The Wine Commentator

The Wine Commentator to Cease Publication

2011-04-29T14:27:00.001-07:00

The purpose of this posting is to notify readers that “The Wine Commentator” is ceasing publication and that all past entries will be deleted in the very near future.

I can’t say I’m going out of business because this blog has never been in business. As readers may have noticed, the blog is devoid of advertizing and always has been. In addition, as per the disclaimer above, there has never been any other source of revenue or compensation in any form associated with my activities.

I started this blog about six years ago when I developed a severe case of tendonitis and had to have a leg put in a cast for a month. One day, sitting at my computer, I clicked my mouse a few times, typed in a couple of words and discovered that I had a blog.

What to do next?

Some months earlier, I had been trying to explain to a friend the difference between Bordeaux reds and wines made from grapes associated with Bordeaux that were grown in the state of Washington.

“You should write about wine,” he said.

I dismissed the idea at the time, but with a blank blog in front of me, I thought “why not?”

I also decided to test an idea that is central to “Field of Dreams” – the film about baseball: “If you build it, they will come.” Could that be true with respect to the Internet?

Initially, I told no one other than my wife that I was writing a blog about wine and made no attempt whatsoever to publicize it or to optimize search engine results.

The outcome? They did NOT come!

I continued that approach for about five months and during that time, I probably experienced on average three visitors per week.

Then a friend of mine sent me an article from a long-established San Francisco-based wine blog and during the course of reading it, I discovered that the blog invited other wine bloggers to submit their URLs. So I did and my blog joined a very long list. (This does seem to be a popular activity.)

Almost immediately, my traffic jumped to between five and ten visitors a day (as opposed to a week), but when I examined where they had come from, I discovered almost none came from the other blog. Rather, it seemed, Google’s search engine had somehow decided to take my efforts more seriously as a result of the link.

Some months later, Google greatly improved its indexing system for blog posts and I took advantage of that change. Traffic then quickly climbed to about 20 visitors a day and increased slowly but steadily thereafter.

At present, traffic averages about 60 visits a day during most months and climbs to more than double that during the “high season” for wine – the months of November and December. Since the blog was started, there have been just short of 100,000 visits in total.

The number of “readers” is far smaller than the number of “visitors,” however. Most people arrive at this blog as a result of a search for information on a particular wine or type of wine and in the vast majority of cases, what they see here isn’t what they were looking for and they quickly depart.

A small fraction of visitors remain and read some postings – mostly two, three or four, but in some cases a very large number. It’s had to know whether what I have written has been helpful or not: I rarely hear from anyone. (Unfortunately I had to make it more difficult to comment because I started getting spam when it was easy to do so.)

The main reason I have decided to end “The Wine Commentator” is that I have been having a difficult time trying to find anything new to say. In addition, it’s time to move on to other activities.

I’ve personally had a lot of fun writing the blog and as a result of doing so, have discovered and tried a LOT of wine that I probably never would have experienced. It has been fascinating.

Best wishes to all -- including a few who have informed me I clearly don’t know what I’m talking about!

Fowler W (“Skip”) Martin

(PS I would like to thank Google for hosting the blog and diligently indexing the postings even though the company has received no revenue as a result of my activities.)

Cellar Report: High End 2001 Oregon Pinots

2011-04-06T13:42:00.001-07:00

A duck breast for dinner seemed to call for something special in the way of pinot noir so I pulled from the cellar a:

Beaux Frères 2001 “The Beaux Frères Vineyard” Pinot Noir ($65) and a

Domaine Drouhin 2001 “Laurène” Pinot Noir ($55).

Here’s the quick bottom line: the Domaine Drouhin offering was considerably better than the Beaux Frères both right out of the bottle and after these two wines had been exposed to a fair amount of oxygen.

Sometimes, when a wine matures in the cellar, flavors that may have been individually detectable when it was first released gradually come together into a coherent, blended whole. This is what happened with respect to the Drouhin offering. It tasted like a very pleasant, conventionally flavored Oregon pinot noir and despite having been in the bottle for about nine years, it held up extremely well over a three-day period, the partially consumed bottle having been resealed after the first dinner and reopened two nights later.

As one would expect, this wine was soft and velvety without being flabby. It still had sufficient structure and acidity to be very good with food and the finish was excellent. Nothing was amiss. This wine can cellared for some additional years if you wish, but it is just fine right now.

The more expensive and generally very highly regarded Beaux Frères was frankly a disappointment. When it was first opened, both of us initially thought it was the more interesting of these two offerings, but unfortunately things started to go wrong in a hurry.

As it came into contact with more oxygen, the wine opened up to flavors that seemed to us a bit disjointed, but most troublesome, a sharp, slightly fizzy aspect appeared – as though there was some residual fermentation going on.

That was the end for my companion, who pushed the glass away.

I sipped it from time to time to see if that sliver of sharpness would disappear quickly, but it didn’t.

Meanwhile, we greatly enjoyed the “Laurène,” which disappeared from the bottle disproportionately.

I was pretty sure that the sharp fizzy aspect of the Beaux Frères would disappear over time and sure enough, when the re-sealed bottle was re-opened two evenings later, this wine was a lot more drinkable. But it still wasn’t as good as what remained of the Domain Drouhin. We blind-tasted them again and both of us easily placed what turned out to be the Drouhin first.

Hopefully whatever ailed the Beaux Frères was limited to my particular bottle even though there was no evidence at all – by sight or by smell – that the cork had leaked. Since it is the only one that I had, I can’t try another bottle to find out, however.

These wines are both made from grapes grown in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and they are both a bit over medium in terms of body weight with the Beaux Frères slightly the heavier – and more alcoholic – of the two. It was listed as being 14.4% alcohol by volume while the Drouhin was said to be 14.1%.

Resources:

Beaux Frères

Domaine Drouhin

A to Z, Cloudline, Louis Latour 2008 Pinot Noir

2011-03-26T19:51:00.001-07:00

This posting considers an:

A to Z 2008 “Oregon” Pinot Noir ($20), a

Cloudline 2008 “Oregon” Pinot Noir ($20) and a

Louis Latour 2008 Pinot Noir (Vin de Bourgogne) ($15).

Here’s the quick bottom line: these three reasonably priced and widely available wines made from the pinot noir grape are all Worth Considering, but don’t expect anything particularly wonderful from any of them. The first two, as the designations indicate, are blended wines made from grapes grown in various vineyards in the state of Oregon, not all of which are necessarily located in the prime Willamette Valley region. The third is a wine made from pinot noir grapes grown in France that is specifically intended for the U.S. market. (The same or a similar wine marketed in France would not have the words “Pinot Noir” displayed on its label.)

As usual, two of us (in this instance) blind tasted these pinots over a two-day period, resealing the partially consumed wines between the first and second dinner. Here’s what my co-panelist, who did not know what they were or how much they cost, had to say after trying them the first time around:

“These are not the best wines that I’ve had. I don’t think that any of them are top rate.” But (the one that turned out to be the Louis Latour) was ‘more approachable’ and (the one that turned out to be the A to Z) was ‘more interesting, but not approachable.’” This individual went on to describe what was eventually revealed to be the Cloudline as “just kind of there.”

Both us agreed that the light, bright Louis Latour offering remained very consistent over the two-day period. It was red-fruit focused, a bit more acidic than the two Oregon pinots and its finish was just a touch sour, but not unpleasantly so. This is a very light-bodied pinot, hovering just above being so light as to be unpleasantly thin.

On the first night, I found the Cloudline to be nicely balanced, but not terribly interesting in terms of flavor. Like the Louis Latour, it leaned toward the red side of the pinot noir flavor spectrum, but it was noticeably heavier and a bit sweeter than the French wine. In contrast, the A to Z was a distinctly darker and less acidic wine than the Cloudline, but at the same time it also seemed a little dull.

On the second night, as mentioned above, the Louis Latour was basically unchanged. But the Cloudline, which I had liked best the first time around, had developed an unpleasant flavor almost to the point of being “off.” This was a big disappointment. The A to Z, on the other hand, had opened up, displaying more flavors and becoming more balanced in an overall sense. I was pleasantly surprised and happy to finish that bottle while disposing of what remained of the Cloudline.

My companion once again placed the Louis Latour, which was now very easy to identify, first.

All three of these wines, by the way, are listed as being 13% alcohol by volume.

If you purchase the Louis Latour pinot noir, drink it soon. Don’t let the fruit fade with time – there just isn’t enough there. This is an affordable pinot for informal consumption in circumstances where wine is not the main event. Serve it with relatively light fare, such as a dinner salad.

If you buy the A to Z, open it well before you intend to drink it and consider pouring it into a decanter and swirling it around before serving it. If it gets enough oxygen and is given time to open up, I think you’ll be pleased with this one -- if you like darker pinots that aren’t particularly acidic. This one can go with a meat-based main course.

I really don’t know what to say about the Cloudline. In most instances, wines in this price range are purchased for immediate consumption on one particular evening. If that’s your plan, it may be just fine, but it’s nothing special – a disappointment considering the fact that Oregon’s 2008 vintage has been rated one of the state’s best.

Ken Wright, Merry Edwards 2006 Pinot Noir

2011-03-25T17:23:00.001-07:00

Regular visitors to this blog may feel they are always reading that West Coast pinot noir is a medium-bodied wine or lighter. Are there are any full-bodied options out there? The answer is yes and here are two of them: a

Ken Wright 2006 “Shea Vineyard” 2006 Pinot Noir (about $50) and a

Merry Edwards 2006 “Tobias Glen” Pinot Noir ($54).

If you are a fan of big, intense pinot noir or if you are looking for a wine that would go well with particularly hearty fare (and if you have an ample budget for this sort of thing), both of these blockbuster-type pinots are Worth Considering.

Each year, Ken Wright releases several powerful, concentrated single-vineyard pinots made from grapes grown in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. As if to emphasize the hefty nature of these offerings (and perhaps to convince you they really are “something special”), the wines are contained in exceptionally heavy bottles. This is unnecessary and unfortunate because the wine is backbreaking to carry if you purchase a case, the thicker bottles tend not to fit easily in most wine racks and, most important, these bottles are far more damaging to the environment to produce than normal wine bottles. Sea Smoke Cellars recently announced that for environmental reasons, it would henceforth release its most expensive pinot in a normal-weight bottle and it is high time Ken Wright and various other wineries did the same. Except for sparkling wine, heavy bottles are unnecessary and irresponsible.

The Shea Vineyard, an important source of grapes for a number of higher-end Oregon offerings, is located in the Yamhill-Carlton District of the Dundee Hills region of the Willamette Valley and the Ken Wright offering under consideration here is listed as containing 13.5% alcohol by volume.

In contrast, the Merry Edwards pinot (14.4% alcohol) comes from grapes grown in what is described as a shady glen in California’s Russian River Valley, a portion of Sonoma County. The winery says that the cool temperatures of that particular location make the grapes grown there among the last to be harvested, which gives the wine “the dense richness of late-ripening grapes.” Like the Ken Wright pinot, the color of the Merry Edwards offering is deep and dark and the winemaker talks of flavors along the lines of blueberries, blackberries, cassis and licorice. I’m sure you get the picture: this is not one of those light, red-fruit focused pinots that are much in vogue.

Winemakers sometimes describe U.S. pinots as being either masculine or feminine in character. Both of these wines are firmly in the masculine camp with Merry Edwards suggesting the “Tobias Glen” pinot would best be served with dishes along the lines of beef stew with mushrooms or roast quail with a sauce of reduced blackberries. Suffice to say, neither of these are salmon wines.

Two of us blind-tasted these two wines during the course of two dinners, resealing the partially consumed bottles in between. In total, this was done over a three-day period.

The Merry Edwards “Tobias Glen” offering was the clear winner on the first night. It had a more pronounced bouquet and it displayed a range of attractive flavors on the palate. In contrast, the Ken Wright “Shea Vineyard” was more narrowly and intensely focused on a single dark-fruit flavor. Both of these wines were big and powerful, but in neither case was the fruit so dense as to be described as “extracted.” Both finished very nicely.

Two evenings later, the story was a bit different. The Merry Edwards, while still pleasant, had lost its complexity. In contrast, the Ken Wright offering had gained a bit – some spice that wasn’t apparent on the first night (perhaps the wine was still closed up) had appeared. But spice didn’t last long. By the end of the second meal, it was much less apparent than when the bottle was initially re-opened.

If you have any of the Merry Edwards, it is easy to say what to do. Open it and drink it in one evening. The Ken Wright is a little tougher. Maybe one should open it a bit early on the night you plan to consume it and let it breathe for quite awhile.

These wines could be cellared for a longer period of time, but I don’t think that is necessary.

If you like a big, dark pinot, both of these are at least worth trying.

Note Worthy: DeLille Chaleur Estate Blanc and others

2011-03-23T18:21:00.001-07:00

I first wrote about DeLille Cellars’ Bordeaux-style white wine in July 2010 – when it was on sale at a substantial discount -- and you can find that report here. The wine is called Chaleur Estate Blanc and I recently tried the 2009 vintage which unfortunately wasn’t on sale. Although it cost $35 a bottle, I have to admit this wine could become rather addictive. It’s delightful and when I served it at a recent small gathering without identifying what it was, I received several compliments on how nice the wine was. I noted more than one person looking around to see if there was any more available. Unfortunately, on that particular occasion, there wasn’t.

DeLille, a high-end Washington State winery, says it decided to make this particular wine by “ascribing to the notion that the world is over blessed with chardonnays.” That’s for sure.

The winery describes the Chaleur Estate Blanc as a classic Bordeaux style white, which is to say a blend of sauvignon blanc and semillion. It’s made from grapes grown in some of Washington’s oldest vineyards and free-run (as opposed to pressed) juice is fermented on its lees in 100% new French oak. Commendably, however, flavors attributable to oak don’t dominate or even much intrude on this very pleasant offering. Typical of wines made in Washington from grapes associated with Bordeaux, this is a somewhat bigger, creamier more mouth-filling wine than comparable wines made in France. Not surprisingly, given all that fruit, it is also more alcoholic than a typical French Bordeaux white, checking in at 14.1%

Back in July, I said this wine was Worth Considering. I’m now elevating my assessment to Recommended.

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Also last July, I wrote a post entitled “The Benefit of Attending a Wine Dinner” which can be found here. Dinners were not really the main point. Rather, I was arguing that when it comes to purchasing expensive French wine from the somewhat volatile Burgundy region – white or red – it pays to try before you buy whenever possible. Fortunately, there are a reasonable number of tasting opportunities in the Seattle area, but I know that isn’t necessarily the case everywhere.

Last year, we had an opportunity to try a large number of 2007 wines made by Joseph Drouhin, one of the most prominent exporters of red and white Burgundies to the U.S., for a modest fee. Given the prices, most of the reds were not terribly attractive, but the whites fared better. Two of the most interesting where a Puligny-Montrachet and a Chassagne-Montrachet priced at about $60 a bottle. It was illuminating to try them side by side. The Puligny-Montrachet was distinctly lighter and more minerally (a style I like) while the Chassagne-Montrachet was richer, rounder and more soft-fruit focused in terms of flavor – a style my most frequent fellow panelist enjoys. So I bought a couple of bottles and recently pulled the 2007 Chassagne-Montrachet out of the cellar. It was excellent, reinforcing the idea of “try before you buy.”

This wine, by the way, is listed as being 13% alcohol by volume. Compare that to the level of the Washington State white mentioned above.

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Gamay is not a grape one hears much about in the U.S. unless you’re a big fan of wines from the Beaujolais region of France and happen to know what they are made out of. Gamay is a robust, abundant producer and red wines made from that grape are often consumed at a very young age on highly informal occasions. It used to be considered a fun grape as opposed to a serious one, but a number of Beaujolais producers seem to be trying to change that image – unfortunately, in my humble opinion. Given the state of the economy among other things, the world does not seem to need more higher-priced wines. Bring back the bargain “lets grab a few bottles and have a big picnic” Beaujolais. Where has it gone?

Here in the U.S., Evening Land Vineyards, a relatively new winery, but one that has received a lot of attention as a result of having a “French connection,” is now offering a wine called Celebration 2009 Gamay Noir. It’s nicely balanced, pleasantly flavored and easy to drink. This wine is made from grapes grown in the Eola-Amity Hills section of Oregon’s Willamette Valley and the 2009 vintage is priced at about $22. Not surprisingly, it is a slightly bigger wine than most but not all Beaujolais and it checks in at a fairly attractive 13.4% alcohol level. My guess is that this wine is likely to be more reliably pleasant than a lot of similarly priced pinot noir from Oregon and it is certainly Worth Considering.

By the way, you can find a review of the 2007 Celebration Gamay Noir at Beyond the Bottle, another Seattle wine blog.

Jigsaw, Soter “North Valley” 2008 Pinot Noir

2011-03-11T22:40:00.001-08:00

This posting considers a:

Jigsaw 2008 “Oregon” Pinot Noir ($18) and a

Soter 2008 “North Valley” Pinot Noir ($25).

Let’s get straight to the bottom line. The Jigsaw is Not Recommended while the Soter is Recommended.

When it comes to a bit of fizz in red wines, I’m fairly tolerant even though this is generally considered a flaw in winemaking. For instance, I recently reviewed a Montinore Estate 2009 Pinot Noir (you can find that posting here) said it was worth considering “if you don’t mind a hint of sharp fizz when it is first opened.”

But I’m drawing the line when it comes to the Jigsaw. This one had far more than a hint of fizz. Rather, it was very noticeable and it lasted throughout an entire dinner.

As usual, two of us blind-tasted these two wines and my fellow panelist rejected the Jigsaw immediately, refusing to drink any more of it during the course of our first dinner.

“Fizzy turns me off,” my companion declared, pushing the glass away.

Since fizz in red wine often disappears fairly quickly, I kept sipping it as the dinner progressed, but had to agree that it was intolerable. That was too bad because the wine’s underlying flavors – red fruit focused – were good.

Fizz in red wine generally comes from one of two sources – sometimes carbon dioxide gets trapped in the wine during the bottling process, but in other instances, the wine wasn’t fully fermented before it was bottled. I suspect the latter was the case with respect to the Jigsaw.

For consumers, this should be simply unacceptable. It is a product of sloppy, inattentive, inexperienced or incompetent winemaking. If you purchase red wine that tastes fizzy at a restaurant, send it back.

Jigsaw, by the way, is the second label of Ransom Wine Co., of Sheridan, Oregon. It’s a relatively recent winery and in my humble opinion, it clearly has a ways to go.

Ok. Lets turn to the “North Valley.” Tony Soter, the winemaker, is a very nice guy (I’ve run into him a couple of times), but to be frank, he’s been taking money out of the pockets of consumers for a number of years. His Oregon pinots have traditionally been very expensive for what one gets, I guess on the view that if you put a very high price on a product people will think it must be better than lower priced goods.

That, as we know, is a time-honored technique and one that most of us tend to fall for from time to time.

Well, in recent years, the economy has not been conducive to very expensive wines and Mr. Soter has evidently decided an adjustment is necessary. So, along comes the “North Valley,” a blend made from grapes grown in various vineyards in the Willamette Valley.

The 2008 “North Valley” pinot had a nice but not pronounced bouquet and featured an attractive mix of light and dark fruit flavors on the palate. Body weight was just on the light side of medium and acidity was mild but acceptable. The finish was very nice – we both noticed that a bit of spice kicked in right at the end. That both helped to prolong the experience of drinking it and it kept the wine tasting fresh.

Over the course of the first dinner, the bouquet of the “North Valley” increased as this wine came into contact with more oxygen.

As usual, we resealed the partially consumed bottles after the first dinner and reopened them a day later.

By this point, the Jigsaw had finally lost its fizzy quality and it had gained a noticeable amount of weight. It was now smooth and mouth filling, but very simple in terms of flavor and it didn’t have enough acidity to be particularly good with food.

The Soter, on the other hand, had begun to develop some interesting non-fruit flavors, particularly in the bouquet. It also seemed to taste a little darker and it seemed to be exhibiting just a hint of tannin. The finish was the same as on the first night.

This wine may well improve with a couple of years in the cellar.

For the record, the Jigsaw is listed as being 13.1% alcohol by volume, which is attractive, while the Soter “North Valley” checks in at 13.6%.

Elk Cove Pinot Gris

2011-03-11T14:06:00.001-08:00

Ever stared at a restaurant wine list, wondering just what bottle might please everyone at the table AND deliver excellent value for the price you are going to pay?

Pinot gris from Oregon often fits the bill and the following offering is particularly nice. It’s an:

Elk Cove “Willamette Valley” 2009 Pinot Gris ($19).

I haven’t written about Oregon pinot gris for awhile which is frankly an oversight. Unlike Oregon pinot noir, which can be a little problematic for offerings under $20 a bottle – and sometimes for the more expensive options as well – Oregon pinot gris is highly affordable and generally far more interesting than its close and familiar cousin, pinot grigio from Italy. While the names are slightly different, the grape is the same.

Oregon pinot gris typically exhibits two components or aspects: citric acidity that is often a bit grapefruit flavored and soft fruit flavors such as those that come from pears or stone fruit. Some wines lean in one direction while others tilt the other way.

The Elk Cove is a fairly mouth filling, soft pinot gris with just enough citric flavoring to keep it fresh and interesting. This is a wine with a lot of flavor and in that respect, very different from the sometimes featureless and insipid Italian pinot griggios that restaurants unfortunately love to offer by the glass.

The Elk Cove is Recommended.

If you can’t find the Elk Cove – like most Willamette Valley wineries, it is a small producer – here are a few other wineries that typically produce good value pinot gris year in, year out. And some will be less expensive than the Elk Cove.

Adelsheim

Bethel Heights (this one has been excellent over the years)

Cooper Mountain

King Estate

Ponzi

That’s just a small list of Oregon pinot gris offerings that we have tried and liked. There are others as well.

The Elk Cove pinot gris, by the way is fermented in stainless steel as are many others. It’s listed as being 13.5% alcohol by volume.

How To Drink Wine

2011-03-09T16:18:00.001-08:00

By Fowler W. Martin

“The Wine Commentator”

That’s a presumptuous title for a blog posting, isn’t it?

But I want to discuss a couple of ways consumers can increase their enjoyment and get more for their money, especially if they are spending enough to purchase what might be called interesting bottles of wine. By interesting I mean wine that is more complex than the mass-market brands generally selling for less than, say, $15 a bottle.

First, however, a couple of common-sense guidelines:

A number of studies published during the past 20 years or so have concluded that, in moderation, consuming wine is good for your general health as opposed to being bad for it.

What constitutes moderation? Two normal sized glasses of wine per day for men and one for women. That’s assuming you haven’t consumed any other alcoholic beverages. If you are married or in a partnership that’s about a half a bottle of wine per day in total if both of you are consuming it.

In general, wine is intended for consumption with food and in a social situation, such as a convivial dinner at home or at a restaurant. If you are drinking to drown your sorrows, go for something else.

Now, here are a couple of general rules for getting more drinking pleasure for your money.

1) Most red wines are consumed too soon.

2) Most white wines are consumed too cold.

With all such rules, there are exceptions and I’ll provide two personal ones. I’m sure there are others.

With respect to reds, don’t save Beaujolais. Buy the most recent vintage you can get your hands on (beware of stores that are selling Beaujolais that is more than two vintages old) and don’t bother letting it breathe or decanting it. It’s a great and generally fairly inexpensive wine for informal occasions – like burgers out on the deck in the summer – and it doesn’t need any special handling. Just open the bottle and pour it. Or you can even cool it down slightly in the refrigerator before opening it. Some people prefer it that way. And you don't have to serve Beaujolais in fancy glasses. It tastes great in pottery mugs or even old jelly jars.

In general, however, red wines are consumed at roughly room temperature so as to maximize their flavors and bring out complexity. If stored in a cellar, they are generally brought upstairs, placed in an upright position and, except for very old wines, opened and allowed to breathe -- and reach room temperature -- well before consumption. (Very old wines should be opened just before you drink them because they can fade very rapidly.)

As for whites, when I eat oysters on the half shell, I like my wine cold and crisp. Muscadet and Sancerre are the classics, but if you like oysters and haven’t tried one of the better New Zealand sauvignon blancs with them, give one a try.

Now back to the general rules.

Most people buy a bottle of wine at the store, open it just before a meal and drink it. Or maybe a bottle has sat in a rack located over one's refrigerator (not good -- it's too hot up there), or wherever, for a couple of months before being consumed. Ever come across wine that seems to taste better at the end of the meal than at the beginning? Or a bottle that tastes better when you reopen it the next day?

If so, read on.

Most boutique or artisan-produced red wines, and some of the mass-market variety, will improve with age – or, if you don’t have a wine cellar or don’t want to spend the money to build an inventory, with lots of oxygen.

Ideally, most red wines should be cellared for at least a couple of years and in some cases a lot more. Many pinot noir will develop fairly rapidly – think of a two-to-ten-year time frame – while a lot of cabernet sauvignons take longer, in some cases much longer.

Most merlots are probably somewhere in the middle.

Wines made from grapes associated with the Rhone region of France can often profitably age for a very long time.

If you find a wine you like and you want to try cellaring, lay it horizontal in a wine rack located in a cool dark location in your basement (away from the furnace). The ideal temperature is a steady 55 degrees, but if you aren’t thinking 20 years and aren’t buying really expensive wine, don't worry if your basement is somewhat warmer than that.

If you are into expensive, long-lived wine, either have a custom temperature-contolled wine cellar built in your house or, even better, rent a locker at a climate-controlled facility. Companies that rent wine lockers usually monitor them and have back-up climate-control equipment. And, you don't have to worry about your expensive wine collection when you leave home.

With red wine, buy three or four bottles of a brand you like and try one in two years, another in thee or four years and another in five to eight years. Obviously, it takes patience and may be impractical for a lot of people, but you'll be surprised and in most cases, very gratified as to how these wines improve.

Obviously, you have to do this on a regular basis so your collection is always rolling forward.

If you can’t cellar red wine or don’t want to, and can’t afford to purchase older wine (it tends to be very expensive and who knows how it has been stored?), then open your red wine well before you intend to drink it – like three or four hours beforehand. Consider pouring it into a decanter before serving it. Swirl it around. Let it get A LOT of oxygen. Serve it in tulip-shaped glasses so the bouquet goes up your nose. Warm it with your hands as you drink it. All of this will help the wine open up and reveal more flavors. Sometimes it will only get a little better. Other times, you may be amazed at what a good wine you purchased.

Speaking of glasses, you don't have to buy expensive crystal (although they are wonderful), but you should purchase nice ones -- tulip shaped (as opposed to straight sided) and made out of thin rather than thick glass. Avoid plastic. It’s terrible.

Fill your glass only about one third full. That's important. You need room to swirl the wine around so it gets plenty of oxygen and you want room in the glass for a bouquet to form on top of the wine's surface. A lot of the flavor of wine comes through your nose.

If a wine deteriorates when exposed to oxygen instead of getting better, it's probably not very good. I would tend not to purchase it again.

Many white wines have complex flavors, too, but most consumers probably never know it. These wines are typically consumed straight out of the refrigerator and the cold temperature kills all but the most dominant flavor.

This is tough to overcome. Americans like their drinks cold – very cold. Cold coke, cold beer, cold vodka – you get the picture. This preference is a disaster for wine.

You can experiment as to what temperature you like, but I recommend about half way between refrigerator and room temperature. In other words, take a bottle of white wine out of the fridge sometime before you plan to drink it, open it and let it sit. If it still seems a little on the cold side when you are consuming it, warm the glass with your hands and swirl it around to get some oxygen. Drink it slowly and experience the emergence of new flavors.

Once again, depending on the wine, the improvement may be slight, or it may be fairly dramatic. You may even find the wine has flavors you don’t actually like and never knew it because the cold "killed" them! Try something else next time. This is one area where there is no shortage of choice.

In general, white wines are consumed within a year or two of their release. You will sometimes hear that white wine can be aged just like red wine, but I don't recommend it. Whenever I have tried it, the results have been very disappointing. Only occasionally has it been rewarding,

One last comment: if you ask wine merchants, or even winemakers, when a bottle of red wine will be at it’s best, they may give you a range of future years, but they will almost invariably add, with considerable emphasis, that it is "good right now, too.”

Why?

Well, they want to sell wine and they know full well most people aren’t going to keep a bottle for two years, much less a decade or more. If people think a wine isn’t as good as it can be right now, they probably won’t buy it.

You might find that as you gain experience consuming wine, you become more and more skeptical of "good-right-now" assertions – especially when you find a lot of red wine has nice flavors, but seems a little rough on the palate. That roughness will generally go away with age and if you keep your good red wines long enough, you will find they begin to slide down your throat like liquid velvet. Unfortunately, there aren’t any shortcuts for getting there.

Related Postings:

Why and How to Decant Wine

Storing Partially Consumed Bottles of Wine

Try This at Home?

A Word on Wine Prices

Culling Your Cellar

The Flavors of Wine

Useful Advice From the New York Times

Need Air? Don’t Feel Like the Lone Ranger

Cellar Report: Alesia 2006 Pinot Noir – Again

2011-03-02T16:32:00.001-08:00

When one encounters a really good wine, it is usually immediately apparent.

“Wow,” said my companion. “What is this?”

It was a bottle of:

Alesia 2006 “San Mateo County” Pinot Noir ($29)

and this was the third time that we had tried it. We sampled it initially in 2008, not long after it shipped, and then again in late 2009. While it was very good on the previous two occasions, this wine had greatly benefited from another year or so in the bottle.

This time around, the bouquet was bigger and something akin to a flowering of flavors had taken place in terms of what one tastes on the palate. The finish said “more, more.”

What’s really wonderful about the “San Mateo County” at this stage of its life is that it delivers “big wine” intensity of flavor on a relatively light body. That makes it easy to drink and it complements a wide range of food rather than overwhelming all but heavier fare.

Will it last longer? Yes, I think it will be good for at least a couple more years in the cellar before the fruit begins to fade if you insist, but why bother?

If you have any of this wine, I’d pull out at least one bottle now and see what you think. If you don’t like this offering, maybe something other than pinot noir is the right wine for you.

Alesia, by the way, is about to disappear as a label. Rhys Vineyards, which is located in the hills just west of California’s Silicon Valley and just east of the Pacific Ocean, has used the Alesia name for wines that it produced with fruit purchased from vineyards not owned by the winery.

But as the years have gone by, Rhys has expanded its own output of grapes and just completed a rather stunning new underground production facility.

The winery currently has an Alesia 2008 “Sonoma Coast” pinot on offer (this is made from grapes grown in different locations than those of the “San Mateo County” pinot under review here) and when that is sold out, Alesia will be history.

I guess it is fair to say that I’m very glad I bought some when I did.

Different Horses For Different Courses

2011-02-25T16:17:00.001-08:00

During the years I lived in London -- some time ago now -- I used to hear that phrase a lot: “different horses for different courses.”

What it meant was that something couldn’t categorically be decreed better or worse than something else. It depended upon the context or the situation.

That’s a notion that can useful in thinking about wine, in this case a:

Brewer-Clifton 2008 “Mount Carmel” Pinot Noir ($57) and a

Dutton Goldfield 2008 “Dutton Ranch” Pinot Noir ($32).

