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.

Thanksgiving Wines

How do I pick wines to bring for Thanksgiving, Brooklynguy?

What should I do, Brooklynguy, because I have to pick the wines this year?

It's my responsibility to get wine for our dinner this year, and I don't know what to get. What should I buy?

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Thanksgiving wines, Brooklynguy.

None of the above are questions that were asked of me, although I'm going to pretend that they were.

Here's how I pick wines for Thanksgiving - I remember that in my family, the only person who cares even a little bit about the wines is me. No one wants to discuss the wine. But they know that I'm into wine, so they expect a 2 minute explanation about the wines I brought. Not more than two minutes though, and keep it simple.

So I bring wines that I want to drink, but also wines that I imagine my family will also enjoy because they smell and taste good. And I try to keep things low in the alcohol department because there will be driving in traffic, and more importantly because I don't want it to be my fault when a family member gets awkwardly weepy and declares their firm intent to see more of the rest of us.

I like to drink sparkling cider while hanging out before the meal, and my family does too. They don't hate it, anyway. It feels festive and it's low in alcohol. Three producers whose ciders I buy without hesitation - Julien Frémont, (Louis/Dressner Imports), Eric Bordelet (JD Headrick Selections), and Cyril Zangs (Savio Soares Selections). This year I'm bringing one of Bordelet's pear ciders, the 2009 Poire Authentique. At 4% alcohol, I just cannot see things getting out of hand for anyone. I'm also bringing 2009 Bisson Prosecco Treviso (Imported by Rosenthal Wine Merchant) because it's very tasty and accessible, and at 11% alcohol, this bottle will not directly result in too many abusive comments amongst my family members. None of those bottles costs more than about $15, unless you buy the fanciest Bordelet Ciders which are beautiful, but also drier than the turkey you will very shortly be forced to eat.

I'm bringing white wine too, and nothing terribly creative - Mosel Riesling, thank you very much. Why not, really? It works well with the food, the sweet orchard fruit makes people happy,and the saw-like acidity makes me happy. In my family, I seem to be the only one who drinks white wine during thanksgiving dinner, so if I want to drink 2008 Knebel Riesling Trocken and 2009 Peter Lauer Saar Riesling Barrel X, then that is exactly what I shall drink. These are both imported by Mosel Wine Merchant, cost around $15 each, and are legitimately excellent wines.

You might be surprised to hear that I am also bringing red wine this year. I would bring Beaujolais, but the ones that I like the most cost at least $20 per bottle, and I'd prefer to spend less. I know it's a bit bulkier than is ideal, but I tend to bring Loire Cabernet Franc wines to Thanksgiving dinner because people expect their red wines to be brawny and dark, and I certainly do not want to rain on my family's parade. So I'll bring 2007 Filliatreau Saumur-Champigny La Grande Vignolle, $18, Louis/Dressner Imports and 2007 Domaine Guion Bourgueil Cuvée Prestige, $14, Fruit of the Vines Imports. These wines are actually far more graceful and balanced than people might like, but they are delicious wines that will make people happy and whose spicy undertones should pair nicely with the frustrated political discourse and inappropriate career advice that will flow freely during dinner.

Hope this helps!

How to Buy Excellent Cheap Wine

Is it possible to drink great wine on a daily basis if you're not rich? I'm talking about wines that cost between $8 and $12 a bottle? I think it it is possible, yes. I've been thinking about this lately because my wine buying budget has been cut in the past year, but also because Eric Asimov has written about this several times, most recently pointing to Mike Steinbergers' article in Slate that discussed inexpensive wines he recently drank with mixed results.

I can (and will) name some cheap wines that I think are excellent wines. But before that, I want to explain my general approach to this problem.

First of all, I reject the notion that as a consumer I should forgive a wine for being inexpensive and expect little of it. Regardless of the price point, if I buy a wine I want it to be excellent. Sure, a liter of Hofer Zweigelt and a magnum of Barthod Chambolle Les Cras are excellent in different ways. But for me to buy the Hofer Zweigelt, its excellence must derive from the smell and taste of the wine, and from its expression of place, not from the mere fact that it is palatable and costs $10.

Secondly, I don't think $10 is a rational way to define cheap wine anymore. You know this already - the dollar, although stronger right now, has been weak against the Euro for years. European wines cost more now that they did 5 years ago. That great Beaujolais that sold for $12 in the 2002 vintage costs $17 now. For me the new cheap wine cutoff is something like $12 or $13. Buying a mixed case allows me to buy $14 or $15 wines and pay $12.60 or $13.50 for them, essentially eliminating NY State's drastic liquor taxes, and keeping my average bottle price in that $12-$13 range.

Thirdly, the best way to get excellent cheap wine is by choosing your retail store carefully, not by identifying the best individual wines and then buying them wherever you can find them. I don't want to buy a case of any one cheap wine - who wants to drink the same wine on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and then again the following week? And I don't want to buy a bottle here and there and pay full retail. I'd rather buy a mixed case, enjoy a greater selection, and pay a little less.

