Dr Vino's wine blog

A couple of years ago I started a project that I called the Real Wine World. No, it didn’t involve locking three wine industry participants in a house and filming them 24 hours a day. Its goal was simply to follow a wine producer, a wine importer, and a wine retailer for a year to get a better look at how the wine biz works.

The participants were Susana Balbo in Argentina, Italian wine importer Gregory Smolik in Chicago, and the small shop Big Nose Full Body in Brooklyn’s Park Slope.

The reason I bring this up now is twofold. First, I have just transfered all the pieces over to this new site, posted to their original dates. You can find the lead-off piece here. And thanks to the new categories function, you can find all the pieces under The Real Wine World. The pieces now have space for your comments!

Second, I thought I should bring closure to the project. Everyone got busy and the project didn’t make it the whole year. Susana Balbo had further demands on her time as she became president of the Wines of Argentina trade association. Gregory Smolik’s career as an independent importer of boutique wines from Italy came to an end but he now brings his passion and knowledge to his new job at the importer Domaine Select. Big Nose Full Body is still lubricating the palates of Park Slopers with free tastings on Saturday afternoons and 15% case discounts every day.

Who knows, maybe we’ll try for a second season of the Real Wine World sometime?!

Are Gen Y wine shops all they’re cracked up to be? Since I’m Gen X (and a wine geek) I had to find a Gen Y person, relatively new to wine to tell me. I posted about this mission and from the replies, I selected Grace Nguyen (whom I have never met) to take the challenge and report back to us.

Our agent: Grace Nguyen, 27….Studied Environmental Economics and Policy at Berkeley….Then became a line cook and pastry cook for five years…Now studying for a Master’s in NYU’s Food Studies program…She wants to learn more about wine…And now, over to Grace, with notes from the field.

They’re calling them Gen Y wine shops because they have one thing in common; they cater to the neophytes of wine drinkers. Customers will no longer have to suffer wine-shop inferiority. A smaller wine selection, wine descriptors by flavor, and printable tasting notes, are some of the recent trends. These shops have taken a new angle and have figured out the reasons why the average person drinks wine: for taste and for dinner.

So let’s see what these shops have to offer. My wine price range: $10-$15. My dinner: chicken with mustard. The recommendation: a 2005 Verdicchio and a 1990 Vouvray from Moore Brothers Wine Company (map it). And a 2004 Corbieres from Bottlerocket Wine and Spirits. Although both shops were eager to help me find that perfect wine to complement my dinner, they offered conflicting recommendations.

“You’ll want something earthy with a little acidity. You don’t want too much fruit, especially with mustard.” The clerk at Moore Brothers suggested the Vouvray Aigle Blanc 1990 at $25, and although apologetic for suggesting a more expensive bottle, he couldn’t stop praising it (find this wine). “It’s earthy, with hints of mushrooms, slight fruit, and just enough acidity. It’ll go very nicely with chicken and mustard.” It sounded sincere enough.
Read more…

A new wine bar, 90pluspoints, opens in New York City’s East Village neighborhood next Tuesday. The focus of the bar is, as the name implies, serving wines that have been rated 90 points and more by the influential wine review, Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate.

“Anything under 90 points is crap,” owner Joseph Coonawara told me last week. “The point score is all that matters. Grape variety, region, and especially vintage, even food pairings–the rest of it’s all noise.”

Known as “Run Rig” to his friends after the Torbreck wine awarded 99 points by Robert Parker, the Australian Coonawara has built a solid resume for launching his own wine bar. He rose in the ranks at New Jersey wine shop Wine Library and later became head of internet sales at Zachy’s. But he left because “they weren’t points oriented enough for me. There’s a great opportunity here to bring the pleasure of points to an on-premises establishment.”

Coonawara will have several flights of wine by the glass available. Most notably, there will be the five two-ounce shot glasses of Parker favorites from Spain and Australia that roll in at more than 16 percent alcohol.

“You don’t need to swirl and sniff, just toss it back,” Coonawara said. We’ll see if New Yorkers have a taste for it starting next week.

90pluspoints
131 e. 4th st
212-555-9463
click here for directions and other background information

The gleaming 72,000 square foot Whole Foods Bowery, opening today, has a “fromagerie” complete with an aging room. Cheeses come from Neal’s Yard in London, French affineur Hervé Mons, and some American classics such as Jasper Hill. The cheese manager was formerly at Artisanal Premium Cheese. There is a French fry station, a culinary center for classes and events, and two dining areas including conveyor-belt sushi. They can sell beer, local micro-brews and national macro-brews.

But there will be no wine.

Yes, it’s time for another edition of “New York’s crazy wine retailing laws!”

Law #1: Thou shalt not have more than one wine retail license in the state of New York. This is the fourth Whole Foods in Manhattan and the seventh in New York State. None of the NY stores sells wine (you never know what might happen if you could buy Sancerre the same time you buy Camembert), unlike Whole Foods stores in renegade states California, Illinois and Texas–where, I hasten to point out, levels of social unrest are no higher than in New York as a result of selling wine.

Whole Foods did have a wine retail license at their Columbus Circle location when it opened. They pulled the pulled the plug on that location voluntarily if somewhat mysteriously–there was something about it not being a street-level entrance, another instance of NY wine retail craziness. Apparently, WF still has the right to transfer the license to another location. Which brings us to…

Law #2: Thou shalt get down on bended knee and ask locals for the privilege of selling them wine. As Eater.com has been chronicling in their excellent series on the “drying of NYC,” this law affects bars and restaurants a lot more. Think about it: bar opens in your neighborhood, spills loud people into streets while you are trying to sleep. Fair enough, that could be worth getting riled up about.

