The Wine Curmudgeon

$70 wine: When is it really worth it?

I was drinking wine with a couple of friends last weekend and mentioned that they would enjoy the sparkling wine. One of them took a sip and said, yes, that was pretty good. But it doesn't taste like one of your $10 wines, she said. (Now I know how actors feel when they get stereotyped.)

The wine, of course, was not $10. It was Ruinart, perhaps my favorite bubbly and not cheap at all at $70. And, to add insult to injury to my reputation, the other bottle of wine that night was Domaine Borgeot Puligny-Montrachet Les Charmes 1999, which cost around $65.

Which raises the question: Is there something to these wines that makes them worth that much money? The answer is yes, but the point is not how much they cost, but what they deliver.

Wine of the week: Argyle Brut 2002

 

How much does the Wine Curmudgeon love this wine (and especially for Mother's Day)? Let me count the ways:

Tuesday tidbits 21

• No champagne for Switzerland: Or, rather, a village in Switzerland can't call its wine champagne, even though that's the name of the village -- and has been so 885. The prohibition is part of a European Union trade agreement which restricts others from using product names for well-known items like Champagne, Parma ham, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, Products can only use those names if they're made in that region. "In this village we no longer have the right to use our own name," said a spokesman for the Swiss town.

• Wine sales in the U.S. increase again: They were up 3.9 percent in 2007, according to figures from the Wine Institute trade group. This is consistent with the last three increases. Interestingly, the dollar volume of sales (which includes all wine sold in the sold, including imports) increased 7.9 percent, as consumers traded up to more expensive wine and the weak U.S. dollar raised import prices.

• Robert Parker movie in the works: And Javier Bardem, he of the haircut in No Country for Old Men, is rumored to be interested in playing the most important man in the world of wine. Hey, I don't make the news up. I just report it. Though this tidbit from Decanter is a bit hard to believe: "Casting is underway with Sideways star Paul Giamatti as Michel Rolland, British star Dame Helen Mirren as Jancis Robinson, and Hugh Grant taking the role of Leoville Barton proprietor Anthony Barton." That's an A-list cast for a movie that not a lot of people are going to care a whole lot about.

Technorati Tags: Robert Parker movie,Champagne,U.S. wine sales

Wine of the week: Armand Roux Carousel NV

I stumbled on this when I needed an inexpensive, French-style sparkling wine to use for the white wine tasting at my Cordon Bleu class. I was quite overwhelmed by its quality and its $8 price.

The wine, made with French chardonnay, comes from the Armand Roux company, best known for the L’Epayrié jug wines. But there is nothing jug-like about the Carousel. It's dry, clean, and crisp with decent bubbles, and it doesn't have any of the off-flavors or sweetness that inexpensive sparkling wine sometimes shows. It's not as tight as similarly-priced Spanish sparklers; whether this is an advantage or not depends on how you feel about cavas like Cristalino.

I'm not quite sure that it's as food friendly as the Spanish wines (it doesn't have as much acid), but serve it chilled for summer porch sipping or Sunday morning brunch and you'll be more than happy.

Technorati Tags: sparkling wine,Armand Roux Carousel,cava

Tuesday tidbits 16

• Wine as an investment: What's the point of drinking wine when you can invest in it? None, actually, but that hasn't stopped people with entirely too much money from treating wine as if it was real estate. In 2007, reports Reuters, the main British stock index rose by less than four percent. The main index on Liv-ex, where fine wine is traded, ended the year up 40 percent. At the risk of sounding much too curmudgeonly, let me say two two things: First, wine is not an asset like a house or shopping center, but an intangible with no intrinsic value. It is made to be drunk, not traded like soybeans. Second, those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it -- see the 17th century Dutch tulip bubble.

• More wine company buyouts: The Wine Group, which already owns Big House, Glen Ellen, and Mogen David (among many others), has bought the Almaden and Inglenook brands from Constellation Brands. The transaction makes the Wine Group California's second- and the world's third-largest wine producer by volume. Almaden and Inglenook, though not much more than jug wine brands now, were once some of the most prestigious labels in the country. Their purchase solidifies the Wine Group's hold on its share of the largest portion of the U.S. market -- wines that cost from $3 to $9 a bottle.

