Dr Vino's wine blog

I’m back from the fantastic Landmark Australia Tutorial. Above is a picture of (some of) the wines opened during the tremendous five days. Yes, it’s 249 bottles of wine on the wall!

Over the next few days and weeks, I’ll be posting on and off some of highlights of the conference/event, sharing my new found knowledge. Really, I could post about each and every session since they were all so interesting and informative. But I’m not turning this into an Australian wine blog (though I do wonder why there isn’t one of those focusing on the lesser-known wines; it could even be called “beyond the fruit bomb”). If you’d like to have a similar experience applications are apparently now open for the Tutorial in 2010.

After the jump, check out the above lineup in motion as I walked down the line with the video rolling. Also, check out a complete list of wines, broken down by session. Read more…

One question that led me to Australia is whether Australian Riesling can age. The wine is almost always released within a year of harvest so the tendency is to drink it young when it can be very refreshing. Riesling from Australia tends to be dry and is almost always bottled under screwcap now.

The youngest Riesling I’ve tasted was a tank sample of the 2009 Jacob’s Creek Steingarten Riesling. The Steingarten vineyard was originally about 1000 vines planted in the 1960s at the top of Trial Hill, a windy spot on the edge of the Eden Valley. At the outset, it was a single vineyard wine of tiny production. But now although most of the vines come from an altitude of 500 meters, it makes no claim to be site specific; the Steingarten name is a brand. The tank sample was brimming with citrus intensity but not yet really formed as a wine. The 2005, by contrast, was in a very nice spot, exhibiting more muted lime and floral character. The 1998 was oddly phenolic and, while quite solid, not as rewarding today as the 2005. Read more…

Okay, these wines have little to do with each other besides being red and under $20. Oh, and they’re tasty and balanced. And suitable for throwing in your basement with 90 days’ worth of canned food. (canned beans: an impossible food-wine pairing?)

De Forville, Dolcetto d’Alba, 2006. (about $17; find this wine) I’m not always a huge fan of dolcetto, aka “the little sweet one” but, perhaps more aptly, “the little tannic one.” But this one really struck a chord with truffle and earthy notes and a good balance of acidity, fruit and tannin. Second day open, just as good, which is always a good sign. Importer Neal Rosenthal’s site has some more specs on this family producer; I picked up this bottle at Pasanella & Son.

Nicolas Potel, cuvee Gerard Potel, Bourgogne, 2006. (about $19; find this wine) Given that Potel is a leading negociant house in Burgundy and from several tastings of 2006 red Burgundies, I was optimistic that this wine would work out when I added it to my virtual shopping cart. It did. Dark fruit aromas, good acidity and tannins make this a standout in that rough-and-tumble category of pinot noir under $20.

Domaine Bernard Baudry, “Les Granges,” Chinon 2007. (about $17; find this wine) Bernard Baudry is one of my favorite Loire producers of red wine and offers consistently good values across the line. Even in 2007, a difficult year for some, was strong at Baudry. This “Les Granges” has good depth and succulence, which combine to make it a natural match for unadorned grilled meats–or even those cans of beans. This wine was also going strong on day two…On a related note, the Baudry 07 Clos Guillot bottling, alluring, fresh and vibrant with a great crack of pepper on the finish, bears mentioning. But since it costs $27, we’ll have to talk about that in another post.

Oxidative wines are an essential wine tasting reference point. Too much oxygen during winemaking (or bottle aging) and a wine becomes oxidized, a flaw; just enough and it is oxidative, a sort of nutty character that people generally love or hate. In my multi-week wine classes, I always try to pour one, usually a sherry, just to provide the distinctive tasting experience. Since we’ve been talking about reductive wines and screw caps recently, the other side of the coin (barrel?) should receive a little love here too. And why not a vin jaune from the Jura?

Located about half way between Dijon and Geneva, the pocket-sized region of the Jura makes some of France’s most distinctive wines. At a recent trade tasting, I sampled a few of the wines from Domaine Berthet-Bondet, a winery founded by Jean Berthet Bondet on the relatively New World time frame of 1985. The Cotes de Jura Chardonnay 2006 is matured in neutral oak barrels and has a vein of minerality so rich it would out Chablis out of business if the world craved minerally chardonnay.

But the piece de resistance was the 2000 vin jaune (a type of “vin de voile” ) from the micro-appellation of Chateau-Chalon. Made entirely from the Savignan grape, the wine is matured for six or seven years in small neutral barrels, which are intentionally not filled all the way nor replenished (as barrels usually are to replace the “angels’ share” that evaporates). This creates further exchange with oxygen. But a film of beneficial yeast forms on the surface to moderate the oxygen exchange and prevent it from heading on a crash course to becoming vinegar. The aging happens in a well-ventilated room so there are wide temperature fluctuations through out the long aging. A complex wine emerges from the process, with aromas of walnuts, dried apricots, daisies. The nutty finish lingers for hours. Really. Truly a wine of contemplation. The oxidative process girds the wine for decades or centuries in the cellar.

Unfortunately, the wine sells for north of $100 for a 62cl bottle (find this wine). Their Cotes de Jura Tradtion 2003 provides the oxidative wine character, but at a fraction of the price (about $22; find this wine). I’d try both with Comté cheese.

Now if only we could come up with a sexier term than “oxidative”!

I’m in an undisclosed location where rum is cheaper than Yellow Tail.

We have the good fortune of being on a family vacation in the tropics. But what’s a wine lover to drink?

If you’ve read my book, A Year of Wine, you’ll know that I’m a fan of pairing wine with context, which includes the food, the mood, and the people. So if you’re on sun-drenched vacation, it’s easy to insert any wine, be it fetid or feted, and you’re bound for a great time since the setting is ideal, right? Perhaps. But this trip, I brought my own to make sure we had a good pairing.

Seeing some space in one of our bags, I threw in three wines from the Loire: two bottles of Muscadet and a bottle of Gamay. Low in alcohol, with refreshing acidity, and all under $15, I thought they would do the trick nicely when we grew tired of umbrella drinks and beer. (You can tell I am a wine geek since I was probably the only one bringing alcohol to the islands as opposed to returning with bottles–although I don’t rule that out.) I put them in a three-bottle wine shipper and they were still refreshingly cool to the touch when I unpacked. So I kept them that way by putting them all in the fridge on arrival.

The real stand out was the Domaine de la Pepiere, Clos des Briords, 2007 (about $15; find this wine), a superb wine in its own right that I’ve mentioned before. Throw in a sunset, 80 degrees, grilled fish, family and you really have a perfect wine moment. I rate it 100 points.

What’s one of your 100 point wine moments?

Ulli Stein has made a forbidden wine for decades. The Mosel winemaker still makes the wine, but it’s now allowed by law. In fact, he’s the only person in Germany with the right to make it.

The wine in question is a so-called vin de paille, or straw wine, made in miniature quantities. This sweet wine has its origins in the Jura, the Alpine region of France, and gets its name from the straw mats that the grapes are dried upon for months after harvest and before a long fermentation (Stein said his takes 12 months). Germany has many sweet wines, of course, but the sweetest wine of all, the Trockenbeerenauslese, gets its sweetness from the distinctive botrytis rot.

The lanky, hirsute Stein told me yesterday that covertly made his vin de paille for decades and labeled it as a Trockenbeerenauslese, as you can see in the picture. But he wanted to make it legally and brought the issue to a German judge, who turned down his request based on the 1971 German wine law, which claimed that grapes in the vin de paille were not fresh enough. Stein appealed. The next court turned him down. Eventually he appealed to the European courts and won the right to make vin de paille from the 2007 vintage. He added the court granted him the exclusive right in Germany to make vin de paille.

The 2003 that I tasted is a lovely, rich dessert wine. If I were a judge, I wouldn’t ban it.

As to the other Rieslings in his portfolio, they are all very good and interesting. But the standout for me was the Stein Bremmer Calmont Riesling Spatlese Trocken 2007. The delicate, slight sweetness (7.5 grams of residual sugar–all natural) embraces a vital core of acidity and minerality. Very nice.

Some globe-trotting winemakers travel between countries by private jet. Friedrich Wilhelm Becker travels by car. But he could even go by bike.

Although his vineyards span two countries, Germany and France, they are really only one kilometer apart. Friedrich, known as Fritz, told me yesterday that the vineyards have been in his family for six generations. During that time, the border has, ahem, changed several times and 1945 left them straddling two sovereign nation states. Today, about two-thirds of Becker’s 35 acres of vineyards are in Alsace with the remainder, as well as, the winery lying in Pfalz, specifically the town of Schweigen. (This area is north of Strasbourg while most of the Alsatian winegrowing happens south of Strasbourg.)

Today, in an integrated Europe, the border doesn’t really mean much. Fritz can dart between them with ease: “you don’t even notice it” he told me. But he said that for his father it was more of a hassle several decades ago when he would have to show his passport to cross the border each time he wanted to go check sugar levels in the grapes. The French border guards didn’t always make it easy, he said, since they often weren’t from the liminal zone that is the Rhine region and resented Germans still having holdings on the French side.

But is the Becker wine “German” if it is technically grown in France? Yes, Fritz said, thanks to a 1955 accord that grants them and five other vineyards that right. In exchange, the French got water rights to the springs of Schweigen and some lumber rights from the local forest. A deal that turned water into wine; I like.

