Accidental Wine

Friday Wines – Proxy Edition

2008-05-09T19:46:00.004-05:00

So here I am at work and I actually have a finished post, ready to go, for my blog. Alas, the corporate powers that be have blocked access, so I can’t post. Luckily, I have a friend who can post it for me, by proxy. Here goes:

White wine under $20

2005 Lucas & Lewellen Chardonnay Santa Barbara County ($15)

Traditionally, California has relied on its extra fat, butterball style Chardonnay, a wine my father would characterize as “so fat you can’t see its eyes.” That means lots of oak, lots of malolactic fermentation and little fruit.

L&L shows California really can make Chardonnay that relies on the grape’s fruit character. Crisp aromas and flavors of green apple, white peach and nectarine shine here, with acid for great structure and texture. Light and refreshing, revitalizing even, with good balance. I’d drink more Cali Chardonnay if it were built like this.

Red wine under $20

2003 Rutz Pinot Noir French Cuvee Pays d’Oc ($12)

Rutz has produced a highly drinkable, good quality Pinot Noir with the French Cuvee. It balances cherry and strawberry fruit with spice, cola and earthiness. It has good fruit/acid balance and medium body. You can’t ask much more from a Pinot Noir at this price!

I’ll be honest – there’s little Pinot Noir worth drinking under about $25 dollars. Now that’s not me engaging in what the French call le snobisme; Pinot Noir is virtually impossible to grow and even harder to vinify so it’s just going to require extra cash to produce good ones. Think of Pinot Noir the way women think of a purse or a pair of shoes – the more you spend, the better quality!

White wine over $20

Nonvintage L’Etoile Doux Paillé AOC Banyuls Grand Cru ($36)

When you pour the Doux Paillé, it’s hard to believe it’s red wine, but it is. It looks like iced tea, but is all hazelnuts and almonds drizzled with butterscotch and maple. It’s not all candy, though – acidity balances the sugar, while minerality adds complexity, depth and sophistication.

This is the Alessandra Ambrosio, a Brazilian supermodel of a dessert wine. At first glance, she’s coolly graceful and detached. You don’t dare approach her; she’s too rare, too angelic, too volatile for you. Then, somebody cracks a joke and it breaks her pouty, I’m-too-serious-for-you model face. She smiles. Your confidence rises. She waves and you know you can talk to her – she wants to talk to you, even. Wait, was that a wink??

This will match any dessert with milk chocolate, coffee, nuts or caramel or you can pour it over vanilla ice cream. Out of vanilla ice cream? Substitute whatever part of your loved one’s anatomy you choose.

Red wine over $20

2006 Thorn-Clarke Shotfire Shiraz Barossa Valley ($25)

This wine is like a velvet glove, well, in a velvet glove. Even the aromas of blackberry, black currant, charcoal, smoke and chocolate are soft and expressive. Black currants, black cherry, spice box and licorice envelope the palate. A smoky, spicy oak slinks in behind the fruit and earthy character in the finish. It’s got power, to be sure, but this isn’t like most Aussie Shiraz – turning on the power like flipping a light switch. Shotfire powers up slowly, more like an iron. Wait: you’ll be rewarded for your patience.

That’s all from me. Make sure you buy your mother a bottle of wine for Sunday. If she doesn’t drink wine, then buy her one anyway – might as well get her started, eh?

Mark

Friday Wines - the Lazarus Edition

2008-04-25T18:52:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since I've made any wine recommendations, but it's Friday, so here they are. For those of you not used to the home version, here's how it works: I'll try to post four wines here each Friday - a red and a white under $20 and a red and a white over $20. All prices are approximate and the wines may not be available in all areas. They're just good wines in each category, nothing more, nothing less. Without further ado:

White wine under $20

2006 Ferraton Père et fils Samorëns Côtes du Rhône blanc AOC ($12)
If you want an unoaked but still full bodied white that’s crisp, this is your wine. The perfect pairing of pineapple and cream, this wine has great fruit, acid balance for crisp texture and minerality to keep it in balance. Wrap some shrimp in bacon and start up the grill, will ya?

Red wine under $20

2004 Poggio Salvi Morellino di Scansano DOC ($15)
Aromas of smoke, cherry and tar rise out of the glass, followed by flavors of deep, rich cherry fruit, complemented by dried leaves, smoke, vanilla and orange peel. Medium bodied with good mouthfeel and balancing acidity. Pssssst! Wanna know a secret? This is made with Sangiovese Grosso – the same grape used to make Brunello di Montalcino. Affordable luxury!

White wine over $20

2005 Falesco Ferentano Roscetto Lazio ($37)
Rich, full bodied and intense, the Falesco Ferentano is one complex, sophisticated glass of juice. Made from an obscure and ancient white grape called Roscetto it shows aromas of orange peel, honeyed apples, wet stones and frost are followed by a palate of pineapple, lemon, cream, lemongrass, pine and minerality. Snappy texture from the acid holds it all together. This is a steak white if I’ve ever seen one.

Red Wine over $20

2002 Cottonwood Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Colorado ($40)
Colorado! Home of Quaking Aspens, Pike’s Peak and…Smashmouth Cab?

If the Cottonwood Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon is any indication, then yes! Aromas of cherry, plum, black currant, cedar, cigar box and mocha start things off. Dense fruit dominates up front with black currant and black raspberries taking the lead. Spice holds the midpalate together, while big, firm tannins and toasty oak guard the long finish. This is as big as most California Cabernet at this price point (and as good, too!)

This wine is drinkable now, if you have it with food (Buffalo tenderloin, anyone?), but ideally it needs another six months to a year age. The good news is all that tannin will help this wine age 10 years or so.

That's all for me. I'm going off to Stacy's for some dinner and maybe a bottle of wine!

Mark

Finding thePerfect Food and Wine Pairing - Accidentally

2008-03-27T01:40:00.004-05:00

Last summer, while courting my honey, Stacy, we began a fun little tradition of sneaking a bottle of wine into the theater to enhance our cinematic experience. It makes the movies a little more fun and slightly naughty and we do it fairly often (more on this in a future post). But this Autumn, we accidentally ran across the perfect wine and food pairing. And I mean perfect.

Forget goat cheese and Sauvignon Blanc. No comparison.

Give up on ribeye steaks and Cabernet Sauvignon. Oil and water.

Lobster with drawn butter and Puligny-Montrachet? Awful stuff.

I'll end the suspense: the perfect pairing is...

Gummi bears and Asti.

Stacy and I don't normally buy Gummi bears at the movies (or in this case, Gummi stars). For us, movie candy generally means chocolate - M&M's, Whoppers or Milk Duds, for example. But on this occasion, chocolate wouldn't work with a sweet, bubbly wine like Asti. So in an extraordinary situation, we turned to Gummis.

Honestly, I don't really drink Asti either. I prefer Moscato d'Asti, a lighter, more delicate wine that's a ballerina compared to Asti's boxer - lighter, more delicate, less fizzy. But as Stacy's been on a sweet, sparkling wine kick lately, I was happy to oblige her. But I didn't think it was going to work with Gummi bears.

I was wrong. Dead wrong. Asti matches Gummi bears perfectly. After a great deal of puzzlment, I think I've figured out why.

Sure, Gummi bears are fruity and very sweet, but Asti is made from Muscat , so sugar is no problem and neither is fruit. Asti tastes like peaches, honey and melon and that's certainly compatible with the bright fruit you get in Gummi bears.

The Gummi bears' texture is what had me worried.

They're chewy (um hence the name Gummi bears?) Not only that, long after you've swallowed them, they coat your mouth with a sticky, hard to scrape off film. Know how you can't get the taste of some jammy, out of balance, flabby Zinfandel off your palate? That's exactly what I'm talking about. That's really what I thought would make the Gummi/Asti marriage fail. I should have known better.

Acid, duh.

Good Asti isn't only sweet, it has a fair amount of acid in it, and that works in three ways to create this pristine, perfect food and wine pairing. First, it balances the sugar in the wine, making it not too sweet, nor too tart. Second, it gives the wine its snap, it's crisp texture. Third, it acts to slice right through the candied mouth coating you get from the Gummi bears and scrub it clean from your palate, leaving a clean, fresh finish to the wine.

That's perfect balance, perfect harmony in a food and wine match - you don't taste too much sugar, fruit, acid in either the food or the wine. Textures match in both the food and the wine. You don't taste one element over any other and they all work seamlessly.

Yin and Yang meet.

There are three lessons to be learned from this little exercise. First, when you're pairing sweet wines and food (or any wine for that matter), it's just as important to pay attention to the acid in the wine as the fruit or the sugar. Acid ensures balance among all the other elements in the wine.

Second, it's as important to consider the interaction between texture and flavors in both your food and your wines. The food's texture here demanded a very crisp wine - softer, less acidic wines would have made the candy unbearably sweet and only added to the richness of the mouthfeel in the wine. You'd never get the candied fruit out of your mouth!

Finally - and oh so appropo to the title of this very blog - we found this pairing accidentally. We broke our normal patterns and tried two things we didn't normally try, even though I was more than a little ambivalent about its chances for success. This is the most important thing you should take from this tidy little blog entry - accidents can be happy!

Mark

The Second Best Wine Value I've Ever Tasted

2007-08-13T20:02:00.000-05:00

This entry's going to be quick - just wanted to tell you all about a wine that might be the second best value wine I've seen in my short 65 months in the wine business. Like I said, this is going to be quick, but you'd best be quick too. I know I've said this before, but -

This one really won't last, so I'll cut to the chase. This is a $7 dollar wine easily worth $20.

If I'm going to drink American Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah, it's going to be from Washington. Here's why:

There's more sunlight during growing season there than in California. This makes for wines that carry the same or better ripeness than their Cali counterparts.

The mornings and evenings are cooler in Washington. That drives up the acidity in the wines, which is desperately needed in riper wines, to balance the fruit.

There's usually less rain during growing season in Washington. Less rain means, believe it or not, better grapes for wine. If you grow grapes with ideal rain, you get wines that taste more like the abundant leaves you get in wet conditions than like fruit.

In short, with big ripeness, higher levels of acididty and more stressed vines, you get better balance in your wine.

Sure, you sacrifice a little body and richness for this balance, but let's face it - this is Cabernet Sauvignon - it's never going to be light bodied, low tannin wine. While Napa/Sonoma wines might be characterized as more opulent, Washington wines might be better seen as elegant.

And I'll admit it, I'm biased. Taste this wine:

2002 Rosa Ridge Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Yakima Valley ($7)

and you'll see why I hold this bias.

The purple/black color foreshadows the pleasure that's about to come your way. Aromas of black cherry, cola and black raspberry rise from the glass up front. Two swirls of your glass and the earthy aromatics will show themselves: espresso, raw cocoa and the faintest innuendo of caramel.

Then the flavors snake in, one at a time: black raspberry, black currant, blueberry and sour cherry fruit, followed by smoke, bitter chocolate spicy oak, and cigar box. Acidity keeps the fruit fresh and uplifted and while there's considerable tannin here, it's well integrated. I bet you could age this for another 5-7 years.

Oh, one other thing to note - this is the 2002 vintage. Most Washington wineries are on the 2004 vintage, including Roza itself.

All this in a $7 dollar package? Believe it.

Best get on the move now, though. You should be buying it by the case and we only have 24 left.

Question Time

2007-08-06T02:17:00.000-05:00

I know it's been a long time since I posted here, but the summer's been incredibly busy. Have no idea why, but it has been. Oh yeah - my computer was down for a long while but thanks to some very nice people (you know who you are) I now have a more modern computer. It's still technically not up yet - need to buy a virus protection program - but I'll soon be back up and running.

You might also notice that I have a new tagboard over there ------------>>. That's also due to someone very nice to me (you know who you are, too). You can actually put a comment in once and it will show up only once when you hit the "send" key!

Let's put it to good use, shall we?

Please use it to ask me any question you have about wine, my wine biases...um preferences...or my wine experiences. Anything regarding wine, really...

OK, who's got questions?

Mark

PS: Real blog posts will occur in the near future

Friday Wines - Where Have You Been? Edition

2007-06-08T01:20:00.000-05:00

Greetings, gentle wine drinkers:

As someone - ahem - you know who you are - told me, it's been almost three weeks since I last blogged. I thought you might like to know where I've been.

The weekend of the 15th-27th, I attended my niece Olivia's graduation from a very prestigious boarding school in New Jersey and it was a great trip. Friday night, I toured the campus where she attended school and had a dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in the whole world - Tiger Noodle - a haunt from two summers I taught a program at Princeton.

Saturday, my brother and I took another niece, his youngest daughter Madison, to the Big Apple for the first time ever. We had a blast! After about 5,000,000,000 blocks of walking up and down the length of Manhattan, we caught a late train back to Princeton for yet another round of fabulous food from Tiger Noodle.

Sunday was graduation and we couldn't have been prouder of Olivia. She excelled in both athletics and academics and is going on to a stellar career at Williams College in Massachusetts.

Two days later, I was hacking and coughing and not feeling so good. MAN, sit on an airplane next to the wrong guy just once and your whole life changes. I spent both my days off that week in bed, not getting up for anything but the basics. Almost two weeks later, I'm finally beginning to get over the whole thing.

In fact, I'm feeling chipper enough to recommend a few wines for your weekend! Try one of these bottles to maintain your good health and stay off airplanes:

White wine under $20

2003 Galhaud Viognier/Muscat Vin de Pays Cotes Catalanes ($10)
WOW! Classic aromas and flavors of Viognier flash themselves up front - ginger, apricot and honeysuckle flowers. Don't get used to it because soon the Muscat dominates like the Chicago Bears' Mike Singletary.

Some will be scared by the Muscat. They'll think delicate, lacy, sweet wine like Moscato d'Asti or pancake syrupy rich wine like Australian stickies. This is dry Muscat - a completely different animal. With not a trace of sweetness, this wine has infinite fruit - yellow peaches, grapefruit, guava, lemon and tangerine zest. It's perfumed - white flowers, apricot, clove and crushed rocks. An though this is a white wine with considerable age on it (4 years), there's still plentiful acidity to balance the creamy texture and fruit. Body? Pamela Anderson, Carmen Electra and Angelina Jolie would curse their anorexic, stick-figured bodies in comparison.

Don't waste any time buying this one. We bought the last 20 cases. With quality this high and price this low, it won't last.

Red wine under $20

2006 Jacques and Francois Lurton Hacienda Araucano Pinot Noir Central Valley ($13)
I recently admitted I don't think Chile is Wine Utopia, but that doesn't mean you can find some keepers here. The Araucano Pinot is something of an unusal find - good quality Pinot Noir that's under $15 dollars. You'll get a big nose of cherry, vanilla and Christmas spices. Cherry is the dominant fruit on the palate, with layers of cola, dark chocolate, smoke and earth following. Light to medium bodied with silky, easy tannins make this wine an affordable pleasure.

White wine over $20

2003 Costa de Oro Chardonnay Reserva Dorada Gold Coast Vineyard Santa Maria Valley ($35)
I love this Chardonnay. Delicate and refined like white Burgundy but with the concentrated ripeness you get from California wines. Peaches and honeyed pears define the nose here, with spicy notes and nutty oak. The flavors are more citrus and apple driven than the nose but buoyed by acidity until honey and cream appear in the finish. If you're tired of Chardonnay that tastes like buttered toast or just curious about the range of wines made from Chardonnay, please try the Costa de Oro.

Red wine over $20

2003 Spann Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 24 Barrels Mayacamas Range ($35)
Speaking of wines produced in California with French sensibility, I give you Spann Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine isn't your typical California Cabernet - a one-two punch of a bonk on the head of fruit followed by a fat lip of oak. Instead, Peter Spann made a wine with the sleek mineral elegance of Bordeaux combined with luscious, juicy, ultraripe California fruit. The nose is blessed by black cherries and a faint echo of strawberry fruit, followed by cedar, tobacco and cigar box. You'll find black cherry flavors up front but the wine eventually runs more toward blackberry and black currants. Herbal notes of cedar and mint flesh out the midpalate but acidity and mineralilty in the finish fence in the wine admirably.

