Value Alert: 2009 Ninety Cellars Pinot Noir Lot 47 Reserve

The day after I tasted this wine I ordered a case. To give you an idea of how rare that is, I haven't ordered a straight case of any wine since 2005.

I've tasted over 100 different Pinot Noirs this year and the 2009 vintage from California has been a winner - more on that in this tasting report. I was leafing through Spectator's Wine of the Year issue last night and their crowning of a Cali Pinot Noir felt like a statement that California Pinot Noir deserves attention in serious wine enthusiasts' rotation.

90+ Cellars is a Boston-based company whose business model is to take finished, bottled wines from producers with a pedigree of 90 point ratings and deliver them to consumers at a fraction of the cost of the original label.

Their selections have come from all over the world. Their "Reserve" designation tends to be assigned to wines with a higher price point and esteem than their regular label - but their wines rarely exceed the $20 retail mark. This wine is available at retail for around $15 and I think it would fool a lot of people in a blind tasting of $40-$60 wines. Ample production should make this relatively easy to attain.

My Notes:

2009 Ninety+ Cellars Pinot Noir Lot 47 Reserve
14.5% alcohol
$17.99 (compare to $27.99)
2,400 Cases Produced

I think our friends at 90+ have caught lightning in a bottle with this one. Confusingly similar to Sanford on the low-end and Sea Smoke on the high-end. Utterly delicious.

Perfect floral/fruit-driven SoCal Pinot aromatics are the first things I noticed followed up by a satisfying experience on the palate. This one will sell out in a flash. I'm curious who the producer is. Fantastic stuff. Wow.

92/100 WWP: Outstanding

For more information or to purchase this wine directly from 90+ Cellars visit their website. I'll look forward to comparing notes.

Sample for review.

Question of the Day: Have you tried this wine? If so - what did you think?


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Nicole Scherzinger Nicollette Sheridan Nikki Cox Nikki Reed

Better Wine Blogging 101 ? Using links effectively

Continuing on with our goal to help improve your wine blogging, we want to tackle an important strategy that is often avoided, typically because many people are under the false pretense that it will hurt them, but it’s quite the contrary. This simple strategy can not only bring more traffic to your site, but will [...]

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Sarah Silverman Sarah Wynter Scarlett Chorvat Scarlett Johansson

ACI, NYU class, New School talk, Quintarelli

Calvin Trillin has a hilarious post on ACI, a measure with false precision akin to the wine score. Here’s a snippet: ?Among people who think of themselves as wine connoisseurs there?s a 61 percent ACI.? What is ACI? Click through to find out… [Slate.com] Giuseppe Quintarelli, “master of the Veneto,” has died at 84. [NYTimes.com] [...]

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Rebecca Mader Rebecca Romijn Reese Witherspoon Rhona Mitra

Field Notes from a Wine Life ? Autumnal Equinox Edition

Odds and ends from a life lived through the prism of the wine glass…

The Power of Intent in Biodynamic Wine

I wrote a heady post in September about Biodynamic wine.  The story is too complicated to summarize here (link to post), but one of the things that I touched on (and that interests me on an ongoing basis) is the notion of “intent” in the vineyard particularly as it relates to viticultural quality and Biodynamic preparations.

They say that you can taste “love” in a food dish, so, while not scientifically quantifiable (at least not yet), it stands to reason that extra attention and loving preparation with BioD preps. might have a positive benefit on the vines and subsequently the wines.

This notion of intent isn’t my idea; I culled it from Voodoo Vintners, Katherine Cole’s Biodynamic-related book published earlier this year (she has a different supposition about ‘intent’ than I do).  A passage from the book notes, “The belief is that the preparations aren’t merely herbal treatments for plants; they’re carriers of the farmers’ intentions, which have been swirled into them through the powerful act of stirring.  While it isn’t a requirement for Demeter certification, intention is that little bit of witchcraft that separates the most committed practitioners from the unbelievers.”

