Mid-Summer Laundry List

I've been meaning to write more, I really have. It's not as though there's been a shortage of interesting food and wine to discuss - it's been an embarrassment of riches. But I am trying to write when I have a story to tell, not simply to blabber on when I eat or drink something interesting. That said, the other day I was in Washington DC and had dinner with my pal Keith Levenberg, and he gently chastised me for not writing so much. He said that I shouldn't worry about writing the occasional "here is what I ate or drank" post.

I still disagree - I want to write when I have a story to tell. But sometimes one needs to get the proverbial juices flowing, and a laundry list post is a fun (for the writer, anyway) way to do that. So, patient reader, here is a mid-summer laundry list for you. Here are some things that I've been doing:

It's been over two years now, but I finally got my grill up and running again. Wow, I love to grill. With hardwood charcoal. The slow way, but the dee-licious and lighter-fluid-free way.

My pizza dough is beginning to be more consistent now too. It turns out that the small details are crucial - punching down, but not kneading the dough after it rises, for example.

I spent some time (and way too much money) with my daughters planting on our deck. For a while, things really looked great. Then it rained everyday for over a week. Then the heatwave came. Plants that like super hot weather are doing okay, like the poppies above. Many other things have simply wilted. Next year I will choose plants more wisely - things that like intense sun and heat. Because NYC in the summer is now essentially the same as Dubai. But there is no climate change, people!

There's been a lot of great wine.

Some of it fabulous and now very expensive wine from iconic vineyards, wines that achieved great heights.

Some of it more humble in terroir and aspiration, but capable of giving a different and also very valuable type of pleasure.

I drank a few wines that are beloved by many wine folk, but that are completely new to me. This one was utterly compelling.

I drank wine by producers I know and love, but wine that is new to me. This one is intensely sweet - a style that is hard for me to appreciate. But the quality here is simply impossible to miss and the wine was delicious and entirely expressive of place, even as a dessert wine. This is not an easy trick.

I am lucky to have generous friends who take pleasure in sharing their treasures.

And I try to do the same. This was my last bottle, and let me tell you - with 3 years of bottle age this wine is a finely tuned symphony of Manzanilla greatness.

It's been a great summer and summer is only a month old. The outlook for the net two months is quite positive. More soon.

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?

What I've Been Doing

Haven't written anything here in a little while. Partly because I've been very busy. I've been working a lot, and some of that involves travel.

I found this place in New Orleans called Bacchanal, where you can buy a bottle of wine from the shelf and then drink it out back amidst the large shade trees, eat something tasty, and listen to shockingly good music.

In that garden, I very much enjoyed the 1996 López de Heredia Tondonia Reserva.

With a simple and lovely seafood salad.

I've visited family and walked in the woods some.

The nights are starting to get chilly and I've cooked some heavier food.

These potatoes with butter and dill were supposed to be like the ones you can eat on the Brighton Beach boardwalk. Not quite, but I almost got there. I continue to be surprised and inspired by how hard it is to prepare seemingly simple dishes.

I've eaten at old and familiar restaurants, like Aliseo.

I've eaten beautifully prepared Aji (horse mackerel), at my favorite Japanese restaurant.

Gorgeous with Champagne, by the way.

I've drunk the new vintage of some familiar wines that I love. Bernard Baudry's 2010 Cuvée Domaine and Grézeaux are both very, very good. Also, some older vintages of familiar wines that I love. 2002 Huet...whoa!

I've had some grand wines that are new to me. I'd tasted Raveneau before, but never sat with a bottle over dinner.

Same with Bartolo Mascarello. This wine was quite moving, I thought. And still very young, I kid you not.

It's been a great fall so far. And now, we in NYC are lucky to be in the midst of Sherryfest, the greatest week of Sherry events that the US has ever seen. More on that soon.

Learning Enough to Know That I Don't Know Anything.

"I've learned enough to know how much there is that I don't know." This is an idea that I firmly believe in. When delving deeply into a complex topic one can reach this point that is both exciting and frustrating where one gains new appreciation for the body of experience and knowledge that exists. Regarding wine, I hit this point some time ago. The thing is, years later, many experiences later, I'm still here.

