Organic Wine Week, Part 2: Pinot Noir

My second organic wine pick for this week involves Pinot Noir--which still seems to be everyone's favorite red variety. There's a lot to like about it, so it's not surprising. They're flavorful, rich without being heavy, and pair well with a wide variety of foods.

So when the folks at Cooper Mountain asked if I'd like to try their latest vintage of Pinot Noir I said yes. Cooper Mountain Vineyards are in the Willamette Valley, perched on the slopes of an extinct volcano in Oregon. Robert and Corrine Gross started the vineyards in 1978 and began bottling their own wine in 1987. Robert Gross always explored alternative methods of treating his medical patients--he's a psychiatrist, a homeopath, and an acupuncturist--and his fondness for the road less traveled in his career can also be seen in his wine work. Within a few years, Gross became interested in sustainable, alternative farming and began to convert the vineyards to organic methods. They were certified organic in 1995 (the second vineyard in Oregon to achieve this status), and four years later received their biodynamic Demeter certification.

The wine I sampled, the 2006 Cooper Mountain Vineyards Cooper Hill Pinot Noir, was a light bodied, cheerful wine with excellent QPR. ($15-$17 through online merchants) Made with organic, biodynamic grapes, the wine tasted very pure to me, with lots of cherry and raspberry aromas and flavors that were intense and lively. The wine had Pinot's distinctive silky character, and after you swallowed down all those fruity flavors there was a nice fresh taste in your mouth that reminded me of the smell of a wet garden. Like most Oregon Pinot Noirs that I've tasted, this wine is not opulent and rich but cool and restrained--like Grace Kelley. It's a young wine, with refreshing acidity at its core and I found that the cherry had turned to black cherry and the raspberry to blackberry after I recorked it and left it on the counter for 24 hours. This suggested to me that this is a wine that will continue to develop with age. But it's delightful right now, so you shouldn't wait to try this one. And the price is amazing for a wine that is organic, small production, and so darn tasty.

We had the Cooper Mountain Pinot Noir with some BBQ shrimp and cheese grits made with shrimp tossed in some homemade red sauce with bourbon and spices and some creamy grits laced with extra sharp cheddar cheese. The acidity really cut through the red BBQ sauce, and the purity of the fruit flavors didn't clash with the spices. This summer, if you've got plans to BBQ, get yourself some of this wine.

Cooper Mountain makes a wide range of organic, biodynamic wines including Pinot Gris, Malbec, and several different Pinot Noirs. If you want confirmation from another blogger that Cooper Mountain is a winery to watch, check out Jeff Lefevere's review over at Good Grape. This is a winery that may not be on your radar screen, but it should be. Their wines are further proof of the numerous affordable, delicious choices that are out there if you would like to make organic and biodynamic wine choices.

A Peek Into My Cellar

CellarTracker, my preferred cellar management and tasting note program, has rolled out some fun new features that you may want to check out. Even if you are familiar with the program, you may not know that there are now ways to highlight posts made by your favorite tasting note authors, and allow friends to peek into your cellar.

To the right, you see a screen shot from Cellar Tracker, with the new featured areas highlighted with red indicators. I know it's a little small, but if you click on it you will enlarge it and be able to see how the new features appear on the home page.

Using the new features is simple. You can either search for a user in the search box on the upper left, entering their handle (mine is "drdebs") and using the pulldown menu to search for "users". This will take you to their profile page where you can indicate they are a favorite author or make them a "cellar buddy" so they can see the contents of your cellar. Or, if you are reading tasting notes and find an author who seems to share your palate, you can make them a favorite author simply by clicking on that option which appears for each tasting note in the database. Lots of bloggers and readers of GWU$20 are CellarTracker users, and it will be interesting to see how these features develop in the coming months.

By clicking on Buddies in the top menu bar, you will be given options on how to manage the people you've identified as friends and favorite authors. You can opt to only see tasting notes from these folks (although why you would do that don't ask me--the whole point of CellarTracker as far as I'm concerned is the enormous range of tasters), ignore tasters that you don't find helpful, and tweak the program in other ways.

I've started checking my buddies list and giving reciprocal favorite author stars and cellar access to people who indicate that they are readers, so if you want a peek into my cellar don't hesitate to indicate that you are interested on my profile so that I can do the same.

