The Wine Curmudgeon

Minireviews 11: Argyle Brut, Mouton Cadet, Louis Martini, Torbreck Juveniles

Reviews of wines that don’t need their own post, but are worth noting for one reason or another. Look for it on the final Friday of each month.

• Argyle Brut 2005 ($29, purchased): This Oregon bubbly is usually one of my favorites, but this time something was missing. There was way too much caramel in the back, and it wasn't as fresh and bright as usual. Do I detect a style change aimed at consumers who don't want to pay $45 for Champagne?

• Mouton Cadet 2007 ($9, sample): This red blend has been around for decades, and always produces competent "technical wine" (the French term for grocery store wine). This vintage had more fruit than I remember and was a little thin in the middle, but was otherwise fine.

• Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2006 ($25, sample): Always offers value, though this vintage has a little more chocolate in the back than I like. Regardless, it's among the best Napa cabernets available at this price.

• Torbreck (Cuvée) Juveniles ($15, sample): This Aussie red blend (grenache, shiraz and mouvedre) can actually be described as eccentric. It's almost as fruity as grape juice, and with a sweetness that the winemaker swears is fruity and not sweet. Having said that, I kind of liked it -- much to my surprise.

Argyle, Mouton Cadet, Louis Martini, Torbreck Juveniles

Why blind tasting is the most important thing in the world

The Wine Curmudgeon writes a lot about blind tasting and why it matters. Nothing demonstrates this more than what happened when I judged The Dallas Morning News competition earlier this month, where I was able to put my foot firmly in my mouth.

I can't tell you the wine involved here; the results are embargoed until April 15. But I can tell you that my panel gave a gold medal to an absolutely lovely pinot gris. It was easily one of the best wines we tasted over two days and 200 entries -- fresh, crisp and balanced. It tasted much more expensive than it actually is.

So imagine my surprise when I found out what the wine was. That's because I had tasted this wine last fall, as a winery sample, and I was not impressed. I wrote in my notes (on CellarTracker, the unofficial wine inventory software of the Wine Curmudgeon): "It's OK, though it would offer more value at a lower price. Bright fruit and some acid, but it tastes almost manipulated to get it to a certain flavor profile."

That's why blind tasting is essential. I don't know that I had made up my mind before I tasted the sample that I wasn't going to like it, but I do remember looking for flaws more intensely than usual. Maybe I was more cranky than normal, maybe I was suspicious of the brand. Who knows? But the price I paid was to dismiss a quality wine, and that's my loss. Life is too short, and there isn't enough good wine, to throw one away just because you're having a bad tasting day.

The photo is from Jeremy Doorten of Alberta, Saskatchewan, via stock.xchng, using a Creative Commons license

blind tasting

Wine tasting season, 2010

This is wine tasting season, when winemakers, wine publicists, and wine sales people hit the road to show retailers, writers and bloggers their new products. I have done a couple of these things already, but the fun really gets underway this week and will last through the end of spring.

On Thursday, the Wine Curmudgeon gets to taste Penfolds Grange, the Aussie cult wine -- and will the earth stop rotating when that happens? The next two weeks are already mostly booked, including a very spiffy red Burgundy event. Don't worry, though. There is plenty of cheap wine on tour as well, and I tasted one recently that I will be writing about next week.

Wine Curmudgeon, wine tasting season

Wine of the week: Rodney Strong Chardonnay 2008

These are boom times for cost-conscious wine consumers, and one of the best examples is what has happened to the basic Rodney Strong chardonnay (sample). This is quality, top-notch, $15 wine from one of California's most consistent producers.

But because of the recession, retailers are desperate to move product, and they are discounting this wine all over the place. I have seen it in Dallas for as little as $10 a bottle, and it showed up the other day on wine-searcher.com for $9. It's even discounted on the Rodney Strong Web site for $13.50.

This is a value at $15 -- classic California chardonnay, with oak, green apple and citrus flavors, all in balance. It's low in alcohol, food friendly (roast chicken or fish with a cream sauce), you can drink it on its own, and it even won a gold medal in a prestigious California wine competition. So if you see it for $10 or $12, buy it and know you got a great deal.

wine reviews, wine of the week, white wine, California wine, chardonnay, Rodney Strong

Winebits 118: Grape glut, Piero Antinori, Franzia takeover

• Oversupply might be worse than thought: The news last week that the 2009 California grape crush was the second-biggest ever was tempered with predictions that this glut would be better managed than previous ones, which saw grape prices drop and wineries suffer during good economic times. Turns out that may not be true. I talked to a long-time California wine industry member last week, and he said the glut is not only dropping the price of grapes (and may force some wineries out of business), but could also affect how wine is made. Federal law allows 15 percent of non-appellation grapes to be used in appellation wines; that is, if a wine says Napa on the label, 15 percent of the grapes can come from regions that aren't Napa. I was told that an increasing number of wineries, looking to cut costs during the recession, will take full advantage of the 15 percent allowance. This was almost unheard of during the boom times.

• Italian wine history: Piero Antinori is one of the great names in Italian wine, and my pal Alfonso Cevola has a five-minute video of Antinori posted on his blog, On the Wine Trail in Italy. The sound isn't great, but what Antinori says is. Particularly fascinating is how Super Tuscans, the red blends from Tuscany that revolutionized Italian wine, came to be -- a reaction against the poor quality of sangiovese vines that were being planted.

• Franzia family gets Red Truck: And a host of other wines, after a company controlled by Fred Franzia of Two Buck Chuck fame took over the company that made the popular, inexpensive wine originally started by Cline. This is huge news, and not just because Red Truck sells hundreds of thousands of cases. It's another sign that the recession-fueled shakeout in the wine business is underway, as those with cash -- like Franzia -- move in on those who don't.

grape glut, Piero Antinori, Red Truck, Fred Franzia

The French pinot noir scandal

A French court has sentenced 12 members of the country's wine trade for selling pinot noir that wasn't pinot noir, and which was bought by industry heavyweight Gallo for its Red Bicyclette brand.

The reaction around the world has been fascinating -- one of the guilty French blamed U.S. consumers for the crime, while the British press has also been laughing at our wine ineptitude. And in the U.S.? Hardly a murmur. Which, of course, isn't surprising, since so few wine writers in this country bother themselves with writing about wines that people actually drink.

Gallo, as has been noted, was as much a victim as anyone who bought its wine, and was not implicated in the crime. The company says the fake pinot has been pulled from shelves. After the jump, a few thoughts about the scandal:

Robin Goldstein and The Wine Trials 2010, part II

Robin Goldstein knows even more about cheap wine than the Wine Curmudgeon, which is saying something. But what else would one expect from the co-author and guiding force of The Wine Trials 2010 (Fearless Media, $14.95), perhaps the best guide to wine that costs less than $15 a bottle?

The second edition has just been published, and it's another fine effort. I chatted with Goldstein via Skype (the unofficial Internet phone service of the Wine Curmudgeon) but technical glitches on my part prevented running it as a podcast. Instead, it's a transcript of our interview. In part II today, Goldstein talks about some of the wines that made the book, as well as wine labels and wine names. In part I, which ran Thursday, we talked about the trends in cheap wine and why there is more good, cheap wine than ever before.