i-WineReview Blog

Book Review: Gerald Asher’s A Carafe of Red

2012-01-09T05:29:00.002-05:00

Gerald Asher is one of the 20th century’s great wine writers. Born in Britain, he worked in the wine trade in London and New York for over thirty years. He is also the author of several wine books and many articles for Decanter and other magazines. Beginning in 1972 and for many years thereafter, he wrote the “Wine Journal” column for Gourmet magazine. A Carafe of Red reprints many of his most erudite and entertaining articles written for Gourmet. The result is a book that’s part travelogue, part history, and part viticulture and winemaking, all woven together with Asher’s enlightened personal commentary.

While some of the articles in A Carafe of Red were written as long as thirty years ago, there is a timeless quality to them. Asher is a scholar of wine who delves into the history and culture that lies behind the wine, whether it’s the origin of California’s Cabernet Sauvignon vines, the invention of Champagne (and, no, it wasn’t Dom Perignon), or how the innocent anticipation of the vintage’s first, fresh wines became the marketing phenomenon known as Beaujolais Nouveau.

Reading these articles, one is struck by how little is new in the world of wine. Judicious oaking is all the rage these days, with vintners bragging about reducing the amount of time their wines spend in new oak, but Asher was writing about this twenty years ago. He also writes about the tendency to create smaller and smaller parcels for vineyard designated wines, more for commercial than gustatory ends.

One thing that is new, according to Asher, is today’s sometimes overly fastidious pairing of food and wine, something gastronomic writers of the past, even Brillat-Savarin, never wrote about. He has his own recommendations for serving a special wine: “A special wine, no matter how defined, will be appreciated all the more if a preceding bottle establishes criteria for it......Use the first wine as a curtain raiser, to set the mood and establish a standard that will then be gloriously excelled by the special wine of the evening.”

Asher’s vast experience as a writer and wine importer gives his articles, and the book, a vision and perspective few wine writers can match. His article on organic and biodynamic wines covers the globe, from Australia to California, Burgundy and the Loire. Other articles, like that on Chardonnay, go into considerable depth in a particular region (in this case, California). And articles like the one on pairing wine and food and the one on Champagne reveal the fascinating history of wine. Taken all together, A Carafe of Red is an entertaining and enlightening read.

Don Winkler
Editor, International Wine Review

Sequana of Sonoma: New Pinot Noir Releases

2012-01-05T14:32:00.003-05:00

Sequana is a boutique winery in Sonoma County that specializes in handcrafted Pinot Noir. It sources its grapes from single vineyards located in Russian River and the Santa Lucia Highlands. The winemaker is James MacPhail.

Sequana 2009 Pinot Noir Russian River Valley ($38) 91
Lovely medium ruby color, this wine shows beautiful dark cherry fruit, red plum, and toasted oak. It’s elegant on the nose and silky smooth in the mouth with soft round tannins and excellent acidity

Sequana 2009 Pinot Noir Dutton Ranch Green Valley of Russian River Valley ($40) 92+
The Pinot Noir Dutton Ranch is an elegant cool climate Pinot Noir. It exhibits aromas of sweet cherry fruit and toast and a velvet smooth mouth feel that is ripe and fruit forward. The wine shows excellence balance, soft round tannins, and good acidity on the finish.

Sequana 2009 Pinot Noir Sarmento Vineyard Santa Lucia Highlands ($32) 91
Medium ruby in color, the Sequana Pinot Noir Sarmento Vineyard shows fresh and flavorful dark cherry with sweet oak on the nose and lush palate. The grapes come from two separate 10-year old vineyard blocks, each with different clones.

Sequana 2009 Pinot Noir Sundawg Ridge Vineyard Green Valley of Russian River Valley ($50) 91
The Pinot Noir Sundawg Ridge Vineyard is an elegant wine that offers a medium dark ruby hue and rich aromas of spicy dark cherry fruit and toast. It is beautifully sculpted with a lovely soft and silky texture, concentrated black cherry fruit, ripe tannins and a long finish. Crafted from Pommard, 115, and Calera Pinot Noir clones.

Rocca di Montegrossi New Releases

2012-01-01T09:42:00.006-05:00

Rocca di Montegrossi is an old estate in the Chianti Classico region. The estate, which is located just south of Gaole in Chianti, consists of 100 hectares of which 20 are planted in vine, 20 in olive groves that surround the vineyard, and the remainder in woodlands. The estate is situated at 340-350 meters above sea level with calcareous loam soils. Owner Marco Ricasoli-Findolfi serves as winemaker with the support of consulting enologist Attilio Pagli and also oversees all vineyard operations. We last tasted these wines for our Report # 15 The Wines of Chianti Classico. Since that time the estate has been converted to organic viticulture.

The wines of Rocca di Monegrossi are among the finest produced in Chianti Classico. They exhibit rich and pure fruit flavors with interesting nuances of loam and toast. Aged in fine Allier oak, they reveal refinement and elegance on the palate with excellent balance and structure. While drinkable now, these wines will improve with further aging. The 2007 vintage was also one of the finest in Tuscany in recent years.

Rocca di Montegrossi 2009 Chianti Classico Tuscany ($27) 90
The 2009 Chianti Classico lets the Sangiovese dark red cherry fruit shine through. It has a smooth palate with firm tannins and loam earth notes and finishes medium long with the flavorful, lingering fresh cherry flavors. It’s a blend of 90% Sangiovese, 5% Canaiolo and 5% Colorino aged 12 months in Allier oak.

Rocca di Montegrossi 2007 Geremia IGT Tuscany ($45) 93+
The Geremia has always been one of our favorite Tuscan wines. The 2007 vintage has a gorgeous nose of dark red fruit and hints of cloves and cocoa. It’s layered and deeply flavored of rich fruit, chocolate, and toasted oak and finishes with good length. A blend of 65% Merlot and 35% Cabernet Sauvignon aged 24 months in barriques, predominantly new for the Cabernet and mostly used for the Merlot.

Rocca di Montegrossi 2007 Vigneto San Marcellino Tuscany ($50) 92
The Vigneto reveals dark earth, minerals and black and red fruit on the nose and palate. It’s a delicious, serious, well-structured wine with a very long finish showing accents of bright red fruit. A young wine with still gripping tannins, the Vigneto has the stuffing to age beautifully. It’s a blend of 95% Sangiovese and 5% Pugnitello aged 24 months in oak.

Mike Potashnik and Don Winkler
December 2011

Sparkling Wine from Austria

2011-12-13T08:11:00.002-05:00

On our trip to Austria last autumn we had the opportunity to try a number of delicious, fruit-forward sparkling wines. Reviews of them can be found in Report # 25 The Wines of Austria. Among the producers we visited were Anton Bauer in the Wagram, Karl Steininger in Kamptal, and Leo Hillinger in Burgenland.

We recently had the opportunity to taste new releases from these producers. As our notes below show, these wines are fruity, effervescent, and perfect for festive occasions. The sparkling wines of Bauer and Hillinger are light and lively like the Italian prosecco, but the Steininger wines are serious, complex sparkling wines (called sekt in Austria) made in the methode champenoise manner.

Weingut Steininger produces sekt from several different varieties. We tasted the Burgunder (a blend of three Pinot grapes), the Grüner Veltliner, and the Riesling. When visiting the winery, Karl Steininger also poured us a sekt made of Pinot Noir as well as a sparkling red Zweigelt.

In addition to producing wines, the Steininger winery in Langenlois is home to the striking Loisium wine museum and hotel. We wrote about the museum in an earlier article.

Tasting Notes and Ratings

Anton Bauer NV Grüner Veltliner Frizzante Wagram ($17) 87
This Frizzante is crisp and lively with fresh fruit and effervescence. It shows fresh apple cider, baked bread, and yeast on the nose and palate. Sweet enough to have with an apple dessert.

Hillinger NV Secco Sparkling Rose ($18) 89
Light salmon in color, the Secco is aromatic and floral with a rose petal edge. It has a creamy mousse and a nicely balanced, very fruity palate showing red fruit notes. Perfect for wedding cake.

Steininger 2008 Burgunder Sekt Kamptal ($29) 89
Sweet, ripe apples and pears and a hint of citrus show on the nose and palate of this refreshing, delicate and delicious Austrian sparkler. Dry on the palate and the finish, this wine is a blend of Chardonnay, Weisser Burgunder (Pinot Blanc), and Blauburgunder (Pinot Noir). Delicious.

Steininger 2009 Grüner Veltliner Sekt Kamptal ($29) 90+
This is our favorite of the Steininger sparklers. It has a highly aromatic nose redolent of tea leaves and ripe stone fruit. Attractive, light peach and apricot flavors also show on the full bodied yet dry palate along with lees notes. Well balanced and unusually refined for the price.

Steininger 2009 Riesling Sekt Kamptal ($29) 89+
The Riesling has a light and fruity nose with rose petal notes and a lively, clean, refreshing palate. It’s subtly flavored with a creamy mouth feel. A very easy-drinking, delicious sekt.

These wines are imported by Klaus Wittauer/Select Wines.

Mike Potashnik and Don Winkler, December 2011

Moët & Chandon Champagne

2011-12-10T18:05:00.003-05:00

Moët & Chandon is one of Champagne’s oldest Grandes Marques. Established in 1743 by Claude Moët, today the House of Moët has extensive vineyard holdings in Épernay and throughout Champagne, producing over 30 million bottles annually. It is the largest-selling Champagne brand in the United States and is distributed to more than 150 countries worldwide. Until recently the White Star line was its most popular champagnes, but it has been replaced by new the fine-tuned, non-vintage Brut Imperial and Grand Vintage Champagnes reviewed here. Moët & Chandon Champagnes are produced under the direction of the talented Benoît Gouez, Chef de Cave, and his team, including winemaker Marc Brevot. We recently sat down with Marc to taste through the US portfolio of Moët & Chandon.

These Champagnes are blends of the grape trio Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay. The Brut Imperial is a very approachable Champagne that is light and fresh-tasting. With age it generally takes on more toasted qualities and added complexity. The Grand Vintage Champagnes are aged on the lees for seven years, reveal more complex aromas and flavors, and have a richer texture with more volume and delicacy.

Tasting Notes and Ratings

Moët & Chandon Brut Imperial NV Épernay ($45) 90
The Brut Imperial is Moët & Chandon’s flagship wine. A blend of Pinot Noir (45% to 50%), Pinot Meunier (35%-40%) and Chardonnay 10%-15%), it exhibits fresh orchard fruit and toasted aromas on the nose with a lively rich mousse in the glass. It has rich, yeast flavors on the palate with good texture, volume and balance. At 13 g/l RS, it’s made a bit sweeter for the American palate.

Moët & Chandon NV Rosé Imperial Épernay ($45) 90
The medium-light salmon colored Rosé Imperial shows dried red berry aromas. Smooth and creamy on the palate, it combines 40-50% Pinot, 30-40% Pinot Meunier and 10-20% Chardonnay of which about 30% is reserve wine. It is highly accessible with a round texture, simple red berry and cinnamon spice flavors, and a long dry finish. RS 9 g/l.

Moët & Chandon 2002 Grand Vintage Blanc Épernay ($55) 92
The 2002 Vintage is a blend of 51% Chardonnay, 26% Pinot Noir, and 23% Pinot Meunier. Produced from an exceptional vintage and having spent seven years on the lees, it exhibits rich toasted aromas with hints of grilled fruit, vanilla, hazelnuts and mocha. On the palate it is rich and creamy with volume, complexity and balance.

Moët & Chandon 2002 Grand Vintage Rosé Épernay ($45) 91+
Brilliant salmon in color, the 2002 Grand Vintage Rosé spends seven years on the lees. It is complex, showing red berry and dreid cherry aromas with a slight herbal character along with oriental spices and licorice. It is refined, delicate, and creamy on the palate combining 51% Pinot Noir, 28% Chardonnay and 21% Pinot Meunier. While not as lively as the regular Grand Vintage, it has lovely flavors and richness on the finish.

Moët & Chandon 1992 Grand Vintage Collection Épernay ($130) 94+
This yellow-gold 1992 Grand Vintage is a rich and powerful wine that offers a complex nose and flavors of brioche, crème brulee, and candied stone fruit with prominent autolytic notes. It shows remarkable depth of flavor with a creamy mouth feel along with freshness and harmony from beginning to finish. A blend of 45% Pinot Noir, 40% Chardonnay, and 15% Pinot Meunier with RS of 7.5 g/l. This wine was first released ten years ago and is just now being rereleased.

See the International Wine Review Report # 9 Champagne for more detailed discussion of Champagne, its styles and how it’s made.

Moët-Hennessy (www.mhusa.com) is the US importer of these fine Champagnes.

Mike Potashnik and Don Winkler

Gramona: For Lovers of the Art of Cava

2011-12-09T03:49:00.003-05:00

The Gramona family is one of Spain’s most distinguished producers of the sparkling wine called cava. Gramona is guided by a philosophy that places a premium on producing cavas that can be aged and express the unique character of their terroir. The vintage cavas we review below offer exciting aromas and flavors, rich texture and elegance, and a sense of terroir. They are wines that evoke emotion. This is the second in a series of International Wine Review articles on the best sparkling wines of the world.

Located in Sant Sadurni d’Anoia in the center of the Penedès region, this family estate known as “Celler Batlle” combines traditional and new technologies in crafting world class sparkling wines from mostly Xarel-lo and Macabeo, two grape varieties indigenous to the region. Gramona sources its grapes from 150 hectares of impeccably managed estate and neighboring vineyards. It invests heavily in R&D focusing on sustainable and ecologically sound viticultural practices.

Tasting Notes and Ratings

Gramona 2007 Gran Cuvée Penedès ($20) 90
The Gran Cuvée is a blend of one-third each of Xarel-lo, Macabeo and Chardonnay. It has a yellow green hue and aromas of melon, stone fruit and citrus. It is fragrant with light fruit flavors and a rich mouth feel. It is a lively and exuberant sparkler with good acidity on the finish. The wine spends one year in oak followed by three years on the lees in bottle.

Gramona 2005 Brut Imperial Gran Reserva Penedès ($20) 92
The Imperial is a blend of 50% Xarel lo, 40% Macabeo, and 10% Chardonnay. Yellow straw in color, it boasts fragrant and complex aromas of orchard and yellow fruit, toast, and nuts. Aged for 3-4 years, it is refined and elegant with notes of honey and crème brulée and a persistent finish. Great value.

Gramona 2001 Brut Nature III Lustros Gran Reserva Penedès ($30) 92
The Brut Nature combines 70% Xarel-lo and 30% Macabeo. It reveals a yellow gold color and aromas of smoke, brioche and grilled nuts. Aged for five years in the barrel and bottle, it offers a rich array of yeast, nut, and herbal flavors with a creamy mouth feel, toasted notes, good acidity and a rich long finish.

Gramona 2001 Celler Batlle Gran Reserva Brut Penedès ($60) 94
Deep yellow gold, the Celler Batlle is a blend of 70% Xarel-lo and 30% Macabeo. Aged for at least 8 years in bottle before release, it offers aromas of herbs, puff pastry, dried fruit with a light diesel note. On the palate, it reveals rich and complex yellow fruit flavors and autolytic notes with finesse and elegance. Only produced in the best vintages.

Previous reviews and ratings of Gramona and other Spanish sparkling wines are available in the International Wine Review Report #14 The World of Sparkling Wines and Champagnes.

European Cellars of Charlotte, NC, imports these fine wines.

Mike Potashnik and Don Winkler, December 2011

Bellavista: Italy’s King of Sparkling Wine

2011-12-08T09:39:00.003-05:00

Bellavista is arguably Italy’s finest producer of sparkling wine. Its vintage and non-vintage méthode champenoise wines exhibit great elegance and finesse and rank among the best sparkling wines of the world. Our reviews of current releases of Bellavista are given below. This is the first in a series of International Wine Review articles on the best sparkling wines of the world, just in time for the Holidays.

Located in the province of Brescia in the Franciacorta appellation, Bellavista was founded in 1976 by Vittorio Moretti. Today, Bellavista has 190 hectares of estate vineyards, many with excellent hillside exposures. It sources its grapes from 60 different vineyard sites and vinifies them separately in tanks and small used oak barrels. The wines are made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Bianco using both reserve wines and new vintages. Riddling is done by hand. Its élevage was recently increased from 36 to 48 months.

Tasting Notes and Ratings

Bellavista Cuvée Brut Lombardy ($45) 91
The Cuvée Brut is a blend of 80% Chardonnay and 20% Pinot Bianco and Pinot Nero. The perfumed nose boasts orchard fruit, biscuit, and marzipan. It is rich and leesy on the creamy plate, with a fine mousse and lively layers of flavor. It is beautifully balanced and has a crisp, dry delicate finish.

Bellavista 2005 Gran Cuvée Brut Lombardy ($70) 94
Yellow gold in color, the Gran Cuvée Brut is a blend of 72% Chardonnay and 28% Pinot Nero; part of the blend is aged in small oak barrels for seven months. The wine is mouth filling and creamy in texture with great depth and sweetness of fruit flavors. Rich and complex with brioche on the nose, it shows light autolytic flavors on the palate along with toasted hazelnut, orange zest, and honey. Superb!!

Bellavista 2006 Gran Cuvée Rosé Brut Lombardy ($70) 92
The Gran Cuvée Rosé displays a beautiful light copper hue and a complex autolytic nose with dried cherry and brioche notes. A blend of 55% Pinot Nero and 45% Chardonnay, it offers bold flavors but is refined and elegant on the palate with a persistent finish.

Bellavista Gran Cuvée Satèn Lombardy ($75) 93
The refined, soft and feminine Cuvée Satén is made of 100% Chardonnay. The grapes are sourced from a single vintage and from the best parcels of old hillside vineyards. It exhibits a light straw color and has a perfumed nose of orchard fruit and brioche. It is rich and creamy on the elegant palate with great depth of flavor.

Previous reviews and ratings of Bellavista and other Italian sparkling wines are available in the International Wine Review Report #14 The World of Sparkling Wines and Champagnes.

Book Review: Authentic Wine by Jamie Goode and Sam Harrop

2011-12-05T14:06:00.006-05:00

Given the title, it’s not surprising that Authentic Wine (University of California Press) starts off by explaining the concept of terroir and arguing for winemaking that reveals a sense of place. However, this is much more than just a book about natural wine and the natural wine movement. It is a veritable encyclopedia on modern winemaking and viticulture that addresses a number of technical issues in considerable depth. This definitely is not one of those pretty picture wine books full of flowery language and little content. Authentic Wine is a serious book that explains the tricks of the winemaking trade. As such it will appeal to the pensive reader who seeks to understand what lies behind the kinds of wine she likes.

While the book advocates what it calls authentic winemaking, it is not an Alice Feiring type diatribe [see her Battle for Wine and Love] against modern winemaking and Robert Parker. Rather, it is a thoughtful discussion of why and how winemakers intervene in the wine making process.

The authors obviously have their views. They think wine should have a sense of place, and they believe that “wines made as naturally as possible are more expressive of their origins.” It is no surprise that they are not fans of highly extracted, heavily oaked wines, stating “the recipe for making an international style blockbuster red wine is the antithesis of natural winemaking.”

Given that the authors argue for natural winemaking that expresses terroir, they have surprisingly nuanced views on many techniques in the winemaker’s toolbox. The tools or interventions they discuss include acidification, chaptalization, commercial yeasts, use of enzymes, filtration, adding sulphur dioxide, the use of oak, and techniques for reducing alcohol, ranging from adding water to use of spinning cones. They take no moral position on these interventions but instead marshal the available scientific evidence (which in general is sorely lacking) to argue that it’s how these techniques are used that is the important issue.

The authors also recognize that many of the winemaker’s interventions are done in response to the marketplace. Not all customers appreciate authentic wine, and only some are willing to pay extra for that sense of place. Commercial wineries may use enzymes to extract flavor, wood chips to impart a toasted oak flavor, add grape concentrate to add a note of sweetness, and a number of other interventions to produce large volumes of homogeneous wine that can be sold at low prices. But this book isn’t really addressed to the consumers of these wines.

This book is for the cognoscenti—those who already know and appreciate good wine and want to know more about it. Having read the book, they’ll be even better informed, whether it be about spinning cones, genetically modified yeast, or the oddities of biodynamics.

On Parker’s 100 point scale, this book deserves an outstanding 95 plus.

Don Winkler, Editor, IWR

New Grüner Veltliner Releases from Austria

2011-12-02T06:15:00.003-05:00

As we noted in our report on Austria earlier this year, the Grüner Veltliner grape can be used to produce wines in a variety of styles, from inexpensive and fresh, lively wines to dense, ageworthy (and expensive) ones. We recently tasted two new releases in the first style – they are clean, crisp, fresh tasting and highly affordable. They’re from Klaus Wittauer (kwselection), one of America’s finest importers of Austrian wines. These wines will pair well with fish and seafood.

Anton Bauer 2011 Gmork Grüner Veltliner Wagram ($12) 89+
Gmork is one of our favorite offerings from Anton Bauer. It is a lovely fruit forward wine with citrus and herbs on the nose followed by a crisp attack of sweet ripe fruit, good acidity, and minerals on the palate. What a flavorful entry level Grüner--and you can't beat the price!!

Steininger 2011 Young Kamptal ($11) 88
The 2011 Young combines Grüner Veltliner, Sauvignon Blanc and Muskateller. Pale yellow in color, it offers aromas of fresh green apple and exhibits a crispy mid-palate with high acidity and a long spicy finish. Only recently bottled, it is a delicious wine made for early drinking.

The photo is one we took of Grüner Veltliner grapes growing near the super-modern Steininger winery and Loisium in Kamptal. See our earlier article on Kamptal’s Loisium: Europe’s Best Wine Museum.

Mike and Don

Tudal Family Winery: New Releases

2011-11-30T11:41:00.004-05:00

This Napa Valley property is producing some outstanding handcrafted wines in small quantities. For their “Vineyard Series” that is reviewed here, they source grapes from their own estate and purchase fruit from neighboring vineyards as well. Their Pinot Noir Bacigalupi Vineyard and Estate Cabernet Sauvignon are exceptional wines, and their other Cabernet Sauvignon-based wines are very good as well. Kirk Venge is the talented winemaker at this estate.

We confess we did not know the Tudal Family Winery winery before reviewing their wines, despite the fact that they began producing wine in Napa Valley over three decades ago. We understand that in the early days slugger Joe DiMaggio was a big fan of these wines and was always welcomed into the Tudal home with for some homemade ravioli.

Tasting Notes and Ratings

Tudal Winery 2010 Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley ($18) 89+
The 2010 Sauvignon Blanc offers ripe floral aromas of melon and citrus. On the palate it is crisp and bright with lime citrus flavors, a soft texture, and lots of acidity. The wine is nicely balanced, dry and full of flavor with a persistent finish.

Tudal Winery 2009 Pinot Noir Bacigalupi Vineyard Russian River Valley ($42) 91+
The Pinot Noir Bacigalupi Vineyard is a beautifully crafted wine. It exhibits a medium ruby hue and aromas of pure dark cherry fruit and toasted oak. Burgundian in style, it boasts a silky texture with elegance, soft round tannins and a long persistent finish. A terrific wine!

Tudal Winery 2008 Napa Valley Cuvée Napa Valley ($20) 88+
A blend of Petite Sirah, Zinfandel and Malbec, the Napa Valley Cuvée offers red and blackberry fruit aromas and flavors that include chocolate and spice. On the palate it is silky smooth with medium weight, soft round tannins and a firm finish.

Tudal Winery 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Clift Vineyard Napa Valley ($40) 91
The 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Clift Vineyard is a beautiful dark ruby color and boasts dark black berry fruit aromas and flavors. It has a lush mouth feel with rich and concentrated fruit flavors. It is well balanced and pleasant drinking with soft tannins and a long finish.

Tudal Winery 2009 Napa-Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon Napa-Sonoma ($28) 90
The 2009 Napa-Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon is a 50-50 blend that offers aromas of red and black currant, cassis, leather and licorice. It is nicely balanced and silky smooth with good structure, soft tannins and a firm finish.

Tudal Family Winery 2009 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley ($65) 92+
The 2009 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon is a gorgeous wine and a real pleasure to drink. It is rich in aromas and flavors of dark berries and cherry with leather and sweet cedar notes. Sourced from two special blocks from the Tudal Winery Estate, it is beautifully balanced with a soft velvety smooth mouth feel, perfect acidity, soft and firm but silky tannins, and a long finish. The wine will age for at least 5 to 10 years.

Mike Potashnik and Don Winkler
International Wine Review
November 2011

The Wines of Blaauwklippen Valley in Stellenbosch: Kleinood, Keermont, & de Trafford

2011-11-09T19:44:00.014-05:00

Blaauwklippen Valley is one of several areas of Stellenbosch that we've visited on our South Africa trip. This valley provides excellent growing conditions for producing elegant and rich tasting Syrah and aromatic whites like Chenin Blanc and Viognier. But it's not easy to get there. After turning off the R44, we traversed a passable road up to the gates of the Mont Fleur Conference Center. After that we continued to climb several kilometers on an increasingly rustic trail until finally reaching the peak of the valley. That’s where there are three exceptional small wineries that source their fruit from the steeply sloped vineyards of the valley. They are Kleinood, Keermont, and de Trafford. We met with the winemakers (pictured here), toured the vineyards, and tasted the wines at the Keermont Winery.

The Blaauwklippen [blue cliffs] Valley is known for its varied decomposed granite and clay-based soils and for its sometimes bizarre weather that can bring snow and high winds. In October 2010 a South Easter wind roared through the valley at speeds up to 120 km/h, ripping off shoots and even uprooting vines and destroying half the crop.

The first of our wineries on Blaauwklippen Road is Kleinood where Shiraz and Viognier reign supreme. Before planting the vineyard’s 9.5 ha. in 2002, owner Gerard de Villiers carried out extensive analysis of the soils and decided to plant virus-free Rhone Syrah clones 174, 300, 470 and 747. Italian consultant Alberto Antonini oversees viticulture, and Gunter Schultz makes the wines. We tasted the Tamboerskloof 2009 Viognier and the Tamboerskloof 2007 Syrah (90% Syrah, 7% Mourvedre, 3% Viognier) , two well-crafted, elegant wines. Kleinood wines are imported by Spec's of Houston TX.

The next winery on the climb up is Keermont. This is a 25 ha vineyard that produces 11 different varieties of grapes and sells a substantial amount to wineries like de Trafford. However, it also makes very fine wine. We tasted their 2010 Terrasses wooded white blend (88% Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay 7%, Semillon 5%), 2009 Syrah, and 2008 Estate Blend (40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 20% Syrah). Alex Starey makes the wine. Fran Kysela of Westchester VA imports this wine.

