Muddy Boots

Aging wine: 2 POVs

Susannah Gold and I recorded this podcast when leaves were green and flip flops ruled the sidewalks of New York.  

Now, at last, and considerably more aged ourselves, here it is! The podcast of the aging of wine that you've all been waiting for!

Link here to 'cast.

Link here to avvinare, Susannah's blog. 

McItaly & the Hoped-for Death of Foodism

Catchy title, eh?

Like most catchy titles, it's quite misleading. I have no intention of being yet another to lament the stupid vulgarity of Italy's ag minister, Luca Zaia, who has launched some initiative, with McDonalds, intended to show that Italy gets the modern world of food, or something. All to give young people the world over a genuine taste of Italy. 

See, they do amazing things like adding Italian cheeses and such to Mickey D's burgers: 

McDonald’s Italia Director Roberto Masi said that the sandwich launched yesterday, which consists of an artichoke spread topped with Asiago cheese, lettuce and, of course, a burger on 100% Italian bread, is already being sold in Switzerland. Next week the sandwich will arrive in France and later it will be sold in Spain, Portugal and Holland.

In three weeks’ time the second McItaly sandwich will go on sale. It will consist of a hamburger garnished with Italian olive oil, grilled onions and smoked pancetta. The McItaly salad contains lettuce, bresaola and parmesan.

You can read the whole article about this laughable program here (in English). 

Another depressing thing from Italy that I saw on Twitter the other day: a link to an article that asked if we needed the food word and concept to parallel that of terroir for wine: Foodoir. Yes, my friends, things have gone too far.

Good, that's out of the way.

I would now like to vent about the follies of foodism -- which I define as an excessive preoccupation with food along with the moral judgments that informs it.

In the last 20 years we have seen a baffling number of "health scares" and fashions in food, most of which have served to 1) cast an admonitory finger at those who consumed "bad" foods and 2) elevate the self-perceived moral superiority of the castigators. And, I suspect, not a few of these high-dudgeon scare campaigns have been concocted by the food industry to pave the way for "new and healthier" products. 

Off the top of my head:

- Coffee, tea and all beverages containing caffeine

- Oat bran, a miracle food

- Bread is always bad. Empty calories. Makes you fat. Right to the hips! Substitute with oat bran muffins, rolls, breads, cookies

- Cholesterol, especially in its bloody form as "red meat"

- High-fat foods, not only salty snacks but, of course, anything made from the flesh of innocent beasts of the field and air (industrially farmed chicken, oddly enough, wasn't a moral problem until comparatively few years ago -- but chickens aren't mammals). Skip the steaks -- and please don't eat veal, ever -- and if you must kill a creature, make it a fish

- Tuna. Not because we're killing tuna, which is deemed to be good for us, but because we coincidently kill mammals

- Fat-free snacks. Yes, they reduce fat intake. But they contain more sugar than fatty snacks, setting up the poor and ignorant to suffer more obesity (if they could be persuaded to buy such untasty goodies)

- Fish. Forget the tuna, there's too much mercury and so forth in it. Plus we're depleting the oceans! Factory fishing boats of all things; did they never read "Captains Courageous" or at least see the film with that marvelous Spencer Tracy? What do you expect, they're Japanese and Koreans

- Canola oil is acceptable for cooking and dressing salads. Nothing else is, including olive oil (monosaturates or some other word that sounds wicked). Must say "polyunsaturated" somewhere on the bottle

-Coffee can actually be rather beneficial for mental function. Astonishingly, researchers have found that it keeps people more alert and able to process complex tasks

- Tea is terrific if it's some milky mess called "chai" (that would mean "tea" in India) and costs a lot more than a couple of cents per ordinary teabags, which are acceptable for down-home items like ice tea

- OK, you can eat salmon -- it's high in this oil and that -- but not the farmed kind, which pollutes coastlines in pristine parts of the world. Anyway, it's cheaper and doesn't taste as good

- Actually, red meat is acceptable because there is now doubt that a high-carb diet is as good for the human body as one rich in meat protein. Even Kate Moss is an omnivore! Until she throws it up

- Alcohol is fine as long as it's red wine and drunk in medicinal moderation. Any more than 2 glasses a day for a man or 1 for a woman -- well, get yourself to an AA meeting, lush

- Canned and frozen foods are wrong. Everyone should go to a farmer's market and buy fruits and vegetables and $6 loaves of artisanal bread. Or at least to Whole Foods despite the company's dreadful right-wing president

