Blogs
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Wine from the light 1993 vintage blurs the line on contentious issues
Posted: January 4, 2012 By Harvey Steiman
I opened a bottle of Ceretto Barolo Bricco Rocche Brunate 1993 for dinner on New Year’s Eve, the last of that vintage in my cellar. When the Ceretto brothers made that wine, few were talking about high alcohol, excessive ripeness or natural wines, the current contentiousness of the wine world. Then, the issue in Italy was traditional wines vs. modern wines.
Back then, I was traveling to Piedmont regularly for Wine Spectator to taste the next vintages of Barolo and Barbaresco. I remember this wine from barrel. Ceretto used modern methods in the vineyards and winery to achieve even ripeness and shorter fermentation times to emphasize fruit character, but avoided the use of small, new oak barrels. Unlike some modernists, Ceretto at that time seemed unconcerned with the biting, crisp tannins that the Nebbiolo grape could produce. As a result, the Ceretto style at the time always struck me as having a foot in both camps.
Blogs
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Exploring Wine with Tim Fish
Pondering the best of 2011 and what may come in 2012
Posted: January 4, 2012 By Tim Fish
I don't write a lot of checks anymore, but in the old days it was nearly March by the time I stopped writing in the old year. So if I waited until after the New Year to look back on 2011 and forward to 2012, I'm almost ahead of myself, right?
If that works for you, it works for me. 2011 was certainly an interesting year and 2012 being an election year, anything can happen. The world of wine right now is a microcosm of the rest of America. Business is picking up, and some people are doing dandy and price is no object but most are still trying to finagle the best deals they can. Here are a few thoughts about California wine in 2012, as well as some of the wines that were my highlights of 2011.
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
Fort Ross-Seaview and Coombsville are both deserving, but will their names be put to good use?
Posted: January 3, 2012 By James Laube
Too little too late. That's one way to look at Sonoma County's new Fort Ross-Seaview appellation, approved by the feds late last year. It separates what most refer to as the "True Sonoma Coast"—from the Pacific to the edge of the redwoods—from the sprawling appellation that bears the Sonoma Coast name. But achieving notoriety for Fort Ross-Seaview may present a difficult challenge, particularly if the area's better-known wineries, such as Marcassin, Peter Michael and Flowers, choose not to use it. Marketing typically trumps appellations and the cachet Sonoma Coast presently owns among wine lovers will be difficult to overcome.
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
Wines from all over the world are better than any time in history, and the increased competition is keeping prices in check
Posted: December 29, 2011 By James Laube
Most of you already know this, but it bears repeating. The big story in wine is the one in your glass. We're drinking the greatest wines ever made, and they will only get better.
New and better wines keep coming from everywhere and anywhere. Because of that competition in the market, prices for many wines are not only stable, but also coming down. Maybe not for the most sought-after wines, those with a special cachet. Demand for those wines is so frenzied as to support prices at the highest levels.
No, the action is more in the middle ground, where wines with little or no pedigree size up favorably with the elite.
Blogs
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Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth
Olivier Decelle dusts off Château Jean-Faure
Posted: December 27, 2011 By James Molesworth
We all have the dream—to maybe one day buy a little rundown winery in some out-of-the-way wine area and spend our time fixing up the place. Maybe a few acres of Grenache in the Languedoc for example, where costs and expectations would be relatively low and you could probably make your way without much trouble.
But how about a Bordeaux fixer-upper? One in St.-Emilion, located right next door to the famed Château Cheval-Blanc? Now that's jumping into the deep end. But it's exactly what Olivier Decelle and his wife, Anne, have done.
Blogs
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Exploring Wine with Tim Fish
California sparkling wine has never been better
Posted: December 21, 2011 By Tim Fish
I've been drinking California sparkling wine for 20 years and for about half that I've been reviewing them for Wine Spectator. Across the board they've never been better. The industry has settled into a comfortable middle age. The top producers have refined a signature tête de cuvée, or flagship wine, and at the same time have not sacrificed value.
