Wine for a Holiday

This coming Monday is Memorial Day. I'll be spending the weekend in Philadelphia, with family, as there are a couple birthdays around this time. Saturday night, we'll be going out to dinner, and I'm providing the wine - wait, what do you mean that's not a surprise?

Ok, yeah. It's a given that I provide the wine these days. I have access to a lot of wonderful wines from all over the world, and I pay a great price for them.

This weekend, we'll be drinking Chateau la Pastorale, Buzet, France, 2000. One of my favourite wines, the blend is 50% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Franc, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon. It's a mature wine, with a colour tending towards orange brick, and flavours running the gamut from damp soil to a typically Merlot pluminess. At $13,99 it's a great price for a wonderful wine.

I'm a bit surprised I haven't written on this wine before, considering it's one of my favourites. The two bottles I'm bringing to Philly mean I've bought more than a half case of it.

The business of Wine

So I'm sitting here at work (yes, I know, blogging at work is a big no-no, but I have nothing to do until the people in front clear out and I can sweep the sidewalk), thinking about several conversations I've had recently with customers and co-workers.

Wine is a business.

There have been several posts on this topic from some very good bloggers, and I'd like to add my $0.02 in.

First and foremost, the store I work at is intended to make money. Location #2, having been open only a short while, is already posting a profit, which is a wonderful sign. Location #1 is still a wonderful place to explore and find wines you've never heard of. As I continue to work here, I'm learning the ins and outs of running one's own store, and it is not easy. Seeing as how I plan on opening my own one day, here are a few things I've decided are essential.

1. Hire a manager for day-to-day business, general bookkeeping, and other paperwork. Said manager should NOT be responsible for ordering.

2. One person should be responsible for ordering. Whether it's the owner, or a buyer, that person should have no other responsibilities.

3. Communication is key. If the manager is responsible for all hiring, firing, raises, and other personnel issues, then they should keep the owner/s updated on all discussions relating to those issues.

4. Keep staff to a minimum, and do whatever you can to keep them full-time.

5. There must be schedules in place, and everyone must know them. This goes not only for shift schedules, but cleaning, general maintenance, and delivery.

6. Every week should see a new wine. If there isn't room on the shelves because of single bottles left, find a way to get rid of those single bottles. Put them in a bin for people to hunt through.

7. A bottle of something that isn't selling (and is stocked heavily) should be tasted every night.

8. Hold classes. More informed customers means more sales, and higher-priced wine.

9. Taste the staff on what is in-house. Encourage them to go to trade events, and make sure schedules are shifted to accommodate tastings. The staff must be educated. If that means having a rep in to taste everyone on what they have in-house, then so be it.

10. Have books and publications about wine available for sale, and for staff use. See #'s 7, 8, and 9 for reasons.

Those are my 10 points on running a wine store. Obviously some of them are general, and I may add to this later as I think of more, but for now this is good.

Now, to convince my landlord to allow me a kitten so I can rename this blog what I wish to have my future store named: Athena, Nico & Petite Sarai (Aglianico & Petite Sirah - two unusual grape varietals).

Wine Blogging Wednesday, take two.

So the last WbW I considered participating in was supposed to be French Cabernet Franc. I wasn't able to get my hands on a good Chinon, although I did end up having a wonderful one the weekend after, thanks to my aunt and uncle's fantastic wine cellar, and their willingness to put up with the whole chaos-loving family for the Easter holiday.

This week, however, I am able to get my hands on the theme: Old World Riesling.

The website doesn't actually have the theme up yet, although Alder over at Vinography mentions it. So I'll probably head into Manhattan and pick up an interesting one from either Chamber Street Wines or Crush, two of my favourite stores. I've basically exhausted the stock of Rieslings here, mainly because I absolutely love the ones we carry.

Riesling is a fascinating wine. Low in alcohol, usually, it still carries a wonderful body and very smooth mouth feel. Some Rieslings will have a bit of tingle, just enough to make you question your senses. This is normal, as the QbA classification calls for a small dosage to be added as the wine is bottled.