• More from Champagne? The French are expanding the area in the Champagne wine region, so that more sparkling wine can be labeled champagne. The government will redraw the 1927 boundaries for the region (what the French call an AOC or appellation d'origine contrôlée) to include up to 40 villages. The motive? Increased international demand for bubbly, which can only be called champagne if it's from the champagne region of France. Quality shouldn't suffer, though, since many of the villages that will be added didn't want to be included when the boundaries were drawn 80 years ago.

Technorati Tags: wine news,The Wine Group,champagne

The ongoing discussion about restaurant wine prices

This is actually one of the biggest issues in the wine business, in that markups are so high -- often three or four times the retail price -- that they dissuade customers from drinking wine.

It's also, to be fair to restaurants, not as simple as it looks. Yes, prices should be lower (and the Wine Curmudgeon has made this point many times), but some restaurants have legitimate reasons for what they do. I'll write more about this soon, but I did want to share something that I came across while researching restaurant wines lists (hey, someone has to do it).

In Dallas, a bottle of the basic Veuve Cliquot sells for about $42 retail. Check out the prices on these wine lists -- if anyone can explain it, please do:

• $95, at a trendy Mediterranean restaurant frequented by 20- and 30-somethings.

• $95, at a high-end New American that's popular with critics and people who eat at places the critics recommend.

• $95, at a new Italian restaurant that the food intelligentsia has been fawning over.

Technorati Tags: restaurant wine prices,champagne

Pink wine for Valentine's Day

The Wine Curmudgeon, not surprisingly, does not acknowledge Valentine's Day. But since so many people do, including newspaper editors (who help pay the Wine Curmudgeon's bills), it was only sensible to write something..

The article is not about pairing wine and chocolate. This has not only been done to death, but isn't especially true. Inexpensive cabernet sauvignon doesn’t do chocolate very well, no matter how good the wine writer is. And anyone who pairs $50 cabernet with chocolate is missing the point of $50 cabernet.

Technorati Tags: Valentine's Day wine,sparkling wine,pink wine,rose

New Mexico's sparkling wine

Drive north on I-25, past downtown, and it's on the right, a fairly non-descript beige building stuck among the usual sorts of things scattered along an interstate on the outskirts of town -- in this case, Albuquerque, N.M. But don’t be deceived by looks. The building houses the headquarters of Gruet Winery, which is one of the best sparkling wine producers in the United States.

That Gruet is one of the best, and that the company does it with grapes grown in New Mexico, speaks volumes about how far regional wine making has come in the U.S. Gruet sells more than 80,000 cases in 48 states, and it graces the wine lists of high-class bistros around the country. And, it’s an example that other regional winemakers can study to see how to match grapes with climate and turn out a critically acclaimed product at a more than fair price.

Wine of the week: Freixenet Cava Brut Rosé NV

Freixenet, once one of the best cheap Spanish cavas, has been more or less a grocery store wine in the past several years. Brands like Cristalino, Perfect and Extra offer more bang for the same or even less bucks.

So when I saw this during my New Year's bubbly expedition, I picked it up. It was $8 -- certainly worth a try. I'm glad I did. This was dry and bubbly, but with a subtle red berry fruitiness that comes out the longer the bottle is open. It's not as rough as the Freixenet Brut, but it still has that distinctive cava tightness. Highly recommended, either for sipping on its own or with salads and even seafood.

Technorati Tags: cava,sparkling wine,Freixenet

The 2008 $10 Wine Hall of Fame

Take a peek at the upper left hand corner, and you'll find the new Hall of Fame. What makes a Hall of Fame wine? There’s not necessarily a precise explanation. It’s better than it should be, and it’s consistent from year to year, just like more expensive wines with better reputations. That’s one reason wines have been dropped from the Hall of Fame, and several were this year.

Several other notes:

• These wines are generally available in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, so I don't have to get involved in the Two Buck Chuck debate. There are no Trader Joe's in this part of the country.

• I am not enamored of Yellow Tail, which doesn't rise above the level of grocery store wine. They may represent good value, but they aren't Hall of Fame wines.

• I’m still searching for that terrific $10 Argentine malbec. Most of the malbec I’ve tasted in this country is $15 or so; good wines, certainly, but not eligible for the Hall of Fame.

• And there is no pinot noir in the U.S. for less than $10 that is Hall worthy. The French labels like Red Bicyclette and Lulu B are easy to drink, but not especially pinot like. And most of the $10 U.S. I have tasted has some varietal character, but almost nothing else.