Clos de la Siete 2009 (Michel Rolland)

This is a luscious, full-bodied wine (50% Malbec, 30% Merlot, 10/10 Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah) from Mendoza with a rich, ripe, perfumed nose of deep luscious black fruit, a very intense palate of dark fruit, very balanced tannin and acidity, and long finish with more dark rich ripe fruit. Great with steak. Powerful.

Mazzocco 2009 Dry Creek Pony Vineyard,

Very lush and rich, with fragrance of jam, black cherry, and violet and jammy palate with additional flavors of ripe fig and spice. Technical data points to deep clay/loam soil and that the grapes were hand-harvested and fermented with native yeast in stainless steel tanks - aged unfined for 18 months in french oak barrels. 14.8% alcohol, 12 RS

Aurielle 2008

A very smooth and well balanced California cab marked with "restraint" in terms of keeping med+ acid, smooth tannins, richly concentrated fruit in balance. The use of oak is only apparent from its benefit in terms of giving oxygen to the wine (new french oak and used). Lots of Bordeaux cherry, some zesty cranberry, and interesting layers of flavor.
 

N.V. Pommery Champagne POP Earth (France, Champagne)

bubbles: gorgeous, fast moving, tiny ... beautiful to behold
nose: med+ intensity, brioche, toasty, very delicious
palate: dry ... seems like at least under five grams/litre RS, possible just 2 or 3, acid is med tannin is low body is med alc is 12 estimate finish is med with minerals, citrus notes, hazelnut skin ...

Style note: The gorgeous light gold color, fountain of bubbles, and aroma make a gorgeous presentation. The palate is medium bodied with citrus as well as brioche and baked apple. Good with dessert. By Josh Raynolds
Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar, December 2009
(NV Pommery Pop Earth Brut) ($55; made from sustainably grown grapes; L91870) Bright yellow with a strong bead. Orange rind and green apple aromas are straightforward and fresh. Juicy orchard fruit flavors become drier in the middle palate and pick up a hint of white pepper. Pleasantly bitter and refreshing, with good finishing clarity, spiciness and a slightly hard edge. This wine has a dosage of 10 g/l, which is far lower than that of the other current Pop bottlings. 87 points

Wilson Winery Carl's Vineyard 2009 Zinfandel

Interesting story about this spicy delicious Zinfandel ... the vineyard is named after Ken Wilson's father, an electrical engineer ... a vineyard named after his mother, Dorothy, is nearby. The wine is very well made, medium-bodied yet rich and extremely well balanced at the same time, with layers of flavor and a medium + finish. Perfect with grilled lamb.

596 Cases, $34

2009 Black-Sears Vineyard Zinfandel Howell Mountain V. Sattui Vineyard

Coming from the highest vineyard in the Howell Mountain sub appellation, this gets more sunlight yet has cooler mountain air, so the wine is full and rich yet has bracing acidity and a long finish. The rocky porous volcanic soils provide excellent drainage.

Winemaking: Grapes de-stemmed without crushing the berries, fermented in stainless steel, racked to French oak barrels and aged for 18 months. Only 329 cases produced $42. Wine is extremely well balanced without being too jammy, very elegant with lots of finesse. $42

2009 Crow Ridge Vineyard Zinfandel Russian River, V. Sattui Vineyard

White chalk soil from volcanic ash deposits is one of the more unique aspects of the terroir. The wine is very old world in style, with excellent balance, med+ acidity, and med+ length. Aged 18 months in 20% new American oak and 70% new and seasoned French/American oak. 727 cases produced. Delicious. $37.

2009 Quaglia Vineyard Zinfandel St. Helena V. Sattui Vineyard

This plot used to be where Italian growers planted "field blends" and you can still detect some Petite Sirah and Carignane in this delicious spicy wine. This was barrel-aged for 18 months in both new and seasoned American and French oak barrels. 446 cases produced. $39.

Curious about what wine to bring for Thanksgiving dinner?

The most important consideration is to find a good "food wine" -- especially wines that will pair well with thanksgiving foods like turkey and sweet potatoes that also have that elusive quality of "balance."

Below are three wines, a white and two reds, that you can find in a store near you that have incredible balance and can pair nicely with your holiday meal.

