Dr Vino's wine blog

Is the backlash against “hedonistic fruit bombs” gaining speed? Previously in the year we’ve noted that they don’t age, a retailer who refuses to sell wine over 14.5% alcohol, and a Napa winemaker who said “higher alcohol wines should stop.”

Now, the recent developments:

1. Neal Martin, a meta-critic at Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate, trashes the 2003 Bordeaux vintage.

2. Garagiste wines, the Parker darlings (such as Jean-Luc Thunevin of Valandraud who has admitted that Parker “made” the property with his reviews), are seeing less interest at auction. In her review of the year in wine auctions, Elin McCoy writes on Bloomberg: “Not everything was selling. At Sotheby’s, buyers passed on once popular Bordeaux garagiste wines like Monbousquet…”

3. I spoke with a head buyer at a leading wine store in NYC recently and he told me that sales of Australian wines over $10 are down 60% at his store over the past three years. I expressed surprise. He said he’s talked to other buyers and they have noticed similar softening. Why? “I guess people are people are starting to realize that with that sort of wine, you don’t really gain a lot over $10,” he said.

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Thanks to all of you who came out and packed the beautiful room at Astor Center on Friday. It was a great time and fun to see so many participants from my NYU classes of semesters gone by. Many people won prizes! The wines were tasty. But since not all blog readers could fit in the 36 seats, here was our lineup of wintry wines:

1. Col Vetoraz, Prosecco NV. Light, fun, bubbly and $13 (find this wine). A good party wine especially when the party is about things other than the wine.

2. Domaine de la Pepiere, “Granite de Clisson,” Muscadet 2005 (about $20; find this wine). Marc Ollivier is a leading quality producer in this region. This particular bottling is an effort that sees a lot of time on the lees (dead yeast cells that are natural), which gives it more richness than his $9 bottling, which is great for summer since it is more zingy.

3. Saxon Brown Semillion, Casa Santinamaria 2006 ($27; find this wine. A field blend from an old vineyard in Sonoma. It’s a wonderful example of a an aromatically intense wine that is unoaked and people liked the acidity on the palate. Goes great with brown sugar baked ham, I would imagine.

4. Joguet, “Les Petites Roches,” Chinon 2005 (find this wine). Quite tannic so probably needs at least a year in the cellar. Nonetheless, it was good to show an example of tannins in the mouth. Good fruit and good acidity save the wine — one participant remarked how the piave cheese really improved it. Yay, it gets better with food!

5. Rene Rostaing, Cuvee Clasique, Cote-Rote 2004 ($50; find this wine). From this “legend” of the Cote-Rotie, this wine from the syrah grape was subtle and restrained in classic (classique?) old world style. Paired well with the epoisse.

6. Broc Cellars Syrah, Dry Stack Vineyard 2004 ($30; find this wine). I wanted a wine to contrast with the Rostaing and this Broc fit the bill nicely. Quite modern in style, it helped show the difference of new oak on the same grape. In a rough poll, the Rostaing edged this one out by a narrow margin.

7. Dow’s Late Bottled Vintage 2000 port. ($19; find this wine) This wine really was a big surprise–people loved it! They thought it was in the $40 – $60 range so when I told them it was under $20, I had to restrain them from stampeding for the port section. Paired it with a Stilton.

Look for more one evening events in 2008! And I hope to see you there!

Tis the season for one thing: bling!

Item 1: Hennessey has launched Beauté du Siècle, a limited release cognac for $150,000 euros ($220,000; find this cognac). A blend of 100 year old cognacs yadda yadda, it comes in a Baccarat crystal bottle (of course!) and a display chest that “was made by 10 different artists using mirrored glass and melted aluminum” according to Decanter. A member of the Hennessey board will deliver it personally to whoever buys it–in a stretch Hummer, I’m sure! Any bets on which city will see the first delivery? I’m going with Moscow.

Item 2: A bottle of whisky fetched $54,000 (including commissions) at auction in NYC. One of forty bottles, this 1926 Macallan was housed in a humble wood box. Half the bids came in from overseas.

Item 3: It pays to shop around for bling! A reader writes to say that Sherry Lehmann has a Methuselah (6L) of Dom Perignon 1995 for $9,999 instead of the previously discussed jerobaum (3L) for $17,000 at Crush . Only drawback: it doesn’t have the white gold bling since “This rare bottle is packaged in its own locked case with a metallic finish to preserve and protect this fine wine.”

