Category Archives: holiday wines

Sweet and bubbly: The chocolate and Champagne lover’s Valentine’s wine guide

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The e-mail message from Natalie MacLean pointed me to her book Red, White and Drunk All Over in case I was planning to offer some Valentine’s Day tips about matching wine with chocolate.

Of course, there is that. And we’ll get to it in a bit.

But my Valentine’s takeaway from her book comes from the part where she describes her travels in the region of France that conceived and produces that quintessentially amorous variety of wine, Champagne.

Specifically, I mean MacLean’s quote of Louis XV mistress Madame de Pompadour, who discerned that Champagne is “the only wine that leaves a woman more beautiful after drinking it.” (Let’s forgive Jeanne Antoinette’s indiscretion in helping to spark the Seven Years’ War, huh?)

And what man hasn’t felt a little James Bondish with a flute of Bollinger (or less costly bubbly)?

MacLean describes the sensation this way:

Champagne may be a celebratory drink, but it’s also an intimate ritual that transports you into a private world. There’s an adagio of the senses: the sweating cold bottle, the glinting stemware, the frothy pour, the small wrist action of raising the glass, the ocean-spritz on your face, the mouth filling flavor.

In other words, Valentine’s Day without Champagne is like the Fourth of July without the fireworks.

Speaking of Bollinger, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg at The Washington Post suggest paring a bottle of N.V. Champagne Bollinger Special Cuvee Brut ($55) with shrimp cocktail as a starter for Valentine’s dinner. As they explain, with their own notable quotable:

We feel about Bollinger, actually, the way Lily Bollinger felt about champagne in general. As she famously said in 1961: ‘I drink it when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it, unless I’m thirsty.’

They cite a few other bubbly favorites, in addition to several non-sparkling wines for other phases of the meal.

At Wine Spectator Online, Laurie Woolever serves up four more sparkling selections, ranging from a Gruet Brut New Mexico NV ($14) to a Mailly Brut Rosé Champagne NV ($48). She throws in her own meal paring suggestions, including:

Roses, jewelry, chocolates—there are some occasions when it makes sense to stick with the classics, and Valentine’s Day is surely one of those times. If you’re taking the date-night dinner into your own hands, you can’t go wrong with a classic surf and turf, with some simple accompaniments and well-chosen white and red wines alongside.

And speaking of chocolate, here are MacLean’s top 10 wine/chocolate matchings for when you get around to dessert (her online matching tool supplies additional suggestions for you and your sweetie):

  1. Dark Chocolate and Banyuls, France
  2. Chocolate-Covered Biscotti and Recioto Della Valpolicella, Italy
  3. Chocolate-Orange Cake and Liqueur Muscat, Australia
  4. Chocolate with Nuts and Tawny Port, Portugal
  5. Milk Chocolate and Tokaji, Hungary
  6. Bittersweet Chocolate and Amarone, Italy
  7. Chocolate-Dipped Fruit and Icewine, Canada
  8. Chocolate Ganache Truffles and Sauternes, France
  9. Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake and Framboise, California
  10. Chocolate Hearts with Cream Filling and Cream Sherry, Spain

This New Year’s resolution will help you find better wines in the coming year

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In addition to being a cause for celebration, New Year’s Day is also cause for dread — at least for those among us who subscribe to the dreaded resolution ritual.

The ritual is supposed to be a kind of antidote for the bad habits of the previous year. Problem is, those habits tend to be hard to break. So it’s the resolutions that get broken instead.

Dreadfully predictable.

But here’s a resolution worth considering, because it’s not hard to keep and because the rewards can be delicious: Buy better wine in the coming year!

Let’s be clear about this — the key word is better not more expensive.

There’s a big difference, as readers acquainted with the Wine News Review fairly frugal affordability index are well aware.

It all comes down to doing a little homework before plunking down good money for a bottle whose taste doesn’t match its looks or label teaser.

All the research help you need is on the Web, and I’ve spent the past couple weeks redesigning this blog to make it easier to find those resources:

  • On the upper right of this page is an updated Smarter Wine Search tool that lets you find reviews for a wide variety of wines by price and date of publication of the articles. It’s my own customized version of Google that only searches the websites of experts and news organizations that I’ve hand picked because of their reliability.
  • Underneath the banner at the top of this page are drop-down menus for the latest news reports about wine bargains, ranging from Beaujolais and Zinfandel to Chablis and Sauvignon Blanc.
  • And last but not least, at the very bottom of this page you’ll find links to everything from a food-pairing database to websites for comparative wine ratings. There’s also a collection of top wine lists from such respected sources as the Wine Testing Institute and Wine Spectator to the San Francisco Chronicle and The Wall Street Journal.

I’ll be using these tools to buy better wine (and blogging about what I find, of course).

And that’s my dread-free resolution for 2008.

