| Hawk Wakawaka Wine Reviews

Wine Blog Awards Finalists’ Announcement

May 20, ’13 7:08 PM

The Announcement of the Wine Blog Awards

Dear friends,

I wanted to let you know that the Wine Blog Awards‘ Finalists were just announced today and my site is a finalist in three categories–Best Wine Reviews, Best Writing on a Wine Blog, and Blog Post of the Year.

Here’s the link for the announcement with a link for voting, if you’re interested. http://wineblogawards.org/from-the-organizers/the-finalists-in-the-2013-wine-blog-awards-are-announced/

There is good work suggested throughout, well worth supporting. Please help spread the word too, as you find appropriate. The Wine Blog Awards would be happy for your support, whoever you are voting for.

I am most grateful for the incredible people I have gotten to meet along the way. It is such a blessing.

Lots of love to each of you,
Elaine

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Wakawaka on Vacation

May 20, ’13 8:29 AM

Time with Friends

from left: Kate, me, Amy

Two of my friends from Graduate School are here visiting from Canada this week. It’s so good to see them. They’re the sort of people that being with just feels normal, even after a few years apart. So, I’ll be taking a break from posting this week to focus instead on time with them. More next Monday.

Love to everyone! Cheers!

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Bollinger Vin Clairs (and bottle) Tasting

May 16, ’13 8:21 AM

The Bollinger Vin Clairs Experience

click on comics to enlarge: how champagne is made, an overview

Terlato Wines was kind enough to include me in a Bollinger Vin Clairs tasting yesterday. Vin Clairs, for those that are unfamiliar, amounts to the still base wine that then goes through second fermentation in bottle to become the final champagne. Guy de Rivoire, Bollinger’s Commercial Director, facilitated the tasting, coupled with an overview of the House, and the blending process.

Incredibly, Bollinger’s Special Cuvée (their non-vintage champagne) can include up to 60 component parts of Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier, and Pinot Noir vinified separately, within some neutral barrels, and some stainless steel vats. Each component is bottled in large format, kept in cellar as a still wine to ensure adequate flavor resources for future vintages. These reserve wines total about 650,000 magnums, or 1.3 million bottles. Still, Bollinger produces only 0.6-0.7% of total champagne made in the region per year.

The experience included six components from multiple vintages, and (separately) from each of the three grapes, leading into the final still Special Cuvée, which included at least some of the components we tasted. The culmination occurred in comparing the still Special Cuvée to its sparkling counterpart. Finally, the tasting extended into several vintage champagnes, and the non-vintage rosé followed by a 2004 vintage rosé.

Bollinger Making the Assemblage: the Vin Clairs blend

click on comic to enlarge: Blending still wines into Bollinger’s Special Cuvée

Approximately 90% of the vineyard land in the Champagne region is grower owned. According to yesterday’s presentation, there are approximately 5000 growers in Champagne, and 10,000 Champagne brands producing 25 to 30 million cases of champagne per year. Champagne houses generally operate as a negociant, sourcing grapes from some mix of the 5000 growers through the region. Within Champagne, there is also a small portion of wines made on a grower-winemaker model in which the owner of a vineyard vinifies a small production champagne from their own grapes. Among champagne houses in the region, only three remain under independent ownership, Bollinger being one of them.

Bollinger produces their non-vintage “Special Cuvée” from a blend consistently structured by at least 60% Pinot Noir, with some Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier. With an eye on aging, their vintage blends maintain the >60% Pinot model, sticking to Chardonnay for the rest. Another feature unique to the Bollinger House includes their ownership of more than 60% of their vineyards. The entirety of their fruit comes from Marne district. A portion of the still wines are fermented in old oak barrel, bringing an additional textural and flavor component to their wine. The rest are fermented in stainless steel.

The Bottled Wines

Bollinger’s Special Cuvée offers a silk taffeta texture with the swish of a floor length dress. It carries a richly flavored, while fine-boned presentation of dried flowers, light (not sweet) honey and beeswax, walnut and clove touches with a light pleasing zip of acidity.

Tasting through the several component still wines, followed by the final vin clairs, then moving into the sparkling Special Cuvée drove home how impressive the work of the Chef de Caves really is–to imagine tracking the various wines, creating blending trials for so many potential components, then tasting the final still assemblage to anticipate its presentation after second fermentation… fantastic. So much to track, so much work, so much clarity of vision.

We were able to taste both the 2004 and 1992 Grande Année, as well as the Special Cuvée rosé and Grande Anneé 2004 rosé. Though it sounds obvious, I was moved by the 1992–it’s vibrant zest acidity (in magnum) was coupled with rich smokey, walnut-driven aromatics followed by an electric cord of mouth stimulation cloaked in rich flavors. The saline-chalky electrical-current on this wine was lovely.

***

Thank you to Mary Anne Sullivan, and Stephanie Caraway of Terlato.

Thank you to Guy de Rivoire of Bollinger.

Cheers to Jeremy Parzen!

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Photos from a Tasting at Shake Ridge Vineyard, Amador

May 15, ’13 8:00 AM

Photos from Shake Ridge

Ann Kraemer, and the Kraemer family hosted a tour and tasting of Shake Ridge Vineyard in Amador County yesterday. The site grows several-tens of acres of primarily red varieties planted on a mix of rootstocks, and a host of training styles. It’s a beautiful site.

