pop & pour

By Raymond Lamontagne

Day 16 and we are still in California. Today we leave behind the high ABVs from grapes grown in the hot interior but vinified in Napa, to get a look at what Jon Bonne calls the “new California wine”. Rutherford is considered to be among the finest Napa Valley AVAs. It lies on the valley floor, getting ample sunshine and warm temperatures, two factors that translate into optimally mature grapes that yield opulent, richly-flavored wines. However, a cooling fog also moves northward up the valley from the Bay area, modulating the sunshine that would otherwise napalm the grapes into a watery oblivion. The results are ageworthy wines that display a precise balance of fruit and acidity. Although Cabernet Sauvignon is the undisputed king across the region, more traditional California variety Zinfandel retains a few toeholds here and there. At Frog’s Leap, Zin is the favourite.

Interestingly enough, the same Riedel varietal tumbler glass is used for Sauvignon Blanc/Riesling on the one hand, and Zinfandel on the other. Maybe they mean white Zinfandel?

John Williams and Larry Turley started Frog’s Leap in 1981, ultimately creating a successful boutique winery that grows only organic grapes and practices dry-farming of vineyards (no irrigation, which many believe leads to sickly vines and bloated grapes that contain less acid, more sugar, and fewer of the  phenolic compounds that make wine worth inspecting, as opposed to crushing). They also incorporate at least certain aspects of biodynamics. Although these guys do not take themselves particularly seriously, stewardship of the land is another matter. Careful attention to yields, the aforementioned dry-farming, and respect for terroir work together to spawn Zins that show restraint, high-toned acids, earthy flavors, and (thankfully for the Advent-soaked liver) more reasonable ABVs. All of this emerges with minimal use of intervention. John Williams believes that nature makes wine, rather than man or woman. Finally, some of Cali’s fascinating grape-growing heritage is reflected in the fact that these old school Zins are often technically field blends: Other black grape varietals grow amongst the Zinfandel vines and are tossed into the pot to round out Zin’s corners and provide additional aromas, flavors, and mouthfeel. These can include various teinturiers (grapes with red flesh, historically used to provide more colour) as well as old warhorses that might be consigned to the dust bin of history were it not for a recent (positive!) trend toward preserving the past. The 2015 Frog’s Leap Napa Valley Zinfandel is 79% Zin, 19% Petit Syrah (or Durif), and 2% Carignan. Let’s delve in.

Cork Rating: 6.5/10. I like the Frog’s Leap swoosh, but otherwise this looks a bit like a cigarette butt.

This is a truly smoky, meaty wine upon first impression. One quick sniff yields powerful hickory smoke BBQ sauce and fresh ground beef. A few more sniffs reveal bramble jam, complete with canes and leaves, pumice stones in a sauna, dill seed and weed, allspice (maybe I should just say pickling spices across the board). I taste mealy Saskatoon berries, blackberries purchased in winter when they are rather tart, strawberries, raspberries, maybe a dab of peach conserve and a sprinkle of sweet dried chilli. None of these fruits are overly ripe or cooked, and everything is just a day or two past green. Peter and I exchanged Instagram messages while tasting this wine, and in addition to what turned into a rather wonderful conversation about the twists and turns of life, he helped provide this take on the primary fruit. Somewhat sweet but far from jammy, and every bit as balanced as Rutherford promises to deliver. Fresh acidity lifts everything up, and the tannins have some grip and just enough stem. This is what I absolutely love about an old fashioned Cali Zin: bright fruit but with ample old thorn-bush shrubbery, robust smoke and spice, tons of country character, nothing blowsy. Curry spices (star anise, cumin, coriander) show up late. Finish is persistent and features another perfect symmetry between fruit and aromatics. After last night’s alcoholic explosion, this is a breath of fresh air. Incidentally, some of my favorite wines are those that trigger bittersweet memories. This one takes me back to the raspberry patch in my old backyard in NW suburban Calgary. I do not live there anymore and I am happy in the downtown core. But the memories remain.

