Steven Kolpan On Wine

Wine and Global Warming: An Inconvenient Truth

2011-11-25T07:44:00.004-05:00

“A poet once said, ‘The whole universe is in a glass of wine.’ We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of stars.“
- Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume 1

Why does Chardonnay produced from grapes grown in the Hudson Valley taste different from Chardonnay that hails from the Napa Valley, and why does that Chardonnay taste different from a Chardonnay whose home is in Burgundy, France? You can ask the same question about any wine produced anywhere on earth, and the answer will always boil down to two basics: soil and climate.

Sure, any skilled winemaker can elaborate a wine with a bag of tricks – new oak barrels, malolactic fermentation (changing harsh green acids to smooth, creamy ones), controlling alcohol, tannin, and acidity levels in the finished wine – up or down – and use advanced technology to make oak chips taste like the real thing (the creamy vanilla flavors imparted by an expensive small barrel), and “microxygenate” a red wine; introduce small amounts of oxygen – the element that ages wine - before bottling, so that a young wine tastes like a mature wine within three years instead of ten. I could proffer a laundry list of high-tech approaches to winemaking – including computerized robot wineries - that would stun most wine lovers.

But ask anyone in the world who spends his or her life in the wine business and all of them would agree that great wine is made in the vineyard, not the winery. Just as in cooking, if you start with near-perfect, in-season, local ingredients and then employ the most basic skills in the kitchen, you are likely to create a delicious meal. If, on the other hand, you start with inferior ingredients – vegetables out of season, fish and meat that are really only borderline-fresh, the most talented chef in the world will produce a mediocre meal. The irony is that when you cook with great ingredients, you have to use restraint in the kitchen to highlight the flavors, textures, aromas, and colors of the food – kind of non-interventionist cooking. Alternately, when you cook with mediocre ingredients you have to work so hard to mask the flavors that the finished dish, while perhaps a great creative statement, just doesn’t taste that good. The same is true in winemaking.

When it comes to quality wines, the familiar words “winemaker” and “winemaking” are insufficient. In fact, there is no word for “winemaker” in France, Italy, Spain, or Portugal, among other countries. We should think of these artisans as “winegrowers,” whose activity is “winegrowing.” Why? Because the fact is that when you produce fine wines, the traditional role of winemaker is tossed out the window. The person who ends up making fine wine spends at least as much time in the vineyards as he or she does in the winery, making sure that the grapes – the lifeblood of any wine – are healthy, and picked only under the most ideal conditions. At the same time, the winegrower must respect the soil that gives life to the vine and understands that the climate (or more accurately, the climates, as vineyards have their own microclimates), a quality criterion that is beyond the control of the winegrower, must cooperate each year in order to create a great vintage.

Employing best practices in the vineyard is a universal constant if the winegrower wants to produce a memorable wine, and is a given as part of the wine life cycle. But those practices will differ based on what the French call terroir, a term that is truly ineffable but refers to climate and sun exposure in the vineyard, even to the traditions of the winegrower, but most importantly to the soil. As the famous French vigneron (winegrower), Jacques Seysses, proprietor of Domaine Dujac, said when asked what were the most important quality issues that allowed him to produce such exquisite red Burgundy wines (100% Pinot Noir), he answered that “There are three very important things that make our wines great. They are the soil, the soil, and the soil.”

Jacques Seysses’ statement was more like the answer to a Zen koan, a metaphorical slap across the face meant to enlighten us. Of course, he was right. Domaine Dujac, located in the Côte de Nuits region of Burgundy, produces extraordinary Pinot Noir, but so does Domaine Drouhin, located in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Look at a map: Oregon is on the same latitude as Burgundy; the climate is similar. Keep looking: Long Island is on the same latitude as Bordeaux. Both regions are strongly influenced by the currents and immediate proximity of the Atlantic Ocean, and both produce classic examples of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Pinot Noir from Burgundy, Pinot Noir from Oregon. Cabernet from Bordeaux, Cabernet from Long Island. Why do these wines taste so extraordinarily different when they’re made from the same grape types? Extreme differences in soils, small differences in climate.

The irony about the best soils for growing grapes for wine is this: the rockiest soils, the least fertile soils, the soils that cannot support so many other crops are often the best soils for wine. Rocky soils rich in limestone, as in Burgundy, or soils filled with fine gravel (Bordeaux), or soils built from the animal and plant life of receding oceans and alluvial fans (the Napa Valley), or soils comprised largely of glacial deposits (the Hudson Valley), all are near-ideal for growing wine grapes. These soils drain easily, don’t hold water at the roots of the vine, and so don’t create conditions that will dilute flavors.

The rich, fertile soils of say, California’s Central Valley are too productive, too rich, too vigorous, and produce too many grapes. Low yields (normally less than three tons of fruit per acre) are what is required to create truly fine wines. Unlike commodity fruit and vegetable production, perfect wine grapes are all about quality – low yields of small berries with a high skin to pulp ratio to create ripe tannins in fine wines - not quantity – high yields of bulbous, heavily irrigated, waterlogged grapes that should end up on our table, not in our glass.

And there is also irony surrounding the climates of the classic winegrowing regions of the world. While it is true that the vine needs the warmth provided by sunshine to ripen properly, the best wines are made from grapes grown “on the margin,” that is in cooler regions where it’s just barely warm enough to ripen the fruit. The reason? Cool climate conditions grant the grapes a healthy dose of acidity, the refreshing, citrus-or-green fruit-sour flavors that make a wine interesting, even compelling. It is that refreshing acidity that makes our mouth water, and encourages us to have another bite of food, another sip of wine.

Wine grapes that grow in warmer climates obviously have no trouble ripening, but their lack of acidity can translate into a flat, flabby uninteresting wine. Also, in hot climates where the grapes border on or jump over the precipice to become over-ripe, the finished wine might be an alcohol bomb, because high amounts of sugar caused by over-ripeness translates into high amounts of alcohol during fermentation of the grape juice. These wines are in-your-face aggressive wines, very popular these days. But try drinking a second glass of an Australian Shiraz or Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, each clocking in at more than 14.5% alcohol, without getting dizzy, sleepy, or stupid (Note: Today I tasted a delicious 1985 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. The alcohol: 12% (!), which is unheard of in any Napa Cabs since about 1990).

Soil is a finite resource, and Nature just isn’t making any new earth anytime soon (it took tens of millions of years to create our current terra firma). In order to preserve our soils, land management has become a global public policy issue. Countries that are members of the European Union must agree to a policy that does not allow the creation of any new vineyards. For example, if a winegrower in Spain wants to plant a vineyard, that vineyard must be planted on ground that is already a vineyard, or was a vineyard in the past. Even in the Napa Valley, a place that has become a monoculture for wine grapes, there is a moratorium on the creation of new wineries, but not new vineyards, at least not yet. The current price of vineyard land in Napa – roughly $250,000 per planted acre - is probably thought to be its own self-regulating mechanism. In the Hudson Valley, especially the “Lower Valley,” an inconvenient truth is that much of our best farm land, including soils suited to grape growing, has become residential land, housing an increasingly large population that wants to live within striking distance of New York City (my own house, located just outside of Woodstock and built in the late 1950s, sits on a former farm). Our beautiful countryside has changed character in less than a generation: rural to exurbia to creeping suburbia. Of course, prime land prices have skyrocketed into the stratosphere. Today, if someone wanted to plant a new vineyard in the Lower Hudson Valley, he or she would be assured of making a small fortune, because they would have to start with a large fortune.

Still, the wine world is currently riding the crest of a very popular and profitable wave. And as of 2010, the United States is the #1 consumer of wine, the most important wine market on the planet, eclipsing the traditional wine cultures of Europe. The world stage is set for the continuing and expanded production of premium wines, some driven by consumer demand (e.g., [yellow tail]™), some driven by terroir (e.g., Domaine Dujac). It’s a rosy picture for both wine producer and wine consumer, except for one over-riding, inevitable, and now basically inalterable imperative: global warming.
Like most of us, part of me believes that the current and future castastrophic events caused by global warming are far more serious than whether or not we are able to drink the world’s best wines. But a closer reading of the situation reveals that wine grapes are a reliable bellwether – the canary in the coal mine – for all crops, for all farming. Wine grapes are uniquely sensitive to climatic shifts, and even now global warming is impacting the wines we drink on an everyday basis.

Why are wines from warm growing areas so high in alcohol? Well, consumers have learned to enjoy these punchdrunk wines, but for those who prefer their wines lighter and subtler, the choices are becoming fewer and fewer. Rising alcohol levels in both white and red wines are approaching a situation that is virtually uncontrollable, except by technology. Would it surprise you to know that many of the wines you enjoy are cut with water before bottling to reduce alcohol? Did you know that the “dry” Cabernet you like so much has enough residual sugar in it so that 20 years ago that same wine would have been considered technically “sweet”? Sugar levels in grapes are going through the roof, and that means alcohol and residual sugar are at all-time highs in many wines. Sure, the wines are dramatic, but try pairing them with lighter foods and see how poorly that drama plays out.

In March of 2006, the first conference of wine and global warming was held in Barcelona, Spain, and the information shared by climate scientists and winegrowers was sobering. Spain and Portugal are already suffering the impact of global warming to the point where winegrowers either cannot grow their classic grape varietals because they shrivel in the intense heat, or they have had to invest millions of euros to move their vineyards to higher ground where the vines can enjoy the air conditioning provided by the cool currents wafting through hills and mountainsides. Winegrowers testified that they cannot control the sugars in their grapes and are making wines that don’t come close to expressing true varietal character (the typical taste profiles of Syrah or Chardonnay, for example), much less a sense of place, the terroir of the vine.
The predictions by conference participants for the future of winegrowing, and by extension, agriculture, were uniformly dire. French, Spanish, Australian, and American climate change specialists painted an ugly picture of the world to come: Castilla-LaMancha in Central Spain, which has now endured its third straight year of drought is fast becoming a desert, and will not be able to sustain life, much less grapes, possibly within 20 years; oceanic events will have greater impact on soils than greenhouse emissions as changes in climate will concentrate rainfall, creating flood conditions followed by drought conditions, necessitating sophisticated irrigation systems – now illegal in Europe’s finest wine regions - in order to keep grape quality and flavor complexity high - taxing regions already hard-pressed for water; an increase of just 1ºC will deplete worldwide water resources by at least 15% by 2030; a rise of 2.5ºC will mean a further 17% depletion by 2060 (clearly, water will become the new oil, and might be distributed just as unfairly; in Europe, the average increase is higher than 2ºC, in Portugal, it’s more than 4.5ºC); add to this the increasing salinity of fresh water resources, and irrigation will require expensive tech-heavy solutions; at least 2% of the gross national product of developed nations and 5% of the GNC of undeveloped nations will have to be dedicated to staving off the impact of global warming.

The bad news continues. Dr. Richard Smart of Australia notes that predatory insects, such as the Asian Lady Beetle, that spread plant diseases and traditionally need warm climates to thrive are now common in the vineyards of Germany, Austria, and northern France, not to mention Canada, Italy, and the United States. He also notes that Bordeaux, which is the ancestral home of classic Cabernet Sauvignon, has the same warm climatic conditions as parts of South Australia (home to high-alcohol, jammy Cabs). Incidentally, four billion liters of water are used each year in the Australian wine industry. Consider that Australia is the fifth largest producer of wine in the world (after Italy, France, Spain, and the United States), and you begin to see a massive problem with the impact of climate change on global water resources.
In 20 to 30 years, Burgundy, France will be too warm to plant its classic prized varietal, Pinot Noir, and should think about switching to Cabernet Sauvignon, because its climate will mirror today’s Bordeaux. Bordeaux, which will mirror Valencia, Spain has to think about planting Syrah and Grenache, now grown in the much-warmer Rhone region. And everybody’s talking about buying vineyard land in southern England, usually considered too cool a region for anything but sparkling wines, but may become a leading wine region, along with Canada, in the world of global warming.

In California, the Napa Valley will become as warm as Modesto. Modesto will become as warm as Stockton. Stockton will become as warm as Bakersfield. Barring genetic manipulation of grapes (of course, that research is already ongoing), much of California will become a wine wasteland, producing just-drinkable bulk wines in fancy bottles (Ramp up that marketing machine before it’s too late!).

What to do? I would be the last person to advise anyone not to continue to enjoy wine, one of the astounding miracles of nature. But the next time you sip your favorite wine, maybe think about it a little differently. The message is clear: wine is a precious product of nature, and its future is threatened. In your glass of pleasure there is also a microcosm of our shared environmental concerns, concerns that can no longer be ignored, no longer be denied.

Global warming and wine: an inconvenient truth that has yet to resonate with much of the global wine industry, much less wine consumers. Like so much of the science of climate change that has been made public, our government has chosen to ignore the facts, keeping its head in the sand. And now it’s too late for our generation. If the United States ratified the Kyoto Protocol tomorrow, the impact on the environment would not be felt for 150 years (but don’t we need to think about our grandchildren and their children?)

Perhaps Dr. Greg Jones, a winegrower who is also a climatologist at Southern Oregon University, posited the challenge best, when he said at the Barcelona conference, "Governments don't always have a solution for our problems...and Hollywood won't make a movie about gradual climate change."

Pure Pink Pleasure: Rosé Wines

2011-11-25T07:42:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite skits from the old (we’re talking 1979) “Saturday Night Live” featured Bill Murray as the host of the game show, “¿Quién es Más Macho – Fernando Lamas or Ricardo Montalbán?” And when I think of the hysterically funny Murray with his bad accent and worse moustache, I can’t help think about the legend of the origins of rosé wine. Let me explain.

The story (which is almost definitely apocryphal) goes something like this: About a hundred years ago, a group of Spanish winemakers – all men - wanted to make a light, refreshing wine for quaffing in the heat of the Mediterranean sun. White wine wouldn’t do, because real men wouldn’t drink white wine; that was reserved for women – vino blanco de las mujeres. So, gathering up all the machismo that they could muster, the winemakers hit upon a great idea: rosado wine.

The moral of the story? Real men drink pink wine. Quién es más macho, indeed.

Whatever its true origins, rosé wine, shared by both men and women, is here to stay. This fact is especially welcome as we enter the warmer months when there is nothing quite so refreshing as a glass of chilled rosé, served alongside the lighter foods of summer. Rosé – still or sparkling – is really the perfect wine for dining al fresco: on the lawn or on the deck, by a stream or by the ocean, on the mountain or in the valley, at a romantic picnic for two or at a backyard cookout with many.

There’s nothing fancy about most rosé wine. It is cold and crisp, delicious, driven by the flavors of red berries, and affordable. Exceptions? Sure. Consider true Rosé Champagne. It’s really expensive and is one of the most elegant wines on the planet. Consider rosé from Bandol, France; truly magical but can set you back more than $40 per bottle, especially from a producer such as the esteemed Domaines Ott or Domaine Tempier. The good news is that the overwhelming majority of good rosé wine, including some really tasty bubbly rosé, is priced between $8 and $20, with most hitting the $10 to $15 “sweet spot” wine consumers love.

A few words about how rosé is made. First of all, classic (read European) rosé wines are made solely from the juice of red grapes, but with not a lot of skin contact; the skin is where all the color is. So, these wines are the product of anywhere from several hours to two or three days of skin contact. There are two methods used to make rosé from red grapes: the straightforward skin contact method, utilized when making rosé is the primary goal of the winemaking process, and the saignée (bleeding) method, when rosé is a pleasant byproduct of making a red wine. In order to concentrate the astringent tannins in the powerful red wine, much of the pink juice is removed, leaving a higher skin-to-juice ratio for the red wine macerating on the skins. The pink juice is then fermented as a lighter wine with pale color - a rosé. In the European Union, the only legal way to produce still rosé wine is to use red grapes exclusively. Sparkling wines can either be made as rosés from start to finish (rare and expensive), or can be made as sparkling white wines to which red wine has been added (far more common). In the New World, there are no rules for the making of rosé, and it is not uncommon for both still and sparkling wines to be a blend of the juice of both red and white grapes.

Rosé can be a sweet wine, but I think the most interesting wines – certainly the most interesting with food – are the fruity but dry versions. “Blush” wines such as White Zinfandel are technically rosés, but many Blush wines contain noticeable residual sugar. I will say that White Zinfandel can be terrific with spicy dishes, such as curries or tacos, or salty foods – think Virginia ham or cured meats, such as prosciutto. But dry or off-dry rosés are wonderful wines because they are so surprising on the palate – driven by the intoxicating aromas and lingering tastes of strawberries, raspberries, cranberries, peaches, nectarines. And the color of rosé can be so beautiful, so inspiring, ranging from the palest pink to light red.

When it comes to pairing with food, rosé – still or sparkling – is a true “crossover” wine. Vibrant with veggies. Fabulous with fish. Perfect with poultry, pork, pasta, pizza. Lovely with lean cuts of red meat (beautiful with burgers, redolent with a roast beef sandwich and potato salad). Drink Pink at the picnic. Sexy with salty, spicy, smoky flavors. Alliteration is fun, but rosé paired with your favorite warm weather dishes is a blast.

Choosing rosé is a pleasure, not a chore. Pick up a bottle from France, one from Spain, a sparkler from Italy, another from California, one from Long Island, and on and on. Mix and match. Find your comfort zone. I must admit to being partial to the classic but affordable rosés of Provence, France where 80% of the wine produced is rosé. I also adore the rosados of Navarra and Rioja in Spain. I just tasted a killer sparkler from Veneto, Italy, good bubbly from New Mexico, and some very nice still rosés from Long Island. Rosé from Greece can be a revelation. California, Oregon, and Washington State make some nice wines, as do Chile and Argentina. My own basic rule of thumb for choosing rosé is to find a wine from a region where rosé is a focus, not just an afterthought. That may be why I tilt towards the Old World, and I especially recommend the wines from France, Spain, and Greece.

Here is a list of some really good dry to off-dry rosé wines. Buy the youngest wines you can find: 2009 or 2010. These are not wines for serious aging. The sparklers are Brut (dry) in style, but with mouth-filling red fruits, and all of them are non-vintage wines. Just about all of the wines are priced between $8 and $20, with most of them coming in under $15. retail.

Still Rosés:

Provence, France: Mas de Gourgonnier, Mas de la Dame, Commanderie de Peyrassol, Château du Rouet, Corail, Cape Bleue, Château Routas; from Tavel in the Rhône Valley, France: Château d’Aqueria, Domaine Lafond, Château de Trinquevedel

Greece: Domaine Skouras, Kir-Yianni, Semeli, Achaia Clauss;

Rioja, Spain: Muga, El Coto, Marques de Caceres, Marques de Riscal, CVNE, Faustino; from Navarra, Spain: Chivite “Gran Fuedo,” Vega Sindoa, Ochoa;

Portugal: Vinho Verde Rosé from Casal Garcia, Campelo, Casa do Valle; “Periquita” from Terras do Sado;

Veneto, Italy: Bardolino Chiaretto from: Cavalchina, Ronca, Marchesini, Tre Colline; from Sicily, Italy: Planeta, Regaleali, Fuedo Maccari, Cantine Barbera, Cusumano; from Sardinia, Italy: Pala, Argiolas from Campania, Italy: Mastroberardino, De Angelis, Cantina del Taburno from Tuscany, Italy: Castello di Ama, Banfi “Centine,” Carpineto, Il Poggione, Caparzo, Coltibuono “Cetamura”; from Abruzzo, Italy: Montepulciano di Abruzzo Cerasuolo from: Talamonti, Farnese, La Valentina, Umani Ronchi;

Long Island: Channing Daughters, Wölffer Estate, Macari;

Finger Lakes: Konstantin Frank, Glenora, Bellangelo, Ravines, Hazlitt 1852, Sheldrake Point, Red Tail Ridge, Treleaven;

Oregon: A to Z, Domaine Serene, Hamacher, Ponzi, Erath (a rare rosé of Pinot Gris, which some people consider a red grape, some a white);

Washington: Charles&Charles, Waterbrook, Cayuse, Trio;

California: Bonny Doon Vin Gris, Calera, Gundlach Bundschu, Hendry, Amador Foothills, Fritz, Tablas Creek, Quivira, Eberle, Buena Vista, Peter Franus, Foppiano, Bonterra, Hey Mambo;

Chile: Montes, Los Vascos, La Playa, Casillero del Diablo;

Argentina: Susana Balbo “Crios”, Luigi Bosca, Doña Paula, Pascual Toso, Kaiken.

Sparkling Rosés (all wines are Brut (fruity but dry) and non-vintage;all under $20;

New Mexico: Gruet, Saint-Vincent;

California: Blanc de Noirs from Chandon and Mumm Cuvée Napa;

Washington: Blanc de Noirs from Domaine Ste. Michelle;

Italy: Clara C Fiore Rosé, Mionetto, Rotari;

Spain: Cava Rosé is an incredible value. Producers include: Llopart, Segura Viudas/Aria, Juve y Camps, Cristalino, Cordoníu, Marques de Monistrol, Roger Goulart, Elyssia/Freixenet.

Dry Riesling Finds a Home in the Hudson Valley

2011-11-24T14:37:00.000-05:00

Riesling is my favorite white grape because it produces some of the most elegant wines on the planet. In the recent past, many wine drinkers equated Riesling with sweetness, probably because some of the most famous Riesling wines in the world – all of them from Germany – are sweet. The rare Eisweins (Icewine, made from frozen grapes) and the much sought after trockenbeerenauslese wines (made from shriveled, raisinated grapes affected by botrytis, otherwise known as “noble rot”) are exquisite examples of sweet Riesling.

Today, while sweet styles of Riesling wines abound in both the Old and New World (Canada is now the number one producer of Icewine), there is serious and sustained interest in dry Riesling, a wine that is no less elegant than its sweet siblings, and incredibly food-friendly with lighter foods, especially dishes that feature spicy, salty, or smoky flavors. Dry Riesling with Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Malaysian, Lebanese, Turkish, Israeli or Indian cuisines; with smoked salmon, gravlax, herring, oysters, fried chicken, crab cakes, or prosciutto e melone; or with pork dishes and charcuterie (especially classic pork-based sausages, including the classics found in my neighborhood at the Smokehouse of the Catskills in Saugerties). A cool dry Riesling, redolent of refreshingly high acidity and balanced citrus, melon, and stone fruit flavors, is the perfect match for the “ethnic” foods of northern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. As I said, Riesling is food-friendly; an understatement of profound and deep proportions.

German Riesling is still the benchmark for Riesling, sweet or dry. However, I’m happy to report that there is great Riesling produced in the United States. Although California produces about 90 percent of the wines in the USA, with the exception of a literal handful of high-quality producers (Smith-Madrone, Trefethen, Bonterra and Jekel), if California stopped producing Riesling tomorrow, almost nobody would notice. Actually, Washington State, producer of about five percent of the nation’s wine, is our largest producer of Riesling (try “Eroica,” Produced by Chateau Ste. Michelle in partnership with Ernst Loosen, the most famous winemaker in the Mosel wine district of Germany). Happily, New York State’s Finger Lakes wine region has become famous for the varietal, and wonderful examples of dry Riesling are produced by dozens of wineries. Here in the Hudson Valley, a number of wineries, including Whitecliff, Brotherhood, Benmarl, Tousey, Hudson-Chatham, Applewood, Warwick Valley, and Glorie Farms produce Rieslings that are dry to semi-dry (just a touch of sweetness balanced by acidity).

The thing about Hudson Valley Rieslings is this: to my knowledge, currently none of our wineries are producing an estate-bottled Riesling. “Estate Bottled” means that all of the grapes – in this case, Riesling – were grown by the producers on their own vineyard land in the Hudson Valley (officially the Hudson River Region American Viticultural Area/AVA). And although several of these Riesling wines are quite good – Whitecliff’s 2009 Riesling won Best White Wine in the 2010 San Francisco International Wine Competition, besting 1,300 wines from 27 countries – none of them has yet to express the true “terroir” of the Hudson River Region. I think the best Riesling in the Hudson Valley has yet to be produced, and when it is, I’m confident it will be an estate bottled wine made from grapes grown exclusively in the Hudson River Region AVA.

At least one winery in the Valley is pursuing this goal. Last May, Millbrook Winery, now in its 26th vintage, planted three acres of Riesling in its vineyards. General Manager David Bova and winemaker John Graziano believe that Millbrook can produce a fine estate bottled dry Riesling from this new vineyard block, with first crop being ready in 2013.

In an interview with Graziano and Bova, this is what I learned about the project:

• Millbrook planted particular “clones” of Riesling developed at German agricultural research stations that emphasize the characteristics that John Graziano is looking for in a good dry Riesling, both in the vineyard and the winery. According to the winemaker, he chose “Neustadt 90 and Geisenheim 198” With advice from Fred Frank of Konstantin Frank winery in the Finger Lakes and Chris Gerling of Cornell University's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York, 90 and 198 will provide a bit of diversity in the finished wine. 90 is all about aromatics and varietal character in the finished wine, and 198 shows concentration of lemon/lime acidity. In the vineyard, 90 develops higher sugars for better alcohol balance in the finished wine. The vines will be grafted to rootstock “3309.” The overwhelming majority of wine grapes – vitis vinifera – are not planted on their own roots, but native American rootstock, which is both disease resistant – and very important in this case - 3309 can survive the harsh winters of the Hudson Valley and responds well to dramatic changes in climate. (Note: “Cloning” grapes has nothing to do with the Frankenfood approach to interspecies cloning. A “clone” is a varietal crossing – Pinot Noir and Pinot Noir – approximating what insect vectors might perform by long-term pollination to bring about desirable characteristics in the vine; “cloning” hastens the process.)

• The vines are planted on a hillside – the Castle Hill vineyard block, just south of Wing’s Castle, a handmade Addams Family-style castle built by two artists, Peter and Toni Ann Wing. The castle overlooks the Millbrook vineyards (formerly Wing Farm). The hillside is ideal for Riesling, a late-ripening grape, because the sunshine on the hillside helps to protect against late-season frosts and the dynamic air currents will help to prevent moisture-based rot in the grapes.

• Vineyard yields will be extremely low, about 2.5 tons per acre, insuring flavor concentration in each grape cluster. That means that Millbrook will be able to produce about 400 cases of wine, a tiny production, so the wine will be sold in the tasting room at the winery and to local customers, not through conventional distribution channels. If Graziano, Bova, and Millbrook owner John Dyson are satisfied with the quality and if the wine proves popular Millbrook has several other sites that should prove ideal for further planting.

• The Riesling planting program cost about $10,000 per acre, and Millbrook will have to purchase several large stainless steel tanks with refrigerated jackets to ferment and make the wine in a crisp, fruit-driven style. Like most of the best Riesling produced all over the world, the wine will not see any small oak barrels, as such cooperage can destroy the fresh, fruity flavors of Riesling.

Millbrook will add their estate-bottled Riesling to their portfolio of other estate-bottled wines: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, and Tocai Friulano, a grape native to the vineyards of northeast Italy. Like Riesling, Tocai Friulano is an aromatic white wine, and Millbrook is one of very few producers of the wine outside of Italy (where it is now known simply as “Friulano.”). The wine continues to be a success for Millbrook, and should be for the foreseeable future. In two or three years, when production of estate-bottled Millbrook dry Riesling should be in full swing, Tocai Friulano may have to make room at the table.

The Wines of Piemonte, Italy

2011-05-15T16:15:00.001-04:00

About ten years ago, I (along with almost 1,200 other lucky professional and avocational winos) had the pleasure of attending a career-defining tasting. Angelo Gaja, widely known as the most admired – and arguably the best – wine producer in the Piemonte region of Italy, presided over a tasting of his wines at the New York Wine Experience. The Gaja wines, all single-vineyard estate wines from the villages of Barbaresco and Barolo, were glorious, and so was his homage to the grape that brought him to the party and wine-world prominence, Nebbiolo.

Starting with the near-perfect 1997 vintage, Angelo Gaja no longer anoints his acclaimed single-vineyard estate wines with name of DOCG zones, Barbaresco or Barolo. Instead, as would be the case of the Grand Cru wines of Burgundy, he opts to emphasize the terroir of the sites: Sori San Lorenzo and Sori Tildin (in Barbaresco) and Sperss (in Barolo), adopting the more-humble DOC of Nebbiolo delle Langhe.

Warming to his already-rapt audience, Gaja decided to compare the dark and mysterious Nebbiolo (named for the fog, the nebea that seems to consume the hillside vineyards of Piemonte’s southern Langhe region) to the ubiquitous and ever-popular Cabernet Sauvignon.

"Cabernet is to John Wayne what Nebbiolo is to Marcello Mastroianni. John Wayne is a strong personality. He speaks in a loud voice. He is reliable. When he comes home to his wife at night he does his duty; reliable but not exciting. Marcello Mastroianni would never be in the center of a room. He is shy. He is a closed book. He is not so reliable, but so much more exciting. And women become beautiful beside him. This is the beauty of Nebbiolo."

Gaja, standing in front of giant photo-projections of the two cinematic icons, entertained the appreciative crowd with his wit and informed them with his insight into two very different vinous imperatives. I was about to taste some of the most exciting wines of my life, my own la dolce vita, transported from Manhattan to Rome’s Trevi fountain, splashing with Anita Ekberg under the watchful and soulful eyes of Marcello Mastroianni. And the wines were very bit as mesmerizing as Fellini’s magnificent film.

Gaja, revealing extraordinary generosity, presented Sori San Lorenzo 1999 and 1978, Sori Tildin 1997and 1974 and Sperss 1998 and 1990. Just when the murmurs of pleasure and respect were about to become a near-roar, the crowd was treated to the extraordinarily vibrant 1961 Gaja Barbaresco (the same year that La Dolce Vita was released in the United States), a wine made by Angelo’s father, Giovanni Gaja. A momentary hush came over the entire ballroom, soon followed by a spontaneous and well-deserved standing ovation.
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“Il vino è rosso” (“Wine is red") is an old Piemontese adage that has contemporary resonance, as Piedmont's winemakers struggle to work primarily, and in many cases almost exclusively, with native red varietals, especially Nebbiolo, Dolcetto, and Barbera - in a world market that thirsts for Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Pinot Noir. However, while the finest red wine producers of Piedmont are steeped in tradition, they are not standing still.

Barolo and Barbaresco are often respectively referred to as the "King and Queen" of Piemontese wines. Both wines are made from 100% Nebbiolo grapes, grown in the communes of the Langhe surrounding the small city of Alba - Barbaresco to the north, and Barolo to the southeast. Barolo, the "King" is traditionally the most assertive and complex wine produced in Italy, tannic in its youth, and elegant in old age. This profile is moderating, as the wine, which was most often made from very ripe grapes and fermented in contact with their skins for months in large chestnut casks, where the wine aged for years before bottling, has virtually disappeared from the Barolo landscape. Today, Nebbiolo grapes are picked in small bunches from cooler areas, and skin contact is limited to weeks, not months, often in a combination of stainless steel fermentation tanks and small French oak barrels for aging. Modern-day Barolo is ready to drink in from three to five years, rather than the 20 years required for the classic version.

Barolo, at its best, delivers ripe fruit enshrined in a wine of great complexity and depth and balance, with a bouquet of violets, spices, tobacco, and the heady white truffles for which the Piedmont region is so well known. Fine producers of Barolo are Ceretto, Clerico, Pio Cesare, Marcarini, Bartolo Mascarello, Elio Grasso, Vietti, Renato Ratti, Aldo Conterno, Bava, Altare, Lucio Sandrone, Giacomo Conterno, Giuseppe Mascarello, Scavino, the enigmatic Bruno Giacosa, and of course, Angelo Gaja.

Speaking of Gaja in Barbaresco, his three single-vineyards - Sori Tildin, Sori San Lorenzo, and Costa Russi - define the category, and retail for $200 or more, depending on the vintage. These wines are sold on a strict worldwide allocation basis. Not many Barbaresco wines are nearly as expensive as the Gaja, however, with most retailing at between $30 and $60. The "Queen" of the Piedmont is a full-bodied Nebbiolo-based wine, but is often a bit fresher and more graceful on the palate than the more ponderous Barolo, and might be perceived as somewhat more versatile with a wider range of foods. I have found Barbaresco also provides far more bang for the buck than Barolo, as it maintains much higher standards in its vineyards than its much larger and more famous Nebbiolo-neighbor to the south. Many of the producers listed for Barolo also produce Barbaresco, but be sure to look for Marchese di Gresy, Cortese, Cigliuti, Prunotto, Punset, Albino Rocca, Bruno Rocca, Mascarello & Figlio, Mocagatta, and the producer that most often provides great quality and great value, the Produttori del Barbaresco, a wine-making collective whose single-vineyard wines - Rio Sordo, Montestefano, Montefico, and Asili - sometimes rival the wines of Angelo Gaja, at less than one-quarter of Gaja's price, around $35 to $50, depending on vineyard and vintage.

Another wonderful Piemontese red, Dolcetto ("little sweet one," referring to the easy-ripening, tiny grape; the wine is fruit-driven, but dry) is most often medium-bodied, fresh and food-friendly, and may benefit from a bit of chilling, but Dolcetto d'Alba can be mouth-filling, complex, and even benefit from some aging. Dolcetto is another true crossover wine, an appropriate match for lighter meats, poultry, fatty fishes, vegetarian dishes (especially mushrooms), and various pastas. Fine Dolcetto d’Alba is made by many of the aforementioned Barolo and Barbaresco producers. Also look for Dolcetto di Dogliani from Abbona and Dolcetto d’Acqui from Villa Sparina.

Barbera is probably the most improved red wine produced in the Piedmont region. After generations of poorly made, oxidized wines, contemporary Barbera is a refreshing, medium-bodied wine with good acidity and balance, even elegance. Barbera from Alba, Asti, and Monferrato are held in high regard as wines that pair with a wide variety of dishes. Unquestionably, the finest producer of Barbera was Giacomo Bologna, who died in 1991 (he was much-beloved; 5,000 people attended his funeral), and whose daughter, Raffaella, continues to make his single-vineyard “Braida” Barbera d’Asti wines, Bricco dell'Uccelone ("Hilltop of the Loon") and Bricco della Bigotta (named for the gossips who sit in the chairs on the streets of Bologna's hometown, Rocchetta Tanaro). Michele Chiarlo is another fine producer, as are Bava (look for the barrique-aged “Stradivario”), Vietti, Prunotto, and Marriuccia Borio's “Cascina Castelet,” notably hard to find but worth the effort.

The classic wines of Piedmont appear on all of the best lists in America's Italian restaurants and are much admired by Italian wine aficionados, but they deserve a much wider audience. The wines are so adept at enhancing the flavors of so many styles of food that they can quickly become the exotic stars of a meal, and we can just as quickly become enthusiastic about these wonderful wines from Piemonte. We may even become obsessed, as the wines converse with and enhance the soul. Hopefully, obsession soon leads to enlightenment as we begin to understand how and why Angelo, Marcello, Federico, Sophia, and so many other Italian wine lovers commune with a glass of Piemontese vino di meditazione. Even John Wayne might admit “il vino è rosso.”

New Rules/No Rules: Pairing Food and Wine

2011-05-15T16:06:00.001-04:00

Recently, I checked in with my dentist for a cleaning and checkup. As usual, Mary Ann, the dental hygienist, chatted with me as she cleaned my teeth, and inevitably the conversation (punctuated by my silence due to scraping, irrigating, flushing, and spitting) turned to wine. When it comes to wine, Mary Ann, whose Italian-American parents made their own, knows what she likes. “No Chardonnay, no Zinfandel; it’s got to be Pinot Grigio.” I asked her if her favorite wine works with all of her food choices, and she said “absolutely.”

Then Dr. Vivian came in to have a look at my teeth and gums. “Doc,” as she is known by her staff, is a walking advertisement for dental health because she has such a beautiful smile. Mary Ann asked, “Doc, what’s your favorite wine?” Without missing a beat, Doc answered “Whaddaya got? I just love wine, all wine!”

I realized at that moment that there was only one wine geek in the room, and it was the guy in the dental chair. Mary Ann and Doc are true wine lovers. One loves her Pinot Grigio, and one just loves wine, and they both enjoy wine and food without pretensions, without rules. I was humbled by Mary Ann and Doc’s instinctual passion for wine, and I wanted to get in touch with my own instincts, my own passions.

I spend a good part of my professional life teaching and writing about wine. Perhaps the most important part of what I do as a wine educator, author, and journalist is explain how to successfully marry food and wine so that each wine enhances each dish, and vice versa. In my classes at The Culinary Institute of America, where I have taught thousands of aspiring food and wine professionals over the last 20 years, wine and food pairing takes on special significance. Because wine courses at the CIA are geared to professionals I teach my students to pair wine and food not solely for their own palatal pleasure, but for the pleasure of others, specifically paying customers. The dynamic pairing of food and wine in a restaurant environment is an important part of the guest’s dining experience, and directly impacts the reputation and financial success – or failure – of any restaurant, from the informal bistro or chain restaurant to the upscale white table cloth restaurant or hotel dining room.

Often, when I teach or write about wine and food pairing for professionals, I let my students or readers know that the guidelines for marrying food and wine for a paying customer also has resonance in the wine and food choices they make at home for themselves, their family and friends. But I also point out that in their own lives there is no reason to adopt a conservative approach to marrying wine with food. Take a chance, live a little. Really, if you’re pairing a wine that you like with food that you like, how badly can you screw up? And if you do marry in haste or error, you can learn from that experience, too.

The United States is on its way to becoming the #1 wine-consuming nation in the world (you read that right: #1 by the end of 2009 – not based on per capita consumption, but total consumption). Americans in virtually all socioeconomic strata are becoming really comfortable with wine – Olive Garden sells more wine than any other U.S. restaurant; Costco is the #1 wine retailer in the nation – and that’s a good thing, because a glass or two of wine with dinner is an affordable pleasure, a small reward at the end of the day for all of us.

As we become comfortable with wine as part of daily life, we discover wines we really like, and wines we don’t like at all. We find wines at affordable price points – right now the consumer is king or queen, as good-quality wines have never been more accessible or less expensive – and choose a few as our own “house wines.” Couples may agree or disagree about what they like. That’s OK, as each can keep a bottle or two of his or her favorites in the house to enjoy at their leisure.

Americans have become confident in their wine choices. Gone are the bad old days when wine was intimidating, the days when people felt that they had to know how to talk about wine using antiquated jargon that has thankfully bit the dust. Just as we don’t have to know everything about the food we eat to enjoy it, the same holds true for wine. It’s a real bonus that so many of us are interested in knowing the source of our food, how and where it’s grown and by whom. And let’s remember that wine is indeed a food that happens to be fermented and sits in a glass. Perhaps more than any other food (with the possible exception of cheese, another fermented food), wine can express its sense of place, and that place can be local or international. However we think about food in general, we now think of wine as another flavor, another texture, a spice, a sauce, a refreshing counterpoint. A bite of food, a sip of wine, and we’re good to go.

So, in our daily lives let’s forget the “rules” of wine and food pairing. The only rule should be eat and drink what you like, and do so responsibly. White wine with meat? Sure. Red with fish? Absolutely. Rosé with a Whopper? Knock yourself out. Bubbles with everything? A no-brainer.

So, thanks to Mary Ann and Dr. Viv for helping me see the light – and for trying so hard to get those red wine tannin residues off my teeth and for saving my enamel from white wine acids. I’m going to continue to taste professionally, and to teach aspiring professionals how to successfully pair food and wine for paying customers. But in my own life at home, with friends, with family, I think I’ll adopt Dr. Viv’s carpe diem approach.

Whaddaya got?

Washington Post's Kim O'Donnel Interviews Steven Kolpan

2011-05-15T16:01:00.001-04:00

1. Your picks for most oversipped/overhyped, time to move on:

I really do believe that overly-oaked/high alcohol Chardonnay has seen its day, and I believe the same thing about overly ripe/high alcohol Cabernet Sauvignon. These wines are drama queens, produced to create a “wow” factor at the expense of balance, and to satisfy the palate of wine critics. These wines are really not very food friendly. I’m beginning to see that the members of the American wine-drinking public is being to trust their own palates, and are looking for wines that are balanced, even subtle; a very good thing.

2. Timeless classics, at any price:  

• Great cuvée de prestige Champagnes, such as Salon Blanc de Blancs, Pommery “Louise, ” Taittinger “Comtes de Champagne” Rosé, or Bollinger “RD.”

• Vega Sicilia “Unico Gran Reserva” from the Ribera del Duero region of Spain, produced only in the best vintage years, and not released for a minimum of ten years. For me, tasting the 1962 in 1985 was my wine epiphany; I had never tasted such a great wine.

• Rare grand cru red Burgundies from classic vintages, such as 1990, 1995, and 1999. Favorites include La Romanée, Richebourg, and La Tâche (all from the village of Vosne-Romanée).

