2006 Altos Las Hormigas Malbec Mendoza
Rating: ♠ ♠ ♠ 1/2

Had the opportunity this past weekend to hole up at an Argentine wine cellar, doing some very judicious swirl and sip maneuvers. Up until now, I have been very excited-in-concept about Malbec. It seems that all of the grapes that go into the old Bordeaux “claret” take on a life of their own when liberated from from ensemble work. For us, the first breakout star was Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa. Then came Merlot. In Chile it has been Carmenère, and Malbec, is making itself at home in Argentina.
 
Down Argentine way, some Malbecs skew to the Beaujolais manqué, being a light and fruity quaff, a go-with-anything party in a bottle. And that’s fine. Some, possibly brooding over the decline of Argentina since Perón (it used to be the 2nd most affluent nation per capita in the Western hemisphere), are dark and dense. And that’s also fine.

Me being Goldilocks, I like Malbec to be “just right” with a red fruit freshness and some black fruit depth and finally some toasty aspects with decent (but not obnoxious) tannin support. The good news is that Argentines being Argentines, the whole International Style o’ Wine doesn’t hold much sway. (If my Argentine friends are anything to go by, Argentina is waiting for the the rest of the world to start making wines in the Argentine style.)

Also particularly good news is that since Argentines eat eleventy zillion calories’ worth of grilled beef every day, their wines are made pretty specifically to couple up with this bovine paradigm. Well-marbled beef grilled over a live fire is a cinch to knock the scratch off many a tannic fortress. The nice thing about these is that while, yes, there is some tannin there and also some oak (especially if it’s manifested as a “toastiness”), there is also really good acid present in a lovely balance. The latter two are key factors.
 
Many unfortunates who only skim these reports read things such as the above and begin howling. “I thought you hated wines that…” and the like. We hate wines that are clumsy, inelegant and oafish.This is because we, at Vinapedia Tower, are fully aware that wine is meant to go with something. (By this I mean “something beyond a gigapoint review from Big Wine Magazine.”) In order to harmonize with certain foods, a wine must have certain criteria present in a certain balance. Not rocket science, this. Argentine winemakers are to be commended for realizing that if some oak is good, then more oak is not necessarily better, and probably isn’t. Ditto tannins.
 
The other nice thing about Argentine Malbec is that prices are generally oscillating between “excellent value” and “larceny.” Schlepping through those available in the USA you’d have a bit of a job ahead of you to find many over $40. The other other nice thing about Malbec from Argentina is that it can age quite nicely. Most — even most of the ones I’d suggest — aren’t made for a real-l-l-ly long haul, but they definitely will mature wonderfully over the next 5-10 years.

Oh, one last thing. Malbec really likes aeration. A lot of the time “let the wine breathe” is just part of the oenophile dog-and-pony show, but in the case of malbec, there is an element of truth to it. Besides, it costs nothing.
 
Of the Goldilocks style of Malbec, I want you to give laserlike focus to the 2006 Altos Las Hormigas Malbec Mendoza. It has a bright, purple/ruby color. The bouquet is of blackberry/raspberry, cocoa/coffee, with a strong support of toasty, oaky spice and — we’re not crazy — leather, and an intriguing vanilla-coconut thing. Fresh, lush and delicate and sweet but not even remotely “sticky-sweet.” The fresh fruit aspect of this wine is what really sets it apart…highlighting the lovely, dense, texture and a long, firm finish with a tannic edge.

Pair this with wood-grilled steaks (especially something especially rich, like skirt steak) or black and blue lamb chops and pretend to be gaucho on the Pampas. At $11 a bottle, you’ll save enough to swing the airfare soon enough, even if you buy extras to lay down for the next 4 to 5 years.

—J.M. Garcia III 

 

2005 Clos l’Eglise Cotes de Castillon 

Rating: ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ (♠)

If you inflict yourself with superfluous wine publications, you will be (at least dimly) aware the 2005 Bordeaux has been touted as the “Vintage of the Century!” Setting aside such logic gyrations needed to say this only 5 years into the century, and also setting aside the fact we normally hear “Vintage of the Century!” twice a decade, this chant — which has reached even our ears at the penthouse of Vinapedia Tower — can be decoded as meaning “these wines are probably pretty good.”
 
But, let’s look at things a bit more carefully. What do we mean when we say “Vintage of the Century!”? My interpretation is that during said vintages, even the vintners who normally make pretty good wines stand an excellent chance of making spectacular, epoch-shattering stuff. The guys who are just a furlong down the road from the Big Names and have keen, sharp winemakers who mightn’t have the resources, year-in and year-out to make monumental wines.
 
For these guys, who have to maximize whatever opportunity they get to make the world sit up and take notice, 2005 was such a year. The weather cooperated, the wine makers were in a benevolent mood, the harvesters were pleased with their daily rations of Gitanes and Gauloises and all went well. Thus, 2005 wins Vinapedia’s award for Vintage of the Century of the Year.
 
Having our antennae now keenly attuned to the added excellentness Ma Nature chose to heap upon wines of that time and place, we waited for the opportunity to cadge some freebie tastings. Sure enough, Aloha Tom, flush with glee at his new Reyn Spooner shirts and Panama hat to cover his greying bald spot and focus attention to his greying beard and ponytail instead gave the signal: Aloha Tom’s Wine Hut would be having a tasting of selected 2005s. These wines have begun to arrive and/or will be arriving shortly. I didn’t ask which were which, because a man who goes around wearing shirts emblazoned with flourescent tropical produce is clearly fearless and therefore capable of anything when riled.
 
