Spirits

is it a problem?

A quick weekend in Seattle and one that allowed me at least one night out on the town with some cronies, some of whom I do not see often enough. More details on that to follow but one small complaint: is there something about Seattle that makes dealing with customers a problem? I’m just asking because it seems to be a habit in that fair city’s bars and restaurants to respond to a request with the rather inhospitable, “no problem.”

Maybe it’s the Texan coming out of me, but when I was a kid if you didn’t say, “thank you, “yes ma’am” or “sir” or “you’re welcome”, somebody was likely to smack you on your head. That’s how it was as a kid in Texas but then it was a simpler time.

So if I say “thank you” when you drop my drink or my food in front of me, I think it’s pretty lame to respond with, “no problem.” Of course, it’s not a “problem”. If I thought it was a “problem”, I’d go someplace else where, I don’t know, they’re polite and hospitable.

Not that people were rude; well, I did have a very strange experience in a bar that shall remain nameless. My waitress wasn’t familiar with Del Maguey mezcals and I was in need of a shot of tobala. Some of my friends probably needed one too. So I was directed to the bartender, who had a couple of the Del Magueys but not tobala. Did I want Pechuga, he wanted to know. No, not really, but do you have it? No, he replied. Hmm, why did he ask me if I wanted that? Oh, we”re testing each other’s knowledge now, I see.

Well, I was pretty well in my cups so I had little interest in that game. I tried to smile and act dumb (not usually a challenge). Did I want to try some other mezcals, he asked. Sure! He dropped a couple of glasses in front of me. “Cool,” I said, “whose are they?”

I haven’t been yelled at by a bartender in a long time, not since I was working alongside one, I think. Apparently, that was the wrong question. Nice and interesting mezcals, though I regret to say that I didn’t get their names. I went back to talking to friendlier people.

Wine

something from Colorado

A bottle of Stone Cottage Cellars Gewurztraminer 2005 West Elks is open and lengthening in tooth. Now, there is nothing fair about asking a Colorado (yes, I said Colorado) Gewurztraminer to age more than a year or two. This bottle is a 2005 and I promise you that it was as fresh as a daisy a little more than a year ago.

I’ve saved it a bit too long; it’s no one’s fault but mine. I have a lot of wine that is yelling at me, “Hurry up and drink me!” I’m trying to get to those wines, but like I say, I’ve got a lot of them. Tonight, I just wanted to delve into some Colorado wine since it will be another three or four months before I am able to visit Stone Cottage again and reload on their pretty wines. This one is just a little past its best and that’s not the wine’s fault.

Gewurztraminer is usually light in acidity and acidity is the structural element that steadies most white wines as they mature. The nose is sweet and floral honey; peaches and apricots, there is a dusty mineral note that might well be the West Elks soil and site speaking through the wine. The finish is showing some oxidation: bruised apple, cooked apple, a touch of nut, but I’m really enjoying it nonetheless. Maybe fresh isn’t always that important.

Wine

something from South Africa

Graham Beck The Joshua 2003 Barrel Selection – (91% Shiraz and 9% Viognier) – while this is intriguing stuff, South Africa doesn’t offer the fruitiest concoctions of wine; this is no exception. There’s a strong note of spearmint leaf, dried as well as fresh, rubber eraser and other such wild non-fruit characteristics. Add a note of bacon, some sweet toast and coffee notes, and, well, you start to get the idea that this is complex. Then add black plum, black cherry and licorice and it gets even crazier.

The mouth is South African dry: tangy, slightly bitter from green leaves and dried leaves, more spearmint along with vanilla and other sweet barrel notes. Sweet black raspberries meet rubber tires is happening too. But I would gladly drink this again. In fact, I would insist that you do too, at least if you want to see how South Africa has wines of true personality on offer. Honestly, I could smell this wine for hours (actually, I did for days) and not tire of it. (No) pun intended.

Wine

www.drinklocalwine.com

THINK GLOBAL, DRINK LOCAL

Locavores, goes the trendy and annoyingly specific term for people who, by eating fresh and local foods, lessen their carbon footprint (another less than poetic description for something really good). Locavores, I must agree with you: eat local, drink local. Food is fresher the closer it’s grown. Most foods that are destined to be shipped a thousand miles away are harvested earlier than those that somebody might eat tonight, and they have less flavor than they ought to have. Ripe is good.

Fresh is best, if you want the best foods. But some foods are different; maybe freshness isn’t everything. With cheeses, stews, soups and wines, among others, a little time can do wondrous things. Since alcohol is a preservative, fresh isn’t necessary to good wine. Drinking local wine shouldn’t matter, right?

