August 2006 Archives

I've written about the Astronomy Picture of the Day before, but it is just so cool. You should bookmark it.

Ceci n'est pas un Meteore, et ....

Paul Galli’s tasting note of the 2002 Varner Amphitheater Chardonnay posted on eBob, said “I defy any Burgophile to pick this as a ringer in a white burgundy tasting. Again, I find that this CA Chard is very MEEEERsault-like.” So, given this enthusiastic challenge, seven seekers after the truth met at Pesce in San Francisco to explore the proposition that New World wines can taste like White Burgundy. Attendees included Jim Varner, Ken Freeman, Dee Hornichek, Slaton Lipscomb, Leonard Maran, Steve Timko, and Paul Homchick.

We selected twelve wines to taste blind. Each attendee knew the wine they had brought and the identity of some of those attending gave strong hints of what they supplied. The wine-master-of-ceremonies announced that there were two French wines in the lineup and ten chardonnays from the New World. Participants were asked to identify the two French wines, and to be prepared to rank their top three wines. There were two flights of six wines.

I'm a bit late to this controversy, but since the argument seems to be unending, it doesn't matter when I notice it out of the corner of my eye and pick it up. It will still be there guttering along on some wine-focused BBS next week, next month, and next year. This particular controversy is just like Washington, D.C., about which George Schultz said "Nothing ever gets settled in this town."

The sparkle this time was provided by an interview Jancis Robinson did with the St. Helena Star while she was visiting the Northern California wine country for a series of MW seminars. (Jancis Robinson on words, works, and wine gluts). Her insight (or heresy, depending on how you feel about it) was commenting on how critics influence wine. She observed that: "Probably America's two big wine commentators, Parker (Robert M. Parker, Jr.) and the Wine Spectator are doing the dictating." Robinson added, "I happen to think it's a shame that these two have such similar tastes as I honestly don't believe they are shared with the overwhelming majority of wine drinkers, and especially not by most good winemakers. One of the saddest things I hear, and not just in California, is a wine producer admitting that they make wines they don't actually like themselves, but they make them - much bigger than their own taste - because they think they'll get high points."

Wine is infused with tradition. Some wine drinkers would feel set adrift without a cork screw, and some winemakers would feel as naked as a cockroach in the light without French oak barrels. But what tradition can we use to pigeonhole a fellow who talks about his wine using terms like simplicity, samurai, small, solitude, serenity, tranquility, and refinement, and then makes a 16.2% alcohol chardonnay and boasts of it's laser intensity? This is someone forging his own tradition.

Greg Brewer, a partner in Brewer-Clifton, and the wine-maker at Melville has launced a new project he is calling Diatom. Simplifying things perhaps a bit too much, this is a project to make Chardonnays that will go well with seafood... laser-focused seafood like raw oysters or sashimi. But Greg is a great writer and we don't have to simplify, we can let him speak for himself:

Vineyards selected for the diatom project are sought out for their ability to serve as voices for place. Through the small and specific sites chosen, there will be a journey through solitude, tranquility and the transitory nature of life. The challenge is to subtract all extraneous elements to arrive at the utmost level of simplicity, serenity and refinement. In order to maintain this desired purity, fermentation is carried out at a very cold temperature in neutral vessels to retain the most primary attributes of the fruit.

Furthermore, malo-lactic is inhibited to avoid the distraction of that secondary level of evolution. The resultant wine is then aged on its non-disturbed lees for health and protection, and removed just before there is any risk of autolysis which could impart nondesirable yeast-like characteristics into the wine.