91 Points: What a lousy score

I just noticed that the upcoming Wine Spectator has rated the 2003 Colgin Cariad Napa Valley 91 points and made it a highly recommended collectable. It sells for $225.

Also recommended at 91 points is the 2004 Jean-Louis Chave Côtes du Rhône. It sells for $20.

 Isn’t 91 points a lousy score for a $225 bottle of wine?

“There’s a sucker born every minute…and two to take ‘em.”

Stealing a Wine's Soul

I could not believe my eyes. I had to read it twice: “and to my palate even the best paired food gets in the way of a pure and unadulterated one-on-one experience with the wine”

It made me a bit sad. How had the wine experience become so sterile? The comment was made on The Robert Parker Forum by a frequent poster there. It should come as no surprise that such a anti-wine and food comment should come from a forum dominated by points. The world where a giving a wine 89 points instead of 90 can actually devastate its sales.

For millennium humans have chosen wine as the perfect compliment to a fine meal, as a healthy everyday beverage and as an agricultural product worthy of connoisseurship, collecting and study. Yet somehow, in just a few decades of wine appreciation in America we have reduced it to points and a beverage whose appreciation is only confused by food. 

Perhaps we should try to remember that like cooking, while there is art in wine it is not art in itself. Wine is the highest form of agriculture, not a pure art like music or painting. As an agricultural product, its highest appreciation and purpose is to be enjoyed at the table. Taking wine away from the dinner table to be considered only on its own or in competition with other wines rips the soul that Mother Nature has put there out of the wine. Of course, there is enjoyment in pure tastings; verticals, horizontals and every other permutation, but we should not confuse those real pleasures with wines real purpose.

I can’t help myself. Every bottle of wine I pick up makes me think of what to cook. Every trip to the market where I discover wonderful fresh ingredients takes my mind to my wine rack. At a restaurant I can’t help but select my meal and wine with equal attention. It is this harmony of wine and food that brings a wine’s character to its highest level. Everything on our table comes from the earth and wine is just one more color on nature’s delicious palette. 

The appropriate attire for wine appreciation should be white linen napkins, not white linen lab coats.

IPNC 06 #4: Wine and Food

There was a seemingly endless stretch of fine pinot noir wines to taste at this year’s International Pinot Noir Celebration held in McMinnville Oregon. Table after table of of wines produced by some of the most passionate pinot noir producers on the planet. I tasted and tasted - concentrated and concentrated - took detailed note after detailed note. It was a wonderful intellectual experience.

The next day it was off to the vineyards and our bus drew the lovely Lemelson Winery in the Yamhill Carlton district of the northern Willamette Valley of Oregon. There waiting for us with a staff busily at work creating our lunch was the outstanding Portland chef Cathy Whims whose restaurant Nostrana was selected as Portland’s best new restaurant in 2006. The menu was sumptuous starting with huge platters of Salumi salami (from the famous Batali family) followed by spaghetti with roasted eggplant sugo. The suitably dramatic main course was Bisteca alla Fiorentina followed  by a refreshing Cavaillon melon with a counterpoint of rich Montellet cheese from Northwest cheese producer Fromagerie Mejean.  Cathy’s menu was a delight and served as an amplifier for the fine wines chosen to marry with these lovingly prepared dishes.

The wines for this mouthwatering lunch were from the host Eric Lemelson and the guest winery from Burgundy, Domaine Christian Clerget. An extra bonus was our moderator Allen Meadows of Burghound.  The wines presented with our luncheon - excellent all and all highly recommended - were:

• 2004 Lemelson Vineyards Pinot Noir, Thea’s Selection
• 2002 Lemelson Vineyards Pinot Noir, Thea’s Selection
• 2004 Lemelson Vineyards Pinot Noir, Stermer Vineyards
• 2003 Domaine Christian Clerget, Chambolle Musigny
• 2003 Domaine Christian Clerget, Echezeaux Grand Cru

Feeling perhaps a bit whimsical from Cathy’s wonderful lunch, I could not help but ponder the fact that all five of these wines seemed far more alive than the wines tasted at the other formal tasting events. I concentrated on these wines too, took plenty of notes and discussed them ad nauseam with the other pinot noir nuts in attendance. However, you could not deny the clear fact that everything about these wines was brighter, more alive and more exciting than the wines tasted complimented only by other wines.