Organic Wine Week, Part 1: Chardonnay

This week I'm focusing on a pair of organic wines to highlight the increasingly wide range of options consumers have if they want to drink wine that has been made with organic grapes.

There was a time when wines made with organic grapes were difficult to find, but that is certainly not true any more. In fact, you are probably drinking wine made with organic grapes and not even realizing it. One of the things that has struck me is that some wines don't identify themselves as using organic grapes on their labels.

One of the reasons for this may be that current regulations require that a wine labeled "Organic" must not only be made with organic grapes, there must be no added sulfites. Sulfites are added to wines to help stabilize them for shipping and storage, so it's pretty hard to find a wine that is "Organic." It's far more common to find a wine that is made "with organic grapes." If you look at the tiny type at the bottom of the Jeriko label, you will see that it indicates that organic grapes were used. Wines labeled in this fashion have been made with certified organic fruit, but do have sulfites added for stability. If you want to find out more about organic wine, visit the Organic Wine Company and read up on their notes regarding how wines are classified.

My latest recommendation for a white wine made with certified organic grapes is the 2005 Jeriko Estate Chardonnay. ($19.99, WineQ) Jeriko Estate now uses only certified, organically grown grapes in their wines, all of which are grown in vineyards in Mendocino County. This was a creamy chardonnay that gets its body from partial malolactic fermentation in oak, and its crispness from a majority of fermentation time spent in stainless steel tanks. It was a pleasant bright straw in color, and had aromas of summer orchard fruits like pear and apple, and some late summer hay. The flavors you will find in this wine are of apples and cream, with a faintly buttery aftertaste. All in all, I found this a nicely made example of a creamy, California Chardonnay with good QPR. It will appeal to anyone who likes a richer style of chardonnay, but one that is still fresh and crisp.

With a wine like this, there is nothing better (in my opinion) than oven-fried chicken and slaw. I like the recipe for buttermilk-dipped, pan-browned, and oven-fried chicken from Cooking Light which tastes every bit as decadent as the real thing but leads to only a fraction of the guilt afterwards. The creamy, tangy buttermilk and caramelized flour coating is a perfect pairing for a creamy Chardonnay like this one. And for the slaw, do yourself a favor and try this one with dried cherries, sweetly spicy pecans, apples, cabbage, and a vinegar-based dressing. I cheated and picked up a package of already sweet and spicy pecans from Trader Joe's, and only used green cabbage, by the way, and it was fine. The apples in the slaw really pick up the apple notes in the Chardonnay.

As I get older I'm finding I care more and more about the environment. I stopped drinking bottled water, I'm buying a hybrid car, and I'm eating more organic, locally produced food. It's a good thing to be able to extend this philosophy into my wine drinking, with such tasty results.

Hot Pink Fizz for Your Next Pizza

This wine is hot pink. Don't believe me? I took a picture of it against the white backdrop of my GE dryer just to prove it.

You might ask yourself, "what is the point of hot pink fizz?" It's a good question. This is not a delicate rose, or a shell-pink sparkler, or anything subtle, profound, or even particularly memorable.

This is a "Whazzat?" wine. "What the hell is that stuff?" is most likely to be the question your guests and loved ones ask when you pour it. You can tell them that it is a gently fizzy frizzante wine from around Venice made from a grape that few have heard of called Raboso. I know, I know. Your cousin Marge doesn't care about that stuff, but it is the right answer. Raboso is a tannic monster with deeply-colored skins which helps to explain why it is so violently pink. It also explains why this wine has some serious grip to it, for all its foofy fizziness.

The NV Incanto Frizzante Rose is one of those wines that you have to have a lot of wine confidence to drink in front of other people. It's hot pink color, aromas of cherry, and tiny bubbles will be enough to make friends think you've lost your mind. But trust me, you haven't--especially if you are drinking a well-chilled bottle while eating a spicy pepperoni pizza on the deck on a warm, early summer Friday evening.

It has all the tannins of a dry red, the refreshing quality of a sparkler, and the crispness that you want on a warm day. There is a dry aftertaste, which just confirms this is no candy wine. But the combination of dryness, bubbles, and tannins makes it the ideal partner for pizza with spicy toppings, appetizer plates loaded with salumi, olives, and cheese, or just plain sipping on a warm afternoon.

