Back in the Saddle

I haven't written anything in a long time. It's hard to get started again. I've wanted to, but the longer it gets, the more inertia sets in. Perhaps the best way is simply to write something  - anything. Even just a list of recent wines I've loved. If it's fun, I'll write again another time.

The best red wine I've had in some time? A bottle of Beaujolais, but a special bottle - the 2011 Yvon Métras Moulin-à-Vent. This is not so easy to find here in the US, but whoa, it's worth looking for. Here's my note on the bottle: "Honestly, the finest red wine I've tasted in a while. A perfect bottle. Fragrant with fruit, flowers, stones, leaves. Beautifully expressive on the palate with complex fruit and mineral flavors, a structural firmness under the fruit that smacks of Moulin-à-Vent, texturally perfect, long on the finish - I'm trying to mention everything that's great about this wine which starts to feel silly. It really was just a wonderful bottle with a depth and expression of aroma and flavor that is fantastic." Métras is a cultish producer and that might turn some folks off. It turned me off, to be honest. But this bottle converted me. 

Then there's also this bottle, the 2008 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barbera d'Alba. Another one that is not easy to find here in the US. This bottle kind of blew me away. Pure and fresh, absolutely transparent in feel and the earthy minerality is pungent. The wine is so complex too - the finish is a melange of the herbal, the acidic, and the ripe but not overripe fruit (which itself is a melange of bright red raspberry and deep dark cherry). If you drink it now, save half for ay 2 - way better on day 2. I've not had too many Barberas, and I've had none that I loved except for a bottle a few years back by G. Conterno. This one, I loved, LOVED. Is this is what Barbera grown on great soils by a great wine maker is like?

The 2012 vintage of Tissot Poulsard is here and it's really good. For me, this is the Poulsard to buy and drink with impunity these days, as Overnoy is a unicorn and Ganevat costs $50. This wine needs a good decant to deal with the reduction, but it is absolutely delicious. It comes from very old vines and it has no added sulfur (which should raise alarms more than act as a selling point, in my book, but this one does it beautifully). It will greatly please Poulsard lovers but also I think would be a nice way to introduce a friend to the charms of light and weird red wine - it's accessible like that. Cranberries, blood oranges, hard spices, flowers, harmonious and beautifully textured, this wine packs a lot of interest into a very light frame. It costs about $25.

I'm still not entirely sure where I am with this wine. 2010 Weingut Günther Steinmetz Mülheimer Sonnenlay Pinot Noir Unfiltriert, as it is deftly named, might be an intense wine that offers way more complexity, terroir expression, and overall quality than its $23 price tag suggests is possible. Or it might just be an incredibly delicious and balanced Pinot from Germany. I can't tell yet. But I will tell you that I am vigorously enjoying the act of drinking the wine and further exploring this important question.

I still drink white wine. Way more than red, actually. Here are some recent whites that also wowed me:

2007 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese. You know, I look back at my notes from drinking this wine and it's not as though I loved it on paper. But the thing is, I loved it. I've thought about it a lot since drinking it. Maybe it sounds obvious to you if you drink these wines, but the purity, the delicacy, the impeccable balance...it really got to me and I must have more.

2012 Bernard Ott Grüner Veltliner Am Berg. I think this is a great vintage for this wine. It's subtle and quiet, but absolutely delicious and entirely expressive of place and of Grüner. I like to decant this wine, and then there are clean and cooling aromas of sour cream, lemongrass, and green herbs. Quiet, but arresting. And versatile at the table. And about $18.

I dipped into my small stash of the very fine La Bota de Fino Nº 35, and whoa, is it drinking beautifully. This is a Fino selected from barrels in the Valdespino Inocente solera system. The overtly powerful personality of the wine has been tempered a bit and it now thrives on this amazing harmony of aroma and flavor. Complex, savory,  and shockingly delicious.

Just to see what's what, I opened a bottle of 2008 Gilbert Picq Chablis 1er Cru Vogros. It reminded me that it's possible to drink real Chablis, truly satisfying Chablis, elegant and bantam weight Chablis that really smacks of seashells, iodine, and white flowers, for under $30. I like this wine in every vintage I've tasted. This one drinks very well right now, but takes 90 minutes to get there and seems like it will improve with another few years in the cellar. But whoa, when it got there it was rewarding.

That was kind of fun, writing this. For me, anyway.

Alzinger - a Dinner Featuring Wines from the 80's and 90's.

I've been told that most Austrian wine is consumed at home in Austria, and that most of this is consumed while still young. Whether or not this is true I do not know. But I've noticed that there is never any old Austrian wine included in the offers that flood our in-boxes selling great wines from back vintages. I almost never see back vintages on the shelves at good wine stores, and the only people I know who have old Austrian wines are serious collectors who have been following these wines for some time.

So, it is a rare opportunity to drink a mature Austrian wine. To drink a large sample in one evening, with friends and a lovely dinner - this is something that I've done on only one prior occasion. But Jamie Wolff, a partner at Chambers Street Wines, saved a number of bottles from a cellar that the store purchased back in 2007. There are many great wine producers in Austria, but Leo (and now also his son Leo) Alzinger is unquestionably one of the very finest. It is Alzinger wines from the 1980's and 1990's that Jamie held onto. He decided to invite some local Austrian wine lovers, who of course also brought along some great bottles, and to share everything over dinner at Trestle on Tenth.

Austria's Wachau wine region is rather warm in general and the wines, particularly the Smaragds, the wines made from the ripest and highest quality grapes, can be big and rich with alcohol that regularly hits 14%. Some of Austria's greatest producers, Hirtzberger for example make wines in that style, and they are great. Alzinger is known as a producer whose wines show less muscle. The wines come from some of the very finest vineyards in the Wachau, and thrive on their clarity and precision. In my rather limited experience with Austrian wine Alzinger is already a favorite (if not the favorite) and so I was more than a little bit excited to have the opportunity to drink these old wines on this night.