At both tastings there was plenty of focus and intellectual appreciation of the wines presented, but there can be no greater experience of a fine wine than with fine food. One without the other leaves gaps in the other. When I experience wines of this quality, produced by people with the passion of Eric Lemelson and Christian Clerget I want to taste their delights as the winemakers intended - as part of a dining experience.

(pictured above: “The Enterprise” at Lemelson during crush.) 

Burghound - The Burgundy Journal of Record

While the appointment of the talented and dedicated David Schildknecht to cover Burgundy for The Wine Advocate is a very, very positive step, anyone who is seriously following Burgundy long ago discovered that Allen Meadow’s Burghound is the only place to go for anyone collecting (or just drinking) Burgundy of all price points. If you have any lingering doubts you only need to tune in to the recent GrapeRadio podcast ” The Wines of Maison Louis Jadot with Allen Meadows” to be blown away not only by his knowledge, but by his loving respect of the region and its wines. I have been fortunate to hear Meadow’s speak several times now and followed his newsletter for some time and his knowledge of Burgundy is literally encyclopaedic.

I want to make this as clear as I can: anyone interested in buying Burgundy no matter what your level of expertise or the size of your collection should be a subscriber to Burghound.

Advocating The Wine Advocate

Robert Parker is to be congratulated for a group of bold moves that will certainly reenergize The Wine Advocate and propel it once again to the forefront of American wine criticism. The drag placed on that publication by Pierre Rovani and Daniel Thomases will be replaced by the energy, knowledge and authority of new writers Antonio Galloni (Italy), Dr. J. Miller (Pacific Northwest, Spain, Australia, and South America) and the expansion of David Schildknecht’s role beyond Germany and Austria to include Burgundy, Champagne, Alsace, the Loire Valley and the Languedoc-Roussillon. Parker himself will refocus his considerable talents on his strong points; Bordeaux, California and the Rhone.

Each of these new writers offer a strong personal perspective that does not necessarily mirror Parker’s own and their addition marks the transition of The Wine Advocate from a publication based on the cult of personality that developed around Parker himself to a full-fledged wine publication with a team of stars that will each draw their own readership. In particular, Galloni has quickly established his credentials as a critic of Italian wines and his coverage will return to The Wine Advocate many Italian wine consumers that had abandoned that publication years ago. The same goes for Burgundy where Schildknecht’s famed obsession with detail will give him the tools required to attack this most complex of wine regions.

It is well worth noting that this change from a publication dominated only by Parker himself to a true team effort makes The Wine Advocate a much more sellable brand. Before this The Wine Advocate brand was worth nothing without Parker himself, but now The Wine Advocate will have many readers that don’t even bother to read the sections that Parker pens himself as their interests and palates diverge from his, but match well with one of these new writers. There will be many new subscribers who sign up to follow either Galloni or Schildknecht on their own merits who have little interest in the wines that Parker himself covers.  We can certainly expect to see a major expansion of The Wine Advocate brand on all fronts and that soon it will become a much larger and more frequent publication than it is now. This is truly the beginning of a new era for The Wine Advocate.

Eight Glasses of Pinot Noir

In front of us are four glasses of pinot noir, which we are trying to rank. The wines are all excellent, but there are clear differences. The group arrives at a unanimous decision ranking wine #2 in first place.

The next day we are at it again and once more in front of us are four glasses of pinot noir. After more debate than the day before wine #4 is a unanimous choice as our favorite with number #2 a close second.

 These eight glasses of pinot noir were in fact not eight different pinot noir wines, but just four bottles of wine with the second tasting repeating the first after the wines had twenty-four hours of air.