Finally, at the end of the road high up on the side of the mountain one finds de Trafford where David de Trafford makes some of South Africa’s very best Syrah. We tasted his 2009 Syrah and 2007 Elevation 393 red blend (40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 20% Syrah, and 13% Cabernet Franc). We earlier tasted the reasonably priced 2008 Blueprint Shiraz at our offices in Washington, DC. David's wines are imported by Bryce McNamee of the Boutique Wine Collection.

Full tasting notes on all wines tasted will be available in our forthcoming report on The Wines of South Africa.

Tasting Sangiovese in South Africa with Ntsiki Biyela of Stellekaya

2011-11-06T03:43:00.005-05:00

Last night we joined Ntsiki Biyela, the young winemaker of the boutique winery Stellekaya, at the Jena Viva Restaurant in Somerset West for wine tasting and dinner. Having grown up in Kwa Nondlovu village in KwaZulu Natal, Ntsiki exceled in science at Mahlabathini High School and won a South African Airways scholarship to study oenology at Stellenbosch University. She took a bus across country and found herself in a foreign culture and attending classes offered in a language (Afrikaans) also foreign to her. She persisted, attained her degree in Viticulture and Oenology, did an internship at Delheim Winery, and was named winemaker at Stellekaya in Stellenbosch. Today she is one of just 15 black winemakers in South Africa, despite efforts to increase the number through programs like the Cape Winemakers Guild's Protégé program. Ntsiki was named Landbouweekblad’s Woman Winemaker of the year in 2009.

We tasted three of Ntsiki’s wines—the 2008 Hercules, the 2007 Orion, and the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon. The Hercules is a blend of Sangiovese, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Orion is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc. Ntsiki’s first love is the Sangiovese grape, and she also brought us of the not yet released 2009 Sangiovese, a blend of 90% Sangiovese and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. The 2009 vintage was superb, and this wine shows the potential of Sangiovese in Stellenbosch with its deep red cherry flavors and chocolate notes from well-toasted oak.

This is the first South African Sangiovese we’ve tasted on our South Africa trip, but we understand that Chris Mullineux also makes an excellent one called The Three Foxes in Swartland. We’ll be seeing him next week and look forward to tasting it.

Ntsiki has recently been profiled by both CNN and the New York Times.

Grower Champagne New Releases

2011-10-26T23:37:00.005-04:00

Grower Champagne is quite different from House Champagne. The former sources fruit from a single vineyard or village and, thus, expresses the terroir of that specific site and often reflects the peculiarities of a particular vintage. The latter (i.e., House Champagne) purposely tries to achieve a consistent style across time and does this by blending across sites. A good example of the former (i.e., Grower Champagne) is Egly-Ouriet, and a good example of the latter (i.e., House Champagne) is Veuve Clicquot. Obviously, both of these producers make excellent, albeit different, Champagnes. We discussed both types of Champagne in Report #9 Champagne.

Recently, a new Grower Champagne entered the US market, imported by JAO Wine Imports of McLean, VA. Domaine Jean-Pierre Legret is a small 5 hectare domaine located in Côte de Sézanne between Epernay and Sézanne with vineyards in three communes. The domaine is organic, and the Champagnes are made today by Alain Legret (pictured to the right). Our tasting notes on these wines can be found below. As can be discerned from our scores, we like these Champagnes. Unfortunately, they’re not imported in large quantities. Most this Champagne stays in France, especially after receiving positive reviews recently from the French wine press.

How to tell the difference whether a bottle you are considering purchasing is Grower Champagne or not? Look for the label “Récoltant-Manipulant” or the initials RM. House wines are instead typically labeled “Négociant-Manipulant” or the initials NM.

Champagne Jean-Pierre Legret

Jean-Pierre Legret NV Champagne Brut Tradition ($43) 90
The NV Brut has a bold nose of rich brioche and yeast and a strongly flavored palate showing notes of shortbread dough and orchard fruit. This is a Champagne meant to accompany food. Blend of 30% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Noir, and 40% Pinot Meunier.

Jean-Pierre Legret NV Champagne Blanc de Blancs ($48) 91
This Blanc de Blancs reveals the richness of Chardonnay fruit. It ‘s crisp and dry on the attack but has a creamy, elegant palate with quite assertive Chardonnay, yeast and hazelnut flavors. Finishes very long. Received 3 stars in the 2010 Guide Hachette.

Jean-Pierre Legret NV Champagne Rosé ($46) 90+
Medium pink salmon color with a copper edge. This Rosé is bone dry, showing chalky minerals, fresh raspberry, and a muted cherry note. It’s crisp, dry and focused on the palate. Made of 25% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Noir and 35% Pinot Meunier.

Mike Potashnik and Don Winkler
October 2011

Six Hats Fair Trade Wines from South Africa: Super Value with Equity

2011-10-25T09:36:00.004-04:00

Fair Trade, of course, has the goal of improving the wages and working conditions of the farmers and workers in the developing world. In 2007, Charles Back (the famed owner of Fairview and Goats do Roam) helped the Citrusdale Wines cooperative restructure itself into a partnership that includes a number of Fair Trade wine farmers. [Citrusdale is a small agricultural town famous for its citrus fruits and located about 170 km from Cape Town.] The first released vintage of this partnership was 2009. Funds generated from the Fair Trade levy go directly into the community and benefit the farm workers. More on Fair Trade at Citrusdale can be found on their website.

Fair Trade is one reason to give the Six Hat wines of Citrusdale a try, but an even better reason is the remarkable value these wines offer. Citrusdale’s mission is to produce good quality wines at affordable prices. In 2009 it released its signature Six Hats range of wines. The Six Hats line consists of six different single varietal wines, all priced in the US at $9.99/bottle. Citrusdale also makes “own-label” wines for international distribution, including the UK’s Sainsbury’s.

Our tasting notes follow. In general, we find these wines to be exceptional values, reflecting the care the Citrusdale partners exercise in the vineyard. Surprisingly, almost all the grapes for these wines are hand-picked and done so early in the morning while the fruit is cool. Wines in this price range can’t be produced using expensive, new French oak, so oak staves are judiciously used in some instances instead. We find the oak flavoring they impart to be well-integrated on the palate.

Tasting Notes and Ratings

Citrusdale Winery 2010 Six Hats Chardonnay Western Cape ($10) 88+
The Six Hats Chardonnay is fresh, showing orchard fruit, honeycomb, and bread dough in a well-balanced wine. The palate is creamy with lees and ripe melon notes, finishing medium long. This isn't a very complicated wine, but it's well made with bright citric acidity that livens the palate. Grapes are sourced from the Piekenierskloof region. They're hand picked, and yields are low (6 tons/hectare) for a wine in this price range. The vines are 12 years old and planted on loam and gravel soils. An amazing wine for the price.

Citrusdale Winery 2009 Six Hats Viognier Western Cape ($10) 87
The Six Hats Viognier has that real perfumed Viognier nose of light peach and lavender. Its palate is more reserved and softly textured, finishing with floral notes. Made from machine harvested Swartland fruit grown on koffieklip and oakleaf soils.

Citrusdale Winery 2009 Six Hats Pinotage Western Cape ($10) 87+
The Six Hats Pinotage is a light to medium weight fresh, red wine showing red plum and black peppercorns with a note of earthy rusticity. It's fresh on the palate with flavors of ripe plum and a light iron earth accent, finishing on a flavorful note. A great everyday kind of wine that doesn't require a fancy dinner to open. Made from 16 year old vines grown on sandstone soils and aged 6 months using oak staves.

Citrusdale Winery 2010 Six Hats Sauvignon Blanc Western Cape ($10) 87
This is a quite light, crisp and refreshing Sauvignon Blanc showing citrus aromas and flavors with lime zest and kiwi. It has a light, simple but pleasant tasting palate with modest fruit and a nice chalky finish. Made from 18 year old vines grown on sandy loam soils. Produced using only free run juice.

Citrusdale Winery 2009 Six Hats Shiraz Western Cape ($10) 89
The Six Hats Shiraz has a spicy nose of cracked peppercorns and dark red cherry and plum. It's soft and lush in the mouth with gobs of straightforward fresh dark red fruit with a light tobacco note, finishing long with ripe tannins. Made from fruit grown in the Piekenierskloof region. A great wine to accompany grilled sausage or pepperoni pizza. This wine is a real crowd pleaser, and a bargain to boot.

Citrusdale Winery 2010 Six Hats Cabernet Sauvignon Western Cape ($10) 87
This medium dark red Cabernet Sauvignon shows cedar, cassis, and earth on the nose. It's soft and flavorful on the attack with a medium weight palate revealing mostly red fruit and earth. There are dry tannins on the finish, as one might expect in a Cabernet this young. Made from low yielding vineyards (< 6 tons/hectare) and matured 6 months using oak staves. This is an easy drinking wine that would go well with many lighter meat dishesi

Tastings of 2008 Ravenswood Single Vineyard Zinfandels

2011-10-21T13:09:00.004-04:00

Ravenswood is one of California’s iconic Zinfandel producers. Our evaluations and tasting notes of the 2008 single vineyard Zinfandels are given below. Ravenswood was founded by Joel Peterson, who started his wine career as a Zinfandel garagiste, making just a few hundred cases a year when his newly founded Ravenswood winery opened for business in 1976. He quickly became famous for his Zinfandel, especially the single vineyard series made from low yielding old vines, and, today, the total output of Ravenswood exceeds a million cases.

When Joel Peterson sold Ravenswood to wine giant Constellation Brands in 2001, some critics expressed trepidation. But Joel continues to make the wine from the same low yielding, old vineyards and using the same time-tested techniques—native yeasts, open top fermenters, extended time on the skins, and aging in French oak barriques. The result, consistent over time and across vineyards, are wines of superb structure and balance. The 2008 vintage reviewed here strikes us as being as good as ever and overall on a par with the 2007 vintage that we reviewed last year.

While we like all the Ravenswood wines we tasted, our stylistic favorites is the Belloni Zinfandel. The Belloni strike us as being more terroir driven and less flamboyant than some of the other single vineyard Zinfandels. In addition, we found both the Old Hill and Dickerson Zinfandels to be juicy, quite extravagant and delicious wines that are superb examples of their genre.

Ravenswood 2008 Single Vineyard Belloni Zinfandel Russian River Valley ($35) 93
The Belloni Zinfandel is a terroir-driven wine, beautifully balanced with an attractive earthy complexity. It shows a soft spicy attack of fresh black raspberry and brambly blackberry with distinct earth and tobacco notes, finishing very long. Beautiful! The Belloni is a co-fermented field blend of 78% Zinfandel and 22% other varietals. It spends 20 months in French oak (32% new). The Belloni is sourced from the Belloni Vineyard in the Russian River Valley. The 90+ year old vines yield less than 2 tons per acre.

Ravenswood 2008 Single Vineyard Old Hill Zinfandel Sonoma Valley ($60) 93
The Old Hill Zinfandel is a powerful, extroverted wine of dark red fruit, lots of sweet, toasted oak, and big, ripe tannins. It shows a juicy palate of dark cherries and plum with a touch of bitter cherry pit along with the vanilla and cedar from French oak aging. It’s a blend of 75% Zinfandel and 25% other varietals aged 20 months in French oak (34% new).

Ravenswood 2008 Single Vineyard Barricia Zinfandel Sonoma Valley ($35) 91
Made from old, low-yielding vines, the Barricia Zinfandel is a distinctive and attractive wine with its blackberry fruit and notes of violets and blueberries. It offers a juicy palate with chalky mineral notes and a persistent, soft finish. It’s a blend of 76% Zinfandel and 24% Petite Sirah aged 20 months in French oak (33% new).

Ravenswood 2008 Single Vineyard Dickerson Zinfandel Napa Valley ($35) 93
With its black raspberry liqueur nose, the Dickerson Zinfandel impresses from start to finish. It’s a beautifully balanced wine with a silky smooth palate, loads of berry fruit with notes of oak spice and earth, good acidity, and slightly dry tannins on the finish that are likely to be resolved by a bit more bottle age. [Remember, this wine was just released at the time of our tasting.] The Dickerson vineyard is located on the west side of Napa Valley.

Ravenswood 2008 Single Vineyard Big River Zinfandel Alexander Valley ($35) 90
Made from the fruit of Alexander Valley vines planted early last century, the Big River Zinfandel shows vanilla oak and plum along with notes of resin and raspberry. It’s a nicely balanced wine with a straightforward flavor profile.

Ravenswood 2008 Single Vineyard Teldeschi Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley ($35) 91
The Teldeschi Zinfandel is a blend of 75% Zinfandel, 20% Petite Sirah, 3% Carignane, and 2% Alicante Bouschet, each of which is fermented separately and later blended together. Semi-opaque ruby in color, the wine reveals nicely concentrated cassis, blackberry, and toasted oak with forest floor and mocha notes. It finishes long with good tannic grip.

Don Winkler and Mike Potashnik
The International Wine Review

The 2011 Vintage: First Releases from Chile and South Africa

2011-10-18T16:36:00.005-04:00

We recently tasted the first releases of the Southern Hemisphere's 2011 vintage to arrive in the States. We'll be tasting a lot more on our upcoming trip to South Africa and will report on them later.

The 2011 vintage was one of extreme weather conditions in South Africa with heat waves and exceptionally dry, warm weather during harvest. Skilled winemaking minimized the adverse weather effects, but some wines have a riper character than normal. In Chile the weather conditions were more benign with a long cold spring that reduced yields, followed by a long, slow growing season that produced phenolically ripe fruit.

CHILE

Peñalolén 2011 Sauvignon Blanc Casablanca Valley ($12) 88
The 2011 Peñalolen Sauvignon Blanc has assertive and spicy nettles and sage on the nose, but it also shows generous lemon and lime citrus and green bean flavors on the palate. It needs to be paired with food carefully as it could overpower subtly prepared seafood. Importer: Global Vineyard Importers, Berkeley, CA

William Cole Vineyards 2011 Albamar Sauvignon Blanc Casablanca Valley ($11) 87+
Citrus and green grass show on the nose and palate along with chalky minerals on a persistent finish. This is a fairly neutral wine that would go well with a large number of dishes. The grapes are grown in one of Chile’s premier coastal valleys. Importer: Global Vineyard Importers, Berkeley, CA

SOUTH AFRICA

Beau Joubert 2011 Sauvignon Blanc Stellenbosch ($15) 89
Pale platinum straw. This is an easy drinking wine showing flowers, juicy tropical fruit, and green pepper on the nose and a dry crisp palate. Very flavorful on both the palate and finish. Made from 24 year old vines of a single vineyard nestled in the Polkadraai Hills. Beau Joubert was founded by the French Hugenot immigrant Dirk Daniel Joubert. Importer: MetroWine, Stamford CT

Cederberg 2011 Chenin Blanc Cederberg ($19) 88+
The Cederberg Chenin Blanc shows an intriguing nose of nettles, mint and green apple—Sauvignon-like and not exactly what one would expect from Chenin Blanc. But the palate is more reserved with white stone fruit and tart apple flavors. The wine is cleanly made with a creamy palate from 5 months of lees contact and with vibrant acidity. Made from vines planted on Glenrosa and sandstone soil. Importer: World Premiere Wines, Mooresville, NC

Cederberg 2011 Sauvignon Blanc Cederberg ($15) 88
Pale straw in color, sage and kiwi show on the nose. The palate is ample and fruit rich with notes of honey, peach, grass and a hint of tarragon. The wine has a very long, fruity finish. Made from different clones grown on four different soil types, as described here. David Nieuwoudt is the winemaker; he’s a member of the Cape Winemakers Guild since 2005. Very good. Importer: World Premiere Wines, Mooresville, NC

De Grendel 2011 Sauvignon Blanc Cape of Good Hope Tygerberg ($16) 90
This is an elegant Sauvignon Blanc showing dried herbs, restrained citrus, and stony minerals on the nose. Abundant lime citrus, white stonefruit, and figs are beautifully knit together on a creamy palate that has a persistent, chalky finish. The De Grendel vineyards are 7 km from the Atlantic. Cape Winemaker’s Guild member Charles Hopkins leads the winemaking team. De Grendel is located just 20 minutes from Cape Town. Importer: MJM Imports, Lutherville MD

Raoul’s 2011 Jackals River Bots River ($15) 87+
This is an unusual blend of Chardonnay, Semillon, and Sauvignon Blanc with Chardonnay dominating the palate and Sauvignon Blanc making a surprise appearance on the finish. The wine is quite tropical in character, round with a slight sweetness in the mouth. Sebastian Beaumont is the winemaker. Importer: 34 South, Annapolis MD

Saxenburg 2011 Sauvignon Blanc Private Collection Stellenbosch ($16) 89
The Saxenburg Sauvignon Blanc reveals lime citrus and freshly cut grass on the nose. It offers generous flavors of fresh citrus and herbs on a nicely delineated palate, showing minerals and high natural acidity (6.7 g/l) on the finish. Made from low-yielding (5 tons/ha) vines and given extended lees contact. A family farm since 1693, German immigrant Joachim Sax planted the first vines here in 1701. Nico van der Merwe makes the wines today. The soils are gravel and clay. Importer: MJM Imports, Lutherville MD

Vinhos de Lisboa [Wines of Lisbon]

2011-10-08T17:19:00.006-04:00

The Comissão Vitivinícola da Região Lisboa presented new releases of several producers at tastings in New York and Washington this week. In centuries past these wines were highly sought after. In today’s globalized world they are almost impossible to find, at least in the US market. Apparently consumers purchase only the types of wines they already know. But they’re then missing out on some very special wines. We reviewed several wines from this region in our Report # 24 The New Wines of Portugal.

The Lisboa region—located in the cool coastal area north of the city—is best known for the fresh, high acid Arinto, a white wine that pairs especially well with seafood. The best Arinto is grown in the appellation called Bucelas. But elsewhere in the Lisboa region Arinto is blended with other indigenous varietals like Viosinho, Fernão Pires, and Vital and sometimes aged in oak. And vineyards located in the inland areas of Lisboa are producing excellent wines made of Rhone varietals like Viognier and Syrah. The best are produced in the appellations called Alenquer and Óbidos.

Our favorite Lisboa producers are Quinta da Romeira, Quinta da Chocapalha, Quinta de Pancas, and Quinta do Monte D’Oiro. Good wines are also produced by Casa Santos Lima, Companhia Agrícola Sanguinhal, and Quinta do Pinto. Other producers we are less familiar with include Cámara Municipal de Oeiras, Quinta do Montalto, and Terra da Eira. We don’t recommend straying too far away from these producers. Lisboa also produces a lot of low quality, inexpensive vinho da mesa, but fortunately not much of it is imported to the US.

Muscat Sales Exploding in the US

2011-10-06T21:49:00.003-04:00

It seems that the Millenial Generation has discovered Moscato. This lightly sweet and often low-alcohol wine is easy to drink, especially for those Millenials (age 21+) who grew up drinking sweet sodas. It seems that Moscato, oftentimes lightly sparkling, is replacing White Zinfandel (and before that Lancer’s Rosé) as the young adult’s first wine experience. Below we provide reviews of several fresh, low alcohol Muscat wines tasted for our Report # 27: Sweet Wines of the World.

Moscato sales are skyrocketing, more than tripling between 2008 and 2010 alone. Since the demand for grapes reflects that of wine, the prices of Muscat grapes are similarly increasing, from about $150/ton a few years ago to $400+ today. All of which means that growers are beginning to plant more Muscat and graft existing vineyards over to the grape.

Muscat is one the oldest and most popular grapes with hundreds of varieties and even more names. It makes wines ranging from the lightly sweet frizzante Asti to the fortified, dark mahogany Ambré Rivesaltes. It is also the basis for Peruvian Pisco and Greek Metaxa. In the US, the California winery Quady specializes in making wines from lesser known Muscat varietals.

The two most popular varieties—Muscat Blanc a Petits Grains (pictured here, and also called Moscato Bianco and Muscat de Frontignan) and Muscat of Alexandria—provide the fruit for most wines. Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains is the most noble of the Muscat varieties and is the basis for Moscato d’Asti, Vin Doux Naturel (Lunel, Beaumes-de-Venise, Frontignan) in southern France, Vin de Constance in South Africa, Gelber Muskateller in Austria, and the fortified Muscats of Australia.

Muscat of Alexandria doesn’t have the complexity and depth of the Petits Grains, but it can also make delicious sweet wines, especially in Spain and Portugal. It is the grape of Portugal’s Moscatel de Setúbal. It is usually blended with Blanc à Petits Grains in making Muscat de Rivesaltes. In South Africa, it’s called Hanepoot and is used to make the fortified Jerepigo. It is the most widely grown Muscat in Spain.

Muscat Ottonel is the palest of the Muscats and produces delicate wines in cool climates. It’s especially popular in Alsace and is the basis for late harvest wines in the Neusiedlersee of Austria.

Black Muscat (Muscat Hamburg) is mostly a table grape but also can make dessert wines (e.g., Quady’s Elysium). Orange Muscat (Fior d’Arnacio) is grown in the Veneto region of Italy and the west coast of the US. Quady’s Esencia is made with Orange Muscat, which has aromas of orange flowers and flavors of orange and apricot.

Tasting Notes and Ratings

Barboursville Vineyards Philéo Monticello ($16) 88
This low-alcohol blend of Moscatel Ottonel and Traminer Aromático is easy drinking, the perfect wine for Sunday brunch. It has a perfumed nose of rose petal, tangerine skin, and lychee. Viscous and syrup like on the attack, the palate is clean and tasting of fresh, ripe pear. Nothing complicated here but quite delicious. Alc 10%, RS 80 g/l.

Marenco 2009 Scrapona Moscato D'Asti ($17) 88
The Scrapona Moscato d’Asti is a delicious, overtly fruit and moderately sweet, effervescent wine. It shows light pear, lychee, and rose petal on an extravagantly perfumed nose and nicely balanced palate. Nothing complicated here, just a lightly sparkling, fresh-fruited pleasure. Alc. 5.5%. Importer: VIAS New York, NY

Neirano 2010 Pitulé Moscato d'Asti ($13) 87
This Moscato d'Asti offers neutral aromas and a quite sweet, lightly effervescent attack. Notes of rose petal and pear show on the palate, finishing on a sweet note. Alc 7%. Importer: Scoperta, Cleveland Heights, OH

Quady 2009 Electra Orange Muscat Madera ($14) 87
This is a low-alcohol wine with substantial sugar, a bit of effervescence and grapey-muscat and dried orange aromas and flavors. It's made from the Orange Muscat grape. Should be served very well chilled or over ice. Alc 4.5%.

Quady 2008 Elysium Black Muscat California ($25/750ml) 88
Elysium is made from the Muscat Hamburg grape, also sometimes called Brown Muscat. The wine is ripe with powerful aromas of dried fig and dark cherry and flavors of red berry jam. Very good.

Quady 2008 Essensia Orange Muscat California ($25/750ml) 89
Made from Orange Muscat, this is a sweet, fortified wine aged about 3 months in French oak. Beautiful golden orange in color, the wine is delicious, offering aromas and flavors of apricot and lychee with orange zest notes. Should be served well-chilled.

Santo Cristo Ainzón Moscatel Campo de Borja ($12) 88
The gold straw Ainzón Moscatel has fresh aromas of rose petals and white peach. The palate is like a liquid essence of roses with ginger notes. Somewhat sweet and cloying on the finish. Fermented in stainless steel and aged 90 days in barrel. Alc 15%. Importer: Quality Wines of Spain New York, NY

A Special Vertical Tasting of Laurel Glen Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon: 1981-2006

2011-10-06T05:13:00.004-04:00

Laurel Glen Vineyard is widely recognized as one of Sonoma’s top producers of Cabernet Sauvignon. The winery was founded in the late 1970s by Patrick Campell (pictured here), a fastidious grower and winemaker who until recently crafted the wines at this 16-acre estate on Sonoma Mountain. Patrick and the new proprietor of Laurel Glen, Bettina Sichel, recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of Laurel Glen, leading us through a vertical tasting of fifteen selected vintages from 1981 to 2006. As our tasting notes below show, the wines have changed considerably over time due both to changes in wine making, a warmer climate, and more mature fruit. After the tasting we sat down with Patrick to discuss the wines and his Laurel Glen experience in more detail.

The 800+ foot high Laurel Glen estate vineyard lies on a southeast-facing slope, the western-most point for growing Cabernet Sauvignon in Sonoma. Sitting above the marine fog layer, the vineyard enjoys generally moderate temperatures during the growing season. The soils are a mixture of ancient marine deposits overlain with volcanic material. There’s good drainage and low vigor resulting in low yields of two to three tons an acre. The vineyard is planted 100% to the Laurel Glen Cabernet Sauvignon, a UC Davis certified clone. The combination of high altitude, eastern exposure, even temperatures, and low yields translates into a Cabernet Sauvignon that matures at lower brix with lower alcohol, higher natural acidity, and greater affinity for food than the blockbuster Cabs produced elsewhere in California.

From the outset in 1981, the wines at Laurel Glen Vineyard have been crafted with minimal handling and using gravity flow whenever possible. Vineyard lots (10 on average) are vinified in stainless steel using native yeast and aged for 22 to 24 months in 50 to 60% new Taransaud French oak barrels.

Earlier this year Patrick Campell decided to direct his attention to other wine ventures and sold Laurel Glen to Bettina Sichel and a group of investors. Bettina, herself, is from a wine family and most recently was director of marketing for Quintessa Winery in Rutherford. Bettina hopes to continue and enhance upon the rich tradition of Laurel Glen. Towards that end she has brought on Phil Coturri as viticultural consultant, Randall Watkins as winemaker, and David Ramey as consulting winemaker. We can’t wait to see how Laurel Glen Cabernet Sauvignon continues to improve under their guidance.

The Wines of the 1980’s

The wines of the 1980s are in their final stage of development. However, the 1981, 1985 and 1986 vintages are interesting to taste because they were crafted following an academic prescription of high (added) acidity and low pH (< 3.6).

Our tasting of the 1980s vintages began with the 1981 Cabernet Sauvignon, Laurel Glen’s first commercial vintage. The 1981 exhibited a youthful ruby purple color, although the wine itself shows its age with dominant earth, herbal and secondary aromas that carry over to the palate along with faint red fruit notes. The 1985 Cabernet Sauvignon has a rich opaque ruby color and reveals aromas of wet earth and forest floor with more plum-like fruit and a surprisingly firm tannic structure. Served out of a magnum, the 1986 Cabernet Sauvignon was probably the best wine of the five tasted from the decade. It is a pleasant wine with dark red fruit and somewhat muted forest floor notes on a harmonious, velvet-like palate. The 1989 vintage was a difficult one, and the 1989 Cabernet Sauvignon shows good weight and texture with mostly earth, sandalwood, and stem-like aromas and flavors.

