Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Top Ten Marquee Selections of 2009!


To all of my friends, family and fans,
Have a great holiday season & a wonderful new year!

Top Ten Wines from Marquee in 2009

1. The 2004 SilverWings Old Vines Vincenzo - 91 Points from Wine Spectator, rich and multi layered this wine is unfiltered and deserves decanting to understand its nuances! Keith Brien, Winemaker for the Marquee Collection and Silver Wings calls this wine his 5th child and we are eager to taste the new vintage later this year! PS - This wine also won Best of Show at the 2009 Wine & Spirits Wholesalers Convention.

2. The 2007 Quattro Leoni Barbera D'Asti - What a delictious wine, it pairs well with everything and has a rich and robust flavor. Marquee is proud to have added this wine to our portfolio in 2009 and are excited to hear what the critics think of our inaugural vintage - thanks Castello Di Gabiano!

3. The 2008 Caligiore Reserve Malbec - WOW, WOW, WOW - Marquee's addition to the Top 100 Wines of 2009 in Wine & Spirits Magazine, this is what Old Vine Malbec can taste like when it is brought gracefully forward with minimal use of oak. Gustavo Caligiore has an upcoming feature in Sommelier's Journal - watch for it!

4. The 2008 Clemen Reserva Vinho Verde - Yes, Vinho Verde's can be graceful and deserve the title, Reserva. A winner in several contests this year for both the 2007 and 2008 vintages, this wine has just a tiny hint of spritz to tingle on your tongue!

5. The 2007 Marquee Classic GSM - Grenache, Shiraz, and Mourvedre blended together that is much more complex than you would ever imagine for a wine that retails for under $12.00. Marquee is proud to announce this is our Number 1 selling wine for all of 2009, taste it and you will understand why!

6. The 2008 Staccato Malbec / Cabernet Sauvignon - Only with a company like Marquee setting out to find the best bargains the wine world has to offer will you be able to find an 88 Pt. gem (Wine & Spirits) like Staccato that retails for under $10.00! Medium bodied and a delicious blend with the hints of Mocha and dark berry fruits.

7. The 2006 Old Hands Monastrell - Monastrell or Mourvedre as it is know in other parts of the world is king down in the Southern Spanish region of Yecla and Marquee is delighted with our 87 Pt. Best Buy from Wine Enthusiast that delighted them enough they sent out an email blast to over 250,000 readers showing praise of this wine. A great value at $10.99, Marquee is looking for good things from our friends at Bodegas La Purisima in 2010!

8. The 2008 Marquee Classic Chardonnay - Can I say delicious, too many times? Just landing in December this wine is outstanding for its vibrant and fresh tropical flavors with just a hint of oak aging. Well worth its $11.99 price tag, I foresee some great press on this wine in the coming months, kudos to our friends in Victoria on a smashing follow-up to the Best Buy, 89 Pt. 2006 Chardonnay!

9. The 2007 Caligiore Reserve Bonarda - Several times this year I have heard the call and explained the story of "What is Bonarda ?"This up-and-coming grape in the last five years has started to be be vinified on its own in Argentina. For the wine intellectuals this grape is said to be what in the USA is called "Charbono"; it is known for having a medium red body focused on raspberries with smooth tannins. Just our luck, the Caligiore family has vineyards of Bonarda that are over thirty years old, keep them coming Gustavo!

10. The 2006 Trapio Old Vine Monastrell - Fitting that this list should start and end with big old vines, our partners at Bodegas La Purisima found, in their vineyards, a set of vines that gave a distinguished flavor a bit different than the rest of their surrounding brethren... the difference, these vines never faced Phyloxera and are therefore on their original Monastrell rootstock! Taste the wines like they did 100 years ago by enjoying Trapio! Marquee has just sold out of our first vintage (2004) and we are hearing all of the gold medals and great scores coming in on this wine already. 90 Points in the Penin Guide to Spanish Wines, this is a blockbuster wine!

I must lament at this point that 2009 has been an outstanding year for Marquee and we are very thankful for all of our partners, fans and customers! We will keep bringing you the best wines we can in 2010 and have some outstanding vintages just on release from our wine-making teams across the world!

Have an great day!

Christopher J. Cribb, CSW
GM - General Manager
Marquee Artisan Wines - http://www.marquee.com/
Blog – marqueewines.blogspot.com

Monday, December 14, 2009

Holiday Tips - The Most Useful Wine Websites!

