July 29, 2011

White Burgundy 2008: An Opportunity Soon to Pass

If you are not too stricken with fear regarding a possible budgetary apocalypse to consider making a purchase, I’ve got an idea for you.  Or perhaps I should say that I’ve got hundreds of ideas for you, inasmuch as the 2008 vintage for white wines from Burgundy is so good that you could just about pick wines blindfolded and still be assured of getting something terrific.

I am not claiming to have broken this story, as WRO’s Michael Apstein has made similar observations in several reviews of wines from this category.  However, I happen to have tasted quite a few wines lately from the Côte d’Or, Chablis and Mâcon, and though I was aware in general terms of how good this vintage was supposed to be, I was nevertheless struck by how uniformly excellent it is.

This is especially important for budget-conscious wine lovers, which is to say, virtually everyone.  In below-average years, relatively inexpensive white Burgundies can be angular, overly tart, and rather thin and stingy.  In such vintages, many consumers would likely be happier buying fewer bottles of more exalted wines from the category--or avoiding it entirely in favor of Chardonnay-based wines from elsewhere.  But in 2008, straight AOC Chablis (i.e., not Premier or Grand Cru wines), relatively ordinary Mâcon-Villages and even simple Bourgogne Blanc wines are marvelously mineral and beautifully balanced.

The fact is that $20 wines from this vintage taste like $40 wines from an ordinary year.  It is also true that $40 bottles taste like $60 wines from lesser vintages, so you certainly shouldn’t overlook the opportunity involved in a greater outlay.  However, the most important point is that many consumers who think that high-quality, very complex white Burgundy is an inherently expensive wine are--at least in this one vintage--mistaken.

This sort of uniform excellence is a rare occurrence, and I believe you’d need to go all the way back to 1996 to find a vintage in which quality at this level was so broadly and deeply distributed.  With white Burgundies from 2009 and even 2010 now arriving, the 2008s are starting to disappear, and you’d be well advised to try a few of the wines now to learn whether the character of the vintage suits your preferences.  I’d be very surprised if it does not, and as you enjoy these wonderful wines in coming years, I’m confident that you’ll congratulate yourself for having purchased them.
Posted by Michael Franz at 1:35 PM

White Burgundy 2008: A Rare Opportunity Soon to Pass

If you are not too stricken with fear regarding a possible budgetary apocalypse to consider making a purchase, I’ve got an idea for you. Or perhaps I should say that I’ve got hundreds of ideas for you, inasmuch as the 2008 vintage for white wines from Burgundy is so good that you could just about pick wines blindfolded and still be assured of getting something terrific.

July 25, 2011

Little Bird

July 22, 2011

Why We Age Our Wines

There is a sizable body of opinion that modern wine enthusiasts live in the moment. Therefore, the thinking goes, wines should be ready to drink upon release. It is no coincidence that so many wines today are soft, supple and ripe, made with barely a nod to the quaint notion that good wines improve with age.

Many winemakers sincerely believe that’s what consumers want, and they aim to deliver. The tannins that act as a natural preservative are all but a faint memory in many red wines produced today. The firm acids that once gave white wines structure and longevity have been softened by what winemakers fondly describe as long hang time, which means, simply, that the grapes were allowed to grow riper and sweeter before picking.

You may have noticed that your so-called “dry” table wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay seem to taste a little sweeter and fruitier than they once did. That’s due, at least in part, to the obsession with hang time. Though these wines sometimes come off as flabby, for the most part they are easy to drink and easy to like.

So why, then, do any of us worry about how a wine might age, or bother with a wine cellar? I have noticed, for example, the fairly recent growth in the business of wine storage. Besides the cellar in my own home, I rent space at three different facilities that lease temperature-controlled wine lockers for wine collectors.

All three are chock full, with some of the larger lockers packed with cases of wine stacked floor to ceiling. I was recently offered a few lockers that had been vacated at one of those facilities, but because I was traveling I couldn’t inspect the lockers and close the deal. By the time I returned a week or so later, the empty lockers had been rented and filled and I was out of luck.

The experience reminded me that some folks still treasure the beauty of a properly aged wine; so much so that they will spend a fair buck to cellar it under the most ideal conditions, then have the patience to wait until the wine has achieved maturity.

Still, the question is why? I answered my own question with a recent trip to forage in my small wine room in the basement of the house. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to serve with dinner that evening, but I knew I wanted to taste a red with some age.

