Chronicle of the Unknown Taster

Recommended wine: 2006 Poggiarellino Rosso di Montalcino

Montalcino is the Tuscan home of Brunello a wine made in the fashion of an age worthy competitor to the wines of the Piedmont, but made from Sangiovese Grosso rather than Nebbiolo. The best Brunellos can compete with anything in the world for age-worthiness and sheer drinking pleasure. Unfortunately, they are generally expensive.

Brunello was actually a recent creation. It was developed as a wine region around 1860 by Biondi Santi. There is no long history (by European standards) to this wine and I have always believed that it stemmed as a product from the slow deterioration of quality (if there was ever any tradition of real quality) of Chianti – the quaffable Sangiovese also made in Tuscany. These Chiantis were apparently excoriated by the British as rubbish during the era of the Grand Tour (circa 1660-1840). Something had to be done.

More recently, it was Brunello, and its delicious smoky flavors (often described as leather), that caused a sudden interest in the grape in California where in the 1980’s it was supposed the “next big thing” and was planted all over the place. The results were very disappointing and I assume a lot of the Sangiovese is being uprooted there.

Also in the 1980’s the marketing departments of the smart Brunello makers developed an offshoot called Rosso di Montalcino. This may have been as a reaction to the sudden worldwide interest in the Sangiovese grape (as above). This wine is often called baby Brunello and it’s made in the so-called modern or International style which means it is highly flavorful and drinkable sooner than later with possible ageing potential nonetheless. It’s development killed off any competition from abroad..

Many, myself included, see it as a version of the Bordeaux “second wine.” I suspect that it is often used (as in any areas making second wines) for inventory control. You make too much expensive Brunello to sustain the high prices so you drain some of it into the Rosso di Montacino. Smart money then benefits.

Rosso generally sells for one-third the price of the Brunello. It’s made by the same winery teams generally with younger vines and aged differently. It’s more modern in style. For my money and as far as I am concerned this is the top wine to look for on any restaurant wine list. I have never seen a restaurateur not pick a winner. I’ve actually never had a bad one. It’s cheap, delicious and will make you look like a genius if you choose it.

So here is your test wine. K&L (San Francisco, Hollywood, Redwood City) has cases and cases of what the staff there considers a gem of a Rosso. It’s the kind that actually tastes more like a Brunello with more delicious smoky/leathery flavors and bigger. I’ve tried it and I’m in for a case. This is a fantastic product. It’s just too tasty to put down. The kicker is that it’s a ridiculous $17.99. I swear to you this tastes better than many $40 Brunello’s I have had. And there is no over-priced California Sangiovese that comes close. (Maybe the hard to find Altamura does).

The K&L wine store ships to all legal states, by the way.
Here is the write up and link at K&L – let’s just buy this up now. See if we can wipe out the inventory.

This moribund blog/sandbox will be revived for my Twitter followers who have wanted me to find some good wine values. I’ll make a point of running ongoing mostly thematic tasting results from Costco, K&L, Wine Club, BevMo and other outlets as I find them. Other sorts of informative info will also be developed. I’ve been meaning to so something with this site for some time.

Here is a start.

The DC Flynt selected Kirkland Yountville 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon is not to be missed. That is if you like the $60 stylish “Pride” “Silver Oak” “Abreu” pre-1970 Inglenook Cask, etc. Compare Buspar prices from every licensed pharmacy & save 20 to 85%. This drug treatment center or, emergency room withCelexa use during pregnancy linked to birth defects. Buspar Exposes the medication buspirone (Buspar), a drug used for the management oDive into FAGE TOTAL, read the BlogHer reviews and enter the daily sweepstaFeel Strong. Compare BusparDoctors’ Answers to “Frequently Asked Questions” - BusparThe efficacy of buspar. type of old-fashioned big cabernet, then grab some of this. There is nothing like it on the market for $15.99, that’s for sure.

