The Case For Bordeaux

As I was sitting in my living room last night, watching the Oscar night drama unfold onstage, I wasn’t thinking about how ridiculous Will Smith’s behavior was in that moment because I was too pre-occupied with the glass of Bordeaux in my hand.

My wife and I had friends over to watch the awards ceremony and I had popped a few bottles of wine to enjoy with the spread. We had a huge swath of snacks, charcuterie, cheeses, and other accoutrements, but I had whipped up a few New York steaks au poivre and my French friend Isabelle was going gaga for the pairing. “This wine is incredible!” she exclaimed, a complement coming from both a French native and a Gramercy Tavern alum; “What is it?”

I passed her the bottle. Nothing fancy. Just a 2012 Chapelle de Potensac, the second label from Haut-Médoc producer Château Potensac. I think I bought it for $15 some years back and it had been kicking around my cellar for a bit. As I’ve come to learn quite well over the years, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to drink great Bordeaux. You just have to be patient.

Even a sub-$20 bottle of claret can pay huge dividends if you give it time. The evolution of wine in the bottle is part of what makes the hobby so much fun. The liquid will continue to evolve little by little, every day tasting just a bit different than it would have tasted previously. It’s why buying just a single bottle of wine to age is such a risky endeavor. If you don’t have multiples to open over time and gauge where the wine is at, how will you know the right moment to open it?

That variability is part of the fun for serious wine lovers, and simultaneously part of the fear for whiskey drinkers. As I’ve come to learn over time, Scotch and Bourbon lovers don’t deal well with uncertainty. When they read a review online about a delicious new whiskey, they want the exact same tasting experience to be replicated in their glass. Whiskey is shelf stable, whereas wine is not; hence, there are no guarantees. Personally, I think it’s the main reason that more whiskey collectors don’t evolve into wine collectors. In a world that’s become increasingly black and white in terms of preference, there’s little tolerance for gray areas.

What’s interesting from my perspective, however, is how the value proposition between wine and whiskey has started to swing back the other way. About ten years ago, as Bordeaux prices started going though the roof and top Napa Cabernets became cult favorites, Bourbon and Scotch were still relatively undervalued given their quality and demand. The idea that one could spend $100 on a bottle of Pauillac and be forced to drink it by the end of the night stood in stark contrast to a $100 bottle of whiskey that could be consumed little by little over the course of many years.

Today, however, with the top Bourbons and single malts either unavailable or unaffordable for many drinkers, there are few surprises left to be discovered and consumers have started scaling back. The single barrel business has completely dried up, age statements have disappeared, and small upstarts often charge double or even triple what’s expected due to a lack of scale. Meanwhile, Bordeaux is moving in the other direction. Inventory is starting to pile up, back vintages are starting to open up again, and I’m finding value after value in the negotiant warehouses across the Atlantic. I think drinkers are ready to pivot over to a new adventure, and Bordeaux’s star is rising again at just the right moment.

Whereas I’m continuously recommending the same whiskey values today that I recommended five years ago, Bordeaux has become much more fluid. There’s only so many times I can recommend Buffalo Trace and Balvenie 12 before I run out of options that deliver for the dollar, but I’ve been able to find new Bordeaux values just about every week over the last few months. In just a few years, something like the 2016 Peyrabon for $19.99 will drink just as beautifully as the wine I drank last night for dinner. Give it ten years past the vintage and you’ll have a serious wine on your hands, or spend an extra five bucks and get the 2006 Peyrabon for $24.99 that already has more than a decade of maturity. By the time you come back for more, I’ll have an entirely new container of Bordeaux to show you, with new wines, new stories, and new discoveries.

There was a time when I would peruse lists of available barrels in both Scotland and Kentucky, getting excited about potential purchases like a kid mapping out his Christmas list. But with available inventory at an all-time low and prices at an all-time high, I’m having way more fun looking at the available Bordeaux inventory in warehouses along the Gironde. 2005 Barde-Haut, 2010 Kirwan, 2012 Leoville Barton, 2014 La Dame de Montrose: so many well-priced wines from great producers in solid vintages with bottle age! I’ve been placing orders right and left this past week, locking down cases of $20 bargain bottles to $500 unicorns.

