| Shane's Wine Opinions |
| Promises & Thoughts For Wine in 2008 |
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I have been thinking a lot this year so far about some new things I’d like to
try or changes I’d like to make with regards to my wine experiences. I have
been fortunate enough to try a lot of different wines and see and experience
a lot in the wine industry. Even so, there are some things that both myself
and our wine club have not been very open to and this year I am setting out
to change that.
Give Chardonnay a Spot on our Website – How many of you have
visited our website and noticed that the one grape varietal we have not
reviewed that is in the mainstream (meaning not an obscure varietal) is
Chardonnay? Was this an oversight by the wine staff and myself? Not
hardly! Truth be told, some of us are proud to admit we belong to the ABC
club. You know … Anything But Chardonnay!
Okay technically we did review some Chardonnay wines when we covered
White Burgundy several years ago. However, to tell the truth, I tend to put
Burgundies in a totally different class then your average, everyday, run-of-
the-mill Chardonnay wine from anywhere outside of Burgundy, France. If
you have never had a White Burgundy wine, try one and you will see what I
mean. The flavor profile is completely different. Burgundy tends to lean
towards more citrus fruit flavors. They contain loads of acidity and
minerality content, and they are vastly superior than common Chardonnay
wines when it comes to pairing with food. The oak used to age the
Burgundies in takes a more complimentary role with brilliant flavors of
hazelnut and toast. And the really good ones can improve with age in a wine
cellar for up to twenty years.
By contrast, New World Chardonnays tend to focus more on Tropical fruit
flavors and have far less acidity. They are buttery in texture from
Malolactic Fermentation and the oak flavors can really dominate the wine
with vanilla. So much so that you’d swear there was a 2x4 piece of lumber in
your glass. The lack of acidity tends to make some Chardonnay wines
flabby and I don’t find that they pair particularly well with food unless it is
something that is prepared in a butter or heavy cream sauce.
Earlier this year, life circumstances presented me with the opportunity to
taste a lot of wines both for business and pleasure. Many and I do mean a
lot, were Chardonnay wines. Did I taste any that made me an instant
convert over to Chardonnay? No, I still don’t find them to be very exciting
wines. That is not to say that I haven’t found a few diamonds in the rough. I
have two in particular that come to mind.
I am on quite a few California wine club lists and many make Chardonnay
wines. In a lot of cases, the wineries will make you take their Chardonnay
wines whether you want them or not. That is just part of the requirements
you have to meet to be on their list. Most of these Chardonnays tend to
once again, leave me empty and quite unfulfilled, but there is one
Chardonnay wine that I always look forward to every year and that is the
one from Chateau Montelena. But in all fairness, is that really too much of
a leap for me? I mean this is the winery that made a Chardonnay that
tricked all of the snobby French wine critics at the 1976 Paris Tasting into
believing it was a marvelous Grand Cru Burgundy. The result of this coo
was a first place finish against the best Burgundy wines in France, which
subsequently put California wines, along with the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars
Cab, on the wine world stage. The other wine believe it or not, came from
Texas. The 2005 Llano Estacado’s 2005 Mont Sec Vineyard Chardonnay
Cellar Reserve is a brilliant wine and one that could have easily stacked up
against the competition coming out of California and Australia.
So of course, these are all my opinions on the subject of Chardonnay, but
that is just it, they are my opinions and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of everyone else in this wine club. I need to grow up and put on my
big-boy pants and realize that it is not all about me. Perhaps there are some
of you out there that want to hear and read about Chardonnay. I have
received emails from a few of you asking me why we didn’t cover
Chardonnay. Well before the end of this summer, I promise that our wine
club will cover and review some Chardonnay wines. Who knows, maybe we
may even like them!
Give Riesling Another Chance – Ugh! For those of you that know me
pretty well, or at least my wine habits anyway, you know that I very rarely, if
ever, say no to any glass of wine. Okay, maybe the occasional Carmenere
wine from Chile. Good lord some of those wines are just plain awful. And
these people mistook this grape for Merlot? Anyway, I digress. The only
wine varietal that I tend to pooh pooh quite frequently is Riesling. My
negative feelings for Riesling stem from a variety of reasons. First, I just
simply don’t get what all the fuss is about. Wine Critics absolutely adore
Riesling. To many, it is their favorite wine varietal out of them all, including
red wines. Issues of Wine Spectator are dedicated to Riesling from
Germany, Austria, France and Australia all with mind-blowing high scores.
