How We Buy Wine

Like it or not, most American consumers buy wine on the basis of the shelf-talkers--those little cards like the one to the right--that greet us at our favorite wine shop, bargain warehouse, supermarket, or liquor store. Prominently displayed on most shelf-talkers is a point score, along with the name of a wine critic or a prestigious wine publication. Even if there is a knowledgeable and helpful staff person we trust roaming around offering assistance, seeing that number gives most consumers a warm and safe feeling, especially if you don't know the winemaker or the varietal. Seriously, is there any wine drinker who can honestly say they have NEVER looked at a shelf-talker and been influenced by the points noted on it? I know I can't say that. (shelf-talker from Ferrari-Carano)

But there is evidence that the influence of the major magazine's points-ratings and the handful of major critics who write them is beginning to play less of a role in the decisions consumers make, and that winery CEOs are showing less inclination to tailor their winemaking to suit the palates of a handful of critics and reviewers.

Jack Heeger reported in the Napa Valley Register that Scion Advisors, a Napa Valley research firm, conducted a survey of 500 wine business leaders to see if they thought that ratings helped to sell wine. I was surprised when the respondents were almost equally divided on the issue. 32% said the influence of ratings on consumers was the same as it was 5 years ago. 32% said the influence of ratings on consumers was greater than it had been 5 years ago. And 36% said that the influence of ratings was less than it was 5 years ago. Happily, 61% said that they "would not pursue a strategy specifically to increase scores."

As you know, I don't do scores on this blog. Crafty folks who frequent CellarTracker can probably find my scores there, and folks on Snooth will see my scores turned into stars for some of my tasting notes that have been added from CellarTracker to their growing database. Here, though, I've never felt that they were appropriate. I'm neither a professional, nor an expert. I'm just a dedicated amateur. But some in the blogosphere have been trying to get wine bloggers to join together under a common standard of ratings to increase our power with respect to the big critics and the big mags. And they make some good points about the value of a similar evaluation standard across the wine blogosphere.

But the survey results make me wonder if bloggers need to make this step. Te popularity of wine blogs indicates that consumers are finding alternative sources for wine information. Wine enthusiasts are finding wine bloggers, and wine bloggers are already shaping wine buying habits. More importantly, I don't agree with the fine details of the proposed ratings system, where 2 stars is an "average" wine. I drink a lot of "average" wine that I think is a pretty good buy and report on it on this site, but I can't imagine that 2/5 stars would encourage anyone to buy it.

What do you think? Would you find this blog more useful if I added a 5-star rating system to my QPR notation? You know I believe that wine scores of any sort tend to give wine reviews a false sense of objectivity in what is, after all, a completely subjective experience. All things considered, and much as I usually throw my hat in the blogging ring when a new idea comes about, I'm not inclined to make this move. But I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this issue.

"Naked" Pinot Noir

In honor of the 3rd anniversary of Wine Blogging Wednesday, I'm featuring "naked" or unoaked wines this week. You'll be able to see my reactions to an unoaked chardonnay (the theme for this month's event) on Wednesday, but to get us started I've got a review of an unoaked pinot noir from the Russian River Valley.

Yes, an unoaked pinot noir. SoloRosa Winery, which is known more for its roses than its reds, is now bottling a wine made from pinot fruit from the Russian River Valley AVA that has never seen the inside of an oak barrel. Labeled "Piccolo Rosso" ("little red" in Italian) this wine can best be described as halfway between a cru beaujolais and a pinot noir. Lighter in color and texture than a pinot noir, but with a bit more meatiness than most beaujolais, I found it to be a nice change of pace. Even better, it is under $20!

Everything about the 2006 Solo Rosa "Piccolo Rosso" Pinot Noir ($17.99, domaine547) reminded me of cherries. First, it was cherry-colored in my glass, and the edges tended to fade away towards a translucent rose that was more pale than I'm used to seeing in pinot. Then, aromas of cherry were accompanied by a faint whiff of rose petals and even a touch of cinnamon. Finally, the flavors were fruity and herbal with cherry and rhubarb predominating and a bit of meatiness coming through on each swallow. Without the oak, this wine was not as silky as the pinot noirs I'm used to, and the texture and good acidity of this wine reminded me strongly of a gamay wine. At a time when most pinots are very expensive, and cru beaujolais can be hard to find on the west coast, this wine represented good QPR .