The Wines of the 1990s

In the 1990s Patrick changed his winemaking approach and like the Bordelais began picking fruit at sugar levels to achieve 13-13.5% alc. and then de-acidified the wines to achieve balance. Generally speaking the wines of this decade taste surprisingly youthful, with ripe fruit, good balance and overall refinement and elegance. The wines at the end of the 90s tend to be riper tasting and more lush reflecting higher alcohol levels.

The 1991 Cabernet Sauvignon revealed a noteworthy change from the 1989 vintage in terms of its fruit and balance and overall freshness, despite some residual earth and herbal notes. The 1992 Cabernet Sauvignon is an outstanding wine and reflects the high quality of the 1992 vintage in California. It is ripe and beautifully balanced with notes of blackcurrant, chocolate and toast. A delicious wine, it reveals a soft texture, firm tannins and a long finish. It’s one of the best wines of the decade. The 1993 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve is only one of three reserve wines ever produced by Laurel Glen. It was designated a reserve because of the very special qualities of the grapes picked from a particular vineyard parcel. Dark ruby in color, it is a small but significant step up in fruit quality from the 1992 vintage. It is flavorful and silky in texture, very refined and beautifully sculpted with a very long finish. The 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon doesn’t measure up to the quality of the 1993 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve but is very flavorful. It offers ripe blackcurrant fruit with earth notes, soft round tannins, and a long finish.

The two stars of the decade are the 1996 and 1998 vintages. The 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon is refined and silky on the palate with a combination of ripe cassis fruit and toasted oak, soft round tannins and perfect balance. It’s a memorable vintage but one that apparently has taken time to come around. The 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon is probably even better than the 1996, exhibiting beautiful ripe fruit with complex and layered flavors, notes of toast and tobacco, firm tannic grip, and outstanding balance. While 1998 was a difficult vintage because of the different levels of ripeness among the various blocks, it produced an outstanding bottling. Dark ruby to the core, the 1999 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve is a dense, ripe wine revealing loads of cassis and blackberry fruit with touches of herbs and cacao. It is soft and mouth filling and refined and elegant on the palate. In retrospect, it presages the next era of riper and more fruit-driven wines at Laurel Glen.

The Wines of 2001 to 2006

In the late 1990s and into this decade, Laurel Glen wines, like those of many California producers, are generally riper compared with previous years. Sugar levels are higher, acidity lower and alcohol as high as 14.5%. The older and somewhat leaner wines have given way to more fruit forward, lush wines that are more typical of the California style of Cabernet Sauvignon. However, as Patrick Campbell points out, Laurel Glen wines bear a Sonoma Mountain imprint and, “the deep core of mountain fruit, acid backbone and balance stiil are the hallmarks of the wines.”

The 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon exhibits an opaque ruby color and has dense, ripe black fruit flavors with chocolate nuances. It is beautifully balanced, has exceptional depth and length and still possesses youthful tannins. This is an opulent wine from one of the top vintages of the decade. The 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon is rather atypical of the wines of this era; it is not as big and opulent as the 2001 and reveals lots of red cherry fruit and tannic grip. The 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon is showing beautifully today. Opaque ruby in color, it reveals ripe blackcurrant fruit flavors and hints of toasted oak. It is beautifully balanced and elegant with round firm tannins and a persistent finish. This wine is one of our absolute favorites and may still be available in some retail stores. The 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon is Laurel Glen’s current release. It is still rather tight at this stage of development, although it reveals light fruit flavors, elegance and refinement. Since 2006 was a superb vintage, this wine can be expected to flesh out beautifully over the next 3 to 5 years and possibly longer.

Mike Potashnik and Don Winkler
October 4, 2011

Feiler-Artinger and Wenzel: Top Producers of Ruster Ausbruch

2011-10-03T10:24:00.005-04:00

The town of Rust on the western shore of Lake Neusiedl [pictured here] is world famous for the special sweet wine called Ruster Ausbruch. The wine is made from botrysized grapes and was a favorite of the Habsburgs. Indeed, they like it so much that Emperor Leopold I made Rust a Free Town of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in exchange for an annual payment of 10 thousand liters of Ruster Ausbruch. We traveled to Rust late last year to taste the wines of the best producers of Ruster Ausbruch, including Weingut Feiler-Artinger and Weingut Wenzel. These two top notch producers are both imported by Winemonger of Los Angeles, CA.

World War II and the Cold War’s Iron Curtain almost brought about the demise of this special wine, but in 1953 Gustav Feiler began making the wine once again, and today his grandson Kurt continues the family tradition. Weingut Wenzel is another family winery located in Rust. Michael Wenzel [pictured here reading the International Wine Review] took over winemaking responsibilities in 2008 after sharing responsibilities with his father since 1994.

Top producers like Feiler-Artinger and Wenzel make up to half a dozen passes through the vineyard to ensure optimally ripe fruit. After harvesting, the grapes are macerated, gently pressed and fermented in stainless steel or wooden barrels. Fermentation can take up to four months, often followed by aging in oak casks. Wenzel ages his traditionally styled Ruster Ausbruch in new oak for up to 18 months. The finished wines last for decades, gaining complexity and integration over time. With age the sensation of sweetness is reduced.

The wine reviews below come from Report # 27 Sweet Wines of the World.

Feiler-Artinger 2007 Ruster Ausbruch Neusiedlersee-Hügelland ($48/375ml) 91+
Given its sweetness, this blend of Pinot Blanc (60%), Welschriesling (30%), Chardonnay and Neuburger is unexpectedly ethereal in character. A beautiful amber gold color, there are aromas of fresh and dried stone fruit along with botrytis notes on the nose. The palate is exceptionally well-balanced and delicate, giving rise to that heavenly lightness. Alc 11%, RS 249.8 g/l, TA 7.2 g/l

Feiler-Artinger 2007 Ruster Ausbruch Pinot Cuvée Neusiedlersee-Hügelland ($59/375ml) 93
The Pinot Cuvée is a gorgeous deep yellow gold in color. It is sweet and unctuous with aromas of ripe apricot tart and botrytis. The palate shows excellent acidity with ripe stonefruit flavors and a creamy, velvet mouthfeel. Right now fruit dominates this wine, but as it ages minerals and more nuanced flavors may come to the fore. This wine has a great future! It’s called Pinto Cuvée because its principal grapes are all Pinots—Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Chardonnay. The Pinot Blanc is fermented in stainless steel, but the other grapes are fermented in 50 percent new oak and then aged in oak for an additional year.

Feiler-Artinger 2001 Welschriesling Essenz Neusiedlersee-Hügelland ($55/375ml) 94
The amber colored 2001 Essenz is almost syrup-like in consistency. The bouquet of this Welschriesling based Ruster Ausbruch conjures up images of dried fruit, nuts and orange marmalade. Unctuous on the palate, it offers layers of flavors---caramelized tart tatin, roasted walnuts, and rich Scotch whisky aged in sherry casks.

Feiler-Artinger 2006 Welschriesling Essenz Neusiedlersee-Hügelland ($59/375ml) 93
This amber gold nectar is a younger version of the 2001 Essenz but made with a higher proportion of Chardonnay (60%) than Welschriesling (40%). The sugar content is outrageously high (250 g/l), resulting in a syrup like consistency. The high sugar is due in part to an early attack of botrytis in 2006, resulting in highly shriveled and concentrated fruit at harvest time. The aromas are of pure rich apricot, and the palate offers more pure ripe fruit than the nuts and oxidized notes of the 2001. Fermented in oak, this lovely, pure wine will evolve into an increasingly complex and interesting wine over time. Alc 5.5%, RS 429 g/l, TA 10.7 g/l

Wenzel 2006 Ruster Ausbruch Am Fusse des Berges Neusiedlersee-Hügelland ($62/375ml) 92
The Am Fusse des Berges is a blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris and Welschriesling. It shows gorgeous botrytis and ripe apricot and peach aromas and shows incredible purity of ripe nectarine on the velvet like palate. It is fermented in 50 percent new oak. Alc 10.5%, RS 210 g/l.

Wenzel 2006 Ruster Ausbruch Saz Neusiedlersee-Hügelland ($90/375ml) 94
This golden yellow nectar is a heavenly drink. While sweet and showing tangy stone fruit on the nose, it's also delicate and perfectly balanced. High acidity makes for a wine that is lovely to sip and even better with a rich, creamy cheese. With this wine Mike Wenzel tries to resuscitate the Ruster Ausbruch of old, using hand-picked botrytis-affected Furmint grapes (60%) blended with Gelber Muskateller (40%). Fermented in 50 percent new oak. RS 210 g/l.

Dalton Winery: Selected New Releases

2011-10-01T12:07:00.004-04:00

Dalton Winery is one of Israel’s most successful wineries. Founded as a boutique winery in 1995 in the mountainous Upper Galilee by the Haruni family, Dalton has grown steadily over the years to become one Israel’s most successful producers of premium wines. Current production is a little over 7,000 cases.

Dalton’s grapes are sourced from nearby vineyards in Krem Ben Zimra and several other high altitude sites along the border with Lebanon. The growing area in Upper Galilee offers optimum growing conditions: volcanic soils and a climate of hot days and cool nights which allow for slow and steady maturation of the grapes.

Its wines are produced by winemaker, Na’ama Mualem, who was trained in California and at the University of Adelaide in Australia and joined Dalton in 2002. She has been assisted by an Australian consulting winemaker, John Worontshak.

Dalton produces wines in different series from entry level to icon wines. these include estate wines, single vineyard wines, a reserve series, and a fashionable Matatia, a Bordeaux blend, The three wines reviewed here are medium-priced Dalton estate wines. They are fruit forward, restrained and nicely balanced Kosher wines that offer good value for money.

Dalton wines are imported in the U.S. by Allied Importers USA Ltd. Long Island City, NY

Dalton Winery 2010 Fume Blanc Upper Galilee ($16) 88

The 2010 Fume Blanc offers fresh light citrus aromas. On the palate it reveals light fruit flavors with crisp acidity. Aged for four months in large oak casks, it reveals a pleasant creamy mouth feel and a dry finish.

Dalton Winery 2009 Shiraz Upper Galilee ($25) 90

This Shiraz displays a bright medium dark ruby color and aromas of ripe plum licorice and charred oak. Aged in oak barriques for 8 months, it reveals round ripe tannins, excellent balance and a long finish.

Dalton Winery 2009 Zinfandel Upper Galilee ($25) 91

The 2009 Zinfandel from Dalton's Mount Meron Vineyard displays a medium ruby color and aromas of ripe plum and blackberry. It boasts softly textured palate of ripe fruit, cedar, round tannins and a firm finish. A delicious wine.

Mike Potashnik and Don Winkler

Other International Wine Review articles on Israeli wines:

· Israeli Wines: Top New Releases from Boutique Wineries December 2010,

· Adir Winery: More exciting Wines from the Upper Galille January 2011,

· Israeli Wines of the Jerusalem Mountains May 2011;

· Israel's Recanati Winery: New Releases June 2011;

· Carmel Winery New Releases July 2011.

Constantia Wyn and the U.S. Founding Fathers

2011-09-25T22:05:00.003-04:00

About the time Thomas Jefferson was penning the U.S. Declaration in Philadelphia, a British merchant ship bound for Philadelphia ran aground in the shallows off Lewes, Delaware, and sank. It remained on the ocean floor until 2004 when it was discovered during an operation to mine sand to replenish Lewes Beach. Items uncovered in the subsequent archeological investigation included bottle fragments, including one with the embossed words “Constantia Wyn”. Putting together the fragments, the archeologists came up with the elegant-looking bottle shown here. And this is the bottle that today Groot Constantia uses for its superb sweet wine called Grand Constance.

Of course, Grand Constance is just one of the many superb sweet wines made in South Africa today. The making of wine, especially sweet wine, is very old in South Africa, dating from the 1600s when Simon van der Stel, Commander of the Dutch Cape Colony, established one of the world’s most modern wineries at his estate named Constantia on the backside of Table Mountain in what is now Cape Town, South Africa. His wine, named after his estate, soon won fame among Europe’s royalty. Reportedly, on his death bed Napoleon refused everything offered to him except a glass of Constantia wine. The original Constantia estate was divided in two after van der Stel’s death. One estate—Groot Constantia—makes the Grand Constance, while the other estate—Klein Constantia—makes Vin de Constance. Our tasting notes on these two wines follow below. For our ratings and notes on all of South Africa’s sweet wines, read our article The Sweet Wines of South Africa, or our Report # 27 Sweet Wines of the World.

Of course, the most important question is, was Thomas Jefferson sipping Constantia Wyn while working late at night by candlelight writing that famous Declaration?

Groot Constantia 2008 Grand Constance Constantia ($60/375ml) 91
The amber-orange topaz Grand Constance is a refined, fragrant, and beautifully balanced wine that is restrained in its sweetness. Aromas of apricot and rose petals give way to a rich palate of ripe apricot, strawberry and orange marmalade with good levels of acidity. It’s a knockout with white cheese and fresh figs. Alc 13.2%, RS 157 g/l, TA 8 gl. Importer: Indigo Wine Group

Klein Constantia 2005 Vin de Constance Constantia ($50/500ml) 93
Deep yellow gold. Made of Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains (Frontignan), Vin de Constance is a rich, powerful wine both aromatically and palate-wise with excellent balancing acidity and an invigorating and persistent finish. Pineapple, mango, peach jam and dried apricot all make their appearance. Fermented in a combination of stainless steel and oak and aged in 500 liter barrels for four years. Alc 12.2%, RS 157 g/l, TA 7.5 g/l. Importer: Cape Classics

Don Winkler

Semillon from Mendel and Ricardo Santos in Mendoza, Argentina

2011-09-17T13:48:00.004-04:00

At one time the Semillon grape was very widely planted in the Southern Hemisphere countries of Australia, Chile, and South Africa. Today, it is still grown in these countries but in small quantities. And a surprising fourth country can be added to the Southern Hemisphere list—Argentina. Semillon is often used as a blending grape, but a few producers make single varietal bottlings, including Mendel and Ricardo Santos in Argentina.

Earlier this year we tasted the Mendel 2010 Semillon with winemaker Roberto de la Mota, widely considered to be one of Argentina’s best enologists. We found his wine to be superb, as shown in our tasting note below. Recently, we also tasted the Ricardo Santos 2010 Semillon, which is considerably less pricey than the Mendel Semillon, but also of excellent quality.

Semillon is perhaps best known today as the grape often blended with Sauvignon Blanc to produce the delicious sweet wines of Sauternes and Barsac. It makes up 80 percent of the world’s most famous dessert wine, Château d’Yquem. [See our reviews of Château d’Yquem and other sweet wines made from botrytised Semillon in Report # 27: Sweet Wines of the World.

The dry wines made from Semillon are often described as being oily or waxy in texture and with more herbal than fresh fruit aromas and flavors. Semillon takes well to a small amount of oaking. It also blends nicely with Sauvignon Blanc, which contributes the acidity and fresh fruit that Semillon often lacks.

Tasting Notes

Ricardo Santos 2010 Semillon Mendoza ($15) 89
This is a serious white wine made from 70 year old Semillon vines. It’s lightly fragrant of minerals and white flowers and round and soft in the mouth with a waxy, unctuous texture and light herbal, almond, and melon flavors. A very nicely balanced wine of considerable charm. Especially recommended for those looking for something different and special in a white wine at a very accessible price. Imported by Global Vineyard Importers of Berkeley, CA.

Mendel 2010 Semillon Valle de Uco Mendoza ($29) 90+
Mendel’s Semillon is a substantial and very expressive wine showing complexity and fullness on a superbly balanced palate. It reveals dried herbs, tarragon, pear, and almond on the nose and palate with brisk acidity and mineral notes. Finishes long with lingering herbal tea notes. Made from 60 year old vines in the Altamira-La Consulta part of the Uco Valley at about 1,100 meters altitude. About 15 percent of the wine is fermented in oak. Imported by Vine Connections of Sausalito, CA. Reviews of other Mendel wines can be found in our Report # 26: The Diverse Wines of Argentina.

Cava from Sant Sadurni D’Anoia: Berberana, Marqués de la Concordia, Marqués de Monistrol

2011-09-12T20:33:00.003-04:00

Cava from Penedès and elsewhere in Spain is one of the best bargains in wine today. Some excellent value Cavas are produced by Berberana, Marqués de la Concordia, and Marqués de Monistrol, and their wines are reviewed below. Made using the méthode champenoise, Cava is usually very dry, especially in comparison to low priced American sparklers. Inexpensive Cava is made with indigenous grapes and is lightly flavored, making it a perfect accompaniment to seafood. The lower priced Cavas can also be mixed with a cassis syrup to create sparkling kir .

Berberana, Marqués de la Concordia, and Marqués de Monistrol are owned by United Wineries, the largest premium wine distributor in Spain with total sales of 15 million bottles per year. It is a global company that markets its wines in 57 countries worldwide. It owns several brands, including the three reviewed here that produce and sell Cava. The lead winemakers at these wineries are: Berbarana (José Merino, Master Winemaker), Marqués de Monistrol (Antonio Olive I Marti, Master Winemaker), and Marqués de la Concordia (Carmelo Angulo, Master Winemaker), which sells Cava under the Mas de Monistrol label.

The Cavas reviewed below are all made from traditional Spanish varietals grown in the Sant Sadurni d”Anoia (its coat of arms is pictured here) area of Catalonia. They’re all very reasonably priced and offer excellent value. All prices listed here are recommended retail prices. They are imported by United Wineries of Manhasset NY.

This article is one of several we’ve written on Cava, including Jaume Serra’s Cristalino, Canals & Munné, and our detailed Report 14 The World of Sparkling Wine and Champagne.

Berberana

Berberana NV Gran Tradición Cava Brut Sant Sadurni D’Anoia ($10) 87
This sparkler has a very dry, almost austere nose. It’s also very dry on the attack with a lightly flavored, delicate palate and a chalky mineral finish. A blend of 40% Macabeo, 30% Parellada, and 30% Xarel-lo.

Berberana NV Gran Tradición Cava Brut Rosé ($10) 88
Medium rose pink color with aromas of fresh strawberry and red cherry, the Gran Tradición shows fine bubbles and is crisp on the attack with light red fruit and a crisp, very dry finish. Nicely balanced and perfect for a summer picnic. Made of 70% Monastrell and 30% Pinot Noir.

Marqués de la Concordia

Mas de Monistrol NV MM Cava Masia L’Hereu 1882 Brut Selección Especial Sant Sadurni D’Anoia ($10) 88
Pale straw showing aromas of dry hay, celery and pear. This easy drinking, lightly carbonated cava shows light orchard fruit flavors on the palate, finishing clean with a touch of residual sugar. It’s made of a blend of the traditional cava varietals—40% Macabeo, 30% Parellada, and 30% Xarel-lo. Alc. 11.5%, RS 7 g/l.

Mas de Monistrol NV MM Cava Masia L’Hereu 1882 Brut Rosé ($10) 88+
The Brut Rosé is light pink in color with aromas of fresh red berries and a hint of rose petals. It has a creamy, lightly flavored red berry palate and finishes dry despite 9 percent residual sugar. It’s a blend of 70% Monastrell and 30% Pinot Noir.

Marqués de Monistrol

Marqués de Monistrol NV Selección Especial Sant Sadurni D’Anoia ($10) 88
Clean nose showing wax and bread notes. Fine bubbles, good volume and flavor on the palate, with a long, flavorful finish. Not hugely complex but very good for the money. The alcohol level on this wine is just 11.5%, and residual sugar is 7 g/l.

Marqués de Monistrol NV Selección Especial Rosé Brut Sant Sadurni D’Anoia ($10) 89
A beautiful deep salmon rose color, this Rosado shows red berries with cinnamon and red cherry notes. Very dry on a clean, crisp palate with a nice long finish showing some red berry fruit but almost no sweetness. This wine has enough stuffing and bracing acidity to go with salmon, roast fowl, and white meats.

Marqués de Monistrol 2007 Winemaker’s Select Brut Sant Sadurni D’Anoia ($15) 90
Notes of yeast and blanched almonds on the nose. This vintage Cava is crisp on the palate with good depth of flavor and a refined palate showing very good balance. A very pleasant bubbly with enough depth to stand up to food and enough refinement to serve as an apeitif. The Vintage Brut is a blend of 40% Macabeo, 30% Parellada, and 30% Xarel-lo aged on the lees for 26-30 months. Excellent value!

Santa Maria Valley: New Chardonnay Releases from Sierra Madre

2011-09-09T22:13:00.003-04:00

The Santa Maria Valley AVA is unique in its orientation to the Pacific. The Santa Maria River runs east to west emptying into the ocean at the city of Santa Maria, just north of the Vandenberg Air Force Base. The east-west orientation of the river gives the valley unobstructed access to the cool winds and sea fog of the Pacific, making the AVA one of California’s coolest regions for growing wine grapes—Region 1 on the Winkler Scale. It’s the perfect place for growing cool climate Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Syrah.

The Sierra Madre Vineyard lies at the far western end of the valley, just 15 miles from the sea. It has traditionally sold its grapes to some of Santa Barbara’s best known wineries, but beginning in 2006 owners Doug and Jan Circle decided to produce wines under their own label. We recently had the opportunity to taste their 2008 Chardonnays and gave them superb ratings. Our evaluations of the wines are available in a wine review article we recently wrote. The ratings of the wines can also be found using the “search” function on our home page.

Book Review: Wine Wars by The Wine Economist, Mike Veseth

2011-09-09T12:58:00.007-04:00

Mike Veseth’s latest book Wine Wars [Bowman and Littlefield, 2011] gives an economist’s perspective on the globalization of wine. The conflict he writes about is that between the globalists and the terroirists; between mass-produced and handcrafted wines; between the large multinational corporation and the small, family winery; between the wines that critics love and those that consumers purchase.

Veseth brings the thinking of an economist to these issues. Fortunately, he doesn’t write like an economist. Anyone familiar with his blog The Wine Economist already knows that he writes about wine markets in a way that non-economists can easily understand. Reading the book, I kept thinking about Freakonomics, another popular book where Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner use the principles of economics to explore and explain a variety of social phenomena in a way that anyone can understand. Mike Veseth does the same thing but focused on the wine industry.

Of course, any economist believes that incentives are a powerful factor explaining changes in the marketplace. Prices, costs, and profits all go a long way towards explaining why the globalization of wine has been so successful. They explain why producers ship wine in bulk between countries, why importers and distributors invest in brand names, why the typical supermarket wine shelf is made up of many wines owned by very few producers.

As Mike Veseth shows, government policies and regulations seriously affect incentives and, thus, influence the shape of the wine market and the wine industry. Prohibition and the lingering Calvinistic attitude towards alcohol has created a heavily regulated wine market in America that by and large limits competition and choice in wine and works to the disadvantage of the small, family winery. As with all regulations, they create special interests that are well organized and work to prevent changes in the status quo.

While the war between wine globalists and terroirists is the central theme of Wine Wars, it’s also an organizing device that allows the author to explore a wide variety of interesting questions. Why do the British mostly purchase the house brands of large supermarkets like Tesco? Why does the German discount chain Aldi almost exclusively sell very inexpensive plonk, while the American discount chain Costco sells some pretty upscale stuff? Why can Trader Joe’s sell Two Buck Chuck but Safeway can’t? The answers to these questions illustrate how each country’s institutions affect the outcomes of the globalist vs. terroirist conflict.

And what about the future of wine in a globalizing world? Like any good economist, Veseth hedges his bets. But the terroirists appear to be on the defensive. The limited supply of truly special terroir combined with a growing, prosperous global population (especially, China and India) inevitably translates into exploding prices. The conversion of terroir driven wines into luxury goods may benefit the current owners of special vineyards, but also means that in the future only the truly rich will be able to afford them. Indeed, already many wine lovers have given up on the idea of buying 1st growth Bordeaux futures.

Climate change is, of course, the great unknown in predicting the future. Vineyards that have for centuries been regarded as unique terroir producing special wines may be come less so. On the other hand, climate change may result in new unique terroir and new varietals being produced in today special vineyards. All we know is that wine markets will continue to change, perhaps ever more rapidly, and yield the fodder for another book by Mike Veseth.

Donald Winkler, Ph.D., Economics

Vineyards, Frogs, and Fences in California

2011-09-08T05:19:00.005-04:00

While touring the vineyards of Monterey County recently, we came across a sturdy fence running along the perimeter of a vineyard bordering the Salinas River. We immediately speculated that Mark Twain’s celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County had developed a voracious appetite for grapes and had made its way to the Salinas to attack the fabled vineyards there. Alas, truth is often stranger than fiction, and the fence was indeed constructed to prevent wildlife, like the native California red-legged frog pictured, here from invading cropland near the river.

In 2006 a dangerous E. coli outbreak was traced to tainted spinach grown in California, and the suspected culprit was wildlife, probably wild pigs. [The source of contamination was eventually located in San Benito County.] The result was that the large buyers and distributors of Salinas Valley leafy greens required producers to take actions to limit such intrusion, resulting in the construction of fences along rivers and removal of vegetation along waterways and hedgerows.

Research undertaken since the 2006 incident shows that wildlife are a less likely cause of the E. coli outbreak than commercial cattle or vegetable processing plants. But fear of another possible outbreak and its associated human and financial costs continues to encourage farmers to remove habitat and put up fences like the one shown here to keep wild critters out. Unfortunately, the environmental costs are considerable.

Wine and E. Coli

In the end, the frog fence has little to do with the vineyards. Indeed, some research shows that red wine consumption may actually protect humans from food-borne diseases like E. coli. Also, a few years ago an article published by the American Society for Microbiology reported that scientists were proposing a wine-based spray disinfectant since the malic and tartaric acid in wine kill bacteria as efficiently as hydrogen peroxide-based disinfectants. Both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay were shown to kill E. coli and salmonella. To our knowledge, no one has yet proposed washing fruits and vegetables in Chardonnay or Riesling, but why not?

Don Winkler

Spanish Cava: Cristalino from Jaume Serra

2011-09-02T14:16:00.005-04:00

If you hadn’t noticed yet, Cristalino has changed its label. But it remains the super-value Cava it has always been. That’s what we said about it in Issue #14 The World of Sparkling Wines and Champagne. Obviously, lots of other people thought the same thing, and the sales of Cristalino have exploded in the US where it’s the #2 imported Cava.

Jaume Serra Guell founded his eponymous winery in 1943 in Garraf, near the Penedés in Catalonia. In 1997 it was bought by the Garcia-Carrion family and modernized, including introducing Champagne yeasts for fermentation. The website for the winery is at www.garciacarrion.es. Jaume Serra Cristalino is imported by Colección Internacional del Vino (CIV) USA.

The new label is the cream-colored one shown above. The old label is the gold-labeled Cristalino shown below.

