Riesling Evening

I used to think all Rieslings were sweet but they're quite often dry. And I've always imagined that I liked just the dry stuff, believing that sweet wine was somehow undesirable. Why did I think this? Maybe sweetness seems too everyday. Or maybe it's because it's easy to appreciate sweet things and so to mark oneself as sophisticated requires the putting away of easy pleasures. Anybody can like sweets, but it requires taste to enjoy austerity.

Having said all of this, on most days I'd rather drink dry wine, but that doesn't mean wines with a little more sugar aren't great. Like with Chardonnay: I used to be anti-oak. Oaking was for rubes. But now I think that oak is just an instrument that has its place, kind of like timpani. One of the lessons I've learned for myself over the past few months of tasting varietals in all their various expressions is to keep an open mind.

The other night, Tracy, Tina, Claude, and I tried four Rieslings, three on the dry side and one fairly sweet. They were all very good, and to a certain degree this was to be expected: we didn't include a bottom-shelf or mass-market Riesling in this tasting, only fine wines. These four Rieslings were from the three major Riesling areas on earth: Germany, Austria, and Alsace. We also tried a New World Riesling, from California. In fact, all the wines we drank were from well-established wineries from their respective areas, which was kind of exciting because we felt that we were getting a real representative sample of some of Riesling's best expressions. Tracy made a spicy coconut fish dish to accompany the tasting. Rieslings go well with spicy, tangy food. Thai is a good choice. In any case, the wines were:

2007 Trimbach Riesling ($18)
2007 Weingut Bründlemayer Riesling ($25)
1989 Rüdesheimer Berg Roseneck Riesling Spätlese ($35)
2008 Trefethen Family Vineyards Riesling ($20)

Trimbach
This was our representative Alsatian Riesling, one of the most popular regions producing Riesling worldwide. Trimbach is also a very well-known winery, and this particular Trimbach was voted one of the top 100 wines of 2009 by Wine Spectator, earning a very high 91 points from that magazine. However seriously you take these things, it's worth mentioning.

Especially because this wine was so good. Cold, deep, and absolutely clear, the Trimbach was everyone's favorite (scores of 26 and 22.5 from Tracy and me, and an A-/B+ from Claude, who was more comfortable using letter grades). The color was crisp and bright and had a pale, grassy tinge, the body was light and mineral, though simultaneously round and smooth. The standout flavor was green apple, noticed by Tracy and affirmed by all. We also tasted very clear dried apricot flavors, as well as vanilla. This wine also displayed extraordinary balance: the palate was full of fruit flavors but they were intermixed with crisp acidity. The wine had "levity," as Tina put it--it floated across the tongue. And the finish was quick and snappy--though it did linger an extra moment on the upper palate, as Claude noticed. 

Bründlemayer
This was the Austrian Riesling, and it was dry and crisp as Austrian Rieslings tend to be. While it earned slightly lower scores (Tracy and I gave it a 22, Claude a B+), it was really nice. More sharp and angular than the Trimbach and with a noticeable fizz of effervescence, this is nervy wine: alive, tingly, bright, crisp, edgy. We noticed kerosene (Claude), tons of citrus, especially lime, stony minerality, and just a shadow of woody mustiness--was it oak? Claude said it was like drinking Champagne. While this is a great wine with tons of busy brightness and dry depth, it was a little less calmly regal than the Trimbach.

Roseneck

This is classic, sweet, German Riesling--and it was great. Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl's book Drink This: Wine Made Simple, from which I've quoted and cited numerous times on these screens, explains that German Rieslings may be quite dry or very sweet. Dry German Rieslings are called Kabinett Rieslings, and we didn't try one of these. Sweeter German Riesling (but by no means dessert-wine-sweet) falls into the Spätlese and Auslese categories. But like all things German, it's more complicated than that: both Spätlese and Auslese can be dry as well, in which case they'll be called Riesling Spätlese (or Auslese) Trocken. In any case, we had no Trocken in the house.

Tracy gave this wine a 20, I gave it a 19 (Claude marked it a lowly B). It was dramatically different from the dry wines we'd just tasted. Honey was the flavor that burst through to me--honey in the wine's hips and on my tongue, and honey flavors all up in the sinuses. The mouth-feel of this wine is full, deep, dark, rich, and vibrant. The color echoes the brown glass of the bottle in which it comes. Besides honey, we tasted tangerines, oranges, and what Claude described as charcoal. The finish lingered on and faded slowly away. In the past few days since the tasting, I've been taking a small glass of this wine as a post-dinner treat and really liking it. This is a 1989, quite an old vintage for a Riesling. I was 19 years old, probably watching the Berlin wall come down as they cut the grapes from the vine. 

