Randall Grahm on Terroir #2

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“Somewhereness. For a European it is everything. You need to come from somewhere and probably your family has been in that somewhere Old vine terroirfor years upon years; you need to know where you stand in a hierarchy, where you fit in. In our New World egalitarian, meritocracy, it doesn’t matter where you came from, it’s what you have achieved. New World wines are really all about achievement; they are vins d’effort, rather than vins de terroir.” Randall Grahm from the article on AppelationAmerica.com: Randall Grahm on Terroir This is post #2 relating to Grahm’s paper. You can find post #1 here.

“Somewhereness”, what a concept. It is this almost mystical concept that really defines what makes wine interesting. That feeling you have when you taste a wine that really sings of a certain place at a certain time: the combination of vineyard and vintage. A wine that does not have this sense of “somewhereness” may be an attractive beverage to wash down a meal, but it is nothing more than a beverage. Wine only rises to challenge the intellect when it possesses a sense of place.

Equally interesting is Grahm’s comment, “New World wines are really all about achievement; they are vins d’effort, rather than vins de terroir." That’s the American spirit: I can do it if I just try hard enough - no matter what kind of terroir I own or manipulation I have to do. This is why “points” have become the defining measurement for wine quality. Points measure that effort on a quantifiable scale and we need to have a firm hierarchy. A messy mix of different terroir characteristics that shine because of their differences just don’t make for a  a firm ranking of quality and that’s just not good marketing. Literary descriptions, no matter how well done lack this firm sense of ranking that insecure American consumers seem to need.

What makes terroir driven wines more interesting to drink is the very fact of the differences: like them or not.

Randall Grahm on Terroir - Santa Cruz Mountains.

Alexis Bespaloff

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Signet book of wineI was nineteen and just returned from a semester studying in Europe. Culinarily reborn, I now considered myself quite the sophisticate. As a self-assured wine expert, I went to the liquor store to buy a few bottles to impress my friends. Much to my dismay, not a label or name did I recognize. The wines that had so impressed me were everyday wines: pitchers of Edelzwicker in Alsace, Passe tout grains in Burgundy and Lord know what in Paris. Being on a hitchhikers budget, I was not dining at Tallivent or drinking La Tache.

As simple as these wines were, they somehow captivated my imagination and are why I am deeply involved with wine to this day. I wanted to know more, and in 1973 there were few resources available. By sheer chance, I picked up a copy of The New Signet Book of Wine by Alexis Bespaloff. I could not have been luckier for even today, The New Signet Book of Wine remains the best introduction to the world of wine ever published.

Today, The New York Times reported the passing of Alexis Bespaloff, who has left a legacy of millions of wine lovers to whom he introduced the wonderful pleasures of wine and food. While his New Signet Book of Wine provided the primer for the would-be wine lover, his Fireside Book of Wine provided insights into the emotional and intellectual pull that raises wine beyond a mere alcoholic beverage.

What raised The New Signet Book of Wine to such a level that it is still the best introductory wine book out there is that it was first and foremost a literary work that told a story. Unlike the “how to” and reference style books of today it conveyed both knowledge and passion for wine. It actually made you understand why, not only how.

It was with sadness I heard of the death of this man whom, although I never met him, shaped my life so much. It also made me recall with a tinge of sorrow that wide eyed innocence that I had for wine those many years ago.

Thank you Alexis from all of us. 

Randall Grahm on Terroir

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Bonnydoon

In one fell swoop of the word processor, Randall Grahm has defined the value of two controversial topics: terroir and biodynamic. In an entertaining and eloquent paper for the Terroir Conference at UC Davis, Grahm has clearly defined terroir, a concept that for some reason so many choose to deny.

Notes Grahm in his paper, “Terroir is a composite of many physical factors – soil structure and composition, topography, exposition, micro-climate as well as more intangible cultural factors. Matt Kramer once very poetically defined terroir as “somewhere-ness,” and this I think is the nub of the issue. I believe that “somewhereness” is absolutely linked to beauty, that beauty reposes in the particulars; we love and admire individuals in a way that we can never love classes of people or things. Beauty must relate to some sort of internal harmony; the harmony of a great terroir derives, I believe, from the exchange of information between the vine-plant and its milieu over generations. The plant and the soil have learned to speak each other’s language, and that is why a particularly great terroir wine seems to speak with so much elegance.”

Somewhere-ness is the essence of what makes wine intellectually and emotional simulating.

Continues Grahm, “A great terroir is the one that will elevate a particular site above that of its neighbors. It will ripen its grapes more completely more years out of ten than its neighbors; its wines will tend to be more balanced more of the time than its unfortunate contiguous confrères. But most of all, it will have a calling card, a quality of expressiveness, of distinctiveness that will provoke a sense of recognition in the consumer, whether or not the consumer has ever tasted the wine before.”