  

Consumers are smartening up and getting more kicks from champagne bargains

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“I get no kick from champagne.
Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all,
So tell me why should it be true
That I get a kick out of you”
— Cole Porter

With all due respect, Cole, an increasing number of us do indeed get a kick from champagne. Or for that matter, from sparkling wines in general.

Particularly around that time of year when the confetti starts flying, the noise makers start making noise and New York’s Times Square holds its collective breath for the New Year’s ball to drop.

As this recent USA TODAY article proclaims: “Bubbles are back.”

Not since the buying frenzy of 1999, when people bought champagne in bulk to ring in the millennium, have U.S. champagne and sparkling wine sales been so high. Volume for 2007 is expected to hit 900 million glasses, up 4% over 2006, says the 2007 Impact Annual Wine Study.

Among the things driving the rise in sales is heightened consumer education about price, flavors and food pairings, according to the article.

So I thought I’d do my pre-holiday bit and bubble up a little know-how that could come in handy as you consider what sparkling wine to select.

A good place to start is this tempting list of bubblies — “from bone-dry and austere to very fruity to sweet” — brought to us by the San Francisco Chronicle. (Affordability alert: This NV Roederer Estate Anderson Valley Brut, from one of California’s several French-owned sparkling wine producers, rings up at only $23 but earned three stars.)

Speaking of affordability (or at least, relative affordability), Mike Steinberger at Slate reviews non-vintage champagne offerings, which unlike their vintage cousins are typically blended from wines from different years. Steinberger also cites the Roederer Estate Anderson Valley Brut, calling it “arguably the best-value bubbly on the market.”

At Food & Wine, Ray Isle continues the non-vintage thread with five of his favorites to look for this holiday season.

If you really can’t get enough of the stuff, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg at The Washington Post offer some decadently tantalizing instructions on how to have A Sparkling Toast for Every Course.

Concluding our educational focus:

Happy New Year!

The ultimate guide to holiday wines, featuring top bargains from top experts

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Holidays were made for wine. Or is it the other way ’round?

One thing we can all agree on, though, is that picking the right wine during this festive season is essential.

You need to come up with a wine that pairs well with the food being served, that doesn’t cost more than you care to spend and that delivers the kind of flavors you favor. And perhaps most important of all, stands the test of that irksome relative or dinner guest who presumes to be a wine expert.

Unless you’re in the habit of bringing along an indentured sommelier when you visit a wine shop, you may find yourself pounding the aisles in a ferment, so to speak, trying to divine the astrology of bottle shapes and label artistry.

No need.

All the wine stars are on the Web, and I’m here to point a few of them out, with a constellation of recommendations and top-wine lists to light your way.

The trick is to do a little homework before going shopping. Jot down the names of bottles that interest you. Or better still, make some printouts. If your local shop doesn’t have a specific wine, ask for something similar.

Let’s start off with an amazing competition held by the Beverage Testing Institute. More than  400 international and domestic wines were tasted blind by sommeliers and retailers to come up with bargain winners in the aptly named 2007 World Value Wine Challenge.

Categories ranged from under $8, $10 and under, $15 and under and $20 and under, along with some exceptional value and special award winners. Everything from whites and reds to rosé and dessert wines.

“These wines will hold their own with wines two and three times the price … choices for holiday parties and gifts; seek them out and save your money for other holiday treats,” say the wise men and women of the Institute.

Next, let’s head over to Food & Wine, where the Holiday Wine Survival Guide: Ideal Party Wines serves up several very affordable picks ($10-$12).

At The Wall Street Journal, Dorothy J. Gaiter And John Brecher decant their Top Wine Bargains of 2007:

The world right now is awash in wine as country after country, from Austria to Uruguay, improves its winemaking and seeks to compete in the international marketplace.

We went back over our blind tastings for 2007 to see how many wines that cost $10.99 or less rated Very Good or better. There were nine.

If all these bargains don’t tempt you, you’ll find some higher-end selections at Wine Spectator, including Sauternes, Ports and exquisite-sounding sparkling varieties, along with suggestions for a buffet menu to accompany them.

if you’re up for some even pricier numbers for your celebrations, two favorite reviewers, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg at The Washington Post, serve up Just the Stuff for Roasts and Reveling. Most of the picks are $40 and up, although there a couple in the $20s.

As Page and Dornenburg say, “It’s the perfect time to raise a toast to the roast — and to splurge a little.” In other words, this is the season to perhaps let the Wine News Review fairly frugal affordability index hibernate.

But whatever you do, treat your wine with loving care, Page and Dornenburg advise:

The medium- to full-bodied wines that grace your table this season need time to breathe before being served. Some of the reds we recommend this week benefited from being open for 40 minutes or more. Pour the wine into a decanter or, if you don’t have one, into wineglasses to expose more of the wine to air, which will help to open up and round out its flavors.

Happy holidays!