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Wine Blog from The International Wine of the Month Club

A wine blog written by the experts from The International Wine of the Month Club

Bordeaux: The World’s Most Renowned Wine

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Bordeaux is the world’s largest fine wine producing region, encompassing nearly 300,000 acres, 60 individual appellations, and more than 7,300 châteaux. Appellations such as Margaux, Pauillac, and St. Émilion are legendary as are the scores of collectible wines that flow from their vineyards. Indeed, the wine wares of Bordeaux (both the region and its wines are referred to as Bordeaux) are some of the finest and most expensive on Earth. Furthermore, this renowned viticultural region, which has become synonymous with full-bodied red wine, is also the traditional home of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc, the three musketeers of almost all red Bordeaux and the basis for Meritage blends around the world. Malbec, Petit Verdot, and even Carmenère are other red Bordeaux varietals that figure into the cépage or blend of many Bordeaux châteaux. And what remains unknown to many consumers is that Bordeaux is also one of the planet’s largest and greatest sources of white wine, principally from Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon.

Bordeaux, meaning beside the waters, refers to the region’s proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and the broad estuary, the Gironde, for which the entire viticutural department (the equivalent of a county or state in the United States) is named. Bordeaux, the region as well as the department’s leading city, lies at the center of the confluence of the Dordogne and Garonne Rivers, which flow into the Gironde, which redoubles Bordeaux’s effort to live up to its name. Moreover, it is Bordeaux’s proximity to the sea that provides a stable, moderate climate, which is favorable to the production of fine wine. This marriage to the sea has also provided the historical highway by which Bordeaux wines have traveled the world, gaining esteem and recognition long before most other landlocked wine regions were able to safely transport their wines overland to eager markets.

Since the first century BCE, when the Romans established themselves in Bordeaux and referred to the area as Biturigiaca, this ancient viticultural paradise has been a constant source of fine wine. Known to the emperors of Rome, popes, and poets (most notably Pliny and Ausonius), Bordeaux has enjoyed the envy of the wine producing world longer than any other wine region on Earth. From Pliny to the most contemporary wine critics, including Robert Parker Jr., Bordeaux wines have never gone out of favor. Besides, what other wine region can claim three millennia of continuous production and millions of satisfied customers?

Salud!
Don

Stellenbosch: South Africa’s Rising Star

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Stellenbosch Wine Country

South Africa has had a thriving wine industry since the 17th century, but there has never been a better time to discover South African wines than now. Quality and innovation push the envelope and values abound. And nowhere in South Africa is this truer than in the much heralded winelands of Stellenbosch.

Located on the Western Cape less than an hour north of Cape Town, the picture-postcard town of Stellenbosch and the surrounding mountains form a dramatic backdrop for what has justly been heralded as the most beautiful wine country in the world. Although some may try to refute that claim and promote the various picturesque merits of other world-renowned wine regions, what is not in question is the integral role Stellenbosch has played for more than three centuries in the formation of South African wine. Yes, the South African wine industry is that old; it dates back to the second half of the 17th century. Not only is Stellenbosch South Africa’s oldest and most important wine producing region, it is the finest region for red and white wines on the African continent. It is South Africa’s Napa, Sonoma, and Santa Barbara counties, along with more than a few touches of France. It contains a myriad of microclimates, which allows for the cultivation of an enormous number of grape varieties. Consequently, Stellenbosch is responsible for high quality red and white wines from a host of varietals that include Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Viognier, and South Africa’s unique varietal, Pinotage, a cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsault. From wineries in Stellenbosch old and new flow an enormous variety of wines that are world class and wholly unique in character. So don’t wait to discover the unique, incredibly flavorful wines of Stellenbosch – South Africa’s rising wine star and the world’s most beautiful wine land.

