New Releases from Alto-Adige, March 2010

March, 2010:
More than a dozen wineries from Alto-Adige came to San Francisco in March to show off their new releases (see Susanna Gaertner’s article on www.epicurean-traveler.com for more details). I have just two general observations:
1. Despite the homogenization of wine styles and obliteration of a sense of terroir due the globalization of wine culture, there are a few places that continue to produce wines that truly and emphatically define their place of origin. Alto-Adige is one, and I should also give a nod here to the wines of Alsace and Germany. They all have something in common. Most of these wines are white. They rarely see oak, and if they do it is on a minimal level. They are also grown in areas where it is difficult to get the grapes overripe. Neither winemaking nor viticultural manipulation are allowed to interfere, and the resulting wines are pure expressions of terroir.
2. Despite the phenomenal quality of Alto-Adige wines, they are unfortunately rather expensive in the U.S. So if you really want to enjoy the wines of Alto-Adige, I recommend a visit to what may be the most beautiful wine country in all of the world (see my article on wine touring in Alto-Adige on www.epicurean-traveler.com).

Susanna is more eloquent than I in her notes on the tasting. Nonetheless, here are my impressions of some of the standouts from the recent tasting in San Francisco:

CANTINA SAN MICHELE APPIANO
St. Valentin
2008 Sauvignon:
Year after year my favorite Sauvignon Blanc, this vintage is a bit rounder and fuller than previous offerings, but with the same aromatic gooseberry and lime, dried herbs, and crisp acidity. $45
94 points.

St. Valentin
2007 Gewürztraminer:
A dry Gewürz with notes of litchi and yellow roses, crisp acidity and lovely balance. $45
92 points

2008 Pinot Grigio:
Crisp apples, a hint of rose petal, lovely balance — crisp yet silky, with a long finish. $18
90 points.

2007 Pinot Nero:
Lean and dry and yet fruity (cherry-cranberry), with complex mineral/earth undertones, great vibrancy and length. $20
93 points

2005 Lagrein:
Explosive nose of blackberry-cherry with underlying earth and minerality. It follows through to the palate with soft tannins, good structure and long finish. $20.
92 points.

TIEFENBRUNNER
2008 Chardonnay:
An elegant Chardonnay with no oak or malolactic character, just ripe apples and a hint of citrus. $15
88 points

2008 Kirchleiten, Sauvignon:
Crisp and intensely fruity with apple and tangerine flavors, dry and vibrant on the mid-palate, with fruit and mineral overtones through the long finish. $30
91 points

ABBAZIA DI NOVACELLA
2005 Praepositus Riserva Pinot Nero:
A hint of forest floor-mushroom under cherry aromas, lots of minerality, with a lovely aromatic finish of great length. Very elegant, if understated, but also a bit pricey. $60
91 points

TERLAN
2006 Vorberg Pinot Bianco:
Yellow apples and citrus with leesy-yeasty undertones, crisp, lean, dry and minerally. Very fine balance. $28
88 points

COLTERENZIO
2008 Lafoa Sauvignon:
Emphatic varietal character with crisp grapefruit, dried thyme and cat piss, vibrant on the mid-palate, intense through the finish. 15% barrel fermentation gives it a round feel. Nice but very expensive. $62
93 points

2007 Formigar Chardonnay:
This barrel fermented Chardonnay displays aromatic apple with a vanilla edge, very good balance and powerful finish. If you’re going to use oak, this is the way to do it. $58
89 points

2007 Cornell, Sigis Mundus Lagrein:
Dense blackberry-cherry, good acidity, noticeable but moderate tannin, elegant, understated, with good minerality through the long, long finish. Pricey. $64
90 points.

