Wine Bazar

I drink wine from as many different countries as I can, as often as I can. I firmly believe that the only way I keep learning anything as a wine lover will be through continued exploration.

There are times, though, when searching out new countries, grape varieties, and appellations just takes too much energy. At times like these, usually after a long week, I just want a nice meal and a good glass of wine to go with it. Like most people in these situations of part-exhaustion, I tend to stick to the predictable — the least risky choice that is most likely to yield the most pleasurable result.

So when I found myself dining alone the other night, and not wanting to think much about which white wine I wanted, I reached for a safety wine. I had never had it before, but I knew it was: white, a blend of different grapes, French, and it was from Provence.

There aren’t many sure bets in the wine world. There’s a lot of crap out there to be sure. But if you’re gonna order wine, sight unseen and untasted, I think it’s pretty hard to go wrong with most of the wines in the Cotes de Provence. At least the ones that end up getting imported here.

So there I was, sitting alone at the big communal table, watching the chefs do their thing from behind the pass. I was reading some notes I had taken from a meeting earlier in the day, and only barely noticed when the waitress put the glass down by my plate. I reached out between sentences and took a sip, and in the kind of moment that keeps me drinking wine, I was forced to pause, to savor, and to say a silent prayer of thanks for my luck at living a life in which I get to enjoy good things like this glass of wine.

Don’t get me wrong, this wine was not epiphany-creating-stuff-of-the-gods. It was just darn good, and it really hit the spot.

The family that currently owns Chateau du Rouët purchased the property in 1840 with the intention of harvesting cork from the trees on the property, and selling some of the pine wood that was particularly in demand for shipbuilding at the nearby ports of the Mediterranean. The property encompassed more than 1000 acres of forest, as well as the grounds of a sizable manor that was erected by the new owners in 1880.

Around 1920, a fire ravaged the estate, as well as some of the forest, and the current owner decided to plant a vineyard between the scrubby, fire prone hills and the forest of the estate. Though it was only a secondary consideration at the time, this began the history of wine cultivation at the estate.

Today the descendants of the original three families that purchased the property farm approximately 170 acres of vineyards at the foot of a set of hills known as the Gorges de Pennafort that rise with their red volcanic rocks and ancient caves about 1500 feet above the property. The mostly sandstone terraced vineyards are wedged between the flatlands, the hills, and a swath of Mediterranean forest of cedar, bamboo, cork oaks, maritime pines, and even palm trees. The vineyards run mostly north to south to shelter the grapes from the fierce Mistral winds that whip over the hills at certain times of the year. These winds are not all bad, however. Combined with the warmer breezes off the Mediterranean, they combine to create the cool, dry climate that allows the Cotes de Provence to create wines of great personality.

On the grounds of the winery sits a small chapel that is worthy of mention only because of the unusual doors which adorn its modest facade. These doors were taken from a sailing ship named the Le Belle Poule, which at one time was well known for one of its last voyages — a trip it made to carry home the ashes of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1888, Lucien Savatier, who contributed greatly to the development of Chateau du Rouet’s vineyards, as part of his duties to dismantle the ship, took the doors from the cabin that housed Bonaparte’s ashes during the voyage and installed them on the chapel where they remain today.

In memory of the ship (which adorns the label even today) the winery produces a red, a white and a rose wine, all called “Cuvee Belle Poule.” The white wine is a blend of three grapes: Ugni Blanc (30%), Sémillon (20%) and Rolle (50%) from what the winery refers to as “old vines” but I’m not clear on just how old they are. 1250 cases are made.

Tasting Notes:
Pale gold in the glass, this wine has an appealing nose of pears, rainwater, and very faint melon aromas. In the mouth it is crisp, and light, and bouncy. Great acidity and mineral qualities underlie green melon and pear flavors that along with the chalky stone quality to the wine make it fantastically refreshing. Everything I want in a white wine with dinner.

Food Pairing:
I drank this with a lobster bisque the other night and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Overall Score: 9

How Much?: $18

The 2004 may be tricky to find, but the 2005 and 2006 are readily available for purchase on the internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Unknown)

I can remember a time when the word “Alsace” only brought to mind dim memories of my 5th grade class discussion on some valley that people were fighting about in one of those big wars. In those days I definitely couldn’t spell Gewurztraminer, and I had only tried one or two of them.