This wine would be a refreshing choice if you are looking for something to serve with BBQ, pizza, pasta with red sauce, or even French onion soup. I caramelized some onions, threw a few tablespoons of sherry and some thyme into the pan, and combined it all with beef stock before loading it into a crock with some cheesy toasts to top off and it was a very nice combination. The sweet onions drew out the sweetness of the cherry fruit, the beef stock picked up its meaty notes, and the thyme and rhubarb flavors worked well together and accentuated the wine's herbal qualities. Most of all, the wine didn't overwhelm the subtle flavors of soup.

Check back on Wednesday for more unwooded bliss for WBW #36!

Wine Shopping in Healdsburg: The Wine Shop

If you are traveling in the Sonoma wine country and are making a stop in the charming town of Healdsburg, make sure to leave some time to visit The Wine Shop. When I stopped in recently, owner Mark Friedrich was there and it was one of the most enjoyable wine shopping trips that I've had in some time.

The Wine Shop is a wine shop lets you taste before you buy, just like Hillaire Belloc advised in 1935. There is a small tasting bar, and Mark had an array of about a dozen wines up on the bar. Four pours were $10, and you could take your pick from among the wines on offer. I really liked having the opportunity to mix and match the wines I wanted to taste, and decided to focus on local bottlings, along with a wine I've been wanting to try.

Here are the wines I chose:

2006 Leo Steen Chenin Blanc Saini Farms ($17) A dry, dry wine with crisp acidity, loads of citrus, and a bracing finish. Good QPR.

2006 Saxon Brown Semillon Cricket Creek ($20). Melon and peach aromas and flavors with citrus notes make for an excellent dry semillon that is far less flabby and has more focus than many domestic bottlings of this varietal. Excellent QPR.

2005 Cep Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast ($29). Extraordinary aromas of blackberry, chocolate and a tinge of coconut are the leading edge of this rich, blackberry-flavored wine. Dusty tannins are still fairly evident, so it may be even better in 6 months time. I liked this wine a lot, but it won't be to everyone's taste. Very Good QPR.

2004 Niepoort Douro Vertente ($29). Aromas and flavors of bitter almond with smooth red fruits, lots of structure from a good backbone of acidity. Will get even better with age, but it is drinking very well now. Very Good QPR.

After tasting I had a browse around the store, which was full to the brim of great Sonoma County bottlings that you just aren't going to see everywhere. They come from small production wineries, and are picked with real care. There was a great selection of syrah, pinot noir, and zinfandel, which is understandable given the local growing trends, but the shop also has a wide selection of high-end cabernet and chardonnay, too. The imported wine selection is small, but a store that stocks Portuguese table wine is doing just fine in my books! They also have some wine accessories like Wine-Away (in the handy pocket size, perfect for traveling in the wine country), cans of inert gas, and corkscrews.

The Wine Shop is located on Healdsburg Avenue just as you reach the square, which makes it a perfect spot to stop off after having lunch or doing a bit of shopping. The store ships wine to states that allow it, so you won't have to schlep your wine on the plane. You will enjoy talking to Mark as I did, or his associate Pedro Rusk. Sitting at their wine bar, listening to the conversations as folks chose their wines, and learning about Sonoma County wine was a real pleasure. I know I'll be back there soon.

Classic Wine Advice

In 1935, Huey Long was assassinated in Louisiana, Fred Perry won Wimbledon, It Happened One Night won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, and the Nazis enacted the Nuremberg Laws against the Jews. Also in 1935 Miss Bridget Herbert got married, and to celebrate her nuptials Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953), the famous essayist and poet, penned a small book that contained classic advice on wine and housekeeping. Dipping into it in 2007 is a treat, and reminded me how much has changed in the world of wine, and how some things remain the same.

