Doug Paulding Wine Picks

True & Daring Riesling~ Hennie Bosman's Passion

2011-10-24T06:45:00.000-07:00

Hennie Bosman at the Oyster Bar in Manhattan recently

Hennie Bosman is one of a kind. He grew up in South Africa, played rugby and became a diplomat for the South African Government. But he admits he “Hates politics with an absolute passion”. He began making one wine and only one wine,a riesling he calls "True and Daring", in a region known for crisp and citrusy sauvignon blancs and fruity pinot noirs. And he pays his grape growers more money to produce less fruit. He remains “True” to his riesling passion and “Daring” to maintain this single minded focus. He admitted with a grin, “Maybe this isn't 'Daring'. Maybe it's Mad.”

While living in South Africa, post apartheid, he and his wife Celia were getting ready for a change. When their kids were born they decided it was time to try another venture. Friends of theirs had gotten into the winery business and this was an attractive idea. But where? How?

Together they researched locations they could afford and places they would like to live and to raise the family. New Zealand came into focus for them. A good business plan might have been to buy an existing winery, make sauvignon blanc and pinot noir to pay the bills, and tinker around with the riesling until they had a following. But Hennie was determined to make the finest expression of the riesling grape he loved. They bought Sandihurst winery in 2005 including the 2004 inventory and immediately looked for top quality riesling growers for the fruit they would need.

The goal was to produce a limited production, super premium riesling. But there exists an inherent grower/vintner conflict. The grape growers want as much fruit as possible per acre because it's typically sold by weight or volume. But the winery owner wants to limit the production per acre because less fruit per vine means more saturated flavors. Hennie found a solution to this dilemma. Hennie pays the growers a predetermined cost per vine, and oversees pruning techniques to reduce fruit clusters. The grape growers love it. They say, or at least think, (in a Geico gecko accent), “This is fantastic! We get paid more money for doing less work.” Normal grape production is about ten tons of fruit per hectare. Hennie's 25 acres intentionally produce only four tons per hectare. His annual production is only 26,000 bottles, which puts True & Daring Riesling in the micro boutique winery arena.

Hennie was in the US recently where his 2007 riesling was tasted blind alongside other noteworthy rieslings from other regions. Teams of sommeliers on both coasts came away with very favorable impressions of True and Daring. I met him at the Oyster Bar Restaurant at Grand Central Station for a sit down tasting of his 2007 vintage. And it was wonderful. He uses no oak, only stainless steel fermentation and bottle aging. The wine is crisp with floral and lemony citrus notes. He looked at me and said, rightfully so, “Nothing here is out of harmony. If it's not good with food, it misses its purpose in life.” True & Daring Riesling retails for around $40. It is age worthy as a quality riesling should be. On the back of the bottle is an international riesling sweetness scale, and this wine is placed between Medium Dry and Dry, slightly closer to Dry. And Hennie told me, “This isn't some tax write off or gentleman farmer's hobby. This is the life we have chosen and we need to make this work.” Dare to try it. Help out the Bosman family. The world needs more producers like this.

Frescobaldi wines~ Fresh and Bold

2011-10-20T08:36:00.000-07:00

Leonardo Frescobaldi at A Voce Madison in Manhattan recently

The Frescobaldi name has long been associated with quality Tuscan wine production. Leonardo Frescobaldi is a member of the 29^th generation of this venerable wine producing family dating back over 700 years in this endeavor. The next generation is firmly in place and is being groomed for a seamless transition at some point. I met with Leonardo over lunch at A Voce-Madison restaurant in Manhattan in October to taste a few of his wines and learn about Frescobaldi.

Frescobaldi wines can be found in 86 countries. It is a family owned company made of nine distinct estates accumulated over the generations, totaling over 1,100 hectares or 2,700 acres. This is huge production. In the 1960's Vittorio Frescobaldi began searching for estates (tenuta in Italian) that offered the best grape growing terroir to start the wine making process with the very best fruit. Leonardo told me “We respect the fruitiness and delicateness of the grapes.”

We started with a 2007 Nipozzano, Old Riserva made mostly of the Sangiovese grape and aged in used oak barrels. Wild fruit flavors of blackberry, raspberry and cherry with a back beat of vanilla and cinnamon. At $20 retail, you can't go wrong.

Our next wine was the $24 Tenuta di Castiglione from 2008. This is the oldest property of the family and was comprised of 50% cabernet sauvignon, 30% merlot, 10% sangiovese and 10% cabernet franc. It showed bright cherry notes, big unrestrained aromatics with a touch of plum and licorice.

Following this we tasted the more serious CastelGiocondo, vintage 2005. As a brunello it is 100% sangiovese, with 3 years in oak and another year in the bottle prior to release. Red and black cherry emerged with a backbone of earthiness and big aromatics. This wine retails for $55 and drinks beautifully. With some time in the glass, vanilla and tobacco aromas and flavors eventually complement the delicious fruit.

Our final wine of the day was the 2007 Mormoreto, the signature wine of Frescobaldi and the 25^th vintage of this particular wine. Made of 60% cabernet sauvignon, 25% merlot, 12% cabernet franc and 3% petit verdot and retailing in the $65 to $70 range, this is a special occasion wine that will age for many years. This wine showed big red cherry and black pepper flavors with explosive aromatics. It is full bodied, dense, rich. Leonardo told me, “This wine has a long life. Our 1985 vintage is still a baby.”

Italian wine labels can be confusing so look for the band aid sized “Marchesi de Frescobaldi” label under the main label. As lunch was winding down, my final question to Leonardo Frescobaldi was “What does 'Frescobaldi' mean in Italian?” “Fresh and Bold,” was his response. I said, “And that's just perfect. All these wines are exactly that!”

Cloudy Bay Winery~Fresh and Lively Wines

2011-10-02T11:06:00.000-07:00

~Sarah Burton, Cloudy Bay Winemaker in Manhattan recently~

This past Thursday I was invited to an “Experiential Dinner” in Manhattan to meet Cloudy Bay Winery winemaker, Sarah Burton, and to taste through some brand new, just released 2011 wines and some previously released oak aged wines. Southern hemisphere wines of each vintage are released six months earlier than northern hemisphere wines because the seasons are reversed. The address on the invitation was “Elizabeth Street Garden @ 209 Elizabeth Street” I looked up this restaurant in some books and I couldn't find that it existed. I arrived early and found preparations being made for an outdoor garden dinner. Crews were stringing lights and constructing a 30 foot long spruce table and benches complete with a table length herb garden as a center piece. A kitchen was established in one corner of the garden where the culinary staff was at work creating a multi-course magical meal under the stars. This event was envisioned and implemented by Gregory White marketing and PR company. Simply unforgettable! There is a high wrought iron fence enclosing the garden, as there are sculptures and plants that might create a Manhattan temptation. As we tasted and talked, I looked at the gated entrance where there was frequently a small group of curious observers. It was sort of a public zoo for wine writers, giving New Yorkers a glimpse into the glamour side of journalism.

Sarah Burton has been the winemaker of Cloudy Bay Vineyards in Malborough, New Zealand for two years now after working in wineries in Tuscany, Bordeaux, Portugal and Oregon. As appetizers were being passed around we tasted Cloudy Bay's 2011 Sauvignon Blanc, their brand new release. It had puckery tart grapefruit flavors with a fresh, creamy texture and an herbaceousness followed by a crisp acidic finish. Retailing at $25 US this is worth owning.

Next we tried their 2006 Te Koko made from Sauvignon Blanc grapes from the exact same vineyard. The fruit is allowed to ripen a bit longer on the vine before harvest. It is 100% barrel fermented with 100% wild yeast. It rests for 18 months in oak barrels. The wine had obvious oak characteristics tempered by orange blossom flavors with a minerality and elegant texture. Sarah loves the way this is drinking now but told me it will improve and age gracefully for ten years At $55 US this wine is not inexpensive. But for that special occasion it is well worth the price. Simply delicious!

Next we tried the Cloudy Bay 2007 Chardonnay. The fruit is all hand picked, wild fermented and oak aged. This wine showed delicious minerality, typical of the Marlborough region, with a texture that produced a lingering finish.

The Cloudy Bay 2009 Pinot Noir is also a brand new release and is their biggest seller, accounting for 70% of their total production. It tasted fresh and fruity, with raspberry and strawberry flavors. This wine is produced by blending wines made from plots, each creating unique flavors. Sarah told me, with a gleam in her eye, “Being a wine maker is a little like being a mad scientist. I like to blend plots of grapes, some being spicy, others fruity, to achieve a complex goal”. Sarah and Cloudy Bay people won't tell what their annual production is. “We're small”.

At dessert, we tried the Cloudy Bay 2010 Riesling, which is only available in the New York metropolitan market. At 10.5% alcohol, it is a great afternoon/apertif wine. It showed crisp refreshing lemon flavors, slight hints of finely ground white pepper with a wonderfully balanced finished. I experienced a slight micro-effervescence which seemed to keep this riesling playful and fun.

Cloudy Bay Winery celebrated their 25^th anniversary in late 2010. The wines are well made, nuanced, structured, with many flavors emerging. If you find yourself in a wine bar, taste through a few of their styles and vintages. Make a list of your preferences and pick up a few bottles for your home. Being a small production winery, Cloudy Bay typically sells out of each wine they make. “Step right up. Get it while you can.”

~The Kingdom of Navarra, Spain. Kingly Wines~

2011-07-25T09:53:00.001-07:00

Javier Banales, general manager of Bodega Otazu in Navarra, Spain

So what do you know about “The Kingdom of Navarra”? I admit I knew next to nothing until I went to a wine tasting in Manhattan a few months ago, where we tasted a dazzling variety of Navarran wine styles. We danced with Navarran dancers moving to live, rustic Navarran music (as a journalist I observed) and I climbed aboard a “Running of the Bulls” simulator with a virtual reality headset. I started strong but then got (virtually) gored repeatedly. I wondered why they called it a“Kingdom” (delusions of grandeur?) and I wondered about this Pilgrimage I was hearing about. Then I travelled to Spain and learned a few things.

First of all the wines are worthy, some exceptionally so, and are priced very attractively for those of us on a wine budget. We spent four days touring the Kingdom of Navarra, visiting wineries and vineyards, meeting winemakers, tasting through their assortments of styles, quality levels and vintages, and visiting some very old cultural attractions of the area. The following cliff note version of the area is key to understanding Navarra.

The Kingdom of Navarra was an independent state until the 16^th century, complete with its own king and queen, in their own castle. Originally the kingdom spanned the Pyrennees mountains into France. The exact borders have pulsed and morphed in different directions over the years. It is located in Northeast Spain bordering France. The invading Moors, originally from North Africa and eventually becoming Muslim, populated and essentially took over most of the Iberian peninsula, now modern day Spain. The Christian influence in the area was waning. Archbishop Diego Gelmirez (1100-1140 CE) had heard about a religious and archeological discovery a couple of centuries prior. In the middle of the ninth century a local bishop had authenticated, on the western coast of Spain, the tomb of St. James, one of the original 12 disciples of Jesus. Jerusalem (Tomb of Jesus and others) and Rome (Tomb of Peter and Paul) had become famous Christian pilgrimage routes, essentially a way into heaven for believers. The Archbishop had to rally masses to offset the waning Christian influences in France, Spain and other parts of Europe. He declared the pilgrimage to Santiago, where the tomb of St. James was found, to be as important and vital as a pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Rome. And the area was transformed.

Churches, hospitals and hostels (and podiatry centers!) were built, roads were improved, bridges and ferries were built or developed. Upwards of 50,000 European Christian pilgrims would make the trip annually. In the mid 12^th century, Christian monks were some of the few people who could read. They were educated. Monks needed wine for their religious masses and blessings. They planted the Navarra region extensively, with almost as many varietals as vineyards. This pilgrim trail has many starting points. Two of the trails begin in France, one crossing Burgundy, the other Bordeaux. They merge in Pamplona, currently the geographic and cultural center of Navarra. Another route passing through Aragon merges with the others at Puente la Reina, or the Queen's Bridge, a beautiful span built in the Romanesque style over the river Arga. Things were going great for the Christians until the bubonic plague hit. The Black death of the 14^th century hit Europe with a vengeance killing upwards of 75 million people. Pilgrims began their pilgrimage but often didn't finish or return. This plague essentially put an end to the pilgim route for centuries until the 1980's when Pope John Paul re-promoted the route and its relevance to a good Christian life, and the Christian trail was Born Again. Today, once again, 50,000 pilgrims make the journey annually, many on foot which takes months, many on bikes which takes 6-10 days and many by car, which can be done in one long day for the time-challenged or time-obsessed pilgrim.

In the late 1800's there were 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) of grape vines planted in Navarra. The “plague of the vine”, the Phylloxera louse, struck Europe, killing vines all over France. French vintners started planting their vines in Spain, in the safe zone beyond the Pyrenees mountains. Phylloxera was then introduced in Navarra, decimating and eliminating 80 different varieties of indigenous and introduced grapes. By 1905 only 700 hectares (1729 acres) remained. Phylloxera will attack and kill every variety of vine. The area had to be replanted with resistant American rootstock. Garnacha (Grenache in France), Tempranillo and Graciano y Mazuelo became the favored indigenous vines for replanted reds. They also planted the noble varietals Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Syrah. Viura and Moscatel de Grano Menuda were replanted for white wine production and they added Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. Today, Navarra produces 6.5 million cases of wine, the majority (70%) of which are red. Rosés account for 25% of total production, whites weigh in at 5% of production and sweet whites (delicious!) account for 0.3%.

In Navarra, the hot days tempered by cool nights, with three distinctly different temperate influences, provide an ideal area for a big variety of wine styles. The Atlantic influence from the north, the Mediterranean influence from the south and east, and the continental influence to the north and east, each gives the grape growers from the five distinctly different growing regions in Navarra their own uniqueness.

Now about the wines. I love the Spanish system of allowing the different qualitative designations to be found on the label. In some countries, a “reserve” or a “grand reserve” wine essentially means it is the best that a particular producer can make; their best effort. In Spain, to say the wine is “oak aged” means it must spend at least three months in the barrel. To receive the Crianza designation red wines must be aged for at least two years, at least nine months in the barrel. Whites must remain in oak for at least six months. For the next level, Reserva, red wines must be aged a minimum of three years with at least one year in oak. For whites and rosés the Reserva status indicates two years of aging with at least a half year in oak. And red Gran Reservas must be aged a minimum of five years with at least 18 months in barrels. Whites and rosés must be four years old with at least six months of oak influence. These designations guarantee certain levels of financial commitment by the winemaker, which will produce a finer wine. In Navarra, all of these designations are in place. Additionally, to receive the Designation of Origin (DO) label they must undergo a blind jury tasting conducted by winemakers and sommeliers of the region and they must receive at least a 73 out of 100 points. This is a guarantee of quality for the level (think “price”) of wine. A Pago designation indicates the vineyard and winery have proven to have such a high quality of fruit and production that normal rules don't apply. The winemaker is free to produce wines to create the best expression of the fruit. Arinzano winery is the only Pago designation in Navarra.

The wines of Navarra are very good. The rosés are crafted using the saignée, or bleeding off, method. The grapes, typically garnacha, merlot, cabernet sauvignon or tempranillo.are crushed and allowed 8 to 25 hours with the skins which imparts color and flavor to the juice. It is then fermented but there is no pressing off of the juice. The juice is collected and stainless steel tank and/or oak aged. Blending reds and whites is not permitted. Most rosés worldwide are consumed very young. Navarran rosés will last and the better ones will age beautifully. We tasted a Chivite Rosado from Arinzano's 2006, Collecion 125. We were greeted by fresh strawberry and peach flavors with soft pink grapefruit tempered by a hint of white pepper. Chivite's Gran Feudo line, with a rosado, a chardonnay, a crianza and a gran reserva, all retailing from between $12 and $15, is a “can't miss” bargain. Otazu's (don't miss this producer) 2010 Rosado showed bright strawberry notes with a micro effervescense and a fresh fruit explosion, perfect for late summer afternoons with friends. Ochoa Winery is making beautiful and very affordable wines, with Adriana Ochoa taking the winemaking reins from her dad, with plans to continue to improve their quality.

The DO designation of crianza, reserva or gran reserva makes it simple to find your quality of wine within your budget. The entire region is marketing value wines at many price levels that provide a great price to value experience. The whites are fresh, citrusy, elegant and delicious. All the reds we tasted above the entry level wines were structured with a good backbone of tannins and a brilliant balance of fruit and spice, suggesting high quality wine making and wines of ageworthiness. Next time you're picking out a wine, make a pilgrimage to the Spanish section of your store, look for the Navarra seal, with the red wine swooshy logo. Pick up a few from different price points and taste them with your friends. And reflect for a moment on all the history and culture and experience that goes into each bottle. Cook up a few simple tapas style dishes to go with the wine. And that is all you need!

Gerard Bertrand~Premium Languedoc Producer

2011-05-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

~Winemaker Gerard Bertrand at Per Se with NY writer Mort Hochstein and a very special bottle, both circa 1929~

My love of food and wine began in 1976 when I talked my way into a waiter's job (with no experience) at a French restaurant on Nantucket Island called Le Languedoc, which is still there and thriving. I lived in a house with chefs, bartenders and waiters and we tried wines and food that I had not yet even imagined. This was before California was taken seriously as a wine production region, and before Argentina and Chile were on any wine drinker's radar screen. Even within France, the serious wines all came from Burgundy, Bordeaux and the Rhone valley. Lesser wines came from Alsace and the Loire valley, while wines from the Languedoc region were considered uninteresting and the bargain hunter's choice.

So much has happened in the last 35 years in the wine industry. Science and information sharing, planting proper grape varietals for the unique terroir of each location, advanced wine making techniques and improved mechanical infrastructure, such as proper temperature controls in the winery, have all contributed to making today a wine lover's paradise. In short, now is the best time in history for a lover of wine to be alive.

