Dan's Pick of the Week, Number Six

The holiday season is sneaking up on us, so I've been thinking about sparklers and dessert wines a lot lately. Available in Ohio for the first time in a while are the wines of Larmandier-Bernier, a highly pedigreed grower Champagne house with decidedly modern ideals of responsible agriculture and a true sense of place, of terroir, in their wines.

I just brought in some of their Blanc de Blancs Extra Brut, a 100% Chardonnay Champagne made entirely from Premier Cru vineyard fruit. It's very dry, made with a minimum of dosage, but it's absolutely delicious.

The wine is absolutely spectacular, and the best part is the price. This stuff is a steal thanks to the fact the importer is also the distributor in Ohio, Vanguard Wines. This stuff goes from the winery to Vanguard to me, instead of the usual arrangement of Champagne house to broker, broker to importer, importer to broker (yes, many times there are brokers on each end), and broker to distributor before finally arriving here with a price three times its worth.

This holiday season, instead of Veuve, drink this (for less money). You'll thank me.

Dan's Pick of the Week, Finski

To quote the immortal words of my favorite Charlie Brown TV special, 'Christmastime is here, happiness and cheer.'

Actually, it isn't even Halloween yet, but you'd never know it by the beer now rolling in from the best craft brewers. Arriving yesterday was The Mad Elf from Pennsylvania brewer Troegs. It's a rich, tasty concoction of Belgian yeast, chocolate malt, honey and cherries. At 11% alcohol, it'll warm you up on those cold winter nights, and make for a great atmosphere at your holiday parties.

Next week will see the arrivals of Christmas Ale from everybody's favorite Ohio brewer Great Lakes. Colorado's Breckenridge Brewery will also release its Christmas beer in the next couple of weeks. Both of these are 'winter warmer' styles brewed with some holiday baking spice (like nutmeg and cinnamon).

Best start celebrating Christmas now, because by the time you're into the holiday swing, these beers will be long gone. Annoying, I know, but you'll just have to take one for the team and drink them now.

Dan's pick of the week, intervallo di quattro

Okay...I'm breaking my rule for this one. I think I'd typed before that these would not be things from that week's tasting. This one is. It's such a good deal, though, I had to get the word out.

This week we have Avulisi, a Nero d'Avola from highly respected producer Feudo di Santa Tresa. Nero is the great black grape of Sicily, producing a relatively full-bodied but elegant wine full of black fruit and earthy complexity. This one is a 2003, so it's a nice opportunity to experience a wine with a little age on it. This one has lots of these secondary age characteristics like cedar, leather, raisin and black olive.

The best part is that this is a vintage closeout. It's $12 off until it's gone!

Justifiable excitement

Next week's tastings are going to be...wait for it...LEGENDARY!

We're going to do a little sampling of wines from Justin, the preeminent Paso Robles producer. The real attraction of this one will be a couple of Bordeaux-styled blends. Justin is deservedly famous for 'Isosceles', a cab-based blend modeled after the great 'left bank' wines of the Margaux and Pauillac AOC's. In the last few vintages, however, they've also been producing a brilliant if less well known counterpoint to that monumental bottling.

You see, on what is known as the 'right bank' of Bordeaux, across the Rive Gironde, there is virtually no cabernet sauvignon grown due to soil conditions. There, in the noble wines of Pomerol and St. Emilion, among others, merlot and cabernet franc comprise the ruling class. Justin grows spectacular cab franc in their estate vineyard, and saw an opportunity to produce a rare-in-California 'right bank' styled blend. The yin to Isosceles yang, it's a blend of 65% cab franc and 35% merlot. The wine, called 'Justification', is a knockout, and we're the only shop in Dayton with it. It's being brought in especially for this tasting, in very limited quantities.

We'll taste them both next Wednesday from 5-8 and Saturday from 3-6. I'm excited. Hope to see a good crowd to enjoy these rare treats, but if not...well, it's more for me!

Opportunity knocks for the negociant

Who said the economy is all bad?

