DISCOVERY!! HIDDEN WINE SHOP IN CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS
Porter Square Wine & Spirits in Cambridge MA
When we used to travel to DC or NYC or other points east…
tBoW always was on the hunt for local wine shops with selections unavailable in LA…
That joy has abated certainly with the COVID pox on travel and the absence of a job that requires such.
What job requires travel anymore?
No problem there are plenty of great and special wine stores in LA/SoCal. And we can relive the joy of “wine store hunt” discovery through tBoW contributors.
Guest Editor today is the Field Maus who hails from Connecticut or Massachusetts. Call it New England. He wants to tell the tBoW readers about a splendid wine shop in Cambridge MA. Please notice there are multiple links to sites that give more depth to Maus’ wine fetishes which are always of interest to readers. Do click on the links! tBoW will embellish post notes.
“You will find Porter Square Wine and Spirits, a small shop in Cambridge Mass that is crammed with hundreds of wines you never see anywhere, from grapes you’ve never known, and bottles sizes you’ve forgotten about…”
Valle d’Aosta above Alto Piemonte
My first time in the store I was somewhat rushed, but I managed to find a red from Valle d’Aoste, a sparsely populated area above Piedmont. RARE. I’ve only seen them online, and the one I purchased a few years back was memorable, so I took a flier on this $23 bottle. Made from a grape called Mayolet, it tasted a bit like gamay, maybe? Very light, would go with anything. Fun, but not a re-buy. Would love if anyone poured me a glass, tho.
My second time there, I repurchased two bottles of Manincor ‘der Keil from what may be the world’s loveliest wine region: Sudtirol. 100% schiava, this comes from Lago di Caldaro, one of Oz Clarke’s favorite sources. Imagine a lighter, chocolately pinot noir with a bit of BLT. $23 as well, and worth every penny.
Sudtirol borders Austria and Italy above Venice
On a slightly more conventional note, also picked up two bottles of Bergerie Anjou Blanc from Pierres Girard. Why? ‘Cause it’s made with chenin blanc, and this is demi-sec. The versatile chenin reaches its highest potential when it’s on the vine into the month of October. This will last longer than me, by the way. $21.
In Mass, the retail sticker includes tax. Delightful. Cheers from New England, Maus.”
Quite a bit to UNPACK. tBoW has been waiting for a chance to use that premier term strongly favored by newscasters. Now that is gone.
Wine shop discoveries are one of the delights of being a wine snob…and I use that designation in the most irreverent sense. Finding your palate – learning what flavors you like and which grapes deliver those delights – is the the first important lesson in tasting and enjoying wine. Maus likes white wine grapes associated with the Rhone. These include Chenin Blanc, Grenache Blanc, Marsanne, Rousanne, perhaps even Viognier [ed. endorse all except yuk on viognier]. He also likes wines from regions off the beaten path, roads less traveled, especially in countries he has visited on numerous occasions. He often eschews the standard and highly touted regions preferring the less fahionable and “sellable.” Agreed.
tBoW has written repeatedly about his favorite shops where staff can discern my flavor profile (strawberries, cherries, kiwi…think of fruits you like) and price point ($U20 but willing to go to $30 if all criteria are met with exception) and low alcohol level…sub 14% down to 11% (especially for pink wines in the summertime).
Schiava grape meets all criteria of interest. tBoW has had a few and never been disappointed. Color is quit light for a “red”; alcohol is low at 12% even lower; and costs are chained to the $20 level. tBoW is on the fence with Chenin Blanc. I have tasted quite from the Loire and other regions near. Flavor is too sweet from my palate. Makes a highly desirable dessert wine. Note both are relatively light wines from mountain regions on either side of northern Italy.
All in all Maus always has something of great interest to share when it comes to wine. Did I mention he’s a huge Dodger fan? We all have our flaws.
Be sure to search for other posts by Maus on tBoW. Here are a couple.
As for what job requires travel? The wine business abounds with traveling wine hunters. In fact a great wines strategy for choosing unusual, affordable and downright interesting wine if to BUY THE PRODUCER. Here is a great piece on this approach.
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.
Would you pull the cork on one of these dusty moldy bottles with excitement or trepidation? The task is not any easier for much larger concerns. Consider the Dodgers. Their pitching staff is somewhat like the photo. They got rid of one very bad bottle but held onto a couple showing serious signs of age.
Los Doyers had the chance to get another relief pitcher before the deadline and failed to do what was obvious. Now comes the lesson. When one fails to do the obvious now one often pays the price later on.
PAST HIS PRIME
So it is also true with wine “collecting.” As the reader should understand we no longer “collect” wine. Although we have in the past. “Collecting” involves buying “trophy bottles” [ed. see Wine Speculator and 100 point scores] with heavily hyped name winemakers or labels. This rarely works out when it comes to actually pulling a cork. Another “collecting” mistake is buying a wine because it “means something” like a favorite travel destination. Or winning a World Series.
