Dr Vino's wine blog

Little-known factoids for Americans about Italy: The country shares a border with Austria. Pinot grigio isn’t the only pinot from Italy–pinot noir (nero) is grown too.

Put those two factoids to your use and try the excellent Hofstatter Meczan pinot nero 2005. Grown in the foothills of the Dolomites in the Alto Adige region, where a German dialect is more spoken than Italian, this wine that is light in color has excellent fruit, acidity and finish making it hugely food friendly.

A couple of weeks ago, we discovered this wine at Otto enoteca and pizzeria during a Saturday lunch. We ordered a quartino and had the bottle opened at our table–always a nice touch to ensure freshness (I mentioned this aspect of quartinos and carafes here). I searched for it online when we got home, found it locally for under $20 a bottle, and promptly ordered a case. We have been serving it to our guests ever since and have not yet managed to pull only one cork in an evening.

I also threw in a bottle of their 2005 De Vite pinot grigio–the other pinot (find this wine). It has such appealing notes of stones and flowers (stone-crushed flowers?) that want to order more. I just found it for the ridiculously low price of $11. Excuse me while I open a new browser and load some into my electronic cart…

Imported by Domaine Select Wine Estates.

tags: wine | food and drink | pinot noir

The whole concept of Pinot under $20 is enough to make some Burghounds shudder. But it is a topic of recurring interest to everyone at the Dr. Vino World Headquarters with its high concentration of frugal pinotphiles.

I recently had the $19 Nicolas Potel 2006 Bourgogne rouge and found it a great value, lean, old world pinot. In previous vintages, I’ve enjoyed value Pinots from Austria (e.g. Stadlmann) and Italy’s alto Alto Adige region (e.g. Hofstatter) as well. And I’ve had some good new world Pinot under $20, such as the “H” Pinot Noir from Hamacher in Oregon. (search for these wines)

What about you? Have your say in our latest poll!

[poll id=”5″]

So what will you be doing for your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day? It’s likely that it will include some wine, food and flowers. Here are a few suggestions for the wine — the rest is up to you.

Can you find a good pinot noir under $20? I put this to the test recently asking some wine shops for their faves. Some clerks recoiled in horror at the prospect of finding a worthwhile pinot noir–the grape praised by Miles in Sideways–for a mere $20. Part of the problem is that since Miles told everyone to have pinot noir producers have rushed to bring more to market even though there was little more to be had. Thus many “pinots” under $20 contain the legal minimum of 75 percent pinot noir and then jack the rest up with syrah or zinfandel trying to make a dark, lush wine not dissimilar to the very merlot that Miles disdained.

So thanks to your generous click-throughs on ads on this site, I deployed my tasting budget gathering 12 bottles of pinot noir under $20 and a few friends. The wines hailed from Burgundy, the grape’s ancestral home, as well as California, Italy, Chile, and Oregon. All were tasted blind, which provided some unusual surprises.

On the whole I would say that the category produces some good rewards but is not without risk. Think of the degree of difficulty as equivalent to the quadruple back flip off a low board. But the reward is a very food friendly wine with great fruit and acidity and little of the tannin that wine newbies find offputting–yet sufficient depth and intrigue to fascinate wine geeks like me. In sum, an excellent date wine. And because of the light price tag, you can deploy the rest of your Valentine’s Day budget elsewhere.

So here they are, in order of preference:

Au Bon Climat, Santa Barbara County, 2005. $18. Find this wine
The hands-down winner. A wonderful, almost Burgundian nose of earth and fruit. On the palate, the wine has cherry notes, cola, a certain pleasant earthiness, and a surprisingly nice level of acidity given its SoCal origin. The finish even has a bit of an arc like a serious pinot. Very food friendly and hugely date friendly.

O’Reillys, pinot noir, Oregon 2005. $19 Find this wine
The Irish are known for their wine. OK, maybe not. But they might be better known for it after giving the O’Reillys pinot a shot. This O’Reilly factor comes from the no-spin-zone of Oregon: a delicate balance of cherry notes and acidity make this a bottle whose contents disappear quickly.

Hofstatter, pinot nero, Alto Adige, 2005. $18. Find this wine
Mentioned previously on this blog, the Hofstatter fared well during this blind tasting. This pinot, light in color, has a sense of place in the bottle. But don’t worry about the Dolomites where it came from: the place for you should be on your dining room table.

Fleur, pinot noir, Carneros, 2005. $15 Find this wine
This pinot is easy drinking. Soft, straight forward pinot noir, it paired great at our tasting with the Jasper Hill cheese called “constant bliss.” With the bouquet of flowers on the label, the wine in your glass, and the cheese on your plate, you’re as close as I can take you to Valentine’s pleasure.

