The Wine Curmudgeon

Wine of the week: La Fiera Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2010

How does one improve on this wine, which was one of the best cheap wines I tasted lasted year? Do the same thing the same way, which is mostly what this vintage does.

The La Fiera ($8, purchased) is a red wine from the Abruzzo region east of Rome and made with the montepulciano grape (not be confused with the pricier wines from the Montepulciano region of Tuscany, which are made with sangiovese). In this, Abruzzo wines have always been poor relations to their more expensive cousines, but you can’t tell that from the La Fiera anymore.

The 2010 almost smells of violets (really), and retains the wonderful sour cherry fruit and Italian earthiness of the 2009. It’s a little heavier than the previous vintage (though the tannins are proper), but that’s not a problem – just pair it with red sauce and sausages. I’d also chill it a touch. The bottle sat in my 78-degree house for eight hours after I bought it, and the wine was just too warm. I’m pretty sure I didn’t taste all of the of the fruit. Which was too bad, because this is a wine one should get every bit from.

Winebits 245: New York wine, corks, wine accessories

• Spectator strikes again: Just when you thought that the Winestream Media had accepted regional wine, the Wine Spectator fired a shot over the bow reminding everyone just how inferior regional wine is and always will be. Which didn’t please regional wine advocates in New York’s Long Island region. Lenn Thompson at New York Cork Report sums it up nicely: “In short, there really isn’t anything new here and I’m left wondering what the point is, honestly. Been there, done that.” The point, of course, is that we can’t make any decisions about wine on our own without checking with the Spectator first.

• Consumers care about wine, not closure: More than 9 out of 10 serious U.S. wine drinkers don’t really care whether their wine has a cork, screwcap or synthetic closure, reports a study done this spring. Instead, they’re more concerned with varietal, price and region. This should not surprise regular visitors here, given the Wine Curmudgeon’s focus on making wine easier to drink. Yes, the survey was commissioned by Nomacorc, the world’s largest producer of synthetic wine closures (and a sponsor at our recent DrinkLocalWine conference), but these numbers tally with others I’ve seen over the years. The other interesting thing about the study? One-half of respondents have experienced some type of problem with natural cork, either with it being difficult to remove or breaking when it’s opened. Which, of course, doesn’t happen with a screwcap.

• Useless wine gadgets: The Drinks Business, the English liquor trade, comes up with a list of the 10 wine accessories no one really needs. The magazine is to be much applauded, since wine gadgets have always seemed like a way to get wine drinkers to spend money on something other than wine. My favorite in the slideshow is the wine rack robot, if for no other reason than I can’t believe anyone really thought of it.

Labor Day 2012

The blog is mostly off for the holiday; the Wine Curmudgeon is returning from his annual appearance at the Kerrvile Wine & Music Festival.

Yes, we’ve posted a video using a shoe and a tree to open a wine bottle before, but we’ve had nothing quite like this. For one thing, the person doing it is sober. For another, there is a Citroen in the video. For a third, it’s actually done quite well (video courtesy of BistroBordeaux on YouTube).