We’re going to dig deeper into Bordeaux this week. There’s a lot to talk about.

-David Driscoll

Our Second Rare Character Barrel

Just in!!

Our second barrel from Rare Character showcases the Mission flagship store in Pasadena on the label, with the iconic vertical tobacco sign front and center and the towering San Gabriel mountains against a rather Van Gogh-esque California sky. This five year old single cask Bourbon, distilled at MGP in Indiana, was bottled at 59.56% ABV and features one of the richest, woodiest noses you'll find on this side of the Mississippi. Every aroma that emanates from the glass is soaked in oak, moving lithely between polish and pencil shavings. The richness from all that oak tempers the heat on the palate, somehow giving one the impression the whiskey isn't a beastly 119.12 proof, but rather somewhat sippable neat, straight out of the bottle. This isn't a sweet whiskey, however. While the oak is bold, the vanilla notes are dry and lean, allowing for secondary fruit and floral notes with a spiciness that finishes like leather. If it's complexity you're after, this is a very fun whiskey to dissect. It's not just a delicious ride, it moves across the entire flavor spectrum and back, the product of one unique single barrel, itself a diamond in the rough.

-David Driscoll

Italy in LA: Eataly

When I tell my friends I think Eataly is one of the best places to eat in LA, they sort of frown and ask: “Really?”

Yes, Eataly is a giant Italian supermarket in the Century City mall with other national locations in places like Las Vegas and New York, but don’t let its size or scale fool you into thinking it isn’t a serious food destination. Besides the incredible selection of Italian products on hand, there are a few places to eat within the store, some very casual and some very fine. But right in the middle of that spectrum sits La Pizza & La Pasta, which is my favorite place to go. There’s a beautiful little bar right in the middle of it, a build-your-own-Negroni menu, and you can add truffles to anything for an extra $15. What else do you really need?

Because a good Negroni Bianco is hard to find these days, I always start with that. Something about that mild, delicate bitterness is more attractive to my palate in these instances than the bigger, bolder classic Negroni. You’ve seen a million cocktail photos in your life, so I did an extreme close-up on the ice with the citrus peel for the sake of being artsy.

You can sit at the bar and eat if you like, plus there are a few counters along the pizza ovens if you’re a voyeur for that kind of action. There’s an outside balcony if you feel like sitting outside on a fine Los Angeles afternoon, or you can grab a table in a few different inside areas. Everything is very casual, but the menu is big and the food is fantastic, plus there’s a pretty good wine list.

We always do a few starters to get things moving. The polpette (meatballs) are juicy and moist in the middle. Splitting a calzone is also recommended, as they cut it into six snackable pieces. But, for me personally, the star of the menu is the cacio e pepe spaghetti with the truffle add-on. I’ve had it at least five times now and it’s never been anything less than perfect. The server will bring out a small scale like you’re back in high school buying weed from your neighbor. The truffle will be weighed in front of you, and then sliced by hand onto your dish of choice.

I ordered a bottle of Grüner Veltliner from the Alto Adige and say back to watch the show. Then grabbed a tiramisu from the store and came back home for some grappa. It never disappoints.

-David Driscoll

Not What; How & Why

Since I went out to lunch with wine writer Robert Camuto last week to talk Italian wine, I felt obligated to read his book South Of Somewhere. I’m very happy I did, as it’s a highly-enjoyable romp through some of the less-recognized wine regions of Southern Italy. One particular segment that caught my attention takes place in the little-known Calabrian appellation of Ciró, a region that makes a rustic red from the Gaglioppo grape.

