huevos con vino

Because my wife is out of town, and because I had a good year at work, I decided to treat myself to a nice bottle of wine. After a lengthy discussion with Scott at the Capitol Hill QFC, I settled on the 2003 Domaine la Soumade Rasteau Cuvée Confiance. The Cuvée Confiance is a kinder, gentler Rasteau offering; not quite as potent as the Fleur de Confiance, this Cuvée came highly recommended from Scott.

I had just used the last of my gift certificate at European Vine Selection (EVS), also on Capitol Hill, but I had also purchased some marinated lamb for dinner. And lamb calls for something rich and strong, something red, possibly something Australian. I almost lucked out with a bottle of Standish Relic Shiraz/Viognier, but the price turned out to be $96 rather than $26, so I passed. I used my EVS gift certificate on a 1998 Riesling Kabinett and a 1999 Riesling Auslese, so clearly I needed to get a Syrah somewhere else.

So I cut across the Hill and went to QFC because I know they have a great Australian wine section. In fact, they still have Paracombe Somerville Shiraz and ordinary Shiraz, but I wanted something new tonight. Also, I should mention that, in addition to the lamb, I finally took the plunge and bought a loaf of Essential Baking Pain du George, a round bread that is Parisian in style, massive in size, and incredibly delicious. This bread contains organic whole wheat flour, water, and sea salt. That’s it. I love it. There’s a potent sourdough-style flavor and aroma that really tastes great, plus the sort of consistency you would expect from a French-style whole wheat bread. Amazing. Plus, at $4 on sale, it was hard to ignore for the 5th time this month.
Back to the wine. Scott at QFC described the minerality and complexity of this wine at length, which is partly what sold me on the Rasteau rather than 10-15 other wines. I like the complex French style of GSM wines as opposed to, more often than not, the proverbial “fruit bomb” style you find with Australian wines. I also wanted a wine with a little more age than the 2005 and 2006 offerings available now, and the 2003 Cotes du Rhone vintage is supposed to be terrific. Time to find out for myself!
This southern Rhone wine features an 80% Grenache, 10% Syrah, 10% Mourvedre blend. At 14.5% this wine is certainly dense enough to handle roast lamb. I liked this pairing a hell of a lot; here are my notes:

• Aroma: Potent and intoxicating on the nose; sharp, spicy bouquet of smoke and bacon fat plus some raspberry, cassis, and black cherry.
• Flavor: Blackberry, blueberry, and faint raspberry mixed with roast meat, earth, underbrush, black pepper, and dark chocolate notes; more dry than fruity at first with decent acidity and mellow tannins for such a young French wine. Grew into a smooth, fruity yet dry red wine that is worth remembering.
• General impression: A very full, rich wine with a dry mouthfeel that has nice black fruit on the side plus a meaty aftertaste. Decanted for 30+ minutes first, which was important. 2 hours later, the bottle and decanter are empty! I must have liked this wine.

Overall, I strongly recommend this wine. Robert Parker gave it 92 points, so it must be good, right? Seriously, take it from me: After a few glasses of this wine, I’m not sure it’s 14.5% alcohol, but I am sure it tastes delicious. Lamb marinated in black pepper and garlic only enhances the enjoyment. For $30-$40/bottle, it’s worth the cost; watch out for the stronger older brother, the Fleur de Confiance, which costs about $80/bottle. The bottles look almost identical, so it’s an easy mistake to make if you head for the checkout line with the wrong wine. I grabbed the last bottle available at the Capitol Hill QFC in Seattle, so you may want to try elsewhere for your bottle of Rasteau Cuvée Confiance!

I write about Radio-Coteau fairly often.  This post marks the 10th on this blog dedicated to Radio-Coteau in some capacity.  For a while there Google was indexing my site above the Radio-Coteau home page.  Amazing!

But then, I think R-C deserves the attention.  They make great wine and they are a small garagiste operation.  I had to pass on their 2005 vintage final offer recently, but I did notice that their incredibly good Von Weidlich Zinfandel sold out quickly, while their Pinot Noir and Syrah remains largely available.  Interesting.

Until recently, I had never tried a Savoy Pinot Noir from Radio-Coteau.  So far this year, I had tried the 2004 La Neblina Pinot Noir and the 2005 Von Weidlich Zinfandel; last year I drank 3 bottles of 2004 La Neblina Pinot and 1 bottle of the 2004 Timbervine RRV Syrah.  That’s half a case of Radio-Coteau right there!  That’s a lot of hooch.

So when my friend, who also stores half of my wine collection in his basement wine cellar, suggested we try one of our shared (aka “community”) bottles of 2005 Savoy Pinot Noir, I said yes.  We were going to have barbecued chicken and salmon for dinner, so it seemed like a fun pairing.  We also decided to open the wine early and let it decant for a good 1-2 hours.  It turned out to need more than 2 hours in the decanter, which is to be expected for such a young Pinot Noir that is built to age, so to speak.  Eric Sussman suggests decanting and aging this wine; apparently it will last at least 10 more years in your climate-controlled cellar.  Nice.

