It’s true. I make this recomendation every year. But that’s because it works. And because I really love the wine. And because maybe this year….you’ll take me up on it!
Lopez de Heredia Tondonia Rosado Gran Reserva 2000 (Rioja, Spain): Imagine Thanksgiving dinner (the food, not your crazy uncle or your tispy cousin-three-times-removed.) The cranberry sauce, the turkey, the yams, the turkey, the stuffing, the turkey. It’s a wine-pairing nightmare. But this is the wine that can handle it all. Delicate enough to handle the turkey (which let’s face it, is pretty bland), a little fruit to deal with the cranberries and exotic enough to stand up to the stuffing, yams, and even pumpkin pie. It’s perfect. But it’s not exactly your typical rosé – it has some of the tangy-ness you’ll find in a good fino sherry, only a hint of fruit, and lovely exotic spices like cardamom and ginger. So if you’re intrigued and looking for a little adventure pick up a bottle.
It’s that time again! Time for the constant stream of articles and recommendations about What to Drink with Turkey!
Wine industry people love to roll their eyes at these seasonal, themed pieces (Bubbles on a Budget! Wines to Pair with Chocolate! You Get the Idea!) But my take is that we need to write these things. Because even though I know what to drink with turkey – and have been making recommendations for the past I’m-not-going-to-do-the-math,-but-it’s-been-plenty-of-years – this could be the year the YOU decide to give it a second thought.
So this is the first time you’ve given any attention to these recommendations. And you probably don’t realize I’m cutting and pasting this intro from last year’s Thanksgiving Day posts (actually, I’m not, but if I bothered to check, I’m sure they’d be eerily similar.)
So on with the recommendations. Which I actually like to write. Because the reality is….the real #1 recommendation is: IT REALLY DOESNT MATTER WHAT YOUR DRINK FOR THANKSGIVING DINNER!
OK, that’s not completely true. To revise slightly: It really doesn’t matter what you drink as long as what you drink is light enough and refreshing enough that you want to drink more of it. Which means I can write about almost anything I like. Because most everything I like qualifies.
So with that first rule in mind, here we go:
Thanksgiving Wine Reco #1: For Those Who Need a Second Opinion
Ravines Dry Riesling 2009 (Finger Lakes, New York): Ravines has been a Frankly Wines staple pretty much since I opened my doors four years ago. At one point, owner/operators Morten and Lisa Hallgren, were driving their own pickup truck down from the Finger Lakes to make deliveries. These days, they have an actual distributor who can make deliveries, which probably makes their lives a little easier….more time to focus on the wine!
We had a good, long run working through our stash of Jean-Pierre Gaussen 2001 Bandol. We loved this wine for its classic, rustic only-in-Bandol blend of dark, brambly fruit, firm meatiness, and undercurrent of sunbaked herbs. And we loved that it was at the absolutely ready to drink – right off the shelf – when most other traditional Bandol’s on the market were new releases, in need of some serious aging. But save for a few magnums, the wine is now completely sold through.
Now when I sell through a favorite wine like this, I usually go into a mourning period for the old bottle, mooning over samples and price lists and bemoaning that I will never find a replacement bottle as good, at just the right price. And I did that for a couple weeks. But this time, the gods of wine (I guess that would be Bacchus) smiled on my and sent me a replacement very quickly.
So here’s the true story of our new Bandol…
*** WARNING *** If you think wine buying is all about romantic travels through vineyards and cellars of little backroad town, then stop reading now. Your illusions are about to be shattered.
…So, on with the story: I run into one of my sales reps in Astor Place. He’s on his way from the Mud Truck and I’m on my way to the Mud Truck. (It’s a four-distributor tasting kind of day. Caffeineation is required.)
Me: Hey, they were out of the 2004 Bandol at the tasting. Could you get me a sample soon? I need a Bandol with some age on it. Him: Let me check (pulls out some spreadsheet reports.) We actually have two cases of the La Bastide Blanche Bandol “Cuvee Estagnol” 1997. You interested?
Me (in my head): I really hate to buy wine without tasting it. But I really liked the 2008. Too young to really drink easily, but it has the bones I like in my Bandol. And the 2004 was poured off a couple hours before the end of the tasting, which is always a good sign that it was showing well and drawing some excitement. And two cases isn’t a lot and there aren’t many older Bandol vintages kicking around the market and I really don’t like not having an older Bandol on my shelf so…..