They say it is the most versatile of all the wines with food. Sure, I guess if
you like drinking it!
Okay so I will take this point on the chin and just say I just don’t get it.
What makes them so great? I must admit, I have had a few that I felt were
really good, but most of those came from Alsace, France and tend to be drier
in style. For me personally, if a wine is going to be sweet, it needs to be
totally sweet, like an Icewine, Sauternes or Port. If it is going to be a dry
wine, then be a dry wine. I am not down with a wine that tries to be both at
the same time. Call me crazy! That is just how I am. A lot of Riesling wines
that I have tried seem to awkwardly stumble over that fine line of ‘am I
sweet or am I dry’.
Let’s move on to Riesling Pet Peeve number two. “Oh but they can age for
decades, unlike any other white wine varietal in the world”. Sure, this is
true, if stored properly they can indeed age well and take on a completely
different flavor profile. Let me ask you, have you ever had a Riesling that
was at least ten years senior from its vintage date? I have on a few
occasions and believe you me, I thought I had pulled into a truck stop off of
Interstate 30 to fill my big rig up with 40 gallons of diesel fuel. Good lord, is
this what the wine critics love about aged Rieslings? Petrol and diesel, and
these are good traits? I will issue this disclaimer, this applies to the Riesling
wines that are drier in style as opposed to the ones that are on the dessert
side of sweetness.
Lastly is a personal issue and I need to learn to move on and get over it.
Although Riesling is made all over the world it is most famously known to
most wine drinkers as the great grape of Germany. This is the same country
that trampled, bombed, pillaged and plundered the greatest wines, vineyards
and wineries in France during two world wars with very little regard to the
damage of such a precious resource that wine has become throughout the
history of mankind. Hitler, who ordered his Generals to steal as much of the
great wines as possible and hoard them in Germany, was a tee-to taller and
didn’t even drink alcohol. If it wasn’t for some extremely clever French
vignerons that came up with ingenious ways to hide their national treasures,
we may have lost some of the most exciting and thrilling wines to have ever
been made. Wines that date all the way back to the 1800’s. So now you are
asking me to support a country and buy their wines when they seemed to go
along with this rampant destruction during the wars?
Towards the end of last year I had some Australian Rieslings that were very
dry, actually bone-dry, that I found quite exciting. I have been reading a lot
about the past few vintages in Germany and Alsace, France and there has
been quite a string of successful vintages put together in those two regions.
For most of the wines, the prices are very affordable when compared to
other great and high-scoring wines from other varietals and regions in the
world. So in other words, there has never been a better time to buy Riesling
wines. So I guess, I am going to take another stab at some Riesling wines,
yes, and even German ones too. I’ll see if I can’t figure out what all the fuss
is about this time. I’m still not suggesting that I am going make a lot space
in my cellar for Riesling to age. After all, I am still trying to get that
kerosene taste out of my mouth!
Though shalt experiment more – Curiosity has been known to kill a cat
or two, but every once in a while, curiosity leads to some great discoveries.
I’ll give you two personal examples. After reading some wine magazine
about the strengths of Australian Semillon and its ability to age well, I
decided to go about performing my own little experiment. I picked up this
$13.00 Semillon wine from Peter Lehmann, nothing earth shattering, but it
was a Wine Spectator best buy and rated something like 89 points or so.
According to the Wine Spectator, it was a wine that was best consumed
between two to three years of age. Well, I pushed it further. In fact, I went
as far as five years. You could literally see that the wine had changed color
over the years. It went from a bright yellow/green to a dark amber yellow. I
finally took pity on the wine and popped the cork one night. After dipping
my nose into the glass and sliding the wine across my palate, I was
pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted. Normally, Semillon wines are
bright and lemony with an oily texture to them. This wine had lost a lot of
the stinging acidity and turned more to a honeyed flavored profile with lemon
accents. It was really quite good. In fact, I am overdue for another Semillon
aging experiment. I should point out though, I tried this same experiment
with a more expensive Semillon from Washington State and did not receive
the same glowing results. So maybe I will stick to either an Australian one
or a French Bordeaux one. We’ll see.