The event began with pork belly sliders and a walk from the entrance of the vineyard almost to the far end, stopping under shaded groves along the way to taste wines. Each of the wineries that use Shake Ridge fruit were represented. After the walk, dinner was served with the opportunity to re-taste the wines, and talk more with the winemakers.

Here are photos from the event.

A Tribute to Grace 2011 Shake Ridge Graciano, and Grenache

Enfield Wine Co 2011 Shake Ridge Tempranillo

two versions of Barbera from Shake Ridge, Forlorn Hope Wine

Matthew Rorick, Forlorn Hope Wine

Dirty & Rowdy 2011 Shake Ridge Mourvedre

Evan Frazier, Ferdinand Wine

Chris Pittenger and Helen Keplinger

John Lockwood and Randy Caparoso

wines of Shake Ridge

Amy Seese and baby, Sue Kraemer

the winemakers of Shake Ridge

Jr sitting within rows of head-trained Zinfandel, Shake Ridge

***

Sending our best to Ann.

Thank you to Ann Kraemer. Thank you to the Kraemer family.

Thank you to Hardy Wallace.

To read more about Shake Ridge, check out this great article by Jon Bonné on some of the lesser known, high quality vineyards of California: http://www.sfgate.com/food/article/California-s-best-lesser-known-vineyards-3294626.php#page-2

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The Butterfly Effect: How the death of a fad gave birth to beautiful color in wine, Part 4: Surveying Technique, Terroir

May 14, ’13 8:00 AM

Thank you to Eric Asimov for recommending this post in the 15 March 2013 edition of The New York Times, Diner’s Journal, “What We’re Reading” : http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/what-were-reading-for-wednesday/

***

The Role of the Vineyard in Technique Choices

Jared Brandt

In El Dorado, Donkey & Goat source Roussanne from the Ellen Ridge Vineyard. It’s a dry site edged by trees and brush on rocky soils along the edge of the American River Canyon. The vineyard hosts 10 to 12-year old vines that have served as the source of their Stone Crusher Roussanne. It’s fruit that struggles to ferment after harvest.

Winemakers Jared and Tracey Brandt began working with the site in in 2006, committed to natural fermentation, without the addition of nutrients. Pressing the fruit after harvest, the juice took almost a year to ferment to dryness. Jared explained, “it kept going, but slowly.” The following vintage the fruit was treated similarly, and again, the wine took 8 or 9 months.

In 2008, the duo decided to experiment with skin contact techniques, moving half to three-quarters of the fruit on a macerated ferment. The wine fermented in 14 days. Jared explains that since 2008, the skin contact lots have consistently fermented as quickly. He comments too, “the more whole cluster we use, the faster it goes.” The reason, it appears, rests in the nutrients offered by the presence of skins and stems not available from this more barren site otherwise.

Donkey & Goat have continued to play with the way they interact with the grapes from Ellen Vineyard, honing their understanding of its best site expression. In 2010, the Stone Crusher received what Jared now sees as more foot tred than he’d prefer. He took that lesson forward into the following vintage and was more delicate with the grapes’ treatment in the winery. By comparison, the 2011 offers a lighter, more cohesive floral and toasted walnut shell presentation to the 2010s more cidery tang. The 2012, though not yet released, was treated similarly to the 2011.

Part of what’s interesting here, is that Donkey & Goat also work with Roussanne from the Fenati vineyard, a site about 1/4-mile from the Ellen, with more fertile soils, and less exposure along the ridge edge. Jared explains, Fenati’s a more tannic site, and the crops don’t struggle there in the way they do at Ellen. In Jared’s view, the fruit at Fenati “doesn’t like skin contact.” The tannins resulting are harsher, flavors less pretty, and the change in fermentation time and effectiveness is far less dramatic. Tasting side by side examples of straight to press fruit from each site, the flavors are also just different. The Fenati has sweet floral notes where the Ellen gives white herbs. The wines also give differing color, even from straight-to-press, the Fenati more white to the Ellen’s yellow.

In considering the idea of terroir in wine, the conversation often sticks on the side of flavor recognition with the wine itself, thinking of place in terms of what qualities it gives to the wine’s final presentation. The point is certainly relevant. But the concept of terroir carries no straight line from place to bottle, as the choices made in vineyard and with winemaking dictate the wine that can ultimately be received.

Winemakers that speak of listening to the vines sound more believable with examples like Ellen Vineyard versus Fenati. Such examples, though too, highlight the relevance of knowing the vineyard, and developing a relationship with it over time. It’s an approach harder to find in a bulk-fruit focused market such as California, compared to some grower-winemaker models of the so-called Old World.

Thinking Briefly on Terroir: the relevance of vine age

Talking with Jon Bonné, wine editor for the San Francisco Chronicle, on the idea of terroir, he expresses a willingness to challenge, though not dismiss the notion. His point rests in the youth of the American wine industry, and also the role of vine development over time. Both drivers arise too, from, the mechanisms of the U.S. West Coast bulk fruit market–grapes sold more often by weight, then made into wine by its vineyard owner.

As viticulturists describe, the role of site becomes more relevant to fruit quality and flavor as vines age. Younger plants regulate their chemical processes and distribution through the plant more erratically before acclimating to their site. Vineyard Manager and Winemaker, Steve Matthiasson, explains that its as if vines develop memory over time of how to respond to varying climate and soil conditions. Younger vines just don’t have that experience. As a result, the younger the vine, the more relevant the plant’s age and clone are to the fruit expression. As the vine develops, however, the clonal distinctions seems to lessen. The plant gets older, acclimating to and expressing more site character.

