BC Wine

On the tip of my tongue..

2012-04-03T21:15:46Z

Length and Finish are words often used by wine tasters. What do they mean? And what words might you use to describe them? Length is a tasting term to describe how long the taste of a wine persists or lingers on your palate after you have swallowed (or spit, if tasting professionally) the wine...

Length is essentially, as it implies, a measure. A wine's length may be described as long, moderate or short. In general, a long length is considered a sign of high quality.

A wine's length differs from its finish (although the terms are often used interchangeably), in that, in the authors opinion, the finish is a more of a descriptive term. It describes the very last flavor or textural sensation left in your mouth after swallowing or spitting the wine. Terms used to describe the finish of a wine include spicy, minerality, savory, sweet, bitter, hot, harsh, rich and so forth - essentially the same adjectives that you might use to describe flavor or texture of a wine.

Wine Counterfeiting for Dummies

2012-03-14T18:01:13Z

Last week the FBI arrested a 35-year-old millionaire wine dealer suspected of trying to sell $1.3 million in counterfeit wine. The high-profile case is just the latest illustration of a fraud that has spread to every corner of the wine world in the past few decades, from the booming Chinese market to the international auction circuit.

Given the prices collectors are willing to pay for high-end wine—bottles of the 1982 vintage of France’s grand crus, for example, can fetch $2,000 to $5,000, depending on the trustworthiness of the provenance—selling counterfeit wine can be a lucrative business. Aspiring fraudsters need only a bit of know-how and a few hundred dollars of startup costs. Herewith, a rundown on some of their techniques.

Picking a target wine:

Older vintages are easier to fake. They are more likely to remain in cellars unopened, as collectors’ items. And even if they are drunk, connoisseurs recognize that the wine inside may have been transformed over time—taste, at a certain point, is not a reliable indicator of authenticity.

The methods:

1) Relabeling: The simplest, and arguably crudest, way to counterfeit wine is to slap the label of a fine wine on to another, similar-looking bottle. (Bottle shapes tend to vary by region.) In order to deceive connoisseurs—who may call foul as soon as they taste the fraudulent juice—industrious counterfeiters will use a bottle from the same vineyard as the target but of a less acclaimed vintage.

Requirements: New bottle; original label.
Pros: Relatively straightforward and inexpensive.
Cons: One look at the cork, which bears the name and vintage of the wine inside, and the jig is up.

2) Recycling: This method calls for using authentic, correctly labeled bottles from highly prized years and refilling them with wine of a lesser quality—if not outright plonk. That empty bottles of 1982 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild can go for as much as $1,500 on the black market may be evidence of the popularity of this method. Recorking the bottles—ideally with the original corks—requires special tools. The capsule then needs to be slipped on top of the cork. Capsules of high-end wine are made of foil rather than plastic, which makes them easier to slide off one bottle and onto another.

Requirements: Original bottle; original cork; replacement wine; recorking machine.
Pros: Little evidence of tampering; circumvents the countermeasures (such as micro-etchings and ultraviolet tags) that producers started to include on their bottles in the late ’80s to combat counterfeiting.
Cons: The proof is in the wine itself, and a convincing substitute can be costly.

3) “Reverse fraud:” A rare but bold method. Franck Bourrières of Prooftag, a company that provides technologically advanced authentication systems to wineries, once told me about a recent case in which a buyer bought an authentic bottle of a prestige wine through an online seller. On its arrival, the buyer asked for the sale to be voided because he had reason to believe the bottle was a fake. The buyer then shipped a counterfeit bottle back to the seller, while keeping the authentic bottle.

Requirements: Cost of original bottle (will be recouped when the bottle is returned); counterfeit bottle (see above).
Pro: If the gambit works, the counterfeiter has successfully covered his tracks.
Con: The technique is not easily scalable.

Fine touches:

Since the success of the deception relies entirely on the quality of the replacement wine, counterfeiters sometimes take extra measures to make their juice taste as much like the original as possible. This takes unusual savoir-faire and can be costly. Adding a splash of Pomerol to a 1960 Château Pétrus, for example, can approximate the more desirable 1961 Pétrus, according to an article on the 2006 volume World of Forensic Science. Counterfeiters can also add sugar or water as needed to approximate the taste, but such methods are of little use to a fraudster without an educated palate.

Abandoned luncheonette? Maybe, but the wine gets finished.

2011-02-09T00:57:54Z

For more than four decades, Daryl Hall has been half of Hall & Oates, the most successful pop music duo of all time according to the Recording Industry Association of America. A Philadelphia-area native who grew up in the 1960s soul music scene, Hall joined with his friend John Oates in 1972 and went on to release a series of chart-topping singles through the mid 1980s—"Rich Girl," "Kiss on My List," and "Private Eyes," to name a few—from six multi-platinum albums. Hall's latest creation is Live from Daryl's House, a monthly webcast in which Hall hosts performances by musicians ranging from legends such as Smokey Robinson to newcomers like the electrofunk duo Chromeo at his historic home in New York's Hudson Valley. Hall is a longtime wine lover and collector, and in addition to making music on the show, guests share food from local chefs and wines from Hall's diverse cellar. Hall recently spoke with Wine Spectator about how touring introduced him to wine, which bottles he asks to be provided with backstage, and what music is best to drink wine by.

BC Wine: How did you become interested in wine?
Daryl Hall: I was lucky, because early on we were popular in Europe, so I did a lot of touring there. That usually consisted of going to a radio or TV station and being taken around to great restaurants, which I was always really into.

