Grape of the Day

It's a travel day again today, or if it's not, let's make it one. We're headed to Slovenia, and more specifically, we are going to Primorska, also known as the Slovene Littoral. It's the only place on earth, or at least I think it is, where they grow Pinela. We're traveling to the westernmost part of Slovenia near the Italian border. To get here, we're flying into the capital of Ljubljana and heading west. To the far west of Primorska, we find the Vipava Valley wine region that borders Friuli in the foothills of the Italian Alps. The weather here is fairly cool and is excellent for growing white grapes with excellent acidity and minerality. On its surface, Pinela is a fairly simple grape. Medium skinned and particularly light in color, it is not particularly susceptible to diseasse, harvests early, and drinks quite young. In fact, reflecting on yesterday's post , if you get your hands on a bottle of Pinela, you likely want to drink it within a few months

I'll admit it; I'm one of those  people. I think most exceptional wines are not anywhere near as good when very young as they are with some age on them. That doesn't mean you have to celler them for so long that even your kids won't be around to enjoy them, but I do think that they become far more complex and interesting when some of the fruit has dissipated and some of the dryer, earthier, savory tones have come through.  I read an article recently suggesting how boorish I am and others are. In a nutshell, the article asked what in the world is wrong with drinking a fruit, tannin, and alcohol bomb, Why can't I enjoy a tannic enough to make me pucker for months, 17% alcohol by volume fruit forward, overripe Cabernet from an excessively hot vintage in Napa? I can. And, I have. And, I've often enjoyed them. So, maybe I'm not entirely one of those people. But, the more I learn about wine and the more I drink wine with food, the more that I like my wine to enhan

In the continental American Pacific Coast states, the 2020s have been the decade of wildfires thus far. From the horrific fires that decimated a number of wineries in California Wine Country in 2020 to the terrible fires in early summer blazing heat in Oregon this year, the fires in both years produced smoke that was detected by humans roughly 3000 miles to the east in the Mid-Atlantic and New England states. There are a number of clear messages from this, but since what we are worried about here are wine effects, let's consider them. First, if smoke was detectable 3000 miles away, there is no doubt that much closer to the fires that the smoke concentration was extreme. What is there in smoke that damages wine? When we burn wood, and it can be something as simple as lighting a cigarette or firing up the grill, particularly volatile phenols are released into the air. For whatever reason and I know that I don't have a direct explanation, grapes absorb these phenols particularly e

It's much like everything else. Wine sales are now dominated by the big box stores. And, as frequent readers know, I do buy a fair amount of our wine from big box stores.  I have good reasons. The prices are generally better and the selection tends to be better. The obvious follow-up then is why would I buy wine anywhere else? Let's start by breaking the large retailers of wine into two categories -- those that focus on wine or wine, beer, and spirits; and those that are very large, but happen to sell just wine. We'll start with the latter. There, we go into a store to buy some electronics, some hair care products, some food, and maybe a 200-pack of batteries. And, then we see the wine. In a typical store of this type, you'll see some name brands, i.e., some of the names that you see everywhere, but often at very good prices; some names that you have never heard of that often have really cutesie names or packaging; some higher end wines where the major buying power of t

I missed a couple of days. They were the first days I missed since last March. Sunday, things just got busy and I flat out forgot and yesterday I had a lot going on, so as long as I had stopped my streak, I stopped it for one more day. But yesterday, I had an experience that prompted me to write today's post. Understand that we had an excellent meal with fun, pleasant, and timely service and a bottle of wine that went really well with what we ate. So, all was good. But, in talking with the bartender who is actually pretty experienced and comparing her wine knowledge to the level of the restaurant and the level of the wine, it's clear that their wine training is not up to the level of the list. Please understand that this is not intended to demean the people. This is a restaurant that we go to frequently and it is not billed as a wine place. I do think however that they bill themselves as something like casual fine dining -- a moniker that wouldn't have existed a generation

You sit down to dinner, you look at the wine list, and you don't recognize a thing. This could happen anywhere, but it's most likely to happen at ethnic restaurants where the wine matches the food. But, in any case, you don't recognize a thing. What do you do? First, consider what you are eating. If there is meat in the dish(es), is it white meat or dark meat? While it's not a requirement, white meat tends to pair with white wine and dark meat with red wine. While pork is often referred to as the other white meat, I prefer red wine with it personally. And, I can go either way with darker meat fish, but those are personal preferences. But, after that, there is a key to picking something that will work. If you have a great server, perhaps they can give you some great suggestions. But, suppose they can't.  This is where you need to know something about wines generally. Or make use of some sort of search engine. What you need to look for to go with food generally withou

