Domaine Huet - Recent Changes and a few Old Bottles.

A little over a year ago Noel Pinguet resigned his position as the wine maker at Domaine Huet, the Loire Valley legend that is generally considered to be its finest producer of Vouvray wines. Noel took over from his father Gaston in 1976 and continued in his footsteps making the highest possible quality wines from the estates three vineyards (Le Haut-Lie, Le Mont, and Clos du Bourg) and in all styles (sec or dry, demi-sec or off-dry, and moelleux or sweet).

Why would this famous wine maker, this man whose father's and now his own life's work has been to make these great Vouvrays at Domaine Huet - why would he leave before reaching retirement age? In 2003 Huet was sold to the Hwang family and it was widely reported that Noel Pinguet resigned because of disagreements with the new ownership. Huet's wines are all well regarded, but it is my understanding that connoisseurs consider the off-dry wines to be the apex of their achievements. Supposedly the Hwang family wanted to reduce production of off-dry wines and focus on dry wines, and over the course of almost 10 years this created enough friction between Pinguet and the Hwangs to cause them to part ways.

I felt upset when I heard about this because Huet makes wines that offer us as wine lovers a rare opportunity - to drink the very finest wines of their type at an affordable price. Huet's dry wines sell for under $30 and the off-dry wines are in the mid $30's. And we are not talking about the world's finest Vidal Blanc here - this is Chenin Blanc from Vouvray, unquestionably one of the world's greatest white wines, when well made.

So with no more Noel Pinguet, does this mean that the wines will be different? I don't see how they could stay exactly the same. Although SF Joe, one of the biggest American collectors of Huet wines, told me not to worry because the assistant wine maker under Pinguet took over after he left, and made no changes. I hope this is true. Or at least, I hope that whatever changes this person makes are well-considered and come from years of apprenticeship and discussion with Pinguet.

I found off-dry wines to buy in 2008, 2009, and 2010, but I have not seen any in 2011. I hear 2012 is another year that might produce only dry wines. I would verify this by looking at the Wine Doctor's site, but whoops - you have to subscribe now for about $70 per year. I generally buy a few bottles each year, a mix of dry and off-dry wines. And I try to wait for them to mature. These wines, particularly the off-dry wines, improve with age for a very long time - many decades.

Recently I had the chance to drink a few bottles with just a bit of age on them. They were spectacular. One thing that happened for me after drinking these wines is that they reminded me of the story of Noel Pinguet leaving, and of how much I want today's wines, in time, to become like the ones I recently drank.

I drank the 1993 Huet Le Mont Demi-Sec last month with simply prepared swordfish during a weekend trip to a friend's house in Martha's Vineyard. 1993 was not a terribly good vintage and this wine doesn't get rave reviews. We loved it, though. It definitely showed maturity - this is not a vibrant and energetic wine. But it was all class, and pure pleasure. I bought the wine a few weeks before opening the bottle at Chambers Street Wines - according to their website there are still 2 bottles left!

Here are my notes from that night: Needs a little air to open up and then shows lovely toffee and gingery notes on the nose with a strong saline undertone. The aromas promise something rich and with discernible sweetness but the wine does not taste as sweet as I expected, not at all. There is plenty of acidity to balance it. The clean and clear flavors are pretty and expressive, but this is not as complex a wine as I've had from other, better vintages. That said, this is a very good old Huet and it was a pleasure to drink.

That same weekend my friend brought along a 2004 Huet Le Mont Sec, and we drank that too. Also, not considered to be a great vintage. We drank about half the bottle on day one and it was all wound up and hard to figure. Thankfully we waited to drink the rest until the next day. On day two it was glorious! So harmonious and fine, such finesse, such a rewarding thing to drink. The wine showed classic waxy and woolly aromas, apples, pears, honey...Complex, balanced, unmistakably Vouvray, absolutely delicious. Quite an advertisement for cellaring the Secs. 

And then a few weeks later I drank the 1995 Huet Clos du Bourg Demi-Sec with a few friends. I bought this also at Chambers Street, this one a little over a year ago. Whoa, it was fantastic. Fresh and youthful, clean as a whistle, perfectly balanced, classic aromas and flavors, so complex and long, such intense material and without excess weight. And this also is not reputed to be a great vintage. Who knows how that works anyway. What are the great Huet vintages? Don't tell me 2005 (although I remember liking those wines). I hear 2002 is a great one...

Anyway, you already know the old vintages are great. But how about the recent vintages, anyone have thoughts they care to share on the wines? Have they changed, or is it still the same old great Huet?

Farro Salad

Last summer I had lunch at Al Di La, the Venetian trattoria in my neighborhood and one of things we ate was a delicious farro salad. Farro is the Italian name for wheat berries - whole grain wheat. Al Di La served their Farro salad with cherry tomatoes, black olives, herbs (I don't remember which), lemon juice, and olive oil. Simple, healthy, delicious - I wanted to make it at home. I made several farro salads in the warm weather and found that they are as easy to make as they sound.

It's cold now, but last week I found myself craving farro. Is farro salad only for warm weather? Can I add things like roasted root vegetables to make a savory winter farro salad? Why not, who's going to stop me.

I rinsed the farro and then, following the instructions on the package (which is called Farro Intero), soaked the grains for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, some small pieces of cauliflower, parsnip, and carrot, salt, pepper, and a bit of olive oil. Toss first to coat the vegetables and into the oven for about 45 minutes at 375 degrees.

After soaking, drain the farro and put it in a pot of boiling water, let it return to a boil, and then simmer for another 25 minutes. The farro should be soft but still offer some resistance, a little chewy. They're strangely tasty on their own, kind of nutty and satisfying. Strained and dressed with lemon or vinegar and olive oil, and whatever else you feel like throwing in - delicious.

I used about a half pound of farro, put in the roasted root vegetables, some fresh young goat cheese (maybe 2 ounces), the juice of a lemon, some olive oil, a handful of chopped parsley, and more salt and pepper. Mix well, and make sure to put in the goat cheese while the farro and root vegetables are still hot so the goat cheese melts and becomes part of the salad dressing.

