Dr Vino's wine blog

I mentioned my forthcoming book earlier in the week in a post and there have been some very supportive and enthusiastic comments and emails! Thanks so much! Also a little bit of confusion, which I have no doubt created, so I thought I would clarify things.

I have the very good fortune of having two wine books coming out this year! The first, Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink will be published on July 1 by the University of California Press. In it, I trace the story of wine in France and America through the lens of wine politics–struggles against nature and society, where lines get drawn, how wines get made. Man versus man, man versus nature all that good stuff. There’s even a part where Britney goes crazy and shaves her head–oh wait, that’s not in there but I thought I’d mention it here in an effort to sell more copies.

Above you can see the cover art in all of its glory! I’d venture to say that I have the first ever wine book cover to be graced by a bottle in a brown paper bag. Covers matter, obviously, since buyers often judge books by them–and especially now since Borders will be displaying more of them face out.

There was a great essay in the Times on why it takes so long to get a book on the shelves if you’re not familiar with the book publishing process. One peril discussed in that article is having a book come out in the second half of a presidential election year. Even though it’s not a wine drinker’s guide to politics, it’s perhaps fortunate for me that this book on wine politics also happens to be coming out in a presidential election year!

The second book is the one that I finished writing last month when I gave you a head fake and said I was going to take a break from blogging and then didn’t. More details to follow on this one. But since the first book won’t tell you which wine to have with dinner the second one will–and more!–since it is Dr. Vino’s Guide to Wine. The publisher on that one is Simon & Schuster. It’s due out in November.

Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink (Amazon; UC Press)

“High-tech electronic noses and tongues are rivaling the capabilities of their human counterparts and may someday prove more valuable to food and beverage companies than living, breathing expert tasters,” writes the Washington Post.

Have your say with a caption for the above image!

Related: “Scents and Sensibility,” The New Yorker, 3/10/08
“Who’s threatening us now? Robots!” Dr. V

Check out this gnarly old vine. Where was I when I snapped this pic?

I’ve been frustrated many times as a wine enthusiast when looking for a specific wine only to find it available at a store, say, in California. Since I live in New York, California retailers are not legally allowed to send it to me–though whether they will is another question. Eric Asimov, the chief wine critic for the New York Times, has admitted to being a “lawbreaker” as a result of these laws. Other retailers, such as Sam’s Wine in Chicago, will not ship to New York.

As a wine enthusiast, I’m for greater liberalization of wine shipping laws. Freer markets means greater availability and probably lower prices. The Supreme Court decision in 2005 paved the way for greater possibilities of shipping directly from wineries to consumers. But the legal situation of shipping from out-of-state retailers remains a murky area, illegal on the books of too many states.

A quick and dirty political analysis can help explain why. Wine wholesalers want the wine to pass through their warehouses so they can profit from the sale in their state. There are few distributors and they have a narrow economic interest and thus have the ability to lobby the state powers that be. As I discuss in my forthcoming book, Wine Politics: How Governments, Mobsters, Environmentalists and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink, this can really hurt you if you live in a smaller market.

The main economic counterbalance to distributors are shops and some local ones may not welcome out-of-state shipping. But many of the best shops want to able to ship freely to Texas, Florida, New York and beyond. And for citizens and wine consumers, wine shipping is so far down the list of policy objectives that we are never likely to organize around this issue. But the laws aren’t going to change by themselves.

So check out the Specialty Wine Retailers Association, the main group fighting for a liberalization of shipping laws. In fact, they are having an awareness campaign right now and you can even contribute to the organization to help fund their legal fight (I got an email from Sherry-Lehmann last week saying that Ken Starr–still hard to think of him as one of the “good guys” even after his role in the previous Supreme Court case–is leading the charge. Raise money to pay Ken Starr’s fees!). Yes, in the short term, their members stand to benefit from a reform in the legal situation. But in the long term, there will be greater innovation and perhaps even new entrants in the field as even Amazon intimated last week.

So check out the SWRA and support them in some way, if even by signing up for emails. Together, consumers and specialty retailers can form a coalition of the swilling to change the laws. Let’s push for change so that we don’t all have to wear “Free Eric!” T-shirts!

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The good people over at Forbes have assembled a pageview-baiting slide show with some top chefs and foods and wines that made them sing. Not literally, but you get the idea.

So let’s help them out with some content for their next slide show: what’s a particularly memorable food-wine pairing that you thought might work out but went awry, perhaps horrendously? While wine can no doubt conquer any culinary terrain as we have seen in our “impossible food-wine pairings,” there are still some clunkers that knock your world rather than rock it. Take, for example, zinfandel and grilled eggplant, which I paired one day only to the effect of unleashing tannin-on-tannin warfare in my mouth.

Hit the comments with your clunkers and you will be entered into a random drawing to win a prize: a new copy of the comprehensive food pairing book What to Drink with What You Eat, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg.

Post your comment by Monday to qualify, check back here on Tuesday to see if you were the winner.

