The Feiring Line

The Abuse of Natural

A few months ago, noodling around, I came across something called Mod Gamay, made in Australia from the Chris Ringland operation. This wine, with it's bold copy and flashy visuals, seems to have been removed from the net, gave homage to 'the father of Natural Wines, Jules Chauvet.' When an obscure scientist/vigneron becomes a buzzword for marketing, you know there is a body of work in trouble. I did a little investigation and found out that while the MOD grapes are conventionally farmed from not so old fruit, and while it is naturally yeasted it is indeed acidified and I just had the feeling that Saint Jules would be rolling in his grave if he knew his names was thus invoked. The new wines, vins libre, au naturel or live or real or naked, are in the mainstream, and that means buyer beware. The rule? If there's 'natural' on the label, a knee jerk reaction is forming--to avoid. But even then, one has to be smart about what to avoid, for example, if it's the NPA, that is one to drink. You just have to learn to suss out the true ones, read between the lines. That sort of thing. Which brings me to my Google Alert and ...... Vintae! It's an art directed operation. We've seen it before. Oriel and the like. A company creates a brand. They pretend it has a person and soul. It often works, especially with two searching eyes of a handsome boy peering from the label or old, veiny, wizened hands, fresh with vineyard dirt. Two enthusiastic Perez brothers are heading up this project. I met them in 2009 when I was presenting in Rioja. They were so sweet and earnest, and why they wanted me to taste their wine, I do not know. I held my tongue until now, I didn't want to tell the world how happy they were about this yeasted commercial Moscatel that they make in Rioja. I believe they have their own DO for this which makes me wonder who their father is in bed with. I hated them, the wines, I mean. It was easy to like the young men. But the wines? The hatred reached some sweet profundity. Obviously they hit a nerve, and it wasn't pretty. Now you might love them, and that's fine, drink them, buy them, guzzle them as much as their 90 + score indicates you should, and feel guilt-free about it. But besides the wines, monolithic turn offs, the marketing with earnest men, farmers provoked a gag. Rugged hands on the label and soulful eyes, just wrenching the grapes from their stalk by sheer emotion, yes, those boys made a line of wines. And their marketing is just going to make you cry. I'm repeating myself. You get the point. So, on the WineWench.comWe have these words. ...perfectly defines an initiative that connects the oriental culture and its care of the natural world with the most ADVANCED TECHNIQUES OF BIODYNAMIC AGRICULTURE OF THE RURAL EUROPEAN ZONES. All of its wines are NATURAL, in so far as its vineyards are cultivated in a form that is completely ecological, avoiding any use of chemical or synthetic herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides. Matsu represents the ESSENCE OF NATURAL WINE, and its elaboration constitutes of a process that demands one to "wait" during the cycle that permits the achievement of its final equilibrium. I see, this is why there are those advocating a dismissal of the world 'natural.' But any word is going to be co-opted. Nothing is sacred. Anyway, have a look at the site. I'm going to drink some over-sulfured riesling right now, and I'm going to enjoy it too. You see? I am open-minded.

Leafroll Virus, pretty as a picture

My articles are usually warehoused in the articles section, but I though this one on Leafroll Virus in the vineyards of California was worth taking up space here. New story in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Leafroll: A quiet threat in the vineyard. You can click on this link right over HERE, and see the photos, or you can just scroll down. 

