win December 2008

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by Jim L. Ellingson

December 24, 2008 WINES OF THE TIMES Let the Good Times Tiptoe By ERIC ASIMOV THE corks will pop as usual this holiday season, and the bubbly will froth over into the glasses. Toasts will be offered, and the good times will still roll, but perhaps in a more subdued fashion. Fewer of those bottles of sparkling wine are likely to be Champagne this December. All over the United States, people are spending less for wine, and aiming for a lower-key expression of seasonal joy. That means less Champagne. Partly, this is an economic decision. .People are clearly trading down,. said Jon Fredrikson of Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates, a wine industry analyst in California. .People are still drinking wine, but it.s clearly at lower price points.. But emotions and appearances play an important role in the decision as well. Aside from a general shortage of celebratory occasions like mergers, closings, bonuses and office parties, many restaurateurs say that customers are avoiding even the appearance of celebration. .People just don.t want to look extravagant today,. said Paul Grieco, an owner of Hearth, Insieme and Terroir in Manhattan. .They still want to drink, so they cut out the Champagne and go directly to whatever they.re drinking with dinner.. After several strong years, Champagne sales in the United States began to slip in 2007 as the weak dollar caused prices to rise. About 21 million bottles were shipped to the United States in 2007, down 2 percent from 2006, and the drop became precipitous in 2008. Through August, sales were down 17 percent over the corresponding period last year, according to Sam Heitner, director of the Office of Champagne U.S.A., a trade organization, and that doesn.t include the last three months of the year, when much of the Champagne is sold. .We.re in uncharted territory,. he said. Recognizing the concern over spending, the wine panel recently tasted 25 sparkling wines priced $10 to $20, the sweet spot these days for good wine values. We restricted ourselves to dry sparkling wines, while ruling out sparkling roséand reds. For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by the husband-and-wife team of Scott Mayger, the general manager of Telepan on the Upper West Side, and Beth von Benz, a wine consultant. The good news is that outside of Champagne, just about any region in the world that makes wine makes sparkling wine, too. Among our 25 bottles were wines from France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Australia, as well as California, Washington state, New Mexico and Michigan. Believe me, that.s just the beginning. I.ve enjoyed good bottles from Austria, Massachusetts and Georgia (the country, not the state). I did set one more parameter: no prosecco. I like prosecco, but I enjoy it best in spring and summer, when its sprightliness seems to match the season. I didn.t rule out sekt, the sparkling wine of Germany, but maybe I should have. I.ve rarely met a sekt I.ve liked, and neither one in our tasting made our top 10. And I confess, I.m not much of a fan either of cava, the sparkling wine of Spain. One of the three in our tasting, the Reserva Heredad from Segura Viudas, made our top 10 at No. 9, though at $20 it was maybe not such a good value. Perhaps in a different context, say, a cafe in Frankfurt or tapas bar in Barcelona, these wines might have been more appealing. But when they were mixed in with a bunch of bottles made in the fashion of Champagne, with some proportion of chardonnay and pinot noir, the main grapes of Champagne, we preferred those bottles, wherever they came from. Our top bottle, the 2004 brut from Domaine Carneros, was, of course, from California. We found it elegant and delicious, and it just squeaked by two other far-flung bottles. Our No. 2, the Contadi Castaldi, was from the Italian region of Franciacorta, which produces some excellent Champagne facsimiles. This one was particularly dry and light-bodied, with aromas of herbs, spices and flowers. And our No. 3 was a sparkling wine from Burgundy, the toasty, refreshing Parigot & Richard blanc de blancs, made mostly from chardonnay. While our price range was $10 to $20, most of the wines in the tasting were $15 to $20. One of the few exceptions, and the only one to make the list, was the Crént de Limoux blanc de blancs from Domaine J. Laurens, which at $13 was our best value. Habituéof the bargain aisle may be familiar with blanquette de Limoux, a sparkling wine from the same region in southern France. This is generally even cheaper than the Laurens, and usually made from the mauzac grape. The crént is made of chardonnay and chenin blanc, which gives an added smoothness and elegance. Other Champagne-style wines that we liked included three more from California, the Roederer Estate, long a personal favorite of mine, as well as the Piper Sonoma and the Gloria Ferrer. Two other French wines rounded out our top 10. La Cravatine from Fabrice Gasnier was an oddity, a sparkling Chinon made from the cabernet franc grape. It was nonetheless light and refreshing, as was our No. 10, the herbal-scented crént d.Alsace from Lucien Albrecht, made from pinot blanc and pinot auxerrois. Let.s be honest, none of these bottles will match a very good Champagne. But they cost half what you would pay these days for the least expensive Champagne, and they were enjoyable. Even so, they may all still cost more than many people are willing to spend. Mr. Fredrikson said the greatest growth right now is in bottles $6 and under, which includes mass-produced sparkling wines that in my opinion are not worth the money. There may be one bright spot for Champagne. Roberto Rogness, general manager of Wine Expo in Santa Monica, Calif., which offers an exceptional selection of sparkling wines, reports that even though cavas, crénts and other Champagne alternatives are selling .by the boatload,. Champagne sales seem to be holding their own. And Mr. Rogness is looking hopefully to next year. .We.re starting to get feelers for inauguration parties,. he said. Tasting Report: They Aren.t Champagne, but They Do Sparkle Domaine Carneros by Taittinger Carneros Brut 2004 $20 *** Toasty, creamy, elegant and lively with flavors of apple and lemon. Contadi Castaldi Franciacorta Brut NV $19 *** Dry and light with lovely floral, mint and spice aromas. (Importer: Blavod Extreme Spirits, Franklin, Tenn.) Parigot & Richard Crént de Bourgogne Brut Blanc de Blancs NV $20 *** Dry, refreshing with floral aromas and flavors of lime and brioche. (Willette Wines/A Becky Wasserman Selection, Manhasset, N.Y.) BEST VALUE Domaine J. Laurens Crént de Limoux Brut Blanc de Blancs NV $13 ** 1/2 Dry and textured with refreshing flavors of citrus and flowers. (Vigneron Imports, Oakland, Calif.) Roederer Estate Anderson Valley Brut NV $19 ** 1/2 Light, dry and Champagne-like with flavors of lemon and grapefruit. Fabrice Gasnier Chinon Blanc de Noir La Cravatine NV $17 ** Dry and frothy with lively citrus flavors. (Petit Pois/Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, N.J.) Piper Sonoma Sonoma County Brut Blanc de Blancs Select CuvéNV $17 ** Light and straightforward with flavors of lemon and apple. Gloria Ferrer Carneros Brut Blanc de Blancs 2004 $20 ** Light and frothy with aromas of lemon, apple and mushroom. Segura Viudas Cava Brut Reserva Heredad NV $20 ** Bright and lively with herbal, floral and citrus flavors. (Freixenet, Sonoma, Calif.) Lucien Albrecht Crént d.Alsace Brut Blanc de Blancs NV $20 ** Light and crisp with aromas of anise, tarragon and peach. (Pasternak Wine Imports, Harrison, N.Y.) -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *

