Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category
The new SAQ.com: pros
With much fanfare, the SAQ launched its new website on February 4. There are definitely some improvements. Below are the things I like about it. A much longer list of things that, in my opinion, need work will be posted in a day or two.
Like the new SAQ.com, these pro and con posts are a work in progress and will be updated and corrected as I get to know the site better and as friends and readers provide input.
- It’s taken a few days, but I’ve come to appreciate the drop-down mouseover menus at the top of the page.
- The search engine is far superior to its predecessor: typo correction, suggested completions, fuzzy logic, search on multiple terms (e.g. Alsace Reisling 2008).
- The options for filtering search results are nicely implemented via a sidebar on the results page.
- The product size (format) filters are more granular and easier to understand and use (e.g. “750 ml” vs. the former “376 ml to 750 ml”).
- The Price filter can now be set with a single click.
- The new On Sale filter lets you display all the discounted products in a category. Similarly, you can limit searches to special categories like Cellier or Courrier vinicole products.
- Your search and viewing history are displayed (though only the last three products).
- The product information is often more extensive and includes the constituent grape varieties for many wines (it remains to be seen how regularly it will be updated).
- Product photos can now be enlarged, often to the point where you can actually read what’s on the label.
- While far from perfect, the automated food pairing suggestions are better implemented and more useful than on most other sites.
- Page matching between the French and English sites is finally implemented (on the former site, if you were looking at say, a product page or news release on the French site and clicked the English button, you were taken to the English site’s home page and had to repeat your search. Now you’re taken to the equivalent page.)
- Product page URLs are shorter and more comprehensible.
- MapQuest is out, Google Maps is in.
- The Useful Links and Resources page is much improved though in many ways it remains rudimentary (e.g. no links to English-language blogs, including this one, and only one link to a local French-language blog, Vin Québec).
- Corporate information, such as policies, procedures, cellar rentals, previous-year annual reports and even director biographies, is newly available or more easily accessible.
Occhipintalypse Now
If the frenzy surrounding last Thursday’s release of Arianna Occhipinti‘s 2011 SP68 Rosso wasn’t totally without precedent, it most certainly was for a sub-$25 wine. The mania was primed by a glowing profile of the winemaker in a major daily, rave reviews from local critics, rapt discussion on local online fora, Arianna herself at the Salon des vins d’importation privée pouring the wine and lively debates among wine geeks about the best strategy for procuring some of the 900 bottles to go on sale in the province.
Yes, only 900 bottles. And the wine was released in over 100 Sélection outlets. Do the math and you’ll see that most outlets – even high-profile ones like Laurier – were allocated a single six-bottle case. A few high-volume outlets (Atwater and Rockland, for example) received 12 bottles. One or two got a heady 18.
I arrived at Laurier about 20 minutes before opening and even then was second in line. Three others soon joined us. (The only other time in recent memory this has happened, the day of the SAQ’s first-ever release of a Lapierre Morgon, the 2009, there were two of us queuing at Laurier.) As soon as the door opened, we all rushed to the Cellier display. A wine advisor asked who had come for the SP68 – everyone raised his hand – and announced a one-bottle-per-customer policy, which left a bottle for him. Two minutes after opening, Laurier outlet was sold out.
I had other wines to buy for that evening’s tasting and had decided not to run off to other outlets in search of more SP68. But several MWG members and friends did just that. One was third in line at a 12-bottle store and scored the maximum of three. He then drove to an outlet that opened half an hour later, where he was first at the door. When allowed in, he inquired about the wine and was told there must have been an inventory error because the store had none of the 12 bottles then showing on saq.com. With other wines on his shopping list, he hung around for a few minutes, during which time he saw a wine advisor he knew from another outlet walk in, speak with the advisor who had told him the SP68 was AWOL and be given a shopping cart filled with the outlet’s entire allocation. Hotfooting it over to the shopping cart, the member prevailed upon the “reservist” to part with a couple from his dozen.
Other members and friends headed to less centrally located on-island outlets, where they managed to put their hands on a few flasks. All reported that the stores imposed a limit on the number of bottles a given customer could purchase.
