Loire Valley Wines Tasting

Monday, I had the opportunity to taste over 100 different wines from the Loire Valley – an often overlooked French wine region that produces a variety of excellent wines, from the standard red and white to rosé, sparkling and sweet wines.

 

The Loire Valley

The third largest French wine region, the Loire follows the 630 mile Loire River from central France west to Brittany where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. The river, itself, begins its life in the volcanic mountains of the Massif Central, it flows through rolling farmland towards the green pastures of Touraine and Anjou before widening and flowing across the flat plains of the Nantes countryside. The nickname Jardin de la France or the Garden of France beautifully describes the luxuriant green countryside.

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2008 Spring Tasting

“March Madness” does not only refer to the NCAA Tournament coverage but also describes the month’s tasting schedule. After attending Italian Wines 2008, I had the opportunity to taste a number of really good wines at another spring tasting last week.

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Fire up the grill?

Some may say it’s too early to start thinking about grill food, but I disagree.  For the second weekend in as many weeks I found myself standing outside inhaling the sweet smells of meat cooking over hot coals. Before you assume it was warm out, it wasn’t, the first was out on Long Island (New York) and the second was yesterday in Maine, hardly known for its warm and inviting springs.  

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The Gambero Rosso's Italian Wines 2008 Tasting NYC

I had the good fortune of attending Italian Wines 2008, an annual tasting featuring the Gambero Rosso’s top wines from their latest wine guide. Snooth’s blog has an interesting take on the tasting, though the author did not attend this year, and I agree with some, but not all of what he wrote.

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The Dastardly Dollar

We’ve had a number of small tasting so far this year, and a few larger events, but the majority of our tastings will take place in the coming weeks culminating in the annual pilgrimage to Verona for Vinitaly. Over the past few months, however, as we have tasted wines from around the world, there has been a noticeable increase in the cost of the wines.

When we taste, we attempt to consider each wine based on its merits, whether the tasting is blind or in arranged flights. Only after a wine has been tasted and discussed do we reference the price of the wine, and increasingly we are finding wines that are good, but not at the prices we would have to sell them at. 

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The aftermath of the Wine.com sting, and new hope for shipping to Maryland

There has been extensive, and at times vitriolic debate over Wine.com’s sting operation as they sought to get other retailers to ship to them illegally and report those shipments to state authorities. I’m not going to get into the debate, but if you would like to read more, you can find all you ever wanted to know about the subject, and more, here in a Vinography post.

While most of the comments have centered around the shock and dismay on the part of retailers and consumers alike, who see Wine.com’s actions as a betrayal, I think the benefits of their actions have been largely ignored.

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Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux - 2005 Vintage Tasting

One of the most common responses when I tell people what I do is a sarcastic, “that must be tough.” They are, of course, referring to the fact that I get to try so many new and interesting wines, and I certainly feel fortunate. Each tasting is an opportunity to try new wines, to gain experience tasting and, in some extremely lucky instances, to taste some of the world’s best wines.

These tastings are, however, not without their challenges, and a perfect example is the tasting I went to yesterday, the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux’s 2005 Vintage Tasting. This tasting, like the Gambero Rosso tasting later in the spring, offers probably the highest proportion of fantastic wines – pretty much all of them. With a list of Châteaux that includes: Angélus, Beau-Séjour Bécot, Berliquet, Canon-la-Gaffelière, Kirwan, Léoville barton, Baraire-Ducru, Beychevelle, Lynch-Bages, and Pichon-Longueville to name a few, it is easy to see why this event is so popular.

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California Champagne?

In a small victory for proponents of geographic authenticity in wines and wine labels, Decanter has an entertaining video of cases of California “Champagne” being destroyed. What I don’t understand is how California wineries can still get away with using another region’s name in their labeling. With the American Viticultural Area designations firmly established, I don’t see how wineries can justify protecting their regions while clearly taking advantage of the reputation of another region. If a Texan using the term Napa Valley Cabernet is forbidden, how can Paul Masson Chablis or Korbel California Champagne be acceptable?

To read more about AVAs you can visit either of the following links:

http://wiki.wineinstitute.org/wiki/American_Viticultural_Areas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Viticultural_Area#References

 

New Ruling in Texas

Most of my posts concerning wine shipping laws have been relaying bad news as states avoid opening up to direct-to-consumer shipping, or, even worse, go from an open state to a closed one.

Well, for once I have some moderately good news.

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Have I got the deal for you!

Normally when I say something like that it’s in regard to one or several of our wines, but this special deal has nothing to do with the Wine Messenger. If you act now, you could have your very own vineyard!

I stumbled upon two great deals:

On January 23rd you can take part in an auction in St. Émilion for Château Badette (no, we hadn’t heard of it either) an 8-hectare (20-acre) Grand Cru estate in the St. Christophe des Bardes sector of St. Émilion. The opening bid is 3.7 million Euros, or roughly $4.5 million. It includes vines, functioning cellars, and the fine soil of St. Émilion.

If you were hoping to spend a little more on your dream vineyard, and don’t want to deal with the hassle of a French auction (it involves candles for some reason), then you should turn your attention to Napa Valley, where the owner of a 12-acre estate that currently leases its property to the Del Dotto Vineyards is up for sale for a modest price of $34 million. It includes 5 acres of vineyards, caves, a tasting room and an art gallery, who could ask for more?

I hope I have helped, and let me know when you move in, I’ll be happy to lend a hand.

Now that I’ve covered all the serious news, I’ll get back to my whimsical posts next time.