Category:Wine Curmudgeon

Cava update: Tuesday

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Call it Cuvee Cranky — my entry in the informal competition between the writers on the cava trip to blend the best sparkling wine. We did the blending on Tuesday, and, believe it or not, Seguras Viudas winemaker Gabriel Suberviola picked mine as the best blend. Yes, the wine world did turn upside down.

I'll write more next week when I get back, but it's enough to know that we have some top wine types on this trip to Spain. So I didn't beat just any group of schlubs. And, given that wine making is not what I do, I was quite surprised. Suberviola said my blend was "balanced and harmonic." Who knew?

Cava update: Monday

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

A couple of quick thoughts after a lunch of seafood paella and two kinds of Aria cava:

? Toni Domenech, who does PR for Segura Viudas, is a native of the Penedes region, ewhre e picked cava grapes as a teenager. Gives him a perspective that not many PR people have.

? For sale at the wine bar in the Madrid airport — a glass of Santa Digna rose for 3.45, or about $5. I can’t remember the last time I saw a quality glass of wine like the Digna at that price in an airport. Good coffee there, too, though I didn’t cover myself with glory when I dropped my espresso cup and broke it.

? Chickpeas are very big in this part of Spain, and they are sold fresh. The difference in taste between fresh and dried (and especially the dried we get in Dallas) was amazing. We had a chickpea stew with sausage and garlic last night for dinner, at the appropriately Spanish time of 9 p.m., that was astounding.

Spain, cava and the Wine Curmudgeon

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

The Wine Curmudgeon will be in Spain next week, touring the cava region in and around Barcelona, plus a side trip to Priorat. I'll have a full report on my return, and will try to add a couple of updates while I'm in Spain.

This trip is being paid for by the company that owns the Seguras Vidas label, but no quid pro quos have been made to allow me to go on the trip. If something isn't up to snuff, I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Though, to be honest, anyone who reads the blog even occasionally knows how much I like cava.

The other highlight? I'm told I'll be able to create my own cuvee — Wine Curmudgeon cava? Maybe with a cartoon of a bearded fellow with a hat and glasses hunched over a keyboard for the label? Letting wine writers make their own wine is au courant on press trips these days, but I'm still looking forward to it. Though, apparently, I'm going to have to sit through some sort of yeast class.

And don't worry. The blog will roll on while I'm gone, with all the regular features. I may be a little slow in responding to emails and comments, but I will get to them.

Update: Wine writers and certification

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

The cyber-ether has been flaming since Thursday's Enobytes post about certifying wine writers. Who would have thought wine writers cared that much? Even the Wine Curmudgeon has been flamed, and right here on my own blog. Given that this is not the kind of blog that gets a lot of comments (what's there to say about a $10 wine review?), getting flamed is even more rare. Almost made me feel hip and with it. Thank you, Mack Daddy and Ned.

The Enobytes post is up to 159 comments as of this morning, many of which are mini-posts themselves. A look at some of the most interesting ones, as well as comment from other wine blogs, after the jump:

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Certifying wine writers and keeping the riff raff out of the business

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Imagine the Wine Curmudgeon’s shock and surprise when he read this:

“In all honesty, I think most readers would prefer to learn from those that were educated in a specialized field (wine) and those that have real hands on experience (at a restaurants, wineries, sales positions, winemaking and such) rather than learning from those that were taught to write prose (journalism) while learning about wine on the job.”

The quote comes from a post on the Enobytes wine blog, which regularly ranks among the top blogs in the business. It was written by Pamela Heiligenthal, who co-founded the blog and has an impressive list of credentials after her name, including a couple of wine certifications. It generated tremendous comment (almost 80 the last time I checked) and a fair number of them agreed with Heiligenthal.

That doesn’t mean, however, that her premise makes any sense. In fact, it is flat out wrong.

Heiligenthal’s premise? There’s a lot of junk being written about wine on the Internet by people who don’t know what they’re writing about. So, if wine writers are certified, then the junk will go away.

I don’t know Heiligenthal (though, apparently, I’m going to meet her in 10 days on a wine trip), and I’m sure she means well. But good intentions don’t make up for bad ideas, no matter how you phrase them. And this is a bad idea. I’ll skip the obvious part about enforcing such a completely un-enforceable concept, including the bit about the First Amendment to the Constitution. This is the United States, and anyone can write about anything they want without getting permission. Or that, given her reasoning, I’m not qualified to do this.

It’s a bad idea for lots of other reasons.

• Certification is no guarantee of quality, and non-certification is no guarantee of non-quality. I have met people who write about wine with all sorts of initials after their name whose palates are non-existent and who can’t tell the difference between a sentence and a corkscrew. And some of the best, most knowledgeable wine writers I know are not certified. The legendary Diane Teitelbaum, who helped me get started in this business and knows more about wine than most people know they need to know, is not certified.

• Heiligenthal compares wine writing, as a skill, with occupations that require licensing or certification, like law and financial planning. This is certainly not a valid comparison; wine writing in no way is as important as law or financial planning, and doesn’t deserve the same consideration.

• Why certify wine writers if we aren’t going to certify movie reviewers and restaurant critics? Heiligenthal spends some time on this, and concludes that the best restaurant critics have worked in the restaurant business. Which means that someone like Mark Bittman, who may be the best food writer in the country, isn’t qualified to do his job?

• Wine writing is not just one, clean, neat subject. It’s thousands of subjects, and who’s to say what’s more important than another? Am I less of a wine writer because I specialize in $10 wine and regional wine? Or can I only be certified if I write about “acceptable” subjects?

• Heiligenthal seems to imply that writing skill is, in some way, a detriment to what she considers quality wine writing. I’m baffled by this (and maybe I’ve misunderstood it). Is Hemingway less of a novelist because he writes well?

