The Feiring Line

The iconic wine list (natural style)

Who can afford to taste the iconic wines? The 1947 or 1961 Bordeaux for example? The DRCs and the Jayers? They are simply outside of financial reach, unless one has a rich uncle with a wine cellar.

I had one of those rich uncles but he was a fool.  Uncle Jack's wine cellar was tiney: half-dozen 1982 Petrus (not fake ones.) I begged him. My father begged him. She needs to know what these are like. But no, the bastard. He took it with him. 

When he died and his son was cleaning out the King's Point home--no love lost there-- they were, in the garage in a file cabinet, with a fill about 3/4 down. 

In April, on assignment,  I had lunch with Gianfranco Soldera. The topic came up. Pity the youth, he said,  who will never be able to taste the classic wines, the important Bordeaux and Burgundy, the exalted Barolo and Brunello (like his, now out of the gate at $600 bottles.). How would they ever know what wine is really like? "I was lucky," he said. "They were so much cheaper when I was young."

So is it any wonder that the world of natural wine is so explosive? The greats and there are greats, are affordable. Within reach.

After leaving Montalcino, I had a long ride up to Piemonte. With Elba to my west, I started to think what were those iconic wines, to both drink and to learn? 

So, even though Robert M. Parker Jr. thinks these are dangerous wines, I compiled a little list for him and those others who believe that drinking them will make you sick.

Bob showing mold in a glass, presumable from a bottle of 'natural wine.' 

 

In my subjective list I side- stepped some wines that might become newer classics--ones from Germany, Austria and Spain and even the States. I wanted to offer up examples that have already demonstrated agebility with grace. The list shows most sides of what is considered natural, the right, the middle and the left. Included are examples of carbonic, cold carbonic (aka 'method') and classic alcoholic fermentation.

If you're new to this world of wine, these are the people you need to start with, these are the wines that you must know or at least of, as you go forward.  Few over $125 and most under $40.

+ Domaine Peyra :  Rarer than 1947 Petrus, this  gamay of the Auvergne, made by Stéphane Majeune, had an immediate cult following.                   It was lively, weedy and delicious.  

   

Made in the classic "Néauport" cold carbonic method, but the wines surpassed the technique. I had the 2004 not too long ago, it stood the test of aging. But as it’s practically extinct, I suggest you find the wines of  Jean Maupertuis as he worked alongside of Majuene. His, from similar terroir and technique, and have that connectivity.

 

 

 

                                                                  ah, the weeds of Peyra  

 

+ The Beaujolais Gang of Four : The natural wine movement as we know it today, started in Morgon with Jules Chauvet (If you don't have the story, read Naked Wine) and the winemakers he inspired so… If you can lay hands on some of Chauvet’s wine, that would be the biggest score of all.  His last vintage was mid-80s and I'm afraid Eric Texier has bought up most of them. So the best thing to do is to try new and if you can find them, ten year old examples from those icons who, called  Villié-Morgon Gang of Four--were there at the beginning. Lapierre, Jean Foillard, Guy Breton, Jean Thévenet, and Domaine Chamonard. Mind you, all of these folk use sulfur and perhaps higher amounts than 20ppm, but for fun, try blind tasting against Dubouef, or if you don't want to be so obvious, Pizay, Jadot or Château de La Chaize.

+Claude Courtois (Les Cailloux du Paradis):Lest you forget Claude, do not! He started in the Var, and with a pregnant wife, headed north after a fire destroyed his land, and started over in an unsung area of the Loire and was dedicated to nothing but purity from the start. One of the originals and he does it with passion--he  has launched his own branch of the natural wine world. The wines resist density, are non-sulfur, they are transparent and other worldly. Beware the magic.

 + Clos Rougeard :  Back in the day when natural meant natural enough, no messing around, organic andwines  that take their time. Drink one now and then stick in the cellar for over a  decade.

 + Catherine et Pierre Breton-- Nuits d'Ivresse :  One of the first cuvee of Bourgueil to not use sulfur and so easy to tell the difference, so much more livelier than their other wines.   

+ T& JM Puzelat, Clos du Tue Boeuf :  Iconic Loire valley producers, committed and benchmark. Look for aged chenin blancs or menu pineau. 

