The NY Times reviews India Pale Ales.

And does a fair job of it, although no better than fair. They give some history of India Pale Ales - accurate, to my knowledge - and then review some. Well, they claim to taste 21, but give reviews on only 10 (and the video review has even fewer). The top-rated ones were the Smuttynose Big A IPA, Stone IPA, and Dogfish Head's 90-minute Imperial IPA. Can't really disagree too much with those choices, but I think their methodology was suspect: they were missing Pacific Northwest IPAs - such as Bridgeport's IPA - and they included non-IPAs in their tasting (Imperial IPAs - IPAs on steroids - and Imperial pale ales, where "Imperial" in the style designation indicates a lot more barley in the mix, resulting in more flavor and about 2% more alcohol than is normal for the style). And they were missing standard East Coast IPAs, as well - I can understand their not having Cottonwood's Endo Pale Ale, but leaving Tupper's Hop Pocket Ale out of their tasting?

Instant winery.

Interesting in-depth article about "instant winemakers" - negociants - out on the West Coast. (One of the negociants they look at does Castle Rock wines, previously highlighted here.) People who buy excess wine, perhaps age it a bit more, and bottle it under their own label. And one thing I learned from the article is that the wine they buy often isn't just "excess" that the original winery couldn't sell - sometimes it's awfully good wine that didn't fit into the blend that the winery wanted to make that year, and it wasn't enough for them to bottle on their own. Or they've lost access to grapes that they've been putting into a single-vineyard bottling, and rather than continue to market a wine they know they can't make next year, they'll sell last year's wine to a negotiant, and move on to other wines.

Selling my own wine without having to be a farmer - perhaps this is what I'll do after I win the lottery.

2002 Cline California Ancient Vine Zinfandel.

I seem to be on a bit of a Cline kick, of late. This zinfandel is described as coming from a couple of vineyards, one planted in 1911 and one where the vines are 80 to 100 years old, in Lodi and Oakley respectively.

Young-looking medium strawberry/cherry red color. Aromas of ripe strawberry and blueberry; very intense, with a sweetness in the nose. Crisp yet intense fruit flavors, with a touch of black pepper at the finish. Good tannins, right at the edge of being overwhelmed by the fruit, but will be a better balance in perhaps six months.

I'd drink it by itself for now, as the vibrant fruit flavor cries out to be enjoyed on its own. When it ages some and the fruit isn't quite so bold, it'll go better with the usual zinfandel foods: grilled and barbecued meats, pastas, pizza.

The label says to drink now, or cellar for five to seven years. I'd agree that it's ready to go now, as a fresh, young, jammy wine, but I'd wonder how long it could really age. I'd be a bit more conservative, and suggest aging for no more than 5 years. But now really would be fine, too.

World Market, Richmond, $13.99 (the Cline website's suggested price is $18).

2001 Allan Scott Marlborough Pinot Noir.

Refreshing little pinot noir, from New Zealand. I've long loved NZ sauvignon blancs, so I'm delighted to see some of their reds making to the East Coast. And there are some similarities: fresh, vibrant flavors explode in your mouth with with crisp (or even sharp) acidity. It's not as serious or portent-filled as an Oregon pinot noir, but it doesn't intend to be.

Light to medium shade of red - no mistaking it for a serious burgundy. Red cherry aromas with a hint of spice. Red cherry and strawberry flavors to knock you over. Medium finish. And if you're looking for the complex, earthy, mushroom flavors and aromas of higher-end pinot noirs, you'll be disappointed. But you shouldn't be looking for them here.

Great wine to drink by itself, for the sheer enjoyment of a young wine. Possibly with fruit, but I wouldn't pair it up with food for fear of missing out on the fruit in the wine. And for nine bucks? I can see drinking a lot of this out on the deck this spring.

Wine Warehouse, Charlottesville. $8.99.

2002 Red Truck, California red table wine, Cline Cellars.

This is a delightful blend of mourvedre and syrah, and doubtless some other odds and ends. Very full, accessible fruit, with the ripeness of the fruit accentuated by the .26% residual sugar.

Ruby-purple in color, cherry-fruit acidity in the nose. Flavors of red cherry and blueberries, a little harshness still in the tannins. Nice long cherry notes in the finish. Good workhorse red, goes well with tomato-sauced pasta, and priced to be an everyday house red.

