Browse Month

May 2006

TN: Yet another night in Vermont (bored with these titles yet?)

Champalou Vouvray Brut (Loire) – Very, very dry, with scalding desert sand carrying only a memory of faded white flowers. A bit extreme. (5/06)

Codax 2003 Albariño Burgáns (Rias Baixas) – Wet, juicy-fruity melon and grapefruit with good acidity but a sticky, almost gummy mouthfeel. Not bad, but it would benefit from more brightness. (5/06)

Trimbach 2001 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Restrained and possibly a bit closed, with dry lychee juice and pear skin braced by a touch of tannin and fairly good acidity. Needs some time to reemerge with smoky, bacon fat and cashew characteristics. (5/06)

TN: One more night in Vermont

Trimbach 2003 Pinot Blanc (Alsace) – Simple light apricot and sweet lemon flavors. Dry. Heavier and more difficult than usual, which could be an artifact of the vintage. (5/06)

Weinbach 1999 Riesling “Cuvée Théo” (Alsace) – Pure essence of iron with a bright sheen of Granny Smith apple. It builds and expands with air, and may be about as good as it’s going to get. (5/06)

Porter Creek 2004 Carignane Angeli “Old Vine” (Alexander Valley) – Big, fruity and relatively acidic, with a lot of adorable doofus qualities. In other words, not particularly sophisticated…but then, one doesn’t look to carignane for sophistication. (5/06)

Tablas Creek 2001 Côtes de Tablas Red (Paso Robles) – Full-bodied roasted berries and dark, sun-drenched soil with an undertone of leathery tannin and squeezed meat textural discontinuities. Very interesting, with a long future still ahead of it. (5/06)

Umathum/Peck “Zantho” 2001 Zweigelt (Burgenland) – Dusty and dry, with elegant pencil shavings and a high-toned blackberry juice character. It’s fairly restrained, and can be easily overwhelmed by aggressive food. (5/06)

TN: Two nights in Vermont

Monarchia 2003 Pinot Gris (Budai) – In case you were wondering, Budai is in Hungary. And yes, this is my first Hungarian pinot gris. It’s loaded with petrol, with vague hints of anise and pine needle underneath. The weight is good, and so is the acid (was 2003 not as steamy in Hungary as it was in Western Europe?), but there’s not much flavor of more than academic interest.

Cazes “Blanc de Lynch-Bages” 1997 Bordeaux Blanc (Bordeaux) – I feared this might be over the hill, but instead it has matured into a lovely little wine. Strong honeydew melon and ripe grapefruit with little zingers of lime, green apple and green plum are introduced by a pleasant notion of sweet oak, and good acidity supports the entire effort through a long, crisp finish. I think it’s probably at peak now.

Jamet 1996 Côte-Rôtie (Rhône) – Lovely and aromatic for the first fifteen minutes or so, but after that it closes in on itself, leaving a slightly less welcoming shell of hardish tannin, smoked meat and a manageable amount of brett. The wine’s not unpleasant at the moment, but I suspect there’s better things in its future.

Edmunds St. John 1993 Syrah Durell (Sonoma Valley) – Very tight and closed at first. Harder than nails, in fact. But as it airs, it starts to blossom, showing deep-toned blackberry and leather with dark black earth, rosemary pressed into the leaves of an ancient tome, walnut oil and little hints of unidentifiable spice. Masterful wine in the full glory of its maturity.

[El Grifo]El Grifo 1998 Malvasia Dulce (Lanzarote) – Not as vivid as it was in its youth, but with all sorts of sun-drenched yellow fruit with a slight rounding-off of the edges towards caramelized pineapple. Fun.

Bottex Vin du Bugey-Cerdon “La Cueille” (Ain) – Drier than usual, with mineral-laden raspberries and a dusty leaf finish. Delicious, but a little different.

