31
Dec
2015
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Familiar spaces with (mostly) new faces

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At this time of year, we tend to look back in time — but usually only to that particular annum. I’m hopping into the Semi-Way-Back-Machine and taking a gander at 2005, specifically the Twin Cites wine stores that opened that year.

And talk about the times-they-have-a-changed:

Cesare’s Wine Shop was tucked into a fantastic wine bar in Stillwater. In a sense, it still is. Original owners Robert and AleksLeslie Alexander have decamped to their beloved Italy, and after some shaky years, the operation was sold to another “Alex” of sorts, Aleks Pantic (left), with partner Rich Hoch. They renamed it Domacin, the restaurant side is going as strong as ever, and the Domacin Wine Shop (610 N. Main St., Stillwater) opened in 2012.

The Little Wine Shoppe (2236 Carter Av., St. Paul) also has a new owner, Pam Johnson, and is as great a destination as ever: diminutive, well stocked and almost impossibly charming. Former owner/operator Jeff Huff now has a swell new store in Lowertown, Revival Wine, Beer & Spirits (141 E. 4th Street, Suite 220, St. Paul).

North LoopAlso boasting a fab new owner is the erstwhile Sam’s Wine Shop. Now named after its bustling ‘hood, North Loop (218 Washington Av. N., Minneapolis) is a marvelously welcoming, hip-but-not-too space, and Lisa Impagliazzo has hired a stellar staff that includes the affable and estimable Darrin Minehan and the irascible and inimitable Lou Spector. (Sam’s founder Sam Haislet now works for Haskell’s, btw.)

The same scenario has unfolded at the Wine Market (720 Main Street, Mendota Heights). Initial poohbahs Kristen and Bob Kowalski closed up shop in 2009, but Corey Maple has resuscitated the stylish space, giving Mendota Heights three superior stops for fermented grape juice, along with Buon Giorno and Sunfish Cellars.

One store that opened in 2005 actually is gone for good: WineStyles in St. Louis Park, It was the first of a half-dozen or so local franchises of a company that never really caught on here and have all been shuttered.

Wine ThiefA much happier story, and the store with the most continuity, is Wine Thief (1787 St. Clair Av., St. Paul). From the get-go Paul Wentzel has done a consistently splendid job of stocking the homey store, and spouse KaTrina has written the best “shelf talkers” in the Twin Towns. More recently, they took over the adjacent space and installed a magnificent beer outlet, the Ale Jail.

Alas, KaTrina has taken a teaching job in California, and Paul is likely to be westward-bound soon as well.

But their urbane spaces are likely to fare just fine, in much the same fashion as most of the other retailers who opened in ’05. The faces might change, but the ardor for great wine — among the new proprietors and their customers — has, if anything, elevated mightily over the last decade.

25
Dec
2015
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Linkin’ logs: 12-25-15

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I supposed I should have a lot better things to do on Xmas morning than finishing up a blog post, but here you have it:

Clock• It’s Wine O’Clock somewhere — including in the Oxford Online Dictionary.

• Not sure who the fat guy who keeps popping up in here is … oh wait, it’s me, and this is a wonderful video my Brazil friends Fabio and Fabiane made of our Douro trip.

• My friend Chris Kassel shared this blast from the recent past: his “best holiday wines under $10,000.”

• And finally, a fitting message for this day of grace and celebration:
“A bell is no bell ’til you ring it.
A song is no song ’til you sing it.
And love in your heart wasn’t meant to stay
Love is not love ’til you give it away.”
– Oscar Hammerstein II

19
Dec
2015
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Lifelong lessons: 10 things I just learned about French wine

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For many of us, wine is the ultimate lifelong-learning experience. The more we learn, the more we realize how little we know, and trying to “know it all” is a fool’s errand.

So upon receiving so many wine reference books this year, I decided to really dive into them, starting with the handy-dandy, tastes-great/just filling-enough Food & Wine Guide 2016. I’ve glided through the French portion and picked up these 10 new (for me) nuggets:

Weinbach· I knew that the juice from one of my favorite Alsatian wineries tastes like it came from near a mountain stream, but I did not know that Weinbach (left) translates as “wine creek.”