Expressiveness, distinctiveness: words that should be more compelling to wine lovers than opulent, rich or powerful.

On biodynamics Grahm writes, “biodynamics is perhaps the most straightforward path to the enhanced expression of terroir in one’s vineyard. Its express purpose is to wake up the vines to the energetic forces of the universe, but its true purpose is to wake up the biodynamicist himself or herself.”

Let’s repeat that again because its meaning is so significant, “its true purpose is to wake up the biodynamicist himself or herself.” In other words putting the winemaker in visceral contact with their vineyards. It is this connection that produces truly unique and characterful wines.

Anyone straining to understand these two concepts should read and re-read this very meaningful piece. Compliments to AppellationAmerica.com for getting Randall’s comments out to the public.

Click here to read the entire paper by Randall Grahm

Randall Grahm on Terroir - Santa Cruz Mountains.

Closing Time

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Closing time“ Yeah the women tear their blouses off
and the men they dance on the polka-dots
and it's partner found, it's partner lost
and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:
it's CLOSING TIME” Leonard Cohen

You pay the big bucks on the big wine with the big points, but it doesn't deliver. What’s up?

“It's closed” is the big excuse. You see it on the wine discussion forums all the time. Some whiney writer complains that the pointy Barolo they opened was disappointing because it was closed. This is either a big lie or a huge rationalization made by people that either:

  • don’t understand what they bought
  • read the Wine Spectator
  • actually don’t like the wine they bought (the nebbiolo curse)
  • have to rationalize that they dropped big bucks on something they just don’t like

The fact of the matter is that in over two decades of tasting I have never tasted a great wine that did not show its greatness every day of its life - and I mean every day. Exceptional character is something that cannot hide.

I don’t care how tight-assed that Giacosa (or Colla, Marcarini, Conterno, Mascarello etc.) Barolo was – there was never one day could you not taste its potential greatness. If you have a great wine that you are unimpressed with; you either don’t like it or don’t understand it – and that’s true from the time it’s ready to bottle. There is one exception to this and that is travel or other bottle abuse. Shipping wines across the Atlantic or the continental United States is like putting a wine through a blender and many wines need months of rest to recover – especially Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo.

There is no “hell to pay” from drinking wines that are too young or closed. Certainly there will be better times to drink them, but if a wine is great it will always be great each and every day of its life. “It’s closed” is a crutch used by too many wine drinkers who empty wallets on wines based on fashion instead of what they really like. It’s like buying a shirt that is the hottest thing in fashion that looks ridiculous on you, but justify it by thinking it will look better on you next year: an unlikely event.

There is never a truly great wine that is not always, from the beginning to the end of its voyage, enjoyable and intellectually stimulating. The more complex the wine, the more responsibility the drinker has to participate in that greatness and to appreciate the individual character and development of that wine at that moment.

Enjoying greatness in wine is an interactive, not passive experience.


Actually Alsace

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Trimbach gewurztraminerIt doesn’t seem like so many years ago that I thought of Trimbach as a sort of boring producer. With all the other action they seemed to be left behind. Just a few decades or so later, to me, Trimbach is making some of Alsace’s best and most authentic wines. They did not change, my palate just grew up. Today other producers are making wines full of residual sugar, boytritis and no varietal or Alsatian character. Now it is Trimbach who is making clean, bright varietally correct wines that actually remind you more of Alsace than California when you drink them. They always did.

Give me these real wines from Trimbach any day over the bizarre wines coming from the likes of Zind-Humbrechet. If you want to actually drink Alsatian wine with a meal, I’m sure you'll agree with me if you really think about the food and wine on your table. The basic Trimbach Gewurztraminer is a charming wine with no pretension to greatness, only balance and real Gewurztraminer character. We enjoyed this great value with some fantastic goat cheese from Monteillet Fromagerie in Dayton Washington – a cheese producer worthy of a post of its own – and you cannot imagine a better cheese and wine match.

One of the saddest stories of the modern wine world has been the destruction of the great white wines of Alsace. A few decades ago, Alsace was the home of some of the most interesting wines on the planet, but today it has become the poster-child of over-manipulation in the vineyard and winery and the resulting sweet, out-of-balance wines should just be avoided.

 

Clos de la Vierge, Jurancon Sec, 2004

Man this is a nice wine to drink. Zesty yet substantial, rich but firm. Brilliantly alive throughout, layers of fresh lime blended with creme brulee all tied into a mouthwatering package dying for some really great seafood makes this a wine not to be missed. It's an under $20 bargain besides. If you like your wines with a lot of backbone, but not just simple acid bombs - this wine is for you.