So how do you buy great cheap wine in NYC? Here's how I've been doing it lately. I've been putting together mixed cases at one of my favorite retail shops, Chambers Street Wines. There are other stores I like that stock great wines at the $12-$13 price point, but so far I haven't found another store where I can buy 12 wines in different styles, all of them excellent. Chambers actually has many more than 12 - the wines below are only some of the goodies that you'll find there for $12-$13. Here are my favorites right now (prices are with the 10% mixed case discount):

Whites

2008 Benaza Monterrei Godello, $11.70, Jose Pastor Selections, Vinos & Gourmet Imports. Chris, the Spanish wine buyer at Chambers has been filling my ear about Galicia for a while now. "Galicia is the new frontier for inexpensive great wine," Galicia this, Galicia that. If this wine is representative of what the region has to offer, then I wholeheartedly agree. Use this wine wherever you would use Sauvignon Blanc, but instead of being annoyed at how mediocre your Sauvignon Blanc is, you'll be thrilled with this wine. Godello is the grape and this version is fresh, balanced, and just delicious. Grapefruit and pith, spring water, coriander? Once I forgot a half-drunk bottle in the fridge for 3 days, and it was even better, completely harmonious.

2007 Domaine des Pothiers Vin de Pays d'Urfé Fou de Chene, $12.60, Fruit of the Vines Imports. This is Chardonnay, technically from the Loire Department, but we're talking closer to Lyon and Burgundy than to Vouvray or Chinon. Perhaps not terroir specific in the sense that the wine would be identifiable as a Loire Valley wine, but that's okay in this case. It's not easy to find delicious, varietally correct, old school Chardonnay at this price. Here is one. Ripe lemony orchard fruit infused with minerals, well balanced and fresh. The finish is surprisingly long and stony.

2008 Knebel Mosel Riesling Trocken, $12.60, Mosel Wine Merchant, USA Imports. An expressive and unmistakably Mosel wine that treats you gently but also cuts like a knife. I've been drinking a lot of this wine lately and I love it every time. We did split pea soup - very good. Crab boil, not as much, as the wine is lean and got a bit lost amidst the Old Bay. Pork cutlets with mustard and kale - excellent.

2009 Weingut Hofer Grüner Veltliner Wienviertal, $10.80 (1 liter), Michael Skurnik Imports. This delicious Grüner is a bit simple on day 1, although it is well balanced and shows some of the lemongrass lift that is typical of the grape. On day 2 (get your own stopper, this is a crown cap) the wine shows more complexity and harmony, with herbal tones, more depth of fruit, and an intriguing sour cream like note on the finish.

2007 Laurent Barth Pinot Blanc, $12.60, Louis/Dressner Selections. This is the delicious Alsace Pinot Blanc I drank the other day with a Vacherin-style cheese. Such an expressive and delicious wine, focused and mineral driven.

2008 Michel Brégeon Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie, $12.60, Kermit Lynch Imports. I really like the '08 Muscadets so far. This one is quite intense with citrus and creamy lees on the nose. The palate is piercing with minerals and acidity, but is approachable with lovely herbal and citrus flavors. Quintessentially Muscadet, we had it the other night with cornmeal crusted fried flounder and it was great.

NV Pedro Romero Manzanilla Sherry Aurora, $10.80 (500 ml), Frontier Wine Imports. This wine offers a combination of brisk salty tang and the rich vinosity of very old solera wines. It feels weightless but is quite intense, especially on days 2 and 3. I've yet to encounter the food that this wine doesn't compliment.

Reds

2009 Weingut Hofer Zweigelt, $10.80 (1 liter), Michael Skurnik Imports. I've gone through almost a case of this wine since November. Beaujolais starts at $15 now, and this wine, although most certainly not Beaujolais, fills the cheap Beaujolais role these days in my house. It has the texture and body of a well made Beaujolais, and like Beaujolais, I prefer this wine served cool. It shows smokey, medicinal, and herbal flavors. There is fruit in there too, black currants maybe, but this is not a fruit-driven wine. We've enjoyed it with mushroom omelets, with a spicy tofu dish, with turkey burgers, and all by its lonesome. You could have this wine with lighter fish dishes.

2008 Domaine Guion Bourgueil Cuvée Domaine, $9.90, Fruit of the Vines Imports. I've actually not had this vintage yet (my bottle waits for the right meal in the fridge), but I like this wine each year. This is slightly rustic Cabernet Franc. Typically everything you'd expect in a red wine from this place - pure ripe fruits, earth, mineral, raspy tannins that are easily tamed by whatever food you're eating.

2007 Château la Grolet "G" Côtes de Bourg, $12.60, Fruit of the Vines Imports. This wine is 90% Merlot from Bordeaux. I'm going to let that sink in for a moment. On a recent trip to San Diego my interest in Bordeaux was piqued, and if David Lillie says he has a couple of excellent and cheap Bordeaux wines, I'll try them. Honestly, this wine is great. Gravel, tobacco, damp soil, pure dark fruits. fresh and balanced, just delicious wine, and improves on the second day, becomes very harmonious. Not a light wine - think roasts or a steak or a burger, but not in any way overwhelming.

