Author: Christy

Wine You Never Knew You Needed: Frappato

A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: Light, fresh, delightful reds as weird? Fast forward ten years and chillable, smashable, chuggable reds have almost officially be a category unto themselves.

Originally published on June 30, 2009.

Frappato is one of those grapes you’ve probably never heard of. We hadn’t until last summer when one of our sales reps came by with the winemaker and an open bottle of Valle dell’Acate “Il Frappato” 2008 (Sicilia, Italy). Given that the wine is a red from Sicily, we were expecting something big, full-bodied, typical of a hot island climate. But no – this Frappato was absolutely charming. Light red (but not quite into rose territory) with notes of bright fresh red berries and roses. It’s perfect for summer days and can be drunk just a little bit chilled.

The several times we’ve had it open at the store, the overwhelming consensus has been “it’s weird, but I really like it!” It’s not really weird, it’s just that most of us aren’t used to drinking reds that are so light, fresh, and really, delightful. A red doesn’t have to hit you over the head to be good.

So if you’re in the mood for something different – give this a try – we all need a little weird yet likable in our lives. Price: $18.99

I’m Lazy and This is Funny

Originally published on June 28, 2009.

I have always wanted to do a post on the top Google searches that find my web site, either the Frankly Wines store site or this blog. I think Terry over at Mondosapore did a post on this a long time ago, but as it says in the title, I’m lazy (at least right this moment) and don’t feel like looking it up. And just the other day, Lyle Fass at Rockss and Fruit posted his site’s Top 10 oddest search words, so I decided to just be a lazy copy cat and finally do my own post.

Sadly, it’s not very exciting. There are lots of search terms on wooden boxes due to my apparently highly popular post on the phases of wooden box lust, respect, and contempt.
There’s a search on “stats geek – why?” which seems like an odd question to ask. Really, why not? Or who cares? Or, huh?

The only slightly interesting, truly odd search is “promiscuous wine”. That one speaks for itself.

The Paying of Bills

Originally published on June 19, 2009.

One of my daily chores is to pay my distributor bills. This involves sitting down with a big check book, writing actual checks (today’s are $26.68, $45.00, and $400), addressing actual envelopes, and affixing them with actual stamps. Then the challenge is remembering to take them out of my bag and put them in an actual mailbox at some point during the day (because this is New York and no one has an actual mailbox of their own to put letters in for postpeople to pick up.)

Now I can already hear some of you asking, “Why don’t you just do this electronically. It seems a little silly to be wasting real checks and real stamps when you can just pay your bills electronically.”

And I would answer that yes, it’s a little silly, but that’s just the way it is in the wild world of New York wine.

“Why’s that?” you ask. (Even if you don’t ask, I’m going to tell you.)

In New York, as everywhere, wine sales are highly regulated by the state. In the case of payment terms, every retailer and restaurateur is given 30 day terms. So if the wine is delivered on June 1st, the distributor has to get your check for that delivery by July 1st. If they don’t get it by that day, there’s a 5 day grace period and then the distributor has to report you to the State. (The “State” being the State Liquor Authority, aka the SLA). Not unlike in high school, you’re put on the delinquent list. And detention takes the form of COD status – Cash on Delivery.

COD status means big, busy truck drivers will stand in your store, tapping their feet, waiting for you to write a check before giving you your wine. (Or something like that…I’ve never actually given one of them a check.) And you’re not on COD status for just the one distributor. You’re on COD status for EVERYONE!

This is a very bad thing because paying for your wine the day it’s delivered is a much different situation that paying for it 30 days later (when you’ve had an entire month to sell it and get the cash to pay for it.) So nobody likes to be on COD.

But nobody wants to pay their bills before they have to. I don’t want the distributor to get my cash one day before it’s due. In some cases I don’t have it the day before it’s due, but generally, I’m just inclined to want to keep my money in the bank as long as possible.

So back to why I’m still using checks, stamps, envelopes rather than a snazzy electronic payment system.

Well, only 1 of the approximately 50 distributors I work with offers any sort of automated payment system. And it’s not really automated – I have to call the customer service line, listen to at least 5 minutes of inane music and canned liquor commercials, give them a check number, invoice number, and check amount.

