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Some months back, Anne spotted a post on one of her LinkedIn groups – someone was looking for a distributor here in the U.S. for some wines from Sardinia - the island off the west coast of Italy and south of Corsica. It seemed like kind of a perfect OddBallGrape situation – there just isn’t that much Sardinian wine available outside of Sardinia. So we checked in and bought a couple bottles from Nuovi Poderi Cantina – at least, that’s the name on both bottles. The first, Taja, was a vermentino, a white grape that has a small following here in California. The label on the red Oje read cannonau – which Michael found out was actually the Sardinian name for grenache. Which isn’t that unusual. Many of the grapes used in making wine have different names in different parts of the world. Cannonau is grenache is garnacha… you get the idea. Unfortunately, the experiment was a greater success than we thought because we can’t find Mike’s tasting notes to save our lives. The Oje definitely had the rich fruitiness of the grenache, while the Taja vermentino had good acids. Both, like most European wines, are made to go with food. We did something with shrimp for Taja and a nice red meat sauce and pasta with the Oje. Neither are currently available in the U.S. yet – at least, as far as we know they aren’t. Anne did find one restaurant that had some Sardinian wines buried on its massive wine list, and freaked the sommelier because she’d actually heard about wine from Sardinia. So why bother writing about them? Well, wine is about the experience, after all. And one of the great joys of wine is finding something truly rare. The next time you find something really off the beaten path, go ahead and try it. Google the name of the grape on your mobile device. Better yet, come back here and post about it. It’s only wine – and when you think about it, how many bad movies have you coughed up $15 (including popcorn) for without fussing about it? And a bad movie also takes two hours out of your life. At least, you can usually return a bad bottle of wine. Definitely turns the risk factor way down, don’t you think? Type: Dry White
Made: In Calaveras County, California, With viognier grapes
Plays well with: seafood, salads, mild cheeses
The 2007 Viognier from Irish Family comes with the expected florals in the nose – honeysuckle in this case. A grape of the Rhone region wines in France, viognier has an instantly recognizable nose of flowers like honeysuckle or citrus like tangerine peel and also honeyed. A little blended into syrah contributes aromatics to a traditional red wine in the Rhone from France. Viognier is a handy grape to have around.
There is a flinty minerality as well that wasn’t covered by oak because there wasn’t any oak added. Steel fermentation and neutral barrels (barrels that have already given up all their oak flavors) allowed the flavors to concentrate. Crisp acidity gives a cleansing of the palate that plays well with seafood, salads and cheeses. Type: Dry Red
Made: In Calaveras County, California, With cabernet sauvignon, syrah, and malvasia grapes
Plays well with: Beef, lamb, winter stews, on its own
The Irish Family red blend called Pog Mo Thoin – Gaelic for “kiss my ass” – was a sample we tasted from the tank in April 2009 at the winery in Vallecito, CA. It’s pronounced Pog (with the long o sound), Mo (another long o) Hoyn (no t or th). A blend of cabernet sauvignon, syrah and a bit of malvasia – a OBG grape if there is one – it’s now available for sale. As noted in our previous post, we tasted this one right from the fermenting tank and this is the kind of special treat that is well worth it. From the romantic tradition of a barrel sample to the more modern steel tank, getting the invitation to try something before anyone else – except the dozens, hundreds or thousands of club members or visitors before YOU walked in – is insanely cool. The only catch is that what we tasted that day might be somewhat different if you buy it, (which you can by going to the winery website).
The wine had a brown sugar sweetness and lots of fruit in the nose. Those same red fruits turned up in the glass along with gentle hints of oak in the background. But the most impressive part of the wine was the balance. All three elements – alcohol, tannin and acid – were in perfect balance so that no one quality stuck out. Which augers well for the recently released bottles.
How to enjoy? Beef, lamb or winter stews come to mind. This is also one of those wines that can be enjoyed by itself as a cocktail. The level of alcohol was not recorded but we remember it being modest. We haven’t tried it since it was bottled last summer and it may be a different vintage than what is available on the website.