While I don't often recommend that you buy a wine for its label, this one is surely worth looking for: an antique red farm truck, in use, under a summer sky.

Wine Lovers, Richmond. $ 8.99.

Hearts on the Vine wine festival.

Interesting wine festival here in Richmond last weekend. Described as 150 wineries and 325 wines, from all over the world. A lot of California wineries - many were small Napa and Sonoma producers - but the Pacific northwest was represented, as were international producers: from France, Italy, Australia, New Zealand. It was a fund raiser for the American Heart Association, so it was a bit on the expensive side, but the majority of the wines you could taste were very good.

A couple of disappointments - there were some wineries that were present, but only barely. Cakebread Cellars was there, but represented only by their chardonnay, when I'd have loved to have seen some of their cabs. Kim Crawford wines were represented only by their unoaked chardonnay, which I certainly enjoy but I'd have expected to see at least their pinot noir and sauvignon blanc, as well.

My favorites: Barboursville's viognier, Smoking Loon's viognier, and Arrowwood's syrah.

The event was a lot of fun, and I hope that it was sufficiently successful that they'll do it again next year.

Midnight Sun Brewing Company: Sockeye Red IPA and Cohoho Imperial IPA.

My Super Bowl beers. A couple of Alaska-brewed beers that have made their way out to Virginia, and survived the trip.

The Midnight Sun Sockeye Red IPA was wonderful. Deep mahogany red color, lots and lots of citrusy hop goodness, great balance between malt and hops - not always achieved with 70+ IBUs. It was so smooth and drinkable that I'd pour it from the bottle into my glass, and could drain the glass in one happy gulp. I'd happily have many more.

The Cohoho Imperial IPA was certainly drinkable, but had some flaws. The alcohol - higher, as you'd expect in an Imperial IPA - was the most noticeable taste, and made the beer seem hot, almost astringent. The malt and hops hadn't yet had a chance to duke it out and settle down into smoothness, so the hop bite was pronounced. As a result, the balance wasn't there yet, and you had to take it in sips - and there are a lot of sips in a 22 oz. bottle. I'd imagine that if you could take the bottle and hide it in a cool cellar for next winter, it'd go down a lot more smoothly.

Sockeye Red IPA: $4.50. Cohoho Imperial IPA: $6.95. Westpark Wine & Beer, Richmond.

Brewery Ommegang Three Philosophers Quadrupel Belgian-style Ale.

A bit of a change tonight: beer, instead of wine. And a pretty good beer it is. This is a wonderful, interesting beer, a mixture of a rich, dark quadrupel ale from Ommegang Brewery and a kriek (cherry) lambic from Lindemans brewery in Belgium. Rich, caramel flavors, balanced with the subtle dark, sour cherry flavor from the lambic. Probably good with a hearty stew; I enjoyed it on this cold winter evening, watching TV.

$6.99, Westpark Wine & Beer, Richmond.

2002 Matariki Hawkes Bay Sauvignon Blanc.

Nice, crisp sauvignon blanc from New Zealand. Not quite as citrusy as I've come to expect from a New Zealand sauvignon blanc, but still delicious.

Pale straw in color, absolutely clear. Green pepper and feline aromas. Vibrant, sharp acidity. Intense grassy, green pepper, melon flavors.

Good by itself, with salads, seafood. I had it with a a shrimp pasta with a white sauce; great choice.

$12 - 14, I think (misplaced the receipt), Richmond.

Under the weather.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I've suffered through a cold since before Christmas, and haven't wanted to drink anything - and couldn't taste much of anything, anyway. I expect I'll be back online with some wine reviews soon.

New Year's Eve? I opened a bottle of Zardetto prosecco. Robert Parker gives it 88 points; I find it to be light, interesting, lemony, and fun. And I drink it often during the summer.

Available most everywhere; around $8 or $9.

So you want to own a vineyard.

From time to time, I muse as to what I'd do if I won the lottery. I've got one friend who says he'd buy a vineyard. This article is for him, then. It talks about some of the difficulties of starting up a winery as a retirement venture/hobby: working all day in the vineyard, capital demands, marketing problems.

