Archives for April, 2006
The Trader Joe’s Cheap-Wine Bacchanal
Winefools, we’ve met our match…
The only time I shopped regularly at Trader Joe’s was during the 10 weeks I was staying with my brother in Los Angeles while becoming a certified Bikram Yoga instructor. The training sessions were physically challenging and so I wasn’t drinking but I remember seeing a lot of interesting looking wines for sale at very cheap prices. I made a note to revisit TJ’s on a future visit and subsequently did for a long weekend last year. I did buy a couple of decent wines for very reasonable prices but I don’t recall the specifics other than that one of them was an Amarone for $19. TJ’s is more widely known as the home of Two Buck Chuck and other very cheap wines, with several choices as low as $3-4 a bottle. I’m not generally looking for the cheapest wine available but I love finding a drinkable bargain. I figured that the Amarone was great at about half of what one would typically pay for a modestly priced bottle and so it seems logical to suppose that there may be some worthy wines to be had at TJ’s for $10 or less. Since I was only in LA for the weekend I wasn’t able to try more but I left with a positive impression of the store.
Not surprisingly, I was pretty excited when I heard the Trader Joe’s is coming, not just to Atlanta, but to the old Winn Dixie location a block from my house. I’ve had the rumor partly substantiated by someone in the wine industry but she was only able to confirm that TJ’s was coming to Atlanta and not the exact location, although the Winn Dixie space makes a lot of sense.
It was therefore of particular interest to me to stumble on this “roundtable investigation into Trader Joe’s wine cellar” titled “Cheap Wine: $4 and Under” by Joshua Bernstein, writing for New York Press. Joshua invited some friends over to sample twelve cheap wines which he picked up in the newly opened New York Trader Joe’s. This is the setup:
I invited a dozen friends–one per bottle–and instructed them to bring food fit for low-rent wine. Namely, tuna celery boats, Peeps, spray cheese, gritty crackers and pigs in the blanket. They arrived at cocktail o’clock, and we set to an unscientific, hardly comprehensive tasting.
If you enjoyed reading (or participating in) our foray into Bolivian wines, in which our notes included such appetizing descriptors as “shrill,” “shitty” and “pop-rocks effervesence,” you’re going to love this gang’s commentary. Here are a few of my favorites,
“Sucks. Sucks bad. Like it was fermented with dirt.”
“This is like bull’s blood boiled with piss and vinegar.”
“It’s like being smothered with velvet… in a bad way.
Oh boy, what fun we have to look forward to if/when Trader Joe’s comes to the neighborhood.
Context is Everything: Edmunds St. John’s blonk! 2002 (A)
I can’t remember when or how I first heard about Edmunds St. John’s wines but I remember my first impression of his web site. It looks and reads like the diary of a lone, artisan winemaker. It might be simply that the rebel in me, which is probably about 80%, can’t help but be attracted to someone willing to declare,
As a winemaker, I’ve deliberately chosen not to court the market, i.e., the commercial context out of which so much modern wine is being formulated.
If you’ve spent any time at all reading contemporary writings about wine (and I’ve only just begun, many thanks to the blogosphere) you’ve doubtless come across articles and debates about “terroir”. What is it? Can it be measured? Does it even exist outside the realm of wine marketing? Assuming that the word, however inadequately, describes something tangible there is a key to understanding it as something profoundly more important than mere place and time and that key, which was hinted at in the above quote but is more efficiently summarized here is “context”:
Wine first emerged from a cultural context… Drinking wine from that kind of setting, one experiences a vibrant and compelling kind of harmony and balance. The wine and food, in that context, are of a piece; they enliven one another. The aromas and flavors are both vivid and subtle, and uniquely of that place and time.
