Author: lgsjr

Champagne vs. the Rest of the World

Sparkling wine is made almost everywhere that grapes are grown.  We’ve had sparklers from France (Champagne, the Loire), Napa Valley, Sonoma County, South Africa, Australia, Long Island and Brazil (yes, Brazil).  But only the sparkling wines of the Champagne region in northern France can be called Champagne.  Real Champagne can only be made from three grapes, one of which is white (Chardonnay) and two reds (Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier).  Any sparkling wine that has pretentions of real Champagne must be made by the méthode champenoise, with still white wine double fermented in the bottle.

So when you’re looking to buy a bottle of bubbles, which one should you choose?

  • Why are you buying it? If it’s to drink by the pool on a hot summer afternoon, there’s no sense spending big money for a great wine.  There are many California sparkling wines that are affordable and quite good, Domaine Chandon and Domaine Carneros being the best known.  On the other hand, if the purchase is for a romantic dinner or a big celebration, go for the real stuff.  It will cost you more; it’s hard these days to find any Champagne for less than $40, but that’s what romance and celebrations cost.
  • Where are you? If you’re in Italy, drink Prosecco.  In Spain, order the Cava.  In Germany, it’s Sekt.  In other words, do what the locals do.  Note that in California and Long Island, the people there do drink imported Champagne as well as the local sparkling wines.
  • How much do you want to spend? As mentioned, real Champagne doesn’t come cheap.  But there are also many American sparklers that are fairly expensive.  For example, a bottle of Domaine Carneros Le Rêve can set you back up to $125.  And, without mentioning names, there are some wines with bubbles in them that are very cheap but aren’t even worth the ten bucks or less that you’ll pay for them.  So be reasonable, set your price point and then buy accordingly.
  • Have you tried them? Just because a wine comes from Champagne doesn’t guarantee that you’ll like it.  We like most that we’ve had, but there are some that just don’t tickle our palates as much as, say, a Sparkling Pointe from Long Island.  Wine tasting rule #1 is know what you like: If there’s a sparkling wine you particularly like, by all means buy it.  If your intent is to impress your friends with your wine expertise (never a very good idea), you’d better try it first.  There are gems at relatively low prices and there are expensive Champagnes that, to our tastes, just aren’t worth the expense.  Sometimes it’s a good idea to experiment, just to find out which is which.
  • Do you remember what it’s called? That’s wine tasting rule #2.  If, say, you were at a party and the host poured you a glass of something that knocked your socks off, ask what it is so you can buy it yourself.  If you’re not good at remembering names, write it down.  A name like Tribaut Schlosser doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue and there’s a good chance you wouldn’t be able to pronounce it to the store clerk from memory alone.  (By the way, it’s Tree-boe Shlahs-er.)

Domaine le Clos des Cazaux

In the village of Vacqueyras, just beyond the center of town, there is a winery that we have visited several times when we have been in the Southern Rhône.  The first time, it was highly recommended by the hotel where we were staying so we headed there after lunch in the village.  The rest of the story belongs in the Experiences section of Power Tasting as much as in Wineries, but it is also instructive about Clos des Cazaux.

The vines of Clos de Cazaux, just outside the village of Vacqueyras.  Photo courtesy of Kysela Pere et Fils.

Over 20 years ago…as we parked, a petite elderly woman came out to greet us.

Elderly Woman: Bonjour, Monsieur.  Bonjour, Madame.

All the rest of the conversation was also in French, so we’ll translate from here on.

EW: A taste of my wines, perhaps?

Power Tasting: Of course, that’s why we’re here.

EW: Please enter my cave.

The cave was little more than a shed.  Inside was a shelf with four bottles of red wine.  Clos de Cazaux makes more wines than that today.

EW: There are two Vacqueyras and two Gigondas.

This is a relevant point.  Many of the Vacqueyras wineries own parcels of land both in that village and in the neighboring hamlet of Gigondas.  Although they are as close together as uptown and downtown in a city, the elevation and soil conditions in the two are substantially different.

EW: The two Vacqueyras wines and one of the Gigondas are traditional, a blend of Grenache and Syrah.  The other is pure Syrah, pour les anglais (for the English).

PT: (to ourselves) Oh, she means us!