BCW: What are your favorite wine regions?
DH: I’m partial to French wines, Bordeaux especially, though there are some Burgundies I really like. And Italian wines, mostly from Tuscany.

BCW: What inspired the idea of a show combining music with food and wine?
DH: I didn’t really have a format in mind when I started. I just said, "I’m going to bring the road to me." You bring somebody into your home and what are you gonna do? You’re going to eat food and you’re going to drink wine. I added a food segment, invited local chefs, and we sat around the table and talked with guests over a few glasses of wine.

BCW: Are there similarities between wine and music, and how you enjoy them?
DH: I think that wine goes with discourse and with talking about music. And in bonding with other musicians, I think wine is a good assist.

BCW: How do you acquire wines?
DH: Most of my wines come from an open-ended rider when I tour. I’ve kept in [the request] certain years of Bordeaux, certain years of Burgundy. Sometimes I switch it to Italian. And I always have the Jordan on there. So at shows, backstage, I always get wine. I have quite an eclectic collection that way.

BCW: Tell us about your cellar.
DH: It’s a cellar in an old house. It’s naturally temperature controlled and humidity controlled. I’d say I have about 400 bottles—some of these wines have moved from house to house over the years and have held up well. I run the gamut from wine I serve at parties to Margaux and Pétrus and Lynch-Bages and Sassicaia and Ornellaia. And I’m not afraid to open a bottle of wine. I mean you can only save them so long and then, why bother?

BCW: What have you discovered living in Dutchess County?
DH: When I first moved up here I became friendly with John Dyson of Millbrook Winery, which I think [makes] one of the best white wines in America. I think he’s done a phenomenal job of creating good wines in an area where everybody told him "don’t do it." I especially like the Chardonnay.

BCW: So, do you have favorite wine and music pairings?
DH: That’s a thought! If you really want to get down with R&B I wouldn’t talk about fine wines—drink the wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee [laughs]. But I like soul and jazz, and think my tastes run to sophisticated music. Wine fits in with that kind of mindset.

Wine Train

2011-02-09T00:51:39Z

As lead guitarist for San Francisco–based pop group Train, Jimmy Stafford has spent over a decade on the road in support of the Grammy Award–winning band’s hit albums and songs, including “Meet Virginia,” “Calling All Angels” and “Soul Sister.” Along the way, Stafford developed a passion for wine, blogging about his finds and connecting with fans over good bottles. He recently parlayed this interest into the subscription-based Train Wine Club, and has plans on deck for a wine-and-music festival in Northern California and a “Drops of Jupiter” Train wine, named for one of their biggest hits. Stafford spoke with Wine Spectator from his new home in Nashville about the unorthodox way he built his collection, the best countries for wine on the road, and his plans for a new cellar.

BC WIne: How did your interest in wine develop?
Jimmy Stafford: I’ve always kind of dabbled. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more into wine. The past couple tours I’ve asked for a bottle or two in my dressing room every night. I like to have a glass or two before going on stage and then a glass after. It’s nice to have around for guests. Some nights I drink one bottle and stick the other in my wardrobe case. By the end of tour, my case is full. I’m starting to develop quite a collection. We’re going to do a tour in January of Australian wineries. I’m hoping to collect some good Australian wines. My next big project is to build a wine cellar in my Nashville home.

BCW: You’ve traveled all over. Is there a place that stands out winewise?
JS: We did eight laps around the world in 2010. I love the German beers. I’m not a really big fan of Riesling, so when I go to Germany I stick to beer. When I’m in France or Spain or Italy, it’s all wine. Same with Australia, and I love South African wine as well. There’s a fan of ours from Hungary and every time we play in that region—Austria, Hungary, Switzerland—she comes and brings me the best Hungarian wines. My favorite wines are still the California wines. I don’t know if I’m biased, but I think they’re the best in the world. Cakebread, Jordan, Chappellet, Orin Swift, Wente …

BCW: What have you learned about wine while on the road?
JS: We did a show, Live at Daryl’s House, with Daryl Hall [of Hall & Oates], who is also a big wine lover. We did a segment about wine and I was telling him about how I get wines in my dressing room every night, which can be hit or miss; sometimes you find something new and great and other times you get grape juice. He said that that’s exactly the reason why he requests the same wine in his dressing room every night. I guess that has its pluses and minuses. He doesn’t get to try anything new, but he doesn’t get that occasional bottle of grape juice like I do.

BCW: Do you know what your cellar is going to look like?
JS: I do. I’m going to put it in my man cave. There’s a place in the back of it that’s octagon-shaped that I’m going to wall off and put my wine cellar there. I’m picturing wine racks all around. Concannon Winery, who is going to manufacture our Train brand of wine next year, said they would give me an old oak wine barrel that I could put in the center of the room as a tasting table. I’m really excited about it. I can’t wait to get all my wines out of the boxes they’re in right now.

The House of Mandela

2011-01-28T22:06:23Z

Opportunities for fine dining may have been somewhat limited within the confines of Victor Verster prison in Paarl, but Nelson Mandela always enjoyed a small glass of semi-sweet Nederberg wine with his Sunday lunch during his incarceration. Today, Mandela’s legacy is set to become entwined with South Africa’s R20 billion (£1.75bn) wine industry.

