I remember customer wine ordering patterns a decade ago, around the turn of the century to a little after:
"I'll have a glass of Merlot." and "Please bring me a glass of Chardonnay."
Then for a short while during the summer of 2004 thanks to the movie Sideways, we couldn't give away a glass of Merlot. Miles seemingly singlehandedly put the words "Pinot Noir" on everyone's lips. The mantra was then:
"Oh, I'll have a Pinot please." Yet Chard still held sway in the white world. But by the spring of 2005, Merlot was back on top. That run wouldn't last forever, though.
Sometime in the last three or four years, customers moved on, in response to what stimuli, I don't know. Today, it's:
"I'll have a Malbec, please." and "Please bring me a Pinot Grigio."
This all strikes me as rather boring and, well, frankly, as an abdication of one's responsibility to continue to learn. Never mind that learning can be fun—seriously, how distressing is it to have to drink a glass of wine?—I always thought that it was one of the delights of growing up: learning for the sheer fun of it when nobody, not a parent or a teacher, is breathing down your neck.
We have a wine list here at the restaurant that is 70-plus in number of wines on offer by the glass (and this doesn't count many more than that by the bottle). Why is that? Because we love to learn about wines ourselves and we have fun sharing what we have learned with others.
So, know that we cringe a little bit each time you blindly call for a glass or bottle of the same old-same old.
Know that we spend a lot of time in finding really neat wines from lesser-known grapes such as Asprinio, Furmint, Robola, Melon de Bourgogne, Lagrein, Mencía, and Gamay Noir.
And know that we'd love to share them with you.
Will you dare to be different? Will you try something new?
Showing posts with label wine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wine. Show all posts
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Monday, September 12, 2011
Virginia Cabernet Franc
I had my faith in the Virginia winemaking community shaken pretty severely this past Saturday night when several of us sat down to a blind tasting of seven Virginia Cabernet Francs. The tasters reaction tells the tale: after tasting blind, not one of us wanted a glass of any of the Francs to drink. We opened a bottle of Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.
Technical flaws abounded. One was so contaminated with Brettanomyces that it was undrinkable. Three were overripe fruit bombs with no backing acid or tannins; the grape varietal was indiscernible. One was so tannic we wondered if it was destemmed at all. Two had a nose bereft of fruit, but with hints of latex rubber.
But surprisingly, what I didn't taste was a lot of green fruit. This is a welcome change from prior tastings in which green vegetal flavors predominated. But then, 2008 and 2009 were pretty decent vintages for reds in Virginia. And hopefully we have learned that Franc's crop has got to be restricted.
I hear people state frequently that Cabernet Franc is Virginia's red grape. It is almost a mantra for some of these people. What I do know about the grape is that it is relatively easy to grow, tolerates a cooler climate, ripens early, and crops heavily. Are these people mistaking something that grows easily in Virginia for something that makes good wine?
While our samples did not include a couple of the best Cabernet Francs in the state, it did represent some well known wineries that should have made good wine. And that is scary.
After ten years of seriously tasting Virginia wines, if I had to pick a grape that could become a signature for this state, it would be Petit Verdot. But I wonder. If we can't make good Franc, why would we make good PV?
Winemakers, are you listening? I'm trying to be a cheerleader for the industry with my wine list and its focus on Virginia. But you have to give me something to work with.
Technical flaws abounded. One was so contaminated with Brettanomyces that it was undrinkable. Three were overripe fruit bombs with no backing acid or tannins; the grape varietal was indiscernible. One was so tannic we wondered if it was destemmed at all. Two had a nose bereft of fruit, but with hints of latex rubber.
But surprisingly, what I didn't taste was a lot of green fruit. This is a welcome change from prior tastings in which green vegetal flavors predominated. But then, 2008 and 2009 were pretty decent vintages for reds in Virginia. And hopefully we have learned that Franc's crop has got to be restricted.
I hear people state frequently that Cabernet Franc is Virginia's red grape. It is almost a mantra for some of these people. What I do know about the grape is that it is relatively easy to grow, tolerates a cooler climate, ripens early, and crops heavily. Are these people mistaking something that grows easily in Virginia for something that makes good wine?
While our samples did not include a couple of the best Cabernet Francs in the state, it did represent some well known wineries that should have made good wine. And that is scary.
After ten years of seriously tasting Virginia wines, if I had to pick a grape that could become a signature for this state, it would be Petit Verdot. But I wonder. If we can't make good Franc, why would we make good PV?
Winemakers, are you listening? I'm trying to be a cheerleader for the industry with my wine list and its focus on Virginia. But you have to give me something to work with.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Wine and Vinegar
I was surfing the web in a spare moment this morning and stumbled upon this old myth (from a very respectable source, alas):
In response, I'm just going to ask a few questions:
1. Ever been to France?
2. Do the French eat a salad often at dinner?
3. What do they dress their salads with?
4. What do they drink with their salads?
Don't pay any heed to this old nonsense. Just keep on drinking wine with your dinner.
Try to avoid having vinegar in your salad dressing since vinegar destroys the flavor of wine.
In response, I'm just going to ask a few questions:
1. Ever been to France?
2. Do the French eat a salad often at dinner?
3. What do they dress their salads with?
4. What do they drink with their salads?
Don't pay any heed to this old nonsense. Just keep on drinking wine with your dinner.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Seyval Blanc
Note: this is an article that I have migrated from oneblockwest.com. It was orginally published in March 2008. I have updated it slightly.
Call it the Rodney Dangerfield of wine grapes. Although one of the most successfully grown grape varieties in the Eastern US, Ontario, and the UK today, Seyval Blanc is a grape that commands little respect, even among wine cognoscenti. Part of the issue is that it is a hybrid grape, a cross between an Old World wine grape (Vitis vinifera) and a native American grape (V. labrusca). V. labrusca rarely makes good wine and its hybrids are held in contempt by a large part of the wine growing and consuming world. Moreover, because it contains non-vinifera genes, Seyval Blanc does not meet the European Union standards for "quality wine" and therefore cannot be marketed in Europe proper.
Ironically, the grape came from Europe. French hybridizer Seyve-Villard (Bertille Seyve and Victor Villard) produced the Seyval cross in the early 20th century from hybrids Seibel 5656 and Seibel 4986, also known as Rayon d'Or. The most successful of Seyve-Villard's hybrids, Seyval Blanc is officially known as Seyve-Villard 5276. Many such hybrids were produced in response to the outbreak in Europe of an American pest, phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, a root louse), in an effort to create resistant vines by crossing resistant American grapes with so called noble or Old World grapes.
Despite the issues with the EU, the grape is gaining a growing following especially in colder, shorter growing season areas because it buds early, grows vigorously, ripens early, yields large clusters of medium-sized green berries, and is fairly resistant to low temperatures and to disease. Seyval Blanc produces wines of good acidity and in more northern climates, such as Ontario and the UK, the wines are crisp and exhibit hints of grapefruit. Some have likened these wines to those of Chablis. In our warmer climate here in Virginia, where the grapes can ripen longer, the wines are often fuller and a bit softer, and better to my taste.
Seyval is not without its challenges, however. For the grower, if the grapes are not extremely ripe, the acidity can get out of hand producing nearly undrinkable wine. And, its vigorous nature requires growers to remove canopy (to focus the plant on producing fruit rather than leaves and to allow the sun to reach and ripen the fruit) and to remove fruit in the vineyard (to help concentrate flavor in the remaining fruit). And care is needed to pick the grapes at maximum ripeness, but before they begin to rot, which is Seyval's habit.
Making wine from Seyval requires care as well. Seyval is not successful if fermented with the skins on, so the juice must be separated from the skins before fermentation. To preserve the fruity components, it helps to ferment the wine slowly at cool temperatures. Once the wine is fermented, the clear wine must be taken off the sediment (a process called racking) or the wine can develop undesirable flavors and odors. Although some producers age their wines in oak, I find that a wine that has seen nothing but stainless steel to be much more desirable.
With care, Seyval gives a finished wine that is crisp and dry with firm acidity, and hints of green apple, grapefruit, grass, hay, and sometimes honeydew melon. Think Sauvignon Blanc. The wine is generally light in body, moving to a medium body in warmer climates, with a greenish cast, sometimes going to a straw color.
Wines with higher acidity are very good food matches as the acidity both cleanses and refreshes the palate. Seyval Blanc is no exception: it works with the same foods as Gavi, Sancerre, Albariño, and crisp classic Sauvignon Blanc (not a tropical New Zealand one). While I often pair our local Linden Seyval with white fish, shellfish, and appetizers, it seems to be the one wine that I constantly recommend with our crab cakes.
I hope that you will try a Seyval in the near future, both to experience something new and to taste what could prove to be one of the most promising wines that we make in Virginia.
Call it the Rodney Dangerfield of wine grapes. Although one of the most successfully grown grape varieties in the Eastern US, Ontario, and the UK today, Seyval Blanc is a grape that commands little respect, even among wine cognoscenti. Part of the issue is that it is a hybrid grape, a cross between an Old World wine grape (Vitis vinifera) and a native American grape (V. labrusca). V. labrusca rarely makes good wine and its hybrids are held in contempt by a large part of the wine growing and consuming world. Moreover, because it contains non-vinifera genes, Seyval Blanc does not meet the European Union standards for "quality wine" and therefore cannot be marketed in Europe proper.
Ironically, the grape came from Europe. French hybridizer Seyve-Villard (Bertille Seyve and Victor Villard) produced the Seyval cross in the early 20th century from hybrids Seibel 5656 and Seibel 4986, also known as Rayon d'Or. The most successful of Seyve-Villard's hybrids, Seyval Blanc is officially known as Seyve-Villard 5276. Many such hybrids were produced in response to the outbreak in Europe of an American pest, phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, a root louse), in an effort to create resistant vines by crossing resistant American grapes with so called noble or Old World grapes.
Despite the issues with the EU, the grape is gaining a growing following especially in colder, shorter growing season areas because it buds early, grows vigorously, ripens early, yields large clusters of medium-sized green berries, and is fairly resistant to low temperatures and to disease. Seyval Blanc produces wines of good acidity and in more northern climates, such as Ontario and the UK, the wines are crisp and exhibit hints of grapefruit. Some have likened these wines to those of Chablis. In our warmer climate here in Virginia, where the grapes can ripen longer, the wines are often fuller and a bit softer, and better to my taste.
