MaxH

Thanks for the report, Cane. El Dorado and Amador counties have made a name for themselves -- in Zinfandels especially, itn't it? Some people in other parts of California specialize in collecting Zins from there. A little experience there in person so far gave me the impression of many small wineries that are relatively well organized, visitor-friendly, and refreshingly real (that is, focused on their wines: no recently built ancient buildings with instant ivy, or "visitor centers," encountered yet). More like a well run version of many European winemaking areas with small but successful family-run wineries.

You're right about the gold capsule Brad, that is what happened (sorry I did not have the GK designation info when I posted). They had different harvest times, different lots, therefore different AP numbers (which is the legal distinction between the two wines). As you know, the gold capsule is a voluntary producer's rating, beyond the legal categories of German wines (which of course arose in '71 partly because of excesses in voluntary designations -- it is interesting to watch these gradually creeping back by the way, though "gold cap" has been meaningful in my experience). The wines tasted very different, blind (despite common gas -- whew). #9 near my and the other nine tasters' favorite of that group; the #6 near the bottom -- not to say bad wine, it was in strong company. My own point remains though: Even the same year, producer, and vineyard can make very distinct wines.

Prolog: A friend is an archeologist whose relatives served in Central Powers forces in the first world war (in more than one Power, I think) and left letters and photos about it. Spurred by this connection, the friend collected a virtual museum of everyday artifacts of Austro-Hungarian and German military life. It includes compact, portable hand-crank-operated sirens to warn of gas attack. Restored and fully functional, 90 years later. They are flat and (I’m trying to think of something that everyone reading this will know) roughly size and shape of a detachable computer keyboard. I considered practical uses. Main story: 2004 premium (QmP) German Rieslings have been arriving on the market. A tasting in California was organized by an experienced fan who had joined an importer on a commercial visit to the winemakers -- this fan speaks German of course -- who reported impressions to us (a "Kabinett-and-Spätlese" vintage; similar weather to Burgundy that year) with comments on wines and producers and trends. We tasted this selection in separate flights for the two weights: Spätlesen 2004 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr, AP 7-05 ($31) 2004 von Beulwitz Kaseler Nies’chen Alte Reben, AP 06-05 ($23) 2004 von Schubert Maximin Grünhaüser Abtsberg, AP 17-05 ($35) 2004 von Schubert Maximin Grünhaüser Herrenberg, AP 16-05 ($35) 2004 Josef Rosch Trittenheimer Apotheke, AP 9-05 ($20) Auslesen 2004 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr no. 6, AP 6-05 ($40) 2004 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr no. 9, AP 9-05 ($70) 2004 von Beulwitz Kaseler Nies’chen ** .375, AP 05-05 ($31.50) 2004 von Schubert Maximin Grünhaüser Abtsberg .375, AP 19-05 ($24) 2004 Josef Rosch Trittenheimer Apotheke * .500, AP 11-05 ($29) 2004 Josef Rosch Leiwener Klostergarten .500, AP 10-05 ($29) (The last was characterized as a declassified Eiswein.) Impressions: Achtung! Gas! Prominent sulfur dioxide here, the burnt-match smell (and the bleached colors that warned of it). Especially the Haag wines (I sneezed, another taster had a coughing attack. "Wine-Tasting Asthma Outbreak Sends Three To Hospital," I gasped out between sneezes, mostly joking.) SO2 is in many premium German wines, it helps preserve them; even when young it tends to blow off after time in the glass; but it can be a surprise. Tasting blind of the Spätlesen I most enjoyed the Rosch Trittenheimer Apotheke (1st pick) and von Schubert Maximin Grünhaüser Abtsberg (2nd). That Rosch was also the cheapest wine. Generous fruit acid, and penicillin-like SO2, smells. On taste a sharp frozen-limeade bittersweet citrus. Intense, almost peel-like. Others found peaches and apricots. The von Schubert Abtsberg was viscous; hint SO2, delicate sweet aroma. Taste of generous sugar and acid, almost lemonade. Concentrated. Of the Auslesen the Beulwitz Kaseler Nies’chen was light gold; sweet florality and canned pears in smell; taste of appealing delicate lemony fruit. Minerals and gelatin. The Haag barrel no. 9, though the gas made me sneeze, had spice and fruit. Tasting of a vegetal hint, "7-up" lemon-lime undercurrent, fine mineral finish, more delicate than some. Pricey though. Rosch Trittenheimer Apotheke smelled of peach and tasted of very concentrated fruit with softer acid than some. Rosch Leiwener Klostergarten also was very fine: yellow, delicate, floral. All available in US from importer-retailer Dee Vine Wines in San Francisco (Pier 19, The Embarcadero, Tel. 415 398 3838, colorful catalog, email joe [at] dvw.com -- web site www.dvw.com is not always representative). From other importers too in some cases. Epilog: Now I have a use for the portable sirens. -- Max Note on AP numbers: For anyone unfamiliar with it, the part of the AP Number (printed on German labels) shown here has barrel number and inspection year. Different barrels from the same vineyard, bottled separately, can be very distinct wines, as with the Haag Auslesen here. Note their market price differences.

