Tag Archives: French wine

Wine of the week: Cote Mas Blanc Mediterranee 2018

Cote Mas Blanc MediterraneeThe Cote Mas Blanc Mediterranee offers quality and value — and in a 1-liter bottle

Paul Mas, in many of the company’s various names and labels, almost always offers terrific cheap wine,  and the Cote Mas Blanc Mediterranee 2018 is no exception.

The Cote Mas Blanc Mediterranee ($11/1-liter, purchased, 12.5%) is what well-made, value-oriented cheap wine should be. It tastes like the grapes that are in it (35 percent grenache blanc, and bits of vermentino, chardonnay, and sauvignon blanc) and it tastes like a wine from southern France. And, at 1-liter, there are two more glasses than a normal bottle.

The grenache blanc gives the wine that wonderfully oily, stone fruit character that we don’t see often enough in our world of fake oak chardonnay and New Zealand-knockoff sauvignon blanc.  The other three grapes each lend something without overpowering the wine, and the result is fresh, crisp, and a little floral. In all, it was much more enjoyable than I expected (and especially since the red version, the Rouge Intense, was sweet and almost nasty).

Highly recommended. Chill this, and keep it around over the holidays, in case someone stops by. Or, if you want a glass or two of wine after a long day of holiday something or other.

Imported by Espirit du Vin

Wine of the week: Chateau Pas de Rauzan 2016

Chateau Pas de RauzanWho needs toasty and oaky reviews? We have a limerick for the Chateau Pas de Rauzan

The Wine Curmudgeon has never much cared for the traditional wine review or the toasty and oaky tasting note. Aren’t I the one who plagiarized a sonnet to write a review?

So why not a wine review limerick for Chateau Pas de Rauzan 2016 ($11, purchased, 13.5%)? It’s a French red blend made with about equal parts cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and cabernet franc.

The limerick is courtesy of the great John Bratcher. And, frankly, I think it does a terrific job saying all that needs to be said about the wine:

For an everyday red Bordeaux
This wine you should get to know.
Light tannins, some earth and some spice
With dark fruits, mai oui, it’s so nice.
Magnifique and the price is so low.

Thanksgiving wine 2019

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

Mini-reviews 126: White Burgundy, albarino, Estancia, petit verdot

white burgundyReviews of wines that don’t need their own post, but are worth noting for one reason or another. Look for it on the fourth Friday of each month.

• Jean-Jacques Vincent Bourgogne Blanc 2017 ($20, purchased, 13%): This is the second time I bought this chardonnay from the Burgundy region of France, which shows that even those of us who do this for a living make mistakes. Bland, boring, and overpriced. Imported by Frederick Wildman & Sons

• Raimat Saira Albarino 2016 ($10, purchased, 12.5%): This Spanish white is cheaply made, watery, and doesn’t much taste like albarino. It apparently exists for no other reason than to cost $10. Imported by Aveniu Brands

• Estancia Sauvignon Blanc 2016 ($8, purchased, 13.5%): Estancia was once a dependable cheap wine producer. Now, it’s just another Big Wine brand. This California white is green and unripe and tastes very little like sauvignon blanc.

• Cameron Hughes ‘Lot 638’ Petit Verdot 2016 ($15, sample, 14.4%): VinePair’s reviewer loved this Washington state red wine, raving about its “concentrated dark-berry fruit, especially blackberry and black currant.” That’s the exact reason I didn’t care for it – too ripe and too overdone, especially given the grapes involved.

Photo: “Lancers” by Rochelle Ramos is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

Wine of the week: Chateau Bonnet Rose 2018

chateau bonnet roseThe Chateau Bonnet rose comes from one of the world’s best cheap wine producers – and may disappear if the 25 percent wine tariff takes effect

What better way to say goodbye to all of the wonderful cheap wine we may lose in the wake of the U.S.-European Union trade war than with the Chateau Bonnet rose?

