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Revisiting the Class

David Boyer — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:56:00 GMT

No one that’s into wine much would argue that the Classification of 1855 was an important document, if for no other reason than it recognized great wine. Surely when it was created, no one would have imagined that it would still be standing today. The Classification of 1855 was an attempt to categorize Bordeaux wine from the very best châteaux in the region.

This list was seemingly innocuous and quite casual at the time. As Napoleon III was planning on hosting a Universal Exposition in Paris, the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce was solicited to create a list, in descending order, of the top wine producers in this very famous region. The most qualified candidates to fulfill the assignment happened to be the Bordeaux wine brokers, whose knowledge of all of the wine estates and markets buying from them, had been unofficially tracked for centuries. So the wine brokers created a list that ranked top estates from “1^st Growth” through 5^thGrowth”. The list was primarily based on price and, to a lesser extent, reputation and popularity. And just like our current-day system of economics, wine back then was priced according to demand and demand was established because of the quality of a wine. The list became known as the Classification of 1855. For more in-depth information about the Classification of 1855, please visit here: http://www.classof1855.com/The_Classification.html.

Initially only four châteaux were classified as 1^stGrowth, with Château Mouton-Rothschild being elevated from a 2^ndGrowth to a 1^st Growth in 1973 after decades of Baron Philippe Mouton petitioning the minister of Agriculture to do so. This is the only change the Class has made since 1855 and today the Class is hugely controversial.

Recently I attended an amazing wine event created and organized by Brian Owen (I will be posting a full report on this coming up) and the theme of the event was “Definitive Bordeaux”; no wine event could have been better tailored to my love of wine than this one. Here, about 36 very knowledgeable enophiles tasted through well over $10K of excellent Bordeaux and a number of flights were tasted blind. One of the flights I tasted blind was aptly named “Super 2^nd vs. 1^st Growth” which had the following lineup:

Château Haut Brion -1995 – 1^st Growth

Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande – 1996 – 2^nd Growth

Château Cos d’Estournal - 1995 – 2^ndGrowth

Château Léoville Las Cases - 1995 – 2^ndGrowth

Super 2^nd is a phrase that wine critic Robert Parker coined some years ago and refers to consistently high performing 2^ndGrowths that has become part of the controversy. And the heated debate is this: should some of these 2^nd Growths be elevated to 1^stGrowth status? Which then begs the questions, should some 5^thGrowths be elevated to 3^rd or 2^nd Growths? Should the whole Classification be thrown out and disregarded as no longer relevant or maybe reshuffled to reflect vin de la journée (wine of the day)?

Well, to answer the first question, no! Although the so-called Super Seconds are indeed ‘Super’, there is not one of them that consistently outperforms any of the five 1^stGrowth châteaux. Tasting blind makes it even more obvious – there is something deeply visceral about 1^st Growth Bordeaux, almost another dimension. Even though all of these wines had been very evenly rated by the critics (all were 94-95 points), spotting 1^st Growth Château Haut Brion amongst them was not guesswork at all. It’s like comparing the difference between film and video; sure video captures the notes, the colors, and the detail but it lacks depth that only film can create. There just is nothing else in the world like a 1^st Growth – it truly is the equivalent to a Rolls Royce.

The answer to the second questions is also no. If after 155 years, the Classification of 1855 were changed, really what purpose would it serve? Everyone knows that there are some lower ‘classed growths’ that continuously outperform other estates within their classification and even some that outperform others in a class or two above. But doing what Right Bank Bordeaux did 100 years later (in 1955) when it finally classified its châteaux, only created a useless list, as the order gets shuffled around at least every ten years. There is nothing that can be relied upon here – no solid ground. And most estates work hard to live up to their precious image, if not above it, so it keeps quality high.

The answer to the third question is no again. The Classification 1855 is alive and useful. If you really want to explore the best wines in the world, go down the list and try them – there will be very few disappointments, which cannot be said for any other wine region in the world. It is really life altering once you understand what great wine can be. Yes, there are some of the Classified estates that have been sold off or declined for some reason and don’t live up to their historical potential. But eventually these châteaux too will be sold to someone that is willing to bring them back to what they once were. The Classification of 1855 has been a much-imitated guide to the finest wines in the world, officially and unofficially for centuries. It is to wine, what our constitution is to our nation’s body of law.

David Boyer

Photo: Châteaux Haut Brion, Margaux, Mouton-Rothschild, Latour,and Lafite-Rothschild

The UNusual Suspects

David Boyer — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:53:00 GMT

Are wine scores rising faster than global temperatures or, maybe it’s just me? Everywhere I look I continue to see more and more wine slowly creep into the 90+ point camp and I have to ask, how can this be? Are lower-end wineries just suddenly making better wine out of nowhere? Did their Board meet one day and say, “Hey, lets make better wine”? Does it have anything to do with warmer and longer growing seasons allowing grapes to ripen?

Or perhaps tastes are changing from elegant, balanced, superbly crafted wine with character, to huge over-ripe, over-extracted wine that you could drive a truck through for four-wheeling fun. In many cases it doesn’t change the fact that the trend in the past couple of years has seen many lower priced wines from enormous beverage corporations move up in score. Wine Spectator for example has been value oriented for the past eighteen months or more. This is fine for some people but I did not renew my subscription because of this. I would rather have their reviews save me from making a $500 mistake than a $10 mistake when I purchase wine. And because I have experienced very little (if any) drinkable $10 wine, I definitely don’t care to read about it – sorry man, I’m just not impressed.

Even with the gazillion wine blogs and little independent voices like mine out there in the world, the press reigns supreme when it comes to moving markets and influencing buyers, and prices too. All too often hyperbole leads to inevitable meteoric price hikes. So why wouldn’t these powerful publications focus on real winemakers that are making real wine and incite and compel their readers to begin trading up? This makes much more sense to me rather than pimp questionable quality, mass-produced wine by maybe raising scores and catering to phantom readers that presumably can no longer afford a $30 bottle of wine. The notion is truly ridiculous and I’m almost embarrassed for Wine Spectator.

Add to this WS’s Top 100 Wines of 2009. The year’s top 10 wines totaled a $475 release price for all ten wines. Compare this to $698 in ’08, $998 in ’07 and even $1158 in 2005. Well, you see the trend. Can cheap wines really be that good and do they really deserve a spot in the limelight? The wine of the Year in 2009 was unbelievable (and I mean this in the worst sense of the word): 2005 Columbia Crest, Cabernet Sauvignon, Columbia Valley, Reserve with a release price of $27. Not only does this wine not deserve to be Wine of the Year, in my opinion, it did not even deserve to be in the Top 100 or Top 1000 for that matter. Four of us (all of us have wine knowledge) sat at a table recently and ordered up a bottle out of curiosity. Three out of four could not finish even one glass of wine. I kept going out of fascination and finally got it down – but only one glass. We’re not wine snobs, we just enjoy good wine and this wasn’t one of them. Personally I would not have scored this wine more than 88 or 89 points but Spectator scored it at 95 points! It wasn’t but a few short years ago that I would never have imagined many of these wines to show up on, what used to be, the prestigious list of Wine Spectator’ Top 100.

I’m sad to loose such an old, reliable friend as Wine Spectator but I can no longer support their platform of pawning off poor quality wine because they think they are somehow appealing to their readers. 95% of the Top 100 wines are not outstanding at all and are undeserving of such media attention, while other truly great estates that need help and support, suffer at the hands of our economy.

I think by not spending $50 to renew my subscription for print (I am however maintaining the electronic subscription to access their database of older vintages), I’ll buy a nice bottle of wine from a winemaker that does deserve my attention. As far as bloggers vs. print media, ultimately this may be a biblical David and Goliath type story – you know the ending . . .

David

Abusing Decanters

David Boyer — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:05:00 GMT

It’s sad really. The social media phenomena has opened up incredible things for anyone with internet access but as Einstein pointed outmore or less, anything that has the potential to do great things for society has the equal potential to cause great harm. Thus social networking in the wine world has it’s positive sides but what happens when several misinformed people pass on bad information to those that don’t know any better? Predictably, those that don’t know better think that what they’ve learned or been told is accurate and it spreads like wildfire. Pretty soon it becomes a de facto practice and at that point no one even questions it anymore.

Such is the case of decanting wine, which is the practice of pouring wine from the bottle into a crystal or glass container. A decanter was designed to aerate the wine but its higher use is to simply separate the wine from sediment in the bottle, which is usually only necessary for older wines (please visit here for more on decanting older wine: http://www.classof1855.com/Storing___Drinking_Wine.html). Having visited sites like CellarTracker and Snooth where wannabe-wine-critic members rate wine and leave tasting notes I’ve found that decanter abuse is highly prevalent and unfortunate. Good thing there’s no wine police or there’d be big trouble, yes?

Some cardinal rules about decanters:

decanting bad wine will not improve it – it will still be bad wine

if a wine needs to be decanted for any length of time, it is not ready to drink

some wine will never be ready to drink because it was poorly made to begin with – buy better wine and stop expecting miracles from an $8 bottle

decanting changes the balance of everything – alcohol, tannins, fruit, and acidity, but the outcome is all guesswork. Never expose a good or fine wine to air for long periods of time. As for bad wine, just don’t buy it to begin with because nothing you do is going to improve it

it is impossible to know exactly when a wine will ‘peak’ (reach its optimal flavor and aromatics) while sitting in a decanter – it’s much better to have it peak in your glass as opposed to missing it entirely while it is being 'decanted'

most people that abuse decanters do so because they are attempting to soften the wine’s harsh or dominant tannins – if a wine is not balanced going in to the bottle, it will not be balanced coming out of the bottle and decanting it just arbitrarily shifts around various components of the wine. Thus if oxygen softens tannins (and it does ultimately), it means that other components have also been affected by oxygen and usually in a detrimental way. For example, the first thing that happens when wine hits the air is that alcohol evaporates; the amount of evaporation is wine temperature dependent amongst other things. And this is not always a bad thing but changing the chemistry of any given wine is like playing the table in Vegas. Usually the house wins.

some people like to use decanters to serve wine, which is perfectly acceptable if the intent is to get it into glasses within a short amount of time

Aerating wine is not all bad and in fact is a necessary technique to use while coaxing the wine to open up (release its aromas and flavors) but it almost always should be done in your glass by swirling. I have read with horror, accounts of forty-year-old First Growth Bordeaux being decanted for four hours. Other people have written about wines they have decanted for four days! This is utter nonsense and while I agree that people are, and should be, free to do what they want with their wine, I believe this abuse of a decanter is most often out of not knowing any better.

