Ratti old school Nebbiolo, worth the extra bucks in Texas

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It’s the times we live in: connectivity and virtual media have leveled the playing field for wine pricing in our country.

Sommelier Rory and I see it all the time on the floor at Sotto in Los Angeles: a guest is seated, she/he looks at the wine list, and then immediately compares the prices of the wines with their retail price listings on WineSearcher.com.

Like combing your hair on the floor of a restaurant, comparing wine prices while out for dinner is one of those things that is regrettably tolerated in society today.

I’ve been spending a lot of time browsing WineSearcher these days (at home and not in restaurants) because I’ve been writing about mostly under-$25 wines for the Houston Press food and wine blog.

A quick search this morning for one of my favorite expressions of young Nebbiolo — Renato Ratti Nebbiolo d’Alba Ochetti — reveals that here in Texas I pay up to $10 more per bottle than my friends in California (my friend Ceri Smith, super cool Italian wine lady, sells it for $21 at her shop Biondivino in San Francisco; $28 is the lowest I can find it in Texas).

Other than the fact that the virtual monopoly of the big distributors and the greed of the Texas wine brokerage system often adds to the cost of favorite wines, there’s really no reason why we should have to pay more here in the Lone Star state. But I love this wine so much it’s well worth the extra ten bucks.

The other night, Tracie P and I brought a bottle over to friends Misty and Nathan’s house (remember Nathan’s ribs paired with Nebbiolo, back when Tracie P was still Tracie B?).

Nathan had marinated some skirt steak, giving the beef a tangy note that played beautifully with the earthy, salty undertones of the Ratti Nebbiolo, which made from 30-year-old vines grown in the sandy subsoils of Roero and macerated for under a week (according to the winery’s website), giving the wine gentle tannic structure.

Where Produttori del Barbaresco Nebbiolo d’Alba (a top under-$25 wine for me) tends toward bright fruit (especially for the 2009), Ratti’s always leans toward earth and mushroom. They’re both old school expressions of the variety but Produttori del Barbaresco’s can be more lean and show brighter red and berry fruit while Ratti’s digs in with a little more muscle and a lot more barnyard. I love them both…

These days, it’s hard to imagine the pre-WineSearcher world and it’s hard to resist the urge to compare prices around the country. But when it comes to Nebbiolo, I just can’t compromise for the sake of bargain hunting. Pork chops at half price still ain’t kosher…

Joe Dressner tributes…

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Today, my Houston Press post features some of the many tributes to Joe Dressner that have appeared since the news of his passing hit the feed.

My roundup includes 6 different posts by some of my favorite wine writers as well as Eric the Red’s obituary of Dressner (Eric’s post on the Diner’s Journal blog, “Joe Dressner, an Importer With No Use for Pretense, Dies at 60,” is amazing).

Here’s the link to my round up.

But there were many, many more like those by Brooklyn Guy and Levi, among others.

Rocking the Kids Are Alright for a good cause

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The Grapes (above), Jaynes Gastropub’s entry into last night’s San Diego Battle of the Chef Bands, took third place.

The competition was fierce but we were there to promote awareness for the San Diego Center for Community Solutions whose mission is “to end relationship and sexual violence by being a catalyst for caring communities and social justice.”

Everyone had a blast…

Giacosa 1999 Barbaresco (classic) and a gig tonight

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From the department of “somehow, someway, I get to taste funky ass wines like every single day”…

Comrades Howard and Mary Beth came to visit me on Saturday night at Sotto in Los Angeles, where I was “pouring wine on the floor,” as we say in the wine trade.

Comrade Howard graciously and generously shared the above bottle of 1999 (classic) Barbaresco by Bruno Giacosa. (Howard was elected vice president of the Writers Guild of America last week, btw. Mazel tov, comrade!)

Great Barbaresco always inspires equine metaphors in me and this wine, powerful and muscular, asserted a masculine beauty tempered by feminine grace, a young mare whose strength was still countered by its youth.

