WBW 16: Judging a Wine By Its Label
What catches my eye about wine labels? What catches yours? This was part of the goal for Wine Blogging Wednesday 16. Many of us can spell out our vinous biases: I dislike overoaked Chardonnay, Alder isn't a fan of German wine. But other, more subtle biases come into play when we buy an unknown bottle. How many of us could express those with ease? We weigh the bottle in our hands, choosing the heavier over the lighter. We pretend to ponder vintage and producer and AVA, but more often than we care to admit, we are drawn to a bottle's label. I asked participants to probe their visual tastes and think about what makes a bottle attractive.
We'll see answers to that question as bloggers around the globe publish the posts that I'll list in a write-up this weekend. You can get a sneak peek by keeping an eye on the flickr pool I set up. My tastes, it turns out, are fairly easy to describe. Simple, even stark, labels call to me. It's an ironic preference: The German wines I love use encyclopedic labels; my beloved French wines have classic, stodgy labels; only the New World wines that I tend to avoid invest their money in designers who construct artfully minimalist wrappings. I blame my friend Hans, whose clean designs for my books and puzzle packagings shape what little design sense I posess.
Enough. How were my wines, you want to know. Not as stark and austere as their labels suggest, that's for sure.
Photo by Melissa Schneider.
2003 Cep Syrah, Sonoma Coast, $21 at Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant.
A circular label. Navy blue background with rose-colored piping. White letters and a white silhouette of a vine. The artwork is striking, containing nothing but the information you need to know: the producer, the region, the grape, the year. The stripped-down look and unusual shape gives you a good look through the green glass and into the lush red interior.
Sadly, the wine does not have the balance and grace its label suggests. I tasted a small amount early in the evening, and decided to decant the tannic wine for half an hour. Without the tannins, it had little to recommend it. Jam and prunes on the nose, but also lots of alcohol. Little in the way of flavors. Some fruit, I suppose, with a hot, vanilla-scented finish. Some acidity and a medium-heavy mouthfeel suggest a wine forced to a suppleness it wouldn't posess on its own. We served it with duck confit, braised chard and onions, and fried potatoes.
Photo by Melissa Schneider.
2002 Five Vintners Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, $24, Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant
"It catches everyone's eye," said Peter, one of the store's owners. A plain white label shows little more than an inkblot of five tally marks. It is the most powerful of contrasts, a vast white plain decorated with a single dark logo. The story is even more interesting. Five Vintners is a collaboration of five wine makers whose names are written in Napa's history books. Three are Beringers and the rest are their descendants.
At first, I didn't remember the wine, but after I bought it I realized that I had tasted it before. I used it in one of my wine classes. I remember liking it then, and being surprised that I liked it since a) I'm not a fan of Napa stylings and b) I'm not a fan of Cabernet Sauvignon. But this wine lacks the bludgeoning extraction of Napa wines and I couldn't detect that Cabernet Sauvignon smell I always describe as brambly but other people label as bell pepper.
Instead, after some time in the decanter it had a subtle mix of floral and herbaceous smells. Bubble gum, mint, and lavender, with a dusty backdrop. The fruit flavors came out in the mouth as subtle tastes of ripe red fruit. The tannins are fine-grained, and it has a bright acidity. Its medium-long finish runs a bit hot, but for the most part, this is a well-balanced, restrained wine. I don't know if it will stand the taste of time, but it drinks well now. We enjoyed it with a chard gratin served with (overcooked) braised beef ribs.
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