To make matters even more confusing, not only was there not eight different wines, there were not four different wines. In reality there were only two wines. The glasses held the following wines:

1. 2003 Willakenzie Aliette Pinot Noir, Cork-Free (screw cap)
2. 2003 Willakenzie Aliette Pinot Noir (cork finish)
3. 2003 Willakenzie Pierre Léon Pinot Noir, Cork-Free (screw cap)
4. 2003 Willakenzie Pierre Léon Pinot Noir (cork finish)

What made these two wines four in our blind tasting was not the wine, but the closure. Oregon’s Willakenzie Estate bottled the exact same wines under two different closures in 2003 and in the process turned two wines into four because there are clear differences between the wines under cork and those with screw caps.  It is interesting to note that the clear winner of each of our tastings was cork finished.

On the first day, the screw cap finished wines were clearly brighter and fruiter, but the 2003 cork finished Aliette seemed more complex and aromatic. It was my theory that the differences between the wines would become less distinct after being exposed to oxygen overnight, but it was not the case. The cork finished 2003 Pierre Léon, which was closed and tannic the first day, positively sang the next - a really lovely wine. To prove the final judgment of  our group (winemakers all) the two cork finished bottles were empty, while a good third remained in both screw cap finished bottles, which by then had been unveiled.

Certainly there is not enough data here to say screw caps are inferior or superior to corks, but it does raise some interesting questions. One of the big debates with screw caps is how much oxygen needs to be in solution when the wine is bottled. The theory is you need to leave more oxygen in the wine than you do with corks as the screw cap is much less permeable to oxygen than cork. This issue would indeed change the way the wine tastes. Another variable is the tasters themselves. We are more accustomed to cork finished wines and our palates may just be tuned to that channel. However, one thing was very clear: the wines were different.

There was one other thing that was very clear - Willakenzie made some very fine pinot noir in the difficult 2003 vintage, they stand out for balance and restraint in a year that had few such wines and I would happily pull the cork (or unscrew) a bottle of these excellent wines at any time.

Roannaise

Now there was a wine I had not seen in an American wine shop before, for that matter any wine shop: Côte Roannaise. So I snapped it up and went home and looked it up. Located just northwest of Lyon, the Côte Roannaise is known more as a vacation spot for the French and wines produced from the gamay grape that are best consumed there, while in a vacation state of mind. I did not expect much from the wine. One sniff totally changed my mind.

The wine was 2004 Domaine du Fontenay, L’Authentique, Côte Roannaise. Out of my glass came gloriously refined, clean and floral gamay aromas that most Beaujolais can only dream of - most don’t even dream of it. This charming wine is light yet mouth-filling on the palate with a singing purity of fruit that makes even a simple meal a memorable experience. The exact opposite of most of today’s highly pointy wines, this is a wine based on finesse and grace and it only costs $12 a bottle. What a tremendous  bargain!

But what’s the deal here - great Côte Roannaise? A quick trip to the estate’s website solved the mystery. The wines of Domaine du Fontenay are made by an Englishman, Simon Hawkins, whose dedication to quality is very obvious in the wines he makes. Hawkins believes the tiny Côte Roannaise, with its granite soil, is the ultimate climate for gamay. He is producing wines from vineyards with extremely low yields using natural, minimalist treatments in both the cellar and vineyard. Hawkins actually uses a traditional vertical basket press, a rarity in the age of horizontal presses. The wines are un-fined, un-filtered, un-chaptalized and un-everything. This “un-ness” shows in the beautiful purity and expansive, yet delicate flavors and aromas of Hawkin’s wine.

Thank goodness for small importers like Triage Wines in Seattle, who imported this gem as I dont think the Côte Roannaise is on Diageo’s priority list.

The Wine Advocate Moves On

“It’s my job to be an opinionated bastard,” sneered Pierre-Antoine Rovani. It was the first time I had ever heard the now ex-Wine Advocate critic speak in person. The stunning contrast between Rovani and co-panelist Michael Broadbent could not have been more striking. The bearded, Hawaiian shirted Rovani seemed very coarse and vulgar with his attitude and “bastard” comments compared to the refined Broadbent with his coat and tie, dry humor and intelligent wit. The Wine Advocate did not come off well that day.

