Wines

This is an archival post taken from my old xanga blog. Comments have been disabled.

So several months ago I said I wanted to explore old cocktails and report my findings. I HAVE been exploring, but haven’t gotten around to writing about it, but maybe I will now that I’m on break. In the mean time, however, I want to go on a tangent and talk about wine. Most people drink a lot more wine than cocktails anyway, so maybe it will be a little more generally useful. Just as a disclaimer, though, I am no expert sommelier–just a very opinionated amateur.

Further, I’m mostly only going to talk about red wine, since there just isn’t much white wine I can get excited about. I don’t dislike white wine, i just find that most of it strikes at varying degrees of boring. Conventional wisdom is that you drink red wine with red meat, and foods that are spicy or have a tomato-based sauce. White wines (supposedly) should be paired with seafood (except salmon), poultry, and cream-based sauces. Personally, I say drink whatever you like. (Except you should drink rose/blush wines… never.) If you are worried about red wine over powering your food, then find a beer you like instead. There are some exceptions, though. In particularly with rich pasta dishes (e.g. carbonara), a dry white wine can cut the richness somewhat. Even though the wine might be boring, it does make the pasta dish more enjoyable. Also, when used as a cooking ingredient, white wine is much more forgiving than red wine, but thats another subject. anyway…

American Wines American Wines are generally classified by the type of grape used to make the wine (e.g. Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, etc.), whereas European wines, especially french, tend to be named after the region where they are produced (e.g. Bordeaux, Burgundy, etc.). This makes sense, as the tradition of making single varietal wines originated primarily with the Napa Valley wineries, while most European wines tend to be blended. There are american blends as well, but while some are very good, american blended wines tend to be made with grapes inferior to those used in single varietals. “Meritage” wines generally consist specifically of Cabernet and Merlot while “house wines” can be made from any of a wide range of grapes. I don’t drink a lot of blended wines, but Ca’del Solo Big House Red is a decent buy when on sale, especially if well decanted before drinking (more on that later).

Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are the two most common varietals in the United States. The flavors are similar, though cabernet tends to be a bit sweeter and less tannic. (“Tannic” refers to the presence of tannins, which are good for preventing heart disease and tanning leather, but not so good for wine flavor. If you chew the skins from red grapes, you notice, more than a distinct flavor, a sort of strange dry texture in your mouth. Thats due to tannins, and they produce the same experience when drinking young red wines.) In my experience, when buying relatively inexpensive wines (say, less than $20), you are better off with Cabernet, though oxygen breaks down tannins, so decanting can drastically improves young Merlots. Some people can “see past” the tannins and appreciate the other virtues Merlots have over Cabernets, but I’m not among them. However, once you cross into more expensive, and especially older wines, I prefer Merlot. Not that there aren’t great high-end Cabernets (Stag’s Leap comes to mind), but tannins break down readily with time, and a good Merlot generally yields a richer and more complex wine once mature.

While there are hundreds, if not thousands, of great wines from Napa, I’m a bit partial to the Columbia Valley wines from Washington. This might be because when I first started drinking wine regularly, Columbia Crest Cabernet was a staple in our house. It wasn’t as well recognized in the late 90s as it is now and for $7 at Costco you could get a bottle comparable in quality to lots of $12-15 Californian wines. They have since stratified their product line to include the “Two Vines” (~$7-8), “Grand Estates” (~$10-12), and “Reserve” (~$25-30) lines. The $7 Two Vines Cabernet is inferior to the wines we got at Costco back then, which has more in common with the Grand Estates Cabernet now available. The latter is still a good buy if you find it marked down a few dollars, which isn’t uncommon.

Columbia Crest Winery should not be confused with Columbia Winery, which is located in the same region. Once you cross into the $30+ price range, Columbia Winery makes some wines that are good buys (my dad is especially partial to the 2000 Signature Series Otis Vinyard Merlot), but their cheaper wines are fairly unremarkable.

Part of why I decided to write this blog entry is because I just found what is probably me new favorite wine, which comes from the same region. We just got back from my Mom’s birthday dinner where we bought a bottle of Woodward Canyon 1998 Merlot with the first course. My brother isn’t a big wine drinker, but after we had poured a couple glasses for my dad and I, he could smell it across the table (!!!) and liked it so much he wanted to try it. Far and away the best nose (smell) on any wine I have had. The wine itself was also great; at least as good as anything I’ve ever had in the $50-60 range. We finished off the bottle before the entrees came, so we bought a bottle of the 2003 to finish the meal. Not as good as the ‘98, obviously, but still an exceptional wine. I looked around the web to get a sense for the price. I couldn’t find any of the 1998, but I found bottles of the 2000 vintage in the $34 range (less a 16% discount if you buy a case). I found a 1998 Cabernet for about $45, so the merlot of the same year should be about the same if you come across it, and other years should scale accordingly.

