Perfection in Pleasure

A more beautiful line-up of wines you’ll not see from one producer than the 2005 releases from Domaine des Terres Dorées. Each of Jean-Paul Brun’s current Beaujolais releases are nothing short of perfection in pleasure. These are among the prettiest wines you will ever look at, smell, taste or fondly remember.

It’s no surprise these gems are imported by Louis/Dressner, who comments on their web site about Brun’s wines, ” Brun’s view is that Beaujolais drinks best at a lower degree of alcohol and that there is no need to systematically add sugar to the must (chaptalize) to reach alcohol levels of 12 to 13 degrees. So he chaptalizes minimally or not at all — depending on the vintage and the cuvée. His Beaujolais is made to be pleasurable — light, fruity and delicious — not an artificially inflated wine that shines at tasting competitions. Only a minimal amount of S02 is used at bottling to keep the wine fresh and “headache-free”. Fermentation naturally produces a lot of CO2, which acts as protection against oxidation during aging; leaving some in the wine at bottling time also helps to keep it fresh. Filtration is also minimal so that the wine keeps its original fruit and aromas. Brun’s wines are not ‘blockbusters’ in the sense of ‘big.’ The emphasis is not on weight, but on fruit: Beaujolais as it once was and as it should be.”

I have never tasted a wine from Brun that was not delicious and in the excellent 2005 vintage he has reached new heights. While Brun’s Beaujolais à l’Ancienne seems readily available in many markets, his Cru wines are not. If you want them I’d quickly check out Chambers Street Wines as they seem to have most of the few bottles available.

The first thing that these wines have in common is that they are absolutely alive. Not just lively, which they are, but alive. While most wines lie dead in the bottle waiting to be consumed, Brun’s wine seem coiled like a spring in the bottle waiting for the experience of your palate to complete the winemaking process. Next is a brilliant, ruby purple color that seems to radiate out of your glass. Then there is their purity. There is just something about these wines that that communicates the purity of the process that brought them to your table. You’ll not taste cleaner wines.

Brun’s 2005 Beaujolais releases:

• Beaujolais à l’Ancienne - this has been my house wine of choice for several years now. Always perfectly balanced and mouthwatering, I can think of few wines that can bring alive such a broad range of foods. You’ll need to buy this by the case as you’ll find yourself grabbing for a bottle again and again. While always delicious, this wine has reached new heights in pure pleasure in 2005. While drinkable now, it will certainly keep for a few years.
• Fleurie - a high strung, delicate flower of a wine. Electric and racy with a graceful swirl of wildflowers and spice.
• Morgon - Richer and rounder, but no less alive. Deeply zesty black fruits open into minerals, spice and lilting wisps of cassis. Weightless power.
  
• Moulin-a-Vent - The biggest, most powerful delicate wine I’ve ever tasted. With some kind of sleight of hand, this wine teases the palate with a richness that refuses to be heavy handed. A brilliant wine with amazing complexity and a balance that should inspire all winemakers.

Jean-Paul Brun is nothing less than a great winemaker.

Fresh Fish; Stale Wines

Eating seafood in Seattle is always a pleasure, but for me a meal without an equally interesting wine is always missing that ultimate note of complexity and pleasure. Etta’s, part of Tom Douglas’ mini-Northwest food empire, is one of those great seafood experiences and, like all of his enterprises, is an excellent restaurant. On a recent visit there the food was outstanding, but the wine list was not.

For dinner I selected the following courses:

• Stellar Bay Oysters (stellar indeed, some of the best I’ve tasted)
• Kasu black cod, sweet and sour vegetables with ocean salad ( a wonderful mix of flavors and textures)
• Pan seared Alaskan Halibut, beluga lentils, baby golden beets, escarole, smoked ham hock and horseradish crème fraiche ( an excellent dish mixing the smoky ham with the rich lentils and a crispy piece of very fresh halibut)

To match this delicious menu I selected from the wine list the 2005 Cedergreen Cellars Sauvignon, Columbia Valley and here the meal hit a snag. Sure this is a nice wine, but it’s just not nice enough for such thoughtfully prepared foods. A very clean wine that’s certainly acceptable, but it’s nothing more than that. This is a wine more suited to a picnic than fine dining. The notes on the wine list presented this wine as light and fresh as it was unoaked, but as it approaches 14% alcohol, light is not the word you would use to describe this wine. Perhaps this time the fault was more the wine buyer than the winemaker.

Wine With Flying Fish

A happy coincidence brought me back to the excellent Flying Fish Restaurant  twice on my last trip to Seattle. The quality of the seafood here is simply outstanding as are the creative preparations. Fortunately they have a assembled a tremendous wine list so you can rest assured what’s in your glass will excite you as much as what’s on your plate.

