Wine of the Week - Clos Roche Blanche Sauvignon

You already know about this producer and about this wine, the Clos Roche Blanche Touraine Sauvignon #2, $14, Louis/Dressner Selections. I am not going to shed any new light on the situation. I will say this, however, and please don't start drafting your hate mail yet - I don't love Clos Roche Blanche as much as some of you do. I have much respect and I've had some great bottles, but overall, not one of my favorite producers. Nothing complicated - I just don't always love the wines. My favorite is the fantastic Touraine Sauvignon Blanc.

But I am still frustrated by this wine. I have had bottles that just blow me away, and then had bottles that are simply uninspiring. There is variation with any wine, but I find more so with Clos Roche Blanche than with most other wines. Or perhaps, it is just that when a $14 wine is as beautiful as this one, it is equally frustrating when the next bottle is nothing special.

I've had the 2008 several times now and at its best, it rivals wines from Sancerre that cost more than three times as much. Like the bottle I opened the other night when my parents, who don't care a lick about wine, were here - I wanted to open something good, but not terribly dear to me because they don't care one way or another. The wine was utterly gorgeous. Even my mother who was mesmerized by her granddaughters said "Wow, this is great wine, I don't think I've ever had anything like this before."But when I served it to some close friends a few weeks ago as part of a blind wine dinner, it was totally unremarkable. How frustrating!

When you get a good bottle, this is what you get: smokey earth and minerals, black licorice and herbs, incredibly pure citrus fruit, vibrancy and balance. As Sharon Bowman recently pointed out, this wine can be addictive. And at 13.5% alcohol, be careful. But it's not always this good, and when it's not, I find that the drop off is rather steep. I'll keep buying this wine because it's so great when it's good, and at about $14, the risk is manageable. Is it just me, or have you found there to be lots of variability here?

Selecting Wine for Myself Alone

On Saturday afternoon during what must have been the 19th overcast and rainy day in a row in Brooklyn, good friends invited us to go to an opening at an art gallery and then to dinner in my old neighborhood, Prospect Heights. Since there was no chance of getting a babysitter on short notice, only one of us could go out. It's important to be spontaneous and to accept these kind of invitations, even if one of us has to stay home with the kids. We decided that BrooklynLady would go. So I was home on a Saturday night, our two sleeping kids in the other room.

Earlier that morning at the farmer's market I bought two richly purple pieces of tuna, a fish I almost never buy. Tuna is ubiquitous in restaurants - tuna tartare, tuna steaks, tuna burgers, tuna this, and tuna that. It seems so overdone. But the tune looked beautiful and I had already seen some baby bok choy making its debut appearance of the summer, so I allowed dinner to select itself for me.

And now, what wine to drink with a simply prepared rare tuna steak and baby bok choy tossed in the wok with slivers of green garlic? It's strange how picking wine for myself is so different from picking wine when you dine with others. Should I open something special and savor it greedily, not having to share it with anyone? I looked through our little cellar, considered a fancy Chablis, flirted with a great bottle of Champagne, and toyed with the idea of an Equipo Navazos Sherry. But a great bottle of wine by myself can be like the sound of one hand clapping.

It is a delicious indulgence to open a great bottle of wine for yourself and yourself alone. But in the end, part of what makes a great bottle of wine so special is experiencing it with someone else, talking about it, seeing their pleasure in drinking it. So instead of opening something glorious, what I most certainly would have done if BrooklynLady and/or guests were with me, I opened a bottle of the more humble 2007 Clos Roche Blanche Touraine Sauvignon #2, $15, Louis/Dressner Selections. I've had great Clos Roche Blanche bottles, and so-so bottles, and this one was great, with a satisfying roundness, finely toned minerality, great texture, snappy acidity, and lovely herbal aromas and flavors. When this wine is good, it's less about Sauvignon Blanc and more about the hills outside of Tours. It was a kind and generous companion to my seared Tuna steaks with baby bok choy.

And in the end, a nice dinner, a humble and lovely bottle of wine, and a few hours of alone time - something that can be very hard to come by with two small kids - that's one of many recipes for a great Saturday evening.

Day Before Thanksgiving Tidbits

All good bloggers are supposed to tell you about the wines they will open for Thanksgiving. I don't think my wines are all that interesting, so instead I'll share a few random tidbits that might buttress your pre-Thanksgiving mood.

First of all

Did you know that wine can be corked even if it is sealed with something other than cork? At a recent southern Rhône Wine & Spirits tasting, the reigning critic Tara Thomas declared that a particular wine was corked, and it most certainly was. There was a second bottle present, so we tasted that one too. It, oddly, was also corked. Even more odd, the wine was bottled with a synthetic cork. How can you explain such a thing?!? Someone suggested that there must have been some sort of TCA outbreak at the winery. Shouldn't they have caught this before selling the wine? If screwcap and synthetic wine can be corked, what's the world coming to?

