The Wine Curmudgeon

Wine of the week: Vinho verde

Vinho verde, the Portuguese white wine, is almost, in the right light, green. It's often spritzy and can even be sweet. But it is cheap, usually $8 or less, and it somehow always tastes better than it should. So don't discount vinho verde -- and especially if it's a long, hot summer with too many traffic jams and cranky bosses.

Our vinho verde primer is here and last year's review is here. Keep in mind that several companies control the market, often selling the same wine under different labels. My retailer, in fact, had four vinho verdes this year, including one for $12, but all four were made by just two producers.

I bought the Caves de Cerca Famega ($7, purchased), which was one of the best-made vinho verdes I've had in years. It wasn't as soft drink fizzy as so many others, and it had more fruit (lime?) and less sweetness. Don't worry, though, because it's still light and sweetish, with just 10 percent alcohol. It's just not as cloying as vinho verde can be.

This is wine for people who want a glass when they get home from work but don't want to consult their wine oracle about what to drink. Which, actually, is something we should all do more often.

Winebits 189: Wine and bikes, millennials and wine, wine criticism

• Safe and secure: Because there is no way I can describe this in words:

• Wine with friends: Yes, millennials are unique because some of them like to drink wine with friends. This is the one of the findings in a study from California researchers looking at how millennial wine consumption is different from the rest of us. And, as the author, noted, it really isn't (though she desperately tries to find some difference). The age group born after 1982 or so drinks the most wine at special occasions and eating at a formal restaurant. The study will no doubt make my pal Tom Johnson at Louisville Juice fire off yet another of his eye-rolling millennial missives. And I'd have to agree with him.

• What do critics want? To like the wine they drink, of course. This is quite well expressed by the Israeli writer Daniel Rogov, who is known as that country's Wine Curmudgeon (something we have had a giggle about). "A great many may not realize it," he writes, "but writing a negative review pains the critic. The simple truth is that that bad or mediocre wines have a deep emotional impact for the critic, who lives for the day when he can be entirely positive." This, I think, is the difference between honest criticism and what passes for criticism these days, and especially on the Internet. The goal is to write truly (to paraphrase Hemingway). Too, many, though, prefer snarky, since they think it makes them look clever.

Local food people still can't figure out this local wine thing

The following comes from a friend of mine, and you'll understand the need for anonymity. She's a food writer who was at an oyster roast in the Pacific Northwest when someone pronounced that the reason Pacific oysters are superior to all others is that the region produces wines to match them.

My friend, of course, was speechless. "This made me think of you," she emailed. "Not surprisingly, he'd never heard of Texas wine." In fact, Texas has oysters from the Gulf Coast and wine to match, like dry blanc du bois and rose.

The Wine Curmudgeon can't decide what's more annoying: That someone who pretends to be a wine expert doesn't know that there is wine made in regions outside of his tiny, insular world, or that he knows as little about food and wine pairings as the character in Annie Hall knows about Marshall McLuhan. (Yes, I'll post the clip at the end of this.)

Because, according to this logic, oysters from Louisiana -- which I happen to think are the best in the world, courtesy of the late, great Mr. Jutz -- are irrelevant because there isn't Louisiana wine to go with them. Or that Maine lobsters are somehow lacking because there is no matching Maine wine. Or, to look at this illogic from the other side, that Loire wines aren't quite as good as they could be unless you can find Loire shellfish to go with them.

Where is Marshall McLuhan when you need him? After the jump, courtesy of drkatzjr27 at YouTube.

Wine review: Hey Mambo Kinky Pink 2010

Why has the Wine Curmudgeon been writing so many reviews of wines lately that are difficult to find? After all, one of my reasons for being is that I don't write about wines that aren't generally available. But it's not my fault. Honest. Blame the the three-tier system, because each of the wines that I reviewed should be generally available.

That includes the Kinky Pink ($12, sample). It was going to be a wine of the week, because it's that well done. But the wine isn't available in the Dallas area (and no, special orders from one retailer don't count), and a wine can't be a wine of the week if it's not for sale in the ninth-largest city in the country.

But it's worth writing about, because the Kinky Pink manages to do something that few California roses do -- it's dry, it's affordable, and the packaging will get the attention of people who don't normally buy rose. Look for a bit of cranberry fruit, no off flavors, and not a hint of sweetness. It's made with pinot noir, and bears a strong resemblance to the way the Toad Hollow rose has traditionally tasted.

