Dave McIntyre's WineLine

Wine Camp, and Other Ideas

Over Christmas weekend, my family held our annual "Wine Camp." This is an extremely vinonerdy exercise in which we pour several wines blind and say, "Tell me what this is." Over the years, it has taken on an air of one-upsmanship and competition, and it is always a helluva lot of fun.

My main protagonists are Dave Johnson and Ed Oldfield. Dave is my brother-in-law's brother-in-law, a relation twice-removed by marriage; Ed is Dave's close friend. Both are prominent doctors in the Hampton Roads-Norfolk region as well as avid wine collectors. They both are extremely skilled at finding exclusive wines of small production and (usually) high point scores that are not widely available - their network of retailers and winemakers across the country is impressive. One year, Dave wowed us with a $20 Aussie Shiraz that had everyone opening their wallets, while Ed, a devoted Dooniac, stunned with a bottle of 1984 Bonny Doon Vin Gris de Cigare - the inaugural vintage of the original Rhone Ranger wine.

Naturally, I can't compete in this crowd, so I bring outlandish wines that no one will expect. Last Spring, I surprised Dave and Ed with a delicious Dragon's Hollow Chardonnay from China, of all places. (Being a wine writer gives me the advantage of some unusual samples.)

This year's lineup included Isabel Sauvignon Blanc 2002 from New Zealand, still showing well without the stewed asparagus flavors old NZ SB can get. A 2000 Hunter Valley Semillon from Rothbury Wine Scoiety (my offering) was not as fully developed as I would have liked; it had appealing lime flavors and still tasted young, but was not harmonious. (I went back to it 3 hours later and thought it delicious, but by then I had been enjoying about ..... THIS many wines, so who knows?)

Dave then opened a 2006 Poets Leap Carmina Burana Cask Aged Riesling from the Long Shadows project in Washington state's Columbia Valley. I guessed the wine and the winery, but only because its Riesling character was obvious and I knew Dave's fondness for Long Shadows. (It pays to know your adversary!) Ed then opened a Retour Pinot Noir 2007 from Oregon, which matched nicely the Carabella 2005 I had brought.

You get the picture - the evening continued through the 2005 and 1996 Quilceda Creek Cabernets, and a Cab Franc comparison of Horton Vineyards "Tower Series"2007 and a 1985 Channing Road from Napa. Ed showed his Doon colors with a 1986 Old Telegram.

I had a surprise wine in reserve and was despairing that the evening was getting late and I wouldn't be able to present it against so many stellar, older wines. Then Dave brought out a young California Syrah, a Tensley 2008 Colson Canyon - lush and opulent with abundant fruit and high alcohol (over 15%) noticeable but not enough to dominate the wine. I saw my chance and brought out my ringer. It was similar, and yet clearly different in style - more earthy and dense, less obviously fruity than the Tensley. Dave and Ed immediately pegged it as Syrah, young, aged in French oak, and from California. My brother-in-law thought Washington state, figuring the concentration in the wine indicated Columbia Valley.

"You are all right except for one detail," I said, pulling the bag off the bottle. "It's from Maryland." I showed them the Black Ankle Vineyards 2007 Leaf Stone Syrah.

Such games are not what wine is all about, but they are devilishly fun and a great way to experience wine. I suggest some other ways of exploring the grape in my column today in The Washington Post, along with my monthly Recession Buster recommendations.

NostraWINEus predicts 2010 ...

What's up for wine lovers in 2010? Here are a few prognostications ...

An increasing emphasis on value over stature as the recession maintains its downward pressure on wine prices. Consumers will continue to "drink down" and look for wines that cost less than they used to spend, but still taste expensive. This will reverberate across the price spectrum - those who could comfortably spend $120 in a restaurant two years ago will continue to look for quality in the $60- $80 range, while those who may be cutting their restaurant budgets altogether will look for the $30 - $40 wines that taste like the $80 they used to praise a sommelier for recommending.

The sweet spot in value in the retail market will continue to be in the $15-$20 range, especially for imported wines. Although the average price paid for 750 ml of wine in the US continues to hover in the $5-7 range, the "bang for the buck" is still in the teens.

More wineries will downblend their reserve wines into their basic blends - so we will see fewer $50 cuvées and more in the $30 range from places like California, Oregon and Washington. While these will appear expensive, they will often provide great value.

