Did you end up with a few extra bottles of sparkling wine after New Year’s this year? It seems to be the normal course of things – and many people hesitate to do the obvious thing with these wines, what with official “celebrations” behind us. But corks are meant to come out! Here’s how I’ve gone about tackling this delicious, festive, “problem”:

This New Year the Prosecco of choice for my friends and I was Santome. This is one I’m sure I’ve blogged about in the past, because it delivers lifted, just tart green apple fruit and lemon zest flavors; it’s more crisp, dry nature makes it a good one to make cocktails with if that’s your bag, but it is also delicious all on its own. For $12.99 you have no guilt opening bottle after bottle – and if you stick with it all night, you’re likely in a hangover free zone. But on December 31st we didn’t quite make it through the full case, so I anted up for game night last weekend. Santome was the perfect accompaniment to the deviled egg appetizers I whipped up.

Next, I pulled out the bigger guns in my repertoire…

In my bubbly archives, I discovered I somehow still had one bottle of the 1999 Pierre Morlet Brut. With good friends who enjoy good wine, why not pop a cork? They are meant to come out after all, so what more of an occasion do you need? And this wine had already been in bottle for more than a decade. So as the pork tenderloin rested and the cinnamon scented butternut squash mashed potatoes cooled a little, we popped the cork on this bad boy, too. It had a lovely mousse, with just the right amount of toastiness, red and yellow apple fruits, and a lithe lemon cream texture. A wild accent of hazelnuts mid-palate made this wine a favorite among the group.

After savoring Pierre, we finished our bubbly spree with the very dry, mineral-laced Egly-Ouriet Grand Cru Brut. Another winner, we enjoyed the texture of this wine also, with fine bubbles bringing pear and red apple fruit flavors quickly to bear. This wine was particularly memorable for the previously mentioned minerality – a clean, wet pebble/chalky essence. Delicious vin!

Remember, you don’t need an official celebration or Real Occasion to enjoy sparkling wine. It is the most food friendly option available, pairing with every possible food, and delicious all on it’s own. As you begin to dig your heals into 2011, I beg you to take sparkling wine with you on your travels more frequently! Why not make an easy night in with friends that much more enjoyable?

How often do you drink sparkling wine?

I had the great pleasure of attending an exceptional wine dinner featuring older vintages (1986, 1997, 2000, 2003) of Bordeaux wines last weekend. The company was delightful, the venue memorable (Menton, Barbara Lynch’s latest venture), and the wine superb. Yes, I am happy to make such a blanket statement about the vin even though the group found there was some bottle variation among the wines on offer and there was some discussion of the merits of each selection. (More on the specific wines tasted in a later post….)

I realized in retrospect that “bottle variation” is a topic that isn’t really discussed in the mainstream. Folks might grab a bottle off the shelf – or buy a case of something they had a tremendously good experience with once – and discover the next bottle is “still good, but doesn’t taste quite the same”. This can happen for a number of reasons.

When dealing with smaller production wines meant to age like those I tasted Saturday, how the wine is handled and storage condition are critical to preserving a wine. Factors like exposure to heat and light and how well the cork holds up over time can significantly impact it. Back in the day when wineries conducted assemblage (the process of blending a wine) more organically, or when winemakers would siphon off certain amounts from each barrel and bottle each bottle individually, in/consistency bottle to bottle literally happened in the moment. But today and since roughly the 70s, stainless steel tanks allow winemakers to blend at once and then send the wine through a bottling line.  Among the more elite wineries with the funds/equipment et. al. necessary to create a consistent wine bottle to bottle and with a careful attention to detail regarding shipment, you can imagine things should be pretty dang consistent. True, you never know what happens behind the scenes as the wine is handled from importer, to distributor, to you. But still….

My take is that when all parts are created equal and particularly when we’re dealing with high-end stuff that has the best chance of any to be treated properly in transition from winery to table, bottle variation is the result of something I call “bottle personality”. Maybe I’m coining the phrase, maybe I’m not. But we in the trade largely agree that wines can show differently on any given day simply due to tides, atmospheric pressure change and the like. What’s not to say a wine can’t have an off day? It is an organic creature after all and, like us, can feel inclined to pout – or strut its stuff  – accordingly.

