Archives II: "Uncorked"
The First Uncorked: May 2005
So, I'm sitting in bed, nursing my morning half-cup of java, when I get this call offering me a chance to write a monthly wine column for you guys. After more than a decade of not writing for newspapers, I'm flattered...and spooked. What if I've lost it? What if a style I used to think of as creative and adventurous now comes off as just the rantings of one more middle-aged twerp with a byline? I never stopped writing but I'm fifteen years older, got six grandkids I didn't have then, and a right knee that makes kneeling in supplication before my editor a real chore.
The difference, I realized, is wine. Before, I wrote assignment reviews of music, theatre, and ballet, which means I didn't always really like the person or performance I was sent to cover. Not so with wine. I like wine. A Lot. (And almost no one connected with it wears a tutu!) You find the odd forgettable bottles, but there are a lot of wines that induce that swoony feeling that what's in your mouth deserves to be written out on a music staff, carved in stone, or hung on a museum wall.
If I have a talent as a wine salesman, it's only that I'm a pretty verbal guy who can tell ya - and will, if you don't stop me - why this wine will leave you weak in the knees and make your kids better-looking. The wines I'm most fond of, for example, are a flock of unique, artful, chameleon-like things from the region of Italy around Verona, birthplace of Valpolicella.. The Veronese do strange things with their little handful of grapes - Corvina, Molinara, Rondinella, Corvinone, and Negrara; rituals that sound more like science experiments gone horribly awry. For the mouth-coating, ridiculously-sensual wine they call Amarone, the grapes are laid out on racks and allowed to dry and grow fungus for three or four months in the sun, until most of the juice is gone and they look like that piece of lasagna you shoved to the back of the fridge and found a year later. Truly Funky and more than a little smelly. But that ultra-sweet juice, fermented until dry, makes the most velvety, complex, muscular wine ever bottled. The range of possible flavors is enormous: bushel baskets of berries, caramel, burnt sugar, beef, coffee, roses, currants, herbs, tar, lead pencil, chocolate, and on and on. The finish of it bears a trademark bitterness that might sound unpleasant but tastes incredible, much the way the slight bitterness of hops keeps beer from being soda pop-sweet. I've never had a bad one and many border on spectacular. My favorites are the Allegrini, Masi, Boscaini "Ca de Loi", Bertani, Baltieri, Guiseppe Campagnola, the previously-slandered Bolla (all going for $50+ a bottle) and the incomparable Dal Forno Romano, about $200 a pop and maybe even worth it, if any wine ever is. In describing Amarone, I once wrote that it's the wine they'd serve at God's wedding. That was eighteen years ago and I still feel that way.
For those who aren't inclined to pillage our grandkids' college funds for wine, the crafty Veronese make a budget alternative: Ripasso. Ripasso is Valpolicella Classico that has been re-fermented on the lees (pressed grapes and spent yeasts) of the massive Amarones. It shows many of the complexities of Amarone but with a bit less power and richness. Ripasso can run as little as $10 or as much as $40. Three of the best, though, are smack in the low end of that range and represent some of the greatest values in the wine world. At our house, the Boscaini "Santo Stefano" Ripasso is a habitual treat. At about $13, it's a steal, a whopping mouthful of blackberry, coffee, chocolate, black cherry, sweet herbs, and mellow mineral character. It pairs beautifully with foods that would normally call for a Cabernet or a beefy Syrah. In the glass, it's a deep, languid, sexy purple tending toward the blue end of the spectrum and as wildly aromatic as a south Georgia high school prom. I've told people many times that it's where the transition from good to exceptional wines begins and nobody has ever said they just didn't like it.
I mentioned Allegrini in passing but it was inevitable that I'd wind up here. For decades, the Allegrini family winery of Fumane di Valpolicella has been making its own kinds of wines, sometimes to the horror of their stuffy neighbors who frown upon experimentation. One such experiment is the succulent, ripe and velvety La Grola Veronese IGT, a Valpolicella blend with - horrors! - some Syrah and Sangiovese in it. At about $19, it's as fine and graceful as any premium California blend but is lighter in body and complements a wider variety of foods, most notable in its near-magical affinity for your Thanksgiving turkey, the more seasoned the better.