Bargains in imported wines? Portugal and Spain - more emphasis on the Iberian peninsula for sheer value. Why? Quality price ratio, of course, but also because these wine regions manage to bridge Old World sensibilities with New World preferences for riper, sweeter wines. Argentina will continue to shine, too.

More emphasis on "natural" wines - whatever that means. It means organic, and biodynamic, and - depending on who you read or talk to - even using ambient yeast instead of cultivated yeast. All well and good, and I applaud winemakers who want to preserve the environment and protect their vineyard workers from pesticides, fungicides, and the like. However, I worry that "natural wine" is becoming a buzzword that is more a reflection of marketing than viticulture. Wine has enough polemics - the pendulum may be swinging too far to the left.

The anti-alcohol movement will continue to grow - not an anti-wine (or beer or booze) movement, but a swing against the high-alcohol, high-extraction wines that have dominated the high end of the market the past several years. Consumers will favor moderate-alcohol wines well balanced with acidty, even from areas and wine types we now associate with syrup.

Regional wines will continue to gain in prominence. The Millenial Generation will continue to explore and expand its wine palate, and this rising consumer group appears to be unfettered by its elders' preference for cabernet, chardonnay and merlot. As local wines improve in quality, more consumers will ask for them in restaurants, stores, etc.

For better or worse, wine writing will trend towards new media. The recent demise of the popular Wall Street Journal wine column by Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher emphasizes the shift toward blogs, Facebook and Tweeter as mainstream media - newspapers - cut costs. This will mean a decline in substantive, thoughtful wine articles, but an increasing visibility for individual wine reviews in "tweets" or blog posts. Some familiar names from newspaper columns (Gaiter and Brecher, perhaps?) will gravitate toward blogs and "word of mouth" media like Twitter. But will they have the same market pull? Psst, buddy, wanna try a nice Zinfandel? ...

Happy New Year, everyone!

It's Harvest Time!

The grape harvest is in full swing throughout the Northern Hemisphere. In my column today in The Washington Post, I give insights into how harvest is progressing in Bordeaux, Virginia and California – plus my monthly “Recession Busters” recommendations of eight terrific wines that cost $10 or less.

And don’t forget that next week is the second annual Regional Wine Week, during which bloggers around the country will write about “wine from around here, wherever ‘here’ might be.” These will be linked at DrinkLocalWine.com. Look for my Washington Post Food section feature next week on the quality explosion in Loudoun County, Virginia.

California DOES make good bargain wine!

It is easy to knock California for not making affordable wine worth drinking. And that’s mostly the wine industry’s fault, because they would like us to focus on the high-end cult cabernets and chardonnays that sell for triple figures to exclusive mailing lists. I’ve always thought there must be some good, cheap California wines, and figured they are mostly sold in-state, never reaching the East Coast.

Well, I’m wrong, as usual.

Parducci 2005 Sustainable Red ($10) is not only delicious, but politically correct in the green sort of way. Parducci is part of the Mendocino Wine Company, a leading proponent of sustainable, organic and biodynamic viticulture. This blend, unspecified on the label, includes merlot, cabernet sauvignon, syrah, primitivo, zinfandel (the winery cheat sheet doesn’t distinguish between those two), petite sirah, and viognier. It shows great fruit and balance and is deliciously fun.

Another pleasant surprise is Fess Parker Winery's Frontier Red Lot No. 91 (about $11), a multi-vintage blend that features the man himself in Davy Crockett/Daniel Boone finery (or at least millinery) on the label and a juicy, delicious red wine inside. Great for burgers, pizza, or just about any other casual fare that calls for red.

Whine Pricing

The complaint was predictable. I had written about Heart's Delight, the premiere wine charity event in the Washington area – one of the premiere events in the country, an event that over the past decade has raised more than $8 million for the American Heart Association and its fight against coronary disease and stroke. The column combined elements of drama, or at least what passes for drama among wine lovers: The world's pre-eminent wine critic, his recent pronouncements on the surprisingly high quality of the 2008 Bordeaux vintage, the havoc the economy was playing with prices in Bordeaux, and how the turmoil is hurting one of D.C’s finest wine stores as it struggles to sell its inventory of previous vintages.

