Always in Motion

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First it started out forward and surprisingly pleasant.

Then it seemed complex and perfect with the meal.

Then it closed down and got tannic.

At first it tasted modern, by the next day it was traditional. 

What makes the best wines interesting is they are always in motion - each sip is a different etude.

Few wines can range more in personality from sip to sip than Barolo and the excellent 2001 Paolo Manzoni Barolo Serralunga fully lives up to that reputation.  While this is a producer that gives more than a tip of the hat to the modern school, here is a  wine that proves you can’t always pigeon hole a wine based only on barrels. In fact, Mazoni uses 500 L. barrels instead of 225 L.  barriques and the results from these larger barrels are very promising both in the Langhe and in Montalcino as many producers in both areas have abandoned small barrels for larger sizes.

Winemaking is an evolutionary process and it is good to see that in the tough world of survival of the fittest that there seems to be a return to terroir movement in winemaking regions throughout the globe.  The barrique craze of the 90’s seems to have lost to the process of natural selection and less intrusive winemaking techniques  are once again becoming the dominate species.

The Eddie Haskell of Wines

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“That’s a lovely dress you’re wearing, Mrs. Cleaver.” 

Leave It To Beaver’s Eddie Haskell was always ready with a empty compliment designed to cover his real character - or lack thereof.  Drinking the 2003 Opus One would be a familiar experience for June Cleaver as this wine well reflects the superficial personality of Haskell.

The 03 Opus is always at the ready with a charming compliment for your palate. Round, sweet tannins here, sweet plush oak there - everywhere your palate looks it’s greeted with oozing charm. However, politeness is the only defining character of this wine.  Behind its charming veneer is emptiness. Just when you think you’ve found something interesting it fades away into the sweet, round velvet of bland consumer correctness.

This is probably not a problem for most Opus drinkers who seek nothing beyond that initial charming compliment as it passes their lips without causing an undo interruption of their conversation, causing not another thought until the check arrives.

At $125+ a bottle, polite is not enough.

 

Kissing the Frogs

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froginglass.jpg• 2005 Petrus: $3000 a bottle
• 2003 Château Margaux: $460.00 a bottle
• 2002 Domaine de la Romanee Conti, La Tache: $1300 a bottle
• 2003 Pegau Châteaunuef du Pape, Cuvée de Capo: $500 a bottle.

Let’s face it, when we think of French wine, we think expensive, elegant, sophisticated and chic. They are the wines you drink at Daniel in Manhattan while wearing the latest from Paris. Unfortunately for the French, only a small percentage of the wines they make fall into this elite category, and the vast majority of the wines they make are unknown and ignored by American consumers.

The world’s most famous and expensive wines are French. French wines are the only wines truly sought after by collectors. While pretenders like Screaming Eagle cause feeding frenzies with American collectors, it’s only the elite French producers that really whip both American and international collectors into a lather.

Certainly no one would argue anymore that the French have a monopoly on great wine. While bruised a bit by the worldwide explosion of interesting, well-made wines, the elite French wine juggernaut rolls on. Evidence of this is the massive coverage of the futures offering of the acclaimed 2005 Bordeaux vintage, which has been a focus of the wine media for months. In fact, a good vintage in Bordeaux still has such an impact that those vintages become great vintages for all regions in the mind of the consumer; even those wine regions with weather, vines and geography that have nothing to do with Bordeaux bask in the reflected glory of great Bordeaux vintages.

As great and historically important as the most famous French wines are, the most exciting thing about French wine is not the bottles for those with trust funds and Ferraris, but the fact that the French are making the best wine values in the world. They simply cannot be beat in the under-$20 a bottle range for making wines that still offer character, personality, and, most of all terroir — that unique sense of place that makes a wine distinct and exciting to drink.

I’ll repeat that: the best wine values in the market today are almost all French. It’s not the new world that offers wine bargains: Australian wines should actually be singular not plural, as they’re all the same jammy syrup with different labels. California wine is personality-free industrial wine produced from the same UC Davis oak-chip recipe; South American wines are thin, flavorless and produced from hopelessly over-cropped vineyards. Only their European neighbors Italy and Spain offer the French any real competition in this under-$20 category.

Ironically, as good as the French (with a lot of help from the British) were at marketing their wines over the past centuries, today they don’t seem able to sell their way out of a brown paper bag. They’ve been blasted out of the value end of the wine market by a bunch of New World wines with cute animals on their labels and snappy names that are easy to remember. This is not to say the French are blameless for this situation — all that junky wine with varietal labels from the Languedoc that flooded the market in the ‘90s convinced a lot of consumers to look elsewhere for everyday wines.