Seyval is not without its challenges, however. For the grower, if the grapes are not extremely ripe, the acidity can get out of hand producing nearly undrinkable wine. And, its vigorous nature requires growers to remove canopy (to focus the plant on producing fruit rather than leaves and to allow the sun to reach and ripen the fruit) and to remove fruit in the vineyard (to help concentrate flavor in the remaining fruit). And care is needed to pick the grapes at maximum ripeness, but before they begin to rot, which is Seyval's habit.
Making wine from Seyval requires care as well. Seyval is not successful if fermented with the skins on, so the juice must be separated from the skins before fermentation. To preserve the fruity components, it helps to ferment the wine slowly at cool temperatures. Once the wine is fermented, the clear wine must be taken off the sediment (a process called racking) or the wine can develop undesirable flavors and odors. Although some producers age their wines in oak, I find that a wine that has seen nothing but stainless steel to be much more desirable.
With care, Seyval gives a finished wine that is crisp and dry with firm acidity, and hints of green apple, grapefruit, grass, hay, and sometimes honeydew melon. Think Sauvignon Blanc. The wine is generally light in body, moving to a medium body in warmer climates, with a greenish cast, sometimes going to a straw color.
Wines with higher acidity are very good food matches as the acidity both cleanses and refreshes the palate. Seyval Blanc is no exception: it works with the same foods as Gavi, Sancerre, Albariño, and crisp classic Sauvignon Blanc (not a tropical New Zealand one). While I often pair our local Linden Seyval with white fish, shellfish, and appetizers, it seems to be the one wine that I constantly recommend with our crab cakes.
I hope that you will try a Seyval in the near future, both to experience something new and to taste what could prove to be one of the most promising wines that we make in Virginia.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
2003 Rhônes
Last night a customer ordered a bottle of 2005 Vacqueyras, but when the server got to the rack, all we had was 2003. The distributor sent us 2003 when we ordered 2005 and we didn't catch it when it was delivered. Sometimes things are that crazy on Thursday mornings, with six drivers trying to deliver at once.
Back to the story: the customer decided to try the 2003 wine and wasn't happy with it. She was too polite to just send it back out of hand. Instead she sent word to the kitchen for me to come have a taste. And I did. And the wine was shot.
2003 was famous for being the hottest vintage in Southern Europe that most of us can remember. It resulted in very ripe, highly colored, fruity, alcoholic wines with minimal acidity (in those wines that were not acidified by the winemaker). We bought some 2003 wines out of necessity: we don't have enough storage space to stock up on a wine so that we can skip a less desirable vintage such as 2003. However, I do recall not buying any Loires in that vintage: they were terrible from the start.
For the first couple of years the 2003 Rhônes were OK, if atypical. Many customers enjoyed the big fruity, bright purple, alcoholic wines. The last time I tasted this wine, it was still OK, but starting to fade, and this was a couple of years ago.
On tasting the Vacqueyras last night, I found all the fruit to be cooked. The bright fruit had gone over to prunes and raisins, flavors that you would find in a port (or an overripe California Zin). The body was flabby; there was no acid to wake up the palate. And the color had muddied. All signs of a wine on the way out, or in this case, over the hill.
So this is a reminder to those of you with any 2003 European wines: time to drink up.
Back to the story: the customer decided to try the 2003 wine and wasn't happy with it. She was too polite to just send it back out of hand. Instead she sent word to the kitchen for me to come have a taste. And I did. And the wine was shot.
2003 was famous for being the hottest vintage in Southern Europe that most of us can remember. It resulted in very ripe, highly colored, fruity, alcoholic wines with minimal acidity (in those wines that were not acidified by the winemaker). We bought some 2003 wines out of necessity: we don't have enough storage space to stock up on a wine so that we can skip a less desirable vintage such as 2003. However, I do recall not buying any Loires in that vintage: they were terrible from the start.
For the first couple of years the 2003 Rhônes were OK, if atypical. Many customers enjoyed the big fruity, bright purple, alcoholic wines. The last time I tasted this wine, it was still OK, but starting to fade, and this was a couple of years ago.
On tasting the Vacqueyras last night, I found all the fruit to be cooked. The bright fruit had gone over to prunes and raisins, flavors that you would find in a port (or an overripe California Zin). The body was flabby; there was no acid to wake up the palate. And the color had muddied. All signs of a wine on the way out, or in this case, over the hill.
So this is a reminder to those of you with any 2003 European wines: time to drink up.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Corvette Wines
With the coming of the new year and the spring, a lot of wines will be changing vintages, causing us to republish the wine list more frequently than during the rest of the year. Because of this, we taste a lot of candidate wines to more or less set the list for the year and to get the heavy editing out of the way during the winter lull. In spite of (or because of) tasting a lot of new wines, I feel the wine curmudgeon inside me just itching to get to the surface.
The sales reps are so right: these wines they are showing me are indeed crowd pleasers and we can indeed sell these wines oh so easily to our customers. But my inner curmudgeon is not happy with many wines he has been tasting recently. These wines—designed to be anything-but-challenging to the palates of the average American diner—are simple, one dimensional, devoid of varietal typicity, and to sum them up in a single word: boring!
Thank you Robert Parker and Wine Spectator for giving top reviews to this style of wine! These facile and easy-to-like wines have you so-called professionals suckered in just like the majority of your readers. They're just like that bright red Corvette: flashy, sexy, red, and very fast in a straight line. It takes more sophistication (or curmudgeonly tendencies) to see beyond to the car that is uncomfortable to sit in for long periods, has no visibility, has no trunk/boot space, takes a fortune to keep in repair and in fuel, and can't corner worth a darn.
That sexy 'vette's pretty fun for the occasional spin, but not one to take on a tour across the country for the long haul. Same with these wines: very sexy and tasty for a one night stand, but not one you're going to bring home to meet mama, great for the first glass and tedious thereafter.
Here's how a typical tasting session goes. The rep pours several glasses of wine. And on looking at them, I see very dark, highly extracted, deep purple, almost opaque wine. Funny, I thought that Pinot Noir was a light bodied, lightly colored wine.
And then I smell them. I get gobs and gobs of vanilla and generally a lot of fruit. What kind of fruit, who can say? Just a big snootful of very, very ripe fruit. All I can tell is that the grapes were hyperripe and that the winemakers have been very generous with their oak regimes. "Why do they all smell the same?" I wonder.
And then on to tasting. The initial impression is generally of alcohol, followed by lots of jammy fruit, loads of glycerin and (in many cases) residual sugar, and of course, lots and lots of vanilla from oak. And I say, "Wow!" in response to my senses being bombarded by obscene amounts of alcohol, fruit, sugar, and oak. The rep beams, "You like it?" I generally ignore this and ask, "What grape is this again?"
And while the rep is talking about harvesting at 29 Brix, cold maceration, and the remarkably long finish, I'm wondering where the acid and tannins, the backbone of the wine, went. And moreover, where its soul went.
When I taste a wine, especially a food wine, I don't want to be bombarded with alcohol, fruit, sugar, or oak. I would like a restrained wine that can play in harmony with food and one that has sufficient acid and tannins to refresh my palate between bites of food. And above all, I never want to ask, "What grape is this again?"
I value diversity in wine and appreciate each grape on its own merits: Sangiovese for its light body and red cherry fruit and Syrah for its weight, white pepper, and slightly funky nose as expressed in classic Chave Hermitage. What I don't appreciate is when I have to ask why the Shiraz, the Cab, the Merlot, and the Malbec that I am tasting all taste the same, all deep red, sexy, and slinky.
I worry that I may be the last of a dying breed, someone who learned wine B.P. (Before Parker). I worry that I am the last of the breed that appreciates acid and tannins, varietal typicity, and diversity. I wonder if any customers will get what I am ranting about.
Thank you again Bob Parker and Marv Shanken, but would you please get your Corvettes out of my parking lot?
The sales reps are so right: these wines they are showing me are indeed crowd pleasers and we can indeed sell these wines oh so easily to our customers. But my inner curmudgeon is not happy with many wines he has been tasting recently. These wines—designed to be anything-but-challenging to the palates of the average American diner—are simple, one dimensional, devoid of varietal typicity, and to sum them up in a single word: boring!
Thank you Robert Parker and Wine Spectator for giving top reviews to this style of wine! These facile and easy-to-like wines have you so-called professionals suckered in just like the majority of your readers. They're just like that bright red Corvette: flashy, sexy, red, and very fast in a straight line. It takes more sophistication (or curmudgeonly tendencies) to see beyond to the car that is uncomfortable to sit in for long periods, has no visibility, has no trunk/boot space, takes a fortune to keep in repair and in fuel, and can't corner worth a darn.
That sexy 'vette's pretty fun for the occasional spin, but not one to take on a tour across the country for the long haul. Same with these wines: very sexy and tasty for a one night stand, but not one you're going to bring home to meet mama, great for the first glass and tedious thereafter.
Here's how a typical tasting session goes. The rep pours several glasses of wine. And on looking at them, I see very dark, highly extracted, deep purple, almost opaque wine. Funny, I thought that Pinot Noir was a light bodied, lightly colored wine.
And then I smell them. I get gobs and gobs of vanilla and generally a lot of fruit. What kind of fruit, who can say? Just a big snootful of very, very ripe fruit. All I can tell is that the grapes were hyperripe and that the winemakers have been very generous with their oak regimes. "Why do they all smell the same?" I wonder.
And then on to tasting. The initial impression is generally of alcohol, followed by lots of jammy fruit, loads of glycerin and (in many cases) residual sugar, and of course, lots and lots of vanilla from oak. And I say, "Wow!" in response to my senses being bombarded by obscene amounts of alcohol, fruit, sugar, and oak. The rep beams, "You like it?" I generally ignore this and ask, "What grape is this again?"
And while the rep is talking about harvesting at 29 Brix, cold maceration, and the remarkably long finish, I'm wondering where the acid and tannins, the backbone of the wine, went. And moreover, where its soul went.
When I taste a wine, especially a food wine, I don't want to be bombarded with alcohol, fruit, sugar, or oak. I would like a restrained wine that can play in harmony with food and one that has sufficient acid and tannins to refresh my palate between bites of food. And above all, I never want to ask, "What grape is this again?"
I value diversity in wine and appreciate each grape on its own merits: Sangiovese for its light body and red cherry fruit and Syrah for its weight, white pepper, and slightly funky nose as expressed in classic Chave Hermitage. What I don't appreciate is when I have to ask why the Shiraz, the Cab, the Merlot, and the Malbec that I am tasting all taste the same, all deep red, sexy, and slinky.
I worry that I may be the last of a dying breed, someone who learned wine B.P. (Before Parker). I worry that I am the last of the breed that appreciates acid and tannins, varietal typicity, and diversity. I wonder if any customers will get what I am ranting about.
