What a Difference a Year Makes

Cellar space is at a premium in NYC. I can't save all of the different wines I would like to age. There are many different wines in my "cellar" (read: wine fridge), things that most anyone would agree should be left alone for years before drinking. It's the little wines that I never seem to make room for, and we drink them up when they're young.

There's nothing at all wrong with that - if a wine is expressive and delicious young, why not drink it? Some humble little wines, though, can improve dramatically with even short-term cellaring, and I wish that I had more space/self control to give them that extra year or two in the bottle.

A couple examples. I never manage to hold any Coudert Fleurie. The old vines Cuvée Tardive I'm good about, but the regular wine...as much as I'd like to sock a few bottles away, the wine is always delicious young, and so we drink it. Another example - all Bandol rosés. As committed as I am to holding a bottle or two, I seem to find excuses to open them.

This is all too common with me. There are so many wines that I'd love to put away, but don't. Such is life - there are choices to make and one cannot cellar every interesting bottle of wine. I drank a few things recently that reminded me of the rewards of storing the humble wines even for just a year or two.

2006 Bernard Baudry Chinon Cuvée Domaine, $18, Louis/Dressner Selections. I've always enjoyed this wine but I never managed to store any until the 2006 vintage. It's just so good, even right out of the gates. Some folk, like the Vulgar Little Monkey, figured out long ago that there are several Baudry wines worth cellaring, the humble Cuvée Domaine included. It's not Baudry's top wine and it will never be earth shattering, but Cuvée Domaine is a great wine that in most vintages is even better with a few years in the cellar. The tannins have rounded a bit in the 2006 and the wine flows freely across the palate. The fruit is rich and the body lean and muscular, the sensibilities of gravel and flower coexisting harmoniously. You will be proud of me when I tell you that I still have another bottle of this. And a few of the 2007's too. I need an underground cave.

2006 Jacques Puffeney Arbois Trousseau Cuvée les Bérangères, $30, Imported by Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchant. Again, this was always an attractive wine. But I managed to hold this last bottle for merely one year and the payoff was huge. The slight astringency that I was always happy to work with is gone now, and so is whatever else that is not essential to the purest of cool red currant and leafy raspberry, the gamy undercurrent, and the stony finish. So agile and energetic, such a compelling example of cool climate mountain wine from the Jura. I hereby renew my commitment to the 2007's.

2007 Domaine de Terrebrune Bandol Rosé, $25, Kermit Lynch Imports. I won't lie to you - I didn't cellar this wine. I drank all mine last summer and loved all of it. But Chambers Street came across a small bit recently and I bought a bottle from them. Wow - the wine is even better. It takes a while to open up, but when it does it really sings. Peach juice, spices, metal, and stone, pure as can be and perfectly balanced. The gamy streak that was there in its youth was not here a year later, but I loved how there is a new dimension to the texture. There are layers on the palate now, and there is a tactile sense to each flavor. I bet that this is just the beginning for this wine, actually. Bert Celce of Wine Terroirs has written about the aging potential of Bandol rosé, Terrebrune's in particular.

A Couple More New Vintages

Just a couple more notes on new vintages of wines that I drink every year.

This one comes courtesy of Keith Levenberg who seems to have abandoned his blog The Picky Eater (the guy has a new baby, give him a break). I enjoyed his Cellar Tracker note on the 2009 Coudert Clos de la Roilette Fleurie Cuvée Tardive, $26, Louis/Dressner Selections, and received his permission to re-print it here:

This is my first taste of 2009 Beaujolais so I don't know if some other examples are bearing out people's speculation that the vintage may be marked by fat, overdone fruit. That is emphatically not the case here. Steve Martin had a memorable line in his novella Shopgirl: "When you work in the glove department at Neiman's, you are selling things that nobody buys anymore. These gloves aren't like the hard-working ones sold by L.L. Bean; these are so fine that a lady wearing them can still pick up a straight pin." The 2009 Clos de la Roilette Cuvee Tardive is made out of the same material as those gloves. This is the old-vine cuvée from Coudert and indeed what makes this special is that unique ability of very old vines to deliver intense flavor out of physical material that is so sheer and fine it's practically not even there. This is practically waifish with a refinement that is already very pinot noir-like in the fashion of Burgundies with an Audrey Hepburn figure, but the flavors show gamay's tart wild-berry side seasoned with something I find myself calling "mealy" for lack of a better term, kind of reminiscent of cereal and multigrain, already past the primary.

If you've ever wondered what wines available for the taking today have the potential to turn into tomorrow's sought-after collectibles that you'll kick yourself for not picking up when you had the chance, this is a pretty damn good candidate. It's an iconic Beaujolais, costs a whopping $5 more than the basic bottling, and has a production level somewhere around the quantities of Roumier Musigny. Only one of two things can happen. The first possibility is that it remains an insider's wine and the only way to experience a mature bottle will be to cellar it yourself, because the people who have them won't be selling. The other possibility is that collectors of top Burgundy realize they ought to have some top Beaujolais in their cellars, with the usual price consequences. Either way I'm glad to have stocked up.

I recently drank two newly released wines by Bernard Baudry. I love Baudry's wines in general, although I am learning that I prefer the wines from the more difficult vintages to the "great" ones. But I might be in the minority here, so please take the following with a healthy dose of "I need to drink those for myself." Just my opinion, that's all...

2009 Bernard Baudry Chinon Les Granges, $17, Louis/Dressner Selections. This is Baudry's "entry level" Chinon from gravel soils. The 2009 is not a successful wine, to my taste. It borders on fruit bomb. The fruit is attractive and clean, but the wine doesn't speak to me of the gravel soils where it is grown (the way '08, '07. and '06 did, for example), and it simply is not a very interesting wine. I thought that perhaps I was catching the loud and fruity opening phase, so I left it alone for about 12 hours and very little happened to improve the wine. It's drinkable and the ripe dark fruit is very tasty. But I didn't find balance, acidity, or much beyond the fruit.

2008 Bernard Baudry Chinon Les Grézeaux, $24, Louis/Dressner Selections. From hillside vineyards of clay and gravel right next to the Baudry's house. This wine rests in cement and sometimes in neutral oak, and I'm not sure what the regimen was in 2008. This wine along with the Cuvée Domaine are, to me, the value selections in the Baudry portfolio. They are consistently excellent wines and they're ridiculously inexpensive for what you get. The Cuvée Domaine is about $18 for goodness sake, and it's a great wine (inexplicably the fantastic 2007 is still available and if you haven't had it, you really should). The 2008 Grézeaux is hard to figure out right now. Upon opening it was aromatically lovely with pungent dried flowers and earthy fresh fruit. The palate shows good balance and texture - this wine is lighter than the 09 Les Granges, but there also might be a bit of a hole in the midpalate. I'm just not sure, because it drank better the next day, although the aromas had receded a bit too. Check back in perhaps 5 years and we'll see where this one goes.

Levi's Luncheon

The other day I was lucky enough to attend the luncheon honoring Levi Dalton, the head sommelier at Convivio who is now moving to Alto. Levi is one of those guys who loves to share whatever he has with you, so as the host of the luncheon, he opened some pretty amazing wine. I drank some things I've never had before and I want to share a few thoughts.

Bottles were passed around the tables in a mostly random order, so you helped yourself to a little pour as each bottle made it to the table. The very first wine to hit one of my glasses (I had four, I am proud to say) was the 1986 Mas de Daumas Gassac Vin de Pays de l'Hérault. I've wanted to taste this iconic wine from the Languedoc for a long time now. It is mostly Cabernet Sauvignon and there little bits of many other grapes in there too. Here's the thing - if I were served blind, I would have thought it to be a young wine. Perhaps it's because it actually was the youngest wine at the luncheon, but I just don't know. Supposedly it takes forever for one of these to come around. If this is representative of the '86, it has another 20 years to go before it starts to show some secondary notes. Can anyone shed some light on this Mas de Daumas Gassac phenomenon?

We drank some old Nebbiolo, including 1969 Luigi Nervi & Figlio "Riserva del Titolare" Gattinara, 1964 Luigi Nervi & Figlio "Riserva del Titolare - Podere dei Ginepri" Gattinara, and 1964 and 1967 Fratelli Bettini Valtellina Sassella Riserva. I prefer to drink Nebbiolo that is older than these when I have lunch, but this is what Levi had, so it is what it is. These wines were all fascinating to me - I don't know about you , but I don't drink wines like this very often. I think my favorite was the '64 Luigi Nervi. It was remarkably fresh and vibrant for such an old wine, and it played very nicely with Testa, Convivio's house made pork terrine with fried egg.