I was in San Francisco recently, heading to a dinner party, and I couldn’t resist buying a bottle of the Brewer-Clifton “Mount Carmel” pinot.

I showed it to one of the employees of the store, a small shop that specializes in small-producer wines, and said: “what can you give me from the same vintage that will be very different?”

That’s how I ended up with the Dutton Goldfield pinot. Not only was it very different, it was very popular, I was told.

Pinot noir is generally not “indicated” (to use a medical term) for accompanying roast beef, but that was what was being served. And, in this case, the Dutton Goldfield was a big winner. It was perfect for the meal.

“This is a lovely wine,” one of the four people at the table said. “It works really well with the beef.”

Another participant quickly agreed and in my mind, there was no question about it.

The winery says that because of certain growing conditions, the 2008 “Dutton Ranch” pinot emerged with “super-subtle tannins” and it went on to describe the wine as “a particularly forward and unctuous offering.” That’s pretty accurate. I found it to be smooth, deep and intense without being heavy or “rich.” It had a dark flavor – the winery says black cherry – but it also had some nice spice that lightened things up and provided a bit of complexity.

Yet another of the four of participants called it “smooth, velvety and easy to drink.”

In contrast, the much more expensive Brewer-Clifton pinot – a very good wine as well – was not at all in its element in the company of roast beef. It needed lighter and differently flavored fare. As such, it was harder for the group to fully appreciate.

I find Brewer-Clifton pinots interesting because the winery is focused on exploring the nature of “terrior” as fully as possible. This involves using exactly the same winemaking procedures for each lot of grapes in order to keep any flavors that enter the final product from that process uniform across all releases for a given vintage. In principle, that means that the differing flavors of Brewer-Clifton’s various vineyard-designate wines derive solely from the particular clone or clones of grapevines, from the nature of the soil and from the mico-climatic conditions present in each individual vineyard.

The 2008 “Mount Carmel” was lighter in body weight, more acidic and more red-fruit focused than the “Dutton Ranch.”

One participant in the comparative tasting said it had “a little bite up front and was crisper and lighter” than the Dutton Goldfield offering.

Forgetting about the problem with roast beef for a moment, I thought the Brewer-Clifton pinot was more distinctively flavored than the Dutton Goldfield and it also seemed to be changing faster as it came into contact with increasing amounts of oxygen in the glass. As time went by, a hint of cola crept into the flavor profile, which wasn’t surprising. Cola seems to be a signature flavor of California’s Santa Rita Hills appellation, which is where this wine comes from. In contrast, the Dutton Goldfield pinot was made from grapes grown in the Russian River Valley.

For the record, the “Dutton Ranch” checks in at 13.5% alcohol while the “Mount Carmel” is listed as being 14%.

Both of these wines are Recommended with the caveat that you are careful about the type of food with which they are served.

“Horses for courses,” to use the short-hand version of the title of this posting.

Useful Advice From “The New York Times”

2011-02-23T18:51:00.001-08:00

Eric Asimov, the wine critic of “The New York Times,” has an interesting column in today’s paper that many consumers could benefit from reading – at least in part if not in full. You can find it here.

Asimov starts out by asserting that detailed and often florid descriptions of a wine’s aromas and flavors – the sort of descriptions one encounters all too often – generally don’t help consumers understand the character of a bottle of wine or the degree of pleasure they might experience in drinking it.

“All you have to do is compare two reviewers’ notes for a single bottle: one critic’s ripe raspberry, white pepper and huckleberry is another’s sweet-and-sour cherries and spice box,” he says.

I couldn’t agree more and in fact have provided what I think is an excellent example of this sort of nonsense in a posting entitled “The Flavors of Wine.” You can find it here.

In short, I took a look at seven descriptions of a Morgan 2007 “Twelve Clones” Pinot Noir – that of the winery itself followed by those of six outside reviewers – and discovered little agreement among any of them. But they all liked the Morgan so much that the winery happily provided links to their disparate descriptions from its website. Reading them in sequence is both illuminating of the issue under discussion here and highly amusing.

I wrote about what transpired with respect to the Morgan pinot to illustrate why I personally don’t attempt to parse out more than a couple of very dominant individual flavors in the wines my fellow panelists and I sample.

Asimov goes on to point out that even if a wine exhibits certain flavors at one moment, it may taste quite different fairly shortly thereafter – when it is consumed with one food or another or as it comes into contact with more and more oxygen in the glass. It may also change after being cellared for awhile – and almost surely will change very considerably if cellared for many years.

So what is one to do?

In his article, Asimov suggests that it is more useful to try to figure out whether a particular wine is “savory” or “sweet.” In this case, sweet does not mean sweet like a dessert wine. It is far less dramatic than that.

In the first paragraph of this posting, I suggest that consumers may not need to read the NYT column in full. The reason is that Asimov tries to be too comprehensive. He rushes through a very long list of different wines, trying to say where each fits on the sweet/savory scale.

While I think Asimov’s methodology is useful and provocative, it isn’t the only way to help consumers decide whether a wine will be suitable to their tastes. “Savory” can conjure up a lot of different flavors and when Asimov talks about “sweetness” in wine, it isn’t quite akin to a discussion of the degree of sweetness in, say, cookies.

To me, a very important and possibly more understandable scale has to do with acidity – essentially the degree of tartness in a wine. Too little and wines tend to eventually taste flabby and boring although they may initially seem agreeably smooth. Too much acidity and a wine can taste unpleasantly tart and assertive, or even downright harsh and difficult t0 digest, especially if consumed without food.

Wines that have “good acidity” taste lively and fresh without being at all unpleasant and they tend to go better with most types of food than wines that are insufficiently acidic.

But maybe what Asimov has to say makes more sense to you. That’s fine. What matters is getting away from a long list of flavors, many of which like “underbrush” don’t mean anything anyway, as a means of choosing which wine to purchase.

Next, maybe we can address another bit of nonsense that is rife in the world of wine – assigning numerical scores.

Bethel Heights, Shea Pinots From 2005

2011-02-22T16:08:00.001-08:00

“Sometimes these comparative tastings aren’t really fair. I’d be more than happy with either of these two wines if someone served one of them to me, but when you drink them together, inevitably a certain amount of nit picking takes place.”

That was without doubt the most salient comment my fellow panelist made when we blind tasted the following two higher-end Oregon offerings, both of which had been in my cellar for about four years. They were a:

Bethel Heights 2005 “Casteel Reserve” Pinot Noir ($52) and a

Shea Wine Cellars 2005 “Shea Vineyard” Estate Pinot Noir ($39)

You have probably noted the substantial price difference between these two offerings – the Bethel Heights having cost at time of purchase one third more than the Shea. One would think – and indeed hope – that the differential would make the Bethel Heights pinot noticeably better, but as anyone who has consumed a lot of wine undoubtedly knows, price and quality – as measured by drinking satisfaction – all too often don’t correlate very well.

As my companion noted, both of these Willamette Valley pinots possessed the key qualities one hopes for when one has purchased a high-end wine and put it away in suitable storage conditions for a few years. Their flavors were nicely integrated into a coherent whole, their textures were deliciously velvety and there was nothing to complain about. Neither was too sweet, too acidic, too flabby, too tannic, too spicy, too anything.

Now for the nits. Despite its higher price, the Bethel Heights was ultimately less interesting because it had less complexity of flavor. It was also a “rounder,” somewhat softer wine.

In contrast, the Shea had a bit more backbone, a bit more in the way of acidity and most important, slightly more interesting flavors.

As we drank these wines, we both tended to like what turned out to be the Bethel Heights pinot initially but, as time went by, switched to what turned out to be the Shea. That was the one each of us wanted a bit more of and the one we said we liked best before all was revealed.

We tried these wines with two consecutive dinners, resealing the partially consumed bottles in between. Both wines, but perhaps especially the Bethel Heights, opened up a bit and gained some body weight with exposure to oxygen. But in terms of flavor, both weren’t quite as vibrant the second time around. I’m splitting hairs here – admittedly – but if I had to choose, I think both were slightly better on the first night.

Here’s the bottom line: both of these offerings are drinking exceptionally well right now. Should they be aged further? I would say the Shea, more than the Bethel Heights pinot, might benefit from another year of so, but at the same time, I see no reason not to drink either or both of them right now.

Resources:

Bethel Heights

Shea Wine Cellars

Cellar Report: WillaKenzie 2004 “Aliette” Pinot

2011-02-21T17:51:00.001-08:00

From time to time, instead of comparing two or more wines, I simply pull one bottle from our cellar to be consumed without any fuss. Generally, I don’t tell my dinner companions what it is.

Typically, we sample the wine first, to get a feel for what it is like on its own, and then drink it with the food.

“I think this is a really good pinot noir from Oregon,” my fellow diner immediately declared with an unusual degree of certainty.

I took a second sip.

“I agree with you. In my view, it’s excellent and you are correct. It is from Oregon.”

The wine in question was a:

WillaKenzie Estate 2004 “Aliette” Pinot Noir (about $35 when initially purchased ).

This wine, which had been in our cellar for roughly five years, was the third single-vineyard WillaKenzie pinot that we had tried in recent months and it was the best.

Last year, I pulled out a WillaKenzie 2003 “Tripple Black Slopes” pinot, a report upon which can be found here, and a WillaKenzie 2003 “Emery” pinot, concerning which some comments can be found here.

Fans of Oregon pinot noir may recall that 2004 was considered a good year except that yields were very low. Thus, these wines – especially the more reasonably priced ones – were sometimes hard to find.

The WillaKenzie 2004 “Aliette” not only had a seductive, velvety texture and an exceptionally nice overall balance, it featured an addictive degree of flavor complexity. Needless to say, this wine disappeared exceptionally quickly.

When one purchases a fairly expensive bottle of wine and cellars it for a few years, this is the sort of outcome one hopes to achieve – not always with total success.

In my view, the “Aliette” is probably pretty close to at it’s prime. It will certainly last longer, but if you have any in your cellar, I would strongly recommend trying a bottle now. You won’t be disappointed.

WillaKenzie Estate, located in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, is named after the type of soil in which the winery’s vines are planted and only estate grapes are used winery’s various offerings. The winemaker, Thibaud Mandet, is French.

The winery recently received a nice accolade when a New York Times panel that tried 20 Oregon pinots of the excellent 2008 vintage identified a Willakenzie offering as the second best value. You can find that report here.

Evening Land, St. Innocent 2009 Pinot Noir

2011-02-17T19:01:00.001-08:00

The previous posting took a look at a couple of Oregon pinot noir costing $20 or less from the 2009 vintage. Here, we take a step upward to an:

Evening Land 2009 “Eola-Amity Hills” Pinot Noir ($27) and a

St. Innocent 2009 “Villages Cuvée” Pinot Noir ($25).

Here’s the quick bottom line: if you have been or currently are drinking pinot noir from Oregon’s excellent 2008 vintage, both of these wines are, like the two pinots mentioned in the prior posting, likely to be at least a bit disappointing. The best I can say about them is that they are Worth Considering to see if you like the particular style of one or the other. As for us, once was enough.

Two of us blind-tasted these wines over the course of two nights, but after the first time around, it was easy to tell which was which.

The more expensive Evening Land was noticeably fruiter in a somewhat grapey fashion. Over time, some barnyard-type earthy notes appeared both in the pronounced, up-your-nose bouquet and on the palate. In sharp contrast, the quieter St. Innocent was characterized by a prevalence of non-fruit flavors that we were unable to put a name to. To me, they seemed a little odd.

Both of these wines were just a touch heavier than medium bodied, both were devoid of noticeable tannins (the kind that coat the back of one’s mouth) and both had adequate but not pronounced acidity. The Evening Land was a little less acidic than the St. Innocent if that is an important consideration.

As for flavor, the Evening Land was oriented toward red fruit plus some spice. And, as mentioned above, a bit of earthiness appeared as the wine encountered more and more oxygen.

In addition, the grapey aspect that didn’t particularly appeal to me had diminished somewhat on the second day, suggesting that perhaps this wine really needs more time in the bottle to be at its best.

The same could be said for the St. Innocent pinot, which also appeared to be developing a more interesting flavor profile – still heavily non-fruit – on the second day.

In fact, all four of the Oregon 2009 pinots that I have so far written about have seemed to need more time.

The message so far seems to be: stick with the Oregon 2008s, which hopefully you’ve stocked up on or can still purchase, for as long as possible, buy 2009s much more cautiously and keep them in your cellar for awhile before consuming them.

For the record, both of these wines are listed as being 13.5% alcohol by volume.

Jezebel, Montinore 2009 Pinot Noir

2011-02-14T16:11:00.001-08:00

I chose this comparison with a simple question in mind: does it make sense to pay an extra $5.00 a bottle, or 33% more, for a bottle of Oregon pinot noir in the “affordable” price range? But in the process of puzzling over an answer, another thought came to mind: I fear pinots of Oregon’s 2009 vintage may suffer significantly from what came just before, whatever their merits.

In any event, this posting compares a:

Jezebel 2009 Pinot Noir ($20) and a

Montinore Estate 2009 Pinot Noir ($15).

(Those are New York City prices, by the way, and in this instance, I blind-tasted these wines myself instead of with at least one other person as is my usual custom.)

Here’s the quick bottom line: if you have been consuming pinot noir from Oregon’s excellent 2008 vintage, you may well find both of these offerings at least a little disappointing. That’s the downside of a really good vintage: it sets a memorable standard that makes what follows less appealing than might otherwise be the case.

In a more absolute sense, these wines are both Worth Considering with the Montinore a better value: 1) if you like a somewhat bigger, darker, denser, slightly tannic style of wine and 2) if you don’t mind a hint of sharp fizz when it is first opened.

In contrast, the more expensive Jezebel is noticeably lighter, cleaner in texture and more solely red-fruit focused. It is also more attractive in the glass if esthetics is a consideration.

I tasted both of these wines over a four-day period, resealing the partially consumed bottles in between. Both wines improved with considerable exposure to oxygen. The tannins of the Montinore softened and the fizz disappeared. Meanwhile, the Jezebel gained some weight and opened up a bit in terms of flavor.

Both wines only began to deteriorate toward the end of the period in question, suggesting one could, and perhaps should, cellar these wines for a couple of years before consumption.

But frankly, most pinots in this price range are purchased for immediate consumption. In that case, I would recommend decanting these wines and swirling them around vigorously before serving them.

The more expensive Jezebel is a pleasant, easy-to-drink offering. It is devoid of noticeable tannins, is mildly but sufficiently acidic and over time, it developed a bit more in the way of flavor than was the case when it was first opened. But even at the end of the day, this offering was blander than it ought to have been. It’s fundamentally a very simple wine – pleasant, but simple. It’s also appealingly low in alcohol at only 13%.

In some respects, the Jezebel reminds me of a traditional, unpretentious Beaujolais – a wine one might drink slightly chilled out of a plain glass or a jam jar on a warm evening, perhaps with a salmon salad.

The Montinore is a more complex offering, but whether it is better depends upon what one is seeking.

This wine has a more distinct bouquet than that of the Jezebel – dark, a little spicy and a little tannic. On the palate, there is a mix of red and dark fruit flavors, initially soft, but then less so as a mixture of spice and tannin kicks in. That mixture continues on into the finish and it is what one is left with.

The winery recommends drinking this with roasted or grilled meat and with salmon, but I would stick with the meat and forget the salmon. This wine can also stand up to a bit of spice if that’s the way you like your food. As for alcohol, it’s listed as being 13.9%.

Over time, by the way, the slightly fizzy aspect of this wine disappeared and the tannin softened somewhat, but it remained detectable.

During the course of trying these wines, I discovered that the Montinore was on offer by the glass – at $11 a glass – at one Manhattan wine bar. It has been very popular, a bartender told me.

Now lets think about that. If the retail price of this wine is $15 a bottle, I wouldn’t be surprised if the wine bar paid about the same price for A BOTTLE -- $11.00 or maybe even less – as they are charging for A GLASS.

This is just one good example of a general trend. As wine-by-the-glass has become more and more popular, many restaurants have been aggressively raising prices to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if such offerings produce ridiculously high profit margins. Buy wine by the bottle. Drink it at home. It is a very good reason for learning to cook if you don’t know how to do so already.

Unoaked and Lightly Oaked Chardonnay

2011-02-11T10:54:00.001-08:00

By Fowler W. Martin

“The Wine Commentator”

Do you like a big, mouth-filling, toasty, buttery chardonnay with strong notes of creamy vanilla? If so, you can stop reading this article right here.

Vanilla butter-bombs have long been the staple chardonnay made in the U.S., or with the American market in mind, but that is starting to change. More U.S. producers are now offering lighter, crisper, more food-friendly chardonnays that emphasize fruit flavors as opposed to those associated primarily with new oak barrels. Minerality is also starting to be discussed to a greater degree, but if that is what one is looking for, chardonnay made in France remains a better choice.

This is a welcome trend, but one that requires more work on the part of consumers because unoaked or lightly oaked chardonnays vary in taste and characteristics to a far greater degree than their heavily-oaked cousins.

In addition, the question of whether one likes a soft, at least somewhat buttery chardonnay as opposed to a crisp, more acidic offering is separate from whether a wine contains flavors associated with new oak. This has to do with whether something called malolactic fermentation (MLF) is allowed to take place. If it happens, the resulting wine will be soft and buttery to varying degrees. If MLF is blocked, the resulting wine will generally taste more crisp and tart.

The following is a list of unoaked or lightly oaked chardonnays worth exploring. Prices are approximate and specific vintages aren’t mentioned. Use the index that runs down the left hand side of this blog to get reviews of specific, individual offerings by the wineries in question.

The First Tier -- “Affordable”

Four Vines “Naked” Chardonnay (about $12)

(This inexpensive California offering, fermented in stainless steel, features crisp, citric acidity and good fruit flavors.)

Joseph Drouhin Macon Village (about $13)

Joseph Drouhin St. Veran (about $16)

(These two widely available and very consistent offerings from France are a bit softer than the Four Vines chardonnay and somewhat more minerally. These are versatile wines and great to have on hand as a “house white” for day in, day out consumption.)

Desert Wind “Bare Naked” Chardonnay (about $15)

(This Washington State unoaked offering is rather soft in texture and at least in one particular year, was somewhat cantaloupe focused in terms of flavor.)

The Second Tier-- “Moving Upward”

Joel Gott "Monterey" Chardonnay (about $18)

(Unoaked and no MLF, but not overly tart. This nicely flavored California offering has been consistently good in recent years and offers excellent value for the price.)

LIOCO "Sonoma County" Chardonnay (about $18)

(Unoaked but MLF permitted for those who don’t want vanilla or other oaky flavors, but who prefer a soft, somewhat buttery wine. A California blend made of grapes grown in various vineyards.)

Balletto “Estate Bottled” Chardonnay (about $18)

(Fermented 25% in new oak and MLF permitted in 75% of the blend. A California wine that might appeal to consumers who want to move cautiously away from the traditional oaky, buttery style.)

Morgan "Metallico" Chardonnay (about $20)

(Unoaked, no MLF, but a bit softer than the Joel Gott. Also from California and an excellent starting point for exploring offerings of this nature.)

Chamisal “Stainless” Chardonnay (about $20)

(Unoaked, no MLF, clean, crisp and easy to drink. From California.)

Chehalem “Inox” Chardonnay (about $20)

(Unoaked, no MLF, exceptionally tart and assertive. This Oregon offering needs the right food. It’s excellent with citric flavored dishes such as lemon chicken, but some consumers may feel it is too acidic if served on its own or with bland fare.)

The Third Tier -- “Above $20 a bottle”

L'Ecole No. 41 Chardonnay (about $22)

(Very little new oak is used to make this interesting offering from Washington State. From time to time, it has featured unusually good minerality for a U.S.- made chardonnay.)

Ferrari-Caran0 “Alexander Valley” Chardonnay (about $25)

(This widely distributed, familiar California offering has in my experience been getting progressively less oaky and buttery as the years have gone by. Nice fruit flavors and good citric acidity at present.)

Sonoma-Cutrer "Sonoma Coast" Chardonnay (about $25)

(Lightly oaked, widely available, somewhat minerally in the French style. California.)

Morgan "Highland" Chardonnay (about $26)

(Another offering from Morgan, this one is 30% fermented in new oak and MLF is only partially permitted. Like the Balletto mentioned above, this pleasantly crisp wine is a vehicle for gradually moving away from oaky butter-bombs.)

Domaine Drouhin “Arthur” Chardonnay (about $30)

(A lightly oaked offering from Oregon that features good citric acidity, a bit of minerality and fruit flavors that become increasingly interesting and complex as the wine warms in the glass. This wine cellars exceptionally well, becoming softer and a bit more full-bodied over time.)

Brewer-Clifton “Sta. Rita Hills” Chardonnay (about $35)

(The winery’s “entry level” chardonnay blend, fermented without any new oak. Generally well balanced, nicely flavored and very versatile.)

Woodward Canyon "Washington State" Chardonnay ($35)

(Oaked, but not particularly toasty or buttery. Nice fruit flavors if somewhat expensive for what you get.)

Mer Soleil “Silver” Chardonnay (about $36)

(This is the relatively new, unoaked first cousin of the long-familiar, oaky-buttery Mer Soleil that appears with a gold label. MLF is permitted and the first vintage of the “Silver” was excessively buttery while devoid of oak-related flavors. Subsequent releases have been better balanced, but this is perhaps still a work in progress. Another California wine.)

Fourth Tier -- “Searching for Minerality”

(These wines are from France, where one generally must look when seeking good minerality. Be warned: there is considerably more variation from vintage to vintage in French wines than is the case in the U.S. These wines tend to be expensive so try before you buy if you can. If you can’t, buy a single bottle and see what you think before buying more. Get the most recent vintage and don’t try to cellar these wines for long: unattractive old-wine flavors can develop surprisingly quickly.)

Bourgogne Vézelay "Cuveé Henry de Vézelay" (about $18)

(An affordable white Burgundy that in good years offers excellent value for money.)

Chateau de Puligny-Montrachet "Clos du Chateau" (about $30)

(An “entry-level” wine from a very famous producer. It’s an excellent starting point for deciding whether to explore higher end white Burgundies, many of which cost far more than $30 a bottle. Expensive by U.S. standards, but actually something of a bargain. Varies from year to year, but at its best, it offers a convincing look into the appeal of good minerality in a chardonnay.)

Dauvissat Chablis (from about $30 a bottle on upward)

(A Chablis region producer of very attractive mineral-driven chardonnays that are fabulous at their best, but disappointing when vegetal or old-wine flavors creep in, especially given the price. Proceed cautiously and stick to very recent vintages unless you know exactly what you are doing and why.)

William Fevre Chablis (from about $30 on up)

(A producer of Chablis region chardonnays that are relatively widely distributed and thus easier to find than Dauvissat. Variations from vintage to vintage can be considerable, but a good starting point.)

Fifth Tier -- “American Exotics”

Brewer-Clifton single vineyard chardonnays (from about $50 on up)

(These wines, which see no new oak and which are all identically made to allow flavors associated with differing “terroir” to show through, are fascinating, but not always particularly versatile when it comes to accompanying food. If you think you know what chardonnay tastes like, you may be in for a very big surprise.)

LIOCO single vineyard chardonnays (from about $30 to about $45)

(Unoaked, but MLF generally permitted. Another group of “terrior-driven” offerings from California that gives consumers access to unusual and sometimes unexpected flavor profiles when it comes to U.S.-made chardonnay.)

Diatom single vineyard chardonnays (from about $40 on up)

(No new oak, MLF inhibited to one degree or another. Make by Greg Brewer of Brewer-Clifton fame and similar to the approach taken with the Brewer-Clifton single vineyard chardonnays mentioned above.)

Hirsch Vineyards Chardonnay (about $50)

(A very lightly oaked wine made from grapes grown in an exceptionally challenging location on California’s Sonoma Coast. Relatively full bodied and soft, but with very interesting flavor complexity.)

Culling Your Wine Cellar

2011-02-04T17:02:00.001-08:00

Having a wine cellar is a little like having a garden: you have to tend it. Sort of like periodically pruning plants, you need to cull through your cellar from time to time to see what needs to be consumed – or even purged. Unless you are super organized and/or have enough space where all your wine can be laid out in plain view (that’ll be the day), it’s easy to forget exactly what’s down there – and time does go by.

Remember: the type of wine one bothers to cellar is not a manufactured product. It is alive and changing all the time.

In my posting called "How to Drink Wine,” which can be found here, I argue that most red wine is consumed too soon. For the most part, I’m taking about wine made by artisanal methods – not homogenized mass market offerings.

Let’s say you accept that notion. Then the question is, for how long?

This is an art and not a science. There is not a person on earth who can tell you exactly how long any particular red wine should be cellared. One sort of gets a feel for it as time goes by.

The other day, I sensed that I probably had some problematical stuff in my cellar and went looking for it. I found a:

Castle Rock 2007 “Mendocino County” Pinot Noir and a

Fiddlehead Cellars 1997 “Willamette Valley” Pinot Noir.

The first thing one might notice is that one of these wines is 10 years older than the other so why would a wine made in 2007 from an excellent California vintage be suspect?

Castle Rock is one of the few operations that tries to make relatively large quantities of “authentic” pinot noir at very reasonable prices and commendably succeeds for the most part in doing so. Castle Rock pinots are very widely available, but unlike the vast majority of mass market wines, these are not “made to a style.” That means, instead of always tasting the same, they always taste different.

They are a great introduction for consumers on a budget who nonetheless would like to start a journey into the world of West Coast pinot noir.

But let’s face it. These wines cannot possibly be made from the best available grapes and they aren’t made for an extended life. They are wines to drink shortly after they are released.

Should one cellar them at all? Yes, I would say for a few months. That will allow the wine to settle down from its undoubtedly bumpy ride to your local retailer. They are also likely to get just a bit smoother on the palate during that period.

But for two to three years? I don’t think so.

When I opened the Castle Rock 2007 “Mendocino County” pinot, a distinctly medicinal smell emerged. I checked the back of the bottle.

“This elegant medium-bodied wine has delicate aromas of violet and rose petals, complex flavors and long silky textures with layers of strawberry and raspberry leading into a long refined finish.”

Well, maybe something like that was true at one point in its life (I didn’t try this wine when it was first released), but it certainly wasn’t the case about three years later.

I sipped a bit – definitely medicinal – and then let my glass sit for awhile to see what contact with oxygen would do. Not much, as it turned out. Down the drain went the rest of the bottle. Oh, well, it probably cost only around $12 and for the money, I got a lesson learned.

If you like to drink inexpensive pinot and want to try cellaring it, buy a few bottles. Drink one immediately and pull the others out at, say, six month intervals. That way you can start to get a sense of how long to keep this type of wine.

Now lets turn to the Fiddlehead 1997 “Willamette Valley” pinot. I bought this wine directly from the winery a few years ago – why it was on offer at that point is a bit of a mystery, to me at any rate – and liked it very much.

It was very nice in 2008 (you can find that report here), but in early 2010 (see that report here) I concluded that it was starting to go downhill.

Well, by early 2011, this wine was heading south in a big way. It wasn’t going bad in the sense that it was turning to vinegar. Rather, the fruit had faded to such a degree – the bottle now had a lot of sediment in it – that it tasted far too “hot,” or alcoholic.

Alcohol doesn’t fade and as the fruit goes, a wine can become increasingly unbalanced in that respect.

The remaining flavors were actually somewhat interesting for those who are curious as to how a pinot evolves on the downhill slope (I recommend trying it, because it really helps one get to know “old wine” flavors), but because of the heavy alcoholic overlay, this wine, like the Castle Rock, was not pleasant to drink.

At $38 a bottle when originally purchased, I sighed as I disposed of most of this offering.

I often hear makers of California and Oregon pinot noir recommend keeping their wine for five to eight years (a few recommend longer times) and I’m beginning to sense that’s probably about right. The Fiddlehead 1997 “Willamette Valley” pinot definitely made it to age 10 in excellent shape, but that’s when the last of it should have been consumed.

The point is: don’t just put wine in your cellar and forget about it, assuming it will be wonderful, or at least just fine, when you finally get around to pulling it out.

Tend your garden.

Cellar Report: Cadence 2006 “Tapteil Vineyard”

2011-02-03T19:04:00.001-08:00

I recently reviewed a 2006 Washington State Bordeaux blend from Mark Ryan Winery and you can find that report here . You might want to read it because I’m going to talk a bit about the Mark Ryan in the course of commenting on a:

Cadence 2006 “Tapteil Vineyard” Red Wine ($45).

Like the Mark Ryan, the grapes from which this wine was made were grown in Washington State’s Red Mountain appellation, but the vineyard is different as is blend.

The Cadence red is cabernet sauvignon/merlot focused while the Mark Ryan contained about an equal amount of cabernet sauvignon followed proportionately by cabernet franc.

Here’s the key differences between these two 2006 Bordeaux-style blends: the Cadence was notably more acidic and it still had some perceptible tannin. Some might say that could make it a better food wine compared with the soft, velvety Mark Ryan offering and I can see that if somewhat spicy food were on offer. Otherwise, the similarly priced Mark Ryan was the winner between these two.

My bottom line on this wine is: it needs more time in the cellar.

I would give this one another couple of years and maybe even longer. I say that for two reasons.

First, after drinking slightly over half of the bottle with two consecutive dinners – during which time it didn’t change much –, I again resealed it and left it, as it turned out, for three more days. When it was then re-opened, the wine had improved, but it faded very quickly thereafter.

I don’t recommend the above procedure. The point is, it needs more time.

Second, we recently had a very good experience with a Cadence 2004 “Ciel du Cheval” Red Wine, the review of which can be found here. Interestingly, that’s the same vineyard where the grapes from which the above-mentioned Mark Ryan red were grown. Also interesting, the 2004 Cadence was more cabernet franc oriented than the wine under consideration in this posting.

If you have any Cadence 2006 “Tapteil Vineyard” Red Wine in your cellar, I suggest you keep it there for awhile longer. Alternatively, if you come across any of this for sale, don’t buy it with immediate consumption in mind.

Buty 2009 White Bordeaux Blend

2011-01-30T17:01:00.001-08:00

Ever get tired of your favorite white wine and think “maybe it’s time for something different … but not TOO different?”

If so, here’s one to try. Its a:

Buty 2009 Semillon, Sauvignon & Muscadelle ($25)

Buty (pronounced “beauty”) Winery is located in the Eastern Washington wine ghetto of Walla Walla, famous originally for onions and Whitman College. Production is small – only 30 barrels of the wine in question were produced in 2009 – so this could be difficult to find, but if you come across it, it’s definitely Worth Considering.

Many Washington wineries make red wine blends from grapes associated with the Bordeaux region of France, but it is less common to find white wine Bordeaux blends. That, I suppose, is at least in part because of the very heavy preference of U.S. consumers for chardonnay.

The Buty offering, a riff on a common French blend, is 65% semillon, 25% sauvignon blanc and 8% muscadelle.