2008 Domaine Rimbert Saint-Chinian Les Travers de Marceau, $13.50, Jenny & François Selections. This is a blend of Mourvedre, Carignan, and Grenache from the western Languedoc. For a leathery and dark wine that sheds grains of soil with every sip, this wine manages to have great purity and poise. Think thinly slices dry sausages, or roast chicken with potatoes and mushrooms.

2008 Clos la Coutale Cahors, $13.50, Kermit Lynch Imports. I always enjoy this wine, a meaty Malbec with a bit of Merlot in the blend. It offers lovely fragrance and texture, and achieves an elegance that I find lacking in most Cahors. Of course it's great with beef, but there's something about the way it works with duck that really pushes my buttons.

Drinking Long-lived Wine...Young

Listen: sometimes you just have to drink the wine, even though you are positive that it is way too young. How else can you track its evolution, understand it in its entirety?

I bought a bunch (by my small NYC cellar standards) of Loire Valley reds and whites from the heralded 2005 vintage, and most of them require some cellaring in order to show at their best and most complex. At least that's what I hear - I don't have a lot of experience with mature wines from the Loire Valley, or from anywhere for that matter.

I want to learn about this for myself. I'm going to open some bottles, and then do so again in a few years, and then again, instead of tucking it all away. It's easy to read what more experienced people write about how long to age a wine. But there are no absolutes with wine, it is my own experience that matters most to me. Not that I don't appreciate input, but without building my own context then I'm just choosing people and following them.

Why these particular wines for this exercise?

• Cabernet Franc is supposed to mature gracefully, to pick up many secondary characteristics to go with its youthful floral fruit. It is a part of some of the great long lived Bordeaux, like Cheval Blanc.
• They're inexpensive, so I can do this 4 times in 15-20 years for about 100 of today's dollars.
• They're natural wines - they have real tannins, no enzymes, nothing added except for a small bit of sulfur at bottling. I want real tannins, not artificially crafted. It just seems like I'll learn more this way.
  

It's more fun to do this with a friend, so my pal Adam came by and we opened two bottles. So here's what we opened, and we have sufficient stock to re-visit every few years for a while:

2005 Filliatreau Saumur-Champigny Vielle Vignes, $25, Louis/Dressner Selections. I loved this wine at the big Polaner Tasting and I remember wine maker Fredrik Filliatreau saying "Enjoy it now for the fruit, or let it age for the new flavors and the complexity." Seems like a good candidate for this experiment.

We decanted the wine and I was struck by the light red color, a very pretty cherry red. This is an elegant and graceful wine wrapped in layers of youthful aggression. It hits you with alcohol (13.5%), the tannins are ripe but not yet smooth or sweet - there is plenty of grip here. And the overall feeling is somewhat disjointed, not out of balance, but not yet harmonious. There are pure mineral red fruits with some cooling herbal notes on top, and a lovely floral aspect to the nose. After about two hours the fruit and the tannins were working better together, and there is very good acidity. There is still something herbal and lovely, but it vanishes, and reappears, and vanishes. It will be interesting to see how this changes with a few years in the cellar. I can envision this as a rose tinged beauty, very light and graceful. We'll have to wait and see...

2005 Catherine et Pierre Breton Bourgueil Clos Sénéchal, $28, Louis/Dressner Selections. The cognoscenti say this wine needs 25-30 years. That's quite a bit of time, no? What does a wine like this taste like right now? Dense, dense, dense, that's how. We decanted and almost four hours later the wine was still a jungle, almost impenetrable. Inky dark color, barnyard aromas initially, then tobacco leaf, some muddy earth. This one buzzed on the tongue in a nice way though, very energetic for such a bruiser of a wine. The fruit is dark plums and blackberries, and it's really buried in this tasty soup of tannins and mud. Although I can tell that this will sort itself out as the tannins mature, it's hard for me to imagine this wine in the future as anything but a big muscular dense monster. Can it really lose serious weight? We'll have to wait and see...

Three Loire 05's for the Cellar

I've been checking in on my 2005 Loire wines lately, just to see how things are going. Loire-lovers have been touting 2005 as a great vintage, as good as 05 in Burgundy or Bordeaux. If my recent tastes mean anything, this is not hype - the wines are just excellent.

Here are three wines that I can recommend very highly, although two of them are pretty much impenetrable right now. Each of them should be quite easy to find, none of them will cost you more than about $30, and they each represent one of the very best of their kind. And if you're into cellaring wine, these will improve for at least a decade, probably longer.