I am reminded of this by several recent experiences where my judgements about wine were entirely different from what I expected based on past experiences. Starkly different. This is what I'm talking about:

The other night after putting kids to bed I made a simple dinner of a pork chop and some vegetables. Burgundy...I hadn't drunk one in a while and I wanted it. But I don't have many bottles that are mature, and I didn't feel like opening a young bottle, or one of the few special older bottles that I own. I decided to open a bottle that isn't important to me, something that I would cull from my cellar. What would that be? I looked at what I have and decided on the 2005 Domaine des Croix Bourgogne, $25, Becky Wasserman Selections. I bought several bottles in early 2008 and loved when it was released, but found subsequent bottles to be too oaky. Look at my notes from Cellar Tracker and you'll see what I mean:

2/9/2008: up there with the very finest Bourgogne i've ever had. wide aromas of red and dark fruits, lots of earth, dark flowers and a mineral core. lovely medium bodied palate echoing the aromas with really persistent flavors on the finish, and a cool minty sensation. just great wine and a Bourgogne, no less. I am seriously tempted to explore the 1er Cru wines by this producer in this vintage.

4/24/2008: on this one, the oak was very powerful from the outset. after 45 minutes or so it calmed down a bit, but hard to evaluate. will check back tonight

2/11/2009: Not ready yet, and probably needs another 3-5 to integrate, if it's going to. The wood is pretty overpowering now. good underlying materials, but hard to discern the nuances of the wine right now. I wonder...will it be able to integrate all of the new oak?

11/2/2010: Oak oak oak oak. and i'm not at all anti-oak. this is not a judicious use, however. perhaps he got excited about the 2005 fruit and threw everything he had at it. in any case, even late on day 2, it's difficult to separate the wine from the vanilla influence of oak, and to see what its personality is. frustrating.

Seems like a solid candidate for cellar-culling, no? At least in the sense that it's not a wine that I believe in, as evidenced by my notes. The thing is, the bottle I opened, my last bottle, was really good. Here's my note on that one:

9/17/2011: a very good bottle, showing the power and depth of the vintage, and also detail of fruit and mineral. there is some oak but it is not intrusive here. There is also a definite sense of place - the wine is made from plots formerly classified as Pommard and Volnay villages, and the wine reminds me of those places. oddly, it doesn't hold up so well on day 2, very curious.

I had several experiences with the wine, and formed several opinions. Which of them is true? You know what - I think they are all true. I was a different taster in early 2008, and the wine changed too. All of these notes reflect one thinking person's real experience with this wine. If someone asked me today to write a review of 2005 Domaine des Croix Bourgogne I would say that it has good qualities, and it has qualities that had concerned me, but a recent bottle was very good. I would say that in the context of regionally classified Burgundy, I was disappointed with this wine for a few years, but a recent bottle was very encouraging.

Would that kind of review satisfy you?

Imagine having to review this wine for a magazine or some sort of publication, having to score it based on one experience in 2008. Or 2009. How can one bottle of a wine, never mind one sip and spit at a tasting, provide sufficient information to assign the wine an absolute rating, a set of tasting notes that readers should accept as truth? If I am the reviewer, it is clear that one bottle is not close to being enough.

A few more recent experiences, just to illustrate how often this sort of thing happens to me:

--I drank a bottle of 2009 Huet Vouvray Sec Clos du Bourg the other night, a bottle that a friend brought to a restaurant. It was great, everything you could want from a young Huet. The only other bottle I drank came from my own cellar a few months ago and was not good. Dan Melia drank it with me and we both thought it was overripe, not focused, and unsatisfying.

--I drank a bottle of 2008 Alzinger Riesling Federspiel Dürnsteiner the other night. It was fantastic. I decanted it, as I've learned is very important with basically any Austrian white wine, and left most of it alone for about two hours. Delicate fruit, very mineral, perfect balance, absolutely delicious. The bottle I drank three weeks ago, though, was nowhere near as good. I didn't decant it, and it showed big and ripe and without much detail. Disappointing enough so that only three weeks later I was ready to cull this bottle from my cellar. Turns out that I wasted the first bottle - the wine is excellent if you handle it correctly, which I didn't do the first time.

--I drank a bottle of 2006 Michel Gahier Savagnin the other night. A friend brought it to my house for dinner. We liked it, but didn't love it. It was tasty but not complex, constricted, without energy. We re-corked it and moved on to other wines, I stuck it in the door of the fridge and forgot about it. A week later I found it, poured a glass, and it was great! Detailed, expressive, vibrant, completely delicious and intriguing.

So what is there to take from all of this?

1. Wine changes from bottle to bottle, and within the experience of drinking each bottle. We as tasters change and grow too. It is foolish to assume that one experience with a wine is the defining experience.
   
2. Wine ratings that arise from one tasting probably should not be relied upon, unless the critic is one of the incredibly rare people who actually has the depth and breadth of experience to understand the wine in its current state, and extrapolate from that state something meaningful about the wine as a whole. Those people are out there, but they are few.
   