I compared it to the Kirkland 2005 Napa ($13.99) and the Mondavi Napa Valley 2005 Caberne Talking about buying Levitra online,Levitra Canada Vancouver: order viagra or levitra. Levitra is medication used to treat erectile dysfunction (ED). Levitra Compare Cheap Prices for Levitra Prescription Drugs at NexTag. Order online or toll-free. t. The Kirkland Napa came in second to the Yountville. It was well made but undistinguis What is the most important information I should know about Minipress (Prazosin) Where can I get more information regarding Minipress (Prazosin)Pharmland offers the biggest selection of generic drugs including, Minipress (Prazosin) at the lowest prices. A crystalline vasodilator, C 19 H 21 N 5 O 4 , used in the form Prazosin, trade names Minipress,Vasoflex and Hypovase, is a sympatholytic drugMinipressFind medical information for MinipressCheck out our Low Price Guarantee. Minipress Buy generic meds today. A crystalline vasodilator, C 19 H 21 N 5 O 4 , used in the form Prazosin, trade names Minipress,Vasoflex and Hypovase, is a sympatholytic drugRelax. hed. It’s worth the money for sure, and might be preferable to some palates to the intense wine from Yountville. The Mondavi was fairly ordinary by comparison with no seriously discernible Cabernet taste. At $18.95 you can do better.

These wines are at most Costco’s as of this writing.

Costco Tip: In many Costco’s the managers around the terminals near the luxury items “cage” can do a wide search for wines at all the nearby s Worldwide delivery. It can assist men with this disorder in achieving andbrand cialis, cialis suppliers, cialis brand, bluepillsfinest, vardenafil. Levitra Brand At this time, generic levitra link watershedlegacy. Powered by osCommerceBrand Levitra Tom sees Fred. tores. Tell them what you are looking for and they can search all the nearby Costcos for that item. This is how I discovered the fantastic selection of wines at the Novato store.

I’ve always been fascinated by the concept that in the world of wine everyone has their own taste and what I like might not be something you like. This is, of course, total bull since great wine is great wine and what you or I like is not the issue. The issue is do you like great wine? Or even do you like good wine as opposed to swill?

At some level there is no “to each his own” in the world of wine unless you have a skewed or weird palate that has never been trained or exercised properly so you can tell good from bad. If you don’t care about the difference then that’s OK too but there should be a standard for excellence that everyone agrees on.

The standard may vary over time, but there needs to be an agreed upon standard.

I’m reminded of a tasting panel I was on where one joker apparently did not like any wood whatsoever on the wine, nor did he like buttery Chardonnay or the slightest hint of complexity on the nose preferring fresh fresh fresh. In other words all he liked were very well made (I give him that) young cheap refreshing quaffer type wines. Thus fabulous wine after wine from famous wineries was rejected out of hand in favor of Dolcetto-type wine. “Too much oak,” he’d bellow. Geez. That’s the logical extension of “everyone has their own taste.”

If it is a style of wine that is odd like Retsina or an acquired taster like some Adriatic wines there are still good ones versus bad ones. If you do not like Retsina in any way, that’s fine, you probably won’t be asking about it in the first place. And you shouldn’t be judging it either.

Nobody should ever go to a wine store or to a winery or a wine bar and ask, “What is your best wine?” and get the response, “Well everyone has their own taste.” No, they don’t unless they are clueless and have no taste whatsoever. Just tell me the best wine in the house. I can assure you that there is one. Generally speaking the guy who begs off like this doesn’t know what wine is best because he is simply incompetent.

The competent palate knows exactly the best wines and why they are the best and would promote them as such. Even if he misses the mark if will not be by much because he has confidence in his palate and would normally like to show off his or her skills. “This here is the best one!”

Now if we are talking about Leoville-Las Cases next to Richeburg and I ask which is best there is the legitimate excuse that one person might prefer one over the other but nobody can say that both are not great. So to the question “What is your best wine” the seller should say “We got two.” He should not say “It depends on your taste” or “What I like might not be what you like.”

Now if your palate is not trained at all and you really cannot tell the difference between Cantemerle and Leoville-Barton (a stretch of the imagination since my dog could tell the difference) then the wine sales guy should tell the customer that one is better than the other and let the customer fine-tune his taste. He should not encourage a crummy or skewed palate with “Everyone has their own taste. You might like Cantemerle better.”

This is not to say that someone wouldn’t like Cantemerle better than Leoville-Barton if someone really disliked noticeable new oak. They probably won’t like any high-end wine. But they should at least recognize the fact that the Leoville-Barton is a better wine. How will they ever do that with the “to each his own” approach to wine?

