...IT'S NO USE. I can't really taste anything. It's like there's a hole in my palate; things that are strongly acidic, spicy, or salty come through, but that's all. Mouthfeel is all I really have left--an inordinate sensitivity to temperature and texture.
So it seems like a good moment to make tiny comments on two scientific essays that involve the wine world. They come from the seemingly antipodal realms of linguistics and biology. I read academic essays all the time, so perhaps this is one small way to contribute to the gargantuan conversation online about wine.
I've mentioned elsewhere the results of the first paper, "The Taste of Carbonation," by Chandrashekar, et al (Science 326, 16 Oct 2009), sent to me by an overeducated reader. Carbonation in beverages tastes sour, they conclude, after a battery of quite convincing tests, checking to see if it tasted more salty, more sweet, and so on. There are stories about folks in China, a rapidly expanding wine market, putting Coke or Sprite into wine; this study suggests that they're not just making it sweeter, but rather, something more complex might be going on. And recall that the Greeks mixed water and wine, before ye judge the Chinese!
The second paper, Michael Silverstein's "Old Wine, New Ethnographic Lexicography" (Annual Review of Anthropology 35, 2006, 481-96), was suggested by an equally overeducated friend who ought to be reading this blog, if he knows what's good for him. This article was less useful. Coining the term oinoglossia, meaning "wine talk," the article discusses how learning the insider lingo of the wine world helps you signal yourself as being part of the wine-interested community. It uses wine talk as an example of how linguistic anthropologists need to understand how language divides up groups in culture.
But Silverstein insists that we have to understand both the words people use and the grammar in which they're used--even what I would call a cultural grammar, of using certain constructions or words in certain situations where you know you're being judged in some way, or want to win someone over and convince them you're in the "in" crowd. You don't just use certain words when you're trying to convince your boss you know what you're talking about--you talk in a certain way.
This is good, so far as it goes, but I didn't learn anything at all about the wine world from this article. It doesn't actually cite any examples! It's like linguistic anthropology without any actual drinking human beings.
In short: if I were out drinking some bubbly, which is about the only thing I can taste right now, I'd probably rather do it with Jayaram Chandrashekar, et al (there are seven authors on the paper, so you'd need a couple of bottles at least) than Silverstein. But the more the merrier!
Showing posts with label Features. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Features. Show all posts
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
On the Nature of Wine Blogs
FAITHFUL READERS, HAVE PATIENCE with me. Normally on a Friday night I'd be drinking wine and listening to Wilco and relaxing in front of a fire or within a pool. Instead I'm doing all of those things while composing a minor reflection spurred by a post at one of the best wine blogs out there, Vinography:
http://www.vinography.com/archives/2011/02/why_trust_a_wine_blogger.html
The gist of it is that there was a survey conducted asking winos what source they trust for wine information, concluding that wine blogs weren't really trusted. And more importantly, Vinography reflects thoughtfully on the circumstances of such surveying (including the fact that the surveyors spun their press release so that bloggers would react to, and thus propagate it) and offers data from his own site's survey and access statistics.
What Vinography doesn't do with this post is reflect on the relationship between bloggers and the wine industry--the elephant in the room when we talk about authority and consumer trust. The blogosphere's reputation as a third party has changed over the last few years, and will continue to change. It used to be that blogs were pretty radical and DIY, and now they're often co-opted (and we always suspect them of being so first, and look for clues of genuineness, a moving target). Look at how Gary Vaynerchuk massages his commercial interests in his video blog--it's an evolving, difficult issue, because the wine market changes, even as the media marketplace morphs at the same time.
On the one hand, if you buy a lot of wine over the $15 mark, you probably consult more than one source when buying something you've never tasted. So an industry insider--that is, one who has any kind of commercial stake in any part of the wine creation-and-circulation chain, including journalists and software designers--is never your only potential source.
On the other hand, no source or combination of sources is reliable. It's not the marketplace for reviews or wine itself that matters, but the palate and its aggregate shiftiness. Get Vaynerchuk, Parker, Galloni, and Asher together and get 'em drunk, and have them all agree, in that freewheeling ecstatic state, on five wines that they think are phenomenal. I'll bet you'll find at least one of those bottles pretty mundane, if not icky. I will never forget the disgusted look on the face of one of my guests a couple of years ago when I served her a glass of 2003 Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastel--not because I regret a faux pas, but because of how immediately I thought, menos burros, mas olotes.
But we can't do without wine writing and reporting. (Ranking we can do without.) Sure, we don't buy as much mail-order wine as we used to, and so the necessity to write about wines may be coming from other sources--perhaps, the explosion of an international trade market (in the U.S. anyway; the wine selections in Ireland, for example, are at the moment comparatively narrow); the diversification of the wine-drinking demographic; or the flood of Internet-vectored information about wines that comes from vendors or vintners, very little of which will actually make us pull the trigger on a bottle unless we're drinking it alone and can smother the shame of having been taken, if it turns out to suck.
Now, I don't know much about wine, partly because I'm not a wine industry person. But among the things I study is the relationship among writing, authority, and evidence. There is decent evidence of what makes a wine terrible, but not much about what makes one good. Time, temperature, terroir, temperament, mood, and mold all make a difference when we're talking about individual bottles, which I suspect is the way most of us buy. And all those factors can be taken into account in a written description of a wine: its social connections, food compatability, trajectory and history, all of these things that give life and richness can be conveyed.
That, to me, is the role of the wine blog. My title suggests that they have a nature, but frankly, the title is an essayistic affectation designed to attract the attention of wine bloggers (who will find much to complain about here, if they have any acuity or self-esteem). But what one does in a media outlet changes when its context changes. And the variety of social embeddings of wine that responsible wine blogs create (the jury is out for me on whether James Suckling's new project is responsible or not) is salutary.
That said, I really appreciate writers who make clear their relationship to the wine industry, even if only to say their role is just that of a verbose consumer. And it can catalyze fascinating interactions among readers, writers, and wineries, when you do: check out what I think is an astonishing and rare exchange at Wine Peeps, when a blogger had a tough time at a 2009 tasting at Soos Creek. (Also, please do NOT buy Soos Creek wines, because I want them all.)
At this point what irritates me most--and see Siva Vaidhyanathan's The Googlization of Everything for a much more detailed rant--is Google's algorithm and the search engine optimization industry. When I search for any particular bottle of wine, it's very difficult to find blog posts reviewing the wine, particularly if those blog posts aren't on massively linked sites like Vinography. There are thousands and thousands of wine blogs, and you can't tell me that a CDP I buy at Costco hasn't been reviewed on one of them. But it's gotten harder and harder over the last year, thanks to the Cork'd-Winesearcher-Snooth-Wine.com formations, to find blogger reviews unless they're brand new. If you want reviews that aren't trusted, it's the ones on these sites. StreetMarine says he found the Hello Kitty Brut Rose disappointing...say it ain't so!
So to those big four, and others that aspire to them: hear me. Start linking up blogger reviews. Do what Google can't, because your SEO specialists are hammering away at it, and give us links to blogger reviews of the wines, not just links to Cellartracker and some Parker scores.
And now, back to our regularly biased wine reviews!
http://www.vinography.com/archives/2011/02/why_trust_a_wine_blogger.html
The gist of it is that there was a survey conducted asking winos what source they trust for wine information, concluding that wine blogs weren't really trusted. And more importantly, Vinography reflects thoughtfully on the circumstances of such surveying (including the fact that the surveyors spun their press release so that bloggers would react to, and thus propagate it) and offers data from his own site's survey and access statistics.
What Vinography doesn't do with this post is reflect on the relationship between bloggers and the wine industry--the elephant in the room when we talk about authority and consumer trust. The blogosphere's reputation as a third party has changed over the last few years, and will continue to change. It used to be that blogs were pretty radical and DIY, and now they're often co-opted (and we always suspect them of being so first, and look for clues of genuineness, a moving target). Look at how Gary Vaynerchuk massages his commercial interests in his video blog--it's an evolving, difficult issue, because the wine market changes, even as the media marketplace morphs at the same time.
On the one hand, if you buy a lot of wine over the $15 mark, you probably consult more than one source when buying something you've never tasted. So an industry insider--that is, one who has any kind of commercial stake in any part of the wine creation-and-circulation chain, including journalists and software designers--is never your only potential source.
On the other hand, no source or combination of sources is reliable. It's not the marketplace for reviews or wine itself that matters, but the palate and its aggregate shiftiness. Get Vaynerchuk, Parker, Galloni, and Asher together and get 'em drunk, and have them all agree, in that freewheeling ecstatic state, on five wines that they think are phenomenal. I'll bet you'll find at least one of those bottles pretty mundane, if not icky. I will never forget the disgusted look on the face of one of my guests a couple of years ago when I served her a glass of 2003 Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastel--not because I regret a faux pas, but because of how immediately I thought, menos burros, mas olotes.
But we can't do without wine writing and reporting. (Ranking we can do without.) Sure, we don't buy as much mail-order wine as we used to, and so the necessity to write about wines may be coming from other sources--perhaps, the explosion of an international trade market (in the U.S. anyway; the wine selections in Ireland, for example, are at the moment comparatively narrow); the diversification of the wine-drinking demographic; or the flood of Internet-vectored information about wines that comes from vendors or vintners, very little of which will actually make us pull the trigger on a bottle unless we're drinking it alone and can smother the shame of having been taken, if it turns out to suck.
Now, I don't know much about wine, partly because I'm not a wine industry person. But among the things I study is the relationship among writing, authority, and evidence. There is decent evidence of what makes a wine terrible, but not much about what makes one good. Time, temperature, terroir, temperament, mood, and mold all make a difference when we're talking about individual bottles, which I suspect is the way most of us buy. And all those factors can be taken into account in a written description of a wine: its social connections, food compatability, trajectory and history, all of these things that give life and richness can be conveyed.
That, to me, is the role of the wine blog. My title suggests that they have a nature, but frankly, the title is an essayistic affectation designed to attract the attention of wine bloggers (who will find much to complain about here, if they have any acuity or self-esteem). But what one does in a media outlet changes when its context changes. And the variety of social embeddings of wine that responsible wine blogs create (the jury is out for me on whether James Suckling's new project is responsible or not) is salutary.
