A New Understanding of Wine Blogs

I've been blogging now for nearly seven years. And as a blogger and as a publicist who concerns himself with the wine media, Ive been watching the wine blog evolve. I concern myself with the wine blogosphere's evolution because I...

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Sarah Gellman Sarah Michelle Gellar Sarah Mutch Sarah Polley

2009 Carlisle Sonoma County Syrah: Best QPR Ever?

Just when I was thinking "Hey it's been a while since Wine Spectator gave us a high QPR wine to chase after" they dropped a doozy on us yesterday. The 2009 Carlisle Sonoma County Syrah received a 97 point rating - and retails for just $25. Carlisle mailing list members were offered the wine for an even more incredible $19.50.

Carlisle produces Zinfandel and red Rhone varietal wines out of Sonoma. They've been cranking out high QPR wines for a while now so the name is familiar to wine deal hounds.

It's been a while since I fired up the wwpQPR calculator (what's that?) but I thought this might be the best QPR I've ever heard of. Using a baseline price of $30 (the point at which it is relatively easy to find 90 point domestic Syrah) the wwpQPR gives us a 6.05: Outstanding Value. I think that might indeed be the best value I've ever heard of.

Where to Buy

Well, that's the problem. With only 391 cases produced and mailing list that's been on to their reasonably priced high quality wines for a while this one is going to be tough. A quick wine-searcher.com search turns up a few retailers that claimed to have had it for $25 or under -- but when you click through it's all sold out.

Based on past experience with wines like these, we'll see the wine quickly evaporate at retail especially under $40. The wine will be available at high mark-up at some retailers and will be available on auction sites for $50 and up. At that point, it kind of wrecks the QPR. At $50 it's a 3.02 on the wwpQPR: Very Good. Still a nice value but not one to break your neck over.

What to Do Next

Jump on their mailing list. The pattern is clear with Carlisle - they're producing wines attaining incredibly high scores and they're holding the line on price. Sounds like the perfect mailing list to be a part of. Be prepared for a wait: I signed up a few years ago and haven't gotten an allocation.

Next, scour around wine-searcher looking for back vintages and other bottlings from Carlisle. This bodes well for their 2009 offerings and I hear their 2006s were also amazing.

It's interesting to watch the CellarTracker reviews come in for a wine like this. Prior to the Spectator rating coming out yesterday, the ratings are about what you'd expect for a $25 wine from Carlisle: 90-93 points. A note published yesterday after the Spectator rating came out? 95 points.

I've discussed this pheonomenon with friends before -- how CellarTracker is an excellent resource to consult when deciding whether to take advantage of a wine deal. But there is often a high rating/price correlation on CellarTracker since most regular wine enthusiasts like us taste non-blind. Throw in a little 97-point Wine Spectator bias and it often pulls the CellarTracker ratings up a bit.

Definitely a topic for further discussion. I'd love it if you subscribed to the site so we can continue the conversation.

And consider subscribing to Wine Spectator. You can even use airline miles if you'd like.

Question of the Day: Have you seen this wine available at retail? Any tips for buying this wine or similar offerings from Carlisle in the open market?


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/TvRPZqdvWv4/2009-carlisle-sonoma-county-syrah-best.html

Samantha Mathis Samantha Morton Samantha Mumba Sanaa Lathan

Wine Word of the Week: Umami

This week?s Wine Word of the Week is umami. Official definition from Jancis Robinson?s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Umami is a Japanese term derived from two words meaning ?delicious? and ?essence? and used to refer to what some consider to be the fifth primary taste. More a quality than a specific flavor, it is [...]

Wine Word of the Week: Umami was originally posted on Wine Peeps. Wine Peeps - Your link to great QPR wines from Washington State and beyond.

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Summer Altice Summer Glau Kate Moss Kate Walsh

Cabernet as Coppertone

Researchers at the University of Barcelona have proclaimed that the official beach drink is not a margarita or a pina colada but rather: wine. Okay, they didn’t really put it that way. But they did find that wine flavanoids, found in red wine, can protect skin cells from UV rays and nasty sunburn. Even though [...]

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Kelly Clarkson Kelly Hu Kelly Monaco Kelly Ripa

Field Notes from a Wine Life ? Jambalaya Edition

http://www.goodgrape.com/images/uploads/A_Fly_on_the_Wall_-_Jon_Rimmerman.pdf

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

American Wine Consumer Coalition

I am excited that Tom Wark - Man of Action - and also the Executive Director of the Specialty Wine Retailers Association, is taking the initiative to build the non-profit consumer wine advocacy group the American Wine Consumer Coalition (AWCC), as preliminarily announced at his blog last month.

