Last Night's Tipple

I finished the bottle of 2006 Root:1 Cabernet Sauvignon last night, and it held up well after being open a day. I am really surprised by the rhubarb on the nose. That's not an aroma that I have experienced before, and it's really strange to find it in a beverage made from grapes. I like it, though. I agree with the assessment from yesterday: this wine is a bit thin and short, but it is interesting and tasty and well worth the $8 I paid for it.

The premise of the marketing schtick for this wine is that the ungrafted grapevines it is produced from produce grapes that have deeper flavor than grafted grapevines. This has been a common claim about grafted grapevines since their introduction began in the 1870s, and it's one of the principal reasons that grafted grapevines were illegal in Burgundy until 1887 despite the fact that phylloxera was devastating Burgundy vineyards to such an extent that the economic viability of winemaking there was in doubt. The only way to validate or falsify that assertion definitively would be to conduct a controlled experiment where both grafted and ungrafted vines of the same age and variety were planted in the same vineyard, which would allow us to compare the wines made from each and know that any differences between the two would likely be a result of whether the vines were grafted or ungrafted. Well, grafted and ungrafted vines don't generally exist in the same vineyard. There are regions (large parts of Chile and Argentina and some small parts of Australia) where vines are generally ungrafted, and there are regions where vines are not. The best evidence we have are evaluations of pre- and post-phylloxera wines from the same regions or vineyards, and those evaluations are pretty unanimous that the pre-phylloxera wines are better. Game, set, and match for ungrafted vines, right? Well, not really. The American rootstocks that were used for grafting carried American vine viruses with them, and these viruses were previously unknown in Europe. The spread like wildfire after the introduction of grafting, and it was many years before vinegrowers learned to combat them. So was it the grafting or was it the viruses that accounts for the decline in quality? Who knows.

Last Night's Tipple

Last night's wine (the 2006 Root:1 Cabernet Sauvignon from the Colchagua Valley in Chile) was an impulse buy at Costco, and I began to regret the purchase as soon as I haded over my credit card at the register. I'm not a bit fan of Cabernet Sauvignon-based wines (probably a result of a psychological need to be different), and I have not had very good experiences with Chilean wines (most of what I've tried has been green and thin and not very appealing). In the store, though, I was won over by the stylish packaging, the price ($8, if I recall correctly), and the marketing schtick. Namely, the grapes used to make this wine are from ungrafted vines. Since the phylloxera destroyed European vineyards in the second half of the 19th Century, most of the world's commercial vitis vinifera vines have been grafted. The grape-bearing part is vitis vinifera, but it has been grafted onto roots from non-vinifera North American grape species. North American non-vinifera grape varieties, you see, are immune to the ravages of phylloxera, and the discovery that this was so saved the European wine industry. But phylloxera hasn't reached every corner of the wine world, at least not yet. Specifically, most of South America has never been visited by it, and so grafting is not nearly as widespread in Chile and Argentina as it is in the rest of the world. Root:1's marketing claims that the lack of grafting makes their grapes have a more intense fruit and varietally authentic character. I'm more than a bit suspicious of that claim, but I had to try it. And so I bought a bottle.

Cabernet Sauvignon is famous for having a green streak. Given that one of its parents is the Cabernet Franc, which is about as vegetal as a red grape variety gets, this isn't particularly surprising. There is a good bit of green bell pepper on the nose, as befits a Cabernet Sauvignon wine. But there is also a very sharp and distinct rhubarb aroma. I like rhubarb. There is some decent red fruit on the palate, along with some olives. It's a bit thin and a bit short, but I still enjoyed it. It's better than most other Chilean wines that I have tried, and it offers good value for $8 a bottle. My impulses were good in this case.

Last Night's Tipple

Last night, I finished off the remainder of the 2006 La Posta Bonarda that I opened on Sunday night. One writer that I read recently asserted that Bonarda was the Argentine Zinfandel: its European origins are undeniable but obscure, and it has only become respected and important in Argentina. The wine it produces is juicy and fruity and enjoyable but perhaps not of transcendent quality. That comparison seems pretty apt to me, at least if this La Posta is at all indicative of the kind of wine that Bonarda makes. It was an enjoyable on the second night as the first, although it wasn't profound. The only thing about it that makes me reluctant to purchase it again is the fact that I can get a lot of really good wines for $16 a bottle. That is, it's not the vest value in the world.

