Maker's Table

Sheldon Pinot Noir, Roma’s Vineyard

Sheldon Wines
Pinot Noir “Roma’s Vineyard” Anderson Valley
2010
13.4% ABV | Price: about $45 (media sample)

Roma’s Vineyard rolls along a ridge top overlooking Boonville, California, in the northern corner of the Anderson Valley. At 1,800 feet above sea level, the pinot noir vines wash in cooling breezes and toss in the storms that thunder through every fall.

It’s a special place, wild and remote, says Tobe Sheldon, who with husband Dylan Sheldon sources fruit from this planting of Pommard clones. The eight-acre property is off-grid, and while it’s fenced against deer, “we don’t get to harvest the back couple of acres,” she says. “There are black bears that do that for us.”

Two thousand and ten was an especially cool vintage, and the fruit hung on the vines three weeks beyond normal harvest dates. Even then, it only hit 22.5° Brix, about 10% below average. Two of the lots were cold soaked, crushed, and fermented in open-top vessels without sulfur addition, while a third was whole-cluster fermented for added structure. The wine was pressed off into 2- and 3-year barrels to retain the wine’s focus and aromatics. It was bottled unfined and unfiltered.

The resulting wine is elegant and limpid, a clear pale rose color with burnished highlights. While it’s fragrant with red fruits, it’s not sweetly fruity—it’s more herbaceous, like the smell of a warm, very ripe, sweet tomato. Earthy, spicy scents ride this aromatic current, too. On the tongue it feels fine-boned but vibrant, with a mineral-driven finish.

I poured this wine with a quick sauté of shrimp, spring peas, sundried tomatoes, and lemon-infused oil, which I tossed with linguine. Red wine with shrimp? Yes—at least this one. Its acidity, herbal fruits, freshness, and supple structure harmonized beautifully with the dish.

“Vines, like people, need to be challenged to build character,” says Toby Sheldon. Evidently, Roma’s vines rose to the challenge in 2010, yielding a wine of great vitality and spirit. And admirably—adroitly—the winemakers let this spirit shine.

Stepping Stone by Cornerstone

Cornerstone Cellars stakes its reputation on high-end California Cabernet Sauvignon and Oregon Pinot Noir. The winery recently released several new wines under its second label, Stepping Stone, including a Napa Valley Cabernet and two North Coast blends called “Rocks!”

Unlike Cornerstone’s main line wines, these new releases are vins de plaisir, made for early drinking and everyday enjoyment. It’s a somewhat risky strategy, since second labels can dilute a brand, and blends are often confusing to customers who associate a house with a particular grape.

These wines, though, display a grace and balance concomitant with the winery’s reputation. There’s evidence of a light hand in the cellar, and oak is modest. All three wines have a clarity and juiciness that keeps them lively. Pricing is modest, too, but good fruit and expert handling don’t come cheap. Both Rocks! blends sell for $18, grazing the ceiling of table wine affordability, and the Cab, at $35, remains a splurge for most consumers.

For the white blend, winemaker Jeff Keene drew inspiration from the light-bodied, aromatic wines of Friuli. It’s a curious blend of chardonnay and gewürztraminer, but for all its aromatics it manages to retain freshness and vibrancy.

For the red blend he looked to the earthy, chewy wines of Languedoc-Roussillon; this wine is a blend of zinfandel, syrah, and merlot. The Napa Cab draws its inspiration from, well, Napa—but old-school Napa. Its fruit derives from the same vineyards that furnish the winery’s top Cabernet.

Producing blended wines afforded Keene the freedom to select the best fruit and finished wines available. Blending does make the wines less about terroir than about the winemaker’s stylistic imprint, but fortunately, that style is about refreshment, food-friendliness, and approachability.

I spoke recently with Keene about his winemaking sensibility, and what he is striving to achieve with these wines.

 

Tell me about your winemaking style.

My winemaking philosophy is about acid and balance. We purchase all of our fruit. I’m not a fan of estate fruit, because I don’t like being tied in. I like selection.

I’m lucky enough to be sourcing fruit for reds up and down the length of Napa Valley, from some of the best vineyards. I don’t deviate from the great growers, because I don’t have to tell them how to grow grapes. We just have to be on the same page about what I’m trying to achieve.

There’s a lot I can control in the winery and cellar, but I can’t control the weather—I have to wait for Mother Nature and see what she throws at me. That’s the great thing about working at Cornerstone: it does have a style people recognize, but I can still let the vintage dictate the style we’re making.

 

What was your goal for the Rocks! wines?

We were talking about having an everyday drinking wine—something that you can come home to, it’s in the fridge all the time, you can pour it out and have a glass while you’re relaxing with dinner. I want it to show off its aromatics and fragrance, a touch of sweetness, but mainly some acid on the finish that gets you wanting more.

I’d love for serious wine consumers to enjoy the wine for what it is, and not over-analyze it. Just drink it!

 

What was it like putting together these blends?

Cornerstone is connected to Howell Mountain, but with the blends, I have the freedom to experiment with other varieties. We sourced finished wine from the North Coast appellation. We started with Napa, but my hands were tied. It limited what was available to me, and the cost.

They’ve actually been hard blends to put together, because the wines hadn’t come from my cellar, and I hadn’t followed them throughout their lives. I knew what I wanted to do in my head, and I was just waiting for the wine to show up.

