The Wine Curmudgeon

Wine review: Spy Valley Riesling 2011

One of the themes on the blog for the past couple of weeks has been value -- does a wine offer more to the consumer than it costs? In this, value is not about price, because not all cheap wine delivers value. Sometimes, it's just cheap.

It's also worth noting that a wine doesn't have to be cheap to offer value. Yes, it's more difficult for an expensive wine to do this, given that too many expensive wines are expensive because their reason for being is to be expensive. But it is certainly possible, and it happens more often than I acknowledge here.

One producer who consistently does this is New Zealand's Spy Valley, which as been making $15 and $20 wines that taste like they cost much more for as long as I have been writing about wine. I had one of those sublime, geeky wine experiences with the sauvignon blanc last year, and it's not even my favorite Spy Valley wine.

That would be the riesling ($18, purchased, 12.5%), which is as enjoyable as it is difficult to find. I only see it in Dallas every couple of years, given the vagaries of the three-tier system, so when I do see it, I buy it, even if it's a previous vintage. The producer is good enough so that doesn't matter.

The 2011 didn't let me down. It's not riesling like most consumers know it -- no sweet tea-like sugar or fruit flavors that taste like they came out of a can. Instead, it's a dry riesling, complex with layers of flavor that range from petrol on the nose (a classic riesling characteristic) to citrus and tropical in the front and middle. It's still fresh and almost aggressive after almost two years in bottle, which is a sign that it's only going to get better with age.

Serve this to someone who doesn't think they like riesling, and see if they change their mind. Highly recommended, and well worth the money.

Wine of the week: Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc-Viognier 2012

What's not to like about the Pine Ridge ($10, purchased, 12%)? It's cheap and it delivers so much more value than what it costs that I can't find a sufficient metaphor to describe how much more value that is.

The 2012 may be the best vintage ever, which is saying something given the wine's quality over the past decade. This California white wine blend offers peach fruit and a bit of floral from the viognier plus some citrus and a touch of honey from the chenin blanc. The chenin and viognier play off each other so well that it's hard to believe this wine didn't cost as much as one of Pine Ridge's $50 and $100 reds.

In this, it demonstrates one of the keys to finding great cheap wine from California. Forget the goofy names and cute labels; look for a less expensive wine from a producer who makes lots of expensive wine, be it Pine Ridge or Dry Creek. That's one of the lessons, by the way, in the Cheap Wine Book.

Highly recommended, and will almost certainly be included in the 2014 $10 Hall of Fame. Drink this chilled on its own or with almost any sort of white wine dish.

Mini-reviews 52: Beach House, Trump, Hedges, Drouhin

• Beach House Sauvignon Blanc 2013 ($10, sample, 13%): South African white was much different than I thought it would be -- young and fresh and citrusy, with a bit of a pithy finish. It’s a one-note wine, but delivers value for price.

• Trump SP Brut 2008 ($30, sample, 12%): Virginia sparkling wine from the former Kluge Estate continues the Kluge tradition of excellent bubbly. Lots of tight bubbles, crisp cherry fruit, an even finish, and a noticeable and welcome lack of oak.

• Hedges Family Estate Red Mountain 2011 ($25, sample, 13.5%): One of the best wines I've tasted this year -- classic Washington state red blend with rich, black fruit and where the Washington state syrah stands out. Highly recommended.

• Joseph Drouhin Bourgogne Laforet 2011 ($17, sample, 12.5%): Pinot noir from France has some Burgundian character, which means it has a little earthiness and not that much fruit. But it's a little thin, and the price is problematic.

Wine of the week: Domaine de la Janasse Terre de Bussiere 2009

Just when the Wine Curmudgeon thinks that he can’t be surprised by wine any more, I taste something like this. Is it any wonder that this is the best job in the world?

My reaction to the first sip was “Wow!” – for just that reason (and because, in my notes, wow stands for a possible wine of the week). The Janasse ($15, purchased, 15%) is a red blend from the Rhone in France, but with some very un-Rhone-like merlot added to syrah and grenache. I don’t pretend to understand what’s going on here, but I didn’t need to understand to enjoy it.