Thank you again Bob Parker and Marv Shanken, but would you please get your Corvettes out of my parking lot?
Monday, November 9, 2009
Turkey Wine
It's that time of the year when the phone starts ringing and the emails starting arriving. Everyone wants to know what wine to pair with turkey. Let me preface my answer with there is no single correct match; there are many acceptable matches; and that most people stress way too much about the subject.
And before I go any further, just let me state that Pinot Noir is the universal food wine. When in doubt, Pinot Noir.
Delving into the subject a bit further, you must realize that the turkey in itself does not drive the pairing decision, for it's about as mild a meat as you can encounter. Driving the pairing decision are all those myriad side dishes, some very aggressively seasoned and some very sweet or sweet and sour.
When in doubt, Pinot Noir.
With all the fruity sweet and sour going on at Thanksgiving, I like a wine that can stand up to the fruit. There are five categories of wine that I have paired very successfully with a full Thanksgiving meal and those are rosé, sparkling wine, fruity unoaked whites, lightly oaked light red wines, and fruit-forward reds.
Rosé. In general, rosé wines pair with a lot of difficult dishes; you'll find cranberry notes in many that will work well at Thanksgiving. And as most of these wines are made for immediate consumption, I like to empty my cooler of the remaining rosés of the current vintage at this time of year.
Sparkling Wine. Champagne is the LBD (little black dress) of the wine world. It's almost always appropriate and goes with so many things. But while Champagne works pretty well, the sweetness of a lot of Thanksgiving dishes may turn it a little sour or tinny, so I look to other more fruity bubblies this time of year. Now is the time to consider a gorgeous rosé Crémant d'Alsace, a sparkling Shiraz from down under, or a sparkling Chenin Blanc such as Vouvray.
Fruity Unoaked White. My preference in Thanksgiving wines runs to reds, simply because of the weather. Cold weather has me seeking a red wine. But I always have a bottle or two of fruity Riesling, Alsatian Pinot Blanc, or Gewürztraminer open for those who prefer white. These are all great turkey wines.
Light Red Wines. Because turkey is such a light meat, I don't want the wine to overpower it. This eliminates Cabernet, Merlot, Malbec and so forth from the running. This is the time of year that I love to serve a delightful Beaujolais, Pinot Noir, or maybe even a lightly oaked light red from Italy, such as Sangiovese or Nebbiolo.
Fruity Red Wines. Thanksgiving dinner is one of the spiciest meals most people will eat during the year; many dishes are loaded with cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Another approach to selecting a wine is to complement these spices with a spicy wine such as a Zinfandel, Shiraz, Syrah, and other spicy fruit-foward wines or wines with soft tannins. I really like a fruity Grenache for its spiciness.
Oh yeah, when in doubt, Pinot Noir.
So what am I pouring at Thanksgiving? Lots and lots of choices of the wines I've discussed above so that everyone has something and hopefully so that people will try something new. And what's in my glass? Do you have to ask?
When in doubt, Pinot Noir.
And before I go any further, just let me state that Pinot Noir is the universal food wine. When in doubt, Pinot Noir.
Delving into the subject a bit further, you must realize that the turkey in itself does not drive the pairing decision, for it's about as mild a meat as you can encounter. Driving the pairing decision are all those myriad side dishes, some very aggressively seasoned and some very sweet or sweet and sour.
When in doubt, Pinot Noir.
With all the fruity sweet and sour going on at Thanksgiving, I like a wine that can stand up to the fruit. There are five categories of wine that I have paired very successfully with a full Thanksgiving meal and those are rosé, sparkling wine, fruity unoaked whites, lightly oaked light red wines, and fruit-forward reds.
Rosé. In general, rosé wines pair with a lot of difficult dishes; you'll find cranberry notes in many that will work well at Thanksgiving. And as most of these wines are made for immediate consumption, I like to empty my cooler of the remaining rosés of the current vintage at this time of year.
Sparkling Wine. Champagne is the LBD (little black dress) of the wine world. It's almost always appropriate and goes with so many things. But while Champagne works pretty well, the sweetness of a lot of Thanksgiving dishes may turn it a little sour or tinny, so I look to other more fruity bubblies this time of year. Now is the time to consider a gorgeous rosé Crémant d'Alsace, a sparkling Shiraz from down under, or a sparkling Chenin Blanc such as Vouvray.
Fruity Unoaked White. My preference in Thanksgiving wines runs to reds, simply because of the weather. Cold weather has me seeking a red wine. But I always have a bottle or two of fruity Riesling, Alsatian Pinot Blanc, or Gewürztraminer open for those who prefer white. These are all great turkey wines.
Light Red Wines. Because turkey is such a light meat, I don't want the wine to overpower it. This eliminates Cabernet, Merlot, Malbec and so forth from the running. This is the time of year that I love to serve a delightful Beaujolais, Pinot Noir, or maybe even a lightly oaked light red from Italy, such as Sangiovese or Nebbiolo.
Fruity Red Wines. Thanksgiving dinner is one of the spiciest meals most people will eat during the year; many dishes are loaded with cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Another approach to selecting a wine is to complement these spices with a spicy wine such as a Zinfandel, Shiraz, Syrah, and other spicy fruit-foward wines or wines with soft tannins. I really like a fruity Grenache for its spiciness.
Oh yeah, when in doubt, Pinot Noir.
So what am I pouring at Thanksgiving? Lots and lots of choices of the wines I've discussed above so that everyone has something and hopefully so that people will try something new. And what's in my glass? Do you have to ask?
When in doubt, Pinot Noir.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Jefferson Vineyards Tasting
After a grueling day at the desk yesterday trying to get caught up from my road trips over the weekend and dealing with payroll and bills, I finally got a break around 4pm when my friend Andy Reagan showed up with his wines in tow. Andy's the winemaker and vineyard manager at Jefferson Vineyards just southeast of Charlottesville, right next to Monticello.
I've known Andy since he was the winemaker at nearby Chrysalis Vineyards and a frequent guest in my dining room, but I haven't seen him since he headed south a few years back to make wines in my hometown, so this was a good time to catch up. He was up in the area meeting with one of his grape growers, a mutual friend of ours and frequent customer at the restaurant. This really is a small world, the food and wine business.
It's always fun for me to taste one on one with the winemaker because we can get into details about how exactly the fruit and juice was handled to make the wine. We got into details about stuck fermentations and canopy management yesterday that you would never get into with a distributor rep. I find the more I know about a wine, the better I can appreciate it and the more I know about the mind of the winemaker, the better I can appreciate his biases and approach to making wines. The thing that I always come away with after having talked with a good winemaker is how creative he or she is at solving problems when the winemaking process doesn't go exactly by the book.
We tasted through the wines, about 10 in all, from Pinot Gris to Meritage, which was badly corked, so I never got to try this vintage, although it has been really solid in vintages past and I expect no different in this vintage, 2006. My overall impression is that the wines are very solid and together, they form a body of work that certainly places Jefferson in the top five wineries in the state.
Two wines stood out for me. The 2007 Pinot Gris stood out with its typical Pinot Gris nose and crisp acid, coupled with the really ripe mid-palate that the 2007 vintage is famous for. On the red side, I really loved the 2007 Petit Verdot (not the reserve wine) for a smooth, easy drinking red coupled with good acidity (not easy to do in such a vintage) and a nice touch of Brett. I grew up drinking southern Rhônes so a little Brett is a good thing in my book for certain wines and this Petit Verdot benefits from it nicely.
Andy, well done and keep up the good work. It's people like you who will help elevate Virginia wines in the eyes of the world.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
DC's Wine Country Wine Festival Notes
Just back from the trade tasting at Whitehall Manor in beautiful Bluemont, VA just across the mountain from us in Loudoun County. Props to the Loudoun Convention & Visitors Association for organizing this trade-only tasting on Sunday afternoon before the Wine Festival opened to the general public.
Here are some brief notes on what I tasted, and I only tasted about 40 wines. I did not attend the outdoor festival where the wineries were pouring everything that they make. The trade tasting was about 40 wines from perhaps 10 wineries who sell to the trade as well as retail to the general public.
There were some hits and misses. You would think that for a trade-only tasting for those of us who buy and sell wine on a regular basis, that the wines would be carefully selected so that there were no misses. Not so. This tasting confirmed for me once again that there is a sea of bad wine being made in Virginia and that you must taste each wine before you buy it, with a few exceptions.
I tasted two horrible Merlots and one Cabernet Franc that was so green that the Bell pepper flavor just leaped off of it. This was a 2007 Cab Franc and 2007 was the dream vintage in Virginia. If you couldn't make good wine in '07, you can't make good wine. What happens to these people in a tough year?
Viognier is supposed to our grape here in Virginia and I tasted three that I haven't tasted in a year or more. One was so-so, one had so much sulfur on the nose that the fruit couldn't even penetrate it, and the big name, big-priced one, well it had been doctored to death by the winemaker. Full ML and tons of oak are not my idea of a good time with Viognier. As I was tasting this wine, the winery rep was giving me the spiel about how he really liked his unoaked Chardonnay that sees no ML. How about leaving your beautiful Viognier fruit alone too?
Here are some notes about wines worth tasting.
Both the Bordeaux blends from The Boxwood Winery in Middleburg are outstanding. The Merlot-heavy Topiary is fairly feminine and ready to drink now. The Cabernet Sauvignon-based Boxwood needs more time. Both are structurally sound and I'm planning to bring them in house.
Doug Fabbioli's rosé of Sangiovese called Rosa Luna is utterly delicious. Go visit Doug over in Lucketts, grab a bottle of this and just enjoy life. I won't be adding this to our list this year because we've already selected our single rosé for the year, but it will be a candidate next year. Why, oh why, won't customers buy rosé??? We already sell Doug's Cab Franc, stunning Chambourcin, and Raspberry Merlot. You should definitely try his Tre Sorelle blend as well.
The Syrah from Tarara, co-fermented with Viognier in the Rhône manner, is worth seeking out. Hopefully I will add this to the list.
Here are some brief notes on what I tasted, and I only tasted about 40 wines. I did not attend the outdoor festival where the wineries were pouring everything that they make. The trade tasting was about 40 wines from perhaps 10 wineries who sell to the trade as well as retail to the general public.
There were some hits and misses. You would think that for a trade-only tasting for those of us who buy and sell wine on a regular basis, that the wines would be carefully selected so that there were no misses. Not so. This tasting confirmed for me once again that there is a sea of bad wine being made in Virginia and that you must taste each wine before you buy it, with a few exceptions.
