When I first got into the wine business, classified-growth Bordeaux was relatively inexpensive, and I worked for a wine distributor with some of the best available. Kid in the candy store.
What I quickly discovered is that cellaring that Chateau Talbot 1982 had an enemy--Me (there's no "I" in enemy, but there is a "me" hiding behind the "Y" or why). Now, I'm only slightly schizophrenic--I'm okay and so am I--but, the Cellaring Me envisioned sitting on this wine for 20 years (waiting for that special occasion that never comes, see "Open That Bottle Any Night" below). Unfortunately, the Party-Hearty Me would invite some friends over for dinner and after a couple of bottles of more pedestrian wine, PH Me would say something like, "Oh, man, you gotta try this incredible Bordeaux I just bought." Boom, gone.
So, Cellaring Me devised a devilish plan to thwart PH Me. I obtained several wood wine boxes with lids, and I placed the wines to be cellared in those boxes and nailed the lids shut. I then stacked them on top of each other and put wine racks on top of the stack. Tough thing to do to PH Me, but somebody had to step up if I were ever to have a wine cellar.
I still have the same set up, and it still thwarts what little is left of PH Me. Unfortunately, it also means that I have a fair amount of wine I should have drunk by now. I'm just too lazy to unstack those boxes to get to it.
Cellaring wine is an inexact, unpredictable exercise. When a wine is at its peak is anybody's guess and always just a guess. Cellar conditions affect how quickly a wine ages, and few of us have perfect cellar conditions. Mine is a consistently cool, dark place with little vibration. I don't worry about humidity variations, nor should you. (Here's why.) So far, it's been sufficient. As with any cellar, I've had my surprises, both pleasant and unpleasant.
Corks, for instance, can be an unpleasant surprise in any cellar. Most corks last at best 25 years in the bottle. As they age, they contract even with the bottle on its side and the wine in contact with one end. Eventually, they fail and wine starts to drip out of the bottle--fruit fly nirvana. The contact with air is the wine's demise. This is why several of the 1st-Growth Bordeaux chateaux, Mouton and Lafite, and Australia's Penfolds regularly conduct re-corking clinics throughout the world. Great after-market service.
I've found that any wine older than a decade is probably best opened with an Ah-So, sometimes called a Butler's Friend. These two-pronged openers can often retrieve a dry cork, a crumbly cork, or any other cork in a fragile state.
And if you have a wine over 25 years old, what are you waiting for--Open That Bottle Night? How much older do you and that wine need to get?
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
When I'm 64
I'm often asked how long a particular wine will age, and I say it's a crap shoot. Depends. (No, not that one.) Depends on your cellaring conditions. But a lot depends on you. Do you like aged wines? Most think wine, particularly Cabernet-based red wine, continues to improve in a never-ending upward trajectory. It doesn't. Most go through peaks and valleys, opening and closing, and improving gradually, plateauing, then fading.
But even still, do you like aged wines? With age, everything recedes. (Insert age-related comment here) That intense fruit of youth fades into the whole of the wine over time. If anything was out of balance, e.g. high alcohol or cheek-drying tannins, when the wine was young, that receded fruit will make it more so when it's older.
Appreciating an older wine, with its lack of youthful fruit, but with complexity and subtleties gained from aging almost begs a comparison to that of a woman--pretty and fresh in her teens yet beautiful and enchanting in her maturity.
I once heard Rob Davis, longtime winemaker at Jordan Winery in California, tell a story about walking in the vineyards near harvest time with legendary winemaker Andre Tchelistcheff. Rob had picked several grapes and examined them with his refractometer, a device that measures the sugar content of grapes. With great certainty, he pronounced the grapes ripe for harvest.
Andre picked one of the grapes, popped it into his mouth, and said, "Yes, but are they ready?" Rob told him he didn't understand the difference. Andre said, "Ripe is a an 18-year-old virgin. Ready is a 40-year-old divorcee."
That would be a great place to end this post, since it can't be topped. But, let me just say that enjoying wines in their maturity is not for everyone, nor should it be. Youth, although wasted on the young (I wish I'd said that), is very appealing even with wines traditionally thought to need cellaring. Winemakers today generally craft their wines to show well upon release. What more do you want? And, if you can answer that, you should be cellaring wine.
