Dr Vino's wine blog

Over the weekend, play occurred in far-flung arenas and I report the results here. Now it is up to you to vote the teams/wines through that you want to see in the next round. It is all in your hands! Hit the comments of this post for the Supermarket wines and Riesling brackets; the previous post for the Parkerized wines and Natural wines brackets. Read more…

Off-dry, sweet–call it what you will, but a little residual sugar in a white wine is not always a bad thing. Yes, it has to be balanced. But when it’s right, how sweet it is! (Well, not too sweet.) Consider these three excellent examples for around $20:

Schafer-Frohlich, Nahe, halbtrocken, 2006 $19. (find this wine) Importer: Rudi Weist.
It’s taken me a while to warm up to the whole off-dry Riesling phenomenon. But this wine will convince any doubters. Truly amazing purity, great weight and Nahe-style fullness with a just a hint of sweetness. I tried it at home with some Asian food and it was a great match. Consider it a steal even at $20 since since it is the lowest price wine in the US from this producer, whose star rises every year higher and higher.

Steinmetz, “Alte Reben,” Feinherb, 2005 $16. (find this wine) Importer: Mosel Wine Merchant
Again, another killer, off-dry Riesling. I tried this with some mediocre Thai food initially and my dinner memories consisted almost entirely of Riesling. But going back to another bottle on another occasion, it was an excellent pairing of delicate sweetness and balanced acidity to offset the spicy take-out. I recommended it to a non-Riesling loving friend and he loved it with takeout–consider it a gateway to off-dry world. Try it with the salty sweet of honey glazed ham over Easter and let us know how it goes.

Francois Chidaine, Les Tuffeaux, Montlouis sur Loire, 2005 $21. (find this wine) Importer: Louis/Dressner. Certified organic.
If you’re used to getting your slightly off-dry wines in the Riesling category, you need say hello to chenin blanc from the Loire if you haven’t already. This wine is a great place to start. The aromas of white flowers and honey are terrific. The wine has a delicate attack that expands to a massive midpalate with a touch of honey. For around $20, this a spectacular wine from a Loire master that will make wonder if there’s a hole in the glass since it disappeared so quickly. Try with chevre as an aperitif. Irresistible.

About 150 people attended The Nature Conservancy talk and tasting on Tuesday night–it was great to meet so many site readers! Dominique Bachelet of TNC, Scott Pactor of Appellation Wine & Spirits, and I started off a discussion about climate change and wine that then spilled into a Q&A. We all then tasted four “natural” wines provided Michael Skurnik. Although I didn’t select them, I did enjoy the wines: the Hofer Gruner Veltliner in the carbon-efficient one-liter bottle (find this wine), Mittnach pinot blanc from Alsace (find this wine), Domain de Gourgonnier’s biodynamic red from Provence (find this wine), Amber Knolls/Beckstoffer 1975 that I have seen everywhere and had no idea that the grapes are organically grown (find this wine).

Since I love maps, I added more color to the “green line” map for my slide show using Googlemaps. Although I presented it on Tuesday evening, it still has that new map smell. Check it out here.

Anyway, not much more to report here since you, no doubt, are familiar with my joint research on the carbon footprint of wine. Cruise on over to The Nature Conservancy web site and check them out if you’re not familiar with them. They’re doing good things.

Jeff, a site reader, sent in this photo from, yes, the wine world! What’s your caption for this photo? Hit the comments!

Full story to be revealed later. UPDATE: Congrats, Victor! Read more…

Food & Wine dishes up a particularly meaty issue for wine lovers this month. One feature that caught my eye is a wine cellar design guru who says he likes to divide wine cellars by region, sometimes even one room for each region (wowza).

Is that how you organize your surplus wine inventory? Have your say in the latest poll!

poll now closed

image by Eole

Mark Fisher’s request is my command! Based on this “Beer Madness” from the Washington Post, I present “Wine Madness.”

Wines are divided into four divisions: Supermarket wines, Parkerized wines, Natural wines, and Riesling. The early money is coming in strong on Mollydooker for taking the whole thing, but don’t count out the other number one seeds, Two Buck Chuck, Dr. Loosen, and Domaine Huet.

