Dr Vino's wine blog

It happened. [yellow tail], the ubiquitous wine brand that advertises on billboards, crossed the million case a month mark last month reports just-drinks.com. Think what you will about the wine in the bottle, but that is incredible growth (not to mention a nice chunk of change). Here’s some historical data on the brand from Wm. Deutsch, the American importer and co-owner of the brand in North America:

2001: 225,000 cases (brand introduced to USA in June 2001)

2002: 1.2 million cases

2003: 4.3 million cases (making [yellow tail] the No. 1 imported wine in the USA).

2004: 6.5 million cases

Don’t forget to catch the podcast of the brand’s Australian wine maker and co-owner John Casella on GrapeRadio. And now that [yellow tail] pinot grigio is available near you, the YT riesling is set to land on our shores in spring 06. I wonder if it is spaetlese?

It’s not often I retrieve a box from UPS on the doorstep, open it, and dump the contents in the sink. But that’s what I did the other day.

Fortunately it wasn’t wine. Instead it was crystal. Eegad–had I lost all sense with too much Sancerre? No, I was actually trying out some glasses that I purchased called Tritan Forte made by Schott Zwiesel. They claim to be unbreakable, or at least “impact-resistant.”

Granted, I didn’t want to have crystal shards flying around the kitchen so I somewhat wimped out and let one glass fall two or three inches–a height that would have shattered many stems. But this Forte was indeed tres forte and it didn’t even crack thanks to a lead-free crystal that has titanium in it. The best news may have been the price–eight stems for $60 from Wine Enthusiast catalogue (via Amazon has a wider selection). A deep bowl and tapered top makes it sleek, elegant as well as functional.

We decided to put several stems to the test. Heck, now that even Target has a line of Riedel crystal stemware, high quality wine glasses appear poised to be the hot gift for the holidays this year. So we lined up some other contenders for the Forte: Riedel O, Riedel Vinum, and Bottega del Vino. Here at the Dr. Vino world headquarters, we enjoyed the excellent Chateau Cesseras, AOC Minervois La Liviniere, 2001. I’m not sure of the price since it was a gift from a friend who brought it back from the south of France but the wine has an excellent balance, with wonderful aromatics and southern French jamminess.

Starting with the biggest glass, I recently received a press sample of the Bottega del Vino Rosso Burgunder ($48 per stem). Wow. It is the Cadillac Escalade of wine glasses, sparkling and towering over the others. One friend who is 6’7″ loved it christening it “le chalice.”

While I would definitely agree that it is impressive to look at and puts whoever holds it way at the top in the game of ostentatious one-upmanship, I’m not convinced that it’s the best vessel, particularly for everyday use. I found that the aromas dissipated too easily, thanks to the flared rim on the glass. And it looks so brittle that an enthusiastic clinking of glasses during a toast might bring more than good wishes raining down on your companion.

The squat Riedel “O” glass ($19 for 2) looks like a Weeble Wobble for grown-ups. The aromas were better concentrated in this glass than in the Bottega. But without a stem, I got goobery fingerprints all over the bowl and the wine started to warm up in the glass since there was no stem to hold. This glass is not good for cocktail parties therefore–try it while seated at the table if at all to avoid warming up the wine.

The Riedel Vinum Zin/Riesling glass that I use as a frequent red-white crossover vessel in this case provided the excellent results and was the runner up. Not as big a bowl as the other three but it captured the aromas and was goober-free. At $38 for 4 on Amazon, the price was comparable to the Tritan Forte. However, since I have (dangerously) broken many a Riedel stem while hand washing, the Tritan Forte edges it out for apparent durability. It’s an excellent glass for everyday use around the house that doubles as a great gift. I’ll drink to that.

After a brief hiatus, I am back in blogging action. I was in Chicago and didn’t even access my email for 48 hours! (Fortunately it wasn’t that long between glasses of wine.)

I taught a one-day course at the University of Chicago entitled “critiquing the wine critics.” The participation was terrific and the wines were controversial–we had the Tablas Creek, Esprit de Beaucastel, 2002 that the NYT tasting panel had dismissed on 11/2 as “off – not exactly corked, but with musty, unattractive aromas” but that Parker blessed with 92 points. (We generally liked this wine more than the NYT’s bottle though it was not a Parker-style hedonistic fruit bomb.)

The most bizarre wine of the day was the Connor Park, Shiraz, The Honour 2002, which was a disjointed, glycerin alcohol bomb that clocked in at a stunning 17% alcohol. (Parker all but calls you a “girlie man” if you don’t like the wine by bestowing it with 95 points and writing “Readers looking for restrained, Euro-styled wines should steer clear of this behemoth.”)

Perhaps the most popular wine of the day was something that, tasted blind, one participant said tasted “Northern Rhonish” and indeed turned out to be the Domaine de Colombier, Hermitage, 2000. But it may have been infanticide to drink it this young as it undoubtedly has many years ahead of it.

