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

 

Follow DLW 2011: Missouri on Twitter

What's the best way to share the fun of the Missouri Twitter Taste-off at DLW 2011: Missouri? Follow the festivities on Twitter at #DLWMO. And, the DrinkLocalWine.com Twitter experts report, there is also much DLW information at #DLW (though some are also in German).

via www.drinklocalwine.com

Just two weeks until the 2011 DrinkLocalWine.com conference in St. Louis! Yes - Missouri wine: Bring us your Nortons, your vidals, yearning to breathe free.

Agh! Public Speaking - Seattle and St. Louis

In high school, I hated public speaking class. In grad school, I was a lousy teaching assistant. But maybe that's because I didn't have anything worth speaking about. Like wine, for instance.

In the next few weeks I'll be venturing out of my cave for three (yikes!) public speaking engagements. The first two will be March 26 in Seattle at Taste Washington!, an annual event sponsored by the Washington Wine Commission to showcase that state's wonderful wines. I'll be on a panel discussing the terrific Seven Hills Vineyard, giving the consumer/critic's perspective along with a top-notch group of winemakers: Marty Clubb of L'Ecole No 41, Chris Figgins of Figgins Family Wine Estates (including Leonetti Cellars), and Jean-François Pellet of Pepper Bridge Winery, plus Drew Hendricks (Master Sommelier!) of Pappas Brothers restaurants. The panel will be moderated by the Wine Commission's Shayn Bjornholm (another Master Sommelier!). So I may be mostly in listening mode for this one ...

That afternoon I'll join some fellow wine writers for a panel called "What's the Point(s)?" We'll discuss different ways (100 points, stars, etc) of "quantifying the quality" of wine in general and Washington wine in particular. The panel will be moderated by Sean Sullivan, the energetic and talented author of Washington Wine Report, and my fellow speakers will be Sara Schneider of Sunset magazine and Rebecca Murphy of The Dallas Morning News. This will be a raucous, fun discussion.

The next weekend, April 2, is the DrinkLocalWine.com 2011 Conference and Twitter Taste-Off, this year focusing on Missouri wines. (Unofficial conference slogan: "Tweet Me in St. Louis!") I'll be moderating a panel discussion on "Does Locavore = Locapour?" My fellow panelists will be Ann Pollack, of the popular blog St. Louis Eats and Drinks; Glenn Bardgett, wine director of Annie Gunn's Restaurant (and a James Beard Award semi-finalist this year!); Debra Grace, of Grace Manor Restaurant; and Todd Kliman, Washingtonian magazine's food and wine editor and author of the award-winning The Wild Vine, a story of the Norton grape. (And a James Beard Award winner!)

This should be fun! Whether your passion is Columbia Valley Riesling and Syrah, or Missouri Norton and Vidal, I hope to see you! And don't forget to follow Twitter tage #DLWMO.

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.

DLW2011: Meet Me in St. Louis

Want to join the fun on April 2-3 in St. Louis? The conference will be held at the Doubletree Westport in suburban St. Louis. Ticket packages start at $35, which includes the Missouri Twitter Taste-off -- two wines each from some two dozen Missouri wineries. You can buy tickets on-line at the link. The complete schedule is here.

via www.drinklocalwine.com

 

There's less than a month to the 2011 DrinkLocalWine.com Conference in St. Louis! Yes - Missouri wine: Bring us your Nortons, your seyval, your vidal, yearning to breathe free ... Sponsored by the Missouri Wine & Grape Board.

Wine News: Are We 'Buying Up' Again? Yet?

The California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Market Enforcement Branch saw a spike last year in the number of complaints filed by wine grape growers against buyers who couldn’t fulfill their contracts, the North Bay Business Journal reported this week.  While these cases don’t involve any names you’re likely to recognize, they demonstrate the poor economy’s continuing impact on the U.S. wine industry.

Yet the wine industry continues to try to drum up some good news. (Can we string a few more infinitives in there just for good measure??) Bloomberg reported this week that younger wine drinkers are once again “buying up” by choosing pricier bottles in restaurants. The beneficiaries of this, according to Bloomberg? Constellation Brands and Diageo.

Well, okay. These wine industry behemoths produce enough wines at various price levels that they are probably pretty well insulated against the vicissitudes of recession. Or consonance. If consumers are indeed “buying up” over what they were willing to pay a year or two ago - whether in retail or restaurants - I would like to hear about it. More likely, this is wishful thinking. Consumers may be less reticent about spending money on wine now that the recession is easing, but my bet is that we’ve learned over the last few years that there are plenty of terrific wines available that cost a lot less than what we were used to paying. Maybe prestige of price is less valuable than it was before, while we’ve discovered that quality of taste can be had for less.