Trefethen
If I had to compare California Riesling to the other regions we tried that night, I'd say that it most closely resembles Alsatian wine. In many ways, it was like Trimbach's younger brother. We got all the same lightness and acidity with all the fruit flavor, especially lemon peel and maybe peach. Two of us noticed lilacs as well, and I could have sworn I picked up on blueberry, but Tracy's doubt made me second-guess my own experience. The fourth wine can be tricky after three previous tastings (no spit-buckets here). We also got things here like caramel and salt, and began saying things like "this is a summer wine" and "it would go well with oysters." Altogether enjoyable, altogether delicious.

Sometimes I think maybe it would be great to go super-microscopic with these tastings--a whole tasting of German Rieslings, for example, trying a low-end mass marked German Riesling, a Kabinett, a sweet Spätlese, a dry Spätlese, and a German dessert Riesling. One could even do a full tasting of just Spätleses, or even hone in on just one vineyard and do a four-year vertical tasting (verticals are wines of successive vintages from the same vineyard). I guess I'd rather do this in France.

Sangioveses--First Blind Tasting!

Last night, Tracy and I conducted our first ever blind tasting, of two Sangioveses. Because the Sangiovese grape--base varietal of Chiantis, Montepulcianos, Brunellos, and Super Tuscans--is a brilliant partner to acidy, tomatoey Italian dishes (or so I read), I made a simple red sauce for linguine and we ate as we tasted. And we learned something, about Sangiovese and also about how it's priced.

So, the wines were:

2006 Monte Antico Toscana ($12)
1996 Castell'in Villa Chianti Classico ($24)

Interesting factoid #1: Though the Monte Antico is just three years old and costs only $12, it scored a 90 from Wine Spectator magazine (just inching it into the "outstanding" category), which also ranked it among the top 100 wines of 2009.

Interesting factoid #2: Though the Castelli'in is a true Chianti Classico--which means it is a higher-end Chianti, which is itself a regional designation for Sangioveses--from way back in 1996, we both liked the cheap Monte Antico better.

Interesting factoid #3: Though we liked one wine over the other, they weren't so different.

I'm sure we all associate the most famous of Sangiovese wines, Chianti, with one of two things, neither of them positive: the first is Anthony Hopkins's Hannibal Lecter and the second is wicker baskets. First, Lecter: remember the scene in Silence of the Lambs where Hannibal claims he ate a victim's liver with "fava beans and a fine Chianti--FWP FWP FWP FWP!" (Don't be fooled here: Hopkins pronounces it kee-YAN-tee, rhyming with "ante." It's really kee-YON-tee, rhyming with "full monte.") Somehow, Lecter's associating of Chianti with cannibalizing a schizophrenic's liver turned off a nation, or at least this nation-dweller, to this fine Italian wine.

And second, the wicker basket thing: that was a marketing gimmick from the 1960s and '70s, meant to rouse images of rustic meals in hillside Tuscan villas. Unfortunately, despite its immediate popularity, the wicker basket and round-bellied bottle came to signify cheapness. In 1993, while visiting Tuscany, I sipped my first really transformative red wine and abandoned this cheap or crass image of Chianti and Sangiovese. But I think these kinds of memories play a strong role in how we approach wines.

Anyway, back to the wines at hand.


Monte Antico
Tracy calls this wine a "true red" (she rated it a 21; so caught up in tasting and taking notes was I that I forgot to score these wines numerically). It is a well-balanced wine with tons of berry flavors, ripe black fruit, spicy prickliness, and a soothing tannic singe on the tongue and teeth. The flavor of this wine soared up into my sinuses and upper palate, full of leather, tobacco and what Tracy insisted was "cigar box"--a rich cedar aroma.  It was a perfect compliment to the acidic tomato sauce: light and clear and smooth. This is cheerful wine.

The Chianti
While there were some significant differences here, this wine wasn't extraordinarily different. (Tracy scored it a 20.) We found many overlapping flavors--leather, tobacco, cigar box, and black fruit--but also some decidedly new ones. Most conspicuously, I could taste with ringing clearness the hint of oak (and many Chiantis do spend some time in some oak). Tracy came up with the term "library" to account for the fulsome, woody richness of leather and mustiness. It was a little rounder than the previous wine--less prickly, I guess--and had a bare hint of sweetness. I liked this wine, but found no flavor or tone here that I didn't like better in the Monte Antico.

The first wine is half the price of the second. I think the blind tasting may have really helped us see that the wines are really similar. In fact, I'm wondering if blind tastings are essential here, because the Chianti bottle looks really great and the Sangiovese bottle looks quite plonky and amateur. I'm susceptible to bling. In any case, I would like to be the guy who buys the good $12 bottle.

