I can hear the Aussie wine biz calling out from the cart, like the old man in the “Bring Out Your Dead” skit of Monty Python’s Holy Grail: “I’m not dead!… I think I’ll go for a walk… I feel haaaapy!!!”

[ Editor's note: speaking of Python, anyone remember their old "Aussie Table Wine" bit, based on the idea that fine wine being made in a place like Australia was so laughable that it could be used as premise for a comedy skit? Who's laughing now? ]

The general zeitgeist of the wine cognoscenti (at least lately) is that Aussie wine (particularly the much-maligned Shiraz) consists of overly-dense, brutish, syrupy, overblown, Port-without-the-charm and generally overpriced vino on the high end, and sugary, soda-pop-wannabe plonk on the low end.

Like most myths, Aussie wine’s death is based in some semblance of truth – but I am growing increasingly convinced that it is exactly that: a myth. Why? Because increasingly I am running into Aussie wines that are anything but plonk, and are a far cry from charmless saccharine plum-sauce.

Sure, Australia pumps out plonky, low-end crap by the Brobdingnag-esque tank-load (literally) – but name me one major wine-producing country that doesn’t do that. As for the high-end, the gems – the wines that truly speak of place and do have charm to spare – well, they are there, you just have to know where to look for them (just as you have to do in every other wine-producing card-carrying U.N. member country).

So what happened? Why are consumers and critics alike turning away from Aussie wine faster than a wombat would turn away after catching a whiff of a stark-raving-mad and starving dingo on the hunt? According to some, the stigma for Aussie wine is mostly Robert Parker’s fault; or, rather, the culpability rests with an industry that got too greedy and built production – and prices – up too fast after Parker anointed a few heady styles of Aussie low-production reds with near-perfect scores while at the apex of his influence in the 1990s. That’s the premise behind Campbell Mattinson’s excellent Thin Skins: Why The French Hate Australian Wine…

Thin Skins (I recently received a review copy) is a wildly-entertaining read, which I judge primarily be the number of Mattinson’s phrases that I wanted to steal and use on this blog (I lost count in the first fifty pages or so). Mattinson has a penchant for simultaneously being boorish, poignant, charming and hysterical all in the same sentence. Case in point: few male wine geeks could argue with his description of falling head-over-heels for wine (“my heart got an erection… it was like losing my innocence, and starting a war, at once”).

While I don’t agree with all of Mattinson’s conclusions and premises about the most recent rise and fall of the Aussie wine biz (particularly his penchant for blaming the snobbery of influential wine personalities in other countries – the same sort of snobbery that makes the previously-mentioned Python skit so damn funny, I suppose – for keeping Aussie wine “in its place” globally), I just couldn’t put the book down. Mattinson has managed to weave a manic pastiche of a tale that somehow ends up being a page-turner for true wine geeks. He also knows his shiz (his take on some of Australia’s best producers feels right on the money, for example – enough so that I fond myself wanting to head out and buy the recommendations of his that I haven’t yet tried).

If Thin Skins has a theme, it’s summarized in the first five pages when Mattinson says this about the current state of Aussie vino:

“Australlian wine today is a remarkable, hell-raising, beautiful story that has not been pieced together and told in one hit. It’s precisely because the story of modern Australian wine has not been pieced together that it is in trouble and is drawing all kinds of snobby potshots.”

And he’s 100% right. There are remarkable wines being made in Australia, and dismissing them flippantly because a few too many producers got bitten by the money bug and tried to make tarry, Parker-pleasing reds in chase of high-scoring fame and fortune, even if they didn’t have the fruit to do it properly – well, it’s just as stupid as saying that because DRC is located there in Burgundy then all Burgundy is sublimely good (it’s not, by the way). Thin Skins is worth a read, because it does for Australia what Evan Dawson’s Summer in a Glass does for the Finger Lakes, which is tell the story of that wine region in a deeply humanistic way; and when you’re done, you’ll feel as though you know – deeply, personally, glimpse-into-the-soul know – some of the characters that make that wine region what it is.

