The Wine Curmudgeon

Mini-reviews 16: Helfrich, Natura, Segura, Saintsbury

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.

• Helfrich Gewurztraminer 2009 ($15, sample): Too much gewurztraminer tastes like riesling these days, which means sweet and not very interesting. That's not the case with the Helfrich, a leading Alsatian producer. It's spicy, almost clove-like; sweet but balanced; and has an impressive mineral finish.

• Natura Chardonnay 2009 ($12, sample): This Chilean white is made with organic grapes, and isn't bad for what tastes like warm climate chardonnay. Look for tropical fruit at the back, and more oak than it probably needs.

• Segura Viudas Brut Rose NV ($10, sample): This is one of the best-made $10 Spanish sparkling wines that I've had in years -- which is saying something, given the quality of $10 cava. So what's it doing in a mini-review? Limited availability, of course. It's fruitier and less closed than most Spanish bubblies, and somehow has a few French-like qualities. Highly recommended.

• Saintsbury Carneros Chardonnay 2008 ($20, sample): Screwcap. Fresh acidity. Bright pear fruit. Proper amount of oak. In other words, everything too many California chardonnays aren't. And yes, it's a value, even at this price.

wine reviews, $10 wine, cheap wine, inexpensive wine, sparkling wine, Saintsbury, Segura Vidas, Natura, Helfrich

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Anyone can write a wine review

One of the tenets of the Wine Curmudgeon's faith is that wine writing is not rocket science, and that anyone can write a wine review. Jeff Curry, a regular visitor here, demonstrates this nicely with his thoughts about Bogle's pinot noir:

"Up to Bogle standards but seems every time I have even a good pinot I remember that I love heavier reds more. Probably won't get another for myself, though my wife loved it. Sipped before dinner and was on the light side of good. Better with spaghetti and mushroom/red sauce and even better after dinner. Nice mouthfeel. Not jammy with sensible, pleasant tannins. Very nice forward and finish... little light in the middle. Still I wasn't disappointed. Grassy but not in a bad way."

Written in English, tells you everything you need to know, isn't intimidating, and puts the wine in perspective. How many wine reviews actually mention that they don't like that particular style of wine? Nicely done, Jeff.

wine reviews, Bogle, wine writing

One can never judge too many wine competitions

The Wine Curmudgeon will spend much of the next 10 days sipping and spitting in the interest of wine. I'll be at the Colorado state competition this weekend, helping to pick the best Colorado wines. And next week is the biggie -- the Indy International Wine Competition, the be all and end all for regional wine, weird grapes and all of the things that I love about wine.

If there is an obscure grape that is used to make wine, then we'll be judging it at Indy. Yes, there will be chardonnay flights, but there will also be chardonel, vidal blanc and seyval blanc flights. That I was asked to judge is quite an honor; the list of judges includes some of the biggest names in regional wine, including Missouri's Doug Frost, New York's Jim Trezise, and Indiana's Richard Vine.

My schedule is so hectic, in fact, that I had to turn down another great competition -- the International Cold Climate Wine Competition, which allows only wines made with grapes that can survive a Minnesota winter. Frontenac, anyone?

I'll have reports on each competition when I get back, and the blog will roll along while I'm traveling with the usual features.

wine competitons, wine judging, Indy wine competition

Wine of the week: Falesco Vitiano Rosso 2008

New label, same incredible quality.

It's almost embarrassing to do a Vitiano review. The Wine Curmudgeon is not the fawning type, yet I sound like a gushing school girl whenever I write about these wines. The quality is consistent from vintage to vintage; the wines are always spot on, balanced, and varietally correct; and they always offer $15 to $20 worth of value.

All of which is true for this edition of the Rosso ($10, purchased). And, since I was able to find it for $10, it will reappear in the 2011 $10 Hall of Fame. The Rosso, a blend of sangiovese, merlot and cabernet, is dark, deep, and fresh. Don't expect a New World style of wine that will overwhelm you with fruit or tannins; rather, it's an amazingly subtle wine for something that is this inexpensive. There''s a hint of cherry and a bit of Italian earthiness, and it really doesn't need anything else. Drink it with any sort of red meat, tomato sauce or even roast chicken. Highly recommended.

