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April 2006

Nights of drunkenness

Trimbach 2000 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Succulent ripe peach juice with bits of rose jam and lychee syrup. Off-dry, but with enough acidity, bitter melon rind and minerality to sustain the sugar. Maturing nicely, though I’m not sure I’d wait much longer to drink this.

Trimbach prefers to keep things on the dry side, but the rampant sugar levels of even marginally ripe gewurztraminer grapes make that a difficult task. In a toasty vintage like 2000, “difficult” becomes “impossible,” and the choice is between making a wine with residual sugar and gewurztraminer-flavored vodka. Still, this wine obtains much of its body from fairly high alcohol (don’t believe the label) and its impact from the usual fat, love-’em-or-hate-’em gewurztraminer aromatics, so in reality the wine achieves neither a refutation of sugar or an avoidance of overt alcoholic mass. And yet, it’s still tasty. Alcohol: 13% (but almost assuredly much higher than that). Closure: cork. Importer: Diageo. Web: http://www.maison-trimbach.fr/.

C&P Breton 2002 Bourgeuil “Nuits d’Ivresse” (Loire) – Well, if one’s nights are indeed going to be filled with intoxication, this would be a good way to go about achieving such a state. Rough, herb-filled and wet black earth with indelicate traceries of animal leavings, showing a wetly acidic chewed blackberry and dirt palate with a fine-grained powder texture and a long, supple finish. A really spectacular wine with a particularly particulate manner, and while I don’t know if it’s supposed to age or not, I know that it’s balanced enough to hint at the possibility of doing so. If, that is, one can keeps one’s lips off the bottle.

There’s another reason not to age this wine, as well: it’s one of those trendy “unsulfured” wines that seem to be barreling out of the Old World in record numbers.. This is an especially big thing in France, wherein wines are not dosed (or are just barely dosed) with protective sulfur at multiple stages during the winemaking process. That sulfur works well as a wine preservative is unquestioned. That it gives a few people bad headaches and worse is also unquestioned, though this is (by the best evidence) a very, very tiny number of people (despite the “sulfite” warnings on U.S. wine labels, which mostly serve to needlessly bewilder people who have aversions to anthocyanins or histamines, or have simply consumed too much wine in a single sitting). But the European fetish for unsulfured wines is a dangerous one for foreign – and even domestic – consumers, because it requires absolutely flawless transport and storage conditions from grape to glass in order to avoid unwanted secondary fermentation and other types of spoilage. Such conditions are pursued by many worthy concerns within the wine distribution chain, but just one broken link – for example, one truck with its interior AC off on an 80-degree afternoon – can ruin everything. I’m very much in support of unsulfured wines in theory (and this one is a beauty), but in practice I think that perhaps such experiments might be better reserved for the wines’ local markets, where storage/transport conditions are a daily and verifiable fact of life. Alcohol: 12%. Organic. Closure: cork. Importer: Louis/Dressner/LDM.

Good morning, Fiordland (New Zealand, pt. 17)

[submerged Lake Hauroko dock]Chased by dinner

Teeming fleets of titi (last night’s dinner) surround our ferry, winning the speed contest and then either skidding to a stop on the waters of the Foveaux Strait or circling back for another go. No wonder they’re so chewy. Our captain explains that they’re after their sole meal: the fish churned up in our catamaran’s wake.

No wonder they’re so fishy.

A stunningly beautiful, sunny, and warm morning heralds our departure from Stewart Island, with the low fire of the sun blazing a sizzling gold across the remarkably still waters of the Strait. Long black strips of muttonbirds upon the water bracket our passage, and we receive occasional visits from one of the smaller cousins of the albatross family. The morning is as peaceful as it is nostalgic, and under clear skies, we can see Mt. Anglem – Stewart Island’s tallest peak – jutting towards the northwest with a necklace of cloud, and to its north the rough and rocky southern coast that is our destination.