If you want some proof of Aussie wine’s potential to charm and surprise at various price points, here are two recent examples from my sample pool:

2009 Tahbilk Marsanne (Nagambie Lakes)
Price: $17
Rating: B

Ok, Nagambie Lakes is certainly off the beaten path when it comes to most Americans’ experience with Aussie wine – but in this case, it’s a trip worth taking. Tahbilk’s Marsanne plantings were established in 1927, which puts it in the running for oldest Marsanne plantings worldwide. This beauty doesn’t see even a touch of oak, and the result is diamond-like clarity of Marsanne’s tropical peach and citrus fruits, along with a hint of Nut-N-Honey (remember that stuff?). For under $20, you’re getting something that will rock Asian-style fish and give you just enough of that familiar-yet-strange charm to keep things interesting, and the added bonus of a white wine that will very likely age well for a few years and develop more of the honey character that some people prize in Marsanne. All in all, it’s about as far from “dead” as a you can get.

2005 Henschke Mount Edelstone Single Vineyard Shiraz (Eden Valley)
Price: $110
Rating: A

Yeah, yeah, I know – at $110, it ought to be really f*cking good. And it is really f*cking good. It’s actually not Henschke’s most expensive juice (that distinction goes to their Hill Of Grace Shiraz, which clocks in somewhere around $300 per bottle), but word on the street is that it’s nearly as good as that and for 1/3rd the coin. The vines are 90+ years old, ungrafted, dry-farmed and the fruit lives up to the vineyard’s name (which means “gemstone”) because their result, my friends, is a true gem. Yes, it has a ton of plummy fruit – would it really be Aussie Shiraz if it didn’t have that? – but it is not concentration (or syrup!) at the expense of finesse, complexity, or longevity. There’s a savory element here, along with anise, spices, and an opulent amount of dark chocolate – it’s like being served one of those 70% cocoa bars, but it’s given to you by angels in the fields of Elysium. And the finish is longer than a flight from JFK to Sydney. In other words, it’s a stellar achievement – balanced, gorgeous and yet true to the place and spirit of Australia. It’s also no the work of a terminally ill wine outfit.

With wines like that, I’m not out to write off the Aussie wine biz quite yet, people.

Here’s a closing thought: if the Aussie wine biz failed to ask themselves “what if things can’t go up from here?” and suffered as a result, what sort of questions should the Bordelais be asking themselves right about now?

Cheers!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at Reports Of Australian Wine’s Death Hath Been Greatly Exaggerated, My Lords from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

“Billy C. is drinking Sandeman Port down at the old café
And the river goes by slowly, the river likes it that way.”

- The Knuckleball Suite, Peter Mulvey

In the world of wine, there are a few images that stand the test of time and can truly be described as iconic, instantly conjuring up the history not just of a long-standing producer, but also of the entire region that producer calls home. And when you’re iconic in the world of wine, with its long historical perspective… well, then you’re just f*cking iconic, period.

In America, we have such an icon: the Missionary-style tower at Robert Mondavi winery in Napa Valley has come to represent not only the history of fine winemaking at RMW, but the entire modern history of fine winemaking in all of Napa (and by extension all of the U.S.), by virtue of the man who just about singlehandedly started it all.

The world of Port in Portugal has such an icon, too: The Don – that tall, dark-cloaked stranger that stands so prominently on the Gaia side of the river Douro (and who’s a lot more Zoro than creepy-flasher), is instantly recognizable to anyone walking along the shoreline in Porto. George Massiot Brown’s poster design from the 1920s has come to represent not only the 200+ years of Port-producing history that began with Scotsman George Sandeman – to many, it represents Port, period.

So when you’re offered samples of the icon’s range of age-designated Tawny Ports (from 10 to 40 years old) for possible review, you think twice about turning them down. In fact, in that scenario, as a wine geek you really have only two options: 1) decline the samples, or 2) plan on staging a comparative tasting and pairing them with Apple, Cranberry & Walnut Pie with Stilton (from page 208 of Sid Goldstein’s excellent The Wine Lover’s Cookbook).

You can guess which option I picked…

I’m going to jump right into the tasting action here, because there’s a lot of it and, let’s face it, that’s probably what all you attention-deficient wine geeks want. So if you’re new to Tawnies or just want a refresher on how they’re made, check out this excellent treatise on the matter by Roy Hersh.

So… how were the wines? For the most part, excellent – with one exception…

10 Year Tawny Port is often a mixed bag – in my experience, it’s not difficult to find a decent one but it’s often difficult to find a great one (Warre’s, for example, has Otima – a 10 Year Tawny marketed to Millenials that happens to wickedly over-deliver for its price-point).

