Santa Margherita - Pinot Grigio - 2003 - Valdadige

Santa Margherita is a "denominazione di origine controllata" quality level pinot grigio from the Valdadige area of Italy.

One interesting thing: This bottle was a gift to me, and I had never heard of it before, but the very first night I got it home I saw a commerical on TV for it. That's a big surprise, since wine commericals are fairly rare, and most of the ones I see are big American names like Korbel or Gallo.

A few notes on pinot grigio generally:

I've seen many wine experts say that pinot grigio has reached a popularity and recognition far out of proportion to its actual quality as a grape. That may be so, but I've always enjoyed it. I think part of this is because for the American consumer at least, pinot grigio is fairly dependable and inoffensive. If you want a quaffing white you're not a big fan of oaked-up chardonnays and want to avoid a sweeter wine, then pinot grigio is an alternative you can reach for without any nasty surprises. It's true that it's not a terribly complex grape, but again, if you grab a bottle of it, you pretty much know what you're getting, and that's something that non-experts like. Now that I am beginning to study wine, I'm more interested in complexity, but I can respect pinot grigio for what it is and also for the recognition that it commands. Somebody somewhere did a great marketing job.

The wine:

A pale gold/straw color in the glass. Dry, pleasantly acidic white with a medium body and slightly syrupy texture. The nose has citrus, pineapple, pear and peach, but it's not a hugely fruity wine. It's a still wine, but there is just the slightest hint of carbonation which gives it a tingle or bite on the tongue that I really enjoy. The dryness and acidity make it very flexible with food. I had it by itself and also with chicken breasts sauteed with some bacon crumbles, steamed broccoli flavored with olive oil and parmesan, and mashed potatos. All in all, I really liked this one.

Newbie alert!

So, in my last post I was referring to Spanish areas of origin as the abbreviation "DOC" which was incorrect. Instead, I should have been using the abbreviation "DO" for Denominación de Origen. I was confusing it with the Italian abbreviation DOC, which stands for Denominazione di Origine Controllata, which stands for both an origin and also a level of quality. My apologies! And also, dear readers, if you catch me in a mistake, please let me know. I'm in this to learn, and if you correct me, you're being kind and helping me out.

Dominio del Arenal - 1998 - Crianza

This is an unusual and modern crianza, because it is 50 percent temperanillo and 50 percent syrah (instead of a more traditional grape like grenache). It was an intriguing concept, and I know syrah is a grape that can age. I tried a more conventional crianza, Condesa de Leganza the other day and liked it very much, so I figured a little experiment might be fun. This one is from the DOC of Utiel Requena, a more obscure DOC than La Mancha, which was where the more traditional crianza came from.

So, to the tasting: Gorgeous deep deep ruby color. Nose of oak, vanilla, cherries, a touch of blackberries, and cola. (I knew the cola thing was possible from having read reviews, but this is the first time I've encountered it myself. And wow, who knew? It really does smell like cola. In a good way. Weird.) Light bodied for a red in the mouth. Dry. The finish has a touch of cola, the cherries, and a hint of spice from the syrah. The finish also has an unfortunate cotton-mouth effect from all the tannins. I've enjoyed plenty of 'chewy' wines: and it's not that this wine's tannins really come off overly strong in the flavor, they are definitely not 'chewy'. They're very mellow tannins right up until you swallow, and then you are hit with major cottonmouth. The effect is sort of like raw potato in the mouth, or the cottonmouth you get after swallowing over-brewed cold black tea. As nice as the wine was otherwise, this one factor got on my nerves. It might help to pair it with some kind of fatty/oily food.

Oh, and I found an article about Spanish wines that reviews both this wine and also the Condesa de Leganza, the traditional crianza mentioned above. Incidentally the article also mentions fellow wine-blogger Hugh Johnson of Huge Johnson's World of Wine. So, if you want to read a second opinion on the wines, check it out.

(Editor's note: A mistake was made in this entry. An incorrect abbreviation was used to describe the origin of Spanish wines. Please go here for a full explanation.)

Vouvray - Guy Saget - 2003

This is a lovely semi-sweet white. I was actually expecting it to be dry, so sweet was a bit of a shock, but not a bad one. The bottle had no more information on it than to tell me the appellation, the producer and the year, but knowing it is from Vouvray the grape must be 100% chenin blanc. (Hooray for reference books! I'd never remember the French appellation system on my own.)