Last but most, is Allegrini's little masterpiece, "Palazzo della Torre" Veronese IGT . PdT is composed of 70% fresh fruit vinified in the usual way and the remaining 30% dried in Amarone fashion for three months after the harvest. The two batches are combined into a "semi-Amarone" that routinely wins 90+ point scores from major wine magazines. If you love wine, it's something you should try but it's not for everybody. It isn't one of those fruit-only, easy-drinkin' Happy Wines that want to please everyone. It's silky, endlessly interesting, a dynamite food wine that respects delicate flavors as well as roasted and grilled meats. It shows impressive fruit but also minerals, earth, herbs, and gamy notes that make it a virtual Wine 101 Course in a Bottle. It's become my consistent choice when I have a special day I want to note; birthday, anniversary, Valentine's Day, or, like this bottle sitting next to me, to celebrate getting to write this column. And I paid $15.99 for the current 2000 vintage. That's right, FIFTEEN NINETY-NINE.
In months to come, I'll drop in at least two capsule reviews, at the end of this column, of wines I've tasted that you should know about. These will all be great QPR wines. QPR stands for Quality to Price Ratio, a wine-weenie way of saying "bargains". Most will be under $10 but some may be far more than that, if they represent more wine than their sticker shows.
This month, in time for warm weather, I want to turn you onto one of the most refreshing, light, perfect little wines I know - and one of the best bargains. Michele Chiarlo Moscato D'Asti "Nivole" is what the Italians call "frizzante" (slightly sparkling) which means it bubbles gently on your tongue instead of frothing like Champagne. It's only 7% alcohol, a little bit sweet, and light as a feather on the palate, offering up delicate but definite flavors of apricot, honeysuckle, limes, white peaches, and those addictive butter mints you get after dinner at your great-Aunt's house . If you're one of those people who either think you wouldn't like sweet wines or someone who had a Asti Spumante, once, and hated it, try this. It's not icky sweet and definitely ain't no stinkin' retro fizzbomb. It's as delightful, on a warm day, as anything you'll ever put in your mouth and you can serve it as cold as you like. Best of all, it's under $10, usually in the $9.50 range, for the 375ml half-bottle.. As a great summer refresher, it's in a class by itself.
June 2005
"Some Very Cool Reds"
There are some secret vices of which many of us who work in the wine trade become guilty, over the years. Some are fond of sweet roses, some really sticky dessert wines, some even occasionally put ice in their wines, an image that, frankly, makes my belly button pucker. Me? Well...here goes: "Hello, my name is Steve and I'm a...red wine chiller." No apologies: I like to drink reds in the summer and they're just too cloying when warm. So, I chill bottles of red wine to a delightful 40-ish degrees, and then enjoy 'em - without all the flavors seizing up like a two-buck pocket watch.
Two things: 1) What determines the chillability of your red is body. (Not me, the weight of the wine.) As wine moves from lighter-bodied to medium, its ability to chill without closing up decreases. And, 2) there is no universal rule that says your light-bodied wine will be good cool. If you chill one and it doesn't suit you, just take it out of the fridge. It'll come back to room temp and be completely drinkable as a normal red.
First, and best for my tastes, are Negroamaro and Barbera d'Asti. Negroamaro is an odd little Italian grape that contains the usual light-red berry flavors but also apricot, peach, melon, and other notes that are usually only found in whites. A brilliant (and CHEAP) example is Valle dell Asso Salento Rosso, a bottle that normally runs about $8, shows beautiful raspberry, maraschino cherry, apricot, plum and strawberry flavors and can be chilled almost to the temp of a draft beer without losing a step. With cold picnic chicken or a turkey sandwich, it's about as good as it gets. Along the same lines are two of my favorites, Mark Shannon's single-varietal Promessa Negroamaro, a more polished version than the rustic Valle del Asso, or his Promessa Rosso Salento, a 85/15 blend of Negroamaro and Primitivo (Zinfandel, basically) that is, hands down, the Best Grilled Salmon Wine I've ever tasted.
