Pinot Syrah

While sipping on an excellent syrah with dinner tonight, I could not help but be struck by the thought: why do producers try to make pinot noir taste like a syrah, when syrah itself is so much better at tasting like, well, itself. This is always confusing to me. It just seems that if you want to make a big, rich jammy wine that you would pick a vine that’s good at it.

The 2005 L’Ecole No. 41 Syrah, Columbia Valley is a wine that combines power and an earthy richness with complexity in a way no pinot noir can (or should). Pinot done in this style seems blowsy, but this L’Ecole is stylish, structured and balanced in its depth and intensity. If you want big and elegant a great syrah, like this L’Ecole, is a better choice (and cheaper) than those strange syrupy pinot noirs running around the market these days.

Big fat pinots seem a bit slutty, but big rich syrah has real class.

Wine Bars

Like most things there are wine bars and there are wine bars. A visit to the renowned Morrell Wine Bar, located next to their famed wine shop on Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan is a a great treat for any wine aficionado. To top it off, the food’s pretty good too. The expansive list of wines available by the glass makes choosing a complicated affair. Best of all, as Morrell’s is packed every day, the wines are fresh even though they have so many wines open at once. Here is a sampling of wines I tasted there on my last visit:

• Riesling Magus, Leasingham, Clare Valley, Australia, 2004 - The exotic fruit flavors and aromas put me off at first, but soon I saw the error of my wines as the crisp, mineral foundation of this wine emerged to elevate the mouthwatering tropical fruit character beyond its simple first impression. The dry finish almost shyly revels itself behind the sweet impression of the fruit. By the time I reached the end of the glass I really hated to see it go.
• Chinon Rosé, J.M. Raffault, 2006 - This is just such a pretty wine from the delicate salmon pink color, to the beautiful fruit purity on the nose and on to the zesty freshness that the bright fruit flavors ride to the long, absolutely delicious finish. Just a wonderful wine.
• Pinot Noir, Failla, Keefer Ranch, Russian River, 2005 - Just not much to like here, over-ripe and overwrought with a hot, porty finish. On top of that, it’s very expensive.
• Pinot Noir, Merry Edwards, Méthode à L’Ancienne, Olivet Lane, 2005 - A glorious pinot noir that highlights every refined characteristic that make pinot so seductive and irreplaceable. A beautiful pale garnet in color with delicate aromatics that continually invite you to dig deeper and deeper to find all the secrets hidden within. The complexity contained within this delicate framework is truly incredible.  As always seems to be with such fine pinot, there is almost none available and it’s very expensive. A great bottle to order when out on a vendors expense account.
• Ribero del Duero, Convento San Francisco, Crianza, Bodegas San Francisco, 2002 - This glass arrived with some roasted rabbit and a perfect match it was. The aromas and flavors of sweet oak express themselves throughout this wine, but as with so many Spanish wines, it just seems to work. Brilliant black current fruit, eucalyptus and a warm richness join the oak to create a big, yet harmonious and complex wine. A few more years of bottle age would be well worth waiting for as this wine, as good as it is now, has more potential.

Pie in the Sky

Finding good pizza in the USA used to be a pie-in-the-sky proposition. All that was available was the soggy mush made with loads of waxy fake mozzarella and way too old vegetables. When you picked up a slice the sodden crust would collapse under the weight of mediocrity. Of course, the vast majority of pizza in America is still like this, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

That light hit me the other night while traveling on business. Often you arrive too late and too tired to seek out fine food and the restaurant at hand is the only thing you have the time and energy to consider. This is what happened just the other night in Atlanta when I was lucky enough to walk through the door of Baraonda, an excellent pizzeria a block from my hotel. I ended up with a great pizza, but what’s exciting here is that crisp thin crust pizza made with fresh ingredients and cooked in wood-fired ovens are getting a lot easier to find. There seems to be a growing pizza revolution baking in America these days. Everywhere you turn there are pizzerias investing in wood-burning ovens and paying attention to their ingredients.

Now that there’s good pizza to eat, the next question is what to drink with it. The Italians tend to drink beer or fizzy local red wine, both of which are great matches. Woody or high-alcohol wines are absolutey terrible with pizza, but fresh, zesty young reds that appreciate a bit of a chill are perfect. Dry pink wines are also great for pizza. Good draft beer is a match made in heaven and most pizzerias that invest in these expensive ovens can be depended on to have a range of good micro-brews on tap.