The second time curiosity worked in my favor had to deal with a mindset that
I had come to have, rather unfairly, and that was that all rose wines are
syrupy sweet industrial crap! How narrow minded of me to think that all
rose wines would taste exactly like white zinfandel. Fortunately after many
a concerned wine-drinkers suggestion, I finally tried a rose wine. It was a
Spanish one made from Garnacha (Grenache). Yea, it was a little sweet, but
mostly dry and very refreshing. And what fantastic food wines rose make.
They go with a lot of tough foods to pair wine with. They are a sure hit at
picnics and barbecues and very refreshing on a hot Texas day. I’d been
missing out on this my whole wine-drinking life just because of my prejudice.
Shame on me!
So with this in mind, I will set out this year to challenge my wine beliefs and
try something new. Maybe I will explore Cabernet Franc wines in more
detail. There is another wine varietal that I just don’t get! I’ll keep you
posted on anything else I come up with.
Cheap Wines Have Their Place in the World – My recent economic
downturn has forced me to lower my everyday wine standards. Oh, had I
ever turned into quite the wine snob. I almost found myself believing…egad!
…that wine just wasn’t inspiring to me any more. This $75.00 Napa Cab
didn’t necessarily taste any different or better than that $75.00 Napa Cab
type of thing. For everyday wine I might drink a bottle that ranged from
$15.00 on the low end to $25.00 on the high end. Hey, there is a lot of good
wine in those price points, but the truth be told, they suddenly were no longer
special to me any more. Now with my present meager means, I am forced to
open a $5.00 bottle of Diablo Creek Cabernet or Jacobs Creek Shiraz and
finding that they will do just fine when I am craving some wine to drink.
Suddenly when I do pop a cork on those bottles that cost $25.00 or more, I
am refreshingly reminded as to the reasons I was so consumed and inspired
by wine in the first place. There is plenty of beauty and spender left in fine
wines! I recommend that everyone try this. You two will have this
revelation and your pocket book will enjoy it too!
try or changes I’d like to make with regards to my wine experiences. I have
been fortunate enough to try a lot of different wines and see and experience
a lot in the wine industry. Even so, there are some things that both myself
and our wine club have not been very open to and this year I am setting out
to change that.
Give Chardonnay a Spot on our Website – How many of you have
visited our website and noticed that the one grape varietal we have not
reviewed that is in the mainstream (meaning not an obscure varietal) is
Chardonnay? Was this an oversight by the wine staff and myself? Not
hardly! Truth be told, some of us are proud to admit we belong to the ABC
club. You know … Anything But Chardonnay!
Okay technically we did review some Chardonnay wines when we covered
White Burgundy several years ago. However, to tell the truth, I tend to put
Burgundies in a totally different class then your average, everyday, run-of-
the-mill Chardonnay wine from anywhere outside of Burgundy, France. If
you have never had a White Burgundy wine, try one and you will see what I
mean. The flavor profile is completely different. Burgundy tends to lean
towards more citrus fruit flavors. They contain loads of acidity and
minerality content, and they are vastly superior than common Chardonnay
wines when it comes to pairing with food. The oak used to age the
Burgundies in takes a more complimentary role with brilliant flavors of
hazelnut and toast. And the really good ones can improve with age in a wine
cellar for up to twenty years.
By contrast, New World Chardonnays tend to focus more on Tropical fruit
flavors and have far less acidity. They are buttery in texture from
Malolactic Fermentation and the oak flavors can really dominate the wine
with vanilla. So much so that you’d swear there was a 2x4 piece of lumber in
your glass. The lack of acidity tends to make some Chardonnay wines
flabby and I don’t find that they pair particularly well with food unless it is
something that is prepared in a butter or heavy cream sauce.
Earlier this year, life circumstances presented me with the opportunity to
taste a lot of wines both for business and pleasure. Many and I do mean a
lot, were Chardonnay wines. Did I taste any that made me an instant
convert over to Chardonnay? No, I still don’t find them to be very exciting
wines. That is not to say that I haven’t found a few diamonds in the rough. I
have two in particular that come to mind.
