A Tuscan Tasting

We interrupt our regularly scheduled coverage of this month's wines from Friuli to bring you some other Italian wine news from Tuscany. ("Wine Pour," by KatieW)

I recently attended a tasting of Tuscan wines at the invitation of domaine547 (you can read more about our wine adventure here), and it was a wonderful chance for me to deepen and broaden my knowledge of wines from Italy while focusing on a single region. Sponsored by Winebow, this event had some great producers and some terrific wines were poured. Here are some of my impressions:

1. Super Tuscans may rock, but Sangiovese rules. I know that some folks love powerful Super Tuscans, with their blends of Cabernet, Merlot, and other grape varieties, but as far as I'm concerned, give me Sangiovese. Some of the Super Tuscans I tasted were indistinguishable from Bordeaux reds, others could be mistaken for Rhone wines. They were yummy, well-made, and many of the other tasters seemed to like their power and pizazz. I like my Sangioveses, thank you very much, such as the 2005 Fanti Rosso di Montalcino made with 100% sangiovese and full of aromas and flavors of plum, prune, and cherry. These are great food wines. And I've found it online for between $16 and $20.

2. Italian wine can be REALLY expensive. I was absolutely stunned to see the prices. Not that there weren't good buys (see #5) but all in all, Tuscan wines will put a dent in your wallet. and the declining dollar is not going to help. So if Tuscan wines are your thing, start saving up and economizing elsewhere because the good stuff is going to cost you--especially if it's a Super Tuscan. The 2005 Tua Rita Redigaffi, for example, while excellent, retails for between $170 and $300.

3. Leather? Yes, it's in there. If I had a lot of money, I may well put it into Brunello. If you've never had a Brunello, you owe it to yourself to have one before you die. They are some seriously sexy wines, with their luscious fruit, aromas of aged leather, and more than a hint of mystery. Some of the Brunellos that stood out for me were the 2000 Salicutti Brunello di Montalcino, with its heady aromas of blackberry and leather, pure flavors, and long finish. ($66-110), the 2003 Altesino Montosoli Brunello di Montalcino's perfumed plum blossom, lavender, and leather bottling that had beautiful silkiness and a berried palate ($138), and the 2003 Fanti Brunello di Montalcino ($80), which was also beautifully perfumed with layers of fruit, spice, and tobacco in the aromas and palate.

4. Tuscan wine varies--a lot--from vintage to vintage and maker to maker. We had the opportunity to taste different vintages of the same wine next to each other, and wines made from grapes grown close to each other by different makers. The contrasts were sharp--and alarming. Tuscan wines are not homogenized. As a buyer, you need to be aware of that and make your purchases carefully.

5. Tuscan--whites? Why, yes. One of my favorite wines from the tasting was the 2006 La Parrina Ansonica Costa dell'Argentario ($13), which had sea spray, floral, and citrus aromas and flavors. I also liked the 2006 Terre di Talamo Vento Vermentinto IGT Maremma Toscana ($17-21) which had a nice roundness in its melon and citrus flavors and a well-balanced finish.

6.There are great values to be found, but if you can buy wines that you've tasted first--or from a wine merchant whose palate you trust. Sangioveses can be a bit harsh and acidic in some vintages and in the hands of some winemakers, so go to tastings in wine shops and drink glasses of Tuscan reds in restaurants when you get the chance to find some of the names, vintages, and blends that you like. My bargain pick without question was the 2004 Castellare Chianti Classico, which had surprising depth for a wine that only costs $19-24. Notes of leather, herbs, and plum were wrapped up in a silky-textured package. Great wine, great winemaking--and a great price, too.

I had a great time at the Tuscan tasting, so thanks to domaine547 for asking me along for the ride.

A Pair of Pinots from Adelsheim

Regular readers will know that I don't drink as much wine from Oregon as I should (or Washington, either). Living in California as I do, my state's wines tend to push other West Coast bottlings to the side, there is surprisingly little on the store shelves. In the past this has left me wondering about what I was tasting in some of the wines I drank. Comments left by readers on the site convinced me that sometimes what I was tasting was a problem with the specific bottle, and so I was delighted to accept samples of recent Pinot Noir and Pinto Gris vintages from the well-known Oregon producer Adelsheim to help me put some of my recent tastings in better focus.

