Cheating On Your Wife

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bigamy-wineI had lied to my wife. Every guy in the room had. This was not the kind of thing you could safely share with a spouse. We gathered in the room with an exaggerated good-old-boy bachelor party kind of conviviality. The level of anticipation was high, perhaps too high. It was still afternoon and it felt a bit strange to be doing this in the light of day.

Everyone finally arrived and one-by-one we passed our wad of cash to the host with a sense of excitement and a tinge of guilt for the pleasures to come. After all, wasn't this money supposed to be going into the college fund or buying that new dresser? This was more money than I could easily afford on my rookie reporter's salary at the newspaper and I could only hope my wife would never find out. Our host took the cash and disappeared into another room.  A second later, radiating sensuality, they swept into the room and were even more beautiful than we had hoped for in our dreams the night before. There were eight of them, one more exotic than the next. Each was wrapped in a skin tight sheath of aluminum foil just begging to be torn off and marked with a letter so each of us could choose their favorite. An electric energy coursed through me as I unpacked the toys I had brought for the festivities: eight glasses and a notebook. Once again I thought of my wife and how ticked off she we going to be if she found out I had spent our hard earned money on, of all things, wine.

This group of liars was cheating on their wives with our mistress - wine. She was stealing our money and time with our spouses, but we could not resist her charms. We had long passed the flirting stage and this was to be our most amorous liaison yet as we were going to taste Grand Cru Burgundy. None of us had ever spent that much money on wine before. We were at the stage where we had learned more about wine from books than with our tongues and were easily influenced by reputation and label. More than once I had convinced myself to like a wine because someone famous said I should. With this innocence and ignorance we began tasting the eight bottles of Burgundy that our host had tightly wrapped in gleaming aluminum foil as we were doing a “blind” tasting. However, this was not really “blind” as we knew that each wine was an expensive and famous Burgundy. We were prepared to be seduced. Each of the tasters had eight glasses and the table was a crowed forest of stemware. After each of the wines had been poured silence settled on the once boisterous group. Each of us focused our entire concentration each wine as we sipped, swirled, spat and furiously took notes. For the next hour the only sound was the occasional moan or sigh when our mistress hit just the right spot.

I can still remember some of my notes now, which went something like this:

A. Light color, weedy earthy aromas...

B. Light color, earthy, dried leather and cheese...

C. Light color, vegital, smoked bacon. plastic...

So it went for the next hour. When everyone finished it was time to compare notes and come up with a group rationalization for why these wines were not the other-worldly experience we had anticipated. They were strange and not very satisfying. We soon came to the conclusion that problem could not be these famous wines, but that it must be us. Our palates were not well honed enough to understand the complexities of these great and famous wines. Those odd aromas and flavors must be that magical ingredient terroir that the French use to describe the unique personalities of each vineyard that make each single-vineyard wine distinct. Those leather, cheese and bacon smells had to be terroir. Now it was our duty to keep learning and tasting until we could come to understand and appreciate them.

As I look back on this event over thirty years ago, I have learned to understand and appreciate the true glories of Burgundy, none of which could be described as weedy, cheesy or sweaty. I have also learned that those wines that made me feel inadequate in that tasting three decades ago would have better been poured down the drain. Those wines were faulted - full of brett and VA. We were just too young and too intimated by the names and prices of those wines to know the difference. Fortunately I soon learned the difference between terroir and wine faults. Wine faults are a major concern of mine as time and time again I run into wines that are loaded with faults that go undetected in many large tastings. All to often I lift a glass to my nose from an almost empty bottle to find it severely faulted with TCA (corkiness), brett or a range of other faults. At the recent Wine Bloggers Conference there was a lot of debate about ethics, but none about knowledge and tasting technique. If wine bloggers want to be taken seriously, it's far more important that they can spot brett and other faults than if they take samples from producers for free or not.

These memories were jogged by a bottle of 2004 Thomas Dundee Hills Pinot Noir that I pulled from my cellar to share with my good friend, winemaker Donald Patz. Always looking to bring something that he probably hasn't tasted (no easy task) I grabbed a bottle of this hard to get Oregon cult wine. Upon pulling the cork we were treated to a perfect example of brett. Needless to say, it was a great disappointment and we left the bottle, still mostly full, on the table when we left the restaurant. Thirty years ago we may have forced ourselves to accept such wines, but today there are no excuses. Winemakers have the finest laboratories available to them and far more knowledge than the winemakers of the past. Brett needs to be recognized and recognized for what it is - a fault that obliterates varietal character and terroir - which are the two most important things for me in a wine.