Believe it or not, Argentina is the most important wine-producing country in South America and produces the fifth most wine per year of any nation in the world. Those little tidbits of trivia surprised me when I read them -- I had assumed that Chile, whose wines are ubiquitous in grocery and liquor stores around here, would have placed ahead of Argentina, but such is not the case. Even more surprising to me is the fact that the number of acres of vines under cultivation in Argentina and the wine production from them have fallen dramatically over the past 25 years. In the '60s and '70s, Argentina produced and consumed a staggering amount of wine. Virtually all of the wine produced was for domestic consumption, and the Argentines consumed more than 90 liters per capita per annum. Think about that for a minute: every man, woman, and child in Argentina drank 120 bottles of wine per year. And most of it was high-alcohol mass-produced plonk. Not coincidentally, the end of the military dictatorship in the early '80s ushered in a better era of viticulture, more commercial and more quality-oriented. Vast quantities of low-quality vines were ripped out, and winemaking practices improved dramatically. There are today a large number of high quality (and high price) Argentine wines on the world market, and that's a good thing.

Last Night's Tipple

Bonarda is Argentina's second most widely-planted grape, after malbec. There is considerable uncertainty about what the Argentine bonarda actually is. It is vitis vinifera, of course, which means that it originated in Europe or the Near East, and the name is Italian. The problem is that there are three different Italian grape varieties known as the bonarda, and there is evidence that the Argentine bonarda is none of these but instead might be the charbono. The matter could be settled by DNA testing, just like the research that proved that California petite sirah was mostly the grape known as durif in France. But Argentina doesn't exactly have the highest prestige level of all wine-growing countries, and bonarda doesn't exactly have the highest prestige level of all the grape varieties grown in Argentina. Ampelographers simply haven't gotten to it yet.

Most of the Argentine wine that one sees on the US market are either malbec or one of the mass-appeal varietals like cabernet sauvignon or merlot. Bonarda bottlings are a little uncommon, but they can be found. I had heard about bonarda; and since novelty always appeals to me, I decided to seek it out. Spec's had two or three different versions, none of which I knew anything about. I selected the 2006 La Posta Estela Armando Vineyard Bonarda largely because I liked the label (when there is nothing else to judge a wine by, why not just go by the label?). The importer's website says that the grapes for this wine are from 45 year old vines cultivated by a family of Italian ancestry. There is a good deal of fruit on the nose, mixed with some earthiness and smoke. Towards the end of the glass, I thought that I smelled a bit of raspberries and cream and a bit of toast (as in Wonder bread). There was a lot of red fruit on the palate, along with a good deal of drying tannins. The finish wasn't particularly long, but that's okay. This was a concentrated and enjoyable wine. I think that it was a little overpriced at $16 a bottle, but trying new things is almost always a good idea.

Last Night's Tipple

Man, that picture didn't come through well at all. Oh, well. That's the best I can do.

Anyway, continuing with the dolcetto theme, last night I opened a bottle of 2005 Chionetti Dolcetto di Dogliani San Luigi. The DOC is Dolcetto di Dogliani, and San Luigi is the name of the vineyard where the grapes were grown. In the Dolcetto d'Alba DOC, dolcetto is usually a secondary or tertiary grape, planted in less favorable locations by growers who reserve their best spots for nebbiolo and barbera. This is less frequently the case in the Dolcetto di Dogliani DOC -- more frequently, growers plant dolcetto and only dolcetto. This naturally causes them to take the grape more seriously than do some growers in the Dolcetto d'Alba DOC, and people who actually know something about this say that Dolcetto di Dogliani wines are typically heavier, more intense, and more age-worthy than Dolcetto d'Alba wines. Quinto Chionetti is a respected Dogliani producer, and he makes three single-vineyard dolcettos: Briccolero, Vigna la Costa, and San Luigi. My friendly, neighborhood liquor and wine superstore only carries the San Luigi, so that's all I can try (although I think that it would be fascinating to compare all three). It cost around $24 a bottle, making it about as expensive a dolcetto as you can find.

When first poured, this wine didn't have much aroma at all. With some vigorous swirling, however, it really opened up. When it did, it had the same copper penny aroma as the Gagliardo I had previously. In addition, there was a big rose petal component and some meatiness. Yes, meatiness. I'm not sure exactly which meat -- maybe ham, maybe bacon -- but it's there. I like it a whole lot. On the palate, there's a lot of dark fruit and a lot of drying tannins. With the Gagliardo, at first it was a bit short -- I swallowed it, and it was gone. That changed with some time in the glass, but it was a bit disconcerting nonetheless. That wasn't a problem with this Chionetti. I like this wine a lot. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it was a great value, but it was very tasty; and I did enjoy it more than the Gagliardo (although they were close).

Last Night's Tipple

I finished the bottle of 2005 Gagliardo Dolcetto d'Alba last night, and it was as good or better than it was when I opened it the night before. This wine had a shelf talker recommendation from the Central Market wine buyer, and I will admit that that was what determined me on my purchase. The packaging seemed a bit too cutesy and marketing-driven for comfort; but when confronted with 7 or 10 wines of the same variety, all of similar price and none of them familiar, why not pay attention to a staff recommendation for one?

