Newsletter
April,
2003
- Wines of the Month
- Sale Wine
- Euro Wine Inflation
- New Arrivals
- Wine Alert
- 12th Annual Wine Festival
- Archives
Wines of the Month
2001 Famega Vinho Verde, $6.99: Get a window table in the restaurant Calcada in Amarante. This is the heart of Portugal’s Vinho Verde zone. You are over a meandering stream with a view of the ornate cathedral and convent. Order some “lulas” (what the Portuguese call tiny squids, grilled or sautéed in olive oil). And order some Famega Vinho Verde which is made near the town. You will want to emigrate immediately. Life is peaceful and slow here. The wine is dry, light, fresh and has a little CO2 for zip. It is a dandy lunchtime quaff. Or, you can drink the wine in America and fantasize the experience. Portugal and its wines are unique. For curious people, it is certainly a country to add to their wine atlas. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR CALIFORNIA CHARDONNAY DRINKERS.
2001 Corrina Sangiovese, $7.99: Once upon a time, we were driving down the “super strada” in Tuscany. We became hungry and stopped at a “bar pizzeria” in Empoli for some lunch. The back dining room was buzzing with local farmers. It looked good. There was no menu—just a salad, pasta, a filet of veal and a sweet. The meal also came with red wine (all for $10). The wine arrived in a bottle without a label, sealed by a queer, little composite cork. It was fruity and refreshing. It offered plum and dried fruit sensations. There was even a bit of complexity. We liked it and assumed it to be a Sangiovese, the reigning grape of the neighborhood. Since then, we have tried assiduously to find such a wine in the U.S. We searched for years. We think we have that wine here!Sale Wines
1998 Bighorn Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon, Regularly $29.99/Sale $24.99: No “Little Bighorn” here. This is fulsome. The balance of fruit, earth and oak is spot-on. Drink it today or let it evolve for a few years. Custer might have liked this.
2000 Chianti Classico, Petroio, Regularly $18.99/Sale $17.99: Another testament to the grandeur of Tuscany’s 2000 vintage. This bears similarities to the wine above (they were made about 15 miles from each other). It’s a bit less fleshy with perhaps a tad more tannic scratch. Whatever, it can compete with Chiantis at any price and should improve for several years.
2000 Rosenblum Zinfandel, Paso Robles, Richard Sauret, Regularly $17.99/Sale $16.99: One of several Rosenblum Zinfandels we featured at the Dance Theatre Wine Festival last month. It is eminently quaffable and full of the raspberries and spices that we all adore in the varietal. At $16.99, it is a respectable value.
2002 Geyser Peak Sauvignon Blanc, Regularly $10.99/Sale $9.99: These guys are building quite a record for their delicious Sauvignons. They don’t try to turn the grape into Chardonnay. So you get some citrus, melon and hay characteristics.
1998 Bighorn Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon, Coombsville Vineyard,Regularly $29.99/Sale $24.99: The balance of fruit, earth, and oak in this wine make it quite exceptional, especially at this price. The Wine Enthusiast gave it 93 points and described it accurately : “ rich, complex fruit with concentrated black cherry, black berry, plum and currant flavors. Deliciously smooth and polished and deftly balanced. Amazingly long and lingering finish.” We really like this wine!!!
2001 Cuvaison Pinot Noir, Carneros, $22.99/Sale $19.99: We’ve carried past vintages of this wine and were pleased upon tasting this vintage to see that it is as tasty as ever. This is what we call a “pretty wine”. It’s not heavily extracted like many of the Santa Barbara pinots, not as fruit driven as many of the Russian River pinots, and not as complex as many of the pinots from Oregon. It’s just a nice, medium bodied, well balanced, well priced wine with “pretty” cherry and berry flavors that goes down easily and has you holding your glass out for more.