Farro has a lot of protein. With the proteins in goat cheese, this dish offers a lot of protein, but also a good combination of proteins. There are root vegetables too - this is a complete meal in one bowl, it is not expensive to make, and you will have plenty of leftovers to take for lunch the next day.

But far more importantly, what to drink with this dish? I immediately wanted a Sancerre, or any Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire, as the goat cheese seemed to ask for it. Having none in the house, I waffled back and forth for a while before deciding on another Loire white wine.

Yes, yes, yes, I am aware that this wine is eons away from its apex but it's the new vintage of Huet and I wanted to try a bottle. The 2009 Domaine Huet Vouvray Sec Clos du Bourg, $33, A Rare Wine Company Selection. There is plenty of pleasure here, although the wine is a mere baby and very tightly wound, inward. Based on the warm 2009 vintage, I was expecting a great deal of concentration, but that's not so. The wine definitely has an inner core of energy and power, but the texture is very fine. Its is a detailed, and at times delicate body. The nose is a joy, with lovely orchard fruit and floral aromas, pure and fresh. There is strong acidity and very good balance, and the wine is delicious but not yet very expressive of Clos du Bourg, or of any of the three Huet vineyards, really. It talks instead of very young, expertly made Vouvray. The finish takes on a nice herbal tone on day 2, although there wasn't much movement on the palate. This wine is years away from maturity, but it seems to me as though it will be great. And I loved it over those two days, and it went very well with my savory farro salad.

Cloth-Bound Cheddar and Huet Vouvray

Edward Behr wrote about cloth-bound Vermont Cheddar cheese in issue number 75 of The Art of Eating, his outstanding quarterly journal on food and wine. I've been wanting to try this cheese since reading the article. Good cheddar - forget the blocky orange food-product that passes for cheddar in supermarkets, good cheddar is world class cheese. And Behr says that this particular cheddar, Cabot Creamery's Vermont Cloth-Bound Cheddar is "the world's best cheddar." Hard to be more definitive than that. Edward Behr does not use that kind of language often. More on this cheese, all quotes are from the Edward Behr article:

Very little is made --"Cabot makes just 50 wheels of the cloth-bound cheddar every two months..."

Almost no one ages cheddar in cloth anymore, but it makes the finest cheddars --"The best English Cheddar is aged merely in cloth, the same cloth that lines the molds and prevents loss of curd during pressing. This traditional 'bandage,' left in place, keeps the new cheese from sagging outward and provides a barrier against flies, once an important consideration."

It requires skill in the cheese cellar and it is time consuming and expensive -- "For the cheese producer, the great advantage to vacuum-sealing in plastic is that it eliminates all the turning, rubbing, and brushing of traditional aging."

Cloth-bound cheddar loses water to evaporation, about 12% of its weight. The concentration, the breathability of the cloth, and the surface molds on the cheese produce complex flavors -- "We made the same cheese in a vacuum-seal..., and compared the two. You're just not getting the same intensity of flavor."

The cloth is still visible at the corner of the cheese. The sides are over-run with mold.

It is not easy to find this cheese. 25 wheels per month are distributed to specialty shops around the country. Imagine my surprise when I saw it at my food coop. I asked to make sure, and it is indeed the cheese I hoped for.

Is there a classic wine pairing for Cheddar cheese? Behr, strangely, doesn't offer any advice in the article. My gut instinct was Oloroso Sherry or Port, something fortified. I checked around the Internet (information super-highway, for those who are unfamiliar) and found nothing definitive. I was on my own, and with no Oloroso or Port in the house. I honestly could not think of a red wine that I wanted to drink with this cheese. I decided on an off-dry white when I read this in the Behr article:

This cheese's outstanding appeal, apparent in some wheels more than others is a powerful caramel sweetness, to the point that it overtakes other flavors...Where does so much caramel come from...a special starter culture: 90% of the flavor of a piece of cheese comes from the milk, unless you've added something to change the flavor, which in this case we have.

And let me use that quote as a springboard - I did not like this cheese. And it wasn't a borderline, on the fence situation. Plain and simple - I didn't like it. I didn't like the caramel flavor - it didn't taste like cheddar. I know, after all that build-up! Edward Behr is a master of the edible and potable, but I disagree on this one point. It wasn't just me, either. My friend who tasted it was not impressed, and BrooklynLady tried it on another evening with no fanfare whatsoever, made a face and said "This doesn't taste like cheese." And she's right, it doesn't. It tastes like caramel and weird bitter vegetables masquerading as cheese. Why did they have to add the fancy starter to alter the milk's flavor? What would this have tasted like with a neutral starter? Did I get a chunk from a poor wheel?

Anyway...the 2002 Domaine Huet Vouvray Le Mont Demi-Sec, about $32 on release, Robert Chadderdon Selections, was so awesome that the cheese ceased to matter. I chose it because I thought it would have the acidity to stand up to a rich cheddar, and also might compliment the sweet flavors of the cheese. Domaine Huet is, with Philippe Foreau, the top of the top in Vouvray, and this wine was a great example of why this is true. Although it clearly will live forever, it is in a beautiful place right now, full of rich aromas and flavors, and cracking acidity. The nose is the essence of Vouvray, with beautiful orchard fruit and a woolly, waxy undertone. After about an hour there are clear chamomile notes too. This is a powerful wine that crackles with energy in the mouth, but it is also graceful and elegant, very well balanced. It's as close to a perfect glass as I've had from this part of the world, and my attempts to describe it just seem silly compared to the experience of smelling and drinking it.

What is the classic wine to pair with cheddar, anyway? Was I right - Oloroso?

Soil Matters

At the Dressner tasting yesterday I experienced a shockingly clear example of the role that soil plays in shaping wine. Opening several wines at a time is the best way for a guy like me, who is in the middle of building his tasting memory, to get a good sense of the differences that soil can bring. Most of the wine I drink is at home with dinner, and we don't often open several wines just for the sake of comparison. When I win the lottery, we'll do so regularly, and this blog will be all the better for it.