In considering, then, the relevance of terroir in New World wines, the idea of vine age must be addressed. The reality of vineyards in the United States, however, is that most are rather young. Younger vines also generally produce more fruit. The flavors seem to become more concentrated and complex with older vines, but the production level also diminishes. In a market run by the price of fruit by weight, vineyard owners tend to pull vines before production levels decrease.

The question, then, of whether so-called Orange wines express terroir, would seem to rest not only in the technique itself, but also in the source of the wines’ fruit. As Bonné points out, “terroir examples from New World wines, generally can be found from people working with vines over 20-years old.” As examples, we talk through some of the winemakers featured at the event In Pursuit of Balance, many of whom are able to work with older vines–Varner, Sandhi, Wind Gap, and Hanzell, to name just under a handful. In each case, the labels are producing white wines that also seem to show unique site expression from vines at least 2-decades old with a hands on approach in the vineyards. Wind Gap also produces several examples of skin contact whites.

Bonné considers the history of skin contact whites in California, and points out that it begins not simply in grabbing a technique but in a matter of emphasis and innovation. As Bonné describes it, the history arises from first making white wines a central focus. John Konsgaard with his unfiltered Chardonnays from Newton Vineyard offers one such example. His devotion to Pinot Grigio with George Vare through Luna Vineyards gives another. In both examples, just taking white wines so seriously stands as a moment of being radical with wine.

“What I love about all this,” Bonné highlights, referencing Vare and Kongsgaard, is that “these people wanted to explore what happened when white wine became the most important thing you did.” One result is that by turning the attention to whites as central, exploration of technical options became paramount. Eventually, this also led winemakers to explore older traditions resulting in the re-introduction of macerated ferments, and extended macerations, what we now call Orange wines.

Bonné also points out, that in his view, giving such attention to whites amounts to making a strong statement. Orange wines generally need time to resolve their tannin structure before release, then again more time in bottle before drinking. “In our culture where even reds are opened quickly,” Bonné tells me, “it’s a strong economic statement to make wines that are meant to be held for 5-years after release.”

Innovation of Technique

In addition to consideration of the vineyard itself, there is also the relationship of winemakers to their vineyards. Many winemakers producing Orange wines in California are not intimately connected to their vineyard sources, relying instead on the work of vineyard managers that communicate primarily about picking times. To the extent that such a relationship defines any particular label’s approach, the discussion would seem to focus not on a cultivation of relationship with terroir, but simply on an exploration of technique.

Speaking as a matter of emphasis, Bonné comments, “in the New World it is entirely a discussion of technique,” not terroir. For Bonné, what is exciting about the exploration of macerated ferments, and extended maceration on white grapes is less about the direct results in the wines themselves, and more about the explosion of the white wine category. “The best part of winemakers experimenting with the approach,” he tells me, is that “they’ve pulled out useful lessons on how to enhance texture, and enhance expression in white wines.”

Hank Beckmeyer, owner and winemaker of La Clarine Farm offers one such example. (Beckmeyer, however, works intimately with his vineyards as well.) In 2009, he decided to purposefully “do it all wrong” when working with Viognier. He wanted to see what the grape would do if fermented and treated like a red wine.

The result, at the time, he thought was very nice aromatically but rough on the palate. Still, he took a lesson from the experiment and began using short skin contact durations at the start of all his white wine ferments to bring textural interest, and those increased aromatics he liked. He also started playing with using skin contact on one grape lot going into a white blend so that “only a portion of the blend has that kooky texture” he likes but doesn’t want to dominate.

For Beckmeyer, the result has been finding that he appreciates the use of skin contact on varieties with lower tannin in the skins, and higher natural acidity. Skin contact is known to increase potassium levels in the must, leading to a decrease in overall acidity depending on contact duration. The necessity becomes, then, keeping a balance on use of the technique in relation to the overall composition of the wine. On grapes with higher natural acidity the use of skin contact can modulate what could otherwise be too much of a good thing. In Beckmeyer’s view, including some skin contact serves as a way “to bring some zing to the wine.”

This Spring, as part of my exploration of U.S. Orange wines, Beckmeyer shipped me a bottle of his 2009 Viognier he hadn’t tasted in a couple years. The roughness he’d described was no longer there. Instead, the tannins had lengthened and smoothed, offering a sensual texture. The wine also carried a mix of pleasing aromatics not always typical to the variety–passionfruit, and kumquat, alongside backnotes of oregano, lichen and bark. In the mouth it carried through also rich with fig, cocoa, and olive. That zing was definitely there, a wine full of sapidity.

***

Donkey & Goat also play with other small lot fermentations of skin contact, most often producing blends that have some small textural influence from macerated fermentation, rather than full Orange wines. Their 2011 release of Grenache Blanc is one such example. Their 2011 Coupe d’Or is another–a 50/50 Roussanne/Marsanne blend that utilizes 1/4 of its fruit from skin-contact Roussanne of the Ellen Vineyard.

