huevos con vino

Now this WBW has a great theme: Petite Sirah.  I love Petite Sirahs and they get fairly little attention in my experience.  The Wannabe Wino is the perfect hostess for this WBW, in part because she may actually like Petite Sirah more than me. 

I hope to participate by December 12th…should be fun!

I thought WBW #38 was next week…I have the wine ready to go, but no time!  So, perhaps I’ll review this wine soon anyway.  It looks good.

Portugese table wines!  Nice.  I’m looking forward to another new varietal.  The host this time is Catavino.

I like this month’s WBW challenge, if I may call it that, because there are a few nuances worth noting:

• No Port
• No Madeira
• Try to taste something outside of Duoro
• Try to taste something other than Vinho Verde

Bonus points, such as they are, will be awarded if I manage to compare wines from multiple regions while tasting Portugese food.  My wife probably cannot eat Portugese food, but I’m happy to make her some grilled chicken while I indulge in a little stewed chicken instead.

Now, I could go back to The Spanish Table to find a Portugese wine.  They have a selection there that I will probably end up poring over, no pun intended.  But luckily, I noticed that one of my favorite Internet wine merchants, Wine eXchange, has Portugese wines galore.  Problem is, most of those wines are actually port, so I may need to keep looking.  Wine Library has a good deal on some interesting Portugese red wines (”tinto”), but they’re from the Douro and I want something even more exotic than that.

So!  I must keep looking…that’s half the fun, right?

I wanted to look long and hard for an interesting wine made from a lesser-known varietal. A wine made from only one type of grape that, ideally, is hard to pronounce and comes from deep in the hills of Spain, or Greece, or maybe even Vermont. But then I scratched Vermont off my list because their wines seem to come from apples rather than grapes. So instead, I focused on Spain and went in search of a wine that was new to me and true to the spirit of Wine Blogging Wednesday #37: Go Native!

So I went native. Like, totally. Super native. Way out there. And I managed to pick a wine that, hopefully, nobody else chose too.

After consulting with Catherine at The Spanish Table, I picked a bottle of the 2005 Bodegas Viña Godeval Godello, made from 100% Godello grapes. You might wonder, “Godello?” Yes, Godello, pronounced “go-day-oh.” The Godello grape is a native of Galicia, the region of Spain where you find D.O. Rías Baixas, an appellation that is famous for its white wines. They speak Galego in Galicia and they drink Godello…confused? I was at first too. But then I found this decent overview of Galicia, including the wines of Galicia. It’s worth a read until you get to the part where they talk about “elaborating” white wines. And then I got confused again. Keep reading, it gets better.

The Romans enjoyed a good Godello wine, apparently; this green grape produces fragrant white wines that Catherine at TST described in terms of fir tree needles and honey. I like those two things well enough that I was sold on the Godello. Plus, it’s another check on my path to the Wine Century club! Sweet.

This particular Godello release comes from a winery built inside an historic monastery: San Miguel de Xagoaza. I love that name, it’s so evocative compared to, say, St. Francis. Nothing against St. Francis, of course. Bodegas Viña Godeval rebuilt this monastery, which sits in the Denominación de Origen (D.O.) of Valdeorras, a name that translates into “Valley of Gold” according to Wikipedia. Godello has been back in this area, grafted onto US rootstock this time, since the 1970s.

The Bodegas Viña Godeval Web site is fascinating. It’s worth reading each of the sections to see just how carefully they built this winery back up from the original monastery, apparently staying true to the original structures and retaining the original stones whenever possible. With 15-year-old Godello vines, this winery has over 40 acres of “filoxerico”-free vines now. Other winery products include a fascinating Anejo liqueur made from Godello grapes.

To the wine. Here are my thoughts on the 2005 Bodegas Viña Godeval Godello:

• Aroma: Woodsy and nutty, but also peachy and floral; a bit like a Viognier, but without as much perfume.
• Flavor: A little spicy, very woody on the palate with an almost pine tree flavor in the aftertaste, sort of like mild retsina.  Dry, somewhat acidic, not a whole lot going on here.
• General impression: Hmm…that’s one woody wine!

Overall, it’s…woody.  That’s about the best way I can put it.  But, on the upside, now I know what to drink when I want something with a lot of pine tree essence in it!