I am on quite a few California wine club lists and many make Chardonnay
wines. In a lot of cases, the wineries will make you take their Chardonnay
wines whether you want them or not. That is just part of the requirements
you have to meet to be on their list. Most of these Chardonnays tend to
once again, leave me empty and quite unfulfilled, but there is one
Chardonnay wine that I always look forward to every year and that is the
one from Chateau Montelena. But in all fairness, is that really too much of
a leap for me? I mean this is the winery that made a Chardonnay that
tricked all of the snobby French wine critics at the 1976 Paris Tasting into
believing it was a marvelous Grand Cru Burgundy. The result of this coo
was a first place finish against the best Burgundy wines in France, which
subsequently put California wines, along with the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars
Cab, on the wine world stage. The other wine believe it or not, came from
Texas. The 2005 Llano Estacado’s 2005 Mont Sec Vineyard Chardonnay
Cellar Reserve is a brilliant wine and one that could have easily stacked up
against the competition coming out of California and Australia.
So of course, these are all my opinions on the subject of Chardonnay, but
that is just it, they are my opinions and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of everyone else in this wine club. I need to grow up and put on my
big-boy pants and realize that it is not all about me. Perhaps there are some
of you out there that want to hear and read about Chardonnay. I have
received emails from a few of you asking me why we didn’t cover
Chardonnay. Well before the end of this summer, I promise that our wine
club will cover and review some Chardonnay wines. Who knows, maybe we
may even like them!
Give Riesling Another Chance – Ugh! For those of you that know me
pretty well, or at least my wine habits anyway, you know that I very rarely, if
ever, say no to any glass of wine. Okay, maybe the occasional Carmenere
wine from Chile. Good lord some of those wines are just plain awful. And
these people mistook this grape for Merlot? Anyway, I digress. The only
wine varietal that I tend to pooh pooh quite frequently is Riesling. My
negative feelings for Riesling stem from a variety of reasons. First, I just
simply don’t get what all the fuss is about. Wine Critics absolutely adore
Riesling. To many, it is their favorite wine varietal out of them all, including
red wines. Issues of Wine Spectator are dedicated to Riesling from
Germany, Austria, France and Australia all with mind-blowing high scores.
They say it is the most versatile of all the wines with food. Sure, I guess if
you like drinking it!
Okay so I will take this point on the chin and just say I just don’t get it.
What makes them so great? I must admit, I have had a few that I felt were
really good, but most of those came from Alsace, France and tend to be drier
in style. For me personally, if a wine is going to be sweet, it needs to be
totally sweet, like an Icewine, Sauternes or Port. If it is going to be a dry
wine, then be a dry wine. I am not down with a wine that tries to be both at
the same time. Call me crazy! That is just how I am. A lot of Riesling wines
that I have tried seem to awkwardly stumble over that fine line of ‘am I
sweet or am I dry’.
Let’s move on to Riesling Pet Peeve number two. “Oh but they can age for
decades, unlike any other white wine varietal in the world”. Sure, this is
true, if stored properly they can indeed age well and take on a completely
different flavor profile. Let me ask you, have you ever had a Riesling that
was at least ten years senior from its vintage date? I have on a few
occasions and believe you me, I thought I had pulled into a truck stop off of
Interstate 30 to fill my big rig up with 40 gallons of diesel fuel. Good lord, is
this what the wine critics love about aged Rieslings? Petrol and diesel, and
these are good traits? I will issue this disclaimer, this applies to the Riesling
wines that are drier in style as opposed to the ones that are on the dessert
side of sweetness.
Lastly is a personal issue and I need to learn to move on and get over it.
Although Riesling is made all over the world it is most famously known to
most wine drinkers as the great grape of Germany. This is the same country
that trampled, bombed, pillaged and plundered the greatest wines, vineyards
and wineries in France during two world wars with very little regard to the
damage of such a precious resource that wine has become throughout the
history of mankind. Hitler, who ordered his Generals to steal as much of the
great wines as possible and hoard them in Germany, was a tee-to taller and
didn’t even drink alcohol. If it wasn’t for some extremely clever French
vignerons that came up with ingenious ways to hide their national treasures,
we may have lost some of the most exciting and thrilling wines to have ever
been made. Wines that date all the way back to the 1800’s. So now you are
asking me to support a country and buy their wines when they seemed to go
along with this rampant destruction during the wars?