While somewhat lamenting the lack of recognition the area receives from wine drinkers, one of the winemakers explains the purpose of Ciró: you take a bite of food—maybe sardines, or something with olive oil, capers, and Calabrian chili—then you take a sip of wine. The point of Ciró is to cleanse the palate in between bites, readying the taste buds for the next onslaught of intense Calabrian flavor. The Ciró wine is made for exactly that purpose. Hence, if you take the wine out of context—like pouring a glass of Ciró after work to unwind—you’ll likely misunderstand its function.

I thought about this story yesterday while driving home from work, talking to my longtime friend Lester Lopez on the car speaker phone. Since we both work in the industry, we often discuss consumer trends and where we think the market is headed. With the push toward premiumization likely to continue forward, we were discussing how much we still liked inexpensive American beers like Coors Banquet and Coors Light. At one point, Lester said: “Each sip of Coors Light I take prepares my mouth for the whiskey. I rinse my palate with the cold, refreshing beer, then I’m ready for the next sip of Scotch.”

So often when wine and spirits reviews are written by both professionals and amateurs these days, the liquids are tasted and evaluated in a vacuum. The point is to isolate the product from any outside influence and breakdown its merit. But to do that is to often completely miss the point. Coors Light may not hold up to Pliny The Elder in a side-by-side taste test, but I sure as hell don’t want to drink whiskey with a super-hoppy, 8% IPA as my back. Sometimes it’s not about what you’re drinking, but how you’re drinking and why. There’s a reason the term “session beer” exists in the UK.

As I’m preparing for the Scotland trip I have coming up at the beginning of May, I’m thinking long and hard about the future of our industry and where Mission stands in the grand scheme of things. Do we really want to be the 100th retailer in American to bring in a barrel of cask strength Tormore or 20 year old Strathisla? Does anyone really want these single barrel whiskies anymore given the price and lack of provenance? And do we want to keep pushing the market in that direction? We’ve put so much focus on what we’re drinking over the last ten years that I think we’ve forgotten why we drink and for what purpose.

People weren’t meant to come home at night and line up five or ten bottles on the table, with little thimble-sized tastings of each to contemplate flavor. They’re meant to gather with friends and talk about their day over a beverage. They eat a meal together. They sit on the patio in the evening to find a social communion. To sit alone in your bunker with hundreds of unopened bottles is a lonely existence. That’s not what alcohol was meant for, and it’s been taken out of context for far too long now.

-David Driscoll

Italy In LA: Pizzana

There are a number of great wine stores in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, but after three years of living here, I’m fully convinced that an Italian-focused wine retailer is going to win the day with LA wine drinkers.

Why do I think that?

Because Italian wine ticks all the right boxes for what’s hot in SoCal right now:

• it’s often organic/natural because that’s how they’ve always done it

• the prices are affordable

• there’s a ton of off-the-radar stuff to dig into

• and it’s incredibly-food friendly with any kind of diet.

But the real reason I’m going full-throttle on building Mission’s Italian wine department has to do with the fully-thriving Italian restaurant scene here in LA. You never hear anyone say it, but for my money Los Angeles has more great Italian restaurants than any city not named New York. I eat out for amazing Italian food here at least once a week, so I’m going to start sharing some of those destinations here for those of you wondering why you would ever start drinking Italian wine at this point in your life.

We’re starting today with Pizzana, which has both a West Hollywood and Brentwood location. I’ve been to both at least five times a piece and they’re equally fantastic. You’re definitely not going to find any whiskey on the menu, so you’d better be ready to drink Italian wine! Plus, what kind of lunatic wants Bourbon with pizza?!

If you’re going for a simple lunch, my recommendation is easy: get the little gem caesar with the truffle pizza. I would never tell anyone to get a salad unless it was something special, and this one is. The dressing has Calabrian chiles mixed into it, and there are super briny capers along with spongy, doughy, somewhat crispy croutons. You’re going to want white or rosé for this menu, so grab the daily rosato, or do a bottle of verdicchio, falangina, or even Prosecco.

