Dr Vino's wine blog

It’s no secret that the US Postal Service is in dismal financial shape. Last week the Senate passed a bill to take steps to right the sinking ship. One of the unusual steps in the bill is good news: allowing the USPS to ship beer and wine.

This is a great idea for several reasons. First, as more bills and checks get sent electronically, you still can’t download wine and beer through your computer (despite some attempts) so it is a defensible category for the USPS. Second, it will provide more competition to UPS and FedEx, which may bring prices down. Although wine is unavoidably heavy, the USPS is already working on 2-, 4- and 6-bottle flat rate shippers. Third, it gets the discussion of wine shipments in the news so that more people can realize how silly it is that retailers can only ship to 14 states legally. Fourth, if the USPS revenue stream gets hooked on booze, then the liberalization of wine shipments will have gained a powerful ally in Washington–and in every state. Fifth, it would demonstrate what a red herring the underage issue is. Sixth, wine in the mail–how fun is that?

SIPPED: Jesus as store manager in the image above?

LARGELY SPIT: Bordeaux 11
After pre-judging the Bordeaux 2011 vintage prior to tasting, Parker dials back the damning commentary writing in his report that it was “much better than I first thought,” likening it to 2008 and 2001. [DrinksBusiness.com]

SIPPED, NOT SMOKED: Mike Steinberger answers the question “what was HE smoking?!?” with the latest piece on the pot wine phenomenon in California. [DailyBeast]

SUSPENDED: Jancis Robinson reports that work on the controversial Mosel high bridge has been suspended. [JancisRobinson.com]

SPIT: wine as TP
Costco’s wine buyer, responsible for one billion dollars in wine sales, tells CNBC that wine is like toilet paper. Talia Baiocchi weeps. [eater]

Last week, NewYorker.com engaged its readers by asking which words should be eliminated from the English language. The surprising winner was “moist.”

Now that they’ve jettisoned moist, it’s time for us to have our fun. Wine tasting notes are all-to-often laden with obscure, sometimes overly precious, redundant or otherwise silly words or phrases. We started circulating a few on Twitter yesterday with the hashtag #sillywinetastingterms. A few that came up were: “dusty minerals,” “a hint of clean earth,” “vinous,” “melted asphalt,” “hedonistic” and…”liquid Viagra.”

So, have your say: which wine tasting term is officially the most useless and worthy of expulsion from our vernacular?

Dolcetto, which means either “sweet-ish” or “the one you drink while your Baroli are aging,” is rarely in better hands than it is with the traditional producer Francesco Rinaldi. Many dolcetti have coarse tannins but this “Roussot” 2010 has a seductive roundness to it, offsetting the notes of gentle bitterness and dark fruit.

I give it my highest rating: I’d buy a whole case of this wine. And, at only $15 a bottle, that’s actually within the realm of the possible.

Search for this wine at retail

Timothy Egan has a piece up on the Opinionator column of the NYT with a provocative thesis on the correlation between teetotalism and presidential leadership: “The nondrinkers, at least over the last century or so, were terrible presidents.” Our country has a history of both binging on alcohol and abstaining so it is in an interesting lens for looking at leadership. However, it’s not perfect since Nixon liked wine but his presidency undeniably ended in disgrace and even Herbert Hoover apparently once had a large wine cellar. (For a timely, overseas example on whom voters have yet to render final judgment, President Sarkozy is also a teetotaler.)

But in gazing at the drink preference of Mt. Rushmore’s faces, George Washington liked Madeira and became a whiskey distiller after leaving office, Jefferson, of course, was the best friend wine geeks ever had in the White House, Lincoln once had a liquor retail license and later owned a tavern and Teddy Roosevelt apparently had a nightcap from time to time.

Clearly defining good and bad presidencies skates a little close to partisan coloring for this blog. But Lincoln had a good perspective: “The problem with alcohol, he said, was not that it was a bad thing, but a good thing abused by bad people.”

SAQ, the state-owned wine entity that has a monopoly on wine retail in Quebec, paid wine critic James Suckling $24,000 last year. Suckling and SAQ had both denied any financial relationship.

La Presse reports in their online edition that they obtained documents through freedom of information law. The documents reveal that the SAQ paid Suckling $18,000 directly and bought 119 subscriptions totaling $5,950 to his website, which offers wine reviews to members only.

Suckling, the former Wine Spectator critic and European bureau chief, went to Montreal in early 2011 to taste wines and produce tasting notes that would appear both on his website and on that of the SAQ, he wrote at the time. La Presse reports that when Suckling was in Montreal the SAQ had stated “Mr. Suckling was not compensated to do the tastings.” Suckling, for his part, had blogged, “There is no financial relationship. It’s a sharing of information and contacts.” The documents obtained by La Presse state that Suckling was paid for “the tasting and scoring of products, the production, the creation, and putting the brief videos live.”

The SAQ spokesman told contributor the story’s author, Karyne Duplessis Piché, that the purchase of subscriptions was not unusual for the organization. This year, they have spent $26,000 on subscriptions to wine newsletters, the spokesman said.

James Suckling did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Image: PR Web

Chateau Latour to halt en primeur

After the 2011 vintage Chateau Latour, owned by billionaire Francois Pinault, will not pre-sell their wine as futures. What do you think?

“That’s great. It’s good to see a billionaire doing the right thing for a change by not ripping off millionaires. Also, Salma Hayek is hot.”
-Mandy Street, Occupier

“I’m disappointed. Now when I boast on eBob that I bought all the (98-100)-point wines before the scores come out, it won’t include Latour.”
-Mark S. Quire, Systems Analyst

“Is Chateau Latour the one with the kangaroo on it?”
-Bruce Babcock, undergrad

This is certainly a bravura performance. But, sheesh, couldn’t she use a Laguiole to open the wine?!?

Can’t wait to see this as a grande finale in the Master Sommelier exam!

Thanks, Phil!