Mouthing Off

The other day my colleague Kristin Donnelly blogged about an upcoming auction at Christie's as a likely source for good values. At it—thanks to the rough economic times—I know she scored some very intriguing sounding wines for the comical price of $50 a case. Anyway, it somehow struck a chord in my mind with the result that last night for dinner I opened up a half-bottle of 1989 Château Citran that I'd recently found in an old shoebox in the back of my closet (really). It was tobacco-y and very distinguished, still holding onto a reasonable amount of cool blueberry fruit, and aromatic in a filigreed kind of way—musically, it would be a Chopin etude rather than the Beethoven symphony that first growth Bordeaux tends to suggest. (Or The National rather than My Morning Jacket, if you'd rather get more contemporary.) Anyway, it was pretty darn impressive, especially given that I've been carting the thing around the country with me for about fourteen years now (I bought it in 1994). So if you can find any of the ’89 at an auction—whether for $50 a case or not—snap it up!

And, what that brings to mind is the 2005 Château Citran (about $25, click here to find). It's from an equally good vintage—’89 was pretty off-the-charts, but so is ’05—is polished and firm, and should have an equally long life ahead of it. Whether it will age perfectly in a shoebox, I don't know. But I wouldn't be surprised if it did. 

The other night for dinner I opened up a bottle of the 2004 Scherrer Winery Russian River Pinot Noir ($36, click here to find it) and was struck all over again by what a terrific winemaker Fred Scherrer is. I have no idea why his wines continue to fly under the media-buzz radar, since to my palate they're as distinctive and expressive as any of the more hyped Pinots floating around these days, if not moreso. 

The '04 is drinking wonderfully right now, with a deep well of dark cherry fruit at its core, svelte tannins, and a lightly citrusy/orangey edge to its acidity that I vaguely recall Scherrer saying was, for him, characteristic of RRV Pinot grown on Goldridge soil (I can't pin down when I heard him say that; a phone interview I think, but quite a while ago).

The wine's impeccably balanced, and it went really well with the very simple Italian chickpea soup I'd cooked up (rosemary, garlic, chickpeas, tomatoes, chicken stock, a drizzle of Capezzana olive oil, plus some stellar olive bread from Caputo, a local Brooklyn bakery—yum. Great Autumn evening sustenance). I'm sure it would also go well with a long list of less unlikely dinner choices (on a similar soup note,for instance, it would also make a great partner for Peter Pastan's fresh shell bean soup, from our October issue). I think for the price it would be nearly impossible to find a comparable RRV Pinot. Seriously.

I'm not sure why these two wines, which have almost nothing whatsoever in common, seemed particularly appropriate for this rainy Friday (not that we can complain here in NYC; my hometown of Houston is about to be submerged). Maybe it's the creeping sense that Autumn is arriving, and a warm, luscious wine is starting to feel appropriate. Anyway:

1999 Château Musar Blanc ($35, buy it here) The great Lebanese producer (yes, great, that's right) Château Musar is primarily known for its red, which is indeed terrific, but I've always loved Musar's top white as well. A blend of the Lebanese grapes Obaideh and Merwah (Semillon), in 1999 it shows fig, pear and nectarine flavors and has a dense, unctuous, beeswaxy texture. It's deep gold in hue but by no means losing its life; rather, it feels as though it's just come to its peak. (There is, by the way, a terrific article by Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) on Château Musar on Musar's site here, which ran in GQ in '04.)

2004 Macauley Vineyard Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($72, buy it here) I somehow lost track of this bottle in the vast ocean of wine that lives in our tasting room, which annoyed me for quite a while; then, of course, as soon as I stopped thinking about it, it reappeared. Go figure. Regardless, I'm glad it did: This is truly sexy Napa Cabernet, with a touch of roasted red currant and lot of black cherry on the nose, then more of that sweet black cherry and some cassis in the mouth, along with a grace note of oak and lush, velvety tannins. It comes from the To Kalon and Star vineyards, was made by Kirk Venge, and given the prices of Napa Cab these days, it's actually quite a good deal for the money. The other good thing is that even though I've been slow out of the gate tasting this wine, there still seems to be some left in the market (also at the winery's website, though today for some reason their shopping cart function is fritzed out).