It's not imagined. The blood-red leaves in California's vineyards are appearing earlier and spreading more widely. While pleasing to the eye, the colors indicate a shutting down of photosynthesis, often dangerously close to harvest. They can also be a signal for a virus that's giving the wine industry a migraine. The grape leafroll virus has been around and causing trouble for at least a century. It has about 10 variations. But the newest, V3 and V5, are causing panic, with some vineyard owners ripping out vines or blasting them with chemicals. "If I'm going to believe what I hear, it's going to be the next phylloxera," says Stuart Smith, owner of Smith-Madrone in St. Helena. "Worried? You bet." The virus is also affecting vines on the East Coast and in South Africa and New Zealand, and was the topic of an international conference at UC Davis in 2008. Like that other scourge, the European grapevine moth, lots of farmers have it. But if they are willing to discuss the moth, they are often fearful to fess up to the virus. Unlike some other afflictions, this virus won't kill the vineyard, but it will greatly affect the quality of grapes by preventing normal sugar development and greatly reducing yields. But not everyone views those effects as detrimental. Lower sugars were more acceptable 15 years ago, but now they conflict with today's bigger style of wine. "The virus causes a lack of (the) maturity that most of today's winemakers are looking for," says Paul Jackson, owner of Colinas Farming Co., which farms for such Napa Valley wineries as Grgich Hills, Round Pond and Frank Family. Hesitant to talk And why are those afflicted so hesitant to talk? "It is probably because they are fearful that their vineyard will be perceived as having inferior fruit and lose sales," says Dave Whitmer, Napa County agriculture commissioner. But speak to farmers and the situation becomes more complex. Where many see no option but to learn to live with the virus, others have immediately yanked out vineyards and replanted, only to have the virus reappear. The spread of these variants of leafroll was noticed in 2002 in the famed To Kalon vineyard. The late Ed Weber, Napa County's previous viticulture farm adviser, and Deborah Golino, director of Foundation Plant Services at UC Davis, began a four-year study of the phenomenon. During the study, there was a threefold increase in the number of infections in that vineyard alone. Oakville is still one of the hardest-hit areas. The study was disturbing. Previously, this virus was believed to be transmitted by grafting infected budwood in vineyards, which is why many farmers were terrified of using field cuttings instead of buying certified plant material from Foundation Plant Services. But it turns out that's not the only way the virus is transmitted. While grafting is one way - and cleaning up the virus in the vine is Golino's focus - the major spreader is the vine mealybug, which is native to Mediterranean countries. Golino says it probably arrived on lowly table-grape vines smuggled in from Israel to Southern California. Unhappy with that sandy soil, the bug moved steadily north. It tends to breed more quickly than other mealybugs and gets carried around by wind, vineyard machinery and vineyard workers. The pests do double damage: As they suck on a vine, they excrete a sticky substance called honeydew, leaving a tacky, candlelike wax on grape bunches, ruining them; as they feed on new vines, they pass along the virus. Yet there are those who happily live with the virus. These folks seem to have found a working mix of good farming and the right rootstock. Vines on their own roots, those on an old type known as St. George, or even phylloxera-prone AxR1, might carry GLRaV3 and 5, but don't seem to show a major impact. Vineyard manager Frank Leeds, who farms Frog's Leap in Rutherford, was working on a 20-year-old plot of Cabernet Franc that needed replanting because of rabbit damage. "I couldn't get St. George, so I got something called Freedom," he says. "I planted the same budwood on the root, and after four years those vines were showing virus, yet not in any of the other vineyards." Cathy Corison's Kronos vineyard in St. Helena has organic methods and solid, old rootstock going for it. Kronos is planted on St. George, which is one of California's old drought-resistant rootstocks. At 40 years old, the rubrum-colored leaves indicate that the virus is present, but Corison doesn't care. "Few people would tolerate the yields I get off the vineyard," she acknowledges, "but I love the flavor from those grapes." The virus seems to prevent her grapes from maturing too fast and getting too sugary, exactly what she wants. Tony Coturri, a longtime organic wine grower and winemaker, almost has a response of "What virus?" even though it exists in the Hanzell vineyard in Sonoma, which he helps farm. "We just have to live with it," he says. "Sometimes the weaker plants bring a complexity to the wine." He considers clean vine material too simple to make good wine. Controlling the situation with chemicals isn't a solution, warns Kent Daane, an entomologist at UC Berkeley. Daane found that spraying, which some fearful vineyard owners had done, was not effective because the bugs hide under the leaves. Solution A better solution, he says, is a new $54,000 pheromone mating-disruption program, funded by Napa County. Plastic packets measuring 2 by 3 inches impregnated with pheromones hung in vineyards in Napa and St. Helena. The idea: Keep the mealybug population down and avoid the spread of the virus, allowing young plants to grow large enough to fend off infection. Golino is adamant that growers must purchase new certified vines - "even when it means giving up field selections that have been a longtime part of a winemaking program" - in order to reduce the virus' impact. But even that won't eliminate it. "There is not going to be a fast fix," she says. Susceptible to infection And certified vines are susceptible to infection, too. Sebastopol consultant James A. Stamp is often called in as an expert witness when vineyards have taken nurseries to court for buying certified clones that came up positive for the virus. Stamp notes that the desire to keep the complexity of virused vines has led to some unusual farming notions. "We joked about the idea to clean up the vines and then add viruses back in, to add back the potential for complexity," he says. "It would have been a little bit like having unsafe sex." Curiously, organic and biodynamic growers haven't necessarily witnessed the same dangers. Grgich Hills has 25 biodynamically farmed acres in Yountville, adjacent to an afflicted Dominus vineyard. In 2001, Grgich saw the spread of red leaves into its vineyard. The fruit couldn't top 23 Brix, a measure of sugar. In 2003, they started biodynamic conversion. "We saw red leaf slow down and our ripeness increase," says winemaker Ivo Jermaz. "In fact, since going biodynamic, we have to watch so the grapes don't get too ripe." Monica Cooper, Napa County's viticulture farm adviser, couldn't comment on the impact of farming choices, though scientists like Daane suggest organic farming might help. Research in this area has been poorly funded, even though circumstantial evidence shows that organically farmed environments might have natural predators for the mealy bug. "We don't see the problem in our organic vineyards as we do in our conventional," says Jackson, who farms using a variety of protocols. "But I'm not prepared to say that's the reason." Viticultural consultant Steve Matthiasson, who consults for Napa's Araujo Estate, among others, is not alone when he jokes that less color, flavor, alcohol and ripeness might be blessings in disguise. This reaction raises Golino's ire. "I would love to see California produce less alcoholic wines," she says. "But virus isn't the way to do it."

