THE SMALL WINE SHOP, STILL RELEVANT
Fine Wines of Stockton, a venerable wine shop, just closed down. Its owners George and Gail Heron decided to retire. This left us with only two other small wine vendors, Wine Wizard’s and Mile Wine Company. Wine Wizard’s owner Larry Johansen, also around retirement age, might be next. George & Gail Heron Is there any room for new entrepreneurs to replace these establishments? The question was posed to me by a young woman, manager of a restaurant we frequent, who is currently pursuing a career in nursing, her training arduous. Owning a wine shop appealed to her as a romantic[...]
A UNIQUE DINNER WITH OLD BORDEAUX
We opened the outdoor evening by the poolside with a 1999 Billecart-Salmon Brut, one of four champagnes our guest Alan Cooper brought. It was dark hued, bubbles scant, but still crisp and fruity, a bit nutty, well balanced. By the time all ten of us congregated around the table with an ice tub for the champagne, our server began offering an appetizer of prosciutto with goat cheese and fig jam on mini toasted baguettes, each topped with a mint leaf that added a special tang to their flavor explosion. There also was seared foie gras with cherry compote on [...]
DINNER WITH A BORDEAUX CEO, LYNCH-BAGES
In a recent dinner organized by the K&L wine shop of San Francisco, I had the good fortune of sitting next to Jean Charles Cazes, CEO of Chateau Lynch-Bages, a Fifth Growth Bordeaux that enjoys cult status among some, in par with higher classified labels. The dinner featured three Bordeaux brands and was preceded by a tasting of their newest vintage, 2012, currently considered a lesser year. The other two were Chateau Figeac (St. Emillion) and Chaeau Leoville Barton (Saint-Julien). Cazes poured Lynch-Bages from his flagship property in Pauillac and Ormes Des Pez, a Cru Bourgois he owns in[...]
A WONDERFUL BORDEAUX TASTING
In a trade style tasting entitled "Tour des Deux Rives" (Tour of two rivers), which refers to the Garonne and Dordogne rivers which run through Bordeaux, the San Francisco wine shop K&L assembled an impressive array of wines along with winemakers. Held in a swank second story art gallery overlooking busy Union Square, the tasting featured 25 labels by 6 winemakers, and it ranged from very high end exclusive labels to entry level wines and everything in between. I most enjoyed meeting the various French winemakers, including Bruno Eugene Borie of Ducru Beaucaillou (lower picture) and the famous Christian Moueix[...]
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[...]
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[...]