We drank 19 Alzinger wines and a few others too, and I will not try to share tasting notes with you. I will, however, share some thoughts:

---People like to say that Burgundy is a crap-shoot. The more wine I drink, the more I understand that this notion is utter malarkey. Or at least, that Burgundy in particular produces wines that do not provide the pleasure that is to be expected. If you sit down with 10 tightly grouped vintages of most of the world's great wines, some will deliver and other will disappoint. I think that's just part of the game.

--We drank 4 wines from the 1980's. One, the 1987 Riesling Kabinett Trocken Loibenberg, was corked. The other three were fantastic.

One was the 1985 Riesling Loiben (not sure what that means actually - maybe a blend of different vineyards in that village?). This wine was so satisfying and delicious. I loved its full, honeyed and mineral nose - so complex and harmonious, just gorgeous. The palate was all rock. Lovely, but not with the same sensuality as the nose. Still, this was quite the advertisement for cellaring Austrian Riesling.

Another was the 1989 Riesling Smaragd Loibenberg. This was even better, I thought, a more complete wine. The nose again was glorious - rich, honeyed, and very complex, and showing more finesse, more lightness and lift relative to the 1985. The palate was bone dry and intensely mineral, very expressive and long. This was a profound wine, and something to hope for in cellaring current Alzinger vintages.

--I learned a little bit about the differences between the various Wachau vineyards. We drank wines from Loibenberg, Hollerin, and Steinertal (and one wine from Hohereck). Hollerin seems to give wines whose overall impression is bigger in body and richness than either of Loibenberg or Steinertal. There is a striking and unadorned beauty of fruit in some of the Hollerin wines. Loibernberg seemed to achieve the same degree of richness and power but also a certain precision that is not part of the Hollerin package. The best Loibernberg wines, for me 1989 and 1995, achieved a gorgeous harmony between richness and delicacy. I don't even know what to say about Steinertal. It gave the finest wines, I thought. As good as some of the others were, the best Steinertals were just better.

--Vintages...1994 seems not to have held up well for the Alzinger wines. 2001 also - I found those wines to be oxidized and problematic (others liked them). 1999 was uclear - we drank Liebenberg and Steinertal Gruner Veltliner and if the Liebenberg was representative then it was not terribly successful. Steinertal was good but felt a little heavy and showed a bit of heat. Perhaps the warmer vintages are not the best ones at Alzinger? 1995 seems to be a great vintage for these wines. Vintage charts should probably not be treated as gospel when thinking about Alzinger wines.

--We drank these wines with a variety of dishes, many were hearty and pungent, including a whole roast pig. The wines more than held their own.

--Although there were some disappointing wines, those that were good were so good! This evening renewed my commitment to buy and cellar some of the great Austrian Rieslings each year.

Okay, a few tasting notes on wines that I liked:

1993 Alzinger Riesling Smaragd Hollerin - Fuller and richer on the nose than the 1993 Loibenberg. The fruit feels riper, heavier. But the wine is balanced and ultimately lovely and quite complex. The fruit here is beautiful.

1995 Alzinger Riesling Smaragd Hollerin - The most balanced and compelling of the Hollerin wines. Still shows that bigness, but also a more perfect sense of harmony. Wonderful wine and if there weren't 23 other wines on the table this would have been the superstar of any evening.

1994 Alzinger Gruner Veltliner Smaragd Steinertal - the best of the 1994 wines, I thought, with an intriguing nose of lemongrass and fresh herbs like tarragon and anise. The nose had a delicate side and required some attention. The palate was not as interesting, however, and showed a bit bigger and with less detail than I expected based on the nose. Still, a win worthy of the name.

1995 Alzinger Riesling Smaragd Steinertal - Gorgeous nose, airy, fresh, and harmonious. Such complex and precise detail too. I was smelling tomato plants (I've been doing some gardening lately and I recognized the smell), pungent and almost stinky floral tones, and vivid minerals. The acidity in this wine was so beautifully integrated, present everywhere but never jutting out. Beautiful wine.

1995 Alzinger Riesling Smaragd Loibenberg - Clear as a bell, perfect harmony of smoky minerals, ripe and lovely fruit, and something like green peas. Subtle and graceful for all of its power. The palate is mouth-filling and intense but not overdone, and yet in contrast with the delicate aspects of the nose. Between this wine and the 1989 Loibenberg I learned that Loibenberg is something special (I thought it was all about the Steinertal).

There were many other wines and I could prattle on longer, I assure you. Suffice it to say though, that mature Alzinger...whoa!

The Person who Made the Very First Potato Pancake Probably Drank Gruner Veltliner

Imagine this: maybe 150-200 years ago, somewhere in eastern Europe, a person of modest means is thinking of what to cook for the family. It's winter and there's not a lot to choose from. In the cellar there are potatoes and onions. There is a sack of flour. There are some eggs, there is a bit of butter. Perhaps it was in a setting like this one when a person had the brilliant idea of making potato pancakes?

I have no idea at all if this is true. Maybe a trained chef at an Austrian cooking school invented the dish. Maybe the potato pancake was invented 75 years ago, or 300 years ago. Isn't it interesting to imagine how a person, someone who must be a creative and brilliant chef, is able to take familiar and humble ingredients and come up with something that is so delicious that it proliferates the way a potato pancake, for example, proliferates?

I like making potato pancakes with the daughters. The other night they were the center of a meal, along with a little split pea soup and a cucumber salad. Couldn't be simpler - peel and grate 2 russet potatoes. Sprinkle with a little salt and let them sit a few minutes so that they begin to release their water. Squeeze out as much water as you can, add two beaten eggs, a tablespoon and a half or so of flour, some salt, and a tablespoon or two of finely grated onion (more or less as you please). Mix well, fry in butter, et voila.