 

Chardonnay and gewürz are somewhat odd bedfellows. What was your thinking behind the white?

The chardonnay is a blank canvas, and I add something to it to make it pop. In 2012, chardonnay is going to be a major component of the wine as well, plus white muscat. Again, I want those aromatics.

 

And the red?

I wanted to use varieties to give a little bit of perceived sweetness from the fruit flavors. The majority of the wine was stainless fermented, and the syrah and merlot had a little bit of oak. I don’t want perceived oak tannins coming through. I use it more like a spice rack, just a touch of seasoning. I’m choosing barrels because it adds to the mid-palate and length. There are only a few barrels I use to “add oak.”

 

I know it’s not a vin de garde, but do you think the red Rocks! has aging potential?

With the varieties like zin and syrah, and the merlot to keep that nice mid-palate juiciness, there are opportunities to develop some interesting bottle age. Sometimes we open it up and let it sit, and the zin flies away but the syrah pops up. It may have three to five years. It’d be interesting to try it. I’m hoping it doesn’t sit around that long! We have other wines for that.

 

Tell me about the 2010 Stepping Stone Napa Valley Cabernet.

Two thousand and ten was a difficult vintage, cool and wet. The vineyard management teams had to shine. Fortunately, I don’t have to hit case numbers, so I can make the best wine possible from the fruit I get.

This is the first 2010 red we’ve released, and a Cab as well, so in putting together the blend, I wanted it to deliver early. I wanted to make sure it was in the Stepping Stone style, but showed off what Napa Valley Cab can do.

One thing that’s great about this wine is that the alcohol content is 13.9%—truly 13.9%. It’s been great to make a wine like that but with the palate presence of a bigger wine.

With this wine at $35, if you put it on a wine list, you’re getting close to $100 in a restaurant. I wanted to make sure that I’ve put all my effort, my best grapes and barrels, into what wine, so people will get their money’s worth. That’s very important to me. 

 

Anything else?

I am very proud of what I’ve done. It’s wonderful to have been given a free rein to express myself in the top Cornerstone Cabs—Napa and Howell Mountain. I’d love to do 100% Cabernet, or Cab Franc, but I’d want to make sure I’m putting my best foot forward every vintage. So, while my aim is 100% varietal wine, if there are noticeable gaps, to my palate, I’ll fill those in.

We want to over-deliver. People are putting up good money to buy these wines. I want to make sure they really enjoy them.

 

 

T A S T I N G   N O T E S

Stepping Stone “Rocks!” White Blend North Coast
2011
13.5% abv | about $18 (media sample)

A blend of chardonnay and gewürztraminer. Pale clear yellow with aromas of green melon, tropical flowers, ripe citrus, lemon peel, and jasmine. This wine feels fresh and clean, with good acidity offset by lavish floral fruit flavors, like star fruit and melon. It makes a good aperitif, and has sufficient aromatic oomph to be poured outdoors for patio or picnic gatherings. Pair it with spicy Asian cuisine, sushi, young cheeses, or salads with a citrus dressing.

Stepping Stone “Rocks!” Red Blend North Coast
2010
14.5% abv | about $18 (media sample)

This blend of zinfandel, syrah, and merlot is deep violet-red with notes of black pepper and rustic herbs. It delivers a mouthful of black pepper, too, plus dark fruits. The oak is restrained, and the wine has good texture—chewy with a velvety mid-palate and a slow, earthy finish. A balanced and intelligent red blend. While it isn’t meant as a vin de garde, it’d probably relax after a couple of years of cellaring. Pair it now with earthy, robust meats, including pepper-rubbed steak, venison, or stew.

Stepping Stone Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley
2010
13.9% abv | about $35 (media sample)

The wine is 93% cabernet sauvignon from Howell Mountain, Rutherford, and Oak Knoll Districts, and 7% merlot from Carneros and Oakville, aged for eighteen months in 50% new French oak. It weighs in just shy of 14% alcohol, a rare distinction in Napa Cab. Deep velvet red with dark blueberry aromas top-noted by green herbs, it has a base note of smoky black berry fruits on the palate, with juniper berry and cedar. This is not a plush wine, and not showy; it’s a wine that knows its place at the table. It’s somewhat reminiscent of cool-climate reds from Austria and Germany, and was even more integrated on Days Two and Three. Pair it with red meats, mushrooms, and aged cheeses.

Palate Shepherd

I met William Allen about three years ago, online. At that point, he was tech exec by day, garage winemaker by night (and weekend), and advocate for Sonoma winemaking on his website, Simple Hedonisms. He seemed sociable and spirited, if slightly tinged by the Weltschmerz of one who must toil in the corporate world to finance an avocation.

We met in person a year later. By then his winemaking side gig had taken a more ambitious turn. He’d moved operations from his garage to a friend’s winery in Fulton, California, and started a new label, Two Shepherds Vineyards.

Although he’d made many styles of wine in the past, he had decided to focus his efforts on Rhône grapes, sourcing fruit from cool-climate vineyards in Russian River and Santa Ynez Valley. His approach was minimalist, picking on the shy side of ripe, fermenting on native yeasts, and using only tiny amounts of sulfur.