But even still, do you like aged wines? With age, everything recedes. (Insert age-related comment here) That intense fruit of youth fades into the whole of the wine over time. If anything was out of balance, e.g. high alcohol or cheek-drying tannins, when the wine was young, that receded fruit will make it more so when it's older.
Appreciating an older wine, with its lack of youthful fruit, but with complexity and subtleties gained from aging almost begs a comparison to that of a woman--pretty and fresh in her teens yet beautiful and enchanting in her maturity.
I once heard Rob Davis, longtime winemaker at Jordan Winery in California, tell a story about walking in the vineyards near harvest time with legendary winemaker Andre Tchelistcheff. Rob had picked several grapes and examined them with his refractometer, a device that measures the sugar content of grapes. With great certainty, he pronounced the grapes ripe for harvest.
Andre picked one of the grapes, popped it into his mouth, and said, "Yes, but are they ready?" Rob told him he didn't understand the difference. Andre said, "Ripe is a an 18-year-old virgin. Ready is a 40-year-old divorcee."
That would be a great place to end this post, since it can't be topped. But, let me just say that enjoying wines in their maturity is not for everyone, nor should it be. Youth, although wasted on the young (I wish I'd said that), is very appealing even with wines traditionally thought to need cellaring. Winemakers today generally craft their wines to show well upon release. What more do you want? And, if you can answer that, you should be cellaring wine.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Open That Bottle (Any) Night
Ten years ago, Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, the husband-and-wife team who write the column "Wine Notes" for The Wall Street Journal, conceived "Open That Bottle Night." Every year on the last Saturday of February, they encourage all of us who have "Hotel California" cellars ("You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave") to take one of those "special occasion" bottles out of the cellar and drink it on that night.
The point being that there's never an occasion special enough to open those bottles. Thanksgiving? The whole family's together, but the food clashes with most wines. Christmas? The whole family's together, but Uncle Bill will pour his glass to the brim, and Aunt Jill only drinks sweet wines, and Aunt Pill thinks she's allergic to sulfites. . .
So, the point being that opening that special bottle is a special occasion, and it's about the wine, not someone's birthday, graduation, wedding, or promotion--all fine occasions for celebration and certainly wine should be involved, preferably Champagne. But the subtleties of a fine, aged wine are rarely appreciated when crowds, commotion, and exotic foods are involved.
My special bottle-occasion night would involve standing up that bottle for several days beforehand. A younger wine I would decant; a really old bottle I might not. Although it would undoubtedly throw a fair amount of sediment, an old wine might have a very short window of life once it's opened and decanting would hasten that. I'd make the food enhance the wine. Roast beef or roast chicken without dramatic spices or capsaicins put the focus on the wine not the food.
And, for Pete's sake, let's do this more than once a year. Maybe once a month is more like it. And, don't worry that the occasion is not special enough. None is. And, if the bottle has emotional meaning (and what long-aged one doesn't?), drinking it will heighten and focus that emotion but not end it. When the wine is gone, the bottle, label, and memories remain, including now the memory of drinking it.
The point being that there's never an occasion special enough to open those bottles. Thanksgiving? The whole family's together, but the food clashes with most wines. Christmas? The whole family's together, but Uncle Bill will pour his glass to the brim, and Aunt Jill only drinks sweet wines, and Aunt Pill thinks she's allergic to sulfites. . .
So, the point being that opening that special bottle is a special occasion, and it's about the wine, not someone's birthday, graduation, wedding, or promotion--all fine occasions for celebration and certainly wine should be involved, preferably Champagne. But the subtleties of a fine, aged wine are rarely appreciated when crowds, commotion, and exotic foods are involved.
My special bottle-occasion night would involve standing up that bottle for several days beforehand. A younger wine I would decant; a really old bottle I might not. Although it would undoubtedly throw a fair amount of sediment, an old wine might have a very short window of life once it's opened and decanting would hasten that. I'd make the food enhance the wine. Roast beef or roast chicken without dramatic spices or capsaicins put the focus on the wine not the food.
