Zinfandel Part II

Last week, I suggested that the pejorative term "quaffable" has particular resonance to American ears, as it recalls a Puritan distrust of bodily pleasure. While I found this skepticism toward mere delight suspicious, I did say there should be thinking wines as well as drinking wines. The Zinfandels we tasted, whatever their merits, were drinking wines. 

Last night, Tracy and I sat down to a bottle of Turley Zinfandel, often considered to be, if not the best, then among the best of Zinfandels. I'm not sure the Turley qualifies as a thinking wine. I will say, however, that it fitted quaffability with tiny purple wings and sent it flying up and away from the swamp of mere delight and into the light of hyperbolic deliciousness. Wine this good doesn't need to be intellectual. It raises drinkability to its highest expression. So:

2007 Turley Napa Valley Zinfandel, Tofanelli Vineyard ($54)

This wine has impeccable balance. The classic Zinfandel sweetness is present but gentle against the tongue. Berries and sweet fruit flavors show themselves alongside a restraining dryness. It's not juicy or jammy or sugary or syrupy (potential pitfalls for Zinfandels), but it bursts with flavor. Also, while this wine contains the highest alcohol content of any we've had so far (15.7%), it's hardly detectable.

And the flavors? There are many, though they're also understated. We picked up plum and blackberry, molasses and sugarcane, dark chocolate and tobacco, "earth,"cocoa, vanilla, and "cheese rind, in a good way" (Tracy). We also detected a spiciness, though it wasn't bright and scratchy but calm and mellow: a tide of clove and pepper rises on the sides of the tongue after a moment and ebbs quickly. And the roundness and smoothness of the texture, the way it slides lightly across the tongue, reminds me of a Chardonnay. 

We did notice some questionable things. The nose is a little restrained--there's not as much happening in the bouquet as I expected there would be. Also, the finish is lightening fast. I'm not sure this is a bad thing, however. We kept remarking on how much we wanted to keep drinking this wine, how it was difficult to stop. Half the bottle was gone in a flash, though it felt that we had just begun the tasting.

Tracy and I both rated this wine a 24 on our 30-point scale. We were both surprised, in a way, that it didn't rate even higher, but perhaps it was simply because, despite all its amazingly delicious and quaffable qualities and tiny purple wings, this Turley didn't manage to lift us off of the ground.

Thoughts on Aging

It's become clear to me over the past week or so that I've put no thought into considering a wine's age. As I've read more about Cabernets and tannins and the preserving qualities of oak, I realize that the decision of when to drink a wine is, sometimes, absolutely crucial. It can make the difference between an unripe blast of green or a flavorful, delicate experience. This is especially true for wines from certain countries (France and the United States, for two) that release their wines when they're ready to be aged rather than when they are aged.

In Spain, for example, Gran Reserva wine--good wine--is often released when it's ready to drink. This means that wineries hold onto their vintages until just the right moment, and then send them off to be uncorked and consumed. They take care of the timing for you. Yet it may be necessary to stash and hide a really great Bordeaux or a brilliant Russian River Valley Cabernet so it can let those intense tannins break down and fall away. Otherwise, it's like eating a cupcake without removing the foil.

This all brings to mind that Patrice Rion that Jon brought for the first tasting. I think we may have had it too young. It was a 2002, yet it felt a little green to me. It was a little angular. It's hard to remember tastes three weeks old, but I think I'm right about this.

I'm going to let some of my great bottles lie. I've got some good ones that will take years to open up. It's nice to know they're cooking.

Zinfandel Part I

I was introduced to the Zinfandel grape during the 1990s in the form of white Zinfandel wine. I have never liked that cloying sludge--though I should admit the last time I actually tasted a white Zin was during the Clinton administration. The pre-Lewinsky scandal Clinton administration, even. So who knows. But it gets a pretty bad rap and I've got no interest in trying it now. Anybody think I should?

