Talk-A-Vino

I’m sure you saw in my prior posts mention of QPR – Quality Price Ratio. I like wine in general – but being able to achieve high QPR makes it even more enjoyable.  One of the best ways to reach high QPR is to buy wine online. Wine-searcher is the best tool I know to find the wine online, but when it comes to buying wine it is hard to beat Wine Till Sold Out, or WTSO (you can now find them also on Facebook). What I like about WTSO is price (of course), simplicity, reliability and service. They do respond to your e-mails, and answer your questions! The reason I emphasize that is because when you deal with “value” businesses, often you have to give up on some of the elements, like service, for instance – and WTSO is pleasantly different. Information on the web site is simple, easy to understand and comprehensive, and wines are available on, well, first come first serve basis – yep, I missed a few wines are dearly regretted.

Just to give you an idea of what WTSO can bring you, I decided to collect the e-mail notification during one week (week of November 15th), so here is the information in the form of the table:

To give you an idea about ratings: WS stands for Wine Spectator, RP = Robert Parker, WE = Wine Enthusiast, ST – Stephen Tanzer, WRO = Wine Review Online, TWN = The Wine News, JHN = Jonathan H. Newman. Min # of bottles column specifies minimum number of bottles to buy to get free shipping, which I never saw exceeding 4. Time column specifies the exact time when WTSO e-mail arrived to my mail box.

If you will scroll through the table, you will see that during one week, 31 different wines from California, Oregon, France, Spain, Italy and South Africa had being offered. The discounts ranged from 32% to the 64%, and wine ratings had being the range of 89 – 94.

Is WTSO The place to get all your wines? Of course not – you can’t beat good wine store, such as Cost Less Wines I talked about before. However, combination of QPR and good service definitely should put WTSO on your short list of places to buy the wine from. Happy hunting!

In one of the previous posts, I came up with the term “dangerous wine” – the wine which is so smooth and so good, once you start drinking it, you pretty much can’t put the glass down until the wine is all gone.  Here come the second wine from Spain which I also have to declare “dangerous”.

It is called Claraval and it is coming from the Calatayud region. This wine is a blend of four grapes – Garnacha (50%), Tempranillo (20%), Cabernet Sauvignon (20%) and Syrah (10%). The wine has sour cherries on the nose, and it opens up into a beautiful array of spices and fruit, with earthy notes coming through, all complemented by balancing acidity and tannins. If anything, this wine is reminiscent of good Southern Rhone wines (which is not surprising as it shares the same main grape, Grenache, known as Garnacha in Spain), but it definitely has its own character. Judging by the mid-palate weight and tannins, this wine will also do well in the cellar – and I was glad to see that Robert Parker think the same, giving this wine 91 rating and saying that wine will evolve all the way into 2020.

So, how much do you think such wine should cost? Nope, it is not $30, which would not be surprising at such a level of quality, it is only… $11.99, so it definitely has very high QPR. This is definitely the wine to buy by the case.

And now, it is time for the verdict (of course you already guessed it):

Drinkability: 8

What is next? The trip to Long Island wineries, which is almost a annual tradition by now – a trip to Long Island wineries in the Fall, when it is already not hot, and still very beautiful. Off we go (well, the team members have to wake up first). Report to follow…

And again I have to thank Stew Leonard’s Wines folks for a free education session. This Friday and Saturday (October 1st and 2nd) you can try three different wines from the Cakebread Cellars. Cakebread cellars is a well regarded producer from Napa Valley in California, so I definitely was interested in experiencing their wines.

Two whites and one red were presented, all classical wines from Napa Valley – Sauvignon Blanc 2008, Chardonnay 2009 and Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, and I tasted them in this exact order. Just to share an overall expression – there are good wines, but I didn’t like them, especially taking into account QPR (Quality Price Ratio), a very popular metric used nowadays among wine aficionados. Sauvignon Blanc has a very nice nose, but on the palate it lacks the acidity, and while it finishes with the fresh cut grass (classic Sauvignon Blanc characteristic), the sensation is too warm and a bit burning. Considering this wine retails for $29.99, I would gladly take any time New Zealanad Sauvignon Blanc instead at $10 to $15 a bottle.

Chardonnay simply didn’t do anything for me. It is very young, somewhat of a Chablis style, but it was missing steely acidity of Chablis. I understand it is 2009, and it might need more time to evolve, but at $39.99 there are so many more better choices, I wouldn’t even go there.

And then the Cabernet Sauvignon, the king of Napa Valley wines – beautiful nose of classic cab, but no mid-palate weight and in general, not enough substance on the palate. At $74, it is really not a player – if not under $20, in the $30 – $40 category there are soooo many better choices…

To conclude, these Cakebread wines are definitely worth trying – and learning. I also have to tell you ( but it is a secret), that tomorrow I plan to try some very interesting wines – and I promise to report on that later on!