But a shop? People go in, buy wine, take it home to drink it. It’s closed by 9 PM. I fail to see how that can cause angst in the neighborhood. Unless of course you are a competing wine retailer and you are attempting naked economic protectionism.

And apparently that’s what’s really happening. According to the NY Sun, Frank Geresi who owns local wine shop Elizabeth & Vine fears Whole Foods as a wine shop. He said “If I were a small hardware store and you were Home Depot, who would come to me to get a hammer once you moved in?” Nice try, Mr. Geresi: hammers are commodities and Whole Foods isn’t a discounter.

I don’t doubt that if Whole Foods got permission from the Community Board for the at-grade store-next-door-to-the-store that they would do a good job filling it with tons of interesting, biodynamic, organic or otherwise natural or even local wines. Look at all the TLC they’re putting into the “fromagerie” after all. And it would be convenient. But anybody who’s been to a WF in another state that does sell wine knows that you pay for that convenience: shopping around other wine stores will cut probably 15% off your wine bill.

So to New York officials: down with state laws limiting licenses! And to the Elizabeth & Vine: drop the resistance and let WF in! Just step up your game. Get great wines. Offer great prices and service. Heck, offer shipping to increase your reach. Who knows, WF selling wine in the neighborhood might just make more people in the neighborhood want wine. And to Community Board 3: do your bit and help make wine more accessible in America. Grant them the license!

(image)

No F&*%# Merlot!
Miles may have had a rant against merlot in Sideways, but now officials in Utah are piling on the grape–and wine itself. The officials have revoked a personalized license plate in use for ten years with the word “MERLOT” on it citing a state ban on words of intoxicants to be used on vanity plates. Wow. The owner should file for “VINO,” which should give him another 10 years. [AP]

Binge 1
Taking their campaign against DWI to a new, um, level, New Mexico has introduced the talking urinal cake. A woman’s sultry voice intones, “Hey there, big guy. Having a few drinks?” and then advises a taxi. A laudable goal for sure, but what’s up with the sultry voice? Don’t want guys to lean on the urinal and ask it out on a date! [Free New Mexican, with video!]

Binge 2
One Chinese traveler blew $30,000 in a 15-minute shopping spree at a duty free shop in Charles De Gaulle airport. His haul included a 200 year old cognac, a 100 year old armagnac, and a 45 Mouton–but if he’d only shopped around, he could have found it for half the price! [news.com.au, thanks U:TB!]

What’s hot?
Everything. Grape varieties across the board from riesling to pinot gris/grigio were up; only lowly white zin (not even a grape, but a style that’s out of style) was down according to Nielsen scanner data for 2006. Screwcaps gained acceptance and New Zealand zipped higher. More details at Uncorked.

Cheap wine, it’s fine
The Gray Lady has run tests to determine what I have practiced for a long time out of my sheer miserly tendency: using cheap wine is fine for cooking. [NYT]

Puck says no duck
A three-year campaign against Wolfgang Puck has brought the chef to his knees–he’ll stop serving foie gras in his restaurants. [AP]

Varietal, crushed
Frank Bruni one-stars the wine-themed restaurant Varietal. He can’t seem to stop giggling about the “grower champagnes,” which reinforces my thinking that they should be called indie champagne. He also trashes the desserts, which “don’t so much eschew convention as pummel and shatter it — literally, and often pointlessly.” I found the same with molecular gastronomy desserts in my experience at Moto. [NYT]

Geography is now less of an excuse for not taking a wine class with me this spring!

Critiquing the critics, University of Chicago, 4/14, 2:30 – 6:30
We review different styles of wine evaluation culminating with YOU being the critic in our tasting. Details and registration

Red, white, and green wine, University of Chicago, 5/12, 2:30 – 6:30
While organic food is all the rage, organic wine has arguably lagged behind. We assess the various shades of “green” wine and then put our knowledge to the test and see if we can taste the difference. Details and registration

Wine emergency! How to navigate a wine list, NYU, 3/22 6:30 – 8:30
The business dinner. The big date. Avoid making them a wine emergency as we navigate wine lists–and taste!–with confidence. Details and registration

I hope to see you at one of these one-day sessions! News of a Chicago meetup forthcoming…

tags: wine | wine classes

The man who brought the world the $99 hamburger in 2003 (it’s now $120 but still comes with truffles) now wants to play landlord–to your bottles.

Chef-preneur Daniel Boulud will offer diners at his Bar Boulud, slated to open this fall on the Upper West Side, 36-bottle wine storage for $15,000 a year according to the NY Post. Yes, that’s $1,250 per month for three cubic feet!

Lest you think this fridge with your plaque on it would be stocked, it’s not. Eater runs the numbers and declares it “doable” at five bottles a month. The catch: their back of the napkin calculations make sense only for bottles bought at $150 retail that the restaurant might have marked up to $400.

In case you want in on the action, you’ll have to wait. The Post reports that there’s already a waiting list.

tags: wine | wine storage | NYC

The third installment of our NYC wine bar crawl will take place on March 8! Come and join fellow wine enthusiasts as we will be trading our office chairs for the comfortable couches and warming fireplace at Jadis on the Lower East Side. The wine list is strong in value wines from France so get ready to do our part to help drain the French wine surplus.

The format is simply a get-together of a people who read this site. Come, order, chat, drink, munch, pay. Inspired by our attendee from Colorado last time and an inquiry from newlyweds from London who wanted to join us on their honeymoon, I’ll be buying a glass of wine for the person who comes from the farthest away! But even if you’re not journeying from afar, come along to our offline for a happy hour or two.

When: March 8, 6 PM – 8ish.
Where: Jadis, 42 Rivington (map it)
How: F, V at 2nd Ave; J at Bowery; 6 at Spring St.; taxi
Review: Jadis [NY Mag]
on the web: Jadisnyc.com

tags: wine | NYC wine bars