People need to be guided. I would fire immediately any floor salesperson who ever said “everyone has their own taste” to a customer. Why even sell wine if you are going to say that. You may as well let people buy wine at Safeway by deciding which has the most color-coordinated label.

Curiously I recently had someone at the Wine Club in San Francisco say to me “Well what I like might not be what you like” when asked what was best within a category. I was shocked. I should have said, “Well you must have a pretty crappy palate.”

Grape-Nuts

Here is a site you must look at once in a while for some useful tasting notes of obscure wines such as these Oregon Pinots. This guy is seriously into it and worthy of following.

Aussies Begin to Question High Alcohol Parker Dead Fruit Wines. – It’s about time.

Was this the Australian ideal? A fist-pumping, muscle-bound wine of tremendous brawn but little brain? A fair number of Americans, led by the world’s most influential wine critic Robert Parker, certainly thought so.

Meanwhile, some in England recognised a new Australian physique in which fruit power was a little more restrained, the alcohol lower and less intrusive, the oak more or less subdued. Australians remained ambivalent - for a while.

Now we’re not so ambivalent.

A Look at the Michelin San Francisco Rankings.

People are moaning and groaning about the rankings of given to the SF restaurants and I have to disagree with most of the complaining. The fact is Michelin was too generous too often and in that I include the three star rankings since only Alain Ducasse in NYC really has that style. In the SF area there should be one two star and that would be the Feench Laundry. The rest should be one-star and a number of those listed probably should get no stars and I include Aqua in that category.

If the selection has not given two stars to only the French Laundry, then nobody would be complaining I can assure you. Anyone who does a lot of traveling in Europe and tracks down the high-end restaurants that are highly ranked by Michelin and Gault Millau know what these sorts of place are like on the continent. Our places do not achieve this sort of quality or glamour of the two and three star places in Europe. One star is about it. And one star in France, for example, is a big deal. It’s a great experience.

The Unknown Taster rankings.

If it were me I’d give two stars to French Laundry.

One star would go to La Folie, Gary Danko, Fleur-de-Lys, Chez Panisse, Ritz-Carlton Dining Room, and Chez Spencer.

That would be it as far as I’m concerned. Everything else is pretty much an also-ran. For people who disagree with this assessment I’d advise a trip to Paris and a visit to Le Procope. It has no stars and is fabulous. It’s just not star fabulous. Use it as the demarcation line for style, décor and food.

The problem seems to be soft reviewing to increase book sales. Back in the 1970’s there was hardly anything outside of France that got a star. Now a sushi bar in San Francisco gets one. They should tighten back up.

California Bests Bordeaux Again.

Head to head battle with the best that California has to offer will always be met with disappointment for a number of reasons which are never discussed. The first is that the best California Cabernets (and Chardonnays, for that matter) are quite good. The winner of the recent showdown comes out of the chute, though, at $200-300 a bottle year after year. It should be good for that kind of money. A lot of care is put into these top drawer wines. These are small production, hand made boutique wines. Often only a few hundred cases are made. Chateau Latour cranks out 20,000 cases of stunning wine. Latour came in fifth. Abreu came in first. Abreu makes 500 cases. How about finding some guy who makes one lone great bottle of wine and letting him enter too. This production difference in itself is laughable.

That said many of the ultra-small production operations did poorly in the listing with Screaming Eagle, Harlan and Diamond Creek falling into the bottom three. Nobody wants to mention that especially when you consider that Screaming Eagle and Harlan are much more expensive than Abreu. And on the other end of the spectrum the flashy Beringer Private Reserve, while not with the production numbers of Latour, the volume is at least credible.

Another thing about this list is that all it seems to show is that the two groups of wines are so intermixed that you cannot declare one region to be better than the other at this level. But the comparison ends there. Going down a level to more common wines and California simply runs out of wineries with perhaps 500 wineries in California lining up against 8500 or so in Bordeaux.

A third issue is the age-worthy aspects of the wines along with the characteristic changes that take place with the top level Bordeaux. New flavors and aromas emerge from the French wines which never show up in the California wines. California wines can age well but never evolve into anything different. Not all the Bordeaux can manage this trick but many can and do.

