Wine Wanderers #4

French Hill Calaveras County 2006 Zinfandel

It's Better Where (and When) It's Warmer

The Zinfandel grape is hot. It's one of the most popular varietals grown in the US (10% of all of the combined California Vineyards grow Zinfandel, and is grown in 15 states, including Washington, Illinois, Arizona, Ohio, Nevada and Massachussetts), trailing only behind the colossal Cabernet Sauvignon and the celebrity Chardonnay. If Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay are the king and queen of the wine realm, it could be said that Zinfandel is the joker - a kind of wild card wine that could be paired with almost any food, and one with the most personality. It can be brooding or plucky, burly or supple, jammy or intense. Typically, though, it's rich and bold: a swaggering braggart of a wine that is characterized by a bigger body and nuanced by a pot pourri of spices in its finish: and the spices are as diverse as what you can find at your local supermarket spice rack.

In warmer climes, the Zinfandel grape really makes the scene. This last weekend, I had the opportunity to work on the winery at Avio Vineyards in Amador County. Amador is one of the hottest regions in California, which cues a good Zinfandel to take the stage (the heat evokes the sweetness in the grape and enhances the spices). The winery owner asked me to turn on the irrigation system of the Zinfandel field. I turned the spigot, and heard the water rush through the plastic/rubber pipes, the release holes emitting a chorus of hundreds of small, high-pitched alien squeals. It sounded like the grapes themselves were filling up to the capacity of their skins, nearly at exploding point. Later, I was busy labelling, foiling and boxing bottles of their 2006 Sangiovese. I had hoped to have had a quick nip of the Zinfandel at the end of the day, but the tasting room was shuttered for the evening, and so I wandered off into downtown Sutter Creek, ready to quaff my thirst for a meaty, hearty glass of wine.

The following day, DeAnne and I made for the hills (namely, Mokolumne Hill in the adjacent Calaveras County) to savor the succulent sauces of our one of our favorite wineries, French Hill. She (smartly) purchased a bottle of their Alicante Bouschet (more on this wine in subsequent issues). I tasted their 2006 Calaveras County Zin. Perhaps it was a touch of heatstroke, but at the time of purchase I was impressed by its flavor: wonderfully redolent of oak, nicely tannic, swelling with berry flavors, and peppery enough for me to make the move and purchase a bottle.
We headed, then, through Murphy's, and then down back to the Bay Area, entering the Livermore Valley in order to catch the Niles Canyon Wine Train. We boarded in Sunol, CA (just shy of the Livermore Valley AVA) and sat in an open air compartment, eagerly awaiting the 5 wine and cheese pairings. The Niles Wine train rattles along a stretch of track between Sunol and Niles Canyon, closer to Fremont, CA. The train wended through a small golden valley studded with the deep, dark emerald of oak trees. We paired an Elliston Sparkling wine with special brie, a 2007 Eckert Viognier with Taleggio, a 2006 Page Mill Livermore Valley Cab with a cheddar, a 2006 Wood Family Madden (yes, John Madden) vineyard Syrah with aged Jack, and finally, a Westover Vineyards Petit Syrah port with a Blue Danish (cheese). The hot sun brought out the soothing scents of the oak trees around us. That, combined with the wine, had our senses doing cartwheels. As the night grew cooler, we opted to head back home and open the 2006 Zin we had just purchased at French Hill, hoping to have the same sensual experience. Sadly, that was not the case.

We promptly decanted the bottle in our back yard. As this was occuring, a slate-colored marine layer blocked out our afternoon sun, and a sharp wind blew out of the west. It was all too damn ominous. We opened the bottle, and let the inky wine flow into our glasses. Upon tasting, we realized that the notes of cherry and oak had disappeared, it had become increasingly jammy (which is more typical of a coastal Zin), and the wine had lost its spice. The smoky aftertaste, characteristic in most Zins that we like, had vanished as well. We attempted to salvage the bottle by bringing it back indoors - but at this point it was too late: the Zin was at the mercy of the extreme temperature change. The whole of the weekend had literally evaporated in the empty aftertaste of the wine. It's typical to store a Zinfandel at around 58-61 degrees. But this Zin suffered the change as well as a Miami local tries to acclimate to a blizzard in Buffalo. Some wines should just remain in warmer climes - this one is one of them.


