Dr Vino's wine blog

President Francois Hollande has many notale differences from his predecessor. But the one that most concerns us: he actually likes wine.

So it may come as somewhat of a surprise that he is trimming the presidential wine cellar, putting 1,200 bottles–about 10 percent of the stash–on the block. But at least it’s for a good cause since the sale at the end of May will go toward a cellar rehab.

The cellar has some gems, as you might expect, including 1990 Petrus. But all the wines have the patina of the state functions. Virginie Routis, chef sommelière of the Palace, made the selections about which wines to put on the block. Kapandji Morhange will start the sale on May 30.

Thanks to a 2012 posting on La Feuille de Vigne, we have some intel on who liked what at the Elysée:
* Charles De Gaulle created the wine cellar
* Madame Chirac had a weak spot for Pauillac wines, which explains why they are overrepresented.
* St. Estephe? The site credits these selections to Mitterrand.
* Burghound? That was Valérie Giscard d’Estaing who was a member of the Chevalier du Tastevin. Read more…

The Senate is likely to pass a measure to have retailers collect sales tax for orders shipped out of state. The issue has been a hot-button issue since many big-box retailers perceive that online-only retailers have an unfair advantage and they have brought their largesses behind this tax equalization issue at the federal level. How would the Marketplace Fairness Act affect wine sales?

The answer is: probably not much.

Although wine e-commerce (hello, 1990s term!) has been growing, it is still hamstrung by regulations. Wineries can only ship to 36 states while retailers, who have much broader and more compelling offerings, can only legally ship to 12 states.

The other factor is shipping. If you buy a few bottles on the way home, you pay sales tax. But if you poke around online and throw some items in your virtual cart, you have to pay shipping even if you don’t have to pay sales tax currently. Let’s say the store charges $20 a case shipping, which is customary in the northeast for in-region shipments. If you’re buying $10/bottle wine, shipping is 16%, so it is almost prohibitive (unless the deal is extraordinary). If you order more than $300 worth of wine to have the shipping be less than the sales tax (assuming 7% sales tax). (Still, the online price may well be a lot cheaper than the in-store price, a phenomenon we have discussed before so it could be worth it.) If you’re ordering $300+ cases of wine, paying 7% sales tax is probably not a deal-breaker.

Such a law would therefore stand to impact wines north of $25/bottle and stores in New Jersey. Why sotres in New Jersey? Because if you do an online search for a wine, one from the Garden State usually is one of the cheapest available. Maybe there would be more shipping discounts in the wake of sales tax collection? But some of the lowest-price retailers are already extremely lean margins.

What do you think–how would the proposed sales tax bill affect your wine purchases? Or the wine industry writ large?

Ferran Adria was in town last night to promote the auction of wines from the El Bulli cellar later today.

In a talk, the renowned innovator and leading protagonist of molecular gastronomy laid out what’s happening at the new El Bulli Foundation, the successor to the famed restaurant. The sprawling project includes a museum at the site of the El Bulli restaurant outside of Barcelona, a center in the city (“El Bulli DNA”) which will host 20 chefs as interns, and an online knowledge base known as “El Bullipedia.” It’s set to open March 15, 2015.

For one fleeting month of the year, the center in Barcelona will provide dining experiences (they will not take reservations). Half the seats will be to students and others as a form of social work. The other half will be allocated to members, with membership capped at about 200. “The first who have the chance to become members will be those who have helped us through the auctions in New York and Hong Kong,” Adria told the group in the large hall on the seventh floor at Sotheby’s. Members will also be able to spend a day with the creative team.