That said, I really appreciate writers who make clear their relationship to the wine industry, even if only to say their role is just that of a verbose consumer. And it can catalyze fascinating interactions among readers, writers, and wineries, when you do: check out what I think is an astonishing and rare exchange at Wine Peeps, when a blogger had a tough time at a 2009 tasting at Soos Creek. (Also, please do NOT buy Soos Creek wines, because I want them all.)
At this point what irritates me most--and see Siva Vaidhyanathan's The Googlization of Everything for a much more detailed rant--is Google's algorithm and the search engine optimization industry. When I search for any particular bottle of wine, it's very difficult to find blog posts reviewing the wine, particularly if those blog posts aren't on massively linked sites like Vinography. There are thousands and thousands of wine blogs, and you can't tell me that a CDP I buy at Costco hasn't been reviewed on one of them. But it's gotten harder and harder over the last year, thanks to the Cork'd-Winesearcher-Snooth-Wine.com formations, to find blogger reviews unless they're brand new. If you want reviews that aren't trusted, it's the ones on these sites. StreetMarine says he found the Hello Kitty Brut Rose disappointing...say it ain't so!So to those big four, and others that aspire to them: hear me. Start linking up blogger reviews. Do what Google can't, because your SEO specialists are hammering away at it, and give us links to blogger reviews of the wines, not just links to Cellartracker and some Parker scores.
And now, back to our regularly biased wine reviews!
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Meiomi Pinot Noir
Belle Glos Wines
Pinot Noir (Meiomi)
Sonoma, Monterey, and Santa Barbara Counties
Rutherford, California, USA
2008
13.9%
$18.00 -- Costco, Austin, TX
Color: Medium purpley red
Nose: Cherry, cranberry, bread pudding
Body: Medium to light
Front: Cherry
Middle: Baking spices, cranberry
Back: Strawberry, caramel
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Screwcap
Until this had been open for half an hour, it was hot, acidic, and acetoney. So beware: it's a "cheap" pinot, but it's also not. It's been open now for six hours, and it's rich, layered, and fascinating. The mouthfeel is silky; it lunges into you like a Gerard Manley Hopkins stanza.
Most importantly, perhaps, it's good with food. I made a chicken and chorizo dish, with artichoke hearts, red onions, garlic, and red peppers. I knew I'd need something red, and a with little spice to go with it, but I wasn't sure what to pair with it and didn't feel like a syrah. So I tried a new edition of an old favorite, the 2007 Caravan (about which more in a moment) and this pinot.
At first, it was an even split. The Caravan brought out the tomato and the artichoke, which was delightful, and asserted its personality, too. But eventually, the Meiomi emerged triumphant; after it had opened up, chocolatey, bready, and cinnamony notes sang in combination with the paprika, chorizo, and caramelized elements of the dish. The management of the oak on this wine will please many, and the fruit is vibrant without getting bubble-gummy or lick-the-envelopey. Try it with pickles.
Back to the Caravan. This is one of my favorite wines. But I can't help but note a minor, yet important change to the back label. They used to credit the quotation there this way: "Adapted from Rumi"; now, it's more definitive: "The Rubiayat by Omar Khayyam." Both of these may be true, sort of.
Why sort of? Because Rumi came after Khayyam, and thus may have borrowed from him, or transformed him, or indeed, may not have, and the original attribution might have been pure fantasy. And yet, only sort of, because, fantasy or no, in this attempt to correct the "record"--an attempt which I would argue is out of touch with the Sufic mode of this ghazal--the labelists spelled "Rubaiyat" wrong. In the abstract, a wrong spelling means little. In the attempt to purify, it reminds us of the importance of imbalance over perfection: of passion and meaningfulness, over integrity. Look at the Meiomi: grapes from three different counties! But passion makes them sing harmoniously. Why credit and quote, Caravan, when you could sing it yourself?
That said, I hope that the Wappo tribe, from whose language "Meiomi" is taken, is getting some kickbacks on the profits from this wine, which I suspect to be the broad-market bottle from Belle Glos.
Pinot Noir (Meiomi)
Sonoma, Monterey, and Santa Barbara Counties
Rutherford, California, USA
2008
13.9%
$18.00 -- Costco, Austin, TX
Color: Medium purpley red
Nose: Cherry, cranberry, bread pudding
Body: Medium to light
Front: Cherry
Middle: Baking spices, cranberry
Back: Strawberry, caramel
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Screwcap
Until this had been open for half an hour, it was hot, acidic, and acetoney. So beware: it's a "cheap" pinot, but it's also not. It's been open now for six hours, and it's rich, layered, and fascinating. The mouthfeel is silky; it lunges into you like a Gerard Manley Hopkins stanza.
Most importantly, perhaps, it's good with food. I made a chicken and chorizo dish, with artichoke hearts, red onions, garlic, and red peppers. I knew I'd need something red, and a with little spice to go with it, but I wasn't sure what to pair with it and didn't feel like a syrah. So I tried a new edition of an old favorite, the 2007 Caravan (about which more in a moment) and this pinot.
At first, it was an even split. The Caravan brought out the tomato and the artichoke, which was delightful, and asserted its personality, too. But eventually, the Meiomi emerged triumphant; after it had opened up, chocolatey, bready, and cinnamony notes sang in combination with the paprika, chorizo, and caramelized elements of the dish. The management of the oak on this wine will please many, and the fruit is vibrant without getting bubble-gummy or lick-the-envelopey. Try it with pickles.
Back to the Caravan. This is one of my favorite wines. But I can't help but note a minor, yet important change to the back label. They used to credit the quotation there this way: "Adapted from Rumi"; now, it's more definitive: "The Rubiayat by Omar Khayyam." Both of these may be true, sort of.
Why sort of? Because Rumi came after Khayyam, and thus may have borrowed from him, or transformed him, or indeed, may not have, and the original attribution might have been pure fantasy. And yet, only sort of, because, fantasy or no, in this attempt to correct the "record"--an attempt which I would argue is out of touch with the Sufic mode of this ghazal--the labelists spelled "Rubaiyat" wrong. In the abstract, a wrong spelling means little. In the attempt to purify, it reminds us of the importance of imbalance over perfection: of passion and meaningfulness, over integrity. Look at the Meiomi: grapes from three different counties! But passion makes them sing harmoniously. Why credit and quote, Caravan, when you could sing it yourself?
That said, I hope that the Wappo tribe, from whose language "Meiomi" is taken, is getting some kickbacks on the profits from this wine, which I suspect to be the broad-market bottle from Belle Glos.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
An inappropriate and uncharacteristic outburst.
PARDON ME, FAITHFUL READER, but I have something to say about Bordeaux wines, and in particular, red ones.
I have had a few fantastic Bordeaux wines in my time. I didn't pay for them; I am a lucky man. Every single bottle of red Bordeaux I've purchased recently in the $15 to $35 range--from 1998 to 2006 vintages--has been disappointing. Only a few have been outright bad, but: should any of them have been, at those prices? I don't review many of them here, because I lack the patience, or perhaps, the inventiveness. Every one I could describe, borrowing the words of Cellartracker reviewer Edv, this way:
Help me, readers. Help me, internet.
I have had a few fantastic Bordeaux wines in my time. I didn't pay for them; I am a lucky man. Every single bottle of red Bordeaux I've purchased recently in the $15 to $35 range--from 1998 to 2006 vintages--has been disappointing. Only a few have been outright bad, but: should any of them have been, at those prices? I don't review many of them here, because I lack the patience, or perhaps, the inventiveness. Every one I could describe, borrowing the words of Cellartracker reviewer Edv, this way:
Fruits compotés, une acidité rafraîchissante, mais cher pour ce qu'il apporte.I've tried the decanter. I've tried them with food and without. I've tried them after a healthy dose of whiskey, and I've tried them en suite after delicious summer whites and appetizers.
Help me, readers. Help me, internet.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Caveat Emptyer Top Ten of 2009-2010
JUST MINUTES BEFORE THE DEADLINE, dear readers, I fulfill my summer promise of a top ten list.
As both of you know, I'm not a "rankings" sort of person. I'm a both-and drinker. Let's try all of them. In different orders. With different foods. Maybe dimming the lights will help. Or sitting outside.
But one reader, he expressed a desire for a digest, and in the interests of democracy and shit, here we go: of the wines I've reviewed on this blog in the last year, what are my top ten? (Okay, actually, I'm doing this because I tend not to express a strong opinion in my reviews, and some folks who trust my palate don't have time to close-read all my bla bla bla about the wines.)
I'll do my best to post a new version of this list annually. One thought on the list (other than the obvious infatuation with Merlot): I've had a number of wines that would be in this top ten, displacing those at the bottom, that I didn't review (some 2007 Chateauneufs come to mind, and a Terlato Chardonnay that I think is super). And there are some old favorites (the V. Sattui Suzanne's Vineyard 2002) to which I returned that I'm not including. So this approach to ranking will be structured a bit by novelty. When the volume of reviews warrants it, I'll do an ALL-TIME list.
Note, 4/15/2011: I just noticed that there are no Cabernets and no Champagnes on this list. Awesome, or no?
As both of you know, I'm not a "rankings" sort of person. I'm a both-and drinker. Let's try all of them. In different orders. With different foods. Maybe dimming the lights will help. Or sitting outside.
But one reader, he expressed a desire for a digest, and in the interests of democracy and shit, here we go: of the wines I've reviewed on this blog in the last year, what are my top ten? (Okay, actually, I'm doing this because I tend not to express a strong opinion in my reviews, and some folks who trust my palate don't have time to close-read all my bla bla bla about the wines.)
- Prieure Roch Vosne-Romanee Les Clous
- Sinskey Merlot
- Gary Farrell Merlot
- Shafer Merlot
- San Román Toro
- Saint Jean du Barroux L'Ogliocene
- Eyrie Chardonnay
- Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir
- Frank Family Chardonnay
- Howard Park Scotsdale Shiraz
I'll do my best to post a new version of this list annually. One thought on the list (other than the obvious infatuation with Merlot): I've had a number of wines that would be in this top ten, displacing those at the bottom, that I didn't review (some 2007 Chateauneufs come to mind, and a Terlato Chardonnay that I think is super). And there are some old favorites (the V. Sattui Suzanne's Vineyard 2002) to which I returned that I'm not including. So this approach to ranking will be structured a bit by novelty. When the volume of reviews warrants it, I'll do an ALL-TIME list.
