Posted on 05/02/2002 7:33:59 PM PDT by ex-Texan
Now I am happy to find a good wine from Oz, or Chile, or the West Coast ..... Happy to see dinner guests smile at $ 10 a bottle, too.
Now if only we could get our girlfriends to stop buying Pinot Grigio...
On a bet, I will drink Eiswein - If it is our anniversary, and my wife wants some. Otherwise, gimme a BIER!
Red wine tastes much better and has a better bouquet in the thinner air high in the montains.
On a hot day, gimme a beer.
A good article about current trends in merlot growing can be found here. Wine enthusiasts will also find St. Helena viticulturalist Richard Nagaoka's "Ask the Grape Doctor" series of articles interesting too.
Anyone know?
A highly suspect statement, IMHO. Robert Parker estimates that the average formula for red wines in the Médoc (a subregion of Bordeaux which includes the great majority of its most notable wines) is on the order of 60-65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20-25% Merlot, and 10-15% Cabernet Franc.
I had avoided red wine for years because it gave me a headache except for Beaujolais Nouveau.
Trouble is the Nouveau arrives in November and should be consumed by Christmas. (Otherwise you can use if on fish & chips.)
Every November we party on escargots and nouveau.
Then one day when I was shopping for a wine to serve a guest. The vintner suggested a red. I complained that the only red that did not give me a headache was the nouveau. She suggested that I should try other new wines as my headaches came from drinking aged wines. She suggested a Gamay Noir or a Merlot.
It is not what one would ordinarily think of serving a guest, but they are both good conservative choices and they don't cause headaches.
For watching a ball game or a cricket match, beer or ale is better than wine, but wine is a staple with evening meals.
My cardiologist also recommends a glass of red wine as being good for the heart.
But I hate wine, and schockolade - well, never mind.
I hardly ever drink it, except in Bordeaux-style blends. There are a few famous Merlot-only bottlings including especially Chateau Petrus and also the Ornellaia Masseto from Tuscany. I had a bottle of the 1995 Masseto last year in Florence and it was one of the best things I ever drank. Well worth the $150 it cost me.
However, these great wines are exceptions to the rule of flabby, undistinguished Merlots on every restaurant list. Give me a good Cabernet or Shiraz any day.
-ccm
We are talking now about estate bottled Ridge wines from the mid-1980's. Sold for about $ 20. Bet you can't buy one of those now for less than $ 200. If you can find one.
Call ME cheap - I would not pay that for dinner.
Of course, being half-scot and halb-deutsch, I am tight with a penny, and militant about it.
The Rosemount Shiraz just won a gold medal at the Dallas Morning News Wine Tasting.
That's the reason it has been primarily a blending wine, for color and sometimes body, especially in Bordeaux where it ripens earlier (and more reliably and -shh... is easier to get away with chaptellizing) than the more complex Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Malbec grapes.
If you look at the 1855 classification, which has its faults, but is reasonably accurate, you will find that most (3 out of 5) of the top wines (First Growths) are from Pauilliac -- where Cabernet predominates in the blends (Mouton is up to 85% Cab), the exceptions being Margeaux and Haut Brion. Other than Cos D'Estornel (St. Julien), most of the 'super seconds' are also Paulliac: think the two Chateau Lalandes and that perennial 5th growth favorite, Lynch Bages.
In California, merlot was virtually unknown before 1970, when some people decided to bring it in as a blending grape to make more Bordeaux-like Cabernets.
Merlot became popular because of the ignorance of one man: Robert Parker. This self-taught "expert" did not (and to this day I would argue does not) understand Cabernet, and its life cycle, which requires a lifetime of study and a certain 'feel' for it. When he started tasting in Bordeaux, he was not enamoured of Paulliac wines because they were not straighforward and, in those days, built to be drunk at the age of ten or older, rather he was attracted to the simple, fruiter, less complex, less ageworthy wines of Pomerol and St. Emilion, where merlot dominates. Parker almost singlehandedly created the demand for merlot. It worked, because it requires no effort of understanding on the part of the drinker. But with any sophistication, one tends not to like merlot: a typical (pretty good) merlot has a fruity, decently grapey nose, and a good entry into the mouth. In the better merlots, the middle palate (the taste in your mouth as you hold the wine in your mouth) is good, but in most, the middle palate is very flat tasting. And with rare exceptions, merlot has a short, uninteresting finish. The reason the finish is poor is a lack of adequate tannin.
In my life, I have found but one Merlot (other than the biggies from Bordeaux) that I could drink with pleasure: 1985 Matanzas Creek. I actually bought three cases (1 in mags all aging nicely) of it.
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