 

A Back Label To Be Proud Of

I broke down. It's been a hell of a day writing a story I DO NOT WANT TO WRITE. In fact I tried to convince my editor, "Please, kill the story!" No such luck. So I gave in and pulled out the bottle in the fridge the ringletted wine importer Jenny Lefcourt brought over last night. La Boheme, a declassified muscadet from Marc Pesnot. 2008. Perfect for this weather. A hint of pineapple on the nose that melts to stone. Then I turned over the label. Who needs a definition for the category of wines so far known as Natural Wine when you have this? Brilliant. The story is still there. Staring at me like a pit bull ready to tear my brain out, but at least there is melon, and hope. Maybe.

Spain! EcoSostenible Wine 2010

I couldn't wait to get rid of my speech at the Ecosostenible Conference in the Penedes. I obsess about these things. I want to be perfect, to be funny, to have just the right touch of light and gravitas. In other words, until the presentation was over I was a basketcase. But I gave it. I said sustainable was meaningless and I didn't understand why the concept in wine even exists. I said other things, like I ragged on the attachment to Round Up, and the shame that an industry I'm close to cultivates the image of being close to nature while plumping up a wine with additives and process. I don't what else. I have to reread the speech, but at the Q&A a gentleman in the second row asked a question. He is writing a guide, he said... and why are the organic and biodynamic wines not as good as the conventional wines? I had no idea who he was. And I took the approach of I'd have to see what he was tasting and what his palate was like, I had the feeling he had a very different one than mine. I then went ahead and tried to explain terroir to him. Turns out.........he was Penin of the Penin Guide to Spanish Wine Who scripted that scene? There were some very excellent speakers during the few days. Such as Peter Hans Schmidt who has been researching biochar. His studies of how sprinkling the substance through the vineyard can impact water retention might have profound effect on lessening the dependence on irrigation. Then there was the stunningly slick presentation on Assessing Sustainability with Eco-Efficiency Analysis from one of the conference's sponsor's BASF, the company that brought us the new transgenic potato.

Mr. Mario Manaresi put forth his thesis that an apple out of season was more eco-minded than an apple in season. Ooof--the manipulation of carbon footprint for the companies greater good. He hit tremendously false notes with the audience as the hands shot up in attack, tempered with some politesse, as, after all, the company is a major EcoSostenible contributor.

Amongst other news was, well, it's not new, but another example of the way the EU seems intent on messing over the beauty of European wine. This time it's the definition of organic and the desire to eliminate a two-level certification, one for wine made from organic grapes and another for organic wine.

 Enric Barta gave the report. All of the sudden I stopped emailing and started to take notes. The suited man next to me started to wiggle his jowls, angry but for a different reason. I raised my hand: "Do you mean that there really will no longer be a separate category for wines MADE with organic grapes?