Pure Distilled Perfection

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PilzerstillDistilleria Pilzer is in a strange position. They win award after award for their fine spirits and are respected throughout Europe as one of the finest grappa and acquavite producers in Italy. So why are they so hard to find in the USA? The only reason can be the lack of understanding of what really fine grappa is all about. The spirits shelves of American retail shops are full of grappa that is decidedly inferior to the exotic, perfumed spirits produced by the Pilzer family because the American market continues to pay more attention to the bottle containing the grappa than to the grappa itself.

 

The Pilzer family makes grappa in one of the most beautiful places in Italy, the Valle di Cembra in the mountains of Trentino. The grapes on these high slopes mature slowly, but fully in steep mountain vineyards and are exceptionally aromatic. In other words, they are perfect for grappa. The Pilzers don't let any of these essences escape and their spirits are some of the most refined and aromatic that you can find.  These spirits rank with the finest Italy has to offer and they not only compete with famous names like Nonino and Poli, but often exceed them in complexity and pure varietal intensity. The Pilzer family produces the following Grappe:

White varietals: chardonnay, nosiola, muller thurgau, moscato giallo, traminer and a rare, truly elegant grappa from the moscato rosa grape.
Red varietals: schiava, pinot nero, teroldego and a blended grappa.
Acquavite: Williams Pear, Apple, Cotogne Apple, Apricot.

 

 

Loving the Smell of Band-Aids

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brett.jpgWhen I was in my twenties, I belonged to a tasting group with equally “deep” tasting experience. We considered ourselves experts and would nod at each other knowingly as we tasted a bottle of funky, smelly Burgundy and say seriously, “goût de terroir.” We thought we really knew our stuff as we forced ourselves to drink and appreciate those awful old wines full of Brettanomyces, or Brett as those in the wine-know call it. All we knew is they were expensive and famous so that must be what great wines tasted like.

Brettanomyces is a strain of yeast that gives all sorts of lovely aromas and flavors to wines like: Band-Aids, sweaty horse saddle, barnyard or merde – it's funny how if you used the same word in English no one would dream of considering it a positive, but when we said it in French somehow it worked.

We loved, or thought we loved, wines full of that supposed goût de terroir and merde. If we tasted those wines today we would grimace and pour them down the drain. There were whole regions of wine dominated by the off-smells caused by Brettanomyces. Happily those days are gone and young wine tasters are spared this experience. Wine after all should taste of fruit, not shit and real goût de terroir is a wonderful thing that does not remind one of Band-Aids.

However, it is true that just a bit of Brett can make a wine more interesting and layered, but by a bit I mean just a tiny bit.

As it is such easy sport to lampoon The Wine Spectator,  it is easy to fall into the trap of never noting its successes. The March 31st 2006 issue contains some very good information in the form of a very nice article on Brettanomyces by Daniel Sogg. It is well worth reading for anyone not sure what the Brett fuss is all about. You will of course find this article way at the back of the magazine behind all the points and celebrity auction photos.

A great article in The Wine Spectator: no merde.

 

Pointless Character or Characterless Points?

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Notice a pattern here?

painted-into-a-corner.jpg
  • 2001- 95 pts. “Aromatic, structured and firm reds with racy character
  • 2000- 100 pts. “Rich and opulent reds”
  • 1999- 92 pts. “Balanced reds with firm tannins and bright fruit”
  • 1997- 99 pts. “Superripe, opulent, flamboyant”
  • 1996- 98 pts. “Textbook, structured, fruity racy reds”

What we learn from this is you get points for “superripe, opulent and flamboyant” and negative points for “aromatic, balanced, structured and textbook.”

Frankly that sucks, but actually it’s Suckling. The above ratings are the opinions of current Barolo and Barbaresco vintages by James Suckling as published in March 2006 Wine Spectator. I should stress these are only Mr. Suckling’s opinions as few people in the world share them and no respected source agrees with him. This is a strange position to take as generally a reporter would not report information that all of his most trusted sources says is incorrect.

What is clear is that Mr. Suckling painted himself into a corner with his wildly over-enthusiastic endorsement of the hot 1997 vintage that led to his preposterous “perfect” rating for the hot 2000 vintage. What is ironic is now he is giving the thumbs down to the hot 2003 vintage, which could produce better wines than either 1997 or 2000 simply because the winemakers had the experience of two hot vintages under their belts when the blazing sun of 2003 blasted the vineyards. They really knew how to handle the 2003’s, while the 1997, the first of the trio of scorching vintages, mistakes were made left and right by winemakers unaccustomed to such conditions.