And that says a lot about Clos de Cazaux and the Vacqueyras vignerons in general.  While they can be innovative in their winemaking, the winemakers of Vacqueyras are tightly wedded to tradition.  Still, they try to please, even us anglais.

A Templar, with the Dentelles de Montmirail in the background.  Photo courtesy of the winery.

That wine that was made just for us was and is called the Cuvée des Templiers (or Templars, in English, who were freebooting soldiers who fought for and occupied the Holy Lands during the Crusades.  It is no longer just Syrah, but having tasted it again in ensuing years, it’s still our favorite from this winery.

The Clos des Cazaux vineyards. Photo courtesy of the winery.

As then, Clos des Cazaux makes wine from grapes of both Vacqueyras and Gigondas.  There are whites and a few rosés, but most of their wines are reds.  The whites are predominantly Clairette from vines the elderly woman might have planted in her youth.  The reds are mostly Grenache, Syrah and some Mourvèdre.  There are a few interesting exceptions, including a pure Grenache from Gigondas (maybe the anglais have changed their tastes).  There’s also a wine they call Grenat Noble, which is a Grenache, with 30% of the grapes having been infected with botrytis, the Noble Rot, that is the base of Sauternes dessert wines.  It’s not quite a dessert wine, not quite a table wine.  It’s just unique.

We’re sure that the elderly woman has long since passed on, but there is an interesting coda to this story.  Years later we were at the tourist information office in Rasteau, village near Vacqueyras, and we related the story above to the young woman who was helping us.  She looked at us, amazed, and said, “That woman is my grandmother!”

Vacqueyras

In the center of the Southern Rhône winemaking region lies a rather sleepy little Provençal village called Vacqueyras (pronounced VA-kay-rass).  [Yes, in Provence they often pronounce the final “s”.  One might think it’s just to confuse the Anglophones.]  It wouldn’t exist, at least as it is in our times, if it were not for wine.  The Gauls made wine there; so did the Romans; winemaking was documented in the 15th century; and the wines of Vacqueyras were recognized as an AOC in 1990.

The village of Vacqueyras.  Photo courtesy of Vaucluse-Visites-Virtuel.

So why visit a sleepy little village?  There are a number of reasons.  For one, nearly all the little villages in this Côte du Rhône region are rather somnolent.  You need to go to the nearby cities of Avignon or Orange to get a little action.  But you don’t come to this sector of France for action; the attraction is the good life: blue skies, sunshine, gorgeous scenery, friendly people, superb food and, oh yes, wine.  What Vacqueyras lacks in liveliness it makes up in charm.

There are a little more than 1,000 people living in Vacqueyras, while there are 100 wineries, and heaven only knows how many small vineyards that supply their grapes to the four cooperatives within the village’s borders.  That’s a very high vines-to-people ratio.  Considering that some of those folks staff the inns and cafés, there are even fewer to tend the grapes.

Those cafés are another reason to visit Vacqueyras.  There just aren’t that many other places to go for a meal in the area.  We’ve found only one restaurant and a snack bar in nearby Gigondas.  There are more in Beaumes de Venise down the road and maybe one or two in Seguret.  Appetite will take you to Vacqueyras.  And you will be well rewarded with local fare, including fish and seafood, lamb, fresh vegetables and fruits, and if you like an omelette aux truffes (truffle omelet).

“Downtown” Vacqueyras.  Photo courtesy of Horizon Provence.

The streets are lined with homes made from local beige stone, under shady trees.  In good weather you can sit at a café with some wine that may have been made within walking distance and just take in the views.  Those views include the Dentelles de Montmirail to the east, the alpine foothills that seem to Vacqueyrasiens like lace.  In the other direction are the seemingly endless high plains of the Terraces des Garrigues.  Garrigues are the wild hillside herbs that abound in southern France and which add a distinctive, if hard to describe, character to the wines made there.

And that wine you might be sipping is most likely to be a powerful red, with Grenache and Syrah as the dominant grapes, with Mourvèdre and Cinsault used for blending.  (See the accompanying article in this issue on one of our favorite Vacqueyras wineries.)  Yes there are whites and rosés, but the name “Vacqueyras” inspires thoughts of deep red velvet.  Unfairly, some of the other Côte du Rhône villages have grander reputations than does Vacqueyras, which enables you to buy desirable wines at lower prices than, say, Châteauneuf du Pape.