The French Appellation Contrôlée (controlled place-name) system of wine regulations established the structure that allowed French wines to dominate the market for so many years. These regulations established minimum standards for how a wine was grown and made before it could be sold with a particular name. These names were based on place above all else. The variety was important and precisely controlled. For example, a red Burgundy must be 100% pinot noir, and a Sancerre must be 100% sauvignon blanc. You won’t see those names on the label, but their regulation is far more stringent than varietal labeling as used in the New World. For example, a winemaker in California has to use only 75% pinot noir to use the name. While the best California producers would never do that to their pampered pinot noir, you can bet few under $20 are not blended with other, less noble, varietals.

While I love this commitment to place and individual personality in winemaking, the plethora of wine names this has created made a marketing nightmare for the French. Should they give up and change over to naming a wine for the grapes instead of the land? I hope they don’t, and considering the French attitude about all things French I think the names will stay the same. This means that consumers who want to drink good wine at good prices will have to do some homework.

There are so many wonderful French wines out there — the Loire Valley alone is so packed with wine best-buys that to try to keep track of only them can seem daunting. Muscadet shines as the best white wine value in the world right now. Sancerre/Pouilly Fume neighbors Quincy and Menetou-Salon produce stunning, racy sauvignon blancs. The cabernet franc wines from Chinon and Bourgueil are incredibly fragrant and seductive. The list of values from throughout France is endless, with stunning wines coming from Beaujolais, the Rhône, Provence, Lanquedoc-Roussillon and the southwest. Many of these wines come from grapes you have never heard of, but should have — like tannat, manseng, cot, picpoul and poulsard.

Such an extensive list of new words and places can be more intimidating than inspirational, and can make that giant stacking of Yellow Tail at the grocery store look tempting. However, as a few importers are willing do to the work required to not only find such wines and then to hand-sell them bottle-by-bottle, instead of memorizing The Oxford Companion to Wine, just learning the names of these brave few is enough to begin rescuing your palate from the industrial wine that has lulled it into a nap. A quick poll of the patients at WineTherapy.com came up with a list of key importers to search out for French wine bargains:

• Louis/Dressner
• Kermit Lynch
• Weygandt/Metzler
• Neal Rosenthal
• Robert Chadderdon
• Charles Neal
You’ll find their names on the back label, which means all you have to do is pick up that bottle with the strange name and turn it around to see if it’s something worth trying. That’s not too much work, is it?

 

Originally published in The Daily Gullet at eGullet.com

Woody

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chene.jpgEach month New Jersey fine wine retailer Doug Salthouse, of SmartBuy Wines, selects an assorted case of wine and sends it out to me here on the west coast. I do this because Doug has a great palate and sends me many interesting wines I might have missed. In my latest shipment came a note from Doug, “I’m trying to stay away from the woody, manipulated wines you rail against.”

I guess he’s right, I do rail against such wines, but it’s well to remember that wood is not the enemy here. Wines like Lafon, Chateau Latour, Sottimano, Spottswoode and many others see plenty of wood and, obviously, are none the worse for it. Without a doubt many great wines would not be great without the symbiotic relationship that oak has with certain wines.

Yet the reaction of individual wines with oak is so diverse that it needs to be approached with caution. Look at the chardonnay wines from Domaine des Comte Lafon in Burgundy where the wines spend almost two years in oak and are far less oaky in flavor than many new world chardonnay wines that spend half that time in oak. What is good for the goose is not always good for the gander.

It’s not oak itself that turns my palate, but its misuse. When oak is the dominate aroma in a wine I think they’ve gone too far. A barrels main mission in maturing a wine should be that of  creating an environment of controlled oxidation, not adding wood flavors, aromas and tannins. This would have to be one of the main arguments against adding wood chips and other methods that exist only to add wood flavors and aromas to the wine. However, if it is only these things we are after chips make a lot more sense than barrels.  I think that wines made  with wood chips and such would actually be better wines if they were only aged in stainless steel with the emphasis being on freshness and fruit rather that making some soulless imitation of barrel aged wines. All to often, oak characteristics are thought of as an essential aspect of what defines great wine. Wonderful wines from Muscadet, Beaujolais and Barolo prove this not to be the case.

One of the world’s most profound wines, Giacomo Giacosa’s Barolo Monfortino, spends seven years in barrels (obviously big ones) and is not a wine dominated by wood. What makes Monfortino great is the perfectly controlled, gentle oxidation that occurs during the years in these barrels. That process is the engine that drives the myriad of reactions and changes within the wine that bring it beyond mere greatness.

