A Naples (Florida) Winelist Challenge

Date: Tue, Mar 9, 2010 Wine Tasting

A longtime reader contacted me the other day to say that he would be traveling in Florida, and would be having dinner with his wife at a restaurant in Naples. He wanted to know what I would drink if I were spending about $100. He said that he would prefer to drink either white or red Burgundy, but he would be open to other suggestions.

Some one at Bleu Provence clearly loves wine - the list is extensive and detailed and contains more than a few wine-geek gems mixed in with the blue chips. Because I am an astonishingly competent procrastinator, I looked through the list carefully and came up with what I think are a few great ways to spend $100 on wine at Bleu Provence.

We played this game together in July, by the way, and it was good fun. I'll tell you what I came up with, of course, in the comments, but I'd love to hear you first - what would you buy with $100 at Bleu Provence?

After that I'll even tell you what the guy wound up drinking...

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Tidal Pool

Date: Sun, Mar 7, 2010 Wine Tasting

A few years ago I spent a lot of money on two bottles of Chablis, money that I wish I could have back right now. It's not that I don't like Fèvre's wines, I haven't had enough of them to know for sure. But the 2005 Domaine William Fèvre Grand Cru Le Clos, those bottles were an expensive mistake. I paid up for the wrong vintage. Chablis is a difficult wine to get spendy with, assuming you want to drink Chablis that shows real Chablis character. In a very ripe vintage like 2005, the character of the vintage can easily overshadow the expression of terroir. I drank one of these bottles not too long ago and although the wine was very nice, it was nice as a good Chardonnay, not as Le Clos. Probably it needs more time, but still, I would need to be convinced that this will become a glorious expression of Le Clos.

I'm not sure that I would buy William Fèvre's wine again if I were paying $75 for Chablis. At this point I think I would rather have something by Dauvissat. But the thing is, I'm not sure I would pay $75 for current release Chablis right now. I like the Raveneau wines I've drunk, Dauvissat too, but there are some $30 Chablis bottles that are pretty great too. Closer in quality to the top guns than Savigny-lès-Beaune is to Chambertin. My favorite Chablis producers these days are Alice and Olivier de Moor and Gilbert Picq. Both make delicious wines that really say something of Chablis.

The other night we had some friends for dinner and we ate scallops, among other things. We drank two wines by Picq, both from the excellent 2007 vintage. These wines reminded me of how completely delicious Chablis is when it's good. They also reminded me of what Chablis is supposed to taste like - the fruit, the white flower, everything is infused with this seashell iodine character. The best descriptor that I've read for Chablis is "tidal pool." I think it makes perfect sense. Both of these wines had it.

The 2007 Gilbert Picq Chablis Vieille Vignes, $23, Polaner Imports, might be the greatest value in Chablis. This wine is particularly good in 2007. It shows richness and intensity that come from old vines, and also a great balance of fresh ripe fruit, floral hints, and a low register iodine nuance that makes it unmistakably Chablis. It has good acidity and will probably improve over the next 5-plus years in the cellar, and I'm happy to have a few more bottles to watch this unfold.

I have less experience with the 2007 Gilbert Picq Chablis 1er Cru Vosgros, $29, Polaner Imports, than I do with the Vieille Vignes, but in 2007 this wine is a definite step up. The aromas are more broad and more delicate, the flavors more clearly defined and resonant. And the wine offers a bit more extract and depth, yet feels more graceful. This is seriously classy wine, and it's under $30. I should have bought more than I did. When I think that I could have five bottles of this instead of two of the 2005 Fèvre's, I feel like a dunce. All part of the learning curve, I guess.

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Dinner with the Wines of Savigny-lès-Beaune

Date: Fri, Mar 5, 2010 Wine Tasting

I had some of the fellas over the other night to have dinner and drink red wine from Savigny-lès-Beaune. Why Savigny-lès-Beaune? Well, a top bottle (not counting Leroy's Narbontons) costs about $50, a good villages wine should be in the mid $30's. That's real money, but it's pretty cheap as far as Burgundy goes. I wanted to drink several examples of the best bottles to see if they are undervalued within the pantheon of Burgundy terroir, or if they are simply more of that overpriced but merely decent wine from Burgundy.

Any list of the best producers in Savigny would include Domaine Simon Bize, Domaine Jean-Marc et Hugues Pavelot, and Chandon de Briailles. Others include Maurice Écard, Camus-Bruchon, and Catherine et Claude Maréchal, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some. There were 7 of us at dinner and although no one discussed what to bring in advance, we got a great mix of wines from great producers.

The shame of it is that nothing really showed all that well. I'm willing to bet it was a root day or a leaf day or something, because most of the wines didn't show much energy, their aromatics were subdued. Still, I learned a lot from this, particularly about the differences in terroir within Savigny-lès-Beaune.