If you are wine tasting in the Southern Rhône – and at some point, you ought to – make sure that Vacqueyras is a stop on your route.

 

New Wines, Old Memories

One of the great pleasures of tasting wine during our travels to many faraway places is the discovery of a fabulous wine that we’d never tasted before.  But that experience is often mixed with a little sadness, because we realize at the time that we will probably never taste this wine again unless we happen to pass that way another time.  There was the cooperative wine at a hilltop restaurant in Valpolicella.  The Rhône blend poured by the winemaker in a shed near Saint-Chinian.  And that Volnay in Burgundy that we couldn’t even find in the local shops.

Photo courtesy of Open Table.

And then, by pure happenstance, we have spied one of these memorable wines on a store shelf or a restaurant wine list.  We hasten to buy it and then one of two things happens.  We realize that our memories had played tricks on us and we couldn’t figure out what we had liked so much all those years ago.  Or, more happily, we are instantly transported back at the first sip.

The salt flats near Marsala, Sicily

Maybe it was a wine, for instance, that we had drunk at an outdoor café on the Italian coast.  We can once again smell the maritime breezes, even in a restaurant near home.  The sky becomes bright blue and we can see the flats where sea salt was drying.  (By the way, the wine was Donnafugata Anthilia.)  There are many other examples we could cite, but they all have the same theme: wines, the good ones at least, imprint themselves on our minds not only for their smells and tastes but also for the circumstances in which we tasted them.

That is one of the prime reasons to make wine tasting a part of our travel plans.  If we could find them, we could taste all those wines in our own homes, but having them there is even better.  Power Tasting is all about the experience of wine tasting and at wineries, but elsewhere as well.  Wine has the power to refresh memories of wonderful times past, not just of the wine in question but also the region, the particular place it was tasted, the time of year and the people who we met along the way to that glass.

Why wine in particular?  Why not chocolate bars?  Pickles?  Steaks?  We might remember one particular steak as being the best we had ever eaten, but one steak is not that differentiated from another.  Wine is different, at least for enthusiasts such as ourselves and, we presume, our readers.  We bring a level of concentration to tasting wine, thinking about what we smell, what we taste, what it reminds us of, how long we can taste it.  That very particularity brings with it mental souvenirs that encompass where we are and what we are doing at the time.  A simple sip can recreate the entire experience.

So when you next order a glass or a bottle in some out of the way spot, on a glorious afternoon in a piazza or a château or even at a picnic, drink it all in – the wine and the smells and the sunlight too.  You may enjoy it all again out of another glass in the future.

Strange Grapes

In the United States, we drink a lot of wine produced domestically, more from California than from the other states.  For the most part the wines we drink are made from grapes brought over from France.  The Bordeaux and Burgundy grapes are the most popular, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.  But the borders of Wine Country are far more extensive, even within Europe.

The Georgians age their wines in amphorae, just as the ancient Greeks and Romans did.  Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

In recent years, Americans have been eager to try wines from new places.  Of course, Italy and Spain have always been a part of American wine drinking, but German Riesling and Austrian Grüner Veltliner have increasingly been appearing on wine lists and on store shelves.  But what about Saperavi from Georgia in the Caucasus?  Or Feteasca Neagra (or the “Dark Maiden”) from Romania?  Hungarian Kékfrankos, anyone?

We recently had the opportunity to taste a lot of wines from countries where we didn’t know that wine was made, from grapes we never heard of, including those just mentioned.  It forced us to think about how to deal with such unique tastings.

  • Start with an open mind. Just because we hadn’t heard of these wines shouldn’t have made us presuppose anything about them.  The producers of many of them were eager to inform us that wine had been produced in their country for thousands of years, so if it was good enough for the Romans, why not us, too?  And indeed many had distinctive aromas and tastes that weren’t quite like anything we’d tasted before.
  • Consider the history. Yes, there was wine in these parts of Wine Country a millennium ago, but what about recently?  In a number of cases we were told that after World War II, their entire export market was to Russia, where wine drinkers prefer sweetness in their glasses.  Accordingly, most native vines – not all – were pulled up and replaced with more familiar grapes that were left to over-ripen.  Post Cold War, the local grapes were replanted, so that what is now available on the market is made from relatively young vines.
  • Judge the wines on their own merits. Not everything was great; a few were awful; and most were interesting but not on a par, to our tastes, with better Californian and Western European wines.  But so what?  Okay, we’d never tasted Saperavi, so these were the best we ever had.  And they were quite pleasant, something we’d like to try again with, say, stuffed peppers such as distant Romanian relatives once made for us.
  • Quietly compare these grapes with what you know. We found a great deal of similarity of some of these wines with those from grapes we were more familiar with, especially Syrah.  Syrah is a very adaptable grape, producing very different tastes depending on the terroir, so maybe that connection was only in our minds.  Or was it some deep-seated ancestry?  We certainly don’t know, but this reference did enable us to think of the kinds of food that each strange grape would go well with, i.e., the same ones we would choose to go with Syrah.

