The Wine Curmudgeon

Mini-reviews 40: Red Newt, Rene Barbier, Quincy, Steelhead

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:

• Red Newt Cellars Semi-Dry Riesling 2011 ($15, sample): This New York white, which I tasted as part of a Finger Lakes Twitter event, didn’t have as much varietal character as I expected. More sweet than anything else, without enough fruit or minerality to balance the sweetness.

• René Barbier Mediterranean Rose NV ($5, purchased): The best of the three Rene Barbier wines (and the most difficult to find), made more like a New World rose with strawberry fruit. Highly recommended.

• Domaine du Adéle Rouzé Quincy 2010 ($20, purchased): French white from the Loire is imported by the always reliable Charles Neal. Lots and lots of lemon; the wine may require a little more time in bottle to even out. Needs food, and probably seafood (boiled or grilled shrimp, steamed mussels).

• Steelhead Red 2010 ($15, sample): California blend is heavy on the cabernet sauvignon, so it needs beefy food. But it has lots of character and oomph, as well as blackberry fruit and dusty tannins.

Alabama keeps living up to Neil Young's expectations

Regular visitors to the blog know that the Wine Curmudgeon keeps a close eye on wine and liquor doings in Alabama. The state always seems to do exactly the wrong thing, continually demonstrating the inadequacies of the three-tier system.

In 2009, state booze cops forbid the sale of Cycles Gladiator wine, citing what the agency called its pornographic label – even though the label came from an 1895 art print, didn’t seem to bother anyone else in the rest of the country, and had been on sale in Alabama for three years.

Earlier this year, a couple of multi-million dollar (and sort of out of state) beer distributors used their juice with the Alabama legislature to squash the state’s 13 wineries. Apparently, they were terrified of the competition. Or at least that’s what they said.

In the latest development, the liquor cops raided a Birmingham beer and wine store and seized home brewing equipment, even though it’s not always illegal to sell such items in Alabama. They also took home brewing books. I wonder: Will the state try to block references to home brewing and home winemaking on the Internet if someone complains? Will they try to ban the blog for linking to this?

So thanks, Alabama. We can always count on you to brighten our day – as well to provide an opportunity to post a video of Neil Young performing the classic “Alabama,” after the jump:

DrinkLocalWine needs an executive director

I mention this here for two reasons – first, because we do good work and are ready to take DLW to the next level, and second, because I helped write the ad and it’s fairly clever.

If you’re interested, the ad is here. You can apply via drinklocalwine@gmail.com.

Good news about Texas wine -- no thanks to the state of Texas

Texas legislature? We don't need no stinking Texas legislature.

The fall wine season in Texas continues this month, and the Wine Curmudgeon will play his part at Grapefest at 4:15 p.m. on Thursday. I’ll talk about the changes in Texas wine, what to look for in the next couple of years, and how the situation is much improved from a year ago.

The Texas wine industry has finally figured out that the state will be about as much help in the future as an umbrella in an earthquake. The Texas legislature, which had done so much to assist local wine, decided last year that creating jobs and boosting the rural economy was not nearly as important as whining about big gummint and worrying about college football.

Hence the news late this summer that the Texas Wine & Grape Growers Association will start taxing itself to replace some of the money lost when the legislature cut funding for research and marketing. The program, similar to what trade groups in other states do (see California milk), is at least a year away, but that the state’s 250 wineries could agree that it needed to be done speaks volumes about how desperate the situation has become.

More good news, as well as a few things we still need to fix, after the jump:

Lone Star International Wine Competition 2012

The first day of judging in the 29th annual event, which focuses on Texas but includes wines from other regional states, California, and the world, was not much fun. The quality of the wine was uneven at best, and many of the judges I talked to wondered if the 2011 competition, perhaps the best ever, had been a fluke.

Not to worry. The second day, when we judged best of class, reaffirmed my faith in the quality of Texas wine. In many ways, it was a landmark for the state’s producers. The wines that earned top honors were distinctive and reflected Texas’ terroir, demonstrating that wineries here finally seem to have figured out that they should not make chardonnay and merlot, but wines better suited for our climate and soil.

More, after the jump:

Memorial Day and rose, 2012

You'll drink red and white; why not rose?

The Wine Curmudgeon appreciates his readers and visitors more than they will ever know. Without you, I’d have to get a real job, where I would probably not be allowed to drink wine.

Having said that, I must bring up one of your few failings: You don’t much rose. No rose review has ever been a top 10 annual post, and they barely crack the top 50.

I especially pondered that question preparing for this post, the blog’s fifth annual rose extravaganza. And I can’t come up with a good reason. Rose is cheap. It’s better made than ever before. It’s food friendly. You can put an ice cube in it. What more do you need from a wine?

After the jump, the basics about roses and this year’s recommendations:

The Beard Awards and regional wine

The Wine Curmudgeon has always had a middle of the country perspective when it comes to the Beard Awards, the food business' version of the Academy Awards. That is, the winners always seem to be from either coast, and especially from the East Coast, and especially from New York City. Right, Sharon Hage?

So it's not surprising that restaurants that usually win a Beard award, wine or otherwise, have very little do with wine that doesn't come from an established region. That logic, if depressing, is understandable. Beard award-winning restaurants cater to people who want big wines that get big scores. Or, as a top-name chef who has a Beard on his resume told me, "my customers expect the Wine Spectator top 100 on my wine list. I lose business if those wines aren't there."

So when a restaurant with regional wine wins a Beard award, I'm practically typeless. Seriously. It has taken me longer to write this four-paragraph post than others that were twice as long.

But there it is: Terroir, a wine bar in Manhattan, winning for best wine professional this year -- and Terroir serves New York wine at each of its three locations. Some of it is even featured on the epic wine list. Thank you, Paul Grieco (who won the award). It's a pleasure to find someone who understands that wine is not about what we're told to drink, but about finding something we like -- regardless of where it is from.