I must say that when you taste wines that are supposed to be Big Important Reds when they are young, you must use your imagination. These wines are not, in the overwhelming majority of the cases, ready to drink. They need rest. Repose. Lots of it. So you must think of what it’d be like to taste this wine after it has had time to calm down and take a shower and learn some manners. Like in the case of goverment statistics based on “seasonally adjusted data” there is some very educated guesswork at play. The better the wine, the less “guessy” the opinions.
 
Anyway. The tasting. I must admit that Aloha Tom, resplendent in his shirt adorned with stylized kiwi and passion fruit, selected his wines very well. Either that or he put out what he was sent and got very, very lucky. I went around and purposefully avoided looking at labels or prices. I avoided the edibles. All of the wines were wines I could see being spectacular with cellaring, and I was eager to find something for me to latch on.
 
(When I was but a mere lad of 18 — those being the days when the drinking age coincided with the age at which one could bear arms for one’s country or help elect its representatives — I managed to score some 1982 Ch. Pontet Canet. It took my little all, but I bought a case, and the wisdom of that youthful choice beams back at me as I stand on the threshhold of respectable middle age.)
 
So I know what I’m after and I’m pleased to report I have found it.
 
Most of those wines start in at $75 per bottle and shoot skyward from there. Which is a pity, really. At the end of the night I reviewed my notes and I saw that my favorite wine, which I preferred by only the very slimmest, most translucent of margins to my second favorite, cost $270 per bottle. (Ch. Leoville Las Cases, in case you’re stumped for gifts) Most of my other favorites frolicked and gamboled merrily in the $200-$350 per bottle range. But… what about that second favorite?
 
That, friends, is but a piddly $30. Three-zero. Thirty. Roll it over in your mind and let it fall trippingly off your tongue. Three Hamiltons. You simply MUST steal this wine and, while you’re at it, steal a cubic truckload of it. It’s the 2005 Clos l’Eglise Cotes de Castillon. Normally I’d hush it up, but I already got mine.
 
At some places you can get it for the “futures” price and even if you can’t, you’re only staring at $30/bottle, which is closer to “free” than its real worth. I have no higher praise for a wine than this: I got, with my very own cash, two cases of it. None of this “Charge it to Vinapedia, Tom! and aloha to you and Mrs. Tom!” stuff. Out of my own pocket.
 
This wine, even it it remains a relative bargain to the other 2005s, will only go up in price. (The other 2005 Bordeaux’s prices will certainly hit nosebleed altitudes pretty soon.) So get it now. As in, pause from your daily grind and order a case now.
 
Also, make sure you get the right one which is not the one in Pomerol (that one has a price tage to make your eyes water freely).

Here are my notes, verbatim: Pure ruby [color]. Complex and lively aroma. Cherry, raspberry and a little anise. Hint [of] minerals. Has a ripe sweetness, with a fruity sort of lushness. Elegant acidity and strong tannic presence for amazing balance. That earthy-mineral thing is pleasantly noticeable. Long finish. Very suave, subtle and long on the finish. I’d say this can only improve in the cellar, and I’d even say it can handle 15-25 years, though I might be tempted in 10 to check its progress.

Now, at this point the less attentive in the audience might start to whoop and holler about my previous railings against Big Red Wines. Which is wrong. I rail against wines that seek fame and fortune based on fat scores, not from hewing close to the varietal and geographical characteristics of a given wine, but borne of imitating other giga-point wines. This wine is very true to the Bodeaux character, not the Bordeaux caricatute. It is sublime and I’d give it 6 spades if The Proprietor would allow me.

2005 Pazo de Señorans 

Rating: ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠

One of the unexpected fringe benefits of being — simultaneously — something a pioneer, a raving cheapskate, and a man of exacting and refined tastes is finding new-to-us wines. Discovering, much like Columbus discovered Ohio, something to share with those similarly predisposed. Thus far, my ruminations and suggestions have mostly embraced red wine because, well, that’s just the way I roll. But there is much to recommend the white wines once you manage to effect an a Plisskinesque escape from Done To Death. The white wine which has caught my fancy of late is the Albariño from the Rías Baixas, in the Galician part of Spain. Galicia is the northwesternmost region of Spain, and it’s best known for it’s fjord-like coastline and estuaries called in the local dialect “Rías Baixas” probably because a word like fjord gives the Iberic tongue an ambarrassing pain, to say nothing of being Norwegian. But I digress.
 
As a wine hub, this place has made its reputation mostly (OK, solely) on the white wines which are produced from the otherwise unknown Albariño grape, which have proven to be something of a surprise hit. I say something of a surprise, because white wines have also suffered from the dreaded Internationalization Plague, and have often become butterier, fatter, oakier, an so forth. As our taste for seafood grows and our palates learn to discern better, it’s only natural to gravitate towards wines that are crisper and lighter and “racier.” In keeping with this, the archetypal Rías Baixas wines tend to be monumentally aromatic: Herby, citrusy and apricot/peachy all tend to be adjectives that fly around when these wines are the focus of a tasting. Very happily for people who enjoy eating seafood that is not lobster aswim in butter, the Albariño wines (at least from the Rías Baixas) only sees oak when being transported through a forest. This allows its natural racy acidity to help it marry spectacularly with seafood, especially those ultrafresh examples where its briny-sweet character is on display.
 
Of these wines (and you have a mission ahead of you to find a bad one) I’m partial to those from Pazo de Señorans. This winery belongs to a crusader of sorts. In the late 1980s, its owner, Marisol Bueno helped spearhead the appellation, which now benefits from a Denominación de Origen. As a result of her efforts, the appellation was formally born in 1988, with the happy result of quality benchmarks, which in turn begat worldwide recognition. As befits someone interested in keeping things as close to the traditional ideal, her estate is one property among the few still operating in a family-owned model. By design, it has resisted expansion in order to keep up a near-fanatical level of quality. So you can imagine how well-pruned teh vines are, keeping the yields nice and low.
 