When it comes to food and wine matching, I usually paint with a broad brush as I find as long as the wine and food are great and the harmony close enough that pleasure  is at hand. However, sometimes you get a match that is so perfect that the qualities of both the food and wine are amplified. The Flying Fish supplied such an experience last night when their seared sea scallops with shoestring sweet potatoes, crispy prosciutto and pineapple hollandaise met a bottle of 2001 Josmeyer Riesling. I have been a fan of Jean Meyer’s deft, food-friendly winemaking for years and this lovely bottle did not disappoint. This is a wine at its peak showing enticing petrol highlights over rich aromas of honeysuckle and ripe white peaches. Substantial, but extremely well balanced on the palate, this wine walks the line between depth, complexity and balance with elan. The rich scallops with the salty prosciutto integrated with the flavors of this wine in a way that still makes me salivate just writing about it.

The Flying Fish combines the best of what I love about a restaurant these days. It is casual, but offers a better wine selection and better food than most of its more stuffy brethren. This is a restaurant focused only on actual quality, not just the appearance of it. 

Electric

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

The First Three Glasses Were Fine

The restaurant had an excellent wine by the glass selection and it was with anticipation that I watched the bartender pour me a glass of a lovely Rhône rosé, the  2005 Au Petit Bonhuer, Les Pallières Rosé, out of a bottle over two thirds gone. I lifted the brilliant light salmon colored wine to my nose and deeply inhaled a noseful of dirty, moldy aromas - the wine was corked. Upon informing the bartender, she put the bottle (yes, the bottle) to her nose and made a funny face at me. After all, it had been good enough for the other three people for whom she had poured a glass. Fortunately she brought me another glass without comment and indeed this is a charming wine. Bright, racy and substantial, it was a great match with some very fresh, rare roast salmon.

Industry estimates  say that 5%+ (some say much higher) of all cork finished wines are spoiled by TCA infected corks and nowhere near that many bottles are returned to restaurants and wholesalers. That of course means that the vast majority of these faulted wines are consumed, with the drinker either not paying attention or thinking that producer makes crappy wine. Take a second to really smell a wine, which should smell of fresh clean fruit, not old moldy books.

Promises, Promises

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

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

Costco: Fine Wine Merchant :)

Linda, a Wine Camp Blog reader, recently sent me this email about “corky” wines and Costco:

“Hi Craig.  I read your interesting article about corky wine on the web and I hope you will give me some advice.  I recently purchased a bottle of Cavit Pinot Grigio at Costco which turned out to be corky.  When I returned it to Costco here in Georgia (I had my receipt), the manager said that he would let me do a “one-time courtesy return” and made a notation on my account.  Here in Georgia we can return a bad bottle but only in exchange for the same brand, and that rule is fine by me.  He said that they store the wines properly and that there was cork in the bottle and that was why it was corky, implying that I had not opened the bottle properly.  I have had over 30 years as a flight attendant working in first class and am quite accustomed to opening a bottle of wine as well as recognizing a musty, corky odor.   I am quit aggravated with his “one-time courtesy return” and would ask your advice on how to return a bottle should this happen again. ”

I see two mistakes here, first buying wine at Costco and secondly buying Cavit Pinot Grigio. Fortunately your bottle of Cavit was corked, meaning it actually had a flavor - as usually it’s tasteless.

The ignorant response of the manager is inexcusable and highlights why Costco is a bad place to buy wine. The manager clearly had no idea, interest nor training on a product in his store.  People buy wine at Costco as they think they are getting good buys when all they are getting is commercial plonk that has  bribed their way onto their shelves.

I often shop at Costo for toilet paper and such, but never buy wine there becaus they sell boring wines that are bad values at any price. A trip to any real fine wine retailer will get you many more wine bargains. You may not have heard of the brand, but the wines will taste better than anything you’ll get at Costco and not cost you a penny more.

Mashed Potatoes with Kale and Olive Oil

Mashed Potatoes with Kale and Olive Oil
For this recipe, be sure to wash the kale well (or spinach, or chard) - dirt and grit hides in the leaves. I don’t like floppy leafiness in my potatoes, so I chop the kale quite finely. If you stir the kale in too much it can lend a slight green cast to your potatoes, so i just barely stir it in right before serving. Also, on the potato front - feel free to use unpeeled potatoes if you like something a bit more rustic (and nutritious). I picked up some yellow-fleshed German Butterball potatoes at the market last week and they added the visual illusion that the mashed potatoes were packed with butter. Didn’t miss the real thing a bit. 3 pounds potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks sea salt 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 bunch kale, large stems stripped and discarded, leaves chopped 1/2+ cup warm milk or cream freshly ground black pepper 5 scallions, white and tender green parts, chopped 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan, for garnish (opt) fried shallots, for garnish (optional)Put the potatoes in a large pot and cover with water. Add a pinch of salt. Bring the water to a boil and continue boiling for 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, chopped kale, a big pinch of salt, and saute just until tender - about a minute. Set aside.Mash the potatoes with a potato masher or fork. Slowly stir in the milk a few big splashes at a time. You are after a thick, creamy texture, so if your potatoes are on the dry side keep adding milk until the texture is right. Season with salt and pepper.Dump the kale on top of the potatoes and give a quick stir. Transfer to a serving bowl, make a well in the center of the potatoes and pour the remaining olive oil. Sprinkle with the scallions, Parmesan cheese, and shallots.Serves 6.