A dosage is added to wines that come from underripe grapes. Champagne and other sparkling wines made in the traditional method will have a dosage, usually a combination of a sugar concoction and yeast to trigger a second fermentation in the bottle, and other times just a bit of unfermented juice from a previous year with yeast (Brut Natural). QbA and QmP Rieslings are underripe grapes, though QbA has a dosage, whereas QmP doesn't. Another wine that has a dosage added is White Zinfandel. Made from underripe Zinfandel grapes (which are *always* red), White Zin is a sharp, acidic wine with little to recommend it. The wineries add a high-sugar dosage to impart some sweetness, which leaves the final product being a clash of flavours and textures, unsuitable for drinking. In the future, instead of grabbing that bottle of Sutter Home, head over to the Italian and Spanish Rosé section. Much better, and for about the same price.

Now that I've gone off-topic, I'm going to go research this. I have a few weeks, and I want to make sure I choose a good, preferably aged, wine.

Italians 'spoofing' wine

This doesn't seem to be a new story, though it is interesting that it comes on the heels of most importers raising prices. There are two stories here; One is about companies like Banfi and Antinori blending their Montalcinos (which should be 100% Sangiovese), the other about cheaper wines having chemicals added.

The latter story isn't anything new at all. To save money, cheap wineries boost certain flavours of wine with chemicals. A decade ago, we were hearing about oak chips being used to 'adulterate' wines. Everyone was up in arms over the concept that California wineries (and Australian, to a lesser degree) were putting oak chips in their must, rather than fermenting in a new oak barrel. As it has been discovered, it makes for pretty terrible wine.

What I'd like to know (and probably won't for a while) is which vineyards are accused of doing so. My guess is that it's the more commercial cheapies, which means none of my wines are affected. I should probably make some calls, though, and find out directly from my distributors whether my two cheap wines are at issue.

In regards to the former story...

Duh. There is more demand for wine these days, especially from the big guys like Banfi. Their vineyards are not getting any bigger, and their vines are getting older, and producing fewer grapes. Which means less must, which means less wine. With the current obsession by collectors of buying futures, less wine is available for public purchase. So they turn to blending to have enough wine for everyone who wants it.

Capitalism strikes again. And they got caught. Oh, big surprise. The Italians aren't very good about things like quality control (their DOC and DOCG classifications don't really mean a whole lot when it comes to quality), but they're great about policing after the fact.

I'm going to go pick up a bottle of tasty Dolcetto. They can keep doing what they want. As long as it tastes good, people will buy it.

ON EDIT: It should be Brunello, not Montalcino.

Major Distributor, Mini Rant

I'm becoming very upset with one of our major distributors. I won't use the name, but suffice it to say, they're one of the biggest national distributors, and one of the three biggies in NYC. Two weeks in a row, they messed up my order, and while it isn't the first time, it is becoming more frequent.

This week, I asked them to pick up their most recent mistake (they delivered a 2000 Rioja Riserva instead of the 2003 regular, and the cost difference is astronomical), and said it was because they delivered the wrong wine.

The return invoice says "ordered wrong," which means they made it MY FAULT THAT THEY SCREWED UP!

I'm really sick of dealing with these people, and I really wish we didn't have to order so much wine from them. Either the orderboard workers are morons, the shippers are morons, or the warehouse workers are morons, on a regular basis.

Another example: A while back, when I received the order, one of the boxes was damp. I checked the bottles briefly, but I didn't see any obvious evidence of breakage. As I was putting out the wine, however, I had the side of one finger split open by a broken bottle FROM A DIFFERENT BOX. They had deliberately hidden where the broken bottle was so they wouldn't have to pay for it. So not only are we out the money for the bottle (luckily it was one of our most inexpensive, only costs us $3.00/bottle), but I ended up with a nice gash in one finger.

They can get away with all this crap because they're so huge, and because they carry most of the wines that people demand. If one of the smaller distributors carried on the way they do, they'd be out of business before the first complaint started coming in. If I could get away with not ordering from them, I'd probably recommend that we stop carrying their wines.

New York Wine Expo, March 7th-9th, 2008

I'll be attending the trade day at the Wine Expo, although I have my reservations after reading these comments on Vinography. Given the overall negativity regarding other events from the same people, I'm going in with my eyes open. I certainly expect it to be a fairly corporate event, but that's what exists on the east coast these days, unless you're going to shell out money for one of the food & wine festivals that can be found all summer and fall. The two I'm most interested in are the South Beach Food & Wine Festival and the EPCOT Food & Wine festival. I went to the latter last year and had a fantastic time. Hopefully, this year will be the same, though I don't think I'll be able to make it the one in South Beach.

