10
Nov
2012
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Wines of the Week: Nov. 5-11

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Everyday: Like most folks, my first malbec (a Trapiche in 1998) came not from its homeland of France but from Argentina. Here’s hoping that, like me, many a malbec fan discovers the delights of Cahors renditions. The 2009 Chateau De Hauterive Chemin de Compostelle Cahors ($17) offers up a bright, shiny nose; tasty, slightly pruney fruit, serious structure and an enticing persistence. While many (but not all) Argentinian versions are suitable for quaffing, this is a wine to savor. Try it with hearty stews and soups, a hunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano or some dark chocolate.

Occasion: Sad news arrived this week: a bankruptcy filing for the iconic Alsatian winery Lucien Albrecht. But the wines are still out there, and one that’s particularly worth seeking out is the Lucien Albrecht Cremant d’Alsace Brut Rose ($23). This is a smooth, sexy sparkler with some nice bite amidst the lush strawberry and raspberry flavors. Slightly sweet and salty, this pink beauty boasts a finish that lasts for days. And like most wine with bubbles, it is extraordinarily versatile at the table, and particularly suited for challenging foods such as artichokes and asparagus. Or just have it with popcorn or other salty snacks.

10
Nov
2012
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Linkin’ logs 11-10-12

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Spanning the InterTubes, from the potentially sublime to the semi-ridiculous:

• For years I’ve been working hard, and sometimes even successfully, at not overhyping stuff I love or consider very promising, like this bar or this grape. I’d much rather do a soft-sell to get people there, and hope that they end up sharing my ardor. But I’m very pleased to see the afore-linked grape, the University of Minnesota-developed Marquette, garner some attention, especially in the nation’s wine epicenter.

• The headline seems to go the well-duh route: “Women smell better.” But like many a great hed (that’s how journalists spell it in-house), this one has a double meaning: There’s further evidence that the ladies have better-attuned olfactory skills than us larger lugs.

• One of the wondrous things about wine is that learning more about it is generally great good fun. This Food & Wine tip sheet on recognizing wine’s truly important components is not quite the same as just gathering with friends to quaff away, but the exercises are definitely on my to-do list.

• Snake wine and other reptilian-influenced non-delights comprise part of this list of unusual imbibing material.

• My way better half and her best friend recently spent several days making cool stuff out of the gazillion corks in the cellar. Tempted though I was, in the end I didn’t have the heart to suggest this project:

 

 

8
Nov
2012
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Thoughts worth sharing

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It’s that time of year, and yes, I have to pen some wisdom on Thanksgiving wine pairings for my day job next week, like many another ink-stained wretch. (My advice here: Get a three-liter box of Big House White and tell everybody to quit their bitchin’.)

Anyway, it’s surprising how often wine writers tackle the same topic within a short stretch of time. Sometimes it’s seasonal, sometimes it’s because we get the same samples and use them as a story peg, and often it’s because there simply aren’t that many topics to tackle.

But in many cases it’s because some of us think alike, about wine or life or something that seems interesting at a given time. And even in a wide-web world, we cannot be concerned if someone notices what might appear to be a “stolen” idea.

For example, I write a week out at the paper, and last month I had finished a column on drinking white wines in autumn when I came across something on that exact subject at Palate Press or Zester Daily or some other online mag. The only plausible response, in my view: C’est la guerre. Life is too short to worry about whether someone gets the notion that I’m pilfering story ideas, especially in a newspaper job where I often plan columns a month or more out. Trust me, or don’t.

But I must admit to being very, very pleased when reading the early portions of Eric Asimov’s fabulous new book, “How to Love Wine,” as he enumerates so many thoughts that he and I happen to share. I’ve always admired his work and came to admire the man (fun and funny, insightful and utterly without pretension) during too-brief encounters at a couple of Wine Writers’ Symposiums in Napa.

And certainly my writing and approach to wine have been influenced by his, but I was surprised at the confluence of our views in the book. Before I encountered Eric’s work, I started hammering home a point he makes here: “The single most important thing one can do if one wants good bottles with dinner is to make friends with a smart salesperson at a good wine shop. 

