Dr Vino's wine blog

Remember the state dinner when the White House served green curry shrimp with a 15.6% alcohol grenache for the Indian premier? (and the typos!) Or a “Carlos Santana” brut sparkling wine with dessert for the Mexican president? Oh how we howled at those selections wondering if the White House wine steward was trying to derail diplomacy single-handedly.

Then, with the open-air state dinner for Angela Merkel, the White House stopped publishing the names of the wines served. Thanks to your contributions, we were able to determine two of the wines.

Was it the slings and arrows of the blogosphere that prompted the new policy? Probably not. It’s more likely that the White House doesn’t want to take the heat at this point in the economic recovery for pouring expensive wines: After the White House served a wine selling worth about $400 a bottle to President Hu of China, Stephen Colbert joked that it “should have been a sweatpants-potluck with box wine and a sleeve of Oreos.” Somehow, I doubt Colbert will ever be the White House usher.

The new policy of vinous non-disclosure prompted Bloomberg political reporter Margaret Talev to investigate. But she didn’t get a substantive response from either the usher or the First Lady’s office explaining the new policy.

This week, David Cameron will be in DC for a state dinner. Without knowing the menu, I think the White House should look to repay the courtesy of the Queen when the President visited London and underscore the “special relationship” between the two countries. After highlighting some up-and-coming producers, it would be appropriate to uncork some California cabernet with age, such as a top wine from the 1991 vintage, or reaching even further back to one of the gems from the 1970s. Subtle, elegant, distinguished and generous–it’s hard to argue with those qualities at the highest level of hospitality.

What do you think the White House should pour for Cameron? And do you think they should return to printing the wines on the menu or otherwise disclose the names of the actual wines poured?

One of the most exciting drink stories in America is the craft beer revolution and its related rise in home brewing. An article on Slate details that policy held back the hops: banned after Prohibition, it wasn’t until President Carter signed legislation in 1979 that allowed households to brew up to 200 gallons a year. Unregulated by laws such as Germany’s famous beer purity law of 1516, American home brewers experimented (as had the Belgians who were similarly unfettered by regulations) and today we have arrived at the point where the US is seen as the most innovative craft beer market in the world. Indeed, Belgian breweries are even buying American hops.

In the piece, the author says there are 27,000 home brewers who pay $38 a year to be members of the American Home Brewers’ Association. Home brewing is wildly popular, even among wine geeks. Josiah Baldivino, sommelier at Michael Mina is so confident in his brewing skillz that he whipped up an IPA to serve at his wedding. Jim Clarke, somm at Giorgio Armani restaurant had a couple of brews going when I spoke with him recently. The Slate author suggests the motivations of home brewers include “self-reliance, community-building, autonomy, independence from monopolies, an alternative to rampant consumerism, innate curiosity, and the desire to make something cool.”

So here’s my question: given how popular home brewing is, why is home winemaking not more popular, particularly with younger wine hipsters? Wine is certainly popular and would be cool to make. And we wine geeks like both community and autonomy (an odd mix) and are just as self-reliant as home brewers. Home winemaking is popular as judged by the fact that three of the regular, top-selling wine titles on Amazon have to do with home winemaking. Even though some outfits such as Crushpad and City Winery have altered the demographic somewhat, it appears me, anecdotally and generally speaking, that the demographic is older and people who are more into drinking rather than sipping. Even though I have made neither at home, it seems that it would be much harder to make good wine than it would be to make good beer because it is hard to get good grapes, especially if you live some distance from a vineyard. And most home-made wines that I’ve tasted have gotten 99 points for effort and decidedly fewer for what’s in the glass. Whereas, I’ve had some quite good homebrews.

In your experience, who makes wine at home? Will urban hipsters be making wine any day soon?

The French have a wine term that doesn’t translate. No, it’s not terroir. It’s vin de soif. A wine that’s thirst-quenching is a fun drink that accompanies food or a moment but doesn’t dominate them. It’s lowish in alcohol and in price. While the concept translates, the category comes up frustratingly empty when looking for American answers (for red, at least).

I put the question to my tweeps the other day “What’s in your glass when you want a thirst-quenching, domestic red wine?” The replies were telling. Bruce Schoenfeld,”Something domestic to a different country.” Mike Steinberger said “Um, Beaujolais.” Michael Kortrady replied ” (uh, gosh, umm, well, ya know…I’m sure I’ve had one).”

