Sonoma Valley - 08 Mai 2006

Weekend of Food & Wine in Sonoma - 23 April 2007

May Wine Events - 01 May 2008

Sonoma Valley's Chocolate and Wine Bar - 15 May 2008

Note to self: Never, under any circumstances, fly cross country in the winter time using Chicago's O'Hare aerostop as your connecting hub.  As good as the flight times look on paper, keep in mind, they are pure fantasy.  That sweet 45 minute layover from SLC?  How's about 4.5 12 hours!?  And that snappy 1 hour layover from Ottawa back to SLC?  Try 3 hours.  Oy veh.  I need a drink.  And speaking of drinks, can I interest you in a Chiroubles?

G. DuBoeuf Chiroubles 2005 ($10) - Had this wine originated from a more 'serious' French wine region, chances are it would be selling at 3-4 times the asking price.  However, seeing as it comes from the immensely under-appreciated region of Beaujolais, you can grab it for ten damn dollars.  Chiroubles is one of 10 Beaujolais Crus (i.e. premier growing sites).  I might not describe this wine as, "exploding from the glass like a massive bouquet of violets," as Parker-proxy Pierre Rovani does.  I would however describe it as an ultrasexy rendition of the Gamay grape - with scents of fresh blueberry and violet-blossom.  In the mouth, DuB.'s Chiroubles does it nice and smooth with silky tannins and simple cherry-blueberry flavors.  Snatch this wine up forthwith and sip it with a plate of bistro frites.

Although I spend a reasonable amount of time (how much is reasonable?) thinking about which wine to enjoy with a meal, quite often I'll find that even if it's not perfect it is still entirely serviceable and rather than wail hysterically while tipping the bottle down my throat, I can enjoy both food and wine while making a mental note to try something else next time.

But then, when you most want to find just the thing to do justice to the efforts of the chef, you go and make an absolute clanger. Of course it is also about doing justice to the effort that has gone into the production of the wine so showing it off in the most flattering company  is desirous  in absolute propotion to the amount of effort it is to procure a bottle and how lovingly you cherish it.

I haven't gone too far out of my way to scout out the perfect steak to show off my £5.49 Argentinian Cabernet Sauvignon. Although they would be more laidback company than some, more intricate, menus.

Had the most wonderful meal a couple of nights ago courtesy of a former Masterchef contestant.  We kicked off the evening with some Champagne Drappier Brut Carte d'Or NV. A very biscuity nose with a fresh, light and clean apple palate with a broad, creamy bottom layer with an enthusiatic but not overwhelming mousse and very decent length.

The first course was mushroom ravioli in a wild mushroom (girasol) broth in which the  woodland flavours sang out in operatic fashion. We matched that with a Louis Latour, Domaine de Valmoissine Pinot Noir 2002 from Provence. Very light crimson this was correct and tasty. Already quite evolved but still lots of fruit, just not the concentration I'd hoped for.  Made a great pairing with the mushrooms though and the lightness and acidity in the wine lifted the earthy tones and richness of the ravioli.

The fabulously elaborate meal continued with roast duck cooked in red wine with cherry sauce. For the duck I had brought along a Feytit Clinet 2000 from Pomerol having enjoyed right bank Bordeaux with duck on many previous occasions. Here though the intensity and sweetness of the cherries and the reduction glaze reduced this otherwise rather lovely wine to thin, metallic, short nastiness. Really very sad!

We tried opening an Eldridge Blue Chip Shiraz 2003 from Clare Valley in South Australia, which alone was sweet, unctuous and jammy but this too couldn't take on the cherries.

Which came first - the cherry or the Feytit Clinet? They both lost that night.  Tant pis...learn from mistakes. Next time before rummaging through the cellar, I'll ask for an exact breakdown of the recipes from my host - NO, not really! This is just for fun.

Many people would be able to identify a bottle of wine that was truly faulty and, in a restaurant, ask for a replacement. But would you be able to tell what the fault was or what to blame for it? It is all to do with perception threshold. Different faults require different parts per thousand or even million to be perceived.

Some people are more sensitive to certain faults than others so while the host, who may taste the wine as it is brought to the table, is happily quaffing, one or more guests could be secretively retching into their napkins. Depending on how well you know your host and judging, diplomatically, how much of an ego dent your comments could produce, it might be worth discreetly asking people to have another careful sniff.

