Worth Reading: Expression and Comprehension
A Blog on Champagne, Wine and Food, by Peter Liem
Interesting commentary on the concept and tradition of terroir.
“The problem is that not enough tasters, whether professional or amateur, are equipped to recognize distinction of character. One of the difficulties is that it’s far easier to identify technical quality than quality of character, and often I feel that many people are too easily satisfied with the former. Even the way that we taste is oriented largely towards the identification of technical quality: blind comparisons, sterile conditions, numerical scoring. On the other hand,we have not yet developed a system for identifying character, which is far more difficult. One could even say that the idea of character,while ultimately identifiable, defies the whole concept of systemization.”
Hillary Scores Free Bourbon for Obama and McCain
“It used to be that whenever the cameras came around, you’d see the politicians hiding their drinks behind their back,” said a Diageo spokesman to reporter Jeremy Mullman. “But she was using it … as a way of touching the people.”
While Diageo isn’t planning to use Clinton’s image in any Crown Royal ads, the company reportedly plans to send bottles of its obscure Jeremiah Weed Bourbon Liqueur to all three remaining presidential campaigns. Diageo hopes to boost the brand through sampling, word-of-mouth, and a brand website launched yesterday.
When asked why the company wasn’t using the “watershed” moment to promote Crown Royal, the spokesman pointed out: “Well, you all are doing that for us.” (from WineBusiness.com)
A Humble Critic
Robinson's comment, "We must always remember that we are parasites on the business of winemaking" should be in the back of every critics mind. Considering Robinson's status as one of the most influential wine writers in the world this is an striking statement that only adds to her already substantial and well earned respect within the wine trade.
Critics should be guides, not gurus.
See the Decanter article at the link below.
Jancis Robinson: critics should show more humility - decanter.com - the route to all good wine
More Taste, Less Filling
My flight was delayed and I was facing a three hour wait at DFW so I decided I might as well eat. Picking out the most promising restaurant I could find, I sat down at the bar and ordered the simplest thing on the menu, which is always my defensive eating strategy in such places. I was in no hurry so stretched out my dining experience as long as possible. During those forty five minutes or so the guy next to me downed four Coor’s Lights. With nothing else to do, but watch my barmates, I noticed they were all drinking light beers. On top of that they they were all drinking a lot of them and not a glass was in use. Lots and lots of long neck lights were being downed while the draft lines went undisturbed. Coming from Oregon I’m used to anybody and everybody drinking craft brews. Besides the fact that there seems to be as many brew pubs as gas stations in Oregon, you even find a line-up of craft brews on tap on the dumpy-ist country tavern. Here taste in beer tends to run to IPA’s with such bitter hop intensity that Coor’s Light has more in common with Perrier than our local brews. Living in such a place makes you forget what most Americans want in their food and drink.
What they want is little or no flavor or extremes of flavor. In some ways the Oregonian adulation of beers with so many hops that you can taste nothing else is just the mirror image of the Coor’s light drinker who likes it because it has almost no flavor at all. This is why we have such extremes of flavor in our culture and why you have people washing down blistering hot Tex-Mex and Asian foods with flavorless beer. Look what we do to Sushi, that most delicate of foods, as we insist to douse it in wasabi and soy sauce, which only insures we can’t taste if the fish is fresh or not. Sushi insiders know if you want the chef to give you the best fish you have to show him you’re not going to ruin it.
This is a huge dilemma for winemakers. Are we faced with making only innocuous industrial wines or supercharged spoofulated wines to stay in business? Fortunately no, as wines with complexity, balance and elegance can never be mass produced and there will always be a niche market for such wines. However, such producers have to accept that most Americans will never understand their wines as their palates just are not attuned to delicate, complex flavors.
On this same trip I was lucky to eat at the excellent Parkside Restaurant in Austin Texas where chef Shawn Cirkiel features one of the best selections of the freshest oysters you’ll find anywhere. The people next to me asked many questions about the oysters. They’d been to some great restaurants including Gary Danko and The French Laundry and were clearly into food. When their pristine oysters arrived they requested Tabasco and proceeded to obliterate each and every nuance of the assorted oysters in front of them. For wine the Tabasco is too much new oak, over-ripe grapes, dry ice and all the other over-manipulations of modern, spoofulated winemaking.
