Tag Archives: chardonnay

Wine review: Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay 2010

The wine business doesn ?t have a national brand, in the way detergent has Tide or ketchup has Heinz. Those products are instantly recognizable, sold everywhere in the country, and seen as representative of their category.

What the wine business has, instead, is Kendall-Jackson. It ?s about the only brand sold everywhere that wine is sold, and even people who barely drink wine know Kendall-Jackson. And what was the big wine news when Barack Obama was elected president? That someone had seen K-J bottles in his Chicago home.

The chardonnay is the most ubiquitous of the Kendall-Jackson wines. It made the brand famous, and has been the best-selling chardonnay in the country for 20 years, according to the winery. Some 2.5 million cases are sold annually, which would make it the 12th biggest winery in the U.S., according to Wine Business Monthly.

The secret to the wine ?s success? Stuck fermentation, which the late Jess Jackson, who started the winery, pioneered in the early 1980s. In stuck fermentation, not all of the sugar in the grape juice is converted into alcohol during fermentation, which produces a sweeter wine.

As such, the chardonnay ($15, sample) is rarely taken seriously. Or, as issacjamesbaker wrote on CellarTracker (the unofficial wine inventory software of the blog):

?I picked this up at the grocery store just for the hell of it. The nose shows the expected buttered pear, but also some crisp green apple. The palate actually has some fresh acid, which I like. Crisp apple flavors, rounded out by some whipped butter. Not toasty at all, just pure buttered fruit. The acid on the finish keeps it balanced. This is not a serious wine, but it's very pleasant, albeit not very exciting. ?

That ?s a fine description of the wine (though ?whipped butter ? is a bit much), and is pretty much what it tastes like. What surprised me were how those flavors and qualities were so noticeable, when in most wines at this price (and I ?ve seen it for as little as $10), you have to hunt for them. This is not a shy wine.

But the tasting note is written entirely from the perspective of someone who doesn ?t think the wine is worth writing about. And that ?s the thing about K-J and its wines that always baffles me. It takes effort to make the wine taste that way year after year, because the key to grocery store wines is consistency of quality. Consumers will forgive one lesser vintage, but after that, it ?s on to the next cute label.

In this, K-J also pioneered something taken for granted these days ? the professionally made wine, produced every year without flaws or off-tastes. When I started drinking wine in the 1980s, it was all too common to find wines that were oxidized or made with unripe fruit or tainted in some way. That almost never happens anymore, and today ?s arguments about wine quality are about styles and not whether the wine is technically well made.

No doubt I wax too metaphysical. K-J and Jackson ?s successors probably don ?t care about that. What ?s a 92 in the Spectator when your chardonnay is bigger than all but 11 wineries in the U.S.?

Mini-reviews 31: Carmel Road, Campodelsole, Wine Guerrilla, Embotellado

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 (Thursday this month because of the holiday):

? Carmel Road Liberated Chardonnay ($16, sample): Unoaked chardonnay that is fresh, clean and crisp. Holds its 14.1 percent alcohol well, and is pretty much a value at this price.

? Campodelsole Sangiovese 2008 ($5, purchased): As The Italian Wine guy put it: "That $5 wine should be $12. But we don ?t know how to sell it to Americans. So we are discounting it while it is still good. Our gift to you." Earthy and old-fashioned; needs food.

? Wine Guerrilla Rebel Cru 2009 ($25, sample): Powerful zinfandel red blend with massive fruit, almost 15 percent alcohol and very little subtlety. If you like that style of wine, you're going to love this. Excellent example of post-modern California winemaking.

? Embotellado Rioja 2010 ($12, sample): Lots of red fruit in the middle. Nothing really wrong with it if you want a fruit forward wine that tastes like Australia but comes from Spain.

Expensive wine 34: J.M. Boillot Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru Les Referts 2003

10190135One of the myths about the wine business is that wine needs to age. Most wine doesn't, of course. Buy it and drink it and neither the drinker nor the wine will be worse off. That's something that most people, and even those who drink a lot of wine, are often confused about.

Hence it's always a treat to taste wine where aging is part of the wine's makeup. Generally, these are expensive, Old World wines; California high-end producers have a love-hate relationship with aging wine, though there are certainly some California wines that age well and producers who care about it.

The Boillot ($30, purchased) is a good example of how aging works (and comes from a solid, if lesser known, producer in Burgundy). It's chardonnay that is ready to drink now, and doesn't seem tight or jumbled the way younger wines that are made to age sometimes do. In other words, you can taste all the flavors — they're distinct and one doesn't dominate the mix. In this case, that means pears and some apples, even a little honey, and the minerality that is so crucial to these wines. There was a little more oak than I expected, but it still had all of Puligny's rich and lush fruit and character.

The other thing about aging? Wines can fade, and get worse, not better. The Boillot is ready to drink now. Hold it for much longer, and the fruit will go away and the wine will, literally, lose flavor. Now, though? A great gift or something to serve for a fancy holiday dinner where you pull out all of the stops. Cream sauce, even.

