huevos con vino

I write about Odisea Wine Company fairly often.  Ever since I discovered their wine a couple of years ago at the Metro Wine Bar in Oklahoma City, I have been a big fan of their work.  It all started with a simple Tempranillo, but my enjoyment of the Odisea wines grows each year as they expand their stable of offerings.

As a member of the Journey Member Program at Odisea, I receive a quarterly shipment of whatever Adam and Mike have to offer.  This past shipment included two bottles of the Odisea boys’ tribute to the GSM: The Wanderer (49% Syrah, 30% Grenache, 21% Mourvedre).  The shipment also included a single bottle of “Dream,” an Albarino (93%) and Viognier (7%) blend that features grapes grown in the Sueno Vineyard.  Dream is an unfined, unfiltered, whole-cluster-pressed white wine that received some time in stainless steel and also in French oak barrels (a 70/30 split of the unfermented juice, apparently).  Now that’s ambitious.

But the men of Odisea didn’t stop there.  They know how tricky Albarino can be as a varietal.  So they went to the source, so to speak, and got Marcus Bokisch to help produce this particular wine with them.  Bokisch specializes in Spanish grape varietals, such as Graciano and Albarino, and their wines are highly regarded around the country.  Dream is similar to those Bokisch releases, although its 13.5% alcohol content is lower than the 14.1% that you’ll find in a Bokisch Albarino.  The addition of Viognier is also fascinating to me; I can’t locate many other Albarino/Viognier blends through a couple of sources, and I certainly had a hard time finding any US-grown blends of this type.  Again, very ambitious.

So, how did this Bokisch/Odisea endeavor turn out?  Here are my tasting notes.  Let’s just say I was impressed. 

• Aroma: Rich, lush, and complex, with ripe apricot and white peach combined with a signature Viognier perfume in the background along with fresh cut grass and papaya.  Wow, that’s a hell of a bouquet!  It makes me want to drink this wine.  That’s a good start.
• Flavor: Off-dry but with a bit of sweetness, smooth yet with firm acidity, a nice subtle array of lemon zest, tart green apple, and a hint of clover honey.  Seriously. There is also a minute amount of tangy spice at work here…very nice indeed.  The oak is difficult to detect, but it did leave a slight impression, which is exactly what I like in a white wine.
• General impression: A fantastic white wine!  I don’t often think about buying an entire case of wine for summer barbecues, and since I don’t have a backyard or a barbecue I probably won’t, but if I did this wine would be on my shopping list for sure.  At only 90 cases, though, you might need to hurry.

Dream costs $16 direct from Odisea; if you look hard online, you can find it for $14, which is an amazing bargain for this white wine.  As I said, at only 90 cases and only $16/bottle, if you have the cellar space you should consider snatching a case of this wine for the summer ahead.  It’s that good.

After consulting with my wife, who loved this wine too (and that’s unusual as she doesn’t care for white wine in general), she told me two things that rang true.  First, this wine would make a great gift.  Until now, I was using the Serra da Estrela as my go-to white wine gift.  Their Albarino is quite good and a good value too.  However, I’d say the Dream has replaced that wine, at least as long as the Dream is available.

Second, my wife said this wine would go perfectly well with chicken or a light green salad.  I concur.  It’s a delicious wine that would also serve well with seared scallops, perhaps, or sole in a ragout of tomato.  Something like that.  It’s good stuff.

In the eastern Languedoc region of France, Salagou Lake stands out as an incredible natural landmark.  “Le Lac de Salagou,” as the French call it, sits in the northwest portion of the Coteaux du Languedoc AOC, which includes famous wineries such as Domaine d’Aupilhac and Domaine de la Grange des Pères.  The lake has been likened to an alien landscape due to its red soil and mountaineous terrain embedded within the waters of the lake itself.  And within a couple of miles west of this lake, the Mas des Chimères winery produces several different varieties of wine, including blends of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre, and Cinsault, among other varietals.

The Mas des Chimères winery is the property of Guilhem Dardé; more details about this ”vigneron paysan” are available here.  “Mas des Chimères” is French for “House of Chimeras,” which is quite an eloquent name for a winery.  Sure beats the vanity of those wineries that are simply named for their absentee landlord owners, eh?  A chimera is, basically, a lion/goat/serpent beast that may or may not breathe fire, depending on which dead Greek guy you believe.  The idea of translating the chimera concept (an ungainly, lethal blend of animals) into the name of a winery is wonderfully romantic in my opinion, and there is certainly some irony in the name when you think about the delicate process of blending wine to produce a marketable finished product.  Far from simple sustenance, certainly.