$10 wine, cheap wine, inexpensive wine, wine reviews, wine of the week, Falesco Vitiano, Italian wine, red wine

Winebits 140: Corks, New Zealand, alcohol consumption

• Forget about tradition: California wineries, thanks to the recession, are looking for the cheapest quality closure they can find. And that means the closure decision has gone from a question of preference to a question of price, said an industry official. Some interesting statistics: There are 18 billion wine closures produced annually, and 69 percent are natural or agglomerate cork, 20 percent are synthetic stoppers and 11 percent are screwcaps.

• Wine woes for the Kiwis? This article, from a local newspaper, paints a grim picture of the situation in New Zealand: Growers using pesticides and chainsaws to destroy vines, wineries and land for sale without buyers, and farmers getting part-time jobs. Says one grower: "The wineries aren't making any money either. The only ones smiling are the supermarkets with their mark-ups and the Government with their taxes."

• More Americans drink, but still not a lot: One of the most contentious statistics in the wine business is the number of Americans who drink. The accepted figure is about 60 percent, which hardly anyone wants to believe. Now, we have an academic study to back that number up. Researchers from two Texas colleges compared data from two national surveys on adult alcohol consumption that were conducted roughly a decade apart, in the early 1990s and early 2000s. The findings? That about two-thirds of white men drank alcohol in 2002, compared with 60 percent of Hispanic men and 53 percent of black men. Among women, 47 percent of whites, 32 percent of Hispanics, and 30 percent of blacks drank any alcohol. Also important: White men drank the most, with about 22 drinks a month. Which isn't much, if you think about it -- about three six packs of beer. None of the female racial groups studied came close to that, with none having more than six drinks a month -- which is about a bottle of wine.

corks, screwcaps, New Zealand, wine consumption

Todd Kliman and local wine

Todd Kliman has been taking a lot of heat for his recent article taking restaurants to task if they serve local food but mostly ignore local wine. I'd repeat some of the comments, but this is a family blog.

The criticisms, though, generally revolved around two things: Todd knows nothing about the restaurant business and local wines stink. I'm quite familiar with these arguments myself, since I hear them all the time. And the truth of the matter? They're excuses, not reasons, and neither is true. If you don't want to serve local wine, then don't serve local wine. But don't shoot the messenger -- especially when it's a message that needs to be heard. More, after the jump.

The Wine Curmudgeon: A Top 100 wine blog

Believe me, no one is more surprised about this than I am. The Wine Curmudgeon has made the alawine.com top 100 blogs list, which ranks blogs by readership and is about as definitive a list as there is for this stuff. And there I am, with all the big boys (and they're mostly guys) -- Heimoff, Yarrow, Wark, Gary V. and all the rest.

I'd like to think that it's my incredible palate and immense writing ability that got me here, but I know better. The credit goes to everyone in the cyber-ether who reads the blog. You have made the difference, because you share my vision of wine: That it should be fun and not intimidating, and that we should drink what we want, and not what people tell us we're supposed to drink. Knowing that so many of you feel that way is enough to make a cranky ex-newspaperman more than a little sentimental.

I started writing the blog on Nov. 16, 2007. That first month, the audience was smaller than at a restaurant on a Tuesday night. These days, I'm at chain restaurant levels. Frankly, that's an amazing achievement in less than three years, especially since I'm all I have doing this. There are no flunkies or minions -- just me and my keyboard, five days a week, and for more than 800 posts.

So thank you. Ironically, I gave up my Fort Worth newspaper wine writing gig last week -- there just wasn't enough for me to do any more, given the changes in the newspaper business over the past couple of years. I guess there must be something to this blog stuff after all.

Wine Curmudgeon, top 100 wine blogs, wine writing, wine blogs