Dolcetto is frequently referred to as the Italian version of Beaujolais in introductory wine books, and it's a comparison that causes umbrage for both proud Dolcetto producers and proud Beaujolais producers. The wine writers typically mean that both Dolcetto and Beaujolais are (relatively) cheap, soft, easy drinking wines best consumed young. In other words, they mean the comparison to be mildly pejorative or at least patronizing. Well, anyone who has ever tried Domaine Diochon Moulin-a-Vent or most of the other Beaujolais wine that Kermit Lynch imports knows that there is Beaujolais out there that is not just soft and easy-drinking and is age-worthy and "serious." I suspect that the same can be said for a lot of dolcetto. This Gagliardo Dolcetto d'Alba, I think, is not just some pleasant quaffer. It has plenty of acidity and tannin, mixed with plenty of fruit. I have no idea of whether it's age-worthy, but I do know that I have had plenty of purportedly "serious" wines that don't bring as much flavor, complexity, and interest to the table as this wine does. It really tastes nothing at all like Beaujolais, even excellent Beaujolais, but I think that the comparison of dolcetto and Beaujolais is justified for reasons not intended by the critics: both wines are under-appreciated and under-priced relative to their potential quality.

Last Night's Tipple

The three most important red grapes in the Piemonte region of northwestern Italy are nebbiolo, barbera, and dolcetto. Nebbiolo is by far the most renowned of the three, as it is used to make Barolo and Barbaresco, the king and queen of Italian wines. Barbera is the overshadowed child, with a good reputation in its own right but not one that can really compare to nebbiolo. Dolcetto is the red-headed stepchild of the three. It doesn't get much respect, either by wine critics (who often think of it as a simple, easy-drinking, and unserious wine) or by many growers, who relegate it to the second-rate vineyard locations and use its wine as a way to generate cash flow while their nebbiolo-based wines are maturing.

Well, I don't really have an objection to a wine that is simple and easy-drinking so long as it's good, and I don't understand criticizing wine for being "unserious." What is that supposed to mean, anyway? Wine is, or ought to be, primarily a beverage to be enjoyed, not an intellectual exercise. I any event, I have read from people whose opinions I respect that dolcetto frequently makes enjoyable, delicious wine. So what do I care what the critics say? The bottle that I picked up (for around $15) is a 2005 Gagliardo Dolcetto d'Alba. The producer, Gianni Gagliardo, has two separate lines. True to the stereotype, the upper of these two lines (Gianni Gagliardo) is almost exclusively nebbiolo-based, with one barbera and one favorita (a Piemontese white grape). Wines in this line probably cause some controversy amongst the critics because they all appear to be aged in small French oak barriques, which is a big departure from traditional winemaking techniques in the Piemonte (large Slovenian oak barrels, mostly used and approaching neutrality, were traditionally used). The lower line is called simply Gagliardo, and the producer calls the bottlings in this line "young family wines." In addition to the Dolcetto d'Alba, there's a Barbera d'Alba, a Roero Arneis (another white grape), and a favorita. None of them see any oak -- brief "aging" in stainless steel is it. That's fine with me. I'm not big on oak in wine, anyway, and I'm looking for a wine to drink now, not age for a few years.

This wine has a very interesting nose (and in this case, "interesting" is good). The dominant note is this odd copper aroma -- take a stack of pre-1983 pennies and give them a whiff, and you'll know what I mean -- and it's mixed in with rose petals and a gamey note. I like it. It's juicy on the palate, with a good deal of dark fruit. There also is a not insignificant amount of tannin, and a good bit of acidity. My only real complaint is that it started out a bit short, but that changed a bit as it spent some time open and in the glass. Very enjoyable.

Last Night's Tipple

I finished the bottle of 2005 Van Duzer Vineyards Estate Pinot Noir last night, and it was just as enjoyable the second night as it had been the first. I didn't pick up the olive notes this time, but I did smell some floral components that I hadn't noticed before. In any event, I am very pleased with this wine, even at $25 a bottle. (And that $25 a bottle is a pretty good price -- I've seen it elsewhere for over $30. Costco's wine prices are very competitive.)

Both Van Duzer and the Willamette Valley Vineyards pinot that I had earlier in the week prominently display the logo for an organization named LIVE (Low Input Viticulture & Enology) on their back labels, advertising the fact that their wines are LIVE-certified. Well, what the heck does that mean? LIVE is a non-profit organization of winegrowers "providing education and certification for vineyards using international standards of sustainable viticulture practices in wine grape production." It turns out that they are a sort of halfway house between conventional viticulture and organic or biodynamic viticulture -- that is, a rejection of the "better living through chemicals" school of winegrowing but a realization that herbicides and fertilizers are sometimes necessary to make vineyards commercially viable. I don't have the energy or enthusiasm to read exactly what a winery has to do to be LIVE-certified, but it certainly sounds like a good thing to me. I don't really believe that chemical-free agriculture necessarily produces better-tasting or healthier products, but at the same time I don't wine that stinks of sulfur dioxide.

