Good luck in finding a better American sauvignon blanc. Richly flavored, but with a vibrant zesty fruity-ness combined with tart grapefruit and an underlying creamy texture. Delicious. Lively enough for an aperitif, but with more than enough complexity and character to stand up to a serious meal. Kathy Joseph continues to make lovely wines across the board.
This month’s host, Alder Yarrow of Vinography has assembled and posted August’s roundup featuring no less than 27 bloggers from around the globe commenting on Loire white wines. Many thanks to Alder for hosting. You can find the roundup by following this link to Vinography: http://www.vinography.com/archives/2006/08/wine_blogging_wednesday_24_rou.html
As gorgeous as these wines are they are relatively obscure to most wine consumers, which is a sad fact as Muscadet is easily the best value white wine available. The Loire makes wines from a long list of grape varietals thought of as second class by the average wine buyer. Chenin blanc, caberent franc, sauvignon blanc, melon (muscadet), gamay, côt (malbec) just don’t seem as regal as chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and pinot noir to most wine drinkers and, for that matter, most wine writers. On top of that, names like Coteaux-du-Layon and Savennières don’t make good sound bites for marketers. This means not many Americans are pulling corks from bottles of Loire wines and this is truly a shame.
Last evening I immensely enjoyed a Louis/Dressner selection, 2005 Domaine de la Pépière Muscadet, Clos des Briords, a single vineyard wine produced from old vines. This wine was nothing short of exceptional with an almost electric minerality and precision. While certainly drinkable now, those who can wait a few years will be well rewarded. By the way, this exciting wine put me back a whopping $10.99.
Joe Dressner, famed internet personality and partner in Louis/Dressner, is as intense and focused as this Muscadet and has assembled the finest portfolio of Loire wines available in the USA. Anyone seeking to experience these wines at their best should seek out his selections. Incidentally, his wines from other French regions are equally compelling.
On my last trip to New York I ordered a bottle of 2002 Savennières from Domaine du Closel. After a confused look from my waiter, it took them about a half hour to find the bottle at the back of the cooler. Apparently it had been a while since anyone ordered a bottle. It was delicous and a relative bargain, but it looks like Joe has a lot more missionary work to do before Savennières becomes a household name.
Now things are turned around and the same thing that took Acacia to the top is now powering Bouchaine, which has finally taken its place on the “A” team of Carneros producers. What made the wines of Acacia compelling was the talent, intelligence and passion of winemaker Mike Richmond, who has now taken his considerable talents to Bouchaine.
Meanwhile the once revered Acacia winery has been turned into an industrial production line of plonk pinot by alcoholic beverage super-giant Diageo and now Acacia is involved in hand-to-hand combat with Sanford Winery and other corporate pinot noir producers to see who can sell the most boxes of indistinguishable pinot noir. If you are trying to decide between which of these labels to buy you should flip a coin or buy the cheapest because what’s in the bottle is of little consequence or interest.
At this year’s International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC), Mike Richmond presented his first Bouchaine Pinot Noir that he was responsible for from start to finish and a very nice wine it is. The 2004 Bouchaine Carneros Estate Pinot Noir is a lovely wine with a graceful balance and an intriguing subtle character. It certainly shows the richer characteristics of California, but is still restrained and complex with a lingering, not heavy finish.
The emergence of Bouchaine as a first class Carneros pinot noir producer reminds us that while great wines are made in the vineyard, you have to know what to do with those grapes when you get them. Mike Richmond obviously knows what to do and, perhaps more importantly when it comes to pinot noir - what not to do.
Though Richard may have lost his label, he retained control of some of his best vineyards and from those organically farmed vines come his new wines. Emphasizing both Richard’s commitment to quality and the environment, the entire production of Alma Rosa will be bottled under screw caps bearing the recycling arrows symbol that will be familiar to those who have purchased wines in Europe - you can even return the bottles to the winery for reuse.
At this year’s International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) in Oregon, Richard previewed his two premiere releases under the Alma Rosa label and both give just what you would expect from him: excellence. These two fine pinot noirs, 2004 Santa Rita Hills (2645 cases) and 2004 La Encantada Vineyard (500 cases) are svelte beauties with great complexity and a restrained finesse all wrapped in a rich, but well balanced California package.