Often when presented with really good pizza like Baraonda’s, I can’t resist trying a bottle on the list that normally would be considered too elite for pizza. That night I was inspired to try the 2001 Vigneti La Selvanella, Chianti Classico Riserva, Fattoria Melini, this Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri winner is made predominately from sangiovese grosso aged in large old barrels. It is a complex, balanced and elegant wine that reflects real sangiovese character. The combination of an excellent wine with an excellent pizza made for a lovely dinner. I admit a chilled frizzante barbera would have been a better match, but each glass and each bite was so good on its own I could have cared less.

A great pizza is the ultimate comfort food. Drinking this wonderful Chianti Classico Riserva with it my not have been the ultimate match, but it was very, very comforting. 

Beauty and the Wine

You hear the story often, someone tastes a wine while on the most romantic trip of their lives and loves it. They sip from the wonderful bottle at a cozy table at a little restaurant high on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. The wine is the best they’ve ever had and they buy every bottle they can, but when they open their treasure upon their return to Des Moines they find that the wine has transformed itself into something a bit less magical.

Recently, on a spectacular sun drenched afternoon, I enjoyed a delicious bottle of 2006 King Estate Oregon Pinot Gris with a lovely lady at my favorite seafood restaurant on Oregon’s coast, Local Ocean, in Newport. The day was perfect, we started with stroll  through the Yaquina Head Lighthouse (pictured) and after drinking in the gorgeous views proceeded to sip on the King Estate at Local Ocean alongside some perfect Dungeness Crab Cocktail, Crab Po’boys and grilled blonde salmon.

I thought the wine was excellent, but hope you’ll forgive me if you enjoy it in less perfect circumstances and it disappoints. However, I’m confident it won’t. The King Estate Pinot Gris is reliably exactly what you want from both pinot gris and Northwest white wines. That is bright, crisp, dry and refreshing. It is a great companion to the bounty of the Oregon coast matching crab, clams, fried oysters, razor clams and rockfish with refreshing precision.

Coteaux du Languedoc, Domaine Le Pas de l'Escalette Les Clapas Rouge, 2004

Coteaux du Languedoc, Domaine Le Pas de l’Escalette Les Clapas Rouge, 2004 Produced from old vines including the varieties ” Les vieux Carignan en gobelets complantés de quelques Aramon et Alicante Bouschet.” That’s right, not a noble variety there and the much maligned aramon, the bain of southern France is a respected component. Once again terroir and the passion of the growers create wonderful wine from varieties and vineyards that only produce commercial plonk for most others. Here owners Julien Zernott and Delphine Rousseau craft gorgeous wines full of rich fruit, complexity and irresistible pleasure.  Yet another under $20 wine that puts new world wines in this price range to shame. This wine has real personality instead of the cookie cutter industrial wine produced by American wine corporations who have learned that catchy names and cute labels go a lot farther with consumers than character.

St. Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, Vieilles Vignes, Joël Taluau, 2003

It was a very busy week and the next is sure to be busier. I was happy to arrive home for a relaxing Friday night with a kitchen full of the bounty from this week’s farmer’s market. Dinner tonight was to start with some Insalata Caprese made with some local heirloom tomatoes absolutely bursting with flavor followed by a grilled Carlton Farms pork chop sented with fresh thyme from my garden and corn-on-the-cob so sweet that it may have been better suited to dessert.

From the cellar came a bottle of St. Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, Vieilles Vignes, Joël Taluau, 2003 and just as I pulled the cork and served the caprese Bill Maher came on HBO.  This lovely cabernet franc washed down both the meal and the political commentary beautifully. An hour later, at the end of the show and the meal, I noticed that the bottle was three quarters gone while I was not. Yet another of the pleasures of drinking wine with moderate alcohol, in this case 12.5%.

This is an easy, seductively charming wine with concentrated mouthwatering fruit. There is complexity here, but that’s not the main attraction, which is the zesty purity of the fruit. Produced from vines closing in on their 75th birthday, these old vines speak eloquently for themselves without requiring artificial amplification from oak or other manipulations that would only distract.

By the way, this wine cost less than $14. What did you drink with dinner tonight and what did it cost? If you’d tasted this wine you’d feel a bit ripped off. Me, I’m very happy. 

Riesling, Dr. L, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Loosen Bros., 2006

Riesling, Dr. L, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Loosen Bros., 2006

If you want proof that the best wine values are to found in wines from Europe, not the new world, just taste this delicious riesling. With far more complexity, riesling character and charm than American rieslings at twice the price, this is an incredible bargain. Fragrant and racy with just a touch of sweetness and laced with fresh peach and juicy apricot flavors and aromas all tied together with a mouthwatering acidity. Priced well under $20 this is a wine to buy by the case so you can always have a bottle waiting in the fridge when you get home from work. On top of it all is a screw cap so you’ll know each bottle will be perfect.