Yes, that article is a local buzz. I haven't read it yet but it seems that GVs may be getting more popular in the San Francisco area after many years of a lower-key following from wine hobbyists and people who know Austria or came from there or know about food pairings. (Testimonial the last type: I was in the hip Palo Alto Vietnamese restaurant, Tamarine, a couple years ago with visitors from Asia -- separate menu section for different flavored rices as accompaniments -- and since I like GVs with some foods, and a wine-expert friend once staged a very successful tasting at the Vietnamese "Slanted Door" restaurant in SF, I asked about GVs at Tamarine and sure enough, the restaurant was well stocked with them (and with dryish German and maybe even Alsatian Rieslings, if I remember). The visitors were skeptical at first but they opened up with warm enthusiasm after trying this unusual, slightly peppery white with their dinner. Last night I was with a tasting group with wine-trade people who were swapping news, and talking about this Chronicle article. (Also about how Pinot Noir wines now fly off the shelves in California, "No, it wasn't because of That Movie, this new interest began about ten years ago, though That Movie helped.")

That's a good point. (I missed the link earlier, and couldn't find the full article, so I was going by the quotation posted above.) Most things to help demystify wine are all to the good, in my opinion.

[Wine-demystification bibliography appears at the end.] Melissa I agree, we’re all in your debt. It’s hard for me to imagine a piece of software giving reliable personal wine recommendations, since that requires getting to know your tastes -- but this has been available (for centuries) from good local wine merchants if you have them. However, it’s easy to imagine people selling software that promises to do that. Many of you can remember (before about the 1980s) when computers were much rarer, much more expensive, and still had a larger-than-life mystique. This mystique was early exploited to make mechanistic advice look authoritative: The Computer Said It, and The Computer is awesome. Here’s an incident I know first-hand. When I was a teenager (when time-shared computers were first showing up in schools, with local terminals) a friend at Berkeley High School said that well-meaning staffers were offering students occupational guidance By Computer. (This friend did volunteer computer support, and had the run of The Computer.) We looked at this small custom software program and it was simplistic, it asked some questions and matched up a simple set of career suggestions, as one might do on paper, but faster -- and Authoritative Looking. Unfortunately, students and counselors seemed to take this novel tool much too seriously. The Computer Says I am suited for X, so it must be true. So we got to work. Soon the career recommendations began including random odd suggestions -- transplant donor, pencil, etc. -- with the serious ones. Then late in the user session it would increasingly make spelling mistakes and, as it were, slur its speech. Finally it would degenerate to nonsense. It stayed in use for some time that way, but people looked on it differently, maybe even as imperfect as humanity, or more so. (There’s demystification for you.) Most everyone in the wine industry labors to de-mystify wine (especially in places like US where wine is not a widespread tradition), to reduce barriers and increase demand. There’s also been a continuum of wine-enthusiastic writers with humor and wit and anecdotes. I listed below some very well known, entry-level wine books pre-1980, most of them published in the US. (I am not a wine-book expert. I have posted all of these before. I’ve posted wine info sources publicly online for 20-some years for what it’s worth. The first public Internet wine-forum posting still public, incidentally, was affordable red-wine suggestions, in 1982.) For anyone interested, these books have been steadily available new or used (search today by ISBN or title at amazon.com or other online sellers). One of the best, very useful even now, is the oldest, Saintsbury (1920). The list illustrates longtime efforts at demystification. Mystique is inherent in wine, in the eye of the newcomer. The wine world is thousands of years old, and complex. Like art, or real estate, or the stock market, or human nature. It takes time to learn, though there are aids, including those below and others. Frustration with this reality -- the yearning to short-cut the learning -- is part of human nature too. Your health! -- Max -------- "I hope [this] book will stimulate -- especially in the younger generation -- a wider appreciation of wine's many virtues. A knowledge of wines should be a part of everyone's education. To walk about with an Arts degree and be ignorant of wine is incongruous. I could put up strong arguments for including wine in the curriculum of all [uS] high schools and colleges." (Blake Ozias, 1966) George Sainstsbury, Notes on a Cellar-Book. 1920. Frequently reprinted with very minor changes; 14th edition 1978. ISBN 0831764503 Schoonmaker and Marvel, American Wines, Duell, Sloan and Pearce (New York), 1941. John Melville, Guide to California Wines, 1955, 1960, 1968, 1972. Blake Ozias, All About Wine, 1966 and 1973. ISBN 0690000944. H. W. Yoxall, The Wines of Burgundy, 1968 [1974 p'back], ISBN 0140462007, and 1978, ISBN 0812860918. Simple introduction to a complex topic (the history and geography haven’t changed, at least) but Yoxall is known for wry humor, and also wrote the preface to the 1978 reissue of Saintsbury. Alexis Bespaloff, Guide to Inexpensive Wines, 1973. “SBN” 671215027. Bob Thompson and Hugh Johnson, The California Wine Book, 1976, ISBN 0688030874. Penetrating snapshot, a landmark in its day -- like Schoonmaker and Marvel in the 1940s, Melville in the 1950s, the UC/Sotheby Book of California Wine in the 1980s. Also if I remember, the food selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Very gracious gentleman too. (Met him in Burgundy something over a year ago.)

