A Good Value-Priced Pinot

The quest continues for good value-priced Pinot Noir. This wine is probably the best example yet that I have found of a value-priced Pinot that comes through with high grades fro quality. It is a lovely wine, no doubt about it. A lighter style though, so those of you looking for that value bottle of brawny Pinot, this is not the wine for you.

2004 Henri Prudhon et Fils Bourgogne Les Charmeaux, $16.

Translucent deep red rose color. Highly perfumed, some tree bark and leaves, a hint of minty herb after a half hour open, also a hint of aspartame. The nose is the star here, although the high toned dried cranberry and fresh sour cherry palate is very nice too. There is a lingering dried rose petal finish that is really nice. This is a good stand alone wine, although it's much better with food - there is good acidity. At under $20 I would grab a few bottles if I saw them, and drink them this year.

Wine with the In-Laws, San Diego Style

I'm lucky because my father in-law likes wine and keeps some good bottles in the house. That means that no matter what else is happening during a visit, there will always be at least that one thing to look forward to - some interesting wine in the evening. Oh yeah, and San Diego is very beautiful, incredible flowers and other vegetation everywhere (even if they have to drain billions of gallons of water from elsewhere to irrigate, but that's another issue).

So that was us for the past few days, driving around a little between baby's naps, stopping at our little Mexican place in Escondido, El Callejon, the one with hundreds of Tequilas on the wall and grilled green onions in Magi sauce to snack on, marveling at the beautiful plants and flowers everywhere - even in mall parking lots, hanging out with the in-laws...

Overall feeling on San Diego at this point: love visiting, even starting to appreciate the odd quirks, like blond surfer dudes munching bagels with smoked salmon spread at Einstein's bagels in the middle of some mall, gray gloomy weather in April, May, and June, face lifts and other body-"improvement" surgery as the norm. I was impressed with the two wine stores I went into. Good selection and decent prices, although a bit higher on some French wines than on the east coast. One store called Meritage had magnums of 1997 Latour and other prized Bordeaux just sitting out in bins like it was Yellowtail. $500 bottles of wine in the bins! They would have been under lock and key in a NYC wine store. The city just seemed safe like that, more civilized. Clean too - no trash on the roads, but that might be because no one actually walks on the roads.

Anyway, here are the wines we sampled on this visit

1996 Cristom Pinot Noir Mt Jefferson Cuvee, Willamette Valley - Funky, rotting aromas at first, but blew off to reveal mellow red and black berries, leathery earth. smooth texture, well integrated tannins - almost melted away, prominent earthy underbrush with some red fruit too. None of the primary fatty fruit remaining. Really good wine, and extra impressive to me because '96 was nothing special as a vintage, and this cuvee is not one of Cristom's top wines. A nice example of an Oregon Pinot improving with age, gaining complexity.

2001 Hafner Reserve Chardonnay, Alexander Valley - Great nose of vanilla and tropical fruit, pineapple, citrus too. Full bodied, oaky, but well balanced wine with bright fruit, floral, and buttery oak flavors. Very nice, particularly with dinner. 13.4% alcohol - not too bad. Not a style of wine that excites me but this was a strong example of this style and I can see the appeal.

2000 Hafner Reserve Chardonay, Alexander Valley - Not in the same league as the '01 right now. Over the hill, flat with no discernable acidity, not unpleasant but definitely past its prime. I wonder how it was in its prime...

2002 Michel Colin-Deleger Chassagne Montrachet 1er Cru Les Chenevottes - Such a pronouncedly different style from the Hafner. Much more tense, lighter in the mouth, better balance, not as showy. lighter yellow with a bit of a greenish hue, compared to the bright lemon yellow of the Hafner 01. nose is pure rainwater, still quite reserved. same with the palate, but there are flavors of stone fruit, citrus, and mineral. this needs time to ope up - the last glass over an hour later was really kickin.

NV Piper-Heidsieck Champagne Brut - uh uh, not the style of Champs that I like. Thick and without finesse, no mineral quality, very toasty and heavy.