On the rare occasions when I am asked to give talks about wine, the first words out of my mouth are “Wine asks nothing of us. We can delve into it to whatever degree we choose.  Eric, not surprisingly, says it much more eloquently:

“Wine still causes a sense of dread and suspicion. Nowadays it is often directed inward “¦ More than anything else, the single thought many people confess is that they don’t have what it takes to enjoy wine “¦ This sense of obligation and anxiety is the single biggest obstacle to deriving pleasure from wine. “¦ Nobody is obliged to know anything about wine. 

And again, even more forcefully: “You simply require an open mind, a sense of curiosity and an awareness that learning about wine is an act of volition, not of obligation. By overemphasizing the knowledge required to appreciate wine, our culture neglects the emotion necessary to love it. “¦ Our culture tends to lecture instead of letting the wine in the glass do the talking.

“Pleasure is, after all, the primary purpose of wine “¦ those added elements of wonder, of history and culture, of complexity and conviviality, are most available when wine can be enjoyed with ease. 

Forget about writing like that. I’m just happy that I think like that.

5
Nov
2012
0

Shea hey, kids

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Ever since I fell in love with pinot noirs emanating from Oregon’s Shea Vineyard, I had wanted to hold a Shea tasting, to gather as many wines from as many wineries as we could find and see how they match (and stack) up.

That blessed event finally came to fruition recently. The wines: Ken Wright ’06 and ’09, St. Innocent ’09, Bergstrom ’09 and ’10, Penner-Ash ’09 and ’10, Stevenson Barrie ’07, Shea Wine Cellars ’06 Estate and ’09 Homer and Raptor Ridge ’08.

Our mission, as my friend Mike put it, was “to see if we could pull out distinct flavors/aromas of the land. 

Our hope, as my pal Joe framed it, was “to discover the Shea fingerprint or some distinctive genetic traits, like red hair and freckles, that would make Shea unmistakably distinguishable in the glass. 

Our results were “¦ mixed, as so often happens in the wine world. Only one of us found a common thread, the kind of connective tissue that not only brings some delight but also would enable us to be able to recognize a Shea Vineyard wine in the future, event tasted blind.

Our takes:

Joe: “I was able to imagine a vague cousin-like relatedness between the wines, maybe because I wished for it. In the end it was not a display of similarity but much more so, a study of contrasts. “¦ Mostly, for me, it was a display of winemaking styles. The wines ranged from classic more delicate and traditional styles to a head-banger volume of power and deep extraction (Shea Cellars “˜Homer’). 

Larry: “There is no doubt that I am romantically involved with wine. It is not, therefore, inconceivable that I delude myself. I want it to be true that the great vineyards express themselves beyond the machinations of the winemakers.

“Outside of the vineyard owner’s [Shea Cellars] wines, which I found idiosyncratic, I found family resemblances structurally and in the flavurs. These wines were an amazing juxtaposition of elegance and power; actually I’m not sure whether it is power or density. This is the reason I believe that the wines from Shea are approachable young but age so long and so gracefully.

“In the aromas and flavors it is the dramatic yet supple black fruits, especially black plums or cherries, and Asian spices that are expressed somewhere in Shea wines; sometimes forward but almost always in the finish. “¦ I think these wines are from the same palette. 

Mike: “I keep thinking about how much they all tasted/smelled so different from producer to producer. I mean, most winemakers assert that great wine is always made in the vineyard and I think that, while these all were great, there wasn’t a huge thread connecting them together (from producer to producer) other than they all were Northern Willamette pinot noir.

“I wanted that saying, that great wine is made in the vineyard, to be true and I wanted to see it in what so many folks have called the greatest pinot noir vineyard in North America. “¦ I smelled and tasted more differences than sameness. I smelled and tasted more influence of winemaker (barrel, extraction, ripeness, acid, aging) than influence from the land and soil. What was more striking to me was, when side by side, the effect of vintage, 2010 being, in most cases, far superior to 2009.

