CheapWineFinder’s Expedition Into The Bordeaux Grand Cru Jungle

Cheapwinefinder somehow got invited to the Chicago stop on the 2007 Vintage Grands Crus de Bordeaux Trade Tasting Tour. You would have thought they would have noticed our name and said “these guys really don’t belong here”, but we managed to get in.

In talking to “Wine People” before the event we kept hearing that the 2007 vintage was nothing special and that the makers of the highest rated wines didn’t make the trip. Everyone we spoke to was blasé about the whole event, like it was every day you get to taste 75 Grand Cru Bordeaux wines.

We were not blasé, we ran into the tasting room like puppy dogs wagging their tails, we were kids in the candy store. But I have to admit to tasting fatigue, all the red Grand Crux wines are blends of 3 or 4 grapes, with either Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon in the lead and Cabernet Franc as the other main grape. The wines were all variations on a theme, really good variations on a theme, but after awhile the wines start to taste very similar. Now, our efforts to try to taste every single red wine in the room might have had something to do with our palates giving out. Maybe there is something to having too much of a good thing.

As we started to wear down and wear out at the very end of the tasting, we were rejuvenated when as the room lights were being flicked off and on to signal the end of the show, the representative from Chateau Pape Clement handed us a bottle of Red wine and a bottle of White wine to take home. We were like kids that had just won the bean bag toss at the grade school fun fair, we left with our trophy’s proudly on display.

So, what did we learn about Grand Cru Bordeaux Wine? Well, it’s really excellent stuff, made to the highest standards. Several of the Chateau’s upon seeing our name-tags told us that they do have a second line brand of wine, all sourced from their vineyard, that was in the cheapwinefinder price range. Grand Cru is out of this websites’ reach, but Bordeaux wines can be affordable. You know there is alot of good wines out there, just waiting for us to discover them.

2002 Finca Flichman Reserva Shiraz – $5

Finca means both vineyard and winery in Argentina, the Reserva designation indicates that this is estate grown and bottled. The Vineyard is located in the Barrancas region of Mendoza Province. Flichman is owned by a large wine conglomerate from Portugal and has been producing wines in Argentina since 1965. The Shiraz was stored in oak barrels for 6 months. this wine retailed for between $12 and $17 when first released, but now that it is toward the end of it’s shelf life, the price has come way down.

The color is deep dark opaque crimson red. The nose is smoke, violets, spice drops and red plums. The mouth feel is slightly watery, the oak and tannins are evident, but under the surface. The taste is muted dark fruit, the name says Shiraz, but this is not like an Australian wine. Not a fruit bomb, but blueberries, hints of tea, plums and stewed fruit. The finish is lengthy with bits of vanilla and cranberry juice. The Finca Flichman would stand up to a steak, but would also work for lighter food. You can really get a lot of wine for your money with South American wines.

2007 Les Traverses de Fontanes – $15

This is a delicious and unusual bottle of wine, and an amazing deal at under $20.  Although it is Cabernet Sauvignon, it pours out bright purple and has a lot of vibrant fruit.  It has raspberry and strawberry and a hint of cocoa.

It honestly is one of the most unique Cabs we have ever tasted, and we really liked it.  It is a must try.

2004 Montroche Georgina Cuvee Syrah – $5

A Syrah blend from the Costieres de Nimes in the Languedoc region in France. It is a Vin de Pays du Gard wine, Vin de pays means “country wine” which is the French wine classification above “table wine” but below the AOC classifications. The bottle does not list all the grapes in the blend, but Grenache, Cinsault and Mouvedre are typical ingredients in Languedoc blends. The half the wine is stored in oak barrels while the other half stays in stain-less vats after six months the two halfs are reunited and left to rest, then half the wine is put back into oak barrels for another five months. The wine has oak for flavor, but not a lot of oak for cellaring, so this wine is at the point where it needs to be drunk before it starts to go downhill.

The color is a deep opaque crimson, the nose has a touch of mushroom, but also fresh strawberries and chocolate mints. A very soft wine, the tannins are very light, the fruit tastes young, fresh berries on the tip of your tongue. The finish is long lasting and tastes of black licorice and cherries.

This probably isn’t a wine that initially sold for $4.99, but wines from this region normally are good for 5 to 6 years, so the wine seller had to sell it before it was too late. Also if you are looking for value, “Vin de Pays” wine do not command the same prices that Bordeaux and Burgundy do, but can be very enjoyable wines.

