EverythingWINE

It has to be the strangest rituals in the whole wine world. At one minute past midnight on the third Thursday of each November, a million cases of Beaujolais Nouveau are shipped to eager markets around the globe. Because it’s made to be drunk young – like, that month – Beaujolais Nouveau moves from the tank to the market at Santa Claus speed. That morning, people line up to buy it when the stores open. I don’t know why it’s not called Red Thursday.

Made from the humble gamay grape, Beaujolais Nouveau is made so fast there’s no time to crush. Fermenting whole berries gives the fruit its desired fresh taste, but it also offers some unusual flavors, some that take me back to grade three. Without oak aging, Beaujolais Nouveau is still pretty much fruit juice when it reaches the stores.

Ivana and I decided to play it safe and wait until Saturday to taste Everything Wine’s 2009 selection. At the bar, Pam Baldwin poured the Georges Duboeuf first, since has a lighter colour and body, almost a heavy rosé. It had that typical ripe banana and bubble gum on the nose and mouth, plus some bright red maraschino cherry on the finish. We agreed it would make excellent Sangria.

Those same flavours appeared in the Joseph Drouhin Beaujolais Villages Nouveau, but they were riper, and more stewed tasting. Earthier and less nervous than the Dubeauf, the Drouhin shows better integration and, as Ivana observed, “has a cherry pit bitterness on the palate.” This one would be my choice.

We also tasted the Vina Maipo Sauvignon/Chard and Carmeneré/Cab of which there is a mountain in the middle of the store. And that weekend they were on sale for $8.99 per bottle!

The Vina Maipo 2008 Sauvignon Blanc Chardonnay is extremely fresh and lively. Despite a hint of oak on the nose, the palate is crisp and sharp, with citric fruit throughout. This is perfect for seafood or Asian dishes or any foods that require palate cleansing. A good breakfast wine, too.

The smoky, campfire aroma of the Vina Maipo 2008 Carmeneré Cabernet Sauvignon struck us both. Behind the smoke, though, we found warm red fruit and old leather. The palate is rich and deep, full of blackberries and black raspberries, with a mellow acidity that leads to a nice woody finish. Perfect for burgers, great with chocolate.

I don’t know if the Viña Maipo wines will go on sale again, but at $10.99, they are still steals.

Tune in next week for the first in a three part series, The Happy Holiday Case: twelve wines to get through Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwansa and maybe even New Year.

Cheers!

Sometimes, sitting at a dinner table, laden with a fabulous meal of multi-level flavours, one wine is simply not enough. That’s why I like to have two wines – a white and a red – in front of me at table. I know it sounds terribly self-indulgent to pour two wines for dinner, but if you are like me – suffering WADD or Wine Attention Deficit Disorder – and have two bottles open all the time anyway, why not? Side-by-side drinking can only add complexity and roundness to the meal, and who doesn’t want that?

Great side-by-side pairings are usually varietals from the same region. Growing up in the same neighborhood seems to give different grapes some kind of flavour simpatico, a certain way with food that makes them sit well together.

My all-time favourite side-by-side pairing is Burgundian. A medium-bodied Pinot Noir and a round, fruity Chardonnay is my idea of culinary splendor. What’s great about drinking Pinot with Chard is that between them, they cover such a wide range of foods, crossing over with light meat and heavy veggies. Pinot pairs well with many types of meat, but with salmon, pork, chicken Chardonnay is right there with apple-y zest. My favourite meal includes a well-oaked Pinot and a tropical fruit Chard with ginger/soy grilled salmon fillets and baked yam fries. Everything goes with everything at once, like a symphony.

Two wines I found recently taste perfect side by side.

Madrone Vineyards 2007 California Chardonnay has just the right balance of sweet oak and sassy fruit to give dinner a bit of zing. The winery is located in Kenwood, Sonoma County, and with its California designation, I would guess the fruit is sourced from Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake Counties. The wine is a blend of oak aged and unoaked chardonnay - with 8% Muscat – and will coat your tongue as you smack your lips. Ripe, baked apples and mango in a buttery mouthfeel ends with sweet fruit and zingy acidity, and a long, caramel finish.

Meridian’s 2006 California Pinot Noir has enough warmth and richness to make the most simple food taste sophisticated. Dried cherries, leather and sweet oak dominate the nose while black cherries, plum and fig dance on a velvety palate. Soft in the mouth, with supple tannins and juicy acidity. Meridian made their name on California’s Central Coast and most of these grapes came from Monterrey County. Only 5,000 cases made.

Two wines are always better than one. If you agree, please tell me about the wines you enjoy side-by-side and the foods you serve with them.

In other words, what wines do you play with your food?

 
Imagine a wine so rare, it can only be purchased through a mailing list, which has its own waiting list; a wine so well made, it spends up to 10 years being rotated between old casks and new casks, like vinicultural musical chairs, and bottled with the most perfect corks in the world; a wine brand backed with one hundred and fifty years of history that consistently combines tradition and innovation; a wine produced by a vintner who travels only with a bodyguard. And suddenly, it is available to us, mere mortals.