Wine needs minute amounts of oxygen to age in the bottle (and to age in barrels too – another subject), which is how better wines mature. Oxygen molecules do not penetrate the cork but rather move up the neck of the bottle in the microscopic gaps between the cork and the glass. But oxygen in any other form but tiny, almost immeasurable amounts is very detrimental to wine and will oxidize it quickly if left exposed to air. Taking a forty-year-old wine that is already fragile and mature, possibly past its peak from bottle age, exposing it to air for four hours, and then complaining about the quality is just plain egregious.

Do yourself a favor and do not decant your wine unless it is older and needs to be separated from its sediment. Tell your wine friends about this too because no one benefits from abusing decanters. Most of all buy better wine or buy wine that is ready to drink when you want it to be - otherwise you are really wasting your time and money.

David Boyer

Photo: licensed and © istockphoto

Vintage Hype

David Boyer — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:39:00 GMT

If you have been buying and drinking wine over the course of even a few years, you realize the importance of a wine’s vintage unless you drink only ‘grocery store’ wines. I consider a grocery store wine as a mass-produced, non-vineyard-specific, and sometimes non-varietal-specific wine that has no character or hint of terroir left in it by the time it hits your glass. These are most often very inexpensive wines using grapes sourced from huge vineyards where almost everything is automated in the vineyard and winemaking process with the goal of selling hundreds of thousands or even millions of cases each year.

I’m not slamming grocery stores and in the past couple of years many grocery stores have begun to sell better wine and even a limited selection of fine wine in some instances. But Yellow Tail is a good example of a grocery store wine, where vintage doesn’t matter much because the wine was produced to pretty much taste the same from year to year and to be drunk upon release. On the lower end of the scale vintage does not have much, if any, effect on wine.

Vintage for fine wine is indeed a big deal however and all other things being equal, (like a great winemaker didn’t quit and go somewhere else or the winery didn’t stop buying French oak for Hungarian oak, etc) it comes down to what Mother Nature dished out in any specific year. Rainfall, sunshine, coolness, warmth, humidity, wind, pests, storms, disease and much more all have potentially profound effects on the eventual outcome of any given wine. That’s a lot of factors that can and certainly do vary from year to year in the growing and harvest seasons from one year to the next. Even just a good rainfall at harvest or right before harvest can have devastating effects on that year’s production: imagine all of those vines soaking up every drop of rain, thereby diluting the fruit concentration in the grape with water! Unless the wine is made in a region that permits human intervention like using reverse osmosis to remove excess water from the must (must is the grape juice used to ferment into wine after crushing and pressing the grapes), a whole vintage can be ruined by just one event like this.

There is an enormous amount of fuss over vintages and a lot of speculation and hype that can drive prices through the roof. In Bordeaux for example, look at what is considered the best vintages in the past hundred years or so: 1929, 1945, 1961, 1982, 1989, 2000, 2003, 2005 and now the 2009 vintage which is barely into barrels is being hyped as the greatest vintage since the birth of Christ. What does all of this really mean though? Why is a vintage great and what are the upsides and downsides of a great vintage?

A great vintage only means that the growing conditions throughout the season were optimal and there is a high likelihood of nearly every estate producing a generally higher quality of wine for that given year. But it doesn’t mean that a 95 point wine from a great vintage is going to be any better than a 95 point wine from a difficult or disastrous vintage. It means that a winery that typically produces a 92 or 93 point wine, could produce a 95 point wine or a 98 point wine in a great vintage. Does this really do anything for you or me? You bet it does! It means we’ll pay more for the exact same bottle we bought last vintage. Maybe it will be better or maybe not but we’ll pay more for the ‘great vintage’.

This really only matters if you are a speculator and buy wine for investment purposes. If this is your thing then stick to the great vintages from whatever region you’re buying and, in a stable economy, buy as early as possible in most cases. All bets are off in times like this though – buying wine futures, especially these days is very risky, like the ‘great 2005’ vintage; many of those investing in 2005 Bordeaux futures lost as much as half their investment as the economy turned south. If you are a wine drinker on the other hand, forget about great vintages and buy good or great wine to enjoy. Even ‘off vintages’ produce very good wine from someone and the prices are far less than those from so-called great vintages.

The downside of great vintages is that wine critics routinely revisit them and things do not always turn out the way we (or they) originally thought they would. Right now for example, everyone is drinking the fab ’82 vintage of Bordeaux but critics are wondering if they made the right call on all the wine they rated back then because scores are changing quickly in many cases. Many châteaux thought to have produced incredible wine in 1989 are being eclipsed by the 1990 vintage and sometimes even the 1988 vintage. And some First Growth Bordeaux, like Château Latour didn’t fare well in the ’89 vintage to begin with. These are only a few of numerous examples of so-called great vintages being eventually thrown under the bus. All I’m trying to get across is that great vintages are only hype, they drive the market upwards, and are only important to speculators. Great wine is great wine in any vintage.

Drink good wine. Drink great wine. It does not have to come from a celebrity vintage to be great. I have had many bottles of ‘off-vintage’ Bordeaux that were truly wonderful but had no status in the world of wine. I know - it’s kind of like buying stuff from Off 5^th instead of Saks 5^th Avenue but put great wine in a glass while the bottle remains in a plain brown paper bag and you will dazzle your guests – even the most experienced collector.

David Boyer

Photo by the truly great, but late, DB III

What Does ‘Old Vine’ Really Mean?

David Boyer — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 21:52:00 GMT

A dear friend sent me an email a couple of days ago because he had just tasted a great ‘old vine’ Zinfandel - I am also very fond of Zinfandel and have had a number of them designated as old vine and even ancient vine. But it reminded me that the term, ‘old vine’, can be quite nebulous and can even be misleading as marketers attempt to find ever-new buzz words to entice consumers in a very crowded wine market. This term tends to be most often associated with Zinfandel wines and to a much lesser extent, Cabernet Sauvignon.

So what does ‘old vine’ mean beyond the obvious? And does it really translate into better wine? To get a grip on this we need to understand vines and how they work. This sounds boring at first but I am absolutely fascinated by the subject and just how important vines and the vineyard are in distinguishing great wine from just okay wine. Apart from terroir (a sense of place that encompasses soil, weather, micro climate, rainfall, drainage, sunshine and the angle of the sun on grapes and so on), there may be no more important element of winemaking than what happens in the vineyard. After all, it has to start with the fruit because wine with bad fruit to begin with, can never become better during the winemaking process.

There is a voluminous amount of information we know about plants, vines, and grapes but this article is not attempting to fill in all of the missing knowledge, but rather give you a very brief non-technical overview of a couple of principles. Current thinking has it like this: grape producing vines are lazy, but particular. It can’t even muster the fortitude to grow a strong enough wood trunk to support itself like many in the plant world, so it would rather crawl up a tree, a trellis, or anything else that will put it high enough to receive an adequate amount of life-giving sunshine. Grape vines don’t require much in the way of nutrition or even water, so when they’re ‘happy’, meaning they are getting enough nutrition and water, they will produce a lot of vegetative growth (non-fruit bearing stalks, shoots and leaves). If they are not pleased with where they are, they want to move but being planted in the ground makes this notion kind of inconvenient so the next best thing is for the vine to produce fruit. I know, it sounds strange to think of a plant that can deduce so much information from its environment and then cleverly come up with a solution to any issues it may have. But it’s true.

An ‘unhappy’ vine puts its energy into growing its fruit. Initially these grapes are all very small, green in color, and blend in well with the leaves, which helps to ensure that predators like birds do not eat them while they’re too young (there is a motive behind this and if a vine’s grapes are consumed too young, the vine will fail its mission to grow elsewhere – keep reading). Besides young unripe grapes are very high in acidity and do not taste good to fruit-eating animals. As the grape ripens however, not only does it taste better but also the seeds inside become developed enough to reproduce the vine if put into the soil or dropped somewhere. Here’s the really important part about vines: upon ripening, the grape turns color to draw attention to animals that will eat them and spread their seeds to other areas. This process of changing color is known as véraison. Through years of observation, winemakers have discovered that if the vine were stressed due to lack of water or nutrition or other essentials, it would slow its vegetative growth and instead concentrate its energy on producing grapes. Brilliant!

But this is only a part of the picture. Most often great wine is made with grapes of extreme concentration, that is, there is intense flavor from the grape. In order to help concentrate the flavor of grapes, vineyards will stress the vine, prune excess vegetative growth, pray for good weather, and reduce the yield (yield is measured in tons per acre in the wine world) by thinning, which is simply a method of cutting excess fruit from the vine and discarding it throughout the growing season. Thinning can take place in the vineyard one time or multiple times per season, depending on the vines, but concentrating flavor from the grapes by reducing yields is an important measure in making excellent wine.

A new vine just planted will begin to produce usable fruit in about three years. In about five or six years the vine should be producing very good fruit and continue to do so for thirty years or more. Usually a vine that is 40 to 80 years old is considered to be ‘old vine’ but there are some vines still producing fruit at 120 years of age! As a vine ages however, it slows down in its vegetative growth and typically builds up a woody surface similar to a tree trunk. Scientists believe that old vines store carbohydrates in this woody bark-like exterior during its dormant winter stage and are able to use that energy to produce better ripeness and concentrated fruit during the next growing season than younger vines. From a vineyard management point, old vines are great because they don’t require the maintenance that younger vines demand although very young vines can also be easy to manage because they have not yet established a root system to produce a lot of unruly vegetative growth.

