I have finally gotten to a point where I can stop, take a breath and look around. I thought I would take a look at the NY Times and see what's happening in the world.
I found the following article, enjoyed reading it and thought I'd reproduce it here:
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Who Knew a $10 Bill Had Such a Nice Bouquet?
By ERIC ASIMOV
Published: July 27, 2005
DECADES ago, when people in wine-producing countries routinely drank a few glasses with every meal, vast amounts of wine were made quickly and cheaply. It was sold for pennies - make that francs, lire and pesetas - to be consumed right away. Most of it was utter swill: thin and sour, or thick, raisiny and volatile.
The wine industry has changed drastically since then, and people tend to romanticize those days, as if the demijohns and jugs filled at the local merchant somehow contained the sort of honest artisanal products that are no longer available. Nonsense.
The fact is that today cheap wine across the board is far superior to what it was 50 years ago. It is not hard to find dry, refreshing, satisfying wines for $10 and under, as the Dining section's wine panel learned in a tasting of 24 bottles.
Why has the quality of cheap wine improved? Simply put, the standard of winemaking is far superior. The significance of something as simple as rigorous cleanliness throughout production is now understood and accepted. Technology of all sorts allows winemakers to assure drinkability, at the very least. They can control temperatures during production, adjust levels of alcohol and acidity, even dictate flavors and aromas by using particular types of cultured yeasts.
Those improvements make better wines, though not necessarily good ones: they simply help winemakers prevent flaws and spoilage. But the tasting panel was not willing to settle for innocuous wines. We wanted wines with personalities. We wanted to find pleasure in a glass rather than an absence of pain. And we did.
"I'm surprised, particularly at how well the whites showed: crisp and summery," said Fred Dexheimer, the wine director at the BLT group of restaurants in Manhattan, who joined in the tasting with a second guest, Paul Grieco, an owner and the general manager of Hearth in the East Village, along with my colleague Florence Fabricant and me.
We tasted 12 whites and 12 reds, and picked our top 5 of each. Of the whites, three of the five were made from the sauvignon blanc grape. A fourth tasted as if it were, but it was made from the colombard grape. The fifth was a pinot grigio.
What do they all have in common?
None tasted expensive. Each was fairly simple, and yet the flavors of the grapes were allowed to shine through. One of the great winemaking clichés nowadays is, "Great wines are made in the vineyard," meaning that you cannot make great wine without first growing great grapes. Yet many who pay lip service to the vineyard use cellar techniques like aging wines in new oak barrels, which masks the grapes' flavors rather than enhancing them.
Of course, new oak barrels are very expensive. Wines made to sell for $10 or less are never aged in new oak barrels. Instead winemakers, to get an oaky quality, can dip tea bags of oak chips into the wine, infusing it with aroma and flavor that, to me, always seems artificial rather than honest. Or the wines can be manipulated in less obvious ways. The wines we liked did not taste as if they were posing as expensive bottles.
During the blind tasting, we speculated freely about where the wines we liked were made. Most of us assumed they were European, particularly from areas that have not achieved high status in people's minds and whose wines have not achieved brand-name recognition. "They harvest the grapes, put them in stainless steel or cement tanks, and that's it," Mr. Dexheimer said.
Mr. Grieco agreed, saying that wines from the New World, primarily from California and Australia, are often tailored to appeal to specific markets. "I will surmise that the New World wines are the most correct wines: balanced, acidity adjusted, with something from a tree," he said. "Old World wines rock and roll in this category. They don't try to be anything more than they are."
As it turned out, though, our top white was from South Africa, and two others from the top five were from South America. Only our No. 3 wine, the Domaine Duffour, fit the expected profile of coming from a little-known Old World region. It was made in Gascony, better known as Armagnac country, from the colombard grape. In California the grape is still widely planted and used in cheap white wines, rarely achieving the direct liveliness of this French version.
Our No. 5 white was an Italian pinot grigio from Bolla, hardly a little producer. Yet it had more flavor than many bland versions that cost twice as much. Mr. Grieco called it "unbelievable bang for the buck."