But I can still use my bank’s automated payment system right? Which I started to do once I had started to build a little bit of cash in the bank. It was great – I’d just go online, set everything up and revel in no more stamps! No more envelopes! No more last minute treks to the post office because it took me 3 days to remember to take the envelopes out of my purse! Great!!!!

Not so much. Almost immediately, I started getting calls from my distributors asking where my usually timely checks were. I was about to become a delinquent!

With a little investigation, I learned that the automated payment process isn’t so automated. I was really just “automatically” asking my bank to have someone stick a check in an envelope and mail it from somewhere else. And this somewhere else was in Nebraska. And sometimes it could take up to 5 days to get the check into an envelope. And then another 5 days for the envelope to get to the distributor in New York. So 10 days total. And of course, the bank takes the money out of my account the day I process the payment, 10 days earlier.

Bottom line, I would have to pay my bills at least 10 days before their due date, hope nothing goes wrong in Nebraska (mad cow stampede?), and still could possibly wind up reported as a delinquent to every distributor in the state. And even worse – I would be a delinquent for non-payment of money that had already been removed from my account!!

I think I’ll stick to stamps.

Scooping the New York Times: Vaona Valpolicella

Originally published on May 27, 2009.

Apparently, I never actually published this. Bummer – such a waste of a good scoop! As I type, we have indeed moved into the 2008 vintage, but rest assured, it’s still good wine and well worth a try.

Follow me while we go back in time, to May, when it was still raining, just like today:

In this week’s “Wines of the Times” column, Eric Asimov and Co. chose the Vaona Valpolicella Classico as their #1 pick out of 25 different Valpolicellas.

We’ve had this wine on the Frankly Wine shelves since February, when one of our sales reps brought a bottle, winemaker in tow, for us to taste. I remember it was a cold, natsy day, but the wine was fresh and vibrant, medium-bodied, but full of flavor – berries, floral notes, minerality, It wasn’t trying to be an Amarone or anything particularly “serious.” It was just a really well-made, very enjoyable, highly drinkable wine – exactly what a Valopolicella should be.

As often seems to be the case, the article specifically mentions one vintage….just as a new one is about to arrive. As I type, we have 6 bottles of the 2007 left and the new 2008 is on a boat about to dock at a port somewhere in New Jersey. So buy the 2007 now, wait for the 2008 later, or forever hold your peace! Read more about the Vaona in the New York Times piece or in Eric Asimov’s blog, The Pour.

Back to the present….buy the 2008 right here. Price: $18.99

Taste of Tribeca Wine Tour Debrief

A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: I have no idea what we poured and the page where I would have posted it is long long gone. But based on that blurry early-edition iPhone picture, it looks like it was a clairette from Provence, a gelber muskateller from Austria, and a Sauvignon Blanc Semillon blend from Margaret River in Western Australia.

Originally published on May 17, 2009.

I’m fond of a good debrief. It’s a holdover from my corporate days. My last debrief followed the madness that was New Year’s Eve. This one involves the semi-madness that is the Taste of Tribeca.

For those who don’t know…and are too finger challenged to click on the link, here’s the mini-debrief on that: Taste of Tribeca is the annual fund raising event for P.S. 234 and P.S. 150, the neighborhood’s original public schools (there are more that have/are popping up, but that’s not a subject for a wine store blog.) Parent-planned, parent-run. Most of the restaurants in Tribeca (which include some of the very best restaurants in the city) set up tables along Duane Park. Customers buy tickets to sample tastes from each of those restaurants. 1 ticket = 6 tastes and you can purchase as many tickets as you like.

This year, in addition to the food, there was a Wine Tour led by wine and spirits educator Steve Olson. At the first stop, Tribeca Green Market, you tasted New York State wines. At Chambers Street, Stop #2, they poured sparkling wines. At Frankly Wines, Stop #3, we featured light white wines. At the next stop, full-bodied whites, then light reds, then full reds, then dessert wines. Or something like that.

On to the debrief part:

1. 25, maybe 30 people is about the limit of how many bodies can comfortably fit into the store. And that’s if they’re generally standing in one place drinking wine. 30 people actually trying to shop in the store, no way.

2. I can actually use the big, white wooden boxes as reconfigurable display settings, tables, a serving station. All sorts of things. Just like my architect said!