I was privy to an early iteration of his business plan and if his ideas for the organization hew closely to his initial vision it will be a rock solid benefit for wine enthusiasts.

image

My understanding of the nascent AWCC is an organization that represents the voice of wine consumers on a myriad of issues, but will most specifically be linked to consumer shipping rights while also providing an umbrella offering of member benefits for those that live a wine-inclined lifestyle.  In doing so, the AWCC addresses three woeful gaps in the wine landscape (my extrapolation not Tom’s):

1) Legacy groups like the American Wine Society have failed to implement technology and the cultivation of a member base under the age of 50 in the age of social networking and have forfeited the opportunities for connectedness that social media offers.

2) Wine social networking sites like Wine 2.0 and the Open Wine Consortium failed to regularly engage a captive audience and died an inert death.

3) Free the Grapes! has been very successful at coalescing a large number of consumers in support of shipping rights, but has largely failed at two key things:  Transparency in where the money goes (a 501c(6) trade association doesn’t have to do any financial reporting to donors) and they provide no member benefit.  Theirs is the “black box” of wine advocacy.

If the American Wine Consumer Coalition does even a half-hearted job of connecting and engaging with consumers with attendant non-profit transparency, the organization will be successful.  Godspeed and cheers to that potential outcome…for the benefit of all wine consumers.

Pulling Punches

Over the last week or so, the wine blogosphere has been revisiting its annual tête-à-tête with the 100-point system.  This time the lightening rod is a PR campaign from Hedges Family Estate in Washington called the, “Score Revolution” a sort of public petition against wine scores (and, by proxy, the critics who give the scores).

Folks have decamped to either side of the debate which is all well and good, but for one person whose livelihood has been based on wine criticism for decades, I’d expect a less flaccid (more rigid?) repudiation.

Charlie Olken, the Granddaddy of wine critics with his Connoisseurs Guide to California Wine, has this to say at his blog:  “They want us all to abandon wine ratings because they have outlived their usefulness—or, in the case of one winery—because they got crappy scores for their crappy wines.”

Two problems here, folks:  First, details make a story interesting.  For the casual reader, who are you calling out Charlie?  Hedges Family Estate?  If so, call your shot.  Second, facts are an important element to a story, as well.  And, say what you will about Hedges wine, but a search of the Wine Enthusiast, Wine Spectator, Wine Advocate and CellarTracker ratings databases doesn’t bear out Charlie’s assertion – the scores that are available on Hedges are all in the solidly “above average, but not great” category.

Charlie’s post, instead of being a skilled defense of scores, actually typifies what’s wrong with a lot of blogs –they’re poorly researched ideological opinions that are barely defensible beyond the sound bite. 

Methinks that if you’re going to wade into the court of public opinion then it’s best to name names and back up your opinion with some facts and in Charlie’s case, as an elder statesman, he should be raising the level of discourse instead of playing to the level of his competition.

On the Other Hand

On the positive side of the equation in regards to wine writing, Jon Rimmerman from Garagiste wrote a brilliant and insightful essay on the state of our national political climate.  Available by signing up for the daily Garagiste emails, I’ve taken the liberty of creating a PDF of Rimmerman’s essay from Monday, August 8th. This link initiates a PDF download that is well worth the read.

Imitation is the sincerest form of Flattery?

Around the holidays when nearly every wine writer who writes for a masthead heeds the call of the wine pairing article, you might expect some columns to look similar… But, in August not so much…

Color me surprised then when I read Matt Kramer’s column in the current issue of Wine Spectator (August 31, 2011) called, “Keeping Your Cool” about chilling red wines and then I see Ray Isle (also Food & Wine magazines Executive Wine Editor) who wrote a syndicated wine post for CNN’s food section on their web site called, “Chilling with Red Wine.”

I’ll give Isle the benefit of the doubt in regards to lifting the idea straight from Kramer, and assume that it’s a situation of, “Great minds think alike.”  However, for goodness sake, with wine, when there are a million things to write about, you might expect a slightly different twist on the same topic when they’re published in the same time window from two notable wine writers.

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

Magdalena Wróbel Maggie Grace Maggie Gyllenhaal Majandra Delfino

Tasting Group: Chilean Carmenere

Since we live in Washington State and often drink wines from Washington State, we want to make sure that we continue to hone our knowledge of the entire world of wine and maintain well-rounded palates in order to make us even more objective when we evaluate wines from Washington State. Therefore, we are thoroughly enjoying [...]

Tasting Group: Chilean Carmenere was originally posted on Wine Peeps. Wine Peeps - Your link to great QPR wines from Washington State and beyond.

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Lorri Bagley Lucy Liu Luján Fernández Magdalena Wróbel