The Wine Curmudgeon

Wine of the week: Casteller Brut Rose NV

The two most unappreciated wines in the wine world are rose and sparkling wine. Don't believe me? Let the Wine Curmudgeon quote from sales data: Nielsen doesn't even track rose, which is apparently lumped in with blush wines, a category that includes white zinfandel. As near as I can tell, maybe two out of every 100 bottles sold in the U.S. between March 2010 and March 2011 were rose. And sparkling? The Wine Institute reports that about 135,000 cases of bubbly were sold in the U.S. in 2008. Which is less than the wine sold by the two or three biggest wineries in Texas in a normal year.

Hence this Mother's Day wine of the week, which is both rose and sparkling -- and cava to boot, which makes it a terrific value. The Casteller ($12, purchased) has a bit of what Champagne geeks call yeastiness (and is a good thing), a burst of strawberry fruit at the front, and a surprisingly long mineral finish, something rarely seen in a a wine that costs this little. And the bubbles? Long, lingering and lovely, which is also a surprise in a wine at this price. The Wine Curmudgeon loves Cristalino, and this wine makes Cristalino seem quite ordinary.

Toast Mom with this wine on Sunday. She'll appreciate it. It's also a fine food wine; pair it with any sort of brunch dish, main course salads or grilled chicken. And, if you need a little variety, Casteller makes a regular cava, also about $12, also worth checking out.

Wine of the week: Gruet Rose NV

The Wine Curmudgeon missed this last fall, which was quite a faux pas given how much I care about regional wine. New Mexico's Gruet Winery was named the best U.S. wine producer in 2010 in the quite prestigious International Wine and Spirits Competition. Pretty impressive for a regional winery, no?

So what better way to mark the third annual DrinkLocalWine.com conference this weekend in St. Louis than with one of my all-time favorites, Gruet's rose sparkling wine? How a family of expatriate French can make such terrific bubbly in New Mexico, using pinot noir and chardonnay that they grow, is beyond me. I'm just glad they're able to do it.

The rose ($14, purchased) has a firm acidic backbone, as quality sparkling wine should, and is balanced by softer berry fruit (strawberry?). Meanwhile, there is just enough caramel, another sign of well-made bubbly, to show that the Gruets know what they are doing. Drink this chilled on its own or with any kind of spring dinner, salad or picnic. And if you have any cold fried chicken around, it would do quite nicely.

Update: The Cristalino lawsuit

What do you call Cristalino, the Spanish sparkling wine, after a federal court judge says that you can't call it Cristalino?

What happens if you run a picture of the old Cristalino bottle, like the one on the left, after a federal court judge says you shouldn't?

Who would have thought that the Wine Curmudgeon needed an attorney to write about $10 wine? But that appears to be the case these days.

Regular visitors will remember that, last August, the company that owns Cristal (and which will never be mentioned on the blog) won a judgement in U.S. federal court in Minneapolis. Cristal's owner said there was evidence that consumers could be confused between the two brands, even though Cristal sells for hundreds of dollars and Cristalino doesn't, and they are rarely on sale in the same location. A federal court judge agreed, and ordered Cristalino to redesign and re-label its bottle, with a disclaimer that says Cristalino isn't affiliated with Cristal or The Company That Will Not be Named.

More, after the jump.

Dallas' Celebration restaurant and half-price wine

Dallas' Celebration restaurant makes an honest effort with its wine list, including Texas wines. This is impressive, not only because its home-style Texas menu doesn't lend itself to wine, but because so few of its customers seem to drink wine. Or at least so few of them seem to drink wine when I eat there.

But what's really impressive is Celebration's half-price wine night on Thursdays. That's when my table is not the only one with a bottle of wine on it, and the waiter said last night that the restaurant's wine sales triple on Thursday. Celebration owner Ed Lowe, as savvy a restaurateur as there is, has learned something that so many others have not: That he can make more money by selling less expensive wine.

Now, if I can only talk Lowe into doing half-price night more often.

Valentine's Day Wine 2011

Ordinarily, the Wine Curmudgeon does not participate in the festivities surrounding The Holiday that Must not be Named. But this year, given the rough winter that so many of us are having, I figured, why not? Plus, it gives me a chance to write about champagne and sparkling wine, which was the blog's New Year's resolution. (If you really don't want to do bubbly, this Chalk Hill is quite nice.)

Bubbly fits Valentine’s Day like a red paper heart (and yes, you can even drink it with chocolate). The sparkling wine glossary explains all, and the 2009 New Year's post explained the difference between the world's various sparkling wines.

So if you’re wondering where to go with Valentine’s Day wine, here are three sparkling suggestions:

• Freixenet Cordon Rosado Brut ($11, sample). Spanish bubbly is called cava, and this one is more fruity (some citrus) than similarly-priced cavas. Plus, it's pink, so you're getting with the holiday theme.

• Simonnet-Febvre Cremant Brut ($20, purchased). Bubbly from the Chablis region of France, which means the grapes approach champagne quality at less than half the price.

• Pol Roger White Foil Brut ($45, sample). The real stuff, with champagne’s classic green apple flavor and great bubbles that stream to the top of the glass.

The Wine Curmudgeon's cava adventure, part II

This is the second of two parts about cava, the Spanish sparkling wine -- reviews of many of the cavas I tasted. The first part, an overview of cava, posted Feb. 3.

Mini-reviews of some of the cavas that I tasted during my Spanish adventure (photos here, courtesy of Mary Gorman, DWS). Full disclaimer: The trip was paid for by cava producer Segura Viudas, which is part of one of the largest cava companies in the world. But no quid pro quo was part of the trip, and I have not agreed to write anything in exchange for being invited. The reviews, after the jump:

The Wine Curmudgeon's cava adventure, part I

This is the first of two parts about cava, the Spanish sparkling wine. The second part, short reviews of several cavas, posted Feb. 4.

Two things confuse wine drinkers about cava, the Spanish sparkling wine. First, they assume that because it has bubbles that it's like French champagne or California bubbly. Which it's not. Second, because it's so cheap -- almost all of the world's cava costs less than $15 -- they figure that it's one of those cheap wines that they shouldn't be seen drinking in public.

Neither could be further from the truth. The Wine Curmudgeon is a long-time cava supporter; after all, it's cheap and offers value, and that's my reason for being. Yet even I discovered there is more to cava than meets the price tag during my trip to Spain last week. It is, as the inestimable Janet Kafka noted, "a wine that needs someone behind the label to explain it."

What those things are, after the jump -- and I have photos from the trip, courtesy of Mary Gorman, DWS: