Repeat after me, red with fish . . .
Sommeliers in restaurants that are not unalterably French report that more diners are willing to break one of the most sacred of wine commandments: “Thou shall drink red with meat and cheese and white only with fish.” In many restaurants matches such as salmon and pinot noir have become common and whites are being recommended as the better match with goat cheese and other cheeses. Markus Engel, food and beverage manager of the Peninsula Hotel, estimates the red-with-fish orders at his seafood-oriented Avenues restaurant at more than 60 percent.
Vineyards: The smaller the better
There are two contrasting theories of how to make wine of the highest quality. One is to crush grapes, possibly of several varieties, from different vineyard sites and then blend to incorporate the most desirable characteristics of each. The other is to work with grapes from a single site, a site as small as is commercially viable, and to let this single vineyard express its character to the fullest. Then, if the winery is “discovered,” the law of supply and demand takes over and the price of the single-vineyard wines rises like a Tiger Woods tee shot.
With prime vineyard land around the world less available and more expensive, look for a steady increase of single-vineyard bottles in shops and on wine lists.
And the hemisphere of the year is . . .
Remember when the menu listing of “imports” in your neighborhood restaurant consisted of a half-dozen second-string Bordeaux, a pair of Beaujolais under the “Burgundy” section and a couple of generic German whites?
Look again. Italy sends us more wine than any other country, with France second. But the share of the market has declined for both as import volume has shifted from the Old Country to the Southern Hemisphere. Imports from there have grown to 23 percent of U.S. consumption.
The change is due to Chile and Australia. Both have made stunning gains over the past decade and now rank third and fourth on the ladder of countries importing wine to the U.S., with, respectively, 15.5 percent and 14 percent of the market.
Cork? Who needs cork?
Tired of having 8-10 percent of their wines spoiled by tainted corks, producers in many countries, including the United States, have been turning to cork-shaped closures made of plastic. These cannot be tainted by trichloroanisole (TCA), a compound that gives wine a musty aroma.
Now some influential Australian and New Zealand producers have taken a gamble: They are using screw caps for varietals including riesling and chardonnay. Meanwhile, the Portuguese cork industry has mounted a public relations campaign, hoping to restore the good name of their product.
More Top Picks Best Stock Tank Pools
You say gris, I say grigio . . .
Though chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon remain the best-selling white and red varietals in the U.S., there is considerable jockeying for position among their challengers. (Varietals are wines that bear the name of the dominant grape from which they’re made.) On the white side, consider pinot gris (also called pinot grigio in Italy): David Lett of The Eyrie Vineyards in Oregon, a pioneer producer of pinot gris in this country, predicts that within three years pinot gris will supplant sauvignon blanc in sales. (Sauvignon blanc is the No. 2 white varietal.)
Among reds, merlot ranks immediately behind cabernet, but the action is among so-called secondary varieties. Pinot noir, zinfandel and syrah saw more than 30 percent increases in sales in the past year.
Bolgheri is not Bulgaria
The world’s wine connoisseurs are gazing at a tiny region called Bolgheri near the sea in Tuscany almost directly west of Florence. In “The World Atlas of Wine,” Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson call Bolgheri “perfect cabernet territory.” It has become the address of wine stars, with names such as Antinori, Frescobaldi, Mondavi and Gaja all involved in projects within the region.
The red wine grapes are cabernet sauvignon, merlot and sangiovese and the wines include the celebrated Sassicaia, Ornellaia and three newly released reds from Gaja’s Ca’Marcanda estate–with more to come.