This is an earthy and fruity wine (black cherries?), if not especially complicated, and another example of the fine values that are available from the Rhone. It’s an end of the summer barbecue wine, perfect for the porch.

And don’t worry about that 15 percent alcohol level; frankly, I don't believe it (though 2009 was a very warm vintage in the Rhone). The wine wasn’t hot or overdone in the way that so many California 15 percenters are, and I only realized it was so high in alcohol when I did my notes.

Cupcake wine review 2013

The Wine Curmudgeon has discovered the flaw in the Cupcake Vineyards marketing juggernaut. It’s almost impossible to find the wines in a store, whether grocery or wine, that has any kind of inventory. It took me 10 minutes to locate the two bottles for this review, scuttling between aisles at my local Kroger; would a less determined consumer have done as much?

Maybe they would. Cupcake is the post-modern wine business success story, eclipsing even Barefoot and its millions and millions of cases. Three years after it started, Cupcake was named wine brand of the year, and its sales increased 67 percent in 2012, according to one market research firm.

Cupcake, as Blake Gray wrote last year, approaches wine from a different perspective. It markets its brand before it markets its products, so its customers don’t buy on varietal, like pinot noir, or region, like France, the way most of us do. Rather, its customers buy Cupcake first and worry about varietal and region later.

In this, the wine is marketed almost like women’s clothing, where Cupcake is the designer that shoppers look for before they look for a specific item like a dress or a skirt. That’s why Target has long offered designer collections, whether from Isaac Mizrahi, Jason Wu, or Phillip Lim.

None of this, of course, takes into account whether the wine offers value. That’s why I’m here – this year’s take is after the jump:

Expensive wine 54: Charles Heidsieck Champagne Brut NV

The occasion required a sparkling wine for celebration, and it required more than cava. So the Wine Curmudgeon, spotting the Heidsieck ($56, purchased, 12%) on the shelf at a local wine bar, opted for Champagne. And why not? How often does the Cheap Wine Book go on sale?

Champagne has long been one of the great contradictions in my wine drinking life. I love Champagne, but I have little use for the Champagne business. It embodies everything that makes me crazy about the way wine works – little regard for consumers, pricing that bears almost no relationship to reality, and the idea it can operate like it’s 1953 and not 2013.

But they do make nice wine, and the Heidsieck is no exception. Look for lots and lots of caramel at the front, giving way to layers and layers of flavor, including white fruit and a mineral finish that has been described as almost iodine by some of my colleagues. This is not a subtle or especially elegant Champagne, and bears more than a passing resemblance to the mass Champagnes, like Veuve Clicquot, that I don’t much care for. But it is incredibly well made and a perfect example of this style. And we had a fine time celebrating the book.

Wine of the week: Dry Creek Fume Blanc 2012

California wine takes a lot of abuse on the blog, and with good reason. Too much of it is cynically made and with little concern for value. Slap a marketing campaign on it, make sure there is a lot of sweet fruit in the mix, and flog it to unsuspecting consumers.

In fact, one blog visitor, then doing public relations for a wine producer, said her bosses were quite angry with the Wine Curmudgeon for writing just that several years ago, since it applied to one of their products. Which, of course, made me smile – isn’t that why I’m here?

But there are California labels that remind me that the state produces some of the best wine in the world, cheap or not. Dry Creek is one of them and its fume blanc ($10, purchased, 13.5%) is a classic that never disappoints. It’s made with sauvignon blanc (20 years ago, calling sauvignon blanc fume blanc was a popular marketing technique) and displays all of the flavor and character a California sauvignon blanc should. It’s not thin or watery or overdone, but has grassiness, lemon and lime fruit (maybe even a little more this vintage), and a clean, fresh finish.

Highly recommended, and almost certain to return to the $10 Hall of Fame in 2014. This is the fourth or fifth $10 California sauvignon blanc from the 2012 vintage that has been exceptional, including Joel Gott and Maxwell Creek. They have restored my faith in California sauvignon blanc.