Back to the varietals: Pinot Noir is probably the next most common wine grape produced in the US and the resulting wine ranges from amazing to abysmal. Its a really temperamental grape and if the growing conditions aren’t perfect, the quality can suffer horribly. Quality of merlot and cabernet tends to vary substantially regionally, but is otherwise fairly consistent, so if you can find a wine you like from a particular winery, it will probably be safe to pick up a few bottles the next year and not have to worry about a big difference in the taste. With Pinot however, you might buy a 2003 vintage and love it, and then pick up a 2004 bottle of the same wine and be utterly disappointed. I’ve had some great pinots, but don’t remember what they were, so I’m not going to make any recommendations. I’m not trying to scare anyone off Pinot Noir, I just think its best to find a Pinot aficionado and get advice before buying. I buy a lot of cabernet and merlots selected more or less at random, just to try them out. While a lot of wines I end up with are fairly mediocre, they tend to be cheaper, so its not so disappointing, and I pretty much never end up with a wine I think is so bad that I pour it out. With Pinot Noir, thats not necessarily the case.

You also will sometimes come across Syrah (aka Shiraz) from American wineries. I’ll address those in…

Australian Wines Australia, from what I know, produces basically the same varietals as the United States, but in different proportions. Far and away, the most common grape grown in Australia is Syrah/Shiraz, which I personally hate. It has all the tannic evilness of a poor merlot with none of the depth and complexity. Some people claim to love it, but I figure its mass delusion. I’ve bought at least a dozen different australian syrahs, most of which came highly recommended, and I’ve been disappointed every time, so I’ve basically given up on australian wines. I’ve had a few merlots and cabernets from Australia as well, and was just as disappointed. I’m sure there must be some good wines somewhere down there, but I’ve quit looking. Also, almost all australian wines include sulfites and sulfates (preservatives) which are not only bad for you, but also reduce the benefit of aging and decanting, so there is not much you can do to salvage already overly tannic syrahs. There ARE some good wines that contain sulfites/sulfates, but they seem few and far between, so generally avoid them.

French Wines I’m not too knowledgeable on french wines, but in my experience, they don’t travel too well. I’ve had some great french wines while in europe but when I buy the same wine stateside they leave a lot to be desired. To be fair, the same can be said about american wines. When I tried buying my favorite wines from the US over there, I was generally disappointed. Plus, import duties (coming and going) seem to make them less cost effective.

Argentine and Chilean Wines There are some great wines coming from South America, but I don’t know much about them. I’ve bought a few bottles and have generally been pleased. South American wines also tend to be pretty inexpensive, so just buy whatever catches your attention and see if you like it.

Italian Wines Italian wines seem to be kind of stigmatized as inferior to those from other regions, but I think they are seriously underrated. I haven’t actually bought that many italian wines, but I’ve definitely found some great buys, particularly with Sangiovese and Chianti varietals. While I would agree the flavor isn’t as complex as a good merlot, those I’ve had have been cheap, full bodied, pleasantly sweet, and had very little tannin, even when young. Gabbiano and Spadina make wines that are widely available and make a good starting point.

Decanting and other considerations Basically this is just exposing the wine to oxygen, which breaks down some of the more astringent flavors in the wine, and it is neither art nor science. Traditionally, at least in the US, wines were opened an hour or two before being served, which helps, but in my opinion is not long enough, but beyond that its hard to be specific. Every wine is different, and things like humidity and temperature play into it as well. Wines that are older or more expensive tend to need less decanting, say 6-8 hours. Cheaper wines I generally pour into a decanter, leave open for about 8-10 hours, drink what I want, and then pour the rest back into the bottle and recork. By that point, plenty of oxygen has been introduced to the wine so it will continue to decant whether you like it or not. Some wines are best the first day they are opened, some are better on the 2nd day. I’ve actually even had some that were okay the first day, and worse the second day, but best on the third day. Pretty much all wines will begin to degrade by the fourth day after opening. However, one time a roommate bought a 1.5 litre bottle of some mass produced Merlot (Fetzer or some such), which we only drank a couple glasses from. We left for 3 days and forgot to recork the bottle the night before leaving. We came back and figured it turned to vinegar by that point, but I poured myself a glass on a dare. I’ll be damned if it hadn’t turned into a great bottle of wine! Way better than I could have hoped for from such mediocre beginnings. My recommendation is that once you find a wine you like, experiment with different decanting times to see what works best for that particular wine. Otherwise, its mostly just guesswork.

Serving temperature is controversial issue. Red wine is generally served at “room temperature” so most people assume that means in the low 70s. However, historically, “room temperature” meant “cellar temperature” which is usually around 55°F. In my experience, serving it that cold tends to mute the nose, and consequently the flavor. I like something in between, in the mid-60s. It is, by the way, acceptable to ask your server at a restaurant to chill a red wine you order before serving it. If he looks askance at you, rest assured that he is the ignorant uncouth one, and enjoy your meal.