Before heading into the next COVID trough…let’s buy and drink some wine!
tBoW has been drinking copious bottles of wine during the p-a-n-d-e-mic. Why not? Wine is an indoor sport that takes some know how and the will to carry on. Even during COVID.
Contributing writer/editor Field Maus left a mysterious message. “Hey! I’m in a wine shop in [east coast burg] and it’s tiny and it’s filled with bottles from all the places we’ve never been and there are a ton of wines I never heard of so I bought a bunch.”
Message to Maus::::::hell yeah. Send label fotos and tasting notes. Maybe include some maps with wine bottles that mark the nation-region. Wine touring off the common path is tons ‘a fun.
Goffing pal Mighty Mike Daig-Known [symbolized at top] is “getting into wine.” He understands domestic big names are mostly crap. He recognizes tBoW is a terrific source for learning more about what is in the bottle and which bottles to buy. Mike makes his purchases at Trader Joes and Costco. tBoW TRUTH #1: Costco is good; TJs not so good.
SOLUTION: Find a local fine wine shop you can trust long as they are not fullapoo and try selling you overpriced trophy wines. Many premium wine shops like Woodland Hills Wine Co have a rack with discounted wines. When you are in Costa Mesa you should stop in Hi Time [ed. ask for Patti] and buy a case of mixed wines between $10 and $20. These wines are not loss leaders or closeouts from some distributor. They are the ten to twenty dollar bottles from under-publicized regions like Chile, Languedoc, Alsace….
WHAT ABOUT COSTCO? There are some really good wines at Costco but how do you know which to buy?
RULES FOR BUYING WINE AT COSTCO: (1) Never buy “special wines” like the double mags of Napa Bombast Special Reserve or stupidly priced singles in plastic displays. (2) Find the bottle that stands out like a guy with orange hair in the White House. Last time tBoW was there it was obvious which bottle fit this mold. It was Austrian. DING. It had a screw top. DING. The label was unintelligible with words like Gruner Veltliner (native Austrian white wine grape). And it was $12. DING DING DING. That’s the winner. And it was excellent served chilled while in the spa.
Let’s get to the wine reviews.
Mike has been told Spanish sparkling wine is pretty good and can also be a good deal. Raventos Blanc (~$23) is a Spanish Cava that is good as or better than any champagne or domestic sparkler. tBoW posted on it here. The only problem it is tough to find. When I find it I buy at least six bottles. Also in pink!
What about Chardonnay? Mike is not a fan “no matter how cold it is served.” tBoW agrees. There are so many other white wines that are far more interesting. Here is one sold under the Gelsons label which they named “Mayfair.” Price is ~$14; blend is 61% Marsanne, 29% Viognier and 10% Rousanne. The wine is made by Doug Margerum who makes wines under his own Margerum label. Doug’s winery is located outside Santa Barbara. Doug is an excellent winemaker covered several times in tBoW. The white wine grapes come from the Rhone region. Made as single wines they suck. Most single grape wines suck. Wines should be blended….with regional varietals as has been practiced for centuries.
Summertime is for pink wines aka “rozays.” We have tasted many. Drink them chilled down. Here are a few bottles with busted corks.
2019 Les Gris from La Ferme Rouge 13% is from an estate in Morocco. Forgot what is tasted like. Watermelon with a little spine which means it was a bit firm and with good acid. Looks like the pinks are made from Cinsault (versatile red Mediterranean grape) and Grenache (as before). Would buy again. $14.
2019 Chateau Saint Eulalie Printemps d’Eulalie 14.5%. Minervois is a town in the un-sexy part of Southern France. This is southwest of Provence which is too sexy for tBoW. Do a search on this blog about the Languedoc. Wines that are so far under table dogs lap them up. This is a masculine wine that is not pretty. It is high acid and somewhat bracing. Look at the alcohol %. Like a round of goff with Mike D.
2019 Schlosskellerei Gobelsburg Cistercien 12%. Glad I bought two bottles. Everything I love in Austrian wines: high acid and bright fruit. $13.
2018 Juliette La Sangliere 12.5%. Pretty petty pretty. Delicate. Gentle. Seductive. Would get more of this. $12.
The only thing to figure out is how to buy wines like these. Plenty of guidance can be found on The Best of Wines dot com. Use our super slick search engine. G’head. Memo to Mike. Next time I get strokes. Click below on tBoW posts on buying and evluating wines.
Lettie Teague recently wrote what she really loves about wine 7 Reasons We Love Wine. tBoW loves Lettie Teague…and wine. Much to love when it comes to wine. However, there is a lot of dopey stuff as well. And since tBoW does not write for a living (at least not about wine) we can poke fun at all the silliness involved.