I met Gerard Bertrand, winemaker and owner of six estates in the Languedoc region in southern France, on May 10^th at Per Se restaurant in Manhattan. Gerard is the son of winemaker Georges Bertrand, who bought up some land upon which to begin planting vines. Gerard, now 46 years old, grew up in the vineyard and his father nurtured and instilled in him the love of the land and love of the grape from an early age. In 1975, at ten years old, Gerard helped with the harvest and the winemaking. He was hooked. Georges actively cultivated in Gerard some principles of the industry. He told young Gerard, “When you plant a vine, it is for your children”. And “We are very much aware that we are only the guardians of our land for future generations”. These concepts have helped to establish Gerard Bertrand wines as a responsible company dedicated to playing an active role in raising ecological awareness in the South of France. To that end, their production is biodynamic and/or organic, earning vineyard certifications in both categories. Gerard considers himself an Ambassador of the Mediterranean lifestyle and has helped to develop the tourism industry within the region by acquiring Chateau l'Hospitalet vineyards which has an inn dating back to 1561. He also sponsors an annual jazz festival of world wide fame, in the first weekend in August.

Gerard is a smart and savvy business man and has added existing wine estates over the years. He currently owns six estates, with over 880 acres dedicated to vines. For perspective, that is enough land currently under vine for five golf courses. The Languedoc-Rousillon region is the world's largest wine producing region with 2800 producers putting over two billion bottles into the marketplace. Gerard Bertrand wines can be found in 65 countries.

Per Se assembled a menu around the wines and we tasted three wines with each of the first three courses. A delicious and ethereal herb roasted halibut was served with a 2010 Viognier. At $14 retail it is a true value wine with crisp lemon notes and lively perfumy essence. A 2009 Cigalus white blend ($60) showed honey, vanilla, citrus with a mineral freshness. And the Aigle Royal, Limoux 2009 was light to medium bodied with fresh citrus notes with hints of ground white pepper. This wine is expensive but is especially worthy for a noteworthy occasion.

Our next course of Rib eye beef with potato confit, spinach, mushrooms and onions impressed everyone. I was served an outstanding ravioli dish with beans and herbs and a mushroom based sauce that was wonderful. The red wines were big and up to the challenge. The Corbieres 2009 grenache/syrah/mourvedre blend showed bright cherry fruitiness structured with leather flavors. It softened considerably with time in the glass. The medium bodied Grand Terroir, Pic Saint Loop 2009 was earthy with dark fruit flavors, notably blackberry. And my favorite wine of this course was the Chateau L'Hospitalet Reserve rouge 2009. This wine was medium to full bodied, with notes of dark cherry and black pepper. I found myself repeatedly returning to this complex wine.

Three more wines accompanied Per Se's salad course. La Forge, Corbieres from 2008 was full bodied, complex with blackberry and licorice and very smooth. Le Viala, Minervois La Liviniere from 2007 exhibited dark cherry, earthy with balanced leather. And my favorite from this flight was the 2008 L'Hospitalitas, Coteaux du Languedoc La Clape. Full bodied, dried currants, licorice, complex...simply delicious! Keep in mind these red wines are all relatively young and will age beautifully for some time. Patience will be rewarded.

Next, for dessert, a chocolate mousse accompanied with a whiskey puree and almond ice cream was paired with something VERY special! Gerard brought a 1929 Legend Vintage Maury wine. This wine spent 70 years(!!) in oak casks. It had a port like flavor with pronounced caramel with a lingering finish. Gerard called this wine “The Soul of the south of France”

I asked for one of the empty 1929 Maury Legend Vintage bottles as a souvenir. You see, in all my wine tasting experience, I have never tasted a wine older than I am. I once came very close with a 1958 Barolo. I asked Gerard if he would sign the bottle for me. He wrote, “ A legend in your memory,” clearly a reference to his father whom he knows launched the brand and helped launch him to where he is today. And as I tasted this perfectly preserved and complex wine, I realized it was from the birth year of my father, who also had a profound effect on where I am today. With Father's Day just around the corner, an early toast may be in order. Cheers to our Dads! Georges and George!

Franciacorta's Here~Move over Champagne

2010-12-28T16:39:00.001-08:00

Riccardo Ricci Curbastro at his winery in Franciacorta

So you're in the mood for celebrating and you want to impress your local wine purveyor or restaurant sommelier. Ask for a sparkling bottle of Franciacorta. And pronounce it “Franch'-i-a-cort'-a.” Chances are real good you will see a big question mark appear in the cartoon balloon over his head. I just returned from a trip to Franciacorta, Italy where I tasted many of the sparkling wines they produce. I was accompanied by two other US journalists, each of whom have long careers in wine and food writing, and none of us had ever heard of Franciacorta.

Franciacorta is a term that defines the territory, the method of production and the wine. The area produces still (non-sparkling) whites and reds but they have fully embraced the methode champenoise for this sparkling and delicious wine. The Franciacorta Consortium, founded in 1990, has instituted some of the most rigorous rules for all aspects of production, from grapes used, allowable harvest maximums in tons per hectare, aging times and peer-juried taste tests, in order to receive the annual governmental tag. Three grapes are allowed in the Franciacorta sparkling wines; chardonnay, pinot blanc and pinot noir, known locally as pinot nero. There are several Franciacorta flavor profiles determined by grapes used, percentage of grape types used in the final blend, aging times and amount of sugar added (as they do in Champagne) to secondarily ferment the wine in the bottle to create its lively effervescence.

The first sparkling wine in Franciacorta was made in 1961 by a wine maker named Franco Ziliani while working for a producer named Berlucci. After a couple of attempts he got it right and by 1967 the area was being recognized as a sparkling wine region. I met with Riccardo Ricci Curbastro, former president of the Franciacorta Consortium and current president of the European Federation of Origin Wines. His father, Gualberto, was one of the original eleven members of the Franciacorta denomination in 1967 when the area had just 29 hectares under vine. A hectare is just under 2.5 acres. Today Franciacorta has 2800 hectares and produces ten million bottles a year under 104 sparkling producers. Eighty percent of those are sold in Italy which partly explains the scarcity and near complete ignorance of this wine outside of Italy.

Franciacorta is a beautiful area, in the Lombardy region, an hour and a half by car east of Milan. It is at the southern tip of Lake Iseo, a twenty mile long S-shaped lake that leads from low lying farmland and the foothills directly into the Italian Alps. The glacial impact on the area is obvious with vertical scarring striations very apparent and visible in the nearby mountains. But the glacial effects in the soil have a profound impact on the wines. They impart, infuse, if you will, a minerality, a complexity that gives Franciacorta wines their distinct flavors. Add to that the hot air from the plains during the day, balanced by the cold air spilling down from the mountains at night and you get the brilliant Franciacorta taste profile, character and personality.

We tasted through Riccardo Ricci Curbastro's sparkling wines and they are worthy. The family has been stewards/owners of the land since the 12^th century and currently have 27.5 hectares planted, which supports production of 200,000 bottles a year. They have installed many solar panels that produces literally all of their energy needs, clearly branding them as environmentally “green”. The Franciacorta flavor profiles range from Undosed (no sugar added), to Extra Brut, Brut, Extra Dry, Dry (sec), Demi Sec, Satèn, Rosé. And then there are bottle aging times that increases complexity, flavors, and, oh yeah, price.

All of the Ricci Curbastro sparkling wines have good structure. They are all well balanced and each have their unique flavor range. The Ricci Curbastro Brut is a blend of the three allowed grapes. It is dry, fresh, lemony with yeasty notes and hints of oak. The Satèn Brut 2006 uses chardonnay and pinot blanc and it is silky, velvety and round. Their 2008 Satèn exudes a soft oakiness with balanced citrus, notably lemon. The 2006 Extra Brut is dry, lemony, with a gripping tartness with an honest rusticity. And the 2002 Extra Brut is dry with a pleasant earthiness.

In a range of $30 to $50 these wines are not cheap. Prosecco can be made in five to seven months by the much quicker Charmat method of secondary tank fermentation. When I drink Prosecco, I lose interest well before the bottle is done. The minimum time required to make Franciacorta wines with the governmental seal is 18 months for the non vintage wine. Non vintage Rosé and Satèn requires a minimum of 24 months. The vintage Franciacorta needs 30 months of aging and the Franciacorta Riserva needs a full five years but many producers age them longer until its flavor has reached their goal.

On the governmental seal there is a coded number. You can visit http://www.franciacorta.net/ and type in this number and you can find the producer's name, the wine type, the number of bottles in the batch, the product profile of this wine including alcohol content, acidity and bottle pressure, as well as the producer's email address and website. The Consortium is demanding excellence, integrity and an accountability from its producers. Franciacorta is here to stay and will be promoting and increasing its market presence in the US. You owe to yourself and to your wine friends to pick up a bottle or two. Franciacorta will be celebrating its 50^th birthday in 2011 and will easily stand up to champagnes at most every price point. Expand your horizons and give an Italian farmer a chance to compete on the world stage of sparkling wines.

Roy Estate~Prestigious California Producer

2010-12-19T14:38:00.000-08:00

Shirley Roy of Roy Estates with her two wines in Manhattan recently

Charles and Shirley Roy came to winery ownership later in life. Both of them grew up on the east coast, with careers in engineering and accounting. They developed and sold some executive suite businesses in New Jersey and Virginia, then decided to reinvent themselves after several trips to Napa Valley. Together they decided to search for and buy a property that could support grape cultivation. Former pro golfer and current golf analyst, Johnny Miller was trying to sell his 42 acre estate, and it looked like the perfect spot to start a small vineyard. In 1999 the Roys bought this property and began to imagine life as “farmers”. They dreamed of growing grapes and selling the produce to a wine maker somewhere.

With little experience or advice, they planted a few acres of vines. Just as the vines were beginning to sprout, Helen Turley (of Turley winery fame) began looking for a grape planting site of between 15 and 20 acres. The Roy property looked perfect and in 2001 she entered into an arrangement to plant and grow grapes there. Heley also convinced the Roys that the outstanding property would also make for an exceptional wine, Turley style. She tore up all the plants, scaffolding and irrigation the Roys had installed and started fresh with very specific ideas of root stock, grape varieties, row spacing and scaffolding and irrigation to custom create the vineyard.

It takes three years for grape shoots to become wine caliber grape producing vines. Their first vintage was 2004, which was about the time it took for the business relationship between the Roys and Turley to sour. Still not knowing much about wine making, in April 2005 they entered into a relationship with renowned winemaker, Philippe Melka. Philippe was born in the Bordeaux region of France. He earned degrees in geology and oenology and went on to work at Haut Brion (one of the first growth wines) , Petrus in Bordeaux, Badia a Coltibuono in Italy and Dominus and Ridge in California. He earned Food and Wine's “Winemaker of the Year” award in 2005. He believes in minimal manipulation during the wine making process and tries “finding the voice of the vineyard through its terroir”.

The vineyard has a stream in the middle of the rows and they have what they, jokingly, call the right and left banks; the right primarily producing grapes for a proprietary red blend and the left bank planted dominantly to cabernet sauvignon. The Roy's goal was producing a super premium wine and both wines consistently achieve very high (92+) points from Robert Parker and other leading wine critics. They produce about 1000 cases a year, all hand harvested with attention to detail. The Roys have installed three wind machines in the vineyard to avoid frost pockets.

I met with Shirley Roy for a luncheon at Daniel Boulud's DB Bistro in Manhattan in November. She brought an '06 Proprietary red and an '06 Cabernet Sauvignon. Both were intense, with dense dark cherry. The Proprietary red showed more dustiness, the Cab was dry with saturated dried currants. Both were delicious. I preferred the Cab. These wines aren't cheap. The Proprietary red retails for $110 and the Cab for $150. But when you compare these to many of the top tier Napa reds in their category, they are a bargain. And it is clear from the tasting these wines are very drinkable now but will age gracefully for a couple of decades, easily.

Charles Roy died unexpectedly last January in the hospital while recovering from a surgical procedure. After some time, people began asking Shirley what her plans for the vineyard would be. She told them, “This was not just Charles' dream. It was our dream together.” Roy Estate wines are sustainably farmed. The mission statement could be, “We believe in elegant red wines with finesse and ageability and natural low alcohol.” This winery has only seen seven harvests. It is still finding its way. There is every reason to believe Roy Estate will come to be mentioned with the very best California producers. Shirley is determined to carry on and continue to develop “their” dream.

Beaujolais 2009~"Vintage of a Lifetime"

2010-11-21T11:01:00.000-08:00

Georges Duboeuf, June 2, 2010 at ABC Kitchen in Manhattan

This past June I was invited to a Beaujolais event in NY by Public Relations firm known as Melanie Young Communications. Melanie Young knows how to throw events and Georges Duboeuf demands BIG events to show his Beaujolais wines and especially to launch his Beaujolais Nouveau, which happens on the third Thursday in November each year. I had the privilege of sharing a table with Georges Duboeuf and his son Franck and mega wine importer Bill Deutsch and his son Peter. Both of these sons have been groomed to eventually take over the wine operations created by their dads and the passion and knowledge this next generation brings indicates it will be a flawless transition.

Georges Duboeuf is a serious guy, not prone to chit chat or even addressing the table with talk of wine, as most wine producers or negociants are wont to do. He spent the luncheon going over his presentation notes and quietly talking to Bill Deutsch. He slowly brought his wine glass to his nose several times during lunch but I saw him actually taste (micro sip) the wine only once or twice. In France, Georges gets up very early, eschews coffee as it negatively impacts his palate and makes his rounds in Beaujolais to inspect grapes, talk to growers, debate the current vintage and eventually will taste and choose which plots and even which barrels will bear his name. At this event a few months ago, Georges called 2009 “The vintage of a lifetime, comparable only to 1949.” Sixty years had passed in Beaujolais since weather conditions have been quite so perfect for the region.

I tasted through all the ten Beaujolais Crus and enjoyed them all. The wines were good but my enthusiasm didn't match the hosts. This week, five and a half months later, I was in NY on consecutive days for Beaujolais events. The first event was on Thursday, November 18^th at a new nightclub called D36 on 36^th Street between 5^th and 6^th Avenues. This was for the opening of the first Beaujoais Nouveau bottle of 2010 in this country. And what a circus extravaganza it was, complete with stilt walkers, jugglers, aeralists and contortionists. Actress and swim suit model Molly Sims, along with Franck Duboeuf and Peter Deutsch, addressed the crowd of journalists and media people and with full fanfare uncorked the wine and poured. And it was.....Beaujolais Nouveau. Bright cherry, fruity, non complex, fun.

Back in the day, wine was created and consumed. Aging was not something people were particularly capable of or interested in. Drinking water sources were suspect and people got sick from unsanitary conditions. Wine became the drink of choice for all ages, morning, noon and night, because it was safe from bacterial diseases. Storage of wine was in pails, barrels or amphorae which did not support proper aging conditions. By mid summer each year, the wines from the previous harvest were oxidized and tired. Everyone looked forward to the veraison (grapes turning ripe color), the harvest, the communal stomp, the fermentation and finally, the new wine. I imagine it was wonderful to taste the fresh and lively new harvest in contrast to old, plummy, rusty colored wine.

So we tasted the Nouveau and then went on to taste through the ten Crus of Beaujolais. I stood at the tasting area with wine author and educator, Kevin Zraly. Kevin ran the Windows on the World wine cellar, teaches extensively and wrote the Windows on the World Complete Wine Course, the number one selling wine book in the world and essential reading for any wannabe wine lover. We tasted a few wines and he said, “Look at the color. Sometimes Beaujolais are thin colored, almost translucent. This vintage is dense, almost opaque.” Wine after wine from the ten Crus of Beaujolais showed solid fruit presence, freshness but also tannic structure and backbone, suggesting these wines will have cellar aging potential and increased flavor development.

The next night I attended a Sopexa PR event at Daniel Boulud's flagship restaurant, Daniel at 65^th Street and Park Avenue. Again I tasted through the 2009 vintage at my leisure with a notebook and taste after taste, I was impressed. Almost a half a year of additional aging time in the bottle had improved them significantly. And the flavors from Cru to Cru were all over the map. Some showed bright cherry with lively freshness (Chateau de la Chaize, Brouilly) expected of a Beaujolais. Others (Damien Coquelet, Beaujolais Villages and Domaine Marcel & Mathieu Lapierre, Morgon) showed a distinct earthiness that surprised me and was more typically representative of a true burgundy. All of these wines were balanced, expressive and well made and it would be simple to find one to suit any palate. My favorites at the tasting were a Brouilly made by Jean-Paul Brun, a Fleurie by Alain Coudert and Georges Duboeuf's Chateau des Capitans from Julienas.

Every year at holiday time there is an overabundance of print debating festive dinner wine pairings. This year, ask your wine purveyor to assemble a case representing all the 2009 Crus of Beaujolais. That should satisify everyone at the table. At the Beaujolais Nouveau party on Thursday I asked Franck Duboeuf, “Who has a better palate, you or your Dad?” His response, “My Dad says I do. I think he does”. And nothing gets the Duboeuf name tag that hasn't impressed one of those palates.

The Big Green Box Wine~Thumbs Up!!!

2010-10-24T11:16:00.000-07:00

The Big Green Box Wine~ Sebastiani and Sons

So I recently got a press release announcing an environmentally friendly boxed wine from Don Sebastiani and sons. The announcement said, among other things, that this three liter (equivalent to four 750 ml. bottles) will stay fresh for a month after opening. It has always been a small conundrum. What does someone who just wants a glass or two of wine a night do? Or wine drinking friends often stop in for a visit. You want to offer a glass of wine but don't want to commit to opening a regular bottle because, at the end of the day, there is likely to be wine left in the bottle oxidizing and going down the road to ruin. Some try the air vacuum system which uses a rubber stopper with a slit and a semi vacuum type hand pump to try to remove the air from the bottle. Others might use an awkward and/or expensive nitrogen injection system which purges the bottle of oxygen and protects the wine. I will often open a full bottle and immediately pour half off into a .375 ml. (half bottle) and cork it tight. This reduces exposure to the offending O₂molecules and gives more life, allowing the wine to remain perfectly fresh for up to a week upon initial opening. But the promise of a wine that will stay “fresh for a month” after opening without any Nitrogen gadgetry or vacuum pumps is something worth investigating.

