Random Whites Roundup, February 2011

Now it's time to cover some whites I drank recently.

Ilarria Irouléguy Blanc 2009
This white Irouléguy, a 50/50 blend of organically grown petit manseng and petit courbu, is one reason why I'll be posting more soon-ish on the wines of Southwestern France. It starts with tropical fruit on the nose (guava, passion fruit) and then, intriguingly, it goes all orchardy on the palate, showing crisp white fleshed fruit and grass/straw/herb characteristics. Bee sting acidity is nicely intertwined with minerals and a fleshy yet tightly coiled body that's very dry, even austere. This has superb length and self-confidence, but it's somehow unshowy to boot. I should have bought more! Fun fact: petit courbu is the same grape as Txakoli's hondarribi zuri.

Stéphane Tissot Savagnin Arbois 2004
Hmmm, not entirely sure about this Tissot. I get full fathom five brine, acidity that lashes the tongue like a cat o' nine tails, nuts clattering across the counter, lemon pith — yes, this is forceful rather than delicate, and it showed better on the second night, as it has relaxed somewhat. Still, it's awfully aggressive. I'm not your go-to guy on all things Jura but I like Montbourgeau's more delicate expressions of oxidized whites more, although perhaps this just needed more time (or less, not sure).

Brick House Chardonnay Ribbon Ridge 2008
Oaked New World chardonnays rarely thrill me, but this Puligny-esque effort from Oregon's Brick House almost does due to its bright acidity, well-structured flesh, creamy yet firm texture, and — the most important thing to me — its strong mineral signature, which really brings home the complexity on the finish. I wouldn't say this is lightly oaked, and for my personal tastes (and because it limits food pairing choices considerably) I would like to see less, but on a more objective level this is really very good. Also, it's far from drowning in popcorn butter. I would guess that the oak-derived flavors of nut and vanillin will be still more well-integrated in the coming years, as this has the balance for some aging.

Random Reds Roundup, February 2011

Here are a few really cool reds I've had in the past two months. Different countries, different regions, different grape varieties, but each have strong, noble personalities that suggest great and long lives lived on their terms. If you don't like tasting notes, move along.

Vieux Télégraphe Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Crau 1998
I drank this elegant, beautifully poised VT in the heart of winter, just as one should. It showed no baby fat on night one, no exuberant fruit, yet it still drank very young and lacked secondary characteristics. It was also very clean, with no hint of brett or funk. It advanced significantly on night two – lots of tobacco and earth came to the fore, the umami was cranking, with soy and mushroom notes entangling the fresh purple berry fruit, and the tannins turned leathery. I won't pretend to understand this wine based on just one bottle but I get the sense this wine will have a lot to say over the next 10+ years as its tannins resolve and its fruit fades. If I had to do it all over again, I'd decant two to four hours ahead of time and make sure it was all gone by night's end.

Renaissance Syrah Vin de Terroir North Yuba (Sierra Foothills) 2003
Renaissance selects grapes from their best, rockiest soils for their VdT bottlings. As with their cabernets, their syrahs are living — and long-lived — wines that emerge on their own terms. Some go through more than one adolescent period before emerging into early maturity at, say, five to ten years. I tracked this seven year old over three days (with no preserving gas or whatever, just a dark place and a cork) and even at day three this was remarkably youthful. It showed lively and spicy tannins, robust acidity, primary fruit, and serious, refined minerality. It actually started off middleweight, then with air gained heft without ever losing its freshness, proportion, and balance. Despite its 14.5% alcohol this shows not heat but rather cooling mint tones on the palate. Otherwise, the wine is characterized by Provencal herbs, black pepper, blackcurrant (this is not a fruity syrah), and rocks. This rough-elbowed youngster is evolving into something very promising, indeed, and in many ways already evokes a very good Cornas, and it certainly will have the life span of one.

Giacomo Conterno Barbera d'Alba Cascina Francia 2005
Even five years in the acidity is very strong willed and I waited, on its terms, for it to decide when it wanted to be drunk. Even 24 hours later ('twas left in bottle with only one glass consumed) it was a very firm if exotically scented barbera, all cedar and huckleberry laced with meatiness and spice, and the tannins delivered a swift slap to the cheeks. It's concentrated, yet almost weightless, and very fresh and pure, and really it needed quite a bit more time. Given its tannins I thought this would go well with steak but the fruit was too bright - pasta bolognese, maybe?