Suavia Soave Clasico DOC 2009 Veneto, Italy

"Very mineral rich!" said the man at the next table, helping himself to a glass of the Soave I brought to a popular BYOB restaurant in Manhattan. The gentleman in question was actually a VIP in the wine business, and in actuality we were exchanging wines in true wine lovers' fashion.

Yet he was right about the minerality of this wine ... the soils are volcanic and the wine shows a definitive sense of terroir. You will find ripe peach fruit on the palate and high acidity and finish of more minerals and lemon zest. Grapes are 95% Garganega and 5% Trebbiano di Soave (Verdicchio). Grapes are hand harvested and fermented for 15 days in stainless steel vats - no malolactic fermentation.

Quivira 2009 Mouvedre from Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma

"Very elegant and delicate!" says my companion, taking her first sip of this wine. "I always thought it was deep and brooding ... like it is in France and Spain," said a friend, sharing a bottle of this wine with me at a trendy restaurant. Though Dry Creek in Sonoma County can be a hot area, this grape fits in well with the warm, dry Mediterranean climate. The wine has a soft, supple spicy character that goes well with a wide variety of food, including lamb though being a "red wine with fish" sort of person I thought it paired very well with salmon. A unique style that will change whatever your thoughts are about what most people think of as a rustic grape.

Wilson Winery Ellie's Old Vine Vineyard 2009 Zinfandel

Really delicious wine - very pleasantly surprised by the intense red cherry high notes and refreshing, lightweight texture of this wine which resembled a top cru Burgundy more than a heavy, saturated California Zinfandel. Its elegance may be attributed to the old vines, or perhaps the "Mollisol" soil which is said to contain abundant organic matter in the topsoil and subsurface layers. The nose had notes of cherries, spice, cloves, and cola and the palate intense cherry fruit and well-integrated oak (it was aged in American and French barrels for 18 months).

Only 590 Cases are produced, $34.

Want to see how sommeliers pair wine in the UK? Click here to read my article on Palatepress.com

Some excellent wines this week, an assortment of reds and whites from around the globe. Though diverse as a group, what unites them is their distinctive terroir.

Terrezas de los Andes
Reserva Malbec 2009

I visited this winery in Argentina last year and happy to have the chance to review it again, this time paired with a variety of dishes at The Modern. The winery has been around since 1960 under "Bodegas Chandon" and 1997 was the first commercial vintage under the Terrezas de los Andes label.

The wine, with its purple opaque color and intense fruit notes of black cherry, raspberry, blackberry, and spice, paired very well with steak, especially with its med+ acidity and tannins. The vanilla notes from Barrel aging provided elegance and made this a fabulous food wine - especially for its under $15 price.

The Climber 2010
Red Wine from Clif Family Winery

Social climber? Vines that climb? Curious name yet a very good wine from the people behind Clif Bar & Company, headed by winemakers Bruce Regalia and Sarah Gott.

This wine is a blend of five varietals ... not a "Bordeaux" blend but Zinfandel based, so you know it is spicy. Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon round it all out, along with Petit Sirah and Merlot. It's a fruit driven wine with lush blackberries and cherries, along with seductive vanilla touches from barrel aging. A bargain at $14.00.

Kit's Killer Cab 2008
Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

Intense black cherry on the nose and palate, and incredible balance of deeply concentrated fruit, oak, tannin, and refreshing acidity are the hallmark of this top tier wine from winemakers Bruce Regalia and Sarah Gott.

It's a rich, succulent wine that demands rich, succulent fair ... of course, it works well with lamb and steak, yet can  work for "pescatorians" who like red wine with fish by adjusting the weight of the sauce and manner of cooking. The Cabernet Sauvignon fruit comes from an alluvial fan on Ritchie Creek in Calistoga, and the 8% Merlot and 8% Malbac comes from a vienyard along the Napa River. Only 250 cases produced $38.

Craggy Range Sauvignon Blanc 2010
Martinborough, New Zealand

This wine, sourced from several exclusive parcels of vines growing on a stony, limestone influenced soil adjacent to the Huangarua River in Martinborough, New Zealand, is remarkable as it is unlike most 'generic' fruit-driven Sauvignon Blanc wines from Martinborough on the market. Almost like an expensive Chablis, one can sense the minerality and long racy finish.  Great for delicate dishes like sole. $21.99.

