Friday Night Bubbles

NV Fabrice Gasnier La Cravantine, $19, Fleet Street Imports. I missed Wine Blogging Wednesday this month, silly me, and the theme was French Cabernet Franc. Many people reviewed wines by Fabrice Gasnier, a producer I am not familiar with. Good ol' David McDuff changed that right quick with an excellent three part profile of the estate and the wines.

I try to alternate each week between Champagne and other wines for Friday Night Bubbles. This ensures that I taste various sparkling wines from all over the place, and also that I don't spend Champagne bucks each week. I was looking for a non-Champagne sparkler last week and stumbled upon Gasnier's La Cravantine - score!

We haven't had a Blanc de Noirs (sparkling wine made with only black grapes, usually Pinot Noir) in quite a while, and this was unabashedly a Blanc de Noirs. All Cabernet Franc from Cravant Les Coteaux, right outside of Chinon. McDuff can fill you in on the particulars of the estate and the wine making, I'll just tell you about how good this wine is. The version David tasted was made from a different vintage, this one is 2005 grapes, I believe. And the ripeness really shows. The nose is very toasty and a bit earthy, with loads of red fruit juice, completely unrestrained. The palate is more balanced than you'd think though, clean and energetic with sappy juicy sweet red fruit and a bitter mineral and floral finish. Nothing terribly complicated, but pure pleasure. And you know what - I don't think there is any sugar in the dosage - the wine is called "Brut Nature," after all. Any sweetness is all fruit, baby!

We enjoyed this as an aperitif and it was great with steak sandwiches and mustard greens, a really good food wine. I'm guessing that I paid more than you will if you see this wine, as I found it in a store that always charges a bit more per bottle than other places. But even at $19, this is a good value in high quality Blanc de Noirs.

Wine for Later on, for my Mid-Life Crisis

You may have seen this already if you are rich and maybe having a mid-life crisis, or if you read Keith Levenberg's recent post on The Picky Eater.If you haven't yet, take a peek at his Top Ten Tackiest Wines of All Time, where the number 1 wine is something called Ghost Horse World.

Honestly, I've never seen anything like this before. Is it possible this is satire? Can Ghost Horse World be real? Turn the sound on when viewing, by the way. If this is real, and it probably is, I think it speaks to how desperate some of us become when we feel our youth, our potency slipping away. And when we have thousands of dollars to burn. Promise that you'll euthanize me if you EVER catch me drinking with Todd, or going downhill racing with Todd.

Checking my Stats

When I was thinking about splurging on wine, I also started wondering about my overall drinking habits. I know what I've been drinking lately, but what about over the past two years? I understand that the stats can be misleading - if I went through a case of one particular wine because I got a great deal, well that will skew things. But if I look at the top 10 producers, red and white, it should be interesting to see the trends and a random case should be seen for what it is.

White Wine:

Domaine du Closel, Savennieres - 20 bottles
Domaine de la Pepiere, Muscadet - 14 bottles
François Cazin, Cheverny & Cour-Cheverny - 10 bottles
Domaine des Cassagnoles, Vin de Pays des Côtes de Gascogne - 9 bottles
Domaine des Aubuisieres, Vouvray - 7 bottles
Le Bourcier, Mâconnais - 6 bottles
François Chidaine, Montlouis sur Loire - 6 bottles
i Clivi, Friuli - 6 bottles
Jean Manciat, Mâconnais - 6 bottles
Domaine du Salvard, Cheverny - 6 bottles

As expected, mostly Loire Valley wines. Nothing too random here, except for maybe the Cassagnoles. That was last summer's value special, and I drank a lot of it. I like the fact that I drink almost a bottle a month of Closel Savennieres. And I didn't realize that I've gone through a half case of i Clivi wine - I grabbed a few of the 1999's a while ago and have been drinking them steadily. Aside from Baumard and Foreau, this is actually somewhat representative of what I have sleeping in the cellar too.

Red Wine:

St Innocent, Oregon - 20 bottles
Adelsheim, Oregon - 14 bottles
Bernard Baudry, Chinon - 11 bottles
Clos de Tue-Boeuf - 11 bottles
Domaine du Vissoux, Beaujolais - 11 bottles
Montevertine, Tuscany - 11 bottles
Domaine des Roches Neuves, Saumur-Champigny - 11 bottles
Château du Hureau, Saumur-Champigny - 10 bottles
Domaine Voillot, Volnay - 10 bottles
Terres Dorées, Beaujolais - 9 bottles

The high numbers on St Innocent and Adelsheim represent me "cleaning out" my cellar. Not that I don't enjoy the wines, because I definitely do. But I decided that I wanted to devote my limited space to aging other wines. I still have wines by these producers sleeping, but not as many as I used to.

Montevertine - who knew? I didn't realize I drank so much Pian del Ciampolo over the past few years, but the wine is always so tasty. And the Voillot was mostly the 2004 Vielle Vignes, a delicious wine. I went through a half case of that alone. The rest makes sense, Loire reds and Beaujolais all the way.

It will be interesting to do this again in two years. What about you, have you checked your stats like this? What is your modal drinking wine over the past two years?