The final collecting mistake is actually good advice. Somebody gives you a bottle of plonk over the upcoming horrible holidays? Get rid of it. Re-gift it. Just do not let the Riesling from Yakima WA occupy any space on the bar or god forbid in the cellar. We learned these lessons once again when recently re-doing the cellar. Think about how the Dodgers dumped Yasiel Puig. He had to go. Stuck around way too long.
tBoW and Ikorb went thru our shared cellar last week. Every bottle was under consideration. The new cellar features a new cooler (Whisperkool 5000 on Craigslist $600 cash) and half as much space which means half as many bins. Many many bottles were purged. The new org scheme features the most precious wines, e.g., Ital Nebs and French Pinots. It had to be. [ed. he has a handful of domestic Pinot Noir which has-to-go] Ten cases of bought-and-paid-for wines will be arriving in 60 days from Fass Selections, Kermit Lynch and even Garagiste [ed. Fass and Rimmerman in dead heat for most entertaining online retailers]. tBoW Sr. has decided to devote his wine selections to David Russell of WHWC [ed. just picked up two Corsican DR picks].
HE HAD TO GO
Wines that did not make the cellar cut: Rangeland 2009 Cabernet and 2009 Zinfandel. tBoW felt strong ties to the young winemaker when visiting on 2010. When tBoW writes the following about a winemaker you know a purchase of wine will follow. “Shannon is Audrey Hepburn in a hoodie, Astrud Gilberto punching down the cap.” Bought too many bottles. Most opened within a couple years. Waiting 10 years for the last couple three makes the point.
Do not wait too long – like more than four years -on 95% of California wines. Unless the wines are from Tablas Creek. We expect those to be ready in another five years [ed. which would be a total of 15 to 20 years]! And they will be finally ready. Will they be worth the wait? Who can say. We are no longer fond of red Rhone style wines no matter the vintage! [ed. note to readers white Rhones not included]. At ten years the Rangeland – which was not intended to go this long – was completely out of sorts.
POWERHOUSE CONSISTENCY
The other wine we held far too long was the 2009 Chateau Cambon. This illustrates another “collector” mistake – buying the winemaker [ed. see above Rangeland] and not the wine. This was the last wine made by Marcel Lapierre the “legendary winemaker” of Beaujolais, in particular Morgon [ed. Beaujolais has more than 5 but less than ten villages – look it up!]. Beauj is 100% Gamay juice. Every wine drinker needs to make up her mind about Gamay juice. Part of the argument aside from palate preference, was that Beaujolais and Gamay were the poor man’s Burgundy choice. Not really. It is always about the Price-Quality ratio aannnndddd what your palate prefers. Gamay just does not do it for tBoW.
We still have Beaujolais in the cellar. None from 2009 any more. However there are several from 2013. These can form the first flight to a late summer tasting.
After three “flawed” wines we settled on Burgundy [ed. duh]. We had a 2010 and a 2011 Roty Marsannay. Right. We opened both.
The 2010 was delishus. The 2011 was delishus. These Roty wines from Marsannay were a tad more rustic than the Fournier Marsannay slugged down recently. Small point. Both bottles were exhausted enthusiastically. Ikorb noted that the nose on the 2011 “stinks of truffles.” His sniffer is legendary.
One needs a guide to identifying quality Burgs. If you like truffles – or cherries or beets – you will love Burgundy wines however selection is everything. I believe the same can be said of German Rieslings. And Maus will tell us we may apply these same considerations to his special spots [ed. Rhone plus other off the trail regions in France] where he knows exactly what to buy.
Wait! One more lesson learned. Start with the highest quality when filing your cellar; not from the bottom. Andrew Friedman chose not to replace his GM who left for the Giants [ed. nice job there]. Instead he split the job of one technocrat among three others. Expect to see postseason analysis of that failure–to–fulfill. Astros in 6…again. However I actually hope the Dodgers prevail so there will never be another World Series trophy wine like this one below.
Beaujolais has been forgotten more often than whatshisname. Beauj wines were top shelf in the 14th century until the Burgundy farmers chased the Gamay Noir grape – crossed with the blessed Pinot Noir – and its wannabe producers south. Gamay lost its prestige in the wake of Marie Antoinette’s gehackt kopf.
Gamay grown south of Burgundy can produce a lovely light to medium weight red wine with floral qualities and the requisite acid to buck it all up. Until the 1960s. Yearning for fanfare the Beaujolais producers led by Georges Dubouef came up with Beaujolais Nouveau which became fashionable as Twiggy. And half as interesting. This pompy silly era was Fall #1 for Beaujolais in the Modern Era: Beaj Nouveau. Like the Beatles, still popular.