Perhaps you’d call me a late bloomer when it came to Alsatian wine, but bloom I eventually did, and now I’m a quiet, but fierce devotee of what I believe to be some of the most individualistic wines on the planet. Alsace has always been an odd duck of a winegrowing region. It is the only region in France that not only allows, but mandates that the name of the grape variety appear on the label (though there are exceptions). It happens to grow grapes more associated with Germany and Northern Italy than with the rest of France (Riesling, Gewurztraminer, and Pinot Gris), and perhaps by virtue of its occasionally Germanic past, produces more beer than any other winegrowing region in the country.

Characterized by steep hillside vineyards whose sun exposure, coupled with the region’s cooler climate make for long slow grape maturation, Alsace has been worked by small village winemakers for centuries (major regional wars notwithstanding). There are thousands of producers in the region, though according to the Oxford Companion to Wine, about 175 of those producers make up nearly 80 percent of the regions production. Many of those 175 are still relatively small by French standards, but some, due to their tenure as well as success have grown to be significant producers that make enough wine for export all over the globe.

Trimbach (or more properly, Maison Trimbach) is perhaps one of the best known of these larger producers, and for good reason. The Trimbach family has been making wine under their name since progenitor Jean Trimbach founded the house label in 1636. Twelve generations later, the estate is still run by the family, and is synonymous with the region, producing what some consider to be the finest wines around.

For the first two hundred or so years, Trimbach wines were made, like many in the region, in relative obscurity. Produced and consumed all within a 25 mile radius, the wines were part of the fabric of village life. Around the turn of the 20th Century, however, the then proprietor Frederic Emile Trimbach submitted the family’s wines to be shown at the 1897 Brussels Exposition, where they were apparently greeted with significant acclaim.

Now, nearly 120 years after that initial success, Trimbach is known for producing two of the region’s finest wines — both Rieslings. One is bottled under the name Clos St. Hune, and comes from the Grand Cru Rosacker vineyard, and is widely regarded as the region’s best Riesling. The other is this wine, named after the enterprising Frederic Emile, whose marketing skills launched more than a century of prominence for his family winery. In addition to these top wines, Trimbach makes 13 other wines, in quantities ranging from a couple thousand cases to the tens of thousands.

Cuvee Frederic Emile is made mostly from grapes grown on a south-southeast facing hillside vineyard named Osterberg above the winery. The limestone rich soil of this Grand Cru vineyard drains quickly and deep, and the grapevines are, on average, 30 years old. The grapes are picked with painstaking deliberation into small shoulder baskets over a series of days, with the goal of selecting only fully ripe clusters of grapes. These clusters are destemmed and assiduously sorted, again to ensure only the choicest grapes are crushed and fermented, ever so slowly, with native yeasts.

I’m not sure about the total production of this wine. The Clos St. Hune is less than 600 cases, but I suspect Cuvee Frederic Emile is made in slightly larger quantities. Were it more plentiful, however, it might be more common to find beautiful aged bottles like this one that some good friends shared with me last month. Trimbach’s wines, especially their top cuvees, seem to age forever, and as they do, their personalities begin to truly shine.

Every time I enjoy Rieslings from the Old World like this one, I realize that I don’t drink enough Riesling. Every time I enjoy such a beautiful Alsatian wine, I am reminded that I definitely don’t drink enough of Alsace.

Tasting Notes:
Pale gold in the glass, this wine has a shockingly bright nose of quince and honey that begs to be inhaled slowly, as if that were physically possible. On the tongue it is halogen bright, with gorgeous acidity that brings to life a swath of flavors ranging from fresh lemon juice and honey to paraffin and nut skin. The wine lasts forever in the mouth, lingering through its drawn out finish on vapors of pomelo and orange zest. A fantastic, distinctive wine.

Food Pairing:
Whatever you eat with this wine, make sure it’s damn good. I drank this on my birthday last month and enjoyed it with many things, but especially with a light cooked shellfish salad of crab, squid, octopus, and clams in an “ocean vinaigrette” with seasoned sesame.

