Don's Gillette's Weekly Wine Blog
Weekly musings from our store's resident wine guru
Don has over thirty years experience in the wine industry. For the last eighteen years his attention has been focused on the growing local industry. Don has a large following of customers who search out his opinions (never in short supply!) on new releases and on what's currently most distinctive on our shelves. Others seek his insights on wineries and trends that are still under the radar. Check back here each week for Don's latest thoughts on various wine-related topics. Read Don's full bio...
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Tasting Notes
November 29, 2006
Welcome to our blog
This is the first installment of a new weekly feature meant in part to chronicle NVWE tastings and offer my observations on upcoming California wines. When possible, wines mentioned here will have corresponding tasting notes on the website, although much of my commentary will concern wines that are yet to be released. Some of the wines mentioned this week may be here already.
This week: three attention-grabbing producers.
Palmina - Much my favorite of the over-numerous Cal-Italian wineries: poured a vivid and authentic 05 Barbara that had me longing for intensely spiced Pizza; their 05 Mattia, a deliciously fruity/gutsy Refosco/Cab Franc/Merlot blend; their charming, exotically rich and impressively complex 03 Savoia, a truly seductive Nebbiolo/Barbera/Syrah blend; and the most flavor rich Arneis I have yet had from our state.
Drew - Make Santa Rita Hills Pinots that can seem insubstantial at first, but quickly grow in richness and class: poured 05s, including a long and stylishly feminine Ashley's; an elegant and Santanay-like Gatekeeper; and a puzzling Pinot that seemed ill-defined, if well structured (Youth?), from a new vineyard called Jalama, planted by Peter Cargasacchi on land he owns just west of the SRH appellation.
Phillips-Hill - Toby Hill poured, per my co-worker James' request: two gorgeous 100 cases production, 04 Mendocino Pinots (grown in Comptche, just outside the Anderson Valley appellation) that were previously lauded in the SF Chronicle. I loved the gutsy, aromatically lovely and youthfully zesty Oppenlander and the fruit-packed and complex Comptche Ridge. These can't miss and shouldn't be missed!
Posted by Don on November 29, 2006 2:55 PM |Permalink | TrackBacks (0)
December 11, 2006
Winter Comforts
Specificity is something I prize in wines, so is individuality. I welcome the elements that promote those traits. Freshness, focus, intensity of aroma and flavor, varietal accuracy and enchanting characteristics unique to a particular vineyard or distinctive blend impress me. Classy stuff to talk about, until it turns cold.
Some well defined wines have a narrow range. Dry Malvasia is so floral that it clashes with many foods, and it is almost exclusively a summer wine. Pinot Noir, creamy whites and red Bordeaux varietals are more versatile, and they make wonderfully successful winter wines. Even when not particularly distinctive, they can still be generous and harmonious. Comfort wines, to match winter's comfort meals.
This October, I attended a dinner at restaurant Lulu. JP, a valued customer, asked me to provide wines from NVWE to match the menu. Lulu roasted chicken and roast beef, cooked in an old fashioned wood-burning oven. I brought the newly released 2003 Amicus Meritage. Its combination of soft tannins, plush texture and darkly fruity/foresty aroma proved just the ticket. The next day I ordered 22 cases for our Holiday newsletter. It is, after all, comfort food season.
A similar logic was at work when Denise bought over fifty cases of 2003 Coyote Canyon Big Pond Pinot Noir. My own first sip brought back memories of my Mom's roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy. It is dark, rich, aromatic and supple. Yummy stuff.
Some more comfortable favorites for the coming weeks:
2004 Bommarito Cabernet: $19.95
2004 Duckhorn Decoy Meritage: $28.95
2002 Xtant Cabernet: $74.95
2003 Whitehall Lane Merlot: $25.95
2004 Hendry Block 7 Zinfandel: $28.95
2005 Sonoma Loeb Chardonnay: $26.95
2005 Flora Springs Chardonnay: $27.95
2004 Kenneth Volk Chardonnay: $33.95
2004 Heintz Sonoma Coast Chardonnay: $39.95
Posted on December 11, 2006 12:59 PM |Permalink | TrackBacks (0)
March 26, 2007
Saturday Night Special
Saturday night I cooked Prawn and Chicken Risotto, spiced with saffron and smoky Spanish paprika. I had in my cellar a bottle of 2002 Melville Clone 76 -- Inox Chardonnay, which I thought a fine match. This special Melville bottling is about pure fruit, with no oak influence at all.
