The Official Wine Thread

[patrickBOOTH]



I was having my morning Salmon and stumbled across this article on the increase in alcohol content in wine. Wondered what you guys thought:
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/02/08/charts-of-the-day-wine-heat-edition/

Without looking at it I would imagine it could have something to do with Robert Parker?

 

[gomestar]



Is there a reason why a lot of right bank bords are never labeled by their appellations? They just "appellation bordeaux controlee" and it is anyone's guess as to where it comes from without knowing the chateau. Is it because they are not that notable?

odds are the grapes come from all over the Bordeaux region. The Chateau may have plots of vineyard all over Bordeaux, though (much) more likely they purchase grapes from growers and the grapes are from all over Bordeaux. For $13, the latter scenario is my guess for that wine you had. If a label says Margaux then the grapes all come from Margaux, if it says Medoc then the grapes are from the Medoc part (which Margaux is a part of), and if it says Bordeaux, then you get the drift...

 

[Quatsch]



I was having my morning Salmon and stumbled across this article on the increase in alcohol content in wine. Wondered what you guys thought:
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/02/08/charts-of-the-day-wine-heat-edition/

The graphs were interesting to look at but his conclusion is just . . . no. He appears to be suggesting that high quality wines = lower yields = grapes harvested at a high Bx. The correlation between yield and sugar in degrees Brix at harvest isn't what he suggests - if it were a graph, ripeness would go up quite a bit as yield went down to a point, and then it would flatten. Varietal is, of course, important too.

 

[patrickBOOTH]



odds are the grapes come from all over the Bordeaux region. The Chateau may have plots of vineyard all over Bordeaux, though (much) more likely they purchase grapes from growers and the grapes are from all over Bordeaux. For $13, the latter scenario is my guess for that wine you had. If a label says Margaux then the grapes all come from Margaux, if it says Medoc then the grapes are from the Medoc part (which Margaux is a part of), and if it says Bordeaux, then you get the drift...

Ah, I see. I had no idea that a chateau could mix grapes from a variety of regions like that.

 

[Piobaire]

I knew the article was going to be crap by the first sentence of the second paragraph:

One thing I like about this paper is that it doesn’t look directly at wine-alcohol levels, but moves back a step to the sugar content of the grapes going into the wine.

 

[Manton]

I had a Ridge Chard yesterday (SM not MB) and about halfway through I saw that the alc content was 14.4%. I was shocked. It was a perfectly balanced wine, I could not tell. If you had asked me in the abstract what I thought of a Chard with alc that high I would have said "Ick."

 

[kwilkinson]



I had a Ridge Chard yesterday (SM not MB) and about halfway through I saw that the alc content was 14.4%. I was shocked. It was a perfectly balanced wine, I could not tell. If you had asked me in the abstract what I thought of a Chard with alc that high I would have said "Ick."

Your new nickname is Rajat Parr.

 

[coolpapa]



Your new nickname is Rajat Parr.

sick burn.

 

[Savile Row]

Only tasting would determine if it has aged well.
It is a Riesling and it has been kept in a relatively cool environment (not ideal climate-controlled cellar conditions, but better than most domestic racks) for the past 20 years.
Be that as it may, I do not have any plans to open it any time soon.

 

[Manton]

I had to google that guy and i still don't get it

 

[kwilkinson]



I had to google that guy and i still don't get it

He swore against serving 14+ per cent abv pinot in one of his restaurants... Then at a discussion/tastinf panel, a winemaker (i think adam lee iirc) switched the labels on one of his wines and parr emded up loving the 14.8 abv pinot that he thought was mid 13s.

 

[b1os]

Sweet, sweet, sweet. Just sweet. Not my kind of wine at all. Yuck. Like the "Nacktarsch" (~nudebutt) I had a couple of months ago.

 

[CaesarSTL]



odds are the grapes come from all over the Bordeaux region. The Chateau may have plots of vineyard all over Bordeaux, though (much) more likely they purchase grapes from growers and the grapes are from all over Bordeaux. For $13, the latter scenario is my guess for that wine you had. If a label says Margaux then the grapes all come from Margaux, if it says Medoc then the grapes are from the Medoc part (which Margaux is a part of), and if it says Bordeaux, then you get the drift...

Thought I'd jump in again, what do you mean exactly? (Booth) Are you referring to Bordeaux and the slightly more strict Bordeaux Superior? I've attached an appellation map to try and be helpful, and the right does have "general space" for these two groups, but rest assured if a wine is from Pomerol, St. Emilion (or their satellites), Fronsac, etc. and meets all of the appellation's respective requirements the appellation's name will be on the bottle (to charge more...), you won't need to know each and every chateau.

Blending using (better) grapes from all over is a way some of my favorite Bourgogne domaines make a better quality "Bourgogne" than other domaine's village level wines (which you can't label your wine by a village if your grapes came from all over). In Bourgogne these domaine's also either own vines all over the place or buy through a negotiator, but I'm getting a bit off topic now...




Jared,

 

[CaesarSTL]



That surprises me. Hell, I'd pay $55 to try an ounce of Petrus.

I know a wine bar here in Paris that has it for 75 euro... and the wine store Lavinia has it for 100 euro... I think these are three ounces though, stored in those pressurized nitrogen system things. I think they were both 1976... maybe some day...

 

[patrickBOOTH]



Thought I'd jump in again, what do you mean exactly? (Booth) Are you referring to Bordeaux and the slightly more strict Bordeaux Superior? I've attached an appellation map to try and be helpful, and the right does have "general space" for these two groups, but rest assured if a wine is from Pomerol, St. Emilion (or their satellites), Fronsac, etc. and meets all of the appellation's respective requirements the appellation's name will be on the bottle (to charge more...), you won't need to know each and every chateau.
Blending using (better) grapes from all over is a way some of my favorite Bourgogne domaines make a better quality "Bourgogne" than other domaine's village level wines (which you can't label your wine by a village if your grapes came from all over). In Bourgogne these domaine's also either own vines all over the place or buy through a negotiator, but I'm getting a bit off topic now...

Jared,

Yes, I am referring to either Bordeaux, or Bordeaux Superior that only say that on the bottle, no mention of an appellation. I always assumed it just meant it was from a right bank appellation that isn't worth mentioning (something other than St. Emilion, Pomerol, other satellites as you said or Fronsac.