Dave McIntyre's WineLine

Virginia and Maryland Decriminalize Us! WooHoo!

Wine lovers in Virginia and Maryland can come out of the shadows this Friday when it becomes legal to do the things we’ve been doing all along.

Virginia’s corkage law takes effect on July 1, making it legal for restaurants to allow patrons to bring their own wine. If you were unaware that Virginia banned BYOB at licensed restaurants, you may be forgiven. The law had never really been enforced, as this quote from Richmond.com illustrates:

According to Phillip Bogenberger of the Virginia ABC, “[there have been no] instances where [ABC has] issued citations for violations of the law prohibiting bringing in wine from outside restaurants.”

Virginia ABC seems to like the new law. The agency even created a Facebook page for it. But before you pack your [yellow tail] and head to Restaurant Eve, there are some things you should know:

Well OK, you may BYO, but maybe not THIS much ...

The law is voluntary. Restaurants may let you bring in your own wine, but they don’t have to.

Restaurants may charge a fee per bottle, and the law does not set a limit on that fee. (The District of Columbia limits corkage to $25 per bottle, though that doesn’t seem to be enforced, either.)

There’s an etiquette to corkage, ably spelled out by Virginia blogger Frank Morgan at DrinkWhatYouLike.com. The main points:

* Call the restaurant to see if managers will welcome your bottle and ask their fee

* Don’t bring a wine that’s on their list

* Offer the sommelier or your server a taste of that special bottle from your collection.

Across the Potomac, Maryland diners are still not allowed to take their own wine to restaurants; the Maryland legislature blocked an effort to allow that this year. But lawmakers did approve direct shipping, which means we can have bottles shipped from out-of-state wineries straight to our homes. Starting Friday, when the law takes effect, we will no longer need to make furtive trips across the border to retrieve a coveted case delivered to a friend’s house (and pay the exorbitant one-bottle “buddy tax”). No more “personal deliveries” to our offices in the District, either. And no more UPS shipments from Napa County prominently marked, “OLIVE OIL”.

There won’t be a flood of deliveries right away, of course, as wineries must apply for permits to send bottles to Maryland residents. The comptroller’s office posted permit applications online this month, and about a dozen permits have been issued already, with more in the works, according to Kevin Atticks, executive director of the Maryland Wineries Association. ShipCompliant, a firm that helps wineries navigate the morass of state regulations on shipping, posted more information about the Maryland permits on its blog.

Regional Wines Showcased in DC

 

Local and regional wines were in the spotlight at the Masters of Food and Wine event early this month. It was the Park Hyatt Washington’s second time participating in this event, which occurs throughout the year at several of the hotel chain’s outposts around the world.

The hotel’s beverage director, German Broggi, who came to the District last summer, has developed an entire page of Virginia wines for the Park Hyatt’s restaurant, Blue Duck Tavern, and he made sure local vintners were well represented in the three-day event.

The opening reception on Blue Duck’s small patio along 24th Street NW on June 2 (luckily, before our heatwave began) was crowded as partygoers met and mingled with Jeff White of Glen Manor Vineyards, Emily Pelton of Veritas, Jason Burrus of Rappahannock Cellars, and Rachel Martin of Boxwood — three of Virginia’s top wineries. Barboursville’s Luca Paschina held court among the crowd in advance of a winemaker’s dinner he hosted later that evening. 

The Masters event was not entirely local, of course. Such famous names as Caymus, Duckhorn and Jordan were represented. One enthusiastic fan gushed to me after stopping at Alma Rosa’s table, “Oh my gosh, that’s Richard Sanford! He’s a pioneer!”(Sanford planted the first pinot noir vines in the Santa Rita Hills area of Santa Barbara County back in the 1970s.)

At the Barboursville dinner, Paschina poured two vintages of his viognier reserve to support his belief that viognier ages well and should not be consumed too young. The 2002 was rich and unctuous and deep golden in color, but I still preferred the crisper, fresher 2009, which showed the flowery aromas and austere structure that makes Barboursville one of my favorite viogniers year after year. Perhaps nine years is a little too long for aging it, but the richness of the 2002 did pair nicely with chef Brian McBride’s lobster dish. (I also attended the wonderful America Farm to Table dinner the next night, with guest chef Brian Huston from The Publican in Chicago. The kitchen staff in Blue Duck Tavern was magnificent both nights.)

