I saw a headline in my RSS reader today and clicked on over to the Wine Spectator to read about an “amazing” $8 Pinot Noir that James Laube apparently tasted blind. The ensuing blog entry started out well enough, but then I read a few lines that made me wonder if it could be a joke. Read it for yourself by clicking here (membership to the Wine Spectator site required to read the full article).

For your general enjoyment, and for those of you lacking access to WS, I’m taking the liberty of including a few paragraphs here (at least until cease and desist orders come my way) that stand out to me as…well, as Onion-like in their tone:

The wine was aged with oak chips instead of in oak barrels, which give it a very subtle spicy wood edge. “I really focus on the taste and complexity that I’m getting.” To achieve the right flavor profile he adds what he described as simply “red blending wine.”

When I asked him what grapes were in the “red blending wine,” Broman insisted he didn’t know, but that it’s common to buy bulk wine samples that have already been assembled, and the percentage of blending wine added is small enough that the wine can legally be labeled as Pinot Noir.

“We don’t know [what grapes] they are,” he said. “It sounds like I’m being evasive, but I don’t know what it is. We’re simply focusing on the flavor.”–excerpted from James Laube Unfined, 4/22/09

I’m actually certain this isn’t some sort of late-April Fool’s joke, and that Laube indeed loved this “yummy” 2008 RedTree California Pinot Noir (with a dash of some other grape varieties in it that the winemaker can’t even identify).

And while there’s a strange kind of honor in Laube’s admittal that he was wowed by a blindly-tasted-wine of unlikely (or less-than-elite) origins, there’s something kind of (really!) disturbing about his subsequent statement that it doesn’t really matter what’s in the wine, as long as it tastes good (can oak chips ever be a good thing? Really? And could he not tell the wine was artificially oaked?).

More so than just endorsing iffy modes of production, Laube is commending what amounts to a simulacrum of wine in general, and Pinot Noir in specific, rather than an authentic product.

OK, don’t screw the WS top 100! This came in at #42 and it deserves at least that. It’s the only reasonably priced domestic cab on their list, and we love it. It’s deep and rich and generous with the oaky vanilla — but not cloyingly so. Yay for #42 - just $28.

2005 Casa Lapostolle, Clos Apalta Colchagua Valley, Chile. Who woulda thunk? Ummm, apparently contest entrant Richard, who had it on his list. Congrats! I was wrong about pretty much everything.

That leaves Richard and Tim in a dead heat, each with two correct answers. Though Richard has the number one wine on his list, he didn’t place his guesses in order. Tim did, and his two hits — the Telegraphe and the Quinta do Crasto — were positioned fairly closely to the actual results.

So I say we split the prize. Cheers to Richard from A Passionate Foodie and Tim from Winecast for taking part in this fun tradition to be. Next year I may go back to posting answers in the comments as I think it was better for encouraging dialogue. Read more…

We stocked this long before it received the #8 spot on the Spectator Top Ten Wines of the Year rankings. Beaucastel is among our favorite Rhone producers, and its sister winery, Tablas Creek in Paso Robles, is a domestic favorite. Buy some Beaucastel