Last Night's Tipple

The skins of red grapes have tannins and pigments, and these tannins and pigments give red wine its backbone and color. The pinot noir grape, being a red grape, has tannins and pigments in its skin; but its skin is thin and consequently imparts much lower quantities of tannins and pigments than most red grapes, particularly the big boys like cabernet sauvignon and syrah. According to John Winthrop Haeger's book North American Pinot Noir,

[t]he thin skins’ tannins comprise only about 1.7 percent of the grape’s weight–as compared to 3 percent to 6 percent in most red varieties–and pinot’s anthocyanins, the soluble pigments that give most red wines their color, are present in less than half the quantity as in, for example, syrah.

This means that most pinot noir wines don't have really deep color and are not particularly tannic. In fact, all too many pinots are pale and thin; and that has been my principal complaint about the pinot wines that I have been trying recently. I don't really want pinot to be an inky, tannic monster that coats my tongue with grape sludge -- finesse and subtlety are usually attributes to be desired in a wine, particularly a pinot, in my opinion -- but I'd like it to remind me that it isn't just water with alcohol and some red food coloring added.

Costco is currently selling the 2005 Van Duzer Vineyards Willamette Valley Estate Pinot Noir for around $25 a bottle. When I saw it, I had never heard of Van Duzer Vineyards; but I liked the looks of the bottle and the shelf talker, and I bought a bottle. It was something of a risk -- insipid pinot noirs are all too common, even at high price points. Paying $10 for an insipid wine is merely disappointing. Paying $25 for one is actively infuriating. Well, fortunately, this Van Duzer pinot is not insipid. It's significantly darker than the other pinots that I have tried recently, and it also has more concentration and tannic backbone. There's some earth and some cherries on the nose, as well as olives. Yes, olives. Strange, at least to me, but not at all unappealing. There is a good deal of bright cherry fruit on the palate, and the wine has a nice bit of acidity, which I like. I wouldn't say that I have found the Holy Grail of pinot noir, but at least I found one that I like a good bit.

(It turns out that Van Duzer Vineyards was founded in 1989. They primarily make pinot noir, although they do make some pinot gris. All of the grapes that they use are grown on their own estates -- no purchased grapes. There are two separate lines: the lower-priced Estate line and the higher-priced Reserve line, which appears to be made up exclusively of single-vineyard wines. Based on my experience with the Estate pinot noir, I'd certainly be willing to shell out another $10 a bottle to try one of the Reserve wines.)

Last Night's Tipple

Costco is a very strange place. Nestled among the gigantic cans of tuna and the 32-packs of toilet paper is wine. Lots of wine. I think that I've read that Costco is the largest wine retailer in the United States, and it's easy to see why. They devote substantial floor space to it, and their prices are very attractive. And it's not just Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay and box wine dreck from Australia. They carry a number of well-reputed and distinctly uncheap wines. If you want to buy some Dom Perignon, for example, this is the place to do it. You're probably not going to find a better price. The most recent wine that makes me scratch my head and wonder how they got it is a 1996 Chateau Guiraud Sauternes.

When Sauternes was classified in 1855 in preparation for the Exposition Universelle de Paris (a parallel classification was done for the wines of the Médoc plus Haut-Brion from Graves), there were three groupings: 1 Premier Cru Supérieur (Yquem, then as now, is in a class by itself), 11 Premier Crus, and 15 Deuxièmes Crus. Château Guiraud, which was originally purchased by Pierre Guiraud in 1766, was one of the Premier Crus. Quality and standards change, of course, so it's a little bit ridiculous to pay too much attention to a classification that took place 153 years ago. Nevertheless, Guiraud is one of the well-reputed, reliable Sauternes producers. 1996 was ranked by various wine reporters as a very good but not excellent vintage in Sauternes. How is it that Costco got a few cases of 1996 Guiraud in 2008? Beats me. Maybe they picked it up from the secondary market for a song, or maybe Guiraud kept a stock of it unreleased hoping for higher prices and finally decided to dump it. In any event, since 1996, there has been one classic vintage in Sauternes (2001) and two excellent ones (1997 and 2003). Whoever sold Costco this Guiraud probably judged that there was no financial incentive to holding onto it for any longer. And so Costco acquired several cases of half bottles of 1996 Château Guiraud Premier Cru Sauternes, which it is currently selling for $28. That's really cheap for a First Growth Sauternes from a good year, and I bought a bottle to try.