While I have not sampled very many white Bordeaux, the ones I have tried have been less intensely fruit flavored than Buty’s. That’s not surprising. The same might be said of Bordeaux reds compared with red wines made in Washington State from grapes associated with Bordeaux.

While more full-bodied and mouth filling than its French cousins, the Buty white bend does not go overboard in that direction. It is sufficiently crisp both on the palate and in the finish to be a good food wine.

This offering has a nice, slightly floral bouquet and the flavors are soft and appealing. There is a bit of minerality to it, but not enough to mistake it as coming from France.

We found this wine very pleasant – the kind of wine where one tends to reach for a bit more – and would try it again.

It’s not cheap at $25 a bottle, but compared with many small-producer alternatives, I wouldn’t say it isn’t over priced.

For the record, it is listed as being 13.9% alcohol by volume, which is more than one would typically expect to find in a white blend from Bordeaux. The higher amount of alcohol reflects the richer nature of grapes grown in Washington – the overwhelming majority of which come from irrigated vineyards.

A Champagne Vs A Crémant

2011-01-29T20:08:00.001-08:00

One of the aims of this blog is to explore the question: when does it make sense to pay more for wine?

In that vein, our latest two-person panel blind-tasted a:

De Chanceny Crémant de Loire “Brut” ($13) and a

Nicolas Feuillatte Champagne “Brut” ($30).

First, in our case, the Nicholas Feuillatte was on sale for $25, a price at which I have seen it offered on a number of occasions so the champagne was essentially twice the price of the crémant.

Second, what is a crémant? As reported here, it is a sparkling wine produced in the Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Die, Jura, Limoux and Loire regions of France by the same method that champagne is produced. But under French law, it can’t be called champagne and no reference can be made to that region.

Third, for those who care, the De Chanceny crémant is a blend of chardonnay, chenin blanc and cabernet franc grapes while the Nicolas Feuillatte is made from chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier fruit.

Here’s the quick bottom line: we greatly enjoyed both of these sparklers, but when asked to rank them, we both put the Nicolas Feuillatte first. For me, the champagne had a much more pronounced bouquet. It was slightly floral in nature and quite attractive with the European-style smoked salmon we happened to be eating. This wine initially also offered more complexity of flavor on the palate, but on the downside, both the bouquet and the flavors faded surprisingly quickly as we sipped these wines over a period of about two hours. At the end of that period, the Nicolas Feuillatte had lost a lot of its initial appeal while the De Chanceny crémant held up just fine, and, indeed was still very good when the partially consumed bottle was re-opened a day later.

I think I learned a lesson here: be sure to serve the Nicolas Feuillatte immediately after it is opened and in a situation where it will be quickly consumed.

If you want to linger over a sparking wine, or only drink part of the bottle on day one, the De Chanceny crémant is a much better choice.

The crémant is also a far better choice if cost is an issue because the De Chanceny offering is a very well made and a very pleasing sparkling wine. It is attractively flavored, crisp, clean and totally devoid of any unpleasant aspects. This wine is Recommended.

In contrast, the much more expensive Nicolas Feuillatte is Worth Considering.

So … is it worthwhile to spend more money in this instance? My fellow panelist and I debated that question as we went back and forth over these two offerings and concluded it was hard to say.

If you have a special occasion when the wine will be served essentially on its own – for a toast perhaps – and you can afford it, go for the champagne.

On the other hand, if you just happen to like a bottle of sparking wine from time to time, maybe with a late supper after an evening at the theatre for instance, and I certainly do, buy a few bottles of the crémant to have on hand. You won’t regret it.

For the record, the Nicolas Feuillatte champagne is listed as being as modest 12% alcohol by volume while the De Chanceny crémant checks in only slightly higher at 12.5%.

Scott Paul 2007 Martha Pirrie Pinot Noir

2011-01-28T13:07:00.001-08:00

As regular readers probably know, I haven’t had many good things to say about pinot noir made from Oregon’s 2007 vintage, but I’ll have to eat, or maybe drink, a little crow when it comes to this one – a:

Scott Paul 2007 Cuvée Martha Pirrie Pinot Noir ($25)

This wine, the entry-level offering from Scott Paul Wines, of Carlton, Oregon, has been one of my relatively affordable favorites in recent years and I generally buy a few bottles when it appears in stores each year.

A year or so ago, wary of 2007 Oregon offerings, I bought just one bottle and then pretty much forgot about it.

The other day, I finally pulled it out of my cellar and to our surprise, it was delightful – very nicely balanced in all respects. Although it was surely good when first released, I suspect I did myself a favor by cellaring it for a year or so.

This is a relatively light-bodied, easy-to-drink pinot that combines red fruit flavors with just enough spice to make it interesting. Unlike some less expensive and even more expensive) 2007 Oregon pinots, it does NOT taste thin or watery.

The 2007 Cuvée Martha Pirrie is a blend made from grapes grown in five Willamette Valley vineyards and it has an attractively low level of alcohol at 13.1%.

If you come across any of this wine, it is Recommended.

Resources:

Scott Paul Wines

Cellar Report: Mark Ryan 2006 “Dead Horse”

2011-01-27T18:31:00.001-08:00

I’ve tried a lot of Washington State reds – mostly so-called Bordeaux blends – at tastings over the past few years, but haven’t written about very many of them on the belief that the best of them need to be cellared.

The reason that I think so is because while nicely flavored, these wines tend to be a little rough around the edges when first released and sometimes not totally integrated. So, when I have purchased them, I’ve mostly put them down.

We recently had a hearty winter stew for dinner and I thought why not? Out of the cellar came a:

Mark Ryan 2006 “Dead Horse” Red Wine (about $47)

Here’s the quick bottom line: this wine has matured nicely and is excellent at the moment – very smooth and intensely flavored without without being overly heavy in terms of body weight or noticeably “fruity.” It has an attractive, rather dark bouquet and a long, satisfying finish. Although it is 14.4% alcohol by volume, it does not come across as overtly “hot.”

If you have any of this wine in your cellar, you can certainly drink it now with considerable satisfaction. Alternatively, it can surely be cellared for several if not many more years.

This is an expensive wine because it is made in small volume (only 9,580 bottles in 2006) and because the grapes come from Washington State’s highly regarded “Ciel du Cheval” vineyard, which is located in the in the Red Mountain appellation .

"”Dead Horse” (“Ciel du Cheval” is translated as “Horse Heaven”) is a blend of 52% cabernet sauvignon, 24% cabernet franc, 17% merlot and 7% petit verdot. In my experience, cabernet franc does particularly well in the State of Washington and the relatively high percentage of that grape in this wine may be one reason it is very good.

One last word: it is in some ways unfortunate that these wines are generally referred to as Bordeaux blends because while made of the same grapes that are used to make red wines in that region of France, they don’t taste the same. They aren’t worse or better than “real” Bordeaux, just different.

Resources:

Mark Ryan Winery

More News On Less Oaky U.S. Chardonnay

2011-01-13T10:37:00.001-08:00

New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov reports in an article that lead the paper's Dining section on Wednesday, January 12, that Kistler Vineyards has begun to make high-end California chardonnay with less oak and lower alcohol. You can find the article here.

"For more than 30 years, restraint was not a quality remotely associated with Kistler," Asimov says. Rather, he continues, "Kistler set a standard of quality with its powerful, oaky, voluptuous wines."

Asimov notes that American critics raved about the wines and the lush, oaky style was widely emulated. "Indeed, some producers began making even more powerful wines so overflowing with flavor that they made Kistler's look almost sedate," Asimov says.

The newspaper story goes on to say that with little fanfare, the Kistler style has changed in the last few years, following the changing tastes of one of its proprietors, Steve Kistler.

Mr. Kistler says that while some customers have asked the winery to return to the "overblown, blowsy style of chardonnay," he has no intention of doing so.

"My tastes now run toward more structured, lively wines that go with food, that have power and finesse at the same time," Asimov quotes Kistler as saying. Among other things, this involves picking grapes earlier, which tends to result in more acidity and better minerality.

"Partly, this is a retreat from the overuse of oak, with many more producers marketing their wines as "un-oaked" or "steel fermented," Asimov says. Similarly, more producers now tout their chardonnays as "Chablis-like," evoking the leaner, more minerally style of that region," the New York Times critic continues.

In my experience, there does appear to be a welcome trend in California to at least experiment with less oaky chardonnay. For instance, one wine with which I have long familiarity is Ferrari-Carano and to me, that winery’s chardonnay has gradually evolved into a less oaky product.

As regular readers know, I've frequently reported in this blog on un-oaked and lightly oaked chardonnays, but I’ve never tried one of Kistler’s offerings.

In part, the trend, if in fact there is one, may have something to do with economics. New French oak barrels are extremely expensive and cutting down on their use is one way winemakers can adjust to a more difficult sales climate.

Note Worthy: Fort Ross 2007 Pinot Noir

2011-01-04T18:53:00.001-08:00

Ever find yourself at a loss when confronted by an extensive restaurant wine list containing dozens of offerings, most of which you know nothing about?

Because I write this blog, I find myself in such situations all too frequently. My companions are inevitably convinced that I’m familiar with many more wines than is actually the case.

So there we were in a restaurant in San Francisco with an extensive list and four people about to order rather different entrees.

In such circumstances, some might suggest ordering wine by the glass, but I hate to do that. First, far more interesting offerings are generally available only by the bottle and second, the prices restaurants typically charge for wine by the glass are truly outrageous. There are times when I have a Martini instead, especially now that I’ve discovered Hendricks gin.

When it comes to accompanying food, pinot noir can be a very versatile wine and with that in mind, I scanned the list. My eye fell on a couple of wines of the 2007 vintage from California’s Sonoma Coast region and I settled on a:

Fort Ross Vineyard 2007 Pinot Noir (about $35 retail).

Although I later discovered that the winery recommends decanting this wine before serving it, the four of us found it to be just fine right out of the bottle. It did improve gradually as our meal progressed, as the wine came into contact with more oxygen, but it was far from “tight” at the beginning.

Sonoma Coast pinots – in my personal experience – tend to be a bit lighter and brighter than California pinots made from grapes grown in the adjacent Russian River Valley region or, say, in the Santa Lucia Highlands further south.

That was the case with the Fort Ross offering. It emphasized finesse over power. This wine had an attractive if not terribly pronounced bouquet, a somewhat red fruit focused flavor profile with interesting complexity and a very satisfying finish.

The wine garnered many compliments during the course of our dinner and disappeared all too quickly, leaving me a bit unsatisfied. I wanted more.

The Fort Ross vineyard is located not far north of San Francisco and directly overlooks the Pacific Ocean from various elevations above 1,000 feet. Yields are low and the winery is apparently trying to go easy on the use of new oak barrels – a definite plus in my book.

Here’s the bottom line: this wine is Recommended. I would definitely buy it again.

Resources:

Fort Ross Vineyard

Happy New Year

2011-01-02T16:02:00.001-08:00

Rhys, Sineann 2006 Pinot Noir

2010-12-19T18:59:00.001-08:00

This posting considers a:

Rhys 2006 “Alpine Vineyard” Pinot Noir ($49) and a

Sineann 2006 “Resonance Vineyard” Pinot Noir ($50).

Here’s the quick bottom line: neither one of these expensive pinots were up to expectations. Both lacked the complexity and the “wow factor” consumers should expect to experience when paying $50 for a bottle of wine.

If price is an important factor in your purchasing decisions, both of these wines are Not Recommended. If it isn’t you can always try them and convince me that I’m wrong.

One caveat: I suspect both winemakers would argue that I opened these bottles too soon – that they should have spent more time in my cellar. Perhaps, but I’m a bit dubious as I will explain below.

The Rhys is made from grapes grown in the Santa Cruz Mountains, just west of California’s famed Silicon Valley, and pretty much has to be obtained directly from the winery and possibly after a wait.

In 2007, New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov (in general not a fan of American pinot noir) gave this winery an extensive and exceptionally favorable write up.

“Even with so little history behind it (Rhys’ first commercial release was in 2004) Rhys is already among the best American pinot noirs, a beacon for those who value grace, balance, structure and distinctiveness in wine,” Asimov said.

It’s hard to get more complimentary than that.

The particular Rhys offering under consideration here is a medium-bodied, mainly red-fruit focused wine with a little spice and just a touch of noticeable tannin – the kind that coats the back of your mouth as you drink.

The Rhys was a little tight when first opened. As it gradually came into contact with oxygen, the wine became a bit more aromatic, developing a modest bouquet that was characterized primarily by the smell of eucalyptus.

As more time went by (including when the re-sealed, partially consumed bottles were opened on a second and third day), the eucalyptus aspect of this wine became stronger and stronger, appearing on the palate and in the finish as well as in the bouquet.

Aside from that, the pinot, while pleasant enough, just wasn’t that interesting and far from a beacon of distinctiveness. Many other pinots taste pretty similar to this one.

The Sineann, meanwhile, is made from grapes grown in Oregon’s Willamette Valley by Peter Rosback, a winemaker with a lot of experience in the region.

The “Resonance Vineyard” is generally considered to be Sineann’s premier offering so consumers should expect a particularly memorable experience for their $50.

Like the Rhys, the Sineann was a pleasure to drink, but fell far short of being memorable.

This wine was a comparable in weight to the Rhys, but it had less of a bouquet. On the palate, the conventional Oregon pinot flavors were nice, but the wine lacked the complexity one would expect at this price point. It, too, simply wasn’t very interesting and that continued to be the case on the second and third day.

I kept hoping that this wine was “tight” and that more would happen as it interacted with oxygen, but in the end, both my companion in this blind tasting and I were disappointed.

One good thing I can say about the Sineann is that it had a nice finish. There was just enough acidity to successfully offset the sweetness that often comes with a fair amount of fruit and it lingered nicely.

On the third day, the Sineann was getting a tad funky and even tasting just a touch “off.” That plus its failure over time to open up into a more interesting wine is what makes me think additional cellaring won’t do much good.

While the Rhys is listed as being 14.0% alcohol by volume, the Sineann checks it at a fairly hefty 14.8%.

Note Worthy: Holloran 2005 Pinot Noir

2010-12-19T16:51:00.001-08:00

Awhile back, we celebrated an important family birthday in the private dining room of a fancy hotel. It was a soup-to-nuts affair with a lot of people in attendance. That called for various wines, starting, of course, with champagne.

I pulled a couple of bottles of 1982 Bordeaux from my cellar to accompany the main course, but just before that, we were to have a mushroom-focused dish.

“Why not have a bottle of Holloran pinot noir to accompany the mushrooms?” the wine steward asked. “It has a special earthiness that goes exceptionally well with that flavor.”

I accepted his suggestion and it turned out to be an excellent recommendation. The Holloran “Oregon” pinot, made from grapes grown in the Willamette Valley, did indeed have a very attractive earthy quality to it – forest floor earthy as opposed to the less desirable barnyard earthiness that characterizes some Oregon pinots. It was definitely a hit.

For some reason, I found myself craving pasta with a strong mushroom sauce recently and I thought about our experience at the hotel. Slightly after that event, I had purchased a bottle of Holloran 2005 “Oregon” Pinot Noir for about $30 and put it in my cellar. It’s a blend made from grapes grown in various vineyards and sure enough, it had a very attractive earthy component to it when I pulled it out the other day.

In addition, this wine had benefitted from four or so years in the cellar, acquiring that velvety quality one hopes red wine will develop if it is put down for a few years.

As I’ve mentioned in previous postings, I’m not your go-to critic for wine-food parings other than the basics (you can’t go wrong with lamb and Bordeaux, for instance), but if you love mushroom-flavored dishes, you might want to look for a Holloran pinot.

This wine was listed as being 13% alcohol by volume, which if accurate, is on the low side by Oregon standards.

Dauvissat 2009 Chablis AC

2010-12-19T15:15:00.001-08:00

As regular readers know, I am a fan of chardonnays from France’s Chablis region – when they are very good, that is. When they aren’t, which is all too frequent given the price these wines typically command, I am bitterly disappointed.

Vincent Dauvissat is a prominent Chablis producer, at least here in the U.S., and he typically offers a number of Chablis each year at different price points. These wines start with a “Petit Chablis,” which goes for about $30 a bottle and head north from there.

The wine under consideration here represents the second step in the Dauvissat ladder. It is labeled simply “Chablis” and is sometimes known as the Dauvissat “AC” for appellation contrôlée. Basically that means the wine meets the approved French standards for type of grape and location of vineyard for a wine labeled, in this case, simply Chablis.

Although the 2009 Dauvissat Chablis AC costs a fairly hefty $34 a bottle, it is described as a “village wine” in contrast to its more illustrious cousins. That gives you a good idea of what you’re in for if you want to try something arguably more interesting – if you can find any, that is.

In Seattle, fortunate consumers receive notice when the Dauvissat offerings arrive each year and limits are often imposed on how much any one person is allowed to purchase. Typically, not much is left to sit on retail shelves.

After first buying just one bottle of the 2009 Chablis AC, liking it very much and then buying a few more, I looked around a bit and discovered a single bottle of the Dauvissat 2007 Chablis AC sitting on the shelf of another retailer. Why not? I thought, recalling how I’m often told stories of how fabulous Chablis can be if properly cellared.

First, I have to admit that sitting on a retail shelf is NOT “properly cellared” and second, as readers know, I’ve had more bad experiences with cellaring white wine than good experiences.

In short, while the current vintage 2009 was wonderful, the 2007 was just short of disastrous. It was dominated by a very unattractive “old wine” flavor – and I kicked myself for buying it.

But, why not focus on the good news?

If you’re looking for a good Chablis for the holiday season and can locate any of the Dauvissat 2009 Chablis AC, go for it. It is Recommended.

The flavors – a little of this and a little of that – are lovely, but what’s especially great about this wine its underlying clean minerality. I wouldn’t worry about what it might taste like on the second day. I doubt there will be much of any left.

Buy it and drink it. Forget about the cellar and forget about any previous vintages that might still be sitting around.

The wine is listed as being 13% alcohol by volume.

Ayres, Bethel Heights 2008 Pinots

2010-12-19T12:31:00.001-08:00

It’s been a while since my last post, but circumstances haven’t been conducive to reviewing wine. In any event, this posting considers an:

Ayres 2008 “Willamette Valley” Pinot Noir ($29) and a

Bethel Heights 2008 “Willamette Valley” Pinot Noir ($28).

The word on the street in recent months has generally been “you can’t go wrong with a 2008 Oregon pinot noir” and in my limited experience, I would say that is correct – up to a point.

The ones that I have so far tried have been very pleasant and easily drinkable right out of the bottle. But at the same time, they haven’t been as interesting as I had expected – given all the hype about the vintage – and I’ve been left wondering whether they will be very cellar worthy.

Those comments are, in essence, my quick bottom line on the two wines under consideration here. While both were very pleasant, especially on the first day, they just didn’t have the complexity one would expect from wines costing almost $30 a bottle. As I was drinking them and puzzling over the experience, I kept thinking that in terms of what one gets for the money one spends, these two would be more appropriately priced at closer to $20 a bottle. Nonetheless, both are rated Worth Considering.

Of the two, the Ayres was a little lighter in body weight and a bit more red-fruit focused than the slightly heavier, slightly darker, somewhat more opaque Bethel Heights.

Neither of these wines had much of a bouquet, but the Bethel Heights was just a touch more aromatic.

The slightly more complex Bethel Heights tasted of a combination of red and dark fruit plus some spice. It also had just a bit of perceptible tannin while the more straight-forward Ayres had none. Both offerings had an appropriate degree of acidity.

Both wines also had pleasant, but not particularly memorable, and surprisingly short, finishes. That of the Ayres faded particularly quickly.

When we re-opened the partially consumed bottles the following evening, both of these wines had faded slightly as opposed to having improved with additional exposure to a little oxygen. And by the third day, they were deteriorating noticeably to the point where I tossed the remaining amounts out.

If you need a bottle of pinot noir to accompany a dinner that is not going to be about wine and where in all likelihood the bottle will be consumed in one sitting, either one of these two offerings would be a safe choice. Either will successfully accompany a wide range of fare.

But I wouldn’t buy either one of these to showcase what Oregon can offer and I would be very hesitant to cellar either one of them for more than about a year.

For the record, the Bethel Heights pinot is listed as being 13.1% alcohol by volume while the Ayers checks in at 13.5%.

Merry Edwards, Sea Smoke 2006 Pinot Noir

2010-11-28T13:14:00.001-08:00

This posting considers a:

Merry Edwards 2006 “Klopp Ranch” Pinot Noir ($57) and a

Sea Smoke 2006 “Southing” Pinot Noir ($49).

Here’s the quick bottom line: four of us blind-tasted these two rather expensive California pinots over the course of a single dinner and enjoyed them very much.

Before discovering which wine was which, we took a vote. The outcome was 3 to 1 in favor of what turned out to be the Merry Edwards.

I initially reviewed the Sea Smoke 2006 “Southing” in February of 2009 and found that it needed additional time in the cellar. You can find that review here. A year and a half later, this wine was a lot more ready to drink right out of the bottle.

In contrast, this was the first time that we had tried the Merry Edwards 2006 “Klopp Ranch.” It too was ready to drink.

Two of our four panelists were what I call “ordinary consumers,” which is to say people who like wine and drink it regularly, but don’t profess to know much about it.

Here’s what one of those panelists had to say when asked why she thought one of the then-unidentified wines was better than the other.

“I like the one on my left because it’s really smooth and evenly balanced. It’s also fruitier and warmer than the other.” That turned out to be the Merry Edwards. In contrast, this panelist described what turned out to be the Sea Smoke as “sharper, a little bitter and drier.”

When reading those comments, it is important to remember that the assessment was made in comparative and not absolute terms. The Sea Smoke is by no means a sharp or bitter wine. It just seemed to lean more in that direction to a particular consumer when measured against another wine with different characteristics.

Our second ordinary-consumer also described one wine (the Merry Edwards) as “smoother and fruiter from beginning to end.” He said that while he liked the other wine better at first, what turned out to be the Merry Edwards got better and better as time passed. This panelist found the Sea Smoke just a touch “earthy” and said that the finish “had more of a punch.”

Our one panelist who liked the Sea Smoke best said it had an attractive “velvety” flavor. This panelist said that what turned out to be the Merry Edwards was brighter, fruitier and more powerful, but that the other wine was still better.

To me, the most notable difference was in the bouquet. That of the Merry Edwards was much more pronounced And overall, the wine that turned out to be the Merry Edwards 2006 “Klopp Ranch” was bigger, more intense, more complex and more aromatic, not just initially but all the way through to the finish.

The body of the Merry Edwards also had noticeably more viscosity to it than did that of the Sea Smoke. The viscosity had the effect of making it seem a bit more mouth filling.

These wines also differed in the way they finished. Because it had more fruit, there was a hint – and not much more than that – of sweetness in the finish of the Merry Edwards. The finish of the Sea Smoke was, in contrast, very dry.

I think that the reason some of the panelists put the Sea Smoke in second place was because it has a higher degree of acidity. That probably made it taste sharp and even a little bitter to one of our panelists. But better acidity often makes of a better food wine. We were drinking these wines with fairly heavy fare (which Merry Edwards recommends for the “Klopp Ranch”) and that played into the hands of the bigger offering. In my view, the Sea Smoke would have gone better with a lighter meal.

Both of these wines are Worth Considering. If you like a lighter, more acidic and what some would call a more elegant pinot, go with the Sea Smoke. On the other hand, if you like a bigger, more aromatic, more complex, more mouth-filling wine, the Merry Edwards would be a better choice.

Both of these wines should be cellared for at least a couple of years before consumption and they can certainly be kept for a lot longer than that if you want to see how they might evolve over time.

The Merry Edwards offering comes from California’s Russian River Valley and, in principle, is sold only in restaurants or directly from the winery. The same goes for the Santa Rita Hills sourced Sea Smoke for which, in addition, there has traditionally been a waiting list. But during the course of the past 12 months or so, I have seen Sea Smoke pinots for sale in three different retail outlets – one in California, one in New York and one in Washington State – so that may be changing.

One last comment: The reason I chose this particular blind tasting was that my two “ordinary consumer” visitors told me that Sea Smoke was their favorite pinot noir. They had had “a wonderful bottle” on a memorable occasion and said they were pretty sure they would be able to identify it in the glass.

In the event, they both confidently declared one of the two wines to be the “Sea Smoke” only to discover, somewhat to their astonishment, that in fact it wasn’t. This is not at all unusual and one reason why it is always illuminating to engage in comparative tastings. What you like best may not be what you think you like best.

The other two of us, who have much more experience in this sort of thing, guessed correctly which was which, but in my case, there was more luck involved that I would like to admit.

For the record, the Sea Smoke is listed as being a fairly hefty 14.7% alcohol by volume while the Merry Edwards checks in at a slightly more modest 14.4%.

Resources

Merry Edwards Winery

Sea Smoke Cellars

Pinot Noir for Thanksgiving

2010-11-22T17:46:00.001-08:00

The “Wine Commentator” always experiences a considerable increase in visitors around this time of year, presumably because many people are looking for guidance as to which wine they should serve with their Thanksgiving dinner.

While many different types of wine can successfully accompany roast turkey, pinot noir is certainly a leading candidate.

As regular readers know, we’ve tried a lot of pinot noir during the past year, leaving me pondering which ones, in particular, to recommend.

Thinking back over the past several months, two pinots come to mind as particularly memorable. Both are from California’s excellent 2007 vintage.

They are an:

Alma Rosa 2007 “Santa Rita Hills” Pinot Noir ($32) and a

Hirsch Vineyards 2007 “Sonoma Coast” Pinot Noir ($50).

One of the things that I liked about both of these wines is that they were wonderful right out of the bottle. There wasn’t any need to open them several hours before consumption and neither needed to be decanted in order to be at its best.

While both may well improve if cellared for a couple of years, cellaring isn’t necessary for either of these two.

Both of these wines are attractive – and memorable – in part because they have pronounced and very pleasurable bouquets – bouquets that rise up out of the glass into your nose. You can begin to experience either of these offerings before you even take a sip and to me, that is a real pleasure.

With many wines, you have to stick your nose deep into the glass to find out what they smell like.

Secondly, both of these wines are slightly on the light side of medium in terms of body weight and both feature a very pleasant mix of spice and mainly red fruit-focused flavors on the palate. Not unexpectedly, the much more expensive Hirsch is the more complex of the two, but the Alma Rosa is no slacker in that respect.

And finally, both of these wines have long finishes that offer a continuation of the flavors one has experienced up the nose and in the mouth. Unlike some wines, the finish, or aftertaste, doesn’t go off in a different direction or have some slightly less attractive aspect to it.

The Alma Rosa comes from California’s southern-most major growing area for pinot noir – the Santa Rita Hills appellation. It’s located just north of Santa Barbara.

This wine is made by Richard Sanford, of Sanford & Benedict fame. He and his wife started Alma Rosa after he parted company with the winery that bears his name. Alma Rosa, Sanford says, is dedicated to organic farming and sustainable agriculture.

We first encountered Alma Rosa pinot during a drive across the northern tier of the United States. After finding nothing but mass-market wines on list after list as our drive continued, we finally stumbled across a wine list with more interesting options and rolled the dice with the Alma Rosa. After all that came before, it was an incredible pleasure.

Since then, I’ve had Alma Rosa pinots on a number of occasions and to date, have never been disappointed.

In contrast, I’ve only had Hirsch pinots on a couple of occasions. The first was at a major wine event in Oregon and while I remember liking it, we had frankly tried so many wines in a very short time that it was hard to remember much about any of them.

More recently, however, I bought a bottle of Hirsch’s 2007 “Sonoma Coast” pinot and a Morgan 2007 Double L Vineyard Pinot Noir ($48) for a dinner a couple of friends were cooking for me in California.

These wines differed enormously out of the bottle. While the Hirsch was lively and engaging, the Morgan Double L pinot was tight and brooding. It was heavier, denser, darker and appeared to be closed up within itself. In all probability, the Morgan should have been opened two or three hours prior to consumption and swirled around in a decanter. Alternatively, this wine is probably a candidate for cellaring for several years.

We didn’t talk much about the wines when drinking them – it wasn’t that sort of a dinner – but on the basis of the “which-do- you-reach-for” test, the verdict was clear.

While the Hirsch disappeared rapidly, the Morgan sat somewhat neglected.

While I would happily try the Morgan again, I would take care to expose it to a lot of oxygen before consuming it. It comes from the Santa Lucia Highlands, just east of Monterey, California.

The Hirsch pinot comes from the northern corner of California’s Sonoma County coastline.

There are many, many other pinots that would go well with a turkey dinner and here are some general guidelines in choosing among them:

-If you are looking at pinots made in Oregon, go for something from the excellent 2008 vintage. Be careful with respect to 2007. It was a very difficult year for Oregon producers and while there were certainly some good pinots made from that vintage, there were also a lot of disappointments.

-If you prefer pinots made in California, focus on 2007 – an excellent year for all of the major growing regions. Be careful about 2008 because a rash of forest and brush fires adversely impacted some vineyards.

-If you want a pinot from France – a red Burgundy – look for a something from 2006. Burgundies from the 2007 and 2008 vintages aren’t as good (and in many cases, drastically overpriced given their quality) and the 2005s probably still aren’t ready yet.

-Other regions, such as New Zealand, also make pinot noir, but I don’t know much about them.

Cellar Report: 2004 “Arthur” Chardonnay

2010-11-20T20:57:00.001-08:00

Earlier this year, I published a favorable cellar report on a 2005 “Arthur” Chardonnay, which is made by Domaine Drouhin. You can find it here.

Domaine Drouhin, by the way, is the Oregon outpost of France’s Maison Joseph Drouhin, a major producer and exporter of wine from the Burgundy region of France. In Oregon, Drouhin makes mainly rather expensive pinot noir under its own name and this one chardonnay.

A few years back, I bought several bottles of the “Arthur” on sale at $26 a bottle, down from the then-prevailing regular price of about $30 a bottle, and decided to see how well the wine would keep, in part because Drouhin describes this offering as age worthy.

The 2004 had about five years of bottle age when we opened it and it was doing just fine. Like the 2005, it was devoid of any unpleasant “old wine” flavors and seemed likely to last at least several more years if properly cellared. This, in my view, is impressive.

But just because a particular white wine cellars well (and many don’t), the question arises as to whether one really wants to keep such a wine for several years.

In this case, it comes down to personal taste.

The “Arthur” chardonnay is very lightly oaked and when initially released, features a bright citric attack followed by some softer flavors as the wine gradually warms up in the glass. The finish tends to be clean, fresh and crisp.

If you are accustomed to toasty, oaky, buttery chardonnays, the “Arthur” will taste very different and probably seem more acidic. While it leans in the direction of white Burgundies, in my experience it doesn’t quite get there. Burgundy wines made from the chardonnay grape that cost $30 a bottle or more tend to have a more pronounced degree of minerality than does the “Arthur” and they also tend to be less citric.

After about five years in the bottle, however, the 2004 “Arthur” had lost almost all of its initial bright, citric aspect and instead came across as a smooth, stone fruit-flavored wine. Instead of bring bright and lively, it was soft and subdued, but interesting in terms of subtle fruit-flavored complexity. While my companion at dinner liked it very much, I preferred the younger version.

