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Feast of St. Amand (d. 679). Monk. Hermit. Abbot. His association with vintners originates from his preaching and teaching in the beer and wine regions of France, Flanders and Germany.
Birth of James Busby. Born in Scotland, Busby was a viticulturist, writer and public servant, known as the “Father of the Australian Wine Industry.” Took first collection of vine stock from Spain and France in the 1830s to Australia. Australian Chardonnay and Shiraz trace their origins to his vine imports.
Wine and prosperity flow along on the same current of joy. A recent Wall Street Journal story by Laura Santini reports that Hong Kong has become an international wine hub, thanks to the growing appreciation of wine and luxury accompanying the new Chinese economy. (Hong Kong is now Sotheby’s leading wine-auction market.) The city has seen an especially large uptick in business because of the elimination of a 40 percent tax on wine imports (it’s 43 percent on the mainland). The preferred bottle to cement and celebrate a business deal? The 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, which sells for roughtly $5,000 in Hong Kong. Although local wine experts suspect a lot of it is counterfeit. 12/5/09.
A memory from a few, very cold days spent in Alsace. One afternoon we left Strasbourg for a drive through the small vineyard towns to the south. Frigid air, intermittent sun, fields mostly brown and, one might think, shivering beneath a light blanket of old snow. Andrew Wyeth in France. This vineyard was just outside Ribeauvillé.
Here are a few wines I’ve had recently, worth letting you in on …
Sextant
2007
12.8% alc.
Bourgogne
St. Aubin, France
This is an unusual pale-gold Burgundian chardonnay—something of a chameleon. After opening it, I encountered initial aromas of moss, bark and bay leaves. There were rear-palate flavors of clove, lemon, grapefruit, cinnamon and crisp apple. The wine’s high acidity gave it a long length. Later, however, the nose deepened, giving off whiffs of lilac. The flavors on the palate moved to the front and were less fruity, while leaving a creamier, sensual mouthfeel. As if Gigi grew into a fetching courtesan in a matter of hours. Importer: Savio Soares Selecions. $19.00
Andreas Baron Widman
Sudtiroler
Vernatsch
2008
12.5%
Alto Adige, Italy
Schiva. In the UK, it is Black Hamburg. The Germans call it trollinger. In Northern Italy’s South Tyrol, it is vernatsch. The vine thrives in the Tyrol with little attention. The grape is hardy, productive. Maybe that’s why the vine is popular in the flatter lands of the region. It serves as the base of many tourist wines, often blended with ligroin. But plant Schiava on the steep hillsides of the Alto Adige, prune the vine, ripen it and carefully vinify it, and a good producer can win some charm from this ordinary table grape. The 2008 vintage has a pale ruby core accompanied by pleasant aromas of tea, cranberry, orange peel and rose petals. The broad midpalate flavors of musk, dry leaves and cranberry (and a slight touch barnyard) were immediate with medium length. This medium-bodied, medium-concentrated wine had low firm tannins. Overall, the impression was of a lean, supple wine. You could drink it daily with most meals. In my house, it was a perfect accompaniment to sausages, polenta and stir-fried green beans with basil. Importer: Petit Pois Corp. $23.00.
Aziendo Agricola Bruna
u Baccan
Pigato
2007
13.5% alc.
Liguria, Italy
Ten years ago, you might find a bottle or two of a pigato from Liguria in New York. Now pigato is more prevalent here. This one is among the best. A well-structured tonic, it has a stylized peasant allure that speaks of the steep Ligurian seaside vineyards. (And who says you can’t have a stylish peasant?) In the glass, this wine sits pale gold with an appealing waxy floral aroma. The wine had a crispness that gave its medium intense flavors of ginger, pear, pine, herbs and white peaches a long length with a slight pear finish. As the wine opens, more tropical notes are revealed. Though not quite full-bodied, it had a nice rounded concentration of flavor. This is not the quaffer pigato your parents may have had at a bus stop in San Remo. And what did I eat with it? Pesto walnut pasta with yellow squash. Robert Chadderdon Selectons. $31.00.
3/1/10
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Domaine de la Tournelle
Ploussard de Montellier
2004
12.5% alc.