A friend on the South Shore wasn’t so lucky. She arrived at her local outlet about 15 minutes before opening. Noticing several people in their cars with the motor running, she decided to wait by the door. As soon as she did, others scrambled to queue behind her. When the door opened, she took a minute to ask an employee where the wine was. Meanwhile, a man who’d been after her in the line snared all six of the outlet’s bottles. She hopped into her car and sped to the next nearest outlet. On entering, she saw another guy who’d come up empty-handed at the original outlet buying all six of this outlet’s bottles. He wasn’t willing to share but suggested she travel to a larger outlet that had 12 bottles. In the 15 minutes it took her to do so, they were snapped up, all by one person.
When I returned to the office in the early afternoon, I checked the online inventory for the wine. There were no bottles left on Montreal island, a couple showing in Laval and a few in farther flung outlets like Joliette. By Friday morning, even those were gone.
Why the detailed report? To illustrate that several things are fundamentally wrong with the SAQ’s current distribution model for highly sought-after wines.
First, the quantities. How could the SAQ have decided to purchase only 900 bottles? They were offered many more. (“Are you sure you didn’t drop a zero from that number” the agency representing the producer is reported to have asked the monopoly.) But the SAQ decided to “play it safe.” For a wine with a track record of selling like hotcakes through the more exclusive private import channel when the bottles were also $2 or $3 more expensive. For a wine that has been universally, ecstatically praised by the world wine media. For a wine that’s a favourite of local restaurateurs. For a wine that wine geeks across the city knew was going to cause a stampede.
Second, the day and hour of the release: outlet opening time (usually 9:30 or 10 a.m.) on a business day. I’m self-employed and so usually can swing it, but what do 9-to-5 types do? This is patently unfair.
Third, and most disturbingly, the inconsistencies around allocations to customers. On-island outlets at least had the sense not to let one customer walk away with all their bottles. But it was another story off island. And then there are the reports of staff in at least a couple of outlets reserving all or part of the outlet’s inventory for themselves and other employees.
Having been lucky enough to “discover” Arianna before she hit the big time, the MWG regularly purchased several cases of each vintage of the SP68 on a private import basis. Now that the SAQ’s stocking it, I’ll be surprised if the ten or so members who scoured the city in search of bottles managed to get a dozen among ourselves. What’s more, we had to do so by playing hookey and wasting time, effort and gas raiding outlet after outlet. Meanwhile some people who tried to score even one bottle couldn’t, while many others who would have liked to didn’t even have a chance.
The SAQ needs to correct this situation now.
MWG July 13th tasting: final thoughts
Our snapshot of wines made from Prince Edward County’s leading grape varieties leaves me with several thoughts.
Although our sample size was small, it’s apparent that, compared with the wines in the MWG’s last PEC survey (about four years ago) and the occasional bottles tasted since, the overall quality is improving and some world-class wines are now being made in PEC.
That said, the wines’ quality/price ratio is out of whack. For every wine we tasted, you can find more interesting non-PEC wines in the same style for the same price and often for less. While the wineries’ small scale, start-up costs and higher operating expenses (for example, PEC vinifera vines have to be buried to survive the winter, an expense Niagara winegrowers don’t bear) are partly to blame, it’s also clear a premium is being charged, in all likelihood due to the product’s rarity (small production) and the high demand (fueled by Ontario media and local pride). The bottom line: if you want to experience what Prince Edward County has to offer, you’ll pay for the privilege.
Prince Edward County is the nearest fine wine region to Montreal and Quebec. In terms of dry table wines, only one or two Quebec wineries even begin to approach the overall level. Odd then that it’s off the radar of so many Montreal wine geeks, wine bars, restaurants, agents and the SAQ. Of course, Canada’s antiquated liquor distribution laws have something to do with this.
I can’t shake the impression that the area is still feeling its way toward a style. What’s interesting, distinctive, about the region is that it appears to be one of the few in North America with the potential to make the lighter, brighter, mineral-driven wines that wine lovers allergic to the fruit-driven New World style crave. The most successful wines in our tasting fit that mould; the least successful, the tropical fruit Chards, didn’t. My advice: Look to Chablis, not Carneros. Think Loire, not Lodi. Forget the Merlot and consider planting grape varieties from cool-climate regions like the Jura, Savoie, Austria, Hungary and Alto Adige. It’s a niche that needs filling in North America and you guys are uniquely positioned to fill it.