Now, the wines of Rías Baixas are very much influenced by the proximity of the Atlantic, which gives the place a verdant character with a hint of salty tang in the breezes. (I’ve been there, and unlikely as it sounds, it does have a salty tang.) Yes, it has lots of rainfall and humidity. This keeps the temperatures in the moderate range and affords the region a very fertile profile. From looking at it, you’d swear the countryside was the love child of Ireland and Norway, with its fjord-lets and a surplus of green, gently rolling hills. It’s on these hills the vines are planted, under which lies rich and minerally soil. Pazo de Señorans is at the northernmost part of the Rías Baixas.

The 2005 Pazo de Señorans definitely lives up to expectations. The color is a pale, bright gold, and it has a minerally bouquet with a riot (in a good way) of apricot/peachy notes. On the palate, you are immediately aware of its dry and crisp nature, that yields to an intense outburst of peach subtext, with additional honeyed elements and a slight richness from sitting on its lees. The finish? You should live so long. Naturally, it’s not oaked and thus is ideal for the lighter, brinier seafoods. Think oysters in mignonette or not overly brash crudos or even simply grilled flounder/sole or seabass, maybe with a delicate herb crust and a spritz of citrus. This wine is spectacularly delicious.
 
5 spades. Yes, 5.

Back in November, the Oenophiliac, J.M. Garcia III, posted a piece lambasting the 100-point wine rating scale as all but useless . Knowing the piece was bound to raise hackles — and loving a good fight — we sent out a press release on PR Web pointing to the post. The article was duly flamed, and in short order, by a well-known, veteran wine reporter who writes for some mid-sized papers located in the duller parts of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Without so much as a “dear sir,” he wrote:

About ten years ago or maybe more, Frank Prial, then the NY Times wine columnist, and a very savvy gent, who did not use the 100-point scale, commented on it. 

He said he did not mind it in the least because all it meant was that the reviewer who gave one wine 87 points and another wine 86 was saying nothing more than he liked the 87 point wine a little bit better.

Mr. Prial was right then and he is right now. Your rant misses the point, and essentially says that wine is not about small differences, when, in fact, that is exactly what separates one wine from another, one vintage from another, one maker’s Chardonnay from a particular vineyard from another makers’ wine from the same vineyard.

If small differences are of no import ot you, then you are missing the point. Wine is not a non-differentiable commodity like beer or soap and our enjoyment of it has the same characteristics that we bring to the differences between hamburgers or croissants or diamonds or tennis rackets.

They maybe be good, bad or indifferent, but they are distinct in their differences, and it is those differences that cause us to like one version and not another.

An interesting response, we thought. I wrote this intrepid reporter back and asked why he did not submit his comments through the Tasting Notes Blog so that all and sundry could benefit by his wisdom.

The writer responded, saying that his comments were for our eyes alone. He went on to note that: 

There is no such thing as a perfect ratings system, and it always strikes me as a bit silly when one reviewer or another or one observer or another proclaims to have found the “truth”.
 
As one of my readers said, “I don’t care if you use a ten chopstick system”. It is your judgment and comments that count. I can do the rest of the calculus for myself.”

At this point I was at a loss, as this was indeed the gist of Garcia’s “rant.” I began to suspect that this reporter may have read the press release but not the actual article. We wrote, saying, “If you actually read the post, you’d see that we didn’t claim to know ‘the truth.’ The author, Garcia, did however express an opinion. We’re allowed that, are we not?”

Mr. Veteran Wine Reporter then confirmed our suspicion: 

I will admit that I had not looked at the actual post when I responded. Instead, I was reading the rather more provocative press release.

That’s some wildly shabby reporting. No wonder he didn’t want to associate his good name with his comments. When I was in  journalism school, had I responded in print to a press release without actually investigating the story behind it, I would have gotten an instant “F.” I wonder what the editors at this reporter’s papers would think?

But never mind. Admission of poor reportage out of the way, he went on to slam Garcia again, anyway:

I have now read the entire post. It is more than opinion. It purports to tell people that wines over 90 points are not representative of place and grape.
 
Here is an actual quote: “To get 90-plus points you cannot make the traditional, authentic wine of the region with the native grape. You must ply the wine with oak, load it up with overripe and jammy fruit, wildly astringent with tannins, and heavy with alcohol until it resembles the other 90-plus wines and not the ideal Beaujolais, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo or Chablis. Which means you can’t pair up this wine with paella, or bucatini amatriciana. And that leaves you back where we started. ”
 
What arrant nonsense. Has the writer not heard of good Chiantis, great Chablis, mannerly Puligny-Montrachets?
 
Does the writer mean to say that Matt Smith’s brilliant, gold-medal winning Chenin Blanc is not representative of Chenin Blanc? What arrant nonsense.
 
I could go on forever with this. It is, of course, true, that wines with intensity will frequently score more highly than wimpy wines. But, the issues are balance, adherance to varietal character and drinkability, not oak, tannin or dried grape concentration. Intensity is not the same as excess. Otherwise, the lack of intensity would be the focus of wine worship.
 
And does the writer also mean to say that all wines with oak and tannin are inappropriate? I hope not, but that is gist of what is written.
 
So, I guess I disagree with the direction of the article. I appreciate your willingness to read my comments.
 
And I hope that your interest in wine will continue to grow, and that you will do as most of us do, listen to your own palate and taste wines broadly. No one, not Parker or me or the Wine Spectator or Mr. Garcia knows all the answers. Your palate will tell you what is right or wrong for you, and whether you like big wines or balanced wines or midsized wines, you will find that the best examples of all of them do adhere to the notions of balance, varietal character and drinkability — even if that drinkability is not always immediate.
 