Topically marginal but stilll important -- No kidding! I wonder sometimes what it is like to be one of the people who did not see the Napa Valley of most of its quiet history (changing so radically after say 1980), and therefore be inevitably partly unconscious of just how novel the current "Napa" is. For reference (I hope I'm not too repetitive on this) the Santa Cruz Mountains winemaking area has been very little Napafied (other than peripheral portions bordering Silicon Valley), despite early identification as one of the state's top potential winemaking regions (in Schoonmaker and Marvel's classic 1941 book). This is refreshing for wine geeks (few tour buses, no absurdly-named "wine train," the winemakers themselves deal with visitors and are happy to see them) but on the other hand, as a rule it doesn't reward those wineries' efforts with as much business as higher-profile regions produce. As always it's a tradeoff ...

Those consumers at least are going for products (I think) differentiated by price (even if one local random consumer survey by a newspaper, some years back, gave passers-by various samples on the theme "is $30 sparkling wine [Moet's Dom P.] really better than $3 sparkling wine [Gallo's "André Extra Dry"] and the public consensus was that it was "more than ten times as good and therefore a better value"). One expert merchant I know could persuade few customers to buy a good-value low-end white Burgundy she'd been lucky to get (100% Chardonnay, note) though they bought 800 bottles a week of [a highly advertised California] low-end Chardonnay that was more expensive, but a familiar name. (I'm not even sure it was an issue of style preference, as much as advertising.) But she served their preferences, that was her job.

1. Fair enough and I also second JohnL that the method of production needs to be on the label (often it is; most premium US products use the Champenoise "fermented in this bottle" anyway). Just please don't argue that the French producers in Champagne ought to relabel it "Sparkling Chardonnay / Pinot blend," etc., on the grounds that this will make the product more understandable! 2. This thread question is narrowly framed. Most of the competition for true Champagne (even, I have reason to believe offhand, most of the competition that is available to US consumers) comes not from the US but from other regions of Europe, including of course in France. For many decades, very creditable wines such as cremants de Bourgogne and sparkling Côtes du Jura have been consumed by US consumers seeking a bottle content competing with the lower-priced Champagnes, rather than buying a name. (Among other things, they don't pay for all that marketing and sales work that makes certain labels so familiar.)