And, for Pete's sake, let's do this more than once a year. Maybe once a month is more like it. And, don't worry that the occasion is not special enough. None is. And, if the bottle has emotional meaning (and what long-aged one doesn't?), drinking it will heighten and focus that emotion but not end it. When the wine is gone, the bottle, label, and memories remain, including now the memory of drinking it.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Plastic cup or Polystyrene Cup?
Riedel or Libbey? Spiegelau or Luminarc? Stem or tumbler? Or how about colored crystal stemware elaborately cut and handed down from your grandmother? What is the proper wineglass?
How about plastic cup or Polystyrene? (Tangent: there's no such thing as a styrofoam cup, but Polystyrene is what we commonly call a styrofoam cup. For the tangentally inclined, read more here.)
I've enjoyed many wines served in a tumbler at pasta palaces and find nothing objectionable about the practice except the pretentiousness that we have much in common with Italian peasantry. But then pretentiousness are us in the wine business, so hard to get excited.
No, what separates the cork dork from the wine drinker is that unavoidable occasion where nothing that could technically be called "glass" is available. Think small town motel with in-room coffee maker, Polystrene cups stacked up beside it. Plastic cups in the bathroom, nicely shrink-wrapped. It's Sunday and not a store that sells glassware is open. You have not brought your travel box of Riedel. What do you do? What do you do?
Do you refuse to open the bottle because it would be unfair to the wine? Because without the proper stemware, it would lessen your enjoyment to the point of pointlessness? Congrats, you are a dork.
It's only a bottle of wine, for Christsake. (See Post # 1, "It's Only a Bottle of Wine.") And, if you brought any wine that couldn't stand the vibrations of a road trip, congrats, you are a dork.
No, for the wine drinker, the question wouldn't be whether to open the bottle. It would be "Plastic Cup or Polystyrene Cup?"
Okay, so the answer is obvious, if you are tangentally inclined and read more here or up there.
Alcohol will increase the styrene migration from the cup into the wine, so the plastic cup wins out.
Wine is for drinking.
Thanks,
Jim
How about plastic cup or Polystyrene? (Tangent: there's no such thing as a styrofoam cup, but Polystyrene is what we commonly call a styrofoam cup. For the tangentally inclined, read more here.)
I've enjoyed many wines served in a tumbler at pasta palaces and find nothing objectionable about the practice except the pretentiousness that we have much in common with Italian peasantry. But then pretentiousness are us in the wine business, so hard to get excited.
No, what separates the cork dork from the wine drinker is that unavoidable occasion where nothing that could technically be called "glass" is available. Think small town motel with in-room coffee maker, Polystrene cups stacked up beside it. Plastic cups in the bathroom, nicely shrink-wrapped. It's Sunday and not a store that sells glassware is open. You have not brought your travel box of Riedel. What do you do? What do you do?
Do you refuse to open the bottle because it would be unfair to the wine? Because without the proper stemware, it would lessen your enjoyment to the point of pointlessness? Congrats, you are a dork.
It's only a bottle of wine, for Christsake. (See Post # 1, "It's Only a Bottle of Wine.") And, if you brought any wine that couldn't stand the vibrations of a road trip, congrats, you are a dork.
No, for the wine drinker, the question wouldn't be whether to open the bottle. It would be "Plastic Cup or Polystyrene Cup?"
Okay, so the answer is obvious, if you are tangentally inclined and read more here or up there.
Alcohol will increase the styrene migration from the cup into the wine, so the plastic cup wins out.
Wine is for drinking.
Thanks,
Jim
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Me, too! Hey, me, too!
A wine buyer at an upscale grocery store once told me his biggest pet peeve was the "Me, too" wine sales rep. The buyer would put up a successful display of, say, a $14.99 Chianti Classico Riserva, and the competing sales reps would all pitch their own Chianti Classico Riservas for display.
"My kingdom for an original idea."
The "Me, too" yahoo is in many ways responsible for that "dizzying array of wines available today" I mentioned in my first post. When Pinot Grigio sales took off in this country, so too did the number of wineries making it. Me, too, try ours.