I asked the Sebastiani people to send me some samples of The Big Green Box wines from Pepperwood Grove that they have just released. The Sebastiani family has been in the wine business for generations. Don Sebastiani and Sons was created in 2001 and they offer several recognizable wine labels in their portfolio, including Smoking Loon, Aquinas and Pepperwood Grove, among others. My interest was not reviewing these wines for nuance and complexity but rather to taste them each over a month's time and see if their claim of “Once opened, the wine will stay fresh in the refrigerator for up to a month”.

They are currently producing four wines in the Big Green Box format. Box wines in the past have been uninteresting and not for “wine” people. There is a soft plastic bladder inside the box and dotted lines low on the cardboard container which you perforate and pull out a thermos-type push button dispenser. As wine is poured the bladder contracts allowing no oxygen exposure to the remaining wine. Coincidentally, when the box arrived containing four 3 liter boxes of wine, equivalent to 16 bottles, a 12 bottle case had arrived from another source. The standard 12 glass bottle case was significantly larger and heavier than Sebastiani's 16 bottle case. Their claim of being environmentally friendly is certainly supported by reducing hefty shipping expenses. Currently they are producing a Pinot Grigio, a Chardonnay, a Zinfandel and a Cabernet Sauvignon with undoubtedly more varietals in the future.

I opened all four and tasted them in mid September and tried each of them periodically, for flavor changes and stability, over a five week period. All of these wines were very drinkable. They were all sound, not profound, balanced with good structure and flavor, solid but not nuanced. But at a SRP of $20 they sell for the equivalent of five dollars for a 750 milimeter bottle. For five dollars a bottle you can't come close to this quality and you have the huge benefit of being able to drink a glass or two a night over several weeks.

The pinot grigio was fresh and citrusy, with tart apple and mineral notes. The chardonnay was oak aged for six months which gave it a classic chardonnay flavor of grapefruit and green apple with a vanilla backbone. Their cabernet sauvignon showed blackberry and cedar with fresh jammy notes and some oak/caramel contributions. And the old vine zinfandel was full bodied with big blackberry hints with dried fruit and caramel/vanilla. Wine maker Greg Kitchens has made all these wines and they are all very approachable and very pleasant. I preferred the chardonnay over the pinot grigio and I preferred the zin to the cab. But over time....What happens?

A week later, even without refrigeration, there was no discernible change. No evidence of even micro changes caused by oxygenation. All four wines were still vibrant, fresh and very drinkable. Another week passed and I sampled them all again. And again, no flavor or structural changes were happening. Getting to the fourth week after opening, one month after the first taste, the wines were still fine. And just for fun I tried them all again five weeks after opening. And they all still drank beautifully.

So, if you're the type of person that likes a thoroughly enjoyable wine experience but are not in the mood to commit to an entire bottle, or if you live in a neighborhood where frequent drop-in guests would enjoy a glass of wine, this is the answer. Have all four ready to go and you will have something fully acceptable to offer guests of all wine persuasions. These are not big contemplative wines. But they are a very pleasant wine to drink or offer up to visitors without worrying about wasting the unfinished wine left in the bottle.

Bistro Morello Wine Dinner~Sassicaia Wine

2010-10-04T07:01:00.001-07:00

Sassicaia Wine Dinner @ Morello Bistro- Greenwich, CT

Until recently, I am sad to admit, I was a Sassicaia virgin. I have tried many of the noteworthy and epic wines of the world but I had never crossed paths with Sassicaia until recently. I was invited to a Sassicaia wine pairing dinner to take place on July 19th, 2010 at Morello Bistro in Greenwich, CT and I had the thoroughly enjoyable experience of meeting and dining with Sassicaia owner and wine maker Piero Incisa Della Rocchetta.

Morello Bistro (www.morellobistro.com) is on Greenwich Avenue, the Rodeo Drive of Greenwich, Connecticut, and is part of the Marlon Abela Restaurant Group (MARC) with other restaurants in London , Boston and New York. I have dined here before and General Manager Jimmy Branigan, who oversees all aspects of the restaurant, is at the top of his game, balancing professional service with a genuine home style warmth. At a stand up reception prior to dinner in the street level bar area we were greeted with a glass of 2009 Tenuta di Salviano, Orvieto Classico Superiore, along with a variety of wonderful Hors d’oeuvres. This white wine is a perfect starter wine, with crisp citrus flavors. It retails for $13 US and helped set the mood and build the excitement for what was to come. It was here I met Piero and asked him this question. “In the movie Sideways, Miles, the Paul Giamatti character, yelled ‘I am not drinking Merlot’ and it had a profound and depressing effect on Merlot sales. In the same movie, Miles’ love interest, Maya describes her epiphanic moment of wine drinking that rocked her wine world and she said it was a ‘1988 Sassicaia’. Did Maya’s Sassicaia moment do anything to boost sales?” Piero told me they are always sold out of their entire production of Sassicaia so he would have no way of knowing the influence the movie had on sales. But he told me that Alexander Payne, the director of the movie, was dining in a Los Angeles restaurant and was not much of a wine drinker. The sommelier came over to his table with a small pour of Sassicaia and offered it to him. And this was Mr. Payne’s life altering moment with wine and it’s why he decided to make Sassicaia Maya’s dream wine.

We were brought upstairs to a private dining area to begin the meal. The people that developed Tenuta San Guido, which produces Sassicaia and several other wine labels, were well-to-do Italians, with upper crust careers as bankers, merchants, lawyers and thoroughbred race horses owners and trainers. They bought up some vineyard land in Tuscany and Umbria and started making wine. Sassicaia’s first commercial release was 1968. The della Rochetta family has bought more properties and has begun wine making ventures in Argentina. It is in Argentina where they are making organic and biodynamic wines. “Organic” means making wines without synthetic fertilizers or chemical intrusion. “Biodynamic” is making wines within the rhythms of the earth, moon and universe. With non interventionist gardening techniques, they are creating balance in the soil and restoring the natural immune system of the vineyard.

Bistro Morello’s executive chef is Mark Medina-Rios. He created a menu to symbiotically enhance Piero’s wines. Prior to the first course, Piero got up and described their approach to wine making. He said they do not manipulate the wines and it bottled unfiltered and unfined. “Our wine is photograph in the glass, a reflection of the year the grapes were grown.” They have 110 employees working over 8000 acres. And every cluster of grapes is hand harvested. Some vintners harvest by sugar levels of the grapes. Sassicaia harvests by tasting the grapes.

An Argentine wine from Patagonia 2009 Bodega Chacra Barda, accompanied the first course. This red wine was fruity with good structure and balanced spice. It was served with smoked duck with cherries, hazelnuts and mesculin greens. Chef Medina-Rios creates colorful and delicious dishes, some with contrasting elements of taste, texture and color, and some more uniformly consistent, but all are wonderful. The second course was a Ricotta Gnocchi that was perfect, simply the best gnocchi I have ever tasted. It was so flavorful and so soft, teeth were not necessary. It was served with a 2008 Tenuta di Salviano “Turlo”. This wine, made of 50% Sangiovese, 20% Merlot and 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, showed dark fruit, well integrated tannins with a lingering finish.

Our main course, a beef filet with crushed potatoes, verjus and dandelion stood up to and enhanced the wines. We were poured a Tenuta San Guido “Guidalberto from 2008 and the flagship wine of the evening, the 2007 Sassicaia. Both wines were great, but there was something ethereal, deep, almost religious to the Sassicaia. I tasted and looked at Piero and said, “Wow, that’s BIG!.” He said (barked), “Our wines are not BIG! Sassicaia is the quintessential expression of finesse and elegance!!!” I thought he was about to bang the table but then I realized it was a difference of definitions. “Big” to Piero was high alcohol and big tannic blockbuster wines that knock you upside the head like something you might find from some California producers. “Big” to me is a crafted and nuanced wine with balance, complexity and depth. But definition distinctions aside, the Sassicaia was simply awesome (and elegant) and I still dream of my next time.

The dessert, an apricot stuffed with pistachio, was served with a 2008 Michelle Chiarlo “Nivole”. This is a dessert wine from the Piedmont region. The grape is Muscat blanc and the wine had tropical fruit flavors, with honeysuckle, good acidity and a lightly sparkling sweetness. It was a perfect way to wrap up a wonderful meal, stellar wines, exemplary service in every way. Morello Bistro offers special wine pairing dinners as a regular part of its dining experience. Sign up for their emails and try to go to one. You won’t be disappointed.

Jules Taylor's New Zealand Wines

2010-08-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

Jules Taylor, in Manhattan recently, with some of her wines

Anyone who has ever fantasized about owning a vineyard and winery probably goes through the same imaginary stages of procurement. Inherit or otherwise pull together enough money to buy some land in wine country. If it’s not a turnkey operation, you will need to plant grape stock and wait a few years for grape production to get serious. Then you need to assemble crushers, de-stemmers, fermentation tanks, aging barrels, bottling equipment, aging rooms and public tasting areas, for starters. Oh yeah, and you need to know or learn all about grapes, wine making, soils, bugs, weather and marketing. And then you need to enjoy all the ups and down of living on a farm.

Jules Taylor had other ideas. Jules was born in the Marlborough region of New Zealand, known as a pre-eminent area for producing crisp and citrusy sauvignon blancs and pinot noirs with fruitiness and structure. She made wines in Italy, Australia and New Zealand before being elevated to head winemaker for Kim Crawford Winery near her home. In 2001 she began making some wines after hours to be sold under her own label. I met with Jules recently at BLT Fish Restaurant at 21 West 17th St. in Manhattan. BLT, (Bistro Laurent Tourondel) is chef Tourondel’s homage to high quality fish dishes freshly served with a gourmet interpretation in a casual, yet elegant, atmosphere. Jules brought three of her wines to pour at lunch.

The first wine we tried was her Jules Taylor 2008 Pinot Gris from Marlborough. She told me she “was trying for different layers of flavor on the palate” with this wine. It was crisp, citrusy with notes of pear and honeysuckle. Retailing at around $15 US it is a well constructed wine with good acid balance. This wine and all her wines are really good value wines. Her second wine was a 2009 Sauvignon Blanc. This wine showed unrestrained grapefruit, TART!, with tropical, puckery guava. Also at $15, I would serve this wine as a beach side aperitif. Jules said, “In New Zealand we rarely get a bad season. And our Sauvignon Blanc kind of makes itself. Very little post harvest manipulation is necessary due to the ideal growing conditions.”

Finally she poured her 2009 Pinot Noir. Jules explained the vineyard for this pinot is at 800 feet above sea level, which provides hot days and cool nights. These growing conditions produce tiny berries, even by pinot noir standards, making them concentrated with flavor. The juice is naturally fermented and “allowed to do its own thing”. The tanks are hand plunged and then the wine spends nine months in oak. The wine is aromatic, with fresh fruit, notably bright cherry, jumping out of the glass. At around $20 US, this versatile wine could be served by itself, with appetizers, entrees, or après dinner.

So getting back to Jule’s dream of owning her own wine label. I asked her how many acres she owned. “None” was her answer. She buys grapes from single vineyard growers. She oversees the growth and the harvest, determining optimum harvest time, not by machine sugar analysis testing, but by tasting the fruit in the vineyard. Then, I thought, she must truck it to her winery for pressing, fermentation and aging. “No”. She owns no winery equipment or infrastructure. She contracts with a local winery so she can closely oversee all stages of production to make the wine her way. Then she must bring it to her bottling plant for bottling, labeling and boxing. “No”. She owns no bottling equipment. The wine is brought across the street to the bottling plant for this. She and her husband and two kids live in down town Blenheim, the most populous city (30,000) in Marlborough. She hasn’t even had to lead the farmer’s life, living in an apartment in the city.

Jules has created her wine label without following the normal template. Jules Taylor’s first vintage was 2001. The first vintage for the pinot noir was 2007. Currently she makes 18,000 cases of wine, 10,000 of those dedicated to sauvignon blanc. Jules Taylor also produces a riesling, a chardonnay and a rose. These wines are not deep contemplative wines. They are fresh, vibrant, well made wines designed for drinking now. They have only been available in the US for less than a year, so they may be a little difficult to locate. But they are worth looking for. Buy a bottle or two. Let's help Jules buy some land.

Drink Brugal Rum~Help Save the World

2010-06-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

Gustavo Ortega in the Brugal tasting room, Puerta Plata, Dominican Republic

I recently returned from a very interesting, entertaining and transformative rum adventure in the Dominican Republic. Rum maker and blender, Gustavo Ortega is the fifth generation Maestro, or master blender, for the Brugal rum operation. The Brugal Rum factory was founded in 1888 by Gustavo’s great, great grandfather, Don Andres Brugal Montaner. The role of master rum maker and blender has been passed within the family from generation to generation. Gustavo is the youngest maestro in Brugal’s history, assuming the position two years ago as a 28 year old. I met with Gustavo for a factory tour and tasting. He is energetic, personable and fun and is clearly well liked and respected by most, if not all, of the 1300 employees. The rums we tasted were expressive, multi layered, nuanced and beautiful but I’m not sure this is the main story here. Brugal has created many philanthropic and charitable organizations throughout the Dominican Republic. There is an ancient Talmudic (rabbinic) saying that says, “If you save a single soul, it’s as if you saved the world”. This is my take away message from Brugal.

The Carribean island of Hispaniola is divided, with Haiti on the western half of the island and the Dominican Republic on the eastern half. Haiti was ruled by the French for years while the Dominican Republic was conquered by the Spanish centuries ago. Subsequently they were ruled by Haiti for some years in the 19th century before gaining their independence in 1844. Today, Dominicans are outgoing and gracious, fun loving and entrepreneurial. And baseball is nothing short of a national obsession. Ask anyone on the street how many Dominicans have played baseball in the US major leagues. “Five hundred and six” will be the likely answer. Ask how many are on current major league rosters. “Eighty two”. And don’t start quoting statistics with them because they know the game, the stats and the rosters.

I met with Gustavo to learn a little about what makes Brugal so interesting and special. At any time, Brugal has 250,000 barrels aging in two different locations. Their staggering annual production of 5.3 million cases makes them the third biggest rum producer in the world, behind Bacardi and Captain Morgan. Brugal is a very well respected company in the Dominican Republic. They control 86% of the Dominican rum market and can be found in 17 other countries. They have plans to expand to many more countries and increase their market share in the countries already represented. They also have some other rum concepts in the developmental stage.

Rum is made from sugar cane. The cane stalks are harvested after a year of growth brings them to a height of ten feet or so. The stalks are crushed and the liquid is extracted. This liquid is fermented with the aid of added yeasts which produces a “wine”. This wine is distilled, and then distilled again, into a clear and high alcohol spirit. Some water is added and barrel aging begins. Then the maestro samples each individual barrel before blending, resting the blend to allow for full integration of flavors, filtering and then bottling. The only things Brugal adds to the rum are water to tweak alcohol levels in order to comply with each country’s importing laws, and caramel, not for flavor, but to create a consistent color.

Gustavo explained to me that in oak aging rooms of colder climate (think Scotch, perhaps) spirits producers, it takes much longer to impart the barrel oak flavors, colors, tannins and structure to the spirit, so it is necessary to age them for many years and sometimes decades. In northern climates, barrel aging of spirits causes minimal liquid loss through evaporation. In the humidity and temperatures of the Dominican Republic, evaporation causes an 8-12% loss of their barreled rum per year. Each subsequent year of aging reduces their liquid volume by roughly 10%. But complex flavors can become integrated with the rum in as little as one to two years. Their Conta Dorado is aged from one to two years. Their Anejo is aged from two to five years while their Gran Reserva rum is aged from three to eight years.

In the tasting room with Gustavo I found three Brugal rums in brandy snifters ready for drinking. He told me, “Most people don’t know how to drink rum.” Previous generations have used rum strictly as mixers, for drinks like rum and tonic, rum and coke, rum punch, pina coladas and daiquiris. The quality of Brugal’s rums encourages the use of a brandy snifter and straight up (neat) consumption. Gustavo explained, “We sample rum the same way a sommelier would sample wine. We examine color, aroma and finally the taste. The color should be clear, bright and shiny ranging from a golden honey to a light amber to a rich darker amber. This is completely dependent on the time spent in the barrel and the degree of new and used oak employed in the process”.

Gustavo told me “rum improves in the glass. It takes 15 to 20 minutes for the alcohol to soften and the rum to become more expressive”. I have never seen rum decanted or even allowed to open up before consumption. These rums had been poured 20 minutes before we got to the tasting area and were ready for tasting. Gustavo commented, “The rum is singing today, perfect temperature, perfect amount of time in the glass. Let’s taste”, he said with smile.

We first sampled the Brugal Conta Dorada. This is a young rum, aged one to two years in oak. It was light honey colored and smelled and tasted of honey, caramel, banana and orange peel, with fresh fruity notes throwing off penetrating aromatics. This is one of their entry level aged rum usually used as a mixer. Next we tried the Anejo, which has seen oak barrel aging from two to five years. To guarantee a consistent flavor year after year, Gustavo blends batches of different aged rums. So in each bottle there will be rum from tanks containing different “vintages” and different amount of time in oak. The Anejo was more amber in color. The fresh fruity notes we detected in the first bottle were changing in the Anejo to vanilla, caramel and chocolate, with more body and a long satisfying aftertaste.

