Tiny Wine Blog

The Dorkiest Wine of Summer 2012

Sunday, August 5, 2012
Dorky Summer Wine 2012
I realize that the amount of updating I do on my little wine blog is “constant” and “at a neck breaking speed” and that many of you can’t possibly keep up with all the “award winning” content that flies out of my brain and onto my keyboard and then into your internet reading device.
I strive to be the best “professional wine blogger” that you know.

The summer of 2012 will be remembered as a good summer. There was a heck of a lot of Champagne drunk - there’s a post right there. But, the one wine that I will remember from the heady days of “Summer 2012” has to be this little jewel:

Producer: Weingut Hahnmuehle.
Spatburgunder + Blanc de Noir + Spatlese
You may have remembered my love of German pinot noir (I sure do like it) from a few years ago. In Germany, pinot noir is known as “spatburgunder” - I’m assuming that “burgunder” has something to do with the grapes spiritual home of Burgundy.

So, this wine is made from pinot noir, which of course is a black grape.
If you make a white wine from a black grape (great example is champagne) the french would call it “blanc de noir” which of course means “white from black”. Already, the wine is dorky. You don’t often see non-sparkling pinot noir made as a white wine.

Spatlese. The Germans have a pretty cool system of rating how ripe the grapes are when they are picked. The riper the grape means there is more sugar which can increase the alcohol, but also any actual sweetness as well as the body of the wine. I’m used to seeing spatlese used on a label buying riesling indicating that I’m buying a wine that is a bit off-dry and could have a tad residual sugar. I’m not used to seeing it on bottles of pinot noir.

To summarize why this is my dorkiest wine of the summer:
1. White wine
2. Pinot noir
3. Off-dry
4. German

cheers ya’ll.

Let's open that bottle of bubbly with a knife

Sunday, January 22, 2012
You. Saber.
Opening a bottle of Champagne with your hands is fine and all, but wouldn’t you rather open it with a knife or sword? I know I do.

I’ve been doing a lot of presentations and chats and dinners involving Champagne and I try to always work in sabering. It’s the opening of a bottle of Champagne or sparkling wine by popping the top of the bottle with a sword or knife or other hard object. What I think everyone is surprised when they do it for the first time is how dang easy it is.
Your goal this year should be to saber a bottle of bubbly.
Or invite me over and we’ll do it together.

Here’s my process…

1. You can do this with any sparkling wine, assuming it has enough pressure in the bottle. Champagne. California sparkling. Cava.
2. Make sure it’s chilled.
3. If you have a sword, that’s great. I’ve been using a standard dinner knife and that works good as well.
4. Take off the foil on the neck of the bottle
5. Now, some people take the cage off the bottle and some leave it on. Personally, I take the cage off as it gets in the way.
6. Every bottle will have a vertical seam on it. Find that seam. I think of that as the ‘runway’ for your knife. This is the path your knife will follow.
7. Hold the bottle at a 45 degree angle pointing away from people, animals, or breakable items.
8. Note that you may spray some wine doing this, so don’t do it on mom’s nice new rug.

Now we are ready to saber this bottle. Note that you are not cutting the top off with the knife – hence the sharpness of the knife is irrelevant. With most knives you are using the back of the knife anyway. You are basically hitting the ring on the neck of the bottle with a blunt object. The pressure inside the bottle takes care of the rest.

9. Holding the bottle at the 45 degree angle, take your knife and smoothly slide it up the bottle and make contact with the neck. It does not take a lot of muscle or force to do this.
10. In theory the neck with intact cork will go flying away. Unless it doesn’t work and then just try it again. And again. Eventually it will pop.
11. Be careful of the top of the bottle. While it is a very clean cut, it can also be quite sharp.
12. You just opened a bottle with a knife. You kick ass! Let’s do another.

There are great tutorials and videos on how to do this. Here’s author Kathryn Borel showing you how (I liked her book).

Sabering in the Garden with Kathryn Borel Jr. from Kathryn Borel on Vimeo.

Oh, and check this: slow-mo sobering!

Santa brought me an Ah-So

Monday, January 16, 2012
Christmas Gifts
I’m just now climbing out from under the New Years/Christmas/Travel/Work Craziness. My lovely wife bought me a “Ah-So” wine opener for Christmas. She apparently had to battle people on EBAY for it because she wanted to get a cool retro one that was made in West Germany. Cool points. Bless her.

The ah-so is a clever littler wine opener that I wanted primarily because it makes opening up bottles with really old corks easier (sometimes those corks are so old and soft that the screw-part of the corkscrew will just go right through them). The ah-so works by going on the outside of the cork instead of going through the cork.

You just slide it in (ah yea) and the pull it out.
Oh, and another feature is that you can pull a cork and then replace fairly undedected. Sneaky.

There are a bunch of videos online on how to do this (it involves rocking). For instance, this video:

Wine of the Month: Malbec

Friday, December 16, 2011

Oh, Crap
I totally forgot I had an internet web-blog.

Malbec
2011, while a pretty excellent year in general (way better than the previous ones) was not a good year for thinking (and most importantly) writing about wine.
Did I tell you I went to Champagne? No, I didn’t. I mean, there’s a topic to write about. Lame.

Malbec. This is a wine I drink a lot of, but I drink a lot from one producer and that’s about it. So, I can tell you a lot about that one producer, but I can’t tell you much about other malbecs from Argentina or France or whereever. For December, I thought I’d drink more Argentine malbec and make it my wine-of-the-month for this last month of 2011.

Originally French
Most folks are familar with the Argentine malbecs that every single wine selling shop will have - but few outside of the wine-nerd-world know that malbec came from France. In fact there was a quite a bit planted in Bordeaux until a huge frost killed off about 75% of it in the 1950s. The growers there I suspect weren’t too sad about the sudden loss of all that malbec as it wasn’t/isn’t a perfect grape in Bordeaux. Compared to it’s more popular pals merlot and cabernet, malbec needs a lot more sunshine and is more susceptible to disease and frost as it’s a bit thin skinned.
(Could climate change help return more malbec to Bordeaux?)

