Hope Springs Eternal

So here I've got this spiffy new blog; seems only appropriate to say welcome, and explain a bit about what's going to be on here. Much of it will be alerting people to great new wines that I taste in our handy-dandy wine tasting room (around the corner from the test kitchens, a key thing as far as I'm concerned). I taste what seems to me an extraordinary amount of wine each month, only a fraction of which makes it into the magazine (largely because of space considerations), and this is a venue to give people a heads-up on some of the great wine that for whatever reason won't fit into a given month's issue. But there will also be commentary on wine and food subjects across the board, info on new restaurants that have particulary good (or bad) wine programs, spirited debate (I hope) on wine issues that people are passionate about, etc., etc. There won't be anything—beyond this one sentence—about Paris Hilton. Ever. I promise. And don't follow that link. Really.

OK, I warned you.

But enough of that. In honor of the first entry to this new blog, I stopped off yesterday at a local store and went haywire to the tune of $15 on a bottle of 1999 Morey-Blanc Meursault. Based on past experience, this wasn't a wildly bright idea--six-year-old white wine that ought to cost $50 on sale for $15 is almost always a mistake. But, being a clever fellow, I thought, well, 1999 was a good year, Morey-Blanc a mighty fine producer, and, checking the back label, saw that Becky Wasserman was listed as the importer rather than current importer Wilson-Daniels. Putting all that together I figured, hey, some wholesaler is blowing out all the Morey-Blanc they've got in their warehouse, seeing as how the importer changed and they don't sell the brand anymore. I.e., good risk.

Nyet, bad risk. Unless you like oxidized, formerly good white Burgundy. Of course, this may be due to dismal storage in said warehouse, or it may be due to (otherwise brilliant) winemaker Pierre Morey's decision to go wild on lees-stirring in that vintage (see the useful entry about this here). Regardless, the only answer was to switch instead to a perfectly appealing, zippy 2005 Bortoluzzi Pinot Grigio (about $15)--a wine that will definitely be dead in six years, but is fresh and just darn tasty right now, with that minerally tingle on the tongue that really good Italian Pinot Grigio can have.

Anyway, what struck me is how, whenever I see deals in wine stores that just can't possibly be as good as they seem, I still maintain a kind of hapless belief that somehow, just this once, the result will be amazing. From talking to my unmarried colleagues, this apparently is not unlike being single in New York these days. Regardless, if it ever works out, I'll let you know.