The Wine Curmudgeon

Expensive wine 42: Newton Merlot Unfiltered 2005

It’s probably too much to call this wine an anachronism, but it is a snapshot of what life was like in a certain part of the wine business just in those warm, sunny summer days before the recession.

The Newton ($40, sample) is Napa Valley wine the way a certain segment of wine drinkers, critics, and retailers thought Napa Valley wine should be – rich, luscious, ripe, and alcoholic (15.6 percent, believe it or not). It screams “Give me more than 90 points!” and descriptors like intense only begin to tell the story.

These days, it’s more difficult to find wines made this way. The recession played its part, devastating the super-premium wine business. Meanwhile, consumers seem to be tiring of high alcohol, while cooler harvests in California the past couple of vintages have made it more difficult to get wine to taste this way.

For the Newton is distinctive. Though it’s a huge wine, it is more interesting than others of its ilk, with more balance between dark fruits, silky tannins, and the acid than I expected. Having said that, it needs food, and manly food at that – big slabs of red meat. Otherwise, after two glasses, you're done. That so many people wanted that sort of thing almost makes me want to wax nostalgic.

Wine of the week: Rook CMS 2010

The Wine Curmudgeon is supposed to be above things like cute labels and clever names, but even I get suckered in every once in a while. In this case, it was the wine’s name, which evoked memories of a card game and long ago rainy Sundays in the days when we had to amuse ourselves without personal electronics.

Though this is far from an ordinary livestock wine. The Rook ($13, purchased) is made by Washington state’s Corvidae Wine Company, one of those consumer-friendly, value-driven and well-run operations that seem to flourish there (see Hedges and Charles Smith). If it cost a couple of dollars less, it would be a credible candidate for the $10 Hall of Fame.

This is a red blend, mostly merlot, that shows Washington state’s solid and terroir-driven approach to winemaking. There is lots of black fruit as well as earthy tannins, which gives the wine some heft. What was most pleasing is that none of this seems forced, the way it can in similarly-priced wine when you can tell the winemaker used a little industrial magic to get the same result.

This is not a complex wine, but there is more going on than in most red wine at this price. It needs food, but that doesn’t have to be complicated, either – takeout pizza on rainy summer Sunday night when you don’t want to turn on the personal electronics.

Mini-reviews 38: Muscadet, Toad Hollow, Brocard, Rhiannon

Reviews of wines that don’t need their own post, but are worth noting  for one reason or another. Look for it on the final Friday of each month.

• Alfred Pery Vallee Loire Muscadet 2010 ($10, purchased): Those of us who think Muscadet, a French white, is one of the world's great cheap wine secrets can skip this one. Not much to it other than some lemon fruit amidst a bland, watery style.

• Toad Hollow Pinot Noir Rose 2011 ($10, sample): California wine is better than the 2010 vintage, which was a white zinfandel knockoff, but still not up to its former $10 Hall of Fame standards. Thin and missing any sort of noticeable fruit.

• Jean-Marc Brocard Chablis 2009 ($20, purchased): This French white is more New World chardonnay in style than most Chablis. It’s rounder and softer, with more red apple instead of green apple and Chablis' tell-tale acidity. Having said that, it's not worse, just different.

• Rhiannon 2010 ($13, sample): Find this California red blend for $10, and you're in business. Simple, dark fruits (even a little less than ripe, which I liked), and a bit of tannin.

Mark West and the revolution in pinot noir

This is the wine that helped changed pinot noir in the U.S., both in how it tasted and how it was sold. As such, it probably deserves some sort of lengthy academic treatise and recognition for those accomplishments -- good and bad. Instead, Constellation Brands, one of the world's biggest wine companies, just bought it, and who knows what’s going to happen next?

Before the current version of Mark West debuted in 2001, drinkable pinot noir cost at least $20 and came from Burgundy in France, Oregon, and parts of California no one knew much about. Most of the rest of the world’s pinot wasn’t very pleasant – harsh and unripe, even on its best days. That’s because pinot is not only difficult to grow, but difficult to make. Those who grew it in un-pinot places or who made it without having Zen-like pinot skills almost always failed.