That's why this experience at the Dressner tasting was so interesting for me. I've had François Pinon's wines before at home, and I've had them at tastings too, but they were just profound yesterday, really singing their own songs. These are two Vouvrays that could not be more different from one another, although the vineyards are within a couple of kilometers from each other and they were vinified in exactly the same way. The 2007 Vouvray Cuvée Tradition is from clay soils and the wine is rich and round with a ripe honeyed fruit character, expansive and broad. There is good acidity and structure, but this is a wine that is driven by voluptuous fruit, and it is clean and delicious.

The 2007 Vouvray Silex Noir is from soils of rocky black flint, and the wine is much leaner, with a racy mineral character that drives through the finish. There is lovely fruit here too, but it is of a more refined nature. It is also quite ripe, ripe enough so that there is a honeyed glow to the intense mineral mid-palate, but the essence of this wine to me is the cutting rocky minerality. It is a balanced and beautiful wine, and at about $24 retail, a terrific value in my opinion.

Both wines are technically demi-secs, or off-dry wines, with 18 grams of residual sugar in the Tradition and 17 in the Silex Noir (the limit is 9 grams in order to be labeled as a sec, or dry wine). But the Tradition feels and tastes like a demi-sec, whereas the Silex Noir feels and tastes like a dry wine that has a honeyed edge.

I asked François Pinon, who like almost all of the producers represented at this very fine tasting, was right there pouring and discussing his wines, how these two wines can be so completely different from one another. He said, simply, "If I describe these soils to you, I could be describing the wines. Silex is filled with sharp black rocks, and the other with deep soft clay."

And there you have it - in 2007, François Pinon has definitely figured out how to make the earth speak. And as an aside, although both are great wines, I preferred the Silex Noir, and Pinon says that his wines in 2007 will age gracefully for a long time. I think this one is a good candidate for my daughter's birth-year case.

Wine of the Week

2007 Domaine Huet Vouvray Sec Clos du Bourg, $28, Robert Chadderdon Selections. I'm putting together a case of birth-year wine for my older daughter, who was born in 2007. I want to give her great wines, wines that will improve with 19 years of cellaring. I wish I had the financial means to fill this case with things like Dujac Clos de la Roche, Pierre Morey Meursault Perrieres, and other wines that are some of the world's finest versions of their type. Luckily there are affordable wines that also are the finest examples of their type.

Noel Pinguet of Domaine Huet, along with Philippe Foreau, makes the best wines in Vouvray. Many people consider these to be the finest Chenin Blancs from the Loire Valley and in the world. I also love the Chenins of Montlouis and Savennieres, but I don't want to quibble - there is no question that the wines of Domaine Huet are among the very best Chenin Blancs in the world. And happily, I can afford to buy and drink them. 2007 is the current vintage on retail shelves and it's actually lower in price than the three previous vintages, perhaps reflecting the changing economic climate.

2007 was not an easy year in most of the Loire Valley, and Vouvray was not spared the rainy cool summer that dampened prospects for many growers all over the region. September was warm and dry, but there was some mildew and rot and yields were down in general. Some said that biodynamic, organic, and otherwise natural growers would have a particularly tough time in 2007 because of their reluctance to treat their vines against rot, but this seems not to be true, from what I've tasted so far. Great wine makers like Noel Pinguet make good wine in bad years, so it hasn't surprised me at all to read good things about the 2007's. But are these the kind of wines that will improve over 19 years? I decided to drink a bottle over the course of three days with BrooklynLady, and hopefully learn something about how this wine might evolve.

Huet makes wine from three vineyards: Le Haut-Lieu, Le Mont, and Clos du Bourg, the latter in general is considered to produce the very finest and longest lived wines. In good vintages, several types of wine are made from each vineyard - sec, or dry wine, demi-sec, or off-dry wine, and moelleux, or sweet wine. These are wines of beautifully elegant fruit, great intensity and focus, and often times enamel stripping acidity that enables them to age for decades. For detailed information about the history, growing and vinification techniques, and tasting notes on the wines of Huet, here are two good web sources: Chris Kissack, the Wine Doctor, wrote a great profile of the estate, and Jim Budd of Jim's Loire wrote about his recent visit and offers all sorts of other information.

We loved this wine. It shows all of the intensity and refined elegance that I expect from Huet. In contrast to the 2005 or 2002, it is not an exuberant wine, even after 3 days open. This is not a fruit-driven wine, there are no touches of honey. Instead it offers a nice balance of fruit and acid, but really shines in the mineral department. Everything about this wine rests on a rocky blanket of shining minerals. And it's delicious. If my daughter hates it then I will gladly help her drink it. Here are our notes from the three days:

Day 1 - Tight as a corset. So shy on the nose that it's difficult to tell what's going on. Apple fruit and lots of acid on the palate, something spicy a the core. With vigorous swirling, and three hours later, the wine is still impenetrable.

Day 2 - Ahhh, this is more like it. More expressive on the nose, showing lots of rocky minerals, some wool, and hints of summer fruits. There is great intensity and focus on the palate, with a solid and still almost impenetrable core of energy at the center. But the wine is elegant and refined, very attractive.

Day 3 - It has really come together now, with lovely quince and wax aromas, regal and mature. There are bitter herbs and citrus fruits underneath, and more rocky minerals. This is a wine of class and grace. The palate is just as intense as it was on the first day - will this wine ever die? There is great grip and length, and the sharp mineral cut stays with you after swallowing.

Loire Chenin Blanc Wine Dinner

I'm in a really great wine group now, and great ones are hard to find, trust me. This is a great one because the people are intelligent, easy going, and excellent company. And because our wine tastes are quite diverse. And also because we came up with a nice system for running the group. We rotate as hosts and the host provides everything. All the wine, all of the food, everything. The host picks a theme and decides how to explore that theme.