Although it's important to remove the water from the potatoes before making the batter, this is a forgiving dish. On this evening we got distracted from our cooking for maybe 5 minutes, and still the potatoes continued to release water, or maybe the bond between the egg and the potato began to relax. But there was liquid in the bottom of our batter bowl.

No matter - we lifted out large spoonfuls of batter and pressed them into pancake-shaped discs in a hot pan of butter. This is one of those simple dishes whose aroma will bring neighbors to the front door, the perfect time to come and say hello.

Turn the pancakes after a few minutes when they are golden brown on the bottom. Remove after another few minutes and let them rest a moment on a paper towel, getting rid of some excess butter.

Six year-old daughters can peel Persian cucumbers, and can even help chop them into large chunks, if we hold the knife together. They can salt cucumbers and add a little vinegar, and stir.

They can not, however, drink a glass of 2011 Bernard Ott Gruner Veltliner Am Berg. For this, I feel badly for them, although their time will certainly come. Right now they think wine is gross and don't even want to taste it. The wine, be the way, has improved since last year, showing a lovely airy freshness, herbal and creamy notes, and good balance. A great value at about $18 before any sort of case discount.

With a bowl of split pea soup with chunks of carrot and little bits of ham (calm down, also home made), the humble potato pancake and the humbler cucumber salad make a very good dinner.

The person who first thought to create a pancake out of a few potatoes, an onion, a few eggs, some flour and salt - this is a person who must have enjoyed wine with their meal. Perhaps it was home made from a few rows out behind the house? Maybe it was even a Gruner Veltliner.

A Dinner Featuring the Wines of Bernhard Ott

A few years ago on my buddy Peter's recommendation I bought one of Bernhard Ott's wines, a Grüner Veltliner called Am Berg. I thought the wine was great, and at under $15, a great value too. But when I went to buy more it was gone. Years went by and I continued not to see this wine in stores until a few months ago when all of the sudden some of the 2010's started showing up on the shelves. Finally - the wines are excellent and well priced. Why are they showing up now? There has been a change of importers - Winebow used to handle Ott's wine, but now it will be Terry Theise/Michael Skurnik. Word is the wines will be easier to find going forward and we should be glad for this.

Bernhard Ott's vineyards are almost all located in the towns of Feuersbrunn and Engabrunn in the northwest corner of the Wagram, the region to the east of the more renowned Wachau, Kamptal, and Kremstal regions. I think of the Wagram as the Wachau's less talented sibling. There certainly are some good wines, but the overall potential is less than that of the Wachau and the Kamptal That said, Bernhard took over farming and wine making duties in 1995 and now is to be considered one of the finest, if not the finest producer in the Wagram.

 Photo courtesy of Der Feinschmecker German wine award website.

Bernhard Ott changed the methods of farming at the estate, encouraging cover crops, avoiding pesticides, and now is almost fully certified by Respekt, a new alternative to Demeter in biodynamic certification. He also changed some aspects of wine making, fully embracing the very reductive style that is more and more common among Austria's great dry wines. All closures are Stelvin, the wines are all raised in stainless steel tanks (except for a new amphora wine that I've never tasted), and there is little or no stirring of the lees.

So what do these wines taste like - why do I like them so much? Grüner Veltliner from these vineyards and in Ott's hands tastes fresh and pure, with focused and detailed articulation of aroma and flavor, and with great resonance on the finish. They are balanced and elegant, and yet offer a lot of potency and depth. They are delicious wines and they are flexible with food, and here I'm talking about wines that all cost less than $25 - I had never tasted the top wines when forming this opinion.

As with all Austrian white wines that I can think of, Ott's wines benefit from decanting because they are quite reductive. I decanted the Grüners at 4:30 and we began drinking them at 8:00, and decanted the Rieslings about an hour before drinking them. I made a five-course dinner to pair with the wines, which was a lot of fun in itself. Here is what we ate and drank:

Savory ginger custard with:
Grüner Veltliner Am Berg 2010 and 2011

Yellow squash, cucumber, and mint salad with:
Grüner Veltliner Fass 4 2010 and 2011

Raw Fluke with sour cream, white pepper, and dill oil with:
Grüner Veltliner Stein 2011 and Grüner Veltliner Spiegel 2011

Poached squid, fava beans, garlic, and red chili flake with:
Riesling von Rotem Schotter 2010 and 2011

Vietnamese-style summer rolls with shrimp, pork, and herbs with:
Rhein Riesling 2011

Three of Bernhard Ott's wines were not represented in this dinner. Der Ott is a blend of grapes from young vines in Ott's parcels of Rosenberg, Stein, and Spiegel. And the Grüner Veltliner Rosenberg, probably Ott's flagship wine, was not available, neither was the amphora wine.

The results were quite interesting. The 2010 wines showed beautifully, particularly Am Berg and the Riesling von Rotem Schotter. There was disagreement, however, about the 2011's. No one thought they were as good at this point as the 2010's. Some tasters, myself included, found things to like about the 2011's, while others felt that the qualities of the 2011 vintage were not flattering for this highly reductive style of wine.

I thought Bernhard Ott's wines were delicious and intriguing before this dinner, and I am unchanged in that opinion. I think that Am Berg is among the better white wines at its price point and if you've not had an Ott wine but are curious to try, Am Berg is an excellent wine to begin with. As to Ott's 2011's in general, I withhold judgment. They did not show terribly well on this night, but as one very experienced taster said during the dinner, "Who knows where these will be in a year. Had we been drinking the 2010' a year ago, would we be having the same experience? If Am Berg 2011 is tasting good now, wouldn't you believe that the other 2011's will show better in a year?"

