Today's enlightening Washington Post wine column

originally posted by VLM:
hmmm
"Enologists at UC-Davis set the standard of what wine should be, and they defined it by identifying faults and how to correct them," said Nicolas Mestre of Williams Corner Wine. "That approach has no pleasure in it."
Click to expand...

I know this bit of folklore has a long history, but a) is it even true, and b) do people really think there is no role for science in wine making?
Click to expand...

Good questions. I'd say that UCD promoted -- and may still promote -- a vision of winemaking (and, tangentially wine appreciation) that emphasized a lack of technical faults over other goals (such as expression of terroir, typicity or any personal vision of what that site/grape should be capable of delivering). As for the role of science in winemaking, I see that as a straw man argument. Even the naturalistas probably use science in keeping their winery clean of nasty microbiota or in the machinery that they do use for crushing, pressing, etc.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I apologize to Doug and Yule for having left them off the list of DC posters. I leave it to others to decide whether my generalization still holds, though I would argue that the low level of wine journalism our presence in the area supports would seem to provide further evidence of a low estimate of knowledge.
Click to expand...

I am expecting an apology as well...
 
originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
My spelling sounds more French so I'm sticking with it.
Click to expand...

OK, experienced pallettes get some leeway in the poetic license department. Hope you had a a safe flight home!
 
Just in case...

palate - the roof of your mouth (it separates your oral cavity from your nasal cavity)

palette - a wooden board used for mixing paints

pallet - a portable skid on which goods are stacked for transport (presumably named in honor of the eponymous makeshift bed)
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Just in case...

palate - the roof of your mouth (it separates your oral cavity from your nasal cavity)

palette - a wooden board used for mixing paints

pallet - a portable skid on which goods are stacked for transport (presumably named in honor of the eponymous makeshift bed)
Click to expand...

I see you are unmoved by the argument for conflating the three spellings. Martinette!
 
originally posted by Yule Kim:
originally posted by VLM:
DC
is a very tradition bound market. A Sancerre and Medoc kind of place.
Click to expand...

It really is. Go to any of the well-regarded wine stores, and you see shelves filled with Bordeaux and California Cab, and usually only a smattering of everything else.

I wouldn't even call it a Sancerre place. The Loire selections are very small, including Sancerre.
Click to expand...

Joking aside, because of the Embassy population, DC has a lot of wine activity. But, because its wine enthusiasts are lawyers and diplomats, it does not have much of a hipster/geek contingent. It's also true that I don't get out much, so there may be a whole community I don't know about. I do find the stores to have a broader selection than Yule Kim suggests. Macarthur in particular has a lot of Rhone, Italian, German and Burgundy wines. Wide World of Wines is pretty good on grower Champagne. And the Weygandt outlet, while overpriced, does have all Weygandt wines. White Loires are around. The selection of Loire Cab Franc and other reds is shamefully wanting. But with assists from Chambers Street in the mail, it's not a bad place to get wine.
 
You're right. MacArthur is definitely the exception to the rule. It has a great selection of Italian, German, Burgundy, and Rhone wines. It also has a good selection of white Loire (though they don't keep much on the shelves-they leave most of their stuff in the back room). But every other wine store I've been to in DC (with the exception of Weygandt) has fairly weak white Loire selections.

The one thing I do find impressive about DC is that the German riesling selection seems to be consistently good everywhere. MacArthur, as noted, is very good, Calvert has a great selection, and the other smaller shops carry at least a few good producers.

But, of course, my perspective is very skewed. Most of the better stores in the DC area are not Metro accessible, so my perspective on the wine scene is probably different from Jonathan's. Getting out to MacArthur's basically involves a pilgrimage via Zipcar.
 
With only Metro and thus no Macarthurs, no WWW, no Arrowine in VA, no Schneiders, etc. wine buying life in DC would be harder. Metro here does work for communting but it isn't like NY where public transportation practically makes cars counterproductive at least within Manhattan.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
I see you are unmoved by the argument for conflating the three spellings. Martinette!
Click to expand...
What Dr. Johnson and Noah Webster hath wrought, let no fictional internet character put asunder.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Yule Kim:
originally posted by VLM:
DC
is a very tradition bound market. A Sancerre and Medoc kind of place.
Click to expand...

It really is. Go to any of the well-regarded wine stores, and you see shelves filled with Bordeaux and California Cab, and usually only a smattering of everything else.

I wouldn't even call it a Sancerre place. The Loire selections are very small, including Sancerre.
Click to expand...

Joking aside, because of the Embassy population, DC has a lot of wine activity. But, because its wine enthusiasts are lawyers and diplomats, it does not have much of a hipster/geek contingent. It's also true that I don't get out much, so there may be a whole community I don't know about. I do find the stores to have a broader selection than Yule Kim suggests. Macarthur in particular has a lot of Rhone, Italian, German and Burgundy wines. Wide World of Wines is pretty good on grower Champagne. And the Weygandt outlet, while overpriced, does have all Weygandt wines. White Loires are around. The selection of Loire Cab Franc and other reds is shamefully wanting. But with assists from Chambers Street in the mail, it's not a bad place to get wine.
Click to expand...

Macarthur is first and foremost a Boedeaux stop. Then California cabernet, then Rhone, then Italian and lastly Burgundy.

It does not have anything cutting edge, rather, standards. Every now and then something sneaks through (I bought all my 1994 and 1995 Allemand there) but you have to look carefully. That being said, I don't mind a place like that and it would be nice to have one here in NC, but I think it is pretty typical of the DC market. See also, i.e. Calvert Woodley.
 
Baltimore is worse. It has to be approved by a very powerful local before it sells.

Baltimorons are notorious homers.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by VLM:
BTW

Baltimorons are notorious homers.
Click to expand...

Au contraire, my simian compatriot: the Orioles have only 9 homers on the season, placing them just slightly above the league mean. Moreover, the Orioles just having reached their all-time attendance nadir yesterday, one might very well ask: if an Oriole homers and no one is there to see it, does it count?

Peter Gammons Mark Lipton
Click to expand...

I have never forgiven the Angelos' for letting the Yankees have Mussina.

Baseball is a stupid sport anyway.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Joking aside, because of the Embassy population, DC has a lot of wine activity. But, because its wine enthusiasts are lawyers and diplomats, it does not have much of a hipster/geek contingent. It's also true that I don't get out much, so there may be a whole community I don't know about. I do find the stores to have a broader selection than Yule Kim suggests. Macarthur in particular has a lot of Rhone, Italian, German and Burgundy wines. Wide World of Wines is pretty good on grower Champagne. And the Weygandt outlet, while overpriced, does have all Weygandt wines. White Loires are around. The selection of Loire Cab Franc and other reds is shamefully wanting. But with assists from Chambers Street in the mail, it's not a bad place to get wine.
Click to expand...

I agree that there are many worse places to be for wine drinking (and thanks for the acknowledgement) and I actually feel very fortunate to have made my home in a city with such an active wine culture. But that wine culture can occasionally be a little stodgy and pointy-headed. Macarthur is a wondeful, if generally conventional, wine store and I think VLM's breakdown is accurate. I find some geek relief among in-town hipsters, the 14th St/Logan Circle/Dupont crowd, but most of my wine-drinking friends and acquaintances imbibe within a fairly narrow, WS/Parker-delimited range. I have seen real fear expressed over my tastes. "Weird," I am told. "Is this from the Jura? Because if it is...." I try not to bring anything too geeky to dinners, but there's almost always a first growth Bordeaux or something comparable on the table and usually a Kosta Browne as well.

And I buy more wine from Chamber St. than anywhere else. (Though even that's not very much these days.)
 
originally posted by VLM:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Yule Kim:
originally posted by VLM:
DC
is a very tradition bound market. A Sancerre and Medoc kind of place.
Click to expand...

It really is. Go to any of the well-regarded wine stores, and you see shelves filled with Bordeaux and California Cab, and usually only a smattering of everything else.

I wouldn't even call it a Sancerre place. The Loire selections are very small, including Sancerre.
Click to expand...

Joking aside, because of the Embassy population, DC has a lot of wine activity. But, because its wine enthusiasts are lawyers and diplomats, it does not have much of a hipster/geek contingent. It's also true that I don't get out much, so there may be a whole community I don't know about. I do find the stores to have a broader selection than Yule Kim suggests. Macarthur in particular has a lot of Rhone, Italian, German and Burgundy wines. Wide World of Wines is pretty good on grower Champagne. And the Weygandt outlet, while overpriced, does have all Weygandt wines. White Loires are around. The selection of Loire Cab Franc and other reds is shamefully wanting. But with assists from Chambers Street in the mail, it's not a bad place to get wine.
Click to expand...