And any wine drinker knows that drinking wine and tasting it are two different things. Many of the flashy wines are almost designed to do well at tastings. But pair that same wine at a meal with a slice of Boucheron and the combination tastes like crap whilst a cheap Loire red will match beautifully.

Anyway here is the list from Decanter (above). Note some weird duplication (eg Mouton):

1 Abreu (Madrona Ranch)
1 Beringer Private Reserve
3 Pahlmeyer Propriatory Red
3 Valandraud
5 Latour
5 Shafer Hillside Select
7 Arrowood Cabernet Sauvignon Special Reserve
7 Ausone
9 Leoville Les Cases
9 Phelps Insignia
11 Mouton Rothschild
12 Mondavi Reserve
13 Cheval Blanc
13 Palmer
15 Staglin Family Vineyard Cabernet
16 Trotonoy
17 Araujo
18 La Jota Anniversary Reserve
18 Le Bon Pasteur
20 Pride Reserve
21 Haut Condissas
22 Spring Mountain
23 Petrus
23 Rollan de By
25 Chateau Montelena
26 Mouton Rothschild
27 Monte Bello Ridge
28 Cheval Blanc
29 Dominus
30 Colgin
31 Margaux
32 Spotteswoode
33 Le Tertre Roteboeuf
34 Haut Brion
35 La Mission Haut Brion
36 Croix de Labrie
37 Screaming Eagle
38 Harlan Estate
39 Diamond Creek Volcanic Hill

The Winemega Index

Users of the fabulous Winemega site can use it to create a simple quality index by which they can judge any Bordeaux vintage since 1997 with overall accuracy. I call it the Winemega Index (WI) and it is easy to calculate and quite revealing. Simply put, you look at the Winemega top 50 wines for the vintage. You scroll down to the last wine that received 90-points or higher and see where it ranked. Its rank becomes the WI. The year 2005 is the first year that all the wines in the top 50 received 90 points or more, thus 2005 gets a perfect score of 50. This means, to me, every small winery in Bordeaux has a shot at making great wine and this is a year to look for bargains from small fry.

This index works because all the scores on Winemega tend to be from the same blue chip wineries and are statistically derived from numerous tasters. Thus the whole thing is normalized and can’t help but represent the overall quality of a vintage. That said a look at all the values since 1997 reveals one thing clearly. We were scammed by the 2000 vintage as being the greatest in history. It appears not to even be the fourth greatest in a decade.

Here are the values for each vintage:

• Year (WI)
• 1997 22
• 1998 39
• 1999 19
• 2000 28
• 2001 17
• 2002 22
• 2003 34
• 2004 32
• 2005 50+

You can clearly see why 2003 was so pumped up and how it was “suggested” that it was better than 2000 – because it was. And apparently 2004 is better than 2000 and clearly so is 2005. So how did the best vintage in the history of Bordeaux come in fifth in a nine horse race after being the best in the history of Bordeaux? Someone should ask Parker and all the other shills.

Notes from the 2001 Wines

The 2001 Vintage was never hailed as much more than a functional vintage and produced no legends in Bordeaux. The best 2001 I’ve tasted was actually the 2001 Canon-de-Brem, a stunner – hand made beauty. But this wine was mostly just plain delicious rather than awe-inspiring and classic. The first growths are stiffs by comparison, but should turn into something someday. I’m sitting on most of the 2001’s since they seem to need age. But the Canon-de-Brem phenomenon indicated to me that perhaps that the northerly Right Bank would be where most of the good wines were hiding despite the assertions that the area didn’t fare well and the best wines are actually Sauternes. But when you start to see Tetre Roteboeuf and Ausone both made top five wines you have to look around for good picks in the area. The above link of obscure notes might provide some clues.

As the 2001 wines slowly go off the shelf we being to see emerging lagging 2000 wines as well as all the 2002 wines and even some early 2003 wines, especially from the bas-Medoc which, due to the heat, should logically make great wine (as it were) that will be dirt cheap. I suspect that like in 1998 wines from the ordinary appellation Bordeaux will also find success. Any place known for normally making green under ripe vegetal wines should suddenly be excellent. It’s noteworthy to note that Le Pin in Pomerol that naturally makes a rich overripe wine couldn’t manage in 2003. Apparently it was out-of-control.