Let's see... pretty pale gold color, the nose is minerals, pineapple, and citrus, all of which return in the taste, which also has some strawberry and maybe a hint of mint, especially in the finish. The minerals and the mint really lend a nice refreshing tone to all that fruit. Medium bodied, with a lovely syrupy texture. Nicely acidic. Got it for 9 dollars, and this is one I would consider getting again.

Drank it with some chicken I made in a broth-based sauce with celery, carrots, onion, garlic and some green pepper and a tomato, with marjoram, parsley and thyme, served over rotini pasta. This wine is great just for sipping on its own though.

Ruminations on Waste, Taste, and Efficiency

So, this morning I poured out the last half of last night's disappointing Côtes du Rhônes, which provoked a fair degree of guilt about waste. Throwing out perfectly good wine just bugs me, even though it's the logical thing to do. I'm the only wine drinker in this household, and I don't get out to tastings much. This means I only get to taste a new wine every 2-3 days, because that's about as fast as I can drink a bottle. Why should I spend my time working through a bottle that I darn well know I don't like, and what's more is not a good embodiment of the characteristics of its varietal and style? The answer is, that would be a silly thing to do. There's a lot to learn, and therefore a lot of tasting to do, so it's best not to waste time dawdling over a mediocre bottle. Even more so because the wine industry is producing more wine than consumers are drinking, and they have been doing it every year for quite some time now. This is a buyer's market for wine, and consumers should be picky and demanding about their wine. Like a game of musical chairs, there is more wine than there are gullets it can go down, and some bottles are not going to be drunk. Why settle for second best?

Throwing the wine out reminded me of another wine-tasting practice that I haven't yet tried: using a spittoon. Here again, I see the logic, but there's just something that bugs me about the practice... here you are, with perfectly good wine in your mouth, and you spit it out. Counterintuitive, no? Plus, I can't help but feel that my mother is going to appear over my shoulder, scolding me for spitting at the table! (chuckle) So, I will of course use a spittoon whenever I get into a tasting of enough wines to make it necessary. It's probably the kind of thing you get used to and then do without even thinking about it.

Which brings me to a bit of anxiety about tasting... The last tasting I attended was at the Biltmore Estate, in their tasting room. (I actually attended two tastings there, one was a pay bar, one was the free tasting room. ) This was a bit intimidating. For one thing, there were people everywhere, and it was like sharks in a frenzy for blood. I suspect that's normal for free tastings, and if so, it's worth the money to attend events with an admission fee. I'm used to tasting in the peace and quiet of my living room, or at the very least over a meal in a restaurant, so I wasn't used to all the hubbub.

But the most distracting factor was the pace at which the couple next to us were going through their wines. They had gone on the tour of the winery with us, and clearly knew their stuff. Watching them slurp, spit and evaluate and then do it again, spending maybe 1 minute on each wine was a bit disconcerting. I tend to sit down with a wine and take at least 5 minutes for an initial impression and another 20 to make up my mind with certainty. I can go a bit faster, but I feel that I begin to miss some nuance at that point. So here I was, next to the expert speed-demons, and can't help but notice that I'm a slowpoke still trying to evaluate my first selection when they'd been through 5 already. (They were very nice people, and any awkward feelings were entirely in my own head.) Also, to be honest, after tasting 3-4 different wines, I get a little burnt out or overwhelmed, and the quality of my perception and analysis goes down, even when I've been careful to go from whites to reds with a palate-clearing cracker between each wine. Of course, I'm sure analytical abilities gain speed with practice. And hey, more practice is definitely going to be fun!

Domaine de Coste Chaude - Côtes du Rhône Villages Visan L'Argentière - Marianne Fues

This wine, of granache and syrah, is from the village of Visan. They say the vines are old. I don't remember what I paid for it, but on the web it seems to retail at about 12-13 dollars. Web site

I dunno... maybe it's just my mood this evening, but I'm underwhelmed. It's dry, a bit thin, lots of tannin, an acrid scent, spicyness, raisins and cherries, and seems a bit sharp or 'hot' to me. I'll revisit this wine tomorrow, and maybe it will benefit from some oxygen. It's a touch on the sour side. I hate to just rip into this poor wine this way, since it's perfectly drinkable, it's not as bad as it sounds. But just not something I'd recommend. Funny thing is that I normally like côtes du rhône wines. Just had one last week by Cellier des Dauphins that was great, though I didn't have time to get notes for a review. (Mmmm, and I'll have to do a good review of that one. Very reasonable price, and so tasty!) So I don't think the problem is that this style of wine just doesn't ring my bell. I've loved plenty of syrah wines as well, so it's not the grape. Ah, well, I'll return to this entry when I drink tomorrow! We'll give it a second shot to acquit itself.