Not long after that tasting of three decades ago I entered the wine business. We were importing the Italian wines of Neil Empson and doing tasting event after tasting event. Neil and I would open hundreds of bottles over several days. Every time Neil found a corky bottle, which was often in those days, he'd shove the wine and the cork under my nose. Soon I got it and ever since have been hyper-aware of that musty TCA smell. We should all do what Neil did and every time we find a faulted bottle we need to shove it under someone’s nose. While winemakers have no business making faulted wines, we (especially wine writers) have no business missing those faults.

Trading Down at Joe’s

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Trader Joe's Paper Bag Sign I gave it my best shot. For the last several weeks I’ve been working through the wines at Trader Joe’s hoping upon hope to find a deal. Yet wine after wine was hopelessly thin, bland industrial plonk or out-and-out faulted. Didn’t anybody ever teach whoever is tasting these wines what brett is all about? Trader Joe’s offers few deals on wine. A “deal” should mean good wine at a low price not crappy wine at a low price. In fact, the $5 wines at Trader Joe’s are overpriced. Without a doubt the best way to find a real wine bargain is to establish a relationship with a local wine merchant that cares about wine and you. That means finding a specialist – someone whose livelihood depends on wine. In other words good luck finding a real deal at Trader Joe’s. You’ll find a lot of cheap wine, some with well known names, but few good values.

castoro logo Yet among all the industrial and/or faulted plonk at Trader Joe’s I discovered a gem. As a lover of Côtes du Rhône, Dolcetto and Barbera as everyday wines I have searched and searched for American equivalents, but with few successes. What’s doubly amazing is that I found such a good wine in a temple of wine mediocrity (or worse) like Trader Joe’s. The 2005 Castoro Cellars Reserve Syrah, Paso Robles is one of the best deals in American wine I’ve ever tasted. Juicy, fresh and just plain delicious with clear varietal personality and all for well under $15 (actual price hidden to protect the innocent). I’m headed back tomorrow to grab a couple of cases because a better everyday American wine I’ve yet to taste. Not a great wine, but a damn good one to have with a burger on Tuesday night or a Friday night pizza, which, as we usually forget in the the United States, is what wine is all about. A good glass of wine elevates a simple meal and our spirits. That’s why they made Bacchus a god. The Castoro Syrah is a very good glass of wine and a great value. Castoro Cellars is to be admired for producing wines that should be easy to make in California, but that most producers seem incapable of achieving.

Trader Joe’s has a few great deals, like the Castoro Cellars Syrah, but the vast majority of their wines are bad deals. To be a bargain, a wine should have to taste good. At Joe’s you’re trading price for quality, which is not a fair trade.

Bocksbeutal Screwed?

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Bocksbeutel_bottle A screwcap on a Bocksbeutal? The prophylactic properties of the screwcap take on a whole new meaning in this case as the wine is never impregnated by a uncovered cork. It may in a funny bottle with a funny top (complete with double entendre), but the 2005 Randersackerer Marsberg, Riesling Spatlese Trocken, Spielberg Gutsabfullung Franken, Wiengut Schmitt’s Kinder is a wonderful wine. Besides being a current contestant for long wine name of the year, its linear focus, punchy minerality and long laser-like finish reminded me why riesling is my favorite white variety. The emergence of excellent dry (trocken) wines like this from regions of Germany that were (rightfully) ignored years ago offers a delightful replacement for the now sweet and overly alcoholic wines of Alsace. While those Alsatian wines are wonderful with cheeses, dry German rieslings like this are much better with dinner.

Another stand out dry riesling comes from Austria, the 2006 Offenberg Spitz Riesling Smaragd, Wachau Wiengut Johann Donabaum, which sharpens your palate like a honing steel. Gloriously fragrant and spiced with a hard edge of acidity that focuses everything into a long, lingering whole.  It’s hard to imagine two more pleasurable wines to have with dinner.

Getting back to the Bocksbeutal, it’s great to see more and more producers practicing safe bottling.

Wine Bar Food

tony-and-cathy-mantuano Wine and food. Seems to go together doesn’t it? So what’s up with wine bar food. All to often the food at wine bars is selected for ease of preparation rather than if it goes with wine or not.

Perhaps nothing better represents this dearth of good wine and food matches at wine bars than the ubiquitous cheese plate. The cheese and wine thing is one of those urban legends as most dry red wines don’t taste very good with most cheeses. Brie, goat cheeses and the like with a big Cab is a waste of good cheese and good Cab. White wines and sweet wines are another matter, but matching cheese with dry reds can be tough on the wine.