Yes, back from a vacation in Maine and once more able to breathe the fumes of New York without all those pesky ocean breezes and pine trees and whatnot messing things up. But, because research must always continue, even while sitting on a dock with a lobster in front of you, I have two things to note:

1. Lobster is very, very cheap right now. The Boston Globe reported on this in depth, and I'm here to report on it very shallowly: $7 a pound, two days ago. (For a live lobster, soft-shell, though I saw hardshells advertised at nearly the same price at another place.) This to me is a mighty fine thing. 

2. Lobster tastes very good with the 2006 Ramey Russian River Valley Chardonnay ($38). It's a pricey bottle of Chardonnay, but Dave Ramey manages to balance classic Russian River apple and cream notes with exactly the right level of lively acidity, or at least manages to grow grapes that do that and then doesn't get in their way. Terrific white for rich seafood. Now, if only I could leave town again... 

The Tasting Room was getting overloaded with wine once again, so it seemed like a good time to taste through a passel of Pinots (which raises the question of whether groups of wines ought to have names a la "pride of lions" or "exaltation of larks", e.g. "crowd of Cabernets" or "symposium of Sauvignon Blancs" or "bog of fruit-bombs", i.e. "The wine critic fought his way valiantly through the fifty-bottle bog of fruit-bombs, but, in the end, his palate was obliterated and he drowned.").

In any case, moving right along, here were the winners out of the 22 wines we opened today.

2007 Cono Sur Pinot Noir ($9) This is labeled with the deeply terroir-specific tag "wine of Chile," but who cares—for nine bucks, it's surprisingly appealing Pinot. The nose isn't much to speak of, but it's got some appealing berry flavors, a leafy tobacco note, and the winery's carbon neutral, too. Can't argue with that. 

2006 J. Daan Willamette Valley Pinot Noir ($24) I know zip about winemaker (and owner, I assume) Justin van Zanten, save that he was assistant winemaker at Andrew Rich, but I'm interested to find out more. This is a graceful, light-bodied Oregon Pinot, the nose a bit faint at the moment, but with evocative floral-strawberry-raspberry notes and a hint of earthiness.

2006 MacPhail Anderson Valley Pinot Noir ($45) James MacPhail has been getting a lot of praise for his Pinots from a variety of wine writers, and based on this wine—one of his two basic cuvées, the other being a Sonoma Coast bottling—it's deserved. Floral, spicy aromas and ripe but focused flavors—sort of raspberry liqueur, if you can use that term without implying overripeness, which this wine isn't in the least. My note says that it "sorta glows"—in terms of flavor, not color—which if you ask me is something Pinot ought to do.

2005 Keller Estate La Cruz Vineyard Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir ($40) This had a touch of reductiveness when first opened, but some good swirling got rid of it (decant the wine, if you buy it) to bring out pretty black cherry and cola notes. The black cherry continues in the flavor, along with brushy spice notes; plus it's got a silky, sexy mouthfeel that is really impossible to resist. Technically this comes from the Petaluma Gap area, just north of San Pablo Bay. Winemaker Michael McNeill is making some terrific wines here, white and red, and they're well worth checking out.

2006 Paraiso Vineyards West Terrace Pinot Noir ($40) I visited Paraiso ages ago when I was doing a story on Gary Pisoni, and thought at the time their wines were good but not much more. In the past couple of years they seem to have hit their stride, though—I thought Paraiso's 2006 Riesling was a steal for $14, and this Pinot was an unexpected star of this tasting. Very aromatic, with licorice, cinnamon and dark cherry notes, it's ripe and full-bodied, but those cool Santa Lucia Highlands winds must have had an effect, because it's also got a firm enough backbone of tannins to support the fruit. You could pay a lot more for Pinots that aren't nearly as good.

Just to keep going with what I started the other day (or what we finished the other night, depending on how you want to look at it), here are the red wines—and two rosés—from the wine dinner Bruce Schoenfeld hosted on the Tuesday before the 2008 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. (Photo again by Jeremy Parzen.)

1997 Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia Rosé General agreement could be found around the table that this wasn't the most impressive version of LdH's rosé around; I was part of that gang. Nice enough, with a kind of old book-dried strawberry scent, watermelon-strawberry fruit and a creamy texture, but it didn't have the depth some other vintages have had.

2007 S. C. Pannell McLaren Vale Grenache Rosé All ebullient ripe raspberry fruit and not much else. I wrote at the time, "crisp, juicy and a bit idiotic." 

