this heaven gives me migraine

Wine Misadventure

The latest onslaught of insipid and insulting wine assistance for women is headed our way in the form of a magazine called "Wine Adventure", which promises to talk about wine in an unintimidating way that we ladies can understand. I am sure now I will find out what lipstick goes best with Merlot and if I can drink Chardonnay after Labor Day.

Actually, a glance at the website shows me that this magazine will tell me important things such as "how you store your wine really matters" and I will be informed of some "Vin-ovations" (I am mentally taking away points for the serious-seeming use of that terrible pun) wherein I can buy and carry a wine tote with "pizzazz".

You know, I was thinking I should include a standard disclaimer that I could be eating my words when I check this out next month and it isn't that bad (believe me, I can't wait to get my hands on a copy), but then I saw the word "pizzazz" on the website and now I am thinking I don't need a disclaimer.

You can get the bullshitty PR version of the release here or you can read a better short commentary about the idea at Decanter (thank god for Decanter; the fact that they titled the article "Women's wine magazine "unintimidating"" is killing me).

1999 Fritz Rockpile Cabernet Sauvignon

Region: California, US

Composition: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon

Background: Fritz Winery has been undergoing a Renaissance of sorts for the last few years, evidenced first to me by their changing labels, since I am a label junkie. They used to employ an Eighties-style label that looked cheesy at worst and dated at best, and now they have moved to a much more sedate style of label involving some animals I think of mentally as "dinobirds" on it (I think they are really just peacocks or grouse or some land-bird along those lines, but the posing makes me think of dinosaur dioramas). From what I can tell the actual switch in labelling came about in 2001/2002, but because some of the older wines are just now being released, you can find a mix of labels for Fritz wines in the stores.

Jay and Barbara Fritz started Fritz winery in 1979, converting a family farm retreat they had owned since 1970 into a winery. It was the height of the energy crisis and gas shortage worries (as I can remember, since I was in elementary school at the time, being inundated with those "This Is A Landfill (Don't Be Part Of The Problem And Throw Things Away)" movies and Big Blue Marble), and echoing those early 1970s sentiments, they did the green thing and built an energy-conscious winery that is actually underground in a hillside. In 1996, they decided to ramp up their winemaking, and started making changes. They hired Helen Turley on as consultant, and worked with her for a few years. In 2002, they hired Christina Pällmann, who had worked with Jacques Seysses at Domaine Dujac, and Blair Walters at Felton Road, and she is now consulting with Merry Edwards on the winemaking.

This wine is interesting because it is a single vineyard Cab (Rockpile, no less... in what is now the Rockpile AVA, I believe, but that didn't happen until 2002) and it is cheap. It is about fifteen bucks normally, but I got some through my wine club for less than nine. And it is fairly simple and fruity, but still, for nine bucks it is a very good Cabernet. And I don't usually even like Cabernet very much, but this is kind of a guilty pleasure Cabernet.

In any case, it was just what I needed last night, after a weekend of weddings and cleaning and not enough studying. The exam is in ten days, I have an opera to see tonight, and my parents roll into town on Thursday. I am already having nightmares about misidentifying wines in blind tastings, and even though I need the next week to finish preparations (I am still trying to memorize all the sub-regions in Australia and where they are/what climates they possess/what grapes they grow, not to mention Bulgaria and Romania), I kind of wish it was over already, because I am tired of dreaming about wine (last night, I was creating a cellar from scratch, and that isn't even on the test).

Notes: Deep garnet with a slightly paler rim. Forward nose of black currants, bell pepper, mint, maybe some pine or spruce. Nicely balanced in the mouth... not a lot of tannin, enough but not a ton of acid. Pleasant persistent black cherries and currants, a tiny bit of leather, and minty freshness. It's simple and fruity, not complicated and brooding like a grown-up Cabernet, but tasty and easy enough to drink. I think that it is excellent value for the price, and am sad to see K&L is already sold out of it. It's the kind of thing you can take just about anywhere and people will enjoy it, rightly so.

Cost: $9 from my wine club (normally about $15)

Overall: B

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(Old Fritz versus New Fritz, label-wise, for those interested:)

CA SB 118: Just when you thought it was safe...

I missed an email I got from my favorite wine shop, K&L, last week; one that wasn't a regular update, but news of a much scarier nature, as I realized when I saw the message they sent out today. I guess I thought California was safe from all this crap, but we aren't. Anyway, it's a bill that's been passed by the CA Senate and is in front of the Assembly now. I guess it is expected to pass there and then it will go to Schwarzenegger, and he will probably sign it and then we are all in trouble. The passing of this bill will mean that retailers will be prevented from shipping wine in or out of state. It means that you, the consumer, might not be able to order wine from a retailer anywhere. To be blunt, this would suck.