The only thing more ridiculous than the tiny production size (600 cases) is the equally diminutive price. 35 dollars is a third the price you would pay for more popular wines (notice I didn't mention wines like Caymus and Silver Oak? Isn't that diplomatic of me?) made in amounts literally thousands of times larger. Don't be stupid. Spend your hard earned money on wines like those made by Spann. You'll be guilt and remorse free!

That's all I have for you. I hope you enjoy your weekend!

Mark

Friday Wines - Can You Believe This Weather? Edition

2007-05-18T02:26:00.000-05:00

Tuesday night, I came out of my apartment and somehow it was 65 degrees, so I decided to go on a 5 mile walk. Did a little thinking about Friday wines and that's how I arrived at these selections. Try one of these wines to see if that walk did me any good.

White Wine under $20

2004 Mount Cass Reserve Riesling Waipara Gravels Wairapa Valley ($19)
The 2004 Mount Cass demonstrates just how luscious Riesling can be. Dry, but with sufficient ripeness for some to think it's sweet, with an intense core of lime fruit rippling with pineapple and apricot. After the waves of fruit, frosty minerality and an acid rush. Then, something very special- a tingle of resiny spiciness in the finish. Where's this come from? About 10% of the grapes used in this wine had Noble Rot - botrytis cinerea - a fungus that eats some of the water in the grape, leaving behind higher concentrations of fruit, acidity and its own unique flavor. The real thrill of this wine? - balance. Fruit, acid, minerals, concentration, extraction, structure and finish - it's all there.

Red Wine under $20

2004 Chapel Hill 85%Shiraz/15%Grenache McLaren Vale ($16)
Shiraz/Grenache is one of my favorite blends. Think of this as an out of control oil spill on your palate - a big, shiny slick of black currant and blackberry flowing everywhere you give it a chance to go. Just when you think it can't be contained, a layer of strawberry, cherries and white pepper surrounds the black mess, defining its boundaries. The texture here is lush and soft and decadent but the acid keeps it from becoming fluffy.

There's a weird notion out there that the only good wines are ones made from a single grape. Don't you believe it. Done well, blending creates wines that exist outside nature.

White wine over $20

Non-vintage Laurent Perrier L-P Brut Champagne ($40)
With aromas of lime, freshly baked bread and a touch of vanilla, this is a beautiful Champagne - dry and creamy without being oaky and crisp without being too acidic. Don't linger on the nose - flavors of lime custard topped with fresh whipped cream and dusted with hazelnuts await. If you're used to drinking Veuve Clicquot and Moet White Star, L-P Brut will give them a run for their money.

It's May and in Texas that means graduations. Now I'm all for drinking Champagne as a celebration, but I think it's wasted if that's the only time you drink it. Personally, I think the perfect time to drink Champagne (or any sparkling wine) is because today is a day that ends in the letter "y."

Red wine over $20

2004 Nicholas Cole Cellars GraEagle Columbia Valley ($27)
This is a wine made in the St.-Emilion model - a blend of 49% Cabernet Sauvignon, 39% Cabernet Franc and 12% Merlot and there's plenty to like about it. As a Washington wine, it's a more elegant and lighter than wines made in California. Sweet black cherries and raspberries show up in the first act, with a lilty, earthy green peppercorn spice making an appearance in the second act. The big finish of the show is a hint of black currants and some grippy tannins. What do you have with this bad boy? Classic Steak Frites - a big plate of thin, crispy fries and some blood-rare sirloin sliced on the bias. No salad necessary.

This weather's not going to last. Grab a bottle or two of these wines in the evening and have a little dinner on your patio, back porch, balcony or verandah. Soon it'll be Africa hot.

Mark

The Difference

2007-05-15T18:53:00.000-05:00

First, the New World

Understandably, a lot of my customers drink mostly New World wines - Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Oregon, Washington and especially California. Frankly, so do I. It makes sense. These wines are readily available (duh, we live in the New World) and don't carry some of the high prices as Old World wines like Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne. Well, except for California.

Another reason why New World wines are popular: fruit, fruit and more fruit. The New World, for the most part (sorry, New Zealand), is blessed with abundant sun. Sun means more photosynthesis and photosynthesis means riper wine. Riper grapes usually yield more sugar, which in dry wines, renders wines with lots of fruit flavors. People like fruit. With cheaper, more available, riper wines around it makes complete sense for American wine drinkers to prefer New World wines.

A very tough question remains, however:

Are American drinkers missing out by not drinking Old World wines?

Well, I'm just one guy, but I think the answer is a very loud, resounding, perfectly certain, YES.

I want to operate on the theory that I'm right. I'll admit I might not be, but indulge me. This is certainly a debatable question, but I want to operate on this assumption because I want to skip the part of the argument where I detail why Americans are missing out. I know this is a major no-no in rational argument, but there's something more important at stake: Why.

Why do Americans shun Old World wines? Is it just convenience? Money? Taste? I don't think so. Americans are pragmatic folk. This is often the thing that irritaties SO many people from other countries and cultures about us. We aren't interested in philosophical difference, or theoretical propositions or consensus. We want things to be clear, elegant and simple. We're all about parsimony.

La Difference

If that's true, then why the heck don't we drink wines from the Old World? Why not French or Italian or Spanish? Well, I attribute it to what I call "The Difference."

The Difference is simple. New World wines are big, rich, full-bodied, monsters of the wine world. Even Pinot Noir, known the world 'round as one of the most elegant, subtle, challenging and aromatic wines, sometimes pours out of the glass like Petite Sirah and tastes like Syrah in the New World.

With this palate whacking, no-holds-barred, Nietzschean Ubermensch kind of wine, you aren't required to have food with them. You can slide the cork out of the bottle, pour a glass and off you go, like you're barrelling down I-35 at 115 mph in a custom-built, Alpine white painted 1970 Dodge Challenger. The biggest speedbump on the California wine expressway may be a 30 minute decanting stop.

Food with these wines? Who needs food? Liquid lunch!

If you've been to Europe, you know The Difference. In the Old World if you order a glass of wine, even at a bar, you never get just a glass of wine. You'll almost always get something to eat with your vino. It might be a locally made pastry like the caneles you get in Bordeaux or a plate of bread and olive oil in Tuscany or sausages, bread and mustard in Germany. The exception will be dessert wines, and even in many cases, you'll have dessert with your dessert wine.

This is The Difference: because food and wine are inseparable in the Old World, the wines are built to go with food.

At this point, you may be asking yourself - how do you do that?

First, they will have higher levels of acidity. Acidity will cut through rich, creamy, fatty food like a hot knife through butter. That's why you like Sauvignon Blanc with seafood. The high level of acid can cut through even the biggest of dishes. The same principle applies to reds as well.

Second, Old World wines will emphasize earthy flavors more than anything you find in the New World. Northern Rhone Syrah, blends from the Languedoc region of France, Chianti and pretty much any Spanish wine you try will have a pronounced earthy component. Many foods easily match this earthiness - root vegetables, mushrooms, herbs, smoked and grilled meats to name just a few.

This earthiness can be expressed in any number of flavors - green pepper, spices, cigar box, saddle leather, herbs, stones, minerals, and even chocolate. If any of these ideas appeal to you, the Old World wines should be the first wines you seek.

Lastly, Old World wine producers aren't afraid of tannins. Tannins are a necessary part of red wine - they provide a frame around which you drape the rest of the wine's elements: fruit, acid, oak and alcohol. With certain foods like game, beef, lamb and stinky cheese, there's a real synergy between the bitterness of some tannin that works. Know why you like Cabernet Sauvignon with your Ribeye? Tannins.

Tannins can cause an astringency people don't care for, but this doesn't have anything to do with the amount of tannin, so much as the way the winemaker has integrated the tannins into the wine. Oak breaks down tannin. So does long, slow exposure to oxygen during the aging process. Winemakers who are careful about these processes can creat wines which are big and tannic but also achingly smooth.

Don't confuse tannins with with the "dryness" of wines. Dry is just the opposite of sweet and nothing more. See here if you are confused about "dry"wine and here if you want to know more about tannins.

The more experienced of you wine fanatics might well counter everything I'm saying with a curt "Hey! Wait a minute! Isn't the real reason why Old World wines are more acidic, earthier and tannic than New World wines is that the climate isn't right for making ultra-ripe, jammy wines?"

Of course it is. Even in the age of computer-model assisted winemaking techniques we have today, one thing remains as true as it did when monks were the only people literate enough to make wine - a winemaker cannot change the weather. No matter where you are or who you are, you can't change the weather. You have to dance with the one that brung ya.

Vive la Difference

What's the point of all this? Well, there are three, actually.

First, if you're a California or Aussie wine junkie and have tried a few Old World wines and just haven't gotten the hang of it, I hope you have a better understanding why you don't like them. If you're used to California Pinot Noir, Burgundy might seem thin, airy and a might too tart. My advice? Seek steak. You might never go back to Golden State Cab. Even if you do, you might have a new wine to turn to in case you want to mix things up.

Second, don't misunderstand me - these are generalizations about New and Old World wines. Think there aren't any acidic, earthy, tannic New World wines? Try a young Petite Sirah. Think the Old World doesn't have any fruit bombs? Try an Amarone.

Third, I've found that most customers play it safe. They only get what they know will work. Take some risk! Jump off that cliff just because someone else did! (I only mean that metaphorically - don't go all "Jackass" on me).

I know somebody who always says goodbye by saying "Be good!"

My response? Where's the fun in that?

Mark

Friday Wines - The Princess Bride Edition

2007-05-11T02:25:00.000-05:00

You won't understand the title of this entry until you get to the last wine but that way you might read all of the descriptions. It won't matter if you do, though, because any of these wines will add to your viewing of this classic American comedy. Inconceivable!!

White wine under $20

Muramoto Brewery Hou Hou Shou Sparkling Unfiltered Sake ($12)
OK, not technically wine, but wine lovers should definitely try sake. When made well, they will approach the elegance, finesse and complexities of many world-class white wines. They can be less expensive but are sulfite and gluten free.

This is a lovely, full-bodied drink that tastes like pear and honeydew melon dipped in white chocolate. It's unpasteurized and that means two things: creamy, rich texture and complexity from the live yeast cells. And the bubbles? This isn't so much sparkling as it is glittery.

Red Wine under $20

2005 Woop Woop Winery Shiraz/Viognier The Black Chook Australia ($18)
Funky name, good wine. "Chook" is Aussie slang for chicken and there used to be a black one on the label. The name refers to the concentrated black/purple color of the wine. This is a blend of cofermented red and white grapes and blends the best elements of both - apricot, ginger and honey from the Viognier and lifted black plums and blueberries from the Shiraz. Full bodied with just the right amount of stucture and acidity and not short of the tar, dark chocolate and black pepper you love from Shiraz. Anybody have any roo tail for the grill?

White Wine over $20

2005 Signorello Seta Napa Valley ($25)
A blend of 60% Semillon and 40% Sauvignon Blanc, this wine shows you don't need a huge amount of oak and malolactic fermentation to get rich, full-bodied white wine. A touch of spicy stone fruits and minerals show on the nose, yielding to mouthfilling, round flavors of grapefruit, starfruit and lime. The slight new French oak (27%) and 10 month sur lie aging deliver a creamy vanilla note with the honeyed Semillon grape returning on the back of the palate. You're getting this wine cheap for this price - they only made 530 cases. Where's the wine's name - Seta - come from? It's the Italian word for silk.

Red wine over $20

2003 Joullian Zinfandel Sias Cuvee Carmel Valley ($23)
This wine is from a bit of an oddball region, but you should be glad it is. Some Napa and Sonoma Zinfandels are just like their cousins, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay - all jammy fruit, rustic tannins and high alcohol but no balance. Zinfandel is never short on fruit so it's essential to have something to keep the fruit in check. For that you need cool weather - and Carmel has plenty of that. The resulting wine is a superbalanced Zinfandel loaded with blackerry and strawberry fruit, elevated by acidity and a touch of pepper.

I'll make this easy - Napa Zinfandel is like Fezzik (Andre the Giant) in one of my favorite movies, The Princess Bride: big, simple and reliable. Joullian Zinfandel is more like Princess Buttercup: gorgeous, lithe, nimble and elegant.

Enjoy your weekend and remember to avoid the classic blunders: never get involved in a land war in Asia and never, never, ever get into a battle of wits with a Sicillian when death is on the line!

Mark

Friday Wines - Power Failure Edition

2007-05-04T09:11:00.000-05:00

I was going to write these on Wednesday night because I've been so lax lately. Worked a late shift and when I got home the power was out for about a 20 square mile radius. Crack one of these fine bottles next time the power goes out at your house.

White wine under $20

2005 Way Kuhl Dry Riesling Mosel-Saar-Ruwer QbA ($11)
If you haven't tried dry Riesling yet, this summer is the time to try it! This wine tastes exactly the way the label describes it - light, crisp and dry, with flavors of lime, slate and a touch of honey. It's all tightly held in place by great acidity and a precision known only in German wines. Yes, I know it isn't officially summer yet, but have you been to Texas in May?

Red wine under $20

2005 Bodegas Los Llanos Pata Negra Roble Valdepenas DO ($12.50)
This is classic Spanish red - light to medium bodied, restrained cherry fruit, raw cacao and leather earthiness. There's tannin here, but 3 months in oak barrels trims the edge off quite nicely. Like most Spanish reds, this will pair well with food, whether you smoked it or caught it on a line.

White wine over $20

2005 Storrs Chardonnay Santa Cruz Mountains ($26)
Surprise, surprise, I chose a Chardonnay for my white over $20! I usually avoid Chards here simply because there are so many of them in this category. Y'all know I prefer my Chardonnay the way I prefer my women: complex. Aromas of butterscotch and hazlenuts dominate, with a little pear and golden apple following. In the mouth, you'll get some citrus kick, a little of the pears and a lot of secondary flavors like the aforementioned hazelnuts, caramel and clove-honey-vanilla oak rather than the coconut and butter you get in a traditional Cali Chard. This sounds like it's sweet, but it's not because the acid keeps the fruit balanced.

Red wine over $20

2003 Takler Heritage Cuvee Szekszard ($25)
This is Hungarian wine and I think it will eventually turn out to be the next big value in the wine world. They use lots of native grapes with funny names and there'll be a learning curve for them, but you'll get used to them. Let's get you started down that path so you can start drinking the wines right away - long before your friends hear anything about Hungary.

The Heritage Cuvee is a blend of five (5) grapes: 38% Kekfrankos (the same grape as the German Blaufrankisch), 25% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc and 7% a Hungarian grape, Kadarka. Frankly, I'd put it up against any medium to heavy bodied red from the California at the same price point - smoky red fruit, nice structure, good balance, and a long finish. Don't take this for New World wine, though - the ripeness is tempered with silky tannins, sophisticated earthy tones and fine balance. Take the time to make real, slow cooked Hungarian Gulyas (Goulash) and revel in the decadent East.

Enjoy your weekend. It's my Wednesday!

Mark

Friday Wines - The Rare Friday Off Edition

2007-04-13T03:26:00.000-05:00

I don't know how this happened, but somehow, miraculously, I have a Friday off. I have no idea how I'm going to waste...um spend it, but it probably won't be wisely. Wise up - go buy one of these bottles to celebrate your Friday.

White wine under $20

2006 Colombelle Vin de Pays Cotes de Gascogne ($10)
Can you say "bargain?" Sure, I knew you could. Old vines Colombard lends vibrant, stunning, concentrated floral aromas and flavors of pineapple, guava and mandarin orange. Trebbiano adds a silkiness to the mouthfeel. Sound sweet? Nope. The acidity in this wine's like a barbed wire fence - sharp enough to keep everything contained.