16 years, 11 months

[wine] Field guid to sparkling

by Jim L. Ellingson

Save you tracking the link. A field guide to sparkling wines from around the world Jon BonnéChronicle Wine Editor Friday, November 30, 2007 A selection of sparkling wines from around the world. Chr... 2004 Steininger Cabernet Sauvignon RoséChronicle photo ... NV Gran Sarao Cava Brut. Chronicle photo by Craig Lee NV Caves Carod Freres Clairette de Die. Chronicle photo b... More... Consider it a strange affect of the human condition: Wherever in the world wine is made, someone will try to add bubbles. This manifests itself most obviously in Champagne, where climate and history conspired to make nearly all the local grapes into a pale beverage infused with natural fizz. Yet there's a similar drive almost everywhere - not only to make wine, but to make wine sparkle. In places as far-flung as India and Chile, tiny bubbles are the order of the day. With few exceptions, they are capped by the same ubiquitous Champagne cork and placed in the same shape of bottle, with its graceful slope and thick walls. Wine buyers have taken notice. Once the sparkling portion of a wine list could be parsed simply by identifying the same familiar Champagnes, plus a domestic sparkler thrown in as a sign of local pride. Then Cava and Prosecco joined the roster. Now, these choices have become as complex as the rest of the wine list, and in the Bay Area it's no longer surprising to find, say, a Cremant du Jura at San Francisco's Slanted Door or a Scheurebe Sekt at Oakland's A Cote. Successfully spotting these lesser-known wines has mostly been a task for the skilled bubbly-hunter (identified by the worn stem on his Champagne flute). It need not be so. The rest of us deserve a quick reference to identify these creatures. Therefore, we offer a handy field guide to bubbly beyond Champagne. Cremant Location: Throughout France Grapes: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, plus local substitutions. French fizz hardly starts or ends with Champagne. In all points you can find reasonable facsimiles marked by the word "cremant," which is simply the moniker given any French Champagne-like wine after the term "methode champenoise" was outlawed. Directly south of Champagne, there's Cremant de Bourgogne, no surprise since Burgundy and Champagne share the same roster of grapes and damp climate. To the east, Cremant d'Alsace hails from that slice of land once held by Germany and still enjoying residual sauerkraut benefits. Similar grapes are used as in Champagne, though Alsace has a fondness for Noir's Pinot cousins, Gris and Blanc. Perhaps the most interesting of the Cremants comes from the Jura, off the chilly mountain slopes that face Burgundy's Cote d'Or and share some of its limestone soils. Jura still wines are unlike anything else in France (its famous vin jaune is akin to an Alpine sherry), and its sparkling wines - harnessing local varieties like Saviginin and Poulsard - have many of the same stoic mineral qualities that enliven some harder-edged Champagnes. Cremant de Loire, Vouvray brut and other Loire bubbles Location: Loire Valley, France Grapes: Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, other varieties. Champenois grapes can be found in this fertile valley, but more than elsewhere they are trumped by local varieties, with Chenin Blanc as a dominant force and Cabernet Franc in a strong supporting role. The real beauty comes from towns like Vouvray, Saumur and Montlouis, well known to Chenin Blanc lovers. Wine merchant Alexis Lichine once called sparkling Vouvray "a Frenchman's substitute for Champagne," but one taste of a good Vouvray Brut reveals the flaws in that comparison. It is marked by Chenin's telltale smells of dry apple and pinecone, recast into a crisp, lively wonder. While sweet Vouvray tends to get all the fanfare, respected vintners like S.A. Huet take great pride in their sparkling wines. Blanquette de Limoux Location: Southern France Grapes: Mauzac (aka Blanquette), Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc. In the northern foothills of the Pyrenees mountains lies one of two French locales that claim a sparkling tradition predating Champagne. Documents detail the 1531 discovery of a sparkling wine method by a monk at the Benedictine abbey in nearby Saint-Hilaire. (One apocryphal claim places Dom Perignon here prior to his assignment in the north.) The resulting wine, made primarily from Mauzac with increasingly prevalent Chardonnay, is refreshingly austere, though sometimes rustic. There's also an "ancestral" version bottled each March according to the phases of the moon. Bugey Cerdon Location: France's Jura mountains, west of Geneva Grapes: Gamay, Poulsard. This rosés made with the methode ancestrale, in which wine with some sugar goes into the bottle to naturally finish its fermentation. The result is naturally sweet and light, with pretty berry flavors and alcohol well under 10 percent. Clairette de Die Location: Eastern Central France Grapes: Muscat Blanc, Clairette Blanche. The other place with a claim to predate Champagne sits along a remote 30-kilometer stretch of the Drome tributary of the Rhone river, between the northern and southern Rhone Valley. In 77 A.D., Pliny the Elder described sparkling wine from the area made by leaving vessels of still wine in the river all winter. Come spring, it had acquired a fizz. Nowadays, grape must is chilled below freezing in steel tanks and fermented to about 3 percent alcohol, then bottled and allowed to continue fermentation. Unlike most sparkling wines, there's no added dosage at the end. The result, with about 7 percent alcohol, is like a refined sweet Moscato. Cava Location: Spain, mostly Catalonia Grapes: Macabeo (aka Viura), Parellada, Xarel-lo, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir. Spain's contribution to bubbly has taken on such a popular identity of its own that its 1970 decision to abandon the term "Champañcan be judged a wise one. Cava means "cellar" in Catalan, and if inexpensive fizz like Prosecco is made quick and cheap in a closed tank, Cava signals a Spanish commitment to do things the hard way - retaining traditional Champagne-style winemaking for a wine that rarely tops $15. Though Cava hinges on its own unique trio of grapes - Macabeo, Parellada, Xarel-lo - Chardonnay joined the ranks in 1986 and Pinot Noir is now allowed as well. Beyond the biggest names, Freixenet and Cordoniu, lies a proliferation of smaller producers making distinctive wines. Prosecco Location: Veneto, Italy Grapes: Prosecco. This tart, wan grape has found fame in bubbles as the Veneto's sparkling wine and has gained worldwide favor. The Bellini cocktail, and Prosecco's supporting role in it, are no doubt a partial cause, as is its carefree image and price. Most Prosecco is made in bulk using the Charmat method (see Bubbly Glossary, Page F7), unencumbered by pretense and meant as a casual, refreshing drink. Having fully exploited the Prosecco market, some producers like Mionetto have turned to other formulas, like its Sergio Roséfrom red Lagrein and Raboso grapes. Italian brut Location: Mostly northern Italy (Lombardy, Veneto) but also in the south Grapes: Everything under the sun. Oceans of Prosecco and Asti Spumante have left an impression that Italian bubbly is cheap stuff. For evidence this isn't so, look no further than Franciacorta, the Lombardy appellation for fine traditionally made sparklers from the same range of grapes found in Alsace and Burgundy - Chardonnay, plus Pinots Noir, Gris and Blanc. Ambitiously, they often fetch as much as good Champagne as do the long-aged reserve bruts from Trentino-based winemaking giant Cavit. Similar wines have pervaded Italy. In Sicily, bruts hail from Tasca d'Almerita and Murgo, while in the Veneto, Prosecco firm Carpene Malvolti makes brut from Kerner (a cross of Riesling and Schiava). Should you ever spy the brut made by Barbaresco maestro Bruno Giacosa, grab it immediately. Sekt Location: Germany and Austria Grapes: Whatever grows. Beer is still the bubbly drink of choice, but in 2005, 8.5 percent of German households' beverage budgets went to sparkling wine, which explains why author Frank Schoonmaker once called it "a national drink." Sekt really just describes any fizzy wine, and in Germany at least, much sekt is made in tanks from French or Italian grapes and sold cheaply. But diligent vintners now strive to create great sekt (often labeled brut) using Champagne-style methods. Dry Riesling sekt can be dramatically refreshing - highlighting that grape's high-acid nature, with the merest dab of sweetness and a lean, stony texture not often found in Champagne. Spatburgunder (German Pinot Noir) and Scheurebe have made inroads. Across the border in Austria, considering that as Liesl was denied her first taste of Champagne in "The Sound of Music," perhaps she should have asked for something closer to home. The Austrians will seemingly add bubbles to virtually anything. Gruner Veltliner and Riesling are merely a departure point. Schloss Gobelsburg harnesses both of those and adds Pinot Noir. Willi Brundlmayer employs Chardonnay and three flavors of Pinot (Noir, Gris, Blanc). Austria's beloved Zweigelt gets the occasional cameo. A Cabernet Rosérut was spotted not long ago. American sparkling wines (the other guys) Location: United States Grapes: Mostly Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, some Pinot Meunier, with variations. The major players - California's French transplants at Domaines Carneros and Chandon, Mumm Napa and Roederer Estate, plus Schramsberg, Iron Horse and so on - have long been a familiar sight. But many smaller wineries across the land have joined the bubbly parade. In California, look no further than Point Reyes Vineyards, whose Blanc de Noirs hails from its own tiny Marin County plot. In Napa, winemaking wizard Dick Peterson crafts his Richard Grant Blanc de Noirs with Pinot Noir cuttings originally from England (see below). Up north, Oregon's familiar Argyle brand has been joined by Domaine Meriwether and California expat Tony Soter. In Washington state, Spokane's Mountain Dome makes its long-aging vintage bruts. And of course there's New Mexico's Gruet (see page F5). There's progress, too, on the other side of the Mississippi, though Eastern bubbly rarely travels far from to its native habitat. New York has transcended its reputation for mass-market plonk (Taylor, anyone?) to produce outstanding fizzy drinks in both of its winegrowing regions (Look for Lenz, from Long Island's North Fork.) Rhode Island's Sakonnet Vineyards makes its own "Champagne," while Michigan's Larry Mawby dedicated his L. Mawby winery to the stuff. Rare is the American winery that makes 10 types of sparkling wine, much less one on the shores of Grand Traverse Bay. Australian sparkling wine Location: Australia Grapes: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, some Pinot Meunier Australian bubbles were once largely confined to bargain brands like Seaview (a long-ago favorite in my house) or to the puzzlingly popular sparkling Shiraz, which served primarily to further deepen Australia's image as red-wine haven. But cooler sites in Victoria and Tasmania have been home to a thriving fine-bubbly sector for more than 20 years. Moet & Chandon chose Victoria's Yarra Valley as home to its Australian project in 1985, while vineyards in Victoria's Pyrenees mountains and in Tasmanian Pinot Noir regions like Pipers River are growing fruit for refined, small-production sparklers in a style faithful to Champagne. English sparkling wine Location: England Grapes: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay. After centuries of shipping vast amounts of bubbly across the English Channel, the British finally acknowledged that the same block of Kimmeridgian limestone under Champagne also covers a good chunk of southern Britain. Fledgling vineyards have cropped up across the South Downs, south of London, with a helping boost from global warming, the most famous being Nyetimber (actually founded by two Americans), plus Chapel Down and Ridgeview. Wine expert Steven Spurrier was even planning a vineyard on his Dorset property. The reward of tasting English bubbly is matched by the challenge of finding it. I spent two years on the hunt before persuading a Dallas liquor store to sell