23 September - Made in Maryland

It took twenty five years, but I finally made it to my first Maryland Wine Festival. I believe there were ten Maryland wineries at festival #1 -- this year there were thirty three. I can report that thousands of people were having a great time, tasting, drinking, lugging cases of wine to their cars. One of these days a local entrepreneur is going to open a Maryland Wine-only shop in downtown Baltimore (or Annapolis), not unlike the New York Wine-only shop in SoHo.

The question is, are there any world class wines being made in Maryland? The answer is yes, and more are on the way. Here are three wineries to keep an eye on:

Woodhall Wine Cellars. Al Copp's Woodhall Wine Cellars is one of the originals - one of the ten wineries in business since the inaugural Maryland Wine Festival. Woodhall, like most of the older Maryland wineries, has only a few acres of its own. They have taken advantage of a recent burst of activity in local wine grape growing to add a few stars to their "reserve" line. Hiring Chris Kent as winemaker several years ago, combined with acquiring better raw material for him to work with, has produced some standout new wines. The new raw material is coming from some interesting places like old tobacco farms in St. Mary's County and new vineyards planted by deep-pocketed landowners on the Eastern Shore.

Deep Creek Cellars. To this point in time, Paul Roberts has made his name mostly with grapes grown outside of Maryland. So what is he doing on this short list? Well, he is the most creative, original, yet well grounded winemaker in the state. Whether Vidal, Cynthiana, Cabernet Franc or Blueberry, Paul makes a compelling, delicious wine out of it. And as sources continue to expand for top quality fruit grown here in Maryland Paul will make more wine with a Maryland appellation of origin. Evidently his small parcel planted with three Pinots - Noir, Gris and Blanc - is close to producing its first crop for making into wine. It is also important to note that Paul mentioned Black Ankle Vineyards to me about two years ago - and took the time to introduce me to Ed and Sarah yesterday in the midst of wine festival bedlam.

Black Ankle Vineyards. Ed Boyce and Sarah O'Herron did a lot of research and traveling before deciding to attempt making great wine right here in Maryland. They've put their research into practice in a big way, planting, since 2001, some forty acres of vines on their estate outside of Mt. Airy. They are farming organically, with the goal of being 100% biodynamic. The vines are planted in the Bordeaux style, more closely spaced and trained higher off the ground than vineyards in drier, more Mediterranean climates (ie. California). The grapes are 100% vinifera - all the Bordeaux red varieties, as well as Syrah, Albarino, Gruner Veltliner, Viognier and Chardonnay. I tasted a few Black Ankle wines yesterday - hopefully you will be seeing them at CWC in the very near future.

5 May 2008 - Did He Really Say That?

You know that I don't pay attention to wine critics. They're not in the business of selling wine to you, of being directly responsible to you for recommendations made. Even if they're full-time wine geeks, they're still removed from the face to face contact with you, the wine buyers/drinkers. A couple of part time critics, Al Spoler and Hugh Sisson, the co-hosts of WYPR's "Cellar Notes," are good guys whose original mission as I understood it was to provide recommendations from the point of view of the "average (wine drinking) joe."

I was driving home on the evening of April 16th listening to WYPR when Cellar Notes came on. The subject was Pinot Noir, from Callifornia and Oregon. Al Spoler expressed his particular fondness for Oregon Pinot Noir, and then stated that at this point in time French Red Burgundy was irrelevant. I almost drove off the road! Burgundy irrelevant? Besides being a ridiculous statement, it was so negative, when the current state of Pinot Noir around the world is so positive. Spoler could have mentioned that it was Oregon's Pinot Noir producers who, about fifteen years ago, in their quest to make better wine, came up with the idea of inviting any and all of the world's devoted Pinot Noir producers to Oregon to meet and share their ideas about how to make better wine from this difficult grape. We are enjoying the results of Oregon's "Pinot Noir Camp" in the current abundance of good to great examples in every price range. That is a story worth telling on Cellar Notes.

I'm not finished with this subject - stay tuned for the next CWC Wine of the Week...

11 March 2008 - Happy New Year?

I know it's been a long time between posts when one or two of the five or six people who read this blog contact me in the same week wondering if I'm going to write a new entry. So, here are a few random wine-related thoughts.

What's new in the wine world? Besides another new vintage in the tank in the southern hemisphere, not so much. Not even a declining dollar can change the basic rule: the best values still come from Europe. The cheap stuff from California and Australia is still mostly too sweet and/or too alcoholic.