Back in Bluff, our rental car roused from its rest and our bags once more stowed in the trunk, we shake off rusty driving muscles and begin a dreary drive northward towards Invercargill. The city itself is rather architecturally shiny, with a clean glow of urban renewal that kicks the sand of modernity into the face of its remoteness from…well, just about everywhere. I’m not sure it’s fooling anyone, though. It looks well worth a stroll, but we’ve got many long miles ahead of us today, and we – somewhat regretfully – leave the visit for another time.

The depths of higher ground

Route 99 starts just north of Invercargill, and describes a beautiful and – for New Zealand – surprisingly uncomplicated and drivable arc around the southwestern corner of the South Island, hugging the ocean for the greater majority of its length. We stop when the mood strikes us – a stroll to admire the perfect roundness of wave-eroded stones at Colac Bay and Pahia Beach, an overlook to admire the surprisingly nearby spur of Mt. Anglem and the low expanse of the uninhabited mass of Stewart Island, a pause to appreciate the endless sapphire of the sun-glinted ocean and the infinite sky reflected in it – and drive with contemplative speed in between. At Te Waewae the road turns decisively north, leaving the ocean for a drive full of solitude and growing majesty, the unapproachable peaks of Fiordland to the west and a less forbidding ebb and flow of mountain and farmland plain to the east.

The gentle breezes of the oceanside morning are gone, replaced by a variably gusty wind that is, at times, difficult to handle on particularly exposed stretches of road. We take a short, restorative break at Clifden, admiring the rough-hewn span of an historic bridge crossing the power-generating Waiau River (here little more than a wide, gentle stream), then turn down a dirt road for a half-hour westward diversion into Fiordland National Park and to a likely picnic spot.

Lake Hauroko is the deepest lake in New Zealand. It is unquestionably one of the prettiest we’ve ever seen, with unbelievably clear waters flawlessly reflecting the surrounding forest of peaks, yet transparent below the surface to the very limits of sight. We dine on a half-submerged dock, finishing odds and ends from our island sojourn with a little bit of wine from much earlier in the trip.

Kennedy Point 2004 Sauvignon Blanc (Waiheke Island) – Shy, with gooseberry and grapefruit but showing decidedly less vivid than either the version tasted at the winery or a previous bottle. I’m not sure what’s up here. Low-level taint would be the natural suspect, but this wine’s under screwcap. Multiple bottlings? Another sort of taint? Barometric pressure? Gremlins?

North of the lake, winds pick up strength as the landscape becomes more recognizable as that of Fiordland: distant snow-capped peaks framing impossibly steep glacial lakes, and all around hilly, rocky fields good for nothing except meager grazing. At Blackmount, the wind is so strong that we can’t even open our car doors without a careful realignment of the automobile. A looming sense of altitude grows to the west, and begins rising in the north and east as well. Sudden emergence into the sparse civilization of Manapouri allows us a much-needed refueling break, and we rest by the cool waters of the town’s namesake lake – one with which we’ll become much better-acquainted in a few days – for a few minutes, enjoying the bizarre juxtaposition of icy mountaintops and waving palm-like fronds on the lakeshore. There are even a few intrepid beachgoers today, though the beach itself is an uncomfortable jumble of ground-up glacial rocks.

Primed for the last stretch, we slowly drive the few kilometers north to Te Anau, completing a full circuit of the Southern Scenic Route that was begun four days ago in Dunedin. From there, the roads are familiar, as we turn eastward through the semi-mystical un-town known as The Key, then turn northward again at Mossburn. It is, after all, the only road. Here, lofty green and brown waves of grassland are consumed in neck-stretching wonder, first by the vertiginous skyscrapers of the Eyre Mountains to the west, and then the aptly-named Remarkables on the east, as the mountainous slopes plummet at last towards the icy mirror of southern Lake Wakatipu.

Our road winds and twists, as difficult for its death-defying drops and turns as for its breathtaking scenery, and we stop as frequently as possible to admire views that are becoming increasingly familiar as we snake northward. And finally, around one last gut-churning bend, we see the growing sprawl of Queenstown, nestled against its protective hillside. We are, at long last, here.

