The Wine Curmudgeon

A virtual wine tasting -- and you can participate

This Sunday, at around 8:15 p.m. central time, I'm going to do a virtual wine tasting on Olivia Wilder's Art of Living Magazine on Blog Talk Radio.

How do you do a tasting on Internet radio? It's quite simple, actually. I'll have a bottle of Bogle chardonnay and the Osborne Solaz tempranillo-cabernet sauvignon blend (both in the $10 Hall of Fame, so don't worry about cost or quality). If you want to participate, pick up a bottle of each, and follow along. We'll smell and sip the wines, and I'll talk about what is supposed to be there, what isn't supposed to be there, and why it doesn't matter if you can't smell aromas of hazelnuts and beechwoods.

wine tasting, Blog Talk radio, Olivia Wilder

Wine of the week: Geyser Peak Sauvignon Blanc 2008

The Wine Curmudgeon has been drinking this wine for about as long as he has been drinking wine professionally. About the only thing that has changed in the past couple of decades is that the cork has been replaced by a screwcap (and regular visitors here know how welcome a change that is).

The Geyser Peak (about $12, purchased) remains one of the best made cheap wines in the United States -- fresh, crisp, and enjoyable. The style has changed over the years, moving from more tropical flavors to the currently popular citrus, but it's still nicely done. And the Geyser Peak a terrific food wine. I drank this last night with a Tex-Mex-style salad with chicken, black beans, and a red salsa vinaigrette, and the food wasn't too spicy for the wine.

My only complaint? The Geyser Peak is not $8.99, like it was 10 or 15 years ago. But I found it on sale for $9.99 at my local Kroger, and given the state of U.S. wine prices these days, it's probably going to be around $10 at a lot of stores over the next several months.

wine reviews, wine of the week, Geyser Peak, sauvignon blanc, white wine, California wine

Winebits 102: Direct shipping, Wine Tycoon game, restaurant wine sales

· Massachusetts appeal continues: The language is confusing, but a case being heard by a federal appeals court in Boston is another step in untangling the wine distribution process in the U.S. The appeals court will decide if a federal district court judge was correct in overturning a Massachusetts law that limits residents from buying out-of-state wine directly from the producer based on the size of the winery and whether it has an in-state distributor.
· Now you can run a winery: Tired of listening to the Wine Curmudgeon bellyache? Want to make wine that will get you a 98 and put you on the cover of the Wine Magazines? Then check out Wine Tycoon, which allows you to build a French winery, grow the grapes, hire a winemaker, and sell the wine. Cost is $20, and it's Windows only (which rules me out, since I'm running Linux now).
· Restaurant business will continue to slow: The NPD Group, perhaps the best consumer trends consultancy, expects the restaurant business to continue to decline through much of next year. Its research fond that guest traffic across the restaurant industry fell 3.6 percent over the summer, compared with the same three months a year earlier. It marked the fourth straight quarter of declines in total industry traffic, and total consumer spending at restaurants fell 1.6 percent in that time. And if total traffic is down, that means wine sales will continue to suffer.
direct shipping, Wine Tycoon, computer games, restaurant wine sales

Wine review: Penfolds Koonunga Hill Cabernet Merlot 2007

One of these days, I need to write a post about the vast, almost endless selection of Australian red blends that cost $10 or $12. These are solid, dependable wines -- the Rosemounts, Lindemans and McWilliam's -- that are a step up from the livestock wines that have dominated the Aussie export market for the past decade.
Until then, consider this: The Penfolds ($12, sample), which is a a good example of the quality and value that these wines deliver. The biggest problem with most cheap red wines is that they're offensive -- literally. Ask a beginning wine drinker who says he or she doesn't like red wine, and they'll tell you it's because the wines are too green (flavors of unripe fruit) or too tannic.
The Penfolds is neither, and the plum fruit is quite pleasant. Is it a complicated, sophisticated wine? Nope. But it is more than a fair value, the kind of thing to pick up at the grocery store on the way home from work. Drink this with burgers, sloppy joes or meatloaf.

Penfolds, red wine, wine review, Australian wine, red blends