This is the stuff wine lovers eat up, even if they can't afford to drink it up. But all the drama couldn't satisfy a chatter on the Food section's Free Range online live discussion. “Arlington, Va” complained about the prices of the wines presented at the charity auction, which ranged in price from $30 to $180. “I understand, just like the car column has to review Rolls and Mercedes once in a while to keep things interesting, but when will your wine column review a selection of under $15 wines commonly available at Giant, Safeway or Trader Joe's? Isn't The Post's budget for buying wine for you to sample getting a little thin these days?” the chatter asked.

Food editor Joe Yonan was prepared to come to my defense, noting that I routinely recommend wines costing under $15 and that he expected the complaint because, unfortunately, “people don't seem to be able to remember wine recommendations from one week to the next.” He didn't ask me to respond, perhaps fearing I might get a little too testy.

So I decided to look at my previous columns for some perspective. In the five weeks before that May 20 column, I recommended a total of 37 wines. If you had bought one bottle of each of those at the retail price listed, you would have spent $611, or an average of $16.50 a bottle. Those included a $50 pinot noir from New Zealand and a $36 California fume blanc, but also 31 wines at $20 or less and eight at $10 or less.

I devoted a column in December to wines under $15, and another in March to the effects of the recession on our drinking habits. I have consistently included inexpensive, overperforming wines in my recommendations. I am fully aware that the average price paid for a standard-size bottle of wine in America is about $5. However, I am also aware that most wine at that price is boring at best and horrible at worst. That's why I recently started a monthly “Recession Busters” feature in which all wines recommended will be over-performers that cost around $10 or less.

A newspaper wine column should not be just about wines from Giant, Safeway or Trader Joe's. It should be about wines that offer value at any price – by which I mean wines that taste more expensive than they cost.

Those wines, frankly, will mostly be found in specialty wine stores, such as those listed in my articles. These retailers seek out value-performing wines. We are lucky to shop in a highly competitive market that has importers and distributors searching out great-value wines at all price ranges. Some of these wines are produced in the hundreds of cases, or thousands, but usually not in the hundreds of thousands. So they won't be available everywhere. Stores and distributors may run out of them, because they are not made by the boatload. Those are the wines I feature in my column.

Sometimes we might find one of them at a supermarket, and I have mentioned those in my store listings. But the wine column should find wines that overperform, not wines that speak to the least common denominator. I will continue to write for the entire spectrum of wine lovers: the collectors who might support a charity auction, as well as average readers worried about the recession who want to find a tasty wine for Wednesday dinner. (For the record, I belong to the latter group.)

And to “Arlington,” I would just say this: I can't persuade you to spend more for your wine, but I hope you will read my columns carefully and try some of the $10 and $15 gems I recommend. You might be surprised. And on those Wednesdays when my recommendations don't fall into your price range, please remember that wine is a bigger subject, even in these tough times. Take another sip of your budget find from last week's column, and remember that I'll have more for you in future columns.

This discussion was originally posted May 27 on The Washington Post’s Food section blog, “All We Can Eat.” It prompted several comments, most of which came to my defense. One commenter argued, however, that I should be “shown the door” because I haven’t covered local wines. Moi?

Argentina's Andes Advantage

In these recession-plagued times, we're all looking for extra value. Ask any retailer or sommelier what wines are selling these days, and Argentine Malbec will be near the top of the list. "We're selling the hell out of Mendoza," one retailer told me recently. (I didn't even know Hell was IN Mendoza!)

Argentina has some specific advantages in growing quality wines, and you really can't miss them, as they loom over every vineyard and have a way of sneaking into the background of every photograph. But you can read all about it in my April 8 column in The Washington Post.

Can you spot Argentina's secret in this photo?

Chateau Ste. Michelle Chardonnay 2007 $12

When you’re always looking for the next big thing, the new hip wine, it’s easy to forget your old friends. It’s probably been several years since I’ve tasted Chateau Ste. Michelle’s Chardonnay from the Columbia Valley of Washington state. I typically pass by it in the stores, because it is everywhere and I’m looking for something surprising.

Well, this 2007 release of an old standby surprised me with its balance, depth and quality, and left me chastened with the thought that I should never take familiar labels for granted.

The wine shows appealing herbal aromas – rosemary? sage? – that are somewhat unexpected for a chardonnay, especially an inexpensive one. It’s soft texture in the mouth yields to lemon cream and apple fruit, tinged with  aromatic wood spice.  This wine is a great value.