Salud!
Don

Rosé is once again the summer’s “hottest” wine

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A decade ago the word rosé was an anathema in American wine circles. Even a few years ago, how many serious or even occasional wine drinkers would admit to enjoying such a wine? We even called the one vestige of rosé that was readily available “White Zinfandel,” so as not to use the word rosé. Well, all that has changed. American wine drinkers’ tastes have changed, as has the overwhelming selection of very good domestic and imported rosé wines that now abound. So let’s pour a glass of cool rosé – once again the summer’s hottest wine.

Rosé has been popular in Europe for centuries and enjoys a long, illustrious history. Nonetheless, with the exception of the low alcohol White Zinfandel craze of the 1980s, Americans had been reluctant to embrace anything pink but a high octane Cosmopolitan, until now. Fortunately, long gone are the days when White Zinfandel is the only rosé game in town. Today’s rosé wines emanate from many different grape varieties and come in all different flavors, shades of color, and levels of sweetness from around the world. However, it is dry rosés from California, Spain, South Africa, and most prominently Provence in southern France that constitute this summer’s ‘hottest” wine. In fact, good rosé wines are now being enjoyed year round.

Provence is the spiritual home of today’s dry rosé. It is a land that elicits visions of scintillating landscapes, eye stopping vistas, and undulating fields of lavender and massive cypress as they wave in the winds that wash the countryside clean. Provence is also the birthplace of troubadours and Provençal, the lyrical language of poetry, and the planet’s most endearing wines. More than 140 million bottles of wine are produced annually in Provence, a region famous for its wines since the Roman era, and over 105 million bottles (75% of that entire region’s wine production) is rosé.

Many of today’s most popular domestic and imported rosé wines flow from traditional Provençal grape varietals such as Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre, Cinsault, Carignan and Rolle. However, around the world, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Sangiovese, Tempranillo and other varietals make fine dry rosés, too.

Provençal rosés and many of their New World counterparts are dry, delicate wines that are much more akin to white wine than red wine, as they are produced like white wines with minimal skin contact and no time in oak barrels. After harvest, a portion of the grapes undergo a cold maceration at various temperatures and lengths of time according to the grape variety in order to preserve the wine’s delicate aroma. The remaining grapes are vinified by a direct pressing, which imparts a slight pink color from the skins of the dark grapes. The wines are then blended and their élevage (upbringing) takes place entirely in stainless steel tanks until early February, when the young rose-colored wine is bottled for maximum freshness. Rosés are this summer’s “hottest” wines because they are fresh, flavorful, and served cold from a variety of premium grape varieties. In most cases, dry rosés are at their best in the first year of their life, which means looking for the current vintage or most recent release. Enjoy!

Salud!
Don

Caps vs. Corks Revisited

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Fifteen years ago I wrote a piece called “To Screw or Unscrew the Cap,” which chronicled my journey from ardent detractor of the screw cap to stalwart supporter. My change of heart, though it would be more accurate to say change of mind or palate, came about not from any sense of aesthetic appeal on the part of the cap but from the simple fact that caps consistently do their job well. In fact, the screw cap does its job better than cork. This fact has hit home more times than I care to remember, and I find the reminder especially poignant after opening a special bottle of wine that had lain comfortably in my cellar for a number of years, only to open it and discover that the wine is corked. Those special bottles I had saved for some monumental occasion or another were completely undrinkable. The wine didn’t start life corked, nor did the winemaker make a mistake or the temperature control in the cellar fail. The wine was sound when it entered the bottle, but the cork was not. The cork was infected with TCA (trichloroanisole), which is found naturally in the bark of some cork oak or is formed by a chemical reaction of phenols (organic compounds found in grapes, corks, and other plant matter) with mold spores. TCA can also be activated by chlorine. Although harmless, TCA can render a wine totally undrinkable (which was the case with my special bottles) or it can impart only a slight mustiness or muted flavor to wine. In either case, the pleasure is gone.

