Suggestions for the wine drinkers on your list. Don't forget the wine gift-giving guidelines ("Don't buy someone wine that you think they should like; buy them what they will like") and Champagne and sparkling wine glossary. More, after the jump:
Tag Archives: $10 wine
The backlash against cheap wine
These should be the best days for cheap wine. The recession has focused the wine industry on wine that costs less than $10, and producers around the globe have been racing to put out as much inexpensive wine as possible. When a sparkling wine house like J does a $15 pinot gris, the world has definitely changed.
But a lot of people are not happy about this. The industry, despite its embrace of cheap wine, doesn’t really seem to have much affection for it. They’ll take the cash, much as they have always done with white zinfandel, but they really don’t want to be associated with it. Follow the business, and you’ll see news reports and interviews over and over about what really matters to them: When are consumers going to start buying wine that costs more than $15 again?
The wine media, even in the cyber-ether, has not been happy with the emphasis on cheap wine, either. Over the last several weeks, there have been a variety of posts and discussions about cheap wine’s popularity and that it’s not necessarily a good thing. The gist? That those of us who advocate cheap wine are missing the point, and that we care only about price and not about quality. Which is not necessarily the case.
The apparent catalysts for the cyber-bickering were the publication of George Taber’s new book, “Bargain Wines” and Brian Palmer’s rant on Slate that most wine was overpriced. Taber argues that cheap wine is better than ever, while Palmer takes that approach one step further: “There are plenty of reasons to go back to our 1990s habits, and to start using 15 bucks to buy four or five bottles instead of just one.”
The controversy, which included the eminent Jon Bonne in the San Francisco Chronicle, was nicely summed up by Evan Dawson at New York Cork Report, who noted that consumer perceptions of cheap wine are not necessarily the same as those of people who drink wine for a living. Which is exactly the point that almost everyone else missed.
The United States is not a wine drinking country. We are a soft drink country, and most of us don’t know anything about wine. What most of us do know is that wine is confusing and expensive and reserved for really special people who can talk funny about it. And anyone who loves wine who denies this is kidding themselves. I got a release the other day from a new wine club that said it would demystify and de-snobify wine — and then used the same foolish winespeak to describe how wonderful its wines were.
Given this, is it any wonder that most Americans buy wine strictly by price? Mark Bittman, the New York Times food writer and top-flight cookbook author, put this into perspective for me during an interview several years ago. Most people, he said, look at wine as an alcohol intake system. They drink wine because it makes them feel good. They really don’t care about the wine stuff. I see this every time I do a public event, and ask the audience if a $100 wine is 10 times better than a $10 wine. The audience, almost every time, offers a unanimous no. It doesn’t matter if they are right or wrong; it’s their perception that counts.
Which is the real problem, and one that the wine business — and those of us who write about wine — don’t address. We don’t do enough to make wine accessible. We don’t do enough to educate consumers. We want to be famous, and this goes for wine writers as well as winemakers. The dirty little secret of my business is that too many of us want to be Robert Parker, and that’s not going to happen by writing about Yellow Tail or Barefoot or by teaching consumers how to tell the difference between a $6 wine and a $10 wine.
My pal Dave McIntyre got to the heart of the matter with his post on the subject: People should not advocate for cheap wine, but for cheap wine that delivers value and quality. And an East Coast blogger, Pia Mara Finkell, wrote that the next great wine trend will not be about cheap, but about value, what she called finding diamonds in the rough.
Which, of course, is what I have always done here. That’s why the $10 Hall of Fame exists. That’s why I write 52 wines of the week every year, highlighting just those kinds of wine. The debate should not be about cheap wine, but about quality. Are there well-made cheap wines? Of course, just as there are well-made expensive wines. And are there poorly-made cheap wines? Indeed, just as there are poorly-made expensive wines. It’s no crime to make consumers aware of that.
In fact, our job should be to educate consumers about what constitutes quality, and how to tell the difference. And every time we give a point score and use words like licorice and toast, we’re doing just the opposite — and consumers reach for the wine that delivers the most alcohol for the buck.
Sadly, though, that may be a distinction that too many in the wine world don’t — or don’t want to — understand.
Wine of the week: Aia Vecchia Maremma 2010
White wines from Tuscany in Italy are not as rare as $10 Champagne, but they’re rare enough. And really well made Tuscan whites are even more rare. So rare, in fact, that this wine’s importer doesn’t even mention the wine on its website. Tuscany only produces red wine, dammit, and don’t you forget it.
