Sips: A top pinot noir from Oregon’s Chehalem Winery

I taste a fair amount of pinot noir from California and Oregon, much of it in what I’ll call a big American fruit style, often with high alcohol levels that, to my palate at least, make some of these wines ponderous and cumbersome. One that falls pleasantly on the other side of the spectrum is Chehalem’s 2010 Stoller Vineyard Pinot Noir from the Dundee Hills of Oregon’s Willamette Valley. This is one of the most exciting American pinots I’ve tasted this year, notable for its generous fruit but also for its beautiful balance. One is struck first by its light ruby color, suggestive more of Burgundy than American pinot noir, which is often much darker. Alcohol is listed at just 13.1 percent, which is almost unheard of today and is reminiscent of levels not typically seen in West Coast pinots in decades. This is part of what makes the wine so fresh and lively.

On the palate, red fruits dominate, especially cherry and raspberry. Then there’s some orange and cinnamon stick followed by a touch of cookie dough and some blueberry on the finish. Oak integration is seamless. This would be a wonderful accompaniment to roast herbed chicken, grilled salmon and other dishes that won’t overpower this lovely wine, which, for me, should serve as a role model for the region. The suggested price is $48. Production was 368 cases. Received as a press sample.

Swirls: Bordeaux-crazed China not ready for Burgundy – yet

Hardly a day goes by without a headline about the frenzied wine market in Asia, particularly China. This week, Wine Enthusiast Magazine announced that it will produce a Mandarin edition for circulation to 100,000 “Chinese VIP consumers.” France’s Federation of Wine and Spirits Exporters announced a 29 percent increase in shipments to Asia last year with a value of $3.3 billion. And in the city of Bordeaux, a négociant that specializes in Bordeaux sales to China and is staffed by seven Mandarin-speaking employees, opened a street-level shop to increase its visibility to the growing number of Chinese buyers coming to town, according to Decanter.com.

Indeed, the red-hot Chinese market for all levels of Bordeaux shows no sign of cooling. But what you hear almost nothing about is the Chinese and Burgundy. I had the chance to discuss this last week with Vincent Avenel, export manger of Domaine Faiveley, one of Burgundy’s biggest and best-known producers, at a dinner featuring some top new releases from Frederick Wildman and Sons, the New York importer that has been bring wines from the region to the United States since the 1930s. When I asked him whether the Chinese were taking to Burgundy the way they had to Bordeaux, his answer was quick and emphatic: “Not at all.”

In fact, China accounts for just 1.5 percent of Faiveley’s exports, Avenel told me. This surprised me as we tasted some top Burgundies, among them Faiveley’s 2009 Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru “Les Cazetiers” and Alain Burguet’s 2009 Chambertin Grand Cru “Clos de Beze.” Don’t wines like this qualify as the kind of luxury items the Chinese are embracing? What followed was a fascinating and candid conversation about money, taste, and sophistication.

For the Chinese at the moment, Avenel said, the hot wines are from Bordeaux and Australia because they are “bombs in a glass” and more easily understood and embraced than Burgundy. “We all started with Bordeaux,” he said, “because it’s the entry-level thing. The U.S. started with Bordeaux. The Japanese started with Bordeaux.” He said that Burgundy, on the other hand, “is never love at first sight. You need to build some maturity in terms of taste.”

He continued: “Burgundy is not about power. It’s about charm and secret things. You need to improve your ability to taste subtle things.” How long does it take? “It’s not something you get in just a couple of years,” he said. “I think it takes 10 to 15 years.” His conclusion: for all its newly minted wealth, China is simply not yet ready for Burgundy. “What we notice,” he said, “is that very often Burgundy is about old money and that Bordeaux is about nouveaux riches.”