Me (out loud): Ship them next Tuesday.
Deal done. Off to get coffee and hop the subway to get to another tasting. So much for wine romance.
Anyhow, the wine arrives and it’s time to open a bottle and try it. And happily, it tastes exactly as it should. Grapes for this cuvee are grown on clay-limestone soil, so this wine is a wee bit less beefy than the Gaussen. But we’re not talking elegant here – this is classic Bandol, Powerful and meaty, with firm tannins and a core of baked, dark fruit that recalls the sun-baked slopes of Provence. Perfect for autumn weather and richer, wintery foods. Think stews, lamb, game (hunting season is just around the corner.)
Buy it now, drink it within a year. If you’re a Bandol fan, you won’t be disappointed (unless you wait around until it’s all sold out….remember….we bought the last 2 cases and have already opened a bottle!)
New York wines hit the big time! Specifically wines from the Finger Lakes region, which got a big Eric Asimov write up in the New York Times this week. And as happened maybe once or twice (or more) before, we already have a few of the mentioned producers in stock. Old favorites like Hermann J Wiemer and Ravines that have been around since I opened, along with more recent finds like Bloomer Creek.
These Finger Lakes wines (FLX for the acronymicly inclined), along with a couple Long Island producers (hello Shinn…another NYT favorite) have colonized enough shelf space that we decided to put together a New York sampler case.
Now this is not a bandwagon thing – we decided to expand the New York state section back in February. And this sampler case has been on the to-do list since, oh….May.
A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: This was Hurricane Irene, which turned out to be a bit of a nothing burger. At least down in NYC. Upstate in the Hudson Valley it was a major disaster. One year later, in October 2012, Hurricane Sandy would be another story. But we’ll get to that in future posts!
If you haven’t heard, there’s a hurricane on the way. Everyone here is busy putting together their emergency preparedness kits (except me, I’m putting together this blog post.)
The National Hurricane Center recommends the following: Batteries, water, insurance papers (in a zip lock bag), tools, full tanks of gas, pet car items, a traditional telephone (you know, the sort that plugs directly into the wall) a radio (who has a radio??), canned food, prescription drugs…..on and on.
But they make no mention of a really important thing: WINE
Highly recommended in hurricane situations: BOX WINE
Box wines are ideal for upping your hurricane preparedness. One 3 Liter box includes the equivalent of four bottles, but in a much lighter format. And each box usually come with a handle, which makes them especially easy to evacuate. And a bonus: the bag-in-the-box can be used as a pillow. So you have one less thing to pack.
Given all this, I fully expect to see box wines included in the next version of the National Hurricane Center’s official preparedness list!
NOTE: Thank you to Jeanna for making the initial recommendation to include a box or two in your kit.
Yes, yes, yes, this is a direct cut and paste job from yesterday’s newsletter. And it’s pretty much the same as the blurb that’s on the web site. But I would bet money that there aren’t more than three people in the world who read my newsletter, this blog, and the store web site. And two of those people are probably my parents (who will most likely be sending me an email this evening that says “hey, you mentioned us in your blog!)
So in the name of reach and frequencey, here’s a little Control-C / Control-V for your reading pleasure:
It’s possible that white Bordeaux is the least fashionable wine out there. But I don’t care. I love it and am continually on the quest for good ones. I’ve saidit before, I’ll say it again: a really good, aged Bordeaux Blanc can offer up the perfect balance of rich creaminess, zesty acidity, zippy citrus and subtle herbal notes, combined with the nutty complexity that comes with a bit of bottle age. It’s wonderful with cream sauces, sauces involving fresh herbs, many veggie dishes, and grilled fish. My quest for the delicious but unfashionable finally landed me in a very happy place. I managed to round up some very good, very nicely aged Bordeaux Blanc at a very, very, very nice price. Apparently, loving an out-of-fashion wines can have its perks!
So here’s the story: the wine is L’Esprit de Chevalier. It’s the second label of Domaine de Chavalier, which is one of the region’s most classic, most proper producers of white Bordeaux. We have both 1999 and 2000 on hand. The 2000 is drinking wonderfully right now, right out of the bottle. The 1999 is a bit tighter and more structured at this point in it’s life. I loved it on day 2, so it’s one to enjoy over a couple days, decant, or sock away for another couple years. And the price (drum roll, please) – $29.99/bottle.
