Dr Vino's wine blog

Thanks to social media, you can always tell how badly you’re drinking compared to everyone else. And on this Monday night, when I didn’t think I was doing too badly with some delicious Indian takeout and a pint of Sweet Action. But, whoa, was I wrong.

Tonight there’s a big northern Rhone dinner going down at Bar Boulud. Sommelier Mike Madrigale tweeted from the scene that it was the “Greatest wine dinner ever put on here.” Now that is saying something. He also tweeted the menu that included four vintages of Joseph Jamet, Auguste Clape, Verset & Gentaz-Devrieux. These are pretty rare, especially since Marius Gentaz retired in 1993 and died last year (read more on his rare wines); Noel Verset stopped making wines in the early 2000s. The event was billed as “The Golden Age of Cote Rotie and Cornas,” featuring 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991.

Okay, stop drooling now!

Robert Parker has sold a “substantial” interest in the Wine Advocate. He is stepping down as editor and the newsletter will now be run out of Singapore. The new owners plan “wine education conferences” around the world and will accept non-wine advertising.

This seems like quite a volte face since, as Felix Salmon notes, Parker just told the WSJ last month that he has refused all offers over the years in part because he “would not relinquish” editorial control of his newsletter. Now the WSJ ran a story by Lettie Teague on the sale to an group of three unnamed, “young visionaries” in Singapore. The story reports that Lisa Perrotti-Brown, currently the Australian wine critic, becomes editor-in-chief and that they will cease the print edition, shifting to exclusively online. (Parker also posted details on his own web site in an announcement.) The WSJ story presents no history of the subscriber arc at the Wine Advocate but claims it currently has 50,000 subscribers (Since this is a news story in the Media & Marketing section, can one assume that this figure was verified in some way other than Parker’s word?).

Perrotti-Brown, long the least-known member of the staff, seems to have a swagger in her step as she commented to the WSJ that she and Parker “hope” the current contributing critics stay with the publication. But, if not, “There is a plethora of good wine writers out there. It’s a buyer’s market,” she said. On the thread on eBob, Neal Martin, who was rushing out to a tasting, posted that he is “very excited” about the changes. Read more…

SIPPED and SPIT: The Drops of God
The latest installment of The Drops of God, the wine-drenched graphic novel from Japan, is now in English. I review it and learn that this volume will likely be the last in English. [wine-searcher.com]

SIPPED: sense of place. “We’ve concluded that Tuscan-style homes would make the finest fit here.” Apropos the Khao Yai wine region in Thailand, where homes in a development range from $650,000 to more than $3.3 million. [WSJ]

Sticker shock: Some London buyers won’t buy wine at auction that bears a US back label.[smcp.com]

SIPPED SLOWLY: recovery. After the surge, Pasanella wine shop combats the quiet. [NYT]

SIPPED: the “noble experiment” Learn how the 18th amendment got passed, understand its links to the federal income tax and see a hatchet carried by anti-alcohol crusaders. Daniel Okrent, author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, curates an exhibit on Prohibition with all of these items. The show runs through April 28 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. [WSJ]

PASSED: popcorn. A long thread involving a horizontal pear tasting and more discussion of wine tasting notes. [wineberserkers]

A Russian businessman bought a fixer-upper chateau dating from the 18th Century among the vines of Bordeaux. He ordered some renovations, went out of town, and returned to find the entire chateau a pile of rubble.

Reports vary on the size of the fixer-upper, but the rental site for the chateau said you could have a couple hundred friends for a seated dinner.

Builders had been instructed to remove one of the outbuildings but instead razed the whole place.

Owner Dmitry Stroskin vows to rebuild the structure as it was before. He has already ordered one and a half million euros of stone from a local mason. And probably popped a few Advil.

Chateau Bellveue rental site at 53, avenue de la Chapelle, à Yvrac.
[Sudouest, French news video, NBC News]

When Paul Grieco uncorks, people listen. I recently sat down with him, partner and wine director at restaurant Hearth, the four Terroir wine bars and the man behind the Summer of Riesling. I asked him one question: what’s the next “it” wine?

He warmed up by by clearing his throat, tipping his proverbial hat at the undiscovered wines of Portugal and Central Europe. But then he got rolling. Below are excerpts from our chat.

“Australia is the most exciting new world wine country on the planet.

“Earlier this year, I went to Izakaya Den, an incredible restaurant in Melbourne. They had fifty domestic wines from small producers on the list that I didn’t even recognize.