(Continued here…)

Filters and gauze

[Villa Bucci]Villa Bucci 2001 Verdicchio dei Castelli dei Jesi Classico “Riserva” (Marches) – Intense seaside stones and salt-kissed greenery with a vivid citrus-melon core, under a softening and lightly spicy gauze (from the oak). An extremely elegant, sophisticated wine, though it is a bit less food-friendly than normal verdicchio as a result.

Verdicchio is unquestionably the leading grape of the Marches region of Italy, though wines from montepulciano and vernaccia garner the only DOCGs in the area, and it probably deserves a better reputation than it has. This is, no doubt, due to the general international indifference towards Italian white wines. It’s a shame, and wrong-headed, for with careful selection there’s an awful lot to like about the broad range of Italian biancos. Here, Villa Bucci is taking a slightly different path, sexing up their native variety to appeal to more jaded international tastes. Unlike most such efforts, which bury the underlying wine in a dreary haze of oak, this one is a rousing success. It’s not cheap, however, which will limit its success somewhat. Alcohol: 13%. Closure: cork. Web: http://www.villabucci.com/.

Schleret 2003 Pinot Gris Herrenweg (Alsace) – Lightly spiced pear through a thick filter. Disappointing.

Schleret is known for working in a lighter, more elegant style than many of its Alsatian brethren, but of late lightness and elegance have turned to something even less substantial. Pinot gris is rarely the most exciting of Alsace’s “noble” quartet (riesling, pinot gris, gewurztraminer, muscat), but it’s certainly more exciting than this. Things need to improve at this house. Alcohol: 13.5%. Closure: cork. Importer: Rosenthal.

[Ferngrove]Ferngrove 2003 Shiraz (Frankland River) – Big, chewy and a little overripe and overdone, with powerful blackberry jam and boysenberry syrup flavors turning to vinyl and char on the finish. Too much.

Western Australia (which is where the Frankland River appellation is) has a reputation for wines with less “oomph” than the more famous products of Barossa, Hunter and McLaren. This is, depending on one’s tastes, a good or bad thing (for me, it’s good), but it has always been possible to overachieve in such a way that the products become less distinguishable. Here’s an example of that in action; a W.A. wine that thuds and thunders on the palate like a wine from Australia’s southeastern corner. Alcohol: 14.5%. Closure: cork. Importer: American Wine Distributors. Web: http://www.ferngrove.com.au/.

Laurent Barth 2004 Sylvaner (Alsace) – Decidedly off-dry, like a purée of ripe green zebra tomatoes bathed in a light celery root syrup. Full-bodied for sylvaner, definitely less severe than usual for this grape, and fun to drink.

Tomato. For better or worse, it is the primary organoleptic indicator for Alsatian sylvaner, though I haven’t noted that the character makes the grape particularly amenable to tomatoes as a food pairing. And no matter where it’s grown, it’s tough to do much more than crisp, clean and vegetal with it; sylvaner is, like carignan, one of those grapes that appears to need just the right combination of soil, vine age and winemaking to overachieve its way beyond mediocrity. Alcohol: 12.5%. Closure: cork. Importer: Vineyard Research.

[Barone Cornaccia]Internaz “Barone Cornacchia” 2003 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo (Abruzzi) – Blocks of light black and dark red fruit hewn from an earthy quarry, with refreshing acidity and light notes of game and pepper. Good, simple, Old World fun.

Montepulciano is frequently confused for sangiovese, no thanks to Tuscany’s Vino Nobile di Montepulciano (made, at least in part, from the latter), both on the vine and in the glass. But it has its own character – sometimes a bit like sangiovese’s less cultured country cousin, other times like its more manly older brother – when not over-spoofulated. This wine is a fine bargain for everyday drinking, in case you’re looking for such things. And who isn’t? Alcohol: 13%. Closure: cork. Importer: Ideal. Web: http://www.baronecornacchia.it/.

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