So look for the Maremma ($10, sample) and enjoy the laugh you’ll have on the wine snobs. It’s made with the vermentino grape, which is best enjoyed young and usually with seafood. And the Maremma fits this mold: Very, very bright, with crisp acidity — almost too much, which is saying something given the Wine Curmudgeon’s preference for crisp white wines from Italy. It also had a little more fruit than I expected (limeish), but not in an unpleasant, let’s fool the Americans way.
As noted, drink it with seafood (grilled shrimp), but also grilled chicken and as something to enjoy after a long day of holiday shopping.
Mini-reviews 30: Nouveau, Napa Cellars, Vieux Papes, Honker
Reviews of wines that don ?t need their own post, but are worth noting for one reason or another. Look for it on the final Friday of each month:
? Georges Dub uf Beaujolais Nouveau 2011 ($8, purchased): To quote a regular visitor here, "Better than it has been, but not better enough to buy again." Not as much ripe banana as usual, but still more juice than wine.
? Napa Cellars Merlot ($22, sample): Two or three years ago, these wines did not impress; today, with a little aging and a change in winemaking styles elsewhere, it's a winner: correctly tannic, with black fruit and even a bit of earthiness. Missing is the sweet fruit so common in these wines today.
? Vieux Papes Blanc de Blancs NV ($6, purchased): You get what you pay for — thin with a bit of green apple and not much else. Think of it as the French version of Two-buck Chuck.
? Cerruti Cellars Honker Blanc 2010 ($14, sample): California sauvignon blanc that would make a nice $10 wine but costs $4 more. Well crafted and clean, with some lime and tart apple.
Wine of the week: Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel 2009
This is the Wine Curmudgeon's Thanksgiving gift to the California wine industry. Taste this, and you'll see what great cheap wine should be.
This is not surprising, of course, to anyone who has been paying attention. Bogle has long been one of my favorite producers, and it has been in the $10 Hall of Fame for as long as there has been a $10 Hall. But given how California wants to make cheap red wine so that it tastes like slightly sweet grape juice with too much alcohol, I figured I'd better make the point again.
First, what doesn't the Bogle ($10, purchased) have? It doesn't have that cough syrupy sweet fruit that is all the rage. The alcohol isn't so overwhelming that that you feel it coming out of your nose. What does it have? Enough blueberry fruit to be noticeable, but not so much as to overpower the wine. A beginning and an end, including some very zippy tannins and a little earthiness — again, something not only rare in $10 wine, but especially these days, as winemakers try to make red wine taste as fruity as possible at the expense of everying else.
Highly recommended, and one of the best California red wines I've had in years. Embarrassingly better. This will earn Bogle a special citation when the 2012 Hall comes out in six weeks, and you could do much worse than to serve it at Thanksgiving. Much, much worse — as, sadly, too many will do, seduced by scores and descriptors that make them think the wine tastes better than it does.
More about Thanksgiving wine:
? Thanksgiving wine 2011
? Thanksgiving wine 2010
? Wine of the week: Chateau de Riviere Chinon 2009
? Wine of the week: Tortoise Creek Pinot Noir Les Oliviers 2010
? Wine of the week: Dry Creek Fume Blanc 2010
Wine review: Big House Red 2010
Which is why this review is here. Big House Red, for those of you who haven't had to read this before, was perhaps the finest line of cheap wine in the United States. Then, in one of those things that happens and that I never seem to be able to accept (bands breaking up, ballplayers being traded), Big House owner Randall Grahm sold the label in 2006 to The Wine Group. The wine hasn't been the same since.
Or has it? I've tasted most of the vintages since the sale, and they seemed lacking — missing something that they had when Grahm made them. But other people, including George Taber in "A Toast to Bargain Wines," don't feel that way, and Big House gets generally good reviews. So I decided to taste the wine one more time. More, after the jump:
Wine of the week: Chateau de Riviere Chinon 2009
One of the difficulties with deciphering French wine is a label that looks like this one. It's old-fashioned, with nary a hint about what's in the bottle. And what is a Chinon?
Even wine types who are moderately familiar with France are likely to be confused, because Chinon is just not that well known. It's a red wine region in a part of France, the Loire, that is known for white wine if it's known at all. So when someone sees this bottle in a store, it's not surprising if they walk past.
Which would be a mistake. The Riviere ($8, purchased) is fabulous cheap wine, and raises the question yet again of why we don't see this kind of effort from California more often. The Rivere, made with cabernet franc, is a simple wine, but not insulting like so many of its West Coast brethren. Look for some red fruit, maybe a hint of violet, some sweet tannins, a little pepper, and enough acid to balance that odd combination. The wine, also, is not green or unripe in any way, which is often the case for cheap cabernet franc.
It's red meat wine, but also easy enough if you want to drink it on its own. Highly recommended and almost certain to make the 2012 $10 Hall of Fame.