Dave McIntyre's WineLine

DLW2011 is This Weekend!

I haven't been posting much lately because I've been too damn tired. And I was unable to make it to Taste Washington in Seattle, unfortunately. But I am excited that I'll be able to get away this weekend to St. Louis to participate in the DrinkLocalWine.com 2011 Conference on April 2. Gotta get me some of that tasty Missouri wine!

Aside from a few thought-provoking panel discussions, we will have the annual Twitter Taste-Off, which this year will include a special Missouri Blind Tasting Challenge, in which we will challenge you to distinguish Missouri wines from California wines. That's the type of challenge I always think is easy, and then I embarrass myself. But the idea is to showcase the quality of local wine - and local, this weekend, means Missouri.

If you can't make it to St. Louis for the April 2 discussions and tasting or the April 3 winery visits, you can follow the fun on Twitter at #DLWMO.

Cheers!
Dave

 

Cut to the Front of the Line for Kosta Browne ...

If you're dying to get your hands on some cult California pinot noir, here's your chance to cut to the front of the line for Kosta Browne's mail list, and help a good cause to boot!

And if you ever wonder if those medals draped around bottles on display at a local winery actually mean anything, well ... read this. But of course, don't forget my recommendations of wines worth paying attention to this week ...

Why Aren't More Local Wines on Local Wine Lists?

This is a question that can probably be asked wherever fine wines are made. In fact, it WAS raised last year in the San Francisco Chronicle, which reported complaints by North Coast vintners about restaurants that touted their local meats and produce but filled their lists with imported wines. Todd Kliman took the debate national this summer with his essay, "The Locavore Wine Hypocrisy," on thedailybeast.com. In today's Washington Post Food section, I look deeper into the question, and find some intriguing arguments on both sides to explain the problem. I also discover some area restaurants that are making the commitment to feature the local vino.

USA Today on Regional Wine

USA Today, the nation's newspaper, dropped at hotel room doors across the land every morning, last week endorsed the regional wine movement with a travel feature on 10 "local" wine regions to visit. This is a great idea - if your business or pleasure takes you to St. Louis, consider a detour to Hermann. Heading to New York? Linger awhile in the Finger Lakes. Taking your family to Washington, DC, for some American history, or Charlottesville, to see Jefferson's Monticello? Guess what? Wine country is just around the corner.

The article is also a tribute to Regional Wine Week and DrinkLocalWine.com, as Jeff Siegel and I were interviewed about emerging wine regions across the country.

Regional Wine Week Oct. 10-16

Calling all wine bloggers: Don't forget the third annual Regional Wine Week, next week, Oct. 10-16. Not that you haven't been writing about your local wines all year, but this is the time to draw extra attention to the exciting wines "from around here, wherever 'here' happens to be."

Here's info on the week at DrinkLocalWine.com, which will post links to as many articles as we can find about local wine. The website is also a one-stop portal for readers interested in learning about wines from anywhere in the U.S. - or at least those areas that you don't normally read about (as in, the West Coast). 

But DrinkLocalWIne.com is more than just an interesting collection of articles about wines you may never find on your local retail shelves. If you are planning a trip somewhere, say to Philadelphia or the Lehigh Valley in eastern Pennsylvania, check out DrinkLocalWine for articles by Paul Vigna or David Falchek for suggestions on what local wines to seek out while you're there. Headed for New York City? Even if you aren't able to get to wine country in the Finger Lakes or Long Island, on DrinkLocalWine.com you can find links to Lenn Thompson's fine New York Cork Report and other scribblings about the Empire State's vino.

It's not just a wine website, but also a travel resource.

Regional Wine Week - half way point

If you haven't yet checked out REGIONAL WINE WEEK on DrinkLocalWine.com, you should. We've got harvest updates on the Finger Lakes and Niagara from Lenn Thompson's New York Cork Report, plus a post from Paul Vigna on how the bad economy has some prime Pennsylvania vineyard land languishing on the market. Rémy Charest has reported on the current scandale in Canadian wine - a legal loophole that allows wine from elsewhere to be labeled "cellared in Canada". Brian Kirby is scouting out some exciting developments in Maryland. And Richard Leahy writes about wines produced from goofball grapes that will surprise you with their quality.

Remember - Think Globally, Drink Locally. And support Regional Wine Week by visiting DrinkLocalWine.com!

Visual Terroir

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.

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?

Regional Wine Week is Underway!

Regional Wine Week may not change the way we think about wine or life, but if it prompts readers to give a little more thought to their local wines for dinner - and not just as novelties to be purchased once a year at a festival - then it will have been a success.

RWW is underway now at DrinkLocalWine.com, a modest little Web site conceived by Jeff Siegel, "The Wine Curmudgeon," and myself. You won't find much content there, just two brief manifestos by Jeff and me, plus links to a host of writers around the United States and Canada who are writing this week about wines "from around here" - wherever "here" might happen to be for them.

If you go to the site now, you can click to Charmian Christie's evocative post on the fruit wines of Niagara. You can also find Rob Hagman's treatise on Pollak Vineyards, which he calls "the future of Virginia," as well as Richard Leahy's account of a 20-year retrospective tasting of Virginia's best, held last week in Richmond to mark the 20th anniversary of Virginia Wine Month. The Old Dominion is developing a successful wine tradition, and we've got it on DrinkLocalWine.com.

You'll also find Richard Leahy's account of Tierce Riesling, a cooperative effort by three wineries in the Finger Lakes to develop a terroir-based style of Riesling. It's a grape this region has long been noted for, but one that has struggled to develop a consistent style and flavor profile. Tierce is on the cutting edge.

Regional Wine Week includes some major wine writers from top publications. Sandra Silfven has already posted on the Detroit News Web site about her favorite wines from Michigan and Ohio. On Thursday, Gil Kulers will report on the emerging wines of Georgia in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Scott Greenberg will profile Maryland's Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyards in the DC Examiner. On Wednesday, I will highlight emerging trends in Virginia and Maryland in The Washington Post. Later this month (editorial schedules being what they are), Bill Daley will report on Illinois wines in the Chicago Tribune and Lou Marmon will feature some Maryland wines in his column for the Gazette papers in the DC area.

I hope you'll revisit DrinkLocalWine.com throughout the week as we post new links to posts about Colorado, Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York - and somewhere near you.

Got Wine? It's not just from California anymore.