Wine of the week, 11/12/05

MontGras, Reserva Carmenere, Colchagua,
2001. $9.99 Find this wine

This is a red built for the long haul. It’s not just that it came all the way from Chile…continue

Hip and trendy wine shops that “feel the love” are sprouting all over New York City. Or so the NYT’s Eric Asimov writes in his column yesterday. Actually he worded it like this:

It is no exaggeration to say that New York has entered a golden age for wine shopping. Never before have there been so many different kinds of wine to choose from, and in so many different parts of the city. It’s a blossoming that trails similar explosions in the restaurant and food retail businesses in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. [NYT]

But it strikes me as more of a nationwide (global?) phenomenon rather than just a local story. I have a list of wine shops that catches some of the names. What are some new hip and trendy wines shops in your part of the world?

A flight of headlines:

The dollar hits a two-year high against the euro. Hedge, people, hedge! [NYT]

French AOC wine prices are collapsing [BeverageDaily]

A new group of 180 French winemakers has organized under the name of Sève, les amis de Joseph Capus to reform the country’s wine laws. According to Francois des Ligneris in Decanter, new quality criteria should include density of vines, types of yeast used, and whether methods such as cryo-extraction or reverse osmosis are used or if acid, bacteria, chemicals or pesticides are added. Bonne chance, les amis. [Decanter]

PA wineries get a restraining order to delay being prohibited from shipping directly to consumers while the state prohibits out-of state shipments. Hmm, sounds a violation of the SCOTUS decision in May. [PBT]

Blogger Shiraz has a discussion on aromas and tasting notes that actually sniffs out some scientific literature.

Technorati tags: food & drink | wine news | wine

File under department of Who Dat?

Last night at the excellent Crush wine store, I attended a book signing of Matt Skinner. Matt Kramer? No Matt Skinner. This, Aussie Matt was a surfer who started working in the local liquor shop to fund his surfing. After treating it just as a boring retail job, his boss showed him some surveillance camera video (slow down, Big Brother!) of him working, that is to say, reading the paper and pushing the beer. Confronted with such evidence of his poor wine performance, he decided to learn more about wine.

A few years later, the story goes, Jamie Oliver was on a book tour in the land of Oz and Matt went to meet him. Somehow, Matt then moved to London and started as Jamie’s sommelier at the celebrated restaurant Fifteen (The BBC TV “reality” program about opening the restaurant for underprivileged youth is quite worthwhile).

After three years at Fifteen, Mitchell Beazley approached him about writing a book, the story further goes. The book, Thirsty Work, aims to be a wine introduction for twentysomethings and is lighter than a chenin blanc. Matt told me that he’s not really a writer although he did write a few things for Australia’s Wine X magazine before it folded. No page of Thirsty Work is complete without a color picture and the font often changes size mid-sentence, starting big and ending normal sized. It’s the perfect wine book to read while getting your nails done, which apparently he does.

With foreign rights sold in several countries and six languages, he’ll no doubt be able to finance lots of surfing now–or even a nice cellar.

These tasting-sized pours come from recent wine news:

Constellation is shocked that Vincor’s board rejected its $31/share offer. Hmm, maybe it has something to do with the fact that Vincor’s shares closed today at $34.57?

Direct shipping in Michigan took another step forward. Almost there!

Truck drivers at distributors Peerless and Charmer go on strike in New York: “That means no Grey Goose, Bacardi, Dewar’s, Grand Marnier, Stoli, Blackstone, Ketel…As our supplies dwindle, I’m considering investing in kevlar,” one liquor store employee writes me.

Jancis tries beer for a week in Egypt–and likes it!

Today’s WSJ has a story that Anheuser-Busch is hoping to start a less wet-n-wild advertising campaign for beer around the wholesome theme of “Got beer?” Honestly, who gets paid for these things? Anyone who suggests a “got wine?” campaign will be drawn and quartered. * * * UPDATE: a reader just wrote in saying that Rachel Ray has a T-shirt that reads “Got EVOO?” (as in extra virgin olive oil). I’m contemplating a T-shirt “Got ____? Must be shot!” >;-0

(Incidentally though the proposed beer campaign does have one cute idea for the wine industry: instead of beer and food pairings, they will introduce beer and people pairings along the theme of “who would you like to have a beer with? Paul Newman picks Teddy Roosevelt; Oprah picks Lucille Ball. Wine ads could improve on the concept by adding living people.)

OK, this one has nothing to do with wine, but this image of the royal squeeze is priceless.

On the blogs:
Check out Tom’s photos from the wine warehouse fire.

What’s the point? Christian has a rant about numerical ratings.

Fatemah has posted her WBW #15 round up. Check it out for some local microcuvees.