Overall Score: between 9.5 and 10

How Much?: roughly $110 - $190 these days. Current releases (2003) go for $35.

This vintage of the wine can occasionally be found on the internet. Current releases can be purchased here.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Mario OReilly)

Like Jazz standards interpreted endlessly by masters and amateurs alike, grapes find infinite expression in the hands of winemakers around the world. These interpretations, filtered through the lens of a regions climate and geology, are often wildly different from place to place. Syrah from Paso Robles in California, the Barossa Valley in Australia, Cornas in France’s Northern Rhone Valley, and Washington State’s Colombia Gorge are so wildly different you might even question that they were the same grape in a blind tasting.

Such variation serves to both delight and befuddle wine lovers at different turns, and can often prompt the question of which one is the most….authentic? Such questions are dangerous, as they are impossible to answer, and suggest that there are right answers in a world that is, despite traditions, completely subjective.

Yet just like jazz fans, we tend to gravitate towards certain renditions of our favorite tunes that move us most consistently. And when it comes to a little grape called Pinot Gris, for my money no one plays it better than the winemakers of Alsace.

Early in my wine explorations I could never figure out whether Alsace was in France or Germany, and only vaguely remembered enough of my middle school history to realize that both were definitely options depending on which century it was.

Alsace has always been an odd duck of a winegrowing region. It is the only region in France that not only allows, but mandates that the name of the grape variety appear on the label. It happens to grow grapes more associated with Germany and Northern Italy than with the rest of France (Riesling, Gewurztraminer, and Pinot Gris), and perhaps by virtue of its occasionally Germanic past, produces more beer than any other winegrowing region in the country.

I’ve had a soft spot for Alsatian wines for at least 4 or 5 years now, and have come to love discovering the small producers there that have simply been making wine with their families the same way for centuries.

Domaine Albert Boxler perfectly typifies the small gems waiting to be discovered in Alsace. Currently run by Jean Boxler, the grandson of the man whose name still graces the bottle, Domaine Albert Boxler has been a family affair for more than 300 years. Located in the small town of Niedermorschwir, the family owns only 26 acres of vineyards.

But what a 26 acres it is! Eighty percent of the family’s land is Grand Cru designated, and includes sections of the famous vineyards of Sommerberg and Brand. All 26 acres are organically farmed by the 34-year-old Boxler, his wife, his parents, and a few vineyard workers.

The estate produces a mere 5000 or so cases of wine each year, which Jean Boxler has been making since 1995, when he was only 21 years old. Like many of the young generation, he opted for a formal wine education in addition to the lessons learned at his father’s knee in the vineyards and winery.

Domaine Albert Boxler produces several wines, but this rendition of Pinot Gris from some of the family’s oldest vines is perhaps the easiest to find. While it may not be considered one of their top wines, it is nonetheless a prototypical example of Alsatian Pinot Gris.

There’s just something about the hills in this little piece of the eastern edge of France when it comes to Pinot Gris that Italy, California, and New Zealand simply can’t touch. Call it a particular shade of soul that speaks to me in sultry stanzas. Mmmmmmm….

Tasting Notes:
Pale yellow-gold in the glass, this wine has a beautiful nose of honey and dried apricot aromas. In the mouth it is thick and rich on the tongue, slippery in its apricot and honey swirl of flavors, but with good acids that just pucker the cheeks. Off dry, with a little sweetness, the wine leaves a beautiful signature in the mouth that lingers like the lengthening days towards summer.

Food Pairing:
I think this is a lovely cheese wine, provided the cheese isn’t too strong, and might also accompany Vietnamese-influenced food, like this chicken in lemongrass sauce.

Overall Score: 9/9.5

How Much?: $35

This wine is available for purchase on the internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Mario OReilly)

I try to avoid getting into discussions about terroir for the same reasons I avoid arguing about religion: no one has any proof, but everyone seems to have strong opinions. I tend to share my own opinions only amongst those whom I have pre-screened as like-minded when it comes to issues of how and whether wines can actually taste of the place from which they come.

