May 3 2008
Perhaps it is serendipitous that my Amazon.com purchase of Alice Feiring’s new treatise, The Battle for Wine and Love, came at approximately the same time that I pulled the cork on a winery sample from Cooper Mountain Vineyards.
Feiring’s book is a broadside against technology in winemaking and the Cooper Mountain “Mt. Terroir” is as about as natural of a wine as they come.
(Cooper Mountain) Mountain Terroir (Five Elements Pinot Noir) is a blend of some of the best grapes harvested from our three vineyards sites (Grabhorn & Meadowlark & Johnson School). Singled out in individual barrels for aging, the contents of this bottle have been carefully brought together to convey what we hope to be the best expression of Cooper Mountain’s terroir, of our environment.
And, frankly, you have to love a winery that produces only 90 cases of a biodynamic Pinot Noir Cuvee from estate-grown grapes and they decide to sample some to the blogosphere. It is a bold choice and demonstrates an incredible insight into old-world winemaking technique and the new market dynamics of the modern day. And, it helps that it is a fantastic wine.
I feel like I was a part of an experiment. Ostensibly, this sampling was a litmus test by Cooper Mountain. The wine is certified organic and biodynamic, fermented with native yeasts. They wanted to know whom the rube is, who does not “get it.”
It is not hard to “get” this wine. And, in parallel to Feiring’s book, it is not hard to see the immediate point of natural winemaking.
Of all the biodynamic wines that I have tasted, each of them has expressed a certain “it” factor.
Now, mind you, just like NFL quarterbacks, it is very difficult to describe what “it” is. Sometimes you just know it when you see “it.” The liveliness, the je ne sais quoi … the LeBron James or the Peyton Manning factor at work, as opposed to the merely good, at the highest level.
Biodynamics wine is a controversial subject, some view it as poppycock, a skepticism about some of the mysticism.
Here’s where I come down on BioD wines – there’s room enough in the world all variants of winemaking, but it’s hard to argue with what frequently gets delivered in the bottle. BioD wine is hard to describe, but you know “it” when you taste “it.”
That is a point that Alice Feiring argues and Cooper Mountain delivers.
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April 27 2008
Do you remember the Price Pfister faucet commercials from a few years ago? It is the commercial with the tag line, “The Fabulous faucet with the funny name”
That’s how I feel about Gundlach Bundschu: the “fabulous wine with the funny name.”
Then again, my own name, Lefevere, doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue to most people, either. But, the folks at Gundlach Bundschu have enough sense of humor and wherewithal to have their web address as http://www.gunbun.com while also placing imagery on their corks for anybody that may be just a touch uncertain about the pronunciation of the namesake winery that produces delightful Chardonnay, Gewurtz, Cab. Franc, and other varietals.
For the record, it’s: gun-lock bun-shoe
They have been at it for 150 years, celebrating a sesquicentennial this year, long enough for them to be on the tip of any wine lovers tongue, and at the same location on the estate at Rhinefarm. Gundlach Bundschu is the oldest family-owned winery in California. Six generations …
I would expect that longevity of that sort, against the odds, would manifest itself in quality markers that set the pace against their peers. Sure enough, that is true.
Likewise, over that long course of history, as an industry leader, Gunlach Bundschu has gotten to know itself. Combining a level of seriousness in their wines with enough verve in their personality is a delicate balancing act, one in which they excel. And, frankly, it is always nice to appreciate a winery whose back-story is exactly that—a true living history, not constructed with a sense of marketing, as a lot of contemporary wine marketing is these days.
A lot of current day credit must go to Jeff Bundschu, President of the Winery, for not only bringing an updated joie de vivre to the winery, but also for his pioneering work as Co-founder of Wine Brats, a seminal marketing group from the mid to late 1990’s that really changed the landscape for wine industry event marketing to a youthful audience.