Back in February, I posted about coming into possession of a wine made from a rare grape -- Fekete Jardovany.  Last night, we opened it to go with a dinner led by Tuscan pork tenderloin, one of the great bargains from my favorite membership warehouse club. As we noted some five months ago, this bottle can only be recognized as red table wine. In the US, it could be called most anything that the winery would like to call it, but in most of Europe, regulations prevail. And, there is no part of Hungary in which Fekete Jardovany is a recognized grape. Therefore, it cannot be place designated. On opening the bottle, the cork was nicely moist and the immediate aromas coming from the bottle were much in the style of a vanilla capuccino. In the glass, the wine bright red, but as the light hit it, it had a very pinkish hue to it. The wine paired nicely with dinner as the earthiness went quite well with the Italian seasonings on the pork. And, the excellent acidity of the wine allowed it to pair

Let's take a trip to San Javier today. San Javier, Chile, that is. Located in the foothills of the Andes, just to their east and about 3 hours mostly south of the capital city of Santiago, and sitting right on the Pan American Highway. Interestingly, if we started in the Seattle, Washington area and drive south, so long as we had an ATV to make it from Panama to Colombia, we could make the drive without leaving the Pan American Highway. A long drive it would be, however, at roughly 30000 km or 18000 miles. This is a great area for growing grapes. With the runoff from the Andes providing a natural source of irrigation, but the shield from the mountains providing for drought-like conditions during growing season, The temperature here rarely exceeds about 32C/90F nor does it often make it below freezing (0C/32F) and typical summer days tend to top out around 26C/79F. This is great growing weather. The oldest grape here is know locally as Pais. If you happen taste some and like it, you

News flash!. Not all organic wine is subject to the same requirements to be certified organic. Perhaps bigger news flash!! The requirements are stricter in the US than in the EU.  When I first learned that, it surprised me. I wonder if it surprises you.  The fact is that the requirements to produce a wine in the US that is certified as organic are really tough to meet. They are really expensive to meet. As a buyer, even as a particularly "green" buyer, is it worth it? Is it worth it, for example, to take the steps to move from a wine made with organically grown grapes to an organic wine?  Well, for starters, you can't taste the difference. I don't think you can taste the difference. I know that I can't taste the difference. So, if you are drinking wine for the snsory experience that you get, skip the organic and save some money. Let's examine what is going on and let's start with the big difference between US-made certified organic wines and EU-made certif

Often times, when we have visited, albeit vicariously, various wine regions to again vicariously, taste their wines, we have noted that the area sits on or is an alluvial fan. But, what's up with alluvial fans? Aren't they something we learned about in middle school/junior high school science for a single test and then thankfully forgot about these follish things? Not for people looking for places to plant grapes. For those who have forgotten and it's entirely possible that I have misremembered from more than 50 years ago, alluvial fans are accumulations of sediments from a water source that spread out in the shape of a fan or cone. They are frequently found where there is runoff from mountains or smaller peaks and tend to be in climates that are dry for most of the year allowing the sediment to settle and remain. Because the sediment has been placed by the movement of water, there is a complete lack of uniformity to the soil. This tends to have the effect of producing a ve

I've been writing a lot about value lately, so I continue. This is going to be short, I think (I never know for sure until I click publish), but I want to highlight some regions to look for if you want to pay less for certainly close to as much. So, this is not about Bordeaux or Napa or Barolo or anything like that, this is about the other places -- the ones you don't think of and the grapes you might "steal" from there. So, let's begin, in no particular order. Lighter red wines -- try Austria. Austrian Zweigelt and Blaufrankisch can be quite expressive and have excellent acidity, but you can often pick up a bottle for less than $15 that you will really enjoy. Sparkling wine made using la methode traditionelle  -- there is one winery in New Mexico and I think they are the only winery in New Mexico that makes sparkling wines. In blind tastings, their sparkling wines often compete on an even ground with those of Champagne and frequently dominate those from other are

Where is your favorite Chardonnay from? How about Cabernet? Sauvignon Blanc? Pinot Noir? How do you know? What makes it your favorite? Have you ever tried that grape from somewhere else? Probably more than anything else, wines have a character emanating from their place. Sometimes, that place is broad, for example, Western Cape of South Africa and its alluvial fan or the high desert of Chile in the foothills of the Andes. Other times, that place is much smaller like the little hill in the northern Rhone called Hermitage, or Jura bordered by Switzerland to the east and Burgundy to the west. In either case, the wines of an area tend to take on a very distinctive character. A wine expert can descrivbe it for you. Sancerre, for example, is known for its chalky limestone-based soil that gives the Sauvignon Blanc of the area wonderful minerality. But, if the only Sauvignon Blanc you try is from New Zealand, you will never know. Cabernet Franc is usually a blending grape in so-called Bordeaux