At a low-key tasting and reception in Johannesburg’s modern Sandton Square complex in July of last year, the first three wines in the House of Mandela range were launched by Mandela’s eldest daughter Makaziwe, her daughter, Tukwini and Mandla Mandela, the new chief of the Mandela clan. At the age of 92, Mandela will not be personally involved with the project, but he has given it his blessing.

On his travels following his release between 1992 and 1994, Mandela was careful never to endorse any one product personally. But when he was photographed with a Cape wine in his hand, a Nederburg, he took the opportunity to say that while in the past he had asked people to boycott such products, he had changed his mind and was now asking for support for them. Today, he has that support. South Africa produces 805 million litres of wine, more than three per cent of the world’s wine, and exports half of it.

When Makaziwe Mandela was first approached with the idea four years ago by her Norwegian friend, Camilla Bernal, her first instinct was to say no, especially since the Norwegian company were keen to put Mandela’s face on the label. Makaziwe made it clear that it just wasn’t done in Africa to put the face of one member of the family forward in that way.

The Norwegians changed tack and suggested it be called the House of Mandela, telling the story of the family’s ancestors, Mandela himself and his legacy. Makaziwe saw the potential and gave it the green light. The new House of Mandela website with the bee as its family crest (www.houseofmandela.com) recites the Mandela family ancestry in proud detail.

Although she knew little about wine at the start of the project, Makaziwe always had at the back of her mind something her father had told her: ‘if you don’t drink wine, the world won’t accept you’. She was also reminded that her father, while a man of principle, was not inflexible. She came round to the idea of the project as a way of embodying the spirit and accessibility of the Mandela family.

At the same time, she saw the opportunity of establishing a black brand capable of setting new standards of quality and sophistication in the new South Africa. ‘Traditionally South Africans are more into hard liquor than wine but I think if we help to demystify it, more and more black people will come to appreciate what is after all a wonderful drink’.

The vast majority of the estimated 275,000 farm workers and their dependants working in the South African wine industry are black, but Makaziwe is acutely conscious that their involvement in the decision-making and production side is as yet far outweighed by the industry’s white Afrikaner dominance. ‘The wine industry has been slow to transform’ says Makaziwe, ‘but the time is right for that to change’.

Since deciding to go ahead with the project, Makaziwe has been involved at each stage, from selecting the blends with her consultant Lynne Sherriff MW, to researching the global wine trade and organising the launch. The first three wines are a 2009 Chardonnay from Thelema’ s Elgin Sutherland property, selling for 190R (£16.50) and two reds, a 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon from Hartenberg and 2007 Shiraz from Charles Back of Fairview, both selling for 350R (£30). The aim is to accompany the three premium wines with a value for money tier of wines, to be called the Thembu Collection.

In June this year, a meeting with Italy’s famous Antinori family was arranged as Makaziwe is fascinated by this historic Italian dynasty and inspired by the story of Piero Antinori selling his family business and then buying it back. For Makaziwe, Antinori is the model of a wine with a family stamp on it that has both top end and value for money wines. Also among ideas for the future is to involve young black artists in a label design competition.

Married, with four children, Makaziwe Mandela, is Nelson Mandela’s daughter from his first marriage to Evelyn Mase. Born and brought up in the Orlando west district of Soweto, she wasn’t able to visit her father in prison in Cape Town until she was given an ID book at the age of 16.

As social worker, anthropologist, educationist and businesswoman, she is held in high regard in her native South Africa. Thanks to the association of her name, she is well-placed to steer the project both domestically and internationally. She’s a firm believer in individual effort , dialogue and courage, and determined in the face of growing materialism not to lose ubuntu, the ‘caring and sharing’ philosophy of African culture.

Keeping it local

2011-01-25T19:28:16Z

The 100-mile diet has become a byword across the continent for sustainable eating. At the very least, the 2007 book of the same name that spawned the concept — written by Vancouver journalists Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon — got people talking about local produce, let alone considering it as a viable option at the store. One thing that's often painfully clear from the book, though, is just how difficult Smith and MacKinnon's year-long experiment was. The 100-mile radius that they set from which to source ingredients did include most of their major food needs, but many of those were extremely difficult to source.

Increasing the limit to within B.C.'s borders would have made life a little easier. From Okanagan orchards and vineyards to Fraser Valley farms and the teeming seas of the Strait of Georgia, from Pemberton potatoes to birch syrup from Quesnel, this province has an extraordinary bounty of food. And with sustainability on more and more people's minds, B.C. ingredients are being seen more often on store shelves. This movement toward local, sustainable food on the West Coast began before the 100-mile fad appeared, and actually had its origins in Vancouver's restaurant scene in the early 1990s. One restaurant, to be precise: Raincity Grill (1193 Denman Street,Vancouver; 604-685-7337; raincitygrill.com), in the city's West End, which was opened by Harry Kambolis in 1992 when he was only in his mid-20s.

"[Back then] you saw a lot of products come in from around the world and I think with a lot of restaurants that was one of their main efforts, to bring things in like asparagus from France or whatever, products people seemed to want at the time," says Kambolis. "When Raincity started we did a lot of work with people, we had to say 'we don't have that' a lot and then have to convince them that was OK. Back then it wasn`t really OK."

Kambolis doesn't feel as if he made a concentrated effort to move the food in his restaurant in a more local, sustainable direction. With a viewpoint objective from the restaurant industry at the time, it just seemed like common sense to use ingredients from the area. "When I walked into Raincity and started making decisions on what I thought was right and what we should be doing, where we were going, I didn't actually know that was what I was going to do.