The Barberas can either be light and crisp and fruity or, in different hands, become warm and rich and medium-bodied. As a general rule - and there are some exceptions - the lower the $$, the lighter the wine. My favorites are two that you should have no problem finding: Mattei Barbera d'Asti and Prunotto "Fiulot". The Prunotto is the inexpensive benchmark of the Astis, showing the characteristic cherry/strawberry/raspberry candy flavors with a crisp acidity that makes it a seriously fine match for grilled poultry, cold cuts, vegetarian sandwiches, and antipasti. The Mattei is more lusty, with some darker berry notes and a lovely richness but light enough to handle chilling and still deliver. Both are under $10.
Several of my online wine-geek pals have reported chilling the Columbia Crest Two Vines Merlot, an act I think of as tantamount to having your fortune told by reading the bumps on your head. (Steve's Bonus Factoid: Reading your head bumps is called "phrenology". You think anybody else is gonna tell you that?) I haven't tried it. My own feelings about Merlot were best summed up by Miles Raymond in "Sideways" so it never occurred to me but the Two Vines is a seriously fine Merlot. Why don't you try it and get back to me? I have done the Lost Mountain Cab Franc (made in Sequim, of all places), a killer picnic wine. It rides the border between light-bodied and medium and packs in a ton of flavors, topped off by a sort of cotton candy thing that I loved with both a seafood salad and, later, an oatmeal cookie. Even better are the Mt. Baker Vineyards Lemberger and the Kiona Lemberger. This Lemberger is not cheese. It's a lovely - not stinky - red grape that's all about red fruit: raspberry, strawberry, cranberry, red currant, and even a little bitter orange on the finish. Both are fine by themselves and with practically every food mentioned here.
Maybe the best ones to start with, if you've never tried this mad thing, are the omnipresent Beaujolais wines from Georges DuBoeuf, especially his Julienas in the Flower bottle and his Georges Descombes Morgon, a little gem that I decanted into a pitcher and chilled with a handful of pitted Rainier cherries. I had a moment of satori, drinking this, that people usually go to Japan to find.
Other good starters:
*Valpolicella from your grocery store: Masi, Bolla, and Zenato
*Lighter Spanish Tempranillo and Grenache, such as Marques de Grinon "Durius", Finca Antigua Crianza, Vina Borgia Tinto, and Vina Alarba Tinto
*Cab Franc from the Loire Valley, France
*Canadian Reds including Grey Monk Merlot, Mission Hill Merlot, and others, except for the Cabernets
*Cotes du Rhone, but ask your wine steward. Some are solidly medium-bodied but some, like the Andre Brunel, Delas, and Chateau Segries will work beautifully
Finally, Pinot Noir. "Sideways" has made Pinot the omnipresent Flavor of the Week all across America. Just let me says this: "AAARRRGGHHH!!! Bear this in mind: Pinot is an acquired taste. It's a notoriously finicky grape and nowhere near as friendly and warm/fuzzy as your favorite bottle of Merlot. Most cheap ones are just that: cheap. Three that I can heartily recommend for chilling are the Flynn Pinot Noir"Cotes d'OR", the Castle Rock Sonoma Coast, and the Coron Pere e Fils Burgogne, a chic little Burgundy. All are around $10.
One last idea and it's a radical one: Mix your own wine. Got a little Chardonnay or Sauv Blanc left over? Mix it up with a lighter Merlot, a light-bodied Zinfandel, or a Pinot Noir. Try about 60/40 white to red. It makes a nice, light, tangy drink that offers far more flavors than your reflex house white. I did this last night, with - hold onto something! - a Chilean Cab-Merlot and a Fetzer Gewurztraminer. That's probably a little too freaky for your first try but I got all gooshy inside. Vary the proportions until you like it and make your own rose this summer!
MOST IMPORTANT NOTE: When we say "chilled", that doesn't mean icy cold. All wines - yeah, even Champagne - close up if you get them down to 34-36 degrees. 40-45 degrees is best so, if you're really more interested in sluggin' down something icy, in large quantities, better make it either beer, at home, or Coke/Pepsi if you're driving. DON'T sit around and drink any of these wines in the same amounts you'd drink beer or iced tea, unless you enjoy catatonia.