Thanks to the financial situation of most wine consumers and, in turn, retailers, wholesalers, brokers and wineries, there is a lot of unsold wine and, more to the point, unsold fruit out there in wine country. This is a huge opportunity for enterprising winemakers to find tremendous quality grapes at ridiculous prices.

The upshot, of course, is lower prices for quality wine.

This week, we tasted wines from Sean Minor, a young winemaker who has connections at some of the top vineyard sites in California thanks to his years of work at BV. He started an eponymous label a few years back with an eye toward producing Saturday night quality wine at Tuesday night pricing. He has long term contracts at wonderful vineyards for half of the fruit that he secures every year. The other half he plays the spot market, buying up that orphaned bulk fruit that needs a good home. The contract blocks are a way to hedge against the danger of negociant activity, because it guarantees a certain level of quality. On the flipside, playing the spot market for the rest brings the price of the whole down significantly.

Anyway, the goals have been met. Actually, they've been surpassed at a trot. The wines are great. Our customers especially seemed to enjoy the Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon, but all five wines are really quite something.

Dan's Pick of the Week, intervalle de trois

Orin Swift, the hyper-popular cult winery that in a few short vintages has become a winemaking superstar, has a new wine. It's called Abstract, and its a sort of Rhone-styled blend of Grenache, Petite Sirah and Syrah. It has a really cool label, too.

The wines attributes are surprisingly tilted to the black fruit side of the scale. Typically, I would expect a blend like this to have lots of cool blue-toned fruit with a kind of wild brambly texture, but this one has some sour blackberry and some black cherry and currant thrown in. If I had to guess, I'd say that the Syrah (which I believe to have the least presence in the blend, but the actual numbers are nowhere to be found) probably comes from a relatively warm area and is thus driving the wine towards a slightly darker (and higher alcohol; note the 15.7% this bad boy sports, despite the lack of heat on the palate) place than the high-toned world that Grenache usually introduces.

Whatever the case, this stuff is delicious now and can probably stand a couple of years of cellaring. It's relatively scarce this year, but that situation should improve in subsequent vintages. I expect this to become as sought after as the winery's greatest hit, The Prisoner.

To top it all off, Abstract is a great bargain. It's the least expensive wine ever made by Orin Swift Cellars' winemaker Dave Phinney.

The alternative varietal rant

We tasted a Muller Thurgau this week. It was actually well-received, selling more than any other bottle on the tasting. I got a little bit annoyed over one recurring question. 'Is it like (insert common white varietal here)?'

My answer was generally something along the lines of, 'It's like Muller Thurgau.'

Surprisingly (yeah, right), this was an extraordinarily dissatisfying answer for most inquirers.

But aren't we at a wine tasting to, you know, taste wine? Isn't the point to try to expand our horizons a little? To try something new and find that it is the best (or worst, or something in between) wine you've ever experienced?

/end rant

Dan's Pick of the Week, descanso dos

So I'm looking around the shop for this week's object of desire.

Is it this? Is it that? The other, per chance?

No, there's only one possible answer this week. It arrived late yesterday and was sitting here waiting for me like a package under the Christmas tree when I strolled in a casual 10 minutes after 10 am (meh...it's Friday).

It's beer. The beer, for some. Founders Breakfast Stout. It's virtues are legendary. It's brewed with coffee, oatmeal and chocolate. Is it coffee cake? No, but you might be tempted to crack one the next time you have a cinnamon roll at 7:30 in the morning. Founder's believes this to be 'the consummate coffee-lover's beer'. Who amongst us can argue with such perfect reasoning?

By the way, it's pretty scarce. I'm trying to limit myself to 2 4-packs. If you don't come claim it soon, though, I may end up with 2 cases.

Dan's Pick of the Week, interval 1

I've been so neglectful.

I hope this post acts as the necessary springboard to some actual, you know, blogging on this blog. I'll try to get a post up once a week that will highlight a wine (or three) or beer (or...you get it) in the shop. It will always be something that we aren't pouring during our weekly tasting, but aside from that small exception, it could be anything.

So, without further ado, we'll kick it off with something a few of our regulars (as well as some irregulars) have been chomping at the bit to get their hands on...