Jenny & Francois Follow Up

I was very much impressed with the Jenny & Francois portfolio, so much so that I decided to buy a few and taste them at home with dinner. I'm happy to tell you that these wines are even better with a meal than they were at the tasting.

You know what this means? This means that there's a whole new crop of under $20 wines that I am confident about buying. This is important, as the dollar buys less and less wine these days. And by the way, all of these wines (and many other Jenny & Francois wines) are available at Astor Wines in Manhattan.

We don't drink a whole lot of wine from southern France, as those we've tasted are too big and roasted, a bit hot, and they don't drink easily with food (or at all). But these wines are graceful and perfumed, elegant sometimes. Here are the wines we sampled at home:

2006 Domaine Rimbert St Chinian Les Travers de Marceau, $14. This wine is from St Chinian, an appellation in the western part of the Languedoc. The blend is Mourvedre, Carignan, and Grenache. We enjoyed this wine with a simple meal of skirt steak and baked potatoes. Nicely perfumed, very fruity and floral, good acidity, very lively, and definitely had the muscle to stand up to the steak. A great value for everyday drinking.

2005 Clos Siguier Cahors, $12. Maybe this excellent wine is so inexpensive because Cahors is not a fashionable wine region. Whatever the reason, if I had to choose right now I would select this wine as the value red of 2008. This wine is just so good, so interestingly and enticingly perfumed, so nicely balanced, so lively in the mouth, and such a great compliment to food. And this is Malbec we're talking about, with a little bit (5%) of Tannat thrown in. We had this with a cuisine grandmère dish of French green lentils stewed with russet potatoes, pork shoulder, and thick-cut bacon. Ladle it right into a bowl, a green salad with a bright vinegary dressing, and YUM. Anyway...This wine benefits from 30 minutes of airtime. You can decant it too, no shame in that. Aromas of raspberries, flowers, and something herbal initially, then with air comes lots of black licorice and bit of cocoa. This is a bright and airy nose, very pure and enticing. The flavors echo the nose, and although the tannins are a bit coarse, the wine has nice texture and is just delicious. It is surprisingly light in body, but also quite deep in aroma and flavor.

2005 Blandine Chauchat Coteaux de Languedoc Pic Saint-Loup Les Tonillières, $17. But I got it on sale for $13 at Astor, which makes it all the more absurd. Blandine Chauchat has a plot in Les Tonillieres, a vineyard owned by her husband Pierre Jequier's family, the family behind the Mas Foulaquier estate. This is a blend of Carignan, Syrah, and Grenache. Lovely nose of rich dark fruit and soil, some black licorice with air time. BrooklynLady picked out sea water too, which I understood in the context of the mineral streak running underneath the fruit. The palate is well balanced with ripe earthy dark fruit and good acidity, and there are lingering licorice and soil mouth aromas. Sounds heavy maybe, but it's not - medium bodied and easy to drink. This wine has nice structure too, with fine dusty tannins. Worth the $17, a steal at $13.

2005 Comptoirs de Magdala Côtes de Provence Escapade, $16. I loved the 2006 vintage at the tasting. Both the 05 and 06 were available at Astor so I figured why not try the more mature wine, especially when it's a bit cheaper? It was very good, but it was less ripe and much lighter than the busty, dense, and spicy 2006. Very enjoyable, but not what I'd hoped for. It almost didn't stand up to our beefy grass-fed hangar steaks. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but not I'll-have-to-taste-this-importer's-other-wines good. So I'll try the 06 at home next.

If they're available in your area I really encourage you to try one of these wines. Jenny & Francois are bringing in wines that reflect a sense of place, and the craftsmanship of the wine maker. And the prices make it pretty easy, too. If you do try, please let me know what you think.

Friday Night Bubbles

Here is a Champagne I've seen on the shelves for months now, but at about $45 a bottle, not tasted. I mean, I can't taste evey Champagne that interests me, can I?

Over time, maybe I can (assuming I continue to do well in my poker game). The real limiting factor, actually, is whether or not the wines are imported to New York. Vazart-Coquart, for example, is available here and there, but I've only seen the entry level wine, the Brut Réserve Blanc de Blancs. What happens if you taste the entry level wine and love it, as I did, and might want to taste the vintage wines, or their Tête de Cuvée (top wine)?

Good luck. Grower Champagne is still making headway in the US market and when it comes to the Têtes de Cuvée, they can be difficult if not impossible to find in stores. At least the At least the Vazart-Coquart Brut Réserve is available. It's delicious.

NV Vazart-Coquart Brut Réserve Blanc de Blancs, $43, Becky Wasserman Champagne et Villages. Vazart-Coquart is in Chouilly in the Côte de Blancs, and their vines, as such, are almost all Chardonnay. This wine has a very focused nose of chalk, lemon cream, fresh bread, and some sort of spice, maybe caraway seed. The nose is narrow but very deep and expressive. The palate is delicate and well balanced. It starts with almost sappy lemon oil, then fresh baked biscuits on the mid-palate, and then comes a very mineral chalky finish. This is very satisfying to drink, with great depth of aroma and flavor. It is elegant and powerful, and just delicious.

