Blogs
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Bruce Sanderson Decanted
France, Italy, Spain and Germany provided some of the many highlights of the 2011 Wine Spectator New York Wine Experience
Posted: October 26, 2011 By Bruce Sanderson
Wine Spectator's 30th Anniversary Wine Experience took place this past weekend. It was quite a whirlwind, with dozens of fantastic wines from the two nights of Grand Tastings and two days of seminars.
I was pleased to get my heavy lifting out of the way early so I could relax and enjoy the remainder of the weekend. With so many outstanding wines on offer, how do you choose a handful that was even more impressive?
Yet, there were nearly a dozen that stood out for me over the weekend. Here they are, in no particular order, from both the Grand Tastings and seminars.
Blogs
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Exploring Wine with Tim Fish
Frei Brothers 2008 reminds us why we like the much-maligned California red
Posted: October 19, 2011 By Tim Fish
Merlot is the whipping boy of California wine, and I've done a little flogging myself sometimes. When I find a good Merlot at a fair price, it's worth singling out and—just as important—trying to find out why it's so good.
Exhibit A is the Frei Brothers Merlot Reserve Dry Creek Valley 2008. It's focused and nicely structured, with notes of black currant, anise and cedar. I rated it 88 points, blind, and the suggested retail is $20, but you can often find it on sale for around $16.
Blogs
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Harvey Steiman At Large
The lightness and flavor intensity of the 2010 Pinot Noirs present a rare combination
Posted: October 17, 2011 By Harvey Steiman
On my third and final full day in Oregon, as I barrel-tasted more and more 2010 wines of delicacy and grace that also had ripe flavors, one thought kept recurring. This is a vintage that will either polarize Pinot Noir drinkers, or perhaps bring all wings of the party together.
The divisive issue is alcohol. Some Pinot drinkers, let's call them the traditional Burgundy wing, insist that anything over 14 percent alcohol in a Pinot Noir is a sin. Others sneer at low-alcohol Pinot as insipid and flavorless.
If the wines released over the coming months are as good across the board as the ones I have tasted in top-tier cellars, we could have détente in the Pinot world.
Here are my notes on tastings of the 2010s at Argyle, Bergström, Chehalem, Domaine Serene and Ken Wright.
Blogs
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Wines from Owen Roe, Evening Land and St. Innocent show promise
Posted: October 13, 2011 By Harvey Steiman
Day two of my sweep through Oregon sampling the 2010 vintage started with a visit with David O'Reilly at Owen Roe; at Evening Land, whence have come some of Oregon's best Chardonnays since its first vintage in 2007, I tasted barrel samples that won't be bottled until after the current harvest; the skies had darkened and it was raining hard when I arrived at my last stop of the day, St. Innocent, next to Zena Vineyard in Eola-Amity Hills.
Blogs
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Exploring Wine with Tim Fish
Are you a sucker for a flashy headline? Are you ready to challenge your prejudices about wine?
Posted: October 12, 2011 By Tim Fish
Did you really believe there was a 100-point Napa Cabernet Sauvignon selling for $15? Even if you didn't, you still clicked on the headline to find out what it was all about.
Consider all the red flags in that headline. A 100-point score means it's a perfect wine. Napa Cabernet Sauvignon is a favorite topic of our readers and most wine lovers. And a price tag of 15 bucks? Who doesn't love a bargain? Put those all together and it's the Mother of All Wine Headlines.
So why did I do it? To test your biases and preconceptions about wine. We all have them. Well, I sure do anyway, although I try to rise above them.
Blogs
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Tasting in the cellars reveals wines of transparency and refinement
Posted: October 11, 2011 By Harvey Steiman
On early reports, 2010 in Oregon looked like a washout for Pinot Noir. A long series of rain showers occurred just as the grapes were ready to pick, and there was a mad scramble at the end to get the grapes into the wineries before heavier rains in late October. Bird damage was much greater than normal, further diminishing the size of the crop.
But after tasting barrel samples and recently bottled wines in 15 Willamette Valley cellars, I can confidently predict 2010 will be a special vintage. Maybe it won't achieve the blockbuster status of 2008, but the wines show a welcome freshness and vitality along with delicacy, transparency and relatively low alcohol levels. I anticipate a lot of scores in the low- to mid-90s, at least from the better producers.
