Dr Vino's wine blog

Billionaires are the new millionaires. Take Steve Schwarzman, head of the recently IPO’d Blackstone from his profile in NY mag last week:

Steve Schwarzman is a perfect poster boy for this age of greed, sharklike, perpetually grinning, a tiny Gordon Gekko without the hair product. In Palm Beach (where he bought a historic landmark house for $20.5 million and tore it down), he eats his three-course lunches (including $400 stone crabs) in less than fifteen minutes and complains about the squeaky rubber soles of a servant’s shoes. Once, in the presence of a Times reporter, he buzzed a man to bring coffee, then stalked off to dress down the servant—“I called you six times.”

What was more urgently missing for us in these lunch details–more urgent than the missing staffer–is any info on the wine involved. Steve Schwarzman may not even be a fan of the fruits of the vine for all I know, but this raised an interesting question to me: if price were no object, would you ever have a wine under $30?

Life could get tiresome pulling yourself out of your pool in the Hamptons only to find a Eurocave stocked with Haut Brion blanc, Puligny, and Krug. OK, maybe not.

But even if a billion dollars were to fall from a helicopter out of the clear blue sky on to my private Caribbean island, there are still some wines under $30 I wouldn’t do without. They tend to be light summer wines, since I believe in pairing the mood and the moment, and cabernet and the beach make for a terrible pairing. So air-drop me some of the humble rosé. As I have mentioned previously, I enjoy rosé in the summer and get grumpy paying much over $15 for it. In warm weather, on the deck overlooking the infinity pool, it’s an A+ wine and context pairing.

Cru Beaujolais? Love it. Wouldn’t want to do without some Fleurie or Morgon on my island either.

What what about the wonderful diversity of lesser-known, “indigenous” varieties? Mencia? Mourvedre? Aglianico? Ribolla Gialla? Maratheftiko? Or distinctive regional styles, such as Muscadet, Moscato d’Asti, Txacoli, or fiano di Avellino? I’d toss some of these into my climate-controlled wine vault to mix things up between bottles of Cornas and Cabernet.

After Frank Bruni’s tales of wine-fueled excess in NYC’s top restaurants, I’m sure that if there’s one time frugality (and restraint) should kick in, it’s on the fifth bottle.

Certainly billionaires come in as many stripes as there are shades of wine and there’s no doubt even a frugal billionaire or two out there. And, of course, everyone’s entitled to drink whichever wine floats their proverbial yacht–my own private island would definitely have plenty of magnums of Montrachet as well as some value vino. Which wines under $30 would you not throw under the bus, er, Ferrari?

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Darrell Corti has banned the sale of high alcohol wines in his food and wine emporium in Sacramento, CA according to a story on AppellationAmerica.com. Corti says:

At our store, after a tasting on the 29th of March, I put on top of the Zinfandel section, “This is the last tasting Corti Brothers will do for over 14.5 percent Zinfandels. These wines will no longer be sold at Corti Brothers. There will be no exceptions…They (high alcohol wines) make you very tired. My idea of a really good bottle of wine is that two people finish the bottle and wish there was just a little bit more. Some of these wines with high levels of alcohol — you can’t finish the bottle. You don’t want to finish the bottle.”

What do you say? Is Corti a hero or a villain?

poll now closed

Sipped: Leaping into retirement
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars was sold for $185 million. The legendary founder, Warren Winiarski, now 78, will stay on three more years in a consultative role–just long enough for the two rival movies about the Paris tasting to appear in theaters! The buyers are Ste. Michelle, a unit of UST, and Piero Antinori, who will own 85% and 15% respectively. [Reuters]

Sipped and spit: Gallo buys William Hill and Canyon Road! Duckhorn almost sold! [SF Chronicle]

Spit: Ratatouille wine
Before one bottle was on shelves, Disney canceled a Ratatouille branded wine. Was it because the wine was French while Disney’s home is in California, coincidentally also the home of 90% of American wine production? Was it the idea of selling a wine in an animated movie (at least ostensibly) aimed at kids (though wine features prominently in the film)? Or was it a new puritanical streak since they recently banned smoking from their movies? [LA Times]

Spit: high alcohol wine
Randy Dunn, maker of Howell Mountain Cabernet, says “higher alcohol wines should stop.” I guess we know how he would vote in the poll! [Appellation America]

There’s a wine blog created every minute! OK, maybe not that many, but there are a lot of wine blogs today. The editors of Wine & Spirits magazine asked me to look at some of the best wine blogs “that you’re probably not reading” in the current “25th anniversary issue.” I was honored to help them out. I respect the magazine for looking beyond their own fine pages to the wild world of the internets. Seriously, this is the only exclusively wine magazine that I know that has mentioned the word “blog” without referring to it’s own. Props to W&S! But wait, they don’t have any blogs of their own–boo hoo!