The good folks at Blackwell’s wines and spririts were featuring Chateau d’Aqueria 2007 Tavel when we wandered in there a couple months ago. The winery is one of the oldest in the Tavel region of France’s southern Rhone region (French wines being labeled after where they’re grown and made rather than by the grapes in them, with each region using basically the same grapes to make the wine, anyway, so a Bordeaux is always going to have cabernet sauvignon and merlot in it, no matter who in Bordeaux made it). Tavel is best known here in the States – when you can find it – for its dry rosés. We at OBG love well-made rosé. We love drinking it and we love making it. Rosé, when made dry, is a fun wine full of fruit and ready to drink with all kinds of foods, from ham to cheese to more strongly-flavored fish to just about anything too strong for a white, but not heavy enough to compete with a red. Modern commercial winemakers will sometimes bleed off some of the freshly crushed juice of red wine grapes to concentrate the color, aroma and flavors in the remaining skins and juice. But good winemakers would never dump the stuff they bled off. Good winemakers use it to make rosé – fermenting it until it’s nice and dry and crisp. The label on the Chateau d’Aqueria Tavel just listed the blend of grapes that went into it: Grenache, Clairette, Cinsault, Mourvedre and Borboulenc, but alas, not what percentage of which. That the grapes are listed on the label at all is in consideration of the U.S. market. The blackberry nose and other red fruits opened up to some spiciness in the mouth and a light mouthfeel that cleansed the palate with nice, dry tanins. Three things you need to know about rosés. The first is that they are meant to be drunk young and are not to cellared. The 2007 Tavel seems to be doing well. The second thing is that many roses are small productions and supplies can be limited. The final thing you need to know is that Blackwell’s was selling the Tavel for twelve dollars and we figure it probably didn’t last at that price. That being said, the folks there are so great, we’re sure they’ll find something just as good at just as good a price. We wouldn’t normally feature a retailer here, but we had such a great time at San Francisco store Blackwell’s Wines & Spirits, that we couldn’t resist posting about it. We were up in The City over Thanksgiving to visit Her Ladyship (Anne’s daughter) and while taking a walk on Friday, we stumbled onto this charming little store. It’s laid out beautifully. The prices are reasonable and the wine selection is exceptional. Yes, you’ll find Napa cabs and pinot noirs here, including some that will please the pinot geeks among us. But most of the stock is made up of unique gems such as Tavel (rosé from Provence, France). Best of all, is the staff. When we went in that Friday morning, Sarah was the only person on the floor. She and Mike got into an extended conversation about making wine and sharing their experiences, plus she pointed us toward some interesting stuff. She knew what was in just about everything and explained that every wine in the store had been tasted by the owner and by most of the staff. That’s important, because she and her co-workers will be able to steer you to a wonderful bottle, no matter what your needs are. Even as more and more of us get comfortable with wine as a part of our daily lives, there is still a lingering fear wrapped up in finding the “right” bottle. While it is true that some wines are better than others, and some of us like one thing and not others, it is a little frustrating that there is still so much discomfort among wine buyers. We say if people judge you on what you’re drinking, to hell with them. Order the white zin – or better yet, order one from an obscure label. Sip it with ecstasy (the emotion, not the drug) and let them wonder what they’re missing. And they are the ones that are missing out, trust us. Yes, a Napa cab or a first growth Bordeaux can be an utterly transcendent thing. But you don’t need transcendence every day, nor are those the only wines that offer the possibility of transcendence. Wine is as much about the situation as it is about the flavor. A Two-Buck Chuck sipped quietly over a dinner of cheesy mac hamburger casserole with someone you love is perfectly wonderful. Great wine? No. But a perfect wine for the right time, place and person. It’s the experience that counts, which is why finding a place like Blackwell’s is such a joy. Blackwell’s Wines & Spiritswww.blackwellswines.com 5620 Geary Boulevard
Pinot noir is Walter Schug’s signature wine – the wine he grew up on, the wine that he started his winery to make. And Schug does know how to handle it.