I'm looking forward to trying more Chiantis in the future. On my list are a Chianti Riserva (that is, a Chianti Classico that has been aged for some time), a "Super Tuscan" (a complicated designation that means, essentially, that the wine is mostly Sangiovese, unlike Chiantis, which may be mixed with ancillary varietals), and a Brunello (the top-tier Sangiovese). I also have a bottle of 1999 Barolo, a very fine and special wine, but it has sentimental value to me and I'm saving it for some time to come.

Side-Taste: Mettler's Cabernet Sauvignon

Last night, Tracy had a mid-evening craving for a sip of something delicious. I pulled out a bottle of Mettler Family Vineyards's 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon ($25), and I realized after a quick taste that I had to make a little sketch of this wine.

The reason? I had a really distinct flavor experience: woodsmoke. Try a mouthful and notice how clearly this single note rings out at the top of the palate. What is this "woodsmoke"? I'm not sure, but I'm trying to name this very distinct, very clear flavor, and I think it's the taste of a burning log. A hardwood. Not the dense, ashy, suffocating part of woodsmoke, but the delicate residue part. The October night smell. I could also rightly say this is the scent of a hard smoked salami, something smokey, meaty, a little fatty.

What a great flavor! 

I also really like how this rustic smokiness asserts itself against the backdrop of the wine's lighter, more delicate texture. It's very nicely balanced, displaying many ripe berry fruit flavors and a crisp acidity. That's what makes this smokiness all the more welcome.

At $25, it's not a cheap option for dinner, but this would go so very well with red meat, especially a porterhouse steak. I don't eat meat (except for occasional pieces of fish), but in the interests of objectivity, I admit that this Cabernet would pair well with it. Or even a nice blue cheese. Or just on its own in a Burgundy glass because Tracy wanted a taste of something sweet.

Sauvignon Blancs

I love Sauvignon Blanc, but I've never really thought too much about it. It's always seemed a go-to wine, never all that bad and sometimes really good. I guess I've always had an instinctive distrust of white wine's depth, figuring that because it's so light it somehow offers less. I also never knew that there exist so many styles of Sauvignon Blanc, though the more I learn about wine I realize that no matter what grape one begins with, terroir and the process of winemaking itself play large roles in determining the taste and feel of any wine.

Having said that, I should add that Sauvignon Blanc is, more than almost any other major wine grape, the least manipulated and manhandled of varietals. About an hour before the tasting, I read Matt Kramer's column in the current issue of Wine Spectator. Kramer argues that there is less "intervention" in the wine-making process with Sauvignon Blanc than in grapes like Chardonnay or Pinot Noir, and many others. It's true that some special processes are used at times, things like "extended lees contact," in which the dead yeast and other organic detritus are stirred up into the fermenting juice to impart more flavor, or barrelling in oak (and very little of that last one). However, these are somewhat rare, and the reason for this hands-off attitude, Kramer points out, is that the Sauvignon Blanc is fine on its own. The grapes themselves have tons of flavor and character, and getting that straight into the bottle is job one. Sauvignon Blanc needs no gauze on the lens.

Last night, Tracy and I were joined by Jeff, who lives in the neighborhood, for a tasting of four good Sauvignon Blancs. For this tasting, I set out four wine glasses filled with various fruits--honeydew, pineapple, lemon, and apple--and we used them as "taste markers" to help us detect these flavors in the wines themselves. This is a great way to begin noticing flavors, and it's something I think we'll do from now on.

The Wines were, in order of appearance:

2008 Otto's Constant Dream Marlborough New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc ($16)  
2008 Whitehall Lane Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley ($16)
2008 Cade Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley ($32)
2008 Sancerre Clos des Bouffants Domaine Roger Neveu ($28)

Marlborough
New Zealand's Marlborough region is recognized as a producer of powerful, expressive Sauvignon Blancs. To sample the this varietal in its various forms, a Marlborough is required. This wine, which Tracy scored a 21.5 and I scored a 21 (Jeff didn't score his wines), had all the fruity bouquet and floral punch of a typical Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. The taste markers worked well: I sniffed the fresh honeydew and then tasted the wine and could immediately pluck out those melon notes. We also tasted grass, citrus, and pineapple, all to be expected of such a wine. Other pleasing things here included the wine's balance: while the fruit jumped right out, it was held in check by the prickly acidity and slight bitterness. Jeff said the wine had "different altitudes" and he could taste the honey and citrus working in some sort of spatial simultaneity. It is a full but light wine, "excitable" (Jeff) with lots of light, zing, and "pith" (Tracy). One of the most impressive qualities of this wine was the Raymond Chandler finish--that is, it says the long goodbye. In fact, the flowers and tropical fruit remained hovering in my sinuses for about as long as it takes that chord at the end of the Beatles's "A Day in the Life" to fully fade.