Here are the wines and some notes:

2010 Grüner Veltliner Am Berg, $16. At 11.5% alcohol this is perfectly balanced and expressive, with lovely herbal, citrus rind, and stone flavors. At times I get hints of something like sour cream in this wine. It is in a wonderful spot for drinking right now, harmonious and feathery in texture and just delicious. Friends, as a public service to you, I will tell you the few places where I know you can still buy this excellent wine, in NYC anyway: Sherry-Lehmann and Appellation Wine & Spirits in Manhattan, and Picada y Vino in Brooklyn. There may be others, who knows, but this wine is worth looking for.

2011 Grüner Veltliner Am Berg, $18. A bigger riper wine than the 2010, but still balanced and expressive with lemongrass and citrus notes, and a mineral pungency to the finish. This wine is still coming together, and although I prefer the style of the 2010, I think this is an excellent Am Berg with lots of pleasure to offer.

2010 Grüner Veltliner Fass 4, $22. Fass 4 grapes come from several parcels near the Rosenberg vineyard. It is a richer wine than Am Berg with a rounder feel to it. This one has floral notes to complement the fruit, and is balanced at 12.5% alcohol.

2011 Grüner Veltliner Fass 4, $26 (This wine was donated by Michael Skurnik Wines). Also 12.5% alcohol, but this felt disjointed. One taster asked if the wine had been acidified. I doubt that Bernhard Ott acidifies his wines even in a very warm vintage like 2011, but I don't know.

2011 Grüner Veltliner Stein, $55 (This wine was donated by Michael Skurnik Wines). This is an unusual wine within the Ott lineup. The Stein vineyard is in a part of Engebrunn that technically is in the Kamptal, and the soils are gneiss and chalk in addition to the more typical loess of the Wagram. Ott's vines in Stein are over 50 years old. Several tasters found the same disjointed problems here as they did with the other 2011's, but I really liked this wine and thought it was still improving as we finished it. At 13.5% it felt balanced to me. The nose was rather lean at this stage, but I liked the intensity of the flavors and the wine felt linear to me, not overripe. I would like to taste it again in 5 years to see if it can achieve a better sense of harmony with time.

2011 Grüner Veltliner Spiegel, $55 (This wine was donated by Michael Skurnik Wines). I really liked the pungency of the nose on this wine, with clear and classic flavors of lemongrass and white pepper. Coiled up and young, but seems to have a lot of potential. My sense was that the group preferred this to the Stein, but there were exceptions. And there were tasters who didn't like this wine as much as I did.

2010 Riesling von Rotten Schotter, $22. Most at the table thought this was the wine of the night, and it was indeed a very lovely wine. Clear as a bell, focused, and also ample in fruit and body, very delicious. I enjoyed the variety of flavors - brown spices, flowers, rock, orchard fruit, and all very fresh. Made from red (slate?) and gravel soils at higher elevation than the Grüner vineyards. As a public service to you, my friends, I will tell you that you can still find this wine at Prospect Wines and Fermented Grapes in Brooklyn.

2011 Riesling von Rotten Schotter, $29 (This wine was donated by Michael Skurnik Wines). Strange, because even though this wine comes from a higher elevation than the single vineyard Grüners and therefore might be less ripe, this one felt warmer and more disjointed initially. It improved with time in the decanter, but I don't feel like I understood the wine and I'm not ready to say anything yet.

2011 Rhein Riesling, $59 (This wine was donated by Michael Skurnik Wines). This is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the off-dry wines of Germany, where Bernhard Ott spent some time working at the Leitz estate and fell in love with the off-dry style of Riesling. I liked this wine very much and it was great with our summer rolls, with slightly earthy and airy aromas, and clean and bold flavors. I wanted to go back to this wine when we re-tasted everything, but it was gone, which I take as a good sign.

By the way, just to show that things are not always as they seem with vintage reports (and/or that I don't know what I'm talking about) 2010 was supposed to be a so-so year at best in Austria, while the reports on the 2011 vintage were quite good. Here are three reports on 2011:

From Julia Harding, via the Jancis Robinson website.

From Wine Spectator.

From James Wright via Wine Monger, a commercial site.

La Paulée de...Austria !

About 50 or 60 wine lovers came together to celebrate Austrian wine the other night at Seasonal Restaurant in midtown Manhattan. Stephen Bitterolf, the Wine Director at Crush, conceived of this event with an eye towards the famous La Paulée Burgundy dinners where everyone competes to bring the finest bottles and people walk from table to table tasting each others' wines. That's right - Austrian wine, La Paulée style.

It takes big bottles to put together the La Paulée of Austrian wine, and Stephen Bitterolf has them.

This was an incredible opportunity to drink so many of Austria's greatest wines. Okay, you don't spend an evening with a wine watching it unfold, and for me that's the road to understanding. But I've had barely more than a handful of mature bottles, and still haven't tasted some of the best sites and producers, and this was a great way to delve in a bit further.

Importer Carlo Huber and Seasonal Executive Chef Wolfgang Ban.

I could be wrong in saying this, but I think that Austrian wine is not something that most people understand, even in the wine-loving community. Stephen Bitterolf is a passionate believer in Austrian wine and has for a long time carried a wide selection at Crush, where Joe Salamone and others who work there also believe in the wines. And yes, there are serious collectors in the NYC area who have old bottles stored in their cellars.

Robert Dentice, a huge collector of Austrian wine, and his partner Renee Patronik. 

But I see German wines far more often at restaurants and when friends get together. Maybe this is because most Austrian wine is sold in Austria - the wines sell easily, right there at home. Maybe it's because the modern wines are dry, and a lot of Riesling lovers talk about how they prefer their wines to have a bit of residual sugar. It can't be the prices, because it's possible to buy some of the greatest Austrian wines for the price of a villages Burgundy. Whatever the reason, the wines are not as mainstream as they should be based on quality, price, and deliciousness.

