Looking for a wine to give a wine lover? Champagne comes to mind, but a less obvious and equally impressive choice is Port. In today's Washington Post, I recommend some vintage and some edgy new ruby Ports that make worthy gifts. Next week, the ultimate - aged tawny!
Cheers!
Dave
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!
One very important aspect of Vinexpo is the industry's effort to flatter the press. On Sunday evening, the Conseil des Grands Crus Classés en 1855 Médoc et Sauternes hosted a black-tie dinner at Château Lafite-Rothschild in honor of the international press attending Vinexpo. Lafite is one of five chateaux ranked as “first growths,” literally the peak of the pinnacle. About 300 guests – press and winemakers – strolled about the lawn sipping on champagne or sauternes and slurping oysters or devouring foie gras. (“Where is that itinerant mi-cuit vendor?” one peckish British publisher moaned.) A gong summoned us to dinner, and we filed solemnly through two barrel rooms, with candles atop the barrels lighting the way. I felt we should be carrying candles ourselves, for it had the air of a religious procession.
Dinner was served in the main barrel room. It was my good fortune to be seated with wine royalty: Two seats to my left was Baron Eric de Rothschild, owner of Lafite; between us was Decanter’s Sarah Kemp (wine writing royalty, resplendent in red hair and British accent). On my right was Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, owner of Château Mouton-Rothschild. At age 75, the baroness is a hoot, and sharp as a tack. She constantly regaled those around her in French and English, while everyone nodded somewhat sycophantically. (As did I, as the evening wore on and I fell increasingly under her charm.) Every now and then, she would turn to me and command loudly, “Tell me about Obama!”
The food was superb, of course, and our table enjoyed a taste-off of Lafite and Mouton, from the 2001 and 1989 vintages, followed by 1978 Lafite poured from jeroboams (jeroboa?). The last wine was magnificently fresh and vibrant, especially considering it was made the year after I graduated high school and has aged much more gracefully than I. Of course, the wine had never left that cellar until I flushed it down the men's room pipes.
As we rose to leave sometime after midnight, the Baroness extended an invitation. “Monsieur Dahveed,” she said. “Please come by and see me at Vinexpo tomorrow! Taste our wines – have lunch with us!”
I said I would. And so I did. Or at least I tried.
The next day I was in the Douro Valley – actually, the Douro alley in Hall 1 at the Parc des Expositions. Just before noon I excused myself and walked outside the hall on the lake side, where several pavilions were erected en plein air for tasting and dining. I walked up to the Baron Philippe de Rothschild pavilion and was greeted by an officious young woman in a white airplane stewardess uniform.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked, looking askance at my wine writer’s attire – an all-American blazer over a polo shirt and khaki pants.
“Um, no, but the Baroness said - “ I stammered, trying to make sure she saw my badge with “The Washington Post” prominently displayed. I mentioned meeting the Baroness at Château Lafite, but the woman probably thought I'd gotten my Rothschilds all mixed up.
“Perhaps if you give me your card, I will see if someone is available.” I gave her my card (which, according to Post policy, does not mention my affiliation with the paper), and she came back a few minutes later.
“Je suis desolée,” she said. “Perhaps if you come back some time after 3 p.m., someone might be able to meet with you.”
So I went back to the Douro for some more Portuguese hospitality.
Post Scriptum, July 3: I returned home to Maryland last night and turned on my cell phone to check for any messages during my trip. (I'm a cell-phone Luddite, in that I still have one of those antiquated American ones that won't work overseas.) The first was from Baroness Philippine, chiding me for not showing up for lunch on Monday when she had been expecting me. A wonderful opportunity lost, all for want of a GSM mobile phone. Now it seems like a worthy investment. From A-List to Riff-Raff, to Chump.
Sometimes a photo doesn’t need to show grapes, vines, barrels or bottles to illustrate wine. While researching a column on the dry wines of the Douro Valley in Portugal, I came across this photo I took last July at Quinta do Noval. Something in the geometry of this staircase attracted me when I snapped the pic, but looking at it now, I see Douro terroir – the schist stones blasted out of the terraced vineyards and layered here speak of the mineral soil in which the vines grow, while the narrow stairs up the steep wall illustrate the dramatic slopes on which the vines are planted. And nary a grape in sight.
I am a freelance food and wine writer and wine columnist for The Washington Post.
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