"But with every step and every decision I made I seemed to move in that direction, that just seemed to be natural. I never had any formal training, I didn't work in the fine dining restaurants at the time. It just made sense to me: 'Why are we bringing this in from halfway round the world when there's products right here we can use?' "You know, when you strip it away, it's nothing but common sense."

Coming up on its 20th anniversary, Raincity Grill is still one of Vancouver's top places to dine, with constantly shifting prix fixes to accommodate ingredients and the season — including a 100-mile menu — along with a superlative list of B.C. wine and a killer view of English Bay. But it was a slow process to get people to accept the notion that local produce was actually a better choice.

"Developing the channels and connections in the food and beverage industry has been important because there was a different way of thinking back then. Nobody was asking where things were from unless it was unique and from halfway around the world.

"In the case of carrots, they could have come from California, B.C., Washington, it didn`t matter as much at the time. They just showed up and you were happy to have them. You got to looking at the box and wondering why they were coming from California. . . . Getting to know the people who were supplying them and knowing what their philosophies were was part of the building blocks."

Today, there are dozens of restaurants that tout their local and sustainable credentials. So why does Kambolis think Raincity Grill — along with its sister restaurants C and Nu — has the edge over all these young upstarts?

"What we do at Raincity , Nu and C is more of a program than a selection. We work on it from the ground up and work directly with the producers.

"You'll find in other restaurants, they're buying items that say the Vancouver] aquarium is telling them to buy. Or the supplier says 'this is certified.' Our program is more grass roots. In most restaurants, it's superficial by comparison."

This doesn't apply at one of Raincity Grill's main competitors in B.C. dining, which boasts a similar longevity on the scene. Bishop's (2183 West 4th Ave., Vancouver; 604-738-2025; bishopsonline.com) is consistently rated as one of Vancouver's best dining spots, and chef Andrea Carlson - formerly in the kitchen at Raincity Grill - shows great invention and knowledge of local and seasonal produce as she unleashes the full potential of the province's ingredients.

Other superb examples of Pacific Northwest cuisine — as it's commonly called — include Blue Water Cafe (1095 Hamilton Street, Vancouver; 604-688-8078; bluewatercafe.net), Boneta (1 W Cordova St., Vancouver; 604-684-1844; boneta.ca), Cru (1459 W. Broadway, Vancouver; 604-677-4111; cru.ca), Social at Le Magasin (332 Water St., Vancouver; 604-669-4488; socialatlemagasin.com), Two Chefs and a Table (305 Alexander St., Vancouver; 778-233-1303; twochefsandatable.com), West (2881 Granville St., Vancouver; 604-738-8938; westrestaurant.com), Hart House (6664 Deer Lake Ave., Burnaby, 604-298-4278; harthouserestaurant.com), The Pear Tree (4120 E Hastings, Burnaby; 604-299-2772; peartreerestaurant.net) and Araxi (4222 Village Gate Square, Whistler; 604-932-4540; araxi.com).

It's no coincidence that all of these charge more of a premium because only premium ingredients are used, the majority of them from within B.C.

But it shows how highly regarded the local, sustainable movement has become that some of the best restaurants in Vancouver — Canada, even — centre their menus around local food. However, there are also less expensive, great options that don't sacrifice quality: Try Refuel (1944 W 4th Ave., Vancouver; 604-288-7905; refuelrestaurant.com), The Cascade Room (2616 Main St., Vancouver; 604-709-8650); Controversial Kitchen (1420 Commercial Drive, Vancouver; 604-254-6101) and Bravo (46224 Yale Road East, Chilliwack; 604-792-7721).

Many of these great B.C. menus are paired with great B.C. wine lists. Wine is a real barometer of how dining attitudes have changed in the Vancouver area, as Kambolis recalls from Raincity Grill's early days.

"We had only wines from the West Coast, and people wanted Italy and France. The wines from our regions weren't as developed as they are now.

"But now I think people can find something they like, certainly from California, Oregon and Washington, but even from B.C. now, that seems to be a lot easier.

"Now you can see that the reds are really coming into their own. You can tell by spending habits — people are starting to spend a lot of money on B.C. reds. You'll get $100 bottles at restaurants whereas once upon a time you would never see that. The richness of them and quality continues to improve and there are some winemakers down there [in the Okanagan] that do want to be the best in the world."

The B.C. wine industry is now making inroads into the U.S. and even Europe. Besides Raincity Grill, other places that offer superb B.C. wine lists include Blue Water Cafe (details above) and Uva Wine bar (900 Seymour St, Vancouver; 604-632-9560; uvawinebar.com).

And don't forget beer. B.C.'s craft beer scene is undergoing a boom in growth at the moment, with dozens of microbreweries dotted around the Lower Mainland and beyond that are producing flavourful and interesting brews. Many microbreweries have a pub or even just a tasting room attached. But if you want a good overview of B.C. craft beer head along to either the Alibi Room (157 Alexander Street, Vancouver; 604-623-3383; alibi.ca) or St. Augustines (2360 Commercial Dr., Vancouver; 604-569-1911; staugustinesvancouver.com) for a vast selection of local brews on draft and even some from casks.

