This is the wine we opened this past Friday night. It’s a Sauvignon Blanc wine with only a few months of oak aging. Interestingly enough the aging was on Chardonnay lees, lees being the sediments left in the bottom of the fermentation vessel. I have to admit I am curious as to why they decided to age on Chardonnay lees. THe wine is light and crisp – an excellent summertime wine that will match well with a wide range of foods. It’s about $14 per bottle – not out of sight, but not cheap either. I like it, and will likely buy more.
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Don’t spoil yourself – it gets expensive
Why do I write so much about value? Why do I spend so much effort on finding quality whiskeys for prices as low as $20 per bottle on bourbons and $35 on scotches?
There are several answers to the questions above. Number one, it’s kind of fun to see the looks on people’s faces when I tell them that the whiskey they are enjoying so much actually cost as little as it did (they usually guess much higher). Number two, it helps me get much much more mileage out of my discretionay dollars – instead of buying one bottle for $80, I can get two or three bottles. Number three, by buying more affordable bottles, I can take some of the money I save and buy something to keep in my collection for a future special occasion. Reason number 4, however, it the big one. If you only drink $80 whiskey, you get used to it, and a special occasion then requires something in the $120-200 range. And if you are not careful, you’ll get dazzled by that special occasion bottle, and start drinking THAT regularly, and raise the bar into the stratosphere. And that’s whiskey. Wine is potentially far more expensive than whiskey, although that’s greatly dependant on how you party.
What prompted me to write this today? On May 21st, I got together with a few friends,and after a little while the topic of discussion drifted to what whiskeys we drank over shabbos. Three out of the four people in the conversation circle commented on how spoiled their shul is. One of them turned to me and asked “when did whiskeys we used to consider good, like Tomintoul 16, become “feh”? I can’t go back to that now.” That comment worries me. It worries me because from there it’s not that far to Glenlivet 18 being “feh”. Let’s have a good time. Let’s enjoy good whiskeys, wines, beers, tequilas, etc… But let’s remain fiscally rational and responsible while we do so.
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Friday night, I decided to pull a white wine out of the rack, and my hand settled on a bottle of 2006 Katzrin Chardonnay. For those who don’t know, Katzrin is the super-premium label of the Golan Heights Winery. The Katzrin Chardonnay is an annual production, but the Katzrin red is not, being produced only in exceptional vintage years. It’s too bad I don’t have any more of this – the wine is mature, balanced, and interesting. Between a rather stressful week and the quality of the wine, the bottle got finished on Friday night. Shabbos day, for lunch, I opened a 2008 Yarden Chardonnay. The Yarden was also very good, but lighter, crisper, a bit lighter on the oak, and less “buttery” than the Katzrin.
Both are very good wines. If I remember correctly, I paid about $14 for the Yarden, and in the low 20s for the Katzrin. In accordance with an upcoming discussion on ethanol spending, I’d recommend the Yarden as a once-in-a-while wine, and the Katzrin as a special occasion wine.
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So, on to the installation of the replacement cooling unit. Taking out the old cooling unit was only moderately difficult – I had to remove some screws without really having the room to get a standard size screwdriver into position, and the positioning made my leverage almost non-existent. I had actually pulled the old unit weeks before I was ready to install the new one, so first I had to empty the cabinet and move it away from the wall.
Now came the tricky part – I had to enlarge the opening in the back of the cabinet. I used a reciprocating saw with an 8 inch wood blade. In retrospect, the 8 inch blade was too big – the length made it flexible, and that made it very difficult to keep the cut totally flat. You know the old carpenter’s adage “measure twice, cut once.” Well, this was more like “measure twice, cut, then shave and trim.” Realistically speaking, even a variable speed reciprocating saw is not meant for shaving surfaces. And if you read the first half of my discussion on this experience, this is where buying the wrong unit really made a difference. With the power cord on the side of the unit, I had to insert the corner with the power cord first, then rotate the unit into the opening. This created a diagonal across the body of the unit that required a slightly larger opening than the minimum necessary dimensions of the cooling unit. Between discovering this and the shaving of the opening, I had to try and insert the unit at least 3 times. The instructions suggest that two people should lift the unit into place, and that’s a good idea. I managed on my own, but I don’t recommend the experience.
Finally, once I had the unit installed, fastened into the wall of the cabinet, moved into position, plugged in and operating, I had to re-load the wines into the unit. Double depth storage is nice, but it’s a little annoying sliding your arm into the racking like that, and you certainly can’t do two bottles side-by-side in the back row simultaneously.