The most recent K&L letter pretty much sums it up (I put it below) and if you live in CA and care about this you should definitely take action (information on what to do is in the letter below). You can see the actual text of the bill (in all its confusing legalese glory) here. I am not a politician or a lawyer, but if K&L is worried, I am worried.

Last week we interrupted you with a note about SB 118, a bill that we are deeply concerned about. We received a huge response and many questions of "what can I do" as a result of our message. K&L apologizes for this second political email, but we believe this bill has the potential to inflict serious damage to our company and your ability to receive wine shipments. It is for those reasons that we're sending this second email.

Part One: Reintroduction to SB 118
Part Two: What You Can Do
Part Three: Contact Links

Part One: Reintroduction to SB 118...

The CA Senate passed a bill on June 17th (SB 118) that is now before the Assembly and soon will go to the Governor. The new law will PROHIBIT direct shipment of wine from California retailers (and retailers anywhere) to California consumers.

California law currently allows ANYONE (including the anti-alcohol forces and the wholesalers) to ENFORCE the prohibitions of the ABC Act, which would include the new law. This new law endangers the ability of every merchant in the state (over 70,000 retailers) to sell wine for shipment to consumers and could in one fell swoop send the industry back to 1935. It cuts off consumer wine shipments from licensed and respected wine merchants all over the United States; that is as anti-consumer and anti-business as one can get. The recent amendment to SB 118 seals off California from interstate commerce in wine from the retailer tier of the industry.

Part Two: What You Can Do...

Cut and paste the template below (or create your own message) and send it to your legislators. At the end of the template we've provided contact links to your State Senator, Assembly Person, the bill's committee members, and Governor Schwarzenegger.

Dear [ name of legislator ] and Governor Schwarzenegger:

We have been told about SB 118, which makes it a crime in California to ship wine direct to a consumer unless the shipper has a direct shipping permit, which are ONLY issued to wineries throughout the US. We are not opposed to permits, but the fact is that retailers in California and elsewhere in the US are PROHIBITED from getting a direct wine shipper permit by this bill. That is WRONG.

This new law takes away our right to receive fine wines from wherever we can locate them. This new law seals off the California consumer from wine merchants in the rest of the country, and potentially from wine merchants in California because the new statute says that California retailers can't ship wine to consumers either. Wine merchants are the only source of older vintages and all of them are reputable and licensed and would be willing to pay California taxes, register with the state and assure that no wine is delivered to a minor.

We support the amendments to SB 118 proposed by the California Grocers Association. If this bill doesn't get fixed, we urge Governor Schwarzenegger to VETO the bill. This is anti-consumer and anti-business. If the system needs to be fixed, we urge you to fix it right and not to harm the entire wine industry in the process.

Sincerely,

[ your name here ]

Part Three: Contact Links...

Your Senator (there is a link on that page to a map that will help you find your State Senator if you are unsure)

Your Assembly Member (use the "Find My District" link on that page to help you find the appropriate person, or the "Member Directory" link if you already know)

SB 118 Committee Members

Governor Schwarzenegger

2001 Penner-Ash Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

Region: Willamette Valley, Oregon, US

Composition: 100% Pinot Noir

Background: Tonight we have the second in the mystery lot of discount wines (mostly Pinot Noir from Oregon) I picked up the other day, the same lot that handed me the somewhat unlucky St. Innocent the other night. This time I fared better. This wine is definitely somewhat evolved, but still very tasty.

Penner-Ash is located in Newberg, Oregon, and it looks like they just opened a new sustainable (good for them) gravity flow (who isn't doing that these days?) winery last May, situated at one of their vineyards. They focus on Pinot Noir and Syrah, and dabbled in Viognier last year, releasing it this year. Lynn Penner-Ash is the winemaker, and worked at Stag's Leap in Napa before moving to Oregon, where she made wine at at Rex Hill before buying some land and releasing her first vintage of Pinot Noir (the 1998, and only 124 cases of it) under the Penner-Ash label in 2000. By the time she released this 2001, which is a blend of several vineyards (whereas their other Pinots are single-vineyard offerings), she had upped the ante somewhat, and was making a lot more wine-- 831 cases of this were made.