Jaume Serra 2007 Cristalino Brut Nature ($15) 90
The Brut Nature is the most complex of all the Cristalinos. Its bouquet reveals notes of almond, orange zest and honey, while the palate adds some light hazelnut and ripe pear notes. It’s a finely textured cava that’s slightly steely in the mouth and very dry. Delicious and a great value.. Made from Parellada, Mcabeo, Xarel-lo, and Chardonnay.

Jaume Serra NV Cristalino Cava Brut ($10) 88
This is a clean, fresh entry level sparkling wine showing aromas and flavors of orchard fruit and melon with notes of almond and yeasty dough. It has a nice crisp attack and a light, creamy palate that is unusually nice for sparkler in this price range. It’s a blend of 85% Macabeo, 35% Parellada and 15% Xarel-lo.

Jaume Serra NV Cristalino Cava Rosé Brut ($10) 88
The medium rose colored Rosé Brut reveals pomengranate, dried cranberry and red berries on the nose and palate. It finishes ripe and dry without the cloying sweetness often found in the sparkling rosés in this price range. Made from a blend of Pinot Noir and Trepat grapes.

Jaume Serra NV Opera Prima Spanish Muscat ($7) 87+
Solid yellow straw in color, this low alcohol (7%) sparkler has a nose of lychee with a ripe mango note. It’s lightly sweet with straightforward tropical fruit flavors finishing on a sweet note.

Jaume Serra NV Cristalino Cava Extra Dry ($10) 86
The Extra Dry Cristalino shows summer melon on the nose and exhibits a slightly off-dry, light palate of straightforward fruit flavors. Despite the modest residual sugar, it finishes on a crisp note.

Tokaji Aszú: The World’s Best Sweet Wine?

2011-08-30T22:28:00.004-04:00

We tasted a lot of sweet wines for our Report #27 on The Sweet Wines of the World. Some of our very favorite ones came from the Tokaj-Hegyalia region of Hungary. At its best, Tokaji is complex and sweet but never cloying, even when the sugar content is high. The sweetest Tokaji—5 or 6 Puttonyos---can appear to be not very sweet due to the wine’s high acidity. Tokaji Aszú is, of course, only made from botrytis affected berries. The shriveled botrytised grape (pictured here) contributes its own unique flavor and aroma to the wine. Our favorite Tokaji wines from our tastings all have superb acidity and the distinct notes of botrytis. We list our favorites below. The full tasting notes on these and other Tokaji wines can be found in our report and, also, in an article posted on our website.

Alana-Tokaj 2006 Tokaji Aszú 6 Puttonyos Tokaj-Hegyalja ($131/500ml) 96

Kiralyudvar 2003 Aszú 6 Puttonyos Lapis Tokaj-Hegyalja ($100/500ml) 95

Andrássy Pincészet 2006 Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos Tokaj-Hegyalja ($39/500ml) 93

Béres 2005 Vitis Tokajensis Aszú 5 Puttonyos Tokaj-Hegvalja ($NA) 91

Patricius 2003 Tokaji Aszú 6 Puttonyos Tokaj-Hegyalja ($69/500ml) 91

Château Megyer 2000 Tokaji Aszú 6 Puttonyos Tokaj-Hegyalja ($49/500ml) 91

Don Winkler

Cidre de Glace: Ice Cider from Québec and Vermont

2011-08-25T09:28:00.004-04:00

Which sweet, unctuous drink is made from frozen fruit, sometimes single varietal and sometimes a blend of varietals, which is then pressed, fermented and sometimes aged in oak casks before being released and sold at high prices in elegant, thin bottles of 375 or 200 ml?

This description fits the traditional eiswein of Germany and Austria and the newer icewines of Canada. However, it also fits the cidre de glace, or ice cider, first created by Christian Barthomeuf (pictured below) of Québec in 1990 and now made in parts of Canada and the Northern US. Since 2000 Barthomeuf has been the winemaker at Domaine Pinnacle, located in Frelighsburg, Québec. As part of our tastings for Report # 27 Sweet Wines of the World, we had the opportunity for the first time to taste several of these intriguing wines, including the delicious Eden ice ciders made by Eleanor and Albert Leger in West Charleston, Vermont. Our assessments of these ice ciders follow below.

In 2008 the Québec legislature passed the Réglement sur le Cidre that sets the standards and regulations for production of ice cider in Québec. Those standards are now voluntarily followed by quality producers (like Vermont’s Eden) in the US as well. As with icewine made from grapes, ice cider can be made either from fruit frozen on the tree and then pressed or from the frozen juice of pressed fresh apples. In either case, the freezing serves to concentrate the sugars and flavors, resulting in a sweet, fresh-tasting wine.

Given the high level of residual sugar (RS) of these wines, they are best served cold at the end of the meal, preferably with creamy desserts and cheeses. Ice cider also pairs well with foie gras or liver paté at the beginning of the meal. The simpler bottlings of ice cider have a straightforward apple character, a bit like drinking rich, homemade apple pie. The more complex bottlings spend time on the lees, are sometimes aged in oak barrels, and have a more subtle apple character complemented by notes of butterscotch and toffee with a bright acidity that reduces the impression of sweetness.

Tasting Notes and Ratings

Champlain Orchards Honeycrisp Ice Cider Vermont ($30) 88
This cider made of 100% Honeycrisp apples from orchards overlooking Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks shows toffee and apple concentrate on the nose and palate. It has a very persistent, rich finish and superb balancing acidity. Alc 10%, RS 160 g/l.

Domaine Pinnacle 2008 Ice Cider Québec ($25/375ml) 90
This yellow amber blend of six different varietals shows aromas of butter, toffee and pecan pie. It’s soft on the attack and displays a layered palate of toffee, shortbread pastry, and caramelized apple. It has a very long finish. Superb. Alc 12%, RS 180 g/l.

Domaine Pinnacle 2007 Sparkling Ice Cider Québec ($29/375ml) 88
Gold amber color with aromas of butterscotch and baked apple pie. Intense apple butter, caramelized apples, and dried stone fruit on the palate. The wine is lightly effervescent and very sweet, finishing long and a bit cloying. Alc 12%, RS 160 g/l.

Domaine Pinnacle 2008 Signature Réserve Spéciale Ice Cider Québec ($37/375ml) 91
The yellow amber Signature Réserve Spéciale exhibits a nose of toffee, butter and dried fruit and a moderately sweet palate of toffee, butter pastry, and caramelized apple pie. The finish is persistent and shows bright, uplifting acidity. Aged on the lees for 8 months. Made of Cortland, Empire, and Honey Crisp. Superb. Alc 11%, RS 200 g/l.

Eden 2009 Ice Cider Calville Blend Vermont ($27/375ml) 89
The Calville Blend is made of eleven different apple varieties, all grown biodynamically and certified organic and blended to capture the strengths of each. It shows a harmonious palate with bracing acidity and layers of flavors. Has a very long finish. Alc 11%, RS 140 g/l.

Eden Ice Cider Northern Spy Vermont ($20/187ml) 91
A single varietal cider made of Northern Spy apples aged for one year in French oak. Northern Spy (pictured here) is an antique American apple especially popular in the 19th century for baking due to its sweet tart flavor. This cider has rich caramelized apple aromas and flavors with a dense, rich palate. It has superb acidity and a very long, intensely flavored finish. Delicious. Alc 10%, RS 150 g/l.

The Wines of Temecula Valley: Thornton Winery

2011-08-12T07:55:00.004-04:00

Located just 22 miles from the Pacific and just an hour’s drive from San Diego, the Temecula Valley is also America’ southernmost AVA. Rising hot air from the Palm Desert generates the Pacific winds that cool the 1100 foot high valley floor and provides the growing conditions that in 1776 attracted Franciscan padres to plant the first Mission grape vines in Temecula. Today, Temecula boasts more than 30 wineries and 1300 acres of vines. A recent visit to Temecula provided the opportunity to taste the wines of several wineries. The wines of Thornton Winery impressed me the most.

Given its location, Temecula is a prime site for wine tourism, which the Temecula Wine Growers Association helps promote. Visiting several wineries on a Saturday afternoon, I found large crowds of young wine enthusiasts at every winery. And the wineries themselves are well equipped for tourism with attractive tasting rooms, restaurants, and outdoor facilities.

Established in 1988, the Thornton Winery [pictured here] produces good quality wines and has an has outstanding restaurant where it offers wine and food pairing selections. Newly recruited winemaker David Vergari has worked for several wineries in Spain, Australia, and California. My tasting notes of Thornton’s impressive lineup follow:

Thornton 2004 Brut Reserve Natural ($38) 90
This is a lovely vintage Brut with yeast on the nose and a crisp palate offering fresh orchard fruit flavors, a creamy mouth feel and a pleasantly dry finish.

Thornton 2009 “Sans Oak”Chardonnay ($24) 88
“Sans Oak” is an un-oaked Chardonnay showing green apple and tropical fruit aromas and flavors with a creamy mouth feel and a crisp finish.

Thornton 2010 Chardonnay ($19) 89+
The 2010 Chardonnay offers light fresh tropical fruit aromas with toast notes. It reveals nicely focused flavors on the palate with a creamy mouth feel and good green apple acidity on the finish.

Thornton 2010 Cabernet-Merlot ($22) 87
This Bordeaux blend combines Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot with a small amount of Cabernet Franc. Medium-ruby in color, it reveals aromas of cherry, plum, and light oak. It is medium-weight with a slightly dry mid-palate and a rather short finish.

Thornton 2007 Nebbiolo ($17) 89
The 2007 Nebbiolo exhibits a medium-dark ruby color and has aromas of chocolate, dark plum, herbs, vanilla and spice. It is soft and velvet smooth on the palate with round tannins and a long finish with light grip. The recently produced 2010 Nebbiolo doesn’t measure up to the 2007 as this stage of its development.

Thornton 2010 Zinfandel Huis Vineyard ($22) 88+
This single vineyard Zinfandel is light-bodied with red cherry and plum flavors. It is flavorful on the palate with good flavor concentration, excellent balance and a delicate finish. It’s an enjoyable and easy-drinking wine.

Thornton Winery is located at 32575 Rancho California Road, Temecula, CA Tel (951) 699-0099

Mike Potashnik

Freestone Vineyards: New Releases

2011-07-11T17:24:00.002-04:00

Freestone Vineyards produces some of the finest cool climate wines along the Sonoma Coast. Last year we visited winemaker Theresa Heredia at the winery, located just five miles from the cold Pacific on the real Sonoma Coast. We tasted barrel samples of the 2008 Pinot Noir, and at the time Theresa expressed some concern about how the unusual September 2008 heat spikes would affect the wine. We’re happy to report that based on the tasting of the new release reported here, there’s no cause for concern. Freestone continues its track record of producing excellent quality wines, thanks in no small part to the skills of its winemaking team. Our report on the barrel samples can be found here.

Freestone Vineyards 2009 Fog Dog Chardonnay Sonoma Coast ($35) 90+
The 2009 Fog Dog Chardonnay exhibits a medium yellow hue and offers lovely aromas of melon, orchard fruit, toast and hints of vanilla. On the palate it is crisp and clean with good flavor concentration, medium high acidity, and a long persistent toast note on the finish. The Fog Dog is one of several delicious Chardonnays produced by Freestone Vineyards. The fruit for the Fog Dog Chardonnay comes from the Pastorale vineyard.

Freestone Vineyards 2008 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast ($55) 91
The Freestone Pinot Noir is a very fragrant cool climate Pinot Noir, medium ruby in color offering pure fruit with rich aromas of plum and toast. It is soft on the attack with medium weight and beautifully balanced and structured. It has an elegant mouth feel and a long persistent finish. This is only one of several fine Pinots produced by this estate. The fruit for this wine is sourced from the Pastorale and Quarter Moon Vineyards. The wine is aged 14 months in used oak barrels.

The Pinot Noirs of Chile: Continued Progress

2011-07-10T15:38:00.006-04:00

Chile is one of the most promising New World producers of Pinot Noir. Today producers are experimenting with growing Pinot Noir in marginal growing conditions, from Limarí in the north to Bío Bío in the south and including the cool coastal areas of Casablanca, San Antonio and Leyda, in addition to the Maule Valley. As an update to our Report # 21 The Chilean Wine Revolution, we recently tasted new releases of Chilean Pinot Noir. We’ve been impressed with the sustained improvement of Chilean Pinot Noir, so we were curious to see whether the lastest releases continue the trend. We’re happy to report that they do. We published our complete tasting notes on newly released Chilean Pinot Noir as a wine review article on our home page. Below we report our top ten favorite Pinot Noirs of the tasting. Unfortunately, we did not have new releases from Casa Marin or from Undurraga, but we’re confident they would also have ended up in our list of Chile’s best Pinot Noir.

International Wine Review’s List of the Best Chilean Pinot Noir

Veranda 2008 Pinot Noir Grande Cuvée Millerandage Bío Bío Valley ($40) 92

Chilcas 2008 Pinot Noir Single Vineyard San Rafael-Valle del Maule ($18) 91

Cono Sur 2008 20 Barrels Pinot Noir Casablanca Valley ($30) 91

Kingston Family Vineyards 2008 Tobiano Pinot Noir Casablanca Valley ($20) 91

Tabali 2009 Reserva Especial Pinot Noir Limari ($19) 91

Errazuriz 2009 Pinot Noir Wild Ferment Valle de Casablanca ($21) 90+

Matetic 2009 Corralillo Pinot Noir San Antonio ($28) 90+

Tabali 2009 Pinot Noir Reserva Limari ($15) 90+

Amayna 2008 Pinot Noir San Antonio ($35) 90

Kingston Family Vineyards 2008 Alazan Pinot Noir Casablanca Valley ($30) 90

Montes 2008 Montes Alpha Pinot Noir Casablanca Valley ($24) 90

Quintay 2009 Clava Coastal Reserve Pinot Noir Casablanca Valley ($13) 90

Trentadue Offers Superb Values from Alexander Valley

2011-07-10T13:16:00.005-04:00

Trentadue Winery is one of the finest family wineries in Alexander Valley. Established some 40 years ago by Leo and Evelyn Trentadue, the winery has gained a well-deserved reputation for producing some of California’s best value Zinfandel, Petite Sirah and other premium reds. The winery also produces wines of outstanding quality in a reserve series called La Storia. The wines in this series are sourced from old vines and special parcels and benefit from extended barrel aging. We recently reviewed the new releases of Trentadue. We were especially impressed with the 2009 Viognier (90 Points), which was new to us, and with the 2009 La Storia Zinfandel 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition (92 Points). Consumers should find these wines very attractive for their quality-to-price ratio. The wines are made by one of Alexander Valley's renowned winemakers, Miro Tcholakov. The full reviews of these wines can be found on our home page.

The Great Sweet Wines of America

2011-07-06T19:02:00.002-04:00

America’s winemakers from California to Virginia are producing some of the finest sweet wines on the market. We tasted hundreds of sweet wines for Report # 27 Sweet Wines of the World and found a number of American wines that rank among the best in the world. Below we present the International Wine Review’s Ten Best American Sweet Wines. The top ten include wines from California, Oregon, New York, and Virginia. Our reviews of all the delicious American sweet wines we tasted are published in the article America's Best Sweet Wines on our website.

International Wine Review’s Ten Best American Sweet Wines

• Grgich Hills Estate 2008 Violetta Late Harvest Napa Valley 94
• Konstantin Frank Vinifera Wine Cellars 2008 Bunch Select Late Harvest
Riesling Finger Lakes 93
• Linden 2006 Late Harvest Petit Manseng Virginia 92
• Bonny Doon Vineyard 2007 Le Vol des Anges Arroyo Seco, Monterey County 91
• Carol Shelton 2006 Sweeter Caroline Trousseau Gris Late Harvest Russian River Valley 91
• Navarro Vineyards 2010 Muscat Blanc Cluster Select Late Harvest Anderson Valley Mendocino 91
• Navarro Vineyards 2006 White Riesling Cluster Select Late Harvest Anderson Valley Mendocino 91
• Barboursville Vineyards 2002 Malvaxia Passito Monticello Virginia 91
• Adelsheim 2008 Deglacé Willamette Valley 91
• Quady Winery NV Starboard Batch 88 California 91

Jordan’s Wine Pioneer: Omar Zumot and the Wines of Saint George.

2011-07-06T05:42:00.007-04:00

It’s rare that one encounters a true wine pioneer. But Omar Zumot is undoubtedly the preeminent wine pioneer of Jordan. He had an early interest in winemaking and received his training in Ardeche while still in his teens, but it was twenty years later when he realized his dream of planting a vineyard that would reveal to the world the potential of Jordan for making fine wine. Omar is pictured here with Editor, Don Winkler, at his wine shop in Amman. Go to this site to hear Omar live.

In 1996, Omar planted his first vineyard of eight hectares at Madaba, southwest of Amman near the old St. George church, using plants imported from France. The vineyard has soils of clay and limestone and are at an altitude of 735 meters. Today, the fruit from this vineyard is mostly used to produce the Saint George Classic blend, his mid-priced range of wines.

The Madaba vineyard produces good fruit, but Omar wanted something still better, and after an exhaustive search found a site in Samas al-Sarhan near the border with Syria and south of the extinct volcano Jabal Druze, which contributes basalt to the clay-limestone soil mixture. The deep clay helps hold the moisture from the winter rains. The 600 meter altitude ensures cold nights to counterbalance the hot days of the growing season. Significant diurnal temperature variation helps create the perfumes of the wines produced from this site. Minimally irrigated, the vines are subject to considerable hydric stress. Planted mostly to Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Chardonnay, and Merlot, the vineyard currently has about 2000 dunums (about 200 hectares) of vines and is growing by about 500 dunums per year. The fruit from this vineyard is used to produce the top of the line Winemaker’s Selections.

Recently, a third vineyard was added to the Zumot stable. Located in the mountains of Jerash in an area called Souf, this seven hectare vineyard is very high altitude (1150 meters), dry farmed, and planted to Merlot and Syrah. The Roman ruins of Jerash are pictured here (photo by D Winkler).

The Zumot vineyards are organically certified by IMO of Switzerland. No pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers are used, but the vines do receive nitrate-rich waters from fish ponds stocked with carp. Yields are very low, less than two tons per hectare [0.8 tons/acre], and all vineyard work is done by hand. The hard labor is done mostly by Bedouin women of the nearby villages.

While Omar provides the inspiration and management of the vineyards and winery, he is assisted in the winemaking by two winemakers originally from Bulgaria; most of his wine is produced naturally with ambient yeasts and is aged in French Chassin barrels.

The Zumot Winery Saint George wines were tasted at Omar’s offices in Amman and the International Wine Review offices in Washington, DC. There is a definite house style, influenced by the terroir of the vineyards, the ripeness of the fruit, and the lavish use of toasty, French oak. The whites tend to be aromatic and soft, with modest levels of natural acidity. The reds show ripe fruit, toasted oak, and fine-grained tannins. Omar attributes the depth of flavor to extra thick skins, a result of the strong winds that buffet the vines. Most of the wines tasted are from the 2009 vintage, which had an especially mild winter and summer with ten days longer maturation than normal. The 2008 vintage saw a cold winter with late frosts and extremely hot summer.

Our favorites among the white wines are the Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay. The Saint George 2009 Chenin Blanc Winemaker’s Selection from the Samas Vineyard is pleasantly aromatic, showing stonefruit, melon and vanilla on the nose and flavors of buttery pear and peach. It’s soft on the palate. The golden Saint George 2009 Sauvignon Blanc Winemaker’s Selection reveals honey, tropical fruit, and smoke. Omar says the smoke comes from the volcanic ashes in the soil and not from the six months the wines spends in double toasted French oak barriques. The yellow straw Saint George 2009 Chardonnay Winemaker’s Selection has notes of mango and pineapple on a nicely balanced palate with hints of butterscotch and smoke. It pairs superbly with grilled chicken. The Saint George 2009 Gewurztraminer Classic Range has good varietal character, showing rose petal and stone fruit on the nose, while lychee and guava are more prominent on the palate. It’s a light and delicious wine.

Between Amman and Washington, we tried the full range of Saint George reds. Our favorites were the Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and the Reserve Shiraz. The opaque ruby Saint George 2009 Merlot Winemaker’s Selection has a savory, meaty character; the palate reveals dark red fruit, charred oak, and chocolate. It’s a complex wine of considerable depth. The dark ruby Saint George 2009 Sangiovese Winemaker’s Selection has aromas and flavors of dark cherry, chocolate and herbs, but sweet vanilla oak seems to dominate. The Saint George 2008 Pinot Noir Winemaker’s Selection is tasty but with ripe plum and cedar notes that we don’t typically expect from Pinot Noir. On the other hand, the Saint George 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Winemaker’s Selection is reminiscent of a California Cab with its layered cassis, cedar, and earth notes. It’s full and rich on the palate with dry tannins on the finish. While good now, this wine is still a baby and will get even better with time. Finally, the Saint George 2007 Reserve Shiraz Unfiltered Winemaker’s Selection is our overall favorite. It’s a selection of the very best barrels. The wine has the fruit to stand up 15+ months in new French oak. Forest floor, blackberry, chocolate, and coconut all make their appearance in a delicious wine that holds its own against the international benchmarks.

For tourists or business travelers planning a trip to Jordan, we strongly recommend trying Omar Zumot’s Saint George wines. They can be purchased at his store or at the better, wine-serving restaurants around the city. Unfortunately, the wines are not yet sold in the US.

Vinous Pleasures in the Sky: Lufthansa’s Vinothèque and the Gracia Syrah

2011-06-30T05:42:00.004-04:00

As part of its effort to make air travel more pleasant, Lufthansa’s Vinothèque program offers wine loving travelers special wines, like the rich and flavorful Gracia 2004 Syrah from the Aconcagua Valley that I recently enjoyed on my return flight from Frankfurt. Chile makes spectacular Syrah, but weak demand for wines made from this grape in the US means many of them don’t make it to our shores. It was a real treat to find one being offered on my flight.

Gracia is produced by Chile’s large Viña Corpora group, which we visited when preparing Report # 21 The Chilean Wine Revolution. I was impressed then with the Gracia and Agustinos lines of wines, especially the Chardonnays and Pinot Noir wines from the Bío-Bío, and the Gracia 2004 Syrah confirms that earlier assessment.

Lufthansa’s Vinothèque program identifies high quality wines produced in relatively small quantities, so the wines are changed frequently, and the names of the wines being served don’t appear on their Business or First Class menus. These wines are usually a significant cut above the wines on the menu and are well worth asking for.

Markus Del Monego, who holds a Masters of Wine and was also selected as Sommelier World Champion, makes the selections for the Vinothèque program along with a small group of other tasters. He’s one of the reasons that Lufthansa was cited as the Most Improved Business Class Cellar in Business Traveller Magazine's Cellars in the Sky Wine Awards. Markus also has some interesting ideas on pairing Sauternes with food that nicely complement our own recommendations in Report # 27 Sweet Wines of the World.

2010 Bordeaux Prices Rise: China Buys More

2011-06-22T06:51:00.003-04:00

There have been numerous articles, most recently in the Financial Times, about the possible bubble in classified growth Bordeaux prices caused by China’s emergence as a major buyer. In 2009 en primeur prices (of the classified growths) rose 50 percent, followed by another 20 percent increase for those 2010 Bordeaux that have already announced en primeur prices. The price increase appears to be driven by the excellence of these two vintages combined with the surge in Asian, mainly Chinese, demand.

It remains to be seen if these prices can be sustained. The Financial Times reports that en primeur sales of the 2010 vintage are half the volume of last year’s, despite the fact the buzz on 2010 is at least as big as that on 2009. Of course, the continued slow economic growth in Europe and the US and the depreciating dollar also have something to do with the reduced demand, as does the hangover from a surge in spending on the spectacular and much-hyped 2009 vintage.

The impact of rising prices of Bordeaux appears to be having its largest impact on US sales. Mark Wessels of MacArthur Beverages in Washington, DC, says the volume of 2009 en primeur sales was only half that of the 2005 vintage. Numerous other US wine merchants that traditionally sold large amounts of Bordeaux report the same trend. While the economy and dollar depreciation are part of the explanation, US consumers also appear to be less wedded to Bordeaux in comparison to the British and EU countries. Well-heeled US consumers have their choice of high end Argentine, Chilean, Australian, Italian and boutique California wines, in addition to Bordeaux. What should be most worrisome to Bordeaux producers is that young shoppers rarely ask about Bordeaux anymore.

China in the Ascendance. In 2009 China replaced the US as the principal non-EU export market with a 97 percent increase by volume over 2008, while the US suffered a 27 percent decline. In 2010 exports to China grew a further 67 percent, while exports to the US grew only 6 percent. While these figures reflect all types of Bordeaux wines, not just classified growths, the trend is obvious. All the major Bordeaux importing countries except China experienced decreases in volume in 2009: Germany (-14%), Belgium (-14%), the UK (-25%), Japan (-18%), and the US (-27%). In 2010, exports to these same countries increased modestly (excepting Belgium, where they continued to decline), but the writing is on the wall.

In 2011 China should become Bordeaux’s most important export market in terms of volume. While Hong Kong and the UK still lead China in terms of export value, no one doubts that China will soon lead in this category, too. According to the Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB), Bordeaux exports by volume increased in the first quarter of 2011, with the largest gains again in China and Hong Kong.

The Sweet Malbecs of Argentina

2011-06-21T04:52:00.004-04:00

Our just published Report # 27 Sweet Wines of the World reviews hundreds of sweet wines, including the unique and delicious late harvest and fortified Malbecs of Argentina. This article was previously posted on our home page.

The whole world knows that Argentina makes excellent wines from the Malbec grape, but not many people are familiar with its superb late harvest and fortified Malbecs. These wines are made from super-ripe grapes harvested late in the autumn in the high altitude vineyards of the foothills of the Andes. Sometimes snow falls before the grapes are picked [see the picture, courtesy of Belasco de Baquedano].

Grapes left on the vine a long time tend to dessicate, resulting in juice with high sugar content and ripe, Port-like flavors. The juice is allowed to ferment to the desired level of sweetness, and then fermentation is stopped. In the case of late harvest wines, fermentation is most commonly stopped by cooling the wine sufficiently. In the case of fortified wines, the addition of alcohol stops the fermentation process. In both cases the wine ends up moderately sweet but with relatively low alcohol in the first instance and relatively high alcohol in the second.

On our recent tour of Argentina’s wine country, we encountered several late harvest and fortified Malbecs. The best ones are reviewed below. Reviews of other sweet wines, as well as hundreds of dry table wines, were published in our Report #26, The Diverse Wines of Argentina. A much more extensive review of sweet wines can be found in our Report #27, Sweet Wines of the World.