Sauternes start out a deep gold color, and it tends to darken with age. This wine was almost copper-colored, so dark that I would have suspected that it had oxidized if it hadn't been Sauternes. It had a deeply honeyed nose, and on the palate it was honey mixed with lemons. This is a sweet wine, but it's not overpoweringly so -- not as sweet as Coca-Cola, for example. And the sweetness there is is balanced by the significant acidity, so it's not sickly or cloying. I liked this wine a lot. I might just go out and buy more. Really, really good, and not a bad value for Sauternes.

Last Night's Tipple

I finished off the bottle of 2005 Toad Hollow Goldie's Vines Pinot Noir last night, and I can't really say that it improved with time being open. It still had that musty aroma, and it didn't really bring much except tartness. André Tchelistcheff, the legendary winemaker at Beaulieu Vinyards, famously said that God made cabernet sauvignon while the devil made pinot noir; and I can believe it. This wine was not inexpensive, and yet it is very unsatisfying. It seems like it is almost ever thus with pinot noir. Every once in a while, one has a profound experience with pinot noir, which makes one willing to flush a lot of money down the toilet trying to find a repeat.

In addition to being a very prolific parent (having crossed with gouais to produce chardonnay, gamay, aligoté, melon de Bourgogne, and many others), pinot noir is also susceptible to mutation. Various mutations of the pinot noir have produced the pinot meunier, the pinot blanc, and the pinot gris (or pinot grigio in Italy and some parts of the United States), each of them relatively important in its own right. Pinot gris especially is an interesting case. Its name means "gray pinot," and that is a very good description. Where the skins of pinot noir grapes are a midnight blue in color, the skins of pinot gris grapes are much lighter -- a kind of pale blue-gray. You would never guess from looking at the pale wine that pinot gris produces that the skins are anything other than yellow-green. But they are. Pinot is a strange thing, indeed.

Last Night's Tipple

Toad Hollow Vineyards began as a partnership between Todd Williams (comedian Robin Williams' half brother) and Rodney Strong, the head of Rodney Strong Vineyards. Both Williams and Strong are now deceased (the former in 2007, the latter in 2006), but the motto of the vineyards remains unchanged: "Fine wine at a reasonable price." I have had a number of Toad Hollow wines, and I have always been impressed both by the quality of the wines and the lowness of the price. Cacophany, the Toad Hollow Zinfandel is very good, as is the Amplexus Blanquette de Limoux sparking wine. I also like the whimsical label illustrations, the obvious irreverence of the company, and the approach that they take to wine. That is, they believe, or appear to believe, that wine is not supposed to be a great mystery, only consumed by the learned and only with a serious and contemplative mien. And so, when faced with thirty or forty feet of shelf of California pinot noirs about which I knew nothing, I was drawn to the 2005 Toad Hollow Goldie's Vines Russian River Valley Pinot Noir.

The Toad Hollow website says that the 2005 vintage is "our best to date." I didn't have the previous vintages, but I have to say that that doesn't encourage me very much. When I first opened this wine, I suspected that it was corked. There was this mushroomy mustiness on the nose that I didn't like at all. Wines infected with TCA are supposed to smell like musty cardboard, and I suspected that that was what was going on here. On the other hand, though, pinot noir can take on some earthy characteristics, so I thought that it would be prudent to try this instead of just pouring it out. Well, there wasn't a whole lot in the wine. Not much fruit, not much pleasure, not much of anything except a mushroomy mustiness on the nose and a good deal of acidity. I don't really know if this bottle was corked, but I do know that I didn't particularly like it.

Last Night's Tipple

Finished off the bottle of 2005 Albert Bichot Bourgogne Rouge last night, and my impressions remain the same: it's pleasant enough, I suppose, but there's not a whole lot of there there. Not much nose, not much flavor, not much of anything. Maybe it's possible to get a good Pinot Noir for $13. I just haven't found one yet.

