Tag Archives: pinot noir
Three Gamays
A week or so ago, I swung into Everyday Wines in Ann Arbor. Jackie pointed out some new wines, including a few of her favorites. I decided to select a few gamays that she and Mary were enjoying. Some tasting notes:
2006 Cote de Brouilly, Domaine de Robert Perroud – Smells like flowers, spice cake, cola, and dried cherry. I’d think at first whiff that it was destined to be sweet and luscious. And it begins to hint at those ripe, fruit forward flavors. But there’s some serious grip to this wine, even after a few years of bottle age. The finish doesn’t linger, but there’s depth here. Lots of pretty layers to this.
2009 St. Pourcain, Chambre d’Edouard, Domaine Grosbot-Barbara – Light and fun, there’s that quintessential stony nose characteristic of so many Loire wines. This is obviously a brighter wine, though, with less “rocks” and more pure fruit. A Pinot Noir/Gamay blend that’s dominated by the former, this is the most delicate and playful of the three wines I’m trying. Tart cherry, berries, and flowers. A real value in the neighborhood of 15 bucks.
2010 Gamay La Boudinerie, Noëlla Morantin – This wine can be a bit of a head scratcher at first. On one hand, this strikes me as being very similar to any number of dirty, rustic Loire Valley gamays, most notably from the Touraine appellation. On the other hand, this does have some interesting qualities. And in reading up on Morantin’s wines, it looks like she does indeed work in that region and is located near the sites of some of my favorite Loire gamays. So this is in many respects the essence of natural wine reflecting terroir: the natural yeast, the soil, the grapes, the weather should all be similar to these other wines. With minimal manipulation, it’s unsurprising that there are so many features similar to other wines I love. So what this may lack in distinctiveness relative to other “natural” gamays from the region, it makes up for in enjoyment and expression of a place and an ideal. All that bullshit aside… There are grape undertones to an otherwise earthy nose. Mildly herbal, there are mostly berry flavors here and a bit of astringency and acidity at the finish. Opens up quite a bit over a half hour. While this strikes me as a bit dull and earthy, it’s fundamentally nice stuff with a rustic yet feminine quality.
Some of these, notably the Morantin, are available elsewhere, but if you’re in A2, stop in and see Mary, Jackie, or Putnam at Everyday Wines in Kerrytown!
A Taste or Two. Or Twenty Four.
Much like the moon, my drinking habits have certain predictable phases. Coffee in the mornings. Tea in the afternoons. Cocktails for a few weeknights, wine for a few weeknights, beer for sports weekends or long nights out around Detroit.
This past week was a wine week. A phase. A big phase.
Starting with an opportunity to eat and drink a bit at Cork Wine Pub with some fellow GU Detroiters — James Cadariu, Steve Kirsch, Michael Lindberg, and Jarred Gild among them — and Louis/Dressner wine rep, Josefa Concannon, this wine phase of mine got off to a delicious start on Wednesday the 30th. Jeffrey Mar at Cork does a nice job rotating wines through on the list, keeping things interesting: We had newer Chablis (09 Seguinot-Bordet), Sancerre, and a couple of reds. It wasn’t the right place or atmosphere for taking notes, so I didn’t really get many, but one of the highlights on which I do have some notes is the 07 Mondeuse from Franck Peillot, which has been a staple of Jeff’s wine list since Cork opened.
2007 Peillot Mondeuse, Bugey, France
Imported by Louis/Dressner
Over email, there was some discussion among the GUD group regarding food and wine prompted in part by an article from Eric Asimov regarding his views on the subject. This wine is a perfect illustration of many of our conversational points: It’s delicious on its own, but there’s something transformative that happens with food. Loaded with mild, prickly tannins, this is bone dry on the finish, and there’s something about the way the tannins give way with food that opens up the bright, fleshy berry flavors and herbal flavors in this wine. This is impossibly dense and flavorful given its low alcohol content. Delicious stuff. Mondeuse is uncommonly seen in the US, but it’s gained a cult following through the efforts of importers like Dressner and places like Cork and Western that sell those wines. I dig.