***
The next installment of this series will consider the roles of tradition and technology in terroir and technique.

***

To read previous installments of this series:

Part 1: The Butterfly Effect: How the death of a fad gave birth to beautiful color in wine, Part 1: Considering Recent History

Part 2: The Butterfly Effect: How the death of a fad gave birth to beautiful color in wine, Part 2: Variety, Terroir, and Mind Scrambling

Part 3: The Butterfly Effect: How the death of a fad gave birth to beautiful color in wine, Part 3: The Craft of Wine Tasting, and the Question of Responsibility, Conversation with Two Sommeliers

To read last year’s series explaining Orange Wines beginning with how they’re made, then their presence in Georgia, Italy, and California, begin here: Understanding Orange Wines Part 1: A Quick and Dirty Look at How They’re Made and What Their Tannins Do To Our Saliva

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Austrian Wine Month Has Started!

May 13, ’13 8:44 AM

Welcoming Austrian Wine Month

the official tasting itinerary, with a few extras included along the way

Austrian Wine Month began last week with a series of focused lunch and dinner “Master Classes.” The meals brought together Importers, Retailers, and a few writers in discussion of Austria’s wine regions, terroir, and food pairings. The purpose is to bring attention to wine retail, with the goal of extending enjoyment of Austrian wines at home. To do so, shops across the United States (and elsewhere) have organized tastings integrated with wine education.

Willi Klinger

I was lucky enough to attend one such lunch at San Francisco’s The Slanted Door restaurant, affording the opportunity to witness the brilliance of Austrian wines with Vietnamese food. It was delicious. Willi Klinger, the head of Austrian Wine Marketing, facilitated discussion throughout.

The Austrian Wine Marketing Board operates as an umbrella group, not promoting any one wine or label, but instead working to increase awareness of Austrian wine in general. Klinger speaks passionately about his work, with a commitment to not just spread the word but “connect with people and share what wine is and can be.”

one of my top favorites, the Sattlerhof Sudsteiermark 2010 Sernauberg, rich and fresh aromatics, brilliantly textural with vibrant acidity, and rich, fresh flavors of citrus and blossom

Klinger wants to increase the accessibility to Austrian wine on a day to day basis, as well as overall interest. But the country is also small, with small volume produced. The reality, then, must keep Austrian wine focused not on expanding everywhere, but only in viable markets. Wine education, then, becomes a central goal.

In considering wine education, Klinger comments, “We don’t want to simplify wine too much.” He continues, “Great wine can never be simplistic. Like Classical music, you have to dive in and you have to work to understand it. It is not just an easy going category.” Asking Klinger the best means to shift public understanding of either a challenged, or underrepresented wine category he responds, “First you must give dignity to the grape itself.”

With Austrian wine in general now being a recognized source of quality wine, the shift of attention can turn to sharing particular regions in Austria, as well as consideration of its particular terroir. As discussion moves through lunch, focus turns from the grapes unique to the country, to International varieties.

Bill Mayer, Importer for The Age of Riesling/Valley View, turns to Riesling as an example. In Mayer’s view, Riesling gives terroir’s most transparent presentation among white grapes. In comparing Rieslings of Germany, Alsace, and Austria, not to mention Australia or the United States, distinctive character presents region to region. The distinctions grow complicated when the question of sweetness is also layered into the equation.

Klinger agrees. He describes the particular characteristics that Austria has to offer. He first emphasizes the significant diurnal shift the country carries. “We have cool wines, in cool climate viticulture, but with good grapes,” he says. The temperature shifts “allow maturity of grapes without getting wines too heavy.” Multiple growing regions are established within the country. Steiermark he presents as an example.

In Klinger’s view, Steiermark offers a unique microclimate that is good for cooler climate grapes, and sparkling wines. But, he explains, it also banks steep hills of limestone that generate precise linear wines, and great fragrance. The Sernauberg from Sudsteiermark, a wine we drink alongside fresh yellowtail, and cabbage-grapefruit salad, is my favorite wine of the meal. It’s a Sauvignon Blanc that must be named by region rather than grape, as it bears no obvious resemblance to the New Zealand or French examples that dominate the fruit’s stereotype.

Claiming the Sernauberg wins my favorite is no small feat, as each of the wines presented are pleasing. Austrian whites consistently show me a textural complexity I appreciate. We enjoyed too several examples of the country’s classic, Gruner Veltliner, including a sparkling version that was wonderfully fresh and crisp. The most surprising wine of the afternoon was a 2009 Nikolaihof Gewurztraminer, a wine so rare many of the other attendees had not seen it before. It is imported exclusively for The Slanted Door, and Gus offered it as an apt (though unusual) pairing for our final lunch course before dessert, un-spiced, ultra lean, red meat. (I like meat.) We enjoyed too here two reds. The reds gave a pleasing mid-weight with a focus on freshness. They were a nice affirmation of Austria’s relationship to red wine improving, as it has perhaps struggled with oak in the past.

Klinger discusses Gruner Veltliner briefly, pointing out its incredible flexibility in food pairings. But he then turns to considering the current state (success with quality whites) and next step (continuing to grow the reds) for Austrian wine. “It is important to think of established wine culture as a process,” he says. In succeeding at one step, you must still be striving for the next. “This is a process that never ends. If it ends, we have lost.”

***
Thank you to Willi Klinger.

Thank you to Chaylee Priete and Gus Vahlkamp. Thank you to Michael.

Thank you to Dan Fredman.

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The Soul on Mothers Day

May 12, ’13 2:17 PM

A Strange Reflection on Mother’s Day

Jr and I on her second birthday. We had just started living life on our own.