Buying wine is more of an artform than a science. I'm talking by the consumer, not the distributor, wine shop, or restaurant. How do you know where the good buys are? How do you know what you will like? There is certainly no science it, but there are some trickes of the trade. When looking for something you will like, find something as close to another wine that you have liked and try another.  So, for example, there is a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand that is over-advertised. In particular, they love advertising on TV when there are tennis tournaments. And, they seem to advertise the most in the Women's Finals. That tells me something, but that's not the point.  Suppose you really like that wine that starts with a K and ends with a Ford. It's from Marlborough which is the real Sauvignon Blanc haven in New Zealand. Fairly cool in that area, it allows lots of the methoxypyrazine to show itself and those pyrazine give us the pear and some lime. Is that something special

In many parts of the world, the growing season this year is hot. Not just warm, but hot. Of all the wine areas, the heat seems to have hit the US Pacific Northwest (Oregon and Washington) and perhaps British Columbia in Canada more than anywhere else, but many places are meaningfully warmer than recent norms for the areas. How will this affect your ability to age wines? To understand this, it's important to recall the 4 key elements of ageworthiness. Each of these tend  to make a wine more ageworthy, but, of course, only a quality wine will age well to begin with. Higher tannins Higher acidity Higher sugar content Lower alcohol content So, how does the heat affect each of these? If anything, tannic wines become more tannic during warm growing seasons. The thicker-skinned grapes that have more tannins tend to be more resistant to the extreme heat. That's a plus for ageworthiness. But, the more acidic wines tend to like cooler weather. In fact, many of the most acidic wines are m

I've written about [near] perfect pairings. I've read about perfect pairings. Is this an art or a science? What makes it perfect? To be truthful, there is a little bit of art and a little bit of science or perhaps said more properly, it's likely science first, but art follows and follows with a bang. Let's start out by supposing that it was all science. And, frankly, there are wine clubs out there that purport that science can do it all. [Hint: I don't believe them.] If that were the case, then we could take the chemistry of a dish coming fresh out of the kitchen or the microwave after sitting in your refrigerator or freezer and analyze it. Put that composition into a computer and match it with our near infinite database of wines and apply some algorithms and ca-chunk, vroom, clacka-clacka, out comes the most perfect wines to go with this.  That's pretty simple, at least theoretically and would do tow things: make it so everyone could do perfect pairings and rep

You might have read wine review saying that a wine is nicely balanced. It might even appear on the reverse label of a bottle. Or, you could have seen me talk about it. What's with balance? Is it important? Does it make your wine taste better? Does it give it more mass appeal? Does it help to aoid hangovers? What exactly is balance? In a nutshell, it is that state when all of the elements of a wine come together and work in harmony. On the other hand, to be a bit catty, but honest at the same time, it is a word that winemakers or proprietors sometimes  use to describe a wine when there is just nothing remarkable about. That is, it's got some fruit, but nothing stands out; the tannins are there, but you don't notice them at all; there is a bit of acidity, but not enough to tame difficult to pair with foods; and the alcohol content is medium. In other words, anybody can drink the wine as it has nothing objectionable, but nobody likes the wine because it just doesn't stand

AOC, AVA, DOCG, DOCa, IGT. There are so many of them and some of them overlap. Some are based on history. Some are based on geographical borders or political borders. Others end where there is a waterway. Some run on both sides of a waterway, but then differentiate between the tow sides. Others are climate-based. Do we need so many? Do we care?  What should distinguish one region from another? The problems are different in the New World of wine than in the Old World of wine. Let's hit the Old World -- roughly Europe and the countries around what are believed to be the birthplace of wine in far eastern Europe and far western Asia (the part sometimes referred to as the Middle East although only part of it). In particular, let's consider what those of us in the US might consider to be the three most significant wine-producing countries in all of Europe -- alphabetically, France, Italy, and Spain. Among other things, what they have in common are rules. Rules, rules, and more rules.