Finally, we moved on to the Brugal Extra Viejo Gran Reserva, oak aged three to eight years. The color was a darker amber which sparkled in a spot light. There were stronger notes of caramel and spice, with cinnamon, dried fruit and cacao. Also present was an obvious sweet oak influence, with a pleasant oily mouth feel that gave a wonderful and lingering aftertaste. Gustavo explained that more time spent in oak increases the oiliness, which enhances mouthfeel improving texture and length. These three rums began the oak aging process identically. The only manufacturing difference is the amount of time spent in the oak barrels. Currently all their rum is aged in American white oak barrels that were brought in from Bourbon county, Kentucky after having been used one time to age and flavor bourbon.

Brugal is a hugely visible presence in the Dominican Republic with a stellar reputation for improving the lives of the people. Apparently, the road signage was simply awful some years ago making it very difficult to navigate the roads. To date, Brugal has installed over 3000 road signs. Brugal has looked for, and has easily found, local communities in need and have built or are currently building new schools for them. The Dominican Republic currently has an unemployment rate of 15% and 42% of the population lives below the poverty line, so clearly there are people in need. Brugal holds an annual charity contest for cultural, educational, religious and environmental concerns, with financial awards given to those charities that show the best organization and concept for delivering goods and/or services to those in need. And they sponsor sporting events, such as baseball and soccer from introductory to professional levels.

The 1300 employees have a benefit package that is impressive. Gustavo told me, “Years ago we learned you can increase their salary and they will spend it and not have money for important things in life. But if we increase the benefit package, their quality of life improves. They can’t ‘spend’ the benefits but they certainly benefit from them”. Brugal covers the typical large company benefits like health care. But they also provide free food for the employees on the job. The staff is all well dressed in Brugal work uniforms, including shoes provided by the company. Additionally Brugal provides dental care and a year end bonus related to company profits. But I was stunned to hear Brugal will pay to educate any of their workers and any of their worker’s children. In addition to building and funding schools in needy communities Brugal has helped to college educate thousands of employees or their relatives.

The Dominican people know their lives have been vastly improved, not only by having easy access to this ubiquitous and lovely rum, but also by the myriad number of ways Brugal has funneled capital to fund projects that improve the Dominican society. I have been tasting these rums since I returned to New York. The Brugal Gran Reserva rum will stand up to fine cognacs, armagnacs, single malts and bourbons, at a much more attractive price. And with the Brugal company enhancing the lives of their employees and the Dominican population in so many tangible ways, every bottle of Brugal sold helps to improve the lives of the Dominicans. And with the aforementioned talmudic concept close at hand, with each sip, we help a soul, we help save the world.

Savor Dallas~Annual Tribute to Food, Wine and the Arts

2010-05-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

Savor Dallas Founder, Jim White (right) at the Saturday night extravaganza

Photo by Jef Tingley

Prior to this wonderful trip, my knowledge of Dallas, Texas was sketchy at best. I was well aware of four of the five major sports teams based there. I knew of the two famous shootings, JFK (profound!) and JR Ewing (who cares?). And I had a fleeting awareness of the adventures Debby had in Dallas. That’s about it. I recently returned from a weekend event called Savor Dallas. And I can say, without reservation, Dallas is a happening city on many levels.

Dallas is a city of almost 1.3 million people, making it the eighth largest city in the US. The Press room-Media kit on the website says “The Savor Dallas concept was envisioned over five years ago by co-founders Vicki Briley-White and Jim White as a means of showcasing Dallas' great chefs, restaurants, cultural and artistic treasures, and to create the signature wine, food, and spirits event the Dallas-Fort Worth Area deserves”. I suppose that is an apt mission statement but this event was so much more. This was the sixth annual Savor Dallas and it’s clear they have worked out all the kinks and have delivered a highly polished, high octane, fun and educational event.

It is obvious by the architecture of this beautiful downtown this is a city with money and a future, with local business people and philanthropists carefully sculpting its future. Dallas has been around for a long time but its skyline is awesome and very modern. Some places exude an architectural style evident throughout city. In Dallas, each building had its own beautiful and very unique design. I.M. Pei, designer of the glass pyramid at the Louvre, has designed five buildings in Dallas. Pritzker Prize winning architects Renzo Piano, Sir Norman Foster and Rem Koolhaas had their stamp on other beautiful buildings in the arts district. It’s as if someone gathered the world’s best architects and put them in a room to come up with something beautiful, grand and aesthetically awesome. The architecture of Dallas is stunning, eclectic and commands your attention like no other modern city.

The downtown Arts district is the largest contiguous urban arts district in the US, anchored by the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Crow Collection of Asian Art, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Hall (I.M. Pei design) and the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House. Nineteen blocks (65 acres) in the heart of downtown Dallas have been very recently constructed or renovated, dedicated to Art of all persuasions. These structures are wonderful and beautiful and quite new. I visited the Opera House (Don Pasquale) and the Symphony Hall (Wynton Marsalis) and the architecture was as beautiful as were the performances. The new Dallas Center of the Performing Arts is a $354 million, multi-venue arts complex. There is a Seattle Space Needle-type building which houses Wolfgang Puck’s brand new restaurant, Five Sixty, opened in January 2009. It is a beautiful restaurant, 560 feet in the air, which rotates. During a typical evening, (if anything Mr. Puck does can be called typical) diners will complete a revolution and see all angles of Dallas from one of its coziest and loftiest spots. Executive chef, Sara Johannes, oversees a kitchen visible from the tables, featuring modern fusion of Asian cuisine.

We arrived in Dallas on Friday March 5th. The plan was to experience Savor Dallas and taste food, wines, beers and spirits in the heart of the Arts District with the finest restaurants in the area providing tasting samples of their signature dishes. The food is regionally inspired, with worldwide flavor influences brought in by each individual chef. Friday evening we attended an Arts District Wine Stroll. This was a stand-up wine and beer tasting, accompanied by inspired food from many local restaurants. We were allowed, no encouraged, to walk the streets, wine glass in hand, and to stroll through several museums, including the Nasher Sculpture Center and its outdoor sculpture gardens. Most of the wines were great, the food was exceptional and the mood of the crowd approached euphoric. Life is good.

We also visited five restaurants to get a quick snapshot of each operation. Bolsa, in the Bishop Arts District, is a wonderful, casual, laid back and very hip market café and wine bar. Chef Graham Dodds, who has headed up restaurants from Vermont to Alaska, features fresh local everything and assembles food in ways that is inspired, delicious and fun. The kitchen has no freezer (what?) and no fryer, by design, so healthy and fresh is clearly their raison d’etre. Bolsa has many hard-to-find beers on tap, as well as boutique winery selections and several unusual assembled cocktails. It is well worth the short trip from downtown Dallas.

The Dallas Chop House features in-house, slowly aged beef as well as a solid menu to appeal to everyone. Award-winning and cowboy-hat-wearing chef, Kenny Mills insists there are no better steaks anywhere, largely due to their dedicated aging room. The restaurant is new, with metal, stone and warm wood finishes. An outside dining area complete with a beautifully crafted fire pit, attracts diners year round. And a telepathic bartender there with a dialed-in sixth sense can look at you and know what your drink of choice is. He looked at me and said “Macallan 25”. How did he know? Always one of my favorites. I had just finished writing a story on Macallan Scotch a couple of days earlier.

We visited the Fairmont Hotel and met with chef Paul Peddle and sampled a few hors d’oevres. They have torn out the flower gardens on a 3000 square foot third floor roof/patio area and installed some small greenhouses and plan on growing herbs and spices, as well as a large variety of vegetables. Chef Peddle felt they could source their own produce, save money and bring produce and seasonings from vine or stalk to pot or pan in a matter of minutes.

Another restaurant not to be missed is chef Stephan Pyles’ Samar. Located in the heart of the Arts district, Samar , which means “late night, softly spoken words between two lovers”, is a middle eastern inspired restaurant complete with outside hookahs available for sharing a smoke. But the beauty of Samar is the food, the ambience, the service. This is an absolutely beautiful, and well thought out, restaurant. Mr. Pyles extensive Mediterranean travels have inspired the décor and the cuisine. The décor celebrates colorful Moroccan, Turkish and Indian patterns. The food, prepared in an open kitchen, is presented beautifully and is meant to be shared. A fire pit draws diners outside with views of the Arts district. This is a very satisfying dining experience on every level.

Three other restaurants need mentioning. Dali Wine Bar, in the arts district works culinary magic. Chef Joel Harloff, frequently changes things up and keeps your dining experience fresh. Abacus restaurant, by Kent Rathbun, is awesome, as are several other Texas restaurants in his group. If it has Kent Rathbun’s name attached to it, it’s great. And, of course, Nobu is always a worthy treat.

Our host hotel, the Sheraton of Dallas is huge but with a very residential feel to it. General Manager, Raymond Hammer, has overseen a $90 million renovation to the hotel. And his high energy level, his attention to every detail and his people skills will keep The Sheraton on the track of excellence. The lobby is beautiful with a couple of bars, several restaurants, merchandise and ice cream stores and a large attractive public computer work area. The restaurants serve a lot of comfort food as well as haute cuisine dishes. All breads and pastries are made in house. The rooms are plush and gorgeous with great city views. Mr. Hammer has assembled a great staff and has hired a personnel trainer, whose job it is to teach friendly and professional customer communication to its staff. Not surprisingly, the Dallas Sheraton was recently voted the “Best place to work in Dallas”.

The late afternoon Saturday Reserve wine tasting on a top floor of the Sheraton Hotel was wonderful. Top quality producers from all around the world , including Krug, Dom Perignon, Inniskillin, Mondavi and Francis Ford Coppola among others, provided their signature wines for sampling. This was followed by the Grand tasting in the Sheraton conference center. This is a food, wine, spirits and music event second to none. Where else can you sample virtually all of the noteworthy restaurants from a city in one room?

The Martha Tiller Company made all the arrangements for this press trip. Martha Tiller is a press coordinator who “has become famous making other people famous”. She has that southern Texas drawl and exudes all the southern charm anyone could ask for. Founder Jim White’s goal is that each year Savor Dallas will continue to grow and improve. It is certain to do that. Git on down there next March. And bring your appetite. Ya’ll need to check it out.

The Wines of Chateau de Sancerre

2010-04-20T15:53:00.001-07:00

Managing director of Chateau de Sancerre, Marc Sorrell in Manhattan

The wines of the Loire region have been described as a “bright spring day in a bottle.” The region is on the west coast of France on an east-west axis flanking the Loire River. The area is towards the northern edge of quality French wine production. In northern areas, red grapes do not reliably reach their full ripeness, so white wines are the norm. A sub-region of the Loire is Sancerre which is in Upper Loire, almost due south of Paris. And in the heart of the Sancerre region is the Chateau de Sancerre vineyards, a property of 64 acres, complete with castle rebuilt in 1874. Their annual production is 150,000 to 200,000 bottles of just three wines, two Sauvignon Blancs and a Pinot Noir. The same people who produce Grand Marnier own this Chateau.

I recently met with Marc Sorrell, managing director of Chateau de Sancerre in Manhattan’s Upper East side. He hosted a luncheon at Fishtail Restaurant on East 62nd Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. Fishtail is Chef David Burke’s latest culinary project, with a goal of being the “first sustainable seafood restaurant.” The restaurant was gorgeous and whimsical, with rooms of various sizes to accommodate different groups and dining experiences. The food was outstanding with artfully prepared presentations.

We began with a shellfish tower. Multi-tiered displays of shrimp, mussels, lobster and clams on the half shell were delivered as centerpieces to the table. Mr. Sorrel, who has been with Chateau de Sancerre for 26 years, poured his first wine, a 2008 unoaked Sauvignon Blanc. It was clean and crisp, fruity with big citrus notes, perfumy and aromatic with hints of honey on the finish. Very pleasant. With each wine, Mr. Sorrel gave a short presentation. “Wines are often served at the wrong temperature." Wines that are served too cold will be “closed”. To bury an already chilled white in a wine bucket will conceal the subtleties and/or complexities of the wine. Chateau de Sancerre uses 100% sauvignon blanc grapes for the two whites they produce and 100% pinot noir for the red. How then can they call these wines blends? He told us that they plot out the vineyard into distinctly different sections. They have flintier soil in some areas, with limestone and/or clay in others. And the different exposures and aspects of each plot will yield a wine of its own character. They handle each plot as its own vineyard from vine to tank. When the aging is complete they will blend the different wines to extract and display the flavors they desire.

The second course, lobster dumplings with a soy ginger butter, is not to be missed. A very clever pouched (think tiny hand bag) presentation with melt-in-the-mouth flavors was brilliant. Simply Wow! Mr. Sorrel paired their 2006 Cuvee du Connetable. Most sauvignon blancs, world wide, never see oak. This wine was oak-aged for one year, blended and then matured in tanks another year before bottling. Sauvignon blancs are meant to be drunk young, usually within three years. He insists this wine has aging potential of 12-14 years. The wine was light to medium bodied with vanilla and balanced citrus. Subsequent tastes showed finely ground white pepper and distant hints of fennel. It melted beautifully on the palate.

The final wine was a 2007 Chateau de Sancerre Rouge. It was 100% pinot noir with 70% of the juice barrel-aged and 30% vat-aged. And again, they blend, unfined, from the different plots to fine tune the textures and tastes. Mr. Sorrel insists pinot noir from an old-world, stone terroir area is vastly different, and more interesting, than a new-world farmland vineyard. This wine was medium bodied, fruity, fresh red cherry, dry, dusty and pleasant. It should be consumed from two to eight years of harvest. It was served with a trio of tuna creations or a roasted branzino. I chose the tuna in order to explore several inspired micro portions of the kitchen’s work. All of Chateau de Sancerre wines pair beautifully with fish or Asian food. I would also serve them as a beachside aperitif.

Sancerrely Yours,
Doug

Flam Winery, Judean Hills, Israel. Wow!

2010-02-11T14:49:00.000-08:00

Gilad Flam (left) of Flam Winery, showing me his wines and barrel aging room

The Flam Winery is due west of Jerusalem on the border of two Israeli wine regions, Samson and the Judean Hills. They currently make just five wines and are truly a family venture. The Dad studied at University of California at Davis in 1968 and provided funding. His two sons, Gilad and Golan, run the show. Golan, the winemaker, learned his craft in Australia and Tuscany. Gilad studied law and business and guides the winery’s direction. We met with Gilad for a tour and a tasting. He calls Flam “One of the first boutique wineries in Israel.” Their first vintage was in 1998. Their wines are not Kosher. Current production is around 100,000 bottles per year. They have 12.5 acres under vine and all grapes are hand harvested under coolness of night. Their inside fermentation room has 13 stainless steel tanks. At present they are exporting only 15% percent of their wines.
We were brought downstairs to the barrel aging room where a large wooden table held some bottles and glassware. Gilad poured their only white wine in production, a 2008 Sauvignon Chardonnay. At 80% Sauvignon Blanc and 20% Chardonnay, it was unoaked which allows pure expression of the grapes. It was crisp, light, refreshingly citrus. It had very good levels of tropical fruit and good aromatics. Gilad explained that with Golan’s Tuscan training and a local weather and terroir that is very similar to southern Tuscany, they make wines in a Mediterannean style. He added, “To make good wines in Israel, you need elevation.” All their grapes come from the upper Galilee and the upper Judean Hills.
Next we moved to reds. We tried the 2007 Flam Classico, a Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blend. It was full bodied with six months in oak. It had great spice, both red and black cherry with hints of white pepper. At $25 US, it is a great price-to-value wine. This was followed by their 2007 Syrah. It showed rich garnet color, bright red cherry and drinks beautifully. Our next pour was a 2006 Merlot Reserve. At 90% Merlot and 10% Petit Verdot, it was full bodied, bright deep garnet colored, great aromatics, clean and a brilliant taste and finish. At $55 US, this wine is highly recommended. Our final wine was a 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve from the upper Galilee. Full bodied, spicy, aromatic, powerful, elegant and clean. Fresh, fruity, vibrant with a delicious sweet oak influence. Very satisfying.
I asked Gilad what he would like American wine drinkers to understand. “American wine drinkers need to connect with Israeli wines, made in the Mediterranean style. Drink our wines with food. Wine started here. Not Napa, not Tuscany.” Indeed as we got ready to leave he said, “Come with me, I have to show you something.” We drove up a hill directly above the winery and there in the woods was an ancient wine press carved into the ledge rock. Back in the day, grapes were dropped into this chiselled out “bath tub” in the rock. After crushing, the juices flowed out a small gutter cut into the low side of the rock. The juice was collected here and put into containers to ferment. Enjoy all these wines now or put the reds down for some increased complexity. They are delicious and will stand up to, or exceed, similar priced wines anywhere.