Again, I’m sure Heiligenthal means well. The Internet has removed many of the barriers to wine writing, and it’s a scary place where here be dragons. Even I, for all of my contrariness, can see the appeal of a world where everyone accepted that I was one of the best, and where I didn’t have to worry about finding an audience or being successful. But that’s not how the world works. We live in a marketplace of ideas, where everyone has their say. The people who say the most intelligent things over the long run squeeze out the people who say stupid things.

And the Wine Curmudgeon wouldn’t have it any other way.

More about the conundrum of wine writing:
• Robert Parker and the Vintners Hall of Fame
• Wine writing: Does it make a difference?
• Cheap wine, consumers, and good reporting
• Wine writing, and what’s wrong with it

Wine I like

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

wine I like

The most common question people ask the Wine Curmudgeon is, not surprisingly, “What’s your favorite wine?” My answer, also not surprisingly, usually disappoints them. I am, after all, the Wine Curmudgeon.

That’s because I don’t have a favorite. One of the tenets of the Wine Curmudgeon’s faith is that wine should not be about playing favorites, but about looking for new wine to enjoy. What’s the point of drinking the same wine over and over when there is so much still left to try?

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t certain wines that I like. White Burgundy is my guilty (and expensive) pleasure. Sparkling wine always makes me smile. Well-made regional wine, preferably with obscure grapes, is a huge treat. And, of course, any of my $10 wines — whether I’ve had it before or I’m tasting it for the first time — is a reason to open a bottle.

Which raises an important question that I’ve never really addressed in the blog’s three-year history: How do I decide which wines I like? What are my criteria? What makes a well-made wine? This is especially relevant given Monday’s release of the 2011 $10 Hall of Fame. It is, as always, an eclectic mix — grocery store wines, wines made with odd grapes, lots of rose, wines from small producers, and even chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon. What qualities do I find that sets them apart?

The first thing to understand is that wine is subjective. Everyone’s palate is different. What I taste in a wine may not be what you taste. The second thing to understand is that there are no bad wines. If you like a wine, it’s good, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.

That’s why I don’t use the words “good” and “bad” to describe wine. They’re empty adjectives and much too subjective — my interpretation of what wine should taste look, as if I was the wine tasting god and everyone had to obey my decisions. I’m also not a fan of descriptions like smooth; I’m not quite sure what that means. Water tastes “smooth,” but it’s not very wine-like. Smooth, I think, is an adjective people who drink a lot of poorly-made wine use when they find a wine that isn’t too tannic or too acidic. Too often, it’s a backhanded compliment.

Instead, I look for several other criteria:

• Is the wine flawed? It is corked or oxidized or dirty or out of balance, or any of the countless faults that can creep in?

• Is it varietally correct? If it’s chardonnay, does it taste like chardonnay? This is the most difficult criteria, oddly enough, since wine styles are ever changing. What was considered pinot noir 10 years ago is not necessarily considered pinot noir today, and I have to take that into account.

• Did the winemaker accomplish what he or she wanted to do? Does the wine taste like the winemaker wanted it to taste? This is not always as easy as it seems.

• Can I appreciate the wine even if I don’t like the style? I’ve noted many times how I feel about merlot, yet a merlot made the Hall of Fame in 2009 and 2010. I was able to put my prejudices aside and taste the wine for what it was, not what I thought it should be. (Note to wine snobs: Do this the next time you drink riesling.) This is the most difficult thing to do in wine, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve been drinking wine as long as I have or if you’re just starting.

• Is the wine honest? Yes, this is probably subjective, but I think it’s crucial to determining quality. Think about how many $10 red wines, regardless of producer, taste more or less the same, full of fruit and without much acid or tannin, and the cabernet tastes like merlot and the merlot tastes like shiraz. In this, they’re made to appeal to a specific demographic, and the idea was not to make quality wine, but to make adequate wine. And who needs adequate wine? Adjectives like interesting or intriguing are hallmarks of honest wine, because honest wine offers some characteristic that adequate wine doesn’t.

Because, in the end, it’s about finding wine that I like — and, hopefully, that you will too.

The 2011 $10 Wine Hall of Fame

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

$10halloffame Six wines in, four out, and an analysis of what happened with cheap wine in 2010. That's the result of the 2011 $10 Wine Hall of Fame. For all of the great wine I found last year — from Sicily, from Oregon, and even from France — this year's Hall was a bit of a disappointment. Click the previous link  to see which wines made it, or go to the upper left hand corner of the page.

No new California wines made the Hall. For the most part, the California wines I tasted (save for the old dependables like Bogle and Toad Hollow) were boring and unimpressive. California can make much better cheap wine (and it has), and I hope 2011 will show a return to form.

The ground rules for this, the fifth annual, Hall of Fame: The wines have to cost $10 or less (Dallas prices, though I will make an exception if prices seem to be higher here) and be generally available. That means no wines like Trader Joe's Two Buck Chuck, which are only sold at one retailer. The final decisions are my own, and take into account what I think wine should be: varietally correct, balanced, and interesting enough to buy again.

I do take suggestions and input from dozens of people — blog visitors and wine drinkers, people I know in the wine business, and other wine writers. Thank you for your help.

Finally, two wines that almost made it:

? Barefoot merlot. I spent a lot of time on this one, and was encouraged by several people to add it, but finally decided not to. The Barefoot wines are professionally made, but I don't think they're as interesting as the wines I selected.

? Rene Barbier Mediterranean White: I love this wine, which is simple and pleasant and almost relaxing. But as much as I like it, it is, like the Barefoot, too simple. There's not just enough going on.