Red wine under $20

2003 Maestre de Campo Merlot Mendoza ($11)
My friends and colleagues all know that, well before the movie Sideways was released, I decided I don't care for Merlot. Most of it's either been disemboweled (all fruit, no guts) or it's nothing but tannin and no fruit.

We don't get along. Don't like each other. Don't wanna be in the same room.

Not so the Maestre de Campo. It's big, brawny and muscular with structure, but with pure blackberry fruit and a rich, nutty dark chocolate character. Grace, power and balance. Buy cases of it, whether you like Merlot or not. Did I mention this is handpicked?

White wine over $20

2004 Cristom Viognier Estate Willamette Valley ($27)
I was lucky enough to be invited to Pinot Camp in Oregon the year this wine was grown. We probably tasted 100 wines a day for four days. When one, two or three of the producers stand out, that's a very good sign. Cristom was one of those standouts.

This is not your grandfather's Viognier. OK, never mind that Viognier wasn't really around then but this is, to quote the late and magnificent Johnny Carson, "big, big stuff." Rich is the key word here: rich with honey and ginger aromas; rich with apricot, orange marmalade and lemon zest flavors; rich with mouthfeel. All you need to reach nirvana is scallops sauteed in olive oil and blood orange sauce.

Red wine over $20

2003 Avignonesi Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG ($22)
This classic Italian wine from Tuscany. The grape here is a special strain of Sangiovese called Prugnolo and until the rise of Brunello di Montalcino, Vino Nobile was considered the best of the best in Italy.

The nose on this baby is smoke, cherry, violets and tobacco. Don't expect fat, massive, bulky wine. Vino Nobile illustrates that bigger isn't necessarily better. There's rich black cherry fruit, to be sure, but it's medium bodied. I love the tangy acidity that frames the wine and there's more - spicy oak is there, but not intrusive and there's considerable but sweet tannin, too.

That's it for me. Please let me know if there are any hits or misses!

Mark

Friday wines - One Year and One Day Anniversary Edition

2007-04-06T01:28:00.000-05:00

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, I started Accidental Wine on April 5th, 2006. Here's a nice little group of bottles to celebrate my ramblings about spoiled grape juice.

White wine under $20

2006 Gouguenheim Chardonnay Valle Escondido ($11)
Most of you know I usually don't care for Chardonnay. I think far too many wines don't express the complexity, balance and seamlessness well-made Chardonnay always has. With its layers of pineapple, vanilla cream, pear, spice, crisp texture and a long, nutty finish, this fine Chardonnay is a showoff.

Red wine under $20

2002 Posis Montepulciano d'Abruzzo DOC ($13)
Beginners will like Posis because of its jammy, red berry fruit, velvety-texture and low tannins. Experienced quaffers will like its complexity. A wine that delivers this much fruit intensity, medium body, balancing acidity and sweet earthiness but still has great grip despite its low tannins (not to mention the reasonable price) will win any palate. Try it with dry rubbed, pecan smoked ribs.

White wine over $20

NV Mionetto Sergio Rose Valdobbiane ($24)
OK, technically, it's not white wine, per se. But by recommending it to you, I can get up on two soapboxes at once - convincing customers to drink more sparkling wine and to try more dry rose wines. Pale rose in the glass, it reminds you of dusk on a deep July evening. It's complicated stuff - flavors of raspberry, lavender and a hint of truffly earth all pierced with a lance of acidity. Crisp as the new twenty you buy it with, it's pure elegance. With bubbles, no less! Have a cold supper of crusty bread, smoked salmon, a dollop of greek yogurt, capers and a sprinkle of white wine vinegar.

Red wine over $20

2003 Jaros Ribera del Duero DO ($30)
Picture this: Tempranillo. Thirteen months in French and American oak. Purple/black color, bold flavors of black cherries, saddle leather, licorice, smoke and broken stones. This wine's so massive it holds down the glass it's in, the table under it and the floor below that by inertia alone. There's only one more word to add to its description: steak.

That's it for my one year and one day anniversary celebration. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Mark

Friday Wines - The I Can't Think of a Catchy Title Edition

2007-03-30T04:11:00.000-05:00

That's right, no idea. Straight to business, I say!

White under $20

2006 Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough ($13)
Bright grapefruit, mineral, granny smith apple and a spear of acidity to structure the wine. At 13 bucks a bottle, you're buying a $25 wine. This wine shows why New Zealand is the Garden of Sauvignon Blanc Eden.

Red under $20

2003 Fitch Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon Alexander Valley ($17)
I've already given away the hook here. This blackberry dusted, big smack in the mouth of a wine, replete with structure, richness and luxury only costs $17. What's the big deal? Fitch Mountain doesn't make wine until the grapes are perfect (last time was 2000), it's all from the best appellation in Sonoma County, Alexander Valley and get this - they only made 205 cases. The punch line? This wine would hold its own in a $30 dollar Cab tasting. It might even win.

White over $20

WARNING! The following wine is NOT a dry wine. It's a dessert wine.

2004 PMC Eiswein Burgenland ($30)
It's tough to find whites under $20 (other than Chardonnay) week in, week out, much less dry wines at that price point. That means occasionally you'll get sweet wines here. This one's terrific.

Two grapes in this Austrian beauty: native Gruener Veltliner and Sauvignon Blanc. It's like getting shot - the first round hits you with of key lime, mandarin and guava. As you recover from that, the second bullet thumps you - a quick percussion wave of sweet, followed by a blast of acidity that raises the fruit but balances the scales. Just when you think the gun's empty, you get the coup de grace of white pepper. You'll die happy.

Red over $20

2004 Anglim Grenache Paso Robles ($27)
Steve Anglim makes wines in miniscule amounts that pack a wallop. Suffused with rich strawberry and black raspberry fruit, veneered with fine layers cinnamon, smoke and white pepper, the wine owes its velvety texture to plenty of alcohol. There's also balance, purity and grace here, too.

I have a Friday and Saturday off, so I'm off, too. Happy wine drinking!

Mark

So there you are in France...

2007-03-28T02:29:00.000-05:00

and you don't know what to do about buying wine. You could go to wineries, but that can be an expensive, time-consuming, driving-in-a-foreign-land-where-you-don't-know-how-to-get-where-you're-going kind of experience. If you think about it, wineries don't really exist much in cities - they're usually, you know, rural. Cause that's where they grow things.

Plus, you don't have an international driver's license and don't speak the language.

And, to top it all off, you haven't made any appointments at the wineries, so even if you go there, you still may not be greeted warmly or worse yet, they may be closed.

OK, so wineries can be a troublesome affair. But you're a wine lover who wants the good juice that you can only get in winemaking regions. What to do? You pretty much have two options:

1) Restaurants - restaurants are a good option for finding good wines in a foreign country, but it's not always a hassle-free experience. You have to know what you're in for.

First, there's the expense. While you probably won't find the 300-500% markup on restaurant wine in Europe (or other wine regions) you have in the States, it's still going to be pricey, espeically by the bottle. Sure, like any other restaurant in any other wine region in the world, you can find wines that offer good quality and flavor for the money, but what makes you thing think that will be easier in a place where you don't know anyone?

Second, there's navigating wine lists. Let's be honest: many people are intimidated by the wine lists where they live, in their local restaurants, where they speak the language. Do you think that experience would be any easier where you can't read street signs, find the WC (as they call it over there) get to the bakery? Doubtful.

Sounds bleak, I know, but there's still hope. The solution is pretty simple - order the house wine.

Yes, I'm aware the house wine might well come in a plastic pitcher. Yes, I'm aware you might only pay 3 Euros for that plastic pitcher full of wine. Yes, I'm aware the owner of the restaurant might have walked right out of the barn and into the dining room to bring you that pitcher of wine.

Despite all these interesting things, chances are it'll be good. There is a chance it might be one of the best wines you get on your trip. Why? Competition.

Wine producing nations have a more pervasive wine culture than we do. That, of course, means more wines. And anyone who has read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations knows competition means lower prices and - the best thing for us - better quality at those lower prices.

A restaurant owner knows that the wine inside that plastic pitcher has to be the best wine he can find - or you can go right down the block and get a different, better wine in a plastic picture at another restaurant for the same, or less money.

That wine might made by the owner himself. Or, it might be made by the restaurateur's best friend who happens to be a winemaker. It's even likely that wine has never seen a bottle. It might be taken right from the barrel. If you've been to a barrel tasting, you know this is usually a good thing.

That's the way to get good wine in restaurants. Well, in Europe, anyway.

2) Grocery stores - This is probably the best way to find a wide variety of interesting wines at good prices while you're wandering around wine country, no matter what continent you're in.

Buying wine is grocery stores is a good bet for the same reasons as ordering house wine in restaurants - competition. There's lots of wine and every grocery store sells it. There are also lots of customers who want that wine. If you can't find wine you like in one store, just go to the next Ipso facto - good prices for good quality.

And what about the quality of that wine? Well, you tell me. What's better, tomatoes you buy in the local farmer's market or tomatoes picked unripe, gassed with ethylene and then shipped 2500 miles from California? The farmer's market tomatoes, of course. They were hand tended, vie-ripened and hand picked before their very short trip to the market.

If you're buying wine in a grocery store, especially in wine country, you're more than likely to find plenty of wines made by local producers who care for their vines the way you care for your own garden.

You, gentle readers, know this, even without thinking about it. Where are you shopping? - at the places where they have the most wine, for the lowest prices.

Duh.

This is my best advice for buying wine whle you're getting your wanderlust on. More than one customer has come back and reported good results using this method. I've tried it and gotten pretty good results myself.

Or you could learn the langauge they speak in your wine destination.

Naaaaaah.

Mark

Friday Wines - Vernal Equinox Edition

2007-03-23T22:36:00.000-05:00

These Friday wines are in honor of the beginning of Daylight Savings time and the Vernal Equinox. Celebrate the return of sunlight in the evenings and warmer temperatures with these wines:

White under $20

2006 Duck Pond Pinot Gris Willamette Valley ($10)
Pinot Gris is the same grape as Pinot Grigio, but certainly not the same wine. Duck Pond shows off stylish apricot, pear, minerals and even cream without oak in a medium to full bodied, dry white. A line of acidity holds the wine together. Great value at $10 dollars!

Red under $20

2004 Gravity Hills Zinfandel Tumbling Tractor Paso Robles ($15)
Paso Robles is arguably the hottest region in California, having been awarded 12 subappellations in the last year or two. Like blueberry flavors in your wine? Tumbling Tractor has it, and those of us who love that flavor in wine know it's damn hard to get. What else does this wine have? Everything - big but smooth tannin, counterbalancing acidity, full body and balance, balance, balance. Did I mention balance?

White over $20

2005 Feudi di San Gregorio Greco di Tufo DOCG
Some white wine fans think you have to buy super oaked, 100% malolactic (for that buttery slipperiness) Chardonnay to get full bodied, dry wines.

NOT!

Greco is the grape here and it struts its stuff with tropical fruit flavors dominated by pineapple, almond and a hint of resin in the flavors. The texture is creamy and luscious all without new wood or malolactic fermentation. Wait until it's hot and crack one of these babies and then watch Chardonnay hide in the corner.

Red over $20

Inwood Estates Vineyards Tempranillo-Cabernet Sauvignon Texas ($40)
Stop blinking and squinting. Yes, I said, Texas, and yes it's $40 a bottle. This is fruit grown in the Newsom vineyards way out west in Yoakum county. It's big, bold, solid, real red wine. Tempranillo (58%) lends its big cherry fruit, scorched earth and a tinge of smoke. Cabernet Sauvignon (42%) fattens up the texture, adds some black fruit and provide the frame to build this big house on. It's one of the top 3 Texas wines I've ever had. Sport this bottle to your next California Cab blind tasting and watch the jaws drop and the eyes pop!

Enjoy your weekend! I'm off to drink a bit myself. The only question is:

Wine or beer? Wine or beer? Hmmm...

Mark

But I Only Have a Hamilton!

2007-03-18T20:36:00.000-05:00

Lots of people are looking for wine utopia. What do I mean? Allow me to explain.

Wine utopia is the place where you can get outstanding wines for nothing more than ten dollars. You don't even have to know anything about that region. Just pick a bottle and it will be good. Do a little work and you might even find an exceptional bargain.

Just like with other Shangri-Las, Wine Utopia's hard to find. Let's look at a few candidates.

Many wine writers, magazines and even customers say that Chile is wine utopia. This may have been true at one time and yes, there are plenty of decent red and white Bordeaux varietal wines available in Chile, but most of them are just that, decent, and no more. They aren't spectacular or even great, at least not for my palate.

But there's another problem. The reds have, well, a certain aroma I don't like. I coined a new descriptor to describe it:

Stink.

They have something in them that smells earthy, but not in a good way. No, I'm not talking barnyard, though that is a standard descriptor for some wine aromas. This is more related to Bordeaux minerality, but minerality gone bad. It seems to be unique to most - but not all - Chilean reds. Chile, to me, is more Purgatory rather than Utopia.

Australia used to be the best place to find a 10-dollar beauty. No longer. Now Yellow Tail will cost you a ten-spot. While there are still some great, inexpensive bottles, the era of the cheap, Aussie wine rated well over 90 points is over. You have all have discovered the Australian secret. It's your fault.

California has never been home of the great wine bargain, at least as long as I have been in the wine business. Granted, that's less than five years, but I can't imagine there has been a major shift in that business model either shortly before or shortly after I fell into the wine world.

France and Italy are another matter. There are plenty of well made, low priced wines produced by both these countries. The problem with these countries is you're expected to do research.

In Europe, they match ground to grape, so if you see a specific region or area or appellation on the label, you should know what grapes they grow there. I mean French consumers know that Burgundy will be Pinot Noir and the Italians know that Chianti is dominated by Sangiovese, why shouldn't you?

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good bottles you can get for an Alexander Hamilton in both France and Italy. You just have to do some hunting, and that's not very utopian.

Well, if you can't find Wine Utopia in Australia, France, Italy, California or Chile, where the Hell is it?

Spain. That's the closest you're gonna get.

Why Spain? It's simple. Whether you're looking to buy sparklers, reds, whites, roses or dessert wines, they make some of the best quality, bargain priced wines in the world.

They have one of the oldest winemaking cultures in the world - Spain first got its grapes from the Phonecians, some 5000 years ago. Most European cultures started producing wines with Roman invasions, much later than Spain

Though they're old hands at winemaking, Spain has some of the newest equipment, youngest and most innovative winemakers and most exciting new techniques for making wine.

When it comes to grapes, they have the same blend of old and new. They use both native grapes (Verdejo, Parellada Mencia, Bobal) and international varietals like Cabernet, Merlot and Syrah to make wines. Heck, they've even found out that some French grapes are really Spanish (Grenache and Mourvedre)! As far as grape variety goes, you get the best of old and new with Spain.

And nobody, I mean nobody, knows how to blend fruit, oak, acid, earth and tannin better than the Spanish.

Here's how much I stand by my assessment of Spain as the closest thing you'll find to Wine Utopia right now. I don't even think you have to look at the wines. Try this method for choosing a Spanish wine next time you head to the wine store:

1) Go to the wine retailer you know has the widest selection of Spanish wines you can think of.

2) Stand a little bit closer than arm's length in front of the Spanish wine section.

3) Close your eyes.

4) Wave your arm around randomly (and gently!) the rack and after a few seconds, let your hand rest on a bottle.

5) If that bottle is over 10 bucks, repeat steps 2-4.
6) Pick up that bottle, pay for it and take it home.

7) Drink.

I think you're gonna be shocked at the results. You may find a bottle that's good, regardless of whether it's red or white.

And if you actually read the labels, you might find a highly rated wine for your ten-spot.

I only have two disclaimers about this method.