Middle age doesn't make for snazzy headlines but it does mean that consumers have a good selection of bubbly across every price point this holiday season. Wine Spectator subscribers can read my complete annual report on American sparkling wine in the Dec. 31 issue but here are some of the highlights. I've broken the wines into three groups: good values, rosés and the cream of the crop.
Blogs
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Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth
Château du Retout chooses an off-beat blend to save a vineyard
Posted: December 19, 2011 By James Molesworth
Who'd have thought the most interesting white wine I'd tasted all year would come from Bordeaux?
It would have been no surprise if some new white from the Rhône or the Loire, or a Riesling from Germany or the Finger Lakes, lit my fire this past year. Even something off the radar from the Jura would have been more predictably surprising than a white Bordeaux.
Yet there I was earlier this month, working in Bordeaux, blind tasting through 600 wines, focusing on the recently bottled 2009 reds. I started with a small flight of white, a mix of 2009s and '10s, when suddenly something electric hit my palate.
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
California's underdog grape can do amazing things in the right place and the right hands
Posted: December 19, 2011 By James Laube
If only most Petite Sirahs were as delicious and refined, rich and graceful as the 2009 Relic Napa Valley Old Vines Petite from Frediani Vineyard ($52, 198 cases made). Maybe then people would have a different take on this old-time underdog grape, and Napa Valley for that matter.
Petite Sirah is one of wine's unsung heroes, almost always an afterthought grape, except for from sites like Frediani Vineyard in Calistoga. It's a vine that owes its heritage to the mix of grapes that hail from France's Southern Rhône Valley. Most of the praise—here as in there—goes to the better-known and more popular Syrahs and Grenaches and blends that hail from there.
That won't change, but one sip of this wine will give you a new appreciation for Petite Sirah presented in a supple, fleshy, deeply fruited style.
Blogs
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Bruce Sanderson Decanted
Reliable sources indicate that the esteemed Burgundy grower and winemaker is up for sale
Posted: December 15, 2011 By Bruce Sanderson
Burgundy is a small, tightly knit world. Major transactions are rare, and people keep their own counsel. But my sources tell me that a significant deal is in the works.
I have been informed by reliable sources that Vincent Girardin, a highly esteemed grower and winemaker who has been building a small but important négociant arm, is selling his business. The price is rumored to be $52 million to $65 million (at today's rate of $1.30 to the euro).
This would be a major deal for the region, comprising approximately 113 acres of vines. Girardin personally owns roughly 54 acres in the Côte de Beaune, about half of that in Santenay. In addition, there are an additional 57 acres under a holding company, including vineyards in Chassagne-Montrachet premiers crus Morgeot and Les Caillerets, Puligny-Montrachet La Garenne, Les Pucelles and Les Referts and grand cru Corton-Charlemagne.
Blogs
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Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth
At Bordeaux's Château Phélan-Ségur, tweaks are made but a style endures
Posted: December 15, 2011 By James Molesworth
Château Phélan-Ségur missed out on the 1855 classification (it was instead designated Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnels in the 2003 cru bourgeois classification, though that classification was nullified by legal challenges filed by disgruntled châteaus in 2007). Today, the estate releases its wine at a more modest price point vis-à-vis other Bordeaux, typically around $40 in the U.S. market, while maintaining a distinctively subtle, minerally style for its wine.
That style was on full display when I visited the estate while in Bordeaux recently, meeting with general director Véronique Dausse who gave me the opportunity to taste a complete vertical of the 2000 through 2010 vintages, as well as the 1995, 1990 and 1989.
Blogs
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Exploring Wine with Tim Fish
The winning wines of Columbia Crest have little competition from the Golden State
Posted: December 14, 2011 By Tim Fish
Overdeliver isn't officially a word, but I can't think of a better way to describe a wine that's truly a great value. It overdelivers on quality relative to price, whether the bottle is $10 or 100 bucks.