The behavior exhibited by Rovani that day has become a bit of a trademark lately for Wine Advocate staffers and the online nastiness exhibited towards anyone contesting the superiority of Parker et al brings out attack dog posts from Rovani and Parker’s Forum Host, Mark Squires. Recently even Parker himself directly called one consumer a “points whore and pimp” by name on his Forum. This type of behavior combined with the outright lack of respect for Rovani’s Burgundy coverage from both the trade and serious consumers and the unexplainable extreme tardiness of the now also ex-Wine Advocate Italian wine critic Daniel Thomases has seriously eroded the credibility of The Wine Advocate.  While Thomases did not lack respect like Rovani, the lateness of his reports made them essentially useless.

Hopefully the newly announced departures of Rovani and Thomases will get The Wine Advocate back on track. While you can debate his tastes, no one can argue Parker’s skill, discipline and integrity and, when he replaces these two critics, he needs to find someone consistent with the standards he sets for himself. Something that neither Thomases nor Rovani achieved during their time at The Wine Advocate.

The hard part for Parker in choosing new critics for Burgundy, Italy and the other areas covered by Rovani and Thomases will be finding someone that matches both his high personal standards and his power-loving palate. For example, Allen Meadows of Burghound has emerged as the leading voice on the wines of Burgundy, but his palate is certainly not in-tune with Parker when it comes to what defines great pinot noir. Then there is also the issue of personality as the refined, intelligent Meadows has gained respect based on his overwhelming knowledge and love of Burgundy and offers more of a Broadbent persona in dramatic contrast to the styles of Rovani and Squires.

In selecting Rovani a decade ago, it clearly seemed that Parker’s goal was to find someone who was an extension of himself and his palate. Considering how this has worked out for his publication, perhaps Parker will now seek someone with a more independent voice and a true expert in the regions covered.  Robert Parker does not need attack dogs to guard him from criticism as his reputation is secure. Hopefully he will select replacements based on the sharpness of their palates - not the sharpness of their tongues. We can only hope that Parker’s appointment of the erudite David Schildknecht to report on Germany and Austria will be the standard used for future additions to The Wine Advocate team.

(pictured above: The Avatar chosen by Pierre Rovani to represent himself on The Robert Parker Forum) 

Snake Oil

In front of me are three glasses each containing 1999 Barolo Villero, Giuseppe e Figlio Mascarello, which is a hell of a wine. However, each glass is very different, yet they have all just been poured from the same bottle. There can only be one reason for the clear differences and that is the glasses themselves. The glasses are:

1. Riedel Vinum Burgundy
2. Stölzle Burgundy
3. Eisch “Breathable Glass” Burgundy

What’s that? Breathable glass? I thought it sounded a bit like a snake oil salesman or the huckster at the county fair. In their brochure, Eisch claims that four minutes in their “breathable” glasses opens a wine up like an hour or two in a decanter. What do they take me for, a fool?

But, believe it or not - it actually seems to work.

The Barolo in the Riedel glass was focused and precise. Clean and tight just like you would expect. In the  Stölzle the wine seemed less precise and the bouquet more defuse. In the Eisch after just a few minutes this lovely Barolo was clearly more floral and softer on the palate. No, I can’t explain how this happens even after reading their literature, but you can’t argue with the glasses in front of your nose.

The end result of this is that I have purchased a set of Eisch Burgundy and Bordeaux glasses because the reality of the situation is on a day-to-day basis I (like everybody else) drinks wines that are too young. As always, nothing can replace slowly letting a wine develop with time, but when you pull a cork on a wine that is too young these Eisch glasses are a crystal clear alternative. 

Memories of Alsace

Recently I tasted a bottle of the best Alsatian Gewürztraminer I’ve had in a very, very long time. The only problem is that it was neither Alsatian nor gewürztraminer, but it reminded me in every way of the steely, yet flowery and perfumed racy lush balance that seemed to define gewürztraminer from Alsace. Sadly, as I have often written before, Alsace today all-to-often produces blowsy, over-ripe semi-dessert wines that deaden the palate instead of enlivening a meal.

The lovely wine that so reminded me of what used to be great about Alsatian gewürztraminer was the 2004 Nigel Gelber Muskateller, Kremstal from Austria. Racy, and steely with a refreshingly biting acidity supporting the floral, lychee nut and tropical fruit aromas and a graceful 11.5% alcohol, this is a wine that almost demands a second glass. Grab this for all those pan-Asian meals that used to call for gewürztraminer and you will be far happier. Also, at under $20 a bottle this is a real value and you’ll get a trip down an Alsatian memory lane in the bargain.