So, malbec wasn’t a perfect grape in Bordeaux, but Argentina is a pretty swell place for it. In Argentina you’ll find most of the wineries at the base and slopes of the Andes mountains near the western border. That area of Argentina is dry and hot and what most wine producers have done is to move their vineyards up into the Andes were the temperature isn’t as hot but they still get all the sunlight they need (remember, malbec needs sun).

Grape = Child
I like to think of malbec as a child who was not doing well in school but was moved to a different one with a different structure and curriculum and now shines.

Still in France
Malbec is still grown in France. There’s a small amount still grown in Bordeaux (where it’s one of the six allowed grapes). For France you’ll see malbec mainly in grapes from Cahors in the southwest of France. The wines always get described as “rustic”. I often find them a bit rambunctious.

What does it taste like?
For me, it’s all black fruit. Plums.
Then there is a nice floral note, but these are purpley flowers - violets. The Argentine malbecs will be softer and more elegant than the examples from Cahors. The color is inky dark. My wife once correctly picked a malbec in a blind tasting just from sight (maybe that isn’t a big deal - but note that she isn’t a wine dork).

OK. Let’s get drinking.

I like drinking wine. I also like buying wine.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Oh, Shopping
Nothing better than shopping for wine (especially if you have someone film it as a fun shopping montage to the tune of ‘Walking on Sunshine’). The week before Thanksgiving I popped by Frankly Wines and picked up some bottles. I told Christy (aka the shop proprietor) that the last week or so had been filled with a number of questionable wines and wanted some wines that were:
(1) Interesting
(2) Tasty
(3) Didn’t suck

Spain: Trepat
The grape is called trepat. I don’t have it in my little wine reference book. It’s also not on my varietal table poster that I have. It is in the Oxford. It’s a grape grown in northeast Spain; although not much of it is grown in general. Apparently it’s traditionally used in rose and cava, but people have started making red wines with it.
Josep Foraster is the producer and they are located in the Conca de Barbera region in Spain; it’s in the top right corner of Spain. I enjoyed this wine, but I don’t recall that much about it. I do remember sitting on the couch with the last sip of it in my glass and thinking, “I should write some quick notes about it before I drink it all”. Then I drank it all.

Vin de Savoie
The wines from this region always seem to have pretty labels. In eastern France, near the border with Switzerland, is the mountainous region of Savoie. This area was part of the House of Savoy that was based in northern Italy.
The producer for this particular wine is Roger Labbe and the grape is Mondeuse. I haven’t studied this region that much, but knew that the majority of the wines were white. Maybe I shouldn’t mention this, but when I got home I thought this was a white wine (it’s a dark glass bottle). Nope. It’s red. Mondeuse is the classic red red grape for this region. It’s quite tasty and reminded me a bit of gamay from the Beaujolais Cru areas as it was juicy and had tiny notes of violet/floral; but it seems to have more spice to it.
I’d buy it again.

Greece: Assyrtiko
When I bought this bottle, I was warned that it could have a bit of sulphur on the nose and that it would probably blow off after a little bit of time.
It didn’t really.
It was very sulphur-y; even the next day.
The producer is Domaine Santorini and they are located on the island of Santorini in Greece. The grape used for this wine is assyrtiko. It’s pronounced “A seer' tee ko” and not “Assy-Tiko”. It’s an interesting grape as it can age well and has citrus flavors as well as ‘white flower’ notes. Apart from the sulphur in our bottle, it would make a nice perfume.

I/We need to drink more Greek wines.

South Africa: Chenin Blanc
Oh, chenin blanc. This is a grape that I’m hot/lukewarm for (note that I didn’t say hot/cold). There are some brilliant chenin blanc based wines out there, especially in the great Loire Valley. These wines have a lot going for them: great with food, age beautifully, and can be produced in a variety of styles from dry to rich and sweet. The ‘lukewarm’ is that there is a lot of chenin blanc out there that is just boring.

The producer for this wine is A A Badenhorst and it comes from the Swartland region that is north of Cape Town in South Africa. Unfortunately I opened this bottle the night before we had to leave town and spent most of the time packing and doing last minute things instead of paying attention to the wine. I do recall mentioning to my lovely wife that the wine was pretty hot (in terms of having high alcohol). I’m sure this wine was lovely, though.

Things Drunk: 1970 L�pez de Heredia Vina Tondonia

Thursday, November 18, 2010

1970 Lopez
This year I turned 40. Ouch.
I’ve been alive for a long time.
Because I have generous friends and wives, I was given a few 1970 bottles of wine for my birthday (this was many months ago). When I get bottles like these, my instinct is to hoard them away in the wine cooler and save them for years - but I made the decision that I would drink them this year, partly because one of them needed to be drunk sooner than later and I also didn’t want to wait until I was (Xenu forbid) 50. Or 60. Or 70.

My plan for this year and these 1970 wines are to drink them with people who also just turned 40. Saturday night we were invited over to a friend’s new apartment for dinner. This friend, we’ll call him Jeff, also just turned 40 and is one of my oldest friends (we met on the first day of college (there’s a funny story there that I won’t share online)).

As a sidenote, I’ve become more proactive in identifying special occasions.

Saturday
Saturday night, after a bottle of Dom Perignon 2000 (oh, darn), we opened my 1970 López de Heredia Vina Tondonia.
If you aren’t familiar with this producer and wine, here are some quick notes.
Lopez de Heredia is the producer. Their main and famous vineyard is Tondonia and is located in the Rioja region (Rioja Alta to be specific) in Spain. The grapes used for their red wines are the regular cast of characters that you find in Rioja: Tempranillo (the primary grape), Garnacha, Graciano and Mazuelo. Note that Graciano and Mazuelo would both be good names for a pet or child.

I discovered Lopez de Heredia a few years ago when I started buying their rosé. It’s a crazy wine that is probably not for everyone (my lovely wife doesn’t really love their rosé). The ‘crazy’ aspect is that they let their wines age way past what their competitors would do; for example, their newest rosé is a 2000. This extra time ageing along with their winemaking techniques gives their wines an extra level of complexity that you don’t get in your normal young wines.
Their production techniques are best summed up by their importer here in the US:
“The family adheres to a winemaking doctrine blueprinted in the 1880’s — to make wine only from their own vineyards, using natural yeasts, long aging in wood, and no filtration at bottling.”