 At a wine faults workshop this week, it was made clear that a fault is only a fault if the people drinking the wine consider it to be. For example the "fault" brett - produced from brettanomyces yeast acting on the phenolic acids of the grape - is a characteristic that some tasters love and some winemakers deliberately introduce. It can produce strong animal characteristics that enhance a wine's complexity and increases some people's pleasure.

Of course it is very important to get the balance right because the smallest increase tips a wine over from animal (yum) to bretty (yuck).  And even in the lower doses some people adore the fragrant pong while others will recoil in horror at the filthy stench. Perception is all.

Then there is actual corkiness. Produced by TCA, TBA and TeCA it has various origins like the high levels of chlorine used to clean the winery and equipment, the breakdown of other cleaning agents by funghi in the winery - low ventilation and high humidity contibuting to high levels in the atmosphere.

The cork industry is keen to point out that it is not something inherently present in the corks more of a contamination at the winery. The plastic in alternative closure linings etc are equally susceptible to this contamination. With increased awareness, far higher standards of hygiene than ever before and alternative cleaning solutions available the problem should be getting better. However despite some high profile cases in California back in 2004, there are still many wineries taking the easy option and continuing bad practices.

At the other end is a sulfide problem that produces a tomato, truffle, cabbage, rubber character. This is reduction, the opposite of oxidation and the result of a complete seal which prevents any movement of oxygen into the wine. Unlike oxidation though, this can be corrected sometimes as simply as swirling the wine in the glass or decanting the bottle thereby allowing some air contact and dissipating the bad aromas.

This problem has been most associated with screwcaps which provide such an affective seal that all the positive benefits of cork permeability have been lost alongside the problems that can occur for freshness through excessive permeability.

New Zealand wineries have famously chosen to address this by slightly oxidising the wine before bottling in order to achieve balance once the wine is in bottle. As is often the case with the New World, they are quick to respond to problems and criticism.

However this is a dangerous and nervy solution and not always successful. Pascal Chatonnet, leading faults scientist, oenologist and consultant to wineries all over the world, argues that some of the essential character and originality is lost through this process and the overall quality and elegance is compromised, though this is not necessarily understood by the consumer as the original wine is not available to compare.

What is important to the cork industry is that while a consumer might recognise the wine is faulty, the only real language employed to describe or attribute the fault invokes cork. This is of major concern and is where the charm offensive needs to conentrate, for cork may not have played any part whatsoever.

For consumers the challenge to the industry as a whole is to find a closure with the correct level of permeability and which is kept free of contamination. It is in everybody's interests and with a more frank discussion opening up we can only hope that solutions won't be too far away.

Merlot lovers, rejoice! A new documentary film made in response to the post-Sideways Merlot backlash (read more on that here) is about to debut. That's right, Merlove, made by Napa filmmaker Rudy McClain, is set to screen Tuesday, May 27th at COPIA in Napa. The film apparently includes footage of renowned Merlot makers from...

Just in time for Christmas, Sainsburys and Secret Sommelier have teamed up to produce a case of 12 Bordeaux with an accompanying podcast by Christopher Burr MW and Ewan Lacey.

Bordeaux, I think, can be the region most in need of explanation to the uninitiated, as its charms occasionally need to be coaxed out. In this world of immediacy, these wines lag behind in the crowd-pleasing stakes, especially when you venture down from the top drawer. But given a lead from someone knowledgeable, I think - unlike some wines which initially please but become repetitive and dull - they can become friends for life.

It would make a great present for someone and is a useful tool for a group of friends who don't go to a wine club but want to have fun with it at home.

Good for Sainsburys to seize the initiative and find quite an innovative approach to wine tasting. But why is the podcast an audio recording not a dvd? I haven't heard it yet but I would have thought there was quite a lot of opportunity for visuals here.

To make it even more appealing, they have included a prize draw to win a trip for two to the Bordeaux Wine School. That would be quite a fun trip, I imagine.

The case can be bought at www.sainsburys.co.uk/wine or buy the wines individually in-store. Many of these wines I have not tasted myself but I do know the "Taste the Difference" ones are very decent examples.

Here’s my news cycle from the last two days:  Indiana University basketball continues to be in the news based on an NCAA investigation into alleged recruiting violations.  The New England Patriots continue to be in the news based on an investigation of potential cheating.  Senator Arlen Specter is on the case.  Brunello wine imports may be blocked by the ATTB.

With all of these people spending time investigating things, who is actually doing any work?

Wasn’t my crisis in conscious against elected officials supposed to have occurred when I was in college, not half a life later?

And, for the love of pete, where were the gov’t officials a year ago when toys with lead and toxic pet food was coming from China?