1997 Hafner Cabernet Sauvignon, Alexander Valley - So have you figured it out? Father in-law digs the Hafner. This one was dark purple, with a medium body. Not so impressive overall, as the nose and the palate just don't have all that much to exhibit. Was this an off year in the Alexander valley? Some cassis on the nose, hints of herbs. Unfocused palate of dark fruit and herbs.

Next visit I plan on helping the Father in-law translate his writing pad full of scratches and notes to Cellar Tracker.

Blog Tag - I'm It

Joe at Joe's Wine Journal tagged me, and now I'm it. I wasn't going to play because Joe has cooties, but then I decided that cooties aren't so bad. Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never harm me. 4th grade moments people, I apologize. "Tag" just brings me back...

Not sure how this "Tag" thing started, but bloggers have been tagging each other, requiring them to answer in five parts the question - why do you blog? Then to tag further bloggers.

So why do I blog?

1) One day while bored at work I was reading some Wine Blog Wednesday posts and I came across this one about Clos Rougeard on Fork and Bottle. I found myself basically in tears after reading this piece. That's right- in tears! So what's up with that? Am I some sort of crybaby? So I cry easily, so what? But more importantly, I had been feeling like the time I spend at work was time wasted, time that barely contributed to the well being of people or the earth or anything. I have been trying since I can remember to find work that really involves me every day, that challenges me, that makes use of my abilities and yet forgives my failings...not so easy. I love wine and fantasized about the life of growing, tending grapes, making wine. And I read this well written and caring piece about the Foucault brothers, people who are passionate about what they do, and I it really hit home for me. I felt that they represented everything that was missing from my professional life. And I was really impressed by Fork and Bottle's rendition of Clos Rougeard's story, enough so to email them and tell them so...

2) And both Jack and Joanne wrote back to me, offering words of encouragement regarding work and life. Joanne said " I hope you find what you love." Well, I'm still looking professionally, and maybe I will get there soon, but I figured 'I love wine, and there aren't many blogs out there devoted to my favorite wines, so why shouldn't I blog?' So I created one. But it sat for weeks without an entry. Who was I to blog about wine? Did I really have that sort of chutzpah, that type of hubris, to assume that what I would write about wine would actually be of any interest to anyone?

3) Then I realized that actually, it is irrelevant to me whether or not anyone wants to read the blog. I mean sure, it's nice to have a soapbox to stand on, but for me, that's really not the point. For me it boils down to this - I love wine, drinking it with my wife and friends, visiting wine regions, tasting everything I can get my hands on. And I approach it the same way I have approached other passions from my past, like chess or poker - I remember everything and I am willing to study, I am interested in the theories of the game, the ground rules, the various strategies and positions. Within them, I enjoy experimenting. Blogging for me became an experiment. Why are there no "pedestrian" blogs writing about Burgundy? Not everyone is A Burghound, nor does everyone have the cellar depth to hang with Bill Nanson at Burgundy Report. What about those of us who can throw a little $ around, but need some guidance? Same for Oregon Pinot, and for the Loire Valley. I decided that I would write the blog that I wanted to read.

4) And then I got my first ever comment, on my third ever post, about a tasting of some New York Wines. The commenter was none other then Lenn of Lenndevours, one of the blogs that I was already regularly reading. Lenn offered to show me around the North Fork of Long Island, something that I have not yet taken him up on, but definitely will, and this offer based on the camaraderie he felt after reading one blog entry? How did he even find that post? Anyway, Lenn's comment really encouraged me to keep writing, and hammered home the idea that I don't have to be a professional to do this, that I can do it for the pure pleasure of drinking and sharing thoughts about wine and food, and the pleasure of reading your thoughts.

5) And that is where it is - blogging is a community of people sharing thoughts about something that is meaningful to them. I don't have a myspace or a facebook or a friendster page. I better brush up on that stuff though before my daughter turns 10, but that's another project. I can't play poker anymore because I have too many responsibilities to put a grand down on the table and fight it out until 3 in the morning. Chess has been with me since I was a little kid, but it's sort of isolating in the study it requires and in the solo nature of the game. A few years ago I had to give it up as I couldn't participate without seeing positions when I shut my eyes to sleep. Now I sometimes think of wine and food pairings and the like when I close my eyes, and I accept that I am a bit obsessive by nature, but at least now I am obsessing about something social, sharing thoughts and reading about other people's experiences. A healthier diversion than many others until I can find my place in the professional world.

