My Website

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

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

All the grapes in this bottle come from here!

Every bottle of Burgundy looks the same. I would even forgive someone if they couldn’t tell the difference between an unopened bottle of red Burgundy and an unopened bottle of white Burgundy! Tonight, I happen to be blessed with the opportunity to drink possibly the geekiest bottle of Burgundy ever produced (slight overstatement, but this wine label even threw me for a loop on first glance!) so I’m giving back to you by deciphering the label so that next time you’re staring blank-faced at a $30 bottle of Burgundy, you’ll be able to figure out at least a little about what you’re buying (or at least if the salesperson is a little qualified to recommend it to you).

Here’s what you need to know about any bottle of Burgundy:

The Appellation: The appellation is the “classification”/”quality” of a wine… and many believe it to be synonymous with the yumminess/awesomeness of a wine. The appellation (if you have a wine dictionary) will tell you almost everything you need to know… some people can decipher the appellation just from smelling a glass of Burgundy)… on this bottle we have “Fixin 1er Cru Clos Napoleon Monopole.”

The hierarchy of appellations goes as follows:

• Bourgogne, i.e., the grapes came from a mix of places within Burgundy.
• Village(s), i.e., the grapes came from a specific village in Burgundy, e.g., Gevrey-Chambertin, Volnay, Pommard, Mersault, etc. Red Burgundy basically (huge generalization) goes from most delicate/light in the south up to most powerful/brawny in the north.
• Premier Cru (written as 1er Cru)- this designates that all the grapes came from a top vineyard as judged by history/the French government. If you get a bottle of this, you’re almost guaranteed to have a good (but maybe not life changing) bottle.
• Grand Cru- this means that  you’re drinking some of the best wine in the world. No wine lover/snob/expert turns up their nose at a taste of Grand Cru Burgundy. Very few vineyards are designated as Grand Cru… many Burgundy drinkers can, off the top of their heads, all of the Grand Cru Burgundy vineyards, the vineyards they have tasted, and the vineyards they have not tasted.

So to breakdown what is in this bottle of Domaine Pierre Gelin Fixin 1er Cru Clos Napoleon 2004 Monopole that I’m drinking right now:

Red Burgundy (red Burgundy is 100% Pinot Noir almost always)… grown in the village of Fixin (fee-sin)… grown only in a top but not perfect Premier (1er) Cru vineyard… and here’s the kicker, grown in a vineyard only own by one producer, i.e., a monopole!

Most Burgundy producers share vineyard space with each other, but the “Clos Napoleon” vineyard is owned by only one person (”Monopoly”/Monopole) so there’s some serious reputation points on the line and in return some serious quality control.

It tastes like strawberry jam and stems, black cherry stems and leaves, and burnt salmon scales (grill a salmon and you’ll know the flavor… the happy way to say it would be toasted marshmallows)… it smells like carrots and beets. The finish is long enough that I’ve enjoyed the after effects of one sip for about a minute now, and the wine has gone from an 89 point wine to a 91+ point wine after two hours of breathing.

France, Old World, Pinot Noir, Wine Reviews | No Comments

Molasses, wet wood, baked cherries, strawberries covered in brown sugar, moist clay, brown moss, living rosemary, and dried star anise on the nose.

Thank you (click me to see opener/wine)!

The palate could be describe as having the line of a sleeping heart beat… it would make an impact and then quiet itself… create another impact and the quiet itself… and continue like this for quite some time. Learning to describe wine in a seismographic fashion was a fun step for me.

Grand Cru Clos St. Denis is kind of a big deal for me to open so I thought I should use it as a good excuse to christen my new wine opener (see picture)!

Clos. St. Denis is a Grand Cru vineyard smooshed between Chambertin and Musigny in the far north of Burgundy. Many people describe it as a combination of the two, but to do that is to miss out on the brown, spice rack sort of scent that impales both the palate and nose with sharp cinnamon sticks dipped in saffron, freshly scorched top soil, and wilting flower petals.

Days like this make me love life.

Thanks again for the corkscrew, I hope to be able to use it and to know you until long after I should have died (the wine will keep us alive!).

ps. Here’s a quick video tasting on your favorite wine in the shop, Fabrice Gasnier’s Chinon!

Cabernet Franc, France, Old World, Pinot Noir, Wine Reviews | No Comments