The 2006 French Hill Zinfandel retails for about $18.00 per bottle. This is a perfect wine to sit and sip on a porch in nice, warm weather. If you're going to open it up in colder climes, but a sweater on it.

Wine Wanderers #3

Elliston 2005 Pinot Blanc

The Mutant of Sunol

There is a little winery ocated on a 3-acre parcel just a couple of miles shy of the sleepy little town of Sunol, located west of the Livermore Valley AVA. An elegant, though somewhat austere, 3-story, 17-room, 18th-century neo-Romanesque manse is situated at the top of the estate, a few meters from the entrance gate. This is the Elliston Estate, a graceful structure complete with portico and columns, and built with walls from 32-inch sandtone. The Estate was completed in 1890 by Samuel Ellis, who became San Francisco's chief of police in the late Victorian era (note that this was the first successful police department, replacing the earlier vigilante squads that were maintaining "law and order" in post-Gold-Rush San Francisco). Later, the Estate became a sanitarium, but then was purchased by the Awtrey family in the late 1960s and restored to its original state in the 1990s. Elliston Winery now creates a mutant.

The mutant in question isn't a slobbering Quasimodo-esque monstrosity from a shlocky 1950s movie that goes terrorizing a local village, nor is it something you'd see from the pages of Marvel Comics. It's the Pinot Blanc Grape: somewhat of a rogue varietal that sometimes grows as a kind of ugly duckling amidst the Pinot Noir or Pinot Gris varietals. It resembles the Chardonnay Grape, but lacks the flavor qualities. Elliston's mutation grows and glows on the nearby Buttner family estate.

Pinot Noir can be genetically unstable, and, can occasionally bear a cane of white fruit amidst the black ones. Pinot Blancs were used in the creation of Burgundy and Champagne blends though today, they are not widely used as such. The Pinot Blanc is now popular in the Alsace region of France, in the Baden viticultural region of Germany, in Northern Italy, and in California.

What distinguishes the Pinot Blanc from the Chardonnay is its tangier, nuttier flavor. We uncorked a bottle of the 2005 Elliston Pinot Blanc during an especially sweltering late afternoon, last week. DeAnne was recovering from a fever-ridden night. Tired of the countless cups of Jasmine tea and the numerous glasses of orange juice she had been emptying down her gullet through the earlier part of the day, we decided on a lighter-bodied, sweeter wine - one that had a little tang to it. The Pinot Blanc was perfect. The wine is almost completely translucent, resembling yellow-tinted water. The sight belied the taste, however: the fragrant bouquet contained strong elements of oak, honey and vanilla. The tart apricot and apple tickled our noses and tongues. When the wine warmed it, the taste mutated a bit more to the temperature, growing into something, bigger, bolder,and smokier.

We paired the Pinot Blanc first, with a mild Brie. Strangely, the cheese brought actually sweetened the wine (a pleasant surprise), and wiped out the tartness. Then we paired it with a Gruyere. We assumed the strong Gruyere would crush the lighter characteristics of the Pinot. The combination, however, was a very pleasant sweetness - a kind of subtle fruit and sugar combo that resembled candied fruit (and pleasant, too, because obviously, DeAnne's head cold was subsiding).

But the strangest part was that the candied fruit flavor lingered for some moments after, and it was almost as if our taste was affecting our sense of smell, because everything breath we drew seemed sweet. We double-checked our mouths to make sure they suddenly hadn't mutated into snake tongues.

Nope. Sweet.

Elliston 2005 Pinot Blanc retails for $12-$13. Elliston Produces a small harvest every year, so it's hard to find unless you visit the winery. The next new release is their 2006 Pinot Blanc -which will be released later this year.

Wine Wanderers #2

2007 Barrel 27 "High on the Hog" White

Rousanne, Marsanne and Viognier - The Three Musketeers

"All for one, and one for all." This famous, if not overused, pledge uttered by Dumas' title characters from his novel the Three Musketeers befits the qualities of a bottle of white wine the wife and I decanted last night. The wine was from the Barrel 27 winery of Paso Robles. It was a blend of three Rhone varietals: Marsanne, Rousanne and Viognier. The result, a unity of honeyed sweetness, spiciness, and a crisp fruitiness, may not have exactly evoked the image of three crossed rapiers, but the nexus of the the three flavors definitely worked in unison to create a well-balanced white that could be enjoyed with apricots, a fruit salad, a soft cheese or simply fending off the heat of a summer day.