My first taste of actual red Zinfandel occurred just a few years ago, again out in Napa, and I realized I had been missing something really good. In fact, I really like this varietal's balance of sweet and spicy. (Also, it's a great Z word.) For these reasons, and others, Thursday Night Tasting is presenting two separate Zinfandel events. The first occurred two nights ago and the second will take place next week. We'll be tasting a pretty representative sample of the grape, all from northern California, from where most Zinfandels hail.

But first, I've decided on a little structure for this 'blog. It's a two-part plan:

First, I'm going to take a tour through some of the major varietals, tasting probably a dozen or so. I've been inspired by the book I mentioned last week, Drink This: Wine Made Simple, by Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, which examines nine grapes and the wines they produce. Her idea for tastings is to try representative types from each varietal so you get a full sense of their expressive capacities. The grapes she takes on include Zinfandel, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Sangiovese, Tempranillo, and Pinot Noir. I'll most likely add Merlot and a few more marginal varietals. Romorantin, perhaps? Maybe Inzolia? The possibilities boggle.

And second, I'm going to spend 52 weeks, or however long it takes, tasting my way through French wines. Region by region. Bouteille par bouteille.

Why French wine? I grew up with the idea that French wines were the world's greatest wines. I probably imbibed this notion from television programs. After all, Jack Tripper wasn't just a chef--he was a French style chef who eventually opened the first "fancy" restaurant--"Chez Jacques"--that I ever really saw, real or fake, and for years, it exemplified to me the idea of fine dining. In any case, during the 1970s the very idea of Frenchness functioned as a trope for sophistication. French food was haute cuisine. French wine was elegance. As I got older and tried more wines from around the world, it seemed this was a shopworn cliche, though when it comes to wine, it really isn't. This isn't to say that other countries don't produce amazing and comparably brilliant wines, of course they do. But France produces some of the greatest wines. France is to the wine world what the fertile crescent is to Homo Sapiens. I'm going to taste my way through it.

But for now, back to plan A: the Tour through Varietals. I think we've done a nice job on the Cabernet Sauvignon already (thanks, all), so it's on to Zinfandel. We'll be tasting four Zins altogether: a mass-market, industrial cheapie; a single-vineyard mid-range wine; a "field blend, if we can find one; and a top-shelf, stellar Turley, regarded by some as the best Zinfandel in the world. More on these types as necessary.

And so, let's begin.

The wines:

2005 Havencscourt Lodi Zinfandel ($13)
2007 Captain's Reserve Zinfandel Rutherford ($28)

The players:

Greg, Brooklyn Heights
Me, Boerum Hill

This tasting was so simple: wine one, wine two. There's something elemental about paired tasting. It makes things very simple and direct. And in fact, "simple" and "direct" might be a good beginning description of Zinfandel itself. I like the wine, and it goes with food--and spicy food, too--and is eminently "quaffable," which in wine-ese means (I've just learned) drinkable, easy rather than complex, fun rather than intellectual. Zinfandel, even the top-shelf, more layered and maculate wine, is not the most complicated stuff. It's delicious, sure, and it can pop out and surprise and offer a lot of fun. But it's not deep. It's Warhol, not Vermeer.

In fact, I want to pause for a moment over that suspicious term, "quaffable." The very idea behind the term is that some wine is not simply for drinking, it's also for thinking. So, there are thinking wines and drinking wines, and they're both fine--but the term "quaffable" suggests that you probably want to have a few thinking wines during your time here on earth because they offer more than drinking wines. Drinking wines? They're merely drinkable--quaffable. Delicious, even, but just drinkable. It's a classic left-handed compliment.

This dichotomy reminds me of something deep within our culture--namely, American Puritanism's abiding suspicion of bodily pleasure. Mere pleasure is problematic. It serves no greater purpose. More than that, it may even detract one from serving a purpose. So it's empty and distracting, not good things.

