Maker's Table

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.

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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. 

 

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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.

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The Black Bee

Torrevento
Puglia IGT "Il Filare" Rosato
2008
12.0% ABV | Price: about $12

I'm gonzo about this wine. I've been drinking it all summer. It's so simple, so juicy and bright, yet it has a serious, Old World core.

Brilliant jewel pink, it smells like strawberries and fresh-cut grass. Dry as bone with brilliant minerality, it has beautiful fruit and acidity and finishes clean. It pairs effortlessly with fresh summer fare: a handful of green beans, some fennel, a few orange tomatoes, fresh rosemary, fresh goat cheese. "Il filare" means "the row" in Italian, suggesting that the vineyard and the garden share this structure, this idea. They are kindred.

A rosé of 80% Bombino Nero and 20% Montepulciano, it's not a heady wine, not intellectual. It makes no demands. No multi-syllabic adjectives need apply (except that one).

Maybe I just love drinking a wine made from a grape called the "black bee."

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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.

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Grenache Lessons

Last week I joined the Rhône Rangers. This week they sent me an invitation to a tasting event, part of their Grand Tasting weekend in San Francisco, March 27–28. The session, Grenache: Red, White, and Pink, will be moderated by San Francisco Chronicle wine editor Jon Bonné and will explore Grenache as a varietal wine, in all its splendid colors.

I won't be anywhere near San Francisco this weekend, but the Rhônely crew has partnered with BrixR to stream the session live from 2:45–4:00 PM PDT, and to offer playback later. And they've also produced this tasting pack—eight 50ml bottles of the wines they'll be pouring—so we folks in the hinterlands can taste along.

Left to right:
Curtis The Crossroads 2006
Stage Left Cellars Grenache 2006
Sol Rouge Lake County Grenache 2006
Edward Sellers Paso Robles Grenache 2007
Tercero Grenache Blanc 2008
Katin Paso Robles Grenache Blanc 2008
Unti Dry Creek Valley Rosé 2009
David Girard El Dorado Estate Rosé 2008

 

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Les Beaux Soldats de L'armée Terroiriste

This Saturday, winemaker Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyard will pour his wine and read from his new book, Been Doon So Long, at Dartmouth's Tuck School. We expect sixty-five enthusiastic business students to take a break from the rigors of the curriculum to enjoy these spectacular offerings.

The wine arrived today. I lined up the bottles, handsome footsoldiers in the army of terroir. Left to right:

Ca' del Solo Albariño 2008 ($20)
Le Cigare Blanc 2007 ($22)
Vin Gris de Cigare 2008 ($15)
Syrah "Le Pousseur" 2006 ($18)
Le Cigare Volant 2005 ($32)

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Transitive Relations

Wine is food. Food is life. Wine is life.

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T Rose

Tegernseerhof
Rosé Zweigelt
2008

It's a shame I didn't photograph the bottle full; the clear, bright pink tapers to nothing at the bottle's neck, drawing you into its allure. This pale gold wine emits a spicy, strawberry nose, with notes of rose and fresh ginger. On the palate it offers strawberry and watermelon, with good acid and a light body. The finish is fleeting. Fresh and crisp, with a clean snap.

Price: $15
Drinks like: $15
Bang for the buck: 100%

A Brutish Rose

Schramsberg
Mirabelle Brut Rosé
Nonvintage

This pale pinkish gold sparkler bubbles exuberantly when poured, making it a little coarse at first. Once the fizz subsides, it offers a fruity, Chardonnay nose with a little toasty edge. On the palate it has more depth, driven by Pinot plus the barrel-aged, multi-vintage wine Schramsberg blends in to give it weight. Fun but not thrilling. Still, not bad for a Monday night.

Price: $20
Drinks like: $15
Bang for the buck: 75%