Dr Vino's wine blog

I walked to my place. There were 14 glasses of red wine in front of me. But not just any red wine–Chateau Lagrange. I knew this was going to be good.

Many of New York’s A-list wine writers (somehow I was invited) turned up for lunch today at Union Square Cafe to celebrate–and taste through–the career of Marcel Ducasse. For 23 years, Ducasse has been the winemaker at Chateau Lagrange in St. Julien. He will soon be able to literally hang out his “gone fishing” sign since he will be spending time on his boat and with his family in Arcachon. Although he is a sage voice in the industry, he let the wines do most of the talking today.

In late 1983, Suntory Ltd of Japan purchased the chateau for 54 million French francs (at the then-exchange rate of 8.38 francs to the dollar, that’s $6.4 million). Interestingly, one company official there today told me that they encountered some local patriotism that resented a “crown jewel” being purchased by foreigners. Although a classified growth in the 1855 classification, this “jewel” was in need of a lot of TLC. Ducasse, who was then brought on board, told us that the company has proceeded to pour ten times the original purchase price into the property. They needed 13 years stanch the losses and become cash-flow positive.

If there was one theme that Ducasse touched on today it was that the vintages are getting warmer. “When I started in the wine business, it was a miracle–a dream!–when the cabernet reached a level corresponding to 12% alcohol,” he told the gathered crowd of scribes. Now, 13% is the norm. Since 1995 the vintages have been decent, good or very good–but none has been disastrous. The summers are now warmer, drier and sunnier.

We tasted the components of the 2005 vintage–only cabernet sauvignon, merlot and petit verdot are planted on the chateau’s 115 hectares. Each good in their own right, the cabernet offered aromas of dark fruits, violets and firm tannins while the merlot–though no wimp–was softer with earthy notes and truffle aromas. The petit verdot was a tannin bolt. The blend transcended these component parts and showed a beautiful complexity at this early stage. In the excellent yet overpriced 2005 vintage, this is a tremendous value at under $50 a bottle (find this wine).

Then we moved back in time. We had a glass of each of the vintages from 1995-2004 served blind. The 2002 stood out to me as excellent and again it is reasonably priced at $50–though I found one vendor selling it for $37. At that price, this is a wine to buy by the case–get the duct tape out and seal it up for another 10 years. How do I know?

Because next we tasted the 1989 and 1990. Although these wines were from a different climatological era, they were fully resolved, delicately balanced, and hugely appealing right now. If anything, I gave the 1990 the edge but they are rewarding. And the best news of all? These lovely mature Bordeaux can be had a fraction of today’s prices since each is under $100 a bottle (find the 1990; find the 1989). If you want to taste a real claret, try is 1988. It is a trip back in time in more ways than one.

Continuity will likely be the key at Chateau Lagrange. Suntory remains the owner. And Bruno Eynard, who assumes the winemaking duties, has already been the numéro deux there for 17 years. Having raised the bar, the team aims to keep it there.

The French know how to protest. In a tradition that some ascribe to the 1789 revolution, demonstrators often march to express their interests. Beyond protests including baggage handlers and the police, recent years have even seen the unemployed and prostitutes take to the streets–to protest.

Wine protests have also been happened at various moments over the past century in France. Sadly, in the past few years they have been violent.

So it’s good to see these French protesters have a sense of humor [via BBC]:

French marchers say ‘non’ to 2007

Hundreds of protesters in France have rung in the New Year by holding a light-hearted march against it….

The tension mounted as the minutes ticked away towards midnight – but the arrival of 2007 did nothing to dampen their enthusiasm.

The protesters began to chant: “No to 2008!”

tags: wine | France | french protests

LVMH, the global luxury goods company, has a 60 percent market share of champagne sales in the US according to the IMPACT databank 2005. Their brands include such names as Veuve Clicquot, Dom Perignon, and Moet. They’re big.

Moet, like the other grandes marques, has been fabulously successful thanks to mostly buying other people’s grapes and then blending wine. In fact, the brand management has been so successful that the big champagne houses are among the most successful brands in the wine business: wide name recognition, relatively high volume, and selling at a high price point. They’ve hit the economic sweet spot. Moet sold 600,000 cases in 2005 in the US and the average retail price of each bottle was $43.50 according to Impact.

On the other end of the champagne continuum is a merry band of small growers. No, they’re not an elf-like 3’9″–they just don’t make a lot of bubbly. But that’s also a point of difference. Like a traditional “chateau,” they grow their own grapes and make their own wine.