+ Domaine Overnoy Houillon:   Period. Blissful, ethereal and magical.  Jura. Jura.To drink Pierre and Manu's Ploussard is to be happy.

+ Jean Marie Fourrier:  What, you say, in Burgundy that's who you recommend? Fourrier and not Pacalet (bought grapes), or Prieure Roch (okay, go ahead, you need it for your education.) Fred Cossard's Domaine de Chassorney (Lay them down, no sulfur? that's right. ) or Claude Rateau (mea culpa). I say Fourrier because, well, this is natural wine in Burgundy at its best. Not touched by wood, very low sulfur, and long lived and beautiful terroir.                   

 + Domain Gerhard Schueller :  Cult Alsatian wine that some might not understand. Be afraid. Be very afraid. But also be prepared to break through the fourth wall. These would give the Robert Joseph's of the world a run for their money, or run for a glass of seltzer. But approach with an open mind.  (also Audrey & Christian Binner. Domaine Frick. Domain Julien Meyer) 

 + Dard & Ribo :  Classic, benchmark natural syrah from the Northern Rhone. You won’t want to age these too much. Good example of the philosophy, drink now for we die tomorrow.

 + Domaine de l’Anglore : From near Tavel, Eric Pfifferling created his domaine in 1988, and a good example of is it carbonic or is it terroir. But if you listen very carefully to the differences in his wines, and why these go far and beyond, and are age worthy.

 +Domain Marcel Richaud:   Cairanne terroir delivered by a seeker and a believer and a delight to find someone who avoids the brutishness of 100% grenache.

+ Chateau Le Puy Cuvée Barthelemy and Chateau Meylet:  Both Biodynamic. One  from Cote de Francs. The other from St. Emilion, both from the right bank, merlot-based unsulfured Bordeaux. And they said it couldn't be done. The Meylet is more fragile but terroir driven. Two sides of the same natural coin. 

 +Emidio Pepe: The great Montpulciano d'Abruzzo. Concrete, no wood and no sulfur equal long lived reds and whites, nose thumbing at those who think natural is shtick.

+ Radikon & Dario Princic:  Tie!  If you want to check out  high level wines of no sulfur and skin contact, these Friulian winemakers are your go tos.  

+Azienda Agricola Paolo Bea:  Before Giampiero went radical (like his work with the nuns with Coenobium) he and his father worked gently with nature and resisted the oncomng attack of new world winemaking in Montefalco. These would have been natural before the natural movement, just old world, non messed with and no fear winemaking, aka natural enough.                                                                                            

+Chateay Musar :Before the late 60's they used no sulfur at all, after that for a few decades it was just at bottling. In the mid-90's, it was moved up to low amounts after alcoholic fermentation. Never the less, the older bottles are magnificient. This shows of the old-world sensibility (shared by Emidio Pepe)  of longer vat time and bottle age before release from the cellar. 

 

Barrels of Barthelemy  @ Ch. Puy 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The smell of violets in Barolo

When I first smelled the Clos Roche Blanche Cot,  I was overwhelmed by its violet juice sucked through a chalk straw magnetism. It was the violet that stung me.. every time. Yes, even though I could never actually wear the scent, I'm obsessed by it.  

 

        

So you see, on a morning in Barolo just a few weeks back, I was thinking about violets. It was just after Maria-Teresa Mascarello and just before Beppe Rinaldi. We were steps away at Giovanni Canonica, and sitting in his white clothed study, tasting his concentrated 2008 and I wrote a note that said: thick, crusty, violent violet. His wife had asked him about how to salt the lunch she was making for him. Then we took to see his cantina,  nothing more than tarp covered winemaking equipment and then stood on the grass in his back yard in the brilliant light when I saw something flash from the spring tender green grass.  

 

   

After decade of frustration, of one scent-less violet after the other, I finally found my very first viola odorata.

In my palm, it felt like the most fragile crystal and I feared my excitement would fracture its petal.  The smell was  a dream, not at all like the drug-like attack of gardenia or  jasmine. It did not smell like old sheets or bad poetry and it did not smell like the ghastly perfume, Violetta di Parma. It was a ghost visitation and I couldn't get enough.   

 "James," I said to my new Australian friend, "Smell this." I hoped I was giving him a gift. I wasn't sure.

