Wednesday, October 3 2007
Road blogging
Like Sal Paradise I've stepped onto the road for another year. I guess I can quote Kerouac, "with the coming of Limited Edition began the part of my life you could call my life on the road." It's a great way to see the world and meet some wonderful people, and to talk about wine, winemaking, wine drinking and the wine lifestyle. I should probably dispense with the literary pretense anyway--the only thing I really share with Kerouac is long road trips and a love of jazz music.
Last night in lovely downtown Victoria BC, at the pretty and elegant Grand Hotel I gave my 2007 Limited Edition presentation to our local retail partners. Good to see old friends, and some new. I was pleased and even a little surprised by everyone's enthusiasm about the Limited Edition wines this year. I've got my enthusiasm because LE's are a big part of my year, but everyone was stoked about the varieties.
As always, I get asked which one is going to be my favorite. Hey, do you have a favorite kid? Well, of course you do, but you try not to let the other ones know. I happen to think every wine in the spread has its place. We were tasting some commercial wines which were chosen for how close they'll be to our finished LE's. We paired the Austalian Dry Riesling with hummus on pita, the Italian Brunello with a chunk of parmigiano reggiano, the Sicilian Nero d'Avola/Shiraz with Italian sausage, the Chilean Carmenere/Cabernet Sauvignon with dark and milk chocolate, and the Pacific Quartet with Chevre and honey.
(Why did we use commercial varieties, I hear you ask? Two reasons: first, it's never legal for me to supply anyone with samples of consumer produced wine in lieu of consideration. If the excise tax hasn't been paid on the wine, I can't even give it away, regardless of the circumstance. Welcome to Canada!
The other reason is, the kits aren't made yet--we've got our formulations, and teeny trials, and some more concrete results on the southern hemisphere varietals [which arrive in mid-summer] but we don't make the first kits until December--so there's no way we could have them finished, bottled, aged and ready to serve by October.
But that's okay: the commercial equivalents we use are from the same regions, often by the same producers--although they don't like us to talk about that in public.)
The Australian Riesling is a very versatile, crisp dry white with a lush, oily texture in the mouth--at once it's both 'big' on texture, but not overblown with oak or fruitiness or acidity--balanced like a flying Wallenda. It pairs so well with the hummus because the fruit balances the earthiness of the chickpeas and garlic, and the acid balances the lemon. I'm envisioning next summer with a couple of bottles on ice, a big bowl of hummus, and a great big pile of pita chips . . .
The Brunello is going to deliver that taut balance of structured acid and slick, focused tannin that makes Sangiovese wines so lean and elegant. I always think of Greyhounds when I think of Brunello: lean, elegant, muscular and pointy. It'll age out gorgeously. We had a chunk of reggiano cheese with it, and the fats in the cheese tamed the tannins and made the wine lie down like a lamb, showing off the bright cherry notes.
The Nero d'Avola/Shiraz is the scrappy one of the bunch: it's smooth, so much so that unless you're paying attention, you'll never notice how much fine tannin it has. in the tasting we're matching it with Italian sausage. Taste it alone, and you get blackberry, cherry and hints of floral notes. Try it with the meaty sausage and the sweetness of the fennel (good Italian sausage usually has fennel in it) and the oiliness beat down the sweetness of the fruit and hold the tannin in check and you suddenly realise you could contemplate slugging the stuff down out of a pint mug.
The Carmenere/Cabernet Sauvignon is going to be most people's favourite. It's a modern world wine, in the mould of Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator, with a vast mountain of plush, jammy fruit, low acidity and languidly soft tannins, many of which come from the smokey-toasty oak used. The blackberry and blackcurrant soar in this one, and it will be ready to drink much sooner than the Brunello. Last night we paired it with both milk chocolate and dark chocolate. The dark was 70% cacao, and highlighted the tannins and smokiness of the oak, and made the blackcurrant/winegum character pop out like crazy.
The red-headed stepchild of the bunch is going to be the Pacific Quartet. It's not because of the quality--on the contrary, this stuff is dynamite. It's because it's going to be hard to explain. Every year we have one wine like that, a bit more complex, not easy to pin down to something people already know. And it's always the wine people taste on bottling day and suddenly start begging for more.
To quote Nelson, Ha-HAH! It's going to rock like a great big rocky thing that rocks. Rockily. Off-dry and piled with layers of grapefruit, spice, citrus, rose petal, lychee, honey, grassiness, and goodness knows what else, it's got pizzazz to spare. We're tasting it with chevre (goat cheese) and with honey. Very instructive, as the acidic, earthy, salty cheese highlights the fruit and makes the wine lush--almost like a dessert wine. Taste it again with the honey and it's transformed into a structured, acidic wine with an almost Alsatian profile of stern minerality.
Nearly showtime here! I'm in beautiful Parksville British Columbia and I've got to set up for another show. Tomorrow it's back to the mainland and a stint on the radio, recording spots for Rock 101.
Now, where's my typewriter and my roll of paper? Neal?
| Posted by Tim AT 1:49AM | 0 Comments |  |
Post A Comment |  |
 |