So I will tag the folks who inspired me early on:
Jack from Fork and Bottle
Joanne from Fork and Bottle
Lenn from Lenndevours.

You're it!

2004 Lafouge Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru Les Duresses

The quest continues - to identify and share high quality value-priced Pinot. I will admit that I have a serious soft spot for Domaine Jean et Gilles Lafouge, as BrooklynLady and I had such a wonderful visit during our Burgundy trip last November. Soft spot or no, they make very good wine, sometimes excellent wine, and always at reasonable prices.

We agreed previously that $25 would be the cutoff for value-priced Pinot, and that is tough my friends, tough. There just isn't that much out there to recommend at that price point. Well, if you can find it (and if you live in the NYC area, go to Chambers Street Wines - they have it), the 2004 Domaine Jean et Gilles Lafouge Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru Les Duresses is a very good wine and it clocks in at exactly $25. I bet it's less out of NYC too, so those of you who do not suffer the weight of NYC pricing - knock yourselves out.

Auxey-Duresses is a village in the Cote de Beaune, a neighbor of Meursault, Monthelie, and Saint Aubin. There are only a few 1er Cru vineyards in Auxey-Duresses, Les Duresses and Bas du Duresses are the two at the southern most part of the appellation. A lot of people think Auxey-Duresses is under rated as a Burgundy village, that it is too much in the shadow of the big three (Meursault, Puligny and Chassagne). I am not expert enough to weigh in on that one, but I can say that I have tasted several examples of white and red wines from the village and I like them in general. As always, the producer is more important than the classification of the wine (Bourgogne, 1er Cru, etc). And Lafouge is one of my favorites. The 2005 Lafouge wines are hitting retail now, or very soon, so it might be a good time to grab whatever is left of the 2004 bottles. The new wines might not be as inexpensive - you know, slap a "2005" on the bottle and everyone seems to go nuts.

2004 Domaine Jean et Gilles Lafouge Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru Les Duresses, $25.
Crystal clear ruby, very pretty color. High toned aromas of cranberry and sour cherry, some earth. A little cedar on the palate at first, but that dissipates quickly. Flavors of cranberry and sweet red berries, some pine, and a nice acidity, kind of like apple skins. A light-medium bodied wine, this is not in any way muscle-bound, and not an elegant and velvet wine either. It is somewhat in between, and this is probably representative of Auxey-Duresses terroir. That's why the wines don't command the same respect as do those from Pommard or Volnay, two higher profile (for reds) Cote de Beaune appellations. In an unspectacular vintage like 2004, the wines can seem hollow in the mid palate. This wine never felt hollow - Lafouge is too skilled for that, but it doesn't have the substance of Lafouge's 2004 Pommards, for example. It is a very good Pinot in the lighter style, and at $25, it is certainly worth the money. Make sure to enjoy it with food though, the flavors come alive and the acidity works better while eating.

Flatbush Farm

BrooklynLady and I have never been big on the restaurant scene. Yeah, we enjoy a good meal out as much as anyone, but we are often frustrated by "good" restaurants that charge an arm and a leg for nothing special food. Some of our favorite places include little Pho joints, a BBQ joint that I hope remains hidden in the obscurity of Greenwood Heights, an amazing ramen counter, and other such places. Now with a baby it's hard to go out to dinner and when we are able to get a babysitter on a Friday or Saturday night, I'm not sure that going out to dinner is best way to spend our time (or our $). But what about during the week when the 'rents come by to see their grand daughter? Isn't there an hour or so to slip out to a local spot? You know, there is less pressure cause it's a Tuesday night. So what are the best places for us to have our all-of-the-sudden neighborhood dinner out on a weeknight?

Our most recent attempt to answer that question found us at Flatbush Farm at the intersection of 6th Avenue and Flatbush. The decor is lovely - dark wood and white walls, kind lighting, high ceilings. Seems like they haven't changed anything - they must have appreciated the excellent design work unertaken by Saint Marks Bistro, the previous occupants. We had no reservation on warm Thursday night and we had our choice of tables at 7:30 - a good thing and a bad thing, depending on how you look at it.