Don't relegate this to summer wine, because it would work all year round with lighter red wine food and most white wine foods that don't have a cream sauce. And it's too bad that it's not for sale here; I'd buy some.

Regional wine labels: Is a wine where it says it's from?

When is a wine made by a winery in your state not from your state? More often than you think.

This is the great conundrum of the regional wine business. The best way for local wineries to market their product is to proclaim its local-ness. But, given the way the wine business works, their wine may not be made with local grapes, but with grapes or juice imported from California or even Europe. Confused? It gets worse. Federal law allows wineries to be appropriately vague about whether the wine is made with local grapes.

All in all, regional wine labeling is a maze that consumers (many of whom aren't sure how to read a wine label to begin with) don't know they have to negotiate. After the jump -- how labeling laws work, what to look for on a regional wine label, and why so many wineries take advantage of this gray area.

Wine of the week: Picada 15 2010

This wine is why the Wine Curmudgeon loves his job.

It was a sample, and the only the only thing I knew about it was that it cost $9 and came from Patagonia, which is the Argentine wine region that isn't Mendoza. I had no expectations; Patagonian wines aren't common, and the guy who gave me the sample knew nothing else about the wine. Plus the winery web site didn't work, and there were few references to the wine elsewhere in the cyber-ether.

And what did I find? Wine of the Week delight. Hall of Fame bliss. This may be the best $10 red I've tasted since the demise of the much beloved Solaz. The Picada is a blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot,  malbec, and pinot noir (yes, Argentine pinot) and the result is balance between acid, fruit and tannin in a way that almost never happens with wine at this price. Yes, it's fruity, but the fruit isn't sweetish or heavy, like most $10 Mendoza wines. Which is the reason I don't drink most $10 malbecs and malbec blends.

Yes, the Picada is a little thin in the middle, but that's because I'm looking for something to complain about. And, believe it or not, there is a white blend that was almost as tasty, and a malbec that was somewhere between the white and the red blends. Drink this if you want a glass of red wine but don't want to be overwhelmed by fruit, acid, alcohol or tannims; it will pair with almost any red wine kind of food. Highly recommended.

Winebits 188: Deborah Whiting, French wine, wine business

• Top regional chef dies: Deborah Whiting, a New York chef who was one of the leaders in that state's local food and local wine movements, died last week in an automobile accident. There were any number of eloquent tributes to Whiting, who ran the restaurant at Red Newt Cellars in upstate New York; her husband, David, runs the winery, and I can't begin to list them all. Know that Dave McIntyre at the Washington Post wrote that "David had become one of the Finger Lakes’ top winemakers and Debra the region’s leading chef, championing the 'locavore' movement by featuring ingredients from nearby farms. She is widely credited with sparking the restaurant revolution in the Finger Lakes wine country, which had been dependent on fast food." McIntyre's post includes links to several other pieces about Whiting, all worth checking out.

• Too much attention for French wine? French wine has continued its downward sales trend in the U.S., yet it seems to be one of the stars of the wine cyber-ether. French wine, despite an almost 10 percent sales decline over the past year, generates what Nielsen calls a disproportionate share of buzz on the Internet through Twitter, Facebook, and the like. This is not surprising, given the incredibly overwhelming coverage on the Internet about Bordeaux. I have not see the Neilsen stats, but I doubt seriously that it's made up of coverage like mine, writing about $10 bottles. Instead, it's almost certainly from places eRobertParker.com, the Wine Spectator, and Decanter and their NFL-like coverage of anything related to Bordeaux. Also amusing: Nielsen reports that consumers don't trust alcohol advertising, and prefer to get recommendations from their friends. Which is a fitting segue to the next item.

• Shooting itself in the foot: Or, as The Italian Wine Guy says in a recent post: "[L]ately it seems like we are doing everything we can to kill the wine business in the world. Actively." Among the culprits are Bordeaux, which seems hell bent on destroying its traditional markets so it can all of its wine to China. Which, as the IWG points out, is probably not the smartest long-term strategy. He also takes on the Italian government and several other of the maroons who try to tell us what to drink when they really aren't interested in what we want.