Back in the shop for the first time in almost a year is a selection of wines from Mollydooker, the Australian winery famous for some of the most luscious, fruit-filled wines on the planet. The wines are extremely limited, so I get a small allocation each year. When the wines are gone from the shop, that's it. I can't order any more. Some years, there are only a couple of wines available, while in others I can get a little bit of each wine they make. Last year was especially tough, with only two bottlings from the release of the 2008 red wines available. 2009 was an easier vintage for the Mollydooker team, so we were able to secure a broader range of their wines, including a couple cases of one cult object that wasn't produced the previous year.

These are not wines for those of you who crave small scale, elegance, refinement and structure. These are pure, hedonistic expressions of fruit. Here they are:

Cabernet Sauvignon, "The Maitre

D' ", $28 A classic Aussie Cab with pure varietal aromas and a plush, rich, fruit-driven palate. (Limited.)

Shiraz, "The Boxer", $28 Explosive and mouthfilling. This is the archetypal Australian Shiraz, loaded with blue fruit, black pepper and tar.

(Extremely limited.)

Shiraz, "Blue Eyed Boy", $50 The

aforementioned cult object. Robert

Parker's Wine Advocate has raved about this wine for years. The last two vintages (the most recent tasted) have been granted "classic" status with ratings of 96 points out of 100 for the 2006 and 95 points for the 2007. This is a more balanced wine than "The Boxer", adding an extremely fine-grained structure to the typical Aussie hedonism. This is delicious now, but is the one wine here that is truly age-worthy. (Limited.)

The Dayton Wine Trail, version 3.0

The (in)famous tour of the Miami Valley's finest wine tasting destinations is back and better than ever.

Saturday, October 9 will welcome the third installment in our little venture. This time Bruning's Wine Cellar and Bella Vino Wine Merchant & Bar will be the destinations. For a $25 ticket, you'll get a flight of 5 wines to taste at each establishment, as well as transportation between the the shops. I'm pouring a kind of grab bag of Pacific Northwest wines. Tickets can be purchased now at Bruning's or Bella Vino.

You will have the option to start your day at either shop. Tours will leave from Bruning's at 2 PM and 3:30 PM, while Bella Vino will have start times of 2:45 and 4:15. We'll start pouring at 1 PM for those of you who want to do the 2 o'clock tour, so you can enjoy your flight here and then get on the bus.

It should be a great day of fun and wine. Hope to see you there!

The Rosé Dilemma

Week after week, wine reps bring me tremendously great bottles of wine. Some of them are white. Others red.

Some, believe it or not, are pink.

The problem is that I can't get anybody to try them if it isn't on the tasting. Some wine drinkers want to try it because it's pink. The first thing they ask about a rosé is this: "Is it sweet?" On the flipside, there are some who won't try it because it's pink. To those, I usually try this one: "Pink is a color, not a taste." I like it. It sounds cute. But it never works.

At its best, rosé can offer the luscious red fruit of red wine and the fresh, lean, thirst-quenching vibrancy of white. Doesn't that sound good at this time of year?

I cracked a bottle of Spanish rosé made from garnacha (aka grenache) the other day. Drank it with a light dinner of spring greens with balsamic, dried cherries, almonds and grilled chicken. Heavenly! The bottle of wine, the Artazuri Rosé, was a great deal, to boot!

On behalf of rosé producers (and peddlers) everywhere: give a bottle a try. For about 10 beans, you can have a wonderful bottle of wine.

Greatest Pinot Noir tasting in the history of Dayton ever!

July 28th is going to be EPIC! We're going all out for you Pinot Noir lovers (actually, this is mostly just for my own edification as a Pinot nut) during our tasting that day. I've had this idea for a long time, and I decided to just bite the bullet and go for it.

We'll start with a class Burgundy (the origin of Pinot Noir), specifically a Premier Cru Volnay from Joseph Voillot. Burgundy has a classification system for it's vineyards (not wineries or producers, but the vineyards themselves), and Premier Cru (often written 1er Cru) is the second highest rating available. Grand Cru, the highest designation, is just a little too esoteric for a tasting (though I'm sure you would all love to pay $40 for a 2 ounce taste!). Voillot is a 5th generation boutique winery with vineyards in the villages of Volnay and Pommard, and produces several stunning Pinot Noir bottlings from each village (as well as a crazy value undesignated wine which uses de-classed fruit from a blend of the same holdings).