Update: Nope, still not very good. It's definitely got a bit too much alcohol (says 14 percent on the bottle and it smells fume-y and hot).

Condesa de Leganza - Rioja - 2003 Rosé and 1999 Crianza

Last night a friend and I had a fun little experiment: two bottles of wine, one a rosé, the other a crianza, both made by the same winery, both 100 percent temperanillo and from the La Mancha DOC.

Crianza is of course a Spanish staple, a long-aged and solid table wine made mainly of tempranillo grapes.

Rosé (from what this novice gathers, anyway) is kind of an odd bird for the region, which is mainly known for its red, and the occasional white.

We started with the rosé:

This was a simple wine, but very enjoyable. A deep rose pink, lovely scents of vanilla and caramel, sweet flowers or hay. The flavor repeated the vanilla and flowers in the nose. The wine was very drinkable and refreshing: nice and bright, very light-bodied, only a hint of sweetness (off-dry). ($8)

Then, the crianza:

Spicy smokiness, like barbecue, hickory or mesquite smoke. Raisins, figs, and lots of vanilla. Pipe tobacco. The finish sort of reminded me of the Maker's Mark bourbon whiskey I had the other day. Lots of tannic influence but remained refined and very mellow. You could really taste the oak and the age, in a good way. I was looking for a 'classic' crianza, not one of the more modern varieties that are more fruit-forward, and this was it. Very good. ($9)

We drank the wine with a hearty wheat bread full of seeds topped by a red bell pepper and herb cream cheese spread.

Odd bit of drinking trivia: according to a friend who has visited family in Spain, the kids there drink a mixture of red wine and Coca-Cola (1 part each) called 'Kalimocho'. Maybe I'll experiment the next time I end up with horrible plonk and I'm feeling adventerous...

Goats do Roam - 2002 Rosé - The Wines of Charles Black

A refreshing dry rosé from South Africa in a deep salmon-rose color. Can you spot the pun in the name? The label caught my eye because it's pretty and adorable without being saccharine.

The rosé is made from a large number of grape varietals: 48 percent cinsault, 16 percent grenache, and in decending order from there: merlot, gamay noir, shiraz, pinot noir, pinotage, chardonnay and semillon. (By the end of the list I was expecting to read 'kitchen sink!')

Goats do Roam has a sweet herbaceous smell, sort of like basil or hay. Also smells a touch of tangerine or honey. Flavors of raspberry and peach, with a touch of bitterness that contributes to the herbal feel and the briskness. Medium-bodied, leaving a little tingle on the palate, it seems sweeter than it is because of its scent. I enjoyed it with a Japanese rice cracker assortment (sembei), but I think it would stand up to less delicate foods just fine, this wine is not a shrinking violet. Would be a great wine for a hot day. Paid around ten bucks (if I remember right) for it, and would buy it again. A good wine for a picnic. One last note: at first, I made the mistake of serving this wine too cold. It's at its best at just cooler than room temperature, not just out of the fridge.

Incidentally, here is a good article on South African wines that mentions the Charles Black Goats do Roam. And for those who are concerned with South Africa's history of apartheid, here are some notes on various efforts South African winemakers are doing to encourage equality and fair treatment.

Tongue Taste Maps: Bad Advice for Wine Beginners?

Well, today I am finally getting over my cold that has prevented me from bothering to drink wine, since my nose was so stopped up I didn't have a prayer of tasting anything.

Thinking about scent and taste made me consider a bit of well-meant advice that I have seen in more than one "wine tasting tips for beginners" style of article. Many times, particularly when advising newbies on things like how to tell if a wine is sweet or dry and sensing the bitterness of tannins, the authors of these articles suggest a "taste map of the tongue" to focus concentration on areas of the tongue that are supposedly better at tasting sweetness or bitterness. This taste map theory is widely known, and has been put into countless textbooks. I even believed it for many years. But the truth of the matter is that the tongue's taste perception is much more complicated than that.