Earth and stone dominated the fruit as the wine began to reveal its nature but dark and red fruit emerged as the wine spent some time in the glass.

Barbaresco by the hand of Giacosa never fails to invoke equine wonder in those of us lucky to experience the wines and his 1999 vintage continues to thrill me, often rivaling the perhaps more graceful 2001 with a combination of power and to kalon.

Thank you again, comrades! Avanti popolo!

In other news… All work and no play would make me an otherwise dull boy…

My friends at Jaynes Gastropub have asked me to sit in with them at tonight’s battle of the Chef Bands 2011 in San Diego. The charity event supports domestic violence awareness and takes place tonight. The Grapes (our band) go on around 9 p.m. Last night’s rehearsal featured some excellent 2007 Lafarge Bourgogne Passetoutgrain.

Harvest dispatches from Europe are changing the way we understand “vintage”

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One of the coolest things about the enoblogosphere this year is the number of European wineries who are posting dispatches from the harvest. I loved the above photo of grapes for Vin Santo posted by my friend Ale at Montalcino Report (he’s been posting regularly about weather conditions and harvest progress).

My friend Laura, also in Montalcino, posted this brutally honest report about the recent heat spike there, entitled “Can someone please turn the hairdryer off?” Not everyone in Montalcino has embraced transparency but a few brave souls like Ale and Laura have.

It’s been a few weeks since he’s posted, but my buddy Wayne in Colli Orientali del Friuli has posted some great photos of harvest (like the one above), including some shots of the young Ethan Bastianich!

Back in July, Wayne did this amazing however sad post of images documenting hail damage in Collio.

Today at the Boutari blog, we posted some images and a report from the harvest in Naoussa by enologist Vasilis Georgiou. Those are Xinomavro grapes, above, waiting to be picked.

Although he doesn’t have a blog, my good friend and Pasolinian comrade Giampaolo Venica has been using social media to document the harvest in Collio. He sent me the gorgeous photo of dawn (above) to illustrate the time of day that they begin picking the grapes, when temperatures are coolest. Beautiful, no?

There’s no doubt in my mind that the 2011 harvest in Europe has been documented like no other before it… all thanks to the internets and a growing number of forward-thinking winemakers.

Know a winery that’s posting about harvest this year? Please share a URL in a comment and let’s a list going! Buona vendemmia yall!

Negroamaro, a supreme expression in Graticciaia (tonight in LA)

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In the Salento peninsula of Italy, the Negroamaro harvest will begin any day now, as my friend Paolo reports on his blog.

When I visited Apulia (Puglia) in June of this year as a judge in the Radici Wines festival, I had the great fortune of attending a vertical tasting of Graticciaia, a dry-style dried grape expression of Negroamaro created in 1986 by the Vallone family in Salento, a wine considered by many to be the greatest wine of Apulia. (No relation to my friend and client Tony Vallone in Houston.)

Only made in top years, the grapes for Graticciaia are late-harvested and then dried on mats (graticci in Italian, hence the enonym). They are then vinified in stainless steel and aged in large casks (similar to and inspired by the wines and winemaking of Valpolicella).

When I tasted at Vallone, they served a flight including the 2003, 1997, 1994, and 1990 and we were all impressed by the nuance that these wines attain with age. The 1994, in particular, blew me away: the fruit had emerged brilliantly, as had a wonderful sea salt note that danced with the wine’s bright acidity. The younger vintages were muscular yet elegant, with classic spicy notes accentuated by the winemaking style: think cumin and cinnamon sprinkled over ripe plums and dried cherries.

Starting tonight, I’ll be pouring a mini-vertical — 2006 and 2005 — of Graticciaia at Sotto in Los Angeles (where I’ll be pouring wine on the floor tonight, tomorrow night, and Saturday night).

Please drop by and I’ll tell you some wine tales!