Regardless of whether you are a believer or not, and independent of what elements of its origin you truly believe can be expressed in a wine, perhaps you can agree with me that at the very least, wine is capable of evoking a place. Even if its particular flavors cannot be proven to come from the place where it is grown, there are some wines that, when sipped with closed eyes, can perfectly and vividly evoke their home.

I certainly can’t make the sweeping generalization that Italian wines do this better than most, but I can say that many of the wines I have experienced that were so evocative of a particular place have been Italian. So it was no great surprise to me when I opened this bottle and out poured a rocky outcrop perched on the side of an island volcano, buffeted by cool sea breezes.

Grapes have been grown on the flanks of Mount Etna in Sicily probably ever since the first agricultural civilizations set foot on the island, which were certainly no later than the 8th century B.C. As evidenced by seals found on the clay storage vessels called amphorae which litter the ancient shipwrecks on the floor of the Mediterranean, Sicilian viticulture was extremely prosperous by the 2nd century B.C. and many Sicilian grape varieties were exported to the mainland of Italy where they became the basis for thriving winegrowing operations in cities like Pompeii and Etruria.

The slopes of Mount Etna, high above the ocean provide ideal conditions for grape growing — rocky, sandy soils with good drainage; excellent sunlight; low rainfall; and shifts in temperature between day and night that favor slow complex flavor development in grapes. Like many places in Italy, Sicily also boasts several indigenous grape varieties that have been used to make distinctive wines for centuries.

But perhaps one of the most special aspects of the regions viticulture lies in the age of its vines. Very few European vines survived the Phylloxera epidemic of the late 19th century, but those that did were often in sandy, volcanic soil, which means that the slopes of Mount Etna now contain some of Europe’s oldest grapevines.

The Benanti family has been caring for some of these vines since Giuseppe Benanti took over his father’s farm and began expanding the grape acreage in the late 1890s. Across a century, the family passed both a name and the care of the vineyards from grandfather to father to son. Today, Giuseppe Benanti (the 2nd) and his two sons Antonio and Salvino work the family’s vineyards on the volcano, coaxing tiny amounts of fruit from densely packed rows of vines that are at least 80 years old on average.

Vincola Benanti has the good fortune to farm a particular patch of vines on the Eastern slopes of Mt. Etna that are distinctive enough that they have been awarded the right to be bottled as Etna Bianco Superiore, a quality designation unavailable to similar white wines grown even a few kilometers away.

The grape known as Carricante makes up the entirety of the white wine produced in this section of the Benanti estate. This varietal, indigenous not only to Sicily but to the Etna region itself, is sometimes also known as Catanese Bianco.

The grapes grow on gnarly stumps that poke out from the soil, un-tethered by trellises or other support mechanisms. The grapes are harvested carefully by hand and fermented at very low temperatures in steel vats, where the final wine ages for a time before being bottled. I don’t know much more about the winemaking than that, nor do I know how much they make of this wine, but it can’t be a lot.

The biggest mystery, of course, is how Benanti managed to fit the sweeping vistas of the Mediterranean and the herb scented breezes in every sip. I was transported.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Pale yellow gold in the glass, this wine has a gorgeous nose of honey, candied nuts, and floral aromas. In the mouth it sings of lemon and yellow flowers dusted with bee pollen. Underlying these high notes that zing with acidity, the wine has mellower flavors of paraffin and wet stones that linger into a beautiful finish.

Food Pairing:
What wouldn’t this wine go with? If it swims, you can pair it. I’d love to drink this with a plate of freshly seared scallops tossed with olive oil, sea salt, and meyer lemon zest.

Overall Score: 9/9.5

How Much?: $45

This wine is available for purchase on the internet. It is imported by Vino Bravo.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

The white wines of northeastern Italy have never been on the radar for most Americans. Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate only began covering this area in the past year, thanks to the addition of Italian critic Antonio Galloni to his staff. Yet this area produces some of the world’s finest white wines. The best of these wines are made in very small quantities and are quite expensive and difficult to get ahold of here in the U.S. but as more importers seek out the nooks and crannies of the wine world, we are slowly beginning to see more wines from Friuli than the ubiquitous Pinot Grigio.

