Wine for the holidays

Even though it's late October, thoughts around casa Corkdork are turning to the holidays; partly because November also happens to be my father's birthday, partly because it's the time when we start considering "hey, what should we have with Thanksgiving dinner?"  There'll have to be at least 7 bottles purchased for gifting/celebrating this year -- two for Thanksgiving dinner, two for Christmas Eve, one for Dad's birthday, and two more for Christmas presents.  Oh, and something to ring in the new year with.

There's food to pair with, people's flavor preferences (and dislikes!) to work around, and gift-presentation thoughts to consider!  What is a wine afficianado to do?!

The current thinking is running something like this:

• For Thanksgiving, we traditionally have two bottles; a sparkling wine and a red with dinner.  For the bubbly, I have to say I love Cava, both for it's affordability (hey, they're all under $25 at my local wine store, and most are under $10, including my two favorites, Conde de Caralt and Rondel), and it's zesty flavor -- the perfect thing to start a meal with.
• For dinner, we traditionally have a Pinot Noir, and this year will probably be no different -- Pinot is versatile enough to work with the variety of foods on the table, and it's cranberry notes are a natural choice.  In the past, we've had Oregon and Russian River Pinot, but this year I think we may go for Burgundy, with the Chateau Chamirey Mercury Rouge 2005 (under $40) -- I got to try it twice this past weekend, once newly-opened and once with some air, and it's evolution was wonderful.  Newly-opened, it's fresh and fruity, but with some air, complexity is added, with earthiness and minerality underpinning the ripe fruit.
• My father loves reds and steak, so the natural thought there is a wine to go with steak.  He especially loves California Cabernet and Chateau Neuf du Pape, and those fit quite well in that milleu.  Since his birthday is in November, he'll get two bottles this season; probably one of each.  The current thinking is something from Martin Ray for the California Cab -- Dad's a big fan of their Stag's Leap and Diamond Mountain District cabs -- and a 2006 Chateau Neuf du Pape ('05 was a better year in the Southern Rhone, perfect for laying down for a couple years, but '06 is ready to drink young, and Dad doesn't hold onto wine long).  Another possibility would be a bottle from Von Strasser -- I know Dad's not had anything from them before, but they're excellent.  In all three cases, the presentation is part of the key -- the bottle looks good, as well as having good juice inside it.
• Not unlike with Thanksgiving, we start Christmas eve with bubbles, but generally Champagne.  Here, I'll look for a grower-maker wine -- it'll be a treat, pretty much regardless of what I pick.  Currently, I'm leaning towards a vintage 2000  Pertois-Moriset -- not as great of a year as 1996, but still quite good, and very tasty.
• Christmas Eve dinner traditionally consists of a roast of beef with lots of garlic and herbs.  I've got my eye on a very small-production Barolo (200 cases made, from a single vineyard), which will get a full decanting treatment, as we'll be drinking it young -- Barolo is notoriously long-lived.
  
• My fiancee loves Italian wines, and while a Barolo would make a great gift, she doesn't hold onto wine for more than a year, so a mature Brunello makes sense; there's lots of 2000's still out there, and even some '99's.  In fairness, since I'll likely be consuming the wine with her, it makes sense to pick out something I like too, and I love Brunello.
• Finally, to ring in the new year, something sweet (hopefully a harbinger of the year to come).  Demi-sec Champagne comes to mind -- it's much better for drinking on it's own than a brut -- and one of my favorite grower-makers has just the answer...  Franck Bonville's nonvintage Demi-sec (which they don't mention on their website -- hopefully it's not out of production!).

So, what can we learn from this list?  Well, for one, that I tend to spend about $40 on a bottle of wine for a gift (more or less, but everything averages out around $40 here).  Additionally, the perfect gift for one person may not be perfect for another -- while my fiancee might enjoy the Von Strasser or Martin Ray, she'll love a Brunello, and my father might like a Brunello, but he loves California Cab.  Additionally, it's not necessary to go to one of the major, spendy bottles for a gift (that's, of course, if you can find them -- there's not a lot of cult Brunello for sale in my area); a good gift of good wine, even if it's not from a "name brand" winery, will be appreciated -- and, may, in fact, be better (as the "name brand" wine charges a surcharge for the name!  To wit, I think the Von Strasser Sori Bricco cabernet is the equal of Diamond Creek's Red Rock Terrace, and it's half the price).  Finally, traditions are hard to break; we've had Champagne for probably 20 years for Christmas, and that's probably not going to change any time soon.  So go with it!