As a wine “expert” and a confessed “techie” I thought I would share with our loyal fans a few websites I use in the wine industry on an everyday basis to make life easier. Marquee is no way related to any of the sites and my recommendation is just that, a recommendation… if anyone has other sites they would suggest, drop me an email at cjcribb@marquee.com or post a comment to the blog and we will keep adding to the collection. To keep it simple you will find below a category and then the site that I routinely use for that purpose, thanks for tuning in and remember, if you have any holiday wine needs, don’t forget the Marquee!



Wine Events in your Hometown – If you are looking to find out what is happening in the wine world for your enjoyment in your home city start with Local Wine Events. This site is based around consumer events, charity tastings, wine dinners, wine classes, etc… and is a totally free service. If you are a wine professional this is also a great tool to help get the word out about what is happening about your upcoming events. For the people that like to be fed their information instead of searching it out, their newsletter, The Juice, allows you to get an update about wine events in your city every month! This site also keeps track of the national food and wine festivals in case you want to get out of town for a great food and wine event. If you are looking for a great getaway trip, come down to the Miami Wine Fair during the fall, you will not be disappointed!

Wine Reviews and Expert Opinions – Marquee works to have all of our bottles in the hands of the top review companies and magazines with every vintage because we are confident that our selections beat and exceed our competition in terns of value for the price. I use all of these sites regularly to find out more information about the wines, to keep up-to-date on reviews/ news and over time find which wine writers have a palate that is similar to my own. If you can find a particular writer that loves the same style of wines that you love, it will really help you with stocking your cellar with wines that you want to drink! Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast (also has a good shopping site and catalog), Wine & Spirits, Robert Parker, and The International Wine Cellar are my top review sites. They all have great free content if you are not a magazine subscriber and a ton of extra content if you are a subscriber.

If you are looking for less “expert opinions” and more, peer reviews, social networking style check out Snooth, Cork’d, Cellar Tracker (see collecting software below) and The Wine Lovers Page (they are experts, but the presentation is low-key and more informal than the large magazines). I expect that there will be some new tools crop up on Facebook and Twitter shortly that help with this space as well, but for now, make sure and become of Fan of your favorite wineries and importers (like Marquee Selections!)

Wine Industry News – For the latest industry scoop I take five minutes daily and check and see what is on the wire at Wine Business Monthly. A great site that aggregates data from press releases, industry news, the top wine blogs and more in one place. Their original content that appears in the Magazine with the same name is top notch and is my most reliable source as to consumer purchasing macro trends.

Wine Collecting Software – When it comes to a website or tool for managing your own inventory of bottles, cases, differing vintages with tasting notes and tools to help keep track of your collection I utilize the Cellar Tracker website. After graduating from my Excel spreadsheet this site allows me to access my collection when out on the road, has a great price tag (normal usage is free)! There are some bells and whistles you can get if you sign on for their premium service, but the basic works just fine for me. There is a collaborative feature that allows you to share your tasting notes and read others tasting notes that is also helpful, especially with some of the older bottles that you may want to know what others think about the wines maturity level and peak drinking age.


Finding Unique Wine Bottles Online – Just read a great review and want to know where to get the wine, had a bottle out a restaurant that you don’t see in your local store but want to get a few more of, I go to Wine Searcher as the start of my pursuit of where to find a single sought after unique/esoteric bottle. If you are lucky enough to live in a state that allows wine to be shipped directly to your home you will find this option available and in most cases you will see the prices so that you can find the best deal possible.

Wine Podcasts and Audio Shows –
This category for me is really a tie so I am offering up two shows that I listen to on a regular basis that come from differing perspectives to the world of wine. The first is The Three Wine Guys, a humorous collection of wine professionals based in the Chicago area that do what I do in regards to wine; have fun with it. The shows are not PG rated, but all three of the gents have a good sense of humor and know a lot about wine. If you have never heard somebody use terms like Tootsie Roll, Listerine, and Kirsch liqueur you are in for a treat with these guys! On the more educational side of things I really enjoy listening to Grape Radio, a podcast that focuses most every episode on a key interview and subject matter expert to share with the team. There list of processional interviews includes some of the greats in the wine world, and their archive is growing, if you have a vineyard, wine writer, etc… that you like, check and see if the Grape Radio team has done an episode with them, you will be impressed!


Please let me know what other great resources you use to keep up-to-date with the wine world and have a Happy New Year!

With kind regards,

~CJC

Today’s Cribb Note – Great Writeup of “Grazioso” a wonderful pick for the Holiday’s on The Kansas City Examiner!

Christopher J. Cribb, CSW
GM - General Manager
Marquee Artisan Wines - http://www.marquee.com/