ALOIS LAGEDER
2008 Pinot Bianco Haberle:
Aromatic nose of golden apples with a floral edge, crisp acidity, silky texture, nicely balanced, with a light mineral character through the finish. Very elegant. $20
89 points

CANTINA BOLZANO
2008 Lagrein Perl:
Beautifully balanced, offering up complex aromas of sweet ripe Boysenberrys and blueberries that follow through to the palate with good acidity, soft tannins and minerality through the long finish. $24
92 points

H. LUN WINERY
2006 Bianco Sandbichler Cuvée:
A blend of 60% Pinot Bianco, 30% Chardonnay, 10% Riesling. Very complex and layered, serving up bright notes of tangerine, peach and apple. Beautfiully balanced, long and intense. $24
92 points

TRAMIN WINERY
2009 Chardonnay:
A straightforward non-oaked Chardonnay with vibrant apple character and fine balance. A real bargain at $14.
88 points

2009 Pinot Grigio:
Ripe apples with a hint of flowers, dry, balanced and exceedingly long. $15.
90 points

2008 Pinot Grigio Unterebner:
Medium-full bodied for a Pinot Grigio, with complex minerality and apple-citrus flavors. Excellent length, though a bit warm. $31.
90 points

Main Street Winery

There seems to be no shortage of good wine at the $10 price point (see my blog on Tempra Tantrum wines from Spain), but most of it is forgettable. With the introduction of the Main Street Winery label, sourced from premium growing areas around the state, the Trinchero family (Sutter Home, etc.) has set out to produce wines at $10 that offer a bit more than the usual over-ripe, low acid fruit bombs that are standard fare today. Here is the current lineup:

2008 Monterey County Sauvignon Blanc:
This is one terrific SB, full bodied yet tart, with citrus and gooseberry flavors, a bit of classic “cat piss” (if you have to ask, ignore the descriptor), subtle dried herbs and a long lemony finish with a mineral edge. Fine aromatics and balance. 92 points.

2008, Santa Barbara County (82%) / Monterey County (18%) Chardonnay:
Buttery, with appley fruit and a hint of caramel, velvety texture, full bodied, yet with pleasant acidity and a hint of mineral character. I’m astonished at the price of this wine, which delivers so much more than you’d expect at the price. Best served slightly chilled. 89 points.

2006, 54% Lake County, 24% Monterey County, 22% Santa Barbara County, Cabernet Sauvignon:
The dominant flavor of this light to medium-bodied Cab is black cherry, the oak is subtle, the tannins moderate, and there is a mineral edge to the finish. Pleasant enough, though the least varietally distinct of the Main Street line; it might be mistaken for a Merlot. 83 points

2006, 80% Monterey County, 8% Santa Barbara County, 7% Napa County, 5% Lake County, Merlot:
A lovely Merlot with aromatic black cherry fruit, faint notes of black pepper and vanilla, soft tannins, and classic structure. Dry, with some delicacy, this is a fine antidote to the port-like fruit bombs currently passed off as Merlot. 87 points.

2008, 97% Napa Valley, 3% Monterey County, Pinot Noir:
Dry, with forward scents of sandalwood and cherry. Lean and dry on the palate, with slight astringency and strawberry-cherry flavors. 84 points.

More Notes from the Cellar

I've been on a Merlot kick for a month, as I work my way through some of my older wines that need drinking. I started with the cheap wines, with the prejudice that inexpensive wines are made to be drunk the minute they're bought, their tannins are generally mild and they don't age well. As I've been discovering over the past year, some of these cheapies can age very well. This past week I had a surprisingly good 1993 M.G. Vallejo that probably retailed for around $7 at the time, and an opulent 1993 Glen Ellen with a California appellation that retailed for $5.00 at the time. The latter, lush and velvety, with cherry-berry flavor and fine balance, was one of the best Merlots I've ever tasted, regardless of price. Incidentally, the alcohol was just over 12%. One wonders if the big bruisers of today will stand the test of time, or become hot and unbalanced as the fruit dries up.

Tempra Tantrum

Rocio Osborne visited San Francisco recently to roll out her new line of screw-top wines, called Tempra Tantrum, from Malpica in the Tierra de Castilla region of Spain, an hour southwest of Madrid. The name evokes the kind of market-driven wine, like Yellow Tail, that is fresh, fruity, unpretentious, uncomplicated and affordable. As Rocio was telling me, her friends (all in their late 20’s, early 30’s) are mostly beer drinkers, and these wines are designed to appeal to this crowd in a way that an aged Rioja might not. Even for those of us who may appreciate an aged Rioja on a special occasion, at $10 a bottle the Tempra Tantrum wines serve admirably as everyday wines to enjoy with dinner. I should mention that all of these wines are well balanced table wines under 14% alcohol, so you can actually enjoy a few glasses from aperitif to postprandial quaff.