If you take a look at this map from the Burgundy-Report site, you can see that a river runs east/west through Savigny-lès-Beaune. The vineyards to the north of the river typically have heavier soils that are rich with clay. They lie on hills with southern exposure. These can be rich, dense wines. The north-side vineyard with the best potential is probably Aux Vergelesses, a 1er Cru that borders the 1er Crus of Pernand Vergelesses. The other 1er Cru sites that reliably produce very good wines include Les Fournaux, Gravains, Lavières, Aux Guettes, and Serpentières.

South of the river the soils are sandier, more gravelly, and the exposure isn't as good. But it is from here that the appellation's most esteemed wines have traditionally come. The 1er Cru Dominode vineyard (always called "Les Jarrons" on vineyard maps) is said to make the finest wines of Savigny, although that might change as Patrick Bize's wines from Aux Vergelesses and Les Fournaux age and fully reveal themselves. Next to Dominode is Les Narbantons, a 1er Cru made famous by Lalou Bize at Domaine Leroy (but one can buy 3 or 4 bottles of Pavelot Dominode for the same price as one bottle of Leroy Narbantons).

We began with a couple of white wines and gougères, my first attempt at making the delicious cheese puffs that are so common in Burgundy. The 2007 Domaine Marcillet Savigny-lès-Beaune, $28, Savio Soares Selections, was a surprising wine. It's a humble villages wine that packs a lot of punch. I've had this wine on several occassions and liked it very much, but this time around I thought the oak was a bit too much. The others liked it a lot though, and 3 hours later the wine had indeed integrated beautifully, showing ripe fruit, minerals, and an earthy pungency that I associate with Savigny-lès-Beaune. Levi said that it might have been the wine of the night for him. I served this wine alongside the 2007 Chandon de Briailles Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Cru Aux Vergelesses, $48, Imported by David Bowler, which showed rather poorly. I liked the tropical aromas I was getting immediately after I opened the bottle, but no one really liked it a half hour later. My friend Clarke said that it had a vodka-type spirit essence to it, which was right on. It wasn't flawed, it was just weird.

Among the red wines, the first flight was my favorite of the night. We drank the 2007 Jean-Marc et Hugues Pavelot Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Cru La Dominode, $55, Becky Wasserman Selections, and the 2007 Simon Bize Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Cru Aux Vergelesses, $52, Becky Wasserman Selections, with a hearty mushroom barley soup. These are both delicious wines that are quite forward and approachable, perhaps a characteristic of the 2007 vintage. Drinking them next to each other was a great lesson in Savigny-lès-Beaune terroir. The Pavelot Dominode showed a definite layer of gravelly stone underneath the pure and spicy red fruits. It was much less dense than the richer Bize wine, although no less intense. I liked it very much - it was my favorite wine of the night. The only question for me was whether or not it will age well, as it just didn't seem to have any excess or unresolved structure. The Bize Aux Vergelesses showed a darker fruit character and a much earthier nose, like wet clay. It had a lovely perfume and although it was drinking very well, it never fully unraveled and I imagine that it will do very well with 7-10 years of cellaring.

We then drank two Simon Bize wines with braised beef and turnips. The 2006 Savigny-lès-Beaune Les Bourgeots, $35, and the 2006 Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Cru Les Fournaux, $48. Les Bourgeots was aromatically closed, but showed pretty dark fruits on the palate and good balance. Les Fournaux had lovely floral and dark fruit aromatics, but was angular and awkward on the palate. These wines are probably starting to shut down. The next day I got to taste them again and they were both excellent. Bourgeots was a seamless expression of Savigny-lès-Beaune dark fruit and earth, completely pure and delicious, and drinking perfectly. Les Fournaux showed more depth and intensity of fruit, and still needed more time, although it was no longer awkward. Simon Bize's wines...very impressive.

I'm not going to go into much detail on the rest because none of them showed very well. Just a few notes-

Still with braised beef and turnips:
2004 Pavelot 1er Cru Les Gravains, $45. Some nice things here, good fruit, but the wine was surprisingly evolved, and showed what I found to be unpleasant seaweedy notes.
2001 Chandon de Briailles 1er Cru Les Lavieres, $45. A library release that, if what we drank is an accurate representation of the wine, should have stayed in the library. Just weird, with cloying fruit and lots of alcohol, completely disjointed and kind of swampy. Flawed? Not good wine? Who knows...

With cheeses, including a most incredibly runny Époisses:
1996 Pavelot 1er Cru La Dominode (magnum), $135. The only wine that provoked anything close to controversy, as some liked it more than others. I thought it was perfectly fine, but kind of anonymous and dull. It never really opened up, and I would be curious to know how it fared on day 2.
1990 Robert Ampeau Savigny-lès-Beaune, $40. Lots of fun to see whast's going on with this bottle, a 20 year old villages wine from Savigny. But alas, it was pretty much dead on arrival. Yes, I know that you need to do a lot of aerating with Ampeau, and we swirled and swirled and opened it over an hour before drinking it, but all that was left was seaweed and rotting leaves.