Arbois, France
Oh, Jura Jura Jura—what will it take for the world to appreciate your wines? The Jura is a prosaic frontier region nestled in France near the southwest border of Switzerland. It is picturesque with fruit orchards and pastures for animal grazing. You’d never really know the place unless you were a devotee of wine. No other real reason to go there. But it produces some of the most interesting and stylish wines in France, and for the quality at comparatively reasonable prices. Remarkably, even in New York, people tend to ignore these wines. I sometimes eat late at a popular downtown brasserie with a broad wine list, almost exclusively French, including two to four wines from the Jura. A waiter told me that, aside from some French tourists and the odd local customer, I was the only one he knew who actually ordered them.
The poulsard (or ploussard) from Dom. de la Tournelle is a wonderful, inexpensive pinot noir-like wine that’s quite versatile at the table. Poulsard is a large, thin-skinned grape and a specialty of the Jura. It’s grown on about 800 acres of clay and limestone at elevations slightly higher than those of the Côte d’Or. It is grown nowhere else, except Bugey, France. It produces typically an aromatic, light-colored, pale red wine. Dom. de la Tournelle’s Pascal and Evelyn Clairet, who founded the winery in 1991, grow poulsard in an eco-friendly manner on 15 acres of land. They hand-harvest the grapes, macerate them for at least a week, subject the juice to malolactic fermentation, bottle the wine without filtration or sulphur and mature it in large oak barrels for 8 to 18 months. The 2007 poulsard has a pale-salmon color flecked with copper. There were aromas of leaves, moss, earth, juniper and red fruits. This is a lean, harmonious wine with bright acidity, mildly gripping tannins, medium body and alcohol. There were lightly concentrated rear-palate flavors of tea, orange and juniper. I had this with unadorned baked bluefish and white carrots roasted in duck fat with Forelle pears. 1/27/10.
No CommentsCà de Noci
“Sottobosco”
2007
12.5% alc
Reggio Emilia, Italy
I recently gave a dinner of pork loin braised in cream and sage. (Yes, it was delish.) I could have served my guest a big, bold, upfront-flavored red, her definite preference. As the host, perhaps I should have accommodated that preference. In the name of nice-persondom I definitely should have. Oh, but what the hell—I wasn’t put on this good earth to let people coast along happily on assumptions about what they like to drink. You’ve heard of the imp of the perverse? Uncork a wine bottle, and it’s in there. I knew my guest equated fizzy red wines with cheap Riunite from her hostel-living youth. Could I upend that taste—those memories shaped by both nostalgia and college-loan poverty—with this delicious Sottobosco?
Sottobosco, from Italy’s Emilia-Romagna, is a part of the natural wine movement in modern viticulture and vinification. Out of its five hectares of rocky limestone along the Crostolo River, the brothers Masini have produced a Lambrusco-styled wine from the family Cà de Noci (“Walnut Farm”) estate. This vino di tavola comes from the blending of Lambrusco Grasparossa (30%), Lambrusco di Montericco (30%), Malbo Gentile (20%) and Sgavetta (20%), all native grapes of the region. The grapes are hand-harvested and macerated for 10 days on their stems. The frizzante is produced from natural fermentation in the bottle. The sediment is caused by the wine’s lack of filtration.
I have had the 2007 Sottobosco several times and was looking forward to testing my guest’s impressions. Well, it was not smooth sledding. As I poured the wine, which fizzles with a purple froth, my guest observed, with more dubiousness than enthusiasm: “It looks like grape soda.” On the nose I detected aromas of prune, raisin, fig, fresh cherry, coffee and smoke. Her impression was that the nose was a no-go. On the palate, this wine, like many lambruscos, was exceptionally dry with firm dusky tannins and medium body and alcohol. The acidity was high, leaving the wine with layered flavors of dried strawberry, fig, star anise and tea, and a medium bitter orange peel and chalky finish. Our guest, though, didn’t find it enjoyable enough to alter her recollections of the Lambruscos she drank decades ago in Bologna, when she was a graduate student forced to put up with the dining company of two obnoxious boys from Oxford who regarded any American who didn’t share their tastes as a clod from across the pond.
The conversation never really moved beyond that. It has since occurred to me that perhaps my guest was suggesting, unconsciously or not, that I reminded her of the Oxonians, that she felt—is it possible?—vino-bullied. But that seems so unlikely!
Anyway: These unique everyday wines from Emilia Romagna make a superlative complement to fatty dishes, meats and pastas at reasonable prices. Importer: Louis/Dressner. $22.00. 12/3/09.
No CommentsBilly received his Diploma in 2007 from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust of Great Britain. He also is an International Bordeaux Tutor, certified by the Bordeaux Wine School USA. Billy has worked as an associate for small boutique wine shops in New York City.