The Rise. In 2006 the earth around Beaujolais began to move. Suddenly, gratefully, amidst an avalanche of rocketing collector prices and the relentless quest to win a Parker 100 point score, Beaujolais winemakers began producing some very nice wines. The value quotient (VQ) was an island in a sea of [ed. better metaphor please] an outpost in a wilderness of [ed. not wilderness] an outpost in the back country of forgotten appellations. Gamay returned to wine snobs. The 2006, 2007 and 2008 vintages were superb. The ten crus offered more variety than Bourdeaux along with far better pricing and far more availability. Superb Gamay cru wines were priced near $15. Beaujolais was on the RISE.
Fall #2. The 2008 economic crash took about 18 months for Parker and the Wine Speculator to concede the 100 point game was over. Tostado. This should have been the tipping point when Beaujolais secured its new position as leader in the quality and value game. But it did not. Instead, the producers raised prices. Dumb. Da Dumb. Dumb. The market was in their hands… and they let it slip away. The last vintages we bought were 2009 2010. We are tasting through them now with no plans to replenish.
Very good Beaujolais costs close to $30. At the same time we are buying outrageously great Chablis for the same price. And super Red Burg for the same price and up to $10 more… except we are buying wines Beaujolais will never become, except for Clos de la Roilette which we still buy. Welcome to the new top shelf.
Here are two more wines from the Not Ready For Prime Time Tasting.
2000 Ridge Montebello $120: A-L-M-O-S-T R-E-A-D-Y. At 14 years this wine can be enjoyed. Ridge Montebello is regarded as the Lafite of US wines. Justifiably so. This wine was gorgeous, not voluptious, not lean. Classically beautiful, something like Lauren Bacall. Perfect California mountain blend with just enough oak to give it the classic style. Last domestic Cabernet we had like this was the 1987 Dunn Howell in mag. Dunn is more rustic. Montebello more refined. Truly spectacular wine and not Bordeaux. Honestly. At $120 and being the benchmark for California GREATNESS in wine, this is a bargain. 13.5%
1991 Lopez de Herredia Tondonia $105 (sorry, it’s a secret for now): tBoW asked Goldun will this wine be ready in another 10 years? “Maybe 100” came the comeback. 23 years in the bottle and the color is not even golden. Yellow as a five year old Chablis. Flavors enchanting but the wine is n-o-t r-e-a-d-y. We must have another bottle taking into account predicted auto-longevity and the likelihood I will be around to enjoy with the Geezer Troop. 13%
Maybe this could also be “the discrete charm of the Beaujolais?” Cue the electric sitars please. It’s all… so beautiful.
SoCal is burning up. 100 degrees every day. Only the Angels seem to like it (second best record in baseball). We took off for San Diego. That was a very good decision. Boogie boarding in Solana Beach. Gay Pride parade in University Heights. As Stuart Scott would say “cooler than the underside of the pillow.”
While we were waiting on the Borax 20 Mule Team to haul us away here is what were tasting.
2012 Bow and Arrow Pinot Noir Medici Valley Chehalem Mountains $33 (Eno Fine Wine): Purchased this in the past year. New World organic Pinot Noir that does not taste like most New World Pinots. Citric, acid notes. Like tasting the skins on which the wine was fermented. Natural wine from Oregon. You mention the Chehalem Mountain district and we think ripe over oaked fruit bomb Pinot. No wonder we gravitated to Ribbon Ridge where the living is more severe and the wines like Patricia Green’s have more spine. Not this wine. Welcome surprise. Domestic Pinot is not an easy sell among the snob family. We cleaned out Goldun’s remains. Look at the low alcohol. 11.5%
2009 Paraiso Pinot Noir $16: Picked this up at the winery in Santa Lucia Highlands about 12 months ago. Looked like a deal at the price. We did taste int eh winery but that is almost always tainted with expectations and sappy BS. Funk on the nose. Ripe without much oak. Light to medium weight. A bit ripe. Will wait another 6 months. U20. 14.2%
2010 Gravallon-Lathuiliere Morgon Cuvée Premium $18: “Real wine” as Senor Goldun puts it. Pure juicy Gama wine with acidic backbone to firm it all up. Big by little standards. Think US soccer player Michael Bradley with the quick feet and fine touch. World class if not at the top. Bright and muscular. Superb bottle that wold complement any Mediterranean summer meal. U20. 13%
Dining spot dining spot dining spot…we can all afford.
Culver City is the cultural capitol of LA’s Westside. When a decent dining spot – FIN – can open that serves fine cocktails, has a small efficient wine list and very good food, and has a speakeasy in the alley [ed. speakeasy?], and hardly any of the mega critics cover it… that means Culver City has arrived.
One dining room with 15 tables and a mezzanine for the overflow. The $35 prix fixe menu featured 3 plates that did the trick. Main course was a pan seared black cod with miso sauce. We were served a Pinot Grigio from Italy that had enough backbone to handle the salty cod.
Here is coverage from Urbandaddy. Checkitout. Washington and Grand View.
The North Coast of San Diego County is stunningly gorgeous, especially in the summer. Who needs Hawaii? This is from May 2014 at the beach we like to take out our boogie boards.