3. At an event like this, it is really hard to generate sales (people are hitting so many wine stores, it’s tough to carry bottles around with them). I knew this from last year’s tour and tried to have order forms ready, but the best approach is to have cards with the wines being poured so people can remember what they had. And to get the wines up on the web site…which I’ll do right after my debrief!

4. I can talk a person’s ear off about wine if they let me. (This is not a new learning.)

5. Given the right wine, people who “don’t like white wine” probably do, if they can just get over the fact that they “don’t like white wine.’

6. Three wines is the perfect number of a tour like this. You can choose three obviously different styles that make it easy to compare/contrast. More than three wines, it’s tough to clearly explain how they’re different. It starts to turn into an exercise in hair splitting.

7. A sign that you’ve picked the right 3 wines: there’s no obvious favorite among the crowd. Very few people will actually like all three of them. Even if they appreciate all of them and understand why all of them are well-made wines that represent where they came from, it was rare to find someone who really liked all of them. (Except me, but I’m a bit of a “wine slut”.)

8. Chilled bottles are really drippy. Next year, more cloth towels.

9. People never use the spit buckets.

10. 2/3 ice. 1/3 water. Lots of salt = very cold bottles very quickly. We tell people this all the time. Yesterday we proved it to ourselves.

What did we pour? You’ll have to go to the Frankly Wines web site to see.

More Diploma Fun: Test Essay Questions!

Originally published on May 11, 2009.

Continuing with the trend of writing more about studying than actually studying, here’s another entry related to my quest to pass Unit 3 of the Diploma.

Last time I posted a tasting note that adhered to the standardized tasting note method set out by the WSET. During the actual test, I will have to write a number of notes following this formula….And I’ll be tasting blind, meaning I won’t know what wines are in the glasses. The instructors tell us this shouldn’t be too terribly hard, because after all, the “answer is in the glass.” This is technically true, but doesn’t make it any easier to avoid jumping to conclusions on first sniff, or get hung up on whether the “answer” smells like ripe stone fruits, unripe stone fruits, or just plain wet stones.

In addition to the tasting portion (known as the “practical” section in WSET parlance), there’s the “theoretical” section which really just is another way of saying “essay questions”. To prepare for this, candidates (I love being called a “candidate”) are given practice questions which we’re meant to answer during a 30 minutes time period without reference to our notes or textbooks. We then zap our answer to a grader, generally someone in London, who picks apart our answer, makes fun of our American spelling, and emails their feedback to us in about three weeks. Spelling jokes aside, it really is a good way to get some understanding of whether we’re on the right track, or completely off in lala land.

But I don’t think it’s fair that only my grader gets to read my attempt at great prose. So I’ll post my latest here. Because what good is a blog if you can’t subject your readers to stuff like this! Enjoy (or better yet, just stop reading now and go get a drink.)

Question #4 (Due May 10th): What does blending other varieties with Chardonnay achieve? (An ESSAY format is compulsory.)

Answer:It’s not difficult to argue that blending other varieties with the Chardonnay grape does little to improve the final wine. The finest expressions of the grape, the wines from Chablis and Burgundy’s Cote d’Or are all 100% Chardonnay. It’s possible to argue that adding a high acid grape such as Chenin Blanc or Semillon can perk up an otherwise flabby Chardonnay grown in a too-warm climate (or allowed to yield too enthusiastically), it’s easier to argue that blending other grapes with Chardonnay is more about achieving a certain price point while still maintaining the perennially popular “Chardonnay” imprint on the label. In other words, it makes an otherwise average wine easier to market.

Taking the purist approach, Chablis and the various Premier and Grand Crus of the Cote d’Or, generally considered to be the finest, most classic expressions of the variety, do not allow any other grape to be included in the wine. Beyond that, the top Chardonnays from as far a field as California, Australia, and South Africa are also 100% Chardonnay. Along with Riesling, Chardonnay is generally considered to be a grape that most clearly expresses the vineyard site on which it’s grown, or the vision of the winemaker since the grape takes so well to barrel fermentation, barrel aging, battonage, and malolactic fermentation. Blending in other varietals can only mask the expression of terrior (or the intent of the winemaker). Unlike other regions such as Bordeaux or the Southern Rhone, where blending is used to make a more complete, balanced wine in the face of potential vintage-specific weather issues, Chardonnay generally ripens in most climates (although the flavor profile may vary) and generally doesn’t require other varieties to be added to balance it out.

