Monastero Suore Cistercensi S.O. Trappiste
Coenobium
2006
12.5% alc.
IGT
Lazio, Italy

Coenobium. What a strange word for a wine label. What does it mean? The word is taken from the Greek “coinos ,” meaning “common,” and “bios,” meaning “life.” It refers to a community of monks or cenobites living in the same house under one authority. Yep, a monastery—in this case, the sisters of the Cistercian order who reside in Vitorciano, in the Lazio region, one hour north of Rome. The primary grape of this wine is verdicchio, a grape far more prevalent in the white wines of neighboring March than outside Rome. Verdicchio generally produces clean crisp wines. Supplemented by small amounts of the savory grechetto, the highly scented malvasia and trebbiano, Coenobium is a wine of unemphatic flavor. The 2006 vintage has a pale gold core, with aromas primarily of beeswax and chrysanthemum. The palate came dry, with crisp acidity, medium body and alcohol, yielding flavors of apple skin, vanilla, quince, mango and clementine. This is a wine of elegant, simple charm, made so by the assistance of Giampero Bea, who designed the distinctively informal label, a mark of the Bea brand. And what might you eat with Coenobium? I had a simply perfect pasta dish courtesy of Alice Waters’ vegetable cookbook. Take casarecci and toss it with pesto, toasted walnuts and sauteed julienned zucchini. Pax vobiscum.  

Dom. Weinbach
Clos des Capucins
Sylvaner Réserve
2006
13% alc.
Alsace, France

This note is not written for the serious Alsatian wine drinker. He’ll already be familiar with the domaine’s superb riesling, pinot gris and gerwürztraminer cuvées. Less well known and sought after is the Sylvaner Réserve from the Clos des Capucins, a walled vineyard site containing a villa, formerly a Franciscan Capuchin monastery confiscated by the government during the French Revolution and now owned by the Faller family, mother and daughters. The property sits in the town of Kayersberg, not far from Colmar in Alsace. The soils of the Clos, which lies at the bottom of the Schlossberg Hill, tend toward gravel over mostly sand, granite and alluvium. Throughout most of Alsace, only the eccentric give the sylvaner grape any serious treatment. Which is a pity, because sylvaner has high acidity and good body—just not an overabundance of character. One thinks of a showgirl, for some reason. In the best vineyards, however, the grape can—like the best showgirls—excite. With the the Faller family, sylvaner achieves a bit of a thrill. The 2006 vintage has a pale straw core yielding a medium intense aroma of beeswax, pear and musk. This not quite full-bodied wine showed pronounced flavors of pear skin, starfruit, applesauce and lemon. The wine’s high acidity gave it long length with a lemony pear finish. This wine had a balanced straightforward palate, with a fair amount of concentrated flavors. Fresh. Attractive. Accessible. And well-priced. Drinks well young, but will last nicely for two or three years. Have it as an aperitif. Pair it with fish. Importer: Vineyard Brands. $24.00. 1/9/09.

Joseph Hofer
Zirbenz
Stone Pine Liqueur
35% alc.
Steiermark, Austria

Zirbenz is an artisanal eau-de-vie distilled from the fruit of the Arolla Stone Pine, a tree found high up in the Austrian alpine states of Steiermark and Carinthia. The liqueur is produced by Joseph Hofer, whose family has owned the distillery since 1797. According to the Zirbenz website (www.zirbenz.com), the Arolla Stone Pine, known as the “Queen of the Alps,” is revered by mountaineers for its role in hindering avalanches, and its fruit that has been the symbol of vitality and immortality since Roman times. To harvest it, “mountaineers must climb up through dense branches to reach the fruit. When ripe in early july, the fruit exhibits a brillant reddish hue and sweet pine floral essence captured in Zirbenz.”

The website further suggests that Zirbenz makes a perfect after-dinner drink. Hmmm. At a pre-Christmas dinner, I tried it on my Manhattan guests, none of whom I’d characterize as mountaineers, but most of whom are inveterate cocktail drinkers. In the glass, it had a pretty coral color. All agreed that the initial, ferocious bite—like “swallowing horse nettles,” said one—softened after about 45 minutes, leaving a smooth palate of pronounced flavors of pine, rosemary and orange peel. The assessments were wildly ambivalent. Guest A called it “frontier Cointreau”; Guest B, “I love it . . . as long as I have a lot of chocolate cookies in my mouth”; Guest C, “a Christmas tree in a glass”; Guest A, “an alcoholic pine cone rolling across the tongue”; Guest D, “It makes you want to wear a blond pig-tail wig and yodel”; another, “extreme tanginess.” All would have preferred Zirbenz mixed in a cocktail. The website offers at least two dozen recipes. Conclusion: Exhilaratingly eccentric. The liqueur, not the drinker. Importer: Haus Alpenz USA. $26.00 (375 ml). 12/22/08.

