ON WINE LISTS
Today, instead of wine I wish to discuss wine lists. They come in all sizes varying from one brief page to colossal coffee-table books. A recent article in the Food & Wine section of the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle announced that massive encyclopedic wine lists are going the way of Britannica. Most restaurants are simplifying and shortening their lists to make the experience less confounding. The new ideal is that of the wildly popular Cotogna, the little-sister restaurant to Quince, where a carefully selected, small list is comprised of bottles that carry the same price: $40. It can't get any simpler than that.The managers[...]
THE FUTURES GAME
I just purchased the above bottle, a 2008 Ch. Larcis Ducasse for $ 60 at K&L , a San Francisco wine merchant. It was discounted from $80 when it hit the shelves around a year or two ago. This unusual event, a Bordeaux which experiences a price decline, is an important lesson for those of us who buy Bordeaux on the futures market. Bordeaux is expensive, especially the 1855 Cru Classe high growths, or other celebrity names not included in this classification like Petrus, Cheval Blanc etc. In general, the best way to buy Bordeaux is on the futures market.[...]
VINTAGE 2000; CALIFORNIA CABARNET VERSUS BORDEAUX
In a recent tasting at George Heron's we pitted California Cabarnet against Bordeaux in the all important 2000 vintage. This was a good year in both regions. Napa of course never has any bad years, right? Bordeaux however still goes through the ups and downs of weather and other conditions which affect its products. Since the storied vintage of 1982, the good years in Bordeaux have come to be more and more hysterically hyped. 2000 turned out to be such a year, and because it was the millennium, about which we were crazier in those days than we are[...]
CORSICA AND PATRIMONIO; A REGION WORTH A TRY
In a recent Friday night tasting of randomly brought blinded bottles, a 1998 version of the above displayed label stood out. It was a high extraction dark wine, with hints of coffee and dark berries on the nose, and a smoky, beefy flavor on the palate that I loved. We all guessed it as a Southern Rhone wine, most likely Chateauneuf du Pape, most likely a 2005 or 2006. We were surprised when it was unveiled and it turned out considerably older than we thought. It was actually the flagship wine of a well known winemaker from Northern Corsica, located[...]
THE JOYS OF OFF YEAR BORDEAUX
Browsing through the shelves of K&L, a wine shop in San Francisco, I noticed that the 2009 vintage of Bordeaux was already there. I stumbled upon a shelf of large format '09's with eye popping prices. The vintage is a much ballyhooed one, and the prices reflected the hype. A Pichon Lallande magnum was over $400, Ch d'Armaillac near $200, and so on. Nestled among these I came across the bottle you see in the picture and was surprised. It was a 1999, an unknown Cru Bourgeois label. It was also a magnum and the asking price was a mere[...]
A PURE EXAMPLE IN TERROIR VARIATION
In a recent tasting of Vacqueras and appellations alike I came across the above 2 wines. These are all from the Southern Rhone in France, one of my favorite areas. They can be a combination of 6 to 8 different varietals but mostly syrah, grenache, cinsault,and mouvedre.Located a short distance from Avignon, these two appellations are very close to each other, easily amenable to visit by car in a same afternoon.Their relationship couldn't be much different in distance than say, Carneros versus Calistoga in the Napa area. As you can see from the photos the wines were both young and[...]