This month’s edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, the blogosphere’s virtual wine tasting event focused on the white wines of Friuli, a theme chosen by the hosts Jack and Joanne of Fork & Bottle. Thanks both to the interest and the quantity of the participants (over 40) this month’s roundup is a veritable treasure trove of reviews of the region’s wines. Frankly there aren’t many places on the web where you can find so much valuable info about these wines, so if you have any interest, I suggest you take a look at the various reviews.

In other Wine Blogging Wednesday news, the 42nd Edition has been announced and it will be hosted by Andrew Barrow of Spittoon.Biz, who has selected an oddball theme for the February edition: 7 Words. On February 13th, Participants are asked to craft grammatically correct tasting notes for their wine that contain no more, no less than seven words. The truly creative might be able to even make it a haiku.

Finally, Wine Blogging Wednesday is in search of a new logo. Specifically, a contest is on to design a new one. More details can be found at the WBW site. The deadline is March 31st.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

In the far Northeastern corner of Italy there lies a countryside that is better defined by wine than by any geopolitical affiliation. The far eastern edge of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia winegrowing region has been a member of many countries and many empires, and by now its people are used to living in different countries every three or four decades, it seems. The one constant in this area of small picturesque valleys and numerous natural limestone caves (good for hiding from whoever your present occupiers are), has always been wine, and in particular, white wines, some of which I will unabashedly say, rank among the worlds greatest.

The cultural hub of the region is the border city of Trieste, which literally straddles the border between Italy and Slovenia, as do many of the vineyards in the area surrounding the city known as the Carso. This eroded plateau, which sometimes plunges steeply towards the sea, is home to many small winemakers whose families have been farming vineyards in the area for hundreds of years, while the lines of maps were drawn and redrawn around them.

The Corso, like Friuli in general, is packed with wine varieties that most of the world has never heard of. Italy as a whole is known for its wealth of indigenous grape varieties, and Friuli in particular is home to scores, perhaps even hundreds of them. These varieties, many of which are white, are a true national treasure as far as wine lovers are concerned, as they quite often fail to resemble any other wine grapes in the world when it comes to flavors, textures, and aromas.

Vitovska is one such variety. Found nowhere else in Italy but Friuli, and rarely found outside of the Carso region, this vine is about as far off the beaten path you can get when it comes to grape varieties (a good measure of which is always whether it appears in the Oxford Companion to Wine, which it doesn’t). Characterized by small greenish-gold berries it is apparently quite a hardy vine, used to cold winters, dry hot summers, and blustery winds. Perhaps not unlike the farmers of the Carso.

This wine is produced by a small family run winery known as Vodopivec, which is the last name of brothers Paolo and Valter, its proprietors. This intrepid pair began making wine in 1997 under their name, and have quickly garnered some international attention (as much as a small family winery can) for their rendition of the Vitovska grape. Vodopivec farms and produces its wine biodynamically, which means, among other things, that they use no pesticides or man-made fertilizers, no industrial yeasts, and do not filter or fine their wine. Fermentations are not temperature controlled, and the wine is aged in old oak casks for 2 years before aging another six months in bottle before release.

The winery produces about 260 cases of this single wine per year (up from about 120 cases in 1997) off of its roughly 10 acres of vineyards, which are farmed to produce extremely low yields.

Tasting Notes:
Beautifully amber-orange in the glass, this wine is astonishingly unique from the moment you first set eyes on it. The nose offers aromas of guava, paraffin, and yellow roses, and in the mouth it is slick, like wearing silk underwear on satin sheets. Beautifully balanced acidity is matched with balanced flavors that hang between a minerality and a gorgeous floral quality that incorporates flavors of orange blossom, vanilla, and passion fruit that linger into a long finish with a slightly nutty quality. Though I have no frame of reference for this wine or grape variety, based on the character of other regional wines of a similar type, that this wine will basically age forever. If I only had enough money to afford to watch it do so….

Food Pairing:
I would love to drink this wine with a plate of grilled squid and other seafood, accompanied perhaps by a little homemade pasta with olive oil and herbs.

