23
Apr
2011
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Linkin’ logs: April 18-24

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Two of my favorite American wine writers have smart takes on some Big Doings across the pond this week.

First, Bloomberg’s Elin McCoy, ever the voice of straight shootin’, takes a look at the latest Vintage of the Century in Bordeaux (what are we up to, four now?). She finds that, as usual, consumers can’t just cast caution to the wind and buy 2010 Bordeaux willy-nilly.

Eric Asimov of the Times is all over what wine will be served at the Wedding of the Millennium next week, and it appears that Kate and Wills might go the provincial route, with bubbly from merry ol’ England. There have been positive reports in recent years about sparkling stuff from those parts, but none have passed my lips; it will be interesting to see how this plays out, especially if the royal couple opts for something from elsewhere.

(Time for a shameless insert: A certain Star Tribune feature writer penned a feature on the brouhaha over William not donning a wedding band.)

Elsewhere on the Interwebs, there’s a nice cutting-through-the-BS post at Good Grape on California’s penchant for wanting to be like France.)

Everybody in the Jewish community kvetches about Manischewitz, but no one seems to do anything about it. Here’s an amusing look at why.

And for those vexed by the quandary of how to preserve an opened bottle of wine overnight, this dispatch from Canada has some answers. I especially like the last one.

23
Apr
2011
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Wines of the Week: April 18-24

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Everyday: A couple of year ago, I asked importer extraordinaire Terry Theise how Donnhoff made such wonderful riesling year in and year out. “Three words,” he declared. “No … fucking … idea.” He later mentioned “selectivity, harvest time, yield control” as possible reasons that even a basic offering such as the H. Dönnhoff Nahe 2009 ($18) can taste so pristine and sublime. It’s a simple wine, and in this case that’s a compliment: clean and gorgeous, uber-refreshing and the very definition of focused. Hard to think of a food that wouldn’t work with this.

Occasion: Kudos to Allen Shoup for both the concept and execution: He hires great winemakers from any- and everywhere and turns them loose with some carefully selected grapes. One of the best results is a Bordeaux blend (with a jolt of syrah), Long Shadows “Pirouette” 2007 ($50). One of California’s foremost vintners, Philippe Melka, and Chilean wine pioneer Agustin Huneeus Sr. teamed up for this rich and robust, layered and complex, dark and spicy beauty. I cannot decide if it’s more rewarding on the mid-palate or the finish, but there’s no denying that this is one of the best steak (or lamb chop) wines around.

21
Apr
2011
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Radar love

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So I went to an Austrian wine tasting last night and a Palindrome Festival broke out. And it was not just the Kracher riesling and gruner, delcious as they were, talking.

I was sitting with restaurateur Kim Bartmann, who was grilling me about lesser-known varietals that she should pour by the glass at her new South Minneapolis eatery. “No sauvgnon blanc or malbec!” she declared.

So while we were yacking about arinto and St. Laurent, I asked her the name of the restaurant. “Pat’s Tap,” she said. “It’s a palindrome. I want to have cocktails with palindrome names, too.” (For the unitiated, a palndrome is a word or phrase that is spelled the same way backward and forward.)

We quickly decided that “boob” and “poop” probably wouldn’t work, then shared our personal favorits. Mine: “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.” Kim’s: “Go hang a salami. I’m a lasagna hog.”

During the course of our holding court, some other folks at the table had whipped out their iPhones and asked Mr. Google to find them some palindromes (the one at left is from mauifeed.com). They started coming hot and heavy:

*”Nurse, I spy gypsies. Run!”
*”As I pee, sir, I see Pisa.”
*”Lepers repel.”
*”Damnit, I’m mad.”
*”Never odd or even.”
*”Step on no pets.”
*”Egad! No bondage!”
*”Do geese see God?”

Our personal favorite — and this actually might have been the blaufrankisch talking — was “Roy, am I mayor?”

Now there’s a name for a cocktail. Or not.

20
Apr
2011
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Wine talk

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A woman is sitting at home on the veranda with her husband and she says, “I love you.”

He asks, “Is that you or the wine talking?”

She replies, “It’s me … talking to the wine.”

20
Apr
2011
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Kermit Lynch tasting: Right in his (and my) wheelhouse

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One of my favorite wine experiences was spending several hours a few years back with importer/writer/musician Kermit Lynch, including a long lunch at Chez Panisse.

Lynch wasn’t present at a tasting of his wines this month at Lucia’s, but he should have been, if only to eat at a restaurant after his own heart (and tummy)

Bonus: Lucia Watson (left), who helped pioneer the seasonal-local movement in Tundraland not long after Alice Walters was doing the same out Berkeley way, joined us for the meal.