First, one hallmark of Spanish wines is their earthiness. You'll find plenty of fruit in many of these wines, but they love earthy flavors, too. I still think you'll be shocked at how good a wine you can find for 1000 pennies.

Second, if you're used to drinking only California wines, European wines generally need food. They don't drink wine without some kinda snack right there at the same time - olives, almonds, cheese - something. As a result, they build the wines to go with food. You should drink them that way, too.

Try this out but don't do it with Spain alone. It's a fun way to explore any wine region, if not the most efficient. Let me know how it works for you.

Mark

Start! Stop! Go!

2007-02-20T01:46:00.000-06:00

OK, time for a rant. If I were divine, imperial, absolute monarch of the wine world, I'd make the following decrees. There will be more of these, for sure. Don't like it? Argue with me.

Stop thinking ratings are the only way to buy wine.
Start living by "The One Rule" - drink what tastes good; ignore all other advice.

Stop drinking huge production wines that are no longer the family wineries they started out as.
Start hunting down small production (fewer than 1000 cases), family owned wineries. If all you make is wine and not much of it, it'd better be the best juice you can put in the bottle.

Stop asking if wines are dry. Ninety-five percent of all the wines you drink now are dry.
Start asking how tannic a wine is. Tannins determine how much the wine dries out your mouth, not dryness. Both sweet and dry wines can be tannic. If you're confused by this, go here.

Stop buying wines using the hair-on-fire-fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants method.
Start doing a little homework before you purchase a wine. What's the difference between a great wine and a golf ball? A man will spend all day looking for a golf ball.

Stop worrying so much about matching wine and food. Sometimes accidents are happy.
Start drinking sparkling wines with anything on your table. I mean anything. It always works.

Stop buying all your usual standbys - I'm tired of hearing requests for Silver Oak, Liberty School, La Crema, Santa Margherita and Yellow Tail.
Start looking for new, reliable wines. How do you think you discovered those old standbys in the first place? You tried something new.

Stop buying the same old low quality Rieslings you usually drink. Just because it's in a blue bottle, doesn't mean it's good.
Start drinking high quality German Rieslings. Good quality Rieslings are arguably the most underrated wines in the world.

Stop drinking cheap Pinot Grigio. As the most imported wine into the US, many producers are buying whatever grapes they can get.
Start drinking other inexpensive whites. Verdelho, Vermentino, and Colombard, for example.

Stop being a control freak. The wine world is waaaay bigger than you are.
Start occasionally asking your favorite wine professional to pick a wine for you, no questions asked. Let them do their job - they know what they're doing.

Mark

Ay! Que Vinas!

2007-02-16T00:40:00.000-06:00

For my first post since late summer, I thought I'd introduce you to some wines new to the area - Bokisch Vineyards. I have to thank my friend, former colleague, and proprietor of PinoVino, Mike Taylor, for telling me about them six months ago. He attends the California Family Wine Association event every year (I think that's what it's called) and tried them there. I've been trying to get my greedy hands on them ever since, and we were the first place in the area to get our hands on them this week.

Markus Bokisch grows Spanish grapes in Lodi, California. I haven't seen many other producers making these grapes, with the exception of Garnacha (read Grenache) and certainly none doing it with this degree of success. Here they are:

2005 Bokisch Albarino Lodi ($17)

Anyone who's tried Albarino knows they are stylish, layered, complex and fascinating wines if you want them to be, but who cares when they bring so much pleasure? This wine puts the adult in adulterated.

Honey gold in color, the Bokisch Albarino had considerably more depth than its Spanish counterpart. It's rounder and richer and more laden with peach, apricot and a hint of caramel. It's dry, with sufficient acidity to balance the fruit. More importantly, it retains that mystical, paradoxical thing I love about Albarino - it's a wine that's both light and silky. It fills every corner of your mouth but is almost nonexistent on the palate.

There are only 340 cases.

2004 Boksich Tempranillo Lodi ($22)

Tempranillo is the signature grape of Rioja, Spain, where it's a wine rich with earthiness, tannin, cherries, cocoa and vanilla. The Lodi version is the Barry Bonds version of the wine - more juice, more muscle, more fruit and even more tannin. Black raspberry, dust, espresso aromas rise out of the glass, followed by black cherry fruit, herbal notes and a long, dark chocolate finish. There's plenty of earthiness like you get in Spanish Tempranillo, but again, Bokisch has taken pains to give it a California sensibility. The wine has plenty of tannin, but it's smoothly integrated.

The production is 330 cases.

2005 Bokisch Garnacha Lodi ($19)

Markus Bokisch has figured out precisely how to position Garnacha as a California wine. In Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Grenache is rich, red fruit bounded by white pepper. In Spain's cooler climate, there's red fruit galore, but the acidity and minerality are more apparent. Markus' Garnacha has a style all its own - from the ruby slipper color to the scents of creme de cerise (cherry liqueur to you and me), olive and white pepper to the abundant, creamy strawberry and raspberry flavors, this is clearly a California wine. It's in no way jammy, flamboyant and campy the way some Cali wines get. Why? Thank the tannins.

It'll evaporate soon, though - only 150 cases made.

2004 Bokisch Graciano Lodi ($27)

Graciano is pretty much used only as a blending grape in Rioja. If Bokisch is any indication, the grape's sidekick days are over. Its purple/black color reminded me of silk used to make saris - black when the light hits it from one direction and as you rotate the glass, deep violet slowly seeps in and eventually dominates. With aromas of black plum, raisin. black currant and espeically blueberry. The black currant and blueberry fruit shine through in the flavors, complemented sweetly by mossy earth notes and wood smoke. With all this fruit, you'd think it might be too jammy. It's not. Just enough acidity and considerable structure completely balance the wine.

I can't say too much about how much I like this wine, so the last thing I'm going to say about it is - there are only 250 cases of it.

More next week! It's great to be back!

Mark

Things Are Looking Up!

2007-02-13T21:20:00.000-06:00

I've finally made the switch from the old Blogspot to the new format. I'm going to start posting more regularly now, but still don't have a new computer so I won't be posting as often as I want.

Be on the lookout for something this week!

Mark

Let's Just Say...

2006-08-03T17:07:00.000-05:00

that if my computer were a bottle of wine, it would be corked, corked, oxidized and have bottle sickness. I do have posts coming but please bear with me.

Thanks for your patience and loyalty!

Mark

Friday Wines - R&R Edition

2006-07-21T13:25:00.000-05:00

It's day 10 of that insidious 10 day in a row shift. I'm gonna disappear from the store for a bit, but rest assured, I'll still be writing about wine here. So don't abandon ship. I'll be back in person on August 1. As for now, you need wine.

White wine under $20

2003 Pierre Sparr One Vin d'Alsace ($13.99)
There's this California wine out there, Conundrum. It's very popular because it's a blend of sharp, acidic, crisp grapes, blended with fat, aromatic, fruity grapes. It's very popular because it makes a soft, rich fruit-driven wine that is also well structured. At 22-25 dollars a bottle, it's also damned expensive.

One shows why French wines can generally be great values compared to California wine. One is a wine from Alsace that blends together 5 grapes - Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Muscat, Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris.

I know what you're thinking here. Stop. It's not sweet.

No, I'm not psychic. Yes, I know there are German grapes in there. I promise, it's not sweet.

If you like super concentrated fruit, this is your wine. Riesling yields lime and pineapple flavors. Pinot Blanc gives up pear and lemon. Muscat gives peach and apricot flavors with a smidgeon of musk. Gewurztraminer decorates with rose petals, spice and tropical fruit. Pinot Gris garnishes with rich nectarine. This is a bowl of fruit.

This wine is dense and full-bodied but seriously, it's not sweet. You'd think this wine would be overwhelming in its fruit and richness, but luckily, Riesling, Muscat and Pinot Gris are all grapes relatively high in acid. They provide the acidity to balance the superfat fruit offered by Gewurztraminer and Pinot Blanc. It's a paradox - ripe and voluptuous, but still crisp and sharp. Don't ask me, it just works. I love it with sushi.

Two more things make this a lovely wine: it's $8-$10 cheaper than Conundrum and it's better wine.

Red wine under $20

2004 Tommasi Poggio al Tufo Vigneto Rompicollo Maremma Toscana ($15.99)
A blend of 60% Sangiovese and 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, this wine is all red fruit on the nose. Strawberry, plum and red cherries form the core flavors, with hints of leather, tobacco and coffee dancing around them. On the palate, the red fruit expands, but the wine remains medium bodied with the leather and tobacco blurring toward cocoa. There's acid here, but the wine isn't tart and it ultimately provides balance. Tannins are firm, but keep reading. You'll see how they soften up.

If you've been to anywhere in Europe, you know they never just plunk you down with a glass of wine and nothing to eat with it. There's always food, whether it be a chunk of cheese and some olives, or mustard, salami and bread. Learn something from Italian civilization. It's good stuff, but this wine will shine at the table.

White wine over $20

Non-vintage Kluge Brut New World Sparkling Wine Albemarle County, Virginia ($40.00)
When people think of American wines, a few states generally come up - California, Oregon, Washington. Virginia? Virginia??

I repeat, for emphasis:

VIRGINIA??

Yes, Virginia, there are good wines in Virginia. This is one of them. A true blanc de blancs, made from 100% Chardonnay, it's impossibly light bodied, with sexy, opulent aromas and flavors of lime and mandarin orange. It's held on its lees for 24 months, so has good depth and it finishes with racy acidity. This is as good as many, many genuine grower Champagnes. It might well win a blind tasting of hifalutin Champagnes like Krug, La Grande Dame and Salon. This will be damned hard to find now, but keep your glasses ready.

Red wine over $20

2001 Cyan Vendimia Seleccionada Toro ($38.99)
Tempranillo is a supergrape. You can use it to make simple, elegant, everyday drinkers, bursting with cherry fruit, oak and vanilla. Or, you can make wine like Cyan.

Cyan is packed with sophisticated red fruit, earthy undertones, spicy oak and sweet vanilla. Aromas of cherries rolled in espresso and then oven roasted only hint at the flavors in the wine. On the palate, the wine is surrenders opulent black cherry, raw cocoa and indian spice. There's plenty of tannin but it's silky and polished and holds the wine together. Medium bodied and rich, there's also plenty of oak expressed here but mainly at the back. Spanish winemakers are brilliant at integrating fruit, earth, tannin and oak. Nobody does this better.

I'm not the only one who likes it. That upstart Robert Parker gave it 93 points out of 100.

Since I'll be gone, please feel free to solicit whatever wine questions you have on the tag board. I'll answer them as I get them.

Have a nice weekend!

Mark

The Jedi Wine Trick

2006-07-20T13:55:00.000-05:00

Listen closely, young Padawans, and today I will reveal a mystery of the Force - the Jedi Wine Trick.

The Jedi Mind Trick we all know, but repeating the story bears.

With a wave of his hand, Jedi Master Obi-wan Kenobi prevented Imperial Stormtroopers from capturing the droid R2D2 when he and the Luke Skywalker were trying to escape Tatooine with the plans for the first Death Star. We all know the immortal words:

"These aren't the droids we're looking for...You can go about your business...Move along." This is the power of the Jedi Mind Trick.

The Jedi Wine Trick is almost the same. A customer approaches with a bottle of wine and asks about its suitability. Seeing that the wine might not be the best value or the best example of a grape or the best in quality, our stalwart wine professional might utter calmly:

"That's not the wine you're looking for. This is the wine you're looking for."

Although the subject of the Jedi Wine Trick almost never repeats the words used to persuade them to take the wine, they almost always wisely take the bottle and, well, move along.

There are some differences between the Jedi Mind Trick and the Jedi Wine Trick and you, young Padawans, should be aware of them. Listen carefully, for tested you will be. Fail, you must not.

First, the Jedi Mind Trick is only effective on the weak. Now, we all know from medical studies red wine consumption may prevent dementia and memory loss, so I'm not implying wine customers are in any way weak-minded.

Second, the Jedi Wine Trick is much stronger than the Jedi Mind Trick. It can work on virtually anyone, regardless of the level of wine knowledge. I've seen it work on beginners and lifelong customers and all levels in between. Think not you are immune.

Beware the power of the Dark Side! Like all powers, the Jedi Wine Trick can be used for good and evil. Not all wine professionals will use the Jedi Wine Trick to the wine drinker's benefit. Jedi who seek good will use it to match the wine to the customer's palate, desire or food. Wine professionals who seek to serve ambition or their own interests will try to use the Jedi Wine Trick for greed or corruption. Vigilant must you be.

Knowing the source of a power, you can direct it to your benefit. The Jedi Wine Trick's power comes from the uncertainty in the customer's mind. Wine lovers seek knowledge, value and enlightenment. Wine professionals on the Dark Side seek to make wine a mystery, a riddle, an enigma, a secret society. They exploit the customers' fears or insecurity for their own excessive profit.

Honest wine professionals understand their role is to clarify, simplify and guide. A Jedi seeks to serve, not self-aggrandize. One must only use the Jedi Wine Trick to help a wine seeker find the best wine—the wine that fits the desires of the seeker.

How can you avoid being bamboozled by Dark use of the Jedi Wine Trick? There are two ways.

First, your heart's desires must you know. Do you like fruit? Tannin? Acidity? Sweet or Dry wines? How much you can spend? If these things you know, easy will it be to find the right wine. Tell the wine professional what you seek. Unexpressed desire leads to opportunity for the Dark Side. Communicate you must.

The second way to avoid the dark side of the Jedi Wine Trick? Questions, always questions.

Now that you know the secret of the Jedi Wine Trick, watchful must you be. The forces of the Dark Side are imminent and almost always obscured in the shadows. Know you are vulnerable to the Jedi Wine Trick if used for the Dark Side's purposes and guard against it. But know that balance is part of the Force and the Jedi Wine Trick can be used for good.

May the Cork be with you.

Mark

Friday Wines - The Long March Edition

2006-07-14T13:11:00.000-05:00

Howdy gang - I'm 2 days into a 10 consecutive day stretch here. That's what we have to do to get a weekend off so I'm gonna take a deep breath and get started. Enjoy!

White wine under $20

2004 Wilhelm Bergmann Riesling Bernkaestler Kurfuerstlay Kabinett Mosel-Saar-Ruwer
That, my friends, is one gulpful of words. This wine is way beyond its $8.99 a bottle price. The only word for this wine is precocious.

Snappy aromas of nectarine, green plums and white peach pop right out of the glass here. On the palate, though, this wine is an electrifying blend of passion fruit, key lime and only a hint of the usual Riesling peach and apricot at the end. The acid is incredible in this wine, but don't you dare think tart - it balances the big fruit. Wanna see how well this works with food? Try it with spicy asian food.

Though this is a Riesling, I want it to be as clear as a brand new Riedel wine glass that it is NOT, I repeat NOT sweet. It's a Kabinett. That means fruit, but almost no sugar. This wine has far less sugar than the 1.5-3% sugar you find in the average California Chardonnay.

I can't say enough about the quality of this wine - it'd be very interesting to slip it into a blind tasting of $30.00 Rieslings. It'll easily stand that test.

Red wine under $20

2000 Clos Roque d'Aspes Faugeres ($15.99)
This French wine is a delectable blend of three grapes - 80% Mourvedre, 10% Grenache and 10% Syrah. What I love about this wine is it shows how a wine can be full-bodied and tannic, but smooth, too.

As this is a French Mourvedre, the earthy character reveals itself first, both in the nose and the flavors. On the nose you'll get coffee, smoky oak and bittersweet chocolate aromas, followed by deep, black cherries. In your mouth, you'll revisit the chocolate first and it's so profound you think your teeth will look like you've been eating Oreos. Then comes a sliver of black cherry that slowly expands until it covers your tongue to the finish. There's tannin here, forming a great backbone for the expansive earth and fruit. You'll be tempted to spend a fortune on a ribeye or a filet mignon to go with this, but don't. Instead, try it with long smoked brisket.