Muscadet Sèvre et Maine, Vieilles Vignes, Domaine des Dorices, Sur Lie, Eermine d'Or, 2004

Muscadet Sèvre et Maine, Vieilles Vignes, Domaine des Dorices, Sur Lie, Ermine d’Or, 2004

It’s hard to imagine a more wonderful dry white wine for under $20. Light gold in color with layers of flavor and complexity throughout. Firm slate, chalk and wet stone aromas float over delicate, bright green apple and ripe pear flavors and aromas. The finish long and perfectly balanced without a trace of the residual sugar that mars the finish of so many new world whites. Offered by the every reliable importer Christopher Cannan. 

A Boléro Bottle

Starting out deceptively simple, understated and lithe it slowly built to a dramatic crescendo over the course of the meal. The wine was 2001 La Chapelle di La Mission Haut Brion, Pessac Léognan, the second wine of Chateau La Misson Haut Brion and it is a wonderful, classically styled Bordeaux.

Wines like this are so differently conceived that it is hard to compare them to today’s powerhouse style of winemaking. I can see how someone accustomed to the obvious charms of Napa Cabernet or Australian Shiraz would find such a wine hard to understand. The La Chapelle was all about nuance and finesse and, most of all, it is designed to be a harmonious component of a meal. As you sip this wine with your food it weaves a web of complexity that expands and focuses your senses on the complete experience of dining. Perhaps the biggest contrast that such wines have with so many of today’s wines is that the La Chapelle was actually refreshing to drink. The 12.5% alcohol also is a big difference enabling you to enjoy several glasses and to really experience it’s swirling, changing characteristics as you get to know this wine better.

The best wines should become more complex as you drink them. However, all to many wines are one-trick-ponies that offer little after the first bombastic sip. Like Boléro, the end should be more exciting than the beginning.

North-Westrey Cuisine

It was a beautifully warm July night with a gorgeous sunset expanding over the horizon. A fillet of very fresh, wild-caught Copper River Salmon was looking for a good partner and out of my cellar came a 2004 Westrey Reserve Pinot Noir, Willamette Valleyfor the occasion.

Such a full-flavored fish needs little additional fanfare, so I just sprinkled the fillet with fresh Savory from my garden along with a spattering of red sea salt and fresh ground pepper and quickly pan-roasted it to medium-rare. Then served it with a baby arugula salad from a local farm stand and some crusty, warm bread from the famous (in McMinnville anyway) Red Fox Bakery.

The Westrey seemed a bit harsh at first, but soon opened into a silky complexity that brought alive the palate in a perfect counterpoint to the dense, rich salmon. A spot-on example of the wired, electric richness that makes for great Oregon pinot noir this 04 Westrey Reserve is not only delicious, but a bargain at under $30. The initial tightness of this pinot underscores the necessity of decanting young Oregon pinot noir. A short exposure to oxygen will give you a wine with more complexity and balance. The reductive style of winemaking required to make outstanding pinot noir means that decanting young wines should be a standard practice. Let’s face it, with the entry level price for good pinot noir at $20 and well over $30 for real complexity, to not take the time to decant these wines if you’re drinking them young is a waste of good money and good wine.

As the last bite of this sumptuous salmon crossed my lips, the Westrey just hit its stride and a good stride it was as this pinot noir will challenge far more expensive wines.  Winemakers AmyWesselman and David Autrey (get the name of the wine?) continue to not only produce great values, but great pinot noir in Oregon. 

Three Beauties

It was a blind tasting and I guessed a mix of Napa and Washington cabernets. Wrong I was. They were all Washington wines and there were three beauties that are not to be missed, but I recommend waiting at least 3 or 4 years before you pull their corks.  Below are the unanimous top wines of the evening:

• 2003 L’Ecole No. 41, Apogee, Pepper Bridge Vineyard, Walla Walla Vineyard (47% cabernet sauvignon, 45% merlot, 5% malbec, 3% cabernet franc) Frankly I love this wine. There is a incredible combination of elegance and power trapped in this bottle that would seem to defy the laws of physics. A case of this wine is going into my cellar for sure. This is one of those wines that are difficult to drink because you can’t get your nose out of the glass. No brooding monster here, but a silky beauty that will only get better and better, but is pretty damn good right now. (My wine of the night)
  