For decades in the 19th and 20th Centuries, the most widely-accepted theory of the spread of viticulture in Europe, Africa, and the near East held that vitis vinifera was first domesticated in Mesopotamia and was subsequently transplanted to Europe and Africa mostly by the Greeks and the Romans. There are a couple of problems with that theory. First, wild ranged all over the Mediterranean basin as far north as Belgium up until the late 19th Century. It's highly unlikely that anyone would have transplanted clippings of wild vinifera, so it's likely that the vine was indigenous to most of this area. Given this, why should we think that domestication happened in one and only one location? Second, there's the matter of the pinot noir grape. It's not like any of the near Eastern grape varieties that the Romans were known to have distributed throughout the Empire, but there is decent evidence that it or something like it has been cultivated in Burgundy for almost 2000 years (Columella, writing in the First Century AD, describes a pinot-like grape growing in Burgundy), and there is evidence of vine cultivation in what is today France before the advent of the Romans. Furthermore, consider pinot's offspring. Chardonnay and Gamay, two of the best-known, are both products of presumably accidental field crosses between pinot noir and gouais, a white variety known to have been brought to France from the near East by the Romans. (There are many other pinot-gouais offspring, including aligoté and melon de Bourgogne, the grape of Muscadet.) Both of these grapes are unusually hardy, growing well in a variety of environments. Chardonnay, in particular, can and does grow just about anywhere and is usually capable of producing good or great wine wherever it grows. It's a truism of genetics that genetic diversity between parents is more likely to result in hardy offspring than genetic similarity, and genetic diversity is frequently the result of distance. That doesn't prove that pinot noir was domesticated in northern France, of course, but it is suggestive.

Last Night's Tipple

It's widely believed among the marketing types that American wine consumers prefer New World-style varietal wines to Old World-style denomination of origin wines because the labeling of varietal wines is simple and easy to understand while the labeling of denomination of origin wines is complex and confusing. And Burgundy is the most complex and confusing of the denomination of origin wines that I can think of. There's the generic AOC Burgundy (both rouge and blanc). Then there are the wines from a specific region within Burgundy (eg, Côte de Beaune-Villages). Then there are wines from specific villages (eg, Gevrey-Chambertin, Rully, Meursault, and Pommard), each with its own AOC. Then there are the single vineyard wines, which can be either Premier Cru or Grand Cru (eg, La Tâche), each again with its own AOC. All in all, there are over 700 AOCs in Burgundy, some of them as small as 1.8 hectares (Romanée-Conti). It's a lot easier to buy a California Cabernet Sauvignon than it is to have even a rudimentary understanding of how wine in Burgundy works. It's intimidating.

The only grape permissible for red Burgundy is the Pinot Noir (Gamay is allowed in Bourgogne Passe-Tout-Grains and Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire, two less restrictive and less prestigious AOCs encompassing the same territory as the Bourgogne AOC). Pinot is a famously finicky grape capable of producing thin, acidic dreck. There are some grape varieties that will usually produce decent wine even in difficult circumstances. Pinot Noir isn't one of those. People who love Pinot Noir are usually disappointed by its expression. But when it's right, whoo boy, is it ever right. At its best, it is pale, aromatic, and delectable. The problem is that it is not often at its best; and when it is, it's extraordinarily expensive.

The 2005 Albert Bichot Bourgogne is not extraordinarily expensive. In fact, it's pretty cheap, about as cheap as an AOC Burgundy Pinot can possibly be. Albert Bichot is one of the major Burgundy negociants (merchants who buy grapes and wine from individual growers, then age, blend, bottle, and market the result), although not really in the top rank like Louis Jadot and Louis Latour. This wine has a lot of violets and vanilla on the nose, and the palate is relatively light in body with a good deal of tannin. I wish that there were more fruit, and I wish that there were more acidity; but it probably is a decent value for the money. I will admit, though, that I was a bit disappointed.

Last Night's Tipple

The winegrowing region of Yecla is located in the southwest of Spain, and it has historically been an important one producing vast quantities of well-regarded wine. The scourge of the phylloxera louse never reached the vineyards there, and so it provided large stocks of blending wines for French merchants after phylloxera devastated French vineyards in the second half of the Nineteenth Century. The vinyards dwindled in scope and fell into disrepair in the first half of the Twentieth Century, however, and the modern revival of Yecla began after 1950, and the region was granted Denominación de Origen (DO) status in 1975.

The principal red grape variety planted in Yecla is the Monastrell, better known by its French name, Mourvèdre. Monastrell apparently originated in Spain (Mourvèdre is a Francification of Murviedro, a town near Valencia), but its principal claim to fame is as one of the important grapes used in the blends of the Southern Rhone. It's known for its earthy, gamy character; and in recent years, it has gained popularity among New World Rhone Rangers.

Bodegas Castaño was founded in 1985 and is today one of the largest producers in Yecla. Their principal export markets are Germany and the Netherlands; but Eric Solomon and European Cellars do import Castaño wines into the United States. Solanera, a blend of 65% Monastrell, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 15% Tintorera, is made for Solomon only, so it's impossible to find anywhere but the United States. It has achieved a measure of notoriety over the past few years, largely because of the favorable reviews given to it by Robert Parker in the Wine Advocate. When I first put my nose into the glass, I was afraid that it had been spoiled. I smelled mushrooms and wet ground. Some people like that sort of thing. I don't, and I suspected that the wine had been corked. I suppose it may have been, but the mushroom smell blew off after a couple of minutes to reveal an inky black, low-acid fruit bomb, high in alcohol and body. I enjoyed it, although I would have preferred something more acidic. It just was flabby.

