The Wine Curmudgeon

Mini-reviews 32: Antinori, Marques de Caceres, Souverain, Parlay

Reviews of wines that don’t need their own post, but are worth noting for one reason or another. Look for it on the final Friday of each month:

• Antinori Pèppoli 2008 ($27, sample): Modern style of Chianti, with more red fruit in the middle. But still a fine wine -- balanced and fresh. The price is problematic, though.

• Marqués de Cáceres Rioja Blanco 2009 ($8, purchased): Traditional style, so not much fruit a little more rustic than California. Offers more than than $8 worth of wine, and more than suitable for a weeknight dinner.

• Souverain Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 ($22, sample): Grocery store quality -- thin, flat and uninteresting, with little terroir. Seem to remember this producer being much better than this.

• Parlay The Bookmaker 2005 ($20, sample): Lots of sweet black fruit in the middle of this red blend, but very well made with a long chalky finish and sturdy tannins. Not my style of wine, but well done nonetheless.

Easy ways to learn more about wine

Yes, she's drinking white wine, but why not try a red?

Wine drinkers are creatures of habit. We tend to drink the same wines and shop in the same places for those wines. Which, frankly, doesn't do much to expand our wine horizons.

This is an especial problem for beginning wine drinkers, whose lack of experience is compounded by the intimidation factor -- wine can be a scary place for newcomers, who are overwhelmed with labels, names, terms, and the like.

Hence this post, part of my New Year's resolution to write more items for people just getting started with wine. And a big tip of the Wine Curmudgeon's fedora to Dave McIntyre, who has written about some of this and jarred me into action.

After the jump, four easy things anyone can do to boost their wine savvy:

Wine of the week: Layer Cake Shiraz 2009

The Wine Curmudgeon has always been ambivalent about the Layer Cake wines, which have always seemed to focus more on the chocolate cake label than what was in the bottle. It's not that some of them weren't eminently drinkable, and I have reviewed them favorably (and those that weren't elicited a reply from the producer). Rather, they always made me wonder if they would have been better with a more ordinary label and if had they cost a couple of bucks less.

Not this time, though. This version of the Layer Cake shiraz ($13, sample) is less expensive and isn't as over the top as some of the other vintages. There's less sweet fruit, the tannins are much more integrated, the 14.9 percent alcohol isn't overbearing, and the wine shows some unexpected polish, especially on the finish. Having said that, it's still a very Australian-style wine, with lots of cherry cola-ish fruit that practically explodes on your nose and in your mouth.

It's a big wine that even those of us who aren't all that fond of big wines can enjoy. Drink this with barbecue (beef, pork or chicken) or burgers and enjoy the label. Which is quite clever, especially when it doesn't get in the way of the wine.

Winebits 213: Wine prices, wine scores, bootlegging

• Cheaper wine and traffic accidents: States with higher wine consumption have fewer traffic deaths, so why not make wine more easily available? A new study suggests that wine is more socially responsible than beer or spirits, so why not push consumption toward it and away from the others through legal supermarket sales? Said one researcher: "Wine is more likely to be consumed with food. That has an impact. We also suspect that there are different demographic groups that consume this alcohol. Maybe the audience that consumes wine is less likely to drink and drive and be in a traffic accident." A fascinating thought, though the Wine Curmudgeon notes that the study was conducted by researchers in New York state, where there is a huge fight going on over wine sales in grocery stores.

• Because we can never get enough about wine scores: David Duman in the Huffington Post takes on wine scores, calling out two leading members of the Winestream Media, Jon Bonne of the San Francisco Chronicle and Steve Heimoff of the Wine Enthusiast: "... it was discouraging to see their defenses of the system utilizing those same tired arguments used by lesser critics." That's about as harsh as it gets in this business, but Duman didn't stop there. He sounds almost Wine Curmudgeonly: "If you want to be a wine critic who remains relevant for the next thirty years you might want to ditch the rating system now, lest you be stuck wearing the wine writing equivalent of acid-washed jeans and feathered hair a decade too late."

• Consumers and state stores: Here's a shocker: Wine drinkers will break the law to buy cheaper wine if all that means is shopping out of state. Regular visitors here will remember that the Pennsylvania state store system, in which the state runs the liquor stores, has been under attack for being inefficient, bloated and poorly run. This on-line survey says that 81 percent of respondents would rather break the law and bootleg their wine and liquor across the borders than suffer state-mandated price hikes. Bootlegging? Does this mean shoppers will start wearing Wine Curmudgeon-like fedoras?

DrinkLocalWine visits Denver, and Denver is thrilled

One of the difficulties with trying to figure out where regional wine is in relation to the rest of the wine world is the Wine Curmudgeon's natural curmudgeonliness. Yes, the National Restaurant Association can say, for the second consecutive year, that local wine is a top priorty for restaurants. But I'm the kind of guy who looks at that and tries to decide if the survey was rigged. In other words, I'm not only waiting for the other shoe to drop, but expect it to hit me on the head.

So what happens when I'm in Denver last week doing some groundwork for DrinkLocalWine's fourth annual conference, set for the Colorado capital at the end of April? Almost complete and total enthusiasm, not only for what we're doing but for local wine. More, after the jump:

Barefoot, flipflop, and the wacky, wonderful world of wine trademarks

Regular visitors here know how the Wine Curmudgeon feels about wine companies that sue other wine companies over similar labels and similar names. Curmudgeonly, of course.

The most infamous lawsuit of recent years was the faceoff between the company that owns Cristal, the mega-pricey Champagne, and the $7 Spanish cava, Cristalino. But there have been a fair number of others, including Anheuser-Busch vs. an Argentine wine producer called Budini, and YellowTail vs. the Wine Group, who were fighting whether a kangaroo looked like a wallaby.

As much fun as these were, they pale in comparison to what could be the next big trademark and tradedress lawsuit in the wine business -- if E&J Gallo and the Wine Group square off over two fabulously successful brands, Gallo's Barefoot and Wine Group's flipflop. More, after the jump:

Expensive wine 35: Beaulieu Georges de Latour Private Reserve 2006

Beaulieu Vineyard is one of the most important wine producers in California history, and Georges de Latour is one of the most important figures in that history. Without the winery and the work de Latour did there before World War II, the wine business in the U.S. would not be what it is.

Hence, any wine from Beaulieu that carres de Latour's name should be special. Sadly, the winery suffered through a series of problems in the late 1990s and early part of this century -- ordinary wines, scathing reviews, and even wines infected with cork taint. It was as sad as it was surprising.

The good news is that Beaulieu's corporate parent saw that something needed to be done, and invested millions of dollars to do so. The efforts have worked, and Beaulieu's wines are once again, as wine geeks say, showing well. The de Latour ($125, sample) is a well-made and surprisingly traditional style of Napa cabernet sauvignon, which made the Wine Curmudgeon quite happy.

It's a long, long wine from first sniff to finish, with aromas of cedar and dark fruit, more dark fruit in front, a solid middle, some rich oak on the finish and much welcome tannins to balance all. It's not hot despite being 14.8 percent alcohol, though it does need food -- lots of red meat -- to show its best. I had it with prime rib and Yorkshire pudding, a classic pairing.

Decant this wine for an hour or so to get the most out of it. And be glad that someone went to the trouble to save a historic brand. A price note: When I got the sample two years, it was listed at $80; the increase, even during the recession, shows how much Beaulieu has improved.