1 Wine Dude

Weekly Wine Quiz: Room To Grow?

1WineDude — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Hereby marketh the fourth installment of the Weekly Wine Quiz! Based on feedback from ever-so-vocal-and-intelligent YOU, I will not be supplying the answer directly in the post – you will need to tune back in later in the comments section for the answer. So you can put your answer in the comments for potential bragging rights later (not that you’d gloat… too much…).

I’m en route to the Loire wine region this week, for the Salon des Vins de Loire (more on that next week), so the answer may not be quick in forthcoming (depending on how my access to the Global Interwebs fares during those travels); your patience is most appreciated!

Champagne: Room To Grow?

Finishing up our Champagne theme that kicked off the Weekly Wine Quiz, here’s one last question that has to do with the region, and the real backbone of its production!

The Champagne region is home to many storied brands with unique histories, including some that have become household names. You probably know many of the famous few brand names, but do you know how many grape growers actually own the vast majority of Champagne vineyards?

A. 19,000
B. 12,000
C. 5,500
D. 1,700

Cheers – and good luck!

Song Of The Happily Depleted Burgundian Bank Account (Domaine Chanson’s 2009 Grand Crus Hit High Notes, And High Prices)

1WineDude — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

It’s not often that a wine guy avoids a wine region by choice.

Yet that’s more-or-less where I’ve found myself when it comes to France’s Burgundy, home of both ethereally-exquisite, mind-blowingly-good wines and overpriced, cabbage-in-the-bathwater bad swill, with little to guide the consumer from choosing one over the other apart from painstakingly acquired detailed knowledge of the region’s négociants… and we’ve all go those guys’ details committed firmly to memory, right?!??

Ahem…

And so, when you get invited to a vintage tasting in NYC for a Burgundian producer with whom you have no prior experience, even as a critic-of-sorts you steel yourself for what is surely to be the inevitable dropping of the other shoe; as in, having to taste wines that smell like the other shoe dipped in someone’s droppings.

And then, when you’re not only pleasantly surprised by the outcome – as I was at Blue Fin last week, after going through the 2009 lineup from Père & Fils’ Domaine Chanson – you’re practically blown away… Well, then you have to endure the odd-paired painful pleasure of watching your personal assessment of both that producer’s abilities and your own douchebag rating simultaneously skyrocket. [ Editor's note: This pain was salved slightly by the fact that Père & Fils’ was pouring bubbly from Champagne producer Bollinger, which they also own, and which I can now tell you from personal experience washes down the taste of crow with elegant, floral appeal. ]

Much of Domaine Chanson’s rise to within-spitting-distance of Burgundy’s upper-echelon (and therefore arguably the wine world’s upper-echelon) can be attributed to the hard work of its President, Gilles de Courcel – an amicable guy with thinning brown hair, a quick smile and eyes that light up when he gets a chance to exercise his borderline-obsessive passion for describing the tiny geography from which Chanson’s top-tier, tiny production Grand Cru wines originate…

The only real problem in meeting Gilles and tasting his wines is the stark realization that the Capitalist laws of supply and demand will almost certainly assure that even if you could find those tiny production Grand Cru wines, you almost certainly won’t be able to afford them. It’s like seeing a great movie and then minutes later contemplating the sadness of the human condition and the tragedy of your own worthless mortality in the grand Universe.

And it mostly hurts because really, really good Burgundy wines are a bit like crack cocaine for wine geeks; they just might reset the bar for you on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and leave you fruitlessly chasing those initial highs for the rest of your miserable-ass life.

But I’m gonna tell you about them anyway, because misery most certainly loves company when it comes to this kind of pain:

2009 Domaine Chanson Corton Vergennes Grand Cru
Price: $114
Rating: A

From a tiny hillside vineyard that once belonged to Louis XVI’s counselor. At first sniff, this comes off as lemon water, not Chardonnay. There’s literally almost nothing there. Then the waves start rolling in – limes, spices, wet rocks, tropical fruits… and keep coming until the whole thing aggregates into a sense of total, elegant indulgence, which keeps on going even seconds after you swallow the stuff, after which you will feel like storming the Bastille on horseback, banners flying wildly in the wind, while trumpets herald your attack. Of course, you’d probably be shot instantly by the French police but another sip will take you right back to fantasy land.

2009 Domaine Chanson Chambertin Clos de Bèze Grand Cru

Price: $215
Rating: A

From relatively prime real estate in tiny Burgundian terms, in an upper part of an Eastward-facing hill in Gevrey Chambertin. A wonderful balancing act of structure – acidity, minerality, tannins, spices, ripe and dried fruits, blah-blah-blah… And that’s all just on the nose of this Pinot. Something like twenty-seven different red berry fruits then present themselves, delicately lifting up your will and then crushing it and playing with it like a cat toy. Which you won’t mind so long as there’s still another sip in the glass (which their won’t be, at least not for long).

Two selections from Chanson’ slightly lower-tier Premier Crus stood out for me at the tasting – so much so that I thought offering them as somewhat-easier-to-possibly-locate and somewhat-more-affordable alternatives:

2009 Domaine Chanson Puligny-Montrachet Hameau de Blagny Premier Cru
Price: $65
Rating: A-

From clay and limestone soils near Meursault (not that you care, probably). Sensual, textural, floral, elegant, but almost biting in its acid as its still in the Puligny-Montrachet version of wine diapers. Visions of scallops will likely appear at first sip. I’d suggest this Chardonnay for a hot date, but then that date would expect this kind of wine every date night and then eventually the only thing that will get screwed will be your bank account.