Authentic wines of Bordeaux have never been immediately drinkable but they have been and remain authentic.

It would be unfair not to let Garcia respond. Here it is: 

The problems with the scale, for those who prefer large fonts and small words is that it does not convey what it says it conveys, and it is not useful to the vast majority of non-Gnostic wine lovers. Using that system, not all wines are, in real terms, eligible for the top scores. The commenter said: “Has the writer not heard of good Chiantis, great Chablis, mannerly Puligny-Montrachets?”

I defy anyone to show me a Chianti that has garnered a 95-plus point review from the major wine media that was not oaky and high in alcohol with masses of jammy fruit. Such wines have more in common with other Very Big Reds than they do with fellow Chianti bottlings.

Some have suggested that adherence to varietal character is what earns a wine a 95-plus point rating. We agree, up to a point…if the varietal is Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, etc.  Not so much if the wine is a Barbera or a Viura. One of the flaws of this scale is its glass ceiling for certain varietals. Put bluntly, some varietals, under the present regime, will never earn a 95-plus review if they stay in character.

Another comment chided us for suggesting – we didn’t – that all wines with oak and tannin were bad or somehow “wrong.” Which is, of course, not only drivel but drivel disprovable by a proper reading of the piece. Oak and/or tannin are only appropriate to some wines, and in turn these wines “go” with only certain types of food. If you start making wines with the aim to please the critics, you will eventually arrive at an appalling sameness which leads to a impossibly monotonous menu if your aim is to have a 95-plus wine which complements every meal.

Which is the genesis of the gripe. 

The naysayer missed the point. The point is that the 100-pt. scale is putatively an aid to consumers who — one presumes — don’t have time or resources to go touring the Loire in a Citroen with Oz Clarke. Therefore where it stands or falls is in its capacity to aid consumers in making an informed choice. The 100 point scale manifestly fails to do that. If someone thinks it does, I’d be thrilled if he (or she) were to explain it to me, in crayon and monosyllabic words. We can sit and discuss it over a 95-plus point bottle of Albariño or Brouilly.

My treat.

Although I don’t owe this fellow any professional courtesy to do so, I have elected to withhold this guy’s  name. (Though I will tell you that the names of two of the Bay Area papers he writes for rhyme with “slimes.”)  Futhermore, as a professional reporter, he ought also to know that words like “off the record” and “my comments were are for you only” are completely without meaning, legal or otherwise. “Never tell anything to anybody that you don’t want to see in print” is J. 101.

But such is the state of journalism today.
 

In his latest dispatch, The Oenophiliac, J.M. Garcia III, wrestles with the 100-point wine rating scale… and pins it to the mat. 

We have but one goal in mind: To demystify the world of wine for those who have, heretofore, been mystified by it. Surely a noble calling. Yet we were not the first to take steps towards this goal. Several pioneers, seemingly quite interested in both numerology and viticulture have preceded us. In their wake they have left tools and resources of varying degrees of usefulness. The most famous such tool is the now infamous 100-point wine rating scales used such heavy-hitters as Robert Parker and the editors of The Wine Enthusiast. Now, any vaguely sentient wine enthusiast has, by this point, begun to notice there have been rumors, whispers, meaningful glances and murmurs against the venerable 100-point scale. But you won’t get any whispers or murmurs about it from me.

Instead, you’ll get an unambiguous broadside against it.

Sexy, but Vapid
Sure, the 100-poin scale makes a lot of sense from a marketing standpoint. A “99-point wine” sounds pretty damn sexy. But the sad fact is that, like many things which seem sexy when viewed casually and from afar, it’s actually vapid and meaningless. (Think “Young Hollywood.”)

Better yet, this scale is so meaningless, on so many different levels, that it’s a veritable buffet for oeno-malcontents. If you would be so kind as to notice — or simply be so kind as to trust me on this — the number of wines rated below 70 by the major adherents of the 100-point scale is functionally zero. Why, if a wine ever received a 60-something-point rating, the vintner would probably be subject to prosecution by an international tribunal in The Hague. So, right off, we must admit this is really only a 30 point scale.

Big, Important Wines Only Need Apply
Compounding the uselessness of the scale is those wines that manage to sit in the 90 to 100-point step of the ziggurat. You’d think a wine that scored 97 points would be near the top of its kind. You’d also be wrong. The wines that hit that rarefied air are almost all “Big Important Wines” — Cabernets, Chardonnays, Bordeaux, the odd Rieslings… that sort of thing. Still don’t believe me? Let’s take a little test.

Go to your favorite wine publication’s website and click your cynical self over to the “search the ratings” section. Select a Beaujolais. Now ask the search to return only those Beaujolais with a score of 95-100. How many did the search bring up? None? Now try it with, say, Sauvignon Blanc. Or maybe a Rosé, any Rosé. Still nothing? Hmm. How about Chenin Blanc?

Starting to see a pattern here?

Cynics would proclaim that any wine that’s not hovering at 15 percent alcohol and tasting of a half-forest’s worth of oak stands no chance of the big score. Not I, of course, but cynics would. Seen from a different angle, this means that if you limit your purchases to 95-plus point wines, your cellar will look mighty monotonous. To make things more interesting, if you decide that you want to eat only what will pair well with such a cellar, you have a lifetime of ceaseless black-and-blue prime rib ahead of you (making said lifetime conveniently briefer) with the odd lobster for variety.

Reflect on that for a moment.

And while you’re being all reflective, add to the mix this interesting factoid: The greatest (authentic) Beaujolais ever will never score as well as a Great Big Cabernet from a half-decent year. Stop me if I am spouting lunacies. Then you have the problem that it’s usually one single person who assigns a score to a wine. You’re counting on that reviewer to not have had a fight with the teenage daughter the night before, to have gotten a good night’s sleep, to not have gambled away the milk money in Vegas, etc.