Then we drank it
The 1970 was, first and foremost, easy to open. When opening old wines, I often have issues getting the cork out as they can become overly soft and crumbly after a long time. I need one of those nice ‘spanner’ type openers.
I did have to chip away at the pretty hard wax they use to cover the capsule, but once the wax was cleared away, the cork came out without any issue.

The color of the wine was beautiful. It was this great reddish coppery color that looked stunning in a glass. The nose had the strong nutty, oxidized notes that you’d recognize if you drank any of their other wines (smelled like Sherry) but on the palate there was still a lot of fruit and the general balance on the wine was great. It was pretty perfect: it had the notes of ageing that dorks like but still had fruit and balance that normal people like.

We had a big bowl of mussels with tomatoes and pasta. It paired well. For dessert, there was a chocolate mousse and what we had left went even better with that.

Nice.

September was 2009 Beaujolais Month

Monday, October 11, 2010

The 2009’s have arrived
In May 2009, it was Beaujolais Cru Month and I wrote a little post about it that you should read if you aren’t familar with the lovely and fairly budget friendly Beaujolais Cru wines.
No, really. I actually did some decent research.

Summer is over. September has arrived.
With the end of summer, I knew I had to shake the sand out of my hair and get back to drinking wine and/or at least start really thinking about it again. I needed to get back on the wine-of-the-month horse. I mentioned this to some co-workers and the unanimous vote was that I had to drink the 2009 Beaujolais that were just coming onto the market.
Note, these are the village/cru level wines and not the hyper-fresh Beaujolais Nouveau that will be out in a few weeks.

The Praise
There are a ton of articles out there about the 2009 vintage in Beaujolais.
- Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Crus of 2009 - vintage of a lifetime
- Buying into Beaujolais
- The Underground Wineletter: 2009 Beaujolais
- 2009 - the year of Beaujolais

How are they?
We drank a variety of 2009s from Beaujolais. They are, obviously, quite young right now and ideally I’ll pick up some more and stick in my robot wine cooler to open in a few years. But, right now they are pretty great. Every bottle we had was perfectly balanced with great acidity and fruit and those sour cherry and floral/violet notes that the Gamay grape always seems to have. We drank them all month and had them with a variety of foods and they paired well especially with the spicy stir-fry vegetables and noodles that we have been doing to get through the large amounts of produce we get from our CSA.

Let’s all drink the 2009 Beaujolais. These are great wines and very good values. They pair well with most anything. But, buy an extra bottle as well and hide it away because if the wine people are right, this vintage will just get better and better.

Single Varietal Bottlings of Grand Cru Champagne Vineyards? Sure.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Weekend on the River
A few weeks ago we spent a weekend in a cozy, very cool house next to a river in upstate New York. Actually, where is the ‘upstate’ line? It may have not been in upstate. Our hosts were wine folks who brought along another wine person. With so many wine dorks, I knew I had to bring something interesting.

Sitting in my office closet was a box of Champagne that I had always been waiting for an appropriately geeky time to open. This box contained a special bottling that Moet & Chandon did from their three primary/most famous Grand Cru vineyards.

“Moët began to tear up the sacred texts of assemblage when in 2001 it released a series of three ‘Grand Cru’ wines; Pinot Meunier from Sillery (Les Champs de Romont), Chardonnay from Chouilly ( Les Vignes de Saran), and Pinot Noir from Ay (Les Sarments d’Ay).” [link]

Blind
What would have been way geekier is if we had done this blind.
We didn’t because I am not sure we had enough glasses and it would have required effort. But, if I could go back in time to taste these, I’d have done it blind. The only reason I mention this is that we were looking up the vineyard information on the handy iPad and discussing each one and there were all these, “Ah-ha - this is the Pinot Noir one”; if I had done it blind, would I have been able to place each wine? I don’t know.

Chardonnay from Chouilly
My all-around favorite. I think I just like the all-chardonnay/blanc de blanc wines. This one was rich and bready with this perfect classic nose.

Pinot Noir from Ay
My notes for this one said, “Darker, yeastier, a little stinky.”

Pinot Meunier from Sillery
I liked this better than it’s cousin pinot noir - but I also like pinot meunier. This wine I found to be much more complex on the palate and nose than the pinot noir and there was that nice spice that meunier brings to the table - do we call it ‘cooking spice’?

Assemble This
Towards the end we start blending them. That was fun. My blend, which was pretty tasty if I say so myself, was about half Chardonnay and half Pinot Meunier and a splash of Pinot Noir.

Others
Are there any other producers that have done or currently due these dorky special releases like Moet did?

Map!
I like maps. Here are the general areas where each of these vineyards are.

View Champagne Vineyards that we drank in a larger map

In Portland, small delis often have huge collections of Bordeaux and Sauternes

Sunday, July 18, 2010
There we were in Portland
I’d never been to Portland (OR) until last week. We met up with a pal from college who works as a photographer there. On the way back from dinner with her and her husband, they are giving us a tour of the great stuff in downtown Portland and near our hotel (the fun Ace Hotel) they point out a few cool shops including an Italian looking deli called Martinotti's.

The next morning we are walking around and thinking about a pre-lunch/post-breakfast/second-breakfast snack and wander into this deli. They have a cooler with some wine in it. I look at the cooler. To the left is a shelf with a lot of wine as well. I look at those.
To the left of that is a box with some wine in it. To the left of that box is another box. And then another. And then we realize that almost half the shop is full of cases of wine. Just randomly stacked making a fun little maze to get through.

The wine belonged to the original owner of the store. We were told that he had passed away a few years ago and his family (who ran the store) were selling off the collection of wine he had been amassing. It was primarily right-bank Bordeaux and Sauternes (not a bad thing to specialize in) but also had wine from every major region in France and Italy.