Porter Creek 2004 Zinfandel “Old Vines” (Sonoma County) – Very woody at first opening, but this quickly fades under a throbbing pulse of boisterous fruit. Blackberry, boysenberry, black raspberry, black cherry – all the songs you know and love, played at top volume – with enough acidity and just a hint of tannin to lend it some support and rhythm. A delicious, drinkable zin, though possibly not for the long haul. 15.1% for those who care, though it’s not at all hot…just big.

Voyager Estate 2002 Shiraz (Margaret River) – Heavy leather, black plum, blueberry and blackberry with fuzzy, thick tannin and a little bit of acidity. Fruit-forward, but structured and relatively balanced, with obvious aging potential.

TN: Brandlin wash

[Franus]Franus 1999 Zinfandel Brandlin (Mount Veeder) – Quince pie and coal dust. Still quite structured, with hints of dried leaves and suggestions of toasted blackberry liqueur, plus a forcefully whispered notion of acidity. This it maturing nicely, and far better than it was in its youth.

A true old-vine zin (the vines were planted in the twenties) from an extreme terroir that’s often derided for producing undrinkably structured cabs. Young zins from this property are not much fun, but they do have the structure and stuffing to age, and while Franus does dabble in wood to the detriment of the wine, there’s so much goodness inherent in the fruit that it can outlast tomfoolery in the cellar. Alcohol: 14.8%. Closure: cork. Web: http://www.peterfranus.com/.

TN: Good sec

[Payral]Daulhiac “Château Le Payral” 2004 Bergerac Sec (Southwest France) – Tastes like sauvignon blanc – green, fresh and zippy – with fine-powder, almost dusty minerality (something in the granite family, it appears) and a dry, but intense, finish. A nice, good value wine. (5/06)

Actually, it’s a blend of sauvignon blanc, sémillon and muscadelle (proportions unknown). This makes two delicious Bergeracs I’ve had this year, both of them fine values. Why don’t I own more of these wines? Alcohol: 12%. Closure: cork. Importer: Violette. Web: http://chateaulepayral.over-blog.com/.

TN: The Blair necessities (New Zealand, pt. 24)

(The original, with better formatting and a quite a few photos, is here.)

How dry I am

The road to Cromwell, which any Queenstown-based wine tourist will take again and again, is a study in browns. Dry tussock covers rocky, rust-colored hillsides and abandoned, dust-covered mining shacks in a long, undulating roller-coaster ride through Desiccationland, with only the sharp turquoise rush of the Kawarau River and an occasional brushstroke of greenery to break up the monochromism. Fascinating at first glance, sure, but by one’s sixth trip along this half-hour thrill ride the beauty has been replaced by a dull weariness, due also in part to the unrelenting difficulty of the drive.

At journey’s end, however, there is respite. Cromwell’s history is tied to mining, but it’s reputation is based on fruit. It used to be fruit of the eating kind – and in fact a giant multi-hued fruit sculpture greets visitors to the town in all its lurid glory – but that image is quickly being replaced by its position as the geographical and functional center of the exploding Central Otago wine industry. And indeed, fertile and well-watered plains do inhabit the immediate area, with fruit stands along the highway selling wide-ranging collections of rather extraordinary produce…though the customers, perhaps inexplicably, seem to be busloads of primarily Japanese tourists.

Grapes, however, have different needs. And thus, it’s back into the dry and desolate hills that one goes in search of vineyards. The Bannockburn area, just southwest of Cromwell and even drier-looking than the Queenstown-Cromwell road, features a rather striking number of cut-from-the-rocks wineries. And out near the end of one dusty country track is one of the best.

[Felton Road vineyard]The hole story

On our last visit to Felton Road, we’d simply dropped by the tasting room for a quick sniff’n’spit. But that’s a less than satisfactory way of assessing the winery, as their best bottlings sell out so quickly and invisibly that the casual visitor will hardly even be aware of their existence. This time, we arrive armed with an appointment, and are met by Blair Walter, the Felton Road winemaker. Walter is friendly, talkative, and casual, and like most winemakers with his philosophical bent, immediately leads us not into the cellar, but into the vineyards. As we walk, he gives an overview of the area and its history.