The "Tempra" of Tempra Tantrum refers to Tempranillo, as each of the four wines is a 60/40 blend of Tempranillo and either Cabernet, Merlot, Shiraz or Grenache. Though Tempranillo constitutes 60% of the blends, it serves as a neutral background upon which the supporting grapes leave their mark. There is no oak aging to complicate matters; the flavors of the different grape varieties shine through. Cabernet, with its strong cassis character, provides the flavor profile for the Tempranillo/Cabernet; the Tempranillo/Merlot displays lush cherry-berry fruit; the Tempranillo/Shiraz is dry and slightly peppery; and the Tempranillo/Grenache serves up the plum-like flavor of Grenache in the forefront, coupled with cherry-cranberry background notes from the Tempranillo.

I enjoyed them all. It’s a welcome change to find new wines that are balanced and affordable, and it will be interesting to see if Spain can mount a serious challenge to Australia and Chile.

Dipping into the Cellar

By Scott W Clemens

In the early part of my career as a wine writer, when I was reviewing wine for both Vintage magazine and Wine & Spirits Buying Guide, I tasted around 450 wines a month at the office, and I received a few samples at home from producers wishing to be reviewed. Sometimes I’d already reviewed the wine at the office, so the sample went into my cellar. I still review wine, but as our readership is small, so are the number of samples that arrive at my door. So I’ve been dipping into the cellar over the past three years, re-sampling some of the now well-aged reds from the 1981 through the 1997 vintages. It may seem strange now, but in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s the common consensus was that California wines couldn’t age because they were grown in a warm area and were thus too ripe.

The 1981 vintage in California was maligned at the time as a difficult and very hot vintage. The pundits, including dozens of winemakers, all predicted the wines would not age well. They were wrong. I finished the last of my 1981s last year, most of them Cabernets, but also some Merlots and Zinfandels, and they had all aged supremely well. Not one, of the 20 or so wines I tasted, was over the hill at 27 years of age! An Eberle Cab from that year was one of the best California Cabernets I’ve ever had (out of many thousands). And incidentally, all of them were under 14% alcohol.

In rummaging through the cellar I also found inexpensive wines from 1989 and 1991 that I had simply forgot about. Two, in particular, I remember: a 1989 Round Hill Cabernet Sauvignon, and a 1991 Forest Glen Cabernet Sauvignon, both of which are marketed as wines for current drinking, not designed to age. I opened them with the expectation that they would either be on the decline, or undrinkable. They were wonderful. They had not developed great complexity, but they were remarkably fresh.

This past month I had the opportunity to open two really marvelous bottles. The first was a Bayview Cellars, 1991, Napa Valley, Tradition, Cabernet Sauvignon, made by former Inglenook winemaker, John Richburg. It was complex, nuanced, and perfectly balanced (and just 13% alcohol), and it reeked of Rutherford Dust. In these days of over ripe wines, few Rutherford wines actually display their origin. This one was perfect, with cassis and black cherry flavors, light dusty tannins, and a subtle minerality. The second was a Buttonwood 1996, Santa Ynez Valley, Tres (a blend of 55% Merlot, 36% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 9% Cabernet Franc), weighing in at 13.7% alcohol. It was complex and oh so interesting, with layers of flavors that only come from long aging: threads of soy-Worcester, cloves and caramel run through cherry pie fruit. The tannin has all but disappeared, giving just a hint of astringency in the long, long lingering finish. This is exactly what aging is all about, why we age wine, and what we hope to gain from the exercise. Pretty close to perfect.

Lodi Wine on the Water

TREASURE ISLAND WINE FEST

“Lodi Wine on the Water”

by Scott W Clemens

Lodi vintners staged the first Treasure Island Wine Fest in San Francisco on a blustery day in October. For the past 20 years the wineries of Lodi, in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, have produced a sea of affordably priced wines of very good quality. The area has been particularly renowned for its old vine Zinfandel and such Rhone varieties as Mourvedre and Viognier. But at this tasting I discovered a new facet to Lodi’s personality; a few wineries are also producing excellent wines from Spanish and Italian varietals.