Would I buy a vineyard? Maybe. If the lottery win were big enough that I could also hire a vineyard manager, and enough other people that I limit myself to doing the fun stuff.

Looking for a peculiar list of presents to give your wine-loving friends?

Then Forbes.com is where you want to go. They've got a right bizarre list of gifts for wine lovers. Some of the suggestions are reasonable, like Riedel glasses or Michael Broadbent's latest book, and some are expensive but appropriate, like a $250 double magnum of Veuve Clicquot or a $600 case of burgundy. But sterling silver labels for your bourbon and gin bottles or a silver martini shaker that costs over $7,000? Well, I suppose you could always pawn them and buy good wine with the proceeds.

2001 Castle Rock Winery, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

This cabernet is produced by a California negociant, and is a mighty good $12 cabernet. As evidence of its quality, this cabernet and the Castle Rock Chardonnay have been chosen as Ruth's Chris Steak House's "House wine by the glass," which is a pretty impressive accomplishment. (Sure, there's a marketing component thrown in to that deal, too, but a restaurant of the calibre of Ruth's Chris Steak House isn't going to pick up a crummy wine as their house wine.)

Young, bright ruby-red color. Strong bursts of dark red fruit in the flavor - black cherry and plums - with hints of darker undertones of leather and pepper. Aroma not as intense as I'd expected from the flavor, though. Medium body, not as rich and layered as a $30 cabernet, but nowhere as expensive, either. Young tannins, although not a lot of them. Probably needs another year, or at most two, to mellow out the tannins and make this wine as velvety smooth as it could become. Initially fairly closed, this wine had opened up tremendously when I finished off the last half of the bottle two days after I'd opened it.

Not as full-bodied as a big cabernet, this would go well with red meats and probably okay or better with grilled red meats, but I'd want something a little more substantial for a charcoal-grilled pepper-crusted steak.

Westpark Wine & Beer, Richmond, $11.99.

Wine gimmick of the week.

Here's a new way to separate you from that pesky $49.95 you've got jingling in your pocket: The Wine Clip. It's a magnet (Oooo! A rare earth magnet!) that you clip onto the neck of a wine bottle, and as you pour the wine out, the magnetic field sets up an electrical charge (wine being an electrical conductor, and all, passing through the field) which breaks large molecules into smaller ones. Thus, it breaks up large tannin molecules into small tannin molecules, which makes the wine smoother - or so they claim. They do say that it works equally well with a $10 bottle of merlot and a $300 bottle of cabernet sauvignon, which I can well believe.

It's great fun watching the video of a taste test with this magnet, one of four they supposedly did: "Which of these two glasses of wine we just poured from the same bottle - one with the Wine Clip on the neck of the bottle and one without - tastes better?" and then they turn over the corresponding card. Six of the seven "picked" the glass identified as having been poured through the Clip. The best part is trying to decide whether the individual testers were in on the secret from the beginning, or both glasses had "poured through the Wine Clip" cards so whichever they chose would be the right answer, or this was the only one of the tests they ran where a majority picked the glass poured through the Clip.

Probably the most interesting part of this silly product is that the Strategic Advisor to the Wine Clip is none other than John Sculley, late of Apple and Pepsi.

Why, yes, I do think the Emperor's new clothes are very nice, indeed.

Update (Dec. 11, 2003): Just to be clear, I have not - yet - tried The Wine Clip or done blind taste tests with it. If and when I do, I'll report on what I find - and if I have to eat my words, I'll have better-tasting wine to wash them down with.

2002 House of Nobilo Icon, Marlborough Pinot Noir.

I was a bit disappointed with this New Zealand pinot noir, and I'm not really sure why. It seemed to be missing something, probably some combination of body, complexity, and earthiness.

Bright cherry color, with strawberry and red cherry in the aroma. Strong fruit flavors of red cherry and strawberry, with crisp, almost lemony, acidity. Tannins are present, but a bit overpowered by the fruit and acidity. light- to medium-weight body; not much mouthfeel to it. Medium length finish.

Probably wouldn't want to match this with anything more strongly flavored than fish, chicken, or pasta in a white sauce. By itself would be fine, too.

Private Stock, Richmond, $17.99.