Those that have had the pleasure of an aperitivo at a bar in Milan or a tapas bar in Madrid know there’s a lot more to wine bar food than a cheese plate.  In Europe the bars are laden with tasty tidbits that actually taste great with wine.

While it’s too late for Christmas presents, there’s one gift every wine bar owner in the country should give themselves. Wine Bar Food by Cathy and Tony Mantuano offers a wine lover’s dream of small plates to interplay with the the most creative of wine lists. Better yet, forget that cheese plate you were getting ready to put out at your next wine tasting at home and be kind to your wines by preparing some of the wine perfect dishes the Mantuanos have assembled in this must have cookbook for any wine lover.

While Chef Tony Mantuano is famed for the complicated and elegant fare at Spiaggia, the Obamas preferred Chicago restaurant, there’s not a bit of that here in this collection of very approachable recipes. Cathy, well known as the innovative wine director of some of Chicago’s best wine oriented restaurants, has teamed with her husband to bring us the best of Mediterranean wine bar food.

Wine bar food should be simple, varied and delicious, just like this book.  

The Wine Sheriff Needs Your Support

henry bishop Henry Bishop, AKA The Wine Sheriff, is a well-known name not only in the Chicago wine trade community, where he was the long-time sommelier at the distinguished restaurant Spiaggia, but to Italian winemakers and growers of Italian varieties throughout the rest of the world.

Henry was interested in authentic, natural wines before anybody ever thought of such things. He also sought out fine wines, for his Italian focused list at Spiaggia, not only from Italy, but throughout the United States finding compelling wines from passionate growers in unlikely places.

Today, Henry has a true battle on his hands as he fights throat cancer. Like so many others that dedicate their lives to the restaurant industry, Henry’s insurance is not all it could be and, obviously, he is unable to work in the service industry while he fights this fight. As we enjoy our good fortune this New Year’s Day it’s also a great opportunity to feel better by helping someone out who has done so much for the beverage we love and those who make and enjoy it. Donations to help Henry in his fight can be made by clicking on this link.

Protecting Prosecco

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Italian Makers of Prosecco Seek Recognition - NYTimes.com

It's hard to believe that a simple, charming wine like Prosecco needs protection, but it's true. Once normally dependable, the surge of popularity for bubbly Prosecco has prompted the invasion of an ocean of sparkling wines under that name that hold little charm - Proseccos main reason for existence. Recently I bought a bottle for $5.99 at Trader Joe's and was reminded of the truth that you can't get something for nothing. As New Year's Eve approaches remember an extra couple of bucks a bottle will buy you a much better wine. Let's hope the growers of Valdobbiadene succeed in protecting their good name.

Sweet Alsace

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crab The Dungeness Crab season along the Oregon and Northern California coast is something I look forward to every year. They’re so succulent that dipping them in butter is redundant.

With this lusciousness in mind, I selected the 2004 Audrey et Christian Binner Pinot Gris for what I knew were going to be some great crabs. The crabs exceeded even my highest expectations and were perhaps the best I ever tasted (I think I say that every year), but the wine only reminded me why I buy so few Alsatian wines these days. The Binner was out-and-out sweet and was cloying with the crab. Cloying was not the flavor match I was going for – rich and concentrated yes, but cloying no. While the Binner would be outstanding with a cheese course, it was terrible with crab.

Alsatian wines used to be one of my go-to wines. They were always balanced with a firm, complex minerality No more, you’re more likely to find ripe apricot than firm mineral in the wines and the various varieties have started to lose their individuality and meld into one unctuous sameness.

The thing that bothers me most about the sweetening of Alsace is they don’t give you a hint on the label except for their ultra-rich dessert wines Vendage Tardive and Sélection de Grains Nobles.  But for everything else, if they’re going  to continue making wines like this (as they surely will considering the high points they get) they should start doing like the Germans do and tell us on the label how sweet they are.

The Binner is a wonderful wine and my remaining two bottles will be finding themselves bonding with some Munster instead of clashing with some crab. It would be a perfect wine if they only put a little more information on the label.

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Stellar Cellars

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chateau-petrus

I was a guest, which is by far the best way to attend tastings like this, although as this was a dinner, it might be better to call it a drinking. Be assured I didn’t spit once. It never crossed my mind. One thing drinking old wines confirms is they don’t make’em like they used to. For better or worse, they’re different – more delicate and less alcoholic. It was a great evening with outstanding food, wine and company. What else is great wine for? Many thanks to Dr. Mike Dragutsky for inviting me to join in. Below are the wines with some short comments.