 My neighbor was outraged because his company could source organic grapes and get part of the market but did they want to invest in a whole other set of organic ingredients? This would be like having to have both a meat and a dairy sink. But what got me all on the edge of my seat was the allowance of any addition as long as the additive is 'organic.' So allowed in 'organic' wine would be" micro ox, reverse osmosis, and just about anything else including gum arabic and mega-purple. In other words, the new organic wine would be only organic by ingredient and not by soul. This seemed ultimately unfair and malicious. For once, I was on the side of big business. The guy next to me who works for one of the biggest commercial wineries in Spain almost blew his jugular out. The next day all was well for the moment as just like the rose folly of last year-the EU retreated. And the official comment from IFOAM was Commission withdraws draft proposals on organic wine EU Commissioner for Agriculture & Rural Development Dacian Ciolos has today withdrawn the draft proposal to introduce rules for the production of organic wine. Organic wine was meant to be a new concept, as wine has so far been excluded from the EU organic regulation. Processed wine from organic grapes has been marketed as 'wine from grapes from organic cultivation'. The draft has been under discussion for several months within the Standing Committee on Organic Foodstuffs - and in a number of bilateral meetings - but it has not been possible to find a credible compromise which respects organic standards. Speaking this morning, Commissioner Ciolos stated: 'It is clear that conditions for such new rules are not right in a majority of member states. I am not willing to compromise on organic standards because it sends the wrong signal to consumers on the importance we attach to quality policy. Our hope would be that the industry and research can make progress, and the Commission can come back to these proposals in future.' Based on an independent study (Orwine), the draft proposals sought a number of changes, including: · A lower limit for sulphites than in conventional wine; · A smaller list of permitted additives and processing aids than in conventional wine; · Not permitting 5 oenological practices, and restricting the use of 3 others N.B. The rules for 'wine produced from organic grapes' continue to apply. With a great big sigh, I gave my presentation on how important sustainable wine was to the consumer, my message? What, are you joking? And with that, I went off to visit another entirely different world of beauty.

2009 Beaujolais

Last week's visit to Morgon with Eric Texier seemed a long, long time ago when I walked into a 2009 tasting of the Beaujolais on Rue Rivoli yesterday afternoon. The promoters called it Fabuleux Beaujolais 2009, a tasting through all of the crus. A great opportunity, in theory. Beaujolais. There are so many good ones. The region complains that they cannot get a foothold amongst drinkers but can't they see that the ones that are acclaimed like those from Lapierre, Chanudet & Foillard, Breton, Thevenet, Lapalu, J-P Brun, Coquelet, L&C Desvignes, de la Roilette, G. Descombes, and Ducroux, have no trouble selling? Why instead do they follow the espoofers instead of the true? So I walked into the hotel, through the lobby, picked up a glass and gave a nod of hello to the elegant M. Dubouef (in a dove grey suit) I had a go at it. Now, the 2009 Beaujo is being as heralded as the 2009 Bordeaux and both have the same problem as most of the country did in that year: high pH and low acidity = unstability and plenty of adjustment. Not to say that there aren't a heck of a lot of lovely wines out there, but it is certainly a year to be dedicated to your favorite producers who picked at the best time and didn't make wine according to recipe. But yet---it's the vintage of two -centuries---right? I was assaulted with (wine and after wine) thermo-vinification, banana and bubblegum aromas, and a nuclear burning in my mouth. Acidification is out of control in 2009. Burn, baby, burn, I heard myself thinking and headed off looking for an ice cube..when to my surprise, over at the Morgon table, I saw Mathieu Lapierre, the son of Marcel (who's wife just fed Eric and me some plump white asparagus the week before). "What ever are you doing in this company!" I said as I gave him two kisses. He explained, slyly, as he poured me some of the '09, that the day was the 21st, and as it was the night where all of France was lit up with street music, he wanted to be in Paris. "A good excuse," he said. His excuse was my salvation. The wine (which was not the unsulfured cuvee) was filled with baby powder and crushed roses. Yes, an '09 in heft, but Lapierre in elegance. That night I too headed out into the street to listen to music. It was Paris in all its glow and a 1l2 moon over the Seine. I aimed for the left bank, where the assortment of jazz, vintage, or voices raising up to the stars on blocked off streets, changed with every few steps. The feeling was joyous and innocent, sexual and raunchy. A perfect little nicoise on Rue de Seine at Poisson (creamy walnut-sized quail's eggs, marinated anchois) some young students traveling before they took on the world and presumed adulthood, and for the moment, the burn of the sad wines of '09 left, washed down by some enlivened, unacidified Pascal Franck bubbles and a fierce walk back to the 8th.