James is a chef. He is the rare kind who has an exceptional wine palate as well as for food.  Over the next minutes as I went from violet to Barolo back to James, I saw him with the flower pressed to his nose, trying to crack its code. I saw he too was hooked. It was a rare moment, a first time for him too.

Over the years, when feeding my violet obsession, I'd heard all commercial attempts whether in Creme de Violettes (hello Aviation cocktail) or perfumes  were  synthetic.  Some fragrances and taste got away with the spoof; seductive and sweet.  Others like that Violetta di Parma are horrific visions of tortured flowers in the muck. Where were the real things? Will I be forced to go to Giovanni Canonica's backyard in spring for my yearly fix? 

  

 

I asked the master perfumer, Mandy Aftel of Aftelier if it was true that no natural violet scent had been captured.  From her atelier in California she confirmed, "Violet has resisted scent harvesting forever. I think because it has a tiny yield and from what I have heard, the extracted essence doesn't smell like violet." She added, "I have never been able to find a natural one. "

And the world weeps. 

But Mandy, master blender  of natural and ephemeral essences, is on the hunt. If anyone can conjure a captured memory as beautiful as what I smelled on that Saturday nebbiolo filled morning, she's the one.

The day went on to more magic,  filled with old men with bad teeth, a flirt and a wizard in La Morra. It was a day lavished on my favorite grape and soil mates.  I was aswirl with sandlewood, tar and roses and perhaps a bit of that viola with a different kind of chalk, as the limestone in Piemonte is darker and earthier--it  continued to  raise goosebumps. I tried to keep the poetic perfume close to me, as if I could imprint my nostrils with its memory. What I smelled in that flower was not, I would bet, what Australian James smelled. I wanted to know what he did perceive. What did he find in its stamen, in its gentle trap door. What was so powerful to him that he too had to steal some sniffs?

 If he and I tried to paint it aromatically, we would undoubtedly come up with wildly disparate water colors.  Me? I would go for the pinpoint sweet, but where would I put the powder, underneath? And where would the soap be? Oh, just the lightest hint please. And how did they come up with that nasty Violetta which drove me to a nasty madness--by focusing on the soap and the powder? I am sure James would be closer to my interpretation, this you know about someone when you taste and smell side by side. This you know.

I'm back in New York. Life and death situations are building fortresses and I  find myself more guarded, but yet  I find myself still thinking about the flower and its layers.  I see how many violet perfumes are failures in their melancholy interpretations. Without a perfumer to mess with it, relying purely on nature, the scent has complex bottom and top notes and plenty in the middle.  I could see them all. The powder. The ink. The ultra-sweet candy. The almost lilac, but pinker. I smell the hope and I smell the death. I also smell one of the most appealing notes that I can ever hope to smell in a wine, that special violet juice sucked through a chalk straw.

 

 

 

The Spanish battle for natural (with an Italian tangent)

Because of bitchiness between Italian natural wine factions-- ViniVeri and VinNatur-- many unhappy winemakers defected to the corporate side. This meant that they actually crossed the threshold and showed their wines at ViVit.  This was the Vin Italy's (the huge Italian trade show's) attempt at relevance. They aimed to give some space to wines that are  natural and organic.

Wine politics.

It happens. 

The verdict from those who went? Thumbs up.  

Drama followed. Sunday, when the  likes of Arianna Occhipinti and Alesandra Bera were pouring for tasters, suits walked in and tried to catch a thief. These guys were the same fraud squad that snagged the Bulzoni wine shop in Rome back in June. The authorities demanded proof of farming and practice just to be sure there was no fraud perpetrated on the public. 

Meanwhile, over in Spain, no squad has trained natural wine in their crosshairs--yet. But the unnaturals are taking advantage of the natural-free- for- all. It could well be the basis of a Luis Buñuel film. 

 Case in point?  Two wine events. Coming right up in Spain, one real, one pretend. Both embody the fight for the sole of wine that just won't quit. Let's start with the fake. Part Two: Talk about burying the lede! When in  Italy, Vincent Poussin linked me up with this abortion of justice.  May 13th is the day for Vinum Nature - Barcelona.

VN-bcn is a must for everybody who wants to enjoy organic, natural and biodynamic wines from out nearest wine appellations. A gathering space where wineries and its people bring us closer together with a glass filled with sceneries, land and the soul of its wines.