1990 Cristal Brut, Magnum – A reminder of how great Cristal used to be. Toasty, creamy, long and very complex. Cristal today is a mere shadow of this wine.

1985 Kistler Chardonnay, Carneros – Rich and powerful, but a bit passed its prime.

1995 Puligny Montrachet, Enseigners, Verget, Magnum – Unfortunately showing quite a bit of oxidation already, but still quite exciting with a firm mineral backbone and great length. Drink up soon.

2005 Sea Smoke Pinot Noir, Ten, Santa Rita Hills – A powerhouse pinot with a lot of new oak.

1988 Bonnes Mares, Comte de Vogue – Not showing well at first, this bottle ended up by my place so I got to go back to it several times. By the end of the evening it opened into a graceful beauty with layers and layers of length and personality.

1997 Chateau Pichon Lalande, Pauillac, Magnum and 1997 Chateau Lynch Bages, Pauillac – I’ll comment on these two lovely, elegant and totally mature wines together as they dramatically illustrated how much better wines age in magnum. The Pichon Lalande was much fresher with brighter fruit and depth. These wines show how pretty wines can be from lighter years.

1989 Chateau Pichon Baron, Pauillac – Still velvety and rich with an expansive bouquet and a long seductive finish. Twenty years old is a great place for classic Bordeaux from excellent vintages.

1988 Chatau Guraud Larose, St. Julien – Silky, delicate and perfumed. Really lovely with an almost caressing texture. Drink up now while it’s so pretty.

1961 Chateau Bouscaut, Graves (Pessac-Leognan now) – Just a beautiful old wine that is still showing a touch of fruit freshness amid all the coffee, porcini and spice. With that nice touch of that earthy minerality that defines Graves. Long and graceful.

1988 Petrus, Pomerol – Wine of the night. An elegant, graceful wonder. Svelte and incredibly long and complex. A wonderful wine.

1979 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Pauillac – The definition of elegance. A perfectly proportioned wine. Subtly complex and endlessly interesting. As usual, a perfect Bordeaux.

1977 Taylor, Oporto – Will this wine ever mature? Still young, fruity, dark, sweet and powerful. Just plain great Port that will age forever.

Alice in Wonderland

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alicefeiring She’s a rabble rouser and contrarian who was tossed off the Robert Parker Forum. Sorry, I always get that wrong, I mean the Mark Squires Forum. Tried and convicted by Mr. Squires for the ultimate sin: asking questions - Alice Feiring is persona non grata at eRobertParker.com.

For those who have met Alice Feiring in person this image of her as someone who needs to be banned from Parker’s, crap, I mean Squire’s Forum is hard to reconcile with the reality of the woman herself.

Alice floats into a room like the dancer she is and like the wines she loves. Diminutive with an explosion of long, wavy red hair, she seduces all comers with an inviting mixture of confidence and shyness. Soon she charms her audience into actually listening to what she has to say, which is a lot. Alice’s delicate voice is one of the few beacons of light for wine producers dedicated to making wines of a place, or, as she calls them natural wines.

Wines that have a sense of place are an endangered species and Alice is out to prevent them from disappearing from the earth. Putting her natural shyness aside she has become a veritable Woman of La Mancha as she swings her sword at the corporate windmills of modern winemaking: cultured yeasts, new oak, over-ripe grapes and the long list of additives and manipulations available to today’s winemakers.

This Christmas there are few more important gifts that you could give your wine loving friends than Alice’s book, The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization. Alice’s voice may seem small compared to the bloated wines, points and writers at The Wine Spectator and The Wine Advocate, but her message is more meaningful and honest. With no other agenda than what she believes, Alice writes about wines made by the most passionate of winemakers for the most passionate of wine drinkers. While conformity of taste is the message of so many wine publications, Alice celebrates the diversity of the wine world.

Alice, like the wines she loves and the winemakers who make them, is not for everyone, but for those whose minds and palates are open to the experience she is the most important American wine writer I can think of as what she is fighting to preserve is so valuable.

It may be too late to save the world from Parkerization, but for those who care, through Alice’s looking glass they’ll discover a wonderland of wines.

Slow Learner

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dunce-cap I love the country wines of Italy, France and Spain. Unassuming, un-oaked, personality soaked bargains that make the most of simple meals. There are so many of these wines available for under $20 it is astounding – especially considering how weak the Dollar has been for the last few years.