(photo courtesy of Scott Reiner)

And then there were the two Baroli, the 1982 Giacomo Conterno Monfortino Riserva Barolo and the 1978 Giuseppe Mascarello e Figlio Villero Barolo. Although I left it to rest in one of my glasses for the entire span of the luncheon, the Conterno never really finished unfolding itself (although it's possible and likely that I simply do not understand the wine). It was a striking wine, and I wish I still had it in my glass. The Mascarello was just beautiful. I don't know what else to say about it, except that it was the physical manifestation of what I imagine great Barolo to be.

I loved the 1986 Olga Raffault Chinon Les Picasses too, and the guy I sat next to, David Lillie of Chambers Street Wines thought it smelled great too, but Joe Dressner waved his hand and scoffed at the wine and said it was too green. He imports Raffault's wines, and knows them as well as anyone, so who am I to argue. But I would drink it anyday...There were other great things, including a 1982 Macle Chateau Chalon, but I've said enough about the wine already. The company was great too, an excellent group of people from all over the wine world, all Levi's friends and all happy to be there to congratulate him.

It's funny to be the least experienced person at an event like this one. A group of experienced wine pros like this, and with wines like these - I expected the atmosphere to be one of reverence and quiet contemplation. Not at all, my friends. These folks understand wines like this, they've had them many times before. Serious tasting occurred, of course, but so did catching up about daily life. Some one's basement flooded that morning, and they had to stand there with a bucket. Some one else's huge dogs love her apartment, but she's worried that other people don't love it so much, and she's expecting vignerons as guests - what to do? Some one else is annoyed with how disrespectful and impolite competitors often are at industry tastings. Someone else has to leave early to get back to selling wine. Life doesn't stop for 1964 Luigi Nervi, I guess.

Anyway, congratulations on your achievements Levi, and all the best in your new role. New York is better for having you here.

Don't Completely Trust Yourself at Tastings

Further proof, if any was needed, that it is futile to try to really understand wine at a large industry tasting:

Almost two years ago, I think it was, I tasted this wine alongside the 1990 vintage at one of Dressner's tastings. I remember being interested in both wines, not loving either of them, and finding the '90 to be more inviting. So I bought a bottle of the 1990 and we greatly enjoyed it. In the comments on that post, some people suggested that the '89 was an even better wine. I meant to try it, but I never got around to it. In fact, I drank the '90 again at a restaurant, where it did not show well - never really opened up, stayed kind of shrill and screechy the whole night. And this was after me promising my father in-law that it would be amazing.

Yesterday my pal Peter came over for dinner and he had a bottle of the '89 in tow - 1989 Olga Raffault Chinon Les Picasses, Louis/Dressner Selections, about $65. Can I tell you that this wine was absolutely magnificent? And first let me tell you that at the Dressner tasting this wine came off as a bretty mess. The Dressner team is unsurpassed, in my opinion, at putting on excellent industry tastings - well organized, plenty of room to taste and think no matter how crowded they are. So it wasn't about the conditions at the tasting. Bottle variation? Could be, but I doubt it. Peter said that as he paid for the wine, David Lillie told him that "when this wine shows well, it's great. But not every bottle is great." But I don't think the Dressner team would have showed a lesser bottle at their tasting. Who ever opened it would have noticed and opened another bottle.

I think it's just not realistic to think that a wine like this can be understood over a few minutes in a crowded room with the traces of 25 other wines on the tongue. This is not a new idea, I know, but it was very real for me last night as we drank this wine. We opened it right as Peter arrived, and it had nice exotic spices on the nose and also a big breath of barnyard. We left it alone for the next hour while we drank the fantastic remnants of the previous evening's Lustau Almacenista Gonzales Obregon Fino del Puerto Sherry, selected by Christopher Cannan, Imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, and cooked and ate my rather lame attempt at kinpira burdock root.

When we came back to it, the Chinon was just magnificent. The nose was complex with spices and stewed fruit, and had the great depth and dimension that mature good wine has. And the palate was fully resolved and showed amazing breadth and detail of flavor. It really spread out in the mouth and the fragrance lingered long after swallowing. This is what I hope my 2002 Raffault Chinons will turn into. This is what I hope all of my Chinons turn into. This was just beautiful and completely satisfying wine.

And to think - I had all but rejected this wine based on a few minutes at a tasting. Let this serve as a reminder to me and to anyone else who cares: never never never do that. Tastings are great but they cannot offer the whole truth, especially regarding mature wines. They offer a cross section of the wine, but a wine like this changes every 15 minutes. At a tasting, you have no idea which 15 minutes you're in. There's no way to really understand until you drink the wine over the course of an evening.

So...what if a mature wine by a solid producer is not so impressive at a tasting. Should I assume that it might be great and buy it anyway? That doesn't make sense. So why even taste the 1989 at a tasting? Perhaps it can do more harm than good, a la my Raffault 1989 experience. But I will never not taste a wine like that if I see it at a tasting. So how do you take your understanding of the cross section of wine you're tasting, and generalize from it in a meaningful way? I do not know the answer to these questions, I'm sorry to tell you. Please feel free to share any insights.

Wine of the Week - Wilfrid Rousse Chinon

I drink quite a bit of red wine from Chinon, but mostly the wines of one producer, Bernard Baudry. This wasn't always the case. I used to buy and drink wines by many different Chinon producers, but I learned after a while that I like Baudry's wines much more than the others, and now I rarely stray. I just checked my cellar notes and 19 out the last 23 bottles of Chinon that I drank at home were Baudry wines.

I don't want to be one of those people who always go to the same restaurant, and then always order the same dish. Is that what I've become, with Chinon? There's nothing wrong with drinking what you like, but it's important to try new things, to stay informed, to step away from what is well known from time to time. Even if the results are not so satisfying, the fun is in the experimentation.

Well, I am happy to report that I've found a Chinon producer who's wine I like enough to purchase - Wilfrid Rousse. Rousse is a new producer who established the estate in 1987 in the village of Savigny-en-Véron, not far from Chinon itself. Farming is organic, although the estate is not yet certified. Rousse allows natural ground cover on some plots, and plows others. Yields are kept at 45 hl/ha maximum, and wines are fermented in tank. This is a vigneron who is still establishing himself, and who seems to be doing the right things in the vineyards and in the cellar.

I've had two different cuvées with meals, and I've also tasted through the whole lineup, and I really like the wines. They are in the concentrated style, modern in their total lack of rusticity and greeness, but old school in their mineral-driven and transparent expression of terroir. There are five red cuvées and a rosé, each based on different soils. perhaps the best value in the portfolio is the youngest wine, fresh and fruity Les Galuches.

2008 Wilfrid Rousse Chinon Les Galuches, $16, Savio Soares Selections. The vines are planted in sandy gravelly soils, and are not older than 15 years. This wine is bottled in the spring after the harvest, and although it is a fruity and delicious wine, it is not a simple wine. The sense of soil is prominent on the nose and on the palate. Gravel and graphite on the nose, some dark fruit, the tiniest amount of burnt earth too. Really lovely on the palate, well balanced, redolent of iron and blood, ripe fruit, and bright acidity. A great example of modern Chinon - nicely ripe and extracted, and still definitely of its place. This doesn't have the depth of Baudry's Les Granges, but it is a delicious wine with lovely fruit, and it has a great gravelly character.

I'm not trading in all of my Baudry and replacing it with Rousse's wines, but I will very happily drink this wine or the other Rousse cuvées when I see them. They are delicious, serious wines, and worth trying.

Wine of the Week - Bernard Baudry's Rosé

Bay Area wine blogger Cory Cartwright is celebrating the 1st anniversary of his blog Saignée by hosting an event that he calls "31 Days of Natural Wine." Cory writes passionately about the wines he loves, and about his life in the Bay Area and beyond. His blog is always interesting to read and his writing style is off-beat and truly hilarious. I am honored and happy that Cory asked me to participate, and this post also appears on Saignée as the Day 8 post in "31 Days of Natural Wine."