Macarthur is first and foremost a Boedeaux stop. Then California cabernet, then Rhone, then Italian and lastly Burgundy.

It does not have anything cutting edge, rather, standards. Every now and then something sneaks through (I bought all my 1994 and 1995 Allemand there) but you have to look carefully. That being said, I don't mind a place like that and it would be nice to have one here in NC, but I think it is pretty typical of the DC market. See also, i.e. Calvert Woodley.
Click to expand...

I don't know what it's first and foremost. If you go to its website, as opposed to just looking on the shelves, I think you'll find a deeper selection. You'll never get poulsard there, but there is a lot beyond the expectable Bordeaux.

If I were into CA wines I'd be much more passionate about them given their longstanding commitment to a lot of CA cabs and their spring barrel tasting of them. I don't guess this is the bored for that topic, however, nor am I the person to speak about it.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by VLM:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Yule Kim:
originally posted by VLM:
DC
is a very tradition bound market. A Sancerre and Medoc kind of place.
Click to expand...

It really is. Go to any of the well-regarded wine stores, and you see shelves filled with Bordeaux and California Cab, and usually only a smattering of everything else.

I wouldn't even call it a Sancerre place. The Loire selections are very small, including Sancerre.
Click to expand...

Joking aside, because of the Embassy population, DC has a lot of wine activity. But, because its wine enthusiasts are lawyers and diplomats, it does not have much of a hipster/geek contingent. It's also true that I don't get out much, so there may be a whole community I don't know about. I do find the stores to have a broader selection than Yule Kim suggests. Macarthur in particular has a lot of Rhone, Italian, German and Burgundy wines. Wide World of Wines is pretty good on grower Champagne. And the Weygandt outlet, while overpriced, does have all Weygandt wines. White Loires are around. The selection of Loire Cab Franc and other reds is shamefully wanting. But with assists from Chambers Street in the mail, it's not a bad place to get wine.
Click to expand...

Macarthur is first and foremost a Boedeaux stop. Then California cabernet, then Rhone, then Italian and lastly Burgundy.

It does not have anything cutting edge, rather, standards. Every now and then something sneaks through (I bought all my 1994 and 1995 Allemand there) but you have to look carefully. That being said, I don't mind a place like that and it would be nice to have one here in NC, but I think it is pretty typical of the DC market. See also, i.e. Calvert Woodley.
Click to expand...

I don't know what it's first and foremost. If you go to its website, as opposed to just looking on the shelves, I think you'll find a deeper selection. You'll never get poulsard there, but there is a lot beyond the expectable Bordeaux.

If I were into CA wines I'd be much more passionate about them given their longstanding commitment to a lot of CA cabs and their spring barrel tasting of them. I don't guess this is the bored for that topic, however, nor am I the person to speak about it.
Click to expand...

I've been going to Bassin's for ~25 years and shopping there for 18. It is a big store with lots of wines. It has always been primarily driven by the Bordeaux trade. That may have changed in the last few years as the trade has changed dramatically, but I will always think of it that way.

I don't think we disagree, I think we may be making different points.
 
MacArthur/Bassin's strength is Bordeaux. And then California Cab. Those two categories literally take up one side of the store. And they don't shy away from trumpeting points.

Luckily, the other side of the store has enough shelf space to carry some interesting stuff as well. VLM is right that you have to look carefully, but if you do, it can be rewarding.

It's the store that introduced me to Lapierre, Pepiere, COS, and some other great producers. I just wished it carried some poulsard.
 
Yes, I think many of us DC geeks are in one sort of rut or other. Bordeaux, CalCab, Rhone. I go to way too many dinners where the theme is Burgundy and Riesling. Not that I don't like those things, but I do kind of miss the old days of tasting dinners where all sorts of kooky stuff showed up. Robert was an inspiration then, I suppose. Maybe hipster-hood is a life phase that I've been phased out of.

Drank a Verdicchio last night. Iesi. 08 Sartarelli standard bottle. It was quite good. My at home wine drinking is more varied. But, then, maybe not so much. Nebbiolo and Italian whites, mostly.

Yule, I'll be driving over to MacA's sometime in the next couple of weeks to drop off some shippers. Always happy to chauffeur folks around in the pursuit of vinous fulfillment.
 
All things considered, DC is not bad for buying and consuming wine. It's a big country with a lot of holes.

Plus you can easily have things shipped from out-of-state retailers. Weather permitting!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top