Dr Vino's wine blog

As the weather warms up, a couple of zippy whites may be in order. I’ve had both of these recently and they struck me for both being built on lean, acid cores but with slightly more weight roundness on the finish than your average summer sipper. It’s kind of like sauvignon blanc meets chardonnay–and in the case of Domaine des Huards, that’s exactly what it is! From the Cheverny appellation in the eastern Loire, the deliciously refreshing, wonderfully minerally wine is 85 percent sauvignon with 15 percent chardonnay. The 2008 balances citrusy acidity with a wet rocky quality beautifully; the 2009, of which I had tasting sized pour a couple of weeks later, seemed to have even more crackling acidity. (about $16; find this wine) For all the Tintin lovers out there, the chateau that adorns the label, Chateau Cheverny, served as the model for Captain Haddock’s country house.

The Benaza Godello (about $12; find this wine) is good, clean fun because it takes a grape from Galicia that few people have heard of and then wins them over in the glass. Again, good acidity with a bit more roundness, perhaps from two months on the lees, perhaps from a dollop of the treixadura grape that is blended in, or perhaps from the 30-50 year-old vines themselves. Chill and serve with seafood on the deck. Also of note: the Benaza red wine made from the mencia grape is a pretty tasty value as well.

Robert Parker posted his reviews of Bordeaux 2009 yesterday on his subscription web site, erobertparker.com. In an article entitled “Once Upon a Time (1899, 1929, 1949, 1959, 2009),” he lavished praise on the vintage, particularly the cabernet blends of the left bank, and on many wines individually: 21 wines received scores of potentially 100 points. He wrote, “For some Médocs and Graves, 2009 may turn out to be the finest vintage I have tasted in 32 years of covering Bordeaux.” Many were accompanied by an asterisk, which indicate that they are the best wine from the estate that he has ever tasted as a barrel sample. For the number-obsessed, Bordeauxoverview has put together a grid of all the critics’ scores.

Of course, tasting is a matter of opinion and others have expressed their views (captured, in part, in our tweet roundup). Writing in the Financial Times, Jancis Robinson compared the ripeness and high alcohols she experienced to California, remarking “I have never written the word “Napa” so often in my tasting notes.” Parker, by contrast, praised the best Medocs for being “powerful and concentrated” and hailed them “historic.” He dismissed reports of high alcohol as being mostly “absurd.”

Tim Atkin, a British writer, put together a very skimmable report (here as pdf) calling the vintage “great but not uniform.” John Gilman had a similar view, adding that 2009 was a “fantastic” vintage for Sauternes. In his subscription newsletter, Gilman observed two stylistic camps among the top reds, one epitomized by Lafite that is suave and seductive from the get-go, and another, more structured style requiring bottle aging, embodied by Latour and Petrus.

There is a great deal of consensus about the first growths Lafite-Rothschild, Margaux, Latour and Haut-Brion. Mouton-Rothschild was a notch below for most tasters; Tim Atkin compared it to a Chilean carmenere and gave it 94 points.

However, some flash points have emerged, most notably Cos d’Estournel. Parker gave it a score of 98-100 with an asterisk calling it “extraordinary…one of the greatest young wines I have ever tasted” while Neal Martin who also writes for the Wine Advocate, lamented the alcohol level, compared it to a wine from the Douro, and scored it 89-91. Tim Atkin noted the 14.5% alcohol on the label, called it over-the-top, compared it to an Australian shiraz and gave it 95 points. John Gilman wrote that the was “one of the worst young wines I have ever had to taste, as it displays an utter contempt for both the history of its region and the intelligence of its clients…I cannot imagine having to drink it. This is a train wreck of monumental proportions. 67-68 points.”

The prices on futures will roll out in the next few weeks/months. Hit the comments with your thoughts on Lafite!

SPIT: the free in freedom of speech
Effective immediately, the forums on eRobertParker.com will convert to subscriber-only. End of an era.

SIPPED: Greenwashing?
Blake Gray, formerly a staff writer at the SF Chronicle, posts about the new Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing program. After reviewing each of the 227 points and finding many of them redundant or meaningless, he concludes “This is not sustainability, it’s greenwashing, and it’s done just to get greenwashed SKUs for Whole Foods.” [Gray Market Report]

SWALLOWED: conclusions; SPIT: eco-labels?
Reuters reports on a consulting group’s survey that found wine consumers cared most about price and least about organic or other eco-friendly labeling. They did not provide a link to the survey results, nor did they state who commissioned the survey, or anything about the respondents, such as their age or if they are wine drinkers. Details!

SIPPED: free wine information
Paul Gregutt rounds up free wine sites that he likes–including this one. Check out the story for others. [Seattle Times]

SPIT: egos
And if any free sites think they can conquer the world, there’s always the Hosemaster to take ’em down a notch. Check out the blog for some LOLz.

