Oz. Not the dance club, but the country. The LA Times has a terrific story (registration required) on how Australian wine producers made a conscious decision to topple California's dominance of the market for straightforward, fruity wines. Apparently, low land costs are a big part of the reason for Australia's success.
     What's funny is that the article, which after all is published in a California paper, repeats the sort of sentiments that used to be expressed in Europe about California wines: "What they lacked in posh pedigree and experience, the Australians have made up for in moxie, staking their future on an uncompromising premise: delivering better wine cheaper than California." The also writer sees U.S. producers today much the way Americans saw the French twenty years ago: All of this reflects a fundamental difference between Australia and the U.S., say wine industry analysts. American vintners take themselves and their wine very seriously, largely selling wine through snob appeal. The Australians... aren't so precious about pulling a cork."
     Will the Australians turn into snobs in a few years, too? Who will out-Australian the Australians then?
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 7:13 PM
 :: Comments? []

April 21 results.
Theme: The Thai Food Experiment
Wine: Dante and Gary
Hosts: Becky and Mark
     So the idea here was to find wines that went well with Thai food. Most Asian cuisines involve a fairly delicate balance of taste sensations, even in dishes that are fairly spicy. The general principle is that sweetness and acidity are good, partly because they offset heat, and tannins and high alcohol levels are bad, because they upset the balance inherent in the food and can further traumatize a tongue that's already numbed by heat. So you look for crisp, lemony and, often, sweet whites, and round, fruity reds. (See this article for more details.) The common perception is that finding the right wines is very hard to pull off.
     That perception is correct. The menu tonight was terrific, and consisted of green papaya salad, shrimp and tofu phad thai, a pork curry and a few other items. In general, the food was zesty and light. But your wine committee had planned for more red-meat-based dishes and also wanted to satisfy the group's usual preference for red wines. Oops. If we had a do-over, we might want to have more whites and leave the Italians out altogether. That said, I don't think the scores in this tasting can be compared fairly with scores from any others.
     1) "Papaya." 2000 Mulheimer Sonnenlay Riesling, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Germany. $11. Average 13.6; range 12-15. It must be end times, because a sweet German Riesling came in first. It went astoundingly well with the food, especially the green papaya salad. Slight but complex nose, in which people picked up green apple, pears, coconut and the inside of a stone cave. The acid cut perfectly through the oil in the pork curry. Eliot described this wine as a "sweet fire extinguisher."
     2) "Orchid." 2001 Icardi "Tabarin" Barbera d'Asti, Asti, Italy. $13. Average 13.2; range 10-16. This was the penultimate wine in the tasting. Restrained tannins, good body. Steph, who found it rich and fruity, said it was the red she'd been waiting for. Mark said this wine and the dessert, a black sticky rice putting with coconut and mango, made his favorite pairing of the evening. Detractors thought it smelled of Concord grapes or Popsicles.
     3) "Nike." 2000 Cheviot Bridge Shiraz, Yea Valley, Victoria, Australia. $16. Average 12.8; range 10-14. Herby, barky, shroomy, plummy, creamy and smooth, with a hint of coffee and vanilla. Chip called it "a port waiting to happen," and Eliot found it "prunish, prunish, prunish." Terri said it was well-rounded and drinkable but not especially memorable. This was the first red of the evening, and people were surprised to hear it was an Aussie Shiraz. Most of us are used to the deep, dark ones, but this one is designed to be lighter.
     4) "Elephant." 2000 Penmara Reserve Shiraz, New South Wales, Australia. $12. Average 10.6; range 8-12. A more traditional red with a dark cherry nose and an anise finish. Some people found it a bit candyish.
     5) "Palace." 1997 Poderi Colla Bricco del Drago, Langhe, Italy; 85% Dolcetto, 15% Nebbiolo. $28. Average 10.2; range 8-12. A tannic, somewhat sour wine with a dry finish. Pam found it overly alcoholic. Steph thought this wine and the food weren't talking to each other. It surely would have fared better on its own. This wine comes from Barbaresco, where the wine has to be a Nebbiolo if you want the D.O.C. label.
     6) "Chess." 2001 Peter Lehmann Barossa Riesling, Australia. $14. Average 9.9; range 6-14. Minerally, acidic, floral and fruity, like Perrier with a squeeze of key lime. Your Webmaster, who really likes this winery (and unwisely drank a lot of the Riesling after a road race the previous Saturday), thought the high acidity went very well with the pork curry. Steph thought the wine tasted bad with or without the food. Becky thought it fell flat and was "not worth hating." Incidentally, the fake name refers not to the game but to the musical, which was set in Bangkok and yielded a minor hit in 1984.
     7) "Coconut." 1999 Domaine La Garancière Seguret, Côtes du Rhône Villages, France; mostly Syrah. $13. Average 9.1; range 7-11. Pam thought this had good legs and found it minerally and petroleum-heavy; "I'm fine with that," she said. Most people weren't. Others thought it was all menthol and no fruit. It remineded people of cough drops and, in one case, Gorgonzola cheese.
     8) "Siamese." 1999 Pio Cesare Dolcetto d'Alba, Alba, Italy. $20. Average 8.1; range 4-12. Alas, not too many kind words for this poor wine, the last of the evening, and at this point most of the food was long gone. Eliot thought this was a "mouth-dryer" that was overcome by seeds, stems and gradu. Becky found it raw and sappy. Terri thought it tasted of green grapes that should never have been grown, picked, processed or bottled. Ouch.
     The general consensus was that this particular experiment was more informative than successful, and your Webmaster went home feeling a bit chastened. Still, it was good to learn that even sweet German Rieslings have their niche.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 11:42 PM
 :: Comments? []