As I’ve mentioned before, the Central Otago is as young as it is explosive, but remains the province of smallholders with only 30-40 hectares of total plantings, and as of yet no large companies. “There will always be a lifestyle element to the winemaking,” notes Walter, whose employer has been in the vinous game only since 1992. Yet there are signs that all this explosive growth is finally slowing; while land purchased for $10,000 an hectare has recently sold for ten times that, new plantings are tapering off (though the continuing work of bulldozers and the presence of wire-tied stakes on dozens of nearby hillsides superficially indicates otherwise). And while there are always new players, most of the region’s recognizable names started their work at about the same time, are approximately the same age, and possess similar oenological and viticultural training. Walter himself has worked and studied all over the world, with a special focus on quality pinot noir locales in Oregon, California and Burgundy.

We stroll down a neatly-ordered row of vines, much more tightly-trained than the sprawling bush-type viticulture visibly practiced at many neighboring wineries, while Walter runs down his agricultural philosophy. There’s deep concern at Felton Road regarding issues of soil, mesoclimate, clone, rootstock, and proper site/grape integration, and to this end the property has been turned into somewhat of a polycultural laboratory (one vineyard, called Cornish Point, is almost entirely given over to a systematic study of clone/rootstock combinations and European-style row spacing). Cover crops are employed, though early plantings of chicory proved too aggressive, and replanting to grass, rye, and triticale proceeds apace. Walter also notes that it nearly impossible to grow grapes without irrigation in this area, due to exceedingly low rainfall (which, when it does arrive, tends to be sluiced away by the deep gullies that crisscross the region), and that trials combining grass cover crops and reduced irrigation only resulted in lower-quality grapes; nonetheless, as little irrigation as possible is practiced. The lack of rain is paired with a general lack of fog, which means rot is rare, and this allows the winery to practice organic viticulture in its mature blocks; younger vines sometimes receive herbicide treatments.

As we talk, we arrive at a deep rectangular hole in the midst of one row, a hazard that could prove fatal to an bleary early-morning vineyard worker on a tractor. I, myself, am inclined to edge away from it, but Walter quite literally climbs right in and starts pointing out features. This is a crater with a purpose: to show the surprisingly deep root penetration achieved by what are fairly young vines, and to simultaneously allow a little deep soil analysis along the way. The subsoil does look properly dismal and forbidding, with river sands atop clay, though Walter notes that there are surface differences between the different blocks: here, schist gravels, and across the driveway that bisects the estate, windblown loess.

Felton Road makes marketing copy of its intention to produce site-revelatory wines, and so I ask Walter if the block-designated bottlings (one riesling, one or two chardonnays, and two pinots) come from specific subplots. He pauses to consider for a moment, then acknowledges that they do tend to come from predictable areas within vineyards, but that he’s “not yet ready to call the game,” especially because constant experimentation expands and contracts these areas on a yearly basis. Some vineyards have proven less than satisfactory due to simple mistakes in row alignment; “yeah, that one’s wrong” remarks our host, pointing across the property. Others have defined roles – Walter refers to the more dramatically-sloped vineyards at the estate’s upper edges as mostly providing “structure” – and still others await their eventual destiny as the viticultural experiments continue unabated. Walter believes that the very beginnings of terroir influences can be seen, and is certainly doing (in concert with viticulturist Gareth King) as much as anyone to field-research the issue, but also that it will take a long, long time before anyone in the region is ready to say much that’s definitive about what sites, clones, rootstocks, and methodologies seem best.

We leave the sunny warmth of the vineyard as the conversation turns to the current vintage; the poor fruit set in evidence elsewhere is once again on display here. Walter calls 2005 “late” and agrees that the set is poor, but says that the grapes left over should be concentrated, if somewhat rustic.

