Brooklyn Blind Tasting Panel #1 - Cour-Cheverny

Is there room for another blind tasting panel? I think there is, and I'm trying to organize it. I think it will be interesting to gather bloggers and other people with whom I enjoy sharing wine, taste and discuss together with the goal of being able to say something meaningful about a group of wines. Hopefully it will be of interest to you. We''ll do our best, and let's see how it goes - your comments, suggestions, and criticism will be most helpful as I continue to do these.

Our first theme is Cour-Cheverny. Cour-Chevery is a tiny area within Cheverny, itself a small AOC to the northeast of Touraine. There are about 50 hectares of the now obscure Romorantin grape planted in Cheverny, and it is this area that in 1991 was given its own AOC status. There are obviously not many growers in such a small space, and after much scouring, I could identify only five producers whose wines are available in the NYC market. Five - that's pretty manageable for an amateur blind tasting panel.

Cour-Cheverny is high-acid wine, even by Loire Valley acid freak standards. When good ripeness is achieved, the wines can show an apple-y kind of fruit that complements the intense minerality and acidity. When not ripe or not done well, these can be shrill wines that pierce the teeth and the spirit. The most famous Cour-Cheverny wine (and famous is a silly word since it is only the wine-geek who knows and drinks these wines) is François Cazin's Cuvée Renaissance, a wine made only in the best vintages when the grapes are affected by noble rot. It is a delicious and complex off-dry wine that ages beautifully. But we limited ourselves to dry wines in this tasting, so no Cuvée Renaissance (until after the tasting, anyway, when we enjoyed the excellent 2004 with a group of raw caow' milk cheeses). Four of the five wines we tasted were from the 2007 vintage, a classic year in that it presented the typical array of problemsthat growers have to content with. Not warm and easy ripening like 2005, not as bad as 2001, typical perhaps, classic.

I was joined for this tasting by three friends - Alice Feiring, Keith Levelnberg, and Michel Abood. Alice is the noted wine writer and passionate defender of natural wines who recently wrote a book entitled The Battle for Wine and Love: or How I Saved the World from Parkerization. You can follow her day to day adventures at her blog In Vino Veritas. Keith Levenberg is a securites lawyer by day and by night a prominent and very well respected participant in the New York and internet bulletin board wine scene. He writes a thought-provoking blog called The Pickyeater. Michel Abood owns Vinotas Selections, an importer of French and Spanish wines. He shares his professional and personal experiences in wine at his blog called Random Ramblings on Wine and Food.

As I mentioned, there are five Cour-Cheverny producers whose wines are available in NYC, represented by three importers who very generously donated the wines for this tasting. Thank you Louis/Dressner Selections, Savio Soares, and JD Headrick! We blind-tasted the wines and individually picked our two favorites for current drinking, along with a wine that we would want for the cellar. We also did a whole lot of discussing. So without further ado, here are the results of our Cour-Cheverny blind tasting.

In general the wines showed very well, better than I expected. it was interesting to note that some of us were reminded of Chenin Blanc when drinking these wines, in that they took on a woolly note as they aired out. Maybe it's more of a terroir thing than a grape variety thing? I think Alice and I liked the wines as a group more than Keith and Michel did, but Keith and Michel were very enthusiastic about their favorite wines. Keith declared that he would happily buy his favorite for his own cellar. Two of the five wines received almost all the votes (each received two 1st place votes and one 2nd place vote) - the 2007 Domaine des Huards, and the 2007 Domaine de Montcy. The Huards was unanimously selected as the wine we would want in the cellar for aging. The only other wine to get any votes (two 2nd place votes) was the 2006 Domaine Philippe Tessier La Porte Dorée. I was not the only one who was surprised when François Cazin's wine was unveiled, and had not shown as well as the other wines. Here are some notes on the individual wines:

2007 Domaine des Huards Cour Cheverny, $17, JD Headrick Selections. Keith and Michel really liked this wine. Keith said that it was "pure with fresh fruit and powerful minerality, with flint and gunpowder notes." Michel suggested pairing it with Marcona almonds, and Keith thought it would be great with ceviche. I liked this wine very much also, its depth of material was obvious. But I thought it was more tightly wound than the other wines, and preferred to drink other wines at that moment in the tasting, putting this one in the cellar. And I will tell you that the next day (host kept the leftovers, thank you) this wine was really stunning, working way above it's paygrade. It had real complexity, layers of fruit and minerals, and was very well balanced. This is fantastic bottle and a pretty crazy value at $17.

2007 Domaine de Montcy Cour-Cheverny, $15, Savio Soares Selections. Alice loved this wine. She said that she wasn't crazy about it at first, but that it changed a lot in the glass, and as we were discussing the wines she could barely pull her nose out, saying "there are violets in this wine, and they're killing me." I assume she meant killing in a good way. I also thought this wine was great, perfect for current drinking. Very clean, lovely and pure apple fruit, a floral depth to it, very well balanced and very drinkable, impossible not to like. Keith liked this wine too, and said it reminded him of a Chablis.

2006 Domaine Philippe Tessier La Porte Dorée, $19, Savio Soares Selections. This wine was entirely different from the others, and not just because of the vintage. It is overtly oxidative in style with an almost oily texture. Michel and I both liked it enough to vote for it, but not everyone was convinced. Michel liked the chamomile notes he got on the nose and the long finish. I liked the freshness and the mineral depth of the wine, but in the end, I'm just a sucker for this oxidative style of white wine.

2007 François Cazin Cour-Cheverny, $18, Louis/Dressner Selections. All I can say is that blind tasting is humbling, and often surprising. Cazin is definitely the leading producer in the appellation with many years of great wines under his belt. But this bottle of his wine simply wasn't as good as the above wines on this particular night. I found it to be reticent, almost mute on the nose, and not in a tight, drinking too young way. Just mute. Others said that it was short on the finish and without the aromatic pungency of the others. I thought it tasted good, but that it was a simple wine. It wasn't any better on days 2 or 3, by the way. I have another bottle that I'm eager to taste to see if this one was weird in some way. In any case, Cazin is a star, and even if his wine isn't great in this vintage, he makes great wine that is worth buying.

2007 Domaine de Moulin Cour-Cheverny Les Petits Acacias, $15, Louis/Dressner Selections. I cannot, however, be as forgiving with this wine, because even during our discussion there just wasn't a lot good to say about it. It's not bad wine, but in this company it was definitely not distinguished. People said it felt dull, unfocused. I thought it was too smokey and that the fruit was oddly tropical, something that Michel picked up on also. In any case, this one would be difficult to recommend. I don't have the experience with this producer to know whether or not this is representative of the wine, but Joe Dressner is behind it and that's good enough for me - I will look forward to tasting more from this producer.

I hope this was interesting to you in some way. We certainly had a lot of fun doing it.