So does wine produced from old vines make better wine? The answer is it depends. It depends on the winery, the actual age of the vines (a twenty year old vine is not really considered old but it might not prevent some winery from using the term ‘old vine’ on the label), and the actual quality of the fruit the vine produces. Old vines can be susceptible to disease like ‘dead arm’ – and even some diseased old vines can improve grapes, others not so much. Just be aware that so far there is no definitive answer to the question of old vine quality partly because there are no legal parameters put in place to define it. If you are buying wine from a reputable winery, chances are good that the quality is better from an ‘old vine’ bottling than from younger vines but this may not always be true. As always, the buyer must be aware and must always use the palate to discern, not marketing words.

Some of my favorite Zinfandel producers ever are Seghesio, Rosenblum and Orin Swift. Not all of these fine estates produce Zinfandel from old vines but all of these are very worthy of your attention if you enjoy this spectacular grape variety.

David Boyer

Photo: 90 year old vines in Sonoma County California. Licensed from and © iStockphoto.com

Wine Reviews: Almost Useless in Its Current Form

David Boyer — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:19:00 GMT

The image above is I believe, an example of a better way to extrapolate useful information about the quality of wine and I would be very pleased to see reviewers use it. Forget all of the pretty words that critics struggle with for the sake of keeping their journalistic prose fresh (because our language is finite, this is impossible and ends up being just embarrassing and a waste of time for serious readers). How useful is the current system of wine reviews? How much real information can we gather aboutwine being reviewed? Do we taste the same things reviewers taste? Will thetasting notes change over time, making a reviewer’s notes obsolete? Whatinformation would be best to use while assessing wine?

The only thing actually useful about a wine review by theexperts is their score. But the score itself does not tell us anything aboutthe wine – it isjust a grade, which may be useful if you have aligned your palate with aparticular reviewer’s taste. From there, one can adjust their expectations. Me,for example: I have learned that I can take a Robert Parker score and safelydowngrade it by 4 or 5 points and it will line up fairly close to my opinion. Ican take Stephen Tanzer scores and add 2 to 3 points. James Suckling atSpectator is nearly always right on for me while James Laube at Spectator is awild-card and is hit-and-miss for me. And for me Jay Miller has zerocredibility as a wine critic.

Obviously scoring wine is very subjective and personalpreferences are very much a part of the human process of forming an opinion. Ibelieve however that we may be able to get a bit more objective information bychanging the way wine is scored. Here are a few problems with the currentsystem:

First,there is very little information in a wine review that is actually somewhatobjective or useful to a wine aficionado. If a professional reviewer sat nextto you or me while reviewing a wine and we compared notes, I may pick up someof the flavor or aromatic notes I missed if he mentions them – just because ofsuggestion. Conversely, he may pick up notes I observed just because I mentionthem. The point is if you read a review before you taste the wine, chances arepretty good that you’ll pick out some of the elements mentioned in the review,which is due to subconscious power of suggestion and its pretty powerful withwine notes. Because our palates are not the same, it is very unlikely that we’dactually have the same wine experience without the power of suggestion and eventhen, we may not experience the same aromas and tastes.

Secondly,all of the things the reviewer tastes and smells during the moment of hisreview can change substantially with time – even within a short amount of time.Chances are very slim that even the same reviewer would pick up the same notesafter a few months, if the wine were blind-tasted. There are many possiblevariations that could change a wine’s descriptors such as storage conditions,the amount of time the bottle has been still (in other words it didn’t just getdelivered by FedEx an hour ago), serving temperature, how much wine thereviewer has already tasted that day, and many other significant variables.

Theend result is that the description of a wine becomes useless because there isno way to assess the condition of the wine or the reviewer. Therefore tastingnotes are generally just indulgent journalistic explorations to find words andphrases that have not been used as descriptors; I don’t believe there’s muchleft that hasn’t been written before and so we read the same things over andover again that are characteristics of the wine being reviewed. This finiteamount of text simply has little practical relevance or use to the reader.

Thirdis the wasted ink that describes the color of the wine; many reviewers beginwith a description of the color. Who cares? Red wines all have various hues ofred and purple, while whites may be described with straw or golden hues. Thiswill never change unless the wine is flawed. Now observing a flaw is useful information, for example:the wine was amber on its edges, or brown, or the color of red brick. These areall giveaways that the wine is probably well past it prime and therefore ofquestionable value and quality. But why not just say the wine has a flaw ratherthan describe its color? Besides it is very rare a reviewer writes aboutseriously flawed wine.

To understand how little real information there is in atypical wine review just analyze the following reviews and scores from theforemost and highest regarded wine critics. There is a Piedmont (Italy) andBordeaux - also note the differences and similarities between scores:

KEY:

Useful terminology

Similar or common observations between reviewers

Substantial difference between reviewers

Barolo,Prapò 1996 Ceretto - Bricco Rocche

"...rich,with lots of extract,tannin, and body...moderatelyintense nose of scorchedearth, dried herbs, and sweet black fruits...anexciting level of fruitextract, superb purity..." (92-94 points) Robert Parker's Wine Advocate#124, August 1999 (Robert Parker, 08/01/1999)

Rating: 92

"Complex aromasof tar, blackberryand sage. Full-bodied, with fine tannins and a long, long finish. Balanced and beautiful.--1996 Piedmont retrospective. Best after2007." Wine Spectator (Wine Spectator, 01/01/2007)

Rating: 91

"Mediumred, with an orange rim. Ripebut vibrant aromas of cherry,raspberry, chocolate liqueur, mocha and menthol. Ripe and vinous, with perfumed inner-mouth flavors of tobacco anddried rose. Already quite expressive,especially in light of the vintage. This will be the first to give pleasureamong the Barolo crus in '96 but has the tannic structure to develop in bottle for eight toten years." (90 points) Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar,November/December 2000 (Steven Tanzer, 11/01/2000)

Rating: 90

ChâteauLéoville-Las-Cases 1996

"...aspectacular nose of cassis,cherry liqueur, pain grillé, and minerals...powerful and rich on the attack...a remarkable,seamless, palate-staining, and extraordinarily elegant wine..." (98points) Robert Parker's Wine Advocate #122, April 1999 (Robert Parker,04/01/1999)

Rating:98

"...vibrant,very youthful aromas ofcassis, violet and bitter chocolate. Dense and powerful, with great clarity of flavor thanks to aterrific spine of acidity...Finishes very longand gripping, with a note of bitter chocolate..." (96(+?) points)Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar, July/August 2002 (Steven Tanzer,07/01/2002)

Rating: 96

"Incredible nose of blackberry, mineral,cedar and currant [cassis and currant are the same DB].Full-bodied, withsilky and refined tanninsand a mediumcaressing finish.It's a beautiful wine that begs to be drunk now but will age and improve for along time.--'95/'96 Bordeaux retrospective. Drink now." Wine Spectator(Wine Spectator, 01/01/2007)

Rating:92

Notsurprisingly, there’s a lot of journalistic fluff but not a lot of reallyuseful information. The pain grillé and cassis type descriptors do not meananything to me as these words are used very often in red wine but what I reallywant to know about is the wine’s balance, intensity of flavor and aroma, itscomplexity, how it feels in the mouth (the body of the wine) and the wine’sattack, midpalate and finish. If I have this information, I can gauge with muchgreater accuracy, to what extent I will like a wine or not.

Iwould be pleased to email you a working version of this wine scoring algorithmto experiment with or use as you like. I am also open to your feedback andinput about ways to improve the usefulness of it. Please email me at david@classof1855.com with your requestor comments.

NOTE: Jancis Robinson is a very highlyregarded British wine critic and one of the few women to hold the highlyesteemed Master of Wine designation. She has her own 20 point scale, with ascore of 20 being the very best. Because of the difference in descriptors, Idid not do an in-depth comparison with her and the other reviewers.

David Boyer

Best Corners of the World

David Boyer — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:31:00 GMT

Sometimes, unplanned events are the ones that turn out the best – you know, the impromptu gatherings that are organized by sheer will and pulled together at the last moment. Such is the case of finding myself in a small establishment in Grand Rapids Michigan one recent night. This wine bar and restaurant overflows with innate charm, style, vibe, and intimacy and serves up a really great combination of fine wine and food. For me, it’s always in that order.

Generally one would not think of Grand Rapids Michigan as an epicenter for wine and food although there are a surprising number of both well-heeled and younger well-heeled-to-be patrons supporting fine dining in this city. And so it is with this very cool place near downtown on Cherry Street known simply as Corez. This very fine wine bar is eclipsed only by the owners and staff who were not only gracious enough to show me around, but actually spend time with me talking about food, wine and even people we knew in common. I know of little corners of the world that we wouldn’t ordinarily expect to exist as they do. These are the places that embrace people who are passionate about wine and food, and I have to say that the people at Corez created one of the best corners of the world that I have been to.

Business owners, Mike and Corey are very excellent hosts and actually know what they’re doing. Mike is a sommelier that seeks out small production beauties that shine beyond the mainstream wine aisle and wow - he’s really talented at this! And I enjoyed the words that poured out too, which usually was, “this isn’t going to change your world, but it’s a really nice wine”. He was right about perhaps ‘not changing my world’ but I would say a bit conservative about a ‘really nice wine’. Everything he poured was spot on and until there’s a wine bar that’s willing to serve up Latour, Lafite and DRC by the glass, this is as good as anyone would ever be likely to find. Corey handles the business end of owning such a great property; no easy task in this economy, but he didn’t ask for easy. Just excellent. By any measure I have to say, “mission accomplished”.

And the food coming out of the kitchen by impresario Executive Chef Chad and his stellar staff is exactly what you wish you could cook at home but don’t because it isn’t home cooking, but something much more. In fact I consider it to be a non-stuffy but very delicious version of haute cuisine. The server staff is also superb and made me feel welcome and almost like I was in on a great secret with them. Behind the bar, fresh and innovative handcrafted cocktails are made and I found myself wishing I had more capacity than I do these days.