This legacy of skepticism remains deeply etched in our collective soul, of course, but it pertains to this issue of quaffibility in a specific way. Wine that is merely "quaffable" is wine serving no greater purpose than bodily joy. Quaffable wine is not mindful wine. It's wine that can lead to disgrace--literally, a loss of grace. John Calvin, the Yoda of American Puritanism, explains that "the chief duty of man is to glorify God," and so wine for mere pleasure does not fit in very well. There is Biblical precedent for Calvin's idea, of course. "Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness." James 4:9. And nowhere does the New Testament suggest quaffability is a virtue, exactly. So to say that a Zinfandel is "quaffable" is to say: go ahead and sin. Indulge your appetites. Ignore your God.

Of course, the Bible is full of wine being consumed left and right. And the Puritans--Calvin aside--agreed that wine provided an acceptable respite from the world's daily difficulties. In fact, during the seventeenth century, the Puritans even upheld the sale of alcohol to "Indians" because they felt it unfair to deprive them of this divinely given balm. 

This American context is more relevant for Zinfandel than other varietals. The grape took off here in the mid-nineteenth century, and most Zins--and most good Zins--are made in northern California, in the vineyards around San Francisco. It's a truly American wine and it's most popular in the United States. It's incredibly popular, in fact, and has a devoted following.

And guess what? These devotees sometimes call themselves Zinfandel Infidels. Infidels! See what I mean about the Puritan angle?

Anyway, this is all to say that quaffability isn't inherently bad, even though our national psyche tells us it might be. Sometimes, you want a Coke.

Not that good Zins are like Coke.

OK, I think this has gone far enough. And so, the wines.

Havenscourt
I will keep this brief: this is not a good wine. It is hardly even quaffable. When I review the notes Greg and I took on this bottle, the words that jump out at me include, from Greg, "ammonia smell," "acidic," "sour," and "putrid," and, from me, the phrase "liking it less as I drink it more."  It has a thin mouth, was a little peppery at first though it smoothed out after breathing for a bit, and had clear overtones of sherry and cheap tawny port. It was hot, though it had only 13% alcohol. One of the interesting things here was that we could hardly detect any flavors. It was just mush in the mouth.

This is wine made by combining grapes from a variety of vineyards and so this detracts from its specific character. Also, it's important to know that Zinfandel is a grape that ripens unevenly. Some grapes grow fully ripe while others are still a touch green. A quality Zin maker will be careful about which of the grapes he uses. Discarding the "raisined," or overripe grapes will brace the wine up and provide a little more structure. Throwing it all in the mix will flatten out and juicify the stuff. I don't think there was a lot of discrimination here. This is dumpy plonk.

Captain's Reserve
Now this, we liked. Greg is a composer, and he made a brilliant analogy here. In music, he explained, an "envelope" of sound is one in which a tone, or set of tones, crescendos and decrescendos. It has an opening, a development, and some closure. This wine demonstrates just that: the flavor begins by opening with bright fruit flavors, round and discernibly sweet on the tip of the tongue, and then offers up some delicate spice before fading into a quick finish. After a few more sips Greg said the wine has "rhythm" and goes through its flavors in an organized way.

Ironically, this wine is warm rather than hot, thought the alcohol level is much higher--almost 15%. This means that the wine is much more balanced, and the chocolate, mint, and cherry flavors that we detected are bracing and holding up the greater potency, holding it back a little. Whereas in the Havenscourt we couldn't really detect separate flavors, here we found tea leaves and orange rind, pepper and leather. The flavor was "focused."

Next week we're going to be trying a Turley Zinfandel ($54), considered by many to be the greatest, richest, most complex Zin on earth.

I'm hoping for a little thinkability.

Cabernet Sauvignon

Last night, Thursday Night Tasting explored four quite different expressions of the Cabernet Sauvignon grape. It was great!