Turns out it does.  Supporting local business is good for local economies; supporting local farmers saves land from less scenic and more damaging pursuits. Successful farms rescue land from the bulldozer and from concrete. You know what? I live in Kansas City and I want see a vineyard when I drive out of town.

So wine writer Dave McIntyre sends out a bunch of emails a few weeks ago and asks if I want to be one of a number of journalisti to coordinate our efforts: to Drink Local, and to WRITE local.  At least for a week. Write about the men and women who are making wine around you and then put your stuff on line; meanwhile, everybody else will be doing the same thing, each in his or her own spot.

Well, duh. I like local. I want other people to know about our local wines. So, yeah??

So here we go. Last week I talked about the Missouri State Wine Competition. I’ve been writing about that event for a couple of decades and more. Nobody listens. I mean, nobody reads. Okay, some people do. But half of those reading it think about writing me, as some always do: “Are you kidding me? Missouri wine??”

Yep. But this blog isn’t just about Missouri wine, though I’m eager to tell you about Tony Kooyumjian’s typically delicious Augusta Chambourcin. No. I am compelled to write about wines from this part of the country because there are excellent wines here, where few wines of excellence have ever been created. Those successes make me want to yell out, especially when nobody seems to be listening, that an utterly dedicated winegrower is capable of crafting enjoyable wine, even where no one has done so before.

That’s big stuff to me. Napa Valley? Yeah, we get that. Bordeaux? Uh huh. Burgundy, Champagne, the Mosel or Rheingau? Tuscany, Piedmont, the Yarra Valley and Mendoza? Yeah, you see where I’m going on this.

But northeastern Kansas? Central Nebraska? Iowa?

First, let’s talk Iowa. Last year’s Mid-American Wine Competition (it’s based in Des Moines) saw Iowa’s Fireside Winery win the award for Iowa’s best wine. This year was different: the Iowa wine was the Best White Wine of the Show. We judges voted it best white wine without being aware of its Iowa roots; Snus Hill Vineyard Edelweiss was just damn good. Snus Hill Vineyards has made some pleasant wines before, but this was absolutely at a different level. The grape Edelweiss is very much still a work in progress: some tropical hints on top of a rather pleasant but non-descript wine. At least that’s how it usually tastes to me.

The Snus Hill Edelweiss was far more complete: a bit sweet, very tart, and as layered as a parfait. Don’t get the wrong idea; it’s dry, but it’s more sweet/tart than it is dry, in that it’s more like sweet/TART.

Nebraska has far fewer than Iowa’s fifty or so wineries, but at least three of them have my full attention: Mac’s Creek Winery, Cuthills Winery and James Arthur Vineyards. They all do nice stuff; Cuthills has been creating its own good luck by working with new grapes, indeed, helping to put Brianna on the map as a grape of luscious pineapple and lemon notes.

Kansas has at least two wineries that should matter to you, and they always have something worth drinking on offer. HolyField is the senior of the two and they’ve made some of the best wines in the central U.S. for a decade. Their current Late Harvest Vignoles 2006 is as fat and oozing with apricot character as anybody else’s Vignoles from anywhere. Delicious late harvest wine with the kind of tart finish dessert wines from elsewhere must dream about in their sleep.

Somerset Ridge has a tidy little off-dry wine called OktoberFest. This year, their Late Harvest Traminette is even better: the sort of pretty fruit and crazy floral intensity that any child of Gewurztraminer (hence, the hybrid’s name TRAMINette) should have, in exuberance.

Which brings us to Missouri. There are over fifty wineries making wine in the state; about twelve of them are consistently on their game. The rest are more or less capable of surprising you in any vintage, though they don’t often make solid wine. And among the very best, nobody has been able to touch Stone Hill for years.

Then a few short years ago, Tony Kooyumjian started winning more than anyone else. He makes wines both at Augusta and Montelle wineries; maybe somebody might think that gives him too many opportunities. Yeah, but it would appear he knows how to make the most of his opportunities.

And while he has won awards for every grape he fashions into wine, I’ve come to rely on his Chambourcin to prove to my friends who don’t get it about wines from this part of the country. The raspberry nose, the red fruits mouth and the tangy finish, well, pretty much everybody gets it when they taste one of those wines.

Wine

It’s time for your Missouri wine update

I’ve been trying to figure out when I first started judging at the Missouri State Fair Competition; I think it’s been twenty-five years since my first competition. Maybe it’s been longer, but the interminable feeling as one fatally flawed wine after another passed my lips is long gone. Sitting down to several hundred wines at the 2008 Missouri State Wine Competition, there’s no feeling of grim trepidation.