In short, after five years, this was a different wine than the initial-release “Arthur” and should, ideally, be brought out to accompany different food.

Here is the bottom line: if you are interested in leaning how a white wine ages – so as to determine when you would most prefer to drink it – the “Arthur” chardonnay is a good candidate for experimentation. This wine holds up very, very well.

Resources:

Domaine Drouhin

Bottle Variations When Cellaring Wine

2010-11-07T07:36:00.001-08:00

I talk a lot about the benefits of cellaring wine – especially red wine. But cellaring involves risks as well as benefits. Wine can deteriorate in storage as well as improve.

First, what is a wine cellar? Ideally, it is a dark, slightly humid location that remains at a constant temperature of about 55 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius).

Aside from the very wealthy, few consumers probably have ideal cellars, but fortunately ideal isn’t necessary if you are only planning to cellar your wine for a few years. Just make sure the storage location is dark and noticeably cool year round.

Don’t store wine anywhere near your basement furnace, for instance.

When I lived in Washington DC, I couldn’t use the cellar of my house to store wine for more than short periods of time because it got too hot in the summer. There, I had to rent a locker at a commercial facility. It was expensive and so inconvenient that a lot of wine sat there for a much longer time than I originally intended.

In Seattle, however, the cellar of our house works very well and it is easy to find and pull out any bottle that one might, on short-notice, want to try or want to serve to guests.

When opening older bottles of wine, especially for guests, I always experience a sense of trepidation, however. The reason: bottle variation. The older wine gets, the more pronounced this can become.

Bottles of wine, even from the same case and stored in the same conditions, often age somewhat differently. In most cases, the variations are relatively subtle, but sometimes they can be pronounced – even when there is no evidence a cork has deteriorated.

I mention this because many years ago, I bought a case of:

Robert Mondavi 1987 “Reserve” Cabernet Sauvignon.

I don’t seem to have a record of the price paid, but I suspect the wine was relatively expensive. The 1987 vintage was considered at the time to be wonderful for Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon and the Mondavi was packed in a fancy wooden box with each bottle wrapped in tissue paper.

It sat, forgotten, in the back of my Washington wine locker for many years and I was a bit shocked when I rediscovered it upon a move to Seattle.

We’ve been working our way through this case over the past three years or so, often opening a bottle for the purpose of comparing it to a Bordeaux of similar age, generally with friends. That’s always interesting.

Results have been mixed. For instance, the bottle that was consumed prior to the one mentioned in this posting tasted distinctly old – not in the sense that it was turning to vinegar, but rather in the sense that the fruit had faded too much.

“That must be the end,” I thought, contemplating the two or three bottles that remained unopened.

More recently, we tried another. It was delightful. Go figure.

It is very interesting to drink this wine because it reminds one that there was a time when good California cabernets were made with about the same body weight as a Bordeaux, which is to say considerably lighter than most of the California and Washington State cabernets one now experiences. The 1987 “Reserve” Mondavi, only 12.5% alcohol by volume, was no fruit bomb.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could go back in that direction?

Lets get rid of “bigger is better” in wine as well as in a host of other things in life.

Some blame Robert Parker – and his dreadful numbering system – for the tend toward heavier and more alcoholic U.S. cabernets. The Wine Spectator and various other critics are, in my view, at fault as well. But that’s just a personal opinion. If you prefer big red wines, so be it. You have many, many choices.

But, back to the main point. Cellaring wine is not a science. There is no one clear answer as to how long any particular bottle of wine should be stored before consumption.

Several winemakers that I have talked to recommend buying at least six bottles of a red wine that you like and, after two or three years, trying one every year or so to see how it is developing.

The longer you keep your wine, the more surprises you are likely to experience -- many exceptionally pleasant, but some a bit disappointing.

On the other hand, if you don’t like uncertainty, you can always stick to mass-market, “homogenized” wine products and use your cellar for other purposes.

Lachini, Paul Mathew 2007 Pinot Noir

2010-11-05T20:33:00.001-07:00

As I have mentioned in a couple of earlier posts, some Oregon producers are heavily discounting their pinot noir from the problematic 2007 vintage in order to clear their inventories since demand for these wines has been lackluster at best.

Meanwhile, much better Oregon wines from the 2008 and 2009 vintages are now appearing and retail shelf space is limited. Time to move on.

Are the deeply discounted 2007s a bargain? This posting takes another look, comparing two deeply discounted Oregon wines to a full-priced 2007 pinot from California.

The wines under consideration are a:

Lachini Vineyards 2007 “Cuvee Giselle” Pinot Noir ($32, reduced from $65), a

Lachini Vineyards 2007 “Estate” Pinot Noir ($19, reduced from $45) and a

Paul Matthew 2007 “Horseshoe Bend Vineyard” Pinot Noir ($38).

The first two are from the Chehalem Mountain district of Oregon’s Willamette Valley and the last is from California’s Russian River Valley.

A four-person panel blind tasted the “Cuvee Giselle” against the similarly priced Paul Matthew and then two of us opened the Lachini “Estate” and compared it with what was left of the first two offerings.

Here’s the quick bottom line: both of the Lachini wines were dark, a little dense and pleasant to drink, but surprisingly bland. The more expensive “Cuvee Giselle” developed an earthy note after exposure to oxygen, but still seemed disappointingly flat. Despite the substantial price cut, it wasn’t a bargain.

The considerably less expensive “Estate” Lachini turned out to be a more attractive wine. It had better acidity than the “Cuvee Giselle” and seemed to offer more complexity of flavor on the palate. At slightly under $20 a bottle, this wine was appropriately priced. It certainly wouldn’t be worth $45 a bottle, however, so don’t buy it unless you can find it deeply discounted.

In contrast to the rather subdued Lachini offerings, the Paul Matthew pinot was exceptionally lively.

“There’s a lot going on in here,” one of our panelists remarked, holding a glass to his nose and puzzling over it.

Indeed, the Paul Matthew seemed a little different every time one tried it and it reacted rather strongly to different foods.

To me, the wine’s salient characteristic was a pronounced sense of eucalyptus – in the bouquet, on the palate and in the finish.

Our four-person panel was evenly split on the merits of the Lachini “Cuvee Giselle” versus the Paul Matthew. Two members found the Paul Matthew too extreme for their taste while the other two members thought the Lachini just wasn’t very interesting.

My view is that the Paul Matthew pinot needs several more years – maybe as many as five – in the cellar. The various flavor components of this wine seem to be fighting with one another at present, but over time, they will probably come together in a more coherent fashion.

All of these wines are Worth Considering at the prices noted above, but the Paul Matthew should definitely be cellared. If you are looking for a pinot to drink now, of these three, the Lachini “Estate” would definitely be your best bet at $19 a bottle.

For the record, all of these wines are listed as being slightly over 14% alcohol by volume.

One final comment: consumers worried about global warming should NOT buy any wines from Lachini. These offerings are sold in excessively heavy bottles – bottles that take far more energy to produce than normal wine bottles.

In addition, these bottles, which are simply a marketing gimmick, don’t fit in many wine racks and, if one purchases a case of this wine, are dangerously heavy to carry.

This behavior by the winery is unnecessary and disgraceful.

Resources:

Lachini Vineyards

Paul Matthew Vineyards

Belle Pente, Merry Edwards Pinot Noir

2010-10-30T12:19:00.001-07:00

Here’s a quick report on a couple of wines from our cellar, one about four years older than the other. The offerings in question are a:

Belle Pente 2002 “Belle Pente Vineyard” Pinot Noir ($34), and a

Merry Edwards 2006 “Russian River Valley” Pinot Noir($42)

Here’s the quick bottom line. Although considerably older, the Belle Pente appeared to be holding up better than the Merry Edwards. The latter was starting to exhibit some flavors associated with older wine that some consumers might consider unattractive.

Belle Pente is located in the Yamhill-Carlton district of Oregon’s Willamette Valley and the wine referenced above is made from grapes grown in certain blocks located within the winery’s own vineyard.

Although it had been in the bottle for about eight years, this wine still tasted fresh. It was exceptionally smooth and silky – one benefit of extensive cellaring – and its red fruit and spice flavors were well integrated and very attractive. While relatively light in body, this wine in no way tasted thin and and the finish, or aftertaste, was lovely.

In short, an excellent product. It will keep longer if you insist, but it’s so good at present, why not drink some now?

The Merry Edwards 2006 “Russian River Valley” pinot was a bit heavier in body than the Belle Pente and generally darker in flavor. Most notably, perhaps, the wine had a very pronounced bouquet – slightly wild and very interesting.

There was a mix of red and dark fruit flavors on the palate, but not much in the way of spice. With exposure to oxygen, leathery notes emerged and, eventually, a slight sherry-like “old wine” aspect surfaced. The finish was long and lingering, but over time, it too was more suggestive of an old wine than probably should have been the case.

If you have any of this offering in your cellar, my advice would be to try a bottle soon to see how it is doing.

For the record, both of these pinots are listed as being 14.2% alcohol by volume.

Note Worthy: Hirsch 2008 Chardonnay

2010-10-28T15:45:00.001-07:00

The more wine I drink, the more convinced I have become that chardonnay is an under-appreciated grape here in the United States.

It’s certainly not under-appreciated in volume terms. Americans grow vast quantities of the grape and consumption is enormous. At the same time, however, many serious wine drinkers are scornful of U.S.-made chardonnay and some proclaim themselves to be of the ABC (Anything But Chardonnay) persuasion.

There’s a reason for this. Far too much American-made chardonnay is made from grapes grown in regions that are too hot, resulting in bland, overly fruity grapes. Then, to counter that, the wine is fermented in too much new oak and when rich grapes undergo malolactic fermentation, the resulting wines often become excessively soft, viscous and buttery.

What a mess, but one that the average American wine consumer has been brought up on and thus considers normal. And in some respects there’s nothing wrong with it: if you want a toasty, oaky, buttery drink, so be it. My point is, such a concoction has almost nothing to do with chardonnay, except to give the grape a bad name among people who like wines with an entirely different emphasis.

In truth, chardonnay is like pinot noir. When handled gently, it, like pinot, is a very transparent grape – a grape that allows the terrior, or the characteristics of the site upon which the grapes are grown, to show through. Like pinot, this is a grape that shines when grown in difficult conditions, but the downside to that is that yields are low and prices are high.

There are some wonderfully interesting – indeed, eye-opening – chardonnays made in the U.S., but they tend to be far too expensive for the average consumer and made in such small quantities that they are difficult to find. As such, they are little known.

All of which brings me to:

Hirsch Vineyards 2008 Chardonnay ($50)

Hirsch Vineyards, a pioneering venture in the region now known as the Sonoma Coast, overlooks the Pacific Ocean and contends with what the winery describes as dramatic geology and problematic climate. Changing conditions are a constant – the exact reverse of what characterizes the locations in which most chardonnay grapes are grown in the U.S.

Hirsch wine is fermented with native as opposed to commercial yeasts – 11% in 14-gallon glass jugs; 53% in stainless steel; 20% in neutral oak , and 16% in new oak in the case of the 2008 chardonnay.

The result is a chardonnay that offers a significantly different flavor profile than more common varieties, particularly after the wine has been exposed to some oxygen and allowed to warm up in the glass from refrigerator temperature.

While some unoaked or lightly oaked chardonnays are notably citric or light and flinty, the 2008 Hirsch is soft and reasonably full bodied. According to Hirsch, the wine displays a creamy apricot quality on the palate. To me, it seemed that the flavor of almonds or another other nut was mixed in with something along those lines. And as time went by, the complexity of this wine became more and more apparent.

It’s different, it’s appealing, it’s intriguing. It’s for someone interested in experiencing what chardonnay can really be. It’s not for someone seeking a higher priced, and presumably higher quality, version of the type of American chardonnay with which he or she has long been familiar.

Hirsch is not the only producer of terrior-driven U.S. chardonnay. Consumers interested in exploring such options should also look for single-vineyard chardonnays made by LIOCO and Brewer-Clifton among a very few others. Like the Hirsch, of which only 596 cases where made, these wines tend to be expensive and hard to find. If you have the patience to track them down and the budget to acquire them, they are definitely Worth Considering.

Note Worthy: Cadence 2005 “Coda” Red Wine

2010-10-17T22:01:00.001-07:00

I recently wrote very favorably about a Cadence 2004 red wine from Washington State and you can find that review here.

This posting considers a Cadence 2005 “Coda” Red Wine ($25) that is less expensive than the wine mentioned above, but in our view, just as good.

Seattle winemaker Ben Smith is a musician, which explains names such as Cadence and Coda.

On his website, Smith says that 2005 was the finest Washington vintage that he had seen when these wines were made. But later, he concluded that 2007 was even better.

Over the past few years, I have purchased far more Washington State wines made from grapes associated with the Bordeaux region of France than I have reviewed. Unlike pinot noir, which is often very enjoyable shortly after release, Bordeaux bends, as they are known, generally need some time in the cellar. Initially, they can be a bit rough around the edges and in many cases, the tannins haven’t had time to break down and integrate with the fruit when these offerings first appear on retail shelves.

In this case, the Cadence 2005 “Coda,” which is 80% cabernet franc and 20% cabernet sauvignon, had been resting in our cellar for about three years before we pulled it out.

As I have explained in past postings, it is a lot harder to talk about a really good wine than one that is not so good. The reason: in a really good wine, nothing in particular stands out – all of the various aspects of the wine are in balance.

That was the state of the Cadence 2005 “Coda” – balanced.

One of the benefits of cellaring red wine is that it becomes a lot smoother than when it is first released to the point were it just slides down one’s throat. Another benefit is that the tannins combine with the fruit to produce one coherent flavor.

A lot of Washington State Bordeaux blends seem to be too heavy and too fruity. That wasn’t at all the case with the Cadence “Coda”: this one was a bit lighter – more like an actual Bordeaux – but still very flavorful.

One reason for that, I think, is the heavy proportion of cabernet franc, a grape that seems very suited to the growing conditions of Eastern Washington.

If you come across any, this wine is Recommended and well worth $25 a bottle. Try some with a lamb stew this winter. You won’t have to worry about how best to reseal a partially consumed bottle. This is a wine that will disappear quickly.

For the record, it is 14.4 % alcohol by volume.

Angeline, Lorelle 2009 Pinot Noir

2010-10-16T17:26:00.001-07:00

I suspect many visitors discover that most of the wine that I review is too expensive for their budgets. But frankly, the main reason that I continue to write this blog is because it provides me with an excuse to buy and drink more expensive wine than I otherwise would. After all, someone who is a disinterested party has to find out whether such offerings really are worth the price.

Right?

In contrast, this posting goes the other direction, considering an:

Angeline 2009 “California” Pinot Noir ($11) and a

Lorelle “Chehalem Mountains” Pinot Noir ($14).

When I review wine, I always keep prices in mind and I’m much more critical of small shortcomings in expensive wine than I am in inexpensive wine. A wine that costs $30 or more a bottle should have a lot going for it – it should be Noticeably Better – than lower cost alternatives and when a wine costs $50 a bottle or more, it better have a Wow Factor to it or I’m going to complain.

Affordable wine is different: it should be well made with no obvious flaws, pleasant to drink and representative of the characteristics of the grape or grapes from which it is made.

Here’s the quick bottom line: both of these wines pass that test and are Recommended. While the Lorelle is arguably the better of the two, it ought to be because it costs almost 30% more.

In a sense, these wines are made with different consumer tastes in mind. The Angeline is a heavier, darker and more mouth-filling pinot. The lighter bodied, more red-fruit focused Lorelle is slightly spicier and somewhat fresher tasting.

While the Lorelle would accompany salmon exceptionally well, the Angeline calls for something along the lines of duck.

Both of the these wines gained a bit of weight after the partially consumed and resealed bottles were opened again on a subsequent day. That especially benefitted the Lorelle, which was more appealing on the second day and at that point, could easily be mistaken for a considerably more expensive pinot.

It contrast, allowing the Angeline to have more contact with oxygen served to emphasize its chief shortcoming: the wine doesn’t have quite enough acidity. Wines with low acidity often seem appealing at first – nice and smooth – , but they soon begin to taste too “flat” or bland and not all that interesting.

If you purchase the Angeline, it would be best to consume the entire bottle after it has initially been opened as opposed to saving part of it for another day.

The Lorelle is a product of J. Albin Winery, a small family owned operation in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. As such, the wine may be hard to find, but if you come across some, go for it.

The Angeline pinot, which is widely available, is made by Martin Ray Winery, of Santa Rosa, California. The wine is described as being “blended from vineyards located in the coastal regions of California.”

While the Angeline is listed as being 13.5% alcohol, the somewhat lighter Lorelle checks in at a very attractive 12.5%.

Fleur, Lemelson 2007 Pinot Noir

2010-10-10T14:59:00.001-07:00

After trying to hold the line on prices for longer than they should have, various Oregon producers are offering deep discounts on wines made from the problematic 2007 vintage in order to clear out their inventories.

In this posting, we attempt to discover whether a deeply discounted wine from a very good Oregon producer is as good or better than a full-priced California wine selling for about the same amount of money. In contrast to Oregon, 2007 was an excellent year for pinot noir throughout California.

The offerings in question are a:

Fleur 2007 “Central Coast” Pinot Noir ($14) and a

Lemelson 2007 “Thea’s Selection” Pinot Noir ($16).

The Lemelson pinot is made from grapes grown in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and the “Thea’s Selection,” which normally costs over $35 a bottle, is the winery’s s0-called entry level offering. While most Lemelson offerings should be cellared, the “Thea’s Selection” is designed for near-term consumption.

The Fleur pinot is made from grapes grown in California’s Central Coast – an area that, roughly speaking, lies south of Santa Cruz and north of Santa Barbara. Its also a wine one would tend to drink soon after purchase.

Here’s the quick bottom line: neither one of these offerings was totally satisfying. In both cases, the finish, or aftertaste, seemed a little off – and that’s what one is left with.

After the partially consumed bottles had been sealed and then reopened on a subsequent day, the finish of both of these wines had improved, but neither was memorable in a good way. That of the Lemelson came across as a little thin while that of the Fleur was just very, very bland.

The Lemelson had a bigger, nicer bouquet than the Fleur and it was a more complex and thus more interesting on the palate. In contrast, the Fleur, which is oriented toward plums and dark cherries, tasted rather generic. It also didn’t seem to have quite enough acidity.

Both these wines are probably worth trying at around $15 a bottle to see if you like them better than I did, but neither one of them is what I would call a bargain. Thus both are Problematic.

For the record, both are listed as being 13.5% alcohol by volume.

St. Innocent “Justice Vineyard” Pinot Noir

2010-10-09T12:33:00.001-07:00

This post considers a:

St. Innocent 2007 “Justice Vineyard” Pinot Noir ($32) and a

St. Innocent 2008 “Justice Vineyard” Pinot Noir ($50).

First a comment on the prices shown above: the ‘07 St. Innocent “Justice Vineyard” pinot was originally also priced at $50 a bottle, but failed to sell out at that level following reports that Oregon’s 2007 vintage for pinot noir was disappointing as a result of a lot of rain during the harvest period.

When a local retailer decided to offer its remaining inventory of the ‘07s at a very substantial discount, I decided to compare one to an ‘08 to see how much they differed since 2008 turned out to be a very good year for Oregon pinot noir.

Here’s the quick bottom line: while these two pinots were very similar in flavor, they were noticeably different in body weight. The 2007 “Justice Vineyard” is a lighter – some might say thinner – version of the 2008.

Defenders of Oregon’s 2007 pinot noir vintage have maintained that the best of these wines – such as those made by St. Innocent -- are “elegant” and “Burgundian,” but I would disagree. A light body does not necessarily translate into a sense of elegance and real Burgundies generally offer a different flavor profile than pinots made in Oregon or California.

Three of us blind tasted these wines over a couple of days, but frankly, after the first sip, it was easy to tell them apart because of the differing body weight. At the end of the experiment, I felt that the ‘07, while noticeably thin, was a bit better than I had expected it to be and that the ‘08 was not as good as it should have been, given the price. Consumers should expect A LOT if they pay $50 or more for a bottle of wine and while the St. Innocent ‘08 “Justice Vineyard” pinot is well made and interesting, it falls short of being really great.

Both the ‘07 and ‘08 are very much spice-driven pinots. The spice component of the the flavor profile is what one notices first and it carries through all the way to the end of the finish.

Significantly, the winemaker, Mark Vlossak, recognizes that. He recommends that his “Justice Vineyard” pinots be served with “grilled or spicy preparations.”

Vlossak also says that both of these wines can be aged for up to eight years, but I would be hesitant to keep the ‘07 for that long. Fruit fades over time and the ‘07 just doesn’t have that much of it. If you want to cellar the ‘07, try it after two or three years and see how it is doing.

Both of these wines were very aromatic in a spicy, up-your-nose fashion. Both were red fruit oriented, properly acidic and devoid of any harsh or unpleasant tannins. The ‘07 was a little smoother when first opened, but the ‘08 improved considerably in that respect with exposure to oxygen. Vlossak recommends opening these wines an hour or two before consumption and I would say the ‘08 could be opened even earlier than that.

Both wines are listed as being 13.5% alcohol.

The Justice Vineyard is located near the town of Salem, Oregon, at the southern end of the Willamette Valley grape growing region.

Both of these wines are Worth Considering if you aren’t on a budget. If you are, don’t worry: equal satisfaction can be obtained for a lot less money.

Note Worthy: Crémant From Alsace & Loire

2010-09-06T16:51:00.001-07:00

Champagne is, of course, the most well known sparkling wine from France, but wines made in the same fashion are also produced in other regions of the country, often to very strict standards. They just can’t be called Champagne or even designated as being made by the méthode champenoise as was once the case.

In some ways, this is good news for consumers because without the Champagne name, they tend to sell for a lot less money.

Crémant is the designation given to sparkling wines produced in the Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Die, Jura, L:imoux and Loire regions of France.

I was recently at a restaurant that offered a flight of four Crémant wines for $20 –and generous pours at that.

They came from Alsace, Burgundy, Jura and the Loire.

Sampling these wines, two jumped out as very good: an

NV Allimant_Laugner Crémant d’Alsace Rosé ($22) and an

NV Chateau de l’Aulée Crémant de Loire ($16.50).

The Alsace Crémant was made from pinot noir grapes while the Loire wine was produced from chenin blanc.

There are times when less is more and the Chateau de l’Aulée offering came across as a simple but extremely pleasing wine. It had small, tight bubbles, a lovely silvery color, a pleasing flavor and an extremely clean, balanced finish.

There is really no better way to greet the arrival of friends than with a glass of sparking wine and I could easily see using the highly affordable, but extremely likeable Chateau de l”Aulée for that purpose. This is the sort of wine where one might buy a case so as to have a bottle on hand whenever needed. Recommended.

Whereas the Loire offering struck me as a natural aperitif, the more flavorful and considerably more expensive Crémant rosé from Alsace seemed to call for food. It would go very nicely with a cold or slightly warm summer salmon dish, with any number of main course salads or perhaps with a selection of hors d’oeuvres. Worth Considering.

Also part of the flight were an:

NV Terres Secretes Crémant de Bourgogne ($22), which was made from pinot noir grapes, and an NV Berthet-Bondet Cremant de Jura ($25). The later came from a blend of chardonnay and savagnin grapes.

I didn’t care for the bourgogne at all – some component of the flavor came across as a “downer” to me – and while I found the Jura interesting in terms of complexity of flavor, it was a little heavier in body than I like when it comes to sparkling wine.

Copain, Melville 2007 Pinot Noir

2010-09-05T16:23:00.001-07:00

Weather conditions were favorable in all of California’s main pinot noir growing regions during 2007, resulting in a bonanza for consumers. It’s easy to find very good quality wines from this vintage so one can focus on differences in flavor and style.

This post considers two rather different pinots: a

Copain 2007 “Tous Ensemble” Pinot Noir ($25) and a

Melville 2007 “Estate – Verna’s” Pinot Noir ($25).

The Copain is made from grapes grown in the Anderson Valley of Mendocino County – the furthermost north of California’s main pinot noir producing regions. In contrast, the Melville comes from Santa Barbara County, the state’s furthermost south pinot district.

Here’s the quick bottom line: the Melville is Recommended as a wine that a wide range of consumers would probably like. It has a very nice bouquet and as such, would be particularly suitable for consumers who enjoy wine through the nose as much as on the palate.

The Copain is Worth Considering for all consumers and Recommended for those who are specifically seeking something interesting and different so as to expand their taste horizons.

These two medium-bodied wines are both well made: each held up extremely well over a three-day period during which time the partially consumed bottles were reopened and tasted on several occasions. Both improved slightly during this process, suggesting they would benefit from some time in the cellar. But I wouldn’t keep either one for more than a couple more years.

Overall, while the Copain is a rather quiet, subdued offering, the Melville has a lively, up-your-nose aspect to it.

The salient characteristic of the Melville is a mix of red fruit and eucalyptus, both in terms of what it smells like and what it tastes like. In contrast, the the Copain exhibits dark, rather subtle prune-like flavors and, with exposure to oxygen, a leathery aspect makes an appearance.

While the Melville has just a hint of sweetness, the Copain is exceptionally dry. Moreover, on the first day, that wine exhibited a hint of tannin in its finish, but that disappeared over time with exposure to oxygen.

The fruiter Melville is a little more mouth filling and a bit more acidic, especially in its after-taste.

While the Copain is listed as being only 13.5% alcohol by volume – a very attractive number – the Melville checks in at 14.5%, reflecting the fact that it has more fruit.

Melville’s winemaker, by the way, is Greg Brewer, of Brewer-Clifton fame.

Resources

Copain Wine Cellars

Melville Vineyards and Winery

Washington Merlots from Januik, Leonetti

2010-08-31T18:39:00.001-07:00

This posting considers a:

Januik 2004 Merlot ($25) and a

Leonetti Cellar 1998 Merlot ($100).

You can probably guess the idea behind this particular comparison: is it worth spending four times as much money for a Washington State merlot?

Here’s the quick bottom line: not in this case.

These two wines were blind-tasted during the course of one dinner by a six-person panel. Except for me, no one knew what kind of wines they were or how much these wines cost. I didn’t know which was which during the course of consuming them.

At the end of the dinner, we took a vote. The winner was the Leonetti by a score of 5 to 1.

I then revealed the prices and the panelists were shocked. No one thought the Leonetti was worth even twice as much as the Januik much less four times as much. Most of the panelists said four bottles of the Januik would be far preferable to one bottle of the Leonetti and the one panelist who didn’t care for the Januik said she certainly wouldn’t spend $100 on the Leonetti.

“I’m surprised by the price difference because I liked them both very much,” one panelists said. “I just don’t think that there’s any relationship between price and quality in this instance,” he added.

“I though they were both wonderful,” another panelist said.

The Leonetti was six years older than the Januik and not surprisingly, somewhat smoother as a result. This difference was particularly important to one of the six panelists.

“I thought the Januik was rough and I didn’t like it,” she said. This panelist described the Leonetti as “kind of mellow and balanced.”

These two offerings looked different in the glass. The Januik had a slight brownish tinge while the Leonetti was just a bit purplish.

Neither of these wines had a particularly pronounced or notable bouquet. That of the Januik was a bit fruiter, which wasn’t surprising given its younger age.

Neither of these wines had any harsh tannins, which squares with what one would generally expect from a merlot. As for acidity, that of the Januik was a bit more pronounced, especially in the finish. In contrast, the Leonetti came across as mild and soft.

On the palate, flavors associated with oak were more pronounced in the Leonetti. Fruit flavors were more prominent in the younger Januik.

The finish of both wines was very nice with that of the Januik again being slightly fruiter.

One panelist who liked the Leonetti best said thought it had a bit of cedar in the nose and that overall, it was the better balanced and more complex wine of the two.

A second panelist also called the Leonetti “more interesting and more complex,” but at the same time, this panelist said she had “no problem” with the Januik. The Januik, she said, “is a more classic merlot – easy to drink and more true to type.”

So who was the one panelist who voted in favor of the Januik? That was me. I liked the fresher, less oaky quality of that wine.

Leonetti Cellar is a label of Figgins Family Wine Estates, of Walla Walla, Washington. When Leonetti got started over 30 years ago, it was the only winery in Walla Walla (there are now over 100) and for many years, demand exceeded supply, driving up prices. One definitely pays a “name premium” for this wine, which may well decline in the future. There is far more competition Washington’s premium wine market at present than was the case even 10 years ago.

Januik Winery, which is located in Woodinville, Washington (just outside of Seattle), is owned by Michael Januik, another one of Washington’s most experienced winemakers. He was head winemaker at Chateau Ste. Michelle, Washington’s largest winemaking operation, for ten years before starting his own winery.

Resources:

Januik Winery

Leonetti Cellar

Pinot Noir for 2008 from Lioco, St. Innocent

2010-08-30T15:37:00.001-07:00

This post considers a:

Lioco 2008 “Sonoma Coast” Pinot Noir ($37.50) and a

St. Innocent 2008 “Temperance Hill Vineyard” Pinot Noir ($34).

Here’s the quick bottom line: The St. Innocent, which comes from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, is a dark, dry pinot that should appeal many consumers seeking something a little special. As such it is Recommended as being worth over $30 a bottle.

The Lioco, on the other hand, is somewhat Problematic in that consumers may either love or hate its very pronounced pie cherry flavor. This wine, which comes from Northern California, is very interesting, but it is probably not for everyone because the flavor could come as a bit of a shock. And if it turns out you don’t like it, you may regret having spent almost $40.

For instance, one member of our latest two-person panel declared the Lioco to be “undrinkable.” In contrast, I liked it a lot, but I have to admit it didn’t compliment the food we were eating.

Both of these pinots started out on the light side of medium in terms of weight. As they were exposed to oxygen, the Lioco became a little heavier while the St. Innocent remained about the same.

Of the two, the Lioco had the much more pronounced bouquet – deep, dark and spicy – both on the first evening and then a day later when the partially consumed bottles were reopened with a second meal. The bouquet of the St. Innocent wasn’t noteworthy.

On the palate, the St. Innocent offering tasted of dark plums and dark cherries plus some spice and, on the first night, it had some noticeable tannins. By the second night, the tannins were less pronounced. This suggests to me that this wine would benefit from a couple of years in the cellar.

In contrast, the Lioco pinot tasted very strongly of sour cherries or pie cherries with the sour aspect gaining prominence on the second evening. My sense is that this wine needs to be complimented by some very specific food. Lioco suggests Peking duck, tea smoked wild salmon or merguez sausages, none of which we had on hand or were able to procure or prepare.

While the acidity level of the St. Innocent was relatively low, that of the Lioco was a bit more pronounced.

The finish of the St. Innocent “Temperance Hill Vineyard” was perhaps the most notable aspect of this wine. It was exceptionally dark, long and very, very dry. There wasn’t a hint of the sweetness that often creeps into Oregon pinots.

The finish of the Lioco “Sonoma Coast” pinot was also very long, and it had a pronounced sweet and sour quality to it. In addition, this finish of this offering came across as just a touch “hot” or alcoholic.

