dmwine

There was someone in the DC retail scene several years ago (thankfully moved West, never to be seen again) who used to describe Mourvedre as "the good side of baby diapers."

The scary thing is, I understand this headline!

Hi Neil - Thanks for chiming in. As a wine journalist using this board to bounce some ideas off knowledgable wine/food lovers, let me reassure you and others that I have no intention of quoting anyone anywhere from this board without asking permission. That said, I will echo your comments on the Chardonnay. It showed rather well (on my tasting sheet at least) at the recent Atlantic Seaboard competition. Here's my article on that, which grew out of my musings in this thread. And I do want to talk to you about the Rkats ...! Dennis Horton's restlessness with grape varieties and his experimentation are undoubtedly one of the major factors - if not the major factor - in the growth of the Virginia wine industry.

Your "countless" $10 wines are old, out-of-date vintages and therefore closeouts rather than current releases, one suspects. Plus, your web site doesn't say how or where to buy them, even if one was willing to take a chance that they were still good (which some reds might be, especially from 1998 in VA) and stored properly. I tasted the 2005 Horton Viognier the other day at a friend's house, and it was delicious. I didn't ask how much it cost, but I'd wager it's more than $10. I wish more good VA wines were $10, but I don't think the economics can support that for the wineries.

Whole Foods in Silver Spring sells some guchi salts, including the chardonnay-smoked sea salt and a hawaiian red sea salt - some sort of clay mixed in. The flavor on the latter isn't very distinct, but it makes for an interesting presentation when sprinkled on a dish.

Well before 1981, my dad used to make himself a salad from the "Fixins Bar" at Roy Rogers. I swear they put up the "THIS IS NOT A SALAD BAR" sign because of him. It was sooooooooo embarrassing .... Not that this explains my dislike of rabbit food or anything.

There are some very nice NY chards, which tend to be made in a less-oaky or even unoaked style, therefore more emphasis on fruit. Again, it's not your California wine. Chateau Lafayette-Renault makes a nice one (and some great dry Riesling). Millbrook from Hudson River makes a nice chard in a more oaky style. From Long Island, one of the flat-out best chards I've ever had was Pellegrini - very Burgundian and only about $15 a bottle. That one could put California $45 chards to shame. In the self-promotion department, I wrote about NY wines last year in the San Francisco Chronicle Wine section.

You folks are too rich for me. But I enjoy my vicarious gratification while munching my pretzels. Is there a thread on Chik-fil-A?

My eye-opener experience with Barboursville came a few years back when I was tasting a lot of East coast wines for an article. I opened the Barboursville 1998 Cab Franc along with the Millbrook 1998 Proprietor's Reserve Cab Franc from Hudson Valley, NY. Both tasted fine but unexciting. I put the corks back in the 3/4-full bottles and went on to something else. The next night, both wines had opened magnificently and knocked my socks off. A complete transformation. Of course, this results in me raving about these wines and people pulling a cork, taking a sip and saying "Eh, it's OK." Then they finish the bottle because it's open, not realizing the treasure of delayed gratification. And they conclude that I'm nuts. This characteristic has obvious potential for aging the wines, but just-as-obvious problems for putting them on restaurant wine lists. "Umm, for my reservation tomorrow, could you please open a Barbie for me tonight?"

The list is growing: Breaux, Barboursville, Veritas, Rappahannock Cellars, Chrysalis, Linden, Keswick, Blenheim, White Hall (reasonably priced!!), Rockbridge, Michael Shaps, Wintergreen, to name a few off the top of my head. Consistently good and on the whole getting better each year, even in crappy weather. In the recent contest, I even scored a Chateau Morrissette Cab Franc highly; I never thought that would happen based on my previous experience with them (thank goodness for blind tasting!). And Oakencroft seems to have revived. Most of these places apparently sell enough wine to stay in business, even though availability, price and consumer skepticism are obstacles. (And the recent Virginia law that has already knocked Farfelu out of business.)

The Finger Lakes wineries produce some excellent dry Riesling. Thank you all for the comments. I agree the farmer's market analogy may be questionable, but some of the comments here echo my main points - we assume local wines are "sucky", therefore they have to prove to us that they are not, while we assume California wines are good, unless they prove to us they are not. I'm not talking about comparing a $10 California Cab Franc with a $20 Virginia, but equal prices and equal quality (if different flavors!!!!) - the average consumer (and these are relatively enlightened consumers even to get this far) would still likely argue the Virginia wine is over priced because $20 seems like too much to pay for a wine that is by definition "sucky". This is a tenuous and difficult argument I'm proposing, and I fully recognize the inherent tautology. But I feel that local wines are not getting an even playing field. Yes, they need to earn it, but increasingly they are. I judged this East Coast contest two years running now, and there is some delicious Tannat being produced in Georgia, delectably fruity Caberent Sauvignon from New Jersey, Viognier and Cab Franc from North Carolina. Chaddsford in Pennsylvania makes some of the best darn $20 Chard I've ever tasted. Last month's contest featured 20 judges, most of them professionals (chefs, sommeliers, writers, importers and retailers) and a few amateurs (knowledgeable consumers). Yet I heard judges subtracting points because "they cost too much" - even though the wineries and prices were unknown to us. If these people, in such a context, cannot divorce their perception of the prices from their judgment of the wines, I can only imagine what consumers do at the retail shelf. For Virginia wines, DC seems a natural market, except for the distribution laws. I've long argued that Virginia should make a concerted attack on Washington - Lee failed, but Dennis Horton could succeed. But I understand why they're wary of making such an effort.