Last Night's Tipple

Last night, I finished off the rest of the bottle of Louis Bouillot Perle de Nuit Blanc de Noirs Crémant de Bourgogne. Similar with other experiences I've had with sparkling wine, it was better the second night than it was the first night. I think, although I'm not sure, that this is because it's lost some of its carbonation after being open for twenty four hours, making the wine less acidic and sour and allowing its fruit to show through more readily. This makes me think that I should move on to Italian Prosecco next. Produced from eponymous Prosecco grapes in the Veneto region of northern Italy, it is typically less carbonated than Champagne and Champagne-style sparkling wines.

The Louis Bouillot was around $18 a bottle. Was it worth it? Well, that's a hard question to answer. It wasn't as enjoyable as either the Gruet Blanc de Noirs or the Gruet Rosé, and each of those was $5 cheaper a bottle. But compared to the California and Champagne sparklers, each of which has cost more, it more than holds its own. Plus it includes Gamay, which makes for a unique experience. I don't regret the purchase price, but I doubt that I'll be a regular purchaser.

Last Night's Tipple

Champagne is the king of French sparking wines, but there are many other regions in France that produce sparkling wine. Sparkling wine from an appellation d’origine contrôlée is generally called crémant. The ones that I have seen most frequently in the United States (not that I have been paying that much attention) are from Limoux (in the Languedoc), Alsace, and Bourgogne. Crémant de Bourgogne, it seemed to me when I was browsing the sparkling wine section at Central Market, should be the most like Champagne of all the French crémants since Bourgogne uses mostly the same grapes as Champagne does (namely, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay) and since it's relatively far north in France and would consequently be able to produce grapes high in acidity, as it should be with sparkling wine. Central Market had both a Blanc de Noirs and a Blanc de Blancs from Louis Bouillot, a Crémant de Bourgogne producer about which I knew nothing; but the price was decent and I thought what the heck. Given the fact that I typically like Blanc de Noirs better than Blanc de Blancs, I bought the Blanc de Noirs.

I don't know much more about Louis Bouillot than I did when I bought the bottle a couple of days ago. Their importer's website says that they began producing sparkling wine since 1877. The bottle says that they're based in Nuits-St-Georges in the heart of Burgundy, although that's not necessarily where the grapes they use for the wine are grown. Louis Bouillot Perle de Nuit Blanc de Noirs Crémant de Bourgogne is made from Pinot Noir from around Yonne and Gamay(!) from the Mâconnais. Well, this is a little bit different. Gamay isn't used in Champagne, and it's the grape of Beaujolais. I like (good) Beaujolais because it's fresh, fruity, and exuberant, so this is very promising. The wine is a deep straw color with just a tinge of salmon. The nose is, as one would expect, fresh, fruity, and exuberant. It is more immediately pleasing than any sparkling wine that I have tried on this latest binge. In the mouth, it's round and berry-like with plenty of body. I like this very much.

Last Night's Tipple

I have come to the conclusion that I should probably buy mostly blanc de noirs and rosé sparkling wine from now on. Perhaps it's evidence that I am a complete Philistine, but the lesson that I have learned from this sparkling wine binge over the past two or three weeks is that I like the berry aromas and the fuller body that is typically found in pinot noir-heavy sparkling wines (ie, in blanc de noirs and rosé) better than the flavors and character imparted by a large proportion of chardonnay. Chardonnay-heavy sparkling wine, at least the versions that I have tried (and, to be honest, I don't have much breadth of experience here) is much more likely to be sour and bland.

In any event, I finished the bottle of Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs last night, and it was probably better the second night than the first. Perhaps this is because it lost some of its carbonation and was consequently a bit less acidic. I don't know. But I do know that I don't feel cheated at all by spending $30 on a bottle of sparkling wine, and that's saying a lot by itself. I will have to try the rosé next, even though it is $37 a bottle. If I don't feel ripped off by that price, I should just stop drinking sparkling wine altogether because it would likely lead me to bankruptcy.

