Category Archives: Commentary

SFGate’s Top 100

December 4, 2012 Jim/VINEgeek Leave a comment

SFGate’s Top 100 Wines of 2012 hit the interwebs yesterday and is a must-read. It’s loaded with intriguing wines to seek out, courtesy of Jon Bonné (@jbonne)

Only one varietal Mourvèdre made the list, but it’s one I’ve been itching to get my hands on — the 2011 La Clarine Farm Cedarville Sierra Foothills Mourvèdre, described thusly:

Mourvedre doing a delicious impersonation of Jura wine.

Yum.

– – –

FYI, there are two other wines on the list with Mourvèdre in the blend:

2010 Bedrock The Bedrock Heirloom Sonoma Valley Red
2009 Dos Cabezas El Campo Pronghorn Vineyard Sonoita Red

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My Thanksgiving Wine

November 23, 2012 Jim/VINEgeek Leave a comment

Here’s what I drank at Thanksgiving dinner this year: Bruno Rocca Dolcetto d’Alba 2011 Trifolé. I thought it worked well overall. The cranberry sauce helped pull the wine and the mostly white meat and carb-y plate together.

None of my guests were drinking wine with me, so I didn’t open anything else. Waiting in reserve were bottles of Kung Fu Girl Riesling, some Champagne and Bonny Doon Vineyard’s Querry pear/apple/quince cider. I’ll have to save those bottles for leftovers.

What did you drink with your turkey this year?

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Let’s hope they opt for screwcaps over synthetic…

October 27, 2012 Jim/VINEgeek Leave a comment

Italy approves synthetic closures for DOC, DOCG | decanter.com.

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40th Birthday Wine List

October 21, 2012 Jim/VINEgeek Leave a comment

My wife planned a great wine dinner at Vino Vino for my 40th birthday a couple of weeks ago. It was an outstanding meal! Below are the wines and pairings. I didn’t take notes (I was in celebratory mode, not wine-nerd mode), but my favorite wines of the night were the Jacques Puffeney Arbois Pinot, the Nebbiolo d’Alba and the Bandol (natch, #teammourvedre).

André Clouet Grand Cru Brut Reserve (magnum)
w/ mussels & fries
~~~

Chateau Valcombe ‘Epicure’ 2011 Ventoux Rosé
w/ house-made charcuteries
~~~

Domaine Wachau 2011 Gruner Veltliner
w/ butterleaf salad, shaved egg white, shallot confit and fried capers
~~~

Jacques Puffeney 2010 Arbois Pinot Noir
w/ harrisa veal sweetbreads, white been puree and sauce vert
~~~

Chateau Pradeaux 2006 Bandol
w/ herb-crusted rack of lamb and glazed root vegetables
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Roagna Igino 2009 Nebbiolo d’Alba
w/ sottocerne al tartufo with fig and marcona almond
~~~

Cascinetta Vietti 2011 Moscato d’Asti
w/ my wife’s famous cheesecake

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“Freshness” vs. Acidity

September 20, 2012 Jim/VINEgeek Leave a comment

W. Blake Gray has an interesting post up at Palate Press advocating for using the term “freshness” in place of acidity when talking about wine so as not to scare off or confuse non-geeks.

Acidity is scary. Acidity melts your teeth, burns your stomach, gets thrown into the faces of adulterers in Pakistan. It’s not something you enjoy on your porch on a hot day; it’s the fast, painful way to get rid of a wart.

I’m sympathetic to this point, but as pointed out by a few commenters, “freshness” presents it’s own problems. Does “fresh” mean recently made, as in fresh orange juice? Can a wine that isn’t “fresh” be good?

I like the terms “crisp” or “bright” to describe high-acid wines. Bright is probably an eye-roller outside of wine-geek circles. (I recall a non-geek friend giving me a hard time for using the term “round” to describe wines, which seems perfectly fine to me.) But crisp seems like something people can “get” more easily.

The more you try to deconstruct it the more you realize talking about wine is hard. Reminds me of this quote.

What do you think?

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Château Blanc

February 28, 2012 Jim/VINEgeek Leave a comment

White Castle is testing wine in one of it’s locations in Lafayette, Indiana. WSJ.com has an entertaining write-up.

“I find that people who know wine will choose the Moscato.”

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Dark Roast : Coffee :: Overripe Reds : Wine

February 23, 2012 Jim/VINEgeek Leave a comment

In his latest Drinking Out Loud post at winespectator.com, Matt Kramer makes the case that Starbuck’s new Blonde Roast signals a general shift in American tastes toward more nuance, less intensity-for-intensity’s-sake:

As the marketing mavens of Starbucks have discovered, the American palate is seeking an alternative to heavy flavors. Are we becoming—dare I say it?—more nuanced? By golly, I think we are.

Witness the recalibration among an increasing number of California winemakers as to what constitutes “ripeness” in a grape. In a reaction against the wine version of “dark-roasted grapes,” newer producers such as Rhys, Copain, Arnot-Roberts, Peay, Kutch and Parr, among others, have put their pocketbooks where there palates are by making wines (mostly Pinot Noir, as well as Syrah) with alcohol levels as low as 12 percent. Longtime producers such as Mayacamas, Au Bon Climat and Cathy Corison, among others, have quietly gone their own restrained way for decades.

It’s an apt analogy. And I wonder if there’s an even broader rule at play here that applies in countless other areas of interest: intensity-seeking as a base form of connoisseurship. Do beer snobs look down their noses at hop-heads counting their IBUs? Foodies make fun of heat-seekers and their chile pepper flip-flops?

Whatever. I believe in the Big Tent philosophy of wine enthusiasm. There are thousands of different wines for a reason. Drink what you like. Dark roasted or unoaked.

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