Marglin on Taste

Here at “Uncorked,” our goal is to help you appreciate wine, and also to make that appreciation easier. So from time to time we try to help you with the practical but thorny problem of buying wine. This week our focus is on the tricky question of when you ought to buy wine by the case.Most of us buy one bottle of wine at a time, maybe two. But if you drink wine regularly, there are serious advantages to buying a case of one wine — a dozen bottles — if your finances permit. The obvious reason is that you’ll be sure to have a bottle of good wine, something you know you like, on hand when you need it. And in some indefinable way, a case of wine will usually make that wine more memorable, more yours. You’ll get a chance to experience the way it develops over time. You’ll probably end up giving a bottle or two to friends as a gift, turning your pals on to something you love.

Buying a case of wine makes financial sense as well. You always get a discount from your wineseller when you buy in quantity, usually 10 to 20 percent off the normal retail price. (You can also usually get the low end of that discount if you buy a “mixed case” — 12 assorted bottles.) The question is, when and how do you decide to buy a case of one wine? There are three good reasons to do this:

1) You have tried the wine on a couple of occasions and have enjoyed it thoroughly each time;

2) You have reason to believe that the wine might be hard to find in a few weeks (or days, or hours . . . );

3) The price is right.

To elaborate:

1) Try, try again. Even with the discount, unless you’re at the low end at Trader Joe’s, you’ll be spending more than $100 for a case of wine. Before I drop that much on one wine, I always want to be sure that the wine is consistently to my liking. My suggestion is to try a couple of bottles. Try it in different settings and with different friends, especially friends whose taste you trust. Solicit their opinions. If they like it too, then chances are it’s a good bet. It’s worth being careful about this, because if your first instincts turn out to be off, you’ll be sitting on a bunch of wine you don’t much care for. You’ll feel guilty giving it away, and you’ll have a hard time serving it without a forced smile.

2) Finders keepers. Wine is a hot commodity right now. Good wines always move off the shelves quickly, and lately, because people have money to spend, wine is being snapped up faster than ever. But not every wine will run out. Buena Vista’s garden-variety 1997 zinfandel, for instance, is a well-made wine and a steal at the price (about $7.99 a bottle), but there was plenty made and it’ll be on shelves for some time. By contrast, Eric Solomon imports a syrah from the Rhône called Domaine d’Andezon; when the 1998 comes out, you’ll see it in a lot of places for around $10 a bottle — but not for long.

This is where it pays to talk to your retailer. Find out how much of the wine was made, how many cases are in stock, and whether the store expects to sell out of it soon. If you’re a customer serious enough to be buying by the case (and merchants truly love such customers), you’ll get straight answers.

One thing to note: although there are no rules as to releases, lots of cabernets and zins get released in February, and lots of white wines such as chardonnay, pinot gris, and sauvignon blanc get released in early spring. If you are a white-wine fan, you may not want to wait until June to buy your case. If you love zinfandels, now is the time.

3) The price is right. By shopping around, you can usually get a sense of whether your favorite store marks up wines or gives you the cheapest price. The stores I frequent, which tend to have big selections and interesting wines (as well as interesting customers), are fairly consistent in price, and differ mainly in which wines they stock. Sometimes the price discrepancy between stores can be $3 to $5 a bottle, which will really add up when you’re talking about a case. But chances are that the price difference between one store and the next will be no more than a buck or two per bottle. So the real question is less “Can I get this wine cheaper somewhere else?” than “Is this the best wine I can get for the price?”

Here’s where you have to combine your own taste with your trust in your wineseller. Reliable wine folks will tell you when a bottle is a sweet deal. And you can compare other, similarly priced wines to ascertain whether the case in question will bring you more pleasure than a case of any of the other wines. If a $12 1997 Chianti is rocking your world, and you’ve tried it a couple of times, and you know that you usually have to spend $15 to get something that good, then buy a case of the Chianti. The “right” price means one that gets you a great wine, relative to other bottles you could purchase with the same money.

There is something very comforting about bringing home a case of wine. It means you value wine, you’re saving money, and you’ve made a new friend — one who will be with you long past the time when the last bottle is cracked open. When you find a wine that sings, that lingers, that tingles, and you like the price, and someone you have reason to trust says it might not be available for much longer, then it may well be time to get on the case.

I’m not going to offer specific recommendations this week — after all, you wouldn’t want to run out and buy a case of wine that I like. Your case will be better if it’s about your own taste.

At Stratton this past weekend, I watched a woman deciding what she would have to drink après ski. She finally hit on red wine, and she ordered,without asking what was available, a glass of merlot. And she enjoyed it enormously.We take it for granted that people have to learn how to ski or snowboard on the bunny slopes, and that most people will get better, and that some will even learn how to challenge the black-diamond runs. Wine does not, in most instances, pose the same risk of injury as Alpine sports, but we often forget that developing a palate takes a lot of time and experience (and, for the most part, some money). Drinking wine is easy. Appreciating different varieties of wine, and determining what you like and why you like it — well, that’s not so easy.