Take Wallys Wine and Spirits. For more than four decades Wallys was the trendsetter in how to market fine wine. Steve Wallace and Gary Fishman [ed. call me Gary, Matt’s Dad wants to interview you] ran the best WINE shop on the Westside. The only competition was the Wine House which became the SUPER market for wines ’round the world. However, Wallys was the top dog with the Hollywood client list. Ran into Danny Kay there. Had him sign the birthday card I happened to be carrying with me. Now Wallys is a laff riot of misguided pretension. Glamour and importance. Cater your next awards season party. Affect your glamorous lifestyle. Forced error – misguided hubris.
The aging wine thing is D-U-M-B. Archaic. Silly. Producing wine to be aged is bull pucky; a fashion foisted on the innocenti who believe wine is better with age. The only thing better with age is adolescence. In fact aging wine is a gamble…a poor one. Odds are stacked against those who love wine when the wine needs to “lay down.” This is doublespeak for heavy oak and tannins more commonly found in wood sealers. Those phonies who would write a wine review suggesting “lay down this beauty for a decade” are lost in the “fog of wine.” Lettie Teague would never suggest laying down a wine. At least we believe that is true.
Ever freeze a bottle of wine? You now…put it in the freezer to cool and discover a few days later you actually put in the cooler to freeze? Unforced DUMB error.
tBoW recommends wines that can be opened and consumed right now. Sometimes it is necessary to lay the wine down in the cellar. This is usually the case when wine is shipped. Wait 2 weeks if you can stand it. Sometimes it is necessary to allow a wine to settle down if the bottle has been cooled in the freezer on a bed of ice…and forgotten. That wine should be defrosted at room temp before pulling the cork in another week…if the cork has not forced its own exit from the bottle. Barring unforced errors like freezing wine for good cause there is no excuse for buying wine that needs to be aged for a decade or more. There are two exceptions to this rule: ports and sauternes.
Here are two wine paragons that can please greatly when opened “before their time;” and one wine that missed its “open by” date.
2016 Boxler Gewurtztraminer $35: Floral nose, a flower bouquet, honey suckle. Flavors of hay and mint. Say what? Over the top AND balanced. Honey. A knockout. Can it age. Certainly. However, if we bought more it would be like trying to keep my hands off my baby granddaughter. Oh sure. Wait until she’s five years old and more ambulatory. Looks like this gewurtz baby is still available at Kermit Lynch, Flatiron and Vintage Wine Merchants in San Jose. Lucky buy! Thank you Kermit.
NV Perrier-Jouet Grand Brut 13.5% $39 at Costco. May seem pricey however for champagne of this pedigree it is the go-to choice for tBoW on Valentines Day. Fruity, marzipan like. Break out the nice flutes. Dependable selection for the special occasion. The right question is whether the tBoW reviewed Cava sparkler Ravenots at 40% the cost, is good enough? We would say not quite…but close.
2011 Domaine Joseph Roty Marsannay 13%. $40ish. Tough to find. Because it is old now. Generally the vineyard designations age longer and are more interesting than this village bottling. The pedigree – Roty – is top notch. The wine is exotic but on its way to the Assisted Living Facility. tBoW finds that Burgs are generally better when consumed “before their time.” We missed here by a couple years. Forced PEDIGREE error. Fuggedaboudid. It’s Burg Town..
Making the right choices when buying wines is important to our list of reasons to love wine. As Chuck D and Public Enemy put it don’t believe the hype. However we find Bob McNamara in all his confidence and technicalities the more appropos analogue when it comes to figuring out how to enjoy wine by accepting the Fog of Wine.
The Glass Jar has returned to The Best of Wines bearing words of wisdom learned from the past while also casting an eye to 2020. For this we are grateful. Amen. Let us read..
ancient winemaker with fuzzy revus
modern winemaker seeking comeback
GJ: When is it a good time to take a break from the blog? This a trick question. People often live in states of uncertainty demonstrating little remains constant in life. Except the blog. For years now, the Glass Jar has considered the blog to be somewhat of a second tier Thanksgiving relative. Maybe I am not always in touch with the blog as much as I should be and perhaps I struggle to understand everything the blog says but I will always know the blog is there. I mean would you rather be talking about your life plans with some dull relative or would you rather be in the company of the greatest wine blog ever to exist? The choice is yours. So make it wisely and don’t look back.
The Glass Jar has been making a lot of phone calls lately as he is spending this chapter of my life in a “sales type” role. [ed. he is selling stuff on cold calls]. My employer will not be named to protect its questionable reputation. The Director of Sales asked a co-worker why he wanted the job. He responded he was driven to leave a prior job of great intensity. He wanted to simplify his life by doing something mindless. He got the job. The Sales Director fired this go-getter. Last month the Sales Manager was fired.
I did make some friends, for example a man who taught me some basic archery. He got fired. My other friend has not been fired and is one of the better salesmen at the company. But he has kept a box under his desk for years for when the day comes.