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My point in September and my point now is that “intent” isn’t witchcraft, its science – science that is still emerging and not completely understood.

To that end, I read an incredible, eye-opening, mind-bending article in the current issue of Time magazine about a new technology device called the BodyWave.  An iPod sized device, the BodyWave is based on electroencephalography (EEG), the study of how brain activity excites neurons to emit brain waves that travel the central nervous system and can be measured.

So, here’s the thing.  Not only can this BodyWave device measure the fluctuations in the brain’s electrical activity, but when connected to a computer it can perform functions based on brain waves.

It’s a holy crap moment to realize that by focusing brain activity somebody can shut off a valve in a nuclear power plant, via computer, with the power of their mind, as elaborated on in the article.

The full Time magazine article is subscriber-protected (darn publishers that try to run a business…), but the intro. to the article is available here.

I’m a liberal arts guy, as far removed from science as one can get by education, vocation and lifelong learning interest, but I do have the ability to suspend my disbelief and it seems likely to me that in 10 years’ time the Biodynamic conversation is going to be around an entirely different set of conversational conditions than the current ‘bunkum vs. belief’ precept that we have now.

On Knowledge

I’ve never reconciled the “demystify” vs. “knowledge frees you” debate as it relates to wine.  Many will say that wine is needlessly overcomplicated for the average consumer and the arcane aspects act as a barrier to entry.

Well, sometimes you find defining wisdom in the unlikeliest places.

Scott Adams, the creator of the cartoon Dilbert, noted in a blog post recently what I’ve thought, but have never been able to say quite so eloquently. 

Indeed, you are what you learn.  You don’t have to know much about wine to drink it, but it sure makes it that much more enjoyable if you lean into the door…

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Thanksgiving Wine Recommendation

Thanksgiving is the wine world’s national holiday.  I get that.  It’s my favorite holiday, too. But, the attendant wine pairing articles are exhausting.  Does it really matter what you drink with Thanksgiving dinner?  Nope.  If it did, somebody, anybody would care that I’ll be having Sparkling Rose, German Riesling and New Zealand Pinot, but, really, nobody cares.  At the end of the day, the below picture encapsulates what really matters when picking a wine for Thanksgiving (Hint: Focus on the food).

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It Was a Good Week for Lot18

My eyes bugged out like a virgin at a nudist camp when I saw that Lot18 secured $30M in additional funding.  That money coupled with clarification from the California Alcohol Beverage Control (CA ABC) on some wonkiness in legalities, means the first week of November 2011 will go down as a watershed moment for Lot18.

Perhaps equally interesting to me is a passage noting, “Radical Transparency” in an email sent to Lot18 members from Lot18 (ostensibly founder Phillip James).  The email noted:

As Lot18 moves into its second year of existence, our goal is to ensure that, with more money in the bank and compliance questions behind us, Lot18 can continue to deliver on its responsibilities to our suppliers and to our members alike. We must hold ourselves accountable to ensure we maintain trust with everyone who produces and consumes goods offered by Lot18.

We do this through a policy called Radical Transparency, which simply involves sharing more than was once considered wise. We believe in this because it drives our focus and ensures that all of our employees and our members feel that they have a role in shaping our future. Together we can create a service that will not only help you find great value, but also encourage you to spread the word to friends and family so that they may also share in the delight.

We’re all aware of “transparency” as an online buzzword the last several years.  It’s a word that has been co-opted, commoditized and rendered meaningless, as well.  It seems, transparency is really code word for faux sincerity and empathy and that makes adding the modifier of “Radical” to transparency all the more interesting.

These days, every new business success story comes with hagiographic mythologizing and I wouldn’t be surprised if, in this area, “Radical Transparency” is where Lot18 stakes their claim.  After all, culture and customer service is already taken by Zappos.

Yet, radical transparency isn’t a new concept either.  If you’re interested in seeing how a hedge fund called Bridgewater Associates (founded by Ray Dalio) has codified a brutally honest feedback loop see this profile piece from New York magazine and Dalio’s 123 page “Principles” document (worth the read).

Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/field_notes_from_a_wine_life_autumnal_equinox_edition/

Leeann Tweeden Leelee Sobieski Leighton Meester Leila Arcieri

Shut the Front Door: A Vinsane, Pay-it-Forward, Drinks 4X the Price Wine Recommendation

The problem with sleuthing out good wine under $10 is the recommendations usually come with provisos like, “This is pretty good for the price,” or “This isn’t bad for the style of wine.”  Rare is the time that a wine recommendation for vino under $10 is just, “This is a fantastic wine.”

Who can blame the wine recommender for their caveats and written sleights of hand when they’re left to tout the middling amongst the insipid; the redemptive within the felonious?  It’s like the back-handed compliment from the parents of an axe murderer who note plaintively from the front stoop, “He has a good heart.”

Adding insult to this injury, it seems like nearly all domestic wines under $10 are manipulated to appeal to a demographic.  Far too often, they are oak chipped to a formula, softened, vortexed and plumped back up into a wine beverage complete with a label that screams, “Benignly vague and blandly appealing.  I am inoffensive to a large group of people.”

And, forget about pairing under $10 bottles of vino with food.  Do so only if your idea of wine pairing centers on condiments with artificial coloring and HFCS, so duotone are the wine flavor profiles.

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When it comes to what should be reliable international value wines, forget about it – most of them aren’t even has-beens, they never were.  France and Italy – I’m talking to you.  For a sawbuck, these are sad, middling, barely potable wines evocative of an athlete whose entire identity is wrapped up in jockdom, but for whom life’s fate never provided him acclaim beyond the local playground. The fact that these wines often taste like a sweaty gym sock may, in fact, be no small coincidence.

Harrumph. 

What I want is what most wine consumers want: A non-spoofulated wine with quality that stands on its own—a good wine at $9.99 that is a good wine, period.  No half-hearted caveats associated with it.  If the wine pairs with dinner, instead of being a digestif, all the better.  Tie me up, spank me and call me Shirley if this mystical and elusive under $10 wine also has any of the following characteristics: Organic, old vines, unfiltered, native yeast, judicious oak, and complexity whilst being food-friendly.

I’m pretty sure I won’t have to have any dalliances in the wine S&M dungeon save for one emerging country.

Recently, I started to see glimpses of where quality, inexpensive wines might be coming from in the future when I tasted through a sampling of wines from the Navarra region of Spain. One $5 bottle of wine was so screamingly good it defied the law of reason. 

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And, then, I received a recommendation for Masia de Bielsa’s 2009 Garnacha, a Spanish wine from the Campo de Borja area in the Aragon region of Spain, southeast of Navarre and La Rioja.  Adam Japko, a wino friend and author of Wine-Zag, and I did some horse-trading on bottles and he threw in a bottle of wine in a wine shipment to me and noted, “Curious what you think of this…”

What do I think?  I think I owe you favors to last a month of Sundays for turning me onto a beauty.

Of course, wine recommendations don’t happen in a vacuum and the Masia de Bielsa 2009 Garnacha is no different even if it follows a certain circuitous Internet-borne dynamic that seems unusual even in this day and age of “brand vs. land, there are no secret wine values anymore…” online battle.

Jose Pastor is a wunderkind (30 years old) wine importer with a fast growing reputation amongst wine insiders for his portfolio of Spanish wines that are typically natural in style – producers who farm organically when possible, emphasize terroir, use ambient yeasts, filter sparingly and use minimal oak.  In other words, his wines, and especially his inexpensive wine selections, are the anti-brand.  Or, should I say, “They’re the antidote to brand wines.”  The good stuff. 