Note, 4/15/2011: I just noticed that there are no Cabernets and no Champagnes on this list. Awesome, or no?
Napa Valley 2010
NAPA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA. If you're coming from out of state, usually, you get out of American Canyon, driving north, and you breathe a sigh of relief. You leave behind a place much like the place you just flew in from, and enter a distinctive terrain coated with farms and vineyards and odd, kitschy sculpture and architecture.
The weirdness of California is legendary, but the combination of strong personalities and unusual microclimates--the latter, I suppose, being the landscape equivalent of weirdness--gives Napa a unique feel. This is the second story I've done on California wine country, and this time I'm focusing on Napa to make a few observations about wineries and tasting and trends.
Napa wineries are expensive. I went to three, this time, that don't charge (or don't charge me, anyway): Anderson's Conn Valley, Larkmead, and V. Sattui. The Frank Family winery used to be gratis, but no more. Anderson's Conn Valley was well worth the drive--through stunning mountainous landscape, filled with interesting birds and tucked-away homesteads--and their wines are delightful. Larkmead is an old favorite of mine, but they don't really have any entry-level wines; the tasting experience there is quiet and unhurried, and the 2007 Solari is phenomenal. V. Sattui is a carnival--even a little crazy down in the cellar--but it's a crowd pleaser, with what seemed like six thousand different wines. The Zinfandels and the Cabernets are great.
If you have to pay real money for a tasting, I'd say do it at a place like Duckhorn, where you try a great number of wines, you sit down, they give you water and crackers and nuts to snack on, and you can enjoy a beautiful garden-and-vines view. I paid almost as much for a tasting at Cliff Lede, which makes one of my favorite Cabernets, and got a tiny number of tiny tastes and no choice about what to taste. Also fun for the money is Rombauer: for ten bucks, you get some tasty wines, a stunning view, and a glass to take home with you.
Disappointments, for me, included Silver Oak and the Castello di Amorosa, Sattui's second project. The wines just weren't that great. But two things definitely emerged, across the different tastings: the 2007 reds are stunning; and for the most part, in the reds category, the regular tastings are pouring wines that are too young. I was poured Syrahs, Merlots, and Cabs that were not really ready to drink yet all up and down the valley, at places where I had paid $15 or more to taste. The '07s are exuberant young--and may at some point not long from now start hibernating--but the '06s aren't all ready to go. What's more, I experienced this with Syrahs, Merlots, and even Zins. At Sattui, they poured a 2003 Zin that was phenomenal; the '07s they poured were big, but disorganized and tight.
Of course there is a principle of thrift involved here--and it was Memorial Day weekend, so the tasting rooms were prepping for crowds of not-too-picky wine drinkers. My bad. But there must be another way!
Trends: Pinot is still hugely popular, and still often meh. They're pouring lots of Cab Franc for the oenorati, and it's good. Express an affection for Merlot, and you will get an extra pour (the 2005 Silverado is delightful, and, I learned, will be the last vintage with that minty edge, because they cut down the Eucalyptus trees next to the vineyard--boo!) in many cases. There were far more tour buses and limos this time than I remember before, which is a vast improvement: if there are more than three in your party, do it. A number of places were staying open later, though none beats Girard's 8 p.m. closing time. Finally, there are many ultra-premium, three-digit projects that are just not really worth it, so don't be impressed until you taste them, and trust the scrutiny of your palate. I didn't try a single $100+ Cabernet that I thought was tastier or more interesting than Larkmead's Solari.
Not trendy, but wonderful to see, was that the service everywhere in Napa is still excellent. From the collective A Dozen Vintners even to estate wineries I mock for their pretentiousness (Darioush), the pourers are engaging, passionate people who want to find out what you like. Next time I report on Napa, I'll include some of their voices, which I suspect will put a different spin on all of the above.
The weirdness of California is legendary, but the combination of strong personalities and unusual microclimates--the latter, I suppose, being the landscape equivalent of weirdness--gives Napa a unique feel. This is the second story I've done on California wine country, and this time I'm focusing on Napa to make a few observations about wineries and tasting and trends.
If you have to pay real money for a tasting, I'd say do it at a place like Duckhorn, where you try a great number of wines, you sit down, they give you water and crackers and nuts to snack on, and you can enjoy a beautiful garden-and-vines view. I paid almost as much for a tasting at Cliff Lede, which makes one of my favorite Cabernets, and got a tiny number of tiny tastes and no choice about what to taste. Also fun for the money is Rombauer: for ten bucks, you get some tasty wines, a stunning view, and a glass to take home with you.
Disappointments, for me, included Silver Oak and the Castello di Amorosa, Sattui's second project. The wines just weren't that great. But two things definitely emerged, across the different tastings: the 2007 reds are stunning; and for the most part, in the reds category, the regular tastings are pouring wines that are too young. I was poured Syrahs, Merlots, and Cabs that were not really ready to drink yet all up and down the valley, at places where I had paid $15 or more to taste. The '07s are exuberant young--and may at some point not long from now start hibernating--but the '06s aren't all ready to go. What's more, I experienced this with Syrahs, Merlots, and even Zins. At Sattui, they poured a 2003 Zin that was phenomenal; the '07s they poured were big, but disorganized and tight.
Of course there is a principle of thrift involved here--and it was Memorial Day weekend, so the tasting rooms were prepping for crowds of not-too-picky wine drinkers. My bad. But there must be another way!
Trends: Pinot is still hugely popular, and still often meh. They're pouring lots of Cab Franc for the oenorati, and it's good. Express an affection for Merlot, and you will get an extra pour (the 2005 Silverado is delightful, and, I learned, will be the last vintage with that minty edge, because they cut down the Eucalyptus trees next to the vineyard--boo!) in many cases. There were far more tour buses and limos this time than I remember before, which is a vast improvement: if there are more than three in your party, do it. A number of places were staying open later, though none beats Girard's 8 p.m. closing time. Finally, there are many ultra-premium, three-digit projects that are just not really worth it, so don't be impressed until you taste them, and trust the scrutiny of your palate. I didn't try a single $100+ Cabernet that I thought was tastier or more interesting than Larkmead's Solari.Not trendy, but wonderful to see, was that the service everywhere in Napa is still excellent. From the collective A Dozen Vintners even to estate wineries I mock for their pretentiousness (Darioush), the pourers are engaging, passionate people who want to find out what you like. Next time I report on Napa, I'll include some of their voices, which I suspect will put a different spin on all of the above.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
I Saw Miles and Miles of Wine Bars
AUSTIN, TEXAS: SONG, BBQ, AND... WINE.
When I moved here, I was worried about the wine. I'm not one of the oenorati, but still, some things are obvious: it's hot here; it's a beer town (like many in Texas); and the bigger (money-wise) the state, the worse the potential liquor-distribution corruption. Within weeks, though, my fears were laid to rest, and my curiosity grew--it turns out that there are many wine bars in Austin, with styles to suit different tastes.
I haven't hit them all, yet, because I ran out of money and had to turn to a life of crime after wine bar number nine. There are a few more, and I'll get to them eventually.
For you POWER PLAYERS out there, who LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST, BABY, and DON'T HAVE TIME FOR CHIT-CHAT, here's your ranked version of what follows:
1. Vino Vino
2. Trading Post
3. Cru
4. House Wine
5. Uncorked
6. Cork and Co.
7. Fion Wine Pub
8. The Grove
Now, for those of you with a moment or two to read the narration, and who know that one size never fits all, and that an awareness of that is what makes Austin so awesome, here's the deal:
You could endlessly enumerate categories for a wine bar, because every wine bar owner has a theory. Flights? Urban-cosmo feel? Killer food? Awesome deals? Bottles at retail prices? The most trendy wines? But a marketing theory is not enough.
I look for a wine bar built on a self-awareness about palate. That is, the human beings in the house who choose the wine fearlessly assert their taste both in the wine list and, in harmony with that taste, in the other features of the joint, from marketing to decor to programming to food. Even if my palate hates the palate of those human beings, then, I'll respect this harmony, because I know somebody--many somebodies!--will enjoy it, be regulars, and promote it. And who knows when one's tastes may change?
Most wine bars will shout to you that the staff is involved in choosing the wines. Or at least--an important distinction--will offer "staff favorites." This is useless, of course, unless you know each staff member's palate, and it's often the case that as far as buying the wines and setting prices, staff have no say.
Far better is a place where the staff are encouraged to tell you what the wines are like, and to experiment with your palate: that is, to pour you lots of samples until you find something you like. This should NOT cost you money. If they charge you for tastes ("3 oz. / 5 oz. / 6 oz"), go somewhere else, I say. Flights are okay, if they are priced right and are interesting. (Even better is when staff members remember who you are and guide you to the new bottles that are in your line; you can tell they'll be able to do this from the way they fact-find with you, and stand back and watch, the first time.)
Without further ado, here's a brief sense of these excellent joints:
8. The Grove
This place is a little corporate inside, but has a nice oak-covered patio. The wine list is good and the flights are well-constructed to please. The food is okay, but I wasn't blown away, and it's in a bourgeois part of town, so you are stuck with people who ought to be at home drinking cases of Cheval Blanc but instead are having social hours with their bosses' friends at The Grove. The service is good, if a little stiff sometimes; there are bottles at near-retail prices for purchase in the joint, which means if you know what you're after and are with a few folks, it's a great deal.
7. Fion Wine Pub
Now we begin to get into Austin weirdness. An Irish Wine Pub? I was just in Ireland, and can report that it's not wine country: the distribution there is mafia-esque, and there's no sun, so they don't grow grapes for fermenting. Fion is in Bee Caves, a bourgeois little town near/in Austin, but well out of the way for tourists. The food is decent, and the beer selection is phenomenal. By the glass or flight, the wine isn't that great. But they've got stellar bottles, for the oenoscenti anyway, at retail prices, and will pop 'em for you. So I say bring a couple of friends and live it up. The service is good and sharp--a bit Irish, really, so be on your toes! One bad thing: they sell some sort of boutique soap there, and the smell of it is really powerful, so in a lot of places near the bar you can't really smell the wine. Boo!