The amount of wine was a bit breathtaking. Going through a case of Sauternes, I realized that the case I was looking at was atop eight more cases.
The vintages ranged from the 1960’s and on.
Is that a Cheval Blanc 1971 sitting on a table? Yes it was.
How many vintages of Chateau Rieusse are there? Many.

It was dizzying.

Cellar Condition
I assume these wines had been kept in a proper cellar of some point. With the wines he was buying, he would of had to know what he was doing. In the store, some of them are near windows (but this Portland, so I guess that is OK) and many of standing up instead of being laid on their side. Probably not the ideal conditions for many of these older wines. If I had my way, I’d go back and buy more.

We opened a bottle of Chateau La Serre 1988 that I had bought there last night at a dinner party. From a condition point-of-view it seemed well. The cork was in great shape and it didn’t look like the level of wine had dropped. Underneath the foil, all seemed well. The wine didn’t seem baked or off in any way - but it was probably a few years past it’s prime with a lot of earth and barnyard aromas happening.

Here are some snaps I snapped:

Go!
Martinotti's Cafe & Deli
404 SW 10th Ave
Portland, OR 97205

The Wine List at Manducatis

Monday, June 7, 2010
Lucky
The other night I was lucky enough to join some gentlemen at the restaurant Manducatis in Queens. Most were in the wine industry and the plan was that it was a 'guy's night' but that was before a lovely female winemaker who had just happened to land at LGA popped by. Manducatis opened 20-30 years ago and is still run by the same family. The mother apparently runs the kitchen, but the evening we were there she was in Italy and her very capable (and friendly) son was running things. The food is solid. Classic Italian-American dishes but done from scratch and with skill. It's good food. The family is feeding you.

Wine List
Oh, the wine list. I'll imagine that I am writing this for that one remaining wine-dork out there in NYC who has not been here because I assume everyone else has. Good golly. The wine list. Staggering.
It's around a dozen pages and in alphabetical order with no reference to if the wine is white or red or sparkling or whatnot. You kind of need to know your way around Italian wine. But the real reason we are here are the two most important aspects: old vintages and fair prices. I don't know what their markup is, but it is nothing like what other restaurants would charge for 10-15 year old wines. The prices are very reasonable for these wines.

This is what we had...
Started with a white. Ceretto's Blange is a refreshing and very light white wine made for the Arneis grape. Really, this should be the go-to wine for your summer. It's a very neutral and lovely wine.

Barbaresco!
We then dived into our first red: Moccagatta Bric Balin Barbaresco 1998.
Barbaresco wines come from the Piedmont region in northern Italy. These wines are traditionally 100% Nebbiolo, and although they have to live in the shadow of their more popular neighbor Barolo, they are some excellent wines and age beautifully (I had a 1982 recently - crazy good).

Next we had the Produttori del Barbaresco "Moccagatta" Barbaresco 1997. The gentlemen who ordered these two wines was very familar with them and explained the connection, but my brain has lost it and the interwebs isn't helping right now. What I do know (or think is correct) is that Moccagatta is the estate/vineyard name. So these two wines, different vintages, came from the same land.
Both were drinking extradoniarly well.
Then: Prunotto Bric Turot 1997. The producer is Prunutto and the wine is another Barbaresco from a small vineyard (5 or so hectares) named Bric Turot. Lovely.

Marziano Abbona: Vigna Faset 1996
Another very good Barbaresco, although some of us who were feeling a bit immature (that would be me) made jokes about the vineyard name (Vigna Faset).

Barolo
Vietti Barolo Brunate 1996
Now, my notes (I didn't take any) are a bit fuzzy at this point but I am pretty sure this was the first Barolo that was opened and it was astonishingly good. Unlike any Barolo that I have ever had. Those normal aromas and flavors were still there (I always look for the aromas of anise) but it also had this amazing chocolate note... dark and bittersweet with a bit of Tootsie Roll. Oh, and coffee. There were coffee aromas.
Craziness. Brain numbingly good.

Beni de Batasiolo Barolo Riserva 2000
This was our young Barolo and one of the youngest reds we had for the evening. I don't think I got a glass of this one (but I didn't mind as I was enjoying the last one too much).

I believe there was a third Barolo as well. I think.

And then the end
We had the Barolo with veal and chicken (both quite good) but we also wanted to end the night with an Amarone so the kitchen prepared a round of steaks. Good lord. It's amazing I made it to work the next day.

Fratelli Tedeschi Amarone 2000
Amarone is a special wine and I have had them before but never in the proper framework of a meal - they were usually at academic-esque tastings. This is a unique wine that comes from the Valpolicella region of Italy (kind of NW of Venice) and is made from grapes that are left to raisinate (i.e. dry and shrivel up like... raisins).
The combination of the grapes used and the drying process produce a very full bodied, rich, and often high in alcohol wine that goes really well with lots of beef, lamb, and game.
Delicious.

All of this wine made the ride home on the G train quite enjoyable (I forgot who thought that was a good idea).

Wine Dork Dinners at Apiary: May

Monday, May 24, 2010
Wine Dinners at Apiary
I am trying to organize monthly wine-dork dinners at Apiary - the restaurant in the East Village that does a no-corkage fee night on Mondays and also happens to serve some tasty food. We went recently and it was a great fun. We had a wine educator, a wine retailer, a wine writer, a wine marketer, and me (who does something).
The wines!

Foxen's Sea Smoke Pinot Noir
Oh, California. Much to the chagrin of my west coast friends, I don't normally drink California wines and I can never add anything to the conversation when they are discussing these tiny cult wineries in wherever that do whatever however. This Foxen was given to me by a west coast friend as a gift and I decided that it needed to be opened.
Fans of California wines seem to love the Sea Smoke wines or find them overrated. We enjoyed this wine a great deal, even though I don't think anyone thought it was very Pinot Noir-y. The colors, aromas, and flavors are very extracted. Fruit forward and almost jammy. Spice (due to a little brettanomyces someone thought). All in all, a pretty tasty wine even though it had many elements that I traditionally don't go for.

Krug
This was the first thing we had and now I can't remember exactly which one it was. I thought it was the Grand Cuvee, but now I think it was a rose'. Forgetting which Krug you had with dinner is a pretty #firstworldproblem.