Mark: “I could probably tell you some of the different Turley designations blind because I can compare them and have done so over and over. I was even able to tell a Rutherford Cab from others after trying them once, but I don’t think I could pick out Shea [even after the tasting]. 

The conclusions:

Joe: “Looking back on this, it seems contrast should be expected. Shea consists of morethan 30 blocks of vines, including different slopes and different exposures. I would expect even these most basic facts would explain a lot of variation in character. Add to this matrix more than 20 different producers with different points of view.

“If Shea was in Burgundy, it would have been sorted out centuries ago based on distinctive characteristics and winemakers would be committed to display the character of the vineyard. While this may somewhat true at Shea, our tasting suggested there is a long way to go.

“In the end, it was a great excuse to drink a ton of delicious wine with fun people. I’m happy to think many years of serious study may be required to unlock the secrets of Shea. I’m dedicated to doing more than my fair share of the work. 

Mike: “Maybe it was skewed from the get-go. Maybe, in order to taste the Shea and see the Shea that we need to taste all one clone from all one plot from just one producer over an extended set of vintages but then. … That seems to say that Shea should be broken up into sub-zones (not arguing for or against that here) and that there might not be anything special about the whole thing.

“Or maybe we need to do 6 Shea and 6 non-Shea from the same vintage. Or the whole line-up from 2-3 different producers including their Shea.

Mark: “Besides liking the ’09s better than the O-10s (as everyone was calling them) I think I got more out of the social experience than the learning experience. Of course the social experience is always a learning experience of sorts. 

Larry: “These things fascinate me, is that the opinions or more accurately my opinion is so different than tasters for whom I have great respect. Early in my career I would hang back at tastings wanting to learn but more importantly not be wrong. After all these years, I’ve learned that truly talented and knowledgeable tasters realize there is no wrong. It is like football fans; you can like any team you want and not be wrong. Except for the Packers, of course. 

4
Nov
2012
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Profile: Joao Silva e Sousa

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Perhaps more than any European wine region, Portugal has been a battleground for old vs. new, tradition vs. technology. And perhaps no one shows how deftly those lines can be straddled better than Joao Silva e Sousa.

“I’ve probably made 200 million liters of Port, and what I learned about tradition, it’s a good lesson for everybody,” he said this week over lunch at Spill the Wine restaurant in Minneapolis. “But is important to be open-minded. Most of the techniques we use now come from people with vision: controlling temperatures, managing oxygen, all of that.

“If you don’t understand what you can transform to do better, you will lose in the future. 

So in his work as a winemaker to some Quintas and consultant to others, Silva e Sousa has turned his car into “sort of a laboratory. I’m carrying customized oximeters, pH measures, all sorts of instruments. Mostly we are in an Old World country, but one where we can have a lot of experimentation with grapes. I am always trying to innovate. 

His wines show it, especially two red blends with Old World dirt and elegance and new World ripeness: Casa das Mouras Reserva 2005 ($19) and the profound Andreza Grande Reserva 2009 ($42). Both contain his two favorite red grapes: touriga franca (“it’s similar to petit verdot in fruit, acidity, structure, balance”) and touriga nacional “for concentration. )

“Blending varieties is what we do,” he said. “Thank God we don’t have only cabernet sauvignon or syrah. 

Silva e Sousa spends much of his time dashing about the countryside ““ “My new car has two months and almost 30,000 kilometers on it. I travel a lot in a small country. I have five kids. I have to work a lot.  ““ to craft tasty wines.

But he also must devote much of his time to sales and marketing, of both his product and his homeland. He elaborated:

“Nature has done a great job in Portugal, especially to select what grapes grow well here. We have amazing climate to produce fruit. But we don’t have the skills or the will to market our wines.

“Portugal is 900 years old, the oldest country in Europe with our borders defined. Basically we kept the land the Spanish didn’t want. Our history is curious. Our first king founded the country by beating on his mother and killing her, so we have a Freudian situation.