I like this system because it allows the host lots of freedom but also gives them lots of responsibility when it's their turn. It's also an egalitarian system - the host who feels flush can select 2002 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru wines as the theme. The host whose employer is requesting a 20 Billion dollar bailout from the Feds, and who is not feeling flush, can select Muscadets young and old as the theme. Although vastly different in necessary expenses, both themes are fantastic in the hands of our capable hosts.

We've had a great time so far but I haven't been writing about it because, frankly, who wants to invite someone for dinner knowing that the dinner and wine will be dissected in a forthcoming blog post? When I host, I'm allowed to write about it. Recently it was our turn to host wine group and I chose Loire Chenin Blancs as the theme. I looked through my "cellar" and decided to go with the following wines:

Sparkling
2004 François Pinon Vouvray Brut (Magnum)

Dry
2005 Huët Vouvray Sec Le Mont
2002 Domaine du Closel Savennières Clos du Papillon
2000 Clos Rougeard Saumur Brézé (by generous gift of Joe Dressner, just for this dinner)

Off-Dry
2005 François Chidaine Montlouis-sur-Loire Clos Habert
2002 François Pinon Vouvray Cuvée Tradition
1996 François Cazin Cour-Cheverny Cuvée Renaissance

Sweet
1998 Domaine des Baumard Quarts de Chaume

I went with roast striped bass with oyster mushrooms for the dry wines and a pheasant pâté plate of sorts, including a dollop of home made quince paste, for the off-dry wines. Pear and honey cake for dessert. It pretty much turned out okay.
This night for me was further proof for me that the Loire Valley offers truly profound white wines at reasonable prices. Overall, the wines showed fantastically well. The exceptions for me were the Pinon wines - the Brut was fine but the 2002 Vouvray Tradition was just no good. Other people liked it, so it's just my opinion, but I found the seaweed/dried mushroom umami aromas to be extremely off-putting. And the 2005 Chidaine Montlouis-sur-Loire Clos Habert, one of my favorite demi-secs of the vintage, was in an awkward and closed phase on this night.

Here are some quick notes on the wines:

The Pinon Vouvray Brut was fine and lots of fun out of magnum, but objectively it just wasn't special wine. Other than Huët's, I have yet to be truly wowed by any Loire sparkling wine, I must say.

The dry wines were fantastic, each with its own distinct personality. The Huët ($26 in early 2007, decanted 3 hours ahead) was the most delicate of the three, and although it was lovely during the dinner, it was utterly gorgeous the next day. Makes sense - the dry wines need time to develop. The Closel wine ($24 a few years ago) was in my opinion at the peak of drinking. Perfectly mature at only 6 years old (odd for a Savennières, but whatever), it was full of waxy ripe fruit, herbal, honey, and mineral flavors. Beautiful stuff. And the Clos Rougeard (over $60), which I decanted almost 6 hours ahead of time, was incredibly deep, although even with the decant, painfully young and during the actual dinner, not all that approachable. It's funny because about a half hour after decanting it was pretty fantastic. It goes through phases I guess. I wish I had saved some for the next day.

The weakest flight was the off-dry wines, although the 1996 Cazin ($26) was, for me, the wine of the night. And this is an interloper, a wine made from the Romorantin grape, not a Chenin Blanc. So sue me. It was gorgeous and completely harmonious, really in a great place. Mature and regal nose of ripe fruit with some interesting petrol and earthy notes. The palate was perfectly balanced with great depth of fruit and a great vein of acidity, and there was real viscosity here - this is dense without being heavy, long without being ponderous, just elegant and deep wine. Although I am not a fan of the 2005, my commitment to cellaring my '02s and '04s is renewed.

The 1998 Baumard Quarts de Chaume ($39) showed very well too. Incredibly beautiful nose of ripe orchard fruit, dripping with mineral intensity, and so fresh and youthful. This wine has a long life ahead of it. On the palate it's a wash of apricot and herbal honey supported by crackling acidity, loads of minerals, and a finish that lingers and changes, becomes pleasingly bitter. This wine had a cleansing effect on the palate, so different from most of the dessert wines I come across.

Friday Night Bubbles

Hey y'all, it's good to be back. We spent a great long weekend in Vermont with Deetrane and his beautiful family. Small children pet horses, calves, and goats, adults ate soft-serve swirl, and a great time was had by all. We drank some great wine too, but that's for another post. It's Friday, and time for some bubbles.

Deetrane said something interesting to me when I asked him for his thoughts on the blog. He said that it seems as if I like every bottle of bubbles that I open, that I always come upon something great. How could that be, he wondered. Is Brooklynguy a "loves everything he tastes" kind of guy?

No, not at all. I am actually very discerning, I like to think. I come across loads of wine that I don't like, it's just that you're not reading about many of them. Although I am vocal with my criticisms in person among friends, I am hesitant to write negative things about wine on this blog. I do it, but not too often.

I think it takes some serious confidence in one's expertise as a taster to make negative comments in a highly public arena. I don't always feel that confident and even when I do, the wine that I drank and didn't like is someone's life's work (or year's work anyway). Maybe it was an off bottle. Maybe I was in the wrong mood for it, and you'll like it when you drink it. Maybe it is bad wine, but why clog the wires with negativity?

But Deetrane has a good point, and I've felt this before too. If you never tell me what you don't like, it's hard for me to relate to you when you tell me what you do like.

So, in that spirit, I will attempt to respectfully tell you about a few sparkling wines that I drank in July that I did not like. And you'll just have to take it for what it is - my opinions. Add $2 and you get a ride on the subway.

2006 François Pinon Vouvray Brut Non Dosé, $23, Louis/Dressner Imports. A zero dosage wine by Pinon - who knew? Pinon, Chidaine, and these other Loire producers make all kinds of wines that don't cross the ocean to the States. I was excited to drink this, as I am a big fan of Pinon's wines. I wanted very much to like it, but alas, I did not. It wasn't bad wine, just not entirely successful. I thought it was unbalanced, with sharp acidity and funk dominating. My notes from that night: strong barnyard upon opening, never entirely blew off. Flowers and briny minerals on the nose, changes constantly. Seems very Vouvray on the nose, and then 5 minutes later is a murky mess. And then back again. Incredibly strong acidity, not balanced, tastes like what I imagine vin clair tastes like, strips the enamel off my teeth.