The strangest thing about this bottle is the very deep punt. If you believed that punt depth determines the price of a wine, this wine would be very expensive indeed. I could almost jam my fingers up to my knuckle into the punt, which prompted a spate of bad punning in the house, and I spent a long time trying to get a picture of it, the results of which you can see on the right. I finally measured it and it was almost three inches deep! That is just strange, and it does make the bottle very fat compared to normal bottles with their puny punts. I guess it is another way to stand out from all those other silly Burgundy bottles on the shelf.

Notes: Medium ruby in the glass, this has a nose of smoky meat, leaves, sweet earth, and some black cherry. It's medium-weight in the mouth with some cherry, earth, and cinnamon/allspice. There's also some slight burnt toast and coffee (just like breakfast!), but not too much. The finish is soft, with little tannin but some nice lingering warm spices and a very very faint cherry cough drop flavor that is lasts a good long time (unlike a wine I had last week which was overpoweringly cherry cough drop flavored). Overall it is very plush and lush and full; hedonistic.

I could put these notes into WSET lingo, which kind of takes the joy out of things but is very thorough and makes me consider things I don't always remember to consider. Perhaps I should do this more often:

Appearance

Clarity clear
Intensity deep
Color garnet
Other core much darker than pale pinkish rim

Nose

Condition clean
Intensity pronounced
Development developing/aged
Aroma characteristics cherry, smoke, tobacco, meat, earth

Palate

Sweetness dry
Acidity low-medium
Tannin low
Body light-medium
Intensity medium-pronounced
Bubbles none
Flavor characteristics cherry, earth, cinnamon, allspice
Alcohol level medium
Length long

Conclusions

Quality good
Maturity ready to drink
Value category high-priced

Cost: $20 (originally $45)

Overall: A-

Impromptu Italian

Friday night, I tasted a bunch of Italian wine as a precursor to Golden Glass on Saturday... wines from Monchiero Carbone, Filippo Gallino, Cascina Val Del Prete, and Cascina Cà Rossa, all from Roero. I'm glad I went, since many of the wines poured were not poured at Golden Glass the next day, and some of those were my favorites.

It was a very good tasting, even though it was kind of crazy, too. The producers were there and everyone was playing the shell game with the bottles on the counter and debating the pouring order (and changing it, and debating, and changing, and debating some more) throughout the tasting. I think my clear winner for the night was the 2001 Cascina Val Del Prete "Carolina", although I liked several of the wines that night. My notes are not the best since there was a lot going on and talking to people and figuring out what I was supposed to taste next and if it was in the right order was pretty distracting. I also think that sometimes I just don't have the words to describe Italian wines well, yet. I am talking about them in the verbal equivalent on sticks and rocks, which you will see more when I write up Golden Glass.

I was perplexed by the nose on the "Monbirone", and thought it unusual, but then at Golden Glass I had about four or five wines that had similar notes, so it isn't all that strange after all, I guess. It's a funky sweet smell that I can't nail down exactly but is in the meat/tobacco/blood/manure part of the smelling world. And I of course mean that in the best meat/tobacco/blood/manure way.

Here is what I tasted, below, albeit reorganized by producer (we did them in the usual order, whites first, reds next, and that is where the big debate on order came in... flip between the same producer and stainless/oak to compare or do all the stainless wines to compare them first and then do all the oaked wines. This was mostly the issue with the Barberas since Nebbiolos came later, and finally, the Birbéts).

Birbét, by the way, is a semifizzy, light, sweet wine that is made from Brachetto but can't be called Brachetto d'Acqui because of laws governing the growing and region (Brachetto d'Aqui has DOC status, and the grapes must be grown in Asti or Alessandria), since it is grown in Roero. The people in Roero just decided to call it Birbét.

Filippo Gallino

2003 Roero Arneis pale straw - nutty nose, floral when swirled - soft at first in mouth, then steely, lots of acid, grassy hard finish
+2003 Barbera d'Alba (stainless, no wood) pink-ruby - austere and dusty nose - pleasantly drying tannins with a little burst of fruit in the finish, maybe a little young, still
2000 Barbera d'Alba Superiore bloody red - dusty red fruit and spicebox smells - more tannin, acid, rigidity than the "Carolina", could use some aging

Cascina Val Del Prete

2004 "Luet" Arneis pale straw - superfruity peach and banana nose, not as steely as the Gallino in the mouth, still a lot of acid, but more honey tones, fuzzy fun finish, tingly
2003 Barbera d'Alba (stainless, no wood) pink-ruby - dried fruit raisin plum nose - very soft tannins, very pretty fruit in mouth, slight bitterness at finish
++2001 "Carolina" Barbera d'Alba Superiore (oak) blue-red, looks young - pretty pretty pretty nose of tobacco, flowers, and spice, nice nice acids and fruit, not much by way of tannins

