Dr Vino's wine blog

Ulli Stein has made a forbidden wine for decades. The Mosel winemaker still makes the wine, but it’s now allowed by law. In fact, he’s the only person in Germany with the right to make it.

The wine in question is a so-called vin de paille, or straw wine, made in miniature quantities. This sweet wine has its origins in the Jura, the Alpine region of France, and gets its name from the straw mats that the grapes are dried upon for months after harvest and before a long fermentation (Stein said his takes 12 months). Germany has many sweet wines, of course, but the sweetest wine of all, the Trockenbeerenauslese, gets its sweetness from the distinctive botrytis rot.

The lanky, hirsute Stein told me yesterday that covertly made his vin de paille for decades and labeled it as a Trockenbeerenauslese, as you can see in the picture. But he wanted to make it legally and brought the issue to a German judge, who turned down his request based on the 1971 German wine law, which claimed that grapes in the vin de paille were not fresh enough. Stein appealed. The next court turned him down. Eventually he appealed to the European courts and won the right to make vin de paille from the 2007 vintage. He added the court granted him the exclusive right in Germany to make vin de paille.

The 2003 that I tasted is a lovely, rich dessert wine. If I were a judge, I wouldn’t ban it.

As to the other Rieslings in his portfolio, they are all very good and interesting. But the standout for me was the Stein Bremmer Calmont Riesling Spatlese Trocken 2007. The delicate, slight sweetness (7.5 grams of residual sugar–all natural) embraces a vital core of acidity and minerality. Very nice.

Follow the wine action on twitter. Or not. Our interns monitor it for you:

@pete_wells: Never again will I say there’s no good cheap pinot noir. Drinking Latitude 50 from the Rheingau in Germany. Twelve bucks.
@lancearmstrong: Sitting here with @johanbruyneel at his house. Glass of wine, cheese and crackers. Now going to bed. Night, y’all. http://twitpic.com/2e0z4
@TishWine: Getting excited for April Fools 09. At DregsReport.com, we’re cooking with gas. Laughing gas. Homepage going up later this week.
@peterliem: Finally not working, for once. Listening to Sonic Youth and drinking my friend’s French moonshine: a 1995 mirabelle that his dad made.
@TQThomas: @spume I always think acidic whites with Sonic Youth, but maybe that’s only with Goo. Here, Kings of Convenience and Sant’Agata Ruché good.
@ericarnold: having a monster, spicy ramen from the deli down the block. My insides are on fire like in the Family Guy ipecac contest. But in a good way.
@billdaley: Any Lake Michigan types out there know when smelts will be swimming into the Chicago area? Miss smelts, morels, ramps. Miss them badly.
@FrankWine: is mulling marketing a t-shirt to wine bloggers that reads, “I’m Alice Feiring’s Bitch.” This post is meant in good fun, kids. 😉

FrankWine is riffing off this video from Tina Caputo, editor of trade pub Vineyard & Winery Management, entitled Robert Parker’s Bitch. She interviews several winemakers about the influence of–you got it–RP. Check it out (26 minutes):

Robert Parker’s Bitch.

Over the weekend we celebrated the first birthday of the youngest member of our family. We had a few friends over and one of them brought the Layer Cake shiraz from Australia as a birthday wine (find Layer Cake). Appropriately enough, it was from his birth-year vintage of 2008! (I’ll have to remember that trick for parents of young children at their kids’ birthdays.)

I didn’t get a chance to try the inky black, 14.9% alcohol shiraz before the bottle was drained by other guests. But I did ponder for a moment the name, Layer Cake, which is the absolute antithesis of what I would think the wine is all about or what I would pair it with. Apparently, there’s also a wine called “Cupcake” that makes cabernet and chardonnay among other dry wines. Frankly, I think these names are headed down the wrong track since cakes may be fun, but they aren’t really amenable to wine pairings.

Or wait: are they? Which wine would you pair with cupcakes? Or are they…impossible?

The budget battle in Albany looms on the calendar–and with it a decision for a possible overhaul of New York wine retail law that would expand wine sales to supermarkets. (See backgrounders here and here.)

