Mouthing Off

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).

I was out the other night with a pack of sommeliers (and my erstwhile colleague Kate Krader) for that once-in-a-while get-together that we have, the purpose of which is to eat cheap food and drink high-end wine. This has led in the past to the not-entirely-surprising discovery that Quintarelli Amarone goes pretty darn well with the cowboy steak at Hill Country (which is effectively most of a cow, seared) and the somewhat more unpredictable discovery that '98 Jermann Vintage Tunina goes well with the duck tongues at Fuleen, which I wrote about here. 

Anyway, this time Bernie Sun, wine director for all of the Jean-Georges restaurants and a man of as noble spirit as he is skilled with grill tongs, hosted us all at his Upper West Side apt., which happens to have that key grilling necessity, a back yard. We were not an army, but we did eat the food of an army, including a long-bone steak that looked like something one Cro Magnon would use to whomp another Cro Magnon on the head with, a pile of merguez (or was it andouille?) sausages, a small bay's worth of shrimp, a Wagyu ribeye that utterly failed to meet the "cheap food" criteria but was mighty darn delicious, some vegetables to which I paid no attention whatsoever, and—key to this rambling account—lamb chops.

The weird thing was that the wine that without question went best with the lamb chops was a 2001 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet Les Pucelles 1er Cru. Of course, wearing my normal pairing hat (it's blue, with stars on it), I would never think to pair aged white Burgundy with grilled lamb chops. But wearing my "it's open, so that's what I'm drinking, and plus it's Leflaive, and I'm no fool" hat, I did so anyway, and it was fabulous. Something about the deep spiciness and savory qualities of this white seemed to intensify the flavor of the meat in an uncanny way. Nor am I out of my mind; or at least if I am, then Arnaud Devulder of Lever House, who agreed with me, is out of his mind as well. And I know Arnaud, and he's sane. So there you have it.

I had lunch yesterday with Ghislaine de Montgolfier, the somewhat impish but very elegant chairman of Bollinger, which has just released its first non-vintage rosé Champagne. Madame Lily Bollinger is of course responsible for the classic Champagne statement, "I drink it when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and I drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it— unless I'm thirsty." She also said, according to M. de Montgolfier, that rosé Champagne was the wine of the bordello, so Bollinger wasn't going to make any.

Well, things change. I don't know if they still serve rosé Champagne in bordellos, but Bollinger decided about six years ago that they would make some non-vintage pink bubbles. "Part of the problem," de Montgolfier said, "is that you need great red wine. The red wine makes the rosé. We have very low yields for our red, and use Burgundian techniques." Bollinger also, as the few and the lucky have experienced, makes a stunning red coteaux Champenois from vineyard in Aÿ, La Côte aux Enfants. I had it once, several years back; my memory is that it had Pommard-like muscularity, which surprised me. In other words, they've got no problems on the red wine front.

Anyway, the Bollinger NV Rosé Brut ($100) is very Bollinger—substantial generosity backed up with the spine to carry it off. The scent recalls wild strawberries and flowers; it's not a savory Champagne, more fruit driven, but the flavors are very pure. I liked it just fine, but it was overshadowed by the Bollinger 1999 La Grande Année ($115) that we also drank. Creamy and dense, with layers of flavor (sweet dough, apple, tangerine, spice, yeasty notes), this was simply stunning Champagne. So as much as the rosé is fun, I'd happily drop the additional bucks and drink the Grande Année. If I had the bucks in the first place, that is. Oh well!

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.

This is part three, which is to say the final, the last, the end of the wines for this dinner. Definitely more effort to chronicle them than to drink them, but such is the journalist's life. I'll recap the 1988 Bordeaux tasting from the F&W Classic in the next day or two as well—some amazing wines there, and some not so. Interesting lineup to say the least. Here are the final six from the Schoenfeld dinner:

2005 HDV Carneros Syrah ($50) I seem to have written "blueberry gravel," and while I'm not sure what that is, it does in retrospect seem like an appropriate phrase for this sweet, dense, California Syrah.

2005 Colgin IX Syrah Estate ($300 or so, if you can find it) Ink black, with gamy, savory notes on the nose (and not a little wood), then a powerful, super-extracted, black-fruited Syrah, with fierce tannins and a slathering of cocoa-oak. Impressive, yes. Delightful, well. If you like being hit in the face with a mallet, sure.

2002 Standish Shiraz ($80) Dan Standish sources the fruit for this wine from the eastern side of Barossa, on sandy soils. The aroma was toasty and hard to read in an odd way; the fruit, though, was lovely sweet blackberry, with luscious, fine tannins and a lot of grace despite its size. I wrote that it was "very all fruit all the time," which it is, but I was impressed anyway.

2002 Glaetzer Amon Ra Shiraz ($80ish) OK: the Standish is very good Barossa Shiraz. This is great Barossa Shiraz. A chunk of the fruit comes from 150-year-old vineyards in northwest Barossa, a windy place with sand over clay soils. The scent suggests black olives, chocolate and blackberries with an overlay of red currants, and the flavor follows along those lines, and just fills the mouth. I know plenty of people who would write this off just because it's a blockbuster, New World Shiraz, but I suspect they're also the sort of people who wouldn't understand why driving a Maserati is more fun than driving a Prius.

2000 Fabiano Amarone Della Valpolicella Classico  Pleasant, tarry Amarone but no great shakes. The fruit reminded me of cherry cider, and it had a nice little nip of citrus acidity on the end, but Romano Dal Forno ain't quaking in fear over this one.

2002 Kaesler Old Bastard Shiraz ($160, more or less) I know this is supposed to be up there in Amon-Ra territory (or even more culty, who knows), but to me it shot over the top: superrich elixir of blackberries and sweetness, so ripe and gobular that any nuance seemed drowned in the richness. Perhaps pleasant on pancakes? You got me.

And that's it. No more wines. Just your average little wine dinner in Boulder. I may be recovered enough by May for the next one. We'll see. 

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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