Those are the sort of wines I try to write about in this blog as often as I can, and whenever I do, readers in their comments regularly champion one label: Columbia Crest. The Washington state winery has a devoted fan base for a reason. It's that rare winery that overdelivers across the board.
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
Boisset and Gallo confirmed to be the winning bidders
Posted: December 14, 2011 By James Laube
Word has leaked out that Jean-Charles Boisset and Gina Gallo have purchased the former residence of Robert Mondavi in Napa Valley. The 55-acre property in Yountville where the famous vintner and his wife, Margrit, resided for years came on the market in 2010 for $25 million. The price was cut first to $20 million and then later to $13.9 million in a sealed bid sale this fall, in which the buyers were not publicly identified. Boisset and Gallo wanted to keep the matter private, but that would have been difficult. They are two of the biggest names in wine, and both companies that share their names have been busy of late.
Blogs
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Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth
A sit-down with Denis Dubourdieu, vigneron behind the dynamic Château Doisy-Daëne, Clos Floridène and more
Posted: December 13, 2011 By James Molesworth
A youthful-looking 62, Denis Dubourdieu has a swoosh of dark, wavy hair that shows just a few hints of gray. With his reading glasses hanging around his neck, he has a well-cultivated professorial look, fitting for a man who could easily be called the professor of Bordeaux. Since the 1970s, Dubourdieu has taught at the University of Bordeaux, and during his career, his influential research on white wine vinification and aging helped revolutionize how white Bordeaux is made today. Dubourdieu is also a vigneron in his own right, heading up Denis Dubourdieu Domaines, a family company based at his home property of Château Reynon in the Côtes de Bordeaux town of Beguey and headlined by his flagship estate of Château Doisy-Daëne in Barsac.
Blogs
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Bruce Sanderson Decanted
Chef de cave Richard Geoffroy pushes the envelope in an exceptional year for Champagne
Posted: December 13, 2011 By Bruce Sanderson
A tiny holographic image of Dom Pérignon chef de cave Richard Geoffroy flickered into view in a glass triangle illuminating a dark, cavernous warehouse space on the west side of Manhattan Dec. 7. About 30 or so journalists, retailers and critics had gathered to hear Geoffroy announce the vintage.
As we tasted the Dom Pérignon 2003, I couldn't help but think how the outsize personality of the young wine stood in stark contrast to the tiny image of its maker. But then, Geoffroy isn't one to use hyperbole to describe his wines. Rather, he speaks in more abstract images and feelings that Dom Pérignon evokes.
Blogs
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Will smart consumers turn to less conventional Oz wines?
Posted: December 12, 2011 By Harvey Steiman
One prime reason for my visit to Australia—to look for insights into why the wines seem to be on the outs with Americans—turned up much less hand-wringing by vintners than you might expect. The Aussies are smart enough to know that they are caught in a perfect storm: the rise of Argentina, Spain and other parts of the world competing effectively against their big-volume wines, coupled with a wrenching change in the exchange rate between the Aussie dollar and ours, capped off by a financial crisis that has most people thinking twice about spending money on anything they’re not entirely certain of.
The Aussies have a healthy attitude about all this. As such, they are diligently at work trying to broaden perceptions of their wines here, and looking for other places to sell them. A growing number of sommeliers and retailers have noticed that Australia produces a range of styles at higher price points. Its widespread growing regions offer specific differences in character. Inspired winemakers, some young, others experienced, are gung-ho to try something different.
Blogs
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Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth
A relatively new kid on the block is making St.-Emilon-style reds in Pessac-Léognan
Posted: December 7, 2011 By James Molesworth
The 8 hectares of manicured gardens are beautiful and the old manor house has a hint of regal air to it. But Château Le Thil does not drip with the Bordeaux-styled pomp and circumstance that comes from many moneyed estates in the Médoc. Instead, the cellar facility is just a simple building that could have been plucked out of the Rhône countryside, and the history here is much shorter.