After considering a number of options, I decided upon a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from the 2000 vintage, which, if memory serves, was not supposed to be so good for longevity. The wine was the regular Napa Valley bottling from Amizetta Vineyards. This is not a terribly expensive wine. In fact, an internet search turned up a few wine shops selling this very wine for $38 retail.

I pulled the cork and admired its condition. The bottom was black with sediment, and it was clear there had been no leakage, which is caused by excessive heat or wildly fluctuating temperatures.

I poured the wine and admired the color, which was brilliant to the rim. Red wines tend to lose color with age, but this 11-year-old Cab was still youthful, with no browning at the edge.

On the first sip I observed that the tannins were firm, and the fruit seemed a bit subdued. Indeed, the wine remained tight and unexpressive until it was decanted, whereupon an amazing thing happened. The tannins sweetened up and softened, and aromas of blackberry and cassis filled the room.

My $38 Napa Valley Cab, at 11 years young, was positively stunning.  After all the years, the patience, the care in maintaining temperature and humidity, this was my reward.

That, dear reader, is why we age our wines. Posted by Robert Whitley at 8:39 AM

July 20, 2011

A Very Good Read from Roy Cloud

First, a disclaimer: I know and like Roy Cloud, the author of To Burgundy and Back Again (Lyons Press, $16.95), so was not an unbiased reader of this book. If I didn’t know him, though, I’m sure that I would have enjoyed it just as much. So now a recommendation: Buy and read this small, unassuming book. It comes from the heart, and is a true delight.

Roy Cloud is a Washington DC-based importer of mostly artisanal French wines, and his book describes his initial trip in 1997 to Burgundy, Alsace, the Loire and Rhône Valleys in search of producers to represent. In this respect, it resembles Kermit Lynch’s Adventures on the Wine Route and Neal Rosenthal’s Reflections of a Wine Merchant, though without any of the philosophizing of the former or the pretense of the latter. He’s telling a story in it, not dictating what you should (or should not) drink.

As an importer, Roy certainly has preferences. He’s a fan of wines that reflect both a specific place and an individual’s passion, and much of his book details his discovery of some of those places and some of those passions. Ultimately, though, wine is not what he’s writing about. Instead, his family is at the heart of this book--particularly his relationships with his older brother, Joe, and with his father.

Joe went along on that first trip to France because he spoke French while Roy didn’t. He wasn’t just translating, though. Their father had suffered a bad fall when bicycling on vacation five months earlier, and lay in a comma in a Virginia hospital during their twelve day sojourn. The brothers’ time together provided them with an occasion to take stock.

Not wanting to give anything away, I’ll leave it to you to read the book to find out the specifics of what they discovered. It’s nothing earth-shattering, and To Burgundy and Back Again ends on a gentle, tranquil note. But ultimately the wines Roy decided to import share something not only with the vintners that made them but also with his family. All have integrity--as does this book, which pays homage to the human relationships that make wine worth sharing and, more to the point, life worth living.

A Very Good Read

First, a disclaimer: I know and like Roy Cloud, the author of To Burgundy and Back Again (Lyons Press, $16.95), so was not an unbiased reader of this book. If I didn’t know him, though, I’m sure that I would have enjoyed it just as much. So now a recommendation: Buy and read this small, unassuming book. It comes from the heart, and is a true delight.

July 19, 2011

Wine & Book Pairing

July 12, 2011

Defining Ripeness

It used to be simple.  If you grew wine grapes, you picked them when they began to taste sweet.  You probably didn’t wait too long.  Birds, deer, and other predators like to eat ripe fruit, and autumn rain can bring rot.  Better to harvest the crop early than never.
              
In the nineteenth century, science and technology combined to make deciding when to harvest more precise.  A German chemist, A. F. W. Brix, used a hydrometer in his laboratory to measure the sugar level of grape juice, giving his name to a scale now used for just that purpose.  Other scientists soon came up with an even better instrument, a portable refractometer that measured the brix level of a liquid’s dissolved solids (ninety percent of which are sugar).  Refractometers were heavy and cumbersome to use at first, but by the mid-twentieth century small, handheld versions had become quite commonplace.  Growers trusted them to determine when to start picking their grapes.
              
Since then, the question of what constitutes ripeness has become more vexed.  Vintners now know that sugar content is not the only indicator.  A host of other factors, including seed color, pulp texture, the condition of the stems in a cluster, and the relative pliancy of the grape skins, turn out to be just as important.  Taken together, these comprise what is sometimes called “physiological ripeness” (as opposed to chemical ripeness), and conscientious growers today pay just as much attention to them as they do to easily calibrated sugar levels.  Since harsh-tasting wines can sometimes come from grapes with acceptable sugars but inadequate physiological indicators, many growers today leave their fruit hanging on the vine far longer than they would have a generation ago.   