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An Evening with the People and the Wines of Mosel Wine Merchant

Date: Wed, Mar 3, 2010 Wine Tasting

Lars Carlberg and Dan Melia, the two fine gentlemen of Mosel Wine Merchant, are in town this week with a few of the growers they represent. They hosted a dinner last night at Prune in the East Village, and I was lucky enough to attend.
I know so tremendously little about German Riesling that it simply wouldn't be proper for me to try to discuss the wines in a meaningful way - I have no context to share with you, nothing to say about them other than how delicious they are. And they are very delicious.

Instead, I can tell you a few things about Lars and Dan, and the work they're doing. Mosel WIne Merchant is not a large company. It's Lars and Dan - that's it. They're a couple of smart, well-educated, well-traveled, genuinely kind fellows who love wine, particularly Mosel Riesling. They could be doing many things that would probably be far more lucrative, but they run this little company together, bringing naturally made, small production Mosel Riesling to the US and other markets. They really believe in these wines, and it's easy to understand why after drinking them with dinner.

Lars grew up partly in Germany and partly in the US - he lives in Germany now and runs all of Mosel Wine Merchant's European operations. Dan managed Prune for 8 years and left to travel in Germany. He's completely fluent in German - "his German is better than mine now," says Lars. Dan is the guy who schleps the wines all over NYC and the rest of the country, making sure that we have the chance to buy them in retail shops.

I sat next to Mattias Knebel at dinner. As he poured the first of his wines, the absolutely delicious 2008 Mosel Riesling von den Terrassen trocken, $20, I told him how much I enjoy his most basic wine, the humble 2008 Mosel Riesling trocken, $14. Matthias turned to me and smiled and said "I love making that wine. It's from our estate grapes, spontaneous fermentation, I make it the same way I make all my wines. We make no money on it at all, but I love it." The $14 Riesling Trocken is excellent wine, absolutely of its place, and should be part of everyone's under $15 wine repertoire. But the von den Terrassen is a serious step up for a few dollars more, with an expansive nose of ripe fruit and rock, and an ultra-clean palate that continued to grow even as we finished the bottle. It was perfect with seared monkfish liver finished in lemon and soy.


The 2007's were lovely and interesting wines, but might now be entering a shutdown phase. The 2008's were showing beautifully, ripe but controlled, pure and elegant, and with a great balance of fruit and mineral. I loved drinking Knebel's 2008 Röttgen trocken next to his 2008 Uhlen trocken, the more muscular and concentrated Röttgen working perfectly with marrow bones and rock salt, while the wipsy and graceful Uhlen was delicious with a Parmesan omelet. I don't know how much those wines cost, but I would eagerly welcome both of them into my cellar. They drink so well now that it seems a shame to age them for 20 years, which Lars assures me is a great thing to do with these wines.

Lauer's Rieslings were also delicious. They seemed to me to be more ethereal and less concentrated than Knebel's wines. There was a 2005 Lauer Kern with a mature and mellow nose that initially showed some peach and floral elements, but after 15 minutes in the glass, had morphed into liquid slate. There were two sparkling wines by Lauer that I thought were great. It's not often than inexpensive sparkling wines show textural finesse and elegance, and these wines were both wonderfully textured. The current release was lovely, with a good balance of fruit and mineral character, but the 1994 Sekt Reserve was for me, one of the wines of the night. Disgorged in December (although the label says March), it was fresh and lively. Changing constantly in the glass, it was about the bitterness of the pit and the saltiness of rocks, with this great lacy texture. I was sorry to see it go.

Lars, Dan, and the growers are in NYC this week sharing their wines and stories at places like Chambers Street Wines, Uva, and Crush. These are good people doing good things, and their wines taste great and are reasonably priced. If you can make it to one of these tastings, you really should.

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Pairing by Instinct

Date: Sun, Feb 28, 2010 Wine Tasting

There is only one rule that I follow when pairing wine with food: when drinking an old wine, eat something simple that will allow the complexities of the wine to come forth. Other than that, I think it's best to follow one's instincts when it comes to pairings, even if it means doing things that fall outside of the normal comfort zones, things that simply don't sound right on paper.

Last week, two opportunities arose for me to throw caution to the wind and make an outside-the-box wine pairing, and I succeeded once. The other time I second guessed myself and was punished by the higher powers (who apparently have nothing better to do than to preside over my wine pairing attempts).

The first opportunity involved radishes. I love radishes, all kinds of radishes. I've been buying these big green winter radishes lately, pretty spicy ones, and I'm trying to figure out more ways to eat them raw - they're so good for you.

I could make kim chi radish, but I don't know how to make kim chi. I could take paper-thin slices and toss them with green salad, but there is no good lettuce at my markets this time of year. I've been grating the radishes, and drizzling them with a bit of sesame oil and a few drops of good soy sauce. I'm the only one in the house who likes this dish, but I think it's delicious. Anyway, the other night I was alone in the house with the sleeping kids and I made this dish.