Image from slideshows.health.com.

Tasting the grand cuvee.

Through work yesterday, I had the opportunity to go to a very nice tasting (our last for the year, alas) -- wines for selling through the holidays.  We concentrated on sparkling wines, ranging from $8 cava through a $170 Krug Grand Cuvee.

Interestingly enough, the Krug was a late replacement for another bottle -- the 1998 Nicholas Feuilette Palmes D'Or, which we've had some quality control issues with (in fact, I got to taste the tester bottle of Palmes, and it's nothing like how the '97 I had last year was -- much more bitter.).

So, how was the Krug?

In a word, it was a razor-wire balance between weight and acidity, and Champagne Krug does this very well.   There's a unusual green-yellow cast to the wine in the glass, and it shows a lot of tart fruits (green apple, lime), and bracing, steely minerality.  It's a unique wine -- I've not had any Champagne that quite matches the style -- and I can understand how people would want to seek it out.  (93 points, if you're looking for a number and not a tasting note)

Is it worth $170 a bottle?

Well... if you've got $170 to blow on a bottle of wine, sure, why not!  Still, for the money, one could almost have a 6-pack of the best value Champagne from the tasting (the $30 GH Martel Brut Presteige -- much more yeasty/toasty than Krug, with more red fruit, but a great value and 91 points), or 4 of the second-best Champagne (the $45 DeMargerie Cuvee Special Grand Cru -- big, luxuriant wine with tons of red berries, tons of weight, and length.  92 points).

And that, I think, is the point of the luxe cuvees.  Are they better wines?  Yes.  Are they 4 times as good?  Not so much -- it's a very marginal difference.  So, really, when it comes time to buy a bottle of Champagne this year for a present... I don't think I'd go for a tete de cuvee.  Much more likely would be a bottle of a very good non-luxe cuvee, and some glassware.  Except for that one wine-geek friend who can really grok the difference (or, for that matter, for myself).

But... is it organic?

One of the things that I see a great deal at work is people worrying about whether or not a certain wine is organic.

Odd -- it's a term that's pretty over-used in the wine world (go visit a vineyard.  They'll tout that their wine has an organic connection, I'll wager -- either it's "organic grapes," or "no harsh chemical pesticides," or "we farm sustainably.").  Really, it's all about the marketing -- which is what's really important, right?  Heck, it's almost impossible to define "organic wine," as there's a myriad of certifications (off the top of my head, there's California Certified Organic Farmer, USDA Organic, Demeter, Salmon-Safe, Oregon Tilth, and Low Impact Viticulture and Enology).  Not to mention that in other countries, the certification processes are different (as one vintner from Australia once told me -- "we don't bother getting certification, as we'd have to do Australia's, the UK's, the US's, and Japan's.  I'd rather make wine than fill out paperwork."), so there's plenty of uncertified organic wines!

I know the basic arguments for organic wine -- it's a lower-impact method of farming (although, that's debatable -- there are organic pesticides and fertilizers that don't break down any better than the non-organic alternatives), there's the possibility of trace pesticides/fungicides "contaminating" the wine.  Ultimately, though, I wonder...  When you're drinking wine -- which, by definition has ethanol in it, a poison -- why worry about what kind of fertilizer was used in producing the grapes?  I'd worry more about the carbon footprint of the wine (see Dr. Tyler Coleman's work on the subject). 

See, much of the impact of a wine on the environment comes not in producing it...  but in transporting it.  Transporting a wine from Napa to, say, Tampa burns an awful lot of gasoline if you're moving it by truck (which most wine is -- there's a move towards shipping wine by rail, which is much more efficient, but in my experience most wine arrives on a truck).  So let's do some math:

A refer truck gets about 6.5 MPG.  It's 2923 miles from Napa to Tampa, which means about 450 gallons of gas to move the wine -- or 8,730 pounds of CO₂ emitted (roughly -- a gallon of unleaded yields about 19.3 pounds of CO₂ when completely combusted).  The average tractor-trailer carries about 25,000 bottles of wine -- so your bottle of wine from Napa equals just over 1/3 of a pound of CO₂ -- and that's just the cost of moving the wine from producer to consumer, not the cost of getting the bottles, corks, labels, fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and cases to the producer!