Like most wine lovers, Belloc was a man of strong opinions. The book opens: "Never warm Red wine. This deleterious practice is called by the vulgar 'taking the Chill off.'" Over the course of 37 pages Belloc discusses corkscrews, how to baptize wine, how to remove bad corks, where and how to buy wine, how to bottle it, and a score of other topics. He is a fan of white wine from Orvieto, and red wine from Burgundy. He likes his champagne with a bit of sweetness, and his white wines not to be served too cold. Nothing but sea salt touched his food, and his coffee-making standards were so high I imagine he never had a cup that satisfied him.

Reading Belloc's book of advice gives us a glimpse into a lost world of wine, where consumers tasted wine from merchant barrels before being bottled and where it was even conceivable that you might have a bottling operation in your own cellar (provided you could find 6 friends to help you and some garden trellis to temporarily hold the bottles). Belloc mentions long-dead wine merchants by name who he trusted to sell him the same wine in bottles that he had tasted from the barrel. He instructs Miss Herbert to stay in room 90 at the Hotel des Voyageurs in Nantes when she goes to visit his favorite wholesaler to buy French wine. And he put a lot of stock in the purchasing power of Mr. Heath who ran the wine department for the Army and Navy stores.

72 years on, it is hard to follow some of his advice ("never buy anything you have not tasted"), while some seems timeless and relevant ("divide your buying of wine into two clear departments 1) buying ordinary wine 2) buying special wine"). This mixture of past preoccupations and classic concerns is what makes this book so fascinating. In 1960, Belloc's friend Evelyn Waugh got permission to reprint the slim volume under the simple title Advice, and though it is out of print today you can still find copies (as I did) on Alibris for around $20. The book is beautifully bound, and printed in two inks (red and black) with reproductions of Belloc's original pen and ink sketches. If you need a gift for a wine lover (or for yourself) and enjoy taking a peek into the past, I highly recommend this book.

Persistence: More Burgundian Adventures

It's been a while since I've opened one of my precious bottles of Burgundian pinot noir to continue my novice exploration of the region and its wines. Burgundy makes me anxious--and one of this year's wine resolutions was to start learning about the wines so that I don't break into a cold sweat whenever I see one in the store.

So far I've been drinking wines from a single maker (Vincent Girardin, bottled under the "Baron de la Charriere" label for the European market) and a single vintage (2000). I bought my Burgundies back in January from Chronicle Wine Cellar, and have so far opened the Volnay (which taught me a lot about how balanced Burgundy can be) and the Nuits St. Georges (which was all about how a wine could develop and change from one glass to the next). Tonight it was time to venture into the region achored by the French commune of Aloxe-Corton in the Cote de Beaune. Known for its whites (Corton-Charlemagne) as well as its reds (the Corton Grand Crus), this wine comes from the subdivision of Corton Renardes.

As with all of my previous adventures in Burgundy, the 2000 Baron de la Charrière Corton Renardes was a simply amazing pinot noir (Chronicle Wine Cellar, $24.95; Rosso Wine Shop, $39.99). What stood out about this wine was its persistence. This wine had the longest finish imaginable, but the real charm of it was the way in which the aromas stuck with you from the first sniffs to the last whisper in your mouth. It was a beautiful dark ruby in color, just like a ripe cherry. When I first opened the bottle, I was greeted by sour cherry and blackberry fruit aromas laced with a hint of stone and mineral. The flavors involved layer after layer of cherry, black cherry, and sour cherry along with a bit of gamy meatiness that gave the wine complexity and interest. After you swallowed, your mouth continued to sing with creamy sour cherry, white pepper, leather, and chocolate.

As I know next to nothing about red Burgundies, I'm reluctant to make any kind of grand pronouncements about this wine other than these. For $24. 95, this represented excellent QPR. If I had paid $40, I would still not feel ripped off in the slightest. Burgundy makes great, thoughtful pinot noirs and I can see why some people are obsessed with them. Every bottle I drink is a revelation, and every bottle I drink makes me want to buy more. Happily I have another bottle of this, which I plan to open next year so that I can see what another year of age does for it.

It's pretty hard to imagine this wine getting better, but check back next July and see.