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    Tagged with 'Wine History'

    98-Point Wines for Under $100

    • Dec 17, 2018
    Let’s raise a glass to ninety-eight,
    For wine, that score is pretty great!
    It’s two points from immaculate!
    (does that not make sense? well, too late)

    I doubt that you could ever hate
    A wine with points of ninety-eight!
    With Christmas coming, let’s go straight
    to two wines you’ll want by the crate:

    TeHo Malbec 2014, Mendoza, Argentina. A gloriously Old World Malbec from the New World, this drinks like a Cahors stirred with a lightsaber. Meaning “Blood of the Earth” in the local indigenous tongue, TeHo is sourced from a non-grafted Uco Valley vineyard called Tomal, planted in 1955, and the 90% Malbec is co-fermented with 10% of… well, everything: Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc and, if the beautifully mineral finish is any indication, a bunch of rocks. Pulls off the rare trick of intense concentration without the accompanying baby fat; red cherries, violets and spice surround the nose, the medium-full body and mineral finish are lifted by a beautiful acidity that’s more Médoc than Mendoza. Stretches the boundaries of what “Mendoza” means, Malbec-lovers and Francophiles alike can find a lot to trip out on, here, this is fabulous and layered. Exclusive to this store. Currently gorgeous but has the structural fortitude to cellar like a Jedi, and can do many push-ups:
    98 points Tim Atkins
    Red Wine of the Year (2017) Tim Atkins
    Top 20 Wines of 2017, Decanter
    Top 100 Wines of 2017, Wine and Spirits
    5 6-packs available, $75.99 +tax
    Yarra Yering Dry Red No. 2 2012, Yarra Valley, Australia. Last year’s Australian Winemaker of the Year Sarah Crowe returns with another whizz-bang Shiraz from the cool(er) climate of Yarra Valley, near Melbourne. Hard to describe Yarra wines except by discounting what they aren’t: they don’t have the confected fruit compote of McLaren Vale, they don’t have the black pepper of Barossa, nor are they as light footed as Norther Rhône Syrahs or rigidly structured like Margaret River wines. What they do have is a friendly, comfort-food exterior that can somewhat belie enormous reservoirs of thermo-nuclear inner strength.  Often called an “iron fist in a velvet glove”, Dry Red No 2 is teeming with white pepper, red Nibs and baking chocolate, the body is plenty full but can still do pull-ups, the finish – and it’s famous for this – peers into the portal to forever. Outstanding vintage for a wine notorious for its vintage variation. 98 points James Halliday, 4 6-packs available, $92.49 +tax

    Until next time, Happy Drinking!

    Piedmont Personalities: Small Batches of Barolo, Barbaresco and Barbera

    • Nov 1, 2018

    Hi everyone!


    Very excited to share these wines with you, I’ve been collecting them for a while, now, in small quantities. Over the past year, I’ve been turned on to some teeny-tiny Piemontese producers, just as some of the small-to-medium houses have released some of their best wines in a decade (indeed, I’ve already written about some of them, including my potential W.O.T.Y. Albino Rocca Barbaresco Ovello). I’ll have one major “Back-Up-The-Truck” Barbera arriving in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, I’d like to tell you about some of the smaller lots of Piedmont I’ve accrued of late:


    Cappellano. Although the Cappellano story goes back 5 generations, it was Teobaldo Cappellano, Italian by heritage but born and raised in the horn of Africa, who put the family back on the map when he arrived in Barolo after his father’s untimely death in 1955. Although the Cappellanos had been famous/notorious for making Barolo Chinato in the late 19th century (Chinato is when crazy people add quinine bark and herbs to Barolo, placing it somewhere between “Aperitif” and “Potion”), the wartime years saw the family sell off their grapes to bulk producers, and adopt the “if it grows, spray it” mass-agricultural ethics of the more industrialized countries.


    What Teobaldo did makes sense in a 21st century fine wine context, but it seemed like mad abandon to contemporary 1960s common-sense viticulture: he reduced the family’s vineyards to only 4 hectares (madness! How will you eat?), sold off the French Barrique barrels in favour of large, neutral Botti (are you crazy? The Americans won’t buy it!), ended the use of pesticides and herbicides in the vineyards and stopped adding sulphites in the winery (but chemicals are fine! –  cough). Perhaps the most notable act that Teobaldo did towards cementing his crazy-hermit-cave-kingdom reputation was to ban all wine journalists from his property unless they agreed to never assign a numerical score to his wines. Teobaldo passed away in 2009, but his son Augusto carries all these traditions on to this day.