A pinot puzzle

Inside the winery, we assemble at a small table behind the tasting room for a brief sit-down examination of the wines, while discussion turns to matters of winemaking philosophy. Felton Road’s vineyards have what Walter describes as a tenuous hold on “ideal” ripeness, and both under- and overripeness are a constant concern. It’s the latter anxiety that most intrigues. Certainly the region is highly capable of producing blockbuster pinots to rival any New World behemoth, the evidence for which is on display at several other area wineries. But Walter isn’t so inclined, and proceeds to detail a litany of things that also don’t interest him: high-alcohol fruit bombs, overt oak, “heavy” winemaking, the philosophy of reserve wines, “Parker points,” heavily-crafted wines, fruity and upfront quaffers, and beverages made primarily to satisfy a price point. He has been encouraged by certain high-profile neighbors to double the price of his top pinots (one would presume so that said high-profile neighbors don’t appear to be the tallest poppies in the field, ripe for a good populist scything), and has flatly rejected the notion; he’s quite happy to sell wines for what he considers a fair price representative of their quality and demand, and sees no reason to have a boutique-priced “superstar” wine just to prove that he can produce one.

That said, the block bottlings – especially the pinots – do operate in what most people would identify as the “boutique” sphere. They’re sold primarily via a mailing list (which, inevitably, has a waiting list), though such things apparently work differently in New Zealand: people tend to make the list, stick with it for a few years, and then drop off, which means a high churn rate. This is an occasional blessing for Walter, who is unafraid of sacrificing quantity to preserve quality even if it makes a large portion of the aforementioned mailing list unhappy, but it does also reveal one important facet of the market for higher-end Kiwi product. “The top wines of the region, and of New Zealand, can’t be sold primarily by mailing list,” says Walter, comparing them to their American counterparts, “because in general, New Zealanders aren’t wealthy enough to support that many lists.” As a result, a full 60% of Felton Road’s sales are to overseas customers (mostly the UK, Australia, the USA, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore).

The costs of exporting, of course, leads to Felton Road’s pinots playing – at least in the USA – in a price range higher than a large percentage of the top California and Oregon pinots, not to mention a large portion of high-quality village and premier cru Burgundy. This brings up another fundamental quandary in the marketing of high-end New Zealand pinot: who does one sell it to? Lovers of ultra-ripe pinot have plenty of domestic sources with lower prices, and will likely be dissatisfied with the more elegant, restrained products of producers like Felton Road. On the other hand, devotées of elegant pinot tend to think of Burgundy first and foremost, more often than not to the near-exclusion of other regions. The pinots of Oregon are a better stylistic comparison, but there one sees one relatively small wine-producing region competing with another for a very small niche market. So where does New Zealand, and especially the highly-reputed Central Otago, fit in?

Walter and I talk about this for a good long while, to no good conclusion (though it would be inaccurate to say that Felton Road has trouble selling its wines). At the recent Central Otago Pinot Noir Celebration, with heavy international attendance and Jancis Robinson as a particularly enthusiastic guest of honor, affection for the best wines of the region was obvious. The key is to get that appreciation to the greater public. Walter is “intrigued” by the palates of several critics who seem to have a potential affinity for the style of wine he produces, and I immediately suggest that he should turn the attention of the region’s slowly-assembling cooperative marketing efforts towards Allen “Burghound” Meadows. Walter laughs, because Jancis apparently gave him the same suggestion at the 2005 Celebration. (It is with much amusement that I note, many months after this visit, that Meadows is the guest of honor at the 2006 version of this event. I hope he likes what he tastes.)

