Sunday, December 13, 2009

Wine Ratings; Jancis Robinson's uninspiring choice of sparklers for the holiday season



In a series of articles in the FT, Jancis Robinson presents a selection of good buys for the entertaining season, deliberately concentrated on those wines that are drinking well now, as she writes. There are 4 articles, published in the FT as well as on Jancis Robinson’s web site.

White wine on November 29, 2009

Red wine on December 5, 2009

Champagne and sparkling wines on 12 Dec, 2009

Strong and sweet wines on 19 Dec, 2009

These 4 articles provide one with a financial sector and English perspective of what is hot in the market now --- financial sector perspective, because the article is written for the readers of the FT and English perspective, because Jancis Robinson is based in London, she provides prices in British Pounds and the names of English retailers where you can find the wine. The Exchange rate is roughly BP 1 = Euro 1.10 = US$ 1.60.

Champagne and Sparkling wines on December 12, 2009

There is not much to comment on. I invite you to review her recommendations, but would also like to point you to three other articles.

First, Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Becher from the Wall Street Journal had an interesting article about grower Champagnes in last weekend's edition. They account only for a very small part of the market, as the Champagne market it dominated by the large Champagne estates such as Taittinger, Bollinger, Krug, to name a few, but they are worth trying out. Interestingly, the producers of grower Champagnes tend to make also still wine, which is almost impossible to find in the US, but there is plenty of such wine in the Champagne region.

Second,Dave McIntyre from the Washington Post reviewed grower Champagnes in last Wednesday's issue and will review other out of the envelope sparklers in next Wednesday's issue.

Third, Germany is a nation of drinkers of sparklers. Every fourth bottle of sparkler in the world is consumed in Germany. The German sparkling wines are called Sekts. This year, a small Sekt Estate won the prestigious "Discovery of the Year" award of the Eichelmann 2010 wine guide: Raumland in Florsheim-Dalsheim in Rheinhessen. Volker and Rose Raumland have made impressive Sekts for a number of years now. The Raumland Sekts are like Champagnes, without copying them, says Eichelmann. I reviewed the Raumland estate in a separate Blog posting here.

Schiller Wine --- Related Posting

Wine ratings: Top 100 of the Wine Spectator 2009 include Wittmann and Loosen Rieslings

Wine ratings: London's Times Top 100 Winter Wines 2009 - November, 27, 2009

German Wine Basics: Sekt

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