Monthly Archives: July 2015

Le Pan, Wine

Bob Lindquist proves me wrong. My second article for LE PAN Magazine.

Check out my second article for LE PAN Magazine.

Bob Lindquist is a Rhone variety pioneer, not just in California, but anywhere outside the Rhone Valley. As such, he’s one of my heroes. I love the wines he’s made at Qupe Winery over the last few decades, and he’s not so bad either. Perhaps surprisingly, I don’t mind expressing my ignorance around him; it’s a rather easy way to get schooled. I’m in the wine business to get schooled. Happens a lot.

So on one of those occasions when I just couldn’t stop myself, I told Bob that I believed Marsanne was a problematic ager. Let’s be honest: what I actually said was that it doesn’t age. Or something that stupid.

Bob laughed and told me he’d send me some wine. So you see my evil plan worked to perfection. A few weeks later I opened a box of Qupe Marsanne of various and sundry ages.

The first one was corked; let’s leave it at that. The next one, 1994 Qupe Marsanne Santa Barbara County, was definitely not corked. It was clean and correct and delicious. It showed citrus, lime, orange, lemon, wet wool (something like Vouvray), roasted nuts (something like Meursault), buttered corn (he didn’t really use American oak, did he?) and roasted green apple (something to do with aging crisp and tart white wines).

This sort of wine is exciting like old Hunter Valley Semillon is exciting; it breaks expectations apart, it makes a taster question notions of New World and Old World characteristics, and cool climates and warm climates. Does time trump all varietal and regional flavors?

I wish I had ten more bottles like this. It has successfully aged, in the sense that it has not only survived, but has improved. As it lingered, I tasted almond slivers with green apple, wet linen and lime and orange notes. The length however was not as I might have hoped. There were few earth aromas and flavors at the end, so I was left with a delightful wine, but not a GREAT wine.

Was it Marsanne’s fault? The region’s fault? The vintage? We don’t know or at least I don’t know. Maybe Marsanne always needs a bit of a boost from Roussanne, as is so common with the top Hermitage Blanc. But who needs great wine all the time? I’d take delicious wine all the time and count myself amongst the luckiest tasters in the world.

Bob’s Marsannes are that. They’re delicious. Even, and maybe especially, when they age.

– See more at: http://www.lepanmedia.com/bob-lindquist-proves-me-wrong/#sthash.ACVIG6ZO.dpuf

Le Pan

My first article for LE PAN Magazine

Hope everyone enjoys my first article for LE PAN Magazine on The Carcavelos crusaders: Resurrecting an ancient wine. I’m very excited about this new project.

A famed and legendary dessert wine of Portugal, Carcavelos was once considered a worthy peer to the country’s other great fortified wines of Madeira, Port and Moscatel de Setubal.

Yet it has been virtually absent from the marketplace for decades. Now a young group of enthusiasts is rescuing it from near-certain extinction.

The vines of Carcavelos barely hang on, snaking along the backyards of a row of sterile, modern apartment buildings. These vineyards date back to the mid-18th century, planted as part of an agricultural station founded by Marques de Pombal, the (sometimes) benign dictator responsible for Port’s delineation in the mountains above the Douro River, and countless other public works.

But many of the vines were grubbed up to make room for these high-rises looming overhead; and the ribbon of vineyards leads to a refurbished agricultural station (again, courtesy of Pombal).

Here two young wine lovers, Alejandro Lisboa and Tiago Correia are making Carcavelos, something that hasn’t happened in years.

They’ve had the backing of the nearby town of Oeiras; with EU assistance, 3 million euros (US$3,271,590) have been spent on the restoration project. It was a last ditch chance to resurrect Carcavelos, though vines can be still found here and there around the region. “The other [vintners] are not producing anymore,” explains Lisboa, “they’re just bottling old wines [wines still in cask].”

There are a total of 60 acres of vines in the defined district of Carcavelos, half of them are hiding between those apartments.

They’re a mix of grapes: Arinto, Galego Dourado, Ratinho, while Lisboa explains, “the oldest wines mixed red and white grapes.”

The law still defines Carcavelos as having two years in barrel and six years in bottle; here, they prefer five or more years in barrel. But they’re experimenting with grapes, barrels and everything they can to restore the region’s past glory.

Alejandro is a landscape architect; his partner Tiago is a technical engineer.

These are not their day jobs. “It is our passion but not our businesses. When we sell one bottle, we are not getting rich. We are restoring our heritage.”

– See more at: http://www.lepanmedia.com/the-carcavelhos-crusaders-resurrecting-an-ancient-wine/#sthash.nTNelBMU.dpuf