It has been a national embarrassment for many, many years that American wine producers have been unable to produce anything of interest in the bargain basement. What could be our excuse on the climate blessed West Coast? There should be an ocean of great bargains. Instead all we can muster is a sea of cookie cutter, industrial wines with, at best, no personality or, at worst, an undrinkable gloppy-ness. Clean they are, but that’s it.

Being the slow learner that I am, I picked up a bottle of 2006 Petite Sirah from Vinum Cellars in Clarksburg.  I thought what the heck: Petite sirah? From Clarksburg? That could be good, a no-name variety from a no-name region. After all, why spoofulate up a Clarksburg petite sirah? Put me in the corner with a dunce cap. You’d think I’d learn. What did I get? A purple glop of something that barely resembled wine. Undrinkable and inexcusable – even at $12 a bottle.

As much as I hate to write about wines I don’t like and that it’s perhaps unfair to single out this wine when there are so many like it, it’s just such a waste to make purple glop from grapes that could give us good wine for everyday drinking.

The fact is that you rarely get decent American wine until you cross the $20 threshold. The choices under $20 seem to be purple grape marmalade glop and/or neutral corporate wine. By the by, often these types overlap.

So I have put myself in the corner with a dunce cap writing over and over again, “I will be good” and not buy American wines for everyday drinking. For some bizarre reason to get a decent inexpensive wine I have to find it from producers over 4,000 miles away.

Blowing Yet Another New Year’s Resolution

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fish in barrel I make the same New Year’s resolution year after year. That is to ignore The Wine Spectator Top 100 Wines of the Year. It’s too ridiculous to get worked up about. America is a country that lives on bad food so it’s a waste of energy to get upset about the absurdity that is their Top 100. What’s a little more bad taste.

Yet I always had this little fantasy of blind tasting The Wine Spectator editors on their Top 100. It would be all to easy as the results would be guaranteed to embarrass them. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

So every year I resolve to ignore this farce, but something always seems to remind me of its fundamental dishonesty. This year it was the Top 100 in the San Francisco Chronicle. The reason it’s so frustrating is that The Chronicle got is so right, while The Spectator gets it so wrong. The Chronicle has no absurd rankings or points, but only a list of their favorite wines of various varieties. In other words a logical and responsible point of view. Something in sharp contrast to the arbitrary Spectator rankings.

While we never may get the Spectator editors into the barrel so we can take pot shots at them, I guess it’s important to remember every year when The Wine Spectator’s Top 100 comes out that there is something fishy about it.

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Cheezy

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pizzacheezy As a unabashed lover of good pizza, I have often ranted about how hard it is to find a decent pizza in the United States. It’s much easier than it used to be, but it’s still tough. It’s odd that while pizza and Chinese restaurants may be the easiest to find, that it’s also harder to find good Chinese food and pizza than anything else.

What ruins most American pizzas is that we put much too much crap on the top. I guess that’s to be expected in a country where, as Bill Maher noted a few weeks ago, our favorite hamburger topping is another hamburger. We destroy pizza by putting two much cheese on it, which turns it into a mushy, stringy chewy glop. Oddly enough they usually put really bad cheese on pizza. It confuses me how adding more of something bad would make people think it was better.

We have the same problem with our wines, which we also bury under too much “cheese”. The cheese in this case is over-ripe, over-extracted and over-oaked. These things have the same impact on a wine that too much cheese has on a pizza. The once crisp crust is turned into mush.

I was reminded how bad most pizza is as, having moved this week, I was still without my pots and pans so I grabbed a carry-out pizza at Whole Foods. This was not a great pizza by any means, but it was a very good pizza and better than 99% of the pizza sold in this country. That the pizza at a grocery store is better than a pizzeria, whose specialty is pizza, is inexcusable. The crust was wonderfully crisp even though I took it home to eat. A bottle of wine I grabbed to go with it was also wonderfully crisp and unburdened by any “cheese”.  The Barbera Oltrepo Pavese from Cantine Pirovino is less than ten bucks and is mercifully non-vintaged, as more wines in this price range should be. It is young, fresh and bright with a wonderful bite of acidity that was just as crisp as the crust. I really enjoy simple, pretty wines such as this with simple, but delicious weekday fare. As with cheese, more is not always better.

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Southbound

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grapecrusherLast weekend I headed southbound down I-5, but it was no vacation. I was moving from the Willamette Valley to the Napa Valley. I was migrating from pinot noir to cabernet sauvignon. It was less than a ten hour drive, but it’s worlds apart.