6. Cork and Co.
Cork and Company, unlike the previous two bars, is downtown, in the midst of it all. The service is good, if not warm; the food is good but not great; but the wine list is more coherent and powerful than the previous two places, which raises it in my estimate. Still, it's a tough call--let's put it this way: go to Cork and Co. during happy hour.
5. Uncorked
Really, the same goes for Uncorked, which is a bit more out of the way, just across the I-35 border in East Austin. It has many things going for it, including a good wine list and friendly service, lots of space and parking. It's in an old house, so it has a nice feel to it, and comfortable seating situations from which to choose. I found the staff there a tad less familiar with the wines, but pretty willing to work with you to figure out what you might like.
4. House Wine
Now we get into the interesting stuff. House Wine is in an old house in one of the hippest parts of town: just off Lamar and Barton Springs. The space is pure Austin eclecticism, as is the crowd. The prices are good. The food is not great, and the staff are beautiful but not particularly helpful. But the palate of the joint is unmistakeable, old world bargains: Spanish first, Italians second, obscure French third, etc. There's live music, which is great, and on certain days they'll hook you up with the stuff they opened the day before for half price by the glass. But: often the wines are too warm and oxygenated, and the staff don't encourage tasting at all. So be firm!
3. Cru
Cru is a chain. This would seem immediately to take it off my list. But they take good care of their wines, and they will let you taste every damn one on the menu if you ask. No you di'-en! Yes, I did, haters. The staff are too professional at the start, but they quickly warm up, especially if you're a local. The locations are corporate, to be sure: one downtown in a key condo-and-hotel area, the other up north in the suburbs. But both have delightful outdoor seating, excellent soundtracks, and quite good food at a reasonable price. And the palate is comparatively consistent: big wines, with strong personalities, served in interesting flights. A few of the staff are real terroirists, which has its advantages once you figure out their tastes, and they'll load you up with free vino to try to win you over if you engage with them. Bravo.
2. Trading Post
Back to the 'burbs. There's a swarm of wine bars in Bee Caves, and this one is my favorite. The interior is classic Austin--looks like a damn Elks Club, with leather chairs and red drapery and dark wood. The food is fantastic; the happy hour is a bargain; the palate of the buyer is unapologetically California (the old world wines they choose are brimming with personality); and it's unpretentious as all get-out. They encourage tasting enthusiastically. They also enthusiastically encourage tasting. I tasted enthusiastically. Is it worth a trip out there? Uh huh.
1. Vino Vino
Ah, Vino Vino. I love you and I hate you. I love you because of the music, the decor, the awesome hip neighborhood (Hyde Park), the ginormous pours (for real: have never seen bigger), the many discoveries I've made there, and the fact that you have only ONE California wine on the list (Conn Valley's Prologue). I hate you because you make me drink so many wines that I think I'm not going to like and then I do. I hate you because you are so much cooler than I am and you are full of people that are too cool for me. I hate you because your food is so damn good, but I can't eat dinner there because I know I will drink too much wine. In other words, I love you. The love-sonnet aside: there is an outdoor area in back, complete with a little gas fireplace, that is one of my favorite places to confab or muse; the palate is balanced and old world, favoring strong fruit and strong earth (whether the wine is white or red); they'll let you taste whatever; they've got retail price bottles that make it a bargain for three or more drinkers. Finally, the music isn't just music: it's local musicians with national reputations, or who are about to have them.
Austin's a cool town, loaded with tech savants, up-and-coming politicians, intellectuals, ripped semi-professional bicyclists, haptic musicians, hot sorority girls, hippies, artists...you name it. It's a world-class city, and a stunning, if surprising, place to have a great glass of wine. I'll update the narrative above, and change the rankings if necessary, since the odds are that half these places won't exist a year from now (whenever now is). If I ever sober up, I'll add more to the list--but start here and you can't go wrong.
When I moved here, I was worried about the wine. I'm not one of the oenorati, but still, some things are obvious: it's hot here; it's a beer town (like many in Texas); and the bigger (money-wise) the state, the worse the potential liquor-distribution corruption. Within weeks, though, my fears were laid to rest, and my curiosity grew--it turns out that there are many wine bars in Austin, with styles to suit different tastes.
I haven't hit them all, yet, because I ran out of money and had to turn to a life of crime after wine bar number nine. There are a few more, and I'll get to them eventually.
For you POWER PLAYERS out there, who LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST, BABY, and DON'T HAVE TIME FOR CHIT-CHAT, here's your ranked version of what follows:
1. Vino Vino
2. Trading Post
3. Cru
4. House Wine
5. Uncorked
6. Cork and Co.
7. Fion Wine Pub
8. The Grove
Now, for those of you with a moment or two to read the narration, and who know that one size never fits all, and that an awareness of that is what makes Austin so awesome, here's the deal:
You could endlessly enumerate categories for a wine bar, because every wine bar owner has a theory. Flights? Urban-cosmo feel? Killer food? Awesome deals? Bottles at retail prices? The most trendy wines? But a marketing theory is not enough.
I look for a wine bar built on a self-awareness about palate. That is, the human beings in the house who choose the wine fearlessly assert their taste both in the wine list and, in harmony with that taste, in the other features of the joint, from marketing to decor to programming to food. Even if my palate hates the palate of those human beings, then, I'll respect this harmony, because I know somebody--many somebodies!--will enjoy it, be regulars, and promote it. And who knows when one's tastes may change?
Most wine bars will shout to you that the staff is involved in choosing the wines. Or at least--an important distinction--will offer "staff favorites." This is useless, of course, unless you know each staff member's palate, and it's often the case that as far as buying the wines and setting prices, staff have no say.
Far better is a place where the staff are encouraged to tell you what the wines are like, and to experiment with your palate: that is, to pour you lots of samples until you find something you like. This should NOT cost you money. If they charge you for tastes ("3 oz. / 5 oz. / 6 oz"), go somewhere else, I say. Flights are okay, if they are priced right and are interesting. (Even better is when staff members remember who you are and guide you to the new bottles that are in your line; you can tell they'll be able to do this from the way they fact-find with you, and stand back and watch, the first time.)
Without further ado, here's a brief sense of these excellent joints:
8. The Grove
This place is a little corporate inside, but has a nice oak-covered patio. The wine list is good and the flights are well-constructed to please. The food is okay, but I wasn't blown away, and it's in a bourgeois part of town, so you are stuck with people who ought to be at home drinking cases of Cheval Blanc but instead are having social hours with their bosses' friends at The Grove. The service is good, if a little stiff sometimes; there are bottles at near-retail prices for purchase in the joint, which means if you know what you're after and are with a few folks, it's a great deal.
7. Fion Wine Pub
Now we begin to get into Austin weirdness. An Irish Wine Pub? I was just in Ireland, and can report that it's not wine country: the distribution there is mafia-esque, and there's no sun, so they don't grow grapes for fermenting. Fion is in Bee Caves, a bourgeois little town near/in Austin, but well out of the way for tourists. The food is decent, and the beer selection is phenomenal. By the glass or flight, the wine isn't that great. But they've got stellar bottles, for the oenoscenti anyway, at retail prices, and will pop 'em for you. So I say bring a couple of friends and live it up. The service is good and sharp--a bit Irish, really, so be on your toes! One bad thing: they sell some sort of boutique soap there, and the smell of it is really powerful, so in a lot of places near the bar you can't really smell the wine. Boo!
6. Cork and Co.
Cork and Company, unlike the previous two bars, is downtown, in the midst of it all. The service is good, if not warm; the food is good but not great; but the wine list is more coherent and powerful than the previous two places, which raises it in my estimate. Still, it's a tough call--let's put it this way: go to Cork and Co. during happy hour.
5. Uncorked
Really, the same goes for Uncorked, which is a bit more out of the way, just across the I-35 border in East Austin. It has many things going for it, including a good wine list and friendly service, lots of space and parking. It's in an old house, so it has a nice feel to it, and comfortable seating situations from which to choose. I found the staff there a tad less familiar with the wines, but pretty willing to work with you to figure out what you might like.
4. House Wine
Now we get into the interesting stuff. House Wine is in an old house in one of the hippest parts of town: just off Lamar and Barton Springs. The space is pure Austin eclecticism, as is the crowd. The prices are good. The food is not great, and the staff are beautiful but not particularly helpful. But the palate of the joint is unmistakeable, old world bargains: Spanish first, Italians second, obscure French third, etc. There's live music, which is great, and on certain days they'll hook you up with the stuff they opened the day before for half price by the glass. But: often the wines are too warm and oxygenated, and the staff don't encourage tasting at all. So be firm!
3. Cru
Cru is a chain. This would seem immediately to take it off my list. But they take good care of their wines, and they will let you taste every damn one on the menu if you ask. No you di'-en! Yes, I did, haters. The staff are too professional at the start, but they quickly warm up, especially if you're a local. The locations are corporate, to be sure: one downtown in a key condo-and-hotel area, the other up north in the suburbs. But both have delightful outdoor seating, excellent soundtracks, and quite good food at a reasonable price. And the palate is comparatively consistent: big wines, with strong personalities, served in interesting flights. A few of the staff are real terroirists, which has its advantages once you figure out their tastes, and they'll load you up with free vino to try to win you over if you engage with them. Bravo.
2. Trading Post
Back to the 'burbs. There's a swarm of wine bars in Bee Caves, and this one is my favorite. The interior is classic Austin--looks like a damn Elks Club, with leather chairs and red drapery and dark wood. The food is fantastic; the happy hour is a bargain; the palate of the buyer is unapologetically California (the old world wines they choose are brimming with personality); and it's unpretentious as all get-out. They encourage tasting enthusiastically. They also enthusiastically encourage tasting. I tasted enthusiastically. Is it worth a trip out there? Uh huh.