The wines were, in order of appearance:

2008 Smoking Loon Cabernet Sauvignon ($12)
2006 Wine Smith Cabernet Sauvignon ($20)
2006 Chateau Moulin de Tricot Haut Médoc ($32)
2005 Rubicon Estate Captain's Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon ($48)

The players were, in order of residence, north to south:

Robin, Upper West Side in the 70s
Tracy and Raphael, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
Kristie, Park Slope
Tina and Claude, Park Slope two blocks south of Kristie

And once again, the method:

Sequential tasting using an evaluation sheet that rates the wines by five criteria: visual appearance, aroma, texture (or body), taste, and finish. The scale used, which adds up to 30 points in total, is as follows:

25-30 Excellent, incredibly delicious, memorable
20-24 Outstanding, a really good wine
15-19 Good to Very Good
10-14 Average, drinkable
0-9 OK, who brought this?

I should add that I also supplied a list of helpful adjectives and nouns for tasting Cabernet Sauvignon, words like "brawny," "complex," "hot," "structured," "tobacco," "fig," "chocolate," and "vanilla," plus many others. Note: I did not supply the term "like a jellyfish on my tongue," which Robin used to describe the Smoking Loon.

More on that in a minute. First, however, I should explain why I followed last week's Burgundies with Cabernet Sauvignons this week. The reason is personal: these are the two wines that, for me, have flipped the switch. At the risk of indulging in yet more autobiography, I should admit that a third switch-flipper is out there too, though it was flipped first, in Tuscany when I was 23. Seated outdoors on a cool July night, I sipped what might today be called a Super Tuscan alongside Coniglio con Olivo, and widened my eyes. Anyway, I think I've mentioned already that it was in Napa, just a year or two ago, when I tasted that lush Cabernet and felt something deep inside me twist a quarter inch. So, at the beginning of this whole venture, I'd like to honor that moment with a tasting.

Also, if one is to begin tasting wines, Cabernet Sauvignon is a great place to begin. Often considered to be a "noble grape" due to its association with the ancient European viticultural history and its striking, powerful body and flavor, the Cabernet yields complex, highly structured wines. Many of the world's most coveted (and expensive) wines are Cabernets. Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Chateau Latour, for example, two of the most prized Bordeaux wines, are Cabernet Sauvignon. In fact, all red Bordeaux wines are Cabernets, though they are typically Cabernets mixed with other varietals, including Merlot, Cabernet Franc (one of the "parent" grapes of Cabernet Sauvignon), and sometimes Petit Verdot, Malbec, and even Syrah. In the United States, we use the simple term Cabernet Sauvignon, though to be called such a wine has only to include 75% Cabernet. In other words, just like reds from Bordeaux, American Cabernet Sauvignon is usually a blend (though there are exceptions and 100% Cabernets do exist, in France and the U.S.).

Why are Cabernets so often blended? Well, the Cabernet is a very "tannic" grape. What does that mean? Tannins are acidic compounds derived from grape seeds and skins. They provide the bitter and astringent dryness that registers on the back of your tongue. They are essential components in wine-making, helping to ferment and preserve wine. I'm not sure the analogy is entirely correct, but tannins are to red wine what hops are to beer. In any case, because the Cabernet Sauvignon is a small grape with numerous seeds, the ration of juice to seeds and skins creates a very tannic result. The lush Merlot and flavorful Cabernet Franc balance out this powerful blast of bitterness. That's why most Cabernets are blends, whether they're from Bordeaux or the Napa Valley.

By the way, it's not as if the only Cabernet Sauvignons in the world come from France or Calfornia. Hardly. In fact, Cabernet is planted across the globe, and with Merlot is among the most popular wine varietals.

Well, let's get to it. What did we find out about Cabernet Sauvignon last night?