White wine over $20

Non-vintage Piper Heidsieck Champagne Rose Sauvage Brut ($46.99)
Back in the days before I was civilized and didn't like wine, I still loved Champagne. Let's see why.

First of all, gentle readers, you should know that genuine rose Champagne is never sweet. It's dry, serious, complex wine. In France, roses are considered the best of Champagnes.

Blood orange, red currant and sour cherry dominate the nose, followed by soft leather earthiness and clove spice. In the mouth, the first thing you notice the creamy texture - rich, silky and billowy, but not heavy or overbearing, thanks to the crisp structure. It's loaded with fruit, specifically wild strawberries, more cherry, turning to black raspberry on the finish. The fruit and acidity are nicely contrasted by toasty, almost malty character from the barrel fermentation.

Rose Champagne is remarkably versatile. It can be served as an aperitif, with a meal or with cheese or fruit desserts. Want to expand your wine horizons? Start here.

Red wine over $20

2002 Rosenblum Cellars Syrah Fess Parker Vineyard Santa Barbara County ($22.99)
This is classic California Syrah - Less earth than Rhone and plenty of fruit, but not the fruit bombs you get with Australian Shiraz. The nose is blackberry,mostly, with licorice, tobacco, brier and a wisp of sacramental incense. It's heavy bodied, with substantial but ripe tannins and polished black fruit and topsoil flavors. It has pretty length and great depth.

Rosenblum is best known for its Zinfandels, but they make plenty of other great wines - 80 wines, all told. This bottle will soon vanish. The Fess Parker (yes, Fort Worth native and Davy Crockett) vineyard has been sold to developers and is probably condominiums now. Get this honey of a Syrah while you can.

Friday Wines - Mea Culpa Edition

2006-07-09T21:05:00.000-05:00

Well, I had three days off this week and headed down to Houston for one reason - to lounge. So I did. And as you can tell, I didn't do any work at all on the blog. Here are wines to make up for it.

White wine under $20

2004 Senibus Blanc Friuli Grave ($14.99)
This wine just came in this week. It's great summer drinking. A blend of three grapes, two you know - Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc - and one you possibly don't, Verduzzo. At the tip of your tongue, the Chard and Sauvignon Blanc show citrus and lime and mineral. You think the wine is going to be light bodied and acidic, but then the Verduzzo washes over your midpalate and the back of your mouth. This is when the wine kicks into hyperdrive. You'll get tropical fruit flavors that melt into a honeyed thang and a touch of almond on the finish. Watch the finish on this one - it lasts much longer than you'd think. No sugar here. Just ripe, luscious fruit.

Red wine under $20

2004 Bitch Grenache Barossa ($13.99)
OK, I'm puzzled here. This wine is called Bitch, but I couldn't find anything malicious, capricious or spiteful in this wine. It's a sweet (from ripeness, not sugar) little Grenache that has aromas of strawberry, raspberry, peach and white flowers. The flavors are decidedly strawberry, with flourishes of lime, white pepper and a twist of licorice. It's got a silky texture, medium body and nice underlying acidity. The only thing I wish it had more of was finish. Maybe a better name for this wine would be Tease.

Remember Marquis Philips, the partnership between importer Dan Philips and Aussie winemakers Sarah and Sparky Marquis? That partnership has gone the way of the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Sonny and Cher and Samson and Delilah. Bitch is the first wine in Dan Philips' new venture with RBJ winemaker Chris Ringland. Interesting wines are coming, that's for sure.

White wine over $20

2004 Kistler Chardonnay Sonoma Coast ($54.99)
Kistler is an example of what Chardonnay should be, what other grapes dream of being, what God has in his mind when he thinks of Chardonnay. Mind you, this is coming from a guy who thinks White Burgundy is the zenith of Chardonnay winemaking. Kistler is good stuff.

The nose is all butter, honey, oak, pears, apples and creme brulee. The flavors are intense, fruit driven and ripe, ripe ripe. Pear is the first note, with ripe baked apples, turning to lemon oil and finally creme anglaise. The texture is luxuriant, languid and lustrous, but the acidity shines through, keeping the wine from weighing itself down. The structure buttresses the wine's full body here, with lots of smoky oak present, but layered and interlaced throughout the wine. As big as Kistler is, there's still balance here.

Oh yeah, there's one other thing you should know -

The trouble with Kistler is how hard it is to find. I've only tasted two Kistler Chardonnays and only one Pinot Noir. The actress Sarah Michelle Gellar was once asked if she'd ever consider doing a nude scene in a movie. Her reply was that audiences would sooner see a live dinosaur.

How hard is it to find Kistler Chardonnay? Start looking for a naked Sarah Michelle Gellar riding a live dinosaur.

Red wine over $20

2004 Bethel Heights Pinot Noir Willamette Valley ($31.99)
You all know that if I'm going to drink American Pinot Noir, chances are I'll choose an Oregon wine first. Bethel Heights demonstrates why.

The nose here is black fruit galore - blackberry, boysenberry and black plums. There's a little underbrushy thing going on here, and a faint Christmas spice character. The flavors are still black fruit, with black currant and plum dominating. The oak reveals itself here, but don't look for aggressive, sawdusty oak. It's a warmer, subtler French oak you might miss if you don't pay attention. The underbrush is here, too and I like the flavor better than the aroma. It gives the wine an added dimension of wildness. Nice balance and lifted fruit make this a great excursion into Oregon Pinot.

I first ran into Bethel Heights when I attended Pinot Camp in 2004, when the grapes in this wine were still berries on the vine. Pinot Camp is a trade only program that lasted 3 days and included visits to 9 wineries where we took 11 workshops and tasted close to 300 wines. Bethel Heights was one of the producers that really stood out among that horde of wines. That says a lot.

Because this entry was late, I'm going to try and make up for it by posting 3 times this week. Be on the lookout for more words. Until then, enjoy the week!

Friday Wines - Damn Hard Haiku Edition

2006-06-30T02:15:00.000-05:00

Hey gang, it's Friday wine time. I've read my last few Friday wine entries and found that - shock of shocks, horror of horrors, surprise of surprises, I'm getting verbose!

So I started thinking about what I can do to cut down on the noise. Then, I thought of something I thought was original - wine reviews by haiku! Then, a friend and fellow wine professional, James Tidwell, burst my bubble and told me to check out a site dedicated to just that: red wines reviewed by haiku. I was dashed, but just for a second.

You see, the author of redwinehaiku.blogspot.com, Lane Steinberg, uses the conventional English rules for haiku: three lines, each with specific syllabic restrictions. A typical English haiku will run 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.

Here's an excellent example, written by Mr. Steinberg. It's a review of the 2004 Little Penguin Pinot Noir.

"Poor Mr. Pinot
They went and cut out his brain
Now he just smiles"

This is the English standard for a haiku, but it misses the difficulty of doing haiku in Japanese, a language based on pictographic alphabets. It's easy to conjure up syllables in English. Not so much in Japanese.

To impose Japanese morphological rules (fancy linguistics talk for how words are formed in a language) on English haiku poetry, the number of lines remains the same, but the syllables is cut in each line. Instead of a 5-7-5 structure, one uses a 3-5-3.

In traditional Japanese haiku, there's also generally a reference to nature included in the imagery. I'll be sticking to that convention here, too.

This is a form I call "Damn Hard Haiku," and it's what I'll be using in my reviews to set myself apart from Mr. Steinberg's poetry. The point here is to accurately describe the wine in as few words as possible, while building a visual image.

White wine under $20
2004 Bertani Due Uve Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon delle Venezie ($12.99)

Summer born
Lime juice, grass and salt
Two grapes clash

Red wine under $20
2003 Bogle Phantom California ($17.99)

Inkjet black
Berry loves charcoal
Poltergeist

White wine over $20
2005 Opolo Viognier Central Coast ($25.99)

Peach blossom
Honey-laced ginger
Blood of stones

Red wine over $20
2002 Fort Ross Symposium Fort Ross vineyard ($29.99)

Cherry fire and ash
Sonoma breeze cools
Pinotage

This was fun and a challenge, so I'll be doing it again. Try the wines and see if my haiku gave you an accurate impression. Can't wait to hear the feedback!

Mark

Is That Really in There?

2006-06-28T22:00:00.000-05:00

Today, I thought I'd start yet another new feature, one on wine descriptors. When you read a wine review, you see lots of aromas and flavors that make sense. There are all kinds of fruit you read about, whether it's something familiar like apples or pears for white wines or cherry and blackberry for red wines, or something exotic and downright strange like sapote, mangosteen or carombola, you can understand why wine might have fruit flavors, given the fact that grapes are fruit. Sure, it's fascinating that one fruit can taste like so many others with just the addition of a little yeast, time and sometimes oak, but the idea that wine smells and tastes like fruit isn't beyond belief.

It's also not a stretch that wine might smell like other kinds of plant life - nuts, herbs, spices and flowers. Lots of these agricultural products share the same things that make them smell and taste good. Rarely does a plant have one single flavor or aroma.

Read enough wine reviews, however, and you will find some descriptors (words or phrases used to describe a wine's aromas, flavors or body) that just seem, well, odd. Strange. Off-putting, even.

OK, some are just best called disgusting.

Now I'm not talking about aromas and flavors that indicate bad quality or a fault in the wine. No, I'm not referring to wine that smells like band-aids (brettanomyces yeast strain contamination), nail polish remover (also known as acetone, a sign that acetic acid - vinegar - has combined with the alcohol in the wine) or sauerkraut (a smell that happens from malolactic fermentation).

What we're going to talk about, from time to time is legitimate, but very strange, flavors and aromas that appear in certain grapes, regions or under specific conditions. Each time we do this segment, I'll give you two white wine descriptors and two red wine descriptors.

Is That Really in White Wine? 1: Wet Wool

This is a rich and oily smell that can indicate richness itself in a white wine. That by itself seems like it would be a good smell, but that oily character is just half the story. There's also an animal smell, something I can only explain as "sheepy." It smells like lanolin, the substance that keeps wool soft and protects sheep from water. If you really want to experience the real smell of wet wool, put on your best suit and go dancing in the rain. Or go find a sheep, push your smeller into the wool and inhale.

Well, that, or go find hand or body lotion with lanolin in it and take a big sniff. Might be easier.

Is That Really in White Wine? 2: Chives

Chives? You mean, young tender green onions? With the mild but sharp smell of same said vegetable, ONIONS?

You read it right. Some wines actually have a hint of a mild onion aroma and flavor. Keep in mind you won't find chives as a dominant flavor in wine. It's just something you may find as a complement to fruit, mineral or other flavors in wine. It's found in white wines that might have a pleasant vegetal component to them like Sauvignon Blanc or a grape grown mostly in Austria, Gruener Veltliner.

Is That Really in Red Wine? 1: Old Saddle Leather

You all know that earthy flavors and aromas are part of red wine. You've probably tasted things like coffee, chocolate, herbal flavors, or even meaty smells in your reds. These are pretty common. Old saddle leather is a specialized version of a more general descriptor of earthiness, leather.

Old saddle leather tastes like a richer, sweeter, more vinous version of leather. It's a sweetened, less aggressive, mellower version of saddle leather. Of course with some of these descriptors, it's really dangerous to linger on them too long.

God forbid you'd think about the saddle that Walter Brennan's butt sat in 16 hours a day when he filmed all those westerns. Nobody wants that in their wine.

Is That Really in Red Wine? 2: Creosote

For those of you that don't know what creosote is, it's the chemical they use to treat telephone poles and railroad ties from rotting quickly. It's a petroleum distillate made from coal tar. If you want to know what it smells and tastes like, think about a cross between wood smoke and motor oil. I actually like when a red wine has a bit of a creosote aroma to it because when I was a kid, we used to go to Six Flags Over Texas a lot. They used creosote to treat the roads there, so you could always smell it on hot summer days, so it's a familiar and happy aroma.

Read enough wine reviews and you are sure to find these descriptors and many more that are even stranger. Perhaps you can get a better picture of why on earth these elements of wine are there by reading actual reviews of wines that possess these things. You need to see odd descriptors in context. Here's an example, from Robert Parker's description of the 2004 Chateau de Beaucastel Chateauneuf du Pape Hommage a Jacques Perrin:

"The 2004 Hommage has an inky blue/purple color to the rim and a stunning nose of creosote, blackberry, black truffles, licorice, and hints of graphite. Full-bodied with layers and layers of concentration, fabulous purity, and a blockbuster finish, this wine will be at its best in about 10 years, and last for half a century or more."

See how this works? If you isolate the creosote descriptor, you might think the wine would be awful. Taken in context with blackberry, truffles, licorice and other flavors, the creosote dimension is better seen what it is - one small part of the the wine's complexity.

Or, it may just taste like you're licking a telephone pole.

Mark

Friday Wines Rough Draft Edition

2006-06-23T15:26:00.000-05:00

The week has been very slow to date, but for some reason, things have been frighteningly busy today, so you'll have to make do with a fast, virtually unedited, rough draft version. I'm gonna cut right to the chase:

White under $20

2004 Ironstone Vineyards Symphony Obsession ($8.79)
It's summer and I think wines with a sweet edge are perfect for hot weather drinking, provided they have three elements - great fruit, crisp texture and balance. Obsession has it all.

The aromas here are yellow apples, white peach and apricot. The nose is very clean and bright. In your mouth, you'll get the full flavor of the peach and apricot - what we call stone fruit - with some nectarine and a hint of lime. It's super light-bodied and so crisp you might cut your tongue. The wine will give you a fast shock of sweet on the tip of your tongue, but surprisingly, finishes dry.

Don't turn your nose up at this wine because it's sweet. It might start sweet but it's only 1.8% sugar. That's not much. In fact, if it were a sparkling wine or champagne, it'd be classified extra dry. Make sure you try it with some kind of spicy Asian food - Szechuan, Thai, Vietnamese or Cajun. With food, the sweet will recede (not disappear) but the fruit and crisp texture remain.

Red under $20

Non-vintage Moillard Grenache Fontagneret ($6.79)
OK, let's be clear here. I did just recommend a wine that is less than 7 dollars. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. There are some things you need to keep in mind while considering this wine.

1) It is a light-bodied wine. Don't expect every wine to be full and rich and tannic. Too many consumers expect all wines to be blockbusters. Don't be such a snob. Grrrrr.

2) Fontagneret is a non-vintage wine. That means it's not made from just one year. Some mistakenly believe this makes it an inferior wine. Bad idea. Some of the best wines you can buy are non-vintage wines. Champagne is a good example.

3) One of the best indicators for quality in wine is balance. There are a lot of flavors in wine and you shouldn't be able to distinguish different parts of the wine. It should be seamless, one smooth taste. You should get everything in a wine - fruit, acid, tannin, oak and alcohol - in an integrated, smooth way.

Enough wine jargon. What does $6.79 of your hard (or in my case, hardly-earned) money get you?

The nose is concentrated raspberry, with a touch of pepperiness. Lots of fruit here. In the mouth, look for balance - a little rasbperry-strawberry fruit, lighter body, smooth tannins and white pepper in the finish. Balance, balance, balance is the key characteristic to think about. You'll be be tempted to chill this, but don't. This wine doesn't need it - if you chill it, you'll kill the fruit in the wine.

There's a mini boycott of French wines going on. Fontagneret shows why that might be a mistake.

White over $20

2004 Domaine Drouhin Chardonnay Arthur Oregon ($26.99)
Balanced like a Burgundy, but with a firm foothold in Oregon, Domaine Drouhin chardonnay is my favorite style Chardonnay. It shows all the potential flavors you can get from the grape if you're careful. Bright tropical fruit like pineapple, melon and custard apple dominate, but look for crisp acidity and honey-vanilla oak, too. Not one of these things will overwhelm the other. Rather, they appear to be made of whole cloth, with each element of the wine intertwined with the other.