I'll never forget our visit to Domaine Bernard Baudry in Cravant les Coteaux, right outside of the town of Chinon. It was November of 2005, BrooklynLady and I went to France together for the first time. A day or two in Paris, but most of our time was spent exploring Vouvray, Montlouis, Tours, Saumur, Savennières, and Chinon. Our visit to Baudry began with a bit of an adventure. I drove our tiny jittery rental car from the hotel in Chinon to the estate, but via the bumpiest of unpaved back roads surrounded by forest, passing no one and nothing, unsure of the proper route. We eventually arrived a half hour later, but only after some treacherous driving and several stops to ask directions. Upon arriving we were warmly welcomed by Bernard's son Matthieu who told us that Baudry's house and estate can easily be reached via one of the main roads out of Chinon, perhaps a 10 minute drive. My wife looked at me with what has become a familiar facial expression, a crooked smile that says "You sometimes amuse me in your ineptitude and dorkiness, dear husband."

Matthieu showed us cement vats full of fermenting juice - we saw and smelled the glorious 2005's as they bubbled away, turning sugar into alcohol. I climbed a tall wooden ladder and stuck my head in one of the vats. Pungent, and also not easy to breathe - not a lot of oxygen. Everything was immaculate, even the antique tools hanging from the wall. We saw the vineyards surrounding the house, and then joined Matthieu in the house's tasting room where we sampled everything from the most recent Croix Boisée Blanc to the new lineup of reds to a 1996 Les Grezeaux, a gorgeous wine.

Matthieu Baudry is in his mid thirties, married with two kids, properly schooled and internationally experienced in wine making, and now working with his father at the family estate. He is an absolutely lovely person, so warm and friendly, and genuinely interested in sharing his wines. I've had the pleasure of meeting him several times since that visit, at tastings in New York, and he continues to embody the good things about being a wine maker.

The Baudry wines are in my opinion, the very finest in Chinon. They are transparent in the truest sense of the word - the fruit is exceptionally pure and clean, the sense of soil is prominent, and changes in character with each cuvée, reflecting the specific terroir. You can smell and taste the gravelly soil in Les Granges, the richness of the clay in Les Grezeaux. But the Baudry wines also offer beautiful concentration and richness - these are not light wines. The marriage of transparency and concentration is what makes these such special wines, for me.

Baudry's wines feature a striking absence of anything that might impede the delivery of soil via fruit. Herbicides are never used, and all chemical treatments are widely avoided. Everything is done by hand, from yield-control debudding to harvest, and all wines ferment via naturally occurring yeasts.

As much as I adore the Baudry red wines, the rose has a special place in my heart too. The 2008 Bernard Baudry Chinon Rosé, $18, Louis/Dressner Selections, is 100% Cabernet Franc from two different parcels, one with flinty clay soils, and the other sandy gravel. The grapes are macerated in the press for a short time, technically making this a Rose de Pressurage (Pressed Rosé or Pressed-out Rosé). The wine then ferments in vat for as long as it takes to fully digest the sugars, a few weeks, sometimes months. "The vinification is quite similar to that of a white wine, as we want the wine to be dry (less than 3 grams of sugar/liter). That way, we can bottle the wine with just a very light filtration and very small doses of sulfites," Matthieu Baudry wrote in an email. This wine was bottled in mid-April 2009, and is more widely available this year then I remember in years past. Which is a good thing.

This is a very special rosé with an entirely different aroma and flavor profile from what you're used to if you drink Provence and similarly styled rosés. Drinking it blind I defy you to guess it a rosé - it smells kind of rosé, but drinks like a white wine. The nose offers vibrant and pure strawberry fruit and summer melon, spicy white peppercorns, and with a little bit of air, roses. It is a gorgeous nose, robust and delicate at the same time. The wine is superbly balanced on the palate with fresh orchard fruit, a primary white grapiness, perky but gentle acidity, and a fragrant finish that really lingers. This is a rosé of great presence and distinction. It compliments anything that you would normally eat with a crisp white wine, and also typical rosé summer BBQ and picnic foods. I haven't tried this pairing yet, but something tells me that this wine will be beautiful with fresh goat cheese.

Thanks again Cory for including me in your celebration of natural wine.

Some Tidbits in Lieu of a Coherent Post

--BrooklynLady and I celebrated our anniversary last week, thrilled to be here and basically intact after the first five months of our second daughter. The President and his wife aren't the only ones who travel for date night. BrooklynLady and I went to Tokyo for dinner, or the closest thing to it in Manhattan, anyway. But before we went out, when she arrived home from work, BrooklynLady brought with her as a surprise an utterly beautiful bottle of Champagne, the Cédric Bouchard Inflourescence Brut Blanc de Noirs. Bouchard is the new superstar of the Aube who makes wine as if he were in the Côte de Nuits - all single vintage, single vineyard wines, with no dosage. The bottle BrooklynLady so wonderfully donated to our anniversary imbibement programme was all 2006, and it was more wine than Champagne, the bubbles merely incidental. Elegant and intense with drippy red fruit encased in a sheer layer of delicate chalk. Just gorgeous wine, worth seeking out and cellaring.

--And speaking of our second daughter, whereas the first one barely eats, this one is already a foodie. She eats sweet potato and now mushed avocado with élan. She gets upset if I take even a moment between spoonfuls. I think I'm going to skip squash and move directly to duck confit.

--Lyle Fass suggested that I try the Bernard Baudry 2008 Chinon Rosé in a comment on my recent rosé post. Not that I need a whole lot of prodding to drink Baudry's wines. We drank this wine the other night and it was outstanding, the spicy and floral essence of Cabernet Franc, and with super prickly acidity. A bowl of fresh berries on a worn wooden table sitting outside of a barn. An entirely different animal from the Provence rosés I've been drinking, but delicious nonetheless.

--I love finding a great blog that becomes part of my daily scan. This one might may not be new to you, but as of about a month ago it was to me. Alfonso Cevola is smart, experienced, soulful, and very down-to-earth, and his blog is really great. Just check out this post in which he discusses the utter frivolity of obsessing over organic peaches, when forcing them into a "perverse ménage à trois with blood oranges and jalapeño chutney."

--I've heard about how wine prices should be coming down amidst the global recession. But I have to tell you, I have't really seen it. Yes, there have been "moving of inventory" sales, but I still see the wines at $18 that cost $14 or $15 just a few years ago. And $27 is the new $22. Perhaps the downward pricing will hit more expensive wine, like 2004 and 2006 Burgundy that's still on shelves, or 2007 Bordeaux? Am I missing something, or have prices on wines in the $15-$30 range not really budged?

Wine of the Week - 2007 Bernard Baudry Chinon

2007 Domaine Bernard Baudry Chinon Cuvée Domaine, $18, Louis/Dressner Selections. I have no scientific evidence to back this up, but I'm going to go ahead and say it anyway: Bernard Baudry and his son Matthieu are making the best wines in Chinon. All of Baudry's wines are delicious and offer great value, but I have a soft spot for Cuvée Domaine, probably because the 2003 was the first Baudry wine that I ever drank. Cuvée Domaine is a blend of grapes from gravel and clay soils, the ratio is about 70-30 in most years. The vines are at least 30 years old and are right near the family's house in Cravant Les Coteaux.

I love Cuvée Domaine in general because although it is most definitely a serious wine that benefits from short to mid term aging, it drinks beautifully when young. To me it represents what every entry-level Chinon should aspire to - perfectly ripe fruit, very mineral, and great acidity for balance - this is a truly food friendly wine. The 2006 was remarkable in that the grapes for Les Grézeaux, one of Baudry's higher level wines, went into Cuvée Domaine. In that year the wine was deeper and more structured than usual, and although delicious, seemed to need overnight air before showing its best, or perhaps a bit of time in the cellar. 2007 is the current vintage and it was not an easy year - lots of rain and associated rot meant low yields. But from what I've tasted, the wines are stunning, right up my alley. They are graceful and pure with fantastic transparency, vibrant and energetic.

The 2007 Cuvée Domaine is just a wonderful wine. There are clean and pure red fruits on the nose, but they serve as a vehicle for classic Chinon graphite and earthy aromas, and there is even a touch of chili pepper. The palate is fresh and juicy with very strong acidity and it confidently contrasts delicacy of fruit and earth with extraction and intensity. It leaves a pungent earthy perfume in the mouth after swallowing. It is utterly delicious to drink right now, but I imagine that it will only improve over the next 3-5 years. And it costs all of $18. This is a wine that is well worth having shipped to you if you can't find it in your area - it really is that good, and the price is right. And Joe Dressner didn't pay me to say that.