Mini-reviews 29: Stag’s Leap, Flat Creek, Le Grand Nor, De Bortoli

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:

? Stag's Leap Merlot 2004 ($35, sample): Cleaning out the wine cellar, and found this gorgeous, beautiful wine. Tastes like Napa, with deep, luscious black fruit, but with other qualities that make for a wonderful wine, including a long chalky finish and a full, rich middle.

? Flat Creek Estate Pinot Grigio 2010 ($18, purchased): Texas white wine that sits between tonic Italian pinot grigio (has more lemon) and fruit forward Oregon pinot gris. There was something odd in the back that bothered me, but may not bother anyone else. And it would be a better value at $14 or $15.

? Le Grand Noir Chardonnay 2009 ($8, purchased): French white with too much badly done fake oak and without enough fruit to cover up the oak. Not very interesting one way or the other.

? De Bortoli Sauvignon Blanc Emeri NV ($11, sample): Very odd, but intriguing, Australian bubbly made with sauvignon blanc. Sweet tropical fruit but not as much citrus as one would expect. Less tight and bubbly than cava, but not as soft as some Italian sparklers. Keep in mind for the holidays.

Wine of the week: Tormaresca Chardonnay 2010

The first time time the Wine Curmudgeon tasted the Tormaresca chardonnay, I knew two things. First, that Italian chardonnay was not something most people wanted to write about. The Italians had plenty of other white wine grapes; what were they doing messing around with chardonnay? The other thing I knew was that Tormaresca made really good cheap wine.

So I really wasn’t surprised at the quality. Tormaresca, as a producer, is that good. Somehow, on their property in Puglia in the Italian boot heel, they do things that other wineries can only dream about.

The current vintage of the chardonnay ($12, sample) is better than ever — bright, clean and crisp (almost too much crisp, actually, though that should not be a problem as the wine ages). There is lots of green apple fruit, enough oak to complement the fruit but not to overwhelm it, and only 12 1/2 percent alcohol. As always, I wonder why the Italians can make such a pleasant chardonnay while so many in California, where chardonnay is an important grape, stumble in the dark trying to do the same thing. Drink this chilled on its own, or pair it with a variety of white wine food — roast chicken, spaghetti carbonara or even Sunday brunch.

And, for those keeping track of these things, I’ll review the current vintage of the Tormaresca Neprica during the blog’s Birthday Week in November — and yes, we’ll once again give a bottle away of Neprica.

Mini-reviews 28: Los Vascos, picpoul, Sledgehammer, Re Midas

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:

? Los Vascos Chardonnay 2010 ($10, purchased): Not what it once was, and can’t be the same wine that several readers suggested I try. Some green apple, but heavy and oily — not good characteristics in a $10 chardonnay.

? Bertrand Picpoul-de-Pinet 2010 ($10, purchased): Extremely disappointing picpoul, more like a white Bordeaux. Mostly citrus fruit without picpoul’s mineral character.

? Sledgehammer Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 ($15, sample): Big, fruity, unsubtle and straightforward. This is a simple wine that delivers chocolate cherries and caramel for those who like that sort of thing.

? Cantina di Soave Re Midas 2010 ($10, sample): Not much there, even for $10. Almost heavy, with little of Soave’s crispness or minerality. Made in more of a New World, chardonnay style.

Wine review: Cupcake Chardonnay 2009

This review has been on the Wine Curmudgeon's to do list since Cupcake was named the country's hottest wine brand. And now that E&J Gallo's Barefoot, a similar sort of brand, has been anointed the country's top-seller, what better time to do the review? (And there will be a follow-up to the Barefoot post soon, which apparently created some controversy.)

The Cupcake wines are from Underdog Wine Merchants, which has established a very profitable niche by selling grocery-store wines with incredibly cute names — not just Cupcake, but brands like Fish Eye, Flip Flop, and Big House.

Cupcake always does well in blind tastings, and has earned some impressive medals at competitions. This wine got a big-deal gold medal at the California State Fair, and a silver at my pal Robert Whitley's Critics Challenge. So how would I feel about the wine when not tasting it blind, but with my critical, don't-judge-a-wine-by-its-label eye?

About the same way I feel about many grocery store wines. There was nothing really wrong with the Cupcake ($10, purchased) other than its price. It's a pleasant enough as $10 wine — not quite as interesting as the Bogle chardonnay, with some pear and green apple. It also had what seemed to be vanilla wood chips, which added a not subtle flavor that got in the way of the fruit (which may be a function of the wine not aging well, and the 2010 may not have that problem).

The catch, though, is that Cupcake is a $12 or 13 wine; this was on sale for $10, as near as I can tell, because it was a previous vintage. So that's the choice the consumer has to make. Do you pay an extra 20 percent or more for the name and label, or do you buy something like Bogle, which is often on sale for as little as $8 or $9? We all know the choice the Wine Curmudgeon would make.