One exception to this is the addition of a higher acid grape to add a bit of refreshing acidity and citrus notes. Because Chardonnay can lose its acidity quite quickly when overripe (or when allowed to yield too vigorously), this is a useful practice in hotter climates. For example, Chenin Blanc may be added to Chardonnay in South Africa, or Semillon in Australia, or either in the wines sold under the VdP d’Oc or VdP Jardin de la Loire.

The most important achievement of blending other grapes with Chardonnay is driven by marketing. Chardonnay is easily the most popular white grape variety in the world. Worldwide, about 175,000 ha are planted to Chardonnay – more than any other white grape with the exception of Spain’s Airen. In the United States, it is practically a synonymy for “white wine”. The word “Chardonnay” on a label increases a wine’s marketability…so much so that even Burgundy producers are managing to print it on their labels, despite regulations to the contrary. Less fashionable local varieties can be used to increase the amount of wine produced (and lower the final bottle price). As long as enough Chardonnay is included in the blend to warrant its inclusion on the label, unfamiliar local varieties can be make much suitable for the international export market. As noted above, Chenin and Semillon may add a little acidity to freshen up the Chardonnay. But certainly more important is the cache and marketability that “Chardonnay” adds to those grapes.

Chateau La Lagune 1998: The Informercial

Originally published on May 8, 2009

For those of you that read this blog that don’t subscribe to the newsletter (could such people really exist?) I wanted to let you in on our La Lagune offer.

Mention this blog, and you’ll get 10% off any purchase of Chateau La Lagune 1998, even if it’s just 1 bottle. Buy an entire case and you’ll get 15% off (we generally offer only 10%)….if you mention this blog, or the newsletter, or the twitter feed. That sounds so infomercial-ish, but what can we say…there are so many ways to make an offer that involves a certain amount of dollars off a purchase. At least we’re not hauling in a bunch of fading pop stars for “before and after” pictures (hello Proactive!)

Now usually when I see these sorts of offers, I always wonder how many cases a retailer is sitting on. In this case, we have three cases. I thought this was all that was left in New York, period. Then yesterday, my distributor rep lets me know she’s found another 3 cases. So in total, there are 6 cases left in the New York City area which really isn’t much for a city of 8 million people.

Onto the wine on offer – Chateau La Lagune 1998 (Haut-Medoc, Bordeaux, France): It’s not inexpensive, but for a classified growth with some age on it, it’s a great value at regular price = $52.99. It may not be one of the biggest names of Bordeaux, and it may not drive master-Bordeaux critic Robert Parker wild with point-slinging desire, but among certain Bordeaux fans, La Lagune is considered to consistently play above its third growth station. (For those who are wondering what these “growths” are, check out this summary by the Wine Doctor.)

One of our sales reps introduced us to this particular vintage before heading off to Scotland to open a fancy hotel. He had tasted through all the older stock the distributor had squirreled away and told us this one was worth a purchase. We tasted it and agreed and have slowly been draining the distributor’s stock down to zero, or more specifically, draining it down to the 3 cases my new rep just dug up.

At 11 years of age, the wine still has wonderfully ripe, pure red fruit as well as the cedary, tobacco notes so typical of aged Bordeaux. It has a really lovely, silky, almost creamy texture, which combined with the lovely fruit and almost exotic spice notes, make this wine a great example of an elegant, old-school Bordeaux. Drinking beautifully right now, it doesn’t have the structure to go on forever, but you could probably eek another 5 years out of it. Maybe 10 if you like a really developed wine style. If you ‘ve ever wanted to buy a few bottles of something and see how it ages, this is a great one for that.

Intrigued? Like I wrote above, come into the store and mention this post and you’ll get your discount. I’ll go even more high tech….order on-line, mention this blog in the comments section at check out, and we’ll credit your final amount with the 10% (or 15% if you get 12 bottles) discount.

Things That Don’t Make You Go mmmmm: WSET Systematic Approach to Wine Tasting

Originally published on May 1, 2009.

Last summer I wrote about passing the WSET Diploma Unit 2 test. In the mean time I have not written any of the Unit 1 research papers, nor did I sit for Units 4, 5, or 6. I decided that adding another new baby to the 2 kids I already had, in addition to getting the Frankly Wines store through it’s first full holiday season would be challenge enough.

