What I’m Thankful For By Mark Criden Past November columns have explained it all—you already know that Riesling is the wine that makes your holiday bird gobble. (If you’ve forgotten, repeat after me: Riesling. Riesling. Riesling. And make it slightly sweet—like a Semi-dry from Keuka’s Heron Hill or Dr. Konstantin Frank—to stand up to all that Thanksgiving sugar.) So in the other, less tangible, spirit of the season, I’d like to express my gratitude to the wine community for: 1. Variety. If that glass of Chardonnay strikes you as the same old, same old, note this: There is a greater selection of good wines than ever before; just spin the globe. Australia, of course, has not only come on strong with powerful Shiraz, fruity Grenache and gutsy Cabernet, but produces some wonderful Rieslings and dessert wines as well. Its South Seas neighbor, New Zealand, is setting new standards with mouth-watering Sauvignon Blancs and delectable Pinot Noirs. Argentina’s Malbecs are approaching world-class status, as evidenced by a remarkable tasting put on by the house of Catena earlier this year. And a succession of good left coast vintages has left California, Oregon, and Washington fans smiling. The list is endless … sparkling wine from New Mexico, Viognier from Virginia. It’s a wine world after all. 2. Intellectual Discourse. For the wine-lover, not all ferment is in the bottle. Each day, the thirsty log into Internet wine rooms that—as hobbyists of all stripes know—provide easy access to those of similar bent. The best sites are loaded with tasting notes, opinion pieces, queries and controversies. It’s easy to get lost surfing for hours on: •The Wine Lovers Discussion Group (www.wineloverspage.com). Hosted by Robin Garr, this is a site as courtly as its moderator, a good starting point for newbies and experts alike. •The Wine Bulletin Board, moderated by Philadelphia attorney Mark Squires (fora.erobertparker.com). Since the powerful wine critic Robert Parker linked his web site to Squires’ board, traffic has exploded; thousands log on each week. Because of Parker’s fame, the site attracts a fair number of sycophants, but these are usually balanced by a number of semi-professional provocateurs who delight in deflating Parker’s pronouncements. Discussions here can go on for days, and scholarly brawls are not unusual. The writer Adam Gopnick stirred up a vinous Hurricane Ivan with his September 6 New Yorker essay on wine writing. Extensive research, Gopnick wrote, showed that except for a small handful of individuals with mutant taste buds, no one could really discern the flavors and aromas—berries, cherries, tar, leather, creosote, vanilla, coffee, lavender, violets, sage, thyme, etc.—described in wine tasting notes. Dozens of wine-lovers (doubtless those whose household reputation rested on their supposed ability to tell whether a Chianti smelled more of cherry than raspberry) howled in protest, kicking up a storm not seen since Calvin Trillin wrote that few blindfolded drinkers could tell red wine from white. •Not for the faint of heart is the often-outrageous Wine Therapy (enemyvessel.com), whose self-admitted patients need, rather than administer, help for the hopelessly wine-afflicted. Unlike Squires’ board, no one puts much stock in civility or good taste—we’re in the Darwinian cyberspace jungle here—and an art is made of thread drift. Perhaps my favorite discussion of recent months was started “Posted in error—Please Delete,” which, in true Larry David fashion, began with a discussion about nothing and ended with a harangue about everything. Tasting notes abound, though many will be about obscure wines. •Other friendly places with occasional interesting wine discussions: West Coast Wine Net (especially good Italian wine board) (westcoastwine.net); Egullet (mostly a food site but often with lively, provocative wine discussions) (forums.egullet.org); and Wine-pages, a British site with a generally civil level of discourse (www.wine-pages.com). 3. Camaraderie. Wine wonks don’t just sit behind a computer all day flaming each other on message boards. Sometimes, they do it in person. As if his suggestion that palate discernment was a fraud wasn’t bold enough, Adam Gopnick infuriated thousands more with the following conclusion to his New Yorker essay: “…the first reason people drink wine is to get drunk. To read wine writing, one would think that wine is simply another luxury food, like smoked salmon or caviar or chocolate; the one idea that is banished is that it is a powerful drug…” Wine lovers, long careful to separate themselves from the beer and vodka crowd, went ballistic. Drunks? Us? Well, the term “drunk” may be a little strong, and unnecessarily provocative in the case of wine drinkers, conjuring up, as it does, an image of a broken-down sot lying in a gutter as the dregs of his Chateau Petrus gurgle down the drain. While there’s no doubt that wine produces a buzz, what it’s really about is camaraderie. The standard 750 ml bottle is designed to be shared with family or friends, not chugged alone on a bar stool with tequila chasers. It’s the ultimate social beverage. Some of the best evenings I’ve enjoyed over the past year were centered on wine. Through various means—including Internet bulletin boards like the ones described above—I’ve met many wonderful people whose only initial common thread has been our love for wine. Folks I’ve met online from San Francisco and St. Louis have traveled to Buffalo on business and ended up sharing a meal, and some memorable vino, with me. Conversely, I’ve traveled to other climes, notably Toronto, for some wonderful times with like-minded souls. For instance, Robert Parker’s assistant Pierre Rovani made a sojourn to Toronto this past summer and put out a call to join him for dinner. Eighteen of us shared a seven-course meal—and numerous bottles—at a lovely place in North Toronto. The six-hour evening gave us a chance to have wonderful food, some fascinating wine, but equally, enchanting, wide-ranging conversation. Several of the bottles were particularly memorable. Michel Chapoutier’s luscious, golden white Hermitage “Cuvee de L’Oree” was a triumph from a difficult 1993 vintage. The 1988 Drouhin Chablis Vaudesir and 1996 Fichet Meursault Les Chevalieres showed the heights White Burgundy can scale. The main event was a Cabernet taste-off, and honors went to Bordeaux (1999 Leoville Barton, 1986 Gruaud-Larose, and 1986 Vieux-Chateau-Certan), California (1982 Dunn Howell Mountain, 1990 Phillip Togni and Conn Valley Reserve, 1995 Behrens & Hitchcock TLK Ranch, 1999 Viader) and Italy (1995 Montevetrano and 1997 Ornellaia). But the absolute smash of the night was the 1994 Dalla Valle, as stunning a bottle of Cabernet as any of us had consumed in a long time. With dessert, we were all treated to four fabulous wines, the 1989 Huet Domaine Vouvray Moelleux Cuvee Constance and the 1990 Huet Domaine Vouvray Moelleux le Clos du Bourg, both showing the voluptuous chenin blanc grape in all its glory; Dr. Parce’s 1975 Banyuls Vielles Vignes, demonstrating again why this is the world’s greatest wine with chocolate; and the 2001 Chateau Coutet, just a baby from a great vintage for the sweet wines of Sauternes and Barsac. By the time we all climbed into cabs back to our respective beds, we were all aglow—okay, inebriated—from the company as well as the wine. Mark Criden, a non-profit executive, is the former chair of the Buffalo Branch of the IWFS. You can reach him at mcriden@yahoo.com Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top