Category:Regional wine

Toast of Taos — Southwest Wine Competition

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Off for three days to judge in the Southwest Wine Competition at the Toast of Taos, a well-regarded regional festival. The miracle of technology will keep the posts coming here, since the Wine Curmudgeon remains at heart a newspaperman who feels compelled to write something every day. Or face the wrath of the gods of journalism. I'll have a full report next week.

I'm looking forward to the judging, and not just because night-time temperatures are about 30 degrees cooler in the mountains of northern New Mexico than here in Dallas. This is a chance to taste lots of regional wine, and I haven't been able to do that for a while.

Father’s Day wine suggestions

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

image Call it barbecuing or grilling. Use a smoker or a gas grill or charcoal. Choose between beef or pork or chicken or vegetables. Regardless of which, though, it’s part of the Father’s Day tradition.

So what wine do you pair with kind of food? The classic pairing for grilled sausage is sweetish white wine like riesling or gew rztraminer. And the heartiest red meats, like grilled rib eye or smoked brisket, can take a hearty red wine.

But sometimes, how you ?re cooking the food makes a difference. Grilled chicken marinated in olive oil, garlic and rosemary pairs with sauvignon blanc. But smoke that same piece of chicken with a dry rub, and it changes character entirely. Then, you ?ll want a light red wine like a tempranillo or a beaujolais. And rose, of course, will go with almost everything except that grilled rib eye. The bright fruit complements barbecue ?s smokiness quite nicely, in fact.

Continue reading →

The basics of enjoying wine, part I

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

image

This is the first of a three-part question and answer series about wine basics. The second part will run June 6 and the third part on June 13.

It's summer. It's warm. You want a glass of wine. But you don't know a chardonnay from a cabernet. What's an aspiring wine drinker to do?

Have no fear. The Wine Curmudgeon is here. In fact, The first question people always ask me about wine is how to get started drinking it. For some reason, Americans are convinced that wine is not something to drink with dinner, but a secret holy society that requires rituals and initiations to understand.

This is silly, and I ?m proof of that. Today, I ?m a wine writer and educator who travels throughout the wine world. But 20 years ago, I was a sportswriter who drank Miller Lite and thought wine was something that only snooty people did. If I can learn about wine, anyone can. My biggest regret is that I didn ?t start sooner. I missed drinking a lot of good wine.

Hence this Q and A, which is enough to get almost anyone ready to look at their glass, take a sip, and sigh.

Continue reading →

Tuesday tidbits 25

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

? Aussie wine take takes an import hit: It’s not news the historically weak U.S. dollar is hurting foreign wine producers. But what is news is that the strong Australian dollar is making imports cheaper Down Under, and clobbering the Australian wine business from that direction. Imports from Chile, South Africa and Argentina will rise 50 percent this year, says a government study. Fosters Wine Estates, which sends brands Like Greg Norman, Lindemans, and Rosemount to the U.S., says that a one cent rise in the value of the Australian dollar against the US costs it A$3.2 million in revenue (about US$3.04 million). The Aussie dollar has risen 10 cents since the middle of December.

? Another shot at Robert Parker: This, from the food writer Alice Feiring: “Forget ‘Eureka,’ the new state motto can well be: ‘Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.’ Today’s California wines are overblown, over-alcoholed, over-oaked, overpriced and over-manipulated.” Sounds like the Wine Curmudgeon, doesn’t she? Feiring, whose forthcoming book is called The Battle for Wine and Love — Or How I Saved the World from Parkerization, doesn’t mince words. She rips some of California’s best-known winemakers, including Helen Turley, and even gets a dig in at a Texan named Michael Stewart, who owns Napa’s Stewart Cellars.

? Texas wines in Smart Money: Wine writer Raymond Sokolov praises Llano Estacado, Pheasant Ridge and Woodrose in the current issue of Smart Money (which isn’t available on-line.). It also discusses the three-tier distribution system, and how difficult it is to get Texas wines in places out of Texas. One correction, though: Sokolov identifies Llano as a boutique producer, which it isn’t. In fact, it makes 100,000 cases a year and is the state’s second biggest producer.

A look at Colorado wine, part I

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

image

This is the first of two parts looking at Colorado wine. Today is  an overview, and Monday is a look some of the wines.

Guy Drew, who owns the self-named winery outside of Cortez in southwestern Colorado, insists the high desert in that part of the state will eventually produce world-class wines. And he isn ?t alone in that optimism, either. Talk to growers and winemakers throughout Colorado, from Grand Junction in the west to the Front Range in the east, and you ?ll hear the same thing. Colorado is a wine phenomenon waiting to happen.

Says Horst Caspari, the state viticulturist: ?One day, we ?ll be so popular, you ?ll see Hollywood celebrities buying land here and opening wineries. ?

Continue reading →

Oregon wine update

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

image And it’s mostly good news, if my experience yesterday at a 20-winery tasting in Dallas is any indication. Oregon is best known for its world-class pinot noir and chardonnay, and there was plenty of that on hand. But the state’s producers are working with a variety of other other cool climate grapes, including and especially German varietals.

That said, the 2006 harvest had its problems. I tasted a surprising number of flabby and uninteresting wines, including too many that were overly alcoholic. That almost never happens in Oregon. I was told that this development has more to do with the difficulties in 2006 (not enough sun, too cool) than with any style shift. I hope so. Oregon is famous for its accessible, fruit-driven wines, which are a welcome relief to so much that comes out of California.

Here are some of the highlights from the tasting:

Continue reading →