August 2008 Wines of the Month

Freeport Cheese & Wine

August 2008

Wines of the Month

Tier One

White:

The White Knight "Clarksburg" Viognier 2006 (California) $11.99 - Viognier is such a wonderful grape and makes such a delicious wine! This is dry....zippy acidity....it's lower in alcohol than many California Viogniers (13.5% versus many that are 14.5%-15%). One of the many things I like about this wine is that it is lower in alcohol than it's CA peers - when you hit 14.5% and up in a wine, especially a Viognier, you TASTE and FEEL the alcohol....it burns and feels rough and like a hot pepper. This has aromas and flavors of apricots, nectarines, mango, lemon curd and vanilla. This is just a delicious wine for drinking on a summer day! It's versatile - drinks well with or without food. Refreshing and fun to drink!

The Clarksburg appellation covers Sacramento, Solano and Yolo Counties. This is an inland growing area that is blessed with the late afternoon cool breezes from San Francisco Bay that roll into the Sacramento River Delta. These breezes keep the Clarksburg vineyards an average of 9 degrees cooler than Sacramento. This area is large - 64,640 acres of farmland. So why is it so little known? Grapes such as Viognier, Chenin Blanc and Petite Sirah thrive here. Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot are not widely planted here - those are California's best-known grapes. Historically, 90% of the grapes grown here are crushed elsewhere, but we are seeing some wineries producing wine under the Clarksburg AVA name - so that is changing as the area grows in prominence.

Over the next decade, you will come to know Clarksburg as a prime area for wonderful wines at great prices!

Food pairing - spicy chicken, most any spicy food....melon wrapped with Prosciutto. Make a Viognier Sorbet for dessert! Wine Enthusiast, 88 points

Red:

Tomero Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 (Argentina) $13.99 - The Tomero, also known as "water supplier," has been a key person in the Argentine vineyards since 1833. The Tomero is in charge of the water supply for each district of the province - he regulates the flow of the meltwater from the Andes through the canals and ditches - without these irrigation canals, growing wine (or anything) in Argentina's high deserts would be IMPOSSIBLE.

Why did I pick a Cabernet Sauvignon from Argentina rather than a Malbec or a Bonarda? Well....it's a Cabernet Sauvignon from Argentina and NOT a Malbec! So, oddly, going with a better-known grape in America means we are going with a lesser-known grape in Argentina! Also, this wine is from Finca Carlos Pulenta - we have many of their wines and love them!

This is a great value in a Cabernet - it shows the slightly warmer climate in which the grapes are grown. Aromas and flavors of jammy dark berry fruit, red berries, baking spices, black cherries and more.....easy to drink. It's medium-to-full bodied with softer tannins that kind of have an Italian dustiness to them if you know what I mean (I don't mean dirty earth). Juicy and ripe fruit on the finish with some "wet leaves in the forest" earthiness to the aromas in the glass.

80% of the wine is aged in stainless steel tanks and 20% is aged in French oak barrels for 8 months. The wine is bottle aged at the winery for 6-12 months before the winery releases it to the market. The grapes are hand-harvested. Food pairing - grill up a steak. Roast a chicken. Saute a bunch of mushrooms. Call some friends. Have fun! Stephen Tanzer, International Wine Cellar, 89 points

Tier Two

White:

Edmunds St. John "Heart of Gold" Grenache Blanc-Vermentino 2007 (California) $19.99 - The earth speaks when Steve Edmunds makes wine!

This winery is named for the husband-and-wife team of Cornelia St. John and Steve Edmunds.

Wanna know what Robert Parker said about Steve Edmunds wines this last spring (2007)......it was something along the lines of, "If you want to make French wine, make it in France." According to Parker's publication, that was a criticism......this, on a day when Parker (or whoever is the person that tastes for Parker in a given area today) was tasting 300 some wines (let's do some math: 300 wines X 2 minutes per wine = 600 minutes or 10 hours - I'm just guessing Parker or the reviewer has a sidekick writing down comments. Still, that's 1 wine every 2 minutes for 10 hours. NON-STOP).......so, in that environment, what stands out? BIG, BOLD, OVER-THE-TOP wines. Nothing with finesse, elegance, subtlety.....