Two Shepherds’ first harvest was 2010, but the wines weren’t released until November 2011, after the obligatory struggle with the labyrinthine arcana of TTB approval. He now offers red and white blends, varietal Viognier and Grenache Blanc, and a marsanne-roussanne orange wine he calls “Centime.”

Critic Jon Bonné of the San Francisco Chronicle recently wrote admiringly of his Grenache Blanc. So did Virginie Boone. Mutual friends had effused about his wines, too. I hadn’t tasted any of them until this fall.

Accolades notwithstanding, my expectations were modest. This is where an affinity for narrative can work against a wine writer. Knowing a wine’s story doesn’t change its flavor, but it does change its significance. To me, William was the scrappy, underdog garagiste, a part-timer trying to get traction. I didn’t expect serious wines.

But these are serious wines. They have great finesse and gravity, plus a kind of ringing clarity. They have a delicious texture that makes them seem both earthy and polished. They love food. They also like air and warmth to open up, and change in the glass throughout an evening. They’re a bit mercurial, which is a good litmus test for interestingness. Many are just as alive, if not more alive, the next day. 

These wines seemed to speak a language I didn’t know William spoke. By doing so, they told me something new about him, and about my own preconceptions.

After the tasting, I talked with William about his work.

Why make wine?

It was just something I was compelled to do. I’d been making wine for years, but really got serious when I first moved to wine country. It was kind of hard not to. I’d been blogging a lot, and my focus in talking with winemakers was always technical. I started to test out those things myself. People were like, you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re just a garage winemaker.

How did Two Shepherds get started?

I had all these things I wanted to try, but there were so few people who knew about Rhône grapes. Nobody up here knew about working with grenache blanc. Anyway, you ask ten winemakers about anything and you’ll get seven different answers.

So I didn’t know I was going to start Two Shepherds. I just knew I was going to make wine in bond with Darek Trowbridge at Old World Winery. Because Rhônes are best as blends, but how the hell was I going to make seven barrels of wine myself, in my garage?

Why Rhône grapes?

When I was a garage winemaker I was all over the board. I’d done Sangio, Chardonnay. The Grenache Blanc motivated me to do this. Anthony Yount of Denner was an inspiration, one of the first to combine the brightness of Grenache Blanc with more complexity in the aromatics and mouthfeel. Grenache Blanc can be frankly a boring varietal. You have to look for the nuances, but they’re there.

One of the aesthetics of the brand is taking traditionally hot-climate varieties like marsanne and roussanne, ripening them in a cool climate, still getting phenolic ripeness, and bringing them into balance. I used to say “low alcohol,” but what’s important is balance. If I can also bring out wine with lower alcohol, that’s great.

Say more about your aesthetic.

Everyone uses “sense of place.” But sense of place is not only terroir and cool climate, it’s also the vintage. My wines will never be the same year to year, because the vintage won’t be the same.

I’m never going to call myself a natural winemaker. I’ve tried that route, and twenty parts per million of sulfur after malolactic will save your ass. There’s nothing wrong with a little sulfur. It’s been used for thousands of years, and will continue to be. But adding tartaric acid, water, tannins—that’s not winemaking.

Why “Two Shepherds?”

It’s a combination figurative and literal: “Shepherd of the palate, shepherd of the grape.” I make wine for consumers. I’m trying to get them to try something besides what they’d get at Safeway every day. So the “grape shepherd” watches the vineyard, then brings it into the winery and guides it into the bottle.

What’s in your way right now?

Money. I need to expand. I should do a more formal business plan and go out for funding. I need a passionate business partner, someone who has the same passion for Rhônes that I do, but has branding, marketing, accounting—all the stuff I hate.

What’s next?

I have a million ideas and want to do things that are new and innovative. I do massive experimentation and segmentation of lots. I’m not afraid to tinker, and if it’s bad, it goes down the drain.

I solve some of my problems by sticking to my core philosophy, which is to go simple. The second I start moving toward massive, stainless steel fermenting, I’d strip away everything that makes the brand what it is. In the Rhône, nobody buys new barrels anymore. You just wait until the old ones fall apart. In California, we talk about that like it’s an epiphany.

Each year I’m uncovering things that work well, and don’t work well. That’s a good reason to grow in increments. I’m not operating from a master plan. This thing happens organically every year.

 

 

T A S T I N G   N O T E S

Two Shepherds Vineyards Viognier Russian River Valley
2011
13.8% abv | $24 (media sample)
One hundred percent viognier from Saralee’s Vineyard in Windsor, California, harvested at 23° Brix and barrel-fermented in neutral oak with native yeast. The wine went through full malolactic. It was aged for four months in neutral oak on gross lees, then racked into stainless and aged an additional four months before being bottled, unfined and unfiltered.

Restrained stone fruit aromas open with air to yellow apple, laurel leaf, and wet stone. Lovely, creamy brioche notes mingle with flavors of yellow peach, stone fruits, and salty herbs. Restrained, with great minerality and acidity. It shows best between 55°F and 60°F. Although the winemaker maintains this vintage is less Condrieu-like than his 2010 (which I didn’t taste), it still evokes the Northern Rhône to me. Californian Viognier can be plush and syrupy, and I prefer the stony quality of true Condrieu, which this wine manifests. Serve it with crab cakes, lobster, seafood risotto, or a cheese course with a scattering of roasted nuts. 