Thursday, I snagged some carryout from Supino on the way home from work, and Jarred, James, Josefa, and I were joined by Kim and George at Gang of Pour. We drank bits and pieces of more than a dozen bottles, with delicious wines from the Canary Islands courtesy of Western Market and high expectations fulfilled by an older Muscadet and some 2003 Clos Rougeard.
2002 Luneau-Pepin L d’Or Cuvee Medaillee, Muscadet, France
Imported by Louis/Dressner
One of the things that surprises people as they become more interested in wine is that some white wines can age. Even more surprising is that inexpensive whites from regions a lot of people have never heard of can age. Because of the acid, good Muscadet is no different, and this is damn good Muscadet. (Thanks to Kim and George for sharing!) The nose on these wines always seem tight – almost like you’re trying to smell it on a rainy day when only the moisture and humidity really make its way into your nose. Here, its just a stone cold aroma of minerals and maybe a bit of citrus peel. It’s fleeting though. On the palate, this has the weight one would expect from being aged by the winemaker sur lie (i.e., aged on settled yeast and fermentation byproducts). It’s hard to believe this is a 2002 as it’s quite vivid and alive — plenty of citrus, acid, and minerality with a grassy, rainy quality that hangs on the tongue and gets cleaned up by a finish with tons and tons of acid.
2008 Zdjelarevic Grasevina, Slavonija, Croatia
James was kind enough bring to our gathering another of his Eastern European treasures acquired on his trip last year. There’s a long pause after everyone inhales the downright tropical aromas and takes the first sip. Everyone concurs that this wine is unlike just about anything we’ve had before. The nose is overflowing with honey, melon, maybe even mango aromas. It’s more powerful than layered, but it’s nonetheless enticing. On the palate, it initially seemed sweet and kind of boring. The more I drank it, the more I could taste all sorts of fruits and herbs — pear, orange, melon, lemongrass. It doesn’t have a long-lasting, powerful finish of any sort, but this was memorable and unique among wines to which I’ve been exposed in my life.
2007 Catherine & Claude Marechal Bourgogne Rouge
Imported by Louis/Dressner
This producer makes one of the best values in all of wine, and this is it. Locals can find it at Western Market. If you’re a fan of red burgundy, this is the best “everyday” option in the state since it’s so much more nuanced than you’d expect from an inexpensive wine. Raspberry and tart cherry up front and a beautiful, penetrating finish. It’s sexy but focused. Just great stuff.
2009 Bermejo Lanzarote, Canary Islands
Imported by Jose Pastor
There’s a method of fermenting wine known as carbonic maceration. In short, it involves fermenting the sugars while the juice is still inside the grapes rather than having crushed the grapes first. So whole grapes sit and ferment, and the resulting wine tends to be low in tannin and has a strong emphasis on fruit flavor. This particular example smells sweet, as one might expect, and while wines made by this method have never been my personal favorite, this is undoubtedly well made. It’s densely packed with flavors, and while the lack of tannic structure or acid isn’t my thing, it’s impossible not to be impressed with the soft, velvety texture. This is nothing like the plastic fakeness of industrial Beaujolais (as opposed to real Beaujolais, which I love), which commonly undergoes carbonic maceration. This is real wine, and it was another new experience. After all, I’d never had wines from the Canary Islands, and the Listan Negro grape from which this is made is a new thing to me.
2009 Bermejo Lanzarote Rosado, Canary Islands
Imported by Jose Pastor
The same producer and same importer and same retailer brought this delightful rose wine to my table that evening. It pours just a bit orange and reeks of flowers and berries. Fruit dominates the palate with some hints of stone and herbs, but this is fundamentally a dry wine. Most importantly, it is the very definition of quaffable. Fun stuff and perfect for what appears to be the forthcoming warm weather.
Lini “Labrusca” Lambrusco Rosso, Italy
Imported by Domenico Valentino
Prickly and dry, this is crazy good. Berries, herbs, bubbles. It’s not a tense or angry wine, but it strikes me as more serious than the bubbles and label might indicate initially. This has been available in the Detroit market for several months, and it made its unofficial debut at the Home Slice event at Eastern Market last fall. Jarred at Western carries this as well as the white and rose versions, all of which are delicious.