The quickie version is that there is a bit of truth to the notion that some areas of the tongue are better at tasting some flavors than others: but it seems that most areas of the tongue can taste most flavors. The tongue-maps can be misleading because they imply that each area of the tongue is discrete in its taste-sensing capability. Wine students might be better served by not worrying overly much about the physiological location of their sensory impressions and concentrating more on the impressions themselves.

Here is an interesting article about those taste maps by a wine educator that describes the problem with using these taste maps in regards to wine-tasting.

Here is a section of an article about the tongue and the sense of taste that gives a more detailed response. And here is another good general article on taste. An example of a taste map of the tongue (which does a good job of pointing out that the taste map only shows areas that are better at sensing various flavors, and specifically stating that flavors can be tasted all over the tongue.)

On The Right Track

I noticed that Gruet Winery, which makes a sparkling wine that I enjoyed and recommended, has been specifically mentioned in two of my wine books. It's a thrill that my student's palate was able to pick out something that experts identify as uncommonly good! I do most of my wine-tasting alone, because I just moved to a new city and my boyfriend doesn't like wine. Sometimes I worry that tasting wine in relative isolation will lead to solipsistic mistakes. I actively try not to be influenced by expert opinions: Reviews have a power of suggestion over my tasting, and I find that I do a better job exploring a wine when I haven't yet heard someone else's opinion. I attempt to read about a grape, region and winemaking practice for background (so that I know what I'm looking for), then taste a wine and write notes on it before I read reviews of it. (This is a general guideline, it's not like I actively avoid wine reviews all the time, far from it!) I use my books for background, not to look up individual wineries. But it sure was fun to notice a familiar name, and then see it again when I went looking for it! Gruet was an easy name to remember because they are the only wine I'd ever heard of that is made in New Mexico.

Snobbish and Elitist?

The wine community seems to be incredibly concerned about being snobbish and elitist. It seems like not only do they have a reputation for those negative traits, but that they themselves believe they have a problem. I've read about it in my wine books, and I've been poking around wine blogs, etc., and it's universally agreed that there is a problem.

I have to say, I haven't experienced snobby or elitist behavior at all. In fact, my experiences as a neophyte have been overwhelmingly positive.

Two years ago, when I started getting a bit more interested, I had two wonderful friends who were always willing to chat with me and joing me in having a glass. Though they've both been wine hobbyists for years and I knew nearly nothing, they were very pleased to talk about wine, never giving me any impression of feeling superior.

Starting this wine blog has also been a wonderful experience. So far, the feedback has all been helpful and encouraging. Alder at Vinography has been particularly welcoming.

As far as wine shops go, (wine shops seem to be singled out as some of the worst offenders), my local wine shop owner has been wonderful to me, asking me questions about my tastes, making recommendations, pointing out bargains, offering a free tasting nearly every afternoon he is open, and generally lavishing attention on all of his customers, not just myself. He even took pity on my obviously uninterested and bored boyfriend and showed him the shelf of microbrewed beers and nifty gadgets.

Wine-tasting at the Biltmore Estate was similar: there was a very kind German lady pouring, who made suggestions and offered information, and was generally a wonderful hostess.

These are just the first few anecdotes that come off the top of my head, but it's a wide range of situations, and each one has been positive. Maybe being self-conscious about haughtiness and superiority has helped the wine community become more friendly? Am I just colossally lucky? In any case, it's been great so far, and I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.

I do think that any large community that concerns itself with an intricate topic has some elitists: it's just human nature. I've seen zero evidence so far that wine is any worse than other things people are passionate about.

So, cheers to all those supposedly snobby wine enthusiasts out there!

Hot Toddies

I've come down with a cold, and so I'm going to have to forgo wine tasting for a little while. At this point, I can barely smell the drain cleaner we just used in the bathroom, so there really would be no point.

Of course, when you have a cold, you have hot drinks. Right now I'm having English breakfast tea with honey in an effort to make it through the remains of the work day. This reminded me of a drink called a hot toddy, which hasn't been a tradition in my family, but I've certainly heard about it many times. I remembered that they are made with hot black tea, bourbon whiskey and lots of honey, but wanted to refresh my memory. So I googled it, and was surprised to find that there is just no consensus on what a hot toddy actually is. I've found versions that have a base of nothing but hot water, and versions with a base of coffee or a base of tea. Some versions use Irish whiskey, some use bourbon, some use brandy or rum. Nearly all versions do have honey in them though, and many have some combination of lemon, cinnamon or cloves. Later this evening, I think I will be concocting my own version of a hot toddy...

