Monthly Archives: March 2010

30% Tempranillo, 60% Garnacha (Grenache) and 10% Viura from the Tondonia vineyard. The 1998 is the winery's current release.

Look at the beautiful onion skin color!  Believe it or not, that is a term used to describe the color of rosé. 

Founded in 1877 and one of the few family-owned estates left in Rioja, López de Heredia is decidedly old-school;  only grapes from their own vineyards, no chemicals, no pesticides, natural yeast, no machines (only hand harvesting), no chaptalization, prolonged barrel aging prior to release, 4 barrel-makers on staff, hand-racking with oak funnels, no filtration at bottling, and the list goes on.

This rosé was one of the most interesting and exciting I’ve ever had.  On the nose were notes of almonds, strawberry jam, orange peel, honey, cardamom and earth, and on the palate some cherry kicked in, along with mouthwatering acidity.  The complexity is due, in part, to the 4 1/2 years the wine spent in barrel (it was racked twice per year and fined with egg whites).  We paired it with Vietnamese food and it would also stand up to Chinese, Indian and Mexican cuisines.  It might be happiest, though, in your picnic basket, alongside some tasty sausage.

To top it off, wines from this producer tend to be a great value.  I picked this bottle up recently, on sale, at Union Square Wines for $24.  Oh, and Eric Asimov likes it, too.

Reuters reported yesterday that a six-liter Methuselah of Romanée-Conti 1976 sold for $42,350 at Sotheby’s New York. 

This guy used to own that bottle. His cellar eventually netted over $1.18 million dollars.

Romanée-Conti is one of the 6 Pinot Noirs from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, the most prestigious Burgundian wine estate (you’d hope for that price, right?), based in Vosne-Romanée.

The bottle once belonged to Lloyd Flatt, an eye-patch wearing, New Orleans-based wine collector.  Flatt began hunting for world-class wines in the late 1960s and the Wine Spectator quoted him as saying, “Forty years ago, collectors had nothing to go by other than their own palates. Michael Broadbent had yet to write his Great Vintage Wine Book, Marvin Shanken had yet to buy Wine Spectator and Robert Parker was still in law school. My advice to anyone contemplating a wine collection today is to focus. Find something that you enjoy. Don’t try to explore everything all at once…Unlike an art collection, which is permanent, wine ultimately must be consumed. You shouldn’t even contemplate a cellar if you cannot accept that fact.”

For you nerdy folks out there interested in names for various bottles sizes, here is a chart I recreated from my Oxford Companion.

Collectors often favor larger format bottles, as they can lead to slower and more subtle aging of the wine.  As soon as you start your own winery, you’ll be able to begin a collection as impressive as Flatt’s.

photo from zinwines.com

I had the pleasure to meet Dan Philips this week and to taste one of his newer products, a sparkling version of the very popular Bitch Grenache. 

Upon the wine’s release last August, Dan put his thoughts down on paper and many of his comments are worth sharing with you.  “Over the years I’ve heard about every possible idea for line extension: Big Bitch (magnums), Skinny Bitch (riesling), White Bitch (chardonnay), Clos de la Bitch, Dom Bitch, Sine Bitch Non, Cloudy Bitch, and on and on…it straddles the line like a delicate tight rope walk between popular culture and fine wine, PT Barnum and RMP, Jr., Meryl Streep and Zsa Zsa Gabor (think Paris Hilton with an accent if you’re too young to remember Green Acres,) Krug and….? Well, something that has not yet been invented.  Until now.  It’s called Bitch Bubbly.  I can try to describe it, but you have to taste it AND see it to get it.  It’s pink.  It’s bubbly.  It’s basically a blanc de blancs with a hint of grenache.  It’s redolent of strawberry mousse.  It is made by Chris Ringland and has his trademark, crisp and vibrant balance.  And, it’s about the sexist thing you’ve ever seen in a bottle.” 

There you have it.  It’s made by a rockstar wine maker, it’s under $10 and it has a crown cap.  What’s not to love?