Andrea Calek and Blue Portuguese

What is fascinating to me about this particular (still entrenched in punk-ism) winemaker-- other than my joke that I never grew out of my bad boy phase? Because the story behind drive is compelling. This man from Prague read Baudelaire and ended up in the south of France. He fell in love, drank Bordeaux left and came back, went to enoschool, met a few men who had a natural sensibility Andrea didn't know he shared. His brush with the band in Morgon changed his attitude about wine and wine life. Which lead him to farming, winemaking, growing slowly (his first vintage was 2007) and being very closed about his winemaking techniques. Calek, too, gives me the, "It's not me, it's the terroir," bullshit. But he knows he's giving bullshit, and that makes it charming. Perhaps it's what comes of growing up in Communism, you learn to be secret, but not without a fierce sense of irony. He has something else. Talent. Spirit. The touch. So far at least. He is a thinker and he doesn't need someone else's opinion. When talk about technique he admits to carbonic--no pigeage, no remontage. Just wine. Why? I ask. I'm lazy, he says. You don't use sulfur? As a rule, no. But if a wine needs it, I use it. He claims to pray, but he doesn't believe in dogma, even with sulfur. He won't go to hell, he knows that for sure. The Sulfatata won't come and knock on his door. I ask his definition of natural wine, he shrugs, he says in his edged Czeched english, 'nothing added, nothing taken away." Hmm..has he been reading my blog? Is he playing to me --but no, I think, he means it. He goes on, it's an ideal, a philosophy, it's not always attainable. There was one year he should have added sulfur, a teensie bit would have saved the cuve from the dumpster. I take a break and go to the toilet. The prettiest w/c I've used in a long time. After having my moment with guilt-- how horrible it was to leave my tissue behind-- I mean, I was traveling with one pair of jeans for three weeks --and there was no way I was going to risk a dribble. Saved by pragmatism, (Pragmatism, in William James' eyes, was that the truth of an idea needed to be tested to prove its validity. ) I buried it next to a gorgeous blue flower and then returned to the plastic table, and tasted some wines. (no tasting note) Chatons de Gardes. It's syrah, puppy breath, sappy with ligaments with threads of patchouli. I like it. Punk Czech: this is his homage to Domaine Peyra--it's an early wine, red wine released less than a year after harvest and it is just that--vin de soig and made from syrah and blue portuguese and...grenache? This is more like Pfifferling meets Perya, very fruit forward, cinnamon. The 2007 Blonde? He didn't think it would have any fizz left, but it did. "That vintage was a mistake," he said. But when 2008 came around, he made sure the bubbles were on purpose. We passed by the pile of beer and headed to dinner.