I don't know that there is a table wine that makes sense for this dish. I wanted sake, but I never seem to have any in the house. The idea of dry sherry flickered across my mind and I just went with it. I opened a bottle of La Cigarerra Manzanilla en Rama, $13.50 (375 ml), De Maison Selections. The "En Rama" designation means that the wine is barely filtered, a rarity in Sherries that are shipped overseas. This wine was deeply golden with a fresh smelling nose of walnuts and ripe orchard fruit. There are other Manzanillas that I prefer at this point, wines that show more of the sea, but this was satisfying - very rich, and also somewhat delicate on the palate, it was great with the radish dish. Doubt if you like, but give it a shot yourself, and see. Don't be afraid of the stern-looking woman on the label.

A few nights later we were going to eat my version of osso buco, made with beef shank instead of veal and braised with fennel, onions, and carrots.

My gut told me to open a white wine from Friuli that's made mostly of Tocai Friuilano, as I imagined its fennel aromas, its full bodied rich texture, and its vibrant acidity being a perfect foil for our hearty dinner. "But a white wine," I thought..."with braised beef?" Oh, how I wish I had just followed my gut - I bet it would have been a great match. Instead I opened a young Sangiovese, the 2008 Montesecondo Rosso Toscana IGT, $18, Louis/Dressner Selections. I've been enjoying Sangiovese lately, and on paper this should have been a great wine - great importer, careful vineyard and cellar work, etc. But I didn't care for the wine, the alcohol was loud and the wine was imbalanced, blocky. The aromas were pure, with cool cherry fruit, but the whole package just wasn't working for me, the fruit on the palate verged on jammy.

Clearly the wine gods were reminding me to follow my instincts.

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Fondue

Date: Fri, Feb 26, 2010 Wine Tasting

It was my friend Deetrane's birthday the other night. He celebrated by making several pots of fondue and inviting family and a few friends. Deetrane's parents have a condo in Chamonix, France, right near the border of Switzerland. He's been going there since he was a kid, and so he's quite familiar with the ritual of a fondue dinner.

We began with an excellent plate of charcuterie.

Then came the fondue. Deetrane uses white wine, slivovitz, or plum brandy, and nutmeg, in addition to Gruyère cheese. The slivovitz acts as an anti-coagulant. Bowls of dried, but not stale bread are passed around.

You skewer a piece with the fondue fork and swish it through the pot. But be careful - anyone who loses their bread in the pot must pay a dollar to get it back. In the end, the dinner cost me about $4, which is clearly a bargain.

Before the dinner, I poked around the interweb looking for fondue wine pairing suggestions. I kept reading about "neutral dry white wines," which I guess made sense, but also seemed kind of boring. In the end I decided on two wines that are from the part of France that borders Switzerland, Savoie and the Jura. The 2008 Eugene Carrel Savoie Jongieux, $11, Martin Scott Imports, was perfectly fine and I think most people preferred it to the other wine I brought, the fantastic 2005 Puffeney Arbois Melon-Queue-Rouge, $25, Neal Rosenthal Selections.

Melon-Queue-Rouge is a grape that is uncommon even in the wine-geeky Jura world. I've had only a few, and this one, Puffeney's, was far and away my favorite. Deep golden yellow, with rich oxidative nutty notes on the nose and palate, and vibrant acidity, I thought this wine was a great partner to the fondue.

Deetrane very generously opened some big-shot bottles of red Burgundy too, including 1997 Simon Bize Latricières-Chambertin, 1996 Dominique Laurent Nuits St. George 1er Cru Les Chaignots, 1999 Michel Lafarge Volnay, and a Corton whose identity I have forgotten. It's weird - the reds didn't show as well as we had hoped. As Deetrane said afterwards, "maybe they just didn't get along with the fondue." Maybe the brawny Melon-Queue-Rouge ruined our palates for the delicacy of mature Burgundy. They do drink reds before these oxidative wines in the Jura.

In any case, it was a great night and we were so glad to be a part of it - happy birthday Deetrane!

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Low Yields and Surprising Wines

Date: Wed, Feb 24, 2010 Wine Tasting

Changes in climate bring high yields in some years, low yields in others. Most producers keep their yields low enough to give rich and intense wines, but yields that are too low means less wine, and from a financial perspective, that can't be good. The wines are higher priced in that vintage, or the producer makes less money, neither of which are desirable outcomes.

But sometimes a low yield vintage can bring nice surprises for us wine drinkers. For example, there wasn't enough juice in 2006 for Bernard Baudry to make both Les Grézeaux, his top cuvée from gravelly hillside soils, and the cuvée Domaine, his delicious and younger-drinking wine from similar soils. So he combined them - in 2006 there was no Les Grézeaux, the juice went into cuvée Domaine. That wine is always delicious and always an excellent value, but in 2006 it is particularly good, offering some of the greater depth that is typically found in Les Grézeaux. I still have a couple bottles of 2006 cuvée Domaine and it will be interesting to see how this wine evolves.