Context is everything. How can anyone not get that? The unique circumstances which mark any undertaking, event or action, are themselves wholly the determining factors in how we perceive, and more importantly, remember things. Ever have a smell take you back in time? Hear a song that makes you swoon in remembrance of a kiss or an embrace? Taste a favorite food that warms your body inside and out when it first touches your tongue? It’s very likely that it isn’t merely the perceptual sensation to which you respond but the marriage of that sensation to some meaningful event or experience which is being summoned and recreated that allows you to relive a treasured moment in time or to recall a special place. That, to me, is the key to understanding terroir. I haven’t spent much time in vineyards but I know what earth smells like. I have tasted fresh leaves and moldy bark, wild fruit and cultivated flowers. I can recall the smell and feel of clay and rock, lichen and micah. When I say that I like an earthy wine, or that I can detect hummus or hay in the aroma, I am summoning a long past childhood in the country, playing in the woods and in the barns and silos of dairy farms. Drinking Edmunds St. John’s blonk! I am reminded of the beauty and magic of unfolding ferns, the taste of a stick in my mouth, mud on my hands. I remember climbing pine trees, getting sticky with pitch and pulling the needles from my hair. I’ll grant you that those aren’t exactly the same sensations one might associate with the northern California vineyards that blonk! was begat from but from the earth they come and from the earth was blonk! born. Were I more familiar with the specific geography of these vineyards I don’t doubt that I would be propelled to them with each sip. As it is, I am content to be reminded of a time, my youth, when my soul was more closely in tune with land, trees and play.
There are also suggestions of exotic, spicy fruit in this medium bodied, golden white wine. I’m sad to say that Mrs. Dink made a face when she tasted this wine, one of those cheeks pulled back until the teeth are freakishly exposed faces of alarm and distaste but I love it (in her defense, she was born and raised on Long Island in contrast to my rural Massachusetts). It is mostly bitter, slightly salty, barely sweet. Earthy, minerally and rich. A blend of Roussanne, Viognier and Marsanne, with significant but not overbearing alcohol (14.1%) this is a quaffer for those who like a bite in their wine. I drank it with a mix of cured black and green olives and slightly stale baguette and I can tell you that this wine is not easily intimidated. I’ve got three more of his wines on hand and I can’t wait to try them.
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Burns my Ass and my Wine
You know what I fuckin’ hate? You order a bottle of juice at a restaurant and the fuckin’ idiot servoid puts the bottle of wine on the table right next to the fuckin’ candle. It’s bad enough that the candle is there in the first place but, jeebus, if I wanted my wine served at 90 fuckin’ degrees I’d ask them to heat it up it in a sauce pan. What the fuck do we need a candle on the table for in the first place since they outlawed smoking? Bastards.
Atlanta Restaurant Corkage Fees
I do and don’t understand why a restaurant needs to charge a corkage fee. On the one hand, it seems ridiculous to charge anything. Seriously, there must be at least a few customers who don’t drink wine at all (or any other alcoholic beverage) and presumably the restaurant won’t go broke catering to them. If a restaurant is that dependent on their wine markup to make a profit it’s doubtful they’ll be in business long. On the other hand, it’s certainly reasonable to charge a modest fee to discourage everyone from bringing their own wine. And let’s at least admit that that’s the only reason for a corkage fee. You can’t tell me that the extra labor of opening and pouring a bottle of wine is substantial enough to warrant charging extra for it, and if in fact it were, then the corkage fee should be added as a gratuity, which it never is. Nor can I believe that the two to four extra glasses in the dishwasher is going to be noticeable to anyone in the kitchen. The truth is that there is no practically measurable cost to the restaurant that justifies a corkage fee other than to discourage the practice and/or to try to recapture what is perceived as a loss of the usually outlandish profit attached to wine.
Still, I don’t mind paying a corkage fee, especially if it’s reasonable ($10 or less). The point of this category then, is to compile a list of restaurant corkage fees in Atlanta (and to alert each other about those establishments that are too primitive to even allow the customer to drink a wine of their choice).
Drinking with Colette
I’ve never read Collete but I guess I’ll add her to my list. Winemaker Annette Hoff at Cima Collina has a nice post with an excerpt from Colette’s writings wherein she talks about drinking wine as a teenager and what she learned from the experience. Her perspective is a bit different than what I remember feeling during my high school years with Riunite. Annette quotes Collette thusly,
Wine, according to its quality and the soil where it is grown, is a necessary tonic, a luxury, and a fitting tribute to good food.�And is it not also a source of nourishment in itself?…… It is no small thing to conceive a contempt, so early in life, not only for those who drink no wine at all but also for those who drink too much.
Annette then ponders,
Can we take claim to any of these theories in modern day America?� Wine as medicine?�Teaching our children about respect and responsibility for alcohol? The transference of the qualities of the soil through the vine into a form that is not only useful to the body, but also a unique, singular expression of it?s elements?
I’m not familiar with Cima Collina’s wines but I enjoy Annette’s writings and I appreciate a winery putting the effort into a blog. This is a great marketing effort because it makes me want to try their wine based solely on the glimpse into the thoughts of their winemaker.
Read the full post.