Watch out for Oregon Chardonnay. I attended Pinot Camp in Oregon two years ago and all the winemakers there were obsessed with it. They have good reason to be. They have more sunlight, cooler night and morning temperatures and less rainfall than California. All this means the wines will have better ripeness, better balance and more room for oak than in California. Mark my words, in 10 years, Oregon Chardonnay will be all the rage.

Red over $20

2003 Joanin Becot Cotes de Castillon ($29.99)
It'd be an understatement to say that I'm not fond of Merlot. Especially California Merlot. I'd come to that conclusion waaaay before Miles made his anti-Merlot polemic in the movie Sideways. In fact, I don't even like to be in the same room as Merlot. It's usually too tannic and acidic given the fruit in the wine. It lacks richness and finesse both in most bottles.

In a word, bleah.

There are exceptions - Merlot made in two Bordeaux regions, Pomerol and Saint Emilion. In Pomerol, the fruit is better balanced by big tannins and less intense acidity. In Saint Emilion, they blend it with Cabernet Franc, giving it a spicy green peppercorn flavor.

The trouble with these wines is that, being in the wine profession, I can't afford either. Luckily, there are other producers that make similar wines at better prices. Joanin Becot is one of them. It's a blend of 75% Merlot and 25% Cabernet Franc. I first started drinking this wine in its inaugural vintage, 2001.

Black fruit waft up from the glass, especially black cherries and raspberries. There are secondary aromas of violet, soft, spicy oak and a hint of charcoal. This is complex juice. The palate is more black fruit, but heavier flavors of black cherry and blackberry on the palate than raspberry, interlaced with a fine minerality, sweet vanilla oak and a smattering of green peppercorn in the finish. This is a lush wine, with big fruit and superfine tannins. You can drink it over the next 6-8 years or so.

Gotta go! Customers waiting!

Mark

The Grape Geek

2006-06-20T02:40:00.000-05:00

Well, kindred wine drinkers, I recently joined Steve DeLong's Wine Century Club. It's a tiny organization whose members have tasted at least 100 grapes. I'm privileged to be in such an august group, including members from places like Brazil, England, Portugal, Georgia (the Caucasus republic, not the birthplace of Julia Roberts) and the most exotic of locales, Canada.

In honor of my membership, I've decided to start an occasional visit to one of the 155 different grapes I've tried so far.

Trust me, I'm not bragging. Yes, I know, I'm a grape geek. I'll admit my social life amounts to going to a lot of wine tastings. But when you average it out over my entire wine career - a whopping 4 years - that's only 38.75 different grapes a year. I really do have a social life. Really!
I do!

Still not buying it? Oh well, here's the first episode of The Grape Geek:

TANNAT

Vitals
Color - Red
Dry or Sweet - Dry
Body - Full
Fruit - Blueberry, Blackberry, Black Currant
Other Flavors - Roasted Coffee, Raw Cocoa, Damp Earth
Tannin - High
Acidity - High
Food Pairing - Buffalo, Beef, Lamb, Venison, Elk, Aged Cheeses
Aging potential - medium to high -Old World wines, 7-10 years; New world less

Old World Tannat
Tannat is originally a French grape, found in 3 primary areas: Cahors, Madiran and Irouleguy. Old world Tannat generally doesn't get enough sun in France to fully ripen, so you have to add other grapes to round out the wines. Old world Tannat will be tannic, rustic and very bold. Cahors is known for its "black wine," a wine that must be at least 70% Malbec. The remainder of the wine may be up to 30% from a blend of Merlot, Tannat or both. The wines are powerful, tannic and rich with a hint of black fruit flavor and violet aromas. They will age well, some for 20 years.

In Madiran, an appellation near Bergerac, almost due east of Bordeaux, Tannat is the primary grape in the mix. Madiran wines may be up to 40% Tannat, but also may be blended with Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet France and Malbec. You'll rarely see Madiran that's made with 100% Tannat, except in the ripest of years. If you've tasted the Bonny Doon wine called Heart of Darkness, you know how expressive Madiran can be. Look for a wine by Chateau Montus as well. Bring a knife and fork, you'll need it and not just for the steak on the menu.

Irouleguy is a little known region, even in France, a place riddled with tiny, hideaway appellations. It sits up near the Spanish border, in Basque country, a region with some of the tastiest and most interesting food in the world. In this part of the Old World, the wine must be at least 50% Tannat, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc making up the other 50%. I've only seen one Irouleguy in my wine travels. The producer? The tongue-tangling Domaine Arretxea.

Detective Story
Unless you live in a major metropolitan area like New York, Washington DC or Los Angeles, it'll be like finding a needle in a haystack of needles to get a bottle of one of these appellations (with the exception of the Bonny Doon Madiran). If you want to try an Old World wine with Tannat in it, then start with Cahors. That's the one you will most likely find, with other Madiran running a close second. Good luck with the Irouleguy.

Tannat in the New World
You're most likely to find Tannat as a varietal wine (a wine made with only one grape) in South America, namely in Argentina, where it - like most wines there - is grown at high altitude. In France, it's usually used as a blending wine because there isn't sufficient sunlight for the grape to achieve full ripeness. The Argentinian Andes, however, offer both plentiful sunlight and cool night and morning temperatures. Sun gives the grapes loads of fruit flavor, and cool climate ensure the grapes have enough acid to balance the fruit.

There are other areas trying to trade on the unique characteristics of Tannat, specifically Brazil and Uruguay. I've had a couple of Brazilian Tannats. One was amazing - rich, smooth and, well, absolutely unavailable - like all the women I'm interested in lately. The other, not so much. No Uruguayan Tannat yet, but I read it's the grape that will put Uruguay on the wine map.

Let's see if you can locate Tannat on your wine atlas. Try this one:

2003 Don Rodolfo Vina Cornejo Costas Tannat Cafayate Valley Salta ($14.49)

One last thing. Anything you'd like me to write about? Put it on my brand new tagboard at right!

Mark

The More Things Change...Well, the More Things Change

2006-06-19T16:35:00.000-05:00

Well, I told you there were changes coming. It's a format change, but the content won't The focus is still the tainted grape juice and how to make it simple. Please do some exploring (even got toolbars at the top!) and let me know what you think about the new suit.

Mark

Friday Wines V

2006-06-17T08:15:00.000-05:00

I know I keep saying this, but BIG format changes are coming. Keep tuning in. On with the show -

White under $20

Non-vintage Brut d'Argent Blanc de Blancs Brut ($9.99)
This is Texas. We all know it's hot. That's not the question. The question is, what do you do about it?? Well, one good answer, I reckon, is to drink more sparkling wine. If you aim to do that, drink this wine.

This has everything you want from a good sparkler. Full, creamy body, rich guava, lychee and lime fruit, toasty, biscuity oak and lots and lots and lots of bubbles. Wanna make Friday video night more elegant? Chill down a Brut d'Argent, pop your best corn and sprinkle with a tiny amount of salt. No butter!

Red under $20

2004 Santa Fe de Arraiolos Vinho Regional Alentejano ($10.99)
Listen up! I can only recommend this red if you drink it properly, so pay attention. I wanna make sure you get this right. If you don't, you won't like it.

You MUST drink this red wine chilled. Not cold, chilled. We tried it both ways and I honestly wouldn't recommend it if you drink it at normal temperature of 55-62 degrees. You have to drink this wine chilled. Have I mentioned that?

How chilled? I'd say about 48 degrees. Take the wine home and pop it in the frigidaire for about 60 to 90 minutes before you drink it. Here's what you will get if you do as you're told.

The aromas of this wine are cherry and strawberry, with a little briery undertone. It's got good aromatics and plenty of ripe fruit. In your mouth, the fruit transforms to red currant and sweet red plums. The wine is light, energetic (don't roll your eyes; you'll get it when you taste it) and acidic. Chilled it will go well by itself, but try it with pasta in olive oil and garlic, chilean sea bass or rosemary pork tenderloin.

White over $20

2004 Stagecoach Vineyard Black Bart’s Bride Napa Valley ($49.99)
Honeyed, creamy and aromatic, Black Bart's Bride is a blend of three grapes: 48% Viognier, 35% Chardonnay and 17% Marsanne. Each of these grapes brings its own gifts to the bridal party here. Viognier brings honeysuckle, peach and ginger. Chardonnay gives the wine weight, depth and notes of fig and lemon. Marsanne adds texture and complexity with its tropical fruit flavors and a touch of almond in the finish. Marriage is a celebration that requires toasting. Grab a glass!

Red over $20

2002 Yalumba Tricentenary Vines Grenache Barossa Valley ($34.99)
Around here, this wine is known as Yalumba "T." The wine comes from vines planted in the past three centuries: 19th, 20th and 21st, thus the tricentenary title.

Yeah, yeah, what's it like?

What I love about Grenache is that you make every kind of wine with it, from simple, fruit-driven wines that cost no more than the two nickels I earn a day to (more about that next week) big, rich, complex, luscious wines. Yalumba T is nothing short of voluptuous.

First, pay attention to the color here. Want a visual? Check out the Mogok Ruby - that's the color of this wine. Aromas of cherry, strawberry and vanilla are the first things you'll notice as you bring the glass to your schnozz. Then, you'll get tones of smoke and grilled meat. Remember these as you'll see them in the wines later. In your mouth, you'll notice velvet. As in whore-red, velvet dress velvety. Then come the flavors - rich, ripe strawberry and Grenache's signature raspberry liqueur. This is followed by grilled meat and wood smoke on the midpalate and crushed rocks in the finish. There's plenty of tannin here, but tannin in top-notch Grenache is seamlessly presented with the grape's earthy flavor, white pepper.

There's a lot going on in Yalumba T, but if you drink it too fast, you'll miss the best part. Make sure you drink this in a leisurely pace, so you can see how well the wine opens.

It's off for more work for me. Perhaps another post tomorrow!

Mark

Friday Wines the Fourth

2006-06-09T10:52:00.000-05:00

Inventory was this week, so things should ease up for a bit now, until just before Independence Day. That means more time for wine blogging, so look for more posts to follow. I don't know about you, but I think it's a great time to have wine. Shall we?

White under $20

2005 Eberle Viognier Mill Road Vineyard Paso Robles ($19.99)
If you haven't heard of Viognier, I have a great analogy for it. If Chardonnay is an 18-year old girl right out of high school- bouncy, energetic, vibrant, but all over the place - then Viognier is her 30-year old sister who lives in New York City and works in the fashion business. She's more grounded, elegant and sophisticated. What's that mean in terms of flavors? Where Chardonnay has apple, pear and fig flavors, Viognier is more peach, apricot and mango, but dry, NOT sweet. Chardonnay hasn't lost its baby fat yet, while Viognier is more angular, graceful and leaner, without losing her perkiness. She's a great date. Trust me.

Red under $20

2004 Marquee Cabernet/Merlot Victoria ($11.99)
Marquee wines are an interesting concept. The owners combine purchased, finished wines with wines they made themselves. The results are silky, polished everyday values with some real character. The Cabernet/Merlot has great black cherry and strawberry fruit with touches of cedar and a dollop of blackberry. Lush with soft tannins, it'll serve you well over the course of the summer and fall. The entire line is good (Riesling, Chardonnay, Shiraz and Grenache/Shiraz/Merlot), but the Cabernet/Merlot stood out for me.

White over $20

2004 Nigl Gruner Veltliner Kremser Freiheit ($20.49)
It's hot. Africa hot. You need thirst quenching, refreshing, tangy, light-bodied white wine. Look no further than Austria and look no further than Gruner Veltliner. With grassy, herbal aromas followed by green apple and lime, you'll already bring down the temperature a few degrees. In your mouth the wine is so light, it floats on your palate. Make no mistake though, this wine is chock full of lime and lemon zest, wet stones, and peaches, framed by juicy, tangy acidity. Pair, this with - no, I'm not drunk as I write this - fried chicken. The national dish of Austria is Wiener Schnitzel, a pork cutlet rolled in bread crumbs and then fried in lard, so this wine will kick fried chicken butt.

Red over $20

2001 Artesa Elements California ($21.99)
This is a sly blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and assorted Rhone varietals. With smoky aromas of black raspberry, red currant and a touch of bacon fat, the wine presents good complexity for the price. Black fruit flavors dominate in the mouth, but you get a hint of rasbperry and Christmas spices like nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves echoing in the long finish. This is rich, full-bodied red but with enough acidity to keep the fruit fresh. This wine's an overachiever.

Please keep the reports coming in on these wines as you try them. Look for BIG changes coming to the format soon.

Have a terrific weekend and stay cool.

Mark

PinoVino

2006-06-03T11:00:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to make you aware of a nice little website on wine. It's called PinoVino and it was created by a good friend of mine, Mike Taylor. Mike is a former coworker and served as my mentor during my first days in the wine business. You can trust Mike (when it comes to wine, anyway) as he has a great palate and a splendid mind for business.

The site is loaded with interesting information and wine reviews, links to other wine sites and even products. Make sure you check out the Essential Wine Tasting Guide. It's indispensible for wine drinkers at all levels from the beginner to the old sot.

You should check it out. You might even find an article or two by someone you know.

Mark

Friday Wines - Volume Three

2006-06-02T04:50:00.000-05:00

No doubt by now you've all had a long week, so you deserve a little weekend TLC. Let's skip past all the usual bluster and get the relaxation started sooner rather than later. Here are my Friday wines for this week:

White under $20

2005 Z-Land Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough ($16.99)
Fabulous.

Just so we're clear on this - FABULOUS.

Passion fruit and tangerine zest crackle out of the glass in this wine. You know that big spark generator you see in the movie Frankenstein? That's how electric this wine is. Let's put it this way - I've tasted a LOT of whites in the last 5 years. I'd put this in top 10. Run.

(Note the economy of phrase. I don't like this wine at all, do I?)

Red under $20

2004 Rosenblum Zinfandel San Francisco Bay ($19.99)
Rosenblum makes some 80 wines; 38 of them are Zinfandels. They know Zin. The San Francisco Bay shows just how well.

Elegant nose of black raspberry and strawberry, with notions of chocolate and black pepper. When you taste it, you know this isn't one of those lighter Zinfandels - you know, the kind of wine that's juicy and energetic and zings around in your mouth like a pingpong ball batted around on a parquet floor by a kitten.

No sirree, the SF Bay is lumbering and ponderous. It's heavy and rich and deep. At the front, the red fruits assert themselves - strawberry and red currants. It's not long before that red door is painted black with plum, black raspberry and blackberry. It's all coated in cocoa dust earthiness and glazed with shiny but sizeable tannins. Think Cabernet and Merlot are big? Bah! Petites.

White over $20

1997 Ladoucette Baron de L Pouilly Fume AOC ($69.99)
No, you're not hallucinating. The vintage on this white wine is 1997 and yes, the price is 7o bucks. Baron de L is arguably one of the best whites made in France and one of the best wines made from Sauvignon Blanc.

The aromas are subtle - peach, lime and grapefruit. Then, the buried treasures show up. You'll get a grassy note or two and a hint of pineapple. You might catch a little caramel in the breeze as you lift the glass to your mouth.

As a good white wine ages, it will take on both richness and weight in the mouth, and this one is no exception. The fruit will be muted, with green apple, grapefruit and lemon taking the lead. Then comes the wall of secondary flavors - hazelnut, caramel, chalk, sea salt and almost red currant. All along you'll feel the slight sting of acidity - that's what'll keep this wine fresh for at least another five years. Take my advice and splurge. This one's worth it.

Red over $20

2003 Row 11 Pinot Noir Santa Maria Valley ($25.99)
I'll be blunt about Pinot Noir. First, Pinot Noir is nothing short of capricious. Miles, in the movie Sideways, talked about the grape as though it were shy, retiring and afraid to show itself except under ideal conditions. Ridiculous! There's just one way to describe Pinot Noir - in good years, it's nectar. In bad ones, you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy!

Second, I prefer Oregon to California. Napa and Sonoma Pinot Noir are jammed with fruit and tannin and I have to age them so they settle down. It's all sun in Cali.