Late Harvest Malbec

Achával Ferrer 2010 Dolce 93

Winemaker Roberto Cipresso has made a beautiful, sweet (112 g/l) dessert wine from very ripe, late harvested Malbec grapes . The nose shows port like aromas and flavors of sweet dark red cherry and plum, dark chocolate, and loam. While fairly high in alcohol (16.6%), it appears almost light on the palate. Absolutely delicious. Too bad it's only available in very limited amounts at the winery.

Belasco de Baquedano 2007 Antracita Alto Agrelo Valley Luján de Cuyo Mendoza 92

Antracita is an exceptional, late harvest Malbec sourced from 100 year old vineyards in Alto Agrelo. Opaque ruby violet in color, it shows aromas and flavors of violets, dark chocolate, ripe figs, and dark cherry. It is unctuous in texture with a lush, velvet like mouthfeel. It finishes very long and rich with persistent chocolate and cherry notes. Aged in new French Allier oak sur lie for 24 months, it has 93 g/l sugar and 14.5% alcohol. Importer: Cabernet Corporation.

Susana Balbo 2008 Malbec Late Harvest Mendoza 90+

The natural sweetness (117 g/l) of this wine means it is less alcoholic (13.5%) than most Malbecs that are fermented dry. A beautiful dark ruby color, the wine shows ripe red plum and dark cherry, shaved chocolate, tobacco, and a note of Christmas spice. Unctuous fresh black raspberry fruit appears on the palate along with dark chocolate and tobacco notes. Finishes very, very long. Made with natural yeast and fermented in barrel until fermentation is naturally halted by the cold. Importer: Vine Connections.

Fortified Malbec

Trapiche 2006 Profuso Encabezado de Malbec 90

Very mature, raisin-like grapes are lightly crushed to produce this dark ruby, ripely flavored wine. This fortified Malbec wine shows chocolate, ripe dark cherry and plum fruit on the nose and palate. At 100g/l sugar and 18 percent alcohol, this is a wine that can be paired with bleu cheese. Has a long finish of dark red fruit with quite dry tannins. Spends 24 months in French oak. Importer: Frederick Wildman and Sons.

Zuccardi 2005 Malamado Malbec Mendoza 90

Zuccardi’s Malamado, the first Malbec fortified wine to be produced in Argentina, is pleasantly light in tone and shows a fresh spicy cherry aroma. While fortified and Port-like with 18% alcohol, it avoids the cooked flavors of many such wines and instead offers a core of fresh and dried cherry fruit. Aged two years in barrique with sweet, ripe fruit, it takes on leather, membrillo, and caramel notes, but it’s the fresh fruit core that we like. Delicious and very reasonably priced to boot. Winesellers, Ltd.

South African Sparklers: Simonsig Wine Estate MCC

2011-06-05T12:51:00.004-04:00

A couple of years ago we wrote about the success of South Africa in producing its Champagne-style wines called Method Cap Classique (MCC). One especially successful producer is the Simonsig Wine Estate. In addition to its MCCs, this winery is best known for its Redhill Pinotage, Merindol Syrah, and Tiara red blend. We’ll be tasting all these wines and more as part of our comprehensive report on the Wines of South Africa, to be issued later this year.

Simonsig is especially well known for its MCC. Indeed, Frans Malan, the founder of Simonsig, was also a pioneer in producing sparkling wines using the methode champenoise back in 1971. Simonsig’s tete de cuvee is its Cuvée Royale MCC that spends about 5 years sur lie. Unfortunately, we don’t have access to that wine here in the States, but we were able to taste the Simonsig 2007 Kaapse Vonkel Brut. Here’s our tasting note on that wine:

Simonsig 2007 Kaapse Vonkel Brut Western Cape

This blend of 58% Pinot Noir, 39% Chardonnay, and 3% Pinot Meunier offers aromas of yeasty bread, herbs and orchard fruit. The well-balanced and round, creamy palate richly flavored, finishing with a refreshing crispness and notes of blanched almonds and citrus. Delicious. The winery says the herbal note in the wine comes from a high altitude vineyard in the Helschoogte area. Alc 12.5%, RS 8.6 g/l, TA 7.9 g/l.

Simonsig's US importer is Quintessential Wines of Napa, CA

Kick off of Espai Priorat in Cambrils

2011-05-23T02:16:00.008-04:00

The Espai Priorat was launched last evening at a magnificent gathering at the Restaurant Club Nàutic in Cambrils. This beautiful town of 32,000 inhabitants is located about an hour south of Barcelona in the Torroja region. In attendance were a lively group of some 60+ wine importers, exporters, and journalists from China, Korea, India, the UK, Switzerland, the United States and other countries. Tomorrow and Tuesday, we will be participating in tasting of Priorat’s finest wines.

Last evening’s event was hosted by the Major of Cambrils and the Cambrils Tourism Board and gave us the rare opportunity to taste the magnificent cooking of four of the region’s finest chefs: Diego Campos (El Rincon de Diego, Joan Bosch, (Can Bosch), Manel Morell (casa Gallau) and Joan Pedrell (Joan Gatell). Diego Campos and Joan Pedrell are recipients of one Michelin star. Our meal consisted of a selection of Catalan sea food dishes culminating in the Fideus “rossos” a four hundred-year old dish made of noodles in fish stock. All of our food during the evening was paired with the magnificent wines of Priorat. Tomorrow, we begin our tastings at the Cal Compete.which will be followed by dinner at the magnificent restaurant “El Balcó del Priorate in Morera de Montsant.

Priorat is one of Spain’s most exciting wine regions, producing highly attractive terroir-driven minerally wines from old vines of Garnacha and Carinena. Mike Potashnik, Publisher, International Wine Review

Wine Bars of London & London International Wine Fair

2011-05-19T07:39:00.003-04:00

The Financial Times reports on the plethora of elegant and unique wine bars in London. Perfect timing for the ongoing London International Wine Fair. One of the most popular is 20°-50° Wine Workshop and Kitchen at 140 Fetter Lane. Some of them specialize in particular wines, such as Italian, at the Degó Wine Bar (pictured here) on Great Portland St. And the new Capote y Toros at 157 Old Brompton Rd offers over 100 sherries by the glass. I can’t find a link to the article, but here are the names of some of the wine bars mentioned in the article: Artisan & Vine; Bar Battu; Bar Pepito; Barrafina; Brawn; Chabrot Bistrot d’Amis; Dehesa; Finborough Wine Café; The Fulham Wine Rooms; Galoupet Restaurant and Wine Bar; Green & Blue; The Kensington Wine Rooms; Polpo; Salt Yard; Terroirs Wine Bar & Restaurant; Texture; Vinoteca Wine Bar & Shop.

US Beats France in Wine Consumption: Young Adults Lead the Way

2011-05-11T14:15:00.002-04:00

According to the latest statistics, America consumed more wine (3.96 billion bottles) than France (3.85 billion bottles) in 2010. While per capita consumption continues to decline in most of Europe, it has almost tripled in the US over the past 40 years.to about 3 gallons per adult. But here the US loses to France, which consumes more than three times as much per capita at the US.

Young people are increasing their consumption of wine faster than other age groups. The millennial generation, born between 1978 and 1990, now represents 23 percent of total wine consumption [see graph]. However, the downside, according to Wine Market Council Data, is that senior citizens over age 65 are not increasing their consumption, and as we all know their numbers are growing rapidly.

Not only is wine consumption growing among the young, they are also more experimental and especially willing to purchase imported wines. But as a product, wine has surprisingly little brand loyalty. Taking these facts together, this means that with the right distribution new producers and newly imported wines can quickly have great success. On the other hand, maintaining that success may be challenging.

European and other exporters of wine to the US also have to take into consideration different consumption patterns. In contrast to Europe where wine is mostly consumed with the meal, in the US almost 60 percent of consumers drink wine as an aperitif or cocktail. This is, of course, in keeping with our colonial traditions. In his book on Thomas Jefferson and Wine, John Hailman reports that the citizens of the newly independent US tended to drink their wine after the meal, not during the meal. Perhaps this was because much of their wine was fortified and sweet. The fact that people so often drink wine by itself today may partly explain the apparent preference for fruity wines with slightly sweet palates and soft tannins. White Zinfandel is still one of America’s favorite wines. And sales of Malbec, a wine appreciated its for fruit forward character and its gentle tannins, have taken off in recent years [see our recent report The Diverse Wines of Argentina].

Those developing marketing strategies might also want to take account of the fact that women purchase three-quarters of all wine in the US, according to the Wine Market Council. But they consume only their fair share.

Portuguese White Port: A Surprising, Bracing Summer Aperitif Wine

2011-04-30T12:50:00.003-04:00

We recently discovered the Alves de Sousa NV Caldas Porto White in one of our sweet wine tastings for the upcoming report on Sweet Wines of the World. It reminded us of white Ports we have tasted in the Douro, often served on the rocks with a twist of citrus. We tried this with the Caldas, and the result was delicious—the ice both dilutes and reduces the heat of the 19.5% alcohol, while the light sweetness and nuttiness of the wine persist. If you want to surprise and please your guests this summer, consider offering a well-chilled white Port on the rocks.

White Port is made from white grapes—usually some combination of Gouveio, Codega, Malvasis Fina, Rabigato, Viosinho and/or Esgana Cão. It’s fermented like red Port, with pure grape spirits added to stop the fermentation, leaving some residual sugar. It is then often aged either in wood or in cement or stainless steel. Aging in traditional Portuguese wood barrels (pipes) lends a nutty, slighty caramel or butterscotch note to the wine, while aging in stainless steel preserves more of the fruit aromas and flavors. Our preference is for light oak aging to lend interest and complexity to the wine. A white Port labeled lágrima is especially rich and viscuous.

Good quality White Port isn’t all that easy to find, but it’s worth the search. In addition to the Alves de Sousa Caldas Porto White (imported by the Artisan Collection), look for Churchill’s White Port (imported by Frederick Wildman and Sons), Ramos Pinto Lágrima (imported by Maison Marques & Domaines), and Dow’s White Port (imported by Symington).

Emiliana Natura: Naturally Inexpensive

2011-04-25T12:09:00.004-04:00

Viñedos Emiliana is the leader in organic and biodynamic wine production in Chile. A few months ago we visited the biodynamic vineyards of Emiliana in the Casablanca Valley [pictured here—Don Winkler; Fernando Pavón, Emiliana; Mike Potashnik]. Organic usually means pricey but not in the case of Emiliana’s Natura brand.

In 2003 Emiliana introduced Chile’s first biodynamic wine, the pricey, top of the line Emiliana G. However, it also produces inexpensive, organic wines for all wine enthusiasts. The Natura label is made of fruit sourced from Emiliana’s two thousand acres of certified organic and biodynamic vineyards.

The organic label is still viewed with suspicion by some consumers. After all, organic wines have almost no sulfites, which makes them easily susceptible to spoilage. Natura wines are made from organically grown grapes, meaning they are grown with no synthetic pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or chemical or sewage sludge-based fertilizers. However, they do have added sulfites (albeit considerably lower than the norm) to deter spoilage.

These wines are made under the tutelage of Alvaro Espinoza, Chile’s pioneer of natural winemaking. Alvaro first became familiar with biodynamic and organic practices during a sabbatical year spent at Bonterra, California’s pre-eminent natural wine producer. Returning to Chile the large, Emiliana winery (Viñedos Emiliana) under the enlightened leadership of winery founder, José Guilisasti, hired him to develop a new line of organic and biodynamic wines.

Banfi, the US importer of Natura, recently asked us to review their wines. Having visited Emiliana’s vineyards in the Casablanca Valley last year and knowing Alvaro’s reputation for meticulous winemaking, we readily agreed. Our reviews of Emiliana’s other wines can be found in our Report # 21, The Chilean Wine Revolution.

At just $11 per bottle, Emiliana Natura wines are inexpensive, but their high average quality also makes them excellent values. The red wines are all cold-soaked prior to fermentation, and most see some oak aging. The white wines are fermented in stainless steel at low temperatures, some with lees stirring. Our favorites are the Sauvignon Blanc, the Cabernet Sauvignon, and the Syrah, but all the wines are great values.

Emiliana 2010 Natura Sauvignon Blanca Casablanca 89

This is an exceptionally tasty New World Sauvignon Blanc with just the right amount of acidity, clean citrus fruit on the nose and palate and dry minerals on the finish. It’s a flavorful, nicely balanced wine but not so precious and over-refined that one need be afraid to drink it with a week day meal. Superb!

Emiliana Natura 2010 Un-Oaked Chardonnay 88

This Chardonnay offers intriguing aromas of flint, lees and tropical flowers. It has good palate weight and ripe fruit, with both tropical and orchard notes. Surprisingly complex for an un-oaked wine at this price level. It finishes long, clean and satisfying. Fermented at low temperatures in stainless steel with stirring of the lees. Quite delicious.

Emiliana 2009 Natura Gewürztraminer Rapel 87

This isn’t a spicy, tropical Gewürztraminer in the Alsatian style, but it’s very pleasant drinking nonetheless. It is a gentle wine, rather feminine and floral in character, showing honey and flowers on the nose and stonefruit on the palate. Cleanly made, this is both a good sipping wine and one that would combine nicely with Asian cuisine. Doesn’t show its 14% alcohol.

Emiliana 2009 Natura Cabernet Sauvignon Valle Central 88+

Cabernet Sauvignon represents almost half of Chile’s total vineyards, but the number of organic vineyards is still small. Emiliana uses some of these organic grapes to produce this delicious wine. . The nose has rather subtle aromas of smoke, herbs and plum. The palate is round and ripe and nicely structured with fine, firm tannins on the finish. This isn’t a knock your socks off, fermented in pricey new French oak type of Cabernet (although 20 percent of the wine is aged in oak barriques), but it is very drinkable.

Emiliana 2009 Natura Carmenere Colchagua 87

This blend of 85% Carmenere and 15% Syrah is a tasty wine best consumed with food. It has an herbal and earth character with fresh black cherry on the palate. These aromas and flavors combined with good natural acidity helps it complement many dishes. About half the wine was oak-aged.

Emiliana 2008 Natura Merlot Rapel 86+

The Natura Merlot requires food to show its best. It reveals plum and green herbs on the nose and a modestly weighted palate of boysenberry and tart plum.

Emiliana 2009 Natura Syrah Rapel 89

This bright, dark ruby organic Syrah is made from hand-picked grapes that are cold-soaked prior to fermentation. The nose shows both back raspberry and savory smoked meat aromas. Not particularly fleshy for a Syrah, it’s more lean and mineral like with firm tannins on the finish. But it’s a flavorful, nicely balanced wine that is very reasonably priced for its quality. About 20 percent of the wine is aged in French oak for six months.

Imported by Banfi Vintners, Old Brookville, NY (516) 626-9200

Vidal Fleury Rhone Wines: Reviews of New Releases

2011-04-18T22:25:00.004-04:00

A great starting point for learning about the individuality and typicity of the wines of the northern and southern Rhone is to taste the wines of Vidal Fleury. This winery offers a wide variety of reasonably priced wines from all the major Rhone appellations, and they are of good quality, easy drinking, and food-friendly.

Vidal Fleury is the Rhône Valley’s oldest continuously operating winery, grower and negotiant. Founded in 1781 in Ampuis by Joseph Vidal-Fleury, it has had a glorious past that includes serving as host to Thomas Jefferson in 1787 when he toured France to learn about wines and winemaking.

Since the 1980s it has been owned by the family of Etiéne Guigal but is operated as an independent firm. Starting with the 2009 vintage, Vidal Fleury began producing their wines in a newly constructed winemaking facility that promises to improve the quality of their wines in the coming years.

Vidal Fleury wines are imported by W.J. Deutsch & Sons, White Plains, NY

Tasting Notes and Ratings:

Vidal-Fleury 2009 Viognier Cotes Du Rhone ($14) 87+

This Côtes du Rhone is a 100% Viognier aged sur lies in tank for six months. It is pleasant tasting and easy drinking with good stone fruit flavor and roundness in the mouth and a crisp finish.

Vidal-Fleury 2009 Côtes du Rhône rosé ($14) 88
This is a flavorful rosé composed of 50% Cinsault, 30% Syrah and 20% Grenache. Light ruby orange in color, it offers fresh fruit aromas and a crisp palate of spicy red raspberry fruit flavors. It is fresh tasting with medium-plus acidity and a lasting finish.

Vidal-Fleury 2009 Côtes du Ventoux ($13) 87

This Ventoux, a blend of 60% Syrah, 30% Grenache and 10% Mourvedre is a pleasantly fruity wine with light aromas and flavors of dark cherry and plum. It is medium weight, has youthful gripping tannins on the palate and on the finish.

Vidal-Fleury 2007 Côtes du Rhone Red ($13) 87+

The Cotes du Rhone is a blend of 65% Grenache, 20% Syrah, 10% Mourvedre and 5% Carignan. It offers up dark red fruit aromas and flavors with spicy notes. It is lightly fruited on the palate with light tannins and a short finish. This wine has had the benefit of age.

Vidal-Fleury 2007 Crozes Hermitage Red ($23) 87

The 2007 Crozes-Hermitage is 100% Syrah partially aged in oak for 6 months. It is a fruit forward peppery wine with flavors of plum, black cherry and herbs. It is medium weight on the palate and reveals crisp acidity on the finish.

Vidal-Fleury 2007 Saint Joseph ($29) 88

The Saint-Joseph is 100% Syrah and offers a nose of black cherry and plum fruit, earth and leather. It is pleasantly fruity but also has some complexity of licorice, herbs and earth. A very pleasant savory wine.

Vidal-Fleury 2008 Muscat de Baumes-De-Venise ($34 / 375ml) 89
A 100% Muscat Blanc a’ Petits Grains, this pleasant tasting moderately sweet dessert wine offers fresh aromas of white flowers, rose pedals, and passion fruit. It has a honeyed mouth feel and is fresh, delicious and easy-drinking. This is a superb wine for serving with soft white cheese, crème brulée, and figs.

Nicolas Feuillatte Champagne: A Spring Tasting at the Four Seasons

2011-04-15T12:58:00.004-04:00

Jean Pierre Vincent, winemaker at Nicolas Feuillatte, presented a special Rosé Champagne tasting at the Washington DC Four Seasons this week as part of his 2011 Winemaker Tour. Jean Pierre is retiring next year, so this was a great opportunity to meet him and to taste the most recent vintages of Nicolas Feuillatte. Our last comprehensive tasting of these Champagnes was for the IWR Report # 9 Champagne of December 2007.

The Rosé Champagne tasting consisted of 5 Champagnes: the Rosé Non-Vintage, the 2004 Cuvée 225 Rosé, the 2000 Palmes d’Or Rosé and the 2003 Palmes d’Or Rosé. Our favorite by far was the Cuvée 225 Rosé, a rich tasting, elegantly styled Champagne with lovely yeast and delicate raspberry aromas, and a long satisfying finish. Re-tasting the 2000 Palmes d’Or Rosé was also a treat. The Champagne was light and delicate when we tasted it three years ago, and it remains so today. The 2003 Palmes d’Or Rosé revealed the ripeness of that warm vintage year.

The Rosé Champagne tasting was followed by lunch served with an additional four Nicolas Feuillatte Champagnes. The Champagne and food pairing consisted of:

Ahi Tuna Tartare with the crisp, fresh 2004 Blanc de Blancs ($35)

Sustainable Shrimp with the delicious 2003 Cuvée 225 ($85)

Crisp Stuffed Quali with the elegant 1999 Palmes D’Or ($135)

Lavender Scented French Toast and Kiwi, Elderflower and Pistachio with the Rosé Brut ($45)

Pictured here: Publisher Mike Potashnik toasting Jean Pierre Vincent at the Four Seasons lunch.

We thank Jean Pierre Vincent for his visit. We also thank Pascal Boyé, Nicolas Feuillatte USA Sales Director, and Pamela Wittmann, Millisime Ltd., for the information they provided.

Pinot Noir of Patagonia: Chacra and "Food and Wine"

2011-04-13T15:56:00.005-04:00

Bodega Chacra makes Argentina’s finest Pinot Noir from some of Patagonia’s oldest vineyards in the Río Negro Valley. In preparation for our just released report The Diverse Wines of Argentina, we traveled to Río Negro to learn more about Chacra. We aren’t the only ones to discover the Pinot Noir of Chacra. The current issue of "Food and Wine" magazine also has an article on Chacra.

The story behind Chacra and its relation to Noemia is a fascinating one. Food and Wine gives all the credit for the wine to owner Piero Incisa della Rocchetta (of the Tuscan family that created Sassicaia). Unfortunately, the name of the individual who first discovered the vineyard and makes the wine for Piero isn’t even mentioned.

Born in the wine country of Stellenbosch, South Africa, Hans Vinding-Diers has wine in his veins. He is the cousin of Peter Sisseck of Pingus and has made wine in South Africa (Rustenberg, Finlaysons), Australia (Tyrells), Hungary and France. In 1998, Río Negro’s oldest winery, Humberto Canale, asked him to help improve their winemaking.

Among the wines he helped make was a Pinot Noir from Canale’s estate vineyards. Hans and his partner, the countess Noemi Marone Cinzano, fell in love with Patagonia and began searching for the perfect vineyard to make their own wine. They finally found an old, semi-abandoned, self-rooted (pie franco) vineyard in the Valle Azul, about a half hour’s drive south of Río Negro’s principal city of General Roca. They purchased it and renamed it Noemia. The wines that Hans crafts from Noemia’s vineyards are among the elite Malbecs of Argentina. [See our tasting notes in the just released Report #26.]

Adjacent to the Malbec vineyard that Hans and the Countess rehabilitated were two old blocks of Pinot Noir, one planted in 1932 and another in 1955. Piero, who is a cousin of the Countess, had tasted the Pinot Noir Hans had made for Canale and realized the potential of the region for making excellent wines from this difficult grape. In 2004 he purchased the old 1932 Pinot block and the following year the 1955 block and began the work of renovating them. The first wines were produced in 2006. Today, Hans makes the wines for Piero. We tasted the wines with Piero prior to our trip, and while in Río Negro we tasted three wines from the 2009 vintage: Barda, Cincuenta y Cinco, and Treinta y Dos. We gave the 2009 Treinta y Dos Pinot Noir the highest rating ever for a Pinot Noir from South America. [See our tasting notes in Report # 26].

On our recent trip to Patagonia, Oscar Ruben Ferrari, general manager of Noemia, took us on a tour of the Noemia and Chacra vineyards. What is striking about the vineyards is they are so successful while rejecting the conventional wisdom. The vineyards use flood irrigation using the canals constructed one hundred years ago rather than more modern drip irrigation. The water table is high, just 3 meters below the surface. And, instead of being poor, thin hillside soils, the land is deep alluvial clay. Hans and Piero have managed to craft some of Argentina’s most special wines from a most unlikely place.

Importer of Bodega Chacra: Kobrand Corporation

The Best of Bonarda: Argentina’s Second Red

2011-04-09T22:24:00.004-04:00

A principal theme of Report # 26 The Diverse Wines of Argentina is the variety of wines and the multitude of winemaking regions in Argentina. The Bonarda grape, which twenty years ago was the most widely planted grape in the country, is part of that diversity. Bonarda is a grape that is largely unknown outside Argentina, but it is the backbone of most wine produced for domestic consumption, and it can produce quite attractive, easy drinking wines. In our tastings and our travels in Argentina, we tasted over 600 wines. We found a number of Bonarda and Bonarda Blend wines that we liked a lot. There’s a list of our favorites [all rated 88 or above] at the bottom of this article.

In 1990 Bonarda was the most widely planted varietal in Argentina with 10.2 thousand hectares compared with 9.6 for Malbec. However, with the tremendous success of Malbec over the past decade, by 2009 Malbec plantings had increased to 24 thousand hectares, compared to 19 thousand for Bonarda. Bonarda is planted all over Mendoza with some concentration in the eastern region.

Origins

There is still much confusion about the origin of Argentine Bonarda. For many years, experts weren’t sure whether this grape was actually Bonarda Piedmontese, which comes from the Piedmont region in Italy, or whether it was Bonarda Novarese also from Piedmont and known as Uva Rara. Still others claimed it was Oltrepo Pavese, also know as Croatina in the Veneto or the “dulce nero “ Dolcetto. Recent research by French and Argentine ampelographers has now shown that Argentine Bonarda is most likely the rare French grape Corbeau from Savoie and may be related to California’s Charbono.

Most Bonarda, as noted above, is currently planted in vineyards in the eastern region of Mendoza. This region has a dry, warm and sunny climate, relatively deep alluvial soils, and abundant water for flood irrigation. Bonarda grows vigorously under these conditions, and careful vineyard management is required to avoid over cropping and dilute, low quality fruit. Bonarda is thin skinned, has tight clusters, and is susceptible to rot, so the dry dessert-like conditions in eastern Mendoza help maintain healthy fruit.

Styles

For a large part of its history, Bonarda was used as a blending grape, or to make pink wines. Today it is also being produced as a single varietal in a variety of styles. The most common style is one that is easy-drinking and juicy, offering aromas and flavors of black cherry, raspberry and plum. Wines in this style are generally dark in color with a velvet texture and round tannins; they are usually sourced from high yielding vineyards, fermented in stainless steel with little or no oak and are offered in a “joven” or young style, at budget prices by Alamos, Argento, Hector Meli, Nuno, Tilia and other wineries.

Bonarda is also being produced in a somewhat more interesting format with more complexity and nuance. These wines are sourced from old Bonarda vines, different vineyards, and are often aged in oak. The Trapiche Broquel Bonarda, for example, is a blend of grapes from old vineyards of the Valle de Uco, Ugarteche and Santa Rosa and spends 9 months in barrel. Others of interest include the Altos Las Hormigas Colonia las Liebres, the Ksana Bonarda, and those of Nieto Senetiner, Valle de la Puerta and Zuccardi. To our knowledge, there are no super premium single varietal Bonarda being produced in Argentina today, but there are some high quality blends.

Bonarda performs extremely well as a blending grape, providing color and flavor to red blends. It is commonly co-fermented with Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Malbec, sometimes taking the lead role and in other cases a smaller share. The Tikal Patriota is one of the more successful blends; it is composed of 60% Bonarda and 40% Malbec aged in oak with fruit from Rivadavia and Altamira. Bodega Vistalba and Kaiken combine Bonarda with Malbec, and either Cabernet Sauvignon or Petit Verdot.

The Future of Bonarda

There is a spirited debate about the future of Bonarda, the question being, will it play a significant role in the diversification of Argentina’s wine production. And, will it ever be as successful as Malbec? These are questions we explore in Report #26. Wine writer Oz Clark may be right in noting that, “Bonarda could easily be Argentina’s Beaujolais, and Bonarda Reserva could easily do the job of Beaujolais’ top ‘Cru’ villages.” Needless to say, there is a lot of Bonarda available to do the job and the price per ton or kilo is one quarter the price of Malbec, which translates into very affordable prices on the store shelf.