We'll then compare the Burgundy with a single representative example of quality Pinot from three American AVA's, each of which is considered to be in the top tier of new world Pinot producing regions. We'll taste bottlings from Brewer-Clifton in California's Central Coast, Fred Scherrer in Sonoma and Soter in Oregon's Willamette Valley.

Like I said, EPIC!

We will, of course, do our usual thing every Wednesday and Saturday until then. Here's what we're up to this week.

Top value wines 2: Chardonnay

Back to the promised series of best bets under $20. Here are four killer deals on the top dog of white wines, chardonnay.

Domaine Barraud 2007 Macon-Chaintre, $20 From Burgundy, the birthplace of chardonnay, comes this brilliant bottling from the youngest member of the Barraud family of winemakers. This is slightly lusher and fleshier than many chards from Macon, with notes of peaches and poached pears mixing with the crushed stone typical of the minerally soil found in this area of France.

Napa Cellars 2008 Chardonnay, $16 From the opposite end of the style spectrum comes this beautifully full-bodied chard. Sourced from land on which Rombauer has grown chardonnay for their estate bottling for years, this has pedigree to burn, and to belie its pricetag (the delicious Rombauer goes for twice as much). Oak nuances lend a creamy texture to the green apple and apricot notes.

Mirth 2009 Chardonnay, $13 Winemaker David O'Reilly, famous for the fantastic Owen Roe series of wines, makes this chard for his second label, Corvidae Wine Company. The fruit comes from sites in Oregon that are a perfect mirror of Burgundy's cool climate. The result is a lean powerhouse of a wine full of tropical fruit, floral and green apple notes.

Eve 2007 Chardonnay, $13 This balanced offering from notorious winemaker Charles Smith of K Vintners fame is middle of the road in the best possible sense. It is neither overly fat nor overly lean, allowing all the elements for which good chardonnay is known a chance to shine. It is crisp, delicate, and refreshing without being tart or obviously acidic. It has a great label, to boot!

If any of these wines sound interesting, you can find it here. Next time, we'll stick with the Burgundian varietals theme and look at pinot noir.

Here's what we're tasting in the shop this week.

The Dayton Wine Trail, Revised 2nd Edition

Hey, all. The first Dayton Wine Trail event was a great success. Much fun was had by all and the response from our customers was enthusiastic, to say the least.

We had a few bumps along the way, though, and we're going to make a couple of changes to the next one, which is barreling towards us right now. It's scheduled for Saturday, May 15. For the 2nd Trail, we're going to have a set bus schedule and we're going to sell tickets. First come, first serve. When the tickets are gone, they're gone. They are on sale at each location on the trail (Bella Vino, Culinary Company, and here at Bruning's) right now for $35. The ticket price will cover a four wine flight at each establishment, and as before transportation will be provided for free.

There will be two departure times available at each starting point. Bruning's will have a bus leaving at 1:00 PM and 1:40 PM, Culinary Company at 1:25 and 2:05, and Bella Vino at 1:00 PM and 1:50. I'd recommend arriving at your starting point about 45 minutes or so before your scheduled departure so you'll have plenty of time to enjoy the flight before getting on the bus. We'll start pouring at noon that week to accomodate the event.

Should be another great day of fun and wine education!

Top value wines: Cabernet Sauvignon

Hello, winelovers! This is the first in what will be a series of posts highlighting good bets for wines that drink well and are easy on the pocketbook. Every wine listed will be under $20 per bottle retail and a few will even be under $10.

Without further ado, let's get started with a look at five top values from the king of red wines, Cabernet Sauvignon.

Cannonball 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon, $18 A dark, full-bodied wine sourced from several AVA's around northern California. A bit of Petite Sirah in the blend gives this some real concentration, while the Cabernet provides the muscle. A hint of sweet vanilla from oak aging gives this a drinkability that few young wines manage. I first tasted this at a trade show where there were dozens of high end cabs. I liked exactly three better than this one, and the least expensive of those was $45 per bottle.