If it was left there, then this would be but a mere annoyance. But it’s not. You see, the average wine drinker, when graduating to more serious levels of sophistication, starts taking these all-but-arbitrary numbers as Gospel. When Chateau St. Nobody gets a 95, and its sales quadruple overnight, other winemakers in similar situations start looking like Uncle Scrooge when he discovered his next door neighbor picking diamonds out of his backyard. For these guys, the ticket to fame and lucre is simple: get a wine rated at 90-plus points.

By now you have spotted the flaw, haven’t you? To get 90-plus points you cannot make the traditional, authentic wine of the region with the native grape. You must ply the wine with oak, load it up with overripe and jammy fruit, wildly astringent with tannins, and heavy with alcohol until it resembles the other 90-plus wines and not the ideal Beaujolais, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo or Chablis. Which means you can’t pair up this wine with paella, or bucatini amatriciana. And that leaves you back where we started.

Do We Really Need All 100 Points?
Naturally, we are not going to dismantle, or even reform, the 100 point scale. (Yet.) Instead, let’s constrict the 100-point-but-really-only-30-point scale a little bit more. If the current scale throws out all numbers below 70,  let’s take it a step further and throw out all numbers below 85. And then, to show ‘em who’s boss, throw out all the numbers above 89. There. We have just hacked the unwieldy 100 point scale to its real range of 30 and then to its useful range of five. To make it even more fun, you can use symbols instead of numbers. You know: hearts, peace signs, My Little Ponies or, like Vinapedia, spades.

So let’s go back to the online ratings experiment, only instead of seeking wines rated 95-plus you seek wines rated 85 to 89. Better selection, right? But what else have you noticed? That’s right. Prices are also far more reasonable. In fact, if you want to have fun, contrast the average price of an 89-point wine to the average price of a 90-point wine. Then ask yourself if that extra point is worth the 20 to 45 percent jump in price.

Answer: No.

So there you have it, a clearing in the ratings jungle.

—J.M. Garcia III

The Oenophiliac, J.M. Garcia III, opines on the gobble-day wines, and — gasp! — shuts the door on the old harvest-time stand-by, Beaujolais Nouveau. The nerve!  

Thanksgiving is nearly at our throats and, as this is the one holiday dedicated to the principle that one ought freely engage in lucullan self-abuse and be grateful for the opportunity, the motto of “What ought we drink?” is heard echoing throughout the top floors of Vinapedia Tower in ringing baritones.

Passersby accost us, women of a certain age and lurid disposition sidle up to us in the produce section of our local supermarkets, and incomplete foodies look upon us pleadingly. They all are aware of the searing need for Vinapedic guidance.

Which brings us — calloo, callay! — to today, your day of potable deliverance.

In order for us to tell you what you ought drink, we must first start with what you must specifically not drink: Beaujolais Nouveau. This is not some sort of atavistic Francophobia or anti-Gallic editorial policy or viticultural jingoism. It is based on the hard fact that Beaujolais Nouveau simply doesn’t play well with the typical Thanksgiving Day menu. The marketing wizards will tell you Beaujolais Nouveau “goes with everything.”  Which is a yes-and-no proposition. It is simple enough and fruity enough and et cetera enough to not stand athwart the groaning board hurling vile abuse at your palate.

But that’s hardly a rousing endorsement, is it?

Mind you, this isn’t limited to Beaujolais Nouveau; the Usual Suspects (even when they avoid the dreaded International Style) are all in trouble with the foodstuffs of gratitude. There is only one wine that has the muscle to cope well with the sage and pepper inflected turkey’s dark meat and white meat, and the cornbread, and the sausage bedecked stuffing/dressing, and the gravy and the cranberries and even that thing with the green beans and the canned fried onions and condensed soup your least favorite aunt brings every year. We’re talking about Zinfandel.

Sadly, most Zinfandel gets recognition for “white Zinfandel” which is a role for which it is catastrophically ill-suited… to make a wine that is little more than a wine cooler without training wheels. No, no, no. We’re talking real Zinfandel. It even has the happy characteristic of not being one of those grapes that has been planted up one continent and down the other. It’s a cheerfully American thing, this Zinfandel.

Now, if you are having a Thanksgiving bash with 50 of your closest friends and family some of whom might be considered, in technical terms, philistines, you’ll want to pick a more accessible and affordable Zinfandel than if the party consisted of 20 or 8. Basically you want something with soft tannins, cherry-berry fruit and a good spice backbone. Here are the choices depending on how colossal your festivities are.

2005 Ravenswood Winery Zinfandel, Lodi ($10 street price).
If you had to pick a Zinfandel with exactly zero research – blind, if you will – your safest bet is to reach for something from Ravenswood. At any price, this is a great wine. At $10, it’s practically pointing a blunderbuss at you and demanding to be taken home. The color is a standard red, no purple and none of the rust/brick either. It has a berry brightness that is adorned with very notable spicy and mineral-ly characteristics, with a hint (just a hint, but I’m not crazy here) of citrus. Around this time you notice how deliciously unobtrusive the tannins are, lending just enough support to keep things smooth and sleek. The closer you get to the finish the more pronounced the berry thing becomes, which wraps up with a delicious cherry/spice character. Given that my Thanksgiving will consist of a medium-sized horde, I bought a case of this very thing. With the case discount, it really is an stunning bargain and will also pair up fantastically with grilled steaks. (You’re welcome.)