The highlight wine of the evening, however, was the Octagon, Barboursville’s signature wine. This merlot-based Bordeaux blend was showing beautifully in the 2001 and 2006 vintages, bolstering Paschina’s argument that Virginia can consistently produce world-class wine.

Other local wines shared the spotlight on Friday. After a brief appearance on News Channel 8’s “Let’s Talk Live” (see above) that morning, I conducted a small tasting of 10 Virginia and Maryland wines for about a dozen people at the Park Hyatt. The idea was to showcase some of the region’s best wines in a setting more congenial than the typical summer wine festival — after all, barrel-fermented anything doesn’t taste very good in 100-degree heat. (The link is to a writeup of the tasting on BrightestYoungThings.com, which definitely marks a first for me.)

My guests enjoyed some unusual wines, such as the Chester Gap 2009 Petit Manseng, as well as more traditional offerings, such as Black Ankle Vineyards’s excellent 2008 Bordeaux blend called Crumbling Rock, or Michael Shaps’s stunning 2007 Cabernet Franc. The tasting ended with a bang — the Boxwood Winery 2007 Topiary, a 50-50 blend of merlot and cabernet franc that may be hard to find retail now but should still be on some restaurant wine lists. If you can find it, don’t pass it up. The Topiary is drinking beautifully.

Locavore/locapour does not mean focusing exclusively on local wines. It means giving props to the quality wines our local vignerons are producing. And Park Hyatt Washington did exactly that in its annual showcase of our local bounty.

Tour Virginia Wineries By Smartphone

If you’re planning to hit some Virginia wineries this summer, you may want to take them along in your pocket.

Virginia Wine in My Pocket, that is, a new app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch that provides information about most of the Old Dominion’s wineries. It’s the brainchild of Virginia travel writers Rick Collier and Nancy Bauer, who indulged in a marathon tour last year, visiting 150 wineries in 150 days. The app costs $3.99 through iTunes and could be an invaluable resource for planning your explorations of local wine country. (The pair has produced a similar app called Rehoboth in My Pocket. An Android version of the Virginia app is in the works.)

The app offers individual listings of wineries, ciderworks and some winery-affiliated restaurants; it includes professional-quality photographs (Collier snapped more than 10,000 during the tour), maps, directions and glowing writeups. The list can be sorted alphabetically or by a winery’s proximity to Charlottesville or Washington D.C. It can even be sorted by a winery’s proximity to Interstate 81, for an impulse stop.

Looking to dine or lodge at a winery? Or for a kid-, pet- or RV-friendly winery? Picnics, group tours or weddings? It’s all here, including hours, cost of a tasting and whether your AT&T phone will be able to pick up a signal. (Note to the editors: Verizon has issues in the mountains, too.)

This app is cool. Tap on the map page, and you can zoom in on any Virginia wine region and then click on a winery’s icon to go directly to its entry. This app is great for planning a trip or even a spontaneous winery visit while driving through the Virginia countryside.

There are some minor problems. Allow the phone to use your location, and each listing tells you how many miles lie between you and that particular winery. But tap through to get directions from the iPhone’s Map app, and the distances are considerably longer.

And don’t expect wine reviews — at least not obvious ones. Every winery here gets glowing praise, whether for its tasting room, its view or its suitability as a wedding venue. You may need to read between the lines to figure out whether the authors think the wine is worth drinking. At Linden Vineyards, for example, they urge us to “buy a case” to gain entry to the winery’s patio (open only to case-club members on weekends). Down the highway at Barrel Oak Winery, the entry is all about the stylish tasting room, TGIF-friendly happy hours and an extensive quote from the winery’s Web site. One winery for good wine, the other for fun. This app has them all. (And in these instances, at least, the authors’ palates are spot-on.)

The Colliers have planted themselves firmly atop the mountain when it comes to travel apps for Virginia wine country, and it will be tough to knock them off their perch. It’s a niche, to be sure, but I can see this app expanding to include more wineries as Virginia’s industry continues to grow, plus craft breweries, distilleries and wine-country eateries, from barbecue to haute cuisine. Just thumbing through the app makes me want to get in my car and explore.

(This post originally appeared on The Washington Post's All We Can Eat blog.)