• Truly Old Vine Zinfandel from great California vineyards, such as Monte Rosso “Gnarly Vines,” or Dry Creek Vineyard “80+ Year Old Vines,” both in Sonoma County; many Old Vine Zins from Amador County (Scott Harvey, Shenandoah Vineyards, Cloud 9, Sobon, Renwood, others); Ridge, Dover Canyon, and Piedra Creek produce extraordinary wines from near-90 year old vines of the Benito Dusi Vineyard in Paso Robles, and Napa Valley’s Benessere “BK Collins Old Vines” Zinfandel, from a vineyard planted in 1922 by Chinese vineyard workers. Classic wines for the price of an affordable luxury ($20 to $50, most of them in the low $30 range).

3. Most underestimated wines over the past few years:

Europe: the red wines of Greece, which can be spectacular. The red wines of Sicily, Sardinia, and Puglia in Italy; Rioja from Spain; red wines from Portugal’s Douro Valley (better known for Port); red wines from France’s central Loire Valley, made from Cabernet Franc.

USA/North America: The red wines of Mendocino County; Zinfandel from the Sierra Foothills; wines from Long Island; Riesling from the Finger Lakes; Syrah from Washington State; Pinot Gris from Oregon; Riesling from Canada.

Southern Hemisphere: Sauvignon Blanc from Chile; Torrontés from Argentina; Verdelho, Sémillon, and Sauvignon Blanc whites from Australia, as well as Grenache from Australia for reds; New Zealand Cabernet Sauvignon; South African Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc.

4. Top three picks for great value, at any price:

1. Vintage and “Prestige” Cava from Spain; extraordinary bubbly for under $25 (most under $20). Some to try: “Reserva Heredad” from Seguras Viudas, Freixenet “Brut Nature,” “Reserva Raventós” from Cordoniu, Juve Y Camps Reserva de la Familia, Gramona III Lustros Gran Reserva, and Llopart “Leopardi.”

2. Conha y Toro “Marques de Casa Concha” line of wines: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, and Chardonnay. These are extraordinary single-vineyard, estate-bottled wines for less than $20. The reds are ageworthy, but enticing at a young age, and the Chardonnay is balanced, with good acidity, and subtle hints of tropical fruits.

3. Dry and off-dry Rieslings from both Germany and Australia. These are incredibly food-friendly wines with real depth of flavor and fruit. The German wines tend to have a bit more minerality and earthiness with zesty fruit flavors emerging from the background, while the Australian wines emphasize citrus fruits, floral aromatics, spice, and lightness. From Germany look for the bargain-priced Qualitätsweins from Looosen, Burkln-Wolf, Prüm, Reichsgraf Von Kesselstatt, Selbach-Oster, St.-Urbans-Hof, and Baron zu Knyphausen, among many others. German Rieslings from the Mosel tend to be lighter, while those from the Rhine regions tend to be richer. Bargains in Australian Rieslings are easy to find these days from producers such as Leasingham, McWilliams, Yalumba, Jacob’s Creek, Annie’s Lane, and Alice White, among many others.

5. What to drink on the winter solstice, the longest night of the year:

As autumn turns to winter, I like to sip a warming, welcoming true Vintage Port throughout the long night, perhaps served with a Stilton blue cheese. Some classic vintages to consider: 1985, 1977, 1970, 1963

6. What to drink with baked ham:

Because of the high salt content, the more fruit and the less tannin the better. My favorite: Gewürztraminer or Riesling from Alsace, France (these whites are red wines in drag), or a fruity red such as Valpolicella Classico or this time of year, Beaujolais Nouveau. And, of course, bubbles.

7. Roast turkey:

White: Dry/Semi-dry Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Viognier from California or Virginia, Rueda from Spain, Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico from Marche, Italy.

Red: Cru Beaujolais (such as Brouilly or Fleurie), inexpensive (lighter) Pinot Noir or Zinfandel, crisp Rosé, such as Tavel from the Rhône Valley or Bardolino Chiaretto from Lugano, Italy.

8. Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve:

This is a traditional southern Italian feast, so think about Falanghina, Fiano di Avellino, or Greco di Tufo, all great whites from Campania. Speaking of “Greco,” an ideal match: Moschofilero from the Mantinia province of Peloponnese, Greece.

9. Hanukah latkes and jelly doughnuts:

While spinning the dreidel, enjoy kosher Sauvignon Blanc or Chenin Blanc from the Galilee or Shomron wine regions in Israel with the potato latkes. Producers include Barkan, Binyamina, Carmel, Dalton, Galil, Recanati, and Yishbi, among others). With jelly doughnuts, try an Asti (formerly Asti Spumante; spumante means “sparkling”) or better yet, a Moscato d’Asti from Piemonte, Italy. Bartenura and Rashi produce kosher versions.

10. New Year's Day Hoppin' John: 

A great dish, a bit on the salty side, so choose a fruity white or red, without oak and with low tannins. My favorite with this southern New Year’s classic, Champagne or other good American méthode champenoise  bubbly from Oregon (Argyle), Washington State (Domaine Ste. Michelle), New Mexico (Gruet), North Carolina (Biltmore Estate), or California (Iron Horse, Roederer Estate, Gloria Ferrer, and Schramsberg come to mind.)

11. If I handed you a $20 bill to buy two wines to take to a holiday party, what would you pick?

The holidays call for bubbles, in this case budget bubbles. So, I’d choose a bottle of Cristalino Rosé Cava from Cataluña, Spain (about $8), and for a still wine I’d go with a Montevina “Terra d’Oro” Zinfandel from Amador County, California (about $12).

12. Favorite New Year's sparklers:

Budget Buster:
Brut, “La Grande Dame,” Veuve Cicquot, Champagne, France 1995

Splurge:
Brut, Nicolas Feuillate, Champagne, France NV

Balanced Budget:

Brut, Lucien Albrecht, Crémant d’Alsace, Franc NV or
Brut, Blanc de Noirs, Gruet, New Mexico NV

Bubbly on a Beer Budget:

Brut Prosecco, Bortolomiol, Veneto, Italy NV or
Brut, Paul Cheneau, Cava, Spain NV

13. How to buy wine for a party -- how much wine per person:

Half a bottle per person is the usual guideline (that’s 2 to 3 glasses over the span of the party). Then, buy a few more bottles so that you don’t run out, or in case a guest shows up with an unexpected reveler. If it is an extended dinner party with several wines, perhaps a bit more. If most people are driving, err on the side of serious caution.

14. Best and worst wine news:

Best: The United States is the #1 wine consumer in the world (not per capita, but total consumption), and wine is now the #1 alcoholic beverage in the United States. In an era of Change, this is an exciting – and civilizing – change.

Worst: Continuing consolidation by multinational owners of wineries, and a serious reduction in the number of wine distributors, both of which can lead to a “sameness” in the wines, and discourage small wine producers who may suffer for lack of a market. Also, the impact of global warming and climate change on wine is beginning to be felt around the world, and the prognosis is not good. The issue is serious, as wine grapes are the most climate-sensitive crops in the world, like canaries in coal mines.

15. What can we look forward to sipping - grapes, vintages, growing regions, trends:

Today, the wine consumer is queen or king. We are in the midst of a serious economic collapse, and while folks continue to drink wine, they are choosing their wines more carefully, looking for bargains. Fortunately, bargains abound if we know where to look (The last chapter of WineWise, “Got Cash?”: Our Bargain Choices” is a good place to start; more than 500 great wine bargains from all over the world). So, bargain-hunting is definitely a trend.

In that vein, I think we’ll see folks trying more wines from off the beaten path: wines from Greece (all regions) , Portugal (the Douro Valley and Dão), southern Italy and islands (Puglia, Sardinia, Sicily), Argentina (Malbec, Bonarda, and the white Torrontés), Canada (Riesling and other whites). Chile will continue to be strong in Cabernet Sauvignon, but also in Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. More upscale Chilean wines, but still at affordable prices, will be purchased. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc will continue its rise, too. Australia has had four straight years of drought, so prices will rise, and its marketing juggernaut may be placed on pause. The inflated prices of mediocre to fair California wines will have to contract in order to compete on the world stage. I hope that people will finally discover France as a great place for wine bargains, with vin de pays and lesser-known AOC regions gaining traction in the US market. Italian wines overall will continue to dominate; the Italians have shown a real ability to read the American wine market.

I also think we will begin to appreciate our local wines – all 50 states produce wine now – which will only encourage local winemakers to do an even better job, and for all of us to decrease our carbon footprint.

And as always, I hope we Americans will be enjoying our wine with our daily meals and in moderation, to preserve wine’s place as a healthy beverage in a healthy society.

Wines for Summerlovers

2011-05-15T15:46:00.002-04:00

Summer should be a season for rest, relaxation, and recuperation. We still may work 9 to 5, but it’s light when we get up, and it’s still daylight when we drive home; that alone should put us in a sunny mood. And most of us can manage to get away or just goof off for at least a couple of long, lazy weekends, while the lucky ones sneak a week or two. After slogging through the wind and snow of the winter, and muddling through the season of mud that passes for spring in the Hudson Valley, we come to summer, that cherished time of year that means a life in the great outdoors of fun, friends, family, and food.
I am a Summerlover, and so are most of my friends. We live in shorts and t-shirts whenever we can, and we cook and dine al fresco every chance we get. I love to fire up the grill, and then jump in the water to commune with and meditate on the menu, which is inevitably based on what’s fresh from the garden, and what looked good at the fish market or butcher. And of course, there’s the wine...
Summer wines should be full of fruit, cool and refreshing, and as informal and inexpensive as the Summerlover dress code. When you’re relaxing and talking, or playing killer croquet, badass badminton, hard-hearted horseshoes, or simply silently swimming, you don’t want to ruminate over ponderous, serious wines full of complexity and depth. When the sun is shining, you want the alcohol to be low, so that you don’t become groggy, and are able to have safe and responsible funfunfun so that daddy doesn’t take the T-bird away. Save those big reds and oaky whites for sitting by the fireplace in late autumn, winter, and early spring, dining on lamb stews, hearty soups, and scripted meals. Just as food is seasonal -- tomatoes and corn are the cornerstones of the true Summerlover’s diet -- so is wine. So bring on the Wines of Summer: light, crisp whites, thirst-quenching dry rosés, fruity, luscious reds, and don’t forget the bubbles!
In the mood for a salad of fresh greens, studded with boiled, steamed, or grilled lobster, drizzled with a dreamy dressing of coarsely puréed watermelon, onion, and ripe peaches? What could be better with this light and simple dish than a Vinho Verde from Portugal, an elegant, dry white wine that is redolent of grapefruit/citrus, with just a bit of spritz for a refreshing cleansing of the palate.
Vinho Verde is the ultimate Summerlover’s wine; about 8 to 9% alcohol, and it’s not afraid of an ice cube or two, or even a little sparkling water for a magnificent wine spritzer. Vinho Verde is the reigning monarch of the land of ABC (Anything but Chardonnay), and she is a ruler who favors almost unbelievably progressive taxation. Vinho Verde sells for about $6, to $10. per bottle, a truly great wine value, so buy a case or two for the summer. You want to drink this charming wine as young as possible, so look for the 2009 or even better, the 2010 vintage, or in no-vintage versions check the very small print on the back label for the date of bottling.
Here is a warm weather mantra for you to channel your inner sunshine: “Summerlovers Love Rosé.” During the cool months of the year, rosé wines get little notice and less respect. Rosé is all but forgotten or ignored by wine geeks, but for wine and food lovers who adore fresh, cool flavors of orange and strawberries, dry rosé is a revelation.
Grilled salmon, served medium-rare with “creamers:” tiny roasted red potatoes and roasted summer garlic, and a salad of garden greens dressed with extra virgin olive oil and fresh herbs, paired with a chilled dry rosé is nothing short of pink perfection. A wine that will enhance your food as well as slake your thirst, rosé is to summer as falling leaves are to autumn, an undeniable part of the landscape. Try the Chivite “Gran Fuedo” Rosado from Navarra, Spain, which is widely available in Hudson Valley wine shops for less than $10 per bottle.
Note: Attention, White Zinfandel fans (which is, in actuality a semi-dry to semi-sweet rosé of the red Zinfandel grape). This could be the summer to move up to a somewhat drier, but ultimately more refreshing, fruit-driven wine. Can light reds be far behind?
The perfectly grilled burger, cooked and served en plein air, is as much a part of summer’s iconography as fireworks on the 4th of July. Serve it with fresh tomatoes, lettuce, and onion, salted cucumbers picked that day, a sauce of ketchup, mustard, and mayo, with just a touch of Tabasco, all piled on a sandwich contained by hearth-baked bread, with homemade potato salad on the side, and just ask yourself as you taste this American delicacy, “does it gets any better than this?”
Yes, it does.
Pair that burger with a light, fruity but dry red, like Gamay Noir from the Hudson Valley’s Whitecliff Vineyards, a Beaujolais-Villages from Georges Duboeuf in Burgundy, France, or best of all, a Valpolicella Classico Superiore from Sandro Boscaini in Veneto, Italy (each of these wines is easily under $15.). Now, take a sip and taste a second sauce, a true “secret sauce ” for that burger, revealed only to your palate. These wines smell and taste of red summer berries. The fruit of the wine harmonizes with the earthy, sweet flavors of the burger, creating a simultaneous counterpoint and complement for the sensual nexus of flavors going on in this dish.
When it comes to wine and the image of its pompous poobahs, what’s more fun than a little harmless sacrilege? I will surely be cast out of Snobovia, but I say chill these reds. That’s right, serve ‘em cool, serve ‘em cold. Why? Putting a chill on these simple reds will bring out their fresh flavors and pump up the refreshing acidity that we crave on a hot day to refresh our palates. If you taste these wines warm (made even warmer in the glass by your hand and by the sun), they might taste flat and flabby, and lose some of their many charms.
Treat these reds like whites when you enjoy them in the summer sunshine.
Sparkling wines, especially lighter méthode champenoise wines, like Cava from Spain, or New World Bubbly from the United States, are perfect aperitifs, so restorative when sipped outdoors. These wines, which sell from about $6 to $18, depending on style and producer, are also great with cold foods and lighter hot dishes. Try a Paul Cheneau Cava, or Domaine Ste. Michelle Brut from Washington State (both about $8), or if you’re making some Southwestern-style dishes, try Gruet Blanc de Noirs from New Mexico (about $15). My favorite from California is Roederer Estate Brut (about $18), a magnificent wine from a magnificent vineyard in the Anderson Valley of Mendocino. You really can’t go wrong with well-made sparklers, because they cool you down and perk you up.
The pleasures of summer are many, but fleeting. Before you know it, you’ll be shoveling snow, which, to Summerlovers, is the Hudson Valley’s cosmic dandruff. But just for now, for these precious few months of warmth and sunshine, let’s celebrate our glorious summer season with glorious summer wines.

The Path Now Taken: Exploring New Wine Choices

2011-05-15T15:30:00.002-04:00

Enjoying your favorite wines with your favorite foods is one of life’s true pleasures. You can count on the wines you like to stimulate all of your senses, to provide a focus for a great meal with friends or family, or when you’re grabbing a quick bite on your own. But let’s be honest; even though you may like what you’re drinking, when it comes to the universe of wine you may also be thinking “what else am I missing?”

The fact is that there is life beyond Chardonnay and Cabernet, and there is excitement beyond Merlot. There has never been a better time to be able to taste the wines of the world, and some of those wines are produced from grapes you have never heard of and in wine regions you’ve never considered.

There is so much great wine available in the wine shops and restaurants of the Hudson Valley. Wines to fall in love with, wines to savor, wines to pair with your favorite foods. The really good news about these great wines is that they are often great values too, and all it takes to get started on this enological journey is a sense of adventure; a desire to go off the beaten path.

We can start our exploration close to home, by tasting some fine Hudson Valley wines made from what might be considered unusual grapes. Millbrook Vineyards makes a lovely estate-bottled Tocai Friulano, a white grape native to Friuli Venezia-Giulia, Italy. Try this wine with grilled or seared scallops, fish or chicken tacos, Chinese takeout, or any lighter foods with a touch of spice or smoke. Or try the Gamay Noir from Whitecliff Vineyard in Gardiner, a red made from the only grape that is allowed in Beaujolais, France. This wine is great with a rare burger, filet mignon, roasted chicken, or a grilled salmon, as well as many Hudson Valley artisan cheeses. And don’t forget Eaten by Bears, produced at Cereghino Smith Winery in Bloomington, a non-traditional red wine made from a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, and Cabernet Franc. The same folks produce a killer Rock ‘n Roll Red: a blend of Sangiovese, Petite Sirah, and Cabernet Franc. Both of these full-bodied wines exhibit structure and depth tempered by refreshing acidity, and will marry well with hearty dishes, such as stews made from local beef, lamb, or veal.

Leaving home to go farther afield, consider some of these wines next time you want to try something new, different, and good:

The Southern Hemisphere

• from Argentina: Ever try Torrontés, a floral, spicy white? An excellent wine for fish dishes, as well as mushroom risotto, or just some fresh veggies sautéed or roasted in good olive oil. Of course, Argentina is already well known for its red flagship, Malbec, a medium to full-bodied wine made to pair with the Argentine love affair with beef.

• from Chile: If you like medium-bodied, juicy red wine, sip a good Carmenère and you won’t be sorry. Cabernet Sauvignon is Chile’s most popular red varietal in export markets, but Carmenère can be a bit more interesting: somewhat lighter in body, and extremely food friendly, this wine is great with white meats and is an incredible bargain. By the way, if you haven’t tried Sauvignon Blanc from Chile’s Casablanca Valley, you’re missing out on a great white: fruit-forward, with refreshing citrus-like acidity, and just the thing for poached salmon with a tomatillo salsa.

• from Uruguay: That’s right, Uruguay. I’m betting most readers haven’t had the pleasure of tasting this country’s Tannat, a full-bodied but balanced red, which true to its name features some serious mouth-puckering tannins. This is a wine for red meats and intense cheeses, such as Parmigiano Reggiano or moderately sharp Cheddar.

• from Australia: Sure, we know about Shiraz, but have you tried a dry to semi-dry Riesling from Down Under? Refreshing, citrusy, clean, this white is just the thing for spicy Asian food or smoked fish. And the red grape that Australia does a bang-up job with is Grenache, especially old vine Grenache from the McLaren Vale region. Redolent of black and red fruits, with a complex finish, this full-bodied red pairs beautifully with cassoulet, game, or hard cheeses.

• from New Zealand: Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand is ubiquitous these days, but lesser-known are its great Pinot Noir wines, especially from the Central Otago and Martinborough regions. As with all fine Pinot Noir, these wines pair beautifully with a wide variety of foods, from grilled fish, to any white meats, to leaner cuts of red meats, as well as “meatier” vegetarian dishes featuring beans and grains.

• from South Africa: I’m a big fan of South African Sauvignon Blanc, but I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend this country’s Chenin Blanc wines. Crisp, fruity, with a touch of peach on the palate, this white is sure to please with ceviche or poached fish dishes. (South Africa is also known for its own red wine grape, Pinotage, but I have to admit most Pinotage wines leave me cold, especially as the quality is inconsistent).

Europe

Austria: Two whites, two reds worth exploring here. Definitely try Grüner Veltliner, a white that is light-bodied, crisp, refreshing, with an underlying hint of orange zest. Grüner Veltliner has been “discovered ,” but the wine is still a good bargain. More expensive, but usually worth it are Austria’s dry Rieslings. Both of these whites are perfect accompaniments to spicy fish dishes, and smoked fish and white meats. For reds, try Blaufrankisch, a medium-bodied wine that pairs nicely with red meats and stews, and Zweigelt, a light-bodied red that is perfect for fish or white meats cooked en plein air, on the outdoor grill. By the way, Zweigelt is the same grape as Lemberger, a cult classic worth a sip from Washington State.

Italy: There are hundreds of grape types in Italy, so the question becomes where to begin? I say let’s start in Sardinia with Cannonau, which is actually the Grenache grape. Full-bodied red Cannonau wines are wonderful with rustic, rare meat dishes. From Puglia, try Primitivo, which has the same DNA as Zinfandel. Primitivo is a very satisfying red, and like its California twin, it is bursting with black fruits and spice. Terrific for white and red meats, but also for hearty knife and fork soups, such as black bean. Vermentino, grown primarily in Sardinia and Tuscany, produces a wonderful white, with bracing acidity and notes of citrus and green melon on the palate. Serve Vermentino with fish, seafood, or mollusks. The same foods create a perfect pairing with Falanghina, a delicious, mouth-watering white from Campania.

Portugal: Portugal’s premier white grape is Alvarinho, which often finds its way into blended Vinho Verde, but look for pure Alvarinho from the Moncão wine region. Another wonderful wine for fish. Touriga Nacional is the most heralded red grape in Portugal, and is an important constituent of fine Port. These days, Touriga Nacional from the Douro region is making an international name for itself as a great table wine. If you like “big” reds and “big” food, then Touriga Nacional is for you.

Spain: Albariño is the Spanish name for Alvarinho (see above). Albariño from Rías Baixas, in the province of Galicia on Spain’s northern Atlantic coast, produces a delicious medium to full-bodied white, made to marry with that region’s seafood. Godello, from Valdeorras, also in Galicia, is a light to medium-bodied, juicy, refreshing white wine, and is also a perfect pairing with fish and seafood. When it comes to reds, Spain is a treasure chest, but if you’ve never tried a Mencia from the Bierzo denominación, you’re missing out on a beautiful red wine that will successfully accompany roasted white meats. If you like Merlot, but want to take a walk on the wild side, Mencia is for you.

France: The Loire Valley is known throughout the world for its tasty white wines, such as Muscadet, Vouvray, and Sancerre. Lesser-known are the terrific red wines from the Central Loire: Chinon, Bourgueil, and Saumur-Champigny, each based on the Cabernet Franc grape. These are not blockbuster reds, but rather medium-bodied wines of great finesse and subtlety, perfect for white meats and game.

Greece: In Greece, the joys of degustation are much more important than the challenges of pronunciation. One of my favorite white wines in the world is Moschofilero, from Mantinia on the Peloponnese peninsula. Moschofilero is crisp and refreshing, tastes a bit like a cross between Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc, and will pair incredibly well with subtly spicy, salty, and smoked foods; it is a dream when paired with grilled sardines. Another exciting Greek grape is Assyrtiko, which produces extraordinary white wines on the island of Santorini. These wines are all about fish dishes in the tradition of the Mediterranean. Try it with a bouillabaisse or other fish stew. For assertive red wines from Greece, look for Nemea (made from the Agiorgitiko grape) and the Barolo-like Naoussa (made from the Xynomavro grape; a personal favorite).

Cyprus: This journey for new and exciting wines could go on and on; we’ve just scratched the surface. Where better than to end our travels – at least for now – at the home of the oldest, continuously produced wine in the world? Commandaria, from the Limassol region, first produced in the 12th century, is a sweet, fortified wine, perfect for cheeses (or dark chocolates) at the end of a meal, and a perfect wine to relax with at the end of our journey, as we contentedly murmur, “what’s old is new again.”

Vintage Vantage

2011-05-15T15:25:00.002-04:00

When most of us purchase a bottle of wine – either in a retail shop or restaurant – we have to make a number of judgment calls. Which wine will work best with tonight’s dinner? Do we want to stick with the familiar or try something new? Is there a particular grape varietal we crave, and if so, which producers make our favorite wine from that grape? How much do we want to spend? To which part of the wine world do we want to make a virtual journey? If you trust someone’s palate more than your own, you might even want to consider what “score” a wine received in a wine magazine or newsletter, or at a web site. Decisions. Decisions.

The good news about choosing wine in 2011 is that there has never been a time in history when so much good wine was available, and at such affordable prices. Gone are the days when you had to spend a lot to get a good, even great bottle of wine. So we make our aesthetic, geographical, and gustatory judgments, figure out what we can afford to pay, and choose a wine. It’s as easy, and as much fun as that.

But hold on. There’s another potential issue to deal with in choosing a wine, and it’s one that few of us think about very often. That issue is the vintage of the wine – the year in which the grapes were harvested. We always notice the vintage year on the label of still wine (the overwhelming majority of sparkling wines – including true Champagne - and fortified wines – unless we’re talking about Vintage-dated Port or Madeira - are “non-vintage” sometimes politely referred to as “multi-vintage”). But what, in the modern era of wine, does the vintage year really mean?

I should point out that some of the least expensive varietal-labeled wines, including “Two Buck Chuck” at Trader Joe’s and [yellow tail™] at any wine shop are vintage-dated wines. At the same time, some of the rarest and most expensive wines in the world – great Bordeaux, Burgundy, Barolo, Brunello, Rioja, fine Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, and on and on, also display their vintage years prominently on their labels.

If you can find a qualitative difference in taste between a 2008 and 2009 “Two Buck Chuck” or [yellow tail™], then you’re either a much better wine taster than me, or suffering from some sort of delusion. Notice also that in mass-produced wine such as these two and many others there is no price difference based on vintage, and that is the way it should be. Wines produced on a mass scale are “engineered” to be predictable; to taste a certain way to please the consumer, to offer the perception of value. And perhaps in most of the wine in the marketplace, the use of vintage dating adds to that perception, because although we may not seriously consider what vintage year appears on a label, we would be disappointed to find a label without that year prominently displayed, and perhaps judge the wine to be somehow inferior. The careful inclusion of a vintage date on wine that is predictably the same on a year-to-year basis is called marketing (some might call it mass hypnosis, but that’s a discussion for another column).

We live in a world where more than 90% of the wine produced – far in excess of a billion bottles per year – is consumed within two years of vintage, and remember that we are talking about the year in which the grapes were harvested, not the year in which the wine was produced, bottled, and shipped, so that is a very small window of time from the vine to the empty bottle or box. Consider also that most wines are best consumed within two or three years of vintage and we begin to see that the old Orson Welles caveat to “drink no wine before its time” has little meaning in the world of enjoying wine as an everyday drink to enjoy with our meals. Add to this the fact that, much like the rest of the world, 95% of the wine purchased in the United States is consumed within two weeks of purchase, and at least 75% of that wine is consumed within 24 hours, and we see that Americans, who now collectively drink more wine than the citizens of any other nation, truly enjoy wine; vintage be damned.

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So, has vintage lost its importance altogether? The answer is: it depends. Vintage is the last thing most people who enjoy wine think about, unless it’s to make sure that the white wine they’re buying is not too old. However, there are a small percentage of wine drinkers who pay very close attention to vintage when purchasing wine. These folks are purchasing very special wines, usually very expensive wines; wines for special occasions, dinners, and celebrations; wines that by their cost and pedigree seem to anoint the purchaser with prestige. Importantly, this category of wine consumer also includes those who buy wine not primarily as an object of pleasure but as an investment in a bottle. And this is where vintage matters.

If we take a look at the Bordeaux wine trade as but one example, vintage is all-important, because wine grapes, the most climate-sensitive crop in the world, respond to the environmental imperatives of each growing year – sunshine, rain, wind, heat, cold – and each year the wine produced from those grapes is different. The machas and doyennes of the international wine press taste each vintage of Bordeaux while it is still in barrels, and make predictions and proclamations based on their perceptions of quality. The most powerful member of the wine press is Robert Parker, who invented the 100-point scale for judging wines, and whose opinion directly impacts the price of a particular Bordeaux wine and all of the best wines of an entire vintage in Bordeaux. Tens, perhaps even hundreds of millions of dollars hang in the balance, based on Parker’s prognostications. Parker declared 2000, 2005, and 2009 “the vintage of the century,” with many wines receiving between 95 and 100 points, and prices for those wines followed suit.

I am not exaggerating Parker Power when it comes to Bordeaux. Let’s take a look at just one excellent red wine, Château Haut-Brion, from the Pessac-Léognan district of Graves in Bordeaux. A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc, Haut-Brion has a great history, and was one of only four wines (and the only wine from Graves) granted Premier Grand Cru Classé (“First Growth”) status in the 1855 classification of Bordeaux. Remember that Parker declared 2000, 2005, and 2009 as extraordinary vintages. Below are current prices of various vintages of Château Haut-Brion (each price is per bottle and is followed by Parker’s score, as per the website of Zachy’s, a famous wine shop in the lower Hudson Valley town of Scarsdale, New York):
2000- $1,180 (99)
2001- 625 (94)
2003-595 (95)
2005-$1,800 (100)
2006-$750 (95)
*2008-$692 (95)
*2009-$1,200 (98)
*Both are purchased as “Futures”, known as en primeur in Bordeaux. You must pay for the wine in full, and then wait until the summer of 2011 to receive the 2008, the summer of 2012 to receive the 2009. (By the way, Parker gave the 1989 Haut-Brion a perfect score (100 points). That wine sells for $2,400 per bottle at Sherry Lehmann wine merchants in New York City).

Clearly, in Bordeaux, vintage (and Parker Power) makes a huge difference in the cost of the wine. When you buy the wine as “Futures” you’re betting that the price will rise when it arrives in the market and will increase substantially over time. People who buy their wine this way are often thinking of the auction market for these wines, where they can sell the wines at a profit. We are not even in the same wine universe as wines that sell for say, $10 to $25, where many of us are comfortable, and where many very good wines at reasonable prices live.
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Since I believe tasting the world’s greatest wines is a nonpareil and priceless experience, I am incapable of assigning a dollar sign to the joy I see reflected in the faces of friends, family, and loved ones on the rare occasions when we sip the amazing product of a very special piece of earth. Certainly, the last thing I want to think about is the market value in cold cash of each sip. While my relaxed stance might be perceived as decadent, privileged, and undeserved, I can’t believe that people would find me crazy for reveling in this fleeting but somehow eternal moment.

In Bordeaux, however, I might be locked up as a madman, dangerous to myself, and more important, dangerous to the Bordeaux wine trade. So, now we live in a world where $1,000 or more for a bottle of fine wine is considered sane. Forgive me, but I have to ask, “Who’s crazy?”

Well, maybe it is me that’s crazy, but the last time I checked the reason I love wine is the fact that it is one of life’s great pleasures. On the other hand, I thought I actually was crazy the last time I checked the performance of my 401-K retirement fund and realized that the only future I can reasonably afford to plan is death. How can I measure my sanity against these two seemingly incongruous benchmarks? What has pleasure and love got to do with profit and loss? Must we balance the indulgence of the senses with the imbalance of the cents? If we buy our wine thinking “vintage first,” maybe.

Label Lore

2010-11-15T13:07:00.003-05:00

These days many consumers enjoy buying wine with labels that feature animals, such as kangaroos, penguins, fish, lizards, and loons. These “critter labels” don’t just happen by accident. Research has shown that American wine consumers are 40% more likely to buy a wine with a cute animal on the label when compared to a relatively straightforward wine label that gives the basic information: the name of the producer, the name of the grape, the name of the place where the vineyards are located, and the year in which the grapes were picked – the vintage.

Whether we choose our wines based on the cute factor or on the basic label facts, most wine labels give us minimal information. Sometimes the back label of a wine is reserved for marketing the wine, and in the process of trying to hook the consumer with spinspiel, we learn a bit more about the origins of the wine and the philosophy of the producer.

There is one wine producer in California whose back labels actually give us important information, and that is the Calera Wine Company, owned by Josh Jensen. Jensen specializes in single-vineyard Pinot Noir, and for the last 35 years his goal has been to create Burgundy in California. That is to say that Jensen wants to replicate the qualities of the great red Burgundies of France, which by law and custom are 100% Pinot Noir. Since 1975, Josh Jensen’s passion and obsession has been to create the finest Pinot Noir he can possibly make, and he does so in one of the most isolated viticultural regions in the United States.

Jensen’s front label is straightforward. Here’s what we know from reading it: The producer is Calera; the vintage is 2005 (Calera’s 30th vintage); the grapes were grown only in the Mills Vineyard; the varietal is Pinot Noir; the American Viticultural Area (AVA), or officially designated wine region is Mt. Harlan.

Here’s a few things we can’t tell by reading the front label: “Calera” is Spanish for “lime kiln,” which is a hint that the soils of the Mills Vineyard, much like the best vineyards in Burgundy, are rich in limestone; the Mills Vineyard is one of five single-vineyard limestone-based Pinot Noir sites (the others are the Selleck, Jensen, Reed, and Ryan vineyards). So in 2005, the Mills bottling was one of five single-vineyard Pinot Noir wines produced by Calera; and we also can’t tell by reading the front label that Josh Jensen’s Calera vineyards and winery is – and always has been – the only wine producer in the Mt. Harlan AVA.

It is the back label of this wine that really excites me, as it is filled with information about the pedigree of the wine in the bottle (and why it is worth $45 per bottle).

On the left hand side of the label we learn that the Mills Vineyard is 14.4 acres, and we see where the vineyard is located relative to the other Calera single vineyards. We also get some basic contact info for the Calera Wine Company (by the way, the website is terrific if you want to learn more about the winery, its vineyards, and its wines). But it is the right side of the label that makes this wine unique and provides a virtual tutorial in what it means to produce a true artisanal wine from vineyard to bottle. Let’s explore this label and see how it translates to what’s in the bottle.

American Viticultural Area (AVA): Mt. Harlan
Again, Josh Jensen’s Calera Wine Company is the only wine producer in this AVA, due to its extreme geographic isolation.
Mountain Range: Gavilan Mountains
Sometimes referred to as the Gabilan Mountains, Gavilan is Spanish for “hawk,” and red-tailed hawks are common to this mountain range, which is located on the border of Monterey and San Benito counties. The highest peaks in this mountain range are more than 3,000 feet.
County: San Benito
Region: California’s Central Coast
This wine is not produced in Napa or Sonoma counties, or even in Sideways territory, Pinot Noir-rich Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. San Benito County is not known for its wines, but it does have a few isolated wine regions, including the high-altitude, single-producer Mt. Harlan and Chalone AVAs.
Predominant geology: Limestone
After Josh Jensen returned from Burgundy in the early 1970s, he searched for limestone-rich soils for his Pinot Noir vineyards, and his search went on for years. Limestone is a rare soil type in California, which is blessed with a lot of overtly fertile loam and clay soils. Jensen was convinced if he was going to make a Pinot Noir as fine as Burgundy’s best, he could not do it without the terroir-defining limestone soils.
Average Elevation: 2,200 feet above sea level
So these vineyards are close to a half-mile in the sky, and are accessible only by tough-terrain vehicles. At this elevation, all picking in the vineyard must be done by hand. High-elevation, cool-climate vineyards enjoy the morning and afternoon sun to ripen grapes, and also enjoy cool nights that produce high acid levels in those grapes. High acidity in the finished wine makes you want to take another sip of wine, another bite of food. There is nothing worse in the world of wine than low-acid Pinot Noir.
Vineyard location: 9 miles south of Hollister, 90 miles south of San Francisco, 25 miles east (inland) of Monterey/Carmel
Hollister is a city of about 38,000 people, founded by farmers and ranchers, and is currently the most populous municipality in San Benito County.
Owned by Calera Wine Company
This may seem like an obvious and unimportant fact, but it is actually quite important. What this means is that since the winery owns the Mills Vineyard, this wine was made without any purchased grapes. The wine is estate-bottled, meaning that Calera owns the land, grew the grapes, and made the wine. The majority of wines in California are produced at least in part from purchased grapes.
Number of vines: 10,575 (100% Pinot Noir) Vine Spacing: 6’x 10’ Vines per acre: 726
This is significant in that it speaks volumes about Josh Jensen’s approach to growing Pinot Noir. The total number of vines, the vine spacing, and the vines per acre indicate that Jensen believes in a more classic (Burgundian) planting regime, giving the vines plenty of room to grow, and plenty of room for vine roots to extend deep into the soil. By modern standards, which include close spacing of vines, 726 vines per acre is about one-third of what many growers might plant (about 2,000 vines per acre is the modern norm). The relatively small amount of vines, coupled with excellent vineyard management, will provide a low yield in the vineyard, which is what Jensen wants: fewer berries, but more concentrated minerals, flavors, and aromatics in each berry.
Exposure of slope: South/Southwest
These mountain vineyards are planted for maximum sun exposure throughout the day, helping to ensure steady and even ripening.
Year planted: 1984 Rootstock: Own-rooted (Pinot Noir)
Since the vintage of this wine is 2005, the vines were 21 years old at the time of harvest, meaning that the vines are mature, although they still have a long life ahead of them. Perhaps more important than their age is that these vines are planted on their own roots, not a selected rootstock. Ever since the plant louse, phylloxera destroyed the vineyards of Europe and beyond at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, about 90% of the commercial vineyards in the world have been planted on phylloxera-resistant American rootstocks (Australia and Chile being notable exceptions). Jensen is taking a risk here, but he must believe it is important for the vines of the Mills vineyard to be planted on their own roots (the other four Pinot Noir single-vineyards are all planted on various American rootstocks).

The parentage of these vines is also an important issue for those of us who love fine Pinot Noir. The vines are said to be propagated from cuttings of the Pinot Noir vines of the Domaine Romanée Conti (DRC), the most famous and revered vineyards in the Côte de Nuits region of Burgundy. Since smuggling these vine cuttings into California is technically a crime, Jensen will neither confirm nor deny the origins of his Pinot Noir vines, but those closest to him attest that the source of Calera Pinot Noir is, in fact, the DRC.

19-year average crop yield (1987 through 2005) 1.30 tons per care (19.5 hectolitres of wine per hectare of vineyard)

I must have read this label entry more than a hundred times, and each time I wonder, “could this be true?” It is. Jensen’s yield per acre is, in the world of commercial grape growing and winemaking, infinitesimal. Growers whose yields are normally in the three to five tons per acre range produce high-quality wine; three tons per acre is considered an exceptionally low yield, especially in California. What this means is that each berry harvested in 2005 in the Mills Vineyard is precious for not only its varietal character but as a dramatic expression of its sense of place, its terroir. The metric terms above indicate that 1,950 liters (2,060 quarts) of wine is produced per hectare (2.47 acres).

2005 Mills Vineyard Harvest Data
Dates of harvest: September 17-25, October 7
Obviously, fruit in the Mills Vineyard reached desirable ripeness levels at differing times, which is consistent with harvest dates from previous vintages.
Tons harvested: 20.05 Tons per acre: 1.3
Again, the emphasis is on low yields, both in total tonnage and tons per acre. 2005 was a textbook vintage for the Mills Vineyard, yielding exactly the 19-year average crop yield in that vintage. Incidentally, in 2004, the yield was 1.28 tons per acre, but in 2006, a very wet year, the yield was 3.16 tons per acre, still low by industry standards, but quite high by Mills Vineyard standards. Jensen “declassified” 44% of the finished wine, deciding it was not high enough quality for the Mills bottling. The wine found its way his into the 2006 Mt. Harlan Cuvée Pinot Noir, a blend of the single vineyard wines and wine made from younger vines.
Average ripeness: 25.9% sugar
The amount of sugar in the grapes translates into alcohol. Notice on the far right of the label that the wine is 14% alcohol by volume.

2005 Mills Vineyard Winemaking Data

Fermentation: Native yeasts
This means that Jensen chose to ferment this wine with the yeasts present on the skins of the grape. While some producers choose to work only with native yeasts, many more choose to work with more predictable, less risky commercial yeasts. All of Jensen’s Pinot Noir wines are fermented on their own yeasts.
Barrel Aging: 16 months in 60-gallon French oak barrels (18% new)
Because of his love of Burgundy, Jensen uses French barriques to age his wine. French oak has a closer grain than American oak, and imparts more subtle oak flavors to the wine. Note also that he uses only 18% new oak, which imparts the most flavor, aromatics, and wood tannins. By using a regime of mostly-older oak barrels (probably one, two, and three years old), Jensen is using the oak as a spice note in the wine, and not defining it as an “oaky” California Pinot Noir. The wine has great structure and the aroma and taste of oak is delicate, almost a whisper of wood.
Malo-lactic fermentation: 100%
Nothing unusual; this is a given in red wine making (a choice in white wines). Malo-lactic fermentation is a secondary fermentation that changes harsh malic acid (think green apples) to smooth lactic acid (think milk), and in the process lowers overall acidity in the wine.
Filtration: None
The wine is unfiltered. Jensen is one of a cadre of serious winemakers who believes that filtering wine strips it of essential flavor, aromatics, and complexity. While the wine’s color may not achieve the brilliant luminescence so prized by so many consumers, the integrity in the wine is more than worth any slight haze in the color of the wine. Not all wines need to be unfiltered, but this wine benefits from Jensen’s non-interventionist approach.

Date of bottling, etc: Completing the picture, Jensen lets us know that this is a small production of a fine wine – the equivalent of about 1,350 twelve-bottle cases, more or less consistent with single-vineyard production in Burgundy.

Too much information? Maybe. But I find it refreshing that Josh Jensen is so proud of his wine that he wants to share his pride, his passion, and his obsession with the people who are going to drink that wine. I wish that other wine producers who share that pride and passion might follow his lead. And what better place to do that than on the wine label?