(For some of my latest wine suggestions, go to my new weekly column on the Bites on Today blog at MSNBC.com)

del.icio.us Tags: Domaine Faiveley,Vincent Avenel Domaine Faiveley,Edward Deitch,Burgundy,Bordeaux,Wine sales to China,Alain Burguet,Frederick Wildman and Sons,Bordeaux sales to China,French wine sales to China,Asia wine market,Chinese wine market,Gevrey-Chambertin,Chambertin

Swirls: A call for a little humility in the wine world after shopper drops $85K on 5 bottles and auctioneer announces $6.5 million holiday ‘gift guide’

Before having some second thoughts, I began this story as one more gee-whiz  item from the increasingly crazy world of wine sales. Here’s what I wrote:

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t found many wine bargains in recent years at duty-free shops in France. But then again, I’m not shopping at the level of a certain buyer who recently purchased five bottles of French wine for – take a deep breath now --  $85,000. The sale took place at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport and was announced – trumpeted, really -- by the airport operator, which identified the buyer only as “an Asian,” according to AFP. What did he buy? Click here to find out, and then let me know if you think the shopper got his money’s worth buying these “duty-free” wines.

I was going to leave the story at that, an odd tidbit from the eccentric world of wine. But then I started thinking about it:  imagine, spending $85,000 on five bottles of wine. I couldn’t help but wonder how this buyer might have spent the money, or even part of it, on something else, perhaps something that might have made a difference somewhere in the world. I thought of the buyer, sitting in a first-class lounge at Charles de Gaulle, waiting for his plane home to Hong Kong or Shanghai or Singapore. I also thought of people waiting to fly to Lahore, or Kinshasa or Delhi, places where $85,000 could have a real and immediate impact on the lives of ordinary people.

I don’t begrudge anyone the right to spend money as they see fit. But in these still challenging economic times, when so many are having such a hard time, should we be flaunting such excess so shamelessly? That was going to be it for this story  until I received a press release this morning from Acker Merrall &  Condit, the wine merchant and auction house. It made the story about the wine buyer in Paris seem like small potatoes. The release announced a “Twelve Days of Christmas” gift guide aimed at “the world’s most passionate wine lovers.” Twelve wine packages, all of them featuring rare bottles of Bordeaux and Burgundy, starting at a $29,000 and going up to $2,070,000 for “the one gift to end them all.” The packages add up to a total of $6,458,000.

“We’ve had an amazing year,” John Kapon, Acker Merrall’s CEO, says in the release. “With estimated sales in 2011 in excess of $110 million, we will be the first wine auction house in history to breach the hundred million mark.” The holiday sale, he says, is “to celebrate Christmas and the close of the year.” And with it, he proclaims, “we’re going to deliver astonishing delight to wine lovers worldwide.” Perhaps he forgot that the vast majority of wine lovers worldwide are looking for a good bottle at perhaps $10 to $15.

The issue here is not that wine merchants – Acker Merrall, the Paris duty-free shop or countless others -- are selling wines at these prices or that buyers are willing to scoop them up. So-called fine wine, after all, is increasingly seen as a good investment, one that can compete with real estate or gold or stocks and bonds. It is the gushing manner in which these sales are being announced that  gives me pause. Wine is all about elegance and grace and lends itself to a little contemplation. As we count our blessings at this time of year, those qualities are worth remembering.

del.icio.us Tags: Bordeaux,Burgundy,Duty-free wine sales,Wine auctions,Acker Merrall & Condit,John Kapon Acker Merrall,Charles de Gaulle airport,Edward Deitch,Wine investments,Wine public relations,Holiday wine sales,Christmas wine,Holiday wine gifts

Sips: A $15 white Burgundy stands out, defying the region’s high-price image

Finding chardonnay with character at prices that won’t break the bank is often a challenging proposition. With that in mind, I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I opened a bottle of Bourgogne, the broadest appellation in France’s Burgundy, where the region’s famed chardonnays (and pinot noirs) are made in very small quantities and command stratospheric prices.

J.J. Vincent’s 2008 Bourgogne Blanc, by contrast, provides real Burgundy character at the unbeatable price of $15 or under,  according to retailers listed on wine-searcher.com. Few chardonnays I’ve tasted recently offer the level of complexity this one does at such a modest price.

I enjoyed sipping it on its own before dinner and then with grilled wild salmon marinated in soy sauce, maple syrup and lime. Notes of apple, orange and a touch of brown sugar are supported by refreshing acidity and a good deal of minerality on the finish. Oak treatment is subtle. I think this wine, with its roundness, has also benefited from a year or so in the bottle. It will match well with all kinds of seafood, shellfish, chicken and pork dishes. Alcohol is listed at 13 percent.