Good report, thanks. By the way as a historical note, if 78 truly is not a celebrated vintage today, then that is at least relatively recent. It was loudly celebrated in the US, at least, when classified 78 Bordeaux came to market in 1981 -- for some years it was routinely touted as the leading Bordeaux vintage of its time, between 75 and the early-hyped 1982. The hype for 78 resembled that of a couple of recent Bordeaux vintages, such as 2000, minus the extent of futures frenzy that's come to that market lately. The 78 Lafite tasted very promising to me in 1981 -- concentrated and well structured. That and Margaux were about the most impressive Bordeaux of that year that I tasted young. (Both retailed for about $50 in the US then, which was not cheap.)

... there are reasons on why she wants [not] to age it. ... Hope that adds some clarification on why she wants to open it. ← Thanks, that makes more sense to me, I didn't know of the special circumstances from the original query. It's often observed (or anyway, it has been often observed in recent generations) that it takes time, at least for consumers, to get to know the aging behavior of wines. Just as it takes time to train a palate. FWIW and probably obvious, an activity I found valuable is for people to get together and pool their resources in various ways. A tasting group can distribute the cost of tasting something expensive, or do it more often, or provide a better opportunity for an enthusiast with a deep cellar to share samples. In the past it was fashionable in the US for people even to form "first growth clubs" -- this was when a good first-growth Bordeaux, like Margaux, was maybe $100 in today's dollars, or less -- and invest in a dozen of one or more such wines, then pull them over the years, and watch them age. A bunch of mature physicians in San Francisco used to do this and I remember around 1987 when a favorite local restaurant became suddenly hip (the influential critics having discovered it), lo and behold that group surfaced there for one of its tastings, in formal dinner clothes. (The UC-Sotheby book in 1984, one of those milestone books every few years that assess the state of a young region's winemaking, had a chapter on tasting organizations including first-growth clubs, including that one even, I think. The book is ISBN 0520050851 by the way and easily available.) Still unless things have changed a lot lately, many of these wines are made with the clear understanding that normal consumption will be years later, often 20 years for heavy Bordeaux in strong years. My experience supports this. In a 1980 newspaper article I read at the time, a US writer tipped people off to the value of one 1970 Bordeaux then selling for $20 (5th growth) and added "it is infanticide to drink it now, of course." I tried some then and later and the writer was right, of course. Opened another and generally heavy Bordeaux, 1985 Ch. Léoville-Las-Cases, at age 15 for example, and it was not ready; then opened a 1975 of the same wine, at age 25, and even that was not ready. This is enough to tax some people's patience, yet the ones from good years that have been ready have been worth the wait. The situation prevails even with Burgundy (I proposed a Burgundy Rescue League after seeing Clos de Tart sold obviously immature and hard as nails, in a corporate restaurant in New Orleans) and with California (where some longtime buyers of Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet told me they'd have to give it up because they were getting to be of an age where waiting the requisite 20 years was less actuarially sound ...).

This is the classic dilemma of US wine industry, which is so young relative to many regions'. Dilemma, literally: Two issues. On the one hand to de-mystify wine in general, make it accessible to people; on the other, find reliable, recognizable naming. Lichine and Schoonmaker's 1930s promotion of "varietal" naming as a pragmatic approach has worked for some wines, but falls apart for others, like the Bordelian blends (synthetic names like "Meritage" increase the education burden). All of this is confounded in very recent years by some US consumers who start out with varietal naming, ignore its history and limitations, and then want to impose it on the much older winemaking world, with its greater diversity and its smaller education burden because wine is more familiar in that world, more integrated into life.

Wait a minute. Are we on the same planet? You are talking about a product of quality and (unless it has changed lately) subtlety that a lot of people have gone to a lot of trouble to make in the hope that people will know (or look up) how to use it. Part of "how to use it" is that you leave it alone for several years in good conditions to finish the process. Otherwise, it is as if you pulled a loaf back out of the oven when it was just starting to bake, or plucked a delicate fruit from a tree when it first appeared, immature. It is incomplete. Convince her to age it. Or, go and get (it's easy these days) a 1978 or 1983 (sigh) or 1985 or something, which is ready. The great hell of it is, this may even be less expensive than the '02, thanks to the current bizarre atypical inverted price-age relationship. Good luck, regardless. -- Max -------- The wine of the [Clos Vougeot] was sent to the Popes in their exile in Avignon, and Petrarch said that it was this that made them so reluctant to end the schism and return to Rome! One abbot, already mentioned, sent thirty [barrels] to Pope Gregory XI, and four years later -- Vougeot, even then, took some time to develop -- was made a cardinal. Harold Waldo Yoxall, The Wines of Burgundy, Stein and Day, second edition 1978, ISBN 0812860918