2003 Clos Rougeard, Saumur-Champigny, France
Imported by Louis/Dressner
Josefa, a representative of the importer for this wine, explained that all of these wines spend two years in the barrel and two years in the bottle before being released to the market. I bought this in 2007, 4 years after the vintage date and upon its release, from Putnam Weekley at the old Cloverleaf market. It’s been in the cellar, and it was drinking like a rock star wine that night. This is the type of wine that has led us to absurd tasting notes: It’s SO complex and SO layered that people like me want to describe every crazy flavor in the glass. I’m mellowing, so I’ll avoid a treatise on a single bottle. But in general, this has everything going on: There’s definitely some black fruit here, but it has a much more masculine, animalistic flavor with a perfect, elegant balance of acid, tannin, and fruit. This is what I want out of wines in middle and upper tier price points. One could sit there and smell this for a half hour and then spend all night with this bottle, just loving every minute of it.
After a high degree of interest from the GUD discussion group in an introductory community wine tasting, Jarred and I met with some other folks to (a) discuss how we might put something like that together and (b) drink some more great wines. Among the highlights…
2008 Jean Francois Ganevat Cuvee Julien, Jura, France
Imported by Jeffrey Alpert
This particular wine from Ganevat, purchased from Chambers Street Wine in New York, is exclusively Pinot Noir. With far more minerality and light, playful edginess to it than most burgundy but with more funk and earth than many Jura wines, this does a nice job of bridging those two worlds. Sour cherries, chalk, tannins… it’s all there. Light bodied and really very easy to drink. While it was tasty now, I think the acid, tannin, and fruit are all in such high concentrations that this would last some time in a cellar.
2008 Domaine Montchovet Hautes Cotes de Beaune, Burgundy, France
Imported by Jenny & Francois
Chardonnay is often referred to as the winemaker’s grape since it’s fairly malleable in terms of flavor — it can convey mineral and terroir in a minimalistic winery and it can coat one’s tongue with tropical fruit and vanilla in a New World paradise. But this fits no paradigms, no expectations that anyone could possibly have of white burgundy. All the elements are there, but the sum of those parts is something unique. Citric as though it were some bracing Loire Valley wine, it smells of lemon. And oak is certainly there, but so are peachy, fleshy fruits. Together, it’s a powerful shot of flavor. It’s not something I’d call a drinking, quaffing, cocktail style wine, but it’s interesting and requires your attention. Another wine I suspect you can only/most easily find at Western Market around here…
That’s it. Those are the highlights of the last ten days. In that time, I’ve more than filled my recycling bin with two dozen empties.
What, oh what, will the neighbors think?
Neither Rain, Nor Snow, Nor Sleet: Wine Lovers Shall Not Be Deterred
Wine can make people do crazy things: spend too much money, consume too much alcohol, or in the case of me and some friends, drive 35 miles in a blizzard that ultimately produced 10+ inches of snow. Of course, these weren’t just any wines. Nine-dollar bottles of Grenache aren’t worth spin outs and 90-minute car rides.
No, these were older wines.
Properly stored, old wine offers a unique and wonderful experience. And while writing about that wonderful experience on a blog is inherently self-indulgent – outright braggotry, really – it’s also a chance to explore one of those aspects of wine that can be intimidating and seem out of reach. Perhaps more importantly, it’s an opportunity to provide some much-needed context for the mythos and aura of inscrutability that seems to surround cellared wines.
Among all the supermarket wines that have immense popularity among broad audiences and among many of the lighter, so-called natural wines that have justifiably obtained a cult-like status with many aficionados, one thing that’s often missing is the potential for aging – that is, an intense structure of tightly coiled flavors that can unfurl into unparalleled elegance over time.
So when our good friends Steve and Robin invited a number of us over to open some cellared bottles (mostly Steve’s), neither snow, nor rain, nor gloom of night could have deterred us from that enjoyment.
