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December 2007
Half-bottles have a place at the table
When I called Tony Bartkus this morning at his shop Tony B’s Wine List in Centennial, he was next door at Tony’s Meats, the very upscale delicatessen/catering business operated by Mick Rosacci and his three siblings.
Bartkus’ store is at 4991 East Dry Creek Road, just north of C470 between Holly and So. Colorado Blvd., in case you’re headed to Denver over the holidays.
At one time the two stores were connected by ownership, not just initials, but since Bartkus purchased the liquor end about 18 months ago, the shops are separate albeit symbiotic businesses.
Bartkus was helping someone pick out a gift basket and you probably couldn’t ask for anyone much better, since Bartkus not only is a trained sommelier but also has years of experience around fine foods, which makes pairing wine and foods one of his specialties.
But this call wasn’t about pairings, or at least food, anyway. It was about wine, and specifically Bartkus’ affection for half-bottles, those 375-ml bottles that seem to be making a bit of a comeback in stores and restaurants.
When I stopped at Bartkus’ shop last week, I stocked up on a case of half-bottles, ranging from a 2003 Saint-Veran white Burgundy to a 2001 Chianti Classico and a 2005 Chateau Hureau cabernet franc from the Loire Valley.
Bartkus has a personal affinity to half-bottles and carries upwards of 20 different half-bottle selections, none of which will break your bank.
Bartkus, a sommelier who has delayed his study for Master of Wine certification while dealing with a 5-month-old son, says he has customers who come in just to stock up on the halfs.
“I have a lot of customers who know it’s a good way to try a lot of wines without committing to a full bottle,” Bartkus said. “Also, people (buy half-bottles) when they’re having a wine tasting and that way don’t have to have so much at the table.”
He also said when only one person in a couple has wine with dinner, a half-bottle is perfect.
“When my wife was pregnant and couldn’t drink, I drank half-bottles,” Bartkus said. “It’s sort of a personal thing for me, I think a half-bottle of Champagne is good any time.
“I guess I have an Old World, European palate, and my selections sometimes reflect that,” Bartkus said. “I like some of the smaller French appellations and of course I love Bordeaux.”
His half-bottle distributor isn’t afraid of lesser-known, more-adventurous wines that “challenge the every day palate, and I can hand-sell every wine that comes out of the shop,” Bartkus said.
A recent glance through his half-bottles revealed wines from France, Italy, Spain, Hungary, New Zealand, Australia, the U.S. and several other countries.
“If it’s out there and I can get it, I’ll carry it,” Bartkus said.
Recently, restaurants have found its sort of chic to offer half-bottles for adventurous clients curious about trying new wines.
Plus, since some of those wines are so pricey, a half-bottle lets you try one without signing for a sub-prime mortgage, and you know where that leads.
You might find some half-bottles scattered around Grand Junction, but in some ways their popularity was hurt when Colorado moved into the 21st Century and updated its liquor laws to allow diners to take home unfinished bottles of wine.
Antediluvian liquor laws (they’re still out there, don’t fret) forced diners to either drink an entire bottle of wine or to relinquish it to the kitchen staff (which isn’t always a bad idea, since most wait staffs aren’t well-trained in wine).
With a half-bottle, the only person who gets anything after dinner is the recycler.
*A couple of Tony Bartkus’s half-bottle selections. There has been some discussion on the Internet whether half-bottles age faster than the traditional 750-ml bottles.
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Please save this wine
With the holidays here and people dropping by the house, I find myself at the end of the night facing one or more open bottles of wine and wondering how to keep them fresh and drinkable for another day.
There’s an interesting article this week in the San Francisco Chronicle about the various methods of preserving wine once the bottle’s been opened. Reporter Janet Fletcher covers all the common methods of keeping the integrity of wine, ranging from vacuum pumps to inert gases to even freezing what’s left in the bottle.
It’s particularly pertinent to me since it’s quite common around my house to have a couple glasses from a bottle of wine and then think, now what?
I’ve been through a variety of exercises, including spraying nitrogen into the bottle, then re-corking and refrigerating the bottle. While that seems to do, well, okay, there’s still something gone because once that cork comes off, the wine starts changing.
Of course, that doesn’t always stop me from drinking it anyway, but most times it either gets saved for cooking or goes down the drain.
Fletcher talks to enologists, wine professionals and educators and her final summation says there really isn’t a good way to save that wine, no matter what Eric Burden tried to convince us 30 year ago.
The main culprit in ruining a wine is oxygen, and while refrigerating a recorked bottle slows down the oxidation process, it isn’t foolproof.
Fletcher cites Roger Boulton, a professor of enology and chemical engineering at the University of California at Davis, who said the colder the wine, the more soluble the oxygen and the easier it is for the gas to dissolve into the wine.
But it’s still better, says Boulton, to refrigerate white wines and keep reds in a cool cellar than leave them at room temperature.
And that’s what I’d do. I’d drink what I wanted, stick the cork back in the bottle and chill it. Then open it the next day and see if it’s drinkable. While I prefer to cook only with a wine I’d be willing to drink, you could save that leftover for cooking.
Or if you and your significant other frequently find yourselves dealing with this problem, you might want to start buying some half-bottles.
During a recent trip to Denver, I found a marvelous selection of 375ml bottles at Tony’s Wines and Specialty Beers on Dry Creek Road in Centennial, just north of C470. Because those smaller bottles are hard (impossible?) to find in Grand Junction, I’ll talk more about Tony’s selection of half-bottles next time.
Meanwhile, if you know where someone can purchase half-bottles in Grand Junction, please let us know.
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Winemaker to list ingredients
Mike Dunne, food and wine critic for the Sacramento Bee, reported Tuesday that maverick winemaker Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyard next year will start to list ingredients on the back label of its wines.
According to winery spokesman Burke Owens, Grahm is making the move because he wants to make his winemaking more transparent and because he is aware that some consumers are concerned about allergic reactions to elements used to produce wine.
Owens said Grahm’s ingredient label, recently approved by federal authorities, will consist of two parts, one listing ingredients known to be in a wine, such as grapes and sulfur dioxide, the other outlining products used to process wine that may leave behind trace elements, like yeast hulls and bentonite, a fining agent. Unlike some wineries, Bonny Doon uses no animal or dairy products in its winemaking, so none will be listed, says Owens.
According to Dunne, the first wines with the new labels, under the Ca’ del Solo brand, are to be shipped to markets in February. Ingredient labeling will be affixed to all wines released from the 2006 vintage forward.
Grahmn last year instituted a big change at Bonny Doon by selling off his popular Big House and Cardinal Zin lines and dropping his production from around 425,000 cases a year to about 35,000 cases a year, focusing on his Ca’ del Solo Vineyard in Soledad.
His wine labels no longer carry the zany cartoon characters of the former style and now display what Grahm explains is a picture of the crystalline structure of the wine. Grahm, who went to biodynamic farming in 20003, said the label reflects the life force of a wine.
Grahm’s latest action is voluntary, though federal officials are weighing a proposal to require vintners to put on their bottles a warning whenever major food allergens have been used to help make the wine.
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