Super-ripe fruit, however, tastes first and foremost sweet.  Eat a peach that’s been left sitting on your windowsill a bit too long, or a melon that was picked a day or two late.  The generic taste of sugar proves dominant.  By contrast, when you eat fruit that is ripe but not over-ripe, the principal flavor is much more particular.  You taste the peach before the sugar, and if you’ve had experience with different types, you can taste white or yellow, freestone or clingstone.  In short, less sugar enables the peach’s flavor to be more distinctive.

The same, surely, is true when fruit juice, specifically grape juice, is fermented.  If, like me, you find that an awful lot of the wines you drink today taste similar, their regional as well as their varietal identities obscured by their sweetness, one of the main culprits has to be the current vogue of ripeness defined in physiological terms.

Particularly in warm climes (and the grape-growing world is getting warmer), physiological ripeness comes at a price--high, often excessive, levels of sugar.  To make more distinctive-tasting wines, wouldn’t it make sense to ferment a few green seeds or tough skins, or a little firm flesh, if doing so meant keeping sugar levels more reasonable?  The alternative to today’s often overly ripe wines isn’t green, hard, vegetal-tasting ones.  Instead, it’s balance, which after all is what all good wines have long needed to demonstrate.

July 11, 2011

A Votre Sante: In Praise of the French Aperitif

One of the things I most enjoy about being in France is savoring a real French aperitif before dinner.  (I’m also enamored of Italian aperitifs, but that is a story for another time).  My husband, Paul Lukacs, recently wrote about a wonderful dinner we had in Chablis (see his June 29 blog at Wine Review Online), but one thing he failed to mention was that while he sipped a glass of Champagne as we studied the menu, I was enjoying the house aperitif, a flute filled with Champagne, gin and Framboise.  The refreshing delicacy of Champagne, the kick of gin and the blast of flavor from the raspberry liqueur conspired to make this aperitif a perfect beginning to a memorable dinner.

Strangely, many of my wine-writing colleagues do not share my fondness for aperitifs.  Some even look askance when I sing the praises of vermouth, Campari, or anisette.  What are they thinking--that wine is the only acceptable pre-dinner beverage?  Oh, please.  No one would accuse me of not liking wine enough, but to my taste buds wine is best appreciated with food.  Champagne is the exception, but without food most other wine tends to either stall the palate or send it into overdrive (depending on the wine).  Aperitifs, on the other hand, are crafted as appetite stimulants to get the taste buds and digestive system ready for a meal. 

Among the many attributes of aperitifs is the ritualistic socializing role they play in traditional French life.  I also like the fact that because they are (usually) lightly alcoholic one can enjoy a couple of them before dinner with no untoward effect (the more spirituous ones are often mixed with water, so if you begin with 16 percent alcohol and add water you reach 8 percent).  Another attraction of French aperitifs is that they tend to have specific regional connotations. But when you get right down to it, the thing I like most of all about aperitifs is the way they taste.

I first developed a fondness for aperitifs right out of college, when I moved from California to the west coast of France, where I lived in La Rochelle, a seaport town in the Charente-Maritime region.  In those days, when one met with friends for dinner there, chances were good that everybody would begin the evening with a glass or two of Pineau des Charentes.  This regional aperitif, which was invented in Charente in the 16th century, is a fortified wine made from lightly fermented grape must plus Cognac (the grapes are usually Ugni Blanc, Colombard, or Folle Blanche).  White Pineau is aged a minimum of 18 months in oak barrel, red 14 months.  Served chilled, it is fresh, fruity, and sweet.  To be honest, these days I find Pineau a tad too sweet, perhaps because it lacks the appetite stimulating hint of bitterness that characterizes many other apéros.  Dubonnet, for example, which dates back to the mid-19th century and is made from red wine and plant extracts, is particularly notable for the inclusion of quinine, which gives the bitter edge to an otherwise sweet drink.  (The original Dubonnet was 14.8% alcohol, but for the American market it was made at 19%.  Go figure.)