It’s only an accident that we use barrels to store wine. They were the best shipping and storage containers on hand in centuries past. This was a happy accident to be sure, because barrels have proved the perfect environment for the maturation of many wonderful wines. However, we should not assume that because they can raise tasting Lafon Montrachet to a spiritural experience that they can do the same thing for every chardonnay on the planet. Lafon’s Montrachet is great because it comes from Le Montrachet, not because it comes from a barrel.

Last night with some grilled rabbit I had the lovely 2004 Roagna Dolcetto d’Alba that Doug sent me in this month’s shipment. Not a hint of oak or any other type of wood  showed in this wine and none was needed. It’s perfect just like it is.

Thanks Doug. 

 

Free Truffles at Ducasse!!!!!!!

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ducassetruffles.jpgWant to have the full-blown truffle blow out experience dinner at Alain Ducasse’s restaurant? No problem, but the $320 per person (sans wine and tip) tab could be a bit steep. However, that’s not an issue as the Amateur Gourmet  found out. Ask and you shall receive seems to be reality. Faced with an invitation that was out of his budget the Amateur Gourmet decided to ask Alain Ducasse if he and a guest could come for free. Just as you might expect, Ducasse said yes and the results are recorded in a wonderful comic book style photo album recorded here:

http://www.amateurgourmet.com/the_amateur_gourmet/2006/11/chutzpah_truffl.html#more

Don’t miss it!!

Road Warrior: Vietti on Tour

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LucaCurrado_MarioCordero.jpgLuca looks tired. At times his eyes wander off and many a suppressed yawn tries to pass his lips. Yet, each time a new person steps before him to ask a question he has heard hundreds of times before he lights up and answers with enthusiasm and charm. He comes back to life for each individual because what he makes means something special to him and he wants them to know.

This Luca is none other than Luca Currado, renowned winemaker for the famed Azienda Agricola Vietti located in Castiglione Falletto in the heart of the Barolo region, Italy’s crown jewel of wine. The name of Vietti is one of this regions most important names as Luca’s father, Alfredo Currado (son-in-law of founder Mario Vietti) played an integral part of making Barolo what it is today as he was the first to bottle single vineyard wines and started the trend that made the white wine Arneis one of Piemonte’s most successful wines. Luca, along with brother-in-law Mario Cordero have taken their father’s success to even higher levels firmly establishing the Vietti label as one of the Langhe’s premier brands.

Luca looks tired for good reason. He has just finished an exhausting harvest and has immediately hit the road to promote his wines throughout the United States and then, after a day or two at home, he’s off to Moscow and St. Petersburg. This is just one of the three trips Luca makes to the USA every year. Yet, with this brutal schedule he is still able to treat every question from every consumer as important - no matter how many times he has heard it. Why is he doing this? The Vietti name is well established in all the world’s markets and they will easily sell the modest amount of wine they produce from their 70 acres of vines. Just watching Luca answers the question. He is on the road yet again because selling the wine is not enough. Luca wants people to understand what they are drinking and why it tastes the way it does. Luca pushes himself back on the road because he believes in their wines. The same passion he puts into growing the grapes and making the wines goes into selling the wines. He wants them to know why they like his wines.

Finally the “Barolo Wars” of the nineties are fading away as producers step back from the excesses of experimentation and emulation to combine the best knowledge of modern enology and viticulture with the distinctive methods and vineyards that made Barolo great to begin with.  The Vietti wines are some of the best examples of this modern, yet more thoughtful and sensitive style. You cannot categorize the Vietti wines as either “modernist” nor “traditionalist” as they combine the best parts of both schools and don’t approach the excesses of the extreme modernists. Luca’s father Alfredo would probably not be pleased to see the barriques in their winery and these are not his fathers wines, but what they do have in common is dedication to excellence - something they both have achieved.

The following wines were tasted on Luca’s recent visits to Liner and Elsen Wine Merchants and Alba Osteria, both in Portland Oregon.