Smoking Loon
Prior to the tasting, I read Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl's chapter on Cabernet Sauvignon, in her new book Drink This: Wine Made Simple (Ballantine 2009). Besides offering a great introduction to the grape itself, Grumdahl lays out a really smart gendered reading of this hypermasculine varietal. More to the point, she also suggests that a tasting of Cabernet Sauvignon might well begin with a mass-market and "affordable" bottle, something that represents the mainstream of Cabernet. That's what we got, and I should say that, in short, no one loved the 'Loon. It earned scores of 15, 15, 13, 12 11, 7. I guess that 7 (Robin) is a harsh indictment, and it is notably the first wine to fall into the "OK, who brought this?" category. Robin's pejoratives are on the money: they include "viscous," "not very fragrant," "jellyfish stingy in center of the tongue," "sharp and flat," "single note," and "alcohol smell." Ouch. Others agreed: "acidy" and "sharp" (Claude), "one-dimensional" (Kristie), and "sting tangy" (Kristie again). I'll just add to this chorus of disapproval that the wine is simply dull. It was hard to derive much from the nose, the flavors were muted and difficult to differentiate, and the finish was a little "hot"--that is, noticeably alcoholic. On the other hand, and to be fair, most of us put this wine in the "Average" category or the lowest rung of "Good." As unremarkable as it is, it would go fine with a pizza or a sandwich. I guess, though, that for $12 one can do so much better.

Wine Smith
This wine was nice. It's a straightforward California Cabernet: balanced, round, lots of berries and spice. What is unique about this wine is the way it was produced--or I should say, the philosophy of its producer, Clark Smith. Smith believes in drawing on but limiting modern technologies in winemaking. He calls it "Postmodern Winemaking," by which I take him to mean a kind of free-play with the various methods and ideologies, sidestepping the dichotomy of old-world purity and modern technology. For example, Smith believes strongly in terroir and "natural" methods though he also discusses in great detail things with names like "micro-oxygenation" and "coextension." He doubts that terms like "natural" or "organic" have the clear and stable meanings typically granted them, and seeks to deploy all the resources at his disposal to make good wine. You can read more on this at Smith's own 'blog, GrapeCrafter:

http://www.grapecrafter.com/grapecrafter/

Anyway, Clark's Cabernet Sauvignon (22, 22, 20.5, 19, 16, 16) was visually more stimulating than the muddy Smoking Loon, with streaks of violet and magenta, greater clarity, and "clear, inner brightness" as Robin put it. The body was "velvety, smooth, and sting-free" (Robin again), and the flavor was full of all sorts of complimentary notes: we detected maple sugar, vanilla, clove, "fireplace" (Robin again!), toast, and chocolate. The sweetness balanced well with the spice and tannic edge, and there were all sorts of berries here, rolling everywhere. For the finish, I wrote the phrase "singes pleasantly" in my notes, and I think that gets it right. The dissenters: Claude and Kristie were less pleased, calling the finish "too dry" and the look a little syrupy. Though somehow, Claude did end up saying it was one of his favorites of the night . . .

Chateau Moulin de Tricot
Delicious! A real Haut Médoc Bordeaux. (Grumdahl helpfully explains that Bordeaux wines fall into two very rough categories, inexpensive Médoc and upscale French Bordeaux, from places like Pauillac, Margaux, and Haut-Médoc.) This wine (24, 24, 24, 23, 21, 20--all numbers in the "Outstanding" range) was characterized most succinctly by Claude's word "mellow." It just has an easy-going balance of flavor, back and forths all over the place: a light body with lots of depth; tastes of cherry and cinnamon; sweetness and tartness; thinness and richness; maturity and a "jumpy" quality (thank you, Tina). This wine is smokey and chocolaty, spicy and berry-rich, warm but not hot. The attack was slow--the flavors come on nice and smooth. Tracy thought for a long time before figuring out that she tasted bay leaf, which is one of those flavors that seeps in and suggests, never overpowers. This Cabernet comes on slowly and backs off calmly. Robin captured it all well: begins sweet, ends salty. Mellow, not pushy. Wish I could drink this kind of wine every day.