For Wine Blogging Wednesday #33, which focuses solely on the wines of Languedoc and nearby Roussillon, I chose a bottle of 2004 Mas des Chimères Coteaux du Languedoc.  This hearty red wine costs about $12-$18 per bottle, depending on where you buy your wine, which means this wine fits the second constraint of WBW #33: find a Languedoc/Roussillon wine that costs $15-$30/bottle.  Most importantly, however, this tasting gave me an excellent opportunity to learn more about this French wine-producing region.  I also had the opportunity to discover how hard it is to find Languedoc wines in Seattle.

I went to only one store, actually, to find a Languedoc or Roussillon wine: European Vine Selections.  This venerable co-op in Seattle stocks several different wines from the Languedoc region.  However, when I arrived and chatted with the man of the house, so to speak, I encountered an unusual problem: Nearly all of the Languedoc wines were below $15/bottle.  I mean, some were as inexpensive as $10/bottle, which seemed a little too cheap for this WBW.  So, I went with one of the wines within the $15-$30 range, the $17 Mas des Chimères.  I also chose this wine because it featured a little less Syrah in the blend compared to the other wines, and there’s nothing like a young Syrah to throttle your taste buds with acid.  I like a good Grenache/Syrah blend, particularly when the blend is tempered with a third or fourth varietal for character.

Speaking of character, the 2004 Coteaux du Languedoc certainly meets that criterion.  This wine is unfined and unfiltered, it clocks in at about 14% alcohol, and it features a blend of 50% Syrah grapes plus 40% Grenache and 10% Carignane.  This wine received an 89-point score from the Wine Spectator; you can view that review and some additional wine details here.  I believe the Coteaux du Languedoc release is the only Mas des Chimères wine currently imported into the US.  In Europe, this wine costs about 8-10 Euros, so the $17 price tag I saw in Seattle seems appropriate.

For my initial tasting, I opened the bottle and poured a substantial glass of this wine before preserving the rest with my WineKeeper ”Keeper.”  I smelled and tasted the wine immediately, and then let the glass rest for some time as I prepared dinner (fusili pasta with freshly-grated Reggiano Parmesan and a freshly-picked butter lettuce salad plus dense, dark honey wheat bread).  The combination was good as I drizzled my pasta with chili-infused olive oil, although I tasted the wine and wrote my notes before I began eating the pasta.

My first sitting with this wine was a good one; here are my notes from my first encounter with the 2004 Mas des Chimères Coteaux du Languedoc:

• Aroma: Lots of nice red berry and blackberry jam aromas plus some rich spices such as clove and nutmeg.  A lovely, mouth-watering bouquet immediately after opening the bottle; the nose stayed consistent for an hour or so after pouring a big glass of this wine, although some vanilla and oak did appear eventually, which only added to the complexity.
• Flavor: Thick and spicy, with some intriguing secondary notes that must come from the Carignane.  The typically meaty, baking spice flavors of a good Syrah/Grenache blend are all here.  Fine acidic content that balances well with mild tannins after some aeration in the glass.
• General impression: A very nice wine, particularly if you can find it for $15/bottle.  Worth the price!

About two weeks later, I finished the bottle with a particularly suitable dinner that I made: pearl barley cooked in a chicken broth and smoked ham hock stock, Korean sesame chicken breast, Kalamata olive bread, and a nice green salad with some Bleu de Basque cheese and lavender balsamic vinegar.  And the wine?  Delicious!  Definitely a lot of rich, ripe black fruit and jammy flavors; you can really sense the Grenache with this combination, but the Syrah provides a delectable black fruit backbone against the acidity of the vibrant red fruit from the Grenache.  A very nice pairing and, once again, a tribute to my WineKeeper “Keeper.” 

My conclusions from this wine are twofold: It is worth the money and is, therefore, a good value; also, I need to seek out more Languedoc wines!  I particularly like this blend of Grenache, Syrah, and Carignane, although the blend content and varietals included change from vintage to vintage.  I initially thought this wine had Cinsault and Mourvedre in it, but my resources tell me otherwise.

So, overall I believe the 2004 Mas des Chimères Coteaux du Languedoc is a good wine, and certainly a good find at $17/bottle.  That’s a bargain for such a lush, drinkable French wine!

My wife and I had a lovely dinner last night at a place in downtown Seattle called The Fish Club.  The Fish Club is an interesting restaurant: They are located inside, or next to, a Marriott hotel near the waterfront, they seemingly have enough seating to house several NFL football teams, and they have nice interior design and decor that befits an upscale furniture showroom more than a restaurant.  I like TFC, as I’m going to call it for the sake of brevity.  They know how to cook seafood at TFC; their open kitchen sparked my interest throughout the night, actually, as I watched flames shoot several feet high on more than one occasion.  I love that in a restaurant.