For the record, the Lioco was listed as containing 14% alcohol by volume while the St. Innocent checked in at a more modest 13.5%.

In general, Lioco tries to make wines that strongly reflect the conditions in which the grapes are grown –the so-called terrior – and its 2008 “Sonoma Coast” pinot is made from grapes grown in a location called the “Petaluma wine gap” – a valley that funnels cold ocean air and fog inland from the Pacific. Interestingly, this wine is fermented only in neutral oak, which tends to preserve to a greater extent the intrinsic flavors of the grapes and, in this case, wild yeast.

In contrast, the St. Innocent “Temperance Hill Vineyard” pinot was fermented in 33% new oak, which is on the light side of what many wineries use. According to winemaker Mark Vlossak, this wine is best served with simply prepared foods such as salmon, pork tenderloin or lamb chops and if consumed young, the wine should be opened an hour of two before serving.

Vlossak also says it will benefit from aging for up to eight years, but if you purchase some for your cellar, I would recommend opening the first bottle after about two years and see how it is progressing.

Resources

Lioco

St. Innocent Winery

Cellar Report: WillaKenzie “Triple Black Slopes”

2010-08-12T17:39:00.001-07:00

I recently pulled a WillaKenzie Estate 2003 “Emery” Pinot Noir out of our cellar to see how it was doing and discovered that it had been down there a bit too long. You can read that report here.

Based on that experience, I started to worry about a couple of other 2003 WillaKenzie offerings I was cellaring so I decided to pull out a more expensive 2003 “Triple Black Slopes” pinot. I don’t have a record of the price I paid, but I believe this wine cost in the neighborhood of $50 a bottle.

As many readers probably know, expert-level ski slopes are marked by double black diamonds. Triple black, a sort of unofficial designation, is sometimes used to identify slopes considered virtually suicidal.

WillaKenzie has borrowed this terminology because its top-drawer pinot is made from grapes grown on an exceptionally steep, south-facing slope that the winery says is very difficult (and presumably costly) to farm. But pinot noir often does best in difficult conditions and thus, the “Triple Black Slopes” is WillaKenzie’s finest.

This Willamette Valley, Oregon, winery is, by the way, named after the soil type in which its vineyards are planted.

This time around there was good news. The 2003 “Triple Black Slopes” was doing just fine and, indeed, even blossomed a bit when our partially consumed bottle was reopened the next day. That suggests that there is still life ahead for this wine if you have any and want to continue to cellar it. But at the same time, I would recommend trying it right now.

This is a relatively big Oregon pinot that features conventional dark cherry-focused flavors augmented by some earthy but not barnyard notes. After several years in the bottle, it had developed that velvety texture that tends to give one a feeling of well being when drinking a satisfying glass of wine.

While the wine is relatively big as pinots go, it is not extracted or excessively fruity. Rather, it is nicely balanced and features a very satisfying finish. As I’m sure readers can tell by now, we greatly enjoyed this bottle of wine. It can stand up to robust fare in the way of food, but I wouldn’t drink it with anything particularly spicy.

For the record, this pinot is listed as being 14.5% alcohol by volume.

Two Rosé Wines From Sancerre

2010-08-12T16:36:00.001-07:00

This posting considers a:

Domaine Franck Millet 2009 Sancerre ($20), and a

Domaine André Neveu “Le Grand Fricambaut” 2009 Sancerre ($25).

Here’s the quick bottom line: neither of these two rosé wines are particularly noteworthy and consumers can easily do just as well or better for a lot less money. As such, the are Not Recommended.

After a period of neglect, pink or rosé, wine has made a big comeback in recent years and it seems like everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. As a result, stores are full of labels most consumers have never heard of, often from regions not traditionally associated with rosé.

These two wines come from Sancerre, which is in the Loire and one or both of them is made from the pinot noir grape. The name Sancerre is very well known, but not for rosé. Rather, the famous Sancerres are crisp, flinty, chalky white wines made from the sauvignon blanc grape and long associated with the consumption of shellfish. The good ones are wonderful in my view (as regular readers know) so as a fan of white Sancerres, I decided to see what a couple of the rosés were like.

In a word, boring.

These wines are competently made and devoid of any obvious flaws, but at the same time, they just aren’t very interesting. The less expensive, strawberry-focused Franck Millet is actually the bigger, more flavorful of the two and with a bit more viscosity, it has a richer feel in the mouth.

In contrast, the paler colored André Neveu is lighter. drier and more delicately flavored, also in the direction of strawberry.

Our latest two-person panel blind tasted these two over two consecutive light summer dinners, resealing and refrigerating the partially consumed bottles in the interim.

Both held up well and neither changed much over the two-day period. I could probably recommend both if they were priced at $15 a bottle or less, but they just don’t measure up to what one expects in the way of a rosé at $20 a bottle or more.

The Franck Millet checks in at an attractive 12.5% alcohol level while the André Neveu is listed as being 12.9%

Merry Edwards Sauvignon Blanc: 2009 vs 2008

2010-08-10T22:02:00.001-07:00

For reasons that escape me, I get a disproportionate number of visitors to this blog searching on the term “Merry Edwards sauvignon blanc.” As such, I feel almost obligated to review the latest vintage of this offering at some point. Here goes.

This posting compares a:

Merry Edwards 2009 Sauvignon Blanc ($30) and a

Merry Edwards 2008 Sauvignon Blanc ($30).

When I first reviewed this wine, comparing the 2007 version to a New Zealand sauvignon blanc, I found the Merry Edwards offering to be too oaky. For the record, when we tried the 2008 and 2009 together this time around, neither one of them tasted at all oaky although both were barrel fermented in a modest 18% new French oak. So oak is not an issue.

Second, when in May of 2009 I compared the 2008 Merry Edwards sauvignon blanc to the 2007 vintage, I observed that these were big wines in the sense that compared with sauvignon blancs made in other parts of the world, these wines had a lot of fruit.

I’m sticking to that assessment. As is our custom, we blind tasted these wines over a dinner and then resealed and refrigerated the partially consumed bottles. The wines were then reopened a couple of evenings later and sampled again. They were then resealed and reopened again a couple days after that.

I was certainly impressed by one thing: both of these wines held up extremely well over that lengthy period of time. Toward the end, the 2008 was fading somewhat, but the 2009 was still going strong. That’s rather unusual for a white wine so if you are a consumer who doesn't consume an entire bottle of wine in one sitting and are afraid to buy expensive wine because it might go bad before you get around to consuming the rest of it, you can buy the Merry Edwards sauvignon blanc with confidence. This is a wine that will wait for you.

So how did these two compare?

“I don’t have a strong preference between them,” a special guest panelist said. He described what turned out to be the 2009 as “fuller and bolder” and said the 2008 was “lighter with a nicer aftertaste.”

I then asked our friend to rate these wines against the white wines he usually drinks on a scale of one-to-ten.

“I’d give the 2009 a ‘five” and the 2008 a ‘six’,” he responded.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I tend to like lighter white wines,” he said.

In a sense, those comments probably say it all. If you are a fan of light, crisp white wines, these are probably not for you. But if you like full-flavored white wines (without any toasty vanilla flavors), you might like either one of these two.

To me, the 2009 was definitely the fuller bodied, fruitier and far more citric offering. Because of all the fruit, it was also a bit sweeter. In contrast, the lighter, drier 2008 was less citric and somewhat more minerally.

At the core, these wines both offer attractive, somewhat soft stone fruit flavors . Neither has the zesty grapefruit assertiveness of a New Zealand sauvignon blanc and both lack the flinty, chalky qualities of a sauvignon blanc made in the Sancerre region of France.

These wines might be considered a California version of a sauvignon blanc made in Bordeaux, which is to say that the California fruit is so generous that the wines don’t need to be blended with semillon to enhance and soften the flavors as is often the case in Bordeaux.

One question readers might ask is “will the 2009 become more like the 2008 if it is cellared for another year?” I don’t know for sure, but my sense is that 2009 was a bigger year and that the wine will remain bigger, sweeter and more citric than the 2008 at each comparable stage of development.

The wines are both Worth Considering if you don’t mind spending $30 a bottle for a sauvignon blanc and if you are looking for a fairly mouth filling wine as opposed to a lighter, crisper offering.

One thing I can say with certainty: these wines are very well made.

For the record, the 2008 Merry Edwards sauvignon blanc contains 13.9% alcohol by volume while the 2009 checks in at 14.1%. The higher alcohol content of the 2009 tens to confirm my assessment that the 2009 was a bigger, fruiter year.

Domaine Drouhin, Joseph Roty 2004 Pinots

2010-08-02T12:12:00.001-07:00

The following is an interesting comparison because 2004 was a good (although not great) year for pinot noir both in Oregon and in Burgundy. Moreover, the Oregon offering is from a French-owned winery that claims to make its wine in a Burgundian style.

The two wines under review are a:

Domaine Drouhin 2004 “Oregon” Pinot Noir ($45) and a

Joseph Roty 2004 Gevrey-Chambertin ”Cuvee de Champs-Chenys” ($44).

(Both of the wines were acquired some time ago and the prices shown are the original purchase prices.)

A panel of four consumers blind tasted these two over a single dinner and we all agreed it was very difficult to say which of the two was better.

Wines like these change in the glass as they come in contact with oxygen and, as is often the case, these two offerings went in different directions. Whereas the Drouhin offering gained a little weight and displayed more intensity of fruit as it opened up over the course of the dinner, the Roty pinot developed an attractively flavored earthiness as time progressed.

Overall, the Roty was the lighter and less alcoholic (13% versus 14.1%) of these two wines. It also had a little more acidity, which was good with the food. On the other hand, the softer Drouhin had a nice acidic “kick” in its finish, which successfully offset the sweetness that comes with more fruit.

Neither of these wines had any harsh tannins, but the soft tannins of the Drouhin were more noticeable than those of the Roty: over time, they made their presence felt at the top of one’s mouth.

In general, the differences between these two very satisfying wines are representative of the differences between pinot noir made in Oregon and Burgundy.

The Drouhin has a fuller, more mouth-filling body and is more fruit focused. The Roty is lighter and displays more in the way of non-fruit flavors.

It is fascinating and instructive to sample two such wines together. I strongly recommend it.

Rosé From DeLille & Syncline From 2009

2010-07-29T17:14:00.001-07:00

This post considers a:

Doyenne 2009 Rosé ($23) and a

Syncline 2009 Rosé ($16).

We’re well into the season for drinking pink wine so I probably should have gotten around to this post earlier. Here’s the quick bottom line on these two Washington State rosé wines, both of which are made from grapes associated with the Rhone region of France.

The Syncline rosé is Recommended while the more expensive Doyenne (made by DeLille Cellars) is Worth Considering if you don’t mind paying the premium price.

While these wines taste different, there is little or no difference in underlying quality. As such, the considerably less expensive and less alcoholic Syncline is a much better deal.

Fundamentally, these two wines simply represent different styles of winemaking as opposed to differing quality of grapes or the influences of different “terrior.” The Doyenne is fashioned so as to have a bigger, rounder, sweeter, more viscous body. The Syncline, on the other hand, is crafted so as to be lighter, leaner, dryer and more crisp.

One might think that a bigger wine would necessarily deliver more flavor, but that isn’t the case here. While it is true that the Doyenne comes across as the more flavorful on first sip, it fades surprisingly quickly. In contrast, while the flavors of the Syncline initially seem to be, in comparison, quite restrained, they build rather than fade making for a lasting finish.

While both of these wines are Rhone blends, they are focused on different grapes and thus have different flavor profiles.

The strawberry and candied-orange flavored Doyenne is 49%grenache. The other two grapes in the blend are mourvedre and cinsault.

In contrast, the more watermelon-focused Syncline is 44% cinsault. It also contains lesser percentages of grenache, mourvedre and counoise.

DeLille doesn’t say on its website how its rosé is made, but Syncline says its offering is fermented in stainless steel and that malolactic fermentation (which would produce a softer, sweeter wine) is blocked.

For the record, the Doyenne is listed as being 14.6% alcohol by volume while the Syncline is listed as being 13.8%.

Resources:

DeLille Cellars

Syncline Wine Cellars

Cellar Report: WillaKenzie, Lazy River

2010-07-26T17:30:00.001-07:00

In a posting entitled “How to Drink Wine,” which you can find here, I maintain that most red wines are consumed too soon.

In making that assertion, I’m not talking about mass-market reds that are, in effect, homogenized so that they taste the same year in, year out. I’m taking about reds made by traditional, artisan methods whether by large wineries or small producers.

In retail shops, such wines are usually displayed on shelves separate from the generally lower cost, mass market offerings.

If one doesn’t consume reds immediately upon release, how long should one wait? There is no easy answer.

Some reds, such as those made in the Bordeaux region of France (in good years), will last for decades if properly cellared and arguably shouldn’t be consumed until fairly late in their lives. The same goes for any number of big Italian reds.

But most red wines made in the U.S. are not made for extended cellaring. Somewhere between two years and, say, eight years is probably about right. Experimentation is the way to go, assuming one has a reasonably cool, dark location in which to store wine.

I recently pulled two Oregon pinots out of my cellar with the following results:

The first wine was a

WillaKenzie Estate 2003 “Emery” Pinot Noir.

This vineyard-designate wine, which I had kept for about five years from its date of release, was unfortunately showing too much age. While the wine was still drinkable, it had turned a bit brown around the edges (when one holds a glass up to the light). The fruit had faded allowing more non-fruit flavors to come to the fore and they were not all that interesting.

While the wine was not unpleasant, it was clearly past its peak and thus disappointing. I felt a bit upset that I hadn’t pulled it out sooner.

My guess is I should have consumed the WillaKenzie 2003 “Emery” pinot about two years earlier, giving it about three years of bottle age instead of five.

If you have any 2003 WillaKenzie pinots in your cellar, you may want to pull out a bottle soon and to see how it is doing.

The second wine was a:

Lazy River 2006 Pinot Noir

I tried a bottle of this wine a couple of years ago when it was first released and was not impressed. It had a cinnamon-oriented spiciness to it that to my mind, overwhelmed the fruit.

Two years in the cellar really helped this one. The spice was now integrated into the fruit and resulting red-focused flavor profile was very pleasant.

A couple of us sipped this bottle of wine for almost three hours on a summer evening, eating a few crackers and a little cheese along with it. Cellaring had not only produced a better balanced wine in terms of flavor, but also filed off the rough edges, leaving a velvety texture. The finish was bright and refreshing without being noticeably acidic.

The Lazy River 2006 pinot, which comes from Oregon’s Yamhill Carlton district of the Willamette Valley, can certainly be consumed with great pleasure right now. Alternatively, one could cellar it for another year or so and still find it at its peak. But unless you are interested in experimenting for its own sake, I wouldn’t keep it much longer than that.

Chardonnay from Balletto, Chamisal

2010-07-25T14:37:00.001-07:00

When it comes to U.S.-made chardonnay, I am not a fan of “big, oaky butter bombs” (to lift a phrase from the Balletto website).

At the same time, I am not totally opposed to the use of oak barrels. Just the right amount of oak can give a chardonnay greater complexity of flavor and a more mouth-filling quality. But most domestic wineries subject chardonnay and other varietals to far too much new oak, overwhelming the flavors of the grapes.

To get the real thing, I sometimes find myself searching high and low for totally unoaked chardonnay, which is available, although not readily so. But even if a chardonnay is unoaked, there is the separate question of MLF (malolactic fermentation), which determines the extent to which a chardonnay tastes buttery.

All of which sets up the following comparison: a

Balletto 2007 “Estate Bottled” Chardonnay ($18) and a

Chamisal Vineyards 2008 “Stainless Chardonnay” ($20).

Here’s the quick bottom line: a six-person panel blind tasted these two wines with hors d’oeuvres, found them different and liked both of them very much As such, both are Recommended.

The Balletto, which comes from California’s Sonoma County (just north of San Francisco), is an interesting wine. It was aged in oak, but – and this is important -- only 25% of the barrels were new. Malolactic fermentation, which coverts green-apple tasting tartaric acid to buttery tasting malic acid, was permitted, but only for 75% of the wine.

Thus, this wine goes some way toward the style to which U.S. consumers have become accustomed, but not entirely.

The Chamisal, on the other hand, was fermented entirely in stainless steel tanks and bottled without MLF. That combination sometimes produces overtly assertive, highly acidic wines that can be tough to drink without just the right kind of food, but the Chamisal is not one of them. It’s clean and crisp, but pleasant and easy to drink. This wine, by the way, is made from grapes grown in California’s Central Coast region, which is south of San Francisco.

“I thought they were both great,” one of our panelists said, adding that he had a slight preference for the softer Balletto. The Chamisal, he said, was “lighter and more subtle.”

“I also liked them both,” said a second panelist. But if forced to choose, she said she would pick the “more minerally, flinty” Chamisal over the”slightly buttery” Balletto.

A third panelist also preferred the unoaked chardonnay. He termed it “more crisp” in comparison to the “kind of fat” Balletto.

My own notes were as follows: the Balletto had a more pronounced, slightly. floral bouquet. It also had a slightly heavier and more viscous body, resulting in a mouth-filling quality. In contrast, the lighter Chamisal cleared more quickly off the palate and seemed more refreshing.

On the palate, the more complex Balletto featured a mix of stone fruit and floral flavors plus a hint of honey. The Chamisal, on the other hand, brought to mind a combination of delicately flavored fruit and stony minerality.

As for the finish, that of the Balletto was fruity and mildly citric while that of the Chamisal was exceptionally crisp and very dry.

For the record, the Balletto is listed as being 13.9% alcohol by volume while the Chamisal checks in at 14.1%.

If you are hung up on traditional oaky, buttery California chardonnays, but willing to experiment with a more subtle approach, the Balletto would be an excellent next step.

On the other hand, if you are already a fan of the French style of chardonnay and crave wines with good minerality, go for the Chamisal.

Resources:

Balletto Vineyards

Chamisal Vineyards

Note Worthy: Christian Moreau Chablis

2010-07-25T13:00:00.001-07:00

As regular readers know, I’m a fan of white wine from the Chablis region of France, but I don’t drink much of it. That’s first because it is hard to find truly affordable Chablis that is any good and second because the good stuff is so expensive I like to sample it before I purchase it and I don’t get many opportunities to do so.

But, I occasionally roll the dice on “mid-range” Chablis, which means wines costing between, say, $30 and $45 a bottle. Here’s one that turned out well: a

Domaine Christian Moreau 2007 Chablis 1er Cru “Vaillon” ($37.50).

This wine had nice chardonnay flavors, good minerality, fairly assertive citric acidity and a clean, refreshing finish. It was also thankfully totally devoid of the grassy, vegetal qualities that sometimes creep into Chablis, ruining such wine in my opinion.

If I had a magic wand, I would dial up the minerality a couple of clicks and dial down the critic component by about the same amount, but I’m picking nits here. This is a perfectly good wine as it stands.

I’m not your go-to guy when it comes to food/wine pairings, but I do have a recommendation for this wine: corn on the cob.

We eat corn on cob several times a week in the summer – starting from when the crop from California begins to arrive and ending when the local Washington crop, which ripens later, plays itself out. Between the two of them, it’s a long run and pretty much defines the season for us.

As we were drinking the Christian Moreau Chablis with dinner, I discovered that it tasted especially good just after a bite of corn and pretty soon, I was deliberating eating the corn just before taking another sip of wine. Somehow, the lightly buttered, lightly seasoned, crunchy fresh corn complemented this wine perfectly, “completing its flavors” as the saying goes. Likewise, the acidity and citric quality of the wine completed the flavors of the corn.

A wine that costs nearly $40 a bottle with corn on the cob? I know it doesn’t sound intuitive, but, hey, corn is cheap this time of year, in effect brining down the cost of the wine in the context of the price of a dinner. Just thinking about that combination makes me want to go out and buy another bottle, which is what this wine thing is all about. Right?

Some Thoughts About Red Burgundy

2010-07-24T12:28:00.001-07:00

I recently attended an event where one paid a relatively modest fee to taste about 20 wines from the Nuits Saint Georges region of Burgundy. Three wineries were represented, two of which offered red wines mostly from the 2007 and 2008 vintages. (Very little white wine is made in the NSG.)

The third producer, Domaine de L’Arlot, poured reds only from 2006.

“Tell me about the 2006 vintage,” I said to the winemaker.

“It was a very good year except for one thing: 2005,” he replied.

That comment is instructive for consumers interested in finding approachable, nicely balanced red Burgundies at reasonable prices – relatively speaking.

In Burgundy, 2005 was considered a blockbuster of a year, commanding great attention in the wine press. Critics raved, prices rose and collectors (the 2005s won’t be ready to drink for several years, in part because many contain a lot of tannin) allocated their financial resources accordingly.

The effect was to mask the merits of both the 2004 and 2006 red Burgundies.

The episode reminds me of what happened in Bordeaux in the early 1980s. The 1981 and 1983 vintages in Bordeaux were very good (we’ve been pulling some out of our cellar from time to time with excellent results), but those perfectly good years were totally overshadowed by the hoopla over 1982.

In the tasting under consideration here, I had already tried the other wines before I reached the Domaine de L’Arlot table and I wasn’t impressed by most of what had gone before.

Unfortunately, the weather in Burgundy wasn’t very cooperative in either 2007 and 2008, but of course (as is always the case when it comes to the wine industry) stories were told about how a warm spell at some point saved the day or how certain winemakers knew how to handle such conditions and made great wine anyway.

The more wine I taste, the more skeptical I become of such stories, especially when high-priced offerings are being promoted.

The low point for me came when an importer representing one winery was waxing eloquent about a bunch of 2007 and 2008 NSG reds, maintaining that they were big wines that would need seven or eight years to open up. At the time, I was sipping a wine with a list price of $135 a bottle that tasted more like faintly flavored water than wine.

I almost had a John McEnroe moment.

If you are old enough, you probably remember the petulant prince of tennis screaming “YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!” over line calls that didn’t go his way. But I kept my mouth shut, smiled, dumped the remainder of that sample into the spit bucket and moved on to the next one.

All of which is to say that the Domaine de L’Arlot 2006 red Burgundies came as a very welcome relief.

The following were my favorites, but I caution that this is based on just a taste or two of each:

Domaine de L’Arlot 2006 “Les Petits Plets 1er Cru” (about $45)

The 1er cru is a bigger, more mouth-filling, more satisfying version of the slightly less expensive “Le Petit Arlot,” which also had good fruit (especially after those disappointing 2007s and 2008s), but which I found just a touch grapey in its finish.

Domaine de L’Arlot 2006 “Clos des Forets St. Georges 1er Cru” ($79)

This wine, made from grapes grown on old vines, is an eye-opener. It’s focused on darker fruit and it displayed great depth of flavor right from the first sip. There’s definitely a “wow factor” here if you like intensity. A big step up in price, but probably worth it. The tannins are very soft so this wine can either be consumed now or cellared.

Domaine de L”Arlot 2006 “Vosne-Romanee Les Suchots 1er Cru” ($95)

This wine, which is not a Nuits St. George, is made from grapes grown on old vines in a vineyard bordered on three sides by vineyards producing Grand Crus of the highly regarded Vosne commune. It has a bright, flavorful bouquet, plenty of round soft fruit balanced by attractive spices, soft tannins and nice acidity. Delicious if expensive.

In addition to the three mentioned above, all of which I think are worth trying if you can afford them, there were two other reds from this winery:

Domaine de L’Arlot 2006 “Le Petit Arlot” ($43)

As mentioned above in the context of the “Les Petits 1er Cru,” I think you can get a considerably better Arlot by paying just a couple dollars a bottle more.

Domaine de L’Arlot “Clos de l’Arlot 1er cru” ($79)

This wine is good, but it strongly emphasizes spice over fruit flavors – including that cinnamon flavor that sometimes seems to haunt wines made in Oregon from the pinot noir grape. It could be good with just the right food, but I don’t think this offering is particularly versatile. Problematic.

Lastly, I should mention that I did like one wine from the other two producers represented -- yet another 2006. It was a:

Liger-Belair 2006 “Les St. Georges 1er cru” ($79)

This wine featured a very nice balance between fruit and non-fruit flavors, but at nearly $80 a bottle, I would choose one of the Domaine de L’Arlot offerings first.

Overall, when it comes to Burgundies, my recurring advice to consumers is: whenever possible TRY BEFORE YOU BUY.

White Wines From DeLille, Chateau Thieuley

2010-07-17T15:17:00.001-07:00

I’ve talked about the sauvignon blanc grape in a number of previous postings and emphasized how the wine made from it differs dramatically from one region to another. But, in a significant omission, I’ve never talked about sauvignon blanc as it is made in the region from which it originates: Bordeaux.

As most readers probably know, chardonnay is the dominant white wine grape of Burgundy. Likewise, sauvignon blanc is the dominant white wine grape of Bordeaux. But whereas chardonnay is rarely blended with other grapes, sauvignon blanc often is and this posting considers two such blends – one from France and the other from the state of Washington.

The wines in question are a:

DeLille Cellars 2008 “Chaleur Estate Blanc” ($34) and a

Chateau Thieuley 2008 “Cuvee Francis Courselle” ($20).

I was prompted to make this comparison because a local retailer recently put the DeLille on sale for $24 a bottle. In the sluggish U.S. economy, wines costing in excess of $30 a bottle haven’t sold as well as in the past and apparently DeLille wanted to clear its remaining inventory of the ‘08s before beginning to offer the ‘09 vintage in another month or so.

As usual, two of us blind-tasted these two wines with dinners on successive evenings, resealing and refrigerating the partially consumed bottles in the interim.

Here’s the quick bottom line: these wines are similar in flavor, but the DeLille is bigger, fruitier and in consequence a somewhat sweeter wine. Both are better with food than without and both are Worth Considering, particularly if you can find the DeLille at a discount.

Much having to do with wine is a matter of personal taste and the point of comparative consumption is to find out just what one’s taste is. When it comes to white wine, we tend to like offerings that have subtle, refined flavors underpinned by good minerality and a crisp, dry finish. Other people like white wines that are fruiter, softer, more mouth filling and a touch sweeter. I’m leaving toasty, oaky, buttery qualities totally aside here.

Flavors are particularly hard to describe, but DeLille says that among other things, its wine smells and tastes of gooseberry and grapefruit. That may be the case, but don’t start thinking about the assertively grapefruity New Zealand sauvignon blancs you might have tried. The flavor is much more restrained here.

DeLille also speaks of toasted almonds and grilled nuts and, indeed, there is a slightly nutty aspect to this wine.

Likewise, the Chateau Thieuley wine has a brownish flavor to it that could be nuts, but when I was drinking the wine, that component tasted to me a little like tea. As for fruit, Chateau Thieuley speaks of pear and litchi, but whatever the fruit flavors are, they are more subdued than those of the DeLille.

In terms of body weight, the Chateau Thieuley offering is a little lighter and a bit more minerally than the DeLille.

The differences described above are, by the way, foreshadowed by the colors of these wines in the glass, the Chateau Thieuley being a bit more silvery than the DeLille, particularly when one looks straight down into the glass.

Both of us preferred the Chateau Thieuley on the first evening, but not by a large margin. Both were very pleasant. Both wines had faded when the partially consumed bottles were reopened on the next evening, and at that point, we both liked the DeLille best. It had become what the Chateau Thieuley had been on the first evening and the Chateau Thieuley had become rather flat and not very interesting.

So, one recommendation that I would definitely make is: open the Chateau Thieuley on an occasion when it is likely the entire bottle will be consumed in one sitting.

If you want to try a white Bordeaux, the Chateau Thieuley, which is relatively widely distributed and only 12.5% alcohol, is an excellent place to start at $20 a bottle.

The bigger DeLille, which checks in at a fairly hefty 14.2% alcohol content, is worth tying if your budget permits. The only way that you can see whether this wine is really worth its hefty full-price premium is to compare it with something similar that costs a lot less money.

Although these two wines are both made of sauvignon blanc and Semillon, the latter grape makes up 50% of the French wine’s blend and only 38% of the Washington State offering.

Resources:

DeLille Cellars

Chateau Thieuley

Cellar Report: Cadence 2004 Red Wine

2010-07-17T12:32:00.001-07:00

“This is good. Is it a Bordeaux?” one of our usual panelists asked.

That’s high praise around here because we’re biased in favor of Bordeaux when it comes to wines made predominantly from the cabernet sauvignon and merlot grapes. We generally prefer the lighter body weight and better balance between fruit and non-fruit flavors of the French offerings.

In this case, however, the wine in question – a Cadence 2004 “Ciel Du Cheval Vineyard” Red Wine ($38) – was made from grapes grown in Washington State’s Red Mountain appellation.

I purchased some of this wine several years ago and recently pulled a bottle out of the cellar to see how it was doing. The answer: exceptionally well.

The tannins had softened and merged with the fruit and all the rough edges were gone. The result was a very interesting mix of fruit and non-fruit flavors – a great companion to some fairly hearty fare.

This wine was distinctive in the best possible way. There was nothing generic-tasting about it.

Moreover, it appears to have a very long life ahead of it if you happen to have any and would like to cellar it for an extended period of time. I can say that because after we consumed about half the Cadence with one dinner, I resealed the bottle and left it sitting out for about five days. That was not intentional: events simply intervened.

But, to my surprise and relief, the wine was just fine when the bottle was reopened. The fruit had faded only very slightly and the overall balance of flavors was still very appealing. Quite a performance and a real tribute to both the grapes and the winemaker.

This wine is what is known in Washington as a “Bordeaux blend.” In California, such blends are often called Meritage wines.

While the Cadence offering contains the usual mixture of grapes associated with Bordeaux, the relative proportions are a little different than most. In this case, cabernet franc, at 39%, is the leading component followed by cabernet sauvignon, 32%, merlot 21% and petit verdot 8%. More typically, cabernet franc would be, say, around 10% and petit verdot about 5%.

I don’t know enough about winemaking to say why Cadence winemaker Ben Smith decided to emphasize cabernet franc in this blend, but whatever the reason, it was an inspired choice.

For the record the Cadence red is listed as being 14.4% alcohol by volume. That’s higher than what one would expect to find in a comparable French-made blend.

Resources:

Cadence Winery

Information about the cabernet franc grape

Cellar Report: Lucia 2007 Pinot Noir

2010-07-11T21:03:00.001-07:00

A little over a year ago in a posting you can find here, I reported on and recommended a Lucia 2007 “Santa Lucia Highlands” Pinot Noir ($40). I called it fruit-forward, mouth-filling and a little bit sweet because of all the fruit it contained.

We recently tried another bottle of this wine that had been in our cellar for the past 12 months and found it more complex and more intense than was the case previously. This is turning out to be a pretty big wine and it appears to be still evolving in the bottle. I’m sure it will cellar well for a number of years and if I had another bottle, I would be tempted to make a note to let it mature until, say, 2014 or 2015.

This wine is made by Lucia Vineyards and Winery, which is, in effect, the second label of the Pisoni family.

The Santa Lucia Highlands, which was recognized as a designated winegrowing area in 1991, lies along the Salinas River – a bit inland from the city of Monterey, California. If you are interested in exploring the full range of California pinots, this region should be high or your list – especially with respect to the 2008 vintage because the Santa Lucia Highlands escaped the fires and weather problems that best some of California’s other pinot noir producing areas.