Darwinism in cubicles? The Glass Jar walks in the building with no fear as he learned a tender lesson in his pizza employment [ed. read about giving back to the pizza here]. He has bounced back through unimaginable hardships.
So what is my word for 2020? You may have guessed: Mindlessness. The word captures giving time and energy towards an endeavor that doesn’t really mean anything. Those in search of mindlessness will likely find some form of it nearer than realized. Which leaves me wondering…is wine mindless? Is there no point regarding wines celebrated by blogs such as The Best of Wines? Or is there a truer meaning in wine which must be discovered?
I remember in my younger years, watching people sit around tables sipping wine and talking about the flavors. I remember wondering if there was really a point to this. It seemed pretty mindless but the drinkers enjoyed it. Maybe mindlessness is an excuse to enjoy life. Why else would salespeople putt golf balls on the rug? Is wine mindless or not? Why not be a little mindless? Word for 2020 – Winedless!!
bombast sells in politix!
tBoW:Oh my. The Glass Jar uncovers yet another corner of cognitive dissonance; an experience omnipresent in life. Mindlessness runs the gamut from the current President and his moronic cabinet, to the endless news cycle which runs the idiocy like a broken bicycle, to annual wine holiday catalogs for the oenologically challenged. Wallys Wine used to be a terrific wine shop in West Los Angeles. tBoW found purpose every time in the Westwood Boulevard store owned by Steve Wallace and managed by Gary Fishman. Steve had been buying great wines for so long his backroom was littered with bottles. Wallys backroom was like the storerooms with Euro antiquities purchased mindlessly by Charles Foster Kane [ed. cue Citizen Kane]. It was well known in the 40s that the controversial movie was inspired by the ultra wealthy protagonist newspaper publisher Charles Foster Kane who was William Randolph Hearst. tBoW’s purpose was to locate and capture the fab bottles lost to time In Wally’s backroom. tBow even placed his own son as curator of Wally’s backroom.
Steve Wallace sold out at least a decade ago. Wally’s today is a mindless wine store that caters to mindless “wine collectors.” WINEDLESSNESS applies! The holiday catalog is a monument to mindlessness. tBoW was so appaled wth the tastelessness of the premier post sale catalog we featured it here.
Is the Glass Jar presaging the greatest events of 2020…the national and key state elections? Stay tuned. And pop a great Cava sparkler during the holidays…something like Raventos i Blanc Blanc de Blancs U20 at ~$20: YUMMY JUMMY NUMMY NUM NUMS! Cava sparkler perfectly balanced, good weight golden apples sez Mrs tBoW. We could say poor mans Krug but that would be quite a stretch. Or would it? Great backstory here worth reading how this Penedes winery stepped it up champagne style in 2012. Sold to tBoW by Katie of Desert Wine Shop [ed. now there’s a surprise.]
THE DARK LORD FINDS HIMSELF IN A LIME-LIKE POOL; DUNHILL IN A TOOTHY DEATH GRIP
When Did the Rules Change For Sparkling Wines?!? Is this some New Wine Gonzo?
Normally a post touting summer chilled sparkling wine would feature Prosecco; that frothy sweet little wine with low alcohol [ed. under 10%], tastes like peaches and mixes with anything. Guzzle an ice-chilled bottle, height of summer seated at a restaurant courtyard in Sevilla getting ready to tour the cathedral with its impoverished tesoro room. Today? Champagne style cava. Pink sparklers from Bordeaux. And a U20 sweepstakes runner from Mendocino? Man…that’s the way you do it. Money for nothin’…bubbles for free.
Things seem to have changed. We tasted three sparkling wines recently that suggest a sparkler trend with which we are not familiar. We are hardly the first to say this BBBUUUTTT Cava sparklers have come a long way! In fact the old rules that governed the commission of sparkling wines have been upended; notice we MUST NOT say champagne as that it is a total winespeak faux pas. Try any of the following without fear.
Sharffenberger Brut Rose Excellence “Suggested retail $26” but can be found for half that at World Market. Non-vintage approximately half and half Chard and Pinot Noir from the Anderson Valley. Muscular. Top heavy. Very pleasing. Could suck this down all day at…maybe…a wedding? Great news! Buy it at World Market at half price!
Calvet Cremant de Bordeaux Brut Rose 2015 U20 at $17 or less, almost 100% Cab Franc. Come on. That’s impressive. I guess the old rules are officially thrown out. Balanced, Seductive. On the red side of pink. Tougher to find than a collusion conviction.