Towards the end of last year I had some Australian Rieslings that were very
dry, actually bone-dry, that I found quite exciting. I have been reading a lot
about the past few vintages in Germany and Alsace, France and there has
been quite a string of successful vintages put together in those two regions.
For most of the wines, the prices are very affordable when compared to
other great and high-scoring wines from other varietals and regions in the
world. So in other words, there has never been a better time to buy Riesling
wines. So I guess, I am going to take another stab at some Riesling wines,
yes, and even German ones too. I’ll see if I can’t figure out what all the fuss
is about this time. I’m still not suggesting that I am going make a lot space
in my cellar for Riesling to age. After all, I am still trying to get that
kerosene taste out of my mouth!
Though shalt experiment more – Curiosity has been known to kill a cat
or two, but every once in a while, curiosity leads to some great discoveries.
I’ll give you two personal examples. After reading some wine magazine
about the strengths of Australian Semillon and its ability to age well, I
decided to go about performing my own little experiment. I picked up this
$13.00 Semillon wine from Peter Lehmann, nothing earth shattering, but it
was a Wine Spectator best buy and rated something like 89 points or so.
According to the Wine Spectator, it was a wine that was best consumed
between two to three years of age. Well, I pushed it further. In fact, I went
as far as five years. You could literally see that the wine had changed color
over the years. It went from a bright yellow/green to a dark amber yellow. I
finally took pity on the wine and popped the cork one night. After dipping
my nose into the glass and sliding the wine across my palate, I was
pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted. Normally, Semillon wines are
bright and lemony with an oily texture to them. This wine had lost a lot of
the stinging acidity and turned more to a honeyed flavored profile with lemon
accents. It was really quite good. In fact, I am overdue for another Semillon
aging experiment. I should point out though, I tried this same experiment
with a more expensive Semillon from Washington State and did not receive
the same glowing results. So maybe I will stick to either an Australian one
or a French Bordeaux one. We’ll see.
The second time curiosity worked in my favor had to deal with a mindset that
I had come to have, rather unfairly, and that was that all rose wines are
syrupy sweet industrial crap! How narrow minded of me to think that all
rose wines would taste exactly like white zinfandel. Fortunately after many
a concerned wine-drinkers suggestion, I finally tried a rose wine. It was a
Spanish one made from Garnacha (Grenache). Yea, it was a little sweet, but
mostly dry and very refreshing. And what fantastic food wines rose make.
They go with a lot of tough foods to pair wine with. They are a sure hit at
picnics and barbecues and very refreshing on a hot Texas day. I’d been
missing out on this my whole wine-drinking life just because of my prejudice.
Shame on me!
So with this in mind, I will set out this year to challenge my wine beliefs and
try something new. Maybe I will explore Cabernet Franc wines in more
detail. There is another wine varietal that I just don’t get! I’ll keep you
posted on anything else I come up with.
Cheap Wines Have Their Place in the World – My recent economic
downturn has forced me to lower my everyday wine standards. Oh, had I
ever turned into quite the wine snob. I almost found myself believing…egad!
…that wine just wasn’t inspiring to me any more. This $75.00 Napa Cab
didn’t necessarily taste any different or better than that $75.00 Napa Cab
type of thing. For everyday wine I might drink a bottle that ranged from
$15.00 on the low end to $25.00 on the high end. Hey, there is a lot of good
wine in those price points, but the truth be told, they suddenly were no longer
special to me any more. Now with my present meager means, I am forced to
open a $5.00 bottle of Diablo Creek Cabernet or Jacobs Creek Shiraz and
finding that they will do just fine when I am craving some wine to drink.
Suddenly when I do pop a cork on those bottles that cost $25.00 or more, I
am refreshingly reminded as to the reasons I was so consumed and inspired
by wine in the first place. There is plenty of beauty and spender left in fine
wines! I recommend that everyone try this. You two will have this
revelation and your pocket book will enjoy it too!