Service: Certainly pleasant, but they rushed us even though the place was half empty. Good servers should recognize when people want to take their time, and should not return every two minutes to see if we're ready to order. And don't fill the wine glasses, and stop asking if we're finished with those plates. Leave us alone, for goodness sakes!

Food: The menu says that all meats are "organic farm fresh without hormones or antibiotics." It also says that local produce and dairy is used as often as possible. These are definitely good things. The menu doesn't take any risks, but offers a nice variety. Vegetarian? You have a couple of nice choices. Meat, fish, fowl - all there. Specials on that warm Thursday evening included a spring pea soup and a duck confit.

We started with a "Frisee and crispy shitake salad with blue cheese." I enjoyed this salad very much, although it was not as advertised. The mushrooms were not crispy - just normal, tasty soft mushrooms (all 2 of them). And there was enough blue cheese crumble to make dip for Buffalo Wings. I liked this dish in a "bar-food-salad-that's-bad-for-you, actually" way. BrooklynLady - not impressed.

BrooklynLady ordered the French Dip sandwich. We were both in complete yum-land on this thing. Super tender brisket (I think), sliced medium-thick and piled on a good quality piece of baguette, topped with carmelized onions and what they said was Gruyere cheese. I kind of doubt it was Gruyere, but it doesn't matter because the sandwich was delicious. Perfect for a rainy night, great anytime. And the accompanying fries were also top notch, the salad fine too.

I went with the duck breast served on French lentils with some kind of citrus sauce. This dish was also very impressive. The duck was done by some one with skill - the skin perfectly crisped and salted, the breast meat pink, savory, and tender. And the green lentils, the baby carrots, turnips, and other vegetables in that light citrus sauce, not buttery or salty...? YUM. I would return to the restaurant just to eat this dish.

We did not eat dessert, which did not bother our server because the place was almost full with more folks coming in at about 9:30 when we left. Overall - promising food, worth another try. The bar menu, and the bar itself (next door but connected by an interior passage near the restrooms) are probably an excellent value. I might have to check them out next.

Wine/Drinks: A nice wine list with reasonably priced bottles from all over the place. Not thrown together by a disinterested corporate partner, some one cares about the wine list. Languedoc, Loire Valley, and other "less famous" wine regions dominate. You can get a good bottle of wine here for a decent price. The glasses are not as good of a value at a minimum of $9 or $10, but they are interesting - you can get a glass of Wolffer Chardonnay here. That's right. local Long Island Chard by the glass on Flatbush Avenue. Makes sense, right? We went with the brand new 2006 Domaine des Roches Neuves Saumur-Champigny. I LOVED the 2005, and I'm still experimenting, but I think I'm a big fan in general of Roches Neuves. This wine was $34, tough to stomach if you know that you can buy it for $15 in a store once it's released, but that's normal for a restaurant. This wine was excellent. Not as plush and extracted as the 2005, but dark and aromatic, fruity and herbal, excellent with food.

Miscellaneous: Hipsters with thick wooden framed glasses on dates, a man with his older father and his young son, a decidely diverse clientele, ethnically speaking, anyway...I liked the vibe in this place. One bit of nastiness - the bathrooms are tucked discreetly in a passageway between the restaurant and it's neighbor, the bar. The one I visited sported a small but rather nasty bit of evidence of recent use. You have to check the bathrooms once an hour if you're gonna charge real $ for dinner.

Value: Not great. One salad appetizer (no truffles, no rare heirloom anything), two entrees, one of which was an overgrown sandwich, and a $34 bottle of wine...$91. Not a rip off at all, but certainly not a great value.

Come again: I will try eating at the bar before I return to the restaurant. This place might be best for a great burger, tempura onion rings, that kind of thing.

Did You See That (Part 2)?

Here are a couple of posts from the past month or so that really stand out for me. Take a peek and see if you read them already, if not - worth your perusal.