You can find more details on this wine here, but all you really need to know is where the grapes are from.  CellarTracker lists 6 different 2005 Savoy Vineyard Pinot Noir releases, and the names are impressive: Ken Wright, Littorai, and Adrian Fog are all there.  Littorai compares elements of Savoy Pinot to Hirsch Pinot, and those are almost fighting words for me given how much I love Hirsch Pinot Noir.  Clearly, the Savoy Vineyard fruit has a strong, almost cult, following.

So what did I think?  Here are my tasting notes for the 2005 Radio-Coteau Savoy Pinot Noir:

• Aroma: Very dusty at first with hints of cherry; evolved into a rich, red cherry and red plum bouquet with a sort of mild blue cheese undertone that I sometimes detect in nice Pinot Noir.
• Flavor: Rich, potent acidity and tannins; lots of sour cherry, plum, and loganberry; a robust Pinot Noir that needs time to age or decant.
• General impression: A great wine that definitely needs 2.5 hours in the decanter right now; anything less is a waste of good wine!

Those are some basic notes, but I feel we drank too much of the wine prior to decanting it for 2.5 hours.  Still, it’s a great wine, and I am glad I have a 2004 Savoy sitting at home, resting, waiting…at 480 cases, it’s a tough wine to get.  In fact, that wine is getting into the $75-$85 per bottle territory.  Nice.  But I think I’ll drink my bottle.

I like a good Zinfandel. When I think about the elements that comprise a good Zinfandel, I think about blackberries, black cherries, baking spices, and a smoky, chocolate/vanilla/leather backbone, all in that order. The trick to a good Zinfandel is the proper balance among these elements. If any one element is too potent (it’s usually the baking spice flavors), the entire wine tastes one-dimensional and hot since the alcohol content is typically well over 15%.

When I look back at the Zinfandel wines I have tried in the past two years, a few names stand out:

• Radio-Coteau makes a knockout Zinfandel from grapes picked from the Von Weidlich vineyard
• Robert Biale makes some nice Zinfandel as well, judging by the Grande Vineyard release I had earlier in 2007
• Peter Franus‘ Brandlin Zinfandel is possibly my favorite of these three, although the Radio-Coteau is neck and neck

So, in honor of my first anniversary of marriage to my wife, we went to Ray’s Boathouse in Seattle. After hearing about the Mediterranean-style albacore tuna special, I decided to get the restaurant’s last half-bottle of 2001 Biale Old Pato Ranch Zinfandel. This Contra Costa County Zin packs 15.5% alcohol into a small container. What’s it like? Read on:

• Aroma: Potent blackberry jam, huckleberry pie, and black cherry with molasses. Not complex, very straightforward and enticing.
• Flavor: Lots of spice, mostly of the black pepper and clove varieties; some blackberry fruit pie and roasted coffee flavors in there with the spices. Not very complex, still somewhat tannic so there is some life left here.
• General impression: Not bad, but not too exciting either. Just okay overall. The tannins suggested that this wine could survive at least a few more years in the bottle, too, so perhaps it will gain complexity and lose a bit of the overriding spiciness.

Overall, this wine was okay, but not terribly gripping.  Perhaps I prefer the slightly less spicy Zinfandels, or else this wine needed a bit of something else (Charbono? Carignane?) to balance out the spice.  I’m glad I tried it, but I’d go for something different next time.

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.

If I ever want to get my Chicago trip reviews written, I think I need to publish them in reverse order. So, I’ll start at the end with my dinner at Blackbird. By this time, the conference I was attending had started to wind down and it was my last night in the windy city.

Here’s a description of what I ate for dinner, all of which was absolutely amazing:

• Appetizer - Crispy confit of swan creek farm suckling pig with cavollo nero, shaved chiogga beets, horseradish and banylus vinegar
• Entree - Seared loin of venison with black mission figs, sugar snaps, bacon panisse and lime salt
• Dessert - Mission fig beignet with black raspberries, butterscotch and bacon ice cream

I had a couple of terrific wine pairings that bear mentioning, starting with the 1995 Domaine A. Mazurd & Fils “Cuvee Mazurka” Cote du Rhone (with my appetizer):

• Aroma: Smooth, tart black and red cherry, brown in color.
• Flavor: Blackberry, potent tannins, very nice and approaching its prime; smooth but with a strong acidic backbone and tannic activity; nice!
• General impression: A great Cote du Rhone that is nearly ready to drink.

With my main course, I continued with the 2005 Ridge “Three Valleys” Sonoma Coast Zinfandel:

• Aroma: Menthol, eucalyptus, and mint; very strong nose, very herbal and minty.
• Flavor: Vanilla and oak, rich black fruit, quite nice despite the young age.
• General impression: Wow! I liked this Zinfandel, especially with roast venison.

And, with dessert, I had a small snifter of the 1959 Cerbois Bas Armangac. This stuff was quite amazing too: lots of green and red pear on the nose, rich and soulful mouthfeel, much like a nice Scotch or a big Grappa. Very nice.

The place itself is very plain; apparently the same people who own Spring and Green Zebra also own Blackbird.  At least, I think that’s the case.  The decor and general ambiance do seem similar to Spring in terms of the minimalist, Asian influences on display.  Blackbird is a nice, simple, comfortable restaurant to which I intend to return someday.