Oeno Files

"Drive-by" suggests short reviews -- get-in, get-out, take-no-prisoners, just-the-facts-mame -- although I do reserve the option to tell a story, provide some context, have fun.

Let me start down-market with Pinot Grigio and with a story. My sense is that most folks understand that pinot grigio is some watery, forgettable plonk, and they might know it as some forgettable plonk from the northeast of Italy. My own experience with pinot grigio started in northeastern Italy. In Venice. As a graduate student, I spent four summers visiting the archives in Venice. I didn't know anything about the local wine, but I was interested to see that local shops would sell wine fresco. You just walk in there with your own bottle, and they will dispense it from large glass casks for (what was then) about a $1.35. I sampled everything: the always watery tocai, the very robusto refosco, and other wines. Most of the stuff was fresh and light, and, for me, fresh and light on a humid evening was just fine.

I found myself favoring the pinot grigio, and it really was grigio ("gray"). It had a hint of color, or, at least, a shadow of something.

Not so the stuff I would find in shops here. After I moved to Washington, DC, I was pleased to find pinot grigio on the shelves of any half-interesting wine shop, but my pleasure ended there. All the Italian stuff was just headache-inducing plonk that would run for $10 or more. Since then, however, I've discovered, like many folks, that some stuff comes out of Oregon. So, at last ...

... The Take-no-prisoners account:

Adelsheim Pinot Gris (Willamette Valley, Oregon): Expensive and miserable and forgettable but for the "expensive and miserable" part. I'd be annoyed to pay $10 for a bottle. I was more annoyed to have experimented with a purchase more like $20. Subsequently, a fellow at the Calvert Woodley (Washington, DC) suggested trying it, because "Everyone talks about it," but I had already had my independent (and unfortunate) experience. Thinking about it gives me headache.

Elk Cove Pinot Gris (Willamette Valley, Oregon): I've seen it priced in Washington for something approaching $20. If one is going to spend $20 on a pinot grigio/gris, I'd go with Elk Cove. Schneider's (Washington, DC) used to carry it a few years ago, but since then I've only stumbled upon it at the Calvert Woodley.

Beringer Pinot Grigio: $6! At Safeway! And it's not bad! You can definitely use a little bit of it in your risotto and enjoy sipping it with your friends in the kitchen while you're trading duties stirring the pot ...

From my friend-once-removed (which means I think highly of him but have not met him personally, having only worked with his wife for a brief spell) The Wine Commonsewer comes this review of Rosemount Orange Vineyard 2002 Merlot:

The '02 Rosemount is Aussie by birth. Although I would not describe the wine as having Big Fruit, It is a pretty decent medium bodied Merlot with an earthy feel and a taste of black fruit and light oak. There is also a bit of astringency at first and decanting may help with that (although TWC did not decant it). You should be able to find it for around $10.00 US and at that price it is a relative bargain.

Pointers like this are quite helpful, as I generally can't be bothered to taste a lot of merlots, and get annoyed when I encounter an inexpensive one that is too thin, or can't stand up to food, etc.

In Friday's Wall Street Journal, wine writers Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher wrote about ordering wine in restaurants that you can't buy in a shop (subscription required). In particular, they highlighted one of our favorite wines, Navarro Gewurztraminer:

Consider Navarro Vineyards Gewürztraminer. We love the spicy, unique taste of Gewürz, and Navarro routinely makes one of America's best. We celebrated our daughter Media's 18th birthday at New York's Le Cirque restaurant last month. The wine list was huge and filled with some reasonably priced wines and a lot of famous wines that cost thousands of dollars. Amid all of these, Dottie spied Navarro's 2004 Gewürz for $55, the best buy on the list. We ordered it to go with the seafood-heavy tasting menu Media selected, and it was excellent -- dry, spicy and filled with personality. We felt so lucky to have it because we knew that we'd rarely see it in a store.

Deborah Cahn, who owns Navarro with her husband, Ted Bennett, says the winery makes about 1,900 cases of the Gewürz. Most is sold directly from the winery to consumers, and about 500 cases go to restaurants. The winery doesn't sell to retailers (except a tiny amount to a few old friends). Why? "I think all of our wines show better with food. They are meant to have with a meal. So for us, selling to restaurants that we like to eat in is almost a form of advertising, because it introduces the wine to people who otherwise wouldn't have a chance to come to the Anderson Valley to try our wines." By the way, the Gewürz sells for $18 at the winery, which means the markup at Le Cirque was about three times retail. But we're not complaining. It's sure cheaper than a plane ticket to California.