NV Henri Billiot Champagne Brut Réserve, $36, Terry Theise Selections. I bought this a year ago and it now costs about $45. I've had it several times and I like this, the 5/07 disgorgement, less than the others I've had. Not a knock on Billiot - I love the other wines I've had, including the consistently gorgeous Brut Rose (seen at left next to this wine) and the brilliant Cuvée Laetitia, both solera wines. This wine is mostly Pinot Noir and there's no mistaking it - it's dripping with red fruit. Starts out great, there is a rich and broad feeling in the mouth, ample acidity, and a very fresh and clean feeling. But I found that the wine drops off quickly. It loses focus, complexity, and fruit, and is so much less appealing then when first opened that we had a tough time with it, actually.

NV Henriot Champagne Souverain Brut, gift from a good pal, but retails for about $32. This is the first bottle of big house Champs that I've had at home in a long time, and it was not an impressive experience, I must say. The problem was sulfur - it was so strong on the nose after a few minutes open that I could barely sense anything else about the wine. Before the sulfur blanket came down I thought the nose was pleasant, with airy nice green apple and citrus notes. But even before the sulfur attack I found nothing distinctive or interesting on the palate - pretty tame. I understand that I need to taste more from the big houses, the good ones like Gosset, Drappier, and Bollinger. But this wine was disappointing enough to leave me in the "I'll drink those wines when someone pours them for me, I won't buy them myself" camp.

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?

Friday Night Bubbles

2002 Huet Vouvray Pétillant Brut, $33, Robert Chadderon Selections. It is without hesitation that I can say this is the finest non-Champagne sparkling wine that I've had. And it's better than many a Champagne, if you count Veuve Clicquot and the like. I had the 2000 Huet Brut and I really liked it, but that was years ago. So much sparkling wine since then, hard to know how that wine would rate against this one. But this one against everything else I've had in the past year - not even close, honestly. Well. I do love the Montbourgeau Crémant du Jura, but that's a totally different, lighter style of wine. Lyle at Rockss and Fruit and Peter Liem at Besotted Ramblings both loved the 02 Huet wine and wrote quite eloquently about it, if you'd like a second or a third opinion (although in this case, I am the third opinion).

I understand what Lyle meant when he said he'd like to sneak it into a Champagne blind tasting. It has the same depth, the mouth filling and expansive flavors, the same degree of richness and pleasure. It feels like a good Champagne in the mouth, and it finishes with mouth aromas that linger after swallowing. Although the flavor profile is a bit different (this is Chenin, after all), this would be right at home in a lineup of Champagne.

The nose was airy and fresh, and I got grass, flowers, and a bit of green melon fruit. Great purity on the nose. The palate was broad and mouth filling with bubbles that seemed bigger than what I usually find in a Pétillant. Fresh ripe fruit mingled harmoniously with bright acids and underlying minerals. Just excellent wine, the top of its class, and quite food friendly. Paté, roast chicken, poached fish, unsalted almonds...bring it on.

Friday Night Bubbles

NV Foreau Vouvray Brut, $25, Rosenthal Imports. I love Foreau's still wines. Along with Domaine Huet, Foreau at Domaine du Clos Naudin is thought of as the finest producer in Vouvray. Foreau farms organically doesn't interfere with the wine - never adding sugar and not taming the acidity via malolactic fermentation. In most vintages there are sec (dry) and demi-sec (off-dry) wines, both superb, and both age-worthy. The sec in particular demands years in a cold cellar in order to truly express itself. These are profound wines, racy with acidity, very mineral, and very pure.

So it was with great anticipation that I came back to Foreau's Brut sparkling wine. The last time I had this wine was about three years ago. And I'm truly sad to say that this was a very disappointing bottle. I actually didn't trust my palate on this at first. Foreau is a superstar, how could this wine be as mediocre as we thought it was? Maybe I'm missing something, but I found this to be nowhere near the quality of several other Loire sparklers.

Foreau disgorges sparkling wine four times a year. On the side of the label there are four numbers that, with the aid of a Cap N' Crunch plastic toy decoder, will reveal the age of the wine. My bottle said L2041. The middle digits signify the vintage, in this case 2004 and the final digit indicates that this is lot 1, the first disgorgement. The decoder has yet to figure out what the L and the first digit mean.

Notes on the wine: toast and mineral water on the nose, and something like cold cream. But there is something unattractive there too, something soapy. The palate is citrus and toast, but there is little complexity and depth. It's kind of clunky actually. We lost interest in this wine after one glass, and that's saying something. I went back to it later, hoping it had blossomed into something lovely. No dice.

A Few Mature Wines

I only began cellaring wine a few years ago, so if I drink a mature wine at home it means that I bought a wine that some one else cellared for me. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to taste a mature wine at a tasting, which can be a special experience also, especially if the wine is very expensive or difficult to find at stores. Here are a few recent experiences with mature wine:

2001 Adelsheim Pinot Noir Quarter Mile Lane Vineyard, $40. BrooklynLady and I loved this wine when we visited Adelsheim Winery. We toured the estate, wandered through the sleeping oak barrels, smelled the fermenting grapes in the big steel tanks. We brought home two bottles of this, their top wine (in my opinion). BrooklynLady had a birthday recently and we opened this to compliment our marjoram-crusted rack of lamb. When you see 2001 you might not think of this as mature wine, but '01 was a "classic" vintage in Oregon, a normal year in which some great wines were made, some bad ones, and everything in between. Because in most micro climates the weather never really got hot enough for long enough, the wines do not typically have the stuffing that requires long term cellaring in order to tame. Not that they're sub-par, they are not. But they are different from the same wine in 2002, for example, in that they might mature more quickly. Just like in Burgundy - they say you should drink your 2001's and 2004's while waiting for your 2002s to mature. I might compare 2001 in Oregon to 2001 in Burgundy. Many of the reds from both places are mature and drinking beautifully right now.