Inox was born of winemaker Greg Brewer's desire to replicate the virtues of fine Chablis. Like the best of its French siblings, Greg's wine can be boldly ripe, cuttingly crisp, ultra-minerally and densely concentrated. It is a wine that will repay ageing, as great Chablis so often do.
The match was perfect. There is a synergy between crisp, minerally wines and rich shellfish. Each brings out sweetness in the other. The wine will, especially if it is without the extra richness contributed by new oak barrels, seem to grow lighter, while it makes the briny heaviness of the risotto appear lighter as well
Such strong mineral influences and crisp acidity bring a feel of hard austerity that really locks wine in for food service. Chablis is, of course, an archetype for that effect. Melville's wine can successfully replicate Chablis, but is so perfectly focused and prettily ripe that when softened a bit by age, it actually works as a sipper.
Only three years since its release, their 2002 shows cutting zest, tied to a compressed apple, dry peach, dry flower, gunflint character. My empty glass, hours later, smelled remarkably like a brilliant Zilliken Riesling from the Saar, a wine notorious for its flintiness. It is easy to see why last year Greg created Diatom, a new label of his own, just to make more wines like this one.
Posted by Don on March 26, 2007 8:50 AM |Permalink | TrackBacks (0)
April 30, 2007
Saignee -- A Blissful Bi-Product
The gentle first pressing of grapes releases the "free-run" juice, the smoothest, cleanest, prettiest fruit the grape has to offer. A firmer second pressing releases most of the remaining juice, which is - especially for red grapes - heavier, more concentrated, more flavorful and more tannic, while it lacks the finesse of the free-run juice. There is always less juice extracted from the second pressing.
Typically a winemaker blends the two lots to produce the desired result. He can also enrich the wine by subtracting some of the free-run juice, weighting the blend toward the heavier second pressing. This "bleeding off" of free-run juice is called Saignee.
Wine produced by Saignee is always more flavorful and its richness often masks its roughness, making it potentially as appealing as a softer wine made without bleeding might be. It has greater ageing potential as well and age can bring elegance. Bleeding can concentrate wine from a less than perfectly ripe year, and is always the preference of certain winemakers. The subtracted juice is expensive, so what becomes of it? In California it becomes my favorite Rose. Especially when the juice is from Grenache or Pinot Noir.
I live in San Francisco's Sunset district, and last Saturday was the first sunny and windless weekend afternoon in ages. I celebrated with a classic Spring dinner of grilled citrus-marinated chicken, Tabbouleh, and a new-potato salad made with smoked paprika mayonnaise. My opening wine was the delicious 2006 Saison des Vins Printemps Rose, and it was just perfect.
Each Spring we get just a few wines like this. I have already built dinners around the 2006 Terry Hoage "Bam Bam" Grenache Rose and the 2006 Paul Mathew Pinot Noir Rose. My next barbecue will showcase Lucia Winery's delicious 2006 "Lucy," also from Pinot. These wines are scarce, so I drink 'em while I can.
Posted by Don on April 30, 2007 5:00 AM |Permalink | TrackBacks (0)
September 24, 2007
Calibrating Carter Reds
Grand Cru Bordeaux and the best Napa Cabernets are expensive toys and some clearly cost too much, but truly great wines can make you forget what you paid.
I have frequently asserted that Carter's 2002 Tokalon Cab is the wine of its vintage until proven otherwise, and the Wine Spectator now seems ready to accept that possibility. The Spectator also loved Carter's 2004 Truchard Merlot, I agreed, and I think the 2005 Merlot is even better.
