Short Sips

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Would you hesitate to pay $250 for a wine tasting? That’s a pittance for the opportunity to wander, glass in hand, around the upcoming 25th Annual Grand Tasting Evenings hosted by Wine Spectator magazine. With more than 250 stellar wineries from all wine regions of the world pouring their pride, this event is unchallenged in the breadth of its offerings. For starters, four Bordeaux First Growths will be present; only Chateau Haut Brion will be missing in action, but its stablemate, Chateau La Mission Haut Brion, will stand in. You can taste Guigal and Graham, Palmer and Pahlmayer, Roederer and Rosemount, Vega Sicilia and Vietti, Drouhin, Dominus, and Dom Perignon. And the list goes on.


Frankly, just gazing at the line up of so many formidable wineries made me pieeyed. So I called the executive editor of Wine Spectator, Thomas Matthews, to ask if he could strategize on how to deal with such massively arrayed vinous forces. “My first suggestion is to spit,” Mr. Matthews counseled. “We’ll have spittoons always close by. And I would treat this event as a learning opportunity. Instead of just browsing the aisles, consult the list ahead of time. Choose a category, like Tuscany, or world pinot noir, or rising stars made from grapes you’ve never heard of, and build your list.”


Of course, Mr. Matthews said, even a disciplined taster can be sidetracked: Such as, “if you’re doing the New World pinots but you happen to pass by the table where Screaming Eagle is being poured.” He was referring to one of Napa Valley’s, and the wine world’s, unicorn equivalents – never spotted by normal humans, yet known to be immensely alluring. Various vintages of Screaming Eagle, a cabernet sauvignon produced in minute quantities, currently sell for $1,700 to $2,000 a bottle at Park Avenue Liquor. To even get near that table, you may have to use your elbows.


Wine Experience Grand Tasting Evenings October 20 and 21, Marriott Marquis Hotel, 1535 Broadway, 7:30-10 p.m. Tickets are $250 for the evening. Visit www.winespectator.com or fax 212-481-1523.Tastings will be the same both evenings.


HALF PRICE In a welcome jab at high restaurant wine prices, Richard Luftig, general manager of the much praised Biltmore Room (250 Eighth Ave., 212-807-0111) has decreed that on Sundays until Thanksgiving, all bottles in both the restaurant and its lounge shall be half price. “The main reason I did it,” Mr. Luftig said, “is to generate traffic from people in the hospitality business. My experience is that Sundays are when many of them go out to dinner. This deal gives them an added incentive to try us out.” And the rest of us, as well.


The 185-bottle wine list assembled by Mr. Luftig is short on trophy labels but long on offbeat wines of real individuality. At half off, some of these wines are cheaper than retail, like the Savennieres, Coulee de Serrant 2000, from what is arguably the Loire Valley’s most perfect wine-making site. One of the under appreciated great white wines of the world, it is priced at $48.50 on Sundays, less than retail. Or how about the Barbera d’Alba 2003, Scarrone, Vigne Vecchia, from Vietti, a splendid Piedmontese red, at $40.50? Chef Gary Robins creates a wine-friendly progressive American cuisine.


ROSH HASHANA HOSANNAHS Just 20 years ago, a mere blip in time in both Jewish and vinous history, the wines of Yarden, a winery in the Golan Heights, jump-started a new era of fine winemaking in Israel. At a pre-Rosh Hashana tasting of Israeli wine and cheeses (also hitting new quality highs) at Tribeca Grill last Wednesday, the wines of Yarden, still the quality pacesetter, were flanked by those from other ambitious wineries, many of which sprang up in the prosperous 1990’s. Even Carmel, Israel’s oldest winery, has gotten into the act. Long a maker of sacramental wines but offering little to dress a modern table, Carmel has revitalized itself and is now producing modern-style single-vineyard wines.


Recommended Israeli Wines


DALTON SAUVIGNON BLANC 2004, BEN ZIMRA VINEYARD
Despite hot summer days in Israel that can make white wines flabby, this example has the grassy, acid-fueled kick of a Loire Valley white. Curiously, it was as colorless as bottled water in the glass.


DOMAINE DU CASTEL “C” BLANC DU CASTEL 2003
Richly textured, evoking almond, honey, and oak, this chardonnay comes from a winery in the Judean Hills that is dedicated to the Burgundian model. But the buttery style here is closer to California.


YARDEN GEWURTZTRAMINER 2003
The distinctive “gewurtz” elements are present: lychee,rose water, a whisp of pineapple, with a finishing edge of white pepper. When the flavor volume is turned up too high, it’s easy to tire of gewirtztraminer. Here, the calibration is just right.


CHILLAG CABERNET SAUVIGNON ORNA 2003
This wine was a dazzler when it debuted last spring: vibrantly fruited with a core of dry cherry flavors underpinned by note of anise, and oh so intense and lively. In the interim, Orna has only gotten better.


SEGAL’S CABERNET SAUVIGNON 2002
This unfiltered wine has classic cassis aromas and taste with a leathery note beneath. A subtle wine that could fit right in a tasting of French Graves. It’s pricey but classy.


GALIL MOUNTAIN SHIRAZ-CABERNET SAUVIGNON 2003
This wine has a beam of bright blueberry-vanilla flavor. With only a few vintages under its belt, Galil Mountain has shown a gift for producing wines with scintillatingly fresh and pure fruit flavors. It’s for drinking, not cellaring.


The New York Sun

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