So many wineries are claiming that they are biodynamic that I'm beginning to wonder if they're all telling the truth, or they didn't want to admit it earlier because the world would have thought them insane. I'm not saying that the only way to make great wine is to go biodynamic, but here's a list of estates that have been doing it the biodynamic way for at least a few (or many more) years, who consistently make great wine:
Domaine Leroy - Burgundy, France
Movia - Brda, Slovenia (straddling the border of Collio, Italy)
P.J. Kuhn - Rheingau, Germany
Porter Creek - Russian River Valley, California
Stephane Tissot - Jura, France
Tenuta di Valgiano - Tuscany, Italy
Domaine Weinbach - Alsace, France
Wimmer-Czerny - Kamptal, Austria

If you still doubt that the globe is warming, you haven't been drinking much wine. Quick, when was the last "bad" vintage in Germany? Since the truly terrible Rhone Valley vintage of 2002, it's been smooth sailing -- that's five (2007 was evidently lovely) top notch vintages in a row. Same for Bordeaux -- heck, even 2002 wasn't so bad there. Burgundy? 2006 was supposed to be tough for reds, but overall, it's been good in this climatically marginal region for a solid decade. The overall trend is unmistakable. Each vintage has its variables, but the reality is that vineyards are more likely to produce overripe fruit than underripe. They're more likely to scorch than to rot, more likely to be ruined by natural disaster than simple lack of sunshine.

Time to taste wine (it's Tuesday, 6:30pm). I'll try to get back to this sooner rather than later - thanks for the push!

9 November 2007 - Sierra Vista Winery and Alcohol Sanity

John and Barbara MacCready purchased their land in the Sierra Nevada foothills in 1972 -- first crush was in 1977. Their 32 acres of vines produce about 10,000 cases per year, of many different varietals. I brought in two this week a Cote-Rotie-like Syrah '05 Red Rock Ridge (the estate vineyrad) and their basic El Dorado Zinfandel '05. I love these wines for several reasons, first and most important of which of course is that they're deliciuos. Of course, there's more to this story.

The MacCreadys must have missed the memo that decreed all California Zinfandel come in at over 15% alcohol -- and 16% would be even better. In fact, theirs only hits 13.7%. Instead of high alcohol you get loads of character. Ditto for the Syrah (13.9%). Now, an alcohol content of nearly 14% is not particularly light, but compared to the current status quo you could be excused for thinking it is. It's deja vu all over again -- is anyone out there old enough to remember the California Zins and Cabernets of the late 1970s? In the drought years of 1976-77 it was not unusual to see Zinfandels with alcohols over 16% -- one Montevina Late Harvest, I believe it was the '77, checked in over 17%! Yeast cells start to die from alcohol poisoning around 17%.

By the early '80s, the backlash occurred -- consumers stopped buying those monster wines and all of the sudden California wineries got it in their heads that there was a category called "food wine." As if that were somehow a separate designation. To make their "food wine" many wineries just picked unripe grapes or added back acidity -- if the high-alcohol wines were grotesque, these new "food wines" were equally so in the other extreme. Thankfully every day wine drinkers rejected the "food wines" just as surely as they had rejected the monster Zinfandels, and for a couple of decades some sanity prevailed. When -- or is it if? -- sanity again prevails, perhaps it will happen without the "food wine" backlash. Thankfully, the world of wine has grown so much in the past twenty years, we can still find wineries like Sierra Vista that make delicious, balanced wine that's safe to drink near an open flame.

19 October 2007 - How do you grade an emotion?

I had an extremely busy day of wine tasting on Monday -- took notes on sixt-two; didn't bother noting another handfull of truly awful specimens. I tasted some terrific new stuff, purchased six of them for immediate arrival. But one wine -- Tenuta della Terre Nere Rosso '05 Guardiola, Etna, Sicily -- stood out. Guardiola is a vineyard situated between 800-900 meters up the northern slope of Mount Etna, planted with 105 year-old Nerello Mascalese vines. The estate is owned by the Italian wine importer Marc de Grazia. I was floored by this wine -- with a store full of sales reps waiting their turn, time stood still. I immediately sent the sales rep to the warehouse (fortunately only a ten minute drive away) to pick up a case so that I'd be able to take a bottle home for dinner that night.

What was it about this wine? I'm tempted to say "on any objective scale..." but what does "objective" have to do with it? Sure, it's a well-balanced, technically well-made wine, but I'm not a scientist. I'm in the business of pleasure, and this bottle (and the bottle I drank Monday night) brought me immense pleasure. It never entered my mind to give it some kind of grade. I have wondered, however, when I will have a chance to taste another wine (this was my first) from this estate. Could the next one possibly live up to the expectations created by the first?

2 October 2007 - Wine Without Points

We were cleaning around the shop last week, and I was asked if I wanted to keep my old copies of The Wine Advocate. I said yes because I'm a pack rat, not because I have consulted a copy of The Wine Advocate -- or Wine Spectator, or any other guide that gives scores to wine -- in the past five years or so. Not that I doubt the sincerity or character of the tasters. I do, however, doubt -- ok, I abhor -- the practice of giving a wine a score. The only thing more detestable to me is actually trying to sell a wine by a number, an arbitrary number. Or perhaps the number isn't so arbitrary after all? I have noticed, for instance, that the higher the score for a red wine, the more likely it is to be opaque in color and/or sporting an alcohol content over 16%. Red or white, a high scoring wine is likely to be aged in oak long enough to obliterate most of the character of the grape from which it is made.