3. Furthermore, reviews of wine that are based on tasting notes that describe specific flavors such as blackberry, smoke, peach, and things like that, those reviews are completely useless if you care about truly understanding a wine.
   
4. We are going to like some of the wines we drink. And then we will not like those same wines as much when we drink them again, or vice-versa. This will be disappointing and thrilling, and frustrating.
   

Probably the best thing to do is to have an open mind, to expect your opinions to change, to experiment a bit, to invest in yourself as a learner. I'm still trying to find my way in all of this, and I'm fine with that.

2010 - The Vintage of the Century !

Okay, now that I have your attention...

From the little that I have tasted so far, I think 2010 is going to be a fantastic vintage for many of the wines that I love to drink. I'm talking about Beaujolais, Muscadet, Chinon and the other Loire Valley sites. Fantastic in the sense that the wines will be both incredibly delicious and also very much true to themselves, highly expressive of place.

Think about these wines in 2009, for a minute. The wines are very ripe, full in body, and I've often thought that they do not express terroir as well as they do in the less ripe vintages. I'm not saying they are bad wines, or that I don't like them, or anything like that. I'm just saying that the average 2009 version of a wine that I typically love turns out not to be a style of wine that I love.

2010, however, seems to be a different story. I remember in the early spring at the Bowler portfolio tasting I spoke with Mathieu Baudry while tasting through his '09s. I told him that I was surprised at how ripe they were. He agreed, and said that while they are good wines, he is extremely excited about his 2010s. He said that they will show a perfect balance of fruit and soil characteristics, great acidity and balance, and a blend of power and grace. That sounds exciting, no?

Dan Melia of Mosel Wine Merchant told me that 2010 was a crazy vintage for Mosel Riesling with the highest acidity levels in years. He said that many producers had to de-acidify, and that some of the wines, even from big name producers, might be difficult. The producers who were able to handle the various challenges made truly great wines, he said, and he is very excited about a lot of the 2010s in his portfolio, including wines by Peter Lauer, Weiser-Küntsler, and others. Yes, he imports the wines and is expected to say that he likes them. But if you know Mosel Wine Merchant or Dan Melia, you wouldn't be thinking about that conflict because for them there is no such conflict, he says what he thinks about the wines.

Peter Liem in ChampagneGuide.net talks of 2010 as a very difficult vintage with prominent rot and other dreary weather problems. He says that he doubts there will be many vintage Champagnes made. But he also expresses a clear optimism for the vintage, saying that conscientious growers were able to harvest ripe fruit, and if they employed "strict, even ruthless triage" they were able to make quality wines.

Those are just stories about wines though. I've tasted just a wee bit and I must say that I have been blown away so far by the 2010 versions of some of my favorite wines. Here are two:

2010 Domaine de la Pépière Muscadet de Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie Clos des Briords, $16, Imported by Louis/Dressner Selections. I always love drinking Clos des Briords, but this is my favorite since 2007 or 2004 and I think I prefer it to them. The wine is simply great - it shows a wonderful blend of minerality, fruit, and acidity, everything in balance, and it is vibrantly expressive and intensely focused. Yes, it's a bit harsh now in its youth, but for me, it promises to be completely delicious and is absolutely and unmistakably Clos des Briords. If you like Muscadet, this is a wine to go long on.

2010 Coudert Fleurie Clos de la Roilette, $20, Imported by Louis/Dressner Selections. I hadn't even tasted the wine and I knew it was great, just the nose is enough. It is dark and meaty and herbal and cooling and completely harmonious. The palate offers great joy in its meaty and mineral-infused fruit, its slender frame, and its nuanced and detailed expression. It is grainy and tannic and still uncoiling, but this is exactly what excites me about Clos de la Roilette, and to me it is as good as young Beaujolais gets. I haven't tasted the Tardive yet and I'm excited...

I have no idea what 2010 will bring in the finished wines of Champagne, in Burgundy, in the Jura, or in the other places I love. But I have high hopes.

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.

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...

Birth Year Wines

I've been thinking a little bit about birth year wines lately. I'm going to be 40 years old not too long from now (absurd, as I still like to think of myself as a 27 year old) and I hope to find a special bottle from 1971 to share with friends on my birthday. 1971 was a good vintage in Burgundy and also in Piedmonte, so it shouldn't be too hard to find something interesting and delicious.

