So, I don't know where I've been, exactly, but there are something like 2,700,240,000 of those new 2006 nickels in circulation, the ones with Th. Jefferson facing forward and staring at you with spooky space-alien eyes , and I hadn't seen one until today. I swear, it seems like every time I turn around our goverment has done something else to freak me out.

I calmed down by contemplating my meeting the other day with Jean-Michel Deiss of Domaine Marcel Deiss. Jean-Michel falls into the wise old elf school of French winemaking  (as opposed to the taciturn philosopher school or the passionate wild-haired youth school). He's cheerful and twinkly, while at the same time inclined to saying things like, "The concept of terroir is the concept of profundity."

To which I say, certainmente! (He also said, "What's superficial is just Hollywood. The trailer—sex and suicide—not the substance of the film." So, terroir is the essence, not the flash, oui? And now that I have exhausted all the non-profane French I know, we'll call it quits with the pseudo-clever exclamations.) Deiss had a number of intriguing things to say, in fact. He believes that terroir is a concept that was invented as cultivation of vines spread to northern Europe; in Mediterranean, sunny climates, he says, grapes grow easily and the personality of the wine is the personality of the grape. In the north, on the other hand, the personality of the grape is muted and the personality of the place is able to find expression. He also feels that root depth is absolutely critical if a wine is going to express terroir at all, and says that the vine roots in his Marbourg vineyard—which produces a wine that practically spits terroir in your face, like a vinous cobra—go down more than sixty meters. "Every plant has the fantasy that it will grow to the sun," I quoted him as saying the other day; the context for this is his additional statement that if you foil that urge, the plant instead propels its roots deep into the earth.

Believe Jean-Michel if you like (this northern/southern divide intrigues me, I have to say), but whatever you believe, the man is making terrific wines. The 2005 Marcel Deiss Pinot Blanc Bergheim suggests ripe peaches and apricots, with a dense, earthy texture and crisp, almost tannic note on the end.

Stepping up to two of his premier cru wines, you've got a test-case for non-believers in terroir. The 2004 Marcel Deiss Engelgarden Premier Cru has a smoky, savory aroma with a hint of diesel, and dense, complex, powerfully mineral flavors—there's appley fruit, but the primary sensation is of stones and earth, and tremendous length. On the other hand, there's the 2004 Marcel Deiss Grasberg Premier Cru. Much more fruit forward (and sweeter—44 grams per liter of sugar compared to 21), it's round and a mix of stone fruit and tropical notes, lush where the other wine is forbidding. But the two wines are made from the same grape varieties (Riesling and Pinot Gris, primarily, with some Gewurz in Grasberg and some Muscat in Engelgarten), with the same winemaking technique, from vineyards only 300 meters apart. Engelgarten, though, is cooler and planted on gravelly soil, while Grasberg is on limestone below calcarous/iron-based soils. And so they end up radically different wines.

I'm out the door, so the Mambourg Grand Cru will have to wait until tomorrow, as will Jean-Michel's theory of salivation as a test of wine quality. Can't wait, can you? 

Jean-Michel Deiss, of Domaine Marcel Deiss: "Every plant has the fantasy that it will grow to the sun."

Palmina's Italian Variety Whites

On sort of an extended trip at the moment, one leg of which took me down to the Santa Rita Hills, currently the source of some of CA's best Pinots and Syrahs, and, as it turns out, unquestionably CA's best Malvasia Bianca.  Admittedly a bit of a harder sell, but winemaking passion doesn't always take heed of market forces.

Anyway, what this particular blog entry comes out of is a tasting I had the other day with Steve Clifton of Palmina (and Brewer-Clifton) at his winery, which is located in the Lompoc wine ghetto. The ghetto is one of the more concentrated zones of California garagiste winemaking I've run across, a mini-industrial park of small warehouse spaces packed with thirty-odd bonded wineries, among them Stolpman, Piedrasassi, Holus Bolus, Palmina, Longoria, Sea Smoke, DiBruno...the list goes on. Strangely impressive, given the non-scenic-ness of it all.

