Bob S.
Yelp
After almost a decade of ambivalence I'd decided to get interested in wine again. Around northern California such a thought borders on heresy because what else does any culturally-correct mind here do but cause its body's mandibles to froth, Pavlovian doglike, over the thought of yet another glass of vino. But frankly, when you've made a living making, blending and buying tankcars full of the stuff it's possible after awhile not to give a big damn about it. Evaluating a good Russian mustard is more interesting AFAIC. Aversion is particularly so if it's most of California's bland output you're facing. Even more particularly so if it's caused more than a few of your co-workers to go down.
But I differed from them in two respects. First, drinking even to the point of abuse (what point is that btw?) for myself never meant alcohol had become a habit so compelling I just couldn't quit even after it got boring. (And about this I'll add that alcohol is really a lousy and boring drug and should be registered with FDA as such. Unlike "good" drugs, quaalude for ex, alcohol has no specific effect, just a mental deadening, like hitting your head with a baseball bat might be like. anyway...) Second, unlike some who had their come-to-jesus moment, I could never say I gave up alcohol and drugs. On the contrary, alcohol and drugs simply gave up on me. The best badhabits are those you can visit which is about all i have to say on that.
In some ways this newfound taste for wine comes with deja vu for previous times when life was more, well..., lively. That would be, then, two periods: in the 1970s I lived in Manhattan; and the1990s I split my time between Northern Europe and Argentina. I made a living with California wine, but mostly filled my own glass with European. (I did drink Argentine Malbec along the way and now ask: why would you buy a bottle of it here?) Do you have any idea how little that bottle of Argentine Malbec cost in Argentina? How does the trade justify a shelf price of about $20? To save you the trouble of checking the exchange rate, an Argentine peso is worth less than US$0.01. All other costs from production to landing product here are relative to this massive currency discount. And last I heard "Fair Trade pricing" hasn't been applied to S American wine, not even from poor-as-dirt Bolivia. But you'll pay $what for a bottle of Malbec ink? (The grape was once part of the "Bordeaux blend" of grapes alright, but only used as a teinturier grape in vintages when grapes didn't ripen enough to develop skin color. Without it, we have for you... Chateau Margaux Rose?)
So where was I going with this, oh yeah K/L Wines. My good friend in the city Sandy was coming up with some pretty interesting premier cru proprietor bottlings from the Cote d'Or so I asked where he goes. He recommended KL and I find it's a good place for browsing mid-level priced European wines. If you've ever shopped for wine in NYC you know it's very different from the bay area. California wine is around but almost as a back shelf, or bottom shelf lowball item. There are just too many sources in the world for domestic wines to be the main agenda in a major market like NY metro or especially Washington DC. So wandering around a place like KL serves a lot of purposes, unlike most stores here where it's mainly: aisle 1 cabernet, aisle 2 chardonnay, etc I miss a higher level of interest and selection, and to some degree it's here. Prices aren't discount level, but price means less to me than not being disappointed. Of course about half the floor space in KL is full of California wine but I just don't go over there. In my book most is, with very few exceptions, just so much meh.
Now for those patient enough to read this far, not saying you have nothing better to do, I'll throw in a bit of wine browsing advice but dissuade discussing with the good folks at the wine store. Let's say you're buying a bottle in Paris. What is the one thing you would NOT SEE on the front label (think real hard here, it's useful)? You'd not see a single word of English! Not "Made in France" or "Product of France" or even the full word "alcohol". They don't speak or read English there. Why important? A wine meant for local consumption doesn't go through customs en route to you so labeling remains subject only to country of origin. Further, terms like "estate bottled" mean nothing there because French wine laws don't use the expression. An importer adds his own information as a strip stamp or back label. Wine blended to come here, believe it or not, tends to be lower quality because marketers know you don't know what to expect, the good and the bad of a particular wine. So... look for all foreign language on the FRONT LABEL, that's where the legal information - the stuff that counts - lives. Back label babble?, well that's all written to sell it to you so ignore it, it's in English after all.