1999 Rosenblum Cellars Russian River Valley Zinfandel, Alegria Vineyard.

Had a nice, rich, fruit-forward zinfandel out at dinner tonight.

Dark red, plummy aroma, rich and intense red-fruit flavors - black cherry, plum jam, touch of smokiness. Decent tannins, enough to stand up to the fruit. Long finish. Very nice. Went well with our steaks.

Buckhead's, Richmond. $52. (Okay, the 2000 vintage is $18 at the winery. What are you going to do? Well, that answer is easier if the person you're out to dinner with is on an expense account.)

Favorite wine shops.

It's a sign of something, I suppose, that I have "favorite" wine shops all over the place. Two or three here in Richmond where I currently live, one or two in Raleigh, NC (discovered when I lived in Durham for a couple of years), one in Charlottesville (where I lived for many, many years, and I even worked part-time at that wine shop), and a couple in Arlington (where I haven't lived since the Carter Administration).

A number of factors need to align before a wine shop makes it onto my Favorites list: a friendly, helpful, approachable staff, who is neither condescending nor obsequious; reasonable prices; frequent tastings (how else to find out whether you might like a wine you've not tried before?), especially ones led by winemakers; a broad selection of wines. And if I'm just browsing, they'll let me wander around to my heart's content.

And speaking of champagne.

Nice long article in Wednesday's NY Times on champagne, especially the small grower-producers, whose wine rarely makes it to the U.S. The article talks about these champagnes as being very food-friendly, unlike those made by the big producers, and gives some food matches, from scallops to rabbit to fried chicken. It also talks about the art of blending the constituent wines from different vintages, to enhance the final product, not to cover up for weaknesses. And the article even has a more in-depth sidebar on a tasting of 25 small-producer champagnes.

Chandon NV California Blanc de Noirs.

One of the things I admire about Australians and their wine-drinking is that they understand that you don't need to wait for a special occasion to have champagne: Any day that ends with a Y is special enough.

This sparkling wine, made in the methode traditionnelle, is made from pinot noir, pinot meunier, and chardonnay, grown in Napa and made by Domaine Chandon. The color was a very light toast, perhaps with a slight tinge of pink. But not much or either color, really. Tiny bubbles of carbonation. Crisp nose, with touches of lemon and strawberry. Crisp flavor, touches of unripe apple and strawberry, easing into a long, creamy finish.

A nice, simple champagne, enjoyable by itself, or with something spicy. Or even with a pasta with a light cream sauce, on a Tuesday night.

$14.99, Richmond, World Market.

Tempest in a wineglass.

Michael Franz has an interesting wine column in the Washington Post today, encouraging people to stop their boycott of French wines. He suggests, reasonably, that the only real effect that the boycott has on the French is on the French farmer who grows the grapes, and that farmer is a poor choice to be hurt by this broad response to actions by the French government. And he notes that an awful lot of Americans are hurt by the mis-aimed boycott: importers, distributors, and merchants. So he recommends a number of French wines for Thanksgiving (among them, burgundy, riesling, and pinot blanc). (He'll also recommend some American wines for Thanksgiving in his next column, in two weeks.)

Not surprisingly, his online wine chat today had a lot of discussion on the topic, from surprise that there are still people boycotting French wines to complaining that he spent too much of his "wine" column as an "op-ed" piece. (I don't think it was inappropriate of him to run this column, as it helps the reader have a better understanding of the boycott's potential impact on the wine industry, and Franz has the background to seriously discuss the history and ramifications of the boycott, as he's a political science professor in real life.)

I wonder whether this column is too late, in the sense that most of those who actually boycotted French wines have ended their boycott, or not especially relevant, as the boycott may not have had much lasting impact. It had an impact at the time, to be sure: I recall distributors talking about not selling a single case of French wine to retailers anywhere in the state over a period of a month. But sales appear to have picked back up, and in the 2002-03 sales year (August 1 to July 31, I think), the volume of Bordeaux wine sales to the U.S. rose 20 percent while the value of Bordeaux sales rose by 77 percent and Americans overtook Germans to become the largest purchasers of Bordeaux wines. While a lot of this was due to the increased demand for the 2000 vintage, it would seem to indicate that the boycott isn't having a whole lot of effect.