Instead I’m excited, if worried. 2007 was the annus horribilis, as the British Queen once said of another vintage. The vintage was unkind to Missouri’s favorite grape, Norton, most of which was wiped out by the so-called “Easter Massacre”. On April 5th, Easter Day, the temperature plunged into the low twenties (and even lower in many areas) where it stayed for five or more days.

By itself, these frigid temperatures wouldn’t have done a great deal of damage. But the preceding three weeks had been unseasonably warm and sunny and most vines had wakened up, believing spring was at hand. The sap had risen up into the wood and when that sap froze, vines literally exploded. The result was the loss of three quarters or more of many of Missouri’s crops, not least of which included most of the state’s wine grapes.

The initial report was that 95% of Missouri’s Norton crop was gone. Other grapes suffered to similar degrees (pun intended). So for the 2008 Missouri State Wine Competition, I wasn’t sure there would be many 2007 vintage wines to taste. And a weather disaster like the Easter Massacre was bound to leave a lasting impact on the wines fashioned from those grapes and vines that survived. Would there be balanced wines?

The short answer is yes. Among the white wines, there were a number of lovely dry 2007 Vignoles, the finest of which was from the oft-awarded Montelle Winery. Their 2007 Dry Vignoles was judged to be the best wine of the entire show, and was handed the Governor’s Cup, giving Montelle’s winemaker, Tony Kooyumjian, the Governor’s Cup four out of the last five years. A remarkable achievement.

Most of the wines in the flights of Vidal Blanc and Vignoles contained attractive 2007’s. The entire Seyval Blanc flight was far more encouraging than last year’s group; the 2007 vintage clearly had some benefits for Seyval Blanc.

Tony Kooyumjian’s Semi-dry Seyval Blanc, which he produces at Augusta Winery, was every bit as good as his superlative Dry Vignoles. Between Augusta and Montelle Wineries, Tony managed to bring home six of the ten “Best of Class” awards. His other Best of Class winners included Augusta River Valley Red, Montelle River Country Red, and two absolute beauties: Augusta 2007 Icewine and Montelle Peach Brandy. I would put those last two up against competitive products from anywhere and they would match or even beat the competition.

The sad truth is that most people reading that last statement don’t believe that I’m serious. Of course, they haven’t really tried most Missouri wines. And despite probably tasting only a few inexpensive Missouri wines, most tasters think they know the quality of Missouri wine. It’s like tasting some California box wines and saying that you can extrapolate from those how Phelps Insignia tastes.

It shouldn’t be, but it might be a surprise to some people to know that the Missouri wine industry has a pretty strong reputation outside of the state. At least within the wine industry, there is a strong sense that there are a lot of smart people working here. Even many California winemakers have heard good things about Norton, Missouri’s state grape, even if they’ve never actually tasted one.

At the 2008 competition, there were other surprises, if smaller and less momentous. For one, there seemed to be fewer Chardonels than last year; that was welcome news. I hate to badmouth a grape and its entire output, so I won’t. But far too much Chardonel is boring or worse.

Add to the good news that those who are making Chardonel are less frequently smothering it in oak in the vain hope that the lightweight grape can grow wings and fly away as a fully formed Chardonnay, one of its parents. As they say, you can put lipstick on the pig but…

The other top winners were Stone Hill’s Golden Spumante and their 2007 Vignoles, made in a delicious, sweeter style. Not surprisingly, Stone Hill took home the award for the best fortified wine as well, with their 2005 Port, fashioned from the Norton grape. Blumenhof Winery had an absolutely stellar Cynthiana (that’s Norton, as well) from the 2006 vintage; that wine deserves your attention as well.

It’s exciting that Blumenhof is back in the winner’s column; their wines can be first-rate and they don’t show up in the press as often as they deserve. Best of all, their victory in the Norton competition reflects a sea change in Missouri wine. No longer is the winner for top Norton a predictable battle between the heavyweights in the state; these days more and more wineries are making great Norton.

Wine

I am an umami’s boy

There are some politicians to whom the term “cipher” has been applied: they represent ill-defined figures upon whom a desperate public can project their desires. The notion of umami may be as poorly defined, at least in the culinary world.

While food science has long ago determined that umami is a form of glutamate attached to one or two proteins (know as IMP or GMP), umami has become variously known as “the smell of protein”, “the flavor of protein”, “the flavor of chicken soup”, of “the flavor of deliciousness.” Moreover, I have heard wine and culinary professionals insist that any rich flavor must a priori be umami-rich.
And umami’s existence, though identified in 1919 and a prominent component of flavored foods for half a century, is still in dispute by some recalcitrants. But like the little boy covering his face in fright, denying umami’s existence doesn’t make it go away.