The other night we were having my latest attempt at Bouillabaisse (pretty good indeed) and I opened a bottle of the 2007 Alice and Olivier de Moor Bourgogne Aligoté, $19, Louis/Dressner Selections. The wine was fantastic, really striking. Made in a very different style from the Aligotés by de Villaine or Roulot, both of which are also excellent. But whereas those wines are tightly wound, lean, and firm with acidity and minerality, the de Moor Aligoté was broad and oxidative and was more about lush and intense fruit. The nose had an airy, appley character, and after about a half hour the wine showed great depth and intensity of fruit on the palate. This is Aligoté - there was still plenty of acidity and the finish was definitely of a chalky mineral character. But this wine surprised me in the depth and richness of its fruit.

So I read about de Moor on the Dressner website. There are several Aligoté wines, including a "regular" wine and an old vines wine made from grapes that come from vines that are over 100 years old! Well, the wine I had must have been the Vieille Vignes, it showed such richness and intensity of fruit. No mention of it anywhere on the bottle though. Could the young vines version of this wine really be that good?

A phone call with the helpful folks at Chambers Street Wines taught me that there wasn't enough juice in 2007 for the de Moors to make the Vieille Vignes wine - there was only one Aligoté made in 2007, and it contains a blend of juice from the 100 year old vines and juice from younger vines. And this wine costs less than $20 - I wonder if the de Moors took in less revenue because of this in '07, or if this price is higher than in other vintages. Whatever the case, this is great wine, showing way above its price point. And in 2007, we have low yields to thank/blame.

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How Long Should a Wine Age?

Date: Sun, Feb 21, 2010 Wine Tasting

I've always been attracted to things that are defined by a concrete set of rules. What attracts me most is when, given a thorough understanding of the rules, it is possible to be creative in solving problems within that system. Chess, baseball, music, poker...these are some of the things I'm talking about.

Wine fits in here too. There are plenty of rules one can use in understanding the universe of wine - places, grape varieties allowed, methods of elevage, and so on. There are people out there, you've probably met them too, whose appreciation of wine seems to derive from an elevated level of scholarship - they treat it like a science. And that's fine. But there is loads of room for creativity too. How long a wine should age, for example - I've been thinking for a while now about this problem, and to me the answers involve creativity, not a set of rules.

I wish there were a set of rules to follow, some sort of list I could use to answer this question. But there just isn't. Imagine:

Vouvray sec - 8 years
Vouvray demi-sec - 14 years
Anything by Huet or Foreau - 23 years
And so on...

Obviously the vagaries of vintage quality, producer quality, terroir quality, vine age, wine making technique, and countless others make it impossible to make such a list.

Yet, you have, if not a list, something in your mind that guides your hand when making decisions about aging wine. How did you form your set of rules? I am still in the process of forming mine. I began by reading and talking to friends, and this definitely served me well. But I'm committed now to experimenting for myself, building my knowledge through trial and error and through the generosity of others. After all, my preferences might not be the same as yours, so just because you say that Fourrier's wines need at least 10 years in a typical vintage, shouldn't I try to find out for myself?

And take a step back for a moment - what does it even mean to say "needs at least 10 years?" Needs 10 years in order to be what, exactly? Ready to drink? Fully mature? Less tannic and in a better state of balance? I read statements like "needs at least 10 years" all the time, and it's not that I think that they're wrong, bad, or silly. But I read them and can accept them as truth, and yet I sometimes have no idea what they're referring to - I've never had a 10 year old Fourrier, for example.

How often do you drink old/mature wine? Unless you often buy at auction, or have been buying and cellaring wine for a very long time, you're probably like me - you drink scores of younger wines for every truly mature bottle you drink.

If I'm buying an age worthy wine, a good red Burgundy, for example, I'm a believer in buying three bottles and drinking one when young in order to know the wine in that phase of its life. That way I will better understand the changes when I next drink it, whenever that is. But when should that be? I remember asking my friend Peter about this as we drove from one cellar tasting to another in Burgundy a little over a year ago. He said "If you're talking about the top wines, good 1er Crus and Grand Crus, things like that, when in doubt, use the 12 year rule. Try a bottle in the 12th year out from the vintage - drink a 2002 in 2014, for example. It's unlikely that a really good wine would be tired or dead at that point, and there's a good chance that the wine will be drinking well."

Hmmm, the 12 year rule. I know I began by saying that the answer involves creativity, not rules. But Peter was suggesting 12 years as a guideline to use when in doubt, and he meant that the drinker should evaluate the wine at that point and determine whether or not it requires further time.

But what about good villages wines, does the 12 year rule apply to them as well? I asked him this recently and he said that the reasoning behind the 12 year rule is the fact that most good Burgundy wine can be quite drinkable in its youth but then a few years out from the vintage it shuts down and becomes quite closed. At 12 years, give or take, it emerges as a mature wine. With villages wine, it might not take 12 years. With great wine in a vintage like 2004, it might not require 12 years. In a high-acid vintage like 1999, it might take more than 12 years for a great wine to mellow and show at its best. So that one bottle of 1999 Lafarge Clos des Chênes I have, I'm going to give it a few years past 2011. In 2009 Peter and I drank a bottle of 1995 Mugneret-Gibourg Echezeaux and it was good, but the wine wasn't fully resolved - the structure was still too prominent, and we both felt that with a few more years it would have shown better. But in 2009 we also drank a bottle of 1995 Chandon de Briailles Corton Clos du Roi and it was a thing of beauty, in a perfect place. Again, even when trying to apply the 12 year rule, the answers require creativity.