What is the temperature measure that you are using, Melkor? I was curious. Schoonmaker and Marvel's prescient 1941 book (exact reference below) quotes Winkler’s “degree day” analysis (cumulative annual temperatures weighted by degrees above minimum for grape growing), which governed US grape planting for some decades. Under that metric, even Sonoma resembles the Champagne district (and is slightly cooler than Beaune and Bordeaux). (By the way, from the same book, Napa Valley, Healdsburg, and the Santa Cruz Mountains measure intermediately between Bordeaux and Piedmont; the “Great Central Valley” likewise between Tuscany and Algeria; and, though the regions were then relatively lightly planted, “California’s best table wines, whether white or red, may be expected to come from the Santa Cruz Mountains, from the Napa Valley, and from Sonoma County.” -- Schoonmaker and Marvel, American Wines, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York, 1941. From original.)

Today the innovation, tomorrow the hype. Isn't it ever so?

Once again be careful of any advice casually suggesting acetaminophen (tylenol) together with alcohol. The source of such advice (with the best of intentions) has not gotten the word, has not read this thread much (the topic came up earlier), and most likely has not done a Google search for both of the words acetaminophen alcohol which would tell them all they need to know about the hazards to your health that make the combination worse than alcohol alone. And (again) milk thistle seed extract is the active ingredient of the proprietary hangover-cure products. It (and water) reportedly are the clinically proven measures to help you detoxify, "should moderation fail." (Admittedly they are not nearly as colorful as all the other cool stuff that people put forward at these times.)

I don’t know how many folks here addressed the topic's question at the time, but those who did may recall how radically the US picture changed in the 1980s. For some years prior, the population of regular California sparkling-wine producers had been more static. Schramsberg (under Jack Davies) and, from 1973, Domaine Chandon, occupied their own class or stratum, then there was a bit of a quality gap, and then the Korbel and Hans Kornell products and a few others, then another gap and the “cheap” wines (Charmat-process and otherwise). Even the best of regular production products from California lacked a measure of the delicacy and subtlety routine in French sparkling wines for not much more money, and the astute consumer headed for good-value French alternatives like Lanson Black Label which retailed for around $11-12 in the US northeast where Domaine Chandon was going for $9 and $10. I was actively interested because, as Cronin and Pallais argue in their spirited little book Champagne!, the wine “combines with food in the most versatile manner.” (They give many examples, including “with a cold chicken sandwich before noon.”) Circa 1980 I was going back and forth between northern CA and the northeastern US (including relocations each way), and sometimes transporting wine. For instance, when Kermit Lynch introduced many in the US to Champagne Billecart-Salmon with its 1978 vintage, this was offered on the west coast and I had to ship some of it east; it was the first some fellow wine geeks there had seen of that label. Several things then happened in California, including Domaine Chandon’s eventual increase to vastly more production than in 1980, but the most dramatic results came from further investment in California by experienced European sparkling-wine producers, including Piper Heidsieck (under the Piper-Sonoma label, retailing from 1982, greeted by fanfare at the time), Deutz, and especially, Champagne Louis Roederer (CLR). In 1980 CLR, a privately-owned family firm, started a California subsidiary Roederer Estate (RE), acquired vineyard land in the rolling hills of Anderson Valley, and hired Prof. Michel Salgues from Université de Montpellier (then on leave teaching at UC-Davis, where he had also trained when younger) as managing director. That firm, especially, elevated the top quality levels available in California sparkling-wine products (though at a cost, which I’ll get to). Roederer makes regular bottlings at well under $20 (brut and brut rosé) and also a premium reserve bottling, Brut L’Ermitage, which is vintage-dated. In 1999 I had a stockpile of the L’Ermitage (1993 vintage) for possibly lively New Year’s Eve but it turned out to be a more sober and reflective party, so most of the wine found other uses later, being so versatile. But Roederer Estate famously, finally, bridged the quality gap so conspicuous in the 1970s and much of the 80s. British wine writer Tom Stevenson, in his encyclopedia, writes that the second batch, from 1987 grapes, “was the first sparkling wine made outside Champagne that could be compared not simply to an average Champagne but to a good quality Champagne, and winemaker Michel Salgues has maintained this high standard ever since.” (Stevenson criticizes the product for being released relatively early, and sometimes consequently drunk a little “green.”) RE and Salgues (retired 2003) deserve historic credit for raising the bar. (I thought I should mention this history, as it is essential context to the topic.) The problem I see now is that at least the premium versions of such products, selling for $35 or more, overlap the US price range of very good real Champagnes especially with the increasing, pro-active importation of “small house” French products that are not part of luxury-goods conglomerates (yet) and do not have their marketing budgets, or sales teams that call so eagerly on restaurants and retailers. Yet the small houses offer not just individuality, but sometimes better value. In my region, Gary Westby, Champagne buyer at K & L Wines (Redwood City and San Francisco), has aggressively sought out small houses and retails dozens of them (the firm has good online service by the way, Link). I and other wine geeks did a tasting of several of these, many in the $20-$30 range (including the ones we turned out to like best, blind), and we were delighted with the results. This is why for that price range (over $20) California has serious competition, even in California retailers.

