The Wine Curmudgeon

Wine of the week: La Ferme de Gicon 2006

The Wine Curmudgeon has just one question: How can a wine of this quality, at this price, have existed for so long without me knowing about it?

The Gicon is a red blend from the Cote du Rhone (grenache, syrah, and mourvedre) made using carbonic maceration, the same fermentation process that produces Beaujolais nouveau. This makes the  Gicon more accessible, not a bad approach for inexpensive Rhone wines, since they tend to be green or tannic. It also holds the price down – about $9, in this case.

The Gicon is a solid, steady, dependable Cote du Rhone, the kind of wine that everyone who loves wine wishes more producers made. It’s not showy or spectacular, but it's not supposed to be. Look for a bit of cherry fruit and some spice, and drink it with most simple red meat dishes – burgers, meat loaf, and even roast chicken.

Technorati Tags: wine reviews,wine of the week,Le Ferme de Gicon,red wine,French wine,Cote du Rhone,cheap wine,$10 wine

Tuesday winebits 73: Texas viticulture degree, older wine drinkers, Europeans cutting back

• Texas Tech adds degree program: The Lubbock university has added a degree specialization in viticulture and enology, plus classes offering everything from grape growing to wine production and retailing. Texas Tech is the first university in the state, and one of only a few in the country, with this kind of undergraduate program.

• Respect for older wine drinkers? Marketers who usually overlook everyone older than 35 are missing a bet with wine drinkers aged 50 and older, says the Datamonitor research firm. It noted that that an increasingly large "senior" population is worth targeting because they are willing to spend their money on products they perceive as value-added.

• Euros drinking less wine: The wine industry has for the first time recorded a worldwide decline in consumption and sales -- particularly in European countries that are traditionally the largest producers and consumers of wine, such as France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Great Britain. The British, for example, drank 1.8 percent less wine in 2008.

Technorati Tags: Texas Tech,college wine programs,older wine drinkers,wine comsumption,wine trends

Wine review: Torre Oria Cava Brut Rosado NV

The Wine Curmudgeon has been known to get into spirited discussions with retailers about Spanish sparkling wine, or cava. I like Cristalino very much – it’s cheap, consistent and well made. Many retailers, on the other hand, don’t get as excited about it. I tend to think that’s because Cristalino is not only ubiquitous, but doesn’t offer them much in the way of margins.

So when we have these discussions, the retailer usually offers me an alternative to Cristalino. Over the weekend, it was the Torre Oria rose (about $14) and I was impressed. Torre Oria is a well-regarded producer, and this is a better quality wine than the Cristalino, with more interest – the fruitiness isn’t quite as simple and there’s more of a finish. Whether it’s 75 percent better than Cristalino ($14-$8=$6, divided by $8) I’ll leave up to you.

Serve this chilled before dinner or with chicken or seafood. I had it with grilled Cornish hen – a fine pairing.

Technorati Tags: wine reviews,sparkling wine,cava,Torre Oria,Spanish wine

The end of zinfandel as we know it

I have been writing an annual zinfandel column for about as long as I have had a publication or blog to write one for. The Wine Curmudgeon has always championed zinfandel as America’s national wine – cheap, well-made red wine that is food friendly and a lot more interesting than Australian shiraz or cute label merlot.

Sadly, however, I’m giving up the cause. I can’t find enough zinfandel to recommend anymore. Today, too many zinfandels are pricey, high alcohol bombshells that have more in common with port than with table wine. And, from what I’ve been told, those wines have permanently replaced the ones that I liked. I mentioned my dilemma to one well-known zinfandel maker, and he wasn’t even aware there used to be another style.

The final straw came this week, when I pulled a variety of zinfandels out of the wine closet in a last, desperate attempt to find some to write about. None was less than 14.5 percent alcohol and most were higher than 15 percent. And, unbelievably, each cost $18 or more. What was most disappointing though, is that they were as tannic as cabernet sauvignon, hot (which means you could taste the alcohol), unbalanced, and almost devoid of the tell-tale zinfandel fruit.

So, so long, my friend. We had fun, didn’t we?

For more on zinfandel:

• Wine review: Dancing Bull Zinfandel 2007
• Wine of the week: Smoking Loon Old Vine Zinfandel 2006
Technorati Tags: red wine,zinfandel

Major DrinkLocalWine.com announcement coming soon

We’re not quite ready to reveal the details, but Dave McIntyre and I will soon have big-time news about expanding DrinkLocalWine.com, our effort to give American regional wine the respect it deserves. (And, yes, that involves upgrading the website for those of you who have asked.)

In this, it will be part of the increasing popularity and almost unprecedented growth in the regional wine business. In Texas alone, there are 177 wineries. In 2000, there were about 60. Younger wine drinkers, who aren’t obsessed with scores and status the way the fossils of my generation are, see regional wine as fun and interesting. They don’t find anything unusual about wine being made in Ohio, something that would scare the hell out of most baby boomer wine drinkers.

Or, as Dave always says, “ ’Wine Country’ isn't just the West Coast anymore.”

The poster to the left, by the way, comes from Fox Run Vineyards in New York’s Finger Lakes region. It’s a throwback to the Rosie the Riveter campaign from World War II, and has already been picked up by wineries in Virginia – and even California.

Technorati Tags: regional wine,DrinkLocalWine.com

Easter wine

From my Star-Telegram article that ran April 8. The theme is food friendly, affordable wine – not necessarily red -- to pair with Easter dinner.

Technorati Tags: holiday wine,French wine,cheap wine,$10 wine

Wine terms: High alcohol

This is one of the most controversial and divisive issues in the wine business today. In fact, there isn’t even any agreement about what defines high alcohol – those who make this style of wine, as well as those who drink them, consider them to be normal.

But there is a starting point. Generally, white wines with an alcohol level higher than 14 percent and red wines higher than 14.5 percent are considered high alcohol. In this, they are each 1 to 1 1/2 points more than what was considered high alcohol 10 to 20 years ago.

The question of whether these levels are too high to produce quality wine is something for another day (though the Wine Curmudgeon’s preference for traditional alcohol levels are well known). It’s enough in this post to discuss what’s going on, which comes after the jump: