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Tasting Wine: Inexpensive Spanish wine for spring
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For a light meal, serve sautéed or poached white fish with Laxas Albarino.
Warm-weather wine means for me not just crisp whites, but also wines that have low or moderate alcohol levels and are not too heavy. I try to think of what’s in season and the wines that will match.
Fava beans, peas, Petrale sole and strawberries have hit store shelves. What’s popping into my mind are gruner veltliner, albarino, tocai friuliano for whites, and on the red side, gamay, dolcetto and, of course, pinot noir.
I can go in any number of directions, but for the sake of focus, let’s stick to some wines from Spain this week. These three fit the above criteria, and they are $20 or less.
Laxas Albarino, 2007 — I’ve always liked this albarino but have never considered it in the top tier. However, this vintage from a producer located near the Portugal border is exceptional. It has a freshness that reminds me of some vinho verde, with more complexity than most. With bright acidity and austere peach and tangerine fruit, this wine makes me think about poached or sautéed white fish with fresh herbs and lemon.
Suggested retail: $20
Finca Can Feixes Blanc Seleccio, 2006 — Now going all the way east to Penedes, we arrive at Can Feixes. Best known for its cava, Can Feixes makes a number of still wines in the Alto Penedes. A blend of parellada, macabeo, malvasia and chardonnay, this wine is crisp with a salty minerality that is crying out for fava bean puree on crostini with fleur de sel or, if you must, oysters.
Suggested retail: $14
Montebaco Verdejo, 2006 — This is the first white wine made by Bodegas Montebaco in Ribera del Duero. A sleeper producer in its home region, the fruit here is from Rueda, an hour away. Clean and crisp with sauvignon blanc-like grapefruit and peach flavors, it’s great to drink with goat cheese and fresh strawberries. Yum!
Suggested retail: $17
Pamela S. Busch is the wine director and proprietor of CAV Wine Bar & Kitchen in San Francisco.
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nancy orr said:
Prosecco is made in Italy not Burgundy. Thanks
3 agree | 1 disagree
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Ron Walter said:
I agree that the 4/21 response to my comment shows restaurant wine pricing isn't simple and is something I hadn't considered. While your example demonstrates a retail pricing problem, I don't see it as a good parallel to a restaurant's wine pricing - no restaurant carries 500 different types of wine with a 2000% difference in minimum and maximum price (if anyone has an $8 cheapo a 2000% difference would have a top price of $16,000 - not even a bottle of 45 Lafite). Also, I think the problem could be simpler when there is a cross the board price change for a significant amount of the merchandise - as there is when the $ devalues against the Euro - the problem described in the column. That said, I don't have an answer as to how to price wine. Still, it's grating to hear pricing explained the way Ms. Bush has explained it - there should be a fairer way. If I'm reacting this way, my guess is that it's turning off more diners than just me.
5 agree | 5 disagree
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Ron Walter said:
I agree that the 4/21 response to my comment shows restaurant wine pricing isn't simple and is something I hadn't considered. While your example demonstrates a retail pricing problem, I don't see it as a good parallel to a restaurant's wine pricing - no restaurant carries 500 different types of wine with a 2000% difference in minimum and maximum price (if anyone has an $8 cheapo a 2000% difference would have a top price of $16,000 - not even a bottle of 45 Lafite). Also, I think the problem could be simpler when there is a cross the board price change for a significant amount of the merchandise - as there is when the $ devalues against the Euro - the problem described in the column. That said, I don't have an answer as to how to price wine. Still, it's grating to hear pricing explained the way Ms. Bush has explained it - there should be a fairer way. If I'm reacting this way, my guess is that it's turning off more diners than just me.