This wine from the Quarter Mile Lane Vineyard was excellent. Some rusty orange color was showing near the rim. The nose was mostly secondary with earthy damp wood and leaves, cinnamon, and a hint of red cherry to remind you of youthful days gone by. Lovely flavors including stewed cherries, lively spices, and something like the smell of moist potting soil. A lingering juicy finish with fleeting floral mouth aromas - this was complex and delicious wine, and it made me resolve to hold onto some of my newer Oregon Pinots, as they clearly become quite graceful with a few years of age.

2000 Domaine des Roches Neuves Saumur-Champigny La Marginale, $12 (secondary market). Deetrane bought some of this a few years ago in an internet auction and I graciously took a few bottles off his hands. This is wine maker Thierry Germain's top wine in the sense that it takes a longer fermentation and ages in oak. I always enjoy his entry level Saumur-Champigny, by the way, a good value, and much easier drinking. This wine was a monster, incredibly taut muscles, everything still flexed. The nose was secondary, with lots of tobacco and a bit of funk at first too. The palate is still fairly ripe, with mushy black plums and lots of tobacco again, some leather too. This was nice wine, but lacking in dimension. It certainly went well with steak, but it was not memorable, didn't inspire me to buy the 2005 version ($35) and lay it down.

1987 Domaine Terrebrune Bandol Rouge - IPO Trade Tasting. Now THIS, this is mature wine. Heartbreakingly beautiful, this wine. And this is just from a few swirls and sniffs at a trade tasting. This wine was perfectly translucent deep purple still. Wine maker Reynald Delille said that 1987 was "nothing special" as a vintage, which makes this all the more exciting. He smiled when he saw my face after sticking my nose in the glass - the nose is so beautiful! It's not only the tobacco, the resin, the soil that is so beautiful on the nose, but the clarity of those smells, the harmony they create together. And the palate - these aromas followed through in a simple and elegant way, still absolutely transparent and clear, still working well together, absolutely harmonious. I was completely taken by this wine, and the IPO guide says it will arrive in September and should cost just over $100 a bottle retail. This honestly is a very good deal, in that a bottle of perfectly mature wine from a top producer from other wine regions usually costs much more. You can read more about Terrebrune in Bert's excellent profile. Not sure yet if I will buy a bottle of the 1987 (assuming a retail outlet in NYC buys it first) or instead buy a few of the 2004's at about $30, and lay them down myself.

1947 Domaine du Viking Vouvray - IPO Trade Tasting. After tasting through and thoroughly enjoying Lionel Gauthier's off-dry and sweet wines from the 2002 and 2005 vintages, the woman whose name I have forgotten but who also makes and lives these wines asked me in her beautifully accented English "Would you like to taste something a bit older?" Yes, yes I would. She pulled a bottle from under the table, a bottle of chestnut honey colored wine. The label said 1947 but there was no other identifying information regarding the designation. She said it was most probably sec-tendre (the name "Viking" is new, only since the late '80s). Whatever it was, it was stunning. Still very fresh and alive, even though there were some sherry notes mixed in with the petrol, tar, caramel, and honey. This was an amazing experience, and clearly speaks to the value of a well regulated cellar. Inspiring.

I wonder...does my wine fridge have the right humidity to perform this kind of alchemy on a bottle of the newly released 2005 Sec Tendre? Is it better to simply purchase an old bottle like this, as opposed to risking the time, space, and money attempting this at home?

Three Loire 05's for the Cellar

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

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

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

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

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

Friday Night Bubbles

NV François Pinon Vouvray Brut, $21, Louis/Dressner Selections. I remember when this bottle cost about $16 about a year or two ago. It's still a good value - they've all gone up in price, not just this one. But still, I have this silly block about paying more than $20 for sparkling wine that is not Champagne...

Like all Vouvray, this wine is made using Chenin Blanc grapes. Unlike some of the other Loire Valley sparkling wine I've tasted recently, this one is actually quite elegant and very dry. For example, the Chidaine Montlouis-sur-Loire Brut we had recently was distractingly tropical and full of bells and whistles on the nose, and was not to our liking.

I'm not trying to disrespect Loire Valley sparkling wines. I've enjoyed many of them - Foreau's Vouvray Brut, Huet's Brut, and Chidaine's Montlouis Brut in earlier bottlings. The more I drink sparkling wine, though, the more I learn about my palate, and these days I find that I'm preferential to sparklers from the Jura if I'm not drinking Champagne. Probably because I don't find Chenin Blanc to be as satisfying as Chardonnay or Pinot Noir when acting as the base for a sparkling wine. But then again, maybe I would enjoy them more if I stopped comparing everything that sparkles to Champagne...

This sparkler from Pinon was a lovely surprise. Nothing fancy, just clean and fresh sparkling wine. An elegant nose of citrus with fleeting hints of flowers, although several hours later the floral component was more established. The palate was lean and almost completely dry, with clean and pure citrus flavors with bits of mineral and bread poking their heads in the door every now and then. The last glass featured some quince/apple flavors that are familiar to me from the still wines of Vouvray. A lovely aperitif, and a nice accompaniment to a simple earthy appetizer like red lentil soup with lemon and mint, for example.

Brooklynguy Stops Being a Hater and Learns to Appreciate "Other" Sparkling Wines

Feel like Champagne every night? I do. Actually, I feel like Champagne most days with lunch too, and I'm not completely adverse to it with breakfast on the weekends. We cannot give in to our every whim though, can we? So instead I'm trying to keep it to a weekly indulgence.

As the dollar continues to suck, this means between $35-40 per week on Champs. That's about 2 thousand dollar a year habit! Harder to swallow, when you put it that way. It's about time that I find some sparkling wines that make me really happy, and that cost between $12-20, like most of the wine we drink on a daily basis.