2004 Burgans Albarino (A)
A medium bodied wine bordering on full, this wine comes from one of the largest wineries in the Rias Baixas region of Spain and was bottled specifically for export. Can I just say that I love this wine? Try and stop me. I love this wine. It’s about $10 and worth buying by the case. The overwhelming sensation is of tangerine and honey but I have to confess to being influenced by the bright orange label and foil, the dark amber bottle and the straw color of the wine. Everything about this wine screams luscious, over-ripe, orange citrus. It’s also got a sort of nutty honeysuckly aroma. I’ve rewritten this sentence a dozen times as I try to figure out how to say that it’s dry and slightly sweet at the same time but that’s the best I could do. Really, it’s both. That’s often referred to as “off dry” but I hate that term. It’s also just a little bit tart and spicy. Damn if it didn’t go well with smoked salmon dip - a food that I have a hard time pairing. It also went well with some oily fungus on stale bread (mushroom bruschetta) and later to wash down some rosemary and ginger chicken over arugula. If I hadn’t run out I would have tried it with some dark chocolate (most people will tell you the wine needs to be sweeter than the chocolate but I disagree). I guess what I like about this wine the most is that there’s so much to it - it’s got a little of everything that wine needs including moderate alcohol (12.5%) and has perhaps perfect acidity which means it will go well with many kinds of food. A huge value. I hear it’s being produced domestically — I can’t wait to try more versions of this wine.
Wine Blog Wednesdays #20 - May Need to Consume Coca to Enjoy Bolivian Wines
A group of 6 gathered at Chez Seal to enjoy the theme of “off the beaten path whites” for this installment of Wine Blogging Wednesday (hosted by Wine for Newbies. We tasted a total of six wines, not including the bet Erwin Dink made with Mainer Chris to drink from the spittoon. Find below a list of wines and tasting notes in no particular order:
1. Kohlberg Tradicion
Ugni Blanc 2005 - $1.99 (in La Paz, Bolivia)
There was a general consensus that the overall nose consisted of banana, tropical fruits, and syrup. It was also fruity on the palate, some noting that it was “fat, dull, and flabby”. Erwin Dink is really pushing the limits of enological vocabulary with “flabby” - but I guess that’s why he is running the show. [mc is giving me too much credit here. see this post by Beau from Basic Juice for more about the word “flabby”. - E.D.]
2. Inama
Vino Soave - Soave Classico 2004 - $13.99
This wine tasted, to us, effervescent and crisp. It was a strong favorite of Uncle Fucker and some remarked that it was sophisticated and balanced. I would tend to disagree with the characterization of “balanced”, but we all taste something different - who knows, maybe they are yankees fan.
3. La Concepcion
Franc Colombard 2003 ($1.50 in La Paz Bolivia)
Sharp, tangy, lazy, tastes like bitter paper. Attempting to give Erwin Dink some competition as the most innovative wine adjective inventor, I would classify this wine as shrill. The overall consensus on this one is that it can be best described as “shitty”.
4. Tiger Creek 2004
Viognier (Georgia)
The overwhelming initial reaction to this juice was a nose and taste of butterscotch/butter. We did this as a blind tasting, I think because Erwin wanted to erase our Georgia wine prejudice. He served the wine covered in a paper bag and most present were extremely (pleasantly) surprised that it was a local wine. This was one of the more popular wines tonight. Personally, I was initially impressed, but not sure if i would drink more than one glass. It was a little too rich for me but not in a deep, dark way, but a more of an overpowering, high pitched taste - i am aware that sounds strange, but it is the only thing that occurs to me at the moment.
5. Robert Mondavi
Pinot Grigio 2004
Not as dry as expected. Erwin and I originally felt like with was rich and full bodied but both agreed that it was actually moving towards sweet upon a second tasting. Highly conflictual was the characterization of Ms. Oh So Much of this wine as smooth and velvety. I tasted a slight pop-rock effervescence.
At this point there were several observations made, possibly the most astute of which being being by Uncle Fucker - “the more i taste them, the more i hate them all”. We thought maybe that this was a function of the warming of our wines - they were clearly much tastier as cold, crisp whites as opposed to warmish squishier wines.
Needless to say, this was not a particularly white wine oriented crowd. As a matter of fact, we should admit that we sought refuge at the end of the night in an albeit light bodied Russian Valley Pinot Noir.