The once revered Sanford label will now be brought to you by the same folks that give you wines like Santa Margarita Pinot Grigio and Rutherford Hill Merlot and should be avoided by anyone seeking a wine that will generate brain waves as it passes across your palate. However, Bacchus be praised, the great pinot noir wines produced by the real Richard Sanford that have given us all such great pleasure over the decades can still be found - they’re just called Alma Rosa now.
To make the picture complete for all of you old Sanford wine aficionados, Chris Burroughs, the long-haired, cowboy-hat-wearing tasting room manager of the old Sanford Winery made famous by his appearance in Sideways has followed Richard and Thekla Sanford to Alma Rosa and will be pouring wines for guests in their new tasting room. So you’ll find all the heart and soul that made the Sanford Winery great at Alma Rosa, which means at the old Sanford Winery you’ll find…
The start of this black cloud was easy to spot as it coincided with letting myself slide back into the black hole of a debate 
on Robert Parker’s Forum. Its easy to see how immersing yourself in a world where terroir doesn’t matter; where wine quality doesn’t have anything to do with food; where the culture and history of a wine doesn’t mean anything; where wine quality is defined by points and precise rankings - can turn you to the dark side of wine.
There was only one wine antidote: I needed a cool, refreshing bottle of rosé: the ultimate anti-point wine. Unfortunately I was unable to get my hands on the new release of La Gramière, which sounds like it would cure anyone’s blues, but I found another charmer, the 2005 Domaine de Fontsaintes, Gris de Gris, Corbières Rosé. There is something about a really fine rosé that matches food with such harmony that it really brings you back to what wine is all about - how it works at the table. This crisp, brilliant, deeply fruity wine matched with some grilled rockfish in a lightly garlicy chucky tomato broth so well it could only bring a smile to your face. It certainly did to mine.
A warm sunny afternoon, a good bottle of rosé and a great meal. How can you argue about that?
Thanks Amy.
(pictured above, another rare bottle of La Gramière Côtes du Rhône Rosé disappears!)
Needless to say, Alsatian wine holds a place dear to my heart. Yet there was even more, when I entered the wine business in 1979 everyone that knew what-was-what about wine loved and drank the hard, mineraly, acid driven wines of Alsace. Times being very different than the dog-eat-dog world of wine sales today, the small group of wine professionals that were really into wine would gather at group picnics and parties, even though we were competitors, and share bottles we loved. When it came to dry white wines those bottles were invariably Burgundy and Alsace.
Today things have changed in both the wine business and Alsace. This weekend, while perusing the list of a very good Indian restaurant with a nice wine list, I sadly passed over the Alsatian wines. No great wine region has been more deformed and disfigured by modern winemaking fads than Alsace and it is with great sadness that I actually recommend not buying these wines, which have lost their individual character and their reason for being because everything they are trying to do someone else does better.
Today’s Alsatian wines are great examples of the more-is-better school of winemaking that chases points instead of grace at the table. They are “Too” wines: too ripe, too extracted, too botrytized, too sweet, too alcoholic, too flabby and too boring to drink. The Alsatians make the foie gras of white wines. Just like real foie gras is made by force feeding the bird, Alsatians are force feeding their grapes with the end result being their wines only taste good with foie gras - a somewhat limited use.
Perhaps if we avoid these distended wines a new generation of Alsatian winemakers will return to their roots and make some of the world’s greatest white wines. I hope so because I miss them.
A clean and well made sangiovese showing plenty of varietal and Montalcino character. Certainly modern in style, but not overblown or chunky, maintaining a good firm sangiovese structure. Good spice and touches black truffle add depth to the clean bitter black cherry fruit. Very nice.
There is that telltale touch of honey and once again, botrytis aromas and flavors start to overwhelm what could have been a great wine if picked a little less overripe and mouldy. Although enough acid exists to hold the wine together, this wine is just too clunky and too expensive to make it worthwhile. The residual sugar makes a second glass seem cloying and boring. Too bad behind all that honey and sugar you can sense what would could have been an outstanding wine.
Yet another, botrytized way-to-sweet out-of-balance and boring to drink Alsation wine. Take a pass. Is foie gras the only dish they serve in Alsace these days?