Pastis (Pernod and Ricard), are anise based apéros associated with warm weather and the maritime regions of southern France, and they’re always diluted with water.  Suze, made from the distilled roots of the gentian plant instead of grapes, is a type of bitters, usually diluted with water, tonic, orange juice or soda.  Byrrh, a Languedoc specialty dating back to the mid 19th century, is made from red wine (usually Carignan and Grenache) plus a dose of appetite arousing quinine (Byrrh was the leading aperitif brand in France in the 1930s).  Lillet, a beloved classic from the Bordeaux region, is based on local wines (traditionally Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon) plus fruits, especially oranges, which are steeped in alcohol and barrel aged.  Like most wine-based apéros, Lillet is traditionally served chilled, with or without a twist of lemon. 

Wildly popular in the heady days before World War II, many of these apéros fell out of favor in the late 20th century.  Happily, they appear to be making a comeback in French cafés and bistros, and are showing up stateside too.  Tchin tchin!

July 8, 2011

Reds for Summer

First came the summer solstice and then the long Fourth of July weekend. There can be no more clinging to the cool breezes of spring. Summer has arrived, the sun is beating down, and I've had to scramble to the cellar to find an appropriate red wine because the lady of the house thought the red blend from the Napa Valley wasa bit too heavy for the moment.

Indeed, she was right. The bigger, richer reds I've been enjoying through winter and spring now seem heavy and ponderous, not a good fit for the summer table.

I rummaged through a number of possibilities in the wine cellar before I settled upon a 2009 Bertani Valpolicella. This is a wine from northern Italy's Veneto region, which encircles the romantic city of Verona, and it's a first for this renowned producer of Amarone, the signature wine of the area.

Bertani has never before sold a Valpolicella in the United States, perhaps because the market here had been poisoned by thin, watery Valpolicella that was both acidic and uninteresting. In fact, Valpolicella is made from the same grape, Corvina, that produces the fabulous Amarone. Good Valpolicella can be quite intriguing, and it offers excellent value for the quality.

The 2009 Bertani Valpolicella had earned a silver medal at the 2010 Sommelier Challenge, where professional sommeliers from America's leading restaurants evaluate the wines in a "blind" tasting format. It retails for $14.

I checked the alcohol by volume (ABV), which is printed in small type on the label, and was pleased to discover the ABV was a modest 12.5 percent; that's a plus for a "summer" red. For the higher-alcohol wines, those in the 14.5 percent range and higher, seem to become more ponderous and less enjoyable as the mercury rises.

I pulled the cork and poured a splash. The nose exhibited plenty of rich dark fruit. There were hints of spice. It was off to a good start. Then I took the first sip and had a moment of doubt. There was quite a bit of bite on the finish, though I should have expected that because these wines do not lack for acidity, even when they have plenty of fleshy fruit.

The acid test came, literally, when I took the wine after a bite of food, which in this case was pasta in a light marinara sauce. The wine came alive. It was summer in a bottle, with gorgeous fruit and spice notes. I barely noticed the acidity that had been so apparent at first, except to note the clean finish. My Italian friends would have said "perfecto"!

So, now I am re-evaluating my stock of "summer" reds. I've decided I need more Beaujolais. The past two vintages, 2009 and 2010, have been spectacular, and the wines are still relatively cheap. An added bonus with Beaujolais is that it tastes so good when it's chilled, which is the way to go when dining al fresco.

Chinon from France's Loire Valley is another excellent summer wine for many of the same reasons that Valpolicella and Beaujolais work so well. It tends to be lower in alcohol, not terribly expensive, and it, too, tastes good when chilled. Chinon is made from the Cabernet Franc grape and is generally lighter in body than Cabernet Franc made in other parts of the world, so a straight trade of Chinon for Cab Franc may not work out for you.

Of course, there is the option of switching to crisp white wines and fruity rose wines during the hottest month of the year, though matching those wines with heartier summer fare, especially red meat, might prove challenging.

And there is no need. If you choose wisely, there is no reason that you can't drink fabulous red wines all summer long.

July 6, 2011

The Case Against Nostalgia

“Nostalgia,” the novelist Peter de Vries once quipped, “isn’t what it used to be.”  That thought came to mind the other day when listening to yet another lament about the state of wine in the world today.  You know the refrain:  “They all taste the same . . . big fruit bombs . . . there’s just no taste of place . . . wine isn’t what it used to be. . . etc., etc.”  

Now, I’m no Pollyanna.  To my mind (and palate), too many contemporary wines, especially expensive ones, do taste alike, being made in a flamboyant, fruit-forward style that can obscure their varietal and regional identities.  But I’m also convinced that the nostalgic complaint that wine used to be better is pure nonsense. 