Before I share my tasting notes, I want to say something about cherimoya and how lazy some wine reviewers can be, myself included. When a review claims that a wine smells or tastes like “cola,” I always get annoyed because cola is really just cherry, lemon, and vanilla in such measure as to create a new flavor: cola. So when I read “cola,” I wonder whether the vanilla is more pronounced (is this “vanilla cola” we’re talking about?) or whether the cherry is really a bit stronger. The same thing holds true with “citrus.” You don’t mean orange, surely!

So I’m warning you right now, the wine that I am about to review has a lot of cherimoya in it, both in the bouquet and in the taste. Cherimoya is usually described as tasting like a combination of mango, pineapple, and strawberry.  Trust me, cherimoya is an apt description, at least when the bottle is freshly unsealed.
Okay, that’s enough about cherimoya for now. The WBW task this month is simple: unoaked Chardonnay. No problem! Unoaked Chardonnay is becoming more and more popular.

But then I hit the Internet, and the stores. I wanted to find a highly-rated unoaked Chardonnay. Good luck with that. Unoaked Chardonnay seems to hold a position of “value” wine right now, at least in the Seattle area. The vast majority of American Chardonnay, anyway, comes into contact with oak, frequently extensive contact. At the same time, New Zealand unoaked Chardonnay has a strong connotation of “value” rather than “top quality.” The wine-buying public in Seattle still seems to prefer California oaked Chardonnay.

That said, the 7/31/07 issue of Wine Spectator has a section on California Chardonnay, including a page (76) on unoaked California Chardonnay.  I decided to choose the highest-rated wine from this issue of Wine Spectator, in part because I was able to find this wine in person, but also because I want to put the venerable WS to the test.  Does this wine merit 92 points?

The wine in question is the 2005 Mer Soleil Silver Unoaked Chardonnay, a 5,000-case offering that apparently sold out quickly.  Mer Soleil is the brainchild of the Wagner family, which is also the family behind the Caymus winery.  That’s some decent lineage, to say the least, and I think reading about their approach to winemaking also convinced me to try the 2005 Mer Soleil Silver for this month’s WBW challenge.

The Santa Lucia Highlands in Monterey County, California, are the home of the Mer Soleil vineyards.  According to the winery’s Web site, which appears to be a year or two out of date, they have nine different Chardonnay clones planted in this challenging natural setting.  A rich assortment of other white wine varietals round out the Mer Soleil vineyards, but clearly it is Chardonnay for which they are known.

And rightfully so.  I liked this wine!  Here are my notes:

• Aroma: Straight from the fridge, there was a good balance of freshly-tilled earth and strong fruit up front, mostly peach and lychee, with mild clover honey, custard, and a bit of mustard seed spice lurking behind the fruit. I actually stuck my nose into the wine (on accident) trying to identify the bouquet. Once the wine warms up near room temperature, the best way I can describe the aroma is “cherimoya,” a fruit that has a lot of pineapple and mango overtones along with the custard mouthfeel that this wine promises.
• Flavor: That custard flavor comes through, which is interesting because it isn’t a vanilla custard flavor. But really the custard flavor shows how creamy this Chardonnay really tastes. Strong acidic backbone, perhaps almost too acidic in the glass at first pour. Very juicy on the back of the tongue and through the lengthy finish. I think the notion of the custard apple is the way to describe this wine, although I also taste green pear and apricots that seem to lend a bit of sweetness if you drink the wine too quickly. Pineapple shows up rather sharply as the wine warms up, and it tastes good. After sitting open in my fridge for two days (under screwcap closure, of course), the wine lost its cherimoya and custard sensations, but still tasted good as a more traditional Chardonnay.
• General impression: Is it worth all that money? I wasn’t sure at first. But the next day, as I recalled sipping this wine, I wanted more. I believe this wine is worth the cost and I recommend it…especially if you like cherimoya.

In the end, unoaked California Chardonnay seems quite promising.  Is this wine worth 92 points from a professional publication?  Probably.  But as more California wineries try their hand at leaving their Chardonnay to rest in steel or concrete, I predict Mer Soleil will have some competition on their hands.