Dr Vino's wine blog

Sorbus, cabernet/malbec, Mendoza, 2004. $6 find this wine

The other day a friend poured me some $6 Borsao, a wine that I discovered several years ago as a go-to value. Well, move over Borsao, here comes something meatier. A phenomenal value, this Sorbus displays the depth that a cab-malbec blend can give and has that same, crowd pleasing “ah” of the Ruca Malen Yauquen. I found it at PJ’s Wine in Manhattan for the bargain price of $5.97. This is one to buy by the case! Importer: Mediterranean Wine Co, Dover, NJ.

tags: wine | tasting notes

In case you thought that fighting urban sprawl was something limited to California, Chateau Haut Brion has been fighting it for decades too. In fact it is entirely surrounded by the city of Bordeaux.

Thanks to the satellite imagery of Google, we can now have a look for ourselves. In the image above, Ch. Haut Brion is the largest vineyard, separated by the N250 (Avenue Jean Jaures) from La Mission Haut Brion. Below the train tracks is the top of Ch. Latour Haut Brion.

These may be the closest vineyards to the city center although others have also been engulfed including Ch. Pape Clement and Ch. Picque-Caillou. Click here to check out the terroir for yourself. Take a look at the Google map of the area and zoom in and out and see satellite or hybrid views.

Thanks to GoogleMapsMania blog for the tip about Google’s Western European maps going live!

tags: wine | Bordeaux | Haut Brion | Google maps

The WSJ has a story today on the rise of Indian wine, a subject I touched on a couple of months ago. This story reveals that the growers at 20 degrees latitude have to flip the seasons, pruning the vines into dormancy during the monsoon months and then growing the grapes in the more mild, non-monsoon months. [WSJ $]

And last Friday the WSJ couple, Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, wrote their first ever column on organic wines–and liked them! “Too many wines these days taste like they were made in a lab,” they wrote. “These, generally, did not.” (WSJ via PPG)

Russia’s ban on Georgian wine will cost Georgia the equivalent of 1 percent of GDP according to the IMF. A senior Russian official is now courting Bulgaria to fill the void. Whoa, power politics through the wine bottle! [Mosnews, RIA Novosti]

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision on direct shipping. The Sonoma Press Democrat reports that while some producers have enjoyed the change, others have found it a mixed bag as they have become mired in the varying state rules and fees. [Sonoma Press Democrat]

Sam’s Wine in Chicago resolved a 17 month legal dispute by promising to pay a $300,000 fine, close for three days (Jan 1 – 3), and empty its warehouse of alcoholic beverages. [Chicago Tribune]

tags: wine | wine news | wine politics

Her second book that is!

Urban Babies Wear Black was her first board book for infants and their adults.

And now Country Babies Wear Plaid is out!

Maybe one day we’ll collaborate on a book–urban babies go to w(h)ine bars?

tags: wine | children’s books | Mrs. Vino

Would more labels like this help Bordeaux wines sell in the US? I think so. A lot of the talk about reviving Bordeaux wine beyond the top 200 wines (there are over 10,000 vignerons in the region) focuses on the need for consolidation and big brands to rival American and Australian brands. While that may be true, clever packaging such as this may help save smaller producers. This 4,000 case wine comes from the Laurencin family winery in the Premieres Cotes de Bordeaux.

This is an example of the varietal labeling phenomenon of appellation wines from Bordeaux.

tags: wine | wine labels | Bordeaux

Pinotfiles assembled in Chicago over the weekend to assess the state of the grape. We traced its social, economic, and viticutural history across three continents and then tasted that variation in the glass.

We compounded the highly variable nature of the grape with yet another factor: bottle age. I was able to source many older vintage wines for the tasting through a local retailer of fine and rare wines so it was with relish that we could taste pinots with more maturity than you can normally find on the shelves of a local shop.

Although this sample was small, I’m tempted to say that California/Oregon pinots tend not to age as well as Burgundy. The 1997 Landmark was just this side of falling into oblivion. The 1995 Williams-Selyem was still very good with supple elegance but I couldn’t help wondering if it would have been better last year. Or the year before. By contrast the 2002 Stoller Vineyards had excellent fruit and lively spice from the tannins. A year or two might bring more balance to the wine but might it also make it less fun? Should American pinot be consumed in its youth?