· I knew that Alsatian wines labeled “Pinot Blanc” are almost invariably actually blends. But I did not know that most sparkling wines from that region were made from, you got it, the pinot blanc grape.

· I knew that white Bordeaux generally are sauvignon blanc-semillon blends, but I did not know that it’s the semillon that “gives Bordeaux’s white wines their ability to age.”

Saint-Bris· I knew that along with chardonnay, aligote is a white grape that Burgundians are allowed to grow, but I did not know that sauvignon blanc also is permitted there, in the northern village of Saint-Bris.

· I knew that there is a buttload of Louis Jadot wine on North American shelves, but I did not know that the winery has been owned by an American family, the Kopfs, since 1986.

· I knew that we’re seeing a lot more Muscadet these days (yay!), but I did not know that it is France’s largest white-wine appellation

· I knew that some lovely value-priced sauv blancs and other wines emanate from the Loire’s Touraine, but I did not know that perhaps the world’s foremost chenin blanc mecca, Vouvray, is part of Touraine.

Cote-Rotie· I knew that many Northern Rhone wines can be hard to find, but I did not know that that area produces only about 5 percent of the Rhone Valley’s total output.

· I knew that picpoul can be kinda tangy, but I did not know that the name translates as “lip-stinger.”

· I knew that cinsault was a native of the South of France, but I did not know that Provencals often eat it as a table grape.

 

18
Dec
2015
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Linkin’ logs: 12-18-15

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Man oh man, is there a buttload of cool stuff out there on the InterTubes in re. fermented grape juice. A few pieces of note:

• ‘Tis the season: VineArt passes along some cool research on music’s effects on wine tasting in the course of Xmaswriting about whether our favorite beverage and Xmas music are an apt pairing.

• This treatise is pretty thick, but it provides some great context on wine descriptors and doublethink.

• What’s ahead in the wide, wild world of wine in 2016? The redoubtable Jon Bonné has some prognostications.

• Most people acknowledge that a climate change is real, and vintners, especially in Napa and Champagne, are doing something about it.

• CNN offers up a swell “catch-up piece” on the possible benefits of wine consumption, including an especially cool timeline with tons of great historical nuggets.

• Finally, my kind of rescue operation:

Wine sign

6
Dec
2015
1

Linkin’ logs: Yesteryear

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So I’ve been sorting through some documents and stumbled across a few older links, interesting fodder from a few years back:

• Leave it to the Onion to find the most honest link between red wine and mental health, for better or worse.

• Something that’s not so healthy: smoking alcohol.

• Back to the family front: Wine and monogamy go together, according to some research that actually seems credible.

• Finally, from waaaay back, the bottom of a breakfast menu at a Baltimore hotel in the mid-19th century:

Bfast

6
Dec
2015
0

Wines of the Week: Nov. 30-Dec. 6

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Everyday: Perhaps no grape benefits more from vine age than carignan. The 2012 Domaine Lafage “Tessellae” Vielles Tessellae 2Vignes Carignan ($14) is a downright insane value, stout but approachable with strikingly good blue- and dark-red-fruit flavors, plus a bit of chocolate. And for those who wonder what all the talk about “minerality” is about, this French red can be revelatory, with a stony/slate-y texture at the fore. A custom cuvee from the fabulous importer Eric Solomon, this pure, seamless red will rock with barbecue and other meats cooked low ‘n’ slow. Plop on the striking, sturdy work of Ms. Etta James to round out the occasion.

Occasion: My friend Eric Asimov has called it the nation’s best gewürztraminer, and I’m inclined to concur. The 2013 Lazy Creek Vineyards Anderson Valley Gewürztraminer ($22) Lazy Creekis lovely to look at, gorgeously enticing to sniff (lychee! honeysuckle!) and flat-out delicious. Made with sustainably grown grapes, this Mendo marvel is made Alsatian-style, dry and crisp but rich in flavor, with pear and  stone fruit notes dominating. Almost jammy at the outset, it has a sturdy but uber-clean midpalate and finish. I can’t imagine a better wine for duck, but cured pork, smoked cheeses and mildly spicy Indian or Vietnamese dishes also would rock with this spicy delight. So would the glistening but fiery genius that was Mr. Jimi Hendrix.