Not to get all infomercial on you, but this is a really, really good deal. If you’re at all intrigued, my recommendation is to buy one of each vintage, invite some friends over, grill up some fish and drink them side by side. I’ve put together some special pricing to make this even more intriguing!
Go ahead, be fashionably unfashionable and click to learn more.
Twitter is a wonderful thing. Not only does it allow you to waste hours sending 140 character messages to people you should really just meet for lunch, it occasionally can set you on the wine buying trail. Like when I caught @winewomansong, a London-based wine writer tweeting about the Mac Forbes Rieslings and Pinot Noirs from Victoria, Australia.
I’m always looking for wines from Australia that 1) aren’t made from Shiraz, 2) are from regions beyond South Australia and 3) don’t have cheeky, hopping Aussie animals on the label. So I asked @winewomansong (a.k.a. Jules) about the wines and she said they were fantastic. I tracked them down with Vision Wines, my rep brought a sample of the Riesling by and I scooped it up.
So here it is…the wine from Australia recommended on Twitter by way of London:
Mac Forbes Riesling RS37 2008 (Strathbogie Ranges, Australia)
Yes, that’s an animal on the label. But butterflies aren’t cheeky and they don’t hop. And yes, I did in fact amend item 3) above to include “cheeky, hopping” when I posted this picture and realized there was an animal on the bottle.
About a month ago, we received and quickly sold through our single allocated case of La Clarine Farm Home Vineyard. But sometimes the wine gods smile on you and you get lucky. OK, it wasn’t really the wine gods, it was my distributor sales rep, keeping an eagle eye out for me and brokering a case trade with another account who wanted something I had – and they had something I wanted….one last little case of this great wine. So it’s here, until it’s gone, which probably won’t be long. We have 10 bottles left as I type.
More details:
La Clarine Farm is not your typical California cult wine. It doesn’t have any big rating points (although I bet it would score at least a 101.68 on the Dirty South Wine Rating Scale.) The wines aren’t models of super-concentrated, uber-velvety, extra-ripe tannins (but they are definitely full of flavor, texture and life.) And bottles sell for well below the usual Cali cult three figure prices.
Still, among drinkers seeking out wines made with as little intervention as possible, that taste of where they’re from – and are simply delicious, La Clarine Farm is developing a certain slow burn buzz. It’s made by husband and wife team, Hank Beckmeyer and Caroline Hoel on their small farm located in Sierra Foothills of California.
The vines share the land with goats and chickens. You can read about their farming philosophy (and see their cute goats) here. It’s well worth a click. One thing these wines do have in common with the traditional California cult wines? The New York market didn’t get more than a handful of cases.
As for the what’s in the bottle – it’s a blend of grapes grown on the farm: Tempranillo, Syrah, Tannat, Grenache, Negroamaro, and even a little Cabernet Sauvignon. You’ll get dark, leathery fruit and notes of exotic, raw spice. And thanks to the Tannat and Negroamaro, this wine has some serious tannic structure. This is a wine you can get to know slowly, over the course of an evening – or even days.
Price: $29.99
If you want it, don’t hestitate to buy it now. We’re more likely to win the lottery than we are to get yet another case!
A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: I adored these wines… and this is a good reminder that I need to look them up all these years in the future. I still have this sweet memory of meeting vigneron Virginie at a tasting and talking about the sparkling Mauzac. She said they loved it, but it was “old people wine.” That was close to 15 years ago, so I guess I could say I was an old soul. But now… I’m just… old people. (I joke a bit, I’m really not that old. But I’m definitely not young!)
Long time, no blog. But lots of Twitter. Oh, those were the days. You can still follow me at Follow me @franklywines where you can get exxtremely up-to-the minute musings on life as a wine retailer. I probably won’t blog about the fun that is running from an off-site distributor tasting to pick up a pre-schooler while trying to wipe the purple stains from my teeth. But I will tweet about it. Because that’s exactly what Twitter is for!
A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: Oh Twitter, RIP. How I loved you back in the day. It’s hard to image now, but Wine Twitter (before we knew to call it Wine Twitter) was a fun, kind, even charming place to hang out. Joe Dressner was the closest we came to a villian, and to call him that would be in correct. He was more like the Socrates of the platform -keeping us all honest and challenging our beliefs. This was also the time of #reallylongpunnyhashtagsjustforfun. Lyle Fass was the king of this. You can still follow me at @christy.frank.wine or over at IG’s Threads, but I rarely play on those platforms. I’m still on IG as myself and as Copake Wine Works, just because it’s so darn easy. Or for kicks, do some deep scrolling on my old Twitter a.k.ka. X account to see what it was like back in the day.