Some of the early match-ups will be bruising, particularly the Carol Rossi vs Franzia in a battle of heavyweights and one of these two may play the winner of the Mollydooker vs Run Rig game for the title. Games also of note: White Lie and Wine Sight might be a catfight in the “wine for women” pairing; Noel Pinguet (Huet) vs Nicolas Joly in a biodynamic chenin show-down; and Leeuwin Estate and Pierre Trimbach will battle it out with their different styles in the Riesling category and the winner could be the tournament’s Cindarella.

Click to see the whole 32 team bracket.

UPDATE: Thanks for the support! Check back next Monday when you can see who advanced to the quarterfinals–and then vote them through to the finals!

SPIT: Food and wine gone awry
Cabernet and wedding cake, Cabernet and mac n cheese, pulled pork and Burgundy – great comments, and they’re yours! Check out all of the great and wonderful food pairings that knocked your world.

SPIT: the hippocampus!
Wine drinkers have a 10 percent smaller hippocampus than those who drink spirits or beer, researchers say! But I thought “Red wine antioxidants protect hippocampal neurons against ethanol-induced damage“! Ugh, my brain hurts.

SPIT: Chinese wine!
“Millions of Chinese will be disappointed by their first taste of wine” is Jancis Robinson’s assessment of home-grown wines in China. Reporting on a recent trip, she, too, was “disappointed” by the “chemical and occasionally rotten odours” in the wines and general lack of progress with the industry over the past five years. [FT]

SIPPED: Holy wine
In Manchester they may go for Fairtrade wine, but Craig Heffley and Seth Gross of Wine Authorities, a wine retailer in Durham, NC, have another goal in mind for the Duke Chapel: tasty. They plan to start selling a 3L bag-in-box next summer for use in the Eucharist. [Durham News]

SPIT: drinking wine
“The 2006 Insolia from Feudo Principi di Butera…can be pleasurably inhaled for minutes.” Going easy on the hippocampus, was he? [NYT]

SIPPED: understatement
Talk about an impossible food wine pairing! Wine critic and blogger Peter Liem visits a sake festival in Japan and eats live shrimp: “My first two passed complacently, but a third, a female full of salty-sweet roe, twitched a little as I decapitated her with my fingers.” What’s his title for this juicy posting? “Niigata Prefecture.” Tony Bourdain, your job is safe–for now!–until Peter recruits a headline writer from Gawker… [peterliem]

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Our family piled into the car this past weekend and made a getaway to wine country. No, not California but New York’s own wine country: the North Fork of Long Island! Yes, in the three years since we moved to the Empire State, I had never been to the closest cluster of vineyards to me. Gasp!

So we braved pouring rain and 50-mph winds that lashed the Island on Saturday. Louisa Thomas Hargrave, a friend and stateswoman of the region who planted the first vineyard in 1973, graciously arranged a few stops for us. I hope to write these up soon.

My main takeaway was that I had neglected an interesting region in my own proverbial backyard for too long. As part studying the carbon footprint of wine and writing about it, I’ve resolved to learn more about wines made close to where I live. Wouldn’t Governor Spitzer Paterson be proud? The alcohol levels are often low as a result of the coolish climate (for now), the best winemakers are not addicted to oak, and the best reds (and whites) don’t have residual sugar.

Our quick jaunt included some interesting wines such as a merlot at Lenz, a cab franc at Paumanok, and a solid pinot blanc from Lieb. Although I didn’t make it to Channing Daughters, which seems to be quite worth it, I did meet Christopher Tracy, wine geek extraordinaire, chef and the winemaker. He told me they have Tocai Friulano, Muscat, Gewurztraminer, Blaufrankisch and are planting Dornfelder–wonderfully wacky! They even do skin contact on some of their whites and make a “sauvage” Chardonnay that uses indigenous yeasts. I tried the refreshingly crisp and slightly aromatic “Mosaico” (find this wine) white blend as well as their summer-is-coming 2007 cabernet sauvignon rose (find this wine). I’m sure there are more interesting wines in the region and I look forward to exploring them more now that I know the way there.

One thing that did dampen my enthusiasm even when the rain could not was the price: all the wines I liked started at $17 and moved up from there making them, perhaps, more special occasion wines rather than everyday quaffers. Somehow I thought there might be some bargains since we were all in this same down-trodden currency zone together. So my question to you is: how much is drinking local worth to you?

Taste many of the wines for yourself at the annual Brooklyn Uncorked event on May 14, which will have many of Long Island’s most best wineries. It’s 4-8 PM at BAM Cafe in Fort Greene, $50.