Today taste in America means more is better. Light beer is popular because you can drink more of it. Burning hot food is popular because anybody can taste it. Huge portions must be a great deal, right? It’s no wonder that wines with the most (most flavor or most advertising) are the most popular at all points on the price spectrum.
Worth Reading: What Would Jesus Drink?
Some great commentary on politics, religion, wine and the evil that is WalMart from WineSeeing.blogspot.com.
Wine - Seeing the World Through the Bottom of a Glass: What Would Jesus Drink?
Alcohol Is Not The Demon
There have been major rants and counter-rants (their words not mine) lately about high alcohol wines by Alder Yarrow at Vinography and Thor Iverson at oenoLogic, there's lots of good thinking, interesting reading and great debate in these two posts. However, I think they miss the major point on this issue.
Nobody who has tasted a lot of wine can deny that they've tasted many wines with high alcohol that worked. Wines that despite their potent alcohol were balanced, interesting to drink, complex and great with food. There is also the reality that not all varieties are created equal when it comes to gracefully carrying high alcohol levels. For example the elegant pinot noir is often overwhelmed by alcohol levels that zinfandel and syrah lightly carry.
The issue should not be the alcohol level of the wine, but if the wine tastes balanced and still reflects the 3 V's of great wine: variety, vineyard and vintage. It is here that higher alcohol wines often fail, but the reason is not the alcohol level itself.
The faults often blamed on high alcohol come not from alcohol itself, but the fact that the grapes were harvested super-ripe, which is just another word for overripe. These overripe grapes, which are the fashion as one of the routes to pointy wines, obliterate the three V's as varietal character disappears as does the personalities of vineyard and vintage. A byproduct of these overripe grapes is high alcohol, which is created by combining exaggerated sugar levels with super-efficient cultured yeasts that can keep eating sugar and excreting more alcohol no matter the alcohol level in the fermenter. In the old days all the yeasts would have died, but today's macho yeasts can handle 16%+ with no problem. The result of all this is a wine with huge fruit flavors of indeterminate origin, 4.0 pH, 15% alcohol and 90+ points. Of course, it has only a generic personality as it could come from anywhere as can easily be seen in wines from Spain, Australia and California that are totally interchangeable and indistinguishable. After all, what is an appropriate alcohol level for a stateless wine with no varietal character?
The first issue should be if the wine has any personality at all before we get to the alcohol level. Once that issue has been resolved we can think about wether the alcohol level is appropriate. Appropriate alcohol levels also should vary by vintage and a winemaker that makes natural wines will have alcohol levels that change year-to-year. My experience is that even in hotter vintages that produce higher alcohol levels well made wines will achieve a balance that works, although it may take some time to attain equilibrium. No, wines from a hot vintage may not be the best a producer makes, but they can be excellent wines. The key issue for the winemaker is to harvest ripe, but not overripe grapes each year if they wish to produce distinctive wines. Ripe grapes produce wines with alcohol levels that will find a natural balance in the wine of that year, but wines from overripe grapes produce not only out of balance alcohol levels, but cannot achieve any kind of natural balance as every aspect of the wine becomes distorted and exaggerated.
It's overripe grapes, not demon alcohol, that are the villains in this debate.
Gracious Gary
While Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV may seem a bit frenetic on stage/screen, his personal responses to recent criticisms have not been and are to be commended. His responses to criticism here and on PinotBlogger have been polite, thoughtful and even humble. His reaction to criticism has been just the opposite of Robert Parker’s tirades. This type of real communication can only make wine criticism and the information available to consumers more diverse and inclusive.
I have criticized Gary for giving wine points (no big deal as I criticize all critics for that) and a generalization, but I repeat a point that I have made many times that Gary is to be complimented for his passion and ability to bring wine to new consumers in a way that entertains rather than intimidates. Let’s all hope that this conversation not only continues, but grows.
Technorati Tags: Wine,Wine Library TV,Vaynerchuk
Wine Notes
Recent tastes I’ve enjoyed, all under $20 except for the Barolo, which is about $40:
Opinionated About
Those that were around the main wine and food forums four or five years ago will remember the tenacious argumentative spirit of Steve Plotnicki. If you weren’t on those boards in the past you probably won’t remember Steve because he was tossed off all of those forums by the moderators years ago. The intense energy and passion that drove Steve into those endless arguments about food and wine led to his banishment from those forums, but also led him to found his own.