Paradox Redux

2010-11-15T12:51:00.002-05:00

In the New Testament, Timothy, on the advice of his mentor, St. Paul, said to “drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.” The Bible, as well as far more ancient civil and religious texts, are replete with references to the healing properties of wine and its place in spiritual life and practice. The ancients knew that wine - in moderation - was an aid to health, and so encouraged, even celebrated its use as a daily beverage.
More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States and an ardent lover of wines, spoke in support of wine as a national beverage of moderation. Jefferson said, “No nation is drunken where wine is cheap; and none sober, where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage. It is, in truth, the only antidote to the bane of whiskey... Who will not prefer it? Its extended use will carry health and comfort to a much enlarged circle.”
In the modern world, Timothy’s dictum and Tom’s declaration have been accepted as gospel by many, and questioned or rejected by many more. Nearly the entire Moslem world eschews the consumption of alcohol; “alcool” is Arabic for “like a monster,” certainly not a linguistic incentive to imbibe. Other religions wail against the evils of drink, and even in those societies where alcohol is not banned, the secular consumption of alcohol, including wine, is often viewed as a negative societal trait.
Although much of the Mediterranean is populated by Moslems, the European sector of the Mediterranean countries - Italy, Spain, southern France, Greece are the major nations - have, for centuries, embraced wine as a part of a healthy daily diet. These countries have rich wine histories and wine cultures, and produce more wine than any other area of the world. Wine consumed with meals is part of daily life in the European Mediterranean, coupled with the world’s highest per capita consumption of fruits, grains, and vegetables, with most fat calories coming from virtually unrestricted intake of olive oil, a largely monounsaturated fat.
As Americans celebrate the culinary cultures of our nation of immigrants in restaurants and homes, there is serious interest in wine as part of the meal. Americans have become interested in healthy patterns of eating and drinking, and have looked to the traditional Mediterranean diet as a model to follow. We know the benefits of fruits, vegetables, and grains, and consumption of olive oil is at an all-time high in the United States. In our homes, red meat consumption is down, even as we eat more fish and poultry. Of course, wine is part of the Mediterranean diet, and is widely seen as what it always has been, when consumed in moderation; a healthy beverage.

The French Paradox
France is often thought to be the land of artery-clogging, heart-stopping foie gras, rich cheeses, buttery croissants, and Gauloises (although McDonald’s is ubiquitous in the country, and smoking has been ineffectively banned in many public places). Why, then, does France, along with the other Mediterranean nations, have some of the lowest rates of coronary heart disease - America’s number one killer - in the industrialized western world? The answer may lie in a glass of wine.
Dr. Serge Renaud, who was director of the nutrition and cardiology department of the French National Institute of Health Research, studied the relationships between alcohol - especially wine, and in particular, red wine - and health for 40 years. Renaud posited that the moderate consumption of wine is an important element in overall health. He observed that the French consume the same amount or more dairy fat - a definite link to heart disease - than the British and the Americans do, yet the French are 66% less likely to develop coronary heart disease or suffer fatal heart attacks. Renaud claimed that moderate consumption of wine with meals coupled with an absolute prohibition against binge drinking is a prescription for a healthy heart, lower rates of cancer and stroke, and even accidents.
How much is moderate? Renaud had a surprising answer. “For every 18 milliliters of red wine you drink in a week, you decrease your risk of heart disease by one percent. It’s only a drop of wine, just a taste, almost an empty glass. You don’t have to drink it, just sniffing it is enough.”
Renaud’s research was amplified and affirmed by physicians and research scientists in the United States, and found particularly eloquent support in the detailed and long-term work of R. Curtis Ellison, M.D., Chief of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Boston University School of Medicine, as well as Arthur Klatsky, M.D., Chief of the Division of Cardiology at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland, California.
It was not a scientist, however, that captured the attention of the health-conscious, wine-drinking American public. Instead, in November of 1991 – almost 20 years ago - the French Paradox was revealed to the masses by Morley Safer, a wine-loving co-anchor of “60 Minutes.” In a 13 minute segment featuring a ground-breaking interview with Serge Renaud, Safer posed this question to Americans:

Why is it that the French, who eat 30% more fat than we do, suffer fewer heart attacks, even though they smoke more and exercise less? All you have to do is look at the numbers. If you’re a middle-aged American man, your chances of dying of a heart attack are three times greater than a Frenchman of the same age.

Safer seemed almost messianic in his answer. While he did mention that the French diet included more fruits, vegetables, and bread than the American diet, he reserved his greatest enthusiasm for red wine, when he reported that:

There has been for years the belief by doctors in many countries that alcohol, in particular red wine, reduces the risk of heart disease. Now it’s been all but confirmed.

33.7 million people watched “60 Minutes” that evening, making it the highest-rated television show broadcast that week. The effect of the “French Paradox” report on the American wine-buying public was dramatic and measurable. The very next day all US airlines ran out of red wine, and sales of red wine began to skyrocket. For the month following the report, red wine sales were up 44% (about 2.5 million bottles) over the same month of the previous year. In July of 1992, the same show was re-broadcast, and sales of red wine went up 49% for that month. Sales of red wine for the entire year following the initial broadcast were up by a factor of about 39%. It seemed like a portion of the American public embraced red wine as the newest health food - the oat bran of the ‘90’s. And since the early ‘90s, Americans have never turned back.
Many of today’s American wine drinkers were children or teenagers at the time Morley Safer made it safe to enjoy red wine in moderation. Most wine drinkers in this country have no idea what the term “French Paradox” means; they drink wine – red and white and sparkling – because they like it and because enjoying wine with food is one of life’s pleasures. Although I am at an age now where I often bemoan the lack of historical and cultural perspective of my younger friends and colleagues, I also think it best that we think of wine as one of life’s small pleasures, and certainly not as medicine, no matter what age we are.
As we began to look deeper into the research on red wine, we became enamored of such terms as “antioxidants,” and some of us can even talk about the beneficial effects of resveratrol, quercetin, and catechin, the primary antioxidants found in red wine. There’s evidence that red wine could have a positive impact on high density lipoproteins (HDL, the “good” cholesterol), and that it could help to dissolve the artery-clogging platelets in our blood.

[SEE SIDEBAR: WINE AND HEALTH]

The French Paradox was full of good news, and the American wine industry was reborn, as were restaurant wine lists, which used to feature lots of white wines and a smattering of reds unless the restaurant was a steak house. Today it is not unusual to find fish restaurants with as many reds on their wine list as whites, sometimes more. Cabernet became the King, and for a while Merlot appeared to be the Queen, until so much of it was relegated to the role of Court Jester. The 2004 film “Sideways” kindled an ever-growing interest in Pinot Noir, as Americans continue their love affair with the media as harbinger of what’s “in” and what’s “out.”
Recently I had a procedure known as a cardiac catheterization, which is a fiber optic probe of the arteries that pump blood to the heart. Happily, my results were good; my arteries are clean as a whistle. I must admit that I credit my moderate consumption of red wine (and olive oil) for the positive outcome of this scary procedure. And so I am not immune to thinking of wine as medicine, but one that I will always be happy to take as a prescription for life. If we live longer we get to experience more of life’s pleasures, so perhaps the wine-as-medicine model is not without its merits. Perhaps. But to be completely honest, unless Morley Safer can prove to me on next week’s “60 Minutes” that wine will permanently and irrevocably wreck my health, I, like most of us, will continue to enjoy the gift of nature that delivers so much pleasure and just happens to be good for me, too.

SIDEBAR: WINE AND HEALTH

As we look at life and lifestyle in the early 21st century, here is what we find about the links between moderate wine consumption and health, based on the most reliable scientific data, as of late 2009.

• Moderate intake of alcohol, especially wine, is associated with improved cardiovascular health. Alcohol exerts protective effects on the heart by raising high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, lowering low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and inhibiting blood clotting. Antioxidant properties of the phenolic compounds – the compounds that give wine its color, aroma, and taste - in red wine, greatly reduce the risk of atherosclerosis and heart attack, by a factor of as much as 60 percent.

• Moderate drinking reduces risk of both ischemic strokes and hemorrhagic strokes. People who abstain from alcohol and heavy drinkers may be at almost twice the risk for ischemic stroke than moderate drinkers.

• Researchers have found that starting to drink a moderate amount of wine during midlife, even after not drinking during younger years, is beneficial to the heart. In one study, wine drinkers were found to have a 68 percent less chance of having cardiovascular illness. Also, the antioxidants in red wine help to improve blood circulation and improve cholesterol levels in people of all ages.

• Excessive alcohol consumption is associated with hypertension, but low to moderate consumption (one to two drinks per day) may actually assist in lowering blood pressure, and, among men, lower the risk of heart attack by a factor of 30 percent.

• Because of wine’s antioxidant properties, specifically the resveratrol in red wine and the quercetin in red grapes, wine may be helpful in cancer prevention and suppression. It is also useful in lowering stress in cancer patients.

• Moderate alcohol consumption leads to higher levels of cognition and memory, and the moderate daily intake of wine, tea, and dark chocolate by elderly men and women can lead to enhanced cognition and memory. In several studies, light to moderate wine drinking has been shown to be highly effective in helping to reduce dementia, as much as 56 percent over those who do not consume wine. Results improved when light to moderate wine drinking was part of a traditional Mediterranean diet.

• Red wine (and tea) have shown promising results in helping patients with type 2 diabetes properly metabolize sugars and starches. Also, the antioxidant resveratrol, found in red wines, may help to prevent type 2 diabetes.

• Dry red wines made from particular grapes—Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Syrah—have been found to assist in killing harmful bacteria, including E. coli and Salmonella strains, while not killing off beneficial bacteria (probiotics). Wine consumption inhibits the growth of Helicobacter pylori, the bacterium that causes ulcers, with best results (30 percent less bacteria) shown among those who consumed three glasses of wine per day.

• Both white and red wine can kill streptococci, the bacteria that can cause sore throats (“strep throat”), as well as tooth decay. Scientists found that the acids present in grapes and wine are able to kill the harmful bacteria. Antioxidants in grape pomace (skins, pits, stems) have been shown to inhibit the growth of bacteria that cause plaque in teeth and gums.

• Drinking a glass or two of wine per day on a regular basis can cut the risk of catching a cold by as much as 50 percent, compared to adults who abstain from wine, or drink beer and/or spirits.

• Quercetin, an anti-inflammatory polyphenol found in red wine, has been shown to reduce the growth of prostate cancer and the replication of the influenza virus.

• Moderate daily wine consumption is actually beneficial to liver health, lowering by 50 percent the incidence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

• Light to moderate wine consumption—one to two glasses per day—results in a lower risk of kidney failure and kidney cancer than abstaining from alcohol.

• Moderate wine consumption may reduce the risk of rheumatoid arthritis.

• Resveratrol, an antioxidant, inhibits the growth of tumors in the prostate, and has been found to enhance life and to suppress the ravages of aging, including keeping the heart, eyes, kidney, and bones healthier. Resveratrol has been shown to be a useful tool in obesity research, as it prevents the development of fat cells, which can be linked to type 2 diabetes and clogged arteries. This antioxidant shows potential in attacking cancer cells, making chemotherapy more effective for cancer patients, including pancreatic cancer, which is particularly resistant to chemotherapy. Researchers are beginning to develop resveratrol-based dietary supplements, medicines, and patches, as a promising new part of the pharmaceutical industry.

• The research dealing specifically with wine consumption by women, who metabolize alcohol somewhat differently from men, is not all good news, especially when it comes to risk for breast cancer. For women who consume one glass of wine per day with healthy meals the risk for breast cancer was 40% lower than for women who are nondrinkers. However, two glasses of wine per day increase the risk for breast cancer by a factor of 10% to 20%. A 10% increase is the same level associated with women who smoke a pack of cigarettes every day. If a woman consumes more than three glasses of wine per day, her increased risk for breast cancer may rise as high as 41%.

What's Hot: Wine and Spicy Food

2010-11-15T12:47:00.003-05:00

In the old days of wine and food pairing, the choice of a particular wine to accompany a particular dish was fairly predictable: white wine with fish, red wine with meat. The pairings were also Eurocentric, meaning that the marriage of food and wine was largely based on the classics: French wines (or wines made from the classic French grape varietals) with dishes that featured the four Mother Sauces of Carême – Béchamel, Espagnole, Velouté, or Allemande – or their derivatives, as developed by Escoffier in the early 20th century – tomato sauces, butter sauces, emulsified sauces, Mornay, Bordelaise, and on and on. In fact, “back in the day” the job of a sommelier was pretty easy: taste the sauces in the kitchen; pair the wine in the dining room.

Many of the wine and food matches derived from the classic European approach have withstood the test of time, and the pairings continue to make for a satisfying dining experience. But many of today’s chefs are creating dishes that are lighter than the classics and perhaps more important, are cooking in a Global Village. No longer content to focus solely on the traditions of Carême and Escoffier, chefs are looking and traveling all over the world for inspiration. Today’s wine service professionals need to follow that lead, catch that inspiration, and pair exciting wines with creative dishes that are either true to the letter or based on the spirit of foods from the Mediterranean, Asia, Central and South America, and any other place in the world with a dynamic food culture.
One of the most compelling trends in today’s restaurants is a sea change in the palate of both chefs and guests. Spicy food, from a reasonably mild mole of Mexico to a fiery hot chili sauce of China, has taken center stage in many restaurants, and customers are “eating it up.” Spicy foods add visceral excitement to dining, and cry out for a beverage that will cool down the heat while highlighting background flavors and textures. In the not too distant past, beer was the go-to drink for heat and spice, and most of the time a cold beer will chill the chilies without offending the rest of the dish; beer is a simple solution. Beer is also a cultural talisman, as many spicy-food cultures – India, China, and Mexico are just three examples – have, at least until recently, been closely identified with beer, each country producing craft beers as well as national brands.

The world is changing. Practically overnight, China has become the 6th largest wine-producing nation in the world, and India is coming on strong. Mexico has a small but active wine industry. Still, we don’t drink much wine from these countries, at least not yet. At the same time, chefs and restaurateurs want to offer great food and wine pairings with spicy dishes. Creating the ideal marriage of wine and spice can be challenging, testing the palates and creativity of chefs and wine professionals. The results can be sublime.

I am a great believer in rules, except when it comes to food and wine pairing. Unlike many of my fellow wine professionals, I believe that a) wine is a food that just happens to be in a glass; b) just as anyone can choose anything he/she wants to eat, the same person should be able to choose anything that he/she wants to drink, and c) although I believe in absolute freedom where wine and food are concerned, there are some helpful guidelines that may lead us to highly successful wine and food pairings. Where spicy food is concerned, I can’t emphasize enough that the traditional “rules” should be trashed, while attention must be paid to some pretty simple guidelines.

In general, when pairing food and wine the intensity of the food and the intensity of the wine should be near-equivalent: Power with Power. Light dishes with light-bodied wines, red meats and rich sauces with reds. When it comes to spicy food, forget that. A Thai beef salad, redolent of fresh lime juice and chilies, is not going to work with most red wines, even though the protein in the dish is beef. Think of the rare beef as a condiment to the salad, a lovely, rich texture, but with the sweet/sour lime juice and the spice of the chilies as the “center of the plate.” Did someone say “off-dry Riesling” or “Cava,” the great affordable sparkling wine from the Catalan region of Spain? Congratulations! You “get” it.

The fiery spice of chilies or other spice-laden ingredients is, honestly, a problem for many wines, because of 1) relatively high levels of alcohol in the wine; 2) tannins in red wines and oak-driven whites; and 3) relatively low acidity in popular wines for warm climates. Alcohol: every sip of wine, every bite of food amplifies both the alcohol of the wine and the heat of the dish, so unless your restaurant patron likes to sweat while eating, high alcohol does not work with spicy food. Tannins – the astringent/near-bitter elements of wine make the heat of the dish “pop,” while overwhelming every delicate nuance of flavor and texture in that same dish. Low levels of acidity don’t refresh, don’t cleanse the palate of heat and spice, and don’t encourage another bite of food, another sip of wine.

Let’s look at a semi-dry Riesling from the Mosel region of Germany, the Columbia Valley of Washington State, or the Finger Lakes of New York State. The very slight sweetness in this relatively low-alcohol wine actually will neutralize some of the heat of the chilies, making for a milder palate sensation, while the high acidity of a wine from a cool climate will refresh and “scrape” the heat from the palate, while matching the refreshing sweet/sour flavors of the fresh lime juice. The beauty of this pairing is that the rare beef stands out as a silky, sexy texture, but because it is a small, thinly sliced portion bathed in spice and lime, its power is ameliorated by its condiments. With the Riesling, the spicy beef becomes an earthy but delicate component of the dish, contrasting the citrus of the lime juice and the refreshing acidity of the wine.

If we pair the same dish with a sparkling Spanish Cava (or a Prosecco from Veneto, Italy, a Sekt from Germany, an Extra Dry Champagne, or a Blanc de Blancs méthode champenoise bubbly from California), all of the Riesling-Beef Salad interactions occur, plus one big contrasting interaction. The bubbles in the wine, coupled with fruit and acidity, really cleanse the palate efficiently, cooling off the heat, matching the acidity of the lime, and creating a bit of an instant marinade for the beef, rendering it richer and smoother as a background texture to the dish.

The key to pairing spicy food with wine is to create a contrasting relationship between the two flavor elements, not a complement. Fruity and/or off-dry white wines are the ideal choice for spicy food, as is bubbly, as is dry to semi-dry still or sparkling rosé. Light fruit-driven reds, such as Beaujolais or Valpolicella, as well as lighter, mostly inexpensive examples of Pinot Noir, Merlot, Zinfandel, and Merlot can work well with moderately spicy food, especially if you chill the wines for about a half hour before service to bring out their essential fruit. It would be a mistake to pair a spicy dish with an oaky Chardonnay – the oak and alcohol would fight the heat – or with a robust red, such as a Cabernet Sauvignon or Syrah – the tannins would end up tasting bitter, as would the strong dose of alcohol. Instead, try a Sauvignon Blanc or unoaked Chardonnay (true Chablis is the benchmark of this style), a White Zinfandel, or a chilled Fleurie from the Beaujolais region of France.

Whether you’re serving spicy dishes from the Americas, Asia, the Mediterranean, or beyond, here are some wines that will almost always create a slam-dunk marriage with spicy food. Experiment with these – mix and match – and inevitably you will find a union that will lead to a lifelong and happy marriage in the glass and on the plate.

White Wines:

Riesling: Dry to semi-dry wines from the Mosel region of Germany, the Columbia Valley of Washington State, or the Finger Lakes of New York State

Chenin Blanc: Vouvray or Saumur from the Loire Valley of France, and varietal Chenin Blanc from Stellenbosch, South Africa or from Nasik, India.
Sauvignon Blanc: New World Sauvignon Blanc with its “fruit salad in a glass” flavors, shines in wines from Marlborough, New Zealand, as well as wines from California and South Africa. Sauvignon Blanc from Chile is getting better and better, and is a great (and economical) choice for a wine-by-the-glass – or bottle - with spicy food.

Gewürztraminer: “Gewürz” means spicy in German, so if you want to enhance the spice in a moderately spicy dish, choose this wonderful varietal, traditionally from Alsace, France, and bone dry. Off-dry to semi-sweet versions of the wine – actually more appropriate with a heavier dose of spice – are found in California and Washington State.

Chardonnay: avoid oak-and-alcohol bombs at all costs, but do choose unoaked, lighter examples of this wine from Chablis in Burgundy, France, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Italy, and California.

Viognier: The ancestral home for this grape is the Rhône Valley of France, but those wines tend to be a bit full and perhaps too dry for spicy food. Look for simpler, hazelnut-stone fruit laden Viognier wines from California or Australia.

Vinho Verde: This fruit-driven, off-dry, ultra-light-bodied, highly affordable white from Minho, Portugal is the ideal foil for seriously spicy food.

Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio: The same grape in two different languages. Pinot Gris from Alsace might be too powerful, but easy-drinking Pinot Grigio from Northeast Italy is terrific, while fruity, nutty Pinot Gris from Oregon is ideal with spicy food.

Torrontes: While everyone knows about Malbec from Argentina, its signature white grape is still something of a secret. Floral, perfumed, fresh and fruity Torrontes is a wonderful match with spicy seafood dishes.

Rueda: named for its denominación in Spain, Rueda produces only white wines, featuring the fruity, juicy Verdejo grape. That juiciness is what makes Rueda wines perfect with hot and spicy dishes.

Moschofilero: Greece’s answer to Riesling, Moschofilero, from the Mantinia wine region of the island of Peloponnese, is a wine that will cool even the spiciest dishes, providing just a bit of charming fruit to the mix.

Sparkling Wines:

Just about any good sparkling wine from a cool climate – the lighter the better, the fruitier the better – will work well with heat and spice. Try Cava from Spain (an extraordinary value), Prosecco from Italy (likewise), fine sparklers from California, Washington State, Oregon, New Mexico, and New York State, as well as Asti (white bubbly) or Brachetto d’Acqui (light red bubbly), both from Piedmont, Italy, and both low in alcohol. For a real surprise, treat your customers to fruit-driven off-dry sparkling Shiraz from Australia, or a semi-sparkling, low-alcohol Lambrusco from Emilia-Romagna.
Rosé/Blush Wines:

Thirst-quenching dry to off-dry rosés from Spain, France, Italy, California or Australia will create another fruit-driven “sauce” for spicy dishes. The strawberry/cranberry/raspberry notes pop right out of the wine. And don’t forget the previously ubiquitous (and undeservedly maligned) semi-dry to semi-sweet White Zinfandel if you want to calm that heat down with the tastes of berries and peaches.

Red Wines:

When it comes to reds, look for simpler wines that don’t have much more body than a rosé. That means Beaujolais (or any Gamay-based wine), Valpolicella, a simple Chianti, a lighter Côtes-du-Rhône, and inexpensive examples of Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, or Merlot. A good rule of thumb: if the red wine can’t take chilling in the wine fridge before service, don’t pair it with spicy food. If a bit of chill brings out its fresh, red fruits, then that’s the red you want to counter the heat.

Tasting Great Wines: A New York Approach

2009-09-01T22:36:00.008-04:00

What makes a wine “great”?

Traditionally, the great wines of the world have shared several things in common. First, if the wine is based on a single grape varietal, then a great wine must stand as a classic example of that grape type; “varietal character” is the baseline for a great wine. Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, should deliver vibrant aromas of black cherries, black currants, black plums, black olives, and eucalyptus or mint/menthol in a young wine. As the wine ages, the bouquet emerges, featuring hints of cedar and cigar box. Great Cabernet Sauvignon is a full-bodied, in-your-face red wine, with a high degree of tannin – that’s what creates astringency or even a bit of bitterness on your palate – as well as a high degree of acidity – that’s what makes your mouth water, and encourages you to have another bite of food, another sip of wine.

True varietal character is the easy part of defining a great wine, because a $9 Chardonnay can have as much varietal character as a $90 Chardonnay. So, varietal typicity is a given in considering the greatness of any wine. After making sure that the wine tastes like the grape, things get a bit more complex, a bit more difficult, a bit more illusive. The next question in judging the merits of a potentially great wine is “Does the wine exhibit a sense of place, what the French call terroir?” In other words, a Syrah from Paso Robles, in San Luis Obispo County, California may be a great red wine, but does it speak to the soil, climate, and other environmental imperatives that define the terroir of Paso Robles? And surely, that sense of place in the Paso Robles Syrah will be incredibly different from the terroir of an Old World Syrah, such as a great Hermitage from the northern Rhône Valley of France. Both wines will exhibit black fruits, with a good tannin/acid balance. The Paso Robles Syrah will likely be more fruit-forward, bordering on black fruit jam on the palate, while the Hermitage will offer more restrained fruit, earthy flavors, and a kick of cracked black pepper both in the nose and on the palate. Both wines are capable of greatness, because each speaks to its sense of place – each is a wine with an address.

Up until recently, “greatness” in wine has had everything to do with the history of the wine-growing region, so that the most obvious place to look for great Pinot Noir or Chardonnay has been Burgundy, France, which has grown these grapes almost exclusively for the last six hundred years. For Cabernet Sauvignon, it’s been Bordeaux (the Left Bank), and it’s also been Bordeaux for Merlot (the Right Bank). Germany is the classic home to Riesling, and benchmark Sauvignon Blanc has always been closely identified with the Loire Valley of France. In Italy, it’s Tuscany for Sangiovese and Piedmont for Nebbiolo. You get the picture. The classic wines of the world have long been identified with Europe, and it’s hard to argue with the quality of historic wines that are the product of hundreds of years of great passion, hard labor, and pitch-perfect terroir.

I have the greatest respect for the classic wines of the world, but I think it may be time to redefine the idea of what a great wine is. In the past 20 years or so, the world of wine has changed in fundamental ways, creating a seismic shift in the way wines are produced, where they’re produced, and how and by whom they’re consumed. Today, many wine lovers may look to the Napa Valley for great Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, Oregon for Pinot Noir, New Zealand for Sauvignon Blanc, Australia for Syrah (under the name Shiraz), the Finger Lakes of New York State for Riesling. At the same time, we still recognize Italy as the premier producer of great Sangiovese and Nebbiolo. The wine world has expanded, and especially in the United States, we have never had the opportunity to taste as many great wines as we do today, and these wines have many places of origin, many addresses.

My own feeling is this: when it comes to judging a great wine, there is only one arbiter of that greatness. It’s not Robert Parker, it’s not the Wine Spectator, it’s not the media, it’s not the “experts.” It is you. You know what you like, you know what you really like, and you know when you’ve tasted something so wonderful that words fail to describe the ineffable greatness of that moment, that wine. I’ve been at this a long time, and many more times than I can count, I have had the pleasure of sharing wine with folks who have little or no experience tasting wine, but when they taste a great wine, they know it. They may not know the winespeak to couch that greatness with jargon, but it is wonderful – and a relief - to listen to their honest appraisal of why they love the wine that just passed their lips.

Few wine professionals would think of the vineyards of New York State as a set of classic growing regions, and from an historical perspective they would be correct. But that’s as far as it goes. Recently, I’ve been tasting some extraordinary wines from New York, and I have found some great wines that have earned a place at the table with other great wines of the world. To be honest, I’ve also tasted quite a bit of just-average wines from New York State, but I’ve tasted more than my share of just-average wines from France, Italy, Spain, Germany, California, Oregon, New Zealand, Australia, India, China, and beyond. I have no burning desire to taste any of these wines again, but the point is that no matter where the wines come from I’m happy to kiss a lot of frogs knowing that eventually I will kiss a princess (or two, or three…).

Some of the Great Wines of New York State that I’ve had the pleasure to taste recently all have one thing in common. They are all estate bottled, meaning that the wines are produced only from grapes grown on the vineyards owned by the winery; no grapes are purchased. This is important when considering a great wine. While fine wines may be produced from purchased grapes, producing site-specific estate bottled wines speaks directly and eloquently to the issue of place, of address, of terroir. The combination of ripe, healthy grapes grown with care “on the estate” and the artistry of the winemaker make for singular wines that could not be produced anywhere else by anyone else. Notice also that these are handcrafted, small-production wines, all of them fewer than 1,000 cases, most of them six hundred hundred cases or less. By way of comparison, large producers such as Gallo, Fetzer, or Chateau Ste. Michelle each produce several million cases of wine each year.

Cabernet Franc, “Block Three East,” Millbrook Vineyards and Winery, Hudson River Region 2005 / $35. / 177 cases made

A magnificent red wine made by John Graziano. A blend of 95% Cabernet Franc and 5% Merlot, the Block 3 East spent 13 months in small oak barrels. Produced from a small parcel within a small vineyard, the wine is intensely aromatic, even in its youth, with black fruits: plum, currant, blackberry and olive on the nose and the palate. Produced from fruit grown in the cool Hudson Valley, the acidity of the wine is refreshing, while the relatively soft tannins are bracing and balanced. A singular wine of great complexity, and an extraordinary achievement. While this wine can easily age seven to ten years, it is enjoyable with food right now. A great partner for braised short ribs, rack of lamb, game, roasted poultry, powerful pastas, and hard cheeses. Without a doubt, the best Hudson Valley wine I’ve ever tasted, and one of the best wines – from anywhere – I’ve tasted over the last year.

Merlot, “Estate Selection,” Lenz Winery, North Fork of Long Island 2001 / $25. / 950 cases made

Made by Eric Fry, this wine is unique; a New World Merlot that tastes distinctively Old World. On the nose, take the pleasure of mature black fruits – cherry, plum, and raspberry – swirling in a nexus of earth, cigar box, and pinecones. The wine is unfined and unfiltered, so as not to strip one iota of character from its flavor. Unlike the unctuous California-style Merlots that I don’t really enjoy very much, this wine reminds me of Pomerol in the Bordeaux region (it may be a cliché, but it fits this wine. In a blind tasting I sampled the 2001 Lenz Old Vines Merlot [$55] vs. the 2001 Château Petrus [$1,200]. I scored it a tie and I was not alone in my assessment. With ten wine professionals tasting, one point divided the two wines. This wine has already aged for eight years and although it is drinking beautifully now, it will improve for at least another five years. An excellent wine to pair with grilled or roasted red meats, feathered game, roasted vegetables, and hard cheeses.

Gamay Noir, Whitecliff Vineyard, Hudson River Region 2007 / $16.95 / 600 cases made
Made by Michael Magliore in Gardiner, New York. Michael and Yancey Magliore first planted vineyards in 1979, and since the 1980s, Whitecliff has produced some of the best wines in the Hudson Valley. The Gamay Noir is no exception. Gamay is the red grape of the Beaujolais region in southern Burgundy, but Whitecliff’s Gamay really doesn’t taste like Beaujolais. Crisp, clean, red-fruit driven, balanced, with a light-to-medium body and a very long finish, the wine is reminiscent of a lighter Pinot Noir, and pleasantly so. I have tasted cool-climate Gamay from Canada and was never impressed, but the Magliores have nailed it, producing a wine with a truly unique style. This is what I call a “crossover” wine – great with grilled fish, vegetable dishes, white meats, leaner red meats, a burger, a picnic. In warm weather, you can even chill this wine a bit to bring out its freshness, its exuberance. An unusual and highly successful wine.

Tocai Friulano, Channing Daughters Winery, Hamptons, Long Island 2007 / $24 / 408 cases made

Made by Christopher Tracy. This is the most important white grape of the Friuli region of Italy, where it is now known simply as “Friulano.” The Channing Daughters version is bone dry, medium-bodied, with cleansing acidity. The nose is redolent of almonds, spices, flowers, and citrus, especially grapefruit. The citrus/grapefruit theme is carried over to the taste, creating an extraordinarily refreshing wine. 59% of the wine was fermented in stainless steel, and 41% of the wine spent about three months in barrels, and then all of the wine was transferred to a large stainless steel tank, where it spent another three months. The result is an incredibly fresh, clean, food-friendly wine, for which the classic match would be prosciutto e melone, but it would also be wonderful with a myriad of fish dishes, including pasta with clams or seafood risotto. I would love to try this wine with oysters on the half shell with just a squeeze of fresh grapefruit juice. Channing Daughters is the only producer of Tocai Friulano on the East End of Long Island (Millbrook is the only producer in the Hudson Valley, and that wine is quite good, too).

Wine in Supermarkets: Not a Super Idea for New York

2009-06-07T00:09:00.008-04:00

In December of 2008, Governor David Paterson announced that New York State faces a deficit of more than $9 billion in the coming fiscal year, and perhaps as much as $16 billion for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. He outlined some proposals for both saving money and generating revenue, including some programs that would directly impact the wine industry, wine retailers, and wine consumers of New York State.

First, Paterson proposed a near-tripling of the excise tax on wine, from the current $18.5 cents per gallon to 51 cents per gallon. As painful as any new taxes are, especially during the current state and national economic meltdown politely called “a recession,” this still would mean that New York State’s excise tax on wine would be below the national median of 65 cents per gallon. So perhaps this tax increase, which will add about 20 cents to a bottle of wine, is understandable, maybe even a good idea if it helps to prop up the state’s revenue stream.

Next, the Governor proposed a devastating blow to the New York State Wine & Grape Foundation, which promotes New York State wines. Representing an industry that generates well in excess of $3.5 billion, the Foundation has a total current budget of $3.8 million. Of that total, $2.8 million is provided by taxpayers ($1 million from the governor’s executive budget and $1.8 million from the state legislature). The other million dollars is provided by the private sector, including wineries and wine-related businesses.

Paterson’s proposal to cut almost 70% of the Wine & Grape Foundation’s total budget seems penny-wise and pound-foolish. New York State has long struggled to grow and improve its wine industry, and its Wine & Grape Foundation, under the dynamic leadership of executive director Jim Tresize, has done a good job of promoting wine and encouraging wine-related businesses (restaurants and lodging, for example). Also, about $1 million of the Foundation’s annual budget is granted to Cornell University for important wine-based research, as part of the university’s agricultural extension program. Researchers share their work with grape growers and wine makers throughout New York State. In light of its dramatic multiplier effect on the state’s economy, support of the Wine & Grape Foundation seems like a no-brainer public investment for a governor who has claimed that he wants to take an active role in revitalizing the depressed economy of upstate New York (the Finger Lakes region produces more far more wine than all other wine regions in New York State, combined).

Perhaps the most controversial of all the wine-related proposals made by the governor in his budget speech is the idea that New York State will be able to raise millions of dollars in licensing fees by allowing wine to be sold by any store that now holds a license to sell beer. This would mean that supermarkets, convenience stores, specialty food stores, even gas stations with beer licenses would be able to sell wine in New York State. There are 19,000 possible venues that could take advantage of this change in the law, which is far more dramatic than it appears at first glance.

Currently, wine and liquor stores in New York State are limited to holding one license per owner. Store owners (who, under state law can’t sell beer or food) cannot open two shops, much less a chain of stores. If Governor Paterson’s proposal is approved by the state legislature, this would mean that supermarkets that already sell beer will be able to sell wine. So, chains such as A&P, Stop&Shop, Hannaford, Whole Foods, etc. will be able to sell wine in each of their stores in New York State, not just one. Certainly, this will lead to a windfall of license fees for the state, and many consumers might applaud the convenience of being able to pick up a bottle or two of wine for dinner in the same store that they purchase their food.

But let’s dig a little deeper. What impact will this have on our local and regional economy? How many Hudson Valley wine shops will close? How many people will lose their businesses, their jobs, and their medical insurance? How many will have to enroll in publically-funded Medicaid to provide health care for themselves and their families? How many people will lose their homes or will be unable to pay rent? Does the increase in licensing fees and a bit of customer convenience justify such possible economic pain and real human suffering?

How will large supermarkets, which are allowed to sell beer 24 hours a day, now conform to state, local and regional wine laws (i.e., in Ulster County wine can be sold until 9 pm; in Dutchess County, until 7pm)? How can a 16 year old supermarket cashier actually sell a bottle of wine to a customer, when the minimum age for working in a wine shop is 18? Will supermarkets be held to the same strict standard as wine shop owners are when it comes to the letter of the State liquor laws? Last December, a wine shop in the Rochester suburb of Henrietta was fined $10,000 for selling wine gift bags. The law, according to the State Liquor Authority: ok to give the gift bag away, but selling the bag constitutes “a separate business.” Using that definition, isn’t selling lamb chops in the same store you sell wine a separate business?

In researching this article, I tried to interview, via e-mail, representatives of supermarket chains and specialty shops, but they declined to formally participate. However, in an article that appeared in December of 2008 in the Poughkeepsie Journal, Jeanne Colleluori, who is a spokeswoman for Wegman’s supermarkets, which are based in Rochester, said, "We have supported this idea for decades because we believe it's a great service to the customers." As for official word from the State Liquor Authority, in the same article SLA commissioner Noreen Healey stated that wine/liquor retailers wouldn't be adversely affected by Paterson’s proposal because they'd still be the only stores in the state selling hard liquor.

“85% of our business is wine,” according to Carol Matthews, proprietor of Hurley Ridge Wine and Spirits in West Hurley, just two miles outside of Woodstock, who has been a wine retailer for 35 years. Hurley Ridge, my “local,” is a small shop with an excellent selection of wines, and great customer service, but Carol is worried that adoption of the governor’s proposal may lead to the collapse of her business.

“New York is only one of 15 states where you can’t buy wine in supermarkets, so perhaps change is inevitable, but not now, not in this economy. I’ve been ‘lucky’ and I guess I should be thankful. Business in 2008 was only off 9% from 2007; the holiday season down about 2.5%. If the law changes, I expect to lose 30-35% of my business, and that’s just not sustainable.”

With a total staff of four (all women and all customer service-oriented), Carol fears that what the governor is after amounts to “a quick fix, but with a lasting negative impact of businesses closing and people losing their jobs. The idea of having to lay off any of our people is heartbreaking to me; they all need their jobs, and I need mine, too.”

“There’s no doubt that our customers like coming here for the great selection and great customer service – service makes such a big difference – but convenience may be perceived by many as just as important. Our customers are still buying, but they are downscaling their purchases because of the economy. If that pattern persists, it’s just too easy to pick up a mass-market inexpensive wine in a supermarket instead of making a separate trip to our store.”

Carol Matthews’ insights are echoed by Tim Sweeney, proprietor of Stone Ridge Wine & Spirits. Tim and his wife Laurel opened their store in Stone Ridge fourteen years ago, and maintain a lovely shop, where service and selection are paramount to the customer experience.

According to Tim, “I see no positive opportunities for small business in this proposal; it’s unfair and predatory. Not only will it be a blow to thousands of stores, it’s being done without any consideration to possible expansion or growth. I’ve built and grown a fine wine shop with an eye on small esoteric wineries that provide affordable wines for all consumers. Because we are a wine destination, I feel it will not impact us much as some shops, but it will certainly have an impact on our bottom line.”

Paterson’s proposal is, no surprise, Topic A among wine retailers; it has yet to hold a prominent place in customer consciousness, but Tim has noticed that “everyone who’s discussed this with me is not in favor of it. The general consensus is that this is just another way to take business away from Main Street and bolster the ‘Big Box’ mentality” (author’s note: the largest wine retailer in the United States is Costco; Wal-Mart is second).

Tim continues: “What is particularly devastating is that there is no give and take with this proposal. We are still limited to one store per owner and are not allowed to add any additional products to help increase our revenue stream. Allow owners to have multiple licenses. I’m always working on ideas to expand my customer base, but this proposal will put store owners in a position of just trying to maintain market share rather than expanding. The governor could not have picked a worse economic time to propose this. We are all feeling the crunch.”

Tim points out that he doesn’t think implementation of a new law is inevitable. “As store owners, there is already a movement afoot to work in concert through lobbying channels to have the proposal removed.” Indeed, just as I was completing this article, a trade organization, “Last Store on Main Street” was formed, with a public website dedicated to defeating Governor Paterson’s proposal: www.lastmainstreet.com

The Marino family owns Mid Valley Wine & Liquor in Newburgh, NY, and have been wine merchants for 51 years. In an interview, Robert Marino, Jr. expressed his concerns about Paterson’s proposal.

“We think that his proposal is likely to be implemented as a minor part of an overall push to solve some of the state’s budget shortfall. The number cited as a potential increase in revenue – about $100 million in licensing fees – will be offset by an increase in unemployment, business failures, and bankruptcies. For us, I would project a drop in sales from 20% to 40%, largely from reduced sales of national wine brands. We expect that most new outlets will focus on a few dozen labels to a few hundred labels depending on available space and perceived customer demand.”

To be successful and to expand his business, Robert looks to continuing emphasis on customer service. “We feel that we provide good, even superior customer service today. In addition to having a knowledgeable and helpful staff, we continue to formally train our staff, offer in-store tastings to customers, and provide our customers with educational opportunities through wine courses. We see these activities as helpful in retaining our customer base, but we are aware that many of our present customers don't participate in these special offerings. Part of our plan is to largely rely on internet activity to acquire new customers who will hopefully replace those we lose to other types of outlets.”

Tim Buzinski and Mei Ying So are the proprietors of Artisan Wine Shop in Beacon. The couple opened their shop in August of 2006, and have worked hard to develop a local and regional customer base. Both graduates of The Culinary Institute of America, their in-store tastings often feature delicious food that they prepare (under New York State law, food cannot be sold in a wine shop, but it can be given away).

Tim and Mei Ying seem hopeful that if they continue to do the things they do well they will be able to keep and grow their business. At the same time, they are quite concerned about the impact of Governor Paterson’s proposal on their business and their lives, both as wine merchants and as involved citizens of the Hudson Valley and New York State.

“Our current strategy will probably remain the same regardless of changes in the law. We will focus on hand-selling most wines and intensive customer service, finding value for our customers in lesser-known regions, grape varieties, and producers. We will continue our community involvement and working with local charities as we continue our focus on wine education and weekly tastings.

“It seems that the state is attempting to legislate without getting feedback from the people who are already in the trenches, the thousands of people whose lives these laws will affect. We’d like to be considered as part of the proposal. The state should be getting knowledge and feedback from the people who live with these laws day to day. More communication – perhaps a simple on line survey – would at least make us feel that we matter.”