Poet Wislawa Szymborska writes “A Few Words on the Soul” as a reflection of our richest moments, when the soul visits us in pure feeling. She comments too, our soul is not always with us, though we need it and it needs us too. Life distracts us from our full connection, then comes rushing back in with force. In one line that carries strong resonance for me she remarks on the interconnection of joy and sorrow:

Joy and sorrow
aren’t two different feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are joined.

Greeting cards often treat joy and sorrow as separate events, striking us at different times defined only by one or the other. Szymborska reminds us the richest moments, the fullest times of heart are when the two are necessary to each other.

In 2005 my dear friend Gita died jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge. The grief it caused in me was unbearable for over a year, and then merely painful for long after. A year and a half later I still struggled to feel “up” emotions. Knowing she’d suffered to the point of complete sacrifice, and that I had lost with her over a decade of sharing could not be reconciled for me. It still lives unreconciled. Suicide finds no home in the heart.

In summer 2007 I lived in Toronto for 6-weeks sweating through the heat wave with Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. I was at the end of my second year of a PhD program. At night after hours on end reading, transcribing, and annotating a paragraph at a time from the text, I would stumble across the street for street meat. I joked recovery from Hegel was like a hang over. You needed salt, water, and a long walk. At night I would visit the annual Jazz festival’s small venues dotted around town.

One Monday about half way through July a pack of us descended on a beer spilled pub that housed a weekly Jazz Standards band. The repetition of songs week after week had become comforting. That night, pitchers of beer in, my friends erupted suddenly into dance. I don’t know what triggered it since the song played was the same they’d heard weekly all summer. But that night I watched through the dark bar as my friends smiled bigger than their faces, and shook their limbs about. The song was fast and they went with it.

The moment was so beautiful, everyone ecstatic in jazz, and in the midst of my grief I almost couldn’t bear the happiness. This was an experience Gita had given up. She had left our world because the weight of it was too great, and she’d sacrificed joy along with her. With my friends all dancing, I found myself weeping with laughter. The two feelings coming simultaneously. I couldn’t bear that we can suffer such pain, and yet couldn’t sacrifice that we can revel in so much joy. The two inform each other, and make the other both more bitter and more sweet. Both too are feelings bigger than any one of us alone. We can only live them by letting them wash through as they will.

On Mother’s Day, I write this to say two things.

Raising a daughter on my own all these years has brought me the heart that can almost bear its soul. To be her mother makes my life both more bitter and more sweet. I cannot explain how to persist in the challenge of being an only parent. Many times the struggle has been unbearable–facing fears with her, or making ends meet. I can only answer it to say, I love her, and that makes me more able to love me too.

But, more than this, I thank my mom. Being a mother myself has given me the gift of loving my mom more clearly. It is thanks to her I have this heart at all. Her love, and my father’s, was given to me first.

Blessings to every mother on Mother’s Day. May you have a day that brings you tender joy. Amen.

***
To read Symborska’s poem: http://www.bu.edu/agni/poetry/print/2002/56-szymborska.html

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The 7 Percent Solution: Celebrating Rare Grapes & Quality Winemakers of California

May 9, ’13 8:11 AM

The Seven Percent Solution: 17 Wineries, Crazy Grapes

Bergamot Alley in Healdsburg did a bang up job hosting a media and trade portion of the upcoming 7 Percent Solution wine tasting (Sarah even created a fantastic book listing wineries, wines, providing note space, and a clever business card holder). The public tasting occurs Saturday.

The event celebrates wines from 17 wineries in California developing their portfolios with lesser known, lesser planted varieties. As the story goes, approximately 93% of the vines in California rest in only 7 grape types. The 7% Solution brought together wines with a focus on the remaining few.

There wasn’t a bad wine poured, and there were a few excellent wines too. It’s hard to choose favorites in a group like that. Some wineries shared unreleased wines, others older vintages and first tries, and a fair number of unicorn wines appeared–wines of such small production they’re spoken of but seen only by the pure of heart that truly believe in their existence. I believe.

RPM’s 2012 Gamay was one of my genuine favorites. Grown in pink granite, there is a nerviness to this wine that accents its flavors beautifully. The RPM Gamay is all about subtle complexity pulsing through beautiful tension. It gives a richness that washes over the mouth with just a pinch of traction through the finish, and beautiful aromatics.

The 2012 Abrente Albarino from Bedrock and Michael Havens remains a favorite (I had enjoyed it too last weekend). Where previous vintages were perhaps softer in the mouth, the 2012 brings in 40% fruit grown in limestone to balance the rich flavors of the Stewart Vineyard with the tension and zing of the Watson. It’s a gorgeous, stimulating combination.

Ryme Cellars woos me with their 2010 Aglianico, a wine others commented may be their best vintage of that grape. The dark fruit comes through with a light bodied presentation and well integrated spice to offer complex freshness.

The Forlorn Hope 2011 “Que Saudade” Verdelho really sings with a fresh, feminine, musk I can’t get enough of–all outdoorsy, pert, and interested, with great viscosity and range of flavor.

The just released Dirty & Rowdy’s 2012 Semillon with focused earthiness and pleasing texture was being poured on Wednesday out of magnum. It’s a treat.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find the Stark 2011 Viognier, a wine that absolutely fights its fruit’s stereotypes to give great concentration and texture on the palate with a long nervy finish. Two Shepherds’ 2011s are drinking perfectly right now so drink while you can (I think they’re about sold out but he’s pouring them). broc cellars 2012 Picpoul still has that surprisingly fresh-complexity of the 2011 but with a richer flourish.

