Plonk Patrol Addendum – 90+Cellars Redux – and a Musing

90+ Cellars is everywhere these days – or so it seems. On Saturday,  Rodney was again pouring them for a tasting at The Main Course in Canton. And earlier in the week, as I  wandered the aisles of Kappy’s in Wellington Circle, I was confronted with a compelling display of these wines. Having found the two I had bought on my last patrol to be good value, I picked up two more.  And likewise, I give them the Plonk Patrol endorsement. Yet, the labeling on one brought up a question about some current trends in the wine world.

• My first selection was the Lot 11 2009  Chardonnay from McLaren Vale, Australia. The winemaker took a multi-pronged approach to this wine – some is aged in stainless, while some is aged in new French oak; some undergoes malolactic fermentation, while some does not. The end result of this rodeo of stylistic decisions yields a decent chardonnay that’s a bargain at $10.99. Unlike the Chardonnay from Barossa, this wine lacks – fortunately – the weight – or is it onus –  of tropical fruits.
• My other purchase was the Lot 17  2007  Merlot from Napa Valley. One usually doesn’t think of Merlot and Napa – one thinks of Cabernet Sauvignon. Actually, this wine is a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc – a Bordeaux blend if you will or, as it is called in California, Meritage. Merlot is the dominant grape here and, as a lover of Merlot, I thoroughly enjoyed this wine, particularly at the price of $11.99 –  another Plonk Patrol Pick.

However, it was the labeling of this wine as Merlot, rather than as a Bordeaux blend or Meritage that led to my musing of whither Bordeaux. Wine writer Eric Asimov recently wrote about the decline of  Bordeaux among young wine drinkers. While critics and collectors – and particularly the British wine press and Chinese speculators  - are all agog over the 2009 Bordeaux now being offered, popularity and consumption of  Bordeaux has actually been decreasing in the US.  Accessibility -  that a wine is ready to drink when bought –  is important to a certain segment of young wine drinkers. Witness the success of Charles Smith and his Modern Wine Project, based upon ready-to-be-drunk wines. Locally, witness the success of the Second Glass, part of whose mission is to strip away the pretensions surrounding wine. And if there are any pretensions surrounding wine, they become most evident when the wine is from Bordeaux. And so, was Lot 17 labeled Merlot to appeal to these younger wine drinkers? Would labeling it as Bordeaux or  Meritage have been off-putting to some? Is the veneration of Bordeaux a relic? Whither Bordeaux?

Tagged as: 90+ Cellars, Bordeaux, Charles Smith, The Second Glass