    Cappellano still makes only 800 cases of wine per year, and it’s incredibly hard to get, to my knowledge only Quebec and B.C. get any in Canada, and the U.S. is largely ignored – the majority of their production is sold locally and in France and Germany. Augusto carries on his dad’s traditions of long macerations and fermentations with no added yeasts (no added anything, unless you count bottles and corks), and I’m proud and honoured to offer their wines:


    Cappellano Barolo “Otin Fiorin” Pie Rupestris 2013. From the Gabutti cru in Serralunga d’Alba, in fact the labels used to say “Gabutti” on them but Teobaldo removed the name in protest of the cru’s expansion (and instead included the name of the land’s previous owner, Otin Fiorin). This is surprisingly drinkable and generous considering the Pre-WW1 methods, the fruit is present and vibrant in a way that resembles Grand Cru red Burgundy – crystalline precision of fruit and concentration that (at least right now) outshines the considerable tannins. Let’s not confuse “traditional” for “funk”, just because Augusto makes his wines the way The Lorax would doesn’t mean there’s any barnyard going on – there’s a purity of fruit and earth that is direct and piercing. 2 6-packs available, $107.99 +tax


    Cappellano Barbera d’Alba Gabutti 2012. Planted in the non-southwest-facing parts of the Pie Rupestris vineyard (the parts where Nebbiolo isn’t planted), this firecracker of a Barbera is a study in balance: the softer fruits and medium body are electrified by the streak of glorious acidity, but they also keep the acidity from taking the paint off your house. Floral and spice elements invade the red-fruit-driven nose, and the body vibrates with energy – see for yourself when we pour it in the River District Vintage Room at 3pm this Saturday. 2 cases available, $57.49 +tax


    Elio Filippino. The 50th anniversary of the Filippino family’s winery this year was enough to propel the charming but hermetic Elio to travel the world – I met him in the springtime here at the store. Elio contains 0% English so he travels with a translator, an impeccably dressed older Italian lady who seemed forlorn that she couldn’t smoke anywhere. Also following the ethic of not submitting for numerical scores, Elio largely makes wine from only two hills near Nieve, Serra Capelli and San Cristoforo, and practices a vineyard management style so brutal it’s lucky for him that grapes can’t have lawyers. Concentration and longevity are his goals, and his Barbarescos are statuesque and powerful, especially:


    Elio Filippino Barbaresco Serre Capelli Riserva 2013. Hide your kids. Reminds me of the Elio Grasso Runcot Barolo, in that it’s unapologetically aged for 2 years in new French Barriques and it drinks like it just wrestled a bear and won. The nose is gorgeous, floral and generous, and drinks at the upper limits of what body you can wrest from Nebbiolo – a loooooong finish with fireworks. Shades of minerality persist and the acidity checks the weight, this is, in fact, in balance, but the glory days for this rock star start in 2025. Stellar vintage from a stellar vineyard, what more can one ask? First time ever in B.C. 2 wooden 6-packs available, $74.49 +tax


    Beni di Batasiolo. The Dogliani brothers started Batasiolo in the 1950s, and have specialized in bringing wines from the Barolo DOCG to us at reasonable prices – in fact they’ve been in our market so long, it’s likely that the first Barolo you ever tried was by them. We’ve managed to find some back vintages that have both feet in the zone, drinking-wise:


    Batasiolo Barolo Vigneto Boscareto 2006. The notoriously tight Boscareto cru in the Serralunga d’Alba commune generally takes several years in bottle to lose its baby teeth, but the nice folks at Batasiolo have done that for us. This Boscareto is firmly in Act One, there are tertiary notes of leather surrounding the primary bright red fruits and spicy beef broth, with cigar box, dried flowers and happiness. The body and finish are still bulletproof. 92 points Wine Spectator, 2 6-packs available, $75.49 +tax


    Batasiolo Barolo Riserva 2007. All hail the Lord Mayor of Gulp Town. This gathering of various Barolo crus is drinking like an elephant hug right now – the grip is perfect and the nose is amazeballs. Dried fruits, dried lavender and Cherry Coke beneath some dusty topsoil and burnt orange. Enough tannin to remind you that it is, indeed, Nebbiolo, but nothing is poking out past the supple body. Fully in the zone, not sure why it’s this cheap. 95 points Decanter Asia, 2 cases available, $54.99 +tax


    I’ll be back tomorrow with a Back Up The Truck California Cab!!


    Happy Drinking!


     


    Postscript: Rome doesn’t get a lot of rain, so the nice Italian folks that built Rome’s Airport forgot to tell their roof what to do with it. My right foot found a puddle on the floor of an airport walkway (we Vancouverites have 26 words for puddles – it didn’t occur to me to avoid this one) and it kept sliding, my left foot stayed in place but twisted in a way that feet don’t. The resulting sprain didn’t keep me away from the store when I got home, but it should have cuz I think I made it worse by walking on it.