In some places, this has been an extremely hot growing season. In fact, a few days ago, we covered how this might affect the 2021 vintage in the US Pacific Northwest.  But, warmer than usual weather does not ruin all vintages in all areas. Let's consider why and where they sometimes help and how this might even play out this year. Consider the 2016 vintage in Napa Valley. Many consider it to have been pretty near ideal. It was warm -- warmer than normal -- but not what might be considered so extremely warm as to have adverse effects for the heart of the growing season. When combined with the droughtlike conditions that year, grapes were exceptionally stressed leading to highly expressive and flavorful Bordeaux-style (what Napa is really famous for) wines whether they be single varietal wines or blends. And, to top it off, the very late summer and very early autumn weather was very hot during the day, but far cooler at night. This combination has produced some truly great wines. Sim

I rarely mention names on this blog. In fact, I have made a point to not mention them except when absolutely necessary or as a hypothetical. But, as a follow-up to yesterday's post, suppose you don't want to spend more, but you do want something that is consistently very drinkable without breaking the bank. My solution is to buy Kirkland brand wines from Costco. They are very inexpensive for the varietals or location-designated wines that you are getting, tend to be very approachable young, and they are significantly increasing their portfolio. If you do your homework, you can actually figure out where the wines are coming from. My first experience with this brand was their Rioja Reserva. I paid $6.99 for that bottle and many more thereafter although within the last two vintages, they have raised the price to $7.99. That's for a bottle that was aged 30 months in oak and 6 months in bottle before release.  When I opened that first bottle, it was on a lark. And, while admitte

Most everyone has a typical amount that they spend on a bottle of wine. For some people, that might be $5, for some $10, for some $25, and maybe for others $200. I hope that whatever you are spending, it doesn't affect the rest of your life. The question for today is when should you spend more. In other words, what should cause you to choose to spend more for a bottle of wine than you normally would. And, for purposes of this post, we're going to assume that whatever you would customarily drink at home, you might buy the same bottle in a restaurant, of course paying a lot more. For the most part, you are paying more for one or more of three reasons: The wine is ageworthy and will improve in character over time The wine is trendy The wine is really good, but often there is an intersection between this and #1 Let's start with #2. The wine is trendy and as a result, the price has gotten jacked up. We all know examples. Often times, the brand has recently been sold from a famil

Have you ever been to Kyrgyzstan, the country that really needs to buy a vowel. I haven't. Let's go there today. In particular, let's go to the Issyk-Kul (I hope I am spelling this correctly from memory) Depression around Lake Issyk-Kul, a salty lake seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Sitting at altitudes around 1700 meters/5600 feet, this will not be an easy journey. Our choices to get there are not ideal, at least not from the US. We considered flying into Bishkek, the capital, but the ride from there was going to be quite arduos, so we took our chances flying into the major, at least for that region international airport in Almaty, Kazakhstan. From there, we traveled nearly 5 hours almost due south in a Russian made car going mostly through mountain passes. The temperature here does not vary significantly. Despite the elevation, typical January weather is around 3-5C/37-41F while daytime highs in the summermight top out around 20C/68F.  Near the northern banks of the la

Let's take a trip today; it's not going to be an easy one. The first part of our journey won't be easy as flights to Rome are plentiful. But, when we land in Rome, we are dismayed when we learn that the one flight today from Rome to Lamezia Terme has been canceled as the pilot has taken ill. We'll have to charter a small plane. Ordinarily a one hour flight, ours is taking a bit longer today as the only planes available to us don't have quite the get up and go of the commercial plane we had planned to fly. From Lamezia Terme, on the west coast of Italy and near the toe of the boot by which the shape of the country is identified, we head mostly south into the compartment of Calabria. Calabria is known for its very warm and extremely dry climate in a somewhat mountainous region that slopes down quickly to the sea on all sides. When I am thinking food, the first thing about Calabrian that comes to mind are their famous Calabrian Chili peppers. Quite hot if eating them a

Wow, has the character of tasting rooms at wineries changed since I first went to them more recently than you might think. In fact, I think my first visit was in 2005 or 2006. And, yes, they were different then. So, what was the model then, what is it now, and is it better or worse? Back about 15 years ago, at least based on my experience, tasting rooms varied by geographical area. And, they still do. But, for the most part, the wineries were using them to sell their wine. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Now, at least in my experience, they are a separate profit center in many places. In the 20 aughts as they are sometimes classsified, the system, so to speak, seemed to work a lot like this. You go in, sometimes with a reservation necessary, but usually not, and you usually pay a fee per person. Sometimes, it was free in the hopes that the winery could interest you enough in their wine that you would take some with you, have some shipped to your home, or in the case of th