In brief, umami is found in a variety of foods; that is in little dispute. It can be found in varying amounts in tomatoes, green beans, bivalves, shellfish, seaweed, mushrooms, many aged cheeses and in cooked meats, especially those that have been subjected to slow and long cooking.

What is still contentious is determining umami’s impact on other flavors (particularly sweetness and saltiness) and its impact upon wine. For instance, high amounts of umami can interact in somewhat unpleasant ways with high tannin wines, at least for many. But like all food experiences, the negative response to umami and tannin interaction is not universal. Many find the duo of tannin and umami gives a metallic taste, some find it only somewhat unpleasant and a significant percentage of people may have very little response at all.

This isn’t umami’s fault. There are no universal food or drink experiences, and therefore there are no universal experiences of food and drink in combination. You may like Brussels sprouts; I may find them annoying. I might enjoy liver and onions; you might be repulsed.

Certainly the combination of oysters and tannic red wine seems intuitively wrong. The high umami content of oysters is the culprit, and its kerwang effect on tannin explains the problem. But it’s important to accept that some people don’t find the two to be a bad match, though most people wouldn’t put them together.

And another complicating factor arises; salt can buffer tannin. Most chefs have noticed that salt buffers bitterness (chefs put salt on eggplant, don’t they?); yet the saltiness of oysters is not enough to overcome the umami effect on red wine.

Conversely, aged and/or well-cooked meats have plenty of umami, but you don’t hear anybody complaining about the metallic effect of cooked meats on red wines. Here again, there are other elements (including fats, proteins and salt) that provide plenty of counter-balance for red wine’s tannins. And most find it a happy match.

Finally, there is the age old pairing of blue cheese (rife with umami) with Port, a powerfully tannic wine. My palate finds a younger Port to be less enjoyable with blue cheese; maybe there’s too much tannin in the younger red to handle the cheese’s umami, despite the intense saltiness of most blue cheeses (remember salt buffers tannins).

But Port is also sweet. And that seems to be the missing piece. A dry red wine is unpleasant with blue cheese; a powerful and sweet wine is fine.

If this seems head-spinningly complicated, well, that’s hardly my fault. Foods and wines are comprised of hundreds if not thousands of myriad elements. But if there is a simplifying rule, it may be this: if both the food and the wine have a balance among the primary flavors of salt, sweet, bitter, sour and umami, they are likely to go well with just about any other well-balanced food or wine.

If not, then the food or the wine should not overwhelm its partner in any particular flavor category.

If all this makes you long for beer and chips, fret not. The business of food and wine matching is only complicated if you try to explain it. If you’re simply trying to enjoy it, then drink and eat whatever you damn well please.

Wine

Pink and light in Provence

Van Gogh came here for the light, writing to his brother Theo: “Under the blue sky the orange, yellow and red splashes of the flowers take on an amazing brilliance and in the limpid air there is a something or other happier, more lovely than in the North.”

Cezanne was born here, in the charming town of Aix-en-Provence. His love of the color in the trees and especially in the mountains was born of the clear, almost searching light in Provence. There are plenty of vineyards too; Van Gogh painted some of the stubby old vines, capturing one spot on the backside of Mas de la Dame, a great Provencal winery. Mas de la Dame makes a lot of lovely red wine and a vibrant pink wine.

They’re not alone in making a pink wine. Most everyone in Provence makes pink wine; they have a lot of tourists and tourists all the world round like the same thing: pink. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, as Jerry Seinfeld used to say. Pink is good and in the midst of a hot summer, pink (and cold) can be great.

This week, I’m drinking pink wine nearly every day. Why? I’m in Provence, and it’s the famous wine of the region. It certainly doesn’t represent the best of what this beautiful and rugged seaside region can offer, but in the powerful and clarifying Provencal sun, it seems just right. At its best (and when youthful), it has brilliant color, more like a rose petal than the dullish orange-pink of so many other roses. Not that there’s anything wrong with that either (thanks again, Jerry), but fresh Provencal rose is pretty to the eye.

The nose too should be fresh and fruit-laden: strawberries, raspberries, red cherries and currants are a pretty good approximation of Provencal rose’s aromas. But being that we’re talking about Provence, where rosemary bushes grow wild, and where the garrigue, a wealth of wild herbs and native plants, offer herbal, dusty notes to the wines, well, that note is present too. It makes for a hint of complexity smothered by a cold, pink, fruity, gratifying gush of juiciness. It’s as if you’re in a fascinating conversation about Schopenhauer with a beautiful woman, and then it turned out she just wants to make out.