Of course, you don't have to get someone else to do all the work for you when it comes to acquainting yourself with B.C. food. In fact, getting to grips with the goods yourself is the best way to learn more about what the province has to offer. If you want to learn what's growing and being reared and caught in the province, Edible B.C.'s current outlet store (Granville Island Public Market; 604-662-3606; edible-britishcolumbia.com) is a great place to start. This one-stop shop in the Granville Island market sells more than 800 B.C. food products, which can also be bought online through the website. As well, Edible B.C. offers culinary tours of Granville Island Market and Chinatown and, for the more adventurous, gastronomic kayak tours of the Gulf Islands.

It's all the brainchild of Erik Pateman, a chef looking to give people a more straightforward, less advertorial take on B.C. food. Naturally, he's delighted at how the demand for local and sustainable food has grown.

"It's reaching that critical mass where consumers are demanding it so the big guys have to listen," Pateman says. "Industrialization created this global food economy that just made things easy. Then all of a sudden people suddenly began talking and thinking about it and all those small pieces added up and made a difference. . . . All it takes is the Costcos and the Walmarts of the world to get behind this and all of a sudden everyone's much more aware of it.

But he acknowledges that the local diet can only go so far.

"I don't think it's sustainable to feed our entire population based on what's in our back yard. But every little bit makes a big difference. We can support our local farmers. B.C. has its own challenges with land prices and taxation issues. Every little bit that everbody can do that supports somebody locally, that keeps food from travelling halfway round the world, makes a difference."

"You're never going to replace sugar, grain that stuff. Completely B.C. [diet] is not a realistic expectation. People are too busy to cook from scratch. You're seeing more people talking about canning and preserving again. But it's all two-income households, both working parents.

Instead of canning and preserving yourself, Pateman suggests, you can get somebody local to do the hard work for you.

"One of the things we've seen is more pickles and preserves flying off shelves. In B.C. you can only eat so much squash and root vegetables during the winter, and the only way round that is canning. People have a memory of canned foods - I remember growing up and we always had canned peaches and plums and nectarines. I just don't have the time to do that today. But that doesn't mean I won't buy local preserves."

Excitingly, Edible B.C. is moving to a larger "culinary centre" beside the market that will expand their store and include a restaurant, 50-person demonstration kitchen and take-away food service. All food will be at least 75-per-cent sourced in B.C. The new 3,000 sq. ft. venue is slated for a May 1, 2011 opening.

The Granville Island market itself is, of course, a fabulous place to shop for B.C. ingredients, should you want to cook for yourself. But there are many other neighbourhood markets across the metro area offering top-quality goods. Queensdale Market (3030 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver; 604-987-8941; queensdalemarket.ca) prides itself on offering organic, specialty and traditional foods across its range of produce, bakery goods, meat and deli products. The deli also offers sandwiches, salads and hot specials.

Offering a similar range on Commercial is Drive Organics (1045 Commercial Drive, Vancouver; 604-678-9665), which always has great local produce.

The daddy of all organic and ethical food stores is Capers Whole Foods (various locations; wholefoodsmarket.com/capers), founded in West Vancouver more than 20 years ago and now thriving with a further three locations in Vancouver. With two more stores in Ontario, Capers is now Canada's leading natural and organic foods retailer. Local producers and produce are actively promoted in every location.

If you want good-quality, local meat, head to your local butcher, if you still have one. If not, it's worth the trip to some of the area's better meat-smiths, which include The Butcher (4529 West 10th Ave., Vancouver; 604-224-0602; thebutcher.ca) in Vancouver's West Side, and Westlynn Meats and Seafoods (1199 Lynn Valley Rd., North Vancouver; 604-988-7644; westlynnmeatsandseafood.com) — which does a great selection of freezer packs.

"We know where everything else we buy comes from," says Kambolis. "We know what our labels are, what kind of shoes we buy, where our car comes from. And for some reason . . . food is last on the list: 'I don't know where it's from but I'm going to eat it.' They'll spend more time figuring out where their shoes are from than where their carrots are from."

When our industrial food chain is explained like that, local food really becomes the only common-sense option.

Blowing the horn for South African wine

2010-06-24T19:11:16Z

While watching the World Cup, why not kick back and hoist a cupful of wine from the host country? South Africa makes some delicious wines, especially whites, and can make a case for producing some of the world's best chenin blancs.

Chenin blanc is an under-appreciated wine grape variety, a fact that vexes many sommeliers who love its minerality, expressiveness and compatibility with a broad range of foods. Consumers, however, often shy away from it, probably because of its variability. Chenin blanc can be bone-dry or honeyed; too often, it is somewhere in the indistinct middle range. When there's no easy way to know what's in the bottle, can you blame people for sticking with chardonnay? In the grape's homeland, France's Loire Valley, a dizzying array of appellation names makes chenin extra tricky to sort out (although I would argue that it's worth the effort to do so).

"Most people assume that chenin blanc is always sweet," says Kathy Morgan, sommelier at Michel Richard Citronelle in Georgetown. The better examples from the Loire Valley "combine searing acidity with seriously funky earth, which makes them great food wines but difficult to drink by themselves," she says. "South Africa, because of its warmer climate, produces chenin blanc with lower acidity and higher alcohol. And that makes it more accessible."

That is good news. South Africa's chenin blanc, sometimes called Steen there, tends to be dry without challenging palates with the Loire's "funky earth."

The quality of those I've tasted recently -- straightforward quaffs as well as more complex examples -- has been consistently good. Best of all, they are terrific values.