2005 Foreau Vouvray Sec Clos Naudin, $29, Rosenthal Wine Merchant. This is beautiful wine, I've had it a couple of times now. But I think it's in a closed phase now and might be there for a while. Even so, the quality is so obvious. Tight and unyielding on day 1, all about wool on the nose. On day 2 there's more wool, but also some citrus and some flinty hints, still feels like I'm smelling only the outer layer of the wine. On day 3 the palate shows clean wet stones, citrus, lanolin, and some green fruit. This wine is like a prizefighter in training - no sweet or fatty foods, lots of sleep, and definitely no sex, but this is just training. It will whoop your ass when the time comes. I salivate at the thought of drinking this starting in maybe, 7 years.

2005 François Chidaine Montlouis-sur-Loire Clos Habert, $27 (but costs about $30 now), Louis/Dressner Selections. With Les Bournais, this is my favorite of Chidaine's Montlouis-sur-Loire wines in 2005. It's just fantastic wine. I'm guessing that people will eventually look to this as a benchmark for 2005 Loire Valley Chenin Blanc. Not a sec, and not demi-sec either, this is what they call vin tendre. The nose is so pure and fresh, the wine absolutely transparent. A gorgeous and classy nose, no flash - almonds, minerals, wax, wool, and super clean fruit. The palate is balanced and persistent, with a great streak of acidity. Young quince, citrus, and melon fruits are the main thing on day 1, but on day 2 the palate includes almost salty minerals and woolly earth. Everything is so seamless that the sugar doesn't in any way stand out, the wine comes across to me, especially on day 2, as being in perfect balance. I'm not as good as some of you at seeing into the future of a wine, so if I were to buy only one of the three discussed here, it would be this one. It's showing best today.

2005 Yannick Amirault Bourgueil Les Quartiers, $25, David Bowler Wine. Here is a concentrated and intense Loire Cab Franc that will reward time in the cellar. It's drinkable now, but there is so much going on under the surface. Inky purple with a guarded nose of lead pencil. Aeration beings about some dark flowers and peppery fruit. The palate is super concentrated with layers of dark fruit, some funky earth, and a clean mineral core. And this is clearly just the tip of the iceberg. There is great energy to this wine, it is concentrated but nowhere near ponderous - there is very good acidity and it feels quite alive. BrooklynLady thought this was pretty much shut tight, but I loved it. Very serious wine, and I'm eager to see what happens to this one with time. I'm also eager to try Amirault's other wines, as this was my first taste.

Okay, Now for My Case

I bet all of you read Eric Asimov's column on Wednesday where he talks about learning about wine at home by having your local wine salesperson pick out a case, taste through it, etc. There are as of this moment, 96 comments on the companion piece in his blog. That's pretty intense. I guess people had a strong reaction to reading about Lyle's and Joy's cases. Probably because they would have arranged their cases differently.

So for all of you who want to poke your toe in the waters of the Loire, here is my case. Not a case from all over the world like Lyle's and Joy's, but Brooklynguy's case of Loire wine, a case that I believe will make anyone who likes wine a Loire lover. All of the wines I included are available as current releases, although production is not as large as in many other wine regions. That means you should go get yours now if you're interested in tasting. Most are from 2005, a wonderful vintage. I tried to include a variety of appellations and styles.

My case clocks in at almost $300, so it's not cheap at all. I don't imagine that any one will actually buy the entire case though. Pick what sounds interesting to you, if you don't feel like shelling out 300 clams for a case of wine you've never before tried.

One thing I should mention - I did not include red grapes other than Cabernet Franc - no Pinot Noir from Menetou Salon or Sancerre, no Gamay from Anjou...I did that because I think they are interesting, but not unless you develop a taste for Loire wine first. And I think these wines are a great way to develop a taste for Loire wine, if you are among the unlucky ones who have not yet done so.

White:

2005 Domaine de la Pepiere Muscadet Sevre et Maine, $10 (so far, my case is the same as Lyle's). Muscadet is inexpensive, but complex in the hands of a solid producer. Marc Ollivier is a wonderful producer. Best from Sevre et Maine and when aged sur lie (on the lees). Citrus, brine, wonderful with seafood - famous pairing with Oysters.

2005 Thomas-Labaille Sancerre les Monts Damnees, $21 (Our cases diverge here). Sancerre, the darling of wine bars everywhere a few years ago, is made from Sauvignon Blanc. Grassy and floral, fresh fruit, quite different from its white Bordeaux cousin. Clean and pure, usually sees little or no oak. Classic pairing with goat cheese. High end Sancerre can run you $40 a bottle, but great bottles can be had, like this one, for $20 or so.

2005 Chidaine Montlouis sur Loire Clos Habert, $26. Montlouis is across the river from the more well known Vouvray, with whom it shares two important characteristics: 1) the wines are all white and made from Chenin Blanc, and 2) there is a lot of plonk floating around that gives these appellations a bad name. Sad, because the good stuff is enchanting and reasonably priced, a steal when you consider the silly prices of white Burgundy, for example. Chidaine is the real deal, and this cuvee is only slightly off-dry. Crystalline in its purity, great melon and stone fruit, very mineral. This drinks beautifully now with a half hour of air time, and it will age really well.

