The Wine Curmudgeon

Mini-reviews 26: Fat Bastard, Sangre de Toro, Irony, Carmel Road

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.

• Fat Bastard Chardonnay 2010 ($10, purchased): Much oakier than I remember it being, but it has been three or four years since I tasted it. That said, it's mostly balanced, and is a value if you can find at this price (though the suggested retail is $12).

• Sangre de Toro Rose 2010 ($10, sample): Very disappointing. Flabby, almost sweet, and without any of the freshness or fun that rose should have. I expect more from Sangre de Toro.

• Irony Pinot Noir 2009 ($14, sample): Doesn't taste much like pinot noir, with a big burst of sweet red fruit in the middle. But since it was probably made to taste that way, it's difficult to criticize it for not tasting like pinot noir.

• Carmel Road Chardonnay 2009 ($18, purchased): Comes from Monterrey, so that means less oakiness and more tell-tale green apple fruit and acid. The question: Is it a value at this price?

Mini-reviews 25: Moet, El Coto, Martin Codax, Pecorino

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. This month, a couple of roses to close out rose week.

• Moët & Chandon Grand Vintage Brut Rosé 2002 ($80, sample): Classic in style, with lots of acid and fantastic bubbles. Could probably age for a couple of years more to give the fruit a chance to show. A fine gift for someone who appreciates Champagne.

• El Coto Rioja Rosado 2010 ($10, sample): Much more New World than Spanish in style, with lots more fruit (strawberry) than a Spanish rose would have. Having said that, it's still dry and a fine, simple, fresh rose for summer.

• Martín Códax Albariño 2009 ($15, sample): Spanish white had lemon fruit and was a little fresher than usual, which was welcome. But it's still $2 or $3 more than similar wines.

• Cantina Tollo Pecorino 2009 ($16, purchased): This white was bright and Italian, which means not that much fruit (pears?), balanced acid, and long mineral finish. Highly recommended.

Memorial Day and rose, 2011

Memorial Day weekend means it's time for the annual rose post -- where you won't have to spend much more than $10 to have a good time.

Surprisingly, despite the weak dollar and the passage of all that time, that price point hasn’t changed since the Wine Curmudgeon started writing an annual rose piece almost 10 years ago. There are still dozens of terrific roses that cost $10 or so from all over the world. The one thing that has changed? The quality of rose keeps getting better, and it’s unusual to find a poorly made rose (something that wasn’t necessarily true 10 years ago).

What you need to know about rose -- after the jump:

Wine of the week: Toad Hollow Pinot Noir Rose 2010

The Wine Curmudgeon appreciated this wine the first time he tasted it, in those long ago days of newspaper wine columns. It's cheap, it's consistent, and it comes from a producer that cares about the quality of its inexpensive wine. What's not to like?

However, I have neglected to review the Toad Hollow ($10, purchased) in the blog's three-plus years of existence (though it is an original member of the $10 Hall of Fame). So let's remedy this now as we celebrate rose wine on the blog this week; my annual rose preview will run tomorrow.

Look for lots of strawberry and acid to complement the fruit, which has always been a Toad Hollow trademark. The wine seemed a bit sweeter this vintage than in the past couple, though that may have been because it had not been in the bottle long enough for all of its bits to come together (a wine geek would describe a young wine like that as a little shocky).

Update: I did a little checking, and the wine is noticably sweeter than usual this year. That's disappointing, because this has always been one of the great dry roses produced in the U.S. It probably won't stay in the Hall of Fame.

Four French wines you can afford

The biggest problem with Friday night's Planet Bordeaux Twitter tasting was that the Wine Curmudgeon couldn't drink the four wines over four nights, one night at a time. It was a shame to have to do them all at the same time.

Planet Bordeaux is a marketing effort to give well-made and well-priced wine from the less famous parts of the French region of Bordeaux exposure they don't normally get. The Twitter tasting was part of that effort; you can follow the tweets here. The tweeters, wine writers and bloggers, seemed impressed with the wines.

Here are my notes on the four wines, which kicks off rose week. The blog will feature the dry pink wine that too many of us don't appreciate, including a rose wine of the week on Wednesday and my annual rose preview on Thursday.

• Dourthe Grand Cuvee 2010 ($12, sample): This white is very New World in style, with grapefruit and pineapple in the middle. Well done; just not especially French.

• Chateau La Freynelle Blanc 2010 ($13, sample): This is an old friend, and I wasn't disappointed. It's more French-tasting than the Dourthe, though still a fair amount of citrus.

• Chateau Ballan Larquette Rose 2010 ($16, sample): An interesting wine that divided the tweeters and is difficult to describe. Some said it smelled like tomatoes; others said red fruit. I liked it, but $16 is a problem.

• Chateau Fontenille 2010 ($14, sample): My favorite of the tasting -- clean with deep red fruit and almost more red wine than rose. It's available in some markets for $10 a bottle, which makes it highly recommended.

$200 worth of wine

Don't fear, regular visitors. That's not one bottle of wine, but the result of a recent Wine Curmudgeon shopping expedition -- 13 bottles, only two of which cost more than $16. And there wasn't a stinker in the bunch.

The occasion for this spree? A chance to shop at Spec's, probably the best liquor retailer in Texas. Spec's doesn't have any stores in Dallas, but I was in Austin for a wedding and Spec's has several stores there. So that gave me a chance to check out Spec's vast inventory (at 80,000 square feet, it's bigger than most grocery stores) and its very competitive pricing. I was not disappointed.

More, after the jump:

Wine of the week: Maremma Toscana Rosato 2009

I can hear the complaining now: "Not another rose, Wine Curmudgeon. Aren't you tired of them yet?"

Not at all. I've never understood the reluctance for rose among so many wine drinkers (and sparkling wine too, for that matter). It's cheap and it's food friendly. And, best of all, it's cheap. Some of the hesitation, certainly, comes from the wine drinker's reluctance to be caught drinking pink wine, since they are terrified this will bring stares and giggles from the wine snobs. Fortunately, I don't care about stuff like that. And, with Thanksgiving a couple of weeks away, roses like the Maremma are the kinds of wine that more people should consider.

So what about the Maremma ($11, purchased)? It's Italian, a blend of sangivoese and cabernet sauvignon from Tuscany. Look for  pleasant tart cherry and cranberry fruit, but nothing too extreme, and a bit of a mineral finish. In this, it's a very old fashioned kind of rose -- dry and unassuming. I tasted it, put the glass down, and wasn't sure if I liked it. But the next thing I knew, the bottle was mostly empty and I was thinking about how pleasant it had been. Drink this chilled, but pair it with food. Hamburgers would be good, and so would many chicken dishes.