March Wines - a Laundry List

Here are some wines that I drank in March that did not appear on this blog. The "excellent" group consists of wines that are truly memorable, wines that inspire me to seek out and buy these and wines like them. The "excellent" and "very good" groups are wines that I would happily buy at the given price. All other wines, even if I liked them, are not wines that I would buy today given my recent experience with them. Doesn't mean that I think they are bad wines, just means that based on the bottle I drank, there are other things I would prefer to buy with that money.

Excellent Wines
2002 Houillon/Overnoy Arbois Poulsard, $36, Louis/Dressner Selections. The best bottle of Poulsard that I've had. It was still growing as we finished it with gorgeous aromatics, so pure fresh, high toned but gentle -not primary, currant and blood orange fruit and a dominant aroma of dried rose petal. The nose is really beautiful. Resolved on the palate but still well structured and perfectly balanced, with sweet red fruit and underbrush, great acidity and length, and the finish is fragrant with dried roses. Elegant, harmonious, beautiful wine. This is why I keep buying this wine, even though many bottles do not achieve this kind of showing. The new vintage is 2009 and it costs $60 (!!!) in NYC. Not sure I can keep riding this train...

2002 Albert Boxler Riesling Grand Cru Brand, $35, Robbert Chadderdon Selections. A perfect bottle, great freshness and complexity, and it was beautiful with braised pork shoulder. Aromas of petrol and baking spice infused ripe orchard fruit. The nose becomes perfectly harmonious after a short time open. The palate is much drier than I expected, and is entirely delicious, with good acidity supporting the ripe fruit and the more mature secondary tones of petrol. Compelling and memorable.

2000 López de Heredia Rioja Rosado Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia, $24, Polaner Selections. With the 1995, this is my favorite vintage of this wine, so far. There is a kinetic energy here, a grippy texture that works perfectly for the diversity of flavors - orange oil, sherry, peach, salt...so good. Nothing else like it. And if you buy it as part of a case you're paying under $22. Kind of amazing.

Very Good Wines
Emilio Lustau (Almacenista) Jerez-Xérès-Sherry Amontillado del Puerto Jose Luis González Obregón, selected by Christopher Cannan, Imported by Europvin USA, $37. Plenty of flor character in this wine, probably includes a decent proportion of wines that were under flor not too long ago. Fresh and complex aromas of butter, roast nuts, and even some dark fruit. Fantastically harmonious on the nose, and follows through on the palate, which is silky textured and offers great depth. This is a very classy amontillado, and one to go back to again and again.

2009 Domaine Ganevat Côtes du Jura Cuvée de l'Enfant Terrible, $34, Jeffrey Alpert Selections. Another great Poulsard. This bottle showed best on day 2, after decanting the remaining half bottle. At it's best it is strikingly pure and fresh, absolutely inviting, with high toned cranberry and red currant fruit. There is a gamy undertone that also somehow seems very fresh and pure, and an unmistakable stony minerality that grounds the wine. The wine is cooling, very refreshing, and really just a beautiful drink. Perfect balance and structure, so the wine is seamless. On the first day, however, this is not the experience. It is delicious, but the structure sticks out a little, there is a rusticity that vanishes by day two, and the wine doesn't show the harmony that makes it so special. Decant a long time in advance, or really, just hang onto the wine for a while. That's what I'll do with what I have left.

Laherte Frères Champagne Brut Tradition, $39, Imported by Selection Pas Mal. A truly lovely Meunier-based blend. This bottle is based on 2007, although 40% is reserve wine from 2006. Harmonious and classy, this wine shows delicious apple and quince fruit and good acidity, and there is a pleasant chalky undertone. Just a pleasure to drink, and a very good value.

2004 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc Reserve, price unknown. A fascinating bottle of wine. The nose took a while to open, and was never loud, with waxy white flower and orchard fruit aromatics. I enjoyed the slightly oily texture of this wine, and the subtle salty complexity. White wine from this region is still a mystery to me, but this is one of the better examples that I've had.

Jacques Lassaigne Champagne Les Vignes de Montgueux Blanc de Blancs, $45, Jenny & François Selections. This wine is always delicious, and this was a particularly good bottle. Broad and ample with very ripe fruit, and still firmly under control, with great acidity and freshness. Surely one of the best Blanc de Blancs from down in the Aube.

Good Wines
2006 Camille Giroud Aloxe-Corton 1er Cru Les Guérets, $36, Becky Wasserman Selections. I really appreciate the terroir expression in this wine, as the gamy and rocky earth of Aloxe is apparent. But something bugs me about what I experience to be a liberal application of oak. I have nothing against oak, as long as it doesn't jut out, and here it juts out a bit. that might change with more time in the bottle, but I'm not convinced that there is enough raw material here to absorb the wood.