2005 Domaine du Closel Savennieres La Jalousie, $20. Savennieres is a half hour or 45 minutes by car west of Vouvray. Also the site of tremendous sweet wines such as Chaume, Quarts de Chaume, and Coteaux de Layon, Savennieres is famous for intense, dry, mineral wines. Not as big as Vouvray, but probably more consistent, with several world class producers. This is Closel's approachable young drinking wine from 2005, a classic vintage. You will be hooked on this stuff if your try it.

2005 Foreau Vouvray Demi-Sec Clos Naudin, $33. Many producers say that demi-sec (off dry) is the best expression of Chenin Blanc. I don't know, I love sec (dry) Vouvray too. In fact, the sec version of this wine is just incredible too. This wine is a study in tension - fresh vibrant fruit and acidity, sweet flowers and honey, all pulling on each other, vying for prominence, but compromising beautifully. If you were to buy only one white from this case, buy this one.

2004 Francois Cazin Cour-Cheverny Cuvee Renaissance, $17. Made from the obscure Romorontin grape in a tiny appellation created in order to showcase this grape. Cour-Cheverny whites are a great value in dry white wine, bracing and fresh with great melon and citrus fruit. The grapes used for this wine, though, are allowed to ripen longer and the wine is sweeter, demi-sec at least in my opinion. Delicious as an aperitif, with cheese, or with lighter desserts like pound cake or almond cookies. Will rival far more expensive Riesling if aged properly. And $17 - c'mon.

Red:

2005 Domaine de la Pepiere Cepage Cabernet, $10. Amazing value in young drinking Cabernet Franc. And yess, the same guy who makes the Muscadet makes this wine. Chill it a little, open it, try it, love it...

2005 Domaine des Roches Neuves Saumur Champigny, $15. Thierry Germain's "entry-level" wine. Dark, fragrant, delicious. You can sip this one alone, or enjoy it with food as rich as beef stew. You will want a case of this lying around the house, trust me.

2002 Olga Raffault Chinon Les Picasses, $17. Raffault's top cuvee from one of the big gun vineyards of Chinon. Lighter and more elegant than the Roches Neuves, more funk and earth. This one requires your attention and a plate of roast lamb with herbs. This wine can improve with age for at least a decade too, although I challenge you not to just drink it up.

2002 Catherine et Pierre Breton Bourgueil Les Perrieres, $26. The Bretons are quite famous now, and properly so. They make many wines, some for drinking young, some for cellaring, like this one from the great Perrieres vineyard in Bourgueil. You can drink it now, and you'll find rich dark plums and some red fruit too, an intense nose that also includes some earth and some herbs, plenty of iron and minerals. You will see that the structure will allow for cellaring though. Shouldn't your case have a bottle or two for aging?

2002 Clos Rougeard Les Poyeaux, $55. That's right - $55, for a bottle of red wine from the Loire Valley. Do you have to spend that much to get a great bottle of red? Absolutely not. But if you did spend that much on one bottle, this is the one. Burgundian in its elegance, in the complex intertwining of fruit, floral, and earth characteristics. You will love this if you open it, decant, and drink now. But if you can wait 5 or more years, you will thank yourself.

Sweet:

Dessert wines cost a lot, so don't get upset here. Many more resources per usable grape are required. The Loire is the most under-appreciated source for sweet wines, in my opinion. Wines of comparable quality in Bordeaux can cost more than double the price. These wines have an incredible play between sweet honeyed floral fruit and vibrant acidity. They are thick but not heavy. Here is one that you will find on the shelves now.

2003 Huet Vouvray Le Haut Lieu Moelleux 1er Trie, $55. Moelleux (mellow) is the word to look for on Vouvray bottles to know that they are dessert wines. The grapes for this one are picked by hand in individual passes through the Haut Lieu vineyard, selecting only the grapes that are properly ripe, and that are affected with the noble rot. This is the first pass (1er Trie), grapes of the highest quality. 2003 was not so great in general in the Loire, but the sweet wines fared well and don't require as much time to show interesting secondary aroma and flavor characteristics.You can drink this now, this honey-gold nectar, and you will love it. But again, if you give it a few more years in the cellar you will be well rewarded.

So that's it, my Loire case for the uninitiated. Enjoy!

A Tasting of Young Loire Reds

BrooklynLady and BrooklynBaby, a few good friends, a little something tasty to eat, 6 bottles of wine, young red wine from the Loire Valley...you cannot really do much better than that on a Thursday night, or any night, I daresay.

There are many appellations in the Loire Valley and several grapes are used to make red wine. My beloved Pinot Noir is the one in little known Menetou-Salon, which has generated more attention for its whites made from Sauvignon Blanc than it has for reds. They use Malbec, Gamay, and even Cabernet Sauvignon in Muscadet, Anjou, and Saumur. But the dominant red grape in the Loire Valley, the grape that is used to craft the finest of its red wines is Cabernet Franc, known there as Breton.