Palmina specializes in Italian varietals. Not only that, but part of Clifton's focus is the white varieties of northern Italy. Not many California wineries are willing to devote much effort to producing Traminer, Arneis or the aforementioned Malvasia Bianca; would that they were. These are all appealing, bright, focused whites (Palmina makes reds, too, but I'm mostly bowled over by the whites), ideal with food, well worth hunting down. My two favorites were the following, but don't overlook Palmina's Pinot Grigios, which are a good way of reacquainting yourself with the fact that this often dreary grape actually can make impressive wine.

2006 Palmina Tocai ($28) This had classic lightly bitter tree fruit notes in the aroma, great acidity, citrus zest and light peach flavors and a fine, minerally end. Spot-on varietal character for Tocai, I thought. I would've mistaken it for a good Northern Italian Tocai, tasted blind.

2006 Malvasia Bianca ($24) Fermented in 10-year-old very neutral barrels, as Clifton put it—he recycles barrels from Brewer Clifton after all the oak character is completely gone. Pretty blood orange scent and flavor with a bit of lime, and a tongue-awakening, almost prickly texture.

Met up with Australian winemaker Ben Glaetzer the other night for dinner at Gotham Bar & Grill, where vertical food is still vertical (the tuna tartare still has that tower of greenery rising above it, framed by two crisp cracker doodads) and the diners are still powerful (at the table next to us, unless I'm losing it, was Ken Chenault, CEO of Amex and, in a very extended way, my boss). Glaetzer is shaven-headed and sort of imposing, but he's such a nice guy you quickly forget that he looks somewhat like a much taller and more physically fit version of Dr. Evil. Over a bottle of 2006 As Sortes, an exotically aromatic, top-notch Godello from Spain's Valdeorras region, made by Ricardo Palacios, I quizzed Glaetzer about recent Australian vintages. That being the sort of thing one does to visiting winemakers if one is a wine journalist.

On the '05 Barossa reds, he commented, "They tend to be somewhat angular—what I call arms and legs—and are just settling down now. '05 McLaren is very similar, though Barossa is integrating faster. 2006 was basically a gift: no heat spikes, no rain—it combines the strength of the '05s with the grace of '04. 2007 was a pig of a vintage. An absolute freak. Everything was about three weeks ahead in terms of sugar, and about three weeks behind in terms of flavor. So a lot of people made really high alcohol, green wines; those who hung on and waited have less wine, but it's at least semi-balanced."

We tasted two of Glaetzer's 2006s, both of which will be in the US starting this month. First, the 2006 Anaperenna ($50; formerly known as Godolphin, but now with a new monicker thanks to some litigious Arabic fellow with a horse stable bearing the same name, apparently). A blend of 75% Shiraz and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, it had aromas of spicy oak, mocha, cassis and dark berries, with intense flavors that followed suit and were bolstered by spicy tannins. Impressive, but not as impressive as the 2006 Amon-Ra ($90), which is 100% Barossa Shiraz. Despite being potently flavorful—think cherry liqueur, ripe raspberries, light mint notes—it was exceptionally fresh and graceful. A lot of high-end Shirazes tend to leave me cold, they're so hyperripe and globlike; this manages to saturate your mouth with flavor but not weigh you down. Terrific stuff, albeit at a steep price. 

Came across the transcript of an interesting address on the science of sustainable agriculture that John Williams of Frog's Leap Winery gave at the 2003 meeting of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture. (Yes, it's not breaking news; still pertinent, though.) I'm not going to summarize the thing—it's worth clicking through to read it—but here's a tantalizing quote: "Simply put: the principles of organic farming and sustainable practices are the single most important tools you can employ to improve wine quality."

This is the week of our annual Aspen Food & Wine Experience, which for me actually starts on Tuesday night when Bruce Schoenfeld (consulting editor for wine & whatnot at our esteemed sister publication Travel & Leisure) throws his annual pre-Aspen wine dinner in Boulder, CO. It's a kind of lagniappe d'Aspen, if you like. It's also, always, an extraordinary experience vis a vis tasting wine, since the guests are all winemakers and/or wine writers and/or wine business folks who are under strict orders to bring something amazing that they don't make and/or represent themselves. This is the wine equivalent of tossing down fifteen red handkerchiefs in front of fifteen wine-crazed bulls (of course not everyone present was a man, but I can't really call the women cows, so perhaps that metaphor should have been snuffed before it struggled into its half-clever life. Writing. Sigh. Always the beautiful vision, buried under the mudslide of reality.)