1. Vino Vino
Ah, Vino Vino. I love you and I hate you. I love you because of the music, the decor, the awesome hip neighborhood (Hyde Park), the ginormous pours (for real: have never seen bigger), the many discoveries I've made there, and the fact that you have only ONE California wine on the list (Conn Valley's Prologue). I hate you because you make me drink so many wines that I think I'm not going to like and then I do. I hate you because you are so much cooler than I am and you are full of people that are too cool for me. I hate you because your food is so damn good, but I can't eat dinner there because I know I will drink too much wine. In other words, I love you. The love-sonnet aside: there is an outdoor area in back, complete with a little gas fireplace, that is one of my favorite places to confab or muse; the palate is balanced and old world, favoring strong fruit and strong earth (whether the wine is white or red); they'll let you taste whatever; they've got retail price bottles that make it a bargain for three or more drinkers. Finally, the music isn't just music: it's local musicians with national reputations, or who are about to have them.
Austin's a cool town, loaded with tech savants, up-and-coming politicians, intellectuals, ripped semi-professional bicyclists, haptic musicians, hot sorority girls, hippies, artists...you name it. It's a world-class city, and a stunning, if surprising, place to have a great glass of wine. I'll update the narrative above, and change the rankings if necessary, since the odds are that half these places won't exist a year from now (whenever now is). If I ever sober up, I'll add more to the list--but start here and you can't go wrong.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Robert Keenan Wine Dinner
ONE OF THE BEST RESTAURANTS in Austin, Mirabelle, is just around the bend from my place (or was; it closed in 2012). The food is excellent, and a few of the entrees are among the best in town. The wine list is really, really good: not vast, but well-designed. It pairs well with the menu, and there are always good deals to be had for someone with a little wine knowledge. Those without such knowledge will be thrilled.
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| Keenan Vineyards on Spring Mountain, Napa Valley, CA |
"You get infected...with this thing in your blood," Michael Keenan told us, about getting into the wine business; "it's like a virus." I agree, and I ain't even in the wine business. I've reviewed Keenan wines before, so I was delighted at the opportunity to meet Michael Keenan and to taste some of the winery's other offerings.
Before reflecting on the event itself--a different experience from my previous wine dinners--let me run down the wines, for surfers looking for opinions about how these wines were drinking:
2007 Keenan "Spring Mountain" Chardonnay: On the nose, some buttercream, a little pineapple, but reasonably tight. On the palate, excellently balanced, with lime, pineapple, butter, even a hint of mint, which was delightful, on the finish. Bourgogney. Splendid with a little crepe, prosciutto and gruyere canape. Circa $25 retail.
2006 Keenan Napa Valley Merlot: On the nose, licorice and cherry, with a hint of cinnamon. Chocolate, violets, and black cherry on the palate. I really liked this--I think it was my favorite. For a comparison, see this entry. Even better, as it's still young, with the arctic char and fava bean puree. They cheated by doing a Merlot reduction alongside--but I saw that coming, and tried the wine with the fava bean puree first, and it was a charming combination. Circa $30 retail.
2005 Keenan Napa Cabernet, circa $50 retail: On the nose, briary, smoky, plum-ridden; really intense. On the palate, the usual cherry, licorice, and plum, harmoniously balanced. A caveat: I favor mountain wines from the Napa/Sonoma areas, as you'll see from some other entries. And this is an '05: it's still young, and it had not been open long--yet it was damn tasty. And the same goes for...
2005 "Spring Mountain" Cabernet, Reserve: Pepper, plum, bell pepper, blackberry, and tar on the nose--though not tremendously focused. On the palate, more focused plum, licorice, smoke, and charming sage at the close. A charming wine in general, though worth the $90 price tag? Hard to say. Both Cabernets were delightful--and showed better--with the lamb enchilada and espresso crema sauce.
2005 Reserve Merlot, "Mailbox Vineyard": This has the hallmarks of a young vineyard. On the nose, black fruit, but a little sweetness in the aromas, and fascinating desert sage. On the palate, chocolate covered raspberry, plum, orange, and a hint of cilantro. Those with less affection for the mountain style, with its briary smoke, will like this one more, I think; and too, it's young. These wines are built to age, as my previous encounters with them suggested. This paired well, though not perhaps as elegantly as the previous courses, with a beef filet topped with foie gras.
The genre of the wine dinner is still a bit of a mystery to me. I'm tempted to say that its characteristics are not generalizable--that each wine dinner tends to show its peculiarities in relation to the venue. Mirabelle is in a comparatively wealthy, comparatively suburban neighborhood, and its chef is a player in Austin's food and beverage realm. So perhaps it's not surprising that this dinner saw a fascinating combination of established, older folks with younger, mover-shaker business types. I'll do another of these dinners before long, and to test my theory, I'll choose an utterly new venue to me.
I had the good luck to be seated with a charmingly clumsy photographer (who, I suspect, also preferred the Merlot), some mover-shaker folks (who, appallingly, left behind most of their wine and decamped early), and some longtime fans of Mirabelle. I was struck by the appreciation that Mirabelle's owner and head chef, Michael Vilim, showed for his staff, both by introducing them to us during the dinner and by naming all of them--servers, buser, and sous chefs--on the menu. A big small thing. (New York City peeps: please do post a comment if you have been to a restaurant-hosted wine dinner at which you learned the full names of all of your servers and sous chefs.)
Michael Keenan has done a million of these things, you can tell, and he got up three times to talk about the wines, but otherwise hung back or cruised among the tables, informally chatting. That, it seemed to me, was an ideal approach--no pitch, no bullshit, no anxiousness, just passion. Or perhaps, a virus.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Walt Whitman on Champagne in Ice
TONIGHT I PLANNED to review the Rodney Strong Alexander Valley Cabernet, 2007. I'm drinking it now and it's pretty tannic: like the other '07 Cab I recently had, it's nice and fruity but seriously austere, and probably worth laying down for at least three more years before trying again.
Instead of a full review, I give you a bit of wino history:
"Champagne in ice." To my knowledge, an unpublished poem by the world-famous New Yorker (who died, tragically, in Jersey), Walt Whitman. Walt loved ice cream and he loved champagne, apparently; for a contradictory view (do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes, homeboy!) see Whitman's anti-drinking novel, Franklin Evans.
We even get a glimpse of Whitman's palate: the champagne is "cold and tart-sweet drink'd from a big mug half-fill'd with ice." Oenophiles today would be shocked by the ice--but give it a try: you'll doubtless feel that freedom and joy the good gray poet talks about!
Instead of a full review, I give you a bit of wino history:
 |
| Walt Whitman, ms. from the Oscar Lion Collection, New York Public Library. |
"Champagne in ice." To my knowledge, an unpublished poem by the world-famous New Yorker (who died, tragically, in Jersey), Walt Whitman. Walt loved ice cream and he loved champagne, apparently; for a contradictory view (do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes, homeboy!) see Whitman's anti-drinking novel, Franklin Evans.
We even get a glimpse of Whitman's palate: the champagne is "cold and tart-sweet drink'd from a big mug half-fill'd with ice." Oenophiles today would be shocked by the ice--but give it a try: you'll doubtless feel that freedom and joy the good gray poet talks about!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
The Great Maderized Wine Tasting
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| Hello, ancient beauties. |
A couple of years ago my father suggested that we haul a sample of them up and taste them someday; this week, a cold winter day in Kentucky called out for a couple of good friends, a light seafood lunch, and a case of aged wine. Today's blog entry may not have much practical use for my readers, but both of them may find it amusing.
Like white people, some white wines age well, and others don't. But to complicate this, many white wines that are made to age are also deliberately made to taste quite unusual after a decade or so. An open mind makes wine taste better, no matter the tendencies of the palate. Going into the tasting, we knew that there were several possibilities: all the wines might taste the same (and awful); a few of them might have survived and be quite good; and we might be surprised by which ones were which.
Still, we did take some precautions. Many of these wines were not built to age, by any means, and none of them originally retailed for more than about $15. So we decided to order them by "guessed likelihood of not sucking" rather than from lightness to heaviness of body as is customary. What follows are my notes on what happened, accompanied by a couple of photos to show both some of the colors of the wine and the unusual cork phenotypes that we found, ranging from white mold-covered to dirt-covered. I was exhausted just trying to get the bottles clean enough to put on a table.
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| All spruced up...mostly. White mold, left; brown "dirt," right. |
Monteagle Wine Cellars, Tennessee Seyval Blanc, 1990, 12.5%, Monteagle, Tennessee, USA: A mellow, deep, golden brown color, this one had a nose of burned hazelnut, apricot, and varnish. The palate delivered old lemon peel, leather polish, and toasted acorns. It was praised by one of the five members of the crowd, and detested by most of the others. But in retrospect, most drinkers considered it to be in the top three of the tasting. In this respect, a complete shock. Also the first Tennessee wine I've ever had, and only the second Seyval.
Slaughter Leftwich Vineyards, Sauvignon Blanc, 1990, 12.5%, Austin, Texas, USA: First Texas wine I've ever tasted, too. What a day! A deep, clear straw color, and a nose that brought poetry from one of the assembled company: "Smells like the hill country...in a dust storm." Do they make mango varnish? That's what it smelled like to me; the front palate was a blast of apricot gasoline, then an eerie emptiness in the middle, and a finish of butter and oak. If you came in on the last 5 seconds of the taste, and then left again immediately, you'd swear it was a California Chardonnay.
Sebastiani Vineyards, Eye of the Swan, Pinot Noir Blanc, 1984, 13.2%, Sonoma, California, USA: This was a piece of my parents' past, and brought smiles of recollection all around. Yet no stories were forthcoming. A cloudy golden brown color, this Pinor Noir blanc (meaning it spent just a little time on the skins before being bottled) was the crowd favorite for the day. With more tannins, and also in a magnum format, it had a better chance in the basement. Still, 25 years is a long time for what was a bottom-shelf wine at the time! My pronouncement that it had a nose of wet dog ass mixed with Pine SolTM was mocked, but I stand by it. Flavors of peach and oak were rapidly followed by something like kirsch-flavored paint thinner.
Cantina di Montefiascone, Est! Est!! Est!!!, Trebbiano, Malvasia, 1984, 11.5%, Montefiascone, Italy: The color of bourbon, mixed with cloudy river water. The nose? Sherry, all the way. If you were a pirate, you could say from experience that this wine tastes like a bad oyster served in a moldy rag.