Two Shepherds Vineyards “Pastoral Blanc” Russian River Valley
2011
13.8% abv | $24 (media sample)
A white Rhône-style blend of 45% roussanne, 20% marsanne, 20% viognier, and 15% grenache blanc. The fruit derives from Saralee’s Vineyard, with Brix at harvest from 22° to 23.5°. The grapes were fermented separately in neutral oak with native yeasts, and all went through malolactic.

Brilliant yellow gold color, with herbaceous aromas and a kind of savory silkiness on the palate. The roussanne gives the wine backbone and weight, but the blend feels lucid and beautifully balanced. It’s not a fruit-driven wine, and it’s not a showy wine, either. It seems meant as a versatile partner for food. I’d pour it with anything from roasted poultry rubbed with garrigue herbs, to butternut squash ravioli with browned butter and crisped sage, to pan-seared scallops with celery-root purée.

Two Shepherds Vineyards Grenache Blanc Santa Ynez Valley
2011
13.8% abv | $24 (media sample)
One hundred percent grenache blanc from Saarloos Vineyards in Los Olivos, California. The fruit was harvested at 22.9° Brix. The wine was fermented on native yeasts, then aged on the lees in neutral French oak.

Aromas of lime leaf, laurel, sage, and salt yield to a plush texture that’s balanced by great acidity. The wine feels spirited, almost nervy, but with a kind of lacy elegance that keeps it demure. Grenache Blanc shouldn’t be served too cold, and this one rewards languorous enjoyment, changing in the glass with air and warmth and time. Pair it with grilled fish drizzled with citrus butter, roasted chicken, or aged cheeses, especially old Gruyère.

Two Shepherds Vineyards GSM Russian River Valley
2010
13.8% abv | $32 (media sample)
A blend of 50% grenache, 25% syrah, and 25% mourvèdre. Grenache and syrah derived from Saralee’s Vineyard; the mourvèdre was from Livermore. All fruit was harvested under 24° Brix. The wine was fermented in neutral oak with native yeast, then aged ten months in neutral oak. The winemaker says this grenache was particularly pretty, very like Pinot Noir, requiring a deft hand in blending to let it express its charms.

Garnet red with aromas of beach rose, spice, white pepper, and rosemary, the wine is both wildly floral and tightly wound. It needed at least thirty minutes of air to open up, and was actually better the next day, relaxed and smiling. To me, grenache is about black pepper, berries, and wild herbs, and this grenache-heavy blend expresses this character well. It would be great with Provençal cuisine, particularly pissaladière, the aïoli platter, or black olive tapenade on grilled meats. Fittingly, it would also be great with lamb.

Altri Italiani

I recently taught a class on Italian wine. My research, so called, took me on a clockwise virtual tasting tour of the boot of Italy, from Friuli down to Apulia, from Campania up to to Piemonte. My primary goal for this class was to demonstrate the prodigious diversity of Italy's wine styles—not an easy task given that we could feasibly taste only six or seven different wines that night.

According to some sources, Italy boasts nearly 2,000 grape varieties in cultivation, and depending on the year, is either the top or second-largest wine producing country in the world. Unlike its rivals France or Spain, whose viticultural areas tend to be concentrated geographically, Italy is almost completely covered in vines—and has been for about three millennia. Indeed the Greeks, who essentially invented Italian viticulture by importing vines and winemaking practices into the region, called it Oenotria, "the land of trained vines."

Such viticultural diversity is due in part to the wide range of growing conditions and terrain. Italy spans 10° of latitude, from Trentino-Alto Adige in the north to Calabria and Sicilia in the south, leading to significant differences in solar exposure across the region. The spine of the Apennines runs almost the full length of the peninsula, and since most grapes are grown on hillside vineyards to leave the rich alluvial plains for food cultivation, elevation factors into consideration, too. So do the cooling sea breezes off the Mediterranean and Adriatic in coastal areas. The upshot is that micro- and mesoclimatic differences mean one cannot draw clean demarcations showing which parts of the country are viticulturally warm or cool, nor tag a region with a specific style of wine. The country is a complex mosaic of grape cultivars and production practices, and hence of wines themselves. 

It's also a mosaic of culture. Unified as a country only about 150 years ago, Italy retains its gastronomic regionalism. And since its wines are true gastronomy wines, meant for the table and, more significantly, meant to pair with the regional cuisine, the persistence of these myriad wine styles is hardly surprising. 

If any generalization can be made about Italian wines, it's that, on the whole, those that are made in a traditional style offer good acidity, moderate ripeness, and modest alcohol levels—all factors that make them very food-friendly. Reds with supple tannins, like Sangiovese and Barbera, and whites with crisp acidity and mineral notes, like Pinot Grigio and Malvasia, are extremely versatile partners at the table. Even those reds with pronounced structure, notable ripeness, and higher alcohol levels—like Barolo, Barbaresco, and Amarone—are decidedly not cocktail wines, not meant to be pleasing to the front to the palate. Rather, they're made to pair well with their regional cuisines, and deserve a little age, a little air, and a little food to show well.

So I realized in hindsight that my class was slightly misnamed. There's really is no such thing as "Italian wine," and certainly no easy route to understanding or mastery. But I wanted my students to taste that for themselves.