Mark West’s great accomplishment had three parts: Making a quality wine, making it cheaply enough so it cost $10, and making so much of it that it could be sold in grocery stores. The irony is that, to do this, Mark West had to make pinot noir that didn't taste like pinot noir had always tasted. More, after the jump:

Wine of the week: Little James' Basket Press NV

This bottle could well be the future of the much-troubled French wine business. If so, the future may not be as dire as so many fear.

The Little James ($12, purchased) is a red blend made by Chateau de Saint-Cosme, a 450-year-old Rhone producer whose offerings include several $100, high-score wines. It’s not exactly like Silver Oak or Screaming Eagle doing a $12 wine, but it’s close enough.

How do they do it? By mixing current vintage wine with older wine, which is less expensive than using all current vintage juice. This version of the Little James is about half from 2011, and the rest comes from wine as old as the 1999 vintage.

Why do they do it? Because the French wine market, save for the most expensive wines, has been slowly vanishing for the past two decades. There are dozens of reasons, but the main one is that the rest of the world makes cheap wine just as well, if not better, than the French, and their unsold wine sits on store shelves or in warehouse vats until it’s thrown out.

The Little James is part of the attempt to recapture that market. It’s 100 percent grenache, a sturdy Rhone grape, and it smells and tastes of the Rhone. There is barnyard and bacon fat on the nose, and earthy, black fruit that gives way to a darkish finish. All in all, it’s an impressive effort that would pair with pizza, roast chicken, and almost anything with roasted mushrooms. It’s certainly not what I expected given the cutesy label and name (and a tip o’ the Curmudgeon’s fedora to Eddie Eakin at Dallas’ Veritas, who told me about this).

One caveat: Prices for the Little James are all over the place; I’ve seen it for as little as $10, and as much as $17. At $17, it’s not that great a value, and I suspect those retailers are trying to capitalize on St. Cosme’s reputation.

Wine of the week: Louis Tete Beaujolais-Villages 2010

Once, if you wanted an inexpensive quality bottle of wine, chances are you bought a Beaujolais. In fact, that was about the only decent cheap red wine – imported or otherwise – on most store shelves two decades ago.

Beaujolais, the French wine region just south of Burgundy, has fallen on hard times since then, something you’ll read about it in the trade press every once in a while. Sales have declined significantly, mostly because Beaujolais drinkers are dying off. The 1990s were a long time ago in the wine business, and Beaujolais was a Baby Boomer wine. And quality, despite assertions from the region, is inconsistent. Some of it is so badly made that it’s difficult to believe it’s a 21st century product.

Fortunately, the producer Louis Tete has held up its end. I bought this wine, its basic Beaujolais ($10, purchased), mostly for nostalgia value, not expecting much. But it was Beaujolais the way it should be, with just enough grapey flavor (courtesy of the gamay grape) so that you could tell it was from Beaujolais, but also lots and lots of character. There was acid and freshness, rare for a Beaujolais these days, as well as an earthiness and even some dark fruit.

This is the quintessential porch red wine, perfect for hot summer days (just 12 1/2 percent alcohol), barbecues and Fourth of July picnics. Highly recommended, and a candidate for the 2013 Hall of Fame.

Wine of the week: Cellar No. 8 Eight

The Wine Curmudgeon has written more than 200 wines of the week since I started the blog, and none has been a bigger surprise than this. Cellar No. 8 wines are about as ordinary as possible, the kind that defines grocery store wine. The reds all seem to taste the same, regardless of the varietal – lots of sweet fruit, some fake oak, and the kind of tannins that are there only if you pay careful attention.

And then there is the Eight ($10, sample), which is a stunner. This red blend, made with the usual suspects, is grocery store wine the way it should be. It has legitimate tannins and balanced acid and just enough red fruit – no cherry bomb here -- to round everything out. Yes, it’s simple, but it's clean and professional, and that's what you want in a simple $10 wine (which is probably closer to $8 in many locations). Drink this slighlty chilled on its own or with barbecue and burgers.

Given this brand’s track record, I almost didn’t taste it. But the Wine Curmudgeon is nothing if not stubborn, so I figured I’d have a glass and use the rest of the bottle for cooking. Stupid me. What’s the most important lesson in the wine reviewing? Taste the wine before you judge it.