Ray Isle of Food and Wine, and Joe Salamone of Crush, both enjoying Austrian wine.

So it was a great evening for Austrian wine lovers, and also an opportunity for some of the great Austrian wines to get some much-deserved attention in NYC. This is why several producers donated rare large-format bottles for the event, and why the Austrian Wine Marketing Board was so helpful in getting those wines quickly to NYC for the dinner. This is why Executive Chef Wolfgang Ban closed Seasonal and used the whole space for the event, and charged only $90 all-in for a fine 4-course meal (full disclosure - I was comped a ticket by Crush because they apparently have mistaken me for a wine writer).

Allan Roth and Gene Vilensky, a couple of guys who love Austrian Riesling. Don't let the wood-framed glasses fool you - they are not Williamsburg hipsters. Allan is in education and Gene is a mathematician. Regular folks like them love Austrian wine too.

It was an embarrassment of riches - the wines were great. Not every wine, but I was seriously impressed with so much of what I drank. Of the big name Wachau producers, Prager and Knoll seemed to be the most prevalent at this dinner. Most of the other big shots were there too - I saw bottles by Alzinger, FX Pichler, Hirtzberger, and Moric. I saw no Nikolaihof and no Rudi Pichler, which kind of surprised me. From the Kremstal I saw Brundlmayer and Schloss Gobelsburg, but no Hirsch or Nigl. And I don't think I saw anything from the Wagram, which makes sense on a night when people are bringing the fancy bottles. But there is plenty to love in the Wagram (I'm a little bit obsessed with Bernhard Ott right now, but that's another story).

Stephen hosted and spent the whole night pouring. I don't think he stopped to eat.

I didn't really take notes, but here are some of the wines that were memorable for me, in the order in which I tasted them:

1986 Alzinger Gruner Veltliner Mühlpoint Kabinett Trocken. A designation no longer used. A wonderful old nose.

2002 Bründlmayer Riesling Zobinger Heiligenstein Alte Reben. I've heard Heiligenstein described as the finest site in the Kremstal. This wine was in magnum format, and was beautiful in its lush fruit and its focused minerality.

1988 Alzinger Riesling Ried Loibenberg Kabinett Trocken. The wine was in excellent shape, despite the dodgy label. Complex, fresh, vibrant, a real treat and a great advertisement for storing these wines.

2000 Prager Riesling Smaragd Achleiten. I brought this wine and that's why I thought it was so interesting. But it was impressive in its balance and elegance, considering that it was a very hot vintage that in some cases produced some overly fleshy wines.

1997 Prager Riesling Smaragd Weissenkirchner Ried Achleiten. I don't know how (or if) Weissenkirchner Ried is different from the regular Prager Achleiten bottling. But this was as fine a wine as any that I tasted on this evening. Rocks, lemongrass, so subtle and wonderful.

2001 Prager Riesling Smaragd Klaus. Intense and very long, and shows how Klaus is so absolutely different in character from Achleiten. More lush in its fruit, more forward and generous.  

1997 FX Pichler Riesling Smaragd Kellerberg. Whoa, this wine floored me. Just beautiful wine, as fine as any on this evening, for me.

2002 Moric Blaufrankisch Lutzmannsburg Alte Reben. There were several Moric reds and for whatever reason, they didn't show as well as they might have. But this wine was great, so beautifully perfumed.

2001 Hirtzberger Riesling Smaragd Singerriedel. Intense and big, but harmonious. I loved this wine. I think I prefer the more gossamer style of Alzinger and Prager, but I love Hirtzberger's Singerriedel.

This was such a wonderful evening and I feel lucky to have been a part of it.

In Defense of Red Wine

I've been having a hard time with red wine lately. Okay, I never have a problem with mature Burgundy, or mature red wine in general. But when I'm alone and I feel like opening something to drink with dinner, or to just have a glass, I almost always reach for white wine these days. White wine is so much more versatile with food, so much easier to drink on its own. I'm speaking in broad terms, obviously, but I looked through what I've been drinking for the past few months and it's almost always white wine, unless some sort of special mature red is involved.

There could be many reasons for my bias. I did just go to Jerez, and I have been drinking a lot of Sherry. But I think it's more than that. I think that it's about easy drinking - I want to drink wines that clearly say what they are about, where they are from, that do not distract me with excess fruit or tannin, or any kind of excess. Lately, white wine just makes this happen for me far more often than red.

But of course there are red wines that continue to fit the bill. I've noticed that there are a few things that unite the everyday red wines that I reach for lately. They are lighter wines, wines that achieve balance above all else, and also express themselves with finesse and grace. Here are a few current favorites:

2007 Muhr-van de Niepoort Carnuntum Blaufrankisch, $20, Imported by Martine's Wines. This is definitely a wine that showcases ripe dark fruit, but that's only a part of the package. There is an unmistakable white pepper scent (I guess white pepper is more about Austrian soils than it is about Gruner Veltliner), and the nose is entirely graceful and expressive. The wine is perfectly balanced and feels great in the mouth. It satisfies on many levels - there is fruit, soil and mineral, and a pleasant leafy undertone. I must say, I've not been as impressed with a red wine in a while, as far as quality-to-price ratio goes. This is absolutely top notch wine, I bet it would improve with time in the cellar, and it sells for $20 before a mixed case discount. It isn't too hard to find in NYC (Blanc y Rouge in Brooklyn, Chambers Street Wines in Manhattan, among others), but if you're having trouble, try a wine by Moric - more expensive, but also great.