Diebolt-Vallois Champagne Brut Rosé, $60, Imported by Petit Pois Corp. I think this is based on 2007 and like the Diebolt 2007-based Blanc de Blancs, I'm just not crazy about it. The fruit is juicy and bright, but the wine is pretty simple and unmemorable, disappointing.

2009 Château de Pibarnon Bandol Rosé, $27, Imported by Michael Skurnik Wines. This is good, but I've preferred the past few vintages. the fruit here veers just a bit towards candied, and although there is some mineral complexity, the wine just kind of spreads out without much structure or acidity.

2009 Michel Brégeon Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine, $12, Imported by Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant. This was a bit fat and didn't offer the precision and detail that I've come to expect from this producer. 2009-itus, or perhaps like the past few vintages, the wine really just needs more time in the bottle?

These, I had Problems With
2005 Jacques Puffeney Trousseau Arbois Les Berangères, $32, Imported by Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchant. Wow, what a disappointment! As hard as it is for me to say this...not every bottle of red wine from Puffeney or from the Jura is a good bottle. Here the fruit was candied and stewed, the tannins were harsh, the wine was fundamentally out of balance. Bad bottle...perhaps. Too young...perhaps. I'm not convinced.

2007 Domaine de Chantermerle Chablis 1er Cru Fourchaume, $25, Imported by Michael Skurnik Wines. Perfectly fine in that there is apple fruit, just enough acidity to make the wine drinkable, and the flavors are pleasant. But the wine has a flabby texture and a dilute midpalate, and does not really say anything to me about Chablis. Quite underwhelming, considering that other wines I've had by this producer have been quite good.

December Wines - a Laundry List

December tends to be a good month for wine drinking. Everyone reaches into the cellar for the good bottles to help celebrate the passing of another year. Here are the wines I drank in December that have not, even in passing, appeared recently on this blog. Usually I put them into groups - excellent, very good, and so on, but I had so many great wines in December that I will simply list my favorites without any qualification.

1993 Chateau Laville Haut-Brion Pessac-Léognan Blanc, price unknown, Chateau & Estate Wines. My generous friend Adam shared this treasure with me over his tasty braised veal shanks. First of all, I've had maybe two or three white Bordeaux wines in my life before this one, and none of them were terribly exciting. This one, however, was thrilling. The Wine Doctor profiles the estate here, so you can read up on the details if you like. In short, Laville Haut-Brion is owned by the same people who own Haut-Brion, but the Laville vineyards and wines are distinct. They are made from old vines, mostly Semillon and the balance Sauvignon Blanc. Pungent and still very graceful aromas of orange peel, wax, menthol, and honey. A mesmerizing nose, and one that grew in detail and breadth over the hour or so in which we drank it. Youthful acidity on the palate and perfectly balanced at only 12% alcohol (!), with a dazzling combination of richness and delicacy to the flavors. Memorable wine, and I suspect that it is a wine that might not exist in this style these days.

(2000) Tarlant Champagne La Vigne d'Antan Extra Brut Non-Grefée Chardonnay, $65, was imported by Jon-David Headrick Selections, not sure who imports it now. As described by Peter Liem on ChampagneGuide.net, this wine comes from un-grafted French rootstock in the sandy phylloxera-resistant soils of a vineyard called Les Sables. This is just the second release of this wine (Benoit Tarlant began making it in 1999) and already it is one of my favorite Champagnes. It expresses with incredible clarity the sandy brown tones of the soil. The fruit is piercingly clear, although the fruit plays a secondary role. The fruit and the soil work together so harmoniously, and the wine is both fascinating to think about while drinking, and also just plain delicious.Well worth seeking out.

2002 Domaine Huet Vouvray Demi-Sec Clos du Bourg, $33, Imported by Robert Chadderdon Selections. Such an incredibly beautiful wine, and so accessibly priced. Crystalline purity, elegance and energy, rocks, herbs, honey, and stone fruit are all in perfect balance. The wine is delicious now although it is probably showing only a little of itself. It started to show a spearmint kind of herbal complexity on the finish only after an hour open, and the texture became more energetic and almost grippy after that hour. I'm sure this will last forever but it will be delicious at any point between now and forever.

1981 López de Heredia Rioja Gran Reserva Viña Bosconia, price unknown (but you'd have to pay over $100 in NYC to buy this now), imported by Polaner Selections. A very generous host at a holiday party opened this and also the 1985 and 1991 Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia. They were all great wines and it was interesting to drink them next to one another. The 1991 was just too young, I thought. The 1985 was utterly lovely, but the star of the show was this wine, and it was all class and grace, with deeply complex aromas and flavors, an incredibly elegant mouth feel, and a finish that just didn't quit. Awesome wine, and it's the same price as a newly released 1er cru red Burgundy from a good terroir. One of the best ways to spend $100 on wine, in my opinion.