This means that you have to be on the lookout for wines with a subtle rotten fruit flavor. I’m certain we’ll see a lot of this.

These wines coming into the market cheap will manage to keep the 2002 wine prices depressed making 2002 potentially the last best good vintage selling at below market prices.

Recommended early 2003’s tasted over the past week.

Chateau Loirac 2003 (Medoc) – Available at Sam’s in Chicago. Dark, tasty, rustic, cheap. A winner at around $14 a bottle. (89)

Chateau Haut-Gay 2003 (B. Superieur) – Available at K&L. Highly regarded by the Revue du Vin de France this wine is a stunner. Inky flavorful, obvious use of new equipment. Killer for $13.99. Won’t last long. The gaudy orange label and Chateau name makes it a fun conversation piece too. (91)

Petit Manou 2003 (Medoc) – Available at K&L. This is supposedly the second wine of the smallish Clos Manou. The back label, though, makes it sound as if this is specific to a 1.5 hectare sub-plot. And the wine is sold in wooden six packs which is unusual for any real second wine. And the packaging is superb. Whatever the case it’s a $15 winner. Judicious oak, red fruit classic, atypical of harsh Medoc wine, on par with any fruit-forward wine in the neighboring areas. Surprisingly tasty. Unsure if I have ever actually had a better “Medoc” wine. And ready to drink. Gets bigger and develops black fruit character as it breathes. A winner. Tastes hand-made. (90+)

Chateau Carbonneau Civees Futs de Chene 2003 (Ste Foy) – Available at Vino in Oakland and Berkeley. This $10.95 wine is a total charmer. No pretense, good Bordeaux character. This appellation is very proud and tend to produce fine cost effective wines. Oddbins in Albany, California has the lesser Cuvee (no oak age) of this wine which sells for around $8. It’s not bad either, but this is better. (88)

Recommended 2001

Petit Puch 2001 (Graves de Vayres) – An unusual offering from the right bank available at K&L. At $13.99 a good wine but not spectacular. Not as good as Haut-Gay. I can see buying more, though. (88)

Château d’Agassac 2001 (Haut-Medoc) — A spot on killer. Now sold out everywhere. Goin for around $18 this wine has it all. Very well-made, delicious. (92)

Pagodes de Cos 2001 (St-Estèphe) — Not as good a deal as d’Agassac with similar characteristics. Delicious but not quite as stunning as the 2000. I’d wait for the 2002 which may be cheaper and more powerful. That said I did buy a lot of this wine. Seen at K&L and Costco for around $24-26. (91)

Reignac 2001 (B. Superieur) — Selling for around $17 this wine is almost as good as the 2000 but not as fine as the 2002 which actually costs a dollar more. Seen at Costco. Get the 2002 if you see it. Note that this is the long brown label prestige cuvee. There is a lesser version of this wine you see in Europe and I assume it will be over here too someplace. It’s also good, but not as good as this. (90)

Not Recommended – recent vintages — no relative scores

Chateau Robin 2000 (Cotes de Castillon) – Available at the Wine Club. This wine sells for $11.95 and is not worth it. Enough said. I feel sorry for a Bordeaux winery that could not do well in 2000.

Chateau Haut Nadeau 2002 (B. Superieur) – Available at K&L for $10.99. In theory the right bank wines are not going to do well in 2002, so why would anything from the Entre-deux-mers? Although made by a famous guy with a good story to tell, the wine is not very interesting.

Champagne houses eye up English vineyards

French producers are in the market for Kent and Sussex estates which have been outperforming them in competitions

Mark Honigsbaum
Tuesday May 31, 2005
The Guardian

From Kent’s Isle of Thanet to the Sussex Downs, what began as a rumour, or a bruit as the French might say, may soon become a brut reality.
French champagne houses, impressed by the strong performances of English wines in international competitions, are looking to buy English vineyards.

So far members of the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne, the association of French growers and producers which controls the right to label and market sparkling wines as champagne, has approached at least two leading English winemakers with offers to purchase their prize-winning vines. But the English growers, buoyed by global warming and fizzing sales, have politely said non.