Savio Soares, Alice Feiring, Il Buco, and 10 Wines

"I drank a few of your wines recently and I really like them. I want to try more of them - are you having a spring tasting?" I asked Ariel, Savio Soares' wine rep. "Not that I know of," she said, "but I have another idea. Let me get back to you."

And that is how I found myself on a recent Sunday evening, along with Alice Feiring, sitting with Savio Soares at Il Buco. Savio strongly feels that the best way to understand his wines is to enjoy them with friends over a meal, so he created this opportunity for Alice and me - a very lovely gesture. And because he used to be the General Manager of the restaurant and in charge of the wine program, we received what you might call special attention. Maybe this is every day stuff for you, but I have a 3 month old and a 2 year old and I don't get out much. And this is a recession - my work world is slowly shrinking. I don't get to do this very often - enjoy a lavish meal and 10 wines at one of the city's better restaurants. I had a blast.

"Don't assess on the first sip. Coat your palate with this wine, take your time, take another sip, and then you will understand the wine."- Savio Soares, as I sipped my Riesling.

That pretty much sums up Savio's attitude in general. Make time to smell the roses. Don't rush to judge a wine, because the good ones take time to unfold in the glass. And I think he has successfully knit this attitude into the fabric of his everyday life. He lives in Krefeld, Germany, his wife's hometown. He spends a lot of time with his son, now 7 years old (and he was the primary caregiver when his son was an infant and his wife had a "regular" day job). He travels frequently and greatly enjoys his work with a small group of wine makers, mostly in Germany, France, and Austria. He is a man who is perpetually smiling, and genuinely. He seems like he is truly at peace, and that, my friends, is a nice thing to be around.

And what of his wines? We drank 10 of them with our fantastic meal, and although I tried to take good notes, I was more interested in our conversation and company. So instead I will tell you a few things in general, and also share a few highlights. Savio works with small growers who take care for their environment and who make wine naturally - relying mostly on indigenous yeasts, minimal sulfur, minimal cellar manipulation, and light or no filtration. When I asked him how he chooses wines to import, Savio wrote in an email:

I like elegant wines: harmony, silkiness, acidic structure, aromatic finesse, all that I find very important. Personally I really like high levels of acid in my wine and find that this is one of the most important elements to bring elegance to a wine and the one that also makes drinking and enjoying wine, a fun thing to do. For the same reasons I like wines from cold climates, longer ripening seasons and also wines that are made in the traditional style of its region and reflects it. Above all, for me to import a wine, I must like and respect the winemaker and 99% of the winemakers I work with have no secretaries. Everything in regards to our collaboration is treated directly with the winemaker or his wife/husband. I only work with family-run wineries with an average size of 7 HA. These winemakers do care about the wine they produce and after sometime working and enjoying wines like these, one notices that these wines are imbued not just with traces of its region but also with the energy of care and respect that was dedicated to it in the vineyard and in the cellar.

Savio Soares' wines as a group are cut from the same cloth as Joe and Denyse Dressner's and Jenny & François'. They are "real" wines, wines that showcase purity of fruit and do as little as possible to mask the place they come from. They are energetic and lively, and they are meant to be enjoyed with food. They are competitively priced too, which is a nice thing.

One of my favorite dishes of the evening was the very first, bruschette topped with sea urchin, arugula, capers, and lemon. The ultra-clean briny sweetness of the little sea urchin half-moons played beautifully off the bitter arugula and the sour lemon. I would happily eat that dish every day for the next 5 months. And I thought the 2007 Ernst Clusserath Trittenheimer Apotheke Riesling Kabinett Trocken (about $30) was a great pairing. The round and rich nose of the wine belied its bone dry bitter fruit pit flavors. Like the sea urchin, the wine was clear as a bell.

The 2005 Reynald Héaulé Vin de Table L'Insoumis de Village, or 'Black Sheep of the Village' (about $30) is a serious country wine made by one of the new wave Loire Valley natural wine hipsters. This wine is Cabernet Franc, Pinot Meunier (yes, you read that right), and a third mystery grape which the producer will not reveal. This wine had a wild leafy peppery streak. Alice loved this one, and she was already quite familiar with the producer. It reminded me of Pineau D'Aunis, but richer, and it paired beautifully with the olive oil poached octopus with chick peas.

The 2006 Philippe Bornard Trousseau Le Ginglet Arbois Pupillin (about $25) was redolent of red berries and cinnamon. "Typical of wines made in the Jules Chauvet method," Alice said. I loved this wine, with it's wild intensity and it's leafy herbal character. It went beautifully with gnocchi, and not the typically dense dough balls that pass for gnocchi. These were feathery pillows of deliciousness, accompanied by Brussels sprouts and walnuts for a subtle flavor combination that really accentuated the texture and flavor of the gnocchi. I've seen these Bornard wines around a lot lately, and I want to try the Poulsard next - I've been really digging Poulsard lately.

The 2005 Wilfred Rousse Chinon Les Puys (about $20) was, to me, a classic. Ripe fruit (this is 05, after all) iron and salt, and eminently drinkable. It should retail at about $20 and it's a great new discovery in Chinon. It was delicious with our roast quail. As was the 2007 Avanti Popolo Les Temps des Cerises (about $25). This wine is a full bodied mouthful of old vine Carignan from the Languedoc, but is is also quite graceful, and the acidity keeps the wine feeling lively. This comes from vines high up on the hillsides, Savio explains, and the grapes are cooled by evening breezes.

Perhaps the most memorable wine for me was the final wine of the night, a sweet wine, a rosé of Pinot Noir. The 1994 Geschwister Ehrhard Rudesheimer Berg Rosenach Spätburgunder Beerenauslese (about $60 for 375 ml). This wine was luscious and primary in its beautiful fruit, with soaring and penetrating acidity. I've never had anything like it before, and it was just a fantastic experience to drink.

Right now Savio's wines are distributed only in New York and New Jersey, so if you're in the area, keep you eyes open for them. Hopefully they'll make it to the rest of the country soon.

Bernard Baudry in 06 and 07

At the Polaner tasting last week I spent some time at the Domaine Bernard Baudry table, tasting wine and hanging out with Bernard's son Matthieu. As Lyle Fass has already said, the wines were just fantastic across the board. So far I really like the 2007's in the Loire. They remind me of 2007 in Burgundy - the opposite of a blockbuster vintage. From the right hands the wines are crystal clear, totally unadorned.

It was fascinating to taste Bernard Baudry's 2006 and 2007 Clos Guillot next to one another. Clos Guillot, by the way, is from young vines - about 15 years and younger. But it is a great site with clay and limestone soil and the wines are already excellent. As the vines become older, watch out! Maybe this is why Baudry vinifies this wine in much the same way that he vinifies his top wine, La Croix Boissée - fermentation in wood and aging in oak.

The 2006 was a bit darker at the core and smelled of wild animals, musk, and leather. Fruit too, but deep dark and brambly. This is a wine that really needs food - something gamy. Or maybe cheese. The 2007 is a completely different wine. Bright and fresh with a core of vividly pure fruit, wrapped in lacy thin layers of spicy earth and minerals. I suppose I might eat something with this wine, but it would have to be something simple with subtle flavors, so as not to overpower the elegance and delicacy of the wine. I would happily drink it on its own.

How can these wines be so absolutely different from one another? Were they vinified differently? Matthieu shrugs and says that they were made in essentially the same way. He says that 2007 was very difficult and yields were down at 32 hl/ha. That there were intense rains and mildew and September saved the vintage. 2006, he said was more generous. Yields were 45 hl/ha and the wines are bigger in structure and more deeply fruited. One might normally assume that lower yields means more concentrated fruit - better raw materials. But not if the lower yields are caused by rot and under-ripeness, as was the case in 2007.

A reminder of the most important factor in wine making - climate. A reminder too of the old maxim: great wine makers make good wine in bad vintages.

Brooklynguy's $20 and Under Case

Call me crazy, but I don't see us climbing out of this recession any time soon. I think we have another two years of hard times ahead, maybe more. I'm trying to be prudent with the household finances, so I want to spend less money on wine. But I want to continue to drink fantastic wine. Sounds like I want my cake and to eat it too, but no - I think there are a lot of excellent wines in NYC retail shops that sell for $20 and under. Used to be $15 and under, but those are far fewer now than they were 5 years ago.