2004 Sea Smoke Southing Pinot Noir Crunchy ripe raspberry and other berry notes wrapped with sweet spicy tannins. Very ripe Central Coast wine, but with a nice spice element to it. Sea Smoke's gotten a lot of culty praise; I thought this wine was very tasty, but not complex enough to justify raves.

2007 Emilio Bulfon Piculit Neri ($26) I completely rained on Jeremy Parzen's plan to mystify the whatsis out of me by having actually had this wine before—it's obscure as all get-out, but Henry Bishop (who used to run the wine program at Spiaggia in Chicago) once gave me a bottle, oddly enough. I liked it then, and I like it now. The aroma is floral and twiggy and reminiscent of a really good Dolcetto; the flavor is darker and sweeter than most Dolcettos, though, with lovely wild berry and plum notes, ripe but graceful. It's on wine-searcher.com, but strangely only available in Illinois. Go figure.

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Now that our annual F&W Classic in Aspen is over, I finally have the time (and focus) to recap some of the highlights of the thing. First up, our sister mag Travel & Leisure's contributing wine editor Bruce Schoenfeld's annual pre-Aspen dinner. As always, a gang of sixteen or so wine folks—makers, writers, drinkers, etc—convened on the-restaurant-that-shall-not-be-named in Boulder on Tuesday night, preparatory to making the trek up to Aspen. And as always, everyone brought along fabulous—or at least would-be fabulous—wines. Here's the lineup of whites (reds tomorrow), with prices for those that are current releases. (And many thanks to my pal and fellow wine blogger Jeremy Parzen for the loan of his terrific photographs!)

2004 Domaine Joseph Cattin Hatschbourg Pinot Gris  Not a wine I'd had before, this was potent, off-dry Alsace Pinot Gris, with an oily, luscious texture, dusty spice and dried peach flavors, and an odd, slightly varnish-tinged aroma that made me wonder if it had a bit of VA floating around. "Intriguing" might sum it up best.

2006 Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe Châteauneuf de Pape Blanc Les Crau ($55) A blend of Clairette (40%), Grenache Blanc (30%), Bourbolenc (15%) and Roussanne (15%) from roughly thirty-five year old vines. The nose here was subdued, though some steely apple (yep, steely apple—only way I've figured out how to describe it) and floral notes crept out. The wine itself was full-bodied, lush, with pear and sweet spice notes. Very pretty stuff, and will be better with time, I'd guess.

2006 Zarate Albariño ($22) Crisp, as Albariño should be, with an appealing briny note, and surprisingly full-bodied. I liked this just fine, but it didn't strike me as quite as complex as Pazo de Señorans, say, or Fillaboa.

1983 Kirchmayr Gumpoldskirchner Cuvée Solist Konig Altwein My first reaction here was roughly, "What the hell is this stuff?" and my second was roughly, "Well, whatever it is, it's fantastic." Partly that's because at my corner of the table it was too dark for me to read the back label clearly. But because I am a skilled reporter, I stood up and walked over to a light. It was a blend of—wait for it—Zierfandler, Rotgipfler, and Neuberger; it was dark gold in color; and it was blow-you-away good, with deep resinous and stony aromas, a rich but focused presence, lingering stone fruit characteristics, and notes of minerals, honey, and nuts. 

2000 Lucien Albrecht Clos Himmelreich Riesling  Clos Himmelreich is a two-hectare monopole of Albrecht. I didn't love this as much as some people did, but I enjoyed its orange-rind scent and its power; it had an odd raspiness to the texture, almost tannic, that didn't thrill me.

1989 Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia Blanco Reserva ($45) Oh, those old Lopez de Heredia whites. I love them, even if they occasionally suffer from a certain amount of bottle variation (which, of course, all older wines tend to suffer from—more on this when I get to the 1988 Bordeaux tasting in Aspen). This blend of 90% Viura and 10% Malvasia hit all those notes that make old white Rioja so appealing: wax, resin, almonds, citrus zest (sort of lemon oil, here, actually), and still retained some green apple as well. Plus the winery has a fellow with a really excellent beard on its home page. 

On my recent trip west, I tasted quite a few good Napa Valley wines, some of them discoveries (or discoveries for me, at least). I'd point people towards Jamie Kutch's silky, flavorful 2006 Kutch Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, for instance, if it weren't darn near impossible to find—still, get on the mailing list and who knows what will happen. Jamie makes his wines at the Deerfield Ranch Winery, and while I was there I also got to taste a pretty terrific Chardonnay from another fellow making wine there, Matt Wilson. The 2006 Sky Saddle Chardonnay ($30) comes from a small biodynamic vineyard in the Oak Knoll District; fourteen months of extended lees contact gives it a silky texture and depth that recalls Mark Aubert's Chardonnays, for instance, albeit at a lot less $$. Not very much of this around, but no one seems to know about it yet, either. Give the man a call.