In any case. The point is we met up this year, as in the past, at a very good restaurant whose name will be elided here, as from what I understand it's actually not entirely kosher to allow guests to bring their own wine to restaurants in Colorado, and I don't want to get them into trouble. And boy howdy was the wine brought. I missed the first eight or so bottles, because the evil gnomes who run United Airlines once again delayed my outbound flight, but I raced into the restaurant in time to taste the following:

2005 Didier Dagueneau Pouilly Fumé Silex  Grassy, flinty scents resolving into flavors of lemon zest, lime jelly, stony minerality, a hint of saltiness, and a savory, umami-like note that's hard to pin down, but is impressive. A mighty impressive way to start--I put down my glass thinking, man, I didn't even know Sauvignon Blanc could do that.

2003 Eduardo Valentini Trebbiano  Legendary among Italian white wines, for what it's worth. Truly unlike any other wine--meaty, savory and waxy notes in the aroma, an unctuous but supremely focused structure, deep earth notes, ripe pear flavors.

1996 Louis Jadot Corton Pougets  Aromas of pencil lead and barnyard but surprisingly little fruit, then tough and surprisingly astringent (even given it's a '96, a high-acid year). Mulberry fruit and tough tannins. Underwhelming.

1997 Boquinet Eschezeaux  A sort of enveloping aroma of dark cherry and foresty notes, and then impressive sweet-savory density. Drinking gorgeously right now.

2000 Quilceda Creek Merlot  Penetrating aroma of dark chocolate, peppercorns and oak, and the oak continues in the flavor-in fact, somewhat overwhelms the wine. Not sure this is ever going to overcome the wood. (Interesting comment by my neighbor at the table, Caleb Foster of Buty Winery, in Walla Walla: "Washington Merlot just soaks up oak like a sponge.")

2004 Cliff Lede Poetry  Notes of soy, spicy oak and blackcurrant, developing into black currant & black cherry flavors with smoke and a fair smack of nice oak. Very polished but very young--needs time.

1995 Réserve de la Comtesse  The second wine of Château Pichon Lalande. Pretty much textbook Pauillac, with brett and pencil lead scents, dark cherry and cedar flavors. Drinking fine right now.

2004 Torbreck The Factor Shiraz  This is made, as I understand it, from the lots that don't quite make it into Torbreck's top Shiraz, Run Rig. That said, it's hardly a second wine: big, powerful, super-sultry Shiraz, with aromas of grape, blackberry, black olive and licorice. Huge, dense and delicious, but controversial at the dinner as many people thought it was so big as to be over the top. I suggested that it really ought to be served not so much with roast boar as with live boar.

1998 Henschke Mt. Edelstone Shiraz  One of the wines of the night, this was counterpoint to the Torbreck-tasted blind you might guess it was from the Rhône, but for a light dill note that speaks to some American oak (it's a combo of French and American). Resiny, green olive, peppery, red fruit aromas rolling into blacker fruit flavors lifted by an almost citrusy acidity.

1998 Vega Sicilia Valbuena  Sweet cherry jam and mocha-vanilla scents, then tart sour cherry flavors wrapped up in dusty, leathery notes. Not much loved by everyone,  but I thought it was pretty classic Valbuena.

2004 Buty Rediviva of the Stone  Caleb, bringing his own wine! Oh, the shame of it all. Anyway, a terrific vintage of this Syrah/Cab blend, with pretty blackberry aromas touched by earth, lush fruit and a distinct cocoa note.

2000 Domaine de la Janasse Cuvée Chaupin  Raspberry and orange scents, then a sort of translucent sweet raspberry flavor. Seems a bit thin at first, then gains richness. Nevertheless, I expected more, given the producer and the cuvee.

1978 Pesquera Reserva  Corked! The only wine of the night. And guess who brought it. Man, life is hard.

1972 Monsanto Chianti Classico Reserva Il Poggio  Very developed aromas, resinous notes, dried sweet cherries, but overall that lovely complexity that makes it hard to pull the scent apart. Faded in the glass after 15 minutes or so, but initially a haunting ghost-of-cherries flavor with notes of peppercorn and tangerine rind that was just great. Some people thought it was over the hill; I thought it was superb.

And that was it, except for a tasty Tokaji from Disznoko that I can't recall much about. Gee. I wonder why.

