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the #1 thing I look for is having it be so very, very varietally/terroir expressive that it makes me feel the same way I felt the first time I really “got” the taste/aroma of a type of wine. Much like Summer Roberts, I started my wine career with a very high academic aptitude, but no intrinsically gifted palate, so a wine needs to evoke a very specific taste and memory to get three stars from me… a few examples:

- Dry Alsatian whites need to smell like petroleum… I learned this while watching the first five minutes of the 3rd episode of The Wire… I hated the first two sips of the wine (SO OILY!) and the first two episodes of the show (NOTHING HAPPENS… it’s like trying to start Anna Karenina in media res at the mushroom picking scene and without the whole “Happy Families are all alike” thing. argh!) When the show came together though, my palate followed suit … the third sip is the charm! Tropical fruit and petroleum is a beautiful flavor marriage!

- Cabernet… no matter where it’s grown… needs to smell like cassis… red or black, ripe or unripe… Cabernet needs to smell like cassis for me. Why? Because, I really “got” Cabernet the first time when I was tasting with Jane (who worked for the James Beard foundation for years and started the most perfect little wine shops in the world) and a rep poured us a Paso Robles Cab that had 0% terroir but was 100% varietally expressive, and she said, “wow, that’s a lot of cassis… at least, it’s obviously Cab.” From then on, I was able to spot a good cab in a blind tasting from a mile away.

- Gevrey-Chambertin must have a distinct aroma of Robitussin… which is probably why I don’t like Gevrey-Chambertin… yes, it’s Pinot Noir, and I love Pinot Noir (not true, I love funky Pinot Noir), but no matter what euphamisms people use for Robitussin (e.g., Juniper Berries, Licorice, Wormswood, etc.) it still smells like Robitussin when it’s done correctly.

Alsace, Cabernet Sauvignon, Old World, Pinot Noir, Red Burgundy, Wine Questions Answered | No Comments

and the best ones for the price were from New Zealand. I did this at the Michael Skurnik Pinot/Germany/Austria/Champagne tasting on Monday. I want to say I was surprised, but that would be a lie; New Zealand has so few vines growing compared the rest of the world that there is still more community-based quality control than almost any other country in the world. Seeing your neighbor grow bad grapes is much like seeing your neighbor littering- i.e., UNACCEPTABLE.

For $20, you can get a VERY good New Zealand Pinot Noir that’s the equivalent of a $40 run of the mill 1er Cru Burgundy, and for $40 you can get a Pinot Noir that is the equivalent of a $70 bottle of 1er Cru Burgundy. I’m really not sure how or why people aren’t buying up every single bottle of New Zealand Pinot they can find… and just think of how good New Zealand will be when the vines are 40 and 50 years old! Right now many growers are working with vines planted less than 10 years ago.

New Zealand, Old World, Pinot Noir | No Comments

I’ve been writing monthly articles with recipes for a “$30 Dinner Party” over at LifeStylerMag.com, and this month’s dinner party article includes wine pairings… BUT for the sake of parralellism and length,  I included a different wine pairing for every dish. Really though I would have paired the same wine for the appetizer, main course, and dessert: Nutty, crunchy, unctuous Arneis grapes from northern Italy.

“But there’s RED MEAT ON THE MENU!” you say? I say in the reply that the reason for the “red with meat and white with fish” rule only works if you’re assuming that the red you’re buying actually tastes like red wine, i.e., has some acidity and tannin (i.e., sharpness, grittiness, or - in the GQ/Vogue vernacular - balls). Of course, most of the red wine consumed in the US has no acidity or tannin.. and most assuredly has far fewer of these qualities than almost any northern Italian Arneis. This makes Arneis a gutsy, old world white wine like Arneis more of a natural choice for red meat than the watery, plum-scented Malbec that most people would automatically go for when presented with a beef dish.

Arneis, Italy, Old World, White Wine Rocks, Wine Pairings | No Comments

Ok, so it’s only halfway through January, but nonetheless Mocali’s Brunello di Montalcino might is the best wine I’ve had all year. I split it with three friends, and that makes it $10 a piece with the discount I give myself… for a full price bottle, it would be $11 a glass for someone else to do the same.

Why are we paying  $10, $12, and $15 for a glass of “pretty good” wine at restaurants all over town, when you can split a bottle of UNBELIEVABLY GOOD wine with a couple friends for the same price at home…Why do people not do this more often? Is it that our apartments are too tiny to fit four people in them? Is it that we just love the 2am train ride home? Is it that we just love ordering waitstaff/bartenders around being served?

The last Chianti I had in a restaurant was $10 for glass, and it tasted like sour cherries and cedar. Mocali’s Brunello though (Brunello is basically Chianti on steroids), tastes like sour cherries, strawberry sherbert, wet cedar, cinnamon, peppercorns, and a stick you caught on fire in a fireplace but just ran under cold water and is still steaming.

Next time when you’re meeting people at a bar suggest that you just pick up a $40 bottle of wine and head to the nearest living room available… you’ll have the same conversation, taste amazing wine together, and save $100.

Brunello di Montalcino, Italy, Old World, Sangiovese, Wine Reviews | No Comments

My general price range for wine is either under $15 retail or over $40 retail, and if you look at my purchase history, New Zealand is the only country that shows up for me in both ranges. Yes, I do splurge quite often on $50 bottles of Burgundy, Savennieres, and Riesling, and of course, I buy $10 Washington state and Long Island wine for parties I’m hosting. New Zealand is the only place that hits both price ranges though!

Tonight I had to drop off a $14 bottle of wine to a party that I could only stay at for 10 minutes,  but of course I wanted to make a big splash with the wine I brought, so I brought a bottle of Savee Sea Pinot Noir from Marlborough, New Zealand!

Cinnamon, warm cherries, mustard seeds, and an unmistakably slinky pinot-style body… the only better Pinot I’ve tasted under $20 is the Mudhouse Pinot Noir…. which is ALSO FROM NEW ZEALAND… Central Otago to be exact!

The only real question I have for New Zealand is “since you make such awesome Sauvignon Blanc- a grape from the Loire Valley - why don’t you make much CABERNET FRANC- IT’S A GRAPE THAT GROWS SIDE BY SIDE WITH SAUVIGNON BLANC in the Loire Valley?

Oh, wait, the answer is “because no one likes the green bell pepper goodness of Cabernet Franc.” :0/

New World, New Zealand, Old World, Pinot Noir | No Comments