Ella Valley Vineyards, Israel~ Inspired Quality

2010-02-11T08:53:00.001-08:00

Ella Valley's winemaker, Doron Rav Hon, in their tasting room

Israel’s boutique wine phenomenom began in the mid 90’s and has finally gotten the attention of the wine world. On my recent trip to Israel I visited eight wineries to see, up close, what’s going on. Our first stop was Ella Valley Vineyards in the Judean Hills southwest of Jerusalem. After a small amount of difficulty finding it, we were welcomed into Ella Valley’s reception area. Their first vintage was 2002. They make only Kosher wines. With 17 acres under vine and a 200,000 bottle annual production, they are bigger than many of Israel’s boutiques. But their methods are boutique, with hand harvesting done under the coolness of night. We met with winemaker Doron Rav Hon and sat down to a six minute video describing their operations. Then we were shown the tasting room to try eight of their wines. Doron said, almost apologetically, “We’re trying our best. This is just the beginning.” But there was no need for apologies. Everything we tried drank beautifully.
We started with a 2008 Sauvignon Blanc. It was clean and crisp, with citrus lemon influence and good mineral notes. Very nice. Next we tried the 2007 Chardonnay, aged 11 months in oak. It was straw colored, light bodied, dry with vanilla and citrus. Delicious as an apertif or with dinner. The next pour was a Syrah from 2006. It was medium to full bodied, inky garnet colored, dark cherry, perfumy with penetrating aromatics. This would be a great wine for a cool night. The next four reds we tried had one thing in common; they were all dry wines with an oak and cherry driven sweetness.
The 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon was dark, deeply colored, with red cherry, sweet aromas and hints of black licorice. The 2004 Merlot was garnet colored, with sweet aromas of red cherry supported by leather, spice and black pepper. The 2005 Merlot was dense garnet colored, bing cherry, light tannins, penetrating with light pepper notes. And their Merlot 2004 VC, a reserve wine called Vineyards Choice was inky, deep garnet, great tannins, black pepper with good spice emerging. Highly recommended! Don’t miss this one. Our final Ella Valley wine was their Alexandron Muscat from 2006. It was light bodied, sweet with hints of slight oxidation with big aromatics.
All the wines were really good, drinkable now but should improve with a little time. If you see it on a shelf somewhere grab a couple of bottles for your cellar and introduce an inspired Israeli wine to a friend. The wines are priced from $20 to $46 US.

Macallan Sherry Oak Single Malt Scotch Whisky 18

2009-12-13T12:44:00.000-08:00

Macallan Sherry Oak 18 Years Old Highland Single Malt Whisky

So I got back from Scotland late last night, after a whirlwind trip to the Macallan Distillery and a personal tasting from some of the aged whiskies from different oak casks that contribute to the flavors in the Macallan Sherry Oak 18 Years Old single malt whisky. The entire round trip lasted a matter of hours as we went high tech in Manhattan’s Astor Center in the lower East side. This synchronized cross-Atlantic press event employed a live video feed from Macallan’s blending room, where head whisky maker Mr. Bob Dalgarno, (aka “The Nose of Macallan”) described their whisky making methods and the colors, aromas and flavors that have been blended to become Macallan 18.
Making whisky is a simple thing. Choose your grain and grind it, mash it up with water, filter off the liquid, ferment it, distill it and barrel age it. How easy was that? But making quality whisky is another story. Alexander Reid, a local farmer and whisky maker, is credited with starting Macallan on the banks of the River Spey in 1824. Through the decades Macallan has refined their processes for producing top level single malt scotches, by sourcing or closely overseeing all of their barley production, while owning or managing all aspects of the production, from farming to bottling.
There are many requirements to the different levels of scotch whisky. Generic scotch whisky must be aged in oak casks in Scotland at least three years with a minimum alcohol level of 40 % by volume at bottling. Blended scotch whisky can be made from grains distilled at more than one distillery and can come from a combination of malted barley and other grains. Blended malt scotch whisky can come from more than one distillery but only from malted barley. And single malt scotch whisky can only come from one distillery and only from malted barley. Malting is the process of breaking down the cellular structure of the barley grain to convert the starches into soluble sugars. These sugars then ferment into alcohol.
Macallan has been making a lovely single malt whisky aged in European oak casks that were first used to age sherry in Jerez, Spain. When barley is fermented and distilled, the resultant liquid is colorless. The oak aging process adds color, flavor, aroma and depth to the spirit. Macallan’s whisky aged in Sherry oak shows palpable level of sweetness, spiciness, ginger and wood smoke. Macallan is currently making a 12 year Sherry oak aged whisky, as well as an 18, 25 and 30 year old. Each level of maturation adds to the smoothness and complexity of the whisky as well as the price.
David Cox is Macallan’s director of fine and rare malt whiskies. He hosted the Manhattan event, greeting us at the door, and giving us information via a short video presentation of whisky making on the shores of the River Spey in the northeast of Scotland. Scotland has six single malt regions throughout the country. Speyside, Lowlands, Highlands, Isley, Campbeltown and Islands each make single malt and each imparts their unique flavors to the finished product. Some are earthier, some peatier or bog-like, while others are sweeter with dried fruit, nuttiness or spiciness. This is one of the beauties of exploring single malts. Like wine, the region of origin and terroir is key. But then the whisky maker takes over to craft an individualistic expression of the raw materials.
In front of each of us sat 12 glasses, each identified by a number and each with a small pour of different aging casks. We first tasted the raw, un-aged and transparent whisky. Then we tasted through the 11 samples, each showing different colors with quite different flavor components. Macallan uses no peat to smoke-flavor their whisky and they use no color additives. All of the colors and “60 percent of the flavor of Macallan come from the different oaks and the sherry influence.”
Back in Scotland, Bob Dalgarno talked us through each taste, how it was derived and what micro-flavors we would experience. After tasting all of these samples, servers brought each of us a glass that contained a blend of these whiskies, followed by another glass containing the actual bottled 18 year old whisky. The finished product showed light mahogany colors with a sweetness tempered with notes of ginger, cloves and wood smoke. Mr. Dalgarno suggested we add some water to the whisky. He said, “Water opens the spirit up. It becomes softer. Water changes the character, softening the intensity without diluting flavors. Undiluted, the flavors are bound up and tight.”
Macallan Sherry Oak whisky pairs beautifully with strong earthy cheeses. It can be consumed neat, with ice or with water. Like a fine wine, complex flavors will emerge with exposure to air and water. And as a gift for the guy or gal that has everything, this will not disappoint and will absolutely not be re-gifted. It is a fine and special drink to savor. And it can be enjoyed anytime, well before dinner or well into the evening. And as they say in Scotland, “Slainte mhath!” (pronounced “slanj’-uh-va’) which means “Good health.”

Jackson Estate Wines, New Zealand

2009-10-11T09:56:00.000-07:00

Jackson Estate's head winemaker Mike Paterson in Manhattan recently

With all the talk of global warming and carbon footprint we hear about from around the world, New Zealand has committed itself to being 100% sustainable by the year 2012. Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand is an organization that has developed the framework for companies to continually work towards improving all aspects of their performance, environmentally, socially and economically, in both the vineyard and the winery. Jackson Estate winery (www.jacksonestate.co.nz) has taken this commitment to the extreme. From fertilizers to carton materials, reducing power and water usage, using recycled aluminum screw caps and recycled glass for its bottles and even special labels made out of potato and bamboo, Jackson Estate wants us to know it is doing more than its share in reducing their footprint while also educating consumers about their environmentally friendly approach to viticulture and vinification.

I met with Jackson Estate’s head winemaker Mike Paterson recently at a luncheon at Eleven Madison Park, a four star restaurant in Manhattan’s Flat Iron district at East 24th Street and Madison Avenue. Mike developed a big interest in wines by working in wineries in California, Burgundy and Australia. He then studied viticulture and oenology at New Zealand’s only wine program at Lincoln University. He wanted to introduce us to two Sauvignon Blancs, one Chardonnay and two Pinot Noirs. Jackson Estate is in Marlborough, one of New Zealand’s primary grape growing regions and one of the world’s best production areas for Sauvignon Blanc.

The first wine of the day was their 2008 Stich Sauvignon Blanc. It was light bodied with a fresh fruit component of big citrusy grapefruit and orange zest, tart and crisp with good acidic backbone. Mike poetically called this wine “Marlborough in a glass”.
The second wine we tried was their 2007 Grey Ghost Sauvignon Blanc. Mike told us there was no need to make another traditional Sauvignon Blanc. They set out to create a new and different flavor to this wine. The Grey Ghost is a single vineyard wine “way more savory, nutty and floral” than other SBs. Unlike most SB wines, the Grey Ghost is introduced to old oak barrels, which provides some structure and flavor components. The citrus flavors and white peach came through loud and clear, but the oak added a toasty flavor that was delicious.

Next, Mike poured the 2007 Jackson Estate Chardonnay. This wine was light to medium bodied, tart, lemony citrus with a silky mouth feel. It was aged in oak adding some light honey and toast flavors. They wait until bottling to add sulphur as a preservative. Mike insists this creates a more harmonious wine. Only 1000 cases of the Chardonnay were produced.

We then tasted the 2007 and 2008 Vintage Widow Pinot Noirs. The 2007 was reportedly one of the best harvests for Pinot Noirs in New Zealand. Medium to full bodied, it showed notes of plum and red cherry with good tannins and a hint of sweet oak influence. The 2008 had bright cherry notes with soft licorice and hints of ground black pepper. These wines are structurally sound, very delicious and retail from $22 to $32 making them big in the price to value ratio. Mike told us “We’re still defining our wine boundary region in New Zealand” so like other areas of the wine world, they are still an ascending wine region. Serve the Sauvignon Blancs as an afternoon wine or as an aperitif. The Chardonnay pairs beautifully with salads, appetizers or fish or chicken dishes. And the Pinot Noirs will pair with almost any entrée, enhancing virtually any dining experience.

Le Chateau Wine Dinner Featuring the Loire Valley

2009-10-11T07:11:00.001-07:00

Executive Chef, Andre Molle, enjoys a quiet moment at Le Chateau

On Friday, September 11th, Le Chateau Restaurant in South Salem, New York hosted another wine dinner in their on-going series of food and wine pairings. Owner Monique Jaffre Lozach, Captain-Sommelier Jean Luc Legall and Executive Chef Andre Molle generally create a wine theme of the evening, usually serving wines by a particular producer, importer, grape varietal or region. This event paired up wines from two producers from the Loire Valley in France, imported by Palm Bay International Company.

The lovely Nelly Paget, newly arrived from France and employed by Palm Bay, represented the company and gave a brief description of the Loire region in the west and north of France and then of each wine prior to tasting. But the undisputed star of the evening was Chef Andre. There is talk all around the wine world of boutique this and boutique that. Friday night, Andre Molle turned Le Chateau into a boutique restaurant, with meticulous attention to every detail.

He told me he prepared every part of this meal by himself, starting the prep work at the beginning of the week. Every vegetable, every sauce, every appetizer and entree was prepared by him, and only him, from the purveyor’s delivery truck to the exquisitely plated dish awaiting delivery to the table. He told me “I had a great time doing this. It’s different and it was lots of fun.” I asked him how he came up with the specific food pairings to highlight the wines. “The internet is a beautiful thing. We tasted each of the wines a couple of weeks ago. I went on line and looked at some Loire Valley cuisine, picked up a few ideas, looked at a few cook books for some other ideas and blended them into tonight. I did exactly what I wanted to do with no formal and established menu restrictions.”

Andre is tall and thin with piercing brown eyes and a great sense of humor of the whimsical style, coupled with a lovely manner. Some chefs are dictators, others very business like. I haven’t seen Andre in his kitchen, but I can only imagine his is a very pleasant work environment. He began his tour as executive chef of Le Chateau in March of 2002, “back when my hair was black.” He told me he has only had to let one kitchen staff person go in his eight years there. And there is a consistency to his kitchen with six of his original nine staffers still on the job. He said, “Le Chateau is family owned and this is reflected in the way everyone is treated. It is a very comfortable work environment.” We began the evening with a sparkling Marquis de la Tour Rosé. It was light bodied, lively and fresh with distinct notes of strawberry and kiwi. Accompanying this wine was a selection of hot and cold hors d’oevres, including smoked salmon and capers on wafers, coconut breaded shrimp and crab meat on a pastry shell. We mingled around the room, tasted food and wine, made some introductions and relaxed. Then we were invited to sit down at a large rectangular table, candlelit with many beautiful flower displays, reminiscent of a French chateau wine cellar table. It very comfortably sat all 20 of us. Our first course was a fricasse of shellfish in a delicious broth. With clams, cockles and scallops in a sauce made of lemon grass, coconut milk and orange peel sauce, it paired beautifully with the second wine, this one a 2007 Remy Pannier Mucadet Sevre et Maine Sur Lie. The wine was light, crisp and bone dry with a steely and floral finish. And we asked for another dinner roll to squeeze every last taste from the fricasee sauce.

The second course was a warm terrine of potato and foie gras with a mushroom vinaigrette. I’m not a meat eater and Andre was happy to custom prepare fish dishes for me. I was served a grilled shrimp dish with a carrot and lemon juice and coriander sauce. The wine pairing was a 2007 Remy Pannier Rosé, a blend of three grapes; gamay, grolleau and cabernet franc. It was beautifully colored, tasting fruity and sweet with strawberry notes and a pleasant dry finish.

Following this we served a 2007 Remy Pannier Sancerre, which is made of only sauvignon blanc grapes. It was very citrus and crisp, with puckery grapefruit flavors. Seared striped bass was served with a purée of French herbs bound with bread and a sauce of fish stock, white wine, saffron, curry and fresh tarragon. Each bite was amazing.

Next we were served the only red wine of the evening, a 2006 Chinon made of 100% cabernet franc. It had good tannic structure and was dry, smoky, with hints of mushrooms and earth. We were presented with a seared halibut dish, rubbed in rice paper with basil accompanied with a ginger and curry sauce. “Compliments to the chef.”

Most of the conversations around the table were in native French, making it was very easy to imagine oneself, somewhere in a restaurant in the French countryside. I found myself wishing I had paid closer attention in the several French courses I have taken. Dessert was served with a 2007 Vouvray, my favorite wine of the evening. Made of 100% chenin blanc, it was lively and fresh showing apricot, orange peel, and other citrus. Patisserie Chef Remy Deyglun prepared a chocolate and vanilla napoleon with raspberries which paired magnificently with the wine.

Le Chateau is re-inventing itself as are many restaurants in the current economy. They now have live music on some nights, dancing with live music on others, Sunday brunch, variously priced menu options and specialty wine dinners. Another wine dinner is scheduled for Friday, October 23rd, and is tentatively featuring the wines of Burgundy. I can’t think of a better way to welcome the colder weather, than to sip some chardonnays and pinot noirs from Burgundy and to enjoy Chef Andre’s boutique cuisine.

Hogue Cellars, Washington State. Art Meets Science

2009-09-07T07:28:00.000-07:00

Co Dinn, Hogue Cellars Director of Winemaking, with Merlot in two forms, in the Wahluke slope

In the past few years I have been hearing a lot about Pacific Northwest wines. In restaurants or stores I will often seek out a wine from Washington, Oregon or even British Columbia. It is an exciting young wine region that has perfect latitude and great grape growing terroir, with basalt volcanic influence. I have wanted to visit the region for sometime now and I finally got my chance. Hogue Cellars of Prosser, Washington, would be hosting a press event to get the word out about what they are doing and how far they have come, especially in the past four or five years. Beginning in the early 1950's, Wayne Hogue, now in his nineties, farmed the land successfully, growing multiple crops, including apples, hops and table grapes for market. Taking a cue from the recent success of California's wine industry, his sons, Gary and Mike first planted wine grape vines in 1979. Hogue Cellars' first vintage was in 1982, producing 24,000 bottles of Chenin Blanc and Riesling.

On my recent trip to Washington state I met David Lansing, a fellow wine journalist from California. He has traveled extensively and one interesting comment of his we discussed was “croissants always taste better in Paris and pasta always tastes better in Italy”. We debated this and ruled out local ingredients or the baker or chef as the primary reason. It has to be the exciting environment that makes indigenous food taste significantly better in distant and exotic settings. While in the Wahluke Slope in the Columbia Valley in the eastern half of Washington, we had the opportunity to pick and taste the soon-to-harvested Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes that would become the 2009 vintage, along side Hogue Cellars 2005 Merlot Reserve and 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve wines in appropriate stemware. Standing in the Fries Vineyard, in this glorious hill top setting where Hogue sources its finest grapes, I can assure you the wines were awesome.

We picked a juicy, plump and sweet Merlot grape and tasted it. We sipped the Merlot Reserve wine that began with grapes from these vines a little less than four years ago. Moving over a few rows of vines, we picked a Cabernet Sauvignon grape and tasted it, savoring the essences and imagining how it would taste as a wine. Then we tried the finished Cabernet Reserve wine. Each wine obviously had an alcohol component, each had the tannic structure from the wine making process, and each had the oak barrel aging flavor benefits with hints of vanilla, cocoa and cream. But in each bite of grape we found the wonderful flavors of what the wine would become; bright red cherry flavors tempered with cassis and a blackberry influence.

The Columbia Valley, in the eastern third of Washington State, is a beautiful place. It is part desert, part lush farmland supporting all types of fruits and vegetables. Many of the crops were very close to harvest and empty produce boxes awaited, stacked high and wide beside the vast fields of, among other things, asparagus, hops, apples, peaches, cherries, mint and grapes. The Pacific Northwest has been growing grapes for several decades now and Washington has become the nation’s second largest producer of wine grapes with over 550 wineries in the state. As in many, if not all, other wine producing areas, the art and science of grape growing and wine production has been radically improved in recent years. Washington State University is taking this to heart and has a fully operating experimental winery at their Cooperative Extension service in Prosser, headed up by Dr. James Harbertson. Their research is readily disseminated to anyone interested and is used by many of the local wineries. Hogue Cellars, also in Prosser, has been benefiting from the WSU research and has been conducting some of their own systematic wine studies including bottle closures and tannin management.

Hogue’s head wine maker, Co Dinn, has been with Hogue Cellars for 13 years now, following work at several California wineries and receiving his Masters in Enology at UC Davis. Ten years ago he brought in Jordan Ferrier (also UC Davis Master's Degree) as red winemaker, and then eight years back, Jim Mills (BS in Microbiology and Master's in wine Microbiology) as white wine maker. These guys are smart and ambitious, employing a systematic approach to their craft, and have begun to combine the art and science of winemaking. Their university connections and their analytical approach has helped develop a predictable wine making experience by minimizing the glitches, reducing the need for post maceration remediation. They measure tannin development in the fermentation tank and know exactly when to remove the seeds and skins for proper tannic structure, balance, mouthfeel and wine age-ability. And they know precisely when to harvest in order to get the best fruit and acid balance. Co Dinn talks passionately about many subjects, including all aspects of wine (obviously!), geology, history and road and mountain biking. He told me, “It takes years to figure out which grapes are best for the particular slope, aspect and terroir.” With their new knowledge and science, Co describes his wine making today as similar to the photographer who says to his subject “turn your head this way” for the best angle and light for the person. Slight tweaking of the harvest time, crushing, maceration or press off and they can alter the wine to the best expression of the grapes.