Blogs
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Bruce Sanderson Decanted
The New York City Wine & Food Festival dinner at Ai Fiori, and a tribute to master sommelier Roger Dagorn
Posted: October 11, 2011 By Bruce Sanderson
I recently took part in an eventful weekend for wine lovers here. It was the New York City Wine and Food Festival, organized by Southern Wine & Spirits, from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2. Wine Spectator co-sponsored five dinners around town. I attended the Ai Fiori dinner, where chef Michael White and his team dazzled the 70 hungry attendees with a six-course menu paired with wines chosen by Palm Bay International's VP of fine wine development, Laura DePasquale.
Sunday night, it was downtown to Restaurant Marc Forgione, where Krug Champagne hosted a dinner honoring master sommelier Roger Dagorn for his 40 years of service in the hospitality industry.
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
Robert Mondavi’s estate is being auctioned
Posted: October 7, 2011 By James Laube
There's been little movement in wine country real estate. Few vineyards or wineries have been sold for the same reasons the rest of the country's real estate market has been stuck. It's a terrible time to sell, and a difficult time to buy or borrow.
Case in point: The late Robert Mondavi's Napa Valley estate is being offered at a sealed-bid auction Nov. 16 in what amounts to a half-off sale. The 56-acre property where the famous vintner and his wife Margrit resided for years came on the market in 2010 for $25 million, then dropped to $20 million, and now a minimum bid of $13.9 million is the asking price.
Blogs
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Recent vintages challenge vintners, including Josh Bergström
Posted: October 7, 2011 By Harvey Steiman
"It would be really nice," said Josh Bergström of Oregon's Bergström Wines, "if we could have a normal vintage again."
When was the last time you had one of those? I asked. "Well," he responded, "maybe someday."
The most recent vintages have tested the mettle of the state's vintners. This one, 2011, has everyone waiting on tenterhooks. It looks to be one of the latest on record. Most vineyards won't start picking until Oct. 15, two to three weeks later than usual. Vintners have one eye on the sky, hoping there won't be too much rain before the grapes are picked.
Blogs
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Pioneer wine critic, and a good guy
Posted: October 5, 2011 By Harvey Steiman
Robert Finigan, who died last Saturday, was one of the first wine people I met when I moved to San Francisco in 1977. He had already established himself as the leading U.S. wine critic for serious wine drinkers, even though he did not write for a major newspaper or magazine. Hard to remember now, before there was Wine Spectator and other wine magazines and newsletters, before people tweeted and blogged about their latest wine finds, wine critics were known for the pulpits they preached from. In other words, the newspapers or magazines were the vehicle that delivered readers. My Sunday column had a reach of more than 1 million readers because it was in the San Francisco Examiner, where I was the food and wine editor.
Blogs
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Exploring Wine with Tim Fish
Bogle is that rare winery that consistently delivers bang for the buck
Posted: October 5, 2011 By Tim Fish
Everyone likes a good $12 bottle of wine, whether they buy wines by the case or strain their budget with just one bottle. Value is the great wine leveler.
Retail wine shelves are a big colorful blur of cheap California brands from the conglomerates, but let's be real: A lot of it is crap. The odds of finding a value label that's tasty across the board—from the Chardonnay to the Cabernet Sauvignon to the Pinot Noir—are slim to nada.
The list of those across-the-board value California producers is short, but surely Bogle Vineyard must be near the top. Search Wine Spectator's database of Bogle reviews and rarely do the wines score below 84 on our 100-point scale and seldom do they cost more than $12.
Blogs
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Penley Estate, Wirra Wirra reflect Australia's diversity
Posted: October 3, 2011 By Harvey Steiman
By coincidence or design, it's hard to tell, two Australian winemakers in back-to-back visits last week had the same points to make when I asked them about how things were going for them in regard to selling their wines in the U.S. Although they still encounter some resistance, retailers and restaurant wine buyers at least are willing to taste their products and, when they do, they have the same reaction.
"They say, ‘These don't taste like Australian wines,'" said Kym Tolley, whose Penley Estate wines from Coonawarra aims for lean textures and a narrow beam of intensity.
"These taste like European wines. I hear that a lot," said Paul Smith, winemaker at Wirra Wirra in McLaren Vale. "To me, they taste like good McLaren Vale wines, but if [buyers] like the style because it feels European to them, maybe that's a good thing. We make a lot of wines like these in Australia."
Blogs
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Exploring Wine with Tim Fish
With the season running weeks behind, last week’s heat takes the pressure off winemakers
Posted: September 28, 2011 By Tim Fish
Last week’s heat wave jumpstarted the harvest in California, much to the relief of growers and winemakers. Temperatures were in the mid-90s all week, one of the rare extended blasts of heat all summer.
But the sigh of relief was short-lived. A major rainstorm is predicted for early next week. Still, knowing that forecasts change quickly in California, winemakers remain optimistic.