Rodney Strong Vineyards

The Rodney Strong winery is located in the northeastern corner of The Russian River district in Sonoma County.  It is a little out of the way, since the Old Redwood Highway, where Rodney Strong sits, isn’t chockablock full of wineries, as compared, say, with Dry Creek Road or Westside Road, both relatively nearby.  While there are other wineries we favor close to Rodney Strong, such as Limerick Lane or Foppiano, you pretty much have to consider it to be a destination, rather than a place you would be one stop among many.

The Rodney Strong facility.  Photo courtesy of the winery.

And a destination it should be.  It is not a Sonoma Palace, but it is rather grand.  You enter up a long staircase with splendid foliage all around you.  Once inside, you find an elegant, if a bit austere tasting room with servers who know quite a lot about the Rodney Strong wines.  They had better, because there are so many of them.

The tasting room at Rodney Strong.  Photo courtesy of the winery.

The reason we say that this winery is atypical for Russian River is that they don’t just make Pinot Noir, Zinfandel and Chardonnay, although they do produce all those varietals.  But there are also Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Merlot, Sauvignon, red and white blends and rosé.  In this regard, Rodney Strong is more like a winery in Napa Valley than Russian River.

The sheer number of wines that are available for tasting is one of this winery’s strengths.  Particularly for those who are not familiar with Sonoma County wines, this is a great place for an introduction, especially to Sonoma County as it used to be.  For Rodney Strong has been making wine here since 1959, with a family history stretching back to the beginning of the 20th century.  Mr. Strong himself was a Broadway dancer, who retired to buy vineyards and make wine.  It is always a pleasure to acquaint yourself with some of the pioneers of California winemaking as we know it today.  Since Mr. Strong was among the first to plant Pinot Noir in Russian River and Chardonnay in Chalk Hill, you really have a chance there to indulge in wine history.

Another way that Rodney Strong reflects the past is the price points for its wines.  In these days when the top bottles in many wineries go for well north of a hundred dollars, their most expensive wines under the Rodney Strong label can be purchased for two digits.  The cost of a wine is not necessarily indicative of its quality, but the overall pricing does set expectations.  Within that restriction, Rodney Strong delivers good, drinkable wine, some definitely worth sampling.

Unfortunately, the strength of such a wide range of varietals is also a weakness.  No one can make that many wines equally well.  But if your intent is to have wine for everyday dinners or barbecues, you can do very well at Rodney Strong.  And there are some wines you might taste that will do well with a weekend steak dinner as well.

The experience of a tasting at Rodney Strong – ambience, selection and wine – make a trip there quite satisfying.

Wine Tasting Dinners

We have attended a variety of wine tasting dinners.  Some of them were associated with wine clubs of which we were members.  Others, also related to our clubs, were hosted by a wine distributor who showed off the top offerings of several wineries.  We often attend dinners given by a wine society.  Most recently, our university alumni association has been sponsoring dinners that have featured winemakers who graduated from the college.

In general, we have had the opportunity to taste a half dozen or more of what the producers believe are their best wines.  In some cases where more than one winery is represented, there can be twenty or more wines available for tasting.  Sometimes, we have been served tasting portions only; in others, the bar was essentially open.

A dinner at the Etude winery.  Winemaker Jon Priest is speaking.

With all that alcohol, there had better be some food served.  Occasionally, we have been disappointed to be offered no more than hors d’oeuvres that were passed around.  At the same event the following year, we made sure to eat heartily before drinking, only to find that they had laid out enough food, buffet style, for two meals (that we barely touched).

