I wrote a couple of weeks ago that when buying a blend, like bordeaux, you should focus less on vineyards/wine producers, and more on the vintages that produce good blends from all wineries. I'll try to put that theory to the test today by comparing one 2009 economically priced bordeaux Chateau Moulin Boyer's 2009 imprint (on sale for $11 at my local wine shop) against a Chateau La Grange De Grenet from the same year that I reviewed in the aforementioned column last month.
Before cracking open the bottle, the Moulin Boyer is a bit of a mystery. I
Archive for Red Wine
2010 Luc Pirlet Reserve Pinot Noir
by Dennis Mayer on May 11th, 2012 | Budget-Friendly Wine Review, Red Wine, Wine
Pinot noir is the meat-and-potatoes of red wines (appropriate enough, given that it's often well-paired with meat and potatoes.) It's often a flavorful wine that contains a bit of everything people expect in a good red: fruity, yet dry; complex and tannic. It's usually better aged for at least a couple of years, and you often see a lot of vintners compensating for this and selling a younger pinot by blending it with a bit of something sweeter (often merlot.) Pinot's an almost-always reliable varietal, though; if you're perusing a wine list and you see a decent 3-5 year
2009 Chateau La Grange de Grenet Bordeaux
by Dennis Mayer on May 1st, 2012 | Budget-Friendly Wine Review, Red Wine, Wine
We've written about Bordeaux before, but since Bordeaux is a blend, there's not really much we can take from one review and carry into the next. Different vintners grow grapes in different microclimates, use different proportions of different mother wines in making their blend, and age them differently. A savvy wine consumer could perhaps track a vineyard's Bordeaux from year to year, but considering the variations you can have in growing years, that's not a sure thing.
A better idea would be to track the years that were good for ALL vintners in an area, and plan your wine
A better idea would be to track the years that were good for ALL vintners in an area, and plan your wine
Arboreto 2010 Montepulciano D’Abruzzo
by Dennis Mayer on April 24th, 2012 | Italian Wine, Red Wine, Wine
Montepulciano is proving to be a reliable, if workaday, vintage for me. I've reviewed it before, and noticed similar characteristics to today's bottle, an Arboreto 2010 Montepulciano D'Abruzzo. Then, as now, we noted that the Montepulciano grape is known for vibrant fruit but thin skins (caused by temperate growing conditions in Abruzzo), which results in a wine loaded with fruit flavor, but without much tannic balance or complexity. (The sugar and acid in wine comes from the flesh of the fruit, but all the secondary flavor characteristics that separate a $5 bottle from a $50 bottle come from
2009 Canyon Oaks Shiraz
by Dennis Mayer on April 3rd, 2012 | California Wine, Red Wine, Wine
There's not always a 1-1 correlation, but in general, if you want value and quality in a wine, you should drink something that's closer to you (or, at least, easier to ship to you.) A wine grown in France might have more of a pedigree, but you can probably find something of a similar quality for a better price that's grown in California. (If you can find a vineyard closer to you that provides quality wine, all the better -- you'll get value, you'll enjoy your drink, and you'll be drinking sustainably. There can't be a much more enjoyable