As late as the middle of the twentieth century, the vast majority of wines produced in the world tasted thin and sour.  Often contaminated by bacteria and oxidized by excessive exposure to air, they provided drinkers with calories and alcohol, but little sensory pleasure.  That’s clearly no longer the case.  To be commercially viable, wine produced in most parts of the grape-growing world now needs to be chemically sound.

It also needs to taste at minimum decent, and is in fact often quite good.  Millions of people used to drink wine like we drink water or fruit juice--as a source of sustenance.  Hardly anyone treats it that way anymore (which explains why many traditional wine-producing countries are faced with such a glut of cheap, un-sellable wine).  Instead, drinking wine has become a lifestyle choice.  And no one wants to choose the sort of unpleasant tasting wine that used to dominate the marketplace.       

The situation of course was different with what often is called “fine wine.”  Here too, however, things clearly are better than they used to be.  For one, there is far less vintage variation.  Some undeniably great wines were produced fifty years ago (think of the legendary 1961 Bordeaux from the best châteaux), but good years back then came infrequently.  Moreover, even in those years, the number of truly excellent wines was much smaller than is the case today.  Modern technology and expertise in both vineyards and wineries enables contemporary vintners to produce very good wines in locales and years of the sort that used to provide only disappointment.  Staying with the example of Bordeaux, the sort of cru bourgeois wines from a difficult vintage such as 2007 that can provide affordable pleasure today simply did not exist back then.

Of course, the winemaking world was much smaller fifty years ago.  Complex, compelling wines are being made today in every continent save Antarctica.  But in the 1960s, fine wine came almost exclusively from Europe, and even there mainly from France.  Imagine a world without exciting, collectible wines from the Americas, or Australia, or even most of Mediterranean Europe.  That was the reality back then.

The biggest change, however (and I’m certain that it’s ultimately a change for the good), is that fine wine today does not have to come from craftsmanship in service to but one thing--locale.  That used to be true.  With the exception of Champagne, customarily a multi-vineyard and multi-vintage blend, the best wines almost always used to represent a particular place or “terroir.”  Their distinctive aromas and flavors came both from the care taken in producing them and from qualities unique to that specific site.  But over the last half century, advances in both grape growing and winemaking have enabled vintners to serve other ends--varietal expression, for example, and even more to the point, stylistic vision.  Truly great wines today may well reflect their “terroir,” but they also may reflect an idea or aspiration--specifically, an idea of how a great wine made with a particular grape or grapes should taste. 

The end result is more and better wines from more places.  If too many of them reflect a single idea (that of quality defined in terms of power and concentration), the problem is not the idea itself but rather the lack of vision and imagination expressed by the vintners responsible for them.  The world of wine today is definitely not perfect.  It is, though, far richer and much more exciting than ever before.  That’s why nostalgic laments for an idealized world that never actually existed are so misguided, and so tiresome. 

July 4, 2011

Sad News from the Finger Lakes

The most recent edition of the Wine Press, a newsletter from the New York Wine & Grape Foundation, brought the sad news that David and Debra Whiting, owners of Red Newt Cellars, a winery and bistro in New York’s Finger Lakes region, were in a horrific car crash last Thursday.  Deb, aged 52, was killed.  Dave (47) is in a Syracuse hospital and is expected to recover from his injuries.

It is inevitably heart wrenching when tragedy strikes such a relatively young and still awesomely energetic and talented couple.  The lives of families and friends will always be shattered by such tragic events, but in the case of the Whitings the circle of grief is even wider, for Dave and Deb’s influence is sending shock waves through an entire region.

I first met Deb&Dave (or Dave&Deb—everyone who knew the devoted couple spoke of them as a single unit) in the early 1990s, at the very beginning of the renaissance of the Finger Lakes’ wine industry.  Dave, whose own Red Newt winery was still a dream for the future at that point, had started his career as winemaker at McGregor Vineyard, and went on to work at other Finger Lakes’ wineries including Chateau LaFayette, Swedish Hill and Standing Stone.  Deb was just beginning to translate her passion for food into a successful career. Together this visionary couple would go on to create one of the most respected and influential wineries in the eastern United States.  “Red Newt Cellars and Bistro, perched high above Seneca Lake’s east side, is a mecca for foodies and wine lovers alike,” wrote Jim Trezise in the Wine Press.  This spring their leadership in the Finger Lakes wine community was recognized when they received the Wine & Grape Foundation’s “Industry Award” for major contributions in advancing the industry. 