Scott Schultz is pouring his new whites for Jolie-Laide. They’re a nice pair of Gris wines giving fresh spice in the Pinot Gris, and textural focus in the Trousseau Gris. But you’ll have to keep an eye for an opening as he pours. (All the girls were deservedly loving his table.) The Idlewild 2012 Arneis was all seering, pretty, and textural with layers of flavor. They’re one of the labels that helped get the event started too, so be sure to thank them.

Best of all, the 7% Solution was just full to the brim with good, and super fun people.

Here are some photos from the event.

Ryan Glaab, Ryme Cellars; Hardy Wallace, Dirty & Rowdy; Pax Mahle, Wind Gap

Hardy Wallace, Dirty & Rowdy; Nathan Roberts, Arnot-Roberts and RPM; Megan Glaab, Ryme Cellars; Chris Cottrell, Bedrock Wine

Forlorn Hope Wines, Dirty and Rowdy Family Wines

William Allen, Two Shepherds

Pax Mahle, Wind Gap; Mick Unti, Unti Wines; Nathan Roberts, Arnot Roberts, RPM

broc cellars Picpoul

Sam Bilbro, Idlewild Wines

Stark Viognier

Matthiasson Refosco (one of the unicorns)

Raj Parr, RPM

Raj Parr and Duncan Arnot Meyers, RPM

Scott Schultz, Jolie-Laide

***

Thank you to Pax Mahle. Thank you to Dan Petroski.

Thank you to Kevin, Sarah, and Sam.

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The Lazy Winemaker: Patience, Terroir, and Vine Age, a conversation with Stéphane Vivier

May 8, ’13 8:45 AM

Wine with Stéphane Vivier

Stéphane and Dana Vivier started their Pinot Noir, and Rosé of Pinot Noir label, Vivier, in 2009 with credit cards, and 30 cases of wine. By 2011, they jumped to 150 cases. Their wines draw on small lots from vineyards in Sonoma County, each of which Stéphane works with hands on. Originally from Burgundy, Stéphane has also served as winemaker for HdV for 12 years. I fell in love with Vivier Pinots last summer, and was lucky enough to meet with Stéphane multiple times to discuss his winemaking philosophy, which he describes as “being a lazy winemaker.” Following is a transcript of his story from our conversations.

***

“My wine, Dana, and I married in 2009. I was already with HdV but my wife suggested I make Pinot Noir. She thought I was missing something. I grew up in Burgundy on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. She said to me, “to be complete, there is something else you need here. You need to make Pinot Noir.” I asked her, “where will the money come from.” She told me, “don’t worry. This is America.”

“I grew up with rosé of Pinot Noir in Burgundy. I would come home and sit outside with my parents. My mom would bring in things from the garden, and my dad wine from the cellar. We would talk about the day, and most everyday have a bottle of rosé.

“I grew up with wine of perfume. The nose is very important. But it is important too to focus on the texture of the wine, really important. I like restrained, elegant wine that changes in the glass. I want it to change in the glass, and go with food. I like it when people have trouble describing, or deconstructing a wine. It’s a sign that the wine is complex. Wine is about pairing with food, about pleasure and enjoyment. Alcohol is a form of enjoyment. Wine is for making and consuming.

“Being a lazy winemaker is all about being patient, letting the place talk, and being gentle with the grapes. Making it simple. I like a long [slow] press, and a long, slow fermentation, not too long but clean, and long enough so the perfume develops. The idea of balance in wine is an extensive subject. It is about what is best from the site, letting the wine speak the site. There is a lot of feeling in winemaking, a lot of following what you learn.

“I spent time listening to old men and how they compare wine to old vintages, wines that are 14 or 15 years old. It puts everything in perspective. That wine is about being patient, and building a strong foundation.

“Acidity is the foundation of every wine, of good wine, just like the pyramids that have a broad base and so they lasted. If you want wine you can drink early, perfume is important. If you also want wines that can age, acidity.

“I have been at HdV for more than 10 years. People asked me in the last decade what my next job would be. I want to grow with a vineyard, to start young and grow up with the vines. Wine is like life. You start young, and the older you get, the wiser as well. It is the same with vineyards. I have a young daughter, and I can see it’s exactly the same. Some things you have to train for to get in certain ways, to learn how to do. With growing a vineyard too, there is a lot of training, and you can train in a way that is best for the site, and also for types of wine. It is important to know vineyards very well.

Stéphane walking in the vineyard, Sonoma, July 2012

“It is difficult to be simple, [to make something that is simple, while also rich, and not boring. When you are able to make something simple,] it is a work of experience. Winemaking is a work of experience, vineyards, and age.

“Balance is very difficult to define. So is stability in wine. It is hard to say stability is an energy, but it is in a way.

“Wine gives you this ability to grow on the same roots, and not necessarily make the same wine, always trying to make better wine every year from whatever it is you have. That is why we are looking to start with young vineyards and to get older with the vineyards. I couldn’t do this in Burgundy. You can feel this in Australia. You can feel the history of vineyards there from the 1880s being established. You don’t get that sense of history in the United States. Most vineyards here are young.

“Making wine with the same vineyard again and again, it is like Monet painting churches. He went back and painted the same church at different points in the day for different points of light over two weeks. Each vintage is the light. You capture that moment in the vintage. But Monet was also commenting on tradition, asking, what can I contribute to it? His work in paint was a recognition of tradition and the importance of time both. Monet could go back and paint that spot any time, winter even. But the winemaker can only go back once in the same year. Still, there is always something to discover while always working with the same vines.

