I was at the winery) but it was enjoyed by men and women alike. Notes of honey, tropical fruit, and white flowers make this an unusual treat. Sadly, I once found it at PJ’s Wine but it is no longer there. Let Zuccardi’s importer (Winesellers, Ltd) know you want it and maybe they’ll bring it back to the US.

Related:
“Mourvedre: the next big red?” [Dr. V]

tags: wine | Thanksgiving | food and drink

Last night I ate a dinner made by “cookie.” Or at least that’s what the President called him. Yes, that President.

Walter Scheib, Executive Chef at the White House for 11 years, gave a talk at NYU interspersed between three courses about his time in the White House.

In 1994, his wife saw in the newspaper that the White House chef had resigned. Chef Scheib was then at the Greenbrier in West Virginia and he saw no reason to apply. As he told the story, he and his wife were on a plane and he couldn’t escape her enthusiastic encouragement for the whole flight. The next morning when he left for work, his wife presented him with his resume and a cover letter to sign and send to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Smart woman.

With 4000 applicants whittled down to 30 finalists and 10 who were ultimately brought in to cook a test meal, Scheib described it as a American Idol before there was American Idol.

Hillary Clinton was the one doing the hiring. She said that she wanted a chef who cooked American cuisine, a break with the tradition with French chefs. He cooked an audition lunch for the then-First Lady and her staff. Even though he called that one of the three most important meals he cooked during his tenure he neglected to save the menu from that day. But whatever it was, it got him the job.

He described the White House kitchen as a cramped at 30′ x 30′ and it had not been updated since 1976. There were two septuagenarian French chefs on the staff. Scheib put in all new appliances from stainless steel, high BTU ranges to extractor hoods. And he told the chefs that he would be bringing in a new style of food with spices ranging from curry to habanero. They said “that’s great!” And then they retired.

The meal that Chef Scheib prepared last night at the NYU Torch Club was bipartisan. The first dish was sweet potato and red curry soup with kefir and lemon grass, a favorite of Chelsea Clinton’s. I expected not to like it. But it was excellent, a blend of light sweetness followed by a gentle heat of the curry. It’s amazing to have a food that has a tasting arc like a wine. Apparently Tony Blair smelled Chelsea having it at Camp David one time, tried it, and asked the chef to prepare it for him as a sauce for his lobster the next time he visited the White House.

The second course came courtesy of the Bush twins. One time the family was away from the White House and Jenna and Barbara decided to come back. And have 40 friends over. Chef Scheib thought they would want to do a cookout and arranged for a drop shipment of beef. Only at 2:30 that Saturday afternoon, the twins told him they wanted to have a mini state dinner, in the main dining room with fancy china, and their friends would be dressing up. Deep six the cookout grub he wondered? Oh no, they twins replied that they would have it in the main dining room.

So knowing their love of margaritas, he prepared a lime-tequila sauce and reduced it to a mere glaze for the beef. Fried plantain chips soared over the meat, which was served on a bed of fresh mango and banana. That was our course number two. Scheib said that the Bush twins remarked after the meal that it was a pity to waste that much tequila.

Finally, we had a bipartisan dessert, honey-lavender ice cream and peach-berry cobbler. The Bushes apparently like Blue Bell ice cream from Texas. But Chef Scheib and his crew wanted to make their own. So they ground real vanilla beans, replaced half the sugar with honey and added lavender blossoms. The result was an amazingly intense ice cream that was gooey thanks to the honey and beautifully delicate with the lavender. The cobbler was fairly standard. But Bill Clinton likes it so much that he wants to have it at Chelsea’s wedding.

As your Senior Wine Correspondent I had to ask about the White House wine during the Q&A. Scheib joked that the White House has a great cellar: it’s called the state of California. Seriously, he said that the White House cellar is actually quite small, only about 300 bottles. Whenever they had an event that called for wine they would work with a winery to obtain their best wines–often from the personal collections of the vintners themselves. They rotate the wines very often so no one wine is considered a house wine. And they do draw from states beyond California too.

All in all it was a nourishing meal on many levels. This election day, vote for good food.

Related:
The American Chef, Chef Scheib’s web site, complete with recipes.
The list of food and wine offerings at NYU/James Beard Foundation

tags: wine | food and drink | white house | walter scheib

These photos show Ales Kristancic uncorking his sparkling wine at a recent tasting in NYC. Ales runs his family’s estate, Movia, in the part of Friuli that crosses into Slovenia. The wines are all made through biodynamics, the process of “organic plus” winemaking that blends in a shot of moonlight. If you’re looking for unusually refreshing, exciting, vibrant wines, keep an eye out for the wines of Movia–start scouring since they are hard to find though not outrageously expensive, about $25 – 35 for most of them (but the strong Vila Marija line is around $12; search).

Ales bottles his sparkling wine unfiltered. So in the third picture above he is coaxing the final sediment toward the cork. In the second photo he is pointing it out. Then he plunged it into the water bucket cork down, eased the cork out, and the sediment followed. Anybody want a taste? (photo 1) I did.

The sparkler, a 1999 from magnum, is amazingly fresh and clean. There is none of that bready, yeasty note that is common to champagne and not unpleasant. This was just so fresh, fruit and bubbles and totally dry.

The ribolla gialla is a sort of flagship wine from the estate. Made from 80 year old vines, the 2004 that I tasted was beautifully balanced between fruit, acidity and minerality. It is aged on the lees (more sediment!), which give is depth and roundness. Apparently its age-worthiness is legendary, lasting 50 years or more. But it is drinking great now.

But I liked his 04 sauvignon (blanc) a tad more. I have been paying attention to serious sauvignon blanc recently and this one definitely qualifies. A great mouthfeel, poised between acidity and creaminess, this wine has fantastic weight and intensity. The 04 pinot grigio was also very good and favored crushed stone notes over crushed flowers.

The 2004 Vila Marija merlot at $12 is an absolute steal. Bland be banned! This merlot has the great characteristics of the variety that are not hidden under layers of oak. How refreshing.

Try a wine from Movia this fall. But with only 13,000 cases made at the estate, the only trouble is finding a bottle.