The Search For The American Vigneron: Gideon Bienstock

(In where our authoress goes rambling) *** I have a difficult time accepting the reality of California's new world---the industrial approach to winemaking, the surrogate mother approach to winemaking, the disconnected approach to winemaking. And so I was on a mini-mission to find more like Hank, people who grow their own grapes, till (or no til) their own soil, prune their own vines (or most of them) and then make their one wines. To hell with local and industrial, if it's local and hand tended, I'm interested. So that's how I happened on Gideon Bienstock a few years back. Over the years we corresponded. When I wrote theirrigation story for the SF Chronicle he and I had a very interesting dialogue and I find myself always using the below passage. **The very best fruits I have ever tasted were found in a deserted experimental farm established by the Russians in the Sinai desert. The trees (apricots, peaches, apples) were left unirrigated and unattended for years in the desert dunes. They were stunted, crippled, more like half-dwarfed bushes than like the trees we know, but the fruits, cherry- size apples and peaches - were so incredibly intense and concentrated in flavors, like nothing I have ever tasted before or since. The soil there was poor, but uncontaminated and alive. It is also my experience that the more 'controlled' is the environment and the processes which produce a wine, the less distinctive and authentic will this wine be - both in relation to the grape growing and wine-making. *** So you see, I had to one day someone who wrote these words, even if he does irrigate up there in the desert but not quite Sinai area of the Sierra Nevada Foothills. Gideon, who bears some resemblance to Pierre Bornard of Jura, is Israeli but also has some Jurassic connections. He started out as an artist in Paris, drinking supermarket plonk. For a friend's birthday he splurged on a cheap Bergerac, five steps up from his normal tipple and was hooked. Around the same time he also landed on the philosopher Gurdjieff. In 1979 he visited California and the Renaissance property--world headquarters for for The Fourth Way, strange off-shoot of Gurdjieff-ians. (Look, let's suspend judgement, this is about wine .) He returned in 1992 for good. Met his wife Saron. His first vintage for Renaissance was 1994 (correct? Gideon?). Amongst the outspoken fans of the wine are Matt Kramer. The society's compound/vineyard complex is not far from Nevada City and New Oregon where Gideon works his own plots of land, Clos Saron. He maintains N. Rhone producer, Bernard Faury in his pocket as spiritual wine father. Between Gurdjieff and Faury he's got his abbas covered. Typical of the area's iron-laced, ox-blood streaked stone. In this particular vineyard I went searching, bloodhound like for the smell of curry I get around Chateauneuf. No luck. Gideon loves Pinot in addition to Chardonnay and Syrah, the first two just--just--can't wrap my head around out there. In fact, most people know that I don't understand the passion to grow these grapes in California. It's too hot. I believe Pinot loves limestone. But the soils in this part of the SN's are oxblood rich clay and confounding loam with some decomposed granite. That aside, thank goodness mine isn't the only set of taste buds in the planet. We'll get back to Renaissance but first we toured his own vineyards. Lovely messy places! And guess what? Okay. Don't. Let me tell you. He plants by provinage. This is an ancient propagation technique; stretch a cane, lace it as if you were darning it into the ground, allow to root, then sever it from the mother plant. See it? (yes, most of his vines are own-rooted). He lamented how even though he is organic/biodynamic/whatever--some of the plots had seen chemicals before and those damned star thistles and stubborn weeds keep on returning. Whomever says Round Up has a short-shelf life, is either stupid or lying. Okay---Renaissance. First time I reviewed the Renaissance them was in 1990, having actually found a cabernet I really liked. I still like them. Fun. Restrained. Strange place. Driving through this spectacular vineyard I had the feeling I was in some strange, lost and abandoned civilization. Hell, there are water buffalos on the property! Me being inarticulate. Must learn how to talk. ++++

The Making of a 100 (Minus 2) Point Wine/with addendum

Every chapter of The Battle was supposed to start with Parker review, this was back when Parker wrote all of those hormonal busting wine blips and the language was as fat and purple and alcoholic as a 2007 Parkerized Chateauneuf. My idea--while a fun and good-humored roast-- didn't make it past Harcourt legal. Sniff. Then, yesterday, I was alerted to this review, snapped off the DeMaisonSelections website, from Dr. JM'S Spain 2010: Let the Good Times (Rock 'n) Roll. Wow! What fun! I figured, all was fair in love and war....it was just too good not to share. Issue #188 2006 Hermanos Sastre [Vina Sastre] Pesus Ribera Del Duero, Castilla Leon, Spain $750 (not $17.50, no5 $7.50, not $75.00 but $750?) The flagship 2006 Pesus comes from a small parcel of 82-year-old Tempranillo vines blended with a bit of Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. After fermentation in a special stainless steel tank, (HOW SPECIAL ARE THEY? LIKE ESPECIAL? YOU KNOW IN THE FRENCH WAY, WHEN THEY ARE REFERRING TO SOMEWHAT UNFORTUNATE? OR SPECIAL WITH MACRO OXYGENATION OR??) the wine was transferred into new French oak. It was racked further into new oak three times (WAIT! RACKED FOUR TIMES INTO FRESH AND NEW AND VANILLAED NEW OAK? TWICE A YEAR? FOR TWO YEARS?) and aged for a total of 24 months in barrel. Purple/black in color, (NOW THAT"S A NATURAL COLOR, HOW MUCH PV & CAB? PUMP IT UP BABY!) it emits (DR. JM SNAPPED UP THIS WORD, EMIT, FROM HIS BOSS) an aromatic array of sandalwood, pencil lead, (PENCIL LEAD AS AROMATIC? SEND THE BOY BACK TO 101) Asian spices, incense, truffle, tar, licorice, black cherry, and blackberry. (TEMPRANILLO DESCRIPTORS IF I EVER HEARD THEM) Dense, rich, loaded, (AIMED AND ARMED) and long, (ENOUGH FOR A MAGNUM XL?) it will continue unwinding for a decade and offer a drinking window extending from 2017 to 2036, probably longer. (I GUESS SO. ALONG WITH GIRTH.) Vina Sastre is a benchmark estate in Ribera del Duero. It is committed to organic farming and biodynamic principles with the wines naturally made (LET'S SEE, ORGANIC, BIODYNAMIC, NATURAL, WHAT OTHER BUZZ WORDS COULD THEY GET IN THERE? I'M WAITING! BRING ON FUKUOKA!) and bottled without fining or filtration. ( I SEE, FINALLY THE DEFINITION OF NATURAL WINE, NOT FINED OR FILTERED. REVELATION) Score 98 -J.M. (WA #188, Apr 2010) ADDENDUM: For some reason this post has created a bit of a stir, so much so that readership tripled last night, and mostly in from the WineBeserker site where I think there's some Alice bashing going on. I'm not sure people would do this if I were a guy, but that's besides the point. I've also received some off the record emails from folk in the industry. This one was particularly of interest to me, because the man, an importer who of course shows his wines to the WA staff absolutely understood the meaning. I like to blog, throw my thoughts out but often because I do have work to do, things that pay the bills, I don't have the time to make sure my meaning in the blogs are iron clad. I like to leave room for the dialogue, to hear what you guys think. The downside of that is the rampant assault and twisting of my meaning. Unfortunate. Surprising. But there you go. So, below is the cut & pasted email. And I thank him. +++ The point for me wasn't that there was a wine out there that actually is racked three times into new oak and is fermented in 'special' tanks. No. The point for me (and I think for you) is that there is an important wine critic out there who accepts anything that the winery or the importer tells him as the truth. This business about 'committed to organic farming and biodynamic principles with the wines naturally made' sounds suspiciously like someone who doesn't understand the differences in these things and for whom these concepts are buzz words. The 'special tanks' thing is a most egregious example of writing down something that the importer tells you without any follow-up or context. Here is how this conversation would have gone if I trotted this out with one critic I greatly respectt: Y: This Sancere is fermented in a special tank. D: What kind of special tank? Y: A stainless steel tank. D: But what makes it special? Y: Well, it's bigger than most. It's made in Austria. The guy who forged it lost one of his toes in a machinery accident. D: So what does that add to the wine? Y: There is less contact with the lees. His tasting note: 'this wine is fermented in tank.' What you said needed to have been said.

