The Wine Curmudgeon

In search of the mysterious aligote

Burgundy's most important grapes are chardonnay and pinot noir, which produce the best chardonnay and pinot noir in the world. So why does the Wine Curmudgeon care about aligote?

Because it is so mysterious -- Burgundy's other white grape, sometimes used to blend but often used on its own. Legend has it that Burgundy's landowners and winemakers grew aligote to make wine for their employees, the field hands who worked the harvest and did the heavy lifting in the wineries. After all, the bosses couldn't let the employees drink the good stuff, could they?

Pinot grigio: What's in a name?

Much pinot grigio has a poor reputation – and deservedly so. Some of it is badly made Italian wine that gets shipped to the U.S. and sold to people who think it’s supposed to taste like turpentine. Some of it is badly made U.S. wine, sold by companies piggybacking on the Italian wave.

How has this happened, with consumers paying as much as $25 for bottles of wine that really aren’t very good? Much of it comes from people who want white wine that isn’t chardonnay, and don’t understand sauvignon blanc. Much of it comes from restaurants, which sell pinot grigio aggressively by the glass to people who want something more sophisticated than white zinfandel. In fact, it’s the second most popular white wine sold in the U.S. according to Nielsen, and in 2006 it was even more popular than white zinfandel.

Wine of the week: Armand Roux Carousel NV

I stumbled on this when I needed an inexpensive, French-style sparkling wine to use for the white wine tasting at my Cordon Bleu class. I was quite overwhelmed by its quality and its $8 price.

The wine, made with French chardonnay, comes from the Armand Roux company, best known for the L’Epayrié jug wines. But there is nothing jug-like about the Carousel. It's dry, clean, and crisp with decent bubbles, and it doesn't have any of the off-flavors or sweetness that inexpensive sparkling wine sometimes shows. It's not as tight as similarly-priced Spanish sparklers; whether this is an advantage or not depends on how you feel about cavas like Cristalino.

I'm not quite sure that it's as food friendly as the Spanish wines (it doesn't have as much acid), but serve it chilled for summer porch sipping or Sunday morning brunch and you'll be more than happy.

Technorati Tags: sparkling wine,Armand Roux Carousel,cava

Wine through the mail: The do's and don'ts of direct shipping

Doug Nalle makes some of the best zinfandel in California. There’s just one catch. It’s difficult to buy outside of California, what with his limited production of just 1,500 cases a year, and the restrictions of the three-tier distribution system.

So what’s a wine buyer to do?

Tuesday tidbits 19

• Rose sales increase:  Which is good news for those of us who enjoy pink wine. Sales increased about 50 percent in 2007, according to a Nielsen study. Why did this happen? A couple of reasons, I think. Consumers are beginning to understand that rose is not the same as white zinfandel, and offers value for money -- especially in the $10 range. Also, producers are making better wine, particularly in California.

• Wine sales in a recession? Tom Wark at the Fermentation wine blog may have found a relationship between wine sales and economic downturns. This is something wine people talk about a lot: How much of a luxury product is wine, and will consumers give it up when times get tough? Wark tracked wine club sales, and there seem to be a cancellations that are following the on-coming recession. "I have no doubt that were it being done for the past 15 years we'd see that at this moment that Index will be in a severe downward trend," he says.

• Blog awards: And while you're at Fermentation, take a moment to vote for Alfonso Cevola, whose On the Wine Trail in Italy has been nominated for two American Wine Blog awards. Alfonso not only knows more about Italian wine that almost anyone I know, but he is always incredibly kind and generous with his time. Especially when he is dealing with the Wine Curmudgeon, and we know how difficult that can be.

Technorati Tags: wine blogs,American Wine Blog awards,rose,wine sales,recession

A few more notes from the Texas Zagat survey

Friday's post didn't include all of the highlights from the new Zagat guide, which covers 1,505 restaurants in the state. Among the other wine-related findings:

Texans aren't all that interested in drinking wine in restaurants

One of the regular themes here is that restaurants do a lousy job of selling wine to their customers. And now the Wine Curmudgeon has hard evidence to go along with his whining.

The new Texas Zagat guide, released yesterday, notes that only about one-third of the state's diners order a bottle of wine with their meal. Almost half, on the other hand, order wine by the glass.

I suppose one can look at this positively -- that 85 percent of Texans who eat in restaurants order wine with their meal. But the Wine Curmudgeon didn't get where he is by being positive. And, in fact, that's looking at the numbers through rose'-colored glasses.