Well......Steve Edmunds' wines are complex, layered, subtle and often elegant.....often like a Chateaneuf-du-Pape, rarely like a 15.5% alcohol CA Zin or Rhone-Ranger or an Aussie Shiraz......more French-like in the layers of flavors and aromas and subtle approach of the wine. Think Bjorn Borg on the tennis court rather than John McEnroe. Or, Tiger Woods rather than John Daly. Or, Beethoven rather than AC/DC.

What's changed? Parker or Edmunds? Well, Parker now has lots of people reviewing wines for him. Steve Edmunds still makes the wines at Edmunds St. John. I'm betting Parker has changed.....the Edmunds St. John wines have only changed in the sense that they are better than 15-20 years ago! This wine is 13.3% alcohol.....just not in that blockbuster "Parkerized" style that so many "Rhone-Clones" or "Rhone-Rangers" are.

If you want to guess, I'm a bit down on Parker, the Wine Spectator and many wine reviewers. They wield lots of clout. What they don't do is drink a bottle of wine the same way you do (from start to finish over a period of time). They taste.....sniff, smell, swirl, gargle, spit.....move on to the next wine.....so, what does that wine taste like in 30 minutes? 45 minutes? 90 minutes? Tomorrow? I understand that that is how many of you drink your wine....so, I try to replicate those scenarios. Sure, I taste a wine and go, "Thumbs up!" Or, "Thumbs Down." If it's a "Thumbs up," I then taste the same wine over time....even into tomorrow and the next day. Does Parker do this? The Wine Spectator? So, is that 91 points averaged over time? Or from the first impression? Or the last? Or when? Enough whining!

Back to this wine!

This is an odd blend for Steve......why? It's 54% Grenache Blanc and 46% Vermentino. Okay, Grenache Blanc is a Cotes-du-Rhone grape....a Southern French grape.....just what is Vermentino??? Well, it's Portuguese.....no, Spanish....no, from Madeira....no....oh, who knows! Today, it's famous as an awesome white wine from Sardinia (I carry a couple of these - yummy....nice, subtle saline quality to the wine!).

Steve fell in love with Vermentino back in the early 1990's on a trip to Liguria......and then Tablas Creek planted some in California. Then, he had a chance to plant some Vermentino and Grenache Blanc vines on the same property that produces Edmund St. John's fame Wylie-Fenaughty Syrah.

This is the first vintage.....a whole whopping 127 cases made.....The wine is fermented with native yeasts (Steve is big on that). Aged on lees in a stainless steel tank. Spontaneous malolactic fermentation began, but the wine had such a low pH that only about 15% of the wine went through malolactic fermentation. Wine was filtered prior to bottling because it was cloudy, real cloudy. Bottled on Feb. 12th, 2008.

Aromas and flavors of citrus, citrus flowers, lemon oil, flinty chalk, spearmint.....wine rounds out in the mouth and gets softer and fleshier....long, juicy finish that is refreshing and clean.

Food pairing - anything from the sea! Nothing better than Maine lobster or Damariscotta oysters!

Red:

Vines on the Marycrest "Heart of Glass" 2005 (California) $23.99 - Heart of Glass - think Blondie! And, if you can't click on this link to YouTube! Disco ball, drugged out lead singer, repititious lyrics and music, monotone.....it's the late '70's, baby! The name of the song and the singer have NOTHING to do with this wine! Aside from name!

These wines are available in 4, that's FOUR, states! Without Doug and Cat at SOPO being on the forefront of the wine industry in the US, we'd never see these....

Vines on the Marycrest is a labor of love for a couple and their 2 young children. Victor and Jennifer Abascal are passionate about Paso Robles and its winemaking potential and actuality in terms of the great wines being made there today!

Victor Abascal has a successful career as a highly sought-after sound engineer or something in the music or movie business (hence the names of their wines - "My Generation," "Heart of Glass"). He also has a passion for wine - rumor has it that earlier in his life.....at an earlier home, he secretly planted grapes on the property of the Marycrest Convent.......the nuns freaked because they thought the plants were....well.....marijuana......The police told the nuns otherwise....and the insurance company told Victor he couldn't plant grapes on the nuns' land......so, off to Paso Robles for Victor! When he named his winery, he decided to have fun with this earlier mistake in his life!