It's Official: The Donald Trumps Kluge Estate's Auction Bid

So let the naming games begin: Donald Trump has purchased the Kluge Estate winery and vineyard near Monticello, apparently as a “white knight” investor to keep Patricia Kluge and her husband, Bill Moses, in charge of the winery. Trump purchased the bulk of the estate April 7 in a foreclosure auction, and told The Washington Post he would keep Kluge involved. (As  I first noted last November on the Post's All We Can Eat food blog, Kluge and Moses were reportedly trying to interest Trump in the property shortly after their bank called the loan.)

While Kluge and Moses may remain, Trump told the Post he would rename the winery. Will it be Truge Estate? Trumpicello? Will he replace the cameo of Patricia's image on the New World Red (see photo) with his own mug shot? Since he’s promoting the “birther” controversy over President Obama’s citizenship, maybe he’ll try to convince us the vineyard isn’t really in Virginia after all.

Whatever he calls it, he paid Trump Change. Kluge and Moses lost the sprawling estate last fall in a spectacular bankruptcy when their bank called in a $35 million loan on more than 900 acres they owned south of Charlottesville, not far from the historic estates of Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. According to Charlottesville wine blogger Richard Leahy, Trump and another unidentified bidder split the estate - total bidding price was a mere $8.07 million.

Trump’s parcel included the winery and the vineyards, at more than 160 acres planted, Virginia’s largest. “I’m really interested in good real estate, not so much in wine,” Trump told the Post in an phone interview after the auction. “This place had a $28 million mortgage on it, and I bought it for $6.2 million.”

Wonder what he’ll charge for the wine ...

 

(This post originally appeared in slightly different form on The Washington Post's All We Can Eat blog on April 8.)

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! DLW11 is Coming!

DLW 2011: Missouri will feature some of the top names in Missouri and regional wine as well a live Internet radio broadcast and an expanded version of our trademark Twitter Taste-off on April 2, 2011, at the Doubletree Westport in suburban St. Louis.

The  schedule for the third annual event includes Doug Frost, MS, MW, the godfather of American regional wine; Eric V. Orange, the founder and CEO of LocalWineEvents.com; Missouri winemakers Andrew Meggitt of St. James and Cory Bomgaars of Les Bourgeois; Todd Kliman, author of The Wild Vine, the best-seller about Missouri’s norton grape; St. Louis sommelier extraordinare Glenn Bardgett of Annie Gunn’s; and DLW co-founder Dave McIntyre of the Washington Post. [That's me!]

Olivia Wilder, host of the top-rated Olivia Wilder Times, will do her radio show live from the Missouri Twitter Taste-off on the blogtalkradio.com network, interviewing the winemakers and wine personalities in attendance.

Some two dozen Missouri wineries will pour two wines each for the Twitter Taste-off on April 2, where participants will blog or Twitter about what they've tasted.  We’ll give awards to the best wines, as voted by the taste-off participants (who must be 21 or older).

“Every year, we put together a great program, and I wonder how we’ll ever do better than that,” says DLW co-founder Jeff Siegel, the proprietor of the Wine Curmudgeon blog. “And the next year we always do. I think that has a lot to say about the quality and depth in regional wine.”

Ticket packages start at $35, which is the price for the Twitter taste-off and a buffet reception with the winemakers and wine personalities at the conference. Go to DrinkLocalWine.com for a complete schedule and to order tickets. For information, call (214) 727-1992.

DLW 2011 follows the success of the group’s first two conferences -- in Dallas featuring Texas wine in 2009 and in Leesburg, Va., featuring Virginia and Maryland wine in 2010. DLW also holds an annual Regional Wine Week in October, in which more than 40 wine bloggers, writers and columnists from the U.S. and Canada write about their favorite regional wines, ranging from Ontario to New York to Florida to Texas to Colorado.

DrinkLocalWine.com's goal is to spotlight wine made in the 47 states and Canada that aren't California, Washington, and Oregon. It's the brainchild of Washington Post wine columnist Dave McIntyre and wine blogger Jeff Siegel, the Wine Curmudgeon.

Conference sponsors are the Missouri Wine and Grape Board; LocalWineEvents.com; Annie Gunn’s;  the Doubletree Westport; and the St. Charles County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

What's Ahead in 2011?

What should wine lovers expect in 2011? More debate over direct shipping, and hopefully we'll get that privilege here in Maryland this year. But will be able to order from out-of-state retailers, or just wineries? And will we be allowed to bring our own wines to restaurants in Maryland?

