The Boston Wine Expo 2008

In February I signed up to work the Grand Cru room at the Boston Wine Expo, and in exchange I got two free passes for the main floor. I took Dave on Saturday to the frenzy, where I immediately got angry at someone wearing perfume in front of me, and then realized that most of the people in the crowd elbowing their way to table after table of bad cheap wine were either in sales, or had bad taste, or both. Still we tried to make the most of it by drinking German dessert wine, which the woman pouring the Beerenauslese soon realized and gave us dirty looks. Then we crowded around the pad thai and cheese table and tried to score free magazines. By the Elizabeth Bishop Wine Resource Center table I ran into my thesis advisor and talked media ethics for a good forty minutes, and then instead of trying to get my picture with Rachel Ray at demo kitchen number one, only to photoshop it to make a better memory, we decided to just go home and drink something good.

The next day my head cold was coming back and I had to serve expensive wine in the Grand Cru room, without letting on that both my nose was dripping and my sinuses were clogged. Luckily I can still taste pretty well with a cold (that is how I won the blind tasting competition in Wine Studies Level III). These are the excellent wines I poured and prepared little conversation pieces about:

2002 Dom. Guy Bocard Meursault “Les Charmes” (White Burgundy)
2004 Dom. Marquis d’Angerville Volnay “Les Taillepieds” (Red Burgundy)
2005 Paul Hobbs Pinot Noir “Hyde Vineyard” (Napa)
2003 Chateau Bahans Haut-Brion Pessac-Leognan (Bordeaux)
2003 Dunn Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa)
2004 Penfolds Shiraz “RWT” (Australia)

People could not get enough of the Paul Hobbs and came back throughout the day to drink, and I mean drink it and not taste it. I really feel like they just wanted to drink the name. My favorite was the Volnay, and people who were not trying it were obviously misguided, what a vineyard, what history! I wish I had waited five more minutes before leaving and I could have taken home the one from the day before that was really starting to taste like soil, sauerkraut, cherries, and mushrooms.

My favorite wines from other stations:

2004 Montes Alpha M (Chile)
2000 Trimbach Pinot Gris “Hommage a Jeanne” (Alsace)
1997 Giuseppe Quintarelli Valpolicella (Veneto)
2001 Ridge Montebello

If I got a chance to volunteer again I would work both days in the Grand Cru room, and never step foot on the main floor if possible. While some people in the expensive tasting room were there just for show, the friendlier folk and I got to engage in some interesting wine stories, and I learned a bunch from them. Also I have never tasted so many bottles over $80 in my life!

1989 Un-Classed Growth with Friends

On a Saturday when I was working at one the wine shops, my co-workers all gathered behind our small counter for informal wine and food pairing. In the display case were two half bottles of 1982 Château Branaire-Ducru Bordeaux, priced at $99 each. I had been eyeing these bottles since my 25 birthday in July. How great would it be to drink a fourth-growth wine the 1855 Classification that was as old as me? 1982—the year that launch the infamous critic Robert Parker’s career. Unfortunately they were both corked—thankfully I stood up to the last 25 years a little better. We called the boss and asked if we would sell us the 1989 Chateau Sociando-Mallet Bordeaux in the case for a 20% discount. It was not classed in 1855 and it was retailing for $129.99. The six of us pooled our money.

The best chef in the group brought lamb sausage en croute, black olives, aged cheddar, and Lindt’s chili chocolate, all of which paired well with this complex, lively wine. The color was dark with only a little browning at the edge. It has a surprising amount of acidity after 18 years, low alcohol, with chocolatey, floral, and cilantro notes on the nose. After thirty minutes, and it was hard to wait that long, it had a more gamey, meaty quality to it, but not a smoky taste from oak, but a really intricate adult taste. All in all, it was very well balanced in the mouth and soft.

We pledged after finding an amazing wine that we should do more tastings, but no luck yet. There was talk of a whole night of dessert wines, sherry with tapas, sauternes with fois gras, and port with desserts…

Montepulciano d’Abruzzo

This has to be one of the best values in wine recently. You can find Montepulciano priced from $5 to $10, with fancy ones up to $16. My favorites lie in the $8 to $10 dollar range. Like Chianti, these are light wines with good acid, which means that they are refreshing during hot weather, and that they pair well with food, especially Italian food with lots of tomatoes. I have even paired them with my dhal and curries, which are also rich in ripe tomato zest, when I don’t want to pair Indian food with Riesling or Gewürztraminer.