We've been keeping notes on our tastings, but haven't had the time to enter them here; we're about a dozen bottles behind!

One of the bottles from our cellar, the Preston Vineyards 1999 Barbera. Here are the varietal notes for the 2004 release.

The color is purple with a slight brown twinge, as you might expect for an 8-year-old wine. The nose is black pepper, earth, tart currant, and a little bit of green pepper. Not a lot of tannins.

In the mouth the wine had a big foretaste and almost nothing at the back of the mouth. In the middle there was a lot of acid, which balanced the wine and made it work well with food. Interestingly, broccoli brought out more fruit in the taste.

Barbera tends to be a thin wine, and when young it can be quite tannic (especially Barbera d'Alba from Italy). Given that, this is a nicely-balanced wine that has aged well. Preston typically recommends 10 years as the aging potential of their barberas, so drinking this one at 8 years was a good choice.

Another Preston from the cellar, this time the Carignane from 2003 (although the web notes are for 2004).

Carignane is a tricky grape; it can make pretty mediocre wine if not grown carefully. It is often blended with other Rhone varietals. Preston's notes indicate the care that they take with the grape:

Carignane has a reputation for large crops--that's why early farmers planted it. But treated with respect, sensitivity, and conservative production practices this grape makes wines of sophistication, complexity and power. Our vines look like small trees, tall with upreaching arms, and are trained the old way--no trellis wires. Crops are small, partly due to the age of the vines, partly the devigorating clay soils, partly to our severe pruning that favors canopy growth over fruit production.

The nose of the 2003 starts subdued, basically tannin and alcohol. Over time as it opened up, the nose got more tree-like (i.e., vegetal but not grassy) and smoky.

The taste upon first opening was well-balanced, not too acidic at all, with nice red fruit. In the fruit cherry was dominant but not the only fruit note. There was also a perfumey floral note in the taste that diminished over time. It had a dry, nice aftertaste with tannin. As it opened up the fruit diminished over time.

We drank it with lamb, which brought out a smoky mustiness in the taste. After we finished eating, the fruit flavors were richer and more subdued, more like dried fruit than fresh fruit. The tannin and acid characteristic of the varietal were still present.

As with the other quirky varietals at Preston, they grow the grapes and make the wine with great care, resulting in an unusual, interesting, and good wine.

Murphy Goode's Liar's Dice Zinfandel is a good, reliable, good-value-for-money zin (I think we paid $15.99). Typically it has nice cherry fruit, raspberry jam, and currant (as noted in their notes). We've never visited, but they are in the northern bend of the Russian River, north of Alexander Valley Road in Sonoma County, north of Healdsburg. One of the most delightful places in the world, and a good place to grow zinfandel.

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate has this to say about the 2004:

This is a juicy, exuberantly-styled Zin from the reliable Murphy-Goode Winery. A very good value, the 2004 Zinfandel Liar’s Dice (16,000 cases produced) possesses a conservative (for currant day Zinfandels) alcohol percentage of 14.5. Its deep ruby color is followed by big, juicy, extroverted aromas of black cherries, earth, underbrush, pepper, and Provencal spices. It possesses loads of character, a full-bodied palate, terrific fruit purity, and a lovely, savory texture. Drink it over the next 2-4 years. Score: 89.

Our bottle had a deep purple-red color, and the nose had tannin, cinnamon, pepper, and hints of eucalyptus-y spice. The fruit note on the nose was more generic, and a little bit raisiny.

The first taste was typical zin -- big, fruity (as noted in the Parker review), and not very acidic. It was also quite tannic, but the type of tannin that would oxidize off over time. Where our experience starts to diverge from Parker's is that we found the fruit not to be particularly lush, but to be more resin-y.

It softened and the fruit developed as it opened and we drank more of it; in particular, the cherry fruit developed. It was still more resin-y than I would be led to believe from the Parker review. With food the cherry fruit also dominated.

All in all, we thought that we had liked Liar's Dice better in past vintages. In particular I prefer a more lush and less resin-y zinfandel style, so the persistent resin notes in this vintage didn't rock my world. But it's still a good wine and good value for money.