Wineries and Vineyards - The Biltmore Estate

So, one of the reasons for my long absence last week was that I disappeared for a long weekend for New Year's in Asheville, NC. Of course, your intrepid wine adventurer/correspondent did not miss the Biltmore Estate Winery. I intend to make several posts about the experience because there is just that much to tell. I'll begin with a note about grape cultivation and winemaking at the estate.

One thing I never thought about much before focusing my attention on wine is that growing wine grapes and making wine are very much two different things. Many vineyards have wineries, and many wineries have vineyards, but they don't always come in pairs. Vineyards can just sell grapes, or use all their grapes for their own wine, or some combination thereof. Wineries might get grapes from their own adjacent vineyard, or they might purchase all their grapes, or, as the Biltmore Estate does, they might both grow and purchase grapes for their wine.

It's a fairly common practice, especially outside of Europe, for wineries to use grapes that are not grown close to the winery, or even close to each other. Not long ago I had a wine from South Eastern Australia, which is a region that is bigger than many countries! Those grapes could have, and probably did, come from widely varying geographic and climatic areas. It's less common in Europe because European winemaking tends to focus on terroir (the effect of the land and climate on a wine, being able to taste the character of a place in the wine) and so they are less likely to throw grapes from different places together willy-nilly.

The Biltmore Estate winery uses many grapes grown in California for some of their wines, as well as some grapes grown on the estate. The estate has proved a challenging environment for viticulture: the elevation is roughly 3,000 feet, leading to cooler temperatures. Also, the climate is a bit moist and shady for grapes, leading to problems with rot and grapes that aren't sweet enough, and on top of everything they have had 2 of the most rainy years on record recently. So, they make many wines from grapes that are not grown on the estate, and the poor tour guide was clearly burnt out from having to explain that fact to people who were expecting to drink wines made exclusively from grapes grown on the grounds. While I understand and respect the concept of terroir, I haven't let it restrict me from enjoying tasty wines that were made from the grapes of disparate vineyards, and so this didn't bother me in the slightest.

A note on the tour: this was my first-ever tour of a winery, and I was blessed with wonderful luck. There were only 4 people on the tour including myself and my boyfriend, so we could go slow and ask plenty of questions, and our guide was wonderfully knowledgable and patient. I took plenty of pictures, which I will be posting later. (I dropped the camera on the way home, so I need to fix a spring in the battery compartment before I can download the pictures.) More later!

Big Tattoo Red 2003, made by Two Brothers

Big Tattoo Red is a 50/50 cabernet sauvignon and syrah blend from Chile made by the Two Brothers label, the owners of which are indeed two brothers (Alex and Erik Bartholomaus). They make the wine in honor of their mother who died of breast cancer, and donate fifty cents to breast cancer charities for every bottle sold. To date, they have raised well over $300,000. The brothers take special efforts to make sure that money raised from the sale of the wine is donated to charities local to where the wine was sold. The name of the wine comes from a tattoo of a Fleur de Lys that one of the brothers sports on his chest. The fleur-de-lys was a favorite design of their mother, and the brothers have used it as their logo and label design.

I really wanted to like this wine, because I am moved by what the brothers have done in memory of their mother. The good news is that I did indeed like the wine. Still, this review is going to be more critical than some of the other things I have written. This isn't a reflection of an extreme dislike of the wine. Instead, it is an editorial decision. I think I have emphasized the good qualities of wines too much, and I need to discuss their shortcomings as well. Keeping that in mind, let's move on to the wine.

A deep ruby color, it first presented a slight vinegar smell for a few minutes, but that went away quickly. Maybe this was a fluke? Or maybe a problem caused when I accidently made the cork 'pop' while opening it? (I confess, even though I know better, I still love the sound of it!) In any case, I didn't notice it later on. Lots of black and sour cherry smell and flavor, very mellow, a hint of mocha, and tons of spicy pepper in the finish. For a red it had a very clean and light mouthfeel. The wine did have some edgy, acrid flavors to it, and I couldn't escape a feeling that something was slightly off-kilter somewhere. I drank the wine over three days, both alone and with two beef dishes, so it was experienced in a variety of situations. I recommend letting it air for a bit. I saw some reviews that describe the wine as a 'quaffer' and entirely agree. It's an enjoyable, friendly wine.