- Sorry, turns out olive oil is very very good for you indeed. Something about monosaturates, which help reduce cholesterol. Part of the Mediterranean diet, which permits you to sneak in some of that old enemy, pasta

- Bread is acceptable if it's made of unmilled flour or something, comes in a strange shape and has lots of kernels or husks or something in it. It seems our neolithic farmer ancestors knew something about the benefits of roughage and avoiding polyps. Besides, it's traditional and organic and so on

- It used to be exciting to eat Chilean sea bass, tilapia, mahi mahi and fruits from all over the southern hemisphere. "Globalization" seemed cool, like the @ in your new electronic mail address on the infobahn. These things are now out of fashion for a very good reason: we got sick of them, AND the carbon footprint to get them to our greedy exploitative maws was discovered to be unacceptably high

- Foams were all the rage until we realized they were very expensive AND didn't fill us up. There's a reason the founder of the craze has closed his resto down for a couple of years. Steakhouses are acceptable again if you are one of the few to have an expense account

- Sweets are unacceptable. Junk food. A prime cause of the obesity epidemic afflicting our children and the unmotivated, slovenly, Palin-loving proletariat. Unless they (the desserts, or as we in the know prefer to call them, "dolci") are made from very fine ingredients and come from a chef with a pedigree. Then they are acceptable

- Cocktails are in. Especially if made from fresh infusions of weird herbs and fruits prepared by a mixologist with obscure, costly brands of artisanal booze

- Wine is more popular than ever especially if it's from some obscure place and made from a grape no one ever heard of. Extra cool points awarded if fermented in a buried clay pot or a disused chicken coop. Floating matter and vile smells enhance its charm and discussability   

- One has an obligation to "eat local." It's a moral, planet-saving one that takes, alas, no account of the sufferings of the Chilean farmer who hoed his way out of poverty after living under a brutal dictatorship for about 20 years. In a place like Scotland, this would lead to a year-round diet of haggis and barley soup. In New York City, a diet of park weeds and rats 

Clearly, this doctrine requires more analysis and discussion over pad thai and Alsatian gewurztraminer. 

Tre Bicchieri 2010: US events announced

From the Gambero Rosso site:

The Tre Bicchieri event, now considered the most important North American presentation of premium Italian wines, will showcase 152 award-winning producers in New York. 

 Sister events with will take place in San Francisco, at Fort Mason with 107 wine producers on February 24th, and, for the first time, in Chicago with 96 award-winning producers on February 26th. 

 TRE BICCHIERI event locations and details:

 NEW YORK: February 22nd   

2.00 - 7:00 PM trade and press
4.00 - 7:00 PM public
Metropolitan Pavilion
125 West 18th Street 
By invitation only - invitation required at the door. 
 
SAN FRANCISCO: February 24th
2.00 - 7:00 PM trade and press
4.00 - 7:00 PM public
Fort Mason Center, Herbst Pavilion 
By invitation only - invitation required at the door.

CHICAGO: February 26th
2.00 - 7:00 PM trade and press
4.00 - 7:00 PM public
Union Station
210 South Canal Street 
By invitation only - invitation required at the door.

Climate change, Soave style

 Valentino Tessari, who with his son Francesco makes the hot-selling I Stefanini wines, claims that his olive oil is excellent -- and all his. "He makes pretty good wine. My oil is the best."*  There's a little father/son rivalry here, clearly. 

The reason for this brief post isn't to Jerry Springerize the Tessaris' family relations. It's to provide one more bit of documentation of climate change.

We said, "We didn't think this was a big area for olive trees because it was too cold."

Valentino said, "It was that way. When I started experimenting with olive trees 25 years ago, everyone in Soave thought I was nuts."

"Did they die in winter?"

"Sometimes they did. But everyone grows olives and makes oil around here now. Even a cold winter like this isn't all that cold when you look back at the old days."

You can take a faith position on climate change: yes, it is happening and it's all our fault. Or, no, it's a myth concocted by liberal hysterics. 

Put all that aside and listen to the farmers. Strict empiricists like Valentino Tessari.

*By the way, the oil is excellent.

 

That sinking feeling

The weather hung cold and gray over northern Italy. Snow lay thick on the ground around Barolo. The weather mirrored the mood of the people, and not least the wine producers.