I briefly dropped by Terroir wine bar in the East Village yesterday during its first hour of being open and I can confirm that it is, indeed, now open! The wine list is compact, focusing only on a handful of terroir-driven wines. Four wines are available at $2.75 for a three-ounce pour and $5 for a six-ounce pour–real inflation busters! Other wine btg goes up to $19 for Bovia Barolo 2003 and all conform to the bigger, heartier seasonal style Paul Grieco outlined to me previously…The staff were outfitted in t-shirts bearing the image of the now-deceased, crochety iconoclast from Barolo, Bartolo Mascarello, in a Che-like image…The wine list is in a three-ring binder, which the designer described to me as being like the school notebook of “a 16 year-old boy whose obsession is not with cars or girls but obscure grape varieties,” including one with Aglianico written on it multiple times… Very tempting small plates available in the 550 sq ft space (a former bike shop) but I had to run–more anon as I’m sure I’ll be back…Here are some pix with more after the jump:

Read more…

Ever since Miles told everybody to get pinot noir, it’s been hard to find a good value. We’ve taken the plunge before and came up with several good American ones under $20. Now we raise the degree of difficulty–times two!–by bringing down the price to $16 AND heading overseas where our currency usually now needs to be accompanied by something of material value such as gold coins to make a purchase. Without further ado…

Stadlmann, Pinot Noir, 2005. $16 (find this wine)
Usually a key to finding good value is finding words that people can’t pronounce. Usually Teutonic Pinot Noir goes by “Blaubergunder,” which is not as melodious as pinot noir and thus discounted. But this Austrian Pinot has “pinot noir” on the label! And it’s still a value! (They keep the unpronounceable stuff for the back such as the region of Niederosterreich in Thermenregion.) Great balance between fruit and acidity, this wine left Mrs. Vino asking why don’t stock more of this in the house.

San Michele Appiano, Blaubergunder/Pinot Noir, Alto-Adige, 2006. $15 (find this wine)
I tasted the wines recently from this producer (aka, confusingly, St Michael-Eppan) and they range from quite good to excellent. The entry level Pinot Noir is a steal with bright fruit, good acidity and subtle tannin that made me crave some fried food — I actually enjoyed it more than their riserva, which had too much oak. Their Sauvignons blancs are excellent but we can talk about those another time.

Ninth Island, Pinot Noir, Tasmania, $15. (find this wine)
I’d like to know more about the island of Tasmania–with global warming, it’s probably the terroir of the next few decades for Australia. I had a sparkling wine from there recently that was quite interesting; this pinot has straight-forward, tart cherry character of the grape and gets off easy in the oak department. Don’t save it for junior’s graduation from college; rather, drink it soonish, with dinner.

SPIT: Wine tasting menus!
John and Dottie, WSJ wine columnists known for their sunny outlook, go negative on NYC wine pairing menus. Le Bernardin takes it the hardest. To the tape: “”Very little went right. The sommelier didn’t hear a word we said…Each white wine was served in the same kind of glass…not one of the seven wines we were served was poured from a full bottle…Most important to us, the pairings themselves were uninspired….We felt very much like we had been treated as hayseed tourists who ordered the tasting and wine-pairing menus only because we didn’t know how to pronounce the names of any of the dishes or wines.” Price: $280–for the wine only. And a parting shot on the phenom: “when we order the tasting menu, the restaurant puts us on its schedule, which is generally too rushed.” [WSJ]

SIPPED: Amazon swirls and sniffs
Move over Manuka honey: Amazon may soon sell wine along with its growing non-perishable grocery line according to the Financial Times today. This would be a welcome entrant into the brier patch of online wine retail. The more retailers, the merrier the wine consumer! The story has a mention of fellow wine blogger Tom Wark. [FT.com]

SIPPED: foreign owners in Bordeaux
Properties producing mid-range wines on the periphery of Bordeaux have been squeezed in recent years. But they may find relief from foreign buyers as evidenced by Haiyan Cheng, 28-year-old daughter of “vastly wealthy Chinese businessman,” Zuochang Cheng. She bought a property–a first for a Chinese buyer in the region–for $3 million and plans to renovate it and expand the vineyards. [NYT]

SPIT: Merlot (again), this time for headaches?
Merlot can’t get no lovin’. Malolactic fermentation may improve the taste of red wines but it also fills them with tyramines and histamines, which cause allergic reactions in many people. “Merlots seem to be particularly high,” UC Berkeley Professor of Chemistry Richard Mathies said although his research is inconclusive. [Red orbit]

SIPPED: Amen to that!
Taking Communion may soon help Chilean farmers get a fair price for grapes. The clergy and parishioners at Manchester Cathedral evaluate the wine today for potential introduction as possibly the world’s first “Fairtrade” Communion wine. Seventy percent of the churches in the Diocese serve Fairtrade tea and coffee. [BBC]

SIPPED: Drink for causes, part II
“For each bottle of wine you purchase as futures from his Lookout Ridge Winery, [Sonoma vintner Gordon Holmes (and former Wall Street publisher)] donates a wheelchair in your name to one of the world’s 100 million needy people desperate for mobility.” Andy Erikson of Screaming Eagle fame is one of the winemakers. (find this wine) [Bloomberg]