Fine Wine Writing by Jonathon Alsop
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IN VINO VERITAS Fine Wine Writing by Jonathon Alsop
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Wine Full Of Dollars Sometimes, it's not all about the Benjamins... January 17, 2007 Now and then, I'm lucky enough to taste wines that are sometimes hundreds of dollars a bottle, but these are few and far between. Still, it leads people to ask me -- truthfully now -- is a $100 bottle of wine really 10 times better than a $10 bottle of wine? Five times better than a $20 bottle? Is it even better at all? Most people have had the experience of tasting a $10 wine you love and a $30 bottle of wine you hate, and that's scary. It means spending more money doesn't automatically work, and that's a foreign concept to us Americans. It exposes the wild random vulnerability of life, a reality we prefer to keep out of our heads if at all possible. Honestly, what kind of world are we living in if you can't get a dependably outstanding bottle of wine for $100? Just as the laws of time and space begin to break down as you approach the speed of light, traditional relative relationships of price and quality fall apart at the highest end of the price spectrum. $100 bottles of wine at the top of their class are competing not with $10 wines, but $1,500 designer shoes at the top of their class. In that competition, the $100 wine comes out looking downright cheap. My reaction to these questions is usually to point and say, "Hey look! A seagull!" and when everyone turns around, I bolt. Truth is, a $100 bottle is not verifiably 10 times better than a $10 bottle: at best, it's $90 better, but nobody can do that math. Make Mine Iberian 
1998 Pata Negra Gran Reserva (about $14, distributed nationally by M Imports, 214-505-0616)Spanish wines are hot in the US market right now, and as long they stay as tasty and affordable as this Pata Negra, they'll be hot for a while to come. Pata Negra is made from 100 percent tempranillo grapes, so it's a great introduction to some of the Iberian peninsula's best wines. Tempranillo is the main red grape in Rioja wines (kind of like sangiovese and chianti), but it's typically blended with other grapes as well. An all-tempranillo formula is very 21st century, and the big delicious dose of French oak makes the wine modern as well. Long aging, on the other hand, is very traditional -- the current retail vintage is almost 10 years old -- and that almost alone makes it a verifiable bargain at around $3 a glass. Chop up some olives, spread them on garlic toast with manchego cheese, and call it tapas. Pata Negra Gran Reserva is smooth and silky, a very suave match with any rustic recipes. If you're really on a budget, try the 2004 Pata Negra Roble: also all-tempranillo, also good, and even less expensive. Wine In The Media I have some good news, and I have some bad news about wine in print. The good news is that one of Boston's two surviving big daily papers -- The Boston Globe, the one that still folds horizontally -- has begun running a monthly wine feature in Wednesday's vittles section. This may seem like a small step, but it is actually a giant and happy leap for The Globe that all of us wine lovers are thankful for. Once the legendary food and wine writer Anthony Spinazzola died and Bob Levy retired in the early 1990s, the paper for some reason never really covered wine comprehensively again. Except for occasional unrelated wine articles by a succession of temporary writers from other departments, thirsty wine lovers experienced a long drought. As wine grew more and more popular and profitable, the presence of its absence was hard to fathom. Wine is back at last as a regular feature, and that's the good news. I know I speak for wine lovers and wine typists everywhere when I say monthly is not nearly frequent enough, but let's not be greedy: start out monthly, get wine's foot in the door, then lobby for more later. Now the bad news. The title: "Plonk Of The Month." The editors point out they use plonk to mean any good cheap wine, but I'm sorry to point out that plonk is actually slang for undrinkable swill. Granted, it can be used affectionately -- "This is good plonk" translates roughly "Since it's only five bucks, and we don't have anything else, and as long as I never have to drink it again, I'd swallow this wine" -- but the connotation is overwhelmingly negative. No winery can control the words on the page that go around their bottle of wine, but insider wine terms like plonk, lymphatic, and hamster cage would not be their first choice. The feeling I'm left with finally is two steps forward, one step back: the media giveth, and the media taketh away. Expo Yourself Thanks to generous friends and colleagues at the Boston Wine Expo, I have 5 pairs of tickets to give away for Sunday, February 11, 1-5 pm. To win, just send email to expo@invinoveritas.com and answer this question: What makes wine the best beverage on the planet? Answers will be judged by a set of completely arbitrary criteria, and winners will be notified by email before February 1 and announced in my Boston Wine Expo preview column February 7. Visit www.wine-expos.com for more information about the Boston Wine Expo. Good luck! | |
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