Of course as soon as I reach for a generalization more data emerge to trounce it. The day before the big pinot tasting I had a 1997 Ken Wright Cellars, Guadalupe Vineyard (find this wine) that had an excellent finesse and was joy to drink. And a couple of weeks ago, I had a 1998 Dehlinger Pinot Noir (find this wine) that tasted as fruit forward as it did on release.

What are you experiences with aged American pinot?

Joseph Perrier, Champagne, NV Cuvee royale (find this wine)
2004 Whitehaven, Marlborough (find this wine)
1999 Daniel Rion, Vosne-Romanee, Les Beaux-Monts, premier cru (find this wine)
1997 Landmark, Van der Kamp Vineyards, “Grand Detour” (find this wine)
2002 Serafin Pere et fils, Gevrey-Chambertin (find this wine)
2002 Stoller Vineyards, Oregon (find this wine)
2004 Loring, Garys’ Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands, Monterrey (find this wine)
1999 Maison Champy, Corton-Bressandes (find this wine)
1995 Williams-Selyem, Allen Vineyard (find this wine)
1990 Domaine Leroy, Savigny-les-Beaune, Les Narbantons, premier cru (find this wine)

The 1997 Landmark, Van der Kamp Vineyards, “Grand Detour,” which had Helen Turley as a consulting wine maker for that vintage, did remind me of a line in Steve Heimoff’s book about the Russian River Valley in Sonoma. Local lore says that producers can add $5 that they can charge for each word on the label. But, hey, that could often apply to Burgundy as well.

tags: wine | pinot noir | tasting | wine classes

Jerry Shriver has taken the plunge and started his own blog! Jerry has an interest in finding good, affordable wines, a subject also near and dear to my heart. In his new blog, the USA Today wine writer will make daily wine picks for wines under $15. Daily! Whoa! Given his national audience through the largest circulation daily paper, Jerry will aim to blog about wines with high-ish production volumes, with a minimum of around 10,000 cases available.

That actually makes his site a good balance to mine, since the affordable wines that I recommend are usually produced in volumes well under 10,000 cases. While Jerry is trying to make life easy for his readers to find his picks, my goal is clearly to frustrate readers with tasting notes of wines you can’t find. Just kidding! I recognize that some of my wine picks may be hard to find but that’s why I think a tool like wine-searcher is invaluable.

Eric Asimov of the NY Times also launched a blog recently, which explicitly does not offer tasting notes, instead focusing on his personal experiences (we have learned about Grand Crew his “martial arts food and wine food group” and even that his car was broken into on a very bad day). Many other staff writers have gotten the blogging bug and each has his or her own style. It seems that features writing and food and wine make for a good fit with blogs. The blog is mightier than the sword!

Jerry Shriver’s blog: http://blogs.usatoday.com/cheers/

tags: wine | wine blogs

Richard Parsons takes the Time Warner corporate jet to his 20-acre winery in Montalcino the NYT reveals in a story on executives hijacking the corporate jet for personal use. But just which winery is it? The media baron owns the Brunello Il Palazzone. The winery web site assures us that he is “personally present at harvest time and all other key moments of the wines [sic] development.” Now we know how he gets there…(NYT)

The privately held E&J Gallo, second largest wine producer in the world with an estimated 75 million cases sold last year and 4,600 employees in 90 countries, rebrands as “Gallo Family Vineyards.” Um, OK!

Nicholas Lander has a good review of the four-hour James Beard award ceremony in New York. [FT]

Time Out New York reviews a dozen destinations for gourmets this summer. While wasting two-thirds of the page (including photo) on the always overcrowded Taste of Chicago, the brief piece finally gets around to mentioning Moto and Alinea–but not for why they are important to New Yorkers. These are the places where New Yorkers can try sous-vide cooking, currently undergoing a de facto ban in NYC. Conversely, Chicagoans can travel to NYC to try fois gras, now outlawed in Chicago! Reciprocal gastro tourism!

tags: wine | wine news