There are some wines that just don't cooperate in that price range, like Pinot Noir. Very rarely do I find a Pinot in that range that delivers true Pinot pleasure. I suspect that sparkling wine is not as difficult as Pinot - there are many sparklers that can deliver great pleasure. They will not be as deep or as elegant, as powerful or as focused as good Champagne. And Champagne is so much more ---STOP--- it man, we're not talking about Champagne anymore. Just get over it and stick to the point! (~ed.)

Sorry, I just got a little angry at myself.

Okay, back to what I was saying about other sparklers. It's not like I've never enjoyed them before. I have to branch out some more, have a little faith, that's all. Of course I'm going to start in the Loire Valley with this, as there's great sparkling Vouvray and Saumur to be had. I had some a few years ago, before I fell in love with Champagne ---STOP IT--- and I remember liking NV Foreau Vouvray Petillant (petillant means fizzy, mildly sparkling) a whole lot. But that's like $25 now! If I'm not drinking you-know-what then I'm not spending more than 20 smacks either.

So here are two Loire Valley sparklers that I enjoyed lately in the $12-20 price range. They're not as good as Ch@~*^+;, but they certainly have their charms and are worth seeking out if like me, you're in over your head with the "real" stuff.

NV Domaine du Vieux Pressoir Saumur Brut Methode Traditionelle, ($15 Astor Wines). Saumur sparklers tend to be a bit cheaper than their friends from Vouvray. This is only the second one I've tried, and like the first, this one is an excellent value. I was worried when I opened it though because it started off super flinty, flinty and smoky to the exclusion of anything else on the nose. But this balanced out after about 15 minutes, and the wine was really quite nice. Flinty still, but with some green apple and citrus notes, and a nice floral mouth perfume after swallowing. A bruiser of a sparkler, but excellent with food and very high quality in general. A $15 Beauty, I would suggest.

Domaine du Vieux Pressoir makes three sparklers. Their rose, which I believe is what they are better known for, is all Cabernet Franc. This one is a blend of 70/30 Chenin Blanc to Chardonnay.

NV Domaine des Aubuisieres Vouvray Brut, ($20 Astor Wines). I have become a big fan of Mssr. Fouquet's still wine, so why not give the sparkler a shot? This wine was more refined than the Saumur, offering a lighter nose of apple and hints of wet stones and flowers. Quite dry and mineral on the palate too, with ripe fresh fruit. Very nice indeed. Hard to compare to the Saumur because the styles are so different. But if I were forced to say, I'm not sure that the Aubuisieres wine is worth 33% more than the Saumur, as the price demands.

I will not stop here, friends. More Loire Sparklers to come, as well as whatever else I taste in the under $20 price range that merits writing about. Want to help get this Champagne singe off my back? What are your favorite under $20 sparklers?

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.

Two from the Loire Valley

There is so much great wine out there waiting to be tasted! I recently had two wines, both excellent, a Vouvray and a Chinon, made by a couple of producers whose wines I had never before tasted. No matter how familiar (so-so, at best actually) I start to feel with the Loire Valley, I taste something new and remember how many skilled producers there are making wine. And I have tasted so little of it. I need to make another trip out there...

Bernard Fouquet makes white wines at Domaine des Aubuisieres in Vouvray. The Wine Doctor profiled this estate here. When I first read this piece I got excited about the sweete wines - I have a serious thing for Loire sweet wines. Those have proven to be elusive here in NYC, but I saw a bottle of 2005 Vouvray Cuvee Silex a little while ago at Chambers Street and grabbed it. At $15 I was not expecting much, but that was my mistake - there are plenty of reasonably priced great wines coming out of the Loire. Turns out, this is one of them.

2005 Domaine des Aubuisieres Vouvray Cuvee Silex, $15 (Chambers Street Wines).

Made from grapes from several vineyards with flinty (silex means flint) soil. This is pale yellow in color with a very reserved nose. The palate is dominated by minerals. We were not so impressed on the first day. But the second day...so much better. This wine, like many sec (dry) wines from Vouvray, benefits greatly from cellaring. On the second day the nose picked up some citrus and floral aromas to balance out the minerality, and the palate broadened, with some melon and citrus to compliment the minerals. Good acidity too. The wine was light in texture, yet mouth filling with bright flavors and great purity. An excellent wine, and clearly a steal at $15. No more at Chambers Street, sadly, but this is clearly a $15 beauty and you should buy it if you see it.

Philippe Alliet is another producer I have been meaning to try, and I finally got around to it the other night after reading another helpful piece by the Wine Doctor. I brought home a bottle of the 2004 Chinon and gave it a whirl with our beef roast and it was YUM.

2004 Philippe Alliet Chinon, $17 (Chambers Street Wines).

Dark dense purple with enticing dark fruit and woodsy smells, along with leather and green pepper. Lots of lush, sweet fruit on the palate, some leather and earth too. Very drinkable, excellent with food, simply high quality wine. Makes me curious to try the Vieille Vignes wine for $7 more.

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!

Holiday Wine Dinner

We went a little over the top for this holiday version of Wine Dinner. BrooklynLady and I hosted, and we settled on the theme of Burgundy, in honor of our recent trip. Our very good friends Deetrane and his wife (and 2 month old son), and NorthCarolinaGuy and his wife NorthCarolinaGal wined and dined with us. Such a great way to spend some time with friends near the holidays - celebrate all good things together over a good meal. BrooklynLady and I prepared a 5 course dinner and everyone was asked to bring a mature red Burgundy. BrooklynLady and I put together the rest of the wine. Overall it was a hedonistic wine and dinner experience, that a brisk jog around Prospect Park the next morning did little to counter.

We nibbled on unsalted almonds and toasted with a bottle of 1998 Pierre Peters Champagne Grand Cru Blanc de Blanc Brut Millesime. This bubbly was surprising in its weight and power. It had sherry-like notes at first, seemed a bit over oxygenated. But after a few minutes it found its footing, and had nice almond and toast aromas to go with big mineral and nutty flavors. Unusual to me in that I detected no actual fruit in this wine, but plenty of minerally, nut, and herbal characteristics. I think I need to try more Champagne. Deetrane said that his favorite wine pairing of the night was actually the almonds and this Champagne.