The line up, in the order we tasted them:
1999 Drouhin – Volnay, 1er Cru, Clos des Chenes
You know that your day is off to a good start when you’ve “warmed up” on Farnum Hill hard cider and your first act is a burgundy with ten years of age on it. Notably floral on the nose with some hints of berry. Nicely structured with surprising tannin for such a lightly colored wine.
1985 Breton – Bourgeil, Les Perrieres
While not the most electrifying wine of the night, this cabernet franc from the Loire Valley proves to be quite illustrative of the concept of what happens to nicely structured, well made wine as it ages. Many younger bottles of this wine are delicious but are so heavy with astringency from tannins and with flavors of tar that it can be a chore for newcomers to cab franc to enjoy it. Over time, though, this wine hasn’t lost any of its oomph, but the tannins have relaxed a bit. There’s a spicy, poignant quality to the finish and a lot of very bright fruit flavors up front. This would have tasted much different in 1988 than it does today. I’d guess it would have been more like a knife on the palate – hard and sharp – than so broad and flavorful. Delicious either way but truly elegant later in life.
1986 Chateau Talbot – St. Julien
Great Lakes roastmaster James Cadariu and his finely honed olfactory senses immediately noticed that “this wine smells like poop. But,” as he went on to explain, “in a good way.” It definitely begins with a very dirty, very barnyard, very fecal nose. Brettanomyces, perhaps? In terms of flavor, however, any hint of that flaw is gone. Instead, it’s elegant and layered with chocolatey black fruit and smoke. Nicely balanced with acidity. There’s still some tannic structure, but a lot of it has faded to let that delicate fruit flavor through.
2001 Voge – Cornas, Vielles Vignes
Pours with just the slightest purple hue, and the aromatics are quite expressive. Berries and flowers hint at what’s to come: While there’s still plenty of tannin and some pepper, it’s fundamentally a feminine and pretty wine.
1988 Fattoria dei Barbi – Brunello di Montalcino
Wines can sit too long, of course. While they can develop complexity, the various reactions taking place inside the bottle can also free up sugars or create off flavors or aromas. I’m not precisely sure what happened to this Brunello, but it tasted like brown sugar and had a very syrupy mouthfeel despite its age. It had a funny, herbal nose, and while it was drinkable, the only descriptor I can come up with is “strange.” This certainly illustrates two of the common myths with cellaring wine – that any red wine will get better with age and that wines can age indefinitely. It’s a living thing that evolves in the bottle. The number of years of age matter, but so does the original juice put into the bottle, itself a product of climate, technique, and the blend of grapes. Wines have a peak, and this wine was looking at its peak in the rear view mirror.
1970 Cappellano – Barolo, Serralunga d’Alba
I might be biased since I brought this to the party, but this was one of my favorite wines of the night. Aromatically complex, this wasn’t nearly so fecal as the 86 Ch. Talbot, but it definitely carried a funk to it that smelled to me like decomposing grass clippings and some funky cheese. That lessened as the wine opened up, but some element of that aroma was always there. On the palate, though, it was remarkably bright with some pleasant acid and lots of tannic structure left. While it was bone dry, there was still enough fruit to keep it in balance. A very elegant but powerful, masculine set of flavors. Surprisingly, while this was expectedly light and transparent, it was also very much reddish in color. Older red wines tend to develop a brick-ish brown color over time.
1995 Vieux de Telegraphe – La Crau, Chateauneuf de Pape
Another standout in an evening full of them. This is arguably the most pleasing wine of the night aromatically speaking, still showing quite a bit of fruit and pleasant herbal qualities in the nose – fresh coffee, pepper, and just a bit of funk compared to some of the much older wines from earlier. Very spicy and fruity on the palate. These wines can be delicious but very closed down early, but this is at its peak, so to speak, just full of flavor that lingers and surprisingly, almost light on the tongue. This is what happens when top flight producers with good grapes make wine that doesn’t force wine media-approved blackberry flavor down your throat.