    To point: I won’t be in the store much in the coming days (I’m here today only briefly), but I’ll still be writing emails – I have too much great wine to tell you about and frankly I get bored just sitting at home with my stupid foot in the air. My overworked but understanding team here at Everything Wine River District will be helping me out by getting your orders ready – if you want some of these (or other) wines please reply by email (not phone) so I can instruct them on what to put together. Thanks, and Ow.


    Post-Postscript: Decanter Asia is an adjudication put on by Decanter Magazine in Hong Kong, considered to be the top wine competition in Asia (and judged by the top Asian wine experts), but distinct from regular Decanter points, which are awarded in London.

    Why is Cabernet Sauvignon the King of Red Wine Grapes? Ask Phylloxera. Or, maybe don’t.

    • Aug 10, 2018


    If you ever met Phylloxera you’d punch him in the face. That situation won’t happen, the insect is far too small, but he sure is punch-ably nasty, and rather hard to kill because of the species’ ninja-like adaptability. In nymph form, he bores into a vine’s root, secreting a poison that prevents the plant from healing (thus killing the vine), and in winged form he travels to the next vine, the next vineyard, or the next town.

    Native to North America, where he spent centuries trying to bore into the thicker roots of our own grape species Vitis Riparia (he still can’t because our winters made the roots too hardy), Phylloxera got his big jailbreak when he stowed away upon a cutting of Riparia that was commissioned by the Royal Botanical Gardens in England. I’m not sure if they were collecting the world's species because they were building some sort of Ark (if you’ve ever doubted the British habit of going everywhere and bringing back one of everything, I present to you: The British Museum), but I’m sure that they had no idea what they were about to do.

    Phylloxera spread through Britain’s vineyards like a plague and took very little time spreading to the European mainland (at the time, 98% of the world's wine came from Europe). The Euro species Vitis Vinifera (i.e. the grapes you make wine from) had never seen anything like this bug, and Phylloxera sliced through it like cheese. By the time they figured out that you could beat the louse by grafting Vinifera onto American rootstock, it was too late, nine-tenths of Europe’s vineyards were destroyed. By the end of the 19th century, some wine regions had let a generation go by without being able to grow wine grapes.

    And Port cities like Bordeaux were hit earliest and hardest. Fortunes were lost, farms were boarded up, vineyards lay fallow. Once Bordelais growers were able to replant, there was a palpable desperation to turn crops into dollars, pronto, so priority was given to those varieties that would make good wine, quickly. Where the pre-Phylloxera Bordeaux wines were a pretty even, the pastoral mix of Carmenere, Malbec, Merlot, Cab Franc, Petit Verdot and the fledgling Cabernet Sauvignon (then an also-ran), the results-driven re-plantings were all about economics, and getting that wine train running on time again.

    Being the somewhat recent child of the ancient Cabernet Franc and the white Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon was only about 200 years old and full of Hybrid Vigor (Heterosis), so the plants were hardier, healthier, and bent on growing. The variety also budded later in the season, after the potentially crop-destroying frosts, and the thick berry skins – besides contributing considerable tannins and flavours to the resulting wine – were unusually resistant to rot and other vineyard pests. For vignerons in Bordeaux’s Left Bank, this was a no-brainer, and the variety quickly became the pragmatic, dominant grape there.

    And all of this was happening in the early 20th century, as the eyes of the emerging New World wine regions turned to Bordeaux for inspiration and instruction. Fledgling winemakers from Argentina, America, Chile, Australia and South Africa were sent there to apprentice in the vineyards and cellars, and they returned home with state-of-the-art skills, and cuttings of this delicious, adaptable grape called Cabernet Sauvignon.

    And unlike other varietal transplant attempts, Cab took to everywhere. As long as your growing region had a nice, warm autumn to accommodate its late-ripening tendencies, Cabernet Sauvignon would thrive there, and although the wines would certainly reflect your specific Terroir, the variety would remain distinctively itself; French Syrah and Australian Shiraz share identical genetics (they are the same grape) but very few characteristics, whereas Cab makes Cab wherever you grow it, albeit with telltale regional calling cards. Cabernet Sauvignon, due to its ease of cultivation, its longevity, and its transnational idiosyncrasy, became THE wine of the 20th Century, even eventually adopted by Old World regions like Tuscany and Catalonia.

    But what about the 21st century? Speaking popularly, Merlot peaked and ebbed, as did Chardonnay (as will Malbec, mark my cryptic words), but Cabernet Sauvignon continues its steady climb, making both solid inexpensive juice and consciousness-changing premium wines. Pivoting between near-magical longevity and promiscuous drinkability, Cabernet Sauvignon is the core of many of the world’s cult wines, be they the classified growths of Left Bank Bordeaux, the silken body-bombs of Northern California, or the flagship wines of countless other regions, who vie for a seat at the grown-ups table by daring to produce the King Of Wines: Cabernet Sauvignon.