Dr Vino's wine blog

What–you thought blogs were soooo 2005? Here are a couple of new blogs that raise good questions or bring good perspectives to the world of wine.

Keith Levenberg, a young collector in NYC, is two posts in to his blog (but don’t call it a blog!) and raises two good questions. First, at what level should wine writing be pitched, the newbie or the connoisseur? He informs us that he will dispense with explaining wine terms and cut to the chase. Also, he ponders a subject near and dear to our hearts: which wines are suitable for aging that mere mortals can afford? I’ll leave you to discover his suggestions but I will add a plug for chenin blanc, especially leading producers of Vouvray, such as Foreau and Huet, or Ridge zins. Hit the comments with your thoughts on this $64 (for two or more bottles) question.

Also, Levi Dalton, sommelier at Alto in NYC, has been posting frenetically over the past few days under the title So You Want to be a Sommelier? Please, direct all your sommelier career questions his way! I’m sure he will respond with his characteristic wit and aplomb.

SIPPED: miracles?
FIJI water LLC, which recently shut down production in a showdown with Fiji’s (military) government but then caved, will be turning their water profits into wine. In a merger of all caps, FIJI will be acquiring JUSTIN vineyard in Paso Robles. The FIJI CEO noted that JUSTIN has “fantastic products” and is “not a distressed asset.” According to Bloomberg, the Resnicks, the billionaire owners of FIJI, are the biggest growers of citrus, pomegranate, almonds and pistachios in the U.S.

SIPPED: another round
Will the Supreme Court extend to wine retailers their previous decision that liberalized winery shipping? We may find out since the Specialty Wine Retailers’ Association has appealed. [AFP]

SPIT: bubble pricing
An economist has some advice to wine collectors: Sell your Lafite. Now. [WSJ]

SIPPED: boats and dragons
And you thought our Cuvée 88888888 was brazen! File under: “How to succeed in China: get personal and put a boat or a dragon on your label.” [decanter.com]

SIPPED: end of an era?
“I think we’ve just come out of 15 years of wine criticism where there was really only one point of view.” SF mag tracks the evolution in California wine styles.

SPIT: inoculated discussion
If you’ve ever had a question about yeasts in wine, it’s likely been discussed on this epic thread on Wine Disorder.

All too often, Zinfandel is a highway to a quick, cheap buzz. It’s often confused with white zin, rarely celebrated by wine writers aside from patriotic holidays, and it’s almost never aged.

However, there’s Zin, and then there’s a wine like Ridge Geyserville.

I had a chance to visit the property and talk with the cellar masters this past spring. Although I also tasted some spectacular wines of Monte Bello, I was looking forward to the tasting of old zinfandels dating back to 1973, including multiple pairs of Geyserville and Lytton Springs–could a Zinfandel age gracefully, I wondered? Read more…

Yes, just what the internet needed–another page for Dr. Vino on the internet! You can now follow us over on Facebook. However, for reasons known only to Mark Zuckerberg, the best way to keep up with the page is to “like” it by clicking the LIKE button on the page. This puts page updates in your news feed–assuming you are one of the 500 million people on Facebook, that is. Whether you have joined or not, you can click on the the “wall” to seem the latest links and commentary. Join the fray!

www.facebook.com/drvino
Tweet: you can also keep up on Twitter.com/drvino

Chateau Lafite-Rothschild added the Chinese character for “8” on their 2008 bottles. Mouton-Rothschild added a painting by a Chinese artist to their 2008s. What could the Bordelais do next?

Behold: Cuvée 88888888, the Grand Vin from the Premier Cru Classé, Chateau Laftourongaux!

Thanks Beijing Boyce and Jean-Luc for the suggestions!

Now that party season is upon us, we all have to contemplate strategies for dealing with the “third hand” problem: in order to eat some hors d’oeuvres, you need two hands, which means you can’t also hold a wine glass.

Above are two commercial solutions, the plate on top of the wine glass or the glass in the plate.

What’s your approach on this burning problem? Have your say in the latest poll!

[poll id=”19″]

First, Lafite announced that the mandarin character for “8,” considered a lucky number in China, would appear on bottles of their 2008s.

Now, Mouton has announced that art by the Chinese artist Xu Lie will adorn their 2008 labels. The signature Mouton ram is sandwiched between two halves of a moon adorned with grapes.

According to decanter.com, prices of the wine were £1,800 a case last fall before the rumor of a Chinese label. Now, they say, prices are £6,000 per case (about $10,000; a search wine-searcher free version yielded only results for Mouton-Cadet).

Who’s pulling the wool over whose eyes?

Laurie comments:

Would love to start a conversation on Thanksgiving wine etiquette. What do you do when a guest brings a wine to dinner telling you it is special large format bottle, given by friends, saved for the occassion? Although I didn’t mind pouring the wine (quite different from what I would usually pair with the meal), the wine was corked and my husband and I seemed to be the only ones who noticed. Can I point out that it is corked and suggest that we open my wine, or do I have to grin and bear it?

This could easily descend into a lose-lose situation, as Laurie depicts: either the hosts stoically endure bad wine or the guest is possibly offended that the special wine somehow doesn’t pass muster.

However, I see two ways out. You could seize the opportunity as a “teachable moment” to talk about cork, the bark of quercus suber, and 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA), the cause of cork taint. Or, more discretely, bring out another set of glasses and pour another wine for whoever was interested in making a side-by-side comparison of two wines. Then you could enjoy the untainted wine while not overtly dumping out the corked wine. This seems especially acceptable at Thanksgiving when there are presumably multiple bottles open for the big feast (but certainly can be done at other times too since few guests would object to trying more wines).

What do others think?