"Tell him to get f--ked"

If the article in the May, 2006 issue of Inc. magazine that Mamacita sent me a link to is any indication, that phrase is a favorite of Fred Franzia's, particularly when he's upset or irritated ("The Scourge of Napa Valley" by Kermit Pattison). And it appears that Franzia is upset or irritated a lot. He's the chairman and CEO of Bronco Wine, one of the largest and fastest-growing wine companies in California and one that you're probably never heard of. But you probably have heard of some of the brands that they make, bottle, and market, including Napa Ridge, Forest Glen, and Charles Shaw. That last one is usually referred to by its nickname, though -- it's Two Buck Chuck. Bronco produces it for Trader Joe's, and although it's not two dollars a bottle outside of California anymore, it's still unbelievably cheap for something that isn't box wine or Night Train. It actually holds its own in blind tastings against much more expensive wine. Two Buck Chuck is an extreme example of what Bronco does with all of its wines: they own some of the most extensive winegrowing acreage in the world, they have huge wine storage and aging facilities, and they have the financial resources to buy up excess wine from whomever is in distress whenever they want to. That means that they have a tremendous stock of wine to choose from to blend the wines for their various brands to different (and good) flavor profiles, and they have the scale to be able to do it cheaply. Read the whole article -- Franzia is an interesting character, and the story of his business is a good one.

What I find the most interesting about the article, though, are Franzia's comments about the wine industry. Consider this, for example:

He believes that the wine industry has become intoxicated by elitism, inflated prices, and its own PR about terroir--the idea that a wine is uniquely a product of the place it comes from, and by extension that some places are better than others. "Why complicate it?" asks Franzia, voice rising. "Does anybody complicate Cheerios by saying the wheat has to be grown on the side of a mountain and the terroir in North Dakota is better than Kansas and all this horse s---? You put something in your mouth and enjoy it. If you spend $100 to buy a bottle of wine, how the hell are you going to enjoy it? It's a joke. There's no wine worth that kind of money."

And this:

There's nothing unusual in this [Bronco's production techniques], but it's bold to insist that these blended wines are every bit as good as Napa wines that cost several times as much, which of course Franzia does. "I defy anyone that charges more money to let me conduct a blind tasting," he says. "He'll look like a fool with his own wine."

And this:

"California wine shouldn't be divided up into these little oligopoly appellations," he says. "They try to create a myth to keep the consumer from buying other people's wine."

A big part of me sympathizes with Franzia's argument. The fact of the matter is that the wine industry actively encourages snobbery, elitism, and consumer confusion. To a very large extent, it markets wine as a luxury item to label-obsessed yuppies. Wine shouldn't be mystifying. It is a food item, and it should be like any other food item: enjoyed for the quality of its flavors, aromas, and other properties, not for the prestige it brings the buyer. But at the same time, it's just ridiculous to say, as Franzia does, that a grape is a grape is a grape, no matter where it is grown. I'm more than willing to believe that it is possible to grow decent grapes outside of the "prestige" areas in California and that the prestige of Napa County and other big-name AVAs allows growers of crappy grapes to get paid premium prices. But grapes (and indeed, all living things) taste different depending on th environment they were raised in and the kinds of nutrients they ingested. Grass-fed beef tastes different from corn-fed beef, doesn't it? Why shouldn't grapes grown on the side of a hill in gravelly, limestone-rich soil taste different from grapes grown in a river bottom? Rejection of snobbery doesn't have to entail abandoning one's common sense.

Last Night's Tipple

Schramsberg is the oldest producers of sparkling wine in the United States. The winery dates to 1862, when German immigrant Jacob Schram gave up barbering in San Francisco and places north to buy land in Napa County and grow grapes. As far as I can tell, though, production was entirely still wines until 1940, when John Gargano and the California Champagne Company bought the winery. Douglas Pringle acquired the winery and the California Champagne Company in 1951, and he continued to produce wine until his death in 1960. The winery remained shuttered until 1965, when Jack and Jamie Davies bought the property and resumed production. The winery is currently run by the Davies' son, Hugh Davies.

Today, Schramsberg has three lines of sparkling wine. Wines in the Mirabelle line are multi-vintage and retail around $20 a bottle. The main line is composed of vintage wines, and the various bottlings retail for between $30 and $50 a bottle. At the top end, there is the reserve range, composed of the Pinot Noir-heavy Reserve, the Chardonnay-heavy J. Schram, and the J. Schram Rosé. These are typically more than double the price of the main line wines, and they feature extensive sur lie aging. The mainline Blanc de Noirs has the reputation of being one of the best sparklers (from California or elsewhere) available for the price (which isn't insignificant). I had gone looking for it a few days ago and couldn't find it. I was luckier when I tried again the day before yesterday.

Despite the name, this wine isn't just made from black grapes: it has about 15% Chardonnay. I don't know if it would be permissible in France to label a sparkling wine with 15% Chardonnay as Blanc de Noirs; but Schramsberg isn't in France, and it's obviously okay in the United States. Some Blanc de Noirs sparklers will have a slight pink tinge. Not this one: it's a deep gold, but there's not a hint of orange or red in it. But it does have a lot of the berry flavors and aromas that one typically associates with a Rosé wine, and a good deal of the body, too. I think that I enjoy this more than any of the other sparkling wines that I've tried recently. It's excellent.