  • Barbera d’Aba, Tre Vigne, 2004 - Brilliantly fresh and clean with deeply concentrated black raspberry fruit. Very lively and mouthwatering with a wonderfully zesty bittersweet finish. ($22)
  • Barbera d’Alba, Scaronne 2004 - If there is a more complex barbera out there than Scaronne I’d be hard pressed to name it. A big wine, but not simply chunky big like Spinetta. Dramatic and intense while still maintaining that punchy barbera verve. Densely colored and expansive from start to the never-ending finish. Wait a few years for this one to grow up. ($43)
  • Barbera d’Asti, La Crena, 2001 - Deep, earthy and brooding with almost a nebbiolo like firmness. A big (not heavy) wine that has no business with a pasta, but would be more at home with a big aged prime steak. Great complexity, with layers of earth and porcini over rich wild black cherry fruit.
  • Nebbiolo Perbacco, 2004 - Bargain hunters pay attention. Here is real nebbiolo character for under 20 bucks. Fresh, bright fruit flavors soon give way to classic leather and dried rose characteristics that can only belong to nebbiolo. Forward by nebbiolo standards and more than drinkable now, I’d still age this another year or so to really squeeze all the complexity you can out of it. A great starting place if you’re new to Barolo and an everyday treat for hard core Barolo nuts. ($20)
  • Barolo, Castiglione, 2000 - Brilliant , classic dark garnet color. Warm and floral on the nose with only sweet touches of tobacco and tar. Round and forward (by Barolo standards remember!) and already drinkable if matched with rich foods. One of the more focused wines you’ll taste from the warm 2000 vintage. The Castiglione selection is still only aged in the large traditional barrels, but exhibits some of the same rounded tannins many modern-style producers hope for. If you have not tasted a Barolo before this is an excellent introduction and a good buy. ($40)
  • Barolo, Rocche, 1998 - A classical beauty with a brilliant translucent garnet color and aromas that won’t let your nose leave the glass. Lean and mean and fantastic - perfectly combining the unique intertwined dance of bitterness, bite, grace, delicacy, power and sweetness that makes for great Barolo. I would wait a few more years as someday this will blow you away. ($90)
  • Barolo, Rocche, 1999 - If you have any chance to buy this wine do so because this is great Barolo. Take all the best parts of the 1998 and turn up the volume and you get this wonderful wine. Far more concentrated than the 98 it still retains the same balance and elegant structure. Nowhere near ready to drink, it’s still closed and brooding. Wait at least five more years and you’ll have a truly fine bottle of Barolo. ( $90)
  • Barolo 2003 new single vineyard releases: Rocche, Brunate, and Lazzarito (all $116) - One sip of these baby blockbusters sends your palate into sensory overload. Huge and round, as you would expect from the burning hot 2003 vintage, Vietti has still put together a group of wines that retain balance - albeit a very rich, powerful balance. It is important to note that while these wines see barriques, they only age in small barrels for six months and spend the majority of their time in traditional large Slovenian oak casks before bottling. Certainly not yet ready to drink unless you happen to be serving well-aged wild boar tonight, with moderate aging - say about 8 years or so - these should be some excellent wines.  In fact they’ll be just right for drinking while your still waiting for your 2001’s and 1999’s to grow up. The tannins in all of these wines are very substantial right now, but are really quite round, soft and integrated for Baroli this young.  As you would expect, the Rocche is the most graceful and fresh of this trio, showing good structure and the wonderful bright floral character that this vineyard always seems to show. The Brunate is a huge mouthful of Barolo that expands and overwhelms the palate with its depth and richness. As usual, in spite of its girth, the Brunate is charming with an almost forward appeal. The Lazzarito will almost take the enamel off your teeth with its biting, powerful tannins and deep bittersweet fruit laden with tobacco and tar. Incredibly intense and powerful, this is a wine you should not go near for years to come as it has plenty of aging to do. I’d say eight years is the minimum for this high-strung monster. If you want drama this is your wine. My vote out of these three would go to the Rocche, but it’s too early to make that call. Tasting them together is a great look at the different characteristics of these vineyards.


(pictured above Luca Currado and Mario Cordero)

Salade de haricots blance et saumon grillé

Salade de haricots blance et saumon grillé
(serves 6 as a side dish, 4 as a main)
400 g cooked white beans or 200 g dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight and then cooked 40 minutes or until tender but still a bit meaty.
800 g salmon steaks
1 small purple onion, chopped
2 handfuls of cress or heirloom spinach
For the dressing:a small handful of basil leaves
3-4 stalks of tender young tarragon
a very small handful of parsley leaves (they are not really out of the nursery stage on my terrace garden yet)
50 ml of your best olive oil
1 tiny clove of spring garlic
2 Tbs of lemon juice

Cook the salmon on the grill until opaque and cooked through, skin side down and lid on the grill. This will ensure that if anything sticks to the grill it's the inedible skin and not the delectable fish. While it is cooking, rinse the beans (if they come from a jar), clean and chop the spinach and mix them together with the onion. Remove the salmon from the grill if it is done. Very finely chop the herbs and then toss them over the bean mixture. Add the rest of the ingredients, first chopping the garlic as finely as you can. Toss the beans and onions mixture.By now the salmon will hopefully have cooled down enough to handle. Break it into just-slightly-larger-than-bite-sized pieces, taking care to remove any bones you may find. Toss the beans with the salmon and serve at room temperature. If you used dried beans, taste first for salt as it may need a pinch.

From: Too Many Chefs: Salade de haricots blancs et saumon grillé