Dave McIntyre's WineLine

Bien Nacido - An Iconic American Vineyard

California does not have storied vineyards such as Clos de Vougeot or Romanee-Conti in Burgundy, Clos Ste. Hune in Alsace and Clos du Mesnil in Champagne. Certain vineyards, however, have performed superbly enough - if over decades rather than centuries - to earn them special status as America's premier vineyards. One of those is Bien Nacido, at the northern end of the San Rafael Mountains in the Santa Maria Valley of Santa Barbara County.

The Miller family has owned this historic property - once part of a Spanish land grant - since the late 1960s, and they have carefully farmed it and helped build its reputation for premium wine grapes. But they have never made their own wine - until now. This year they will release their first bottlings under their own label.

I got an early taste when I visited the vineyard earlier this year. You can read about it in my feature in today's Washington Post Food section.

McDonnell pushes to privatize Virginia's liquor stores

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) argued again today for his proposal to privatize the commonwealth's liquor stores by auctioning off licenses and using the windfall for transportation construction.

McDonnell raised this idea during last year's campaign, but so far has met with skepticism. Critics fear the state will lose revenue and that privatization would mean less efficient regulation of alcoholic beverages.

Speaking on WTOP radio today, McDonnell argued that not only would the state receive a windfall from the sale of the licenses, but it would continue to benefit financially through annual taxes and fees, The Washington Post reported on its website.

The governor made an argument that should resonate in Montgomery County, Maryland, the nation's only county controlled liquor distribution system, and in other control states such as Pennsylvania:

"I don't think selling alcohol is a core function of government -- neither do most people,'' he said. "I don't think it's a core function of government to do it and I think the private sector can run the stores more efficiently. There are free market incentives to do it." 

More efficiently? Let's see, in Montgomery County, all alcoholic beverages are distributed out of an un-air conditioned warehouse (and of course we're baking in record heat this summer), with only one delivery per licensee per week. And the county tacks on a 25% surcharge for privilege of cooking your wine for you. Not to mention that most MoCo liquor stores have all the charm and warmth of a methadone clinic. The situation has gotten a little better - we have a few privately owned stores with dedicated owners that are willing to make the extra effort to work with the county and distributors. But the system is archaic and, like Virginia's, should be privatized.

Beat the hot weather with a cold rosé!

Here in the Eastern US, we’re stifling under one of the hottest summers on record. We’ve already passed our average number of 90-degree days for the year, and it isn’t even August yet!

No wine can beat summer’s torpor better than a cold, crisp rosé. Each year, I love going through the new crop of rosé wines from France, Spain and Italy, especially, to see which ones will accompany me through summer. This year, the 2009s held great promise, but I soon learned a lesson as I tasted through several from southern France. Last year may have been a wonderful vintage throughout France, but wines that benefit from being crisp and acidic ran the risk of turning out flabby in the riper-than-normal harvest.

There were still some very good ones, though. Here are a few of my favorites, as I shared recently in my Washington Post wine column. I’ll recommend some more in future posts.

Stay cool!

Happy 30th Anniversary to Becky Wasserman!

Becky Wasserman is the grande dame of Burgundy. An American ex-pat, for the past 30 years she has represented many of Burgundy's greatest estates, helping sell their wines to the United States, Britain and elsewhere. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to visit with Becky in her offices in Beaune, on a cute little side street off a large square. It would have been idyllic except for the street construction that seemed, she said, to go on interminably. As I look out on my own suburban street, torn up for the second summer in a row for some mysterious water main repair, I want to say to Becky, "It's not just the French!"

My profile of Becky appeared in Wednesday's Washington Post. The photo shows Becky with David Croix (left) of Maison Camille Giroud and Jean-Yves Devevey of Domaine Devevey.

Sirloin Steak, with a side of WHAT?

I'm a big fan of Gene Weingarten, The Washington Post's humor writer. Not just because he has won two Pulitzers, which qualifies him for journalist deification (careful how you type that ...), or even because his name includes my favorite beverage, but because he makes me laugh every Sunday. Weingarten combines a canny understanding of human foibles with a clear knowledge of what makes something funny, and then tosses in the occasional potty joke for good measure.