Last week in San Diego I had the chance, thanks to the generosity of my father-in-law, to drink a few old wines and I learned a tremendous amount from them. I already told you about the 1986 Margaux, but on another night we drank a 1988 Château Léoville Las Cases and it was superb, I preferred it to the Margaux. It was full of tobacco and leather, the only fruit really was a bit of dark cassis on the finish. There was a tactile texture to the wine and the acidity was still vibrant - the wine was nowhere near tired, it was very much fresh and alive. If I had more of this I would drink it now, it's delicious and what would I be waiting for? So my new rule - good Bordeaux needs exactly 22 years. A joke, friends, a joke. But really, I learned that good old Bordeaux is really good wine, and perhaps it isn't made the same way it was in the '80's and before that, but it's too easy to write off Bordeaux as spoof-city over-priced silliness. My guess is that it once was a great thing.

And how about this - on our last night we drank a 1977 Ruffino Chianti Classico Riserva Ducale. Pop-pop brought this wine back from Italy a long time ago. I know nothing about Chianti, and my association with Ruffino wasn't great. But I loved this wine, loved it. So leathery and earthy, but with lots of sour cherry too, and all of the aromas and flavors were crystal clear. There was still structure too, and good acidity. And the finish was glorious, this unending wash of cherry and leather fragrance. So, what would happen if I aged a bottle of the 2007 Pian del Ciampolo for 33 years? My guess is it would be awesome. Or maybe it would be tired and brown. Who knows.

I hope I have the patience to cellar wines for decades like this. The rewards can be so great.

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Spotted in a San Diego Grocery Store

Date: Wed, Feb 17, 2010 Wine Tasting

We needed sunblock and diapers, so we drove to CVS, what I think of as a pharmacy, but I now understand is really a grocery store in San Diego. They sell everything, from lawn chairs to perfume to wine.

Something like 35 states allow grocery stores to sell wine, and California is one of them. New York is not one of them, although there is a new proposal that would change that. There have been many such proposals, and all have failed.

I've already shared my opinions on the question of whether or not NY grocery stores should be allowed to sell wine, so I won't rehash it all now. I will tell you, though, that from what I've seen on the shelves in California groceries, well managed wine shops have nothing to worry about. The groceries (and pharmacies, I guess) are selling mass produced wines, wines that are inexpensive and rather common. And for the folks who simply want a bottle of something cheap, isn't it convenient that they can buy it with the rest of their groceries?

The domestic section had a reasonably wide selection of wines, all under $15. The imported wine section consisted of Yellow Tail, and a few other brands. I'm sure that there are Grocery Stores whose wine sections offer more than this one, but even so, I fail to see how something like this could threaten a decent wine store. If this CVS were in NYC, directly across the street from Chambers Street Wines, would Chambers' sales decline?

Chambers Street Wines, and the other retailers in NYC that I count among my favorites, serve a different group of customers from those who would buy wine at this CVS - these are two different markets. Chambers Street is a specialty shop, and they wouldn't be hurt if market regulations are relaxed any more than independently owned bakeries are hurt by bread sales in grocery stores. The bakery that sells Pepperidge Farm and other mass produced bread cannot compete with the grocery store, yes. But a bakery exists to separate itself from the bread masses - they offer a different product to a different customer. There are loads of successful bakeries, some of them chains, others exist as single locations. Some of them are even located near grocery stores that sell bread!

Wine stores that exist to sell half-pints of Georgi, lottery tickets, and jugs of Carlo Rossi will probably go out of business if the legislation passes. But the stores that provide a thoughtfully selected and well priced product will do just fine. Is CVS or Gristedes really going to sell Clos Roche Blanche, Chandon de Briailles, or anybody's Hermitage? I just can't see it. That's wine specialist territory.

A 5 minute drive from the CVS will take you to a little wine store that I've come to like in the few years that I've been coming to San Diego. CVS, Target, Bev Mo, and others are right next door - literally all within a mile of each other. But this place is always bustling. There is always some kind of tasting going on at the back counter, sales people stand in conversation with shoppers, there are high-priced Burgundies and bargain bins alike to poke through, there is a pretty good Champagne selection, and the prices are very good, at least compared to what I'm used to in NYC.

The other night we drank a fantastic bottle of 1996 Fleury Champagne, $55 Terry Theise Selections (I guess Fleury used to be part of the Theise book) that I bought from this store. When in San Diego, if I want to buy wine I'm going to this place. If I need diapers, perfume, a prescription filled, or a lawn chair, I might go to CVS.

Market regulation is a good thing when the normal functioning of a market has unintended or unwanted negative consequences. Like the market for bundled mortgage-backed securities, or the market for coal - those markets, when left to their own devices, produced all sorts of unwanted negative consequences and should be regulated by government. The NY wine laws are the worst kind of market regulation, preventing nothing harmful and existing solely to serve special interests. I hope that one day we can get rid of them.