Craggy Range Chardonnay 2010
Hawke's Bay, New Zealand

Delicious and elegant wine that comes from the exclusive Kidnappers Vineyard in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand,. It is a cool yet sunny environment alllowing the development of  the subtle yet elegant flavors one usually associates with the mineral-rich, high acidity Chablis region of France.  $21.99

When you think of sparkling wine, what comes to mind? Champagne with its limestone soils? California sparklers with their bright sunny flavors?

How about sipping a sparkler from an ancient land, with vines grown on a site filled with concentric circles. Archeologists believe this area was used as an ancient calendar and that the alignments of rocks may have been used to determine the dates of the equinox and special ceremonies. 

This Israeli sparkling wine, Gilgal Brut, is made from a blend of 50% Chardonnay and 50% Pinot Noir grown in the cool climate of the Golan Heights. Produced in the classic Champagne method, it is aged for a minimum of one year in the bottle on the yeast.

Beyond the exotic story of its vines, the wine reveals bright lemon notes nuanced with characters of crisp green apples and pears, fresh flowers, and hints of wild strawberries from the pinot noir

Really fabulous wine for any occasion ... gorgeous rose color, charred bread on the nose ... Elegant sparkler in the french style with crisp acidity, a long finish, and gorgeous color and aroma.

Perhaps one of the greatest strengths of the new technology is the ability to host 'tasting webinars' for wine education.

Recently Jacob's Creek invited key participants to meet the winemakers and taste five wines, including their 2009 Jacob's Creek Reserve Pinot Noir from the Adelaide Hills, their 2009 Jacob's Creek Reserve Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon, their 2008 Jacob's Creek Reserve Barossa Shiraz 2008, their Jacob's Creek Reserve Barossa Dry Riesling 2010, and finally, their Jacob's Creek Reserve Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 2009.

The webinar represented a great way for people -- in this case, journalists, though the technology can be for the trade or consumers, the ability to ask questions about a wine.

For example, many journalists, upon tasting a wine, would love to have the winemaker right there to answer questions about yeast, terroir, the way different plots are mixed, and vintage conditions.

In the coming weeks look forward to each of these wines featured in tasting notes, with some facts from the winemakers included in the discussion.
 

2010 Bodegas Julián Chivite Navarra Gran Feudo Rosado

style note: Soft, fragrant nose of intense sweet cherry leads to med bodied wine with racy acidity, minerality, and pure cherry fruit. Pair with salads.

Naked Wine by Alice Feiring
Reviewed by Marisa D'Vari

In this colorful narrative vaguely similar to Kermit Lynch’s Adventures on the Wine Route, Alice Feiring tackles “natural wine,” currently one of the hottest subjects in the wine world. Most people think that like buying the freshest produce in a greenmarket, the more natural the wine, the better. Yet many respected wine critics are against natural wine, and even some winemakers famed for their natural winemaking practices agree there may be limits to how “natural” a wine should go.

So what is natural wine, anyway? Basically, it refers to any wine made with natural yeast and a minimum of outside chemicals, including sulfur. Sulfur is a naturally occurring byproduct of the fermentation process. The problem is that in the past, producers across the globe have been too liberal in its use, adding a surplus of sulfur to keep oxygen and bacteria from spoiling the wine. Today – outside of large-scale commercial wineries, this is changing slowly due to the ‘natural wine’ movement.

Naked Wine centers on Alice Feiring’s journey to discover for herself and her audience the viability of a truly natural wine. Beyond prohibiting (or lessening) the use of sulfur, ‘natural wine’ to Feiring means letting grapes ‘do what comes naturally.’ This means no additions of any kind, even water to lower the potential alcohol of a wine grown in a hot region.

This narrative dramatizes Feiring’s quest to see, through her own winemaking experiments and in conversations with other winemakers, it is possible to make a natural wine. In the end, she ultimately discovers that the natural wine issue is not truly black or white.

The story opens as Feiring is presented with the opportunity of making her own natural wine in California, as in the past she had blasted the state for wine that is “overripe, over-manipulated, and overblown.” She is to make her own wine, in its own tank, from the tannic Sagrantino grape in Sonoma County under the guidance of a seasoned winemaking friend.