Fifteen million years ago, tectonic shifting created an accordian effect in eastern Washington called the Yakima fold belt. This series of geological “ripples” has become home to several appellations of the region. These “ripples” are a series of slopes on an east-west axis which rise off the desert/plain floor from 200 to 1800 feet and have become regional wine appellations, and go by the names Wahluke Slope, Snipes Mountain, Horse Heaven Hills, Rattlesnake Hills and Yakima Valley. The Cascades mountain range to the west, also helps create the perfect grape growing climate. These mountains create a rain “shadow” which shields the area from the copious rains of Seattle and the west. The Columbia valley receives only ten inches of rain per year and predictably none at harvest time eliminating the quandary of harvesting at non-optimum times in order to avoid rain. Additionally the Cascades create an inversion, making warmer air rise. On the valley floor of the area, freezing temperatures early and late season would hurt the fruit. The warmer weather at altitude protects the fruit and extends the growing season. And there is a predictability to the weather, year after year.

Hogue Cellars is now producing more than 650,000 cases of wine a year. They make many varietals of wines in three different classes, Hogue at around $11, Genesis at $16 and Hogue Cellars Reserve at $25 to $30 depending on the grape, and all are big in the price/value ratio. All three classes show brilliant fruit, but as you move from Hogue to the Genesis and then to the Reserve there is obvious added complexity, depth and aromatics. I asked Gary Hogue to sum up Hogue's success. “It isn't Hogue. It's Washington state. It's the fruit. We're pretty darn successful with our product. We will continue sharing expertise within Washington state. The entire wine region is just scratching the surface of our capabilities.” Next time you aren't sure of what to buy or order, think Washington state wines. Hogue Cellars is, and will continue to be, a regional cutting edge force. And it is well worth it to “buy up” to their next level. For another few bucks you get a lot bigger wine. And don't miss the Hogue Reserve series, currently producing a chardonnay, merlot and cabernet sauvignon. I can't wait to see if they taste as big back home in New York as they did in the vineyards of the Wahluke slope.

Quality Israeli Wines Have Arrived!

2009-08-15T12:58:00.000-07:00

Nearly ripe grapes at Domaine du Castel in the Judean Hills, west of Jerusalem

I felt like my Israeli wine adventure began as the plane touched down onto the tarmac at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, after an uneventful flight. I have been to Israel four times now and each time the plane comes into contact with Israeli terra firma the plane’s passengers erupt into spontaneous applause. On prior visits, I have not been impressed with the Israeli wines I have tried, but this time things would be different.

I love serendipitous events that seem inspired from elsewhere, as if there is a bigger plan beyond my awareness. I travelled to Israel to explore the different wine regions, meet with wine makers and winery owners and talk about and taste their wines. Almost every wine I tried was good, really good. Each winery representative had a story of his, or his parents, coming to Israel. And each had a story of coming to wine production, often a hobby turning into a business. We tasted wines from the five distinctly different regions of Israel that have vastly different weather and terroir. I was gathering information, both factual and anecdotal, on the emergence of high quality wines in Israel, but the direction of my article remained amorphous in my mind until our last night in Jerusalem.

My wife and I had planned on taking in the Sound and Light show (not to be missed) at the Tower of David museum. Closed Sunday. Our fall back plan was to go to the Ticho House of the Israel museum with gardens, art and music. Also closed. So we debated which restaurant to try and finally settled into one. I posed a few wine related questions to our server and I noticed a woman at the adjacent table start to pay attention, as a fellow wine lover will do when talk of wine is in the air. As she and her husband got up to leave, she said she couldn’t help overhearing the wine talk and that she had recently written an Israeli wine article for the Washington Post. She introduced herself as Linda Gradstein (of NPR!). I invited her, and her husband Cliff, to sit down with us and I called over the waitress to bring the bottle I had originally wanted to order, but had shown some uncharacteristic restraint. I ordered Domaine du Castel’s 2007 Petit Castel (Bright cherry, great spice, big aromatics, delicious!) and told them that we had tasted this wine with Domaine du Castel’s founder, owner and winemaker, Eli Ben-Zaken, just hours earlier at his winery. And then Ms. Gradstein posed the one question that brought my Israeli wine experience into focus.

“What do you think of Mark Squire’s (Robert Parker’s Middle East, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus associate) assertion that ‘for Israeli wines to be taken seriously the quality has to get better or the price has to come down’.” I pondered this for a minute through the lens of having tasted well over 100 quality wines from all over Israel during the past week or so. I said, “I disagree”. For Israeli wines to be taken seriously, Jewish people worldwide have to step it up a bit and buy, drink and share interesting bottles of Israeli wines at times other than Seder or Shabbat with Jews and non Jews. And non Jews worldwide need to be educated, that interesting and high quality Israeli wines have arrived. Israel has a Mediterranean climate, volcanic soil, terrain variations that make Vermont and New Hampshire look like foothills, significant day and night temperature variations, snow in the higher latitudes and altitudes of the Galilee and passionate winemakers educated and trained in France, Italy, Australia and the US, among other countries.

There is, what I call a flip effect, specific to Israeli wines. In Israel, wines have to be Kosher in order for the hotels, planes and other large wine outlets to distribute them domestically. However, in the diaspora, which means everything outside of Israel, the Kosher designation has a hugely limiting effect. Israeli winemakers just want a chance to compete on a level playing field. Most stores or restaurant wine lists classify wines by either wine region or country of origin, or by grape varietal. At most wine outlets in the US, Israeli wines get lumped onto a Kosher rack, which give the impression “for (observant) Jews only” which has the effect of instantly and radically reducing the Israeli wine market. Not all Israeli wines are Kosher and there is nothing about making a Kosher wine that compromises the quality. Roy Itzhaki, CEO and export manager of Tulip winery in the southwestern Galilee is making some great fruit driven “value” wines with spice, pepper and full aromatics. He told me “In the US, all Israeli wines are on the Kosher wine rack. And the Kosher rack is near the toilet.” There is some truth to this comment.

Upon my return to New York I went in to several wine stores to see their inventory of Israeli wines. The US stores I visited had a depressing inventory of Israeli wines. When I asked one wine store owner in Bedford, New York if he had any Israeli wines, he said “yes“. He got down on his knees and pulled out one lonely Gamla Chardonnay from the floor level rack. Another store had two Israeli wines of little interest. A third had several Israeli wines but only one, Ella Valley Vineyards, of inspired boutique quality. Store after store I found the same thing; very few Israeli options and the wines they did carry were simple, mass produced and uninteresting.

Historically, unless I have been specifically asking for an Israeli wine, I have never been steered to an Israeli wine by any restaurant sommelier or retailer. No friend of mine has ever said to me, “You’ve got to try this great Israeli wine I discovered from the Golan or the Judean Hills.” Israel now has over 200 wineries, most of them begun in the past 20 years. The boutique winery phenomenon, vaguely defined as annual production of under or around 100,000 bottles, is flourishing in all five wine regions of the country. And most of the wineries are taking advantage of the grape growing research, wine making experimentation and scientific approach taking place at the Golan Heights Winery, under the direction of American born and UC Davis trained winemaker, Victor Schoenfeld.

Among other things, their research using infrared foliar analysis helps determine optimum harvest time better than measuring the brix (sugar content) of the grapes. Indeed, the infrared research shows that grapes on one side of the vine could be optimum and harvested up to a few days out of sync with grapes on the other side. At a wine event in New York recently, Victor told me it takes very few “off grapes” to ruin a batch. Golan Heights Winery will sometimes harvest one side of the rows of grapes and then, when infrared shows optimum harvest time, the other side. When I visited the winery in the Golan I tasted, among other things, an artificially introduced botrytis Semillon dessert wine and, of all things, a delicious “ice wine”, Golan Heights wine, made from Gewurtztraminer grapes harvested and then frozen at the winery to concentrate flavors. There will undoubtedly be a scientific and conceptual trickle down effect to the boutique wineries.

Israel is one of the oldest wine producing areas in the world with archeological digs all over the country giving up rock carved grape presses, shipping and storage amphorae jars and tablets describing winemaking and wine business deals. When the Moslems conquered the area that is now Israel, Moslem alcohol prohibition led to destruction or abandonment of the vineyards for centuries. In the late 1800’s Baron Edmund Rothschild (of Lafite) brought vine stock, wine knowledge and financial support to Jewish settlers in Palestine to re-establish the industry. Then early in the 20th century the wine industry crashed again. The Russian Revolution, Egypt banning imported wine, Prohibition in the United States and the Great Depression all but killed Rothschild’s efforts. And the industry slumbered for decades making mostly formulaic and uninteresting sacramental sweet wines until only recently.

During the 1980’s wine production moved to the cooler climate and better producing areas in the north, where it was shown that respectable wines could be produced by using more appropriate vine stock for the terroir, better technology and better wine making techniques. The 1990’s saw an explosion of smaller wineries that began with little money and a lot of passion. In Israel, a winery or any other agricultural concern, can not own the land upon which the grapes or other produce are grown. Ownership of land is not allowed because the government did not want wealthy individuals to be able to “buy up” the small country. All the vineyards are planted under lease agreements with the local Kibbutzim and Moshav, two cooperative and communal business and living arrangements in Israel. There are no large land purchases required to start a vineyard, therefore start up costs of a vineyard/winery are much less than other parts of the wine world. Start with appropriate root stock, winery equipment and labor, then add water, prune and tend lovingly, wait three years and voila! A new boutique winery is born. One boutique winery, Bazelet Ha Golan, in the Golan Heights began in a bomb shelter, then moved to a cow shed. Domaine du Castel made their first two barrel vintage in 1992 in a chicken coop.

The establishment of an understandable and easily navigable wine route would help plant the seed to visitors from all over the world that their wine production is to be taken seriously. We visited nine wineries and, with the exception of Golan Heights Winery in Katzrin, all were very difficult to find. Pelter winery in the Golan Heights had no road signage at all. Even the sign on the winery building itself didn’t mention ‘wine’ or ‘Pelter’. The only sign I saw on the building was for some nursery supply business or something, no reference to grapes or wines. When I asked directions to Domaine du Castel, the sweet receptionist named Ruth told me “There are no signs to the winery and don’t follow the signs to Castel.” “Huh?“ I couldn’t find Margalit winery, which one current book says is in Caesarea and another says Hedera. It seemed as if they were intentionally creating a challenge. “Find us if you can.” South and west of Jerusalem I was given a wine route pamphlet for the Judean Hills region. It had a map and the winery names, all in Hebrew. I asked for an English version. “Sorry.”

So how do you get the word out to the world? Every visitor to Israel should be considered a potential ambassador of Israeli wines to the world. We stayed in four different places in different parts of the country and I didn’t find a wine glass in any of them. Wine glasses suggest to guests, directly or subliminally, that wine, Israeli wine, is a good beverage choice. I drank some really good wine from juice glasses and coffee cups, as the only option. As previously stated, it is difficult to get to or find these wineries. Italy has established multi- winery wine tasting stores called enoteccas in their urban and destination hill towns where the tourists are. It’s easy to walk into one of these to taste and to buy wines that meet your palate and price point. The Israeli wine industry could start with enoteccas in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Eilat, where the travelers go, to show them and, by proxy, the world, what is happening there. And my 11 hour and 11 minute El Al flight back to New York had no alcohol beverage service in coach. It seemed like a blown opportunity to feature some winery and spread the word.

Despite the ancient wine trade in Israel, the development and production of high quality wines have mostly happened in the past 20 years. There is no reason to believe that this improvement will cease, as new producers and techniques emerge. It is time for the world to recognize the recent and exponential improvement of wines coming from Israel. To the inspired wine producers of Israel, both boutique and other, I offer my applause. Bravo!!! And we all can and should help support Democracy in the Middle East, one bottle, or one case, at a time.

Reference source: Rogov’s Guide to Israeli Wines 2009- Daniel Rogov

Pahlmeyer wines & Crabtree's Kittle House Dinner

2009-06-25T06:52:00.000-07:00

Pahlmeyer winemaker Erin Green at Crabtree's Kittle House, Chappaqua, New York

When a fully pedigreed (UC Davis, Turley, Bryant Family, Colgin) wine maker from Napa, California comes to the legendary Crabtree’s Kittle House in Chappaqua, New York to host an evening of tasting her brilliant wines paired with executive chef Kevin Bertrand’s custom five course dining experience, it’s certain to be a night to remember. On Friday, June 19, 2009, Erin Green, chief winemaker of Pahlmeyer and Jayson wines for the past ten years, came to Westchester County with many of her wines to share. And to help make the evening special, restaurant owner John Crabtree pulled out of his remarkable cellar several other Pahlmeyer wines. I had the great privilege of sitting next to Ms. Green for most of the evening. We tasted through a few chardonnays, then a couple of Pinot Noirs, followed by two Merlots and finally, three Bordeaux style blended reds.

We began the evening with an hors d’oeuvres stand up reception accompanied by a 2007 Jayson Chardonnay. The wait staff served us shrimp dumplings in ginger broth, steamed mussels with miso hollandaise, chicken sausage with crème fraiche, little lobster rolls, seared yellow fin with wasabi cream and kumomoto with cucumber and caviar. Each bite was perfect, both in size and taste, as well as the synergistic effect the wine and food had on each other. The chardonnay was deliciously dry with an unctuous mouth feel, pineapple and citrus notes with a balanced oak influence.

Ms. Green gave a short description of each wine flight served and then returned to her place setting immediately to my right. I then had the opportunity to taste each wine with her and discuss the various influences on the production of each wine that contributed to the flavors. Our first course was an arctic char served with fava beans, manila clams in an oceanic broth. Two Pahlmeyer chardonnays were served. The just- released 2007 had a great mouth feel with crisp citrus notes balanced with fresh pineapple. The 2002 tasted of rich nectar and citrus. Erin had not tasted the 2002 in quite some time. She tasted the ’02 and quietly declared it “wonderful”. She brings a passion to tasting her wines that is palpable and infectious. When asked which wines worldwide were her favorites, “Pahlmeyer” was her instant response. Ambassadors of any venture have to toot their own horn. But Erin genuinely loved each taste, sometimes expectantly, sometimes with surprise at how a wine was developing in the bottle. She talked up her wines as a proud parent talks up his honor roll child.

My second course was a seared tuna course served with tomato foam. The two pinot noirs served were both from 2006. Pahlmeyer produces two levels of wine. The top label goes by that name. The second label is Jayson. Each were served side by side. The Jayson pinot noir was approachable with cherry flavors balanced with an old world earthiness. The Pahlmeyer pinot noir was medium bodied with cherry, raspberry and good tannins, suggesting solid age- worthiness.

My next course, a pan- seared halibut, was served with two Pahlmeyer Merlots. The 2003 had depth with rich oaky tannins and pronounced hints of licorice and spice. The 2005 showed deep red cherry notes balanced with sweet oak influence. They were quite different from each other but each was interesting, layered, sumptuous and delicious.

Next, an outstanding pasta course was brought to me. It was blended with beans and tomatoes and a rich, brothy sauce. The wines served with this course were Proprietary reds that were the early conceptual direction of Pahlmeyer. Jason Pahlmeyer’s original wine idea was to create a Bordeaux style blend in Napa. Pahlmeyer’s proprietary blends are made up of the same grapes used in Bordeaux; cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, petit verdot and malbec. The final blending percentages of each varietal are determined by Ms. Green to create a full bodied, multi-nuanced wine that drinks well early but is cellar worthy. These two blended wines, the Jayson and the Pahlmeyer, both from 2005, were, quite frankly, awesome. Both displayed dried currants, blackberries, caramel, sweetness, chocolate with wild berries and a long lingering finish.

Two final dessert courses were served with a 2003 Pahlmeyer proprietary blend. A selection of farmstead cheeses was presented followed by a champagne sabayon with fresh berries. The earthiness of the cheese and the sweetness of the berries balanced the richness, freshness and earthiness of the wine.

I asked Erin about her vineyard and winemaking personal signature philosophy. “We do everything at the optimum time. A lot of pride goes into these wines.” Prior to blending she will put small samples of the wines in glasses that she tastes each day for several days. If it “falls apart” after a day or two it won’t stand up to her wine standards of depth and age-ability. They also harvest their grapes in the middle of the night under flood lights. This not only protects the workers from the direct sun, but cool grapes are delivered to the sorting tables which helps “keep the wine fresh and the fruit alive”.

John Crabtree has a passion for wine, evidenced by his cellar 25 years in the making. He also has a passion for food, serving largely very fresh and very local foods. He regularly invites top tier winemakers from around the world to showcase their wines at his restaurant. At http://www.kittlehouse.com/ you can subscribe to Crabtree’s email list and be among the first to learn of these events. The Pahlmeyer dinner was outstanding on every level and I will remember it as a very special noteworthy event. The cost for this event, though not cheap, in retrospect was a bargain.

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Beaujolais~Shedding Myths and Misconceptions

2009-05-09T14:57:00.000-07:00

Roger Dagorn, Master Sommelier, addressing the press at a Beaujolais luncheon

The Beaujolais Nouveau phenomenon has created a “Miller Lite” effect on the Beaujolais region, which a new integrated PR campaign is determined to change. A couple of decades ago the Miller Lite ads were so successful consumers couldn’t get enough of it. However, the Miller brand suffered as “Miller” and “Lite” became synonymous, and they couldn’t sell their fuller bodied beers. Beaujolais Nouveau is considered by some to be nothing more than a marketing gimmick, by creating hype of the early release of the current year’s vintage on the third Thursday in November. It has no barrel aging, no complexity, but it is fresh, lively and inexpensive; a fun and flavorful picnic wine often served slightly chilled. And by any measure it has become an unqualified marketing success story. However, this light and frivolous wine has created a reputation which has undeservedly spilled over to the rest of Beaujolais.