J.J. Vincent, by the way, is a leading winery in the Mâcon region of southern Burgundy and is best known for Pouilly-Fuissé, including wines produced by its famed Château-Fuissé.  Imported by Frederick Wildman and Sons, New York. Received as a press sample.

Technorati Tags: J.J. Vincent,J.J. Vincent Bourgogne Blanc,Burgundy,White Burgundy,Château-Fuissé,Macon,Affordable chardonnays,Value chardonnays,French chardonnays,Edward Deitch,Frederick Wildman and Sons,Mâcon wines

Swirls: A defense of genuinely cool-climate wines from a pioneering winemaker

Back in the 1970s, Louisa Hargrave and her husband Alex were the pioneers of wine on Long Island, proving that very good wine could be grown in the cool, maritime climate of Long Island’s East End, particularly the North Fork. Since then, a thriving  industry has developed, with some 60  wineries growing grapes on thousands of acres that were once farmland. I partly attribute my own interest in wine to occasional visits to the Hargrave Vineyard in Cutchogue over the years and to tasting and enjoying many vintages of Hargrave wines.

A good number of the older wineries and vineyards in the region have changed hands, including Hargrave, and newer wineries have established roots in the region, perhaps most prominently Shinn Estate Vineyards in Mattituck, which is now producing some of the area’s most exciting wines and is a pioneer in its own right as the first Long Island property to move toward organic and biodynamic  farming.

As for Louisa Hargrave, she is now a consultant and writer (her 2003 memoir, ‘The Vineyard,” is worth reading), and what got me thinking about all this again was her most recent column in the Suffolk Times, the local North Fork newspaper. In it, she makes a compelling case for cool-climate wines from such regions as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Collio in northern Italy, the North Fork and genuinely cool-climate areas of California, where the so-called diurnal shift between the day’s hottest and coolest temperatures is least pronounced.

It is in these regions, she reminds us, that the most balanced wines are produced over long, even growing seasons -- wines not dominated by massive fruit (and alcohol), wines with good natural acidity that doesn’t require adjustment in the laboratory. Although “big” wines “often score high points with wine critics,” she says, “I often find something lacking in them. What’s lacking is energy — the very element that makes wine come alive on the palate, that makes it evolve as you drink it.” For me, such wines have what I like to call “soul” and provide a life-enhancing connection to the earth and climate from which they came. You know these wines when you taste them. They are robust but not overpowering, complex yet elegant, refreshing and also interesting. They are, in a word, irresistible.

Technorati Tags: Louisa Hargrave,North Fork of Long Island,North Fork wines,Long Island wines,Bordeaux,Burgundy,Collio,Hargrave Vineyard,Edward Deitch,Diurnal shift,Cool-climate wines,Suffolk Times,East End wines,Shinn Estate Vineyards

Swirls: Wine news roundup -- resveratrol, India, Hong Kong, plastic bottles and poisoning Romanée-Conti

SWIRL: An update on the science of resveratrol. Benefits? Yes, but only  to a point. Wine Spectator.

SWIRL: India’s wine market explodes, with consumption projected to almost triple by the end of next year from  2008. Most of the wine is domestically made; importers are waiting for more favorable excise policies. Commodity Online.

SWIRL: There’s “auction fever,” meanwhile, in Hong Kong as Sotheby’s starts an eight-day sale, with more than $5 million spent on the first day. It all has a kid-in-a-candy shop feel. Bloomberg.

SWIRL: Bottling wine in plastic is growing in France to meet a perceived market demand, but there’s a huge debate over the practice from region to region. AFP has a good, in-depth look.

SWIRL: The plot to poison the world’s most famous vineyard is chronicled as a thriller in Vanity Fair.

