The Wine Curmudgeon

N.Y.-Texas wine challenge

On Monday night, the Dallas Cowboys play the New York Giants in a key NFL matchup. So what makes more sense than a New York-Texas wine competition?

I'm helping the Texas department of agriculture put the event together (being paid, even). It will feature 11 Texas and 11 New York wines paired off in blind tastings, similar wine vs. similar wine. Some of the top wine writers and sommeliers in the state will taste the wines and pick their favorites. We'll also have a Most Valuable Wine for each state. Is that a terrific football theme or what?

I'll report the results next week. This is the kind of event that I enjoy, and not just because it features regional wine. We're showing wine off in a format that is not the same old "sit around a restaurant and pontificate" approach. It's all about taking wine to the people.

Two approaches to regional wine

My pal Dave McIntyre, the wine writer at the Washington Post, got a surprisingly nasty email from a reader. Why, asked the email, is Dave wasting the reader's time writing about Virginia wines, which no one is interested in, which cost too much, and which stink? And, by the way, Dave should stop pandering to Virginia wine producers and recommend French wines for people to drink.

On the other hand, I was talking to a wine drinker at a French wine event in Dallas last night (ironically enough). Ralph Lewerenz is a huge advocate of Texas wine, and he has the knowledge and wherewithal to drink just about any wine he wants. "It would be outrageous not to drink Texas wines," he told me. Yes, some of them aren't very good, Ralph said, but a lot of them are. Best yet, when Ralph travels, he tries regional wines. I almost hugged him in the middle of the event.

I feel sorry for Dave's emailer. Wine is supposed to be fun, which Lewernez understands. It's about exploration and discovery. How alienated from the joy of wine must someone be who sends nasty emails to a wine writer trying to helping them have fun?

Chris De Burgh's wine collection

Dear Mr. De Burgh:

I'll be honest. I'm not a huge fan of your music. It's a little too pop for me, and I'm a punk and New Wave kind of guy (though Working Girl, which featured your hit "Lady in Red," wasn't bad). But, apparently, we have wine in common.

Decanter magazine reports that you are going to sell your wine collection, which contains some of the finest wines in modern history. It includes Lafite 1945, Latour 1961, Mouton 1982, Cheval Blanc 1978, and Margaux and La Mission Haut Brion '61. Your reason? You told the magazine that it would be a "sacrilege" to open the wines and drink them.

That's your privilege, of course, though the Wine Curmudgeon has always been puzzled when people buy wine but don't drink it. Having said that, however, I'd like to offer my help in disposing of your collection.

These are not only exquisite wines (my one and only Cheval Blanc tasting was amazing), but they're wines that 99 percent of wine drinkers will never taste, including those of us who do it professionally. So I have a proposal for you.

The blog's third birthday is next month, and I have a variety of events planned to celebrate. I'll give away some wine, and Sony Music has donated some classical CDs to the cause. The blog has been a huge success since I started it in November 2007, and I always like to thank my visitors and readers for their help. So what about using one of your wines for the party? It doesn't have to be a '45 or '61, or even one of the 1982s. Anything you think is fair will be fine with me.

I can't pay you what it's worth, obviously (one of the things that goes with being a punk and New Wave kind of guy no doubt). But I can offer you some Texas wine in exchange, plus the vast amount of publicity this will bring. I understand you have a new record to promote?

Let me know if we can work something out.

Sincerely,

Jeff Siegel, the Wine Curmudgeon

Wine of the week: Geyser Peak Sauvignon Blanc 2009

The Wine Curmudgeon, who usually knows no fear when it comes to tasting wine, was a bit wary of the Geyser Peak. A decade ago, when I started writing about cheap wine, this was one of the first ones that impressed me. It was in the first couple of $10 Hall of Fames, and I've always had fond memories of it.

But, for a variety of reasons, I haven't tasted the Geyser Peak ($8, purchased) much over the past several years, and wasn't sure what to expect this time. I didn't want to be disappointed if the wine wasn't what I remembered it being, or if my palate had gone in one direction and the wine had gone in another.