I'm the first person to say that I don't mind the word natural, there's no other word that really works as well and no word is iron clad. But to see the names like Condonui and Paris Balta included and only  one biodynamic producer (and a very conventional one at that)?

Forget about natural wine. This is natural travesty.

All is not lost.

A few years back I was held hostage in Ribiera Sacre by the "golden nose. "  I was not happy having spent the day with a spoof wine instead of my original plan. But the bonus was, at the end of the day, I found out that my fellow hostage was one of the brothers of Can Roca in Girona and we shared similar palates. Some bond was forged. And yesterday I received this email from Josep Roca of Can Roca in Girona. 

The world of wine in Spain evolves, and day by day is closer to the grape and further from the systemic products. I wanted to tell you about this slow by persistent progress in the sensitivity of many producers of our country. Little by little, that conversation you and I had driving on the way back to Santiago, is meaning to me the germ of a new hopeful reality to spanish wines: more pure, fresher, more daring, without any make-up, more sincere and authentic."

 

So, two tastings, side by side in Spain, one real one fake. Which side will win?  I have my hunches. Do you?

Robert Parker (and your brain on natural wine)

 

So, now that the Wine Advocate (that would be Robert Parker's famed publication) has replaced their main critic (Antonio Galloni) and put the critique of  Loire wines on a 2-3 year rotation (a move I highly applaud because really, what do blue chip drinkers really need Loire reviews for?) Mr. P. decided to educated his readers with a video a little reminiscent of the 1987 fried egg campaign, "Your brain on drugs." 

As the video is copyrighted and Mr. P. is in a litigious mood (he is sueing that former critic) I decided I decided not to risk  court, so here's the gist.   

+ Mr. P. warns about the dangers of no sulfur in a wine. He holds up dregs in a glass, presumably  two days. "Looks like somethng from a bio-warfare lab."

+ The bottom of the glass is coated in mold, not unusual if you have bad houscleaning practices and fail to clean your glass, whether the wine is sulfured or not.

+ "Do you want this stuff growing in your innards? Natural wine is one of the dumbest things ever created," he says,  then he signs off citing his  acupuncture appointment.

 

 

  

 

Downfall video redux

You have to watch it. Even better than the first time around, which you must also see. The powers at  Red to Brown Wine Review  have the touch. Even before I heard my name mentioned with Jamie Goodes, I was rolling on the floor. 

 

 

 

What do cheese and wine have in common?

I wrote this piece for Wine and Spirits magazine and investigated the funky bits . 

When invited to a Comté tasting at the Wine & Spirits office on a winter Wednesday morning, I expected some terrific cheese. I expected to examine spring versus summer milk, to hear about the cows grazing and how it was a terroir-driven cheese. I didn’t expect to geek out on the effect that microflora has on cow teats and how that might affect the relationship of terroir and cheese.

 

Drinking with Philip Roth

 Either foreswear fucking others or the affair is over. This was the ultimatum, the maddeningly improbable, wholly unforeseen ultimatum, that the mistress of fifty-two delivered in tears to her lover of sixty-four on the anniversary of an attachment that had persisted with an amazing licentiousness—and that, no less amazingly, had stayed their secret—for thirteen years. But now with hormonal infusions ebbing, with the prostate enlarging, with probably no more than another few years of semi-dependable potency still his—with perhaps not that much more life remaining—here at the approach of the end of everything, he was being charged, on pain of losing her, to turn himself inside out. --- Sabbath's Theater 

••

 I rely on Roth's work of madness about aging, failure and loss of potency, Sabbath's Theater.  Along with Goodbye Columbus and Letting Go, they are the tomes I turn to when I forget how to write or feel.

But when Roth recently announced he was hanging up the keyboard,  something in me snuffed.  For some reason I kept on rereading that damned mission statement of mine, "I'm hunting the Leon Trotskys, the Philip Roths, the Chaucers and the Edith Whartons of the wine world." I started to question everything. Roth declared he was done. My feel for the heart and soul of the sentence was sapped. Even rereading him didn't help. This time it felt final.

Fuck you, Philip Roth.  I never knew I was that impressionable, but we seem to be linked on a much deeper level than I had ever imagined. 