When all is said and done, I started this project with 2 small wine cellar units – a 20 bottle and a 35 bottle. Now, in addition to that, I have a 180 bottle cellar that cost me roughly $500 and a few hours of my time. I’m looking forward to filling it, but slowly.
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A few years ago, an architect I knew called me and offered to give me a large Vintage Keeper cabinet type wine cellar, with the only caveat being that I had to pick it up. I took my minivan to her house, and loaded the thing in by myself. It’s the size of a medium-large refridgerator. A friend helped me bring it into my office, where I plugged it in, turned it on, and discovered that the cooling unit was broken. I tried contacting the manufacturer to order a replacement unit but was unsuccessful. When I moved my office in April 2010, the unit came along, and sat in the cellar of the new office location. Over the winter, between deals and a gift from a client, I picked up a bunch of age-worthy wines. With the cellar of the office being a nice 60 degrees, the wines went into the Vintage Keeper in order to conserve space. But with the advent of Pesach, I was faced with a problem – if I didn’t do something soon, the warm weather would destroy my new acquisitions. And so, after a little search assistance from Chaim, I ordered a Koolspace KoolR unit to replace the defunct cooling unit in the Vintage Keeper.
Before I get much further in my little adventure with this, let me warn you. I actually bought the wrong unit. I bought a through-wall unit instead of a cabinet-replacement unit. The main difference is in the location of the power cord – the through-wall unit has a power cord on the side of the cooling unit, while the back-of-the-cabinet unit has the power cord out the back. It meant drilling a hole through the side of the cabinet to accomodate the power cord, but it was a mistake I might have avoided with a little more shopping (although my work schedule makes it difficult to call a retailer based in California). For those of you who have large wine cellars, keep my experience in mind for the future, because cooling units wear out. For those who do not have large wine cellars, you’ll probably start in the range of 30-50 bottle capacity, where replacing cooling units is not an option, but you may eventually get to the point where you move to a larger cabinet.
More on the experience in my next post.
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We’ve gotten this far into discussing drinking alcohol without once touching on the topic of what glass to drink out of. And that’s odd, because I love collecting glassware. If we are drinking multiple beverages, I have no problems using as many as 6 glasses over the course of a meal – a red wine glass, a white wine glass, a water glass, a pint glass or beer mug, a shot glass or three, and an old-fashioned glass. There’s just something about using specific glasses for specific items – the relationship between beverage and the style/shape of the glass adds to the experience. For a number of years after I got into college, my father and I would buy holiday gift sets in December just to collect the glasses (I still have a few of those). Not long after I was married, because I wanted a nicer set of wine glasses, my wife bought a beautiful set of 8 cut crystal goblets – for what we then considered the substantial sum of $10 per goblet. Years later, as I was able to buy better wines, the gold rim of these glasses became more and more noticable, until I finally decided it was time to switch. At that point, Target Stores started carrying a line of Riedel glassware made exclusively for Target. I had heard many good things about Riedel glassware by then, so I decided I wanted to try out the Target line.
There’s no question that the Riedel glasses are excellent, but there are a few caveats. The Target line started out with simple red and white wine glasses, as opposed to having a Cabernet Sauvignon glass, a Merlot glass, a Chardonnay glass, a Bordeaux glass, etc… Just having the 4 different glasses listed above is a bit too complicated even for me, which is why the Target series appealed to me – red wine, white wine, spirits, and water are sufficient for me, especially when we get to the second major caveat on the Riedels, which would be the title of this post. You guessed it – this past weekend we broke another one. I think that brings the total number of broken red wine glasses to 8 so far – they are so darned fragile.
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Before Pesach, I discussed a wide range of wines as possibilities for drinking at the Seder, but I drew the line at discussing wines that cost upwards of $30 per bottle. I drew this line mainly because if you are going to drink expensive wines at the Seder, they should be wines that have been cellared for a few years, and not a newly released vintage. This past weekend, that lesson was reinforced. Friday night, I opened the oldest bottle of regular-series Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon in my cellar – a 2003, which was in fine shape. Shabbos morning, I attended a bar-mitzvah, at which I noticed a couple of bottles of 2006 Herzog Alexander Valley Special Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, and a 2005 Mony Chardonnay. The Mony was crisp, with a nice oak presence. The Alexander Valley was still a bit young. Don’t get me wrong – it was drinking nicely, but I’ve been to events where the host brought well-cellared bottles instead of freshly bought bottles, and the difference is why I am already cellaring wines for my son’s bar-mitzvah 6 years from now. Okay, maybe that’s a bit crazy, but 2-3 years is not so insane.