That new project became Opinionated About, which anyone who has had an interaction with Steve knows, he is with a brutal passion. One of the first products of Steve’s banishment from the more heavily moderated forums was his own blog and forum, which he appropriately named OA or Opinionated About. The one thing about Steve is that he is only interested in dining as a perfect experience and so his blog for some time has been a virtual window into the best restaurants of Europe and the United States for those of us without his budget or time.
Now this abrasive, but focused passion for fine dining has created a new restaurant guide, The Opinionated About Fine Dining Survey, which can only be described as the exact opposite of Zagat as the reviewers are screened by the irascible Plotnicki, in contrast to the American Idol format used by Zagat and with the same artistic results. The result is a listing of the best-of-the-best restaurants in Europe and the United States. The restaurants in this guide are where to eat if seeking perfect food and wine is your only goal and money is no object. There are no best buys here, just all out hedonistic pleasure. I think the result of his effort is something completely new, a guide for those seeking perfection to those seeking to attain it. One thing is for certain, if you are lucky enough to dine at any of these restaurants it will be something memorable. As a first edition, it is clear that this guide is not all inclusive or prefect in it’s ratings, but who cares at this level. At only $6.95 a copy the guide will cost you less than the valet parking at most of these restaurants. By the way, I am one of the reviewers anonymously sending in my opinions for this guide
I will be sure to have a copy with me each time I travel as, unlike any other guide, I know it lead me to a restaurant that is as passionate about food and wine as I am.
Pinot Grigio Sucks? That's Vayrrogant
While watching a video feed from a Twitter buddy and fellow blogger, I was once again exposed to the snap judgements of Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV. The jarring and uniformed nature of his words shocked me as he ranted to the group in front of him, “pinot grigio sucks”. Can such flippant comments reflect someone who really cares about wines and the people that make them? I can assure you that winemakers like Jermann, Felluga, Borgo San Daniele and so many others, including many producers in Alsace and Oregon, don’t think gris/grigio sucks and, in fact, make lovely wines from this variety.
There are several reasons I take issue with Gary’s attitude. First is probably my age, as a 50+ year old person I could be missing something in his style that is appreciated by younger wine drinkers. On this level I’ll give the benefit of the doubt back to Gary. On the second point I’m not so prepared to give ground. This kind of off-the-cuff statement only insults and degrades the work of winemakers, people he professes to admire and reveals a lack of knowledge and experience.
It is interesting that Vaynerchuk made his “pinot grigio sucks” statement in a disingenuous attempt to pump up his take on greco di tufo, a variety that like pinot grigio, produces mostly forgettable wines. The difference of course is that while pinot grigio has a huge market that draws oceans of industrial grigio to the United States, greco di tufo is unknown to Americans so only the better wines reach our shores. Something tells me that Vaynerchuk has spent little, if any, time in Northeastern Italy, where many producers are crafting wonderful wines from pinot grigio. The same goes for Campania, where a lot of ordinary greco di tufo goes down the throats of uncritical tourists. Perhaps if he had actually visited the vineyards and cellars he would have an deeper understanding of these varieties and the people that make wine from them.
If you are going to make a living on the work of others you should at least respect what they do.
An Annual Must Read: Terry Theise's 07 German Vintage Report
Terry Theise not only selects wonderful wines, but writes about them with great knowledge and wisdom. Read his 07 report at the link below:
2008germanvintage.html
Elegant Infanticide
The confident, tuxedoed waiter bends over and intimately intones, “Wouldn’t you like something a little sweet with your foie gras.” All to often, in America’s finest restaurants, the glass that arrives contains Château d’Yquem, the most famous of all dessert wines. I can’t count the times this has happened to me over the decades and, yes, I consider myself lucky to say that. As petty as it may seem, I have a problem with it.
