The Wine Curmudgeon

Holiday wine books

This season’s wine book offerings seem slimmer than past years, and especially for pretty, coffee table books. This is not necessarily a problem, since pretty, coffee table books can cost as much as a case of well-made cheap wine.

But there are a variety of worthwhile books for sale this year. Among the most interesting:

• A wine bucket’s worth of wine guides. This category, interestingly, has picked up over the last couple of years. My favorites are Tom Stevenson’s Wine Report 2009 ($15) and Kevin Zraly’s American Wine Guide 2009 ($13). Stevenson includes U.S. wine regions, which is one reason why it’s so valuable. (Full disclosure: Several people who contributed to our DrinkLocalWine.com project contributed to each book.)

Wine review: Domaine Jaboulet-Vercherre Beaujolais-Villages 2007

Is inexpensive Beaujolais more than the annual Nouveau release? The answer, thankfully, is yes.

I stumbled across this wine, sold by a reasonably well-known Burgundy negociant, while looking for red Burgundy. Since it was $11, I figured it work as a comparison with this year’s Nouveau. There was no comparison.

The Jaboulet is typical entry level Beaujolais – light, fruity (black cherries, perhaps?), low in alcohol and not much in the way of acid or tannins. As such, it’s exactly the kind of wine to drink with dinner. But it was also a much more interesting wine, at more or less the same price, as this year’s Nouveau, and didn’t taste gimmicky. In fact, try a blind tasting, comparing this wine (or any Beaujolais-Villages) with the Nouveau. The difference is easy to spot, even for beginners.

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Wine of the week: Meridian Vineyards chardonnay 2007

Meridian’s products are almost always competent and value oriented, and you usually get your $6 worth. But they are rarely more than that.

The chardonnay, though, is grocery store wine done at a level that is way beyond grocery store wine. Winemaker Lee Miyamura has accomplished something special with this vintage, producing a stunning wine that offers two or three times $6 worth of value. Look for bright green apple fruit and a rich mouth feel, as well as balanced acid and a finish that many wines that cost $20 don’t have. There is even an oakiness that tastes like barrel aging, which Meridian doesn’t usually do (the company uses stainless steel tanks with oak staves or wood chips). 

Serve this to wine snobs, and make them guess how much it cost. They’ll never figure it out. Meanwhile, you can sip it before dinner, serve it with chicken or seafood, and think about how smart you are when it comes to wine.

Technorati Tags: Meridian chardonnay,wine reviews,wine of the week,white wine,cheap wine,$10 wine

Tuesday tidbits 55: Prohibition, high-end wine demand, Vintners hall of fame

• The anniversary of repeal: Prohibition ended 75 years ago this week, a failed social experiment whose legacy is still with us. In Texas, for instance, I can’t buy beer in the grocery store before noon on Sunday. This wire service story is a good overview of what happened and why. What is often overlooked is that Prohibition started with the best of intentions, a way to improve the life of the poor and working classes. It was not necessarily a ban imposed for moral or religious reasons, though that was part of it. And, ironically, much research seems to indicate that alcoholism actually increased between 1920 and 1933. Since alcohol was harder to find, people tended to drink more when they found it.

Wine terms: Reserve

When is a wine term not really a wine term? When it’s the term reserve, which is used to imply that the wine is of better quality, as in reserve cuvee or winemaker’s reserve.

The truth is (in the United States, anyway) that the word reserve has no legal meaning. It can signify wine made with great care and effort, or it can be be nothing more than a marketing ploy.