What do you do, though, if your birth year was a bad vintage? It's fun to drink birth year wine, and I think it's worth trying to find something anyway. But it's not so easy to find a bottle of wine that's in good condition after 35 years, even from a good vintage. An off vintage makes it that much more challenging to find something delicious and expressive, not merely a wine with the correct vintage number on the label.

A good friend had a birthday recently, and later this month he will very generously share a bottle of wine from his birth year with me. His birth year is 1973, not a great vintage in most places. But he knows enough about wine so that his search was very specifically directed, and he found something from the Loire Valley that should be fantastic - I'll let you know how it goes in a few weeks.

I've been having a lot of fun thinking about and slowly accumulating birth year wine for my daughters. They are 23 months apart in age, born in 2007 and 2008. I want to save wines for them that are meaningful to me in some way, and also wines that are great wines, wines that should be beautiful and moving in 16 or more years. Here's what I have for them so far:

Older daughter - 2007:

Domaine Jean et Gilles Lafouge Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru La Chapelle, $27, Imported by Fruit of the Vines. BrooklynLady and I visited the Lafouges in 2006 when she was 7 months pregnant with our daughter. Okay, it's not Roumier or Lafarge, but I'd say that it's more meaningful. The daughter was there in the Lafouge cellars, inside her mommy's belly, when her mommy tasted this very wine (and spat, thank you very much). Middling vintages can sometimes be surprising, by the way. I recently had a 1995 La Chapelle and it was fantastic.

Domaine Michel Lafarge Volnay 1er Cru Clos des Chênes, $120, Becky Wasserman Selections. For our 1st anniversary dinner, BrooklynLady came home with a bottle of 2001 Lafarge Volnay. So this producer is meaningful too. And it's Lafarge Clos des Chênes, it should be darn good when she's old enough to drink it.

I've had a harder time with the whites. I've chosen wines that I think should age well. I'm waiting for vintage Champagne to be released, as 2007 is supposed to be a pretty good year. So far I've saved these white wines:

Domaine Huët Vouvray Sec Clos du Bourg, $29, Robert Chadderdon Imports. BrooklynLady and I love Loire Valley white wines, particularly Huët - who doesn't? This one should be great when she gets home from her prom.

Pierre Gonon St. Joseph Blanc Les Oliviers, $32, Imported by Fruit of the Vines. A weird one, in a way. A white wine from the Rhône Valley - do they age well? A lot of the time, no, but I think this one will. It's so intense and well balanced. We'll see what happens...

Gilbert Picq Chablis 1er Cru Vogros, $29, Polaner Imports. I love Picq's wines, I think they were great in 2007, and Vogros is their old vines 1er Cru that ages very well. I have high hopes for this one.

I would have saved something by Paul Pernot, who we also visited on that same trip, but his wines weren't supposed to be so great in 2007.

If you have more than one kid you'll know what I mean when I say this - the second child often gets the short end of the stick. I have hours of video of my first daughter. My second - perhaps 45 minutes. It's terrible. And so far, I have only one wine for her. I'll find more, but the 2008 Burgundies haven't really been released yet in NYC, never mind things like vintage Champagne. So far from 2008 I have:

Domaine Huët Vouvray Sec Clos du Bourg, $29, Robert Chadderdon Imports. There is going to be some overlap here. Younger daughter gets Huët Clos de Bourg too. And she could do a whole lot worse.

I was in Burgundy when BrooklynLady was pregnant with our second daughter, but I didn't go back to Lafouge. I visited Dujac, Roumier, Mugnier, Pierre Morey, Arlot, Rousseau, Pacalet, Le Moine, and Des Croix. 2nd daughter will definitely get something interesting from one or more of these producers.

Have I missed something? Was 2007 or 2008 fantastic somewhere and I should save the wine? What do you think about all of this birth year wine stuff. Please, share your thoughts.

Lunar Cycles and Wine Showings

I'm starting to believe in the influence of lunar cycles on wine. I'm not saying that wine is better if it's made biodynamically, I'm not trying to tell you what you should do, there is no dogma here. I'm talking about what I'm finding regarding the days when wine shows well and when it doesn't. I haven't done any kind of study, although I might soon try to do just that. But through casual conversations with people who know and love wine, I'm finding that when a wine doesn't show well it turns out to have been a root day or a leaf day. And when a wine shows great, it turns out to have been a fruit day or a flower day.

Disclaimer: I've only been paying attention to this for a few months and following along myself for a few weeks since reader TWG kindly emailed me a copy of the 2010 calendar. And there have been exceptions.

But I kid you not, the calendar has been so reliable that I'm starting to plan dinners and tastings around it. And I'm already at the point where I cannot imagine opening a special bottle unless it's a fruit day.

