Wine News Review

Category: Feature Story

  • The Web’s latest wine buzz, 10/3/07

    Tune in to what top wine bloggers and experts are decanting into cyberspace with handpicked highlights of their latest and greatest.

    A recent trip to central New York state’s Finger Lakes region served as a double eye-opening experience for Financial Times wine columnist Jancis Robinson — first, the “exceptional quality” of the Rieslings made there and, second, “how little they seem to be appreciated, or even known, in New York City.” An abundance of tourists and the warming effects of the lakes have helped an increasing number of wine producers sprout up in the essentially white-wine area, says Robinson. And they’re getting an assist from their U.S. Senator, Hillary Clinton, seen by locals as a “true missionary” for the wine-growing industry because of her advocacy in Washington. Robinson’s column also cites six “excellent” regional wines, including dry and sweet Rieslings.

    Speaking of Rieslings, Food & Wine serves up a “brilliant” Australian pairing of, well, food and wine. The focus is on renowned Riesling maker Jeffrey Grosset and superstar chef Neil Perry, both of whom, well, like to eat and drink. And eat and drink they do — with the meeting’s menu including the kind of chicken curry “you find bubbling in a blackened pot on fishing boats throughout Asia” to go with a 2005 Grosset Piccadilly Chardonnay — one of a half-dozen wines (all recent releases, because, Grosset explains, “I don’t rate older wines as being necessarily better than younger ones, just different”). About as mouth-watering as a food/wine story can be.

    Maybe the cork ain’t dead yet? It’s becoming increasingly clear to winemakers that using screw caps means being “extra careful” during their wine making, according to this New York Times piece by Erik Asimov: Screw caps prevent the dreaded cork taint that causes an estimated 5 percent of corked wines to go bad, but it turns out that screw caps are now recognized by some as occasionally having their own problems — something called “reduction,” which in layman’s terms translates into aromas such as burned rubber, cabbage and rotten eggs.

  • Study linking alcohol to breast cancer cites wine-drinking dangers

    The idea that drinking wine is beneficial to health took a serious setback with the recent release of a Kaiser Permanente report that found consumption of any kind of alcohol raises women’s risk of breast cancer. A recap of reports from various news organizations:

    Previous studies found an increased risk of breast cancer associated with alcohol use, The Washington Post reported. What hadn’t been clear was how much the risk increased and whether one type of alcohol was riskier than another.

    What the Kaiser Permanente study found was that the degree of risk varies in relation to the amount of alcohol consumed – regardless of the type – whether it’s wine, beer or liquor.

    Compared with drinkers who had less than one drink a day, women who consumed one or two drinks a day increased their risk of developing breast cancer by 10 percent. The risk rose to 30 percent for women who had more than three drinks a day, about the same level of risk for women who smoke a pack of cigarettes per day, according to the study.

    “In terms of abstinence from alcohol, I don’t think we can generalize to each individual woman,” lead author Yan Li told Bloomberg.com. “But persistent heavy drinking has been linked to breast cancer.”

    Although one glass of red wine a day has been linked to lower blood pressure, any such benefit could be outweighed by adverse effects if family history includes cancer: Women who are genetically more likely to have breast cancer, or who have family members who have had the malady, should consider foregoing wine, Li told Bloomberg.

    “Any alcohol consumption will raise your breast cancer risk,” Tim Key, of the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit at Oxford, told the Associated Press. “Women don’t have to abstain from alcohol entirely, but they need to be aware of the risks they’re taking when they have a few too many drinks.”

    Wine Spectator, in reporting on the Kaiser Permanente study, linked to a 2005 report that eating high amounts of folic acid (leafy greens, citrus fruits, beans and peas) may eliminate breast cancer risks from moderate alcohol consumption.

    It quoted the Kaiser Permanente study’s lead scientist Arthur Klatsky acknowledging that responsible consumption of red wine can have some benefits: “We think that the heart-protection benefit from red wine is real, but is probably derived mostly from alcohol-induced higher HDL [good] cholesterol, reduced blood clotting and reduced diabetes (but) none of these mechanisms are known to have anything to do with breast cancer.”

    Bottom line, according to the Wine Spectator report: Get medical advice on your particular health factors. “The only general statement that could be made as a result of our findings,” Klatsky said, “is that it provides more evidence for why heavy drinkers should quit or cut down.”

  • Weekend wine list — experts’ picks: From juicy Merlot to Muscadet

    Comparing the picks: A survey of recent selections from top wine experts. Whenever there’s an option, I highlight the more-affordable wines, focusing on possible choices for weekend purchases. Check their websites for full descriptions and other picks:

    2006 Domaine Dereskos Chardonnay Regional Wine Of Messinia, Greece:
    Natalie MacLean — “strange but enjoyable take on chardonnay — sort of like when opera diva Sarah Brightman sings pop tunes,” her best value white. $13.95

    2005 Chaddsford Merlot, Pennsylvania:
    Jerry Shriver — “a symbol of America’s regional winemaking renaissance … nice structure, juicy black cherry flavors and a chocolaty finish.” About $20

    Torres de Anguix ‘Barrica’ 2003:
    Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher — “a beauty: fascinating, earthy and filled with dark fruit … truly one of the best bargains of the year.”  $9.99

    2006 Bucci Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Superiore:
    Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg — under the “Soft and Mineral” category … a “‘great match’” with creamier seafood dishes. $22

    2006 Domaine de la Quilla Muscadet:
    Olivia Wu — among the least expensive in the “The Great Oyster Smackdown” … read this entire article if you intend to encounter an oyster in the foreseeable future. $10

    Tip: Print out this list and bring it to you local wine shop — even if a specific favorite isn’t available, ask the salesperson to recommend something similar. Or try browsing the latest wine reports from this custom collection of hundreds of news websites — filtered for bargains, continuously updated, and quick and easy to scan:

    • Reds (from Beaujolais to Zinfandel)
    • Whites (from Chablis to Sauvignon Blanc).