The Domaine de Fontsainte Gris de Gris from Corbieres (a Kermit Lynch import) 2005 is delish - great acidity, bright fruit and balance, perfect with heirloom tomatoes and basil ... I got it at Whole Foods P st - can't remember the price, but probably around $12.

I've never started a thread here before, and my interventions tend to kill lively discussions, so at the risk of hearing no response but the crickets outside my window, here goes. This is something I'm working on for my blog or newsletter, based on my recent experience judging the 2d Annual Atlantic Seaboard Vinifera Wine Competition. I'll include more on the competition later if there's any interest. But I'd love everyone's thoughts about these points: Although I live along the East Coast, I find a distressing amount of consumer resistance to the idea that good wine can be grown here. “Oh yeah, I hear there’s good wine in New York, but we can’t get it here,” is a common complaint (or excuse) in the DC area. Or I hear this one: “Yeah, this is an excellent wine from Virginia, but the nerve of them to charge 20 bucks ” This from people who wouldn’t flinch at paying a little more at a farmer’s market for fresh produce or cheese that is “local.” There is also consumer resistance to unusual grapes. Wines from Petit Manseng or the tongue-twisting Rkatsiteli (think of it as Fluffy channeling Animal Planet) can be ripe, beautifully structured and thrilling (yes, I’m thinking of Horton and Dr. Konstantin Frank, respectively), but they are also unfamiliar to our palates, and many people just can’t get over their fear of the unknown. There’s an unspoken bias that says, “If the wine is from [iNSERT NAME OF ANY ONE OF 47 STATES HERE], it must be crap, unless it proves to me otherwise. If it’s from California/Oregon/Washington, it must be good, unless it proves otherwise.” Good wine is grown here, and it really is irrelevant that $20 will give you more options in California Merlot than equal quality Virginia Cab Franc. There’s plenty of bad wine produced in California, after all. We can no longer assume that local wine is bad and insist that they prove otherwise - we just have to learn to accept these wines for what they are. We as consumers (and writers) need to open our minds to new grape varieties and new flavors, and stop mentally subtracting points from East Coast wines simply because they are not from California, Italy, France or anywhere else. They are what they are, and they are getting better all the time. Let’s applaud that. (Note to winemakers: You can help us change our outlook if, whenever you manage to ripen your Cabernet Franc, you stop comparing it to Cheval Blanc.)

I apologize, but how could anyone be wondering if a "PGA-themed restaurant" could be any good?

Didn't he give Zero to Two Quail when he introduced the system in his Dining Guide way back when? I think this will be the first body slam since then. Maybe the new Clyde's based on his comments? Or is that too obvious?

Lynch is also a fine wine writer, even if he is promoting his own stuff. You should call his store and ask to be put on the mailing list for his monthly newsletter. It's a mouth-watering hoot, even if you can't order direct from the store. Years ago, my wife and I fell in love with Domaine de Trevallon, from Les Baux de Provence. We discovered the 1991 at Morris Miller for $23. At the time, Cleveland Park had it for $29, and the manager there would sniff, "well, Kermit puts his name on the label and then charges more, so you're paying for his ego." (Some idjits used to say the same of Bobby Kacher; nowadays so many importers use their own name I don't hear this much anymore.) Anyway, my wife called Lynch's store in Berkeley, and they sent us a case at $16/btl + $36 for shipping, or a net of $19/btl. We bought a case each vintage through 1994, when the winemaker apparently read his ratings and doubled the price he charged Lynch. That put it out of our price range. Meanwhile, we also explored elsewhere in Lynch's catalogue, and my wife had such a good telephone rapport with one of his staff that she would just say "send me a mixed case for $XX", and a few days later the wines would be on our doorstep, nice and cool in their styrofoam packaging even in hot weather. Then of course the Prohibitionists in Annapolis and elsewhere began cracking down on direct shipping. Lynch stopped taking our phone calls. (Well, at least our phone orders ...) For several years he even printed a special edition of his newsletter without prices to send to out-of-staters. The newsletter lists prices again, but I still live in Maryland. I've lost sight of Trevallon, and my long-planned vertical tasting never happened because I lost the wine in a fire. Oh well. Our current fave is the Trignon Rasteau, which we occasionally see on shelves here at around $20.

