The Wine Curmudgeon

Wine review: Peirano Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2006

The Wine Curmudgeon regularly waxes poetic about Lodi’s Peirano Estate, which not only makes good, cheap wine (think The Other red and white blends) but is located in one of the least respected Wine Snob parts of California. They’ll tell you Lodi isn’t quite as bad as Texas, but that it’s bad enough. Seriously. I once had that discussion with a Napa winemaker.

To which I say: Drink this wine and be quiet. The cabernet sauvignon (about $14) has most everything a cabernet is supposed to have: quality berry and cherry fruit, low alcohol, the proper amount of oak and fine tannins. It's not over-ripe or too jammy, and will will even age a couple of years.

Serve it to people who only drink red wine, but don’t tell them where it’s from. They won’t believe you anyway. The Peirano will pair with beef and Labor Day barbecue, and keep it on hand as the weather gets more fall-like. And did I mention it’s only $14?

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Mini-reviews 5: Sharpe Hill chardonnay, Saintsbury chardonnay, Waterstone rose, Alma Rosa pinot gris

• Sharpe Hill Chardonnay 2007: Exceedingly well done -- balance between oak, green apple fruit and low alcohol. Not even an especially bad price at $18. Who would have thought it was from Connecticut?

• Saintsbury Chardonnay Unfiltered 2007: Well-made, oak-driven $20 Carneros chardonnay for those who like this style of wine.

• Waterstone Cabernet Sauvignon Rose 2008: A surprisingly nice $12 rose, albeit one with some tannins and a touch more alcohol than most others. Made in the French saignée style, in which the juice is bled off the fermenting cabernet.

• Alma Rosa Pinot Gris 2008: Alma Rosa is the new winery from the much respected Richard Sanford, and this $18 wine is shows his skills as a winemaker. But it’s not for everyone – a fair amount of oak and 14.1 percent alcohol.

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Expensive wine of the month, August 2009: Stag's Leap Artemis Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

Warren Winiarski and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars have been around Napa Valley for as long as Napa Valley has been famous for wine. His 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon was the winning red wine in the legendary 1976 Judgment of Paris, and his winery has been producing quality wine ever since.

The Artemis is not Winiarski’s most expensive wine. It retails for around $60, while the S.L.V and Cask 23 go for $125 and $195. But it’s pricey enough for those of us who pay attention to these things, and it also offers a good bit of value. The Artemis is a tad more subtle than most of its ilk, and it’s even low alcohol – just 13.8 percent. But it is still Napa Valley cabernet, rich and opulent, with sweet black cherry fruit and well-formed tannins. Winemaker Nicki Pruss knew exactly what she was doing.

Serve this with any fancy red meat dinner, drink it slowly, and appreciate the history that comes with this bottle. One note: Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars is different from Stags' Leap Winery, which is down the road, and yes, they have a history with each other.

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Wine of the week: Yellow + Blue Rose 2008

Yellow + Blue makes some of the Wine Curmudgeon’s favorite cheap wine. The malbec is in the $10 Hall of Fame, and the torrontes would be if I could find it in more stores. The third entry in the producer’s line, a Spanish rose, is another terrific $10 wine.

The rose, like the other two wines, is made with organic grapes and comes in a 1-liter juice box. It lists for about $13, which works out to $10 a bottle. It's a dry wine, more cranberry than strawberry, as befits a Spanish rose. It also has a surprisingly long mineral finish, which you don't usually find with this style of wine. My only criticism is that it isn’t quite up to the level of the malbec and torrontes, but that’s no fault of this wine. It’s because the malbec and torrontes are so well made. One caveat: Availability may be a problem. I’m told that it’s a special order in the Dallas area.

Drink this chilled on its own, or with any late summer or early fall dinner. It’s also interesting enough to bring it out for roast chicken and roast turkey.

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Winebits 92: Best sommelier, wine bottle design, wine label changes

• Texas’ top sommelier: June-Ann Rodil of Austin restaurant Uchi was named Texas’ best sommelier at the fifth annual Texas Sommeliers Conference last weekend in suburban Dallas. She beat 20 other young sommeliers in a three-part wine examination that included service, blind tasting, TexSom, as the conference is best known, is one of the most interesting and unique wine events in the country

• Lighter wine bottles: A new wine bottle that looks like an ordinary bottle but weighs almost one-half less, will debut in the British market early next year. The lighter bottle, which has a smaller carbon footprint, has been a goal of the international Waste and Resources Action Programme, dedicated to making wine bottles more environmentally friendly. No word on if and when we’ll see the bottle in the U.S.

• Say goodbye to critter labels: That’s the opinion of Christopher Waters, who writes for the Canadian Sun chain. “Today, most of the so-called ‘critter labels’ are destined for extinction as a new wave of lifestyle labels are introduced,” he says. “Time and money spent on market research and demography surveys could easily equal or, perhaps, outweigh the investment in grape growing and winemaking.” Which means, if he right, that we’ll see fewer kangaroos and more wines with gender- and demographic specific labels.

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What’s wrong with regional wine -- and it isn’t necessarily the wine

My pal Dave McIntyre wrote a story for the Washington Post last week, about a blind tasting featuring California, French and Virginia wines. The Virginia wines fared well – not quite up to the level of France and California, but much better than the people doing the tasting expected.

So all is right with the regional wine world today? Virginia wine can hold its head high and know it has come a long way? Hardly. The criticism Dave took was mind-boggling. (You can find it here, on his blog, and here, in the comments for the Post story). Briefly, Dave was criticized for having the audacity to compare Virginia wines with those from California and France; for being an elitist; and for using the wrong Virginia wines – both from the wrong wineries and for the wrong varietals.

This points to one of the biggest problems facing regional wine: The Mondavi syndrome, in which everyone wants to be the father of (pick a state) wine, just as Robert Mondavi is acknowledged as the father of the California wine industry. The idea that everyone should work together to achieve a common goal – to make a state’s wine better – is lost in the scramble to be recognized as more important than everyone else. In that scramble, the wine suffers.

More, after the jump:

Wine review: Falling Star Malbec 2008

There is a fairly long discussion on the importer’s Web site about this wine, throwing around terms like hand harvested, pneumatic pressing, and slow malolactic. Fortunately, it also happens to be great cheap wine.

The Falling Star (as little as $6 in some parts of the country) is from Argentina’s Trapiche, which does decent $10-$15 wine and decided to branch down. Good decision. This wine is almost certainly a shoo-in for the 2010 $10 Hall of Fame. Highly recommended.

Yes, it is a little simple and not all that jammy, but compared to something like the Two Buck Chucks and the rest of the $7 and under crowd, it was a revelation. This wine is clean, fruity (think blackberry), fresh, and has very pleasant tannins (especially for a wine at this price).

Serve this with most traditional red wine dishes, but don’t worry about drinking it on its own or even a little chilled. It will be more than fine.

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