Terry Theise, known for importing fine wines from Germany, Austria, and more recently, Champagne, spoke to a lunch of the Wine Media Guild last week about his “grower champagnes.” His spiel for grower champagne rests on three elements: value, ethics, and taste.

He argues that without the ad budgets to place products in James Bond movies, grower champagnes offer more attractive values. (But what about the economies of scale that the grandes marques employ?) And buying “farmer fizz” means supporting small family businesses. And they taste better he says.

While I was ready to be wowed, I thought that his range of champagnes was competently done but I couldn’t help but being a little disappointed. After all, I was starting to dig his logic. (My tasting notes to follow.) I should add that Theise is not the only importer of boutique, grower champagnes.

Apparently the economic sweet spot is not the only thing that is sweet about the big houses (Theise doesn’t like many of the grandes marques but he holds a lot of ire for one unnamed house in particular.) He reported to the Guild that he had done some market research and bought a bottle of the same label at shops in Paris, London and New York. All were freshly received in the shops. He sent them to the lab for chemical analysis. These were his findings, in his words:

They were different in acidity, they were different in sweetness, they were different in pH. They were not the same wine. It is an open secret in Champagne: the British get the oldest tasting stuff–not necessarily the oldest stuff. It’s because they usually put a little Spanish brandy in the dosage liqueur to give it that patina of antiquity…The French get the youngest stuff. The Americans get the sweetest stuff…We get the sweetest stuff over here that is pretty well known. Most of the big commercial brands have their dosage up tickling the legal limit.

“So what?” someone asked. The different bottlings for different markets is not inappropriate, Theise relented. “What’s inappropriate is to lie about it.”

For his merry band of growers, the trend is toward dry bringing down the sweetness, sometimes even bottling without dosage. (See my backgrounder on sweetness in champagne.) Theise and his growers occasionally argue about how dry to go. Apparently they are wanting to take the sugar levels down every year, while he tries to get them fractionally more. He said adding sugar in champagne, like salt in cooking, should not be perceptible itself but when it is present in enough quantity it makes the other aromas more pleasing or “awaken,” in his phraseology. “The issue is balance,” he said.

If you want more fighting words from Terry Theise, surf on over and read his provocative catalogue (pdf). And if you enjoy his wines, you are advised to buy them this month. Starting in January, Theise said, he’s raising his prices because his costs are going up thanks to the declining dollar.

tags: wine | Terry Theise | champagne

Champagne’s sweetness makes me sick. Should I look for “extra dry” on the label to find one that’s not sweet?
-Jennifer via hotmail

Actually, no. “Extra dry” is not all that dry when it comes to champagne. Brut is the magic word. But even “brut” can go as high as 15 grams per liter of residual sugar. With 5 grams about the threshold for human perception, some brut champagnes may still taste sweet.

You might even want extra brut or a champagne with no dosage, the little shot of wine and sugar that gets added right before bottling.

Amazingly, the sweet “demi-sec” category is starting to make a comeback. Get this one for your sweet tooth, not necessarily your sweetheart.

Residual sugar, grams per liter
< 3g: brut nature < 6g: extra brut < 15g: brut 12-20g: extra dry 17-30g: sec/dry 33-50g: demi-sec/medium dry > 50g: doux/sweet

Source: Oxford Companion to Wine

tags: wine | Champagne

If you were one of the top two biggest wine producing countries in the world and you saw your consumption rate decline by roughly half in little more than a generation, what would you do?

a) start teaching about the “benefits of wine in appropriate consumption” to schoolchildren
b) emphasize natural wines
c) introduce bottles of varying sizes beyond the standard 750ml
d) create an export promotion board
e) reduce redundancies in appellations, vin de pays, and vin de table

If you answered “all of the above,” then you must be Philippe-Armand Martin et Gérard Voisin! The two members of the French parliament have authored a report due out next week suggesting changes to help boost the standing of French wines at home and abroad.

The last two aren’t really new but the first three are. The details will be released next Wednesday.

But why stop the education with kids? Why not have tastings for adults? Quizzes on the geography of wine? Spelling bees? Altogether now, how do you spell viognier?

Story in Le Monde. Thanks, Chris!

tags: wine | wine consumption | france

“To launch a champagne in the U.S. you either need three or four centuries of history, or have a big rapper behind you,” said Emeric Sauty de Chalon, the head of one of France’s leading online wine retailers, 1855.com in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Buried on page B2F of today’s Journal was a fascinating story about how Jay-Z, hip-hop mogul, selected Armand de Brignac, aka “Ace of Spades,” as his new champagne of choice (find this wine). Early last summer Jay-Z called for a boycott of Cristal after “racist” comments from Frederic Rouzaud, the boss at Louis Roederer, which makes Cristal.

In the WSJ story, Jean-Jacques Cattier, the brand owner tells how he was unable to sell his champagne in the American market for 20 years. Brett Berish of Sovereign Brands, a drinks importer and marketer based in New York, approached Cattier about reviving his old brand name “de Brignac.” The association of champagne growers, the CIVC, approved of reviving the name providing they added a first name. So they chose Armand since “it sounded kind of noble,” according to Cattier in the story.

Two points of “controversy” surround the launch. The first is whether Jay-Z has a stake in the brand, which he denies. This is not controversial in my view. Given the amount of promotion Jay-Z will no doubt do for the brand and the increasing amount of celebrity wines, this does not strike me as the least bit controversial. But it is funny how much Berish is denying it even going so far as to tell BusinessWeek “But it’s not like we just cooked this brand up to capitalize on that [the Cristal boycott].”

The second point is controversial in the same way that the Emperor’s clothes are controversial. Apparently the $300 Armand de Brignac tastes remarkably similar to a $60 bottle of Cattier’s wine only available in Europe. If you buy marketing, you should be expected to pay a premium.

Related:
“French Bubbly Garners Hip-Hop Cred” [$WSJ]
“Is the champagne in the Jay-z video for real? It’s complicated.” [BusinessWeek]

tags: wine | Jay-Z | champagne

My post yesterday about natural wine bars in Paris reminded me that I never did a round-up of my France postings from this summer (and, ahem, beyond, such as yesterday’s). So here it is, a post to other posts! Yay!

France travel
Goose gitmo, my visit to a foie gras farm
Explore Perigord
France travel tips
Dr. Vino for minister of information

Buying wine at stores
Buying wine a la francaise
La Derniere Goutte, Paris
Lavinia, French for wine convenience
Bernard Magrez, the brand, the boutique
Caves Auge, the oldest wine shop in Paris
French microbrews

Paris wine bars
Feeling natural in Paris wine bars
La Muse Vin
Restaurant Fish

Tasting
Malbec match-up
The price is right
The price is right, part deux

General background on the state of French wines
France 500 fortunes, wine version
La double vie de barrique
Mortgage or future?
Breaking: Bordeaux exports up

UPDATE: don’t forget to check out my map of Paris wine shops–and bars to go!

The Parisians are getting natural. And I’m not talking about life on the Paris plage, the beaches that the current mayor put in a few summers ago, where topless sunbathing is prohibited. I’m talking about wine bars that are au naturel.

I read about the trend in Alice Feiring’s NYT story. I had to check some of them out for myself.

First stop, Aux Tonneaux aux Halles. On a non-touristy pedestrian street off of Les Halles, the owner was there pouring wine behind the bar. He buys the dozen or so wines available by the glass directly from the producers. Many of the wines are made without the addition of sulfites, some are made biodynamically, and they all taste distinctive. Be sure to try the excellent goat cheese. And the Morgon vielles vignes 2003 from G. Descombes.

Near the Chatelet metro, is Bistro Les Halles. No, Tony Bourdain is not the chef. But you can have a quick lunch at this olde tyme bistro–though it pays to arrive early to beat the rush. I love the Frenglish translation on the window (pictured above). Wines by the glass are between two and five euros.

Heading to the Latin Quarter, La Cremerie, mentioned in the NYT story has changed hands as of September 1. Pierre Jancou who had presided over the huge slab counter in the tiny wine shop/bar for four years decided to move to Germany and import the wines that he had been pouring in the sixth arrondissement. But he would only sell the shop to a like-minded owner so at least this space won’t become a fashion boutique.

Le Comptoir du Relais in the sixth is bigger and swankier than La Cremerie–indeed, swankier than most of the natural wine bars. With a more extensive menu, this spot in the hotel Relais St. Germain looks great. Pity I only had time to walk by it on this trip. Next time, a meal…

I also posted previously about the natural wines at Fish, a restaurant that also has a bar friendly enough to rival Cheers. As well as the 100 bottles of wine on the wall at La Muse Vin.

Anyway, just a few scribbles. Feel free to post your notes about your favorite wine bars among the new naturalistas.

Aux Tonneaux des Halles: 28, rue Montorgueil 75001
Le Bistro des Halles: 15, rue des Halles 75001
La Cremerie: 9 rue des Quatre-Vents 75006
Le Comptoir du Relais: 5, Carrefour de l’Odeon 75006
Fish: 69, rue de Seine 75006
La Muse Vin: 101, rue de Charonne 75011