The Cool Wines of Canada

2009-03-01T18:25:00.010-05:00

I am writing this article on October 19th, 2008 (literally at the very moment that Colin Powell is endorsing Barack Obama on Meet the Press), but by the time you read this, Election Day will have come and gone. Barack Obama is our new President-Elect. If I’m wrong about this, don’t even bother reading the rest of this piece, because we’ve got really big problems that even good wine can’t defeat. But it is the 2008 Presidential Election and its seemingly endless campaign that provided the impetus for this article.

I can’t tell you how many friends and colleagues told me that “If Obama doesn’t win, I’m moving to Canada.” For many this was bluster-in-defeat, but for some the statement was sincere, representing an escape from the political nightmare of the last eight years, and the possibility of four more years of the same to follow. In an attempt to lighten the sullen gloom-and-doom mood of the conversation, I pointed out with all the faux joviality and jocularity I could muster that should my pessimistic peeps decide to make the move, at least they would be able to enjoy good Canadian wines.

Canada, our neighbor to the North (note to Sarah Palin: you can see Russia from there. Remember Sarah Palin?) has a lot going for it, including nice people, universal health care (John McCain attacked the Canadian health system as “broken.” Remember John McCain?), fine universities, good restaurants, and terrific wines.

Canadian wines, eh? As Sarah would say, “You betcha.” In these days of global warming (get to work on this one, Barack and Joe; give Al a call), Canada is the rare spot that can produce cool-climate wines featuring moderate alcohols and high levels of refreshing acidity. Canada’s best wines are whites, but they can produce some excellent sparklers and very good reds.

About 80% of Canada’s wines are produced in the province of Ontario, mostly in the Niagara Peninsula Designated Viticultural Area (DVA). From the Hudson Valley, you can be in Canada’s wine country in about six or seven hours (be prepared for possible long waits at the border; thank you, W.), and visiting Ontario to enjoy its food and wines makes for a nice post-election-decompression-relaxation long weekend. Gone are the days when you’d pay for a cup of coffee with a US $10 bill and get $12 back in Canadian dollars, but its not as bad as visiting Europe, where the Euro is so strong and the dollar so weak that you feel like you come from a Third World country that happens to issue credit cards (aren’t you glad we bailed out Wall Street?).The other 20% of Canada’s wines comes from the province of British Columbia and its picturesque Okanagan Valley DVA. BC’s capital city, Vancouver, is a wonderful place to visit, and is food-and-wine central for Canada’s west coast.

The modern Canadian wine industry began about 35 years ago, growing by fits and starts. Today, there are more than 300 wineries in Canada (about 125 more than New York State, 200 less than Washington State, 2,000 less than California). Canada has staked a claim as a fine producer of white wines, especially Riesling and Chardonnay, and sparkling méthode champenoise wines made from the classic blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

Canada is also the world’s largest producer of Icewine, a sweet nectar made from frozen grapes, but with a compelling vein of acidity that cuts through any cloying sweetness and refreshes the palate. Canada’s best Icewines are made from Riesling grapes, but other grapes are used, including the hybrid varietal, Vidal. Canadian winemakers also produce red Icewine made from Cabernet Franc, and even sparkling Icewine.

Icewine production began in Franconia, Germany in 1794, and German producers have produced small amounts of this rare and expensive wine ever since. Until relatively recently, Germany was the world’s largest producer of Eiswein, but due to the impact of global warming, Germany’s Icewine production has been sporadic over the last five or so years. In 2007, there was no Eiswein produced in Germany, where, by law, you need temperatures of -19ºF/-28.3ºC to make the wine, and winter temperatures got no colder than 15ºF/-9.5ºC. The same year was a near-perfect Icewine vintage for winemakers in British Columbia. But even in BC, Icewine harvests are occurring later and later in the year - late November/early December.
A half-bottle (375ml) of Canadian Icewine will cost anywhere from $40 to more than $75, so it is obviously a rare - and wonderful – experience, best savored on its own, but also a good match with blue cheeses and fruit-based, not-too-sweet desserts. I have almost-never seen a fine bottle of Icewine produced in a full bottle; a half bottle should serve six, as the appropriate pour is about two ounces per person. Serve it very cold.

Not limited to Icewine, Canada produces other, more familiar wines, and they are often great values. The still and sparkling wines of Canada are, due to cool climate-driven high acidity, refreshing and food friendly. The wines range from bone-dry to super sweet, but just about all of them feature clean, crisp fruit flavors. The Rieslings, especially the dry to off-dry styles from the Niagara Peninsula are worth seeking out, and pairing with spicy Asian dishes, charcuterie/sausages, or pork. A sautéed trout with a healthy dose of fresh lemon, or smoked Nova Scotia salmon served with a dry Canadian Riesling is my idea of culinary Nirvana.

Canada’s vineyards enjoy long days with a lot of sunshine, so that mouth-watering acidity is counterbalanced by ripe fruit flavors. Chardonnay from Canada is, thankfully, not over-oaked, letting the mineral and fruit of the grape speak for itself. Gewürztraminer, mostly produced in the off-dry style, is fragrant and spicy. Pinot Gris (aka Pinot Grigio) is substantial, with hazelnut aromas and moderately high acidity. And don’t forget to look for Canadian Sauvignon Blanc, redolent of green grass in the nose, and green apples and green figs on the palate. Think Green (and with Bush soon gone and Barack in the House, hopefully we can turn our thoughts into action).

In my experience, the best Canadian red wines are made from the Cabernet Franc grape; I’ve also had some pretty good Gamay (the grape of Beaujolais). Reds from the Niagara Peninsula tend to be lighter, while Okanagan/British Columbia reds are usually somewhat more full-bodied.

Is it easy to find a wide selection of Canadian wines in the Hudson Valley? Not yet. But the wines of several producers are available, and you should not hesitate to ask your local wine merchant to order some of them. Inniskillin, Jackson-Triggs, Henry of Pelham, and Peller Estate are producers that make great wines and have national distribution. My favorite Canadian wines are produced by the Pennachetti family of Cave Spring winery. Cave Spring wines, grown and produced in the Niagara Peninsula, are also available in the Hudson Valley. Most Canadian wines live in the $15 to $25 retail community of the wine world, and represent good value. Of course, Icewines are far more expensive and represent an occasional indulgence.
With any wine from Canada, look for the VQA (Vintner’s Quality Alliance) seal on the label. The VQA ensures that the wine is made only from grapes grown in Canada, and that the wine is produced there, too.
So, the good news for all of us is that Canada produces some great wines worth seeking out, worth enjoying, And the good news for me and especially for my relieved friends who worked so hard to elect Barack Obama president is that we’re free to celebrate his election with a glass of Canadian wine, and none of them had to leave the country to do it. Welcome home to all of us.

Biodynamic Wines: Beyond Organic

2008-11-01T15:40:00.004-04:00

In the early 1940s the American publisher and sustainable-farming pioneer, J.I. Rodale coined the term “Organic,” but some 20 years earlier, an Austrian anthroposophist, Rudolf Steiner, had already developed the philosophical, theoretical, and practical underpinnings of yet another holistic approach to sustainable agriculture: Biodynamics.

Biodynamics views farms or vineyards as self-sustaining organisms that thrive within the larger surrounding ecosystem. Moving the concept of organics to the next level, Biodynamics demands the best holistic farming practices, but coupled with a strong focus on the vibrant seasonal rhythms of the earth and cosmos. All synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides are prohibited, replaced with homeopathic concoctions that feature cow and horse manure, hay and vegetable compost, and seasonally specific mixtures of medicinal herbs, roots, and tree bark (including yarrow, chamomile, nettle, oak bark, valerian, and horsetail, among many others). The idea is that such an approach to agriculture will result in healthy plants and animals while enhancing soil fertility.

While most practitioners of Biodynamics are found on farms and vineyards in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, there is growing interest in this approach in the United States, particularly in the American wine industry. Biodynamic farms and vineyard sites are certified by the Demeter Association, founded in Europe in 1928, and whose domestic outpost is in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Demeter is the name of the Greek goddess of agriculture, derived from “Da Meter,” meaning The Mother. The first Biodynamic farm in the US was certified in 1982. Biodynamic certification standards are stricter than organic certification, especially when it comes to soil additives and treatments. Unique aspects of Demeter certification include:
• maintenance of a healthy, diverse ecosystem on the farm or vineyard site;
• use of Biodynamic preparations to build soil health;
• integration of livestock into the farming system, with a requirement that at least 80% of livestock feed be produced from farm soils;
• prohibition of genetically engineered plant materials and organisms.

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THE FATHER OF BIODYNAMIC VITICULTURE in the United States is an energetic, enthusiastic and successful 60 year old wine producer, practicing what he preaches in his vineyards. An indefatigable and true believer, he has written books and articles, lectured to groups large and small, and is considered the authority on theory and practice for the growing number of Biodynamic grape growers and winemakers in California and Oregon. His name is Nicolas Joly, and he is not from the Napa Valley, but from the Loire Valley. That’s in France.

How is it that the man who is so inspiring to eco-conscious winemakers in the US comes from the fabled and recently much-maligned land of Gauloises smokers, foie gras lovers, cheese eaters, and white wine drinkers? Nicolas Joly and his family own one of the truly great white wine vineyards in the entire world, Coulée de Serrant, in the Loire Valley village of Savennières, planted exclusively in Chenin Blanc grapes. First planted by Cistercian monks in 1130, and with the ancient monastery still on the grounds of the estate, Coulée de Serrant is a perfect prototype for biodynamic viticulture.

In the mid 1970s French agricultural agents told Nicolas Joly, who wanted to improve the wines of Coulée de Serrant, that his family’s approach to viticulture was archaic, and that they he should adopt the use of chemical fertilizers and insecticides. Joly, a former banker who felt that his family must join the modern age, embraced this high-tech approach to growing grapes, a decision that he soon regretted.

Joly noticed that the color of the soils changed, and that the birds, animals, and beneficial insects abandoned Coulée de Serrant. The vineyard had lost its life, and Nicolas Joly began his search for alternatives to compacting the soil with chemicals. In 1984, after much research and vineyard trials, he found what he was looking for in Biodynamics. After just five years of growing vines on his 30 acre estate using a Biodynamic regimen of crop rotation, pruning, composting, and preparing site and season-specific soil and photosynthesis-enriching herbal infusions, Joly “began to see nature reborn.”

In 1999 Nicolas Joly published Wine from Sky to Earth: Growing and Appreciating Biodynamic Wine (Acres USA), which describes his personal journey with biodynamic viticulture. It is an inspiring and honest book that has become the bible for the biodynamic wine movement (Joly’s current essays can be found at www.coulee-de-serrant.com).

In the United States the most visible and activist certified Biodynamic winery is the Sonoma-based Benziger Family Winery, whose president, Mike Benziger is a tireless and passionate spokesperson for the Biodynamic movement in the vineyards of California’s North Coast appellations. Other Demeter-certified vineyards in California are the Frey vineyards and the McNab Ranch in Mendocino County, as well as Ceago vineyards in Lake County. The McNab and Ceago properties are owned by members of the Fetzer family, early advocates of organic viticulture. Bonterra, the large wine producer that grows certified organic grapes, acquired an earlier certified Ceago/Fetzer project in Mendocino and plans to continue to grow the grapes biodynamically. The relatively new Joseph Phelps Freestone Vineyards on the Sonoma Coast is a serious biodynamic project, though not yet Demeter-certified. In the Pacific Northwest, Cooper Mountain Vineyards and Winery is leading the way as Oregon’s only certified Biodynamic growers and producers. Several other growers and producers are taking a serious look at Biodynamics and have begun to utilize Biodynamic practices in their vineyards, and some have begun the three year mandatory transition period that precedes Demeter certification.

On June 14th in New York City I attended the first-ever tasting of Biodynamic wines from all over the world. More than 70 wineries were represented, and many of the principals were there, including Nicolas Joly and Mike Benziger. I had been awaiting this tasting with great anticipation, and can report that the tasting exceeded even my highest expectations.
What did I expect from these wines, made from grapes that were grown in balance with Cosmic Forces? Would I see God, or should I bring someone to talk me down from my levitating lotus? Would I experience Syrah Satori, taste Mindbending Merlot, or meet the Shaman of Chardonnay?

Of course not, but I did expect the wines to be delicious. I was not looking for the world’s greatest wine, because I never look for that and probably wouldn’t know it if I tasted it. What I was hoping to discover in a glass of Biodynamic wine is what I always look for in every fine wine: passion.

I found passion aplenty at the Biodynamic tasting; one wine more exquisite than the next. In retrospect, I should not have been surprised, as these growers and producers started at a very high level, none of them thinking of wine as a commodity, and all of them wishing to express the fragile sense of place in their wines.

Some of the standouts:

from the United States: Mike Benziger premiered his family’s first Demeter-certified Biodynamic wine: Tribute, Sonoma Mountain Estate, 2001. A Cabernet-based blend, Tribute is a deliciously complex and age-worthy wine, with a deep and earthy soul. Araujo Estate showed two lovely wines from its Eisele Vineyard located in the Napa Valley just east of Calistoga: Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 and Sauvignon Blanc 2002. Cooper Mountain Vineyards offered wines from the North Willamette Valley. I liked the Reserve Pinot Gris 2003 and the Five Elements Series Doctors Reserve Pinot Noir 2000. Jim Fetzer’s Ceago Estate was represented by a fine “Camp Masut” Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 and a juicy, lively “Kathleen’s Vineyard” Sauvignon Blanc 2003.

France: With 45 selections at the tasting, France dominated this event, offering some outstanding wines. Some of the gems included:
from Champagne: Fleury Millésime 1996, Rosé Brut NV, and Cuvée Robert Fleury NV; Larmandier Bernier Brut Blanc de Blancs Premier Cru NV and Extra Brut Vielle Vignes Grand Cru Cramant 1999.

from Alsace: Domaine Pierre Frick Pinot Blanc “Cuvée Précieuse” 2000; Domaine Marcel Deiss Riesling Grand Cru Altenberg de Bergheim 2001 and a Riesling/Gewürztraminer/Pinot Gris blend Grand Cru Schoenenbourg 2001; Domaine Zind Humbrecht Riesling Rangen Clos Saint-Urbain 2001 and Pinot Gris Heimbourg 2001; Martin Schaetzel Gewürztraminer Kaefferhopf Cuvée Catherine 2001; Marc Tempé Pinot Blanc Zellenberg 2001 and Gewurztraminer Sélection de Grains Nobles Grand Cru Mambourg 1998; Domaine Kreydenweiss Pinot Gris Moenchberg 2002; Domaine Ostertag Gewürztraminer Vendange Tardive Fronholz 2001.

from the Loire Valley: Château de Sourande Quarts du Chaume 2001; Château Tour Grise Saumur Blanc Amandiers 2002; La Coulée de Serrant 2002 and Savennieres 2002; Domaine de l’Ecu Bossard Muscadet de Sevre et Maine Sur Lie 2003; Domaine Saint Nicholas Fiefs Vendéens Cuvée Les Clous 2002.

from Burgundy: Domaine d’Auvenay et Domaine Leroy Vosne-Romanée Les Beaux-Monts Premier Cru 2001 and Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru 2001; Domaine Leflaive Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru 2001 and Puligny-Montrachet Pucelles Premier Cru 2001; Domaine Pierre Morey Meursault Perriéres Premier Cru 2002; Domaine Trapet Père et Fils Chapelle-Chambertin Grand Cru 2001 and Chambertin Grand Cru 2001.

from Bordeaux: Château Falfas Le Chevalier Côtes de Bourg 2000; Château Gombaude-Guillot Pomerol 1998; Château Haut-Nouchet Pessac-Léognan Rouge 2000; Château Lagarette Cuvée Renaissance Premières Côtes de Bordeaux 2001; Château La Tour-Figeac Saint Émilion Grand Cru 2000.

from the Rhône Valley: Domaine de Villeneuve Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2001; Domaine Montirius Gigondas 2001; Domaine Viret Cosmic Côte du Rhone-Village St.Maurice 2000; Maison M. Chapoutier Ermitage Rouge Pavillion 2001 and Châteauneuf-du-Pape Croix de Bois 2001.

Germany and Austria: Exquisite Riesling wines in just about every style from the driest trocken to the sweetest botrytis-laden Trockenbeerenauslese. Notable German producers included: Freiherr, Weingut Wittmann, and Weingut Sander (Rheinhessen), and Weingut Hahnmüle (Nahe), and two Austrian producers from the Wachau district, Weingut Geyerhof and Nikolaihof Wachau.

Spain: The winemaking genius of Alvaro Palacios was represented well by his new Biodynamic project, Descendientes de J. Palacios, in the reawakened Bierzo denominacion (Villa de Corullón 2001, San Martin 2001, Moncerbal 2001). All three wines are made from the Mencia grape. Telmo Rodriguez, who made his reputation as proprietor of Remelluri in Rioja offered two fine wines: Altos de Lanzaga 2001 (Rioja) and Matallana 2001 (Ribera del Duero).

Australia and New Zealand: Castagna Vineyard in Victoria, Australia showed lovely 2001 and 2002 versions of their “Genesis” Syrah; Millton Vineyards from New Zealand’s Gisborne district offered attendees distinctive 2002 “Clos de Ste. Anne” Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Chile: Alvaro Espinoza is a great winemaker and grape grower, and has long believed in the Biodynamic and organic movements in viticulture. His family wine, Antiyal 2002 is a terroir-driven blend of Carmenere, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah, made in small amounts. Alvaro, now one of the leading wine consultants in Chile, also represented Viñedos Orgánicos Emiliana, whose red blend, Sincerity (2001 and 2002) was delicious, and was also the “best buy” of the Biodynamic tasting at $15/bottle.

Loving the List: Best Bargain Bottles

2008-10-26T17:04:00.010-04:00

Just about everyone loves to dine out for special occasions – celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, job promotions, a juicy book contract, whatever – and on these occasions we might be in the mood to splurge. We choose a fine and expensive restaurant, and expect to blow a small fortune on dinner. For these rare and expensive nights, it’s kind of exciting to throw caution to the winds and order that rare and expensive wine: a beautiful Burgundy, a killer Cab, a cool Cuvée de Prestige Champagne, a sexy Syrah. Enough alliteration; you know what I mean. A night of exotic fun, at least until the credit card statement arrives.
Special occasion dining, complete with special and expensive wines is a rare, hopefully memorable treat. But most of us also like to go out to get a bite to eat with friends and/or family at a favorite Hudson Valley restaurant, not to celebrate anything special, but simply to reaffirm friendship, to catch up on the latest news, or just to hang out and let someone else do the cooking and do the dishes. On days or nights like these, you’re looking to relax, and you’re certainly not interested in blowing a wad of cash or credit on wine. So, how do you drink good wine without spending a lot of money? It’s actually pretty easy.
First, don’t pick a fancy, expensive restaurant. Meet your friends at a place where the food and wine are good, the service is bright and friendly, and the price is reasonable. Ask to see the wine list as soon as you sit down, to give you some time to peruse the list. Don’t hesitate to ask for a couple of copies of the list if more than one person at the table is interested in choosing wine. I really like informal restaurants where the wine list is appended to the menu, so that everybody gets a chance to look at the list.
Don’t be afraid to settle on a per-bottle price range for the wines you plan to order. Choosing wine is not an exercise in impressing people with how much money you spend (or think you have to spend). It’s about ordering an enjoyable wine to accompany an enjoyable meal. If the wine list seems out of whack - too expensive for the place, or just plain too expensive for you, make a note of this, and carefully consider if you want to come back next time. One solution to this problem: order your wine by the glass, and stay within your budget.
Thankfully, the above scenario happens less and less these days, as restaurateurs know that their customers want to enjoy a bottle of wine with dinner, and if those customers are unhappy, they don’t come back. Most good restaurants have “good” wine lists: a choice of enjoyable wines at various price points. There are low-priced wines, moderately-priced wines, expensive wines, and ultra-expensive wines to choose from, but what really constitutes good value in a bottle of wine?
“Value” is a relative term; relative to how much money you have to spend on a bottle of wine. Ironically, if money is no object, the most expensive wine on the list might be the best “value,” because that 1990 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva is selling for just about the same price as in a good wine shop, with almost a zero percent markup. Unfortunately, the price is $325. So, if you have the money, this is a great value. But let’s stop dreaming, and get back to reality.
Most of the time “value wine” is represented by a moderately-priced wine that delivers contentment. It under-promises (price) and over-delivers (pleasure). The good news is that there are lots of “value wines” appearing on wine lists, if you just know where to look.
Just as it’s unlikely that you are going to choose that $325 Brunello as your “value” wine, I would also would warn you away from choosing the least expensive wines on the list, especially if they are from well-known New World regions, like California, Chile and Australia. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these wines, but they might not represent great value. I’ve seen Chardonnay from California, Cabs from Chile, and Shiraz wines from Australia that retail in wine shops for less than $10 selling for more than $30 on many wine lists. Although $30 is usually a reasonable price to pay for a bottle of wine in a restaurant, the markup on these wines can sometimes be as high as 500%(!). If the restaurant buys the wine for the wholesale price of $6 and charges $30 for the wine, there’s your 500% markup. This does not represent good – or even mediocre – value. Plus, wines in these categories can usually be found easily in wine shops, where at $10 to $12 retail they are good values. So, drink these wines at home, not in restaurants.
If you want to find the best values on a wine list, go off the beaten path; wines that aren’t as well-known as they should be from regions that are just beginning to gain notoriety for the quality of their wines. Take a serious look at these wines; they often represent good value, and certainly deliver the goods: the pleasure of a good wine at a good price.
Over time, I’ve found that certain wines deliver excellent value on most wine lists. While not all of these may be represented on every restaurant’s list, some of them will be. This list is not complete by any means, because by the time you read it I’m sure that other value-driven but delicious wines will pop up on lists all over the country. But for now, here are some consistently outstanding wine values.

SPARKLING WINES:

If you love bubbles, there are great alternatives to Champagne, which is consistently the most expensive sparkling wine on any wine list. Good alternatives include: Cava from Spain, Prosecco from Italy, Cremant d’Alsace for France, American bubbly from California, Washington State, Oregon, the Finger Lakes of New York State, and New Mexico.

WHITE WINES:

For good value from New World wine regions, stay away from most California Chardonnay and instead consider Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, Gewurztraminer, or Pinot Gris from the Golden State. You don’t have to pass up all Chardonnay, however. Good values can be found from Oregon (Pinot Gris, too), and Washington State (also great values in Riesling and Gewürztraminer). New York State’s Finger Lakes produce excellent dry Riesling and Chardonnay, but the best values can be found in our own Hudson Valley (especially Chardonnay and Tocai Friulano from Millbrook and Chardonnay from Whitecliff).

Canadian Riesling and Chardonnay represents good value, but may be a bit hard to find on most lists. Easier to find is one of the best current values in white wine: Chilean Sauvignon Blanc. And don’t forget fragrant, floral, but dry Torrontes from Argentina.

Australian Riesling, usually semi-dry, is a great value, as are Aussie Sauvignon Blanc, Verdelho, and “Rhone” varietals such as Viognier, Marsanne, or Roussanne, sometimes blended together. Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand is very popular and is still an excellent value, as is New Zealand Chardonnay. South Africa shines with Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and especially Chenin Blanc.

The Old World is a treasure trove for value wines if you know where to look. The Alsace region of France produces under-valued dry Gewürztraminer, Riesling, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Blanc. Light-to-medium-bodied Sauvignon Blanc-based wines can be found at good prices from Bordeaux’s Entre-Deux-Mers and Graves districts. And fine white Burgundy can be quite affordable if you stay away from the more expensive districts and focus on the white wines of Chablis, Rully, Montagny, and Macon-Villages. If you like Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé from the Loire Valley (both mineral-laden Sauvignon Blanc wines), look to Quincy and Menetou-Salon. Also from Loire try Muscadet Sevre et Maine (perfect with oysters or lighter fish dishes), as well as dry Saumur and off-dry Vouvray, both made from Chenin Blanc.

Spanish whites are eminently affordable, and include wines from Rueda, Penèdes, and Rioja, and especially Albariño from the Rías Baixas region, and Godello from Ribeiro.

Italy is best-known for its red wines, which makes its white wines economically seductive. From Piedmont, look for Gavi and Arneis; from Tuscany, Vermentino and Vernaccia di San Gimignano; from Umbria, Orvieto Classico; Soave Classico and Pinot Grigio from Veneto; Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Grigio, and Müller-Thurgau from the Alpine regions of Friuli and Alto Adige. One of the little-known and affordable pleasures in white wine is medium-full bdied Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico from Marche. Southern Italy and islands are great places to find affordable wines: Falanghina, Fiano di Avellino, and Greco di Tufo from Campania; Vermentino di Gallura from Sardinia; Chardonnay and blends of native varietals from Sicily.

Portugal’s Vinho Verde is remarkably light and remarkably inexpensive. Also look to dry Muscat from Terras do Sado and the white wines of Dão and Bucelas. Greek whites are still little-known and still excellent bargains. Look for whites made from Moschofilero, Malagousia, Robola, and Assyrtiko grapes, as well as international varietals and blends, such as Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.

Don’t forget Germany and Austria: Riesling from the Rhine and Mosel River valleys of Germany and Grüner Veltliner from various Austrian regions.

RED AND ROSÉ WINES:

Dry rosé wines, so versatile with so many dishes, are almost always the best value on any wine list, and good to great rosés are produced all over the wine world. Pay special attention to wines from Spain, France, Italy, and Greece, as well as crisp rosés from California.

When it comes to red wines, it’s a big, wide, wonderful wine world. California Zinfandel, Syrah, Petite Sirah, Grenache, and blends of some or all of these grapes are affordable, as is Cabernet Sauvignon from Mendocino County and the Sierra Foothills. Washington State produces value-driven Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and the rare Lemberger*. From New York, consider Long Island Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc (and blends of these), and fine Pinot Noir, Gamay, and Cabernet Franc from the Hudson Valley and the Finger Lakes. Look for the same varietals from Canada.

Chile’s single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot wines are great values, as are Argentine Malbec and Bonarda. South Australian Shiraz from the Barossa Valley and Grenache from McLaren Vale can be delicious. New Zealand and South Africa produce interesting and affordable Cabernet Sauvignon.

France has some real and surprising bargains, such as Pinot Noir from Alsace. Speaking of Pinot Noir, look for reds from Burgundy’s Cote de Nuits-Villages, Cote de Beaune-Villages, Pernand-Vergelesses, Savigny-les-Beaunes, Mercurey, Rully, Givry, and the blanket appellation, Bourgogne. True value is found in Beaujolais-Villages and the “Cru” Beaujolais wines, such as Moulin-A-Vent, Morgon, Brouilly, and Fleurie, all produced from Gamay grapes. The Loire Valley is best-known for its whites, so look for its reds: Chinon, Bourgueil, and Saumur-Champigny made from Cabernet Franc, and Sancerre made from Pinot Noir. The Rhône Valley is packed with value: Côtes du Rhône-Villages, Rasteau, St. Joseph, Crozes-Hermitage, Vacqueyras, and Gigondas. From the south of France – Midi and Provence - look for hearty reds such as Minervois, Fitou, Faugeres, Corbieres, Aix en Provence, and Côtes du Roussillon. Even Bordeaux produces some elegant but affordable reds from the St. Emilion, Lalande de Pomerol, Fronsac, and the Côtes de Blaye and Côtes de Bourg regions.

Spanish reds are becoming ever more popular, but are still reasonably priced. Wines from Rioja and Ribera del Duero, and especially the regions of Montsant, Bierzo, Cigales, Navarra, Toro, Jumilla, and Campo de Borja are worthy of your attention and your dollars. Portugal makes great reds that are literally underpriced. Look for wines from the Douro Valley, Bairrada, Beiras, Alentejo, Ribatejo, and Dão regions. Greece: excellent reds made from the Xynomavro grape, such as Naoussa, and the Agiorghitiko grape, such as Nemea, as well as Syrah, Cabernet Sauvigon, and blends.

Italy still makes great wine at great prices, you just have to know where to look on the list. From the Piedmont region seek out Nebbiolo d’Alba, Dolcetto, Barbera, and Grignolino. Tuscany: Chianti Classico, Rosso di Montalcino, and Morellino di Scansano; Umbria: Lungarotti “Rubesco” and Caprai’s Rosso di Montefalco; Abruzzo: Montepulciano d’Abruzzo; Veneto: Valpolicella Classico, Valpolicella “Ripasso,” Bardolino Classico Superiore, and Merlot; Friuli and Alto Adige: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Lagrein, and Teroldego Rotliano. From the south and islands of Italy look for Salice Salentino and Primitivo (it’s Zinfandel!) from Puglia; Aglianico del Vulture from Basilicata; Cannonau di Sardegna from Sardinia, and Nero d’Avola from Sicily.

Enjoying wines at enjoyable prices often requires us to try something new, something unusual. More often than not, our sense of adventure is amply rewarded. So, the next time you dine out, take a walk on the wild side and choose a wine that appeals to your taste and to your wallet. Blaufrankisch from Austria, anyone? (red, delicious, and affordable, and it’s the same grape as that rare Lemberger* from Washington State).

Some Hudson Valley Restaurant Value Comparisons:

Gigi Trattoria

Brunello di Montalcino, La Togata 2000: $90
Rosso di Montalcino, Marchesato Degli Aleramici 2005: $36
(Both 100% Sangiovese from the same wine region in Tuscany, Italy)

Barolo, “Marcenasco,” Ratti 2003:$80
Nebbiolo d’Alba, “Sontuoso,” Valdinera 2005: $45
(Both 100% Nebbiolo from the Langhe region of Piedmont, Italy)

Freelance Café and Wine Bar

Cornas, “Granit 30,” Vincent Paris 2005: $77
Crozes-Hermitage, Guigal 2004: $39
(Both 100% Syrah from the northern Rhône Valley, France)

Chardonnay, Grable Vineyard, Napa Valley 2005: $77
Chardonnay, Millbrook, Hudson River Region 2006: $29

The Red Onion

Cava, “Brut Reserva,” Dibon, Spain NV: $24
Brut, Veuve Clicquot, Champagne NV: $80

Meursault, “Le Meix Sous Le Château,” Jean-Phillippe Fichet 2000: $96
Rully Blanc, “La Chaume,” Jacques Dury 2005: $41
(Both oak-fermented Chardonnay from Burgundy, France)

Wine Tasting: Do Try This at Home

2008-10-08T01:38:00.011-04:00

Recently, members of a “professional” wine tasting panel for a major wine magazine were unanimous in their opinion: they all preferred one Chardonnay over another. The wine they rejected as inferior retails for $65. The wine they embraced sells for $1.99-$2.99 at selected Trader Joe’s. This kind of thing happens more than you might imagine, and far more often than “professional tasters” want to admit to, talk about, acknowledge, and last, but surely not least, make public.
When I told a friend about the results of this tasting, she: 1) gave me a withering glance, as if to lump me with this group of “frauds and phonies”; 2) got close up to my face and laughed really loud; 3) she said, “I can do that,” referring to the total lack of acumen on part of the poseur tasters. She was in heaven. I had to turn away, and reflexively started doing the “perp walk” made famous on the evening news by dope dealers, crooked politicians, and disgraced corporate executives.
As if the majority of the American public did not already think that “wine professional” was another term for “can’t get a real job,” I have a dirty little secret about professional tasting that I want to share. When we taste, it is not for pleasure. The job of the professional wine taster is to find the faults with the wine. Professional wine tasting is a bit like finding all the reasons not to award your son, a cub scout, his Webelos badge (he forgot to kiss grandma), or not to let your daughter play outside with the other kids (she didn’t clean her room). In case of a tie between wines, taste again, and look for the one that metaphorically didn’t practice her clarinet for an hour each day, or didn’t do his homework right after supper.
It doesn’t have to be like this, People!
The real fun of tasting wine is tasting for pleasure, not for punishment. And the best place to do this is at home, with friends, in a relaxed atmosphere of conviviality and generosity. Tasting wine at home is fun, coupled with a bit of self-guided “education.” Ouch. Don’t worry, in this case “education” mimics the learning curve that began with the awkward pleasures of your first kiss and grew exponentially into sensual subtlety: the confident strut, the irresistible smile.
How to begin? What wines? How many wines? How expensive are the wines? What glassware? What room? Outside or inside?
Wait! The most important question is “What people?” You can taste some of the most glorious wines in the world, but if you taste them with miserable people, guess what? The wines will taste miserable, too. You want to invite friends who enjoy the company of other people, have a sense of humor, don’t judge others harshly, don’t want to be the “expert” but have something to say. Finally, invite friends who are moderate drinkers. Wine tastings are not for lushes, who can diminish or even ruin the experience for everyone else. “Tasting” is the operative word.
Once you’ve put together your guest list, then start to think about the wine. Some basics:
• use wine glasses, not clear plastic cups that make the wine taste like clear plastic cups. Most people don’t have enough glasses, so here’s a hint: Rather than burdening your guests with bringing glasses from home, check out the local party rental folks. You’ll be surprised how inexpensive it is to rent two or three racks of glasses – not necessarily great glasses – but all of them the same size and shape, and racked together for convenience and to avoid breakage.
• provide spit cups and napkins: tasting involves four steps. In order: looking - judging the color of the wine; smelling - the “nose” of the wine; tasting – sampling a small amount of wine and swishing it around in the mouth; spitting – that’s right, part of tasting is spitting the wine into a spittoon or spit cup. While you’re at the party place renting glasses, pick up a sleeve of 16 oz. paper cups, and place one at every setting. You may not be able to enforce spitting at a home wine tasting, but especially if your friends are driving away from the tasting, you can certainly encourage it. A couple of good-quality paper napkins should be placed at each setting, too.
• bread and water: bottled water – with and without bubbles, or pitchers of cold tap water, should be plentiful and available. A few bread baskets filled with crisp sliced baguettes, or individual plates with water crackers, should be available for cleansing the palate between wines. Make sure the bread or crackers are as neutral tasting as possible; no brioche, croissants, or flavored crackers because these will have a dramatic impact on the wine’s taste.
• tasting mats/tasting sheets: On your home computer you can make a simple or an elaborate and creative tasting mat. If you are tasting the wines “blind,” obviously the wines will be identified by number only. If you know what wines you are tasting, list them by name. It helps your guests to be consistent in how you list the wine. I recommend listing this way:
Product, Special Attribute*, Producer, Sub-Region*, Region*, State or Country, Vintage*.
(*if any: if non-vintage (like most sparkling wines), write “NV”)
Examples:
Pinot Noir, Reserve, Robert Sinskey, Carneros, Napa, California 1999
Chianti Classico, Reserva, Banfi, Tuscany, Italy, 1997
Shiraz, Peter Lehmann, Barossa Valley, South Australia, 1995

On the tasting mat, or if you are tasting more than five or six wines, probably on a separate sheet, allow each taster to make notes on each wine based on these criteria: color, nose, flavor, body, length of finish on the palate. You might ask “Did you like it?” and/or “What would be a good dish to pair with this wine?”
The tasting can be done indoors or outdoors – the more light the better to see the true color of the wine – in the afternoon or evening, as a prelude to dinner, or as its own little party. You should pour between one and two ounces per person per wine. Very important: make sure your guests stay for at least an hour or so after the tasting, and never let a friend drive drunk. If everybody is on the same page with the concept of the tasting, this should not be an issue.
As to what wines to serve, think thematically: New World Reds under $10; White Wines from the Loire Valley; Sparkling Wines of the World; American Wines Not from California; Zigging and Zagging with Zinfandel. Of course, if money is no object, then feel free to host a tasting of: Opus One: 1989-1999; the Premier Grand Crus of the Médoc: ’95,’96,’97; Barolo vs. Barbaresco; the ’97 Vintage, and so on.
At home, I prefer a tasting of accessible, affordable wines that my friends can appreciate and enjoy, and we can have some fun with, followed by a simple dinner or barbecue at home with the “partials,” the leftover wines. For an exotic and unexpected twist, have a tasting followed by a dinner at home of good Chinese takeout, the best Pizza in town, or takeout from the new Lebanese restaurant in town. You get the picture.
As for me, I’m busy planning my next blind tasting:
$1.99 Chardonnays: World Class, Kick Ass, or I’ll Pass. See you there.

Drinking Inside the Box

2008-10-08T01:01:00.005-04:00

A few weeks ago, I made one of my favorite cold dishes, scallops ceviche, for myself and a friend. Redolent of fresh lime juice, cucumbers, jalapeños, and scallions, I decided to serve the ceviche with one of my favorite white wines, Muscadet. Muscadet, an appellation d’origine contrôlée white wine from the Loire Valley in France, is wonderfully light and refreshing, with enough acidity to stand up to the lime juice in the ceviche, and with just a touch of brininess to complement the sea scallops. Really a delicious match.

My friend and I really enjoyed the food and the wine, and when she asked for some more of the cold Muscadet, I happily complied. I took a short walk to the fridge, where the wine was chilling, and I filled her glass with the sublime liquid. When she asked to see the bottle so she could remember the name of the wine and the producer, I started to chuckle and motioned to her to join me at the refrigerator door. We both peered at the collection of white wine bottles on the first shelf of the fridge, but something seemed amiss, something was not quite right. Something was there that didn’t seem to belong.

Muscadet in a box.

My friend viewed me with a look of shock and utter disbelief, but tempered by a smile that said, “Cool!” And indeed the wine was cool and fresh and delicious, in spite of – or maybe because of – the fact that it was ensconced in a three-liter box (the equivalent of four bottles of wine), holding a collapsible plastic liner and featuring an easy push spout. French wine in a box. Who’d a thunk it?

I’m not a wine snob, and I believe there is a special place in Hell for those who are. But wine in a box? Yup. Today, you can find vintage-dated wines of good quality in boxes with air-resistant liners or in Tetra-Paks (basically fancy milk cartons), and folks are enjoying the wine and they are really enjoying the price. You can buy a perfectly drinkable 3 liter box of wine – from California, Australia, or France – for under $20; that’s less than $5 per bottle. Some are a bit more expensive, some a bit less, but the savings-per-bottle are astounding.

And there are other advantages. Because of its packaging, box wines stay fresh for close to a month once opened, so if you just want one six ounce glass of wine with your dinner, the box will last for about 16 dinners, and the last glass will be as fresh as the first. On the other hand, if you’re going to a picnic with half a dozen friends and you bring along a box of white and a box of red, that’s 32 glasses of wine available to enjoy in the sunshine.

Box wines are largely eco-friendly, with most of the components bio-degradable or recyclable, and they certainly eclipse the bottle/cork/ label/foil model in this arena. But I think what I like most about high-quality box wines is the same thing I like about wine bottles with screw caps: no corkscrew!

Except in restaurants, where the ritual of a server or sommelier removing the cork from a wine bottle still thrives, the corkscrew has become a quaint relic. I mean, it’s so 20th century. Add to this that it is now an indisputable fact that corks are responsible for quite a bit of spoiled wine, at least 5% of every bottle opened with a corkscrew. When a wine is “corked,” TCA – short for 2,4,6-trichloroanisole - produces cork taint in the wine due to the use of chlorine to bleach the corks. What other consumer product would accept a 5% rate of failure, especially when using alternative closures and containers – screw caps and boxes, among several others – are readily available?

By the way, my experience with corked wines is closer to 10%, and I’m not alone. Often, my wine students ask me to intentionally expose them to a corked wine so they can find out what it smells like (for the record, corked wine smells wet cardboard and old socks, along with other appealing aromas). I tell them to “just wait. I won’t have to do a thing, but I guarantee you before this course is over we will open at least one corked wine.” I have yet to disappoint those who crave the experience, but class members never ask to smell another corked wine. Unfortunately, they usually get at least one more.

The old image of box wines is that of cheap and crummy swill with generic labels (“Chablis,” “Burgundy,” “Rhine Wine,” all of it from the industrial vineyards of California’s San Joaquin Valley). These are 5 liter boxes, not 3 liters, and you should avoid them, unless for some reason you enjoy them; taste is, after all, subjective. Today, however, you can find perfectly drinkable box wines made from popular varietals, including Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Shiraz, and even Pinot Noir, Riesling, and Sauvignon Blanc. The “new” box wines have caught on in the marketplace, and are the fastest-growing segment of wine sales in the United States, where they currently account for about 25% of all wine sales. Incidentally, in Australia nearly 40% of wine is sold in boxes, and in Denmark it’s more than 50%.

I must say that although box wines are represented in retail shops in the Hudson Valley, it is not the ideal place for box wines to flourish. In New York State, wine cannot be sold in supermarkets or convenience stores, and these are the natural homes for box wines. Pick up the groceries; pick up a box or two of wine. Buy some gas and a six-pack; grab that box of Pinot Grigio. In conversations with wine retailers in the Hudson Valley I found that box wine is not all that popular…yet. But I also noticed that almost every store I went into carried at least two or three different brands. Don’t be shy to ask your local wine retailer to order a particular box wine for you; a wide variety are available to them through their distributors.

So, box wine has come of age. It’s time to Drink Inside the Box. Or, to (mis)quote the Grateful Dead, “It’s Just a Box of Wine.”