This hip, young and fresh appeal in GR’s very cool East Hills district is brilliantly presented by the team at Corez, all of whom are completely engaged in what they do - anytime you can run into this combination of “ingredients” you know you’re going to be very pleased with the results. My only complaint, if I am allowed, is that there is not a Corez close by with exactly the same people. Oh well. I’ll just have to go back there to revisit this very special place in one of the best corners of the world.

Find them at www.corezwinebar.com, check them out on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFTddvVHvtU), or just get down to 919 Cherry Street and plan on spending a great evening with really great people, fine wine and food. For me, it’s always in that order.

David Boyer

Photo: Sommelier and Co-Owner Mike Dombrowski at Corez Wine Bar and Restaurant, Grand Rapids Michigan

California Dreamin’

David Boyer — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:51:00 GMT

All the ink is red and the shelves are full

(the ink is red) (and the shelves are full) . . .

I understand optimism, pessimism and realism. I generally tend to fall into the optimistic side of the latter. However, after reading through Wine Spectator’s latest issue concerning California Cabs I have to wonder if these folks aren’t hitting the cellar a little too often. Maybe I would be too.

Although my first love is Bordeaux I cannot, by any stretch, state that California does not make truly excellent wine – it does. I have been seduced and massaged by fabulous Cabernet Sauvignon based wine, along with other grape varietals that grow very well there, and it seems that California quality just gets better with most every vintage. There’s not much wine that is structured enough to age very long but that’s kind of the point with CA: they make em’ drinkable upon release providing nearly instant gratification. And although I have stopped short of their cult classics like Harlan, Bryant Family and Screaming Eagle, I have tasted through many of their very finest and have to report that these are very fine wines by any standard. A few that come to mind include Shafer, Paul Hobbs, Schrader, Colgin, Peter Michael, Caymus, Chappellet, Joseph Phelps, Dalle Valle, Lewis, Continuum, and Silver Oak. You get the idea. These are all considered among some of the best of California.

I know that times are really tough for our hard-working estate owners and I am not insensitive to the plight they are facing. But I have to ask of most of them, “what the hell were you thinking?” In California, not only are they dreaming, but also I wonder if they might not be tripping! Looking though this year’s lineup of California cabs crystallizes the notion that there will be some major housecleaning coming up soon. There will be a lot of fallout that should gratefully reduce clutter at retail and sharpen the market considerably, ultimately creating better values for the consumer (prices will drop and quality will have to go up to be competitive). But it’s going to take some time and will be a painful journey for many would-be winemakers that just couldn’t get through to the consumer because of being dropped by their distributor, lack of market recognition and loyalty, less than stellar winemaking, and stupidly high prices.

I personally consider James Laube, Wine Spectator’s California wine critic, to be somewhat of a wild card. I do not think he is nearly as consistent as say, Spectator’s James Suckling, who nails down Bordeaux and Italy quite well. Regardless, Mr. Laube is entitled to his opinion right or wrong, and he does have substantial experience to draw on. And admittedly 2006 was not the best vintage in California but still, as a wine consumer consider some of the following information based on Mr. Laube’s reviews:

Would you rather buy:

a) Goldschmidt Cabernet Sauvignon, Alexander Valley Single Vineyard Selection Vyborny Vineyard Plus, 2005, rated at 83 points for $150, or

b) Greg Norman California Estates, Cabernet Sauvignon North Coast, 2006, rated at 86 points for $15?

Have you ever even seen or heard of Goldschmidt? Do you see this wine stacked up by the case in grocery stores? Me neither, and though I don’t claim to have huge depth of knowledge on the subject of California wine estates, why would anyone bother buying this wine at this price and quality, especially if it is virtually unknown? This nice couple from New Zealand has been around for a decade or so but unless Bill Gates is a close relative of one of them, their winery is probably not going to be around in another year or two. I’m not aware of Bill having family ties in NZ but I’ve been wrong before.

Would you rather buy:

a) Gemstone, Ten Yountville, 2006 rated at 91 points for $150, or

b) Schrader, T6 Beckstoffer To Kalon, 2006 rated at 99 points for $125?

Granted the Schrader is going to be much tougher to find if you’re not a member of their mailing list (and more than double the cost) but the point is, there are literally hundreds of producers that have very high price points and very low quality and when you combine those factors with the estates that are not well-known and did not have time to create a following of mail order clients, well, all one can say is, au revoir.

Screaming Eagle at 91 points and a $750 release price should be charged with some sort of felony against innocent wine lovers, except that they have such a huge cult following that they are not going to be put away anytime soon. One of the most egregious price-to-score ratios of the season has to be Oberon Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Hillside Reserve 2006, rated at 75 points for $75. Just because an offspring of the great and late Robert Mondavi makes the wine for this label, it will not allow them to escape reality forever. Another producer, Hartwell, really ran themselves off the rails in 2006 with their Stags Leap coming in at 81 points for $115 and their Stags Leap Misté Hill coming in at 78 points for $60. In ’05 this estate produced very fine wine, in fact one of my favorites of the vintage, at 95 points and 93 points respectively.

It makes me sad really, in many respects. Yes, we need to get real and, no, not everyone can live the dream, especially these days. The room is simply too small to hold a crowd that is as large as California wine producers so someone has to go. In this case there will be lots of someones. California Dreamin’ was great while it lasted but today’s economic realities will inauspiciously end the dream for many.

David Boyer

Recalibration

David Boyer — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:22:00 GMT

Drinking wine is always a great and pleasurable experience for me because, like most people, I drink what I like. If I’m drinking other wine in a social context, even if I’m not fond of a wine being served it’s certainly informative but quite often I am introduced to great discoveries that someone else already knew about and is sharing with me. I have really spectacular wine friends, I’m not kidding.

Tasting wine, however, and critically evaluating a number of wines in a single setting can be arduous and demanding because of the human interaction with wine chemistry – namely the palate vs. tannins, acidity, alcohol and fruit. If you’ve ever attended a medium-to-large wine event, you know what I’m talking about: wine is lined up for days and after tasting as few as three or four big reds or young wines you find yourself seeking water in a futile attempt to dial back what’s happening in your mouth.

Although the advance of technology can be questionable in many genres, some are pure genius. Enter the fortuitous relationship forged by a couple of Cal Poly (California Polytechnic State University) students, Nicole Chamberlain and Andrew Macaluso. Both studied other disciplines at this esteemed university including biology (Nicole) and chemistry (Andrew) but ended up with degrees in wine, viticulture and enology. In the course of their education in winemaking, they realized that winemakers often taste dozens of barrel samples to keep on top of the winemaking process, but this can be a very challenging thing to do because of this little thing we know of as palate fatigue. With this combination of brainpower, these two set out on a mission to create a substance that resets the palate. Does it work?

SanTásti is the greatest single invention for wine since oak barrels. Even better actually; you can overuse oak easily, but you can’t overuse this remarkable product. It absolutely resets your palate to zero. It perfectly neutralizes tannins, acidity, and aftertastes from the biggest wines available. It even flat-lines the palate after food. And it’s not just me. So far I have shared this with about a dozen enophiles, collectors and deeply experienced wine people and every one of them had the same experience. SanTásti works!

The wines tasted in the photo:

1995 Andre Clouet, Champagne - France

2007 Brewer Clifton, Santa Rita Hills, Chardonnay – Santa Barbara, California

2007 Landmark, Kanzler Vineyard, Pinot Noir – Sonoma Coast, California

2004 Pio Cesare, Barolo, Piedmont, Italy

2005 Pio Cesare, Barolo, Piedmont, Italy

2006 Andrew Will, Sorella, Horse Heaven Hills (a blend using Bordeaux varietals), Washington

2004 Floresta, Colchagua Valley, Cabernet Sauvignon – Chile

2006 Caymus Special Selection, Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, California

2006 Pierre Gaillard, Les Pierres, St Joseph – Northern Rhone, France

2005 Two Hands, Ares, Barossa Valley – Australia

2005 Château Beaucastel, Châteauneuf du Pape – Southern Rhone, France

2003 Royal Tokaji, Tokaji Aszu 5 Puttonyos - Hungary

If you know wine much you will recognize that this was a ridiculously great wine event, hosted by Mirabelle Restaurant’s owner and savant wine guru, Michael Vilim. All wine tasted that evening ranged from 91 to 98 points from Wine Spectator and Robert Parker. There was a beautiful selection of delicate, nuanced white, Pinot Noir and Champagne wine all the way up to huge, tannic, too young to drink now reds. There could not have been a better lineup of wine to have with SanTásti, which worked flawlessly when I went back and forth. Really, this bevy of wine was like The Beauty and the Beast although eventually everything here will certainly become a Beauty if it’s not already.

I hope to impress on you, that if you have ever wished that you could recalibrate your taste buds, this is the way to do it. I do not work for this company nor do I have a financial interest in this company but I think this is an amazing product for wine lovers. You can order their water for the palate at http://www.santasti.com/ and unlike shipping wine, water can be shipped anywhere. SanTásti might just do for the wine world, what the Internet did for the rest of the world. It’s that important.

David Boyer

Photo at Mirabelle Restaurant, Austin: The Awesome Victoria Boyer

Honor Amongst Snobs

David Boyer — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:54:00 GMT

I’ve been told I am a wine snob by family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. I shouldn’t be offended and I’m not – there are worse things to be called. But I don’t understand why I would be called a snob just for learning about something and then being selective about my taste. Except for the occasional vitriolic words projected in good fun at my brother, I really have not lorded it over anyone. I think the world needs all levels of quality, all of them having a constructive function. I wouldn’t call Ralph Lauren a car snob just because he has one of the world’s foremost and incredible collection of classic automobiles. And just because he doesn’t want a Kia shouldn’t make him a snob. Please note: I am in no way comparing myself to the likes of Ralph – Ralph is a genius, I'm not. Okay, maybe I am somewhat of a snob but there is great honor amongst snobs.

