Dr Vino's wine blog

Yikes, it was a scorcher this past weekend and temperatures remained in the “excessive heat warning” levels for four days. So the most pressing question for wine lovers was: which wine pairs with 98 degrees? For us, the answer was dry Aussie riesling.

These young wines were wildly refreshing. Read more…

The groan committee has met! Thanks for your suggestions of the most groan-inducing wine name. There are many bad wine names out there but it was interesting that no fewer than three people observed that once they pulled the cork on the wine, it wasn’t half bad. Producers take note.

Here are the four “groan cru” (sorry, had to do it) wine names. Vote now for the worst offender! And remember, this isn’t for the worst label design, just the name, hence no finalist labels are shown to distract us.

poll now closed

Something amazing happens to a port after about twenty years. And in my case, that’s a good thing since I have several bottles from the excellent 2003 vintage stashed away to celebrate our oldest son’s twenty-first birthday in 2024.

But the absence of aging the wine myself and waiting twenty years, I was able to have an extraordinary tasting experience last week of vintage ports from the producer Croft. Their 1945 is something of a legend — no ’47 Cheval Blanc but you get the idea. So when I heard it was being poured at a press event in Manhattan, I was there in a flash.

In short, it was amazing (find this port). This port, which, if it were human would be gearing up for retirement at age 63, was still going strong with fantastic depth, color and finish. It had beautiful notes of orange zest, aniseed, spice, fig, all in beautiful harmony with great poise.

Although recent records have shown that Croft dates back to 1588 making it the oldest port house, it had fallen on a rough patch for much of the second half of the twentieth century. Among other things, the then-owners installed automated stomping machines and, as I posted last year, when it comes to port, nothing beats the foot. When The Fladgate Partnership purchased Croft in 2001 to bring it under the same ownership as Taylor Fladgate, Fonseca, and Delaforce, one of the first changes, um, underfoot was to rip out all the automatic crushers and install stone lagares for the resumption of foot treading. The 1945 was stomped by foot.

We tasted a few intervening vintages during the automation era and the vintage 1960 stood out as an impressive one (find this port). It was slightly richer brick-red hue and had more notes of anise mocha with supple tannins. But with the 1994, we were clearly on the more youthful side with the color still more the intense purple of youth rather than the faded, brick red that comes with age. The palate impressions were of more youthful intensity too and hadn’t entered the ethereal world of the mature. The first vintage under the new ownership, the 2003, had tremendous color intensity, ripe fruit concentration, viscosity and vigor. I would gladly tuck one of these away in the cellar and at $60 retail (find this port) it’s even a good bargain.

So there you have it: a magical transformation happens to port with more than twenty years of age. It may not be something that you might have been thinking about on a hot June day, but it’s something I can look forward to with my son twenty years hence. And you can enjoy it relatively sooner since vintage port with some age on it continues to be one of the better values at wine auctions.

I’ll be heading back to the James Beard awards this year, not as a nominee, but as a blogger! Make that a live blogger!

Yes, my beat is not only wine but also cocktails. This will take me first to a pre-show on the red carpet (which doesn’t show wine stains!). Then into the awards with breaking coverage (not glasses) of winners. Then on to the dinner where I’ve been assigned to the VIP section where I’ll have to ask co-host and “Sex and the City” star Kim Cattrall if she only likes pinot from magnum. Daniel Johnnes (wine director at all of Daniel Boulud’s restaurants) will be heading a team of sommeliers pouring during the dinner. I’m even covering a cocktail lounge there so I’ll see what’s shaking–and what’s straight up.

It won’t be on this site, sadly, so surf on over to the official site on Sunday starting at 6 PM. Available now, you can see a list of the nominees, including wine and spirits books, best wine service and wine & spirits professional of the year. What do you think is Kim Cattrall’s favorite wine? I’ll have to ask her.

Roederer, the Champagne house that makes the bling Cristal as well as an excellent nonvintage champers, has announced that they will be testing out a new location for bottle aging: under the sea. To the tape:

Roederer said on Monday it had placed several dozen bottles 15 meters (50 feet) underwater in the bay of Mont Saint-Michel, a rocky tidal island off the coast of Normandy, last weekend. A cellarman came up with the idea after realizing that the water temperature in the bay, a constant 10 degrees Celsius (50F), was ideal for aging wine.

But if cork lets in scant amounts of oxygen in a normal cellar, might undersea aging turn the champagne a tad briney? They will stage a tasting in a year to find out how it’s going. Assuming, that is, that lobsters haven’t opened an undersea night club where the cases are stored.

Port has long been poured in clubs. But night clubs? Yes, port may soon leave the wintry fireplace and appear in two unlikely locations: on the deck mid-summer and in night clubs.

The folks at the venerable port house Croft have now started to think pink. At a press event on an 80 degree, sunny day in Manhattan, Croft unveiled the first ever rose port and poured the pink drink both chilled and on the rocks. It is available for about $20 (find the Croft pink).

Adrian Bridge, CEO of The Fladgate Partnership that now owns Croft, explained the making of the port. He went to the Port authority (not, in his country, an entity that runs bus stations) and petitioned for the ability to make a rose. They told him that port is either red or white and if he wanted to do a rose, a new administrative category would have to be made, a process that might take ten years. With brio and speed usually reserved for the New World vintners, Bridge slipped it through the administrative cracks as a “ruby,” the youngest port aged in large vats.

The resulting port is pink in color thanks to brief skin contact during fermentation. But then it is made like a traditional ruby port and the fermentation is stopped with the addition of a distilled spirit resulting in a finished port with 19.5 percent alcohol and 94 grams of residual sugar–and pink. To me it was betwixt and between, neither wine nor port with notes of strawberry and rhubarb akin to a rose but the punch and sweetness of a port. I think it would benefit from bubbles, as in adding soda water.

That might not stop fashionistas from ordering it up. Bridge said that he made a “bold” 500,000 liters of Croft Pink last year but after “huge excitement” in Hong Kong last week, he said they “might run out.” Now, he’s now turning his sights on the US, starting with New York City first and later Texas and Florida. Since the Cosmopolitan has jumped the shark, I’m surprised that they weren’t swilling this pink drink in the new Sex and the City. Croft Pink–it’s not your grandfather’s port.

croftpink.com

What’s in a name? When it comes to wine, it’s quite often sales.

Names, of course, don’t affect the taste. As the great wordsmith Shakespeare might have put it, a wine by another name would smell as dry with a hint of raspberry, leather, and garrigue. But sometimes the name can make us groan, roll our eyes, and not buy the bottle.

Consider Rosenblum Cellars’ Chateau La Paws Cote du Bone Roan red (about $14; find this wine). I’ve seen the wine on store shelves, groaned, and kept walking. But I recently tried it at a trade tasting and the heck if it isn’t purdy darned good! But I’d still never buy it. OK, maybe as a gift for my dog-loving sister-in-law. Once. Or for some other friends who are very into their adorable puppies. But only once then too. Moving on!

Which wines out there have the most groan-inducing names? (A Groan Cru, if you will.) Hit the comments with your thoughts. Next week, we’ll narrow the field and let the voting begin! And please note, this is for names only; the aesthetes had their say recently with the worst label design.

If only Hillary Clinton had known–there’s wine in Kentucky! She could have put down the shot of Crown Royal and picked up a glass of Kentucky cab to fraternize with the locals.

In a story this morning on “Marketplace” from American Public Radio (on NPR), the “dulcet tones” (as a reader wrote in) of Dr. Vino contributed a couple of quick comments to a story the decline of tobacco and the rise of Kentucky wine.

Listen here.