92 points

By Raymond Lamontagne

We’re back in DAC. The Old World classics continue to roll with an Austrian red, and I’m on deck for my third Austrian wine of the blogging campaign. The Calgary wine scene has seen a recent proliferation of Austrian sips, many natural or biodynamic, and the vast majority that I’ve sampled are charming, characterful, and delicious. A few have been stunningly superb. The entry level Krutzler Eisenberg Blaufrankisch is a textbook example that the winemaker describes as a “people’s wine”:  uncomplicated, approachable, congenial, and Krutzler’s best seller, yet still hearty enough to pair with richer meals. This is the Reserve, however.

I wonder if its Austria??

Blaufrankisch is often deemed “the Pinot Noir of the East” due to its proliferation across Eastern Europe and presumably also its taste characteristics. I can see the analogy, although to my palate, crossing partner St. Laurent often seems more quintessentially “Pinot”. Blaufrankisch can yield densely tannic wines (see Fox Run’s offering from the Finger Lakes, NY, which was sublimely floral but excoriated my tongue). This young impetuosity often gives way to a velvety mouthfeel and deep cherry and woodland berry flavors with age, while retaining a pronounced acidity. So yes … A Pinot relative at least in spirit.

One of Blaufrankisch’s parents is the fascinating Gouais Blanc. Gouais is a vinous Genghis Khan: decried as a barbarian, but sowing its seed far and wide. This white grape was deemed coarse and far too rustic, banished to the hinterlands early in the Middle Ages. This ill will almost rendered it extinct. Gouais did however have ample opportunity to cross with Pinot numerous times, perhaps imbuing the latter with some degree of hybrid vigour, and those crosses live on as some of the top wine grapes in the world today (Gamay and Chardonnay!). Fortunately extinction was forestalled and Gouais persists as a prime source of genetic diversity, if not a stellar offering in the glass. The other parent of Blaufrankisch is the ultra-rare Blaue Zimmettraube, recently re-discovered in the German Rheinhessen region. Most evidence suggests that Blaufrankisch itself originated in Lower Styria (in present day Slovenia), spreading to Germany (where it is called Lemberger, the name also used in NY and other US states), the Czech Republic (where it is called Frankovka), Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, and even Italy. Finally, Blaufrankisch is a rising star in Hungary, where it goes by the pert handle “Kekfrankos”. Some claim that these names lack market appeal. I say slap on an appropriately Gothic font and let the flavours speak for themselves. Besides, “Lemberger” sounds like a cheese. Read the rest of this entry »

By Dan Steeves

We are now officially into the second half of the Bricks Wine Advent Calendar! It’s been a fun ride so far with some fantastic wines, which for the most part (10 of 12 bottles) have all been from Old World wine regions. Tonight, we go back to the New World (perhaps New World wines will have a larger influence in the second half of the calendar?) with a wine from Sonoma County, California: the 2015 Schug Carneros Estate Winery Pinot Noir.

Day 13 wine was not an unlucky one!

Los Carneros AVA (commonly referred to as just Carneros) spans across the southern part of both Sonoma and Napa counties just north of San Pablo Bay. The region has low hills and relatively low elevation and is known for its moderate climate that is heavily influenced by cool winds blowing in from the Bay. The stress from the cool, windy conditions draws out the growing season which promotes crisp acidity and flavour development in the fruit and makes it an ideal location for growing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and for sparkling wine production. The region is so well suited for sparkling wine production that a number of famous Champagne houses (Moet & Chandon – Domaine Chandon, Taittinger – Domaine Carneros, and GH Mumm – Mumm Napa) have set up operations in Carneros for producing high quality sparkling wines.

The Schug Winery is a family run operation, started by Walter Schug and his wife Gertrud in 1980, and is now headed by their son Alex Schug although all of their children are involved in the operation. Walter and Gertrud moved to California from Germany in 1961 to start working in the developing California wine industry. In 1966 a position working with the northern California portfolio for E&J Gallo allowed Walter to forge relationships with hundreds of growers in the region and gain insight to the prime vineyards in Napa and Sonoma. This experience was sought by Joseph Phelps in 1973 and Walter started a 10 year tenure as VP and winemaker for the new winery (next time you see a bottle of Insignia or Backus vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, you now know who was behind it). In 1980, Joseph Phelps ceased production of Pinot Noir but made an arrangement with Walter that he could continue to produce it under his own private label while still the winemaker at Joseph Phelps. A few years later, Schug went out on his own, and in 1989 purchased land in the Carneros appellation and started the Carneros Estate which runs today.

