The Wine Curmudgeon

Wine of the week: Brennan Vineyards Buffalo Roam 2010

One of the greatest wines in the history of Texas was the 2006 Brennan syrah (and the 2007 wasn’t bad, either). I have waxed poetic about both, and the 2006 helped form the tweet that launched the local wine movement in 2009: “Texas wines aren’t s---.”

Unfortunately, Brennan no longer makes syrah. But it does make a red Rhone-style blend, the Buffalo Roam ($18, sample, 12.9%).

Yes, the wine isn’t $10 or $12 and availability is limited, two things I rarely do for the wine of the week. But this week, with the fifth annual Drink Local Wine conference just a couple of days away, I wanted to use this wine to show how far local wine has come – not just in Texas, but in much of the U.S.

Because there are hundreds of wines like this in the 47 states that aren’t California, Washington, and Oregon:

• It’s professionally made, without the flaws and off-flavors that were all too common in regional wine a decade ago.

• It reflects Texas terroir and a Texas style of winemaking – lower alcohol, earthy, spicy, less fruity and, above all, balanced. In this, it tastes like a Rhone-style wine that was made in Texas, not a California-style wine made with Rhone grapes that could come from anywhere, including the Rhone.

• It uses grapes suited to Texas, mourvedre and syrah, and not grapes grown in Texas because consumers have heard of them.

How impressive is this wine? So much so that I don’t even mind the name.

Windows 8 is like a bottle of crappy wine

The Wine Curmudgeon, proving just how fallible he really is, left his computer at home last week during a media tour of the Texas Hill Country. This meant I had to make do with periodic access to a computer, and one of them ran Windows 8.

Is there any way to be polite about this? Nope. Windows 8 is not only bad, but worse than Vista, Millennium, and Windows 98. And I didn’t think anything could be worse than Windows 98. Windows 8 is not only counter-intuitive, even for those of us who are kind of geeky, but slow and crash-y.

Think of Windows 8 as an overpriced bottle of wine that is not only corked, but oxidized. And did I mention that it’s overpriced?

Winebits 276: Packaging, climate change, Paul Draper

• Fetzer goes small: Ever wanted a glass of wine at a baseball game, but weren’t able to buy one? That changed this month when Fetzer introduced what it’s calling Zipz packs – 100 percent recyclable 187ml PET containers (a form of plastic) of wine at several big league baseball stadiums. The Zipz will be available in stores later this year. “Alternative venues” are one of the hot topics in the wine business these days, as producers look for ways to sell wine in places where it hasn’t been sold. I’m skeptical, though, of wine at ball games, and I’m as big a baseball fan as I am a wine drinker. It just doesn’t seem like a good match.

• Weather and wine: This piece, from The Raw Story web site, doesn’t mince words: “Can any region continue to grow the exact same varieties and make the exact same style of wines? If what we know today is correct, that is highly unlikely.” The reason is climate change, and it goes into great detail explaining what’s going to happen and why. Grapes, say the experts, are important in understanding how climate change will affect other crops, since the wines are more sensitive to climate than rice, corn and soybeans, which could help researchers figure out how to better adapt these crops to warmer weather.

• Well-earned award: Paul Draper, the man behind California’s Ridge Vineyards, has been named the 2013 Winemakers’ Winemaker by the Institute of Masters of Wine and the drinks business trade magazine. Ridge has long been one of the world’s great wineries, and has continued to make honest wine when so many others were chasing scores and critical acclaim. Which, not surprisingly, is why he was honored: “an approach that has been characterised by an emphasis on traditional winemaking practices, sustainable agriculture and a sense of place.”

Wine availability: How to find what you're looking for when it's not on the shelf

Wine availability is the bane of any wine writer’s existence. Even the Wine Curmudgeon, who only writes about wine that I see on a store shelf or am assured is on a shelf on pain of my considerable wrath, gets emails all the time asking why something I wrote about isn’t available.

There are a variety of reasons for this, most of which are discussed in the link above. The point of this post is to help you find wine when your local retailer doesn’t have it.

The process is after the jump:

Roger Ebert, 1942-2013

“You have to realize you're not writing for the filmmakers, you're writing for the potential film audience. And I would much rather hurt somebody's feelings who made the picture then send somebody to see a movie and spend two hours of their life seeing a movie that I don't think is worth seeing.”