Along with Adria were two sommeliers from the restaurant who continue to work with the foundation. I asked them about the challenge of pairing wine with such unusual dishes. David Seijas said it was a “nightmare” pairing wines with the food since, among other factors, diners were presented with 50 (!) courses in a meal during the last year of the restaurant. Aside from the sheer number of dishes, he said a challenge was to follow the unconventional ordering which could zigzag from vegetables to seafood to game and back again with diners never knowing when a sweet course was coming or even if it would be the end. “There is no order,” he said, “there is only Ferran’s order! He loves surprises.” Read more…

Tis the season to pre-buy Bordeaux. The chateaux have decided to price their wine lower on the whole, with Mouton and Margaux reducing prices by about 30% from the 2011 vintage this week. That’s generally prudent since the vintage is considered of lesser quality and it’s against the backdrop of a soft economy.

Yet perhaps the most notable item about the en primeur pricing so far is that the prices have been released before the Wine Advocate scores (due out any day) have been published. It could signal an end of an era–one US trade buyer told me that the chateau were consciously trying to break away from having prices intertwined with the Wine Advocate scores. But it also could be that some other properties are trying to get a jump on what may be bad news. Which explanation do you favor? Either way, it will be interesting to see what happens to the price of those that have been released after the Wine Advocate scores are released tomorrow.

Bucking the trend of lowering prices, two right bank producers, Pavie and Angélus, have raised their prices by 30%. Both the properties were promoted to “Grand Cru Classé A” in the reclassifcation of St. Emilion wines last year. Apparently, there have been crickets for these wines as James Molesworth tweeted “And I’m hearing after their prices increases Pavie and Angélus are moving about as much of their ’12s as Latour did… #getit?”

Chateau Latour stopped selling their wines as futures last year.

Amtrak is known for many things but jovial passengers is not foremost among them.

Last Friday, a train from NYC to DC was waylaid with problems, causing a six-hour delay. One of the passengers was Paul Goldschmidt, owner of the right-bank estate Chateau Siaurac. Goldschmidt was on his way to a tasting at a DC wine store. When it became apparent that he wasn’t going to make the event, he uncorked his wines and started pouring them for the passengers in an impromptu tasting. By the end, the passengers were singing “La Marseillaise.” And all this transpired in the quiet car!

Here endeth the feel-good story of the day.

“Delayed Passengers Treated to an Impromptu Wine-Tasting on Broken-Down Amtrak Train” [Washingtonian]
A brief passenger video appears on Facebook.

It’s pretty common to post pictures of which wines you’re drinking on Instagram or Twitter. If you’re drinking really great stuff, I suppose it’s a little douchey (although those photos do get the most “likes,” etc).

But what if you pre-post a lineup of 34 magnums you will be tasting over the next few nights? That’s what Bob Parker did for the Wine Advocate staff (and owners? Note “SECOND” office reference.) meetings this week. Seems to cross the line–especially in a “blue-collar city.” Maybe they are drinking out styrofoam cups? Also, are these wines are worth a detour, let alone a journey from Singapore? Have your say!

Big time in the blue-collar city of Baltimore….the entire staff is arriving today, including our three new full-time writers which will be announced in the next 48 hours….the team from the SECOND office in Singapore, and we hope to put in place some very exciting plans…I am playing sommelier, and pulled the following wines out of the cellar for the three nights of *%^@#%$#&*&%^^$$….

Tonight-all magnums as there are 16-17 of us Read more…

Twelve distributors. Their fifty best wines. Sounds like a throw down. But it’s actually a fundraiser.

Michael Skurnik, Polaner, Winebow, David Bowler, Verity, Wildman, Martin Scott and others are each pouring their fifty best wines at a public tasting to benefit Sandy recovery. So that’s 600 wines–yikes! The $50 entry goes to the Mayor’s fund to advance NYC – Hurricane Sandy relief. May 1 – 6:00 PM

Get tickets here.

Howard Goldberg tweets: “I wonder what wines @drvino, the Combo King, would recommend for Claes Oldenburg’s fake food on display at MoMA.”

Aha! Good question. Which wine to pair with fake food–perhaps some fake wine? Maybe Bill Koch still has one of those ’21 Pétrus magnums…