Trying to find technical information on PEC wines is an exercise in frustration. Want to know if a wine was aged in barrels, what the barrels were made from, who they were made by, what percentage was new? Curious about what grapes in what proportion went into the wine? Wondering what kind of agricultural practices are used? Whether a wine is filtered, fined or sulphured? You probably won’t find many if any answers to those and other technical questions on the winery’s website. Yes, some of these are tiny operations. But others aren’t (looking at you, Norman Hardie). And anyway, winemakers, you have this information. It can be typed up in five minutes. It doesn’t have to be nicely presented; the people interested in it don’t give a damn about formatting. What’s important is that it be available. As things stand now, we’re forced to scour the Web for reviews and reports on winery visits, and even when we find information on blogs or in articles, it’s incomplete and often contradictory.
And while we’re in lecture mode, winemakers, how about getting your French act together? “Method Traditional” doesn’t cut it. Neither does calling a Chardonnay-dominated blend a “blanc de noir.” Claiming your wine is inspired by those of “Bougey-Cerdon” doesn’t inspire confidence. And those are only three of several glaring examples of fractured French. You’re located a few hours from the second largest French-speaking city in the world, from the heartland of franco-North American culture, from a hotbed of European and natural wine appreciation and from a potentially big market for PEC wine sales and tourism. You really don’t want to come across looking like des amateurs.
Fall 2012 Cellier release: listing
My copy of the fall issue of the SAQ’s Cellier magazine arrived today. As none of the other wine geeks I’ve spoken to have received their copies, as none of the local wine boards have any discussion of it or the associated releases, as the staff at the SAQ Sélection outlet I called seemed clueless about the releases and as SAQ.com currently has no mention of them, I’ve typed up the list of wines involved. You’ll find it after the jump.
The dates of the two Sélection releases are September 13 and 27. The Signature release is on September 20. (I cannot fathom why the dates are kept secret until a week or two before the first release, which greatly complicates the planning of Cellier tastings. The editorial staff must know the dates many weeks if not months in advance. Would it kill them to share that information with us? Announcing the dates and maybe the themes – not the wines – a month or so out might even create some sorely lacking buzz around the releases.)
The main theme is 2009 red Bordeaux. There’s also a handful of purportedly oyster-friendly whites, four non-Bordeaux reds for cellaring, a mini-vertical and a couple of big bottles.
Upmarket Bordeaux being fantastically overpriced, the Sélection releases focus mainly on lesser appellations; there are lots of cru bourgeois wines, Médocs and Haut-Médocs, Pomerol satellites, etc.
The alcohol levels are startlingly high. (In the list, I’ve boldfaced the 14%, 14.5% and 15% wines.) It’s telling that the only Bordeaux under 13% is also the only old wine in the bunch (the 1990 Château Les Ormes Sorbet). Yes, 2009 was a very ripe vintage but there’s obviously something else going on here (Parkerization? New Worldization? Global warming? All of the above?). Interestingly, none of the pricey Signature wines clock in at more than 13.5%.
The Mo’ Wine Group usually holds a tasting in conjunction with each Cellier release. This time around, I’m not sure. While it’s true that the group should probably be tasting more Bordeaux, on first glance I’m finding it hard to muster much enthusiasm for this lineup. Unfortunately, that’s beginning to seem like a trend: Cellier releases used to generate a lot of enthusiasm online and in the stores. These days, not so much.
UPDATE (2012-08-30): The “Bravo Bordeaux” listing is finally available on SAQ.com. Going by comments online and off (here, for example), I’m not the only person who finds it lacking.