Since this column was pretty much all reviews, no short-takes this time. Also, The World's Best Girlfriend suggested I throw in a definition or two, each time, of some nutty wine term. So, here goes:
Botrytized: Grapes, like Chardonnay or Cabernet, deliberately infected with the fungus, Botrytis Cinerea, or the Noble Rot. It helps concentrate sugars and gives the finished wine a silky feel or what wine-geeks call "creamy".
Bung Hole: Despite what you may have surmised from "Bevis and Butthead", it's the hole in the wine barrel that you use to get the wine in and out.
July 2005
"I Feel Like an Idiot..."
"Oh, I hate going into wine shops. I feel like an idiot. I always feel like the steward is laughing at me behind his hand - if he's not doing it openly! "
Why is it that wine is the only moderately-priced commodity with which we associate condescension and snobbery? Not only associate but really expect it? There is a technical term for that sort of salesman. The term is "rude". And they know they're being rude but they rationalize it as "educating the consumer". My advice? When you encounter retail snobbery, don't assume that the person occupies a higher plane of wine appreciation and is thereby justified in treating you like Jethro Bodine. Walk out. You have the same right to respect and courtesy in a wine shop that you do at the dry cleaners, the beauty shop, and QFC. Don't settle for less. Even your two bottles a month is the life's blood of retail wine shops and when we don't get it, we lose. And some of us, frankly, deserve to.
So, what constitutes "good"? Yeah, among us wine-weenies, there are certain Accepted Truths, like the idea that wine should taste of more than just fruit, should be a good balance of its elements (flavors, alcohol, tannins, and acid), and should be as un-fooled-around-with as possible. But even some of those undergo revisionist group-think that would make the Soviet Politburo seem like an Amish prayer circle. There is no universal standard and he who says so is lying.
"Good" wine is whatever you like. Good for you, that is. And, since tasting anything is, ultimately, a solitary experience, what you like is really all that matters.
Okay, on to the meat 'n' potatoes. It's almost summer...We Hope. Time, then, to bust out the bubbly!
What?, you say. What's the Occasion, Bub? Friends, let me assure you that you do not need any special reason to break out a sparkling wine or even a Champagne. At our house, "Hey, it's Tuesday!" and "The new phone books are here!" both work just fine.
One thing: you DO want to give your wine shop dork some ammo? Come in and ask for a "California or Washington Champagne". Call this wine-weenie baloney if you want but Champagne ONLY comes from France, from the region around the towns of Reims and Epernay, about 100 miles east of Paris. There is enough ink about Champagne to fill every one of the Great Lakes and we're talking here about something you could open anytime, so we'll save the hoity-toity stuff for the holidays. For now, there is no shortage of very fine, inexpensive bubbly out there and you can drink it right now.
My long-time favorite bubbly - even more than Champagne - is a graceful, intensely-flavorful thing from the ubiquitous Mionetto, whose low-end Prosecco you may have tried. Trust me on this, if you haven't had the Mionetto Prosecco Brut "Sergio", you have no idea of what the light, fruity Prosecco grape is capable. There is a lot of good Prosecco around these days; Bisol, Nino Franco, Zardetto, and about a dozen others are readily available. But the Sergio is the cream of the crop; a collection of definite flavors of pear, yellow apple, butter mint, honeydew melon, orange rind, lemon zest, honeysuckle, lychi, and caramel, all whispered and not shouted, on a framework of tiny, persistent bubbles, with a generous and creamy mousse (the head that forms when you first pour), a restrained acidity, and balance that would shame the Wallendas. It's usually about $18 a bottle and worth every cent.
Robert Parker of the Wine Advocate, invited to attend a tasting of the best California sparklings of the early 90's, showed up and slipped in two ringers - from a winery in New Mexico. They finished with the Gold and Silver, beating out wines from about a dozen prestige houses. Those were the Blanc de Blanc and Blanc de Noir from Gruet and they're as good today as they were back then. The Gruet family came over from France, looked around and, shocking even themselves, chose New Mexico as their best vineyard location. The wines are, of course, very Champagne-styled and show all the fine points of the breed: balance, broad but subtle flavors, sweet minerality, toasty yeast notes, elegant winemaking. At $14 or so a bottle, these are some of the best values in American viniculture. Their upper-tier wines are as good as most mid-line Champagne and they've steadfastly resisted both fads in winemaking and big price increases. Great stuff.