Rubicon Estate
I get shipments from the Rubicon Estate five times a year. They specialize in rich, lush Cabernets, and often suggest in the promotional literature they send with each shipment that these wines need years to really unwind. I have a few bottles of what they call their "Cask" Cabernet which I'm cellaring for another decade or more. In any case, this wine is a treat, and scored the highest of all: 27, 26, 26, 26, 25, 23. This is "big" wine: the bouquet hits you first, bright, rich, full, dark, deep, with true lavender, leather, blueberry, plum, and tobacco. So much is simply happening here on the tongue and at the top of the mouth in this layered wine. Notable flavors include jalapeno, coffee, chocolate and vanilla, and soy sauce. I think Juice Newton helped Robin articulate her feelings when she said it "called me angel of the morning then slowly walked away." Tina recalled Bonnie Tyler's "Living on a powder keg and giving off sparks." It was getting late and we were grooving.

Tasting wine with friends is fun. We had tons of food. Claude came over early and whipped out a few pizzas, Kristie brought a ton of great cheese, and Robin made brownies that tasted like coconuts. Everyone left around midnight, I took Shaba out for a walk, we cleaned up and fell asleep. Thanks all, for a wonderful night.

Maiden Tasting! Four Burgundies

Four bottles of wine. Six curious tongues. Twenty four separate experiences . . .

The first ever Thursday Night Tasting launched last night on waves of Burgundy. It was great!

Let's begin. The Wines, in order of appearance:

Whites
2007 William Fevre Chablis "Champs Royaux" ($20)
2005 Jean-Marc Pillot Saint-Romain "La Périere" ($38)

Reds
2002 Patrice Rion Chambolle-Musigny Premiere Cru "Le Plan des Dames" ($54)
2007 Domaine de Villaine Mercurey "Les Montots" ($45)

The players, in order of residence (why not?), north to south:

Jon, Upper East Side, in the 80s
Robin, Upper West Side, in the 70s
Deb, Midtown, in the 50s
Steve, just over the Brooklyn Bridge
Tracy and Raphael, just south of Steve

The method:

Sequential tasting using an evaluation sheet that rates the wines by five criteria: visual appearance, aroma, texture (or body), taste, and finish. The scale used, which adds up to 30 points in total, is as follows:

25-30 Excellent, incredibly delicious, memorable
20-24 Outstanding, a really good wine
15-19 Good to Very Good
10-14 Average, drinkable
0-9 OK, who brought this?

(I should say, I cribbed the evaluation sheet and evaluation rubric from a few different online sources and tweaked them here and there.)

First, a little bit about Burgundy wine . . .

As Jon explained at the outset, the central Burgundy growing region in France is tiny: about 25 miles long and just over a mile wide. That's not all that much bigger than Manhattan Island. The grapes grown here are principally Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, meaning that white Burgundies are Chards and red Burgundies are Pinots.

OK wait, let me pause to explain something. The phrase "white Burgundy" gets me excited. I think it's because it sounds so impossibly exotic. How can something be white and red at the same time? I know "Burgundy" doesn't refer to color, but the association sticks in the back of my mind. White Burgundy. It's kind of like the Black Irish.

I guess I'm trying to articulate why I instinctively like Burgundy wine so much. To me, Burgundy is synonymous with delicate, complex, and mature flavors. Yet a full disclosure here: I've tasted fewer than a dozen Burgundies in my life so far, so I'm writing as an authentic ignoramus. Yet though I know so little about this wine, I've already detected in my habits of mind about Burgundies a touch of Francophilia I never knew I had. I'm drawn to these wines and to the images they evoke for me--images so redolent of cliché I won't name them here.

Of course, part of the general mystique of Burgundy may be related to its exclusively small size. In fact, there are only 100 AOC vineyards in Burgundy. "AOC" is short for "Appellation d’origine contrôlée," a designation granted by the French government to vineyards that meet fairly rigorous standards of production. It's also a way to protect and make a fetish of French terroir and viticultural history, not to mention standing in the global wine market. The Napa Valley, by contrast, has around 700 vineyards producing Napa Valley wine--and Napa wasn't designated as a unique wine growing region until 1981. Anyway, Burgundy's small size means that one can conceivably get around to tasting a representative selection of these wines--assuming, of course, certain liberties with one's time, money, and sobriety. To me, a genuine neophyte, this is magical wine.