2005 Ravenswood Zinfandel, Dickerson Vineyard, Napa Valley ($20)
Yes, it’s another Ravenswood. I know. But this serves to underscore my point that, if you wanted the closest thing to a “foolproof” choice, Ravenswood Zinfandels are among the finalists. This one is clear scarlet, with the usual blackberry/raspberry aromas, with a smoky/herby edge. It has a gleeful acidity and a crisp minerality. Amazing finish, with a bit more tannin than its kid brother above. Good bet for cellaring. (If you can find the 2004, grab it and run, the extra year will have made it even more stellar.)

2005 Ridge Vineyards, Geyserville, Sonoma County ($30)
Ridge is another of the realibly excellent Zinfandel producers. This one is a deep red, with a bouquet of blackberries and cherries, assorted mineral-ness and herbes de Provence lifted, with hints of star anise and pepper. The body is less than you’d expect from a Zinfandel, but it’s lush and supple and the tannins just poke their heads out to say “hi.” (This is also available in half-bottles at about $18.)

—J.M. Garcia III 

Editor’s Note: Be sure to visit our main Thanksgiving Wine Picks page for more exciting T-day wine recommendations. Be advised, however, that we do mention the “B” word at least once. Well, conistency is the hobgoblin of little minds after all. 

Like Ulysses and the Sirens, The Oenophliac, J.M. Garcia III, is enticed by Central California’s Rhône style blends… Unlike Ulysses, he delightedly succumbs to their charm…  

California wine, there’s a very good chance you started life as a fan of Napa Valley wines. They got the giga-point ratings, had (and still have) all the 600 lb. gorilla names and tons of P.R. Maybe, if you were a madman rebel like I am, you might have been up to speed with Sonoma wines too… you wild rascal, you.

But pretty much this is where it all ends for 90 percent of the people who prefer to drink California wine. Aloha Tom (not his real name, although if you saw him you’d recognize him) sent me a flyer to the effect that his shop, Aloha Tom’s Wine Shack, would be having a tasting of “alternative California Reds.” Eager to expand my horizons, I nodded assent and went.

Other wine regions of the globe have had a moment of discovery, so the time has come for the South Central Coast of California, roughly from Paso Robles to Santa Barbara. Much like Cabernet Sauvignon was the breakout wine for Napa, Pinot Noir has been for the Santa Barbara area. While not bad, my bet is on the wines that are riffing nicely on the Rhône theme. These were the ones to which I was inexorably drawn.

No foofy varietals-driven marketing for me, thanks.

As it turns out, my favorite wine makers are concentrating their efforts on producing blends of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre. This produces results which would make my palate perform somersaults and triple lutzes — if it weren’t firmly affixed to my skull, of course — being reasonably priced and pathologically food-friendly.

Mark you, I mean reasonably priced, not cheap, wines. You’re looking at wines that will alleviate your wallet’s burden in $20 to $40 lumps. The joy and mirth here, though, is that just as much Rhonic goodness may be found at the $20 end as in the $40 end. Yes, these are not as easy to find as the 99 point Huge Oaky Red (on sale for $84), but neither will you need a bloodhound and magnifying glass. Even better, they have just enough — and no more than strictly necessary — tannin support to make cellaring a viable proposition.

As I mentioned, this sort of wine is also very seriously food-friendly. You can practically see yourself at some sidewalk restaurant, drinking an elegant glassful of this with your steak frites in a café in Paris as you ponder going on strike for six more weeks of paid vacation. Think of simple, elegant bistro beef dishes and you’re on the right track. Entrecote Vigneron, steak frites or au poivre, tournedos, or a roast tenderloin… all of these are vying to become best friends with these Rhône blends.

That’s the other key to the savvy purchase of these wines. You want the blends, and you want them labeled as such. Any wine that highlights a grape varietal (in this case, usually Syrah) is going to perform additional violence to your credit card without any commensurate improvement in the experience. So get blendy.

Now, within this sphere there are many excellent winemakers but two really stick out for the purposes of this little scribble of mine; Villa Creek and Tablas Creek. Of the two, the “steal” of the bunch is:

2004 Tablas Creek, Côtes de Tablas, Paso Robles ($22)
Red with vestigial traces of purple… if I had my kids’ box of crayons I’d tell you exactly what it was called. The nose is tickled with hits of strawberry, cherry and oak. The mouthfeel is very rich and juicy. It features a lively spiciness and yet more cherry with other red berry flavors singing backup. The spicy thing lasts a good while. Right through the finish, in fact. While it has the tannic underpinning I’d say they are more “powdery” than dusty and dry. This is wine you simply do not tire of drinking.

If you can score some of the 2002 and 2003 you’ll be very pleased with yourself.

Buy this wine at Wine.com:
Tablas Creek 2004 Cotes de Tablas – Rhone Blends Red Wine

 

—J.M. Garcia, III 

 

The Oenophliac, J.M. Garcia III waxes eloquent over an elegant and strong-willed Rioja 

When one is a gregarious sort of wine devotee, one looks for a nearby society of likeminded types to join. Here in South Florida I am fortunate to have—-quite a short hop away—one such society. Based at the historic Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, The Cellar Club affords social foodie/grapie sorts of people the opportunity to browse and sluice in civilized comfort. These sorts of organizations generally have a broad array of events and The Cellar Club is no different: Tastings (either casual and freeform or structured and guided), winemaker dinners, food and wine pairing events, wine festivals, etc. You get the idea.

One of my favorite of the events on the calendar is the monthly wine tasting. Generally these are rather relaxed affairs, with an array of wines grouped along some thematic spectrum (France vs. Italy, Crisp Whites, International Blends, etc.) and delicious tapas-like noshes to pair up with them. Last night’s tasting dealt with an array of Mediterranean wines. Mostly reds, but a couple of whites were on the tasting cards we were handed upon admission.