But now I’m back on track and studying for Unit 3, the Still Wines portion of the Diploma. Technically, I’m not studying, I’m writing about studying, but that’s close enough.

In order to pass the test, I need to become proficient in writing wine tasting notes that conform to the WSET Systematic Approach to Wine Tasting. Here’s an example:

Lopez de Heredia Vina Gravonia Rioja Blanco 1999

Appearance: clear, medium gold color fading to water-white rim
Nose: Generally clean, with some slightly oxidized sherry notes. However, medium intensity of citrus, lanolin, nuts and stones suggest this may be more a stylistic choice than a fault. Wine is showing development.

Palate: Dry, medium (+) acidity, medium alcohol, medium (+) body. Medium (+) flavor intensity with notes of citrus peel, lanolin, beeswax, exotic spices and stones. Slight sherry tang, although freshness of other flavors and presence of medium+ acidity also suggest this is not a fault. Long length with acidity and flavors persisting on the finish. Lovely silky, waxy texture.

This is a very good quality wine due to complexity of fruit, spice,nut and sherry notes, as well as remarkably fresh medium (+) acidity balanced by rich, mouth coating texture and body.

Drinkable now, especially for those who enjoy fresh, vibrant acidity. However, the wine will easily improve and evolve for 20 years or more with acidity preserving primary freshness even as wine develops exotic sweet spice notes, additional nutty character and notes of dried honey.

Cost: $25

12% abv

Does this make your mouth water? Probably not. But that’s not the point. These aren’t the sort of notes that make people actually want to drink wine….but they are the kind of notes that pass WSET tests, and that’s why I’m writing them

Women, Wine & The Stats Geek

Originally published on April 29, 2009.

I’m a stats geek. I can’t help it. I did really well in my college stats class and enough of it has stuck to keep me slightly armed, dangerous, and highly skeptical.

Whenever I see a study about “X% of Y group doing something” I cringe. The group doing the study is rarely sited (The 11th grade class at the school down the block isn’t quite as reputable as the New England Journal of Medicine). The sample size is rarely mentioned (“my brother, his girlfriend and her sister” isn’t quite as reliable as a 5000 person sample). Base rates are never mentioned. (For example, if there’s a 0.05% chance of something occurring, then a 300% increase means there’s now a still highly unlikely 0.15% chance of that thing occurring. This is quite a bit different than starting with a base rate of 10%…a 300% increase now means a 30% chance of that thing occurring. A 0.15% chance vs. a 30% chance? But you wouldn’t know the difference if you’re only told about the 300% increase without reference to the base rate.)

I know, I know, stats on a wine blog, no fun. but like I said, I can’t help it. Misleading usage of statistics makes me a little bit crazy.

So I was a little bit crazed at yesterday’s Vinexpo event reviewing the findings of their recent global study on women and their wine buying habits. The study surveyed about 4,000 women across the US, UK, Japan, and Europe.

In each country, they partnered with one or two publications in order to identify respondents. For example, in the US, they partnered with the Wine Spectator, so the vast majority of US respondents were Wine Spectator subscribers. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of respondents drank wine at least once a week. If your sample universe is subscribing to one of the biggest wine publications in the US, you would expect them to be drinking a fair amount of wine. Does this mean that most women in the US drink wine at least once a week? No, not at all. From this survey, you can’t say anything about the larger population because the Wine Spectator readership isn’t representative of the larger population. To try to extrapolate (fancy stats term, still can’t help it) that way is misleading.

But still, press releases are issued and the study gets picked up and the results reported as if they were applicable to the general population. As in this piece in the UK Telegraph. And this piece in Harpers Wine & Spirits. Vinexpo’s sample in the UK was drawn from Decanter and Living magazines, which may be perfectly aligned with the demographics of the broader UK population….but probably aren’t.

So you read these stories and you think you understand women’s wine buying habits. But you don’t. You understand wine buying habits of Decanter readers and Living readers….except that difference is never stated, or even alluded to. But all those numbers followed by %-signs look very official, no?

So statistically speaking, this study, to the extent that it’s meant to reveal wine buying habits among the general female population, is flawed. As a qualitative study, or even a quantitative study among a very specific population subset, it’s fine. But it’s being reported as the former, without any mention of the flaws….and that’s what drives me crazy – the annoyingly incorrect application of statistics!

I know, I can’t help it, I’m a stats geek.