So, let's take these color by color. First the whites.

Overall, we liked the Saint-Romain over the Chablis. (By the way, Chablis is a sub-region in Burgundy--or perhaps I should say super-region as it's to the north). The Saint-Romain scores were as follows: 23, 21.5, 20,19, 19, 18. (I was the 23. I got carried away.) This was really a solid wine. It had a golden, wheat-like, almost gingery clear color and a bouquet that many of us associated with hardwoods and oak. Interestingly, we weren't all saying just "oak," which can be an overpowering flavor in American Chardonnays; we were saying "wood" as well. Robin said "woodsy," which I liked. I think we were all enthusiastic about the body itself--buttery, round, silky, and velvety. Like a Chardonnay, but subtler. I really noticed that the flavors in this wine focused like a laser on the center of the tongue. In the front of the mouth it softened and mellowed, and grew a little "prickly," as Robin put it, near the back. We noted flavors like sweet peppers, white pepper, and grass, and the finish was long and slow to fade--the bright high notes dropped quickly away, but the more lengthy flavors lingered pleasantly in in the back of the throat.

The Chablis was quite different. It earned scores of 21, 20, 20, 19, 17, and 16.5--considerably lower than the Saint-Romain. Bright and clear, light yellow, "shiny" and with a slight aura of green, this lighter wine was dominated by the flavor of citrus. I really focused on its lemony tang, though Tracy nailed it nicely, I thought, by noticing kumquat (I don't think I'm just saying this because it's the more original observation). We also found that this wine explodes in the front of the mouth, where its bright and sunny flavors catch fire, though it dies quickly at the back. We also tasted grapefruit, pineapple and something Steve calls "small oranges" (Steve, do you care to elaborate?). Downsides here include what some saw as a high acidity and astringency and what Deb thought was a flat-out sourness. Something might be wrong with drinking a wine like this in the depths of January. This is summer wine.

I'd say that we all agreed that these were both solid wines. Nobody got hysterical here and gushed, but we liked them.

Onto the reds.

The Patrice Rion (26, 25, 23, 22, 20, 20.5) was the clear favorite of the night--though I must point to a little bit of context: I uncorked the Mercurey at least three hours prior to the tasting, giving it lots of time to unwind. The Patrice Rion had no such chance, and I think this made a big difference. In fact, by the end of the comparisons, I went back to the Patrice Rion and noticed that it really had opened up (at which point I revised my previous descriptions). Yet fully oxygenated or not, this is a really delicious wine. Ruby colored, with "a port-like fire" (thank you, Tracy) and a "Cherry Jello redness" (er, thanks Robin), we got lots of flavors just from the nose: wet leather (I think that's a good thing), oak, vanilla, pepper, berry, and what Deb associated with violin rosin. This wine is complex and virtually dialectic: the body is light on the tongue at first, yet really full and buttery, too, a contrast that creates a synthetic richness. It's smooth but gets prickly, too. The tannins are noticeable yet they are hints and grace notes that don't overpower. And the finish is polite and uniform, steadily fading down the back of the throat. Dissenting observations: Steve noticed a "new car smell" (though he didn't really say it like it was a bad thing) and Robin said that, while the finish was relatively brief, that wasn't a positive for her--she wished it were longer.

The Mercurey (26, 25, 23, 23, 22--only five totals here because Tracy didn't rate the finish) scored a shade higher, but I don't think there was agreement that it was inherently a better wine (in fact, the sense I got before I compared numbers was that people generally liked the Patrice Rion better). The color was a lighter red--dancing, brilliant, and clear. The nose was creamy and buttery, but also full of sharp berry and cedar aromas. It displayed fewer tannins, and was called "prickly," "perky," and light. I'm not sure exactly what "tight" means in terms of wine flavor, but it felt tight in the mouth--concentrated and focused, like all the nubbins of taste were corralled into a small pen. We picked up on bright fruit flavors, especially dark cherry. The finish was immediate. Someone said that the flavor just "evaporates," which was quite noticeably true.