Now, if the wine were transported by train, you can cut the fuel cost in a third -- at least, that's what Union Pacific claims (in the bottom section).  And, according to Dr. Coleman, wine moved by ship is more efficient than truck as well -- to the point that, east of the Mississippi, it's more efficient to drink from Bordeaux than Napa.

And I'd say that cutting the CO₂ emissions used in moving the wine is about as important as anything else you can do in the process.

So why do most people worry about wine being organic? The cynic in me says, it's because appearing to do something to save the environment is easier than actually doing something about it.  It's easier to self-righteously spout to your friends "oh, I'm drinking organic," than it is to explain "my wine has a low carbon footprint."

That being said, it's not that organic wine is bad -- much of it is quite good, in fact, although there's some duds in the organic wines -- but that people's motivations for looking for organic wines are often screwed-up.

In his last column as food critic for the New York Times, Frank Bruni offers the following tips for getting the best value in your next fine dining experience:

1. Scratch off the appetizers and entrees that are most like dishes you’ve seen in many other restaurants, because they represent this one at its most dutiful, conservative and profit-minded. The chef’s heart isn’t in them.
   
2. Scratch off the dishes that look the most aggressively fanciful. The chef’s vanity — possibly too much of it — spawned these.
   
3. Then scratch off anything that mentions truffle oil.
   
4. Choose among the remaining dishes.
   

Amongst these, the most useful is the number 3 -- avoid truffle oil.  This means, avoid items made with expensive ingredients solely for the purpose of saying that they were made with expensive ingredients.  An analogy in wine would be a winery in California spouting how they used nothing but new Limousin oak barrels, assembled by a master cooper from France on-site.  Yes, French oak has different aromatic properties than American oak, just as truffle oil differs from soybean oil, but one must consider the value of the thing -- is it worth double the price to have the exotic ingredient?

A similar analogy to these can be made with the other two "remove from the list" suggestions.  Analogous to 2, I'd say avoid reserve bottlings.  Generally, there's not that much of a difference in quality, and often the reserve uses oak more aggressively, resulting in a more tannic wine that may be suitable for aging more so than drinking young (note that in some cases -- Rioja comes to mind -- this rule doesn't hold true all the time.  But it's good enough for 90% of the cases you'll find out there).   And, analogous to 1, avoid wines with large, generic appellations (a single state or country is way too varied to have a unique terroir).  You'll likely find inferior juice.

So, in the spirit of Frank Bruni (but not in the sense of "it's the last thing I'll write," hopefully), here's my list of ways to find value on a wine list:

1. Scratch off everything that has an appellation broader in geographic size than a county (roughly 100 square miles).  Too broad = cheap juice.
2. Scratch off every "reserve," and first-label wine for wines with multiple labels (Opus, Ch. Margaux, Dominus, etc).  You'll be paying for the privelige anyhow.
3. If a description fetishizes the labor-and-capital intensive winemaking process, scratch that wine off too (you may have to ask the sommelier for help with this one).  They're trying to justify overpriced wine.
4. Choose something from what's left.

Following these rules, you won't always get the best pairing you've ever had, but you'll likely not overpay for a wine, either.

An interesting twist on a wine gift.

One of the email lists I subscribe to is Bottlenotes' The Daily Sip.  Todays email refers to a very.... unique... kind of wine holder, pictured to the right.  It's called the "Don't break the bottle wine caddy," and I can see it being an absolutely infuriating (in a good way) means to give someone a gift of a good bottle of wine.  They'll have to work for their wine!

Yep, it's basically one of those "take the ring off of the metal horseshoes" kind of puzzles, but instead of a metal ring, the person who solves the puzzle gets a bottle of wine (not included with the caddy, of course).

The same company also makes several other versions, apparently for liquor and beer as well as wine, but I thought the wine versions were all pretty interesting; there's the "Don't break the bottle corkscrew edition," and the "Don't break the bottle original." So you've got your choice of ways to annoy your gift recipients this year!

Don't get me wrong, I think just giving someone wine in a gift bag (or, really, just without wrapping at all) is a fine gift... but what a way to make it memorable, forcing your recipient to look at the bottle of Napa cult cab, or fine Bordeaux, and puzzle over it for several hours trying to free it from it's prison before they can open it?