The WINE - enough fluff!

Like most Grenache-based wines, this shows lots of strawberries and raspberries in the aromas and flavors.....although in the flavors the dark earth of the Syrah and the leather from the Mourvedre kick in......

Without a doubt, though, one think I like about these Marycrest wines are the vibrant aromas that key off of the dominant grape! So, since Grenache dominates the blend, we get red berry fruit in the nose!

Blend of 67% Grenache, 22% Syrah, 11% Mourvedre. The Grenache vines are at least 50+ years-old. Something like 400 cases made.

Food pairing – lamb, chicken, turkey, salmon, etc....

Tier Three:

White:

Hirsch Gaisberg Zobing Kamptal Riesling 2006 (Austria) $39.99 - Hirsch roared from nowhere in the late 20th century to being one of Austria's GREAT wineries.

This single vineyard Riesling shows what this winery can do.....!!! Aromas and flavors of apricots, peaches, tropical fruit, flowers such as lilac and lavender, herbs, crushed minerals and more. This is ripe and juicy and the flavors linger. Gripping wine with lots of finesse and a long finish.

The 40 year-old vines grow on terraced slopes filled with eroded rock - these Riesling vines have to SUFFER before they produce great grapes! The rocky soil adds minerals to the wines. The grapes in the Gaisberg are harvested in mid-October, whole cluster pressed and then fermented only with native yeasts. ZERO temperature control (this is natural winemaking!). Aged in stainless steel tanks and large oak barrels - in both the wine rests on its lees through April and then is bottled in the July following the harvest. Food pairing - poultry, trout & salmon (smoked and otherwise), pork sausages, lots of vegetarian dishes, seafood, aged goat cheeses, etc. You can easily age this through 2011-15 (I'd lay down a few bottles and pull them out for a Thanksgiving BONANZA in 2012). Vinaria, 2 Stars; David Schildknecht, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, 90-91 points

Red:

Vines on the Marycrest "My Generation" 2005 (California) $27.99 - One guess.....yes....it's The Who's "My Generation!" An iconic rock song from long ago! I think this is from the days when Pete Townsend and Roger Daltry actually liked one another!

These wines are available in 4, that's FOUR, states! Without Doug and Cat at SOPO being on the forefront of the wine industry in the US, we'd never see these....

Vines on the Marycrest is a labor of love for a couple and their 2 young children. Victor and Jennifer Abascal are passionate about Paso Robles and its winemaking potential and actuality in terms of the great wines being made there today!

Victor Abascal has a successful career as a highly sought-after sound engineer or something in the music or movie business (hence the names of their wines - "My Generation," "Heart of Glass"). He also has a passion for wine - rumor has it that earlier in his life.....at an earlier home, he secretly planted grapes on the property of the Marycrest Convent.......the nuns freaked because they thought the plants were....well.....marijuana......The police told the nuns otherwise....and the insurance company told Victor he couldn't plant grapes on the nuns' land......so, off to Paso Robles for Victor! When he named his winery, he decided to have fun with this earlier mistake in his life!

Big, big powerhouse wine! Did I say BIG WINE?! Aromas and flavors come bubbling up out of this wine when you pour it into the glass!

It's dark - and it has dark berries, dark fruit, leather, black peppery spice, vanilla - do you get the idea that it is loaded with dark flavors and aromas! Pour it into a glass - it will look like it is staining the inside of your glass! The wine has some nice wet leave earthiness (probably the Mourvedre). The tannins are there - but, they don't dominate. I'd decant this to open it up quicker! Then, as yoy linger over this - you start to get notes of strawberries, raspberries and minerals - those more subtle flavors that the DARK stuff clobbered earlier! So, LINGER!

Blend of 45% Zinfandel, 28% Syrah, 18% Mourvedre and 9% Petite Sirah (yes, the gentlest of California grapes!). Something like 200 cases made.

Food pairing – steak, lamb, grilled chicken with a spicy rub or marinade, mushrooms. Good friends (don't grill them!).

That's August!

Let me know if you want some - I have a little!

Eric Fullagar

Freeport Cheese & Wine

27 Bow Street

Freeport, ME 04032

(207) 865-3993

efullagar@verizon.net