Flavium Bierzo Crianza 2005, $10

A few years ago, Bierzo was touted as Spain's next emerging wine region. The region's main grape, Mencia, was thought to be related to Cabernet Franc. But then DNA research apparently put the kybosh on that theory, and it turned out that Mencia is merely identical to some obscure Portuguese varietal. No prestige there, so less cachet. This spicy little red, however, shows the region's potential. Beefy and slightly reductive, with cherry, cocoa, and cola notes, it makes a great casual wine for hearty meat dishes.

But what do I like most about this wine? I couldn't find a Web site or bottle image on the Internet. That tells me this winery is interested more in the quality of the wine rather than the marketing.

Yum. Yum. Yum!

Imported by M. Touton Selections.

A Delightful (and Cheap!) Italian Pinot

With the world economy flushing itself down the toilet, wine lovers are indulging ourselves in our second favorite pursuit - finding wines that taste more expensive than they cost. (As opposed to our most favorite sport - scoring the rare artisanal wine no one else has ever heard of, no matter the cost.)

In looking for inexpensive wines that provide some measure of excitement, I didn't expect to find many pinot noir. And I certainly did not expect to find an Italian pinot noir. Most Italian pinot nero are quite pricey, and not always worth the expense. But the Monte Degli Angeli Pinot Noir 2006, from Monferratto in northwestern Italy, is a surprise. It begins with a slightly pruney, raisiny nose, then yields to a bright, cherry-plum palate that ends with stony, mineral tannins and a long finish. It's deceptively good - better with each taste. And at $9, a steal.

(Imported by Monsieur Touton, NY NY.)

Not Thanksgiving Wine - NOVEMBER Wine ....

On the third Thursday of November, I tend to lurk in wine stores. I do that often, of course, but this day is different. This is when le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé.

 

Beaujolais Nouveau is wine’s celebration of the harvest just completed. It is infantile juice, grapey, unfocused, barely fermented, with all the exuberance of youth unencumbered by maturity and society’s expectations. It is our chance to taste the vintage before wine writers and other experts make up our minds about it. Years from now, we will enjoy wines from 2008 and reminisce about vacations spent in wine country, at the beach, or hiking the mountains. This is our chance to savor those experiences while they are still raw memories unaltered by the selective filter of time.

 

Beaujolais Nouveau is also wine’s crassest marketing gimmick. (Or at least it was, until the advent of critter wines and labels such as “Old Fart,” “Fat Bastard,” "Bitch" and “Mommy’s Time Out.”) The wine is released each year with great hoopla and celebration, air-freighted around the globe so wine bibbers can enjoy it on this special Thursday, a day decreed not by the natural rhythms of harvest in the Beaujolais but by the wisdom of French regulators squirreling away in cubes overlooking the Seine.

 

As you might imagine, Bacchanalian Cynics (the most numerous sect of this devoted and fanatical following) rail against Nouveau. Tyler Colman, one of blogdom’s most influential writers as Dr. Vino, has called for a nationwide boycott of Beaujolais Nouveau to protest its carbon footprint – much higher than normal because of air shipment rather than by surface ship, he argues. Dr. Vino would have us drink a local wine instead of Beaujolais Nouveau this year. Many of his readers jumped on board the bandwagon, denouncing Nouveau as inferior wine not worth drinking.

 

Dr. Vino’s argument was undermined when he learned that Georges Duboeuf, producer of  99.9999999% of all Beaujolais Nouveau, had received special dispensation this year to ship his wine by sea in order to cut costs. He feared that American consumers might not buy the wine with the extra $2 per bottle for air freight if the unfavorable exchange rate already raised the price. And another producer, Boisset, announced they are packaging their nouveau from Mommessin and Bouchard Aine & Fils in eco-friendly (or at least lighter) plastic bottles - making a case of wine 16 pounds lighter.

 

Even with these exceptions to the rule, Dr. Vino and the Nattering Nabobs of Nouveau Negativism miss the point. Beaujolais Nouveau is not about carbon footprint. (Though I am all for drinking local wine!) Nor is it about quality. It’s one bottle a year, for goodness sake – does anyone really buy a case of this stuff? It’s fun. It’s joyful. It’s a harbinger of another year nearing an end, a marker of time about to pass, a leaf we snatch out of the air before it hits the ground. Harvest. Autumn. Winter on the way.

 

The perfect Thanksgiving wine – and always among the many on my family table.