As pollen showers down this time of year, a question that many allergy sufferers may have is whether alcohol exacerbates sniffling and sneezing. The answer is yes, but not necessarily for reasons they may think.

Last week, the Times ran a short piece assessing the claim “alcohol worsens allergies.” Their conclusion was yes, particularly for women.

But the problem is not always the alcohol itself. Beer, wine and liquor contain histamine, produced by yeast and bacteria during the fermentation process. Histamine, of course, is the chemical that sets off allergy symptoms. Wine and beer also contain sulfites, another group of compounds known to provoke asthma and other allergy-like symptoms.

I tweeted about it, curious if anyone had any reactions. I heard back from Sumit Bhutani, M.D., a board certified allergist at Allergy & Asthma Associates in Houston and wine enthusiast (and site reader!). In follow-up emails, he took issue with the treatment in the Times piece for lumping all nasal symptoms as allergies, whether they are or not, and placing undue causality on the histamines and sulfites in wine.

He says that histamines in foods have nothing to do with allergic reactions to those foods, so the amount of histamines in foods is almost never of value to allergists. He sent me a link to this observational study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology entitled “No correlation between wine intolerance and histamine content of wine.”

As to sulfites causing allergies or asthma, Dr. Bhutani says that sulfites cause respiratory symptoms in the small portion of the population already sensitive to them. For them, most whom already have asthma, the reactions are often severe forms of bronchospastic symptoms and may include anaphylactic reactions (you can assess your sensitivity to sulfites by eating five dried apricots, which often have higher levels of sulfites than a glass of wine.) He included a link to another study that tested the theory of low-sulfite and high-sulfite wines in patients with a reported history of asthmatic sulfite reactions. There was no objective drop in the subjects’ breathing test with either wine.

So does the alcohol itself worsen allergies? Dr. Bhutani suggests that when someone’s allergies are flared, alcohol can act as a congestant (a direct vasodilator, in his terms; because it is related to blood-alcohol levels, lower-alcohol wines should cause less congestion.). It’s similar to the way that people with allergies experience increased symptoms around other irritants such as second-hand smoke or strong scents. But he cautions that these indirect irritants are causes of allergy-like symptoms (called rhinitis), not allergies per se. He says that women are affected by this condition three times more than men.

Pity the wine tasters, critics and amateurs alike, that suffer from allergies who may be compounding their problems by tasting at certain times of the year. But if you don’t have allergies, it’s not likely the cause of congestion.

Related: “CONTAINS SULFITES: meant to frighten rather than inform“

The wine world just got wackier.

A new Twitter account going by the name of Bobby Parkerchuk mashes the tweets and tones of Robert Parker and Gary Vaynerchuk. The bio reads: “Wine guy, hedonist, host of Winery Advocate TV. Loves points. Loves the hustle.” Parkerchuk has been hailed as “hilarious,” “my new god,” and ” the best micro-niche-sub-culture satire ever” by people who probably should know better. We scored the twitter-interview, via instant messenger:

Dr. Vino: Bobby, how would you describe yourself?

Bobby Parkerchuk: Blending the bombastic musings of Robert Parker with the hustle of GaryVee. With points for all.

DV: So where did you get the inspiration for this?

BP: I have to hand it to Ruth Bourdain…she’s a surly broad w great legs–and I’m not talking in the wine glass…99 pts.

DV: Eric Asimov said that the reason you’re so much worse that RuBo is that you have such “drek” to work with. True? Read more…

On April 15, a motley coalition of first-year and retiring members of Congress from both parties introduced a bill. The proposed legislation would restrict legal challenges to the interstate shipment of wine. Tom Wark, head of the Specialty Wine Retailers Association, described it as “the most onerous consumer wine law since the passage of the 18th Amendment and the onset of Prohibition.” Wine Spectator obtained a copy of a draft bill written by the National Beer Wholesalers’ Association and compared it to H.R. 5034 and deemed them “largely identical.” (See the bill’s text here.)

Of course, bills get introduced all the time as fobs to political contributors and then they don’t make it very far down the arduous path to becoming law.

We have devised a threat-meter for this particular bill. Normally a bill like this would have zero chance in becoming law before the 111th Congress adjourns. But right now we are one notch above zero (neck level) with a “high shoulder” rating. Why? A few reasons that all boil down to the deep pockets and skill of those behind the legislation.

One worrisome aspect is that in order for the bill to become law, it must get voted out of committee. The bill has been assigned to the House Judiciary committee, chaired by John Conyers from Michigan. Tom Wark has described Michigan as one state whose elected officials are “completely controlled” by wholesalers through their campaign contributions. (Michigan was the losing plaintiff in Granholm v. Heald, the 2005 case that liberalized wine shipments.) Indeed, the National Beer Wholesalers Association was one of the top 5 donors to John Conyers for the past two election cycles.

Hopefully, legislators will see this as the gross overreach that it is on the part of distributors. It would be great if reaction from wine enthusiasts turned the initiative in to the wholesalers’ last stand, legislatively. But that is unlikely.