Note Worthy: Lullaby 2008 Viognier

2010-07-09T19:09:00.001-07:00

It’s always interesting when a U.S. winemaker claims to be making restrained as opposed to powerful wines. In this case, the winemaker is a woman and originally from France.

Lullaby Winery is a recent arrival in Walla Walla, Washington, a college town that in the last 20 years or so has become increasingly wine centric – so much so that this year’s wine blogger’s conference was held there. I was unfortunately unable to attend because, among other things, the conference promised answers to the question ‘why become a wine blogger?” From time to time, I wonder why I bother to do this. Some readers probably wonder why, too.

In any event, Lullaby winemaker Virginie Bourgue says on an entry page to a website still under construction that ever since she was a student in enology, her dream has been to own a winery. Hmmm. Dreams, lullabies: they do seem to go together.

The splash page also says that the name Lullaby “evokes femininity and has a sense of softness that characterizes very well her style of winemaking.”

Ms Bourgue was recently in Seattle with some of the wine she has made and I dropped in on a tasting sponsored by a retailer. The wines were all made from grapes generally associated with the Rhone region of France.

To me, the standout was a Lullaby 2008 Viognier ($29) which, to my palate, best represented the idea of restraint. That was the only Lullaby offering that I purchased.

Viognier, probably more often experienced as a component in a blend than consumed on its own, is a very floral, perfumy white wine that goes well with Thai and Vietnamese food.

I enjoy the flavors of viognier, but sometimes they can be just too much. When this grape is milked for all the flavor it can deliver as is sometimes the case in Washington State, it can be overwhelming. A little bit tastes very good, but soon one doesn’t want much more.

While the Lullaby Viognier features the traditional flavors, they are, in this case, subtle and refined. As a result, this is a far more versatile wine than a “bigger” viognier and easier to drink.

I would recommend the Lullaby Viognier except for three considerations. First, it is probably very difficult to find at present, but hopefully that will change over time.

Second, at nearly $30 a bottle, the Lullaby is rather expensive for this type of wine, especially in the current economic climate. It’s good, but not that special and therefore over priced. Consumers are being asked to pay a small-production premium,which, in effect, indulges the winemaker.

And third, despite the restrained flavors, both my fellow panelist and I found this wine to be rather “heady,” meaning that you may experience some unpleasant after effects if you consume too much – too much in this case being what you might normally consume of another white wine..

I don’t think it is the alcohol content, which is 14.1%. Rather, I suspect the effects in question are produced by some component of the wine associated with the grape itself since I’ve noticed the same phenomenon with viognier made by other producers.

As usual, two of us drank about half the bottle with one dinner, resealed the Lullaby Viognier and reopened it a day or so later. It had faded a bit – becoming somewhat “flat” and less interesting. So if you do decide to try a bottle, open it at an occasion when the entire bottle is likely to be consumed at one sitting.

The Benefit of Attending a Wine Dinner

2010-07-07T14:15:00.001-07:00

“This wine is exquisite! What is it?”

Since we were not engaged in one of our comparative blind tastings, I showed my companion the bottle: a Chateau de Puligny-Montrachet 2005 Puligny-Montrachet ($70).

Exquisite is not a word I use much when it comes to describing wine, but in this case, I would have to agree. Exquisite was the correct way to characterize this white Burgundy – a wine made from the chardonnay grape.

What made it so good? It’s harder to describe good wines than bad ones so lets just say that this offering had a perfect balance of subtle, delicate flavors; just the right amount of citric acidity, and a marvelous minerally base. Moreover, despite being about five years old, there were no hints of “old wine” favors in the mix and the finish was clean, crisp and refreshing.

Getting a bottle of wine like this is, in my experience, akin to winning the lottery. It doesn’t happen very often, but in the case of wine, at least there are ways to shorten the odds.

I love white Burgundies when they are at their best and don’t much care for them when they aren’t, especially given the prices one has to pay.

Going into a retail store and simply selecting one off a shelf is a total crap shoot. I don’t recommend it. You are more likely to get burned than you are to have a wonderful experience.

If you buy wine regularly at a particular store and the employees know exactly what you like and what you don’t like, they might be able to help out. But likes and dislikes are so subjective and so hard to describe that the effort often falls short, even when everyone is trying their best.

So how did I manage to strike gold with this one?

By attending a wine dinner.

Wine dinners, which most frequently take place in restaurants, come in a variety of formats and I’ve tried a number of them. Generally, a series of courses is served, each accompanied by one or more wines deemed to be well matched to the food. Sometimes a single winemaker, who is typically present to talk about the wines, participates. Other times, the wines of more than one producer are showcased.

These events tend to be expensive and a bit of an endurance test, given the amount of wine and food one ends up consuming.

Thus, over time, I’ve become very selective. I generally only attend if the featured wines are high-end offerings that I would like to experience, but am reluctant to purchase without first trying them. White (and red) Burgundies typically fall into that category.

A couple of years ago, I attended a dinner featuring the wines of Etienne de Montille. It was an exemplary affair with an ideal format: two seemingly similar wines accompanied each course, allowing one to explore the various differences in bouquet, flavor, acidity, body weight, tannins, etc. and, of course, price.

It’s a great way to experience high-end wines and hone in on what you really like – and are willing to pay for.

There’s another advantage to these dinners as well: attending usually allows one to purchase the wine at a substantial discount so I didn’t have to pay the $70 list price.

That’s how I ended up splurging on several bottles of the Chateau de Puligny-Montrachet 2005 Puligny Montrachet and I’m pleased to say it worked out exceptionally well.

Just because I liked this wine does not, however, mean that I would automatically purchase more recent vintages of the same thing. There can be a lot of variation from year to year in Burgundy and I would like to try subsequent offerings first. But such opportunities don’t come along every year so this is an occasional activity – and one that brings remorse as well as pleasure.

Why is that?

First, when things work out well, one tends to kick oneself for not having purchased more. But at the same time, whenever one does purchase “more,” it turns out the stuff for some reason doesn’t age well and disappointment follows. The gods of wine are even more capricious than other types of gods.

Second, drinking an exquisite wine is a mixed blessing. On one hand, it is a thrilling experience. On the other, one is left with an impossibly high benchmark against which to measure other wine.

“It’s excellent, but ….”

Lastly, a little background. Chateau Puligny-Montrachet is one of the most famous names in Burgundy if not all of France. But the quality of the wines made there declined during the 1980s and 1990s after the estate was sold to a large bank. In an effort to set matters right, winemaker Etienne de Montille, an advocate of biodynamic farming and indigenous yeasts, was retained and took full control of the estate in 2002. The results speak for themselves.

Littorai, Merry Edwards 2007 Pinot Noir

2010-07-04T15:27:00.001-07:00

We first tried a Merry Edwards 2007 “Sonoma Coast” Pinot Noir ($36) back in December in a three-way comparison with two more expensive pinots from other grape-growing regions within California and were very impressed. You can find that report here.

As a follow-on, our latest two-person panel decided to see how the Merry Edwards offering would stack up against a similarly priced California pinot from the same region: in this case, a Littorai 2007 “Sonoma Coast” Pinot Noir ($39).

Here’s the quick bottom line: these wines are excellent and Recommended. The Littorai is a bit heavier than the Merry Edwards and needs more time to open up, but both benefit from oxygen so uncork the bottles well before you plan to consume the wine and consider decanting.

In the glass, the Littorai is a lighter shade of red,which foreshadows a flavor profile dominated by semi-sweet cherries. The slightly darker Merry Edwards features a mix of red and dark fruit c0mbined with a bit more in the way of spice. The Merry Edwards is also a little more acidic than the Littorai.

Partially as a result of its restrained acidity, the finish of the Littorai was soft, smooth and lingering. This is a wine that can be consumed with pleasure on its own as well as with food. In contrast, the somewhat spicier, fresher finish of the Merry Edwards offing makes this wine better with food than without.

As usual, we blind-tasted these wines with two dinners, resealing the partially consumed bottles in the interim. On the second day, the slightly bigger Littorai had opened up further to exhibit a greater degree of complexity, both in its bouquet and on the palate, than was the case on the first evening. In contrast, the Merry Edwards pinot remained about the same.

While it was tough to make a decision between these two, both of us favored the Merry Edwards pinot by a very small margin on the first day. While my companion stuck with that choice the second time around, I switched to the Littorai. It just seemed to be getting more and more interesting as time went by. As such, I think the Littorai would be a good candidate to cellar for a couple of years, but I don’t think this is a wine that one would want, or need, to keep on hold for too long.

Neither of these wines had any harsh tannins and they were virtually identical in terms of alcohol content at just over 14%.

Resources:

Littorai Wines

Merry Edwards Winery

The Flavors of Wine

2010-07-01T22:49:00.001-07:00

To the average consumer, wine tastes like … … well, it tastes like “wine.”

There is red wine and white wine, of course, and they taste different, and there is rosé, which is sort of in between. Then there are dessert wines, which are very sweet, and finally champagne, which calls for an occasion. Go ahead: invent one. How about “brunch” or “dinner.” The great thing about champagne is that it goes with anything so you don’t have to agonize over “pairings.”

Taking it a step further, the average consumer would probably, within each of those categories, say that he or she had at some point consumed one wine that tasted better than others, but the distinction probably wouldn’t be based on a specific flavor or flavors.

He or she would probably say the wonderful wine was “more interesting” or “really smooth” or “nice and crisp” or “oaky and buttery.” How do I know? I hear people make comments like that all the time -- when they make comments at all. Many people feel far too intimidated about wine to say much of anything.

Maybe that’s because they read descriptions by wine critics that mention all kinds of flavors, some quite exotic if not ridiculous, all supposedly present in one bottle of wine. Then, when they try the wine, they can’t detect most of those flavors, or in some cases, any of them. That makes people feel there is something wrong with them. There isn’t.

As we will shortly see, even the experts can’t agree on what a particular bottle of wine tastes like so if you can’t smell or taste those “purple flowers,” don’t feel inadequate.

But before we go there, if you are interested in trying to tease more flavors out of wine (an activity that can be fun, sort of along the lines of a parlor game, but far from necessary), you might, for starters, want to acquire something called The Wine Aroma Wheel that was invented by Ann Noble, professor emeritus, at the University of California at Davis – one of the world’s leading institutions when it comes to the study of all aspects of grape growing and winemaking. You can find out about the wheel here.

Now, back to disagreement among the experts.

In my preceding post, I gave favorable mention to a Morgan 2007 “Twelve Clones” Pinot Noir from the Santa Lucia Highlands of central California, judging it worth its premium price because I enjoyed its relatively high degree of complexity. I said it had a mix of light and dark fruit flavors plus a hint of cola, but didn’t attempt to be more specific than that.

Lets see what flavors other people find in this wine, starting with the winemaker.

On its website, Morgan says its “Twelve Clones” contains the following aromas or flavors:
red cherries, cola, rose petals, spicy earth tones, berries, toast, vanilla, leather, and spice.

Whew!

Morgan also conveniently provides links to several reviews by outside experts. Surprise, surprise: they are all very favorable, but do they agree upon what this wine tastes like? NO!

Robert Whitley, a blogger and wine critic for Reuters news agency, found:

“a slightly leafy character” and “lots of strawberry.” Leafy? Strawberry? Hmm, sounds like a completely different bottle of wine than that described by the winery, doesn’t it?

Next comes Connoisseurs’ Guide to California Wine. Its reviewer said the Morgan pinot smelled or tasted of:

black cherries, hints of dried violets, milk chocolate and “a light dusting of toasty oak.” Lets see: dried violets and milk chocolate – those are new ones, aren’t they?

How about the Wine Enthusiast? It’s reviewer indentified:

cherry, currant, mocha and cedar flavors. Well, maybe mocha is the same as milk chocolate, but we are definitely adding current and cedar to the overall list here.

The there is The International Wine Review, which found:

dark cherry fruit, smoke, undergrowth (whatever that is), spicy dark red fruit (other than cherry, presumably), “strong earth and vanilla spice notes,” and “just a touch of cola spice.” Have you sampled any “undergrowth” recently? Neither have I. And I think we’re also adding smoke to the master list.

On to Pinot Report, which said the Morgan 2007 “Twelve Clones” had:

“earthy, floral aromas;” bright plum; strawberry; earthy spice and tea notes plus more flavors to come as the wine ages. Plum? That’s a new one and so is tea. And one can only imagine what might surface in due course.

I’m sure you’re getting the picture, but here is one last report.

Burghound says the Morgan pinot contains:

black cherry, raspberry and a hint of cassis. Hmmm, cassis. I don’t think that has been mentioned previously.

Remember, those are the experts, the people with exquisite senses of smell and astounding palates, or so we are told. If they don’t agree on what this wine tastes like, how can the likes of you or me be expected to know?

Or, wait a minute: maybe the Morgan pinot really does taste different to different people and therefore, none of the flavors mentioned above mean much of anything to you. In reality, the Morgan tastes to you like whatever flavors you happen to find in it, or … … maybe it just tastes like “wine.” There’s a radical thought -- and one that could put a lot of reviewers out of business.

Does that mean wine reviews are all nonsense? No. In a subsequent posting I’ll talk about what matters a lot more to the average consumer than differing lists of a lot weird and wonderful flavors.

Pinot Noir From Broadley, Morgan

2010-06-29T13:16:00.001-07:00

This posting considers a:

Broadley 2008 “Willamette Valley” Pinot Noir ($20) and a

Morgan 2007 “Twelve Clones” Pinot Noir ($32).

First, why compare these two? They are from different vintages, different regions and one costs 60% more than the other.

As regular readers know, I believe that comparative drinking is the best way to discover what wines one really likes and why. Comparative drinking involves drinking two or more wines with food over an extended period of time: a least one leisurely dinner and perhaps two or three with the partially consumed bottles resealed in the interim.

Stopping at a wine tasting room and taking a sip or two of a number of different wines is NOT comparative drinking although it can have its uses.

I mainly do my comparative drinking at home with other “panelists” when I can round them up, but it is becoming more and more possible to engage in a version of this activity at restaurants. That’s because more restaurants are not just offering wine by the glass, but by the half-glass as well, which encourages consumers to try more than one at the same time – in “flights,” as it were.

Not long ago, I was at an upscale restaurant that offered three-ounce “tastes” of various wines as an alternative to five-ounce glasses. (One also finds less appealing two-ounce “tastes” at some restaurants and also, more generous six-ounce glasses.)

Looking over the list, I noticed the 2008 Broadley at $6.50 for three ounces and the 2007 Morgan at $7.50 for the same quantity. Knowing that 2008 was a great year for Oregon, where the Broadley comes from, and that 2007 was a wonderful year for pinot noir in California, where the Morgan is made, I decided to order one three-ounce glass of each.

Readers quick with math will probably notice that relatively speaking, the Morgan was a bargain or, alternatively, that the Broadley was over-priced, but more on that later.

Here’s the bottom line:

The Broadley, which appears to be sold out at the winery, but is likely still available at various retail outlets and in restaurants, is a very pleasant, slightly fruity, red-fruit-focused pinot with good acidity and a satisfactory finish. The winery describes it as featuring flavors and aromas of black raspberry and black cherry, but I didn’t find it that dark. It is representative of “affordable” Oregon pinots of the 2008 vintage and at $20 a bottle is Recommended.

Having said that, I greatly preferred the Morgan. It was noticeably more complex and more interesting than the Broadly – as it should have been given the differential in per-bottle prices. Along with a mix of red and dark fruit, this wine has a hint of cola, which is attractive when kept under control and a problem when it becomes too pronounced. Like the Broadley, the Morgan had an attractive level of acidity, and the complexity of this wine carried over into the finish. Recommended as being worth the premium price.

At a premium of only $1.00 a “taste” at that particular restaurant, I had a second three-ounce glass of the Morgan with desert – something chocolate that was a wonderful match for the wine.

Now lets get back to the numbers for a minute.

Strictly from an economic point of view, it generally makes sense to drink wine at home as opposed to in a restaurant.

A 750 ml bottle of wine (the standard full-bottle size) is 25.4 ounces – almost exactly the right amount for five pours of five ounces each. Alternatively, one can be more generous and do four six-ounce pours with a little left over.

At the restaurant where I was dining, the Broadley was priced at $11 for a five-ounce glass, which comes out to $55 a bottle – no bargain to be sure. Alternatively, at $6.50 for a three-ounce “taste,” the restaurant was taking in a slightly more modest $52 a bottle.

For the Morgan, which was priced at $12 a five-ounce glass, the comparable numbers were $60 and an identical $60.

Since restaurants typically sell wine by the bottle at about twice the retail price, the Morgan was priced correctly by the glass and the Broadley was rather severely overpriced.

That may be because here in Seattle, many consumers prefer to drink “local” wine (Oregon is considered local for pinot noir since very little is produced in Washington) and the restaurant may well have assessed demand, and the potential for profit, accordingly.

The above prices appear to make a strong argument for avoiding whenever possible wine-by-the glass in restaurants, but there is another way of looking at the economics.

In order to compare the Broadley and the Morgan at home, I would have had to shell out about $52. Comparing them at the restaurant cost me only $14 (not counting my second taste of the Morgan) – and three ounces of each was plenty to get a very good feel for these two pinots – and when I might want to purchase one.

If I were having an informal summer meal out on the back deck, I’d go for the much less expensive Broadley. Alternatively, if I were having a dinner party, I’d serve the Morgan, confident I would be generously complimented on my choice.

Resources:

Broadley Vineyards

Morgan Winery

Sign of the Times? Big Discount on Big Syrah

2010-06-22T13:20:00.001-07:00

In a recent post that can be found here, I referenced and commented upon a New York Times article that reported on collapsing demand for big, fruity U.S.-made syrahs.

Today, I received an email from a prominent Northwest online wine merchant offering a significant discount on a big syrah made by a highly regarded Washington winemaker.

(I do not mention the names of any wine retailers on this blog lest that be viewed as an endorsement.)

Here’s what the merchant had to say:

“Over 30% off on Mark Ryan Wild Eyed Syrah 07 - one of the biggest rock'n roll, monster reds from Washington State - usually $47.95 a bottle, it's only $36, or $32.40 with our Facebook coupon. The last vintage got 94 points in Wine Spectator. This one hasn't been reviewed yet, but it's a better wine.”

The merchant goes on to describe the wine as “catapulting intense fruit” such as sweet blackberries, black cherries and black raspberries while “sneaking in” flavors such as espresso, anise, licorice, bacon, purple flowers and vanilla.

No wonder a lot of consumers are intimidated. There must be something wrong with you if you can’t sip a glass of wine and, after a suitably pregnant pause, wax rhapsodically over that hint of purple flowers you’ve just experienced. I mean, we all know what purple flowers taste like, right?

Sorry: couldn’t resist. Now back to business.

Is the hefty discount for what is apparently a blockbuster of a Washington syrah a sign that consumers really are moving away from such wines?

It’s a tantalizing thought, but to be fair, it is hard to tell. There could be other reasons for the price cut.

First, there is the lengthy recession, which has cut consumer purchasing power and not just at the bottom end of the income scale.

I’ve heard from a number of retailers that it is tough to sell wines costing more than $30 a bottle in the current environment – syrah or any other varietal for that matter.

Here’s what one local bricks-and-mortar retailer recently had to say on the topic:

“I get asked all the time; ‘how is business?’ One of my replies involves customers spending less money for a bottle of wine. Many people act surprised by this. If they do, I figure that they are not regular wine drinkers because the regular wine drinker wants to continue being a regular wine drinker but wants to do it for less money. Makes sense to me. As a result we have been sharpening our focus in order to find the very best value wines on the market.”

Increased competition could be another reason the Mark Ryan syrah is being offered at a discount exceeding 30%. Every year, more wineries open in the state of Washington, a small percentage of which are typically hailed as making fabulous wine – and hard to get because there is so little of it. This puts pressure on established Washington producers of premium wine as the consumers of exotic boutique offerings chase after the latest and greatest.

Lastly, on a more pedestrian level, the winery or the retailer could be cleaning out inventories to generate extra cash. Or the winemaker might be offering a promotion in the hope of attracting new customers who will presumably make follow-on purchases at higher prices.

I have no idea which explanation is correct in this instance – and I doubt I would get a straight answer if I tried asking questions. But I do find this development intriguing.

Goldeneye, Hamacher 2007 Pinot Noir

2010-06-20T20:05:00.001-07:00

Here’s another California/Oregon pinot noir comparison, this time involving wines from the 2007 vintage, which was very good throughout California, but troublesome in Oregon.

The wines are a:

Goldeneye 2007 “Anderson Valley” Pinot Noir ($55) and a

Hamacher 2007 “Willamette Valley” Pinot Noir ($45).

First the good news: as regular readers know, I have not had a lot of luck with Oregon pinot noir of the 2007 vintage, but some of the ones that I previously tried were made from what might be called second-tier grapes. These grapes, which aren’t needed or wanted for premium offerings and are thus used to make more affordable pinots, can be just fine in a good vintage, such as 2008, but not so good in a difficult year such as 2007 when it rained a great deal during the harvest season

The Hamacher under consideration here is a wine made of first-tier grapes and it is very good, but whether it is worth $45 a bottle is another matter.

The same can be said of the Goldeneye, which comes from Northern California where conditions were excellent in 2007. However, a price of $55 a bottle suggests this should be not just a good pinot, but an exceptional one and I don’t think it rises to that standard.

Both of these wines are thus Worth Considering for consumers with generous budgets. If you don’t typically spend $40 or more for a bottle of pinot noir, there is no need to lust after either of these two. Equal or even greater satisfaction can be found elsewhere for less money.

Let me repeat lest I be misunderstood: these are both nicely made, well-balanced, very pleasant wines. They just lack the “wow” factor that is necessary to justify their premium prices.

While both of these wines are medium-bodied, the Goldeneye leans toward being bigger and more mouth filling while the Hamacher tilts slightly in the other direction. It did gain additional weight with exposure to oxygen, however, while the Goldeneye remained about the same.

Eric Hamacher, a very experienced Oregon winemaker, says he tries to emphasize “elegance over power” in his pinots and on the website referenced below, you can read about the steps he takes to achieve that goal.

I would say his 2007 “Willamette Valley” generally fits that description and as such, I would judge it a better food wine than the bigger, sweeter Goldeneye.

Sweetness, particularly in the finish, is the factor that most clearly differentiated these two offerings – the Hamacher had a noticeably drier after-taste.

The makers of both of these wines claim that they display a wide range of aromas and flavors: “a fragrant perfume of toast, spice box, earth notes, black cherry, and black raspberry” for the Hamacher and “sophisticated aromas of star anise, morel mushrooms and toasty oak segue to enticing ripe berry and bittersweet chocolate notes, underscored by hints of black licorice and truffle” for the Goldeneye.

If you can parse out even some of the components mentioned above, you have a far more sensitive palate than I do.

According to my notes, neither one of these wines had a particularly pronounced bouquet – certainly not one that rises out of the glass up into one’s nose – but the Goldeneye developed a more pronounced, fruit-focused aroma as the wine came into contact with more oxygen so don’t hesitate to swill it around in the glass.

On the palate, the Goldeneye was dark-fruit oriented (this one does NOT taste like raspberries or red cherries), a little tangy and very slightly viscous. In contrast, the flavor of the Hamacher was more of a red fruit/dark fruit mix, nicely balanced by a bit of spice. It was also lighter and “cleaner.”

Neither wine exhibited any harsh tannins and both had an attractive level of acidity.

As mentioned above, while the finish of the Goldeneye comes across as a little sweet, that of the drier Hamacher is just a touch spicy.

Although the Goldeneye was the more intense of these two pinots, I found that as I went back and forth between them over two meals on successive nights, I liked the Hamacher better. It was the one I tended to reach for – always a good test.

But, as I contemplated the prices of these wines, I was disappointed. Both lacked the kind of complexity that makes one want to keep sampling a wine in order to discover just what makes it so intriguing.

For the record, the Goldeneye (part of Duckhorn Wine Company) is listed as being 14.5% alcohol while the less intense Hamacher checks in at a distinctly more modest 13.6% – another reason why it is the better food wine of the two.

Resources:

Goldeneye

Hamacher Wines

Lange, Syncline 2008 Pinot Noir

2010-06-18T16:53:00.001-07:00

This post considers a:

Lange 2008 “Willamette Valley” Pinot Noir ($24)

and a

Syncline 2008 “Columbia Gorge” Pinot Noir ($28).

Here’s the quick bottom line: these are quite similar medium-bodied pinots with relatively high acidity and no harsh tannins. They are better with food than without and probably should be purchased for near-term consumption rather than for cellaring. Neither has any obvious flaws and both are thus Worth Considering. But of the two, the Lange is the better bargain.

If you are used to Pacific Northwest pinots that are just a bit sweet (or even more than just a bit), these wines lean in the other direction. Both are actually a little tart.

Both also benefitted from exposure to oxygen so either open them a couple of hours before you plan to serve the wine or decant them. Both also held up very well over a two-day period when the partially consumed bottles were resealed with their original cap or stopper so there is no need to consume an entire bottle at one sitting.

The Lange offering is a blend made from grapes grown in various vineyards in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. It has an attractive, reasonably complex bouquet featuring a hint of earth and a touch of spice that opens up with exposure to air so don’t hesitate to swirl this one around in your glass.

On the palate, the Lange pinot leans in the direction of red fruit, but some darker, even slightly woody flavors are there as well. The finish is pleasant, but has a bit of a citric kick to it which is unusual in an Oregon pinot noir.

The Syncline offering, which is made from grapes grown in Washington State’s portion of the Columbia Gorge (part of this appellation lies across the river in Oregon) has a nice bouquet that is a bit more fruity in nature than that of the Lange. It, too, needs exposure to oxygen to fully blossom.

Like the Lange, the Syncline is medium-bodied, contains no harsh tannins and features fairly pronounced acidity.

On the palate, the Syncline pinot is raspberry/cherry focused, but those flavors are usefully offset by some non-fruit flavors including a hint of cedar. The finish is light, but pleasant and just a touch spicy.

Syncline says it expects that its 2008 pinot noir will “really shine” after three to five years in the bottle and while I’m a bit skeptical, fans of this winery should consider putting a few bottles in their cellars to put that theory to the test. I would recommend drinking one every 12 months or so to see how matters are progressing.

I’ve tried Syncline pinots over the past three or four years and I think this one is the best so far.

For the record, the Lange checks in at 13.5% alcohol by volume while the Syncline is listed as being 13.6%. Those are relatively attractive numbers.

Resources:

Lange Estate Winery and Vineyards

Syncline Wine Cellars

Note Worthy: Jean-Marie Reverdy Sancerre

2010-06-14T11:45:00.001-07:00

As regular readers know, we’re always on the lookout for good Sancerre, especially as the weather gets warmer, and here’s one that I can Recommend:

the Jean-Marie Reverdy 2008 “Domaine de la Villaudiere” Sancerre ($20).

Sancerre, which comes from the Loire region of France, is made from the sauvignon blanc grape.

Sauvignon blanc is grown in various parts of the world and in some respects, is a hard grape to come to terms with. That’s because the wine is made very differently in different countries.

In California and other parts of the U.S., sauvignon blanc is often oaked along the lines of most American-made chardonnay. That approach, which results in a softer, more viscous wine, is not a personal favorite of mine.

New Zealand sauvignon blanc, which enjoyed a surge of interest that may now be tapering off, goes in the other direction. Those wines tend to be assertively acidic and exceptionally zesty with strong flavors of grapefruit or gooseberry. I enjoy one from time to time, but for me, the Loire remains the place to go.

Why? In a word, minerality.

The soil in the Loire is very chalky and that taste comes through in the wine, underpinning the generally citric fruit flavors.

As always, the trick is getting the right balance. Following the popularity of New Zealand sauvignon blanc and the favorable criticism those wines garnered, some producers of Sancerre evidently decided that citrus was what customers wanted and responded accordingly. The result was a loss of character for some Sancerre and a loss of terrior, or sense of place.

Fortunately, the tend now seems to be back in the other direction as exemplified by the Jean-Marie Reverdy Sancerre under consideration here.

This is a restrained, delicate, almost elegant Sancerre, light in body and beautifully balanced between chalky minerality and citric fruit. And, the alcohol content is only 12.5%, which makes it a pleasure to drink. In fact, it’s one of those wines where one just keeps wanting another sip or two.

Minerally Sancerre shines with oysters on the half shell and other simply prepared seafood such as scallops or white fish. If you are a fan of steamed clams, use some of the wine as part of the steaming liquid and then drink the rest when you eat the clams, a baguette and a salad. Perfect for a summer evening and so easy to prepare.

Collapsing Demand for U.S.-Made Syrah?

2010-06-02T13:28:00.001-07:00

New York Times critic Eric Asimov has a provocative column in the June 2 edition of the newspaper on collapsing demand for wine made in the U.S. from the syrah grape. You can find it here.

The collapse is, in my view, welcome news because it appears to mean that consumers are increasingly getting turned off by the heavy, fruity excessively alcoholic syrahs that are often awarded high numerical scores by the likes of Robert Parker, The Wine Spectator and various other “number guys.”

“As syrah production was beginning to take off [during the 1990s], some American wine critics were starting to award their highest scores to big, broad, powerfully fruity wines that displayed richness and opulence,” Asimov says.

Not surprisingly, other producers – chasing those attention grabbing 94, 95, 96 scores -- tried to make wine in the same style until the market was flooded with with overblown syrah that, frankly, is not all that pleasant to drink – with or without food. It tends to be exceptionally “heady” and one can awake the next morning, or even worse, in the middle of the night, with some very unpleasant feelings. We occasionally try syrah because a lot of it is made in the State of Washington and usually end up throwing out about half the bottle after it sits unwanted for a few days.

Asimov’s column, which focuses on syrah made in California, goes on to discuss a number of producers that are now rejecting the Parker/Wine Spectator model in favor of lighter, less alcoholic, more aromatic syrahs that instead of being densely fruity, feature a range on non-fruit flavors.

These wines, Asimov argues, are more like syrah-based wines made in the Rhone region of France. While it remains to be seen whether the new approach will catch on with U.S. consumers, the old approach seems to have had its day. Amen.

Chardonnay From Brewer-Clifton, Diatom

2010-05-30T18:56:00.001-07:00

This post is a follow-on to the previous two (Three Chardonnay From Brewer-Clifton and WSJ on “Radical” Chardonnay ), and it considers a:

Brewer-Clifton 2008 “Sweeney Canyon” Chardonnay ($58) and a

Diatom 2007 “Clos Pepe” Chardonnay ($50).

First, both of these wines came from California’s Santa Rita Hills appellation, which is located just north of Santa Barbara. The hills run east and west, allowing fog from the Pacific Ocean to penetrate inland and keep the vineyards a lot cooler than would otherwise be the case. This makes for good growing conditions for both chardonnay and pinot noir.

Second, these wines are closely related in that Diatom is made by Greg Brewer, Steve Clifton’s partner in the Brewer-Clifton operation. They are from different vintages, however.