The Guardian 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, $14 A lighter, more elegant style of Cabernet in the tradition of a Claret Bordeaux. The bulk of the Cabernet comes from Alexander Valley, giving it that area's characteristic dry herbal and cedar notes. Not a powerhouse by any means, but an astounding level of quality can be found here.

Foxglove 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, $16 2007 is proving to be a great year across all red varietals in almost all areas of California, and this offering from famed Chardonnay producer Varner's second label is no exception. Hailing from Paso Robles on the Central Coast of California, this is a slightly warmer, more iron-infused style than is commonly found in the more northerly Napa and Sonoma Counties.

Boomtown 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon, $16 A second label from Washington producer Dusted Valley, Boomtown's wines have all earned a reputation for best in class quality. The Cabernet is one of my favorites to have around the house. A slightly lighter style like The Guardian above, this is full of all the things I love about Washington cab. Notes of cedar, graphite and forest floor add interest to the dominant varietal attribute of black currant and other dark fruits.

Casillero del Diablo 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, $10 This is big. Really big. And it has a really small pricetag. And it avoids the common shortcoming of many inexpensive Chilean wines: no green pepper here! Just luscious, juicy fruit and enough backbone to make you remember it.

So there you have it. Next time we'll look at the Queen Bee of whites: Chardonnay.

Wine myths: BUSTED!

I read a piece on Snooth the other day that is a part of a cool new series called "The Grapevine". They're taking well-known people from the wine community, whether they be writers, winemakers or retailers, and asking them 10 burning wine industry questions.

One question they always ask has to do with the biggest wine myths out there. This response, from Jeff Lefevere of Good Grape, caught my eye: "I have this ongoing wine pet peeve with glassware and wine pairings - the two biggest sinners in perpetuating wine elitism. I really like to drink wine paisano style out of a tumbler. And, I don't sweat what's in my glass if it isn't an empirical match to what I'm eating. Being open-minded to both of those things does wonders for taking the high-mindedness out of wine."

Wow! I personally like to have a nice glass when I'm drinking wine. No tumblers for me. But I agree with him on the fussy pairing of glassware and even food pairings. It's refreshing to see someone who's regarded as something of a wine authority be so honest about some of these topics instead of hiding behind the usual snobbery.

Anyway, the series has been fun, so far (there are three of these interviews posted now). Go and give them a read.

A change is gonna' come II (Dayton Wine Trail edition)

Another new development at Bruning's is upon us. The first iteration of the wine tasting limo bus tour that we've been talking about for what feels like months is coming up soon. On Saturday, April 17, we're going to kick off what we are currently planning to make a monthly event.

The Dayton Wine Trail will include wine tastings at Bella Vino Wine Merchants in Springboro, Culinary Company in Centerville, and here at Bruning's. We'll start the bus loop here at 1 pm. The bus will make continuous loops until 5 pm, so you'll be able to start at any one of the locations and hit all three before returning to your point of origin. This should be a great chance to meet some new people and try some great wines in enjoyable new settings. The best part of all is that the transportation is free! You'll only pay for the wines you taste at each location.

A change is gonna' come (with apologies to Mr. Dylan)

Spring is in the air. It's really nice out there right now. So I'm enjoying it by sitting inside and staring at a computer monitor. Awesome, right?

Anyway, Spring is a time for change, so I thought I'd drop a little knowledge on you about some changes afoot at Bruning's Wine Cellar. The big news is that we've recently added some new wine racks, increasing our label potential by over 50%. If you haven't been by in a couple of months, you'll find a lot of new wine available now, with more coming every week.

Spring is also the time to start enjoying lighter, fresher wines. Some new springtime classics available now include Con Class Rueda, Mirth Chardonnay, and Bellenda Prosecco. Of course, we have all our old favorites, as well.

In Seville, Spain, they celebrate Spring with the famous La Feria de Abril. Much Sherry is consumed during the six-day party, pictured above, so we're going to honor that tradition with a Sherry tasting featuring the libations of Emilio Lustau on April 21.