We will keep you posted here if the threat level changes. You can also join the Facebook group Stop HR5034 (over 1,500 members already) for updates. And in case this bill does go anywhere, hit the comments with your thoughts about who we can send a huge amount of corks to–or other possible steps to effectively make our voices heard.

RH.R.5034 – Comprehensive Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness (CARE) Act of 2010. Sponsors are Rep. Bill Delehunt (D) MA; Rep. Howard Coble (R) NC; Rep. Mike Quigley (D) IL; Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) UT

Related: Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters, and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink

“Alcohol delivers flavors.”

So writes Lettie Teague in her debut column “Wines that Pack a Little Extra” for the Wall Street Journal on Saturday. What does she mean by “alcohol delivers flavors”? She seems to be implying that higher alcohol translates into more flavor. But is that really true?

One of the hottest hot-button issues in the wine world is rising alcohol levels. Although alcohol itself is tasteless, elevated levels of it in wines often accompanies enhanced polyphenols, which can make for big, showy wines, such as a Martinelli Zinfandel that weighs in at over 16% alcohol. But high alcohol actually often crowds out flavors (or vineyard specificity), and, at elevated levels, its searing heat can dominate a wine’s aromas. Although Teague quotes Aldo Sohm, sommelier at Le Bernardin, to support her case in the story, in a follow-up email to me, Sohm said that high-alcohol tends to come at the expense of refinement and complexity. And that’s just it: does Teague really think that the wines of Christophe Roumier or Noel Pinguet (Domaine Huet) or Manfred Prum (J. J. Prüm) lack flavor compared to Martinelli zin or El Nido Clio? I would think not. So why does she present such a black-and-white view in her story, where “flavors” only arrive in the rarefied vapors north of 14% alcohol?

The piece also portrays sommeliers who champion low alcohol wines to be insufferable snobs. She even goes to far as to wonder if the word “balance” is “actually a code to keep out wines that they don’t like or styles that don’t fit their personal taste.” Teague then plays “gotcha,” discovering cabernets above 14% on the list of RN74, a San Francisco restaurant whose wine director is quoted in the piece against high-alcohol. (She also finds some some high-alcohol wines at a retailer who took a similar stand.) So what? At worst, that shows them guilty of inconsistency but it neither invalidates their point nor does it prove them wrong or snobs. Teague rummages around in her basement to find, lo and behold, that she has a bunch of “delicious,” high-alcohol wines. So she likes them, therefore they are okay, but when other people say they don’t like them, they are guilty of pushing their own personal taste and of snobbery. Who’s the hypocrite here?

It’s also worth noting that both on on Twitter and in a follow-up email, Rajat Parr denies making the claim that wines over 14% lack balance and suggests a more nuanced approach to alcohol. Sources often deny quotes especially on controversial issues, such as this. But Teague also recently had her account of the proceedings in another column publicly disputed by those who attended. And in a related blog post on alcohol levels, Teague states that the nebulous “anti high-alcohol crowd” says that high-alcohol wines pose health risks. I, for one, have never heard that argument.

Wine enthusiasts always enjoy getting affordable wines with tasty food at restaurants. Throw in a winemaker and it becomes a real event! Fortunately, there are a few interesting such winemaker dinners coming on the calendar in NYC soon. Of note:

April 19 at Rouge Tomate: Michel Delhommeau of Muscadet and Laetitia Gendrier of Domaine Huards in Cheverny will be among eight Loire winemakers on hand for a four-course dinner. Wine reception starts at 6:30. $95+tax and tip. (646) 237-8977

April 22 at Dressler (Williamsburg): a five-course dinner with Klauss Gasser, winemaker at Cantina Terlano in Alto Adige. Features four wines from 2005. (718) 384-6343

April 22 at Crush Wine & Spirits: not a dinner but a free, “epic” (their word) tasting of Gruner Veltliner from producers including Nikolaihof, Prager, FX Pichler, Brundlmayer and more…(Unlike the others, no producers on hand for this event.) 5:30 – 7:30. Food pairings from Seasonal restaurant. Must RSVP: events@crushwineco.com

And two arranged through Chambers Street Wines:
April 22: the distinctive, oxidized whites and high-acid reds of Jura will be offered in a private room at The Ten Bells in a walk-around, mingling, small plate tasting. More than a half-a-dozen producers will be in attendance. $55. (212) 227-1434

April 23 at General Greene (Fort Greene): a four-course dinner with excellent Loire producers Francois Chidaine (Montlouis and Vouvray) and Mattieu Baudry of Domaine Bernard Baudry (Chinon). Six wines will be served including two Montlouis still wines as well as Baudry’s top wine, La Croix Boisée. $90 (includes tax and tip) (212) 227-1434

UPDATE: Please note that the disruptions in European travel may have altered these events. Please double check with the organizers.