Here are some popular box wines that you might enjoy:

From California:

Delicato produces California Shiraz, Merlot, and Chardonnay ($18/3l).

Trove produces California Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Pinot Grigio ($23/3l)

Black Box produces wines with a pedigree of place, at about $20/3l: Cabernet Sauvignon from Paso Robles; Chardonnay from either Napa Valley or Monterey; Sonoma County Merlot; and Shiraz from Australia’s Barossa Valley.

Three Thieves approaches box wines a little differently. Esteemed winemaker Joel Gott produces one liter Tetra Packs of White Zinfandel, Pinot Grigio, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Three Thieves also markets its wines in 250ml 4-packs. Either way, it’s $10 per liter. Three Thieves recently announced that they will be producing a line of box wines produced from organically-grown grapes, too.

Corbett Canyon: If you’re on a tight budget, and you’ve got a big party, big picnic, or just a big thirst, Corbett Canyon produces decent wine at a true bargain price. White Zinfandel, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, and Merlot are available in 3 liter boxes for $10 each.

From Australia:

Hardy’s Stamp of Australia is available in Chardonnay, Riesling, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and a Shiraz-Grenache blend ($16/3l)

Banrock Station produces Chardonnay, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon ($16/3l)

From South Africa:

Rain Dance produces a very good Shiraz from the South Cape region for $15.

From France:

French Rabbit presents their wines in flashy one liter Tetra Paks. They are all Vin de Pays varietal-labeled wines, including Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot. The cost is $10/liter.

Free Range is the company that produces the Muscadet I mentioned in this article. They also produce white and red Bordeaux wines, as well as Vin de Pays Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Merlot. Price is $30/3l.

Port: Wine by the Fireside

2008-10-08T00:50:00.007-04:00

"It should feel like liquid fire in the stomach; should have the tint of ink; it should be like the sugar of Brazil in sweetness and the spices of India in aromatic flavour."
-Association of Port Wine Shippers, 1754

Port is a largely misunderstood and undervalued pleasure. Few of us drink it with any regularity, but when we do we wonder why we usually don't. Port is the perfect example of a mystery; a riddle wrapped inside an enigma. Port is hard to figure out, and when we do comprehend it, the facts are just as surprising and just as confusing as blissful ignorance.
Port is not one wine; it is many, and yet each port is singular. Port is not made from one grape; it can be made from 48 different legal varietals, and yet only six find their way into the finest wines. True Port must come from the Douro valley of Portugal, and yet the wine is not made in the namesake town, Oporto; it is shipped from there, but not all of it. In addition, "port" is produced in California (pretty awful, except for Quady and Ficklin ports) and Australia (pretty good export versions, especially Yalumba and Peter Lehmann).
We often think of Vintage Port as the only Port that matters, but less than two per cent of the port produced in the Douro is Vintage. Most Port ages in wood (Ruby, Tawny, Vintage Character, Late Bottled Vintage (LBV), Colheita, and Crusted Ports), one Port ages in the bottle (Vintage) and some age in both cask and bottle (the finest LBV). White Port does not age at all.
Port is a flavorful, sweet fortified wine, but it is not really fortified with flavorful high-quality brandy; it is fortified with aguardiente, a clear, flavorless grape distillate that is 77% alcohol -- brandy is usually only 40 to 45% alcohol.
The perfect time to drink a fine Port during the course of a meal is after dessert and before coffee, but it is most often served with blue-veined Stilton and Cheddar cheeses before dessert. Port can be a wonderful, warming, luxurious, sensual and expensive drink on its own in the winter in front of a fireplace, but suffers from an image of cheap White Port cut with lemon juice as a warm-weather "street" wine. "ripple" is exactly that: California-made Gallo generic white port cut with lemon juice.
So, the purpose of this column is to debunk Port, and depending on how fast you read, make you a 1, 2, 3, or 4 minute Port expert. You need only taste a fine Port during or after reading to make the experience complete.
The six best grapes for port are all red, and five are native to the Douro: Touriga Nacional, Tinta Cão, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Francesa, and Tinta Amarela. The sixth, Tinta Roriz, is actually the finest red grape of Spain, Tempranillo, transplanted to the warmer Douro vineyards.
The Douro valley is planted with 82,000 acres of grapes, and there are 80,000 individual vineyards - quintas - owned by close to 30,000 growers. Each quinta is classified according to a complex system of points given or subtracted for vineyard location; grape varieties; microclimate; slope, altitude, and aspect; soil types, age of the vines; vine density; vineyard maintenance. A is the highest classification, F is the lowest, and indicates the level of benificio -- the official price the vineyard receives for its grapes, and the yield per acre (hectare in Europe) permitted at each vineyard.
The fermentation of the base wine stops at a low six to eight per cent alcohol, because the most important reading in the wine is not really the amount of alcohol produced, but the amount of residual sugar in the grape must. The winemaker can always get more alcohol from the aguardiente, but once the sugar turns to alcohol, it cannot be retrieved. Since all ports are sweet, residual sugar is the key to the base wine.
For every 97 gallons of base wine produced, approximately 24 gallons of aguardiente is added, and the blend measures about 18%-19% alcohol. 121 gallons (or 550 liters) is the size of a Port pipe -- the size of the barrel traditionally used for shipping Port.
The producer then decides if and how much white, ruby, or tawny port to make. White Port, made from inferior white grapes, is a largely disposable drink. If you can find this style from Niepoort or Ferreira, they are worth investigating, but otherwise take a pass on White Port.
All red Port starts as either Ruby or Tawny Port. Depending on how the Ruby Port is aged, it may become:
• Basic Ruby: The least expensive of all Ports are the Rubies with less than one year of age in wood. They should be consumed immediately, and do not improve in the bottle. The best Ruby Port is made from various vintages and aged fro up to four years in casks. This style, though still fruity and fresh, has better balance than the cheapest Ruby. Some of the best Ruby Ports: Cock burn's Special Reserve, Fonseca Bin 27, Graham's Six Grapes and Warre's Warrior.

• Vintage Character: These are older Ruby Ports from different vintages that are blended together, but really bear no resemblance to true Vintage Port, except that the color is blacker than most Rubies. Avoid most of these, except for Cálem, Churchill's, Ferreira, and Sandeman's Signature.

• Crusted Port: The best styles are made from the best multi-vintage Rubies, aged for about four years in the cask, and then three more in the bottle before release. This Port needs to be decanted and really does through a crusty sediment throughout the bottle, most especially in the neck. It should be open with Port tongs, which have been heated over a fire. The tongs neatly crack the neck of the bottle, so that the wine need not be poured over the neck sediment while decanting. Good Crusted Port will improve for up to about eight years in the bottle. Best examples: Churchill's and Smith Woodhouse.
• Late Bottled Vintage (LBV): These are wines made from a single year's harvest, but not a great, or "Vintage" year. These are pretty light wines which have been aged for up to six years in the cask. Most of the wines are then filtered, and so have nothing left to work with to further mature in the bottle. The best are unfiltered, and will improve in the bottle, but not more than five years. "Invented" for restaurants who want to sell a vintage-dated product, but doesn't have the clientele for the much more expensive true Vintage Port. My least favorite style of Port, I would avoid any that do not have a driven cork, rather than a wood or plastic-topped stopper. Some of the best LBVs: Niepoort, Ramos-Pinto, Graham's, and Warre's.
• Single Quinta: This is wine from a single vineyard, and often among the most interesting Port styles. Single Quinta can be a classic Vintage Port, but most are non-vintage, and aged in cask until ready for release. They are almost never filtered, and need decanting. Increasingly popular as a boutique wine, because of its exclusive nature; some of these quintas are quite small. Single Quinta wines age for at least seven years, and the finest will improve in the bottle for up to 20 years. Often more expensive than classic Vintage Port. Look for Cálem Quinta de Foz, Ferreira Quinta do Seixo, Fonseca Quinto do Panascal, Ramos-Pinto Quinto da Urriga, Taylor-Fladgate Quinta de Vargellas, Niepoort Quinta do Noval, and Warre's Quinta da Cavadinha.
•Vintage Port: Each Port producer decides if it is a "vintage" year, and they don't always agree. By law, the producer must declare the harvest year a vintage between the first and second year following the harvest, and the wine must be bottled between the second and third year from the date of harvest. This means that Vintage Port spends very little time in the barrel, and the overwhelming majority of its life in the bottle. It is not unusual for a Vintage Port, depending on the quality of the vintage, to take 20 to 30 years to mature (the 1970 is just now ready to drink, but the 1977 was ready more than five years ago). Decanting is essential, and Port tongs are a great help in the decanting process. If you drink this wine young, it is harsh, tannic, and sweet. As it matures, and the tannins turn to sediment, the harshness fades, and the wine is warming, spicy, fruity, and balanced. A favorite in Great Britain; the Brits have controlled a large piece of the Port trade since battling the Spanish Armada, and granting the equivalent of most-favored-nation status to Portugal. Best vintages: 1994 (almost impossible to find and really expensive; about $100 per bottle), 1985, 1983, 1977, 1970, 1966, 1963, 1955, 1948, 1945, 1935, 1931, 1927. Even the oldest wines will bring great pleasure to the Vintage Port lover.
Depending on how Tawny Port is aged, it may become:
• Basic Tawny Port: The cheapest Tawny styles are blends of White and Ruby ports, and although the blenders do a pretty good job, this style suffers by comparison to a true Tawny, which is aged for seven years, and released in it eighth. These wines are very good values. True Tawnies include: Dow's Boardroom and Warre's Nimrod.
• Designated-Age Tawny Port: I love the aged Tawny Ports, because they are so mellow, nutty, smooth and silky. The labels read 10, 20, 30, or 40 Year-Old Tawny. Theoretically, the youngest wine in the barrel should be no younger than the age designated on the label, but in practice, the Port Wine Institute tastes the product and says, "OK, That's what a 20 year old Tawny should taste like," and allows its release. The best producers release only those wines that are close to the designated age, but sometimes the tasters can be fooled by good blending of younger wines. This wine is ready to drink; it's been aged for you, so it won't improve in the bottle. Some of the best producers: Cock burn's, Croft, Dow's, Fonseca, Graham's, Niepoort, Offley, Ramos-Pinto, Smith-Woodhouse, Sandeman, Taylor Fladgate, Warre's.
Some single-quinta designated-age Tawny Ports are also produced, as well as a very small amount of vintage dated Tawny Port, which may have spent as much as 50 years in the barrel; these are often called Colheita Ports.
Fine Port is a meditation on sweetness, richness, opulence, even decadence. Whether or not we know anything about the Port is not really germane to a discussion of its pleasures, but is always nice to know a bit about why and how such rare treasures come to life.

Wine's Best Friend: The Right Glass

2008-10-07T12:17:00.032-04:00

Wine snobbery, thankfully, is beginning to disappear in the United States, as Americans continue to enthusiastically embrace wine. By the end of next year, the US is slated to become the #1 wine consuming-nation in the world, a notion many might have considered laughable only ten years ago.
But there is a good wine’s worth of difference between snobbery and respect. I would never tell anyone what wine to enjoy, and certainly would never tell anyone why he or she should not enjoy a particular wine, mostly because everyone hates a wine snob, me included. However, I am not above gently recommending how to enhance enjoyment of wine, and one path to enhancement is by drinking the right wine in the right glass.
I can hear the groans now, as many readers think I’m going to steer them to unbelievably expensive, hand-blown crystal wine glasses, and that those glasses you purchased at Target just aren’t good enough for me and my snobby nose and palate. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m just going to write about why a good, affordable wine glass makes such a difference in the enjoyment of wine. You can thank me later.
Recently, I went to dinner at a good Hudson Valley restaurant with several friends. We received a warm welcome, were seated at a comfortable table, and the food and service were terrific. The wine glasses were not.
With the owner’s permission, I brought from home several very special wines to the restaurant, which the service staff took care of in a highly professional manner. My friends and I looked forward to a wonderful dinner complete with extraordinary wines.
And then the wine glasses were brought to the table.
The glasses, both white and red, were crap - thick glass balloons that I knew would make each white wine taste sour and each red wine taste bitter. All the wines would suffer from a short “finish,” the potentially lovely aftertaste that helps to define a great wine. I asked our waiter if he might be hiding some good wine glasses somewhere in the restaurant, and he courteously replied that the glasses on the table were the only wine glasses available. I was bummed. These fine wines, served in crap glasses, tasted like crap. And crap wines do nothing to enhance the flavors of the carefully-prepared food provided by the restaurant. Those damned glasses truly created a lose/lose proposition for the folks at our table and just as important, for the hard working folks at the restaurant.
On the ride home and for a few days afterward, I thought how could I make this negative experience positive. So, I put together some wines and some wine glasses, and invited Janet Crawshaw, publisher of The Valley Table, and Jerry Novesky, its editor, to join me at my house in a blind tasting of three wines – one white, two reds – served in several different glasses. Jerry and Janet love wine and seemed intrigued (if a bit dubious) about the idea of matching a good wine to a good glass, and so they agreed to show up, and taste, taste, taste (Welcome to the rigors of wine and food journalism). I intentionally chose really good wines for the tasting, hoping to demonstrate that a great wine can taste like crap in a crap glass, and that the right glass will do that same wine organoleptic justice.
The two basic glasses for each wine were a) a jelly glass that sells for about $1 (more about this choice of glass later), and b) a glass that is known as a “universal taster,” a small, five ounce wine glass, resembling a style you might use for Port or Sherry, and used widely in large wine tastings; I use this glass for the tastings I conduct daily in the wine classes I teach at The Culinary Institute of America. I use hundreds of these glasses every day (about $3 each).
The other glasses were all produced by one wine glass company, Riedel. The Riedel family has been making glassware for 11 generations, and it was Georg Riedel (10th generation), who realized that he could produce ideal glasses – both hand-blown and machine-made – for various wines, by shaping the glasses in such a way that the appearance, aromatics, and taste of the wine are optimized. So the shape of a glass meant for Cabernet Sauvignon looks completely different from a glass meant for Pinot Noir, which looks completely different from a glass made for Riesling; you get the idea. Riedel, based in Austria, also produces machine-made Spiegelau wine glasses in Germany.
Not that long ago, Riedel glasses were only found at upscale specialty stores, and the glasses were aimed solely at wealthy and/or aspiring wine connoisseurs. As wine-drinking in the United States (at least 40% of Riedel’s worldwide market) has spread to the great unwashed, Riedel has made their glasses far more accessible. Remember me mentioning “those glasses you purchased at Target” earlier? Well, Riedel now creates a special line of wine glasses just for Target (the “Vivant” series; the glasses sell for about $10-$12 each). Riedel glasses, in all their forms, from the least to the most expensive, can be found at amazon.com, as well as locally, from Wine Enthusiast or winenthusiast.com, which is located in Elmsford in Westchester county. Sold in sets, Riedel or Spiegelau glasses start at less than $10 per stem.
By the time Jerry and Janet arrived, I had already poured the reds, and when I saw them pull up in my driveway, I started to pour the white wines. We got down to business pretty quickly, and these are the results of our experiment in finding the right glasses for the right wines:

Ist Flight: Chardonnay, Cakebread, Napa Valley, California 2005 (about $50/bottle)

Jelly Glass:
•Appearance: Cloudy, dull.
•Nose: grapey, undefined other fruits, one dimensional.
•Taste/Finish: Hot, full-bodied, bitter, alcoholic; short finish
•Opinion: Undrinkable.

Universal Taster:
•Appearance: Pale yellow/almost white peach.
•Nose: closed, some oak, some fruit.
•Taste/Finish: Hot, full-bodied, alcoholic; short finish.
•Opinion: Doesn’t taste like an expensive wine.

Riedel “Ouverture” White Wine Glass: $10-$12; machine blown, lead free; 10 oz.

•Appearance: Pale gold, rim begins to show more depth, and possible ageability.
•Nose: More apricot, a bit of oak/not much, balance as the flavors come together.
•Taste/Finish: Smooth, rich, slightly toasty, almost oily, elegant, long finish.
•Opinion: Pretty good.

Riedel “Flow” Viognier/Chardonnay Glass: $12-$15; machine blown, lead free; 22.5 oz.
•Appearance: Very pale. Shimmering, reflecting gold.
•Nose: Oak emerges, but in balance with fruits.
•Taste/Finish: Emphasis on complexity and acidity, with oak tannins in the finish, a bit of pleasant bitterness; extremely long and complex finish.
•Opinion: Excellent wine.

2nd Flight: Pinot Noir, Iron Horse, Green Valley of Russian River Valley, California 2004 (about $35/bottle)

Jelly Glass
•Appearance: Brownish, dull, brackish and muddy, no difference between rim of the wine and the center of the bowl.
•Nose: Smells like Manischewitz, nothing but grape and alcohol.
•Taste/Finish: Alcohol and tannin, with bitter fruits; blessedly short finish.
•Opinion: Lousy

Universal Taster
•Appearance: Medium black cherry, rim much darker than the center of the bowl.
•Nose: Earthy, mature red and black fruits, touch of leather.
•Taste/Finish: Red fruits ascendant, nice balance of tannin and acid, long finish.
•Opinion: The wine is beginning to strut its stuff.

Riedel “Vinum” Pinot Noir/Burgundy Glass: $30; machine made, 24% lead crystal; 25 oz.
•Appearance: Beautiful red-to-black cherry, with dark, almost black rim •Nose: New and old oak, restrained wood aromatics; near-perfect balance of aromatics; red cherries, red and black currants, spice, a touch of black pepper.
•Taste/Finish: high but balanced acidity, red fruits, no harsh tannins; a truly fine example of the Pinot Noir varietal.
•Opinion: Really nice wine.

Riedel “Sommeliers” Burgundy Grand Cru Glass: $95-$120. 37 oz.; handmade, mouthblown; full lead crystal

•Appearance: Glass seems to disappear; rim of the wine goes to the sides of the glass, when looking down, you see the wine is still opaque; the wine can age quite a while.
•Nose: Overwhelmingly fragrant; roses, black currants, black cherries; as if the wine has been decanted for hours
•Taste/Finish: Extremely soft; balanced, voluptuous, silky.
•Opinion (from Janet): “I want to dive in and swim in this wine.”

3rd Flight: Rubicon, Rubicon Estate, Rutherford, Napa Valley, California 2004 (about $125)

Jelly Glass:
•Appearance: Cloudy, opaque.
•Nose: Smells like grape jelly and alcohol.
•Taste/Finish: Horrible – all tannin and alcohol.
•Opinion: the worst.

Universal Taster
•Appearance: Almost black in color, totally opaque / looks quite young.
•Nose: Alcohol and leathery tannins.
•Taste/Finish: Blackberry – very full-bodied – moderate acidity - really hot alcohol.
•Opinion: I expect more - a lot more - from this wine.

Riedel “Ouverture” Red Wine Wine Glass: $10-$12; machine blown; lead free; 12.5 oz
•Appearance: Still dark in the center, but rim is much darker and “legs” (glycerol) dripping down the side of the glass are quite prominent.
•Nose: Black currant, oak, and vanilla.
•Taste/Finish: High acids. Sweet tannins, black fruits, very complex flavors; needs more time.
•Opinion: A fine example of a wine that, over time, should become extraordinary.

Riedel “Flow” Cabernet Glass: $12-$15; machine made; lead free crystal; 22.5 oz.
•Appearance: Ink black in the center with an even darker rim.
•Nose: Black fruits, olives, earthy, mint and eucalyptus.
•Taste/Finish: Mint, menthol, black fruits; balanced sweeter tannins; incredibly long finish.
•Opinion: Wow! What a difference. The wine seems to have achieved balance and tastes far more mature, and closer to ready to drink.

Riedel “Vinum” Bordeaux Glass: $24-30; machine made; 24% lead crystal; 21.5 oz.
•Appearance: Similar to above; even more opaque; glass seems to disappear.
•Nose: Much more black currant and mint.
•Taste/Finish: Beautifully balanced. Fruit acids jump out of the glass; tastes like fresh blackberries.
•Opinion: Tried this to see if there was much difference between Riedel “Flow” and Riedel “Vinum” (twice as expensive, but the same shape and size). Noticed the most difference in the appearance of the wine, as the “Vinum” is thinner, and the wine seems to “float” in mid-air.

So, that’s it. The glasses made an incredible difference in the sensory evaluation of the wines. Jerry was blown away by the differences, but raised an interesting question. Can the right glass, properly engineered to maximize certain characteristics and minimize others, make a lousy wine taste good? I’ve wondered about this myself, and have to come to the conclusion that while I don’t think that matching the right glass to the right wine falls under the definition of “party trick,” I do think that a good glass will always make any wine - from the relatively humble to the Obama-level elite, taste better. Anything wrong with that?
So, why did I bother with the jelly glass, knowing it would make a good wine taste like swill? I did it to honor the memory of Robert Mondavi, who probably did more for wine in the United States than any other person in history. Robert died at the age of 94 last May, and I dedicate this article to his memory.
About 20 or so years ago, I had the honor of helping to coordinate a wine tasting conducted by Robert Mondavi at The Culinary Institute of America. Robert taught me a few things that day, First, at age 73 (at the time), he didn’t participate in the tasting, because he told me his taste buds were shot, and he “didn’t want to fake it.” He wanted to hear from the crowd of tasters, to listen to their opinions.
The second thing I learned from Robert Mondavi on that day has everything to do with why I chose a jelly glass to lead off each wine in this tasting. Robert was well-known for shipping hundreds, sometimes thousands of Riedel glasses in advance of any wine tasting he conducted. He explained to me that it was important to show Robert Mondavi wines in the best possible light, including the best possible glass. I nodded and smiled, probably not fully realizing at the time just how correct, how smart he was in his thinking.
But then Robert Mondavi turned to me and added something to the conversation that I’ll never forget. He said, “Just remember, Steven, that great wines need great glasses, but if someone offers you a great wine, even if it’s in a jelly glass, never say ‘no.’” And I never have.

Spain: The Secret is Out

2008-08-02T23:10:00.014-04:00

Until recently, the outstanding quality and the amazing value of Spanish wines has been a well-kept secret in the United States. Certainly, Sherry - especially fino and manzanilla styles - has always had a small cadre of fortified aficionados, and some adventurous red wine lovers swear by the reserva and gran reserva wines of Rioja, but even the most wine-stained wretches among us have had little if any experience with Spain’s finest wines.
Well, now the secret is out, and the American wine market has been flooded with great Spanish wines. Consumers are beginning to pay attention, as wine merchants and sommeliers can hardly contain their infectious enthusiasm for the sparklers, whites, rosés, and reds of Spain. For anyone who is bored by the trying trinity of Chardonnay, Cabernet, and Merlot, and who seeks a new sensory experience, the days of a wine world awash in predictable and over-priced plonk are – happily - coming to an end. And Spain is perfectly positioned to inhabit this exciting new world with wines that are compelling, delicious, food-friendly, and that deliver excellent value.
Currently, Spain has 63 regulated wine regions (each a denominación de origen (DO), the equivalent of a French appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC). Two superior regions – Rioja and Priorato – are entitled to the denominacion de origen calificada (DOC) designation. Five to ten years ago, perhaps a half-dozen denominacines were represented in the American wine market – Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Penedès, Rías Baixas, Cava (for sparkling wines), and Jerez (Sherry). Today, these wine regions have even stronger representation in the US, but are joined by wines produced in Alicante, Bierzo, Jumilla, Montsant, Navarra, Priorat, and Rueda, Toro, and Valdeorras, among many others.
Spain is, after Italy and France, the world’s third-largest wine producer, and has more acres planted with vines than any other country. The vines are stressed, due to poor soils and a rain-starved climate coupled with no widespread use of drip irrigation technology. Vines must dig deep to find the water and other nutrients they need to survive. This is all good news for making good wines. Vineyard grape yields are naturally low, and the vines, especially the thousands of acres of old vines, produce berries with complex flavors and good sugar-to-acid balance.
While Spain is best known for Sherry and red wines, part of its “secret” has always been that dry Spanish rosados, especially those produced in the Navarra DO and made from the Garnacha (Grenache) grape are among the finest rosé wines in the world. And Spain is the largest producer of sparkling wine in the world. Cava is produced almost entirely in Catalonia, the Spanish province anchored by Barcelona, and is 100% méthode champenoise. Cava is wonderful as an aperitif or with food, and is one of the single greatest values in sparkling wine – or any wine, for that matter. It is easy to find fine Brut or Rosé Cava for under ten dollars (with vintage wines and special bottlings just a few dollars more). The largest producers are Freixenet and Cordoníu, but also seek out Segura Viudas (especially its elegant Reserva Heredad and Aria Estate bottlings) and Cristalino, Marqués de Monistrol, Paul Cheneau, and Sumarroca.
Spanish whites can be a revelation. The Rías Baixas DO, located in the cooler Atlantic province of Galicia, produces the dry, medium-to-full-bodied varietal-labeled Albariño. A perfect match with intense fish stews – cioppino, zarzuela, bouillabaisse, zuppa di pesce – Albariño is a singular wine, only somewhat reminiscent of a bone-dry Riesling from Alsace. Look for Morgadio, Vonta, Martin Codax, Nora, Condes de Albarei, and Santiago Ruíz, among others ($14 – 25).
The Rueda DO focuses on the Verdejo grape and produces lovely aromatic dry whites. Sauvignon Blanc is the new grape on the block here, and Rueda does it justice, with varietal labels and 100% of the grape in the bottle. Look for the delicious Verdejo-based Naia, as well as selections from Marques de Riscal and Valle de la Vega ($8 -15).
Penedès, a region that has found great commercial success largely due to a considerable part of the Cava DO resting inside its borders, also produces fine white wines from Spanish as well as French vinifera, and blends of both. White wines run the gamut from the familiar - Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Muscat, and even Gewürztraminer – to the previously unknown – Macabeo, Parellada, and Xarel-lo (the three basic grapes of sparkling Cava, but also used for still whites). Look for Miguel Torres, Can Feixes, Parès Baltá, Segura Viudas, René Barbier, and Cavas Hill ($6 - $20).
Sherry may be an acquired taste, but once bitten by the Sherry bug, it becomes an itch that must be scratched. There is just nothing better with tapas and other “small bites” consisting of fish or veggies, or cheese, or pequillo peppers, or whatever – than dry Sherry. The three basic types – fino, amontillado, oloroso – are elaborated by individual artisans making proprietary Sherries in a wide variety of styles. Just try a chilled fino with a plate of olives and a young Manchego cheese, and from that day forth you’ll always have a bottle in the fridge. Popular producers: Tío Pepe, Osborne, Lustau, Domecq, Sandeman, Barbadillo, Hidalgo, and many more ($8 and up).
The red wines of Spain. Where to begin? Classic reds come from Rioja (DOC) and Ribera del Duero (DO), and are based on the noble Tempranillo grape. Tempranillo is as important to Spain as Cabernet Sauvignon is to Bordeaux or the Napa Valley, as Syrah/Shiraz is to the northern Rhône/Australia, as Pinot Noir is to Burgundy, as Malbec is to Argentina. The beauty of Tempranillo is that when the grape is made into a fine wine, it oxidizes (ages) slowly, due to healthy doses of skin tannins, alcohol, and juicy acidity.
Rioja is in many ways the perfect choice for serious red wine lovers. Three basic styles – Crianza (aged at least two years after vintage, released in the third), Reserva (aged at least three years, released in the fourth), and Gran Reserva (aged at least five years, released in the sixth), reflect the respective powers bestowed upon the wine by vintage selection and age. Because all Riojas wines must be tasted and approved before release by the provincial consejo regulador (Rioja’s regulating council), the savvy wine lover gets a wine that is always close to ready-to-drink, and in the case of Reserva and Gran Reserva wines, can improve a bit with a few more years of bottle aging. Fine Rioja marries well with hearty dishes – lamb, beef, stews; the lighter Crianza bottlings make a comfortable match with white meats and grilled fishes. Rioja, whose prices are on the rise, is still one of the great values in classic red wines, with bottles starting at about $8 for Crianza, $12 for Reserva, and under $20 for Gran Reserva wines. Some labels to look for: Montecillo, Martinez Bujanda “Conde de Valdemar,” Faustino Martinez, Campo Viejo, Cune, Contino, Marqués de Arienzo, Marqués de Cáceres, Marqués de Murrietta, Marqués de Riscal, Muga, and La Rioja Alta, among many other estimable producers.
Ribera del Duero, where Tempranillo is known as Tinto Fino, is thought by many to produce the finest red wines in all of Spain. Certainly, the wines can be great. The most famous wine made here is Vega Sicilia (founded in 1864), whose “Unico” bottling – a blend of Tinto Fino, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Malbec - is aged for 12 years before release, and sells for about $300. per bottle. The 1970 Unico is drinking perfectly right now, but Ribera de Duero also produces a myriad of fine reds at much more reasonable prices. Led by Alejandro Fernandez, who established his Pesquera winery in 1972, the wine growers of the region have proven that they can make incredible wines and gain a foothold in the ultra-premium world wine market. Look for the Crianza and Reserva bottlings from Alejandro Fernandez/”Pesquera,” Valdubón, Antonio Barceló/”Viña Mayor,” Teòfilo Reyes, and Condado de Haza. Prices start in the low teens, and can rise steadily, until you get to the stratosphere for Vega Sicilia and the very new, very pricey, very hard-to-find Dominio de Pingus, which is made by a young, Danish-born winemaker, Peter Sisseck.
I mentioned the whites of Penedès, but this DO produces great reds as well, again made from both Spanish and French vinifera vines. The various microclimates of Penedès allow wine producers to grow pretty much any grape they like, and make good wines from those grapes. Tempranillo is a very important grape here, but so is Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, Garnacha (Grenache), Monastrell (Mourvèdre), and Cariñena (Carignan). In the US market, Miguel Torres represents Penedès with great aplomb, with a wide variety of reds. Coronas (85% Tempranillo/15% Cabernet Sauvignon) is a tasty red for white and red meats at under $10. Gran Coronas flips the blend (85% Cabernet Sauvignon/15% Tempranillo) for about $20. Mas la Plana - single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon – is an extraordinary expression of the grape and the terroir of Penedès, for about $48. Also, look for the value-driven wines of René Barbier, and the exquisite Cabernet Sauvignon from Jean León.
The truly “New Spain” speaks to denominaciones with which few of us are familiar. Bierzo (DO), led by the innovative artisan, Alvaro Palacios, produces extraordinary reds from the Mencia grape. The red wines of Jumilla (DO) focus on the Monastrell grape (the Mourvèdre of the southern Rhône Valley), and are great values. Priorato (DOC) has become the home to some of the most sought-after Spanish wines ever produced. The group known as the “Gratallops Pioneers,” again led by the peripatetic Alvaro Palacios have focused on judicious blends of Garnacha, Cariñena, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Palacios’ biodynamic Clos l’Ermita, at $350 per bottle, is thought by many to be the best wine ever produced in Spain. His Las Terasses and Clos Dofi are somewhat less steep in price, but still extraordinary. While you can find fine wines from Priorat for under $20, the best can be quite expensive. Look for Clos Magador ($90), Morlanda Crianca ($48) and its “Prior Terrae” bottling at $200. Prices come back down to earth with Scala Dei “Negre” at $15., and its “Cartoixa” bottling at $27, as well as Acapella from Cellars Gratallops for $25. And here’s a hint: look for reds from Priorato’s neighboring tiny DO, Montsant, still undiscovered. I have fallen in love with the 2001 Fra Guerau from Viñas del Montsant, a full-bodied blend of seven grapes, dominated by Syrah and Garnacha. An amazing wine at an amazing price: $12. Also look for Isis ($20) and Laurona ($28).
No discussion of Spanish wines would be complete without at least a mention of a “secret” that has been hiding in plain sight for centuries – Brandy de Jerez. Once you have tasted the best of these fine spirits, Armagnac and especially over-priced Cognac will seem almost wimpy by comparison. Rappers and hip-hoppers may never sing the praises of Brandy de Jerez, but you will. For $30 to $50 you can have the great Gran Reservas, including Cardinal Mendoza, Carlos I, Conde de Osborne, Gran Duque de Alba, and Lepanto.
Right now you can find Spanish wines from at least 25 denominaciones in the US, and it is hard to go wrong with any of these wines. Every style of wine is represented at every price point, and in almost every wine you choose, you will get both extraordinary quality and extraordinary value.
Spanish wines: the secret is out…spread the word.

Your House Wines: Just Be Cool

2008-08-02T23:02:00.015-04:00

Wine is about enjoying and enhancing the pleasures of a wonderful meal with friends and family, about good conversation, about getting to know each other better. A glass of wine with dinner is a small and quiet reward at the end of the workday, or it can be an integral part of a well planned -- or better yet-- spontaneous romantic evening. While it is true that there is a lot to learn about the fascinating subject of wine, there is no direct correlation between your level of knowledge and your level of organoleptic enjoyment.
As with so many subjects that appeal both to the instinct and the intellect, to the mind and the soul, wine has its myths. One of the major myths about wine is that older wine is better than young wine, and that fine wine must be “cellared” and aged until ready to drink. If you believe this myth then it follows that you can’t possibly be passionate about wine unless you own (or desire to own) a bunch of bottles collecting dust in a well-organized subterranean netherworld. You must also pay attention to “wine experts” who periodically announce how long you should “hold” your wine before drinking.
Hear the sound of that cork popping? That’s another myth exploding.
Let’s examine the facts:
• Better than 93% of all the wine produced in the world is consumed within one year of its vintage (the year in which the grapes were harvested); more than 96% within two years, and a whopping 99% of the world’s wine is consumed within three years of its vintage.
• In the United States, 87% of all wine purchased is consumed within 24 hours of purchase (this, of course, includes restaurant wine purchases), and 97% of all wine purchased is consumed within two weeks of the purchase date.
Bearing these facts in mind, a question arises: Do homeowners who love wine really need a wine cellar in their home? Building a wine cellar or other elaborate wine storage system seems like such an elitist thing to do when we realize that for much of the world, wine is a daily beverage that accompanies food, and when consumed in moderation gives a healthy dose of pleasure to the people of many nations -- rich and poor.
So, if you are among the many who enjoy wine with dinner and maybe have a few special bottles that you are saving for a special occasion laying down in the cupboard, do you need a wine cellar?
It depends.
Frankly, there are ideal conditions for storing wine (55ºF temperature / 75% humidity, and in relative darkness), but we rarely store our wines ideally. White, sparkling and rosé wines are usually kept in the fridge, and reds are often shunted off to a too-warm corner or closet. And yet, the overwhelming majority of wines survive to please another day.
If we don’t have ideal storage conditions for our wine (and most of us, including me, don't) there are a few simple guidelines that we can follow to ensure that our wines will be in good shape to enjoy with a good meal.
• Once you put your wines in the fridge, leave them there until you are ready to enjoy them. Moving wines from a cool area to a warmer area, and then back again can play havoc with the cork, due to expansion and contraction. Once the seal between cork and bottle loosens, your wine is headed towards premature oxidation, which will ruin the taste of the wine.
•The cooler, darker, and quieter the place, the safer the wine. The enemies of wine in the bottle are heat, light, and vibration. The cooler and darker the storage area, the longer it will take the wine to mature. Also, make sure there is not a lot of vibration in the storage space; vibration, too, is rough on corks, and when the cork moves, you've got the problem of quick oxidation. Oxygen, which in controlled amounts is the agent for aging wine, becomes the enemy of wine when the cork slips. Again, once you find a safe place for your wines, don't move them until they are ready to sit on your table.
•Lay the bottles on their sides. With the possible exception of sparkling wines, whenever possible lay bottles down, especially if you plan to keep the wine in storage for more than a few weeks. Angled in this way, the cork is kept moist and expanded, and is less likely to crumble, which if unchecked will allow too much air in the bottle, leading to more oxidation and a fouled wine.
• If you have a cellar in your house, use it. The temperature underground fluctuates less than 15 degrees Fahrenheit all year round and the changes are usually subtle. As long as your cellar is in the 50ºF-65ºF range you've got a natural wine storage area in your home. If you use a small area of your cellar for wine storage feel free to employ an inexpensive humidifier or dehumidifier to adjust moisture in the cellar, but it certainly is not essential for the casual wine collection.
• Don’t kill spiders in your wine storage area. Spiders are our friends because they love to eat mildew, a widespread fungus in damp cellars. Mildew attacks and degrades labels and once again, corks, leaving an unattractive, smelly, and destructive residue. If you are arachnophobic, don’t use your cellar for wine storage, or just learn to love spiders.
Have you noticed in the above guidelines how susceptible wine corks are to multiple problems? Is it any wonder that there is a certifiable trend away from corks towards plastic-lined metal screw caps, cellulose “corks,” or rubber stoppers, even for premium wines? Cork may make the ritual of opening the bottle more romantic, but as a stopper for fine wines it has many problems, not the least of which is the increasingly serious problem of “corked” wines; the wine is ruined by the presence of 2,4,6-trichloranisole (TCA), a chemical compound that is probably connected to the chlorine used to bleach corks. The wine smells like a moldy old book and tastes even worse. Cork taint is a problem in as many as 8% to 12% of wines produced all over the world (Portugal produces about 85% of the world’s supply of wine corks), and it as likely to appear in a $40 bottle as it is in a $4 bottle -- or a $400 bottle.
The reason I bring up TCA and “corked"” wines is to illustrate that you can store your wines in absolutely pristine conditions, and still encounter problems beyond your control. It goes without saying that we are fooling ourselves if we believe that our wines were stored in perfect conditions prior to purchasing them. Retailers have become much better at storing wines, but it is still a common sight to see wine for sale sitting in the window of a wine shop, literally cooking in the blazing hot sun. Before the wines reach the retail shop they may have has spent time in a steel shipping container whose interior temperature is easily 100ºF, only to be transferred to a distributor's warehouse that is nearly as warm in the summer and dreadfully cold in the winter, and then roughly handled as the wines are placed in the cargo area of a delivery truck, which may or may not be air-conditioned.
With all that can go wrong -- and sometimes does -- it is amazing how hearty a product wine really is. Because most wines are reasonably shelf-stable, anyone can start a wine collection utilizing a minimum of care and just a little bit of money. Of course, if you want your wine collection to make a pan-aesthetic statement of architectural, sculptural, and environmental integrity, you can easily spend as much on your wine cellar as you do on your wines. Again, I maintain that the inner and profound beauty of wine is in the bottle enjoyed at the table, not the bottle itself laying in the dark, but I certainly respect anyone who employs the same grammar and principles of beautiful yet functional design for their wine cellar as they do for their home.
A custom-designed formal wine cellar can be a sizeable investment, and will bring joy to the wine collector or connoisseur. But is it a good investment? Does an aesthetically pleasing wine storage area add to the resale value of the Upstate House?
Brenda Graf, a realtor at Westwood Metes & Bounds in Ulster County remembered that “I sold a house with a temperature-controlled wine cellar to a French couple who liked wine and liked the cellar, but it was hardly a major focus of the sale. They were much more interested in the beautiful grounds, the stream, etc. I don’t believe that the wine cellar added any real value to the sale."
Shawn Jackson is a realtor for Caldwell Banker/Currier Lazier in Orange County. Jackson talked about a “$1.5 million house with a wine cellar and small in-home winery. The room impressed me and it created a quality in the home that could only help the sale, make the sale a little easier. A contributing factor, yes, and depending on the buyer I suppose it might have added $10,000 to the sale, but probably not.”
Shari Jones sells real estate for Irving Kalish Real Estate in Woodstock, NY and also believes that while a formal wine cellar can be a nice part of the house, it adds no real dollars-and cents value.
Jones summed up her position tidily when asked which home addition would add more resale value to a home, a wine cellar or a half-bath.
"Absolutely the half bath. No contest. No question."

SIDEBAR
Clearly, storing wine at home is no big deal if you use common sense. So, why do some people insist on formal wine cellars in their homes? It may sound funny to those of us naïfs who believe that wine is for enjoying and sharing with friends, but some homeowners consider wine storage --be it a cellar or a series of attractive shelves – an important decorative element in their homes.
According to Michael Babcock, president of www.wineracks.com, located in High Falls, NY, “Anyone with more than 12 bottles of wine should have some type of racking just for the ease of it. The larger the collection, the more a formal space is required, for both proper storage and organization of the wines. Many customers like to showcase their collection in their homes, so for them the decorative element is a must.”
Babcock asks his clients some basic questions when they approach him for a custom-designed wine cellar or for any of the numerous prefab storage configurations offered on-line by his company.
“We start by asking the customer some basic questions: How large is the available space? How many bottles are they interested in racking? Is the cellar to be a showplace for entertaining or purely functional? Are environmental controls – for temperature and humidity – required? What species of wood for the racks? What are the budget constraints? Are there any specific or special requirements for racking or bottle display required?”
Then, the staff of www.wineracks.com gets busy fulfilling the needs of the customer, installing the wine racks. It appears that customer need is healthy and growing. According to Babcock, “We do a high volume business in our prefabricated racking lines. We offer storage systems for just about any situation, from a counter top in a small apartment, to racks under the staircase, to systems that can handle thousands of bottles. We do see a movement for more custom racking as Americans are becoming more interested in wine & food, and seem to be spending more time entertaining at home.”
When it comes to his own wine storage needs, Babcock walks the walk. “I live in a town house with space constraints, so I have a 400 bottle free-standing self-contained wine cellar.”