Sinsky 1999 Pinot Noir
We visited the Robert Sinsky winery a few years ago and have enjoyed some of their wines. That said, this was stinky. We debated whether it was a good stinky or a bad stinky. I forgot what we decided because I just went back to drinking the Foxen.
Like the Foxen, this was a big, extracted wine. Super dark and with large flavors and aromas (unfortunately some of those stinky). Also like the Foxen, if I was drinking this blind, I'd hate to guess what I would think it was. Not very Pinot Noir-y.

Philippe Bornard Tant-Mieux Rose
This was the dorkiest wine we had.
It's from the Jura, which on it's own is a pretty dorky wine region full of crazy producers, obscure grapes, and equally crazy wine making techniques. So, it was dorky to start with - but this may be the dorkiest of all because it was a sparkling rose from the Jura.
Pink. Sparkly. A tad residual sugar in it. The grape is Poulsard, a tasty red grape that I enjoy immensely. Some of the examples I have had are straight up delicious in that, "I need another glass of that NOW!" way.

Livio Felluga Picolit
This is a lovely dessert wine from northern Italy (Friuli, towards the northeast) made from the Picolit grape - and it is 'lovely'. It defines lovely. Soft fruit and floral notes. Peach. Crisp but rich. This was our last wine and a tasty end of the evening that we paired with a tasty cheese plate.

April? It's Spanish Whites.

Thursday, April 22, 2010
Fell off a wagon. Or on a wagon.
The month of April doesn't seem to want me to drink a lot of wine. The first half of the month roared in (like it does) and crammed a bunch of pollen into my head and I spent a lot of time "off the juice" - although I hit the Cognac and Scotch.

Spanish Whites
So, as I emerged from my Sudafed stupor and opened windows and looked outside I realized that I needed to come up with a wine to drink this month. Something as successfull as Malbec was last month (it wasn't that sucessful). Just about then my phone chirped and it was that guy Chris. You know, Chris. That guy. He wanted to meet at Tia Pol and needed some help tasting through some white Rioja's he was reviewing for a popular wine magazine in the UK. As an FYI, I will never turn down an invite to eat lunch at Tia Pol.

Viura
Chris had a box of wines made from the Viura grape (AKA Macabeo). Viura is probably best known as one of the grapes used in Cava, the lovely sparkling wine from Spain. Honestly, I am not sure I have drunk a lot of Viura by itself, and I may have been spoiled by this introduction to the grape as all the wines seemed to be super small productions (all the numbers he quoted were in bottles, not cases) from classic vineyards and harvested by unicorns. The wines were great. Crisp yet almost rich. Floral notes and something that I thought was lemon custard/pudding.
Brilliant with all sorts of food and... delicious.

If I was buying these wines, I think I'd go with the older versions if possible. Some of the ones we had were pretty tight and could probably benefit from some age. Also, I had a Viura-Chardonnay blend the other night and found the addition of Chardonnay kind of pointless. So, go for all Viura instead of a blend.

Godello
Last night we had a wine made from the Godello grape. You know, Godello! The grape studied by Roman naturalist and author Pliny the Elder (23 – 79 AD)!
OK, I know zilch about Godello.
I will say it's aromatic - almost like a albarino lite.

The others
There are other white grapes in Spain such as Albarino and Verdejo. They are way more popular that Viura (which I suspect is way more popular than Godello).
Let's drink those next.

Birthday Spirits: It's good to be the birthday boy

Tuesday, March 2, 2010
That was a birthday
I don't mean to brag or boast, but I have some very lovely friends. Recently I celebrated a milestone-ish birthday.
Not 16. Or 18. Or 21. Or 30. But, the other one. The one that makes me feel a bit nauseous when I think about it.
What helped the nausea was a collection of fine wine & spirit gifts from friends.

First, whisky
(right, I understand it's supposed to be about wine).

Rittenhouse 25yr old Rye Whisky.
Yamazaki 12yr old Whisky.
I am quite fond of both of Yamazaki and Rittenhouse - although I have never had this 25yr old before.

Then, wine!
1970 Vintage Port
Producer: J.W. Burmester
Holy cow. This will be tasty (I hope).

1970 Rioja
Producer: López de Heredia
I have had wines from Lopez de Heredia once before. We had their rosado/rosé last fall - the current vintage is 1998.
1998.
High acidity, nutty flavors (actual nuts and also crazy nutty), beautiful color.
I've never had their proper red, so this should be super cool.
Here's a review from their importer's website. Apparently this wine is drinking well from 2009 to 2030. And it's a 1970. The crazy!

Wine of the Month for January: California Rhone Varietals

Thursday, January 21, 2010

And then there is California
For the month of January I decided I would drink California wines - specifically Rhone varietals (like Syrah, Grenache, and Mourvedre) from California. So far I am not liking this month. This is the first month where I am really looking forward to it being over and not just because it's January.

California and I have issues
First, I like California as a state. I think I like it a lot. It's a lovely place and we have good friends there and I always have a grand time. So, it's nothing personal.
But, the wine. About 2-3 years ago I gave up on California when I had a rotten experience with a bunch of their wines. We had all met at a wine-pal's house for our goofy wine class study group. The chapter was California and we all brought wine and the guy who was hosting had a lot of California wines so we were pretty set for a long evening of swirling and spitting and spilling and swilling.

The host, a fine person, is a huge fan of California wines and has a very exstensive collection of cult wines and other pricey bottles. He was very excited to pull out the stars. So, we set to drinking and here was the actual problem: almost every wine was overpowered by the alcohol (that's the alcohol by volume number on the label). We are sitting there trying to pull out flavors and descriptions and all we came up with was, "the alcohol is pretty high" and maybe "pretty high tannins". The shit (as they say) was over the top and overwhelmed everything else.

So, I said goodbye to California wines.
Now, granted, maybe we had all the wrong wines or they were all too warm or we're idiots or we don't get it. Possibly. And maybe we aren't factoring in the unique climate and soil conditions that the winemakers deal with. And I am sure there are wine makers who are making wines that I might really like.

On, the other hand, I gotta drink wine I like.
I am so un-American.