At the recent university affair, Rhône wines were poured to accompany a Chinese banquet, with 16 dishes.  With so many food choices, appropriate pairings are nearly impossible.  Sure, if they are carving roast beef, we’ll stick with Cabernet Sauvignon or Châteauneuf du Pape.  (One dinner put on by a winery that specializes in sparkling wines served short ribs.  How did it work?  Poorly.)  And there is no Rhône wine ever made to go with tofu in a spicy sauce.

One of the attractions of these sorts of occasions is the opportunity to speak with representatives of the wineries or in some cases the winemakers themselves.  This provides a chance to really understand the background of whatever we were tasting.  We have learned about terroir, climate, farming techniques, trellising, pressing and barreling from the people who were in a position to know what they were talking about.  For the most part, they seemed happy to discuss their products and field questions from avid – but not always knowledgeable – amateurs.

We usually meet nice people at these events, with a range of backgrounds and interests.  Of course, we were all united in being interested in the wines being served.  (We don’t remember ever encountering anyone who was there just to get drunk.)  We have met young people just getting to learn about wine and oldsters whose cellars are as deep as their wine knowledge.  Yes, there is a fair amount of wine snobbery and one-upmanship, but for the most part the talk have been convivial.

At a seated dinner, we have always been at a table with strangers.  As the meal has gone along – and the wine has flowed – conversations have become livelier.  (Perhaps the wine was a factor?)  We always find it interesting to hear how others have come to appreciate the wineries that are the stars of the show and compare their experiences with ours.

One caveat: the wine tasting dinners are set up by people who sell wine for a living.  There will always be a sales pitch and the opportunity to buy the wines that accompanied the dinners.  We’ve frequently taken advantage of some real bargains, but more often walked away without buying.

Minerve

Did you ever have a Minervoix wine?  If you did but it was long ago, you probably haven’t tried them again because what you had was rough and acidic.  We urge you to give another try to these wines from the southwest of France; they have been remarkably improved since that time.

And should you ever find yourself in the French southwest, you would value a trip to the tiny village of Minerve.  To appreciate it you need to know a little history.

The village is named after the Roman goddess Minerva, whose cult rivaled Christianity in Imperial Rome.  In the Middle Ages, there arose in the southwest a new religion, Catharism, that was opposed to the Catholic Church.  This led to war with the Pope and the King of France, which resulted in the extermination of the Cathars.  140 of them in Minerve were burnt at the stake rather than repent their religion.  Today, the principal street in Minerve is the Rue des Martyrs.

The gruesome events of the year 1210 left Minerve frozen in time. While we have no reason to doubt that the people of the village practice Catholicism today, a great deal of their livelihoods come from tourists who are aware of their association with the Cathars.  In the gift shops, of which there are many, they sell books and ornaments associated with their long-dead Cathar ancestors.

Minerve was carved out of a rock face of a hill overlooking a small river, the Briant.  The houses and buildings are made from local stone, with Spanish-style roof tiles.  (The entire area was considered a part of Spain until the end of the Thirty Years War in 1649.  Spanish cultural influence is still felt strongly throughout the region.)  Everything has been cleaned up for the benefit of the tourists.  But it is not hard to imagine the medieval lifestyle that must have prevailed there for a very long time.

It is a bit difficult to reach Minerve, but the views as you approach the village are worth the drive.  You enter Minerve over a high stone bridge that was built in the early 20th century.  How the world got to Minerve, or how the villagers got out, before the bridge was built is hard to imagine.  Once across, you have to park just outside Minerve and walk into it.  One of the first sights you’ll see is the remains of a tower that was built for defense in the religious war.  The little church dates back to the 11th century.  Might it have been taken over by the Cathars for their use?  Probably.  At the bottom of the Rue des Martyrs, you can see the grounds where the brave Cathars lost their lives.

Make sure to leave time for a meal when you visit Minerve.  You’ll find genuine French country cooking in the restaurants and cafes there.  Most of them are situated with incredible views from the rocky promontory where Minerve sits.  We only know what it’s like there in warm weather, so we can say that the local white wines go a long way towards managing the heat.

Wines You Can’t Buy Back Home

It happens so often.  We’re at a winery and really loving the wine we’re tasting.  We don’t have the space to take any home with us, so we ask, “Where can we buy this wine?” only to be told that it’s for sale in the winery only.  Or for club members only.  Or, overseas, that the production is so small that distributors don’t find it worthwhile to export it.  The only thing we could do is to buy a case on the spot – if they’ll sell it to us – and have it shipped, which is ruinously expensive.  So all we can do is leave, just a little disappointed.