Tasting the Hudson Valley

2008-08-02T22:55:00.014-04:00

Earlier this year, I was asked to be a judge of the 4th Annual Hudson Valley Commercial Wine Competition, conducted under the auspices of the Hudson Valley Wine & Grape Association (HVWGA). I looked forward to participating, as the competition provided an opportunity for me to taste some of the best wines produced in the Hudson Valley.

On April 26th, the competition was held in a model house at Brook in Waterland, located on the 200 acre Bentley Farm in the town of Stanford. Brook in Waterland is a project conceived by Dutch investors to sell 25 homes, inspired by 17th century Dutch architecture, clustered on the farm, leaving 140 acres of the farm preserved as agricultural land and open space. The view from the kitchen of the home is a six acre vineyard, which will be planted to Cabernet Franc. The model home where the tasting was held was 4,650 square feet and had a price tag of about $3 million. Good luck, Brook.

I arrived bright and early, along with my fellow judges: Bob Brink, Fine Wines Manager for Arlington Wine and Spirits in Poughkeepsie; Chris Gerling, Cornell University Agricultural Extension Associate for Enology in New York State; Harriet and Bill Lembeck: Harriet is a highly respected wine educator in New York City and author of the 6th and 7th editions of “Grossman’s Guide to Wines, Beers, and Spirits.” Bill loves wine and is an excellent taster; Bill Rattner, Wine Director for the Xaviar’s Restaurant Group; Jennifer Redmond, manager of Enthusiastic Spirits and Wines in Gardiner; and Brian Smith, a professor at The Culinary Institute of America, and the co-author (along with Michael Weiss and myself) of “Exploring Wine” and the upcoming book, “WineWise.”

The tasting and competition revealed that Hudson Valley wines and wine producers have come a long way, but still have a long way to go. I tasted a small number of superb wines, a larger number of drinkable wines, and several forgettable-to-undrinkable wines. My tasting notes, provided by the HVWGA as a perceived benefit to the winemakers, range from “Excellent wine, beautifully balanced, good acidity and complex tannins” to “Please stop making this wine,” and “Good job! A lovely wine,” to “Tastes like a science project gone bad.”

Indeed, the tasting was uneven. It was an excellent day for Millbrook Winery and its winemaker, John Graziano, as it racked up many gold medals and first-place accolades. It was, surprisingly, a very bad day for Riesling, my favorite white grape on the planet. Personally, I thought it was a good day for hard apple ciders, but what were they doing in this wine tasting?

It was a mixed day for hybrid-based wines. Hybrids are grapes that are a biological cross of the species vitis vinifera – grapes like Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Riesling, along with the other usual suspects – and native grapes, which belong to such species as vitis labrusca or vitis riparia, such as Concord or Niagara. Well-known hybrids in the Hudson valley include Seyval, Vignoles, Baco Noir, and Chancellor. Hybrids are popular here because they are disease-resistant and can survive extreme weather conitions. I admit to not being a big fan of most hybrid-based wines I’ve tasted, although I find myself becoming a sucker for a simple, fruity white, Traminette, whose vinifera parent is Gewürztraminer.

At the tasting, I also found out about Hudson Heritage™ wines. To be a Hudson Heritage white, all grapes must be grown in the Hudson River Region American Viticultural Area (AVA), and must be 70%-85% Seyval, with the remainder of the blend made from any or all of the following: Vidal, Vignoles, Cauyuga, and Traminette. The wine may be up to 2% residual sugar, cannot undergo malolactic fermentation (which changes fresh, fruity, high-acid flavors to rich, creamy flavors), cannot be exposed to oak, and must be bottled in a Hock style bottle (thin, tapered bottle, closely identified with German white wines).

Red Hudson Heritage wines must be made from Hudson River Region grapes, and may include Noiret (35%-55%), DeChaunac (35%-55%), and other hybrid grapes (from 20% to 30%). Oak aging is allowed, residual sugar must be less than 1%, malolactic fermentation is allowed (common for virtually all red wines), and must be bottled in a Burgundy style bottle (closely identified with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir bottles).

I will repeat here what I said at the competition: I love the idea of Hudson Heritage™, but I strongly disagree with the idea that only hybrid grapes represent the “heritage” of Hudson Valley wines. There are wonderful Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Franc wines produced in the Hudson Valley, but they cannot claim the mantle of Hudson Heritage, according to the HVWGA. I think it is a mistake to encourage growing hybrids in the Hudson Valley by saying in effect that these hybrid grapes – grapes made from genetic crosses of vinifera and native grapes or by crossing multiple hybrids to produce yet another hybrid – are the grapes that matter in the Hudson Valley. Some of my fellow judges agreed with me, some strongly disagreed. I think that Hudson Heritage, as currently defined, is a step backward for Hudson Valley wines, and discourages new plantings of grapes that may give the Valley a place at the table with fine wines from other regions of the world. Hybrids are not going to do that.

On with the tasting. We tasted flights of wines grouped by varietal and/or style for about three hours. The groupings included: Hybrid White, Hybrid Red, Sparkling (including hard ciders), Vinifera White, Vinifera Red, Off-Dry Whites (some of these were quite sweet), Fruit Wines (other than grapes, including apple, peach, pear, blueberry, raspberry, and strawberry wines), Dessert wines, and Ports.

Here are the winners of the 4th Annual Hudson Valley Wine Competition by class and variety, along with some notes on my personal preferences:

Sparkling:
Brotherhood Winery NV Blanc de Blancs
Silver Medal, Best Sparkling Wine
(I preferred the Applewood Winery Stonefence 2006 Hard Cider, which won a Bronze Medal)

White Hybrid:
Benmarl Winery 2006 Seyval
Gold Medal, Best in Class and Best White Hybrid
(I agree; a fine example of Seyval)

Best Hudson Heritage:
Whitecliff Vineyards 2007 Awosting White (Seyval/Vignoles)
(An off-dry wine, very pleasant, very easy to drink; good for spicy food)

White Vinifera:
Millbrook Vineyards 2007 Tocai Fruilano
Gold Medal, Best in Class, Best White Vinifera
Millbrook Vineyards 2006 Chardonnay
Gold Medal
(This is how I voted, so I must have liked these wines. Very fine. The Tocai Friulano is singular and exceptional, the Chardonnay is one of the best made in New York State)

Labrusca (Native) Grape:
Hudson-Chatham Lindenwald White Niagara/Diamond
Silver Medal, Best in Class
(Fruity, semi-sweet sipper)

Red Hybrid:
Benmarl Winery 2006 Baco Noir Gold Medal, Best Red Hybrid
(Baco Noir has been growing at Benmarl for a long time, and the winery produces one of the best Baco Noir wines in the country. I really enjoyed this wine.)

Red Vinifera:
Millbrook Vineyards 2005 Cabernet Franc
Gold Medal, Best in Class, Best in Show, Best HV Wine
Millbrook Vineyards 2006 Cabernet Franc Block 3
Gold Medal
Oak Summit Vineyards 2006 Pinot Noir
Silver Medal, Best in Category

(In general, I agree with my fellow judges, although I gave the edge to Block 3 Cabernet Franc; both wines were excellent. The Oak Summit Pinot Noir was also very fine; ironically, John Bruno’s Oak Summit Vineyard is located in Millbrook, and the wine is made by Millbrook winemaker John Graziano for Oak Summit. A blowout for Millbrook.)

Sweet Wine:
Bashakill Winery 2007 Osprey (Vignoles)
Silver Medal, Best in Class
(The wine was light and sweet, with a short finish)

Fruit Wine:
Brookview Station 2007 Pomona (Apple/Pear)
Gold Medal, Best in Category, Best in Class
(interesting wine; semi-sweet with a nice balance of flavors)

Port:
Brotherhood Winery NV Ruby Port
Gold Medal, Best in Class
(Not my style, but several other judges enjoyed it).

Dessert Wines:
Clinton Vineyards NV Cassis
Gold Medal, Best in Category, Best in Class
(Clinton has rescued black currants from obscurity in the Hudson Valley, and made a truly exceptional fortified wine, fruit-driven, off-dry to semi-sweet; a showstopper)
Warwick Valley Winery NV Pear Liqueur
Gold Medal, Best in Category
(Actually a liqueur, not a wine; a fruit-based spirit infused with Hudson Valley pears and pear brandy. Delicious)

The competition was followed by a lovely lunch at a new Hudson Valley Restaurant, Red Devon, in nearby Bangall, where we were able to pair Hudson Valley wine winners with the winning food of chef Jim Jennings. Red Devon, named for the cow bred on the restaurant owners’ farm in Millbrook, is committed to local food and farmers, and a “green” dining experience. Red Devon also has a take-out/eat-in market, with prepared local foods and wonderful breads baked on the premises. We enjoyed an extraordinarily fresh pea soup and excellent lamb chops “from the farm down the road,” according to restaurant manager Kelley Jefferson.

It was a wonderful experience to taste the great food from the farm down the road with the great wines from the vineyards down the road.

Meritage Heritage

2008-06-07T17:14:00.011-04:00

New World wines are mostly named for their grape type: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, etc., while many Old World wines are named for their place: Bordeaux, Champagne, Barolo, Rioja, etc. Today’s wine market is heavily tilted towards grape names. Varietal labels adorn bottles of wine produced in the United States, Australia, Chile, Argentina, and New Zealand, among many other wine-producing nations. Wine consumers around the world are hooked on varietal labels, and the reason for our addiction is easy to understand. Purchasing and enjoying a 2003 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is for most of us a much simpler exercise than buying a 2003 Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte from the Pessac-Leognan subregion of Bordeaux.
The irony in the above example is that the Napa Valley Cab must – by law – contain a minimum of 75% Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, and 85% of those grapes had to be harvested from vineyards in the Napa Valley, while the Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte is – by tradition - mostly Cabernet Sauvignon (anywhere from 50% to 85% depending on vintage year conditions in the vineyard), but 100% of the grapes must have been harvested in Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte’s own vineyards, all of which must be located in the Pessac-Leognan subregion of Bordeaux. In both wines the Cabernet Sauvignon is balanced with judicious percentages of wines made from Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and sometimes Malbec and a few other minor red varietals.
The interesting thing about the Smith-Haut-Lafitte red wine is that it is one of about 1,200 wine estates in Bordeaux, and all of these châteaux will come up with different blends of grapes in their wines. More Cabernet in some, much more Merlot in others, depending on the customs and vintage conditions in their subregions. Percentage of grape types will change from year to year, as the winemakers try to coax the best possible wines from their vines.
Let’s return to the USA. If a winemaker wants to produce a wine that emulates a “Bordeaux Blend” - let’s say 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 45% Merlot, and 5% Cabernet Franc – what is he or she going to call it? Since it’s not 75% of any particular grape varietal, the wine can’t be called by the name of a grape, and in fact US wine laws dictate that it be called simply “Red Wine” or “Red Table Wine.” Not too sexy.
20 years ago, some frustrated Napa Valley winemakers who wanted to produce Bordeaux-style blended wines got together to address this issue. Agustin Huneeus of Franciscan Winery, Mitch Cosentino of Cosentino Winery and Julie Garvey of Flora Springs Winery knew that they couldn’t call the wines “Bordeaux Blend,” as the French would go crazy and the US government agency that approves labels (at the time, the BATF), wouldn’t go for it. Besides, these winemakers and others that they attracted wanted to create a uniquely American name for their Old World/New World winemaking concept. They formed a loosely-knit association of about 20 members and in 1988 announced a contest to give their “concept” wines a name. The group received more than 6,000 entries, but chose one submitted by a young Californian, Neil Edgar, who came up with the name, “Meritage.” Neil’s prize would be two bottles of the first ten vintages of each Meritage Association member’s wine.
The first Meritage™ wine was produced by Mitch Cosentino: the 1986 vintage of “The Poet.” Today, under the leadership of Michaela Rodino of St. Supery Winery in Napa Valley and Julie Weinstock of Adobe Road Winery in Sonoma, there are 200 Meritage™ (rhymes with “heritage”) members, most of them in California, but with member wineries in 20 states, including New York State, New Jersey, Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, and Virginia, and even members from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and Israel (for a full list of Meritage Association members go to www.meritagewine.org). This year, the Meritage Association celebrates its 20th anniversary.
So, what constitutes a Meritage™ wine? First of all, the wine must be made from a blend of at least two traditional Bordeaux grapes – Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot for reds, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon for whites (more than 80% of Meritage™ wines are red). Second, no varietal can exceed 90% of the blend. This is probably why some of the most famous “Bordeaux blend” wines – Opus One, Rubicon, Insignia, etc. are not members of the Meritage™ group, as these wines often exceed 90% Cabernet Sauvignon.
I can’t make a blanket statement about what a “typical” Meritage™ wine tastes like, because there is no typical Meritage™ wine. First of all, a wine made from grapes grown in Colorado or Virginia or Michigan is sure to taste different from a wine made from grapes grown in the Napa Valley. Also, some of the wines are more Merlot that Cabernet, some are more Cab than Merlot. Some wines are released in their youth, some are aged for years in barrel and bottle before release. What I can say about the red wines is that they are uniformly full-bodied wines, best served with hearty foods, and that all of the wines I tasted are capable of aging, some of them for a very long time. The whites – white Meritage™ wines never really caught on probably due to the lack of Chardonnay in the blend – are very attractive: medium-bodied, juicy but dry.
Red Meritage™ wines produced in states other than California tend to be a bit lighter than their Golden State counterparts, often lower in alcohol, and less oak-driven. Although their lack of drama might not blow away wine writers and critics who are tasting the wines on their own, these are attractive wines when paired with food.
Below are some fine Meritage™ wines to consider. Several of these will be easy to find in local wineshops – don’t hesitate to ask your wine merchant to order these wines if you don’t see them on store shelves - but for others, especially those made in states other than California and New York State, you’ll probably have to order directly from the winery via the internet. Note that many of these wines are quite expensive, but there are some good values in this category, too.

From New York State / Finger Lakes Region:

2005 Atwater Estate Vineyards Meritage Red (44% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Cabernet Franc, 23% Merlot): $19 www.atwatervineyards.com

Non-Vintage Casa Larga Vineyards Meritage Red (40% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Cabernet Franc): $20. www.casalarga.com

2005 Fox Run Meritage Red (57% Merlot, 38% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Cabernet Franc): $45. www.foxrunvineyards.com

From Colorado: 2004 Grande Vineyards Meritage Red (42% Cabernet Franc, 33% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot): $19. and 2004 Meritage White (67% Sauvignon Blanc, 33% Semillon): $12. - GOOD VALUE. www.granderiverwines.com

From Virginia: 2005 Rappahannock Cellars Meritage Red (32% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Cabernet Franc, 23% Merlot, 10% Malbec and 8% Petit Verdot): $28. www.rappahannockcellars.com

From Michigan: 2005 St. Julian Bragannini Michigan Reserve Meritage Red (42% Merlot, 39% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Cabernet Franc):$30. www.stjulian.com

From California:
2005 Casa Nuestra Estate Bottled Meritage Red, Napa Valley (55% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Cabernet Franc): $45. www.casanuestra.com

2004 Dry Creek Vineyards “The Mariner” Meritage Red, Dry Creek Valley (46% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 6% Malbec, 5% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot): $100. www.drycreekvineyards.com

2004 Franciscan “Magnificat” Meritage Red, Napa Valley (70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 29% Merlot, 1% Petit Verdot): $45. www.franciscan.com

2005 Frog’s Tooth Meritage Red, Calaveras County (mostly Cabernet Sauvignon, blended with Merlot, Malbec, and Petit Verdot): $30. www.frogstooth.com
2003 Heller Estate “Celebration” Meritage Red, Carmel Valley (62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc, 1% Malbec): $100. and 2003 “Dancers” Meritage Red, Carmel Valley (76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot): $18 - *GOOD VALUE www.hellerestate.com

2004 Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Meritage Red, California (65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, 1% Cabernet Franc) : $15 - *BEST VALUE. www.kj.com

2004 Murrieta’s Well Meritage Red, Livermore Valley (51% Cabernet Sauvignon, 21% Merlot, 18% Petit Verdot, 10% Cabernet Franc): $23. – *GOOD VALUE, and 2005 Meritage White, Livermore Valley (60% Semillon, 40% Sauvignon Blanc): $36. www.murrietaswell.com

2004 South Coast Winery Meritage Red, Wild Horse Peak Mountain Vineyards (50% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc, 5% Petit Verdot): $35. www.southcoastwinery.com

2003 St. Supéry “Élu” Meritage Red, Napa Valley (79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot, 4% Petit Verdot, 2% Cabernet Franc, 1% Malbec): $65. and 2006 “Virtú” Meritage White (52% Sauvignon Blanc, 48% Semillon): $25. www.stsupery.com

2003 Topel “Le Mariage” Meritage Red, Mendocino (60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Cabernet Franc, 12% Petit Verdot, 12% Merlot): $29. www.topelwines.com

2005 Trinchero ”Mario’s Reserve” Meritage Red, Napa Valley (77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot, 9% Petit Verdot): $45. www.trincherowinery.com

Slow Food: The Politics of Pleasure

2008-03-31T23:03:00.027-04:00

One of the most compelling and conflicting ironies of the early 21st century is the difference between the way that we – the citizens of the postmodern/post dot.com world – eat, and the way that we perceive food. At a time when so much food is produced in the most high-tech, industrial, centralized, multinational - and inefficient - way, many of us want our food to be wholesome, fresh, local, seasonal, organic and sustainable. We perceive our food to be the product of family farms, when actually the family farm is the most threatened and most diminished form of food production in the world. Food is the talisman of large-scale agribusiness, and our daily diet is increasingly dependent on fossil fuels, modern transport, controversial science, and socially unacceptable labor practices.

We also want our food to be cheap, available any time and in any season at the 24 hour supermarket. We want this commodity to be non-perishable, easy to prepare, and not take away valuable time that could be spent working, taking the kids to soccer or to ballet class, shopping, watching television (and shopping), answering e-mail, surfing the web (and shopping), or doing homework. No problem. Eat a burger and fries or a tired salad at your desk while you work; take the kids to Mickey D’s for dinner – they can eat in the car on the way to wherever or from wherever it is that everybody had to be. The game. The recital. The shrink. Or, nuke some stuff in the microwave, sit down in front of the TV and/or the computer, and consume high-speed culture as you consume fast food nutrients.

And Carlo Petrini says “BASTA!”

Petrini is a food-loving, farm-loving 53 year old Piemontese, and the leader of Slow Food, a movement whose origins are Italian, but whose message is becoming universal. The seeds of Slow Food were sewn in 1986, when McDonald’s placed its golden arches at the foot of Rome’s Piazza di Spagna (the Spanish Steps). Petrini, a food and wine journalist with a flair for the dramatic, saw this invasion of fast food culture as a threat to the patrimony of his beloved native foods and food traditions, and began to write polemics that struck a resonant chord with many Italians. Petrini began to organize conferences centered around the history and culture of food, treating traditional farms, foods, and the osteria and trattoria of Italy as an endangered species. (Osteria: small, informal, and convivial eating and drinking places serving true traditional dishes, sometimes in the homes or attached to the homes of the farmers who owned them. Trattoria: also traditional food, but often with a native-born chef in the kitchen; more of a local restaurant and bar).

The genius of Carlo Petrini was to minimize the political and intellectual rhetoric at these conferences, and to maximize the food and the wine. Able to strip away at the large and small political differences that separated so many people, Petrini realized that if he focused on issues of pleasure, taste and regional authenticity, and how these dual imperatives were threatened, he could bring people together. This a particularly neat trick in Italy, which at last count had at least twenty-five political parties, each of them made up of people who rarely agree with each other about anything. Of course, there is another fact about Italy that worked in Petrini’s favor: it would be hard to imagine another country that, political arguments aside, could embrace the issues of pleasure, taste, and the importance of its native victuals with such ease and such enthusiasm.

Stories about the extraordinary meals, coupled with tastings of artisan-produced wines, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, and salted and smoked meats at these early meetings of mostly left-leaning Italian foodies spread. Journalists, politicians, artists, scholars, winemakers, farmhouse cheesemakers and artisan prosciutto producers, among many others stepped forward to join this nascent movement and to enjoy some great meals in the presence of fellow food-obsessed Italians.

From 1986 to 1989, Petrini, with the help of many friends and colleagues, worked to expand the messianic message of food and culture throughout Italy. Little by little, like-minded folks would show up from neighboring European countries to enjoy the food, wine, and company of these intelligent, indulgent Italians, who after a night of exquisite eating and drinking could deconstruct and argue about what they just ate and drank, and how it differed from what their grandparents ate and drank, and how that differed from what Apicius ate and drank, and finally agree at five o’clock the next morning that without food there is no true love, and without love there is no true food. Steeling himself against the morning chill with at least one more “last” grappa (perhaps made by artisan Romano Levi, who also creates an original naïve poem and child-like drawing for each label of his pomace brandy made from the skins, pips, and stems of the Nebbiolo grape), Carlo Petrini begins to think beyond the borders of Italy.

*************

In the middle of the forest, a tortoise and a snail have a gruesome head-on collision. The snail is rushed to the emergency room, where a doctor asks what happened. On the edge of consciousness, the snail responds. “I don’t know, doctor. It all happened so fast.”
- Unattributed old joke

The snail is the logo of Slow Food. Carlo Petrini calls the snail “an amulet against exasperation, against the malpractice of those who are too impatient to feel and taste, too greedy to remember what they have just devoured.” In 1989, with the snail as a logo and symbol, as a mindset and attitude, and a new name that reflected that snail’s perspective, Slow Food, now a strong movement in Italy, reached out to the world.

In the summer of 1989 I received a fax with a simple but elegant drawing of a snail and an invitation to lunch outdoors at Barolo, a ristorante on West Broadway in SoHo. The fax was from Doreen Schmid, a friend who represented the Chianti Classico consorzio in the United States. Doreen was inviting me to a lunch to celebrate the launch of Slow Food USA. I called Doreen to find out more about Slow Food. Surprisingly, Doreen, who is normally very straightforward, started talking about this guy Petrini and how this was all good stuff and I should come to lunch and find out more. She was all over the maps of Europe and the United States by the time she was done, and I was now more confused than before I called. But I was curious and decided to go to lunch.

When I got to Barolo, Doreen introduced me to Flavio Accornero, whose family produced Barolo (the wine) in the Piedmont. At the time Flavio did not speak much English and I spoke less Italian. What I got from Doreen was that Flavio had come from Italy to set up an office for Slow Food at the behest of Carlo Petrini, who was the president of Slow Food. She gave me some literature about Slow Food – all in Italian. While I was trying to figure out what was going on and why I was invited to this lunch, I noticed dozens of attractive, beautifully dressed Italians, young and old, at the Barolo (the restaurant) bar, sipping negronis, and I joined them. They were a happy group, and seemed totally at ease with the idea of Slow Food, though nobody could explain to me why we were there. I was definitely the fast-moving tortoise in the room.

A few more Negronis and my snail persona began to emerge, just in time for lunch. We walked out into the sunshine for a lovely lunch in the restaurant’s garden. Between bites of fabulous food and sips of wonderful wines, I talked to many people. I listened intently to the Italian conversation buzzing around me, which was peppered every few seconds with the English words, “Slow Food.” The more I enjoyed the food, the wine, the company, the sunshine, and the more I heard those two recognizable words, the more I realized I knew exactly what Slow Food was about. Soon, I started explaining the concept to those around me. I think some of them even believed I knew what I was talking about; most of them could care less.

After lunch, Flavio and Doreen asked me and a few other Americans to linger at the bar, where I had a moscato grappa made by Nonino With the Beautiful Daughters (literally how the family is known throughout the Piedmont region of Italy. Once, in Alba, I asked a man for directions to the home of the Nonino family, and was quizzed as to which Nonino family. The man, who was trying to be helpful, narrowed it down to four Noninos when I mentioned grappa. I had met two of the Nonino sisters, and shared this with the man, who asked about them. “Bella?” he queried. “Bellissima!” I answered. Now, he became annoyed with me. “Why didn’t you ask for ‘Nonino With the Beautiful Daughters’ in the first place?”).

Flavio and Doreen asked me if I could come to Venice in October of that year for the first international meeting of Slow Food; I would be part of the American delegation. Basically, my duties would be to eat and drink and drink and eat, while meeting and talking with people who cared deeply about great food and its cultural preservation. I thought, “Yes. I can do this.” I humbly accepted the invitation.

Venice was a disorganized madhouse of people from many countries with a lot to say, all of it in their native languages. I was with the small US delegation of about eight people. Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Greece, and Spain had large delegations. Small delegations from South America, Australia, New Zealand attended, while Great Britain (still not very active, even today) and France (now very active, focused on the dual issues of genetically modified food and the spread of fast food culture in both French gastronomy and language) were nowhere to be seen. And then there were the Italians, about a thousand of them, whose ranks swelled at all meals. In my memory, the conference was a confusing blur, but the nightly banquets were amazing. Foods and wines I had never tasted, some of which I had never even heard of, all of them delicious, and all of them shared with the some of the most passionate foodistas in the world made them taste even better.

One historic event did occur in Venice. The Constitution of the International Slow Food Movement was adopted, signed by more than 20 delegations from around the world. I remember, as our last banquet came to a close, raising a glass of extraordinarily powerful 1977 Amarone (made by Sandro Boscaini), in a toast to Slow Food, and then signing the document with a flourish. I still have the pen, a black UniBall, which I keep in a tiny wooden box next to the Boscaini Amarone in my wine cellar.

Since 1989 the world of “food activism” has become a smaller place, as citizens of many countries, led by European nations, have banded together to oppose genetic modification and manipulation of food and the creation of “Frankenfoods,” the spread of fast food culture at the expense of traditional food culture, the destruction of family farming, and what is perceived as the dictatorial hierarchy of globalization – the economic subjugation of poorer nations by richer nations and corporations – as witnessed by mass protests against the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle from November 29 - December 3, 1999, in which more than 1,300 people were arrested, but not one person was found guilty of committing an illegal act. Many members of Slow Food have been active, visible and articulate movers and shakers within these protest movements.

At the same time as earth’s citizens are taking political action against forces they consider to be unhealthy and undemocratic, there is another wave of food activists that are engaged in what might be perceived as a more direct and more practical means of spreading the Word. Organic farmers, artisan food and wine producers, chefs, ranchers, writers, politicians, educators, home gardeners, and people who just want their food to be as pure, local, seasonal, healthful, and not least of all, tasty as possible have banded together in both formal organizations and at informal dinners to try to establish a new paradigm for growing food and eating.

In Europe, organic farms are growing at the rate of better than 40% per year, and in the United States (which had a substantial head start on farmers in the European Union), organic farms are growing at the rate of 12% per year. In October 2002, the United States began to implement a set of national organic standards, with accompanying legal labels. The standards, while not perfect, are a far cry from what the powerful agribusiness lobbyists tried to force-feed the American public (“organic” would include food grown in industrial sludge treated with petroleum-based insecticides, all irrigated by tertiary water polluted by that same sludge and those chemicals). In what may be the best example of “electronic democracy” to date, more than a million Americans e-mailed the USDA, members of Congress, and (then) President Clinton urging them to adopt the stringent organic standards recommended by the USDA’s own review panel.

Slow Food, which was cited in the Dec 9, 2001 issue of the New York Times as one of the 100 great ideas of 2001, and the “gastronomic version of Greenpeace,” embraces political action when necessary, but is far more effective in promoting and celebrating the bounty of organic and “heirloom” foods and the pleasures of the table.

Slow Food publishes books, two quarterly journals in English, Slow (exploring the philosophical, historical, and cultural underpinnings of the movement) and The Ark (exploring foods endangered by environmental, commercial, or legal crises; Ark products of the United States include: Red Abalone, Sun Crest Peaches, White Oak Cider, Blenheim Apricots, Creole Cream Cheese, Dry Monterey Jack Cheese, Green Mountain Potatoes, Heritage Turkeys, New Mexican Native Chiles, Delaware Bay Oysters, Iroquois White Corn, and Heritage Clone Zinfandel grapes), hold educational seminars and tastings, and local chapters (each officially called a “convivium”, the newest of the more than 70 convivia is here in the Hudson Valley) throw glorious dinner parties for members and potential members.

Since 1996, on a biannual basis, Slow Food holds the remarkable Salone del Gusto in a former Fiat plant in Turin, Italy. This event showcases artisan food products from more than 500 producers, an enoteca with more than 2,200 wines (including about 2,000 Italian wines) available to taste and discuss, and workshops in taste, including tasting “endangered” food products and traditional dishes, which by lack of interest and/or skill, or by current and proposed legislation – especially by the European Union – makes these exquisite foodstuffs and dishes either technologically irrelevant or actually illegal to produce.

I attended the inaugural Salone del Gusto in 1998, and was blown away by the food and wine, the generosity and soul of the artisan producers, and perhaps most of all by the more than 130,000 people who came to the Salone over the three days it was open to the public.

****************

If you question French people coming out of one (McDonald’s), they’re embarrassed. It’s like they’ve just been to a sex shop. They say, ‘I just went to see what it was like and I won’t be going back’.”
-José Bové, Sheep Farmer and Food Activist, 2000
(Quoted while spending 40 days in jail for demolishing a McDonald’s under construction in his hometown of Millau; Bové refused to post bail and refused to pay a fine. During the WTO Protest in Seattle, Bové smuggled in a huge piece of Roquefort cheese made from the milk of his sheep to protest the United States policies of placing a 100% tariff on Roquefort and for declaring all unpasteurized raw milk cheeses illegal and potentially dangerous for human consumption).

José Bové, considered by many in France to be a national hero, is a food activist hybrid, created by crossing a smart farmer with some hot-button political issues. In France, independent family farmers are unionized, and have a strong political power base. That is not the case in most other countries, where farmers deal with issues of basic economic survival, and are usually quite independent by nature. Who speaks for the farmer who wants to feed people and at the same time uphold the farming traditions of his land and of her region? And who will buy the food, eat the food, enjoy the food?

Farmers’ markets, held daily or on weekends across the United States are a good economic outlet for the farmer and a good education for the eater. Slow Food president Carlo Petrini has observed that thanks to pioneers like Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, who has promoted the idea of farmers’ markets for more than 20 years, the United States is the leader in organizing and promoting farmers’ markets, and that the rest of the world must follow our lead, and play a quick game of catch-up if family farms are to survive and thrive.

The Hudson Valley is blessed with many fine farmers’ markets, and each year the number of local markets seem to grow exponentially. Since I live in Woodstock, during the market season (which has just ended) I would spend about a half-hour every Saturday at the Kingston Farmers’ Market and then take the long way home to visit and buy at the new Saugerties farmers’ market. We have a short season for these markets in the Valley, and as winter gets colder and colder, I miss them more and more.

It is not surprising that the United States has embraced the concept of farmers’ markets as a means to help farmers and to help teach consumers about the quality, sustainability – and affordability - of their local and regional foods. These markets are practical, replicable, open to the public, and an entrepreneurial community service. Unlike Europe, especially France and Italy, there is a distinct disconnect between our daily lives and politics, which we (perhaps foolishly) leave to a select group of largely incumbent professional politicians, hoping that our problems are their problems, our issues their issues. The approach of the farmer’s market is a highly American approach; a practical, if imperfect, commercial venture that serves the financial needs of the farmer and provides a convenience for the consumer. We can’t go to the farm, so the farm is brought to us.

The farmer’s market is reflective of a larger and more complex set of social, economic, and political issues that don’t have any easy solutions. But Americans don’t connect the dots like Europeans do. We are thrilled to buy our organic heirloom Green Zebra tomatoes, Russian Banana Fingerling potatoes, and our just-picked arugula from the farmer who grew them, and we tell our friends about the market, and they come, and it all feels good. Meanwhile, the average age of the American farmer is 57 years old and less than 10% of farmer’s children want to be farmers. Connect the dots.

*************
Just as it takes Americans to lead the way in farmers’ markets, it turns out it takes an American food writer to successfully explain the complex theoretical tenets and day-to-day activities of the international Slow Food movement. Corby Kummer, a food journalist and a senior editor of The Atlantic Monthly, has written an excellent book, The Pleasures of Slow Food: Celebrating Authentic Traditions, Flavors, and Recipes. Much of this recently-published book is re-edited material that Kummer wrote as articles for the Atlantic and Gourmet over the last three years. Yet, when placed in the context of a book, a unified text, Kummer’s words are as fresh and vibrant as the food and people that he describes. The author observes what is unique about Slow Food and the people who define the movement, and then writes brilliantly and with respect for the subjects of his articles-turned-essays, and respect for the reader, as well. We really learn a lot by reading Corby Kummer, a writer so generous that he appears to be perhaps one step ahead of us on the learning curve, but is happy to bring us up to speed. Ironically, although you may want to savor this book in small portions, Corby Kummer’s Slow Food is a Quick Read.

The author has brought Slow Food to America in a way that no one else has. He focuses on the history of the movement and its progress to the present day without the pretense of rigorous historical analysis, but with an eye to celebrating the glories of the past, present, and future. He is particularly adept at explaining complex ideas in a way that are, on their surface, easy to understand, but also make you think and make the vital connections from one program of Slow Food to the next. When you read Corby Kummer on Slow Food, you can’t help but connect the dots.

Corby Kummer’s love of good, simple food and the people who produce and cook the food, leaps off the pages of this book, and is only amplified by the beautiful photographs by Susie Cushner. The recipes, by family cooks and esteemed chefs, are not full of manipulation and theater. Plate presentations are elegant in their simplicity, ethereal in their hearty earthiness.

Corby Kummer is as thin as I am fat. He dresses traditionally and impeccably, and with his close-cropped beard, large round eyeglasses, and a heavy dose of witty erudition, he reminds me of a modern-day Lytton Strachey, the wittiest member of the Bloomsbury group. And yes, Corby Kummer does love to eat, if “love” is the right word. When Kummer sits down to eat, a longshoreman poltergeist seems to inhabit him. I remember that I found it amusing that after a party of a dozen journalists had, after more than four hours, polished off 24 extraordinary “small tasting” courses prepared by Thomas Keller at the French Laundry in the Napa Valley, Corby Kummer, the skinniest guy in the dining room, wondered what was next. He was serious.

But I will never forget sitting opposite Kummer at a press luncheon at Joe’s Stone Crab in Miami, a restaurant that serves 600,000 pounds of stone crab claws each year. We were served our deliciously succulent cold crab claws family style, which meant that Kummer and I shared the same serving bowl. After a few minutes at the table, I began to identify with the crab on my plate. I believed that if Corby Kummer and I reached for the same stone crab claw at the same time, I would lose a claw…uhh..finger. I ate four or five crab claws and retired. Corby Kummer seemed not to notice, and continued to eat happily right up until the time we had to leave Joe’s.

Stone crabs is only one of the subjects that Corby Kummer writes about in The Pleasures of Slow Food, and he does so brilliantly by writing about fisherman Michael O’Leary of Longboat Key, Florida. In the course of the essay, Kummer gives us a window into O’Leary’s life on the water, as well as how stone crabs are harvested (only the claws, which the crab regenerates are kept, and each crab is thrown back in the ocean), and how they are protected by law and by custom. The essay concludes with a stop at Moore’s Stone Crab Restaurant in Longboat Key, O’Leary’s exclusive customer, a restaurant that serves 200,000 pounds of stone crab claws. And while we know Corby Kummer is scarfing down those crab claws at Moore’s, his writing remains graceful:

"O’Leary brings his catch to an unchanged piece of Americana – the sort of place any Slow Food member goes out of the way to visit: Moore’s Stone Crab Restaurant…
In an age of fast food, Moore’s is one of those family-run shorefront restaurants that hardly exist anymore, a place where everyone lines up at the screen door on the wide wooden verandah and walks down to the water while waiting for their name to be called…
Paper menu placemats show Moore’s endearingly clumsy logo of a bright red stone crab. The specialty, of course, is boiled and chilled claws, served on oval plates with tartar sauce and a wedge of iceberg lettuce. Some things are better left perfectly plain. Stone crab claws – thick, cool, popping with seawater, requiring just enough cracking and picking to be a challenge amply rewarded – meet the test of perfect simplicity."

In addition to O’Leary, Corby Kummer creates memorable portraits of artisan cheese makers in Italy and Vermont, butchers and sausage makers in Germany and Pennsylvania, sea salt harvesters in Portugal, an ice wine producer in Canada and an heirloom wine grape grower in France, an heirloom apple farmer who produces hard cider in New Hampshire, an antique potato farmer in Maine, and a fruit and botanical grower in the Australian rain forest.

Recipes, as might be expected, are creative but grounded in the ingredients of each dish. It is wonderful to see so many American and American-based chefs represented, and to see the farm-restaurant connection celebrated. With the cold weather upon us, try Elena Rovera’s Chicken Cacciatore with Baked Potatoes – hearty, delicious comfort food. (Note: do not use the Roero Arneis wine the recipe recommends. It is a white wine; the recipe calls for a red. Any inexpensive but drinkable medium-bodied dry red wine will work for this dish.)

Daniel Boulud is known for his extraordinary food at Restaurant Daniel in Manhattan. He is a master of refined technique and plate presentation. Here, however, Boulud seizes the opportunity presented by the doctrine of Slow Food to cook from the heart, and gives us a dish from his childhood; his grandmother’s Barboton d’Agneau, a slow-cooked lamb stew, utilizing lamb shoulder, an economical cut of meat that would never be featured in his restaurant (he would substitute lamb chops). It is a perfect winter dish.

Recipes from Rick Bayless (Frontera Grill in Chicago), Judy Rodgers (Zuni Café in San Francisco), Deborah Madison (Santa Fe), Paul Bertolli (Oliveto, Oakland), and Alice Waters all sound quite appetizing, and cooking from The Pleasures of Slow Food should be, well, a pleasure.

STEVEN KOLPAN is Professor of Wine Studies and Gastronomy at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. He is the author of A Sense of Place: An Intimate Portrait of the Niebaum-Coppola Winery and the Napa Valley, which was awarded the Best Wine Book of 1999 by the Versailles (France) Book Awards. Steven is the co-author of Exploring Wine, a definitive wine text now in its second edition, which was nominated for Best Wine &Spirits Book by the James Beard Foundation Awards.In 2007, Steven Kolpan was named Wine Educator of the Year by the European Wine Council. He has been a member of Slow Food International for 20 years.

In Vino, Vegetas: Wine and Veggies

2008-03-31T22:59:00.012-04:00

When it comes to food and wine pairing, we can all be thankful that the old days of “white wine with fish, red wine with meat” are over. Just as important, the assumption that we are always going to eat fish or meat is a non-starter. These days, many of us prefer to eat vegetable-based dishes depending on our mood and /or regimen, and quite a few of us have chosen the path of living as vegetarians or vegans.

How does wine fit with our vegetarian or vegan food choices? Very nicely. The same basic principles and guidelines for pairing wine with food that hold true for meat and fish also hold true for pairing a wonderful wine with a wonderful vegetarian or vegan meal.

But before we talk about pairing Syrah with seitan or Albariño with avocados, let’s discuss the nature of wine itself. Not all wines are – in the strictest sense of the words – vegan or vegetarian. This may come as a surprise to many readers, as we think of wine as fermented grape juice and can’t imagine any animal products being used in its production.

The fact is that while an increasing number of wines are technically vegan, a substantial number of wines still use animal-based products in the “fining” of the wine; clarifying the wine by removing proteins, yeasts, and solid materials that will make the wine cloudy and visually unappealing, or create off-flavors or aromas in the wine. Fining agents act as magnets for unwanted materials, and carry the glop to the bottom of a barrel or a tank. When the wine is “racked” – poured into another holding container – the wine is separated from the solids. Racking is just like decanting, except on a humungous scale.

Fining agents typically used in wineries include egg whites, egg albumin, or casein (milk proteins). So far, this is good news for lacto-ovo vegetarians, but not for strict vegans. However, common fining agents also include gelatin (produced from animal bones), isinglass (made from fish bladders), and chitin (lobster and crab shells). Illegal in both France and the United States, some wine producers will even use bull’s blood to fine their wines.

Fortunately, there are alternatives to animal-based fining agents. The most popular are bentonite clay, diatomaceous earth, and carbon. With all fining agents, only near-undectable traces of the material remain in the finished wine.