How do I come to make such sweeping generalizations when I profess not to pay attention to scores? Well, those trends were developing a long time ago, and I occasionally get to taste a wine that I have been asked to get for customers who are thirsting for the wines with the biggest scores. The latest example was my first taste of a Molly Dooker wine -- the "Blue Eyed Boy" Shiraz '06, appellation South Australia, retailing for a cool $50/bottle. I'm not sure of the exact number -- I didn't ask -- but I understand all the Molly Dookers get big, big numbers. My notes are short: "16% alc. and it tastes like it." If you love big, soft, high alcohol, dark red wine without a lot of character, you'll love it. If it were readily available and you wanted me to order some for you, I'd be happy to do so. Will I carry the wine in my shop? No. Why would I turn down a $50 wine that I could sell oodles of? Perhaps because I'm slightly nuts.

How can I put this? I'm not the arbiter of taste. I'm not telling anyone that they should only like the wine that I like. In fact, my job is to find out what my customers like and get it for them, but within the context of what I've selected for my shop. I do have some big red wines with pretty high alcohol -- Amarone, Zinfandel and Chateauneuf du Pape spring to mind. -- however, I have limits. Outside of Amarone, which is after all made from raisined grapes, I tend to draw the line at around 15% alcohol for red wine. If that's not good enough for Molly Dooker lovers, then I'll try to special order the Blue Eyed Boy now that I know there is actually some available. But the fact remains that someone has to make the buying decisions in any wine shop. Some shops choose to buy wine by the numbers, and if that works for them, great. In my shop I get to pick the wine, and I do it the old-fashioned way, by tasting it. If I like it, and I have a spot for it, and I think I have a few customers who might like it, I buy it. If I'm not doing a good enough job of making customers happy I go out of business. Happily, I've survived nine years here at CWC without having to pick wine by the numbers.

2 September 2007

If you've looked for a new blog from me in the past six months, all I can say is, sorry, I've been writing a lot of stuff in my CWC News emails that I should include here -- I just haven't been following through. Anyway, consider this post a summary of wine-related stuff I've been thinking about the last six months.

May - Israel. I made my first ever trip to Israel and despite my intention not to do much wine business, it happened anyway. I learned a few important points about this fascinating place. First, Israel is distinctly not paralyzed by the conflict with its neighbors. Life goes on, vibrantly. Wine-wise this tiny country has a burgeoning industry, with nearly 300 wineries. This should not be surprising given the ideal conditions for grape growing. It was a bit more surprising to find out that not all of those wineries are kosher. In fact, a couple of wineries I visited, known internationally for their terrific products, were adamantly non-kosher. As jews who are perceived by the orthodox as somehow less jewish, they simply refuse to abide by rules that require the hiring of "observant" jews to work in the vineyards and winery.

July - Paris. Instead of staying in a hotel, we rented an apartment in the Marais. It was a different experience living in a residential neighborhood, getting up every morning to do pick up fresh baguettes, patisserie, fromages. We visited a tiny wine shop called Julien, Caviste -- talking to Julien about wine was a little like talking to myself. Handpicked wines, many from producers we have met if not visited.

August - Baltimore. The current wine of the week:

Mikael Bouges Sauvignon Blanc '05 "La Pente de Chavigny" - Touraine, France

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I never know, in the course of a day's tasting, if a wine will move me, or if one does, what it will be made of. I had just tasted a good Touraine Sauvignon Blanc when Eric the distributor rep poured this one. The first one, an '06, was typical of this terrific vintage, loaded with ripe melon smells and flavors over the top of the more classic herb/mineral character of Loire Sauvignon Blanc.

I was expecting something more classic in Mikael Bouges' Touraine Sauvignon Blanc because of the vintage '05 -- also excellent, but more typical. I was surprised by the first whiff -- a beautiful blast of apricot and melon -- but that was just the beginning of the surprise. In the mouth, all of this deliciously lively lime/herb/mineral stuff danced around. If I weren't tasting the wine again as I write this, three days after the first taste, I would have thought the sensation was limited to that first taste on Monday. Nope, it's just as wildly delicious today. I bet this would be incredible with a fresh slab of pan-roasted red snapper topped with a squeeze of fresh lime juice.

Tasting Notes: Apricot/melon/herb/citrus smells -- the lime, herbs and mineras explode in the mouth -- this is amazing -- dry and juicy and concentrated yet refreshing. Wow.