With age these wines can be quite complex, offering tobacco, flora and earthy flavors, dark fruits, and herbal qualities, and a strong mineral presence - think graphite. The top cuvees crafted by the stronger producers can compete favorably with wines from the right bank of Bordeaux, those that rely heavily on Cabernet Franc. And at a fraction of the price.

When young the wines are all about green hills, flowing rivers, and picnic lunches - pure pleasure. They are rich and juicy with lighter raspberry and darker plummy flavors. But they are more complex too - they can be funky with barnyard and leather, and positively herbal and vegetal, but in a good way. Usually kind of grippy with astringent tannins. These wines can be slightly chilled and paired with most any food to great effect. That's probably why every cafe and bistro in Paris lists one or more of them on the menu.

Last night our crew tasted five young wines and one moderately mature impostor from Chinon, Bourgueil, and Saumur-Champigny, the strongest red wine appellations in the Loire Valley. We tasted only four of these wines blind (with kids, you sometimes get there later than you mean to, and your wine isn't bagged in time). We were all pretty impressed with the overall quality of the wine, and the scoring at the end reflected the fact that each was well received - three of the four wines tasted blind received first place votes. Several of us were struck by the intense vegetal character of some of the wines - so odd and different from anything else out there. And yet, so enjoyable.

The one thing we all agreed on was that Deetrane's impostor simply walked away with the tasting. But that's because Deetrane cheated. He brought a wine from the 2000 vintage,a bit more mature than the others, and a top cuvee at that, unlike the "entry level" wines from the other producers in our tasting.

For our purposes, a 1st place vote is worth five points, a 2nd place vote is worth three points, and a third place vote is worth one point. Two of our tasters did not participate in the voting, as they had to devote some attention to squalling babies. Here are the wines tasted blind, and some notes:

2003 Domaine du Colombier Chinon Vieille Vignes, $17.
Ruby colored with pink rims. Lovely nose of strawberry and raspberry with complex floral and vegetal notes. A lighter nose than the others, more elegant. Palate is not as strong as the nose, a little bit disjointed, but delicious with red fruit and grippy tannins, some flowers. Adam, who brought this wine, the winning wine, wrote "spicy green pepper nose with some alcohol -- excellent!" in his notes. This wine got two 1st place votes (one of which was mine), a 2nd and a 3rd, for a total of 14 points. Interesting too, because 2003 was a very tough year, much hotter than usual, and many producers made baked and jammy wine. Not this one though...

2005 Chateau de Hureau Saumur-Champigny, $13.
Dark Garnet color with clear rims. A reserved nose, not giving much at all, even after an hour open. But a smooth textured palate of cherries and cocoa, silky spices, and plums. Very nice indeed. Other notes included "well rounded, light, leather, cooked fruit, and bitter finish." This wine got one 1st place vote, two 2nd place votes, and one 3rd place vote for a total of 12 points. This wine is clearly a $15 beauty.

2005 Domaine Bernard Baudry Chinon Les Granges, $15. One of my favorite Loire producers, ever since we visited the Domaine a few years ago. Check out the Wine Doctor's profile of Baudry here. This is Baudry's entry level wine. I was really looking forward to this wine, as '05 was a great year in the Loire and Baudry is such a great producer, but as Amy, the manager of Prospect Wine Shop warned me beforehand, the wine is not yet really ready to drink. Green pepper nose, vegetal. Grippy tannins, some leather, reserved bright red fruits. Has potential because the individual flavors are quite nice, but they are all out of whack right now. Other notes include "weedy, excellent blackberry taste, chalky, and balanced acidity."I will taste this again in a few months. This scored a 1st place vote, two 2nd places, and a 3rd place vote for a total of 12 points.

2005 Domaine de la Chanteleuserie Bourgueil, $13.
This wine was clearly the least preferred of the wines tasted blind. My notes say Dark garnet color, herbal nose with alcohol, not much fruit. Smooth texture, plums and spices, herbal finish. Other notes include "Not that wine (when BrooklynLady was asked for her favorite), raisins and prunes, short ribs (!), and mild berries." This wine scored but one 3rd place vote for a whopping total of 1 point.

We also tasted the 2004 Domaine de Pallus Chinon, $19. This is a new producer in the Loire Valley, I believe, and the wine was certainly different. Downright odd aromas of vegetables and some smoky wood. I found the nose to be off-putting. But the palate was quite nice, with bright and sweet red fruits and fine, grippy tannins. Not my favorite style, but I might have to give it another shot, although for $19, there seem to be better values in this class of wine. Amy at Prospect Wine Shop believes in this wine though, and she knows her Loire reds, so maybe she'll throw in a comment that can add to our understanding...