A lot of nice white wine is coming out of Campania these days, much of it from interesting indigenous varietals like Asprinio. The Villa Carafa wines are all very well made and enjoyable to drink. Most of the time when I drink white wine I am looking for a crisp refresher to match with some simply prepared fish and this is one of those kind of wines - fresh and bright with good acidity. I’d be on the lookout for a big platter of fritto misto and a ice cold bottle of this - add a view from the Campania coast and you’ve found a bit of heaven.
Produced from yet another southern Italian varietal you’ve probably never heard of, Grillo. However, if you’ve ever had a good crisp sauvignon blanc you’ll know what to expect from the wine from Di Giovanna. Clean, refreshing and easy to drink with a touch of that grassy/flinty character that gives sauvignon blanc its charm. This is a lovely wine for fresh seafood and would be perfect at a beach-side restaurant in Sicilia - or anywhere.
One of the most enjoyable sauvignon blanc wines I have tasted in a long time and a bargain besides. Steely, flinty and clean with just the right touch of grassy and grapefruit. No cat pee here. It was a perfect match with a dozen pristine oysters.
Brilliant ruby, with seductive fresh picked cherry aromas hightlighted by fresh mint. A totally charming wine that slides effortlessly across the palate kicking your saliva glands into high gear in the process. Drink this pretty wine up young and slightly cool on a warm summer evening.
Brooding and closed at first, this wine slowly opens into an extremely interesting pinot noir. The slight rustic, wild character is very appealing and shows in every aspect of this wine. Quite intense and on the big side for pinot, but it still hangs on to its balance and grows on you making the second glass more compelling than the first. I would hide a few bottles away for 3 or 4 years as I think this will really be stunning with some patience.
I discovered this gem on a restaurant wine list at a bargain basement price. No international style here. The color was brickish and the aromas had little to do with dark fruit, instead displaying layers of warm earth, wild mushrooms and new leather. Firm, almost lean on the palate, but there is no lack of sensations to grab your attention. Long and lingering flavors finish the appealingly rustic wine.
Indiana Jones: Now you’re getting nasty.
For years, after the acquisition of our old company by Paterno Imports, I was obligated to attend the annual Wine and Spirits Wholesalers (WSWA) convention - an event that makes you feel like you need a bath if you’re in the fine wine business. It always reminded me of the scene above from Raiders of the Lost Ark because just attending the WSWA convention made you wonder if you were a Belloq or an Indiana Jones and when they included me as one of the boys it made me want to say, “now you’re getting nasty”. In fact, as you surveyed the bar in the convention hotel overrun with guys with gold chains and women in too tight, too short dresses it was hard to tell the difference between the conventioneers and the pimps and whores attending them.
The new product show is always a highlight of this event and it never, never features wine. For example, I remember the Jell-o shot years where one company hired “models” dressed as nurses in a porno movie to hand feed their new brand of Jell-o shots to conventioneers within inches of their well exposed breasts. Another famed booth offered “Black Death Vodka” in a stand featuring a real Indy Car, well associating drinking Vodka and driving at high speeds.
It is this orgy of sleaze and money, powered by spirits not wine, that drives the WSWA and it mass market distributor members who could give a sh*t about wine except for the fact that their giant spirit suppliers force them to sell it.
In this context, the recent hopeful comments by writers like Tom Warkand Mary Baker concerning the departure of CEO Jaunita Duggan seem all to optimistic. The departure of Duggan will mean nothing and as long as the engine that drives WSWA remains sprits they will continue to attack small wine producers with every weapon at their command. Duggan is not departing WSWA because of recent court decisions favoring small producers, but for bigger bucks somewhere else. Let’s face it, paper is a bigger industry than wine or spirits.
If you have any hope that the WSWA will see the light and become a friend of the small wine producer you only have to attend one of their conventions and your hopes will quickly be dashed. The fine wine people that live too long with the WSWA and the culture of large spirits distributors become Belloq, not Indiana Jones and we have little hope from them, after all, look who Belloq threw his cards in with.