We were at TFC with a couple of old friends and we decided to do it up right, so to speak.  Here’s what I had for dinner:

• Appetizer: Fish Club Caesar Salad (whole Romaine lettuce spears, garlicky croutons, Caesar dressing, and a single white anchovy curled at the top left of the plate)
• Entree: Grilled 1.5-pound Maine lobster with drawn butter, mashed potatoes, and a frisee salad thing
• Dessert: Warm chocolate pudding (more like a chocolate mousse) with molten flourless chocolate cake and chocolate malt ice cream

I started out the night with a Dark and Stormy, one of my favorite drinks: Gosling’s Black Seal dark rum, lime juice, and ginger beer.  It’s a fairly sweet drink that can be deceptively potent; apparently this drink heralds from Bermuda, along with the Rum Swizzle (another personal favorite).  Interestingly, the Gosling rum company has trademarked the phrase “Dark’N'Stormy.”  How American for a company based in Bermuda.

By the time my lobster showed up, I wanted to try a nice white wine.  I noticed that TFC was offering Isenhower “Snapdragon” by the glass, so I took the plunge.  Isenhower is a Walla Walla winery located, if you know your wine geography, in eastern Washington State. Isenhower is only 8 years old at this point, but their wines are fairly prevalent in the Seattle area.  The particular wine that I tried was, in all probability, the 2006 release of the “Snapdragon” white, which is a blend of Roussanne and Viognier.  Previous vintages of this wine were called the Columbia Valley Snapdragon, but for the 2006 vintage this wine is known as the Horse Heaven Hills Snapdragon.  This name change is probably due to the fact that Isenhower source their grapes from a wide variety of local growers, so perhaps their sources changed for the 2006 vintage.

A note about TFC: Two of us asked for glasses of white wine with our dinners.  It took altogether too long to receive the wine; the other person had nearly finished her dinner by the time her wine showed up.  I took things slow with my food instead to see when I’d get my wine.  I was non-plussed when I saw that, rather than bringing out a full glass of wine or simply bringing the bottles over to the table to fill our wine glasses, the waiter brought little decanters of white wine for each of us.  Now, that’s cute, I’ll admit.  But it’s wholly unnecessary to do that, especially when your food is getting cold and you just want to pair it with some white wine.  Just bring the damn bottles over and give me some wine! 

This practice raises a different question: What’s actually in those decanters?  TFC set the per glass price at $12 for the Isenhower, which is steep considering this wine costs $19/bottle direct from the winery.  That’s a hell of a profit per glass, although not unusual I’ll admit.  I guess this price justifies the tiny decanters from the perspective of the restaurant, but I’m suspicious by nature and I hate receiving wine from unknown sources.  I want to see the bottle from which the wine was poured.  And I do realize that a bottle can be refilled with something else.  Perhaps I’m paranoid.  I just think the ritual of pouring from the specific bottle is great and while I do like little decanters you can do all that at the table, or tableside if you like.

Anyway, I don’t mean to suggest that TFC did anything mischevious with my wine; I’m sure everything was exactly as promised.  I certainly had some Viognier, as my tasting notes indicate:

• Aroma: Lots of lush floral and tropical fruit notes in the bouquet, mostly honeysuckle and mango with some secondary notes of lesser flowers that I can’t identify.  There is definitely a strong Viognier perfume present in the bouquet, but its floral nature doesn’t quite integrate with the tropical fruits.
• Flavor: Some nice minerality with a bundle of confused Viognier flavors competing with the sharply acidic overtones of this white blend.  The flavors just don’t combine into a cohesive whole, which seems to be a theme with this wine.  Tasty at first, then overwhelmed by
• General impression: Needs to smooth out a bit, perhaps too young yet?  A confusing wine.

Overall, the Isenhower was not all that exciting to me.  It tasted okay but not amazing, and I don’t think that was the result of the food pairing.  Still, it was nice enough that I might buy a bottle for $19 at the store, but I don’t know anyone else who would enjoy this particular style of white wine.  I need more French friends, I guess.

A final thought: If you run a great restaurant, such as TFC, forget the thimble-sized decanters for your tableside service of white wine.  Just bring the filled glass over to the table or, better yet, bring the bottle(s) over as soon as people order wine and fill their glasses.  By wasting 5-10 minutes getting backed up at the bar waiting for the lone bartender to fill some tiny decanters, you lose revenue.  And I know that’s not the goal of the miniature decanters!

I am here, alive and kicking, but not drinking much wine or writing much text for this blog lately.  But I have been working on a larger post related to the next WBW challenge.  And I have had two recent wine developments that bear quick mention:

• The 2006 Domaine Drouhin Arthur Chardonnay is going to be released soon; I will, of course, receive my standard allotment of 3 bottles sometime in June, I believe.
• My 2005 DuMOL wines are ready for pickup…once I can get UPS to re-deliver them to me.

And that’s about it for now…although I did finish reading the book Popular Music from Vittula, which is a fascinating look at rural northern Swedish life in the 1960s.  Now those guys could drink, although they didn’t care for wine: much too sour and expensive for their taste, according to Niemi (the author).  But they liked their homemade schnapps!