$7 surprise and a Faugeres that rocks

So inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk, I decided to try my hand at wine vlogging. Next time I'm going to brush my teeth first. This just goes to show what a Macbook can do--no additional cameras or software were purchased or used for this post. Assuming the video ever loads, that is. I'm trying over here but Blogger does not, at the moment, have my back. When I can get this resolved I'll post the video.

We're talking about the 2004 La Croix Belle Faugeres and the 2006 Delas Cotes De Ventoux, both purchased from my favorite wine store, Astor wine. I've had a couple of great tastings from there this week, one that was two French and two Greek wines, one the Red Stag Agioritiko and one a white that was so minerally it was like licking a creek stone. Not necessarily in a bad way. The Spanish tasting on Friday I picked up a bottle of Cal Siscon that was just a lovely, perfumey wine that I'm looking forward to cracking.

I'm going to try to get this video thing resolved, although I may re-shoot it. After brushing and shaving.

A good weekend

Had some lovely wine this weekend. The Sierra Cantabria has become a friend, a go-to red that' affordable pretty much everywhere I go.

While we're on the subject, I pretty much think there's no reason to buy wine at Union Square Wine. Go there to browse, go there to taste, try things, see what you like. But then walk the 8 blocks south to Astor Wines and buy the same stuff for 20% off. I'm serious. I bought a white Muga 20% off at Union (they had it in a tasting) and walked down to Astor and there it was...at the same price I just paid, only NOT on sale. I priced a couple of other bottles and it was the same story. So now you now where to go.

Back to the wine. I actually prefer the Sierra Cantabria to a couple of the riojas that were in that Union Square tasting--fuller, darker flavors, more body, more interesting. We also had an immigrant grape--a California verdelho. Verdelho is usually a Portugese grape, which I think also is Spanish Verdeho? This was the Lee Family Farm Silverspoons Vineyard 2005 Verdelho It had good citrus and good acidity and was fine with the pumpkin ravioli we had. I was sort of wondering if we should have had the white Muga, which I think is a more compex wine, but this was tasty. Purely by chance there had been a bit left at the bottom of the bottle, unsealed, until Wednesday. Astonishingly it was still tasty, smoother and fuller, with some pineapple on the nose and, once you suck some air through it, really buttery,

This has me thinking I'm just going to start decanting every damn thing and see what happens. Julie hates waiting for things to open There's also a sort of herbaceous, almost sagey thing happening on the end, maybe some mineral, too. There's a real sourness starting to creep in at the end, but that's it being off. I also think we chilled it too much. I was reading another blog last night that says Americans drink their reds to hot and their whites too cold. I'm going to see if I agree with that. Timing and oxygen are really interesting to me. But I have to say the Lee Family Verdelho is a lovely wine, and from web research doesn't seem too expensive.

Oh, and we cracked the Bonny Doon Recioto of Barbera. Oh my god. One of m favorite dessert wines ever. Tastes like boysenberries. Remember boysenberry syrup at IHOP? This is what you would imagine that fruit tasted like. I've never actually had a real boysenberry. But I'm having me some more recioto of barbera. You best believe.

Have you seen this man?

Gary Vaynerchuck, the media-loving face of Wine Library TV, is my current obsession (click on the link for the bio). You may have seen him on Ellen Degeneres or Conan O'Brien. He's smart and media-savvy and less of an idiot than those appearances would indicate; in addition to knowing wine, he's figured out how to make a media splash.

I never thought it would be fascinating to watch someone drink. But beyond the Boo-Ya aesthetic, Gary knows his stuff. There's a hilarious mashup of his tasting notes which fairly accurately captures his aesthetic. One thing that's fascinating for me is when the yelling dies down and his love comes through. Not just for wine--there's a lovely episode#395">#395, when his brother turns 21 and has wine for the first time. Also there's a hilarious episode, #403, where Gary's dad, Sacha, basically crashes a taping and takes over. (For some reason he reminds me of my Uncle Dale).

Gary's committed to building his base, to the point of having t-shirts printed up with some of his more outrageous tasting notes. The one about the deer and the cherries was a particular favorite of mine.

The loud can get too much at times--in these more recent episodes you really need to have your volume turned down when they start because of his yelled introduction--but I'm amazed by how much I'm learning from watching these. Vaynerchuck's focus has been on building his community--the Vayniacs, or the Vayner Nation--and for me the more recent posts can feel a bit like network marketing. But every episode--over 400, as he's been doing this every weekday for the past 2 years--is archived. It's a bit fascinating to see the evolution of a media figure. Watch the first two episode--the development is enormous, and you can see where he's headed, even if there are no wristbands or wrestling action figures yet. Gary's getting great press and will probably only get more. Here's hoping that his drive to build his base and get famous doesn't obscure the love.

Eh.

Sometimes you just want a bottle of wine. I was headed home to watch the Monster Tuesday coverage (CNN ended up being the best--Julie was really turned off by how ABC seemed really fond of ole Mikey Huckleberry) and I wanted a big bottle. The Kinton Syrah from Sunday had been good, but at $20 I wasn't about to get another one just for this, so I thought I'd get the Vincente Syrah, or something like that. But Sip was closed, damn them (sure it was 9:30 and they close at 9, but I wanted wine!) so I just cracked the Jelu pinot noir I picked up cheap at Astor.

