Craig Camp

At our New Year's party last night at midnight, along with the fireworks, our host produced several bottles of Mumm's Cordon Rouge NV which I had not tasted for a few years. This wine tastes like club soda with aspirin dissolved in it and is and nothing short of a rip-off for the consumer. Thin, bitter, green fruit with bubbles. It was a mediocre wine when I last tasted it and it has gone seriously downhill. AVOID. I truly would rather drink Korbel. It was not so many years ago that it was hard to buy a bad bottle of Champagne, but now almost all the Brut NV wines of the big producers are very bland ordinary wines at ridiculous prices. Veuve Clicquot for instance is a washed out shell of the wine it was ten years ago. It appears greed has truly overtaken quality in Champagne. With so many fine RM Champagnes around I don't know why anyone is drinking Grande Marque Brut NV anymore. If you want to drink Grande Marque wines that taste like they used to you have to buy their prestige Cuvees.

Many years ago!

Rabbi David White gets more spiritual fulfillment from sharing a glass of wine with friends than from religious ceremony.

click below- Some wines just move you. There is not always a rational, statistical point you can turn to in the selection of these wines. It does not mean other wines are not equal or more dramatic, but certain wines seem to stick out in your mind. That is what these wine selections are – a personal selection of some favorite wines out of the thousands tasted in 2003. Best wishes to all for a Happy New Year.

Raccolta: a weekly Italian wine harvested by Craig Camp 1999 Palazzo Brunello di Montalcino

All of the wines on your list are around the 15 year mark. You would be hard pressed to find a Barolo winemaker that does not feel their wine is ready to drink after this much age. These wines are certainly reaching the "mature" stage. Maturity is often confused with attempts to make the wines age as long as possible. What the wines on your list will not taste like is OLD. Wines that taste old and wines that are mature are not the same thing. The goal of aging wines should be to allow all the complex elements to reach a range of harmony of texture and flavor that does not exist in the younger wines that tend to be dominated by the young fruit flavors (yes, even Barolo). In that sense all of these wines have entered what would be considered a "mature" stage. This is a stage they will continue to pass through and evolve through for many more years. At some point they will pass out of the mature stage and start to taste old - in other words they will start a slow decline. Maturity in a great wine is not one point, but period of evolvement when the wine reaches a peak of complexity, while still retaining some of its fruit character. This period can last for many years. The exact point of perfect maturity is often hotly debated and that debate and search is part of the great pleasure wine brings. That exact point is often very personal and preferences change from taster to taster. If you follow Brad's recommendation you will indeed taste wines that show "mature" flavors - although they are on the early side of that period and will develop for many more years to come.

Now there is some good advice!

Korbel is small potatoes in the "Champagne" name stealing game and at least they attempt a decent product and use methode champenoise and classic grape varieties to make it. The Gallo company and others produces a vast ocean of wines called champagne that use plastic corks and are likely made from Thompson Seedless and French Colombard or whatever else happens to by lying around the winery. Have the annual Andre ads started yet?

The Siro Pacenti wines are packed with more fruit extract than most wines from Montalcino and is decidedly in the modern school of winemaking as are the Banfi wines. I still think his wines will age well, if not as long as someone like Costanti. However, you are talking about his Rosso di Montalcino not his Brunello. The Rosso is fully ready to drink at 2 to 5 years old from Pacenti. I would not recommend it for long-term aging as the wine is not designed with this in mind.

Right. What makes a good wine-by-the-glass program is not the total number of wines offered - you just need good wines that are well-matched with your cuisine and the price range of your restaurant. Some of these chain glass programs are hilarious: 4 chardonnays that all taste the same; 3 merlots and 3 cabernet sauvignons that all taste the same. They could just offer 1 chardonnay and 1 red and the list would be just as good.

...not only the French companies. Iron Horse (my prefered USA brand) has never used the name "Champagne" and Schramsberg removed it from their labels some years ago and now just say "methode champenoise". I don't believe any of the California super-premium sparkling wines other than Korbel use the term "Champagne" anymore. Korbel feels that it is part of their right and tradition as they have used it on their labels for over a century.

It could not be easier to make a great wine-by-the-glass list in the United States and the UK: - All of the wines from all of the world's important fine wine regions are available. Compared to where I live in Italy the breadth of the wine selection available in the USA/UK is staggering. - The market is incredibly competitive and there is a long line of distributors and supplier representative willing to train the hell out of your staff for free. They will even provide the samples and training materials free of charge. Even a small restaurant could have a free training session every day of the week because sales representatives are under such pressure to sell product. - Wholesalers are overloaded with product and always have a long list of good wines available at severely reduced prices. This is an absolute gold mine for the smart restaurant. They can offer excellent wines at great prices and still make a fortune. - This competitive environment combined with the incredible breadth of selection available in the USA (and the UK) means that you really have to be brain dead to not put together a wine by the glass list that is both interesting and profitable. The only reasons to have a poor wine-by-the-glass selection are that the owners don't care or the customers can't tell the difference. While it is not reasonable to expect chain restaurants like Friday's to have anything other than a selection of mass produced wines (after all they are the perfect match to their mass produced food) independents really have no excuse and are missing an opportunity to differentiate themselves from chain restaurants by not having a good wine program.

at the very least, cava is made following the methode champenoise. i'm not sure about Korbel, though. Both Cava and Korbel are made by the traditional methode champenois.

at the very least, cava is made following the methode champenoise. i'm not sure about Korbel, though. Tom tom- I think cava is definitely vat fermented although there maybe some higher-end exceptions. Cava must be made only by the traditional Champagne method.

Spain no longer uses the term "Champagne". None of the European countries can use it anymore. They can't even use the term "champagne method".

Korbel has been calling its wine "Champagne" for around 120 years. website here The make good, clean champagne method sparking wine of no particular serious interest.

They also simply don't know that Pouilly Fuisse is made from chardonnay.

Bialetti is a very high quality brand, but there are many others. As you go up in price you start paying more for design than function - a moka after all is a very simple concept. Concerning size remember that you always have to make a full pot and need to use it often to make good coffee so don't get one too big - just big enough to handle your everyday needs. Then if you have guests you just make additional pots. I would think filtered NYC water is fine, but I'll let the New Yorkers comment on that.

"Our industry just doesn't do as good a job as possible with wine," says Chris Tripoli, a San Antonio consultant who has worked with several Tarrant County restaurants. "Not all of them, of course, but a lot have missed the point that there has been a tremendous movement among consumers to try wines. It's not just reserved for the social elite or business expense accounts anymore."

I'll add Italy to the list too. Christian Moueix, owner of Château Pétrus and several other leading right-bank Bordeaux châteaux, has spoken out against wine producers in Bordeaux

Paul Dolan is not a politician but a farmer--more specifically, a fourth-generation wine-maker. But his new book, True to Our Roots: Fermenting a Business Revolution (Bloomberg Press, $27.95), is not really about wine or vineyards. The book (co-written with Thom Elkjer) is about taking a stand, then learning to live with the consequences. "A stand creates the trend that others want to follow. When you commit yourself to something that doesn't currently exist, you create real change, not incremental change," Dolan writes.

Interesting choice. Has anybody actually dropped the 65 bucks on this wine and tasted it? TOP WHITE OF 2003: E & J Gallo 1999 Estate Chardonnay ($64.95, 94) a silky textured, buttery layered toasty fusion of power and elegance.

I can't think of a statement I could disagree with more. Napa really sticks out in my mind too.

What is the most overrated wine region on the planet. The one that gets the big bucks, but just can't deliver bottled nirvana. Please make the case for your nominee.

Great idea!