The food was exquisite, and paired beautifully by Lucia’s beverage maestro Victoria Norvell.

A vibrant potato, spinach and leek soup was just hearty and fresh enough to fit right into this on-again, off-again ‘tweener season. The zingy but smooth Henri Perrusset Mâcon-Villages ($16) was a swell accompaniment, but the A&P De Villaine Aligoté ($27) was a true revelation, showing just how enticing “the other white grape” of Burgundy can be, with a marvelous fruit/spice amalgam, spot-on acidity and a lively, lengthy finish. Yum.

After much deliberation I chose the duck and lentil entrée over the trout. No way to lose there, but the La Roquete Chateauneuf-du-Pape ($42), dark and spicy but somehow almost satiny, seemed particularly suited for le canard.

We finished with an exquisite tart and an obscenely good dessert wine, Domaine de Durban’s Muscat Beaumes de Venise ($16/375 ml.), with massive fruit and the kind of focus one rarely finds in a sweet wine.

Other recommended juice from this tasting: two Loire whites, a gorgeous, splendidly balanced Domaine du Salvard Cheverny Blanc ($17) and a Chateau d’Epire Savennieres that boasted seamless waves of roundness and leanness. Plus a new grape (for me) from Liguria, a Pigato from Punta Crena ($27) that was clean but complex and simply delicious.

Which, as Mr. Lynch might say, is the first and foremost job of a wine.

19
Apr
2011
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Wines of the Week: April 11-17

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Everyday: The more you learn about wine, the more you realize how little you really know. I had never heard of fernão pires unitil I tasted the refreshing, flavorful Samora Branco Tejo ($12). Now I know that the grape was named after a 16th-century Portuguese apothecary and sometimes is known as Maria Gomes (Pires’ lover?). There’s a lovely limey nose to this white (arinto is also in the blend), which then rolls alluringly over the palate. Sushi or ceviche would make a nice accompaniment.

Occasion: As much time as I have spent in Dry Creek Valley, I somehow have missed visiting the Unti winery, despite a rousing recommendation from friends who never have steered me remotely wrong. After tasting the Unti Benchland Dry Creek Syrah ($35; ignore the vintage at left; I drank the ’07), I won’t make that mistake again. This is about as Northern Rhone-y a syrah as I have come across from Northern California, with olive, herb and pepper notes framing the dark berry flavors. The minerally backbone keeps the voluptuousness from getting too over-the-top. Bring on the grilled or roasted meat with this lusty beauty.

17
Apr
2011
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Franco-American: Great relations at HdV

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Put HdV’s Stéphane Vivier squarely in the “wine is made in the vineyard” column.

“We work hard to frame the best interpretation, the best picture of the vineyard and put it in the glass,” Vivier (left) said. “We want to put in the glass a picture of the vineyard, not a picture of the winemaker.”

That’s not surprising coming from a winemaker working with one of California’s foremost growers (Larry Hyde) and one of France’s finest vintners, Aubert de Villaine (who in his spare time oversees a little operation called Domaine de la Romanée-Conti).

Or from someone lucky enough to be plying his trade in Carneros’ Hyde Vineyard, which he calls “definitely premier cru headed toward grand cru. 

Vivier esepcially likes the consistent weather conditions in his swath of Wine Country. “You get fog, then that luminous, intense Napa Valley sun,” he said, “and at about 3:30 to 4, the cool winds from the Petaluma Gap and San Pablo Bay.”

But HdV — bearing the initials of its two proprietors’ surnames (de Villaine is married to Hyde’s cousin Pamela) — is not built around a laissez-faire approach.

“A lot of people say we make wine with minimal intervention,” Vicier said. “But you need to intervene in the vineyard. We have to create that stress to get the best grapes possible. 

Part of that stress comes from dry-farming, the only winery using Hyde Vineyard grapes to do so, and in “letting the grapes stress,” Vivier said.

HdV does one extra bit of intervention of sorts in the winery. “We press chardonnay for five hours here, maybe more than anyone,” Vivier said. “Chardonnay is not about fruit. Chardonnay is about texture and grain. 

The chardonnay and a red Bordeaux blend were the first HdV wines, from the 2000 vintage; syrah and pinot noir have been added since.

And while it’s almost always folly to dub any California wines “Old World,” you can see France from there when consuming these wines. The French influence has come from one of the true masters, executed by a fellow Frenchman in Vivier.