So, this will be brief but to the point: you should go check out Sean Thackrey's website wine-maker.net, if only to glance at the pithy quote from Isak Dinesen regarding Burgundy that's on the home page. But the real treasure trove (for those of us who think of such things as treasures) is the compendium he's assembled of early texts about making and/or understanding wine, from ancient Greece to the 1850s. If this inspires you to track down any of his wines—like his appealing non-vintage Pleiades red blend—so much the better.

A few weeks back I had a chance to sit down with Tim Spear, the co-proprietor/resident winemaking wizard/head philosopher of Paso Robles's Clos Mimi. The impetus was a recommendation I'd made for his 2005 Petite Rousse in this blog a while back; he'd read it and happened to be in town for a few days, so it made sense to sit down and taste the rest (or some of the rest) of his wines. (Geek alert: this entry is long and perhaps overly in depth, but the wines impressed the hell out of me, so why not?)

Spear's one of those appealingly ambitious winemakers who seems to prioritize trying to make great wine—"a wine that will be alive in fifty years" as he put it—over commercial concerns like actually selling the stuff. This puts him in a precarious albeit admirable position, as far as I can see, since the mundane world largely doesn't give a rat's ass if you're driven by a desire to create profound wine, but it certainly does care if you can't pay the mortgage on your winery.

But, if there were any justice in the world, Spear would be making piles of cash, because he's definitely making remarkable Syrah. To wit:

2003 Clos Mimi Brave Oak Syrah ($50) "One of the warmest vineyards I buy grapes from," Spear says, which shows in the density and richness of the smoky blackberry fruit here. Very sauvage, as the French might say (Spear takes inspiration from Guigal's great Côte Rôties, La Turque and La Mouline, so I'd say it's ok to whip out a slightly snooty French reference here), with lots of resinous leather and black pepper notes. 

2003 Clos Mimi Shell Creek Syrah ($59) Spear hasn't bottled a new vintage of this wine since '99, having declassified the '00, '01 and '02. Distinctive black raspberry liqueur aroma and flavor, underscored by herbal (not herbaceous) notes, bright acidity, a seductively silky texture, and an appealing stoniness on the finish. Just terrific, in other words—though also, in its silkiness and translucency of flavor, against the grain for California Syrah (and appealingly so). Spear commented that "Shell Creek has these big, truffle-sized chunks of limestone, and I attribute the silkiness to that aspect of the soil—this is kind of my Le Méal, without the extreme 75˚ slope," referring to the great Chapoutier Hermitage of that name. 

2002 Clos Mimi White Hawk Vineyard ($72) All of these wines spend a long time in barrel, but this was the most extreme, at 42 months. My internal reaction was basically, "Yikes—why not just kill the damn thing with oak?" when I was told this, but in fact the wine doesn't show an excess of oak character. While it is huge and black, with smoky oak notes, the intense blackberry fruit soaks up the wood very effectively, resolving into peppery tannins at the end. The oak strategy is in fact something Speak picked up from Guigal. "The first 12 to 18 months, the wine's all oak planks," he noted, "but then it changes; plus, if you're going that long, you need less toast. And Syrah's reductive by nature, so it can take up all that oxygen it's exposed to." Sounds plausible to me; at the very least, the proof is in the wine in this case.

These wines are hard to find, since they're produced in small quantities, but they definitely aren't sold out; head to the Clos Mimi website if they pique your interest.

As a side note, one of the reasons Spear was in town was to celebrate the release of a new wine he's bottling specifically for the Carlyle Hotel. Should you happen to be staying there, a bottle will be in your room, and unlike most wines sitting in hotel rooms upon arrival, this one—a savory Syrah with intense black cherry flavors and bright firm acidity—is actually well worth opening.  

Out for dinner with a trio of Spanish winemakers last night at Tia Pol—a meal that started late, and then went on way too late, with all three winemakers winding up outside on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, smoking cigarettes and drinking sake from the Izakaya bar next door. Of course, this is the sort of thing that happens when you hang out with Spanish winemakers.