5
Dec
2015
0

On longevity and more from wine savants

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There’s mounting evidence that wine in moderation makes us healthy and wise, if not wealthy. Some testimonials:

“[Wine is] a good counselor, a true friend, who neither bores nor irritates us: It does not send us to sleep, nor does it keep us Simonawake … It is always ready to cheer, to help, but not to bully us.” — Andre Simon (left), French wine authority

“[Wine is] the best elixir for guaranteeing a long life that has ever been invented.” — Leon Douarche, vice president of the French Winegrowers’ Association

“Consuming wine in moderation will help people to die young as late as possible.” — Dr. Philip Norrie

“God made man –
Frail as a bubble;
God made love –
Love made trouble;
God made the vine –
Was it a sin
That man made wine
To drown trouble in?”
— Anonymous

4
Dec
2015
0

Peter Stolpman, expressing thoughts on his expressive wines

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In working on another project, I got chance to interview Peter Stolpman, partner at his family’s eponymous winery in Peter StolpmanCalifornia’s Ballard Canyon. I’m a huge fan of the wines, so I took a few minutes to veer off-topic and talk about why they’re so compelling. An edited version of that interview:

What makes your grapes and your wines so distinctive?
No. 1 would be limestone. There are small pockets of the white rocks from our area all the way through Santa Cruz and toward Monte Bello. As you go up the coast, the limestone gets older. The younger limestone has higher Ph, so we have a super pH in our wines, nice acidity. Also dry farming, having the vines sucking to get to the root.

This is one of the only [U.S.] regions with a transverse [east-west mountain] range. So we are in a [wind] chute coming straight from ocean’s path after a duration of extreme heat. We will heat up to 90 but only for an hour, hour and a half, right after fog and before that wind comes in at 2, 2:30, a constant strong wind. So we have hardier varieties that continue to photosynthesize in that wind, like syrah in particular and the other Rhone varieties.

VineyardWe take people to the top of the mountain and point to the bottom, to cacti next to Ballard Creek. It’s parched, arid; you can feel the arid climate just like the northern Rhone.

Why did the much-predicted California syrah boom never happen?
What’s happened with syrah was that because of the hardiness of the grape, the entire industry gave in to the temptation of growing syrah wherever they were. … But it’s like the [previously ill-fated] Cal-Ital movement; people are gonna drink what they like.

In hot areas, you get a very ripe red wine, thick, rich, but you lose all the nuance that make syrah a noble grape … When we get together here [and drink syrah], we don’t talk about fruit. We talk about blood and iron and olive and meat. … It has returned to a niche. All the big companies have given up on it.

RoussanneYou also do really well with roussanne, which most people use as a blending grape. How did that come about?
We prefer our roussanne as a table wine, and we’re in a great situation, because we can pick in mid-November. We riddle the fruit in October to get the shaded part up; there’s great solar radiation in October and November, still warming up during the day and we get late sun, and so it continues to ripen. Winemakers will come out and say ‘what are you doing with all that late-harvest stuff?’ [chuckles] That’s how it’s picked. It blows people away, this beautiful gold color.

2
Dec
2015
0

Linkin’ logs: 12-2-15

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It’s a small world after all, or so they say (sorry for the earworm), but most of all it’s a fun and fulfilling world. To wit:

Pirate• Yar! Winemaker John Kelly explains why he’s a big fan of “pirate wines.”

• The estimable Jancis Robinson marks four full decades as a wine writer. Most of them as a nonpareil scribe who has aged as well as any wine.

• Talkin’ ’bout my kind of generation: Millennials are seriously embracing wine, and say they’ll stay that course.

• Apparently, “weed talk” is starting to resemble wine talk. Of course, I wouldn’t know a thing about such matters.

• VinePair provides a handy-dandy guide to pronouncing difficult vinous words. Of course, that always reminds me of this hilarious take on one oft-mangled region.

• Finally, a rationale of sorts for imbibing wines and spirits:

Alcohol Sign

1 … 17 18 19 20 21 … 106

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