There may be hope. Chambers Street Wines recently offered the wines of Chris Brockway’s Broc Cellars calling them “Californian vin de soif,” including his 11.9% alcohol cabernet franc. Hirsch Vineyards has the ebullient, crackling Bohan Dillon 2009, a 13.1% pinot noir. Sommelier Raj Parr is teaming up with Arnot-Roberts to make a gamay. The trouble with the first two examples is that they are north of $25, so there’s only so much thirst one can quench. We have discussed California’s value challenge before several times.

Do you lament the dearth of American thirst-quenching reds or do you find some good examples?

When asked the last time he had mistaken Burgundy for Bordeaux, Harry Waugh famously replied, “not since lunch.” Frequent drinkers today aged 26 – 34 have more confidence than Waugh since 78% of them think they can tell the difference between merlot and cabernet sauvignon, even more similar than Burgundy and Bordeaux! (Hmm, not the only place we Americans have a lot of confidence…)

That’s one of the many interesting findings I learned at the Wine Market Council’s presentation in New York City on Tuesday that included survey and market data. To set the backdrop, Nielsen’s Danny Brager presented data that showed wine and spirits are taking market share away from beer. That’s the good news. But, thanks to the economic headwinds, prices are falling modestly. And that may also be good news if you’re a consumer. Indeed, 73% of consumers surveyed say they are finding good wines available at lower prices. Citing data from the Beverage Information group, John Gillespie of Wine market Council said that the latest estimate for the size of the wine market is 291 million cases, up from 278 million cases the year prior. That’s up from 207 million cases ten years prior and is the eighteenth consecutive year of growth in the US wine market.

John Gillespie broke down some of the demographics of wine drinkers. The most important point is that 21% of those surveyed drink wine once a week, which makes them “core” drinkers. These core drinkers, in turn, consume 91% of the wine in America. So they’re the ones driving the bus. After a focus on baby boomers last year, John focused this year on the millennials, the cohort that is aged 18-34 (well, 21-34 for wine purposes). He found that the generation is large enough to split and that the older subgroup of 26-34 year olds drinks wine with more frequency, in greater quantity and are more experimental than their younger peers and the older bracket, Generation X. These older millennials are really into wine and are also online a lot, visiting wine websites, tweeting and doing status updates on Facebook more than any other age group.

Also worth noting was that across all generations, “high end” purchasers (wine over $20) a month, are very engaged online. Oh, and they’re even more confident about telling cab from merlot, clocking in at 83%. Harry Waugh would be even more impressed.

Many of us wine writers praise the trend to lower-alcohol wines. But there’s one low alcohol wine that has taken off yet generated little coverage: Moscato.

Sales of the $6 sweet, fizzy white that ranges between 5 – 9 percent alcohol have almost doubled each of the past two years, albeit off a small base. The top-selling Barefoot moscato, made by Gallo, had $31 million in sales in 2010. A spokesperson for Gallo told Marketwatch “What makes this so exciting is that it’s bringing new users to the wine category.” Yes, and where there are “users” there is “innovation” such as Beringer’s “red moscato” that adds zinfandel and petite syrah for some red and black cherry flavor. Yellow Tail recently introduced a moscato.

Moscato has now taken a revered place in pop culture as hip-hop performers are touting it. Yes, it’s a sign of the times that we’re no longer in a Cristal economy, but a Moscato one. Here’s a taste of the hip hop lyrics from Ab-Soul: When things get hard to swallow / We need a bottle of moscato. And Trey Songz’ “I Invented Sex” (wherein he also admits to drinking “Ace“: It’s a celebration / Clap clap bravo. / Lobster and shrimp and a glass of moscato / finish the whole bottle.

I’ve recommended Moscato d’Asti as perhaps the ultimate wine for newbies so it doesn’t surprise me that it has taken off, presumably poaching market share from white zinfandel. But good moscatos from Piedmont producers such as La Spinetta or Elio Perrone, with acidity undergirding sweetness, are not the wines driving this lastest trend. But that’s fine. I adopt a live and let drink approach–if this is a “gateway” wine then so be it. Maybe next they will discover Riesling.

What do you make of this moscato madness–a good thing or the next incarnation of Nasty Spumante?

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of New Jersey? Surely, the local wine, right?!

That’s what state legislators were hoping when they voted a reform to New Jersey wine law this week. With the governor’s signature, which he has said he will provide, the state will become the 39th to allow the direct shipping from wineries to consumers. After Granholm, the 2005 Supreme Court decision that found it unconstitutional to allow in-state wineries the right to ship to consumers while out-of-state wineries were prevented, New Jersey was one of the rare states that didn’t open up shipments, but instead closed down.