But here's the thing - when I say excellent wine, I really mean it. I mean wines that are compelling, that offer complexity and interest. Wines that I would confidently open for fellow wine lovers over for dinner. Excellent wines, wines that I feel great about buying now because they represent some of the best juice on the market at this price point.

Here is my "Best $20 and Under" case of wine, each wine available in NYC right now (hopefully elsewhere too). Not all of these can be found at the same store, I'm sorry to say, but I'm going for quality here, not convenience. These are all almost French wines because that's what I know, but there must be similarly excellent wines from Italy, Germany, Austria, and elsewhere. Please feel free to chime in with your suggestions.

Sparkling
Domaine de Montbourgeau Crémant du Jura, $20, Rosenthal Imports. Delicious and earthy Blanc de Blancs. Give it some air and watch it expand.

Whites
2007 Domaine de la Pépière Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie Clos des Briords, $16, Louis/Dressner Selections. Sharp and vibrant old vines Muscadet from one of the top producers, and this vintage seems like it will be one of the better ones in recent years. I've heard several people who know an awful lot about wine say that this is the finest value in the entire world of wine.

2007 Gilbert Picq Chablis, $20, Polaner Imports. 2007 is a return to Chablis in Chablis - the wines will speak of the sea shells and iodine, brine and minerals. This wine has ripe fruit too, and is quite the elegant little package. I will say this, though: for an extra $4 you can buy the 2007 Picq Chablis Vieille Vignes, which is a tremendous step up, and I bet will improve for a decade minimum, should you be the patient type.

NV Audrey & Christian Binner Saveurs Printanières, $17, Jenny & François Selections. This is a bone dry blend of white Alsace grapes, and it is ripe, herbal, and completely delicious. For about $22 you can buy the 2004 Binner Reisling Katzenthal, which is a big step up for your 5 bucks. That wine is drinking beautifully right now too.

2007 Domaine de la Sauveuse Cuvée Carolle, $18, Imported by Vintage Trading, Inc. A beautiful wine from the Côte de Provence, a blend of 85% Rolle (that's Vermentino to you Italo-philes) and 15% Ugni-Blanc (that's Trebbiano to you Italo-philes). Made in an oxidative style, this wine is full of orange fruit, and feels fresh and minty. Great acidity balances the rich flavors. If this wine were from someplace famous like Burgundy it would cost $50.

2007 François Pinon Vouvray Tradition, $20, Louis/Dressner Selections. This is a blend from several parcels on mostly clay soils and the wine is round and rich, with a bit of residual sugar. I prefer the 2007 to any recent vintage, as it has great acidity and balance, and the flavors are absolutely fresh and clean. I'm going to wait a few months before opening mine, although you could wait 8 years if you like. You could also spend $24 and get Pinon's 2007 Vouvray Silex Noir, a drier and more elegant wine. One is not better than the other - different styles.

Reds
2007 Michel Tête Juliénas, $20, Louis/Dressner Selections. It's been a while since I've liked this wine as much as some of the others in the impressive Dressner Beaujolais stable, but the 2007 is a truly lovely wine. Fresh, ripe, snappy, just a great Beaujolais.

2006 Weinhof Scheu Spätburgunder, $18, Savio Soares Selections. In my book, this is the truest and best Pinot Noir on the market right now for $20 or less. Fresh and pure, and on the lighter side of the Pinot spectrum, this wine will surprise you with its grace and hold your interest with its deliciousness.

2007 Bernard Baudry Chinon Les Granges, $18, Louis/Dressner Selections. Baudry is the reference point for Chinon. This is the "entry level" wine, which is a joke because it is a complete wine, ripe, complex, cellar-worthy. Versatile too - this works just as well with hearty vegetable soup as it does with roast beef. I don't even want to discuss the other Baudry 2007's here, because I don't want to get you all worked up.

2005 Domaine Rimbert Mas au Schiste, $20, Jenny & François Selections. A blend of old vines Carignan (is there a more under-rated grape?), Syrah, and Grenache. This wine floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. I love this wine, plain and simple. Great definition and clarity for a full bodied wine from the Roussillan, with a lovely perfume of ripe fruit and lots of interesting mineral and soil tones. This wine ages well too. For $14 you can get the 2007 Domaine Rimbert Travers de Marceau, a less intense and complex, but also very delicious wine that omits the Grenache and includes Cinsault and a little bit of Mourvedre.

2006 Mas des Chimeres Coteaux du Languedoc, $20, Louis/Dressner Selections. 75% Syrah, some Grenache, Cinsault, and Mourvedre make up the balance. Classic peppery and meaty Syrah, with good energy and balance. A wine for Boudin Noir, ribeye steak, grilled portobello mushrooms, and things like that.

You may have noticed that there are only 11 wines in this case. It's recession - 11 is the new 12.

Back on Planet Earth

I've been up on a Burgundy high horse for a while. It's been almost 2 months since I've written about anything other than the Burgundy trip, except for Friday Night Bubbles posts. After almost 2 months of nothing but Burgundy and Champagne, anything I do now may seem like a letdown.

But watch this - I'm coming back to planet earth, and I'm coming with value and style. I've had some wine in the past two months, you know. I haven't just been sitting here writing about my trip. And as an inaugural (Hooray Obama!) "back to normal at Brooklynguy" post, I want to highlight a daily drinker of a wine that performs way above its $18 price point. A wine that you can feel responsible while drinking, as it is farmed and vinified organically and with minimal interventions of any kind. And best of all, in my opinion, it is a wine that offers an open window to its underlying terroir.

Bernard Baudry is probably at the head of the class in Chinon right now. His wines are pure and clean and well balanced, and they are unmistakably Chinon. And they are affordable, even at the top of the range. Terrible dollar notwithstanding, the barrel-aged Croix Boisée is $32, the very old vines Les Grézeaux is a silly $25. And the wine I want to talk about, the 2006 Cuvée Domaine, is merely $18. That's $16.20 with the mixed case discount, for you non-mathematicians out there. But please do not be fooled by the price. This is a serious wine, an old vines cuvée (35 years average) that offers great pleasure in young drinking, but will also improve with several years in the cellar.

The 2006 Bernard Baudry Cuvée Domaine, $18, Louis Dressner Selections, is so transparent that it really should be embarrassed. On the nose it shows gravelly earth and beautifully ripe and intense dark fruit, absolutely clean and pure. This wine is quite concentrated and it shows better after an hour open, when the aromas get to know each other a bit and settle into friendly conversation. On the palate, this wine tastes like Baudry's back yard - there is earth with lots of gravel and clay, there is plentiful fruit, there are flowers and trees, there is a river nearby, and in the evenings there is smoke in the air from the fireplaces. This is a delicious wine with great character and depth of fruit, and it's even better on the second day. I imagine that it will be at its peak in about 4 years, although it may be difficult to keep your hands off until then. That's why it's probably a good idea to buy several bottles. If you live in New York City, this wine (for some reason) is available only at Chambers Street Wines. Wherever you live, if you like wine, this is one worth seeking out.

Inexpensive but Totally Cellar Worthy

Make your morning coffee at home - why pay almost 3 bucks for it each day? Bring your lunch to work - why pay almost 10 bucks for it every day? There are many little ways to reduce spending. It feels reassuring to do these things now that common wisdom says most of us in the US have been living way beyond our means, the economy isn't nearly as bad as it's going to get, and it's now about holding onto our jobs as opposed to getting a raise.

Be that as it may, are we supposed to give up entirely on building our modest wine cellars? I can cut down on buying new shoes and underwear, but no fine wine for the cellar - that would be an undo hardship. Now is a good time, though, to be more selective about what to buy, and value is king.

With that in mind, here are three wines that will be amazing down the road, and that in my opinion offer great value. And these are wines that you can find on retail shelves without too much difficulty. I have four each of these babies, the most I buy of any one wine due to space and $ constraints. That's how much I like 'em.

2006 Chandon de Briailles Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Cru Les Vergelesses, $38, David Bowler Wine. $38 is not cheap for a bottle of wine, I know, but this is an amazing value. This will act like a much more expensive wine if you let it rest for 8-12 years. Pernand-Vergelesses is a lovely little village on the west side of the big hill of Corton, the promontory on whose slopes are found the Grand Cru vineyards that produce grapes for the wines of Corton Charlemagne, Clos du Roi, Bressandes, and others. Pernand-Vergelesses and Savigny-Les-Beaune, its neighbor to the south, are the two villages in the Côte de Beaune that I look to for great values in red wine. There are a couple of vineyards in particular that seem to spawn really good wines year in-year out, and Les Vergelesses is one of them, and Chandon de Briailles is one of the top producers working there.