South Africa has also earned critical acclaim in recent years for its sauvignon blancs. These tend to be agg ressively grassy, in the style New Zealand winemakers favored a few years back before they discovered the merits of complexity and nuance. So if you favor that style, those wines are worth exploring. The quality, however, is not consistent. One highly rated sauvignon blanc had me reliving a childhood nightmare involving canned peas.

But the chenin blancs are delightful. They include unoaked versions fermented and aged in stainless-steel tanks, which feature crisp acidity and citrusy notes, and fleshier wines that hint of a few months' aging in used barrels, or "neutral oak," as the marketing lingo prefers. The barrel treatment gives body without much oak flavor, trading freshness for complexity.

And as you sip them along with your World Cup buffet, during a lull in the action you might discover how well these wines pair with all sorts of food. You might even want to pick up a vuvuzela and toot their merits for the neighborhood to hear.

CIC Discord Rumbles On

2010-05-18T19:20:04Z

Wine importers are upset that the British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch (BCLDB) gives “cellared-in- Canada” wines, which are made from 100% foreign grape juice, what they say is preferential treatment over equivalent-grade imported wines.

Critics have eliminated some of the advantages of cellared-in-Canada (CIC) wines, but they remain angry about the controversial entry level products.

“Cellared-in-Canada wines are at a huge price advantage because they’re distributed as a domestic wine,” said Bacchus Group Inc. principal Jim Marion.

He said BCLDB regulations allow Mark AnthonyGroup, Constellation Brands Inc. (NYSE:STZ) subsidiary Vincor Canada and Andrew Peller Ltd.(TSX:ADW.b) to warehouse their CIC wines at their facilities. Imported wines must all go through what Marion calls his “forced distribution network,” which involves storing wine at a bonded warehouse such as Containerworld Forwarding Services Inc. facility.

“Cellared-in-Canada wines can avoid Containerworld,” he said. Marion sells the products from Containerworld to the BCLDB, which either draws on that supply for its stores or resells the product to private wine stores. Marion said CIC producers can avoid paperwork by shipping directly to stores.

“This disparity gets people drinking bad wine,” said Marquis Wine Cellars owner John Clerides. Clerides said the dollar or two in cost savings that CIC wine producers reap per bottle is significant given that the wines cost approximately $10 per bottle. “If someone only has a budget for a $10 wine, they’re forced to drink that [cellared-in- Canada] stuff,” Clerides said. “If the rules were different, they could afford a much better import wine for $10.”

CIC critics succeeded in getting Vincor Canada to stop using foreign juice in its Jackson Triggs Esprit brand, which also bore the Olympic rings and the Vancouver 2010 Games’ Inukshuk logo. They then got the BCLDB to remove all cellared-in- Canada wines from the B.C. section of liquor stores.

But Andrew Peller COO Anthony Bristow critics are now going too far. Unlike Mark Anthony Group, for example, Andrew Peller stores its CIC wine at Containerworld because Bristow believes it’s more affordable than leasing other Vancouver warehouse space.

He added that Canada has a more level playing field for imported wine than any other wine-producing country. That’s why 56% of the dollars spent on wine in BCLDB’s stores last year were for imported products. He said only 2% of his sales are exports because protectionist practices of other countries give their producers huge advantages.

Bristow pointed to two examples of cheap foreign wines that disguise their grape-juice origins. “If you go into a liquor store and buy a bottle of Barefoot Cellars you’ll see something that says, ‘For Canada only,’ Bristow said.

“It says California on the label. If it was produced and sold in California, it would have to be 100% California juice. But if it’s a product for sale in Canada, that juice can be mixed with less-costly ingredients and be sold with 75% California wine.”

In order for a producer to call a wine a product of Canada, it must have 100% Canadian juice. Federal regulations allow foreign wines to be labelled as a product of a country or a region where a minimum of 75% of the juice is sourced.

Bristow then picked up a bottle of Kressman-branded wine that was in his office. It’s commonly found in the French section at liquor stores.

The label notes that the wine is a product of France, but Bristow pointed out that the label also says it’s a “wine of the E.U.” He said that means as much as 25% of the wine’s juice could come from less prestigious winemaking countries in the E.U. Added Bristow: “Cellared-in- Canada products use local labour, local everything. They can have incredible value to the province and the country. A KPMG study found that Cellared-in-Canada wines have about 12 times the value of an import when it comes to the economic value to the country.”

Wedding Wine Tips

2010-05-18T18:51:33Z

No single occasion integrates anxiety, anticipation, happiness and expense more exquisitely than a wedding. The average cost of what is theoretically a once-in-a-lifetime experience runs about $30,000 (or about $10,000 more than the average divorce). The ring, the dress and the flowers are all a big part of the price. And the wine? Not so much. In fact, if wedding wine could be summed up in a single word it would be "cheap."

An informal poll I took recently seemed to bear this out. Not a single married couple of the dozen or so that I spoke with reported having spent much on their wedding wine—and almost none of them could remember the names of the wines they served. Even my friend Millie Martini Bratten, editor in chief of Brides magazine, told me she didn't remember her wedding wine of 23 years ago. However, as Millie explained, she was married back "before people cared about wine."

It's certainly true that wine drinkers have grown more discerning, and yet I can't say that I've enjoyed many great wines at the ceremonies I've attended in recent years. In fact, sometimes I've wished that the centerpieces weren't flowers but spit buckets. With so many great wines and so much information available, it certainly seems as if the newly betrothed should be getting better advice and more interesting options. But are they?