• 2003 Carriage House, Côte Bonneville, DuBrul Vineyard (cabernet sauvignon 77%, cabernet franc 13%, merlot 10%)  This just blew the other wines it its flight away and it was a very good flight of wines. The balance of this wine is almost perfect with aromatics and textures that are completely seductive. Perfectly structured for aging and anyone with the patience will be well rewarded. (everybody else’s wine of the night)
  
• 2003 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon - With all the hype you almost want to not like this wine, but alas it’s great. This is a big brooding wine that should not be drunk for at least five (if not more) years.  Even with all this intensity you can just feel the complexity lurking in the background waiting to explode. It’s too bad, but with the scores this wine got, you can believe that 90% (or more) of the bottles already have their corks pulled.  What a waste, because someday this will be a truly astounding wine.
  

Burn Baby Burn

The finish just would not end. The length of the finish is one of the defining characteristics of a great wine and this one had a doozy. It started out great with an earthy, deeply fruity nose and concentrated flavors that flowed into a finish of epic proportions. The only problem is that this wine had a finish more appropriate to Bourbon than wine.

The 2003 Jade Mountain Napa Valley Syrah has much to commend it up front, but as soon as you swallow, Dante’s Inferno overtakes whatever there was to like about this wine. The big fruit is soon sucked down and overwhelmed by an intense alcohol burn that would be more appropriate at a cigar bar than the dinner table.

I had this wine with a giant steak at Morton’s and it was too big even for that much fat. If it can’t match that, it can’t match anything. Yes it had a finish that wouldn’t stop, but the problem was that I wanted it to. In fact, the Cognac we had after dinner had less burn that this Molotov Cocktail of a wine.

Electric

I kept turning the bottle around looking for the plug. This wine had so much electricity it just had to be plugged in. The spine tingling acidity of the 2005 Grüner Veltliner, Dr. Unger, Classic Oberfeld, Kremstal sends a zesty current of almost electrical energy across your palate. Paired with the seafood wonders of Seattle’s Flying Fish restaurant, this wine was nothing short of perfection. The explosively fresh acidity broadens into layers of wonderful flavors and aromas like stone fruits, minerals and key limes. I can think of few better matches with pristine fresh fish simply prepared than this razor of a wine.

Promises, Promises

 The story promises so much, a special vineyard in Flagey-Echezeaux that is planted with gamay instead of pinot noir because of its unique microclimate. The 2002 Domaine de La Vougeraie En Bollery Terres d’en Face sounds like an exciting and unique expression of terroir, but what you get is more like Yellow Tail than anything else.

Nice bottle, serious label, but the wine inside has little to do with the variety or vineyard. This is overripe, over extracted commercial plonk with no more appeal than Yellow Tail Shiraz. In fact, the Yellow Tail is a better deal. Avoid this pretender to terroir.

Very Nice

Very nice doesn’t get much attention these days as everyone wants the “best” - meaning the pointiest wine of all. The Carlo Massimiliano Gritti winery in central Italy’s verdant Umbria is producing wines that are probably too nice to get big points, but they are indeed very lovely wines to enjoy with your dinner. With moderate alcohol levels and oak only where it’s deserved, these wines are are to be admired for their harmony instead of their volume.

The 2004 Ca’ Andrea (60% sangiovese, 35% canaiolo nero, 3 % montepulciano) is the least expensive and the most enjoyable of their offerings. Not that their other wines aren’t well done, but this wine is the most distinctive. Brilliantly fresh and zesty, this is a style of wine that reflects the pure Italian heritage of making a wine that is perfect with a meal.  Their 2004 Muda (70% sangiovese, 20% montepulciano, 10% merlot) is bigger and more robust. The sangiovese and montepulciano in this blend are still blissfully oak free and, fortunately, their brightness is not diluted by the pointless  addition of oak aged merlot. As with the Ca’ Andrea, you can’t help to be seduced by the bright lively flavors of this wine. The 2003 Il Doge (90 % sangiovese, 10% merlot)  is their stab at getting big points and, lucky for us, they got it wrong. Instead of yet another oaky Super Tuscan (Super Umbrian in the case) they have produced a silky, complex wine with just the right punch of tannin. A full flavored Tuscan style steak would be well matched by this elegant wine.

The wines from Carlo Massimilano Gritti wines are to be admired for their restraint, balance and for what they are not. Sometimes what a wine is not is more important than what it is.

Bummed Out About Burgundy

For me, red Burgundy is the ultimate wine. Yet it’s also the ultimate disappointment. It is also a very expensive disappointment.

