Rating Wines
The Wine Spectator recently came out with their yearly statistics. Once again Champagne is the highest rated wine. All Champagnes tasted rated 85 or better and 90% of all Champagnes rated scored 90 or better.In general, 38% of all wines tasted scored 90 or above. The average price of all wines tasted was $77 and the average price of a California Cabernet Sauvignon was $142 and 58% of them rated 90 or better. Oregon is still a great value as 56% of their wines scored 90 or better and the average price was $55.
Average prices are deceptive as they rate wines that cost hundreds of dollars and this brings up the average price. For example, the average price for Champagne was $97. I enjoy Champagne and lately I have had no problem in finding very good Champagnes for under $30 and special occasion Champagnes for under $70. Yet there are many Champagnes selling for over $200.
These prices bring to mind the never resolved issue regarding wine -do you need to spend lots of money to drink good wines? I don't think so but... We all have a tendency to shop for wine by price whether in a store or in a restaurant. After all money is an important concern for most of us. However if you have enough information to make an informed choice, I think that you will find that you can actually pick out wines that you want to drink and not spend more money than you want to spend.
Finding a good and reasonable priced wine
First you need to be somewhat adventurous. If all you drink is California Cabernet Sauvignons then as the Wine Spectator numbers show, you will be hard pressed to buy reasonably priced good wines. However if do some research you might be able to find a very good bottle from Washington or Chile. Most wine lists that I review appear to charge more for the wines that the restaurant thinks people will order. Put another way, the best values are on wines from areas that are not household names and from grapes that you may not be familiar with. For example a Syrah from California may be a very good value compared to a Syrah from Chateauneuf- du- Pape. However you need to know that if you like wines from CDP that many of them contain a significant amount of Syrah since the label may tell you the grape.
This gets back to understanding what is on a wine label. In the US and Australia for example, wines labels generally give the grape name. Chardonnay from Beringer. Lately winemakers are trying to have you buy the brand not the grape or region. Yellowtail, Menage au Trois, Layer Cake, The Prisoner, etc. are all examples of brands of wine.
In Europe wines are sold by the name of the area or the name of the winemaker. For example Chianti is a region and Ruffino is a winery that makes Chianti. If you like Ruffino Chianti, then you might try another Chianti that might be cheaper than Ruffino. Of course it also helps to know that Chianti is made of mostly the Sangiovese grape. You then might be able to find an Italian Sangiovese not called Chianti for less than a Chianti.It may appear to be complicated but if you concentrate on a few wine types that you like, the results may surprise you.
Lately my preference has been for lower alcohol, more rustic wines. I try avoid grapey fruit bombs. Riper grapes from warmer climates tend to product higher alcohol wines.Thus I have been drinking wines from Oregon, France, Italy, and New Zealand. Places within these countries include Willamette Valley, Beaujolais, Bordeaux, Champagne, Marlborough, Chianti, and Piedmont.
Again read the label. All wines have their alcohol content on the label. Try to keep the alcohol to under 13.5%. I find that the lower alcohol wines have less impact on you, which I like.
Travel
Planning to do some travelling to warm weather islands and Zika, Dengue Fever and the like are driving me nuts. How do evaluate the risk of getting these diseases while on vacation? I think that we need to keep things in perspective. I just came back from Guadeloupe and there are potential Zika issues there. We had no problems and did not get any mosquito bites.
We are currently looking at going to the Big Island in Hawaii and guess what. They are having a Dengue Fever outbreak. We are trying to evaluate the situation but it is not easy. I try to remind myself that it is more dangerous to drive my car but that only helps a little. I think that we all tend to project the worst. I do know however that with the Internet we certainly know more about places all over the world than we knew 10 years ago. I am sure that there were many diseases abroad years ago but just did not know much about them. Maybe ignorance is bliss.
Wines of the moment
Try a wine from Burgundy in France. Bourgogne in French. Areas include Macon (white), Chablis (white) ,Cote de Beaune (red), Pommard (red), etc. Good wines from this area are hard to find and can be very expensive. Some reasonably priced areas are Irancy, Macon, Marsannay, etc. Lettie Teague writes about this area in her recent article.http://www.wsj.com/articles/burgundy-wines-that-wont-break-the-bank-1455740760 The main grapes of Burgundy are Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The wines will be earthier and more austere than California. Try some from this region. Spend between $15 and $35 and see what you might like. Read up on the area. Be prepared to buy a terrible wine.
Enjoy!
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Guadeloupe (French West Indies), Chalone Vineyards RIP?
Guadeloupe
Just returned from Guadeloupe, a fairly big island in the French West Indies. It is between Dominica to the south and Antigua to the north. We flew from JFK on Norwegian Air. http://www.norwegian.com/us Norwegian Air is a low cost airline that is actually quite a large airline with around 100 planes. A few months ago they started nonstop service from JFK, BWI and Boston to Guadeloupe and Martinique. The fares are very reasonable; they vary by day but you can easily get a $300 round trip fare.