I tasted two horrible Merlots and one Cabernet Franc that was so green that the Bell pepper flavor just leaped off of it. This was a 2007 Cab Franc and 2007 was the dream vintage in Virginia. If you couldn't make good wine in '07, you can't make good wine. What happens to these people in a tough year?
Viognier is supposed to our grape here in Virginia and I tasted three that I haven't tasted in a year or more. One was so-so, one had so much sulfur on the nose that the fruit couldn't even penetrate it, and the big name, big-priced one, well it had been doctored to death by the winemaker. Full ML and tons of oak are not my idea of a good time with Viognier. As I was tasting this wine, the winery rep was giving me the spiel about how he really liked his unoaked Chardonnay that sees no ML. How about leaving your beautiful Viognier fruit alone too?
Here are some notes about wines worth tasting.
Both the Bordeaux blends from The Boxwood Winery in Middleburg are outstanding. The Merlot-heavy Topiary is fairly feminine and ready to drink now. The Cabernet Sauvignon-based Boxwood needs more time. Both are structurally sound and I'm planning to bring them in house.
Doug Fabbioli's rosé of Sangiovese called Rosa Luna is utterly delicious. Go visit Doug over in Lucketts, grab a bottle of this and just enjoy life. I won't be adding this to our list this year because we've already selected our single rosé for the year, but it will be a candidate next year. Why, oh why, won't customers buy rosé??? We already sell Doug's Cab Franc, stunning Chambourcin, and Raspberry Merlot. You should definitely try his Tre Sorelle blend as well.
The Syrah from Tarara, co-fermented with Viognier in the Rhône manner, is worth seeking out. Hopefully I will add this to the list.
Friday, June 5, 2009
TOH!
Each year, just around Memorial Day, our summer wines start rolling in and we revamp the wine list for the upcoming hot weather. This year is no different, but one of the labels (right) on one of our wines is very different this year. The wine I ordered was Tocai Friulano, the box it arrived in had Tocai on the side, and the wine tastes like Tocai Friulano, a light crisp white, great for seafood on the deck.But as you can see, the word Tocai is notably absent from the label which now only states "da uve Friulano," from the Friulano grape. And there's a good reason for it. I've long believed that certain names belong to certain styles of wines from certain regions. Champagne belongs to sparkling wines of that region of France; Port belongs to fortified red wines from the Douro. And, now Tokaji belongs to Hungary, not to Friuli (Tocai Friulano) or Alsace (Tokay d'Alsace) or anywhere else. Use of the word Tokay in any of its spellings is banned except for Hungarian wines.
If you want to read more, Jancis Robinson has all the details on her web site.
But you've still got to admire Max Di Lenardo 's spirit in using the emphatic TOH! on the label, as a gentle middle finger at the European Union.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Foraged Salad
This is a salad that I designed last week to pair with the lovely 2007 Viognier from White Hall Vineyards just outside of Charlottesville, VA. This wine is ripe and full with loads of tropical fruit, just about everything you'd want out of a Viognier (Condrieu eat you heart out!).To work with the fruit in the wine, I knew that I wanted to use mango, but I also wanted to do it in an unusual way. Longtime customers know that I am a fan of framing a salad by placing it on top of a flat base, such as summer greens on grilled focaccia or my grilled fig, goat cheese and arugula salad on a base of prosciutto slices. In this case, I decided to make a gelée of the mango and use it as a runner down the salad plate.
The salad is foraged from my yard—purple and white violets, henbit, chickweed, pansy flowers, and maple blossoms—all dressed with a light lemon dressing (lemon juice and salad oil).
Mango Gelée
1 cup water
1/2 ounce gelatin
3 mangoes, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
sugar or honey, salt, and lime juice to taste
half sheet tray
Silpat
Bloom the gelatin by pouring it over the cold water and letting it stand while you prep the mangoes.
Blend the mangoes to a purée. They should be ripe enough to purée on their own without any additional liquid; add water if you need liquid to make the blender work. Pass through a strainer. Add the vanilla and season to taste with sugar, salt, and lime juice, if the mangoes need more acid.
Gently heat the purée over a medium flame. When the mango starts to bubble, add the gelatin and turn off the heat. Mix well until the gelatin melts.
Place the Silpat in the bottom of the sheet tray. Pour the purée over the Silpat and tilt the tray so that the entire surface is covered in an even layer of mango. Refrigerate until solid.
Using a butter knife, slice the mango jelly into whatever shapes you desire. Peel them carefully away from the Silpat.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Why am I the Bad Guy?
Earlier this week, a customer brought in two bottles of wine and wanted us to open them and even offered to pay us a corkage fee. His issue: he's allergic to sulfites and this was wine that he made himself to guarantee that he has sulfite-free wine to drink. Unfortunately, to comply with the law in Virginia, we had to refuse to open the bottles, which just makes us look like money-grubbing jerks.
Even though we explained that Virginia law forbids bring-your-own, we still look like jerks. Although the customer was a pretty good sport, I could tell that he was hurt. Here are my shackles, straight from the Code of Virginia:
Rather wordy, and by the time that you decipher from the rest of the Code who you're licensed to buy from and what you're licensed to sell, the bottom line is if you didn't purchase from the Commonwealth or from a licensed wholesaler, you can't even have it on premises, let alone serve it.
The obvious fallout from this is that for a special occasion for one of my customers, let's say a tenth wedding anniversary, the customer wants to bring in the bottle of wine that he purchased during his honeymoon for this very occasion, I am forced to be the jerk and refuse to allow the wine on premises. And while I'm not a big fan of customers bringing their own wine to my restaurant, this is another case in which I would very dearly love to make an exception.
The less obvious fallout is that I can't build a decent wine list of old vintages. The major wine destination restaurants not located in Virginia are largely free to bid on older wines at auction and build their cellars that way, or even more directly, by purchasing private cellars. How have restaurants in Virginia have accomplished this? Let's just say that it didn't happen legally. This is why you don't see any old Bordeaux on my list.
This situation is not likely to change. The major vested parties—the Commonwealth, the wholesalers, and restaurants—are just that, they're vested in the system. The Commonwealth wants its guaranteed tax revenue, the wholesalers want to keep restaurants purchasing only from them, and the restaurants largely want to sell wine, not let people bring in their own.
I'd love to be able to say yes more often to my customers, but instead, I come off as the bad guy. I just hope that through posting this, more people recognize that my hands are tied legally.
Even though we explained that Virginia law forbids bring-your-own, we still look like jerks. Although the customer was a pretty good sport, I could tell that he was hurt. Here are my shackles, straight from the Code of Virginia:
§ 4.1-315. Possession without license to sell alcoholic beverages upon premises of restaurant; exceptions; penalty.
A. No alcoholic beverages shall be kept or allowed to be kept upon any premises or upon the person of any proprietor or person employed upon the premises of a restaurant or other place where food or refreshments of any kind are furnished for compensation, except such alcoholic beverages as such person owning or operating such place of business is licensed to purchase and to sell at such place of business.
Rather wordy, and by the time that you decipher from the rest of the Code who you're licensed to buy from and what you're licensed to sell, the bottom line is if you didn't purchase from the Commonwealth or from a licensed wholesaler, you can't even have it on premises, let alone serve it.
The obvious fallout from this is that for a special occasion for one of my customers, let's say a tenth wedding anniversary, the customer wants to bring in the bottle of wine that he purchased during his honeymoon for this very occasion, I am forced to be the jerk and refuse to allow the wine on premises. And while I'm not a big fan of customers bringing their own wine to my restaurant, this is another case in which I would very dearly love to make an exception.
The less obvious fallout is that I can't build a decent wine list of old vintages. The major wine destination restaurants not located in Virginia are largely free to bid on older wines at auction and build their cellars that way, or even more directly, by purchasing private cellars. How have restaurants in Virginia have accomplished this? Let's just say that it didn't happen legally. This is why you don't see any old Bordeaux on my list.
This situation is not likely to change. The major vested parties—the Commonwealth, the wholesalers, and restaurants—are just that, they're vested in the system. The Commonwealth wants its guaranteed tax revenue, the wholesalers want to keep restaurants purchasing only from them, and the restaurants largely want to sell wine, not let people bring in their own.
I'd love to be able to say yes more often to my customers, but instead, I come off as the bad guy. I just hope that through posting this, more people recognize that my hands are tied legally.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Burning Questions: Wine and Beverages
This whole series of "Burning Questions" posts originated as a somewhat amusing troll through the One Block West Restaurant web site server logs, to see what search phrases were bringing people to the web site. As I went through the logs, the search topics seemed to fall into several broad categories, each dealt with in a separate post in this series. This post deals with beverages.
4 Areas Scotch is Made from. See any of the maps on the web. The four basic areas are Highlands (including Speyside), Lowlands, Campbeltown, and Islay. There are also distilleries in the northwestern islands grouped unofficially under the moniker Islands; these include Jura, Mull, Arran, Skye, and Orkney.
Bring Wine/Take Wine to Restaurant in Virginia. I'll let Virginia ABC answer this one:
Which Red Wine Grape is Used to Make Champagne. Two actually: Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.
4 Areas Scotch is Made from. See any of the maps on the web. The four basic areas are Highlands (including Speyside), Lowlands, Campbeltown, and Islay. There are also distilleries in the northwestern islands grouped unofficially under the moniker Islands; these include Jura, Mull, Arran, Skye, and Orkney.
Bring Wine/Take Wine to Restaurant in Virginia. I'll let Virginia ABC answer this one:
BYOW (Bring your own wine) is illegal in Virginia. Patrons are not allowed to bring bottles of wine into licensed establishments. (§ 4.1-324, 325 and 225). However, if you are unable to finish a purchased bottle of wine at a restaurant, they may cork the unfinished bottle for you to take home (3 VAC 5 40 30 B).
Which Red Wine Grape is Used to Make Champagne. Two actually: Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
"House" Wine
I got to thinking about "house wine" today.
It happens all the time that a customer will ask for a glass of "house Merlot" or "the house white" or the "house" something. And we have to gently tell the customer that we have no house wines. We've never had house wines because we have always had an extensive by-the-glass wine list that at any given time comprises 70 to 80 wines.
I take that back. Some years ago, we had a One Block West Cuvée local Chardonnay, but we let that program lapse simply because of too much stylistic variation between vintages and because the Commonwealth of Virginia forbade us for a long while from buying directly from the wine growers. The point of this program was not to have a house white, but to showcase what the local producer was doing. Too bad for both of us that it didn't work out.