Best Bonardas of Argentina
[full tasting notes available to subscribers at iwinereview.com]

Bonarda

Altos Las Hormigas 2009 Bonarda Colonia Las Liebres Lujan de Cuyo ($10)
Argento 2009 Bonarda Mendoza ($10)
Ksana 2009 Bonarda Mendoza ($18)
Nieto Sentiner 2008 Reserva Partida Limitada Mendoza ($28)
Tilia 2009 Bonarda Mendoza ($9)
Trapiche 2009 Broquel Bonarda ($15)
Valle de la Puerta 2009 La Puerta Bonarda Reserva Valle de Famatina La Rioja ($15)
Zuccardi 2009 Emma Zuccardi Bonarda , Mendoza ($15)

Bonarda Blends

Crios de Susana Balbo 2008 Syrah-Bonarda Mendoza ($15)
Kaiken 2008 Malbec bonarda Petit Verdot ($16)
Tikal 2008 Patriota Mendoza ($20)

This is one in a series of articles on Argentine wine. Click on the following for articles on Torrontés, Late Harvest Malbec, Humberto Canale, Familia Schroeder, and Argentina's President of Education (and Wine).

Sarmiento: Presidente de Vino (y de Educación) de Argentina

2011-04-01T22:02:00.006-04:00

Elected President in 1868, Domingo Sarmiento is the father of the Argentine public education system. He also played a catalytic role in the development of Argentine wine, thanks to Chile and Napoleon. Politically active in a time of great turmoil in Argentina, Sarmiento spent several years in exile in Chile prior to being elected President. While there he created and became director of Chile’s first teacher training institution, the Escuela Normal de Preceptores, in 1842. He also was an active member of Chile’s Sociedad Nacional de Agricultura and was instrumental in creating the Quinta Normal de Agricultura in 1841. It was in this context that he came to know the French agronomist Miguel Aimé Pouget. Pouget was himself a political exile, a Republican who fled France after Napoleon’s putsch of 1852.

With the advice of Sarmiento, the Governor of Mendoza in 1853 created the Mendoza Quinta Normal de Agricultura and named Pouget as its first director. Pouget arrived in Mendoza bringing samples of European varietals from Chile, probably including Malbec. While the Quinta Normal had a short life, Pouget remained in Mendoza his entire life tending his vineyard and teaching viticulture.

Sarmiento meanwhile moved to Buenos Aires and became chief editor of the national newspaper El Nacional. In 1862 he returned to his birthplace, San Juan, where as Governor he created the San Juan Quinta Normal de Agricultura and, also, passed Argentina’s first law mandating that all children attend primary school. In 1868 he was elected President of the nation and left his most important legacy as Argentina’s “education President”. But Argentine wine lovers are more likely to remember him as the "President of Wine".

Much more on the history of wine in Argentina in Report # 26 The Diverse Wines of Argentina. Also, see our articles on Torrontés, Late Harvest Malbec, and several earlier blogs as well as articles on our web site.

Saludos a todos los educadores.

Spann Vineyards: An Innovative Producer's New Releases February 2011

2011-03-31T21:02:00.008-04:00

Peter and Betsy Spann (pictured here) own and operate a wonderful, boutique winery in the Maycamas Mountains of Sonoma. We've been reviewing their wines for several years now. The Spanns dry farm their vineyards and strive for low yields, in some cases as little as one ton per acre. All of the Spann wines are handcrafted in very small quantities using both New and Old World winemaking techniques (foot crushing, blending, destemming). We think this winery is proving to be an innovative producer of high quality, food-friendly California-style wines. Both the whites and the reds are showing well. Our previous reviews of Spann wines are available by Search on our home page.

Spann Vineyards 2008 Chardonnay-Viognier North Coast ($20) 89

This blend of 54% Chardonnay and 46% Viognier offers aromas of stone fruit and melon and a creamy mouth feel with ripe fruit flavors. The wine is rich tasting with a faintly astringent mid-palate and a long crisp finish. Chardonnay and Viognier blend well in this wine.

Spann Vineyards 2008 Mo Zin California ($20) 89+

The 2008 Mo Zin is an attractive blend of Zinfandel, Mourvedre, Petite Sirah, Primativo and Syrah. It exhibits a dark ruby color and aromas of ripe plum fruit with hints of toasted oak and pepper. It is nicely balanced with a velvet texture, round light tannins and a long finish. A delicious wine with good richness of color and flavor and ideal for grilled meats.

Spann Vineyards 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Mayacamas Range, Sonoma ($35) 91

This is a delicious Cabernet Sauvignon that offers aromas of pure blackberries and black currant fruit that are mirrored on the palate. Ripe and rich tasting on the palate, it offers wonderful black fruit flavors with notes of sweet chocolate, a silky mouth feel, round tannins and a long finish. We have enjoyed tasting this wine over the years; it is a real winner.

Best Wines Values from Chile Under $15: From A (Albamar) to X (Xplorador)

2011-03-06T09:17:00.006-05:00

Chile has a reputation for delivering excellent wine values at all price points. Here we list our favorites among recently tasted, low-priced wines. In Report # 21 The Chilean Wine Revolution, we evaluated wines priced $15 and above and marveled at their overall quality. Since then we’ve tasted a large number of Chilean wines under $15, and, once again, we’ve found remarkable quality for the price. Even more remarkable, Chile’s wines just keep getting better and better.

How can Chile make such great wines at such low prices? One important reason is economies of scale. Chile has one of the world’s most highly concentrated wine industries—a very few, large wineries account for a high percentage of production and of exports. These large wineries are professionally run and increasingly oriented to producing quality wines, rather than short run profits. Second is winemaking skill. Chile’s excellent faculties of enology are producing large numbers of well-trained, young winemakers who complement, and will soon replace, the pioneers of the industry. And the third reason is terroir.

Twenty years ago Chile’s inexpensive wine came mostly from its hot Central Valley (Valle Central). Today, as a result of systematic searching, Chilean producers have found the best sites to grow specific varietals. This is illustrated by a quick perusal of the origins of our favorite wines. Almost all our favorite white wines are made with fruit from the Casablanca Valley, located near the sea, or Bío Bío, located far to the South. Excepting Pinot Noir, the red wines are sourced from warmer climes—Cabernet Sauvignon from the Valle Central, Carignane from Maule, Syrah from Rapel.

Our highest rated wines under $15 are listed below by varietal (with vineyard locations in parentheses). Detailed reviews and additional information on these wines can be found in our wine review articles and our blogs on Casillero del Diablo, Emiliana, Llai Llai, Meli, and Xplorador. Tastings and ratings of all Chilean wines can also be found in our Search Engine.

Best Chilean White Wines Under $15

Chardonnay: Albamar 2010 (Casablanca), Llai Llai 2008 (Bío Bío)

Sauvignon Blanc: Casillero del Diablo 2010 (Casablanca), Cono Sur 2010 (San Antonio Valley), Emiliana Natura 2010 (Casablanca), Viña Peñalolen 2010 (Casablanca)

Riesling: Cono Sur 2009 (Bío Bío)

Viognier: Casillero del Diablo 2008 (Casablanca)

Best Chilean Red Wines Under $15

Cabernet Sauv.: Casillero del Diablo 2009 (Valle Central), Emiliana Natura 2009 (Valle Central), Xplorador 2009 (Valle Central)

Carmenere: Cono Sur 2009 (Colchagua), Xplorador 2009 (Valle Central)

Carignane: Meli 2008 (Maule)

Pinot Noir: Llai Llai 2008 (Bío Bío)

Red Blends: Casillero del Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon –Syrah 2008 (Maipo), Los Maquis Calcu 2008 (Colchagua)

Syrah: Casillero del Diablo 2009 (Rapel), Emiliana Natura 2009 (Rapel)

Map courtesy of Banfi Vintners.

Chopin and Octagon at Barboursville: Wine and Music Pairing

2011-02-24T06:21:00.003-05:00

Everyone talks about wine and food pairing. But what about wine and music pairing? We discovered this entirely new area of inquiry quite by accident yesterday. Luca Paschina, winemaker at Barboursville, invited us to a vertical tasting of the winery’s superb red blend Octagon. We tasted a decade of vintages from 1998 to 2008 accompanied by the music of Chopin, played by Ingolf Wunder, the 25 year old Austrian wunderkind who came in at the top of the 16th International Chopin Competition held in Warsaw last year.

The wine and music pairing was quite by accident. We arrived at Barboursville’s hall to taste wine at the same time Ingolf arrived to rehearse the concert he’s giving this evening at the winery, sponsored by the Chopin Foundation of the US. [The $150 thousand Yamaha grand had arrived from Carnegie Hall the day before.] We discussed wine and music, since Ingolf was interested in the report we recently published on Austrian wine and since we are interested in the recording of his music that Deutsch Grammophon will be releasing later this year.

Then we both settled down to our work, Ingolf playing Chopin and we tasting Octagon. We can report that the pairing was superb. The Chopin you can hear for yourself on YouTube. And we’re happy to report the wine matched the music in quality and character. Octagon is a predominantly Merlot – Cabernet Franc blend sourced from Barboursville’s best vineyard parcels and judiciously oaked before aging in bottle. The 2006 vintage, the current release, is incredibly good. Despite their New World origin, these wines are reminiscent of the Old World with their elegant, savory character. Chopin would have approved. Tasted blind, many would think the provenance of these wines to be Bordeaux. We’ll later be providing a full report on the vertical tasting on our website.

Inevitably, our descriptions of the wines were influenced by Ingar’s playing. We found ourselves describing the wines as being espressivo with a palate both legato and at times focoso. There were no disturbing staccato or capriccioso elements, but taken together the wines formed a rondo, with similar notes replayed across the years. [And please excuse the tortured use of these musical terms.]

Photo courtesy of chopin2010.pl

Wines to Warm the Winter Spirit

2011-02-12T16:13:00.012-05:00

Sweet wines used to be the most sought after and expensive wines in the world. The framers of the Declaration of Independence toasted their success with Madeira. [According to one report, 54 bottles of Madeira and 22 bottles of Port were consumed in the celebration.] The Habsburgs favored Ruster Ausbruch from Austria’s Lake Neusiedl region. And Napoleon had a preference for South Africa’s Vin de Constance. Even Champagne was typically drunk sweet until well into the 20th century.

Of course, everything has its day, and sweet wines today are not fashionable, excepting something like the ultra-expensive Sauternes, Chateau d’Yquem. This means that consumers who like dessert wines can purchase some of the most special wines in the world at bargain prices.

That’s not to say that sweet wines are cheap. They aren’t. They usually come from vineyards with extremely low yields, and the grapes are almost always hand-picked. The need to select only the very ripest grapes sometimes requires that a given vineyard parcel be picked several times over.

Unfortunately, sweet wines are so seldom drunk these days that most consumers don’t know how to drink them. Contrary to popular opinion, they seldom go well with very sweet desserts. Rather, they are at their best when drunk with savory foods like liver pate, a variety of cheeses, and lightly sweet desserts like shortbread cookies, biscotti, and fruit tarts. And they go equally well at the beginning of a meal as they do at the end.

Types of Sweet Wine. All sweet wine has a fair amount of residual sugar, but that’s about all they have in common. They’re made in many different ways from a large number of varietals. The most important distinction is between wines that are fortified (e.g., Madeira, Port, Banyuls) and those that are not (e.g., Icewine, Trockenbeerenauslese, Sauternes). The former are made by adding alcohol to the wine, which stops the fermentation, leaving the wine sweet and higher in alcohol than table wines. The fermentation of unfortified wines is also stopped, often by chilling the wine, before all the sugar can be converted to alcohol, leaving a sweet wine that is lower in alcohol than table wines. Sometimes the sugar content of the grapes is so high that fermentation stops of its own accord.

Sweet wines also differ in the way they are produced to concentrate the juice and sugar. Grapes are sometimes frozen (icewine), or dried on the vine (passerillé) or on mats (straw wine), or affected by noble rot (botrytis), or purposely exposed to air (rancio) so the wine takes on the nutty characteristics of sherry. One wine—Hungary’s Tokaji—is made by adding a sweet grape paste to a dry base wine.

Our Recommendations. If you haven’t tried a sweet wine recently, we strongly recommend you do so. And please don’t leave sweet wine just for the end of the meal when taste buds are already sated. A well-chilled Moscato from any of several countries or a Canadian Riesling Icewine is perfect as an aperitif. Pictured here is the exotic Inniskillin Sparkling Vidal Icewine. Try French Sauternes with liver pate or a Vouvray Moelleux with goat cheese souffle for a starter. If you want to wait until dessert, try Tuscan Vin Santo with biscotti cookies or an Austrian or German Beerenauslese with a double-cream cheese or a fresh fruit tart. Another traditional after-dinner pairing is Vintage Port or Banyuls with a strong, blue cheese or a flourless chocolate cake. Finally, there are some dessert wines that are so viscous and sweet that they need to be drunk by themselves in lieu of dessert. These include the intensely sweet and densely flavored Austrian or German Trockenbeerenauslese or a Tokaji of five or more puttonyos (a measure of the wine’s sweetness).

There are many, many other unique sweet and dessert wines that can be found at your neighborhood wine store. Be adventurous and try something different, including one of the excellent sweet wines made in Virginia or New York. The International Wine Review will be issuing a special report on Sweet and Dessert Wines later this year.

Austria’s Grüner Veltliner: The Best Wines Under $15

2011-02-09T07:31:00.004-05:00

Grüner Veltliner is the national grape of Austria and one of the world’s elite white wine grapes. The best examples of Grüner are expensive, but many delicious bottlings can be found at affordable prices. We recently tasted hundreds of Grüners for our Report # 25, the Wines of Austria. In this article, we’ve selected the very best wines that are imported to the US and cost $15 or less.

Many consumers are only familiar with the simplest style of Grüner Veltliner, which is light, fresh, lively and delicate wines, often sold in liter bottles, and generally comes from vines grown in loess or sandstone soils, often from the large Weinviertel region north and west of Vienna. These wines usually cost less than $15/bottle and are excellent values. But very good, more complex wines can also be found in this price range, often from some of the best locations in the Lower Danube and elsewhere in Austria.

Our ten highest scoring wines under $15 are listed below with our point evaluations. The full reviews of these and other wines can be found in Report # 25 and on our data base at iwinereview.com.

THE INTERNATIONAL WINE REVIEW’S TEN BEST INEXPENSIVE GRUNER VELTLINERS

Schloss Gobelsburg 2009 Grüner Veltliner Gobelsburger Kamptal 90 A bargain from one of the most famous producers of Grüner Veltliner in all of Austria.

Anton Bauer 2009 Gmork Wagram 89 A superb value from organically grown grapes.

Machherndl 2009 Grüner Veltliner Federspiel Kollmitz Wachau 89 This 8th generation family winery produces this wine from Kollmitz, one of the Wachau’s most famous vineyards.

Ecker 2009 Grüner Veltliner Wagram 88+ Ecker is a small, family winery that specializes in Grüner Veltliner.

Steinfeld 2009 Grüner Veltliner Neiderösterreich 88+ This very good Grüner is made by the highly respected Stadt Krems Cooperative for Winebow.

Glatzer 2009 Grüner Veltliner Freiheit Carnuntum 88 Not all good Grüner is made in the Lower Danube; this one comes from the Carnuntum region located east of Vienna.

Schwarzböck 2009 Grüner Veltliner Weinviertel 88 This wine, made in a village just outside Vienna, shows lots of Grüner character.

Setzer 2009 Grüner Veltliner Weinviertel 88 This is another example of an excellent Grüner from the Weinviertel region.

Steininger 2009 Grüner Veltliner Kamptal 88 A delicious Grüner showing chalk and minerals from the winery associated with Austria’s famous Loisium wine museum.

Humberto Canale: Railroads, Canals, and Wine in Rio Negro

2011-02-01T18:06:00.006-05:00

Wine in the part of Patagonia that is now officially called the Alto Valle del Rio Negro has a fascinating history that culminates in today’s excellent and often elegant Malbec, Pinot Noir and other wines. While the region still has few wineries, it has some of the most famous in all of Argentina—Chacra, Noemia, and, of course, Humberto Canale.

Rio Negro’s wine history begins with the 1879 Campaña del Desierto, led by General Roca, after whom the town in the Rio Negro Valley is named. The Campaña del Desierto is a euphemism for what was the eradication of the indigenous population of the pampas to clear the way for development by Argentine’s of European descent.

Shortly after the famous Campaña, in the late 19th century, the English constructed a railroad (El Ferrocarril del Sud) running from the Atlantic Coast to Neuquén, paving the way for further development of the Rio Negro Valley. Recognizing the potential of the area for growing orchard fruit, the railroad was quickly followed by construction of a dike and canals to irrigate the valley using the water of the Rio Negro. Plans were developed and by the early 1920s a system of canals had been constructed creating an oasis 8 km wide and 110 km long.

One of the hydraulic engineers brought in to help plan and construct the canals was young Humberto Canale who purchased land from General Roca to plant vines (Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Merlot, Semillon, etc.) and later founded his winery. That winery is today almost 100 years old.

President Guillermo Barzi (pictured here on the right) and winemaker Horacio Bibiloni (on the left) graciously received us at the winery last week. Guillermo gave us a brief history lesson, complete with map and pointer, and Horacio led us through the winery’s current portfolio. We’ll report our evaluations of the wines in our upcoming report on the wines of Argentina. Suffice it to say, we were very pleased with what we saw and tasted. The wines—especially, the Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Malbec—have all gained in elegance and complexity since our last tasting five years ago thanks in part to the advice of two of Argentina’s most famous consulting winemakers, Susana Balbo and Pedro Marchevski.

Familia Schroeder: Wine and Dinosaurs in Neuquén

2011-01-26T05:58:00.006-05:00

Roberto Schroeder’s ancestors emigrated from Germany in the early 19th century. Today Roberto is another kind of pioneer, developing an ultra-modern winery in Neuquén, a Patagonian province not previously known for fine wine. The area he selected, San Patricio del Chañar, is located in the Neuquén River valley with an ample supply of water for irrigation of apples, pears, and grape vines.

Roberto (pictured here showing us how green harvesting is done in his vineyard)was one of several other investors who took the plunge when in 2001 the Provincial Government of Neuquén decided to use some of its ample petroleum revenues to diversify the economy by providing financial incentives to create a modern wine industry from scratch. With his experience growing orchard fruit in the valley, he knew the area had potential, but the risks were sizeable, too.

Today, the Familia Schroeder winery has 130 hectares of vines producing about 100 thousand cases of wine per year, half of which is exported. The climate is desert-like, with predominantly alluvial soils resulting in part from the glacier that covered the valley in the last ice age. Heavier, clay like soils are found closer to the river, while very poor, rocky soils are found in the higher altitudes (350 m) of the vineyard.

The winery is increasingly recognized for its fine wines, but it first gained fame for something quite different. During construction of the winery, the remains of a dinosaur called Aeolosaurus were discovered, and today they remain where they were found in a special exhibition in the ground floor of the winery.

And the wines? We tasted through most of the Familia Schroeder portfolio, including the top of the line Familia Schroeder bottlings, the Alpataco and Alpataco Reserve wines sold in the US, and some fine sparkling wines. A very sweet, sparkling Torrontes called Deseado and a Cremánt styled Pinot Noir called Rosa de los Vientos are both very successful. They’re having special success with both Chardonnay and Malbec. Winemaker Leonardo Puppato (pictured here), who has been with Familia Schroeder since the beginning, is making beautifully balanced wines with very judicious use of oak and putting just enough of the Chardonnay through malolactic fermentation to gain a creamy mouthfeel accompanied by refreshing acidity. The winemaking at Familia Schroeder is first-rate.

We’ll provide reviews of all the Famiia Schroeder wines in our upcoming Argentine report.

The Wines of Galilee and the Judean Hills in Israel

2011-01-22T17:36:00.003-05:00

Galilee (near Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee on the map) and the Judaen Hills (near Jerusalem) are the locus of Israel’s new boutique wineries, which are making world-class wines. Small producers like Margalit, Flam, Tulip, Pelter, Tzora and Adir are making delicious wines from Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Merlot. We’ve tasted a number of these wines recently and are impressed by their quality. Many, but not all, of the wines are imported. While prices are high in general, good values can be found. The superb red blend Margalit 2006 Enigma Kadita & Binyamin Vineyards from Galilee costs $80, but we gave it a very high 92 points on our 100 point scale. On the other hand, we also gave 92 points to the most excellent Tulip 2007 Syrah Reserve from Galilee, and it costs just $39. Full reviews can be found on our home page.

Zumot’s Revival of the Petra Wine Tradition

2011-01-12T12:11:00.006-05:00

Two thousand years ago, vineyards grew on the plains of present-day Jordan and produced the wines consumed by the Nabateans of Petra. Recently discovered cave paintings (shown here) and the Qasr Al-Bint Temple [pictured below] dedicated to the Nabatean’s chief god Dashara, related to the Greek god of wine Dionysus, provide evidence of the important role of wine in Petra.

After touring Petra today, I retreated to my hotel in Amman to partake of modern Jordanian wine made by Omar Zumot. Producing and selling wine in a 95 percent teetotaling country is a challenge, but the Zumot wines, especially the Winemaker’s Selection line, are world class. Produced in high altitude, very low yielding, organically certified vineyards, these wines are an extremely pleasant surprise to the traveler in Jordan. Unfortunately, it’s neither easy to export alcoholic beverages from Jordan nor to find foreign markets for wine from a country that ceased producing it in the 7th century AD. But those who love and are curious about wine should definitely try Zumot Wines wherever they may find them. [Not in the US, unfortunately!]

Don

Concha y Toro Explorador Wine Reviews: Saving in 2011

2010-12-31T10:33:00.004-05:00

A lot of people make New Year’s Resolutions they can’t possibly keep, like “I’m going to stop drinking good wine, and save my money for a 96 inch LCD-LED, HD 3D TV.” Well, to mix metaphors, now you can have your cake and drink it, too, while watching that new TV. All you have to do is find good quality wine that costs almost nothing.

Concha y Toro rides to the rescue. Anyone in the know is already familiar with Concha y Toro, Chile’s single largest producer and exporter and the producer of wines covering every conceivable price point.

Last year in Santiago we sat down with Concha y Toro’s chief winemaker, Marcelo Papa, to taste through almost the full range of wines. We reported the results of that tasting in Report # 21 The Chilean Wine Revolution. However, we failed to taste and report on Concha y Toro’s line of entry level wines, Xplorador. With this article we attempt to remedy the error.

Xplorador wines have suggested retail prices under $10 a bottle, which translates into something less at your local neighborhood big box, super discount store. How, you ask, can a respectable winery like Concha y Toro make such inexpensive wines? There are lots of reasons, of course, but one is that the fruit for most of these wines is sourced from Chile’s Central Valley where yields can be high. Then, under the direction of expert winemaker Tito Urzia, that fruit is fermented and aged in large stainless steel tanks, not expensive, small French oak barriques.

Don’t kid yourself. This process isn’t going to produce Chateau Margaux or even Marquis de la Casa Concha. But you can get perfectly good, drinkable wines. We just tasted through the Xplorador portofolio, and what dd we find? To start with, all the wines are very drinkable, not surprising given the reputations of Marcelo Papa and Tito Urzia. But some wines were better, much better, than others. The Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere and Malbec are our favorites.

All the wines share a common house style—a real focus on fruit. Nothing complicated, not particularly nuanced, just pure, plain good fruit. This makes them easy drinking, either as an aperitif or with a meal. Their sweet fruity character should be especially appealing to young people who are perhaps moving out of the sweet soda pop stage into something a tad more complicated. These aren’t your mother’s [grandmother’s?] white zinfandel. Our notes follow:

Xplorador 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Central Valley Chile
A fruit forward style Cabernet Sauvignon showing mostly red plum and berry fruit on the nose with just a hint of brambles and earth. The palate is soft, and full of fresh fruit. As one might expect from a wine at this price point, it’s a straight- forward, uncomplicated beverage, but it’s also surprisingly tasty, balanced and easy to drink. Aged 70% in stainless steel and 30% in used American oak. Score one for the consumer! Great value.

Xplorador 2009 Merlot Central Valley
This is a wine that definitely needs to be drunk with food. It has nice red plum fruit on the nose and palate, but it also has a green herbal note that is quite prominent when drinking the wine by itself but can nicely complement the right kind of food (think brussel sprouts, asparagus, and other vegetarian fare).

Xplorador 2010 Malbec Mendoza
This is another very tasty wine in the Xplorado lineup. It shows cherry and raspberry aromas and vibrant fruit on the palate. It’s quite delicious, albeit lighter than the typical Malbec coming out of Argentina. The tannins are ripe and suave. This is a pretty wine in the best sense of the word. A real bargain.

Xplorador 2009 Chardonnay Central Valley
A lightly fragrant wine showing notes of pear and summer melon on the nose. The palate is balanced and clean with orchard fruit flavors, and an off-dry finish. It ends up tasting a tad sweet, which will be appealing to a lot of people. Be sure to serve this wine very cold.

Xplorador 2009 Sauvignon Blanc Central Valley
Has a pleasant nose with aromas of citrus and fresh peas. It’s fresh with brisk acidity on the attack, and light on the mid-palate. It’s preferable to many Pinot Grigios one finds at Italian sidewalk cafes. Has decent length on the finish and a fair amount of residual sugar.

Xplorador 2009 Carmenere Central Valley
The Carmenere shows aromas of red plum, bell pepper, and white pepper spice. It’s soft and flavorful on the attack with a nice long cherry fruit finish and a surprisingly flavorful palate. The bell pepper on the nose doesn’t carry through to the palate. It’s surprisingly good, flavorful and pure. Aged in 60 percent stainless steel and 40 percent used American and French oak. The pure red fruit flavors more than compensate for a slightly weak mid-palate. Superb value!

Sparkling Wine and Champagne Reviews (Moderately Priced and Luxury Cuvées) for the Holidays

2010-12-20T15:02:00.004-05:00

Continuing our earlier post on inexpensive sparklers, we offer our recommendations on higher priced sparkling wines for the Holidays.