Cabernet and pinot may both be wines, but they have little in common other than being red.  Cabernet’s backbone is tannin, while pinot’s is acidity - at least that’s what nature intended. The culture between the Willamette Valley and the Napa Valley is also a contrast. The hippie winemaking ashram of Oregon versus the corporate powerhouse of Napa. For me it is another step on a winemaking  journey: three vintages in Italy, three in Oregon and now on to Napa.

I’ve learned many things on this odyssey. First and foremost is that your palate is not a machine that can be calibrated, but something always in motion. Something that is influenced and defined by the wines you are drinking at the moment. After three years of drinking young nebbiolo, the the wines of Oregon seemed unstructured. After three years of Oregon pinot the wines of Napa seemed bombastic. Yet after a month of drinking them my palate has adjusted and opened so that I also appreciate their power and concentration. As in all art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  The fashion today is to rank wines with an exactitude that is absurd, but true connoisseurs understand that it’s the full rainbow of diversity that makes wine such a compelling beverage.

Wine is a beautiful, creative thing that brings not only happiness, but health and invites us to sit back and appreciate life and each other. Those that define it by points deny this cultural and aesthetic beauty. Those that rank wines don’t give up their aesthetic distance when they taste. I do.

So this is my first week as a full time resident of Napa, a place I’ve visited many, many times over almost three decades. It’s a new start in familiar surroundings.  I hope regular readers will forgive the sporadic posts over the last two weeks during my move and transition into my new job, but now I’m back to the the blogging grindstone. I’ll not be commenting on California cabernet for obvious reasons, but will be increasing my commentary on exciting wines of America’s Northwest as I separate myself from day-to-day relationships with wineries there. As always you’ll find extensive commentary on the wines of Europe, which I love.

IMG_0043 Now you’ll find my professional attentions focused on Cornerstone Cellars, which produces two cabernet sauvignon wines, a Napa Valley and a Howell Mountain, crafted by an extraordinary winemaker, Celia Masyczek. So my blogging focus will be on everything but Napa Cab.

I became a wine professional in 1980. Now as I approach my 30th year immersed in all things wine and food I can only count my blessings. Most of all I treasure the diversity of taste that I have been privileged to experience. That experience has taught me to dig deep to understand the character of wine and those who make it. With the same passion I took on nebbiolo and pinot noir I now focus on cabernet sauvignon.

Appreciating each wine and wine region for both what it is and what it isn’t is what wine appreciation is all about. I’m about to truly appreciate the wines of the Napa Valley.

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Tom Hyland's Reflections on Wine

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My old friend Tom Hyland is an accomplished wine writer, photographer and wine educator. He also is one of the most insightful writers on the wines of Italy and in particular the great wines of Piemonte. Unbeliveably he did not have a blog, but finanlly Tom has entered the blogosphere with his Reflections on Wine Blog. Having known Tom for more than two decades I can assure you it will be well worth reading. You'll find Tom's new blog at the link below.

Reflections on Wine

When I’m Sixty Four

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beatles_newsweek_cover_1964 In 1964 the Beatles released Meet the Beatles in the United States, the first Ford Mustang was produced,  Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater for President and the grapes for the 1964 Gran Reserva Rioja of Faustino I were harvested. They made 219,500 bottles and I drank one last night. I can’t help but be struck by history when I taste older wines.  By the way, I just turned nine a month before they picked these grapes, which means I’m becoming part of history too.

To experience these wines is to touch a piece of history as no one makes wines in the same way anymore. Too much science has entered both the winery and vineyard and that’s a good thing. The great thing about an old Rioja Grand Reserva is that they were only produced from the best vintages and from the best wines, which means that you won’t find the faults you often see in older wines from lesser years and pedigrees.  A wine like this lets you reach out to winemakers of the past and be touched by the way they thought.

The 64 Faustino Gran Reserva shows not a trace of cassis, raspberries, new oak or alcohol.  Part of that is its age, but I’m willing to bet it never showed any of those things. Years in barrels (old) and bottle before release assured there was no baby fat on this wine when it was deemed ready for sale. The winery did the maturing for you.

The most striking thing about such wines are the aromatics. It is almost (almost) anti-climatic to taste them. The other is the finish, which is long and haunting. They are wines that invite you to think. Think about not only the way they taste and smell, but about the people and times in which they were born.