This doesn't meet the original request for seafood, or specifically Christmas Eve. But apropos Savannah restaurants, a chef with some loyal following in the San Francisco Bay Area, who has Southeastern roots (and was always working that region's specialties onto his menu in California), is in Savannah now, operating a BBQ and catering business called Angel's. I haven't visited it yet but would be interested to hear from any who have.

I've been to Alexander’s a few more times since posting here, had some decent food. The place has a lot of evident concept and investment behind it and, for a steakhouse, is about the most interesting I've encountered near silicon valley. (Despite the minor annoyance of what's been called a flash-trash Web site, possibly farmed out, which managed not to answer some people's basic questions, yet did this with high-bandwidth overwrought cute graphicality; pity the innocent traveler who tries to read it over a laptop phone modem). Last visit, a lunch, tried the much-mentioned Kobe beef burger made from trimmings in kitchen. It was very well garnished and beautifully presented but (in that one random sampling anyway) didn’t strike me as good as what one can easily make at home with a grinder. (Haven’t tried the shaved-prime-rib French-dip sandwich, another lunch favorite, but other locals have, and describe it as vast, enough for two easily.) Time before that, two well-known US chefs were dining there, to the evident pleasure of the restaurant's employees. The youngish J C Chen, who manages, is hardworking and has been consistently gracious in my experience. One less-obvious strength is the extraordinary wine inventory (said to be work of the sommelier, whom I haven't met) which though not large, manages to hit a lot of very moderately priced in-the-know wines such as among the small-house Champagnes and Oregon pinots and even -- I am not kidding -- good-value German (Kabinett and-or QbA) Riesling all ready for you to order with your steak, which is not a common practice in the US but can work well, since the Rieslings with good sugar-acid poise that are not too heavy are astoundingly versatile food wines, as wine geeks have said for some time (even in the US). -- Max

The moderators might wish to consider putting something in this wine forum's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list, or creating one if necessary. It will mention keywords that evoke consistent, reliable responses, evident in the large data base here of thread profiles like this one -- Rebel Rose Aug 3 2005, 12:45 PM Post #1 jbonne Aug 3 2005, 01:09 PM Post #2 JohnL Aug 3 2005, 02:40 PM Post #3 --["I do find it amusing when people constantly harp on Parker's preferences (big wines etc). Rarely do any of Parker's critics offer any specifics."] jbonne Aug 3 2005, 03:05 PM Post #4 JohnL Aug 3 2005, 03:27 PM Post #5 Rebel Rose Aug 3 2005, 03:33 PM Post #6 JohnL Aug 3 2005, 04:02 PM Post #7 Phil Ward Aug 4 2005, 06:22 AM Post #8 Brad Ballinger Aug 4 2005, 07:44 AM Post #9 JohnL Aug 4 2005, 09:28 AM Post #10 Rebel Rose Aug 4 2005, 10:23 AM Post #11 jbonne Aug 4 2005, 10:39 AM Post #12 JohnL Aug 4 2005, 11:34 AM Post #13 --["I don't consider myself a "Parker partisan""] Brad Ballinger Aug 4 2005, 12:45 PM Post #14 JohnL Aug 4 2005, 01:22 PM Post #15 --["So why are the reactions so strong? So visceral?"] (Merely one such example, of dozens). If I may be of professional assistance, for example assembling hot-button keyword lists, I have some experience in other very consistent contexts.* Respectfully -- MaxH, amicus curiae. * For example the high-tech-startup mission statements during the dot-com boom. Reference "HTSHI."

