Posts belonging to Category Rousanne



CHEERS FROM WINE-EXOTIC NEW ENGLAND!

DISCOVERY!! HIDDEN WINE SHOP IN CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS

 The Shop | Porter Square Wine & Spirits

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…”
Val d'Aosta | Natural landmarks, Wine region, Aosta

Valle d’Aosta above Alto Piemonte

Cave des Onze Communes Vallee d'Aoste Mayolet, ... | prices, stores,  tasting notes and market dataMy 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.

First-Taste Guide to Alto Adige Schiava | Learn Wine | Opening a Bottle

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.
CANNED HEAT “ON THE ROAD AGAIN”

What Is Wine? Who Wants to Know? A Primer for Getting Started.

It’s a good time to leave the cave.

 

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.

Buying Wine: Our Favorite LA Shops

Forced and Unforced Wine Errors.

Wine Geeks Speak

and now…Miss Peggy Lee reflects on drinking wine and pandemics…

Wine in the Time of Corona

Making Sense of Chaos.There’s a message here.

It’s a pandemic. Nothing to sillify. Very serious. However if the moron in the White House can act a fool then so can tBoW!! With apologies to all seriously concerned scientists, citizens and guests…tBoW just wants to chat about wines he has tasted recently. Of course the pandemic has impacted the wine business. Amazingly some wine tours remain hopeful for May. The wine tasting conference business is also reconsidering the drunken soirees, uh…we mean serious considerations of wine science. We think about our favorite shops in Palm Springs and Woodland Hills and we are confident they are still in business. Having said that…

Just because one is scared silly with a serious illness running out of control around the world is no reason to shut the shutters and abandon healthy habits. Wash your hands. Do not touch your face! Keep social distance. Pull some corks. This too will pass. In fact…just stay the heck home. It will all be over in April…I mean June…maybe September?

Here is how tBoW has been hunkering down. We pulled corks.

2009 Tablas Creek Esprit de Beuacastel 14.5% $: TC is somewhat fussy in the guise of being informative. The exact percentages of each grape in a blend are right there on the label. This is 40% Mourvedre, nearly equal proportions Syrah and Grenache and a taste of Counoise. Nobody loves a little counoise more than Dotore and tBoW. Bought this on release [ed. tBoW was a subscriber back then]. An example of being beyond the pale. Past its peak for certain but not over the hill. Choco bread evoking a Holiday Fruit cake. Held on for 36 hours which is impressive. We drank a decade worth of TC. Someone else can pull the cork. We prefer Burg and Altopiemonte [ed. seriously, folks are suffering terribly north of Milan].

2015 Marchesi di Barolo Maraia Barbera del Monferrato 13% $: Surprise! Not too tanic. Hardly even tannic. Yummy out of the bottle. Kermit selection? Think so. Some cranberry. Ripe and young.

2016 Cap O Sud 11-14% $16: Got this at Woodland Hills Wine Co. What a deal. From the Sud which is the southwest region of France. THis region is so funky and down home in overproduction years the unsold juice has been used as house fuel. I KID YOU NOT. tBoW and kin visited on a superb holiday in 2001. The region was completely uncool; not even close to being on the radar of the wine cognoscenti. How did we know to go? Soon as someone suggested going to Provence that was it. No frigging way were we going to sit in an overcrowded sheeshee spot eating overpriced food so when we get home we can say we were in Aix en Provence. Try Capistaing, Puisserguier and Carcassonne withe the surrounding wall to wall vineyards. This is the kind of wine you get from the Sud. Still unfashionable [ed. maybe a bit more fashionable – I believe Desert Wine Shop has some]. Vintage? Shmintage. Pizza and burger wine.

2018 Andre et Michel Quenard Chignin-Bergeron Les Terasses 13.5%, $35 (discounted from this): Kermit Lynch import. 100% Rousanne grown at elevation. KL says racy. tBoWadds frisky and refreshing. Imagine Esther Williams when she was fresh and new…in a bottle of wine. Kermit is not the cheapest wine vendor. He is the most sure handed. Hard to buy a bottle that does not please.

