Dr Vino's wine blog

SIPPED: number crunching
Wineries that advertise in Wine Spectator have their wines score better–but only by less than one point. Such is the finding in the lead article in the new issue of the Journal of Wine Economics. See the whole paper here as pdf or a blog reaction from the journal’s editor or a hard-hitting response from Robin Goldstein. The quantitative study looks only at reviews and does not examine the editorial, art, restaurant awards, or the Top 100 for advertiser bias. WS editor Tom Matthews responds to the research.

SPIT: binge drinking; SIPPED: wine tasting
An elite girls’ school in England has a new approach to tackling the problem of binge drinking: wine tastings. “We want to introduce the girls and their friends to good wines and their complexity, and educate them to develop an interest in the making of the wines rather than them seeing wine as something that you knock back in the summer holidays without thinking.” Revolutionary!! [The Indepdent; ht @candidwines]

SPIT: closures
Francis Ford Coppola’s winery produced a wine dubbed “encyclopedia” in a carafe-shaped bottle. The custom, oversized screwcaps leaked and ruined 55,000 cases of the wine, the winery alleges in a lawsuit filed against the screwcap’s manufacturer, Vinocor. [Bloomberg]

SPIT: pre-selling wine
Some California wineries are going all Rioja and consciously holding wines back for bottle aging–sometimes a decade or more–at the winery. [NYT]

SPIT: “me-too” wines
The New Zealand wine industry faces challenges, as bulk exports rise and prices fall. The NYT writes that the country’s vintners are “desperate to avoid the fate of neighboring Australia.”

Last night, someone asked me, “what wine do you pair with fried food since I’m going to be having it for the next eight nights.”

Let’s shed some light on the wine pairing for…latkes! Seems like a blank slate to me, starchy potato (with some onion, salt and pepper) simmered in olive oil. So have at it–or is it impossible?

And if you want to make it a Hanukkah duo, the gentleman also asked for a pairing with jelly doughnuts. That may require a second bottle…

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.

Google has rolled out a cool new feature called Google Goggles that allows search by sight–take a picture of an object with your cameraphone Android phone and it will tell you more info on it. TechCrunch reported from the demo yesterday in Mountain View:

The example that Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra showed on stage involved taking a picture of a particular bottle of wine. When he ran it through Google Goggles, the result showed that the particular bottle has a hint of apricots.

Awesome! The only issue is that if he picked up the bottle of Argentine Malbec depicted in the images above that would be a major FAIL. (Maybe the system just didn’t take “saddle leather” as a serious descriptor. Or maybe he had a different wine on-stage–come on TechCrunch, we need the wine intel!) The technology may have a few bumps but this sort of optical label and character recognition could potentially revolutionize wine shopping and managing wine cellar inventory. (hat tip, Eric)

What’s happening in this glass? The winemaker practices minimal intervention and uses no sulfur. So one theory is refermentation, which can come from excessive heat exposure. Or it could be a tsunami of tartaric crystals, which can be caused excessive by cold exposure. What do you think? And more importantly, would you drink this wine?

If they are tartaric crystals, consider this from the Oxford Companion to Wine: “Only the most informed consumers appreciate the harmlessness of tartrate crystals in bottle. Although tartrates precipitated in red wines usually take on some red or brown pigments and are commonly regarded as mere sediment, in white wines they look alarmingly like shards of glass to the uninitiated. The modern wine industry has in the main decided that tartrate stabilization is preferable to consumer education.” All right, then, we can consider ourselves educated! More on cold stabilization and the “wine diamonds” of tartrates can be found here.

SIPPED: user feedback
[Yellow Tail], the ubiquitous Australian wine, wants your help! The producer has decided to open the naming of their new, unoaked Chardonnay up to readers. The contest may have risks as this article points out, the crowd sourcing initiative for naming the new blend of Vegemite and cream cheese (really, why ruin good cream cheese?) drew 48,000 entries, but the winner drew “near universal” condemnation. The [Yellow Tail] contest comes with a prize–[Yellow Tail]! Make your name suggestions in the comments here (sorry no, prize).

SIPPED: place names
Chateau Montelena and other wineries in Calistoga will soon be able to put Calistoga on the label. After a protracted struggle over whether wineries with Calistoga in the name would have to use exclusively Calistoga fruit, federal authorities granted AVA status to the area in the north of Napa. Wineries with Calistoga in the name have three years to begin using grapes from Calistoga. [SF Chronicle]

SIPPED: lightening up
When you have a collection of 450,000 bottles, is it time to lighten up? If you’re the owners of the Tour d’Argent restaurant in Paris, the answer is yes to the tune of 18,000 bottles, including some 18th century cognac and Corton from 1895. The auction today and tomorrow is estimated fetch about $2 million, which will aid the restaurant’s bottom line as it feels the tourist slowdown. Apparently, during the occupation, the owners built a fake wall in the cellar to prevent the Nazis from finding some 20,000 bottles. NYT, Telegraph]

SIPPED: Craggy Range
I participated in a kiwi Pinot showdown over at Forbes.com Tower. Eric Arnold has the story.

SIPPED: Green certification
A national certification program on various environmental factors have been launched for Australian wine. Quotage from Stephen Strachan from the Winemakers Federation: “The retailers more and more are requiring the companies that are selling to them to be able to come to them with certain proof in terms of their environmental credentials.” [ABC, WFA]

From site reader Jim:

It’s opportunities like this that make me wish I did indeed have a blog, but I don’t, so I’m passing it to you. Go to butterflywineopener.com for the most asinine, pointless product ever: an opener for screwcap wines. If you look at the video, all you do is seal it over the screwcap…and then turn the top of the opener, just as you would the screwcap itself.

I discovered it in a full-page ad in Tasting Panel [home of the “exposure package“–ed.]…strangely, as you’ll see on the website, the only press they’ve received is in the Tasting Panel, who’ve mentioned it at least twice in different issues.

The holiday wine class is now only a week away! Grab one of the remaining seats and join us on 12/10 in NYC to taste through seven great wines for gifting and drinking! Here are ten reasons to entice you to sign up:

* The just-fired coach of the New Jersey Nets will make a guest appearance to give a brief talk on winning.

* Being able to know which end of the bottle to open the only prior wine knowledge needed!

* Tareq and Michaele Salahi will crash the event.

* Find some excellent wines to give as gifts to your friends and co-workers.

* Get a gilt-edged, collectors’ edition of Dr. Vino’s holiday wine survival guide!

* Discover undervalued gems to pour at your holiday party!

* Meet fellow wine enthusiasts!

* Vigneron Brad Pitt will stop by and discuss what he has learned about wine grape growing in Provence. And goatee growing.

* Find out which wine is the perfect match for roaring fires and chestnuts!

* Learn essential wine miscellany that you can use to impress people over eggnog at holiday parties!

All right, some of these may be true and some may be totally made up. Stop by and find out the truth for yourself!

Buy tickets in advance here
Thursday, Dec 10, 6:30 – 8:00 PM, on E. 29th Street