Three Beauties

It was a blind tasting and I guessed a mix of Napa and Washington cabernets. Wrong I was. They were all Washington wines and there were three beauties that are not to be missed, but I recommend waiting at least 3 or 4 years before you pull their corks.  Below are the unanimous top wines of the evening:

• 2003 L’Ecole No. 41, Apogee, Pepper Bridge Vineyard, Walla Walla Vineyard (47% cabernet sauvignon, 45% merlot, 5% malbec, 3% cabernet franc) Frankly I love this wine. There is a incredible combination of elegance and power trapped in this bottle that would seem to defy the laws of physics. A case of this wine is going into my cellar for sure. This is one of those wines that are difficult to drink because you can’t get your nose out of the glass. No brooding monster here, but a silky beauty that will only get better and better, but is pretty damn good right now. (My wine of the night)
  
• 2003 Carriage House, Côte Bonneville, DuBrul Vineyard (cabernet sauvignon 77%, cabernet franc 13%, merlot 10%)  This just blew the other wines it its flight away and it was a very good flight of wines. The balance of this wine is almost perfect with aromatics and textures that are completely seductive. Perfectly structured for aging and anyone with the patience will be well rewarded. (everybody else’s wine of the night)
  
• 2003 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon - With all the hype you almost want to not like this wine, but alas it’s great. This is a big brooding wine that should not be drunk for at least five (if not more) years.  Even with all this intensity you can just feel the complexity lurking in the background waiting to explode. It’s too bad, but with the scores this wine got, you can believe that 90% (or more) of the bottles already have their corks pulled.  What a waste, because someday this will be a truly astounding wine.
  

Burn Baby Burn

The finish just would not end. The length of the finish is one of the defining characteristics of a great wine and this one had a doozy. It started out great with an earthy, deeply fruity nose and concentrated flavors that flowed into a finish of epic proportions. The only problem is that this wine had a finish more appropriate to Bourbon than wine.

The 2003 Jade Mountain Napa Valley Syrah has much to commend it up front, but as soon as you swallow, Dante’s Inferno overtakes whatever there was to like about this wine. The big fruit is soon sucked down and overwhelmed by an intense alcohol burn that would be more appropriate at a cigar bar than the dinner table.

I had this wine with a giant steak at Morton’s and it was too big even for that much fat. If it can’t match that, it can’t match anything. Yes it had a finish that wouldn’t stop, but the problem was that I wanted it to. In fact, the Cognac we had after dinner had less burn that this Molotov Cocktail of a wine.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's A Boy!!!

It’s been a long hard road with more bumps than rest stops. I’ve tried and tried to love the Rhone Rangers, but few have delivered interesting wines. The only really consistent one has been Steve Edmunds and those wines were born out of his unique sensitivity and search for terroir-driven wines that make you think instead of just drink.

Tonight I opened yet another “Rhone Blend” more out of duty than interest, but upon inserting my expecting to anesthetized nose into the glass, I found that elusive quality that Rhone wines often deliver but New World wines rarely do. That is the combination of power and balance and a richly intoxicating earthiness. “Boy” did I find one!

The 2004 “The Boy” from K Vintners in Walla Walla Washington is one of the very few blends of Rhone varieties that I’ve tasted that can take on fine Chateauneuf du Pape in depth and complexity. A blend of 50% grenache, 18% syrah and 14% mourvedre (very CdP-like) this is a wine that sings in a deep rich, warm baritone.

First you should focus on what this wine is not. It is not a dark purple, oaky cassis fruit-bomb nor a port-like monstrosity. What it is is a big, yet balanced and richly complex wine. Its deep scarlet hue is still translucent with just a touch of garnet  - more pinot than Rhone Ranger. The aromas are wonderfully spicy with a deep, warm earthy touch of wild mushrooms, steak tartare and truffles layered with a smoky sweetness.

While eastern Washington may be renowned for its cabernets and merlots, wines like this will soon make you think the Rhone should be the inspiration for Washington’s winemakers instead of Bordeaux.

What stands out most about most about this wine compared to its other west coast cousins from California and Washington is this wine never got boring - one glass demanded a second. After all, that is the difference between commercial plonk, over-extracted goo and real wine.

Sancerre Rouge, Domaine La Moussieŕe, Alphonse Mellot, 2005

What a graceful charmer and just plain lovely pinot noir. No, it won’t make you forget Burgundy, but it is so, so seductive to drink. Perfumed, silky, lively and enticing throughout. Drink over the next year or two.

Syrah, Nina Lee, Spring Valley Vineyard, Walla Walla, 2003

1. 15.6% Alcohol
2. $53
3. No thanks.

Syrah, Clifton Hill Vineyard, Bunnell, Wahluke Slope, 2004

Big, juicy, oaky, expensive.