There is no such thing as great young wine.  Very good, very enjoyable ones yes, but great ones no. Young wines only have the potential to be great. Drinking young wine all the time deadens the palate making it only sensitive to power and fruit. In today’s hedonistic market driven by immediate pleasures most of the greatest wines are consumed before they actually become great. It’s a terrible waste as today’s wines could be the best ever made and, in addition, never have there been so many wonderful wines designed to be drunk young. More often then not, these “lesser” wines are more pleasurable to drink in their youth than more distinguished and pricy bottles.

For every wine there is a season, connoisseurs should be able to pick the proper season to drink wines made to age. Now we give potentially great, age-worthy (age-necessary) wines points at birth and that defines them forever. It is more important how a Bordeaux or Barolo tastes at two than how it tastes at twelve. That is obviously half-ass backwards. There are wonderful wines for drinking young and grand wines that don’t achieve their regal stature for years.  Trying to make those wines ready to drink upon release denies their true potential. It is silly to think that a wine can become instantly profound. Like the people that make them, few wines become become complex as adolescents.

It would be depressing to think you achieved your intellectual peak at thirteen. Why do the same thing to the world’s finest wines.

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The Thin White Line

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pey martin riesling They said it couldn’t be done. Yet it is being done. California is emerging from the excesses of the previous decades (who isn’t) and presenting a leaner, meaner attitude in their wines. By lean and mean I mean acidity and a glorious lack of residual sugar. Perhaps Pilates is good for all types of fat.

Just today I had two crisp, mineraly and very dry white wines from California and they were as good examples of the genre as you’ll find anywhere.

Facing down a half dozen pristine oysters the 2006 Brander Sauvignon Blanc Natural from Santa Ynez was master of its domaine. It was clean and fresh as you could want, yet the Brander was not that simple cat pee punch produced in  New Zealand as on top of that zest was a lovely touch of honeydew melon and ripe pears. Brander Natural is a rare example of a new world sauvignon blanc that can actually challenge Sancerre or Pouilly Fume for both guts and glory.

More difficult to find, but well worth the search is the 2007 Pey- Marin, The Shell Mound, Riesling from chilly Marin County. Here’s a high strung dry riesling that is not a bad copy of Alsace, but an interesting wine in its own right. Like the Brander, on top of all the structure and bite is a deliciously ripe fruitiness that belongs only to California. At only 11.8% alcohol it hits some of those high notes you thought only German riesling could hit.

There used to be a line that could not be crossed in California without wines being branded as thin. Thankfully those days seem to be gone as producers like Pey Marin and Brander produce lean, mean fighting machines such as these.

WBC '08: It's a New Dawn..Good Morning People....*

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volunteers I happened to finish two things about the same time last week. The first Wine Bloggers Conference and a book, The Billionaire’s Vinegar. This was perhaps a coincidence as I did not find time to read a word at the conference. Drinking trumped reading in Santa Rosa that weekend, but I finished the book a few days later. It’s hard to think of a greater contrast between the event I attended and the events and people in the book.

The Wine Bloggers Conference was defined by an almost innocent enthusiasm and love for wine, while The Billionaire’s Vinegar represents The Dark Side of wine. You cannot be help but be stuck by the ugly greed, arrogance and ignorance of the wealthy posers chasing “great wine” in this book. It’s one of those plots were there is no protagonist, they’re all bad guys. I highly recommend this book as it’s a great story based around the excesses and greed of big time collectors who were sold faked old wines and were just too greedy and had such massive egos they couldn’t taste the obvious.

billionairevinegar One thing this book proves is that we are all too human in our abilities and no one can escape the trap of letting labels affect our perceptions. I’ll be the first to admit if someone told me I was getting a glass of 1787 Lafite purchased by Thomas Jefferson my esthetic distance would be right out the window. The trouble with the arrogant bastards in this book is that they thought that their palates were so great they could rise above human frailty. I can only guess they got stupid after they made their money, not before. The tacky glitz, excess and greed surrounding the elaborate tasting events described in the book cannot be overstated. What is perhaps most disconcerting is the attendance at these events of those that consider themselves wine “journalists” Certainly, attending such extravagant events gratis would not be acceptable under even the loosest code of journalistic ethics. It was clear to these writers that they would not be invited back if they offered even a hint of criticism in their reports. Rave reviews were the price of  next year’s admission and they were always invited back. It’s hard to be critical after enough foie gras and caviar.