And finally…Roederer Estate, brut rose, for $20+ Find this wine
If you must have a great-tasting pink bubbly this V-Day, you’re going to have to pay a couple of three dollars over our limit. But it is 60% pinot noir! This Roederer Estate is a great way to go. It pairs well with many foods–but not sure how it is in the jacuzzi.

If you have a favorite pinot noir under $20 feel free to post a comment below.

Related: “Biodynamics in Oregon”
Aging pinots

tags: wine recommendations | pinot noir

In a story in today’s NY Sun, I was quoted as saying that a memorable wine for me was the Hofstatter pinot nero 2005. True enough. But you already knew that. Newspapers have space limitations that don’t apply here on the web. So let me mention a few more!

If I had to choose one wine to sum up 2006 it would be the Clos de los Siete 2004 (find this wine). Yes, I’ve mentioned it before and I don’t want you to think that it was the only wine I drank last year (I actually tasted over 2,000!), but it encapsulated the year in a bottle for a variety of reasons.

I visited Argentina in April of this year and I went to the dramatic Clos de los Siete winery. The vast project of over 2,000 acres was mere scrub brush in the late 1990s. Michel Rolland led a team of six other investors from Bordeaux. The wines under the Clos de los Siete name are the collaborative wine but the goal is that each investor will produce wines individually as well (I like the Cuvelier des Andes, 2004, about $30, find it). On a further personal note, I had the opportunity to meet Michel Rolland and taste through some of his wines with him.

Beyond these personal experiences the wine encapsulates 2006 in other ways. In a sign that wine and Argentine wine in particular is starting to reach the masses, TIME magazine declared Argentine malbec as “hot” in their year-end issue. Beyond being mostly malbec, the Clos de los Siete is a further sign of the times. It’s about $15, which is the new $10. And it is a big, bold, extracted, high-alcohol, wine and doesn’t seem particularly age-worthy.

I’ve enjoyed many other wines this year. I sprung for Savennieres early in the year and explored the other wines of the Loire later in the year. I tossed back some torrontes. I tasted some amazingly vibrant older whites from Austria. Some pinot noirs from around the world moved me and I was particularly thrilled with the quality of Oregon pinot. I learned a lot about biodynamics and tried an excellent wine that had been protected from marauding baboons by lion dung. And found some good value Bordeaux. I wondered whether mourvedre and malbec, traditionally backup singers, had star power. And my year-end bubbled with some farmer fizz from boutique growers.

I look forward to sharing many more fun wines with you in 2007, either together offline at one of my classes or meet-ups or through the virtual vicariousness of the web. Cheers!

tags: wine | 2006 | clos de los siete

Test this
Are you a lactating mom worried about transmitting too much pinot grigio to your infant? Well, the Dept. of Preying on Parental Fears now brings you a device to test breast milk for alcohol! $25 for six tests. Lactation consultants say it’s overkill for most moms. [$WSJ]

Drink this
Rachel Weisz, Academy Award winning actress, is causing a tempest in her chardonnay glass by saying that it is “fine” for pregnant women to drink wine. “Personally I do. They say not in the first three months though, but I think that after that it’s fine. I mean in Europe they drink it, ” she said. Cue uproar. [SAWF]

Not much
“I mean, how much lagrein is there? And how many people have heard of it?” That’s Martin Hofstatter from Alto Adige talking to Matt Kramer about lagrein, a deep red that Kramer describes as “one of the world’s most inviting red wines.” That’s fine. Except that Kramer criticized wine blogs earlier this year for writing about wines that are too hard to find. Ah, the irony! [NY Sun] thanks, Jack!

Ticked Ott
In his NYT review of Jay McInerney’s new book, a collection of his wine columns for House & Garden, Frank Prial rightfully points out McInerney’s expensive taste. Case in point: Domaine Ott rose, which McInerney recommends. Prial says “Domaine Ott is a rip-off.” Love it! You heard it here first!

Voted down
Massachusetts voters decided they like buying their wine from package stores and not grocery stores. Or was it convenience stores? This analysis of the campaign shows how the YES campaign lost a 2-1 lead in the final two weeks of the campaign. Oh well. You can’t say I didn’t try here or here!

Shouted down
Wine woot, an online retailer, offered a four pack of Sierra Club chardonnay that included a donation to the environmental preservation fund. Was it the election week? Or the wine talking? Either way it generated over 200 comments! hat tip: Mark

Star struck
Where are you if one week from today you are at a wine auction presided over by Charlotte Rampling and Jonathan Nossiter? If you answered Burgundy for the annual Hospice de Beaune charity auction, you’re right! I wonder if Nossiter, director of Mondovino, will leave his camera at home.