Monchiero Carbone

+2003 "Recit" Arneis straw yellow - funky peachy nose - lemony in mouth, soft finish, did it see some wood?
+2001 "Monbirone" Barbera d'Alba (18 months in wood, ten percent Nebbiolo) opaque burgundy - very funky nose... ham? blood? cigar? manure? - nice acids in mouth, but I spent way too long trying to understand the nose and found it very intriguing
2003 "Regret" Nebbiolo light burgundy - cherry and violet soap, earth - slightly more fruit evident than the Cà Rossa Nebbiolo (which I had just before this), nice acids, fuzzy velvety tannins
2000 "Printi" Nebbiolo brown brick - on the dusty/austere side, both of these Nebbiolos could hang around for a while
NV Birbét light, sweet, sparkling red, strawberries and flowers, fun and fizzy

Cascina Cà Rossa

+2001 "Mulassa" Barbera d'Alba burgundy - first one corked - second one had a much cleaner cherry and earth nose, but was sort of closed - nice acid and tannin, leathery finish
2003 Nebbiolo color of dried blood - bitters, soap, dust, cherry - intensely tannic right from the start with some red fruit and iodine
NV Birbét fruit leaves on the nose, very interesting, I liked it better than the Monchiero Carbone

2000 St. Innocent Pinot Noir, Freedom Hill Vineyard

Region: Willamette Valley, Oregon, US

Composition: 100% Pinot Noir

Background: Sometimes you hear about a wine sale going on online and you get the chance to order a bunch of wine really cheap. Sometimes the wine is older, so you know you are taking a chance, but you do anyway, and you go into the venture with eyes wide open knowing you could end up with some dead bottles. You take that chance because it's all in the name of learning, and it's good to try older/dead bottles, too, since you don't see a lot of them on the market (unless you seek them out or have them in your personal collection). Anyway, that's how I came across this bottle.

I've seen St. Innocent Pinot Noir all over the place, but haven't ever tried it. I understand that this probably isn't the best example of their wine... on the St. Innocent website the winemaker says that Temperance Hill wasn't always his favorite:

Temperance Hill usually does not achieve the complexity of my other Pinots. It is not a wine I gush about or drink much. The 2000 Pinot noir, Temperance Hill is different. The growers have been working very hard to get the vines in balance and their success is evident in 2000.

The problem with 2000 was that even though the vines were getting sorted out, the vintage was a little underwhelming. There weren't any big weather problems that year (it looks like 1999, 2000, and 2001 were all fine vintages in Oregon), but I guess that particular site didn't fare as well and the fruit was okay but not spectacular. The resulting wine didn't have a lot of fruit or structure and I guess the winemaker could only do so much with it (he says the year 2000 was the year of terroir for the wines... they reflect the site as much as anything else). And while I am sure it was fine when it was released back in 2002 (and for a while thereafter), it's a little weary now: whatever fruit was there is gone, and there isn't a lot else to hold it up, mostly a lot of oak effect (the wine was aged for 16 months in 30 percent new American oak). 481 cases were made and I hope they were all consumed long before now.

Notes: This is a brownish-burgundy in the glass, clear but looking a little older. It has a nice rustic nose of forest floor and earch and mushroom, with a little blackberry and smoke. There's some strawberry/cherry on the tongue, but it is pretty overwhelmed by smoke and iodine and some rough tannins. The finish bursts with some oaky spiciness, but then fades off. I kept a half bottle around for round two the second night, and it was pretty bad by then, even though I kept it cold and gassed it. The second night it was all tannin and no fruit, which is to be expected from a Pinot that didn't have a lot of fruit to begin with and is also over the hill (or in a temporary bad spell, although I am not sure where it could go from here). It was okay but not great the first night, but the second night I gave up on it. It tried its best.

Cost: $20 at release in 2002 (I picked it up recently for about $10)

Overall: C-

Wine and cheese, on the rocks

There is an old saying about wine... buy with apples, sell with cheese. Meaning that if a wine tastes good after having an apple (which can easily kill a wine's flavor with its malic acid), you have a keeper, whereas cheese is very flattering to wine and will enhance the flavors.

UC Davis is challenging that theory, reporting that cheese doesn't really go with wine all that well, after all. This is kind of non-news in that it comes down, again, to "eat and drink what you like," but at the same time, there is some pretty damning evidence that cheese not only reduces a lot of unpleasant wine characteristics, it also muffles a lot of the good characteristics. And it's all in our heads, probably.