Technorati Tags: Resveratrol,India wine,Wine Spectator,Vanity Fair,Romanee-Conti,Sotheby's wine,Hong Kong wine,China wine,Poison wine plot,AFP,Bloomberg

SIPS: An unusual California offering -- white wines from Dierberg and Star Lane released with a little bottle age

Something quite different arrived at my door the other day. As part of a sampling of new releases from a California producer, the two white wines in the shipment caught my eye because of their vintages. One was a chardonnay and the other was a sauvignon blanc. While most chardonnays being released right now are from 2009 or perhaps 2008, this one was from 2007. While almost all the sauvignons I receive are from the ‘09 vintage (some 2010s from the Southern Hemisphere are also now being released) this  one was from 2008. Most chardonnays, of course, will benefit from some bottle age and some of the great ones from Burgundy and California can develop for years. While sauvignon blancs are typically enjoyed young, they, too, can develop in the bottle.

And so it was that I tasted these two wines from Dierberg Estate Vineyards in Santa Barbara County on different evenings. The first was Dierberg Estate’s 2007 Santa Maria Valley Chardonnay. Made in a bright, fruit-forward style, this wine is a model of balance at this point with subtle, well-integrated oak treatment (just 40 percent of the blend was aged in new oak). There’s lots of complexity here with notes of lime and orange, tropical fruit, ginger, vanilla and a nice underlying minerality. Quite Burgundian in character with superb acidity and alcohol of 14.1 percent. The wine would be superb with all kinds of white meats and elegant fish dishes. It was one of my favorite chardonnays of the past year and is well worth the $32 price.

Dierberg’s sister property, Star Lane Vineyard, focuses on Bordeaux varieties in the relatively warm eastern end of the Santa Ynez Valley, and its 2008 Santa Ynez Valley Sauvignon Blanc is  also notable for its balanced approach to a variety that often presents itself in extremes – exceedingly racy, as in many New Zealand sauvignons, or as sauvignon hiding in chardonnay clothing, which is sometimes the case with California sauvignons. Star Lane offers a delicious middle ground in this $20 wine with muted notes of pink grapefruit, lemon curd and lime and lots of minerals on the long finish. Acidity is very ample, in this one as well, and alcohol is listed at 13.4 percent.

Beyond modest levels of alcohol and releasing their white wines with a little age, the Dierberg wines are made with an emphasis on native yeasts, all of which combine to make them distinct and memorable.

Technorati Tags: Star Lane Vineyard,Dierberg Estate Vineyard,Santa Barbara wines,Santa Ynez Valley,Santa Maria Valley,Edward Deitch,Dierberg chardonnay,Star Lane sauvignon blanc,California wines,California white wines,California chardonnays,California sauvignon blancs

Thanksgiving wine lists: what Randall Grahm and others in the business are thankful for

There is no shortage of Thanksgiving wine advice out there, so instead of joining the pack, as I have for most of the last decade with my own pronouncements about Thanksgiving wine pairings, I decided to do something different this year. What were some of my friends and colleagues in the wine business planning to serve or recommend – from wine styles to regions to individual bottles? A set of email queries prompted a quick response and a broad range of possibilities, which included wines from California, Oregon, Washington, many parts of France as well as Italy, Austria, Germany and Chile. If one theme emerged, it is this: when it comes to Thanksgiving, there are very few rules about wine. Like the stuffing or the gravy, everyone’s tastes and preferences are going to be different. I would add (and the responses largely bear this out) that the wines, whether red or white, will work best when they are on the leaner and less  alcoholic side. Beyond that, my friends seemed to gravitate toward wines with finesse and individuality, as you’re about to see.

The most enviable response came from Joshua Greene, editor and publisher of Wine & Spirits Magazine, for which I occasionally serve on tasting panels. Josh said he would raise a glass, in absentia, from Spain, where he will be meeting on Thursday with the owner of one of the great Rioja producers, R. López de Heredia. “Will think of turkey, native Americans and pilgrims,” he said, “as I toast with a 1981 Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia.”

