Dean, you mentioned Kay's allergies related to tannins and histamines in wines. Can you help educate me about this?

We've just returned from a month in Tuscany where we drank vin della casa every night with our dinner, and we NEVER had a wine that wasn't smooth and delicious, and with NO vinegary taste.

In the States, whatever wine we drink always bites back. I don't like that. I don't know enough about wine to understand the whys and wherefores.
Why and wherefore, Dean?
Charity

Tannins are a phenolic compound (a long chain polymer) that has receptors for oxygen molecules. Over time, they bind up with oxygen as a wine ages. When they have binded up with enough molecules they are too dense to float in a wine and they precipitate out to form sediment. Thus they are a preservative in a wine, keeping it free from oxygen. Tannic wines need time to resolve their tannins and get smoother.

If you are not going to age a wine, you don't need tannin in it. So for a house wine, you should choose a wine that for reasons of how it was grown and made, will not have a lot of tannins.

In California, grapes ripen more quickly. This results in higher tannin levels. Tannins can be said to be short chain, or green tannins , or long chain or ripe tannins. The latter require ripenning a grape fully, not just growing it to produce a certain sugar level. This is more labor intensive and expensive. So for the typical house red, you are dealing with grapes that are more noticably tannic than many a more expensive red wine.

Also, grapes grown in California tend to be zinfandel, cabernet, merlot which are all grapes with a higher tannin level than many other grapes. In Italy, there is a much wider range of grapes grown. Most house wines are grown from clones and varieties of grapes without a lot of tannin. In some cases, where the house wine is a rosso di Montalcino or a chianti, they are grown in more limited quantities per hectare, which will result in riper tannins.

American wines are typically higher alcohol from the greater ripeness. This makes the tannins more noticible.

Where you have tannins, you have histamines. Either the histamines can be setting you off or the alcohol is dehydrating you.

Lastly, most of the big name wines in the US are really really insipid to downright bad. I drank a ravenswood vintner's blend merlot last week at the opera. This is a good winery capable of making some of the best cabernet and zinfandel around. Their Cabernet Franc is a superb treat! But this was just commercial bilgewater, barely reminicent of wine. Why Americans drink such cr*p is beyond me. It was shockingly bad- sweet, tannic, not at all flavored like a merlot. I have never had such a bad wine in Italy as a house wine. But here in the states, this wine is widely sold as house wine or wine by the glass.

The problem in California these days is that there is relatively little wine being made for less than $20.00 that is any good. But once you get into the good stuff, it becomes really really good really quickly. I will generally prefer a $20 to 30 red from California to one from Italy (2001 Rosso di Montalcino is a huge exception), but a $10.00 red from Italy or France to that from California. Then at around $40.00, the imports come on very strong again.

Wine Notes
Tuscan Restaurant List
Dean's Wine, Opera and Food Blog
“Fifteen years sweating in a living hell on a trumped up charge. Fifteen years dreaming that, perhaps, I might come home to a loving wife…”
-Sweeney Todd
--Stephen Sondheim

Happy 15th anniversary sweetie!

quote:

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But this was just commercial bilgewater, barely reminicent of wine. Why Americans drink such cr*p is beyond me.

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Dean you need to get a bota bag and start smuggling your wine into the opera. I smuggle wine into baseball games, rock concerts, even bars sometimes. I always make a purchase, so it's not like I am ripping anyone off - it is just that I cannot drink the stuff they pour. I just buy a glass, take it in the bathroom and pour it out, and pour my own in the glass.

Last night I had a dream that I was in the lobby of some hotel, screaming at the top of my lungs, "I bet all you have here is bleeping Kendall Jackson Chardonnay for $8 a glass!" I was so mad! So bad, overpriced wine is such an issue for me that I dream about it. And I once did the math - in my year living in Italy I saved $4200 on wine.

Shannon
www.chowbellabooks.com

Let's see if I understand this, Shannon: You're saying that the year you lived in Italy you saved $4,200 by buying house wine at 3-4 Euros instead of living in the States and paying $8 per glass?