Oregon is all about balance. They have more sunlight hours than California during growing season but it's drier and cooler. This means the wines are as ripe as the Pinots found to the south, but acidity balances the fruit. They aren't always as full bodied as Napa and Sonoma, but they are elegant and balanced.

Now before you get huffy and defensive, there's always an exception that proves the rule. If you want balance in a glass of California Pinot, look no further than Santa Barbara County. Enter Row 11 Pinot Noir.

Raise the glass and find the aromatic strawberry goodness - you won't have to look (or sniff) hard. The ripeness is everywhere. There's also French oak spiciness and a pinch of smoke. Quick, sneak a taste.

The strawberry fruit remains, but here's where the acid is critical. The fruit won't taste dull or overblown - it'll be bright, fresh and snappy. Rich sour cherry flavors make a brief cameo before the dried leaves and mushroom earthiness grace the stage. The finale comes from substantial but integrated tannin. Voila! California Pinot Noir at its balanced best.

I hope you enjoy the wines! Now I'm off to finish my next blog post. The last three posts have all been wine recommendations only, so I'm sure you're tired of those. The next post will be a new recurring feature. Hope to have that one tomorrow!

Happy drinking!

Mark

Friday Wines - Round Two

2006-05-26T13:42:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy week around here, including a long field trip we took today to check out other wine venues in the Metroplex, not to mention Memorial Day coming up. I have at least two other posts in mind for the weekend, but let's get some good bottles in your hands first, shall we?

White under $20

2004 Shoofly Buzzcut White McLaren Vale ($11.99)
Some wines can only be made by blending grapes and this dry white has four. Verdelho gives it a fascinating blend of melon and kiwi with a pleasant herbal note. Sauvignon Blanc lends some sharp acidity to make the wine crisp. Viognier adds its own honeysuckle, peach and ginger notes and Riesling (not sweet, mind you) tops it all off with dashes of grapefruit and mineral. No oak here! Add it all up and you get the perfect match for a piece of that Copper River sockeye salmon that just came into season.

Red under $20

2004 or 2005 Carchelo Monastrell Jumilla ($8.49)
I'm a huge fan of wines that overdeliver. That's a wine geek term that simply means you get more than you paid for. This one does that in a very big way. Monastrell is the Spanish name for a grape you might know - Mourvedre (the French used to think it was native, until DNA testing showed otherwise, hehehe) Think three things - black cherry fruit, super dark chocolate and a wisp of tobacco spiciness. It's a big grape, with full body and soft tannins. What's the difference between 2004 and 2005? 2005 is more fruit and less earth, but don't be picky about what vintage you buy. Drink it with anything you can throw onto a fire, but my favorite pairing is buffalo burgers!

White over $20

2002 Panther Creek Melon Deponte Vineyard Willamette Valley ($24.99)
Made from a grape called Melon de Bourgogne, this is a white for those who like a challenge. It's unlike anything you've ever had, well, almost, but I'll explain that in a second. When you pour the wine, you'll get lots of interesting aromas - lime leaf, lemons, and a little grapefruit. Lurking in the back somewhere is a little peach, too. In the mouth it's lighter to medium bodied and very dry. The fruit flavors are there, with the limes and lemons dominating. Concentrate on the finish and you'll find the hallmark of this grape. Are you focused? If you are, you'll get a little flavor of sea breeze - that sea salty air, like you get at the beach. All that sound familiar? If it does, you know Melon de Bourgogne is the grape they use to make the French wine Muscadet.

Red over $20

2001 Zealear Cabernet Sauvignon Reprise Napa Valley ($44.99) The Zealear Cabernet Sauvignon is also a little out of the ordinary. It's not your typical, overblown smack you in the face with jam, oak and tannin. Look for a lighter bodied, more elegant form of Cabernet here, with ripe red plum, strawberry and black cherry fruit. The tannins are still here, but ripe and smooth. There's plenty of oak, but it's more restrained than in a typical California Cab. All in all, it's got something you can't describe well, but you know it's a damn good wine. This is a perfect match with your best friends and good conversation or, well, your perfect match.

Enjoy the wines and the long weekend. More blogs to come, so keep looking!

Mark

Friday Wines - Blog Edition

2006-05-19T11:34:00.000-05:00

Before the Holidays last year, I started sending out recommendations of red and white wines under $20.00. In honor of the new blog, I'm going to revise that tradition. From now on, though, I'm going to recommend four wines, not just two. Red and white under and over $20.00. And now a little economy of phrase (That means I'm going to shut up and go right to the wine recommendations).

White under $20

2005 Babich Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough ($12.99)
If you love unoaked white wine, New Zealand is the place for you. Babich shows why. Light to medium bodied, this wine glistens with passion fruit, pink grapefruit and gooseberry. There's a steely element behind all that fruit and it's tied off with a pretty, silvery ribbon of acidity. I'm not the only person who likes this one - it's on the 2005 Wine Spectator top 100 list.

Red under $20

2002 Cline Oakley Five Reds California ($10.99)
Let's face it - California just doesn't make many value priced reds. Five Reds will change your mind about that. Made from Zinfandel, Syrah, Mourvedre, Carignan and Grenache, this wine is $20.00 juice for 11 dollars. It's stuffed full of black cherries and black raspberries, but it's not one-dimensional. Swirl it around in the glass and notes of geranium and sweet, blonde tobacco will develop too. Medium body and silky texture round out the wine.

White over $20

2004 Frank Family Chardonnay Napa Valley ($26.99)
If you love that big, buttery, oaky Chardonnay from Napa, then this isn't your wine. But if you want to understand just how complex the Chardonnay grape can be, try the Frank Family. It has everything Chardonnay offers - a tower of tropical fruit, racy acidity, a touch of butter and sweet vanilla and honey element from the just right amount of oak. This is what I'd call "California-style Burgundian wine" (I can hear the French swearing from here). Try this if you're used to typical Cali Chard.

Who dares, wins.

Red over $20

2003 Mettler Family Vineyards Petite Sirah Lodi
If you haven't tried Petite Sirah, it's time. Petite is technically neither petite nor Sirah. It's originally a Northern Rhone grape, but like Zinfandel (which is from Croatia), it's a grape we can thank immigrants for. What's the wine like, you ask? Big. Bold. Black currant and blackberry fruit here. Lots of tannins but smooth as a billiard ball. Lurking below the deep fruit is a roasted coffee-raw cocoa-black topsoil earthiness. Did I mention this is big?

Have fun this weekend!

Mark

The Quickest of Questions

2006-05-17T00:47:00.000-05:00

So far, I've been going on and on and on and on about wine without actually recommending any. Would you like me to start doing that occasionally?

Now's the time to speak up!

Mark

Epiphany in a Glass

2006-05-15T16:32:00.000-05:00

Everyone in the wine business has a story about THE wine. You know, the bottle that turned them into hopeless, spoiled grape juice junkies. Here's mine.

I'll set the stage for you.

It was 2002, sometime in late May. I was tromping around Florence, Italy (poor me) and had spent the entire day, from 0-dark-thirty until 8 PM with my mother, brother, nephew, sister-in-law, several cousins and two aunts. It was hot, in the low 90's. We'd already been to Rome and Siena.

The trip was strenuous. It wasn't so much a vacation as a forced death march of tourism. We often got out the door at 6 AM and rarely got to bed before midnight. We walked damn near 20 miles a day.

Most of the time, we ate our meals at restaurants scheduled by the tour. At most of these fine establishments, we were served what the travel agency thought was American style food. This usually meant a slice of overcooked pork, potatoes and some kind of boiled-until-all-molecular-movement-was-halted vegetable. No basil, no olive oil, no rosemary, no tomatoes, no crusty Italian bread.

Blah.

That evening, while shopping for inexpensive but highest quality leather goods, we conspired to rebel against our itinerary. We asked where we could find real Italian food. Naturally, our destination required - you guessed it - more walking.

If you've done any traveling at all, you know two things about finding the best food: 1) if you want to meet natives, go to McDonald's**; and 2) if you want to feast upon genuine, local cuisine - you have to walk. Leave the city center. Hit the suburbs. You're probably going to only find local cuisine where the locals live.

We were already sweaty from walking the entire day, so what was another 45 minute stroll to a good restaurant?

We began a slow trudge to this Florentine culinary paradise. Of the 80 or so people on the trip, 20 of us were from my family. I got to meet some cousins I last met when they were infants. Some of them I'd never met. There was laughing and teasing and talking.

Mainly there was walking.

A million steps later, we realized we weren't going to the restaurant in question. My cousin Clark and his wife Pebble took the lead. They popped into a shoe store to ask where this place was. (Evidently, this is the way you find good restaurants, you know. Duck into some kind of leather related business and ask them where to eat. )

Turns out that the shoe store owners knew a much better place and it was - miracle of miracles - just around the corner. Our original destination might have been the best restaurant in the known universe, but man, but our dawgs were barking. We changed course.

The new restaurant was, of course, closed. We sat down at picnic tables in front of the place, pondering our next move, a man ran up and unlocked the doors. He hurriedly said the kitchen would be up and running as soon as he could get things started.

That gave me a chance to rest my aching feet and think about what wine we should order.

The red was easy. Somewhere during my first two months in wine, I had read that many wine travelers make the mistake of only buying wines they try at wineries. They often ignore the best wines they will ever taste, the wine you find in a pitcher on your table at local restaurants. I encouraged everyone to try the house wine - it's often made by the restaurant owners and will be fresher. If the wine isn't as good as the food they serve, their kids don't go to college. It's a sure bet in most cases.

My sister in law, Karen, wanted white wine. I knew whites better at this point, so I felt more confident. I had no idea what lay in wait for me. My life was about to change and I was clueless.

This was in the middle of the Great American Pinot Grigio craze, so I decided to order one from Alto Adige, a region in the northeast of Italy known for its cool climate and accordingly, good quality white wines.

When the glass arrived, it was perfectly chilled. I can't tell you what temperature it was, not Fahrenheit nor Celsius, but I know it was at Goldilocksian perfection. I could tell by the condensation on the glass. Of course it might just have seemed that way after several days of our Italian Long March. It was, after all, about nine o'clock at night and probably 80 degrees.

After looking at the color of the wine and dutifully swirling the glass, a ritual I had been taught some sixty days before, I lifted the glass to my nose. When I inhaled (I am the anti-Bill Clinton of wine. I'll sniff a wine for 5 minutes before I taste it), it was a bolt of lightning shot from the glass.

There were about eleventy billion different aromas jumping out of the glass. At first the wine smelled sweet, like Freesia flowers. I had tasted maybe 5 Pinot Grigios at the time and knew that the wine was known for its floral nose, but I had never smelled a sweetness like this from a dry wine. The floral aromas gave way to peach, apricot and pineapple fruits. Then, in the middle, there was a hint of a stony character, like a hot pool deck splashed with water or a sidewalk kissed by a sprinkler. When that faded, lime and lemon and grapefruit cut back in.

My brain said to me - "Don't drink this. There's no way it can taste as good as it smells. You'll only be disappointed."

Many of you know me. One thing you've probably already figured out about me is I don't listen to my brain much. Surprisingly, this time not listening to my brain paid off.

I can't really begin to describe the intensity of flavors I found in the wine. At the tip of the tongue, there was that Freesia thing I'd found in the aroma. But it didn't last long, just a fraction of a second. At the instant the flowers left, a rush of juicy key lime filled every surface of my mouth. Lime eased into sour apple. At the back of my mouth, I caught a little hint of white peaches and then a sprinkle of pineapple, just like I noticed in the aromas of the wine. Then, a tiny thread of minerality. That thread unraveled the fruit like a cashmere sweater caught on a single strand. At the end, I detected a flash of sweet earthiness, like you get in a carrot or an onion that was just dug out of the ground.

The whole time I'm trying to suss out all these flavors, I'm bombarded by the acidity in the wine. The acidity was so high, I thought it would melt my teeth down to nubs after the first sip. At the second sip, it only got stronger. With all that fruit, though, the wine was still in balance. It didn't taste tart or sour, but rather gave the wine a raciness that was literally tongue tingling. You may not really get what I'm describing until you taste it, but trust me, it's addictive.

In white wines, acidity also adds texture and that was the next thing I noticed. It was light. You almost couldn't tell you had liquid in your mouth. I'm talking light.

Neutrino light.

Yet, somehow, as light as it was, it still had a huge concentration of fruit flavors and minerality.

Finally, you mark a wine's quality by its finish, or how long the wine tastes like it did in your mouth after you swallow it. This wine lasted about 20 seconds, a pretty long finish for a light bodied wine like Pinot Grigio. The wine held all the elements it had in your mouth - fruit, acid, minerality through the time it took me to take another bite of the Tuscan white bean salad on my plate.

I had been struck down on the road to Damascus.

You see, I was genuinely at a crossroads. I had only been in the wine industry two months. I'd tasted maybe 20 different bottles of wine. Sure, I could tell you the technical differences between Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Brunello di Montalcino, but I hadn't tasted them. I had real ambivalence about getting involved in the whole business. I wasn't sure this whole wine thing was for me. I couldn't see it as anything more than a passing interest.

Reading this blog, you might wonder why I was so uncertain. Sure, now I'm the James Bond of the wine world, all cool and collected in the face of danger, ready for action, armed with my Walther PPK and Riedel tasting glass. 2002 was another story.

That glass of Pinot Grigio changed everything.

Now, mind you, I'm aware of three things. One, my memory might be playing tricks on me. this was four years ago. Two, I might be exaggerating just a tiny bit for dramatic effect. Three, I know that wine may not be very good, all things considered. That vintage and varietal is the only wine I've ever tasted from this producer. If you seek this wine out, you may wonder just what the Hell I'm talking about.

That's all irrelevant. I've never looked back. In that universal singularity, I was utterly, completely, totally smitten.

I'm sure it's not the only romance to find its start on a Tuscan Spring night.

So what's your story?

Mark

PS - Oh yeah, what wine was it, you ask? St. Michael-Eppan Pinot Grigio Alto Adige.

**Yes, I said McDonald's. That's right...from Indonesia to Portugal to Iceland to Patagonia, if you want to meet the locals, go to McDonald's.

May I Suggest...

2006-05-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

Recently, I've run across some wines with, shall we say, interesting names.

Let's be clear; I'm not referring to wines purposely named in a naughty way. Not talking about Royal Bitch (a merlot from Chile), Fat Bastard (French) or even Menage a Trois (California). Not even The Full Monte(pulciano) or Cleavage Creek, let alone Toasted Head.

The wines I'm talking about are either unintentionally named so they're funny or the meanings are purposely hidden

Let's start with the unintentional:

2005 Longview Iron Knob Riesling

Iron Knob? Calling Dr. Freud. Dr. Freud, you're wanted in Australia. Calling Dr. Freud.

I'm sure this refers to some geographical feature in the area where the wine's made. There's a mountain in Kentucky called Pilot's Knob. Must be something like that.

Now on to the subtle:

2004 Weingut Geil Mettenheimer Michelsberg Gewuerztraminer Kabinett Rheinhessen

Yes, this 57 letter conglomeration is the name of one wine, but that's not why I've included it in this little piece. The producer of this wine is, like most German producers, a family operation. The word "Weingut" means winemaker, but that's not the funny part. The funny part is the family's name - Geil.

There's no way to explain why this is funny other than to be blunt. "Geil" in german slang means horny. If it were my wine, I'd put a devil on the label.

My poor friend Randy had similar troubles with this when we were traveling England 20 years ago. If you don't understand what I mean, ask a Brit.

Finally, the hidden:

2001 Chateau Potelle Cabernet Sauvignon VGS Mt. Veeder

We've all heard about the DeLoach Vineyard reserves they used to produce, the OFS (Our Finest Selection) series. While I've never had the opportunity to investigate the rumor that the real name for OFS was an acronym for "Outf*ckingstanding,"I know for a fact what VGS means.

