Category:Holiday wine

Holiday wine gift guide 2019

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

holiday wine gift guide 2019

No, the Wine Curmudgeon is not suggesting anyone buy this wine workout Christmas tree ornament.

The Wine Curmudgeon holiday wine gift guide 2019 — great wine and even a wine coloring book

• Holiday wine trends 2019

The Wine Curmudgeon’s holiday wine gift guide 2019 offers practical, value-oriented, yet still fun gifts. What else would you expect after all these years?

Consider:

• This year’s collection of wine books was, sadly, a bit pretentious for the blog. But never fear: How about a wine coloring book? When Life Gets Complicated, I Wine ($13), with 12 colored pencils. Take that, wine snobs.

• The Edmunds St. John Bone-Jolly Gamay Noir 2018 ($29) is the current vintage of one of the best wines I have tasted in almost three decades of doing this. It’s a California wine made with the gamay grape in a region far, far off the tourist track. There usually isn’t much of it, so when I saw it on wine.com, it moved to the top of the holiday wish list. Highly recommended, and marvel at how this wine reflects the berry fruit of the gamay, as well as its terroir.

• Italy’s white wines are too often overlooked, and especially those made with the arneis grape. The Vetti Roero Arneis 2018 ($22) is one such example — almost nutty, with wonderful floral aromas and the soft, citrusy flavors. Drink it on its own, or with holiday seafood or poultry. Highly recommended.

• The Repour Wine Saver ($9 for a 4-pack) is a single-use stopper that preserves leftover wine one bottle at a time. In this, I was surprised at how well it works, and it’s not as expensive as more complicated systems like the VacuVin.

• Wine-Opoly ($21), because why shouldn’t we try to take over the wine world just like Big Wine? No dog or iron playing pieces in this wine-centric version of Monopolyl rather, they are wine bottles.

More holiday wine gift guides:
• Holiday wine gift guide 2018
• Holiday wine gift guide 2017
• Holiday wine gift guide 2016

Holiday wine trends 2019

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Holiday wine trends 2019We’re buying big and red and pricey for holiday wine trends 2019

The wine we’re buying for the holidays this years seems to have little in common with what we bought in 2018. Call it the holiday wine trends 2019 conundrum.

The retailers I talked to three parts of the country said we’re buying big and red and pricey. A Boston retailer reports that his customers are also much less adventurous, opting for the tried and true – and even bourbon and rye whiskey – instead of taking a chance on high priced wine they may not know much about.

Who would have expected that after a year like 2019 and especially after we were apparently looking for different and less expensive in 2018?

“I’m actually kind of surprised that we’re selling so much expensive wine,” says Dan Fredman, who oversees the upscale Biagio Wine & Spirits in Dallas’ Victory Park neighborhood. He is selling lots and lots of Napa Valley caberent sauvignon, as well as Champagne and sparkling wine costing as much as $150.

That’s also the case for the wine shop at Lake Geneva Country Meats, a small grocer in a tourist region in southern Wisconsin. Nick Vorpagel, a long-time friend of the blog, reports that his customers are buying a $16 or $18 California cabernet instead of a $12 bottle, and that paying $15-$20 a bottle seems much more common than a year ago. In fact, his average bottle price increased seven percent this year.

The reason? Premiumization, of course.

“Wine has become so much more expensive that people don’t want to take chances,” says Fredman. “What’s the point of buying or trying something different that costs more, when you can get what you know someone will like?”

So it’s no wonder that the wine business is more than content with selling less wine, since premiumization seems to be working so well. Having said that, several retailers (I won’t name theml no sense in getthing them in trouble with their suppliers), that they are seeing more and more poorly made wine selling for $18 under the guise that if it costs more, it must be better.

“How much longer can they continue to fool people like that?” asked one of them.

It’s a question that may well be answered sometime next year.

More on holiday wine trends:
• Holiday wine trends 2018
• Holiday wine trends 2017
• Holiday wine trends 2016

Photo: “Stacked wine bottles” by niallkennedy is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 

Wine of the week: Banfi Principessa Gavia 2018

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Principessa GaviaThe Principessa Gavia is a white Italian wine that’s just the thing for Thanksgiving

Big Wine doesn’t always fare well on the blog, and neither does Italy’s cortese grape. The latter shows up in lots and lots of equally lackluster white wine from the Gavi region, which is why a Gavi has been the wine of the week just three times in 12 years. And the former makes lots and lots of lackluster wine to sell on supermarket shelves

Neither of which is the case with Banfi’s Principessa Gavia ($15, purchased, 12.5%). Banfi isn’t quite as big as it used to be, but it has always delivered top-notch Italian wine at a more than fair price, whether $10 or $50. And this Gavi puts most others at this price to shame.

First and foremost, it’s Italian in style, and not wine made to please American wine drinkers. In this, it shows off the cortese grape without dumbing it down. That means stone fruit, floral aromas, and an almost fruity yet clean finish. That combination is not easy to pull off. Perhaps most impressive, it has an almost hidden acidity – you notice it, but then it’s gone, and doesn’t cover up the rest of the wine.

Highly recommended, and just the thing for Thanksgiving.

Imported by Banfi Vintners

Expensive wine 126: Patricia Green Pinot Noir Reserve 2017

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

The Patricia Green PiPatricia Green Pinot Noir Reservenot Noir Reserve offers value and quality just in time for Thanksgiving

Oregon pinot noir has long enjoyed a reputation for value and quality, and little has changed about that despite all of the other changes in wine since the end of the recession. Case in point: the Patricia Green Pinot Noir Reserve.