Worth checking out. The other night a bunch of us went to the Wine Loft, a new wine bar located on Tchoupitoulas across Julia St. from Emeril's, in the space formerly occupied by Busta Salon. They've got a huge selection of wines, most of which are about $7 to $9 a glass. (A bit stiff when the wine in question retails for $15 a bottle, but never mind.) The roof tins in the bar area notwithstanding, the atmosphere is very un-New-Orleansy: yuppie crowd straight out of Loa or Whiskey Blue, Groove Armada playing over the sound system, and an actual dress code and an actual bouncer excluding people who violate it. OK, so it's not a stringent dress code, but one of the guys I was with was wearing what were arguably tennis shoes. The bouncer wouldn't let him in, but somebody else who was with us knew the manager or something. Still, it was a lot of fun.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 9:31 PM
 :: Comments? []

Another wrinkle in the BYO story - Steph and I were on Maple Street today, and noticed that Nautical has closed shop. Remember, this was one of the restaurants that got a liquor license after operating BYO for some time. It would appear that the restaurant lost its clientale after shifting over. The BYO thing made Nautical more affordable than other places with comparably-priced food; after it lost that, it was effectively as expensive as many of the city's finest restaurants.
 :: posted by John Biers at 10:35 PM
 :: Comments? []

Dottie and John. So I caught the tail end of the talk that Wall Street Journal wine writers John Brecher and Dorothy Gaiter gave at the ASNE conference the other day. They were pretty warm and charming, actually. The most interesting part of the talk was when they talked about their mail. A column about drinking lousy wines while young prompted a bunch of letters recounting fond memories of Boone's Farm and MD 20/20. A column about sniffing corks produced 300 e-mails ridiculing the concept and 300 asking how anyone could question the necessity of it. Everything they said suggested that people still view wine as something to get exasperated about rather than something to enjoy.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 7:15 PM
 :: Comments? []

Freedom wines? The Coalition for Free Trade, a California group that wants interstate shipment of wine directly to consumers legalized nationwide, has hired the famous/infamous Kenneth Starr to plot its Supreme Court strategy. (Go here for details.) In some ways, this is not surprising; direct shipping has become a rallying cry for the bon vivants at The Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, some lefty oenophiles are already calling for a boycott of California wines in favor of foreign wines. My only hope is that this particular case won't cost $39.2 million.
     For what it's worth, Starr is reportedly a Chardonnay kind of guy, to the extent he likes wine at all. Why does that not surprise me?
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 9:19 AM
 :: Comments? []

The Iberian lynx of cheeses? As sentiment for boycotting French wines fades a bit, even on the right, this fabulous story reminds us that another tasty product is in serious trouble because of an international dispute. After the European Union banned U.S. hormone-treated beef, the U.S. imposed a retaliatory tariff on Roquefort cheese -- and the weak dollar and current U.S.-France dispute are only making matters worse for farmers whose entire livelihood depends on cheese. Some of these farmers are nervous, but others are defiant. The money quote: "Asked what would happen if Americans boycotted Roquefort, Mr. Condamines, 44, paused, tugged at his drooping mustache, and replied, 'We'll force them to eat it.'"
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 8:55 AM
 :: Comments? []