2015 Schug Carneros Pinot Noir – WS Tribute Vintage – Remembering founder Walter Schug who passed away in 2015.

The 2015 Schug Carneros Pinot Noir has a medium ruby colour and a pronounced nose of cherry, raspberry, bramble, and cranberry along with nutmeg, vanilla, and slight smoky and medicinal aromas. The wine shows its cool climate upbringing with its crisp and earthy aromas, and it is a delight to take in all the scents. On the palate, the wine attacks immediately with a spicy character and nicely balanced crisp acidity and silky tannins. Flavours of dark cherry, cranberry, currant, leaf, tree bark, and clove persist with a rather long finish. I am a big fan of cool climate New World Pinot Noir and this wine most certainly does not disappoint! At the $30 price point it offers tremendous value for a highly regarded region like Carneros and a winery with deep roots in the development of the regional wine industry.

90 Points

“Bliss” by Charles O’Rear 1996

P.S.  If you’ve ever used a PC, there should be a 100% chance you recognize the above picture. The picture of a relaxing green field with the rolling hills on a beautiful sunny blue sky day, which was a default background for Windows XP. The photo, aptly named “Bliss”, was taken on film in 1996 by Charles O’Rear while driving through Carneros. There are no vines in the picture, as they were all ripped out a few years prior due to a Phylloxera outbreak, but this area is now once again under vine.

By Raymond Lamontagne

The series of odd coincidences continues during my debut blogging gig, as on day nine I draw a Riesling to complete the “favorite grape triumvirate”, and my second offering from Markus Huber. Perhaps Markus should put me on staff. An Austrian Riesling no less, a curveball tossed just as we were starting to think that we could accurately soothsay this superbly curated array of classic regions and styles. Stuart Pigott (see book in photo, a quaint but scholarly little tome) describes the Austrian persuasion as the most underrated Riesling in the world, stating that these are more crisp and fruity than Alsace, and more full-bodied, aromatic, and balanced than those of Germany. Lofty praise indeed. Although such sweeping generalizations are easy to puncture with counterexamples, particularly where Riesling is concerned, the claim is not entirely without merit. Austria’s warmer climate means that the grapes can reach greater physiological ripeness, a state more challenging to reach in colder northern regions. Less acidic, riper grapes mean that wines can be fermented completely dry, in contrast to many of the sweeter German examples. Or so goes the argument. Dry is far from rare in Germany these days.

Riesling constitutes 15% of Huber’s production. This one hails from the Berg site, an east facing vineyard with dry gravely and chalky soil stained red by iron and manganese oxides. The vineyard lies at high elevation, allowing a lengthy ripening process, and hot days and cool nights provide a Burgundian type climate, which according to Markus Huber yields “very fine aromas and spicy finesse”. Note that this is an Auslese, the German/Austrian category for a later harvest wine, with grapes picked when they are shrivelled and high in concentrated sugars. Although this means that most Auslese wines contain residual sugar, they can be fermented dry, with dryness representing a typological dimension separate from the Pradikatswein categories that capture ripeness. The Huber website makes mention of botrytis or noble rot being desirable for Auslese wines. I’ve heard and read different musings regarding the issue of botrytis and the Auslese designation. The final word seems to be that while many such wines are free of noble rot, a fair number do contain some botrytized grapes. Rest assured that any Auslese is going to be large and formidable, heedless of the presence or absence of noble rot character.

Besties hugging it out.