MWG May 24th tasting: report (3/4)
BenMarco 2009, Mendoza, Dominio del Plata ($18.75, 11602701)
Made by Susana Balbo as “a tribute to the ‘traditional’ Argentinian wine style.” 90% Caberbet Sauvignon, 5% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc. Destemmed before pressing. Temperature-controlled fermentation with pumping over, racking and returning and 20 days’ extended maceration. Matured 11 months, 50% in new French oak barrels and 50% in second-use American oak barrels. 14.5% ABV.
Cherry Blossom (the candy, not the flower) but fresh with mint and cassis. The one-dimensional, oversweet fruit is almost obliterated by char. Look for ’em and you’ll find some sweet oak and ink. Fairly high acid and quite tannic. Predictable finish. Would probably benefit from a grilled steak, not that I intend to find out. (Buy again? No.)
Cabernet Sauvignon 2009, Maipe Reserve, Luján de Cuyo, Bodega Chakana ($18.85, 11602883)
100% Cabernet Sauvignon from vines averaging 38 years old. Temperature-controlled fermentation. Aged 12 months in French oak barrels. 14% ABV.
Cassis, smoked sausage and menthol eventually gaining some green bell pepper. Fruity, minerally, oaky but flat: flat flavours, flat acid, flat tannins. Long finish – too long. (Buy again? No.)
LFE 900 2008, Valle de Colchagua, Luis Felipe Edwards ($30.75, 11617874)
36% Petite Sirah, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Syrah, 7% Carmenère and 3% Malbec from a single vineyard located at 900 metres altitude. Temperature-controlled fermentation followed by ten days’ maceration. Aged 18 months in new French oak barrels. 14.5% ABV.
Not particularly appealing nose: alcohol, leather, slate, ink, cassis and, eventually, Keds. Ripe, rich and mouth-filling but not a bomb. Sweet but not candied fruit, round verging on gummy tannins, peek-a-boo acidity, oak-spicy finish. (Buy again? If I had to choose one of the four, it’d be this, but no.)
Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, Elegance, Valle del Maipo, Haras de Pirque ($36.00, 11602891)
85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Syrah and 3% Cabernet Franc. The grapes were lightly crushed and cold-macerated for seven days before being fermented using indigenous yeasts with pumping over and racking and returning. Aged 16 months in French oak barrels. 14.8% ABV.
Off-putting nose with everything except fruit dialed to maximum: “paving crew” quipped one taster, “llama tail” another. Dense and exaggerated but, in its perverse way, balanced, the overripe fruit holding its own against the monster tannins and trowel-laid oak. Unrelenting finish. Tamed somewhat as it breathed and quite possibly in need of a few years in the cellar. Still, it’s hard to imagine this ever providing refreshment. And if there’s a more incongruously named wine in the world, I’ve not encountered it. (Buy again? Never.)
The high hopes I had for this flight were dashed. Obviously the wines are made in a style that I – and nearly all the tasters in attendance – don’t appreciate. But does that mean they’re bad wines? In their defence, one of the tasters, a confessed New World fan who also views white wines with suspicion, was in seventh heaven, drained all his glasses and was delighted that he got to take home the tail ends. Also, let it be noted that the wine press is far more positive about the bottles; Haras flaunts 90-point ratings from Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast and various guides. (Let it also be noted that most of the wine press goes on junkets paid for by the producers’ associations in these countries.) And, dog knows, the wines sell. Yet, each time I smelled or tasted the Haras, I shuddered; most of the tasters around the table dumped their glasses after a sip or two; and one taster claimed the flight so obliterated his palate that he was unable to taste anything afterwards. Even the wines’ defenders would, I think, have to admit to their lack of refreshment. And for those of us who hold that a wine’s first duty is to be food-friendly and refreshing, that indeed makes them bad.
Juraphilia
Six years ago almost to the day, the Mo’ Wine Group, then five months old, held its first tasting of the sometimes odd and often wonderful wines of the Jura. Of the 14 bottles opened, only three came from the SAQ; as I recall and leaving aside the ignorable wines from Henri Maire, they constituted the monopoly’s entire offer. The 11 others required a real effort to assemble, and the only way I could put my hands on an oxidized Savagnin was to buy it – at a 100% markup – off a restaurant wine list.