What does that mean, "is it ready?" Often such Rieslings are among the most accessible wines young -- 1998 no exception in that run of strong vintages I think -- and yet, they are among the longest lived wines too. Did it seem unready? Your opinion is valuable. Cheers -- Max -- “Avec une complaisance sans limites, M. le Baron Pichon a bien voulu mettre à ma disposition les trésors de sa bibliothèque ...” -- Vicaire (not from online)

Mirabile dictu! We truly live in wondrous times. In the 1970s we shook our heads and said that the major 1975 Bordeaux would be great classic wines, someday ... In the 1980s we were patient, things take time. Lots of good Bordeaux at reasonable prices. Over the 1990s the Bordeaux market changed noticeably, became much less attractive and more expensive, with new wines actually costing more than well-aged ones! Horribile dictu. In the 2000s I was surprised when, receiving a 1975 Léoville-Las-Cases as a gift and opening it at dinner, it was still immature. (An unusual dinner leading to memorable events, no thanks to the Las-Cases.) So this report is interesting. (I've heard rumors that even 1978 DRC senior Burgundies eventually became drinkable. Hope is what keeps us alive.) Cheers! -- Max

Bravo Nancy. I applaud people who choose wines they like (as opposed to this business of agonizing over what “is thought to be” good). That’s real. Here’s a summation of my main points in this diverse thread. Beaujolais has long been popular in the US. The “Nouveau,” a spin-off from the original wine, shifted the perception of wine newcomers on what Beaujolais means, bringing some confusion. Nouveau’s lack of prestige in the wine industry has a demonstrable technical basis that you can verify for yourself if you care to (scent chemistry in common with candies and nail varnish). I like the stuff in its own right [Note 1]. Beaujolais also inspired pleasant casual US spin-off wines including the other-varietal “Nouveaus” with similar aromas but less marketing. Tom Stevenson published a succinct overview of the Beaujolais world in his popular wine encyclopedia, ISBN 0789480395 (recent 4th edition is ISBN 0756613248). Note 1: This is despite aromas that remind me of the lab in high school where we learned about chemistry of flavors and scents (a “progressive” school -- some teachers were actual practitioners of their subjects -- my organic chem teacher was a retired industrial organic chemist and she liked food science). I remember the dramatic connection of nasty natural scents like butyric acid to the pleasant ripe-fruit aromas that could be made from them. We synthesized principles of artificial wintergreen, grape, and pineapple, in the class. Speaking of fresh produce, best wishes for everyone in the US celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday and to those in other nations with corresponding harvest festivals, even if not so late in the year. -- Max -------- “...{decvax,philabs}!mcvax!moskvax!kremvax!chernenko” -- Piet Beertema, 1984 See a Google archive about it

With the volume of "cognac" these brands produce to cater to urban consumption, can the lower end really be anything but industrial alcohol? ← It's big business (LVMH and all that). In my opinion the Rémy Martin VSOP could not be confused with the dreaded French alcool d'industrie. I've tried industrial alcohol. This underlies my surprise that young adults like to drink vodka by choice (as a cocktail, rather than with the savory little foods as they like to do in eastern Europe, zakuski and so on, which seems more civilized). Of course they often get it blended with something, preferably fluorescent-colored. I hope they'll try other things too. Thanks. Oily in the sense of ingratiating, of course (and not always just that one). Definitive portraits in Bemelmans's famous memoir La Bonne Table(which is in English). Illustrated, since Bemelmans was a cartoonist too.