A sip off the old Block

After all this conversation, we finally get down to the business of tasting. Owner Nigel Greening briefly bustles into the room just as we’re commencing; he’s sweating profusely and quite obviously in the middle of no fewer than a dozen tasks. He chats very briefly (though amiably), then bustles out with an empty box and a chattering phone in tow. Walter seems fairly uninterested in talking about cellar processes, primarily because there aren’t any of any special note: grapes are destemmed, gravity is employed where possible, hand-plunging is practiced, and fining and filtration are eschewed. But really, the wines are as non-interventionist as one could wish while still working “clean,” and – as our tour up to this point has made abundantly clear – his real focus is on what’s going on in the vineyard.

We start with a trio of 2004 rieslings. The vintage featured a wet spring, but the rest was “pretty decent,” with high sugars due to late picking. Walter ultimately concludes that it was “not spectacular,” though on the following evidence I’m forced to wonder how much better his best riesling can get.

Felton Road 2004 “Dry” Riesling (Central Otago) – 12.5% alcohol, from a bottle that’s been open for three days, and is probably better for it; wind-blown dust and dried apple skin aromas with white plum skin and juicy acidity. Quite strong and vivid, with clear aging potential.

Felton Road 2004 Riesling (Central Otago) – 9.5% alcohol, and very slightly off-dry. Shyer on the nose, showing fine-grained sand, a smooth but flattish palate, and a very long finish tart with lemon and Granny Smith apple. Solid and ageable, but not as good as the dry version – or maybe it just needs to be open for a few days.

Felton Road 2004 Riesling “Block 1” (Central Otago) – Fuller-bodied than both previous bottles, and rich with a blend of powerfully ripe red apples and excellent acidity countered by light sweetness, then finishing long, full-bodied, and balanced. Terrific.

Matters may well change here over the medium-term, for the estate’s riesling vines will be grafted from Geisenheim to Allan Scott clones in the near future. Nonetheless, this is an entirely solid lineup of rieslings, from a region that probably doesn’t devote as much attention to this grape as it should (instead wasting endless time on largely indifferent pinot gris and the ever-ubiquitous chardonnay). And speaking of which…

Felton Road 2004 Chardonnay (Central Otago) – Mendoza clone, from stainless steel. Nut oils and rotten orange with a strange, slightly oxidized and stale finish.

Felton Road 2003 “Barrel Fermented” Chardonnay (Central Otago) – Clove, spiced tangerine and nectarine with denser stone fruit and pear on the palate. A better wine, and perhaps more evidence that most chardonnay really does benefit from a certain measure of wood.

Walter would like more riesling & chardonnay, though expansion on the red front will be limited: currently around 6000 cases of pinot are produced, and only a bit of growth (to around 8000 cases) is under consideration. Personally, I’d rather he reversed those estimates. I’ve never found the chardonnays here to be uniquely compelling, though that’s not to say that they aren’t sometimes good. It’s just that nothing is being said with this cliché grape that isn’t said just as well elsewhere, even within New Zealand.

Felton Road 2003 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Richly-flavored, with strawberry, light tannin and smoky graphite in beautiful balance. Elegant, long and luscious; both pure and expressive yet intense enough to be clearly of its place.

Felton Road 2003 Pinot Noir Block 3 (Central Otago) – A stronger nose, showing more exotic Asian-influenced aromas…especially including star anise. More structured than the regular bottling, with both smooth tannin and firm acidity, lots of earth and an intriguing bitter orange seed note. Complex and long, with great ageability.

Felton Road 2004 Pinot Noir (tank sample) (Central Otago) – Ten days from being bottled, and just barely done with its malolactic fermentation, showing sweet red fruit, plum, and slightly hard tannin.

Pinot is unquestionably the star of the Felton Road portfolio, and the Block bottlings (3 and 5) richly deserve their sought-after status. They are clear candidates for the pinnacle of New Zealand pinot noir production, though they stake this claim at one extreme end – the elegant and delicate, and dare one say “Burgundian” end (though all such descriptors are, of necessity, relative and contextual) – and there are many who might consider the wines to lack force and concentration versus their preferred paradigm. But while there might be many other possible expressions of this most responsive of black grapes that will draw justifiable praise, even from me, I cannot in good conscience say that I know of a better New Zealand pinot noir.