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
The long, cool 2011 growing season means California grapegrowers in cooler wine regions could still be harvesting in late October and beyond
Posted: September 26, 2011 By James Laube
Two weeks ago I noticed that it was getting dark early, earlier than I expected. When I mentioned it to friends in passing, they too felt the same way. Summer didn’t make its usual presence felt. We had a summer all right, but what made it so different was that it never got hot.
Harvest is slowly shifting into gear in California. It’s a late year all around and harvest reports indicate the crop is good yet spotty in size. A damp, wet spring extended into summer. Some vines had a very uneven set; some vineyards were so hard hit they won’t produce much fruit. Summer was cool.
Blogs
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Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth
A tricky 2011 vintage for two of France's most important wine regions
Posted: September 21, 2011 By James Molesworth
With picking in full swing in France’s major wine regions, I checked in with a few top growers to see how things were going so far with the 2011 harvest. Here are just a few snippets from Bordeaux and the Rhône Valley.
Blogs
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Numerous American Association of Wine Economists articles quantify some wine world trends
Posted: September 21, 2011 By Harvey Steiman
E-mails arrive in my inbox regularly listing the latest from the American Association of Wine Economists, a nonprofit that presents and publishes studies by academic economists involving wine. Although many of these papers are impenetrable to a lay reader, every now and then a few catch my eye. The current e-mail has several. Make of these what you will.
Most fascinating to me is "When Does the Price Affect the Taste?" The authors, Johan Almenberg and Anna Dreber, designed an experiment in which hosts sometimes revealed the price of the wines they poured, and sometimes not, then asked everyone to rate the wines. The results? "Disclosing a high price ... produces considerably higher ratings, although only from women. Disclosing a low price, by contrast, does not result in lower ratings." In other words, as a host you won't adversely affect your guests' pleasure by telling them how much you paid for the wine you're serving. If it's a high-priced bottle women might like it even more. You won't change their perception of a bargain bottle, although they might peg you as a cheapskate.
Blogs
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Exploring Wine with Tim Fish
Kick back and relax, blind tasting is your friend
Posted: September 21, 2011 By Tim Fish
I've been doing blind tastings for 20 years and have only made a fool of myself a handful of times. That's a fine average for any wine lover. Tasting blind isn't for the faint of heart-it's wine tasting without a net-but it keeps you honest and, with any luck, a bit humble.
Did I mention that it's potentially a whole lot of fun too? Because there are really two kinds of blind tasting—professional and social.
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
Acclaimed Pinot Noir winemaker settled in Anderson Valley and now makes wine under the Morning Dew Ranch label
Posted: September 20, 2011 By James Laube
People used to ask Burt Williams why he and Ed Selyem didn’t own a vineyard.
“I was busy making wine and Ed was busy selling it,” said Williams of their days at Williams Selyem Winery. “We didn’t have any spare time. What do you want us to do, four or five jobs?” He laughed, knowing the two home-winemakers already had their hands full.
Williams, 70, who sold Williams Selyem in 1998 after making it one of California’s most respected producers of Pinot Noir, owns a vineyard now. He took his share of the $9.5 million sale price and in 1999 bought 40 acres in Anderson Valley, where he planted 12.5 to Pinot Noir. He's now making wine under the Morning Dew Ranch label.
Blogs
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Bruce Sanderson Decanted
The wine world loses an original
Posted: September 19, 2011 By Bruce Sanderson
Joe Dressner, founder of the wine importing company Louis Dressner Selections, died this past weekend. He was 60 years old.
Dressner was an original that always shot from the hip and was never afraid to speak his mind. He and his wife, Denyse, started Louis Dressner Selections with the philosophy of importing wines from small family estates that worked organically, with indigenous yeasts, no filtration and minimal intervention. They were ahead of the "natural wine" curve from the beginning.
Blogs
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Caesars tries out the idea of restaurants without a plush hotel attached
Posted: September 19, 2011 By Harvey Steiman
A recent announcement from Caesars Entertainment implicitly acknowledges that lavish luxury hotels have saturated Las Vegas, but there is still plenty of room for more good restaurants.
The mega-company, which includes Caesars Palace, Paris Las Vegas, Planet Hollywood and Rio, outlined its plans to build an elaborate dining and retail venue on land it owns across the street from Caesars Palace. Its neighbors include the Venetian on the north, Paris to the south, and Caesars and the Mirage across the street. Now occupied by a honky-tonk mishmash of old-school casinos, cheap retail and several outdated hotels, including the Imperial Palace, Flamingo and Harrah's, the tract has always struck me as an eyesore.