Did you enjoy this post? Buy us a beer or two to show your appreciation.Pesach – from Castel Grand Vin to 6 liters of sangria
Now that Pesach is over, let’s recount what we drank. As I mentioned beforehand, my wife and I drank 2003 Castel Grand Vin for the seder, as well as for lunch on the second day (we didn’t finish the second magnum during the seder). We also drank a 2006 Yatir Red blend, a Covenant Red C, a 2004 Yarden Ortal Syrah, a 2006 Galil Mountain Yiron, a Yarden 2010 Gewurtztraminer, and a 2001 Chateau Piada Sauternes. I also tried the Distillery 209 gin, went through a bottle of Montaigne Napoleon Cognac, and a bottle of Carmel 100 brandy. Friday night, at a neighbor, we had a couple of really good french reds – I’ll have to get the names from him.
And now you’re thinking “There’s no sangria in that list, and how can you go from that list to sangria?” Well, Sunday before Passover a well-intentioned client had 2 cases of wine delivered to my home – a case of Kedem Matuk Rouge Soft, and a case of Kedem Estates Blush Chablis. The Blush Chablis will be reserved for serving over ice during summer/barbecue season, but what to do with the Matuk? Since we were going to be having guests who don’t really appreciate finer wines and we had loads of lemons and oranges on hand, you guessed it – we made pitchers of sangria, and while not all of the 6 liters served got consumed, it went over very well, and I have to admit was very nice over ice on a warm afternoon.
Do tell – what did you drink?
Did you enjoy this post? Buy us a beer or two to show your appreciation.Wines I had this past weekend
This past weekend I pulled out 2 wines I picked up in Gotham Wines and Spirits on Broadway and West 94th Street – a Tishbi 2010 Gewurtztraminer, and Guillermo de Mendoza 2010 Malbec. Both of these were bought because of their price tags – $13 for the Gewurtz, and $9 for the Malbec.
While I would have hoped for better results from the Tishbi Gewurtztraminer, the scarcity of kosher Gewurtz makes my more practical side accept that this seems to be the best that I can hope for at the bottom of the price range. Fortunately, Yarden Gewurtz is next up the ladder for roughly $1 more – I have a bottle of this wine but have not yet tasted it (but I give the team at Golan Heights Winery loads of credit for consistently producing wines that are technically very good to excellent).
The Guillermo Malbec started out with a rough edge that faded with an hour or so after opening, after which it was a much smoother, more mellow wine. Given the price tag, this is a much more approachable wine than the Flechas de los Andes Gran Malbec (which runs $24 on sale)
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To many people, it’s all fine well and good to get caught up in quality wines in the $20+ range, but as far as I am concerned, that is a luxury few of us can support in these economic times. And that bothers me, because many wineries are putting out wines with suggested retail prices in the high 20s to low 30s. I don’t deny that I have quite a lot of wine in the $20+ range and a respectable collection of wine even more expensive than that, but I have not lost sight of the reality that most of us are not in that range. One of the stated goals of this blog is to raise awareness of the bargains that I find, because while I may be able to pony up the money for some of the more expensive wines on the market, I am by no means of the opinion that one should do so on a regular basis. Far too often, when I ask people what wines they like, I hear “Chalk Hill is good” or “Have you tried Unfiltered? I love that wine” I’m sorry, but if I ask you what wine you like and you respond with the name of a wine in the $65-75 dollar per bottle range, you’ve got a truly bizarre sense of value. I’ve had Chalk Hill a few times (never had Unfiltered, but never heard a bad word about it either) and it’s an excellent wine, but it’s in a price range such that it should not be listed in response to the question “what wine do you like?”
With all that ranting about the price levels of wines done with, this past weekend my wife and I opened a bottle of Weinstock 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon. Not the Cellar Select, mind you, but the plain-Jane regular Weinstock Cabernet. I specifically bought this bottle recently because I enjoyed Weinstock wines fairly regularly when I was a student 15 years ago. I paid less than $10 for the bottle, and I was not disappointed by the wine in the bottle – a pleasant Cabernet Sauvignon that is completely appropriate for ordinary occasions.
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