Rusty Gaffney, the Prince of Pinot, writes and publishes a whole newsletter every week! His newsletter is called Pinot File and it is completely and endearingly devoted to Pinot Noir. Pinot from all over the world is discussed and reviewed, but California seems to appear more often than anything else. In the March 27th issue of PinotFile the Prince offers a report on a recent Australian Pinot Noir festival that includes tasting notes on the Domaine Romanee Conti's Grand Cru offerings from the 2004 vintage. Fun to read because I, with all due respect, have no faith whatsoever in "professional" reviews of DRC wines - too many thousands of dollars at stake for objectivity. But the Prince has no financial stake in this at all. He is just absolutely passionate about Pinot.

What really intrigued me about this issue is the Oregon tasting (page6). St Innocent makes an appearance, as does Shea, Soter, Domaine Serene, Sineann, and the cultish Sine Qua Non. Interesting to see how his tasting group scored the wines. I don't think this is a blind tasting, but I'm not sure. Prince? Are you out there? Was this a blind tasting?

If you have been reading this blog with any regularity you know that I'm a fan of the Wine Doctor. Not a blog, as you cannot post comments, but an amazing online resource. Before deciding whether or not to buy Loire wine, for example, I often check to see if Chris has posted anything about the producer. I have learned about many wines that I now love via this site. Doc is focusing more on Bordeaux this year, but the site is easy to navigate and well archived, so if Bordeaux isn't your thing, you should still check it out.

The Doc recently posted notes from a mammoth Champagne tasting. The notes are in two parts: first the non-vintage (NV) wines, then the vintage bubbly. Mostly large houses, not the grower stuff that I've been slowly tasting, but it's good to read about Perrier Jouet too, right? What impresses me most about this review is the attention to detail, the patience and stamina for tasting the goes into this. There are many bubblies reviewed here along with notes that really make me feel that I could choose NV champagne wisely. See what you think.

Roundup - Recent Sips

Its been a really good wine drinking month. I've tasted a few wines that have been on my "wish list" for a while, others that I've been meaning to try and finally found a good excuse to open, and new releases of yet other wines that I taste each year. Since I never seem to be able to write here about all of the tasting that interests me (and that potentially would interest you), here is a roundup of interesting wines from the past month:

Burgundy (yes - I still drink Burgundy wines, and still love them the most!)
2001 Domaine Rollin Pernand-Vergelesses, $30 (375ml). Drank at a restaurant, so retail would be about $12-15, I imagine. I post this to warn you - a lot of Burgundy suffered from too little sun, grapes were under-ripe. This parcel in the plucky village of Pernand-Vergelesses clearly fell into that category. This wine was thin, shrill, and green. Buy carefully in 2001...

2002 Sylvan Cathiard Vosne Romanee, $25 (secondary market). This was a Deetrane purchase at auction on Wine Commune. Too early to open it, and we knew it, but why not taste a bottle when you get a case at auction? This wine was deep ruby colored, a reserved and tight nose that showed a lot of iron, some underbrush. After a half hour open the fruit makes an appearance, lovely red berries and dark fruit too, but then recedes again, replaced by pine and leaves. This wine is chock full or potential, which is why I bought three of them from Deetrane (tertiary market?!?) to lay down in the cellar for a while.

Oregon
2003 Sineann Pinot Noir Phelps Creek, $40. What a pleasant surprise this wine was! An Oregon Pinot from cult producer Peter Rosback, but not from the Willamette Valley. This is from Hood River County. I sometimes find Sineann's wines to be too big, to overdo it a little. From a tough hot vintage, this wine is a perfect candidate for overdoing it, but it was great. Pretty garnet color with rich sweet smells of blue fruit and earth. After a half hour open, the aromas really blossomed: distinct mushroom and lavender aromas followed the dark berry fruit. The palate did not live up to the nose in complexity, but was certainly sweet and sappy, with a pleasant earthy finish. I wish I had more of this wine.

2004 Adelsheim Pinot Noir Bryan Creek Vineyard, $48. You know, I'm starting to wonder about Adelsheim. I have been seriously disappointed with their single vineyard wines from the 2004 vintage. Did they change wine makers? Change something else? I will have to call and ask, because the style certainly changed. This wine was clunky and heavy, and not because it's too young. You can sense when a wine is just tight and disjointed, but might unwind nicely. That is not this wine. Too much alcohol heat, too little fruit, nothing really here that comes close to meriting the $48.