Which leads us to January
The wines I have had this month have been in the Syrah and Grenache realm - two of my favorite grapes. I've had six so far in the past week or so (I started late this month) and so far:
- The 100% Syrahs are OK. My wife likes them. I found them huge and a bit overwhelming.
- The Syrah + Grenache blends are fine but pretty nondescript. They seem to cancel each other out somehow.
- We had an all-Grenache one that had a little sweaty stink. I like stink. I don't know if I like American sweaty stink.

More to come.

2009 Wine in Review

Saturday, January 16, 2010
2009 Wine in Review
Last year marked the beginning of my "wine of the month" project where I only drank wine from one country or region or a particular style or grape or vessel (bottle, shoe, cupped hands). Here's what I liked.

German Pinot Noir
Not the easiest wines to find (they are often labled as Spatburgunder (AKA what they call Pinot Noir in Germany)) but from my experience they have been lovely.
As I wrote in April: "It's Burgundy, but made a bit further north. And by Germans."

Old Ass Riesling
Yes, I love me some old Riesling, but last year marked many disappointing examples with a number of bottles that I had bought being corked. That is the risk when you are buying wines that are 15-20-25 years old.
Still love them.

Beaujolais Cru
Poor Beaujolais. No one takes them seriously because of their hyper-fruity Beaujolais Nuevo, but the village level wines may be some of the best values on the market. This summer, let's all drink Beaujolais Cru (slightly chilled) and enjoy the floral nose on that wine.

Tempranillo + Spain
Unfortuantly there were some casualties in the 'Wine a Month' program - mainly Tempranillo. I don't know what happened. It all started good and there are plenty of wines to choose from. Maybe I got tired of the flavor profile (oh, piece of leather in my cedar drawers) or maybe it was because I went out with a bunch of Spanish-wine nuts and we all drank too much.
Tempranillo. I need a little time. Also, I love you, but I am not in love with you.

Loire Valley Whites
What a fun month that was. The Loire valley offers a lot of variety and will give you instant geeky cred in some circles. Perfect. I need cred.
I drank a lot of nice wines, but the star of the month and the one I still think about were a number of old Savennieres that I found at the local wine shop. Rich but crisp. Honeyed aromas on the nose. Glorious.

White Bordeaux
This month made me sad. In Bordeaux there is a move away from the traditional Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc towards all Sauvignon Blanc. IMHO the world doesn't need anymore Sauvignon Blanc. The Loire and New Zealand should be enough but every damn region needs to make one now. Grrrr. The traditional blends with more Semillon I found delicious and well balanced and perfect with tons of food.

Languedoc-Roussillon
That was a crazy month. September. Never forget.
Yet, I did forget about a lot that I drank, but I didn't forget that they are doing fun things down there with all sorts of grapes. We should drink more of their wine.

Alsace
Perfect area for grape growing and as far as wine drinking it's perfect if you like a richer white wine.

Jura
Holy moly. The Jura. Even my friends from France were like, "you are drinking what?"
Nuts. The whites are uber-geeky which means that normal people don't like them but geeky folks like to enjoy the nutty and oxidized qualities. I did enjoy those qualities on an intellectual level and I suspect that it would pair well with some of their local cuisine but it was a bit much for normal Tuesday night wine sipping.
Now, the reds I really liked. Poulsard and Pinot Noir are the two red grapes that are relatively easy to find - assuming you can find wines from the Jura in the first place. We had about four different bottles and they were across the board... delicious.
Who'd thunk?

Austria
We drank Austrian reds for a month. Not a huge slice of the market being that Gruner Veltliner and Riesling are the two wines that usually come to mind when you think of Austria. We started the month with Zweigelt which is a cross between two grapes, one of them Blaufränkisch. I mention the crossing because as much as we enjoyed the easy drinking-ness of Zweigelt, we really enjoyed the Blaufränkisch. I have to re-drink the two Blaufränkisch wines we had because they were both stupendous.
We need to drink more Austrian reds.

December? It's Austrian Wines for me

Monday, December 14, 2009
December is Austria (Reds, actually)
Austrian wines may have been my gateway wine to being a wanna-be wine dork. Five or six years ago I remember reading an article about Austrian wines and how they were the next up and coming wine region. Austria had been growing grapes since our ancestors were riding dinosaurs but they had a little issue with putting anti-freeze in some wine exports that went to Germany back in the 1980's. Scandals ensued and the export market for Austrian wines collapsed.

So, that was bad for Austria, but in the long term it seems to have been a great event. The story goes that many small producers saw this as a chance to re-create their business. Crappy grapes were pulled and replaced with better quality grapes. Techniques were updated and the government began drafting stricter rules (I believe Austria now has some of the strictest wine production rules).

Why Anti-Freeze?
Oh, right. I was thinking about that today and realized I had forgotten why you would add anti-freeze (or Diethylene Glycol as the kids call it) to wine. I assumed it was done to allow you to use wine in your car (har), but it is a cheap and quick way to add sweetness to a wine and the German market pays a lot for their sweet wines.
Of course this extra sweetness can also kill people. Pros and cons.

There is an interesting tidbit on Wikipedia about how the Austrian government then had to figure out what to do with all this anti-freeze tainted wine. Apparently that was a bit of problem.

Me
But, back to me. Sometime in the early 2000's I had read an article about Austrian wines and found myself at the restaurant Grocery for dinner and saw an Austrian wine on the list and had to order it. I don't recall the producer, but it was Austria's star white grape Gruner Veltliner and I loved it. We had lamb that night. Not a perfect pairing, but was smitten by Gruner Veltliner.
GV pairs well with a lot of food and the the nose on the wine has this great collection of aromas: primarily white pepper and then floral and minerlality.

What we are drinking this month
Austria makes some beautiful Rieslings and Gruner Veltliners, but there are also a number of tasty reds. They make some Pinot Noir there but the most widely grown red grape is Zweigelt which is what I have been drinking a lot of recently. It's fun to say: Zweigelt! Honey, get me the Zweigelt!