Debra Whiting didn’t invent the locavore concept, but she instinctively embraced it. As Executive Chef at the Red Newt Bistro she used locally sourced foods as much as possible in creating her imaginative and delicious menus.  For years she has served on the executive board of Finger Lakes Culinary Bounty, a network of local farmers, food producers, distributors and restaurants. She also mentored innumerable other chefs who have gone on to successful careers of their own. 

Dave Whiting’s wines are among New York’s best, and getting better all the time.  His reputation has begun to reach wine lovers even beyond New York, in part because of his collaboration with two other Finger Lakes winemakers, Peter Bell (Fox Run Vineyards) and Johannes Rheinhardt (Anthony Road) in making Tierce, which Dan Berger has called the best Riesling made in America.  (Tierce is most definitely a favorite wine of mine).  For that matter Dave’s Red Newt Riesling is unquestionably one of the best in America.  I was thrilled, recently, to discover it on the list at the Wine Market, one of Baltimore’s best restaurants.  

I cannot express my sympathy to and to the New York wine community any better than Jim Trezise did in the current Wine Press. “Today the Finger Lakes is widely recognized as one of the finest wine country destinations in the world, in large part because the quality of the food has caught up to the wine,” he wrote.  “That is the legacy of Deb Whiting.”

July 1, 2011

Sticking Up for the Average Consumer

In reaction to a recent post on my lack of appreciation for the "cult Cab" phenomenon, reader Stephen D. McKimmey of Dallas writes:

"Just a quick note agreeing with your assessment on Napa cult Cabs. These wines can certainly be good; even great. I've been lucky enough to taste a few of these wines. However, the celebrity and exclusiveness to which these wines aspire to has become a real turn-off for me. It's all about conspicuous consumption for the privileged few with the resources to purchase these wines.

"Bravo for them; I'm happy for their success, but these wines have little relevance to the workingman. Even worse, many of the critics spend the vast majority of their time and space reviewing wines that 95 percent of us will never taste and/or afford. These critics have lost their way and become like the snobs they once abhorred. There are many of us out there intensely interested in wine, but with absolutely no interest in purchasing a bottle that cost over $100 per bottle.

"Critics: Please quit wasting my time writing lengthy epistles about Lafite, Latour and Colgin and ignoring the small producer in Paso Robles, Santa Barbara or Walla Walla; I can't afford the blue-blood wines, nor are they a part of my day-to-day wine experience. Please give us more information about up-and-comers and wines providing real quality and value; there are a lot of these wines out there we never hear about.

"Mr. Whitley, thanks for your excellent work; I sense you still care about the average consumer."

Truth be told, I care about all consumers, even those who would spends sums of money on a bottle of wine that I wouldn't even consider in my wildest dreams.

It has been my philosophy over the more than 20 years that I've been dispensing opinions on wine to have a little something for everyone — with reviews and commentary that address the full spectrum of the wine world, across all price points.

But the so-called "cult Cabs" hardly fit my definition of a wine aimed at the consumer, even the wealthy consumer. My sense is most of the cult Cabs are never opened and consumed. They have become a hot commodity on the auction circuit and, thus, too valuable to drink.

I realize the occasional cork gets pulled, but by and large, many of the buyers of these rare and expensive wines are merely investors looking to exploit what is called the "after market" for cult wines. They may have an interest in wine, too, but their primary objective is a good investment, not a great wine for dinner.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to drink the best. In that regard, the Napa Valley (home of the majority of the cult Cabs) has plenty to offer at prices that are not beyond the reach of the everyday wine enthusiast who is willing to splurge on occasion.

In the original column, I cited Cabernet Sauvignons from Joseph Phelps Vineyards and Grgich Hills Cellars — two iconic producers that have proven themselves worthy over decades of brilliance. For $50 to $60, just about anybody can afford to purchase one of these wines and enjoy a taste of two wines that helped make the Napa Valley the most coveted destination for wine in the United States.

That's not cheap, but it can be done.
For a few bucks more, other superb and time-tested Napa Valley Cabernets can be at your fingertips: Spottswoode, Corison, Nickel & Nickel, Stag's Leap Winery, Diamond Creek, Far Niente, Silver Oak, Heitz, etc. Obviously, I could go on.

Wines of this ilk, even though expensive by everyday standards, deserve to be evaluated and reviewed by the critics. After all, they are wines that someone, maybe even you, might actually drink.