Aside from the usual suspects -- the rich and connected who generally pay no taxes, shockingly like some in this country -- no one seems to have much liquidity, which is to say money, either to invest or to spend on anything but the bare necessities.

"La crisi" is hitting Italy hard. The boom years are long over -- in the wine sector and beyond. A hopeful headline read, "2010, the comeback year." Not likely.

Forget Italian winemakers conquering China or finding salvation there. What they should be doing is figuring out ways to reconquer the American market. They need new prices (of course), and more. New strategies for self-differentiation and for zonal cooperation. Southerners in particular are too jealous and insecure to band together effectively, as have done many northern Consorzi and associazioni. You can be sure that, as usual, Italian Wine Week will be dominated by big-name regions and appellations from Tuscany north. Yet these very areas tend to offer a less attractive package of me-too wines and unconvincing prices. Brunello or Chianti, anyone?

Let us not delude ourselves on either side of the Atlantic -- 2010 is going to be a tough year. Maybe tougher than 2009.

Italians, you're getting back into Neorealist territory. Survival will be hard. Just don't resort to your old peasant tricks. Keep it (the wine) clean.

More funny winemakers' tricks

We were speaking today with a small producer in the Valdadige, the long narrow region that extends from the suburbs of Verona up into Trentino. This guy makes Pinot Grigio with a couple of clones that are well-adapted to his area. We were talking about America's insatiable thirst for this wine, which is represented by dozens of labels in any decent-sized wine store. We discussed at length the astonishing popularity of a wine that almost tastes like water (with a color to match). At one point, the winemaker told us, "Well, of course, most of it isn't really Pinot Grigio. If you gathered up all the Pinot Grigio we make up here in Northeast Italy, it would fill only about two containers. All the big brands -- ALL of them -- dump in plenty of Trebbiano Toscano, Chardonnay, whatever they have left over. As an example he mentioned Santa Margherita: "40% Pinot Grigio and no more.

"You could just write 'Grigio' on the label and they'd sell it."

This is, of course, completely in line with the ancient if not honorable wine maker's/merchant's tradition of extracting as much value out of his wine as possible -- all the better if he can palm off a cheap, inferior wine as something a little better and/or, as I write this laughing, "more authentic." Yet, as the "scandals" of the past couple of years have shown us with Brunello and Valpolicella, cheating the consumer and making monkeys of the wine press is a well-developed sport.

Speaking of the wine press, could it be that their gullibility (and/or their complicity) in these cute games is the real reason they take so much heat from bloggers and most people who are serious about wine? And one of the main reasons their clout is declining so precipitously?

As to the producers: enjoy it while it lasts. If nothing else, changes in fashion are going to make your financial woes even worse than they already are.

 

Mechanical nightmare

Let's see how frustrating modern travel can be:

1. The car broke down in Piemonte.

2. The BlackBerry shut itself off in Tuscany. When it had rebooted itself the browser was gone, and with it all the bookmarks. Twitter and Facebook, not to mention the august New York Times, were lost to me.

3. The iTouch charger wouldn't charge. No music on the way home. Nothing to drown out the screaming infants or loudmouthed blowhards on the flight home.

4. Worst of all--by far the worst of all--the MacBook Air died in Valpolicella. Caput. Niente. Sad, really. In this modern age you're only as good as your data.  

All of which explains why, gentle reader, you haven't heard much from Strappo in days past. We are forced (oh! the ignominy!) to  use a hotel computer, a clunky PC, that seems like it's running with tin cans and string. And what the hell is this Acer keyboard all about? Scadente.

And it's been freezing, too.

"All you do is complain, Strappo. Has nothing good happened on this trip?"

"First of all," I reply, "it's my Irish heritage to complain about everything. It's the one thing, aside from binge drinking, that we excell in. And, yes, it has been a splendid trip from a wine-searching point of view."

I'll post a couple of interesting tidbits before heading home tomorrow morning.

A presto, amici.

Panna!

Panna means "cream," as in the famous panna cotta. It also means "breakdown," as in a car's ceasing to function. In the snow and the cold far from a suitable replacement.

So far none of the former, too much of the latter. After a scary 80-mile drive in dense fog (that's why it's called nebbiolo! the grape of the fogs!) on Monday night, on top of jet lag and so on -- with the transmission of the nifty Alfa station wagon skipping ominously with every shift of the gears -- the car completely died Tuesday morning, just a quarter mile from the intended destination. Don't get me started.  