6. Montevina
Pinot Grigio 2004 (California)
This was a bit more tangy that the Mondavi. Amy said it smelled like chemistry - formaldehyde even. A bit of a pear-ish nose - Erwin was not a fan.
Finally - a bet was made to drink a healthy gulp from the dump-pot. The gauntlet was thrown by Erwin, aceepted by yours truly - result being that i will be the proud and eager recipient of a bottle of wine of my choice under 15.99.
Overall an excessively enjoyable evening, as WBW always proves to be. We’ll be waiting with baited breath, and undoubtedly another spittoon bet, for the next installment of this much heralded wine-blog event.
over and out - Mainer Chris et al
Wine Blogging Saturday Night
What’s in a Style?
In the continuing effort to understand the difference between “new world” and “old world” wines we tasted four different syrahs last night.
We started with the anticipated favorite: Meeker Dibble Vineyards 2003 Syrah. Disappointingly, the initial and lingering sensation was alcohol. The label confirmed that this is a whopping 15.7% alcohol (in fact, it might have been even higher, my understanding is that US law allows a 1.5% variance in actual content from what is stated). Let’s face it, wine is an alcoholic drink and one of the reasons we like it is the buzz. Still, this is too much - it would have had to have a lot more fruit and body to work and it just didn’t. Besides, if I want something that rich and hot I’d drink some port. And we had such high hopes ’cause it was a Meeker. Let’s call this an unfavorable new world wine. Price is approx. mid-20’s.
We followed it with a Guilhem Durand 2003 Syrah Vieilles Vignes Syrah. Very smooth and mellow, mildly fruity, modestly earthy, this is a very balanced wine. The evening favorite for at least two of us and at $10 a fine bargain. Score one for an old world wine that even Ms. Oh So Much liked.
Next up was a Bonny Doon 2003 “Domain des Blagueur” Syrah. I brought this one because I think Bonny Doon is trying to find a compromise between the best of old and new world styles. This is a french table wine that is imported and sold under the Bonny Doon label. I don’t know how much they have to do with the making of the wine. This wine defies simple classification as belonging to one style or the other and makes this kind of experimentation seem trite. It wasn’t very popular. For me, it possessed an unpleasant metallic quality that lingered on the tongue, almost like the taste of aluminum foil. [update 4/10/06 - Because it wasn’t well liked, it went into the fridge for a few days. I had the last glass and a half tonight and it was very nice. The metallic taste was much diminished and it went very well with some pasta with tomato sauce and ground turkey. Many years ago I worked as a carpenter and we had a saying: “measure twice, cut once.” I was reminded of that tonight and I propose this variation for wine: “taste at least a couple times in different circumstances.” Ok, that’s not even close to the meaning of the carpenter’s phrase but I hope the point is clear. There are many factors that determine the experience of a wine and if your first impression isn’t great, keep an open mind and be willing to give it another try.]
Notwithstanding that the last bottle opened was a cabernet, the final syrah we tried was clearly in the new world style. Another 2003, the Blackstone Syrah was all fruit all the time. On the nose, on the tongue and on the finish. Too much fruit for me, it was preferred by a couple others.
The more I do these kinds of comparisons, the more I realize how silly they are. I like a lot of different wines and for many different reasons. For some reasons, many brains, mine included, like to categorize things but so many things defy simple categorization.
If you’re going to use water for rinsing anything, let it be your mouth.
When tasting multiple wines in a single glass, don’t rinse the glass between wines with water! Sure, sometimes even just a little bit of something else in the glass can affect the taste of a wine - think of all those blends in which there may be as little as 1-2% of a blending varietal. In most cases, if you’re tasting in the proper order — that is, going from light to heavy, white to red, mild to rich — the new wine will probably overpower the flavors of the previous wine. Still, there may be times when you want to rinse. Maybe you’re tasting out of order, maybe you don’t trust your own palate, maybe you’re simply anal-retentive. In these cases, instead of rinsing your glass with water, all you have to do is pour a small amount of the new wine in the glass, swirl it a little and either quaff it down or pour it out. Your glass is now primed for the new wine with no detectiable residue of the contaminant.
WBW 20 Reminder
This month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday (April 12) is being hosted by Wine For Newbies and the theme is Off-the-Beaten-Path Whites which basically means no chardonnay, sauvignon blanc or reisling. Riesling would be off our beaten path but we won’t be sticklers. They (He? She?) were kind enough to list some suggested varietals. Since we do our WBW tastings in a small group, I think it will be fun to let each attendee bring their own selection.