TN: Cosmo

[Cosmic]Clos du Paradis “Domaine Viret” 1999 Côtes-du-Rhône-Villages Saint-Maurice “Cosmic” (Rhône) – Earth – alive and organic – with strips of well-worn leather, sun-dried berries and a dusting of Provençal aromatics (including just a hint of spice), plus resolved tannins. It’s still fairly full-bodied despite the obvious integration of tertiary elements, but with the tannin having softened so much I’d start keeping a close eye on it; for most people it’s probably drinking at or near its best right now.

A blend of grenache, mourvèdre and carignan (rimarily the first of that trio), made in what the importer calls a more oxidative style, by which he means something more upfront and accessible than the rest of Viret’s often highly-structured offerings. However one views the cosmocultural regime behind this wine’s creation, the results have been uniformly successful since release (the “current” vintage, though it’s no longer quite so current, is the 2000). Alcohol: 14%. Closure: cork. Importer: Louis/Dressner/LDM. Web: http://www.domaine-viret.com/.

TN: Vouvray & vin cuit

[Moncontour]Moncontour Vouvray Brut (Loire) – Waxed chalk and the sap from fresh white spring flowers, with a slightly aggressive froth. Tasty, if fairly direct and a little over-weighted.

Domaine Les Bastides Vin Cuit “Selon la Vieille Tradition Provençale” (Provence) – Tart old plum and dried apple with balancing sweetness, minerality inhabiting some mysterious realms between quartz and charcoal, and a smoky, old English drawing room complexity layered over the top of everything. Exotic and delicious.

TN: Not from Bolivia

[romorantin]Gendrier “Domaine des Huards” 2002 Cour-Cheverny (Loire) – Intense to the point of mild shock, though identifying the source of the intensity is less easy; there’s a vivid red apple component that leans into the realm of iron, an oxidative facet that expresses itself more like some sort of fruit-based wax, an ultimately dominant days-gone-by aspect, and a lot of sheer, planar minerality. What does that all add up to? I have no idea, but the wine’s really good. (5/06)

Cour-Cheverny is made from romorantin, a grape that is virtually unknown outside the appellation. (Actually, as far as I know, it is unknown outside the appellation, but I know as soon as I assert that someone will come up with an hectare in Bolivia or something.) I’m assured that these wines age nicely, though to be frank the bad versions are never worth saving, and the good versions are so evocative and unique that they rarely escape my inquisitive corkscrew for very long. Alcohol: 12.5%. Closure: cork. Importer: Jon-David Headrick. Web: http://www.gendrier.com/.

John’s Roast Pork (Philadelphia, PA)

John’s Roast Pork (14 Snyder Ave., 215.463.1951) carries a heavy burden: a few years ago, it was labeled the producer of the best cheesesteak in Philadelphia. It’s an appellation I won’t argue with, though the steak is different than the other prime contender (Tony Luke’s): a soft sesame seed roll, a different meat/bread ratio (in favor of the meat), and much less grease. The quality of the beef, however, can’t be denied; in its raw state, it looks like they’re throwing thinly-sliced prime strip on the grill, and the steaks from here remain the only ones I’ve ever eaten that leave not even the tiniest morsel of unchewable gristle. In any case, thumbs way up for the cheesesteaks, but one can legitimately disagree on whether or not they’re actually “the best.”

That said, no cow-derived hoagie can compete with what John’s really does well, which is the classic South Philly pork sandwich. It’s the most flavorful meat you can possibly imagine, and with sharp provolone (and other toppings as one desires) is a true work of the sandwich art. It’s an absolutely breathtaking way to take a few months off one’s life. Only a difficult location, between a dubious strip mall and a chemical plant, keeps this joint from being packed to the gills on a daily basis (and yet, it’s quite busy), but everyone should make the pilgrimage. This is heaven on a roll.

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