Sandeman’s 10 Year Tawny (about $29) is a different – and slightly schizophrenic – animal: it sets a standard for how a Tawny ought to look, and it manages to preserve hints of the peppery spiciness that you’d usually find in Ruby Ports, while also bringing the toffee notes that are Tawny’s hallmark; but the whole package is slightly off-balance, which emphasizes the alcohol even in the wine’s long finish. Overall, it slightly under-delivers for the price-point, and might actually turn Port lovers away from trying its pricier, longer-aged big brothers.

Which would be a crying shame, really, because things take a decidedly steep upswing in quality (and price) when you get to Sandeman’s 20-years-and-up Tawny range.

Generally, I came away impressed by the balance and complexity of those wines, each of which was worth the price tag and all of which paired beautifully with our dried-and-baked fruity/nutty dessert (it sure beat the hell out of Champagne and cookies, anyway):

Sandeman 20 Year Tawny Port (Porto)
Price: $46
Rating: B+

One of the most well-balanced and accessible 20-year Tawnies I’ve had in a long while (the closest thing, for me, would be Ramos Pinto’s excellent 20-Year offering), this wine comes off as refined and even a bit subtle on the dried fruits, emphasizing the aromas of toasted almonds and walnuts as a result. On the palate, things are very food-friendly here, meaning you can go beyond the cheese-and-nuts-after-dinner match and throw some pies and cakes as this wine (just make sure their fruity and not too sweet!).  Open this after a holiday dinner party, and make sure you get a nice sized glass before you pour for anyone else, because sooner or later you’ll blink and this bottle will be empty.

Sandeman 30 Year Tawny Port (Porto)
Price: $75
Rating: A-

A curve-ball wine if I ever tasted one – which is why it didn’t surprise me too much to learn that some of the big wine mag critics rated this lower than the 20-year: this wine takes a fairly long time (nearly an hour, actually) to develop in the glass and show it’s full range of kick-ass awesomeness. At first, it’s a bit of a boozy mess on the nose, but given time everything comes together in a rich, caramel-nutty, dried-fruit package.  And when I say nuts, I don’t mean toasted nuts; I mean pure nuts from the tree, like you picked a walnut, peeled and cracked it open right on the spot. Not a Tawny for the instant-gratification crowd.

Sandeman 40 Year Tawny Port (Porto)
Price: $129
Rating: A

In a word, this wine is sublime. High praise I suppose, but apt: there’s just so much going on here, but all in concert – it’s like the climax to a Cirque du Soleil show. The richness is what will probably grab you first – it takes the sherried, oxidative notes and dried fruits of the 30-year and pumps them all up, then throws in the sweet toffee action of the 10-year and a heap of the refreshing qualities of the 20-year.  The result is harmony – (very) expensive harmony, but harmony nonetheless.  This is not a wine for your dinner party; this is a wine to treat as mysteriously as The Don himself – a wine to open with your S.O., and then to hoard, enjoying it secretly over the next week or two until every last drop is gone.

Cheers!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at Tasting 40 Years Of A Tawny Port Icon from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

“That’s just… man, that’s just… NOT right!”

The above quote is from a friend of mine, in reaction to learning that some of his favorite wines – and, in fact, probably most wines – are made with grapes purchased from growers. As in, grapes that did not come from a patch of land directly behind a winery building on a farm somewhere, tended with care by the winemaker’s own hands.

Imagine how he would have felt if he’d seen the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau’s list of “Materials authorized for the treatment of wine and juice.”  While it’s not quite as bad as the list of additives that are used to “enhance” our processed foodstuffs, it certainly feels a lot more “McDonald’s” than “Old MacDonald.”

As consumers, lacking evidence to the alternative we have a tendency to assume (naively) that what we consume is fundamentally natural, or that a “natural” product is somehow a superior one.  This premise – that the natural is always the better – serves as a driving force behind award-winning wine journalist Alice Feiring’s new book, Naked Wine: Letting Grapes Do What Comes Naturally ($10 eBook, or about $15 in print – I received an advanced review copy).

Feiring is a self-proclaimed polarizing figure in the wine world, and if her intention with Naked Wine was to solidify her controversial status, she could hardly have chosen a better cement than the topic of “natural wine”…

Dividing lines seem to have been drawn when it comes to natural wine: on one side, the Michel Bettanes of the world, who (perhaps because they award higher ratings to wines that are not in the natural wine camp?) decry natural winemaking as a fool’s errand; on the other, the Alice Feirings, who while not exactly screaming “Fast Food Nation”-style foul play, are at least insinuating that wine that is not made “naturally” is at best deceitful in how it’s marketed to the wine world, and at worst isn’t worth drinking at all.