The Patricia Green Pinot Noir Reserve ($24, purchased, 13.7%) is one of the best values in wine today – a top-notch red made with quality fruit that speaks to the region’s terroir and the pinot noir grape. In this, it offers a standard that others need to pay attention to (and probably explains why the Wine Spectator likes it as much as I do).

The best part about this wine may well be that it’s still young, and will need a couple of years to show off its best qualities. Because there are plenty of those. It’s a subtle wine, much closer to Burgundy than California, but still very Oregon in style. That means earth and the tannins found only in quality pinot noir. There is brambly black fruit, but it’s more zesty and less pronounced than elsewhere in the state.

Highly recommended, and just the wine for Thanksgiving. Or, frankly, when you want to enjoy quality at an unbelievable price.

Holiday wine tips: The WC makes his Internet video debut

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s — the Wine Curmudgeon talks holiday wine tips

Which deserves a special Sunday post.

My effort is part of the Private Label Manufacturer’s Association Store Brands USA series. Full disclosure: I’m consulting for the private label group in its quest to convince U.S. retailers to step up their store brand wine effort. Because, of course, Winking Owl.

The host is the eminently talented Michael Sansolo; his show is “Shopping with Michael.” And how is that for opening a bottle of sparkling wine with nary a miscue — and in just one take.

This looks like the format we’ll use for future wine efforts — the give and take with Michael works much better than the usual, sleep-inducing wine lecture video.

Thanksgiving wine 2019

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

thanksgiving wine 2019Four Thanksgiving wine 2019 suggestions

Thanksgiving is the Wine Curmudgeon’s favorite holiday. When else do we get to get to share lots of wine and good food for no other reason than wine and good food? Plus, there is cooking, and it doesn’t get much better than the way a roasting turkey in the oven makes the house feel. The blog’s guidelines for holiday wine buying are here.

These Thanksgiving wine 2019 suggestions should get you started:

• Maison Albert Bichot Chablis 2016 ($20, purchased, 12.5%): This French white wine, made with chardonnay, gets surprisingly low marks on CellarTracker, the blog’s unofficial wine inventory software. Which is just one example of how useless scores are. This is delicious white Burgundy at a price I can’t imagine, crisp and lemony and minerally. Highly recommended. Imported by European Wine Imports

• Georges Vigouroux Pigmentum Rose 2018 ($10, purchased, 12%): This French pink from the always dependable Georges Vigouroux uses malbec to its best advantage, with not too much dark fruit and a clean and fresh wine. It’s a nice change from everyone making Provencal-style roses. Imported by AP Wine Imports

• Azienda Vitivinicola Tonnino Nero d’Avola 2017 ($14, purchased, 13%): Interesting Sicilian red that more resembles Oregon pinot noir than it does Sicilian nero. It’s more brambly, like berries, than the usual plummy fruit. It’s less earthy, and the acidity is more noticeable. Imported Bacco Wine & Spirits/em>

• Scharffenberger Brut Excellence NV ($20, sample, 12%): California sparkling that tastes like it’s supposed to at a fair value — creamy, yeasty, apple fruit, not too tart, and soft but persistent bubbles. In this, it’s a tremendous value.

More about Thanksgiving wine:
• Thanksgiving wine 2018
• Thanksgiving wine 2017
• Thanksgiving wine 2016
• Wine of the week: Falesco Est! Est!! Est!!! 2017
• Expensive wine 123: Long Meadow Ranch Pinot Noir Anderson Valley 2016

Labor Day wine 2019

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Labor Day wine 2019

Fire up the grill and break out the Labor Day 2019 wine

Enjoy Labor Day 2019 with four wines that focus on value and quality

It has been a mild summer in Dallas — lots of rain in June, an unseasonably cool day in July, and no 100 degree days until July 30. Having said that, Labor Day means cooler weather sooner rather than later, so let’s celebrate with Labor Day wine 2019.

These four bottles will get you started, and don’t overlook the blog’s porch wine guidelines:

• Bonny Doon Malvasia Bianca 2018 ($18, purchased, 13.5%): This California white is nothing if not interesting, as well as a terrific food wine: Flavors of orange, lime, and then more orange. This means it’s varietally correct, and there is freshness and a very zippy acidity.

• Sierra Cantabria Rosado 2018  ($12, purchased, 13%): This Spanish pink, made from tempranillo in the Rioja region, does all it should for the price — a little orangish red fruit, some stoniness on the back, and crisp throughout.
Imported by Fine Estates from Spain

•Ludovicus Garnacha 2015 ($12, sample, 14%): It’s amazing that this Spanish red has aged this well, given the grape and the cost. Rich and full, easy tannins, lots of dark fruit (cherry? blackberry?), and surprisingly clean and un-cloying for a garnacha. Needs food — Labor Day barbecue, anyone?. Imported by Ole Wine Imports

• La Granja 360 Brut NV ($6, purchased, 11.5%): This Spanish bubbly from Trader Joe’s is pleasant and sweetish, more like Prosecco than Cava. That means  softer fruit (less tart green apple and more red delicious) and a much softer mouth feel. But the bubbles are tight, and you can do a lot worse for $6. Imported by Evaki

Photo: “Picnic-2004-681” by Nashville First Baptist is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

For more about Labor Day wine:
• Labor Day wine 2018
• Labor Day wine 2017
• Labor Day wine 2016