The phenomenal success of Yellow Tail led many major wine companies to create their own critter-label brands. Me, too, ours is cuter.
Syrah? Me, too. Pinot Noir? Hey, me, too. Riesling? Ah, ah. . .yeah, me, too.
These are called "line extensions" which marketers like to say take advantage of the "halo effect" of a well-regarded brand name. But they dilute and weaken the reputations of wineries. Jack of all trades, master of none.
Starting with Robert Mondavi back in the 1980's, many Napa Valley-based wineries loaned their names to wines grown from, well, somewhere in CA. Beaulieu (BV), Beringer, Mondavi, Sterling, and others unhinged their names from Napa Valley. Yes, they all still produce Napa-grown wines, but that's just for the halo effect, a cynic might say. Me, too.
Thanks,
Jim
"My kingdom for an original idea."
The "Me, too" yahoo is in many ways responsible for that "dizzying array of wines available today" I mentioned in my first post. When Pinot Grigio sales took off in this country, so too did the number of wineries making it. Me, too, try ours.
The phenomenal success of Yellow Tail led many major wine companies to create their own critter-label brands. Me, too, ours is cuter.
Syrah? Me, too. Pinot Noir? Hey, me, too. Riesling? Ah, ah. . .yeah, me, too.
These are called "line extensions" which marketers like to say take advantage of the "halo effect" of a well-regarded brand name. But they dilute and weaken the reputations of wineries. Jack of all trades, master of none.
Starting with Robert Mondavi back in the 1980's, many Napa Valley-based wineries loaned their names to wines grown from, well, somewhere in CA. Beaulieu (BV), Beringer, Mondavi, Sterling, and others unhinged their names from Napa Valley. Yes, they all still produce Napa-grown wines, but that's just for the halo effect, a cynic might say. Me, too.
Thanks,
Jim
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Nielsen Schmielsen
I was asked recently by someone, who didn't know my tendency to overexplain everything, what's been the most significant change in the wine business in the last 25 years. And, while it would be easy to signal out the phenomenal growth in the number of wineries and the amount of wine consumed, that's not it.
No, for me, it's the UPC, the Universal Product Code, that ubiquitous bar code that now adorns every product and will probably be genetically engineered onto our foreheads soon.
I predate the UPC on wine bottles. This is the wine business equivalent of saying "I predate electricity."
Before bar codes, every bottle was hand-marked with a price sticker. Most grocery stores had a wine key on their cash registers, so had a reasonable idea how much wine was sold, but only a vague idea about what wine sold. The UPC changed all that.
Enter Nielsen.
That's the A.C. Nielsen Company, famous for its TV rankings, but which also collects wine sales data from all major chain grocery stores, thanks to the UPC. So, now wineries and wine companies can see where, when, and how much their wines sold. Most large wineries and wine companies now employ armies of sales analysts (ever notice the first four letters of that last word?). They dissect the minutest of detail hoping to ferret out significant trends.
Meanwhile, most wine distributors, at the insistence of their supplier wine companies, report back all of their sales, so the analysts can also see what restaurants and shops buy their wine.
So, what does all this rear-view mirror gazing mean to you and me?
It means that the status quo is reinforced, time and again. It's why chain grocery stores display the same wines year in and year out. It's why a few large companies with data in hand hold enormous sway over retail buyers. It's why that large wine section seems to be all about Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot, and a little bit "Other." Breadth they got, depth they don't.
It's why a beauty such as the Cotes de Brouilly I mentioned in my last post won't be found in most stores and why the real treasures in wine take some digging.
Thanks,
Jim
No, for me, it's the UPC, the Universal Product Code, that ubiquitous bar code that now adorns every product and will probably be genetically engineered onto our foreheads soon.
I predate the UPC on wine bottles. This is the wine business equivalent of saying "I predate electricity."
Before bar codes, every bottle was hand-marked with a price sticker. Most grocery stores had a wine key on their cash registers, so had a reasonable idea how much wine was sold, but only a vague idea about what wine sold. The UPC changed all that.
Enter Nielsen.