So what does one do with a seriously corked bottle? If it is a recent purchase, I suggest you return it to your merchant and request a replacement. Otherwise, you pour it down the drain as I have sadly done on more than one occasion, including a fine bottle of Chateaux Margaux. TCA afflicts the rich and poor alike, an equal opportunity nemesis to expensive and inexpensive wines unless the wine is closed with a screw cap. Corked bottles are happily becoming increasingly rare, but they do still occur. I don’t love the aesthetic appeal of the cap, and I miss the sound of good cork exiting a bottle, but I don’t miss corked bottles. Consequently, I say “bring on the screw caps!” They may not be gorgeous or romantic, but they allow wine to come to my table and yours just the way the winemaker had intended, so let’s not be snobbish about what encloses our wines because what is in the bottle and our glasses are all that matter. Besides, many of the world’s finest and most expensive wines now come with a cap.

Sauld!
Don

Spain’s Priorat and Montsant: Red Wines That Over-Deliver

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Nearly every wine drinker is familiar with Rioja and Ribera del Duero, the sources of Spain’s great Tempranillo based wines, but there is more to red Spanish wine than Tempranillo and the ubiquitous Garnacha vines that seem to grow nearly everywhere in Spain. As wonderful as these individual grape varietals are on their own, much can be said for outstanding blends. Enter Priorat and Montsant, two of the oldest and most traditional of Spanish wines that deserve to be revered for their quality as well as their many unique personalities.

Priorat and Montsant (appellations as well as wines) remain off the beaten tourist track and are relatively unknown except to serious red wine lovers. Priorat is a sparsely populated wine region southwest of Barcelona at the very heart of Catalonia. The same obscurity can be claimed by the nearby appellation of Montsant that surrounds historic Priorat, the birthplace of Antoni Gaudi, the celebrated Catalan architect whose hand is imbedded in the skyline of Barcelona. Priorat is also a rugged, breathtaking landscape of savage beauty, high mountains, and sheep-studded pastures in which every village and hamlet appears steeped in history. Here the first Carthusian monastery in Spain was founded in the 12th century. And, during the 20th century, one of the greatest and most decisive battles of the Spanish Civil War took place in Priorat on the banks of the Ebro River. However, what sets Priorat above other more renowned wine producing regions is its expanse of ancient, ungrafted vines of Cariñena (Carignan) and Garnacha (Grenache) to which varying amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Merlot are added. What results are lush, full-bodied, natural tasting wines with considerable energy, power, and personality. Moreover, the best wines of Priorat age remarkably well and can compete with the finest wines made anywhere in the world

The central part of Priorat, often referred to as Priorat històric, is famous for its llicorella soil, a mixture of brown slate and solid rock. Here all of the Priorat’s premium grape varieties thrive in the dry, continental climate that for all intents and purposes may as well be light years away from the nearby Mediterranean Sea, a mere twenty miles distant. However, no where on earth do Carignan and Grenache together express themselves with such force and dignity as in Spain’s Priorat.

Montsant encircles Priorat and is demographically and legally part of the Priorat comarca or county. It is the appellation for the wine producing regions of the county that are not entitled to the Priorat (Denominación de Origen Calificada or DOC) designation. However, Priorat and Montsant share much in common. Montsant cultivates the same grape varieties as Priorat, and both Catalonian zones share a similar soil and climate; the main difference between them lies primarily in the predominance of llicorella soil in Priorat. The wines of Priorat are often a bit fuller and richer than those of Montsant, too, though Montsant can be easier to understand at the outset. Collectively, Priorat and Montsant share the propensity to over-deliver. For the moment, the wines of Montsant are typically less expensive than those from Priorat, but the price gap is rapidly closing, so now is the time to get acquainted.

Salud!
Don

The Glories of Syrah and Shiraz

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While Cabernet-centric wine drinkers bemoan the demise of the affordable, quality Napa Valley Cabernet and wring their hands over the stratospheric prices for California’s top Cabernet Sauvignons, not to mention the virtual impossibility of procuring any of those Napa Valley icons, Syrah and its other New World sibling, Shiraz, are stealing the show. Although there are many different clones of Syrah and Shiraz (as there are for Cabernet, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and most other varietals) and culture, terroir, and winemakers’ choices account for varying flavors and styles, Syrah and Shiraz share the same DNA – fraternal twins at the very least, if not identical twins. More importantly, savvy red wine drinkers can count on extraordinary quality and a lot more bang for their buck from Syrah and Shiraz than Cabernet.

