huevos con vino

The movie Sideways seems to have started something in the wine industry.  Pinot Noir is the favored wine in that movie, and at this point Pinot Noir seems to be in great demand among those people who, like me, are relatively new to wine collecting.

Why do I say this?  Well, it’s quite simple: All you need to do is track the value of the 2004 Sea Smoke Ten Pinot Noir and you’ll understand my point.  At 1,100 cases produced, the 2004 Ten release is not necessarily rare.  I’d define “rare” domestic Pinot Noir in terms of 2003 Domaine Serene “Monogram” Pinot Noir (100 cases, $200 list price), or 2004 Domaine Drouhin Louise Pinot Noir (189 cases, $85 list price, available only to DDO Direct members).  Those two Oregon Pinot Noirs are pretty darn rare; I haven’t even seen a bottle of Louise (from any vintage) on the aftermarket in over a year.  Privé is another major rarity on the aftermarket too.  All great wines, by the way, even if they’re a little expensive up front.

As for the 2004 vintage of California Pinot Noir, there are a ton of rarities to choose from, including luminaries such as Hirsch and Aubert.  These guys clearly make awesome wine.  They get top ratings in the big publications.  So what makes the 2004 Sea Smoke Ten such a valuable wine?

Maybe it’s the movie Sideways and the exposure that Sea Smoke received during the dinner scene.  Maybe it’s the buzz generated among youthful wine connoisseurs who equate screen time with quality wine.  I know I made that assumption last year.  Maybe people just want to buy into something that sounds good and that they think will appreciate.  If that’s what you think, you’re quite close to the truth, I suspect.  Check the numbers from wine retailers:

• The wine entered the market at $69/bottle in late May 2006.
• By October 2006, the average cost of a bottle on the aftermarket was $110.
• At the start of 2007, the average cost was up to nearly $165/bottle.
• As of June 22, 2007 this wine costs an average of $242.50 on the aftermarket.
• Wow.
• Don’t forget, that price has escalated despite the availability of 1,100 cases of wine!

Think about that for a minute.  In about one year, this wine has appreciated 250% from the original asking price.  Although it is possible to obtain bottles for less money through person-to-person auctions at winecommune.com, I’m not as interested in those prices because they do not reflect actual store prices.  Granted, you don’t need to spend $242.50 to taste the Ten.  But you do need to spend over $100 for a second-hand bottle.

Is this the Sideways effect?  Or is something deeper at work here?  I don’t know.  All I know is that I have 1 bottle of 2004 Sea Smoke Ten, and I plan to drink it with dinner in a couple of weeks.  I will have a couple of friends there too, of course.  But I might have the sommelier pour a bit more for me….

Let me preface this post by saying something obligatory about sake.  I know it isn’t “wine.”  People call it “rice wine,” but sake ingredients and manufacturing processes are quite different from winemaking ingredients and processes.  Still, sake has alcohol in it, so I think it’s okay to talk about it here.  Also, I like sake and this is my blog, so buckle up.

I have consumed more sake than normal lately, in part because I got a bottle of my favorite sake as a birthday present.  Ken, my favorite sake, is fragrant and delicious, and I usually cough up the $10 per glass to have some at Nishino.  But when you can get an entire bottle (720 ml compared to 750 ml in a wine bottle) and enjoy Ken at home…well, that’s just lovely.  It turns out that my WineKeeper “Keeper” works out just fine for big bottles of sake, so I am able to keep my Ken preserved and cold until I’m ready to have some.

But what is sake, exactly?  I’ll use Ken as an example.  Ken is a dai ginjyo sake, which means the rice is polished to within an inch of its life: 50% or more, to be exact.  Every grain of rice contains starch, protein, oil, and other stuff.  The polishing (or milling) process removes these external elements of the rice grains, leaving behind a purer, starchy bit of rice.  At least that is my understanding of the process after reading a bunch of vague sources.  But trust me, you don’t want to taste albumin and lipids in your cup of sake.

First-class sake is served chilled or possibly as warm as room temperature, but never hot.  Imagine serving hot Chateau d’Yquem in a mug.  Not quite what the French had in mind, I suspect.  Sure, mulled wine is good, but you would never boil really good or expensive wine.  I hope.  If you do, remind me not to come over to your house for dinner.  Anyway, the point is that hot sake is usually tasty, but it’s not the best grade of sake available.

As I said earlier, sake shares little in common with wine.  One big difference between the two is something you might not have heard of before: Aspergillus oryzae.  The Japanese call this stuff “koji.”  Technically a mold, this little fungus is responsible for the “saccharification” process that occurs when people brew sake.  This is the process by which the starch in the rice is converted to sugar, which is then converted to alcohol thanks to the sake yeast that is added soon after saccharification.  Multiple fermentations occur, another key difference from the winemaking process.

In the end, sake is really a combinaton of rice, koji, water, and yeast.  Sometimes small amounts of alcohol are added into the final blend or bottling of sake to enhance the aromas.  I think sake is a fascinating form of alcoholic refreshment, and it’s certainly one of my drinks of choice when I eat Japanese food.  It goes well with other foods too, but I typically drink good old-fashioned wine with other national cuisines.