Eh. Especially before it got some air into it, this was thin stuff. Fruit at the start, almost a watery finish. Air helped, but it never lasted long in the mouth. When it comes to wine I'm not always a believer that you get what you pay for, but this was some boring stuff.

Tasty Syrah

So it's a burner because it's California (15% abv) but I tried it at SIP (surprisingly unhelpful website here) and it was tasty. Julie thought is was meaty. I got lots of black fruit. I don't drink a lot of California; I used to have quite the disdain for cabernet sauvignon and Chardonnay. Tony had a great white burgundy last night, and, I want to say Macon-Village but that's probably wrong, and it was lovely and buttery and although I can drink plenty of it I do get a bit bored with Chardonnay.

Interesting to learn recently that cabernet sauvignon is the offspring of cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc. It's such dominant slut grape that it never occurred to me that it came from somewhere, was bred. Does that make me think better of Muller-Thurgau?

Chili and Wine--mmmmm, goodness

Impromptu Sunday night chili and wine party. Tony from upstairs and I each picked up a growler from Bierkraft. But it turned out to be a wine night for me. We finished off the open bottle of Le Bombarde Cannonau, which despite the name was very light, more so than I expected. It was pleasantly fruity but didn't knock me out. Tony had an open bottle of Malbec which was terrific. It had softened overnight, according to him, but still plenty big. We also opened the Pontet-Barrail from Medoc which was left over from the Christmas party. More on this later--I have to go recycle the bottles.

The Accidental Emperor

Just finished Elin McCoy's The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste. This is an excellent book for the moderate enthusiast of wine, such as myself. It probably covers a lot of ground that is probably quite familiar to grape nuts, but also brings in some interesting characters and points I had heard nothing of. McCoy also, I think, does a good job of accurately situating Parker's astonishing influence in the wine world. There are, in addition to the ease of understanding that the 100-point rating system gives to the overwhelming task of figuring out what wine to buy, a few important reasons for Parker's power:

a) His certainty. Americans like definitives, and Parker tells them whether a wine is good or bad. Now there are entire categories of wine he doesn't like much--lighter-bodied, more acidic reds--and he doesn't rate them highly, regardless of whether they're strong examples of the type. When you're buying a Parker recommendation you are buying the preferences of that one, albeit extraordinary, palate. Which brings me to the second point--

b) The Cowardice of Consumers. You can't blame Parker for the fact that most of the consumers are sheep and don't figure out their own preferences, instead only buying that which is recommended. Part of this is because of (a) above--Parker brings a certainty that amounts to a false "objectivity" to what is a profoundly subjective experience. McCoy mentions the work of Adrienne Lehrer and others in showing that wine consumers have great difficulty matching the experts' description of wine with the wine itself. In which case, buying a highly rated wine may not mean buying the wine that you yourself like best. Indeed, the whole reason Parker got his start was that he found the highly rated wines of his day overpriced and insipid. We need new Parkers.

c) The Greed of Winemakers. The French were thrilled with Parker's recommendation of the 1982 Bordeaux, a year others were not so thrilled by. They put Parker on the map and pushed his ratings. He has done enormous work in bringing French wine to the attention of the wider world, and indeed, now that he has other reviewers on his website, he restricts himself to the French wines he loves and California. The Bordelais have twice arranged state honors for Parker, including France's highest award, the Legion of Honor. His recommendations made a lot of them rich, and continue to make huge amounts of money. There are dissenting voices, but overall the process has served the powerful interests well, and put some tiny vineyards on the map. If winemakers as a group had not adopted the ratings system, then i) they would have made much less money and ii) Parker would have far less influence. Money talks.

Some thoughts on wine

So I'm going to use this as a place for tasting notes, and a general discussion about wine. Most of what I know about wine I learned from Zach Mannheimer, espeacially when he was at Tempo. I started drinking wine with Thadd McQuade. Thadd's advice--which I believe is good for any novice--is to find some kind of wine you like and drink a lot of variety in it. For me, that starting point was Cote du Rhone. I haven't drunk as widely in it as I would like.

Tempo was mostly Italian and Spanish in the list and as a result many current favorites hail from here. There are so many varietals and regions and...oy. Sometimes I glory in how much there is to learn, and sometimes it's a bit much.

We all know that the the same varietals can have a range of expressions, but a turning point for me came in a trip in August of 07 to California. In the Russian River valley zinfandel had such a mind-blowing range of body and flavor that I couldn't sometimes believe we were drinking the same grape.

I mention this now because I'm having some of the same experience with this bottle of Pacifico Sur pinot noir from Chile. This is a wine that's really showing the importance of oxygen. The first sips were all right, but after a bit the wine developed a sourness that I've noticed in a couple of different bottles, almost a pickle juice flavor. If you let it get some more air the cherry starts to show, and the next day the first glass has an incredible spice. Lots of swirling can help get towards that spice again. It's an interesting sine, because I thought I didn't like it but at some points I do. I picked it up as part of the Red White and Bubbly 4-pack

It's a really interesting wine, and I didn't turn up much on the web. Let me know if you have any thoughts.