The study took a bunch of people and trained them in a common wine language, then had them taste wines and rate them on certain points (at least twice, in varying orders). Later on the participants had the wine with the various cheeses and rated the wines' characteristics once again. In each case, even with milder cheeses, the wines suffered from muted characteristics as the tasters experienced them. The study explains that decreased astringency is expected (the layer of fat between your taste buds and the wine will dull that) but that the diminished perception of oak or fruit can't really be explained well. It could be expectation (I know that if you give someone two glasses with the same wine in each, and announce that they are different wines, the person will often come up with differences that are not there), it could be something else.

I think the study was about as logical as it could be, but it's all so subjective, this tasting thing, that I don't know how you can do a foolproof experiment. Also, wine and cheese pairing is subjective on top of that... some people love blue cheese with Cabernet Sauvignon, some hate it. I guess the study tried to get beyond liking or hating and delve into specific points, so it will be interesting to see if more investigation goes into this.

I also wonder if any other studies have been done, studies about fish and tartar sauce, or french fries and ketchup. It makes you ask why we eat things with other things. Does it really matter that cheese doesn't enhance wine, if we just enjoy having them together?

WBW11 Announced: Get off (dry)

Foxy is alive and well, as indicated by the most recent Wine Blogging Wednesday announcement:

Get off! Dry, that is.

Beau over at Basic Juice is hosting next month, and his challenge is to find an off-dry wine-- something, that is, that falls between "dry" and "sweet". It can be red, white, or rosé, but has to be off-dry. Confused? Think German, or Champagne, or head on over to the announcement for more info. Check back over there after July 6 for the roundup!

1998 Rocche dei Manzoni "Bricco Manzoni"

Region: Piemonte, Italy

Composition: 80% Nebbiolo, 20% Barbera

Background: 1976 might have been a good year for the Sex Pistols, but it was a bad year for Barolo. In the Langhe hills of Barolo, Valentino Miglorini wondered what to do with all of his so-so Nebbiolo grapes, grapes not good enough to be made into Barolo. Valentino and his wife Jolanda had only come to the region two years earlier, and he wasn't about to be bound by tradition. He decided to combine the highly acidic and tannic Nebbiolo with the less tannic but still lively Barbera grapes he had around, and put the resulting wine in some new French oak barrels. A year later, "Bricco Manzoni" was born. Originally, the wine only garnered the status of vino da tavola, since the blend was not something that fell within the Barolo DOC, but blends from the area eventually gained the DOC status of Langhe (Langhe Rosso and Langhe Bianco). (And I wonder why, since the same idea in Tuscany, the one that is responsible for Super-Tuscans, still gets only IGT status, which is a level below DOC, but who am I to argue with Italian wine law.)

Rocche dei Manzoni produces 40,000 bottles of Bricco Manzoni a year, which is a lot, especially when you consider that they only make about 50,000 bottles of their four Barolos a year!

Notes: Ruby red in the glass, with browinish-pink edges, you can tell this wine has a little tiny bit of age to it. The nose is decidedly Italian to me, and has a lot of dusty bell pepper, black cherry, and old books and parchment. The mouth has some fleeting dark cherry that is quickly overwhelmed by soft fuzzy tannins, which in turn wrap around a slight spicy peppery bite. The finish is nicely acid and astringent, filled with earth and dust, and lasts for a good length of time, although for some reason I found myself expecting it to hang around even longer. It was slightly tightly wound, and could probably benefit from an hour or so in a decanter, or even another year or two in the cellar, but was pleasant nonetheless.

Cost: $30

Overall: A-

2005 Golden Glass (and more)

If you are like me and love Italian wine (and can get to SF this weekend, of course), you will definitely want to head up to the second annual Golden Glass, which is going on this Saturday at Fort Mason, from 3-6.30. There will be sixty producers from all over Italy pouring 120 of their wines, and all proceeds will benefit everyone's favorite food organization, Slow Food San Francisco.

I am determined to not miss this one, not only because I love Italian wine and am trying to demystify it for myself, but also because I feel stupid for missing the Etude tasting last week; I was so study-panicked that I didn't even realize it for two days. Friday morning I was on my way to work and remembered. Duh. Anyway, I will be brushing up on my Italian grapes and regions and producers before I head over on Saturday.

If you can't make it Saturday, or can't wait until Saturday, I also hear that K&L in San Francisco is going to be doing an informal tasting of four producers' wines from the Roero: Monchiero Carbone, Cascina Ca' Rossa, Malvirà and Filippo Gallino. It starts at 4.30 on Friday, and will be pretty cheap, from what I hear... around five bucks. Consider it a warm-up.