There’s a reason pinot noir is known as the heartbreak grape. Every decision in the growing, harvesting, crushing. pressing – the entire winemaking process – shows up in the final product. The wrong pruning, the wrong yeast selection, too muck oak, too little oak – it’s all there for the world to taste and, alas, pay too much money for most of the time. And there is a lot of bad pinot out there these days, with high alcohol contents – we came across one a bit back that listed its total alcohol at 15 percent. That’s nuts for a delicate wine like pinot noir. The good news is that if you do find a good one, pinot is a very versatile food wine. The other good news is that Schug makes some wonderful pinots, including a sparkling rose. There are also the Sonoma and the Caneros pinots, with the Sonoma being only slightly better than the Carneros. But that may have been because the Sonoma is twelve dollars cheaper. The Sonoma is steel-femented to keep as much of the fruit as possible, giving the wine a rich nose of roses and red berries. The 13.5 percent alcohol was also wise – like we noted above, high alcohol pinots are bad. There was some spicy character in addition to the dry fruit which made for an excellent balance. Many restaurants will let you bring your own wine, but they do charge a fee, called corkage. Do note, however, that it’s not cool to bring a wine they restaurant has on its list, nor is it cool to bring the local bargain brand. Bring something special and unusual, and they usually don’t mind, especially if you buy some of their wine.
The wine has a lush mouthfeel that could be enough of a draw, if you’re looking to suck some back at the local wine bar or big party. But the moderate alcohol is very well balanced (14.5 percent, slightly higher than the standard for Schug wines) makes it a great food wine, whether summer salads, winter bisques and cream-based sauces and gravies on chicken and pasta.  The Schug Winery Building, courtesy Schug Winery It’s hard to know where to begin when talking about Walter Schug. This guy has been working in the California wine industry since 1966, when he was a grape buyer for Gallo. He is still hip-deep in making some phenomenal pinot noirs and has been continuously since he started working for Joseph Phelps in 1973. Our conversation ranged from the latest on this year’s harvest – “It went on a long time,” he noted – to the history of the California wine industry to the development of yeast in Germany. We discovered the winery last spring as we were tooling around the Carneros region. They do make other wines there, but the pinots are what got us excited. These are lovely, gentle food wines – not the high-alcohol fruit bombs that, as Schug put it, were made to impress Robert Parker. It may not be the done thing these days, but that doesn’t seem to bother Schug. He started out making wine in the Rheingau region of Germany, following in the footsteps of his father, who oversaw pinot noir production in Assmannshausen (as in the yeast, for you wine geeks – it was developed in the winery his father oversaw for the German government). “I was born and raised with pinot noir,” Schug said, pointing out that his father managed the only red wine facility in “an ocean of riesling.” Schug, himself, got his enology degree in Germany in 1959 and eventually found his way to California, where, as noted above, he worked for Gallo, touring Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake counties to find the best grapes for the huge winemaker. He went on to make wine for Joseph Phelps, in particular, pinot noir – the grape of his youth. Unfortunately, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Americans were just getting the idea that varietal wines were more sophisticated than jug wines and there wasn’t much of a market for pinot noir. “At the time, nobody really believed in it,” Schug said. “But I believed in it. We were only making 1500 cases out of 80,000 cases.” Phelps decided to discontinue making pinot noir, and Schug was crushed. He went to Phelps and talked the winery owner into letting Schug buy the grapes and make his own pinot noir that he would distribute under his own label, and thus Schug Winery was born. By 1983, Schug had trained a successor and went off on his own. “I was out there by myself,” he said, “my wife and I.” Today the winery puts out about 55,000 cases. His own vineyards only supply 22 percent of his grapes, with the rest coming from high-end producers, including San Giacamo. They have several varieties available, including a brand new pinot noir rose that we didn’t get to taste because it wasn’t released when we were there. You can visit their website here. |
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This is a cool climate chardonnay which was fermented in steel and given no oak flavor of any kind – oak being one of those things folks have come to expect in chard. So what does it taste like? Yummy. Okay, there’s citrus – orange and lemon peel – and minerals – flint and graphite – in the nose and in the mouth. There are also the peach and slight spice notes that good growing conditions and careful winemaking can give a badly abused grape like chardonnay.