Back to the dining room. I'd like to think that most customers asking for a house wine are really thinking that because we care a lot about wine that we will naturally pick tasty, inexpensive wines for house wines. But that's not the feeling I get when I overhear most customers asking for a house wine.
It seems to me that most people are saying, "Bring me a glass of whatever is cheapest; I don't care whether it goes with my meal or not." The corollary would be to ask your server to bring the cheapest dish on the menu to you, that you don't care what it is or how it is prepared. "Could I have the house meat please?"
I know that there are customers who order house wine simply to avoid the "trouble" of looking through the wine list and making a decision. And I certainly understand that there are times when each of us is just too tired to want to make another decision after a hard day. If this is the case, just order the wine that I have paired with your dish of choice on the menu or ask your server or me to select a wine for you.
So, tired of making decisions I understand. But, what I don't understand is why these same people will sift through the menu and ask questions about the food, its preparation, and its provenance, but would then just ask for any old wine to drink.
I guess it's the idea that wine is not worthy of the same consideration as food that bothers me a little. We put a lot of effort into our food and into building our wine list to complement that food and we'd like to think that customers put a little effort into choosing wine to go with it.
I'm not knocking house wines or those restaurants that serve them or those customers that order them. I have to confess that in France, I have ordered "un pichet de rouge" on many occasions. And I don't think that "house wine" is a dirty word or anything like that. I am just posting this so that everyone knows why we don't have house wine.
In building my wine list, I've put my effort into building an outstanding by-the-glass list so that everyone at the table can get a wine that pairs well with each course. And house wine just flies in the face of this effort.
It happens all the time that a customer will ask for a glass of "house Merlot" or "the house white" or the "house" something. And we have to gently tell the customer that we have no house wines. We've never had house wines because we have always had an extensive by-the-glass wine list that at any given time comprises 70 to 80 wines.
I take that back. Some years ago, we had a One Block West Cuvée local Chardonnay, but we let that program lapse simply because of too much stylistic variation between vintages and because the Commonwealth of Virginia forbade us for a long while from buying directly from the wine growers. The point of this program was not to have a house white, but to showcase what the local producer was doing. Too bad for both of us that it didn't work out.
Back to the dining room. I'd like to think that most customers asking for a house wine are really thinking that because we care a lot about wine that we will naturally pick tasty, inexpensive wines for house wines. But that's not the feeling I get when I overhear most customers asking for a house wine.
It seems to me that most people are saying, "Bring me a glass of whatever is cheapest; I don't care whether it goes with my meal or not." The corollary would be to ask your server to bring the cheapest dish on the menu to you, that you don't care what it is or how it is prepared. "Could I have the house meat please?"
I know that there are customers who order house wine simply to avoid the "trouble" of looking through the wine list and making a decision. And I certainly understand that there are times when each of us is just too tired to want to make another decision after a hard day. If this is the case, just order the wine that I have paired with your dish of choice on the menu or ask your server or me to select a wine for you.
So, tired of making decisions I understand. But, what I don't understand is why these same people will sift through the menu and ask questions about the food, its preparation, and its provenance, but would then just ask for any old wine to drink.
I guess it's the idea that wine is not worthy of the same consideration as food that bothers me a little. We put a lot of effort into our food and into building our wine list to complement that food and we'd like to think that customers put a little effort into choosing wine to go with it.
I'm not knocking house wines or those restaurants that serve them or those customers that order them. I have to confess that in France, I have ordered "un pichet de rouge" on many occasions. And I don't think that "house wine" is a dirty word or anything like that. I am just posting this so that everyone knows why we don't have house wine.
In building my wine list, I've put my effort into building an outstanding by-the-glass list so that everyone at the table can get a wine that pairs well with each course. And house wine just flies in the face of this effort.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Petit Chablis
It's that time of year and I'm thinking about the Chablis in France. Cold weather and January are synonymous with Chablis in my mind, this being the off season for wine makers and the time of year that I used to go on buying trips in a former life before the restaurant business.
After flying all night Saturday night to France and negotiating the rental car process in Paris, the first stop would be the village of Chablis, a pleasant enough less than 2-hour drive out the A6. In fact, it's just enough time to become ragingly hungry and arrive for the Sunday morning market.
Chablis will always be a magical place for me, being forever linked with going to the Sunday market to buy some briny Arcachon and Belon oysters, a bottle of grand cru Chablis, and driving up into the Vaudésir vineyard overlooking the town and the Serein, and embracing the cold wind of January while sitting in the vineyard eating the oysters and drinking the Chablis for breakfast.
Racy Chablis right in the grand cru vineyard just seems to be the perfect pairing for oysters. The perfection of the pairing comes from the high acid Chardonnay (some old timers in Chablis still call Chardonnay Beaunois, the grape from Beaune, much further south in the Bourgogne proper) made in the Chablis. The acidity comes not only from the calcareous soils, but from the northerly lattitude that keeps the grapes from overripening: only the Champagne is further north in France. And a lack of oak and lack of malolactic fermentation certainly help where oysters are concerned.
When people think of Chablis, they tend to think of only three appellations: Chablis Grand Cru, Chablis Premier Cru, and Chablis; they forget (or don't know about) Petit Chablis, the fourth appellation. On the quality scale, vineyards designated as Petit Chablis produce wines that have been historically on the low end. This doesn't necessarily mean bad. What it means in these budget conscious times is inexpensive. A rock solid Petit Chablis from a top producer can be a lot better and a whole lot less expensive than a Chablis or Premier Cru from a lesser producer.
We don't have any Petit Chablis on the restaurant wine list; selling any kind of Chablis at all in our market is difficult. But, if you happen across it at a wine shop or on a restaurant wine list, you might just have found a racy Chardonnay at a good price, a solid value wine.
After flying all night Saturday night to France and negotiating the rental car process in Paris, the first stop would be the village of Chablis, a pleasant enough less than 2-hour drive out the A6. In fact, it's just enough time to become ragingly hungry and arrive for the Sunday morning market.
Chablis will always be a magical place for me, being forever linked with going to the Sunday market to buy some briny Arcachon and Belon oysters, a bottle of grand cru Chablis, and driving up into the Vaudésir vineyard overlooking the town and the Serein, and embracing the cold wind of January while sitting in the vineyard eating the oysters and drinking the Chablis for breakfast.
Racy Chablis right in the grand cru vineyard just seems to be the perfect pairing for oysters. The perfection of the pairing comes from the high acid Chardonnay (some old timers in Chablis still call Chardonnay Beaunois, the grape from Beaune, much further south in the Bourgogne proper) made in the Chablis. The acidity comes not only from the calcareous soils, but from the northerly lattitude that keeps the grapes from overripening: only the Champagne is further north in France. And a lack of oak and lack of malolactic fermentation certainly help where oysters are concerned.
When people think of Chablis, they tend to think of only three appellations: Chablis Grand Cru, Chablis Premier Cru, and Chablis; they forget (or don't know about) Petit Chablis, the fourth appellation. On the quality scale, vineyards designated as Petit Chablis produce wines that have been historically on the low end. This doesn't necessarily mean bad. What it means in these budget conscious times is inexpensive. A rock solid Petit Chablis from a top producer can be a lot better and a whole lot less expensive than a Chablis or Premier Cru from a lesser producer.
We don't have any Petit Chablis on the restaurant wine list; selling any kind of Chablis at all in our market is difficult. But, if you happen across it at a wine shop or on a restaurant wine list, you might just have found a racy Chardonnay at a good price, a solid value wine.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Pass the Port, Please!
This was originally published on oneblockwest.com.
Among diners in the restaurant and even among the servers, there is a good bit of confusion about Port. It seems nobody is exactly sure how it is made or what the differences between the kinds are.
Port is one of the oldest recognizable wines in the world. If you were to go back to Portugal in the latter half of the 17th century, you would find sweet fortified wines that you would recognize, although the name Port didn’t evolve until much later.
The name Port is an anglicization of the town of Oporto, the port from which Port is shipped, on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Douro river in northern Portugal. Although the wine has been traditionally matured and bottled in Villa Nova da Gaia, across the river from Oporto, the wines are made a long way upriver in the upper Douro, from the east-west center of the country to the eastern border with Spain (where the river is known as the Duero as in the Ribera del Duero DO).
Today as ever, the wines are vinified on the quintas (the estates) upriver where the grapes are grown. Then the wines are put in casks called pipes and sent downriver to the various lodges in Villa Nova da Gaia where they are matured, and thence after shipped to the world, primarily northern Europe. Since 1986, the wines no longer have to be matured and bottled in Villa Nova and we are starting to see many fine wines matured and bottled on the various quintas, of which there are thousands, many privately owned.
The restrictions on maturation and bottling in Villa Nova were put in place by the large port shippers to control the trade: small producers could not afford to build a lodge in Villa Nova in which to mature and bottle their wines. They were forced to sell their wines to one of the bigger houses.
Vinification
Port starts off life like most wines, undergoing the usual pressing and fermentation, except that winemakers do not try to slow the fermentation by keeping the juice cool as they do in other hot weather climates. Fermentation of port is often very warm. The sweetness comes in because the winemakers do not allow the fermentation to complete: they stop it by adding aguardente, neutral grape alcohol, in a process called fortifying the wine. Once the alcohol level gets above 15% or so, the yeasts responsible for fermentation are killed, leaving unfermented sugars intact, hence the wine is sweet.
Most winemakers fortify their wines when the sugar level falls to about 90g per liter of juice by adding 110 liters of alcohol to 440 liters of wine (the Port pipes hold 550 liters). To make a drier port, they let the fermentation go longer and add less alcohol (the longer the natural fermentation, the higher the base alcohol level). To make a sweeter port, they stop the fermentation earlier and add more alcohol.
Styles
The styles of port are very confusing if you try to read the labels on the bottles. The best rule to remember is that in addition to a port made solely from white grapes (called white port), there are basically only two styles of red port: ruby and tawny. Both these names are taken from the color of the finished product and if you look at both in a glass, it is immediately obvious which is which.
Once the port is fortified, it is then placed in pipes to age. How long it ages governs whether it is a ruby or a tawny. Rubies spend little time in barrel and maintain their youthful color, fruitiness, and vibrancy in bottle where they are no longer exposed to oxygen (a reductive environment). Tawnies, on the other hand, spend a long time (8 to 50 years or more) in barrel, oxidizing further and further. As red wine oxidizes, it turns browner and paler and takes on nuttier flavors. Where rubies are bright and fiery, tawnies are mellow and nutty. Different styles for different folks.
