by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
The address for this site has changed ? it ?s now www.winecurmudgeon.com, just like a real web feature. You can still access it using the old address, or so I ?m told. But better safe than sorry.
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
Yes, I had a wonderful time. Yes, I found cheap wine, and yes, I found really good cheap wine. The full account is here (though, at 1,100 words, you might want to read it in stages). Hopefully, I'll also be able to get some pictures up in a slide show over the next week or so.
What's worth noting now is something that I think many of us in the New World forget about French wine. They have been doing it a very, very long time, and that makes a difference that is almost impossible to understand.
The modern California wine industry dates from the end of World War II, or about 60 years. Many of the 14 chateaux I visited had vines that old or older. In Texas, where so many winemakers and winery owners are eager to hurry up and make great wine, our vines are 20 years old at best. The average age of most of the vines at the dozen or so chateaux I visited is almost 10 years older than that.
Age brings experience which brings quality. Jean de Cournuaud, the ninth generation of his family to make wine at Chateau Mazeris, told me he had to pull out some vines a couple of years ago because they were too old and had stopped producing. The vines had been planted at the beginning of the 20th century, when France had been devastated by phylloxera. That's like finding out your grandfather played baseball with Babe Ruth. France just doesn't make wine. It makes history.
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
See the Wine Curmudgeon in person! For free!!
John Bratcher, my partner in the Two Wine Guys, wine guru Dan Peabody, and I will hold Wine 101 seminars at the State Fair of Texas through Oct. 19. The classes, held in the Wine Garden in back of the Food and Fiber building, are free. They last 15 or 20 minutes, and we cover wine basics.
The schedule through the end of the fair is here.
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
? State Fair of Texas: The fair ?s Wine 101 classes, which proved such a big hit last year, will return when the fair begins Friday. Look for the Wine Garden, in back of the Food and Fiber building. And, yes, that will be the Wine Curmudgeon holding classes, rotating with well-known wine types John Bratcher and Dan Peabody.
? Manhattan gets a winery: Urban wineries are popular, but in Manhattan? Nevertheless, City Winery, which is set to open this fall, has imported a French winemaker and is run by several well-known New York restaurant types. The biggest question, of course, is price vs. value. How can a winery paying Manhattan rents (and. in this case, SoHo rents, produce wine at a competitive price?
? More wine score sighing: This, from the Wine Blue Book, which compares wines based on price and scores: 2005 Lewis Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Reserve ($113) –average score, 95 points; cost is 41 percent of the average of a similar scoring West Coast cabernet sauvignon. This means it ?s a "Great Value." Have we fallen so far that a $113 wine is a great value?
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
This is the second of two parts looking at restaurant wine and what Americans drink. Part I is here.
The good news, if anyone in the restaurant business is paying attention, is that Americans want to drink interesting, quality wine in restaurants ? if the restaurants will let them.
That was one of the most intriguing bits buried in this year ?s Top 100 Wine Brands and Top 100 Individual Wines, a report compiled by Restaurant Wine magazine tracking restaurant wine sales in 2007.
Sales of some of the least interesting traditional wines declined in 2007, and there were sales boosts for several newcomers that were not the same old stuff. What does this mean? Forward-thinking restaurateurs, and even those who work for chains and corporations, can put together a more appealing and less expensive wine list.
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
A few thoughts about Bordeaux, before I get home and write about how much fun this has been:
1. It's a pleasure to be in a country where people hold a wine glass by the stem.
2. Cheval Blanc is very, very good.
3. Bordeaux is quite pretty. Richard Carleton Hacker, who is on this press trip, said it looks like the kind of wine country that defines the term, the kind of ambiance that the rest of the world aspires to.
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
It ?s probably going to be the Wine Curmudgeon ?s fault. I ?m going to be in Bordeaux Thursday through Monday on a wine trip, and on our itinerary are Cheval Blanc, one of the jewels of Bordelais winemaking, and perhaps Chateau Petrus, which produces one of the most expensive wines in the world.
Regular visitors here know that I like cheap wine. I thrive on cheap wine. It ?s as much a part of me as my Chicago upbringing or my fondness for the Ramones. The minute that I set foot on the grounds of either of those two properties, I am terrified that the heavens will open, various people will be felled by lightning bolts, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will ride up.
As if the world doesn ?t have enough problems already.