Today's column is one I will keep and reread often. The folks at the Post Food section have been bedeviled for years by a particularly misanthropic and mean-spirited reader who posts snarky and well, downright false and nasty comments on articles, blog posts and live chats. (He has also pestered Todd Kliman over at Washingtonian, but lately seems rather friendly toward Todd.) Last Thursday, this creep, using the alias "sheepherder," posted two particularly dyspeptic comments on my All You Can Eat blog post about local wines (I ran the post here Friday, without the comments). It seems that I never write about local wines, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

So anyway, in Sunday's column, Gene discusses how the newspaper biz has changed in the digital age. He lauds "citizen journalists" who post comments on articles, keeping journalists on their toes:

I basically like "comments," though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots.

Bless you, Gene. Thanks for the laugh, and for putting "sheepsh --" excuse me, "sheepherder" in his proper perspective.

Momentum for Local Wine ...

The "drink local" movement is gaining steam. When my buddy Jeff Siegel, aka The Wine Curmudgeon, received a press release last week touting a dinner with cookbook author Diana Kennedy to be held next month at the Modern Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, he immediately asked the organizers if Texas or Mexican wines would be among the "carefully selected" wines for the Mexican menu. The museum's chef emailed him that although the menu had not been finalized, Texas wines would be involved. Maybe Mexican wines, too.

In April, the Park Hyatt in Washington added a Virginia winery to its Masters of Food and Wine program after I criticized the all-California selection for an event touting regional Mid-Atlantic agriculture. The Lettuce Entertainment restaurant group did the same for a Chesapeake Bay-themed dinner at their Wildfire restaurant in Tyson's Corner, Va, scheduled for July 27. Once I inquired about it, they quickly lined up Barboursville Vineyards as a co-sponsor and featured winery for the dinner.

The message is getting some big media play, too. Jon Bonne wrote about "justifying local wine" in the San Francisco Chronicle - "local" meaning California, of course. And Steve Heimoff, a senior editor and very distinguished wine writer with Wine Enthusiast magazine, recently blogged about a plea from a vintner for wine lovers to support their local wineries to help them through hard times. Heimoff lives in California wine country, and "local" for him also means California wine, but the message translates. The vintner Heimoff cited was Oded Shakked of Longboard Vineyards, who criticized restaurants for touting their local produce but ignoring local wines.

And that is precisely the message Todd Kliman eloquently espouses in a withering essay posted last week on The Daily Beast. In "The Locavore Wine Hypocrisy," Kliman takes on some of the most famous restaurants in the country for talking a good local game on their menus and not following through on their wine lists.

Here's an excerpt:

"... if these are heady days for the local cheesemaker, butcher, and farmer, they're head-scratching days for the local vintner, who has been largely shut out of the feel-good foodie fad. If the wine lists at the country's most prominent locavore restaurants tell us anything, it's that 'what grows together, goes together'—the mantra of the movement—is meant to refer to what's on the plate, not what's in the glass. Local and regional wines are seldom to be found."

Kliman, the food and wine editor of Washingtonian magazine and author of the tremendous new book, The Wild Vine, rips apart the most common excuse for ignoring local wines - that they are too expensive and better values abound from California. Chefs are willing to pay extra for organic eggs from chickens just up the road, he points out. And sommeliers are supposed to align their wine lists with the chef's menu, even if it means a little extra work to suss out the better wines from the area. But many somms seem unwilling to take a chance on local wines that don't seem trendy.

"The idealism of their mission statements notwithstanding, what locavore restaurants are telling us is that quality matters much less than cachet when it comes to assembling a wine list—the perception that a given product is the best, most exquisite example in its class," Kliman writes.

Maybe once local wines gain a little more cachet, the sommeliers will wake up. What's interesting to me, however, is that momentum for local wine is coming from writers - bloggers, especially - and consumers, rather than retailers or sommeliers. When I eat out, I want my sommelier to be taking chances and to seek out unusual wines - even if they come from just up the road. Don't treat me with kid gloves - dazzle me.