“Australia is fucking exciting. Old vines aren’t the guarantee: There are 80-odd wineries in Tasmania alone! The Yarra Valley is huge and dynamic can grow everything well. I would love to see Australia as the next big thing. Oh, and the most exciting grape? Chardonnay.

“Yes, there’s shite, and they ship it to us. For the small producers, we’re too big a country for them to deal with. What Australia needs is a Terry Theise, to take them by the hand and introduce them to America. There are importers who do a good job today but Terry is an evangelist: look what he did with Gruner Veltliner and the revival of Riesling. This person should focus on five US markets and target somms. Each group of sommms looks to differentiate themselves from the previous generation.

“We have access to so many wines here: There’s no excuse for having a bad wine list in NYC.”

An appalling and heinous crime in Montalcino has resulted in the destruction of six complete vintages of Soldera, the acclaimed, expensive, and already hard-to-find wine. Unknown assailants broke into the winery and opened the taps of the large oak casks. The contents of all the unbottled vintages 2007 – 2012 spilled onto the floor, lost down the drain. Forever. Nothing else in the winery was stolen or destroyed according to winenews.it, which carried the brief account based on communication from Gianfranco Soldera.

It’s a tragic crime against wine. This news rips at the heart of any wine enthusiast, indeed probably anyone who can imagine six years of their work destroyed especially since it never saw the light of day.

In all, the equivalent of 80,000 bottles of wine was lost. The last vintage of Soldera that is commercially available, the 2006, fetches about $250 a bottle. (find this wine)

On Twitter, reaction was swift. Alder Yarrow dropped the F bomb. Lyle Fass called it “Beyond heinous,” calling it the “worst news I could imagine out of Italy and the wine world.” Italian Wine Merchants tweeted “I can’t begin to wrap my mind around Soldera’s loss. Like having your children, your life’s work and your art killed at once.” Michael Madrigale tweeted: “horrible. wicked. I’ve heard of this happening in Southern Italy (mafia) but never in Tuscany.” John Gilman wondered, “Will good ever prevail over bad?”

Katherine Cole expressed a common sense of bafflement at the events in Brunello: “Why why why why why why whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy would someone do that to Gianfranco Soldera?????????????????”

UPDATE 12/4: Gianfranco Soldera has put out a press release detailing that 62,600 liters were destroyed. He writes “Our thoughts and actions, at this time, are directed solely toward the future because no intimidation can stop our work and passion for this land and the products it yields.” Whole statement is here. Thanks to Robert Bohr of Grand Cru Selections, the US importer of Soldera, for passing it on.

Jon-David Headrick Selections, an importer specializing in wines from the Loire Valley and beyond, is teaming up with Eric Solomon (European Cellars), which concentrates on southern France and Spain. Headrick, 39, was the general manager at European Cellars before starting his own import firm with stylistically different wines.

“Not really an acquisition but yes, European Cellars has been named as the US marketing agent and importer for the JDHS book,” Headrick tweeted to me when queried about the new relationship. “My producers deserve wider distribution and attention and EC has a great team to make that happen,” he continued. “My growers are excited to have more hands on deck. I’ll continue to source and manage the portfolio as before.”

Headrick’s wines include the crackling wines of Domaine Vacheron in Sancerre and the Saviennieres of Damien Laureau. (Find these wines) See the complete list.

Thomas Jefferson is often known in wine circles as the best friend that wine enthusiasts ever had in the White House. He might even have been the sommelier-in-chief since he frequently poured wine at official functions (he abhorred whiskey, the main drink of the day) and had wine vaults built below the east colonnade for his collection. At that time, entertaining expenses came out of the president’s own pocket; a story in the now-defunct Wine News once put the valuation at $11,000, or about $200,000 in today’s money.

However, Jefferson was also complicated and deeply hypocritical argues an op-ed in yesterday’s Times. While Jefferson maintained that men were “created equal” in the Declaration of Independence, he continued to own slaves at Monticello for fifty years after the Declaration even while some (but not all) of his contemporaries freed theirs. And to make the connection to wine, there was this passage in the op-ed:

[Jefferson] sold at least 85 humans in a 10-year period to raise cash to buy wine, art and other luxury goods.

The article doesn’t state whether this was after his presidency. But it does reveal the economic basis for at least some of his wine purchases, which casts the real Jefferson bottles in a different light.