Euro Wine Inflation
If you drink wine, which is almost certain since you are reading this, be happy you live in the United States. We have just completed two trips to Europe, one to Portugal and another to Italy, and were appalled by the high prices of wine (and everything else, other than shoes in Portugal). We saw wine stores in Oporto selling 2000 vintage Ports for $10 to $15 a bottle more than Coaltrain’s prices. Good grief, Oporto is where Port is made. You would think you should get a small price break. But, no. We saw a guy in an Italian Michelin three star restaurant (Al Sorriso) selling Arneis for 10 times the price he is paying. And he was only 90 miles away from the point of production. We could go on for a half an hour about this. It seems to us that a lot of things went up in price after the Euro came in last year. Economists say that most European businesses used the currency change to raise their prices 3 percent to 10 percent. And today, with the dollar trading so low against the Euro, the price of wine and life in Europe approaches absurdity. With all the weak European economies, you wonder how long this price inflation can continue.
So, be happy you are buying your European wines in the U.S. But now the bad news…the higher prices should be coming to America shortly. We’ve seen sharp raises in some of our European pre-orders already. One of our respected French importers told us that higher “Euro prices” should all be here by September. So, logically, there is but one thing to do…buy your European wines right now.
New Arrivals
2001 Steele Chardonnay, California, $17.99: Tight knit, “emerging style of Chardonnay.” One could drink a whole bottle of this. Finely tuned Chardonnays will hopefully put the blubber and flab rendition of California Chardonnays in the “close-out” bins of the world. Thank you Steele.
1999 Korberner Weisenberg Riesling Kabinett, von Schleinitz, $12.99: “Gut Gott in Himmel,” this is nice. It can stand-up to many of the profound 2001s. It bursts with spiced apple aromas. It’s not too sweet and has a zippy acid finish. It was a gold medal winner in Germany, where such awards are taken with seriousness and sobriety.
1999 Volker Eisele Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, $37.99: Volker Eisele was one of Napa Valley’s early advocates of quality. He was one of the first to go to the barricades to protect the Valley’s wine integrity. For years he provided the Phelps with the grapes for one of their top bottlings. He still sells grapes from this vineyard to Araujo whose wine sells for about $200 a bottle. He gives us a rich, but stylish wine that has the structure to age well. It embodies the power of the vineyard and vintage.
2000 Rosso di Montalcino, Collesorbo, $21.99: A testament to how fine this vintage was, south of Siena in Tuscany, whence Brunello comes. Here the Sangiovese grape is fleshy, but with that “Mona Lisa mystery.” It is better than a lot of Brunellos from lesser vintages (and half the price).
2000 Penfolds 407, Cabernet Sauvignon, $23.99/Sale $22.49: Year in and year out, you can bank on this Aussie Cab to give you excellent quality for price. It’s friendly, fleshy and drinks young, while having substance.
2000 Witness Tree Chardonnay, Willamette Valley, $14.99: We are impressed by Oregon Chardonnays such as this. They give you the apple and pear essences of a good French Macon. They sidestep that tropical, pineapple essence that is so prevalent in non-French Chardonnays. Finally, this is deftly oaked…not over-burdened. Prediction—in a decade or so, Oregon Chardonnays will be the most sought after in America.
2000 Witness Tree Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, $21.99: A pretty Pinot. Far more Paltrow-esque than Madonna-esque. Gentle and fine Pinot flavors. We think it’s a good buy for under $25 from Oregon. You would be hard pressed to better its value from France. Well, maybe not.
1999 Terre Rouge Syrah, Sierra Foothills, $24.99: California Syrahs keep getting better every year. If people would just try them, we would put even more in the store. But, as things are, we carry only a handful of the very best. This is big, but well coordinated. In essence, it’s not quite elegantly French or woolly Australian Shiraz style. It has nice depth and lush blackberry fruit with a touch of smokeyness. It’s drinking well nowl
2001 MR Malaga, Telmo Rodriguez, $17.99/375 ml: A Basque who made his fame at his family’s Rioja estate, Remelluri, Telmo is making wine all over Spain today. And the Spanish should be thankful for this Basque’s largesse. He has pretty much resuscitated the Malaga appellation which was basically in the “campo santo.” This dessert wine is so elegant and fine that you can’t stop drinking it. It’s bottled silk. We’ll bring some of Telmo’s other Spanish gems into the store very soon. They are marvels of the wine world, but hard to obtain.
