Tag Archives: Joseph Drouhin

Wine to drink when everyone (and it does seem like everyone) wants to buy your house

housing bubble
Who knew there was a t-shirt to pair with these wines?

The calls, texts, and emails are crazy – and I don’t even have granite counter tops

The Wine Curmudgeon is not ashamed to admit he knows nothing about real estate. Hence, Dallas’ pandemic-fueled housing boom has left me especially baffled. Yes, my 1950s-style ranch has lots of trees and is more than comfortable, but there are no granite counter tops, double kitchen sinks, or master suites.

Nevertheless, the emails keep coming. The texts keep coming. The phone calls keep coming – in English, an Asian language, and Spanish. There’s even someone who keeps sending postcards with a color photo of my house.

And the message is the same: “We want to buy your home!”

So what’s the WC to do when overwhelmed with all this foolishness? Drink wine, of course. It works for power outages, tree catastrophes, and broken air conditioners. So why not a housing bubble?

These four wines have made it much easier to keep all that is going on in perspective. The housing market will eventually crash, but I’ll still have a place to live:

• Joseph Drouhin Mâcon-Villages 2019 ($15, purchased, 13%): This is chardonnay from Macon in France’s Burgundy region, and as such offers tremendous value. It’s bright, fresh, and lemony, truly tasting of chardonnay. I drank this one afternoon when I got six texts in a row about the house – so sip, block, delete; sip, block, delete;  and repeat, repeat, repeat, and repeat. Imported by Dreyfus, Ashby & Co.

• Capezzana Carmignano Vin Ruspo 2020 ($15, purchased, 12.5%): The Italian Wine Guy has pointed me in the direction of several top-notch Italian roses this summer, including this one. It’s almost pretty – full of berry fruit, sort of rich in the mouth, but also quite fresh. A fine example of this particular Italian style, and just the sort of thing to drink on the porch when the phone is inside the house. Imported by Dallas Terra

• Calcu Pinot Noir Escarlata 2020 ($12, sample, 13%): This Chilean red fits firmly in what passes for pinot noir these days – pleasant and drinkable, even if it isn’t especially varietal. There’s not too much red fruit, some sort of oak thing, and soft tannins. It’s dinner wine with leftovers – meat loan sandwiches, perhaps, and with the phone on mute. Imported by Global Vineyard Importers

• Bouvet Brut Signature NV ($12, purchased, 12%): This French bubbly was outstanding, and not just because I drank it to celebrate a Sunday afternoon bereft of anyone asking about the house. It’s softer than Champagne, since it’s made with chenin blanc. But the bubbles are still tight, there’s a zingy mouth feel, and nicely done lemon apple fruit. Highly recommended. Imported by Kobrand

Photo: “Mr. Housing Bubble” by Beige Alert is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Wine of the week: Joseph Drouhin Macon-Villages 2018

Drouhin Macon-VillagesSimple? Yes. But isn’t that what the Joseph Drouhin Macon-Villages is supposed to be?

Blame it on the pandemic or the presidential election or even my natural crotchetiness. But the Wine Curmudgeon is getting increasingly cranky when he reads the scores and comments on CellarTracker, the blog’s unofficial wine inventory app. One note for the Drouhin Macon-Village disparaged it for being simple.

My question: What’s wrong with a simple wine? And isn’t a Macon’s reason for being to be simple? It’s not supposed to be white Burgundy, is it?

So drink the Drouhin Macon-Villages 2018 ($13, purchased, 13%) and appreciate that this is an affordable and enjoyable French chardonnay that doesn’t cost $40. There’s a role for simple wine that isn’t stupid – call it the wine that most of us enjoy drinking, regardless of a wine world that increasingly sneers at those of us who aren’t in the 1 percent.

In this, the Drouhin fits the bill. Look for a bit of lemon fruit mixed with green apple, but that isn’t too tart, as some Macons can be. In fact, the fruit is round and fresh, and there is a pleasing mineralty. Do I wish this cost $10, like it did in years past and before the tariff? Yes, but it’s still a value at this price.

Drink this on its own if you want a glass of wine after work, or open it for weeknight roast chicken thighs.