“Aubert designed this so that we wouldn’t change our style,” Vivier said. “Now that the pendulum is swinging back to this style of wine “¦”

Recommended wines: Hyde Vineyard Chardonnay ($60, vibrant, great structure, endless), Syrah ($50, beefy, smoky, smooth).

10
Apr
2011
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Learning the not-so-hard way

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I am an idiot.

On our first California winery visit in 2000, my way better half and I tasted wonderful zinfandel and cabernet, sandwiched around just-right dark chocolate, at A. Rafanelli in the Dry Creek Valley. In the late ’80s Rafanelli zin had provided one of those “ah, so this is wine” moments for me, so I especially enjoyed tasting it at the source.

We bought the maximum allotment of zin that day, and I got on the mailing list. For the last decade, I have been ordering an average of a case of Rafanelli zin annually, usually mixing in one bottle of cab, which I inevitably cellared and forgot about.

Last December at my Nashville friend Albie’s house, seven of us enjoyed a dozen or more wines over dinner, culminating in dancing our lives away to “Gimme Shelter,” the women on their feet and a couple of us hefty men in our chairs.

But I digress. The evening’s bottles had included really good stuff from Barolo, Bordeaux, Burgundy and Priorat. But the wine of the night was Albie’s 2003 Rafanelli cab, vibrant and earthy and endless.

Upon returning to the Twin Cities, I checked the cellar and found that I had not only one bottle of the ’03 but a half-dozen other vintage dating to 1999.

I opened the ’03 at a January dinner party, and it was every bit the delight that Albie’s bottle had been. Last night, we tried the “˜01, and it still had enough structure and depth, but it made me put the ’99 and ’00 on my IMS (Imbibe Me Soon) list.

Point is, I had been so homed in on Rafanelli’s zin that I treated the cab as an afterthought, even though it had been every bit as impressive on the winery visit. So I haven’t been buying nearly enough of it.

I won’t make that mistake again.

Oh, and I’m feeling a lot better about another Rafanelli purchase. Our granddaughter Zuzu was born in 2003, and we vowed to put together a mixed case from her birth year to be consumed when she turned 18 (which is what the legal drinking age should be).

Little did we know that 2003 would prove to be the worst year in memory for almost all regions that produce age-worthy wines, thanks to deadly heat across Europe and generally crummy conditions on these shores.

But we bit the bullet and plunked down $90 for Rafanelli’s Terrace Select, a Bordeaux blend that wasn’t released until 2008. After being wowed the “regular” bottling from that year, I’m feeling pretty good about the Terrace Select’s potential 10 years from now.

10
Apr
2011
0

An Officer worth saluting

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Mike Officer was in a hurry, a common mode for young winemakers. He had crammed us into a busy schedule, and even though we arrived a few minutes late at the Santa Rosa warehouse where he makes Carlisle wines, we beat him there.

Embarrassment averted, especially since our excuse, an extended lunch with another winemaker (David Ramey), was not likely to curry any favor whatsoever.

Carlisle has an almost cult-like following, but Officer has kept prices manageable; most of his zins and Rhone varietals and blends are in the $30s, a few petites in the $40s. This is a great mailing list for an enthusiast at the intermediate level — or beyond.

The wines are hearty, with big tannins and fruit and plenty of structure for aging. They’re also seriously terroir-driven. Officer, who as a software engineer was making such great wine in his garage that friends insisted he start the winery, has sought out spots, mostly in Sonpoma and the paso Robles area, that are known for great fruit.

He’s also discovered some dandy sites himself. The Carlisle Two Acres is a true field blend; it took a good bit of testing to determine what the grapes are in its eponymous vineyard (mostly mourvedre, with some syrah, petite sirah, carignane and alicante bouschet).

Anyway, we didn’t have much time for chit-chat during our visit, and Officer is not a gregarious sort anyway, safe for the occasional “big wines are panty melters” quip. But as we quickly tasted close to a dozen barrel samples, he did share some thoughts:

“Purity is something we strive for. We want the fruit to be very crystalline.”

“I have a pretty agnostic palate, as long as there’s no brett. I’m hyper-sensitive to flaws, brett and ethyl acitate.”

“At the start of harvest we’re doing a lot of sampling, pH, TA. After a couple of weeks we get touchy-feely. Toward the end there are a lot of discussions based on what I see and taste.”

“I used to put a lot of stock in aroma, and then not enough.”

“I don’t like the flavor or aroma of oak. It’s like overseasoning food with salt. We ask the coopers not to overseason our barrels. But sometimes a heavy toast rounds out the flavors. If you have a wine that has that texture and put it alongside wines that don’t, you go ‘ah.’ “

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