Wine at Five

Wow. The dogs and the cats won’t venture outside in the wee hours of the morning; means its cold which means that the big day must be round the corner. Can I call it Christmas? I think so, since that’s what it is. It’s also hugely commercial, which of course is great for a retailer, and it’s hugely centered on giving massive amounts of wine, brandy, champagne and other great libations to all your friends, co-workers, bosses, family and sometimes even the odd foe gets thrown into the mix – which is great for a wine retailer! We just finished stocking up with cases of goodies and top of the list is the Shebang Liter bottles. I made the mistake of mentioning this wine two weeks ago in my blog, but I hadn’t realized how little of it we actually had. Now we have plenty, and whilst two weeks ago it sold out in minutes, it will take a few hours this time I hope. Still, if you want some for Christmas better to let me know sooner rather than later. We don’t want you crying over a spilled jug. If you don’t remember the story, either scroll down (if you are on our website) or try to reopen the blog from just before Thanksgiving. The wine is brilliant stuff, made by Morgan Twain-Peterson, son of the legendary owner of Ravenswood wine. It’s declassified red from various estates and bottled in these great liter bottle jugs. Just the thing for a chubby Santa. We also received our second allocation of Billecart Salmon Rose champagne – not very much of it, so if you want some for the Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve reserve it now. For lovers of Plumpjack we received an allocation of their Reserve Chardonnay – sadly no Cabernet Sauvignon (next March I am told) and that too will sell out almost immediately. Some great new Burgundies, especially in the whites – still my favorite white wine in the world. Marina and I tasted a new champagne, at least it was for me, last week. It’s from the owners of Pommery, Demoiselle and Heidseck – to name just a few of the Vranken-Pommery brands. The champagne we tasted is the Diamant – looks like a bottle of Cristal champagne. Its a beautiful pale golden yellow color, bottled in a ‘cut-glass crystal’ style bottle and very simply adorned. Inside the champagne is very good – lovely depth of toasted brioche flavors, this is not a weak champagne but its balance doesn’t make it one of those heavy, yeasty drinks either. We rather liked it, liked the story behind it, liked the realtively small production, and loved the price. And Sophie de la Mer, the Vranken ambassador in New York obviously quite liked us, because we are able to offer the Diamant champagne at $40.00 rather than $55.00 which is its going price on Madison Avenue. For this price its really good champagne!

Let’s talk a little about one of my fvorite after dinner drinks – Marc de Bourgogne. What is it? It’s really hard to find outside of the few districts in Burgundy where it is produced.  It’s essentially a heady, earthy-tasting French relative of moonshine. Actually a class of Brandy, it is made by distilling all the pomice left over from the squishing of the grapes during the making of pinot noir. Visualize all the pinot noir grapes being thrown into the vat, being crushed to death and their little juices extracted – pinot noir in the bottle. All the pips, seeds, skins, that tangle of detrious at the bottom of the tank, that’s what makes Marc. It’s very closely akin to grappa from Italy, except in the case of Marc it is aged in oak barrels. For me it’s a stroll down memory lane. Ever since I first tried it as a student in France it has always been my absolute go-to after dinner drink. I introduced it to my wife this summer in Paris and sad to say, she loved it. Sad, because it ain’t cheap – its very, very expensive. But then again isn’t everything that’s really really good, quite expensive? That rather nice Aston Martin is, so too that diamond from Woodrow Jewelers. So whats a hundred bucks when in return you get an eau-de-vie that is totally sublime. The whole process of making Marc is like a fairy tale – the pressing of the pomice after the harvest is finished, preserving the spirit in old oak barrels, racking the spirit every now and again (drawing the liquid of the solids and topping the barrels off), then storing the barrels in the coldest, dampest part of the cellar. There to sit, unmoved by winter traditions for 10-15 years. And then out it spurts into bottles and is sold to a benevolent few. Back in 2001 (when I found the latest French Government data on the subject), less than 600 cases of Marc de Bourgogne were made – in the entire country. Most wineries don’t bother to make it anymore and those that do manage to bottle only a few dozen. I still remember the Marc I had at Lameloise, a phenomenal restaurant in Chagny. And 20 years down the road I’ll remember the Guy Roulet Marc I drank with my wife outside a corner cafe late one night in the summer of 2010. That’s what it does to you. For me its a time capsule of memories, and its worth every penny. We received only a few bottles of Didier Meuzard’s two styles of Marc – his Hors d’Age, aged since 1990 with distillate going back decades more, and his Fine de Bourgogne, Marc de Bourgogne aged from grapes pressed in 1990 directly from vineyards in Vosne Romanee, Gervery-Chambertin and Chambolle-Musigny. The Fine de Bourgogne is $86 and the Hors d’Age is 110 – 5 bottles left of each.

Last Friday I sent a pdf. file of our Christmas Catalogue – quite a few readers were unable to open it so I have refiled it on our web site: www.wineatfive.com. Some of the highlights include a 6 pack of Burlotto’s Barolos from three legendary vineyards, Monvigliero, Cannubi and Acclivi and represent a bottle from each vineyard from each of the 2004 and 2006 vintages; a vertical of three bottles of each vintage, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 from Giacomo Borgogno’s Barolo bottlings; a semi-vertical of Brunellos from Il Palazzone, including his 1998, 2001 and 2004 reserva brunellos; a two vintage vertical of Bodega Arzuaga’s Reserva Especial (the winery neighboring the legendary Vega Sicilia winery); my favorite, just a few bottles from the man who made it all happen for cult Californian wines, Manfred Krankl’s Sine Qua Non, with a bottle of each of his Labels Syrah and his Pictures Grenache, together with his onetime cellar rat Maggie Harrison’s Lillian Syrah; there are some Billecart Salmon primers, a collection of Jean-Luc Thunevin’s bad boy wines from the man who began the garagiste movement in Bordeaux; a collection of Ridge zinfandels from each of his four primary vineyards; there is something here for every lover of really good wine. So check out the file on the web site and place your orders by December 15.

This year, for the first time since we opened, Christmas will fall on a Saturday. We are required by law to be closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s day so to alleviate that mad rush and subsequent feeling of doomed failure we will be open the Sunday before Christmas, December 19. The store will be open from noon-4:00pm. Take some time off from shopping for socks and sweaters and come in and buy what you really want – a few good bottles of wine!

Give Bread ♥ Give Thanks ♣ Give Wine ♦

Happy Holidays.

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This entry was posted by WinebyCai on Thursday, December 9th, 2010 at 8:47 am and is filed under Daily Mutterings, Weekly Re'Wine'der Archive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.