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Jose’s wines won’t have an end-cap in stores with promotional materials, nor will they follow you on Twitter or ply you with faux-flattery for a “Like” on Facebook. Ditto that for Pastor playing the points scoring game.  He doesn’t do it. The wines and wineries in his portfolio simply represent something good and honest and rely on smart trade buyers who know good juice when they taste it and are interested in paying that forward to consumer’s one bottle at a time.

This formula isn’t a recipe for getting rich, but it is a recipe for long-term, slow-burning growth based on a purity of vision.

When Richard Schnitzlein, a longtime wine buyer in the greater Boston area, took over the wine section at Ferns Country store in Carlisle, MA in early 2011, he started to remake the selection of wines on offer and that meant much more diversity, spreading the selection from two distributors to 14 over a seven month period.

A part of that remaking was to engage Genuine Wine Selections, a wine distributor in Massachusetts, who carries the Jose Pastor portfolio.

When Genuine Wine Selections partner Dennis Quinn showed up at Ferns in the spring with samples to taste, the ’09 Bielsa was a part of the mix.

Enamored, Schnitzlein started stocking the wine.  “Initially (the Bielsa) was a hand sell, but (it) soon became a wine that people were asking for,” he noted.

Japko was turned onto the Bielsa from Schnitzlein and mentioned the Bielsa on his site in June.  A September Ferns promotion dropped the price on the Bielsa from $11.99 to 9.95 and that yielded 15 cases of the Bielsa moving through the door for Ferns including a stock-up from Japko.

Within a week of receiving my bottle from Japko, I had taken to the Internet to find this wine and I bought a ½ case online from Marketview Liquor in New York state who sells it for $7.99 a bottle.

I’ve gifted a bottle to a friend at work, and, well, I’m writing extensively about this vino, too – my own pay-it-forward juju for having been tipped off to this wine.

The moral of this story?  Finding a gem of a wine for $10 or under isn’t a hopeless process, but you do have to sift a lot of muck to find the gold nugget.  In my opinion, you’re more likely to find a gem by keeping your ears open for word of mouth recommendations from wine-inclined friends or a local wine shop then to take to the wine aisles of your supermarket wine section playing brand roulette.  Here, the internet and Wine-searcher.com is your friend, as well.  In addition, Spain is a country that is producing some excellent wines across all price tiers, and my very recent and very anecdotal track record at the lower-end has been very good.  And, finally, it pays to know people.  It pays to know what Jose Pastor is all about, and it pays to know the Richard Schnitzlein’s and Adam Japko’s of the world who freely share where to find the good stuff, even if finding the good stuff requires an Importer in California, a wine buyer in Massachusetts, a generous friend and internet ecommerce.

2009 Bielsa Vinas Viejas Garnacha

Huge, pure nose with mulberry juice, black cherry, orange peel, earth and a meaty savory quality that gives way to an expressive palate with plum, black cherry, spice and fresh squeezed orange juice.  The finish lingers with plum, pepper and earthiness.  This is a varietally correct, gorgeous, natural, unfiltered wine that screams for food and would be a bargain at 4X the price.  Highly recommended.  At under $10 a bottle, you’d be foolhardy not to find this wine.

Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/shut_the_front_door_a_vinsane_pay-it-forward_drinks_4x_the_price_wine_recom/

Nikki Cox Nikki Reed Norah Jones Noureen DeWulf

?Why Are You So Into Pinot??

Watch Paul Giamatti’s eyes while Virginia Madsen is speaking. Great acting in the best wine scene ever in film. You might need to click back for the video… Happy New Year! “Why Are You So Into Pinot?” originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

“Why Are You So Into Pinot?” originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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iTunes Now Includes All Podcast Episodes

This podcast predates iTunes so when it started only a portion of my shows appeared on the feed. After I posted my latest podcast I decided it made sense to consolidate all the shows into the iTunes feed with all future podcasts published in mp3 format. Down the feed to Winecast 33 are enhanced AAC [...]

iTunes Now Includes All Podcast Episodes originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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Mia Kirshner Mía Maestro Michael Michele Michelle Behennah