Moderately Priced. Since there is such an abundance of moderately priced sparkling wines from all over the world, we limit our recommendations to those you may not know. As with inexpensive sparklers, the vintage date isn’t important on most of these wines. We recently returned from Austria and found some excellent Champagne-style wines made from Austrian varietals like Grüner Veltliner and Welschriesling. One that is widely available is the Steininger NV Grüner Veltliner Sekt ($24). We also recently tasted some French sparkling wines made outside Champagne that we especially like. From Burgundy and made with Pinot Noir grapes in an elegant creamy style are the Domaine Michel Sarrazin Crémant de Bourgogne ($25) and Charles Duret’s Cremant de Bourgogne Rosé ($20). And from Alsace there is the powerful and lush Wolfberger Crémant dÁlsace Brut ($20). From America we highly recommend a superb sparkling wine from Virginia called TJ Virginia Fizz ($23). It is a crémant style wine made from 100% Chardonnay by the talented team of Claude Thibaut and Manuel Janisson in Charlottesville, VA. It has fresh apple aromas and flavors with a yeasty creamy palate filled with fruit and has a long finish. Finally, if you’d like try something from the Southern Hemisphere, we recommend an attractive rosé sparkler showing pretty light red berry fruit, the Graham Beck Brut Rosé ($19).

Luxury Cuvées. There are a lot of wonderful wines to choose from in this category. Champagne usually heads the luxury list, but in fact, there are lots of other top quality sparklers you can enjoy. It is hard to go wrong with Champagne because there are so many wonderful producers. It really all a matter of taste and the price you are willing to pay. We like non-vintage and vintage Pol Roger, Henriot, Champagne Roland Champion, Champagne Trouillard, and Taittinger, to name but a few. The NV Champagne Roland Champion Blanc de Blancs ($66) is a rich yeasty wine offering attractive lemon citrus aromas and flavors. Taittinger is recognized worldwide for producing some of the finest Champagnes available. The Taittinger Brut La Française ($35) is an attractive, rich tasting blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, while the 2004 Brut Millesimé ($80) raises the bar in term of complexity, elegance and refinement. There are many outstanding sparklers produced outside of Champagne in California, Italy, and Austria. These are often equal in quality to Champagne and are made using the same méthode champenoise, but they cannot be called Champagne because they are not made in the Champagne region of France. Argyle Winery in Oregon produces some of the finest sparklers in the United States. Their sparklers sell at all price levels, but if you want something very special, try the refined and elegant Argyle 2000 Extended Triage Brut ($80). Much harder to find, but worth the effort are the Austrian Sekts of Willi Bründlmayer. His NV Sekt Brut ($44) and NV Sekt Brut Rosé ($44) are relatively expensive, but outstanding in quality. Finally, there are no finer sparklers from Italy than the refined and delicate Bellavista Franciacortas. Try the Franciacorta Brut Cuvée NV ($52) or the Franciacorta Gran Cuvée Satèn ($80).

Sparkling Wine (Inexpensive) for the Holidays

2010-12-15T16:58:00.005-05:00

The Holidays are the time for Champagne and sparkling wine. What better way to ring in the New Year! And what incredible choices you have. In France alone there is Champagne, of course, but also another 38 regions producing sparkling wines in the Loire, Burgundy, Alsace, and elsewhere. Italy makes Prosecco and Asti Spumante. Spain produces Cava. In the US, excellent sparkling wines are made in California, New Mexico, and Virginia. Canada even makes really exotic sparkling icewine. And we’ve tasted excellent sparklers from Australia, New Zealand, Greece, and South Africa.

So with all these options, how do you make a choice? Most people look at price and quality in choosing their sparking wine. We’ve selected what we think are sparklers of excellent value and then organized our recommendations by price level: Inexpensive [under $10], Moderately Priced [under $30], and Luxury Cuvées [above $30]. Within each of these price categories there are also stylistic differences that will further help you select the sparkler you want to purchase. Since most people like their sparkling wine quite dry, we’ve limited our recommendations to mostly very dry Bruts. Also, if your tastes run to rosé sparklers, we have recommendations for those, too.

To keep our recommendations and your reading of manageable size, we are doing a three part posting, organized by Inexpensive, Moderately Priced, and Luxury Cuvées of sparkling wines.

Inexpensive. There are lots of cheap sparkling wines out there but not many we can recommend. We suggest you stick to Spanish Cavas, Italian Prosecco and Asti, and American Sparklers. Many of these wines are non-vintage or produced in a way that minimizes year-to-year variations in quality. Most have a lovely mousse with good fruit flavors and are lively and crisp. Spanish Cava mostly comes from Catalonia and is made with Spanish varietals. Some widely distributed Cavas we recommend are Conde de Subirats NV Brut Cava ($13), U Mes u Fan Tres NV 1+1+3 ($16) and the Cristalino Brut Cava ($9). Italian Prosecco is made from the Prosecco grape grown just north of Venice. We recommend Bisol, Canella and Zardetto. Asti comes from the Piedmont, and we like those spritzy wines made by Cinzano Moscato d’Asti. Finally, if you wish to buy American, we would especially recommend the sparkling wines of Gruet, which come from, of all places, New Mexico! Look for the Gruet Demi-Sec ($14) if you prefer an off-dry wine.

Kennedy, Khrushchev and Gumpoldskirchen Königswein

2010-12-09T05:47:00.004-05:00

In June 1961, the young American President John Kennedy held a summit with Soviet Premier Nikhita Khrushchev in Vienna. Among the wines they used to toast each other was Gumpoldskirchen Königswein, a wine produced in the village of Gumpoldskirchen, located just 20 km south of Vienna bordering the Vienna Woods (Wienerwald). It was perhaps Austria’s most famous wine in 1961, having also been served at the wedding of then Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip in 1947. It was also a favorite wine of the Habsburgs and has an illustrious past dating back several centuries. But in 1985 German inspectors discovered that a few, low-end Austrian producers were adding diethylene glycol to make their wines appear more full-bodied and sweeter. The result was a 90 percent drop in Austrian wine exports. The scandal hit Gumpoldskirchen especially hard.

Today Gumpoldskirchen has largely recovered, and as part of our tastings and travel to Austria we have had the opportunity to taste the wines of a number of the more important producers of the area—Johanneshof Reinisch, Freigut Thallern, Schellman (Fred Loimer), and Spaetrot Gebeshuber GmBH, Karl Alphart, and Johann Stadlmann. Stadlmann is reputed to make the very best Zierfandler from his Mandel-Höh Vineyard located just below the Vienna Woods.

One thing these producers have in common is the unique and ancient indigenous varietals that they cultivate. The Gumpoldskirchen wine district is home to Rotgipfler and Zierfandler. Indeed, these two varietals are grown nowhere else. And they make magnificent wines, either as single varietals or, more commonly, when blended together (in which case the wine is typically called Späetrot). When produced within the district boundaries, the wine is called Gumpoldskirchen Königswein (the King’s Wine), the wine of Kennedy and Khrushchev and Queen Elizabeth. [Shown here, our photo of the famous Gumpoldskirchen village church as seen from Stadlmann’s Mandel-Höh vineyard.]

We’ll be reviewing these wineries and their wines in our upcoming report on the Wines of Austria. Suffice it to say that we were extremely pleased by what we found. Thanks to Bill Mayer (Age of Riesling), Monika Caha (Monika Caha Selections), and Sariya Jarasviroj Brown (Circo Vino) for pointing us in this direction.

Press Release: "The New Wines of Portugal"

2010-12-03T06:03:00.003-05:00

For immediate release from the Dunn Robbins Group,New York, NY, November 1, 2010.
The International Wine Review (IWR) announces the release of its 24th Report, “The New Wines of Portugal.” Based on a trip made by Mike Potashnik, Publisher and Don Winkler, Editor, in the summer of 2010, it provides a comprehensive look at Portugal’s major wine regions and leading winemakers. In addition to tasting notes and ratings on 500 Portuguese wines, the report also offers best buy recommendations, recommendations on pairing Portuguese food and wine, and an overview of the market for Portuguese wine in the US and abroad. It is the IWR’s first double issue, and the most thorough assessment that the research company has done to date.

It is the IWR’s second report on Portugal; the first one, “The Red Wines of Portugal”, was completed in 2005. As Mike and Don explained, “When we did our first report, few wine enthusiasts spoke of Portuguese wines. How times have changed! Today there is growing recognition among wine professionals that Portugal is one of Europe’s most exciting wine regions, with well-made wines in every part of the country, from the hot, dry Alentejo in the south to the steeply terraced Douro to the wet, green Minho in the north.”

Francisco Borba, President of Vini Portugal, which funded the preparation of the report, remarked: “ I found this report to be very well researched and clearly written. It offers an excellent overall view of the major wine regions in Portugal, and helps clarify the different appellations, names of grapes and regions, which can be confusing. It will serve as an excellent educational tool for both the trade and interested consumers, informing them of the latest trends in Portuguese winemaking, and identifying the exciting, distinctive wines by dynamic winemakers who are helping position Portugal on the global stage.”

To read the Table of Contents and the Introduction to this Report (#24), go to www.i-winereview.com. Subscriptions are available on line.

The International Wine Review was launched in 2005 to provide the wine trade (importers, distributors, retailers, sommeliers) and wine enthusiasts, with current, accurate information regarding important wines and regions of the world. Although it draws on a distinguished panel for tasting and evaluating wines, the reports go far beyond ratings; they provide insight and understanding of viticulture and winemaking, appellations, wine styles, pairing food and wine, and market issues. IWR is also distinctive because it focuses on emerging regions and wines, currently gaining market prominence.

For immediate release by the Dunn Robbins Group, New York, NY

Wine Gifts for the Holidays

2010-12-02T16:52:00.006-05:00

Wine is a great Holiday gift. We offer our advice on selections for both the casual wine drinker and the seasoned wine enthusiast. We suggest you make your wine gift exotic by choosing wines from lesser known countries and producers. Countries like Austria and Portugal make wonderful wines that are likely to be new and different to the person receiving your gift.

Of course, which wine you buy as a gift depends on both your pocketbook and the person you’re giving to. We usually think of wine- drinkers as falling into three categories: The Casual Wine Drinker, who may not know the difference between Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio. Serious Wine Drinkers, who know what they like but pretty much limit themselves to the popular brands. And the Semi-Pro who knows wine and probably has more than a few bottles stashed in a wine cooler, closet or cellar. Let’s consider which wines each of these might like to receive for the Holidays. We’ve limited our choices to wines that should be available in most good wine stores. All prices are retail prices recommended by the winery or importer; the shelf price is often lower.

The Casual Wine Drinker. There’s no point in spending lots of money on the Casual Wine Drinker, but that doesn’t mean you can’t give a bottle that will give a lot of pleasure. Stick with the well-known varietals, but find a new producer or new region. Argentine Malbec would fit the bill. Ask your purveyor for a mid-priced Malbec from a producer like Andeluna, Salentein, or Doña Paula. We recently tasted the 2009 Doña Paula Los Cardos Malbec and especially like it. Best of all, it costs just $10 a bottle. Everyone these days loves Pinot Noir, and a good one for the casual drinker has been produced by Carneros winemaker, Sean Minor. His 2009 4 Bears Pinot Noir ($17) is ripe, flavorful and fleshy and is unbeatable for the price. A good, sparkling wine is another option. One that all casual wine drinkers would love is the Roederer Estate ($18) from California’s Anderson Valley. And if your friend prefers white wines, try a cool coastal Chardonnay from California. When we visited the Santa Lucia Highlands last year we enjoyed the 2008 Mer Soleil Barrel Fermented Chardonnay ($19). While a little higher priced than the other wines recommended here, it’s a sure thing!

The Serious Wine Drinker. The Serious Wine Drinker is likely to be a little more open than the Casual Wine Drinker to trying something new. Here we recommend you find something that will stretch his or her wine knowledge just a bit. Our first choice might be a different varietal from a reliable producer. One such bottle we tasted this past year is Montes Alpha Carmenere ($19) from Chile. It’s a reasonably priced, delicious, full-bodied red wine from a very good Chilean winery. We also offer many suggestions on pairing Carmenere and food on our website. Among white wines, we’d recommend an Austrian Grüner Veltliner such as Anton Bauer’s 2009 Rosenberg Reserve ($24) or other Anton Bauer cuvees. They combine flavor, acidity, and minerality that are hard to find in one bottle. Red table wine from Portugal would also be different. We recommend the 2008 Quinta Vale Meão Meandro ($20), the 2008 Quinta do Vallado Tinto ($29), or the Herdade do Esporão Reserva ($21) all wines which have abundant red and black fruit, spice, and complex flavors.

The Semi-Pro. The Semi-Pro is the most difficult to buy for. If you have lots to spend, you could pick a top end wine that is certain not to disappoint. The 2008 Phelps Insignia ($185) is one such wine – expensive but worth it, and the person receiving it will recognize both its quality and value. If your pocketbook is looking for something a little lower in price, there are many options. Everyone loves a good Oregon Pinot Noir, and Cristom produces some of the best. The 2007 Cristom Marjorie Vineyard Pinot Noir ($50) is exceptionally good, but so are Cristom’s other bottlings, reviews of which can be found in our recent article. Another option is a rich, full-bodied Ribera del Duero wine like the 2006 Bodegas Condado de Haza Crianza ($30) or the 2006 Cyclo ($51). If these specific bottlings are not available in your local store, ask for something similar from Ribera del Duero.

Of course, one other terrific wine gift is an introductory subscription to the International Wine Review, just $25 for six months. Purchase on-line.

Mike Potashnik and Don Winkler

New Government Revenue Source Discovered on Floor of the Baltic Sea: Champagne

2010-11-18T08:48:00.003-05:00

This week wine professionals tasted the 170 year old Champagne found in a shipwreck on the bottom of the Baltic Sea off the coast of the Aland Islands. The first bottle will be auctioned off in 2011 and is expect to sell for about $90,000, far higher than the $21,000 paid for a 1928 Krug last year.

Earlier this year we reported that 30 bottles of old Champagne were discovered by divers, who brought one bottle to the surface to taste. The bottles have now literally surfaced, and they total 168 in number.

The tasters reported the Champagne as “fit to drink” with a very strong, intense bouquet that shows prominent notes of peat and tobacco. The palate is smoky with notes of linden blossom and chanterelle mushrooms. The Champagne has “an intense golden hue with grey-brown reflections.” The floor of the Baltic Sea was in fact an ideal wine cellar with its low oxygen, absence of light, and constant cold temperatures of 5˚ Celsius. A few months ago Dominique Demarville, cellarmaster at Veuve Clicquot, also tasted the Champagne and was impressed with its quality, freshness, and good acidity. The wine is also very sweet, with about 100 grams of residual sugar, the norm for the time.

From the shape of the bottles and corks, researchers have determined the Champagne comes from two houses – Clicquot (now Veuve Clicquot) and Juglar, a now defunct brand. The Clicquot dates between 1832 and 1844, while the Juglar is from the 1829 vintage and possibly earlier.

Of the 168 bottles found by the divers, about a third were ruined by the leakage of sea water into the bottles. But about 50 of the bottles are of “the very highest quality”.

The Champagne is the property of the Aland Islands, located between Sweden and Finland. The islands belong to Finland, but the residents speak Swedish. The Aland Government plans to auction the bottles off over many years. Revenue from the sales will be an important source of the government’s revenue. This is a revolutionary new way to raise government revenue and avoid fiscal crisis. Perhaps there’s a secret cache of Thomas Jefferson’s old wines under the US Treasury Building that could be sold to lower the national debt.

Banfi Autumn 2010 New Releases from Italy

2010-10-28T22:05:00.004-04:00

Banfi Vintners is a spectacularly successful company that both produces and imports table wine from Italy. The Mariani family started the company in Manhattan’s Little Italy early in the last century and began importing classic Italian wines after Prohibition ended. In the early 1980s, Banfi purchased land in Tuscany, and today has 2400 acres of vines on the estate. It also purchased and renovated an old, 11th century castle called Castello Banfi, which became the name of its highest quality Tuscan wines.

We recently had the opportunity to taste three of Banfi's new Tuscan releases. The Banfi 2008 Centine Rosso Toscana ($11) is an easy drinking international red blend that requires food to show its best. The Castello Banfi 2008 Chianti Superiore and the Castello Banfi 2007 Bulnero show greater depth and finesse. Banfi has been one of the pioneers of clonal research of the Sangiovese grape, and Belnero is made with the best clones from that research. Our notes on these wines follow:

Castello Banfi 2008 Centine Rosso IGT Toscana (87) $11
Centine is an international blend of Sangiovese (60%), Cabernet Sauvignon (20%), and Merlot (20%) produced in Tuscan vineyards. If offers red plum and berry on the nose, a soft attack, and a light mid-palate of red fruit. The 2008 Centine doesn’t have the weight we found in an earlier vintage.

Castello Banfi 2008 Chianti Superiore DOCG (88) $11
The Banfi Chianti Superiore is nicely balanced with black cherry, plum and earth showing on the nose and palate. It’s aged for about 5 months in French oak. A blend of 75% Sangiovese and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon and Canaiolo Nero, this Chianti is clean, flavorful and easy to drink. Superb value!

Castello Banfi 2007 Belnero IGT Toscana (90) $39
Smoke, cedar, plum and tobacco show on the nose of this mostly Sangiovese wine. It’s full and delicious on a fruit forward, fleshy palate with nicely integrated flavors of dark red fruit, forest floor, and light smoky toasted oak. The finish is very long and flavorful with black raspberry notes. This is a wine that evolves in the glass, providing food for thought as well as drink to accompany beef and lamb dishes. Fermented in French oak and aged in barriques for about two years. Made from grapes grown on selected vineyard parcels at the Castello Banfi property in Tuscany.

Kamptal's Loisium: Europe's Best Wine Museum

2010-10-25T22:31:00.007-04:00

We’ve visited a lot of wine museums around the world, but the one we discovered this week adjacent to the Steininger winery in Langenlois in the Kamptal is the most creative that we’ve ever seen. Both the Loisium Museum and the nearby hotel were designed by American architect Steven Holl. The museum building is shown here, as well as the hotel bar where we enjoyed some of Karl Steininger’s delicious Pinot Noir sparkling wine.

Taken together, this is a destination resort with spa and world class cuisine. More importantly for wine lovers it is located close to the Langenlois wineries of Willi Bründlmayer and Fred Loimer as well as the Weingut Steininger.

One can walk through Steininger’s vineyard to get from the hotel to the museum. We did that and took the opportunity to taste some of its ripe Grüner Veltliner grapes. Eva Steininger is shown here analyzing the sugar content of the grapes. They're just about ready to pick. Perhaps they will go into the 2010 Steininger Grüner Veltliner Loisiumweingarten Kamptal DAC Reserve. Klaus Wittauer of KWSelection imports Steininger's flavorful and reasonably priced wines.

Canals & Munné: Catalunya Cava with Character

2010-10-24T17:23:00.005-04:00

In many ways, Spanish cava has a unique character. While produced using the methode champenoise, it is usually made from indigenous varietals, instead of the usual Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier blend of Champagne and California. Thus, while it has some characteristics in common with Champagne, it also has its own unique character. We recently had the opportunity to taste some Reserve quality cavas from Canals & Munné.

In our Report # 14 The World of Sparkling Wines and Champagne, we tasted wines from a number of cavas and found some that were truly excellent. In our opinion, Canals & Munné belongs in that list of excellent cava producers. Located in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, it retains a distinct Catalunya character, but its wines are Champagne-like in their richness, mouthfeel and flavors.

At present Canals & Munné brings only the three sparklers listed here to the American market. In addition to these it makes some upscale sparklers with 4+ years of aging: the mainly Chardonnay-based Gran Duc and Reserva de L’Avi and the Pinot Noir-based Serralet del Guineu. Given the quality level of the Reservas that we tasted, we very much look forward to tasting the Gran Duc, Reserva de L’Avi, and Serralet del Guineu when they’re imported to the US.

These wines are remarkable values!

Canals & Munne Insuperable Semi-Seco Reserva ($15) 87+

This is a festive wine to accompany a fruit salad or vanilla buttercream birthday cake. Light stone fruit and herbs show on the nose, followed by an off-dry attack (31g/l sugar) of stone fruit with yeast notes. Made from a blend of Macabeo, Xarel-lo, and Parellada aged in bottle for 25 months. Enjoy.

Canals & Munne Insuperable Brut Reserva ($15) 90

The rich, mouth-filling Insuperable Brut Reserva is one of the better cavas we’ve tasted. A blend of 40% Macabeo, 30% Xarel-lo, and 30% Parellada, it has been on the lees for 25 months. It shows light honey biscuit aromas on the nose and offers a fine mousse and clean palate of brioche, citrus, and almond flavors. Great value!

Canals & Munne Rosé Semi-Reserva ($25) 88

This unusual medium-rose colored blend of 75% Monastrell and 25% Garnacha has a style all its own. It’s neither a subtly flavored Rosé Champagne nor a robustly flavored sparkling Shiraz but somewhere in-between. With fine petillant-like bubbles, strawberry, cherry, and plum aromas on the nose continue through to the palate with noticeable licorice notes. Finishes dry with distinct red fruit flavors. It’s a perfect match for an American Thanksgiving dinner.

Importer: Independence Imports, NJ

L’homme qui ris: Tête de Cuvée California Sparkling Wine from McIntyre Vineyards in the Santa Lucia Highlands

2010-10-18T16:27:00.004-04:00

Where would one expect to find the best California sparkling wine? Alexander Valley? Carneros? What about the Santa Lucia Highlands? Well, this is a stunner. One of the best sparkling wines we’ve had this year comes from a little-known vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands. And had we tasted this wine when doing our report (#14) on The World of Sparkling Wines we would have listed it among the top sparkling wines of California.

When we visited Steve McIntyre at his vineyard about a year ago, he showed us a block of Pinot Noir grapes that he said were on the property when he purchased it in 1987 from the McFarland family, one of the true wine pioneers of the Highlands. The precise provenance of the vines is unknown, but we know they were planted in 1973, making the vines almost 40 years old. Also, since they produce light colored juice, it appears they were planted to provide fruit for sparkling wine producers elsewhere in California.

Steve now uses the fruit of these heritage clone Pinot Noir vines and blends it with Chardonnay to produce a Méthode Champenoise sparkling wine with the unlikely name of L’homme qui ris. It’s sold as a non-vintage wine since most consumers would be scared away by the real vintage date. The wine we tasted spent seven years en tirage. In other words, once the secondary fermentation occurs in bottle, the wine sits there on its lees for a full seven years. Counting backwards, this is really a 2003 vintage wine. In Champagne, this wine would be sold as a vintage tête de cuvée with a premium price to match.

The wine may be old, but it’s still fresh tasting. Steve disgorges only enough at one time to sell over the next few months. This way the wine stays fresh but gains complexity from the extended tirage. Once it’s disgorged a little, invert sugar is added to raise the residual sugar to 0.75 g.

Not much is left of the current stock, but a new release will be coming next year. Watch for it!

McIntyre Vineyards NV L’homme qui ris Santa Lucia Highlands ($29) 91
LQHR is a Méthode Champenoise blend of 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay that spends 7 years on its lees. This one was disgorged about six months ago. Yellow gold in color, the bouquet is rich with nuts and sherry notes. The creamy, finely beaded palate also shows nuts along with yeast, toasted brioche, and apricot stone fruit. The finish is extremely long with freshly made apple pie notes. This California wine tastes like old tête de cuvée Champagne. Would be great with aged cheese.

Meli: Chilean Wine Made from Dry Farmed, Old Vines in Maule

2010-10-16T07:33:00.006-04:00

Adriana Cerda (pictured below) is one of Chile’s better known enologists. She was winemaker at Viña De Martino for many years, including its launch of Chile’s first bottling of Carmenere in 1996. But she always wanted a vineyard of her own, and she finally has it in Meli, a project she is jointly developing with her three sons and grower Sergio Dusaillant. Adriana also makes wine at Lagar de Bezana, a new winery in the Cachapoal Valley.

The Meli vineyard consists of 13 sandy hectares of dry farmed, sixty year old Riesling and Carignane vines, perhaps the oldest in Chile of these particular varietals. It’s located 260 km south of Santiago in the Valle de Loncomilla, one of the Maule Valley’s three principal wine growing regions. Meli is a member of MOVI [Movimiento de Vinateros Independientes], an association of 19 small, garagiste wineries. As we noted in our Report # 21 The Chilean Wine Revolution, Chile is the land of large, commercial wineries. Small producers like Meli and many others are now becoming increasingly common. But too often they have difficulty entering the US market. Thanks to Global Vineyard Importers of Berkeley, CA, Meli is available in the US, and consumers now have the opportunity to try these charming, inexpensive wines.

Meli 2008 Riesling Maule Valley (87) $12
Made from Riesling cuttings imported from Germany over 60 years ago, this wine is subtly flavored, yet fresh and crisp. The nose shows light citrus with a wet gravel note, while the palate has excellent acidity and relatively low alcohol, the result of using especially selected yeasts. This is an easy drinking wine perfect for a hot summer picnic lunch. Only 500 cases produced. Good value.

Meli 2008 Carignane Maule Valley (90) $15
The Maule Valley is famous for its old vine Carignane, and winemaker Adriana Cerda has crafted a beauty here. It has a beautiful, bright medium red color and an attractive nose of red raspberry and plum fruit. The palate is of medium weight with good acidity and structure. There’s an impressive purity of red fruit on the palate that carries through to a long finish. 2000 cases produced. Extremely good value!

The Exciting New Wines of Portugal

2010-10-12T08:47:00.004-04:00

The New Wines of Portugal, Report # 24, is now available to subscribers at iwinereview.com. It’s our first Double Issue ever. And why, you might ask, a double issue? Because Portugal is so incredibly diverse in terms of climate, soils, growing conditions, and grape varietals. Each of the nine growing regions on the mainland is unique, so exploring the wines of Portugal essentially meant exploring nine different countries.

We tasted over 500 wines for this report, all of which are available on our database and most of which are written up in the report itself. I didn’t keep track of how many incredibly hospitable winemakers we met, how many different varietals we tasted, and how many different dishes of bacalhau we sampled. But it was a lot.

The most surprising things we learned are how much the wines have improved since our last visit, how distinct the wines are in each region, and how Portuguese winemakers are rapidly discovering how to make world class wines from the many indigenous varietals in the country.

I won’t even try to summarize a report of this length, but some of our favorite grape discoveries are:

• Alvarinho and Loureiro white varietals in Vinho Verde.

• Touriga Nacional and all the Port field blends in addition to distinctive whites like Viosinho in the Douro.

• Burgundy-like Baga in Bairrada and Alfrocheiro, Bical and Encruzado in the Dão.

• Crispy, high acid Arinto in Bucelas and Syrah in Alenquer in the Lisboa Region.

• Castelão and sweet Moscatel in Setúbal.

• The tropical Antão Vaz, red-fleshed Alicante Bouschet , and Aragonez in the Alentejo.

We also discovered many new winemakers and wineries throughout Portugal producing surprisingly good wines. Several of the better winemakers have themselves become itinerant consulting enologists, and we highlight this phenomenon in the report.