Since I am one of those who are adamant that wines are meant to travel alongside food, the trick was to select likely edibles to accompany a given wine. The nice thing about the wines on offer at this event is that they are specifically skewed towards food-friendliness. This is key. All of them proved up to the task but one, specifically, stuck out in my mind:

2001 Berberana Viña Alarde Reserva Rioja (about 16 bucks)

The first thing that hits you is the textbook ruby-red color, and when you proceed to the swirl ‘n’ sniff, your olfactory apparatus gets treated to a good dose of dried cherry with a hint of—no, I’m not crazy—leather. Tasting it gives you another whack of (this time, fresh) cherries as well as other supple fruit notes; I’m thinking cranberries, in particular. Like all traditional-ish Riojas, and this one is definitely on the traditional end of the spectrum albeit in a very good way, it has a noticeable oakiness. However, the tempranillo grape seems to deal with it in a more nonchalant way than many other grapes, so this isn’t bothersome in the least. What you notice mid-palate is a very delicate balance this wine offers, with excellent acidity, brightness and lush mouthfeel, to say nothing of the very, very compliant tannins that add character without trying to sandpaper off your tastebuds.

No easy feat, that.

This wine worked exceptionally well with Manchego cheese and Serrano ham, and I could easily see it getting along wonderfully with roast turkey. Think Thanksgiving: It’s not too early! Also felicitous would be pairing this wine with lighter roasts (especially sweet-inflected ones such as game dishes as influenced by Andalusian, Sicilian and North African cuisines) and anything in which caramelized onions and/or roast garlic feature prominently.

Many Rioja producers are off on a tear chasing marquee reviews on one 100 point scale or another, eschewing what makes a wine typically Rioja in favor of something addled with The Usual International Monster Red Wine Grapes. Oh, yeah, it also makes an excellent all-around, go-to, default wine for your next tapas bash. Something the Big Monster Red (regardless of provenance) cannot say as it seeks your electoral support.

—J.M. Garcia III

The Oenophiliac, J.M. Garcia III, lights into the “judges” at the 2007 California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition for picking a real “winner,” and offers some valuable advice about who the real judge should be — you

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In the circles in which I travel, news broke out that shook the beliefs of many to their foundations. Not news about how Jesus actually became a management consultant and died at the ripe old age of 117; not news about how the sun actually revolves around the earth, not news about UV radiation being healthy. No. More stark than that. No, starker.      

Chas. Pshaw!
These are the news, in a nutshell: Charles Shaw Chardonnay (a.k.a. “Two Buck Chuck” in the patois of the street… ) won The Very Super Duper Ultra Prestigious Wine Competition, defeating wines from 873 countries, including some which cost more per bottle than three space shuttles and a lease return NASA camper van combined. ABC News posted footage of this amazing David & Goliath feat all over the Internet. Of course, they also had to get some sort of expert to clarify it for all the benighted people who don’t scan Vinapedia.net assiduously. Somehow, the expert failed to agree with the panel of judges that awarded Charles Shaw the coveted Plutonium Triple Crown of All Time Best Wine, Ever! and she said the wine was so atrocious that it was almost as bad as the wine that cost 60 times as much.

Here comes the caveat. I am not picking on any wine because it costs three bucks. I am an ardent believer in wines that give you value for money. In fact, many (most?) of the seriously food-friendly wines will weigh in at less that $20 a bottle, often less than $10-$15. The problem is that even if a wine is “spectacular for the money” there is only so much room for spectacularness in $3. So what gives?

What do awards really mean?
The crucial bit left out – until now – is the answer to “Yeah… so what’s this all mean?” I’ll tell you what it means. It means that those who place a great deal of store in what judges say are also placing a HUGE deal of store in a couple of semi-hidden, mostly nebulous variables. You read something about Wine X that says “Winner of the Platinum Medallion at the Palookaville WineFest!” and you are inwardly very impressed. You rehearse, perhaps, saying same in a casual, offhanded way to dinner guests… especially if it’s only one guest upon whom you have designs of the basest sort. You are assuming, of course, the judges at the 2007 Palookaville WineFest are all competent, intelligent, and experts in the field, at the top of their form on the day of the event. You assume the panel is substantially the same as last year’s panel.

You further assume there have been no glitches with scorecards, computing, counting, or sorting. Beyond this, you also assume that all the bottles sampled were both accurately representative of the wine and stored and served in such a way as to keep it so.

Some events are more transparent in this regard than others. The judges are announced with plenty of time, they are known quantities who themselves have credibility and expertise. Some events don’t bother or do a poor job of it. Your job is not to rely on any one award in your decision. I don’t state these things to slight these events or to impugn the their judges. Just to say this: Don’t assume that what a group of people (about whom you likely know little or nothing) decided about a wine is an immutable fact.

Train your palate… and trust your wine merchant
Even if the 2007 Palookaville WineFest chose a really magnificent wine like, say, the Chateau Sauvage Pipi du Chevre as their number one wine doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility to weigh the fact against other opinions including, most importantly, your own. This entails cultivating a relationship with your wine retailer, by the way. Yes, they all invariably dress in unflattering “aloha” shirts and those knockoff Panama hats. You’re not there to take sartorial advice, but rather, avail yourself of their expertise. If he (or she, I don’t discriminate) gets a handle for what your tastes are, what sorts of food you enjoy, your general budget then you are in a far more advantageous position for getting wines which will please you than using any other means of oenophilic discernment yet devised.