How the situation has changed. For reasons not entirely clear to me, Quebec has gone gaga for Jura wines. Nearly every agency offers them; private imports from cult producers are allocated only to a lucky few; Jura wines are found on most of the province’s better wine lists; and at any given point the SAQ has around 40 in its catalogue (compare that with the LCBO’s grand total of two). At the same time, the MWG’s interest in the Jura has, if anything, increased. Demand for seats at last Thursday’s tasting was so high that we organized a second tasting for Friday and still had a waiting list.
In the coming days as work permits, I’ll be posting notes on the 31 wines tasted. In the meantime, a story.
On Wednesday, I dropped by my neighbourhood SAQ outlet to pick up a bottle of Tissot’s 2004 vin jaune for one of the tastings. When the outlet’s senior wine advisor saw the flask in my hand, he told me to wait, went to the back of the store and emerged holding a glass and a stoppered bottle of Rolet’s 2003 vin jaune with maybe an inch’s worth of wine left in it.
“We opened this for a staff tasting,” he explained. “Sorry it’s at room temperature. We didn’t gas or pump it, just stuck the cork back in and set it on the counter. Still, I think you’ll find it interesting.” Indeed I did: a classic vin jaune, oxidized yet fresh and balanced, full of flavour yet light on the palate.
“Guess how long the bottle’s been open,” he said.
“Two or three days?” I ventured.
“We decided to conduct an experiment,” he replied. “We opened this bottle in September – that’s what, eight months ago? – and it’s been sitting on the counter ever since.”
Jura wines. You gotta love ’em.
The Schwartza as miracle fruit
The Schwartza is the flagship pizza of Jane, a down-home Italian resto/upscale pizzaria on Notre Dame a few blocks west of Guy. Topped with mustard sauce, smoked meat, dill pickle slices and a surfeit of cheese, the pie manages to be true to both its Montreal Italian and Montreal Jewish heritages. It shouldn’t work but somehow it does (this from someone who wouldn’t go out of his way for a smoked meat sandwich and who has never recovered from a traumatic childhood experience with deli-style pickles). That said, I suspect that, for me at least, once is enough, especially when the resto’s other pizza toppings beckon. Also, at $24 it’s pricey. Then again, the two of us couldn’t quite polish it off.
What wine goes with a Schwartza? Glancing through the list, we spotted a 2009 Langhe Nebbiolo that turned out to be from Produttori del Barbaresco ($50 at the restaurant, $22.85 at the SAQ – 11383617 – though good luck finding any at the monopoly at this late date). Without much forethought, we ordered it, and a good thing we did. Delicious and food friendly, albeit a little tight, it paired well enough with our starters of meatballs and panzanella. But with the pizza, it bloomed: the cheese softened the tannins, while the mustard and pickles sweetened the fruit – a transformation so radical, it was like we’d chewed a miracle berry before sipping the wine. And what about that fruit? Black cherry, the go-to flavour for smoked meat. A match as definitive as it was fortuitous.
The restaurant itself is a pleasant space: a storefront in an old building with high ceilings, wood floors and tables and a warm glow. The menu and wine list are chalked on blackboards. The list is about 40 wines long, and many are available by the glass. Incredibly, only the appellation/grape variety and price are listed; the producer’s name is nowhere in sight. What’s more, when I asked our waiter who made the Langhe we had our eye on, he had no idea. What a joke!
The food was decent and sometimes a little more. The meatballs were close to perfect: tender, moist, cohesive, mild yet savoury, and unfortunately oversalted. The tomato sauce was a delicious foil. If you set aside any notions of the classic dish, the panzanella was tasty enough – arugula, tomato, bell pepper and red onion, dressed with a mild vinaigrette and generously sprinkled with parmesan – but it lost points for the prefab croutons and drizzle of sweet balsamic vinegar. Dinner for the two of us, including wine, two espressos, taxes and tip was $140.
Brett happens 
The new SAQ.com: cons (look and feel)
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Sad but true: the list of nits to pick with the new SAQ.com is too long for a single post. Here then is the first instalment, my complaints about the site’s overall look and feel.
Written by carswell
February 14, 2013 at 11:40
Posted in Commentary
Tagged with SAQ