 

I wrote earlier about two of the wines I researched in preparation for class, a Brachetto d'Acqui and a Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Below are notes on the rest of the wines I poured, along with pairing recommendations. All wines were provided as samples by The Wine Crate, where I teach.

Terradora di Paolo
Aglianico Campania IGT
2009
13.0% ABV | Price: about $19

This wine is 100% aglianico, a grape that originated in Greece and was imported by settlers around Cumae, home of the famed Cumaen Sibyl (whose temple I visited in 1986). During Roman times the wine was very highly regarded, yet it retained an echo of its origins; until about the 15th century the grape was still called "ellenico," Italian for Hellenic or Greek. Terredora di Paolo owns 200 hectares of vineyards in the Avellino province, making it one of the largest wineries in southern Italy. Grapes are macerated for seven days, which affords good color extraction but keeps the tannins in check. The wine is aged in both wood and stainless steel, the latter to preserve its freshness. Its color is a deep ruby red, almost inky, and it yields minerally, smoky aromas of earth, tar, and pine forest, with top notes of black cherry, sage, anise, lavender, and brushy herbs. On the palate the wine offers smoky cherry, plums, and a pronounced deep, black earthiness with grippy tannins. The fruit is not pronounced, and the finish is all carbon blackness; it tastes like licking a volcano, but in a good way. The wine needs air and profits from at least 30 minutes in the decanter, which softens it and allows the fruit to stand forward. Pair it with roasted or smoked meats and game, aged cheeses, charcuterie, barbecue, bacon, and sausages. Marvelous with pizza whose crust bears a little char from the wood hearth. 

Cantore
Nero d'Avola IGT
2008
13.0% ABV | Price: about $13

Sicily produces more wine than New Zealand, Austria, and Hungary combined, and Nero d’Avola is one of its most important red grapes. The fruit for this wine derives from the west coast of Sicily, but ample searching yielded no information on specific fruit source or production techniques. The wine has a bright ruby color with aromas of fresh black cherry and subtle spice, and its firm tannins give way to pure dark berry fruits. This is not a complex wine, and it also needs at least 30 minutes in the decanter to open it up. But its acidity and sprightliness make it a natural pairing for food, including pizza, pasta with red sauces, stuffed peppers, polenta, and lasagna. Try it also with pepper-rubbed roasted meats, grilled meats and vegetables, and barbecue. Probably also quite good with spicy sausage pizza. 

Vietti
Nebbiolo "Perbacco" Langhe DOC
2008
14.0% ABV | Price: about $28

Langhe is in the extreme eastern region of Piemonte, and although most nebbiolo-based wines like Barolo and Barbaresco are quite tannic, this 100% nebbiolo is quite supple and needs no decanting. The fruit derives from 35-year-old vines, and grapes from each vineyard are vinified and aged separately. The wine is aged in barrel for 10 months, then in oak casks for an additional 16 months before bottling. The color is a light brickish red, limpid like a Pinot Noir. Aromas of anise and wild herbs waft above a red-meatiness, with a high top note of spice, especially clove. These aromas carry smoothly to the palate, with more meaty fruits, spice, and herbs. Extremely elegant, light- to medium-bodied with good acidity, supple tannins, and a savory, lingering finish. Serve with roasted but rare red meats, especially lamb, beef, and game, or pair with aged and blue cow’s milk cheeses: Asiago, Taleggio, Gorgonzola, aged Gouda, or Romano. Truly a lovely wine. 

Leone d'Oro
Pinot Grigio Friuli Grave DOC
2009
12.5% ABV | Price: about $16

The Order Sons of Italy in America (OSIA) created the Leone d’Oro lineup specifically for import into the U.S. The firm partners with growers and winemakers in Italy to bottle six wines: Chianti Colli Senesi, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Sangiovese, Gavi, Prosecco, and this Pinot Grigio. The producer's website provides no information on this bottling, but some sources I found indicate it is a single-vineyard wine. The color is intense yellow-gold with green highlights. Aromas of pineapple mingle with citrus and a fresh grassiness, giving way to flavors of pear and ripe yellow apple with mild acidity and an overall softness. I detected a slight but not unpleasant tinge of oxidation, and this wine is more savory than many of its kind. Pair with light seafood dishes, including white fish, scallops, shellfish, and seafood risotto. It would also be good with semi-soft cheeses, especially goat’s milk or cassatica di bufala, and with antipasti or a spring vegetable soup with just a touch of cream. 

Scagliola
"Frem" Barbera d'Asti DOC (not shown)
2010
14.0% ABV | Price: about $20

Barbera, a Piemontese grape, is known for its bramble fruit character, light to medium body, and supple tannins, which make it an extremely approachable and food-friendly wine. These grapes hail from the Calosso province of Asti, and the vineyard sits at about 1,300 feet of elevation with soils of limestone and clay. The wine is aged in oak barrels for approximately 12 months. The color is ruby red with a faint brown tinge, and earthy aromas underpin notes of licorice, bright bramble fruits, and baking spices. On the palate the wine has good body and acidity, with bright cherry and blackberry, hints of sweet tobacco, dried fruits, and sage, plus smooth tannins. Pair it with grilled or roasted beef, lamb, salmon, or poultry, cured meats and charcuterie, and aged cheeses like Piave and Pecorino. Also a natural with tomato-based sauces, pizzas, pastas, and mushroom risotto.  