Deetrane's impostor was the 2000 Domaine des Roches Neuves Saumur-Champigny La Marginale, $36 (but he paid $12 on the secondary market, as he is known to do). I wrote about this wine before, and I am a big believer in Roches Neuves. Thierry German, the vigneron, makes three cuvees, Marginale is the top. I loved his 2005 Saumur-Champigny ($15), and the 2004 Terres Chaud ($20) was great too. I strongly recommend these wines if you're interested in dipping your toe into the Loire red pond.

The 2000 Marginale showed much better this time than before. It had a wonderful nose of sweet and brambly black fruit, and a little bit of tobacco. Well balanced and smooth, with sweet fruit and earthy undertones, stong minerality too. Still quite grippy on the finish, it seems as if the wine, contrary to my previous assessment, might continue to improve with some cellar time.

So that's it, our partially blind tasting of young Loire reds. C'mon in folks - the water is warm! The Loire is waiting for you...

End of the Year Round Up

I find it hard to share notes about every wine that I enjoy. But there are some wines I tasted during the past two months that I think are of some interest, and I want to share some notes. Think of this as me cleaning out my closet, and sharing whatever I find in there with you...

2001 Palacios Remondo Rioja Propiedad H. Remondo, $24. I first tasted this wine, a blend of 55% Tempranillo and 45% Grenache, at Rosewater Restaurant in Park Slope, Brooklyn. This was over a year ago, and we liked the wine enough that we bought 3 bottles for our "cellar" at Prospect Wine Shop. This is the first one we've opened. Dark purple with clear rims, this wine has aromas of vanilla, but not as overwhelming as I find in most Riojas. There are smells of spices too, mostly cinnamon. After about 30 minutes of air time the wine opened up to reveal juicy blackberries and plums, and went perfectly with lamb and sweet potatoes - hearty fare. I expect really good things from this wine in a few years.

2005 Catherine and Pierre Breton Bourgueil Trinch!, $17. Trinch is a French word used to describe the "clinking" sound of wine glasses during a toast. This is a cuvee meant for drinking young, and probably as casual table wine - nothing fancy. I really liked it though, and I imagine that it is amongst the best such Cabernet Franc wines of the Loire Valley. Deep opaque purple, this wine smells of herbs, black fruit, and wild animals. Leather, like the inside of a boot, brambly piles of dead leaves, tar, and some juicy black plums in the mouth. This wine absolutely needs food, to me, and with food it is a sincere pleasure. The Bretons are, to me, amongst the most reliable producers of red wine in the Loire Valley right now.

2003 Domaine du Closel Savennieres les Caillardieres, $17. Closel's second wine, I guess, in the sense that it is not meant to age for more than 2-5 years (Clos du Papillon is their top wine). Wines from les Caillardieres are always thrilling because they offer the firm minerality of Savennieres but they are usually off-dry and offer great acidity and a honeyed sweetness too. In this way les Caillardieres wines have something in common with its cousins in Vouvray. This wine, from a so-so year, has been excellent each time I have tasted it, with well delineated smells of peaches, wet stones, and honey, and those same flavors on the palate, also some citrus. Fresh tasting and round, this wine is very satisfying with richer fish dishes.

Oregon

2002 St Innocent Seven Springs, $32. This is wine maker Mark Vlossak's flagship wine, and the St Innocent bottling that can improve in the cellar for the longest time. I bought two bottles a couple of years ago, and found a great deal on 6 more a few weeks ago. That made it easy to open one with Deetrane, even though we knew it was not ready, possibly even a bit closed down. It was, in fact, closed down, but even so, this clear dark purple wine exhibited the finesse, depth, mix of clean fruit, forest, and animal flavors and the balance of a fine Burgundy from the Cote de Nuits. Yes, it took over two hours open to get there, and yes, I think that we saw only the surface of what this wine will offer in five years. If you are lucky enough to have some of this wine...hold onto it for a while longer.

2003 St Innocent Shea, $32. I first tasted this a little over a year ago and I was not impressed. Much heavier, clunkier, flabbier than I expect from St Innocent. What a difference a year makes! This wine is darker and more muscular than most St Inn's, but it has found its footing. Loads of flowers and dark fruit on the nose, with heavily extracted black fruit, pine, and mushroomy earth in the mouth. A bit loud still with the alcohol, but this was a tough year, no?

2004 Adelsheim Elizabeth's Reserve, $40. Too early, to be sure, but I love this wine and I just couldn't wait. Deep ruby with smells of fresh cherries and cooked fruit. Huge right now, need some years in the bottle still, but with some time open, especially on the second day, the wine revealed some complex mushroomy smells too. Bright red fruit character on the palate with some pine. Some alcohol heat, which would hopefully. Very good wine - could be great.

Burgundy

2001 Lafarge Volnay 1er Cru Clos des Chateau des Ducs Monopole, $85 (but I got it on the secondary market for $27). I loved the Lafarge Volnay 2001, just the village wine. I learned from tasting this bottle, though, that 1er Cru does not necessarily translate to better. This wine was just strange. Liquor-like smells of cherry. Waxy candy, one dimensional palate of cherries. Something went wrong here - did a hail storm damage the fruit? I would trade my three remaining bottles for one of the 2001 Volnay village wine.