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Fish Tacos

Date: Mon, Feb 15, 2010 Wine Tasting

Visiting San Diego without eating fish tacos would be like visiting New York without getting a slice. So while the kids napped, we drove to Roberto's, a taco shop that came highly recommended.

I imagined a messy shack, guys eating tacos at concrete picnic tables, their surfboards resting next to them. I'm sure there are plenty of places like that, and we ate at one last time we were here, but Roberto's is a bit more upscale than that.

I will admit, I was a worried when we drove up and I saw the sign. "Very Mexican Food..." Was I about to eat at the Olive Garden of taco shacks?

No, not at all, as it turns out. This place was bustling - there was a line at the counter the entire time we were there, and for good reason, the food was inexpensive and very good. We quickly joined the throng of people sitting outdoors happily munching on tacos, burritos, and sipping horchata.

I'm no fish taco expert, but Roberto's is the new reference standard for me. The fish was plump and moist on the inside, and crisply fried without being at all greasy. The corn tortillas were fresh and had a toothsome grainy quality. But the condiments took the whole package to another level, for me. Fresh crunchy cabbage shreds and a sauce that was probably not much more than crema and dill. That's right, dill, in just the right proportion, and it was refreshing and delicious. Next time I would skip the rice and beans in favor of another fish taco. I want another fish taco.

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San Diego Bordeaux

Date: Sun, Feb 14, 2010 Wine Tasting

We're in San Diego for a little while visiting BrooklynLady's parents. The weather here is a little bit different from what we've had in NYC.

My father in-law, or pop-pop, as my daughter calls him, has a nice collection of wine, mostly California wine and Bordeaux. He reads this blog and so he knows that BrooklynLady and I love wine. On the first evening of this visit, as I came down the hallway into the kitchen, pop-pop said to me "Why don't you go to the wine fridge and pick something really good for us to drink tonight. Nothing is off limits, pick whatever will make you happy." How generous is that?

Even though most of pop-pop's wine is different from the stuff I usually drink, I still felt like a kid in a candy store. Here are some of the things I didn't pick for the evening meal (a delicious turkey meatloaf with roasted potatoes and baby golden beets):

• 2001 Lafite
• 2001 Mouton
• 1988 Château Léoville Las Cases
• 1994 Cheval Blanc
• 1997 Montrose

I've never had any of the above wines, no matter what the vintage. It's iconic wines like these that define the top echelon of Bordeaux, and to have the chance to drink any of them is to expand one's knowledge of wine. It was a difficult decision, and in the end I picked this wine:

1986 Château Margaux, Imported by Kobrand. We opened it about a half hour before dinner and didn't decant it. There was no primary fruit at all, as one would expect from a 24 year old wine. The nose showed a restrained delicacy - there was some pencil lead and gravel, but it was less about specific aromas and more about an overall sense of refinement and elegance. The palate was remarkably young and fresh, and still showed plenty of ripe red fruit. It was the texture that I found to be most striking, though. There were layers of fruit and gravelly earth, very intense and focused flavors, and at every point the wine felt silky smooth. Not in an artificially polished way, it just unfolded gently and felt right in the mouth.

What a treat - thanks again pop-pop!

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Snow, Ribs, and Tuscan Wine

Date: Wed, Feb 10, 2010 Wine Tasting

You may not know this, but we've had a lot of snow on the east coast. Today, it was New York City's turn.

When we woke up the snow was falling sideways, the winds were so strong. It continued throughout the day, and as I write this it hasn't stopped. I want to eat warm, comforting food in this kind of weather. Something that makes the house smell good.

A good friend recently turned 40 and celebrated by inviting a bunch of her friends to dinner. I ate many tasty things that night, among them some pork spareribs that had been braised in some sort of tomato based sauce and served over creamy polenta. I loved it - so savory, a great mingling of flavors. A few days later while grocery shopping I saw some nice looking pork spareribs and decided to try to cook the dish at home.

At the end of this snowy day, kids in bed (squawking, but in bed), I did my best to make creamy polenta. I think that polenta here is kind of like oatmeal - most of us, myself included, use the quick-cooking version, the less flavorful but easier version. From what I understand, real polenta needs to be cooked with constant stirring for a half hour to achieve the right flavors. Tonight, I didn't do that. Once the water boiled, I let it cook for 5 minutes, whisked in some butter and grated Piave cheese, covered it, and let it sit for another 5 minutes.

How did they make the sauce at the restaurant? I have no idea. I kept it simple - finely chopped onion cooked with the bits left from browning the ribs, some chicken stock, some chopped San Marzano tomatoes, one of last summer's dried red chili peppers, and salt. A long braise in a slow oven, atop the polenta, a little more grated cheese, et voila.

There was not even a moment's doubt about what to drink with this dinner. A few months ago I bought two of bottles of 2007 Montevertine Pian del Ciampolo, $23, Neal Rosenthal Imports, and in my mind's palate, it seemed like a good pairing. Montevertine is a Tuscan producer making what I understand to be traditional Chianti-style wines - I learned about them four years ago on Eric Asimov's blog. I'm a fish out of water with Chianti, but this bottle, Pian del Ciampolo, this one I usually buy.