Exciting times here at Bruning's. We hope to see you all! Here's what we're tasting this week.

Wine times in Cincinnati

This past weekend saw the arrival and subsequent departure of this year's edition of the Cincinnati Wine Festival. We went down on Friday during a trade preview of the event and sampled the wares of most of the distributors in Ohio. We also had a fantastic dinner at Daveed's at 934 in Mount Adams, a restaurant I highly recommend you try if you ever find yourself in that neighborhood. Anyway, at the Festival, 600 wines were on display (I spit...mostly), and I have to say I was excited to taste a few that were new to me which you'll see appearing in our shop over the next few weeks.

I was really excited about the wines from JAQK Cellars. The packaging is a little bit gimmicky (okay, a lot gimmicky), but is very well done. And no one could argue with the quality of the wines. They were fantastic. I especially loved the Pearl Handle Chardonnay and the Black Clover Merlot. This stuff is new to Ohio and is not in stock at the distributor yet, but keep your eyes pealed for these great wines. I know I'll be bringing some in as soon as possible.

On the value front, there were also some great finds. El Vilosell is a northern Spanish blend that has power, finesse, grip and elegance inside the bottle, with a great looking label, to boot. And it costs like eighteen beans. Forefront, a Pine Ridge label, was also showing an out of this world value Napa Cab that is now under $20. Both of those should be here any second now.

Those are just a few of the highlights I'm excited about. Here's what we're tasting this week.

Ratings...what are they worth anyway?

I came across a wine a few weeks ago that I liked enough to bring in to the shop. It's a reasonably priced Tempranillo from Spain called Casajus VS. After I bought some, I wandered over to the interwebz to do a little checking on what others think of the wine (not that I really care). To my (lack of) amazement, I found the opinions varied in extremis. To wit, The Wine Spectator, that bastion of editorial integrity, basically hated it (to the tune of a whopping 78 on their supposed "100 point" scale wherein no wine ever scores below a 75). The Wine Advocate, on the other hand, decided it was heaven-sent, declaring it worthy of a near-classic rating of 92 points, which is quite high for a $24 bottle of wine. Perhaps they had a nice meal at Casajus.

So, who's right?

I'll let you think about it for a minute.

Still thinking?

The answer, I'm sorry to say, is immaterial. Now, I'm not going so far as to say that the only opinion that matters is your own (though I have in the past said that very thing when caught in moments of unguarded hyperbole). I do think, however, that unless a wine is to be considered universally classic, or great, or whatever, no consensus is necessary.

I have customers that are score hounds, buying only "90+" wines (or whatever). Many of them trust one publication but not another, with no discernible pattern to said predilection. None of this is to bash that kind of wine buying, or the writers who guide it. Hell, I read all of the wine rags. I do think that it's important to remember how subjective the whole thing is, though.

So, while I won't say that any wine some random schmuck likes is great, I will say that if you really want to know what's good, you may want to try it for yourself. Here's what we're tasting this week.

Tastings, tastings, tastings

Hey, there, strangers. Here's a quick rundown of future tastings at the shop.

Wednesday, January 13 from 5-8 and Saturday, January 16 from 1-4: we're doing a kind of cross-section of different sized winemakers from the west coast. The common theme with all of the wines is high quality and great value. Here's a link to the wines with tasting notes. I'm especially fond of both white wines, which are absolutely unbelievable at their price points, and the Mercer Merlot, which has the complexity and subtlety of a high-quality right-bank Bordeaux.

Wednesday, January 20 from 5-8 and Saturday, January 23 from 1-4: this week is one I've really been excited about. All five wines on the tasting are from Piemonte, the Northern Italian region responsible for some of the grandest royalty of all old-world wines. We'll be tasting some killer wines, including a 94-point Wine Advocate-rated Barolo. Sign up here for our e-mails to receive the tasting list and keep up to date on all our future tastings.

Upcoming weeks will feature the wines of Australia (at tastings January 27 and 30) and rising international superstar of Chilean winemaker Ventisquero (February 3 and 6). We'll also be showing some home accents, wine furniture and clocks (and pouring wine, of course!) at HomeWorld 2010 at the Airport Expo Center.