“Some of our vines are 90 years old. They’ve seen a lot of politicians and still survived [laughs]: monarchy, republic, Fascist. The last 35 years we have had democracy. But people didn’t look to wine or agriculture or fishing like a business. They didn’t respect what nature gives us. They wanted to build roads. Now we have beautiful highways, and we are broke. It’s our fault. Now we understand that the model is wrong, but we don’t have the money to fix it. In wine we have always been on our own. 

And then there are all those unfamiliar grapes.

“Let’s be a bit philosophical: It’s always difficult to sell diversity. In nature, in everything,” Silva e Sousa said. “We’re fighting prejudice, being Portugal and having so many unconventional grape varieties and so many different terroirs. It’s very difficult to communicate what Portuguese wines are, starting with having a lot of unpronounceable names. But we have decided, “˜let’s stick with what we know. We have so many centuries of going down this path.’

“For the last 10 years the critics have been saying Portugal is the next revelation. I’m still waiting for that. 

If more Portuguese vintners take Silva e Sousa’s Old/New World approach, and especially if they make wines as delicious and focused as his, the chances of that “revelation” occurring improve exponentially.

4
Nov
2012
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Wines of the Week: Oct. 29-Nov. 4

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Everyday: Ho hum. Another day, another new grape from Italy. Actually, I’ve been diggin’ insolia/inzolia for a few years now, but the Cusumano Sicilia Insolia 2011 ($12) might represent the best value yet for this white grape, which used to be used primarily to make the dessert/cooking wine Marsala. Fresh and vibrant, with fab fruit (mostly citrus) and spot-on minerality, the Cusumano is a long, lean beauty, from the floral, orange-y nose to the refreshing finish, featuring several layers of flavor in between. It’s hard to imagine a seafood dish that wouldn’t sing with this wine, and zesty salads are another nice pairing.

Occasion: My palate has changed over the years, but it always has had a particular penchant for red blends, especially from the Rhone and California. The 2007 Star Lane Happy Canyon Estate Red ($42) is a stunner, with structure and stuffing out the yin-yang. A monster nose portends an earthy but beautifully ripe focus, and the lush but firm mouthfeel portends a near-endless finish. Coffee lovers will like this big ol’ red (54 percent cab, 29 cab franc, 7 each merlot and syrah, 2 petit verdot and 1 malbec), but so will fans of wines that nail the power-elegance dance. Steak au poivre begs for this wine, but any beef or lamb dishes whould welcome its presence at the table.

29
Oct
2012
0

Late-breaking shopping

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When I was growing up in Nashville, I always was amused at how, when the TV weatherpersons predicted flurries, the grocery stores would soon be out of milk and bread, as though every mother thought she would be holed up with the kids for a month.

And while I don’t want to make light of a very dangerous storm, I must say that this, to me, seems entirely more practical:

 

27
Oct
2012
0

Wines of the Week: Oct. 22-28

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Everyday: Most people automatically think tempranillo when the topic of Spanish reds comes up, but I lean a bit toward garnacha finding the better expression, up and down the price spectrum, in that Iberian country. One of the best cheaper examples is the Altovinum Evodia Old Vines Garnacha ($10), which offers up powerful aromas and splendid dark fruit, with just enough grip, surprising complexity and a finish with some oomph. Oh, and a seriously cool label. Try it with cured pork of all ilks, hearty soups or a paella that adds some chicken and/or chorizo to the mix.

Occasion: Bordeaux has a multi-century head start, but northern California is catching up rapidly in nailing where to grow and how to vinify sauvignon blanc and semillon. The 2011 Signorello “Seta” ($32) has a glorious tropical, spicy nose and gorgeous melon and honeyed tropical fruit, with a nice jolt of crisp texture keeping the wine firmly away from Flabbyland. The layers of flavor roll on during a seriously lengthy finish. The blend of 62 percent semillon and 38 percent sauvignon blanc should play well with most chicken dishes, especially those with a fruity sauce, and an array of squash dishes (ravioli in brown-butter sauce, spaghetti squash with Parmigiano-Reggiano).

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