In an op-ed in yesterday’s NYT, wine shop owner Marco Pasanella makes the case that he and other independent shops should be allowed to expand to have more than one location and be able to sell bread, cheese, microbrews, and, yes, recyclable bags, which they are not allowed to currently sell. I’ll drink to that! In fact, it is absurd that this corollary is not in the proposed reform legislation and should be corrected immediately.

I stopped by Pasanella & Son last week for a book signing. It is a handsome shop with an antique Fiat on the floor; the wine selection is excellent. The staff did a fantastic job setting up the event and it was great to see so many people, particularly from the neighborhood turn out. In his op-ed, Marco says that the staff at a local shop will remember a customer’s name. In fact, one woman there that evening told me that the staff member actually remembered which wine she had bought on her previous visit when she couldn’t. Bet that won’t happen at D’Agostino.

Also check out their clever and popular free wine and movie nights, Sip ‘n Cinema!

“If You Sell Wine, Then Let Me Sell Cheese” -NYT op-ed
New York City wine shops, a map

Some globe-trotting winemakers travel between countries by private jet. Friedrich Wilhelm Becker travels by car. But he could even go by bike.

Although his vineyards span two countries, Germany and France, they are really only one kilometer apart. Friedrich, known as Fritz, told me yesterday that the vineyards have been in his family for six generations. During that time, the border has, ahem, changed several times and 1945 left them straddling two sovereign nation states. Today, about two-thirds of Becker’s 35 acres of vineyards are in Alsace with the remainder, as well as, the winery lying in Pfalz, specifically the town of Schweigen. (This area is north of Strasbourg while most of the Alsatian winegrowing happens south of Strasbourg.)

Today, in an integrated Europe, the border doesn’t really mean much. Fritz can dart between them with ease: “you don’t even notice it” he told me. But he said that for his father it was more of a hassle several decades ago when he would have to show his passport to cross the border each time he wanted to go check sugar levels in the grapes. The French border guards didn’t always make it easy, he said, since they often weren’t from the liminal zone that is the Rhine region and resented Germans still having holdings on the French side.

But is the Becker wine “German” if it is technically grown in France? Yes, Fritz said, thanks to a 1955 accord that grants them and five other vineyards that right. In exchange, the French got water rights to the springs of Schweigen and some lumber rights from the local forest. A deal that turned water into wine; I like.

So what about the wines? Like the odd political situation of the vineyards, the main grape variety is also something of a curiosity: pinot noir or, as it is known locally, Spätburgunder. But it is expertly done in the hands of the young Friedrich Wilhelm who makes the wines today, building on the strong reputation that his father, also Friedrich, established over the last four decades.

The 2007 estate pinot noir (about $19; find this wine) is a superb value with lovely balance between gentle tart, red fruits, acidity and some minerally character. It’s made in traditional 2,400 liter (i.e. big) wood casks and is 12.5% alcohol. Pair with, well, practically anything!

The 2006 pinot noir “Kammerberg” Grosses Gewächs (like a grand cru; find this wine) is a tremendous pinot noir, from 55 year-old vines, that is really layered and interesting with a long finish. Speaking of crossing the border, I would love to taste this wine blind against some wines from Chambolle-Musigny.

www.friedrichbecker.de
Rudi Wiest, the importer

Up in Toronto, where the winter had been long, Beppi Crosariol is finally uncorking a Soave. Spring officially begins on Saturday and many of us are ready to embrace it–enologically speaking.

Beppi also happens to the be wine columnist for the Toronto Globe and Mail. His column today is about changing what’s in your wine glass with the seasons, which is the heart of my book, A Year of Wine: Perfect Pairings, Great Buys and What to Sip for Each Season. It’s a really good article that is part book review, part profile and part wine picks. Be sure to check it out!

Which wines are you looking forward to having in your glass as the weather warmer, the days get longer and more vegetables become available?