 It was a night I wanted to splurge and so I reached for a great name and vineyard on the wine list with relative confidence. The 2004  Domaine Jacques Frederic Mugnier Nuits Saint Georges, Clos de la Marechale should have been, at the very least, a lovely pinot noir, but it wasn’t. Thin with uninteresting tart flavor laced with tequila and wet cement notes, the bottled remained unfinished at the end of the evening. A sure sign of mediocrity as it was served to a table of winemakers.

Clearly this restaurant purchased this wine without tasting, something they would never do for a domestic pinot noir.  Too many wine buyers are intimidated by Burgundy’s fame and reputation. This lack of scrutiny means some very bad wines at very high prices for their customers.

Quasi Perfect: 2003 Apogee, Pepper Bridge Vineyard, Walla Wally Valley, L'Ecole 41

This is simply a stunning wine, someday it will be a breathtaking one. With a balance that a California wine could only dream about these days, here is an American hope to challenge  the elegance of fine Bordeaux. It’s not that such graceful power could not be constructed in Napa, but winemakers there are too point hungry to exercise any self control. L’Ecole No. 41 exhibits displined self-confidence in making an entire portfolio of wines driven by balance and style rather than power and points. In about five years this will be a wine to be remembered.

49% cabernet sauvignon, 45% merlot, 5% malbec, 3% cabernet franc 

Big, Brawny and Delicous

Big wines are not my favorites, but sometimes they just seem to work. Such a wine is the richly seductive 2004 Dover Canyon Winery Syrah, Jimmy’s Vineyard, Paso Robles. I expected only my palate to be blown away, but it was me that was blown away instead. This wine is just concentrated delicious.

Make no mistake, this is a big wine for big food, but at the same time it maintains its balance perfectly as it is structured more on its acids than its alcohol. Sure it is loaded with big forward fruit, but what beautiful fruit it is - no simple fruit bomb here. While there is plenty of cassis throughout this wine, it is not the simple sweet cheap liqueur flavors you usually find in California syrah, but an electric, thoroughly bittersweet cassis essence that has the biting bitter sweetness of real black currents.

I matched this big beauty with a prime ribeye, well crusted with coarsely ground tellicherry peppercorns, grilled rare and served drizzled with black truffle olive oil. A drop or bite was not left. 

Wines like this transcend personal preferences. They are so distinctive and so well made that if you have any passion for wine at all you can’t help but to love them. 

Chenin

Poor chenin blanc, everywhere it grows outside of its home turf it makes wine that’s only a dim shadow of the greatness it achieves in France’s Loire Valley. Every once in a while I’ve had some exciting American Chenin over the years, but everyone who was making it gave up in the face of market ignorance.

Those wines disappeared years ago and I had given up on American chenin, but while visiting the Hogue tasting room in Prosser Washington, I could not resist buying a bottle of their barrel fermented chenin. Now I wish I had bought a case.

The 2004 Hogue Terrior, Barrel Fermented Chenin Blanc, Andrews Vineyard, Columbia Valley is simply a stunning chenin blanc. Rich and complex with that unique continuation of mineraly dryness blended with honey and figs that makes this variety so compelling, this is an outstanding American chenin blanc. Matched with some gigantic King Crab legs, this was simply a wine to remember. While Hogue is mostly known for producing good, solid everyday wines, this is a far more elevated wine that is of such quality that it can seduce us into thinking that chenin may find a home in Washington.

Well, we can always hope.

Belli Gemelli

The passing of winemaker/artist Bartolo Mascarello caused much  concern for the future of the label, but anyone familiar with the Barolo scene knew that Bartolo’s daughter, Maria Teresa, had taken the reigns of this venerable estate some years ago and, if anything, had only improved the wines. While a majority of the attention deservedly goes to Maria Teresa’s Baroli, those missing her other wines are making a mistake.

Her current releases of 2004 Bartolo Mascarello, Barbera d’Alba, Vigna San Lorenzo and 2005 Bartolo Mascarello, Dolcetto d’Alba, Vigne Monrobiolo-Ruè are beautiful twins, though certainly not identical twins as they each reflect the beauty of their varieties and vineyards, but are twins related by a pure winemaking style that makes them both sing on the palate.

These are two wines that lift the spirit and your meal. No they don’t challenge the complexities of her Barolo, nor should they, but you will find no better examples of Barbera and Dolcetto in their purist form. These are wines to buy by the case (if you’re lucky enough to be able to do so) for drinking over the next several years.