2004 Henri Prudhon Chassagne Montrachet 1er Cru Les Chenevottes, $47, Imported by Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchant. White Burgundy is tough to buy, I think. I want to buy good bottles, but there have been oxidation problems so it's a dicey proposition to cellar them. But the really good bottles take time to fully express themselves. Prudhon's wines are a safe bet, I would say. The range includes some very good terroirs and the wines are made in a classic understated style. Perhaps not the very finest that Burgundy has to offer in white wine, but delicious and expressive of place, and accessibly priced. This bottle was very good when we opened it, but it was day two when it really shined. Slightly smokey and marine inflected aromas that mostly feature stones and rocks. The palate is all elegance and finesse, with good intensity and a grippy finish that smacks of the ripe raw material. And the thing is, this wine is completely light in texture and weight, almost sheer - you have to pay attention to get it. Very impressive.

2007 Bernard Baudry Chinon Cuvée Domaine, $18, Louis/Dressner Selections. This is one of baudry's two "entry level" wines, and it can be simply fantastic. I love it in 2007, and it's drinking better than ever. Showing a mineral pungency and lovely floral tones that weren't there earlier in its life, a bit musky too on the nose. The fruit is a bit less pronounced and the dry leathery earth components are more prominent. Well balanced and great wine and year in, year out, one of the finest red wines that can be purchased for under $20. Yup, I said that.

2002 Louis Boillot et Fils Pommard 1er Cru Les Fremiers, $52, Imported by Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchant. Louis Boillot is Ghislaine Barthod's husband and they will star together in a new MTV reality based mini-series on wine making spouses, their trials and tribulations. Keep an eye out for it. This wine is still young, but certainly showing good detail in aroma and flavor and the minerality is prominent. The fruit aromas are dark and brambly and with air, completely infused with wood smoke. Plenty of extraction here, but the palate is still balanced and lively and with air the minerality takes on a pungency that for me, defines the wine. Very lovely.

NV Jacques Lassaigne Champagne Cuvée Le Cotet Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs, $70, Jenny & François Selections. 45 year old vines planted in 10 centimeters of topsoil over chalk in an east-facing vineyard in Montgueux. This is a laser beam of chalky Chardonnay, and because it is farmed so well and grown in such a ripe climate, you'd never guess that it is dosed at merely 2 grams and is technically an extra brut wine. So good, and with an hour of air, terrific.

NV Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé, $75, T. Edward Wines. So silky and refined, such finesse. This wine has earned its reputation as one of the finest NV rosés in Champagne.

1997 Chateau Pibarnon Bandol, about $25 on release, but $54 a few years ago, Imported by Michael Skurnik Wines. Absolutely classic Bandol, with lots of animale inflected tobacco and earth. Offers a lot of pleasure, and it is perhaps just approaching middle age. Very well balanced and the acidity is strong. The tannins are dusty and pretty fine, and the whole package is very attractive and typical of the place. Very strong wine.

2009 Immich-Batterieberg Riesling Kabinett, $23, Mosel Wine Merchant. I'm just beginning to start attempting to engage in trying to begin learning about Riesling. This is one of my favorites so far. I love how it is almost extreme in its focus, but its also so pretty and generous in its flavors. At first it's all orchard fruit but with air time the earthy notes emerge. There are fleeting sponti whiffs, the palate is very mineral, and the wine is well balanced and expressive. Hard to argue with that.

Thanks for indulging me in this very long laundry list post. December was a good month and I wanted to share...

Old Coulée de Serrant: Thoughts on a Friend's Birth Year Wine

To celebrate a good friend's birthday, the other night we shared a bottle of wine from his birth year, the 1973 Château de la Roche-aux-Moines Clos de la Coulée de Serrant. This wine was made by Nicolas Joly's mother Denise - for a succinct history of the vineyard take a look at the Wine Doctor's profile.

We decanted this wine and drank it slowly over the course of the evening. A wine like this provides pleasure on many levels. There are obviously the sensory pleasures of smelling and drinking the wine, but there is perhaps even greater pleasure in doing so in the company of another person, particularly one who knows and loves wine as much as Peter does.

The wines of Nicholas Joly are quite controversial and I have absolutely no desire to engage in that debate. I've had very good bottles, and not so good bottles, and I've not had enough examples of Coulée de Serrant to say anything. Drinking this particular wine provoked some interesting conversation (I was part of it, so grain of salt necessary) and I want to share some of the issues we discussed.

--This isn't a Nicolas Joly wine. It was not made using biodynamic farming principles, and I have no idea what Denise Joly did in her cellars. Peter suspects, actually, that this wine is was made under what were standard practices - pesticides galore in the vineyards, who knows what in the cellars.

--Coulée de Serrant is one of France's and the world's greatest terroirs. It is the apex of Savennières, and some would say, of the potential of the Chenin Blanc grape (although many Huet lovers would argue for Vouvray).