Personally, I believe how a wine is fined should not be a major issue for vegans and vegetarians, because of the efficiency of the process. However, I respect the fact that many readers may disagree with me based on dietary, philosophical, or religious grounds. For those who want to make sure that the wine they drink has not been fined with animal and/or dairy-based products, I direct you to the more than two million websites that pop up when you Google “vegan wines.” The first dozen or so sites will provide a substantial, if incomplete, list of vegan wines from all over the world to choose from and to make reasonably informed choices. If you question the fining agents used in some of your favorite wines, do not hesitate to ask your local wine merchant or contact the producers of those wines via the e-mail addresses found on their web sites.

Note: A wine that is labeled as “organic,” or made from organic or biodynamic grapes is not necessarily vegan, and wines made from grapes grown employing less sustainable methods may very well meet the vegan standard.

Enough bad news. The good news is that pairing wines with vegan and vegetarian foods is not only easy, it is also a way to stretch your creative muscles. Honestly, choosing wines for veggie-based dishes can result in some of the most exquisite pairings if we understand a few basic principles.

1. Powerful flavors in food call for powerful wines.
2. Lighter food flavors require lighter wines.
3. Spicy, salty, or smoky flavors in food welcome lighter, fruity reds, and off-dry to semi-sweet whites.
4. You can pair food with wine by creating complementary pairings – the food tastes like the wine (pasta with fresh herbs, olive oil, and olives paired with fresh, herbaceous Sauvignon Blanc) – or by contrasting pairings – the food and the wine have opposite flavors and textures (earthy mushroom risotto with fruit-driven Pinot Noir).

When it comes to vegetarian and vegan food and wine pairing a few other party tricks come into play, and this is where you can really get creative. If you’re a lacto-ovo vegetarian (“LOV”), then remember that whole milk or cream, eggs, and cheeses can create real richness in a dish that might traditionally be meat-based (lasagna, for example). If you’re a vegan (“V”), olive oil, seitan, tofu, and especially nuts can add a great deal of “meaty” richness to a dish. Also, whether V or LOV, vegetable-based sauces, reductions, purées, and coulis add layers of flavor and will welcome a heartier wine. Fruit-based sauces and purées can add a subtle sweetness and acidity to a dish, and will welcome a contrasting dose of spices, herbs, or salt.

One of the keys to enjoying a great wine and food match for both LOVs and Vs is to consider the cooking method you apply to a dish. A meal featuring steamed vegetables and brown rice will call for a much lighter wine than one featuring the same vegetables – but grilled and served with an enticing, peppery pasta. Steaming or poaching creates far less flavor intensity in a dish than grilling broiling, roasting or braising. Sauté and pan-frying is right in the middle of the intensity scale.

As you read this, you might think “this wine geek with his rules!” But let me quickly plead my case. First, these are not rules, but guidelines. And I’m really only articulating some common sense practices that just about everyone who loves to cook, loves to eat, and loves to drink wine with food, observe on a daily basis, be they LOV, V, or omnivores (O).

Let’s get specific. Here are some basic veggie-based foods and wines that will almost always work together. These are only some suggestions. Experiment on your own and have fun preparing, serving, and eating a wonderful vegetarian or vegan repast, complete with a glorious wine:

Avocados are rich and sexy, and work beautifully with voluptuously herbaceous, grassy, and fruity whites, such as New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay from the Hudson Valley, Italy, or Chile, Albariño from Spain, or Moschofilero from Greece.

Beans, Lentils, Pulses: Meaty, high-intensity flavors call for medium-to-full-bodied reds with a dose of tannin and a load of fruit: Syrah (Shiraz), Merlot, Chianti Classico, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, or Côte du Rhône. Also, dry whites from Alsace, France (they behave like red wines in drag).

Corn: With or without butter, corn is deceptively rich, and was made for oaky Chardonnay.

Couscous with Herbs and Veggies: Dry rosé, sparkling Brut Rosé, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, unoaked Chardonnay (such as true Chablis), semi-dry Gewürztraminer or Riesling.

Gazpacho: Vinho Verde from Portugal, Sauvignon Blanc, Rueda from Spain. Also, a light, dry rosé from Provence.

Grilled Vegetables: My favorite. Try a fruity light-to-medium-bodied red, such as Beaujolais-Villages, Rioja Crianza, Dolcetto, or Pinot Noir, an Australian “GSM” (Grenache/Shiraz/Mourvèdre) blend . For whites: Viognier, Fumé Blanc, Gewürztraminer, or Argentine Torrontes.

Hummus / Baba Ganoush / Tabouleh / Falafel: Lemon and/or spice in these dishes calls for Dry to Semi-Dry Finger Lakes Riesling, South African Chenin Blanc, California Sauvignon Blanc, and (believe it or not) White Zinfandel.

Lasagna, Pasticcio, Pastas with Tomato-Based Sauces, Vegetables and Cheese (or Tofu): Where to start? So many medium-bodied, subtly fruity reds to choose from: Nemea from Greece, Chianti Classico from Tuscany, Barbera from Piemonte, Mencia from Bierzo, Spain, Pinot Noir from Oregon or New York State, Zinfandel, Merlot from Washington State, Carmenère from Chile… where to stop?

Mushrooms: Just two words (and one wine) to remember: Pinot Noir. The earty ‘shrooms and the fruit of the Pinot make for The Divine Contrast.

Olives: All from Spain: Fino or Manzanilla Sherry, dry rosé from Navarra or Rioja, bubbly Cava. No better,and no simpler finger food/tapas than good olives and good wine.

Onions: Try an Alsace or Oregon Pinot Gris with a savory onion tart, and a Beaujolais or Côte du Rhône with a traditional onion soup.

Pasta or Risotto with a Melange of Grilled or Sauté Vegetables, or Ratatouille: Dress with a good Extra Virgin Olive Oil and a touch of Balsamic Vinegar, and serve with full-bodied whites, such as California Chardonnay, Viognier, Côte du Rhône Blanc, an Australian Semillon, or Washington State Semillon/Chardonnay blend. Reds: Chianti Classico or Rosso di Montalcino from Tuscany, Dão from Portugal, Ribera del Duero from Spain, Pinot Noir, Merlot or Zinfandel from California , or Cabernet Franc from the Hudson Valley or Long Island, an inexpensive, simple, young red Bordeaux. And many more….

Pairing wine with vegetarian/vegan dishes is a healthy practice, and the results can be unexpectedly wonderful and totally tasty. As with all good food, the quality of ingredients – their freshness and seasonality – is paramount. Pairing a great wine with an out of season tomato salad is going to taste as bad as it sounds. But try that salad with a local garden-fresh tomato, local basil and cippolini onions, olive oil, balsamico, and salt and pepper with fresh-baked bread and a glass of Millbrook Tocai Friulano white, and I guarantee happiness at the table.
Plato is said to have uttered the profound and timeless phrase, “In Vino, Veritas” (“In Wine, Truth”). I certainly agree with this ancient Greek wine geek, but let me humbly amend his famous statement with one of my own: In Vino, Vegetas.

To B or Not to BYOB?

2008-03-31T22:51:00.011-04:00

The Hudson Valley abounds with fine restaurants, many that feature great wine lists. These days we take this as a given in the Valley, but if we were living in Philadelphia or Montreal, the Bay Area, or many other cities and towns across the United States, we might get in the habit of dining at BYOB (Bring Your Own Bottle) restaurants. These places don’t have wine and liquor licenses, and encourage patrons to supply their own wines; the restaurant provides the service.

In New York State, it is legal to bring your own wine into any restaurant that has a beer and wine license or full liquor license. It is not legal to do so at unlicensed venues, unless the restaurant has less than twenty seats. BYOB on licensed premises is at the discretion of the restaurant, and they may charge a fee for the service of the wines – and loss of income to the restaurant. This fee is known by the cheery name, “corkage.”

Corkage fees vary throughout the Hudson Valley, but most fall in the $10 to $25 per bottle range. Corkage policy also varies: some restaurants forbid BYOB altogether, while others try to discourage patrons from bringing in inexpensive wines by imposing a stiff tariff per bottle. A select few don’t make judgments on the customer’s wine choice, and charge a very reasonable corkage fee.

The French Corner in Stone Ridge has garnered much praise in both the New York Times and the Wine Spectator for the cooking of chef/owner Jacques Qualin and the restaurant’s wine list, presided over by Qualin’s wife and partner, Leslie Flam. Both the menu and the wine list reflect the gastronomy of Qualin’s native Franche-Comte region near the French/Swiss border, which means an unusual list of wines from the Jura and Arbois wine regions, many of which are priced around $30.

Corkage at The French Corner is a reasonable $15 per bottle. Leslie Flam speaks to her own true spirit of hospitality. “We believe if one of our patrons has a special bottle of wine that they would like to enjoy with Jacques' delicious food then they should do so. Good wine should be enjoyed with good food and not everybody has the time or the means to prepare a meal to match their wine at home.” Flam also mentions that BYOB customers, even though they are welcome, are rare at The French Corner.

And that rara avis description is pretty consistent throughout the Hudson Valley, based on my conversations with restaurant owners, chefs, and managers. Another consistent theme in those conversations is the strong feeling that BYOB customers should observe a kind of unspoken etiquette: bring in a special bottle, not just any bottle.

Kevin Katz is the chef/owner of The Red Onion restaurant in Saugerties, a restaurant with a good wine list. Katz recently decided to raise his corkage fee from $10 to $25 per bottle, and he can tell you why. “I’ll never forget walking through the dining room and seeing a party of four drinking a magnum of [yellow tail]. I didn’t want that to happen again.”

[yellow tail] is the famous, and famously inexpensive Australian import, and a magnum (a big 1.5 liter bottle) sells for about $12. Katz feels that making that bottle cost about $37 (when corkage is added) will dissuade customers from bringing in cheap bottles and steer them towards his wine list.

Of course, Katz supports the idea of customers bringing in a truly special bottle of wine to enjoy with his food, and has enjoyed the privilege of BYOB in other restaurants. “When my wife and I celebrated our 4th anniversary, I brought a bottle of the Champagne served at our wedding to the restaurant. That bottle had special meaning for us and I was happy to pay whatever the corkage fee was. ”

Corkage fees also seem to be fluid in the Hudson Valley. I heard the same refrain from many restaurateurs: the fee might be waived for regular customers, or for patrons who bring in truly special bottles that they would never find on the restaurant’s wine list.

Charles Fells is the chef/owner of The Artist’s Palate in Poughkeepsie. The restaurant maintains a list of about 50 mostly New World wines, with 20 affordable wines served by the glass. According to Fells, “We are pretty liberal with our corkage. Usually it is $15 per bottle but we sometimes waive the fee if we see that the customer has brought a very special wine that we would not be able to get, or an extremely old or rare wine.”

Many restaurant owners are understandably protective of their wine lists. After all, they have worked hard to offer wines that pair well with their food, and have invested a lot of money in the wine itself and a lot of time in training staff to provide professional wine service.

At Twist restaurant in Hyde Park, co-owner Ellen Henneberry takes her wines and her wine list very seriously. She has attended several formal wine education seminars and can always be found at trade tastings in the Valley and beyond, all in an effort to create a wine list that pairs perfectly with the menu created by chef/owner/husband Benjamin Mauk. Corkage at Twist is $25 per bottle.

Henneberry is of a mixed mind about BYOB and corkage. "If someone wants to bring in a special bottle, that's fine, and we welcome that customer. Overall, I want our customers to enjoy our wines with our food. If I can make someone happy by pairing a $23 bottle of wine with their meal, it makes my night. If I can pair a $150 bottle of wine with our menu, that makes my night too.”

But Henneberry also echoed the refrain of so many other restaurateurs I spoke to when it came to waiving corkage fees. The secret: let the restaurateur sneak a small taste of your special wine. “The other night a good customer brought in a ’69 Grand Cru Burgundy and I got to taste it. So generous! Corkage fee? What corkage fee?”

Sabroso is a Latin-themed restaurant in Rhinebeck, with a wine list that features the wines of South America, Spain, and the Basque region. Corkage is $10 per bottle. Co-owner Christopher Long believes the customer has the last word when it comes to wine. “We have a very accessible list but we encourage anyone wanting to bring along any particular bottle special to them, so the reasonable corkage. That being said our list complements our cuisine. Latin wine, Latin food.”

What about that idea of a restaurant creating the ideal customer experience by matching the culture or the country of the food with the wine list? Some restaurants have gone to great lengths to maintain cultural integrity, and Gigi Trattoria, also in Rhinebeck, is one of them. The vast wine list is all-Italian, except for one estate-bottled Hudson Valley white wine grown and produced by Millbrook Winery under the Gigi label, and even that wine is made from an Italian varietal, Tocai Friulano. Corkage at Gigi is $15 per bottle.

According to Gigi Trattoria manager, Arlin Smith, BYOB is a rare and special occurrence at the restaurant. “I feel that being able to bring your own wine to a restaurant is a privilege. Most of the people who bring wine to Gigi bring very special bottles that mean something to them. This usually means that they are looking for a place to enjoy that bottle and I think any restaurant would take that as a compliment. But I also feel that the corkage fee is necessary to deter people from bringing in just any wine from the shop around the corner. We put as much effort and care into our wine list as we do to the food, so our guests can enjoy their dining experience to the fullest.”

BYOB is not a wide-scale practice in the restaurants of the Hudson Valley. Clearly, restaurants welcome customers to enjoy food and drink, and some will allow you to bring in a bottle or two of wine to enjoy with their menu, and they will charge a fee for that service. Are they truly happy about BYOB? Probably not, but if you bring in a special wine – not a bottle of [yellow tail] or its equivalent - and are willing to pay the corkage fee, all should go smoothly. If the restaurant has a corkage policy, the customer should observe the letter and spirit of that policy. In return, the restaurant should provide the same level of professional wine service offered to customers who purchase wines from that restaurant.

I did find one place that comes close to encouraging BYOB and I found it in my own backyard, my own temple of toil. The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park charges a corkage fee of $10 per bottle in any of its four public restaurants, and according to Tom Peer, director of all CIA restaurants and Associate Dean for Table Service, guests can bring in any wine they like, from the most humble to the most elegant. Peer notes that “the more experience our students have with professional wine service, the better for their education. On a practical level, it doesn’t matter if it’s one of our wines, or one of the customer’s, the goal is the same. Great service and a great customer experience.”

Sauvignon Blanc: Think Green

2008-03-29T11:41:00.015-04:00

Like the rest of the white varietals in the wine universe, Sauvignon Blanc lives in the shadow of Chardonnay. But Sauvignon Blanc seems poised to make its move as the Next Big White, or at least to claim the respect it has earned as a strong supporting player on the world wine stage.

Think “Green.” Sauvignon Blanc at its best exhibits high acidity with flavors and aromas of green apples, green grapes, green herbs and a perhaps just a bit of green bell pepper. Lime, kiwi, green honeydew melon, and tropical fruits such as guava, papaya, and passion fruits make some Sauvignon Blanc-based wines, especially those from New Zealand and South Africa, smell and taste like a fruit salad in a glass, poured over calcium-rich stones.

Classic Old World Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley of France is far less obviously fruity and more grassy/herbaceous. These wines also exhibit a high degree of minerality – chalk, limestone, and the brininess of the sea and seashells.
There is a popular Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand called “Cat’s Pee on a Gooseberry Bush,” a joke of a label to be sure, but it’s a joke that Sauvignon Blanc-lovers will immediately “get.” Two classic aromas of Sauvignon Blanc are “cat pee” and “gooseberries,” but neophyte Sauvignon Blanc drinkers need not be scared; the aroma of cat pee does not carry through to the flavor of the wine (the gooseberries become part of the “fruit salad in a glass” referred to above). It may sound odd, but some of us who love Sauvignon Blanc are a little disappointed if we don’t get at least a whisper of cat pee in the “nose” of the wine.

In California, where Sauvignon Blanc is the second most important white varietal – Chardonnay, of course, is first - you may find Sauvignon Blanc labeled as “Fumé Blanc.” In the late 1960s, Robert Mondavi coined this name for a style of Sauvignon Blanc that is fermented and aged in oak barrels. The resulting wine is far richer – and far less “green” – than classic Sauvignon Blanc that is produced in stainless steel. Today, “Fumé Blanc” need not be oaked, but if the name appears on the label, it usually connotes that the wine is richer and fuller than a wine labeled “Sauvignon Blanc.” Fumé Blanc is often devoid of the aroma of cat pee, and the fruit tastes riper, the wine less acidic overall. Often, Fumé Blanc wines will undergo at least partial malolactic fermentation to tame the green (malic) acids in the wine. Some people prefer the more “sophisticated” Fumé Blanc style, while others much prefer the “wild” style of Sauvignon Blanc, and some wine drinkers enjoy both styles, depending on the food they are pairing with the wine.

In Bordeaux, France, Sauvignon Blanc is often blended with another grape, Semillon, to produce a distinctive style of white wine. These wines tend to be medium-to full-bodied and more restrained in their acidity and fruit flavors, as Semillon is more nutty and honeyed than the greener Sauvignon Blanc. The classic versions of these Bordeaux blends come from the districts of Graves, and within Graves, the more expressive and expensive Pessac-Leognan; some of these wines can be truly age-worthy. These days, white wines from Bordeaux labeled as Entre-Deux-Mers or simply “Bordeaux” tend to be more about the straightforward, crisp flavors of Sauvignon Blanc, and are meant for early drinking.

Sauvignon Blanc: A Survey

California produces some very good Sauvignon Blanc, with true-green aromas and flavors, and also produces the Fumé Blanc style. Sauvignon Blanc from the North Coast of California – Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake counties – is the antithesis of the Chardonnay produced in the same region. Rather than the rich, oaky, vanilla flavors of Chardonnay that can overwhelm simpler foods, the refreshing, straightforward fruity flavors of Sauvignon Blanc are just the thing for fish – from ceviche to a grilled tuna with a tomatillo salsa – or a fresh goat cheese, or tapas-style appetizers. California Sauvignon Blanc has emerged as a food-friendly wine, gaining more space on restaurant wine lists and more adherents among American consumers.

For years, and until quite recently, classic Sauvignon Blanc was defined by the wines of the Loire Valley of France – wines from the villages of Sancerre and Pouilly Fumé, followed by the less exalted and less expensive Quincy, Reuilly, and Menetou-Salon. This being France, the name of the grape –Sauvignon Blanc - has never appeared on the labels of these wines. In an increasingly varietal-conscious world, these wines have begun to lose their status as classic Sauvignon Blanc, and there are many wines and wine-producing nations ready to take their place, chief among them is New Zealand.

New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc has, especially for many younger wine drinkers, become the classic expression of this varietal. Full of tart lime and tropical aromas and flavors, with grace notes of minerals, grass, and herbs, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is pure pleasure, an uncomplicated and fun wine; not a wine to exercise expertise, but a wine to enjoy with a myriad of tasty dishes. A great accompaniment to ethnic foods, especially spicy Asian and Latin American flavors, this wine is like a squeeze of fresh lime juice, awakening and brightening flavors throughout the meal. Once you start to enjoy New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, it can quickly become a favorite.

The best examples of this popular white are sourced from grapes grown in the vineyards of the Marlborough region, located at the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island. The wines are affordable, with many priced under $10, and some of the best available for between $15 and $20. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is consumer-friendly in another way, too. Most of the wines you will find in the US market feature screw caps, not corks, as closures, making New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc a perfect wine for the dinner table or the picnic basket.

South Africa’s best white wine is its Sauvignon Blanc. When sourced from low-yielding vineyards in the cool Stellenbosch region, the wines can be incomparable. Though wines from South Africa can be uneven in quality – the reputation of the producer is paramount in choosing the wines – Sauvignon Blanc seems to be among the most successful varietals exported to the US market. With thirst-quenching acidity, a healthy dose of minerality, and green, tropical fruits in the mix, the wines are more fruit-driven than the wines of the Loire Valley, but a bit more restrained in their exuberance, and slightly fuller-bodied than the wines of New Zealand.

Australia produces a wide range of Sauvignon Blanc wines, from simple summer sippers to more complex wines with rich, jammy fruit balanced by a vein of mouthwatering acidity. With Australian Sauvignon Blanc you usually get what you pay for, and it is easy to find wines for under $10, but even the most expensive and best wines are under $20.

Chile produces some delightful Sauvignon Blanc, very much in the California style, but with a bit more tropical fruit on the palate, especially from grapes grown in the cool Casablanca region. Currently, these wines live in the shadow of Chile’s red wines – especially Cabernet Sauvignon – and so Sauvignon Blanc from Casablanca tends to be a bargain-priced gem.
Although perhaps a bit hard to find, Sauvignon Blanc from the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy is worth the search. Often just labeled as “Sauvignon,” these are some of the most elegant examples of Sauvignon Blanc produced anywhere in the world, with a grassy background and subtle fruit acids that refresh the palate. Sauvignon Blanc from Friuli can be moderately expensive, starting at about $15, with some as high as $25.

Sauvignon Blanc is the perfect antidote for a world awash in both mediocre and good but overpriced Chardonnay. It is easy to find delicious Sauvignon Blanc, and it is affordable. When you taste one you really like, Sauvignon Blanc becomes all but addictive, especially with spicy, lively foods. So, the next time you’re hankering for a white, think green.

Sushi and Wine: The Time Is Now

2008-03-28T22:25:00.010-04:00

I must be getting old, because it seems like not so long ago that sushi was reserved only for the most food-adventurous Americans. How many times did I sit at a sushi bar at dinner time or in a tatami room at 2 a.m. enjoying a feast of exotic, sensual, delicious and - so many of my friends thought – perverse and dangerous sashimi: slices of otoro (fatty tuna belly), hamachi (young yellowtail), kanpachi (very young yellowtail), uni (sea urchin roe), saba (mackerel), anakyu-maki (conger eel and cucumber rolled in nori seaweed), and maguro-temaki (hand-rolled cones of dried seaweed filled with tuna?

Some of my 20-something friends could not watch me – or anyone – actually eat raw fish. The hearty souls who stayed at the sushi bar or sat shoeless on bamboo mats, content to sample the miso-shiru (the cleansing clear soup made from fermented soy bean paste, with tofu, scallion, and mushroom condiments) and cleanly-fried shrimp and vegetable tempura, had to listen to me proselytize about the culinary and even the spiritual virtues of eating nigiri- sushi (raw fish on vinegared rice cubes) or sashimi (the fish, pristine and alone, bowl of rice on the side). I tried, mostly in vain, to get my friends to taste what I considered to be the greatest delicacy, the most lovely gift of the oceans. They liked the sweet/sour palate-cleansing gari (pickled ginger) as a culturally-devoided snack, but thought I was truly insane as I preached and pontificated about the purifying purge of wasabi (literally, “mountain hollyhock”) the green horseradish, which I preferred only when it reached its ultimate power: namida (tears).

Like so many new converts to a belief system – and I believed in sushi as the food of Nature, a Sacrament of the Seas, a new and welcome form of Pleasure, a sybaritic Seduction, a Way of Life – I observed and I copied. I knew how to order sushi, how to eat with chopsticks, and how to ask for hot sake and/ or Kirin and Sapporo beer to drink; sushi etiquette seemed easy to absorb. The idea that fine wine might be the ideal accompaniment to my new ideal, and newly- idealized, favorite dining experience never even occurred to me.

Fast-forward 25 (all right, 30) years. I still love sushi in all its forms, but would never think of ruining it with hot sake, warmed to mask its off-flavors. I love America’s new love affair with fine sakes, and am honored to drink chilled and elegant ginjoshu (premium), koshu (aged), or daiginjoshu (super premium, especially shizuku, or “trickle” sake) with sashimi (surprisingly, I find that the strong rice flavors in sushi overwhelm the much more delicate rice flavors in premium sakes; stick with sashimi). In a pinch, lager beers, such as Kirin or Sapporo Draft are inoffensive and refreshing backgrounders to sushi, and a wide variety of green teas (ocha) paired with sushi can make for exciting combinations (and its own article). But what about wine with sushi?

For all of us who love wine and love sushi, our time has come. Before we talk about what wine with what fish, and how to deal with the heat of wasabi, and the salt of soy, and the vinegar in the rice and in the ginger, we need to take a moment to look at the changing nature of sushi – and “sushi restaurants” - in the United States. Sounds pretty lofty, but it is actually an important and practical first step.

One thing that hasn’t changed about sushi is that it is not a meal that you make at home. Because of the delicate skills and years of experience it takes to create fine sushi, as well as the difficulty consumers will have in getting sushi-grade fish (even if we know how to judge what is and isn’t acceptable, which most of us don’t), we leave the sushi-making to the cadre of mostly Japanese sushi chefs working in sushi bars in major cities, suburbs, and towns throughout the United States.

The sushi bars of my youth are, thankfully, still around: small places with minimalist décor, the freshest fish, and sushi chefs who know what you want even before you sit down. These are great places to eat sushi, but ask for a wine list in almost any of these places, and you will be disappointed. The list will be short and uninviting, reinforcing the old ideas of sushi with beer, hot sake, or aged whiskey (à la Japanese corporate executives who keep their own stash of single-barrel Bourbon or Single Malt Scotch in small locked hutches behind the sushi bar).

Over the last ten to fifteen years the image of sushi, sushi bars, and sushi chefs in this country has gone through a dramatic transformation. In addition to tradition-bound sushi bars, we now have many chefs and restaurateurs, who make wine an important focus of their restaurant and an integral part of the dining experience. Some names that come to mind are Nobu Matsuhisa, with esteemed restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and other cities, Daisuke Utagawa, proprietor of Washington D.C.’s much-loved Sushi-Ko, and Yoshi Tome, the owner of Sushi Ran, a 50 seat sushi bar in Sausalito, California.

What Matsuhisa and Utagawa have done is elevate the image of sushi by offering the genuine article in its most pristine form, but also expanding the notion of what a sushi bar and restaurant can be, by offering their own creations; dishes based on sashimi and sushi, but raised to the level of elgant dining. A perfect example is Matsuhisa’s “Sashimi Salad,” a delectable combination of thin slices of the finest raw fish served on a bed of bitter greens, with a ponzu-infused sauce. This is a dish made for enjoying with wine, and as served at Nobu in Manhattan, with its celebrity clientele, beautiful décor, hard-to-get reservations, and wine director Daniel Johnnes (who also chooses all of the wines for sister restaurant Montrachet, the best Burgundy wine list in the United States).

Utagawa expounds on the “fifth taste,” umami, a non-specific sweet/salty taste found in shiitake mushrooms, and certain sushi fish, especially mackerel, tuna, and bonito. Umami, discovered in Japan in 1908, will also heighten our sensitivity to bitterness in wines, such as harsh tannins. Utagawa has decided, however, that soft and moderate tannins can enhance umami, and so Sushi-Ko has an all-Burgundy wine list; 25 whites (all Chardonnay) and 95 reds (all pinot noirs)!

At Sushi Ran, the menu is much more focused on traditional raw fish, but owner Tome, born in Okinawa, and his local Bay Area clientele just love to drink wine, and they don’t draw the line at sushi. Shiraz, Pinot Noir, and Merlot flow as freely as any white wines at Sushi Ran.

Finally, we know the idea of sushi and wine has come of age in the United States, when sushi is “adopted” by our own favorite restaurant cuisine: Italian. One of the really exciting restaurants in New York City is Esca, owned by Mario Butali and Joe Bastianich. Esca (“Bait”) serves wonderfully fresh “crudo,” slivers of many kinds of raw fish, denuded except for olive oil, salt and pepper. The wine list is largely white and based heavily in the wines of Friuli Venezia-Giulia. Not a hot sake in sight.

So what wines are memorable matches for sushi and sashimi?

The easiest and most elegant choice when thinking about wine and sushi is Brut sparkling wine, especially fine, light-to-medium-bodied fruit-driven méthode champenoise bubblies from California (favorites include Roederer Estate, Iron Horse, Domaine Chandon, and Schramsberg) Oregon (Argyle), New York’s Finger Lakes (Château Frank and Glenora), and New Mexico (Gruët). Also, we achieve a wonderful marriage of tastes when we pair Blanc de Blancs Cava from Spain and Brut Prosecco from Italy with snapping fresh fish.

Fine Champagne should by no means be relegated to second place, but makes for a more serious and cerebral match when paired with both the briniest and richest fishes. The mineral qualities of fine Champagne – the soils of the Champagne region are chalk – are highlighted by sushi, Champagne’s earthiness contrasting the brininess of raw shellfish, and its bubbles cleansing the palate of the fat of otoro and sake (salmon), and the oiliness of saba (mackerel). You can’t go wrong with sushi and fine sparklers: a meditation on the flavors of the earth and the flavors of the sea.

White wines with sushi seem like a given to anyone who likes white wine and fish. True, many whites will pair beautifully with raw fish but try to avoid oaky, buttery, full-bodied, high-alcohol whites (that felt good!). What we don’t want to taste with the wonderfully delicate flavors of sushi is toasted wood, nor a buttery nose and taste brought on by malolactic fermentation. High alcohol, especially as it interacts with shoyu (soy sauce) or murasaki (“purple;”a soy-based sauce prepared by the restaurant), is a problem. Salt amplifies alcohol and alcohol amplifies salt. So forget those oaky, creamy, alcoholic Chardonnays, and make a switch to Riesling “Kabinett,” especially dry (trocken) or semi-dry (halbtrocken) versions from the Mosel Saar Ruwer wine region of Germany.

Also, enjoy your sushi with stainless-steel fermented, fresh California Sauvignon Blanc from Napa, Sonoma or Mendocino (but stay away from its oaky twin, Fumé Blanc).

I recently tried some crackling fresh hamachi and unagi with a fruit-driven RH Phillips Viognier, made from grapes grown in the Dunnigan Hills region of California, and the combo was swingin.’ A lighter example of Viognier, this wine left a pleasing soft citrus tang after every bite of fish (also look for Rabbit Ridge, Callaway, and Bonterra versions of Viognier).

If you are having a sampling of some of the brinier and lighter-flavored fish and seafood, such as ama-ebi (raw shrimp), hotategai (scallop), tai (sea bream), or masu (trout), I can think of no other finer match than a white Vinho Verde from the Minho region of Portugal. This inexpensive gem, with fruity acidity and a bot of spritz, is a delightful match with very light fish and seafood, and because of its low alcohol, shoyu or murasaki sauces should enhance the overall taste experience.

A multicultural marriage made in heaven? The white wines of Alsace, France and the sushi and sashimi of Japan. Gewurztraminer, with its exotically spicy, litchi-driven nose and fruity, bone dry flavors is an even more amazing wine when paired with fattier cuts of sashimi. Riesling, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Blanc, all of them dry and all of them tropical/green fruit on the nose and in the finish, makes them the perfect match for not only the fish but the sushi rice too. Last but not least, the perfumed, sexy Muscat d’Alsace (look for Domaine Weinbach or Kreüzer) will carry you away in a blissful melange: a bite of hirami (flounder), a sip of Muscat, a bite of kajiki (swordfish), a sip of Muscat……

Other white wines worth a try: true Chablis or Petit Chablis, which is simply unoaked Chardonnay; stay with the simple AOC, not the more complex (and expensive) Premier Cru or Grand Cru versions; Galestro, a light, fruity but dry wine from Tuscany, which, by law, can be no more than 11% alcohol; and believe it or not, some of the less-sweet examples of White Zinfandel, such as Beringer or Bogle.

Look at the color of a dry, fruity rosé from Navarra, Spain, or from Tavel, in the Rhône Valley of France, or a Bardolino Chiaretto from Veneto, Italy. Now look at the color of sashimi cuts of sake (salmon),toro or chu-toro (choice or marbled tuna belly), maguro (tuna)….well, you get the picture, and it’s a beautiful shade of pink. Rosé, with its strawberry /kiwi fruit and dry finish, is the perfect accompaniment to soy-infused fatty fish.

Red wine with sushi? I say yes, with parallel caveats that I voiced for whites (no oak, lactic acid, high alcohol). Here the no-nos are even moderately heavy doses of tannin, high alcohol, and age. Forget the Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, the Big Bordeaux, the Brunello di Montalcino, the Rioja Gran Reserva, or any and all “heavy hitters.” More warnings: no to shellfish (too briny), and no to ikura, kazunoko, and uni (respectively salmon roe, herring roe, and sea urchin roe), as they are far too salty, and with any red wine will taste metal (the wine too!). Some good choices for red wine lovers who also love sushi and sashimi:

Beaujolais-Villages and some Cru Beaujolais (including Fleurie, Regníe, Chiroubles, Saint-Amour, and Julienas). Chill these soft reds to accentuate their acidity and “tighten” their fruit character. On the palate, these dry to off-dry wines will carry the fish flavors longer than most whites, and can handle a bite of gari (pickled ginger) with aplomb. Similar positive results: chilled red Côte-du Rhône and Chinon, a juicy red from the Loire Valley.

Soft European reds to consider, from Italy: Vapolicella Classico from Veneto, Freisa and Dolcetto d’Alba from Piemonte, Col-di-Sasso from Tuscany; from Spain: Rioja Crianza, Torres Coronas, Peñaflor; from Portugal: Perequita, JP Vinhos Tinto. Real fruit, no strong tannins. Chill.

From Australia, try a young, inexpensive lighter Shiraz, or a Grenache/Shiraz blend. Chill’em up, and these wines should be all berries, with little distinctive tannic structure. Particularly good with fattier cuts of sashimi, and will align itself well with the salt of shoyu and the sweet/sour gari.

I have had some good experiences with lighter Pinot Noir wines from Oregon, but even better with simple Bourgogne, one of the best bargains in a wine that is 100% Pinot Noir. Producers such as Leflaive, Drouhin, and Latour are easy to find and offer very good value. Try them chilled with lighter fish selections, room temperature for richer sashimi.

Full disclosure: Classic sushi – raw fish with sweet vinegar rice and a touch of wasabi, highlighted with shoyu, and classic sashimi – thin slices of fish, flavored with a sauce of shoyu and wasabi, served with sushi rice, must be altered somewhat to achieve balance with wine. There is no doubt that in most cases the intense heat of wasabi is a wine killer, and shoyu lifts the alcoholic flavors of the wine, which in turn raises the salt levels perceived on the palate. Pickled ginger, in most cases, does not help the cause, as a palate cleanser. Rice does nothing for the wine, but make the dish taste more bland and heavy. So, adjustments must be made.

I recommend negligible amounts of wasabi on the sashimi, if any, and just a touch of shoyu or murasaki. If munching on gari, make sure to taste just a touch as a palate cleanser; it will be as effective as if you ate a whole slice of ginger to the palate, and benefit the wine flavors tremendously. I love wasabi in particular, and certainly I am not above enjoying a slice or two of sashimi with lots of wasabi, real namida level stuff, drinking water, and biting into a few slices of gari to retaste the wondrous heat, cleanse the palate, and after a few deep breaths continue to enjoy sashimi and wine in peace and harmony, leaving my heat-seeking aberrations behind.

Clearly, wine and raw fish were made for each other, even if adjustments in classic presentation and flavor profiles must be made. Perhaps the reason it took so long for so many of us to realize that wine and sashimi can marry is the same reason that so many “ethnic” cuisines and cooking traditions have come late to wine. Remember that when the classic rules for wine and food pairing were being debated, the only foods discussed in the debate were European, especially French, and many of the matches were based on the flavor and texture of classic sauces. How far we’ve come from pairing a Château Margaux with a Béarnaise sauce to pairing a Crianza with a kanpachi (hold the wasabi and shoyu!).

Sushi Vocabulary: Here's a glossary of Japanese sushi terms to help you figure out just what you're ordering in a sushi bar.

Sushi a la carte

* aji -- horse mackerel
* akagai -- ark shell
* ama-ebi -- raw shrimp
* anago -- conger eel
* aoyagi -- round clam
* awabi -- abalone
* ayu -- sweetfish
* buri -- adult yellowtail
* chutoro -- marbled tuna belly
* ebi -- boiled shrimp
* hamachi -- young yellowtail
* hamaguri -- clam
* hamo -- pike conger; sea eel
* hatahata -- sandfish
* hikari-mono -- various kinds of "shiny" fish, such as mackerel
* himo -- "fringe" around an ark shell
* hirame -- flounder
* hokkigai -- surf clam
* hotategai -- scallop
* ika -- squid
* ikura -- salmon roe
* inada -- very young yellowtail
* kaibashira -- eye of scallop or shellfish valve muscles
* kaiware -- daikon-radish sprouts
* kajiki -- swordfish
* kani -- crab
* kanpachi -- very young yellowtail
* karei -- flatfish
* katsuo -- bonito
* kazunoko -- herring roe
* kohada -- gizzard shad
* kuruma-ebi -- prawn
* maguro -- tuna
* makajiki -- blue marlin
* masu -- trout
* meji (maguro) -- young tuna
* mekajiki -- swordfish
* mirugai -- surf clam
* negi-toro -- tuna belly and chopped green onion
* ni-ika -- squid simmered in a soy-flavored stock
* nori-tama -- sweetened egg wrapped in dried seaweed
* otoro -- fatty portion of tuna belly
* saba -- mackerel
* sake -- salmon
* sawara -- spanish mackerel
* sayori -- (springtime) halfbeak
* seigo -- young sea bass
* shako -- mantis shrimp
* shima-aji -- another variety of aji
* shime-saba -- mackerel (marinated)
* shiromi -- seasonal "white meat" fish
* suzuki -- sea bass
* tai -- sea bream
* tairagai -- razor-shell clam
* tako -- octopus
* tamago -- sweet egg custard wrapped in dried seaweed
* torigai -- cockle
* toro -- choice tuna belly
* tsubugai -- japanese "tsubugai" shellfish
* uni -- sea urchin roe

Maki-zushi (sushi rolls)

* maki-mono -- vinegared rice and fish (or other ingredients) rolled in nori seaweed
* tekka-maki -- tuna-filled maki-zushi
* kappa-maki -- cucumber-filled maki-zushi
* tekkappa-maki -- selection of both tuna and cucumber rolls
* oshinko-maki -- -pickled-daikon (radish) rolls
* kaiware-maki -- daikon-sprout roll
* umejiso-maki -- japanese ume plum and perilla-leaf roll
* negitoro-maki -- scallion-and-tuna roll
* chutoro-maki -- marbled-tuna roll
* otoro-maki -- fatty-tuna roll
* kanpyo-maki -- pickled-gourd rolls
* futo-maki -- a fat roll filled with rice, sweetened cooked egg, pickled gourd, and bits of vegetables
* nori-maki -- same as kanpyo-maki; in osaka, same as futo-maki
* natto-maki -- sticky, strong-tasting fermented-soybean rolls
* ana-kyu-maki -- conger eel-and-cucumber rolls
* temaki -- hand-rolled cones made from dried seaweed
* maguro-temaki -- tuna temaki

Other sushi terms

* nigiri(-zushi) -- pieces of raw fish over vinegared rice balls
* edomae-zushi -- same as nigiri-zushi
* chirashi(-zushi) -- assorted raw fish and vegetables over rice
* tekka-don -- pieces of raw tuna over rice
* sashimi -- raw fish (without rice)
* chakin-zushi -- vinegared rice wrapped in a thin egg crepe
* inari-zushi -- vinegared rice and vegetables wrapped in a bag of fried tofu
* oshi-zushi -- osaka-style sushi: squares of pressed rice topped
with vinegared/cooked fish
* battera(-zushi) -- oshi-zushi topped with mackerel
* tataki -- pounded, almost raw fish
* odori-ebi -- live ("dancing") shrimp
* oshinko -- japanese pickles
* neta -- sushi topping
* wasabi -- japanese horseradish
* gari -- vinegared ginger
* shoyu -- soy sauce

Sushi Bar Vocabulary

A special vocabulary is reserved for sushi bars in Japan. Soy sauce is refered to as murasaki ("purple") instead of the normal shoyu. This is because most sushi restaurants have their own house sauce. When asking for tea after the meal, ask for agari ("finished") instead of the normal ocha. Normally the vinegared ginger slices are refered to as sushoga ("vinegared ginger"), but at the sushi bar it is called gari. Wasabi is shortened to sabi and sometimes if it is really strong it is called namida ("tears").

Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris: A Gray Area

2008-03-28T22:14:00.007-04:00

Pinot Grigio is the single most popular imported varietal-labeled wine in the United States. I wonder why. Great Pinot Grigio is produced in several different countries, but rare. Most often and unfortunately, Pinot Grigio is just a decent quaff that quenches the thirst and doesn’t offend food. Maybe that’s what most of us want; a wine that is drinkable and inoffensive, a wine that does not challenge us. The popularity of Pinot Grigio is the engine that feeds its mass acceptance, making it an inclusive wine, one that everyone can agree on and enjoy.

Pinot Grigio, most closely identified with Italy, is not really an Italian grape. The grape is Pinot Gris (the “Gray” Pinot), found most prominently in Alsace, France, and secondarily in Southern Germany (under the name Greiburgunder or Rulander). In the vineyard, it is hard to tell if the grape is Pinot Gris or Pinot Noir until after color-changing veraison, as the leaves and grape shapes are identical. Pinot Gris is a variant of the Pinot Noir grape (as is Pinot Blanc). Although Alsatians think of it as a white grape, most Italians think of Pinot Gris as red, but in the end this may be a difference without a distinction, as the grape is treated as a white grape in the winemaking process. With just a little bit of skin contact during fermentation, Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio should show a bit of pleasantly “gray” color in the wine.