Politics is likely to dominate debate in other states as well, as governors in Virginia and Pennsylvania try to privatize their states' liquor control regimes. Should the government be in charge of selling alcoholic beverages? It's a worthy question with no simple answer.

Local wine will continue to gather buzz as well. The DrinkLocalWine.com conference focused blogger attention on Virginia last year - look for more this year when the Wine Bloggers Conference comes to Charlottesville - the Napa of the East.

Consumers, of course, will continue to seek value. We've learned that we don't have to pay top dollar to get a really good wine - we just may have to search a little harder. $10 is the new $20, etc.

And where will we find bargains this year? My prediction for the hot "new" bargain wine region is none other than France, as wines from the textbook 2009 vintage reach our retail shelves throughout the year. My January Recession Busters list in today's Washington Post already has a few French 09s, and you can expect many more throughout the year!

Happy drinking, everyone!

Stop "Pandering," Dave!

My October series about Virginia and Maryland wines received praise from several readers, but also some complaints. One reader accused me of "pandering" to local winemakers and urged me to stick to writing about French wines, which he said provide better value at about 30% less in price. "Why buy inferior wines because they are local?" this reader asked.

Of course, I never suggested anyone should buy an inferior wine simply because it is local. I merely said we should no longer assume a wine is inferior simply because it is local.

And while I don't agree that local wines are as overpriced as some people say, I recognize that such a perception is out there. And in today's Washington Post Food section, I explain why I believe the best local wines are worth exploring, whatever the price. And of course, some Recession Buster recommendations.

Has the "Perfect Storm" Claimed Kluge Estate?

For the past few weeks, rumors have swirled around the twittersphere that Kluge Estate winery was in trouble. Such rumors are not unusual, as Patricia Kluge has her detractors, who seem intent on undermining her effort to produce high quality Virginia wine on her estate south of Charlottesville. But this time, despite denials from the Kluge folks, the rumors were too specific, too detailed to ignore.

Late Friday, William Moses, Kluge's husband and CEO of the winery, issued a statement that was at once an acknowledgement of troubles and a defiant vow to stay alive. It isn't posted yet on the winery's website, so I'll paste it here in its entirety:

This is sad news for the Virginia wine industry. Kluge has made a major investment, including hiring famed flying winemaker Michel Rolland as a consultant. There have been missteps, to be sure - most notably charging more than $60 for their New World Red blend, which now sells more reasonably under $30. Consistency has also been a problem, as winemakers have paraded through over the winery's ten years. But the Kluge Estate wines, including the SP sparkling and the Albemarle viognier and rose, have generally been very good, and have achieved good distribution. Kluge and Moses have also been vocal advocates for the Virginia wine industry. This winery's collapse could send the message that Virginia is not a good market for wine investment, even as the overall quality of the wines improves to impressive, world-class levels.

So what will happen now? Moses' reference to the banks trying to "dismantle" the property is most alarming - rumors that I have not been able to confirm (Moses was not available for comment late Friday) have the banks threatening to rip out the vines and sell off the property for housing lots. Others have a high-profile investor (the "promising partners"?) interested. The news stories, speculation, and gossip are only just beginning. As Moses says, stay tuned ...

Sweet on Local Dessert Wines

When exploring the greatly improving local wine scene, it's easy to focus on dry table wines - the most dramatic improvement - and lose sight of dessert wines. Stickies have always been a staple of local wines, but they are improving too. Check out my column in this week's Washington Post  Food secction for a story of innovation and wines that are often overlooked. As Jim Law of Linden Vineyards says, "They demand your attention, but they come at a point in the dinner when no one wants to pay attention."

This is my final column in a month-long series about local wines - well, sort of. It seems my local focus has ruffled some feathers among readers, so next week I'll answer charges that I've been "pandering" to local winemakers. Stay tuned ...

Joe Yonan on Virginia Wines, at Blue Duck Tavern

Washington Post Food Editor Joe Yonan - known in my house as "your boss" - walks the walk of the locavore/locapour issue in his "Quick Bites" feature on NBC-4 this week. Joe tastes some of the wines from the new Virginia wine page at Blue Duck Tavern, one of DC's most avidly locavore restaurants, and one I mentioned in my feature on local wines and local wine lists in yesterday's Food section. If I knew how to embed the video here, I would, but we'll have to settle for the link to the station's website.

Nice shoutouts here for Rappahannock Cellars and Boxwood Winery.