Champagne!

Just back from the International Champagne and Sparkling Wine Invitational, 2010, in New Orleans, which while off to a rocky start with a blowing up volcano, and a lot of stranded Champenois, organizers, Peter Wasserman and team, including the fabulous Laura Maniec, some locals, especially Sara Kavanaugh pitched in and pulled off an original idea that was begging to happen. Also on board, Peter Liem, Charles Curtis, Fred Dexheimer but mostly the stars were bottle and winemaker. The concept was unprecedented. A weekend devoted to champagne and sparklers from growers? 74 sparkling producers, many of the vignerons installed. two tired sommeliers And even more? They came from all over, and were grateful to be there. I shared a panel with the always frank Lisa Granik (MW) and we presented sparklers of the world. I asked the group who showed up, what are you doing here and not in champagne? The heart warming answer was, "To learn something." Curiosity! May it never leave human kind. That said, I was also pleased that the non champagne wine of the weekend was the Robert & Bernard Plageoles Mauzac. ($15). pix courtesy of Mr. Anthony Wilson. Full disclosure, I was pouring the wine for Jenny Lefcourt, who couldnt make it but as I never get to be on the front line with the consumer, I found it a great opportunity. To hell with folk wanting conventional. One buyer from Houston of all places kept on coming back, " I can't believe this wine," she said. It has a mind of its own. it don't take no shit from no one." The wine was like a wacky sandwich, earth on the attack, a flower shop in the middle and stone, cold, stone on the finish. One of the champers of the event for me? Pierre Peters Cuvee Special, Les Cetillons Brut 2000, about $90. Afloral, succulent beauty with a long and sensual finish. I was happy, so happy, to revisit the individual champs of Billiot. The Brut 2004 had this wacky orange spice thing going on. (can't find the price, but should be around $65?) Camille Saves forever. Laherte rose saignee, which was from old pinot menuier vines was intense! It was like a man or woman, fragile in appearance and powerhouse of sensuality. ($85) And was happy to taste the unsulfured, no-dosage Drappier, not available in this country, but had me shaking my head, now how do they do it? The weirdest ? A sparkler from Catena, the Siesta. ($16) I swear if I tasted it blind? I'd think it was shiraz. Save it for cocktails, please! Post show revelers, drinking it up to Abe Schoener's amusement. And that night, instead of jazzing til the wee hours, I watched the volcano blow its top.