Imported by Dreyfus Ashby

 

Mini-reviews 127: Black Friday wine 2019

black friday wine 2019Reviews of wines that don’t need their own post, but are worth noting for one reason or another. Look for it on the fourth Friday of each month. This month: a terrific red Burgundy for Black Friday 2019

• Joel Gott Pinot Gris 2018 ($12, purchased, 13.2%): This Oregon white is mostly OK for what it is, with some lime fruit and what tastes like a little fizziness. But there are better made wines at this price.

• Toad Hollow Cabernet Sauvignon 2017 ($17, sample, 14.1%): This California red from Lodi is $12 or $13 worth of cabernet, which is not a bad thing. It’s reasonably well made, with with brambly berry fruit and almost cabernet tannins (though the oak is out of balance). But $17? Only in the premiumization universe.

• Domaine Thenard Givry Les Bois Chevaux 2012 ($20, purchased, 13%): A Premier Cru red Burgundy, the second highest classification, that actually tastes like red Burgundy (French pinot noir) at a tremendous price. It’s getting a touch thin, but still has earth, some forest floor, and telltale lovely red fruit. Imported by Beverly Imports

• Joseph Drouhin Beaujolais Nouveau 2019 ($13, purchased, 13%): This French red, made from gamay, is a November tradition. The 2019 version from Drouhin is a little thin, but mostly Beaujolais in style and taste (berry fruit). Which means it’s missing the horrible ripe banana fruit that too many nouveaus have had in the past decade. Imported by Dreyfus, Ashby & Co.

Mini-reviews 80: Drouhin Beaujolais Nouveau, Planet Oregon, Vistalba, Leese-Fitch

Drouhin Beaujolais NouveauReviews 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 (though it posts today because of the holiday):

?Joseph Drouhin Beaujolais Nouveau 2015 ($8, purchased, 13%): Better than the last couple of vintages of this French red, in which it tastes more like wine than grape juice. But it’s still too soft and too full of that off-banana flavor that marks poorly made Beaujolais Nouveau. One day, perhaps, these wines will again be worth drinking, and I’ll keep trying them to let you know.

?Planet Oregon Pinot Noir 2014 ($20, purchased, 13.4%): There’s nothing really wrong with this Oregon red, other than I expected a bit more than it delivered. Look for lots of red fruit with some earthiness, but it’s light and too simple for $20 — even for pinot noir.

?Vistalba Tomero Torront s 2014 ($14, sample, 13%): This Argentine white is more sauvignon blanc than torrontes, with too much citrus and not enough of the soft white fruit that makes a dry torrontes so enjoyable. Having said that, it’s not unpleasant; it just doesn’t taste like torrontes. Given that, the price is problematical.

?Leese-Fitch Chardonnay 2014 ($12, sample, 13.5%): Solid and dependable grocery store chardonnay from California that follows the same template every year — just enough green apple fruit, fake oak, and heavy-ish mouth feel to taste the way it should, and consistency is a virtue when you’re standing in front of the Great Wall of Wine on your way home from work.

Wine of the week: Joseph Drouhin Macon-Villages 2009

image from cache.wine.com The Wine Curmudgeon's guilty secret is white Burgundy — chardonnay from the Burgundy region of France. Why guilty secret? Because white Burgundy is not cheap, and has not been so for years. It's not unusual for a very ordinary bottle that's worth $8 or $10 to cost $15 or $20; unless I get a sample (or splurge on a $60 bottle for a special occasion), I don't drink much white Burgundy any more.

So you can imagine my excitement when this wine, along with several other white Burgundies, arrived at the house. Joseph Drouhin is a respected negociant, and its wines are almost always well made. I figured, if nothing else, I could get an expensive wine of the month out of the shipment. And a couple of the bottles do fit that category.

But several weren't expensive, including the Macon ($13, sample). Macon wines are not complicated, don't get much oak (if any), and are made to drink now. In other words, they are Wine Curmudgeon wines. In the long ago days of the strong dollar and more sensible French export policies, there were half a dozen or so quality Macon-Villages wines for $10 or so, but the ones that still cost $10 are usually disappointing and the others aren't $10 any more.

Which makes the Drouhin all that more wonderful. It's one of the best values I've tasted in white Burgundy in years, and my tasting notes show that the producer actually cut the price this year. This is a very traditional wine, with hardly any fruit at all (lime zest?), no oak, and lots of minerality. So, no, it doesn't taste like came from California, but it's not supposed to. In this, it's a hint of what the 2009 vintage will ultimately deliver in Burgundy. Drink this chilled with roast chicken, any kind of shellfish, or on its own.