The wines were a Pinot Noir and a Pinot Gris from the 2006 vintage. What I observed about both wines was their freshness and a purity of taste that can often be lost in warmer weather versions of these same varieties. They reminded me much more of Old World wine than New World wine, but at the same time they were unlike anything else I've ever tasted.

The first wine I have to recommend, the 2006 Adelsheim Pinot Noir Willamette Valley, is clearly at the beginning of its life. (available from online sources for between $20 and $30). Though it's drinking beautifully now, it will only improve over the next 12-24 months. It poured with a clear, bright garnet color and there were aromas of smoky cherry and a bit of earth. The fresh fruits made the first taste impression, with flavors of raspberry and black cherry. As the wine opens a bit, there is some spicy cedar and a bit of earth in the finish to keep things interesting. Very good QPR and if you can manage to hold on to it until next fall, you may discover that it can be even notched up a bit into the excellent category.

The second wine, the 2006 Adelsheim Pinot Gris Willamette Valley, was a revelation. (available online for between $13 and $20) If this is Pinot Gris, what have I been drinking until now? It was a clear, pale straw in color and had delicious aromas of peach, honey, and a kiss of carmelized sugar. There was lots of acidity in the wine,w hich kept the peach and apple flavors in mouth-watering balance. During the long, luscious finish the back of your throat filled with honeyed, peachy aromas--which sent you straight back to the glass for more. This was a dry yet intensely aromatic wine and represented excellent QPR.

We drank both wines with the same meal, and it was a toss-up which was better with it--a real testament to the food-friendliness of both. I made a simple poached salmon and served it with Indian cucumber raita, a side of saffron rice pilaf, and some Punjab eggplant (from a packet at Trader Joe's, I'm afraid, though you can make it from scratch). Both the red and the white wine worked beautifully with the full array of dishes and neither were overwhelming nor overwhelmed by any one dish.

When Words Get in the Way of Wine

An interesting discussion broke out on Twitter a week or so ago among a band of wine bloggers. The topic was wine jargon--which terms did you use, which did you hate, which didn't make any sense to you. It was an interesting exchange, all the more so to me because I realized all over again that words--the currency of the wine writer--often get in the way of the wine we are trying to write about when we pick up a pen or hit the keyboard. (photo "Seduction," used with the kind permission of mofo)

It became even more interesting when people started to question the use of the term "brambly" in describing wine and labeled it "jargon." This didn't seem to me to be jargon, but something else entirely--I just didn't know what to call it. So I talked to some folks that know linguistics. It turns out that wine writers use three kinds of confusing words: jargon (technical terms about wine), dialects (terminology common to a group of wine writers), and idiolects (terms that a single wine writer comes up with; if sufficiently popular, idiolects can get shared and become dialects). So, we can confuse readers three different ways. No wonder people think wine geeks are, well, geeks--and that wine writing is often impenetrable.

Take wine jargon. Wine jargon can run from wine-making terms like malolactic fermentation to the technical words associated with tasting (such as attack, mid-palate, and finish) and with taste (extracted). QPR, incidentally--a term I use on this site all the time--is jargon, too, since it is the technical term for "quality to price ratio" in winespeak.

Wine dialects include terms like those on the tasting menu in the picture: lush, fruity, soft tannins, juicy. These are short-hand terms that wine writers use that they think have a consistent meaning, but which are sufficiently subjective that no one knows for sure. We use them anyway because they are the shared language wine writers use to talk about wine. After sufficient time reading and writing about wine, we feel comfortable invoking litchi fruit and passionflowers to describe a wine even if we wouldn't know either if we fell on top of them. A term like "brambly," is an example of wine dialect that may have the most meaning among wine writers of British descent who have tried to pick blackberries in hedgerows and found that the only ones the birds hadn't eaten already were under-ripe and a little woody in flavor. Still, wine writers all over the world (even those who haven't picked blackberries in a bramble patch on a July afternoon in Chipping Norton) use the term if they look it up and find that it matches the flavors that they are tasting.

As for idiolect (please note: no "t" after idio), one of the great recent examples can be found in the tasting notes of Gary Vaynerchuk on WLTV. His unique tasting vocabulary started off as an idiolect, but the popularity of the site is now turning his terms into a shared dialect among hundreds of loyal WLTV viewers.