“I want to give myself to time. These are the constraints in which I operate, and make choices. Pre-deciding in advance what the wine, grapes, vine health should be sounds cool and innovative, but is actually deciding in advance what the wine should be. It is adapting the grapes to himself, instead of adapting himself to the grapes. But you can adapt yourself to the place, and then make the wine of what you are. This way, like Monet, you can have innovation from within tradition. That is why you want knowledge of established vineyards, or vineyard practices, and to grow in age with the vineyard. Terroir needs to be farmed, and needs to be respected. If you respect it, you are in that top 15%.”

***
Thank you to Stéphane and Dana Vivier.

Thank you to Dan Petroski.

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The Making of a Food Wine, A Case Study: Donelan Acquerello 2010 Syrah

May 7, ’13 8:57 AM

Donelan Acquerello 2010 Syrah w Tyler Thomas & Gianpaolo Paterlini

“Talking to other winemakers helped me understand what it means to be a winemaker.” -Tyler Thomas

“It’s not about knowing the tricks of the trade, it’s about how you’re going to use them.” -Gianpaolo Paterlini

click on comic to enlarge

The importance of knowing your context plays behind the history of success for both Tyler Thomas, winemaker of Donelan Family Wines, Sonoma County, and Gianpaolo Paterlini, Wine Director of Acquerello Restaurant, San Francisco.

Winemaking with Tyler Thomas

Tyler Thomas graduated with a Master’s from UC Davis’s Viticulture & Enology program after having already completed an advanced Masters in Botany. His roots in science run deep. After finishing his work at Davis, however, Thomas recognized the importance of grounding his knowledge in experience, and in 2004 started a job at HdV in Napa Valley, with an agreement to also integrate work elsewhere in that first year.

After the 2004 harvest with the winery, then, Thomas traveled for the reciprocal harvest that New Year in New Zealand, returning North to do research on Sylvaner vines in Germany. During his time in Geisenheim Reingau, Thomas was able to take trips throughout Europe, meeting with winemakers in Burgundy, and Alsace as well.

It was through his time in Germany, Thomas explains, that he really learned what it is to be a winemaker. Thomas would sit with others in the region and simply define terms. The winemakers would discuss together their differing cultural views of wine, terroir, technique, and quality. The experience made clear for Thomas how culturally embedded views of wine, and its foundational elements turn out to be. In recognizing the importance of context, the point that you always choose how to make your wine, or what counts as quality came clear. “Talking to other winemakers helped me understand what it means to be a winemaker,” he says.

His background in Botany, and training in viticulture provided ample tools for winemaking, but as Thomas clarifies, his time abroad “was formative in shaping my philosophy. When I returned, then, to HdV, I recognized it was not what you do, but how you think about wine that makes you a winemaker.” HdV winemaker Stephan Vivier further rooted such understanding in Thomas. Vivier originates from Burgundy. In traveling abroad, Thomas was able to recognize a kinship in Vivier with other winemakers in France. Thomas’s early training with grapes, then, came from Vivier’s French sensibilities working with California fruit. The experience established in Thomas an approach defined by both patience, and thoroughness. In his approach to making wine, you sit back and wait, letting the wine takes its time, but you also keep clear track of where it’s at, and make sure what can be done early is tended to up front.

Gianpaolo Paterlini Grows the Acquerello Wine Program

Gianpaolo Paterlini grew up in Acquerello, the restaurant his father, Giancarlo, helped establish. Paterlini’s early memories, then, include his father’s work with the then-smaller Italian restaurant established in a neighborhood of San Francisco that was truly neighborhood then for all its establishment now.

At the age of fourteen, Giancarlo let his son know there would be no more free spending money, but if he wanted a job to earn cash, there was one to be had. So, Gianpaolo began working as a bus boy on weekends. At the time he had no interest in continuing his career in the service industry. Then he went to college in Boston. In summers, Paterlini’s work experience expanded to include food service, leading him to a restaurant job in Boston during the school year.

In Boston, Paterlini began work at Blue Ginger where he came to recognize a huge potential in the industry he hadn’t noticed before. He also saw how much fun it could be. Eventually, his life took him back to the Bay Area where he connected with the famed Sommelier, Raj Parr. Parr showed Paterlini what a top quality wine program looked like–it wasn’t just a great wine list, it was a wine list with an investment in wine education. Additionally, Parr helped Paterlini gain harvest experience with winemaker Sashi Moorman in Santa Barbara County, working in the Lompoc wine ghetto, side by side with many of the best labels from that region. In Lompoc, Paterlini explains, he didn’t only help make wine, but with the mass of winemakers in close proximity, he also drank some of the great wines from throughout the world. Work days would end with bottles for tasting.

In 2007, Paterlini’s experiences came together to illuminate the value of Acquerello for him in a new way. It was a quality restaurant that had never had a dedicated Sommelier. So, with his father’s blessing, Gianpaolo returned to the family restaurant focusing first simply on the restaurant’s established wines. Within short order, wine sales of the establishment increased. As a result, Paterlini was able to legitimate the value of establishing a full fledged wine program, based in what is now a 90-plus page wine list and education program focused primarily, though not exclusively, on Italian wines.