CheapWineFinder’s Beginners Guide To Wine Part 5

Where Do The Good Value Wines Come From?

Winemakers are paying more attention to value priced wines than ever before. It is relatively easy to find a perfectly nice affordable wine to drink. With a little knowledge, you can find a perfectly awesome wine to drink. There are wine growing areas around the world that are famed for their wines, Bordeaux, Tuscany, Napa, Rioja, etc…, wines from these regions are excellent and in demand and the price of these wines reflect that. But often winemakers from just outside these growing regions also make excellent wines, but because they are not located in the official boundaries of the hot, trendy area, they can’t charge as much for their wine.

In France, Bordeaux wines tend to be very expensive, but wines from the Rhone Valley for reds and the Loire Valley for whites can be bargains in comparison. In Spain, Rioja makes wonderful pricey wines and Jumilla makes wonderful affordable wines. In Italy, Tuscany is one of several regions making exciting wines, but Puglia and Sicily are making excellent well priced wines. In Washington State, the wines from Walla Walla rival the wines from Napa, but Columbia Valley makes a wide variety of excellent under $20 wines. In California, Napa is famous for it’s outstanding wine, but Lodi and Paso Robles (among others) are making top shelf wines. In Australia there are more under $20 wines with a rating of 90 points or more than any other wine region. Australia has been concentrating on it’s value wines far longer than most of the wine regions.Portugal is famous for it’s Port wines, but the food friendly red and white wines it produces are of very good quality and extremely under priced. The wines of South America are terrific values, they have really come into their own as a mature wine growing region in the last few years. Land and labor costs are lower there than most of the wine growing areas and they have not yet developed a trendy reputation to jack up the price of their wine, The quality of the wines are on par with any wine regions out there and the price is far less. You should be exploring the wines of Chile and Argentina (and  Brazil), before the prices go up. South Africa is another up and coming wine region that has quality wines and reasonable prices.

There are many different varietals of grapes that make very tasty wines, the more popular varieties tend to cost more than the less known grapes. While Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon are well known grapes and can make exceptional wines, they are not the only grapes that can be turned into kick ass wine. For white wines some good grapes to explore are: Alberino, Chenin Blanc, Viognier, Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Sauvignon Blanc.  For red wines try: Cabernet Franc, Grenache, Malbec, Mourvedre, Petite Sirah, Shiraz and Tinta Negra for some well priced wines. I named only a few of the available grape varietals, experiment, see which ones are the right wines for you.

Wine blends can be very reasonably priced (not always, some blends can be very pricey), but blending wine can be a excellent way of making grapes with deficiencies into to very good wine. Say you have some Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, they taste good, but the nose is kind of light and the color is weak and the tannins are a little too noticeable. It’s going to make a lousy single varietal wine, but if you add some Merlot to soften the tannins and then throw in a little grenache to add another flavor and then some Cab Franc to punch up the color and finally splash in some Viognier (a white wine, but it has a very fragrant pretty nose) into the vat, you now have a well rounded bottle of wine. Most bottles of red wines have other grapes added into the mix, in California the law states that for a bottle to labeled as a single varietal, say Merlot, it has to contain at least 75% Merlot, so 25% of the bottle can be whatever grapes  the winemaker thought the Merlot needed to really shine.

Be open minded about different grape varietals and growing areas. Say, you tried 3 Spanish wines and were not that crazy about any of them, well you have only tasted less than 1% of all the Spanish wines available. That is too small of a sample to make an informed conclusion. Keep trying new wines, there are so many wonderful wine being made, don’t settle for just what you are familiar with.

CheapWineFinder’s Beginners Guide To Wine Part 4

Wine Terms and What They Mean

Oak: Wine is aged in oak barrels to help “keep” the wine, it will last longer, by preventing oxidation, it also imparts a specific flavor. In white wine the oak tastes of butter and toasty flavors, in red wine it tastes of vanilla. In the fancy expensive wines, the oak is extremely evident in the taste of the wine while it is young. After it is cellared for a number of years, the effect of the oak is diminished and the fruit flavors mingle with the layers of oak and a rather magical flavor is produced. But, in the wines that are priced under $20, there is no time available to have these flavors inter- mingle. The oak taste, if balanced, is still desirable, so the winemakers do things like age half the wine in second fill oak barrels and the other half in stain-less steel vats. The wine gets a bit of the oak taste of the high end wines, but not much of it’s aging properties. Some under $20 dollar wines are aged completely in stain-less tanks, these wines are very fruity in taste and should be  drunk within 4 or 5 years of being produced (the sooner the better), but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Chardonnay’s are constantly going back and forth, this year oaked Chardonnay’s are in and the next year stain-less Chardonnays are the rage. If you can smell the oak in the nose, that is a sign that the wine is not well balanced. If you taste more than the butter or vanilla, if you get that real dry, chemical quality, then the wine is poorly made.

