Winophilia: Ask Mister Wine Guy

I enjoy red wines from Rioja and Ribera del Duero, but what other regions of Spain are worth exploring?

Stephen Tanzer — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 09:39:25 +0000

Rioja was virtually synonymous with high-quality Spanish red wine until the late 1980s, when Ribera del Duero began to capture the attention of wine lovers. But today, much of the excitement in Spain is coming from new—or, more precisely, resurgent—regions, including some that previously did not ship their rustic wines very far from home. READ MORE »

Why is the Loire Valley considered to be the paradigm for sauvigon blanc?

Stephen Tanzer — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:21:01 +0000

What’s so special about sauvignon blanc from the Loire Valley? My favorite wine merchant is always telling me about alternatives from New Zealand or California, but he'd really rather I stick to the real article.

Sauvignon blanc is most famous as the grape responsible for Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, two of the most popular and energizing white wines of France. In the eastern portion of the Loire Valley, sauvignon blanc (which is often simply referred to here as sauvignon) produces bracing, aromatically pungent wines with strong citrus and gooseberry tones along with grassy and herbal notes, which in extreme cases or underripe vintages can cross over to green or herbaceous. A whiff of what the French call pipi de chat (cat pee) is also present in many Loire Valley sauvignons; while this element can add a note of complexity in small doses, it can easily become overbearing. The best examples from the Loire Valley display clear mineral nuances and a distinctly dry chalkiness resulting from the limestone-dominated soil. READ MORE »

How do you use the ubiquitous 100-point wine-rating scale—and why?

Stephen Tanzer — Sun, 22 May 2011 10:06:33 +0000

First off, I do it for competitive reasons—and because all adult life is a continuation of high school. I’d be happy to let my descriptions of wines (i.e., tasting notes) speak for themselves if other critics agreed to do the same thing. But they won’t. Besides, I suspect that many consumers prefer the unambiguous specificity of a score, even if they agree with me that a bottle of wine, like any other work of art, can’t be reduced to a number. READ MORE »

I’ve just discovered Rioja but I’m not quite sure what I’m drinking. Can you offer some background?

Stephen Tanzer — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 10:38:21 +0000

Rioja is certainly one of my personal favorites, along with Bordeaux and Chianti--preferably with bottle age--when it comes to midweight, savory, firmly structured, food-friendly red wines. Located in north central Spain, Rioja is Spain's most famous wine-producing region, and until the mid-1980s it was the only category other than sherry and the wines of Miguel Torres with a serious presence in international markets. Some of the greatest bodegas in the region, such as CVNE, La Rioja Alta and López de Heredia, are over a century old and continue to use modified traditional winemaking techniques, even if most of these large old firms have recently constructed high-tech vinification facilities. READ MORE »

What is vintage port, and how is it different from less expensive rubies and tawnies?

Stephen Tanzer — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 10:07:26 +0000

Vintage port, made in Portugal’s Douro Valley, has been one of the world’s great collectible wines for literally hundreds of years. A vintage port is only "declared" three or four years out of ten, when a producer believes that that year's harvest has yielded an outstanding wine. The decision to declare a vintage also has an economic component, as most houses hesitate to declare if the world market does not appear ready to accept another vintage. READ MORE »

How do they get all those bubbles into a bottle of Champagne?

Stephen Tanzer — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 10:39:26 +0000

First, some background on the world’s greatest sparkling wine. Champagne-making is the highly refined art of blending base wines into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. These component wines come from different grape varieties (the white grape chardonnay and the red varieties pinot noir and pinot meunier) and from different villages and vineyards (grand crus, premier crus, and a host of lesser sites).

And because only four or five harvests per decade in this marginal climate northeast of Paris provide the raw materials to make balanced, complete wines—that is, vintage-designated Champagnes, which must be entirely from the year indicated on the label—most Champagnes also combine juice from two or more vintages. For example, a relatively lean, high-acid vintage can be softened by the addition of some mellower, riper wine. Or, wine from a hot, sunny growing season can be given needed backbone and vibrancy through the judicious introduction of some "greener" juice. READ MORE »

When is it appropriate to send back an unsatisfactory bottle at a restaurant?

Stephen Tanzer — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 10:39:09 +0000

This is a very Zen question, involving the emotional states of the participants, the room, and the bottle at a given moment in time. Most wine lovers at some point have gone nose to nose with a formidable captain—or at least held the coat of a braver soul who has. These face-offs are usually avoidable. Restaurants should offer to replace a bottle of young wine if it is (1) corked (smells like wet cardboard), (2) oxidized (smells like Madeira or vinegar), or (3) spoiled (smells like the nocturnal animal house at the zoo). Unfortunately, many people can't tell the difference between a slightly musty wine that needs only to be decanted and aerated and one whose cork has been afflicted with the mold known affectionately as 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole. A competent wine steward will convince the diner to let the wine breathe; if the cork is sound, the funky aromas will normally dissipate. READ MORE »

Why is Burgundy so tricky to buy?

Stephen Tanzer — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:41:13 +0000

Pardon my dose of history, but some brief background information is necessary to explain the jigsaw puzzle that is the typical Burgundy cru, or growth. Following the French Revolution, vineyards previously owned by the Church and the aristocracy were confiscated and auctioned off, mostly to wealthy speculators who in turn subdivided and resold them. The parceling of vineyards was accelerated by the French laws of inheritance established by the Napoleonic code, which ended primogeniture and required property to be equally divided among all heirs.

The result is that today's typical vineyard is carved up among multiple owners. Thus there’s really no single wine called Vosne-Romanée Les Suchots: two dozen or more growers and négociants (i.e., merchants) offer a wine labeled Vosne-Romanée Les Suchots every year. And these many bottlings normally vary in quality from supernal to downright mediocre. Knowing the grower (or the name of the estate) is job #1 for the wino seeking to get his or her money’s worth from this generally pricey category. READ MORE »

What’s up with Bordeaux prices?

Stephen Tanzer — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 10:19:51 +0000

What’s up with Bordeaux prices? Some of these 2009s are insane. Why do the famous names seem to cost 10 or 20 times as much as the rest?

If you have the impression that the price gap between the most famous names and the literally thousands of other Bordeaux châteaux is more extreme than in any other category of wine, you’re right. Here’s how it happened. READ MORE »

Can you explain the hierarchy of Bordeaux vineyards?

Stephen Tanzer — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:58:14 +0000

First, a brief word on the actual appellation system as it applies to the red wines of Bordeaux. All Bordeaux wines are entitled to the basic appellation Bordeaux. Bordeaux Supérieur is a slight step higher. Bordeaux from districts known for special quality carry the name of their appellation on the label. While seven appellations—Saint-Estèphe, Pauillac, Saint-Julien, Margaux, Graves, Pomerol and Saint-Emilion—are most familiar to long-time claret lovers, lesser-known districts such as Moulis and Listrac in the Médoc and Fronsac, Canon-Fronsac and Côtes de Castillon on the “right bank” (of the Gironde river) can also produce excellent wines, generally at much lower prices. In fact, many vineyard owners in the swankier districts have been buying up choice parcels in some of these so-called satellite appellations, and it’s clear that the soils and microclimates in some of these spots are capable of producing superb wine. READ MORE »