Listen to this: on Saturday we had our friends Clarke and Sophie over for dinner and we opened 7 bottles of wine. Lest you think that we are lushes, we didn't drink all of the wine, only most of it. Every single wine showed spectacularly well. And yes, it was a fruit day. On its own this means absolutely nothing, of course. But when was the last time you drank (not tasted) 7 bottles of wine in an evening and every one of them showed beautifully? The last time I drank this many wines in an evening was the Savigny-lès-Beaune night I hosted and nothing showed very well. It was a root day, as it turns out. Check that, I drank loads of wine the other day at Levi's luncheon, and they showed very well, for the most part. It was a flower day, and it was the only favorable day for drinking that week until Friday. I wonder, did Levi check the calendar before choosing the date of the lunch?

Who really knows what's going on with these things. I put a period at the end of that sentence because it is a rhetorical question. So please don't get riled up in the comments - I'm not trying to convert anyone, I'm not making any kind of argument, and I haven't done enough to know how I feel about this yet. But as you have surmised, I am greatly intrigued.

And by the way, the wines from Saturday night really were superb. Here is what we drank and ate:

NV Equipo Navazos La Bota de Manzanilla Nº 16, $39, Eric Solomon Selections. Imported by European Cellars. We drank this with my first ever attempt at scallop ceviche. The wine was the essence of Manzanilla, although in drinking the leftovers two days later (on a root day) I can say that it would benefit from a few years of bottle age. It was delicious, but burly and assertive when we drank it, and now it is completely harmonious and gorgeous.

2005 Damien Laureau Savennières Le Bel Ouvrage, $32, Jon-David Headrick Selections, Imported by European Cellars. My favorite Savennières producer right now, Laureau's wines are consistently delicious and very expressive. Bel Ouvrage, anyway, as I've never had his other cuvée called Les Genêts. my first time with the '05, this wine showed more overtly fruity than any other Laureau wine I've had. That's to be expected from 2005, but it was also very floral and mineral with an almost powdery sense to it, and with great poise and balance. I loved this wine and imagine that it will age very well.

2006 Paolo Bea Arboreus Umbri Bianco, $66, Neal Rosenthal Imports. My first time with Arboreus, or any of Bea's white (orange) wines for that matter. This is a local strain of Trebbiano that spends lots of time in contact with the skins and then lots of time on the lees. It was incredible in that the aromas were absolutely the purest of orange fruit, fresh juicy and vivid orange and tangerine. Some rocks too, but I was wowed by the fruit. We drank this and the Savennières with flounder baked in parchment paper (look out, my fish monger is back at the market).

2001 Azienda Agricola La Torre Brunello di Montalcino, $69, Neal Rosenthal Imports. Beautifully rich and dark cherry fruit and a bit of soil. Delicious, but came across as a bit one dimensional on night one. One dimensional in a hedonistic and delicious way. This is probably because the wine simply needs time. I drank the remnants the following evening (still a fruit day) and the wine was utterly superb, showing everything I would hope for from a Brunello. A beautiful interplay of pungent leathery earth and vivid dark cherry fruit, an herbal finish that really resonates, clarity and purity - this wine was a bit of a revelation for me.

1986 Château Simone Palette Rouge, $50, Robert Chadderdon Imports. What can I say here? As Clarke put it, this was a great example of a noble old wine. The nose was of the forest, and very mellow, while the palate was fresh and vibrant, still showing good acidity, and showed that seamlessness that makes it silly to try to describe the flavors. The whole package was really quite beautiful. We drank this and the Brunello with braised pork ribs, creamy polenta, and kale.

2001 Domaine de Montbourgeau L'Etoile Cuvée Spéciale, $26, Neal Rosenthal Imports. What a bounty of ripe fruit! Yes, this is made in the under-the-veil style and is gloriously oxidized, but the brightness and clarity of the fruit was amazing. I assumed it was Savagin, but Sophie told us that it is Chardonnay in 2001. This was great with a Vacherin du Jura, the creamy cow's milk cheese that is wrapped in a band of spruce bark.

And then after BrooklynLady's delicious home made chocolate pudding we drank a bottle of 2002 Huet Vouvray Pétillant, $33, Robert Chadderdon Imports, because we were a bit drunk and it just seemed like the right thing to do. A great showing there, as well. I loved how completely woolly the wine was, compared with the flowery fruit and crystalline shimmer of the Savennières - such wonderfully different expressions of Chenin Blanc.

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?

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.