However, before the sake-drinking and cigarette-smoking, we did manage to taste some pretty terrific wines, among them the extremely impressive Albariños being made by Gerardo Mendez at Do Ferreiro. Mendez makes three wines: a basic Albariño; Cepas Vellas, an ancient vine bottling (importer Andre Tamers of De Maison Selections claims that they're over 200 years old, which sounds unimaginable to me, but I have no real reason to doubt him); and Rebisaca, a blend of Treixadura and Albariño. Mendez does everything I like with Albariño—aging on lees in tank, organic viticulture, indigenous yeasts—and avoids the one thing I really don't like with this grape, which is oak.

The result is wines like the 2006 Do Ferreiro Albariño ($22, but not released yet), a model of the form: citrus peel and chalky mineral aromas, then bright, vivid green apple and citrus fruit with an almost smoky undertone; the 2005 Do Ferreiro Albariño ($22) which, coming from a warmer vintage, reveals more pineapple fruit notes (though not the hideous canned pineapple fruit you sometimes get in overripe Chardonnay) and has a denser texture; and the 2005 Do Ferreiro Cepas Vellas ($35), appropriately more complex, with saturated green apple and citrus fruit notes, and a kind of mineral-briny lime-candy finish.

If you like Albariño (and you should), keep a watch out for the 2006 wines. Mendez, who looks oddly like the writer Milan Kundera, remarked of the vintage, "I don't have any comparison for this year. It's like a flower—extraordinarily delicate. A great year."

Moreover, if you like Albariño (and you will, or else—got it, pal?), put some of it away. Cellar it. It seems like a bright, direct white to be drunk soon after release, and it is; but it also ages surprisingly well. I discovered that while tasting old vintages of Pazo de Señorans in Galicia a few years ago, and rediscovered it last night while tasting the 2001 Do Ferreiro Cepas Vellas, which had an extraordinary bouquet of petrol, lime zest, pineapple and honeysuckle, profound minerality, citrus fruit that wasn't fading in the least, and a lingering honeysuckle note (from botrytis, which is present in the '05 as well, though it's imperceptible as yet). Mendel said of the wine, "When you compare the '01 and '05 you see how long a life that '05 has ahead of it. In two years the '05 will start being ready to drink."

It's worth adding that the pleasure of tasting these wines was undoubtedly heightened by the just absurdly good food at Tia Pol. For the Albariños, this particularly meant an earthy carpaccio of king oyster mushrooms in a citrus vinaigrette with chopped almonds, and sweet, tender langoustines that if I'd been eating them blindfolded would have made me swear I was in Spain (as it turns out, Alex Raij, the chef, buys them directly from a guy in Spain). They aren't like langoustines you get here—they're what langoustines you get here would be in their dreams, that is if langoustines dream. Nor are they cheap. But they're worth every peseta.

We moved on to reds after that, and to a cochinillo (roast suckling pig) whose salty, cracker-crisp skin would be envied by any self-respecting Segovian chef; the meat was tender enough, too, to pass the classic test of being able to be cut apart with the edge of a plate. Co-owner Mani Dawes tells me the cochinillo is usually a Wednesday-night special. I say that if that's the case, then I've got my Wednesday nights planned out for the next five years.

Had a quick visit today from Hugh Chapelle, winemaker at Lynmar (who has, to my mind, lifted their wines up several notches in quality since he's been there). We tasted the current Lynmar releases, and I was struck by how good the basic Russian River Valley Chardonnay bottling was. The blend has shifted slightly—it used to be entirely declassified estate fruit, and now Chapelle blends in a portion of fruit from seven or eight other vineyards in the cooler parts of the Russian River and Green Valleys. But the fact that it's the 2005 vintage almost certainly had something to do with it, too. As Chapelle said, "2005 is just a spectacular vintage for Chardonnay. Nice long hangtimes, but the acids held—the uniformity of ripeness was exceptional." (He's a scientist, if you can't tell.)

What I'd note, too, is that he's not the only winemaker I've heard this from—for North Coast Chardonnay, 2005 is looking to be truly great. Shoot, it might even make me excited about Chardonnay again.

2005 Lynmar Russian River Valley Chardonnay ($30) Fifty percent of this is tank-fermented sur lie, the other fifty percent barrel-fermented in about 20% or so new oak. It's firm and bright, a finely focused, pear-apple flavored Chardonnay with almost tingly acidity—the kind of wine you wish more California Chardonnay would head towards, stylistically speaking.