Here was the Menu:

Fish soup with quenelles and aioli
Mushroom and shallot quiche with green salad
Rack of lamb with buttermilk mashed potatoes and white truffle oil
Five cheeses
Poached pear in vanilla and cardamom syrup with whipped cream and ginger cookies

The fish soup came from the stock I made and froze, and although the broth was okay, it was nothing like it was when I first made it. The bright flavors didn't survive the freezing and defrosting. The quenelles, my pal Adam's suggestion, were fun though. The simplest dumplings in the world, they were simply fresh flounder, cream, and grated nutmeg, all combined in a blender until smooth. Shaped using two tablespoons and poached. They had the consistency of matzoh balls, and in fact looked like matzoh balls.

The aioli was my favorite part of this dish. I have never before made aioli or any kind of mayonnaise, but this recipe from Gourmet was so simple and delicious - I might be making this regularly, to the great sorrow of my cardiologist (when I get a cardiologist, that is). It would be great with boiled shrimp or any kind of seafood and brown bread. It was great the next night with simple fried flounder.

We had 2005 Domaine Roulot Bourgogne Aligote with the soup, and it was exactly as it should be - light, crisp, clean tasting, briny and citrusy acidity. Deetrane reminded us that Aligote is the wine traditionally used to make a Kir (an aperitif using white wine and a touch of creme de cassis). I happen to have some cassis lying around the house and will investigate later today whether or not this Aligote does the job right.

BrooklynLady lined the bottom of her home made quiche crust with fresh thyme, and the mushroom and shallot mixture combined with the thyme to produce a potently earth quiche. I loved it. We opened (an hour before eating) two white Burgundies to taste with the quiche. With a little research I decided to focus on the 2000 vintage because it is considered a good, not great but good, vintage for white Burgundies, and more importantly because the wines should be ready to drink.

2000 Paul Pernot Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru les Pucelles. We tasted at Domaine Pernot while in Burgundy, so this was a sentimental favorite. This wine had tropical fruit smells and the vanilla that I associate with new oak. NorthCarolinaGuy found prominent barnyard smells to. I could not detect them without prompting, but he is known throughout the eastern seaboard for his ability to differentiate and name the aromas of a wine. The texture of this wine was rich and thick, and to me the minerality was more prevalent than fruit or flowers. I preferred this wine to the next, as did NorthCarolinaGal, but every one else preferred the next wine...

2000 Joseph Drouhin Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Clos de la Garenne. Lighter, fresher nose than the Pernot, with a little bit of a floral component. The texture was more medium bodied, and the oak less prominent. Very nice minerality also, with, to me, a rainwater purity that I usually associate with Loire Valley wines. I liked this wine very much (particularly the next day on its own...sip...sip), but the quiche might have overpowered it for me.

We had three reds (opened 90 minutes before drinking) with the lamb, each interesting and immensely enjoyable.

1995 Domaine Newman Latricieres Chambertin. This is a Grand Cru vinyard in Gevrey Chambertin, and Deetrane says that this is some American guy who bought vines and basically became a French man who makes wine. I have not yet managed to find out more online about this wine, but I am hoping that Deetrane will chime in with a comment explaining a bit more. As for the wine...bright and deep ruby, with appealing redfruit and spice smells. Classic Pinot flavors of earth, redfruits, and spices, with a medium bodied mouthfeel. This wine was delicious and it kept improving over the course of the evening (and tasted great the next morning right out of the decanter that I never washed out). The one issue that some of us noticed, though, was that it had a weak-ish finish.

1997 Domaine Groffier Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Les Amoureuses. This wine BLEW MY MIND. I will admit that I was expecting to be wowed, but this wine exceeded my expectations. Deep dark garnet color. Nose of pine, underbrush, and forest, with some dark fruit underneath. After another 20 minutes the nose was truly explosive, with some animal elements. The texture was silky and seductive, and the flavors included plummy blackberry dark fruits, pine, leather, some herbs, and a cassis-like liquor near the finish. This wine was mysterious and brooding and I suspect that although they say 1997 reds should be opened now, this wine might have a few more good years in the bottle. What should I do now - I am stuck on Robert Groffier! This is going to get expensive...

2000 Ghislaine Barthod Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru les Cras. This wine had more purple to it than the others, and a soaring nose of bright red fruits, some bay leaf or cedar also. Les Cras is the southward continuation of the Bonnes Mares Grand Cru vineyard, and the wine shows the power and elegance you would expect. Bright red fruit flavors with cranberry acidity carried through the palate. This was a very pretty, food friendly wine with an elegant and perfumed red fruit personality. Madame Ghislaine is apparently a rising star in Chambolle-Musigny, and her Bourgogne Rouge is supposed to be one of the best values in red Burgundy.

This post is getting pretty long now, so I will be quick about the last two wines. We opened a bottle I brought back from our trip, a 1986 Louise Perrin Cotes de Beaune Villages. I loved this wine when I tasted it at the Domaine, and I enjoyed a delcious glass of it by the fireplace before dinner one night. But on this night, with 5 scrumptious cheeses (inlcuding the very Burgundian Epoisses), it was more odd than anything else. Deetrane immediately detected oyster liquor, NorthCarolinaGuy agreed, finding seaweed. I thought it smelled like rotting vegetables and tasted like Japanese rice and seaweed crackers. Hmmm...I guess after 20 years, a Cotes de Beaune Villages might vary a lot from bottle to bottle.

With our dessert we opened a well aged Loire Valley sweet wine, a 1990 Pichot Vouvray Moelleux Domaine le Peu de la Moriette. All I can say is YUM! I love these old Chenin Blancs. This one was golden amber honey colored with a lively floral nose, some apricots too. Pure flowers and honey in the mouth with a minerally rainwater finish. I could drink this wine constantly, and I did enjoy it tremendously as an aperitif while cooking dinner the next day. Alder at Vinography reviewed the 1996 vintage of this wine here. Everyone seemed to like this one.

I hope that your holiday dinners are spent with the people you love, and that your wines and eats are delicious.