Tag Archives: Gruet

Mini-reviews 65: Taris, Gruet, Cabirau, Yalumba

reviews Taris, Gruet, Cabirau, YalumbaReviews 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.

?Chateau Taris 2012 ($6, purchased, 12.5%): This Trader Joe’s red Bordeaux, with some red fruit, some oak, and soft tannins, is worth exactly what it costs. Whether it’s worth buying is up to you; I’d just as soon spend a couple of dollars more for a more interesting wine.

?Gruet Brut Rose NV ($16, sample, 12%): This New Mexico bubbly, now labeled American, was disappointingly dull and not what it once was. Not much body, with muted red fruit and a hit of caramel.

? Domaine Cabirau Ros 2013 ($12, purchased, 13%): Not quite Hall of Fame quality wine, but another in what is a wonderfully long line of delicious and well made roses for around $10. From southern France, made with a grenache blend, with tarti strawberry fruit, lots of crispness, and even a touch of spice.

? Yalumba Riesling 2012 ($10, purchased, 12.6%): This vintage of the Hall of Fame Aussie white is missing something, which may be nothing more than old age from sitting in a warehouse for too long. Some lemon and a hint of petrol, but thin and not all that much fun on the back end.

Wine of the week: Gruet Brut NV

GruetThe Wine Curmudgeon used to regularly pour this wine blind, and dare anyone who tasted it to guess where it was from. It was, of course, a trick question ? there ?s no way anyone would guess New Mexico.

Unfortunately, Gruet has been a victim of its own success. It was probably the first regional wine with distribution throughout the U.S., and it long ago had to start using grapes from California to ensure it could make enough to meet demand. And its price hasn ?t been $10 in a number of years (to say nothing of the company ?s other problems).

I was also unsure about quality after the addition of the California grapes. It might have been my imagination, but something seemed to be missing the couple of times I had tasted it. So I was relieved to find that the Brut ($13, purchased), Gruet ?s entry level wine, was up to its usual standards this time around.

Look for lots of tiny bubbles, some crisp green apple and a little something more than most bubbly at this price has. In this, it ?s less austere than a cava but not quite as complicated as a well-made, medium-priced California sparkling. Which means it ?s an ideal wine for The Holiday That Must Not be Named; you can still get a smile when you tell the other person the winery is in New Mexico.

Winebits 207: Wine sales, Gruet, wine names

? What wine companies think: We spend a lot of time on the blog talking about why wine producers do what they do, but we rarely get an inside look as revealing as this, an interview with the man who runs the company that owns Seghesio and Pine Ridge, among others. Says Erle Martin of Crimson Wine Group: "The recession has given consumers an opportunity to explore outside their comfort zone. If they used to fill the cart with $50 Napa Cabernet, now Argentine Malbecs are looking good, or Garnacha from Spain, or other full-bodied alternatives retailing at $10 or lower." The business jargon might slow the piece down a bit, but if you stay with it, you'll get a good sense of how these guys think and why they make the decisions they do.

? Gruet off the hook: A judge has ruled that New Mexico's Gruet Winery can't be included in the lawsuit to recover money from the the 2010 Cap*Rock bankruptcy auction debacle. That's when Laurent Gruet, whose family owns the winery, bid money he didn't have and won the auction to buy Cap*Rock. Walt Nett in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reports that the judge said the winery didn't actually participate in the auction and didn't give Laurent permission to bid on its behalf. The trial for damages is supposed to start Dec. 21. Who knew bankruptcy could be this much fun?

? Wine names and labels: An odd story in the New York Times detailing the trend towards cute wine labels and names, including several wines called Bitch. Why odd? Because this has been a trend for at least a decade, and there's nothing in the Times story that is especially new. And it fails to mention Randall Grahm, who pretty much invented this sort of thing. It's one of those stories that one reads and wonders why it was written; nothing in it is especially new. The cranky ex-newspaperman in me wonders if someone from the Times was wandering through a liquor store, saw a wine labeled Bitch, and thought it would make a good story — not knowing that it has been a good story for a long time.

Wine of the week: Gruet Rose NV

The Wine Curmudgeon missed this last fall, which was quite a faux pas given how much I care about regional wine. New Mexico's Gruet Winery was named the best U.S. wine producer in 2010 in the quite prestigious International Wine and Spirits Competition. Pretty impressive for a regional winery, no?

So what better way to mark the third annual DrinkLocalWine.com conference this weekend in St. Louis than with one of my all-time favorites, Gruet's rose sparkling wine? How a family of expatriate French can make such terrific bubbly in New Mexico, using pinot noir and chardonnay that they grow, is beyond me. I'm just glad they're able to do it.

The rose ($14, purchased) has a firm acidic backbone, as quality sparkling wine should, and is balanced by softer berry fruit (strawberry?). Meanwhile, there is just enough caramel, another sign of well-made bubbly, to show that the Gruets know what they are doing. Drink this chilled on its own or with any kind of spring dinner, salad or picnic. And if you have any cold fried chicken around, it would do quite nicely.

Winebits 164: Argentine wine, Gruet, corks and screwcaps

? Argentina ahead of Chile: Argentina exported more wine to the U.S. in 2010 than arch-rival Chile, which may have been the first time that has ever happened. Argentina ranks fourth, behind Italy, France and Australia, as a supplier of wine to the U.S. market. The two countries have been fighting for several years to see which would be the biggest exporter to the U.S. market, and it has turned into a point of national wine pride.

? Gruet says it didn’t do anything wrong: The story is more than a bit confusing, but the gist is this: When Laurent Gruet, whose family owns New Mexico’s Gruet Winey, bid for Texas’ bankrupt Cap*Rock Winery last year, Laurent wasn’t acting for the winery. Hence, neither he nor the winery is responsible for damages in a lawsuit relating to the failed bid. And, for good measure, the company that owns Gruet, which is controlled by the Gruet family, says Laurent “lacked the requisite mental capacity ? to bid for Cap*Rock.

? Everything you ever wanted to know about corks: The article in Practical Winery & Vineyard is quite technical, complete with diagrams of molecules, but the language isn’t too difficult and it’s easily the best piece I’ve ever seen on the difference between corks, screwcaps, and artificial corks. Plus, authors Carlos Macku, Ph.D., and Kyle Reed, Ph.D., from the department of technical services at Cork Supply in Benicia, Calif., threw in some some academic humor: “Wine packaging (probably one of the most challenging of all food barriers) has certainly evolved from the days when the product was transported, stored, and sold in Egyptian amphorae or medieval wooden barrels.”