Mashed Potatoes with Kale and Olive Oil Recipe - 101 Cookbooks

Very Nice

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

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

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

Sabbatical

Please excuse the short sabbatical. Writers sometimes need to take breaks to deal with real life. Starting next week, I’ll be back on a normal schedule. Thanks for your patience.

Bummed Out About Burgundy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big, Brawny and Delicous

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

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

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

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

Chenin

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

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

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

Well, we can always hope.

Belli Gemelli

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

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

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

Hot Pepper

Norm McKibben is Walla Walla. Obviously, you also have give credit to Leonetti, L’Ecole No. 41 and Woodward Canyon, whose great wines showed the possibilities of this region, but it was Norm that pushed it over the top. In 1991 he planted Pepper Bridge and in 1994 he purchased Seven Hills Vineyard making him the owner of two of the Northwest’s finest vineyards and the two vineyards that define Walla Walla. 

As well as Norm speaks, nothing can speak better than his wines at Pepper Bridge, which are nothing short of spectacular. The Pepper Bridge wines, merlot and cabernet sauvignon, are wines that make you stop and take notice that you are tasting wines on a different level. Sourced from both Pepper Bridge and Seven Hills vineyards, these wines prove the potential for greatness in wines from Walla Walla.These are world-class collectibles that should be cellared for years before pulling their corks. Those that wait will be rewarded with wines of incredible depth and complexity. Those that don’t will get the same thing, but on a lower plane of consciousness.

Tasting Walla Walla

An impressive group of Walla Walla's winemakers recently cruised through town and hosted a fairly definitive tasting of the wines of this exciting AVA. Over forty wineries showed a full range of their wines to some eight hundred wine enthusiasts and trade.

Such opportunities bring out the focused madman of my personality and, foolishly, I seriously attempted to attack the room by varietal. Saving the whites for last, which I always think is a good strategy in mass tastings, I first powered through the merlots, circling the room and skipping other wines so as to focus my attention on that variety. Completing the merlots, I headed back to confront the cabernets, which I followed by the blends.

Once again, I confirmed the truth about these mass tastings. That is, that the wineries in the second half of the alphabet, in general, make less interesting wines than those in the first half.

I'm a pro, obsessed with tasting, with three decades of tasting experience and I can't do it. The wines offered by tables in the last half of these tasting marathons just don't have a chance to show well. While a great promo for the AVA, this was certainly no place to judge the quality of the wines or make buying decisions. These mega-tastings should only be considered social events, with a good time for all the only goal, but getting anything but the most general impressions of a certain wine's quality is all that you can hope to discern. Recognize these events as the promotional cocktail parties they are and leave your tasting notes book at home.

Misinformation

“As with any well-mixed margarita. Madeira should be sweet, fruity. acidic, salty and bitter all at once.”

That’s just wrong, Sercial and Malmsey have has much to do with each other as Fino and Cream Sherry. This is just another example of the misinformation commonly published in the wine columns of our nation’s newspapers.  Why is it that major newspapers don’t bother to apply the same journalistic standards they apply to the rest of the newspaper to wine columns? As I travel throughout the USA I can’t help but be astounded by the amount of  wine misinformation that is allowed to pass as journalism in America’s newspapers.

The writer above also recently told readers that there were no wines labeled “pinot gris” produced in Alsace. That too is just wrong.

Editors may not know a thing about wine, but they are not experts in every topic covered by their newspapers and still they demand that someone who knows should check the facts. Of course, in the other areas of the newspaper, the editor can depend on, for example, the sports editor to know something about sports, but in the food section you can assume the editor knows little or nothing about wine. Can you imagine hiring a sports editor that knows nothing about baseball or a business editor that never heard of the New York Stock Exchange?

Outside a few shining examples, like the New York Times, few newspapers care much for the accuracy of their wine columns, seeing them only as vehicles to increase advertising.

So much for journalism.

Flying to the Moon on Gossamer Wings

The delicacy was astounding. How is it possible to be so delicate, so refined, yet so dramatic and hypnotizing. The first sip only teased,  a mere shadow of what was to come. With each following taste the complexity expanded like the Universe, while the body and power stayed within our solar system. It remained haunting and demanded your attention from first to last for, if you were not open to its charms, you surely would miss them. Such was the 2001 Domaine Dujac Morey Saint-Denis. A more perfect example of the delicately powerful refinement that is at the heart of pinot noir you will not find. Pinot noir at its finest intoxicates your emotions more than your brain. Yes, it intoxicates your brain too, but in this case it’s just bonus points, not the main attraction.

American Wine Blog Awards Finalist

I’m pleased and flattered to announce that I have been selected as a finalist in The American Wine Blog Awards, which were created and are hosted by Tom Wark of Fermentation. If you would like to vote for the award winners (hint, hint), please click on this link, which will take you to Fermentation to mark your ballots.

It is particularly rewarding to me to have been singled out for the “Best Wine Blog Writing” award as it is the pleasure that writing brings me that led me to create Wine Camp in the first place. So vote now and vote often and my sincere thanks to those who nominated me and to the finalist selection committee for finding my work worthy of this honor.