I felt that Carter's 2004 Coliseum Cab was quite possibly the wine of its vintage, and I firmly believe that the 2005 Coliseum is likely to prove even better. Carter's 2005 Tokalon Cab may also prove to be spectacular, although this vineyard always wants cellaring to fully reveal itself.
The three wines, now on the shelves, are each distinctive, yet all share a sense of scale and intensity that elevates them above the crowd.
Carter's 2005 Merlot offers the sweet ripeness of a perfect vintage, layered over a muscular structure that reminds of a great Duckhorn Three Palms. The wines most distinctive characteristic is its wonderful interplay of vivid red plum-cherry-currant-red raspberry fruit and mocha-leather-vanilla-tobacconist-shop spice notes.
The Tokalon Cab is coiled power. It is fleshy, focused and concentrated, with perfectly integrated oak, although the mouth-feel is tightened by typical "big year" Oakville firmness and minerality. Happily, the powerful structure puts no damper on the wines pervasive wild cherry and red currant fruit. This is a vineyard with a hundred-year history of worthiness and age-ability, but the stuff does take its time.
The Coliseum Cab is a younger vineyard, and it produces a more "modern" bottling, darkly fruity, massively palate-coating and at its best when it stays this side of over-ripeness. In vintages where it crosses that line, it can loose clarity and structure and varietal accuracy. The new 2005 Is massive, spectacularly ripe, perfectly focused and covers its tannins in a bath of deep cherry, plum and red rose flavors than dominate from start to finish its extravagant savory complexities.
These wines are certainly expensive, but these prices are an obstacle to the consumer, not an affront.
Posted by Don on September 24, 2007 6:49 AM |Permalink | TrackBacks (0)
December 5, 2007
Pinot Fest! [Part One]
Farallon is a fine and popular San Francisco restaurant, located in Union Square, just a few blocks from Napa Valley Winery Exchange. Each November, Farallon hosts "Pinot Fest", an invitation-only showcase of California and Oregon Pinot Noirs. It is held in Farallon's 4th floor Beluga Room.
Sommelier Pete Palmer is in charge of the event and, as he has both good taste and many friends in the trade, it is always a terrific tasting. It is also a great opportunity for NVWE staffers to revisit some of their favorite bottlings and get an early glimpse of what is on the horizon.
Old Home Week
I spent 1972 to 1979 running a wine and grocery store in Santa Barbara and some of the well-known winery personalities from that area remember me, having been customers of mine in their youth. NVWE staff are well known to the local vintners, so this event is a chance for all of us to bump into friends, and it was no particular surprise when my elbow was grabbed and my name called twice as I stepped out of the elevator to the 4th floor.
Greg Brewer and Steve Clifton were there (although I never saw Greg, in the elbow-to-elbow crowd). Steve had shown us a preview of Brewer-Clifton Spring releases the day before (a group of six brilliant 2006 Chardonnays and Pinots), so I only stopped at the BC table to chuckle at his sartorial splendor. He had abandoned his "working bloke" attire of the previous day, to look like a Parliamentarian, at Farallon.
Winemaker Vanessa Wong and her brother-in-law, Andy Peay, were pouring the outstanding Peay '05 Pinots, along with barrel samples of their, possibly even finer, 2006s. My longest and most interesting conversation was with Chad Melville, who was unveiling the 2006 Melville "Carries" and "Terraces" Pinots, both knockouts.
Solving Puzzles
At NVWE, we had been puzzled by a recently poured sample of 2006 Melville Santa Rita Hills Estate Pinot. It seemed lean, un-evolved and ungenerous to a fault, leading me to suspect an outright failure of the crop. Its pricier siblings however, proved to be dramatically spiced, ripe, concentrated and altogether spectacular.
Chad said that the Estate version had been in the pattern of the "Carries" and "Terraces" prior to bottling and that this was an especially rich vintage for the "SRH Estate". The wine has apparently just been unusually slow to recover from bottling. This level of bottle-shock is rare, but I know Chad and have now seen the quality of the Reserve wines, so we will certainly do a re-taste of the "Estate Pinot" soon.