Even though this wine is completely wrapped up in structure, the perfume is deep purple and very clean. The purity and the richness of fruit is obvious, and it rests on a nimble and spare frame. The acidity is gentle and there is a current of iron minerals running underneath everything. It's so good now, like dipping your finger in the bowl of icing - better to wait for the whole cake, but undeniably yummy.

2005 Bernard Baudry Chinon Les Grezeaux, $23, Louis/Dressner Selections. If you live in the NYC area you'll probably have to order this from North Carolina, but with shipping and a mixed case discount you're still talking about under $25. And that's just silliness for a wine of this quality and longevity. The structure on this one is quite a thick layer right now, but the fruit is dark, ripe, and juicy. There are little glimpses of the secondary goodness to come - wafts of tobacco and moss. Great acidity, very lively wine, this one is a killer. And it will be drinking great when my daughter is done with college. And this is not even the top wine from the Baudry estate. How good is that wine, the 2005 La Croix Boisée? I haven't tasted mine yet, have you?

2004 Produttori del Barbaresco, $29, Vias Imports. I'm really not the guy to talk to about Produttori del Barbaresco. That would be Dr. Parzen. I'm a Barbaresco neophyte. But on Produttori I'm totally convinced. I can't afford to start learning about Barolo now, so this is going to have to do. The 2004 is absolutely delicious at this very moment, but so clearly will sleep happily for 20 years or more - there is a robe of structure and a bright and lovely core. When it integrates, I want to be there. Right now we're talking about clean cherries, tar, flowers, and leather on the nose. The tannins are pretty fierce right now, but the ripeness and balance, the juicy acidity on the palate is undeniable.

Tidbits

Listen - I don't always have time to write something grand for this blog. Very busy times lately, as you know. So for today, a few tidbits:

Deetrane Beats the Market

For all of the fun I like to poke at my good buddy Deetrane for his wine buying habits (Wine Commune, Bin-Ends, all sorts of "deals" on "strange" wine), maybe he was onto something. Over the past few years he bought approximately $800 worth of Brunello, mostly modern style wines in the $30-$60 range, mostly on the secondary market. Way too many bottles, he says. Especially since he recently realized that he is not interested in drinking any of them.

So wasn't Deetrane lucky that one of the head honchos at Acker Merrall, where he cellars all of his wine, contacted him say that another client was looking to buy Brunello with a few years of age under $100 a bottle. Would he accept $2,000 for the whole lot of Brunello? Why yes, yes he would. Let's see...had Deetrane done the "smart" thing and invested his $800 in a group of stocks, he would have about $560 today. Who could predict something like this? Now, who would like to try to guess what Deetrane will do with his $1,200 in profits?

Wine Tasting News

I had the 2005 Domaine de la Pépière Muscadet Clos des Briords the other night, and it was awesome. I bought a case of this wine, the only wine I bought an entire case of in the past three years, and I now have 7 bottles remaining. The bottle I drank the other night was the best one yet. The nose was just piercing with bright citrus and seashells. Then it shut down. This wine will live to be 50, and at that age I imagine that it will beat many a younger wine on the tennis court. Is there anything better in wine for $15 than Muscadet?

I had the 2005 François Chidaine Montlouis-sur-Loire Les Tuffeaux the other night and it was honestly just amazing. This is a cuvée blended from a few vineyards that I guess all feature a certain type of stone in the soils called Tuffeau. Les Tuffeaux is one of the richest wines in Chidaine's Montlouis lineup, and in 2005 this richness is even more pronounced. The residual sugar is much better integrated than it was only a year ago, and there is so much more to offer. As good as it was, it was that much better on day two, when it was woolly, honeyed, waxy, mineral, herbal, harmonious perfection. I think this is a keeper - hold it for five plus more years, more if you're tough enough. I have only two more of these, and I swear to you, they will not see the light of day until my daughter is going on 10 years old.

I had the 2007 Bernard Baudry Chinon Les Granges the other night and it's my favorite Granges of the past several vintages. This is the young drinking wine from gravel soils, the "entry level" red in the Baudry lineup. This year it is beautifully perfumed with ripe fruit, graphite (pencil lead, for all of you non-chemists), and gravel. That's right, I can smell the gravel soils in this wine. That's why I like it so much - it's more transparent than in recent vintages, from what I can remember. And it is juicy and well balanced with good acidity, just delicious. Too bad that it now costs about $20. $20 is the new $15, and I'm angry about this. I remember when the 2004 version of this wine sat in the impulse-buy bins near the registers at Chambers Street Wines for $14...BEFORE the mixed case discount. At least we can take solace in the fact that this is outstanding wine, worth every penny. This is a definite buy 4-bottles and drink over the next 18 months wine. If you want to know why the cool kids all seem to love Loire Cab Franc, drink this wine.

A Night of Loire Valley 1990's

In a way, it's silly of me to have so little understanding about the development Loire Valley wine over the long term. I have a lot of the young stuff in the cellar - shouldn't I know more about what happens to this wine in 20 years? With this in mind I decided to find a few bottles of mature wine and have a little dinner for my friend Adam before he went off to Tallahassee to wed. I wanted to find mature versions of the wines that I enjoy drinking now in their relative youth.

I found a bottle of 1990 Domaine du Viking Vouvray Tendre (JD Headrick Selections) for $34. Viking's wines surprised me when I tasted them back in April - they were balanced and distinctive, really very good. And then I grabbed a bottle of 1990 Olga Raffault Chinon Les Picasses (Louis/Dressner) for $45. I found a bottle of 1990 Luneau Papin Muscadet L' D'or for $40, but we didn't drink it on this night. Another time and another post.

We didn't have time for a long drawn out meal, so I decided to serve the Vouvray as an aperitif and then again with a cheese course. I wanted something simple as a main course that would support the aromas and flavors of the Chinon, not overpower them. I went with what the market gave me - a ragoût of shell peas, new potatoes, asparagus, spring onions, and green garlic. Kind of a ragoût, anyway. I slow cooked the vegetables in butter and white wine, and added some chopped parsley at the end. Simple. I made a confit of chicken thigh by slow cooking them in their own rendered fat and then crisping the skin. Simple.

The Vouvray was just delicious, although I must say that I might not have guessed its age if tasting blind. There was still plenty of nice ripe fruit. There were aromas of woolly funk, wax, wet graphite, and a pure grapey vinousness. An expansive and broad palate with round and smooth acids carried ripe summer fruit and honey across the tongue. The fruit was gone from the mid-palate, replaced by a sense of natural spring water and light straw - perhaps the only hint at the wine's age. We thoroughly enjoyed this wine, but I might have guessed it to be a 2002 if tasted blind. Does this mean that the wine has another 20 years ahead of it? Then again, keep in mind that I'm not terribly familiar with what good quality Chenin Blanc from a good vintage smells or tastes like when it matures.

The Chinon, well this was unmistakably a mature wine. This one went up to 11, folks. Such a beautiful and inspiring wine. The beginning was all barnyard, almost off putting. But it blew off after about 15 minutes and the graceful perfumes of fruit and flowers wafted out of the glass, filling the air around the dinner table. That's true, not just a punchy wine description - the aromas were completely vibrant and they filled the room. Luxurious red fruit, subtle roses, piercing but gentle acidity, refined black tea and road tar, rotting leaves, all of these things flirted with each other and combined to knock us out with their lusciousness on the nose. A nose like the silkiest and most elegant and sexy red bathrobe. I cannot really describe the palate because the sensation is just too new to me, but it was inspiring and beautiful, and we lingered over it, alternating between trying to discuss it and just basking in it. I must have this wine again. And I have a couple of the 2002's in the cellar, but it would seem prudent to grab a few more of those too, you know, for research.

One weird thing - the cork on the Vouvray was blackened at the end and kind of shriveled - it seemed old. But the Chinon cork was quite short, unusual for a wine meant for extended cellaring. And it seemed new. Maybe they reconditioned this wine at the estate? Is there a way to determine whether or not a wine has been reconditioned?