2000 Bodegas Norton, Malbec Reserva, Argentina, $14.99: We’re crazy about Argentine Malbec and here’s another to make us crazier. In color, it’s garnet, not black (ah, the old black wine of Cahors, Malbec’s motherland). In the nose, there is coffee, clay and some spice. The palate is full of fruit, but not jammy fruit. The oaking is deft and the tannens are soft. Just try it. It’s smooth...we are incapable of describing it further.
2001 Tres Picos Tempranillo, $13.99: Tres Picos fans have a new “flavor” here. Instead of the Grenache we have all come to adore, this is made from Tempranillo. It’s a potent bottle with more punch than a lot of Tempranillo based wines (like Rioja). There is a uniqueness here that we cannot adequately impart upon our innocent and trusting customers.
2001 Anselmi San Vincenzo, $8.99: Arguably the greatest value in white wine on the globe. Roberto Anselmi is always happy. He drives around the Venetian hills in his Carrera or Boxster, or BMW “moto.” “La dolce vita.” Why not? And he gives us a light, pear scented wine that we can enjoy as much as he enjoys life.
2001 Concensus Syrah, Nicolas, $14.99: You know, this French wine store chain (Nicolas) can occasionally deliver the goods. If you like the smoke and spice of good Syrah, this you should try. It’s like a bargain priced St. Joseph or Crozes-Hermitage.
2002 Redbank Sauvignon Blanc, $8.99: Now the Aussies are challenging the “Kiwi” hegemony of Sauvignon Blanc “Down Under.” There are fetching gooseberry and passion fruit essences with this jolly white.
2000 Dasche Zinfandel, Dry Creek, $19.99: There are many Zinfandels from California that are very good, but this stands apart. It has formidable Zinfandel extract, but refinement as well. And there is all that ebullient Dry Creek fruit. It’s a special rendition of the Zinfandel grape. It’s absolutely “deck.”
2001 Tatachilla Grenache/Shiraz, McLaren Vale, $13.99: You get bags of fruit from the Grenache here and some spine from the Shiraz. It’s pretty complex and substantial for its reasonable price. You can see why the Aussies use this blend a lot.
1995 Palmela Garrafeira, J.P. Vinhos, $9.99: How do the Portuguese do it? They give us a wine of fascination without all the oak and smoke everyone else piles on. Actually we had this wine before, but forgot about it for a year. Our salesman pointed it out to us and we tried it again. Man, what rousing stuff. There is some plum and dried fruit spun like a Fado song, but not as melodramatic. It comes from a developing zone around Setubal, south of Lisboa. The grape is Periquita, for what that is worth. Put a bottle of this in your next mixed case. We bet you’ll return for a case of it alone.
2000 Bennett Lane Winery Syrah, Napa Valley, $26.99: We used to carry a syrah from Vigil Winery that was very good. Vigil was sold to Tom Leandini , owner of Whitehall Lane, who has revamped it and named it Bennett Lane. This syrah is killer. It’s rich with dark fruit but not effusive. The grapes come from the esteemed Konisgaard vineyard. There are noticeable tannins so give this wine some breathing time if you’re going to drink it now. Only 165 cases were made!
Wine Alert
Portugal’s Duoro Reds, the New Sensation
Pinhao, Portugal—This somnolent, little village is the heart and soul of the Port producing zone. It’s lovely, sitting on the Douro River’s bank with steep vineyards all around. From here, sailboats used to take the Port wine in barrels to Vila Nova de Gaia, adjacent to the city of Porto, to its “Port Lodges” to be aged. Now trucks do the transportation more efficiently, except for an occasional crash.