Bundschu and cohorts don’t get much credit for some of the contemporary marketing practices that are used to engage today’s Millenials, but they should as their work with Gen. X’ers in a similar vein a decade ago really paved the way for today’s Millenials to adopt wine as a part of their lifestyle.
Tomorrow I will have an interview with Jeff Bundschu, a likable chap, even though he went to Southern Cal, which as a Notre Dame Football fan is akin to us being in rival gangs. So be it, the last couple of years have not been kind to Notre Dame Football in the annual ND-USC showdown, and the Gun-lock Bun-shoe wine is tasty.
*Authors Note* Gundlach Bundschu wine was purchased at full retail price and was not a sample.
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April 23 2008
There are a couple of alleged unspoken truths to being a wine enthusiast. These “truths” are like unwritten baseball rules; for example, don’t watch your homer leave the ball park before running to first base and, my favorite in dubiousness, a pitcher can throw some “chin music” high and tight, but not AT a guys head. You know, these are things that occur as rules amongst men.
The first rule in the wine world is the notion that a wine enthusiast presumably drinks mostly red wine. The second is that this wine is presumably on the expensive side.
I find that lately I have been enjoying “talking reds and drinking whites,” and cheap whites at that, completely flying in the face of prevailing wisdom.
Surely, nobody that purports to be a major wine fan would actually drink more whites than reds and they certainly would not be drinking $10 whites from Australia.
Australian vino? You mean an industrial white? Perish the thought, right?
I am a wine polygamist. In fact, I am a wine polygamist with mistresses. Over the winter, I think I drunk whites to reds 2-1 and from all over the place, forsaking my biases. As I have mentioned before, I drink many whites mostly because it is easier to find one under $15 that does not disappoint.
In fact, I can go to Cost Plus World Market, buy a half dozen bottles of whites seemingly at random, each under $15, and have five out of the six bottles turn out to be enjoyable quaffs.
Under the same set of circumstances, it would be about two out six reds.
I am a gambler, but sometimes I do not feel like throwing money away. If I had a nickel for every wine bottle that languished in the fridge under a vacu-vin until my guilt for dumping subsided sufficiently, well, I could probably buy a couple of $15 dollar bottles.
With this in mind, it does not bother me in the least to say that a large production Australian Viognier from Yalumba, Australia’s oldest family-owned winery, is a very nice wine and tremendous value at around US $10 – 11. That truth need not remain unspoken.
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April 1 2008
Monday marked the announcement of the winners of the 2008 American Wine Blog Award winners.
Thanks to all who voted for this site in the Best Graphics and Best Wine Business Blog categories. And, likewise, congrats to all finalists and those that took top prize.
Amongst the winners was Good Wine Under $20 by Dr. Debs, taking the winners circle for two categories—Best Wine Reviewing Blog and Best Single Subject Blog.
This is a fantastic and very meritorious victory and happens to coincide with the reason for this post.
I was going to write a review of the 2006 Toad Hollow Chardonnay and quickly realized that Dr. Debs already did one late last summer for a Wine Blogging Wednesday theme around unoaked chardonnay. Our notes are similar, so let’s take a second, congratulate her for her win in the awards, slap the other winners on the back and also give a tip of the cap to Tom for organizing the whole thing.
For my money, Dr. Debs does the best job of writing accessibly with warmth and verve. So, my review is, “Yeah, what she said.” Excerpt from the Good Wine Under $20 review found here:
I wanted to drink something local and historic for this month’s event, and so my choice was easy: the 2006 Toad Hollow Francine’s Selection Chardonnay from the Mendocino County AVA ($13 direct from the winery’s tasting room in beautiful downtown Healdsburg). Toad Hollow founders Todd Williams and Rodney Strong saw that the future of chardonnay was unoaked back in 1993, when everyone else was making oak chip tea bags and going for new American barrels. The Mendocino County fruit that provides 90% of the grapes for this wine helps to keep it focused, and provides enough acidity to provide a good structure for the fruit. That’s because the swings between warm days and cool nights in Mendocino County helps to keep the fruit from over-ripening. The remaining 10% of the juice comes from Sonoma County.