Vinosia
Malvasia Salento Bianco IGT (not shown)
2009
13.0% ABV | Price: about $16

The malvasia grape is likely of Greek origin, and the name derives from the Greek port of Monemvasia (known in Italian as Malvasia) from which large quantities of wine was shipped during the Middle Ages. The grape is also used to produce Madeira, often referred to as Malmsey, a further linguistic transformation. This Malvasia is actually a mix of three varieties of the grape: malvasia di novoli, malvasia di candia aromatica, and malvasia candida. The fruit was whole-cluster pressed with cold stabilization, and fermentation took place on wild yeast. It is pale yellow gold with aromas of white flowers, beeswax, honey, and straw. Beautifully weighty on the palate with great balancing acidity, it offers honeyed notes of lemony citrus with a bit of stone fruit. A slight oxidation note adds depth of character, and the finish is all honeyed tropical fruits. Pair with richer seafood like shrimp and lobster, antipasti with olive oil, the aïoli platter, grilled or roasted fish and poultry, and medium-bodied, semi-soft cheeses. I'd guess its fruit aspect would make it terrific with lightly spiced curries or Moroccan tagines. An extremely versatile and delicious white. 

Due Italiani

Cappella Sant'Andrea
Vernaccia di San Gimignano DOCG
2010
12.5% ABV | Price: about $15*

Neirano
Brachetto d'Acqui DOCG
NV
7% ABV | Price: about $18*

I've been teaching wine classes every other week at a tiny new wine shop in town. The store's proprietor has given me a lot of latitude in designing the classes. Pour whatever you want, he says. It's up to you.

So our first class was on Pinot Noir, because what better place to begin? We tasted a California blanc de noirs, a Savigny-lès-Beaune, and Pinots from Austria, New Zealand, Oregon, and the Russian River Valley. The second class, as a kind of reverberant response, an answer in white, was on Chardonnay. I showed a California blanc de blancs, a Chablis, a Poully-Fuissé, and Chards from Sonoma Coast, Russian River, and Australia. 

My aim in these classes is to demonstrate a range of expression, to see what grapes can do in different soils, climate, and winemakers' hands. I also want to introduce people to unfamiliar varieties, especially ones they might not otherwise take a chance on.

Class Three is about Italy. What wines shall we show? I asked the proprietor, as I gazed at the two-hundred and fifty or so SKUs on his shelves, of which perhaps fifteen or twenty—a sizeable percentage, given the range—are Italian. Again he said simply: It's up to you.

I pulled these two bottles down from the shelves, and bundled them home to begin research.

Vernaccia has been a favorite for many years, due in part to my having visited San Gimignano, the Tuscan hill town in which it's produced, when I was studying art history in college. The town is notable for its well preserved medieval towers, built partly for defense and partly as an expression of neighborly one-upmanship. The day we visited was cool and gray, with cobbles damp beneath our feet and May poppies like tiny jags of fire in the roadway gutter. Our ragtag band huddled at the entry of the town's highest tower, waving our student passes compliantly at the caretaker before mounting the untold floors to the top. Once aloft, we wowed and smiled and caught snapshots of each other surveying the town and its surrounding fields and vineyards. When one has thus taken in a landscape at a single swallow, one does not soon forget the taste.

And so, remembering, I chilled this Vernaccia down and pulled the cork. The wine is pale yellow gold, with aromas of yeasty pear and very faint herbal notes of lavender and thyme with fresh cream underneath. On the palate it's very savory, and slightly more bitter than it should be. A bitter almond note is typical of this grape, especially in the finish. But here the bitterness is a bit too strident, and there's a hollow spot in the middle where I expected citrus and ringing acidity. The finish is all bitter pear.

So this wine does not feel exactly typical, not quite au point. As a consequence this bottle won't make the cut for class, and I'll regret not having the opportunity to show the class the faded Kodachrome of my young self standing in the San Gimignano ramparts with a wide-eyed smile. 

The Brachetto was another easy choice. I'd had my first experience with this grape just recently, but as a still table wine rather than as this spumante style (I wrote about my experience in the post Brachetto, Birthday). There's a general prejudice among serious wine drinkers against sweet red wines, with special antipathy reserved for sweet red sparkling wines. This likely derives from a preponderance of regrettable Lambrusco imported into the U.S. during the 1970s and 1980s. But authentic Lambrusco, which hails from Emilia-Romagna and Lombardia, can be very good, and those with balanced fruit, acidity, and sweetness can be great partners to all manner of foods. 

Brachetto's hallmark is its aroma of wild roses, and the still wine I'd tasted was so redolent of the flower I found it nearly cloying. But I guessed the effervescence and acidity of a frizzante version would enliven the wine and keep it refreshing. 

The grapes for Neirano's bottling come from the Asti and Alessandria provinces of Piemonte. The must soaks on the skins for two days to extract color. Secondary fermentation proceeds according to the Charmat process in large pressurized stainless steel tanks, with bottling under pressure to preserve the dissolved gasses. The resulting wine is a deep strawberry pink with copious spuma. The bubbles transport soft floral aromas of rose petals and spring flowers, then scrub across the palate, subsiding in waves of flavor, including strawberries, red raspberries, and pink flowers. There is significant sweetness but just enough balancing acidity to keep the wine lively.