You can get this unusual wine at Trader Joe's for around $5.99. At that price this is very good QPR, and it will set you back far less than the pizza or the gas required to pick the pizza up. These days, who can ask for anything more?

Vintage 1906: Buying Wine In Los Angeles

I spend lots of time in libraries and archives. I thought it might be fun to share some of the information I pick up about wine history along the way.

Imagine yourself in Los Angeles in 1906. The streets would have looked like the one to your left, with an electric tram, horses and carriages still on the streets, colorful awnings,and low-slung brick buildings. (Los Angeles street scene from 1906, courtesy of the LA Public Library and LA Fire Department Engine Co. No. 3)

While walking along, readers of this blog would be scanning the stores for wine. Where could you have purchased it in 1906? One option would have been the Crescent Wine Company, established in 1890 and still serving up wine and spirits, as well as olive oil and bottled water, to Los Angeles residents after the turn of the century. Located downtown on West Seventh Street, the company's motto was "Quality like Truth commends itself." Their 1906 price list proudly stated: “We do not keep nor offer for sale any imitation goods, or goods bearing counterfeit labels, and every article in this list is of irreproachable quality and even the cheapest goods quoted are choice.” Truth in advertising--and labeling--was an issue back then, just as it is now.

What the Crescent Wine Company meant by that statement, however, would not pass muster today. They sold California wines in bulk under the categories of Claret (both "Table" Claret and "Old" Claret) and Zinfandel, but also advertised California Burgundy, California Hock, California Riesling, and California Sauternes. The price? Well that ranged from 50 cents to $1.50--a gallon. You could get your Claret in a quart bottle for an extra 10 cents, and when you brought the bottles back for a refill you got a 3 cent credit. Recycling, 1906 style.

Name-brand, bottled wines were also available, including Italian-Swiss Colony Tipo Chianti; Inglenook Sparkling Moselle, Burgundy, and (eek!) Sparkling Sauternes; Cresta Blanca sparkling wines; Paul Masson; and Champagne from Coste-Follcher, Mumm's, Veuve Clicquot, and Moet & Chandon. And, for those of you reading this from the east coast, the Crescent Wine Company also sold bottles of wine produced in your neck of the woods, including Virginia Dare wine (65 cents a bottle) and Concord Port. (image from bottlebooks.com)

Those of you who know about the 19th and early 20th century may also know that medicinal "tonics" (most of which were laced with opium, cocaine, and other potent substances) were hugely popular. Crescent Wine Company sold its own medicinal tonic, called "Tone-up Port." They described it as a "perfect, all the year around tonic and nutritive for restoring debilitated conditions. A perfect food and tonic combined. As an appetizer it has no equal; invigorates and tones up the whole system; makes rich, red blood, and is especially recommended for building up “run-down” constitutions." What was in the bottle was a carefully-guarded secret, but they offered free local shipping on 6 large bottles (which cost you $4).

Finally, the cocktail was coming into its own around 1906, and mixed drinks were all the rage. Not to be left out of the fun, the Crescent Wine Company included a number of "wine cocktail" recipes in their 1906 price list. My favorite--and a perfect follow-up to Wine Blogging Wednesday #45's Riesling theme--was this recipe for Rhine Wine Lemonade:

"Use large bar glass; 1 tablespoon sugar, juice of 1 orange, ½ glass of ice; fill up with Rhine wine. Stir well, add slice or orange with straws, and serve."

Coming in a close second was the California Wine Cobbler:

"A large bar glass half full of ice; ½ tablespoonful of sugar, juice of 1 orange, 1 wine glass California wine. Stir well, fill up with ice, dash with claret, dress with fruit, serve with a straw."

There was something strangely familiar about this price list, and it reminded me of surfing the web and browsing wine selections at local stores like domaine547 and Wally's, reading their advice about how to serve wine, and dreaming of making a big purchase. Despite the ways in which the experience was quite different from today, what I was most struck by were the ways in which buying wine from Crescent Wine Company seemed strangely modern with its recycled containers and free shipping offers. It made me think that someone from 1906 would be at home in our world of e-commerce and be delighted to shop for wine from the comfort of their own living room in 2008. It's fun to be able to imagine what it would have been like to buy wine in Los Angeles more than a century ago--although I'm not sure the Sparkling Sauternes would have made it into my cart.