                                                                     -- Roger Ebert

What better credo could a critic – any kind of critic – live by? Would that more wine writers kept it in mind.

I never met Ebert, though he did decline to write the introduction for my book about the movie “Casablanca,” written for its 50th anniversary. My editor, who knew him a little, thought she could talk him into it, but without success.

I did, however, have a great moment with Gene Siskel, who was Ebert’s original co-host on their TV movie review show. I was a 17-year-old phone clerk in the sports department at a newspaper in suburban Chicago in 1975. One evening, I answered the phone, expecting to talk to a high school basketball coach.

“Is Temple Pouncey there?” Pouncey was one of the writers, and was hosting a party that was legendary at the paper.

“No, he’s not. Can I take a message?”

“Yes, this is Gene Siskel, Can you tell him that I’m coming to the party?”

I almost dropped the phone. Siskel was the film critic at the Chicago Tribune, and this particular 17-year-old phone clerk wanted nothing more than to one day work for a big city newspaper like the Tribune. I idolized reporters the way others did rock stars.

“Yes sir, Mr. Siskel. I’ll give him the message.”

”OK. Now, that’s Gene Siskel,” and then he spelled his name for me, “S-I-S-K-E-L.”

Which is another lesson wine writers should learn – no matter how famous you think you are, you probably aren’t. Humility never goes out of style.

Wine review: Charles & Charles Rose 2011

The blog has made substantial progress in its five-plus years of existence – helping wine drinkers appreciate cheap wine and local wine in particular, and adding to the limited number of resources written in English for beginning wine drinkers.

Its great failing, though, has been in rose. No matter what I do, I can’t find a way to interest you in dry pink wine. The rose reviews are rarely well read, and at a time when thousands and thousands of people visit the blog, their poor showing seriously hurts my numbers.

Someone more business savvy or better attuned to the ways of the cyber-ether would get the message and cut back – or even eliminate -- the rose reviews. Needless to say, the Wine Curmudgeon is neither of those.

Because roses are worth drinking, even when it’s not summer. The Charles & Charles ($10, purchased, 13%) is bone dry, food friendly, balanced and fruity – the sort of wine that would go with any informal dinner, afternoon wine sipping, or friends in the living room. It has lots of strawberry and watermelon, which is balanced with pleasant acidity and a touch of minerality.

This is what U.S. rose should aspire to -- enough fruit to please Americans, but not so much as to confuse it with sweet, blush wine.

Ask the WC 1: Loose corks, cava, unadulterated wine

Because the customers always write -- this feature, which will run every now and then. Ask a wine-related question by clicking here or on the Ask the Wine Curmudgeon link on the top of the web site.

Greetings WC:
A bottle of white wine I bought got warm in the car last summer and the cork pushed out a small amount. Is that possible? If so, should I expect any negative impact to the wine getting warm?
Car & Driver

Dear Car & Driver:
Heat expands, and that's what happened here. It's not unusual, and often happens with wine kept in warehouses without air conditioning. Yes, they still exist. The wine may have spoiled or oxidized; really no way to tell until you taste it.

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Dear Mr. Curmudgeon:
I am a faithful reader of your ever informative and always entertaining blog. I want to re-stock my wine rack with cava. Any suggestions?
Bubbly drinker in New York

Dear Bubbly:
So hard to answer while I’m blushing. But you can’t go wrong with the widely available Segura Viudas and Casteller and Naveran from Ole Imports, which may be more difficult to find. Each is around $10. If you want to spend a bit more, try Raventos and Juve y Campos.

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Dear WC:
I'm looking for a simple red wine, one that is unfortified, unsweetened, with nothing added -- no spices, flavors, etc. What’s available?
Confused by winespeak

Dear Confused:
I'm surprised I don't get this question more often, given the terms used to describe wine flavors. If a wine writer says a wine has cherry fruit, it's not untoward to wonder if cherry juice has been addedadded. But most dry red wine is made without adding those things – typically, just grapes, yeast, and sulfites. You can buy a red wine from Bogle, for instance, and it should meet your criteria. The fruit flavors come from wine grapes, which have different flavor properties than table grapes.