Spain is also massively under-appreciated as a white wine source but, for dirt-cheap quality and drinkability, they're the world champs. A buddy of wine told me for months that I should try the Freixenet "Carta Nevada", with its cute frosted bottle and bright gold color, and I sniffily refused. But, once I took the hanger out of my shirt, I loved this little gem. Bone dry, jam-packed with bright Chardonnay flavors, great bubbles that last a good while, nice balance, and a freshness like biting into a cold Granny Smith apple. It's dazzling for Mimosas, perfect by itself, and it's SIX BUCKS. Or less! If you haven't tried it, GO.
In Chardonnay-based sparklers, Lindauer Brut, from New Zealand, is maybe the best $8 you'll ever spend. As a choice for your picnic, served icy cold, I'd put it up against anything made anywhere. We first had it at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago, after a horrific day of plane trips, provided by a wonderfully-empathetic concierge. He sent us chocolate-dipped strawberries and the Lindauer, on the house, and The World's Best Girlfriend and I laid there and feasted, at 1 a.m., looking out our window at the Navy Pier and a fog-shrouded Lake Michigan. It also works nicely with a Washington sunset, crab dinner, and while typing your manuscript at 2 a.m. A world-class bargain.
Closer to home, you probably already know about Argyle Brut, that little masterpiece of a bubbly from Oregon, and it's every bit as good as you've heard. You may not have heard of the St. Innocent Blanc de Noir, almost as good or, in some years, better. They've been quietly making this stuff for more than a decade and practice makes perfect. It's got the bold fruitiness of the Argyle but even more mineral character and a fine, tight bead (bubbles). You're going to have to work to find it because their website says they're only going to sell sparklings at the winery from now on. If you get to Salem, though, it'll be worth the stop.
Okay, now for France. Francois Chidaine is a crafty, gifted winemaker who turns out quality bubblies that make wine-weenies gush and everybody else very happy. His Montlouis "Methode Traditionelle" is a ten-buck miracle; a perfectly-balanced blend of subtle fruit flavors overlaid with a mild limestone tang, notes of bread and orange rind, and perfect acidity. With its understated black label, you could miss it on your wine shop shelf but don't. It's a wine made by someone who likes his work and it shows. May be tough to track down but it'll be worth the effort.
World's Best Girlfriend's Wine Terms of the Month:
Methode Champenoise: Sparkling wine made by the in-the-bottle Champagne method; kept tightly corked during fermentation so that the trapped gasses produce bubbles in the wine naturally. Some sparklings are gas-injected like soda pop.
Blanc de Blanc: Literally, "white from white"; made from Chardonnay, usually, but from only white grapes.
Blanc de Noirs: "White from black"; made from the clear juices of red grapes, usually Pinot Noir.
August 2005
"Le Vins du Les Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkies"
In keeping with last month's format of starting off by raving incoherently about knotty subjects I'm confronted with regularly, I wanted to take a moment here to address a question that any of us who develop even the mildest wine-mania will eventually face: French wine.
I have a relentless collection of pals on a nearby Island which shall remain nameless, (Okay, Bainbridge) who bluster on constantly about how you have to appreciate French wine to ever become a "serious" wine lover. During these tirades, I begin to fidget noticeably and am asked to explain myself. I usually refuse because I know what the response will be: a chuckle, and indulgent pat on the head, and an assurance that eventually my tastes will evolve into the inevitable adoration of Bordeaux and Burgundy.
That's what you have to expect from Francophiles. They believe that they walk upright on the dry land of certainty while the rest of us are still trying to evolve away our gills and flippers and grow feet. Even this column, read by a devout Franco-weenie, will do nothing except convince them that I'm another one of the uninitiated, albeit with a podium.
