If only we all could regularly get the chance to taste before we buy…I am in agreement with Joe DeLissio that I too have bought wines in the past based upon scores and/or reputation, etc…only to be disappointed when I finally taste them. Other times the wines were spot-on and delicious. That is one of the major advantages of this board, as I trust the evaluations and tasting notes of so many of you fine people…
I, too, was sent this article this am with a suggestion to post on Wine Talk, so I’m glad you did, Paul.
Here is, to me, the crux of the article (some California-bashing aside):
In restocking the cellar, Mr. DeLissio has new priorities. Instead of hard-to-get expensive bottles, he is seeking more reasonably priced, approachable wines that will go better with the food. He said he has rediscovered the range of Burgundy, especially Chablis. He has embraced Champagne, while the joys of Rioja have opened his eyes, like a 2001 Rioja reserva from La Rioja Alta, on the list for $88.
I’d love to see this practice replicated elsewhere. ‘Reasonably priced, approachable wines that go better with food’ - that’s how ALL restaurants should look at their wine cellars.
Some of us were there long ago.
Where?
Well, the proposition that “the most expensive wines often aren’t worth it” hardly seems revolutionary, and I am not so sure the restaurant deserves to be heaped with praise for selling a rioja one can but all day for $25-30 for $88, but the idea of offering a list folks might actually want to explore seems sensible.
while the joys of Rioja have opened his eyes, like a 2001 Rioja reserva from La Rioja Alta, on the list for $88.
Haven’t had the Ardanza Reserva (seems like quite a markup, 3X retail?) but the Gran Reserva is incredible and led me back to Rioja
+1 though I find it amazing that a wine director had not figured this out long ago.
The thing about offering affordable wine that people want to drink isn’t really what I found to be the interesting take-away. Rather, it’s that the somm finally got a chance to taste through all those “cult cabernets and chardonnays from California produced in the last 20 years” that he’d purchased for his big ticket patrons and found them to be "just not worth it.”
I’m tasting these wines I never tasted, and more often than not they are disappointing … It took Sandy to make me say, ‘Man, what was I thinking?’
I’m not anti-California. I made my bones on California. But there’s no way the newer wines will age so well. I tasted from 2007 on down into the ’90s, and the alcohol just came out.
In assessing these powerful wines, he said he keeps in mind the advice of a mentor, André Tchelistcheff, one of the pioneers of the California wine industry. “He said to me, ‘Joe, if you can smell the alcohol, it’s too much, if you can taste the alcohol, it’s too much, and as a high-alcohol wine ages, the fruit and acids will drop out, leaving the alcohol,’ ” Mr. DeLissio recalled.
To me, Richard, the payoff of the article is the Tchelistcheff quote. Forget about bashing California for this. The problem is global, not isolated to California. Australia, the Rhone and the south of France, central and southern Italy, Spain, even Bordeaux. But the message is clear: Tchelistcheff forgot more about wine than our current crop of wine reviewers ever knew, and apparently, ever will know. How anybody could drink a SINGLE BOTTLE of shot wine and not understand the absolute truth of Andre’s statement is beyond me. It is true even for shot wines of lower alcohol and perfect balance that have lost their fruit and tannins. In essence, one is compelled to drink high-octane fruit bombs before their time and learn to live with (and for some, I suppose, enjoy) the smell and burn of the alcohol. And yet, there sits Parker, telling us that he cannot detect a trace of heat in a 15-16% wine because of the gobs of fruit, and goes on to tell us that the wine will age for 30, 40, 50 years.
Possible? Yes, theoretically, for wines that have that “port-like” magic of the 1947 Cheval Blanc, I suppose. Likely? Absolutely not. I have no problem with the problem if immediate gratification is the goal. If you are going to drink up your hot Pinot or Cab within a decade anyway, go with Parker’s and Suckling’s picks. However, DeLissio’s epiphany and Tchelistcheff’s wisdom tell us that the fight to preserve traditional styles, even when made under modern conditions, is a critically important one. Despite the information-age advantages that today’s wine reviewers have over Andre Tchelistcheff and his generation, they have done nothing with it. Robo-tasting, self-importance and pandering to retailers to move the product rule these days…
Click on www on the left under the poster’s name for where.
Gob-hater!
Stuart…no need to look for where as you are always there.
Roumier’s Musigny is at $5000 per at the secondary market. The “trophy” gets “trophier”. But is it worthy, is another question !
No kidding, I’d pass all day long at that price. I paid way less that that while in Spain, I think sub-$50, and a very nice local rstaurant carries a comparable Rioja, Muga, for $50.
I am not a gob-hater. I just get annoyed sometimes when I have to tap the neck of a wine bottle or run a knife inside it to get the wine out when it is “too thick, too rich to run”, as the old Heinz ketchup ad went… 
RC was our upscale hang-out while I was @ Downstate as my classmate Bruce was close to a maitre 'd there. There were always landing spots on that wine list and we rarely drank CA. Joseph was always a great guy.
I guess we can be thankful that he got there, but the question is, what took you so long? More balanced, elegant wines, that pair well with food, for reasonable prices. Who knew?
In many cases, there is serious customer pressure to give them what they want, without regard to what might best serve them. Also, not clear to me whether the cellar was entirely his doing. Your theory is right, but some of us can get pretty snitty if we perceive a somm agenda “for our own good”…
I love that the wine director bought all those wines w/out ever tasting any of them. Did he sell them to customers who specifically asked for a highly-rated wine or did he sell them to customers who described in detail what they were looking for, even though he had no idea what he’d be giving them when he sold them a bottle?
What kind of a wine director is that? All you need to do is subscribe to the WS or WA and buy whatever gets 90 points or higher?
That’s why I bring my own wine. Who cares for the recommendation of someone who doesn’t even know what he has?
Restaurant buyers rarely get the chance to taste allocated wines before purchasing. That was true in San Francisco 25 years ago, before the explosion in “cult” wines. I expect it’s doubly true today. You buy then anyway because you can put them on the list at a high markup and they’ll move.
And Madeira is still the greatest wine in the world. 