To me, though, the sauvignons blancs were the most interesting of the whites. Each seemed to have character and personality that other wines in the tasting lacked. We tasted four chardonnays, for example, including one each from California, Washington, Long Island and the Languedoc. They were not bad; just inoffensive, without zest. It may be that because of its piercing flavors, sauvignon blanc is more adaptable to an inexpensive approach than chardonnay, a grape that can reach greater heights when treated to costlier winemaking.
The reds conformed much more to our expectations. Our two top wines were both from the southern Rhône Valley, long a source for good cheap bottles. The No. 1 red, a 2001 Côtes-du-Rhône from J. Vidal-Fleury, was a superb value at $8: fruity, earthy and balanced without the candied or too-sweet qualities that may make for great popularity in the marketplace but will not impress discerning wine lovers. Our No. 2 wine, the Domaine Lafond from Lirac, was, like the Vidal-Fleury, a blend of several Rhône grapes, in this case grenache, syrah and mourvèdre.
Two American wines made our list of reds. One was the '03 Big House Red from Bonny Doon, a perennial leader in inexpensive wines. Bonny Doon is not above winery manipulations, but somehow its leader, Randall Grahm, manages to produce honest wines. Our No. 5 wine, a Bogle zinfandel, struck me as a little too sweet; yet zinfandel deserves to be on our list, as it was for years a foundation of inexpensive California wine before it began to get fancy.
While we were pleased to discover all of these easygoing pleasures, $10 wines have clear limitations. Like inexpensive cars that with few thrills or creature comforts, these wines are fine for accompanying basic meals. They are not complex, and they don't have the cerebral or soulful appeal of much better and invariably more expensive wines.
Just as the cheap wines of old are occasionally romanticized, some people contend that what sets a $100 bottle apart from a $10 bottle is little more than pretension, reputation, hype and the compulsion of gullible people to pay the higher price.
For the most part, that's ridiculous. Better wine often costs more because it is more expensive to produce. Is it possible that you will like a $10 bottle better than a $100 bottle? Of course, and not just once in a while. After all, some expensive wines are as abysmal as others are wonderful. Are some $100 bottles of wine big, pumped-up frauds that depend on the willingness of fools to part with their money? Absolutely, and they are easy to find. But the argument that the price bears no relation to quality is often founded on a specious salt-of-the-earth desire that all wines should be created equal.
To me, the dismissal of all expensive wines reminds me of Wilde's definition of a cynic: "A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing."
Tasting Report: Why Plunk Down Good Money for Plonk?
WHITES
Steenberg South Africa Sauvignon Blanc 2004
$8
**½
Crisp, fresh, zesty and balanced, with unexpected depth. (Importer: Monsieur Touton Selections, New York)
Veramonte Casablanca Valley, Chile Sauvignon Blanc 2004
$7
**
Bone-dry and refreshing, with tart herb and mineral flavors. (Franciscan Estate Selections, Rutherford, Calif.)
Domaine Duffour Vin de Pays des Côtes de Gascogne 2003
$7.40
**
Bright, intense fruit flavors, like sauvignon blanc except it's colombard. (Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, N.Y.)
Bodegas Salentein Mendoza, Argentina Sauvignon Blanc Finca el Portillo 2004
$9
**
Mild and refreshing, with citrus flavors. (San Francisco Wine Exchange)
Bolla Venezie I.G.T Pinot Grigio 2002
$10
**
Persistent melon, tropical fruit and honey flavors. (Brown-Forman Beverages Worldwide, Louisville, Ky.)
REDS
J. Vidal-Fleury Côtes-du-Rhône 2001
$8
***
Earthy and balanced, with lingering fruit flavors and a great sense of place. (W. J. Deutsch & Sons, White Plains, N.Y.)
Domaine Lafond Lirac Roc-Épine 2002
$8
**
Balanced fruit and tannins, with a pleasing bitter flavor. (Wines of France, Mountainside, N.J.)
Bonny Doon California Ca'del Solo Big House Red 2003
$10
**
Not complex, but full of spicy fruit flavors.
Sumarroca Penedès Tempranillo Barrel-Aged 2002
$10
*½
Herbal flavors, decent tannins. (Frontier Wine Imports, Dover, N.J.)
Bogle California Old Vine Zinfandel 2003
$9
*½
Juicy and fruity, but a little too sweet.
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