The TikTok video below is actually very cool. The fellows are showing kids how to wash their hands to avoid the novel corona! Huge views among tweeners.

Field Maus Finds His Hoops+Wine Tabernacle!

Lakers Get Anthony Davis. Pelicans Get Instant Contender Status. tBoW Gets Grenache. (more…)

Wine Geeks Speak

Weird Wines Stir Strong Interests

This post is for everyone who drinks wine without looking first at the “score;” for those who buy wine to consume yesterday, today and tomorrow; for those who do not collect trophy wines; and for those of us who would only pick up a “leading wine magazine” if stuck in the waiting room of a healthcare provider.

This convo erupted spontaneously when tBoW shared a May 26 2018 article from the NYT “Why You Should Be Drinking Weird Wines”. Jason Wilson (Lettie Teague traveling?) describes several key reasons for buying and drinking obscure wines including 80% of all wines are made from 20 0f 1368 varietals. I have done the heavy lifting: about 1.5% of all vinifera account for eighty percent of all wines. We can all thank 100 point scores and glossy wine mags for the widely limited access to what should be a wildly invigorating hobby.

This he argues creates a monoculture of wine featuring chardonnay and pinot noir. tBoW has posted how I am less and less fond of both varietals, esp chardonnay.

Wilson dips into “oddities type” wines pointing out one varietal in the Swiss alps from which 800 bottles are produced annually. Why bother even referencing the grape? We will NEVER taste it. He describes the flavors as “forest floor that’s been spritzed with lemon and Nutella.” Now I am certain I will never taste it. Oddities TV programming  seems to have had its heyday. Here is one we liked about a NYC shop Obscura where the customers often obscured the shop contents.

The good news is a wonderful email conversation – detailed here without permission – followed between two of the more intriguing tBoW readers – KrisB and The Fieldmouse, aka Maus. The conversation follows more or less in sequence.

tBoW – did you see this NYT piece on obscure wines?

Maus – What does tBoW think of Zidarich Carso Vitovska Belo? Funny this article made you think of us because it’s pretty much Riesling, Pinot, or Piemonte at our house most days. Nothing else usually sounds appealing.

tBoW – whadafaaa and perhaps this could soon be a blog topic.

Maus – well, I’ve already ordered two vitovskas, so come what may. Chris, don’t know if we’ve met, but do acquaint yourself with roussanne! but i must say, for us it’s mostly riesling and pinot (and sango blends) as well! Cheers!

KrisB (like Maus a fan of the Friuli region) – the vitovskas that I’ve had tend to be somewhat oxidative in style which is something that I just don’t like for the most part (except in some sherries, go figure).  YMMV (undecipherable notation) Roussanne can be nice, but it’s no Riesling! :)

You drinking domestic, Rhone, or more exotic like savoie?

Maus – ah, Bergeron. a bit hard to find around here, to say the least. tends to be a bit lean. Well, i’ll take roussanne where I can get it. sometimes i settle for the majority in a blend. white rhones are typically better, but Paso and, believe it or not, Washington, do nice jobs as well. My favorite budget choice is Chateau de Trignon in Southern Rhone.

For Rieslings, where do you go? Anywhere but California, I assume. I hope you had some Australians and Finger Lakes along the way… tBoW and I used to slurp Germans way back in the ’80s and I’m pretty sure we honeymooned in Mosel! [ed. He means with his spouse] Not that we don’t anymore!

Kris B – “Our Pinot has been mostly burgs lately too. As you know, I like to find a direct to consumer importer who finds unknown values. Fass Selections has been working pretty well for me on the burg and other front. Ugh vitovska. We visited the Carso a few years back. Some very good wines. But didn’t have a vitovska that I liked. They probably exist but maybe are hard to find.

And there it is. Cannot wait until we pull the corks on Vitovska and Himbertscha this summer in tBoW’s Summer Weingarten!

CHEERS INDEED! Here is a non-English video about the most rare wine grape, and the wine made from it, in the world! I think I understand what is being said!