Tannins are a compound in the grape skin that give the wine “structure”, it is hard to describe but it gives the wine backbone. The tannins give the fruit some zip, they stop the wine from getting mushy or flabby. Tannins are only evident in red wine, since they are derived from the grape skins, white wine has no contact with the skins during the wine making process. Tannins don’t have a specific taste, but you can feel a sharp jab in the back of your mouth. The fruit of the wine should blend in and actually over power the tannins, tannins should be sensed, not tasted. Again like oak, tannins are ultra evident in high end wines that need to be aged for a number of years to reach their peak. In under $20 bottles of wine, which are usually made in a drink it now style, the winemakers try to have a touch of tannins, but not too much. It is not easy to accomplish and most value red wines that have problems, have tannin problems.

High end, super expensive wines are made to cellared or aged for 10,15,20 or more years. It is a huge waste of money to drink those wines when they are young. Value priced wines are usually specifically made to be consumed young. To properly store wine for aging you need a dark climate controlled stable area, wine does not react well to swings in temperature and humidity. That wine rack on your kitchen counter is fine to store wine for a month or two, but unless your kitchen is a dark, quite, climate controlled space, it just won’t do for long term cellaring.  Most under $20 wines will improve with a couple of years of aging, but exactly how much aging is just right and how much aging is too much is hard to say. For the high end wine ,there are all sorts of experts that will tell you what to expect from your properly stored 18 year old wine, but nobody is paying much attention to the effects of aging on that $12 Spanish wine you bought yesterday. If you are buying under $20 wines you probably don’t have a fancy wine cellar in your home and I doubt that you have a cave to store wine in your backyard, so if you want to cellar wine what do you do? You can buy a wine refrigerator, the large ones are very expensive and it does not make much sense to have a wine cooler that costs more than the value of the wine it stores. The smaller ones are more affordable, but don’t hold enough wine to make cellaring practical. Until you get that house with the wine cellar, I think the solution is to drink all the wine you buy and don’t worry about cellaring.

What temperature is right for drinking red or white wines? Refrigeration is a fairly recent development and for ages wine was stored in caves where the wine was kept in 55 to 60 degree temperature. But, people didn’t run to a cave every time they wanted some wine, so some bottles and casks had to be stored above ground in reasonable proximity to the drinkers. This means that for most of history wine was drunk at room temperature. Today it is common to chill white wine and to drink red wine at room temperature. But there are schools of thought that says this is backwards, white wine tends to have more delicate flavors and the chilling tends to mute those flavors. Red wine has bolder flavors and chilling the wine would mute the bolder flavors and allow the subtler tastes to thrive. So, drink the wine which ever way tastes best to you.

You will hear the word “terrior” used in relation to wine and it has nothing to do with blowing things up. Terrior is a French concept of winemaking, where the bottle of wine is a reflection of the climate, the particular make up of the soil the grapes are grown in and the traditional winemaking techniques used to make the wines. Every year the wind, the rain and the sun interact differently with the grape vines and  the juice of the grape reflect these variations, and therefore the wine will be the sum of these conditions. In effect you are tasting the wind, the rain, the sun and the earth in that bottle of wine. But in under $20 bottles of wine the grapes are almost never sourced from one particular part of the vineyard, it’s actually rare that the grapes are sourced from the same vineyard, you can not have a sense of place, or terrior, in a wine that is sourced from many growing areas. What you do experience with terrior in the value priced wine is a more general sense of place, a Pinot Noir grown is France will make a different tasting Pinot than one grown in Oregon, and that Pinot will taste different than that grown in New Zealand and on and on.

to be continued….

2006 Oakwood Hollow Napa Pinot Noir – $14

I thought I was done with the end of the bin series, but I found one more. In Chicago,there used to be two large liquor stores, Sam’s and Binny’s. Binny’s bought Sam’s and all the Sam’s specific Wines are now on cut out. This Napa Valley Pinot is made by the same people who made the ne-go-ciant Syrah, it is comprised from 6 barrels purchased from some unknown Napa vineyard. It once retailed for $28, but Sam’s is gone, it is now an orphan and sells for $14, I don’t expect you to find this exact same wine, but equal deals are available out there, you just have to explore and find them.