Why is it that the events I'm intrigued by are all in places that are too warm for my comfort? I'm a cold-weather girl.

I'm trying to talk some friends of mine into going for all-you-can-eat sushi on the Upper East Side after the Expo, but one of them wants to go to Sushi Yasuda, which, while I'd love to try it, would require more money than I currently have on hand in order to eat the way we tend to. Which is to say, we gorge ourselves on sushi. Mmmm.

Amazon to partner with Satan

Ok, not really The Adversary, at least not in a religious sense. Wine.com has, in the past year or so, the company known for it's innovation in interstate wine mailing has been running a sting operation, targeting small retailers, intending to shut down their above-and-beyond concept of customer service by asking them to mail wine to states where it's illegal to receive out-of-state wine shipments unless you are a wholesale distributor/importer, then reporting them to the state authority. Not only have they pushed the envelope when it comes to what a private company (even a massive corporation) can legally do, they are doing so, not out of respect for out-of-date laws, but to eliminate their competition. It is, in brief, an anti-trust issue.

However, this is about the story that popped up as soon as I opened Decanter's news section this morning. Amazon moves into wine with wine.com.

I like Amazon. I use them often, and not just for books. Hell, I have several different wishlists, and they grow on a monthly basis. So this story causes a problem for me. I feel the need to join with a number of other bloggers who refuse to buy from Wine.com as a result of their sketchy business practices. But, with Amazon now partnering with them, I feel like Amazon has become the enemy.

Huh, that reminds me of the South Park episode where we first see Satan and Saddam in bed together.

Anyway, I'm just not sure what to make of all this. There's far too much imbalance of power in the wine industry, most of which comes from these outdated and nanny-statish laws in effect in many states.

Added Tannins

Alice Feiring, a great name in wine, has an interesting story from a week ago. I excerpt the relevant portion to my comments (emphasis mine):

I proposed that she might be allergic to added tannins--those nasty ones so common in modern wines. The tannins are added because some winemakers are obsessed with pumping up their color and believe this can do this or cure sunburnt grapes and also adjust mouthfeel. The tannins available are grape, oak and chestnut. This woman had some of those clients and drank mostly Californian and Australia wines. I ordered a bottle of Genetet Pansiot Gevrey and asked her to call me in the morning if her husband complained. I was the writer and she could blame me, so we ordered the wine.

There was no problem. She was really happy about the outcome. Red wine was hers again, (as long as she didn't have to drink her client's)

I'm allergic to nuts. They exacerbate my already existing eczema to a point where I can't function. As a result, I'm finding that there are many things I can't eat or drink, because of added nut oil, or other elements that we don't think of as coming from nuts.

Chestnuts are a particular evil for me, followed by walnuts and almonds. If I'm allergic to the proteins in nuts, will I be allergic to the tannins as well? Is there now an entire region of the grape world I cannot consume?

Who are these 'experts' anyway?

Latest news from Decanter.com: Health expert wants smaller bottles to stop binge-drinking

From the point of view of a wine professional, this is stupid. Smaller bottles age faster, and are much more likely to go bad. Even from a health point of view this is stupid. There are so many products out there these days, like Vineyard Fresh that use a combination of argon and nitrogen gases to keep wine fresh for as long as you can conceive of. If one's reason for drinking the whole bottle is that it would go to waste otherwise, one is either drinking wine outside one's budget, or one doesn't want to spend the $15 on a product that can be used for four cases of wine.

Full disclosure: I work with the local rep who sells Vineyard Fresh, although this is an unpaid endorsement. I do feel it's the best of the available products.

Can white wines age?

A coworker of mine recently was surprised when we started stocking the 2002 Riesling (reviewed previously), claiming that "white wines don't age."

On the contrary, some whites age very well. It is not the grape, although some age much better than others, but the level of acidity, and degree of complexity that determine how well a specific wine will cellar. Just like reds, whites are made to either drink young, or age well.