1997 Luciano Sandrone – Barolo, Cannubi Boschis
While this event wasn’t really planned to be an illustration in the various aspects of older wines, nor a showdown between classic winemaking and modern winemaking, it has certainly turned out that way. This Barolo is from a storied property, but you’d never know it was Barolo. While it’s not poorly made, it only tastes like berries and oak (more specifically, it tastes like vanilla and lotion). It may shed some of the obvious vanilla flavor over time, but this will never show that kind of elegance we saw in earlier wines.
1976 JJ Christoffel – Urziger Wurzgarten, Trockenberenauslese
In contrast to red wines, which get lighter as sediment falls out of the wine, whites get browner and darker as they age. And instead of tannins helping to preserve the wine and breaking down to provide flavor, the high sugar and acid content in Rieslings like this tend to be the preservative element that lets them age so well. And this is a perfect illustration of both: It pours a dark brown, caramel color, a stark contrast to the highlighter yellow of a younger wine, and it is holding up very well. Tastes like toffee and tart mixed fruit jam. Very sweet but still in balance and drinkable. This isn’t a dessert wine; it’s dessert, period.
* * * * *
Wines made for keeping aren’t inherently better than other bottles, but they’re unquestionably different. Tasting notes, no matter how descriptive, can’t really convey the nuance and elegance of properly stored, cellared wines. And a single blogger living on the outskirts of Detroit with a modest history with aged wine can’t possibly do them justice.
But hopefully, he can convince you they’re worth seeking out.
Without a cool, dark space with relatively consistent temperature in which to store wines for 5, 10, 20 years – or more importantly, without the patience to wait that long – the only way to try old wines is to buy them from a trusted retailer that specializes in holding on to bottles, buying other people’s cellars, or buying up library releases (i.e., when a winery sells older stock that it has kept at the winery for aging).
Locally, our choices are limited. I’m sure that there are other stores of which I’m not aware, but a Detroiter’s best bet is to stop in and see Elie in Royal Oak or perhaps to ask another retailer to special order something if you have knowledge of a library release coming to town. I know that both Western Market in Ferndale and Cloverleaf in Royal Oak have purchased one or two older vintages of Rieslings in years past.
Alternatively, hit the Internet. Places like Cellar Raiders and Chambers Street Wine have a good track record of finding properly stored wines and selling them off. A good retailer will probably offer suggestions or tasting notes – Chambers often does – but if one is uncertain as to a particular vintage or producer, an hour or so of poking around Google will reveal a lot of the information one could need to get started.
Cost becomes a factor for buying cellared wines or library releases, of course. But these aren’t daily drinkers, and the way I’ve hurdled the expense barrier is to (a) only buy a tiny number of these per year, (b) do research, wait patiently, and buy very selectively, and (c) start a tiny side business that gives me a little leeway to blow on a $100 or $125 bottle. Any or all of these are a good way to avoid timidly asking your local bank for a wine mortgage.
Finally, if you’re really desperate to try some older wines and don’t have a penny to your name, you could always come to the next Gourmet Underground Detroit event, hope Steve shows up, and suck up to him. He likes good food, wine, and scotch. And he accepts gifts.
Recent Tastes
My wife is gone for a few days, and I miss my in-home drinking companion. It’s no coincidence, I think, that a glass viewed from a heavenly direction looks like a ring. Without her here, I’m forced — forced, dammit! — to drink a full bottle all by my lonesome.
So at this moment, I’m struggling through a 2007 De Montille Bourgogne Rouge. Fans of the wine documentary Mondovino will recognize the family name from one of the film’s larger-than-life figures. However, the vineyard and winemaking duties have since been turned over to Etienne De Montille, the son of the affable, elderly gentleman portrayed not just in the movie but on its promotional posters.
The bourgogne rouge is lighter and far more feminine than the few cru wines I’ve had from De Montille. The nose absolutely reeks of cherry and creme de violette, and on the palate, tart cherry and raspberry dominate. The fruit is never jammy — always playful and natural tasting — and the finish explodes in a wash of lovely acidity that lingers with some minor, funky undertones that really make it sing.
