The Wine Curmudgeon

Mother's Day wine 2012

Doesn't Mom deserve wine for Mother's Day?

Buy Mom wine for Mother's Day. She'll appreciate it. Right, Mom? Or, failing that, buy her wine for Mother's Day brunch. Whatever you do, though, keep our wine gift-giving guidelines in mind -- "Don't buy someone wine that you think they should like; buy them what they will like."

These suggestions should get you started:

• Bonterra Viognier 2010 ($14, sample): Easily the best California viognier I've had in years (yes, damning with faint praise, but praise nonetheless), with crisp, clean apricot fruit. A little oily, which was interesting, and a decent finish. If it was cheaper, it's probably in the $10 Hall of Fame.

• Local wine: We tasted wines from a dozen or so states at our recent DrinkLocalWine conference, and there is plenty of quality and value out there. If you're in Colorado, try the Guy Drew riesling 2010 ($16, sample), with lemongrass, a lot of acid, and a fair amount of residual sugar that is barely noticeable because of all the acid. Excellent example of terroir and high altitude grapes. Not in Colorado? Ask for a recommendation for your Other 47 state in the comments or send me an email.

• Toad Hollow Risque NV ($16, sample): Sparkling wine that takes sparkling wine to a place it doesn't often go. Sweet? Yes, but not just to be sweet, but as a style. And there are plenty of bubbles to balance the sweetness. It was a favorite of the late Todd Williams, who ran Toad Hollow and always told a good story about this wine.

More about Mother's Day wine:
• Mother's Day wine 2011
• Mother's Day wine 2010
• Wine of the week: Luc Pirlet Pinot Noir 2009
• Wine review: Cline Cellars Cool Climate Syrah 2010

Cartoon courtesy Gerald_G via OpenClipArt, using a Creative Commons license

Valentine's Day Wine 2012

The Wine Curmudgeon does not like the holiday that must not be named. The reasons aren't important; chalk it up to my natural crankiness, and leave it at that. Because of this, I have traditionally vacillated about whether to do a post for this holiday.

This year, you get one. Yes, I know, the last thing one expects from me is inconsistency, but that's the effect that the holiday that must not be named has on me. More, after the jump:

Wine of the week: Gérard Bertrand Crémant de Limoux 2009

The holiday that must not be named is next week. You want to buy sparkling wine. But sparkling wine, being sparkling wine, is expensive and confusing.

Not to worry. The Wine Curmudgeon is on the job, as always, looking out for everyone caught between bubbly's rock and hard place. The Bertrand ($15, sample) is sparkling wine from France that isn't made in Champagne, which is why it's one-third the price of entry-level Champagnes. Better yet, it has much more than one-third of the quality, and is a tremendous value.

It's made using the same method as Champagne, and it uses more or less the same grapes (including pinot noir, which is not common in sparkling wine made in France outside of Champagne). That's one reason why it delivers so much value; its grapes are grown in the Limoux region in the Languedoc, where land is a fraction of the price of Champagne.

This is not as simple a wine as its price would indicate; the pinot noir gives it an edge that others don't have. Look for very crisp apple fruit and an impressively long finish (lemon zest, maybe?). And you can impress everyone with your bubbly knowledge: If the wine says Cremant on the label, as this does, that means it's sparkling wine made in the traditional method but not in Champagne. Highly recommended, and sure to impress whoever needs impressing next week.

Expensive wine 36: Two Hands Gnarly Dudes Shiraz 2008

What's this? Has the Wine Curmudgeon gone soft on us? Two favorable reviews of Australian shiraz in the past month?

Indeed. Because, if nothing else, the Wine Curmudgeon believes in tasting the wine before judging it. And, even more than the Layer Cake wine of the week, the Two Hands ($30, sample) is an exemplary wine. Yes, I'm not a huge fan of this style, with its huge burst of fruit and high alcohol, and yes, wines made this way usually drive me crazy.

But you know what? This vintage of the Two Hands is full of rich, deep red fruit -- but it's less overwhelming than it would have been a year ago. Plus, the tannins show a little more and most of the ashiness (the odd flavor that many of these kinds of wines have in the back) is gone. And the alcohol, for whatever reason, is more integrated into the wine and less annoying. All of this, I'm assuming, comes from letting the bottle age since I got it in 2009.

Highly recommended, especially as a gift for next week's holiday that must not be named. This is a beef wine, but it's a beef wine that will appeal to more people than you would think.

Happy New Year 2012

The blog is mostly off today for the long New Year's holiday weekend, but we'll be back Monday with the usual features. The best news? The 2012 $10 Hall of Fame is just a week or so away.

Until then, Happy New Year, and thank you for every time you visited the blog in 2011. The numbers were so good the Wine Curmudgeon is running out of ways to say thanks. 

And please don't try this at home (video courtesy of Percipient24 on YouTube) -- yet another reason why Americans don't drink more sparkling wine:

Champagne and sparkling wine for New Year's, one more time

Still not sure what do about Champagne or sparkling wine for New Year's? Don't worry -- the Wine Curmudgeon has you covered:

• The annual sparkling wine and Champagne post (which includes links to posts from previous years).

• New Year's wine suggestions from around the Internet.

• Wednesday's wine of the week, a sparkler from Spain -- Freixenet Cordon Rosado Brut NV.

• The sparkling wine category, which includes reviews of every bubbly in the blog's four-year history.

Wine of the week: Freixenet Cordon Rosado Brut NV

If most wine drinkers know Freixenet, it's from the black bottle that they see at the grocery store. And the black bottle is decent enough $9 Spanish sparkling wine, or cava.

Sometimes, though, if you're lucky enough, you'll see the black bottle's cousin, a rose cava called Rosado ($9, purchased). It's a step up from the black bottle -- a little fruitier and a little more polished. In this, it sits between two of my favorite rose cavas, the Cristalino at $7 and the Seguras Viudas at $10.

The wine is made with trepat, a Spanish grape used only for cava, and garnacha, the Spanish version of grenache. Hence some soft red fruit (strawberry?), as well as a little yeastiness and lots of bubbles. In this, it's an excellent example of how a multi-national producer can turn out a cheap wine with character.

The Rosado will handle New Year's ably, whether it's for toasting on Saturday night, for brunch on Sunday morning or for sipping anytime this week. And it's an excellent food wine; I drank it with oven fried chicken and it was delicious. Highly recommended, and a candidate for the 2013 $10 Hall of Fame.