The problem is that there are two Château d’Yquem wines. One is the wine that promises to become d’Yquem and the other is the d”Yquem, which is something that only arrives with time. The first is an excellent dessert wine, the second is a legend. Anyone who has tasted this wine at its zenith understands that d’Yquem does not become d’Yquem until, at a minimum, it passes its twentieth birthday. Before that this great wine offers only potential greatness, not greatness itself. Yet bottle after bottle of this outrageously expensive miracle are poured out in restaurants in the name of elegant infanticide. These restaurants and their sommeliers should know better than this, but do it anyway seemingly struck by the d’Yquem label, more like groupies following the lastest star in People Magazine than serious wine aficionados. To drink young d’Yquem is an intellectual exercise at best and a terrible waste of potentially sublime wine at the worst.
Besides being a horrible waste of one of the world’s greatest sweet wines, it is also a disservice to their customers as there are many wonderful. perfectly ready to drink sweet wines that are more exciting to drink than immature Chateau d’Yquem. It seems to me that a competent sommelier should never be star-struck and serve a wine based only on its name with no regard to whether the wine is ready to drink or not: especially at this price level.
The poor d’Yquem that died a early death a few nights ago was a 1995 Château d’Yquem, an incredible wine that is nowhere near ready to drink. While still tight and a bit pungent, you cannot miss the greatness simmering underneath that will require at least another decade to release itself and perhaps ten years after that to achieve its pinnacle. With current retail prices for this wine at around $200. it should not be hard to encourage you to sit on your investment so you really get what you paid for. Everyone should rise up to protect this great wine and defend it against the next sommelier that wants to serve it before it actually becomes d’Yquem.
Wine Camp on Wine Cast
I was happy to join hosts Tim Elliot of Wine Cast and Jeff Lefevere of Good Grape along with fellow panelists Ryan from Catavino, Jeff Stai a.k.a. El Jefe from Twisted Oak, Kaz & Randy from Wine Biz Radio and Jill from domaine547.com on an current episode of Wine Cast. You can hear the show by following the link below:
http://winecast.net/2008/04/01/unfiltered-8-awba-twitter-amazon-more/
Burgundy wine prices hiked in U.S. due weak dollar
A Treasure Hunt in Manhattan
Like a treasure map in an old movie it was tattered and frayed and the rest of the place was well past its glory days. Everyone seemed from another time and the bustling world outside had somehow left them all behind.
That's how I felt as I sat down to dinner in Manhattan's venerable Barbetta Restaurant, which passed its 100th birthday in 2006. The once regal dining room now seems a bit frumpy and worn. Like a Grand Dame trying to still play the femme fatale in her old age, Barbetta's age is not disguised by all the makeup. However, hidden under the stodgy and slightly tattered surroundings are some real treasures. First is the food, which is well executed traditional Piemontese cuisine. The food is well made country cooking, which however good, seems out of place with all the tuxedoed waiters and formal service. What's important here is that the cooking is solid because the main reason to eat here is the treasure map that is presented when you arrive at your table: the wine list.
If you love the wonders of Barolo and Barbaresco this wine list will almost bring you to tears. The thick, if slightly worn tome, is filled with page after page of deep verticals from the finest producers of the Langhe zone. This is simply a stunning collection of Baroli and Barbaresci that exceeds many (if not all) of the restaurants around Alba itself. On top of this, the prices are not only fair, but outright bargains considering that you are dining on Restaurant Row in Mid-Town Manhattan. The only downside of this list is that it comes with a bored, grouchy sommelier whose main claim to the job seems to be that he was born somewhere in Piemonte. However, the quality of the wine list alone will overwhelm all of Barbetta's negatives for nebbiolo lovers.
My wine selection for the evening was the stunning, classic 1995 Marcarini Barolo Brunate, which was priced under $100, an almost unbelievable value at any restaurant in the United States, is an amazing value by Manhattan standards. While there was a full range of the great vintages from 1996 on, I chose this 1995 over the more famous years as I knew it would be more ready to drink. I have been fortunate to enjoy the 95 Brunate many times over the years and it has never disappointed and is now finally reaching maturity. The aromas are fleetingly intense with a delicate lacework of fragrances that engage both the mind and body, this is nebbiolo at its hauntingly powerful best. Lean and grippingly brilliant on the palate with layer after layer of complex dark fruit, black truffle, burnt orange spices and lilting wild flowers riding on the firm, but not bitter tannins. Wines like this are more experiences than a drink.
Barbetta is a veritable treasure chest for nebbiolo aficionados.