The Chateau Bonnet rose ($11, purchased, 13%) will be much missed. It’s the quintessential $10 wine – well-made, consistent from vintage to vintage, and speaks to terroir. In this, it’s a blend of merlot and cabernet sauvignon, so it’s a little fuller than a Provencal rose, rounder and not quite as zesty. This is neither good nor bad; just different, since these grapes come from Bordeaux and not Provence.

Look for red fruit (ripe-ish cherries?), but the wine also has rose’s lift and freshness. It’s not a heavy rose, like those made for red wine drinkers in California, but one with its own style. Highly recommended, and a candidate for the 2020 $10 Hall of Fame.

A word about prices: The price of the Bonnet wines has been going up for the past couple of years, mostly because all Bordeaux has become more expensive regardless of quality. The red blend has been closer to $16 than $10 for a while, and the white is closer to $15 in some parts of the country. The rose was $10 was last vintage, but may be as much $13 depending on where you live.

If you can find this wine (or any of the Bonnets) for less than $13, buy as much as you can. These will almost certainly be tariff casualties, since there is little reason to expect consumers to pay $17 for a $10 wine. Hence, once the current inventory is gone, it’s likely that little will be imported to the U.S.

Imported by Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits

Expensive wine 125: Two Bruno Paillard Champagnes

bruno paillard champagneYes, they cost a lot of money. But these two Bruno Paillard Champagnes show that not all expensive wine is overpriced

Champagne long ago stopped being priced reasonably, its cost hostage to the Champagne business’ hubris and demand from Asia. Even a very ordinary bottle, barely worth drinking, can cost $40. So when I tasted two Bruno Paillard Champagnes last week, offering finesse and elegance at a fair price, it was time to write a blog post

The Extra Brut Premiere Cuvee NV ($50, sample, 12%) and the Extra Brut Premiere Cuvee Rose NV ($60, sample, 12%) are reminders that expensive wine does not have to be overpriced. (Quick note: Only sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France can be called Champagne. See the blog’s Champagne and sparkling wine primer.)

Neither is cheap, but both offer quality comparable to more costlier bottles – and, frankly, they’re much more interesting. One reason? Paillard blends old wine saved for the purpose into the current wine, giving them an almost honeycomb character. Plus, this is a family business that does things its way.

The Premiere Cuvee is not quite grower Champagne, but it’s not the same $45 bottle sitting on liquor store shelves, either. Look for a light, fresh approach to the wine, minus the yeasty character so many other wines strive for. There is crisp apple and even some lemon fruit, courtesy of the chardonnay in the blend (even though the wine is about 45 percent pinot noir).

The rose is even more appealing (which, given the price, should tell you how much I enjoyed it). Again, even though there is probably more pinot noir in the blend, there is enough chardonnay to make it much fresher than you think it whould be. The cherry fruit is complex – something deeper and more subtle than the usual produce department cherry flavor. Highly recommended.

Imported by Serendipity Wine Imports

Wine of the week: Calvet Blanc Reserve 2018

The Calvet Blanc white Bordeaux is fresh, modern, and a very fair value

A long time ago, in a wine world far, far away, most quality wine shops sold cheap and enjoyable white Bordeaux. You could even find it in supermarkets. The reason that it was so inexpensive and plentiful is that French producers made too much of it, even for a wine drinking country like France.

The difference between then and today? Premiumization. There is still too much white Bordeaux in the world, but since it’s less expensive, we see less of it. Because the wine business has to sell us $15 wine that’s much less interesting.

So when the Wine Curmudgeon finds something like the Calvet Blanc ($11, purchased, 11.5%), he buys it. It’s more modern in style than white Bordeaux from the old days, made entirely of sauvingon blanc (so no semillon, which was quite common then).

The Calvet Blanc is a little more New Zealand in style than I like, with more grapefruit than the subtler lemon and lime. And there isn’t a lot of the traditional minerality. But it’s not simple or dull, the grapefruit isn’t over the top, there’s a little grassyness to add interest, and the finish is long, clean, and stony. In all, the wine is more than drinkable and a very fair value.

Imported by Calvet USA