WINES YOU CAN FIND
Frankly, we in chronic search of a wine that works with a Tuesday night at-home supper don't get much in the way of guidance from wine writers who focus on trophy bottles. So when I saw a story in the April issue of Food & Wine magazine called "50 Wines You Can Always Trust'' by my always trustworthy and charmingly down-to-earth pal Ray Isle, I knew this was a clip-and-save article.
Turns out, his picks and insider insights are so good, I decided to point out the entire spread (it starts on Page 115 and tours the value-priced wine world clear through Page 130) to all you wine drinkers who don't call a $57 bottle of California cab a "bargain'' simply because its wine-shop brethren are priced at $30 more.
I asked Ray how his trustworthy-wines package came to be. "My goal in producing it kind of comes out of feedback I've received from readers - people really want to know about affordable, good wines that (here's the key part) they can also find. By a good margin, the e-mail I receive most from readers usually runs along the lines of, 'You wrote about X, but I can't find it anywhere!' Part of the problem is that there's something like 30,000 different wines for sale in the U.S. Finding any given wine in a specific wine shop is always a complete crap-shoot, so I figured at least I could help the odds a little by doing a whole package on really FINDABLE good wines.''
He not only writes about wines you can find, but adds to your knowledge of these everyday bottles with well-researched snippets. Kendall Jackson is so big, he says, that "when you take a tour'' of its vineyards, "you do it by helicopters.'' The Chilean winery Casa Lapostolle was co-founded by Alexandra Marnier-Lapostolle, Ray notes, and if the Marnier in the name sounds familiar, maybe you've sipped some Grand Marnier in your day; Alexandra is the great-granddaughter of the founder of the famous liqueur.
Anyway, I figured Ray had to do a lot of spitting-style research to come up with this remarkably useful list of 50 wines.
"It's hard to say how many wines I went through,'' Ray says, "since it's partly based on my experience - I specifically wanted NOT to recommend specific vintages, but rather wines that perform well in almost every vintage - so I drew on a lot of tasting experience, and a lot of repeated tasting of those wines. That said, I did taste current vintages of everything I wrote about, and I'd say I cut at least half of the original candidates for the piece, if not more."
Ray, who is senior editor of Food & Wine, could be your new best wine friend. I know you'll find his story worth your reading (and quaffing) time. After you take a gander at it, please let me know right here if you have anything to add about your favorite everyday wines.
Cheers,
Andy
3.27.07
Turns out, his picks and insider insights are so good, I decided to point out the entire spread (it starts on Page 115 and tours the value-priced wine world clear through Page 130) to all you wine drinkers who don't call a $57 bottle of California cab a "bargain'' simply because its wine-shop brethren are priced at $30 more.
I asked Ray how his trustworthy-wines package came to be. "My goal in producing it kind of comes out of feedback I've received from readers - people really want to know about affordable, good wines that (here's the key part) they can also find. By a good margin, the e-mail I receive most from readers usually runs along the lines of, 'You wrote about X, but I can't find it anywhere!' Part of the problem is that there's something like 30,000 different wines for sale in the U.S. Finding any given wine in a specific wine shop is always a complete crap-shoot, so I figured at least I could help the odds a little by doing a whole package on really FINDABLE good wines.''
He not only writes about wines you can find, but adds to your knowledge of these everyday bottles with well-researched snippets. Kendall Jackson is so big, he says, that "when you take a tour'' of its vineyards, "you do it by helicopters.'' The Chilean winery Casa Lapostolle was co-founded by Alexandra Marnier-Lapostolle, Ray notes, and if the Marnier in the name sounds familiar, maybe you've sipped some Grand Marnier in your day; Alexandra is the great-granddaughter of the founder of the famous liqueur.
Anyway, I figured Ray had to do a lot of spitting-style research to come up with this remarkably useful list of 50 wines.
"It's hard to say how many wines I went through,'' Ray says, "since it's partly based on my experience - I specifically wanted NOT to recommend specific vintages, but rather wines that perform well in almost every vintage - so I drew on a lot of tasting experience, and a lot of repeated tasting of those wines. That said, I did taste current vintages of everything I wrote about, and I'd say I cut at least half of the original candidates for the piece, if not more."
Ray, who is senior editor of Food & Wine, could be your new best wine friend. I know you'll find his story worth your reading (and quaffing) time. After you take a gander at it, please let me know right here if you have anything to add about your favorite everyday wines.
Cheers,
Andy
3.27.07
posted by Andrea Clurfeld at 11:03 AM
7 Comments:
We are blessed to have so many good places to go for all different price points - I would also tell people to give NJ wines a chance - you'd be surprised at what you can find...
I'm a 3-Buck Chuck in a pinch aficionado too...
Mike Collins at Nicholas in Middletown has never steered me wrong on wine. Like your friend, Ray Isle, Mike is about as down-to-earth as they come. He is also very good.
Good tip on the wine story. Good story with wine notes that are understandable, in regular language. I have no use for "WS" notes that are useless and "WA" garble about wines no one else drinks but those wine critics. Food and Wine does a good service with this. Thanks for posting about it. You have smart friends!!!
Great info...I found it online at www.foodandwine.com. Search there for "50 Wines" to view the article.
I agree, good wine story, but you used to give excellent wine advice yourself in the MatchPoint in the APP. What happened to that? Aside, from your Sunday "Companion", that was the best thing about the APP. With all the BYOs around, I know I found it extremely useful because you wrote about inexpensive wines in an informal way and helped more with food tips. I patronized the wine stores that made the effort to carry the wines you wrote about, easy wine-buying for me. I say, bring back the MatchPoint (I keep copies of some old ones) and do your readers a service. (I'll buy the paper on Wednesday again if you do. Stopped when MatchPoint stopped and only buy Sunday now. Thought you should know that.)
Thanks to all for these great replies.
To Steve re: Match Point:
Special thanks to you for remembering my beloved wine-food pairing column. (I get asked about MP all the time!) It was an editorial decision to discontinue it, with budgetary considerations thrown in. If there's any chance to revive it, I promise I'll speak up on its behalf.
Meanwhile, I hope we all can chat about wines here. Note, too, from time to time, I write about wines in my Foraging column, which appears every Wednesday in the Food section. At holiday time, I wrote about great and unusual value-priced sparkling wines. It's a blast doing those pieces, it really is.
Anyway, thanks for writing.
cheers,
Andy
3.30.07
The list put together by Food & Wine magazine is a great list - the list is packed with enjoyable, everyday wines. As a retailer, I admire wine writers who make a conscious decision to review wines that are widely available. There is nothing more frustrating than telling customers that the wines they are looking for are long gone, or worse, it is only available if you wish to wait for years to get into the wineries' mailing list. While it is true, that our value (as retailers) rest in our ability to recommend an alternative, it is nonetheless frustrating when repeating 'not available' too many times to our customers.
Another interesting point (and thoughtful) is the decision to leave out vintages. It would seem patently absurd to include vintage notes on wines produced in gazillion cases a year. It would be analogous to describing how Big Macs are tasting this year.
PCSW
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