Item 4: bonus bling for 2008! As tucked away in a quick mention here, the new, 250-case 1995 Krug Clos d’Ambonnay (find this champagne) will be coming out for $3,000+ a bottle.

Related: “Judge this cognac by its bottle“

The Ghost of my Christmas Past is wassail. A warm drink of mulled red wine, with some juice, warm beer, and who knows what else from the spice cabinet tossed in, it’s the sort of drink that dampens the Christmas spirit as you have to struggle to make it through one cup.

But I like the idea of a warm punch on a wintry day. This year, I’ll relieve my parents of the years of wassail duty and introduce a new drink for my extended family, one that actually sounds delicious: Christmas smoking Bishop.

The drink dates to 18th century London and featured at as a crucial symbol in A Christmas Carol. When Scrooge was transformed for the good, the final act of his redemption was to take his ladle in hand and offer up some of the Bishop.

According to the recipe in How’s Your Drink, by Eric Felten, you’ll need a good bottle of ruby port, two lemons, cloves, and some mulling spices. Stud the lemons with the cloves and roast them whole in the oven until they are browned. Then slice them in half and put them in a half pint of water with the mulling spices and reduce half way. Add the port and steep for an hour just below simmer. Add sugar at your discretion.

Traditionally, the punch bowl was set alight but Felten writes that “port catches fire about as easily as soggy kindling…I say put away the matches and grab the ladle.”

Sounds like good advice to me.

On a related note, Saul M, Mark Marino and SPAZZNiBLET were chosen at random as winners in the How’s Your Drink giveaway.

This just in. Any thoughts?

Hi,
I’m interested in attending Dr. Vino’s holiday wine picks at the new Astor Center, this Friday, Dec. 14th. Can you tell me how many men usually attend? And are there mostly singles there? If so, what’s the age range?
Thank you,
Jane

Two tickets left for purchase. See many of you there!

Friday, Dec 14, 6:30 – 8:00 PM, 23 E. 4th Street (at Lafayette, above Astor Wine & Spirits)

Yesterday I went to one of those lunches that comes around, oh, never. So much fine Champagne is rarely found outside the penthouse jacuzzi of a hip hop mogul.

It was the December lunch of the Wine Media Guild with a theme of prestige cuvées. You got it–Krug, Dom Pérignon, Cristal and 20 other top wines from top houses. Leading us in the packed-house tasting was WMG member Ed McCarthy, photographed at right, author of Champagne for Dummies. I felt like calling him E Diddy with so many bling bubbles around him.

I’m not going to do a run-down of all the wines but here are some of my takeaways. Read more…

Paris Hilton endorses Rich prosecco (which comes in a can, find this bubbly). Caption this photo from the promotional materials below!

Quotage from the press conference in Berlin: “I changed all the light bulbs to energy safe light bulbs and I’m buying a hybrid car right now,” Hilton said, adding that she also turned off the lights at home, didn’t leave the TV on or the water running when she left the home. “Little things that people can do every day to make a huge difference.”

Eric Felten saved the James Beard awards. When he arrived at the ceremony last May, he saw that one of the the three cocktails he had selected to be made was using fake lemon juice. Eegad! Faster than you could say “shaken AND stirred,” he dashed out to the nearest Jamba Juice and had them squeeze a half a gallon of real lemon juice. He saved the Sidecar at the ceremony.

His passion for purity may have won him acclaim from the attendees but it was his superb cocktails column in the Pursuits section of the Saturday Wall Street Journal that won him an award later in the evening.

This holiday season, his excellent, slim volume, entitled How’s Your Drink is available, published by Surrey Books. It’s doing phenomenally well, already the third best seller in Amazon’s drink category (and currently on backorder!). It’s small wonder since the rich stories engagingly put the 50 cocktail recipes in their social and historical context.

I shared some Torpedo Juice with Eric last week at the Pegu Club in Manhattan at his book launch party. I asked him if we could give away three signed copies to readers of this site and he gladly started signing.

To win one copy of the book, all you have to do to qualify for a random drawing is post a comment here saying what is your favorite cocktail. Post your comment by midnight on Friday to qualify. Check your email or this post over the weekend to see if you won.

How’s Your Drink, by Eric Felten, Surrey Books (Agate), $20