Dr Vino's wine blog

Eric Asimov has a long piece in today’s NYT about small wine shops. He highlights a number of local, independent shops mostly around New York City. If you are familiar with our map of NYC wine shops, then you knew about virtually every store in his story already! I’d also highlight Le Vigne, which is a good, new shop that didn’t get mentioned. I’ve also recently discovered UVA Wines in Brooklyn, which has an excellent selection of wines from the Loire and Burgundy. Thirst Merchants in Fort Greene also merits a shout-out since they have a lot of the hard-to-find wines from the portfolio of importer Kermit Lynch. Hit the comments with faves in your area.

I love a good, small wine shop. When people ask me to recommend a wine, I often tell them that the best practical advice I can give them is to find a great, small shop near them. Read more…

While Merlot’s fall from grace can be traced to one line in the movie Sideways, the fall of Syrah has been more difficult to track. Australian wine, with Shiraz as the signature grape, has experienced a decline in sales over the past couple of years. Even more broadly, it’s still a tough sell: producers and retailers have repeatedly told me that save for a few appellations in the Northern Rhone, the homeland of the grape, Syrah remains a sluggish category.

I was happy to have the chance to check in with Syrah by organizing a small tasting at a private residence last week. In putting together the seven wines in the lineup, I wanted to be sure to include examples from Australia, the US and the Northern Rhone but had the usual constraint that the wines actually had to be available locally. I decided to spare the tasters the hot-climate, jammy style and the boring cheapie style since they were probably most familiar with those, especially the latter, which is poured with abandon at fundraisers and art gallery openings. Read more…

SPIT: reform in Maryland
Reforming Maryland’s wine law, where it is a felony to ship wine to consumers, is all but dead for this year. Despite having a majority of co-sponsors in both chambers of the state legislature, the bill has been farmed out for further study. Read the autopsy of reform over on Baltsun.com. As a chaser, check out Tom Wark’s “manifesto for change in the wine industry” over on Fermentation.

SPIT: business as usual
The aftershocks of the earthquake that rocked Chile and its wine industry continue to be felt. “Everybody is struggling to keep up with the harvest. I wouldn’t be surprised if some wineries don’t make it,” an AP story quotes one winemaker as saying. Grape prices have risen, the harvest is at hand, and there is still much infrastructure in need of repair. [Photo: reduced size crop of AP image]

SIPPED: turning tide?
A more sanguine take on the state of Napa’s economy; Nielsen data show wine sales at stores increased 4.6% in February year-over-year with the previously anemic category of wines over $20 showing 12.6 percent growth. Of note: the Super Bowl was on Feb 7 this year as opposed to Feb 1 of last year.

SPIT: business models
Three wine makers from California who were victims of the recession receive profiles in the LAT.

SPIT: extra weight
In the name of a smaller carbon footprint, the Champagne bureau has announced that 90% of Champagne bottles will be lighter weight within two years. They will still be strong enough to withstand the several atomospheres worth of pressure, however. Just easier to break when baptizing boats. [Timesonline]

SPIT: wine on TV; SIPPED: strength of will
Before it even shoots its first program, a proposed wine TV channel may be banned by French authorities on the basis of violating the Loi Evin. Undaunted, the people behind the channel, Edonys, press ahead. [Decanter]

We all want to order wine like a pro at a restaurant. But apparently ordering wine off a wine list is an extremely pressure-filled situation for many people, ranking right up there with fear of public speaking and fear of grizzly bears. So with a new, recurring feature on this site, we aim to help you order wine like with aplomb and find an excellent deal.

Although regular wine markup in restaurants is 300 percent of the wholesale cost, many wine lists have hidden deals. There are any number of reasons why they exist: Perhaps the sommelier has a soft spot for an unheralded grape and slips it on the list with a low markup or maybe there is a closeout item and the restaurant passes on the savings.

Today’s such gem comes from Bar Boulud. To accompany the restaurant’s extensive charcuterie menu, wine director Michael Madrigale runs an innovative program that focuses largely on wines from the Rhone and Burgundy. One of the exciting things he does is feature a different large format bottle, often a rare mature wine, open it and pour it by the glass. (Follow on Twitter to see which wines are being poured.)

But one deal that he doesn’t telegraph is what he calls “the nugget.” On the wine list at any given moment is a wine that Madrigale puts on for the wholesale cost (that is to say, even below retail). He doesn’t highlight the item and it’s often an obscure, wine geek’s wine and his stock can be quickly depleted. Diners have to spot the wine on the list as being an outrageous value, and then order it and accept it. At that point Madrigale lets them know the value they have uncorked. “Usually, they are quite happy about their choice,” he says. Previous such wines have included Chapoutier’s ’04 Cornas “Les Arenes” for $55 and the Chateau Grillet 2004.

So order wine like an insider when next at Bar Boulud. The current nugget is…Eric Texier, 2000 Hermitage rouge for $69.

Bar Boulud
1900 Broadway (between 63rd & 64th) New York, NY 10023
(212) 595-0303

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)

All the chatter in the NY dining scene is about cheese made from breast milk. At Klee Brasserie, Chef Daniel Angerer blogged about making cheese from his own lactating wife, blogged about it, and the requests to try it came pouring in. So he started giving it away as a canapé with figs and Hungarian pepper. Sadly, the story doesn’t describe the flavor profile of the cheese (looks like a chevre ball). Nonetheless, for a wine pairing, the chef recommends…Riesling.

What do you think? Impossible?!?

The alternative packaging trend gets bigger and reusable: a 2009 Riesling from the Finger Lakes in 20-liter tank will soon be available in NYC.

Known as Gotham Project, the thirst-quenching Riesling is the brainchild of Charles Bieler (above, left), of Bieler Rose in Provence and one of the Three Thieves, and Bruce Schneider (right), of Schneider Vineyards on Long Island. Bars and restaurants will be able to get it from local distributor Michael Skurnik; the only open question is whether it will be available for homes, as rooftops and poolsides beckon…

UPDATE: You can’t see it clearly in the photo, but both Bieler and Schneider are wearing black t-shirts saying “Give them the Finger Lakes.” I reproduce the image here courtesy of designer Steven Solomon. Welcome to New Yawk!