With enthusiasm, Feiring hand picks the grapes, drives the forklift that takes the grapes to the de-stemming machine, and begins to stomp the grapes with her bare feet over several days to start the fermentation process. The work is harder than anticipated, yet the wine ultimately begins to ferment. The only glitch is that Feiring wanted to make a low alcohol wine like the French wine she prefers, and the brix (sugar level) is so high her winemaking friend advises her to add 10 gallons of water to reduce the potential alcohol.

The very idea of ‘altering’ her hard-won natural wine with something as simple as water is deeply disturbing to Feiring, and drama ensues when she discovers that her friend performed this necessary task for her. The California experience seems to demonstrate that as much as one tries to be completely natural, winemakers are faced with situations like this (high alcohol) that force them to weigh the benefits of intervention.

Feiring then goes on an adventure in search of natural winemakers, both famous and those just starting out, to discuss the natural wine movement. First she travels to France to meet with pioneer Nicolas Joly, whom she calls the ‘Deepak Chopra” of wine dynamics. Joly made a name for himself in the 80’s by returning to his family’s winery after working a banker, and being one of the first to embrace biodynamics (winemakers treating the farm as a cohesive, interconnected living system).

Feiring is with Joly to judge wine for Joly’s Renaissance group, which awards stars to wines they accept in their traveling show. The basic entry requirements include no synthetic chemicals allowed in the vineyard, and no allowance for genetically modified or aromatic yeasts.

During the tasting, Feiring felt many producers misunderstood the requirements, as many wines from Germany reeked of what seemed to be factory-created yeast (versys indigenous) and excess sulfur, and some of the California Pinots tasted out of balance and overripe. When one California winemaker learned he did not make the cut, he retorted: “I had not known the group was looking for bacteria-ridden wines that were so natural six bottles out of twelve had to be thrown out. I don’t make that kind of wine. I have a business to run!”

And with that statement, the California winemaker reveals the crux of the natural wine controversy. In the course of this book, one discovers that it does seem possible to make natural wine, without any additions, in a perfect vintage with excellent terroir. The challenge is that few winemakers have the luxury of producing wine only in perfect vintages, and face tumultuous economic risks unless they can take some preventative measures (using a little sulfur, adding water, etc) to save the wine from heat, rain, rot, etc. In the course of Feiring’s many interviews with small ‘natural’ winemakers, many whispered in apologetic tones about how they had to add sulfur or risk losing the vintage … clearly feeling some shame in doing so.

Feiring’s colorful story introduces the reader to vibrant, real-life characters such as famed winemakers Nicolas Joly and Eric Texier, as well as the small, dedicated, winemakers we may never meet or even hear of, such as American Matt Kling and Amy Lillard, who moved to the Rhone Valley after meeting at Kermit Lynch’s wine store in Berkeley. Definitely recommended for readers who enjoy learning more about winemakers, the art of making wine, and the intricacies of the natural wine movement.

Naked Wine: Letting Grapes do What Comes Naturally, by Alice Feiring
Da Capo Press $24
ISBN 978-0-306 81953-7

Fabulous evening last night at the Leopard at des Artistes! Very 'old school' Italian in terms of the elegance of service, with fish deboned tableside. Bar was ... interesting  ... and is someplace I would definately go when I am in the mood to jot down character studies for a new book or screenplay.

When we arrived, one darkly handsome, well dressed man (bow tie, jacket, pocket hankerchief)  informed us he was "time traveling." Two women sat at a table in the bar area, eating salads very slowly.

Our table, pictured above beneath the famous mural, was quite nice. Our unofficial host for the eventing, Italian by birth and in the wine trade, ordered all the wine: Regolo Sartori Rosso Veronese di Ripasso from the heart of Valpolicella Classico region (the same as Amarone), Castello Banfi Belnero, Banfi's Proprietor's selection of Sangiovese from their Brunello Vinyard that is elegant and expresses their terroir and our winemaking philosophy.

The cuisine was very good and fresh - I liked the portion size (tiny) and can see why the prices are considered high, given the attention and quality of each dish. Overall, a very positive experience.