VGS is an acronym for "very good sh*t." How do I know this? The winemaker of Chateau Potelle, a lovely French lady named Marketta Fourmeaux, personally told me so at a tasting. She said naming the line VGS was in service of demystifing wine. Damn straight!

This humorous trend isn't always limited to wine names. There are German vineyards named Sieben Jungfrauen (7 virgins) and Honigsaeckel (honey pot). And yes, that last one is an anatomical reference.

Think these are bad? Maybe someone will plant a vineyard in Big Bone Lick State Park, Kentucky.

Know any funny or risque wine names? Share, please.

Mark

Comment Consternation

2006-05-02T20:57:00.000-05:00

Now, with improved lemon flavor and easier commenting!

For some reason, the blog default was to require registration (i.e., choose a nickname and password) before you commented. I just turned off that option. Now it's much easier to comment. Please do!

And the lemon flavor? Wait for it - it's mainly in the finish.

Mark

The Dreaded, Evil Tannin

2006-05-02T02:06:00.000-05:00

Some fear it more than death.

Some fear it more than public speaking.

Some fear it more than speaking publically at their own funeral.

The dreaded, Evil, tannin!

Now I'm sure some of you are skeptical about this fear of tannin, but it exists. I'm an eyewitness. Mention high tannins and you'll see it - the sweat on the brow, shakiness in the hands, fear in the eyes. If you listen, you'll hear a quaver in the voice.

The tannin monster is just like any other monster that lives in your closet or under your bed. Stare it down and you'll find it's nothing to fear. But, before I can turn on the lights and scare away the ugly tannin monster by explaining what it is, where it comes from, what flavors it brings to wine and how to detect it, I really need to explain what it is not.

Tannic content in wine has NOTHING to do with the sweetness or dryness of it. As I mentioned in the last post, whether a wine is sweet or dry is only a matter of sugar content of the wine. If a winemaker stops fermentation before all the sugar is gone, it's a sweet wine. If a winemaker allows yeast to eat all the sugar in the grape juice, it's dry.

I repeat, the sugar content in a wine, sweet or dry, has NOTHING to do with tannin. You can find both dry and sweet wines that have a ton of tannin in them. I've had dessert wines with so much tannin in them, you'll think your teeth are melting. On the other hand, I've had dry wines that possessed virtually no perceptible tannin at all. So just keep in mind - both dry and sweet wines can be tannic.

The Color of Evil

Well then, if they have nothing to do with dryness in wine, what the Hell are tannins and where do they come from?

Tannins are a complex group of organic compounds called anthocyanins and polyphenols and come primarily from grape skins but are also found in the seeds and stems. Wanna know the cool thing? ALL grape juice is white, whether from the palest green grapes, to pink to purple to the blackest of black grapes. Smoosh a grape - get white juice.

If this is true, how do we get red wine? Tannin. Soak the skins with the juice (a process called macerating) and the skins literally disintegrate into the wine. The longer the skins sit with the juice, the more tannin. The darker the skin on the grape, the higher the tannin content. Tannin in white grapes? Not so much.

How's Evil Taste? Kinda chalky.*

So, we know tannin contributes one important thing to wine - color. What else does it do?
Tannin adds a very specific flavor to wine, bitterness.

Shock! Horror! Fear! Mispronunciation of common words!

Nobody could possibly want bitter flavor in food!

Wanna bet?

Coffee? Bitter. Black tea? Bitter. Chocolate? Bitter. Need I go on?

This is the scariest thing about tannin and wine drinkers. While many people love the bitter flavors in coffee, tea and chocolate, they revile it in wine. Just like in these other foods, bitter flavors in wine give balance to the fruit, acid and oak you find in red wine. If people appreciate this in coffee, chocolate and tea, why not in wine?

Think back to your first cup of coffee. Did you like it? No. It was really bitter, right? You might even have wondered why anyone would drink the nasty stuff. Now? Can't conceive of living without it, can ya? What happened? You got accustomed to that bitterness. You acquired the acquired taste. Keep drinking red wines. You'll eventually specialize in mergers and acquisitions.

How Do I know it's Evil?

You know what tannin is, where it comes from and what it adds to wine. There's only one matter left - other than bitter flavor, how can you tell how tannic a wine is?

Let's do a demonstration.

Go get a green banana. You know, one that's not quite ripe. I'll wait.

That's OK, take your time. This is important.

No, no, don't apologize, I'll wait. Even if you have to go to the store to get one.

Back? Good. Now, peel the banana and take a bite out of it. Yes, I know it's not ripe, but that's the point. Make sure you chew it thoroughly and smear it over all the parts of your palate, front, middle and back. Now swallow and think about how it feels in your mouth.

The back of your tongue, the roof of your mouth, the insides of your cheeks and even your gums and teeth - they feel like they're wearing sweaters. Fuzzy sweaters. Angora sweaters. The fuzzier the sweaters, the more tannic the wine.

Wait, that sensation is familiar! What is it? Hmmm...feels...feels...feels DRY!!

Remember the last post? When I said that dry wine has nothing to do with the feeling of dryness you get on your mouth, teeth and gums? See what I mean now? That's tannin.

This isn't all you need to know about tannin and I'll cover more on a later date. I just wanted to make the distinction between dry wine and tannic wine clearer.

How about some irony for dessert? I love tannic wines. Hate coffee. Funny how that works out, huh?

Mark

*With apologies to Joss Whedon and Alyson Hannigan

Dry or Sweet? Dry? Sweeeeeeeet!

2006-04-25T02:38:00.000-05:00

Oh, it's an ugly request. Heinous.

"Could you help me please?"

"Certainly, sir. What can I help you find?"

"Well, I want a wine that's not too sweet and not too dry. Can you help me find something like that?"

"Well, sir, to be blunt, no."

Today, a topic I've seen confound both customers and wine professionals. It's pretty simple, but people are unnecessarily perplexed by it. Wanna sort it out? just read the following statement:

Dry wine is less something rather than more something. In fact, dry wine is little or nothing.

Huh??

Sometimes people make things far more complicated than necessary, but it doesn't have to be this way. "Dry" wine couldn't be simpler. Here's the most complex thing you should think about dry wine:

Dry wine is NOT sweet.

That's it - two choices with wine - dry and sweet.

Now I can hear some of you skeptics out there jumping right in: "What about semi-sweet wines? What about off dry wines? What about semi dry wines?! What about those?"

Oh sure, you'll see these classifications on wine labels. And, yes, my dividing wines into two hard and fast categories is somewhat of a simplification. In most cases, though, put a semi-sweet wine in your mouth and you'll taste sugar. Off-dry wine? Sugar. Semi-dry wines? Sugar. Dry=no sugar. Sweet=sugar. Varying degrees of sugar, yes. But sugar nonetheless.

Another important thing to remember is that "dry" wine has nothing, and I mean nothing, to do with an actual dry feeling you get on your mouth, teeth and gums when you sip a red wine. I want you to keep this in mind when you read my next post, where I will deal with one of the scariest topics in wine - tannin.

Let's recap my little tirade, um....discourse, shall we? Wine can't be dry and sweet at the same time. It's just not possible.

More importantly, it isn't really desirable. Think about this - Plastic Glasses? Lite Beer? Liquid Smoke? Marijuana Initiative?

None of these things end well.

Mark

Wine and the Hot, Blonde Cheerleader

2006-04-19T19:29:00.000-05:00

I was selling wine Saturday morning, busy day, the day before Easter. A customer approached me and said:

"Do you have any Cakebread reds? No?." Sigh.

I've heard that sigh from people looking for Cakebread wines ten times a week for months. I'm getting tired of it.

Now, mind you, I'm not annoyed by the fact that the customer wanted Cakebread wines. The One Rule applies. In fact, Cakebread makes some damn good wines. If I'd had them, the customer would have gotten them, but Cakebread is between vintages. In this case, it wasn't the customer's preference that got to me - it was the sigh.

It's fundamental human nature to try and repeat pleasurable experiences. I get that. Boy, do I get that.

Problem is, people want the same thing they want from wine as they do from a spouse. They want wine to be faithful. They want wine to never change.

Big mistake. It'll never happen.

Wine is like any other agricultural product, be it wheat or sugar snap peas or zucchini. It's going to be different from location to location and year to year. Expecting wine to be consistent is just a false hope. Winemakers all over the world would love to provide you wine with the same flavor, same quality, same texture each and every vintage. It just can't be done.

Wine's not a faithful girl - it's just not in her nature.

OK, OK, you surrender. Expecting wine to deliver, year in, year out is asking for trouble.

What to do?

Don't treat wine like a spouse. Don't expect constancy. Think of wine as that senior cheerleader (or the captain of the swim team, as applicable) who was normally way outta your league. You know the one I'm talking about - that hot, blonde thang who you hoped would talk to you, hell, even glance at you.

You knew then that even if you did catch her eye, she wasn't going to stick around. She had at least five boyfriends, three of them in college. She couldn't be contained. She was a force of nature. She had bigger, better, more universal things to attend to. Hoping for more was a disaster and you knew it.

She understood her beauty was fleeting. She knew that tiny millisecond of eye contact was a gift and it would be irresponsible to give it to just one person. It was a once in a lifetime thrill and it wasn't meant to last.

That's my answer to the consistency problem. I try to live by it. Some people taste the world's greatest wines - Domaine de la Romanee Conti's, Chateau Margaux or Turley Zinfandel - and spend their entire lives (and wallets) chasing after that one, singular moment.

Not me. I've tasted some of those wines and sure, they're fabulous, but I'm not going to try to recover that instant of pleasure. Can't be done. I'll ponder that sip of enological joy only for as long as it lasts and then start looking for the next.

If you live by this philosophy, I think your wine life will be more passionate, fuller and sweeter.

But, whatever you do, keep trying to catch that cheerleader's eye - if you're lucky she might wink at ya.

Mark

Wine and "The One Rule"

2006-04-11T04:12:00.000-05:00

There's only one rule in wine.

Yup, one.

If you can follow this rule, you'll never be unhappy with your wine selections. Sounds like a pipe dream, I know, but it isn't. Like most things in wine, it's really simple.

Ready? Here's what I call "The One Rule."

Drink what tastes good; ignore ALL other advice.

Now you've heard part of this before. Everyone knows that drinking what you like is what's important. There's no reason to put wine that smells bad and tastes funny in your mouth. None. Ever.

Drinking what you like, however, isn't enough. There's a second clause I've added to make the rule my own - ignore all other advice.

Now I've been a wine columnist so I've done my share of giving wine advice. And in my first column, I told my readers that, some days, I'd be wrong. I'd recommend wines that they didn't like.

Why on earth would I tell my readers I'd be wrong? Doesn't that undermine my credibility as a wine reviewer? Why would I want to shoot myself in the foot like this? Don't people want to be able to rely on a wine guy's recommendations?

Maintaining my credibility was precisely why I told readers I'd occasionally lead them down the primrose path. Now, I always seek wines of quality (what the French call vin de garde), but sometimes you won't like what I pick. People perceive taste differently. Where some taste red fruit flavors, others taste black fruit. Some folks are sensitive to tannin, some to oak and some to acid. As a wine critic, I realized that I'd never make everyone happy. It wasn't my job. Even if it were my job, it's just not possible.

What is possible, though, and a million times more desirable, is for wine drinkers to be equipped to choose spoiled grape juice without any help. Sure, there are people like Robert Parker and publications like Wine Spectator and they can be useful. But too many, and I sometimes include myself in this category, rely on these outside opinions.

This can be a monumental mistake. I'll give you an example.

I know wine professionals who refuse to sell white Zinfandel to customers because they think it's awful wine. That's not only unprofitable, it's arrogant. If it's what a customer wants, give it to them. I try to steer them toward quality white Zinfandel, but you can't assume you know their tastes better than they do. If you like a certain kind of wine, then don't let a wine salesman bully you into buying a wine you don't like. To avoid this you have to know what you like.

Now to the serious part. When you live by a philosophy like The One Rule, there are always costs.

The bad news is that you'll have to drink more. Living by The One Rule requires you know what you like. Do you like your wines dry or sweet? Red or white? Lots of fruit or mostly earthy flavors? High acid? Low tannin? Prefer young wines or aged ones? The more you know about your preferences, the easier this gets. To drink what you like, you have to know what you like.

Drinking more has additional costs: spending time and money. In order to know what you like, you should taste everything you can get your hands on. This is no mean trick - Italy alone produces wine from about 1000 grapes. Granted, we generally see only 20 or so of them in the US, but you should try to taste them all. To make it even more complicated, there are probably multiple producers for each of these grapes. See what I mean about spending money?

To live by The One Rule, you'll also need to make notes. Lots and lots of notes. That takes time. I'll give you a better idea how to do that in future posts, but for now, just try and write down the name of the wine, the producer, the grapes, the region and if you liked it or not. Point is, this takes time.

Living by any philosophy is tough, but worth it. Just ask a Stoic living in challenging times; there are benefits. The One Rule is no different.

Ready for the good news?

To live by The One Rule, you'll have to drink more wine. This means more intimate encounters with friends and chances to meet future friends. It means more opportunities for fascinating, funny, sweet, troublemaking conversations. This means lots of simple, luxurious, tasty food to go with the wines.

In short, The One Rule is a harsh mistress, but one that may make your whole life better.

And who doesn't want that?

Look out! Look out!

2006-04-05T02:28:00.000-05:00

Well, This is it. Time to start yet another new wine blog. You might have noticed my title, "Accidental Wine." For my first trick, I'll explain it.

Pretty much all things wine related are accidental. Wine was probably accidentally discovered, rather than invented. It was made by trial and error for about 9,500 years (pretty good for guesswork, huh?). Not to mention, for a good vintage to happen, it takes several concurrent accidents of sunlight, drainage, water, fog, wind, soil and just plain luck.

And, last but not least, I came to wine by accident.

I spent 10 years earning a doctoral degree in political science from Texas A&M University. Political Science is an interesting field and it certainly changed the way I view the world, but I seem to be too practical for the theoretical world.

I know a lot about food, so I took a temporary job at a 70,000 square foot speciality grocery store. After six months of handling customer requests and researching new products, my boss simply said one day:

"Oh yeah - you're now in the wine department."

I basically knew three things about wine at this point - 1) it is made with grapes; 2) they put it in bottles; and 3) I didn't like the stuff.

So there I was, so NOT an oenophile. It's not like I didn't have any opportunities to learn about it. In 1988-89, I lived in Geneva, Switzerland, which is just a stone's throw from two of the world's best wine regions, Burgundy and the Rhone Valley. What did I drink in this vineyard paradise? Beer. Cheap, badly made, French beer.

In 1993-95, I lived in Los Gatos, California, where I was minutes from wineries in Santa Cruz, Monterey and just two hours from Napa and Sonoma counties. Did I avail myself of this grapey bounty? Nope. Kept drinking beer.

Five years later, I was forced to learn about wine. Even worse, I had to be able to sell it to people. I had to learn to sell people something I didn't like or I'd stop getting paid.

Here it is, four years since I started this little venture and I've not only been able to learn it, I'm getting pretty good at it. Just two years into my wine career, I was asked by one of the editors of Fort Worth Star-Telegram to submit a sample column. I did that for nine months. I also teach most of the wine classes where I work and have passed the first section of the Master Sommelier program.

Mind you, I don't know it all and never will. Anybody who says they know everything about wine is either a fool or an idiot. That's one of the things I like about wine - it's so varied and fascinating you should never be bored.

There you have it. That's why I titled this Accidental Wine.

As a closing note, one of the things I love most about wine is the conversations that often accompany it. I don't intend for this blog to be my pontifications about wine. I'm not interested in that. Sure, I'll have opinions and, well, I'm not afraid to voice them. What I'd really like this blog to be, though, is a conversation about wine.

Bring a glass - I have wine.

Mark