So how does really good, chilled sake taste?  It’s really damn good.  For example, Ken smells of apricots and cherry blossoms, among other delicate bouquet elements.  The taste is ethereal: The flavor shifts to match the food you happen to be eating at the moment.  On its own, Ken is quite good, but it certainly tastes best when paired with food.

As another example, I recently shared a bottle of Mu (”nothingness”) with some friends over dinner.  This sake is sweeter than Ken, with a slightly more pronounced flavor profile.  Sake is measured in terms of its sweetness or dryness; in the industry, they use a scale from about -20 (very sweet) to about +10 (very dry), but the ends of the scale are somewhat arbitrary.  Ken is probably a +1 or +2, maybe, straddling the line between sweet and dry nicely.  Mu is a +2 so it’s also not as dry as some other types of sake, such as Harushika or Katana.  I prefer the slightly sweet and slightly dry types of sake when I eat sushi.

The next time you find yourself at a good Japanese restaurant, and if you’re in the mood for something different, I recommend trying a chilled junmai dai ginjyo.  It’s worth the cost, although if you want something cheaper I recommend Kurosawa sake.  It’s a good standby and you can find it for about $20-$25 in stores.

As one of the members of the Domaine Drouhin (DDO) Direct club, I receive four shipments a year.  Each shipment contains three bottles of wine, which works out well because DDO only release four different wines.  Now, I joined the club to get my hands on the Louise Pinot Noir release.  The only way to get this wine is through the DDO Direct club.  But I also enjoy the other DDO releases, of course, although until recently I had never paid much attention to their Chardonnay.

That was a mistake.

The 2006 vintage marks the 11th release of Arthur, which was only renamed Arthur (after Veronique Drouhin’s son) in 2002.  At $30/bottle, the price has been steadily increasing over the past few years, particularly as Arthur begins to sell out just 1-2 months after each new release.  The 2005 vintage sold out fairly rapidly, selling out by November according to the DDO mailer.  They produced 1,700 cases of the 2005 Arthur; production has increased slightly to 2,200 cases for the 2006 vintage.  Those numbers are both up from 450 cases in 1996 and 750 cases in 2000, although in 2001 they made 1,600 cases and in 2002 they made 1,850 cases.  As usual, half-bottles of the 2006 are available…and if you’re really feeling frisky you can plunk down $65 and get a magnum of Arthur Chardonnay.  Very cool!

I like the DDO Arthur Chardonnay.  I have tried it a couple of times over the last few years, and in my opinion they keep improving this wine year after year.  The last time I tried Arthur, I had the 2002 release.  My mom had stashed a half-bottle of the 2002 in the fridge for quite some time, but the wine was preserved quite well and it tasted delicious, with lots of peach and citrus notes.  The official winery tasting notes cite the same peach aroma, but also mention honey and a couple of other notes to the bouquet that probably would have showed up had I allowed the wine to warm up a little before I tasted it.

The 2006 Arthur features an interesting winemaking methodology.  They pressed the 100% Dijon clone, Estate-grown grapes in whole clusters.  I like this approach even though it is more labor-intensive for the winery; whole-cluster pressing apparently yields better quality juice, although I do not have any quantitative proof on the subject.  Anyway, after pressing the grapes, the winemakers at DDO segregated the resulting juice into two equal batches.  Half the juice wound up in French oak barrels, the other half went into stainless steel.  Eight months later, they combined these two batches of juice and bottled the result. 

In the past I used my allocation of Arthur Chardonnay as presents for people who like white wine.  This time around, I may just keep all of it for those nights when I make seared scallops.  It’s a great wine and at $30/bottle it’s worth a try.  If you’re not that into Chardonnay, you might like the $15 half-bottle price even better!

I’ve been going to doctor’s offices with some frequency lately.  Not for any personal reason, mind you.  I just like to go and leaf through the year-old magazines.  I find that dentists’ offices feature the best mix of smooth jazz and Sports Illustrated 2006 NFL Preview issues.  Sweet.

So when I found myself in a gastroenterology waiting room today, I noticed a relatively recent copy of Seattle magazine.  They were featuring their (2nd) annual review of Washington wines, winemakers, vineyards, and so forth.  Their overall winner?  The 2003 Long Shadows Feather release, a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon blend made with fruit from three distinguished Washington vineyards.  At $55, it has long since sold out (unless you look at Wine-Searcher.com), but I was intrigued by the Long Shadows winery as I haven’t seen their name anywhere yet.  Of course, I’m not really looking for Washington wine news all that often, but still…a top wine such as the 2003 Feather should have caught my eye sooner.

The other night I was at a bookstore when I saw the latest issue of Wine & Spirits, which is one of my favorite wine publications that I never buy or read much.  They mentioned Poco Wine Room in a review of Seattle wine hotspots, which to my knowledge was the first time Poco had received such national coverage.  Very cool!  I hope the place doesn’t get overrun with Wine & Spirits devotees.

And of course, the thing that spurred my roundup of personally-encountered Washington wine coverage was WBW #34.  A great job by the Wild Walla Walla Wine Woman led me to read all of the other bloggers’ entries and their WA wine experiences.  Very entertaining stuff.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, there’s nothing wrong with me physically…I wasn’t at the gastroenterologist because of my personal health.  Although after that reheated Panang curry tonight, I am considering a return trip.  I should get a punchcard or something.

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!