Still, this is a wine for a dessert course, not an aperitif; served first, it would make any subsequent dry wine taste astringent. Given this sweetness, it is best paired with foods that are at least as sweet as, and preferably sweeter than, the wine, and would work beautifully with berry tarts, fruit pastries, and pastry cream, and be a natural for brunch with the sweeter dishes. It would also balance saltier fresh cheeses like feta or ricotta salata.

The perfect pairing, though, is semi-sweet chocolate. I'm not generally a fan of red wine with chocolate, although this pairing has its acolytes. I find the wine's tannins grate against the bitterness of dark chocolate and make milk chocolate seem far too sweet. Neither complements nor elevates the other, which is my litmus test for a perfect pairing. But tasting this wine with its berry sweetness made my palate yearn for a little bitter snap, and I reached for a small handful of the Guittard semi-sweet baking pastilles I keep in my pantry. It was magical. 

So I'll pour this wine at the very end of our class, passing around a dish of pastilles, and call it dessert. I bet I'll see a few wide-eyed smiles.

 

* I received these wines as samples from the Wine Crate, where I also teach wine classes.

Lemberger

Grafen Neipperg
Lemberger "Württemberg"
2005
13% ABV | Price: about $15

Germans call this grape lemberger, but in Austria, where it's more widely planted, they call it blaufränkisch. It's not unlike gamay in its body and flavor profile, and until DNA evidence proved otherwise, gamay was thought to be its forebear. It's a light-bodied red with moderate acidity, and this one has just a hint of residual sweetness, which makes it enormously food-friendly.

The color is limpid garnet with a faint brickish cast at its rim. Aromas of dusty raspberry and blackberry mingle with faint green tea and an herbaceousness pleasantly evocative of late September afternoons. The aromas have a bewitching suppleness—not sharp nor fruity, not oaky nor caramelized—just beautiful blackberry bramble fruit an an earthiness that says this wine was grown, not made. It smells like Indian Summer.

It is light-bodied on the palate, and here offers blackberries in full fruit, a juicy mouthful cut by that bitter snap blackberries use to tell you their true purpose, that they're really a conveyance for seeds, and that you are simply their minion. This wine has some tannin, and so there is black tea, now, not green tea, with good acidity. The finish is lithe and graceful.

This is an absolutely stunning pairing for the chicken I roasted tonight on a bed of red onions and blood oranges. The flavors commingle beautifully with the bitterness of the roasted citrus rind, the sweetness of the fruit and caramelized onions, and the savory chicken pan juices.

This is old world, not new, and a stunning bargain. Drink it now.

 

SanSì

Azienda Agricola Scagliola
Barbera d'Asti Superiore "SanSì"
2008
14.5% ABV | Price: about $40

This wine is 100% barbera, and the grapes derive from the limestone and clay soils of the SanSì vineyard in Calosso. The color is deep orange garnet with a limpid rim. Aromas of fennel, smoke, plum, spice, black tar, and wild game rise from the glass, and the wine grips the palate with smooth, smoky-earthy tannin, sweet tobacco, and black fruits. The somewhat high level of alcohol in this otherwise old-worldish wine leaves a bit of burn in the middle of my tongue, but this apologetically tapers into a savory, succulent finish.

The winery notes that SanSì is named after the knightly San Siro. But there are in fact two Saints Syrus: one of Genoa—who concocted some miracles with boats—and the other of Pavia—who was somewhat more catholic in his saintly ministrations. Genoa is in Liguria, and Pavia is in Lombardia, and so neither saint hailed from Piemonte, sandwiched betwixt, whence this Barbera hails. So we'll just have to called it—and ourselves—blessed.

Austrian

The venue: the quaint cellar room of the über-Victorian Norwich Inn, in Norwich, Vermont. The host: Rafael Flores, director of Artisanal Cellars, a boutique wine importer. The featured guest: Klaus Wittauer of KW Selection, an Austrian restaurateur turned wine exporter. The inn had laid out a spread of schnitzel with braised red cabbage, house-smoked salmon with crème fraiche, and delectable puff pastries with mustard sauce to accompany the nine lean, savory Austrian wines—from sekt to Riesling to Zweigelt—we had gathered to taste.

It was my first full Austrian immersion, and I found the wines on the whole exceptionally pleasant: low-alcohol, savory, mineral-intensive, cleansing, serious, and food-friendly. My tasting notes:

 

2010 Hillinger "Small Hill White"
12.0% ABV | Price: about $14
A blend of 70% Riesling, 20% Sauvignon blanc, and 10% Muskateller, the wine is a very pale, clear yellow. Quite aromatic (predominantly of Riesling), with a palate that offers good but not overwhelming acidity and stony minerality with an over-layer of stone fruits. It has a long, savory, slightly tart finish.

2009 Tegernseerhof Riesling "Terrassen"
12.5% ABV | Price: about $20
This riesling is grown in granitic soils, and the wine is made from the first harvest picking. It offers great minerality and a nose that is not exactly petrol; more like diesel, or steel pennies. It is an exceptionally dry and serious wine, and the aromatics are a haunting riddle to one more used to German Riesling.