Federico Paternina, Blanco Seco, Viura (probably), 1988, 11%, Ollauri, Spain: Though white wines have to have a splendid balance of acidity and other things to age well, this one testifies that color doesn't work by the same principles; it had a beautiful, rich golden hue. The nose, however, smelled like nothing more than spoiled milk (really, it's extraordinary to think such an odor could have been produced by fruit, but some kinds of education are not edifying). The palate was of pears preserved in acetone. "Here's to temperance," my father pronounced, upon tasting it.
Rutherford Hill Winery, Napa Valley Chardonnay, 1989, 13%, Rutherford, California, USA: I love Rutherford Hill wines, as I've testified elsewhere on this blog. This one was the best of the bunch, to my taste, but universally hated by my companions. Its color was a dark greenish-gold, and it had oak and butter, with an aftertaste of snow tire chains--a little radial, a little metal, a little soggy ash. I drank half a glass.
Viña San Pedro, Gato Blanco, Sauvignon Blanc, 1991, 12%, Lontue, Chile: A hideous brownish-yellow, the nose of the Gato Blanco sported oak, nail polish remover, and roses. Yes, roses, which didn't bode well. The palate delivered tart, tart strawberry mineral spirits, with a bit of a novacaine effect. Admittedly, the latter might have been a cumulative effect, by this point.
Louis Gisselbrecht, Gewurztraminer, Cuvee Reserve, 1988, 12.5%, Dambach-la-Ville, Alsace, France: Another lesson: whatever complex chemical stuff has to happen to keep a white wine going in the cellar in the absence of nice balancing tannins does not apply to the nose, necessarily, either. This one had a light gold color, perhaps a little dark for a Gewurz but well within reason, and a delightful grapefruity nose. But sadly, to quote one drinker, "It smells like Gewurz but it tastes like shit!" Ok, it didn't actually taste like poo, but a strong front of grapefruit rapidly yielded to Testor's model glue and pine needles. One drinker pointed out that glue is not universally despised, but I think glue huffers will be disappointed that the nose on this isn't more in line with its flavor.
Bodegas Olarra, Cerro Añon, Viura, 1984, 11.5%, Logroño, Rioja, Spain: We had high hopes for this one, too, but despite an interesting medium orange gold color and a roasted pear nose, the nail polish, oak, burned hazelnut, radish, and cedar that it delivered ("Agent Orange blossoms," was my phrase at the time) got it dumped out quickly by our assembly.
What have we learned, one dump bucket-full of wine and ten empty bottles and broken corks later? First, that the variety of bad-tasting things is nearly boundless. Second, that wine's individuality is hard even for long-term, unbalanced chemical processes to suppress. Third, that when you do a maderized wine tasting, you should have on hand at least two bottles of really good stuff, and something pickled, to clear palates!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Nebraska Wines
NOW, IF THAT headline doesn't get your attention, you must live in Nebraska.
The format of this entry is going to be a little looser than usual, so my Google-sent visitors will have to click away. Or, alternatively, bear with me. No, just click away. Go! Get ye to another website, with the information you want right there at the top of the page in tabular format, or better yet in an embedded YouTube video!
I was in Nebraska recently, on a business trip. One of my favorite fellow geeks, Terry, was at the same meeting. We've all had that moment, saying to ourselves, "Thank god so-and-so is here; this meeting is going to be survivable, now." Terry can geek out about our work, but as I discovered a few years ago, what makes him particularly awesome is that he and I can geek out about wine.
He's an appreciator, rather than a palate-policeman. A drinker, really, who loves great beer and good food, even if he can't always describe what things taste like. And as a long-time New Yorker, he loves a good bargain. When in Nebraska, we drink at an Indian restaurant called The Oven, which has one of the best (and most reasonably priced) wine lists I've ever seen. The food is great, and there are some delightful, hard-to-anticipate pairings to be encountered there.
So I was surprised when Terry invited me to go tasting Nebraska wines after our last full day of meetings. I was contemplating a lovely Willamette Pinot on The Oven's outdoor patio. Instead, we headed to a Nebraska-centric gift shop to taste six Nebraska wines each.
This was an education: I had never had wine made from a single one of the varietals on the tasting list. Frontenac; DeChaunac; Chambourcin; Marechal Foch; LaCrosse; Vignoles; and many more. They're sweet, unsurprisingly, given Nebraska's average temperatures and palatal preferences, and they're young. But some of these wines had interesting layers, and folks who like sweet wines should find Nebraska wines offer an astonishing variety for those who have been stuck with White Zinfandel and Gewurtz for all these years.
My favorites (as confessedly a fan of drier wines): Among the whites, I enjoyed the James Arthur Nebraska White. James Arthur bottles an astonishing number of varietals, but this white blend, of Dry Vignoles, LaCrosse, and Seyval, was fruity-sweet, rather than candy-sweet, and had some haunting notes of mineral and earth. It was also comparatively inexpensive, between $10-20. Among the reds, I enjoyed the Cuthills Chancellor, which had a bit of a Pinot Noir-like structure, and a delightful balance of fruit and earth. It was shockingly $32 a bottle, but for special occasions, or Nebraska state business dinners, it's more than worth it.
For Nebraska residents, I highly recommend the Nebraska Wine Tour, which you can find more about at http://www.nebraskawines.com. A hint: be sure you get up to Pierce, off the beaten track though it may be, because there's some good wine terroir a-borning up there.
As always, my thanks to Terry for enlightenment. I'm looking forward to my next Nebraska wine adventure.
The format of this entry is going to be a little looser than usual, so my Google-sent visitors will have to click away. Or, alternatively, bear with me. No, just click away. Go! Get ye to another website, with the information you want right there at the top of the page in tabular format, or better yet in an embedded YouTube video!
I was in Nebraska recently, on a business trip. One of my favorite fellow geeks, Terry, was at the same meeting. We've all had that moment, saying to ourselves, "Thank god so-and-so is here; this meeting is going to be survivable, now." Terry can geek out about our work, but as I discovered a few years ago, what makes him particularly awesome is that he and I can geek out about wine.
He's an appreciator, rather than a palate-policeman. A drinker, really, who loves great beer and good food, even if he can't always describe what things taste like. And as a long-time New Yorker, he loves a good bargain. When in Nebraska, we drink at an Indian restaurant called The Oven, which has one of the best (and most reasonably priced) wine lists I've ever seen. The food is great, and there are some delightful, hard-to-anticipate pairings to be encountered there.
So I was surprised when Terry invited me to go tasting Nebraska wines after our last full day of meetings. I was contemplating a lovely Willamette Pinot on The Oven's outdoor patio. Instead, we headed to a Nebraska-centric gift shop to taste six Nebraska wines each.
This was an education: I had never had wine made from a single one of the varietals on the tasting list. Frontenac; DeChaunac; Chambourcin; Marechal Foch; LaCrosse; Vignoles; and many more. They're sweet, unsurprisingly, given Nebraska's average temperatures and palatal preferences, and they're young. But some of these wines had interesting layers, and folks who like sweet wines should find Nebraska wines offer an astonishing variety for those who have been stuck with White Zinfandel and Gewurtz for all these years.
My favorites (as confessedly a fan of drier wines): Among the whites, I enjoyed the James Arthur Nebraska White. James Arthur bottles an astonishing number of varietals, but this white blend, of Dry Vignoles, LaCrosse, and Seyval, was fruity-sweet, rather than candy-sweet, and had some haunting notes of mineral and earth. It was also comparatively inexpensive, between $10-20. Among the reds, I enjoyed the Cuthills Chancellor, which had a bit of a Pinot Noir-like structure, and a delightful balance of fruit and earth. It was shockingly $32 a bottle, but for special occasions, or Nebraska state business dinners, it's more than worth it.
For Nebraska residents, I highly recommend the Nebraska Wine Tour, which you can find more about at http://www.nebraskawines.com. A hint: be sure you get up to Pierce, off the beaten track though it may be, because there's some good wine terroir a-borning up there.
As always, my thanks to Terry for enlightenment. I'm looking forward to my next Nebraska wine adventure.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Vino100 Lakeway Wine Dinner
Many of those folks are wine lovers, and in Lakeway, they can afford some good wine. Still, even rich folks like a good bargain, and habitual wine drinkers demand great variety in style and price. My friend Gloria runs a joint called Vino100 that sells just such a variety--reasonably priced wines across a range of styles, and a small selection of exceptional stuff (the Hall Cabernet, BV's excellent Tapestry, and Anderson's Conn Valley Prologue have all graced its shelves, along with some great sparkling wines).
Last night I attended my first-ever wine dinner, attended by some entertaining people. Gloria likes wine, and she's a trained engineer, but her real gift seems to be forging relations among people--the ambience her presence generates fosters wine drinking, chatting, losing track of time.
The food was prepared by the extremely French Chef Cesidio. The wine host was a local connoisseur, Scott Grant, and we stuck to Bordeaux. The pacing, hardware, pairings, decor, music, and sheer abundance of wine were splendid. I was running a bit late, having struggled for fifteen minutes trying to put on my blue velvet jacket, but it was worth it, and an anchovy pizzetta and a kir, made with French cider and homemade cassis syrup, were waiting for me as I rushed to the table.
My flashbacks to the old town quarter of Nice were quickly superseded by an excellent appetizer of pulled pork and pear with crouton. A little French and a little Texan, and a lot good, paired with this:
Chateau Bonnet
Bordeaux
Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, Muscadelle
Entre-Deux-Mers, France
2006
12%
$12.00
Color: Gold
Nose: Floral, peach
Body: Medium
Front: Apple
Middle: Cream
Back: A little bread and butter
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Screwcap
This opened up after about half an hour, and was quite good with the food. It's nicely balanced between crisp acidity and a more bready heft, but it's not a particularly multilayered wine. It is a wine of action, not contemplation.