Thanks for your explanation, Dean. I'm not sure it makes me any happier knowing all of this, since we won't pay more than $4-5 a bottle for the wine we drink every night with dinner. As I understand it, however, if I'm going to buy cheap wine, I should buy Italian instead of Californian.....did I get that right?
Charity

quote:

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Originally posted by Charity B.:
Let's see if I understand this, Shannon: You're saying that the year you lived in Italy you saved $4,200 by buying house wine at 3-4 Euros instead of living in the States and paying $8 per glass?

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Math ain't my strong point, but.. here I spend, on average, $12 per day for a bottle of OK wine, or $4380 per year.

In Italy, I can get wine by the liter, about 3 euro for 1 1/2 liters (2 bottles!) That is $1.50 per bottle. That is only $547.50 per year.

This is not even counting the 2 euro vs. 8 dollar glass of wine at a bar, X how ever many of those I had (countless.)

One bottle of prosecco in Italy? About $4. Here? $15. I'd better count again, I think it may have been more than $4200.

Shannon
www.chowbellabooks.com

Has anyone out there given the Chilean reds a whirl? They are quite good and by American standards quite reasonably priced.

In my opinion the only reason that American "table" wines are both horrid and expensive is because a)the average American doesn't have an educated palate and b)Americans don't drink wine with every meal like we do. If they did American wine producers and sellers would never get away with this.

There are good $5.00 bottles from just about every where except for the US right now. However, I do not taste in this price range any longer as I am not in the wine business any more. When iwas, I used to have to taste 10 or so wines to find one worth buying.

From Chile, I used to like Santa Ema. From Argentina there was Domaine Lurton and Trapiche's Falling Star. All were about $5.00 a bottle, maybe a tiny bit more. But I don't know what they sell for today.

From Italy, I would look to Tollo and other Montepulciano d'Abruzzo producers as a good place to concentrate.

Wine Notes
Tuscan Restaurant List
Dean's Wine, Opera and Food Blog
“Fifteen years sweating in a living hell on a trumped up charge. Fifteen years dreaming that, perhaps, I might come home to a loving wife…”
-Sweeney Todd
--Stephen Sondheim

Happy 15th anniversary sweetie!

I just thought about what I am drinking right now on a regular basis and two wines come to mind: Albert Mann Pinot Blanc from Alsace. The 2001 is available here for $9.99 and I have seen it in California for $9.19. In a red I am drinking Albert Brunel's Domaine de l'Enclos 2001 Cotes du Rhone for $6.99. Its really good and I will probably age some of it for a couple of years.

Wine Notes
Tuscan Restaurant List
Dean's Wine, Opera and Food Blog
“Fifteen years sweating in a living hell on a trumped up charge. Fifteen years dreaming that, perhaps, I might come home to a loving wife…”
-Sweeney Todd
--Stephen Sondheim

Happy 15th anniversary sweetie!

Dean,

THank you, thank you, thank you for your input.

We are lucky enough to have a wine seller here in town that does weekly tastings. Generally 5 wines ranging in price.

I also found a dry rose from Spain that we drank all summer. El Corbero. I do so love a good rose. It is so nice to see them making a comeback.

I've been tasting a fair number of Chilean wines in preparation for our trip to Chile. I haven't tried that many down at the $5.00 range but found a few nice ones between 5.00 and 10.00. Odfjell makes some interesting reds that you can find on sale usually < $10.00. I enjoyed both the Cab and the Carmenère. I also really like the Big Tattoo Red by 2 Brothers.

Santa Ema is supposed to be a great low priced Merlot, but I really did not like their current 2000 reserve release but other people really liked it. One of my wine dealers remarked that it is a great seller. I found it too sweet, almost like liquid jam. I personally like my reds with a bit more bite and peppery flavor. Give me a Southern French red wine anyday. Those are my favorites and there are some great buys also outside of Rhone.

I have a short blog entry on Chilean wines. I haven't republished my blog so you can directly link to the entry in my blog but you can find it in my October 19th post. Check my signature for the link to the blog.

Adventures to come in Chile