Dr Vino's wine blog

SIPPED: Politesse
Diddy’s Bad Boy staff will receive etiquette training including how to hold a wine glass. As slatewine put it, “Pass the Courvoisier, correctly.” And maybe not to spill the Cristal on the floor? Sheesh! [nypost]

SIPPED: sincerity?
Francis Ford Coppola says that he wants to make more elegant wines by reducing alcohol and oak and increasing freshness in his newly revitalized Inglenook wine. While tasting is believing, it is notable to hear a Napa vintner articulating such a position. [decanter]

SPIT: status quo
The Albany Times-Union comes out in favor of wine in grocery stores (the delightful acronym, WIGS) in New York.

Also: Groupon files to raise $750 million in an IPO.

And… Jon Stewart riffs on a Coppola character by chewing out Donald Trump about New York pizza.

Even the recession did not lay waste to Americans’ love of wine: per capita consumption continued to increase the past couple of years even if the average per bottle price declined. Over the holiday, I found a curious cause of cutbacks that actually led to trading up: the waist.

A relative told me that he (!) has been doing the Weight Watchers system of dieting and weight management for a number of years. In nutshell, Weight Watchers assigns foods and drinks “points” partially based on calories and lets participants eat what they want as long as they stay below the daily points threshold. But Weight Watchers recently recalculated their points system; and the new “PointsPlus” doubled the points of a 4 oz glass of wine from two to four. Sacre bleu!

As a result, my relative said that he was buying better wine since he was drinking less of it. Gone are the $12 malbecs of yore (he said he was getting tired of malbec anyway) and now he’s spending $19 or $20 on a bottle at his local store in order to hopefully get a better wine. He said that he is enjoying the exploration but doesn’t always think that he gets a wine that’s commensurably better even though he’s spending 50-80% more on wine.

What do you think: is drinking less, but better, the way to go for a variety of reasons? Personally, I always prefer more wine and better wine, but that can’t always be done…

Have you ever been cycling home and thought, “Gee, I’d love to stop at that wine store but I have nowhere to put a bottle because I do not have a backpack or paniers or a basket or anything!” Well, this clever little gizmo available on Etsy will solve all your problems! And if you are commuting in New York City and a cab cuts you off, well, that wine bottle might just come in handy too.

One caveat: probably not great for Champagne. Unless you are seeking to turn the cork into a projectile.

When do the companion baguette holders come out for handlebars that turn your bike into a sort of Longhorn?

Hat tip: bottlenotes.

Ah, Memorial Day. Grilling. Veterans. And politicians pandering to motorcycle groups.

It also happens to be the kickoff to summer drinking season and here in the Northeast, we had terrific weather. My wine highlight of the weekend was uncorking a Domaine Baudry 2010 rosé, made from cabernet franc in the Loire appellation of Chinon. It’s a gorgeous, fresh rosé that has great color from the skin contact, delicate fruit as well as terrific acidity and even a little length.

What did you uncork? Or what are you looking forward to enjoying (outdoors) this summer?

Even with word of cutbacks in the wines poured at British state events, the Queen offered some choice wines for President Obama and guest this week: 2004 William Fevre, Les Clos, Grand Cru Chablis; 1990 Domaine de la Romanée Conti, Echezeaux; and a 1963 port. Just a tad better than the selections at the White House!

However, perhaps in a nod to the White House, which only serves domestic wines, Buckingham Palace also uncorked an English sparkling wine, the 2004 Cuvee Merret Fitzrovia Rosé from Ridgeview in Sussex. The Palace served a 2002 Veuve Clicquot, cuvée “Rich” (how blingy!), with 28 g/l dosage.

In other news from the “Leaders and Liters” desk, Christine Lagarde is a teetotaler.

Sometimes you need a study to affirm what you suspect. Such is the case with a recent paper that shows wine labels to understate actual alcohol by at least 0.3 percentage points, on average. And increasing alcohol levels have little to do with climate change in aggregate; instead, the researchers suggest, it results from winemaker choice.

The study, whose lead author Julian Alston of UC Davis, examined data from 129,123 wine samples. Although the US federal authorities perform scant testing of wines in the marketplace, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) runs each bottle of wine through a lab test Read more…

SIPPED: An invitation to piracy?
A load of 10,000 bottles of Bordeaux 2009 make their way to London via olde tyme sailboat. While the carbon footprint is near zero, someone needs to man the deck to keep an eye out for Bordeaux pirates. Avast me hearties! [dailymail]

SIPPED: fanning the flames?
“When the Chinese are willing to buy your entire year’s production, it is difficult to resist,” says Xavier de Eizaguirre of Chateau Mouton Rothschild. [Telegraph] Reports from other producers are not quite as bold for 2010.

SIPPED: US bling
A bottle of ’45 DRC RC sold for $124k at auction to…an American buyer! Perhaps the Chinese still remain focused on Bordeaux.

SIPPED: tiny profits
Wine.com, which has had troubles over the past decade or more, is making money: about $45 mln in FY2010 revenue, though only $800k profits, or about two percent. FY2011 revenue climbed 26% to $56 million. [bizjournals]

HOW TO maintain the stigma of box wine: prohibit “quality wine” from going in it, as is happening in British Columbia. [Wines & Vines]

Bursting melons! In China, thanks to overdoses of the “growth chemical” forchlorfenuron. US authorities allow it on kiwis and grapes, apparently. [AP]

Last week in the NYT, Eric Asimov highlighted the wine program at Nice Matin, a restaurant on the Upper West Side that has remarkable breadth of offerings, depth of vintages and sharp pricing. This apparent wine lover’s idyll was not always this way: only in the past few years have the owners built up the wine program, in part by purchasing the cellars of now-defunct restaurants. Further, the wine director “prowls through a network of collectors and winery owners, seeking mature older vintages to add to the list.”

Across town and upstate, specialty wine shops such as Chambers Street Wines and Crush Wine and Spirits or Grapes the Wine Company, often broker collections of rare older wines that individual collectors are selling. And even though wine auctions have shifted to Hong Kong with astonishing speed over the past couple of years, the gavel still does come down on wine lots at places like Sotheby’s and Christie’s here in New York.

All of these facets of the wine business mean that, with a bit of effort, a wine enthusiast can hunt down an enormous range of rare bottles in New York. It is arguably the best city on earth for wine lovers.

But the status quo is under threat thanks to new proposed legislation in Albany. Read more…