Most people start with chardonnay and merlot. This has led to a backlash among connoisseurs, many of whom have come to disdain these varietals as bunny-slope wines. One retailer, who winced when I asked for recommendations of good merlot, explained it this way: “If I had a dollar for every time someone comes in and all they want is a good bottle of merlot for less than $15, I would own the store. Its drives me nuts, when there’s so much other, better, more-interesting wine for the same price, or even less.”

Is the merlot backlash fair? Hardly. I don’t think connoisseurs or wine sellers have any business looking down on the tastes of wine drinkers still in the early stages of their wine affairs.

Another retailer I spoke to was more philosophical. “Look,” he said, “this is America, and while Americans may say the word ‘dry,’ they really want fruity. They want sweet. Coca-Cola, ice cream, sugar in their coffee. Merlot is often a really easy wine, lots of fruit, easy to say, safe. Winemakers should be in the business of making the product people want to drink. People want merlot, give them great merlot.”

Certainly merlot has been — and still is — used in some great wines. Its previous lot in life was primarily as a blending grape, mixed with cabernet sauvignon in many of the great reds of Bordeaux; it’s also sometimes used to soften up cabernet in California. In the early ’70s, the pioneering winemaker Ric Forman, working at Sterling Vineyards, became the first Californian to produce a merlot-based wine. But, much like zinfandel, the grape languished as a soloist until it was rediscovered in the late ’80s. The merlot boom was led by evangelists such as Dan Duckhorn, who founded Duckhorn Vineyards in 1976, and the Newtons, the family that owned Sterling in the ’70s. (Their Newton merlots, and Ric Forman’s own Forman merlots, are still among the best in the country.)

At the highest end, the most expensive red wines in the world, Château Pétrus and Château Le Pin, are both merlots from Bordeaux (Pomerol, to be exact), and both are priced, upon release, somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000 per bottle! So when you hear wine people giving merlot a bad rap, it is not because of merlot per se, but because of the way merlot is presented in the US: fruity, not a ton of tannins, but lots of oak on the finish.

I, for one, love merlot when it is well made, and I think it makes a lovely match for meatier, gamier foods. I also think we should support wines that get people comfortable drinking wine, and in my opinion it’s only a matter of time and experience before the best merlots outside of Pomerol start to challenge Pétrus and Le Pin in terms of depth and complexity. Washington state makes some of the most amazing merlots in the world, and New Zealand is turning out some fine examples, as are Chile, South Africa, and Italy.

Merlot at its best and even near-best deserves to be taken seriously. Most merlots are straightforward, fruit-forward, approachable wines. Some are smart buys for the money. And except among wine snobs, who judge wine by its rarity, complexity, and price, merlot tends to be a safe bet for company.

Sure, lots of winemakers make slapdash merlots, designed for you to pull off the shelf at the market and consume later that night. But, like the young lady at Stratton, at least you’re drinking wine. And enjoying it.

The following wines are all good values and, for the most part, relatively interesting.

1998 Tortoise Creek Les Amoureaux Merlot-Cab Vin de Pays d’Oc ($7.99). Seventy percent merlot and 30 percent cab. Way fruit-forward, verging on a fruit bomb. Not deep, but smooth and round, with clean, ripe flavors. Works well with meats and red sauces.

1998 Swartland Merlot South Africa ($11.95). For more than 50 years, these crafty South Africans have been making outstanding wines, but only in the last decade have we been getting them here. This bad boy has blueberry and boysenberry and some vanilla up front, and a shot of whipped cream on the finish.

1996 Château D’Aiguilhe Comtes de Neipperg Côtes de Castillon ($15.99). This is a high-class merlot with tons of tannins and lots of wood. A bit preening, though, like a 16-year-old with a tad too much makeup on. It will balance out someday.

1997 Michael Pozzan Sonoma ($17.95). The family has been in the wine business for generations in Italy. This will hit you with its big oak, big blackberry notes, and tartness. Lots of heart, with an Italian feel to it. Great with red meats, pastas with red sauces, and stuffed mushrooms.

1998 Te Awa Farm Longlands Hawkes Bay New Zealand ($19.95). “Te Awa” translates as “river of God,” and this is definitely divine merlot. Smooth and velvety; eminently approachable. The flavors will enhance food without overwhelming it.

1997 Rocca di Bancciara Tenuta Bonzara Italy ($29.99). You didn’t know there was such great Italian merlot? This is way earthy, with chocolate, cherry, cedar, and a good long finish. Serve with steak, nothing too spicy. A win, even at this price.

1997 Château des Laudes St. Émilion ($34.99). A merlot blend from the old country (Bordeaux). Plenty of cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon in here too, but merlot was born to blend. Lush, elegant, suave.