I talk about five blogs in the story, three amateur/enthusiast blogs, one journalist at another magazine, and a proto-winery blog. They are:

Brooklyn Guy
Dr. Debs and Good Wine Under $20
Wine Terroirs
Ray Isle’s Tasting Room
Pinotblogger

You may have discovered these already and there are many more that I enjoy in my blogroll on the right sidebar–and many more new bloggers who participate in the comments on this site (click their names for links to their sites). Consider signing up for the feeds of these blogs to keep up with their latest musings. And if you’re stopping by here for the first time, you can also give my own site feed a nibble! (and NEW! sign up to receive posts once a day via email)!

A couple of other items abobut the story. First, I got to have a debate with myself (that’s either the best kind or a sign of schizophrenia) about the pros and cons of blogging. I list six reasons why you should start a blog followed promptly by my rebuttal of six reasons you should not start a blog. Sadly, there’s no online link to the story so I guess this will be saved for your own perusal off line.

Second, the editors decided to include an illustration of me rather than a straight-up photo. I’m not sure why I was singled out for that, um, distinction. Here’s the photo that I originally submitted compared to their illustration, compared to a “Simpsonize Me” version of the same picture (per Josh’s suggestion). Enjoy them all!

The wine world is full of great “gotcha” moments especially when it comes to blind tastings. One of the great gotcha moments in wine was the fabled “Paris tasting” in 1976 when American wines, poured blind to French judges, defeated similar French wines. It had a lot of ramifications including the ascent of American wine onto the world stage and the rise of the blind tasting for many critics.

Does it sound like there’s the makings of a full-length feature film in there to you? Quite frankly, I fail to see how there’s enough material in the event for movie–it’s a critical event, sure, but one moment in a larger, more interesting story about wine, wine consumption, and wine production.

But that must be why I am not a Hollywood executive since there are currently two separate–and rival!–productions to portray these events on the silver screen. One version, “Bottle Shock,” supposedly begins shooting next week with Alan Rickman as Steven Spurrier, the Englishman who organized the original tasting. Danny DeVito will play Mike Grgich, the Croatian immigrant who made the winning chardonnay and is also know for effectively pulling off a beret. Yes, this means DeVito will be filmed wearing a beret! (I think he can pull it off.) And with the endorsement of Grgich and Jim Barrett, owner of Chateau Montelena, since they favor this version of the events.

Another production, “The Judgment of Paris,” has Spurrier’s official endorsement as well as that of George Taber, the author of the book of that name based on his reporting for TIME magazine (originally a four paragraph story). They’re still looking for a lead, with Hugh Grant and Jude Law “rumored.” (No word on who will wear the beret in this version) And now various parties associated with this film are threatening to sue “Bottle Shock.”

Thirty years later, the tasting still generates controversy. But in this case, the box office will be the final arbiter. If they don’t both flop, that is.

“Films at war over fall of French wine” [Sunday Telegraph]
Judgment of Paris, George Taber
Emperor of Wine, Elin McCoy

There’s a funny gag in the indie movie Scotland, Pa. where Christopher Walken, playing a (vegetarian) detective, is gently interrogating a suspect. The suspect receives a Styrofoam cup of horrendous coffee that he nervously sips during the interrogation. Finally, after what is his third sip or so, he blurts out something to the effect of, “why do I keep drinking that stuff!?!”

When the whole Vino family grabbed panini at ‘Inoteca recently, that was about the reaction of Mrs. Vino to my glass of lambrusco, purple fizzy wine. Dry tannins on the finish and a grapey quality made it not exactly her cuppa tea–or glass of wine.

Why? Although the wine was on the tannic side, I think it has to do mostly with food pairings–lambrusco craves meat. Mrs. Vino is a vegetarian.

“It would be great with mortadella,” I suggested, knowing that was going nowhere.

“Mozarella?”

“No, some bologna-like meat thing from Emilia-Romagna.”

Bottom line: dry lambrusco, like dry rosé, could be a wine that depends on context for maximum enjoyment. And that might just include a meat pairing.

I had a fun time helping out Slow Food with a wine tasting last night at Plates restaurant in Larchmont, NY.

After the event was over, Mrs. Vino and I stayed to have dinner at the bar. Our dishes (plates?) were great, prepared by chef Matthew Karp who, along with the amiable Wendy Weinstein Karp, owns and runs the restaurant.

I was amused to open the wine list to find page one declaring “It’s National Rosé Month!” Since I had apparently missed that memo, I asked Craig Muraszewski, the wine director, about it. He said that he had personally declared it national rosé month, “within these four walls.” Funny stuff. Oh, and he said the National Rosé Month runs from June til Labor Day…

I tried to snap a pic with my cameraphone of Craig’s “top ten reasons to drink rosé,” as listed on page one of the wine list, but it was too low-lit so I’ll re-type them after the jump. I particularly liked #9 for all its randomness… Read more…

It’s tonight that we take Brooklyn by storm! Come one, come all and checkout Stonehome!

When: 6:00 – 8:00 PM, tonight
Who: you – and feel free to bring a friend!
Where: Stonehome wine bar, 87 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11217. Map it!
How: G to Fulton; C to Lafayette; 2, 3, 4, 5, N, R, Q to Atlantic Ave, BAM/LIRR exit.