My colleague, a bride-to-be, provided the perfect opportunity for me to find out. She and her fiancé are both wine drinkers; in fact, she possesses one of the most idiosyncratic and wonderful wine vocabularies I have ever encountered. She might declare a fondness for a wine "with a ticklish quality" while a wine she disliked might taste "like a couch from Craigslist."

Five tips for choosing a wine to serve at your wedding:

1. Taste at least 10 wines, five reds and five whites. You'd look at least as many rings before buying your wedding band.

2. Buy a good sparkling wine but don't waste money on Champagne; as one caterer said to me, "No one ever asks to see the label."

3. If you bring your own wine and pay a corkage fee you will almost always pay much (much) less than if you had chosen the catering hall wine.

4.Choose a wine with the widest appeal that also that will go well with food. This means wines that are fairly fruity and light-bodied with good acidity (i.e., Albarinos from Spain; Italian Dolcettos and reds from southern France.)

5. Most of the wedding wines chosen by the caterers are domestic but you can (generally) spend less money if you choose an imported wine. For example, you can get a great Chilean Sauvignon Blanc for $10 and an appealing Nero d'Avola from Sicily for $10. It's much harder to find that kind of deal in a domestic wine.

They didn't know what wines they would serve at their wedding except that they had to be interesting. Or as my colleague put it, "They can't taste like wedding wines." And they had to be cheap, "definitely under $15 a bottle." They wanted to serve white and red and maybe even a rose as well. The problem, however, is that many wedding venues impose huge markups, of the sort that would make even the most shameless restaurateur blush. A $10 wine can easily become a $50 bottle in a catering hall.

I decided to do some real-life wedding wine research. I would call a few wedding venues around the country and also, accompanied by my colleague, check out some top wedding destinations in New York. We chose the Pierre Hotel and the University Club, two classic wedding venues.

The Pierre Hotel's catering director, Herb Rose, had the brisk and efficient manner of a man who could do everything well. Mr. Rose showed us rooms, photo albums and offered advice on flowers and bands. (Of the former, he said, "the cost can be infinite" and of the latter, he counseled, "The best is Harris Lane.") As to wine, Mr. Rose had this piece of advice. "Be careful you don't spend too much money. Remember it's not some fancy tasting party. Don't waste your money on great Bordeaux." The wines that the Pierre Hotel used for weddings came from Connecticut, said Mr. Rose, who knew the winery's owner back when she had a flower shop near the hotel.
Something Red, Something White

These six wines are affordable, appealing and widely available. Even if you're not getting married, these are good wines to have on hand for entertaining this spring and summer.

Roederer Estate Brut nonvintage Sparkling wine $18

Although it's made in the Anderson Valley of Mendocino, this California sparkling wine might well be mistaken for Champagne. Roederer Estate was, in fact, founded by one of the greatest Champagne houses in France, Louis Roederer, some 30 years ago, and the style of the wines is similarly rich, almost yeasty and tremendously elegant.

2009 Schloss Gobelsburg Grüner Veltliner $15

This well-balanced, medium-bodied white wine is made by one of Austria's top producers from the country's signature grape. It's marked by aromas of white pepper and citrus, with a lively acidity and long, minerally finish.

2009 Spy Valley Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc $15

The Marlborough region of New Zealand has become justly famous (thanks first to the legendary Cloudy Bay) for its tangy, lively Sauvignon Blancs, and this is a good example of the Marlborough style at a very attractive price; it's a perfect wedding aperitif.

2008 Inama Soave Classico $15

Although the reputation of Soave still suffers from its "industrial" past as 1970s plonk, quality producers like the Veneto-based Inama have done much to repair the damage. Even this, the most "basic" example of the Inama style, is rich, with a firm balancing acidity that pairs beautifully with food.

2006 Monte Antico Rosso $10

Wine importer Neil Empson joined forces with one of Tuscany's greatest winemakers, Franco Bernabei, to make this appealing Sangiovese-dominant wine with notes of cherry and spice. It's a medium-bodied, soft and fairly fruity red.

2005 Château Greysac Medoc $15

A lot of bridal couples, according to wine consultant Tim Finch, like to serve Bordeaux at their weddings. This Cabernet Sauvignon dominant blend from the Medoc is an always reliable "basic" Bordeaux. The 2005 Greysac is a nicely made, well-structured wine with well integrated tannins.

At the University Club, a grand architectural landmark just down Fifth Avenue from The Pierre, the Club's catering manager, Brian Bennett, was friendly and warm. His room tour was quick, his wine selections simple and value-focused: "a Sauvignon Blanc like Geyser Peak for the white and for the red, Merlot, maybe Esser or Hawkcrest," he said. None of these wines cost more than $15 retail, and often they cost less. Mr. Bennett didn't believe Champagne was necessary, "and it's a big upcharge," he said. (That's the markup I mentioned before.) He didn't ask what kind of wines the bride-to-be liked, though if she wanted a few great bottles just for herself he had this idea: "If you want special wines just for your table, it can be done very discreetly." (This reminded me of how Richard Nixon was said to have had Château Margaux at his table while the rest of the room drank plonk.)

Couples can actually supply their own wines at the historic Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, said catering assistant Sunha Lee when I reached her by phone. The corkage fee is just $20 a bottle and yet, Ms. Lee added, very few couples take advantage of the policy. Instead, most chose the private-label house wine that comes with the basic wedding package, though some "upgrade" to a J Lohr Central Coast Cabernet ($50) and Honig Sauvignon Blanc ($45). Both wines cost about $15 a bottle in a store.