Randall Grahm, the founder and self-proclaimed president-for-life of California’s Bonny Doon Vineyard, put Thanksgiving in the context of his own wine evolution (or is it revolution?). He wrote: “These days – and I’m more or less counting on this being a semi-permanent state of affairs – I’m pretty much only interested in wines that might be called vins de terroir: wines that express a sense of place, but also wines that exhibit a quality of minerality or life-force (two sides of the same coin). As it turns out, I do think that these sorts of dynamic ‘vital’ wines are in fact a great foil to turkey, which is itself, shall we say, somewhat static.” Among whites, Randall is thinking about a dry riesling from France’s Alsace, perhaps an older example from Fréderic Emile, or one from Austria’s Wachau, or a grüner veltliner, perhaps a Prager Grüner Alte Reben. For reds, he said, “it will most likely be infanticide of an ’05 red Burgundy,” perhaps from Fourier, definitely decanted, or maybe a Cornas from the northern Rhône. As an apéritif, he’s going to try to get his hands on some of Eric Bordelet’s Poire “Granit,” a pear cider from Normandy.

The Daily Sip: at a wine tasting for a good cause, two delightful and affordable Burgundies stand out

It’s not every day that I get to go home with two lovely discoveries from Burgundy while also supporting a good cause. Friends had invited us to a walk-around wine tasting last night to benefit Partnership with Children, which, for more than a  century, has been providing programs and services to help kids from low-income families here in New York succeed in school and in life.   More than 50 wines from around the world were poured by eight importers and distributors; a retailer, Grapes – The Wine Company, also took part.

In this type of broad tasting, it’s important to be organized. To start, I like to look over the wine list to see which wines interest me. Then, I circle around the room once to sample the whites and then a second time for the reds.

Of the wines I tasted, two Burgundies caught my attention last night. The first, a white, was the absolutely delicious 2008 Chablis from Vincent Dampt. When it comes to un-oaked chardonnay, Chablis is the gold standard, and this one shows why. Clean and focused, it has beautiful tropical fruit and lime notes with an underlying minerality that is a signature of Chablis. It was also poured at the correct temperature (just slightly chilled), which allowed the aromas and flavors to stand out. It sells at retail for about $22. Imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, New York.

In my second pass, it was a charming red Burgundy that got me excited.  Actually, it turned out to be a Burgundy oddball, the 2007  Bourgogne Passetoutgrains from Domaine Laurent. While almost all red Burgundy is made from a single grape (pinot noir), Bourgogne Passetoutgrains is a blend of pinot noir and gamay, which gives it a fresh and fruity character reminiscent of Beaujolais, in which gamay is the principle grape. This uncomplicated wine is marked by pretty cherry and strawberry fruit, a bit of spice and a refreshing acidity that will place it high on my list of Thanksgiving wine possibilities. About $20. Imported by Martin Scott Wines, Lake Success, New York.

The wines are available through Grapes – The Wine Company, among other retailers. More information on Partnership with Children can be found at its Web site.

del.icio.us Tags: Partnership with Children,Grapes the Wine Company,Martin Scott Wines,Michael Skurnik Wines,Burgundy,Chablis,Vincent Dampt,Domaine Laurent,Dominique Laurent,Bourgogne Passetoutgrains,Edward Deitch,Pinot Noir,Gamay,Beaujolais,Wine tastings

Petit Chablis

Chablis still causes confusion, thanks to the California brands that co-opted the name for their jug whites decades ago, the same brands that created such infamous reds as “Hearty Burgundy.” In fact, the real Chablis is about as far from California generic as you can get. Chablis, of course, is the northern outpost of France’s Burgundy, and its stony soils produce some outstanding chardonnays, most of them made without exposure to oak.

I received several chablis for review the other day and was so   taken by the first one I tasted that I wanted to let you know about it. The 2008 Petit Chablis from Domaine Bernard Defaix is a full 180 degrees away the rich, often-overbearing California style that, for better or worse, has come to represent chardonnay to many wine drinkers. Petit Chablis is the appellation for some of the outlying area of Chablis, and the wines tend to be light on the palate and relatively easy on the wallet.

Defaix’s Petit Chablis, about $17,  is defined by a strong minerality with notes of green apple and lemon and lime peel. Its refreshing acidity and alcohol of just 12.5 percent make it almost thirst quenching as an aperitif. A rounded, slightly creamy finish gives it added dimension and moves it beyond a mere quaffing wine. Made for shellfish and simply broiled fish. Imported by Winebow, Inc., New York.