Perhaps you'll even get invited for dinner... so that you can open up the darn bottle that's still locked up tight! It's enough to make a devious wine geek weep with joy.

On wine and burgers

Yesterday, I had a very nice conversation with someone about Champagne -- and, oddly enough, I was not in a wine store when doing so.  While waiting in line at the bank, a woman in chef's pants (it turns out she is in fact a cook at a local restaurant) struck up a conversation asking "so what do you do?"  When I replied that I work in wine, she asked about my favorite Champagne.

When I told her, "it depends on what I'm drinking it with," there was shock and surprise; I believe she expected an answer like "Piper-Heidsick," or "Laurent Perrier."  A name that she recognized from the wine list.  She was further shocked when I broadly labeled the top volume producers as making "mostly mediocre wine."

So, I came up with a quick-and-dirty analogy that might be useful -- both with Champagne and still wines.  Comparing wine producers to hamburger restaurants.

Big names everyone's heard of are kind of like McDonalds or Burger King.  Big national fast-food chains.  Everyone knows McDonalds, and though the food there won't make you ill, it's not fine cuisine by any stretch. It's serviceable food, meant for mass consumption by people with a broad spectrum of palates.  Same with wine made for mass consumption; it's made to try and please as many people as possible.  Think Veuve Cliquot yellow label, or Chateau Ste. Michelle.  Yes, these names may make good upper-end wines (Grande Dame, or Indian Wells), sort of how McDonalds does sometimes do a good "special" burger (Black Angus and mushroom, for example), but for the most part, it's cheap and cheerful.

Smaller names that you may or may not have heard of are kind of like Five Guys, or In-n-Out, or Whataburger.  Regional chains, these places are about the same price as the big guys, perhaps a bit more, but they make good products.  The wine equivalent would be stuff you sometimes see on wine lists, but that you rarely find in a grocery store.  For Champagne, think Feuilette or Montaudon, for American wines think Martin Ray or Gordon Brothers.  They try, and generally succeed, at making top-flight products that are consistently good, and memorable.

Then, there's the real artisan producers.  RM Champagnes, estate-grown wines (oddly enough, many of these are in the category of "wineries lots of people have heard of," but mainly due to their cost, not as many people have had their wines).  This is like that friend who insists on having fresh-ground beef prepared at the butcher in front of him, hand-selects the freshest lettuce, makes homemade mayonnaise from scratch, and who grills that amazing burger that makes your mouth water to think of.  Yeah, the quality will vary slightly (good years versus bad ones for wine, days when all the butcher has is chuck roast versus sirloins for the burgers), but at the best of times, they're amazing, magical experiences.

And that, my friends, is why wine geeks are always searching for that new winery that "nobody's ever heard of, but you should try their estate cab!"  We're searching for the perfect burger in a world full of McDonalds.

A great pairing

The other night, having found a great special on ribs at the local supermarket, my fiancee and I decided it was time to cook some barbecue with a slightly spicy sauce, with corn and baked potato on the side.  Of course, that meant we had to crack open something nice from the cellar; in this case, we popped open the bottle of Two Hands Angel's Share '07 that I got her for Christmas (hey, she's an Aussie Shiraz fan, what can I say!).

The ribs were easy -- slather on sauce with a brush, cook at about 350 for an hour, then re-sauce and crank up the heat to 450 for 15 minutes to get a nice caramalization.  Add corn and potatoes, and serve.

The wine?  Glad you asked:

Inky purple with a neon-violet rim. The nose shows plenty of spicy berry notes -- think raspberries in baking spice. In the mouth, full, mouth-filling flavors of raspberry, cedar, and more of the spice. Some cherry on the finish, slightly bitter. Surprisingly velvety tannins round out the finish; quite tasty. A bit over-the-top; the wine feels almost too heavy in the mouth, but the finish is long and lingering.  91 points.

Incidentally, I can see why this was one of Wine Spectator's Top 100 wines of 2008 (#83, if you're keeping track).  It was a truly uplifting wine -- a surprisingly decently-balanced wine given it's 15.5% alcohol level.  True, it's going to be topheavy at that point, but that's to be expected.  It's a darn fine wine, and for the cost that the Two Hands non-Garden wines command ($30 or so), it's pretty reasonable.

Alas, these are not the ribs we ate -- Photo from bbq-ribs.com.