The Iceman Cometh
Vino Italia – New York
I spent a few days last week wondering around the cavernous rooms of the Waldorf Hotel. As a location its certainly not the best place to put on a large wine trade show. Once upon a time the staff may have been Italian and may have taken a keener interest in helping you navigate the various floors and rooms and rooms within a room – keener still if you smuggled them out a little glass of Barolo; but that’s not the case now. Navigating through the rooms was bad enough, but then inside you had to navigate through endless rows of wine all placed higgledy-piggledy in some kind of random chaos theory. Two things stood out at the show; the first was that pretty much every wine I was offered to taste came with the disclaimer ” thees wine iz tre bichieri’. That’s Italian speak for this wine comes with a 99 point score from Robert Parker. I don’t think so! The second point was more serious and more worrying – the ex-cellar prices were outrageous! There is no way that I can put a verdicchio on my shelves for $42.00! There was little if anything there showing for less than 10 euro. That’s an ex-cellar price – add $2.25 shipping, $1.50 warehousing, $1.00 trucking, 25% importers commission, 50% distributor’s commission, 25% retail mark-up, and a 1.49 currency conversion rate and all of a sudden that 10 euro bottle is $46.00 in your hand! Thank you very much.
On the wine front I was pleased to see that some of the southern regions of Italy are opening up more – there really are some terrific wines from Campania and Puglia – not over-priced and a great range and variation of flavors. Campania offers up Taurasi, Fiano and Greco di Tufo. Taurasi’s upper-crust cousins are Barolo, Barbaresco and Brunello. The wines are aged for a minimum of 3 years, of which one must be in barrel. Good vintages of Taurasi will get even better 15-20 years hence. This is a wine that the nouveau-yuppie of today should think about laying down for his off-spring – forget buying a Barolo at $75, look for good Taurasi’s. Fiano is Southern Italy’s leading white wine – perfectly dry, better with age (it’s not unusual to find 6/7 year old Fiano’s), and flavored with that lovely combination of pear and almond. Greco di Tufo thrives in the volcanic soils around Tufo and is wonderfully crisp, bright and an excellent alternative to Pinot Grigio. Puglia offers Negroamaro, Malvasia and Primitivo (the ancestor of zinfandel). All red wines and all robust, rustic, hearty wines. I personally think that these two regions of Italy now offer better value than most of the Spanish wines and I think that it’s a region I want to taste more of and bring to the store for our customers.
I am planning to attend the largest of Italian Trade Shows in Verona in early April. I’ll be on the hunt for wines from the south and hopefully will find some stuff that is great value and great juice.
We have had a bevy of tastings from various importers during the last two weeks – since wine sales are down, big time, mostly due to the Big Chill, Distributors are whipping their sales reps into a frenzy to go out and show more wine and gets ‘sales’. Good for us because we get to pick and choose. For lovers of Ridge, and there are quite a few of you in Rye, we tasted the Ridge East Bench Zinfandel. This is Ridge’s only 100% zin and it was delicious. Not heavy and yet bursting with black fruit and ripe raisins. We also got a very good price on it too – $29.00
We will also receive sometime this week, ice and snow willing, a sensational Pinot Noir from Volnay in Burgundy. Originally made famous by Gerard Potel the vineyards of La Pousse D’Or are now farmed, organically, by the quality fanatic Patrick Landanger. I tasted the Clos de la Bousse D’Or one evening and was blown away by the complexity of this wine. How does a single bottle of wine contain so many flavors in just 750ml of juice? Astonishing. It’s what drinking great Pinot Noir is all about. Sadly, with great wine there is usually a great price, and this one is no different. What’s quirky about this wine in particular is where it comes from. Volnay is a little town in Burgundy and Clos de la Bousse D’Or is a tiny little monopole vineyard (exclusively owned by the winery La Pousse D’Or), that is entirley walled with local stone and is situated just a few yards from the Village Town Hall – it’s like having Screaming Eagle vineyards on the “Green” opposite Rye Town Hall – just a few feet from the store! It gets me every time I drink one of these sensational wines – the reality of where the grapes come from!
Domaine du Terme Vacqueyras 2007
God I love Rhone wines – I think it’s because they were one of the first wines I ever bought, there might have been a girl involved, but it was probably a smokingly good party at University, in France, where I first tasted the wine and then bought it. Of the various regions that make up the Rhone, Chateauneuf-du-Pape is the most famous, but it is the wines from Gigondas and Vacqueyras that really stand out. This little beauty is already sold out at the winery, and pretty much sold out in the US. We happen to do business with an Ohio importer and they had a few cases of the wine – so I bought it. The wine spends a little less time preparing for the outside world than their Gigondas, but that also makes it more affordable. There is still ample black fruit on the palate and it’s all smooth and luscious. Honestly, the wine lingers in your mouth for well into the second minute. If you don’t know what Rhone wines should taste like you owe it to yourself to buy some of this.
Chateau Olliex Romanis Cuvee Classique 2008
Similar in make up to the Vacqueyras in as much as Rhone varietals are predominant. In this case all three are blended into the wine – grenache, syrah and mouvedre. The result is a wonderful and harmonious mélange of blackcurrant and cerise, balanced black and blue fruit, some nice acidity and a mouth feel of toast and jam – it’s good enough to have for breakfast – hold the eggs. Seriously though, its wine like this that makes the Corbieres region of Languedoc so special. This is the region where I went to university and spent some of my favorite years. Back then the wine was unpalatable but now, along with southern Italy, it is making some of the most exciting and value conscious wines in Europe.
Bordo-Togo
Some may think the next wine is a gimmick, others might appreciate its aesthetic qualities (pushing it but lets go with it). Last week Marina and I tried a little itty-bitty Bordeaux wine from Chateau Lavergne. Classic style, slightly green pepper, decent fruit, no discernible tannins – easy quaffing wine. The kicker? It comes in a little itty-bitty plastic one cup shot glass! Looks like a miniature beer keg, with a foil cap rather like those orange-cups that are supposedly so healthy for little Johnny. Wine in a plastic, ready to go wine glass! We call it Bordo-to-Go. And yes, I’ve read that some people would prefer to throw themselves down a flight of stairs rather than be seen drinking this, but then again, the same person is probably quite happy drinking Bud Lite. For $3.00 I personally didn’t think it was bad, and as I said, the wine itself is pretty good. If you are still wondering why you might buy Bordeaux in a plastic glass here are a few off-the-rack suggestions:
- Safer to take into the shower than an actual glass cup.
- Lighter in the hand-bag than a mobile phone – and doubles up as an emergency tonic
- Easy to smuggle into the opera – at least something to look forward to rather than thinking about the long lines to the bar at intermission
- Light enough to put in the back-middle-pouch of a cycling jersey – and with a long enough straw there’s your refreshment
- Perfect for entertaining on a boat – especially if daddy didn’t give you permission – easy to clean up and leaves no trace
- Excellent alternative refreshment for a picnic – quick, clean and pleasantly alcoholic
- Perfect cooking aid – in need of one cup dry red wine, and don’t want to splurge on the expensive cup?
- Secondary aid whilst cooking – refreshment without having to dig around the cellar for a ‘less expensive, non-invasive, OMG that was a Petrus? wine
- The thrill of being the only one in your neighborhood to be drinking a Bordeaux in a Sippy-cup
- It’s only $3.00 – less than a gallon of gas
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