Throughout my life I learned humility at a fairly young age and have had good examples of how to be generous and gracious, without expecting anything in return or without being condescending toward others. For me, nowhere have I found this mindset to be more true, consistent, and steady than in the world of wine collectors, or 'wine snobs' as many would refer to them. Being around such people, it influences and encourages me to maintain awareness about generosity and giving so that other people may too experience the great and unbridled joy of excellent wine.

Wine is a social vehicle and by itself, begs to be shared. Regardless of the quantity, quality, or variety on hand, wine needs to be distributed to others in order to get the very most it has to offer. Because we all have different levels of knowledge, different wine experiences, tastes, palates, and resources, we can learn so much about people by sharing a glass of wine with them. And this has not a thing to do with social-economic status (how expensive a shared bottle may be).

In late summer, a dear friend of mine that has great wine knowledge and experience invited me to a wine event he was hosting. He also happens to have a fantastic collection. Six of us including Mark the host, tasted through nine bottles of impeccable, remarkable, high scoring, delicious, collectable, and rare wine that he alone brought to the gathering because he wanted to share it with people he knew would appreciate it. And we did! For five hours, five erudite wine collectors spoke with me, only about wine - it was a fabulous experience.

This is not the first time people have expressed to me their generosity with wine, although this particular event will be very memorable to me for many years to come, I’m sure. Other collectors like Susan, Tom, another Mark, Lori and George along with a list that would read like “A” movie credits have also been generous and gracious, not only with their wine but with their knowledge. There is not much that is more rewarding than watching someone have an epiphany when experiencing truly great wine for the first time, or any time. Or in helping someone understand why some wine is better than another and watch them actually ‘get it’. It is a very honorable thing to do: to share not just the wine, but also the wine experience.

And it is natural for me to be generous with nearly anyone when it comes to wine not just because of my passion for it, but also because I have been shown through example many times over, the rewards of sharing. I recently had a service guy in my house. Of course being in my home he became aware of my proclivity for wine and wanting to know more about it, struck up aconversation with me that lasted nearly an hour. Maybe this was how he chose to spend his lunch break but whatever the circumstance, I gave him a bottle of excellent Italian wine that aligned with his wine preferences and knowledge level before he left. He was blown away that I would do that. But for me, I hope to hear how he enjoyed it, or not – what he thought of it, and whether it he gained any insight from the experience.

I have been around a few people that tend to take advantage of those that are generous and I try to avoid them like h1v1. Being generous is not fool-proof and requires some reasonable judgment to avoid the “I’ll have some of yours but you’ll never see me offer anyone else anything of mine” type of people. But the reward of generosity promulgates more generosity in the world and that alone, is a great and honorable pursuit. When it’s tied together with someone really getting excited about discovering a new wine or new wine knowledge, well, as the commercial says, that’s “priceless”. Call me a snob if you will - I am honored.

David Boyer

Photo at Zoot Restaurant (Bee Caves; Austin suburb) L to R: Mark, Brian, Charley, Susan, Erik

The Future of Futures

David Boyer — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:14:00 GMT

Confusing isn’t it? Read on. Barrel tasting scores are starting to roll in for the ’08 Bordeaux vintage, which means it's also time to begin seeing prices for Bordeaux futures. In case you’re not familiar, a barrel tasting is exactly as you would think: wine is extracted and tasted from the wood barrel that is used for aging wine before it is ready to be bottled; this is not considered finished wine. Barrel tasting usually takes place in the wine cellar, which is where the winemaker constantly monitors the condition of the wine during aging. These wines are very, very young so it takes considerable knowledge and skill on the part of the winemaker (and the wine critics that barrel taste and rate wine at this stage), to understand what is going to happen next and how the wine will develop and age over time.

When wine critics like Robert Parker from Wine Advocate (WA) or James Suckling from Wine Spectator (WS) arrive at an estate to evaluate wine in production, the intent is to give a range of scores that a wine should fall into once it’s finished and bottled. For example a barrel tasting score of 90 – 93 points would express where the wine might eventually land when it’s finally bottled and such scores have a direct and substantial influence on wine futures prices. Keep in mind too that in the case of high-end Bordeaux, even when it’s finished and bottled, it’s always too young to drink for many years. More than anything, fine Bordeaux needs your patience.

As for futures, they’re pretty much like any other financial instrument or commodity in the market. In Bordeaux, brokers buy the wine from the châteaux before it is even bottled and sell it to importers, who sell to distributors, who sell it to retailers and eventually us wine consumers. The idea is that if you buy Bordeaux futures at a low price before the wine is even finished, it will hopefully rise in value when it is released and distributed to the market. Buying Bordeaux futures is the same as other instruments in that if you guess about the future value correctly, you will be rewarded for your brilliance (luck usually), if you guess incorrectly you will loose your tail (bad luck usually). One of the biggest smackdowns in Bordeaux futures happened with the 2005 vintage, which was touted by the press as possibly the best vintage in a century. Investors, collectors and speculators of wine bit the bullet on '05 futures.

2005 First Growth Château Lafite-Rothschild futures were selling for $1200 to $1500 per bottle but can now be purchased for about $800 at retail. Pretty much the same with Châteaux Latour, Margaux, Mouton-Rothschild and Haut Brion. So over-hyped was this vintage (it was great, but not so great that there had to be a financial blood bath of this magnitude) that many buyers of Bordeaux futures are now gun-shy and understandably so. As far as I can determine, anyone that bought a case of First Growth 2005 en primeur (as a future) lost at least $2400 per case in value. Sadly the châteaux have nothing to do with this, yet they are often vilified for charging high prices and wrongly accused for futures investors loosing money. It’s the brokers and nêgociants in Bordeaux that have been the market makers for centuries and control prices, just like in equities and currency. And if you can’t afford to loose money with investments (who can these days?), it’s much safer to not play the game.

The generally marginal (in quality) 2006 vintage did not lower prices much from ‘05 as brokers attempted to maintain their margins and extravagant prices. The 2007 vintage, dismal compared even to ’06, lowered prices a bit but by then buyer confidence in Bordeaux futures was already struggling to breathe. It’s going to be a really tough sell for 2008 futures and I’m sorry to see great estates suffer because of the archaic systems to which they are subject. In a perfect world, the multi-tiered system would give way to less layers of outside control but considering the long history and political capital these brokers have, certainly evaporates any possibility of that happening any time soon.

Futures or not, store shelves will make way for new wines that will be released and a glut of un-sellable wine is expected. For the 2008 Bordeaux vintage, it appears that critics favor the Right Bank over the Left this year although their scores (at least Parker’s scores) so far were a little more generous in Left Bank’s Pessac-Léognan district. This district is the furthest south of the other major Bordeaux districts of the Médoc and here in Bordeaux, weather is king and can vary considerably within small distances; I mean sometimes even by meters. In the Right Bank, St. Emilion and Pomerol estates scored better and can generally be enjoyed at a younger age because they are made primarily with Merlot as opposed to Left Bank’s high content of Cabernet Sauvignon.

And prices? You won’t believe it! These prices are incredibly dialed back from Bordeaux former glory days – maybe there’s hope after all. The only 2008 First Growth score I could find so far is Château Margaux, which was rated at WA 95-97, WS 90-93 selling for $290 per bottle. Super Second (the more popular and famous Second Growth Bordeaux, so named as ‘Super Seconds’ by Parker some time ago), Ducru Beaucaillou came in at WA 96-98 and is selling for a paltry $90 – compare this with its ’05 futures price for this wine in the $300 to $350 per bottle range and which now sells for around $170 at retail! A few other examples include Montrose WA 95-97 for $67, Château Palmer WA 95-97 for $145 and Leoville Las Cases WA 95-97+ for $120. Price reductions like these certainly speak volumes about our current economic plight and efforts to correct trespasses into our bank accounts in the recent past.

Except for First Growths and the Super Seconds, so far the ’08 Left Bank fell pretty flat with barrel tasting scores in the upper 80s to low 90s. Still, these all are all shaping up to be relatively very good deals depending on what happens with the finished bottle. The only drawback for some aficionados is that the best of these will require ten to fifteen years of bottle age before they should be enjoyed.

Consider the fact that you have now seen the future.

David Boyer

The Sting? (Maybe)

David Boyer — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:45:00 GMT

What would happen if you were the seller of goods or services (I can’t think of a for-profit enterprise that doesn’t sell something) but you have a very sagacious clientele that insists on low-balling you at every opportunity? You want $100. Your client tells you she’ll pay $60. You want $1000. Your client says $650. Painful if you’re not on the buy-side, yes?

So over the course of major wine auctions that took place between, say, autumn of 2008 until the summer of 2009, this is exactly the scenario. Believe me, I have been one of those low-balling clients; the auction catalog arrives and I peruse it with great anticipation because I know how depressed the fine and rare wine market is. Can I get a bargain? Well it’s certainly worth a try. So I carefully read through a thousand or more lots scheduled to appear on the auction block and map out my strategy. As a guide to bidders, the auction house publishes in the catalog a low estimate and a high estimate of the price their experts believe each lot will sell for. One lot might consist of one bottle, one case, or any combination of wine, bottle size, and vintage.

But if you owned the auction house and your entire reputation rides on how much wine you sell and how high the price, perhaps you’d carve out a strategy to deal with all of these miscreant low-balling bidders. What if in the catalog, your published low and high estimates were generally very conservative (now you’re low-balling the bidders) so bidders would think they were going to be able to load up on cases of valuable wine at fire-sale prices? And then when you got them all gathered in the same room you beat them senseless with auction hammers until every last wallet was flatter than our current economy? I think that is exactly what Hart Davis Hart (HDH, one of America's most respected and prestigious auction houses) did during its September 12 auction. That day 1134 lots went out the door, most at ridiculously high prices. Whether intentional or happenstance, this was an excellent sting and I’m sure some bidders went home at the end of the day walking funny. I'm not suggesting that bidders were fleeced in any way - we were just outsmarted at our own game.