Messing with wine ... sheesh.  This is a pimple on the ass of life.  As my 99 year old grandmother says as she looks off into the distance ponderously, “I worry ...”

If you?re interested in designing your own custom wine cellar there are a number of options available to you. The best news is that there are wine cellar designs for everyone from the avid do-it-yourselfer to the complete woodworking novice.

There are modular wine racks that are available in different grains and finishes, with the least expensive generally being a wood such as pine. Most modular wine rack dealers will offer other materials such as red cedar or finished wood as well. Of course you can always save some money and finish the wood yourself if you desire a particular type of finish or color for your wine cellar racks.

There are many wine racking companies that offer crown molding and skirting pieces so that you can easily combine different styles of wine cellar racking materials and types. This approach can yield some very unique custom wine cellar designs.

There are built in glass racks that are made to fit snugly within a rack system. A good place for one of these individual units would be above the table top piece mentioned above. This would add to the ambience as well as functionality of your custom modular wine racking system.

If you want something a little different than the traditional wood wine cellar racks, there are attractive metal trellis rack pieces that are very economical, yet stylish. These tend to look classier than the wood modular wine racking pieces, especially for placement in bar areas that will be viewed by visitors.

If you would like to add a table area to your wine cellar while increasing the storage capacity of your cellar at the same time, a wine bin table may be the best addition to your modular racking system. There are taller, wine tasting tables that hold just over 100 bottles or about 180 bottles of wine, and there are shorter wine rack tables that hold more than 200 wine bottles in case bins.

There are many online dealers and manufacturers of wine cellar racking pieces that also offer custom computer design services to help you achieve the exact wine cellar layout that you have in mine. With many of these professional services you can then have the plans sent to you and decide if you will build them yourself or have someone else build them for you.

With all of the wine cellar design options available to you, there are many ways to accomplish the perfect wine cellar design for you and your situation. There are many wine enthusiasts online communities and the like where you can find others interested in the same things that you are and maybe gain some other ideas about wine cellars and the design aspect of creating your own wine cellar.

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Oregon’s Beaux Frères is not only making some of America’s finest pinot noirs, but is also that most rare of things: a winery with courage. Vintage after vintage winemaker Michael Etzel shows the courage of his convictions and produces dramatically distinctive wines with a personality all their own. Some dismiss the success of Beaux Frères as mostly due to the fame of Etzel’s brother-in-law and partner, famed wine critic and publisher of The Wine Advocate, Robert Parker, but considering the stunning quality of these wines I can’t help but believe they would still be sought out by collectors everywhere with or without Parker’s impact.

While a bevy of authors have pilloried Robert Parker for dragging the wine industry down the road of standardized, jammy wines, his own winery is the polar opposite. The Beaux Frères Pinot Noirs are tight, structured wines with a decided spritz from natural CO2 when young. That’s right they’re a little fizzy. These are truly natural wines and the little spritz is a result of the natural, cool slow malolatic fermentation practiced by Etzel.  None of their wines are manipulated to make them ready to drink young and even the precocious 2006 vintage produced wines that need a minimum of several years of bottle age to unfurl their now tightly wound personality. These are wines that do not try to mimic Burgundy, but that set their own unique style, both as Oregonian and an expression of Etzel’s winemaking art.

The current release of 2006 Beaux Frères Pinot Noir, The Beaux Frères Vineyard, Ribbon Ridge is nothing short of exciting. In his notes Etzel describes this wine as, “a beauty and can be drunk young.” However, he must mean in relation to his wines from previous vintages as compared to other 2006 Oregon pinots this wine far from being ready to drink. The nose is already exotic with layers of black truffle, porcini and dense, black wild forest fruits, but it is not yet resolved and you can just sense the greatness that is to come as the components intertwine and integrate. The wine hits your tongue with a thousand tiny little bites from the firm acidity and the slight spritz of the CO2, but then quickly expands dramatically into the voluptuous textures you would expect from this forward vintage. What strikes you as you taste and smell this wine is the endless swirling of exotic characteristics that make the wine change from second-to-second as you savor each sip. If you must drink this wine now, please give it at least an hour in a decanter before serving. However, at $80 a bottle you may want to give it the respect it deserves and wait at least five years before releasing the treasure inside.

Beaux Frères produces wines of great integrity and character because they are made by a winemaker with the same attributes. Mike Etzel makes what he believes. These are wines that must be on anyone’s list of the best American pinot noirs.

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