Okay, maybe I got carried away. But Provence will do that to you: the sun is so bright, the air is so clear, the colors are so vibrant. Yes, van Gogh got carried away too, to rather unhappy effect. Not this Provencal visitor. For at least a few more summer days, I’m satisfied with pink wines.

Wine

Before we leave 2007 behind…

So I judged at the Sydney International Wine Competition in late 2007, and aside from the beauty of the Blue Mountains, it wasn’t the most fun I’ve had at a tasting. Let me explain…

The Methodology

First there is the methodology. Each wine is tasted several times. After an initial culling process, each of the promoted wines is placed in a particular weight class (light medium, heavy) and then each wine is tasted again to set its position within its weight class (is it very light bodied, or only somewhat light-bodied?). Next, within their weight categories, the wines are first judged on their own, and then the wines are re-tasted alongside a particular food pairing. This reflects the organisers’ belief that wines are judged in an unnatural setting if they are tasted by themselves and not with food. While many of the world’s wines seem intended for consumption in the cocktail hour, wine’s traditional place is at the dining table and judging wine alongside food should be obvious. Instead, it’s virtually unknown in any other wine competition.

The Judging Panel

While the tasting methodology offers enough differentiation from other competitions to make it unique, there is another critical difference the Sydney International Wine Competition has to offer: the caliber of the judges is top notch. While there were only fourteen judges, each judge was an experienced and skilled professional with demonstrable expertise in the business of wine judging. And the fourteen judges represented seven different countries, so there was far less opportunity for the “regional palate” problem to influence the outcome. Depending on which stage of the elimination process to select the Award winners it represented, each flight involved a different group of judges; in the earliest stages there were only two judges on a flight. But for the Finals judging there were six or more judges assessing each wine in the Category.

Conclusions

As I write this, I still don’t know the results of all our efforts. But I am clear enough in my reactions to the wines I judged to draw a few conclusions.

Conclusion One

Flawed wines were far less prevalent than in other shows I have judged. Within the groups of wines we tasted, as well as many from well-known New World wine regions, there were wines from Bordeaux and other traditional regions of France. In general, Bordeaux, though it likes to claim otherwise, has a problem with Brettanomyces. While I have heard numerous Bordelais winemakers claim that those band-aid, leather and animal notes represent terroir, I disagree. These aromas derive from barrels that are laden with Brettanomyces. Some New World wines share this problem. And some New World wines (often in California and Washington) exhibit high amounts of volatile acidity. It’s a problem that shows no sign of abatement in many such regions. Many South African wines suffer from issues with both Brettanomyces and volatile acidity. Yet the overwhelming proportion of wines (including wines from those countries) represented in this Competition showed clean winemaking. But it should also be strongly noted that the entire New World is struggling to control alcohol levels; some of the wines we tasted had alcohol levels that were bordering on the absurd.

Conclusion Two

The move towards cooler New World sites has not resulted in wines of better balance than those from the better known areas in general. Instead, we experienced an array of wines with green and bitter tannins. California has traditionally struggled with this issue. Its hot climate results in rapid ripening of the grapes, so the grapes become sweet and mature before the tannins can soften and ripen. In California, the tradeoff is that the best of these wines have tremendous richness, and the green and sandpapery tannins are offset by rich flavors. With some of the Australian Cabernets and Merlots I tasted, the tannins were green, but the sweet and jammy ripeness so typical of great Australian reds was missing.

Conclusion Three

Australian and New Zealand Chardonnays have become better balanced, cleaner and less oak dominant than their Californian counterparts. Unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are more interesting wines.

Conclusion Four

Finally, I would draw one more conclusion from my participation in the Sydney International Wine Competition: the methodology of the SIWC offers great benefits. I say this because:

  • It is appropriate to taste and assess wine with food.
  • It is appropriate to taste the same wine several times before reaching a final conclusion.
  • It is appropriate for a wine judge to consider, “should I offer this wine greater merit when it demonstrates that it can skillfully handle a plate of delicious food?”

Postscript: so why was this a grueling tasting? Imagine tasting the same wines four times in four days. And imagine being in Australia but not really able to cut loose and see your friends and see new places and, well, I’m just whining now, aren’t I? I am a Master of Whine,  after all.

One more note: while I wrote above that other competitions don’t include food, one of the competitions I help run, the Mid-American Wine Competition is doing that this year – it’s been in the works for a year. But I knew that judging at the Sydney Competition would assist me in my understanding of the process, so for that as well as many other reasons (cool judges, etc.),  I’m glad I was there.

Wine consultant & writer, one of only four people in the world to hold both Master Sommelier and Master of Wine titles