Here’s what Greg Brewer has to say about his winemaking philosophy at Diatom:

“The challenge is to subtract all extraneous elements to arrive at the utmost level of simplicity, serenity and refinement. In order to maintain this desired purity, fermentation is carried out at a very cold temperature in neutral vessels to retain the most primary attributes of the fruit.

Furthermore, malo-lactic is inhibited to avoid the distraction of that secondary level of evolution. The resultant wine is then aged on its non-disturbed lees for health and protection, and removed just before there is any risk of autolysis which could impart nondesirable yeast-like characteristics into the wine.”

A couple of key words there are “neutral vessels,” which principally means no new oak and therefore no “toasty,” vanilla or coconut flavors, and “malo-lactic is inhibited,” which means the wine should also be devoid of a buttery or butterscotch quality.

In other words, the Diatom (and similarly made Brewer-Clifton) chardonnay should exhibit very different flavors and characteristics compared with the vast majority of U.S.-made chardonnay. That is in fact the case.

So: what were these rather expensive wines like? As usual, two of us blind-tasted them on two consecutive days with dinner, re-sealing and refrigerating the partially consumed bottles in the interim.

After we learned which was which at the end of the first night, these wines were relatively easy to tell apart in the glass.

The Diatom had a light silvery-gold color while the Brewer-Clifton was a deeper, more yellow shade of gold. Those colors provide the first clues of how these wines are going to differ.

The Brewer-Clifton “Sweeney Canyon” offering had the more pronounced bouquet of these two – an aroma of stone fruit and honey with a slight floral quality. In contrast, the bouquet of the Diatom “Clos Pepe” was subtle and rather subdued.

On the palate, the first thing noticeable about the Diatom was a bit of a tingle, which is sometimes an indication that fermentation wasn’t totally complete at the time the wine was bottled. This effervescence, which could be irritating to some consumers, imparted a somewhat lively, fresh quality to the wine. Not surprisingly, it was a lot less pronounced on the second day.

In terms of body weight, the Brewer-Clifton was slightly heavier and noticeably more viscous than the Diatom. After exposure to oxygen, the Brewer-Clifton gained additional weight and power while the Diatom, except for the above-mentioned effervescence, remained pretty much unchanged.

On the palate, the Brewer-Clifton “Sweeney Canyon” tasted rather strongly of tangerine along with some soft stone-fruit flavors. The tangerine was a flavor I had never previously experienced in a chardonnay and it was more subdued on the second day. The Diatom “Clos Pepe” was a more subtle offering: soft stone fruit underpinned with some interesting minerality. In addition, there seemed to be a “brown” flavor in the Diatom that neither of us could identify. A nut of some sort, perhaps?

Both of these wines came across as a touch sweet. Neither was noticeably citric or otherwise assertively acidic except that the Diatom had a just a bit of a kick right at the end its finish. In the case of the Brewer-Clifton, as the fruit flavors faded in the course of the finish, one was left with a bit of lingering minerality.

In the end, both of us liked the Diatom 2007 “Clos Pepe” the best and thought it was definitely the better food wine. It is Recommended.

After thinking a lot about the more intense Brewer-Clifton “Sweeney Canyon” and its unusual and rather intense tangerine aspect, I think that this one is probably better served as an aperitif. I’m afraid it would compete with rather than compliment most foods. Worth Considering if you are into high-end experimentation and have the budget for that sort of activity.

One thing that gives me pause about both of these wines are their high alcohol levels. The Brewer-Clifton checks in at 15.2%, which is way up there for a chardonnay, and the Diatom has an almost shockingly high level of alcohol at 16.5%.

As with most of the other wines made by Brewer and Clifton, together or separately, these two chardonnay are made in very small quantities: just 2,592 bottles of the “Sweeney Canyon” and 2,760 bottles of the “Clos Pepe.” As such, if you are interested in trying these offerings, you will probably have to search for them. In the vast majority of cases, they are highly unlikely to just turn up on the shelves of “a retailer near you.”

Resources:

Brewer-Clifton

Diatom

Three Chardonnay From Brewer-Clifton

2010-05-27T21:43:00.001-07:00

This post considers a:

Brewer-Clifton 2008 “Sta. Rita Hills” Chardonnay ($35), a

Brewer-Clifton 2008 “Gnesa” Chardonnay ($52) and a

Brewer-Clifton 2008 “Sea Smoke” Chardonnay ($53).

By reviewing these three wines, I am following up both on the preceding post, which referenced a Wall Street Journal column on Chardonnay made in California’s Santa Rita Hills appellation, and a slightly earlier post on white and red Burgundies.

While the first reference is obvious, the second is less so. What do Brewer-Clifton wines have to do with white Burgundies?

Most white Burgundies are made with little or no new oak and are thus devoid of the toasty, oaky characteristics of most American-made chardonnay. Instead, the Burgundies tend to be underpinned by a flinty minerality that is hard to find among wines made in this country.

While there are many very good, highly affordable white Burgundies from appellations such as St. Veran and Macon, the more sophisticated wines from this region tend to be very expensive – say, $70 to $100 a bottle or more.

Fortunately, for consumers who like the Burgundy style, a small but increasing number of U.S. chardonnay producers are moving away from fermentation in new oak in order to let the native flavors of the chardonnay grape and the terrior of specific vineyards show through. While not an exact substitute for white Burgundies, these wines are a very interesting alternative and in many cases, a better value.

One such producer is Brewer-Clifton, a winery probably better known for its pinot noir.

The Brewer-Clifton “Sta. Rita Hills” chardonnay is a blend of grapes grown in various vineyards in this appellation, which lies just north of Santa Barbara, and is, in effect, the winery’s “entry level” chardonnay. At about $35 a bottle, however, most consumers would probably consider this a premium wine only for special occasions – if at all.

This is a nicely balanced wine, offering both soft-fruit flavors and good, but not excessive, citrus acidity. It has a pleasant bouquet that appropriately previews what will follow on the palate, a slightly briny underpinning and a very satisfactory finish. It is an excellent food wine and while very pleasing, lacks what I would call a “wow” factor. Recommended.

In contrast, the more expensive “Gnesa” chardonnay is a rather narrowly focused wine.

Most readers are probably familiar with the concept of “sweet and sour” as in a certain Chinese soup. This wine is what I would call “sweet and citric” with the citric component rather dominant.

The winery mentions, among others, white peach and nectarine as flavors one might find in this wine and I wouldn’t dispute that except to say that they are relatively subtle. That’s where the sweetness comes in. To fully experience this aspect of the wine, one must allow it to warm up to something approaching room temperature.

The “Gnesa” has a fairly pronounced honey-lemon bouquet with acidity that goes right up one’s nose. On the palate, it’s clean, crisp and really quite assertive. But it isn’t particularly minerally, which makes it less a substitute for white Burgundies than either of the other two Brewer-Clifton wines mentioned in this posting. The finish is lingering, but once again, very citric.

The “Gnesa” is a wine that really needs the right food to balance its rather assertive quality. Thus, I rate this one Worth Considering if you know exactly why you are buying it. Otherwise, the following wine may be a better choice.

The Brewer-Clifton “Sea Smoke” chardonnay (made from grapes grown in the famous Sea Smoke vineyard) is the most satisfying of the three offerings under consideration in this post, mainly because it is the most complex wine of these three.

The winery calls it “creamy yet assertive on the palate” and I think that is a good description.

Like the other Brewer-Clifton wines mentioned here, the “Sea Smoke” chardonnay is totally devoid of the vanilla, coconut and/or “toasty” flavors associated with fermentation in new oak and it is also devoid of any spice flavors associated with new oak. White reasonably soft, it is not “buttery.”

This wine is a silvery gold color in the glass and the bouquet features attractive peach or apricot aromas.

On the palate, a brisk citric attack that rises up through one’s nose is followed by soft stone-fruit flavors. A noticeable minerality, yet one that is different than the flinty quality of many white Burgundies, underpins this wine and a touch of tannin is noticeably at the top of one’s mouth. The tannin suggests this wine might benefit from a bit of cellaring, but I would be careful not to keep it for too long.

The finish is very long and lingering with the stone fruit flavors fading first, leaving behind citric and mineral flavors.

This wine is Recommended, but if you are interested in trying it, you had better move quickly. Only 3,456 bottles were made (and only 2,592 of the Gnesa).

One very significant difference between the Brewer-Clifton offerings and white Burgundies is their alcohol content. In Burgundy, most producers try to keep their wines at about 13% alcohol or less while the Brewer-Clifton “Gnesa” chardonnay checks in at a significantly higher 14,2% and the “Sea Smoke” is even more alcoholic at 14.8%. Despite those numbers, I don’t think either one tastes excessively “hot.”

Resources

Brewer-Clifton

Note Worthy: WSJ On “Radical” Chardonnay

2010-05-22T10:23:00.001-07:00

The Saturday, May 22, edition of the Wall Street Journal, has an interesting article entitled “Radical Chardonnays” by Jay McInerney. You can find it here.
By radical, McInerney means U.S.-made chardonnays that are fermented without new oak. As regular readers know, this blog has been singing the praises of such wines for a couple of years if not longer. As such, McInerney’s piece is very welcome and worth reading.
The WSJ article considers wines made from grapes grown in California’s Santa Rita Hills appellation, particularly by Greg Brewer and Steve Clifton of Brewer-Clifton fame, either under their own labels or elsewhere.
First, new readers should understand that chardonnays fermented in neutral oak or stainless steel are hardly “radical.” Producers in Burgundy, which includes Chablis, traditionally make their chardonnays with little or no new oak. The result is generally a crisp, more acidic wine with subtle fruit flavors and good minerality. In contrast, chardonnays fermented in new oak tend to be softer, more viscous and often taste rather strongly of vanilla or coconut. Some are also described as “toasty.” While there is nothing per-se wrong with oaked chardonnay, these wines (and particularly their more extreme versions) have been justifiably criticized as being not particularly good food wines – especially if one is into lighter fare.
Second, readers who are interested in unoaked or lightly oaked U.S.-made chardonnays (the fancier versions of which tend to be MUCH less expensive than roughly comparable Burgundies), should know that the choice is much wider than the WSJ article might suggest.
I have reviewed a number of alternatives including (among others) those made by:
--Chehalem (Oregon)
--Domain Drouhin (Oregon)
--Four Vines (California)
--Joel Gott (California)
--Lioco (California)
--Mer Soleil (California) and
--Morgan (California).
Reviews of those wines can be found by clicking on the labels listed below.

Bethel Heights, Patricia Green 2008 Pinots

2010-05-18T10:38:00.001-07:00

This posting considers a:

Bethel Heights 2008 “Willamette Valley” Pinot Noir ($28) and a

Patricia Green 2008 “Estate” Pinot Noir ($35).

The very quick bottom line is that both of these wines are Recommended -- with the following caveat. If you want a wine for immediate consumption, go with the Patricia Green. It’s very nice right out of the bottle. The Bethel Heights pinot, on the other hand, was rather “tight” when first opened. I would recommend cellaring it for awhile or opening a bottle well before you plan to drink it and perhaps decanting it.

Both of these wines provide further evidence that Oregon’s 2008 pinot noir vintage is a very good one for consumers. Unlike 2007, it is rapidly becoming apparent you can buy these and similar offerings with considerable confidence. What a relief!

As I have said in other postings, it is a lot easier to write about wines with obvious flaws than to talk about good ones so this report will be short. Both of these wineries are established producers with extensive distribution networks and they should be very familiar to fans of Oregon pinot noir.

As usual, two of us blind-tasted these wines over dinners on two successive evenings, re-sealing the partially consumed bottles in the interim.

On the first night, one wine (it turned out to be the Patricia Green) was more vibrant and more interesting than the other. We experienced the same phenomenon the second time around, but were very surprised to discover that this time, the better of the two was the Bethel Heights.

As I mentioned above, it appears that the Bethel Heights pinot initially emerged from the bottle rather “tight” with some of its flavors, in effect, sealed within itself. Exposure to oxygen overnight – the air in the half of the bottle that was devoid of wine – caused this wine to blossom.

On the other hand, the Patricia Green pinot, which wasn’t tight, faded a bit overnight and became a more subdued wine the next day. But it was still very pleasant.

The Bethel Heights pinot—a blend of made from grapes grown in various vineyards in the Willamette Valley – is slightly the “bigger” wine of these two. It has a nice mix of red and dark fruit flavors, a bit of spice and good acidity. Because of the bigger body, it is also a touch sweeter than the Patricia Green offering, but neither of these wines goes too far in that direction.

The finish of the Bethel Heights pinot was very nice, especially on the second evening.

As the name suggests, Patricia Green’s “Estate” pinot noir is made entirely from grapes gown in vineyards owned and operated by the winery. (This wine, by the way, has a close cousin, known as the Estate “Old Vines” pinot, which is more expensive.) The estate vineyard is located on Ribbon Ridge, which is another designation closely associated with Patricia Green’s offerings.

Getting beyond confusion over nomenclature, one thing that distinguished the Patricia Green in this particular comparative tasting was a hint of earthiness as the wine was exposed to more and more air. Some Oregon wines stray too far in that direction, but that was not the case here.

Overall, we greatly enjoyed both and felt that they were excellent representatives of what Oregon has to offer. They definitely gave us a feeling of well being when we drank them and that’s what it’s all about.

For the record, the Bethel Heights offering is listed as being 13.15% alcohol while the Patricia Green pinot is said to be 13.5%.

Resources:

Bethel Heights Vineyard

Patricia Green Cellars

White and Red 2007 Remoissenet Burgundies

2010-05-17T22:19:00.001-07:00

As promised in a recent posting, the following is a critique of 14 Burgundies of the 2007 vintage produced by Remoissenet.

As regular readers know, I don’t usually do this sort of thing, but Pierre Rovani, a former associate of prominent wine critic Robert Parker and now President of Remoissenet, more or less invited it.
After critiquing the wines of other producers, including those in Burgundy, for about a decade ending in late 2006, Rovani decided it was time to move to the other side of the fence and let other’s evaluate his efforts.

Based on his comments at a recent tasting in Seattle, I doubt that Rovani would consider me particularly well qualified for this task – he appeared to have a much higher opinion of his own views than those expressed by any of the other participants – but what the heck? Since I purchase all the wine I drink at prevailing prices and have no connection to the wine industry whatsoever, I’ve got nothing to lose.

Everyone at the seminar-style tasting was provided with two glasses and a bottle of water. That made it possible to compare every wine against at least one other and and possibly two. One drank or threw out the first and cleaned that glass for the third wine and so forth. Fortunately, a good quantity of very nice appetizers were also available to, along with the water, help clear one’s palate. That’s important, in part to keep tannins from building up in one’s mouth.

If you don’t clear away the tannins when tasting wine in serial fashion, its easy to start believing that each offering is more tannic than the last – to the point where wines toward the end of the list can easily appear to be far more tannic and/or harsh than they actually are.

By the way, three of us attended this event and while the following words are mine, we discovered we all liked and disliked almost exactly the same wines.

First the whites:

2007 Bourgogne Blanc ($25)
This entry-level blend was very pleasant. It had good citric acidity, delicate fruit flavors and nice underlying minerality. But it’s a bit expensive for this type of wine. Nonetheless, it is Recommended.
(By the way, producing a really appealing entry level offering is a good strategy for a winemaker. It encourages customers to move on to more expensive offerings on the view that the maker must really know what he or she is doing and the more expensive stuff must be really great.)

2007 Puligny-Montrachet ($75)
An interesting wine – dryer, a little more “stoney” and ultimately considerably more aeromatic (after exposure to oxygen) than the Bourgogne Blanc. Austere and elegant, but three times the price of the entry level offering. Winemakers compete to get grapes from the well-known Puligny-Montrachet designation and, frankly, one pays a premium for the name. Worth Considering. If you can afford it, it would be interesting to compare this wine to 2007 Puligny-Montrachets made by other producers.

2007 Puligny-Montrachet Perrieres 1er Cru ($100)
None of the three of us liked his wine. it had little or no bouquet and didn’t appear to contain much fruit. One of my companions made a face and declared it “unbalanced.” I thought it odd – it mainly seemed to leave a layer of tannin on the top of my mouth while providing little in the way of flavor. Not Recommended – at any price, but especially at $100 a bottle.

2007 Puligny-Montrachet Folatieres 1er Cru ($100)
The contrast between this and the identically priced “Perrieres” couldn’t have been more dramatic. The “Folatieres” had a lovely bouquet, a refreshing citric attack, pronounced fruit flavors and very attractive minerality. Recommended.

(Rovani seemed to be particularly fond of this one as well. He called it “a focused wine” and said it contained good “sap.”)

2007 Batard-Montrachet Grand Cru ($285)
This wine had greater intensity of fruit than what came before and was nicely balanced. All three of us like it, but we also agreed it wasn’t as good as the “Folatieres” while checking it at nearly three times the price. If someone else is buying, why not try some? It’s perfectly pleasant. Otherwise Save Your Money.

2007 Montrachet Grand Cru ($450)
Well, at that price, one would almost literally expect this liquid to be the nectar of the gods. What a disappointment! All three of us, independently (we compared notes at the end), had the same reaction: TOO MUCH oak. All I could taste was vanilla and coconut (I’m very sensitive to that flavor). Where’s the fruit? I kept thinking. “Yucky” one of my companions wrote.

To be fair, Rovani at the beginning of the session claimed that all of his wines needed a lot of oxygen and many were better on the second day. Maybe the Montrachet Grand Cru was one of them: who knows? We didn’t have an opportunity to find out and I’m certainly not going to buy a bottle for the purpose of experimenting. Not Recommended.

Bottom line: if you’ve got $450 to spend on white Burgundies and you want to go for something by Remoissenet, buy four bottles of the “Folatieres” and a couple bottles of the Bourgogne Blanc.

Now for the reds (if you’re still with me):

2007 Beaune Greves 1er Cru ($55)
This was a very pleasant red Burgundy in the lighter style and as such, probably reflected the general nature of the 2007 vintage: wines for your table rather than for your cellar. Moreover, it seemed to be getting better with more oxygen, which was encouraging. With little in the way of overt tannin and nice overall balance, it’s a good choice for immediate consumption. But there is nothing particularly special about it, which gives one pause at $55 bottle. Worth Considering if you are bent on drinking a 2007 red Burgundy.

2007 Beaune Marconnets 1er Cru ($99.50 for a Magnum or, roughly, $50 a bottle).
All three of us puzzled over this wine, which had a very pronounced floral component that was difficult to identify. I finally settled on lavender, but don’t hold me to it: I’m not that good on parsing out individual flavors. Neither of my two companions could put a name to it.

Overall, the Marconnet was a bigger, more aromatic offering than the Greves, but it is hard to say it was a better wine. It strongly depends on whether one likes that floral note or not. Problematic

2007 Chambolle-Musigny ($70)
Despite a bit of spice, this one had such a light body it came across as rather flat. Hopefully, it will gain weight – and interest -- with more oxygen, but there didn’t seem to be much there to work with. Not Recommended

2007 Nuits St. George ($65)
We all liked this wine. It had a nice bouquet, good red fruit flavors and a bigger, rounder body than the Chambolle-Musigny It also had some noticeable tannin and a somewhat spicy finish – the sort of spice that comes from oak. Might benefit from a year or so in the cellar. Worth Considering

2007 Gevrey Chambertin ($65)
Of the reds, this one was our favorite. If you have a certain idea in your mind of what a nice red Burgundy should, in general, taste like, the Remoissenet Gevrey Chambertain may hit the mark. It did for the three of us. This wine had good fruit, a nice body weight and lovely flavors. It also displays a bit of tannin and would probably benefit from at least some cellar time. Alternatively, one could decant it well before consumption. Recommended.

2007 Gevrey-Chambertin Poissenots 1er Cru ($100)
The “Poissenots” was a little darker than its close cousin mentioned above, but otherwise, it didn’t seem any more noteworthy. None of us thought it was worth almost twice the price of the straight Gevery Chambertin. It, too, had some noticeable tannin and seemed to be opening up to a greater degree with more air. Worth Considering if you don’t mind paying the price.

2007 Vosne Romanee ($65)
What distinguished this offering was spice – and a lot of it: on the nose, in the mouth and in the finish. As such, it came across as unbalanced. Not Recommended.

2007 Clos du Vougeot Grand Cru ($190)
While this wine was very good – and probably would be even better with more time to breathe or with a year or two in the cellar --, it wasn’t three times as good as the $65-a-bottle Gevrey Chambertin. If you want to sample the best red Rovani currently has on offer and you’ve got a big budget for wine, why not go for it? On that basis, it is Worth Considering. But if you don’t, there is no need to feel any remorse. This is not a knock-your-socks off wine although in a better vintage, it might be.

(Watch the price zoom upward in a better vintage, too.)

Now, suppose you had another $450 to spend on Remoissenet reds. What should you buy? I’d divide it up between some Greves, some Nuits St. George and some Gevrey Chambertin.

So what’s the overall bottom line. Is Rovani god’s gift to Burgundy?

To use one of the great man’s favorite words, NO. (During the tasting, every time someone started to offer an opinion different from his own, Rovani tended to respond with a quick “no.” )

But then the new owners and operators of Remoissenet – an established name in Burgundy that had reportedly been in decline for some time before being sold – are just getting started.
No doubt the best is yet to come. I look forward to another round of tastings and another invitation to offer a critique. By the way, at $20 a person, this tasting was a bargain. My guess is that it will cost considerably more to sample the same wines in a bigger year for Burgundy than 2007, however.

Readers seeking an alternative opinion on the Remoissenet white and red Burgundies might want to take a look at the tasting notes of Seattle Times wine critic Paul Gregutt, which can be found here. He also attended the tasting mentioned above and his views differ significantly from mine.

Expensive 2007 Pinots from France, California

2010-05-17T13:38:00.001-07:00

This posting considers a:

Joseph Drouhin 2007 Beaune “Clos des Mouches” Rouge ($75) and a

Rhys 2007 “Alpine Vineyard” Pinot Noir ($49).

Why this particular comparison?

Rhys, which is located near Silicon Valley and which produces pinot noir from grapes grown in very small vineyards in or adjacent to the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation, tries to make wine that is stylistically close to the approach taken by winemakers in the Burgundy region of France.

Joseph Drouhin is probably the most familiar brand name for Burgundies distributed in the U.S. and the Beaune “Clos des Mouches” is one of Drouhin’s top offerings.

There’s a problem, however. France had a difficult year in 2007 – a lot of rain in the middle portion of the growing season – whereas California experienced wonderful growing conditions in 2007.

Fortunately, excellent weather early in the year and good conditions around the time of harvest saved Burgundy from disaster, but in general, the 2007 Burgundies are rather light. They are wines for one’s table – not for the cellar.

In California, on the other hand, many 2007s turned out to be more intense and complex than usual and time may be needed for those wines to be at their best. Rhys, for instance, advises cellaring for 2007 “Alpine Hills” pinot for at least awhile.

As usual, our latest two-person panel blind tasted these wines with suitable food on one evening (without decanting), re-sealed the partially consumed bottles and then blind tasted them again with another meal the next night.

The second round was hardly “blind,” however. The differing colors of these wines in the glass made it easy to spot which was which.

First the similarities: both of these wines fall into the category of “high acid” pinots and both are relatively low in alcohol. High acid, by the way, does NOT mean unpleasantly tart. But it does mean that these wines taste lively and fresh as opposed to soft, round and mouth filling. When ordering or purchasing expensive pinot noir, it is important to know which style you and your guests like and which wineries offer that particular approach.

Lets put differently: the Drouhin was distinctly a “salmon pinot” as opposed to “duck breast pinot” while the Rhys fell somewhere in the middle.

Now for the bigger differences.

In the glass, the “Clos des Mouches” was a beautiful, clear red while the “Alpine Vineyard” was darker and noticeably more opaque. Neither wine had a bouquet that rose up out of the glass, but on the nose, the Rhys offering was more complex and more interesting.

The 2007 “Clos des Mouches” is a medium weight wine leaning in the direction of being a bit light. In contrast, the “Alpine Vineyard” leans in the opposite direction, but still qualifies as medium.

On the palate, the “Clos des Mouches” presented a fresh, citric attack followed by soft, light, red fruit – perhaps a bit too light for some consumers given the high price of this wine. I kept hoping for a bit more. Some pinots gain weight after exposure to oxygen, but the “Clos des Mouches” didn’t. It was little changed with the second meal.

The “Alpine Vineyard” was another story altogether. There seemed to be a tremendous amount going on in this wine on the first evening – red and dark fruit flavors seemed to be competing or at least intermingling with at least a couple of spices in an “up-your-nose” fashion. It was fascinating, but at the same time, a little disconcerting. What would this wine be like when it settled down? I wondered.

By the second evening, the Rhys “Alpine Vineyard” pinot had “come together” into a coherent whole and to be frank, I was a little disappointed. While very nice, it didn’t taste as complex as I thought it might.

The finish, or after-taste, is what one is left with and that, to my mind, was where the Drouhin Burgundy fell somewhat short. To me, it seemed a bit watery, but to be fair, when I expressed that view, my other panelist said: “I don’t have that problem with it.”

In contrast, the somewhat denser, darker Rhys pinot had a bigger, longer finish and one that was just a bit tangy.

Here’s the bottom line (not particularly quick this time): given their prices, these wines are not really suitable for most consumers and, to be frank, a lot of people trying them for the first time might puzzle over why they cost so much money. It is easily possible to find French and American pinot noir equal in quality to these offerings and just as satisfying at much lower prices.

The more high-cost wine one tries, the more one realizes that drinking pleasure tends to top out long before prices stop rising. Of course, one can brag about having consumed a “Clos des Mouches” or an “Alpine Vineyard” and, given human nature, there is a certain pleasure in that. But it has a lot more to do with with being “in the kennel club” than with the relative joys of consuming one wine or another.

These wines are both Worth Considering for enthusiasts (with generous wine budgets) who follow individual winemakers or who are simply interested in exploring what’s out there for whatever reason.

For the record, the “Clos des Mouches” is listed as being 13% alcohol by volume while the “Alpine Vineyard” checks in at 13.3% (if you can read the incredibly fine print – I needed a magnifying glass to make sure I got it right.) Both of these numbers are on the low end of the spectrum for pinot noir – especially that made in the U.S.

Need Air? Don’t Feel Like the Lone Ranger

2010-05-16T19:10:00.001-07:00

Three of us recently attended a tasting of white and red wines produced by the new owners and operators of Remoissenet, a once venerable estate and winery in Burgundy that fell into gradual decline and was acquired in 2005 by a small group led by New York developers Howard and Edward Milstein.

They subsequently retained as President Pierre Rovani, who achieved fame in the world of wine as the first person hired by Robert Parker to help Parker rate a widening array of wines, among them Burgundies. Rovani worked with Parker for 10 years, joining Remoissenet in late 2006.

As Rovani described it, his job is “to produce the finest wines their terroirs can muster.”

There’s that word again: terrior. Rovani offered as good a definition as I have heard -- “all non-human influences on wine,” which is to say things like the composition of soil and the location and aspect of a vineyard.

In any event, shortly after beginning a lengthy and somewhat helpful discussion of the wines at hand, Rovani declared with great import: “All of our wines are desperately in need of air. They actually are better on the second day.”

The manner in which he said it made it sound like this characteristic put Remoissent wines into some special category. Based on our experience, nothing could be further from the truth.
Rovani may have been talking about his white wines as well as his reds, but for the purpose of this posting, I’m restricting my comments only to red wines.

In our now considerable experience with comparative tastings, many, many red wines improve with exposure to oxygen and a lot of them need plenty of it. As regular readers of this blog know, we have regularly revised our opinions of red wines – generally in a more favorable direction – after reopening a partially consumed bottle and trying it a second time a day or more after we first sampled it.
I’m talking here about red wines made by traditional artisan methods in relatively small lots. Mass-market reds made by major corporations are, in effect, “homogenized” so as to taste pretty much identical year to year. And most don’t tend to improve much if at all with exposure to oxygen.
Unfortunately, those of us at the Remoissenet tasting didn’t get to try the wines a day later ( in any case, all of the bottles that were opened appeared to have been be depleted in the course of the event ) so I can’t say if wonderful things happened in the moonlight.

But it later occurred to me – perish the thought -- that Rovani’s comment may have been somewhat disingenuous.
“If for some reason you don’t think the wines you are sampling are the nectar of the gods, its because you didn’t get to taste them on the second day, when they show their true colors.”

Hmmm.

And then I thought about the poor souls who order Remoissenet Burgundies in a restaurant and fail to call a day in advance to tell the wine steward to open a bottle for them and let it sit overnight.

Which, by the way, would defeat the purpose of that ritual at the table where one is first showed the sealed bottle – so you know you are getting what you ordered – and then it is opened as you watch.
Why does that go on? Well, I suppose in times past, consumers ordered one thing and got another. If a bottle arrives at your table already open, how do you know what’s really in it?

Perhaps it would be best to enjoy Rovani’s wines at home. It’s less expensive that way and you’re in control all the way.

Which ones might be worth trying? I’ll cover that in a subsequent posting.

Stay tuned.

What Happens When You Cellar a White?

2010-05-12T16:35:00.001-07:00

This posting considers a:

Doyenne 2007 Roussanne ($32) and a

Doyenne 2008 Roussanne ($33), but

you could use just about any artisan-made white wine to conduct the same experiment.

What experiment?

Well, we all know that most red wines benefit from time in the cellar. Even six months can make a difference in relatively volatile wines such as pinot noir while others, such as French Bordeaux, often need years of cellaring to achieve the desired result.

What about white wines? Although winemakers often claim their whites are cellar worthy, I’ve experienced far more failures than successes in keeping whites for over a year or so -- and many are at their best soon after initial release.

But forget about long-term cellaring. How about keeping a white wine for just a year? Does it get better?

In this particular case, which involves a Washington State wine made from a grape associated with the Rhone region of France, it all depends upon what style you like and perhaps what you are having for dinner.

When our latest two-person panel blind-tasted these two wines, my other panelist, who had no idea what they were, remarked: “these wines taste similar, but very different.”

While on first blush that might sound like something Yogi Berra or Andy Warhol said, the comment was actually very perceptive.

The wines were similar. In fact, they were the same wine, but a different vintage. Although vintages do vary, the Doyenne roussannes were “very different” mainly because one had aged for a year. I’ll explain later how I can state that with some degree of confidence.

I chose DeLille Cellars’ Doyenne Roussanne for this experiment because, based on past experience, it is well-made, complex wine that is very consistent from year to year. It’s expensive, but you can buy it with confidence because you know what you are going to get.

In this tasting, the wine in one glass was primarily notable for some fresh, citric vibrancy on top of a range of soft fruit flavors and good minerality. That was the 2008. The wine in the other glass, the 2007, was softer, rounder and somewhat deeper in flavor, but it was also more subdued.

Which approach do you like best? We went back and forth, but in the end, I finally opted for the 2008. My companion remained undecided.

Now, how do I know that the difference was mainly due to age and not to vintage variation? Because after resealing and refrigerating the partially consumed bottles, we re-opened them a couple of evenings later. At that point, the 2008 tasted more like the 2007 had on the first day and the 2007 had faded to the point of being a lot less interesting.