If you find yourself in such a situation, here are some tips to soothe your disappointment.

  • Have someone local pick up a few bottles for you. This isn’t always feasible, because you may not know anyone in some of the more remote corners of Wine Country.  But in the instances when you do have a local friend, you might ask them to hold on to this special wine until your next trip or when they visit you.  Of course, these had better be very reliable friends… or they may be overly tempted to try out the wine you leave with them.

  • Consider the winery’s other wines. It’s too bad that you can’t find a top-of-the-line wine in your home town, but maybe you can find one of their other wines that are more available.  If a winemaker is capable of something that knocked your socks off, they probably are as attentive to their lesser wines as they are conscientious with their best one.  We have experienced this with Château des Estanilles in France.  Their Raison d’Etre is one of our favorite wines from the Languedoc, but it’s produced so sparingly that they don’t ship it.  But they have another they call Vallongue, and we drink it frequently when we’re in Canada.  (For some reason, it’s not imported into the US.)
  • Use your taste memory to record a great souvenir. There is an ocean of wine in this world and you’re not going to taste them all.  A small percentage of them are truly great; in all likelihood you’re not going to have a chance to try all of them either.  So when you do get a chance to sip something especially special, savor the moment.  Smell it deeply.  Roll it around in your mouth, while doing your best to remember every nuance of what you’re tasting.  You may never pass this way again, so carpe diem.
  • Tell your friends about the wine that got away. Sort of like fishermen do.  The point is that you know you’ve had a great experience.  If nothing else, you’ll encourage your friends to visit that winery so they can share your enthusiasm.  Or maybe just make them a little jealous.  But avoid being a wine snob; this wine was just a part of your vacation to them.

 

Tasting Less that the Best

We have been very fortunate in our wine tasting experiences over the years.  We’ve had the chance to visit and taste some of the most famous and exclusive wines from the United States, Europe, Australia and South Africa.  We have bought a few bottles and from time to time we open some of those bottles and give ourselves the pleasure of tasting greatness.  But most of the time, we drink very nice wines that are either from one the wine clubs we are members of or which are easily available, accessible and economical.  We believe that most wine enthusiasts follow the same pattern that we do.  (We’ve often wondered whether the Rothschilds ever open a simple Beaujolais on a steamy summer evening.  If any Rothschilds are reading this, please let us know.)

The problem, if that’s what it is, is that when we go wine tasting we don’t gravitate towards the wineries and wines that are our normal fare on a routine Tuesday.  We choose the wineries that we know, from experience or reputation, that make the best wines in that region.  In many instances, these wineries make an array of wines, some of which are low-priced, mass-market entries and others that approach the very finest.

Beringer’s Rhine House, which includes Beringer’s premium tasting room.

Let’s take one winery as an example: Beringer.  They have some wines that sell below ten dollars a bottle.  (In fairness, they do not sell these wines at their winery in St. Helena.  For a long while, these plonk wines were served in dive bars and at company affairs, and we thought that these were all Beringer made.)   At the other extreme, their Private Reserve can rival any wine from California or elsewhere.  There are other top-end single vineyard varietals and there are many Beringer wines at the lower end of the price spectrum that are quite enjoyable.  What do we drink when we visit Beringer?  Their finest wines, of course.  We have some at home, but more often we open their wines that cost 80% less than the top tier.  And we like them quite a lot.

The lesson, we guess, is that we ought to pay more attention to the less than the best wines when we go tasting.  It’s difficult.  Once we’ve tasted the best, everything else seems rather drab.  Of course, we try to save the best for last, but then we often choose the premium tasting menu and never even sip anything in the more affordable category.

There have been cases in which we have asked to compare wines made from the same grape on both the premium and the regular menus.  Most servers don’t care; after all, their potential customer is more likely to enjoy the costlier wine more and might buy some.  There is a line of thought that if the top wines are excellent, some of that excellence should be reflected in the lesser ones.  There are many instances in which that is true.  But in these times of mega-corporate takeovers, it is often the case that the grapes for the commercial wines are purchased from other vineyards, pressed and bottled in different factories and have far lesser quality controls.  Sometimes the adage, “you get what you pay for” is true.