Have you ever visited a winery? Many of us have. Among the claims that I have heard many times from winery hosts is that "our Chardonnay doesn't taste like Chardonnay" or that "we make a Pinot Noir for Cabernet drinkers." Is that good or bad? Let's think about it. Let's suppose that you or I wanted to drink a wine that doesn't taste like Chardonnay. For starters, that's okay. There is no requirement that either of us like Chardonnay and, even if we do, there is no requirement that the wine we want to drink today or tomorrow or some other particular day.  Let's suppose for a minute that I want to drink a wine that doesn't taste like Chardonnay. I'm not sure why in this particular case, but the why doesn't matter for now. Do I have any choices? Well, if I am even raising the spectre of Chardonnay, chances are that I am thinking white wine. So, I need to consider whether there are any qhite grapes that don't taste like Chardonnay

Brix is a measure of, essentially, the alcohol potential of a wine. Really, it's measuring the sugar content in the grape on the vine but when we consider that during fermentation, that sugar, at least in dry wines, is converted to alcohol, we are measuring alcoholic potential. In comes 2021. In the western US, particularly in areas that are used to little warm weather in the case of the Pinot Noir vineyards and not too much truly hot weather in the case of many of the others, the brix in the grapes is going to rise more rapidly. Many winemakers pick by brix. In other words, when the brix gets to a particular level, it is time to pick. Given that the temperatures in a particulaar vineyard do not vary tremendounsly significantly from year to year, when the brix in the grapes hits their target levels, the grapes will be well ripened and ready to make wine from. Could we have a phenomenon in 2021 where the grapes accumulate sugar content at a faster rate than they ripen? Ordinarily, t

I picked up a bottle of Rosé yesterday. It was inexpensive, refreshing when cooled, food friendly, and delicious. But, while the winery name on the label is not even really a winery and you might think that would make this wine pretty pedestrian. Often times, Rosés are simple wines made of a single grape variety of which the winery just has too much. Or, in an even worse case, a winery has grapes of one or more varieites that are not good enough to make into a red wine, so they try to salvage what they can out of those grapes to make whatever wines they can. Not so in Provence, the home of the most famous Rosés in the world. There, they grow the grapes to make Rosé. And, in the case of this wine, they blended eight different grapes to make a really stunning wine to go with shrimp for about $10 for a bottle. In order, by variety, this wine had Grenache Noir (the grape usually just called Grenache, Cinsault, Carignan, Syrah, Tibouren (an unusual grape rarely grown outside of Provence), U

Last night we had lamb chops at home seasoned largely with rosemary. While they can be quite expensive and the quality is often spotty, Costco does a great job of keeping the price down and the quality up. But, this is neither a food blog nor a Costco endorsement. Of course, with a dinner like that, the wine pairing is important. The classic pairing with grilled lamb chops is Chateauneuf du Pape. And, the 2007 vintage, expecially for those that are particularly Grenache heavy and use more Cinsault and less Syrah than the norm, was one of the three or four best of the last 30 years. The one we had did not disappoint Open for about an hour before serving, the the rim was somewhat browned, but the bulk of the wine was absolutely brick red. And, the heavy fruit often found in a young CDP was gone. Yes, there was some fruit, but the spice and earth tones predominated. I think we got the timing just about right. This wine was both as easy drinking as could be with layered complexity. So, how

Some grapes love heat. Pinot Noir is not one of them. Its thin skins and frankly finicky personality make it temperamental at best. It loves cooler days and being enveloped by fogs in the eventings and mornings. In the US, probably no area is known more for its Pinot Noir than Willammette Valley in Oregon. Running mostly to the southwest of Portland and not far from the capital city of Salem, the valley is noted for being wedged among the various mountains of the area and close enough to the Paciific Ocean to get the cooling breezes. Many of the homes in the area don't have air conditioning as there would be at most a few days per year when you would need it and even then, that's only for a few hours per day. And, then came the very early summer of 2021. Temperatures in the area got as high as 116F/47C. That is just brutal. It was fully 40F/22C higher than normal for the area for late June. Those poor grapes. Just as many others do, when winemakers plan their growing seasons an

I have some good news for you if you like complex wines that are food-friendly and ageworthy. The 2016 vintage of Brunello di Montalcino may be the finest ever to come out of Montalcino. The bad news is that if you buy some and you don't lay it down for at least another 5 years, you are wasting a potentially life-altering, at least in terms of wine, experience. To understnad this, let's take our travel to a new level of imagination. While we have taken many vicarious plane trips on this journey, today, we are going to go back in time to 2016 and travel to Montalcino. In the heart of Tuscany in the province of Siena, we're going to go through Rome to get there. Upon exiting our private Airbus 330 that we flew today, we are greeted by an absolutely gorgeous late spring day. The sun is shining, the weather is warm, but not oppressively hot and there is a gentle breeze. Each of the four of us is picked up by separate drivers as we are each taking the trip north in Ferraris.  As