Dr Vino's wine blog

SPIT: red states
With more states turning blue, a reader writes in to say that it will be even harder to do a red state-blue state article again now that Virginia and Colorado are blue. Indeed! Texas, over to you?

SPIT: global wine mergers
The purchase of Napa’s Chateau Montelena by the Reybier group (Cos d’Estournel), hailed in July by Robert Parker as “one of the biggest stories in my 30 years in the wine field,” has now been canceled. [PR newswire]

SPIT: global wine
John Mariani has a sip of the Andeluna Grand Reserve Pasionado, a $50 red from Mendoza, and calls it “an explosion of high-alcohol, grapey, oaky flavors that seemed to epitomize all that is wrong with what has been called the globalization of wine.” [Bloomberg]

SIPPED: Making drinks instead of ordering them
At least one person from the world of finance has stopped thinking about structured equity products and is now thinking about Purple Hooters at the New York Bartending School in Manhattan. [Bloomberg]

The sound of corks popping may be replaced by the sound of pins dropping: the next victim of the financial crisis appears to be the lavish holiday party. Morgan Stanley has nixed theirs. News Corporation sent theirs to the cutting room floor while ABC News is planning something more modest. Another financial services firm retains the Christmas spirit but cut the Taittinger and is adding something else (a bull market for prosecco and cava?), to trim the per person tab at their party according to the Times. The (no-)money quote: “Nobody’s ordering caviar as a first course.”

What’s your company doing this year to cut back, if anything? All the Dr. Vino interns were disappointed that this year’s magnum party has been downsized to a 375ml party. But hopefully we will all have something to cheer after the election!

Bloggers around the world picked up a copy of my book, Wine Politics: How Governments, Mobsters, Environmentalists, and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink, this month for the latest installment of Wine Book Club. Many thanks to all who participated and especially to Dr. Debs, founder of the bi-monthly Wine Book Club, and the one who selected my book to be put before the group this time around.

In related news, I just found out from the book’s publisher, the University of California Press, that the rights to a Korean language translation of the book have been sold! I plugged the whole title in to Google Translate in order to warm up to the Korean wording. The adjacent image is what I discovered: hmm, “mobsters” really stands out! I’m glad they don’t have those in Korea! On to the roundup!

Dr. Debs at Good Wine Under $20
Richard at A Passionate Foodie
Kori at WinePeeps
Frank at Drink what you like
Taster B at Smells Like Grape
Jim at Wine & Music
Christianne at Christianne Uncorked
And also Evelyne at Wine Brands

Thanks and cheers to all!

“I immediately assume that the wine is garbage if the punniness is high,” one of my friends said recently. Fair enough, as we have discussed before. But then there is the case of Johannes Leitz.

While many European labels can be confusing for New World consumers who are more used to varietal labeling, German labels crank up the degree of difficulty by adding terms such as Kabinett, Spaetlese, and–my favorite, linguistically–Trockenbeerenauslese. Although these terms express roughly the degree of sweetness, they only do so for the wine before fermentation (aka the weight of the must), so the level of residual sugar after fermentation may not be as sweet or dry as one might expect. Throw in some vineyard names on top of those terms and it makes running for Blue Nun understandable–from a purely linguistic standpoint.

Johannes Leitz, by contrast, makes some easy reading labels as well as tasty wines. He turned the Rudesheimer Drachenstein vineyard into simply “Dragonstone”–a cool label, easy name and easy drinking Riesling that I often recommend particularly as a wine for newbies. The single site, estate bottled wine is sweet in 2007 but obtains balance with some tangy acidity and minerality (find this wine). Pair with takeout.

New for 2007 is his multilingual punny “Eins, Zwei, Dry” (find this wine) The Riesling is, in fact, dry (well, 7 grams of residual sugar, barely above the threshold of perception). Dry Rieslings often seem to only come from the New World and Leitz only first produced this dry wine in the spectacular 2007 vintage (more details from the importer, Terry Theise’s page). The wine has more minerality and verve. I’d find this one most refreshing on a hot summer day with the Dragonstone one for the spring and the fall, when I prefer more richness.

Johannes Leitz has wit. And he makes clear labels good wines. He has my vote for federallabelminister! But I also think he is a rare exception, joining Rosenblum and possibly Bonny Doon, to the rule about puns and wine quality.

Do witty labels and good wine make a good blend? Or is the wine best left to do the talking?

You asked for this illustration commissioned from Alex Eben Meyer on a T-shirt; I present you the new Dr. Vino shirt shack at cafepress.

I threw in buttons, mugs and some other surprise items for you!

SIPPED: double entendre!
Unable to legally call a port style wine made outside of Portugal “Port,” Peltier Station Winery is calling their wine “USB”–you know, as in those ports on the side of your computer that you never seem to have enough of. Which European wine region will next made into a technology pun? [find this port; viaWired]

SIPPED: bling glassware!
During the GOP convention, filings now show that the McCain Victory 2008 spent $7,000 on 250 wine glasses adorned with elephant designs for donors. Had they already handed out $28 elephant-adorned beer glasses in honor of Joe Sixpack and Cindy’s beer distributorship? [HuffPo]

SIPPED: Joe Six-Pack wine
The rise of Midwestern wine is epitomized in Illinois, which has grown from 14 to 80 wineries in a decade. Marketing idea: Joe Six-Pack wine (sold in half-cases). [PJ Star]

SIPPED: herbicides
A new herbicide resistant grape variety has been developed for the Midwest. Mmmm. [Wines & Vines]

SPIT: international grape varieties
Rocked by a scandal earlier this year that involved blending grapes from outside the zone, Brunello votes overwhelmingly to stay traditional and not allow even a small amount of grapes other than sangiovese. [VinoWire]

Congratulations to Viinipiru from Finland and Michael temporarily from Kansas who both nailed the answer in this mystery photo! Dylan also got half credit! The answer is that region one is Beaujolais and region two is Burgundy. The photo is reproduced here with permission from Bertrand and originally appeared on his posting about Beaujolais renegade Philippe Jambon. Here’s how Bertrand poignantly described the scene:

“Nearby, we drive on a gravel road which materialize the odd Beaujolais-Burgundy divide here: On the right lie the Saint Véran and the Pouilly-Fuissé Chardonnay vineyards, from the Burgundy Appellations, and you can virtually touch the prosperity on this side of the road, and on the left lie the Gamay vineyards of the Beaujolais, many of them being abandoned and visibly struggling to stay afloat… When the Appellation drives the destiny…”

Last weekend there were lots of bottles–and discussion–uncorked in Sonoma at what might be considered the ultimate “offline:” the inaugural Wine Bloggers’ Conference.

The Open Wine Consortium organized the two-day event, which, unfortunately, I couldn’t attend. But 150 or more bloggers were there and many of them were new to blogging.

I have read some of the posts about the conference but mostly I read about it on Twitter, the microblogging platform that limits entries to 140 characters (follow my updates on Twitter; search twitter for #wbc to find posts from the conference). So taking a page from Darren Rowse’s successful recent posting, let’s hear your report from the WBC here in the comments. And in Twitter style, try to make your microreport 140 characters or less.

If you were like me and couldn’t make it there either, don’t let that stop you from getting in on the commenting fun! Tell us about your blog (wine or not) in an elevator pitch in the comments here. There are so many new blogs, it’s always good to hear about the newest directions, particularly for wine! Hopefully we can all find some new blogs to check out.