I drank one of these a while ago and liked it, but it needed a good decant before reveal itself. And even then, this wine is not about fruit. It's about leather and smoke and game and acid. There is some lovely bright red cherry, but I find that to be a secondary consideration.

We opened this wine at about 5:00 and let it sit for almost three hours as we put the kids to bed, made dinner, etc. When we opened it, it was like a freshly tanned hide. Later on it was more balanced, still leathery though, and I thought it was great with dinner - the acids were tamed, the leather too, and I noticed a lot more dark smokey fruit in the wine. BrooklynLady thought it was "kind of average." I hear that - there is nothing overtly beautiful about this wine, and it is quite the high acid wine. It's ugly-hot, if you know what I mean.

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Comment Moderation

Date: Mon, Feb 8, 2010 Wine Tasting

Folks, I'm sorry to have to do it, and annoyed also, but I'm tired of deleting unwanted comments advertising flower shops in Pakistan, Japanese escort services, and various other detritus. So I'm going to experiment with comment moderation.

I know it's annoying to have to wait to see your comment go up on the site, but at least this way I, not you, will be the person who has to see all the unwanted comments. If it doesn't work out, I'll go back to open comments. Let's see how it goes.

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A Mini-slew of Northern Rhône Wines

Date: Sun, Feb 7, 2010 Wine Tasting

I haven't had a whole lot of northern Rhône wine. I've had some nice things at tastings, but at home with meals my experiences are mostly limited to the wines of Saint Joseph and Crozes Hermitage. Then, about a week and a half ago there was a stretch of a few days in which I had three top-notch wines from the northern Rhône. It was an interesting trio - I feel like I really learned something from these particular wines.

First, it was 1998 Paul Jaboulet Aîné Hermitage La Chapelle, at least $100 if you buy it now, imported by Frederick Wildman. Why this wine? I dropped by Deetrane's house one night and he made a very delicious western Chinese style beef noodle soup (pickled greens, pickled chilis, sesame oil, and so on). He disappeared into the cellar and returned bearing this treasure.

A few nights later my friend Adam came by, Deetrane too, as I had braised a pork shoulder with fennel and blood orange. I decided to open a bottle that I recently acquired, the 2000 Noël Verset Cornas, $60, Imported by Connoisseur Wines (usually imported by Kermit Lynch, but I bought this at Crush, who obtained it from a private collection). Noël Verset is thought by many to make the finest wines in Cornas, but he is over 90 years old now and he finally retired, and there is no one who will take over for him. So there will be no more Verset Cornas. Every time some one uncorks a bottle, that's one less bottle of Verset that will ever exist.

And then the very next evening, BrooklynLady and I had dinner with our friends Clarke and Sophie and one of the things they served was a hearty cassoulet-type stew with a 2000 Auguste Clape Cornas, about $50 but the wines cost more now, Imported by either Michael Skurnik or Kermit Lynch, perhaps by both?

Can you believe that, the weird way that things can string together sometimes?

The Jaboulet Hermitage was striking in its elegance. Deetrane decanted it and it looked as though a lot of the solid matter had fallen from the skeleton of the wine, leaving only garnet tinted water (and in fact there was a load of sediment at the bottom). Yet the wine was quite intense, with very ripe dark fruit and lovely floral and warm spicy aromatics. The horses, the skinned rabbits, the tar, the other things I think of when I think of northern Rhône Syrah - not there. This wine was all about elegance, nothing rustic whatsoever.

The 2000 Verset, however, now that wine had a rustic side. We didn't decant it, and at first the nose was all roasted soil and horse stable. The wine tasted great though, very ripe, but also layered and complex, and after about a half hour the nose blossomed, showing fruit and flowers, blood and meat, anchored by that same roasted barnyard sense. What impressed me most about this big and brawny wine though, aside from its sheer deliciousness, was that it showed great detail in its flavors - it sacrificed nothing in nuance. And in a hot year that made very ripe wines, Verset's Cornas is merely 12.5% alcohol.

The 2000 Clape is not a wine that I would call brawny, and it wasn't a rustic either. To me, it was more like the Hermitage than it was like the Verset. It built slowly over the course of an hour, showing deliciously ripe fruit, peppery and intense. We came back to it an hour after that and it had really blossomed, with expansive flavors of orange, leather, and earth. A big wine, but also a wine of clarity and poise. Clape also kept the alcohol low - a very respectable 13%.

How much can you really know from drinking three wines - very little. But I feel like I have a better understanding of the elegance of Hermitage relative to the rusticity of Cornas. And a sense of the disparate styles of Verset and Clape, both great producers, but whose wines have very different personalities, at least in the 2000 vintage.

By the way, you'll notice in the two photos that what I'm guessing is a lot number appears in the lower left of the label. It reads "L1" on the Verset, and "L4" on the Clape. Anyone know what that means, exactly?

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