Dr Vino's wine blog

OK New Yorkers, time to cry into our Riedel stemware: the new Whole Foods on High Street Kensington in London beats the snot out of Whole Foods Bowery from a wine perspective. Roll the tape from the Financial Times:

“The eating-in aspect of this branch of Whole Foods is much more significant than anything we have ever done in the US because of the relative ease of acquiring a liquor license here rather than in the US where it is difficult in certain states and impossible in others. We simply could not do anything like this back home.” (emphasis added)

Thus said David Lannon, a regional president of WFMI in the UK. But it doesn’t stop there. “On the ground floor, between a large wine department (where not all the wines on sale are organic) and their temperature-controlled cheese room, is a small wine bar where one can sample the produce from either department.” (emphasis added)

Better in-store dining! Free samples with cheese! This New Yorker votes to import London’s laws on wine retailing!

OK just a small pic this time.

But I’m using it to set the scene for a forthcoming wine write up from the region. A wine from an unheralded grape variety…(a hint!) Post the correct answer in the comments below and win our respect and admiration!

I stopped by Willi’s Wine Bar, in operation in the 1st arrondissement since 1980, today for lunch. Afterward I fell into conversation with Mark Williamson a.k.a. Willi. He was lamenting the decline of enjoying wine in the political class in France–as evidenced first and foremost by President Sarkozy. He told me in exasperation that a former prime minister was in for lunch yesterday and he didn’t even order wine. Wow. Lunch and no wine, OK, perhaps. But in a wine bar?!?

Mark has a once-a-month sort of blog. Since it’s nearly impossible to find, I’ll post a link here to a recent rant about Sarkozy and a brief overview of the likes and dislikes of other French pols, past and present. My favorite vignette: the last of the hard core Socialist prime minsters, Pierre Mauroy, polished off the official PM’s cellar within a week back in 1981.

Jay Miller, critic at Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, entered the fray with a couple of comments yesterday. Since these postings received many reader comments initially, I thought I would flag his reactions for you here since sometimes new comments can get lost.

Here’s the thread on grade inflation in wines. He comments about the trend and specifically discusses his recent reviews of Spanish wines, which included many high scores.

And here’s another one when I met him and tasted some Argentine wines with him.

Here’s a taste of his comment:

The palate fatigue argument, frankly, is total hogwash. The principal difficulty for amateurs is maintaining concentration, mental fatigue, not physical fatigue. Someone mentioned doing no more than 12 wines; that’s 30 minutes work. You taste, you spit, you write a note, taste again, spit, add (or not to your note) and on to the next wine. When you’ve had practice doing this, it’s simply not difficult.

But he concludes with this compliment: “Anyway, I like this site. I’ll try to get back more often.” Always welcome!

We know that President Nicolas Sarkozy doesn’t drink alcohol because he said he is “too busy” (even if we caught him having a glass of Sancerre on the campaign trail). Even Reuters has a story lamenting the fact.

So what are we to make of this video then of a press conference immediately after Sarkozy had a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, also a teetotaler? As the newsreader mentions in his lead, “apparently they only drank water together.”

Brands. They make the world go round. Or so the theory goes in a world of global competition.

Some may say that a failing of France, the land of tens of thousands of wine producers, is the lack of big brands. In an effort at consolidation, several cooperatives have come together to try to make and market a new line of wines under the name of Chamarré.

As I zoomed by the large Chamarré stand at Vinexpo, I had a chance to pick up a pamphlet and hear the two-minute story on the wines. The highlights include consolidation of the 13,000 growers under one winemaker, R. Rosari, and rapid growth since they have sold 100,000 cases as they approach their first anniversary of the brand. US launch/expansion will follow in the coming months following the initial push was in the UK (search for the wine).

Soon after leaving their stand, I bumped into two anglophone wine guys who are specialists in the global wine biz. I couldn’t help getting their reaction to this new wine.

Global Guy 1: “Chamarré? I can just see a guy in America ordering that at a bar! Sha-mar-ay. And what if you forget the accent? Then it is Sha-marre. Eww.”

Global Guy 2: “They just don’t have the label right. What’s up with the butterfly?”

Global Guy 1: “What’s this? Four lines of wines? Oh, now THAT’s easy! Wow, they really don’t get it do they. And look–a shiraz, grenache, merlot–the famous SGM blend!” [note: it’s usually GSM for grenache-syrah-mourvedre]

And so on…Unfortunately I wasn’t able to head back to the stand to get their opinions (and gather my own) on what the wines actually taste like. But overall presentation is a potentially large part of the buying experience, so the globetrotters’ reaction was interesting at one level.

What do you think? Will this butterfly take off in the US?

chamarre.com

What are you queuing up for on Friday? An iPhone you say? Well, some may queue up for Ratatouille, what looks to be an entertaining movie from Pixar/Disney about an epicurean rat living in Paris. (Epicure indeed as Thomas Keller consulted on the cooking.) And in the story, the rat has to cook a big meal for a critic with the wonderful name of Ego.

Anyway, now starts the branding of sidelines and related merchandise. According to this Reuters story, this lineup will include a wine:

For the first time, Disney will offer red and white wines to compliment the film’s backdrop, a five-star Parisian restaurant, as well as cheese platters, both from Costco Wholesale Corp.

Another story elaborates that “The chardonnay, from the Burgundy region in France and bearing the Ratatouille name and likeness, will sell for $12.99.”

No details about the producer or the importer. While I’ve heard of celebrity endorsed wines, I’ve never before heard of a wine sold on the strength of an animated rodent. Consider it a celebrity/critter label.

OK quick – who is associated with the champagne Armand de Brignac, aka Ace of Spades, aka Gold Bottle? if you said the hip hop-preneur Jay-Z then you get only partial credit. The producer is in fact the Champagne negociant, Cattier.

I spoke with Alexandre Cattier last week at Vinexpo about the wines that he provides to the US market, sold mostly through nightclubs and a handful of stores (find this wine), where the prices range from $300 – $375.

About the opportunity to develop the Ace of Spades, Cattier told me “It’s incredible–it’s one of the occasions that you have once in a lifetime as a negociant.”

I have not tried the wine myself and there was none offered, I might add, since Cattier said that the production was “very limited.” He did tell me that the wine is a brut nonvintage. Hmm, a “limited” brut NV?

Anyway, the brand is expanding. I saw samples of the new bottles, which will now include a shiny pink embalmed brut rose NV and a shiny silver emblamed blanc des blancs brut NV. Feel free to poke around the Cattier web site and see their existing line that includes a rose NV and a blanc des blancs NV. These are available in the US from $25 – $55. (Find these wines)

Related:
“Reader mailbag: finding Ace of Spades Champagne”
“Jay-Z puts an Ace in play”