Above and beyond this, you may look at specific wine reviewers as a secondary source of guidance. While these reviewers — myself included — all may suffer from manifold flaws, including an appalling subjectivity, they bring a consistency to the table that is useful. Don’t fixate on a wine that got 98 points from Mr. Wine Q. Reviewer, rather focus on the reviewer first. Why? Because if you find a reviewer whose tastes parallel your own, then you can use those reviews to whittle down the near-oceanic quantities of wine available into a smaller quantity from which to choose… bringing us back to Aloha Tom and his wine shop and his invaluable advice. If most of the stuff that Mr. Wine Q. Reviewer suggests tastes to you as if it had been fermented through a weasel, then snapping up one he rated at 98 only means you will have paid exorbitantly for the opportunity to drink something your tastebuds will compare unfavorably to the renal output of most burrowing mammals.

Finally, there really is no substitute for training your palate. When you taste a wine, try to “look” for things. I remember vividly the first time I tasted a wine that had a clear, unambiguous “blackberry note.” I skipped and hopped merrily until my wife threatened to have me carted off. Once you have a palate that can taste specific aspects of a wine, you’ll notice you have less and less need for wines with awards.

After all, maybe some judges think certain wines taste best when spat out.

—J.M. Garcia III 

 

The Oenophiliac, J.M. Garcia III, schools us on pairing fine port with cigars

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Whenever a cigar devotee fires up and chooses a tipple of choice, it’s usually the distilled members of the potable squad who get called in. Frequently it’s the Scotch clan that is sent into the arena, because those have a notable smoky note which, you know, goes with something being smoked. But it needn’t be so. Those of us who prefer something less, er, ardent with our Churchills or Lonsdales can find comfort in the fortified wine section of our cellars. (“Regular” wines are, alas, very difficult to pair properly with something which is not only “smoky” but also aflame.)         

The Cliff’s Notes of fortified wines 

There is a tradition in the Uppah Reaches of cigar consumption of pairing cigars with port. You see it in all those drawing room comedies and in half the Merchant-Ivory films; the women saunter off after dinner and the men loiter behind sipping port and smoking cigars and bemoaning the fate of the civilized world under Gladstone or Disraeli. Like all traditions, there is a reason borne of merit behind reason.     

For the moment, let’s concern ourselves with only the loftier percentiles of both the cigar and the fluid accompanist. They share many similarities when you get to these strata. There is often an underlying sweetness once you get past the initial hotness (of ethanol in, say, the port and of smoke in the cigars), and often the same notes appear: sweet spices, caramel, coffee or chocolate. This doesn’t mean, naturally, that you may unscrew the Almaden port and fire up that Hav-A-Tampa and have yourself a sublime experience, ringing for Jeeves and telling Lady Bracknell to bugger off. Because you won’t.

Mind you, what lies before you is a delightful minefield, but a minefield nonetheless. When pairing food and wine there is only one true variable, the wine. (After all, there won’t be material – dear foodies, no nasty/nitpicky emails, please – differences between one cow’s onglet and the next’s, or wild variations in texture from one spinach leaf to its neighbor. If there were, you could just light a massive bonfire with all the cookbooks ever writ.) But when pondering the pairing of cigars and wine you have two wildly variable items at play. Even worse, cigars are items handmade individually. This is like having one guy crush three bunches of grapes and putting the results into one bottle. Then doing the same with another three bunches and another bottle, etc. So, therefore, we have no choice but to deal in glittering generalities. See to it that you have the coping skills to deal with this fact.

In terms of cigars, you have in decreasing order of “strength” the Cuban, Nicaraguan, Honduran and Dominican. Yes, there are others. Yes, these are broad generalizations. Just play along for now.

Snob Tip No. 1: Never, and I mean never, dip your cigar in your port. If you dip the lit end, you’ll put out the cigar, and if you dip the other end, you’ll just make a revolting mess.

Snob Tip No. 2: Unfortified wines simply cannot stand up to a flavor bully like cigar smoke.

The basic flavor components of good cigars (besides the smoke, duh) tend to be along the coffee/bittersweet chocolate corridor, possibly veering off into the sweet-spicy or the caramel-ish end of things. This is vital to keep in mind.

Given these very rough, very drawn-with-crayon parameters, one champion emerges: Port. As stated before, port is traditionally paired with cigars for a reason. Of course, not just any ol’ port will do with any ol’ cigar. There are subtleties and nuances that enhance the pairings.

Some basic guidelines

If a cigar has flavors which tend to the caramel end of the spectrum and it is medium-bodied or lighter (think most Dominicans/Jamaicans and a few Hondurans), you’re really after Tawny port. Depending on the fabulousness of the cigar, you may want to go as far as a 20 year old Tawny (I especially enjoy Dow’s), but beyond that the delicate aspects will be lost as the smoke pushes these more ephemeral components off-screen. If this is your standard for cigars, stick to a solid 10 year old Tawny port (Graham’s is my favorite in this class) for all but the most outstanding smokes.

If a cigar is a bit stronger in flavor, if those flavors are pretty solidly of the coffee/cocoa variety and there is a bit of body to the cigar (think most Hondurans and a few Nicaraguans) you’re after a Late Bottled Vintage or “Vintage Character” port. Both of these give a very good indication of what is going on with their respective Big Brothers on the spectrum, and give nothing away in terms of enjoyment. Try Fonseca Bin No. 27 (which is, incidentally, an outright steal) or Rozes LBV.

If, however, the cigar is clearly flavorsome, if those flavors are clearly nutmeggy/cinnamony/nutty and they are full bodied (think most Nicaraguans and almost all Cubans) you are after a “Nimrod.” The Warre’s Nimrod is ideally suited, with sweet and sweet-spice notes that, frankly, hit you where you live.

Learn more about port, visit Vinapedia’s Port & Sherry page.

Post Links from Wine.com:

Cockburn 20 year old Tawny – Port Dessert Wine

Graham’s 10 Year Old Tawny Port – Dessert Wine 

Fonseca Bin No. 27 Port – Dessert Wine

—J.M. Garcia III

Photo Credit: Muffet via Flickr