Ok, Oakwood Hollow is a fake name and it sounds way too much like the place Winnie the Pooh lived, but a $28 Pinot made from Napa fruit is very likely to be better than a $14 Pinot sourced from vineyards all over California. The color is see thru ruby red. The nose has whiffs of alcohol but also chocolate covered cherries and mint. The taste is sour cherries at first then dark fruit, cranberries and vanilla, the tannins are light, but you can sense the oak on the back of your palate. A long somewhat nondescript finish, a little too sour to be delicious. A tasty wine but with the sour cherries and cranberries it is very tart . This is definitely a food wine and not an afternoon sipper.

CheapWineFinder’s Beginners Guide To Wine Part 3

Does and Don’ts of Wine Drinking

If you go to a wine tasting you will see people taking a sip of wine and making slurping motions with their mouth, then they spit the wine out. It is supposed to be the proper way to taste wine, not merely drink it. What they are doing is mimicking how Wine Professionals taste wine when they are on the clock. A wine buyer may have to taste 45 wines he is being offered to sell in his stores, if he actually drinks all 45 wines he will fall over at some point and it would take him hours to drink all the wines. To make the most of each sip, they make those slurping motions to bring air into the wine and to distribute the wine to all parts of their taste buds. With one sip they can get a good sense of each wine, you on the other hand get more than one sip and you have no intention of spitting the wine out (it’s an affront to Bacchus). You get way more out of drinking a quarter glass of wine than you ever do out of  slurping one sip around in your mouth. Don’t do that slurping thing, it’s like walking around in shoulder pads because your a big fan of the local football team. Unless you have a problem drooling the wine down your chin, you don’t need instructions on how to drink wine.

In Europe, in places where people drink wine with every single meal, they drink the wine out of every day glass tumblers. In the U.S., where wine is more of a special occasion we drink out of wine stems. So, does wine taste better because of the glass that is used?  Well, no, but a wine glass does offer some advantages. All wine tastes better when it has been exposed to air, it is sort of like a wine is asleep when it is in the bottle under cork and when you pop the cork it needs to wake up to be it’s best and exposure to air is the best way to wake it up. A wine glass makes it much easier to swirl the wine ( swirling quickly allows the air and wine to mix), trying to swirl wine in a water glass can get pretty messy, so don’t wear a white shirt when attempting it. A wine glass has a tapered rim which allows you to get more out of the nose (the smell) of the wine. The tapered rim keeps the escaping vapors in, so you have more aromas to identify. Wine with a good nose is more fun than a wine with a tight nose, so the wine glass does some good there too. If are trying to fully experience a new wine, then wine stems are a must, if you are drinking a wine that you are familiar with then a drinking glass will do nicely. You may have noticed a wide variety of wine glasses that are to be used for each different varietal, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to these. If you use one of these special glasses and notice a difference, fine, otherwise ignore them. If you are drinking Champagne or Sparkling Wine, a Champagne flute is the only way to go. The flute is designed to keep the bubbles concentrated and with Sparkling Wine the bubbles are the show.

Decanting makes all wine better, from 2 Buck Chuck to the finest French Grand Cru Wine. Most wine decanters are over-priced and semi-impossible to clean. If you can find a chemistry beaker large enough to handle 750ml, then that would be my recommended way to go. They are easy to clean , inexpensive compared to a crystal decanter and they have graduated markers showing the volume of liquid stored inside.  You would be surprised how many 750ml bottles of wine actually contain 800ml of wine. Plus if you bring it out on the backyard deck on a warm summers night and someone knocks it over, it’s no big deal.

to be continued….

CheapWineFinder’s Beginners Guide To Wine Part 2

How Do You Find The Right Wine For You?

The first group of wines most people come in contact with are what I call “supermarket wines”, these are wines that are mass-produced and made to a price point. They tend to taste the same year after year – nobody is running from one supermarket to another looking for the famed 2005 vintage of these wines, and the range in quality from “so-so” to “hey, this ain’t too bad”. They are not a bad starting point for your wine journey, the price is right and you can figure out if Cabernet Sauvignon,  Merlots or Chardonnay’s are your cup of tea. A sub-genre of the “supermarket wines” are the 2 Buck Chucks, Wal-Mart and 7-11 wines that sell for 2 or 3 bucks. How much does the bottle cost – or the cap – or the cardboard box it’s stored in? Or how much did it cost to be transported to your hometown and how much profit do they make per bottle?