Raventos i Blanc Blanc de Blancs U20 at ~$20: YUMMY JUMMY NUMMY NUM NUMS! Cava sparkler perfectly balanced, good weight golden apples sez Mrs tBoW. We could say poor mans Krug but that would be quite a stretch. Or would it? Great backstory here worth reading how this Penedes winery stepped it up champagne style in 2012. Sold to tBoW by Katie of Desert Wine Shop [ed. now there’s a surprise.]
Hunter S. Thompson is an iconic symbol of the Baby Boomers. He blew his brains out. People do that when facing mortality. Just sayin’ [ed. so did Anthony Bourdain]. Thompson (and Bourdain) was not old enough to do that. He did practice excessive habits which certainly contributed to his impulse control. And he loved guns. We have two videos about the Dark Lord. He merits that. Look at this embedded video about his unimaginable daily intake of substances. Then open the vid below in which “kindred” authors and film people reference Thompson’s works. Ask yourself this. Was this any way to live?
September 2, 2020
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Posted by Bacchus
SOLUTION: Find a local fine wine shop you can trust long as they are not fullapoo and try selling you overpriced trophy wines. Many premium wine shops like Woodland Hills Wine Co have a rack with discounted wines. When you are in Costa Mesa you should stop in Hi Time [ed. ask for Patti] and buy a case of mixed wines between $10 and $20. These wines are not loss leaders or closeouts from some distributor. They are the ten to twenty dollar bottles from under-publicized regions like Chile, Languedoc, Alsace….
WHAT ABOUT COSTCO? There are some really good wines at Costco but how do you know which to buy?
Mike has been told Spanish sparkling wine is pretty good and can also be a good deal. Raventos Blanc (~$23) is a Spanish Cava that is good as or better than any champagne or domestic sparkler. tBoW posted on it here. The only problem it is tough to find. When I find it I buy at least six bottles. Also in pink!
2019 Les Gris from La Ferme Rouge 13% is from an estate in Morocco. Forgot what is tasted like. Watermelon with a little spine which means it was a bit firm and with good acid. Looks like the pinks are made from Cinsault (versatile red Mediterranean grape) and Grenache (as before). Would buy again. $14.
2019 Schlosskellerei Gobelsburg Cistercien 12%. Glad I bought two bottles. Everything I love in Austrian wines: high acid and bright fruit. $13.
Categories: Alsace, Austria, Champagne, Cinsault, Gamay, Grenache Blanc, Gruner Veltliner, Languedoc, Morroco, Pinot Gris, Provence, Rhone, Rose, Rousanne, Rousillon, Santa Rita Hills, Sparkling, Under$20, Value Value Value, Vermentino, Wine Grapes, Wine Regions, Wine Styles
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4 Comments
tBoW recommends wines that can be opened and consumed right now. Sometimes it is necessary to lay the wine down in the cellar. This is usually the case when wine is shipped. Wait 2 weeks if you can stand it. Sometimes it is necessary to allow a wine to settle down if the bottle has been cooled in the freezer on a bed of ice…and forgotten. That wine should be defrosted at room temp before pulling the cork in another week…if the cork has not forced its own exit from the bottle. Barring unforced errors like freezing wine for good cause there is no excuse for buying wine that needs to be aged for a decade or more. There are two exceptions to this rule: ports and sauternes.
2016 Boxler Gewurtztraminer $35: Floral nose, a flower bouquet, honey suckle. Flavors of hay and mint. Say what? Over the top AND balanced. Honey. A knockout. Can it age. Certainly. However, if we bought more it would be like trying to keep my hands off my baby granddaughter. Oh sure. Wait until she’s five years old and more ambulatory. Looks like this gewurtz baby is still available at Kermit Lynch, Flatiron and Vintage Wine Merchants in San Jose. Lucky buy! Thank you Kermit.
ane [ed. cue Citizen Kane]. It was well known in the 40s that the controversial movie was inspired by the ultra wealthy protagonist newspaper publisher Charles Foster Kane who was William Randolph Hearst. tBoW’s purpose was to locate and capture the fab bottles lost to time In Wally’s backroom. tBow even placed his own son as curator of Wally’s backroom.
Things seem to have changed. We tasted three sparkling wines recently that suggest a sparkler trend with which we are not familiar. We are hardly the first to say this BBBUUUTTT Cava sparklers have come a long way! In fact the old rules that governed the commission of sparkling wines have been upended; notice we MUST NOT say champagne as that it is a total winespeak faux pas. Try any of the following without fear.
proximately half and half Chard and Pinot Noir from the Anderson Valley. Muscular. Top heavy. Very pleasing. Could suck this down all day at…maybe…a wedding? Great news! Buy it at World Market at half price!
Calvet Cremant de Bordeaux Brut Rose 2015 U20 at $17 or less, almost 100% Cab Franc. Come on. That’s impressive. I guess the old rules are officially thrown out. Balanced, Seductive. On the red side of pink. Tougher to find than a collusion conviction.