It seems obvious from his descriptions of the wines that Mr. Suckling does not like nebbiolo unless it it bloated beyond recognition. His take on nebbiolo is like someone who douses pristine fresh oysters with Tabasco: thus making the raw materials pointless. His ranking of 2000 over 2001 would be laughable is it hadn't cost so many people money and distorted the true character of nebbiolo for countless wine drinkers new to the great wines of the Piedmont. What he is trying to do is to take the edge out of nebbiolo – the very thing that makes it unique. Nebbiolo without cut and precision is a wine that has no reason to exist.

Those who want to experience actual nebbiolo varietal character would be wise to focus their purchasing on the 2001, 1999 and 1996 vintages for aging, while stocking up on the lovely 1998’s for drinking while you wait for those three great vintages to spread their wings. Certainly there are many wines worth buying from 1997 and 2000, but they should be tasted with the understanding that these wines are atypical and not as highly regarded by the producers or press as the vintages listed above.

Notice a pattern here?

  • 2003 95 pts. Exotic and powerful

The Tabasco bottle is now pointed at Bordeaux.

PEE'ing Pinot Noir

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Annette hoff cima collina

Winemaker Annette Hoff of Monterey’s Cima Colina is the author of a fine blog and offers some very insightful comments concerning the over manipulation of pinot noir and wines in general these days. In a recent post she comments:

“The way I see it, there are two different classifications of Pinot these days in the US: PCD’s (Pinot for Cab Drinkers) and PEE’s (excuse the acronym: Pinot for Everyone Else). I like Cabernet, and I have nothing against Cabernet drinkers, but what I don’t like is the concept of placing the same expectations one has of Cabernet (dark, rich, and, well, dark, rich) on a wine such as Pinot Noir and, as it turns out, the typical PCD’s are usually dark, rich and relatively non-varietal in character. If you like that, then go to it.”

That’s some great insight. For the complete story and to visit Annette’s Cima Collina blog, follow the link below:

Cellar Rap » Blog Archive » Pinot Noir for Everyone Else.

Pizza Wine

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Pizza

Several years in Italy is guaranteed to destroy your appreciation of American-style pizza. Like so may American wines, pizza here features too much of almost everything. The vast pile of cheese and other ingredients turns the crust into a soggy mess. Delivered pizza is even worse. As easy as it is to make pizza at home and as bad as most American pizza is, why would anyone bother with delivery?

Pizza, like all Italian cooking is based on one thing: get great ingredients and don't screw them up. The most important part of any pizza is the crust, and good pizza crust is one of the easiest thing to make - especially if you have a food processor or KitchenAid. Here you go...

  • 2 packages quick-rise yeast
  • 1 cup very warm (not hot) water
  • half-teaspoon sugar
  • 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/4 teaspoon sea salt

In the bowl of the food processor with the kneading blade in place, put the warm water, yeast and sugar. After a quick spin to mix, let stand for about 15 minutes until there is a thick foam on the top. Then add the flower, salt and olive oil and turn on the machine for a minute or so until the dough is kneaded. It should easily form into a smooth ball that is just a bit sticky. If not forming into a ball, you will have to add either a bit of flower or water depending on your climate. Put dough into a bowl rubbed with olive oil, cover and put in a warm place to rise for 3 or 4 hours. After tripled in volume, roll out and top with your preferred toppings. Please - not too much cheese: simple pizza is beautiful pizza.

Nothing can replace the searing, smoky heat of a wood burning oven, but you can still get good results at home. Be sure to pre-heat the oven to its highest temperature – you want fast hot cooking. A pizza stone is best, but if you don't have one get a pizza pan with holes in the bottom so your crust doesn't steam and get soggy while cooking. You are looking for a crisp crust. 

In Italy, the preferred beverage with pizza is beer, but in the USA many of us think of wine. Deeply fruity, high acid wines go perfectly with pizza, but oaky, tannic or alcoholic wines taste jarring and overwhelming. An excellent example of the perfect pizza wine for someone serious about their wines is the 2004 Rosso dei Dardi by Alessandrio e Gian Natale in Monforte d'Alba in Piemonte. A blend of barbera, nebbiolo and friesa from the famous Dardi area, this delicious wine would be just as adept with grilled steaks as it would with pizza. My all time favorite pizza wine would be the Poderi Colla Friesa, whose light effervescence is a great compliment to any pizza. It's too bad this style very lightly sparking dry red wine, so  popular in Italy, is almost impossible to sell in the USA.

 

Val Cerasa, Etna Rosso, Az. Ag. Bonaccorsi, 2002

Always a very nice wine, Val Cerasa is a good introduction to the considerable pleasures of nerello mascalese, Sicily's finest red variety. Grown on the volcanic soils of Etna, this is more than a simple charming wine, as it has very nice underlying mineral earthiness. A great wine for grilled steaks and chops and an excellent bargain. Why is anyone buying all those boring, industrial New World wines when wine like this are around?