Of the more than 40 wineries pouring, four were standouts. I present them here in alphabetical order:

BOKISCH VINEYARDS

Bokisch specializes in Spanish varieties.

2008 Bokisch , St. Clement Hills-Lodi, Terra Alta Vineyard, Albariño:

Lean and minerally with a bit more fruit (neutral and edging toward green apple) than Spanish versions, with an extraordinarily long mineral and spice finish. Excellent balance and very refreshing. 88 points. $16

2007 Bokisch, Lodi Garnacha Rosado:

An excellent dry rosé with plum, clove and black pepper notes and great length. 94 points $18.

2006 Bokisch, Lodi Graciano:

Plum and cranberry with crisp acidity. 87 points. $26

2006 Bokisch, Lodi Tempranillo:

Dry cranberry-cherry flavors with light tannin, a touch of earth, and lovely s tructure. 90 points. $21

CHRISTINE ANDREW

Christine Andrew, a separate label from Ironstone Vineyards, produces an array of French varietals, as well as Tempranillo and Zinfandel, but at the tasting they were pouring:

2007 Christine Andrew, Lodi Viognier:

Complex and subtle with layers of white peach, rose petals, spice and minerals. All stainless steel fermented and a reasonable 13.5% alcohol (on the low end for Viognier). 90 points. $13

2007 Christine Andrew, Lodi Malbec:

Lush, briary, with spicy loganberry fruit, light tannin, light to medium body, with a very long, fruit and mineral finish. Excellent value. 94 points. $15

2006 Christine Andrew, Lodi Old Vine Zin:

Unlike so many Zinfandels these days, this one is not overblown and not high in alcohol, yet it shows intense raspberry fruit, with a mineral and light spice background, soft tannin, firm acidity and excellent balance. 93 points. $15

LUCAS WINERY

A winery making small lots of fabulous wines that are kept in the bottle a few years before they’re released. This is masterful winemaking, as you’d expect from owners Heather Plye-Lucas, former winemaker for Robert Mondavi’s reserve and Italian joint venture wines, and David Lucas, who was responsible for Mondavi’s California vineyards.

2006 Lucas, Lodi Chardonnay:

Just released, the 2006 displays bright grapefruit and pippin apple aromas and flavors, with crispy acidity, silky texture and a long finish. It’s amazingly aromatic. 94 points. $30

2005 Lucas, Lodi, ZinStar vineyard, Zin:

After spending a year in French oak and four years in the bottle, the 2004 offers intense raspberry and allspice aromas and flavors. Light, lively and ridiculously intense. 94 points. $35

UVAGGIO

All Italian varietals.

2008 Uvaggio, Lodi Vermentino:

Uvaggio is the largest California producer of Vermentino, a white variety grown on Sardinia and in parts of Tuscany. This version shows subtle floral notes and melon rind aromas and flavors. Only 100 cases produced. 88 points. $14

2008 Uvaggio, Lodi Moscato:

A lovely and refreshing wine with intense honeysuckle and hawthorn blossom character, crisp acidity yet silky texture. 93 points. $14

2005 Uvaggio, Lodi Barbera:

Lodi is the perfect place for Barbera. This one has a lovely restrained nose, and great varietal definition with its plum and chocolate notes and crisp acidity. A very correct Italian-style Barbera. 90 points. $18

2007 VINTAGE PORT

Portugal’s Port producers swept into town last week, to declare their 2007 vintage Port, which really is a remarkable vintage. At this young stage it rivals 1977 as the best of the past three decades. Fonseca, Taylor-Fladgate, Smith Woodhouse, Croft, Warre, Graham, Dow, Quinta do Vesuvio, Quinta do Noval and Silval were all present, pouring both the 2007 vintage and one older Port representative of the house style, to illustrate how well the wines age.

Vintage Port isn’t widely appreciated in The United States, or even in the modern world in general, as few have the patience to age it long enough to bring out the nuanced complexity an extra 30 years in the bottle will yield. Most of the 2007s will be drunk during their youth, when they’re full of fruit and power, and perhaps that’s the way most consumers enjoy it — god knows they buy enough 15% alcohol Zinfandel to have developed a palate for it.

