Maker's Table

Zing

Twisted Oak
Grenache Blanc "Calaveras County"
2010
13.2% ABV | Price: about $24*

This wine is 94% grenache blanc and 6% viognier. Only a few dozen cases were made. It's a very pale, clear yellow, just this side of colorless. In the glass it yields subtle aromas of green apple, stone fruit, tangerine, fresh straw, and sweetgrass. But its predominant characteristic is its zingyness, its bracing acidity. This is a very juicy wine. I would call it "citrusy," but that's more its effect than its flavor.

Sharp and cleansing and sunshiny, and probably perfect with oysters—which are this evening, alas, in short supply.

 

*I received this wine in an exchange with the winery; I sent Jeff Stai a bottle of Bonny Doon Vineyard's Grenache Blanc; he sent me this bottle of Twisted Oak's.

Follow Maker's Table on Twitter: @makerstable

Pink and White

M. Chapoutier
Côtes-du-Rhône "Belleruche" Blanc
2009
13.5% ABV | Price: about $13*

Côtes-du-Rhône "Belleruche" Rosé
2010
13.5% ABV | Price: about $13*

A pair of wines from reputable Northern Rhône producer Michel Chapoutier, whose winery I visited in 2002 (see my article and notes).

The white is a blend primarily of grenache blanc, with clairette and bourboulenc. It has a very faint, appley nose, but considerable body and good mouthfeel, owing likely to the preponderance of grenache blanc in the blend. It's simple and clean, with a slight chalkiness, and as it warms, a little menthol woodsyness emerges, too.

The pink is primarily grenache, with cinsault and syrah. It's a pale salmon color, somewhat typical of Rhône rosés, and the nose is a bit earthy and stinky, but in a good way. On the palate it's a little peppery, likely from the grenache, with good acidity and that same mineral chalkiness of the white. But it has a little more edge, plus a pleasant heft and earthiness, and is my favorite of this tasting.

Neither is a serious wine, but they're capably made, and their stony, minerally chalkiness makes them good with fresh goat cheese. Best enjoyed young, which can be said, alas, of many things.

 

*I received these wines as press samples.

Follow Maker's Table on Twitter: @makerstable

j.brix

j.brix
Rosé of Grenache "Uncontainable"
2010
13.0% ABV | Price: priceless

Our friends Emily and Jody Towe made this wine in their garage. This is only slightly more exotic than it sounds. Total production: 25 cases.

It's 100% grenache. The fruit comes from the Mesa section of the Santa Barbara Highlands Vineyard, elevation 3,200 feet. The juice spent about five hours on the skins after destemming and before pressing, and then was barrel fermented in neutral French oak with native yeast. Primary fermentation lasted 21 days, and the wine also went through partial malolactic. Two weeks before bottling, in February 2011, it was racked, with sulfur added.

I've been jealously guarding my bottle, which the couple left on my desk during their recent pilgrimage to Bonny Doon Vineyard. I was regrettably not present to greet them that day, although Randall was, and I suspect he was the main point of their exercise anyway. I claimed my prize on my next trip out to California, then swaddled it in bunting (okay, laundry) for its trip back home on the plane. It has reposed on my rack for three weeks while New England decided whether it would ever turn its attentions toward spring. But today there was sun, and so at last I chilled this bottle down and pulled the cork.

It is bright salmon pink—not quite as vocal as the photo shows, but close—with a rosy catch and sungold highlights. Unfiltered and unfined, it throws a sediment of crystals and lees. The nose is faintly appley but is truly all grenache, with clean and very pure grenache fruit aromas. On the palate the wine is bone dry but with a slightly sweet finish, and the net affect is a little floral, like rose petals. But the wine also has great astringency and body, and there's a savoryness to it, although our chers garagistes did not confess to engaging in any bâtonnage.

If it were not so precious, I would call it "quaffable." But I'm savoring it instead, and looking forward to next year.

Follow Maker's Table on Twitter: @makerstable

Solo Grenache

Bonny Doon Vineyard
Ca' del Solo Grenache Blanc
2009
13.4% ABV | Price: about $25*

Pale gold with an iridescent pink cast that reminds me of tourmeline. One hundred percent grenache blanc, it has the scent of new-mown hay, plus pineapple, citrus, and musk melon. As it warms in the glass, the wine opens into more lavish tropical fruits—guava and passionfruit—but retains its fresh herbaceousness. Lush on the palate, with a velvety texture and flavors of green almond, honey, citrus, peach, and pineapple.

It's balanced, though, with good acidity and a savory minerality that rescues it from fauvism. Luscious, but not without restraint.