This is one of the new kids on the block, and the block has some big neighbors. Château Le Thil's 18 hectares of vines are set right in the middle of a triangle formed by Châteaus Smith-Haut-Lafitte, Carbonnieux and Bouscaut, three prominent names in Pessac-Léognan. De Laitre took the plunge in 1990, deciding to plant some vines without any background in wine and no immediate family wine history to call upon.
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
The Napa- and Sonoma-based Cabernets have maintained a legion of cult-like fans for nearly 40 years with a consistent, drinkable style
Posted: December 7, 2011 By James Laube
Silver Oak is one of the most recognizable names in wine. You can spot a bottle on a dining table from 50 paces.
It is also one of California's most successful wineries for a variety of reasons. It has become a textbook example of how to do it right, from wine and style and image to sales and marketing.
It has maintained a distinct style that hasn't wavered much over the years. It has, rather amazingly, retained a cult-like following, which might shock most people considering the term cult today means high-quality, high-priced, hard-go-get wines and Silver Oak is practically a factory. You can find it in multitudes of retailing and fine-dining establishments.
Blogs
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Exploring Wine with Tim Fish
Why stress out when 12 well-chosen wines can make December easier?
Posted: December 7, 2011 By Tim Fish
This is the
time of year for strategic wine buying. With holiday parties and gift lists,
Christmas dinner and New Year's Eve, you can either be willy-nilly and buy as
you go or have a plan.
I'm as
willy-nilly as the next consumer when it comes to buying wine, but in December
I stock up. A well-chosen case of wine bought early in the month avoids hassles
during the chaotic holiday season.
Selecting
the case is the challenge, and half the fun. Here are some of the wines I'd put
in my case, but remember this isn't a greatest hits of wine for a ideal
Christmas Day. (I'll be dipping into my cellar all month long, of course.)
It's a
selection of excellent bottles that will be handy to share with others, and
have relatively good availability around the country. You'll find a complete
list below, with links to our original reviews.
Blogs
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Penfolds' style contrasts with Australia's Burgundian Chardonnay trend
Posted: December 6, 2011 By Harvey Steiman
In the 1990s, when Penfolds spent years secretly developing a high-end white wine counterpart to its Australian icon-status red wine Grange, Chardonnay was not a slam-dunk choice. A great deal of effort went into experimental bottlings of Sémillon and Riesling, then considered Australia’s classic white wines. But in the end, Penfolds chief winemaker John Duval told me then, Chardonnay won out because it was most compelling. Truth be told, there was also a feeling that there were fewer classic Chardonnays to compete with.
The result was Yattarna, an aboriginal name translated as “little by little.” Although it quickly rose to the top tier of Australian Chardonnay, it was and is developing incrementally. Penfolds chose an approach to Yattarna that is, well, unique. As it has come into focus, especially in the past five years, the style goes for the crisp, lean, racy balance that comes from cool-climate grape sources, not at all in vogue in Australia when Yattarna was introduced, but does not rely on Burgundian winemaking methods.
Today I tasted a complete vertical of Yattarna all the way back to the 1995 debut vintage. Here are my non-blind scores and tasting notes.
Blogs
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Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth
After tasting some 2009 dry whites as well as Bordeaux Supérieur AOC and Haut-Médoc reds, I checked out the 2011s at Châteaus Haut-Bergey and Branon
Posted: December 5, 2011 By James Molesworth
Game on. The 2009 Bordeaux tasting game, that is. After arriving just in time for lunch (how's that for planning ahead?) I got right down to it, tasting through some dry whites. From there, I worked through the morass of Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur AOCs and turned up some interesting and tasty values, including the 2009 Bad Boy (Mauvais Garçon) bottling from Château Valandraud's Jean-Luc Thunevin.
While the tasting is large—I'll probably get through over 500 wines while here—I do take a break here and there to stop in at some châteaus. Last week I caught up with Hélène Garcin-Lévêque and her husband, winemaker Patrice Lévêque, to taste the 2011s from Pessac's Châteaus Haut-Bergey and Branon.