Of the 2007s offered, I was most entranced by Taylor’s Vargellas Vinha Velha, a spectacular Port, soft, rich and balanced by bright acidity. At this stage it shows floral notes over blackberry and plum fruit, bittersweet chocolate, and silky tannins. The only problem is, just 200 cases were produced and a bottle will cost you $240. With 10,000 cases produced, the Taylor Fladgate is a better value at $95, showing well-balanced structure, concentrated cassis character with floral nuances, and a bit of fennel. Also notable was the beautifully balanced Warre, the nicely balanced Dow, with its plum, cherry and butterscotch flavors, and the spicy Quinta do Vesuvio. All of these wines promise great longevity.

Of the older contingent, Dow’s 1980 was still remarkable young; Taylor’s ’77 was lovely in that house’s lighter, constrained and more elegant style, while the still youthful ’77 Smith Woodhouse brought forth waves of floral scents over candied blackberry and jammy strawberry. Lastly, the 1985 Fonseca is delivering amazing complexity at 24 years, and should only gain momentum over the next decade.

Keeping in mind that this tasting was organized by the producers to hype the 2007 vintage, I discussed the wines with Darrel Corti. “It’s a lovely vintage,” he said, “but the problem is the price [of these wines — the average being about $100 a bottle]. Why would I buy a 2007, when I can get an older vintage cheaper?” — particularly in the light of the sad fact that some of us won’t outlast the wines.

The Enigma of Terroir

 by Scott W. Clemens 

If you read the wine press you’ll inevitably come across the French word terroir, literally soil. Ask a Frenchman why one wine is better or different than another and he’ll explain it in terms of terroir. About twenty-five years ago there was a great debate between New World and Old World winemakers as to the real importance of soil—afterall, it’s just one of the variables. At the time the French backtracked and explained that in reality the word has wider connotations; it also encompasses microclimate and viticultural traditions. Taken together, they argued, soil, microclimate, and viticultural traditions account for a wine’s quality. 

In the ensuing years New World winemakers and winery publicists have embraced the idea that terroir is what makes one wine different from (better than) another. Place, afterall, is one of the major differences between wine and beer. There is no doubt that wine, springing from a finicky agricultural crop, is affected by weather, microclimate and soil. 

The problem with the terroir argument is that it leaves winemaking out of the equation and loses sight of current reality. In past centuries there was a semblance of vinicultural tradition; technology changed slowly and there was little interaction between winemakers from one area and another. Over the last 60 years, however, technology and interaction have increased exponentially, and the proof is in the glass. But just as shared knowledge and technology have driven quality higher, they have also unwittingly contributed to a certain homogenization of style. This is nowhere more apparent than in Chardonnay.

A few examples are called for here. When I first started reading about wine in the early 1970’s the wine literature used the adjectives steely, flinty, minerally and sometimes austere to describe classic Chablis (Chardonnay from the Chablis district of France), as opposed to the fatter, softer, more opulent Chardonnays from the Côte d’Or. But it was a “classic” tradition only about 25 years old, born of the transition from barrel fermentation to stainless steel, temperature controlled fermentation. Then around 1980 winemakers in Chablis started going back to traditional barrel fermentation, and mimicking other winemaking techniques of their Burgundian cousins. And suddenly Chablis no longer tasted like the Chablis we had grown to know. The descriptors were no longer valid. 

The same can be said of California Chardonnay in every five year increment since 1970. At first most were simply cool fermented in stainless steel. Then along came barrel aging, barrel fermentation (along with the attendant choice of forest; domestic, French or Slavonian oak; new or used barrels; the amount of toasting and choice of cooper). Add to that: malolactic fermentation, sur lie aging, and the various clonal selections, rootstocks, trellising techniques, and yeast strains, as well as the age of the vineyards, irrigation, and a far greater understanding of how viticultural practices affect the final product, and you can understand why the concept of terroir as the arbiter of style is completely outmoded. 

The point was driven home once again in a late 1990s tasting of Meursault, at Beltramo’s wine shop in Menlo Park, California. Through the 1960s, 70s and ‘80s, Meursault [a Chardonnay from the town of Meursault in Burgundy] was almost exclusively fermented in Limousin oak, so “classic” Meursault was known for its fat, buttery, vanilla flavors with a toasty background. The character was due to Limousin’s phenolic characteristics and wide grain. But the wines of this tasting were much sleeker, still giving the impression of richness but not as oaky, and virtually indistinguishable from many of the top California Chardonnays. 