2005 Belle Pente Willamette Valley Pinot Gris, $17. Pinot Gris is now the number one white wine coming out of Oregon. There is a lot of great Gris out there and a lot of mediocre wine. This grape, known as Pinot Grigio in Italy, can create crisp and light (and in my opinion, insipid) wine, or as in Alsace, richer more floral, more nuanced wine. Most Oregon Pinot Gris producers veer toward the Alsace style and there are some fantastic wines at really good prices. This is not one of them. Austere to the point of boredom. Sure, the wine has nice citrus notes and it is clean tasting, but there is not enough going on to keep me interested, even as a stand alone sipper.

Loire Valley
2004 Cazin Cour-Cheverny, $12. Rough and tough, an acidic and briny wine, very good with shellfish. Not easy to drink on its own though, and needs food. I'm not yet sure how I feel about this bottle. I liked it more at the Real Wine Attack tasting than I did at home with dinner, and that's the opposite of what usually happens with me. I have another bottle so we'll see in a few weeks...

2005 Domaine de Belliviere Jasnieres Les Rosiers, $28. Away from the more famous Loire villages of Vouvray, Chinon, and Sancerre, there lies the Loir river, the masculine counterpart to the Loire. White grape is still the eloquent and majestic Chenin Blanc, appellations are called Coteaux de Loir and Jasnieres. This producer is the one making waves with wines from these appellations, and there is good reason for this. There are four white cuvees each year, an incredible and fascinating rose made from the forgotten grape Pinot D'Aunis, and a red wine that I have never tasted. The most expensive clocks in at under $30, and all of the wines are wonderful with food, clean, well balanced, and expressive. This wine is no exception. Deep gold in color with an interesting nose, new to me I must say, of soy sauce and ginger, with some honey and roses, although that might have been the power of suggestion, as 'Les Rosiers' is the name of the wine, and there are rose bushes bookending the vines. A sweet nectary palate, a big wine, but lots of underlying tension - the wine feels alive on the tongue. It's not going to get any more interesting than this, folks.

2005 Mark Angeli Anjou La Lune, $26. I first read about this producer on the Wine Doctor's site, and then again on Dressner's site. Even just a quick read and you gotta admit - sounds interesting, right? So I finally grabbed a few bottles and popped one the other night with some roast cod. I am in love with this wine - LOVE, I tell ya. So pure, such a lovely nose of white fruit and flowers with a touch of honey. And the palate is a study in tension: acidity, minerals, sweet fruit, delicate floral flavors, all happening at once. There is a full mouth feel, like a dessert wine. And you can tell that this wine has plenty of growing to do in the bottle. If you have the opportunity, you really should spend the $26 (?!?) on a bottle of this wine. I will certainly be buying more myself.

Spain
2001 Bodegas Muga Rioja Reserva, price unknown. Deetrane opened this the other night, and he bought it retail, not from some shadowy crook. How do you like that? I enjoy Rioja in general, as long as I can taste wine and not only new American oak. This wine started off pretty woody, but a little time in the glass brought out plenty of juicy black cherries and a bit of meatiness to go along with the vanilla scented oak. Very enjoyable indeed, and would be better with food, I imagine.

California (huh? I know, I don't usually go there, but it's a crazy unpredictable world...)
1999 Simi Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Alexander Valley, $45. I enjoyed this tremendously. Lush and dark, very aromatic with cassis and spices, dark fruit too. Smooth round tannins. Took a while to open up, but very nice. This is 93% Cab and 7% Petit Verdot. Really fun to drink this with a flank steak, so unusual in our household. BrooklynLady really liked it too.

2001 Hafner Cabernet Sauvignon Alexander Valley, $32. Brooklynlady's dad turned us on to this wine. It's his house red, essentially. Not available in stores, you have to order it from the winery or at restaurants. After tasting it at pop-in-law's house a few years ago, I ordered a half case and have been slowly making my way through it. This, the third bottle, was the best so far. I probably should have let them all age a little bit. We cracked this at Mike's house at a recent holiday dinner and everyone, including seasoned California Cab fiends, was really impressed. I thought it was very good - creamy dark cassis and plums, very round and smooth.