The new law is certainly worth celebrating but don’t think about popping Champagne unless it is purchased at a store in NJ. The most glaring shortcoming is that the bill only legalizes shipments from wineries, not wine stores, thus disallowing free trade in over a third of the wine consumed in the US. For reasons of parity, that’s too bad. But since there are many innovative wine stores and the state has become one of the most competitive in the country, New Jersey residents are still well-served.

Anyhoo, not all wineries can ship to New Jersey under the new law, just wineries under 250,000 gallons (about 85,000 cases). These “capacity caps” are controversial and were struck down in Massachusetts (at a threshold of 30,000 gallons) as a form of discriminating against out-of-state wineries, which was what Granholm said was the big no-no. Further, wineries must purchase a license to ship, which is among the highest such fees in the country. Cathy Corison, proprietor of Corison in Napa Valley, tweeted “NJ opens up to direct wine shipment. $938 annual fee. Gee… thanks. #smallwinerytax.”

For an additional fee, licensed wineries are allowed to open more than a dozen tasting rooms for direct sales throughout the state, which also seems to advantage in-state wineries. But if an out-of-state winery opened a store, it would be a new and fascinating challenge to the three-tier system. (In this vein, Chateau Montelena just opened a “tasting room” in the Westin hotel in San Francisco; New Jersey also has many BYOB restaurants.)

So for NJ consumers, it’s a half-a-loaf law. It’s better than the status quo ante. But not ideal since buying wine from, say, NY wine stores is still illegal (and thus, I’m sure, never happens). New Jersey wineries may be the biggest beneficiaries of all as they can expand in-state (and out-of-state!) sales. Time to bone up on the terroir de Jersey Shore (although this map is much funnier).

What do you think? If you are a winery or New Jersey resident, are you excited or non-plussed by the change?

Have you ever said, “I cannot wait to get home and pop open a bottle of red California Trousseau!” It’s not likely since the grape that hails from the Jura region of France is pretty rare in California: Only 49 tons were crushed last year (compare that to 400,000 tons of zinfandel; but since it fetched as much as $1,700 a ton vs an average of $442 for zinfandel, maybe the premium will attract future plantings). But maybe you should? Assuming the wines are done well, I think the expansion of grape varieties beyond the Big Six is potentially one of the most exciting stories to come out of California, nay, all of America.

A while back, I tweeted about Trousseau (noir) from Arnot-Roberts, a wine that I liked. The Sonoma-based winery sources the fruit from Luchsinger Vineyards in Lake County’s Clear Lake AVA. Bryan Garcia, a savvy 24-year-old wine geek from NYC, tweeted back exclaiming that California trousseau is more expensive than the Jura masters!

It’s a fair point. But if all the Trousseau lovers of America bought only Jura wines, who would buy the domestic Trousseau wines–zin fans? Somehow, I doubt it. And without demand for offbeat wines, producers would would likely give up making them commercially.

More broadly, what do you think: do you have any sense of obligation to buy local or domestic wines because you like the idea or the story, even if you find them not price competitive–or even quality competitive, as Bryan suggests by invoking the “masters”?

When I bumped into Pax Mahle earlier this year at his Sonoma wine making facility, I told him I wanted to see his eggs. Fortunately, he didn’t drop his drawers. Instead, he took me to his fermentation room where he had a massive pair of cement egg-shaped fermenters!

Pax used to make full-throttle wines, syrahs and pinots mostly, that scored big Parker points. Then, in what might be another stop in our “Road to Damascus” series (see Wells Guthrie), he grew tired of the style at around the time he had a falling out with his financial backer, bringing an end to the Pax label. His new label, Wind Gap, offers lower-octane wines thanks in part to cool vineyard sites as well as the changing tastes of the wine maker. “My tastes tend to prefer a lighter style,” he told me, adding that his favorite wine of his on that warm June day was is his Trousseau Gris. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an appointment with him and he was heading out so I didn’t have a chance to taste his wines. Just to see the eggs.

Of note, he said that he has won back the Pax name and will be releasing about 700 cases of wine under the Pax label. Wind Gap makes about 3,000 cases of wine a year.

Anyway, after a trip to the Republic of Georgia, Alice Feiring wonks out and informs us that to be über wine geeky, we should call amphora by the Georgian name of qvevri!

Another Pax egg shot (mine) and video (found on youtube) after the jump. Read more…