As you can see, there is not much money in the equation for grapes and wine making. In times when grapes are cheap to buy, like now, these wines can be surprisingly drinkable, when grapes are more expensive, then you get what you pay for. In a side note , not all wines sold at the supermarket are “supermarket wines”, some stores also offer very interesting non mass produced wines.

Next we have the big box liquor stores. They have a wall full of coolers offering every beer you can think of and aisles and aisles of hard liquor, they also usually offer a large and varied selection of wines. These stores tend to have the best prices on wine, but are hit or miss on having staff available to help you find the right bottle of wine. A great many of the wines on the shelves are wines you would like, but mixed in among these wines are wines you would love, how do figure out which is which without buying every wine in the store? This is where “follow the winemaker” and “follow the importer” comes in handy, if you had a bottle of wine you enjoyed that was made by a certain winemaker, the chances are good that you will also enjoy another of the wines they make. Also with French and Spanish wines, if you look at the back label and see that it was imported by Eric Solomon or Kermit Lynch, there is a very good chance that it will be a top quality wine. If you do your homework the big box liquor stores can deliver some well-priced gems. But both the big liquor stores and the supermarkets have wine on their shelves that the Wine Buyers for these stores would never think of drinking, sometimes to get a quantity of a hot, in demand wine from the distributor they are required to take a certain amount of some not so hot wines. So be careful, not every wine on the shelf is worth trying.

And that brings us to the Wine Shop. Not so long ago if you went to one of these shops looking for a $10 bottle of wine you were treated as a nuisance, they made their money off the folks that came in to buy cases of expensive wine. But that has changed, they have figured out that today’s ten buck wine buyer is tomorrow’s steady customer if not the expensive case buyer. The wine that is available in almost all wine shops was personally tasted and selected by the owner of the shop, so if you sample one of their red wines and one of their white wines and really enjoy both, that might mean your palate and their palate have similar likes and dislikes. You now have a whole selection of wines that you had never heard of available to you, you’re gaining the shop owner’s 20 years of wine experience, all for the price of a bottle.

until the next episode……

CheapWineFinder’s Beginners Guide To Wine Part 1

Which Wines Do I Like? There Are So Many To Choose From!

New to wine? Where do you start? Which wines are the good wines? How do you find the wines that you will enjoy? Well it is a little complicated – say you had a Riesling at your Brother-in-Law’s that you really thought was good, but do you like all Rieslings? Rieslings come from Germany, France, South America, Washington, Oregon, California and Australia (and even more areas), and they taste different depending on where the grapes are grown. To make it more difficult there are sub-regions in each area that have their own take on the wine. The winemaker can make the Riesling in his own style, which adds different flavors than the vineyard next door. Plus, the price of the wine is a factor – more expensive wine tends to taste different than less expensive wine. Not always better, just different.

So you see, simply thinking that you might like Riesling isn’t enough, and I didn’t even mention that the same bottle of wine can vary in taste from year to year! So if you find one you like that was a 2006 vintage, it might not have the same oomph that got your attention in the 2007 vintage. The whole process is just as complicated for Pinot Gris, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc…

While the problem of finding the right wines may be complicated, the solution is rather easy – it’s drinking wine. You can read the wine magazines and learn about the wine makers and the growing regions, but you can read 100 magazines a still not know the important thing, and that is what does the wine taste like? You have to frequent wine tastings at your local wine shops. Throw wine parties – if you have a theme it can help with the learning curve – say the theme is everyone has to bring an under $15 bottle of red wine from Chile. If you have eight people over each bringing a different bottle, you will start to get a good feel for Chilean wine.

If you’re a beginner there is no need to go overboard with expensive wine, it’s better to start at the bottom and work your way up. Plus the cheaper the cost the more wine you can buy! What is a good price cut off? If you concentrate on wines that are under $10, you can find some really tasty wines but you do limit yourself. At under $10 you won’t find Pinot’s that taste like the real deal, you won’t find Napa wines, or Bordeaux wines. If you use under $20 as a limit you will get the whole wine spectrum. You generally can get better white wines priced under $10 than red wines, so if you’re a red wine lover be prepared to spend a bit more.

to be continued…..

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