--The wines of Savennières and of Coulée de Serrant are made differently now. The wine we drank does not list the alcohol level on the label - that law wasn't yet in existence. But it felt to us that it was 12%, maybe 12.5%. Joly's wines from the same terroir are higher in alcohol now, and I do not know of a Savennières producer whose wines are routinely under 14% in alcohol.

--Is it a drive for phenological ripeness in Savennières that fueled this uptick in alcohol? Is it the changing climate? Even Damien Laureau, currently my favorite producer in Savennières, who in fact has a plot of vines that are adjacent to the Coulée de Serrant, his wines are 14%. Is this a stylistic preference or a climatic necessity?

--If it is stylistic, it would be a shame that everyone in Savennières bought into the notion that bigger and more powerful is better. And obviously I'm not limiting that to Savennières...

--What happened to quality in Savennières? That is a rhetorical question. As recently as 5 years ago I loved wines made by Closel and others. I've had nothing other than Laureau's wines in recent years that I like. And as good as Laureau's wines are, they require more thought than other wines regarding pairing with food. Why have the great wines of Savennières become not as great?

--Will these higher alcohol wines be as long lived as the leaner wines from the '70s and '80s?

--The wine we drank was amazing, one of the greatest white wines that I have ever had. It was a distilled rendition of the rocks and soil of Coulée de Serrant. It had nothing whatsoever to do with fruit - there could not have been any less fruit in this wine. 0% fruit. It was pure mineral with amazing intensity and focus, driving throughout and after the finish. And with nothing extraneous, only the vital components present - lean and muscular. Shocking to me too was the vibrancy - this wine is 37 years old and it had great energy and vitality.

--I wish I could have tasted it when it was young to understand its progression. Will any of the Savennières I have sleeping in my cellar become wine like this in 30 years? I don't know, obviously, but I would say that sadly, it is not likely.

Simplicity = Onion Tart

In the oppressive heat and humidity of August in New York City, it is the simplest food that I crave. I can't do the amazing things that my friend Peter, for example, does in the kitchen. He is a down-to-earth guy who composts and re-uses and grows his own vegetables, but his food is not simple. Everything has yuzu, agave nectar, smoked poultry broth, and homemade bacon in it, and then gets plated with lovely little edible flowers. I would like to eat the things he makes, but I cannot/do not have the will to cook them. I have to keep things simple. But I want delicious food too - simple doesn't have to mean plain.

Here is a truly simple dish, and it is a wonderful dish whose sum is far more elegant than its parts. I'm talking about the onion tart. The ingredients are inexpensive and the tart is quite versatile - you could serve this to your foodie friends, to your 2.5 year old, or brown bag it for lunch the next day. Oh, and it lends itself very well to wine - you can go in most any direction with this.

All you need is a few onions, a pie crust, and butter. The essence of the onion tart is very simple - thinly slice 3 or 4 medium onions and cook them for 25-30 minutes in plenty of butter in a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat. Add a bit of salt and stir every few minutes so that all of the onions get a turn touching the pan's surface. You can let the onions get all brown and caramelized if you like, but I prefer to stop about 5 minutes short of that. They will still be very sweet, but not as intense and rich. Put these onions in a pie crust that you have flattened (or if you're Peter, make your own crust), fold the edges of the crust up around the onions, and bake for about 40 minutes. That's it - the most basic of onion tarts. I like to add dried herbs to the onions as they cook. You also add things like olives, tomatoes, anchovies, lemon zest - whatever sounds good to you. This time I added Herbs de Provence to the cooking onions, and put black olives and little Juliette tomatoes atop the tart before baking.

Now, what about wine? I think it would be pretty hard to take a wrong turn here. This is simple food that will go with just about any wine. I thought about an Alsace Pinot Blanc, but that made me want to add eggs and cheese to the tart and eat it in January. It's late summer, it's hot, and I used Herbs de Provence - we went with the 2008 Château de Pibarnon Bandol Rosé, $26, Michael Skurnik Wines. This wine turned out to be absolutely excellent, as good as any Bandol rosé I've had this year, including the phenomenal 2007 Terrebrune. I have yet to drink the '08 Tempier, so the jury is still out for me. Anyway...Pibarnon's rosé is 50% each of Mourvèdre and Cinsault, and it is a beautiful deep orange, with vibrant and spicy aromas of peaches. The lavender in the herb mixture brought out something floral in the wine - this was one of those times when the wine and the food elevate each other. But it was the texture that made the wine stand out, for me. It is voluptuous and thick, almost viscous, but the fruit and mineral flavors are so clean and bright that the overall effect is one of elegance and balance. This wine has plenty of stuffing, and If I had a case, I would drink half while young put half of it in the cellar for at least 5 years before checking in.