I’m not one for change in general, but I do find it absolutely fascinating in the case of wine. It’s one of the reasons I’m in this business: the experience is almost always unique, and therefore uniquely fulfilling.

What’s your experience with bottle variation?

The market for organic produce has really picked up steam in the last few years. Consumers looking for organic wines, however, are often confused by what the labels really mean – and the deal with sulfites, for that matter.

Yeah, it’s true, there are different laws and standards depending which country is producing the wine. But at the end of the day you can break things down pretty simply.  Head over to Wicked Local today to get the here’s what and how of it all!

Do you seek out organic wines? What is your impression of them on the whole?

It’s only natural what with Earth Day last week eco-friendly wines are on the brain. Eco-friendly, what? You heard me! Ecofriendly WINES. It’s a new-ish buzz word encompassing the many (confusing) categories of wine including biodynamic, organic and sustainable wines, among others. We’ll be tackling these various terms and attempting to break them down into bite size pieces on Wicked Local. Today we’re starting with “sustainable” wines.

Check out what Tim Thornhill and his crew are doing at Mendocino Wine Co. to reduce their carbon footprint, churn out fabulous wines and grow their business all the while. Cool stuff.

What’s your knowledge of “sustainable” wines? Is it something that’s important to you?

Were you nerdy about wine in 2006? If so, you probably read a few articles about Bierzo, or the indigenous grape varietal they cultivate there (Mencia). Maybe you even tasted it. (It was considered “up and coming” at the time – and perhaps it still is, though I’ve only ever tasted a handful of Bierzo/Mencia wines since.)

I became a fan of Mencia back then, having sampled a wine from Bierzo at  my shop’s annual Fall Grand Wine Tasting event. I ended up with half a case of Dominio de Tares Baltos.  Since then I’ve fallen off the Bierzo wagon.  I was simply ready for new adventures once I finished my 6 bottles.

But as my co-worker and I continue to reevaluate and revisit the 1200 or so facings we have on our shelves, I found the Baltos again and decided to give it a whirl once more.

Bierzo is a fairly small wine-producing region located in the Northwest of Spain, quite close to Portugal. After the phylloxera epidemic killed most of the vines in the late 19th Century, economic crisis made it additionally difficult for Spanish winemaking to bounce back. But when they did in Bierzo, locals stayed true to their roots (no pun intended) and grafted Mencia vines, the dominant, native red grape varietal there. Bierzo became its own Denominacion de Origin in 1989. By then they were producing wines using more modern techniques to celebrate the best of their local varietals.

I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed when I retasted the Baltos. I was hoping for a wine with a bit of lift, as we like to say, something with red fruit flavors, a touch of earth and something… unique, I suppose. I remembered the Baltos as being distinctly versatile, pairing with a variety of foods and satisfying many people’s taste buds. What I found was aromas of brett, or a barnyard essence with a touch more “funk” than simply walking into a real barn (a smell I actually cherish  in a wine). Brett isn’t a fault, per se (though it is controversial), but I was hoping for violets, black raspberries and sweet plums. The palate delivered a touch of black plum fruit, but its leather earthiness dominated. A gentle bite of licorice filled the back palette. The wine wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t doing it for me either.

Perhaps it was palette fatigue at the end of a long day tasting and evaluating 75 or so wines for the shop, but the bottom line is, I was underwhelmed.

As I discussed at the outset, Bierzo was considered an up-and-coming region just a few years ago. I write about this ‘designation’ often enough. The thing is, Mencia/Bierzo doesn’t seem to have taken off – at least not here in Greater Boston. Frankly, I’ve tasted very little Mencia offerings. I’m not in a position to judge them as a whole one way or the other. But I am curious:

How many of you are familiar with the Mencia grape and what is your experience with these wines?