There wasn't long to contemplate anyway, because beef and fish rained upon the table, along with two more wines. I had the cod brandade, a delightful ramekin full of fish and potato with the tiniest amount of curry sauce, or something spicy, on top. It went best, perhaps, with this:
Chateau La Graviere
Bordeaux
Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, Muscadelle
Gironne, France
2005
12%
$22
Color: Coppery gold
Nose: Sherry, with a hint of apricot
Body: Medium to full
Front: Tangy fruit
Middle: Apricot and cream
Back: Sawdust and pie
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Cork
This wine tasted like it was out on the edges of turning bad, but after a few minutes of tasting, the sherryness yielded to a quite interesting complex of fruit, candy, and minerality. I'm curious to try more white from this area of Bordeaux, as these two seemed both cheap and interesting.
More expensive and interesting was the
Chateau Greysac
Medoc
Cru Bourgeois Superieure
Bordeaux, France
2004
13%
$24.00
Color: Rich red
Nose: Violets and nutmeg
Body: Medium
Front: Cinnamon
Middle: Leather
Back: Violets, inner tube
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Cork
This was a delightful wine; not quite as good with my cod as, I'll bet, with the beef bourgogne on the other side of the table. But it was more contemplative.
We finished with a glass of Talijancich White Solero, 10 yr., that was a stunning Aussie mash of apricot, caramel, raisins, and honey, nicely balanced. Before I left, I caught a glimpse of Chef pounding a glass of the Solero--it's damn fine stuff.
For a first-wine-dinner-attendee like me, it was perfect; the company and the wine were a joy, and there was no snobbiness, no ranking. Cheers to Chef and Gloria!
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Asmodeus in the Valleys
SOME OF YOU have probably noticed that, though it's summer and prime wine drinking time, I haven't been reviewing so many bottles. Unlike my hiatus in March, I haven't been abstaining. I've been drinking tiny amounts of an enormous number of wines.
For the past few years I've been spending a few days of May in Napa and Sonoma. There's a conference I go to out there, and I'm allergic to my home state in May. But also, there are some good wines in Napa and Sonoma. Before three years ago, the only winery I'd been to was in Spain, and that is an experience I will never remember--after all, I was about 17 when it happened. Here is a picture of someone who looks much like me, emerging from a vat during that trip, tasting cup in hand.
(Now that I look at this photo, in the wake of many years, I see from the couple in the background that I was perhaps less inebriated by comparison than I thought.)
The famousness of Napa and Sonoma means that there are hundreds of wineries and thousands of tourists all the time. Most of them are not wine experts, so the experience of tasting in the valleys is a strange one for someone who really likes wine and has tasted a lot of it. There's good advice out there on the web for how to make the most of trips to wineries, so I won't repeat it except to say drink lots of water and don't plan to visit too many places in one day. The people who make and serve the wine are the most excellent (see, I've been in California, where they say things like that) thing about any wine country, so come ready to confess your shortcomings, tell your best wine stories, and listen to theirs.
Last year I went to Napa right after being caught in the Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles. The whole neighborhood I was in was evacuated to a high school that was directly in the path of the smoke from the fire; I had a horrific allergic reaction that made it impossible for me to taste anything for a week afterwards. So all I got out of Napa and Sonoma last year was experiments in "mouthfeel."
Well, that's not all. Wine country in California (whether north of San Francisco or the Central Coast or wherever) is stunningly beautiful. No pictures capture it; it is temperature, aromas (eucalyptus and fertilizer, or fermenting berries, or wood-fires and pine), the texture of vineyards, wind, redwoods, switchback roads, potholes on highway 29--all of this. It's easier to see these things clearly if you go in April or May, and go during the week rather than a weekend.
This year was a little odd, too, because Robert Mondavi passed away while I was there. Everywhere I went I heard stories about him, so I felt more embedded in the "deep time" (and also the tight economic weave) of Napa than usual. But rather than just go to the boutique places that I'm really excited about now (Elizabeth Spencer) or the places I've always loved (V. Sattui) I tried to expand my vistas this time.
It's impossible to schematize the wineries in Napa and Sonoma, but I think it might be useful to take a stab at it, since most wine drinkers never get a chance, or more than one chance, to go there. So let me make an important distinction, stereotype a little bit, and then tell a couple of stories.
First, there's a distinction between the experience of a winery's tasting room and its marketplace profile. That is, there are massive winemakers (Gallo; Mondavi), medium winemakers (St. Francis; Sonoma Cutrer); small wineries (Larkmead; Conn Valley); boutique or winery-only-distributed joints (Crane Brothers; V. Sattui); and makers so small that, while having cult followings, it's hard for non-oenophiles even to find out about them (like Terry Hoage in Paso Robles, about whom more later). The whole industry is like a high school from a John Hughes movie: everybody knows everybody and everything is changing all the time--alliances, partnerships, apprenticeships, and so forth--creating a frothy experimental environment founded on some of the best grapes in the world. Listen to the conversation at the table next to you at Artisan or Matthew's in Paso Robles; it's bound to be educational. You'll hear guys who run picking crews who were hired because they speak the obscure Mixtec dialect that the latest round of field workers speak and who have their own vineyards on the side or who work for distributors; you'll hear the latest gossip about new hires or small winemakers furtively whispering to each other about how awesome the Charbono grape is; and much more.
But boutique wineries can have Disney-esque tasting rooms. Established makers like B.V. and St. Supery can have laid-back, but seriously educational ones. Some places, like Freemark Abbey, will do comparative tastings of old wines with recent vintages of the same label; others will only give you the latest stuff released.
To stereotype a little, I found there to be three sorts of tasting room experiences worth differentiating (though the hospitality design folks will doubtless insist that there are twice as many at least): The appointment-only, down-home experience; the friendly, open, tourist-sensitive but oenophile-adaptable experience; and the mostly for-show experience, which includes both Disneyfied tasting rooms and unbelievably pretentious wineries. Before describing some of these in Napa, Sonoma, and Paso Robles, let me disclaim that, while for me, wines from the Disneyfied tasting rooms tended not to be as good, there's no correlation extrapolable from this, both because wine is a matter of personal taste and because even at the newest, most pretentious winery in Rutherford, the Cabernet is unlikely to suck.
Sonoma: I love everywhere in Sonoma. It's beautiful, less trampled than Napa, and less subject to palate-deadening from repeated Cabernet bastings. Gloria Ferrer doesn't do tastings, but a glass of their sophisticated sparkling offerings and some of their free almonds taken out on a veranda overlooking a hillside of chardonnay vines is unforgettable. Things are more goofy at Cline, but they make a couple of the best wines in America. It's less regal at Grundlach-Bundschu, but the wines are even better. At St. Francis, try the Cabernet Franc to see one of the secrets of the widespread success of these wines. To see some of the local politics, take one of the ill-maintained mountain roads over to Napa and read the signs, the messages painted on the road, and the election banners in various front yards.
V. Sattui in Napa is a carnival, but you can't trust anything I say about it, because, for entirely selfish reasons, I don't want you to go there and it's already too popular. Serious: Ehlers, a non-profit winery and ecologically awesome, with a great Cabernet Franc; Larkmead, appointment-only; Elizabeth Spencer. Pretentious beyond imagination: Opus One; Darioush; Peju.
Peju is new and spectacularly self-conscious. They're open until 6 p.m., and I visited them immediately after going to one of the most established wineries in the valley, B.V., and drinking several of their reserve wines. There was a gleaming, white Ferrari parked in the circle in front of the winery when I got there, and one incredibly swanked-out Asian woman taking a picture of another incredibly swanked-out Asian girl (her daughter, as it turned out), so that, together with the fountains and ridiculously expensive building materials, set the tone. Then there was a wait to taste: a sign saying, wait here for the next tasting, while twenty feet away you could see fourteen people tasting and having a big ol' time with the pourer. When you finally were admitted to the tasting area, it turned out to be not the usual shoot-the-shit session with a pourer as in most places in Napa (my favorite was with Amy at Conn Creek), but instead a one-man show with bottles. It was so put-on that I thought at one point the pourer would start juggling .750s of Pinot Noir. The wine was not that great.
Darioush has a second label called CARAVAN that's worth the money. The Persian-palace architecture, million-dollar furnishings, multiple video screens, and roped-off areas with signs telling you redundantly that you can't go there are designed for something, to produce some reaction in tasters that I do not understand. But most importantly, while their Cabernet is good, it's no better than CARAVAN, is much more expensive, and lacks wisdom from Rumi (or anyone else) on the back label.
I went to Paso Robles because I think some of the best wine in the world is starting to come out of there. Apart from falling into a sulphur spring and having to buy new shoes as a result, I had a fantastic time. The business is booming there--on the drive down, on 101, you'll pass through thousands and thousands of acres of vines, disturbing in their magnitude for anyone who's been to France or Spain: the Central Coast mother lode. But it's not as toney as Napa or Sonoma, and most of the wineries are still boutique, often with tastings by appointment only. Everyone is friendly, so pick up the phone and make a date.
This doesn't mean that there aren't Disneyfied experiences. Tobin James is one of the most important makers in the area, and the tasting room is a spectacle of crypto-Wild West kitsch. They make you taste about a dozen wines, too, so it's hard to remember what happened there. This much I remember: the Sangiovese was fantastic, and those words don't come out of my face often. This is a key to what's happening in Paso Robles; varietals like Sangiovese, Grenache, and Mourvedre thrive there.
For a slightly less cowboyish, but equally old-school-Paso Robles experience, I went to Eberle. Eberle, according to the German oenos I went on the cave tour with, means "small male wild boar" in German. Thus, henceforth we will call this the "Eberle Swinery."* They have super-cool caves in which, for a modest fee, you can get married and/or drunk, and more importantly, they have an extraordinary wine I didn't know they made: Côtes-du-Rôbles. (A side note; the wineries on the East side of Paso seem to be into putting embroidered stickers on you; see illustration.)
From the swinery I went to an even more serious winery, Tablas Creek. It's way up in the hills, and more than worth the drive. Their Esprit de Beaucastel and Côtes de Tablas are fantastic wines; they were tasting the Mourvedre (an important ingredient in both of these French-style blends) while I was there and it was a revelation.
Back in town, I ate dinner at two excellent places, Villa Creek (a restaurant and a winery; Robert Parker loves Villa Creek wines more than I do, but their GSM is pretty damn fine) and Artisan.
