Dr Vino's wine blog

Any restaurant that (a) has a credo; (b) has a credo in Latin; and (c) has a credo that relates to health is on a mission. Such is the case at Rouge Tomate, a Michelin one-star, where the credo is Sanitas Per Escam (Health Through Food). But this is no grungy spot with Birkenstock-clad waiters; rather, it is a gorgeous 15,000-sq ft space around the corner from Barneys. So, which wine do you pair with nutritious gastronomy that favors local and rejoices in natural?

In the three years since the restaurant opened on the Upper East Side, that question has been the domain of Pascaline Lepeltier. Read more…

Have you ever though that the higher elevation a vineyard, the cooler it is? I have. But vineyards don’t always abide by the same principles as climbing Mt. Everest. In fact, higher vineyards can be warmer in some areas because they are above the fog line. I stumbled on this picture recently that dramatically illustrates how this can be.

Where in the wine world is it? Hit the comments with your thoughts; answer to follow.

The London riots are simultaneously shocking and horrifying, so much so that the prime minister even came back from his Tuscan vacation to appear to address the issue.

The rioters moved on the Michelin two-star restaurant, The Ledbury, in Notting Hill yesterday. Blogger Louise Yang was there and describes the scene as looters wearing hoodies and masks smashed a plate glass window in the dining room, burst in, and stole her wedding and engagement rings right off her finger.

The kitchen staff scared off the looters, she writes, by brandishing rolling pins and fry baskets. The staff then tried to soothe nerves by offering everyone champagne and whisky. Stiff upper lip! When word spread that the looters were circling back to the restaurant, the staff told diners to go to the wine cellar and lock themselves in.

For stealing her rings, Yang wished the looters “a case of flaming diarrhea for the rest of your life.”

Best wishes to the restaurant staff and diners as they try to put things back together. And, of course, to the country at this time of societal fracture. (ht: eater)

Researchers at the University of Barcelona have proclaimed that the official beach drink is not a margarita or a pina colada but rather: wine. Okay, they didn’t really put it that way. But they did find that wine flavanoids, found in red wine, can protect skin cells from UV rays and nasty sunburn. Even though their study took place in vitro, it wasn’t a wine glass, unfortunately. So I guess we’ll just have to douse ourselves in cabernet for the full effect on the beach. Forget wine ABV–in August, it’s all about the SPF.

“Protective Effect of Structurally Diverse Grape Procyanidin Fractions against UV-Induced Cell Damage and Death,” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

SIPPED: keepin’ it klassy
Forget screwcap or cork: a company has just been authorized to put Bordeaux in a can. That should solve their marketing problems to young people since it will now be easier to shotgun!

SIPPED: robots again
Robots, last seen in our 2006 threat-down, are again meancing the sommelier class with their e-tongues! The new challenge comes from Catalonia but fortunately a somm bats it down at the bottom of the story. The world of dining remains safe for humans! But will the e-tongues threaten critics next, dunking into wine and spitting out points? [CNN]

SPIT: 2010 Bordeaux futures
Simon Staples of BBR in London says that total Bordeaux 2010 futures declined by 50% from the previous year, citing high prices and small releases from the chateaus. Only five percent of sales went to Asia. But auctions are still growing at a 46% clip in the first half. [Bloomberg]

SIPPED: winery stores
A new law in NY will allow wineries to open up to five sales rooms throughout the state. That’s all well and good, but why should wine stores owners still be limited to only one store in the state?

As a fan of the box wine format, though not always the wine inside, I was pleased to see Eric Asimov and the NYT wine panel recommend some box wines. Their clear favorites were the Wineberry Cotes de Rhone red and the Estézargues , boxes that I have also recommended.

One they may not have included in the article was the Magdala rosé. We’ve worked our way through a box of the 2010–liquid air conditioning–so far this summer at the Dr. Vino World Headquarters. It’s from importer Jenny & Francois and is a darker rosé in the glass that hails from organic grenache and cinsault vineyards in Provence. Solid rosé, especially for the equivalent of $7.50 a bottle. (Find this wine at retail.)

I was talking about this wine with a friend recently and he told me that he loves the Magadala rosé for its stealthy refreshment. Every year, he pops the bag of wine out of the cardboard box and puts it at the bottom of a large canvas tote bag, covering it in ice packs, towels and sunscreen. Then he proceeds to a tennis tournament that may or may not rhyme with US Ropen and drinks the rosé all day instead of whatever overpriced swill is at the concession stand.

The most recent newsletter from Marcasin (pdf), written by owner Helen Turley and husband John Wetlaufer, makes for fascinating reading. Consider some of the tidbits. Readers learn:
* They are avid observers of golf.
* Marvin Shanken asked Helen Turley to increase his personal allocation of Marcassin while presenting her an award from his magazine, Wine Spectator.
* Robert Parker tasted the wines with winemaker Helen Turley. I guess these weren’t among the “more than 60%” of wines that he purchases.
* Robert Parker loved them! More than La Tache 2006!

Really, the newsletter is shocking in the aggressive swipes it takes at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti-La Tache. At their tasting together, the Marcassin owners poured the ’06 for Parker alongside their ’06s. Predictably, Parker continues his cartoonish recent trashing of many Burgundies, calling the La Tache calling it “almost undrinkable (stemmy, metallic, frightfully tart because of green acid, and obviously made from underripe fruit.” Meanwhile he heaped praise on the Marcassin handing out high scores and calling it “prodigious.” It’s not that DRC wines are beyond reproach; rather, even though I have not had the pleasure of trying it myself, the wine has received praise from Burgundy fans. I suppose that it could possibly be acceptable of Turley and Wetlaufer to quote Parker’s reaction to their little experiment, no matter how self-congratulatory or unbalanced their reporting. Yet in the next section of their newsletter, they trash not only DRC for inconsistency but also all of Burgundy! Really, if this is really one of America’s best pinots, why just stand on your own accomplishments and not lash out at Burgundy?

Of course, whether Marcassin is, in fact, one of America’s best pinot noirs is highly debatable. Parker has not reviewed the wines of Burgundy personally for over a decade and was even sued by Faively, which united many producers in the region against him. The Wine Advocate lost much of the credibility the publication had for Burgundy. (I asked the Advocate’s new Burgundy critic Galloni what he was going to do try to recapture that; Galloni will also review California wines for the publication and it will be interesting to see his opinions of Marcassin.) But the Wine Advocate’s dearth of coverage in the region left a significant void for Allen Meadows and his publication, the Burghound. Marcassin’s strident newsletter has a certain fin-de-regime character, as if they feel the tectonic plates shifting in the wine world and know they are heading out to sea.

The Marcassin style is controversial. Consider these tasting notes. Read more…

I just got an email from the importer of a 17,000-case Argentine malbec called Budini, which will now be called Bodini. Here’s why:

Vine Connections recently made the decision (or should I say that we were strongly advised by some attorneys to make the decision) to change the name of the wine formerly known as Budini. It will now be called Bodini.

The Budini brand has been in existence since the 2002 vintage. We made the decision to change the Budini brand name because there is another alcoholic beverage company which aggressively protects its trademark that starts with the letters “B-U-D”.

Really, I don’t have any trouble telling the above two labels apart–do you? How many drunk (or sober) people are really going to order a Budini when they wanted a Bud–or vice versa?