It’s true: Vega Sicilia wines are now attainable in Canada. At a seminar in the Everything Wine classroom last Friday, Anthony Gismondi introduced the wines to an expectant audience. He described the owner, Pablo Álvarez as shy, serious and so low key he enters through back doors everywhere, and so cautious he brings a bodyguard with him.

The wines themselves are worth protection. They are made from grapes biodynamically grown on 250 hectares in Valbuena de Duero along the Duero River. The climate forces these tempranillo, cabernet, and merlot vines to suffer in poor alluvial soil and months of sub zero temperatures, and then, crops are mercilessly pruned to produce less than two kilos per vine. After extensive oak aging, the wines are bottled with corks scrupulously tested and often rejected. Then, the bottles are laid down for one and a half to five years, depending on size. With this amount of care, it’s no wonder the Unico is priced at $379.99.

These are wines so well integrated that you can barely distinguish the flavours passing seamlessly throughout. The Unico 1998 is balanced and integrated fine for drinking now, but still has structure to spare for decades to come. The Valbuena 2003 has a structure and flavour profile similar to Unico, but with a much younger attitude loud, lively energy.

The flagship wines are Unico and Valbuena. Both blends are dominated by tempranillo, but the Unico – which is only released in good years - uses older vines and has more cabernet sauvignon than merlot, and is oak aged at least five years. Valbuena uses younger vines and has more merlot than cabernet sauvignon, and is oak aged for three and a half years. These wines - and the non-vintage Unico Reserva Especial - are available by special order.

In 1991, the Álavarez family founded Álion in the nearby Toro region. The 2005 Álion is 100% tempranillo made in 25,000 case quantities in a more modern style, with more softness and less “shouty” oak from only three years of aging.

Familia Álavarez founded the Tokaj Oremos winery in Hungary in 1993 to make dry, sweet, and super sweet wines typical of the region. We tried the fresh, dry “Mandolas” 2005 Dry Furmint, the complex, dense 2004 Late Harvest, and the Sauterne-like, botrytis-affected 2000 Five Puttanyos, made by adding rotten grapes to the must, which tastes better than it sounds.

Pintia is the most recent Álvarez project. Located in Toro using 100% tempranillo from “superior local clones,” Pintia's style is modern and muscular, like the Alion, but with a smaller, 10,000 case production, crafted for the North American market.

"The 2004 Alion is superb and good value at $84.99,” opined Everything Wine’s Chris Sharpe. “The 2005 Pintia is a more elegant wine than you would normally find out of Toro, and the 1998 Vega Sicilia Unico is a classic in the making."

Sure, it's great to have an extra hour of sleep every year, but falling back in time has a much bigger effect on human behaviour than simply the hour of rising in the morning. More light in the morning is nothing, nada, compared to less light in the afternoon. That gathering gloom you see at quitting time is a sneaky thing, closing in as it does day by day, week by week, until the auspicious moment when it reverses itself on December 21st, and more brightness begins to creep in. Falling back also affects wine consumption - causing one to pass over those Alsatian whites and New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs - because dark days demand dark wines.

Just in time for this blurry shift of day into night, I tasted a number of things that have successfully aided my own adjustment to the darkness. All of them pair well with comfort foods like braised lamb, Mediterranean chicken, and pizza, and they warm the body from the inside out.

The Casa Castillo 2007 Monastrell from Jumilla, Spain is big and bold will dance the flamenco on your tongue. The color is opaque and has long legs and the nose smells like the color: black, spicy, meaty, rich. Decanting or Vinturing the Casa Castillo softens the mouthfeel and brings forth more aromas, revealing layers of chocolate, blueberry and all kinds of spice. Better yet, drink the day after opening.

The latest thing from the dark wine department is Caladoc, a new, high tech vine developed for Mediterranean climates to create wines of dense color, strong tannins and age ability. Caladoc is a cross between Black Granache and Malbec, known as "Cot" in Southern France. Familia Zuccardi of Mendoza, Argentina has taken the Caladoc ball and is running with it as Textual. The 2007 Textual has smoke, tobacco and black cherry on the nose, and after sufficient breathing time, the palate becomes supple and juicy with lots of red and black fruit, spice, and earth coming through. Something to curl up with on the couch.

On a blustery dark evening, I like a good ripasso because it is almost an amarone but still very Valpolicella. It's made by taking young Valpolicella - a blend of Corvina, Molinara, and Rondinella - and re-fermenting it with the unpressed but drained skins and lees from the Amarone, itself made from partially dried grapes of the same varieties. The Folonari 2006 Valpolicella Ripasso has a rich, throaty texture with beautifully integrated cherry, raspberry, leather and warm dust and a long, juicy finish. Great with Italian food - surprise! - but also a friend of butternut squash and dark chocolate.

Whatever gets you through the nights.