2009 Domaine Chanson Beaune Clos des Fèves Premier Cru
Price: $66
Rating: B+

This is Burgundy Pinot Noir from a “monopole” vineyard with an eye looking slightly towards the Sonoma Coast. It’s seductive and juicy, and isn’t shy about dishing out raspberries and baking spices towards your nostrils. The vanilla and oak here come off more like a cleverly-applied hint of perfume and less like, well, vanilla and oak: drawing you in for a closer look rather than turning you off in sneezing fit.

Cheers!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at Song Of The Happily Depleted Burgundian Bank Account (Domaine Chanson’s 2009 Grand Crus Hit High Notes, And High Prices) from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

“Proof That Social Media Has Forever Changed The Landscape Of Wine?”

1WineDude — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Well… if this isn’t “proof that social media has forever changed the landscape of wine” (their words, not mine), then I’m not really sure what is.

Ok, so it’s not really proof, but it’s hard to deny the traction when someone like me makes the top 20 in a list like this. And #14?? Seriously?!? WTF?!??…

There’s probably something cruelly insane about me being more influential than Terry Theise (#60?) and the CEO of Total Wine, but one thing I’ve learned is that wine is, in fact, one crazy business (and according to the article, it was people in the biz who helped named the names). I feel thee are a ton of omissions, all of whom I’d personally rank higher than me on this list, but I’m honored to be in the company of such inspiring people (about a third of whom I have had the pleasure of meeting personally).

Having said all of that, I’d caution about reading too much into lists like this – good for a pulse check, probably bad for anything more substantial than that. My placement/ranking is probably a controversial play (and that’s not even considering the glaring omissions, such as Bonny Doon‘s Randall Grahm), and judging by the Facebook and twitter chatter this week, it’s a successful play.

You can check out the full list of IntoWine.com’s Top 100 U.S. wine industry influencers here. Thanks to Michael Cervin and the IntoWine.com folks for the nod – I’m trying to live up to it!

Cheers!

New York Wine Expo 2012 Is Nigh (And YOU Can Get $15 Off Through March 1st!)

1WineDude — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By some minor miracle, I may actually be able to attend the New York Wine Expo in March.

For the last few years, I’ve had to miss this vinous shin-dig held at the ginormous Jacob K. Javits Convention Center because I’ve been roughly 2,898 miles away from it when it’s been held. But this year, I’ll be just getting back from the Left Coast when the NYC Wine Expo gets going… so there’s a good chance that I might see YOU there, since 1WineDude.com readers get a $15 discount on the Friday March 2nd grand tasting event, now through March 1st!

Why? Because you’re all totally bad-ass, that’s why!

The expo will be taking place March 2 – 4, 2012 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center (trust me, it’s big enough that if you get reasonable close, you can’t miss it). Over 700 wines (dang!) will be poured from nearly 200 wineries, and there will be a few wine-related seminars outside of the tastings.

From now until March 1st, 2012 when you purchase NYC Wine Expo event tickets on-line you can get your $15 discount off the Friday night grand tasting event by clicking “Enter promotional code” at the bottom of the event form (directly above the “Order Now” button), and using the code “WINEDUDE” (without the quotation marks, of course).

If you’re going (and you should, if you want to give your wine tasting IQ a serious – and quick – boost), check out my mini survival guide for getting through these big tasting events alive (Hint: Spit. A lot).

Cheers!

Vintage-Dated, Premium… Grape Juice?

1WineDude — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Imagine this scenario…

You pour yourself a glass from a premium bottle, the aromatic liquid spilling forth with the tell-tale floral and stone fruit aromatics of high-quality Riesling. You take a long whiff, then a sip, swooshing the liquid around in your closed mouth to get all the volatile compounds going, noting the secondary aromas and overall presentation that identify the growing conditions of the vintage from which the grapes were harvested.

Then you pass the glass to your eight-year old daughter, who downs the rest of it unceremoniously.

This scenario can happen, with no ill effects to your pre-teen offspring, and all quite legally, if the juice happens to be from one of the $10 bottles made by the likes of Virginia’s Oakencroft Farm or Oregon’s Draper Valley Vineyard that are offering high-end, vitis vinifera grape juice – as reported earlier this month on USAToday.com.

As in unfermented grape juice. Like Welch’s, only made from vintage-dated Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Gewurztraminer, and the like. Navarro Vineyards has been doing it for decades, in fact.

Why am I mentioning this? Because I’m fascinated by it, for a number of reasons.

First off, if you have too many grapes on your hands this is a brilliant way to put them to potentially profitable good use. And while alcohol is an important element of body and even flavor, this is also potentially an amazing tool for introducing people (and kids!) to different fine wine grape varieties, without the buzz (apparently, keeping the grapes from fermenting is one of the primary challenges in the fine grape juice biz, by the way). And the juices could spice up recipes that otherwise call for wine (Navarro sort of suggests this via their Verjus cookbook).

I’m not sure I’ll ever look at Welch’s quite the same way again (even if it will be to pause momentarily at the refrigerated section of the grocery store to give silent thanks that those Concord grapes never reached fermentation)…

Cheers!