Overall Score: around 9.5

How Much?: $90

The 2002 vintage of this wine is tough to find online, but the 2003 and 2004 vintages are available for purchase on the internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

California’s Carneros AVA (American Viticultural Area) is unusual in many respects. It’s most well known eccentricity is that it exists divided between two other AVAs — Sonoma County and Napa Valley. One of its other oddities, at least for me, is the fact that the best wines from this region are invariably made by producers who do not actually have wineries there. Many have argued with me on this point, but I maintain that, overwhelmingly, this is true.

There is perhaps one striking exception to this belief of mine, and it’s name is HdV, or Hyde de Villaine Wines. Not only does this winery clearly distinguish itself for the quality of its wines, it is a remarkable combination of talents and history that embodies the old cliché, “the best of both worlds.” HdV is a joint venture between two luminaries of both the new and old world of Burgundy: Hyde Vineyards and the Villaine family of Burgundy.

Lovers of California wine, especially Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, are generally well acquainted with Larry Hyde, or at least his legendary vineyard in the Carneros region of Napa. Hyde vineyard fruit has had a starring role in some of the most award winning wines of the past decade, from labels such as Paul Hobbs, Patz & Hall, Kistler, and Ramey.

Burgundy fans will likewise be familiar with, if not the name of Aubert Villaine, then certainly his day job, which is being co-director of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti (he also happens to have his own vineyard as well — A. & P. de Villaine).

The connection between Hyde and Villaine began with a real marriage — Villaine married Larry Hyde’s cousin Pamela — and in 1999 it became a marriage of interest in producing exceptional wines that would combine a French interpretation of some of California’s finest fruit. Larry Hyde would provide the fruit, and Villaine would provide the funding and the philosophy, and then a couple of years later, the skills of young winemaker Stephane Vivier.

Vivier cut his winemaking teeth in some of Europe’s finest vineyards throughout Pomerol, Meursault, and Chassagne-Montrachet, before coming to California. His expertise with both Burgundy and Bordeaux made him an ideal candidate for the HdV portfolio of wines, which includes Chardonnay, Syrah, and a Bordeaux Blend called “Belle Cousine.”

All of the wines are made from fruit grown in the sustainably (organic without the certification, I believe) farmed Hyde vineyard at the entrance to Napa valley. The 150 acres of vineyards slope back away from San Pablo Bay on an old floodplain over sedimentary stone, crisscrossed by ancient streambeds. Like the rest of Carneros, these sloping flats of shallow, loamy soil receive far less moisture and much cooler (often wind-enhanced) temperatures than surrounding areas.

The grapes for this wine come from some of the younger vines in four different blocks throughout the vineyard, each planted with a different clone of Chardonnay. Yields were restricted by dropping fruit (especially those clusters that were scorched by the heat spikes in the summer of 2006), and the remaining grapes were harvested by hand after fall delivered several weeks of typical Carneros fog and sun.

The grapes are pressed gently, for a long period of time, and the wine is fermented in a combination of stainless steel, a large ancient oak foudre, and some new French oak barrels. It is bottled without fining or filtration of any kind.

The wine is named after the original family name of Hyde’s ancestors, and both this wine, as well as the other HdV bottlings, bear the crest of the de la Guerra family, which can trace its California winemaking roots back to the middle of the 19th Century.

While only in its 7th vintage, HdV has clearly established itself as one of the finest operations in Carneros, and is making wines of tremendous quality and personality.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Pale green-gold in the glass, this wine has a nose of striking minerality wrapped in scents of buttered popcorn and hints of herbal tea. In the mouth it is gorgeously smooth on the tongue with taut, integrated flavors of pear, exotic citrus, and white flowers. Underlying, or perhaps soaring over these perceptions of fruit is a steely mineral aspect that carries through the long finish of the wine, beautifully married to the faintest hints of vanilla and oak. Certainly one of the better California Chardonnays I have had in some time.

Food Pairing:
This wine is versatile and broad in its food compatibility, but if I were to pick a dish to serve with it, it would be something like this roasted halibut in chard leaves with lemon-thyme butter.

Overall Score: Around 9.5

How Much?: $30

This wine is available for purchase on the internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Simone)