So what about the wines? Like the odd political situation of the vineyards, the main grape variety is also something of a curiosity: pinot noir or, as it is known locally, Spätburgunder. But it is expertly done in the hands of the young Friedrich Wilhelm who makes the wines today, building on the strong reputation that his father, also Friedrich, established over the last four decades.

The 2007 estate pinot noir (about $19; find this wine) is a superb value with lovely balance between gentle tart, red fruits, acidity and some minerally character. It’s made in traditional 2,400 liter (i.e. big) wood casks and is 12.5% alcohol. Pair with, well, practically anything!

The 2006 pinot noir “Kammerberg” Grosses Gewächs (like a grand cru; find this wine) is a tremendous pinot noir, from 55 year-old vines, that is really layered and interesting with a long finish. Speaking of crossing the border, I would love to taste this wine blind against some wines from Chambolle-Musigny.

www.friedrichbecker.de
Rudi Wiest, the importer

Here’s a trio of French reds under $20 (plus a bonus) for your weekend pleasure.

Domaine de la Pepiere, Clos de Briords, 2007 (about $16, find this wine)
Over the past few years, I’ve alternated my Muscadet attention between Luneau Papin and Marc Ollivier of Domaine de la Pepiere. While both are terrific values and great wines, I’d ultimately have to side with Pepiere. And if anything pushed me over the edge, it’s this superb bottling of 2007 Clos de Briords. I poured it for my NYU class and it won plaudits from people who had never even had a Muscadet. It’s a little richer and fuller than the normal bottling from Pepiere but still has that great minerally verve with a touch of briney character that goes so well with seafood. I bet this one is built to last too.

Moueix, Merlot encore, 2005 (about $13, find this wine)
Most straight-up Merlot under $20 has about as much appeal as Muzak. But if there’s anyone who could bring an interesting, value Merlot to the market, it’s Christian Moueix who, among other wines in his portfolio, presides over the acclaimed and supremely expensive Chateau Petrus. If I could only find my blasted tasting notes for you I could have something more specific to say but the wine, as I recall, had some nice dark fruit character with some underlying minerality and acidity that are so lacking in lower-priced (and, too often, higher priced) versions of the grape from the New World. Moueix buys from a few dozen growers, mostly from St. Emilion and the farther flung appellations of the Cotes de Castillon. If they could pour this at art gallery openings, sales might rise!

JL Chave, Mon Coeur, Cotes du Rhone, 2006. (about $19; find this wine)
I suppose I could have recommended this “mon coeur” for Valentine’s Day but it’s much more, um, original to recommend it on March 13! A fuller bodied red from a top producer in the Northern Rhone, it is plush with dark fruits and dried herbs. Good for days when March is coming in like a lion but you are eating lamb.

Charles Hours, Clos Uroulat, Jurancon, 2006 (about $35; find this wine)
Aha! This wine is not really under $20. But my friend Mike and I went in on this one as our contribution to a recent wine dinner where we weren’t supposed to bring anything. So that made my contribution under $20. I was happy to take some credit since the wine was widely praised among the many hard-core wine geeks. Made from Petit Manseng (how many times can you trot that out?), the wine has wonderful aromas of white flowers and golden apples and honey; it’s rich but with wonderful texture as well as acidity so it really feels light and refreshing as opposed to a thicker Sauternes. A great way to finish a meal. Find a friend and make it under $20 for you.

What kind of a vintage port pairs with a recession? Well, in the case of Taylor’s, it’s the Quinta de Vargellas: this single vineyard wine’s most recent edition, the 2005, is about $45 compared with the current vintage port, the 2003, which is still north of $100. (Of course, for there’s also the Late Bottled Vintage, for $20, but I’ve already mentioned that.) It’s funny that in port country a single vineyard sells for less than a regular old vintage.

At a vertical tasting this week of Quinta de Vargellas dating back to 1958, I asked Adrian Bridge, managing director of the Taylor-Fladgate Partnership, how the economic downturn would affect the company.

“We’ve survived 300 years through wars and pestilence,” he said. “We can make it through this downturn. Fortunately we are not as dependent on restaurant sales as other categories, such as Champagne. If the next release doesn’t sell this year, we can always hold on to it for a couple more years since we have a lot of experience aging wines.”

I asked him whether there were too many offerings of high-end ports, fighting for a dwindling number of consumers. But he sad that specialty ports are actually a growing category, expanding 30% in recent years.

Vargellas is a steep single vineyard that came Taylor’s acquired in 1896. Today it has 255,000 vines, a common way of measuring a vineyard in the Douro, and some of those are over 100 years old. The grapes are foot-trodden, and wines typically are more approachable earlier than classic vintage port, according to Adrian, at about 12 years and typically only last about 35 years.

If you’re interested in assorted tasting notes and reactions, read on! Read more…