The recent first ever Wine Bloggers Conference in America (there was one a few months before in Europe) painted a very different picture. The jaded arrogance that blinds so many established wine writers these days was replaced by the refreshing enthusiasm of the wine bloggers that descended on the Flamenco Hotel in Santa Rosa. Surrounded by the beauty and wonderful wines of Sonoma over 150 new media wine writers gathered to explore their emerging genre. The energy brought to my mind Gracie Slick and the Jefferson Airplane welcoming the dawn at Woodstock, “It’s a new dawn…” said Gracie before the band roared into that hippie political anthem, Volunteers.

winebloggersconference Every blogger that attended was there on their own dime as no one is make a living from wine blogging yet. Everyone was there because of their passion for wine. They are truly volunteers and the generous spirit of this group stuck out starkly to the outrageously expensive, competitive and ego driven wine world documented in The Billionaire’s Vinegar.

While there are many wonderful examples of wine bloggers making a difference I can’t help to pick out Deb Harkness, better known as Dr. Debs, who has created a blog called Good Wines Under $20.  For what I hope are obvious reasons I won’t describe what Deb’s blog is about. Deb’s day job is as a college professor, but by night she’s a consumer activist seeking out great wines at great prices for her readers. Yet what is even more impressive about her is her deep commitment to a personal standard of ethics. While most mainstream wine writers are mostly concerned about what others will think of them when it comes to ethics, Dr. Debs, and many bloggers like her are concerned what they think of themselves. Their ethics are in their hearts. They’re not in it for the money or glamour tastings, but out of a sincere love of food and wine. At the end of the day only self respect and personal pride can make ethics a reality. Deb and many bloggers like her are setting a new standard.

I’m well aware that I was one of the old guys at the Wine Bloggers Conference and most of my compatriots there were well under forty, but the energy and spirit there reminded me of an earlier time, before when some of them were born, when we thought we could change the world. The conference gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, that the pointy world of wine writing today can be brought down. Power to the bloggers.

It’s a new dawn for wine writing. Good morning people.

 

From an Acorn a Mighty Wine Grows

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acorn logo The wrong Acorn has been in the news lately. The tiny Sonoma winery called Acorn was news to me as I tasted the wines for the first time at the first (annual we hope) Wine Bloggers Conference held in Santa Rosa last weekend. Betsy and Bill Nachbaur’s Acorn Winery is very good news indeed.

In a California wine world dominated by squeaky clean, but personality-free wines, the wines of Acorn are packed with personality. Producing wines exclusively from their estate vineyard in the Russian River they once again challenge conventional wisdom on so called “warm” climate varieties. In the cool Russian River Valley, which is known for its pinot noir, the Acorn Vineyard is planted with syrah, zinfandel, sangiovese, petite sirah and other varieties that aren’t usually associated with pinot territory. It seems zinfandel and syrah like a little fog too.

Acorn is doing some things that seem cutting edge in the new world, but actually go back to the very first wines. They are co-fermenting field blends instead of picking and fermenting each variety separately. There is no doubt that varieties that are co-fermented together have different characteristics than a wine made from those same varieties made separately then blended. The chemistry that takes place during co-fermentation is just different.

For example, their 2005 Heritage Vines Zinfandel (1005 cases) is 78% zinfandel, 10% alicante bouschet, 10% petite syrah and the remaining 2% includes carignane, trousseau, sangiovese, petit bouschet, negrette, syrah, muscat noir, cinsault and grenache. All of these varieties were harvested and fermented together. The wine is rich, but with a firm backbone of tannin and acid and loaded with layers of flavors and aromas like coffee, chocolate, porcini and deep ripe blackberries. The 2005 Sangiovese (1022 cases) is easily one of the most interesting New World examples of this variety I’ve tasted. Produced from 98% sangiovese (7 different clones), 1 % canaiolo and 1% mammolo, which is a blend I wish more Tuscan wineries would use instead of overwhelming their sangiovese with the strong varietal character of cabernet sauvignon. This is a decidedly robust, California style wine, but like their Zinfandel it has the zesty backbone to carry the heft. It is interesting to note that while these wines come from an Acorn they are blessedly not over-oaked. They are also not overpriced running around $30 a bottle.

All of the Acorn wines have just the right touch of what I call a rustic character. While being very well made they have just a bit of wildness or sauvage, as the French call it. Rustic does not mean brett or other wine faults, but means that the character of the varieties and vineyard really show through in the wine and are not polished away leaving only artificially gleaming simple fruit flavors. With this edge of wildness, the wines of Acorn are not only delicious, but interesting, which is just the way I like them.

Acorn may be small, but they’re making some mighty fine wines.