Portuguese table wines continue to get better and better. The huge cooperatives, large commercial wineries, and artisanal, independent growers and winemakers are all producing good quality and good value wines today.

We hope this report tempts our readers to contact their favorite wine shops or internet purveyors and request some of the wines that we recommend.

Don Winkler

Tercos of Argentina: New Releases of Torrontes, Bonarda, and Sangiovese

2010-10-08T15:21:00.003-04:00

Tercos is a new Argentine winery owned by brothers Pedro and Patricio Santos. Winemaker Patricio Santos was educated at UC, Davis, and has worked at Catena in Mendoza and Chimney Rock and Cardinale Winery in the Napa Valley. The three wines reviewed here reflect the growing diversity of varietals found in Argentina today. They also show what excellent values can be found in the Southern Cone. Of the three, our favorite is the 2008 Bonarda, which is fruit forward, easy drinking, and shows some nice herbal and earth notes. All three wines are very good values. Imported by Global Vineyard of Berkeley, CA.

Tercos 2009 Torrontes Salta ($12) 87
Torrontes is a grape unique to Argentina. Once thought to be the same as the Torrontes of Galicia, researchers have concluded it is instead was born in Argentina and is the product of two other varietals. The Torrontes of Salta Province has the reputation for being the best in the country. The Tercos Torrontes shows the characteristics of this highly aromatic grape—light peach flower and honeysuckle scents and, on the palate, light flavors of peach and apricot nicely balanced with brisk acidity on the finish. This is a pleasing aperitif style wine that is best served well-chilled.

Tercos 2008 Sangiovese Mendoza ($12) 86
This light-medium ruby red wine is a pleasant sipper. It’s fresh on the nose and soft and mellow on the palate showing light red fruit flavors and good acidity. This is a straightforward wine that wouldn’t be out of place at a party, served with just a slight chill.

Tercos 2008 Bonarda Mendoza ($12) 88
This is an easy drinking, unoaked wine sourced from grapes grown on the Tupungato mountainside. It shows more complexity than one would expect at this price point. Cherry, plum and herbal aromas are plentiful. The wine is soft on the attack with pleasant red fruit, earth and herbal flavors, very good ripe tannins, and a long, pleasing finish. Many, many people will like this wine. A great value at this price!

The Wines of Rui Cunha: The Length and Breadth of Portugal

2010-10-08T11:01:00.003-04:00

As we highlight in our October 2010 report on The New Wines of Portugal, the itinerant consulting winemaker is an increasingly familiar figure in Portugal’s modern wineries. Rui Cunha is one of the more prominent consultants, and we tasted his wines at Portugal’s only biodynamic wine estate, Casal do Paço Padreiro, located near Arcos de Valdevez in the Lima River Valley (Vinho Verde) that runs from the mountains to the Atlantic. Here he makes the Afros Loureiro, an exceptionally tasty white wine showing considerable purity of fruit. Other wines at Casal do Paço include a sparkling wine, Afros Reserva Espumante, made from Loureiro that spend 18 months sur lie, Afros Vinhão, a youthful red wine made from the Vinhão grape, and a Sparkling Vinhão Reserva that spends 21 months on the lees. This is some of the very best Vinhão one can find produced in Vinho Verde. Elsewhere in Vinho Verde, Rui makes wine at Casa das Buganvílias, Sousa Lopes, and Quinta de Massôrra.

Moving to the east, Rui also makes wines at Valle Pradinhos in Tras-o-Montes. This is a former resort located north of the Douro, and the wines include a white blend Vinho Branco, a red blend Vinho Tinto, and a Reserva, a vineyard and barrel selection aged 16 months in new oak and hugely flavored and lush. These red wines also age well, at least the 1991 Vinho Tinto we tried was still fresh, albeit with evolved dried fruit, earth and herbal flavors.

Rui makes wines from the Douro under his own label, Secret Spot Wine. His Crooked Vines Vinho Branco is a field blend of white varietals fermented in oak and left sur lie for 8 months. It is a refined and elegant drink. There’s also a Crooked Wines Vinho Tinto from old vines in the Douro and a Red Douro that explains the name of the brand. Each year a different, secret single vineyard in the Douro is selected to provide the fruit for this bottling. Rui wouldn’t reveal the grapes or the vineyard location of his current, delicious 2005 vintage.

Aside from his own wines, Rui also makes wines at the following Douro wineries: Quinta das Apegadas, Quinta dos Avidagos, Vallegre, Quinta de Carvalhosa, and Quinta do Romeu. Moving further south, he also makes wine in the Alentejo (Monte Barrão), and Lisboa (Adraga).

Laura Catena: Vino Argentino

2010-09-24T09:56:00.002-04:00

Laura Catena just sent us a copy of her new book Vino Argentino. It’s the best book on Argentine wine we’ve ever read. She told us about the book when we met in Washington in August during the Society of Wine Educators conference. The book is part travelogue, part gaucho cuisine, and part wine history. It doesn’t just focus on Malbec and Mendoza either. One of our favorite parts is her discussion of winemaking in Salta, a place where we’ve spent a lot of time and is our very favorite province (sorry, Mendoza). For wine travelers who wish to explore beyond the same old Napa-Bordeaux-Tuscany wine routes, we heartily endorse Laura’s recommendation to visit Cafayete and taste the wines made from its special clone of Torrontes, a varietal unique to Argentina. While you’re at it, rent a four wheel SUV and like us drive the Calchaquí Valley tour; it offers incredible scenery and colorful colonial towns like Cachí. You might also think about visiting Bodegas Colomé, perhaps the world’s most unique winery with pre-phylloxera vines as old as 150 years and vineyards as high as 8500’. Rebuilt by Donald Hess of Napa’s Hess Collection and farmed biodynamically, this winery now produces terroir-driven wines that are very, very special. The book is published by Chronicle Books, San Francisco.

Don Winkler

Yellow Tail: An Australian-Sicilian-American Success Story

2010-09-21T21:58:00.003-04:00

Yellow Tail is a family winery (Casella Wines) in New South Wales that is one of the wine world’s most phenomenal success stories. It recently relaunched its Reserve line to offer its customers a step up in quality. A brand especially created for the American market in 2001, Yellow Tail is today the largest selling brand of imported wine in the US. In 2008 some 8.4 million cases of Yellow Tail were sold in the U.S. alone.

What makes Yellow Tail so popular is its upfront fresh, ripe fruit in a wine sold at an extremely reasonable price. It’s the kind of flavor, and value, that can make wine drinkers out of teetotalers. But it’s not necessarily the kind of wine that one seeks out for a special occasion, or one finds on a good restaurant’s wine list, for that matter. Hence, the rationale for Yellow Tail Reserve, a more expensive line of wines that retains upfront fruit but with added complexity from better grapes and aging in oak. Yellow Tail recently re-launched its reserve wine line with a classy label and heavier bottle to better convey an image consistent with an up-scale wine. Their US importer, WJ Deutsch and Sons, sent them to us for review.

The tale of Yellow Tail is an Australian success story made possible in part by American marketing. The Casella family, owners of Yellow Tail, immigrated to Australia from Sicily in the late 1950s and started their winery in 1969, with a focus on exports. In 2001, they entered in partnership with the well-known US importer WJ Deutsch and Sons and began exporting to the US. WJ Deutsch’s marketing prowess combined with Yellow Tails formulaic wine led to the most successful wine brand ever—and in a very short period of time.

The phenomenal success of Yellow Tail means the fortunes of the Australian wine industry to some extent now lie tied to those of Yellow Tail. So the big question is, can Yellow Tail convert novice wine drinkers into more sophisticated wine consumers by moving them upscale to its Reserve Special Selection bottlings? And that, of course, depends in part on the quality of the wines.

Our review of these wines follows. In general, we find they are true to the upfront fruit style of Yellow Tail but with added complexity. Our favorites are the Pinot Grigio with its true-to-varietal character and the very well made Merlot, which manages to combine upfront fruit with a velvet smooth, fully flavored palate. It’s not the biggest of the Yellow Tail reds, but it’s the most balanced and elegant. Fans of Yellow Tail will be keen to taste these new upscale wines whereas others may need more convincing. Hopefully, our reviews will help convince.

Yellow Tail 2008 Chardonnay Reserve South East Australia ($12) 88+
This is an easy to drink, nicely integrated Chardonnay quite unlike some of the sweet, cloying wines one finds in this price range. The nose is lightly fragrant of pear and melon with a hint of tropical fruit. These same fruits appear on the palate along with notes of honey and toast and a moderately crisp finish.

Yellow Tail 2008 Pinot Grigio Reserve South East Australia ($12) 89
The Casella Family shows its Italian origins with this quite delicious Pinot Grigio. True to its varietal character, the nose is floral with ripe pear and citrus notes. Light citrus flavors and crisp acidity show in the mouth, along with a chalky note on the finish. Drink well chilled, and enjoy!

Yellow Tail 2008 Shiraz Reserve Special Selection South East Australia ($12) 87+
The Yellow Tail Shiraz has the kind of fruit forward style we’ve come to expect from Australia. With its dark ruby hue, there are fragrant black cherry scents on the nose and a soft fruit and spice attack and a modestly flavored palate with dry tannins. Spends a year in new oak.

Yellow Tail 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Special Selection South East Australia ($12) 88
Brilliant dark ruby red in color, the nose is of smoky oak and rich, ripe dark red fruit. Quite soft on the attack with rich plum and cassis fruit on the attack and light fruit on the mid-palate, it has a lingering fruity finish with soft tannins. Sees 12 months in new oak.

Yellow Tail 2008 Merlot Reserve Special Selection South East Australia ($12) 89
This is a delicious wine, especially for the price. As with the other Yellow Tail Reserves, it is fruit forward in style with soft tannins. A fruity nose of plum and blackberry gives way to a rich, balanced, and deliciously flavored and velvet smooth palate with chocolate spice notes. Finishes long with crisp acidity. As with the other Special Selection reds, it spends 12 months in oak. Excellent!

Don Winkler

Ecological Packaging: Pepperwood Grove Big Green Box Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon

2010-08-13T22:34:00.004-04:00

While attending the Society of Wine Educators 34th annual conference last week, we had the opportunity to taste a good quality California Chardonnay from Pepperwood Grove, one of the Don Sebastiani & Sons brands. What is most surprising, the wine comes packaged in a type 7 plastic bag in a box, in this case called The Big Green Box, and its price is equivalent to less than $5 per bottle.

Boxed wine is one means that wineries can reduce their carbon footprint as the container holds the equivalent of four 750 ml bottles of wine, weighs very little, and is more easily recycled than glass bottles. In addition, there is very little wastage since the wine keeps over a month and can be consumed by the glass, not by the bottle, or, more accurately, by the box.

Since the Chardonnay was so good, we asked Michael Peck of Don Sebastiani & Sons to send me the other Pepperwood Grove wines sold in a box, including a California Pinot Grigio, a California Old Vines Zinfandel, and a Chilean Valle Central Cabernet Sauvignon. I’ve now tasted all four, with the Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon being my favorites. My notes on those two wines follow:

Pepperwood Grove NV Big Green Box Chardonnay California 3 liters ($19)
This super value (less than $5 per 750 ml bottle equivalent) is a more nuanced wine than most California Chardonnays costing twice as much. It shows vanilla, toast, and light orchard fruit on the nose and palate. More importantly, these flavors are in balance with low residual sugar, unlike many of the cloying, low-priced Chardonnays on the supermarket shelf. This wine won’t cause the vignerons of Montrachet to quake in their boots, but if you give this wine blind to your most snobby wine friends, they’ll guess it’s a considerably more expensive wine. It’s a blend of 88 percent Chardonnay and 10 percent Chenin Blanc with a splash of Viognier.

Pepperwood Grove NV Big Green Box Cabernet Sauvignon Valle Central Chile 3 liters ($19)
Cabernet Sauvignon is the most widely planted varietal in Chile, and for good reason. The benign climate of the Valle Central permits high yields of good quality, which is why one can find so many good Chilean Cabernets selling for under $10 per bottle. Well, here’s a boxed Cabernet selling for the equivalent of under $5 per bottle. This is a fruit-rich, fresh tasting wine showing rich dark plum aromas and flavors. As can be expected of a wine at this price, the flavor profile is quite straightforward, and the tannins are very gentle, but it is undeniably a great value.

Llai Llai: Cool Climate Wines from Chile’s Bio Bio Valley

2010-08-03T17:09:00.002-04:00

When we were in Chile a few months ago, we visited Vina Corpora (VC) and tasted its growing portfolio of wines from the Bio Bio Valley in the far south of Chile. There’s a strong French influence at VC, with Patrick Piuze of Chablis advising on the Chardonnay and Pascal Marchand of Burgundy having advised on the Pinot Noir. [Actually, since both Piuze and Marchand are originally from Canada, it’s more appropriate to call this a French Canadian influence.] And the wines show it. The wines emphasize refinement, balance, and expression of terroir instead of simple, concentrated fruit flavors. Fortunately, these wines are now available in the US under the Llai Llai brand, thanks to importer WJ Deutsch.

The fruit for the Chardonnay comes from VC’s 250 hectare Miraflores Estate, located adjacent to the Bio Bio River that snakes its way from the Andes to the Pacific. The soils here range from sandy to alluvial. The fruit for the Pinot Noir comes from the Yumbel Vineyard (formerly called the Quinel Estate) with mostly clay and volcanic residual soil. Just 59 km from the sea, the Yumbel is cool with a significant maritime influence. For more on the Bio Bio and Chilean wines more generally, see our report The Chilean Wine Revolution, published earlier this year.

Although not well known in North America, VC is one of Chile’s larger wine producers. Its two main brands are Gracia and Agustinos. On our visit we tasted several Gracia and Agustinos Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs from VC’s wine estates in southern Chile. We can only hope that they begin exporting more to our shores soon.

Tasting notes:

Llai Llai 2008 Chardonnay Bio Bio Valley ($13) 89
If you like your Chardonnays bold, cloying and in-your-face, this one isn't for you. The Llai Llai Chardonnay from the far-south of Chile is a nuanced wine that's more like a Chardonnay from Northern Burgundy than Northern California. Showing pear, apple, lees and herbs on the nose, it offers a lightly flavored, smoothly textured palate of herbs and chalky minerals, finishing clean, crisp, and long. It has good acidity despite having gone through 100 percent malo. Hand-harvested fruit from the Miraflores estate with whole cluster fermentation in French oak (50%) and stainless steel (50%). Showing excellent balance and finesse, this is a superb value.

Llai Llai 2008 Pinot Noir Bio Bio Valley ($13) 89
Dark cherry, herbs, and a touch of earth and smoke show on both the nose and palate of this bargain-priced, single vineyard (Yumbel Estate) Pinot Noir that could easily pass for a good quality village wine from the Côte de Nuits. Shows excellent balance with good acidity, accessible tannins, modest concentration of cherry fruit, and a long, flavorful finish. In a world of overly sweet, high alcohol, cola-infused, entry level Pinot Noirs, this one stands out. Hand-harvested, cold fermented, and partially aged in 1-year old French oak. Excellent value!

Wrath: The Grapes of Chardonnay

2010-07-26T12:24:00.003-04:00

Apologies to John Steinbeck. I took my teenage son on a trip to Northern California a few weeks ago. We visited the Monterey Aquarium, which I had visited before, but my son insisted we stay there until it closed, about five hours in total. That didn’t leave a lot of time to do wine tasting, so I picked one of my favorite wineries from our visit to the Santa Lucia Highlands last year. While Wrath Wines is technically not located in the Highlands (it lies across the road), it produces wines from Highlands fruit as well as from its own San Saba vineyards.

Sabrine Rodems (pictured here) warmly greeted us, showed us around the winery, and treated me to a tasting of the Wrath portfolio. My son took out-of-focus photos of the winery cat, while I tasted from barrel. I was already familiar with Wrath’s excellent Pinot Noir and Syrah but not their Chardonnay. What a pleasant surprise! Sabrine makes a range of Chardonnays from the unoaked to French-oaked, rich, unctuous, and liqueur like. Every one of them was delicious and rich in character. My overall favorite was the Fermata, a wine of very limited production that is partially wooded and that partially goes through malo. The result is a superbly balanced and flavorful wine.

Another favorite of mine was the Ex Amina, an un-wooded Chardonnay that is unusually rich and complex for a wine that sees no oak. My note on that wine follows. Full tasting notes on Wrath can be found on our website.

Wrath 2009 Chardonnay Ex Anima San Saba Vineyard Monterey ($29) 91
The Ex Anima Chardonnay is perhaps the most delicious un-wooded Chardonnay I’ve ever tasted and quite different from what one would expect, starting with its yellow straw-gold color. It’s mostly fermented in stainless steel with a small percent fermented in neutral oak with stirred lees, and it sees no malo. It’s made from old-vine, self-rooted Clone Four, which gives the wine its rich tropical mango nose. There’s an abundance of gorgeous, rich mango and pineapple fruit.

By the way, if you're visiting Monterey, do yourself a favor and take a drive through the winelands on your way to Salinas to visit the National Steinbeck Center, a must-see.

Castello di Amorosa La Castellana Super Tuscan

2010-07-22T18:00:00.006-04:00

Who would believe it? A 13th century medieveal Tuscan castle with moat, torture chamber, and several hundred feet of elaborately carved underground wine caves sitting in the center of Napa Valley. A trusted friend recommended a visit, so I called Georg Salzner, President of Castello di Amorosa, to arrange a tour. I thought that a visit would fit perfectly into my Northern California travels with my teenage son, as he could play with the Iron Maiden while I learned about the wines.

Georg met us at the entrance and led us on a most entertaining tour. I must admit, that as we entered the castle, doubts entered my mind as to whether a faux Italian castle in the Napa Valley could produce serious wine. Any doubts were allayed once I met winemaker Brooks Painter [pictured here to the right] and began tasting his wines from barrel and bottle. My tasting notes can be found on the i-winereview website. My personal favorite is the Castello’s version of a Super Tuscan:

2007 La Castellana Super Tuscan ($85) 93
La Castellana means the lady of the castle in Italian, and this voluptuous beauty is dressed in a robe of dark cherry fruit and violets with smoky oak and chocolate notes. A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Sangiovese, it is velvet smooth on a beautifully integrated palate. Blessed with fine, ripe tannins, this wine is easily approachable when young. To be released in 2012, but the 2005 vintage is available now. It's almost as good and lower in price. Wines must be purchased direct from the winery or on-line.

Does Champagne Age? Notes on 230 Year Old Veuve Clicquot Doux

2010-07-19T04:58:00.008-04:00

Divers recently found 30 bottles of late 18th century Champagne, believed to be made by Clicquot (now Veuve Clicquot) between 1782 and 1786, on a shipwreck at the bottom of the Baltic Sea off the coast of Aaland, Finland. They brought a bottle to the surface and opened it to taste.

At around the time of American Independence, Champagne was a dessert wine consumed at the end of the meal, and it was very sweet with high residual sugar. Indeed, the high sugar probably helped preserve the Clicquot wine just discovered. The first recorded “dry” Champagne wasn't produced until 1848 by Perrier-Jouet. Even the Champagne consumed in the earlier part of the 20th century was considerably sweeter than that we drink today.

Of course, the IWR tasting panel didn’t really taste the 18th century Champagne found at the bottom of the sea. This is one wine we missed in our Champagne Report of a couple years’ back. But based on diver Christian Ekstrom’s comments as reported by the BBC, I’ve created a tasting note on this wine.

Clicquot 1780s Doux ($69,000)
Preserved by the cold waters of the deep sea, this Champagne still shows fine bubbles. It also shows its age with tobacco aromas and oxidized flavors on the palate. [Note: Christian says the flavors were oak-like, but they probably also show the same kind of oxidized flavors found in the 1825 Perrier-Jouet opened last year in Epernay. The tasters there reported flavors of truffles, caramel and mushrooms and even a “slight nose of the sea”. Christian didn’t report any sea-like aromas, but they could have very well been missed by a taster who had just surfaced and was surrounded by the sea itself.] The 1780s Clicquot was very sweet by modern standards, reflecting the tastes of the time. Of course, this Champagne won’t be found at your local wine merchant, but authorities estimate that if you bid about $69,000 at the auction house, you may walk away with a bottle. Although we’ve not tasted this wine, we would probably give it a perfect 100 points just for surviving for 230 years.

Pairing Soalheiro Vinho Verde and the Cuisine of Restaurante Ferrugem

2010-07-17T19:15:00.009-04:00

Last week we had the unique opportunity to pair the best Alvarinho from Vinho Verde with the exquisite cuisine of Dalila and Renato Cunha at their Restaurante Ferrugem located in Vila Nova de Famaliação, located just south of Braga in the Minho region, home to Vinho Verde. The wines were provided by Luís Cerdeiro of Quinta do Soalheiro.

The Quinta do Soalheiro is located in Melgaço, near the Minho River that divides Portugal from Spain. Today Luís Cerdeiro, son of the founder, and his siblings João and Maria run the estate, but it was their father João Antonio Cerdeiro who pioneered in planting the Alvarinho grape in Vinho Verde in 1974, over 35 years ago. Today Soalheiro arguably makes the best expression of Alvarinho in Vinho Verde.

We tasted Soalheiro’s complete wine portfolio over a long six course dinner. We started with an assortment of appetizers and the 2007 and 2009 vintages of a new wine—Giro Sol, made from the Loureiro grape grown in the Lima Valley just 15 km from the Atlantic. This Vinho Verde is produced by a partnership of Soalheiro and Dirk Niepoort.

The meal itself began with the methode champenoise Soalheiro Espumante Alvarinho paired with smoked mackerel and caviar. Next came the 2009 Soalheiro Classico married to alheira de caça, a sausage made of game meat, bread and spices. This was followed by two different vintages—2008 and 2009—of Alvarinho Primeiras Vinhas (partially and lightly wood fermented) matched to bacalhau on a bed of sautéed vegetables. Next 2008 Alvarinho Reserva (100% barrel fermented) accompanied meat from the local breed of pig called Bísaro with a puree of fava beans. Finally, we ended with the 2009 Docê Alvarinho, a low alcohol, lightly sweet dessert wine and goat cheese with strawberry marmalade.

All told, it was a wonderful pairing that showed off both the special wines of Soalheiro and the unique Minho cuisine as interpreted by Restaurante Ferrugem. A word of warning if you’re thinking about visiting Ferrugem—it’s devilishly difficult to find. Do yourself a favor and get the GSP coordinates from their web site.

[Readers not familiar with the Vinho Verde region may wish to watch the Vinho Verde Commission’s promotional video.]

The Douro Boys (and Girls) Revisited

2010-07-17T17:22:00.005-04:00

Is there a wine region more magnificently beautiful than the Douro? Some of the world’s best wine grapes are grown on steeply terraced hillsides on either side of the Douro River. This is Port country, of course, but increasingly the very best vineyards are used to make rich table wines. The pioneers in the movement to make world class wines in this region are the Douro Boys. We tasted their wines and had dinner with them on our last trip to Portugal, and we subsequently wrote a special report titled The Douro Boys and Barca Velha. We decided to revisit them on this trip, too.

The spectacular new winery at Quinta do Vallado was the site of our meeting. Several of Douro’s top winemakers joined to show us their wines, including Miguel Roquette (pictured here) of Quinta do Crasto, Sandra Tavares of Quinta do Vale Dona Maria, Luis Seabra of Nieport Vinhos, Francisco Spratley Ferreira of Quinta do Vallado, and Francisco Olazabal of Quinta do Vale Meão.

Their top wines—both white and red—are superb. The best wines are field blends made from old vines originally planted to produce Port. As with Port, it’s also common to blend across vineyards within the Douro. Since the quality and character of fruit varies by altitude—from the river itself up to as high as 700 meters—and by location on the river—from the Baixo Corgo closer to Porto to the Douro Superior near the Spanish border, blending can contribute to complexity and balance in the wines. The wines also gain complexity from the combination of grapes used to produce them, and there are easily forty different red and white indigenous varietals that grow in the Douro.

We’ve reviewed most of these Douro wines in our earlier reports but not the current vintage, so this was an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the wines of the Douro. Some of our favorites are the 2007 Vinha da Ponte from Crasto and the 2008 vintages of Quinta Vale Dona Maria, Nieport’s Redoma, and Quinta Vale Meão, and Quinta do Vallado’s Reserva Field Blend. These wines won’t appear on local wine store shelves for a while, so you have time to read our upcoming report on Revisiting the Wines of Portugal.

Filipa Pato: Making Both Fun and Serious Wines in Beiras

2010-07-15T21:39:00.003-04:00

Filipa Pato is a young lady who is passionate about making wie. She also makes some of the most interesting wines in Portugal’s Beiras region. Earlier this week she showed us some of her wines at her father Luis Pato’s winery in Beiras. She’s pictured here with Don. Her Vinhos Doidos [crazy wines] called Bossa Branco and Nossa Branco are fun, white wines targeted at a youthful clientele. Her Lokal Silex, on the other hand, is a serious red wine of impressive weight and meaty flavors. She also makes sparkling wines using the methode champenoise; her Filipa Pato 3B Brut Nature is especially successful.

Like her famous father, Filipa makes many of her wines from the grapes indigenous to Beiras. These include white varietals like Bical and Maria Gomes and red varietals like Baga and Alfrocheiro. [We’ll say more about these grapes and Filipa’s wines in our forthcoming report on Portugal.] Filipa has made wine around the world, in Argentina, Bordeaux, and Australia. Perhaps it’s her New World experience that’s showing in her relaxed and fun approach to making wine.

Quinta dos Roques: Showing the Potential of the Dão

2010-07-14T19:56:00.002-04:00

The Dão is a Portuguese wine region that’s in a state of transition, and Luís Lorenço (shown here), co-owner and manager of Quinta dos Roques is helping lead it. Luis showed us his wines this week at a special tasting organized for us at the Adega Luís Pato in Anadia. While most wines in Portugal are blends of multiple varietals, Luís decided that he first needed to make single varietal wines from indigenous Portuguese varietals to learn more about them. Being a former mathematician, Luís likes to take a systematic, scientific approach to winemaking. Having replanted the Quinta’s vineyards and done his research on the varietals, he now is producing world class wines in the Dão with the assistance of consulting enologist Rui Reguingua. Two of his truly superb wines that we especially liked are the Quinta dos Roques 2003 Reserva Red and the Quinta dos Roques 2003 Garrafeira Red. The Reserva includes five different varietals. Touriga Nacional represents about half of the blend, with the uncommon grapes Jaen and Alfrocheiro making their contributions. The Garrafeira is about 65 percent Touriga Nacional along with three other varietals; it’s also aged in French oak for 18 months. These are rich, beautifully balanced wines that show the high potential of the Dão. We’ll write more about these and other Dão wines in our upcoming report on Portugal. Luís also makes wine at Quinta das Maias in the Dão.