Whitehall
If you've seen Sideways, you may remember the scene where the the two couples go out to a long dinner with numerous wine pairings (it's the dinner following Miles's infamous anti-Merlot hissy). The first wine they try is a Sauvignon Blanc that has been aged in oak. Miles, who has seen a lot when it comes to wine, swirls his glass and says, eyebrows raised, "interesting." In fact, while it's unique to age Sauvignon Blanc in oak, it's certainly not unheard of. I imagine that Miles's apparent surprise issues from politeness. As I'm sure he knew, some oak-aged Sauvignon Blancs are among the more expensive bottles. Still, this practice is much more rare than the straightforward vine-to-bottle winemaking described above.

The Whitehall, if you haven't guessed, is an oaked Sauvignon Blanc. I should say immediately that the oak is not overpowering. Only 30% of this wine spent time in oak, and for just seven weeks. Still, this light oaking imparts an acerbic tilt to the outright friendliness of the other wines we tasted. Tracy (who rated this wine a 20.5) detected silt, tobacco, and musk, along with a slight vanilla twang. Jeff was also generally positive about this wine, calling it "mellow," "smooth," and "rounded." If the previous wine was a tenor, he said, this was a baritone. Jeff also referred to the Whitehall as "self-effacing," and I think I would agree, though maybe in less positive terms--to me, the wine was a little blank. I used the word "flat" twice in my notes, and as I drank it I pictured in my mind a long plank of wood. (I gave the wine a perhaps too-low 14.) Now, maybe I pictured wooden planks because I had recently read that a cheap way to oak wines is to toss in a few oak boards to a fermenting tank--though I know from reading about this wine that they used real oak barrels. I do think, though, that the flatness and blandness of a plank board is a decent metaphor for this wine. Which is not to say it's all bad. We need sturdy, serviceable planks. This is a solid wine and would go really well with light Italian food, maybe gnocci. A good, smooth, gentle wine, and a twist on the other Sauvignon Blancs of the night.As Miles would say: interesting.

Cade
This was the most expensive bottle of the night. I raise this issue of price at the outset because, while this was a really nice wine, it wasn't noticeably better than the others. (In fact, I think that Jeff said it was his least favorite of the bunch.) I had originally written here that one reason for the high price was that Cade is affiliated with the world-famous wine producer Merry Edwards. I was incorrect about this, as Jill informed me in her comment below. The reason for my error was simple: I was told by the clerk in the wine store that Cade was an offshoot label of Merry Edwards, and I didn't independently verify the claim. I should say that I won't make this mistake again. I realize that it's essential to keep such facts straight. And thank you, Jill, for correcting me.

Still, $32 for a Sauvignon Blanc should clearly reward the buyer.

One of the most noticeable and immediate issues here was that the wine displayed a slight effervescence. The fizz seemed to lessen in intensity after a few minutes, but it never entirely disappeared. That issue aside, Tracy got it right when she said the Cade is a nice combination of the first and second wines, with lots of the flavor notes of the Marlborough alongside the more angular and restrained elements of the Whitehall. We all noticed vanilla and citrus, and I honed in hard on the presence of a pleasing, but definitely assertive, alcohol burn in the back of the throat. This wine is, at 13.8% alcohol, indeed 0.8% higher in alcohol content than the other Sauvignon Blancs--but should that make such a difference? We also noticed how fast the finish was here, especially in comparison to the Marlborough.

Sancerre
France is best known for two regions of Sauvignon Blanc vineyards. One is the Loire valley, home to the towns of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé. The other is Bordeaux, more famous for its reds but also a producer of Sauvignon Blancs (though these are most often blends with Semillon and other grapes). The Loire wines, though, are famous for their mineral qualities and prized as some of the more complex of Sauvignon Blancs. Many consider Sauvignon Blancs from the Loire valley among the best in the world.

I was surprised by the fruit-forward nature of this bottle (I rated it a 24, Tracy a 21.5). Perhaps I was hoping for even more minerality, more limestoney bite. It was, to be sure, more restrained than the first wine we tasted, and had a muted, quiet quality. We detected a waft of cork (this was the only corked bottle; the rest were screw-tops), grass, melon, flowers, and mild citrus. In short, this was a fairly recognizable Sauvignon Blanc, enjoyable, delicious, smooth, and balanced. A really nice wine, one that would go fine with food. I should add that out of all these wines, this is the one I'd like to drink most of all. Flavorful, cool, rounded, smart. The best Sauvignon Blanc I've ever had, I think.

I also had an already opened bottle of Sauternes, a sweet Bordeaux wine blend of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc. We were going to taste it, but it had begun to turn. So I dumped the bottle and we had coffee instead.