In my subsequent investigations I found that many of the Meursault producers had switched to Nevers and Tronçais oak, tighter grained and slower to impart vanillin and oxidation. Then a light went on in my head—I remembered Alain Fouquet, of Seguin Moreau cooperage in Napa Valley, saying that Limousin was not really suited to wine; it was better for brandy production. He therefore recommended to all of his clients that they buy barrels coopered from tighter grained oak grown in the center of France (the forests of Nevers, Allier and Tronçais). So it appears that to a large degree barrel manufacturers dictated the change in the Meursault style, and that a regional character which was once considered a product of terroir, was nothing more than a local consensus concerning vinification techniques.

One of the most important innovations in the history of winemaking was the introduction of barrels, which could serve both as fermentation and storage vessels. French oak barrels were used only in France. Other countries constructed their own barrels from locally grown trees. So the flavor profile imparted by French oak, belonged only to the French. And that flavor became part of the terroir. Today, French oak is available (at a price) all around the world. You can find French barrel fermented Chardonnays from California, Chile, Australia and Italy. So the particular flavor imparted by French oak is no longer exclusive to French wine. Wine culture has become so international that the distinctions between one wine region and another are blurring, especially in regards to the diaspora of French grape varieties.

Until the introduction of stainless steel fermentation in the 1940’s, the production of wine had remained unchanged for centuries, and while temperature controlled fermentation has revolutionized wine production (and totally changed the character of many white wines), there have been even more advances in the vineyard. Consider a farmer in Burgundy in the 18th or 19th centuries. Everything he did, from planting to pruning to picking was dictated by traditions handed down from generation to generation. He didn’t know a clone from a cocker spaniel. He’d never heard of American rootstock, or clones, and the vineyard was dry-farmed (i.e. farmed without irrigation). He put his effort into producing the biggest crop possible on that piece of land, yet poor soil and inadequate rainfall made the job difficult. Under those circumstances, some places were notably more suitable to growing grapes for wine production.

That old farmer no longer exists. Today’s farmer is a scientist, and his vineyard is his laboratory. The choice of rootstock, clone, trellising and pruning practices, cover crops, yield and managed stress are employed to give the vintner the best possible fruit with which to make his wine and hit his price point. The public relations department may talk about tradition, but tradition is only useful if it achieves the desired end—to produce the best product possible within economic limitations.

I remember writing in 1982 that Chardonnay was a good medium for oak because the grape had little complexity in and of itself, and its flavor profile included a hint of vanilla, as did the oak. Times have changed. A winemaker can now make a complex Chardonnay by blending the various clones that have been isolated in the vineyard. There are clones that taste of apples and pears, clones with a distinct lemony character, and clones with lush tropical fruit character (yeast selection also affects the fruitiness of the wine). Chardonnays with tropical fruit character were once thought to be solely the product of a cool growing climate like Monterey. But with the right clone, hot climate Chardonnays can now achieve the same degree of tropical fruit flavor.

So back to terroir—do soil and microclimate effect the grapes? Yes, of course. Is one vineyard intrinsically better than another? Yes, again. Is it possible to tell that a wine came from particular vineyard or area? Yes, but with qualifications. One of the more fascinating aspects of wine is that it can reflect a sense of its place of origin. In my experience, the two grapes that best reflect their terroir are Pinot Noir and Riesling. But for wine expert and consumer alike, in an era when viticultural and vinicultural techniques change so rapidly, where information flows freely across borders, and regional traditions are in flux, there are very few wines that emphatically declare their origins. More often, winemaking masks the true terroir. Figuring out where the impact of the land leaves off and technology takes over is largely impossible. It is now possible to make decent, sometimes even spectacular, wine from grapes grown in areas that would have been inhospitable to grapes in the era of tradition and dry-farmed vines. Winegrowers can now outsmart Mother Nature.

I’m not questioning the importance of microclimate and soil, but the next time someone explains that a particular characteristic is due to the terroir, take it with a large grain of salt and consider the other factors. Tradition is dead; innovation thrives, and therein lies the fallacy of the whole concept of terroir.