6 agree | 4 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Regarding Ron Walters' comments on wine mark-ups: while this wholesale-times-2.5 seems illogical in your example, a broader look at retailing might help clarify. Say I sell 500 individual items in the course of a day in my shop, and they cost (wholesale, to me) between $.25 and $50 each. Now, say I know from creating my quarterly budgets that I need a 30% gross profit to cover all my costs -- purchases, labor, overhead, capital improvements. How long would I last if I marked each item up $5, regardless of cost? And I don't know what calculation would arrive at that $5 anyway. No, markup by percent is the only sensible way...and some restaurateurs do use a combination of (lower)percentage, and fixed add-on, to give increasing relative value to buyers of higher priced bottles.
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Examiner Reader said:
i have tried Monte dei Ragni Ripasso and their Amarone, after 1/2 an hour it was still on the palate....just outstanding. a real gem if you can find it...
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Examiner Reader said:
The best Ripasso i have tasted is "Fratelli Vogadori", it's very good wine. Very strong and better than other more know Ripasso
15 agree | 10 disagree
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Ron Walter said:
Dear Ms. Bush I'm stunned by the logic in 'Tasting Wine: The business of the wine business'. Why must the correspondent (wine buyer) always multiply the wholesale cost * 2.5 to arrive at the client's cost? A simple example: the wholesale cost rises by $3 for a wine currently priced in the restaurant at $50; the new price could be $53. I'd like to understand how that has affected the restaurant's bottom line? This seems logic seems similar to a real estate agent demanding a 6% commission when selling two houses - one for $300,000 and the other $3,000,000 - you should demand much more in the latter case or ask for a lower commission. Is your restaurant doing something special for the client with their additional $7.50 markup in the previous example?
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Examiner Reader said:
One would think the author, in an effort to retain her credibility, would check the spelling of the late Joe Swan's son-in-law. All through this article, his name is spelled incorrectly. It should be "Berglund." The author has, at least, included three wines in keeping with the theme of the article: wines of the Joseph Swan winery. ((Last week's article featured wines from France's Rhone Valley and, curiously, one was from the Joseph Swan winery in Sonoma!)) Why the author would review the same wine in back-to-back articles is a mystery. A professor of journalism would cite misspellings as diminishing the credibility of an article. Ms. Busch does so by, as she did last week, spelling "Vacqueyras" incorrectly. Interesting, the price of the "mystery red" is different in this week's article in comparison with last week's!
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Examiner Reader said:
The article regarding Tawny Ports mentions a lovely wine from the house of Ferreira, but "Duque" is spelled incorrectly. At least she got Dow spelled correctly (although the brand name on the label is "Dow's."
134 agree | 87 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Pamela Busch is marvelously enthusiastic as a wine-taster, but she's a poor writer and terribly sloppy in checking her work. This week's column regarding Rhone reds asserts that Syrah is the only grape grown in the northern Rhone Valley. Two sentences later readers are told that Northern Rhone Syrahs sometimes have white grapes in them! She claims to be "sticking" to Southern Rhones for the article and one wine comes from California's Sonoma County. Readers are advised to buy a wine from the Gramenon estate called "La Segasse," but the actual wine is "La Sagesse." Ms. Busch refers to an appellation in the Southern Rhone, misspelling the name "Vacqueyras." These little errors should not be made by a professional journalist. A course in writing would certainly be helpful in polishing her skills. Paying more attention to the details would also be a good idea.
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Examiner Reader said:
Dear Readers, I left a message hear yesterday. It was not deragatory and was written in proper English regarding the topic of the above article. One can only assume since my opinion was not the same as the author's that my comment has been deleted. While I truly do hope it is a computer glich, I find myself lowering my expectations after this happened. Best of luck to all of you on this website.
194 agree | 158 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Why go to Austria, Germany, and Spain for Pinot Noir? We have kick butt Pinot in our own backyard! There are so many beautifully produced wines from the Santa Lucia Highlands, Santa Rita Hills or Russian River. If anything tell this writer to find me more hidden secrets like Testarossa, Seasmoke (ok not so secret), and P&H.
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sue yu said:
vin rose is nothing, it's more of dinner wine that's light. i'm not sure if it was ever really popular. when you drink wine, you want to taste the bouquet, and certainly get a big punch out of it. drinking without the punchies is not worth it.
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