I can tell you it's freezing in Piemonte. Seriously cold. One winemaker said, "Cold is good for the vines. It kills all sort of little pests." 

So we can safely assume that Barolo and area should be pest-free for a decade or two at least.

How do all those palm trees you see around Piemonte survive? I ask the locals and they don't know. I mean, it was recently almost zero Fahrenheit this month. Snow lies thick on the ground in towns like Barolo and Bra, and they look more like upstate New York than "sunny Eeeetaly." About as lively this time of year too. Deadsville, man. Nothing is open. Sensible people stay home and watch quiz shows hosted by the winsome Carlo Conti. (This last is a joke. This guy is like a nightmarish cross between Howie Mandel and Bob Barker.)

We've tasted many good-to-marvelous wines. Unfortunately, it may all come down to "let's make a deal." Interesting point: you taste so much during the day, all you want at dinner is a Coke or a beer. A beer. Then bed as early as possible.

Next up a minor detour of 4-5 hours to the Maremma, then Veneto. The new car (a Fiat Bravo of all the damned things) seems to be functioning well. It even has 6 gears, which leads one to hope. vroom vroom -- in little letters.

   

 

Modern packing

Deep thoughts as we prepare for a wine-sourcing trip to Italy

People who don't travel much -- especially travel abroad -- tend to pack too much. They obsess about every outfit, every sock, every shoe. 

When you travel to Italy in winter, pretty much anywhere in the country, here's a tip: pack as little as you can and make sure it's layerable.

Why?

1. Most Italians dress very casually. Hard times mean more utilitarian clothes. Leave the fancy duds home.

2. It's cold. The houses are ill-heated and the churches and other haunts of turisti are frigid. Hotels are usually OK, B&Bs freezing.

3. It's damp. It seeps into your bones. Wear wool socks and rubber-souled shoes. Take two pairs of shoes, tops. (One pair to wear while the other dries out.) 

The layering is key because it starts out cold in the morning and may be very pleasant by noontime, when you may find a sunny spot to eat in a piazza cafe. Strip off some of the layers before you head into the next gelid, dark church.

A couple of tips for keeping your suitcase smaller/lighter: 

1. They have laundromats. Believe it or not, you CAN wash your clothes over there. Halfway through the trip, whether it's for business or pleasure, wash a load. This means half the clothes to pack and lug around. As to dry cleaning -- take clothes that sort of need it anyway. You'll get the most out of them by the time you get back home. Traveling is a dirty business.

2. Don't obsess over toiletries and minor medications like aspirin, allergy pills, etc. Astonishingly, you can buy what you need for the trip over there. Even if you forget your prescribed medication, it's often possible to get a prescription filled very simply at a farmacia. 

3. Put a change of underwear, socks and a shirt in your carry-on. Just in case your bag's delayed.  But despite the risk of wayward luggage, don't be a jerk -- check your damned suitcase.

I can pack clothes in five minutes -- easy. Remembering meds and toiletries is a little harder for some reason.

But by far the biggest preoccupation for the modern packer is the panoply of electronics, chargers and cords.  

BlackBerry. Ever-constant companion

Italian cell phone. Did you charge it before you left? Like the day you left? 

Laptop. And don't leave the power cords in the airport. 

GPS. Charge and program before you leave home. 

iPod. Especially helpful if you're seated within 20 rows of a screaming brat.

Kindle. Most useful on the trip home.

Camera. Take extra batteries.

Nose-hair trimmer. Ditto.

Getting them all charged and paired with their various cords -- plus enough adapters -- is by far the most stressful part of packing. It takes by far the longest time to do. 

Still. Better these generally useful items than a dinner jacket and all its trinketry.

  

  

 
 

Making the Koeppel cut

Fredric Koeppel has posted his 25 great value wines of 2009 (retailing for $9 to $19). Click here for the entire post.

He says the list started at 63, which he had to whittle down to a more manageable 25. We are very glad one of our wines made the cut.

 

Click here to see all about that wine. (It comes from Veneto.)

50 Great Wines of 2009: We're there

I was going to wait until he'd posted his 25 best wine buy s of '09, but I'm going ahead with it because Domenico Selections is in such good company. As one of the wineries so honored commented, "Thank you for including Grgich Hills Chardonnay in your 50 Great Wines list. We enjoy your blog and appreciate being included in this prestigious collection of wines." Well, if Grgich Hills can say, I guess I can.