2008 Julien Labet Côtes du Jura, $36, Imported by Fruit of the Vines. Joe Salamone at Crush brings this wine to NYC and it's worth asking about. Objectively speaking, I think that Overnoy/Houillon's is the finest Poulsard out there, but that wine is basically impossible to find and it's gotten quite expensive. Labet's is excellent too. So light and graceful that it seems strange how well structured it is. This wine smacks of dried leaves and blood oranges and herbs and it's completely delicious. But what moves me about it now is how impossibly weightless and light it is, and still how clearly and pungently it expresses itself. If Labet's Poulsard proves to be too hard to find, there are several others out there. They should all be similar in their graceful delivery of Jura-ness.

2010 Clos de Tue-Boeuf Cheverny, $19, Louis/Dressner Selections. Red wines from Cheverny in the Loire Valley can include a variety of grapes. This one is made of Gamay and Pinot Noir. It is a lovely wine - high toned and bright red in fruit, a bit of forest underneath and a genuine crackle of energy that can be mistaken for effervescence - decant or otherwise aerate the wine and the energy is still there. This wine isn't for everyone - it's light and bright and flirts with volatility, and it doesn't offer anything in the way of power. It's not really about fruit either, although there most certainly is fruit. It's a refreshing and light wine that really is an expression of this place and this winemaker. If you try it, aerate the wine before you drink it.

2010 Domaine Guion Bourgueil Cuvée Domaine, $12, Imported by Fruit of the Vines. David Lillie at Chambers Street Wines is responsible for bringing this wine to NYC. This is the lighter of the two Guion Bourgueils, and I prefer it to the Prestige Cuvée, in general. The 2010 is a wine that I really like, although again, it's not for everyone. It is not a fruity wine, except for the first 10 minutes or so after opening. It's only $12 but it is a complete wine - a perfect balance of iron minerals, bloody dark fruit, and acidity, and the structure is firm but doesn't intrude in any way. This is an easy drinking wine that I think faithfully expresses terroir.

Hirtzberger, the Scandal of '85, and an Evening with Peter Liem

My good friend Peter returned from Champagne the other day and to my great happiness, he came for dinner that very night. I love hanging out with Peter because he's a truly remarkable guy, and then there's also the wine thing - spending an evening drinking wine with him is like being in graduate school (but without the annoying homework or the crippling debt). During our conversation on this night I learned a lot about Austrian Riesling and changes in the Austrian wine industry in the 1980's. All of this was new to me, and I found it so interesting that I will try to recreate the conversation here.

It began with lobster bisque that I brought back from Larson's Fish Market in Martha's Vineyard. What to drink with this very rich soup? I was thinking of Champagne, or maybe a Huet demi-sec, but I remembered the 1999 Hirtzberger Riesling Smaragd Singerriedel that I bought about a year ago, on Peter's advice actually. I saw it one day just sitting there for $67 in the cold room at Astor. Curious about Austrian wine, I had asked Peter to recommend a few things to try. He said that the blue-chip wines include Hirtzberger's Singerriedel, Nikolaihof's Steiner Hund, Alzinger's Steinertal, Pichler's Kellerberg and Loibner Berg, and Prager's Achleiten (and more recently Wachstum Bodenstein), and that Singerriedel might be the greatest of the vineyard sites.

We opened and decanted the wine. Peter generally does not decant wine, he prefers to experience its evolution from the bottle and the glass, but he told me always to decant Austrian white wines because they are made in such a reductive style. I thought the wine was gorgeous - rather full in body and quite ripe, but also entirely focused and under control, and as it interacted with air it became more and more detailed. Peter said the wine was great and that it was very modern, a fantastic example of the style.

Modern?!?

"What do you mean, modern," I asked.

"Well, the Austrian wine industry completely changed in 1985," he said. "You know about this, right?"

"Nope. Completely ignorant," my vacant expression conveyed.

"Austrian Riesling used to have residual sugar. If you drink wines from the 40's, 50's, and 60's, they all had residual sugar. Now some of the greatest wines are completely dry, but this is a relatively new thing. They were making late harvest wines and doing very well with them in the export markets. But you can't make late harvest Riesling every year, it requires certain climate characteristics. It turns out that when climate didn't cooperate, some producers were adding diethylene glycol (an ingredient in anti-freeze) to the wines to give them the texture resembling the late harvest wines."

"You've got to be kidding me," I said. I thought it was the French who used to add anti-freeze to wine.

Peter just shrugged. "When this was discovered, the Austrian wine industry died, literally overnight," he said. "There were a few growers who decided to change the course, to make great dry wines. They formed a private growers organization called Vinea Wachau, the organization that began using the Federspiel and Smaragd designations. And they weren't always called Smaragd, by the way. It was originally Honifogel but there was a woman whose last name was Honifogel who sued the group and they changed the designation name to Smaragd"

"Who were the growers who started it," I asked.

"It was four of them I think," Peter said. "Hirtzberger, the old Jamek, the old Prager, and FX Pichler. It took a little while, but the scandal was the greatest thing that could have happened for the Austrian wine industry in a Darwinian way - only the best survived. Overall quality is great now, in fact I would say that there is no where else right now where the median wine quality is equal to what it is in Austria."

"Wow, that's a big thing to say," I said. It was at this point when I noticed all of this light, this burst of knowledge, if you will, pouring forth from Peter's head.

"I'd love this to happen elsewhere," Peter said, laughing. "I'd love a scandal in Champagne."

We drank the wine and it was delicious with the lobster bisque. It was delicious on its own. Really a great wine, amazingly graceful and balanced, so expressive, a complete wine. And a great experience drinking it in the company of some one who can speak about it so intelligently and also so conversationally. Here's the wikipedia entry on the Austrian wine scandal, if you're curious.

Anyone out there around and remember interesting details from the Austrian scandal of '85? Fee free to share...