The plane was a new 737 -900. All seats are the same, no first class or premium economy. The flights were on time and service was good. You pay for everything including water, which I think is over the top), but prices are not too bad.
JFK was easier to use than expected. We used long term parking which was easy to get to off the Belt Parkway. We parked about 100 yards from the train station for the train to the terminal. The train is free and runs frequently. It was about a 15 minuter ride to the terminal. The train stops at all terminals. It is also possible to use the train to go to the NYC subway or the LIRR. The terminal was new and modern and check in was easy. Norwegian Air also flies to Europe from JFK and the fares are good.
Guadeloupe is a great island. There are several smaller islands nearby Les Saintes and Marie Galante It is basically unknown to Americans because historically it has been hard to get there. In addition there are no chain hotels there. We stayed at a Club Med. The island has about a half million people and is in the shape of a butterfly. One side is called Basse Terre and the other Grande Terre. The capital is Pointe a Pitre. There is not very much good and updated info on the island.There is a pretty good website http://www.guadeloupe-islands.com/guadeloupe-islands-2/
Grande Terre is flat and has most of the hotels. BasseTerre has a volcano, rain forest, big waterfalls (Carbet) and the Jacques Cousteau Marine Reserve. They grow lots of food on the island so the food is quite interesting with a strong Creole/ French flavor. Lots of fruits including passionfruit, my fav.
I had been to Guadeloupe 3 previous times. We had stayed at the Club Med with our kids about 15 years ago and we had enjoyed our stay. We subsequently tried the Club Med in the Punta Cana, Dominican Republic and hated it.We had been all over the island on previous trips. When I read about the new flights I looked into going again. Club Med had a good deal so we booked a 5 night trip.
The view from our room.
The beach at the Club Med is beautiful. Great swimming, good shade with lots of palm trees and lots of chairs. There is also a beach bar and lots of water sports. The weather was great.
This place makes cookies from manioc, a type of root. The cookies were good but not especially distinctive.
We returned to Guadeloupe but first the boat stopped off the shore of a beach on Marie Gallante. We swam to shore. Just like the movies.
The food at the Club Med was good. Buffet dining with something for everyone. The wine choices of a red (cote du rhone) rose (cote du rhone) and white (who knows) were weak They did have an overpriced wine list. They had a young Somm. He was a nice guy but it views on wine were so classic old French.I asked about Beaujolais and he scoffed, saying that no one considers Beaujolais a respectable wine so he would never offer one on his wine list. Ironically at the manager's cocktail party he served a Cava??
They had good tennis and ping pong at the Club Med. I won the ping pong tourney, a quest that started 15 years ago.
The Club Med is very French, very few Americans go there. Most of the staff was very nice and tried to speak English. Some including the manager of the hotel, could care less about Americans. We enjoyed our stay.
Chalone Vineyards RIP?? An economic lesson.
As you might have deduced over time, I like Chalone wines. http://www.chalonevineyard.com/our-wines/collections/estate-wines I found out about Chalone about 20 years ago. They were one of the oldest wineries in California and they were made famous in one of the taste-offs against French wines. It is located in the Soledad Mountains about 1 hour from Carmel. They were a public company and I bought 100 shares. this entitled me to obtain their wine at a discount. The stock moved between $6 and $12 for years. They also had a relationship with Chateau Lafite Rothchild which was a great bonus. We could buy Lafite wines at a discount.
Things were good and then about 10 years ago Chalone decided to sell itself to Lafite. The offer was about $12 which was a premium for the stock at that time. However some of the shareholders did not like the offer so they attempted to find other parties to buy the company. Diageo became interested and finally bought the company for around $14 a share.
Chalone has suffered since the purchase and I have noticed that their wine is not the same and it has become scarce. Anyway several months ago Diageo announced that it had sold most of its wineries to another company but that no one wanted Chalone. Apparently Chalone is now up for sale and I am not sure if they are even open anymore. The website does not seem to function.
The deal with Lafite would have been great. Lafite cares about wine. Diageo was a hard liquor company dabbling in wine. The dabbling is now over and they are dumping all the wineries that they bought over the years. They could care less about Chalone. Now Chalone is looking at an uncertain future. Greed on the part of the original shareholders led to a sale to the wrong party. This could be a Harvard Business School case study. Oh well.
Super Bowl time. Nachos and Wings.
Enjoy.