I found the 2006 Toad Hollow Francine’s Selection to be a fresh and lively unoaked chardonnay, that smelled of golden delicious apples. Soft and food-friendly, there were apple and citrus flavors that were never harsh or acidic because the juice underwent 100% malolactic fermentation in stainless steel tanks and was left on its lees for 8 months. The result was a wine that had a full-bodied mouthfeel without the oakiness. At 13.7% alc/vol, I was surprised to get a little bit of alcoholic heat in the aromas and a bit of afterburn in the finish. This is a new release, and I wonder if the wine still needs to settle down a bit. What will it be with 6-9 months of bottle age, because giving it a little time to open up really diminished the alcoholic sensation? Very good QPR for a wine that was easy to drink and easy to pair with food.
The Good Grape wine review for the 2006 Toad Hollow Francine’s Selection Chardonnay can be found here.
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March 30 2008
Ah, I was sipping a nice Viognier and Roussanne blend from a producer I was not familiar with, Garrestson Wine Company, and just got done recording a podcast with my partner-in-crime, Tim Elliott from Winecast.net, who is making a Roussanne with Crushpad, and one of our topics was high alcohol wines. In fact, one of the guests on the call was Craig Camp from Anne Amie vineyards who had some commentary on high alcohol wines and the relative merits of the ongoing wine debate about extracted, high-alcohol wines.
With that as my baseline, imagine my pleasant surprise when I start doing some online research to do this wine review and I come across a nice write-up from Craig’s winemaker, (UPDATE: Craig sent me a note and actually Tim is the National Sales Director) Tim Brislin, on the wine that I am reviewing.
Thanks Tim, for not only providing a first-person account of an interaction with Mat Garretson, but for also saying what I would want to say, minus the first person interaction.
Garretson Wine Company produces high-end Rhone varietals, generally at $25 to $50 bucks, but they also produce a more affordable series—a red and a white blend called the “G” series, which can be found for around $15 - $16. From their web site:
The G Series was born out of a desire to produce a white and red wine which would serve as an true introduction to GWC and our style. While exhibiting generous, ripe fruit, there’s more to these wines. They have finesse, balance, nuanced layers that, we hope, prove a bit more compelling than most wines in this category.
I was not familiar with Garretson and picked it up yesterday on a whim since I have been on a Viognier kick lately.
Tim from the Anne Amie blog says:
Garretson Wine Company is a must have for any wine collector, and this fine Paso Robles vintner produces wine that are varietally correct, terroir driven, and expressive. I first met Owner/Winemaker Mat Garretson at a trade show in Boston, drawn to his table by his colorful labels and the buzz his wines were creating. After looking at his labels and noticing the alcohol content, I felt some trepidation towards tasting his offerings. After all, high alcohol is the demise of the wine industry, as wine critics bemoan, and California producers among the worst offenders. But these wines were perfectly balanced, complex, and showed exactly why Paso Robles is the epicenter for Rhone varietals. Since these wines are highly sought after, I had some trouble buying my own stash and decided in order to best enjoy Garretson, I’d have to bring Mat to Anne Amie. A few emails later, Mat agreed to come and in February, he will be pouring his wine all day, and showcasing some of his favorites during an elegant dinner that night.
I’m going to apologize to Mat for my preconceived notions regarding alcohol content and his wines, especially after reading his article on that subject which can be found here. It seems I’ve become blinded by provincial pretenses. We don’t get high alcohol wines in Oregon because the weather doesn’t let us…Garretson gets higher content due to his warmer weather and that’s part of what makes his wine different and enjoyable to drink.
This Viognier/Roussanne blend is a winner, our world is small, and my review for the 2005 Garretson Wine Co., G White, can be found here.
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