2009 Beaujolais, Or At Least Four of Them

Apologies if you're bored by coverage of the Beaujolais 2009 vintage, but I thought I'd toss in my two cents, anyway. Skepticism of hyped vintages is always warranted, even if the hype is not coming from the major magazines, especially as such vintages described as "easy" from the grower's perspective can be overly soft from my perspective. To take one small example, many 2005 Loire whites seem to be low in acid and/or overly alcoholic. And obviously bad wine can be found in every actually-great vintage.

So I applied a jaundiced eye toward 2009 Beaujolais, and at first my skepticism seemed appropriate given one rather ho-hum bottle I had and another that showed California weight allied with simplistic overripe flavors, and which was almost bad. But these were feints, as I found some from reliable producers that are not just fresh and lovely and drinkable right now (I find that cru Beaujolais typically needs at least 2 full years from harvest, if not more, to show well), but which are even deeper and and more complete than usual, and which therefore seem to justify much of what I've read. Sure, time will tell, but sometimes the time to ask is right now.

Pierre Chermette Beaujolais 2009
Certainly I would expect this bottle to be lighter and more now-ish than any of the below cru wines, but I was pretty surprised by just how ethereal this was, and just how engaging I found it. It's sappy and long and stony, but not complicated. It's fermented in concrete and stainless steel solely with indigenous yeasts and it's a joyful wine for drinking right now — heck, right this minute, if you have a bottle handy.

Christian Ducroux Régnié 2009
This is a terrific expression of granitic Beaujolais, unsulfured and very clean. Initially the semi-carbonic fruitiness struck me as a bit rote, but the wine blossomed over a few nights and in the end it seemed lively yet contemplative. It's a wine that enunciates. It's nicely structured (the acidity is prominent without being sharp), stony and a bit peppery, with lovely raspberry fruit.

Marcel Lapierre Morgon 2009
When I touched this bottle at a local shop, I thought, "Wow, it's hot. I'd better buy this certainly-ruined wine so that people are not misled into thinking Lapierre makes crap." Perversely, I later thought, "I can't open this, it's too young to show well." I opened it anyway, and found I was wrong on two counts. This was not merely sound, approachable, and tasty, it was subtle, impeccable, multidimensional, complex, and harmonious. The stuff was cranking. Sour cherry, chorizo, mushroom, and rhubarb aromas carried over to the palate and were joined by granite-derived black pepper and coriander spice, a subtly tannic structure, and juicy boysenberry fruit. So fresh. So pure. So long. How so young a wine can be both complete now and also ageworthy is a notion I cannot address. RIP M. Lapierre.

Coudert Fleurie Clos de la Roilette Cuvée Tardive 2009
Katherine Hepburn as a wine. The 2009 Cuvée Tardive (which is not a late harvest wine, but rather a wine made from old, even 80 year old, vines) is firm and structured right out of the gate, with an upright, formal bearing that keeps you at arm's length; you have to admire it from afar at first. Soon enough it turns more inviting, whereupon you can banter with its complex beauty. Strawberries and crushed raspberries, polished stones, savory spices, black pepper, red floral elements, and a touch of smoke, all delivered with suave sophistication. It's concentrated, with fine and structured tannins, but shows little weight. This is gonna last a loooong time.

A Roussanne From Jean-Paul Brun

As a sort of addendum to the roussanne blind tasting I hosted last summer I recently drank the 2008 Roussanne from Jean-Paul Brun. According to an article at Crush Wine's site this is the first commercial release of this steel-and-cement vinified Beaujolais-bred roussanne. Yes: roussanne from the Beaujolais, thus its Vin de Table label, as the variety is not recognized there. It's a bit north of its typical Rhône home, which may help explain the 12% alcohol level.

Although the label advises one should drink up quickly due to the very low sulphur additions, this held up well over two days. Full pear and apple flavors are delivered in the context of a creamy texture enhanced by minerals, savory hazelnut tones, a top note of chalk and smoke — as if nuts had been lightly toasted — and a slight bitterness that's very nice to experience. There's a lot going on here, but it all seems effortlessly complete and together, and not overly intellectual.

The grapes spring from Brun's yellow limestone (terres dorées), not unlike the limestone soils in (warm) western Paso Robles and the (cool) Chignin cru of Savoie where roussanne can also excel. That said, roussanne can also perform very well in a variety of soils, including granitic and volcanic soils. The grape is a bitch from the farmer's perspective but if mesoclimactic conditions are favorable then a roussanne can be a particularly interesting wine from mineral-giving soils, and a rebuke to anyone who thinks that whites are inherently less interesting and serious than reds. To winemakers in such sites I say: more, please.