I also tasted several Bourgogne wines of varying quality. These wines basically hammered home for me the fact that for everyday drinking Pinot Noir, Bourgogne level wines, if you know which ones to get...I shudder to say this, but... are probably a better value than most Oregon wine.

1998 Domaine Robert Groffier Bourgogne, $14. Nice strawberry smells, some pine too. Very pleasant balance of berries and earth on the palate. Hard to argue at this price.

1999 Domaine Hubert Lignier Bourgogne, $22. Nice clear rose petal color, lovely aromatics of red fruit and flowers. But no fruit at all on the palate, out of balance. Acidity and phenolic bitterness dominate. Maybe it was meant to be consumed much younger - past its prime. You can sort of tell that it was good a few years ago.

2002 Domaine Robert Groffier Bourgogne, $26. Bright aromas of flowers and red cherries, some earth. Somewhat simple palate follows through on those smells, but lively and clean in the mouth, some undertones of leather after some air time. Good acidity. No awards for complexity, but very solid Pinot.

2004 Domaine Joseph Voillot Bourgogne Vieille Vignes, $22. Pure smells of raspberries and earth, with lip smacking acidity and cherries on the palate. This wine becomes much more complex with air time, and develops some pine and foresty flavors. This is the best value of them all, and you can still get it in stores...and if you like Pinot, you should!

Wines of Catherine and Pierre Breton

Red Hook Brooklyn was a mostly Italian neighborhood of stevedores back before Robert Moses plotted part of the elevated tracks of Brooklyn Queens Expressway so as to isolate Red Hook from the rest of north Brooklyn. One of the largest public housing projects in the US sits in Red Hook. It has been for years one of the most isolated, poor, and blighted parts of the city. There is no subway stop there, no grocery store, hardly any commerce at all in fact. Walking around can convey a surreal 'ghost town' kind of feeling.

As is common in New York, a combination of artists and other intrepid souls in about 2000 began moving to Red Hook for the low rents. Soon there were a few art galleries, a bar or two, and even a couple of restaurants. Now Red Hook is a bona fide hot neighborhood, with property values rising, several good restaurants, and plenty of attitude and hype.

A few years ago a Frenchman named Arnaud Erhart opened a restaurant in Red Hook called 360, and he served a 3 course prix fixe menu for a startlingly low price of $25. Then again, you had to go to Red Hook to get there, so the price is fair. But the food was excellent. It quickly became Red Hook's first destination restaurant.

I've had 5 or six meals there in the past few years, almost every one of them excellent. A few years ago I took my then girlfriend BrooklynLady to 360 on a date and we had a great meal. The wine list is called "eccentric" by reviewers, which means that there are no bottles from Bordeaux or Burgundy, even though almost every bottle on the list is French. Mr. Erhart loves wine from the Loire Valley.

BrooklynLady picked a 2002 Catherine et Pierre Breton Clos Senechal to go with our dinner that night and we loved it. C&P Breton make Bourgueil (boor-geye) wine, beloved in France as everyday drinking wine, and largely unknown here. These wines are made soley from cabernet franc. We have since then taken every opportunity to try other Breton wines - there are many cuvees, some meant to drink young, others aged in wood and meant to be cellared for at least a bit. Louis Dressner's website offers great explanation of the various cuvees from this producer.

I have only tried Breton's young wines once, and it was at a tasting so I did not have them with food. I have now had their ageworthy cuvees a couple of times and I really love them - they work so well with food, they offer such juicy and complex flavors and aromas, and they are such a good value in fine wine. The most expensive bottle I have yet to see in a store is $25. The only negative comment I have is that the wines, including that very first one at 360, tend to fall off after an hour open. The beautiful fruit flies away leaving a graphite and iron flavor.

Tonight after running around Prospect Park (I don't want you to think I'm some lazy type of sloth - I jog 3 times a week pal) I made a simple celery root and potato soup, and heated up the braised beef and turnips that I made the other night. We opened a bottle of one of my favorite Breton wines, Les Perrieres.

I love this wine! It is a banquet of raspberries, spices herbs, and minerals. It doesn't overpower the soup, and it dances with the braised beef. So far the fuit is holding up too, and its been open over an hour. Keep your fingers crossed...

2002 Catherine and Pierre Breton Les Perrieres, $25.
Somewhat murky opaque purple, right to the rim. Smells like the monkey cage at the zoo when you first open it, but afte 10 minutes this blows off. Aromas of forest soil, pine, and red fruits, with a bit of woody vanilla in the background. Vibrant and juicy flavors of raspberries and blackberries, with Dannon boysenberry yoghurt. Layers of herbal and vegetal flavors. Some turned earth too. The finish is blood and iron. All of this is buoyed by vivid acidity and a reasonably low 12.5% alcohol level. You could drink this wine on its own (and you might want to this first time - its that interesting) but have it with some deeply flavored food. Bill me if you don't like it.