Oxygenation, while not the same as cellaring, is often a good proxy for determining whether a wine is worth keeping around for awhile.

Roussanne, by the way, is considered – like pinot noir -- to be a difficult grape and in France, it is mainly used as a blending component.

Here in the State of Washington, where the growing season is very long east of the Cascade Mountains, roussanne appears to do exceptionally well and several wineries offer it on its own. As regular readers know, in my opinion a well-made Washington roussanne is a real treat.

Doyenne, by the way, is the label DeLille Cellars, of Woodinville, Washington, uses for the wines it makes out of grapes associated with the Rhone. The Doyenne roussanne is Recommended if you don’t mind paying $30 or more for a bottle.

For the record, this wine checks in at just over 14% alcohol by volume.

Resources:

DeLille Cellars

The Characteristics of Roussanne

Cadaretta: Not Your Mother’s Chardonnay

2010-04-26T22:49:00.001-07:00

This posting considers a:

Cadaretta 2007 Chardonnay ($35).

Don’t worry if you haven’t seen this very recent Washington State wine: only 792 bottles were produced and, in consequence, distribution is very limited.

So why bother to write about it?

Regular readers of this blog know that we are very interested in chardonnays that don’t taste overtly like the flavors imparted by new oak – flavors such as toasty vanilla and coconut. Such flavors dominate most American-made chardonnays and they tend to overwhelm if not obliterate the flavors of the grapes.

Perhaps our favorite non-traditional American chardonnay is called “Arthur” and it is made by Domaine Drouhin in Oregon. Half of this wine is annually fermented in stainless steel and the other half in oak, but no more than 20% and often only 10% of the total blend has been subjected to new oak.

In order to evaluate the Cadaretta, our latest panel blind tasted it with an 2007 “Arthur.”

These are completely different wines and, to be frank, the Cadaretta is probably going to stand apart from just about any chardonnay you might compare it against. While it hasn’t seen any new oak, neither has it seen stainless steel. Instead, this wine was fermented in 100% “neutral” oak, or oak that has been previously used.

The result is a wine that has little in the way of bouquet and, on the palate, tastes mainly of what I would call brown stone. It’s has a minerally sort of flavor, but not a steely or flinty minerality. A bit of soft fruit flavor comes through eventually – mainly in the finish, but it is fairly subtle. This wine may leave you rather puzzled and perhaps wondering if it is worth the price.

In contrast, the Domain Drouhin “Arthur,” which I have written about on several occasions, has first a fresh, acidic citrus quality to it (the Cadaretta has none of that) followed by an intriguingly complex mix of softer fruit flavors. The soft flavors become increasingly evident as the “Arthur” warms up in the glass.

Here’s the bottom line: the Cadaretta is Worth Considering if you aren’t on a budget and if you are interesting in broadening your palate when it comes to Chardonnay. Otherwise, go for something else.

For the record, the Cadaretta is listed as being 13.9% alcohol by volume and it held up very well on a second day after a partially consumed bottle had been resealed and reopened later.

Resources:

Cadaretta

Why and How to Decant Wine

2010-04-26T21:56:00.001-07:00

There are two reasons to decant wine.

1) To oxygenate a "tight" wine to bring out more flavor and sometimes add weight to the body.

2) To get rid of sediment.

The first reason generally applies to young wines and the second to old wines.

How young is young? Basically, a wine that has just been released. How old is old? Probably 20 years or more.

In between those periods, you probably don’t need to decant, but it all depends upon the individual character of a particular wine. There are no hard and fast rules. If you see a brown streak down the side of a bottle you have cellared -- no matter how old it is -- it is throwing off sediment and you may want to decant it.

The process of decanting is quite different in the two instances.

With a young wine (almost always a red), pour all of the wine quickly out of its bottle into a decanter and swish the decanter around vigorously. Then let the decanter sit open for an hour or more before serving the wine. Don't worry, it won't go bad. Most people err on the side of too much caution in this process.

With an old wine, bring the bottle up from your cellar many hours before you intend to consume it. Stand it upright, undisturbed, to allow it to come to room temperature and to allow the sediment (dark reddish-brown looking stuff) to settle to the bottom.

Just before you intend to serve the wine, carefully and VERY SLOWLY remove the cork. This is often a difficult task because old corks tend to break apart in the process. Don't worry if some cork winds up in the bottle. You can pour the wine through a strainer. Bits of cork aren’t pleasant, but they won’t harm you.

Once the cork is removed, carefully, gently and very slowly pour the wine into a decanter (tipping both the bottle and the decanter sideways toward each other). Hold the two vessels up to a light source as you do this so that you can tell when the stream of wine starts to look a little cloudy.

When that happens, stop pouring. You've reached the sediment. Sometimes there is a disconcertedly large amount of wine left in the bottle. Let it settle while you eat your dinner and you may be able to tease more sediment-free wine out of the bottle toward the end of the meal.

Do NOT swish the decanter around in the case of old wine and serve the wine IMMEDIATELY so that it doesn't have time to fade.

Note Worthy: Beresan 2004 Merlot

2010-04-26T21:23:00.001-07:00

This posting considers a:

Beresan Winery 2004 Merlot ($29)

At one point, merlot, which tends to be softer and more mouth-filling than cabernet sauvignon, was America’s favorite red wine. Then came the movie “Sideways” in which a somewhat dubious character named “Miles” declared that he was leaving a particular venue if anyone ordered merlot. He didn’t say why, but went on to wax somewhat eloquently on the virtues of pinot noir.

The rest is history. Merlot sales slumped (although they may have revived) and sales of pinot noir soared, driving up prices of this relatively small production red wine to distressing heights.

Although “Miles” was a little sloppy in his condemnation of merlot, apparently the rap is that in contrast to pinot noir, it doesn’t display much originality or character. It’s just bland and easy to drink.

Subsequent to “Sideways,” many commentators have pointed out the fallacy in “Miles’” blanket condemnation of merlot, observing that it is an important component in virtually all the great wines of Bordeaux and the major component of red wines made on the Right Bank, which is to say in Pomerol and to a somewhat lesser degree, in Saint Emilion.

In my experience, which I admit is not extensive, merlot also does very well in the State of Washington.

The wine under consideration in this posting is a good example. I bought it sometime in the past – I’m not sure when – and it had been sitting in my cellar so as to wear down any rough edges it might have had. Many Washington State red wines, when first released, have good flavors, but come across as a little rough.

In any event, the Beresan 2004 Merlot was certainly ready to drink in early 2010 and could easily be cellared quite a bit longer if desired.

This is a big, full-bodied, intensely flavored, “masculine" wine with excellent overall balance and very interesting complexity.

If you, perhaps influenced by “Sideways,” think all merlots are bland and boring, think again.

That said, it is possible that “Miles” might not have liked the Beresan merlot. Why not? Because it does not taste at all like a pinot noir. Pinots tend to have cherry, raspberry, plum flavors. The Beresan merlot, on the other hand, is firmly in the currant, blackberry end of the spectrum – plus some minerality and some spices.

Make no mistake about it: this is a robust wine calling for robust fare. One certainly would not want to drink it with salmon, for instance. A pot roast or a hearty meat stew might be just the thing.

At 14.4% alcohol by volume and with a fairly full body, this wine is a bit “heady,” so you might want to be cautious as to how much you consume at any one sitting. But don’t worry; it will hold up very well for several days if resealed and even longer if resealed and refrigerated.

The 2004 vintage is not Beresan’s current release, but if you happen to have any of this wine, pull it out and try it. It is Recommended.

Resources:

Beresan Winery

Two Affordable 2008 Pinots from Oregon

2010-04-16T14:47:00.001-07:00

This posting considers an:

A to Z 2008 “Oregon” Pinot Noir ($18) and a

O’Reilly’s 2008 “Oregon” Pinot Noir ($17).

Generally, the identifier “Oregon” on wines such as these means that they are made from a blend of grapes sourced from vineyards in various winegrowing areas within the state as opposed to grapes grown only in, say, the Willamette Valley.

Before providing my usual quick bottom line, I need to ask readers a couple of questions:

1) Are you a person who typically buys wine one bottle at a time for very near-term consumption and who tends to open bottles just before drinking them? Or …

2) Are you a consumer who buys wine well before you plan to drink it, keeping even affordable wines for, say, six months to a couple of years in your cellar?

If you answered “yes” to the first question, then of these two offerings, the A to Z is the wine for you. This is probably the best pinot A to Z has released in recent years. It is very nice right out of the bottle and is Recommended for immediate consumption.

On the other hand, if you answered “yes” to the second question, you would be better off buying the O’Reilly’s pinot. This is a ultimately a somewhat bigger, more complex and more interesting wine than the A to Z, but not initially. This one is Recommended for cellaring. If you insist on drinking it in the near term, open the bottle and decant it several hours before consumption. It will need plenty of oxygen.

As usual, our latest two-person panel blind-tasted these two pinots with meals on successive evenings, re-sealing the partially consumed bottles in the interim.

“This tastes like a standard Oregon pinot and this other one tastes a little different,” my companion said upon first sampling these two wines.

As it turned out, the “standard Oregon pinot,” which both of us preferred on the first evening, was the A to Z.

On the second evening, we both preferred the wine that turned out to be the O’Reilly’s. It had gained some body weight, developed a lot more flavor and generally “blossomed” as a result of interacting with the oxygen in the “empty” half of the bottle over a period of about 24 hours. Instead of tasting “a little different’ (i.e., not what one was expecting), this wine now showed some very nice complexity.

Backtracking a bit, the 2008 A to Z is perhaps the best balanced pinot this producer has turned out in recent years. It has sufficient fruit, leaning toward the red side of the flavor spectrum, to be month-filling, but at the same time, it is commendably dry. Body weight is on the light side of medium and acidity is good. There are no unpleasant aspects to this wine.

I recommend the A to Z for immediate consumption because it didn’t improve on the second day and, indeed, was beginning to fade just a bit. This is not a wine for the cellar.

In contrast, while the O’Reilly’s 2008 pinot started out tasting just a touch thin and perhaps a tad disjointed in terms of flavor, it eventually came together in a very satisfying fashion, tasting in time like a pinot that might easily be priced in the $25-to$30-a-bottle range. But patience is necessary.

When fully developed, the O’Reilly’s is heavier in body weight than the A to Z and it has a darker, more complex flavor profile. It is also commendably dry – avoiding the excessive sweetness that has plagued Oregon pinots from time to time – and, not surprisingly, has a very satisfying finish.

These two wines are further evidence that Oregon’s 2008 vintage is shaping up as a very good one for consumers, especially those seeking “affordable” wines, which is to say pinots costing $25 a bottle or less.

The reason is as follows: first 2008 was a good year overall meaning that the quality of grapes generally was better than in 2007. Second, demand for high-end wines has fallen sharply in the weaker economy. What that means is that more grapes that would otherwise have been used in higher priced wines were instead available for lower-priced offerings.

So … be aggressive.

Cellar Report: “Arthur” Chardonnay

2010-04-13T22:50:00.001-07:00

When I originally purchased a few bottles of:

Domaine Drouhin 2005 “Arthur” Chardonnay,

on sale at $26 a bottle as opposed to the usual price of around $30 a bottle, I noticed that the back label claimed that this wine possessed “considerable aging potential.”

As regular readers probably know, I am in general not a fan of cellaring white wines, largely because past experiments haven’t been successful. White wines, far more than reds, rather quickly develop “old wine” flavors that, in my opinion, are not very attractive. But, in this case I decided to give it a try with a bottle or two.

If you aren’t familiar with the “Arthur” chardonnay, this is a wine made in the French style from grapes grown in Oregon. That means that separate lots of Domaine Drouhin estate grapes are fermented in stainless steel and in oak before being blended together. Although the blend varies from year to year, typically it is half stainless steel and half oak with no more than 20% of the total blend coming from grapes fermented in new oak.

The result is a wine unlike most American-made chardonnays in that is is largely devoid of the “toasty” vanilla or coconut flavors associated with new oak. Instead, flavors associated with fruit are dominant.

In addition, the “Arthur” has good citrus acidity and thus tends to be more tart and refreshing than most other American-made chardonnays. It also shows a greater degree of minerality.

I have heard the “Arthur” described as the most elegant chardonnay made in America. While I can’t vouch for that, on the basis of many comparative tastings, I can say it is definitely in the running.

Our panels have tried current-vintage “Arthur” chardonnays on a number of occasions. Results have generally been the same: this is a wine that needs to warm up in the glass, or to be served at considerably less than refrigerator temperature, to experience all of the flavors that it has to offer.

Cellaring this wine for about four years was very successful. Two of us recently sampled the 2005 and we had similar impressions: the four-year-old “Arthur” had more depth and complexity of flavor right out of the bottle. Moreover, it was totally devoid of flavors such as nail polish remover that often begin creeping into older white wine.

In sum, we enjoyed the “mature” 2005 “Arthur” very much and I consider cellaring in this instance to have been very successful. I wish that were the case more often with white wines.

Evening Land, Siduri 2008 Pinot Noir

2010-04-01T11:54:00.001-07:00

This posting considers an:

Evening Land 2008 “Oregon” Pinot Noir ($27) and a

Siduri “Willamette Valley” Pinot Noir ($20).

Here’s the quick bottom line. Both of these wines are Recommended (with a small caveat for the Siduri). But the more expensive Evening Land is the bigger, darker and more complex of the two so if you like that style, it’s probably worth paying the extra 14%. On the other hand, if you prefer slightly lighter, more red-fruit focused pinots, go for the Siduri.

These two offerings are notable in one respect that probably doesn’t matter to consumers. Both companies are based in California and each makes pinot noir from California grapes as well as from those grown in Oregon.

While Siduri has been in business for about 16 years, Evening Land, which lists prominent Burgundian winemaker Dominique Lafon as a consultant, is a recent – and much anticipated – arrival on the scene.

After terrible harvest conditions in 2007, resulting in what one Seattle retailed called a “dud” of a vintage for Oregon pinot noir, 2008 is being hailed as one of the best vintages ever. Even discounting the usual wine industry hype, the outlook for consumers does, indeed, appear to be very good.

The Evening land and Siduri are both “good” wines, which begs the question, what exactly is a “good” wine? One way of defining “good” is to consider what makes a wine less than good.

So here is a list of characteristics that the Evening Land and Siduri pinots DO NOT have:

--they are NOT thin and watery;

--they are NOT “extracted” or too heavy with fruit, leaving them jammy, syrupy or excessively sweet;

--they are NOT “flat” and boring as a result of inadequate acidity;

--they are NOT uncomfortably tart as a result of too much acidity, and

--they are NOT dominated by one particular fruit or spice flavor that overwhelms everything else.

I could go on, but I think most readers have gotten the picture. In sum, these wines are properly balanced and, as a result, very enjoyable.

Our latest three-person panel blind-tasted these two pinots with dinners on consecutive evenings, resealing the partially consumed bottles in the interim.

The vote was two and one half points for the Evening Land and one half a point for the Siduri (one panelist said that she liked them equally well even though they were clearly somewhat different).

Both of us who voted for the Evening Land emphasized that it was a close call and that we were not voting against the Siduri. We liked it, too.

The Siduri is the prettier wine in the glass – a beautiful, fairly deep but still translucent ruby red. In contrast, the Evening Land is slightly darker and just a touch cloudy. Neither of these wines has much in the way of a bouquet.

The Evening Land is a medium-body pinot and the Siduri is a little lighter than that, especially when first opened.

On the palate, the Evening Land is not only more dark-fruit focused than the Siduri, but it has more in the way of viscosity. As a result, it tends to have a more mouth-filling feel about it. The more red-fruit focused Siduri boasted a nice balance between fruit and acidity, making it a little more fresh tasting than the Evening Land.

A degree of spiciness kept the finish of the Evening Land pinot interesting. As for the Siduri, the finish was light, but at the same time commendably slow to fade.

On the second day, after exposure to more oxygen, the Siduri had gained weight, becoming a somewhat bigger, rounder offering. It also seemed to be slightly spicier in a good way. Thus the caveat mentioned above when I recommended this wine. It probably needs to be cellared for a year or two or, opened and decanted well before consumption, to be at its best.

After exposure to oxygen, the Even Land also gained a little weight, but not as much as the Siduri. It also gained a hint of earthiness, which made it a little more complex. While this pinot may well improve with time in the cellar, we thought it was very pleasant straight out of the bottle.

As for alcohol content, the Siduri checks in at 13% while the slightly heavier Evening Land is listed as being 13.4%. Both of those numbers are well into the acceptable range for U.S. made pinot noir.

Resources:

Evening land Vineyards

Siduri Wines

Second Look: Patricia Green 2007 “Reserve” Pinot Noir

2010-03-27T14:29:00.001-07:00

Four months ago, we evaluated three reasonably priced Oregon pinot noir from the difficult 2007 vintage as possible candidates for accompanying a Thanksgiving dinner. You can find that posting here.

One of the wines, which we deemed Worth Considering, was a:

Patricia Green 2007 “Reserve” Pinot Noir ($26).

This, by the way, was the winery’s least expensive offering for 2007, which makes the name “Reserve” confusing. Most wineries use “Reserve” to indicate a premium wine.

To further confuse matters, the “Reserve” is not Patricia Green’s least expensive pinot noir for 2008. During that vintage, in large part because of the weak economy and declining consumer demand for high-end offerings, the winery “declassified” about 20% of its production and released it under what is known in the trade as a second label. That wine is called Dollar Bills Only 2008 Pinot Noir and it is priced at $17.00 a bottle at the winery. Although we haven’t tried it, it has received good reviews elsewhere.

All of which causes one to wonder: if Patricia Green declassified one fifth of its output in 2008, which by all accounts was an excellent vintage, why didn’t the winery (and other Oregon wineries as well) declassify significant percentages of their output in 2007 when substantial rain at the time of harvest resulted in big problems? Instead, a lot of Oregon wine was released at prices that seemed to imply that nothing bad had happened, leaving a bad taste in the mouths of consumers in more ways than one.

But, back to the matter at hand: the 2007 “Reserve,” reconsidered.

When our latest two-person panel recently opened a second bottle of Patricia Green’s 2007 “Reserve” pinot, we were pleasantly surprised to discover it now had a very lovely flavor – much more coherent and beguiling than four months earlier. But, then, pinot noir tends to be very volatile as red wines go and in this particular case, that nice flavor didn’t last long.

Why not? The body of our second bottle of the 2007 “Reserve” was so light as to be almost ephemeral. As a result, this wine began to fade during the course of our initial meal and when the partially consumed bottle was re-opened with a second meal a day later, the fruit had largely disappeared, leaving not much of anything very agreeable behind.

That nice flavor was basically floating on air!

So … if you have any Patricia Green 2007 “Reserve” Pinot in your cellar, my advice is: drink it NOW, either on its own or with very light fare – maybe a mildly flavored dinner salad – and consume the entire bottle at one sitting.

One good thing: not much fruit means less alcohol. This one is listed as being 13.0% by volume, which is lower than the alcohol level of most U.S. West Coast pinots.

Resources:

You can find another review of this wine at Beyond the Bottle, also a Seattle-based wine blog. Click on the underlined words to get there.

Note Worthy: DeLILLE’s D2

2010-03-25T13:16:00.001-07:00

There are certain times when you need a “go to” wine – a wine you can trust for a particular occasion.

Living in Seattle, I like to serve certain visitors a good bottle of Washington State red wine – one I’m confident they will really like – to illustrate what the state has to offer.

I’m thinking of a current release – something that can be found on a retail shelf as opposed to something that has been cellared.

There are many nice reds made here, but so far my “go to” wine for such occasions has been DeLILLE CELLARS’ D2 ($35).

DeLILLE, located just outside Seattle in the winemaking town of Woodinville, makes very high-end wines from grapes associated with the Bordeaux region of France under the “Chaleur” and “Harrison Hill” labels. It also makes wines from grapes associated with France’s Rhone region under the Doyenne label.

D2 is a “second wine” – a wine of lesser stature than the winery’s top offerings, but nonetheless reflective of the grapes and winemaking skills that go into the premium releases.

While a D2 may well improve with time in the cellar, it is really a wine made for immediate consumption. It comes right out of the bottle without rough spots and without any unresolved or non-integrated flavors.

Although this is the first time I’ve written about D2, I’ve tried this wine on a number of occasions over the past three vintages and it is a very consistent product.

Like most Washington State reds, this is a fairly big-bodied wine, calling for meals planned accordingly.

“This wine is rich on the palate with D2’s trademark lush mouth feel and tones of dark fruits, mocha and an assortment of baking spices,” the winery says.

That, in my view, is a pretty good description of what you get. The lush quality of this wine conveys a feeling of well being and the nice combination of fruits and spices keeps you interested in exploring its flavors. Recommended.

The 2007 D2 is 41% merlot, 40% cabernet sauvignon, 7% cabernet franc and 2% petit merlot. The alcohol content is listed as being a fairly hefty 14.9%, but that’s what you get with the sort of fruit that is grown in eastern Washington’s sun-drenched, irrigated vineyards.

Cellar Report: Witness Tree 2004 Pinot Noir

2010-03-21T09:07:00.001-07:00

This posting takes a look at a

Witness Tree 2004 “Willamette Valley” Pinot Noir ($30).

(The price quoted for this wine is the price at which it was purchased several years ago.)

We first tried a bottle of this wine in a comparative tasting (you can find that report here) back in 2006 and concluded that it was “an interesting wine that will reward patient consumers – those willing to either put it away in the cellar for, say, three to five years or who are willing to open the bottle well in advance of consuming it.”

Having now pulled a bottle out of our own cellar four years later for consumption with a suitable meal, I can confirm the accuracy of that initial assessment.

It’s a lot easier to talk about wines that are imperfect in one or more ways (often because they haven’t had time to properly mature) than it is to talk about really good bottles of wine.

Why? Because in a really good bottle of wine, all of the various elements – fruit, spice, acidity, tannins, etc. – are harmonious and in balance. Nothing stands out except for “satisfaction.”

That’s the story here: satisfaction.

In addition to harmony and integration, wines that have been properly cellared for an appropriate length of time develop a velvety quality that is very, very seductive. Cellaring is the only way to get it.

Oregon’s 2004 pinot noir vintage was both good and bad for consumers. It was good because despite some difficult weather conditions early in the season, the wines were generally of high quality. It was bad because volume was down sharply at a time of rising demand for these wines. As a result, prices were up and availability was limited. Some Oregon labels that had been in good supply on retail shelves with respect to 2003 pinots simply disappeared with respect to 2004.

If you have any Witness Tree 2004 “Willamette Valley” Pinot Noir in your cellar, I would recommend pulling out one or more bottles in the very near future. While it appears to be in no danger of fading any time soon, it is nonetheless drinking exceptionally well right now.

Resources:

Witness Tree Vineyard

Note To Readers

2010-03-20T20:24:00.001-07:00

Regular readers may have noticed that this blog has returned to the parchment-like color and rather simple layout that prevailed from the start – except for the last couple of months.

Early this year, I decided to experiment with an add-on search mechanism to see if that might help readers find what they were looking for. In order to accommodate the gadget, I had to change the layout to one that I think was less attractive and harder to read. In addition, for some reason, Windows Live Writer, which I like to use to write my posts, didn’t work with the new layout.

So, as of March 20, I deleted the gadget and went back to the traditional look, feel and layout.

The reason I originally decided to add the search gadget was that I started to notice that Google wasn’t doing a good job of directing readers to the most relevant page.

For instance, someone might search with the phrase “Cloudline 2007,” but instead of arriving at the page reviewing that wine, he or she would be directed to a post reviewing the 2006 Cloudline pinot. Clicking on the label at the bottom of the posting would have brought up all posts discussing Cloudline, but most visitors simply go away when they don’t immediately find what they want.

Yes, it takes awhile for Google to index new pages, but the phenomenon described above goes on for months. Frustrating.

I tried having an outside service compile a sitemap of the blog and provide it to both Google and Bing, but that made no difference. Google still routinely misdirects visitors and I don’t think I’ve seen a single search arriving from Bing.

Here’s the quick bottom line: When you arrive at this blog, use the labels running down the left side of the layout to get the information you really want.

Time to get back to more pleasant matters, such as choosing which bottles of wine to open next.

Chasseur, Robert Sinskey 2007 Pinots

2010-03-20T19:52:00.001-07:00

This posting considers the following: a

Chasseur 2007 “Russian River Valley” 2007 Pinot Noir ($40) and a

Robert Sinskey “Los Carneros” 2007 Pinot Noir ($40).

An earlier positing, which can be found here, compared the Robert Sinskey offering listed above to another Carneros pinot. This time around, it is compared to an identically priced pinot made of grapes grown a little further north and a bit further west, in California’s Russian River Valley.

Here’s the quick bottom line: both of these wines are Recommended with the caveat that they should either be cellared for a couple of years or decanted several hours before consumption. That is especially true for the somewhat bigger-bodied Chasseur.

The 2007 vintage was wonderful for pinot noir throughout California, which is a boon for consumers willing spend money on expensive, small-lot offerings. If you spend $40 for a bottle of 2007 California pinot, you are reasonably likely to get your money’s worth. That is in contrast to the highly problematic Oregon 2007 pinot vintage where there is a good chance you won’t get your money’s worth. Fortunately, 2008 Oregon pinots, which are beginning to appear in retail stores, appear to be much, much better.

Let's take the Robert Sinskey offering first. This is a rather quiet wine with little in the way of a bouquet. But on the palate, it comes across as satisfying and interesting. Just light of a medium-bodied wine when first opened, it put on a little weight with exposure to oxygen. This is a very soft, smooth pinot that emphasizes the darker side of the red fruit spectrum plus some dark, rather intriquing spice. The tannins are very soft and thre isn't a lot of acidity. What saves the Sinskey pinot from being too flat or flabby is the spice that lingers in the very nice finish. While this wine can be consumed with pleasure immediately, it will definitely benefit from a year or two in the cellar.

If you are a consumer who equates a "good wine" with a smooth texture, I think you'll like the Robert Sinskey 2007 Pinot Nour. Recommended, but cellar for best results. Alcohol content is listed as a relatively modest 13.6%

Now for the Chasseur. The name, by the way, is the French word for "hunter." As it turns out, the winemaker, Bill Hunter, couldn't use the English version of his last name for his wine because the name had already been registered as a brand, so he rather cleverly settled on the French spelling. However one spells it, this is a very interesting, very intense wine that definitely needs a couple of years in the cellar to settle down and come together. The winery lists Rosa plum, brandied cherry and cranberry-orange compote as fruit flavors one might expect to find in this pinot, but the flavor that really jumped out when two of us blind-tasted this with the Simskey was apricots -- not a flavor one expects to find in a pinot noir. It appeared first in the bouquet, subsided a bit on the palate and then re-emerged in the finish. Interesting, and, well, rather different we both thought. Besides the apricot, there were several other fruit and spice favors in the mix.

"There's a lot going on in this wine," I recall telling my companion.

As usual, we re-sealed the partially consumed bottles at the end of our first tasting and re-opened them a couple of evenings later. By that time, the Chasseur had gained a lot of weight and was now somewhere between medium and full bodied. There is a lot of fruit in this wine, but fortunately it isn't jammy or syrupy. Rather, we found it commendably dry. The flavor we identified as apricots seemed to still be there, but it was nowhere near as pronounced as on the first evening. Meanwhile, a hit of earthiness was starting to emerge.

There was still a lot going on in this wine two days later.

The Chasseur is Recommended for Cellaring for consumers who like intense, complex, "masculine" style pinots. Reflecting its bigger body, this offering checks in at 14.1% alcohol

Resources

Chasseur Wines

Robert Sinskey Vineyards

Two Chablis of the 2007 Vintage

2010-03-05T19:48:00.000-08:00

This post considers a:

Domaine Christian Moreau 2007 Chablis Premier Cru "Vaillon" ($37) and a

Louis Michel & Fils 2007 Chablis Premier Cru "Butteaux" ($41).

First, a quick note on prices. For whatever reason (perhaps lower demand due to the recession), the Louis Michel Chablis has been available at substaintial discounts. I paid $24 for the bottle above and from a web search, it appears that this wine is available at a number of different price points between $24 a bottle and the nominal list price of about $41.

Now for the quick bottom line: if you are looking for a classic Chablis, which is to say a wine where you can clearly taste the minerality generally associated with high-end white Burgundys, go for the Louis Michel. This wine is Recommended and a bargain if you can buy it in the $25 to $30 range. The Christain Moreau is Worth Considering if minerality is not an issue and you are happy with a clean, crisp assertively citric wine.

Regular reagers have heard me gripe about how difficult it is to find an "affordable" (not more than $25 a bottle) Chablis that is any good. What does "any good" mean? France's Chablis appellation produces some of the finest chardonnay made anywhere in the world. At their best, these wines exhibit a range of subtle and delectable fruit and nut flavors on a mineral base. They aren't oaky and they certainly aren't buttery, but when flawed they can be rather "green," or unattractively vegetal, and they can also be sour.

The Louis Michel "Butteaux," which is fermented in stainless steel, doesn't have the complexity of a great Chablis, but it is very nicely balanced -- minerally and citric in about equal proportions. The finish is clean and very satisfying.

Our lastet panel, in a blind tasting, quickly consumed the Louis Michel leaving about half of the more asserttive, more one-dimensionally citric Christain Moreau for another day.

If you want to move further up the Chablis ladder, you might want to try a:

Domaine Dauvissat-Camus 2007 Chablis Premier Cru "La Forest" ($55).

This wine, which, while certainly not "affordable," is still fairly reasonably priced by Chablis standards. Many offerings from this region cost far more than that. Why? Well, fundamentally, it is a matter of supply and demand. At their best, these wines fall into the sublime category and can be rather addictive. People tend to crave them and prices rise accordingly.

Like the Louis Michael "Butteaux," the Domaine Dauvissat-Camus "La Forest" is a properly blanced wine with really nice minerality. Where it differs is in its complexity: the "La Forest" displays more flavors on the palate -- a subtle yet delicious mix, in fact. This wine is Recommended and not overpriced for what you get.

The Chablis region is considered to be part of Burgundy even though it lies about as close to the Loire as to the main Burdungian grape growing areas. Chardonnay is the predominant white wine grape in all of Burgundy -- not just Chablis -- and in good years, wonderful wines can also be found in sub-regions such as Puligny-Montrachet. Here, too, demand generally outstrips supply, resulting in sky-high prices for labels of renown.

For instance, for a special occasion, we recently broke out a:

Chateau de Puligny-Montrachet 2005 Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru "Les Folatieres" ($120).

It was exceptionally nice and very intresting to sample, but the "La Forest" chablis mentioned above is almost as satisfying at just under half the price.

The weather is highly variable in France and buying white Burgundies is a bit of a crap shoot. Strong demand makes it easy for producers to sell inferior wines at high prices and believe, me, there are definitely some disappointing offerings out there.

When paying $50 or more for a bottle of wine, try to sample it before you purchase more than a single bottle, or go with the recommendation of a retailer who clearly understand what you like and what you don't.