There is quite a bit of fine Pinot Gris available from Alsace and I highly recommend them. Rulander, though very good, is harder to find. Closer to home, some of the more interesting Pinot Gris made in the New World comes from Oregon, the only state that has chosen to focus on the varietal as its representative white wine. The most widely available Oregon Pinot Gris is King Estate, a delicious wine redolent of tropical fruits. Other producers of fine Oregon Pinot Gris: Cooper Mountain (biodynamic), Cristom, Elk Cove, Bethel Heights, Adelsheim, Chehalem, Bridgeview, Erath, and Archery Summit.

While Pinot Gris will always have its small number of admirers, it was not until the introduction of “Pinot Grigio” that this grape found its place in the sun and on so many dining tables around the world, but especially in the United States.

Maybe we just like saying “Pinot Grigio,” a lovely phrase, almost sensual, but now almost devoid of meaning. When we order Pinot Grigio in a restaurant or buy it in a shop, unless we have a favorite that we stick with, there’s no telling what the wine will taste like. I have had Pinot Grigio that tastes like wine-flavored water, Pinot Grigio that tastes noticeably sweet, Pinot Grigio that tastes like cheap jug wine, and the occasional Pinot Grigio that is sublime and memorable. Chris Dearden of Benessere Vineyards in the Napa Valley makes the single greatest Pinot Grigio I have ever tasted. The wine is jam-packed with tropical fruits – mango, papaya, pineapple, with a long, complex, rich, and dry finish. Benessere’s Pinot Grigio has redefined the category for me, and has sent me on an unrequited quest to find truly great Pinot Grigio – from any country (the 2004 Benessere Pinot Grigio is $22 at www.benesserevineyards.com).

In my quest, I have tasted bargain Pinot Grigio that tastes watery, moderate-priced Pinot Grigio that tastes like wine, sometimes pretty good food-friendly wine, but shows no truly distinctive varietal character, expensive Pinot Grigio that tastes like the grape but with no sense of place/no terroir, and overpriced Pinot Grigio that was, well….overpriced and not terribly interesting.

And now the inevitable news comes from Australia that the latest Yellow Tail varietal is - what else? – Pinot Grigio. The wine should be in the marketplace by the time you read this. I have tasted the wine and can safely say if you like the Yellow Tail style (and price), you will like the Pinot Grigio. The Yellow Tail phenomena will very likely redefine the bargain segment for Pinot Grigio: a tropical fruit salad in a glass, with a touch of residual sugar in the finish.

Of course, most wine drinkers look to Italy for high-quality Pinot Grigio, even though the grape is indeed a French interloper, and there are several quality producers in Northeast Italy, particularly in the bilingual (Italian/German) province of Alto Adige, which borders Austria, that make clean, Alpine-crisp wines (Lageder, Kittmeir, Zemmer). In the Friuli Venezia-Giulia province of Italy, which borders Slovenia, Pinot Grigio tends to be richer and fuller-bodied. The best wine regions in Friuli for Pinot Grigio are Collio, Isonzo, and Collio Orientali, and fine producers include: Jermann, Livio Felluga, Russiz Superiore, Schiopetto, Borgo San Daniele, Bastianich, and Vei di Romans. You can expect to pay from $20 to $45 for these wines at retail.

No discussion of Pinot Grigio would be complete without Santa Margherita, produced in Trentino-Alto Adige. The wine that introduced America (and ironically, Italy) to the grape, Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio is still the benchmark for popularity and for overall baseline good quality. Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio is the number one premium imported white wine in the United States, with sales of close to 500,000 cases per year. Santa Margherita makes a very good Pinot Grigio, although many (including me) feel that the price-to-quality ratio is out of whack at retail, but especially when it regularly appears on wine lists at $50 a pop.

I like most Pinot Grigio, and I love great Pinot Grigio, when I am fortunate enough to find it. Last year, on a trip to Friuli Venezia-Giulia, I thought I would find the ultimate Pinot Grigio. I didn’t, and fell in love with Friuli’s unheralded Sauvignon Blanc (who knew?). Still, the appeal of Pinot Grigio is undeniable, perhaps based on its promise of comfort and reliability. Pinot Grigio, a wine for the rest of us.

Côtes du Rhône: Great Wines/Great Bargains

2008-03-28T21:54:00.011-04:00

These days I hear a lot about “Rhône varietals” and “Rhône-style” wines, and like so many other wine lovers I’ve been tasting some lovely wines that fit these broad descriptions. The most famous grape of France’s Rhône Valley is Syrah (aka Shiraz), and there certainly are a lot of wines made from this grape, hailing from all over the Southern and Northern Hemisphere, from the New World and the Old World. Made in many different styles and available at many different price points, good Syrah/Shiraz is one of my favorite hearty, heady red wines.

But Syrah is just part of a much larger story, the story of the entire Rhône Valley and its wines. In the northern Rhône Valley, Syrah rules, but in the southern Rhône, it is but one of 23 grapes allowed by French wine law to produce Côtes du Rhône; a wine that is usually red but can also be white; the reds can be blended with the juice of white grapes and the whites can be blended with the juice of skinless red grapes (did you get that?); a wine that can be made in no less than 170 villages throughout the Rhône Valley; a wine that earthy and delicious; a wine that it is a great value.

Côtes du Rhône is the name of the AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée); the place where the grapes are grown. And the Côtes du Rhône is a humongous appellation, covering more than 100,000 acres of vineyards owned by more than 10,000 growers. The 1,500 wineries in the Côtes du Rhône produce 250 million bottles annually (relax, that’s only a bit more than 20 million cases of wine; no biggie), 95% of it red.

40 per cent of the plantings in the Côtes du Rhône are red Grenache grapes, followed by Syrah, Mourvèdre, Carignan, and Cinsault, and a host of other red grapes. The most important white grapes here are Marsanne and Roussanne, with a bit of Viognier, among others. You may have had a varietal Grenache or a Shiraz/Grenache/ Mourvèdre blend from California or Australia (the cognoscenti and the terminally hip, perhaps afraid they might mispronounce “Mourvèdre,” refer to this style of wine as SGM), and you should never pass up the opportunity to taste a good Carignan. Perhaps you’ve tried a white Viognier, or a Marsanne/Roussanne blend from the New World, too. If not, don’t hesitate to do so.

Just because a wine labeled Côtes du Rhône can use 23 grapes, doesn’t mean that it does. Most of the wines utilize five to ten grapes, and of course Grenache usually dominates the blend. With so many producers, the joy of exploring the wines of the Côtes du Rhône is that each wine is different, and each delicious. Good “CDR” is a light-to-medium bodied wine, with an earthy character, and very food-friendly, whether you’re eating white or red meat, or grilled fish, or pasta, or pizza (especially pizza). It is also one of the great values in red wines, with many available for about $10, some a bit less, some a bit more.
You should also keep your eye peeled for the small selection of Côtes du Rhône wines that are made in the northern Rhône (“Côtes du Rhône, which literally means ”Rhône Slopes,” really means “almost anywhere in the Rhône”). These delicious wines are Syrah-dominant, some of them 100% Syrah, and are truly earthy wonders, with a slightly fuller body and a little more complexity. And most of them don’t cost any more than their “CDR” brethren from the south.

And then there’s a separate AOC, Côtes du Rhône-Villages, which ostensibly creates better wines on a consistent basis. Why? Because about 75 villages have been identified as having superior vineyards. Government regs here are a bit more stringent: nine grapes are legal instead of 23 in the general CDR appellation; the vineyards must produce fewer grapes per hectare (about 2.5 acres), and sugar levels in the grapes must be higher than in the humble CDR, translating to higher minimum alcohol in the finished wine.

The Côtes du Rhône-Villages appellation is positively minuscule when compared to the larger all-encompassing Côtes du Rhône. Here, there are about 11,000 acres under vine producing the raw material for just 19 million bottles of wine per year. Grenache jumps up to 50 per cent of the grapes planted in this district.

The French have a real talent for the “intellectually dense” (read “hard to understand”) wine label, but so far, no problem. Just remember Côtes du Rhône and Côtes du Rhône-Villages, and remember to pronounce it VEE-LODGE, not “Villages,” and you’re home, free, right? Wrong. Here’s why: Of the 75 villages that are part of the CDR-V, 16 are allowed to add the name of their village on the wine label; it is an outward sign of quality, but it can be confusing. Don’t be surprised to see red wines labeled as Côtes du Rhône-Villages-Cairanne or Côtes du Rhône-Villages-Sablet, among several others. One further wrinkle: wines labeled as Côtes du Rhône-Villages-Laudun or Côtes du Rhône-Villages-Chusclan can only be white wines. (For those of you still stuck on pronouncing “Viognier” or “Mourvèdre,” just think of the preceding paragraph as a bad dream.)

“CDR-V” wines should show a bit more depth of flavor, a bit more complexity, and at their best, even a bit of aging potential of about 3 to 6 years. These wines are excellent values, too. You can expect to pay up to 25 per cent more for a CDR-V than a CDR, and a bit more for a CDR-V with the name of an esteemed village on the label. We’re still talking about wines that should sell for less than $20, and closer to $15.

So, the next time someone starts talking about “Rhone” wines, whip out the real thing, a bottle of delicious, food friendly, earthy, but not “pow, right in the kisser” wine from the Côte Du Rhône, or Côte du Rhône-Villages. These are wines that are not meant to dominate a friendly meal, but to enhance it, not to be the subject of conversation, but to encourage a chat, not a special occasion wine, but a wine that makes any occasion special. These wines are fruity but subtle and sensual. They are the anti-Cabernet (but wouldn’t you know it, Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the legal grapes in the Côtes du Rhône!). “CDR” and “CDR-V” wines should be very easy to find in wine shops and on wine lists, and are even easier to drink.
Following are some fine producers of Côtes du Rhône and Côtes du Rhône-Villages wines. Note that some producers source grapes in both appellations, and so will produce both wines. Happy Hunting!

Côtes du Rhône (from the south, dominated by Grenache): La Chasse du Pape, Coudolet de Beaucastel, Caves des Papes, Chapoutier, Clos du Caillou, Les Garrigues, Domaine Gramenon, Domaine de l’Ameillaud, Domaine du Pesquier, Perrin Réserve, Patrick Lesec, Mont Redon, Les Monticauts, st. Cosme, and Tardieu-Laurent.

Côtes du Rhône (from the north, dominated by Syrah): Jean-Luc Colombo “Les Abeilles,”, Domaine de la Solitude, Guigal, and Jaboulet (“Parallèle 45”).

Côtes du Rhône-Villages (the appellation is in the south only, dominated by Grenache): Alary, Louis Bernard, André Brunel, Cave de Cairanne, Château du Trignon, Coste Chaude, Domaine Santa Duc, Domaine St. Luc, Domaines de la Guicharde, Domaines Perrin, Guigal, Patrick Lessec, Gabrel Meffre Laurus, and Mas de Boislauzon.

Drink Up!

2008-03-27T11:16:00.009-04:00

Recently, an old friend stopped by to say hi and just to hang out for awhile. I realized that although we had known each other for almost 35 years, and we counted each other as a best friend, it had been some time since we had a chance just to talk -- to shoot the breeze -- to laugh at memories of the old days and the absurdities of the new days. In my post-9/11 life I have begun to realize all over again how important friends are, and how much magic there is in good and honest conversation, especially with someone who has known me for my entire adult life.
As day turned to night we talked about dinner, maybe grabbing a bite at a local restaurant. I wanted to keep the momentum of this reunion flowing, so I suggested dining in from whatever I could scrape together from my fridge and my larder. Let’s see: a rotisserie chicken I picked up that morning (just warm it up), Brussels sprouts (shred and sauté in olive oil), and a fresh salsa of grape tomatoes, cucumber, cilantro, and baby vidalia onions (lickety-split in the food processor). In less than 30 minutes, while my friend Bob checked out the day’s events on CNN, dinner was ready.
Such a simple dinner calls for a simple wine, right? Maybe a crisp Sauvignon Blanc to play with the salsa and bring out the rich sweetness of the chicken, and the earthiness of the Brussels sprouts. Dry Riesling would work, so would Gewurztraminer or Viognier, or maybe a Tavel rosé or light red: Valpolicella Classico, Rioja Crianza, Beaujolais-Villages, a regional Bourgogne or Côte-du-Rhône. I had all these simple wines, and more, to choose from; any one of them would work with the food.
Then it hit me.
I really wasn’t thinking, or maybe I was thinking but not feeling. Easily, almost mechanically, I was pairing the wine with the food, but in a vacuum devoid of the meal’s social context. This was, after all, a special occasion, a spontaneous reunion. I was welcoming my old friend at my table after a wonderful and meaningful day, and all I could think about was wine-and-food dynamics? No, I could do better. A lot better.

I said to Bob, “Let’s drink a really great bottle of wine with dinner.” By his smile and his enthusiastic “All right!” I could tell we were both on the same page. He understood that this simple meal was about to become an exceptional repast to honor our long and enduring friendship.

I admit to having more than a few special bottles in my cellar, set aside for broad celebrations and intimate seductions. As I gazed at dozens of wonderful wines I began to realize that any time true friends (new or old) and family (beloved or merely tolerated) break bread in my home, these treasured bottles should grace the table. Some of these wines are rare, many irreplaceable, but not nearly as rare or irreplaceable as the most important people in my life.

I found what I hoped would be the ideal wine: 1990 Louis Michel Chablis Grand Cru “Les Clos,” a very fine white Burgundy from a great vintage. This is twelve year old Chardonnay without even a whisper of oak, preserved in all its glory by its alcohol and its acidity. I was a bit nervous that the wine might show serious signs of oxidation, but the color was ideal: greenish-gold without any hint of browning. I served the “Clos” in Riedel crystal Chardonnay glasses, just a little cooler than cellar temperature, in order not to numb the delicate nuances of aroma, bouquet, and flavor. The nose was superb: green apples, fresh cut grass, pear, white peach, all wafting from the glass in a singular, sexy, and harmonious perfume. On the palate, the wine was pure nectar: smooth and full-bodied in its attack with a rich vein of grapefruit/lemon acidity for balance, and a finish that seemed to never end. Perfect.

We agreed that the wine enhanced every aspect of the food (the pairing really was amazing, almost a force of nature), but what was so much more important was that sharing this irreplaceable wine together enhanced our conversation during dinner and tied anew the already-strong bonds of a lifelong friendship. What started out as a day to “just hang out” became an important and memorable benchmark of renewal.

So many wine lovers are the stewards of rare and wonderful wines that they are saving for a special occasion. In a world where every day we are increasingly reminded how fleeting life can be we might want to re-examine the concept and definition of “special occasion” to make it more inclusive, more elastic, more fun. Get those bottles out of the dust of the cellar, stand them up in the light of day, and bring them to your table that evening to enjoy. Opening and sharing a rare and wonderful wine makes the food taste better, the conversation more sophisticated (or at least the same old stories become bearable), your dining companions more attractive. Even close friends and family members witness, perhaps for the first time, that you and your home exude a glowing warmth and generosity.

In the preceding paragraph I call wine lovers who cellar a treasured and rare wine “stewards,” not owners. Legal standing aside, can one really “own” great wines? Unless you get inordinate pleasure from looking at or stroking bottles with labels, you “own” very little until that labeled bottle is opened, until that wine is drunk. If you collect wine to re-sell it, you merely steward that wine from the previous cellar to your cellar to the buyer’s cellar, and the only pleasure is profit; you might as well invest in pork bellies or any other commodity. As anyone who has ever tasted truly great wine can attest, it is a magical elixir that provides pleasure so far beyond dollars, pounds, or euros, that the sale of fine wines and the enjoyment of fine wines do not even inhabit the same pleasure universe.

Those of us who love to drink fine wines are also stewards. We keep our treasures buried in a cellar-- or in a convenient closet -- until such time as we are ready to offer these treasures to the worthy. When we have taken our pleasure by giving, sharing, tasting and talking we once again own a labeled bottle, a mere talisman of the occasion for which the wine was consumed. We only “own” the wine for those few momentous moments when we experience and internalize the pleasure, the “rush” of those precious sips.

I wonder if we, even the most wine-stained among us, realize how truly rare is the opportunity to taste great wine. 96 percent of the wine produced in the world is made to be consumed within one year of its harvest vintage; 99 percent within two years. This leaves one percent of the wines produced in the world that can age. The overwhelming portion of this wine will be consumed within five years. You see where I’m going with this.

No more than one-tenth of one percent of the wine produced in the world is destined to be among the treasured classics. Fortunately, the equivalent of about 15 billion bottles of wine are produced every year, so about 1.5 million bottles from each worldwide vintage might be keepers. This collection is diminished even more: by the relative quality of the vintage; reputation of the producer; the wine futures market, especially in Bordeaux; the auction block; the finest restaurants who get first dibs on treasured wines; the generally rich and powerful who, if they want to, can always get there first.

We the many, who are neither so rich nor so powerful, can afford very few of life’s Large Luxuries. Occasionally, we purchase or perhaps receive as a gift a Little Luxury, a fine bottle of wine, a wine to be shared with the right people at the right time. Now is that time, a moment that will never come again, so don’t wait for that “special dinner.” Make tonight’s dinner special; special for the one you love more than any other; special for your kids home from college; special for the friends whose support you rely on and who rely on you; special for the folks who don’t always feel so special, but you know they are. Sharing your finest wines creates a very special atmosphere, as the table becomes a place not only for celebration, but also for meditation.

With our first look, our first smell, our first sip, we are transported to a place where riches and power run a distant second to pure pleasure, and for that brief shining moment we are as rich as the richest person, as happy as the happiest, and power just doesn’t matter.

STEVEN KOLPAN is Professor of Wine Studies and Gastronomy at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. He is the author of A Sense of Place: An Intimate Portrait of the Niebaum-Coppola Winery and the Napa Valley, which was awarded the Best Wine Book of 1999 by the Versailles (France) Book Awards. Steven is the co-author of Exploring Wine, a definitive wine text now in its second edition, which was nominated for Best Wine &Spirits Book by the James Beard Foundation Awards.

Riesling Revival

2008-03-27T11:01:00.008-04:00

On September 1st of this year, I prepared a light lunch for two: a ceviche of pristine divers scallops, marinated in fresh lime juice, a sachet of jalapeños, and diced red papaya. I served the piquant ceviche with watercress and Belgian endive salad dressed with an orange vinaigrette, and two artisan breads: a simple “peasant,” and an olive ciabatta. I knew exactly what white wine I wanted to accompany this simple meal: a fine dry to semi-dry Riesling. A low-alcohol, high-acid, light-bodied, unoaked, fresh, fruity, flowery, flinty, tart Riesling, redolent of peaches, apricots and green apples, with a sweet attack on the palate and a lengthy, complex, dry finish.
I returned to the table with a well-chilled bottle of a very fine dry Riesling, a wine with the exact aroma and flavor profile I have been seeking. A wine to slake the thirst and engage the spirit. Such a fine Riesling must surely come from the Mosel or Rhine regions of Germany? (Danka sheine, but Nein.) From the North Coast of California? (No way. We like oak and alcohol bombs made in the hot sun, dude.) Oregon? (Nope. We’re all about Pinot Noir now, man.) Washington State? (Riesling is just another grape, folks. We can plant all of them and we do.) OK, then Australia? (G’day, but wrong, mate! Our Riesling is unique, but it’s a warm and sexy flesh pot, if you get my meaning. Right? Right?)
The $12 Riesling at our table, which transformed a simple lunch into a small feast, was produced in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. Dr. Konstantin Frank’s Vinifera Vineyards 2006 Estate Bottled Dry Riesling, grown along the banks of Keuka Lake, made the food taste sooooo good, and made us smile with every refreshing sip.
I’m letting you in on a currently not-so-well-kept secret: Some of the finest Riesling wines in the New World – especially dry and semi-dry versions, but also some rare and wonderful sweet Rieslings – are to be found in the Finger Lakes American Viticultural Area (AVA), specifically along the banks of Keuka Lake and Seneca Lake.
Why is the Finger Lakes a perfect setting for growing Riesling grapes? Riesling is a grape that is difficult to cultivate successfully, but ironically, the varietal grows best along the banks of large rivers in the coldest regions of the wine world. Germany is the perfect example. It is the last outpost for grape growing in the Northern Hemisphere. The northern part of the country is just too cold to grow any wine grapes, but Riesling shines in south central Germany, in the river valleys of the Mosel Saar Ruwer anbaugebiet (wine region), and the Rhine River anbaugebeite of Rheingau, Rheinhessen, and Pfalz.
Cold-weather Riesling vines flower or “bud” late, which is good for avoiding spring frosts, but the vine also ripens late, leaving the fruit exposed to the possibility of late summer rains and early fall frosts. When nature cooperates, Riesling develops maximum fruit flavors and maintains its racy acidity.
Warm-weather “early harvest” Riesling, with its under-ripe, herbaceous, and dull flavor profile is a joke at the expense of our tastebuds. This is especially true after we grow accustomed to the snappy, crisp, pure flavors of German and German-style Riesling, which is the style of the Finger Lakes.
The much-praised Rieslings of Austria lack the green fruit acids that the colder German weather provides. With few exceptions, if California stopped producing Riesling tomorrow, Riesling lovers would not even notice, and although Australians love their “fat” Rieslings, when was the last time you heard anybody in this country rave about the great Clare Valley Riesling that they had last night with dinner?
Oregon has chosen not to focus on Riesling; Washington State makes decent Riesling (the actual grape may not be the true Riesling, which is the case in many places throughout the world, including Australia, Austria, and California), but it usually just misses scaling the plateau of fresh green apple crispness, due to the warmth provided by the “rain shadow” of the Cascade Mountains.
Even Alsace, France (formerly Germany), which makes bone dry but full-bodied Riesling with higher alcohol levels than almost anyplace else in Europe, makes a kind of rich and spicy wine that lacks the crispness many Riesling lovers adore. Alsace vineyards also live in a rain shadow, here provided by the Vosges mountains. Alsace winemakers put Gewürztraminer first for quality and Riesling second, and they are right to do so.
In the New World, Riesling makes wonderful wines in the Okanagan Valley in Canada’s British Columbia (officially the coldest place on earth that grows grapes), and also in the Niagara Peninsula region (mostly in Ontario). Still, when the Riesling producers of the Finger Lakes do their best, they are all but untouchable for quality (and with a very fair price, to boot).
We have two men to thank for both the existence and the excellence of Finger Lakes Riesling: Konstantin Frank and Charles Fournier. Dr. Frank, who emigrated with his family from the Ukraine to the United States in 1951 at the age of 52 and with $40 in his pocket, held advanced degrees in viticulture and enology and had taught these subjects in Russia. When World War II ended, Frank managed farms and vineyards for the American Occupation Forces. His first job in America was washing dishes at the Automat in New York City. He next secured a job in Geneva, New York at the New York State Experiment Station, where he hoped to apply his knowledge of grapes and grape growing, but instead was given a menial laborer’s job, which lasted two years.
Frank wondered why winemakers in the Finger Lakes were growing native grapes - vitis labrusca, such as concord and catawba – best for jams and jellies - and inferior hybrids, which are crosses of labrusca and vitis vinifera (the most widely-planted hybrid in New York State is Seyval Blanc). He argued that if New York was to develop a reputation for quality wines, it must embrace the cultivation of vinifera.
Frank was told that it was too cold, especially in the Finger Lakes, to harvest vinifera successfully. This seemed like madness to him, since he had propagated Riesling, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir in Odessa, “where the temperature goes to forty below, where when we spit, it froze before it hit the ground.” For three hundred years, various people had tried to successfully cultivate vinifera vines in New York State. Because of so many failures, Dr. Frank was widely ridiculed for his ideas.
Charles Fournier was another immigrant, but by way of Champagne, France, where he was the chief winemaker at Veuve Clicquot. Fournier became the president of the giant Gold Seal Vineyards in Hammondsport, and had been in that job since 1940. In 1953, Konstantin Frank’s ideas about planting and cultivating vinifera in the Finger Lakes came to Fournier’s attention. Knowing the Champagne region, which grew only vinifera - Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, and Chardonnay - was seven degrees latitude north and colder than the Finger Lakes, Fournier realized that Frank was very likely correct, and hired him as a consultant for Gold Seal.
Frank knew that he needed to find very hearty rootstock that, when grafted to the vinifera vine, would ripen the vine wood before winter’s first frosts. Fournier and Frank discovered such roots in the garden of a convent in Québec, Canada, where they found Pinot Noir growing. Frank planted thousands of grafted vines over the next five years, and in 1957 he was proven to be correct. With February temperatures of 25 degrees below zero, both the Labrusca and hybrid crops were decimated. Dr. Frank’s Riesling and Chardonnay buds showed minimal damage during the winter, and when harvest came in late September, the vines produced healthy grapes at the rate of three to four tons per acre – a yield that is near-perfect for both quality and commercial viability.
Fournier began to plant vinifera vines at Gold Seal as fast as he could secure rootstocks, and Dr. Frank went on to establish his own Vinifera Wine Cellars right up the road from Gold Seal, which has since been absorbed into a huge corporate wine enterprise.
Konstantin Frank, who worked everyday in his Keuka Lake vineyards and winery until he was 82, died in 1985 at the age of 86. His son, Willy, now 77, and Dr. Frank’s grandson, Fred, now operate Dr. Konstantin Frank’s Vinifera Wine Cellars and Château Frank, where Fred makes méthode champenoise sparkling wines.
The Frank family is not alone in producing superior Riesling in the Finger Lakes. Consistently fine Riesling is produced on Keuka Lake by Heron Hill, and on Seneca Lake by Chateau LaFayette-Reneau, Lamoreaux Landing, Fox Run, and most notably, Hermann Wiemer. Wiemer is a native of Bernkastel, a famous vineyard district in the Mosel Saar Ruwer wine region, and is a master of Riesling. In addition to several luscious styles of still wines, Wiemer produces a very fine sparkling Riesling. He also maintains a nursery from which he sells 300,000 vinifera vines to vineyard owners all over the United States and Canada.
A hundred years ago, Riesling wines from the Mosel and Rhine regions of Germany were the most expensive and most sought-after wines in the world. A lot has happened during that time to diminish the reputation of Riesling, including labeling many inferior wines as Riesling, when they were actually made from grapes that had only a passing familiarity with the greatness that Riesling can achieve on the vine and in the bottle. Konstantin Frank, however, planted the famous Clone 90, which is Riesling from the Giesenheim University and Enology Research Station in Germany. These vines, now almost fifty years old, and younger Clone 90 vines cultivated by Hermann Wiemer, continue to provide bud wood for Riesling vineyards throughout the Finger Lakes and beyond.
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My simple Sunday ceviche lunch for two went very well, and I was, for just a moment, quite pleased with myself for bringing an unexpected but great wine to the table. My ego was checked, but my instincts were confirmed the next Wednesday, when, in the September 4 issue of the New York Times, wine journalist Frank Prial wrote “Riesling, the American Way.” Prial praised the Finger Lakes as the most exciting place for Riesling in the United States, and went on to report the results of a tasting of American Rieslings.
Four of the top ten wines were from the Finger Lakes, including #1, #2, and #3 (all dry), and winner for Best Value. In third place, Hermann Wiemer ($13); in second, Chateau LaFayette Reneau ($13). And the #1 Wine AND the Best Value? Dr. Konstantin Frank’s Vinifera Vineyards 2006 Estate Bottled Dry Riesling ($12), the very wine that had graced my table just three days earlier.
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I am beginning to hear people murmuring about growing tired of poorly-made and/or overly-expensive Chardonnay (by the way, Finger Lakes Chardonnay at its best, is very good; Chardonnay is another cold-weather grape). If Chardonnay is losing ground, it should be to Riesling. There is no more food-friendly white wine than Riesling, especially in its dry and semi-dry incarnations. Riesling is the wine that works with a wide variety of foods, including spicy food and salty food, and food with some acidity or a touch of natural sweetness. So if you are going to have, among many other dishes, a mild curry, a Hunan or Szechuan poultry dish, or ceviche, or seared scallops with tomatillo salsa, or sashimi, or pork loin, or barbecue pork, or poached ocean fish I a lemon grass broth, or pan-fried brook trout, or fried chicken, or grilled vegetables, or a tomato salad with tangy goat cheese, and especially smoked fish or smoked white meats, dry to semi-dry Riesling, especially from the Finger Lakes, would be my first choice.
With all the good news about Finger Lakes Riesling it is surprising that less than two per cent of New York State’s vineyards are planted with Riesling. In fact, the New York State wine industry (with the total exception of vinifera-based Long Island), is still based largely on native Labrusca varietals and hybrids (about 80 per cent of total production).
What would Konstantin Frank say?

Kosher Wines: Best Blessed Bottles

2008-03-27T10:24:00.013-04:00

My 90-year-old Jewish Mother likes to tell a story about me and my first encounter with wine. According to Mom, when I was five years old I tasted wine for the first time, as part of the Passover Seder ritual. The Seder features a wonderful, almost opulent meal, but you have to sit through about an hour or two of storytelling, blessings, prayers, and songs before you get to eat. Children must ask The Four Questions (in Hebrew, even though nobody at our table understood the language) which boiled down to one big question: “Why is this night different from every other night?”

One of the big differences was that I got to taste wine with my matzo. The Seder calls for the drinking of four small cups –preferably silver cups - of wine (and pouring a fifth for the prophet, Elijah, messenger of the Messiah, for whom the youngest child at the Seder must open the door. As everyone sings in honor of Elijah, they all swear that they see some of the wine in the silver cup magically disappear). The children drink kosher grape juice, but often the parents, or an indulgent aunt or uncle, will allow a child to taste a drop or two of the kosher wine served to the adults. And so it was in my house at the family Seder.

According to my mother, when I tasted a few drops of the Concord grape-too sweet-too alcoholic-food hostile-bad boogie-Manischewitz, I recoiled and asked, “Don’t we have anything better than this?” Mom almost cries with laughter as she comically laments, “Even at five years old, you were a wine snob, Stevie!”

The image of kosher wines, until recently, has been very close to the wine I rejected in my youth. There is little doubt that the traditional, ceremonial, virtually undrinkable kosher jug of Mogen David or Manischewitz (made from Concord grapes grown in the Finger Lakes and Lake Erie of New York State, produced by Canandaigua Wines, which over the years has morphed into Constellation Wines, recently (in partnership with BL Hardys of Australia becoming the largest wine company in the world. Familiar brands include: Franciscan, Simi, Veramonte, Ravenswood, Banrock Station, Almadén, Paul Masson, and dozens of others) will always be available for those who, by either habit or desire, choose to drink the stuff on High Holy Days or with their Friday night Sabbath dinner. I am happy to report, however, that kosher wines do not have to be the product of God in His or Her wrathful phase. The “new” kosher wines can only be described as great wines that just happen to be kosher, and for that all of us, Jewish or not, can only sing out, “Amen!”

Recently, I have had the pleasure of tasting a few dozen kosher wines from all over the world – the United States, Italy, Spain, France, Australia, Chile, and of course, Israel. The differences between these wines and the Concord jugs of my youth are palpable and pleasurable. I no longer feel as though I am atoning for what must be some pretty serious sins when I taste kosher wines. Instead, these blessed bottles allow wine lovers of all religious persuasions and permutations - including those who worship only Bacchus – to enjoy, indulge, and luxuriate, without suffering, without guilt (a big step forward for anyone who was raised in a traditional Jewish home, where guilt is a dish best served either hot or cold, but repeatedly).

So what makes a wine kosher? This question is not as easy to answer as it might seem. For example, a majority of Conservative and Reformed Jews, many of whom do not eat and drink only kosher food and wine on a daily basis, believe that all wines - like all fruits – are kosher, and do not need any further elaboration. This secular interpretation flies in the face of Orthodox Jewish law and custom. Essentially, the Orthodox approach to kosher wine includes the following rules:

• As with all kosher food products, the wine must be made under the general supervision of a rabbi who must be certified or licensed to perform such duties;
• All equipment and machinery used to make the wine must be used to produce only Kosher wines. If a wine is certified as “Kosher for Passover,” equipment and machinery must undergo a special cleaning and sanitizing procedure and can be used only for that purpose;
• Any yeasts, filtering agents, or clarifying agents must be certified as kosher. Since no milk or gelatin can be used for clarification, the overwhelming majority of kosher wines are clarified with Bentonite clay or Diatomaceous earth.
• No artificial coloring or preservatives can be used.
• Only Sabbath-observant Jews can be involved in the growing of the grapes, the winemaking process, the service of the wine, and the consumption of the wine, unless the wine has gone through a pasteurization process known as “Mevushal.”

In the modern kosher wine industry, both non-Mevushal wines, which are produced by and for Orthodox Jews, and Mevushal wines, which can be produced and consumed by anyone regardless of his or her religion, are available. “Mevushal,” which in Hebrew means “Boiled,” is actually a flash heating and cooling process that is perhaps as much ritual as it is science, and harkens back to the origins of Judaism itself. The most revered rabbis insisted that all wine must be boiled so that the wines would not taste good enough to enjoy for pleasure; just barely good enough to drink to observe the sacraments of faith (again with the guilt!).

White and rosé wines that undergo “Mevushal” are flash-pasteurized before the juice is fermented; reds immediately following alcoholic fermentation, but before malolactic fermentation. The pasteurization process occurs as either the juice or the wine (depending on if the finished wine is white, rosé, or red) is heated to 185ºF for a few moments, and then cooled very quickly. According to the University of California at Davis, Mevushal wines do not even come close to the time and temperature threshold at which a wine drinker can perceive any difference in color, nose, or taste of the wine. A good rule of thumb for identifying a Mevushal kosher wine is if you are purchasing your kosher wine in a shop or restaurant that is open on Saturday – the Jewish Sabbath day – then you are probably buying a Mevushal wine, unless the label indicates otherwise.

Good kosher wines – both Mevushal and non-Mevushal - are increasingly available to the general public in wine shops and restaurants (Mevushal) and via the internet (both Mevushal and non-Mevushal). These wines are worth tasting by all those who enjoy good wine, and also make a thoughtful gift if you’re having dinner at the home of a friend who “keeps kosher.”

Some of the exciting kosher wines that I’ve tasted recently include (unless indicated otherwise, all wines are Mevushal and Kosher for Passover):

CALIFORNIA:

FOUR GATES WINERY
SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS CHARDONNAY 2000 AND SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS PINOT NOIR 2000 (NON-MEVUSHAL).

Benyamin Cantz produces certified organic, estate-bottled wines produced from 3.5 acres of dry-farmed vineyards on a south-facing slope of California’s Santa Cruz Mountains. At a total production of 3,600 bottles (300 cases), Four Gates is the smallest kosher winery and the only certified organic kosher winery in the United States. Both the Chardonnay ($18) and the Pinot Noir ($20) are two of the purest, most balanced, terroir-driven wines I have tasted from California in quite some time. Showing beautifully now, both of these wines will improve with a bit of age, especially the Pinot Noir. Four Gates also produces estate-bottled organic Cabernet Franc and Merlot (both $20). True artisan wines made by a dedicated mensch. Best wines and best values of my entire kosher tasting. To find out more about Four Gates, or to purchase wines, do yourself a mitzvah and contact Benyamin Cantz at: www.ecojew.com/fourgates/ or call 831.457.2673.

GAN EDEN WINERY
CALIFORNIA SYRAH 2000, and 1997 CABERNET SAUVIGNON LIMITED RESERVE MENDOCINO COUNTY (NON-MEVUSHAL)

Craig Mitchell, a native of Louisville, Kentucky is the CEO, winemaker, and only permanent employee of Gan Eden, located in Sebastopol, where he lives with his Chinese Christian-turned Orthodox Jewish wife and their six kids. Mitchell is known as an idiosyncratic guy who makes kosher wines his own way; big and brawny, but with good structure and assertive tannins. The Syrah ($18) is a benevolent monster; fermented on its own yeasts, the wine is a whopping 16% alcohol, which brings out the classic Syrah “pepper” in the nose and on the palate. The Mendocino Cabernet ($40) is especially high in acid, and is rich, ripe, tannic, and heavily oaked, but is beginning to mellow and show some real balance; may very well become a true classic from a great vintage.

BARON HERZOG ZINFANDEL “OLD VINES” LODI 2001, AND HERZOG CABERNET SAUVIGNON SPECIAL EDITION WARNECKE VINEYARD CHALK HILL 2001 (NON-MEVUSHAL)

Herzog is the major California line of wines produced by the Royal Wine Company, the largest producer of kosher wines in the world. In January, the company broke ground for a 77,000 square foot wine production facility in Oxnard, near Los Angeles. I have tasted many Herzog wines over the years (Royal also owns Weinstock kosher wines in California, which are also pretty good), and have found a steady and impressive improvement in both grape sourcing and wine making. Today, some of the wines are amongst the best available from California. I have singled out the Zinfandel ($10) and the Cabernet Sauvignon ($50) because they really are extraordinary. The Zinfandel is sourced from 65 year old vines grown in the Richard Watts vineyard, and is a testament to the flavors derived from an older single vineyard and good winemaking: blackberries and pepper, coupled with some gentle oak overtones. This minimally filtered Zin is an incredible value. The Cabernet is also a single-vineyard wine and is unfiltered. Chalk Hill is a district within Sonoma’s Alexander Valley, and the Warnecke Vineyard produces some outstanding fruit, which winemaker Joe Hurliman has treated with great care: 20 months in French oak help to round the structural edge of the wine, which is redolent with the flavors of blackberries and cassis.

ISRAEL

BINYAMINA CHARDONNAY SHOMRON 2002 AND CARMEL VINEYARD SELECTED EMERALD RIESLING/CHENIN BLANC SHOMRON 2002

Both Binyamina and Carmel are part of the Royal Wine Company. I really enjoyed the blend of 60% Emerald Riesling and 40% Chenin Blanc (about $8); a perfect hot-weather fruity off-dry sipper, great for spicy foods, lighter fish dishes, and salads. The Chardonnay (about $15) is well made, with luscious fruit and toasty oak, but as I have found in so many Israeli wines, lacking a sense of place. Drip irrigation was invented in Israel, and is essential to grape growing in the dessert. However, the roots of the watered vines have no incentive to go deep in the soils in their search for water and nutrients, and the resulting flavors in the grapes and finished wines lack complexity, the sign of a great wine.

I also tasted good non-Mevushal 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon ($13) and Merlot ($12) from Israel, made by Galil from fruit grown in the highly regarded region of Upper Galilee.

Note: Israel produces both kosher and non-kosher wines; check the label if you are looking for kosher wines only.

EUROPE

Several Champagne producers, including Perrier-Jouët and Nicolas Feuillatte produce kosher versions of their wines, as do about 20 Bordeaux châteaux (including Giscours, Leoville-Poyferre, and Fonbadet). Fortant de France makes kosher versions of their vin de pays varietals. Roberto Cohen is a major kosher négociant in Burgundy, producing everything from Beaujolais to Chablis to Grand Cru Burgundy (Clos de Vougeot 2000: $324; Charmes-Chambertin 2000: $295). Kosher wines are available from Alsace (look for Abarbanel), the Loire and the Rhone, as well.

In Spain, Tio Pepe, the Sherry that even rival Sherry producers bring as a gift, makes a lovely kosher Fino Sherry ($13). I very much enjoyed a lively 2002 Rioja Cosecha from Ramon Cardova ($12), made from 100% Tempranillo grapes picked from old vines in Haro. Tierra Salvaje, which extends its reach to kosher wines made in Chile and Argentina as well, produces a kosher Brut Reserva Cava ($16.)

Italy, too, produces some good kosher wines, with Bartenura importing wines from Piemonte and Veneto. Rashi makes a good Barolo (the 1999 is $34), while Borgo focuses on the province of Puglia in the South.

CHILE

Alfasi is the major kosher producer here, with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Malbec/Syrah bottlings all selling for about $7.00. The wines are well made and true to their varietal types; good values.

AUSTRALIA

Estate-bottled kosher wines are made buy Beckett’s Flat in the Margaret River region. Reds: Shiraz and Shiraz/Cabernet (both about $26); Whites: Chardonnay ($23) and Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon ($21). Teal Lake is the kosher category leader here with solid wines at about $10-15 from the South Eastern Australia mega-appellation. I enjoyed the Teal Lake Shiraz quite a bit.

Kosher wines are a fast-growing segment in the wine industry, and I have just scratched the surface here. Retailers and restaurateurs are bound to have some of the wines; the internet is a good place to start exploring what is available. Go to www.kosherwine.com for a good selection and www.machers.com for a basic introduction to kosher wines in general.

The evolution of quality kosher wine has been exciting to watch and to taste. The wines have certainly come a long way since I was five years old, tasting wine for the first time at the family Seder table. However, this sea change in quality leaves the same burning question I asked my mother 50 years ago: “Does Elijah drink only Manischewitz?”