Of course my trauma is not his fault. I was writing before I heard the snickered name of Portnoy. My love for Roth came much later. I had already decided to gamble with my life and throw all I had into writing, I was plotting my return to New York City.  But, on a disastrous trip to damp northern California with a Mickey Sabbath of my own,( a mistake) I gave Roth another chance, (I had been bored with Portnoy.) and  found The Counterlife. It was as if Zuckerman found  yet another doppelgänger--me-- but forgot to give me the same talent to temper the inevitability of doom.

I read all I could, elevating two of his  works above all his others. And finally when in 1995 that first Foreswear all others chapter appeared in The New Yorker  I waited for the book release with characteristic impatience. I was swallowed whole by the chapter and everything that followed.  It was primal. It cut to the blood of all of us who have loved insanely and who know what its like to feel close to madness. There are scattered scenes of flash; the embalming scene, rendered with flesh and thistle. The yearning and loss and the stupidity in death and desire, nibbled down to the bone.

I know with modern convention, with the current love for pre-boxed structure- if I brought Roth's opening graf into my writing group as my own, they would invariably say: There's too much going on. There's too much telling. Not enough showing. Too many clauses. Too many dates. Too much volatility. Too much brett. Too much stuff I have no idea how to describe.  "The character isn't likeable." Whoever says that is lying and denying the bits of failure we all carry within. The genius of Sabbath is that he is able to disappoint the reader, he, brilliant-genius-gone-wrong, goes forth and distinguishes himself in tragedy. He becomes the satyr, the aging, failed satyr he could not avoid being.

When I read the New York Magazine article on Roth I was troubled at the absence of women who  stood up for short, stubby, horny- without -purpose Sabbath and his creator. The guys? They love him. After all Sabbath is their worst fear, they lose the woman they love and are reduced to masturbating on her grave. They fear they ARE Sabbath. Woman on the other hand fear that one day, they'll wake up in the morning and find themselves lying next to snoring sack like Sabbath. Another essay for another time. 

 No matter what my writing group feels, the character doesn't have to be likeable he or she just has to be riveting, talented and burrows into your skin. What about Gabrio Vini wines, Serragghia  from Pantelleria, such as the extreme orange blossom-water-like Zibibbo Secco? Or a more kindly wine, such as Claire Naudin's Orchis? Or the wines of Georgia or of my beloved pond scum saving a wine that is so pure it's a chick with martinet posture and fat pearls who doesn't heave the breast. The most important element is to take the reader and drinker in, no matter what the person or point of view or the conventional talent.

 So, Roth is coming to dinner. I fear he would love Harlan. I have no Harlan and I'm not getting him some. Nor will I get him anything like it.  I  don't even know if he drinks anymore, in Letting Go there was a reference to 1951 (assuming Bordeaux). And some wine connoisseurship along the way.  But no. If Roth came over tonight, if he called me up and he said, pull the cork babe,  I want to see why you dare invoke my name, you imbecile, I told you to give up writing, didn't I? Didn't I tell you it was a crass, vulger way to make a living and no one in the end gives a shit? Anyway now when The Atlantic Monthly is asking writers to write for free...see? Well, if he did this right now, and I had to look around, I'd give him two of the most contentious Mickey Sabbath wines I could get my hands on. Vino Ambiz, cloudy Airén sitting on my bench? Why not? And then, because I'm a glutton for punishment, I'd open a trousseau of beauty, and feel my heart sink and beg him, do not do this to me.

 

 

The Brangelina rosé, the whiter shade of pale

When  the news broke that Brad and Angie were soon to debut a Chateau Miraval rosé,  I was struck by the pale onion skin color, the blush of a virgin, the cuisse de nymphe. As I looked at the oversized, Hollywood-like bottle,  I remembered a story about when past Meilleur Sommelier du Monde's, Olivier Poussier was asked to offer a toast to rosé. Instead  he delivered an obituary. In front of his Provençal hosts he proclaimed that due to technology,  true Provençal rose was a travesty, it no longer existed. 

 

             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                       It turns out that this kind of pale pink color doesn't happen with a careful pressing of wines off of the skin (though it can) as the Provençal website would like you to believe, but most often with the help of certain additives, one of them of the clarifying agent, PPVP.