At the swank Rosewood Crescent Hotel in Dallas, where my sister is thinking of getting (re)married, it isn't legal for couples to bring their own wine according to Adrian Norbury, the hotel's Director of Marketing. But that didn't seem to matter, since most couples chose the house wines anyway. Made by Clos LaChance winery north of Monterey, the house wine is available in Cabernet, Merlot and Chardonnay and costs $45 a bottle. The house sparkling wine, Domaine Ste. Michelle, is also a popular option ($10 retail/4$5 at the hotel). Couples will "rarely" go for "true French Champagne" said Mr. Norbury. (And no wonder, since it starts at $130 a bottle.) Mr. Norbury explained that the markups at most wedding venues go to the service costs of getting the wine into the glass. The scale of the markup typically goes down as the price of the wine goes up.

A consistent theme was clearly emerging: Don't spend too much money. And maybe, don't think too much either. Have what everyone else is having.

I couldn't imagine the same counsel offered about the dress or the ring or even the flowers. Clearly what every couple needed was a wedding wine advocate who could suggest some good bottles—and ask the caterers about a corkage charge, too.

I offered my services to my colleague, Lauren, and her fiancé, Ben, then called up Tim Finch, wine buyer at the wine store K&D in Manhattan, who counsels some 75 soon-to-be-marrieds each year. Mr. Finch says "price is the single most important factor" for most couples when choosing their wedding wines.

Together Mr. Finch and I came up with about 15 bottles of red, white and rosé, all $15 or less (save for the sparkling wine which was a few dollars more). And I asked Lauren and Ben to come to my office for an informal tasting.

I'd chosen a few sparkling wines from California as well as a Spanish cava, Raventos, and the Rustico Prosecco from Nino Franco. Ben liked the crisp bright fruit of the Prosecco, which Lauren called "fizzy." She was a bigger fan of the Roederer Estate Brut, one of my favorite California sparkling wines, which Lauren called "busty." (I think it was a compliment.)

I'd included several Italian wines in the lineup of whites including one of my favorite Soaves, the 2008 from Inama, though Ben preferred the 2008 Argiolas Costamolino Vermentino, a bright, refreshing Sardinian white and a real deal at $14 a bottle. They both liked the "citric" quality of the 2009 Gobelsburg Grüner Veltliner.

The red wines proved a bit more complicated—they had to accompany the food, but the couple didn't even know what they'd be serving. Lauren was a fan of the 2006 Monte Antico, a red wine from Tuscany which she called "a big mama hug of a wine" and a wine I've always found to be a consistent value. But Ben thought an Italian wine wasn't "serious" enough for a wedding. He preferred the 2005 Château Greysac, a solid, reasonably priced Bordeaux. Two other reds, a Côtes du Rhône and a basic Bourgogne, were rejected out of hand as "too simple."

Ultimately it isn't any harder to find a good wedding wine than it is a nice ring or a flattering dress; you just have to know where to look, and who to ask. As an addendum, I have to confess that I can't remember the wines that were served at my own wedding—which took place at the now-defunct Montrachet restaurant. And neither can my (ex) husband, Alan, a food writer and restaurant critic. When I called the restaurant's former wine director, Daniel Johnnes (now the wine director for Daniel Boulud's Dinex restaurant group) to see if he could recall, Daniel thought there "might have been a Chassagne-Montrachet red. And maybe a village-level Burgundy. "They were good wines," he said. "And they were cheap."

Containers Can Alter Wine Composition

2010-05-14T22:32:53Z

Whether it's red wine or white wine, the composition of wines can change becasue of the containers they're stored in, says a new study.

The first major scientific study into the storage of wine in different forms of packaging has revealed that the bag-in-box®, single-layer PET and small multi-layer PET altered the character of the white wines when stored over six months, with oxidation clearly noticeable. The study, published on Thursday May 13 2010, was carried out by the Institute of Vine and Wine Sciences in Bordeaux (ISVV), the largest wine research establishment in Europe. It featured red and white Bordeaux wine, which the Institute packed into several different packaging materials and stored in laboratory conditions. Researchers analysed the levels of gases (oxygen, carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide) contained in the wine, along with its taste and colour intensity at regular intervals over a period of one year.

Rémy Ghidossi, lecturer at the ISVV, said in a press release issued along with the findings: “A lot of contradictory information has been circulating in recent months regarding different packaging solutions suitable for wines. It is now necessary to establish the truth, based on scientific information and quantitative data, to determine the legitimacy of each package, as its main function is to preserve the flavour and characteristics of its content.”??

The study concluded that the analysis of white wine showed convincing results within six months with significantly increased penetration of oxygen into the wine and a corresponding decrease in levels of carbon dioxide. After six months, the white wine clearly oxidised in single- and multi-layer PET, as well as the bag-in-box®.

It did, however, remain stable in the two glass bottles. The chemical analyses were confirmed by the jury of expert and novice tasters, who were unanimous about it tasting of rotten fruit. Some initial signs were beginning to emerge in the red wine, but it was too soon to draw any definite conclusions. Further tests will continue into the second year.

The Institute of Vine and Wine Sciences of Bordeaux (ISVV) is the largest research and development centre on vines and wine in Europe. Its laboratory draws together over 150 professors who benefit from an exceptional range of technical resources, including state-of-the-art equipment and the largest tasting room in the world.