The Wine Curmudgeon

Wine of the week: Massamier La Mignarde Cuvee des Oliviers 2010

The name of this wine is a very long and very French way of saying that this is exactly the kind of rose that makes the Wine Curmudgeon smile. It’s cheap and it’s dry, but more importantly, it”s full of summer and backyards and porches and barbecues.

The des Oliviers ($10, purchased) is from southern France and is mostly made with cinsault. In this, it’s firmly in the French style – some fruit (in this case, cranberry), but not the big dollops that give the impression of sweetness and so confuse so many wine drinkers into thinking pink wine means white zinfandel. This wine is about as far from white zinfandel as possible.

Also impressive: The des Oliviers is a bit floral on the nose, and its clean, crisp finish leaves you ready to take another sip.

Serve this chilled on its own, or with any summer activity. Highly recommended, and a candidate for the 2013 $10 Hall of Fame.

Winebits 230: Italian wine, wine fraud, screwcaps

• Those were the days: The Italian Wine Guy remembers when no one had heard of Santa Margherita pinot grigio. Hard to believe, no? His point, and he makes it well, is that the Italian wine world (and, by extension, all of the others) has changed significantly in the past four decades – sometimes, even more than we realize. Or, as he writes: “Anyone who complains about not being able to get an Italian (or any other) wine of their choice is either lazy, unimaginative or just plain silly. Go down the aisles of a local liquor store, and see the immense selection we have now that we didn’t have in 1977."

•  Fooling the wine world: This epic story from New York magazine (more than 4,000 words) is entitled “Chateau Sucker” – which should tell you everything you need to know about the Rudy Kurniawan case. He’s the fellow who has been selling counterfeit wine to the experts for years, and is currently under federal indictment. Most of the big names in the wine business are in the story, and the question it raises is whether they wanted to be fooled – a question that speaks volumes about that part of the wine business.

• Yes, screwcaps are here to stay: In which another wine drinker wonders why they have to put up with those silly screwcaps.Though it does offer one of the best explanations of screwcaps, which the Wine Curmudgeon wishes he had thought of (and will now update and steal). Think of corks as music on CDs. Think of screwcaps as digital music. Doesn’t make the music any worse, does it?

Five wine facts that aren't necessarily facts

The wine world is full of people who know exactly what they’re talking about, even when they don’t. My pal John Bratcher loves to tell the story about the guy at a wine tasting who said in no uncertain terms that blended wines were inferior to varietal wines (those made with just one grape, like chardonnay or merlot, instead of more than one). John then mentioned that all of the great French red wines were blends; how did that fit into the man’s world view?

So the next time you’re buying wine, don’t be afraid to be skeptical. Taste is in the palate of the beholder, but there are objective truths about wine and the wine business. After the jump, five of the most annoying facts that really aren’t:

The Beard Awards and regional wine

The Wine Curmudgeon has always had a middle of the country perspective when it comes to the Beard Awards, the food business' version of the Academy Awards. That is, the winners always seem to be from either coast, and especially from the East Coast, and especially from New York City. Right, Sharon Hage?

So it's not surprising that restaurants that usually win a Beard award, wine or otherwise, have very little do with wine that doesn't come from an established region. That logic, if depressing, is understandable. Beard award-winning restaurants cater to people who want big wines that get big scores. Or, as a top-name chef who has a Beard on his resume told me, "my customers expect the Wine Spectator top 100 on my wine list. I lose business if those wines aren't there."

So when a restaurant with regional wine wins a Beard award, I'm practically typeless. Seriously. It has taken me longer to write this four-paragraph post than others that were twice as long.

But there it is: Terroir, a wine bar in Manhattan, winning for best wine professional this year -- and Terroir serves New York wine at each of its three locations. Some of it is even featured on the epic wine list. Thank you, Paul Grieco (who won the award). It's a pleasure to find someone who understands that wine is not about what we're told to drink, but about finding something we like -- regardless of where it is from.

Direct shipping and underage drinking

Rebecca Williams may have taken on Big Tobacco, but that experience didn't prepare her for her recent adventure in the wine business. Williams is the lead author of the May study that looked at whether minors could buy alcohol on line. It found, not surprisingly, that they could, and Williams found herself on the receiving end of some less than complimentary comments.

As one Winestream Media stalwart described her: Someone who did the study for no other reason than to burnish her resume.

"It's not the same kind of backlash when we did tobacco studies," says Williams, "and I don't know that I've seen a lot of it. What was surprising were all the questions about where the money came from to fund the study. I was surprised that people thought the study was paid for by wine distributors, that we would do that."

Ah, the naivety of the academic (who got her money from a legitimate public health foundation). Williams, who thought she was doing public health research, walked right into the biggest controversy in the wine business today -- the debate over the future of the three-tier system.

She wanted to find out if it was easy for minors to buy booze over the Internet, and instead found herself in the middle of the fight between the distributors and wholesalers who want to strengthen three-tier and those who want to reform it. How this happened and what it means, after the jump:

Wine of the week: Meridian Sauvignon Blanc 2010

Meridian's wines make the Wine Curmudgeon crazy. Sometimes, they're really, really well done, and do things like make the $10 Hall of Fame. Other times, they taste like the grocery store wines that they are, and their $10 Hall of Fame worthinness seems very hard to believe.

Hence my trepidation with this review. The sauvignon blanc ($6, purchased) is an exceedingly well-made wine, and sets a high standard not only for Meridian, but for all grocery store wine at this price. It has lots of tropical fruit (pineapple and mango) in a very forward style, which gives the impression of sweetness. But since it's sauvignon blanc, there is plenty of citrus and California-style grassiness to balance the fruit. And, hard as it may be to believe, I think there is minerality at the back -- about as common in a $6 wine as me not being able to come up with a simile here.

Drink this chilled on its own, or with almost any kind of warm weather white wine dish. Highly recommended, and a candidate for the 2013 Hall of Fame. Please, Meridian, don't let me down.

Winebits 229: French wine, regional wine, wine investments

 • New French president drinks wine: Not as odd as it sounds, since his predecessor preferred Coca-Cola, reports Decanter. Still, there are some doubts as to whether the newly elected Francois Hollande will be much of an improvement over Nicolas Sarkozy, given the state of the beleagured French wine industry. Said a trade group spokesman: "...Neither candidate’s manifesto detailed anything with precision concerning our industry, so we will have to wait and see. What French winemakers really needs is for the economy as a whole to bounce back, and for that I am more hesitant." Still, as the Wine Curmudgeon is fond of saying, a president who drinks wine, as opposed to one who doesn't, is going to be better for the wine industry regardless.

• The regional wine gold rush: No less than Mike Dunne, one of the preeminent California wine writers, has seen the future of the wine business and detects regional wine in it: "If you routinely drink California wines, such as chardonnay and zinfandel, a "marechal foch" from Wisconsin or a "norton" from Missouri initially may startle you. Give it another sip. You just may find something in the glass that grows on you, in a pleasant way." He also has a few words of wisdom for those, including California winemakers, who judge regional wine before they taste it. Which made the Wine Curmudgeon smile.

• Wine investment index sinks: Or, as too many of us forget, wine is made to dirnk, not as a way to make money. The Lix-ex Fine Wine 50, an index similar to the Dow Jones Industrial Average for wine, continues to slide. The blog that I linked to, which tracks wine investments, is fun to read. Or depressing, depending on your point of view. Honestly, do people really think they can make more money investing in Sauternes than in real companies?