I still don't have a nice summary about this wine as the three bottles I have had seem to differ stylistically quite a bit.
What I will say is this: they are easy drinking and very pleasant wines and pair well with food. In my mind they exist halfway between Pinot Noir and Gamay (the grape used in Beaujolais) with a little darkness and spice from Syrah.

That's Austria for now. More to come. If you run across any Austrian wines in your local shoppe, try them out.

Map!

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Wine Club #20 - Syrah in LA

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Oh, LA
We were visiting pals on LA over the American Turkey Eating Day Holiday Day and did a fun blind tasting of a few wines this past Sunday afternoon. This was after the tons of dim sum. And the massage. Oh, and the lovely sunny weather... sitting outside. Drinking wine.
Oddly, there was something going on with the "sky" as we kept getting rained on by tiny flakes of dirt. It was raining dirt. For real. To the point that we were covering glasses and decanters.

The line-up
We did two blind tastings. One was a selection of whites from my pal Kristy's home cellar. Then we did a tasting of four Syrahs (although one turned out not to be (ooops).
Note that below I list the reds first and then the whites. That is just how I roll.

The Who
Sunshine Jen (of happyrobot fame) joined us as well as our good pal Mark. Kristy (who is in the "trade") and her husband (who isn't but is quite clever) and my lovely wife (who was in charge of making sure all the bottles were blind and that no one cheated).
BTW, Jen wrote all the entertaining notes comparing the wines to movies, books, and musicals.

Wine #1
Parrone
Syrah
Chile - Colchagua Valley
2006

This was my favorite of the Syrahs.
"Light body. Doesn't seem 'new world'"
"Loving on the nose. Funk music. John Keats poetry"
"needs some big ass meat"

Wine #2
Columbia Crest Reserve Syrah
Washington State
2005

This was Sunshine Jen's favorite.
"The color purple"
"Pretty nose. Juicy. New world style"
"Nice nose. Woody, Ireland. WB Yeats"
"This one is your buddy, all it needs is you to drink it"

Wine #3
Gotham
Syrah
2008
Australia - McLaren Vale

"Candied black fruit. Chocolate. Rich on palate. Very jammy."
"There are violets."
"Good opera, not Andrew Lloyd Webber. Maria Callas Dramatic."
"Bright chocolate flowers"

Wine #4
Domaine Monpertuis: Cuvee Counoise
NOT Syrah! Counoise! Crap.
2006
France - Vin de Pays du Gard (south of France)

This wasn't a Syrah. Mistake on the part of the clerk who pulled the wines. Oooops.
That said, I liked it.

"A little bit of jammy fruit - but not much fruit in general. Menthol or eucalyptus. Floral. Body a bit thin."
"Very Standard, Musical Theatre. Rogers and Hammerstein"

The whites!

Wine #1
Vergelegen
Semillon & Sauvignon Blanc blend
2005
South Africa - Stellenbosch

"Grapefruit. Youthful." (ha. it's a 2005. i don't know what i am talking about.)
"Not too sweet, not too smacky"
"Mellow yellow. Alice in Wonderland"
"Textbook white"

Wine #2
Stag's Leap Wine Cellars
Sauvignon Blanc
2006
Napa

"Fragrant. Grass? Lemon. Grapefruit again."
"What is it good for? Fish."
"Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers Dance number"

Wine #3
Tormaresca
Chardonnay
Italy - Puglia
2006

"WTF? Familiar. Italian?"
"Lemon. Lime. Chalky."
"Very neutral."
"Kind of an un-wine"
"Cormac McCarthy’s The Road"

Wine #4
Geyerhof
Gruner Veltliner
2008
Austria

"lots of character, complex, tingles the tounge"
"Funky, grabs ya like the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark"
"Finishes nice, the lid is back on the ark"
"Floral. Honey. Funky (in a good way)."

November: It was the Jura

Wednesday, November 25, 2009
It's the Jura
For November I have been drinking wines from the Jura. The Jura is a small region in France that is between Burgundy and the Swiss border and as a wine region it's known to be a super traditional, sleepy region that produces unique wines (often from funny grapes you haven't heard of) and is often hard to find in the US.

As an aside
When I (very infrequently) sit down to write these little tiny wine blogs, the goal in the back of mind has always been to provide a nice 'take away' about what ever I am going on about and to maybe get you to go out and drink some yourself. I mean, that is what *I'd* want from some sort of wine blog. The funny thing about the Jura is that unless you live in a town with a geeky wine shop, you'll probably never see these wines. Some actual French co-workers of mine haven't actually seen Jura wines. No, really. Here in NYC I have bought four bottles so far and I think I am getting close to exhausting the inventory in the entire city (not really, but... well.. maybe).
So, this isn't a very practical blog post for most people (all 3 of you).

The funny thing
They are really known for their white wines in the Jura and they seem to love them to be quite oxidized (i.e. exposed to oxygen). I've recently had four Jura wines: one white and three reds. The white was blend of the Savagnin grape and Chardonnay... and holy moly was it oxidizied.

I don't mind oxidized wines like Sherry or the Rosado we had recently, but this was something else. I read a review that described the flavors as "rancid walnuts" - I think that was a favorable review. BTW, "rancid walnuts" was spot on for the bottle I had and I'll add bracingly high acidity and apples that fell from a tree and sat in the sun for a week or two. Now, they say these wines go great with certain foods - especially regional dishes - and I am sure there are some dishes that could be interesting with these wines.
So, the whites didn't do it for me personally, although I do appreciate that they are made in such a traditional way and there is a certain geeky aspect to them.

The reds on the other hand were lovely and dare I say, delicious. So far we've have two Pinot Noirs and one Poulsard. The two Pinot Noirs (did I mention that the Jura is a fairly cool climate area?) were very light colored wines and featured great arrays of aromas and tastes. On the palate (i.e. the mouth hole) you had mouthwatering yet light bodied red fruit flavors. The nose was similar with the addition of these nice earthy, spicy, smokey, and maybe meaty aromas. They were both really great and very drinkable Pinot Noirs.