Chardonnay, especially a well-made Bourgogne Blanc or Macon Blanc-Villages, or even some of the higher-end Californias, can age beautifully, taking on a golden-straw hue that almost shimmers in the light (perhaps that's the oak?). Riesling becomes almost toasted brown, while Pinot Grigio turns a deep lemony-orange colour. The flavours tend to develop length on the palette and finish, with floral and mineral notes mellowing and becoming secondary to the fruit. Sauvignon Blancs do tend to go through a dumb stage for about four or five years, but by seven years into it, the citrus has overtaking any lingering herbal excesses, while the acid has smoothed out and become a soft complement. I personally prefer older Sauvignons, as the young ones are far too crisp and sharp, and the grassy notes are overwhelming on my palette and retro-nasal passage.

So, on that note, throw that interesting bottle of white into the cellar, and let it age a few years!

Dr. Deinhart Riesling Kabinett 2002

This was such a spectacular wine, beautifully matured with green apple prominent both on the nose and the palette, accented by lovely floral notes (I believe I was getting a bit of something very white and perfumey, but I can't place the exact flower) and with a finish that lasted somewhere around a minute, although the last 20 or so seconds were very mild and required concentration to notice.

I had thrown this into my fridge for a day or so before tasting, so it was a bit colder than it should be kept, though I don't believe it adversely affected the flavours. The complexity and fruitiness of the wine is exactly what I expect of a Riesling, being nicely medium-full bodied and with a touch of sweetness. The sugar isn't cloying or overwhelming, instead being more like biting into a well-made complex fruit salad. The overall impression is that of an early fall picnic in an orchard.

Wines I need to try, Part 1

Oh good lord, there are so many wines I need to try. And I really should do this methodically, though I don't think that's going to happen.

On that note, let's begin.

2001 Punk Dog Wines "Sophie's Riddle" Red Wine, Sonoma - I love the name of this, and it was received well at the San Francisco wine festival in September. Beyond which, I have an affinity for 2001 California wines, though more specifically Napa than Sonoma. In general, I find Sonoma wines to be overblown and far too hot for my tastes. Napa's tend to be a bit more balanced and have enough fruit to balance a 14 or 15% alcohol content.

2006 Thomas Fogarty Winery Gewurztraminer, Monterey - I'm incredibly curious as to how California does Gewurtz. I love it as a grape, am particularly obsessed with the German (vs the Alsatian), and thoroughly fascinated as to how cooler-weather grapes would do in California, especially such a warm area as Monterey.

2003 York Creek Cellars Cabernet Franc, Spring Mountain District, Napa - I adore the Spring Mountain appellation in Napa, and I adore Cab Franc, so this is a match made in heaven.

2005 Orin Swift Cellars "The Prisoner" Red Blend - Although I've tasted this before, served at Telepan in the Lincoln Center neighbourhood, I've never really sat down and evaluated it before. However, it seems to be a wonderful wine, and one I'd like to get to know better.

2002 Dr. Deinhard Riesling Kabinett, Pfaltz, Germany - I have a bottle of this at home, waiting for the weekend. The colour is a beautiful autumn gold, and I expect it to be fully mature and ready to drink. Since the store just received two cases, I'm looking forward to selling it.

2003 Graves Syrah, Paso Robles - I've had the 2002 of this wine, and am very intrigued by what I read about the 03. In general, this seems to be a region overlooked for Syrah, although the Merlots and Cabs are fairly boring.

So there's part one. I'm sure there will be a part 2, 3, 4, etc, and I'll try to link them all up through a common tag.

France and the anti-drink lobby

Apparently, France has a very strong anti-alcohol lobby. One of their recent moves was to have a couple of major names in the alcohol business fined for promoting the consumption of alcohol in their advertising. What they mean by that specific phrase, is that the companies involved associated alcohol consumption with having a good time, rather than just stating the facts of the product, which is evidently all that French law allows.

Heineken, one of the two companies fined tens of thousands of euros, responded by appealing the decision.

They just lost.

I'm more than a bit disturbed by this prospect, especially considering that some of my favourite wines come from French appellations. This sets a precedent that is patently anti-alcohol, and is somewhat reminiscent of the early pre-Prohibition actions. Considering that there has also been a push lately to establish drinking ages throughout European countries, and I feel like we're seeing motion in the wrong direction regarding individual responsibility for self.