2009 Anton Bauer Grüner Veltliner "Rosenberg"
12.5% ABV | Price: about $18
This vineyard has loess soils, and the wine is vinified in stainless steel and aged in concrete vessels. It offers lively tropical aromas, with some pineapple and a little oiliness. Bone dry and cleansing on the palate, it also has great weight and intensity. Recommended, and tied for best of tasting.

2008 Tegernseerhof Grüner Veltliner "Loibenberg"
13.0% ABV | Price: about $33
This wine hails from the largest single cru in the Wachau. The vineyard is south-facing, with some loess and granite soils, and the wine, Klaus informs me, is built for aging. This '08 is still a child, but it has great elegance and savoryness. I would love to try this vintage again in, say, 2018.

2009 Weingut Michlits Pinot Gris "Graupert"
13.0% ABV | Price: about $20
"Graupert" translates to "ungroomed," and refers to the wild, uncultivated vineyard in which this wine is grown. The winery is fully Biodynamic, and uses no trellising or pruning in the vineyard, but the vines have adapted to this hands-off approach, voluntarily producing low yields and small berry sizes. The wine is concentrated and focused, and—perhaps I'm just suggestible—"wild" tasting.

2009 Steininger Cabernet Sauvignon Sekt Rosé 
Méthode Champenoise; disgorged February '11
13.0% ABV | Price: about $28
Cab sekt? It sounds like the start of an off-color joke. But the wine is wonderful: wildly aromatic, with bright cranberry and currant fruits, and more cranberry on the palate, plus a great texture and smooth, even mouthfeel. Pricey, but a show-stopper; a wine I'd love to serve to wine-knowledgable friends, blind. I can imagine the smiles. Recommended.

2010 Hillinger Zweigelt 
13.5% ABV | Price: about $18
This unoaked Zweigelt offered a sharp, black pepper nose that reminded me a little of Grenache. But the palate was vegetal—more green pepper than black pepper—and a bit tannic. Lean and tight, it perhaps needed some air to unwind. Or another three years.

2007 Anton Bauer "Wagram Cuvée 13" 
13.0% ABV | Price: about $20
A blend of 40% Blaufränkisch, 35% Zweigelt, 15% Cabernet sauvignon, and 10% Merlot, the wine delivers subtle pepper notes and brilliant berry flavors, but is restrained and settled overall. Lovely and a good value at $20.

2008 Hillinger Blaufränkisch "Leithaberg" 
13.5% ABV | Price: about $34
Vinified like Pinot noir, but aged only in neutral oak; only 3,000 bottles were made. A beautiful nose of wild roses, with a palate of blueberry and purple flowers, plus great acidity and a lingering finish of sweet tobacco. Highly recommended, and tied for best of tasting.

 

"In Austria, we are wine growers, not wine makers," Klaus said to me, smiling, echoing a refrain I'd heard often when talking with German wine producers. In other words, make the wine that nature gives you, and thank your stars you can. 

 

Daughters of the Revolution

Channing Daughters
Sculpture Garden
2007
12.7% ABV | Price: about $30*

This wine is 88% merlot and 12% blaufränkisch, from a winery in the Hamptons of Long Island. Only 348 cases were made. My dear friend and confrère éternel Rémy Charest handed it to me the last time we met. I confessed to having never before had a Long Island red. This would be my virgin flight.

Held against the light, the wine is a nearly pearlescent suspension of fruit plus earth. Swirled in the glass, it gives bright, plummy, cherry aromas underpinned by a black toastiness that's slightly savory. Medium-bodied in the mouth, it delivers juicy acidity, more red fruits, and black currant with a layer of spicy black pepper. The finish is long and faintly vegetal.

This is an elegant and balanced wine with an earthy, slightly funky catch in the middle. If you'd handed me a glass blind and asked me to place it, I'd have been utterly flummoxed. It does not have the gravitas and savory minerality of Bordeaux, nor does it have the heft and cleavage of California Merlot. It is not like Blaufränkisch, though it's not unlike some of the German reds I've tasted. It's lean and savory and a little wild tasting like some native North American wines. But it's clearly not native, either.

It's not Old World, and not wholly New. It's from here: New York State. My mind is open.

 

*I received this wine as a gift.

Sancerrious

Franck et Jean-Francois Bailly
Sancerre "Cuvée Chavignol"
2007
13.0% ABV | Price: about $25*

Red Sancerre is made exclusively, in accordance with France's AC laws, with pinot noir grapes. This one is fine-boned and intense. Pale garnet with a faint peach cast at the rim, when swirled it gives off slightly earthy, smoky aromas with undertones of black plums. Brightly acidic with great minerality and a slightly spicy cut, it finishes lean. After a few minutes in the glass, it opens the windows and brushes out its hair. But it's a restrained wine; its dressing gown stays on.

It is also resoundingly a food wine. I paired it with an aged french goat cheese, a Bûcheron with a white rind, both born of the same soil, nearly. The wine married effortlessly with the chalky, gaminess of the cheese, and a sip after a bite was like spring after winter: clean, bright, cleansing.

My ancestors hail from the Loire. I'll have to visit soon.

 

*I received this wine as a press sample.