One of the primary issue with natural wine is that it lacks anything close to standard definition.  Within the wine geek community, it’s usually meant to describe wines that have had little, if any, additions to initiate fermentation or prevent spoilage – at a minimum, no yeast inoculation, and little or no sulfur.  In turn, this drastically increases the probability of errant behavior during fermentation, adds difficulty in keeping the wine fresh during transport, and likely invites the spoilage yeasts such as brettanomyces (something I would consider a serious flaw in moderate-to-large doses, though Feiring seems to be on the opposite end of that spectrum: in Naked Wine, she waxes poetic over a wine she partly describes as having aromas of horse sweat).

I am of the strong opinion that natural winemaking is viable. I have tasted wines made with minimal sulfer that were decades old, from producers like Cahor’s Clos Seguier (whose 2006 Malbec made my “Top 10 Most Interesting Wines of the Year” list for 2010), that were insanely fresh and vibrant, and free of distracting amounts of funkiness. I’ve had others that I would not use to wash my car after accidentally running over a skunk for fear that they would make it smell even worse – it doesn’t always work, and takes a deft hand to pull off correctly.

Much of Naked Wine is spent chronicling Feiring’s European journeys in which she seeks out the producers who may be doing it right, tryingto  uncover how the world of natural winemaking operates – and why and how it came about in the first place.  The jaunt is kicked off by Feiring’s bold move to try her own hand at natural winemaking, working under the guidance of Kevin Hamel at Pellegrini Family Vineyards, trying to see small batch of Sagrantino from grape to glass with as little intervention as possible in between.  The poor Sagrantino becomes a minor player in the whole affair, bookending the European travels – which I found disappointing, because Feiring’s prose is at its most stellar when she recounts the emotional ups and downs of her vintner’s experience.

Maybe too much of Naked Wine is spent chronicling that Conrad-ian journey into the heart of natural winemaking darkness, actually.  All of the natural wine rivers traversed by Feiring lead to Jacques Néauport, who had a prolific career as consultant and is widely credited with creating the natural winemaking movement.  When Feiring finally finds her way to Néauport’s dinner table for an interview in which she hopes to take a nibble from the forbidden fruit of natural wine’s genesis, the result is a bit anti-climactic, if charming in its Zen simplicity: “There is no answer,” he tells her.  Néauport, it turns out, simply wanted to make wine without sulfur in order to reduce the impact of the hangovers he felt after copiously drinking wines that did have sulfur added.

Naked Wine – and Feiring herself – ultimately remain controversial because they take on an attitude and air about the topic of natural wine that could justifiable be called dogmatic. In treating natural wines as a sort of pinnacle, the implication is that wines not made in the same way are inferior.  Which is a bit like saying that McDonald’s shouldn’t be in business at all precisely because it’s not Old MacDonald.

The trouble with such an approach is that it ignores the legitimacy of the vast majority of wines on the market today, many of which are arguably more manufactured than grown, but whose consumers don’t really care so long as they taste good, are reasonably priced and aren’t full of medically-unsafe amounts of additional ingredients – and for $7 / bottle, is the argument against them really worth making at all?

Fine wine, however, is a different story; while certainly there must be some expensive, high-scoring fine wines that undergo terroir-masking manipulations that consumers might find questionable (if not detestable), the odds are probably stacked against most fine wines being made that way.

Naked Wine might confuse transparency in fine winemaking techniques with outright deception, or lack of viability, and it may ring the dogma bell a bit to often – and too loudly – for some, but it will almost certainly make you think differently about how wine is made, and that alone makes it worth the price of admission.

Cheers!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at Art Vs. Artifice In The Search For Natural Wine from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

Before I offer my thoughts on Evan Dawson’s recently-released Summer in a Glass: The Coming of Age of Winemaking in the Finger Lakes, I need to make sure that you thoroughly understand that this is NOT a book review.

It’s not really a book review because as a personal friend of Evan, and a fan of his writing in general, and a member of the Palate Press ad network (which is currently running ads for Summer in a Glass, some of which appear right here on this site), I am very likely incapable of producing an unbiased review of his first book.

In fact, I’m quoted in the book as well, and, now that I think about it, about the only way I could be more firmly lodged like a NYC prostitute onto the tip of this book would be if I were somehow receiving a percentage of the advance (I’m not).  So let’s just say that when I tell you that Summer in a Glass is not really a wine book, but is a humanist take on a local industry finally finding its mature footing, and just happens to be set in a wine region – and that it’s a total joy to read – I’m at least being subconsciously influenced into seeing the more positive gleams from the sheen coming off of its glossy cover.