Syrah has been a staple in France’s Rhone Valley for centuries, if not millennia, and it has reigned as Australia’s hallmark varietal under the compellation Shiraz for as long as anyone living can remember, with the premier wine regions of Barossa, McLaren Vale and Margaret River continuing to craft profound, world-class Shiraz. Ben Glaetzer, Chapel Hill, Mr. Riggs, and Nugan are just a few of Australia’s finest and most consistent purveyors of Shiraz. And over the last two decades, Syrah has steadily gained traction in California, too, expanding rapidly in acreage and eliciting countless accolades for the burgeoning number of its clan that have gained favor for consistently over-delivering. Whether from Napa, Sonoma, or Santa Barbara’s Ballard Canyon, Syrah now more than ever gives Cabernet a run for its money in California. Look to the likes of Beckmen, Stolpman and Tierra y Mar for quality and value, with the latter perhaps California’s greatest value – a very reasonably priced Syrah that emanates from Sonoma’s Russian River and the hands of Douglas Danielak, one of California’s most sought-after winemakers. And let’s not forget the elegant, complex, downright stunning Syrahs from Chilean producer Casas del Bosque or the deep, rich Shiraz wines that flow from South Africa. What more bang for the buck can one ask for than Robertson’s Constitution Road Shiraz or one of Mary-Lou Nash’s Black Pearl Mischief Maker Shiraz? Enjoy the voyage of discovery!

Salud!
Don

Springtime Delights: Great Wines for Spring

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Every season offers its rewards but none more so than spring. Spring breathes life back into the earth, harbingers new beginnings, and brings forth the newest and most heralded wine releases as well as the opportunity to taste the first fruits of the previous vintage. So many wines, so little time!

Spring is also a time to think about delicious rosé wines, crisp, light whites that enliven the senses, and fresh, vinous reds that go down easily. For starters, it looks to be another banner year for Provençal rosé, at least in terms of quality, with Provence experiencing smaller yields but exceptional quality in 2016 (the 2016 Provençal rosés will begin arriving shortly), while many of the 2015 Provençal rosés are still drinking well, including the delicious 2015 Le Provençal Côtes de Provence Rosé. Newly and soon to be released 2016 rosés from California, Chile and South Africa are also worth seeking out. Other wonderful springtime selections include plush Alsace Pinot Blancs from the 2015 vintage from premier producers such as Dopf au Moulin and Emile Beyer.

The springtime market is also flush with outstanding red wines from Languedoc, Provence and the southern Rhône Valley. For example, the 2015 Château Sainte Eulalie Plaisir d’Eulalie Minervois makes a splendid springtime red: it’s fresh, easy to drink, and it enlivens the palate but spares the wallet. Newly released 2015 Côtes-du-Rhône reds and 2015 Côtes-du-Rhône Blancs from reliable producers such as Château du Trignon are also exceptional. They capture the magic of the 2015 vintage: beautiful ripe fruit, excellent balance, and firm structures that recall the fecundity of spring.

Wonderful, crisp Sauvignon Blancs from the 2016 vintage in New Zealand and South America are also now rolling in to provide tasty springtime libations. Who can resist Casas del Bosque’s exemplary Reserva Sauvignon Blanc or Casa Silva’s Sauvignon Gris from 100 year old vines? Certainly not many of us, given the tremendous quality and overwhelmingly flattering press these wineries have received.

Spring also means the first real peek at Bordeaux’s much heralded 2015 vintage, as the 2015 Petits Châteaux begin to arrive. From early tastings and all indications, the 2015 Bordeaux reds are certainly the finest since 2010. White Bordeaux in 2015 also offers a breath of spring with full, lively whites that fill the mouth. Enjoy!

Salud!
Don

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