Friday Frappe: Riesling as the People’s Wine {& More}

Riesling rocks. Life is not a blind tasting. Nor should it be. I was delightfully reminded of this slice of vino-veritas this week when running a wine bar at a cocktail party for a group of about 100 NY metro alumni of a prominent business school. It was a completely unscientific and yet utterly real-world setting to compare how wine lovers respoinded to an array of options. Let’s cut to the chase: the hands-down winner in this smackdown was a Finger Lakes Riesling; Dr. Konstantin Frank 2007 Semi-Dry Riesling, to be precise. Over the course of two hours, we went through 8 bottles of the luscious Dr. K (retail $15), vs. just over 2 bottles of Chalk Hill 2006 Sauvignon Blanc ($29 retail). This was an old-fashioned and well-deserved butt-kicking. The Dr. K checked in to the party with gobs of juicy fruit and a vivid underpinning of mouthwatering acidity that seemed to make apples turn into apricots and pear. What was wrong with the Chalk Hill, which I learned after the fact had been “highly rated”? It was a Chardo-wannabe, smothered with a viscous malo-lactic charater and barrel-induced distraction. Fruit and acid took a backseat to winemaking technique and the result, as judged by the discerning masses, was not pretty. In fact, I ran out of the Dr. K, even after starting to offer smaller pours; could have probably poured 12 bottles. Word got out very quickly: try the Riesling. People kept coming, and kept coming back.

Great News! Cash for Clunkers Program Extended to Wine

Listen up, wine lovers: Fermented grape juice and hulking SUVs have something in common besides ethyl alcohol as an ingredient. The federal Cash for Clunkers program has been extended to wine.

The Wine Skewer has learned that thanks to secret negotiations hammered out this weekend over copious quantities of nondescript Merlot at an undisclosed wine bar in San Francisco, aides to Governor Schwarzenegger and President Obama are expected to announce that relief is at hand for millions of American enthusiasts whose wine cellars once seemed cool and wonderful but are now hallmarks of inefficiency and/or bad taste.

According to a reliable inside source (the bartender), the plan—dubbed “Greeno for Vino” until someone comes up with something catchier—will cover the following categories.

Now Pouring: Have Ethics Become the Difference between Wine Bloggers and Wine Writers?

One of the pleasant side effects of being a wine professional is the opportunities that pop up involving our favorite beverage. Take, for example, one that arrived over the weekend.

A fairly large, fine-wine-oriented distributor was looking for volunteers to pour at their portfolio tasting on a Monday, in Manhattan, in September. Said the email:

“The work is pretty straightforward: They’ll need you from noon to 6:00 to pour wines; you’ll receive a fact sheet beforehand that will cover information about the region whose wines you’ll be working with. For your efforts, you will be compensated with a mixed case of their wines.”

Note that this email came to me under the auspices of a dues-driven association of New York wine media professionals, so my response needed to account for the fact that I am a member wine writer/blogger/communicator. That said, what do you think my reaction was? Here’s what ran through my head, roughly in order…