If you’re bringing a bottle from Mission, I’d probably go with the 2020 Graci Etna Rosato $16.99 because there’s enough acidity to pair with the salad, but enough fruit to combat the kick. Plus, who doesn’t want to drink a wine made from grapes grown on the side of a giant volcano?

The star of Pizzana’s incredible arsenal in my opinion is the truffle pizza, simply called “Truffe.” For under $50, I don’t think there’s a more authentic and seriously-concentrated truffle dish this good anywhere. I’ve eaten truffles all over the world and I can think of few similar meals in California that have given me as much pleasure as this one.

Pizzana is hardly a secret. I’ve yet to visit the Brentwood location and not sit next to someone incredibly famous. That being said, if you don’t venture outside your neighborhood all that often, it’s worth planning a day around eating there. Plus, you’re going to realize quickly just how delicious and important a bottle of Italian wine is to a meal like this one.

-David Driscoll

Status & Power

I’m not sure how many of you watched Bill Maher this past Friday night, but I was absolutely blown away by his guest Batya Ungar-Sargon, the former Newsweek editor who spoke brilliantly and eloquently about the current state of the media in our country. 

You can check out the episode on HBO to hear her far more detailed synopsis of things, but to summarize a few of her key points: 

• Being a journalist used to be a blue collar job, no different than a construction worker or delivery driver. It didn’t require any formal education, other than an ability to write coherently and get to the truth of a story.

• Over time, it became a more elite position requiring a higher degree in journalism, and the job carried prestige. As that prestige grew, so did the notoriety.

• Today, being a high-profile journalist is like selling a brand. The most famous have their core customers who agree with their individual philosophies, and they feed those audiences what they want to hear in order to keep the revenue coming. Rather than serve the public good, they serve their individual needs as brand managers. Social media then amplifies that messaging via the public and it turns into tribalism.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with her summation, it made me think about the whiskey industry today with its influencer culture both on the brand and consumer side. I’ve been saying for years that most of the people buying whiskey these days don’t actually drink it, but it wasn’t until I listened to Ungar-Sargon that the connection to both self-branding and tribalism became clear. 

When you think about all the guys out there who post photos of their whiskey lifestyle on social media, hoping to brand themselves as influencers or voices of authority, you can see why the demand for rare and limited whiskey continues to grow. It’s not about drinking it. It’s not even about flipping it! Today, those bottles are a social currency in an entirely different value system that transcends experience or money.

When the point of something becomes public validation instead of education or enjoyment, you end up with a different usage than the one originally intended. Today’s budding journalists would rather be famous than good, just like modern whiskey lovers would rather be popular than happy. The attraction in both cases is status and power. Journalism and whiskey are simply vehicles to get there.

The New York Times is Ungar-Sargon’s main target during the show, but she’s far from the only journalist upset with the direction of that publication. Another regular Maher guest Bari Weiss famously resigned from the Times last year, writing: “The paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions.”

That pretty much sums up the whiskey world for me right now: social media influencers performing for the narrowest of audiences, drowning out all the voices who attempt to give a larger world view. As Weiss stated: “Why edit something challenging to our readers, when we can assure ourselves of job security (and clicks) by publishing our 4000th op-ed arguing that Donald Trump is a unique danger to the country and the world?”

Tell that to the 4000th person to review Weller 107 on Instagram this year.

Anyway, check out that Bill Maher episode if you didn’t catch it. I think you’ll be just as captivated as I was. It will make you think long and hard about how something as simple as the daily news, or a bottle of whiskey, can turn into a completely self-serving enterprise with far reaching consequences. 

-David Driscoll

Italy In Los Angeles

A bowl of pasta at Jon & Vinny’s on Fairfax

One thing that I’ve noticed during my short time in Los Angeles is the incredibly strong Italian game. I certainly never thought of LA as an Italian food mecca before moving here, and I don’t think it gets nearly enough credit for the incredible quality at hand. Between Angelini, Bestia, Rossoblu, Mozza, and Marino, not to mention Pizzana, Prime, Jon & Vinny’s, and Apollonia’s for insanely delicious pizza and pasta, there’s a strong Italian presence in LA. On one hand, we have a gigantic Eataly in Century City, and on the smaller side even the tiny Roma deli in nearby Altadena has one of the best sandwiches in the area, not to mention a fantastic selection of olive oil. 