me a few bottles. Soviet Champagne (Sovetskoe Shampanskoe) Location: Russia and the former Soviet states Grapes: Chardonnay, Aligote, other. The Russian taste for Champagne has been legendary since the armies chasing Napoleon occupied Reims and Epernay in 1814. In 1876, Louis Roederer, hearing of Czar Alexander II's love of the fizz, commissioned a special clear bottle and created Cristal. Catering to the sweet "gout rousse," Champagne houses left far more sugar in bottles destined for Russia. Later, in the Soviet era, with crippling import tariffs, the state chose to produce its own knockoffs from primarily Ukrainian or Georgian grapes. With the fall of Communism, Western fizz returned but the thirst for Shampanskoe hardly slaked. Now private firms now churn out surprisingly decent semisweet sparkling wine that can be found on these shores for about $10. Surprisingly, it's easier to find than English bubbly. Bubbly tasting notes Given the relative obscurity of many of these wines, it's impressive how many are available at Bay Area retailers and restaurants - a sign that bubbly lovers are becoming more adventurous. A few were obtained from farther afield, but all are available within California. NV Boslita Sovietskoe Shampanskoe Semi-Sweet Sparkling Wine ($9) This "Soviet Champagne" actually hails from Kaunas, Lithuania's second largest city. An acquired taste to be sure, but with more eloquence than some of the Ukrainian versions often found here. Up-front notes of apple juice and porcini, and palpably sweet, with a curt ending but it remains approachable. A peppery bite wraps up the package. NV Caves Carod Freres Clairette de Die ($17) Brothers Alain and Marcel Carod took charge of their family's winery in 1973, working just over 120 acres from their facility in Vercheny, where France's Drome river curves northward from its eastern track. About 75 percent Muscat, with Clairette making up the rest. Offers up soapstone and fresh blossoms, with lifted scents of sweet orange and mulberry, then vanilla roundness and a lean, sunny ending to balance its natural sweetness. It's surprisingly versatile, like a nuanced Moscato. NV Francois Pinon Vouvray Petillant Brut ($19) The limestone and slate soils on Pinon's estate, and his farming without chemical pesticides or fertilizers, give many of his wines a purity of flavor that's increasingly hard to find in Vouvray. Here, solid crisp apple flavors infuse a fully dry effort that lingers on the palate, with the bubbles adding the perfect edge. NV Gran Sarao Cava Brut ($9) From the three standard Cava grapes plus 10 percent Chardonnay, this brings a surprising weight to the table. Rustic scents of lemon and damp herbs lead to a zesty kick on first taste that highlight quince and pear, a soft, fine mousse and a subtle, warm finish that reveals its depth. NV Jansz Tasmania Premium Brut Rosé$20) Winemaker Natalie Fryar blended lots from the Heemskerk vineyard in northeastern Tasmania. The result is lean and racy, with more fruit toward the finish and a hit of sweet strawberry cream amid solid mineral notes. The sweetness is restrained and the weight palpable, which takes it beyond refreshing and into more serious territory. NV Point Reyes Vineyards Blanc de Noirs North Coast Sparkling Wine ($24) Steve and Sharon Doughty first established a 2-acre plot off California's Highway 1 in 1990, harnessing the cool coastal influence in Point Reyes Station. This all-Pinot effort is woodsy and quiet, with watermelon candy and slightly sweet overtones. A bit straightforward, but refreshing. NV Renardat-Fache Cerdon du Bugey Rosé$20) Alain Renardat-Fache uses the methode ancestrale for this slightly off-dry petillant (semi-sparkling) wine that's a perennial hit with lovers of the obscure. The latest shipment (from the 2006 vintage) is more forceful and better than ever, with bright citrus accents hovering the layered strawberry and mint leaf. There's a mineral leanness, with unusual nuances from the mix of Gamay and Poulsard. 2004 Solter Spatburgunder Brut Rosé$20) Helmut Solter got training in Champagne, but his sparkling wine house is located in Riesling country - Rudesheim, at the heart of Germany's Rheingau. Its Pinot Noir-based effort offers dusty, mossy strawberry scents, with a distinct spun-sugar sweet spot and a haunting chalky mineral note. It's dry, but a high dosage (from a bit of beerenauslese Riesling) notably softens its edges. 2004 Steininger Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé$27) This family in the major winemaking town of Langenlois, in Austria's Kamptal region, has put its hands to all variety of sparkling wines, including a Gruner Veltliner Sekt and a red Zweigelt Sekt. This creation (found in a Santa Monica wine shop) is a rarity even within the Steininger portfolio. Lovers of Cabernet's herbaceous, woody qualities will be intrigued, as this is packed with them, plus cranberry around the edges, coriander and black mustard seed. Intriguing, if a touch bizarre. The pairing that comes to mind is smoked beef tongue with horseradish; if either food or wine sound appealing, you've found your match. NV Taltarni Vintage Selections Brut Taché$22) From a mix of vineyards in the Australian states of Victoria and Tasmania. A surprisingly fine bead, with sugar cherry scents. The 51 percent Chardonnay takes over as you taste it with lean citrus to offset fresh berry notes. A dose of Pinot Meunier adds freshness and the balance is impressive, with little Champagne-like toastiness but lots of fresh fruit. NV Andre & Mireille Tissot Cremant du Jura ($23) Benedicte and Stephane Tissot biodynamically farm their family's plots around the Jura village of Montigny-les-Arsures. They produce a number of benchmark Jura wines, but this sparkling blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir is remarkably dense, gripping the palate with a hard-edged mineral focus and little perceptible sweetness. Austere, but still very versatile. Serving sparkling wine Though tradition once dictated the flat, round coupe being the Champagne glass of choice, it's now widely accepted that the tall, tapered flute best displays the wine's bubbly nature. The narrow opening at the top helps reduce exposed surface area and better holds in the wine's mousse and keeps it fizzy. Champagne flutes highlight the bubbles but somewhat mute the wine's aromas, as they leave little room to swirl the glass or smell the wine. A white wineglass will reduce the fizz somewhat more quickly, but also heightens the aromas, as it allows you to better smell the wine. It can also help smooth out aggressively fizzy wine or enhance an aged one in which the layers of scents are more interesting than the bubbles. Some Champagne hounds prefer their bubbly to be less bubbly with certain dishes and will go so far as to serve it in bowl-like Burgundy glasses. Though sometimes dismissed as a sommelier's parlor trick, the act of decanting a sparkling wine occasionally has its place, especially for an older Champagne that may have already lost some of its fizz but needs exposure to air in order to blossom. Some Champagne makers also endorse the practice if you're opening his or her wine on the young side, as it will help bring out the secondary characteristics. Bubbly glossary Bead: The streams of bubbles themselves are often called the bead, and the size and quantity can help determine the wine's texture and the quality of winemaking. Blanc de blancs: White wine from white grapes. In Champagne this denotes an all-Chardonnay wine, though elsewhere it can also represent a blend of white grapes. Blanc de noirs: Two of the three traditional Champagne grapes (Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier) are red, but treated as white grapes in the winemaking process and leave little or no color in the wine. Blends made entirely from red grapes are labeled this way, though the term can be used for any white (or almost white) wine made entirely from red grapes. Should not be confused with roséwhich in sparkling wine often describes a wine made from both white and red grapes, with some still red wine added in later that gives it color. Brut: The common term for a fully dry Champagne or sparkling wine. Typically, it describes a wine with less than 15 grams per liter of sugar left in the final wine. However, a wine with 5 grams per liter is very different than one with 14, much as a recipe with 1 cup of sugar would taste different than one with 3. And other factors in the wine - the acidity level, the blend of fruit, the aging time - can further impact perceived dryness. Charmat: A more industrial method used in making cheaper sparkling wines. Sugar and yeast are added to a tankful of still wine and the second fermentation takes place in bulk, with bottling after the wine is finished. Demi-sec: Actually rather sweet, with 33-50 grams per liter of sugar. This is the realm of wedding-cake wines. Disgorgement: The removal of yeast cells and sediment from the wine just before it is sealed in cork. After riddling is complete (see below), the bottle neck is frozen, creating a plug of solids, which is pushed out by the wine's natural pressure when a bottle cap is removed. The wine then quickly receives dosage and is sealed. Dosage: Part of the Champagne-style process in which a small amount of sweet liquid is added to the wine just before corking. The extra sugar helps balance out the wine and keep a consistent flavor profile across multiple batches and vintages, preserving its specific style. Usually the liquid is a mix of wine and sugar syrup, though not always; a few sekt producers in Germany and Austria use late-harvest sweet wines as their dosage. Extra brut: An even drier style than brut, with 6 or less grams per liter of sugar. If a wine has less than 3 grams per liter, and no sugar was added in the dosage, it can be called brut nature (also brut zero, zero dosage and so on). Extra dry: A slightly sweet style of wine, just above brut. However, extra-dry wines can have from 12-20 grams per liter of sugar, so that some bruts could in fact be slightly sweeter than certain extra dry wines. Frizzante: A semi-sparkling wine, with less carbonation than a Champagne-style effort. The terms petillant (French) and spritzig (German) are similar. SFGC Top 100 Sparkling Wine This year we kept a close eye on value in domestic sparkling wine. It's heartening to see that the quality of nonvintage blends is getting better than ever, though that makes us even more inclined to opt for the blended wines over more expensive vintage bottlings. NV Domaine Carneros Cuvee de la Pompadour Carneros Brut Rosé$36) Though the Domaine Carneros wines can sometimes feel a tad subdued, veteran winemaker Eileen Crane seems to have brought a bit more edge to the winery's fine roséwhich gives it lovely vibrancy. Clean notes of strawberry and peach are highlighted by a chalky mineral tone. Lifted acidity and the weight of 58 percent Pinot Noir fruit yields a wine with significant depth and versatility. 2002 Roederer Estate L'Ermitage Anderson Valley Brut ($45) The latest release of Roederer's top-end vintage effort is in fine form, showing terrific refinement. It opens with aromas of pastry dough, ripe apple, gray mineral and a raspberry tang. Fantastically nuanced on the palate - an appropriately rich texture, not too toasty or yeasty, plenty complex but not sacrificing its fruit. Its higher-acid style will give it years to develop. NV Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut Roséorth Coast Sparkling Wine ($25) Once again the Davies family's Diamond Mountain winery delivers with its nonvintage offering, this time the roséRich strawberry, roasted orange and spun sugar lead to lively, tangy peach flavors. Great tenacity on the palate, thanks in part to 48 percent Pinot Noir that adds depth. NV Roederer Estate Anderson Valley Brut ($23) It's still hard to believe that this Mendocino offshoot of the Champagne house delivers so much for the money. This widely available bottling is fresh and leesy, with green apple and crushed rock aromas. Buoyant acidity and squeezed orange flavors mix with wild berry, an ever-present edge and a refined bead. Winemaker Arnaud Weyrich uses just a touch of malolactic fermentation, which adds a welcome bit of extra body. . Jon Bonné -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *

16 years, 11 months

[wine] Champagne guide

by Jim L. Ellingson

FYI/FYE. Champagne: A quick-and-dirty buying guide The Chronicle/Craig Lee Since there are few questions more frequently asked than what my favorite Champagnes are, it's a worthwhile time to revisit some guideposts. Champagne seems to bring out the sort of brand loyalty -- and hence fear of change -- you find only in jeans and cars. Don't take my Levis, my Acura or my Bollinger, dammit. So with that in mind, here's a quick-and-dirty guide to the labels I look for. You may not find some of your familiar names here, but at least a few of these should appear on any good wine store's shelves. If you're wondering why some very popular names aren't here, the answer is simple: I drink enough Champagne to be a complete tightwad about it, and many (but not all) big-name houses make wines that are too simple and too sweet for the money. If you're paying the premium to drink real Champagne, it should be a complex and compelling treat. OK, first to the negociants: I'm unabashedly a fan of the British taste in Champagne: lots of flavors of toast, pastry, nuts and Sherry, typically from exposing the wines to a bit more oxygen and using more of the aged reserve wines in the blend -- hence why, in raised-nose company, I'd call it an oxidative style. The epitome of this style is beloved Bollinger, with Pol Roger doing admirable duty too. Less extreme, and to my taste often a bit more elegant for it, is the smaller Gosset, one of Champagne's most storied houses. If you're stepping up a bit, the lavish and leesy profile of Ruinart speaks to a certain opulence. These are all somewhat big wines, meant for heartier food and certainly ample in structure to last through a meal. Now let's dial back the nuts and Sherry a bit -- if you prefer your bubbles not to resemble a tapas bar, that is -- to a more fruit-driven, precise style. There are many Heidsiecks in the realm, all with solid quality. I waver between two -- Charles Heidsieck and Heidsieck Monopole (the first owned by spirits firm Remy Cointreau, which also owns Piper-Heidsieck, the latter by Champagne firm Vranken, which also owns the very solid Pommery label, notable for its eloquent Cuvee Louise and its single-serve Pop) -- Charles a bit more flashy, though with gorgeous expression in vintage wines like its 1995 Blanc des Millenaires, Monopole somewhat stoic but so very fresh in its blue and yellow package. Both great. Along those lines, keep an eye out for the recently reinvigorated Ayala, now owned by none other than Bollinger, especially its laser-precise Zero Dosage. Ayala gets extra points for putting disgorgement dates on the bottle, which may bust the impression of all-bottlings-created-equal, but allows those of us forking over the cash to make more reasoned buying decisions. Also notably restrained in its style is Taittinger, which has won it its share of fans over time. For just a bit more flash (but just a bit), the nonvintage wines of Louis Roederer continue to deliver in their subtle, nuanced style with just a hint of yeasty wildness lurking. Of course the vintage wines and, ahem, Cristal follow in that somewhat timeless mold. (If only the nonvintage was disgorgement-dated.) Henriot follows a similar path, though with somewhat more focus on Chardonnay. In that style, but with a bit more overt fruit to its nonvintage bottling thanks to about one-third Pinot Meunier, is Deutz. The nonvintage can benefit from a couple years of proper aging, and vintage Deutz -- especially the Blanc de Blancs and the top-end Cuvee William Deutz -- have tremendous cellar potential. Not that you needed that for New Year's. To me, Jacquesson falls nicely in that on-the-road-to-opulent category too, though almost as a bridge to the grower realm; the Chiquet brothers' commitment to specific vintage expressions is really a treat. And as I've noted before, the Philipponnat label finds just the right balance between lean red-fruit precision and toasty opulence that, when I encounter the Royale Reserve nowadays, makes me always think of a poor man's Krug, to say nothing of Philipponnat's extraordinarily age-worthy Clos des Goisses. There is, of course, Krug, for those with the means. And Salon takes the opulence even further without losing precision, though at nearly $300 a bottle, it had better outperform. Now to those indispensible grower folks. There is no shortage of love for the heavy hitters of the category, Egly-Ouriet (imported straight through Berkeley) and Pierre Peters (a superstar in Terry Theise's portfolio, along with Pierre Gimmonet). Certainly I have no quibble there, though I don't get to taste either as much as I'd like. Given their relative scarcity on shelves, you may have about the same luck. If you find a bottle of Egly's Vignes de Vrigny, all from Pinot Meunier, it's a unique wine worth experiencing, showing an austere side of that usually fruity grape. But there are so many others. Aside from Leclerc Briant, our house Champagne is usually the NV Blanc de Blancs from Franck Bonville, in magnum when we can. (Both are imported through K&L, and available locally, when in stock.) The Larmandier-Bernier label is exceptional, including its Terre de Vertus bottling, undosed and a stoic expression of terroir from that Cote des Blancs village. Two other growers imported locally (through Martine's Wines) are Diebolt-Vallois and Gonet-Medeville, both consistently excellent and worthy of cellar time (especially the Diebolt, which can be a bit subdued when young.) The same is true of Agrapart, the Avize-based Chardonnay specialist. Gaston Chiquet (cousins of the owners of Jacquesson) is on my hot list with a bullet. Chiquet took a while to leave an impression, but repeated encounters with its vintage Special Club effort (a series of top cuvees made by a close-knit group of growers) keeps convincing me to buy more and tuck them away. The 1998 was as fresh and focused (especially for that vintage) as the 1999 is opulent and monumental. Along those lines, another name encountered in our recent recommendations, but equally notable for their consistently good Cuvee Ste Anne, is Chartogne-Taillet, like Chiquet a player in the Theise book. (Those of us fortunate enough to keep tasting the full range of the Theise-imported wines get to play favorites. The Aubry and Jean Milan are also fantastic, if less my thing. Aubry's Campanae Veteres Vites, from now-obscure other Champagne varieties like Arbanne, is always fascinating, if primarily an intellectual thrill.) Of course, there's Vilmart, the powerful, typically oak-aged Champagnes from Rilly-la-Montagne. I was a late convert to Vilmart's style, but the rounded texture it can show when young is lost like baby fat as precision and complexity take over. I'll pretty much buy Vilmart whenever I see it, if only because of its rarity and depth. (This is how some people feel about the utterly cultish Jacques Selosse, but we don't see much Selosse in these parts.) One of Vilmart's lesser known stars is its nonvintage roséthe Cuvee Rubis, our New Year's Eve Champagne from last year. The nonvintage Rubis brings a fruitier edge and intensity to the subtle house style, like strawberries through a fiber optic cable. And that brings us to the smile-inducing topic of Roséhampagne. The big discovery this year was Mandois, a small house in Pierry that takes a similar oak-minded approach as Vilmart, though with sometimes different results. Its Brut Rosérande Reserve is an extraordinary wine, made from a blend of white Champagne, saignépink wine and red wine. The irresistible earth notes of Pinot come shining through. Other excellent, if lesser known names in Rosénclude Louis de Sacy, and of course the utterly beloved Billecart-Salmon, though I find Billecart's pink wine too soft-edged, even though I adore the regular Brut and the vintage wines. (To ponder imponderables: Would Billecart's roséave caught on so well if the name didn't include "Salmon"?) OK, now I'm thirsty, so I'll stop there. Now's your turn. What names do you look for when you're in the Champagne aisle? http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/wine/detail?&entry_id=33711 One more thing on Champagne You'll shoot your eye out, kid ... Associated Press You'll shoot your eye out, kid ... OK, make that two or three. One: More a point of clarification than a "thing," about the way I use the word Champagne. Some comments and e-mails about my past few articles and blog posts insist that I've omitted, say, Freixenet or Piper Sonoma from my lists. Just to put on my style-tyrant cap for a brief PSA: If I use the word Champagne, I'm using it to refer to the regulated wine made in that region of France and entitled to use the name. There are lots of iffy claims to geographic legitimacy, but Champagne is one with very clear lineage. Other sparkling wines may be really good, but they're sparkling wines (except for the few American Champagnes grandfathered in under current trade protections, which shouldn't be too hard to differentiate from the Frenchie stuff). Calling other wines Champagne does a disservice to hard-working winemakers elsewhere who are trying to create their own unique bubbly, and of course to the Champenois, who have the history as well as that mix of chilly weather and chalky soils that make for lousy summers but great wine. If anywhere has the right to use the name Champagne, etymologically, it's Campania. (And no, sparkling Aglianico Brut shouldn't be called Champagne either.) When I talk about my favorite Champagnes, that doesn't mean I'm ignoring your favorite non-Champagne bubbly. I'm just being precise. Two: If you're looking for great non-Champagne sparklers for the holidays, fear not. You might check our handy field guide to bubbly from last year. There's also the sparkling picks in our Top 100 Wines. And don't forget two of our superstar bargain bubblies from earlier this year: The NV Dibon Brut Cava ($9) from Spain and the NV J. Laurens Cremant de Limoux ($12). Both still around and both hard to beat. (The Laurens just got another star turn in the New York Times, even.) Three: If ever you wanted to know about the velocity of a Champagne cork (yes, yes, a laden or unladen cork?) a German researcher claims to have calculated it, according to Decanter: "Friedrich Balck of Clausethal Technical University in northwest Germany found that a vigorously shaken bottle of Champagne, with a pressure of 2.5 bars, expelled its cork at 40 kilometres per hour (km/h) -- 24.8 miles per hour." So not that you'd would want to get in front of a rampant cork -- 25 mph is still speedy for a hard object -- but we can safely say that "Faster than a speeding Champagne cork" isn't actually that fast. A fixed-gear bike barreling through 18th and Delores will do far more bodily harm. Otherwise, to all our readers: Have a wonderful holiday -- with great cheer both in beverage and non-beverage form. I'll be back in a few days with more year-end wine thoughts. Posted By: Jon BonnéEmail) | December 24 2008 at 11:30 AM -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *

16 years, 11 months

[wine] Travel, SFO, cocktails

by Jim L. Ellingson

FYI: December 28, 2008 Journeys In San Francisco, a Cocktail Is Not Just a Drink By GREGORY DICUM THE bartender at the Alembic took my order for a mint julep. He unfolded a small canvas sack, which he filled with ice and laid on the bar. He took up a black bat and began whaling on the pouch, reaching above his head to pummel the bag over and over again. He mounded the resulting gravel-sized ice in a silver cup into which followed 12-year Old Fitzgerald bourbon and simple syrup. He snapped a generous bunch of dark mint sprigs and planted it in the ice. He concealed a small straw inside the bouquet, such that my first experience of the now-frosted cup was a clean, soaring nose of pure mint. A bracing, richly sweet wash of bourbon followed close behind. It was the best mint julep I have ever had. By far. In the San Francisco Bay Area, a growing scene of local distillers and bartenders capable of wielding their elixirs to maximum effect has emerged. With wry flair, they combine technical perfection with subtle, deniable showmanship and an eagerness to experiment with Northern California.s agricultural bounty. .The West Coast does liquids well,. said Alembic.s bar manager, Daniel Hyatt, reflecting on his contribution to the region.s fluid scenes. Anchor Distillery in San Francisco makes gin and rye whiskies in tiny lots. Distillery No. 209, on Pier 50, makes only gin. But St. George Spirits, across the bay in Alameda, is the only one open to the public. When I visited this fall, the air was redolent with Montmorency pie cherries finishing their mash in a chilled steel tank. Shining copper stills, industrial macerators and barrels filled a huge, light-filled hangar on a former Naval base (the vodka is named for it: Hangar One). Within an hour the cherries had become eau de vie, dripping from a stainless steel pipe while JöRupf, the founder, offered tastes to an impressively informed group of about 30 visitors. Absinthe Verte, perfected by Lance Winters, Mr. Rupf.s distilling partner, is one of the handful of American absinthes on the market again after a centurylong drought. The spirit epitomizes the fervid scene in the Bay Area: it is at once classic, with a 19th-century aesthetic, and innovative . something that had not been available at all, much less in this highly cultured form. The bar that best reflects this dichotomy is Bourbon & Branch. Styled a modern-day speakeasy, it is in a space in the seedy Tenderloin neighborhood that was once an actual speakeasy. A password (get it online with your reservation) is required to enter the den of wood, leather, distantly twinkling tinplate and oceans of brown liquors. Twenties jazz plays quietly, and guests are greeted with small glasses of champagne punch on linen coasters. If it all seems a bit pompous . a reservation at a bar? . it works. Even on a Friday evening, Bourbon & Branch is an intimate setting for the contemplation of fine cocktails. It draws a diverse crowd of aficionados who are rewarded with exquisite drinks: the Sazerac is not too sweet, its rye bite balanced with a lemony nose. The 1794 (really a Boulevardier) is delicious. My Democrat, a concoction of peach and bourbon, was tasty but lacked heft. I sent it back and the bartender happily fixed the problem with a splash of bourbon. The bar features a seasonal menu of what Brian Sheehy, one of the owners, calls .market fresh cocktails,. as well as two that change every day. Bourbon & Branch has become the nexus of a tight-knit community, with alumni opening bars and developing menus throughout the city. Last month, Mr. Sheehy and co-owners opened Cask, a store selling craft spirits and bartending paraphernalia. Todd Smith, who helped start Bourbon & Branch, developed the bar at Beretta, in the Mission District. I visited on a Thursday, the day Mr. Smith still works the bar. It was hot, so I led a small group of obliging friends through an extended flight of gorgeous drinks. A lucid pink Nuestra Paloma, of tequila, elderflower and grapefruit, glowed in the sun. The Agricole Mule was a tangy song of Martinique rum, sweet but not cloying housemade ginger syrup, lime and mint. The almond viscosity of fresh orgeat made by Small Hand Foods, a Berkeley company that specializes in craft cocktail ingredients, offset the phenolic astringency of St. George absinthe in the Gaby de Lys. We continued with a Pisco Punch that married satisfying pineapple gomme richness with pisco.s depth. The Airmail was beautiful . the cocktail version of latte art . and mixed the tickle of prosecco with honey.s roundness. It gave way to the best thing we drank that day: a refreshing Rangoon Gin Cobbler that tasted like a liquid Dreamsicle. The Clock Bar, which opened this summer in the Westin St. Francis on Union Square, is one of Michael Mina.s endeavors . a counterpart to his eponymous restaurant across the lobby. His hand is visible in the bar food: treats like lobster corn dogs or black truffle popcorn are $12. But I was there to drink, and the St. Francis Cocktail was an unfortunate start. Why call a martini anything but? And why sully Anchor.s Junipero gin with Noilly Pratt? (Here I might as well reveal my own martini recipe: two thirds Junipero, one third Vya dry vermouth, stirred with ice and served up with a single Armstrong martini olive. After that, a martini in which every ingredient is produced little more than an hour.s drive from Martinez, Calif., one of the drink.s putative birthplaces, there.s hardly any point in doing it any other way.) The Clock Bar is cool, with black wood setting off a gleaming floor and a magnificently lit bank of bottles. The place filled quickly with a crowd of stunned-looking hotel guests perched on black leather cubes and boisterous locals on their way to dinner. The bar redeemed itself with its gin rickey: with a pellucid lime-ness that shone on the palate, it was the standout of the evening. I ordered a Boulevardier made with Bulleit bourbon and Carpano Antica Formula vermouth. Though swamped, Merran, the bartender, took the time to re-twist a lemon peel after the first broke. The flame of an orange peel outlined her face in brief, diabolical light. The Alembic sits on a tawdry block of Haight Street, near Golden Gate Park. Yet it is a pleasant neighborhood bar (and restaurant) of high, mustard-yellow walls and generous skylights, with a casual air arising from civilized and knowledgeable regulars. Mr. Hyatt, who often works the bar, divides his menu into canonical and new school: Sazerac, pisco sour, and Ramos gin fizz face inventions like the Gilded Lily, a surprising drink of Plymouth gin, Yellow Chartreuse and orange flower water under a glittering slick of gold dust. But it is with the Old-Fashioned, a drink with roots easily 200 years old, that the Alembic achieves cult status. When I visited, a cheerful, bald man at the bar was having one made with Anchor.s single malt Hotaling rye. .Old-Fashioneds are too fruity,. observed the woman sitting next to me. She was drinking . and let me try . a Southern Exposure of Junipero gin, mint and lime with a surprisingly savory undertone of celery juice. .Not here,. said the man at the bar. He waited until her date had returned to order an Old-Fashioned for her. I ordered one as well, made with Buffalo Trace bourbon from the single barrel the Alembic owns. It was warmly syrupy, coating a few sharply cubic lumps of ice. It lay on my tongue like a soothing balm. I went outside to take a call, and a woman stopped to look at the menu. .Have you tried the Old-Fashioned?. she asked me. .There.s one waiting for me on the bar,. I said, tasting again my sweetened lips and a fragrant allspice aftertaste. .It.s so ... . She smiled slightly and paused, unused to saying the word she had in mind unironically. .It.s so sophisticated.. WATERING HOLES St. George Spirits, on the former Alameda Naval Air Station (2601 Monarch Street, Alameda, Calif.; 510-769-1601; www.stgeorgespirits.com) offers free distillery tours weekends at 1 p.m. The tasting room, where flights begin at $10 (which buys the glass that you can take home), is open Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 7 p.m., Sunday noon to 6 p.m. The Alembic (1725 Haight Street; 415-666-0822; www.alembicbar.com) is a bar and restaurant. Specialty cocktails are $9; hours noon to 2 a.m. Reservations are required at Bourbon & Branch (501 Jones Street; 415-346-1735; open daily starting at 6 p.m.). Get them at www.bourbonandbranch.com. You can also sign up for classes at the Beverage Academy, where the mysterious rites of the cocktail are passed on from the masters. Seasonal, .market fresh. cocktails are $12. Cocktails at Beretta (1199 Valencia Street; 415-695-1199; www.berettasf.com) are $9. It fills up fast so get there early (opens 5:30 weekdays and noon on weekends) if you hope to talk cocktails with the bartenders. The Clock Bar is off the lobby of the Westin St. Francis (335 Powell Street; 415-397-9222; www.michaelmina.net/clockbar) Open 4 p.m. Classic cocktails start at $11. Cask is a recently opened store that specializes in artisanal spirits and obsessive barware (17 Third Street; 415-424-4844; www.caskstore.com) -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *

16 years, 11 months

[wine] Prosecco, NYE, Erte, Muffy's

by Jim L. Ellingson

Greetings, Recall we're invited to Kallsen Studio on Wednesday. Event begins at 8. Louise and I plan to be there. Bring a wine or two and perhaps a cheese or other light nosh. I'll propose a trip to Erte on 8 January for Cabs (red and ready). There will be a modest "corkage fee" for the table. $5/person or less. Joyce is setting up a Champagne dinner at Mufuletta on Sunday 1/18. Details to follow. Joyce Lori Russ/Sue Jim/Louise Cheers, Jim December 28, 2008 Italian Makers of Prosecco Seek Recognition By AMY CORTESE IN 1984, Fabio Zardetto, chief winemaker at his family-run vineyard in northern Italy, leapt at the chance to become one of the first bottlers to export prosecco, the sparkling wine, to the United States. At first, his efforts on behalf of his bubbly fizzled. .I had to push people to taste the prosecco,. recalled Mr. Zardetto, now 50. .I would run behind them with a glass saying, .Please, taste this.. . When they did try it, he said, they were pleasantly surprised. Sales of Zardetto prosecco grew to 100,000 cases in the United States in 2007, from 50 cases in 1984. With its fresh flavor, pleasing bubbles and gentle price tag . it typically sells for $10 to $20 a bottle . prosecco has gained many fans worldwide. Global sales have been growing by double-digit percentages for 10 years, to more than 150 million bottles last year. And with consumers in an economizing mood this holiday season, prosecco is an increasingly popular alternative to Champagne, which has been soaring in price. But prosecco is also encountering some growing pains. From its traditional home in northern Italy, it is now waging a war against outsiders, just as Champagne, its more elite cousin in France, has done for so many years. A host of producers elsewhere in Italy and as far away as Brazil are trying to cash in on the drink.s newfound popularity. Because prosecco is the name of a grape, like chardonnay or cabernet, anyone can use the name. Today, about 60 percent of all prosecco . some eight million cases . comes from producers outside the traditional prosecco-growing region of Conegliano-Valdobbiadene, a cluster of villages about a half-hour.s drive north of Venice. The newcomers are not held to the same strict production standards as the traditional producers, which are tightly governed under Italian wine laws. One product, Rich Prosecco, is made by an Austrian company whose ads feature Paris Hilton. In some, she is naked and spray-painted gold. What.s worse to some producers, the product is sold in a 6.8-ounce can, in gas stations as well as stores, for around $3. .It.s absolutely vulgar,. says Vittorio Zoppi, marketing manager for the prosecco consortium. Claus Jahnke, a sales and marketing executive at Rich, says he is puzzled by the reaction to the product, which uses Italian grapes. .We have invested a lot of money in advertising and P.R. to launch Rich and promote prosecco,. he says. .We gave this famous grape a helping hand in conquering the world.. The Italian winemakers worry that upstarts will weaken prosecco.s image just as it is taking off. .If everyone around the world plants prosecco, we will lose the value of the name,. says Ludovico Giustiniani, vice president of a consortium that represents about 150 wineries in the traditional prosecco-producing region. Over months of discussions, the consortium, along with a broader group of growers and producers, has hammered out a plan that would create an official prosecco production zone tied exclusively to northern Italy. Only wine produced in that region could be labeled as prosecco. If the plan is approved by the Italian government . a decision is expected by early 2009 . prosecco would then be eligible for .protected designation of origin. status under European laws intended to protect regional products from Champagne and port to Serrano ham. .It will let prosecco be an Italian product . and nothing else,. says Giancarlo Moretti Polegato, the owner of Villa Sandi, one of the area.s prominent wineries. That is the theory, at least. Protection from the European Union would extend only across its 27 member countries, and, as Champagne producers have discovered, a lot of policing is still required. The Champagne region of France has been officially designated since 1927 as the authentic home of the wine that bears its name, but its trade organization still spends millions of dollars battling producers of items as varied as sparkling wine, bubble bath and bottled water that also use the word. .We have to spend a lot of money and energy protecting our product,. says Sam Heitner, director of the Office of Champagne USA, a trade group that represents the interests of Champagne producers. That spending is on display in Times Square, where a giant screen flashes an ad by Mr. Heitner.s group for holiday revelers. A bottle, labeled .American Champagne,. is covered by a red, Venetian-style carnival mask. It.s part of the group.s .Unmask the truth. campaign, which notes its opposition to the name.s use by United States producers. Producers of prosecco may also be in for a long fight. PROSECCO.S success can be seen in the steep-hilled villages surrounding Conegliano and Valdobbiadene. The area has grown from a sleepy agricultural area to one of Italy.s wealthiest enclaves, dotted with shiny new wineries and farmhouses that have been transformed into rustic inns to support a growing wine tourism trade. Prosecco sales from this area alone were 370 million euros last year. And a hectare (2.47 acres) of vineyard in the most coveted spots, like Cartizze, sells for more than $1 million. Prosecco from Cartizze, a panettone-shaped hill in Valdobbiadene where 140 growers farm about 250 acres, fetches about $40 a bottle. The vines are tended and harvested by hand. Machines cannot navigate the vertical angles, although helicopters are occasionally used when a vineyard needs to be sprayed. The soil and the mix of warm days and cool nights make for an especially flavorful prosecco . an affinity given official weight in 1969, when the region was awarded the status of denominazione di origine controllata, or D.O.C., Italy.s version of a wine appellation. The region.s turn of fortunes, though, is relatively recent. Although prosecco grapes have been cultivated here for three centuries, in the early days they were made mostly into still wine for local consumption. The vines shared the steep hillsides with more valuable cows and sheep. It was only after a new method for producing sparkling wine became widespread in the mid-1900s that things began to change. Champagne and other sparkling wines typically get their bubbles when they are fermented a second time, with added sugar and yeast. The yeast feeds on the sugar and converts into alcohol and carbon dioxide. When the bottle is opened, the escaping gas gives the wine its bubbles and characteristic .pop.. Champagne re-ferments in bottles, an expensive and labor-intensive process. But the new production methods allowed prosecco makers to re-ferment their wine in large tanks, a process that kept prices down. That, and prosecco.s light, delicate flavor and low alcohol content, made it an especially versatile wine. IN Italy, prosecco is enjoyed year-round . and practically around the clock. .The only moment we don.t drink it is for breakfast,. Mr. Giustiniani says. That approachability has helped propel the popularity of prosecco . in the 1960s throughout Italy, in the .80s in Germany and neighboring countries and in the .90s in the United States, which today is prosecco.s No. 1 market outside of Italy. Perhaps no one pushed harder to establish prosecco in the United States than Mionetto, a winery founded in Valdobbiadene in 1886 and now one of the area.s largest, with sales of 40 million euros a year. Seeing the tremendous growth potential in the 1990s, this winery began expanding aggressively. It established Mionetto USA to control distribution in North America and has spent millions of dollars promoting prosecco and the Mionetto brand. Today, the company has the leading market share, roughly 33 percent, in the United States, with 168,000 cases a year of its D.O.C. and non-D.O.C. prosecco. Still, says Sergio Mionetto, who took over as chief winemaker from his grandfather in 1956, .we believe we.re just at the tip of the iceberg.. At the bustling Union Square Cafe in Manhattan, where the house prosecco is Mr. Mionetto.s top-of-the-line Sergio (named after himself), prosecco by the glass outsells Champagne two to one, says Stephen Paul Mancini, director of wine and spirits at the restaurant. .Prosecco is an extremely popular product for us,. he adds. And some retailers report that prosecco is flying off shelves this holiday season. Prosecco is also catching on in new markets, like China, India and Vietnam, causing producers to think even bigger. .Prosecco can be the best-selling sparkling wine of the world,. says Gianluca Bisol, a 21st-generation winemaker and general manager of the Bisol winery, in Valdobbiadene. He figures that prosecco can overtake Champagne in sales volume in the next 25 years or so. The problem is that others saw the potential, too. It started with the relative newcomers in the plains of northern Italy. Growers there are less regulated than their D.O.C. kin; they were granted the Italian wine system.s least-stringent designation, known as I.G.T., in 1995. They can produce almost double the volume of wine per hectare, and quality can vary. In the flatlands, winemakers can use machines to harvest and tend to their vines, at about a tenth of the cost, Mr. Bisol and others say. .For these reasons,. Mr. Bisol says, .this area that didn.t exist 25 years ago now accounts for 60 percent of prosecco production.. A more recent worry for the consortium and newer growers is that countries like Brazil, Romania, Argentina and Australia have begun to plant prosecco. Brazil, in particular, has embraced the grape, perhaps not surprisingly, given that its main wine region is populated by northern Italian immigrants. Close to 2,000 acres of prosecco are planted in Brazil, Mr. Bisol says. .The Brazilians like parties,. Mr. Bisol says. .They drink a lot of prosecco.. The homegrown prosecco could cut into Italian sales there: Brazil is already the fifth-largest export market for Italian prosecco. Closer to home, German and Austrian producers have taken to buying tanks of Italian prosecco produced in the plains and shipping it to their countries to be bottled. Or canned, in the case of Rich Prosecco. When Ms. Hilton traveled to northern Italy to promote Rich Prosecco two years ago, .it was a big scandal for the area,. Mr. Bisol says. .The winegrowers were very angry.. She has not returned, he says. Gü Aloys, a hotelier and entrepreneur in the Austrian resort town of Ischgl who introduced Rich Prosecco in 2006, plans to take it to the United States next year. And Mr. Jahnke, the sales and marketing executive at Rich, said the company was following the developments with the Italian producers. proposal to the Italian government. THE threat of foreign-brand prosecco has prompted northern Italian producers, of both D.O.C. and I.G.T. prosecco, to work together to protect their turf. They say they believe that their proposal will raise quality and prevent others from calling their products prosecco. The plan would create a broad new D.O.C. designation to govern the hundreds of I.G.T. prosecco producers that have sprung up across eight northern Italian provinces in the plains from Treviso to Trieste. The producers would have to comply with strict quality controls, including lower yields per hectare and stronger oversight. The region of Conegliano-Valdobbiadene, meanwhile, would be elevated to Italy.s highest designation for wine regions, known as D.O.C.G. The key is to link prosecco to its traditional home. .We don.t want to end up with something like pinot grigio,. says Primo Franco, owner of the Nino Franco winery in Valdobbiadene, referring to another white wine grape from the Veneto region that today is grown around the world. Because prosecco is also the name of a northern Italian village where the grape is believed to have originated, the consortium can make an argument, too, that prosecco is a place name that can be protected just like Chianti, Champagne and others. By bringing all of northern Italy.s prosecco makers into the fold, the winemakers hope to do more than give prosecco a territorial identity. They also want the muscle power to meet growing demand and achieve their goal of matching or even besting Champagne, which today produces some 300 million bottles a year. About 150 million bottles of Italian prosecco are produced a year. Prosecco producers say they believe that with the new plan, they can double their output to 300 million or even 400 million bottles a year, while providing consumers with a guarantee of quality. .Champagne is the king of the bubble,. Mr. Bisol says. .But prosecco maybe can be considered the small prince.. In recent weeks, the winemakers have been scrambling to nail down a final proposal to the Italian government before a year-end deadline. The producers hope to be eligible for a streamlined European Union system that goes into effect in August. If all goes well, the new prosecco protections will be in place for the 2009 harvest. But that is just a start. European Union regulations are valid only for members, and deals have to be struck with countries outside of the union, like the United States or Brazil, on an, ahem, case-by-case basis. For now, says Mr. Moretti Polegato of Villa Sandi, .everybody involved in prosecco production is happy.. You can almost hear the corks popping. -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *

16 years, 11 months

[wine] Bubbles in January

by Jim L. Ellingson

Greetings, Working out some bugs in our new wine server. You may need to go the barn yourself per the instructions in the monthly reminder. Note: if your e-mail address changes, the list server may not (should not) allow you to post from the new address until your new address is part of the list. This "closed posting" format makes spam management much more manageable. In the mean time, if it doesn't post, send it to me and I'll post. I'll vote for an early Champagne dinner at Muffies on MLK-Sunday. I'll also vote for a Sunday brunch at Al Vento or some other place. Other meeting ideas. The economy is making life difficult for our friends who run restaurants. An increase from our monthly meeting schedule would help. Also, winter is a great time to expand our list of potential restaurants. Wine styles I'd like to do: Sparkling or champagne as above. Reisling (German) Pinot Burgundy Brdx Cab (older?) Piedmont Shiraz/S. hemisphere Spanish Sake? Places: Ngon was fantastic Arezo Erte (would like a modest corkage) S Mpls (First Course, Al Vento, Maude, etc.) Jay's anything on the west side? Here's JJ's note. ----- Forwarded message from Joyce Hegstrom <jhegstro(a)umn.edu> ----- X-Umn-Remote-Mta: [N] x-160-94-115-11.csom.umn.edu [160.94.115.11] #+LO+TS+AU+HN X-Umn-Classification: local Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 12:16:46 -0600 From: Joyce Hegstrom <jhegstro(a)umn.edu> User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.18 (Windows/20081105) To: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> CC: wine(a)thebarn.com Subject: Re: [wine] How Artisanal is Artisanal Champagne Brunch anyone? Good idea....who would be interested? I could possibly set up something at Muffuletta's in St. Paul in with our friend Jason Schillin. If we spend $300 in food costs we can get the back room free and no corkage. A suggestion: How about Sunday 1/18 whereby some of us might get Martin Luther King day off? If I get enough interest I will talk to him about this after the holidays because he is out on medical leave. Let me know if you are interested...... Bubbles Jim L. Ellingson wrote: >Must be time for a Bubble Brunch - say January. > > > >Champagne: How artisanal is artisanal? > >K&L Wine Merchants/Leclerc Briant > >Don't hate me because I'm an NM. > > > -- NOTE NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS: jhegstro(a)umn.edu (there is no “m” at the end of hegstro) ----- End forwarded message ----- -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *

16 years, 11 months

[wine] How Artisanal is Artisanal

by Jim L. Ellingson

Must be time for a Bubble Brunch - say January. Champagne: How artisanal is artisanal? K&L Wine Merchants/Leclerc Briant Don't hate me because I'm an NM. In addition to our picks for Winemaker of the Year and our five winemakers to watch -- and congrats to them all -- Friday's Wine section also has the results from our latest panel tasting of grower Champagnes. We last tasted these in panel four years ago, and plenty has since changed. It's that time of year when bubbles are front and center (though, yes, not everyone is thinking on a Champagne budget this year, and we'll tackle that another time) so it's a good moment to spend some extra time thinking about things that sparkle. I'll start with grower fizz this time and offer some more general buying advice in another post. Grower Champagnes have been on my mind a lot this year, and caused their share of consternation. There was a time when grower Champagnes -- Champagne made by the same people who grow the grapes -- were an insiders' secret. No longer. Certainly they're not knocking Moet off its throne anytime soon, but rare is the well-assembled wine list that doesn't include at least one grower Champagne. And as much as there is love for these countrified, homespun efforts, there's a quiet murmur of disdain for the famous names of Champagne that lean on their brand-building like a big, shiny crutch. You won't be surprised that grower bubbles are usually the favorites of sommeliers, small retailers and almost anyone else not completely swayed by the sparkle of the grandes marques' tinsel. The original pitch: Buy Champagnes from people who care enough to make the wines from the grapes they grow -- a pride of ownership, of sorts. It didn't hurt that there was an implicit anticommercialism at work, as well as the promise of terroir expression. To steal a line from their biggest booster, Terry Theise: "You should drink 'farmer-fizz' if you'd rather buy Champagne from a farmer than a factory." The Bay Area is doubly lucky because it has so many local importers who specialize in what said booster has long been fighting for. Martine's Wines, North Berkeley Imports, Beaune Imports, K&L Wines, Dee Vine Wines and Charles Neal Selections are among the local posse who hunt these Champagnes down, to say nothing of the fantastic access here to Theise's portfolio of Champagnes, which essentially started this whole parade. But as the grower market gets more mature, it gets more complicated. Though we tasted 33 wines for last week's selections, I knew going in that many of my own fave growers weren't in the mix (Vilmart and Larmandier-Bernier, for instance); if they were, we tasted some of their lesser-known efforts rather than the mainline nonvintage Brut. That I could even brood on getting to taste the vintage Chartogne-Taillet and not its nonvintage cuvee is a sign of how bountiful the grower market has become. With that, complication has come too. It's not even that easy any longer to draw the lines between little grower and mongo negociant. What's the deal? If there once was an NM/RM divide in Champagne (NM for negociants who buy much of their grapes, RM for "recoltants," or growers, marked in agate-ish type on the label), those lines are blurrier now. Sometimes negociant wines pretty well scream of their provenance, no matter how much ruby-encrusted largess now accompanies what have now been redefined, fervently, as luxury brands: But owning land in Champagne is complicated, much as it has become on, say, the Sonoma Coast. And even in Champagne, there need be no scarlet N for those who happen to buy grapes. One of my favorite regular-buying Champagnes, Leclerc Briant, is technically a negociant. But only because Pascal Leclerc Briant buys grapes from several villages and vineyards, including a number of parcels in the town of Cumieres -- Les Chevres Perrieuses and Les Crayeres, in particular, plus the lean all-Pinot Meunier La Ravinne -- that express their specific site with remarkable clarity. So Leclerc Briant wears the NM mark, if not the large-scale trappings that usually accompany it. The small Marguet label, which I've written about before, has a different issue -- a family scuffle prevented Benoit Marguet from getting his own family's grapes, so he was forced to the open market. (Both are imported locally by K&L.) There are enough of these exceptions to the rule that next time, instead of asking for RM Champagnes, I think we may call for Champagnes made by wineries of a certain size or smaller -- say, 100,000 cases. That actually would be an interesting dividing line for wines in general, but in the case of Champagne, where industrial-scale efficiency has quietly taken control, it seems especially crucial, a philosophical dividing line. And yet even there, I'm advised that one of my favorite growers, Franck Bonville, makes somewhere well north of 100,000. Does that negate the farmerness of that fizz? Setting caps is even more fraught with problems because there are other, larger producers who dedicate themselves to cuvees that depart from the norm. One that comes to mind immediately is Jacquesson, which dates back to 1798 but is currently run by the Chiquet family -- Jean-Herve and Laurent. (Their cousin is behind a favorite grower Champagne house, Gaston Chiquet, which was featured in Friday's paper.) One feature of Jacquesson is their unique not-quite-vintage dating scheme for their (technically) nonvintage cuvee. Each subsequent year gets its own number, so 728 designated the 2000 vintage and the latest, 732, is largely composed from the 2004 vintage. The NV Jacquesson Cuvee 732 Brut (around $60) is racy and focused, with a hint of pastry dough. What doesn't change is quality that transcends the somewhat generic competency (and typically high sugar dosages) of truly large negociants like Moet or Piper-Hiedsieck. If growers are subject to the whims of vintage, the consistency of winemaking style doesn't change so fast. A talented Champagne maker's abilities shine through no matter what, which is why even the geekiest among us should think twice before going on a RM jihad. Next time: name-checking my trusted posse of bubble brands. Posted By: Jon BonnéEmail) | December 17 2008 at 09:30 AM Listed Under: Importers, Labels, Sparkling Wine | Comments (0) : Post Comment -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *

16 years, 11 months

[wine] More Bubbles (fwd) Strib

by Jim L. Ellingson

Minor correction. I believe we had the Gruet Blanc de Noirs on Wednesday. I'll check my notes, my order. These days there's sparkling news from all over By BILL WARD, Star Tribune December 18, 2008 Back in the 1970s, there was a popular book -- at least in my economic and aspirational world -- called "Champagne Living on a Beer Budget." Talk about an anachronism. These days, it's easy to find a bottle of good sparkling wine for about the same price as a six-pack of standard beer. It might not be from the French region of Champagne, but there are dandy bubblies being made everywhere from Austria to Australia and several points in the good ol' U.S. of A. Including, yes, New Mexico, where the Gruet family is making delicious bubbly in the Old World (Methode Champenoise) style. Like Gruet, many of California's top sparkling-wine producers were started or steered by families from Champagne: Domaine Carneros (Taittinger), Domaine Chandon (Moë& Chandon), Roederer Estate (Louis Roederer), Mumm Napa (Mumm) and Piper-Sonoma (Piper Heidsieck). Bill Paustis, owner of local distributor Paustis & Sons, marvels at the strides made on these shores. "When I started at this, we were confronted with the Gallo Andrénd not much else," he said with a chuckle. "The quality has gone up enormously, and the popularity along with it." Bubbly aficionados were distressed a few years back when the estimable S. Anderson house in Napa went out of business, but there's more tasty sparkling wine coming from California -- J Cuvee and Gloria Ferrer, along with all of the above -- than ever. (Mourning S. Anderson fans can still purchase some through the winery that took over the property, at www.cliffledevineyards.com.) That's only the beginning of the global spread of bubble- licious wines. One of Australia's few growth areas is in sparkling shiraz. Given how harmonious champagne and sushi are, it's no surprise that we're suddenly seeing a lot of Japanese sparkling sake at wine bars and stores. But it's Europe that's spawning the widest range of interesting stuff. I've come across two delicious Austrian sparklers this year, Szigeti Grüeltliner Brut and Schloss Gobelsburg. Italy is exporting boatloads of zingy, food-friendly Prosecco; try the Zonin Special Brut for around $11 and the Santa Margherita Valdobbiadene for around $20. And cava from Spain might well be the best bargain going in the wine world; Cristalino (widely available) and Paul Cheneau are dandy for less than $10, and the Montsarra Brut provides great bang for the buck (about 15 of them). Back in sparkling wine's home nation, crénts from the Loire and Alsace regions offer up great value in the $15 to $22 range; also emanating from the Loire are some swell effervescent Vouvrays (chenin blanc grape) and Sancerres (sauvignon blanc). And in its home region, there are spectacular bottles from $35 on up. There's absolutely no need (or reason, really) to shell out several hundred simoleons for trendy Cristal or Ace of Spades. I sampled a spectacular Pol Roger Champagne recently, and love Pierre Peters, Aubry, Billecart-Salmon (especially its killer brut rosé Veuve Clicquot (often available for criminally low prices at Costco), Moë& Chandon, Henriot, Bollinger and Nicholas Feuillatte. Oh, and anything with Terry Theise's name on the back label. Speaking of labels, the lingo describing the dry-sweet level of bubbly is confusing but important to know. From dry to sweet, it goes Extra Brut, Brut, Extra Dry (don't ask me!), Sec and Demi-Sec. But the main thing to remember is that this is a wine for all occasions. Obviously, it's great for New Year's Eve, birthdays, etc. -- as my friend Brian Tockman says with a smile, "Nothing says 'party' like a magnum of champagne" -- but its acidity and flavors make sparkling wine a great match with all types of food. Which brings me to some especially good news: The ever-resourceful Kim Bartmann has finagled deals that allow her to sell a lot of top-notch champagnes at retail at Cafe Barbette and Red Stag Supper Club. These are beautifully chosen bottles providing great value in the $50 to $100 range. Or you can stay home and have a bottle with some potato chips, a pairing that Marilyn Monroe made famous. Clearly, the lady only "played" dumb on celluloid. Bill Ward . bill.ward(a)startribune.com -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *

16 years, 11 months

[wine] [info@samswineshop.com: Champagne Tasting Saturday 12-4pm]

by Jim L. Ellingson

FYI, More free bubbles. Cheers, Jim ----- Forwarded message from Sam's Wine Shop <info(a)samswineshop.com> ----- X-Authentication-Warning: smtp-relay.enet.umn.edu: Host beerhost.com [216.32.68.2] claimed to be prost.beerhost.com Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:16:18 -0600 Subject: Champagne Tasting Saturday 12-4pm From: Sam's Wine Shop <info(a)samswineshop.com> To: Jim Ellingson <james(a)brewingnews.com> X-Mailer: MBM 4.0-US X-BeerHost-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-MailScanner-ID: 1LD3kj-00070U-N0 X-BeerHost-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-BeerHost-MailScanner-SpamCheck: not spam, SpamAssassin (not cached, score=-0.203, required 5, BAYES_00 -2.60, HTML_IMAGE_RATIO_08 0.00, HTML_MESSAGE 0.00, MIME_QP_LONG_LINE 1.40, SARE_OEM_OBFU 1.00, SPF_HELO_PASS -0.00, SPF_PASS -0.00) X-BeerHost-MailScanner-From: info(a)samswineshop.com X-Spam-Status: No X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - prost.beerhost.com X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - brewingnews.com X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - samswineshop.com X-Greylist: ACL 279 matched, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.0 (smtp-relay.enet.umn.edu [128.101.142.227]); Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:16:45 -0600 (CST) X-Spam-Score: 1.471 (*) HTML_MESSAGE,SPF_SOFTFAIL X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.57 on 128.101.142.227 = /* common --------------------------------------------------*/ body { margin: 0px; padding: 0px; } #BodyImposter { color: #666; background: #fff; width: 100%; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; } #BodyImposter dd, #BodyImposter dt, #BodyImposter li, #BodyImposter p, #BodyImposter td { font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.5em; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } #BodyImposter dl, #BodyImposter p, #BodyImposter ol, #BodyImposter ul { margin: 0em 0em 1em 0em; } #BodyImposter img { border: 0px; } #BodyImposter small { font-size: 10px; line-height: 1.3em; } #BodyImposter ol { padding-left: 1em; } #Primary ul { padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; } #BodyImposter ol li { margin: 0px; padding: 0px; } #BodyImposter ul li { background: url("img/bullet.gif") no-repeat 0em 0.5em; padding: 0px 0px 0px 8px; margin: 0px; list-style: none; } /* links --------------------------------------------------*/ #BodyImposter a { text-decoration: underline; } #Primary a:link, #Primary a:visit ed, #Secondary a:link, #Secondary a:visited { color: #000; background: #fff; } #BodyImposter h2 a:link, #BodyImposter h2 a:visited { color: #5397b9; background: #fff; text-decoration: none; } #Helpful a:link, #Helpful a:visited { color: #c2c2c2; background: #fff; } #Legal a:link, #Legal a:visited { color: #999; background: #ccc; } #BodyImposter a:hover { text-decoration: none; } #BodyImposter h2 a:hover { text-decoration: underline; } #BodyImposter a:active { color: #000; background: #fff; text-decoration: none; } #Legal a:active { color: #000; background: #ccc; text-decoration: none; } /* heads --------------------------------------------------*/ #BodyImposter h1, #BodyImposter h2 { color: #5397b9; background: #fff; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0em; padding: 0px; } #Masthead h1 { font-size: 28px; color: #fff; background: #333; } #Primary h2 { font-size: 18px; } #Tertiary h2 { font-size: 14px; } /* boxes --------------------------------------------------*/ #Box { width: 100%; text-align: center; } #Content { margin: 0px auto; text-align: left; } #Content td#Primary { width: 550px; } #Content td#Primary img { border: 6px solid #e0e0e0; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 10px 15px; } #Helpful table { color: #c2c2c2; background: #fff; margin: 0px auto; } #Helpful p { width: 550px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: left; } #Legal { padding: 20px 0px; } #Legal table { color: #999; background: #ccc; margin: 0px auto; } #Legal p { width: 550px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: left; } #Masthead { padding: 20px 0px; } #Masthead table { color: #fff; background: #333; margin: 0px auto; } #Masthead h1, #Masthead p { width: 550px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: left; } #Masthead p { font-size: 14px; } #Masthead p #Date { float: right; } #Tertiary { padding: 20px 0px; } #Tertiary table { color: #d69898; background: #c33; margin: 0px auto; } #Te rtiary h2 { color: #fff; background: #c33; padding: 0em 0em 0.5em 0em; } #Tertiary h2, #Tertiary p { width: 550px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: left; } #Helpful, #Legal, #Masthead, #Tertiary { width: 100%; text-align: center; } Sam's Wine Shop 12-4pm at the Wine ShopSparkling Wines Greetings Jim Ellingson, Champagne Tasting Saturday 12-4pm What more festive way is there to ring in the holidays than with Champag= ne?! But does this most celebratory of beverages need always to be expensiv= e? Au contraire! Join us as we sample the affordable luxury of g= reat sparkling wines. We have selected some of our favorites from the l= ast year to open this Saturday from 12-4pm at Sam's Wine Shop. Nothing will be over $25/bottle, but the quality will be superb. Catch The Wine Vibe 1pm Saturdays on AM950 Radio And i= f you can't make the tasting be sure to stop in when you can for your holid= ay cheer. And you may want to listen to The Wine Vibe this Satur= day on AM950 Radio where we will be talking about, what else, Champagne and= Sparkling Wines! Get you questions ready because it is a live call-in show= 952.946.6205 is the studio line. Opt out list If you would like to opt out of this mailing list, please send a message= to: info(a)samswineshop.com and write opt out in the su= bject line. Thank you. Sam's Wine Shop, 218 Washington Ave N., Mpls, MN 612.455.1045 ----- End forwarded message ----- -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *

16 years, 11 months

[wine] REALLY Affordable Champagne in restaurants

by annette peters

Are you aware that Barbette and Red Stag are offering their Champagne lists at retail prices? I include them. Annette -----Original Message----- >From: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> >Sent: Dec 17, 2008 11:40 AM >To: wine(a)thebarn.com >Subject: [wine] Affordable Good Champagne > >FYI/FYE. > > >We tasted some nice bubbles last night. > >Aubry and Philipponnet Royal Reserve were wonderful and priced in the 40s. > >Gruet Blance de Blancs is less than $15 on sale and held it's own. >Schramsber was plenty good. > > > > > >Like Money in a Glass, but With Bubbles > >By Dave McIntyre >Wednesday, December 17, 2008; F05 > >What do we pay for when we buy a bottle of expensive champagne? In "The Wine Trials," published this year by Fearless Critic Media, author Robin Goldstein describes a series of tastings in which about 60 people were asked to rate two unidentified glasses of sparkling wine. Two out of three preferred a $12 Domaine Ste. Michelle from Washington state over Dom Perignon, the famous luxury champagne that sells for $150. > >So if more people prefer the cheaper wine, why buy the expensive one? Goldstein concluded that when we purchase Dom (or a cult Napa cabernet or first-growth Bordeaux), we're not buying just wine but also the experience of drinking something exclusive and expensive. We enjoy the taste of money. > >Money seems to taste sour these days. The champagne trade association CIVC recently announced that global shipments of champagne plummeted 20 percent in October compared with the same period last year. The British wine magazine Decanter reported on its Web site that 2008 shipments -- two-thirds of which come at the end of the year -- could drop by 34 million bottles, or about 10 percent, from last year's boom. > >Given champagne's elite status, we would expect sales to slump during a global economic downturn as consumers turn to cheaper sparkling wines from Spain, Italy, California and elsewhere. But if champagne is what you want, there are larger houses that offer fine value at relatively low prices, especially as competition heats up with sales this time of year. And excitement in champagne is not really much more expensive, if you know where to look. > >Here are some tips for maximizing your champagne experience this holiday season. > >Ask your retailer. Specialty wine stores will carry the familiar labels (Veuve Clicquot, Moet, Mumm, Taittinger) because those are the names customers ask for. And many of them might be competitively discounted at this time of year. But your retailer might have one or two unfamiliar labels tucked to the side that represent good value for the money, so don't be afraid to ask. > >Look for local importers. By U.S. law, the importer must be identified on the label. Local importers specialize in finding unknown producers of high-quality wines -- from any region. > >Look for small growers. Champagne boasts more than 15,000 independent grape growers, many with exceedingly small parcels. Together they own 90 percent of the vineyards. However, only about 5,000 growers produce wine from their own grapes. The power (political and economic) lies with the 300 or so champagne houses that own 10 percent of the vineyards but account for two-thirds of Champagne's production and a whopping 90 percent of its exports. > >The large houses offer some fine products, but the small "grower champagnes" have become quite the fashion among the value-hunting set in the past decade or so. By making their own wines instead of selling to the large houses, growers can produce distinctive champagnes that taste of their own vineyards instead of seeing their grapes disappear into a larger blend that reflects a "house style" of a major brand. Consumers pay less (in theory, at least) because they aren't supporting the prestige and advertising budgets of the parent corporations. > >Small grower wines from highly rated vineyards -- those designated grands crus -- offer even greater value, because the quality of the fruit produces a finer expression of terroir and the winemaker's style. > >Those expressions can be as different as they are exciting. Pascal Doquet produces a blockbuster, in-your-face champagne that dares you not to like it. The wine from Pierre Peters is more reticent. It waits for you to notice how good it is before revealing all its secrets, like a mentor who teaches the true craft only after the student has proven worthy. > >Both wines cost about $50 -- not much more than the basic champagnes of the major houses -- but they taste like they cost more. They taste like money. > >Dave McIntyre can be reached through his Web site, http://www.dmwineline.com, or at food(a)washpost.com. > >Recommendations > >Wednesday, December 17, 2008; F05 > >Restaurants often offer your best opportunity to try grower champagnes, as they are neither in large supply nor widely available in retail stores. Here I've included some of the better larger brands as well as some grower champagnes. > >Pascal Doquet Grand Cru Le Mesnil-Sur-Oger Blanc de Blancs >*** >France, $50 > >Small grower. From family-owned vineyards in the most famous grand cru area of Champagne, this wine features brawn over finesse, with golden color and toasty, yeasty flavors. Without the bubbles, it could pass for a classy white Burgundy. > >Kacher/Washington Wholesale: available in the District at Ace Beverage, Cleveland Park Wine and Spirits, MacArthur Beverages, Pearson's; on the list at Bourbon Steak. > >Pierre Peters Cuvee de Reserve Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru >*** >France, $58 > >Small grower. From top-rated vineyards in the Cote des Blancs, one of the world's best areas for chardonnay, this is a delicate, flirtatious wine with hints of jasmine, ginger and sea air. One sip is inviting, the next aloof, as the bubbles nearly mask the quality of the chardonnay. It actually improves the next day as the bubbles fade, suggesting it could benefit from being decanted. The more I like this wine, the more I want it to like me. > >Terry Theise/Bacchus: available in the District at Chat's Liquors, Wide World of Wines; on the list at Proof, BLT Steak, Tabard Inn, Zaytinya; in Maryland, on the list at Casey Jones Restaurant in La Plata. > >Thierry Triolet Grande Reserve Brut >** 1/2 >France, $38 > >Small grower. This wine hails from the Cote de Sezanne region of Champagne, which carries less cachet and therefore prompts a lower price. Triolet sold his grapes to large houses in Reims until 1985, when he began making his own wine. This blend of chardonnays from several vintages is riveting, with bright red-fruit flavors and a strong mineral structure. It's a steal. Also good: the Vielles Vignes 2004 ($42), though it will reward several years' more time in bottle. > >Wine Traditions: available in Virginia at Arrowine in Arlington, Grape + Bean in Alexandria; on the list at Mediteranee Restaurant in Great Falls; in the District, on the list at Cork Wine Bar. The Vielles Vignes 2004 is available at Finewines.com in Gaithersburg; in the District, on the list at Palena. > >Roland Champion Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru >** >France, $55 > >Small grower. Autumn fruits -- apples and apple cider -- dominate the aromas of this wine, which is blatantly more like a wine than we normally expect a champagne to be. Some may find that unexpected and even off-putting, while others will find it intriguingly delicious. > >Kysela: available in the District at Cleveland Park Wine and Spirits, Whole Foods Market P Street; available in Virginia at Rick's Wine & Gourmet in Alexandria, Vienna Vintner in Vienna; on the list at L'Auberge Provencale in Great Falls, Inn at Little Washington. > >Gosset Brut Excellence >* 1/2 >France, $45 > >Gosset is a smaller house that buys some grapes, so it does not qualify as a small grower in the trendy sense of the term. But it produces fine fizz, including this light and elegant wine that shows nice finesse and balance. > >Republic National: available in the District at Chevy Chase Wine & Spirits, Cleveland Park Wine & Liquor, Pearson's, Rodman's; on the list at BLT Steak, Central Michel Richard, Posto. > >Trouillard Brut Extra Selection >* 1/2 >France, $50 > >Although the national retail price of this wine is $50, it typically is sold for less in this region, often under $40 during the holidays. It offers aromas of roasted hazelnuts and flavors of red fruits. > >Kysela; available in the District at Bell Wine & Spirits, Magruder's, Marvelous Markets in Capitol Hill and Georgetown, Pearson's; on the list at New Heights; available in Virginia at Whole Foods Markets in Reston and Tysons Corner; on the list at L'Auberge Chez Francois in Great Falls, Blackthorne Inn in Upperville. > >Nicolas Feuillatte Brut >* >France, $43 > >The importer lists this wine at a national retail price of $43, but it is frequently advertised in The Post at $26. At the sale price it's a good buy, with toasty red-fruit flavors (raspberry, cranberry) from the pinot noir and pinot meunier grapes in the blend. The fruit fades quickly to a somewhat sweet, caramel finish. > >Country Vintner: widely available. > >Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Brut (Yellow Label) >* >France, $40 > >Bacchanalians love to hate this wine because it is famous and owned by the cognac-swilling fashion mavens at the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennesey Group and is therefore the very antithesis of small-grower champagne. But it's good. And it's everywhere. > >Washington Wholesale: widely available. > >Store and restaurant listings are provided by the distributors and may not be complete. Check with your favorite store for availability. >Key > >*** Exceptional > >** Excellent > >* Very good > >Prices are approximate. Check Winesearcher.com to verify availability, or ask a favorite wine store to order through the distributor. > > >-- >------------------------------ >* Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * >* University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * >* Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 * > >_______________________________________________ >wine mailing list >wine(a)thebarn.com >http://www.thebarn.com/mailman/listinfo/wine

16 years, 11 months

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win December 2008