Browse Month

September 2007

Rico

[bottle]ca’Rugate 2005 Soave Classico San Michele (Veneto) – Delicate and lightly herbal, showing sun and air and a mild, lemony character, but not a whole lot else. It’s perfectly fine, it’s just…eh. (8/07)

The full Monte

[bottle]ca’Rugate 2005 Soave Classico Monte Fiorentine (Veneto) – While this is not entirely unlike the San Michele, there’s a clean bell-tone of fennel and fruit in the middle, plus a rounded, polished mineral core, that gives this wine the clear advantage over its brother. It’s no Pieropan (or Anselmi), but it’s a good wine in its own right. (8/07)

Perlara before swine

[bottle]ca’Rugate 2002 Recioto di Soave “La Perlara” (Veneto) – Rich spice in concentrated lemon and orange, pairing intensity and purity, yet sacrificing no lusciousness. There is a very slight thinning vs. a few years ago, but that could be attributable to bottle variation rather than age. (7/07)

Nosiola-cancelling headphones

Lavis “Bolognani” 2006 Nosiola (Trentino) – Viognier’s rustic cousin, with all the intensely floral aromatics but slightly less class, and more balancing acidity than you’ll usually find in a viognier. There’s also a drying, papery exterior that somehow seems to work in this wine. Intriguing and very good, but not particularly complex. (9/07)

Tufi luck

Teruzzi & Puthod 2005 “Terre di Tufi” (Tuscany) – Very shy at first, but as it airs it takes on layers of sun-blanched melon and almonds covered with layers of volcanic dust. It’s interesting enough on its own, but it also does an agreeable dance with food, seeping into the corners and crannies with grace and growing intensity. The finish is on the short side, but that’s a minor complaint. This wine is easy to like. (9/07)

Pigato in a poke

Bruna “Le Russeghine” 2005 Riviera Ligure di Ponente Pigato (Liguria) – Vague gestures in the direction of old nuts and long-faded perfume. There are flor-like notes as well, though here they achieve less than they do in Sherry. Otherwise, very short and generally vapid…and given the price, a spectacularly poor value. (9/07)

Trappist family singers

[courtyard]Monastero Cuore Cistercensi Trappiste Vitorchiano “Coenobium” Vino da Tavola Bianco (Lazio) – Non-vintage, but it’s the 2005 release, and a blend of verdicchio, grechetto and trebbiano toscana. Lemon (fresh, juiced, preserved and rind) is the dominant characteristic, but in no way does this actually taste like fermented lemons…there’s plenty of grey-lit sand and flower-petal texture to it as well. There’s an austerity to the package that holds back most of the more boisterous notions. Very pleasant. (9/07)

No fun allowed

[wine snob]If you ever want to suck all the fun out of wine, get together with a bunch of wine lovers.

Let me back up…

I’ve made a lot of terrific friends through wine. All over the world, in fact. Almost to a fault, they have been kind, generous, hospitable, and generally wonderful to be around. And I say that even though I’ve seen most of them at their potential worst (that is, with a hefty load of alcohol in ’em). Lord knows they’ve seen me that way. It’s not always pretty.

In fact, one of the things I miss most about the breakup of the old wine forum paradigm is the loss of a central meeting place for the world’s wine geeks to connect. Some of my best experiences ever have been via meetings facilitated by the online wine universe, and I cherish and nurture those relationships even more now that the virtual vinosphere has splintered into hundreds of different, special-interest and single-language sub-fora.

One form of these social interactions is called the “offline,” wherein online wine folk congregate, usually over dinner, at a venue that allows (or even encourages) BYO. People bring bottles — usually far too many — they open them, they taste, they drink, they spit, they eat, and they chat. And it’s a hell of a lot of fun. (Of course, there are other forms of interaction as well. There’s the dinner, which isn’t unlike any other dinner except for the fact that it usually involves more food and wine than any reasonable human being should consume in a single sitting. And there’s the structured (or semi-structured) tasting, in which the bottles are brought with a purpose, often a thematic one.

So how do offlines go wrong? By including the “wrong” people. Despite the deluge of wine, what makes these events fun is the crowd itself. Why sit at a table with people you don’t like, whether over wine or a profound debate on Kant and aesthetics? It’s pretty simple, and the general rule of inviting people you’d like to drink wine with and letting Bacchus take his course has, for many years, fed the engine of the offline without incident. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, fun. How could it not be?

And yet, to read this, you’d think that not only everyone was wrong at offlines, you’d think that the entire institution was broken for a lack of constitutions and bylaws. Except that…damned few of these whiners and anal-retentive snobs actually get it. It’s not about the wine. (A formal tasting; that’s about the wine. If you want to have one of those, go right ahead. But don’t call it something it’s not.) It’s about the people, the camaraderie, the fun. It’s not about the size of your bottle or the girth of your wallet. It’s not about sucking every last bit of enjoyment from what is, after all, the ultimate social beverage. And it’s certainly not about living your wine life like some pointy-headed dictator, whining and bitching and crying when everything doesn’t turn out to your organoleptic and economic advantage.

Why would anyone drink with these people?

Chignin-up

Raymond Quenard 2004 Chignin (Savoie) – Biting and overly brittle, showing iced-acid structure and bitter, rindy fruit. This bottle has character to spare, but I find it oddly repellent. (8/07)

I don’t know why you say goodbye

Regli 2005 Hallauer Goldspross Riesling x Sylvaner (Hallau) – Why they don’t just call it müller-thurgau, I don’t know, but the actual grape is relegated to the fine print on the back label. Anyway, this is pretty dismal. Flat and lifeless despite pointed acidity, it takes like fermented paper which has then been stripped of all character. Plus, there’s some volatile acidity up top. It’s not awful, though the aromas are fairly pathetic, it’s more that it’s overwhelmingly dull. (7/07)