 
 I refer to today's article on Bigger Than Your Head by Fredric Koeppel.

With his customary thoughtfulness, FK lays out what his criteria are, methodically listing them in non-points order. (He eschews points.)

The two DS wines he included in his top 50 list are:

Borgo di Gete -- a very old-vine, 100% Tintore rarity from the small Amalfi area winery of Luigi Reale.

Serra del Prete -- another very-old vine wine -- this time made of Algianico del Vulture -- by the extremely young and talented Elisabetta Musto Carmelitano.

(By the way, these vignaioli share the same enologo, the Irpinia (Campagna) native, Fortunato Sebastiano.)

As you may have read here or on mondosapore many times, I regard Fredric as the best wine reviewer around. Unmoved by ideology and fads, he writes clearly and precisely about each wine. A fine palate tempered by decades of tasting and reviewing, Fredric gives you a vivid preview of the wine's sensory effects, from perfume to initial taste, to its finish. And he never fails to relate sensory impressions and perceptions of quality to price  -- something too many well-known reviewers fail to do. While his prose is crystalline, and his mastery of both matter and medium evident, he never indulges himself at the expense of the wine. Really, it is all about the wine with him.

Grazie per il riconoscimento, Federico.

 

Followup: Otto benefit for Jed McGiffin a huge success

We posted a number of pieces -- not to mention repeated tweets and Facebook posts -- on the benefit for a waiter at Babbo, Jed McGiffin, who suffered a devastating injury last month. 

The evening of the event, Dan Amatuzzi, the head wine guy at Otto, told me that they were hoping to raise $100,000 for Jed. This included 100% matching funds from his employer.  

At a tasting last evening at the Palm Tribeca, one of the servers, a good friend of Jed's, told us the final figure was quite close to the hoped-for amount. 

We at Domenico Selections are happy to have been able to help in some small way. The hundreds of people who attended the fundraiser deserve a tremendous amount of credit. And Mario Batali and his partners -- what an incredible gesture to match all funds dollar for dollar. 

Sometimes this city has a great big heart.

"Tanky" vs. "woody"

Not long ago Jeff told me that a retailer had tasted a Domenico Selections wine and declared that it was "tanky."

"Tanky!" I exclaimed. "What the hell does that mean?" 

Another kind of tanky

A curious comment because the wine is not, strictly speaking, a stainless steel-dwelling wine at all. It ferments in steel and ages in concrete vats. "He said it lacked roundness -- too tannic and rustic," Jeff told me. "He liked the other one though." The other one being the same producer's aged-in-large-wooden-barrels version.

Obviously, the lack of wood was the critical element here. The retailer preferred the oaked wine from the same producer, and from other producers as well. While he was doubtless thinking of the wines' appeal to his customers, the very word "tanky" strikes me as a visceral, personal reaction to a flavor profile that simply isn't the guy's favorite.

Different strokes. 

I for one tend to prefer the "tanky" version of whatever wine is on offer. Less wood, the better. If the DOC or DOCG requirements include aging in wood, I'm going to prefer the wine that has a more integrated wood treatment, where the wood is in the background -- a supporting player, not the scene-stealing second banana. Part of it is from a desire to taste the fruit and the varietal characteristics clearly. Part is it because for me "woody" is as disparaging a term as "tanky" is to someone else.

A Guide to DS Tankiness

So, for the public good, here is a list of the Domenico Selections wines that age in steel and/or cement, touching no wood except on the vine:

Reds

Mustilli Piedirosso

Musto Carmelitano Serra del Prete (the tanky one, which is the one I prefer -- but that's me))

Villa Monteleone Campo Santa Lena 

Whites

All of the I Stefanini Soaves and Spumante

All of the Angelarosa wines

Mustilli Falanghina and "Vigna Segreta" Falanghina

Mazzone Immensus Malvasia

 

More places to drink our wines

 Domenico Selections on the March! New venues

Just wanted you all to know that Domenico Selections is proud to have its wines poured at the following fine restaurants.

Felidia

The original "mother ship" of the Joe Bastianich empire, presided over by the warm and real Lidia Bastianich.

243 E. 58th St. -- New York, NY 10022 -- 212.758.1479

The Palm Downtown

The Tribeca edition of the well-known steakhouse.