My favorite thing about these wines is that they are cheap, but well-balanced. To be specific, they are never too high in alcohol or hot, too sweet, too fruity, too bitter, or too tart. Plus they have just enough flavor to not overpower food, but you can drink them alone and really have fun with it, especially if you are the hostess of a budget-driven party.

When shopping for these wines, or excitingly telling others, it is important not to confuse them with Brunello di Montalcino or Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Both of these excellent wines come from around the Tuscany area and are made from the Sangiovese grape (Brunello is a synonym for Sangiovese). However Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is made from the Montepulciano grape in the Abruzzo region near the East Coast of central Italy, not in the famed town of Montepulciano.

These wines have been tested at my parties. After everyone has filled up on glass after glass of Montepulciano, ignoring a flabby, cheap Californian Cabernet Sauvignon, and they can no longer pronounce Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, I reveal that they have been drinking an $8 dollar wine. And then they say, they say….well they don’t really care, they are enjoying the night too much.

The Wine Girl's Tolerance

The other day my boss and I were tasting wines with one of our favorite distributors/importers. He started to tease us about not spitting out the wine, which we normally do. “What, have you lost all your spit buckets?” he said, then looked at me, adding, jokingly, “She has to run a cash register later.”

I was immediately embarrassed, because unlike other salesmen, this was a figure in the wine world I had been looking forward to meeting. I replied light-heartily, if not ironically, “I’m trying to build my tolerance,” a clear joke seeing as how there were only three samples of wine to try.

“Dear, the only way to build your tolerance is to gain thirty pounds, and grow four inches,” he said as we shared a laugh and the last sample.

Later as I worked the sales floor and operated the cash register with perfect clarity, I was not laughing. Over and over a defensive mantra ran through my head, “Though shall not judge someone’s ability to lift or imbibe a case of wine based on size or gender.” While there is truth to what he said, I was still angry about people’s assumptions of my strength to carry wine, or to carry on when spitting is not always an option.

Some customers, women more so than men, are surprised that when they ask for help to their car with a case, I follow them, rather than asking a male co-worker. “Oh, honey, I didn’t mean you, are you sure you can lift that?” they ask. Duh, it’s my job!

Little do both parties know that I practice both yoga and drinking wine in my free time, as do many young women that I know, so watch out. The next time your wine tasting party erupts into a betting arm wrestling competition, it may be wine girl takes all.

New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc

This summer people are pulling bottle after bottle of Sauvignon Blanc out of the cooler door. This grape variety normally shows vegetal qualities that clash with unjust trends for fruity, oaky, creamy wines that taste more like candy. But in France there is a history of great dry Sauvignon Blanc that wine drinkers throw back with ease on sticky summer nights. It is the main grape in the treasured white Bordeaux, and in the Loire Valley, as Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé it is refreshing, with mineral, citrus, and green pepper aromas.

Most New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc comes from the Marlborough area on the South Island. This is the hot place for this sharp grape because it is not hot. The cooler climate means that the grapes take longer to ripen, but the intense sunshine ensures that the extra time on the vine is intensely scheduled with photosynthesis activity giving the grapes the juice they need to make wines with intense citrus and passionfruit flavors on a tangy acidic backbone. Like all SB there is a touch of green bell pepper that makes the wines taste complex, but masked are the gooseberry flavors. This is also otherwise known to wine tasters as cat pee, which is not a bad smell in the wine glass, trust me!

These are fun wines that are so aromatic that you don’t want to gulp them, you want to drink in the smell. Some mid-range producers that I have tried and loved are The Crossings, Kim Crawford, Tohu, and Shepard’s Ridge, just to name a few. But the other really consumer-friendly thing about theses powerful wines is that they are so consistent in quality that you don’t always need to know the producer. Just close your eyes and pick one, or since they are very affordable, pick two from different price ranges, and then let the sunshine and tropical fruits go to your head.