A further installment in value shopping – six wines, $72.
Since transporting alcohol across state lines is illegal, the following is entirely hypothetical. No crimes were committed in the writing of this post.
At the conclusion of a previous Plonk Patrol, I had threatened to move to New Hampshire, my fastidious shopping having been undone by the Massachusetts tax on alcohol beverages. Someone has to pay for Sal DiMasi’s lawyer, right? Well, here I was in New Hampshire at the Wine Expo sponsored by the Winter Wine Festival of Wentworth-by-the-Sea and the New Hampshire Liquor Commission. The motto of the event was ”Taste it! Love it! BUY IT HERE TODAY’. Outside the exhibition space where the vendors were offering up tastes of their wines was a pop-up store where the same wines could be purchased. To add to the thrill of shopping, the store offered deep discounts for purchases of six or more bottles. This could be plonk paradise, I thought. Alas, this was not to be the case – this bargain-hunting foray was going to be hard work.
It soon became apparent that the vast majority of wines being showcased were either pricey Italian wines or over-priced California wines. There was hardly an entree level wine in sight! Yet, I persevered and actually turned in my best Plonk Patrol.
- Hopler Pinot Noir Burgenland, Austria 2005. I had found a replacement for my lovely La Valmoissine, my favorite value pinot noir from the South of France that was no longer a value since the euro-dollar tryst hasn’t worked out in my favor. The Austrian wine scandal now forgotten and the website asserting that the winery operates under “high standards of hygiene”, this was a well-made Austrian wine showing the typicity of pinot noir.
- CARM “Quinta do Coa” Vinho Tinto Douro, Portugal 2007. Other than port, I usually don’t drink Portuguese wines, perhaps a hold-over from my wine classes when my instructor would dismiss Portuguese reds as “raisin juice”. However, I enjoyed this organic, single-vineyard wine blended from three Portugese varietals – touriga national, tinta roriz and touriga franca. Since paleolithic art is one of my interests, I was also intrigued by the capsule of the bottle which depicted paleolithic animal engravings. As it turns out, the vineyard lies withinthe archeological reserve of the Vale do Coa, a World Heritage Site.
- Panarroz, Jumilla, Spain, 2007.This is a collaboration between the importer Dan Kravitz and Bodegas Olivades. A blend of 60% monastrell, 25% garnacha and 15% syrah, the wine, now in its fifth vintage, gets consistently high marks from Robert Parker. And, as such, is a BIG wine. When I tasted, I thought BBQ. Right now, I’m braising some lamb shanks and this was the wine I used as part of my braising liquid. And the aroma in my kitchen is just wonderful. I’ll also drink some with the finished dish.
- Chateau Beauchene “Les Charmes” Cote du Rhone Villages, 2007. This was my splurge – well outside the plonk parameters but I was relying on that deep discount to meet my goal. This wine, a blend of grenache and syrah with a smattering of various other Rhone varietals, was one of my favorite wines from the Expo.
- And now, Malbec Smackdown! In this corner, Don Miguel Gaston Malbec Mendoza, Argentina 2008. In France, where malbec has been grown for 2000 years, it is often thought of as a blending grape. In Argentina, however, the grape has come to enjoy great popularity on its own. This historic vineyard, now under the umbrella of the renowned Catena family, produces good value wines suitable for quaffing.
- And in the opposite corner, Georges Vigouroux Pigmentum Malbec Cahors, France 2006. At first glance, this might appear to be a single-vineyard wine but is not. Georges Vigouroux, wine maker and merchant, chose the name to signify two things: first, the deep color of the wine – in the Middle Ages, the English referred to malbec as “the Black Wine of Cahors”; and secondly, the Latin form of the name references the antiquity of the grape in France. Unlike the Argentine contender, this expression of malbec is restrained.
The moment of Plonk Patrol reckoning was at hand – total, with that deep discount, $63.95! So, I don’t need to move to New Hampshire, I just need to shop there more often. And yet I can’t, since it would be illegal for me to bring the wine across the border.