The Birth of a Partnership: Donelan Acquerello Syrah

Thomas and Paterlini met through the restaurant. Owner of Donelan wines, Joe Donelan, had been a long time customer of Acquerello, with a friendly connection to the Paterlini family.

In his interests to stay informed and current with wine, Gianpaolo regularly tastes through California wine country (traveling as well to Italy and elsewhere). Through repeat visits to Donelan winery, Paterlini and Thomas recognized a relationship with wine that spurred both their interests. Over time, the connection bred a conversation about developing a unique Syrah together.

The focus of Acquerello’s wine list is deeply Italian, with some Champagne pleasantries, and California highlights as well. The wines by the glass, then, focus on Italian offerings that pair well with the current menu. Together the wine director and chef work for weeks to create a menu that seamlessly couples seasonal flavors with interesting wine. Paterlini had worked with wineries for a few custom bottlings before. From Italy, Sottimano created a 2007 Langhe Nebbiolo for the restaurant that, as Paterlini put it, was chosen because it “blew my mind so I bought a lot for the restaurant.”

In California, Paterlini has been able to garner two different vintages from Dan Petroski of Massican, to create first an Acquerello Chardonnay, and then in 2012 a Sauvignon. Massican is known for creating white wines from California with clear Italian inspiration. In those cases too, Paterlini happened upon barrel lots of Massican wine he enjoyed.

Enjoying Wine with Lunch

In private conversation when Thomas had briefly stepped out, Paterlini took the occasion to tell me what he appreciated about working with Thomas, “I know no one makng better Syrah than Tyler,” he tells me. “But I knew too that in working with him we’d get the experience of talking through what component parts would bring to the blend.”

The Donelan project differs from previous Acquerello wine partnerships in that when the possibility first arose, Thomas emphasized the process of partnership. Where Sottimano and Massican wines were discovered already complete and chosen for how they work well with the restaurant, the Donelan conversation occurred before a wine was made. “I wanted to make sure that the whole thing made perfect sense for Acquerello.” Thomas explained. In his view, making wine for Acquerello was exciting, but it was also a high responsibility. There was no point in doing it unless it was something the restaurant was going to love. But creating a wine they both believed in depended too on making it with the Donelan philosophy. The goal, then, became to make an Acquerello wine in the Donelan style — distinctly Syrah, strongly food focused, developed patiently over time.

Making the Wine

In order to accomplish the Acquerello goal, Thomas set about developing an abbreviated version of the Donelan teams approach–a series of blending trials over the course of a year. The first step would be to identify the barrel that would serve as the core of the wine. Together Thomas and Paterlini located a lot from the Kobler Vineyard, a site that produces friendly Syrah on the ligher side with lots of acidity and smoother tannin, flavored with elegant notes of mountain blueberry carrying frost touched edges.

Once the core of the blend was identified, the goal became then to determine what little bits from other barrels were desired. Together Thomas and Paterlini tasted and talked through the gifts and elements of other lots of Syrah in the winery. Their discussion focused on how each barrel would impact the blend, what it would add, or, detract.

The Donelan team, met repeatedly with the team of Acquerello to hone in on the restaurant’s perfect wine. At its final stage, five possible assemblages were brought to the restaurant in San Francisco where the entire staff of Acquerello blind tasted the five selections side by side. Remarkably, in the end, they all agreed on one. “At the end of the day, it was my call what blend was picked,” Paterlini explains. “But, instead, we included all 10 people [the Acquerello staff]. We all happened to agree, but the point was to act like their opinion matters, because it does.”

After the blend was finalized, Thomas performed a final test. He took a sample bottle with him to the restaurant one afternoon and sat down with Paterlini. Together they blind tasted through the red wine portion of the wines by the glass (BTG) menu checking to see if the Acquerello blend suited the overall architecture of the restaurant’s BTG program. The goal in tasting was to identify a consistency of mouthfeel between the Donelan wine, and the Italians on the restaurant’s list. “Did we get the mouthfeel to a point where it can represent Acquerello well?” Thomas asked.

Paterlini nods, “mouthfeel is the most important thing when selling wine to customers. You need to give them a texture they can relate to.”

The Final Wine

The Donelan Acquerello Syrah has the flavor of Donelan but with a more breezy pleasure. The focus is on open juiciness, the wine giving a portico of freshness to welcome the midpalate. It’s a shape Donelan wines don’t tend to have, yet it drinks like its part of the Donelan portfolio’s extended family.

Thomas addresses the presentation of the final wine, “the wine tells both our stories.”

Paterlini agrees, “we did exactly what we wanted to do. We made the wine we wanted to make.”

As the two continue talking, the relationship expressed within the wine becomes clear. It’s the approach they took to making the wine–working together, incorporating the entirety of both teams to find agreement through discussion–that showcases Thomas’s winemaking style. He values steadiness and patience housed in a path of rigorous attention, coupled with discussion with his people along the way. The Acquerello Syrah is a Donelan wine because it follows the Donelan process–similar oak regime, similar blending trial process. It’s the texture, and architecture of the wine that belongs to Acquerello.

***

The Donelan Acquerello 2010 Sonoma Syrah is only available at Acquerello Italian Restaurant in San Francisco.

Other Donelan wines are available in the Bay area through Marathon Brokers, or by contacting Donelan Wines directly.

Thank you to Tyler Thomas, and Gianpaolo Paterlini.
Thank you to Emily Kaiden.

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