Further Adventures in Blind Tasting

A lot of people don't like blind tasting, but I enjoy it a lot. The point for me is not to try to guess the wine, although that is fun and definitely a part of the learning experience. The point for me is to remove a very important stimulus from the experience of evaluating wine - knowing what the wine is, and whether or not I'm "supposed" to like it. I like to think that I'm not so superficial that I cannot separate my evaluations about a wine from my preconceived notions about that wine. But still, it's good to check in on these things from time to time.

My favorite way to blind taste is to get together with a group of friends and ask everyone to bring a bottle to serve to the group. The key, obviously, is to gather people who will enjoy the experience of evaluating wines while blind, not people who will view this as a competitive event in which they must guess wines correctly or be embarrassed.

My friend Tista was in town recently and I decided to use his visit as an excuse to gather some friends and have a blind tasting dinner. Everyone brought a bottle to accompany a certain dish and we had a great time talking about the wines. Let me tell you people, as if you didn't know this already - blind tasting is rather humbling. But it can be great fun too if you're with the right people, and I definitely was. I'll share some of the details with you:

Tista brought a wine to serve with vegetable soup and he told us as the bottle was being passed around that the wine is not yet imported to the US. I liked it very much, with its red fruited nose, herbal notes, and its bright energy. I guessed a red grape-based wine from Champagne, probably Bouzy. One taster noted an oxidative note on the nose, which turned out to be rather astute as the wine is the first sparkling wine made by Equipo Navazos, the 2007 Colet Navazos, made from Xarel-lo (one of the Cava grapes) grown in Penedès. So with Bouzy I wasn't really so far off - same continent. But that doesn't matter, as I liked the wine, but I believe I liked it less than I might have if I had known it was an Equipo Navazos wine. It's possible, anyway.

Here was another great moment - I smelled and sipped a red wine that a friend brought to pair with an egg and mushroom custard. The wine smelled wonderful and it was just delicious. It had a vague cinnamon aroma that I associate with carbonic fermentation, and texturally it felt like high quality Beaujolais to me, but one with a little bottle age. There was a prominent tannic feel to the wine, but very fine tannins. All of the sudden it hit me, and I knew what the wine was. 2007 Foillard Morgon Côte de Py, I proudly declared. I beamed as I waited for my friend to reveal the wine, and started thinking about how to be graceful while accepting the amazed congratulation of my friends. "You might have noticed that it is a Bordeaux-shaped bottle," my friend said as he took the bag off of the bottle of 1998 Chateau Simone Palette Rouge. Everyone liked the wine, by the way. It was one that everyone agreed on.

Here was an instructive moment - some one poured a red wine that they brought to pair with slow roasted pork, and it was really a great wine. Lush and deeply fruited, silky and graceful, with a nose that gained in complexity as it opened up in the glass, showing floral and earthy notes. There was a clarity to the flavors, unadorned with any kind of excess. It felt like a mature wine but not an old wine, and I had no idea what it was. Some one said it was a Cabernet Franc. Sounded plausible, but it didn't remind me of the Cabernet Francs that I know from the Loire. Turned out to be the 1983 Opus One (!!!). This is a wine that I NEVER would select from a wine list, auction, or retail shop - not a wine that I would buy. Not that I'd ever tasted one (a taste once, but a newer version). Just based on reputation. This wine honestly was excellent though, and a very generous contribution to our evening.

I didn't get them all wrong, in case you were wondering. A friend brought another wine to pair with vegetable soup and as soon as I smelled it, without even tasting it, I knew that it was Gruner Veltliner, and it had this particular funky vegetal aroma that I associate with Grüner from the Wagram. I still had a modicum of confidence at this point, by the way, as vegetable soup was the first course and I hadn't yet mistaken Simone for Foillard, among other gaffes. Turns out that I was very close - it was the 2007 Ludwig Neumayer Grüner Veltliner Zwirch, from the Traisental. More importantly, while I haven't yet found the Wagram Grüner that I love, I really liked this wine, and it was best as it disappeared. It was pungent and pure and very nicely focused, a well balanced and delicious wine that was perfect with the soup, to which I had added a bit of dill and ground caraway seed.

There were many more wines that evening, many of them very good, I learned a lot, and everyone seemed to have a good time. You should try this sometime, a blind tasting dinner. It's good fun.

Cooking a Rabbit

The other night, I cooked a rabbit for the first time. My friend Peter was coming over for dinner and I wanted to try something new. We used a simple recipe from The Art of Eating #76 called Lapin à la crème, or Rabbit in white wine with cream. The first task was to butcher the rabbit.

I've become rather competent, if I may say so, at butchering a chicken. Rabbit - need more practice. You can see from the picture above that I was able to remove the hind and front leg portions without much trouble, but the loin is actually larger than what you see above. I left some meat on the ribcage and there were some thin flaps of muscle that I decided to remove from the main loin portions. When I looked at the Art of Eating photos afterward, those flaps were left as part of the loin. Live and learn...

The recipe calls for "stiffening" the rabbit in butter (cooking but not browning), sweating some aromatic vegetables, returning the rabbit to the pot and braising it with the aromatics in white wine and stock for 45-60 minutes until tender, removing the rabbit and then reducing the braising liquid. Then straining the liquid and adding some cream (although the recipe called for adding the cream before straining, but that didn't sound right to us). Then cooking some mushrooms - we used hedgehogs, returning the rabbit to the sauce with the mushrooms to marry the flavors, and adding white pepper and lemon. We substituted parsley for the white pepper and lemon.

I must say, the braising liquid and the rabbit smelled great. We plated our rabbit portions over a mound of plain white rice, spooned some of the sauce over the top, sprinkled with parsley, et voila.