Királyudvar
Tokaji Furmint (Sec)
2006
12.5% alc.
Tokaj, Hungary

From the 16th through 18th centuries, Tokaji sweet white wines were among the most sought-after wines in the courts of Europe. The Tokaj region’s position in the northeast foothills of the Carpathian mountains, along the Tiza and Bodrog rivers, combines with the early autumn rains and long Indian summers to make viticulture ideal for the production of botrytis cinerea, the fungus responsible for creating lush dessert wines such as those found in Sauternes or Quarts de Chaume. The harvest is late. The soils are heavily volcanic, lending lots of minerality to the wines.

By the mid-20th century, however, the vineyards languished because of the devastating effects of phylloxera and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian court, its organizing patron, followed by the Second World War. The Soviet occupation only exacerbated the wines’ declining reputation, with exception, as the government encouraged quantity over quality. After the Iron Curtain’s fall, private money flocked to the Tokaj to revitalize its vineyards and restore the impressiveness of its wines.

Királyudvar means “King’s Court.” In 1999, Anthony Hwang, a private investor, restored the Királyudvar estate and its deep cellars—tunnels carved into stone. He created a state-of-the-art press room and temperature-controlled storage facilities. Along with his Lapis asuzú, a single vineyard dessert wine, the winery produces two late harvest wines, a demi-sec and a sec.

Sweet Tokaji azusú wines are the blend of primarily furmint, hárslevelü, which is a native Magyar grape, and muscat blanc à petite grains. The sec and demi-sec wines are made from overripe furmint and hárslevelü grapes after the asuzú berries, or those corrupted by botrytis and destined for the sweet wines, have been picked. While most Tokaj dry wines are fermented in stainless steel, the 2006 Királyudvar sec, blended from 70 percent furmint and 30 percent hárslevelü, was fermented in Hungarian oak. Furmint, with its wheat-gold color and high acidity, is the leading grape in Tokaji blended wines. Hárslevelü lends smoothness and spiciness to the blend. After fermentation, the wine is aged 6 months in 5 hl. Hungarian oaks barrels.

The 2006 Királyudvar sec vintage showed a pale gold color with a moderate intense aroma of tarragon, peaches, mango, baked apples and lime. The high acidity of this full-bodied wine matched well against its medium alcohol. The length was long with a citrus finish. The mouth feel had a densely woven texture and delightful viscosity. I found this wine to be a serious dry white wine that should continue to drink well for another three to five years. For $22.00, it couldn’t have been a better-value companion for the Chilean sea bass, wild brown rice and salad of frisee and green beans that I had with it. Importer: Robert Chadderdon Selections. 12/16/08.

Claude Courtois
Racines
2005
12.5% alc.
Loir-et-Cher, Fr.

Claude Courtois is an eccentric French producer whose wines are fashionable in chic Paris restaurants and bars. He makes singular wines in the Loir-et-Cher, a northeastern outpost in the Loire Valley, where serious viticulture had been declining for quite some time but is now producing interesting wines. The label of the 2005 Racines, with its artfully primitive sketch on the front of a vine with its roots (Fr. “racines”) prominently displayed under the sun and, on the back, a delicate little sketch of a rustic scene (wooded pond, rowboat and hare) reflects a place Courtois calls “Les Cailloux – Le Paradis” (“Rock of Paradise”) in Sologne. Courtois’ vineyards rest on arid stony soil under clay. The grand cuvée Racines is a Bordeaux-style assemblage of cabernet franc, cot (malbec) and cabernet sauvignon. These grapes typically are produced in the Loire, but this vin de table is not a typical Loire blend.

If you open the 2005 vintage now, allow a little aeration to let the high firm tannins soften and the taut palate round out a bit. Initially, you’ll encounter a complex pleasurable aroma of clove, dark cherries, leather, plum and blackcurrants. On the palate, this dry, concentrated wine had appealing flavors of tea, orange peel, plum, cinnamon, tar and earth that gave way to more noticeable fruit flavors as it opened. The length was long and the finish had a slight anise note. You can see—that is, you can taste—how this hearty, balanced, reasonably priced wine is popular among the Parisian wine drinking cognoscenti. It’s available here, and you should make an effort to find it. Importer: World Wide Wines, Ltd. (Jenny & Francois Selections). $27.00. 12/8/08.