Mr. Jean Bourjade is the Chief Executive of Inter Beaujolais, the official wine-trade organization of the region. Their primary goal is to “redefine Beaujolais in the mind of the consumer”. On May 6th he was joined by Master Sommelier, Roger Dagorn and about 25 members of the press for an educational luncheon and wine tasting at the Irving Mill Restaurant, near Union Square in Manhattan.

We were greeted and shown to the bar where seven wines were offered as aperitif. The Beaujolais region grows the Gamay grape almost exclusively, is technically part of Burgundy and is divided into 12 appellations. Beaujolais is the most common of the Beaujolais appellations. Its wines are fresh, fruity and light bodied. Beaujolais Villages is made up of 38 communal producers. Here you will find more complex wines with more tannins and some age-ability. Then there are 10 Cru regions in the northern part of Beaujolais. These grapes are hand harvested, the wines handcrafted, with each of these regions imparting their unique soil, vine and micro climate influences on the grape, at which point the individual winemakers begin their art.

A major misconception of Beaujolais is the wines must be drunk young and that you can’t age them. The wines can be consumed young. But there is also aging potential, especially for the Cru producers. Mr. Bourjade said these wines could be aged 60 years. I thought I heard a snicker in the room, (it might have been me) but the point is with time these wines will develop complexity and depth, before they are past peak, similar to the finer Rhone varietals and Burgundies. A wine trail is being developed in Beaujolais from Burgundy to Lyon, complete with maps and signage, prior to this summer’s tourist season. The region has been referred to as the “French Tuscany” with it’s rolling hills and it’s cathedral-centric towns.

Mr. Dagorn called Beaujolais the “forgotten wine”. And he called it absolutely a “food wine” which goes with all cuisines, from French and Italian to fusion and Asian. White wines make up only one tenth of one percent of Beaujolais production. I tasted the 2007 Beaujolais Villages Blanc, Domaine Pascal Granger “La Jacarde.” Made of 100% Chardonnay, it has floral aromas, is crisp, citrusy and very pleasant.

We were escorted downstairs to a long, bright room, complete with archways and the longest dining table I have seen, that captured the feeling of an authentic winery cellar. In 2008 Chef Ryan Skeen was one of 15 recipients (nationwide!) for the James Beard Rising Star Chef. He began the luncheon with a charcuterie plate. Each of the four courses was served with two different glasses of Beaujolais Cru. The 2006 Michel Tete, Domaine du Clos du Fief from Julienas displayed a full earthy nose with notes of cherry and strawberry on the palate. The ’06 Domaine Joel Rochette, Cuvee des Braves Vieilles Vignes from Cru Regnie was fruit forward, dry and light bodied.

The second course was a delicious pistachio crusted rouget with leeks and bouillabaisse broth. The ’07 Chateau Thivin, Cote de Brouilly showed darker cherry, deeper flavors, good spice with light pepper notes, along with a raspberry finish . The ’07 Pierre-Marie Chermette, Domaine du Vissoux Les Garants, from Fleurie, was medium to full bodied, big cherry, good tannins with a balanced, long finish.

Next, I was served a light and ethereal cheese ravioli dish with a concentrated red pepper sauce and herbs. Accompanying this was an ’06 Domaine Piron and Lafont Quartz from Chernas. It showed red fruits and persistence on the palate with a dry bright clean finish. My favorite wine of the day was an ’06 Christophe Pacalet from Chiroubles. It was very good with earthy, velvety notes with red fruit and good tannins delicious now but suggesting several years of cellar benefit.

An artisanal cheese plate was served with an ’06 Louis Jadot, Chateau des Jacques from Moulin a Vent (earthy, dry, elegance and power with bright finish) and an ‘06 Jean-Paul Chevenet Vieilles Vignes from the Morgon region which was rich, full bodied, earthy with notes of cinnamon, cloves, vanilla with good tannins and acids.

I must admit, I was less than excited when I received this Beaujolais invitation. In my mind, the wines of Beaujolais were simple, fruity, minimally structured, used for thirst quenching but certainly not for analyzing and discussing the flavors and nuances. Many of the wine descriptives from the day are more in line with finer Burgundies, Bordeaux and the wines of the northern Rhone Valley. By changing the emphasis from Nouveaus to Crus and creating a brand identity from the top (Cru) down, perhaps public perception will change. The more interesting wines of the region can compare favorably with many wines from other respected regions of the old world. For the price you would pay for a moderate Burgundy, you could buy two or three Beaujolais Crus and still have money left over. In the present economy, it may be the way to go.

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Texas Wine Dinner-Escondido-Horseshoe Bay

2009-04-25T15:53:00.000-07:00

Daniel Ha,Vineyard 29 Director of Hospitality and Doug Paulding
Photo by Ron Parks

Prior to last Friday, I had never been to Texas. I had always heard everything was big in Texas. At a very exclusive wine and food pairing dinner I found this to be true. All of the Vineyard 29 wines served were big, the food prepared by celebrity chef, Kent Rathbun was huge, and the residents of Escondido in Horseshoe Bay are used to living large. Escondido is a private lakeside golf preserve in Texas hill country on the shores of Lake LBJ, about an hour northwest of Austin. This is not some timeshare condo golf community. Most of the homes are second (or third or fourth) homes for the owners and are either owner-occupied or empty. The Old World architecture is rustic luxury; Tuscan Villa meets Southwest style. The homes aren’t massive. Rather they are very tastefully and beautifully understated from the outside, but with every conceivable amenity available inside and out.
The centerpiece of this community is the Tom Fazio designed golf course featuring live oaks, persimmon and pecan trees, and a stream complete with small waterfall, alongside some very dramatic (and large!) granite outcroppings. The course plays as beautifully as is the setting.
On Friday, April 10th I made the trip to Horseshoe Bay to experience a very memorable and impressive evening. Escondido wine director, Michael De La Vega, is determined to expose his regular clientele to unique food and wine experiences way beyond those of other elite communities. Michael has extensive connections in the food and wine industry. He brought in Daniel Ha (Director of Hospitality) of Napa Valley’s Vineyard 29 to serve, teach and discuss their wines. Daniel is fun and charismatic, with a broad knowledge of wines and an infectious enthusiasm for Vineyard 29 selections. He also recruited Kent Rathbun, chef and owner of a handful of award- winning Dallas area restaurants. Mr. Rathbun recently went mano-a-mano with Bobby Flay on the Iron Chef America competition and schooled him. On Friday, the menu was intriguing, the food was simply (but exotically) off- the- charts.
We began the evening as the sun was dipping in the western sky, colorfully silhouetting some large, distant and solitary oaks. The polished and affable dining room manager Jeff Cohen served a 2006 Sauvignon Blanc on a large outside patio (complete with a big bonfire size fire pit) overlooking the golf course. Don’t look to buy this wine this year as only four barrels were produced. Despite being aged for 18 months in New French Oak barrels, the oak influence was understated. It was crisp, floral with a light sweet oak presence and a pleasant, balanced finish. Tuxedoed and white-gloved wait staff served lemongrass tempura oyster with a coconut curry sauce and delicious goat cheese on a pecan wafer.
We moved inside to the dining room for the first course, a smoked rabbit sausage served on top of a crawfish mushroom ragu. A 2006 Vineyard 29 Aida Zinfandel was served to stand up to, and enhance, the food. Daniel called this wine a “pure expression of zinfandel”. It was fruit forward with big dark blackberry flavors and hints of sweetness, contributed by the oak aging.
The second course, a porcini-asiago cheese tart, was paired with a 2006 Vineyard 29 Cabernet Franc. I found this wine to be dusty with blackberry notes, a bit overly dry on the palate. Blending this particular wine with small amounts of Merlot might make it more user friendly.

Each course was delivered to us by a carefully choreographed team. Jeff Cohen and Michael De La Vega oversaw all aspects of the evening. The eight diners of each table were served all at once by eight servers, marching out from the kitchen formal parade-style, each carrying one plate and standing behind one diner. With eye contact cues, servers placed the plates in front of all of us simultaneously.
My next course, a deviation from the prescribed menu of Duck Breast, was an ethereal salmon dish. Chef Kent seared a filet of salmon and placed it on a corn base with a deliciously thick and smoky chipotle sauce. The contrasting flavors of each bite were magnificent. It was served with a 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon, which exhibited dark fruit with a big mouthfeel. Following this a lamb rib eye was served with toasted garlic sangria glaze and a three-potato risotto. Because of my personal dietary restrictions, (fish- and egg-eating vegetarian), Kent made me a wonderful swordfish entrée. It was served with a Vineyard 29 Aida Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine was powerful, in the Napa Cab tradition, with big fruit presence and good and balanced tannins, suggesting perhaps, an additional benefit to some cellar aging.
For dessert, we were served gourmet and hand crafted movie theatre food…and it was awesome. Notelle-milk chocolate crunch (think Nestle’s Crunch bar) and Caramel Popcorn (Cracker Jacks) was paired with a 2008 Vineyard 29 Late Harvest Zinfandel. The wine was delicious, unctuous and creamy with sweet oak flavors.
At Escondido, at this point in time, there are only about 50 building lots still on the market. And of the 285 house sites only about 15 percent of them are developed. A large clubhouse, complete with spa and formal dining room is planned. As word of these Michael De La Vega events spreads through the community, and vacant house lots become homes, it’s a good bet the anticipated and much larger (and more formal) dining room will book up. Reserve your space early for an experience and education. The memories will be big…Texas –style.

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Bordeaux Tasting~Manhattan

2009-04-13T07:04:00.000-07:00

Dr. Alain Raynaud, winemaker and owner of Chateau La Fleur de Gay, and President of Cercle Rive Droite

On March 10,2009, two different Bordeaux organizations collaborated on a wine tasting at the Tribeca Rooftop in Manhattan. The Cercle Rive Droite and Today’s Bordeaux came to New York to host a tasting of recent vintages. Today’s Bordeaux is comprised of many producers of approachable and modestly priced wines, ranging from $8 to $35. The 100 wines chosen to represent this price range from Bordeaux were jury picked from 350 wines. The wines selected represented five vintages ranging from 2003 to 2007. The Cercle Rive Droite (Right Bank producers) is made up of 134 Chateaux and were represented by 31 producers and their 2008 primeurs, which was essentially a coming out party for the 2008 vintage which only had about one month of oak barrel aging, compared to typical full barrel aging time of 10 to 18 months.

One of the goals of the event was to remind consumers that although some Bordeaux wines are among the world’s elite, both in reputation and price, there are many producers there making high quality wines that will not break the bank. The Bordeaux region produces 60 to 70 million cases of wine each year. There are nearly 10,000 producers, with prices all over the spectrum. Many of these vineyards abut or are very close to some highly esteemed producers. Chateau Valrose, in the Saint-Estephe region, is very close to Cos d’Estournel, a highly regarded Chateau. The 2004 Chateau Valrose showed dark and rich cherry flavors, with a fruity and elegant finish. I didn’t get to taste all the wines, but of those I tried the following were noteworthy. The 2007 Chateau Bonnet, a blended white with 50% Sauvignon Blanc, 40% Semillon and 10% Muscadelle, was citrusy and crisp, with a retail price of $13. The 2005 Grand Enclos Du Chateau de Cerons had big grapefruit flavors and a crisp, refreshing finish. Both would be wonderful served as a summertime aperatif or with shellfish.

Switching to reds, the 2005 Chateau Beauregard Ducase, had good tannins and fruity aromas, suggesting a little cellar time might deliver it to its ideal. The 2005 Chateau La Bonnelle showed great dark fruit aromas and taste. One of my favorites, the 2006 Chateau D’Agassac, a Cabernet Sauvignon (65%) and Merlot (35%) blend, had dark fruit and a long satisfying finish. The 2006 Chateau Laugupeau displayed deliciously strong and interesting notes of strawberry. Chateau Larose-Trintaudon presented their 2004 Cab/Merlot/Cab Franc blend, which was simply delicious. It had prominent red cherry notes with a balanced finish. Other wines to be recognized as worth finding are the 2005 Chateau Plain Point, the 2006 Chateau de Seguin, the delicious 2005 Chateau Tour de Calens and the 2006 Chateau Tour Prignac. For the price of one bottle of the bigger Bordeaux names you could take home all of these and have a very interesting and satisfying wine experience.

Next, I moved on to the Cercle Rive Droite Primeurs tasting. We were tasting 2008 barrel samples, to get an early sense of this vintage. Keep in mind, most of these 2008’s had only seen about 45 days in oak, with many months of oak development still to happen. They were all an interesting work in progress. I wasn’t able to taste all of the 31 wines offered. Oenologist Michel Rolland writes of the 2008 vintage, “weather conditions remained extremely mediocre.” This caused a historically late harvest, which led to “ dense wines with good structure, they possess all the features for a very good and surprising vintage!!!” Noteworthy wines of 2008 that I tasted are Chateau Dalem, showing good tannins and dark cherry notes, Chateau de la Dauphine, with fruity notes and a balanced elegant finish. Chateau Le Trois Croix tasted of grapes and ripe blueberry. Chateau La Fleur de Gay, at $35 retail and 100% merlot, had dark fruit, blackberry aromas with a clean balanced palate. Chateau Bard-Haute and Chateau La Commanderie both showed dark fruit with great aromas.

Meritage is a term for a concept of grape blending in the Bordeaux tradition. On the Left bank, grapes ripen earlier and Cabernet Sauvignon usually has plenty of hang time to ripen up, so it is usually the prominent grape in Left bank blends, balanced out by Merlot and Cabernet Franc. The Right bank is colder and Cabernet Sauvignon takes longer to ripen so Merlot becomes the dominant grape followed by the others. The seasonal idiosyncracies will dictate the percentage of each grape in the final blending.

As I’ve said before, price-to-value in wines is important to me. In my personal collection of wines, I have a large range of prices represented. Some nights I want to go big. Other times I like exploring something I have not tried. All of the Chateaux represented by these two organizations are value wines, meant to be consumed, and not put down for some future payoff on the palate. Buy several and take a vicarious trip to the Southwest of France via the palate.
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Golan Heights Winery-Not Your Father's Kosher Wine

2009-03-31T07:52:00.000-07:00

Victor Schoenfeld, Chief winemaker, Golan Heights Winery

If you’ve never tried an Israeli wine before, or if you have and were disappointed, it’s time to jump in to see what’s not cooking. Despite being only about the size of New Jersey, and despite very hot temperatures in much of the country, Israel has micro climates, topography and soil types that are conducive to crafting world class wines. American born and educated Victor Schoenfeld (University of California, Davis-enology) is leading the charge to introduce those raised on sweet Kosher sacramental plonk to tasty wines. As the chief winemaker at the Golan Heights Winery northeast of the Sea of Galilee, Schoenfeld competes internationally as an award winning producer of quality wines. Yarden’s Katzrin 2004, a blend of 94% Cabernet Sauvignon and 6 % Merlot, is only produced under this flagship label when all the growing conditions are optimal. There were only 6 vintages from 1990 to 2004 that made the cut, and were labeled Katzrin. The Wine Spectator recognized the 2004 Katzrin for inclusion on their list of the top 100 wines of 2008 worldwide. Lesser vintages are sold under different labels.

The vineyards of the Golan Heights are situated in the north at altitudes from 1,300 to 3,900 feet above sea level. To put this in perspective, New England has 18 peaks above 3,900 feet. At this altitude, there is frequent snow cover in the winter. The lower temperatures of altitude and the volcanic basalt soils help to stress the grapes and increase hang time which allows the wines to develop structure, layers and integrity.

On January 23, 2009 Victor Schoenfeld came to the City Winery in Manhattan, bringing with him 11 wines from different Golan vineyards under the Golan Heights Winery umbrella, to discuss Israeli growing conditions, the science behind their vineyards and the fruit of the vine itself. The wines ranged in price from a $16 2006 Yarden Chardonnay to a 2003 and 2004 Yarden Katzrin, each retailing for $100. There were about 20 members of the press in the small glass enclosed tasting room downstairs at the functioning winery, immediately adjacent to Manhattan’s 1, 2 and 3 subway line. Each place setting had 11 glasses, that rattled in a locust-like chorus with every train that went by.

We started off with their 2006 Yarden Chardonnay. At 14.5% alcohol, it seemed slightly hot on the palate, but it showed good mineral notes. The next wine was another Chardonnay from their Odem Organic vineyard, which is the largest organic vineyard in Israel. “Organic” and “sustainable “ are concepts only recently introduced into the wine world, signifying a rapidly growing trend. These farming techniques have gone from gimmicky to the preferred style of growing grapes in a very short time frame. This pleasantly dry Chardonnay was lemony, with ripe pear and honey.

Switching to reds we tasted Yarden’s 2004 Merlot (fruity, orange zest, red & black fruits, a little soft), Yarden’s Merlot Ortal Vineyard, 2004 (Fruit, balanced, bright fruit flavors), and Yarden’s 2003 Syrah which was earthy, smoky with ripe fruits and good tannic structure. Yarden’s Syrah Ortal Vineyard 2004 (retail $50) showed great fruit of blackberry, cherry and raspberry with balanced oak presence. The Yarden 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon had fresh berry, ripe cherry, earth and good spice. From the El Rom Vineyard, the 2004 Yarden Cabernet had notes of tobacco, chocolate and leather. We tasted 2 vintages of the Yarden Katzrin. The 2003 was tannic and tight with dominant dark cherry and cassis and hints of vanilla. The 2004 was fruit forward, open and fresh with dark fruits and earthy presence. Simply delicious! Both of these Katzrins will hugely benefit from decanting and/or cellar time.

