As we prepare to bid adieu to 2011, we find ourselves in the
last throes of the holiday season. The last two weeks of the year become a
multicolored haze of festive dinners, office parties, and gift exchanges all
wrapped up in a nice pretty bow of the holiday shopping orgy. You can’t really
go wrong this time of year with the Swiss Army knife of presents – a good
bottle of wine.
For most events, an inexpensive bottle (such as most of the
ones we normally discuss around here) will suffice. Anyone who wends the way
through this social maze knows that people are usually looking for something
palatable to quaff so that making small talk becomes more bearable.
That’s not always the case, though. Sometimes you need a
special bottle – something with a little more flavor and complexity for a more
meaningful occasion. As we’ve discussed in this space before, the end of the
year is the best time to snag major bargains for your cellar or gift bag since
wine stores are trying to clear inventory to make room for “next year’s model.”
This opportunity is further amplified by the continued
economic doldrums. The super high end stuff that can cost hundreds – wines like
classified growth Bordeaux, Screaming Eagle cabernet from Napa, rare Barolo and
the like – they’re always going to sell. There will always be collectors who
can afford them. On the other end of the scale, the demand for the $15 and
under bottle increases as wine drinkers are more judicious about discretionary
income. The market slice getting hammered are the wines with “in-between
expensive” price points – say $20-100. Ask almost any wine buyer. These wines
just aren’t moving very well.
Here’s where you can score big if you look closely. There
are “in-between expensive” bottles just sitting out there. If you’ve read those
descriptions on shelves in wine stores, you’ll see many lines like “Drink
between 2005-2011.” Odds that these wines will sell briskly after that window
closes? Small. Wine stores need to clear these puppies off the shelves, so many
of them get offered at enormous discounts. You can also find good values
looking for wines that are from neighboring regions to super-expensive wines,
especially if you’re thinking about French wines. For instance, a wine from a
classified growth chateau may be hundreds of dollars a bottle, but a wine
produced a few hundred yards away from similar grapes can go for a fraction of
that cost.
Feel free to use these ideas as a great way to either score
cool gifts or try some higher-end stuff that you might not have had the
opportunity to crack on your normal travels. Take advantage of this. Go to your
wine store and ask your friendly neighborhood wine guide to show you some
“special occasion” wines that they have on end-of-vintage sale and see what
happens.
Great example – the Sweet Partner in Crime and I got hitched
a couple of years ago on Dec. 10th. As readers of this space know,
we’ve been together awhile. Prior to our actual wedding, we’d used Dec. 18th,
the date of our first date, as our anniversary. So we wouldn’t have to choose,
we deemed these eight days our “Channiversary.” For our celebration this year,
The SPinC went looking for three bottles – one from 2001 (the year we met), one
from 2009 (the year we tied the knot), and another bottle, because things work
better in threes. Here’s what she came up with:
La Croix de Rameaux
2009 Brouilly – The SPinC is a sucker for Burgundy, so that’s what she
asked about first. Burgundy from 2009 would be too young to drink now, but she
was pointed in the direction of Beaujolais (which is, after all, in Burgundy).
2009 is, by all accounts, one of the best years in Beaujolais in history, and
the cru Beaujolais are not only
exceptional – they’re ready to drink right now! (A Beaujolais cru will have the name of its city instead of
“Beaujolais” or “Beaujolais-Villages” on the label.) Many Beaujolais, including
cru, can be a little thin, but not this Brouilly. For
a light red, this had an exceptionally friendly and layered fruit and acid
balance. Lots of full cherry flavors and a smokiness that was more reminiscent
of a Burgundy than a Beaujolais. It was good on its own, but it truly shined as
a charcuterie wine. (Which was good, because we didn’t feel like cooking the
night we opened it.) With the serrano ham (oh yes!), salami, and chorizo we’d
laid out...all delicious. We found it was also especially good with goat
cheese, a usually-challenging pairing. Just a lovely wine to munch with.
Ordinarily $32, we got this one for about $24.
Il
Bosco 2001 Cortona Syrah – Italian syrah? I think I’ve seen some of it
blended into Super Tuscan wines, but I don’t remember it as a single varietal.
Apparently more and more Italian winemakers are giving it a go but, until
recently, these wines were much more a boutique purchase. This was the wine
with the “Drink between” dates I mentioned above. Strike while the iron is
still hot! Goodness, was this some tasty wine. My initial comment was “it
smells more Italian than it tastes.” (Although I didn’t have much of a basis
for comparison with syrah.) The nose is
lovely. Plums, flowers, and smoke. Lots of earthy blackberries and cherries on
the palate with a hint of that underlying Italian chalkiness. There’s also some
smoke that got amplified towards the end as the tannins kicked in, leaving
coffee behind. Wonderfully complex. I’d certainly be interested in trying more
straight syrah from Italy. For dinner, we had salt-crusted roasted leg of lamb.
Heavenly pairing. Cut straight through the lamb’s fattiness, enhancing the rich
flavors. Super. A $80-ish wine that ended up at around $35.
Chateau de Bellevue
2000 Lussac-St. Emilion – I readily admit that I don’t usually get
Bordeaux. It’s just not one of those Old World wines that I generally crave the
way that I do Burgundy or various Italian bottles. Just the same, a nearly
12-year old bottle has an appeal, and I’ve since learned that 2000 in St.
Emilion was a historically good vintage. In retrospect, that little factoid
makes perfect sense. We decided to open this with an attempt at making a
more-or-less true cassoulet. (Mmm…rendered duck fat!) We got to cooking and I
poured the wine into a decanter. Bordeaux are notoriously slow-breathing wines.
After about an hour and a half, we decided to try a glass. Oy! Tannin bomb,
coming in! This wine gave both of us lockjaw. We couldn’t speak. Heavy charcoal
and graphite. We decided that it needed a little more time to open, and we had
an hour or so before the cassoulet came out of the oven. In the interim, I swirled
the hell out of what was left in my glass for awhile, and hooboy -- was I ever
rewarded. The wine started to open beautifully. The nose exploded into herbs
and chocolate covered cherries. The charcoal and graphite powered flavor
mellowed into a much more pleasant balance of cherry and smoke. The finish went
on and on and on. The wine continued to change over the course of the evening,
yielding more and more complex flavors. This was the big deal about
Bordeaux.
With food? Ye gods. While waiting for the cassoulet to finish, we
tried it with some “drunken” goat cheese. Absolutely outstanding. A true “eyes
rolling back in your head” combination…at least until we finally got to the
cassoulet. Heaven. There really aren’t words for how good this pairing was. We
did a version of cassoulet with ham instead of sausage and smoked duck. The
smokiness of the wine complemented the rich duck perfectly, while the tannins
tamed the salt from the ham while cutting through the fat. We lingered over
this meal and the last drops of wine in the decanter for a long, long time,
savoring. Perfect pairings come along rarely – those French know what they’re
doing with wine and casseroles, to be sure. Many 2000’s from St. Emilion
currently run well over $100. This wine from the surrounding region? $30.
So go forth, find bargains, and enjoy your holidays! We’ll
see you in 2012!
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