Were these extravagant prices a result of pent-up demand? Very likely. But also what was smart was publishing such low estimates in the catalog and then once the competition and fury began in the bidding room, the rest just took care of itself. By the way, not all estimates were low: some were near or at record highs like the best vintages of Lafite and other First Growth Bordeaux. In fact Bordeaux made a spectacular comeback, with Château Lafite-Rothschild making some of the largest gains in price since the crash. A case of 1982 Lafite sold for $38,240, including the auctioneer’s take of 19.5%. A case of six magnums of 1982 Château Petrus sold for an arresting $65,725. In their catalog, HDH estimated this lot to sell somewhere between $24K to $35K. Smart yes?

Nearly everything sold that day showed respectable, if not remarkable, gains redolent of the boom days, although in general, California collectables did not fare as well except for Sine Qua Non. Prices for typical Californian auction darlings such as Screaming Eagle, Harlan, and Shafer seemed to be hammered down (forgive the pun – or not) but Italian classics such as Sassicaia and Gaja along with the Rhone La La's and top Burgundy fared much better.

The bottom line is this: prices are rising quickly so we’ll feel this at retail very soon. Buying a good vintage of an occasional bottle of Lafite or pretty much any Classified Bordeaux is soon going to be much more expensive as are many other collectables. If you see bargains out there at retail or auction, and there still are a few (including some Californians), right now is the time to grab them up. Also if you’re willing to be patient and age some wine, bargains are still available from some great young vintages like the 2005 Bordeaux, although the word ‘bargain’ in this context is relative.

The most profound effect of this recent auction was the Asian influence because they have all the cash these days and were high bidders on many of the most expensive lots, according to HDH. Fine and rare wine auction houses in the past couple of years have even begun conducting auctions in Hong Kong, which has certainly driven prices up. It was probably less than five years ago that China was emerging as a financial powerhouse and its successful purveyors were just starting to find enjoyment in western-culture luxury goods. Because they didn’t know any better, Chinese wine drinkers were buying up expensive Classified Bordeaux and mixing it with ice and Coca Cola. I believe they have learned to do without such appurtenances these days.

I have no problem with anyone including Asians; we’ve seen Japan buy up American assets like there was no tomorrow, then the Arabs, now the Chinese. But I wouldn’t be honest with you if I said I didn’t feel a little sad about the greatest wines in the world again becoming too expensive for most Americans and finding its way to foreign shores. So sting or not, the outcome of this latest auction is not favorable to American collectors.

David Boyer

Where Is Your Bar?

David Boyer — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:16:00 GMT

There seems to still be no end in sight as to how often everyone in the wine press tells us how bad things are for wineries. And with that message repeating itself like Obama talking about health care, nearly everyone is writing about all the great deals out there. Some of it’s true and some of it is not but it mostly depends on where you have set your bar.

Like me, you probably raise your bar as your palate experiences more wine and better wine. We tend to eventually discriminate against wine that is out of balance, for example, or grape varieties that we just don’t care for. The point is that the more you know about wine, the more selective you become, which raises your bar or creates your own personal benchmark. So many of the so-called “value wines” available are not necessarily a value for everyone; remember, Drano is cheaper to unclog drains and presumably works better.

It stands to reason that wine publications will attempt to give their readers what they want in terms of usable information. But it doesn’t mean that these periodicals are in touch with their readership any more than General Motors understands car buyers. Wine Spectator landed in my mailbox this week with huge headlines on its cover: 500 Values for $20 or Less. Delicious Reds and Whites From Around the World. But for me, I just felt sad that so many innocent trees had to die for this because I would undoubtedly fall asleep thumbing through this issue, just before I relegate it to the recycling bin. My bar is way different and so little of this information is relevant to me, and I suspect, to many other WS readers; I would guess that most WS readers subscribe to find great wine – not $10 to $20 wine. Maybe it's just me.

We’ve had the wine score discussion many times over but in case you don’t remember my position on it, I’ll devise an abbreviated version. I think it is important to have access to wine scores to use as a guide. They are not always right on but they are close enough to get me information about thousands of different bottlings each year – far more than I could taste on my own, cost notwithstanding. Over the course of experiencing many wines I have determined that for me, maybe 1 in 500 is even drinkable if it is less than 90 points. Over the course of even more time I have raised that bar to up 93 points.

I will drink a 90 point wine but will not seek it out to buy unless I have tasted something myself that I believe to be underrated. Unfortunately, I think many wines are overrated and I have ruffled more than a few feathers with fellow wine lovers, sommeliers, and wine experts about this subject (by the way, wine makers and estate owners don’t dare utter even the slightest inference about wine critics. Hell hath no furry . . .). It occurs to me that wine publications may even be lowering their bar when it comes to ratings (with the possible exception of Stephen Tanzer) just to help prop up the business. And let’s be honest. If a wine publication is supported by the wine industry that buys advertising, it is in both party’s best interest to keep wineries afloat; this conflict of interest has long been a subject of controversy.

In this Wine Spectator, out of 500 'value' wines, here’s the breakdown:

Red wine

92 points - 1 wine

91 points - 10 wines

90 points - 23 wines

White wine

91 points - 8 wines

90 points - 9 wines

Out of 500 wines, there are a total of 51 wines rated 90 + points, or about 10%. Many of these are from Australia, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand and South Africa whose wines were already at the magic-below-$20 price point. There is also a smattering of Rhone and non-mainstream (but excellent) French regions like Languedoc and Alsace along with a few California, Washington and Italian possibilities. With only 10% being 90 points or higher, this seems consistent with WS’s ratings overall, but doesn't seem consistent with wine under $20.

But here’s the deal: it’s easy to be seduced into thinking that there is a train-car load of wines available that everyone will love, and only cost $10 a bottle. But depending where you’ve set your bar it may not be true so don’t fall for this. Wine Spectator did the same thing not too long ago, claiming that a gazillion wines were available on the cheap but disappointment and despair may loom in your future if you truly understand where your bar is currently set.

With the enormous amount of clutter in the market, I think we have to drop some dead weight to be healthy again and that means thinning out some of thousands of labels available. This abundance only fragments the market, confuses consumers, and does not contribute anything significant to the evolution of wine – wherever that may be headed. I have extreme respect for any winemaker that can make a good wine but I have more respect for those wineries that can make a good wine and survive. Don’t buy into this value proposition unless you know where your bar is.

Please let me know if you disagree – I’m interested.

David Boyer

The photo of the bar at the top is my favorite wine hangout: Lake Travis Wine Trader just prior to one of their fantastic Big Winos events.

It’s a Blog Eat Blog World

David Boyer — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:25:00 GMT

With a veritable sea of wine blogs out there, each one of them clamors for your attention. Some are very worthy of your time, many are so personal, inaccurate or convoluted they become unpalatable, while most are so soporific as to be best relegated to those occasional bouts of insomnia. Still bloggers in every genre duke it out day after day for reasons unknown to readers, and even with impending rumors of the complete demise of blogging, they continue to attempt to engage you.

And although the notion of linking other blogs to my own blog may seem counterintuitive from the traditional standpoint of competing for readers’ attention, it really is probably the best thing to do. After all, the point of a blog is to share information and because no one can know everything about everything it stands to reason that more than one blog site would be beneficial to the reader of a specific subject. If an entire publication such as a magazine or newspaper (I know you twenty-one-something readers are asking,“what’s that?”) were written by only one author, it would be very limited in scope and depth.

So because I’m your personal friend in wine, I took upon me the formidable task of finding the best wine blogs I could find, just to save you the trouble. Also I would rather you not become misinformed by the extreme amounts of misinformation or worthless information available via well-intentioned Robert Parker wannabes. So for you my friends, I went through literally hundreds of sites with specific criteria in mind. The blog should:

- be informative, accurate, and readable while conveying actual wine knowledge, or have a specific viewpoint of the wine world

- appeal to a wide audience, starting from those just learning to those that would be considered wine experts

- post on a regular basis; you wouldn’t believe the number of blogs that looked promising but have posted only once since, like, January

And the blog should not:

- be entirely inundated with advertising

- load its homepage unusually slow

- be limited to specific wine varieties or price points (if you want to find a blog that specializes in so-called “value wine” like under $10 or $15, they’re out there. Good luck with finding much drinkable wine though - let me know how that works out for you).

- contain much, if any, information about food, beer, or distilled spirits. Interestingly I love some of that stuff and even need some of it (like food), but I did not want to send you to a blog that becomes blurry, unfocused, and outside the reason you come to this site: wine.

- be a professional publication such as a newspaper column or commercial periodical or operated by a single winery

So you can see what great standards I’ve set for you, yes? You’re welcome. This initiative was a far bigger task than I imagined when I first set out and it took me probably two months. Still, I know I have missed some good ones out there so please feel free to send me any blogs to consider adding. All of these blogs are worthy of your attention but a few stand out for me:

- Green and Blue – London calling. Let’s face it. The Brits have been buying up the greatest wine in the world for centuries prior to America even becoming a sovereign nation. Even though blogstress and wine shop owner Kate Thal was born and raised in South Africa (it seems to me that there may have been some British influence in South Africa at one time), she nonetheless moved to London, became a sommelier, a wine buyer and consultant, only to end up owning her own wine shop with her husband Jude. This blog is great and in the wine world, Kate’s voice is important, pure, and passionate; all the things we love about great wine. If you cannot go to London, visit her site. When you do go to London, visit her shop. I definitely will.

http://www.greenandbluewines.com/index.php/Blog/

- Wine Economist – making sense of nonsense in the wine world. Professor Michael Veseth (Ph.D.) teaches International Political Economics at the University of Puget Sound in the State of Washington. He is author and co-author of more than a dozen books about economics but what’s cool is that he is able to articulately bridge the economics discipline with his love and knowledge of wine. I find his subjects very provocative, sometimes controversial, and always well written and researched, which tend to evoke a response from his readers (like me). I respond to his posts as often as time allows.