Rabbit is a very lean meat, more gamy than heavy. This sauce is delicious, but not terribly pungent or complex. What to drink with this dish? James MacGuire in The Art of Eating writes "With the rich but not unusually flavorful sauce of rabbit with white wine and cream, you might drink a dry or near dry, fresh, aromatic Alsace Riesling or Pinot Gris." That sounded good to me, but I had no Alsace wine in the house. So I opened a bottle of the most aromatic Riesling that I had, the 2004 Alzinger Riesling Smaragd Loibner Steinertal, $30, Imported by Michael Skurnik Wines.

According to Peter, Alzinger's Steinertal is one of the absolute greatest white wines of Austria. So yes, it is possible to buy one of the greatest white wines in the world on closeout for $30, and the new vintage (2008) costs under $65, by the way. Anyway, this wine was vividly fragrant, delicate and finely focused, and very intense with a great presence on the palate and a lazy lingering finish. It was a lovely match with the rabbit. I thought it was just a spectacular wine. And it held up for next three days, too.

All of that said, I liked but didn't love my rabbit. I didn't achieve that falling off the bone texture that the recipe suggests. What do you think - have you cooked rabbit with any success? I'm willing to try again but I need a little inspiration. I might prefer simply to drink the Steinertal.

And on the 19th Day...

It had just become evening, time to stop working, time to get dinner ready for the kids, time to have a glass of wine. I opened the door to the wine fridge and started rummaging around - I was looking for Muscadet, Marc Ollivier's 2009 Clos des Briords, to be exact. And then I saw something I wasn't expecting to see, a bottle of 2009 Schloss Gobelsberg Kamptal Gruner Veltliner Gobelsburger, $14, Terry Theise Selections/Michael Skurnik Imports.

I thought I drank all of those. What a happy surprise - I love this wine and I decided to drink it immediately. But when I extracted it from the web of wine bottles, I saw that it was only about a third full. I must have started drinking it, put it back in the fridge, and forgotten about it. CellarTracker tells me that the last time I opened a bottle of this wine was...19 days ago. Could it still be drinkable?

Let me first tell you about drinking this wine under normal circumstances. You could say that it is Schloss Gobelsburger's entry level wine, a Gruner made from purchased grapes (as I learned from reader Yule's comment on a previous post). It is a delicious wine that is unmistakably Austrian Gruner Veltliner. Classic scents of lemongrass and sour cream, great balance and texture, and impressive length and complexity, never mind that it retails for under $15. I went through quite a bit of it in the late summer, and although it is immediately pleasing, it was always better on the second day. The wine becomes more detailed and there is a slightly peppery edge to the nose. It's simply a lovely wine, and a great value.

But could it still be good after 18 days open?

You've probably guessed by now that the wine was great, and it was. Can you believe it - 18 days in and the wine was great. Honestly, not merely drinkable, but great. Better than on day 2. So expressive and finely tuned, good energy on the finish, more than one has a right to expect in a regional Gruner Veltliner. And there it was, day 19. How can such a thing be explained?

I don't have an answer for you. I can tell you that the wine is closed with a screw cap, and that wine maker Michael Moosbrugger has a great reputation. But I have nothing here, not even a guess as to how this little entry level wine shined 19 days in.

If you would like to share guesses or opinions, please do. Otherwise, it's just one more wine mystery.

My Favorite Rosé of the Summer?

I think I might have decided on my favorite rosé of the summer, so far. I'm not considering things like Tempier, Pradeaux, or the other Bandols. I think of those more as Bandol wines than as rosé anyway. But among the summer flood of generally inexpensive rosés - I think I've found a favorite.

I've always enjoyed white wines from Schloss Gobelsburg, but I'd never had the rosé until this summer. I'm not sure, but I think that 'Gobelsburger' is the second wine of Schloss Gobelsburg. This wine's name recalls the monks who managed the winery until 1995, and it is made from Zweigelt and St. Laurent grapes. It should cost about $15 and honestly it's great rosé, case-worthy, in my opinion.

2009 Gobelsburger Rosé Cistercien, $14, Terry Theise Selections / Michael Skurnik Imports. This is not a fruity rosé, so let's just get that out of the way first. There is fruit in this wine, but it shows up on the finish in a controlled little burst of red. The main body of the wine is more about the steely and sleek tone, the acidity and focus, and the aromas and flavors are more mineral than fruit. This wine reminds me very much of the 2008 Bernard Baudry Chinon Rosé in that it drinks more like a white wine than like a rosé. It is bottled under screw cap and a bit reductive at first, so open it 15 minutes before you want to drink it or just give it a vigorous swirl in the glass.

I love how versatile this wine is with food. Unlike rosés that are on the fruitier side (which I also love), this wine can elevate foods that are complex and to me anyway, not always easy to pair. For example, I never know what to drink with pesto.

Although in some ways they are polar opposites, the wine was great with this classic dish. Intensely herbal anise-tinged notes from the basil, umami from Parmesan cheese, savory walnuts...would that work with rosé? Yes, when it is a steely high acid and very pure wine. I'm telling you, when you deal with your summer basil, think of this wine.

On another evening, I knew that I wanted to drink this wine before deciding what to eat. Drinking this rosé, I can detect traces of that sour cream, white pepper thing that I often get from the Gruner Veltliners, and so I decided to try to eat something that would go well with Gruner.

I thinly sliced a smoked duck breast and roasted some small white turnips and pink radishes. There is nothing Austrian about Fregola, the Sardinian pasta balls made from coarse semolina that are toasted after being dried. But I like the way the nutty tasting Fregola absorb simple flavors like butter and white pepper, and so that was it. This pairing was more about synergy - the flavors of the wine seemed to recognize the smoked duck and the radishes, to understand that white pepper is friendly.

I hate the idea that $15 wines, particularly rosés, are not serious wines. This is a serious wine, and unless you clean the racks I will be drinking a lot of it this summer.