Are you spending more - and more comfortably - than you were a year or two ago? In other words, is the wine recession over for you personally? Or have your buying habits - in stores or restaurants - changed permanently because of the recession? Please let me know in the comments.

Bobby Kacher - Dean of the DC Importers

The Washington, D.C., region is a very fun and active market for wine consumers, especially for those of us interested in imported wines. There is a vibrant cadre of wine importers serving this market, enough to keep wine lovers turning bottles to look at the back label to see who is importing which wines.

The dean of these importers is Bobby Kacher, the ever loquacious face, palate and voice behind Robert Kacher Selections. I profile Bobby in my wine column this week in The Washington Post.

Bobby represents about 75 producers, and about 70 of these are French. (He has two producers in Argentina, one in Portugal, and one in South Africa, that I know of.) All are family owned and operated, they emphasize organic viticulture (at least, no pesticides and herbicides), temperature-controlled fermentation to keep the wines fresh, no filtration, etc - many of these seem commonplace now, but Kacher helped promote these practices when he started importing wines in the 1980s.

As you'll see in the sidebar on wine recommendations, I learned a lot about French wine by purchasing Bobby's imports back in the late 1980s. There are many more importers in the DC area that I follow now, and I seem to be learning about more every year as the market thrives and expands. And I've followed Bobby less reliably as I've explored other importers' portfolios. But each time I taste some of his wines, I'm reminded of my wine-loving roots.

And whatever you do, don't miss out on that Saumur ...

Reader Poll: What's in a Wine Label?

  I'd like to pose a question to my readers: How do YOU read a wine label? What is the relevant information you look for when deciding whether to buy a particular bottle? And what is the fluff you look beyond? I'm considering a column on this topic, and while I know what I respond to on a wine label, I'd like to hear your perspectives. So please let me know in the comments.

Obviously, the following are relevant, if not crucial:

• The producer (Winery, chateau, etc., although this sometimes blurs into "brand" ... )
• Grape variety
• Place of origin (Country, state, appellation, district, vineyard name, etc)
• Vintage year - perhaps less relevant for $5 "California" wines, but more so for high-end bottlings.

But what about some other information:

• Pretty picture/artwork (critters)
• Importer's name
• Alcohol content
• Back label blurbs
• Government warning(s)
• Ingredient labeling (if there - if not, should it be? By this I mean disclosure of additives, fining agents, oak chips, flavoring or barrels, etc.)

What other things do you look for when sizing up a bottle on the store shelf?

• Screwcap vs. cork? (No way to tell if it's a natural cork until too late, of course.)
• Bottle weight?

Cheers!
Dave

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!

Embracing Your Inner Wine Geek

“Wine geek” sounds pejorative, but I don’t mean it as a slur when I use it in my writings to refer to wine lovers. I consider myself a wine geek, after all. And geeks of all kinds are considered cool now anyway.

For me, a wine geek is someone who spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about and talking about wine. Or reading wine blogs. (Yeah, I’m talking to you!) We spend a fair portion of our disposable income on wine; though our average price comfort level depends to a large degree on how much income we have to spend. A wine geek, in other words, is not a price snob. We are willing to pay a little more for a special wine, one that offers extra nuance or complexity, a special terroir. But we relish the inexpensive over-achiever wine as well as the rare, pricey cuvée.

Nor is it a gender-specific reference - there are many notable women wine geeks, though men do tend to be more obsessive in this way.

We wine geeks stifle a laugh whenever we hear the standard definition of “moderate drinking” as two glasses a day for men and one for women. We sometimes plan dinners, even vacations, around wine rather than the other way around. We remember the name of the wine we enjoyed at dinner, and very well might know the distributor. We don’t say a wine is “smooth,” and we don’t automatically dismiss sweet wines as unworthy.

Wine geeks have many other traits. Here are a few I posted in August 2000 in Dave McIntyre’s WineLine #8, archived on Robin Garr’s WineLovers Page. 

You Know You're a Wine Geek When …

• ... Someone asks "How'd you guys meet?" and you say, "At a wine store."
• ... You curse the Founding Fathers for not including "direct shipping" in the Bill of Rights.
• ... You swirl your water glass and sniff a plastic cork.
• ... You name your pets after wine grapes or winemakers.
• ... You believe a wine's first duty is to be red.
• ... You put your recycling out late at night so the neighbors won't see how many bottles you have, then snoop in their bins to see what they've been drinking.
• ... You put your recycling out a day early so all the neighbors can see what expensive wines you opened last weekend.
• ...You have 200 or more bottles in your cellar, but keep complaining "There's nothing to drink!"

 

Can you think of a few more identifying traits of wine geeks? Tell me in the Comments ...