The Wine Curmudgeon

Wine of the week: Thorny Rose Sauvignon Blanc 2011

New Zealand sauvignon blancs were all the rage in the couple of years before I started the blog. One of them, Cloudy Bay, even got big scores from the Winestream Media, something that almost never happens to sauvignon blancs.

Since then, they’ve mostly faded into the store shelf and have become just another wine to buy. I’m not quite sure why; the fickle consumer, perhaps, who moved on to something else?

So I was surprised to see the Thorny Rose ($9, purchased, 13.5%), apparently a new label from Big Wine’s Constellation Brands. Who is doing new sauvignon blancs these days?

Be glad they’re doing this one. I expected another tepid grocery store New Zealand sauvignon blanc, with lots of sort of grapefruity fruit and not much else. Instead, I tasted lots of real grapefruit, as well as a tiny bit of tropical fruit in the middle and even an attempt at a finish. This is not a one-flavor wine by any means. (Though, if you click on the link to the wine, be warned: The copy reads as if it was written by someone my age trying to appeal to someone in their 20s.)

Serve it chilled with roast or grilled chicken or boiled or grilled seafood, and don’t forget how much sauvignon blanc likes garlic and parsley.

Wine of the week: Line 39 Sauvignon Blanc 2010

Here’s today’s metaphysical question: Is Cecchetti Wine Company, which makes Line 39, an artisan producer because it’s family-owned, or part of evil Big Wine because its owners once worked for the company that makes Pepperwood Grove, about as $7 a grocery store wine as it gets?

Sometimes, we make wine harder than it needs to be.

The question we should be asking “What does the wine taste like?” And. as I noted for the 2009, the 2010 Line 39 ($10, purchased, 13.5%) is “more than I expected.”

It’s also interestingly different from the ‘09, with less fruit and more California grassy-ness (the smell of a freshly mowed lawn that is a hallmark of a certain kind of California sauvignon blanc). Look for some lime zest and a sort of slate finish – all clean and crisp. This is nicely done wine that, if it not quite $10 Hall of Fame quality, is the sort of thing to keep chilled around the house so it’s handy when you feel like a glass.

Wine of the week: Domaine de Pouy 2011

This Gascon white wine set me up for a 2013 Curmudgie. I saw it in the store, and immediately doubted whether it would be any good, and for no reason other than I was being stupid.

A guy I know at the store talked me into buying it, and the first thing I did the next time I saw him was to apologize for being so cranky. What’s the most important rule in tasting wine? Drink it before you judge it.

The de Pouy ($10, purchased, 10.5% alcohol) is another amazingly fresh, almost grapey wine from Gascony, made with grapes used almost nowhere else in the world. It’s one of many Gascon wines I’ve praised over the past several years, many of which are in the 2013 $10 Hall of Fame.

What sets the de Pouy apart is a green apple sort of citrus note that balances everything and takes the wine where most $10 wines don’t go. Yes, it’s a simple wine, but the best simple wines, like this one, aren’t overdone or insulting. That’s what makes them interesting.

Highly recommended; chill it and drink on its own, or with almost any kind of food that isn’t red meat, a cream sauce, or spaghetti. It should stay in the Hall as long as it costs $10 -- and as long as I don’t judge it before I drink it.

Wine of the week: Castello Montauto Vernaccia di San Gimignano 2010

We’ve had more than 250 wines of the week on the blog since we started, and this may be the most unique.

For one thing, the Montauto ($10, purchased) is a white wine from Tuscany, best known as a red wine region. For another, it’s made with vernaccia, a minor grape even by Italian standards, given that there are more little-known grapes in Italy than almost anywhere else in the world.

And it doesn’t taste like you’d expect an Italian wine to taste, which means it’s not for everyone -- especially for people who prefer anything but subtlety in their glass. Look for some white pepper and lots of minerality to go with a little lemon peel, and not much else. In this, it’s almost like an aperitif made with tonic water and vermouth. But it’s fresh and clean and very well done.

In fact, it was far from a wine of the week when I first tasted it, but the more I thought about it, that difference was part of the Montauto’s charm. It’s the sort of wine that fits the holidays -- light and refreshing, whether for drinking on its own or with Christmas oysters.

Two old-fashioned French wines for the holidays

In which the Wine Curmudgeon enjoyed two reasonably priced wines from Burgundy, a red and a white, that didn’t taste like they were made with the wrong grapes or came from California. In this case, old-fashioned does not mean outdated or not worth drinking. More, after the jump:

Wine of the week: Alois Lageder Pinot Bianco 2010

One of the great joys of Italian wine is also why Italian wine is so frustrating. There are too many wines and too many regions and too much to understand, but the thrill of finding a wine completely by accident makes up for all of the aggravation.

That’s what happened with the Lageder ($10, purchased). It’s an Italian white wine made with a German grape, pinot blanc, that is more popular in France than it is in Germany – but in Alsace, a region of France that used to be part of Germany. And if that wasn’t complicated enough, this wine is made by a fifth-generation Italian producer that comes the country’s far northeast, which is almost in Austria (as you can tell by Lageder, which sounds more German than Italian).

With a story like that, how could I not buy the wine? Best yet, the Lageder rewarded me for the decision. It didn’t taste like I expected it to – none of that Italian minerality or bracing acidity. It was a more subtle wine, fresh and clean but with a bit of richness to go with some apple fruit. In this, it was more Alsatian than Italian, though I paired it with my annual spaghetti carbonara dinner and it was exactly what the spaghetti needed.

Wine review: Anne Amie Cuvee A Amrita 2011

This post was going to be a wine of the week for a different wine from Oregon’s Anne Amie – the muller-thurgau, one of my all-time favorites. But bizarre fog last year did something to the grapes, and rather than make a crappy wine, Anne Amie winemaker Thomas Houseman decided not to make it at all. How often do I get to write that?

So we’ll have to settle for the Amrita ($15, sample), a white blend that is a fine wine in its own right. It's mostly chardonnay and riesling (plus eight other grapes for good measure), and is fresh and lively and without the stilted, heavy fake oak that so many wines at this price use to compensate for poor quality fruit, to cover up a winemaking flaw, or to add oak flavor because they think it makes a more popular wine.

The Amrita, like the muller-thurgau, is a food wine with enough sweetness to pair with spicy food (look for a little citrus and apricot fruit), but not enough to offend people who think sweet wine means white zinfandel. In this, it would be a huge hit at Thanksgiving, what with turkey and cornbread dressing.