There are further subdivisions, especially within the ruby style. A normal ruby will see between zero and four years in barrel and will be blended from several vintages. A late bottled vintage (LBV) will see between 4 and 6 years in barrel and will be the wine of a single vintage. There is a move afoot to call LBVs reserve ports. A vintage port legally sees less than two years in barrel and is the product of a single vintage, a vintage that the port shippers decide is especially worthy. Vintage ports can take decades to mellow into fine drinking wines. As an example, my 1977s are just barely ready to drink and will age well beyond my lifetime.
We offer many different ports at One Block West, often pairing the nutty tawnies with nut-based desserts and the rubies with chocolate. They're both great matches.
Among diners in the restaurant and even among the servers, there is a good bit of confusion about Port. It seems nobody is exactly sure how it is made or what the differences between the kinds are.
Port is one of the oldest recognizable wines in the world. If you were to go back to Portugal in the latter half of the 17th century, you would find sweet fortified wines that you would recognize, although the name Port didn’t evolve until much later.
The name Port is an anglicization of the town of Oporto, the port from which Port is shipped, on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Douro river in northern Portugal. Although the wine has been traditionally matured and bottled in Villa Nova da Gaia, across the river from Oporto, the wines are made a long way upriver in the upper Douro, from the east-west center of the country to the eastern border with Spain (where the river is known as the Duero as in the Ribera del Duero DO).
Today as ever, the wines are vinified on the quintas (the estates) upriver where the grapes are grown. Then the wines are put in casks called pipes and sent downriver to the various lodges in Villa Nova da Gaia where they are matured, and thence after shipped to the world, primarily northern Europe. Since 1986, the wines no longer have to be matured and bottled in Villa Nova and we are starting to see many fine wines matured and bottled on the various quintas, of which there are thousands, many privately owned.
The restrictions on maturation and bottling in Villa Nova were put in place by the large port shippers to control the trade: small producers could not afford to build a lodge in Villa Nova in which to mature and bottle their wines. They were forced to sell their wines to one of the bigger houses.
Vinification
Port starts off life like most wines, undergoing the usual pressing and fermentation, except that winemakers do not try to slow the fermentation by keeping the juice cool as they do in other hot weather climates. Fermentation of port is often very warm. The sweetness comes in because the winemakers do not allow the fermentation to complete: they stop it by adding aguardente, neutral grape alcohol, in a process called fortifying the wine. Once the alcohol level gets above 15% or so, the yeasts responsible for fermentation are killed, leaving unfermented sugars intact, hence the wine is sweet.
Most winemakers fortify their wines when the sugar level falls to about 90g per liter of juice by adding 110 liters of alcohol to 440 liters of wine (the Port pipes hold 550 liters). To make a drier port, they let the fermentation go longer and add less alcohol (the longer the natural fermentation, the higher the base alcohol level). To make a sweeter port, they stop the fermentation earlier and add more alcohol.
Styles
The styles of port are very confusing if you try to read the labels on the bottles. The best rule to remember is that in addition to a port made solely from white grapes (called white port), there are basically only two styles of red port: ruby and tawny. Both these names are taken from the color of the finished product and if you look at both in a glass, it is immediately obvious which is which.
Once the port is fortified, it is then placed in pipes to age. How long it ages governs whether it is a ruby or a tawny. Rubies spend little time in barrel and maintain their youthful color, fruitiness, and vibrancy in bottle where they are no longer exposed to oxygen (a reductive environment). Tawnies, on the other hand, spend a long time (8 to 50 years or more) in barrel, oxidizing further and further. As red wine oxidizes, it turns browner and paler and takes on nuttier flavors. Where rubies are bright and fiery, tawnies are mellow and nutty. Different styles for different folks.
There are further subdivisions, especially within the ruby style. A normal ruby will see between zero and four years in barrel and will be blended from several vintages. A late bottled vintage (LBV) will see between 4 and 6 years in barrel and will be the wine of a single vintage. There is a move afoot to call LBVs reserve ports. A vintage port legally sees less than two years in barrel and is the product of a single vintage, a vintage that the port shippers decide is especially worthy. Vintage ports can take decades to mellow into fine drinking wines. As an example, my 1977s are just barely ready to drink and will age well beyond my lifetime.
We offer many different ports at One Block West, often pairing the nutty tawnies with nut-based desserts and the rubies with chocolate. They're both great matches.
Sparkling Wine
This was originally published on oneblockwest.com.
One of my favorite subjects is sparkling wines. I’ll start with a brief overview of how these wines are made and then discuss some of the more prominent sparkling wines from around the world. Realize that this is a subject that really could occupy several hundred pages in a book, so bear with my obvious skimping on detail.
How They’re Made
I know of a dozen ways and variants of ways to make sparkling wine. Familiarity with two will cover 95% of all sparkling wines made and will certainly make you the cocktail party expert. The classic model for making sparkling wine is the méthode champenoise, the Champagne method. A cheaper bulk process for making sparkling wine is called the Charmat process.
Méthode Champenoise. In this classic method developed in the Champagne in northeast France, a base wine is made, like any other still wine. Then the base wine, sugar, and yeast are bottled. The sugar and yeast cause a secondary fermentation in the bottle, giving off carbon dioxide, the source of those wonderful bubbles. The wines are aged and, by various processes, inverted such that the yeast sediments into the neck of the bottle. To remove the dead yeast, the necks of the bottles are placed in a tray of freezing solution, forming an ice plug in the neck of the bottle. The bottles are turned right side up, uncapped, and the pressure of the wine shoots the plug out of the bottle. Finally, the bottles are topped off with more wine and sugar syrup (the dosage)—the base wines from which sparkling wines are made are very acidic and some sugar is needed to make them drinkable.
Charmat Process. In this process, the base wine, sugar, and yeast are put into a pressure tank in which the secondary fermentation occurs. The wines are clarified, generally by filtration, and then bottled with dosage.
Something special happens during secondary fermentation in the bottle, especially if the wine and the yeast (the lees) stay in the bottle together for a long period of time. The yeast gives off some very interesting flavor compounds that make Champagne method wines much more than just the base wine plus carbon dioxide. This effect seems to be lost or less effective in the bulk tank process, but the wines are much, much cheaper and faster to produce and therefore can be sold for a lot less money. In general, the best sparkling wines are made by the Champagne method.
Major Sparkling Wines
Champagne. It is fitting that we start with the archetypal sparkling wine, the justly famous Champagne. The Champagne is an area of northeast France that is entitled by French law to make wines under the Champagne appellation. I am firmly of the opinion that the word Champagne belongs to that place on earth and to those wines produced there, and nobody else is entitled to use that appellation in describing a wine.
Champagne is made from three grapes, two red, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, and one white, Chardonnay. I find that the best wines, the ones with the most complexity, are blends of all three grapes. Increasingly, I see 100% Chardonnay Champagnes called blanc de blancs on the market. While many of them are very good, I think that the blended wines are generally better, and I wonder if this is not a marketing ploy aimed at Americans who recognize only one kind of white wine: Chardonnay.
Champagnes are generally white wines, although there are some rosés as well. Rosé champagne is now generally made by adding a little red wine in the initial blend, but increasingly rarely is it made by the traditional process of keeping the clear juice in contact with the red skins during fermentation.
Most Champagne is blended, not only from wines of the current vintage, but with wines from prior vintages, to achieve a consistent house style. In exceptional vintages, Champagne houses will produce vintage-dated wines. My first bottle of 1982 Dom Pérignon is a wine that I will never forget.
Champagne is made in four styles, named for the amount of sugar that is added in the dosage. If the wine is bottled with no sugar (very rare), it is called extra brut, brut zero, or brut intégral. Extra brut appears to be for masochists; I don’t really care for it. The vast bulk of Champagne sees 1% sugar and is called brut. Rarely seen are extra-sec (1-3% sugar), demi-sec (3-5% sugar), and doux (8-15% sugar). Demi-sec is stretching my limits and I find doux absolutely wretched.
Vin Mousseux. Vin mousseux is the French term for sparkling wine and it refers to any sparkling wine that is not Champagne. Many of the finest are called Crémant (“creaming”) and the French appellation organization INAO now recognizes many appellations such as Crémant d’Alsace, Crémant de Loire, and Crémant de Bourgogne. There are some very fine sparkling Chenin Blancs coming out of the Loire, especially from the Saumur. Each appellation allows different grapes.
Cava. Cava is a relatively new term that the Spanish started using when they gave up use of their infringing term Champaña. The Cava appellation is not geographically restricted in Spain; however, the vast bulk of the wine is made in Catalonia, home of Cordoníu, the first house to make Champagne method wines in Spain. The Cava DO on the label guarantees a wine made by the méthode champenoise. Several grapes are used in making Cava, the principal being Macabeo (which I also know as Viura and Queue de Renard). Incidentally, the Spaniards are the inventors of the gyropalette, a mechanical system of inverting sparkling wine bottles that has almost entirely replaced what was a fully manual, tedious, and very slow process called riddling.
Prosecco. Prosecco is a white grape from Friuli in northeastern Italy. The vast majority of wines made from Prosecco are made into a sparkling wine, so much so that the name Prosecco is synonymous with sparkling wine in current usage. Most Prosecco is made by the Charmat process, making it a fairly inexpensive wine.
Spumante. Spumante (“foaming”) is the Italian term for sparking wine. Over thirty appellations produce sparkling wine in Italy, in all colors, from all manner of grapes, and in all levels of sweetness. Many very good spumantes mimic Champagne in grape selection and in process. Unfortunately, the term spumante has a deservedly bad reputation in the US, thanks to Martini & Rossi and their sickly sweet, low alcohol Asti Spumante, made from the Moscato Bianco grape.
Sekt. Sekt is the German term for sparkling wine. From personal experience, I can say that most Sekt is very cheap, rarely seen in the United States, and is not worth drinking. I understand that there are some very good Sekts being produced from Riesling in part, but I have yet to have the opportunity to taste one.
Every winemaking region of the world makes some version of sparkling wine and many are excellent. For me, the standard by which all sparkling wines will be judged is Champagne. There is something about the grapes grown in that area that makes a very special wine. The rest of the world is catching up to Champagne in a hurry and that is a good thing for consumers. We have more excellent wines to taste now than ever, from everywhere, including several from right here in Virginia.
One of my favorite subjects is sparkling wines. I’ll start with a brief overview of how these wines are made and then discuss some of the more prominent sparkling wines from around the world. Realize that this is a subject that really could occupy several hundred pages in a book, so bear with my obvious skimping on detail.