    To hit closer to home, try WNR’s Advanced Wine Search tool and see what wine finds local columnists and wine experts may be writing about in your area. Once there, just type in your city and state (within quotation marks, as in, “Napa, California”), to get results ranked by relevance.

    Or dig into some perennial standbys at SFGate.com’s Top 100 Wines of 2006, the Top 100 of 2006 list (PDF download) from Wine Spectator and the list of 50 Wines You Can Always Trust from Food & Wine.

    Attracted to a bottle that’s advertised in the local paper or sitting on the local wine store shelf?

    Do a little background research with Wine Enthusiast’s free, searchable Wine Buying Guide—either with a specific name or by types and price. For a little extra info, try Robert Parker’s handy Vintage Chart. Or see what the online wine community says about it with the search tools at cork’d, snooth or Wine Log.

    Once you’ve selected the wine, you naturally want to decide what to eat with it. For some savvy guidance, try Natalie MacLean’s Wine & Food Matcher, which boasts a database of 360,000 wine-food pairings.

    The Web is about community. So take a moment to comment about your experience with a particular wine — to help steer others to or away from it. And of course, have a great weekend!

  • Web sips: Wine headlines, 9/27/07

    Handpicked stories from across the Web…

    Our experts pair red wines with prime rib-eye steaks
    Moderate-priced wines, prime-grade steak. Still time to fire up the barbecue.

    Italian Wine Production at 50-Year Low
    The earliest harvest on record in 70 years disrupts Italian winemaking rhythm.

    Wines don’t age well once they’re opened 
    A collection of tips for storing — from the simple to the more elaborate.

    ‘Hitler’ wines seized in Italy
    Bottles from the ‘Der Führer’ line also include pictures of Himmler, Hess and Göring.

    Enjoy good food, fine wine Disney style
    Annual pilgrimage to the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival starts Friday.

    Which Wines Go with Oysters?
    Hint: Not the reds … “tannins were inescapable and overwhelming.”

    Thirsty for more news? Follow up this serving of new and notable headlines by digging into continuously updated feeds from national and international news outlets: The focus is on red and white wine bargains.

  • The Web’s latest wine buzz, 9/24/07

    Tune in to what top wine bloggers and experts are decanting into cyberspace with handpicked highlights of their latest and greatest.

    “The great wines of the world are expensive and often hard to find,” says Food & Wine. Okay, your first reaction may be, tell us something we didn’t know. This article, however, is well worth a read for what it goes on to say — namely, that it’s possible to find affordable wines that “echo the characteristics of the truly extraordinary.” If, of course, you look hard enough, which is what Ray Isle did for us in his piece aptly entitled Superstars & Super Steals. Nine different pairings are offered — with prices as low as $13 for the affordable-steals class and and as high as $114 for the extraordinaries — for types ranging from Alsace Riesling and white Burgundy to red Bordeaux and Oregon Pinot Noir.

    Another penny-pinching reason to drop by Food & Wine is an additional Isle report, this one focusing on an assortment of top Italian wines under $20. Isle wise-crackingly demands our pity for having to taste his way through 187 under-$20 Italian wines. An “exhausting” job, he declares, but eventually admits the assignment was “entirely enjoyable.” Most intriguing of his picks, perhaps, is the 2004 Librandi Cirò Rosso ($10) from the southern Italian region of Calabria. It’s made from the Gaglioppo grape variety, which is obscure virtually everywhere else in the world, Isle observes.

    Speaking of penny-pinching, Eric Asimov at The New York Times spotlights a variety of wines that the headline touts as Happiness for $10 or Less. In addition to providing a “Tasting Report: Structure and Personality, With a Small Price Tag” for 10 national and international picks, Asimov serves up some worthwhile insider factoids, such as this interesting peek into restaurant mentality: “The restaurant industry has a longstanding belief that the lowest-priced wine on the list will never sell. Nobody wants to be seen as cheap. But the second-lowest-priced wine, that’s the one people will gobble up.”

    There is absolutely nothing cheap about wines produced in the California vineyard sketched by Jay McInerney in House & Garden. This is the story about how the former CEO of Northrop Corporation decided to start a vineyard in what “may qualify as the most unlikely patch of vines in the world.” Or at least the ritziest — the Los Angeles suburb of Bel Air. But make no mistake, Moraga Vineyards is not a rich man’s plaything. We learn that the former sommelier at Alain Ducasse’s three-star restaurant in Paris, Stephane Colling, now the wine director at the Modern in New York, calls Moraga his favorite California winery.

    A different winemaker altogether is profiled by Jerry Shriver at USA TODAY: Randall Grahm, who officially calls himself “President for Life” of Bonny Doon Vineyard in Santa Cruz, Calif. “But a more apt title would be ‘Supreme Seeker/Philosopher/Gadfly/Court Jester,’ ” Shriver observes. Now Grahm says he is rethinking his direction, heading into the realm of biodynamics. Grahm’s metamorphosis-in-progress, aka “existential crisis,” is a clicker.