I contacted Marc Perrin, the Miraval winemaker, to find out how much the color was a concern for the product, I've not heard back. In the meantime, I approached enologue (wine consultant),  Pierre Sanchez for his personal perspective on the issue.

He wrote, "Provence grapes are harvested relatively ripe and at rather high temperatures. The juices are generally quite colorful in the press but with oxidation and bacteria sometimes colored juices can turn dark or orange. Provençal winemakers therefore use large doses of PVPP (polyvinylpyrrolidone) which removes some of the color, but also much of polyphenols (oxidized or not). This is a shock treatment because it is very powerful. PVPP also removes certain aromas flavoring compounds. PVPP "corrects" bitterness of the smoothing wines. So for the color, they sacrifice some of the wine.

But there's a problem. The clarifier is not allowed by the EU organic laws as they do present some health issues.  And so this sent those, wanting to keep organic certification scrambling for an alternative. 

Winemakers can still  use casein and decolorizing charcoal (as they did before the arrival of the PVPP) for color correction. Pierre continued to write, "They can also use proteins of vegetable origin (weight, lupine, wheat ...) that are part of the new inventions of firms producers eno. They were looking for alternatives to solutions for additives of animal origin (gelatin, albumin) for reasons of labeling (vegetarian) and allergy. "

Pierre summed up the cunundrum:  Then they created a problem which never existed before; how to get a  clear pink. Then the oenologist came up with an intervention, PVPP. That kind of pink became the norm. Then the Provencal AOC decided it was a pink they really needed. But then came organic. PVPP no longer allowed. "So we seek a replacement at any price (more or less effective and respectful of wine) because we do not know or do without it arises more questions. "

To the rescue is Martin Vialatte and a chemical derived from pea protein. 

Think of that the next time you reach for a Provençal rosé. Hopefully, for the spring issue of The Feiring Line, I'll focus on real rosés, in all shades and hues, not definined but a creative director's idea of the color but of a vigneron's work to make a  fresh wine no matter of its shade.

                                                                           

 

Domaine Les Roches--the Georgians in Chinon

After hanging out in Les Montils. Enduring a night of drinking with he Georgians and Thierry Puzelat (thank you for the super -bawdy joke)

was the segue for the next  morning's voyage to Angers. Somewhere around 10:30 we arrived in Chinon: Domaine Les Roches, and Jérôme Lenoir.

This is a property brought in to the United States by  Selection Massale , and known for the very obscure yet commendable and crazy (financially insane, but for drinkers sublime)  practice of releasing wines only when the wine is ready. As a result, they have a treasure trove of old vintages.   

Jérôme @ work in the cave.

I used to bring these back from France, curious why no one ever imported them. Yes, sometimes the wines were eccentric, bretty, hard. But just as often they are beautiful and priced well enough to take the chance. 

This was an extremely soggy winter. The rivers, from the Seine to the Cher, were swollen, and so was the soil. I stepped into a pile of mud and then walked down the tuffeau rock into the cellar, furry,  weepy and ancient.

This was an emotional cellar with much history. Gaioz Sopromadze, who just a few days before was having a hard time not pinching the asses of comely women in Paris (they are just so beautiful, he explained)  was overcome with sentiment, “My grandfather had 3h of vines. During the ten years after the 1917 revolution everything was taken. They divided our homes, the farmers were stripped of land and given to people who had no idea how to work the land. I hate communism.”

The revolution and the loss was that palpabale. And Jerome, to show solidarity, showed them some wine he had made in little ceramic pots that looked more like bombs than qvevri.  

And then we settled in to taste.  the 2012 chinon that had just finished its malo. To look for when released, the 2011, but you’ll have to wait for a while.
Their  current release is 2005, which is showing beautifully. It was bottled in 2011 in two separate bottlings. About $23. Very supple, lifely and silk.

 When Jerome opened up a 1989, the Georgians immediately had a reference, Perestroika, they chanted.

Takeaway: the nerve to hold on to wines until they are ready needs to be celebrated. And what's more this domaine known for their cabernet franc, makes brilliant chenin.

An early dive bouteille

 A lot has changed  since the  2005 Dive Bouteille. But that year, it was still chilly,  packed and super fun and a good reminder of a fabulous world that made history.  I still love watching this piece of the past. To keep up with the future, subscribe to The Feiring Line. 

La Dive Bouteille 6° édition by okasion