The wife and I discovered this wine after roaming around the wineries located the cooler, maritime climate of California's Central Coast and eventually venturing into a wine shop in downtown San Luis Obispo. A dapper, amiable young gentleman manned the tasting room in the rear of the store. His memory was amazing. During our tasting, he deftly described the qualities, the history, soil types, fermentation processes (including the chemical processes) of the wines he was pouring that afternoon in such minute detail, Mr. Britannica would have been stymied. He was probably the type that could recite the entirety of The Count of Monte Cristo after only one read. Our wine-logged brains were struggling to retain the gatlin-gun-like barrage of information that he fired at us (though, we did learn about the process of malolactic fermentation: the process of sweetening wines by converting the tart malic acid prevalent in some varietals into smoother, sweeter tasting lactic acid). As he spoke, he poured us two good-sized doses of "High on the Hog." We were instantly impressed: the crisp, sweet flavors worked as a salve to soothe our brains, blazing with information about soil types, glassware and the exact temperature one should be quaffing a glass of Tempranillo.

"High on the Hog" is a blend of three varietals: Viognier (41%), Roussanne (32%) and Marsanne (27%), and the wine is characterized by a rich sweetness. The aroma is redolent of honeysuckle, and its flavor, as if someone had dipped a honeycomb (without the bees) and a couple of Meyer Lemons into the fermentation tank. The sweetness may come from the winery's location - in the heart of Paso Robles, where the more intense heat brings out the sweetness in the grapes (especially the Rousanne grape, which is known for its sweeter qualities and is mainly grown and harvested in California Central Coast AVA). The Marsanne grape give it a touch of spice, and the Viognier, more sweetness combined with smooth, buttery finish. These three varietals are commonly paired with each other. The trio of the three made for a winning combination!

Note: Spicy foods may foil the fruity subtleties of this wine, and may say "touche" to that delicately sweet aroma that is unique in this wine. Our suggestion is to drink this with fruit, or alone. This 07 High on the Hog can be found at stores all around the US for between $12-$13.

Wine Wanderers #1

A glass raised to wine, and a short, long-winded intro.

Wine.

The sound of the word is almost crystalline, clear and pure. The word conjures a wide array of images, from ancient Roman revellers, inebriated and cavorting in orgiastic excesses through medieval monks stomping in large oaken vats to a modern-day wine snob peering, sniffing and sipping from a long-stemmed glass. From tippler to teetotaller, almost everyone knows it by definition: an alcoholic beverage (typically) created from fermented grape juice. Wine goes and flows far beyond that definition, however, and these days, most wine drinkers are well aware how rich, hearty, and complex the world of wine is.

What you are enjoying (or SHOULD be enjoying) in your glass or goblet right now is six millennia of history. Originating 6000 years ago in an area that now includes part of Georgia and Iran, wine has travelled through may countries, many thousands of years, wandering into Europe via Middle Eastern Traders, quaffed by priests and prelates in the temples and palaces of Ancient Rome, and flowing via mercenary and merchant into through medieval Italy and into France, Spain and (later) Germany. There, monks would store wine in caves for Catholic celebrations (wine was sparse during those times, as beer and ale was the drink of choice, especially in Northern Europe). During the Renaissance, it only was became an agricultural essential for survival, but was cultivated into an art form. Spanish Conquistadores spread the vine into Latin America and planted it in the California Missions of the 18th Century. In the 20th and 21st century, wine is now grown in some of the more unique areas of the world, including India, Southern Canada, the American Midwest, African and New Zealand.

This blog will serve not only to share our experiences with wine (from my computer here in the viticultural region of California Sierra Foothills), but will, in a hopefully not-so limited fashion, give our readers drops of information. There is an almost infinite store of information about wine out there including, regions, varietals, blends, growth, vinting, fermentation and consumption. Your memory will inevitably have a hangover if you attempt to overindulge and absorb it in one sitting (and no,we are not going to cork this 2002 Mulet Rouge Barbera we ourselves are trying to absorb right now). In this blog we will outline experiences we have had with every bottle we come across, from Two Buck Chuck to French Champagnes, in flavor, aroma, richness, age, and location, as well as our experiences consuming it (when, with whom, occasion). This blog serves as a tribute to one of the greatest beverages in history: and to that, we raise our nearly empty glasses and say "salute!"