Despite the greatness of the Port wines, most of the current excitement among the winemakers in the area is being generated by the new, dry, red wines. They offer a challenge and some of the results have been magnificent. As Margarida Borges, winemaker at Quinta do Fojo, summarized, “The production of Port gives us cash flow, which gives us the opportunity to create and explore with new wines.”
In general, these new Douro reds are well extracted wines with lots of fruit, but with depth as well. They are generally made from the varietals used to make Port with much of the concentration being on the Touriga Nacional and Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo) grapes. The wines have been compared to the Spanish wines of Ribera del Duero (the same river, but in Spain), but Borges doesn’t think this is right. She said, “The two wines come from totally different soils. Ours is shistic and steep, Ribera del Duero is more benchland with sandy soils. Our soil and terrain is much more like Spain’s Priorato. In fact we are the only two similar terrains in Europe. I call Priorato a miniature Douro, because it’s smaller and not as extreme in its elevations. And our wines are much more like the Priorat wines. The only difference is that we have different varietals. They work a lot with Grenache which we don’t.”
12th Annual Wine Festival
If somehow you’ve had your head stuck in the sand, and aren’t familiar withour yearly wine festival, it’s time to take note of what you’ve been missing. Each year we feature a different varietal, or region, and focus on it throughout the weekend. Two years ago we brought in the Rhone Rangersfrom California. Last year, we featured Pinot Noir from Oregon, and this year, we zoomed in on Zinfandel producers. To say the least, we had a world-class representation with Ridge, Ravenswood, Rosenblum, and Seghesio among our elite wine makers. The festival kicked off with 600 people attending the Grand Tasting at the Broadmoor. Saturday, we featured our illustrious group in three separate seminars, and the weekend concluded with an incredible winemaker dinner and auction featuring different wines from our seven wine makers. The weekend raised over $60,000 for the Colorado Springs Dance Theatre, helping to insure their continued success, and we certainly look forward to next year’s “13th annual” where we will be featuring world-class Cabernet producers. The tentative date has been set
for April 30- May 1, 2003 at the Broadmoor. Some highlights from this year’s
festival:
Rosenblum 2001 Rockpile Road Zinfadel, $31.99: Kent Rosenblum graciously ventured for an encore at this year’s festival, and his wine certainly didn’t disappoint us. His 2001 Rockpile Rd. Zinfandel may be his best to date. This is from a small hillside vineyard located above Lake Sonoma which is planted to a rare clone of old vine zin. The wine is an inky color with rich black cherry, and black current in the bouquet. It has a brambly mouth feel with flavors of creamy berry, chocolate, and elements of anise. Another gem from Rosenblum.
Ravenswood 2000 Big River Zinfandel, $39.99: What a treat having Joel Peterson, founder of Ravenswood, as part of our Zinfandel weekend. The wine Joel chose for our dinner was the 2000 Big River Zin. now we see why. Made from 70-80 year old vines in the Alexander Valley, it is an incredibly concentrated mouthful of bright, lively, dark cherry and blackberry fruit with pepper, spice and subtle oak tones. According to Joel, 2000 is one of the most intense years for Big River yet.
This is not for babies!
J.C. Cellars 1999 Bolduc Zinfandel, $36.99/Sale $29.99: Jeff Cohn is the winemaker at Rosenblum and has recently started making his own wine under the J.C. Cellars label. 1999 was a great vintage and J.C.’s wines were well reviewed by Robert Parker in The Wine Advocate stating, “The impressive 1999s display plenty of personality as well as considerable fruit. They are big, ruggedly constructed efforts to drink during their first 5-6 years of life.” We agree. If you want a mouthful of spicy, full-bodied zin, give this a try.
COALTRAIN
Wine & Spirits
330 W. Uintah
Colorado Springs, CO 80905
719-475-9700