The other grape is Poulsard. From what I can tell this is a pretty fat grape that has a thin skin (much like Uncle Joel). The thin skin also gives it a very light color and the aromas and flavors were similar to the Pinot Noirs - cherrys on the palate and similar notes on the nose with the addition of crazy bits of earthiness and spice.
All the reds were perfect wines with a variety of foods (lamb, middle-eastern dishes, pasta) and since it's November, I think would go very well with Thanksgiving fare.

MAP:

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Links!
Over at Frankly Wines, they love the Jura and in September the NYT wrote all about it.

October was Alsace

Friday, October 30, 2009
Alsace
I've been busy and haven't really had the time to think about my monthly wine theme until about midway through the month when I decided that October would be wines from Alsace.

View Alsace: Here it is. in a larger map
The Where
Well. It's in France and fairly far north - only Champagne is further north. Before I started paying attention to wine, I am not sure I knew where Alsace was and I suspect that I thought Strasbourg was located in Germany. This little region has been traded back and forth between the Germans and the French to the point that a co-worker described the area as "Not French. Not German. It's Alsace."
It is also very pretty.

Grapes like it here
Now I can't tell you what grapes are thinking, but from a weather point of view, I bet that they like living in Alsace. The region is bordered on the west by the Vosges mountains. These mountains act as a rain block and keep some of the troublesome weather that brews in the interior of France away from Alsace and make it the driest region in France. These mountains also provide lots of slopes to grow the grapes on which provide the producers with various options to use all sorts of microclimates (due to altitude, the direction the slope faces, etc).
On the east border is the Rhine river which can help moderate some of the extremes of the climate and gives the region hot summers and long, dry autumns. You can also take a lovely river cruise with your parents if you so desire.

The Grapes
The primary grapes in Alsace include Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, and Muscat. Interestingly, many of these grapes are not grown in other parts of France - but you'll find them in Germany, Austria, and other neighbors to the east. Also compared to most of France, the producers put the actual grape name on the label. Crazy, eh?

Riesling: Alsace v. Germany
I heart Riesling. Compared to German examples, the Rieslings from Alsace seem to be much richer and fuller body with equally high alcohol levels. Personally, while I enjoy them quite a bit, I prefer the more austere, skinnier, and mineral-y German versions - naturally your results may differ.

Let's go shopping
With the warm and dry climate, the wines tend to be richer and fuller (and higher in alcohol) than their German counterparts across the Rhine. Handily, most of the wines you'll fine have the grape name in big clear letters on the label. Safe bets are always Riesling, but spicy Gewurztraminer is ridiculously great here (probably the best examples in the world) and go great with food: Thai, Thanksgiving, tacos, pork.
Pinot Gris is also pretty tasty especially if you have only drunk the Italian versions (aka Pinot Grigio).
What fascinates me are the white blends from Alsace. Last night we had a 'field blend' - meaning that the all the grapes are just grown together in a field all willy nilly - with Pinot Blanc, Sylvaner, Riesling, Pinot Gris, and Muscat. Fascinating wine. Spicy. Honeyed. Crisp. Rich. A lot of contradicitions. These blends, from what I can tell, may not be in every wine shop but I have a gut feeling that they are good values and tasty wines. If you see one, buy it.

Oh, and red. They make some red wines here, but they don't seem to get a lot of attention especially in the US.

The price may be the only issue. For the single varietals, they can be a bit high. For example in the store I was in the other day, they had nothing under $20. The blends I found for a lot cheaper - that is, when I found them.

More maps!
View Alsace Points of Interest - Wine in a larger map

It was a grand tasting

Saturday, October 24, 2009
Pouring Wine
This past Friday night, a co-worker invited me to come pour with them at the Wine Spectator Grand Tasting. It's the magazine's annual big-to-do about wine and attracts the majority of the stars of the wine world. I've done the event a few times already and learned that the trick is that you want to get there early and hit up the good tables before the public is let in - you basically have two convention hall sized floors to yourself.
That part is awesome.

What I drank
I was pouring a spanish wine and we were situated on the row that I think might be the best one: Spanish reds on one side. Austrian and Hungarian sweet wines on the other side. We traded many glasses with the other attendees.
OK, right. So what I drank and/or adored.

Bouchard's Baby Jesus (AKA Beaune Grèves Vigne De L'Enfant Jésus)
This is a delicious and lovely wine, but it's also a great label and story.
"It slips down the throat as easily as the Infant Jesus in velvet pants."

Hungary's Diznókö
The young woman I was pouring wine with had worked with this producer before and told me I had to try it before we left.
Good golly. This is a Tokaji from Hungary made from botrytized/rotted grapes and is lusciously sweet but like all great dessert wines it has a great amount of acidity so it isn't cloying or syrupy. The nose on this wine was spectacular. Floral. Orange. Grapefruit (is there such thing as candied grapefruit?). Honey honey honey.
The best nose at the show.

The late harvest Austrian wines from Kracher
Yet again another wine that had aromas that were spectacular. Wonderful wines.

Chateau d'Yquem
Arguably one of the greatest liquids ever produced by humans. The wine that my lovely wife describes as "what heaven must smell like".
I think they were pouring 1998. Maybe it was a bad idea to have it after the Hungarian and Austrian sweet wines with their powerful aromas, but this wine was downright subdued. I strained to get any aromas from it.
On the palate, it was a bit livelier.

Chateau Musar
The wine that my boothmate and I disagreed on. This wine is a bordeaux-esque wine produced in Lebanon. Yes, that Lebanon.
I found it mesmerizing on the nose - all sorts of crazyness and depth. Cedar, tobacco, menthol, black fruit, figs... and funk. My boothmate thought it too oxidized.
This is a fascinating wine and winery.

Bordeaux
My first glass of the evening was a glass of Haut Brion. Then, as the show was winding down and we had run out of wine at our table, we found the Cheval Blanc table and that was lovely (especially since the last bottle of Cheval Blanc I had was bit... weak). And then we had every other property from Bordeaux that was present.
Observations? The further from the first growth wines I got the happier I was. Also, how in the hell did some of these producers still have wine left at the end of the evening?
I don't drink enough wine from Bordeaux.

Spain
The whole row of Spanish wines were all pretty fantastic. Bless them.