Maker's Table

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.

 

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Bewitching

Bonny Doon Vineyard
Syrah "Le Pousseur"
2006

I've had two wines recently that shook me up, then haunted me after. The first was a biodynamic Saumur Champigny from Thierry Germain, of Domaine des Roches Neuves. I have no notes on this wine, and in fact can't even recall where we bought it. But I can't get its subtleties, its complexity, out of my head. I have been looking for it for weeks. I need to experience it again.

The other was this Syrah, "Le Pousseur" from Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon. This wine, too, has some kind of magic, some power to enchant, to seduce. We decanted it as the winemaker suggests, giving it air and the opportunity to evolve over the course of the evening.

The color is deep violet, nearly opaque. In the glass it smells like a wild animal, gamy and alive, offering earthy dark fruits plus menthol and violets. On the palate it's richly striated, with velvety black fruits, cherry, earth, and a sweet, bright spiciness. Its minerality makes it shimmer as if it were shot through with metal veins.

We alternated sips letting thin shavings of aged Pecorino melt on our tongues, the gaminess of the cheese a perfect partner to the wine's urgent, animal liveliness. The wine slips away slowly, offering a long, sensual finish.

This is a wine that's not easily deciphered; it has to be tasted with all one's senses, and tasted again. Vivid and mercurial, and not soon forgotten. At least I know where to get more.

Price: $20
Drinks like: $30
Bang for the buck: 150%