Todd Kliman's The Wild Vine

Todd Kliman, my friend and former editor at Washingtonian magazine, has written a beautiful book about the Norton wine grape. Except it really isn't just about the Norton; rather it is a history of American wine through the very distinctive perspective of a talented writer and storyteller. In case you missed it, here is a link to my recent Washington Post column about Kliman's The Wild Vine.I highly recommend it for all wine lovers.

Oz Clarke Triumphs Over Jetlag

When I invited Oz Clarke, the prolific and genial British wine writer, to my house to taste some wines from the Eastern United States, I didn't want to overdo it. He was coming fresh from the airport after a flight from London after all, and the man would be tired.

I needn't have worried. After more than 30 wines, lots of local cheese and homemade bread, a lengthy meal and a few ballads, I was the one waving the white napkin of surrender. Clarke is not only a laserlike palate - he's a raconteur who has never forgotten his professional training in theater. That helps him write entertaining and engaging books about wine, and it gives him amazing stamina at the dinner table. Excerpts of our discussion about wines near and far are in my column in Wednesday's Washington Post Food section. And don't forget my monthly list of Recession Buster wine recommendations.

Yay, Spain!

Okay, I'll admit it - I was rooting for Spain in Sunday's World Cup final. Not that I had a dog in this fight, but when it comes down to a wine country versus a beer country, well, I know where my allegiance lies. So yes, I was happy with the result.

I was even happier with the wines I chose to enjoy while watching the match and celebrating the result.

Tierra de Fernandez Gomez, 2009 Rioja Rosado, (Elite Wines of Lorton, Va., sample, $NA but probably not expensive) - crisp and refreshing strawberry and watermelon flavors. This wine is produced by Agricola la Bastida, which makes some tremendous wines that are setting the stage for Rioja's next wave.

Las Colinas del Ebro, Garnacha Blanca 2009, (Grapes of Spain, also Lorton, Va., sample, $12). A terrific little white, crisp and citrusy, ideal for an aperitif or with light, herby seafood appetizers - think Mediterranean ...

Almira, Los Dos, Grenache + Syrah, "Old Vines" 2008, (Winebow, sample, $NA but probably not expensive). This wine from Campo de Borja, Spain's trendy new cheap wine factory, is juicy and spicy and oh so nice for an inexpensive red. Though I rather wish the marketers had let the winery call the wine Garnacha + Syrah, because consumers are smart enough to realize Spain might have a different name for the grape than France does. Not to mention a different expression of the grape, something rather ..... Spanish?

Luna Beberide, "Finca la Cuesta," 2008, Bierzo, (Grapes of Spain, sample, $22). I LOVE this Bierzo producer, which offers a range of wines that shine for quality to price ratio in a region of northwestern Spain that is only now getting some cachet. This wine is a little awkward at first, but it opens nicely - and quite quickly - to sumptuous black fruit (cherries and plums), under a pronounced though not overwhelming oak treatment.

Yay, Spain!

Welcome Back

Welcome back, if I say so myself. To myself.

I haven't been posting on this blog lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. In the weeks I've been silent here, I've been writing my weekly columns for The Washington Post. In case you haven't been able to follow those, I'll post links here as I get caught up.

I've also been pleased to serve as Eric Asimov's straw man in The New York Times as he rode to the defense of "natural wines" against my seemingly fierce criticism. (That sounds snide, but he did quote me accurately and fairly, if incompletely. And I have no complaints about being taken seriously by The New York Times.)

Most notably, in recent weeks the locapour movement seems to be gaining steam. After the success of our DrinkLocalWine.com 2010 conference in April helped bring attention to Virginia and Maryland wines, the Wine Bloggers Conference announced that they will meet in Charlottesville, Virginia, next year. I can't claim credit for that, but applaud it and have set aside July 22-24, 2011, on my calendar. There are other positive developments, too, which I'll discuss in coming posts.

It's nice to see you again!

Cheers,

Dave