The final presentation of the day was a 2008 Yarden Gewurtztraminer. This is an excellent way to finish a meal. Sweet, creamy, honey, fruity with notes of kiwi and gentle spice, it was also delicious. At a retail price of $15 for a 375 mililiter bottle, it can stand up to late harvest dessert wines of much higher prices.

This ain’t your father’s Kosher wine. These wines are structured, interesting…They evolve in the glass and will age with grace. Any dinner, be it a Seder, a Shabbat meal or fine dining with friends will be enhanced by these wines. And the very technical vinification measures employed in all their vineyards, suggest the quality curve of Yarden wines will continue to ascend.

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Mercer Estates - Affordable Quality Wines - Washington State

2009-03-29T10:11:00.000-07:00

Washington State’s Mercer Estates Cabernet Sauvignon

Another new wine venture is blossoming in the Pacific Northwest with their first vintages becoming available now. The Mercer and Hogue families have partnered up and brought in veteran winemaker David Forsyth, formerly of Hogue Cellars, to create interesting, affordable and delicious wines that express the natural qualities of a very exciting wine region. In David’s words, “My wines emphasize a natural fruit character and their terroir, the elements that come from careful stewardship of the vines and care in the cellar, not from a complexity we impose on the grape.”

On March 23, 2009, David came to Manhattan, along with Rob Mercer and Ron Harle to host a wine luncheon at the Market Table Restaurant and present, taste and discuss their newest vintage in this new vine venture. We tasted five of their six wines currently available, all reasonably priced from $15 to $24 retail. We began with a 2007 Pinot Gris, which was crisp, citrusy, balanced. No oak aging is employed in this wine so the predominant flavors are of bright, vibrant fruit. Next up was a 2007 Riesling, which was floral and perfumy with a great citrus balance and good acids. It displayed good aromatics, with light lemon presence, along with peach and apricot. Both wines are a great way to welcome guests to a dinner party.

As we made our way to our tables for our first course, we were served a Columbia Valley Chardonnay, made with French oak barrel fermentation. It was creamy with vanilla notes and balanced oak influence and a lingering finish. This was the only wine of the day that wasn’t a complete hit with me. At 14.1% alcohol it was a bit hot on the palate. As the main course was being presented, we were served the first red of the day, which was a barrel sample of the 2007 Merlot. It displayed bright cherry aromas with a big oak presence. Cassis and moderate tannins rounded out this wine. As the barrel aging of this wine was not complete there was still likely to be increased complexity achieved at bottling time.

The final wine was Mercer Estate’s 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon. Again, we were tasting very young wines that have only begun their aging process into a mature red. This wine showed good tannins and spice, good structure, bright cherry flavors, with cassis and vanilla influence. It was very pleasant with good aging potential.

Washington State is producing some brilliant wines and Mercer Estates sources their grapes in three of the states appellations, Yakima Valley, Horse Heaven Hills and the Columbia Valley. Price-to- value ratio is a huge component in wine choices for me and the wines of David Forsyth are a big hit here. They currently have 270 acres under vine with an annual production of 30,000 cases. To find these wines, check out http://www.mercerwine.com/ .

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Jost Vineyards

2009-03-25T06:53:00.000-07:00

Hans Christian Jost sampling some highly distilled grape juice used in some of his fortified Ports.

Jost Vineyards ~ Malagash, Nova Scotia
July 2008

If your travel plans involve Prince Edward Island or the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia consider Jost Vineyards on the mainland as a highlight side adventure. Jost Vineyards was founded 25 years ago, on the Northumberland Strait on a sloping hill facing the ocean. Hans Christian Yost, owner and son of the founder, is a charismatic and engaging host, who oversees every part of the operation. He is a whirlwind of energy, with a story to tell behind every vintage, grape type and varietal. He is very busy, to be sure. But his obvious love and demonstrated passion of his career and his vineyard is palpable. I met with him recently during a brief side excursion en route to a family reunion on Cape Breton Island. He showed me the inner workings of the winery, while we tasted distilled grape juice which was almost pure alcohol, used to fortify some of his wines to Port.

You can find the usual grape types here as well as some unusual clones. The Pinot Grigio and Seyval blanc is crisp and delicious. But don’t miss the L’Acadie Blanc (dry with vanilla notes) and the Cabernet Blanc (crisp and fruity) , if for nothing else, an education in rare cultivars. Jost makes Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir, but the early ripening, brilliant Marechal Foch Reserve, is a complex and beautiful wine that will age with grace. Jost Vineyards also makes a blueberry wine, a maple syrup wine and a late harvest dessert wine from the Vidal grape that is everything a dessert wine should be…fruity, unctuous, honey notes…simply delicious. –Doug Paulding

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Le Chateau Wine Dinner-South Salem, NY

2009-03-25T06:48:00.000-07:00

Vincent Mareel (Nicolas Selections), Captain-Sommelier Jean Luc Legall, Owner Monique Jaffre Lozach and Executive Chef Andre Molle.

Outstanding Wine Tasting Dinner at Le Chateau Restaurant
Written by Doug Paulding

“Terroir…Degorgement…chaptalization…on its lees…Botrytis…” A wine education was a side benefit to Friday night’s (November 21) Wine tasting dinner at Le Chateau Restaurant in South Salem. Vincent Mareel, brand manager of Nicolas Selections wines collaborated with executive chef Andre Molle to create an evening of noteworthy flavors, and the stories behind each pour were simply fascinating. Mr. Mareel’s body of wine knowledge is vast and he enthusiastically discusses all aspects of the industry with valuable information and anecdotes from the growers and producers.

It was an intimate gathering with about 25 people in the grand dining room. Owner Monique Jaffre Lozach welcomed each of the guests and escorted them to their table. Monique introduced Vincent and invited him to discuss the first wine, a sparkling Jules Bertier, Chenin Blanc from the Loire valley. It was served in champagne flutes and was produced by methode champenois, exactly as producers make bubbly in the Champagne region. It was crisp and tightly wound, with hints of citrus and green apples, very dry with a clean finish. The hot and cold hors d’oeuvres delivered on silver platters by tuxedoed waiters were delicious and fun. Light and airy cheese popovers, quail egg with caviar, crisp and meaty crab cakes, and a bite size chicken purse all made multiple rounds. Sparkling wine is a lovely way to begin a food and wine evening and Le Chateau brought it full circle by serving it again with dessert.

The first course was a Terrine of duck rillette with foie gras confit. Served with a Maison Nicolas Sauternes, a sweet and unctuous wine with distinct notes of pear, the flavors of food and wine melted into the tongue. Andre’s second course was a Pike Quenelle (think gourmet gefilte fish) served with a Lobster gratin was ephemeral with a lingering mouthfeel provided by the sauce. It was served with a 2006 Chateau Ferrande White from the Graves region of Bordeaux which had been aged for 10 months in French oak and was perfumy with light lemon, crisp, steely, dry, austere and very pleasant. After each wine was poured and before each course delivered, Vincent spoke at length with never a shortage of stories or information.

The third course, a duo of roasted filet of beef and braised short ribs with a red wine sauce, was served , appropriately, with a duo of red Bordeaux wines. The delicious 2005 Chateau Cormeil Figeac had aromas of cherry and pomegranate with a slight vanilla and menthol on the finish. The second wine was a 2005 Chateau D’Arcins Haut Medoc Cru Bourgeois, which was earthier with ripe cassis, spice and mint on the palate. A post entrée salad and cheese course came next. A softer Brie cheese accompanied a wedge of Petit Basque, a harder cheese, served with a light salad and a big 2005 Chateau Haut-Surget, Lalande de Pomerol. The cheeses enhanced the red wine flavors of dried plums and figs. The tannins suggest a benefit in cellaring and Vincent suggested these young Bordeaux wines would continue to improve for a couple of decades. “Your patience will be rewarded.”

An apple ginger bread dessert was served with Sauternes Gelee and Prune Armagnac ice cream which was absolutely delicious. Served with the sparkling Loire Chenin blanc that we began the evening with, the bubbly tickled the tongue and cleansed and refreshed the palate. It was an evening of brilliant food and wine pairings, combined with a brief yet deep education of the Bordeaux French wine region. The majesty of the building, the finely tuned service and the cuisine of Andre Molle has re-inspired Le Chateau to bring it to a truly epic destination dining experience of the tri state area.

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Wines of Cyprus-NYC

2009-03-25T06:41:00.000-07:00

Andrea Englisis of Athenee Importers discusses the Commandaria dessert wine with the Cypriot trade commissioner, Aristos Constantine in Manhattan

The Wines of Cyprus~Manhattan~December 4, 2008
Written and photos by Doug Paulding

When it’s time to confound your favorite wine expert with a blind tasting that can’t be won, pick up a wine from Cyprus, disguise it in foil or a paper bag and ask your friend to identify the region and grape varietal. The Cyprus Embassy Trade Center and the Cyprus-US Chamber of Commerce collaborated on a Wines of Cyprus tasting on December 4 in Manhattan. It felt like a debutante party for an octogenarian as I had never heard of most of these ancient varietals, which are among the oldest on the planet, some dating back to pre-Homer.

One region, Commandaria, is the oldest wine appellation in the world and is the oldest named wine in the world still in production, beginning at least 1,000 years BCE. The wine called Commandaria, made only with Xynesteri and Mavro grapes, is a delicious blockbuster sweet red dessert wine. Tasting like a tawny port, it had lower alcohol levels than the fortified Ports and displayed concentrated raisins and dried cassis with a long satisfying finish. I tasted the $130 bottle and several in the $20 range and they were all a great way to “seal the meal” and are all cellar worthy. There was not a huge difference in flavors in the different price points, which is very unusual.

Cyprus is an ancient wine producing island in the northeast Mediterrranean Sea peacefully nestled between Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Historically, Greece has had the most profound impact on the island with Greek culture and language everywhere. Phylloxera, the grape louse, which devastated vineyards worldwide, never touched Cyprus. The plus/minus here is there was never a need to rip out stricken vineyards and start over with root grafts and re-invent themselves, but they have only recently seemed to adapt to “newer” production techniques such as oak barrel ageing.

Maratheftiko, aka Vamvakada, Ofthalmo, Mavro and Xynisteri are the four grape varieties that dominate Cypriot wine production. These are wines to be bought and opened. Each bottle offered a mini education of its own, as each had a uniqueness and flavors I had not experienced in any bottle anywhere. The aromas and flavors are different than the wines that dominate our stores and restaurants, and most of the wines are modestly priced in the $14 to $22 range.

Some of the reds, a Tsiakkas Cabernet Sauvignon, a Vamvakada and a Nicolaides Maratheftiko were a bit tannic suggesting decanting or ageing will soften and improve them. The whites were crisp with lots of citrus. Most interesting of the whites was a dry, crisp wine called Petritis, (not to be confused with the noble rot, Botrytis) made of the Xinisteri grape.

They are especially proud of their Ya’in Kafrisin wine, Hebrew for “wines of Cyprus“, the first Kosher wine made there in over 2000 years, when the three wise men were picking out gifts. It was medium to full bodied, made of Mavro, Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache Noir, rich garnet colored with aromas of dark fruit, blackberry and plum. Moving away from ritual sweet kosher wines toward this well constructed kosher drinking wine will enhance any Jewish dinner (think seder) event. And one need not be Jewish to enjoy this wine.

With the exception of the wonderful Commandaria dessert wine, which should be in every wine lover’s collection, these wines are for drinking today, enjoying, discussing their unique flavors and moving on. In the ancient world, Cyprus exported wines all over the Mediterranean. Cyprus is making the effort to be part of the present wine world map. With a multi-thousand year headstart on much of the world and government support determined to get the word out, if the wines of Cyprus aren’t in your wine vocabulary and inventory now, they will be soon.

New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, tasted and enjoyed the Commandaria dessert wine.
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Bernard's Restaurant Wine/Food Pairing-Ridgefield, CT

2009-03-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

David Shiverick (Langdon Shiverick imports) , Monica Brown (Cellar XV) , Sarah and Bernard Bouissou

One thing I have learned in the wine industry: all wine makers and importers are passionate about their products. David Shiverick,of Langdon Shiverick Imports, has good reason for his palpable passion. Sunday night, (11/16/08) David teamed up with Bernard and Sarah Bouissou, of Bernard’s Inn at Ridgefield and Monica Brown of Cellar XV in Ridgefield, to create a food and wine pairing that was simply amazing. The event attracted nearly 60 people most of whom are familiar with the magic Bernard imparts into every dish leaving his kitchen. I have enjoyed his cuisine for many years, usually accompanied by a special bottle of wine for the evening. The wine selections chosen to accompany and highlight each food course was a synergistic treat.

We were ushered upstairs for the first wine. The Bouissou’s have evolved with the economy and have created Sarah’s Wine Bar up a grand staircase above the main dining room. On a typical night they will be offering lighter, less expensive food options paired with a large and varied wine-by-the-glass selection and will be serving later, catering to the folks that are still on the go at 10 to 11 PM. But Sunday night a Loire valley white 2006 Savennieres, made of 100% chenin blanc was crisp with light citrus and steely mineral notes was given to each guest on arrival. The staff presented flash fried Cod fish fritters and truffled duck egg flan, as well as ratatouille and herb cheese tart and prosciutto wrapped pears.

After a leisurely welcome to the wine bar where David went table to table introducing himself, he gave a brief presentation of the wine we were enjoying and the region and its history. We were then invited to our tables downstairs in the main dining room, where each course had it’s own wine pairing and an insightful overview by David. Our second course, a warm lobster salad was simply off the charts. I enjoy the sense of humor Bernard brings to food, with his ability to create dishes of contrasting flavors that meld into a delightful dish. The lobster salad was paired with a 2006 Southern Rhone Collioure Blanc, which was dramatically different from the Loire wine. The oak influence (think Chardonnay) jumped out of the glass but grew mellower with air.

We then switched to red wines with a fruity 2007, Burgaud Beaujolais Vallieres from the southern Burgundy region. The discussion of this wine included the age-ability of this wine. Indeed the Georges DuBoeuf Beaujolais Nouveau phenomenon has changed the way we look at Beaujolais. It’s seldom that a bottle makes it into the cellar for aging. David insists 10 years or more of cellar time will make this 100% Gamay grape become more pinot noir-like. The price makes it a bargain, if you are willing to wait. I found it a bit thin with notes of pomegranate. It was paired with a monkfish wrapped in bacon with seasonal pumpkin wedges with a morel sauce.

The second main course of the evening was a veal duo, which is another of Bernard’s culinary leanings. He offers several dishes, both entrees and desserts as duos or trios, essentially 2 or 3 preparations, served on one plate. One never tires of this type of presentation. Bernard served a braised cheek with farrow and a roasted loin stuffed with spinach and Brussels sprouts and a red wine sauce. The wine was a Chateau Perray Jouannet Anjou Rouge, 2005, from the cabernet franc grape. It was dry with a fruity, yet big old world taste to it.

A varied cheese plate, of soft and harder cheeses of very different expressions, was delivered with grapes, figs and bread. A very delicious 2006 Pierre Gaillard St. Joseph Rhone was served. It was 100% Syrah with notes of liquorice, pepper, mint and eucalyptus. The conflicting, yet compatible cheese and fruit tastes along with this big wine created a symphony of flavors.
The final course was a mini pumpkin Crème brulee and apple strudel which was served with 2003 Loire Valley Laffourcade Quarts de Chaume dessert wine. It was made of 100% chenin blanc grape. It was unctuous, creamy, citrus with hints of vanilla. David said the vintage had been affected by botrytis, which is a fungus that helps create the brilliant tastes of some of the foremost (Chateau d’Yquem) dessert wines of the world.

All of the wines can be found at Cellar XV in Ridgefield. When Bernard and Sarah offer a wine and food event again it is not to be missed. Make some excuse of a past, present or future special event and go. The memory will last a long time.

-Doug Paulding, Sante magazine wine writer, 11/17/08

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Wines of France Tasting-Anita Lo's Restaurant NYC

2009-03-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

Sheri Sauter Morano, Master of Wine and Spokesperson for the Wines of France

Wine of France/Sopexa Wine event-New York City
November 10, 2008
The Wines of France company ran a tasting of their wines in New York on November 10th. There was nothing big here, with all the wines in the $8 to $25 range. But the price to value ratio was big and the assortment varied, from a Rose Cremant from Alsace to a viognier from Languedoc, A brilliant and delicious Vouvray (Domaine Le Peu de la Moriette, 2006) from the Loire valley to Bordeaux, Burgundy to Champagne and the Rhone valleys, touching all the major wine producing regions of France. The food and wine pairings were brilliant and fun. Sheri Sauter Morano, Master of Wine, worked with Chef Anito Lo to create an eclectic and interesting menu pairing. Sheri's unusual approach is twofold. First, she wants to demystify wines and urged all of us in the education and promotional aspects of wine to simplify descriptions. She is not happy with some absurdly poetic descriptives that could mean very different things to different people, or indeed could mean nothing at all. Instead she urges simplicity and tangible adjectives that most tasters can anticipate before the sampling, or certainly can put their finger on after sipping. Secondly, Sheri offered two very different wines for each food course. She paired a perfumy and floral Laurent Miquel Languedoc-Roussilon Viognier and an Olivier LeFlaive Chardonnay with a lobster appetizer course. This seemed to demystify the food/wine pairing conundrum. The take home message here is that food and wine pairing is not a science but rather subjective, open to interpretation and obviously adjustable to the consumer's particular palate and preferences. Typical pairings included a lighter, fruitier wine and a fuller bodied, heartier wine with each course and the room of wine professionals was divided as to which particular wine went better with each course. -- Doug Paulding

Serge Lozach (plaid vest), Director of Wines of France/Sopexa

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