The origins of this attitude, I believe, lie squarely with the French. In the past 15 years, shoved brutally along by their reaction to Iraq, the French have seen what they feel is their God-given lion's share of the world's wine market shrink pretty dramatically. As ever, they simply dismiss criticism with a haughty, "Well, you just don't know anything about wine!" They've sold this idea for generations; that their wines are so inherently superior and so unique that you have to achieve a high level of wine knowledge to properly understand them, at which point their greatness unfolds like the lotus blossom and you achieve vinous satori, Grasshopper. And a lot of "serious" wine lover have bought this. I can't really blame the French for doing it. If somebody came along with what you regard as a fad and an inferior product to yours that suddenly threatened to rob you of your livelihood, wouldn't you drop the gloves and start fighting back? Of course you would. They shouldn't be censured for trying to survive. We should, for buying the blather.
The main reason, aside from politics, for the French slippage is simply that their unquestioning devotion to their own wine aesthetic keeps them out of the rest of the world's mainstream. The French value Place above all: a Bordeaux must bear the hallmarks of that soil, water, air, and climate. The catch-all term for this is terroir (tehr-wahr). They look with scorn on our California, Washington, and Oregon "fruit bombs" because they claim that the wines don't speak about their origins or, conversely, that the origins are not sufficiently distinctive to produce great wines in the first place. This, of course, is hogwash. If you taste critically and have a sense memory, you can distinguish a Walla Walla Valley wine from a Sonoma wine pretty easily. We're not, by any means, the only target of the classic French up-turned nose: the Aussies are "industrial", the Germans are "formulaic", the Spanish are pretty much a gang of unwashed thugs, the Italians fare best at "occasionally brilliant but misguided", Oregon is "promising but, of course, they'll never have French soil", and everything below the equator, for the French, exists not at all.
French winemakers have evolved a complicated set of winemaking values designed to play up terroir and play down what they regard as the world's fixation with gauche fruitiness. The vintners and their marketers harp endlessly on elements like "restraint", "nuance", "elegance", and "harmony", which they say we don't achieve or really understand. This is all just one guy's opinion, of course, and you should take what I say with the same large grain of salt you take everybody else's wine opinions, but what those words generally mean is that a whole lot of engineering is going on in the winery. And that ain't always a good thing. The chief tactic in this ethos is picking the grapes under-ripe. Ripeness is the knock against California and Australia: Hot weather = rising sugar + falling acidity = high alcohol = excessive fruitiness = American soda-pop drinkers. The result is, unquestionably, those rare wines that completely transcend a simple potable liquid and move into the realm of fine art, like the Mona Lisa, George Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today", or an Ichiro laser beam from right field that nails an overly-ambitious base runner at third. Those wines do emerge from France with regularity but, if you believe wine critics like Robert Parker, they emerge all over, as witnessed by his lists of a couple of years back when he gave out four 100-point scores to California Cabs and three more to Aussie Shirazes while granting only one to Bordeaux. That same aesthetic also produces a vast number of wines that even some French critics say - at their peril, of course - are stingy, insipid, undistinguished or just plain bad. I try hard never to dis someone's craft, so I generally pass along wines I just don't like to friends. I've poured nine bottles of wine down the sink in the past ten years. Eight of those were from France.
You should NOT - not, not, not! - take what I say here as gospel. Know this: I love many, many French wines. Domaine les Pallieres Gigondas, J.L. Chave "Offerus" Sainte Josef, Vieux Telegraphe Chateauneuf du Pape, Eric Rostaing Cote Rotie and Condrieu, E. Guigal Hermitage, Marcel Deiss Muscat d'Alsace, Marcel LaPierre Morgon, Loire Valley whites and sweet wines, most of Alsace and pretty much all of Champagne all make me swoony with delight. I even go batty for the odd Bordeaux. I can't, and wouldn't ever, suggest that you to simply skip the wines of any country, region, or producer. What I do want to convey here is two things: 1) The wine world is, and always has been, conflicted about the relative merits of French wines, and 2) You're not required to "get" French wine - or the wines of any other region, producer, or type - to be considered a "serious" wine connoisseur. I'm not even sure what "serious" means, anyway, as applied to wine. Does that mean you can't have any fun or drink the occasional Asti Spumante or White Zin? If that's what it means, I'm disqualified. But then, I'm not very serious, to begin with.
Okay, the ranting lamp is out.
Last Sunday, The World's Best Girlfriend and I were invited to the Cedar River Wine Fest in beautiful (?) downtown Renton and we actually went! Yaaah! We got out of the house!!!!...Sorry, got all excited there for a sec.