If you know where to buy Vazart-Coquart's vintage and Tête de Cuvée, lemme know. Happy Friday night.

Natural Yeasts and Terroir

Here is a quote from Philippe Pacalet, wine maker in Burgundy. Pacalet wrote an introduction to Jules Chauvet's "Etudes Scientifiques." Chauvet is thought of as the father of natural wine making in France, and Etudes Scientifiques is a collection of his studies and writings. This quote is lifted from an article on the Chambers Street Wines website. The whole essay is worth reading, but this quote particularly caught my attention:

The entire theme dedicated to indigenous yeasts is eloquent on this subject: to make a wine of terroir, one must utilize the biomass (yeasts, bacterias, funghi, microbial life) existing in this terroir. The quality of these native yeasts, that is to say their biodiversity, is essentially tied to this notion of terroir. The different types of yeasts which succeed each other in the course of the alcoholic fermentation are thus a “key” which reveals to us the vineyard’s unique characteristics and typicity.

Makes sense, right?

Mark Vlossak makes wine at St Innocent, one of my favorite Oregon producers. Three out of every four years, as conditions allow, Mark uses no sulfur dioxide during fermentation. Sulfur dioxide suppresses the natural yeast strains, and he doesn't want to do that. He likes "the things that grow" without sulfur dioxide during fermentation, what they add to aroma and flavor. But Mark says that the natural yeasts at his disposal cannot ferment past 5 or 6% alcohol and often produce "stinky" by-products. Here is what he said when I asked him whether or not using natural yeasts is important to him:

There are no unnatural yeasts. All yeasts used to make wine are derived from indigenous cells. Just like vines are propagated from cuttings, sometimes from other places, yeasts are derived from cells. The real question is, are the yeasts a good match for the terroir and the wine you are trying to make.

This also makes sense, right? If the natural yeasts cannot turn juice into wine, or do so but also contribute nasty aromas, then you have to supplement with other yeasts. The question is not whether or not the wines taste good, but do they express the terroir in the Dundee Hills or in whichever of St Innocent's plots we are talking about?

Greg Sandor of Bridge Urban Winery talks about how exciting it was for him to participate in an experiment at Cornell University in which 40 different yeasts were used to ferment the same grape juice, about tasting the results and determining which strain makes the best wine. I don't know if he brings that approach to making wines at Bridge, but if he did, would that render his North Fork of Long Island wines terroir-less?

Can wine express terroir without naturally occurring yeasts? Must you use only the naturally occurring yeasts, or can they be supplemented with industrial yeasts? There are people with very strong opinions on this issue. I am not one of them, as I just don't know enough about it.

But I will say this - insisting that nothing "unnatural" be added to wine might rule out a lot of wines in the terroir department, most Champagnes and many Burgundies, for example. Sugar, a human-made chemical no more or less natural than sulfur dioxide is added to Champagne in the dosage, and to some Burgundy wines if they are chaptalized. So do only non-dosage Champagnes and un-chaptalized Burgundies express terroir? I think you can shoot yourself in the foot trying to make hard and fast rules.

I gravitate towards the Pacalet way of thinking, which I see as akin to the Alice Waters way of cooking and eating. But I don't think of it as "correct" in a universal sense, something that everyone should do, like thou shalt not use unnatural yeasts or something.

For me wine is food, and I like to learn about the ingredients before buying it. Loading this information on a wine label is impractical, expensive, and unromantic. It would be great if there were some cost-effective way to gather and display this information so that interested consumers can go to one source before making purchases.

Wine Splurge Update

Back in January I lamented my past wine splurge results. Many of you commented with excellent suggestions, some of which I wound up using for Splurge 2007. Yeah, just like the NY State legislature, my budget comes out later than it's supposed to. But the good news is that I had a little more to spend than the $400 that I originally planned on. More like $550.

In the end I decided to go with what I love, what I know will make me incredibly excited and happy on the day I open it. So I bought one magnum of 1979 Veuve-Clicquot La Grande Dame for $525 and there you have it.



What, I can't play games with you on April Fool's Day?

C'mon folks, I didn't buy that wine. I stuck with Burgundy and grower Champagne. I couldn't bring myself to splurge yet on Syrah or on Italian or German wines. I have to spend more time understanding the everyday versions before jumping into the major leagues. Very few people can successfully go from single A ball right to the majors.

So here is what I got, in order of price (most expensive to least) and your comments praising or lambasting me are most welcome:

2005 Ghislaine Barthod Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Beaux Bruns
2005 Louis Boillot Pommard 1er Cru Les Fremiers
2005 Louis Boillot Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Champonnets

2002 Jose Dhont Champagne Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs Mes Vieille Vignes
2002 Diebolt-Vallois Champagne Brut Blanc de Blancs
2000 Lassaigne Champagne Brut Nature Montgueux
1999 Billiot Champagne Grand Cru Brut

I'm pretty psyched, indeed. Now, who'd like to lay bets on how long I can keep my hands off of these beauties?