I Was Wrong About These Wines

You drink a wine with dinner and you form an opinion about it, and when the opinion is a negative one, it can be pretty hard to shake. But wine really does evolve. There is an aphorism about wine that I have previously placed too much stock in: "if you don't like a wine young, you won't like it with age." Maybe that refers only to the wines that are truly distasteful. In other words, if you hate it now, 8 years in a humid, cool, and dark cellar will not bring redemption.

But what if you were merely indifferent, or mildly disappointed at first taste? Well, even as little as a year of cellaring can bring about positive developments in a wine. It can recover from bottle shock, let's say, or from the vibrations of travel during shipping, or maybe the tannins can integrate just enough so that there is better balance and texture. Maybe the young fruit was shy at first. It's a complicated thing, this wine thing of ours, so doesn't it deserve a second chance?

The problem is that I don't have the space or the dollars to keep stock of every wine that I'm interested in, so those that don't show promise at first taste usually get left behind. This means that I will sometimes pass on the new vintage of a wine that I usually love, based on that one indifferent first experience. And unless I have the opportunity to re-taste this wine at a friend's house or at a restaurant, I don't even know what I'm missing! Ignorance can, in fact, be bliss.

Sometimes, though, I go deep-ish on a wine without even tasting, just based on past experiences with the producer and the quality of the vintage. So even if I don't like the first taste, I can be utterly wrong and live to tell the tale. Here are two lucky examples of this, both from the Loire Valley.

I bought six bottles of 2005 Domaine du Closel Savennieres Clos du Papillon without so much as a drop passing my lips. These babies were $33 apiece (a solid 15% price increase beginning with this vintage), why such confidence? Because I've tasted every vintage since 1999 and a few others before that, and found each of them to be fascinating and delicious. So when the perfect 2005 vintage hit the shelves, I didn't mess around. This should be one of those wines that brings tears of pleasure to your eyes in like, 15 years. Just buy the half case and move on to more pressing matters.

But the bottle I opened in July was just uninspiring. I found nothing of Papillon in there, or of Closel. It was full bodied and tightly knit wine, but nondescript, even after 3 days open And that really made me sad. So guess how happy I was the other night when the next bottle rang out with butterfly vineyard waxy mineral pure concentrated nutty honeyed structured goodness? Granted, it took 36 hours open to really show itself, but it's in there. I was dead wrong about this wine. Should have known better too, with all of the raw material provided in 2005, and I apologize to you Madame de Jessey for doubting your wine, even for a minute.

And what of the 2005 Bernard Baudry Chinon Cuvee Domaine? I gave this wine insufficient attention also, finding the first bottle to be rather dense and nondescript. So confident was I in my assessment that I held my remaining bottle for too long without another taste, and now I fear that I may be out of luck finding more. I cannot imagine a higher quality $17 red wine of this type. The bottle I opened last week was soooo good, and I only opened it because I wanted a glass of red, and I didn't want to open something pricier. There were clean aromas of dark flowers and tobacco on the nose, really mingling nicely and enjoying each other's company. Ripe fruit and some iron minerality to go with that on the palate. Very satisfying indeed, and very well defined flavors. It's true what Lyle at Rockss and Fruit said - this wine will not blow you away. But good luck finding a classier wine at this price.

So now I have to go write on the blackboard 100 times: "Trust the producers you love, and be more patient with their new releases."

Hand vs Machine Harvesting

When grapes are harvested manually they should be undamaged (by human hands, anyway) and unpolluted with leaves and other detritus. They arrive at the winery in a healthier state so they can easily be sorted and the process of making wine can begin. Manual harvest is expensive, as wages for pickers must be paid each year.

Machine harvesting saves money, in that after the initial outlay of capital (which can be financed and depreciates, and is therefore tax deductible) is essentially a one time cost, other than yearly maintenance. This probably explains why most wine is made from grapes that are harvested by machines. But mechanical harvest damages some grapes, breaking them and mixing their juice with the other grapes. And the leaves, vines, and material other than grapes that inevitably comes with machine harvesting can cause aroma and flavor flaws.

This is, of course, a simplification. The impact of machine harvesting on the quality is not something that everyone can agree on. There are many studies investigating the effects of machine harvesting - do a search for "grape machine harvest study" and you'll see loads of them. Like most studies, the results vary.

I wonder, though, if asking about quality is all that important. Quality depends on the preferences of the taster. Imagine that a producer bottled two versions of a wine from the same vineyard: same harvest date, same maceration, fermentation, and other wine making techniques, but 100 cases from hand harvested grapes and another 100 cases from grapes harvested by machine. If that were to happen we could taste the wines and compare their quality. In the end, when tasted blind, would we all prefer the hand harvested wine? It would be an interesting experiment. I think DRC should do it and invite me...

So maybe the more relevant question is really about the character of wine. Does machine harvesting change the character of wine? It is hard to make generalizations because there are so many other factors that some into play. Generally speaking though, shouldn't wine made from hand harvested fruit be more pure, as there is no detritus mixed in with the grapes? Shouldn't these wines also be less tannic (before the wood barrel decision, anyway), as the excessive skin contact due to broken grapes can be avoided?

Do I prefer wine made from hand harvested grapes? I don't know. But I think of this issue the way I think about recycling, natural yeasts, sustainable agriculture, and other things that seem healthy to me. I just assume that hand harvesting is better and that the wines are better. I have no doubt that many people could explain why I am wrong. But I'm going to bet that none of those people would prefer Roumier to use a machine to havest his parcel of Musigny. Or the Grand Cru vineyards in Champagne. And not just the high end stuff - they wouldn't want Closel's portion of the Papillon vineyard to be machine harvested either.

I wanted to approximate the experiment I imagined above by tasting similar wines, one made from hand harvested grapes, the other made from machine harvested grapes. Approximate is the key word here folks, this is only an approximation. So put away your fine-toothed comb.

Recently BrooklynLady and I tasted two Chinons, two bottles of each wine, from the 2005 vintage by Jacques Grosbois. We should have tasted them blind, but didn't. Here, according to the producer, are the technical specifications that they share: sandy soil with some clay, southern exposure, "lutte raisonee," or sustainable agriculture, yields of 40 hl/hectare, sorting table, total de-stemming, 2-3 day pre-fermentation maceration, aging in concrete tanks.

Here are the specifications that differ: the 2005 Grosbois Chinon comes from vines averaging 35 years old. The 2005 Grosbois Chinon Vieille Vignes comes from vines averaging 60 years old. The VV has a 10 day fermentation and a 6 day post-fermentation (?), and the regular Chinon ferments for 12 days and a 3 day post-fermentation. The VV is hand harvested and the other is machine harvested.

We both preferred the VV by a long shot (although honestly, neither was very impressive). In fact, BrooklynLady flat out didn't like the regular Chinon, finding the palate to be dominated by tomato paste. It was inky black wine, it had some potting soil nuances, and it was thick and concentrated. It improved overnight a bit, and showed some graphite, smoke, and some meatiness, but still intense potting soil and ketchup.

The VV was a more "normal" color for Chinon, a deep but transparent ruby. This was a dark fruit driven wine with some tobacco hints, and a graphite finish. It did not change in any significant way overnight. It had the medium bodied texture and slight vegetal-ness that you would expect from Chinon. Although it is not one of my favorites from Chinon, it was a clean and pleasant wine, if not all that complex.

So what did I learn from all of this? There is something to hand harvesting, but I need it explained to me in a deeper way, and I probably need to participate in a better designed tasting experiment. But like with most things, it's probably good to challenge myself about my preconceived notions. I no longer assume that the label "organic" on food indicates much about quality, for example. I found that eating local is actually more important to me. Maybe machine harvesting really doesn't have to change the character (or quality) of wine, and it is just a simple matter of technology aiding in production.

Thoughts? Share 'em if you got 'em.

By the Glass

I used to call this kind of post "Recent Sips," but I think I like this better. Anyway, here are a few interesting wines from the past month or so that did not get their own post:

BrooklynLady and I learned our lesson, and went to dinner last weekend on our date (no more cooking classes for now). We went to Rosewater, a neighborhood favorite. They believe in using local and sustainably raised foods whenever possible, and the food is generally delicious. Great atmosphere too - small and intimate with flattering lighting, a knowledgeable and friendly owner/host, interesting and satisfying dishes - this place is a winner. Worth coming to from Manhattan, or when visiting NYC. Just take a look at their wine list! Someone cares about this list, you can tell.