Earlier today, I had my third cup of coffee. Ever. Beyond the look of bewilderment on the faces of several colleagues, great enjoyment has been derived from the eye-opening exploration of what coffee offers. The revelation actually came late last week when I sampled the Kenya Kirimikui single origin from Intelligentsia via Lab Cafe in Ann Arbor. Standing in stark contrast to the Nicaraguan product I’d had (and blogged about) previously, the Kenyan coffee exploded with acidity — absolutely pure lemon and lemongrass flavors just ripping through the mid-palate and finish.
Today’s drink, a Guatemalan coffee delivered to me via the same outlet, was a bit harder for me to understand. The roaster describes the acidity as being akin to that of tropical fruit, and perhaps I simply haven’t learned the lingo, but I thought of it more as chewing on a peach pit. There was fruit there, and the flavor wasn’t nutty, but it had that tannic, fibrous quality one might get from gnawing on a fruit pit a bit too long. It wasn’t distinct enough to scream any real notes to me, but it was so very clearly different from previous drinks that I was at pleased that my reaction wasn’t something like, “Oh, huh… it’s coffee.”
I love everything Lab does, so I’ll be back there this week for one thing or another — it’s unquestionably my favorite spot in all of Ann Arbor right now, as evidenced by my three or four plugs for them in as many weeks — but I may grab my next cup of coffee at Comet Coffee, also in Ann Arbor, just to try something completely different.
I love my hobby. And I think there’s just a splash of that De Montille left. Gotta go.
A Trip Down Memory Lane
One of the very few red wines that first grabbed me by my nose and dragged me, not exactly kicking and screaming, into the bottle was a 2002 Cuvee Gravel bourgogne rouge from Catherine and Claude Maréchal. A short while later, the same store which fed my Gravel habit had 2004 Chorey-les-Beaune and Pommard from the same producer, and I really fell in love.
I tucked away a far amount of the 2004s, more than I’d remembered, actually, and tonight I went digging.
A few years later, the Chorey is quite nice. The fruit on the nose is more potent than I remembered, ripe with sweet cherries and a bit of stony minerality, but the fruit on the palate is dying a bit. The finish is dry, a bit musty, and still quite tannic. This is still a pretty, enjoyable wine, but I’m drinking the other bottle I found quite soon.
A Night with Friends
Around lunch time yesterday, I got a call from my friend Steve who put forth the idea of getting together at his place for dinner. So Suz and I drove down and dined with his family, gnoshing on some great braised lamb shanks and drinking quite a bit of wine together in the process.
We started with 2006 Bourgogne “Le Chapitre” from Rene Bouvier, which was a colorful, pleasant surprise of sweet cherry, exceeding what one might expect from a bourgogne rouge.
Dinner for Two
People with birthdays between December 10th or so and New Year’s Day tend to share one minor complaint: Their emergence into this world is ignored amid the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. My wife’s birthday is in mid-December, and while we don’t really do the “present thing,” we ensure the occasion doesn’t pass unmarked. I make a dinner each year — something fun, reasonably unique or elaborate — and we have some quality drinks.
We started on some scallops with a cilantro gremolata and served over a lime beurre blanc, a recipe I found on Epicurious. With it, I mixed up and served a Captain Handsome, a cocktail created at Vessel, the bar in Seattle.
- 1.5 oz gin
- .5 oz lime juice
- .5 oz creme de violette
- .25 oz limoncello
- Shake w/ ice and strain the drink into a chilled cocktail glass rinsed with absinthe. Garnish with a cherry.
Its lime juice base made it ideal with the lime zest in the gremolata and the citrus in the reduction used to make the beurre blanc. Vessel has a fantastic device that carbonates any drink without dilluting it. And while our version lacks the delightful prickliness of Vessel’s original, it’s an excellent, elegant drink with a nicely cohesive floral and citrus flavor that’s accented really nicely by the absinthe rinse. Doesn’t get much better, and it’s an excellent drink to showcase the Creme de Violette I’ve come to love.