But in the hopes of getting this blog rolling again, I’ll do one of my quickie cut-and-paste jobs from the web site. I could feel guilty about these cut-and-pasties, but I’m a big believe in frequency and repetition. I know most of you aren’t reading this blog…and the newsletter…and the tweets…and the facebook page…oh wait, there’s no facebook page….yet. So I’ll just keep posting the same things in multiple places in the hopes that most people catch everything at least once.
So…in the name of frequency and repetition, here we go…again…
Domaine de Causse Marines – Tres Cool, Tres Tasty
I will admit it. For a long time I had a thing against the wines of Causse Marines. The label was just a little too cheekily cute, the name was almost certainly a pun that was far beyond my less-then-beginner French, and the bottles kept appearing on the menu and shelves of every new hip wine bar and shop. In other words, I was convinced these wines were far too cool to be any good. Well, shame on me. Because when I finally got around to actually trying these wines, poured for me by one of the owners, I was completely smitten.
Causse Marines is the domaine of Virginie Maignien and Patrice Lescarret, two charming young vignerons. They’re doing their little part to preserve obscure local grapes like Mauzac, Duras, Braucol, and Loin-de-l’oeil. Their wines fall firmly into the “natural wine” category, with nothing added (except the very minimal amount of SO2 needed to keep the wines from getting all funky), nothing taken away. The vines are tended biodynamically with no pesticides, fungicides or artificial fertilizers. All this adds up to vibrant, unique, highly-drinkable…and yes…very cool wines.
3-Pack includes:
Domaine de Causse Marines Les Grielles Blanc 2008: This could be the perfect spring/summer wine. It’s a blend of the not-so-well-known grapes Muscadel, Loin-de-l’oeil, and Mauzac. The Muscadel adds a bit of a floral touch, but the overall taste is crisp, clean and delicious – sort of like springtime in a bottle.
Domaine de Causse Marines Peyrouzelles Rouge 2008: You’ve probably never heard of Duras or Braucol (also known as Fer Savadou.) These are the local red grapes of Gaillac which on their own, make for lighter, spicy, aromatic reds. This one has touch of Syrah in the blend, which plumps it up just a bit. It’s an easy drinking wine which is especially nice with a bit of a chill.
Causse Marines Preambulles Vin Mousseaux Brut 2009: A petillant natural made from 100% Mauzac. The funkiest of the bunch with a bit of a bruisey green apple, but it finishes crisp and clean. Think of it as a grape-based beer alternative. Or just think of it as good!
A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: Yup, we were making a Negroni. Sbagliato. And were probably going to put prosecco in it since we were going to be featuring it during a prosecco tasting. That all may sound very familiar read from the vantage point of 2024. But look at the date this was originally published. 2011. Yeah, we were just that ahead of our time.
Wine geeks love wines from the Jura. This doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Well, it doesn’t come as a surprise to a certain sect of the world’s wine geeks …the Juranistas, to coin a phrase that really shouldn’t be coined. I’m one of those Jura-loving wine geeks and Frankly Wines stocks more wines from this region than my accountant considers fiscally responsible. So anytime an article appears touting the joys of these obscure, unique wines, I do a little happy dance.
I did a big happy dance following Eric Asimov’s most recent Jura post. This one specifically mentioned Domaine Montbourgeau, which is located in the sub-region of L’Etoile. This estate, overseen by Nicole Deriaux, is one of my favorite. I’ll even admit to a girl crush on Nicole and her wines, of which I stock quite a few, including her “starter” Chardonnay. This Chardonnay – which has nothing in common with big, buttery, Cali-style Chardonnay, beyond the name – is my gateway drug to the Jura. I price it aggressively, at $19.99, a price at which many people are willing to take a chance. It has the twangy, earthy, funkiness so typical of the Jura, balanced by an elegant minerality and a bit of roundness that softens it up a bit. ‘Accessible ’ is probably not the right word – this is not a wine everyone will like – but if you’re looking to try a white from the Jura, made in the classic style, this is a good place to start.
Montbourgeau L’Etoile 2008 (L’Etoile, Jura, France): Pair it with some comte cheese, or with a creamy sauce, possibly involving mushrooms, and you could just find yourself turning in to a Jura-loving wine geek. And if that happens…don’t worry, I can help you get your fix. Price $19.99