If we’re eating that much Italian food in LA, it would make sense to match that passion with a huge selection of interesting, delicious, and affordable Italian wines—beyond the ubiquitous rich and tannic Brunello, Chianti, and Barolo offerings. I eat pasta, cheese boards, bread with meats, and basic Italian soups and stews just about every night of the week, so I am CRUSHING bottles of Italian wine on a nightly basis. That’s why we’re continuing to expand our Italian wine selection to satiate what I strongly believe is a growing demand for food friendly wines with acidity that pair well with Italian cuisine.

CENTOPASSI 

For all you Godfather fans, the vineyards of Centopassi are located near the town of Corleone in Sicily and—get this—were actually confiscated from the mafia!! These are literally former mafia-owned vines. Centopassi is actually named after an anti-mafia film seeking to renounce the terrible effects of organized crime in the region and seek a better way forward, starting with a selection of incredibly fresh and food-friendly wines. 

2020 Centopassi 'Terre Rosse di Giabbascio' Catarratto $19.99 - The ‘Terre Rose di Giabbascio’ is made from 100% Catarratto, planted near San Giuseppe Jato. The Giabbascio vineyard contains free draining alkaline clay with sand, and is rich in iron oxides. A pale straw color with a greenish glint, you get fresh citrus, herbs, wet stones, and a general acidity that is amazing given how warm the region is. Try this with chicken, fish, or just as a cocktail hour wine. 

2020 Centopassi Grillo 'Rocce di Pietra Longa' $19.99 - The ‘Rocce di Pietra Longa’ is made from 100% Grillo from the Pietralunga vineyard, located near the town of Corleone. The vineyard can be recognized by a tall stone (the Pietra Longa pictured above) about 100 feet high nearby. Vines were planted in stony alkaline clay soil with many rocky outcroppings. The palate is full of lemon, marzipan and wet stones. It’s a mineral-driven white wine that refreshes your palate with every sip.

2020 Centopassi Nero d'Avola 'Argile di Tagghia Via' $24.99 - The ‘Argille di Tagghia Via’ is made from 100% Nero d’Avola, and takes its name from the church of the Madonna di Tagliavia, a few hundred yards away. The vineyard is planted between Corleone and San Giuseppe Jato in alkaline clay soils with some sand and limestone. This is a violet-tinged red wine that leaps out of the with peppery, herbaceous aromas melded with red berries. This is a leaner, more Rhone-style Syrah-like Nero d’Avola than I’ve had in the past. I’d do this with meats and spicy pasta dishes. 

GRIFALCO

If you think of Italy as a boot, then Basilicata is the remote area between the heel and the toe to the east of Naples. One of the least populated regions in the country, it’s known for Aglianico red wines, which I need to explain a bit about if you’re not familiar with it. When I first started learning about wine, Aglianico was described as this rustic Italian grape that needed 40 years in the bottle before it was ready. Most of the wines made out of the south in the past were sent up north in bulk to add color and density to wines from the more famous regions. 

As wine author Robert Camuto explained to us at his tasting event this week, people in these regions would work all day long in the fields or vineyards, so wine was an actual source of calories! Hence, they needed to be big and bold, as you might soak your old crusty bread in a bowl of wine for extra nourishment. Today, however, Aglianico is made in a friendlier, far more approachable style. You can definitely drink wines of Grifalco tonight with a nice steak or a hearty pasta sauce. Grifalco is run by the Piccin family, originally from Tuscany, who moved to Basilicata as they thought it was more promising!

2019 Grifalco Aglianico del Vulture 'Grifalco' $19.99 - The standard Grifalco is in the middle of the portfolio, and is the flagship wine of the estate. Sourcing grapes from four different vineyards, this bottling represents everything Aglianico del Vulture should be and is capable of. Juicy blackberry on the palate with a bit of licorice and wild herbs on the palate. Firm tannins on the finish.