Natural Wines, Part #2

It's pretty easy to dismiss natural wines as a hot-pants kind of trend if you forget that it's been a three-decade strong movement that finally went viral. So, dismissiveness is discordant, as discordant as waving by the local and sustainable movement, which while not 100% attainable, is changing the way we eat. And while most of the WAPO piece was thoughtfully written, the underlying message was confusing and contradictory. Was he trying to say, 'natural wine is a powerful force, and while some are great, I don't understand the excitement.' If so, that would have been a useful takeaway for the reader, for his readers. It is another opinion. Another set of tastebuds. We can't all appreciate the same wines and it's important for a reader to know where their wine critic stands. Some might well wonder why I get upset about under reported pieces on the topic? Because for some crazy reason I care deeply about the category of natural wines because of the people who make them, the care and passion that drive their metier and the pleasure they give me and my friends. This world is one I've been committed to for over a decade, have spent an insane amount of time drinking, thinking, walking, talking and visiting and hammering out the issues. And so, it's professional and it's personal. When I used to be a Morris Dance foreman (long story) and the new crop of kids came on to the team, I was equally dismayed that they had no connection to the tradition of the Morris, they looked at the movements as fun or a great way to pick up guys, and lost the connection to the past. But even in that world---in dancing for god's sake--there are the fanatics, the moderates and the humanists. To pick up on the genre of natural wine and dismiss it as a fad, might be an illustration of why critics like A.O Scott have questioned the demise of the critic. History is important. Context is essential. But I digress. Back to second graf: He: 'There's a Gallic defiance of the European Union's standardization of regulations, which is seen as undermining France's strict defense of tradition and quality as the homeland of fine wine. And there's more than a soupcon of resentment against New World (read 'American') wines and their flirty fruitiness that renders them wines of the masses rather than wines of character.' + Me: Anyone in any country under the EU making real wine (or cheese) is anti-EU, and count me amongst their numbers even though I do neither. The movement started before the EU was installed, while the franc was reality and not nostalgia, and before the French were even aware of American wines. The movement started as a local reaction against chemical farming and flavor manipulation through wine school techniques. Natural was a rejection of chemical and manipulative fakery in the vineyard and the winery and started around 1978. the piece continues.. ++ He: 'And there's the rub: The minimalist approach of the natural-wine movement, taken to its extreme, can be an excuse for bad winemaking. Without human intervention, wine naturally turns to vinegar. The most controversial tenet of the natural-wine movement is the rejection or extreme minimalization of the use of sulfur dioxide during fermentation and bottling.' --- Me: Taken as a religion, taken from his highness, big daddy of the movement, Jules Chauvet, the first order of natural wine is that it must be beautifully aromatic. Wine must give pleasure. This would knock out those unstable stink bombs that used to be more prevalent in the natural wine world. Pleasure is Chauvet's golden rule. True, we've seen natural winemakers (and some merchants) defend some very badly made wines claiming terroir and minimal intervention and natural at all costs in the same way that crappy organic produce in the 70's was organic at all costs even though the vegetables were awful. But the question here for me to Dave is why hold natural winemakers to a higher power than conventional winemakers? Isn't he in fact talking about all wines? How many winemakers who make a wine so fruit forward it makes cavities, talks to me about terroir? There are unscrupulous people everywhere. Organic, vegetarian or natural does not give immunity. Neither does the AOC, AOP, or certification. Dave concedes the best of the naturals are exciting, and if these wines make the conventional world rethink their farming and techniques, it's a good thing. Pass the bottle! But the fact that he ends up with .. He: 'But why reject all the winemaking advances of the modern era if they help us avoid the occasional stuck fermentation, correct an acid imbalance and ensure that the wine reaches the consumer in the best possible shape?' Me:...Here is the big point of departure for me. If the best of the wines are exciting and gorgeous, why view conventional means of winemaking at all as 'advances?' Some think that adjusting for nature is okay. Naturalistes deal with the issues by preventing the problems. Matching the best grapes to soil and climate. Adjusting the trellising and positioning of the vine, perhaps using goblet. The idea is to manage your viticulture so you don't have to adjust. But as to why 'reject?' The reason is quite simple, because when it comes down to it, those of us who love wines made with no additives believe they are an unparalleled experience and simply put, most of us arrived to this preference because we think they taste better. To hell with the EU, the trend, the anti-establishment stuff, this is about taste first, philosophy second.