The Wine Curmudgeon

Wine competitions: A tough way to make living

That's usually one of the snickers I get when I tell people I judge competitions --  along with, "Boy,  I wish I could do that" and similar bits of cleverness.

And the Wine Curmudgeon will be the first to admit that judging a competition is not as difficult as mining coal or working at Burger King (my first job, which broke me of the desire to ever have a real job). But it is work.

Wine trends: What we're drinking and why, Part I

This is the first of a three-part series about wine consumption in the United States. The second part is here; the third part is here.

The good news: Americans are drinking more and different kinds of wine. The bad news? We still drink too much marketing-driven wine, and I can't decide if the increase in sales of more expensive wines is caused by better educated consumers trading up or wine snobs buying on price.

Overall, though, the results from the 2007 Nielsen Beverage Alcohol Overview are encouraging. We bought $9.2 billion worth of wine in 2007, and wine has increased from 14.1 percent of U.S. alcohol purchases in 1990 to 20.7 percent today.

But it's not so much that wine sales are up. What's worth noting is that Americans seem to be understanding this wine thing in a way they haven't before. That is, we're buying on quality, value and even how wine goes with food.

Wine of the week: Robert Skalli South of France Chardonnay 2006

French wine, regardless of quality, has become ridiculously expensive. (Think weak dollar.) So when I tasted this chardonnay last week at a Skalli wine lunch, I could hardly wait to write about it.

It's well-made. It combines classic French style with a touch of New World green apple fruit. And, at $18, it's not ridiculously expensive.

How does winemaker Laurent Sauvage do it? He uses grapes from a less expensive region of France, the Languedoc, and can pick and choose which grapes to use to ensure the best quality. Because he is French, he understands the proper use of oak. Combine all that with vineyard management techniques that focus on maintaining acid levels instead of getting high alcohol, and you have a winner.

How big a hit was this wine? We had eight wines to choose from for lunch, and almost everyone picked the chardonnay. We ate it with chicken breasts in a dill sauce, and it was a smash.

Technorati Tags: Robert Skalli wines,chardonnay,white wine,French wine,the Languedoc,wine reviews

Wine review: LiVeli Negroamaro Passamante 2005

Some of the best cheap wine in the world today is coming out of Italy. This is interesting for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the Italians suffer from the same weak dollar problems that affect everyone else. It's amazing what a producer can do when they want to sell something, isn't it?

Of course, there are a couple of other reasons for the price. The LiVeli (about $12) is made with the negroamaro grape in Salento, which means it's made with a little known grape in a little known region (the boot heel of the Italy), neither of which is going to drive up the price. The Wine Curmudgeon is quite thankful.

Negroamaro makes dark, inky red wine. But there is nothing unpleasant about this, as is sometimes the case with inexpensive wine. Rather, it's full and rich and almost black raspberry-ish (with, of course, a nice shot of Italian acidity). Best yet, it's not heavy. I drank it with cappellini tossed with quartered cherry tomatoes just out of the garden, basil, chopped garlic and olive oil, and the sweetness of the tomatoes made a wonderful foil for the wine.

One note: The 2007 should arrive in the U.S. later this summer. I'd buy the 2005 and put the 2007 away for another nine months. It should just get better. How often can you say that about an inexpensive wine?

Technorati Tags: wine reviews,LiVeli Negroamaro Passamante,Italian wine,red wine

Toast of Taos -- Southwest Wine Competition

Off for three days to judge in the Southwest Wine Competition at the Toast of Taos, a well-regarded regional festival. The miracle of technology will keep the posts coming here, since the Wine Curmudgeon remains at heart a newspaperman who feels compelled to write something every day. Or face the wrath of the gods of journalism. I'll have a full report next week.

I'm looking forward to the judging, and not just because night-time temperatures are about 30 degrees cooler in the mountains of northern New Mexico than here in Dallas. This is a chance to taste lots of regional wine, and I haven't been able to do that for a while.

Tuesday tidbits 32

• High-end wine futures remain costly: Decanter reports that the 2007 Petrus futures are running about 700 euros a bottle for consumers (about US$1,100), down 30 percent from the 2006 vintage. Cheval Blanc futures are down 25 percent from last year, while Chateau d'Yquem is up about 9 percent. Perhaps an even bigger shocker is that Robert Parker gave Cheval Blanc, one of the great chateaux of France, less than 90 points for this vintage. Somewhere, speculators are slitting their wrists.

• Bring on the wine snobs: Joel Stein writes in the Los Angeles Times that he misses "the days when we made fun of wine snobs for saying that a wine was 'ingratiating without being obsequious.' " This is music to the Wine Curmudgeon's ears, of course. Stein does get a pole at wine writers, but that's to be expected. Why should we write in English when so many of us want to be famous? And you can only do that by writing in Wine.

• Gina Gallo speaks: The third generation to run one of the largest wine companies in the world doesn't give many interviews, so this one is especially interesting. It's not so much what Gallo says as it is how she says it: Positioning a multi-billion dollar company as a family business. "In the simplest terms we’re celebrating being family-owned. We started realizing a lot of family businesses weren’t family anymore and what better way than stating it right on the bottle?"

Technorati Tags: Gallo,Chateau Petrus,Chateau d'Yquem,Cheval Blanc,Joel Stein,wine snobs

Wine and the economy

Talk to people in the business, and almost all are tip-toeing around the U.S. economic slowdown, whether it's a recession, a reduction in growth or whatever term seems to be the most popular.

As one executive told me, literally with fingers crossed: "The numbers I've seen say it's not too bad yet."

The wine business, and the U.S. part of it in particular, is especially concerned about a recession because they are very much not prepared for it. The last decade has seen almost unprecedented growth, with more wine sold than ever before. Until last fall, most producers were trying expand their business, not preparing for a slump.

So what happens if there is a recession? What will consumers do? What will producers do?