Not to worry, though. The Geyser Peak was all that it ever was -- solid, dependable, $10 wine that succeeds in being more than some wines that cost twice as much. It has lots of lime, a bit of a middle (not something many $10 wines have), and a long, lime pith finish. Chill and serve with salads, grilled shrimp, and roast chicken -- almost any white meat dish, actually. A candidate to return to the $10 Hall of Fame.

Winebits 151: Champagne, restaurant wine, Pinotgate

• Champagne sales slump: I suppose this isn't news to any of us who have been paying attention, but someone did feel the need to write a report. Champagne sales -- that is, sparkling wine made in the Champagne region of France -- fared worse during the recession than the rest of the sparkling wine business. Champagne sales fell by 3.6 percent in 2009, which is an amazing figure, and more than twice as much as non-Champagne sales fell. Until, of course, one realizes that it's almost impossible to buy a bottle of Champagne for less than $20, while there are dozens of quality options that aren't Champagne, such as Spanish cava, Italian bubblies, and U.S. brands like Domaine Ste. Michelle for much less than $20.

• The quality of restaurant wine: Tom Johnson at Louisville Juice picked up this nugget (and how does he always find these things?). A CNN blogger who doesn't drink wine decided to sample a pinot grigio from the wine list at a national Italian chain. The result was predictable. "It tasted like rubbing alcohol turned bad." Which, as regular visitors here know, is one of the Wine Curmudgeon's common complaints about poorly made Italian pinot grigio. Reporting this item gives me the chance to do three of my favorite things -- rail against the quality of restaurant wine lists; lament that too many people are introduced to wine through poor quality restaurant wine lists; and note something that puts a TV journalist in a less than complimentary light (once a newspaperman, always a newspaperman).

• Gallo pinot fraud: Gina Gallo, the heir to the empire, says the 2009 Pinotgate scandal, in which E&J Gallo's Red Bicyclette label sold some 1.5 million cases of fake pinot noir from the Languedoc in southern France, was a disaster. "As a company we want to be squeaky clean, and we are scrupulous in declaring alcohol levels and other matters, so of course it was an embarrassment to us," she told Decanter magazine. This is, as far as I can tell, the first time an important Gallo official has commented on the scandal, which included criminal prosecutions and convictions in France.

Expensive wine 19: Grange 2005

The setting was Fearing's, the restaurant in Dallas' Ritz-Carlton hotel that is run by Dean Fearing, one of the top celebrity chefs in the country and where you can drop $100 a person for dinner without even thinking about it. The Ritz, of course, is the Ritz. And, if that wasn't enough, some of Dallas' top wine collectors would arrive in a few minutes to attend a re-corking clinic for their vintage bottles.

Which just goes to how dedicated the Wine Curmudgeon is to his craft. I was about as far as possible from my $10 wine. But this was a chance to taste Penfold's Grange ($500, sample), an Australian shiraz blend that is one of the world's great wines. And how often does that happen?

I needn't have worried. Winemaker Peter Gago, like so many Australians, is not overwhelmed with his self-importance. How many California (or even French) winemakers who make super-premium wine would have had a thoughtful discussion about whether a $500 wine was worth $500? How many would have said, as Gago did, that the wine business needs to do more to educate consumers -- to demystify how wine works. "We have a challenge globally," he said, "about spreading the word about wine, and at whatever level of wine we make."

So how was the wine? Impressive, if not nearly ready to drink. Much Australian wine is loud and boisterous, with concentrated fruit and high alcohol. It slaps you on the back. The Grange, on the other hand, was almost unfriendly, as if it wanted to size you up first. The fruit was there, and in another five or 10 years will start to show itself. Gago says the wine is hiding a lot up its sleeve, to be revealed as it ages. In all of this, the Grange truly is a great wine, a bottle to be appreciated not for immediate pleasure but for what it will become.

What's wrong with regional wine

There has been a lot of love for regional wine on the blog this week, as the Wine Curmudgeon does his bit to support DrinkLocalWine.com's regional wine week. And rightly so -- regional wine is a legitimate part of the wine world, and it deserves recognition.

But that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. There's a reason, even though the number of U.S. regional wineries has increased 10-fold since 1975, that California still produces 90 percent of all U.S. wine. Some of the problems, like distribution laws that favor large, national wineries, are out of the regional wine business' control. But there are other areas where regional wineries can help themselves. After the jump, a few thoughts about how regional wine can get better.