Here we go: 2015 Huber Riesling Auslese. I should note that I have a very low detection threshold for petrol or kerosene notes. I occasionally get these even in non-Riesling white wines, and research on other grape varieties supports the notion that I am not having olfactory hallucinations (in this case). Perhaps atypically for such a sensitive individual, I very much enjoy these diesel tractor aromas caused by 1, 1, 6-trimethyl-1, 2-dihydronaphthalene, or TDN (you can see why the acronym is an absolute must … Just a little vinification pun to keep ya on your toes). Low key to moderate TDN greets me right at the door, and then I am introduced to notes of honeysuckle and yellow asters, elderflower, furtive pink grapefruit and lemon-lime, chalk, Epsom salts, starfruit, a pinch of cinnamon and mace. The nose is mellow but rewards close scrutiny. Take your time here. The aromas are exquisitely fresh and the prominent yellow flower notes evoke a mountain meadow. The amateur botanist in me adores all these weedy wildflowers. A sip provides a sluice of tinned mandarins, fruit cup peaches and pears, dried papaya spears, candied grapefruit, Kraft caramels, a slight drizzling of honey. Not a dry Auslese (as supported by the 6.5% abv). I enjoy switching my focus between the floral nose and the focused sweetness on the palate. Fortunately there is enough acid to prevent this from being cloying. This golden deity features the somewhat clipped Huber professionalism also apparent in the Gruner from the number three spot: very precise, clean, elegant, even somewhat delicate for the style, and full of finesse. I love this winemaker and this region, but surely there isn’t a third hobgoblin of a bottle lurking in that crate, with me in the crosshairs.

92 points

By Raymond Lamontagne

Some scenarios just have a way of falling into place, as if the cosmos itself simply knows what must occur from a karmic standpoint. Other times life is total cluster- … errr … bomb. This is fortunately one of the former occasions. After drawing my favorite white grape for my first blogging stint of the Bricks Wine Advent extravaganza, I have now landed my favorite red: the enigmatic, protean, finicky, and sometimes sublime Pinot Noir. Oh, Burgundy. Pinot reaches its loftiest heights here and yet detractors are quick to point out how many “horrible” Burgundies are routinely encountered. Yes, quality is massively variable in this (in)famous region. My view is that a word like horrible drastically overstates the case. A cheap Burgundy is often a pleasant sip, rather like how mediocre pizza is still pretty good hangover food. The allure of Pinot for many (myself included) is correlated with this metaphorical roll of the dice. Will the elegant red liquid in your large-bowled glass be superlatively sophisticated, characterized by a solid core of red or perhaps black fruit, yet earthy and herbaceous, redolent with what the French call “sous bois” or “forest floor”?  Or will it be rustic, crude, elemental and untamed, perhaps reeking of “animale”, another evocative French term that refers to aromas and flavors of funky wild game: well-cured meat with a slight seasoning of fur and bile. You will know this characteristic right away if like me you grew up around hunters and hunting. Or, just maybe, you’ll get a wine that splits the difference between refined and bucolic. These latter offerings can be marvelous from a complexity standpoint. If you do your research, and Burgundy requires more research than any other wine region, you should be able to divine what’s in your bottle. To a point. You might still be surprised.

Well … What happened here?

Burgundy is about terroir. Unfortunately, making sense of a Burgundian wine label can be daunting (also looking at you, Italy). The only way to untangle the Gordian knot is to study up on the mess of subregions, domaines, villages, premier crus, grand crus, and climats, so that you have some schematic for how these concepts all fit together. Why? I suppose for academic interest. But perhaps more importantly, this will also enable you to gauge potential quality. Let me walk you through this label right here on Advent wine #6. “Vin de Bourgogne” means “wine of Burgundy”, a helpful starting point. “Vendanges” means “harvest” or vintage, right there above “2014”. The absence of the phrase “Bourgogne Rouge” or something similar means that this wine is not at the lowest quality tier. However, seeing “Bourgogne” in such large print is an important clue that you are not looking at a highly prestigious wine from a specific vineyard (a premier or grand cru). These titles speak for themselves, or so goes the logic. If you have managed to memorize the villages and crus, and a hardcore Burgundy lover WILL attempt to do so, you should notice that no such names appear here. At this point you can calibrate your expectations downward but hopefully still keep an open mind.  “Cote Chalonnaise” and the associated appellation text is the key to cracking this case. This is a regional appellation that covers more territory than a village or vineyard, but sitting one tier above generic Burgundy. Voila. You now have a rough indication of quality. I wish we were done. One can now deduce that “Vignerons de Buxy” is the wine producer, and it turns out that “Bussonnier” refers to a range or line of wines from said winemaker, a trade name I suppose, which one could learn only by researching the specific wine in question. An aside: It is rather uncommon to see Pinot Noir named on a Burgundy bottle. Another indirect quality indicator, perhaps? Or maybe just marketing due to the lingering aftershocks of the Sideways effect and the New World’s unmitigated success in selling varieties? Read the rest of this entry »