You wouldn't cause yourself grave damage drinking the 2006 Rockledge Saralee's Vineyard Roussanne ($40), either, unless you liked it so much you inhaled the entire bottle and went zooming off in search of more—a risk, in fact. Pear and wildflower aromas, creamy texture bolstered by a firm mineral backbone, rich but not sweet. Fine example of California Roussanne. 96 whole cases made, so, again, act now. Or yesterday (again, best place to find this is by contacting the winery directly).

And I was happily surprised by the 2005 Wolf Family Estate Cabernet Franc 97% Cabernet Sauvignon 3% ($60), a cumbersome name for a graceful red that actually smells and tastes like Cabernet Franc, something a lot of California Cab Francs seem disinclined to do. From vines planted in the late 1970s—a whopping three-quarters of an acre of them—it's got pretty floral/violet aromas mingling with mocha and black cherry, and similar flavors ending on dusty, firm tannins. Where to get it? Yep, once again: call the winery. (Though if you're in CA, some retailers turn up on wine-searcher.com: check it here.)

Several good Sauvignon Blancs have shown up at recent odds-and-ends tastings here at the Tasting Room, so it seems like now's the time to mention them all, a kind of grab-bag of citrusy vino-zing.

2006 Ataraxia Sauvignon Blanc ($19) South African winemaker Kevin Grant (formerly of Hamilton Russell Vineyards) founded Ataraxia a couple of years back—the first vintage released was '05—to concentrate on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. But he couldn't resist making a Sauvignon Blanc as well, which is nice for us, since it's full of flinty citrus notes and a hint of cracked pepper. I'm also indebted to Grant for his descriptor of what too much Sauvignon Blanc smells like, which is "sweaty adolescent armpit." Yep. That's a negative smell, that one. (Imported by Leucadia)

2007 Ceàgo Vinegarden Kathleen's Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc ($18) Ceàgo is former Fetzer president Jim Fetzer's biodynamic project up in Mendocino, though this wine actually comes from a separate (also biodynamic) vineyard in Lake County. Very appealing crisp Sauvignon with melon and citrus zest notes, almost prickly on the tongue but in a good way. Ceàgo, by the way, is derived from a Pomo Indian word meaning "grass seed valley." You know the Pomo Indians...they're the ones that are always referencing other Indians in a studiedly ironic way...

2007 Provenance Vineyards Rutherford Sauvignon Blanc ($20) Lots of flavor in this Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc—lemon curd, lime zest, rubyred grapefruit—but not the flabbiness often found in warmer climate SB's. It gets some additional richness and palate depth from 20% of the wine staying on its lees in stainless steel barrels (and 5% in oak), and also about 8% Semillon being in the blend. Really inviting Sauvignon—this you could drink all summer long.

2006 Kim Crawford Small Parcel Spitfire Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc ($20) My tasting note for this reads, "Absolute spot-on 100% passion fruit." And in truth, I've never had a Sauvignon Blanc that smelled so exactly like fresh passion fruit, which is kind of cool. Doesn't hurt that this is fun to drink, too—all that passion fruit (did I mention passion fruit?) flavor gets balanced by a crisp herbiness and tingly acidity. (The vintage is current; Kim Crawford's Small Parcel wines are released later than regular releases.) 

2007 Matanzas Creek Sauvignon Blanc ($25) Winemaker Francois Cordesse says about this white, "We try to stay away from dry herb, and fine-tune toward grapefruit." To which I say, hot diggity dog. I also say: it's mostly Knight's Valley fruit, a small percentage of Sauvignon Musque, with about 15% of the wine in one- and two-year-old French oak, and if you ask me it smells and tastes like mangoes, lemon oil, grapefruit and a touch of cream. Very pretty wine.

2006 Château de Sancerre Sancerre ($25) Very classic Sancerre with a grassy, clear, citrusy aroma and clean, fresh notes of melon and citrus; though it has good Sauvignon Blanc acidity, it also has a very appealing roundness in the mouth. The Château itself, oddly enough, was a gift from Louis Marnier-Lapostolle to his wife in 1919.