206 West Street -- New York, NY 10013 -- 646.395.6391

And let's not leave out New Jersey, where some fine dining establishments do have a liquor license.

La Griglia

740 Boulevard -- Kenilworth, NJ 07033 -- 908.241.0031

Grato

2230 State Rt 10 -- Parsippany, NJ 07054 --973.267.4006

Ferraro's

14 Elm Street -- Westfield, NJ 07090-2148 -- 908.232.1101

Water & Wine

141 Stirling Road -- Watchung, NJ 07069-5904 -- 908.755.9344

Due Mari

78 Albany Street -- New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1227 -- 732.296.1600

Dolce Basking Ridge Hotel 

300 N Maple Ave -- Basking Ridge, NJ 07920 -- 908.953.3000

Something about Natural

 Domenico Selections has its share of natural wines. Here's a list of the wineries that are either certified biodynamic or certified "biologico" (organic) and on the way to full BD certification -- a process that in Italy takes at least seven years and many many euros:

Angelarosa

Boccella

Mustilli

Musto Carmelitano

Reale

Schiaccionaia

Terra di Vento

Villa Monteleone

Most definitions of natural wine include some or all of the following (from Wikipedia):

• Hand-picked, organically or biodynamically grown grapes.
• Low-yielding vineyards.
• No added sugars, no foreign yeasts.
• No fining or filtration
• No adjustments for acidity.
• No other additives for mouth-feel, colour, etc.
• No micro-oxygenation or reverse osmosis.
• Little or no added sulphite.

While there are some fervent advocates of "natural wine" who expect all of these criteria to be met, in addition to several more, pragmatism and survival must rule. In an exceptionally rainy year it is usually necessary to spray the vines and fruit with copper and sulphur. It's either that and see much of your crop ruined, and with it the ability to make any money or pay some of your debts.

Adding sugar, chaptalization, is widely permitted and has been practiced around the world for a very long time. When the climate was colder, and today in colder zones, chaptalization was essential to make a drinkable product. Remember, too, before the previous century sugar was perceived as a luxury product and therefore a positive good. The taste for bigger, sweet, fuller wines was born out of a predilection for luxury, since sugar wasn't an everyday treat for the working stiff.

As to yeasts, most artisanal producers in Italy profess to use only native, spontaneously occurring ones.   

Some of our producers do fine their wines using age-old techniques like egg whites. Egg whites seem like a pretty natural ingredient to me. Certainly if no filtration keeps the flavor and mouthfeel of the wine more vibrant, don't filter. 

As to additives to enhance the color, mouthfeel and flavor of the wine, I believe it's generally possible to spot them right away. When Italians talk about the good "typicity" of a wine, they are obliquely referring to the true characteristics of the fruit expressed in the wine, without tricks and "makeup." We've been in more than one producer's laboratory -- itself a giveaway -- where the presence of colorants and a raft of other additives caused us to break off discussions and leave right away.

Fortunately, most of our producers are so small that micro-oxygenation and reverse osmosis wouldn't make any economic sense. Not that they'd want to use such techniques anyway. I should hope.

By far the most important factor is, of course, the fruit. "Organically farmed" means no chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides are used. Hand-picking and selection are an important corollary this that. Better, cleaner and less fruit per hectare results in higher-quality wines. 

Or should, given the skill and intuitions of the winemaker. Just as "naturalness" in wine cannot be resolved into a strict dogma, neither can the winemaker's experience in his vineyards, varieties and cellar be reduced to a single formula for good wine whatever its degree of imputed "naturalness".

To read more about "Natural Wine and the Search for Identity," go to this enlightening article on Wine Enabler. 

      

 

 

10 years ahead: Wine trends in America

Today Dale Cruse of Drinks Are On Me posted a link to an interesting post by Jon Bonné in today's SFGate, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle. (Click here for the article.)

In his piece, Bonné lists five trends that he thinks will be most important in the decade ahead. In the setup paragraphs, though, he makes a key point that we all would do well to remember:

More wine is being consumed than ever before - nearly 3 gallons per U.S. adult in 2008, according to data from the Beverage Information Group.

There's something else: a lot of newly minted wine drinkers who grew up with wine-drinking parents.

This is truly something new in American life. And I think it has everything to do with the fifth trend that Bonné observes:

 5. Less is more. Less alcohol (the numbers are already leveling off), less wood flavors, less tinkering. Some of this is a change in taste: more clear fruit than wood, brighter flavors that go with dinner, wines from around the world that fit this bill.