The spectacular day combined with my anticipation for the excellent lunch soon to arrive and the charming live French music coming from the adjacent celebration inspired me to splurge a bit on the wine. Although, I confess this does not take much inspiration. I could not resist trying the 2003 La Font ď’Estévenas, Domaine Daniel and Denis Alary, Cairanne Côtes du Rhône. Although expensive for a Cairanne, I love the firm earthy intensity of a good Côtes du Rhône and as it was imported by Weygandt/Metzler it seemed especially promising.
I goofed. I should have followed a newly developing rule: When in doubt, stick with the medium priced wines on the list. Unfortunately these days, high prices usually mean you’ll get what I got: an over-extracted, over-oaked fruit bomb with high alcohol (14.5% in this case), that tasted awful with food and sedated my taste buds into hibernation. What a disappointment this heavy-handed effort was. It was so massive that even the delicious, rich roasted pork from a wood fire roasted whole pig prepared specially for the Bastille Day menu was overwhelmed.
For half the price I could have enjoyed a number of zesty southern French reds from lesser known regions that would have been a delight. I hope I have finally learned my lesson and remember that for less you often get more. Not more power, but more pleasure. When it comes to dining I prefer pleasure over power.
The restaurant was stunningly elegant - they must have spent millions. Everything in its place and everyone
It was a beautiful warm West Coast day, 85 degrees with no humidity, so the broad glass doors that formed the perimeter of the dining room were thrown open to let the evening’s cool breezes slip gently through the room. It was that sublime type of warm that oozes comfort. After stretching the limits of my wife’s patience, I finally made a choice from the comprehensive wine list. With distinguished fanfare the bottle arrived at the table, the cork was removed and sniffed. A small splash was poured into my gigantic Riedel and I took a sniff and a sip. Although it was not corked, it was not right. There is just something not enjoyable about a 14% alcohol wine served at the temperature of bath water.
Tepid red wine is not pleasurable to drink.
Why is it that restaurants that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on custom display wine racks and hyper-expensive glassware can’t bother to serve their wines at the proper temperature? There are the bottles on dramatic wall racks or lined behind the bar, only to spend the night with the A/C turned off or warming up to the open-air temperature of a warm summer day. Red wines should be served at 68 degrees not 78 degrees.
America is the country where we serve our white wines too cold and our red wines too warm. That old saw about serving red wines at room temperature was conceived by some old British Lord sitting in a damp old castle, not some gleaming restaurant in LA or Manhattan.
Restaurants have made great strides in wine service. Wine lists have improved dramatically and great glassware is the norm, not the exception, in almost any good restaurant. Now they need to take those few last steps. I am tired of having to ask for an ice bucket for my red wine, which I have to do in almost every restaurant I visit from June to September. With the price most restaurants painfully extract from the consumer, the very least they could do is serve the wine at an enjoyable temperature.
Bad Vintage = Great Wine. Not the equation you usually think of, but it is often a reality. Well, it’s a reality in the hands of a great winemaker. What the best winemakers do when that bad year hits is do everything thing they can do in the vineyard, then brutally select out the best wines in the cellar and then declassify them to a humbler place name or label. The result is wines from great vineyards that usually sell at stratospheric prices are released at a fraction of the price. While they may indeed be a fraction of the wine these vineyards can produce in a good vintage, they still can offer exceptional value and let the consumer come in contact with some of the elements that can make such wines unforgettable at their best.
One such wine is the 2002 Giuseppe Quintarelli Primofiore. Quintarelli’s Primofiore is always a delight,
but when vintages like 2002 curse the Veneto, wines that would normally be destined for his rightfully exalted Amarone end up in Primofiore and the results are stunning. Primofiore is a first pressing and includes all of the varietals Quintarelli grows including: Corvina Veronese, Corvinone, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc, which are partially dried before fermentation, then a touch of lees from the fresh Amarone (or in the case of 2002, probably Rosso del Bepi) adds depth, structure and body. While Primofiore is only a faint shadow of the incomparable Quintarelli Amarone, it is a very lovely shadow indeed. The finish of this wine is a haunting reminder of the layered greatness of the Amarone - just at a much lower volume. However, with Quintarelli’s Amarone approaching $300 a bottle, if you are lucky enough to find some, Primofiore will only set you back $40.