How They’re Made
I know of a dozen ways and variants of ways to make sparkling wine. Familiarity with two will cover 95% of all sparkling wines made and will certainly make you the cocktail party expert. The classic model for making sparkling wine is the méthode champenoise, the Champagne method. A cheaper bulk process for making sparkling wine is called the Charmat process.
Méthode Champenoise. In this classic method developed in the Champagne in northeast France, a base wine is made, like any other still wine. Then the base wine, sugar, and yeast are bottled. The sugar and yeast cause a secondary fermentation in the bottle, giving off carbon dioxide, the source of those wonderful bubbles. The wines are aged and, by various processes, inverted such that the yeast sediments into the neck of the bottle. To remove the dead yeast, the necks of the bottles are placed in a tray of freezing solution, forming an ice plug in the neck of the bottle. The bottles are turned right side up, uncapped, and the pressure of the wine shoots the plug out of the bottle. Finally, the bottles are topped off with more wine and sugar syrup (the dosage)—the base wines from which sparkling wines are made are very acidic and some sugar is needed to make them drinkable.
Charmat Process. In this process, the base wine, sugar, and yeast are put into a pressure tank in which the secondary fermentation occurs. The wines are clarified, generally by filtration, and then bottled with dosage.
Something special happens during secondary fermentation in the bottle, especially if the wine and the yeast (the lees) stay in the bottle together for a long period of time. The yeast gives off some very interesting flavor compounds that make Champagne method wines much more than just the base wine plus carbon dioxide. This effect seems to be lost or less effective in the bulk tank process, but the wines are much, much cheaper and faster to produce and therefore can be sold for a lot less money. In general, the best sparkling wines are made by the Champagne method.
Major Sparkling Wines
Champagne. It is fitting that we start with the archetypal sparkling wine, the justly famous Champagne. The Champagne is an area of northeast France that is entitled by French law to make wines under the Champagne appellation. I am firmly of the opinion that the word Champagne belongs to that place on earth and to those wines produced there, and nobody else is entitled to use that appellation in describing a wine.
Champagne is made from three grapes, two red, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, and one white, Chardonnay. I find that the best wines, the ones with the most complexity, are blends of all three grapes. Increasingly, I see 100% Chardonnay Champagnes called blanc de blancs on the market. While many of them are very good, I think that the blended wines are generally better, and I wonder if this is not a marketing ploy aimed at Americans who recognize only one kind of white wine: Chardonnay.
Champagnes are generally white wines, although there are some rosés as well. Rosé champagne is now generally made by adding a little red wine in the initial blend, but increasingly rarely is it made by the traditional process of keeping the clear juice in contact with the red skins during fermentation.
Most Champagne is blended, not only from wines of the current vintage, but with wines from prior vintages, to achieve a consistent house style. In exceptional vintages, Champagne houses will produce vintage-dated wines. My first bottle of 1982 Dom Pérignon is a wine that I will never forget.
Champagne is made in four styles, named for the amount of sugar that is added in the dosage. If the wine is bottled with no sugar (very rare), it is called extra brut, brut zero, or brut intégral. Extra brut appears to be for masochists; I don’t really care for it. The vast bulk of Champagne sees 1% sugar and is called brut. Rarely seen are extra-sec (1-3% sugar), demi-sec (3-5% sugar), and doux (8-15% sugar). Demi-sec is stretching my limits and I find doux absolutely wretched.
Vin Mousseux. Vin mousseux is the French term for sparkling wine and it refers to any sparkling wine that is not Champagne. Many of the finest are called Crémant (“creaming”) and the French appellation organization INAO now recognizes many appellations such as Crémant d’Alsace, Crémant de Loire, and Crémant de Bourgogne. There are some very fine sparkling Chenin Blancs coming out of the Loire, especially from the Saumur. Each appellation allows different grapes.
Cava. Cava is a relatively new term that the Spanish started using when they gave up use of their infringing term Champaña. The Cava appellation is not geographically restricted in Spain; however, the vast bulk of the wine is made in Catalonia, home of Cordoníu, the first house to make Champagne method wines in Spain. The Cava DO on the label guarantees a wine made by the méthode champenoise. Several grapes are used in making Cava, the principal being Macabeo (which I also know as Viura and Queue de Renard). Incidentally, the Spaniards are the inventors of the gyropalette, a mechanical system of inverting sparkling wine bottles that has almost entirely replaced what was a fully manual, tedious, and very slow process called riddling.
Prosecco. Prosecco is a white grape from Friuli in northeastern Italy. The vast majority of wines made from Prosecco are made into a sparkling wine, so much so that the name Prosecco is synonymous with sparkling wine in current usage. Most Prosecco is made by the Charmat process, making it a fairly inexpensive wine.
Spumante. Spumante (“foaming”) is the Italian term for sparking wine. Over thirty appellations produce sparkling wine in Italy, in all colors, from all manner of grapes, and in all levels of sweetness. Many very good spumantes mimic Champagne in grape selection and in process. Unfortunately, the term spumante has a deservedly bad reputation in the US, thanks to Martini & Rossi and their sickly sweet, low alcohol Asti Spumante, made from the Moscato Bianco grape.
Sekt. Sekt is the German term for sparkling wine. From personal experience, I can say that most Sekt is very cheap, rarely seen in the United States, and is not worth drinking. I understand that there are some very good Sekts being produced from Riesling in part, but I have yet to have the opportunity to taste one.
Every winemaking region of the world makes some version of sparkling wine and many are excellent. For me, the standard by which all sparkling wines will be judged is Champagne. There is something about the grapes grown in that area that makes a very special wine. The rest of the world is catching up to Champagne in a hurry and that is a good thing for consumers. We have more excellent wines to taste now than ever, from everywhere, including several from right here in Virginia.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
I'm Not Worthy
Each year at this time, a letter arrives from New York, a letter whose envelope is emblazoned with "Is Your Wine List Worthy?" It's the annual pitch from Marv Shanken and crew at Wine Spectator to get restaurants to submit their wine lists to be judged worthy (or not) by Wine Spectator.
The idea is that if Wine Spectator deems my wine list "worthy," customers will come specifically to my restaurant because the list carries the WS imprimatur.
I was dumb enough to fall for this years ago. I packaged everything and sent it off to New York, along with a check for $250. Yes, it is pay to play. You do the math: there are currently 4118 restaurants that have been bestowed with this "honor." That's over a million dollars in revenue to Wine Spectator and that does not even include the restaurants whose lists are not worthy. I never said that Marv Shanken wasn't a great businessman. I'd kill for a profit center like that.
Anyway, back to my experience. A couple of months later, I got a letter back from Wine Spectator stating merely that my list was not worthy, but please feel free to send us another check next year to try again. The letter did include an email address for inquiries about specifics, so I inquired. And what I heard shocked me.
Before I get on with the rest of the story, I should tell you that I submitted my wine list for their basic award "for lists that offer a well-chosen selection of quality producers, along with a thematic match to the menu in both price and style."
As most of you know, my menu features local products from Virginia and more specifically, from the beautiful Shenandoah Valley where the restaurant is situated. It naturally follows that my wine list has an identical focus on Virginia wines, especially on those of the local wineries.
The email that I got back from Wine Spectator informed me that my wine list had too much of an emphasis on Virginia wines (the implication being that Virginia wines are not of sufficient quality for Wine Spectator). I have always suspected a bias against Virginia at WS, but to see it in writing was a bit of a shock.
I know that when the Wine Spectator crew is in a restaurant in St. Helena, they expect to see a lot of Napa wines on the list and when in Tain-l'Hermitage, they expect a lot of Northern Rhônes on the list. And when in Virginia, apparently they expect to see a lot of Napa wines and Northern Rhônes, too.
I just thought that you would like to know that my wine list is not worthy. Does that surprise you? 80 wines by the glass. 50 handpicked local wines. Wines from all the major wine regions of the world. Not worthy? I think my prices must be too low to attract the interest of the magazine that should be retitled Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
And Wine Spectator, you know what I'm doing with that $250 I'm not sending you? I'm buying more wine, more Virginia wine.
The idea is that if Wine Spectator deems my wine list "worthy," customers will come specifically to my restaurant because the list carries the WS imprimatur.
I was dumb enough to fall for this years ago. I packaged everything and sent it off to New York, along with a check for $250. Yes, it is pay to play. You do the math: there are currently 4118 restaurants that have been bestowed with this "honor." That's over a million dollars in revenue to Wine Spectator and that does not even include the restaurants whose lists are not worthy. I never said that Marv Shanken wasn't a great businessman. I'd kill for a profit center like that.
Anyway, back to my experience. A couple of months later, I got a letter back from Wine Spectator stating merely that my list was not worthy, but please feel free to send us another check next year to try again. The letter did include an email address for inquiries about specifics, so I inquired. And what I heard shocked me.
Before I get on with the rest of the story, I should tell you that I submitted my wine list for their basic award "for lists that offer a well-chosen selection of quality producers, along with a thematic match to the menu in both price and style."
As most of you know, my menu features local products from Virginia and more specifically, from the beautiful Shenandoah Valley where the restaurant is situated. It naturally follows that my wine list has an identical focus on Virginia wines, especially on those of the local wineries.
The email that I got back from Wine Spectator informed me that my wine list had too much of an emphasis on Virginia wines (the implication being that Virginia wines are not of sufficient quality for Wine Spectator). I have always suspected a bias against Virginia at WS, but to see it in writing was a bit of a shock.
I know that when the Wine Spectator crew is in a restaurant in St. Helena, they expect to see a lot of Napa wines on the list and when in Tain-l'Hermitage, they expect a lot of Northern Rhônes on the list. And when in Virginia, apparently they expect to see a lot of Napa wines and Northern Rhônes, too.
I just thought that you would like to know that my wine list is not worthy. Does that surprise you? 80 wines by the glass. 50 handpicked local wines. Wines from all the major wine regions of the world. Not worthy? I think my prices must be too low to attract the interest of the magazine that should be retitled Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
And Wine Spectator, you know what I'm doing with that $250 I'm not sending you? I'm buying more wine, more Virginia wine.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Of Corks and Screwcaps
If you’re a wine lover, surely you’ve heard of the great cork controversy. Corks are routinely sanitized with chlorine. Chlorine can react with mold on corks to form a compound called 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA), which can spoil a wine. In the best case, TCA merely robs a wine of all its fruit. In the worst case, the whole wine smells of musty paper, just like those old newspapers in your attic, and tastes just as bad. Other chloroanisoles and a bromoanisole are formed in the same way and are also responsible for tainting wine.
Receptivity to these anisoles varies greatly among individuals. I have a friend in the business who once opened a bad bottle and I told him it was corked from across the room. Even with his nose buried in the glass, he had a hard time smelling the cork taint. And I know another guy in the business who claims wines are corked that I can’t detect.