http://wineeconomist.com/

- Wineanorak – brilliant wine insight and knowledge. Jamie Goode is a highly respected journalist and author in the wine world (another gift from UK). In fact when you feel like you have hit the end of your rope with wine knowledge, pick up a copy of his book, “The Science of Wine – From Vine to Glass”. This is one of the most enlightening books of more advanced wine knowledge you will find, that is both comprehensive, yet easier to read than many science based textbooks, mostly due to his ability to convey complicated subjects into easier terms. Plus it's certainly less expensive than getting your Master of Enology degree at UC Davis. Always, always excellent information.

http://www.wineanorak.com/blog/index.htm

- Wines and Vines – advanced industry information. Although I have broken my own rule of selecting blogs that appeal to every level, even people just beginning to learn wine will benefit from the depth of industry information found here. If it makes you want to learn more about what’s happening at harvest, or in the wine cellar or what equipment is needed to make wine, then that’s great. This is very fine information for the taking and is inspiring to peruse. Who knows? Maybe you’ll become so inspired that you’ll someday own your own wine estate. I'm just sayin'.

http://www.winesandvines.com/

- HoseMaster of Wine – just plain hilarious. Not all of this will make sense to everyone but this dude is really funny. And the more you know about wine, the wine world and people in the wine industry, the funnier it becomes. In fact I could probably gauge a person’s wine knowledge by the intensity of their laughter as they read through his blog posts. Personally, I have doubled over with laughter – this guy trashes everyone and everything, yet Ron Washam is a sommelier with a couple of decades of experience; he's not just an insolent pundit taking shots at the wine industry. I would be shocked if he was not the illegitimate love child of Don Rickles and Joan Rivers. This will categorically be the funniest stuff you’ll ever read about wine, ah, mmm, unless you own a winery or are anyone even remotely important in the wine world.

http://hosemasterofwine.blogspot.com/

These sites and more are accessible from the blog roll entitled "Class of 1855 Recommended Sites" located on the right side of the blog page. All of it is valuable information at any level and I am pleased to share it with you, dear readers.

By the way, the logo up there? It’s the official logo for this blog and website and also beautifully graces the front of my business cards. This was created for me as an original work of art by Aimee Blase (a wine lover too) at Blase Design and I was extremely fortunate to have found her – I love her work! You can find her easier than I did at http://www.blasedesign.com/. Also huge thanks to a couple of long-time and dear savant wine friends: Igor Litinsky whose stellar concept of having a business card look like a wine label set things in motion for me, and François Pointeau for coming up with the French phrase above the logo. It perfectly translates my sentiments: Simply, for the love of wine.

David Boyer

A Most Important Event

David Boyer — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:20:00 GMT

Life has been most gracious to me in too many ways to count. Regarding my love of wine, I was recently able to attend a wine event (beautifully and expertly hosted by Lake Travis Wine Trader) that was created around one of the most important and celebrated winemakers of our time: Heidi Peterson Barrett.

I have been around many substantial celebrities throughout my life and Heidi is similar to them in many ways. She is artistic, disarming, articulate, earthy, approachable, and certainly erudite in her profession. And WOW does she make great wine! In spite of her remarkable success and rock star status, she is a really nice person who intrinsically recognizes that her own substantive talent collided head on with luck.

If you don’t know her name, you certainly will recognize the wines she has made and continues to have her hands in. It seems almost unfair to mention her most successful wine to date because it far eclipses anything she or nearly anyone else in the world has ever accomplished. I’m talking about Screaming Eagle of course. The first vintage in 1992 today still commands over $10,000 per bottle, if you can find it at all. Early production being around 225 cases a year, at once contributed to its cult status and rarity. In 2000 Ms. Barrett’s Screaming Eagle set a record for the world’s most expensive single bottle of wine (although it was a 6 liter bottle), which sold at auction for a cool $500K. That record still stands today and Heidi is still humble about the whole affair.

Other wines she is currently responsible for include Amuse Bouche, Paradigm, Barbour, Lamborn, Kenzo, Revana Family, and Fantesca. Past clients include Buehler, Dalla Valle, Jones Family, Rubicon, Grace Family, Vineyard 29, David Arthur, and Showket. So now you can understand that meeting Heidi is like meeting the wine industry’s equivalent of Madonna, Sting, Aretha Franklin or the Beatles.

But she didn’t arrive in Austin just to take a bow before her enormous base of adoring fans. She has been doing a break-neck road tour to share her very own wines under the La Sirena label that she’s been making since 1994. In less than a couple of weeks she’ll need to be back in Napa (Calistoga more accurately) to oversee this year’s harvest and once that starts she understandably won’t be seen for months before coming up for air again. La Sirena, like all things Heidi Barrett, is very considerable and excellent. We tasted through all five current releases:

2007 - Moscato Azul – gorgeous in everyway, very floral and fermented until dry with less than 2% residual sugar (unlike the typical Italian white dessert wine made from this variety) - $30

2005 – Syrah, Santa Ynez – one of my favorites of the evening, beautifully balanced with an elegant proportion of smokiness, which I love in big reds - $45

2005 – Syrah, Napa Valley – round, smooth but still fresh and exciting with lots of dark fruit; again her fingerprints were all over this: very balanced - $60

2006 – Syrah, Barrett Vineyard, Napa – copious amounts of concentration with very French Northern Rhone characteristics for me, I really loved this, and because it comes from her own two acre vineyard, unfortunately there’s not going to be much of this around for long - $80

2006 – Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa – this variety is where Heidi shines and probably is dearest to her heart, this wine was very fine, complex and long; if laid down for another three to five years this wine will really come together. As always, patience is a virtue when contemplating big cabs and such patience is sure to be rewarded in this case. Fabulous! - $150

Who knows when La Sirena could become the next Screaming Eagle? One thing is for sure – all of the ingredients are there. And yes, it all starts with great fruit, but even great fruit can’t be transformed into great wine without a great winemaker.

If you’re having trouble finding this at your favorite retailer you can buy it directly from La Sirena (for those states that allow direct shipping) by going to their website at http://www.lasirenawine.com. I truly hope you don’t miss this wine and I truly wish I had much more time to share this monumental event with you. Perhaps over a glass of La Sirena.

David Boyer - Heidi Barrett

Junk - 2ème Partie – and the Avoidance Thereof

David Boyer — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 02:01:00 GMT

Here’s my take on the current wine market: if you are evenfairly serious about quality wine, you are seriously challenged like the restof us. Why? Because by my estimation, there are about 100,000 or so labels inthe market at any given time. Less than 5% of those wines are worthy of yourattention, the rest being junk. So with maybe 5000 quality wines available weare left with the task finding a needle in a haystack. Still, I’m beinggenerous with 5000.

Did you think this was going to be easy? It is going torequire time, some dedication, time, some money, time, research, and time. Thefirst thing to start with is getting familiar with wine publications:

Wine Spectator – http://www.winespectator.com/

Robert Parker/Wine Advocate - http://www.erobertparker.com/

Stephen Tanzer – http://www.wineaccess.com/expert/tanzer/newhome.html

Make a list of wines you think you might enjoy based ondescriptions. Although wine scores are very controversial, no matter if they’reright on the mark or not, they serve as a very useful guide, especially if youget to know a reviewer’s personal taste. Plus these people get to reviewthousands of wines each year, which puts them far ahead of what we might beable to even get close to. If you begin buying only wines above a certainscore, say 88 or 90 points, you’ll soon begin to filter out much of the junkwhile establishing a personal baseline for yourself. This guides you to whatwill be acceptable to you and what will not and further refines your chances oflanding on wine that you’ll actually enjoy.

Wine authorities are a great source of information but thereis simply no replacement for actually tasting wine, which is why I encouragepeople to attend wine events as often as possible. And don’t just go to oneplace if you have choices because every wine bar has it own characteristicswhen it comes to putting a wine menu together. In other words, not all winebars are equal; you will find different wines, tastes, business models, andphilosophies at each establishment. In fact there are a fair number ofso-called wine bars that only serve or mostly serve junk! Still, make everywine experience a learning experience and keep track of things you like anddon’t like. To find events in your area sign up for a free weekly newsletter athttp://www.localwineevents.com/.

Other serious collectors I know go to CellarTracker’swebsite (not surprisingly located at www.cellartracker.com) to find newwines. This is an enormous base of wine drinkers that write tasting notes andscore wines they have experienced. I have avoided this site personally becausethere are so many wine critic wannabes that have so little credibility fromthese million plus tasting notes, that it potentially puts one back in the sameposition we started in – how to eliminate junk. However I am told on very goodauthority that once you figure out who’s who on this site, much valuableinformation can be extrapolated from visiting CellarTracker. It’s worth lookingat.

If you do nothing else to rid yourself of the clutter outthere, pick at least two out these three strategies and stick with it. Once youdiscover wines you want to buy the next challenge will be at retail. Many ofthe wines you read about may not be readily available at your local wineretailer and I have yet to find but a small handful of retailers that willactually take the time to call their distributors or look through long lists ofwine available to them, just to find you some wine. This is a big problem formost of us but of course there are always exceptions to this rule. If I fail tofind what I want locally, I will go to www.wine-searcher.com where nearlyanything can be found somewhere, including many older vintages. Just use common sense here. If mostretailers on WineSearcher sell a particular wine for $500 but there is one thatsells it for $80, there’s something wrong. Always remember if sounds too goodto be true . . .

There are far too many great wines out there to drink junk.Make even a minimal effort to eliminate junk wine from your life and watch yourwine-satisfaction meter move toward ten. As always, please let me know if youhave other strategies or any questions.

David Boyer

Junk - 1ère Partie

David Boyer — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 01:04:00 GMT

I continue to hear over and over that wine consumers aretrading down – that is, we may not be buying less wine necessarily, but we arebuying less expensive wines. And because I am Bordeaux-centric I hear a lot of other stufftoo; like French wine has been shoved off the gallows, hit the end of its rope,and will soon die off completely. A statement like that is truly beyond theimagination and I am appalled that any writer with even a grape seed ofintegrity would produce such sensationalistic rubbish, or junk, if you will. This postulate comesfrom the wine writer for Slate.com. Like nearly every other wine region in theworld, the state of the French wine industry is undeniably in decline butcenturies of masterfully producing much of the world’s best wine will notdisappear.