What I can tell you without appearing like a total shill is that Summer in a Glass seems to be hitting the shelves at exactly the right time.  I’ve written in the not-so-distant past that the NY Finger Lakes wine region seems to have hit its best stride ever in recent years, with the levels of experience, industry camaraderie and wine quality all headed up a steep curve simultaneously.  If you want to settle into your fave reading chair with a book like Evan’s, there’s never been a better time than now to pour yourself a glass of Finger Lakes wine to accompany it – and that is NOT just Riesling, mind you; I include Finger Lakes reds in that group, as they are producing increasing amounts of high-quality reds like Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir (let’s not forget that the 2008 Red Tail Ridge Pinot Noir made my list of 2010 Top 10 Most Interesting Wines, people)…

The Finger Lakes also continue to work the David-vs.-Goliath angle in the wine biz, and for the last few years have managed to successfully parlay that stance into an underdog-to-cheer-for status without beating wine consumers over the head about it.  This probably makes some of the better producers in the region the sentimental favorites of wine geeks across the U.S., and the beautiful scenery of the area isn’t hurting them, either.

Is bad wine still being made in the Finger Lakes?  Of course it is – some of it is textbook flawed, as in could-use-it-in-a-wine-cert-faults-tasting bad.  BUT…

I’m sure some of you out there will disagree with me, and still more could (rightly) point out that Finger Lakes wines remain too pricey – especially in the Riesling department (and most especially when compared to some of their more floral and elegant Germanic counterparts in those similar price ranges); however, I’d argue blue-faced-style that the region is pumping out its best wine ever, with an increasing percentage of it becoming world-class.

Anyway – hat’s off to my friend Evan for his accomplishment, and hat’s off to the Finger Lakes wine producers for hitting their stride and reaching the point where a passionate book like Evan’s could be viably written about them.

Cheers!

p.s. – On a similar (shil-lish) book note, a recent release to which I contributed a few short (no height jokes, please!) pages – titled “Every Wine Tells A Story” – is now available for order on Amazon.com and so I’d like to give the editor (London-based sommelier and consultant Tara Devon O’Leary) a hand for getting Amazon to pick it up and encourage you to take a look at it as well.

Copyright © 2011. Originally at Thoughts on "Summer In A Glass" And Finger Lakes Wine Finding Its (Red And White) Mojo from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

Occasionally in the wine media world one gets asked to contribute to articles, news stories, wine lists and wine picks.  I’ve done this several times (recently for Sommelier Journal, for example) because I like to help people out if I can, and when it comes to Going Pro it doesn’t hurt to have your name in the public eye and mind of the wine world (more on the pros/cons of that approach in a future Going Pro article).

Those contributions are almost always uncompensated, as was the case in my latest – a two-page blurb that I gave to London-based sommelier and consultant Tara Devon O’Leary (at her request) for her newly-released book, Every Wine Tells A Story.  Well, uncompensated unless you count the copy of the book that she gave to me.

Like another wine book recently reviewed on these virtual pages (A Feast At The Beach), Every Wine Tells A Story is a series of short, vignette-style pieces, though the focus is squarely on wine and the vignettes are supplied by twenty-nine wine personalities that include sommeliers, print journalists, bloggers, winemakers and wine merchants.  Each story details something interesting about a particular wine recommendation and why (and how) it touched the author in some way.  There are some great moments in this little book, and greater still are the wine recommendations, many of which are readily available (though some, like the 1971 Domaine Romanee-Conti picked by Judgment-of-Paris legend Steven Spurrier, are well beyond the reach of all but the richest among us).

I’m mentioning this book today because my contribution is a love-letter to the same wine that I recommended to Sommelier Journal’s 2010 wine list article (the 2007 Quinta do Vesuvio Vintage Port), and so it seemed appropriate for Valentine’s Day.  Plus, having recently returned from Portugal, I’ve got Port on my mind (and, no doubt, a serious amount of cholesterol in my blood from three square meals of insanely tasty meat dishes each day).

Anyway, Every Wine Tells A Story is worth a look, and like A Feast At The Beach offers a nice break from the overly-weighty, serious tomes in the wine book lexicon (it also offers similar “bathroom reading” potential; yes, I did go there… again).  Around $13.

Cheers!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at Love Stories, Wine By Wine (Reviewing “Every Wine Tells A Story”) from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!