IPNC 06 #3: Pinot Envy No More

The rest of the world always envied Burgundy as the only home for great pinot noir, but times have changed. That’s not to say the wines of Burgundy are less distinctive or lower in quality, for they certainly are not. In fact, the pinot noir wines of Burgundy are better and more terroir driven than ever. What has changed is finally other regions are really delivering a broad range of excellent pinot noir wines that are not trying to mimic Burgundy, but are standing on their own. Those regions include California, Oregon, British Columbia and New Zealand. We can only dream about the wonderful future of pinot noir in these regions and its homeland of Burgundy.

Below is a wrap-up of some lovely wines I tasted at this year’s International Pinot Noir Celebration. This list is by no means all-inclusive as I missed the chance to taste many wines as we were too busy pouring our own wine selected for IPNC, the 2003 Anne Amie Vineyards Hawks View Vineyard.

Highly Recommended Pinot Noir from IPNC 06: 

• 2004 Quail’s Gate Winery Family Reserve, British Columbia, Canada - about as graceful, floral and delicate as pinot noir can get and still have substance and complexity. Absolute silk on the palate.
  
• 2004 Savigny les Beaune 1er Cru, Les Peuillets, Domaine D’Ardhuy - fantastic structure and concentration. Very tight, but a very multi-faceted wine that demands another five years in the bottle.
• 2004 Volnay 1er Cru, Clos de Chênes, Domaine Pascal Bouley - a wonderfully stylish and elegant wine with a punch that begs for another five years or more to grow up and out.
• 2003 Beaune 1er Cru, Vignes Franches, Domaine du Château de Chorey - even in such a hot year, the graceful and refined style of this Domaine shows through. This is one of the more enjoyable 2003 Burgundies you will find. Wait another three or four years before drinking.
• 2004 Gevrey Chambertin 1er Cru, Au Closeau, Domaine Drouhin-Laroze - a classic, firm and very closed Gevrey that demands eight to ten years before pulling the cork. A smoky, mineral-laden treasure.
  
• 2004 Volnay Robardelle, Domaine Huber-Verdereau - I’m a sucker for the smooth, delicate and lingering character of good Volnay and this wine totally seduced me. Drinkable now, but wait a few more years for a real beauty.
• 2004 Beaune 1er Cru, Les Toussaints, Domaine Lucien Jacob - Lovely, graceful, delicate and expansively floral. As always, it will be better in a few years, but it tastes so good today I’d probably drink it up.
• 2004 Te Muna Road Vineyard, Craggy Range, New Zealand - Brilliantly clean, bright fresh and juicy. Lights up the palate with zesty, but complex fruit. I’d drink it young.

• 2004 La Encatada Vineyard, Santa Rita Hills, Alma Rosa, CA
• 2004 Carneros Estate, Bouchaine Vineyards, CA
• 2003 Santa Cruz Mountains Estate, David Bruce Winery, CA - Big, but balanced Pinot. Not at all ready for drinking, I’d give it at least five or six more years. Richly smoky and earthy, with tarry, but ripe cherry fruit. As big as it is, it never goes over the top.
• 2004 Cuvée Lollapalooza, Fiddlestix Vineyard, Santa Rita Hills, Fiddlehead Cellars, CA - Consistently one of my favorite California pinots. Rich, but very balanced and firm with great depth and complexity. I’d age it, but Fiddlehead pinot always seems to drink well whenever you open it.
• 2004 La Cruz Vineyard, Keller Estate, Sonoma Coast, CA - Here’s a real find that I’d never tasted before. Sleek and balanced with a graceful style and just the right touch of California ripe fruit. Really pretty.
  