Just returned from Guadeloupe, a fairly big island in the French West Indies. It is between Dominica to the south and Antigua to the north. We flew from JFK on Norwegian Air. http://www.norwegian.com/us Norwegian Air is a low cost airline that is actually quite a large airline with around 100 planes. A few months ago they started nonstop service from JFK, BWI and Boston to Guadeloupe and Martinique. The fares are very reasonable; they vary by day but you can easily get a $300 round trip fare.
The plane was a new 737 -900. All seats are the same, no first class or premium economy. The flights were on time and service was good. You pay for everything including water, which I think is over the top), but prices are not too bad.
JFK was easier to use than expected. We used long term parking which was easy to get to off the Belt Parkway. We parked about 100 yards from the train station for the train to the terminal. The train is free and runs frequently. It was about a 15 minuter ride to the terminal. The train stops at all terminals. It is also possible to use the train to go to the NYC subway or the LIRR. The terminal was new and modern and check in was easy. Norwegian Air also flies to Europe from JFK and the fares are good.
Guadeloupe is a great island. There are several smaller islands nearby Les Saintes and Marie Galante It is basically unknown to Americans because historically it has been hard to get there. In addition there are no chain hotels there. We stayed at a Club Med. The island has about a half million people and is in the shape of a butterfly. One side is called Basse Terre and the other Grande Terre. The capital is Pointe a Pitre. There is not very much good and updated info on the island.There is a pretty good website http://www.guadeloupe-islands.com/guadeloupe-islands-2/
Grande Terre is flat and has most of the hotels. BasseTerre has a volcano, rain forest, big waterfalls (Carbet) and the Jacques Cousteau Marine Reserve. They grow lots of food on the island so the food is quite interesting with a strong Creole/ French flavor. Lots of fruits including passionfruit, my fav.
I had been to Guadeloupe 3 previous times. We had stayed at the Club Med with our kids about 15 years ago and we had enjoyed our stay. We subsequently tried the Club Med in the Punta Cana, Dominican Republic and hated it.We had been all over the island on previous trips. When I read about the new flights I looked into going again. Club Med had a good deal so we booked a 5 night trip.
The Club Med from the water.
The bar.
Food at the small reservation only restaurant at Club Med. We had the lobster dinner for 2 for 99 Euros. It included a glass of Champagne each. The lobster was very good.
I played tennis with one of the members of the band. They had a great beat.
The market in St Anne the town near the Club Med. We walked to the town.
The dining room.
We took a catamaran trip to Marie Gallante. It was about a 2 hour ride. We then took a bus around the island. We visited the Pere Labat distillery where they make Rhum Agricole. Rhum Agricole is made from sugar. Apparently most rum is made from molasses.
The food at the Club Med was good. Buffet dining with something for everyone. The wine choices of a red (cote du rhone) rose (cote du rhone) and white (who knows) were weak They did have an overpriced wine list. They had a young Somm. He was a nice guy but it views on wine were so classic old French.I asked about Beaujolais and he scoffed, saying that no one considers Beaujolais a respectable wine so he would never offer one on his wine list. Ironically at the manager's cocktail party he served a Cava??
They had good tennis and ping pong at the Club Med. I won the ping pong tourney, a quest that started 15 years ago.
The Club Med is very French, very few Americans go there. Most of the staff was very nice and tried to speak English. Some including the manager of the hotel, could care less about Americans. We enjoyed our stay.
Chalone Vineyards RIP?? An economic lesson.
As you might have deduced over time, I like Chalone wines. http://www.chalonevineyard.com/our-wines/collections/estate-wines I found out about Chalone about 20 years ago. They were one of the oldest wineries in California and they were made famous in one of the taste-offs against French wines. It is located in the Soledad Mountains about 1 hour from Carmel. They were a public company and I bought 100 shares. this entitled me to obtain their wine at a discount. The stock moved between $6 and $12 for years. They also had a relationship with Chateau Lafite Rothchild which was a great bonus. We could buy Lafite wines at a discount.
Things were good and then about 10 years ago Chalone decided to sell itself to Lafite. The offer was about $12 which was a premium for the stock at that time. However some of the shareholders did not like the offer so they attempted to find other parties to buy the company. Diageo became interested and finally bought the company for around $14 a share.
Chalone has suffered since the purchase and I have noticed that their wine is not the same and it has become scarce. Anyway several months ago Diageo announced that it had sold most of its wineries to another company but that no one wanted Chalone. Apparently Chalone is now up for sale and I am not sure if they are even open anymore. The website does not seem to function.
The deal with Lafite would have been great. Lafite cares about wine. Diageo was a hard liquor company dabbling in wine. The dabbling is now over and they are dumping all the wineries that they bought over the years. They could care less about Chalone. Now Chalone is looking at an uncertain future. Greed on the part of the original shareholders led to a sale to the wrong party. This could be a Harvard Business School case study. Oh well.
Super Bowl time. Nachos and Wings.
Enjoy.
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