Sure there are other wine producing countries doing greatthings with wine, even at a value price-point, but it still is not what the French can do with wine.What will happen I believe is that the wine market in general will get rid of alot of junk itdoesn’t need. Consider this market correction an industry-wide garage salewhere all needless things are sold off for pennies on the dollar or taken tothe curb in a trash bin.

The other thing is this: I hear people slam French wine as‘not being very good’. When I dig down a little deeper the mystery is quicklysolved with one question: “Well, what did you pay for this wine you arepummeling into the dirt?” Inevitably, the answer is less than $15 or $20dollars! Then realistically, what can be expected from a French wine at thisprice point? Imagine a wine that is produced in France, sold to a nêgociant,who ships it across the ocean in temperature controlled containers to a USimporter, who sells it to a distributor, who sells to a retailer, who sells itto you. At best, the original wine producer received a couple of dollars perbottle but probably far less. Although there are French values out there, $15or $20 is not setting the bar very high when considering all of the channels itmust go through to end up in your glass. Perhaps more than any other wineregion, you pretty much get what you pay for when it comes to French wine sothe expectation must be adjusted accordingly.

Current Bordeaux International Wine Institute data revealsthere are nearly 14,000 wine producers in Bordeaux alone compared to the US,which in 2007 had about 6000 wineries (half of which are in California). Thisis a huge number by any measure. The 2005 vintage produced 950,000,000 bottlesof Bordeaux but how many of those bottles could really be of much quality? Yesdear friends, it is true and for many reasons, there is junk at every corner whether it’s from France, Italy,Spain, Australia, or the US. In fact, being generous I would consider maybe 10%of the world’s wines to be of drinkable quality.

So the question is this: how do you find wine that will notdisappoint? How do you know what is junk and what’s not, before you buy? I have some methods I willpost here in Part 2 (2ème Partie) that answers those questions – stay tuned.

David Boyer

Secret Closet for Merlot

David Boyer — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:13:00 GMT

Find one or build one. A secret closet for Merlot - you know, somewhere you can go drink Merlot without anyone knowing that you drink Merlot? This way you won’t feel embarrassed and no one can find you to beat you up because it’s not cool to drink Merlot. I had forgotten how great this grape variety can be and really have not had a bottle of fine Merlot in quite some time. By inestimable odds, the cult Hollywood movie, Sideways, completely and single-handedly decimated this wine’s market causing everyone to dumpster-toss their remaining bottles of the stuff in favor of Pinot Noir. I’m here to tell you: now more than ever, disregarding Merlot is a mistake.

At a recent wine tasting (hosted by Lori Wise at Lake Travis Wine Trader and Republic’s erudite Jerome Chladil) that featured lots of Darioush, some Cakebread, Duckhorn, and Swanson, there was a very fine 2006 Merlot from Blackbird, a winery that was under my radar. Admittedly there’s thousands of those. As the tasting theme was ‘New World’ vs ‘Old World’ it was pitted against Duckhorn, who of course has been around since the mid-seventies. Blackbird’s current owner purchased the vineyards in Napa’s Oak Knoll District in 2003 and it seems this estate has done well so far with all of their varietals; most of their offerings run in the 90+ points range.

Still only 302 cases of Blackbird’s Merlot, named “Arise”, were made but it’s definitely worth pursuing. This winery is going places so keep an eye out. Blackbird Arise slammed my palate with very rich, dark fruit, ripe and integrated tannins, and an impressively long, dimensional finish. Merlot can be soft, Rubenesque, and even soporific but this was really exciting and fine, showing us that Merlot can transcend its reputation, which domestically has been beat with a large stick by mediocre wineries.

Beyond Napa's Blackbird, Merlot is the star grape variety in Bordeaux Right Bank, producing some of the most incredible (and expensive) wines in the world like Château Pétrus, Château Lafleur, and Château Le Pin and Château Cheval Blanc to name a few, from the world-famous appellations of Pomerol and Saint-Émilion. These wines sell for hundreds to thousands of dollars per bottle routinely at auction and are mostly or completely Merlot driven. And contrary to popular belief Merlot has the most acreage under vine of any varietal in Bordeaux, eclipsing Cabernet Sauvignon by a significant amount.

My Blackbird experience reminds me that I just need to get back into enjoying Merlot because there are still producers out there doing great things with this grape (including Duckhorn). Besides, sales growth in Pinot Noir has finally leveled out to a paltry 11.6% per year according to the latest industry figures (yeah, who wouldn't love that number these days?). Blackbird Arise sells for about $60 per bottle, which is very reasonable given the value of enjoyment and someday perhaps, we’ll even be able to come out of the Merlot closet.

As a final note: buy everything Darioush and thank me later. A case of their Signature Cabernet Sauvignon will be quite acceptable.

David Boyer

Hey – No Ones Perfect . . .

David Boyer — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:08:00 GMT

Is there such thing as a ‘perfect 10’? Does a truly flawless wine exist or is it illusory? I can say that for me, a perfect wine experience occurs from time to time, which is to say that a confluence of friends and remarkable wines come together and are served in a great environment at the perfect age and temperature, in the correct wine glasses, which makes for such an occasion. And as great as so many wines are at events like this, they may not be as remarkable in a different context. And I have had a number of wines rated 100 points (allegedly perfect). Overall I think only the wine experience (and not the wine itself) can be flawless on those rare occasions that serve up memories many years later.

Wine flaws are the reason great winemakers continue to challenge themselves to raise the bar ever higher. A perfect wine may exist at one moment in time with someone, somewhere, but getting a group of people in the same room to agree that a wine is ‘perfect’ is as improbable as thinking we can spend our way out of a recession. Someone will find something, however minute, to discredit the claim of a perfect wine and once that is out of the bag, others will also spot the flaw because we are highly suggestive creatures when it comes to wine. And apparently economics.

On my website, I have finally finished writing and published a new page about wine flaws. You can visit this page by clicking here: http://www.classof1855.com/Wine_Flaws.html. Although there are a massive amount of potential flaws that can show up in a wine, this page describes the six flaws most likely to affect you. If you can master the identification of these six flaws, you will be able spot a large percentage of defects found in wine. Six? Sounds easy.

But it’s not easy because sometimes, what one may consider a ‘flaw’ another will consider an attribute. This complicates things enormously because of our threshold of detection, so what may be an acceptable level of ‘funk’ for one person, may be completely repulsive to another (excluding George Clinton and Bootsy Collins records – those were all funk and all great). And sometimes real defects are passed off as being ‘just part of the terroir’, which of course is rubbish. If your wine smells like burning rubber or band-aids, I guarantee you that it is not because of the vineyard’s terroir. Yet diesel fuel aromas in older Rieslings are perfectly acceptable and are as far as we know, truly from terroir. So the world of defective wines will always be around and alot of flaws will always be controversial.

Once you really get up to speed on what is considered defective wine, it will change your perspective and even change what is, and is no longer acceptable to you personally. I deem this a worthwhile goal for anyone that is more than a casual wine drinker – there will be rewards at the end of the rainbow if you learn about wine flaws.

David Boyer

quod erat demonstrandum

David Boyer — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:27:00 GMT

(“Which Was to Be Demonstrated”, or QED to us)

It’s easy to become jaded in the wine world. Over the course of time and once you’ve had a number of very fine wines, it kind of puts thing in perspective about who really is who. As a consequence, it becomes ever more difficult to get fired up about yet another new winery, label or release. And even in this highly questionable economy, it’s a miracle that there are any new wineries coming online. I’m not joking.

So, as if like Manu, into the wine world waltzes this really cool dude that really knows what he’s doing. I’m not joking. At a wine tasting, winemaker Billo Naravane with Rasa Vineyards introduced his first vintage. The wine: QED, and you’re going to want to hunt this down and beat up your retailer to beat up their distributor to get this excellent wine into your cellar. And then into your mouth.

Mark Patterson whom I am fortunate to know, is an extremely knowledgeable wine collector friend and had been in on QED barrel tastings for some time. As usual Mark was right - the wine itself gives to you everything you could ask for in a Syrah: a beautiful, evolving and intriguing nose, dark fruit and long a pure finish that expresses the quality of fine Walla Walla Syrahs like Cayuse, and K. Balance, elegance, and a sense of place are the first things that come to mind when first putting my nose and palate to the glass.

The 2007 QED (only 640 cases to go around for the entire world) is wonderfully drinkable right now and will develop even more complexity with bottle age for at least eight to ten years. A Southern Rhone-type blend, this beauty contains 94% Syrah, 3% Grenache and 3% Mourvedre from Les Collines in Walla Walla, and Seven Hills and Lewis vineyards in Yakima, which is certainly some of Washington State’s finest.

Every wine it seems has its story. And because every new winemaker only has one chance to impress in this very cluttered market, the story must be as good as, or better than, the wine itself. Typically the hype is weaved together carefully by a great publicist or veteran journalist or a crew of professional spin-master marketers. The story of QED is better than what anyone could contrive: an overachiever from a young age, Billo created his academic mark by first majoring in Applied Math and Computer Science at MIT and his EE degree came from Stanford. After fifteen years he chucked it all and walked out of UC Davis with his Masters in Viticulture and Enology. If there ever was a better story, I haven’t heard it, partially because this one is true. In addition to making great wine worthy of your attention, Billo also is running the Viticulture program at Walla Walla Community College, sharing his genius with others. Billo’s brother Pinto is pretty much the same thing; an overachiever from the high tech industry with a passion for making great wine.

But what really struck me apart from this awesome Syrah was that Billo’s approach toward making wine is what is going to put him on the map in this over-processed, big-human-intervention, technology-driven, homogenized world of winemaking. To state it plainly, Billo is a purist. Just great wine that will always be honest, and expressive of its terroir and vintage, “Which Was to Be Demonstrated” and certainly was demonstrated.

There is nothing else to ask for other than being able to find a source to buy this very limited quantity of fine wine – in my world, it's exactly why Goggle was invented!

David Boyer