You might be wondering why I am going on about this. The answer is that getting to know wine includes learning some new vocabulary, including jargon and dialects. This is true of lots of activities from sailing to running to swimming. Imagine being on a boat where a sailor tells you to lash the sheet to the mizzenmast and responding "speak English, you geek." No, you would expect to learn and perhaps even come to use proper sailing terms when you learned to sail. Learning the language of wine can be as important as learning the taste characteristics of Cabernet. And if you are a fan of a particular wine writer, you might need to develop an understanding of their unique wine descriptors, too. If you don't, you could find yourself stumped about a wine with a "metallic attack and lean mid-palate" or a "great QPR red with a brambly finish."

I try to use as little jargon as possible, but I use a lot of wine dialect and I'm sure some idiolect, too. But there are resources on the web to help you learn this wine vocabulary, so if you meet a term you aren't familiar with, Google it or look it up in a dictionary. Words may get in the way of enjoying your wine, but unless you go to Chateau Petrogasm I'm not sure there is an easy fix. Besides, it may be better to learn about the terms that you don't understand. What do you think? Do you think I use too much jargon/dialect/idiolect? How about wine writers in general? And, are there any particular terms that either stump you or annoy you?

GWU$20 News

Just as I'm about to head out for a Burgundy tasting (report to follow) I got the heads-up that Jill from domaine547 posted an interview with me about my recent tasting of Tuscan wines (full report on that here at GWU$20 this Friday).

I was lucky enough to be asked to go along for the ride with domaine547, and tasted some great wines both within and well outside my normal price brackets. It was fun and instructive--and packed with wine buyers from across LA.

Jill also announced that I put together a "round the world" blogger pack for them, which is now available in the store. Turns out that picking great affordable wine from a bewildering range of options is harder than I thought--thank God there are folks who do it for a living, so we can spend less time choosing and more time drinking great wine. I'll be interested in hearing what you think of the lineup of wines I picked--there are some beauties in there, including a fairly hard to find chenin blanc. Jill will have more information on the blogger pack later in the week, and I will too, but if you can't wait you can certainly go ahead and check it out now--3 great wines for $45 + shipping to wherever you are.

Grape Variety #91: Ruche

Ruche is one of those great Italian varietals of unknown origin that has been a local favorite for a long time and has recently been "discovered" by the rest of the world. Usually, this happens only after most of the vines of said grape have been ripped out to make room for some more familiar variety (like Cabernet). Today, between 30 and 40 producers in the hills near Asti in the Piedmont region of Italy grow enough Ruche to make about 10,000 cases of red wine. A fraction of that production goes into making a sweet, dessert version of Ruche using the passito method in which grapes are dried in the sun to concentrate their sugar before fermentation.

Enter Randall Grahm, the man behind Bonny Doon. For the past few years--before he started selling off chunks of the business to focus on biodynamic viticulture--he's been importing Piedmont wines made by Luca Ferraris and selling them with Bonny Doon labels. Ferraris provided a number of wines to Bonny Doon, including a red table wine made from Ruche, Barbera, and Syrah (check out Smells Like Grape's tasting notes on this wine), and one of the region's Ruche passito wines.

The 2005 Bonny Doon Vineyard Ruche di Castagnole Monferrato Passito Ferraris was one of the best dessert wines I've had from Bonny Doon. I paid around $19 for this through the wine club, but it's on sale for $22.00/375 ml, direct from the winery. Often I find their dessert wines so sweet they are downright undrinkable (the botrytized Roussanne is an exception). This wine reminded me of port in its sweetness and flavor palate, but it was lighter in texture and felt less heavy on the tongue. Where this wine really stood out, however, was in its aromas of roses and raspberries. They were so clear and distinct that it was easy to track those flavors as the wine slid over your tongue. It was perfect on its own, and equally delicious with a piece of dark chocolate cake.

Italy continues to amaze me with these indigenous varietals that have so much character, and are so infrequently seen on US wine store shelves. Based on my experiences so far, I have to recommend that if you see an Italian wine made from a grape you've never heard of, you should definitely try it. There are some great grapes out there, and the wines are often very good value.