But there's another lesson to be drawn from the recession: Simple winemaking is also less expensive. And all caveats aside about denting the brand - less expensive means more wine sold.

(Underscores mine.)

This "less is more" trend is clearly visible and well under way in a city like New York, and presumably in Bonné's home territory in the Bay Area. These younger wine-drinkers are precisely the kind of people he refers to at the top of the article -- the children of Boomers, whose parents exposed them to wine consistently from a very young age. Unlike their parents, though, the young ones tend to view wine less as a substitute for liquor and more of an accompaniment to food. Hence the "less" -- less wood, less alcohol, less heavy sweetness and less tinkering. It doesn't hurt that the closely related trend to "natural wine" has been strongly tied to "green" values and a sort of civic if not global virtuousness.

In short, they are acquiring, consciously or no, a more European approach to wine. I think this is, by and large, a positive development for both US and imported wines of quality and character WHEN the price-quality ratio is appropriate.

If we unpack Bonne's observation we do see potentially upsetting consequences:

* California's producers have to back off the 20+ year trend toward pricey, overblown wines. This will not be easy to do. Think of Detroit in the face of the serious Japanese challenge of the late 70s and 80s. Instead of doing a good job of making smaller, more efficient cars, Detroit opted for bigger and less efficient trucks. 

* Should California rise to the challenge, eventually many Old World wines that fit the "new" profile will lose their now crystal-clear distinctiveness. The question arises: What will be the basis of their new market appeal? Merely trumpeting their organic farming practices and obscure local grape varieties will not suffice.

In both cases, I agree with Bonné that intense downward pricing pressure, combined with this flight to "authenticity," will separate the sheep from the goats. 

Dilettantes and gentleman farmers, beware.      

"Amazing" Freisa

 Here's a nice review of our Freisa, courtesy of Kevin Keith of Underthegrapetree. (Click on the link for the rest of the review.)

Cascina Gilli Freisa d’Asti 2006.  Grade=Amazing.  Simply based on cool factor alone, this really left-of-center selection comes courtesy of new-found friend in the biz Terry Hughes, and his comrades at Domenico Selections.  With this wine, you get a red that in the nose, is every bit like a Russian River Zinfandel, yet on the palate, you get a lively, fruity red with well-balanced tannins and acidity.  This wine would be extraordinary with some slow-cooked pork belly with rosemary.

Ve are amused by the veb of references to some sort of vine Bolshewism, Tovarich Keith!  

We steal a review post

I have lifted this entire review from the Fredric the Great, the excellent reviewer of wines, from a longer article about epiphanous sparkling wines from all sorts of places. (Click here for entire review.)

The estate of i Stefanini makes some of the best Soave wines in the Veneto, especially from the Classico and Classico Superiore regions [actually, differing appellations from the same district]. Now the family turns its attention to a sparkling wine, the i Stefanini Spumante Brut. Produced completely from chardonnay grapes, this charming sparkler, made in the Charmat process, displays a limpid pale gold color and enticing aromas of pear, lime peel, orange blossom and dusty acacia. It’s a caressing fabric of delicate heft and presence, soft yet bright and crisp, and displaying, amid hints of slightly spicy stone fruit, just the right modicum of limestone. A pretty sparkling wine, dry, appealing and great as an aperitif. Very Good+. About $16.

Imported by Domenico Selections, New York.

Tasting tweet

Not a Tweet, really, but a tweet seems pretty generic for any very brief message by now.

 Drinking Villa Monteleone 2008 Valpolicella Campo Santa Lena. Less floral and pretty than 2007, a bit dusty & even austere. Very good considering a rainy growing season (but saved by a perfectly warm & dry Sept/Oct till harvest).

It will make a great accompaniment to the salmon we are making tonight.

Predictions for wine in 2010

Widely tweeted today is the list of predictions put forth by John Mariani on Bloomberg.com (Link here). We can distill his list by noting that:

1. Prices for wine will continue to fall.

2. Wine producers who don't get with the price-reduction program will lose market share and lots of money.

3. Even high-end restaurants will be looking for less expensive wines to cozen the dollars out of their patrons' pockets. I'm thinking of bon ton places like Babbo, where very good but less expensive wines are doing a great business.  

To paraphrase Cyndi Lauper, "Lack of money changes everything."