I first tried the Mercurey a month ago, at a wine tasting in Brooklyn about a mile from our apartment. I bought this bottle there and, afterward, Tracy and I had dinner at a restaurant nearby. Then, we walked home in the first really bitterly cold winter night this year. Naomi was strapped tightly to Tracy's chest, warm and asleep in the howling wind.

___________________________________

Postscript: Tracy and I just tasted the two red Burgundies from last night, and their differences are standing out very boldly to both of us. The Mercurey is simply younger, with more front-of-the-mouth flavors. There is fruit here, more noticeably than last night. It's rounder in the mouth than the Patrice Rion, with a graceful and receding finish. Tracy keeps saying that it's "graceful."

The Patrice Rion, however, strikes us now as a mature, quite dry, and with a sharp finish. There's a higher level of acidity here, and you might say it's less "gentle" than the Mercurey.

Let's leave it at that. Enjoy your Friday night!

Welcome to Thursday Night Tasting!

Hi, I'm Raphael. Welcome to my 'blog, Thursday Night Tasting!

First, a promise. Even though the 'blog is called Thursday Night Tasting, I swear an oath--with my hand atop a 1959 magnum of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild Pauillac--that I won't ever call it TNT.

OK, I don't actually own a Chateau Lafite. But I do swear.

So, here's the idea. Each Thursday night, I'll pop open a bottle or two of great wine from my small but growing collection, drink them with a couple of friends, and describe the experience as best I can on this very screen. I'm doing this because I love to drink good wine and talk and write about it. And, I want a record of all the great wines I've been drinking, and a 'blog seems like the best way to set it all down.

Who am I? Well, if you're reading this 'blog you're probably one of my close friends, so I'm not sure how much I need to say. But I fantasize that someone I don't know will stumble across Thursday Night Tasting and want to know.

So: I'm 39 years old. I live in Brooklyn, New York, with my fiancee, Tracy, and our daughter, Naomi, who is exactly nine weeks old today. I teach writing at a university, I have a dog (Shaba) and a cat (Lalo), I'm learning to play the ukulele, and I love drinking good wine.

Maybe I should just say something about that last bit: I love drinking good wine.

Good wine--what does it mean? It was only a few years ago, on a trip to visit Tracy's family in Napa, that I came to understand the depths of goodness in what I had previously understood only as a mild intoxicant well-suited to food. But good wine is something special. Good wine gets hold of you and tells a story. It moves you from one place to another, it has something to say, it surprises. At a recent tasting in Fort Greene (that's in Brooklyn, dear non-close-friend reader!) I was served a white Burgundy that began with the roundness and depth I associate with the chardonnay grape (from which all white Burgundies are made), thinned and separated into flavors I had never experienced from white wine--mushroom, for example, and something like shallots--and then faded respectfully, as if tucking away its ostentatious wares to make way for the mere satisfaction of the gulp.

I was surprised and excited. I wanted to share this experience with others. I wanted, more than anything, to turn these flavors into words, to talk about them.

There is something about drinking good wine that excites the verbal faculties. Maybe that's the cause of those over-reaching descriptions we've all heard, the ones that declare flavors like saltwater taffy, forest floor, and green cactus. And yet, I can't deny that there's a great pleasure in trying to fit language to taste. After all, tasting wine and making words are both the work of the tongue. Wine asks the tongue to lay flat and just feel. When it's gone, words are the tongue's revenge.

I'm a neophyte, really. I don't know a lot about wine, but I'm happy in my ignorance and cheered by what I have yet to learn. Please join Tracy and me, along with my friends Jon, Robin, Steve, and Deb, as we start getting to the bottom of some seriously good bottles of wine. I've chosen a few Burgundies, white and red, for the inaugural tasting. I hope you enjoy reading about them soon!

In deliciousness, Raphael