Tonight's wines are both Syrah (though in Australia they say "Shiraz"):
2004 Carlei Shiraz Victoria "Sergio's Blend" ($17)
2006 Crozes Hermitage Alain Graillot ($35)
A few months ago I said I'd be tasting my way through a number of varietals as a way to generally educate myself about wine. Tonight, I'll taste a couple of Syrahs, more or less ending the plan of moving through the central grapes that, at the time, I had read were the essentials: Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, Tempranillo, Sauvignon Blanc, Sangiovese, Pinot Noir, Syrah, and Chardonnay. (In fact, I never tasted Chardonnays specifically, though over the course of these months have tried numerous pairings of white Burgundies, Chablis, California Chards of milky and non-milky varieties, dry and light Long Island Chards, heavily lactating ones, the oaked and the unoaked, and so on; no need for an organized sampling). In fact, now that I've focused on these popular grapes, I realize I'd like to try a few more varietals before moving on to my anatomy of French wine. Over the past months, I've read about grapes I had never heard of before--the Nebbiolo, for example, a tannic and rustic Italian hill grape championed by Neal Rosenthal. I've also had quick tastes of varietals that I'd like to know more of--Granache, for example, the rich base of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, and a source for white wine (Granache Blanc) that I tried recently. In any case, tasting wine by tasting by grape has been an excellent pedagogy.
And yet paradoxically, during these months I've learned that grape DNA doesn't equal grape consistency. One of the most brayed about truisms regarding wine, the keyword in any defense of fine wine and its regional inimitability, is the concept of terroir. As I've been tasting types of grape from various corners of the globe, I've been tasting different terroirs, and the differences have been so great that I have come to wonder about the very idea of varietals. If terroir is so essential, to what extent is wine pressed from grapes the product of its genetic makeup?
To take the most obvious example, what does it mean that a William Fevre Chablis (tasted twice in Thursday Night Tasting)--a light, chalky, crisp, lemony bolt of a wine--is derived from the "same grape" as La Crema Chardonnay, an unctuous, luscious wall of creamy California hugeness? They're both "Chardonnays" but they're so very different it calls into question their categorical affiliation. So does it make sense to learn about wine by tasting varietals? The assumption is that grape, not land and climate, is the determining factor in any wine. While the case of Chardonnay is perhaps the marquee example, the question goes for any wine, anywhere.
Well, I don't know. I still like varietal tasting and think it's incredibly useful, mostly because we live in a global wine economy. If I'm going to drink globally (which I'd like to do), I should know how a Pinot Noir from South Africa shakes out next to an Oregon Pinot and a classic Burgundy. How can I begin to judge Rieslings from New York's Finger Lake region, which I keep reading is producing brilliant Riesling, without knowing not only about German, Austrian, and Alsatian Rieslings, but California ones as well? Wine is everywhere now being sold by varietal, from China and India to the tropics. Apparently, an emerging technology called Deep Ocean Water agriculture is beginning to allow for the growth of wine grapes in hot and steamy climates (it seems to work by pumping in cold water from deep pockets of sea adjacent to farmland as a coolant). How a particular grape performs in various places may be just the relevant way to begin tasting wine.
So I'm sticking with my plan: I'm going to taste a few more varietals along the way, focusing on regional and geographic distinctions, but move more immediately (after tonight, that is) into the nebula of French wine, hopping from region to region--from terroir to terroir. France is, of course, the source of the concept of terroir, and French wine reflects this--one buys a Burgundy, not a Pinot Noir, a Bordeaux, not a Cabernet Sauvignon. France organizes its wine into "appellations," or AOCs, designated wine growing regions that are carefully controlled in terms of how much wine they can produce, what types of grape(s) they can use, and how they may vinify their wine. In France, terroir trumps varietal.
As suggested above, perhaps this way of thinking is out of date. I just read in Lawrence Osborne's The Accidental Connoisseur that the French are the world's most provincial wine drinkers, importing just an astonishing 3% of their wine. That means that many French wine shops carry virtually all French wines. This is quite difficult to imagine for an American, used to wine shops organized nationally, with American and French wines up front, and wines from Australia, Italy, Spain, Argentina, and many other countries in back. To Americans, wine is grapes gone global; to the French, it's local land.
In any case, tonight we're being a little global, as usual. If any country represents to the traditional wine world the impact of emerging regions, it's Australia. In fact, one might say that Australian Shiraz symbolizes above any other wine how new places shape new tastes and shift global markets. Their big, approachable, fruity flavor bombs have either satisfied or created a lust for this kind of gargantuan oeneological experience. (I should say, I've not chosen a Shiraz from the Barossa Valley, where the most decadently profound juice missiles are made; the Victoria region, to the south of Barossa, produces lighter stuff). The other Syrah tonight is from Crozes Hermitage, a highly regarded appellation that produces more typically French wine--leaner, tighter, more densely packed. So:
Carlei
Plum colored, silky, and fat. Nose is full and round, almost palpable, as if someone soaked a towel in a bottle of wine and then hung it under your nose. Lush and luscious, big and juicy, ripe all over. Tracy used the word "loose," and that's right--this wine has lots of room about it. The flavors include all the dark fruits, maybe some black licorice too. I don't actually taste blood, but it seems bloody, somehow. Ferrous, though not really much in the way of tannins, not a lot of structure. Many might like this wine for sipping with low key foods. The phrase "picnic wine" comes to mind.
Alain Graillot
Muted color, rich still but more rose-like, the saturated rose petal color from inside the whorl. Noticeable leather in the nose, plus salt and hardwood. A tight smell. I guess I'm getting used to French wine being thinner, lither, and more bracing than other types. Here it is, again--focused, spiny, bright and even a little rigid. There's a nice, long taste toward the back of the tongue, a delectable finish. That saltiness mentioned above, it comes back upon repeated tastes--almost a residual of oyster-shell. This wine makes me feel like wearing suspenders--or rather, it makes me feel as though I am already wearing suspenders. Braced up. Perhaps it goes without saying that, unless I'm having pizza or moc duck pad see ew for dinner, I'd choose the Crozes Hermitage every time.
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