Secondly

This reminds me of a funny scene I witnessed at my most local wine shoppe. Their selection is not really so great so I rarely go in, but it's possible to find little gems, back vintage wines that for whatever reason didn't sell and are well priced, and strangely good bottles of Champagne. Anyway, on this afternoon I witnessed the following exchange:

Man with two young kids: Excuse me, I bought two bottles of Yellowtail Chardonnay here last week and they were both corked.

Clerk (young, confused): Okay, bring them back and well exchange them for you.

Man with two young kids: I poured them down the sink already.

Clerk (older now, skeptical): Um, well, you're supposed to return the wine if it's corked.

....Silence...crickets chirping...kids begin to squirm...

Clerk (seen it all): Fine, bring in the bottles and we'll take a look.

Is it even physically possible for Yellowtail Chardonnay to be corked? Is this guy clueless or does he really need those two free bottles of Yellowtail? Economic crisis indeed...

And Lastly

Things are tight and they're getting tighter. Here are two reds that I want to wholeheartedly and most definitely recommend to you. They're both utterly delicious wines, true examples of their place, and very reasonably priced. The 2007 Paul Filliatreau Saumur-Champigny, $13, Dressner Selections, is a wonderful wine. Floral and bright on the nose with vivid fruit flavors and great acidity and a nice subtle earthy note, this performs way above its pay grade. A light and lively style of wine. Think bistro in Saumur over lunch. Trust me on this one.

And the 2000 Jean-Michel Gaunoux Volnay 1er Cru Clos de Chênes costs $25 at Garnet Wines in Manhattan, witht he 10% discount you get on everything in the store until December 7th. Why would I buy this wine from a so-so vintage, knowing nothing whatsoever about the producer? Leo, a commenter recently suggested that I "try everything Chadderdon brings in." Got me thinking - I do this with a few importers, but very few. Why not try other Chadderson wines? I love everything I've tasted so far (Huët , Dirler, Boxler, and there's more), so why not roll with it? Paid off in spades this time, I'm happy to say. This wine is excellent - mature, spicy, clean, complex, and well balanced Volnay at $25. If you live in NYC it's honestly worth a phone call or a trip to Garnet to grab one or two of these.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all, I wish you the best. Enjoy your friends and family and whatever wines you open. I'll be pouring 2005 Boxler Sylvaner and 2007 Clos Roche Blanche Touraine Gamay at my Thanksgiving dinner this year. See that - I said I wouldn't, but I went and told you anyway.

Three Little Wines That Could

If you drink wine regularly you know the value of finding delicious and interesting wines at everyday prices. And I'm not the only one thinking about this lately. Especially now that the whole financial sector seems to be imploding.

The other night at my pal Adam's house, we drank three wines with dinner, and each was an absolute gem. And none of them will run you more than $20 retail. Including tax. Even less with the mixed case discount.

2007 Clos Roche Blanche Touraine Cuvée Gamay, $16, Louis/Dressner Selections. I'm one of the anomalous natural wine lovers who just can't figure out why everyone goes so crazy over Clos Roche Blanche. I decided to take another shot, and started with this wine. And what a wine! A bit reductive upon opening, and I was concerned. But after about 15 minutes the nose blossomed, showing sweet ripe gamay fruit, earth, herbs, stony minerals, and an energetic wildness running underneath. Just delicious and quite complex. There is a dense feeling to the wine, although it is not at all full bodied. This is excellent wine by any standard, and if you include it in a mixed case you're paying $14.40 for the bottle.

2006 Thierry Puzelat Touraine Pouillé, $18, Louis/Dressner Selections. Weird, right? Another amazing Gamay from the Loire brought in by Dressner. I hope you can sense my sarcasm. This wine was utterly delicious. Such ripe fruit, nice concentration without feeling too dense or heavy, well balanced with great acidity, a bit of structure for everything to lean on, fresh and pure. Honestly, our mouths hung open at how good this little wine is. This is Puzelat's old vines Gamay, and it brings way more than $18 worth of pleasure.

2007 Domaine de la Pépière Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie Clos des Briords, $16, Louis/Dressner Selections. Whaddaya want from me - Dressner brings in good wine. I actually wasn't crazy about the 2007 Briords when I tasted it back in April. But it was just excellent the other night, particularly alongside our linguine with clam sauce. The nose is creamy and bright with citrus notes, exceptionally pure. There is a lovely mingling of citrus and sea shells on the palate, with good acidity and length. This wine goes so well with food - I don't think you have to limit yourself to seafood, as is typically suggested. I think this would go well with lighter cheeses, or dare I say roast chicken? Yes, I dare.

Ah, the Loire valley...still a haven for those among us who want great wine at reasonable prices.