I wish I'd had a chance to set up a tasting at Terry Hoage Vineyards, because both at Villa Creek and at Artisan all the talk was about him and his stellar wines (he also sells grapes to other boutique winemakers). Like many Paso wineries, Hoage makes Rhone blends.
The wine brokers sitting next to me were talking about Hoage when he walked into the restaurant, with three guests and two already-open bottles of wine. The feeling in the room was exactly like the one that happens in Nashville when John Rich walks into a venue. Hoage appears much more calm and self-possessed than Mr. Rich, but he is bigger than life--remembers everyone's names, gives credit all around the room, and moves with a quiet confidence that makes Peju look like a cheap online advertisement for low mortgage rates. And I haven't even tried one of his wines yet.
It is an amazing time for winemaking in this country, and particularly on the West Coast. But if you are lucky enough to visit a winery, be sure to notice the show, and the people behind it, as much as the wine. There's a special kind of eclecticism, or perhaps insanity, involved in any craft, I suppose, but this one has some unusually bodacious side effects.
*This joke shamelessly extrapolated from a slip of the tongue by one of my generous hosts later that week in Los Angeles.
For the past few years I've been spending a few days of May in Napa and Sonoma. There's a conference I go to out there, and I'm allergic to my home state in May. But also, there are some good wines in Napa and Sonoma. Before three years ago, the only winery I'd been to was in Spain, and that is an experience I will never remember--after all, I was about 17 when it happened. Here is a picture of someone who looks much like me, emerging from a vat during that trip, tasting cup in hand.
 |
| Asmodeus visita a la bodega, circa 1987. |
The famousness of Napa and Sonoma means that there are hundreds of wineries and thousands of tourists all the time. Most of them are not wine experts, so the experience of tasting in the valleys is a strange one for someone who really likes wine and has tasted a lot of it. There's good advice out there on the web for how to make the most of trips to wineries, so I won't repeat it except to say drink lots of water and don't plan to visit too many places in one day. The people who make and serve the wine are the most excellent (see, I've been in California, where they say things like that) thing about any wine country, so come ready to confess your shortcomings, tell your best wine stories, and listen to theirs.
Last year I went to Napa right after being caught in the Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles. The whole neighborhood I was in was evacuated to a high school that was directly in the path of the smoke from the fire; I had a horrific allergic reaction that made it impossible for me to taste anything for a week afterwards. So all I got out of Napa and Sonoma last year was experiments in "mouthfeel."
Well, that's not all. Wine country in California (whether north of San Francisco or the Central Coast or wherever) is stunningly beautiful. No pictures capture it; it is temperature, aromas (eucalyptus and fertilizer, or fermenting berries, or wood-fires and pine), the texture of vineyards, wind, redwoods, switchback roads, potholes on highway 29--all of this. It's easier to see these things clearly if you go in April or May, and go during the week rather than a weekend.
This year was a little odd, too, because Robert Mondavi passed away while I was there. Everywhere I went I heard stories about him, so I felt more embedded in the "deep time" (and also the tight economic weave) of Napa than usual. But rather than just go to the boutique places that I'm really excited about now (Elizabeth Spencer) or the places I've always loved (V. Sattui) I tried to expand my vistas this time.
It's impossible to schematize the wineries in Napa and Sonoma, but I think it might be useful to take a stab at it, since most wine drinkers never get a chance, or more than one chance, to go there. So let me make an important distinction, stereotype a little bit, and then tell a couple of stories.
First, there's a distinction between the experience of a winery's tasting room and its marketplace profile. That is, there are massive winemakers (Gallo; Mondavi), medium winemakers (St. Francis; Sonoma Cutrer); small wineries (Larkmead; Conn Valley); boutique or winery-only-distributed joints (Crane Brothers; V. Sattui); and makers so small that, while having cult followings, it's hard for non-oenophiles even to find out about them (like Terry Hoage in Paso Robles, about whom more later). The whole industry is like a high school from a John Hughes movie: everybody knows everybody and everything is changing all the time--alliances, partnerships, apprenticeships, and so forth--creating a frothy experimental environment founded on some of the best grapes in the world. Listen to the conversation at the table next to you at Artisan or Matthew's in Paso Robles; it's bound to be educational. You'll hear guys who run picking crews who were hired because they speak the obscure Mixtec dialect that the latest round of field workers speak and who have their own vineyards on the side or who work for distributors; you'll hear the latest gossip about new hires or small winemakers furtively whispering to each other about how awesome the Charbono grape is; and much more.
But boutique wineries can have Disney-esque tasting rooms. Established makers like B.V. and St. Supery can have laid-back, but seriously educational ones. Some places, like Freemark Abbey, will do comparative tastings of old wines with recent vintages of the same label; others will only give you the latest stuff released.
To stereotype a little, I found there to be three sorts of tasting room experiences worth differentiating (though the hospitality design folks will doubtless insist that there are twice as many at least): The appointment-only, down-home experience; the friendly, open, tourist-sensitive but oenophile-adaptable experience; and the mostly for-show experience, which includes both Disneyfied tasting rooms and unbelievably pretentious wineries. Before describing some of these in Napa, Sonoma, and Paso Robles, let me disclaim that, while for me, wines from the Disneyfied tasting rooms tended not to be as good, there's no correlation extrapolable from this, both because wine is a matter of personal taste and because even at the newest, most pretentious winery in Rutherford, the Cabernet is unlikely to suck.
Sonoma: I love everywhere in Sonoma. It's beautiful, less trampled than Napa, and less subject to palate-deadening from repeated Cabernet bastings. Gloria Ferrer doesn't do tastings, but a glass of their sophisticated sparkling offerings and some of their free almonds taken out on a veranda overlooking a hillside of chardonnay vines is unforgettable. Things are more goofy at Cline, but they make a couple of the best wines in America. It's less regal at Grundlach-Bundschu, but the wines are even better. At St. Francis, try the Cabernet Franc to see one of the secrets of the widespread success of these wines. To see some of the local politics, take one of the ill-maintained mountain roads over to Napa and read the signs, the messages painted on the road, and the election banners in various front yards.
V. Sattui in Napa is a carnival, but you can't trust anything I say about it, because, for entirely selfish reasons, I don't want you to go there and it's already too popular. Serious: Ehlers, a non-profit winery and ecologically awesome, with a great Cabernet Franc; Larkmead, appointment-only; Elizabeth Spencer. Pretentious beyond imagination: Opus One; Darioush; Peju.
Peju is new and spectacularly self-conscious. They're open until 6 p.m., and I visited them immediately after going to one of the most established wineries in the valley, B.V., and drinking several of their reserve wines. There was a gleaming, white Ferrari parked in the circle in front of the winery when I got there, and one incredibly swanked-out Asian woman taking a picture of another incredibly swanked-out Asian girl (her daughter, as it turned out), so that, together with the fountains and ridiculously expensive building materials, set the tone. Then there was a wait to taste: a sign saying, wait here for the next tasting, while twenty feet away you could see fourteen people tasting and having a big ol' time with the pourer. When you finally were admitted to the tasting area, it turned out to be not the usual shoot-the-shit session with a pourer as in most places in Napa (my favorite was with Amy at Conn Creek), but instead a one-man show with bottles. It was so put-on that I thought at one point the pourer would start juggling .750s of Pinot Noir. The wine was not that great.
Darioush has a second label called CARAVAN that's worth the money. The Persian-palace architecture, million-dollar furnishings, multiple video screens, and roped-off areas with signs telling you redundantly that you can't go there are designed for something, to produce some reaction in tasters that I do not understand. But most importantly, while their Cabernet is good, it's no better than CARAVAN, is much more expensive, and lacks wisdom from Rumi (or anyone else) on the back label.
I went to Paso Robles because I think some of the best wine in the world is starting to come out of there. Apart from falling into a sulphur spring and having to buy new shoes as a result, I had a fantastic time. The business is booming there--on the drive down, on 101, you'll pass through thousands and thousands of acres of vines, disturbing in their magnitude for anyone who's been to France or Spain: the Central Coast mother lode. But it's not as toney as Napa or Sonoma, and most of the wineries are still boutique, often with tastings by appointment only. Everyone is friendly, so pick up the phone and make a date.
This doesn't mean that there aren't Disneyfied experiences. Tobin James is one of the most important makers in the area, and the tasting room is a spectacle of crypto-Wild West kitsch. They make you taste about a dozen wines, too, so it's hard to remember what happened there. This much I remember: the Sangiovese was fantastic, and those words don't come out of my face often. This is a key to what's happening in Paso Robles; varietals like Sangiovese, Grenache, and Mourvedre thrive there.
 |
| A sticky swine at Eberle. |
From the swinery I went to an even more serious winery, Tablas Creek. It's way up in the hills, and more than worth the drive. Their Esprit de Beaucastel and Côtes de Tablas are fantastic wines; they were tasting the Mourvedre (an important ingredient in both of these French-style blends) while I was there and it was a revelation.
Back in town, I ate dinner at two excellent places, Villa Creek (a restaurant and a winery; Robert Parker loves Villa Creek wines more than I do, but their GSM is pretty damn fine) and Artisan.
I wish I'd had a chance to set up a tasting at Terry Hoage Vineyards, because both at Villa Creek and at Artisan all the talk was about him and his stellar wines (he also sells grapes to other boutique winemakers). Like many Paso wineries, Hoage makes Rhone blends.
The wine brokers sitting next to me were talking about Hoage when he walked into the restaurant, with three guests and two already-open bottles of wine. The feeling in the room was exactly like the one that happens in Nashville when John Rich walks into a venue. Hoage appears much more calm and self-possessed than Mr. Rich, but he is bigger than life--remembers everyone's names, gives credit all around the room, and moves with a quiet confidence that makes Peju look like a cheap online advertisement for low mortgage rates. And I haven't even tried one of his wines yet.It is an amazing time for winemaking in this country, and particularly on the West Coast. But if you are lucky enough to visit a winery, be sure to notice the show, and the people behind it, as much as the wine. There's a special kind of eclecticism, or perhaps insanity, involved in any craft, I suppose, but this one has some unusually bodacious side effects.
*This joke shamelessly extrapolated from a slip of the tongue by one of my generous hosts later that week in Los Angeles.
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