That's the A.C. Nielsen Company, famous for its TV rankings, but which also collects wine sales data from all major chain grocery stores, thanks to the UPC. So, now wineries and wine companies can see where, when, and how much their wines sold. Most large wineries and wine companies now employ armies of sales analysts (ever notice the first four letters of that last word?). They dissect the minutest of detail hoping to ferret out significant trends.
Meanwhile, most wine distributors, at the insistence of their supplier wine companies, report back all of their sales, so the analysts can also see what restaurants and shops buy their wine.
So, what does all this rear-view mirror gazing mean to you and me?
It means that the status quo is reinforced, time and again. It's why chain grocery stores display the same wines year in and year out. It's why a few large companies with data in hand hold enormous sway over retail buyers. It's why that large wine section seems to be all about Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot, and a little bit "Other." Breadth they got, depth they don't.
It's why a beauty such as the Cotes de Brouilly I mentioned in my last post won't be found in most stores and why the real treasures in wine take some digging.
Thanks,
Jim
Sunday, February 15, 2009
It's only a bottle of wine
"It's only a bottle of wine, for Christ's sake." A colleague of mine back in the 1980's said that upon hearing the price of 1983 Chateau Mouton Rothschild would exceed $100. Supply and demand, I suppose, with the 1st Growths of Bordeaux, then and now. But isn't it amazing how many wines top the $100 mark now? For that matter, $50 or even $30--and often for wines with no track record or first releases from new wineries.
So much of what passes for supply and demand these days in the wine business is manipulation by marketing. "Limited Release" often isn't; "Reserve" with all its adjectives--Private (really?), Winemaker's, Cellarmaster's, Vintner's, Grand, and Everyman's--is rarely. And, that's just a start.
The dizzying array of wines available today makes it tough for anyone to navigate through a wine department or wine shop without feeling overwhelmed and undereducated. Me included.
So what I'd like to do here with this blog is strip away some of the pretentiousness of wine, and by that, I don't mean reducing wine to four or five varietals from California that are just easy to understand. No, let's look at the world's wine and have some fun with it.
I'll explain some of the mystifying terms on labels, and we'll write some quick notes on favorite finds. For example, I had a great little 2006 Cotes de Brouilly from Ferraud & Fils (imported by Vinum Wine Importing, Seattle, WA) last night at 10 Mercer, one of my favorite Seattle restaurants. Cotes de Brouilly is one of the Grand Cru villages of Beaujolais. The red wines from that region of France are made from the Gamay grape, rarely planted in this country. Such a pity. This wine had a fruity nose with some earthiness, very much like its more expensive Pinot Noir cousins to the north in the Burgundy region. Soft, supple and a terrific match for a variety of foods.
Yet, Beaujolais is a rarity on the shelves and wine lists these days. Why? Hard to pronounce or understand labels? Let's look into this more next time.
Thanks,
Jim
So much of what passes for supply and demand these days in the wine business is manipulation by marketing. "Limited Release" often isn't; "Reserve" with all its adjectives--Private (really?), Winemaker's, Cellarmaster's, Vintner's, Grand, and Everyman's--is rarely. And, that's just a start.
The dizzying array of wines available today makes it tough for anyone to navigate through a wine department or wine shop without feeling overwhelmed and undereducated. Me included.
So what I'd like to do here with this blog is strip away some of the pretentiousness of wine, and by that, I don't mean reducing wine to four or five varietals from California that are just easy to understand. No, let's look at the world's wine and have some fun with it.
I'll explain some of the mystifying terms on labels, and we'll write some quick notes on favorite finds. For example, I had a great little 2006 Cotes de Brouilly from Ferraud & Fils (imported by Vinum Wine Importing, Seattle, WA) last night at 10 Mercer, one of my favorite Seattle restaurants. Cotes de Brouilly is one of the Grand Cru villages of Beaujolais. The red wines from that region of France are made from the Gamay grape, rarely planted in this country. Such a pity. This wine had a fruity nose with some earthiness, very much like its more expensive Pinot Noir cousins to the north in the Burgundy region. Soft, supple and a terrific match for a variety of foods.
Yet, Beaujolais is a rarity on the shelves and wine lists these days. Why? Hard to pronounce or understand labels? Let's look into this more next time.
Thanks,
Jim
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