 

*Disclosure: Bonny Doon Vineyard is my employer. As an employee, I paid $12.50 for this wine.

Follow Maker's Table on Twitter: @makerstable

Quietly Ringing

Jean-Marie Arnoux
Vacqueyras "Vieux Clocher"
2004
14.0% ABV | Price: about $21

This wine has aged a bit and sports a brickish rim. On the nose it's spicy and leathery with a blush of fresh fennel and anise seed. Lean and savory on the palate, with restrained red fruits and supple tannins. It offers a long, quiet finish.

More elegant than I expect from a Vacqueyras. Perhaps that's the age talking; if it gets any older, it might be too faint to hear.

 

Follow Maker's Table on Twitter: @makerstable

One Hundred Percent

Alain Paret
Côtes-du-Rhône Valvigneyre
2007
13.5% ABV | Price: about $15

Inky red-black, this wine smells like violets and black pepper and a raspberry patch in full sun. It's 100% syrah, with a savory, meaty core underneath aromatic herbs (thyme, sage, rosemary). On the palate I find some lovely red fruits: currant, raspberry, cranberry. It has a drying finish and (mercifully) no forward oak. Age-worthy. A steal.

 

Follow Maker's Table on Twitter: @makerstable

Remember The

Bonny Doon Vineyard
Alamo Creek Syrah
2007
13.3% ABV | Price: about $35*

A meaty, gamey Syrah with a bewitching nose of voilets and leather and earth. It's a brilliant red-purple, still young and very fresh. Tight at first, we gave it a gentle decanting to let it unfold awhile and warm from cellar temperature. It opened easily, spreading into smooth-textured black bramble fruits and peppery spice around an earthy, savory core. Deeply reminiscent of Northern Rhône Hermitage or Côte-Rôtie (without the latter's enlivenment of Viognier); this wine could age a very long time.

 

*Disclosure: Bonny Doon Vineyard is my employer. I paid about $28 for this bottle, which I purchased as a wine club member before I started working for the company.

Follow Maker's Table on Twitter: @makerstable

The Woodcocks

M. Chapoutier
Côte-Rôtie "Les Bécasses"
1999
13.0% ABV | Price: about $56

We purchased this bottle at the winery in June 2002, while on our honeymoon in the Northern Rhône. The wine's color has matured to a deep ruby red with the faintest glint of orange. The nose is beguiling and wildly aromatic, with a floral bouquet of violets, lavender, and rosemary floating above an earthy, leathery base. When first poured, it seemed closed on the palate, austere and thin. But after fifteen minutes in the glass, the wine began to expand and open, filling the mouth with clean dark fruit, herbs like anise and lavender, a bright acidity, and a savory, spicy earthiness. It's a bit tannic, with a drying, woody finish (befitting its name). Perhaps it's still a bit young, or maybe it started with a bit too much oak. Still, it's an elegant, Old World wonder, and still wonderful in its eleventh year.

 

Follow Maker's Table on Twitter: @makerstable

Not Typical

Le Clos de Caveau
Vacqueyras Le Carmin Brillant
2007
Current price: about $23

We're Vacqueyras fans, so we were happy to find this bottle recently at Garnet Wines & Liquors in Manhattan. The label calls it organic, the winemaker calls it agrobiologique, and Skurnik, the importer, calls it biodynamic.

I call it disappointing. It's 70% grenache and 30% syrah. Fulsome, inky and redolent, with a promising spicy, flowery, earthy, chocolatey nose. But on the palate it yields such bland lush fruit, and feels so hot—it's 15% ABV—that the wine reads just like any other international-style wine. There is no subtlety, no typicity, no funk, no panache. It may as well be a California central-coast fruit-bomb Syrah. It may as well be an eye-crossing Oz Shiraz.

I really miss Le Sang des Cailloux.

 

Follow Maker's Table on Twitter: @makerstable

Ventoux

Domaine de Fenouillet
Ventoux Rosé
2009
Current price: about $13 (with case discount we paid $10)

I love rosé, and I love the southern Rhône, so when I saw this unassuming bottle on the shelf recently at Crush in New York, I had to buy it.

Pale peachy pink, it has a simple floral nose with a hint of pear and tangerine. On the palate it's even simpler: brightly acidic, with delicate tropical fruits. It finishes a little hot and dry. Subtle, to say the least.

This wine is probably best enjoyed on a hot night in Provence, when the breeze off the Mediterranean lifts open the white linen curtains, carrying the distant strains of an old man's concertina softly into the room.

Follow Maker's Table on Twitter: @makerstable