2017 Grifalco Aglianico del Vulture Damaschito $39.99 - The Damaschito is an excellent, age-worthy, substantial red wine from an older single vineyard from the Maschito area of Vulture. The soil here is volcanic and particularly rich in iron and manganese, and after the first year of production in Vulture, the Piccin family noticed how the grapes from the oldest part of the Maschito vineyard had purity of flavor. They decided then to make a new label, a cru, from those vines only. The color of the soil from this site is mirrored by the color of this wine’s label. Shows ripe cherry, leather, tobacco, and licorice notes. Brilliant with prime rib or grilled lamb. Enjoy now or age 10-15 years.

2017 Grifalco Aglianico del Vulture DaGinestra $39.99 - Daginestra is another single vineyard expression from Grifalco, this one from the Ginestra area of Vulture. After a few years of vinifying all the vineyards separately, the Piccin family decided to go forward with making a cru label just for the Ginestra vineyards. Much like with their Maschito site, they found the Ginestra grapes to be expressing an exceptionally clear view of that place. The soil here remains volcanic but is defined by large amounts of calcareous clay. These rich grey clays served as the inspiration for the color of the wine’s label. Exhibiting notes of ripe plum and red berry, violets, leather, and cinnamon.

-David Driscoll

Mizunara 101

If I had to find an analogy for Mizunara oak with whiskey, it would be truffles. 

Truffles provide an exotic, aromatic, and earthy flavor that food connoisseurs are willing to spend serious money to obtain, right? The same goes for Japanese Mizunara oak as it pertains to whiskey. 

The problem with truffles is that you never know if you’re truly getting what you’re paying for. More importantly, if you aren’t even familiar with the flavor you’re paying for, how are you supposed to know?!

I wasn’t raised with foodies for parents, and I never even tasted a truffle until I was in my late twenties. However, once I developed a taste for them (as did my wife), they became a small obsession. My wife and I once spent an entire week in Paris devoted to nothing but truffle consumption, which was easily one of the most hedonistic and expensive periods of our seventeen year relationship. The outcome of that experience was a broader understanding of what was and what wasn’t worth paying for. 

Mizunara oak requires the same due diligence. Until you’ve had a few dozen examples of what Mizunara is supposed to taste like and how the twisted, gnarled, difficult-to-cooper, and extremely-expensive Japanese oak can influence a whiskey, you don’t really know what you’re paying for, let alone if you think it’s worth doing so!!

That’s why I loaded up on the new Glendalough 7 Year Old Mizunara Irish Single Malt Whiskey. I believe this is 100% Cooley-distilled, but in all seriousness the whiskey isn’t the point here. The Irish whiskey is merely a blank canvas upon which the Mizunara oak is displayed. If you want a first-hand lesson in exactly what makes Mizunara oak so coveted and so interesting, this my friends is the whiskey for you. 

The price of a new Japanese Mizunara oak barrel is more than $3300 a piece, so they’re not cheap. Plus, they leak and are incredibly porous. So is it even worth using? Only you can answer that question and you’re about to find out for yourself. I can safely say that I’ve never tasted a whiskey this saturated with the essence of Mizunara in my career. Matured for 4 months in Mizunara (70% of the barrels brand new), this whiskey is dripping with incense. It’s all sandalwood and exotic spices from front to back, with a lovely richness and fruit character from the malt across the middle. 

I backed up the truck for this deal because I consider it a benchmark experience. It’s a whiskey that’s not only delicious, it’s also a stepping stone to a greater understanding of experience. We’re $10 under most other retailers and we’ve got plenty just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. If you’ve ever wondered exactly what Mizunara oak is supposed to taste like, consider this bottle Japanese Oak 101.

Glendalough 7 Year Old Mizunara Finish Irish Single Malt Whisky $89.99

-David Driscoll