For the main course, I served another recipe I found online, albeit tweaked here and there: pork stuffed with a morel-based mixture and generously drizzled with a demi-glace and morel stock-based sauce.
Part of me thought a fresh Joseph Swan pinot noir, which I’ve written about here previously, would do the trick of combatting the rich morel and veal flavors, but I wanted something more refined and nuanced. I had a gut feeling that a 20-year-old burgundy I’d been holding on to would do the trick. And indeed it did.
More specifically, the wine was a 1988 premier cru from Les Vaucrains (in Nuits St. Georges), produced Robert Chevillon. It was surprisingly vibrant with plenty of berry fruit and tannin left, but the real pleasant surprise was just how well this worked with the pork: Hints of leather, game, and even a Fernet-Branca-ish herbal quality evolved as we drank through the botttle.
The meal closed with a raspberry mousse. We elected not to pair it with any specific drinks, but afterward, I gave my new bottle of Plymouth Sloe Gin a try. I made Sloe Sambas for both of us, a fruity, pink, frothy concoction that I’ve approximated from a drink of the same name made at Nopa, a San Francisco gastropub.
- 1.5 oz white rum
- 1.5 oz sloe gin
- .5 oz lemon juice
- .25 oz Scotch
- A quick squeeze of simple syrup
- Egg white
- Dry shake to get a good emulsion and foam
- Add ice, shake, and strain into a chilled glass
2008 Peillot Bugey Pinot Noir
Pinot Noir is the grape that makes my absolute favorite wine: red burgundy. Of course, the real secret to burgundy is, as the adage goes, location, location, location. This is more accurately referred to as terroir — or at least, a significant part of terroir — within the lexicon shared by those of us with stained teeth, diseased livers, and big smiles.
Among the areas of France that has provided some surprisingly pleasant treats over the years is the stretch of winegrowing regions south of burgundy that run somewhat near the Alps: the Jura, Savoie, and Bugey.
So it was with some surprise that I didn’t fall head over heels in love with a pinot noir from a Bugey producer I’ve come to respect, specifically the 2008 pinot from the Peillot family in Bugey. As I drank a few glasses, I jotted down the following notes:
All the elegant berry fruit of a decent burgundy but lacking the bracing acidity and/or smoky quality that the best of those have to offer. Rather, there’s a bit of peanut shell in the finish, a dry minerality in place of the tartness I’d hope for. I alternate between loving this and having only modest interest in this.
After another drink later on, I decided that the dusty, fruity nature of this particular bottle was appealing but needed food to round out and cut down the concentrated, saturated flavors. I love elegant berry fruit, and I love the chalky finish that this wine shares with some of its Loire Valley pinot cousins. But without some acid or some food to tame this natural wonder, the wine occasionally wore on me. So I’m left confirming my initial impression: This is really wonderful, well-made wine. But for once, the intensity of a naturally made wine was too much for me to handle on its own.
I wonder if the salmon dish with a bit of lemon I made the day after might not have made this sing to me. I’ll give that a try next time, but if anyone has other ideas, send them my way.
Swan Cuvee du Trois
American wines don’t have a significant presence in my little basement collection of vino. But I have close to two cases of wines from Joseph Swan. A few bottles of Swan’s pinot noir from Trenton Estate, which I believe is the original Swan vineyard, made its way into Michigan a few years ago, and I was stunned to learn that it was an American wine. It didn’t reek of “grand cru” burgundy, but it certainly had an elegance that hid its true origin. Later, a friend exposed me to some of their zinfandels as well, which showed the same restraint as the pinot. As a bonus, I’ve been to the winery twice and gotten to meet and chat with the folks there: Rod (the winemaker) and his colleagues are exceptionally cool people. On my most recent visit, I walked in to him lamenting over-priced, over-hyped California wines and winemakers’ driving Mercedes-Benz automobiles. I later read that he actually loses money on his “top” pinot noir, the same one that I’d had in Michigan that started me down this path. And Karen, who manages his tasting room and handles most of the logistical details, is from Michigan and went to high school a few miles from my house. Small world.