In any case, wines are being spoiled by these chemicals and the largest vector for contamination is corks. Various factions claim that this spoilage is acceptable or wholly unacceptable depending on their points of view. However, the issue has spurred the industry to look at alternative closures.
For several years, many wineries used synthetic corks, which fell out of favor. From our perspective at the restaurant, they were impossible to remove when first inserted into the bottles and then after a few months, they became so loose that they pushed right into the bottles at the mere touch of the corkscrew. Once these plastic plugs loosen, wines oxidize very quickly.
And, many other alternative closures have been proposed, tested, and found similarly wanting. The most promising “new” closure is one we have had for decades, namely the screw cap. Naturally, the screw cap suffers the stigma of having been the closure of choice for a lot of really poor jug wine for decades. Beyond the stigma, there is sentimental attachment to corks, comfort in the time-honored ritual of opening the bottle, and that wonderful aural stimulus—the unmistakable pop that we wine lovers adore—that anticipates the first sip.
All my traditional likes for corks are immediately overwhelmed when that first whiff or sip of a newly uncorked bottle is ruined by cork taint. This, more than anything, has convinced me that it is time for us all to move on and get used to screw caps for wines that do not need to be aged. The jury is still out on how wines age long-term under screw cap versus under cork. I worry that the wines will not age as gracefully under screw cap, but the evidence is not there to support my worry.
Still, from my perspective as a restaurateur, we don’t buy wines to age—very few of us can afford to tie up that much working capital—we buy wines to drink now. And I think most consumers do as well. In our business, initially the servers bemoaned the loss of the cork because it removed a lot of the tableside theatrics and romance. And, secretly, I am sure they were concerned for their tips: screwtops have not affected their tips in the least. Moreover, for by-the-glass pours, there is nothing easier for us than a screw cap. Unscrew, pour, rescrew, back in the fridge. And for customers who want to take a partial bottle home, the screw cap won’t leak all wine all over the car on the trip home. And the bottle will fit better in the refrigerator door without the cork poking out of the top.
Any trip to the grocery store or wine shop will show that the screw cap is inevitable. Already most New Zealand wines are under screw cap as are many lower end table wines. Australia and South America will soon have the majority of their wines under screwcap. On the one hand, I applaud this move. And on the other, I sure am going to miss that “pop!”
Receptivity to these anisoles varies greatly among individuals. I have a friend in the business who once opened a bad bottle and I told him it was corked from across the room. Even with his nose buried in the glass, he had a hard time smelling the cork taint. And I know another guy in the business who claims wines are corked that I can’t detect.
In any case, wines are being spoiled by these chemicals and the largest vector for contamination is corks. Various factions claim that this spoilage is acceptable or wholly unacceptable depending on their points of view. However, the issue has spurred the industry to look at alternative closures.
For several years, many wineries used synthetic corks, which fell out of favor. From our perspective at the restaurant, they were impossible to remove when first inserted into the bottles and then after a few months, they became so loose that they pushed right into the bottles at the mere touch of the corkscrew. Once these plastic plugs loosen, wines oxidize very quickly.
And, many other alternative closures have been proposed, tested, and found similarly wanting. The most promising “new” closure is one we have had for decades, namely the screw cap. Naturally, the screw cap suffers the stigma of having been the closure of choice for a lot of really poor jug wine for decades. Beyond the stigma, there is sentimental attachment to corks, comfort in the time-honored ritual of opening the bottle, and that wonderful aural stimulus—the unmistakable pop that we wine lovers adore—that anticipates the first sip.
All my traditional likes for corks are immediately overwhelmed when that first whiff or sip of a newly uncorked bottle is ruined by cork taint. This, more than anything, has convinced me that it is time for us all to move on and get used to screw caps for wines that do not need to be aged. The jury is still out on how wines age long-term under screw cap versus under cork. I worry that the wines will not age as gracefully under screw cap, but the evidence is not there to support my worry.
Still, from my perspective as a restaurateur, we don’t buy wines to age—very few of us can afford to tie up that much working capital—we buy wines to drink now. And I think most consumers do as well. In our business, initially the servers bemoaned the loss of the cork because it removed a lot of the tableside theatrics and romance. And, secretly, I am sure they were concerned for their tips: screwtops have not affected their tips in the least. Moreover, for by-the-glass pours, there is nothing easier for us than a screw cap. Unscrew, pour, rescrew, back in the fridge. And for customers who want to take a partial bottle home, the screw cap won’t leak all wine all over the car on the trip home. And the bottle will fit better in the refrigerator door without the cork poking out of the top.
Any trip to the grocery store or wine shop will show that the screw cap is inevitable. Already most New Zealand wines are under screw cap as are many lower end table wines. Australia and South America will soon have the majority of their wines under screwcap. On the one hand, I applaud this move. And on the other, I sure am going to miss that “pop!”
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Amarone
One of our servers asked me last evening about Amarone (technically Amarone della Valpolicella Classico). It's a wine that we have on our list, yet one that nobody buys, probably because they aren't familiar with it. But I cannot imagine a wine list of any stature that does not contain an Amarone, merely because of its uniqueness.
Amarone is, like the Prosecco that I discussed back in May, from the Veneto in Italy, from the area around Verona. The typical Amarone is made primarily from three grapes indigenous to the Veneto, three little known grapes of which Corvina Veronese is the principal, with lesser amounts of Rondinella and Molinara. Other grapes may appear in minuscule amounts.
What sets Amarone apart in the wine world is that it is a dry red wine made from partially dried grapes. Granted that there are vins de paille in France and even vin santo in Italy that use the same method, but these are mostly sweet white wines.
Actually, Amarone is one member of a family of wines from the Veneto. If the grapes are pressed straight away and fermented, they become Valpolicella, a mostly unremarkable, but popular wine. If the grapes are dried, on average of four months, then pressed and fermented, the wine can go two directions. If the fermentation is stopped early (or gets stuck), it yields a sweet red wine called Recioto della Valpolicella. If the fermentation continues until the fermentable sugars are consumed, the wine becomes Amarone.
There's also a hybrid wine called Valpolicella Ripasso, which is made by mixing Valpolicella with the lees (what is left in the barrel after the wine is racked off) of a Recioto or Amarone. This causes a second fermentation (the ripasso) and yields a more complex wine than Valpolicella.
But back to Amarone. In typical fashion, the grapes are harvested about mid-October in the Veneto and the best bunches are selected for Amarone (the remaining grapes go into Valpolicella). Traditionally Amarone was made vin de paille-style by drying the grapes on straw mats. Technology now lets the winemakers dry the grapes under more controlled conditions. Still, it takes about four months for the grapes to dry to the point where they lose 35-45% of their water.
Drying does a few things. First, it increases the volume of fermentable sugars in the grape as the water evaporates, yielding a wine with a very high alcohol potential. Also, the acid level drops, the tannins mellow, and the color deepens because of the long skin contact with the juice in the grapes.
At about mid-February, the grapes are pressed and fermented. Given the cool temperatures, the fermentation is low and slow. The result is a very big wine with deep ruby color, high alcohol (I'd say 15.5% is about average), and not much acid. Each Amarone differs in flavor components, but black cherry forms the background. Drying provides some raisiny flavors. In really good Amarone, I detect chocolate notes, as in chocolate-covered raisins.
Now, what to pair with Amarone? I belong to the school that says if the wine has too much alcohol or not enough acid, it wants to stand on its own. Personally, I like Amarone after dinner with a chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano (nothing new here; this is the classic textbook pairing) or even with chocolate-dipped figs.
If I were going to pair it, I would want a dark meat to stand up to the Amarone's weight, say roasted venison chops with a wild cherry compote to echo the background cherry notes in the wine. And I would bring missing acid to the dish by means of a vinegar (probably balsamic) in the cherry compote.
Amarone is, like the Prosecco that I discussed back in May, from the Veneto in Italy, from the area around Verona. The typical Amarone is made primarily from three grapes indigenous to the Veneto, three little known grapes of which Corvina Veronese is the principal, with lesser amounts of Rondinella and Molinara. Other grapes may appear in minuscule amounts.
What sets Amarone apart in the wine world is that it is a dry red wine made from partially dried grapes. Granted that there are vins de paille in France and even vin santo in Italy that use the same method, but these are mostly sweet white wines.
Actually, Amarone is one member of a family of wines from the Veneto. If the grapes are pressed straight away and fermented, they become Valpolicella, a mostly unremarkable, but popular wine. If the grapes are dried, on average of four months, then pressed and fermented, the wine can go two directions. If the fermentation is stopped early (or gets stuck), it yields a sweet red wine called Recioto della Valpolicella. If the fermentation continues until the fermentable sugars are consumed, the wine becomes Amarone.
There's also a hybrid wine called Valpolicella Ripasso, which is made by mixing Valpolicella with the lees (what is left in the barrel after the wine is racked off) of a Recioto or Amarone. This causes a second fermentation (the ripasso) and yields a more complex wine than Valpolicella.
But back to Amarone. In typical fashion, the grapes are harvested about mid-October in the Veneto and the best bunches are selected for Amarone (the remaining grapes go into Valpolicella). Traditionally Amarone was made vin de paille-style by drying the grapes on straw mats. Technology now lets the winemakers dry the grapes under more controlled conditions. Still, it takes about four months for the grapes to dry to the point where they lose 35-45% of their water.
Drying does a few things. First, it increases the volume of fermentable sugars in the grape as the water evaporates, yielding a wine with a very high alcohol potential. Also, the acid level drops, the tannins mellow, and the color deepens because of the long skin contact with the juice in the grapes.
At about mid-February, the grapes are pressed and fermented. Given the cool temperatures, the fermentation is low and slow. The result is a very big wine with deep ruby color, high alcohol (I'd say 15.5% is about average), and not much acid. Each Amarone differs in flavor components, but black cherry forms the background. Drying provides some raisiny flavors. In really good Amarone, I detect chocolate notes, as in chocolate-covered raisins.
Now, what to pair with Amarone? I belong to the school that says if the wine has too much alcohol or not enough acid, it wants to stand on its own. Personally, I like Amarone after dinner with a chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano (nothing new here; this is the classic textbook pairing) or even with chocolate-dipped figs.
If I were going to pair it, I would want a dark meat to stand up to the Amarone's weight, say roasted venison chops with a wild cherry compote to echo the background cherry notes in the wine. And I would bring missing acid to the dish by means of a vinegar (probably balsamic) in the cherry compote.
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