BrooklynLady enjoyed her Goose Island Nut Brown Ale from Chicago and I was really impressed with my glass of 2006 Castello di Borghese Sauvignon Blanc (about $20, available at the winery or at Vintage NYC). A relaxed nose with citrus and grassy wisps, and a well balanced palate that followed through on the nose, with a round and smooth texture. This was a great sipper, and it paired very well with our cheese pumpkin risotto appetizer. I bet this would have done well in our recent blind tasting.

I ordered "Rabbit Three Ways" as a main (roasted rack, lardo wrapped loin, confit of leg) - what to drink with this dish? I went with a Gamay from the Loire Valley, a glass of 2006 O. Lemasson Touraine Le P'tit Rouquin ($14 or so, available at stores that carry Dressner wines). This is a challenging wine - I tasted it once before and thought it needed food. The nose is dominated by dried leaves and funk at first. Aeration brings about the cool minty red cherry fruit, but this is a foresty, potting soily wine, and it did go very well with the ever-so-slightly gamey rabbit.

Whites

2006 Jean-Claude Thevenet Mâcon-Villages Pierreclos ($15, readily available). A little Wine Blogging Wednesday research, if you will. This regional wine was dominated by minerals, Minerals on the nose, on the palate, all over the place. It had an almost quinine character to it. Maybe with clams on the half shell, but difficult on its own, not lots of flesh in this one.

2005 Chidaine Montlouis-sur-Loire Les Tuffeaux (about $23, Dressner stuff again, might be sold out at this point but there are other Chidaine wines on the shelf - try one). I know that some people find this wine to be lacking in acidity. But I really like it. Yes, it's a fleshy and off-dry monster, but it has pretty quince and hazelnut aromas, herbal and woolly complexity, and a great mouth feel. I think this is a great aperitif, or maybe with young and creamy goat cheeses.

2006 Domaine des Cassagnoles Vins de Pays de Cotes de Gascognes Reserve Selection (about $12, should be easy to find - a Peter Weygandt wine). I loved the "regular" version of this Southwest France gem, so tasting the reserve was a no-brainer. This wine is 100% Gros Manseng and its much fleshier and richer than the "regular" blend, with a more floral perfume. Very lovely indeed, although I think the "regular" wine might be more distinctive. At $12 this is a great value too - a $15 beauty without question.

Reds

2006 Domaine du Vissoux Beaujolais Pierre-Marie Chermette ($15, readily available). My first 06 non-Cru (is that a word?) Beaujolais. More stemmy and rustic than the very ripe and easy 05, needs about an hour to show its stuff. When it does, it is lovely red fruit with foresty undertones. Very nice, but not in the same league as the 05.

2002 Olga Raffault Chinon Les Picasses (about $17, readily available). I love it when good producers hold back some of their wine and release it when it's a bit more mature. That's exactly what Raffault has done here. This is the top wine from that estate and 2002 was a good vintage in Chinon. If you come across this it's definitely worth a try. This is light to medium bodied wine with a complex nose of forest and fruit, with plenty of iron minerality. The palate is earthy and broad, with dark fruit and more minerals, maybe a bit of tobacco at the finish. It is graceful in texture and firmly structured at the same time. This could keep aging for sure, but it's fun to taste a high quality somewhat mature Chinon now...

Recent Sips - July 2007

Some interesting wines from July that did not get individual posts:

Loire Valley

2006 Olga Raffault Chinon Rose, $15 (Chambers Street Wines).

I'm not taking sides in the rose debate. Instead I will just say that this is my favorite rose this summer. A rose of Cabernet Franc, this wine is more pink than salmon colored, but its a muted and classy pink. Very floral in the nose, fruity but dry with snappy acidity, this wine is a pleasure.

2005 Francois Cazin Cour-Cheverny Vendanges Manuelles, $13.50 (Chambers Street Wines). Cour-Cheverny is a tiny appellation in the north-west part of the Loire Valley. It is the home of Romorantin, the highly acidic grape beloved by acid-freaks and wine geeks everywhere. I usually love this wine, but oddly, I have tried the '05 version a couple of times now and I am not inspired. I prefer the 04. Again, strange - '05 was supposed to have been perfect growing conditions. I have high hopes for Cazin's Cuvee Renaissance, the late harvest wine with lots more residual sugar. You know, the one that ages like a great Riesling, but costs about $18?

2005 Champalou Vouvray, $16 (Big Nose Full Body).
In my pantheon of Vouvray producers, Foreau and Huet are both Zeus. There are lesser gods - gods yes, but not Foreau or Huet. Champalou is one of those producers. Champalou puts out small quanitites of highly prized moelleux (sweet wine), and also several cuvees of dry Vouvray. This is the entry level bottling. I very much enjoyed the crystalline and incredibly drinkable 2004 Vouvray, so how would the "vintage to end all vintages" 2005 be? Not as good, as it turned out. Too big for its britches. Lemon curd and meringue on the nose and palate, with lots of fat. Even on day two, and there is not enough acidity to balance things out. This is good wine, with fresh flavors, but it is in the end, not all that drinkable. Too much meringue. Was this just too ripe, or did the wine maker indulge too much, and not rein things in?

2005 Chateau de Hureau Saumur-Champigny, $14 (Chambers Street Wines).
You know, between Roches Neuves, Filliatreau, and Hureau, Saumur-Champigny has become my go-to appellation for food friendly, delicious, but inexpensive Loire reds. This wine is just fantastic at this price. A nice nose of dark fruit, some flowers, and a bit of tobacco, and a juicy and lush palate that mingles dark berries with some earth and a bit of cocoa. This is not a very complicated wine, but it's SO good, guaranteed to make you smile. This is absolutely a $15 Beauty.

2005 Chateau de Hureau Saumur-Champigny Les Fevettes, $22 (Chambers Street Wines). Hureau makes three reds, this being their version of a 1er Cru, if you will. In a vintage as wonderful as '05, I'm not sure why this wine was so uninspiring, but I prefer the basic Saumur. I don't think it's a drunk too young thing - '05 was plenty ripe and this wine is not tight and tannic, its just not as flavorful as the entry level wine. Strange...

Oregon

2004 Adelsheim Pinot Noir Goldschmidt Vineyard, $40 (Winery). A venerable Willamette Valley producer, Adelsheim has been putting out quality wine since the early '90s. I must say, though, that I have not been as impressed by their recent offerings as I was by wines from 2002 and earlier. I heard they replaced the wine maker, but I'm not sure. I have yet to really enjoy one of their 2004 Pinots, and that is really sad because I was on the mailing list for their entire (expensive) Pinot lineup. I first tasted this wine in the company of a few phenomenal Burgundies, and it was clearly the inferior wine. But with another 18 months of bottle age, what about now?

No better. Here were my notes from our dinner that night: Nice blueberry and earth smells right out of the bottle, but they drift away rather quickly, leaving not much in its place. Good wine, but so uninteresting, and at $40, incredibly overpriced.

What's interesting, is that this wine received 92 points from Tanzer. Would he have liked it less with dinner? Am I missing something? Who knows. Points are a bit silly anyway, no?

2004 Sineann Pinot Noir Resonance, $46 (Avalon Wines).
Sineann makes several Pinots, a Zinfindel, Syrah, a Cabernet, and plenty of white wine too. The fruit is sourced from all over Oregon and Washington State, Peter Rosback the wine maker is a bit of a cult figure, and the wines get consistently high scores. I figured out a little while ago that although I recognize the quality, the style is not my favorite in Pinot Noir.

I paid a load of money for this wine about two years ago when I didn't understand what I could could get for the same $. Can't hold onto the bottle forever, and a recent good review by Dr. Debs made me think that it's time to open mine.

I don't know - everyone on CellarTracker who tasted this wine LOVED it - 95 points, 94 points, etc. Not this Brooklynguy. I thought it was huge and hot, with little Pinot character, and with nothing to think about. A mishmash of bigness, if you will. My favorite Pinots are elegant, with several, often conflicting aroma and flavor characteristics. This was dull and uninspiring, and honestly for my $45, I could buy almost two bottles of far superior Pinot today. Sorry for the rant, but it's really against myself and my proclivity for spending way too much on sub-par wine a few years ago (and probably today too but the jury is still out).

My notes from that night: Fine fresh cherry smells and flavors, velvety texture. But simple and unidimensional, and a poor value at this price.

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!