(image)

SIPPED: sanity!
French winegrowers feared that a bill making its way through the legislature could prohibit free tastings at the vineyard/winery, often an important sales channel (and one that can offer fantastic prices too). The increasingly powerful health lobby was pushing the bill but, in the end, the health minister, Roselyne Bachelot, was able to prevent some promotional wine tastings from inclusion as well as striking down a proposed ban on wine advertising on the internet. Other changes include raising the drinking age from 16 to 18. See jancisrobinson.com for more perspective on the current law. And learn more about how France got to this point in my book, Wine Politics.

SPIT: insanity!
In 2007, Illinois wine consumers became legally prohibited from buying wine from out-of-state wine stores, thereby reducing a national market for wine to a local one. State Representative Julie Hamos from Evanston–where I lived for several years and, ironically, the home of the once-powerful Woman’s Christian Temperance Union–has submitted a bill to repeal this restriction. The Chicago Tribune had an editorial in support of the new bill calling the current situation “boneheaded.” Learn more about how America got to this point in my book, Wine Politics.

SPIT: minimum pricing
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the UK rebuffed an attempt to set high minimum prices for alcoholic beverages. The chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, sought the increases, which would have doubled the price of some beer and spirits and set a minimum price of £4.50 for a bottle of wine as a strategy to combat binge drinking. Separately, Scotland is set to impose minimum prices on alcohol by year-end. [Guardian]

SIPPED: more celebrity wine
The latest entrant into the crowded field of celebrity wines is Sting (who has chosen the downturn in the NYC real estate market to offload his Manhattan apartment, btw). The two red wines will come from his 300 hectare (!) Tuscan property and are, as yet, unnamed. Will they go with Message in a Bottle? [The Times of London]

Here’s a trio of French reds under $20 (plus a bonus) for your weekend pleasure.

Domaine de la Pepiere, Clos de Briords, 2007 (about $16, find this wine)
Over the past few years, I’ve alternated my Muscadet attention between Luneau Papin and Marc Ollivier of Domaine de la Pepiere. While both are terrific values and great wines, I’d ultimately have to side with Pepiere. And if anything pushed me over the edge, it’s this superb bottling of 2007 Clos de Briords. I poured it for my NYU class and it won plaudits from people who had never even had a Muscadet. It’s a little richer and fuller than the normal bottling from Pepiere but still has that great minerally verve with a touch of briney character that goes so well with seafood. I bet this one is built to last too.

Moueix, Merlot encore, 2005 (about $13, find this wine)
Most straight-up Merlot under $20 has about as much appeal as Muzak. But if there’s anyone who could bring an interesting, value Merlot to the market, it’s Christian Moueix who, among other wines in his portfolio, presides over the acclaimed and supremely expensive Chateau Petrus. If I could only find my blasted tasting notes for you I could have something more specific to say but the wine, as I recall, had some nice dark fruit character with some underlying minerality and acidity that are so lacking in lower-priced (and, too often, higher priced) versions of the grape from the New World. Moueix buys from a few dozen growers, mostly from St. Emilion and the farther flung appellations of the Cotes de Castillon. If they could pour this at art gallery openings, sales might rise!

JL Chave, Mon Coeur, Cotes du Rhone, 2006. (about $19; find this wine)
I suppose I could have recommended this “mon coeur” for Valentine’s Day but it’s much more, um, original to recommend it on March 13! A fuller bodied red from a top producer in the Northern Rhone, it is plush with dark fruits and dried herbs. Good for days when March is coming in like a lion but you are eating lamb.

Charles Hours, Clos Uroulat, Jurancon, 2006 (about $35; find this wine)
Aha! This wine is not really under $20. But my friend Mike and I went in on this one as our contribution to a recent wine dinner where we weren’t supposed to bring anything. So that made my contribution under $20. I was happy to take some credit since the wine was widely praised among the many hard-core wine geeks. Made from Petit Manseng (how many times can you trot that out?), the wine has wonderful aromas of white flowers and golden apples and honey; it’s rich but with wonderful texture as well as acidity so it really feels light and refreshing as opposed to a thicker Sauternes. A great way to finish a meal. Find a friend and make it under $20 for you.