• 2004 Bethel Heights Vineyard, Casteel Reserve, OR - From one of my very favorite pinot noir producers anywhere, Bethel Heights always leans towards complexity and balance not power and this lean beauty is no exception. A gorgeous pinot that should be aged at lease five more years.
• 2004 Mt. Richmond Vineyard, Elk Cove Vineyards, OR - Wow is this a lovely pinot! Earthy with just the right touch of sweet fruit on a just firm enough frame. Very, very nice.
• 2004 Ponzi Reserve, OR - While a lot of new comers get more press attention, old-timer Ponzi Vineyards keeps plugging along making some very nice pinot. Their single vineyards and reserve are always the real thing and show a wonderful refined and balanced pinot noir character.
• 2004 Witness Tree Vineyards, Vintage Select, OR
  

Lirac, Château de Ségriès, Henri de Lanzac, 2004

I thought this was a wonderful wine and a bargain. The kind of wine you can drink in gulps with grilled sausages that still delivers something to spice the meal and interest the mind. Well balanced with bright fresh fruit that offers good complexity and a good backbone, this is exactly the kind of wine that serious wine aficionados buy by the case for everyday meals and barbecue parties. Very nice stuff at a very nice price.

Zweigelt, Hopler, Burgenland, 2002

A rich bright purple color leads to an expansive fruity and mouthwatering, delicious wine. Very bright, not big on complexity, but big on pleasure, this was a wonderful wine with a modern style Vietnamese beef lunch. Keep it a bit cool to bring out the charming fruit. While it certainly has more guts than a simple Beaujolais (which I love) it has a depth more in tune with pinot noir than gamay.

Sauvignon Blanc, Fiddlehead Cellars, Happy Canyon, Santa Ynez Valley, 2004

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.

Wine Blogging Wednesday #24 Roundup on Vinography

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

WBW #24 Loire Whites: Domaines Louis/Dressner

I was thrilled when Alder Yarrow of Vinography, this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday host, selected white Loire wines as the topic for WBW #24. After all, these are some of my very favorite wines. For example there are the stunning wines from producers like Domaine de la Pépière and Luneau-Papin in Muscadet or the Coteaux-du-Layon & Quarts-de-Chaume from Château Pierre-Bise and the Anjou from Mark Angéli of Domaine de la Sansonnière or the Savennières from Domaine du Closel and the Sancerre la Garenne from Fernand Girard.

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.

All the producers listed above make extraordinary wines, but they also have one other thing in common - they are all imported by Louis/Dressner. If you want to drink an exceptional white (or red or rosé for that matter) Loire wine you don’t have to remember any unfamiliar place names, you only have to look for the Louis/Dressner label on the bottle and you are guaranteed to find an outstanding wine that perfectly reflects the character of the place it was grown.

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.

IPNC 06 #2: Out of the Shadow

Bouchaine is a winery that seemed always to be around, but was never exciting. While one of the founders of Carneros as a top pinot noir region, Bouchaine always remained in the shadow of its neighbors Acacia and Saintsbury. While some good wines were made at Bouchaine, other wineries rode the Carneros wave to the top.

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. 

IPNC 06 #1: Crème de la Crème - Richard Sanford Rises Again

In a clear case of the cream rising to the top, pinot noir legend Richard Sanford has escaped the corporate world of winemaking, where the $ is more important than the pH, and released his first wines under his new label, Alma Rosa Winery and Vineyards. While it is sad he lost control of his namesake winery in the process, the good news is that once again he is producing some of America’s finest pinot noir wines.

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 World Through Rosé Colored Riedel

It my email box this morning there was a nice note from Amy Lillard, co-proprietor of the soon to be famous La Gramière Côtes du Rhône winery and author of one of my favorite blogs to read, The La Gramière Blog. The ever considerate Amy inquired into my well being due to the curmudgeonly nature of my last several posts. Amy was right and made me think about what had poisoned my keyboard as of late.

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!)

Requiem for a Wine Region

My first real experience with wine was in Strasbourg in 1974. Before that wine had only been Mateus or Lancer’s and there was that one night during my first week of college when Boone’s Farm left me driving the porcelain bus, but when I arrived in France there was something that made me want to try wine. Wine was not hard to find in Strasbourg and the pitchers of Edelzwicker I gulped in the WienStube of Alsace started me down the wine road that I still follow over thirty years later.

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.