I believe this was around 1994-1995. Julia had a burst of activity in which she produced three books in about four years: Cooking with Master Chefs, In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, and Baking with Julia. Each book had its corresponding series.

Mayorga Coffee Shop has a wine bar.

Good thing I shaved my beard years ago. My wife, BTW, thinks that guy looks nothing like me. Cheers, Hassem Glad to help, Mark! I never really thought of that, to tell the truth. But I just googled "monkey farts" and found several references to scented candles and bath salts , plus one Seamus Kennedy, but no mention of you. Perhaps we need to generate a lot of hits on my blog to boost the Web traffic ....

Wow - getting free wine advice from Mark Slater - most people pay $150 a head for the same! Of course, some extraneous food comes with it ... There's plenty of good advice here, actually, but I'd like to expand on one: store tastings. In DC, most stores open a few wines each Saturday for customers to sample. Some are purely marketing (look out for the glam wine girls at Magruders, usually pushing Red Bicyclette ...) Some, however, are actually instructional. Bells on M St b/w 18 and 19 opens 10 bottles each Saturday at 12:15, the tasting goes to 2 pm. Their selection is somewhat idiosyncratic, but the emphasis is on CHEAP and good. The tastings often include wines they don't have yet, but they want to get some customer reaction. Anyone is welcome, and the group stands around and trashes the wines as they themselves get trashed. Well, not really, no one's drinking that much, but you get the idea. The only rule is that you have to taste in order - as Bob Luskin, one of the owners, says, "If I suffer, you suffer." So you will have to taste a white or two to get to the reds, but as you do so, and listen and discuss the wines with everyone else there, you will learn more about what you like and dislike in each sample. You will hear a lot of, "That's a good $10 wine - too bad it costs $20!" Arrowine is indeed another good store. Look for their tastings that feature a particular importer. Get to know the importer's name and style of wine. ("Read the back label" is one of my mottoes for learning about imported wines - if you like one Robert Kacher Rhone, you may like another.) As you focus on inexpensive wines, don't ignore stores that feature costly ones. The Vineyard in McLean, or Wide World of Wines on Wisconsin in Glover Heights, are both known for higher-end, quality wines, but they also have some bargains. Remember, if the $10 bottle impressed the guy who mostly sells $50 wines, it is probably pretty good. Find some wine writings you like. This site is a good source for information, especially on what's good and available in this market and where to find it. At the risk of, ahem, shameless self-promotion, I try to highlight high-value, affordable wines in my writing on my Web site, dmwineline.com. Not systematic writing, just fun and idiosyncratic, and hopefully helpful. And as you learn about wines, and which ones you like or don't, you may find yourself paying more attention to the world around you - at least in an olfactory sense. My other motto for learning about wine is "Smell everything, taste with discretion." You'll hear people talking about "barnyard" or "rosehips" or "cat's pee" in their wines. You won't be able to pick up the hint of violets in a good Rhone grenache if you don't enjoy your surroundings. And when you and your future wife have children, and your kid sticks his nose in your glass and says, "This smells like green beans and monkey farts," well, you'd better know at least half of what he's talking about. Some practical advice for $10 reds: Bonny Doon's Big House Red Argentina (Alamos, Trumpeter - Malbec, Cab, Merlot and Pinot) Chile (Cousino-Macul, Santa Rita 120, 2 Brothers - Cab, Merlot, Syrah) Cheers!

Look for the link to it under "previous posts" down the right side; click on that and you have the specific post.

Jack Abramoff's house wine this summer?

Not likely. I met with the winemaker, Peter Gago, in Baltimore last night with a group, tasting the Grange from '79 through '01, from magnums that had been opened 12 hours before and double-decanted for a morning tasting with HE WHO MUST BE OBEYED. I'll post more on my blog in a few days, but suffice to say that the wines showed a remarkable consistency of style, even while revealing vintage differences. Joe, your 1981 was showing nicely, but lighter and less intense than the '80 to my taste. We were up to the '86 before I noted that the wine tasted like a "young" shiraz. I tend to like the blowsy, flirtatious type (hey, I'm an easy date! ), so I swooned for the '88, '89, '97. The '90, '91, '92 and '94 were more structured and tight, indicating that they are not yet revealing their full potential. Those were the geeky wines. The '01, recently released, was of course massive, tight and tannic. But the tannins were well integrated. I've never been able to pay that much for a bottle of wine, so I won't be stocking up. But this was my first chance to taste so many Grange vintages at once - they justify the hype.

Damn, and I'm already on my fifth espresso! Any more party-pooping like that, and I'm gonna triple space.

White tuna is escolar. It has similar texture to tuna, but milder flavor.