Cafes & Wineries

The Pinot Days grand tasting event, which took place yesterday at Fort Mason in San Francisco, brings together one of the largest collections of Pinot Noir producers in North America for the tasting pleasure of the public.

I was interested to see whether attendance at this year’s event would be noticeably lower, but if it was, I couldn’t tell. The place seemed just as packed as ever, which is a good thing — the California wine industry needs all the help it can get in this recession.

So needless to say, I was in good company tasting yesterday with 3500 of my wine loving friends.

I use such events, comprehensive as they are, as a means of judging the overall quality of the vintage in California, if it is possible to generalize in such a way as this. At this most recent tasting, the 2007 Pinot Noirs were on display, and I found them generally quite good, with excellent acidity, bright fruit, and, increasingly less ripe than past vintages.

The industry thankfully continues to dial back the extraction and ripeness from levels that seemed to peak in the 2002 and 2003 vintages. This is especially true for the wines from the Santa Lucia Highlands which tend to be some of the most overripe Pinot Noirs made in Northern California. Wines from Garys’ Vineyard, Pisoni Vineyard, and Rosella’s Vineyard, continue to be moderated to saner levels of fruit and alcohol than in the past.

I’ve called out the few nice roses I found as well as a couple white wines that were on offer.

Enjoy.

WHITE WINES THAT SNUCK INTO THE TASTING
2007 Chasseur Lorenzo Chardonnay, Russian River Valley. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $55.
2006 Bjornstad Ritchie Vineyard Chardonnay, Russian River Valley. Score: around 9. Cost: $40
2006 Fort Ross Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $32
2007 Hirsch Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $50

PINK WINES
2008 Clos Pepe Rose of Pinot Noir, Santa Rita Hills. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $18
2008 Fort Ross Rose of Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast. Score: around 9. Cost: $16
2008 Macrostie Rose of Pinot Noir, Sonoma County. Score: around 9. Cost: $20
2008 Inman Family Vineyards Rose of Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $25
2007 Albiouness Rose of Pinot Noir, Carneros. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $15
2008 Lynmar Rose of Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley. Score: between 8 and 8.5. Cost: $20
2008 Bjornstad Rose of Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley. Score: between 8 and 8.5. Cost: $18

AND NOW LET’S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS:

WINES WITH A SCORE AROUND 9.5
2005 Clos Pepe, Santa Rita Hills. $48. Where to buy?
2000 Clos Pepe, Santa Rita Hills. $48.Where to buy?
2004 Derbes Les Pinots, Russian River Valley. $45. Where to buy?
2007 Morgan Hat Trick, Santa Lucia Highlands. $62. Where to buy?
2006 Woodenhead Wiley Vineyard, Anderson Valley. $60. Where to buy?

WINES SCORING BETWEEN 9 AND 9.5
2007 Auteur Sonoma Stage, Sonoma Coast. $50. Where to buy?
2007 Belle Glos Taylor Lane, Sonoma Coast. $45. Where to buy?
1997 Calera Reed, Mt. Harlan. $65. Where to buy?
2007 Chasseur Umino, Russian River Valley. $60. Where to buy?
2007 Chasseur Blank, Russian River Valley. $60. Where to buy?
2007 Clos Pepe, Santa Rita Hills. $48. Where to buy?
2006 Clos Pepe, Santa Rita Hills. $48. Where to buy?
2006 Derbes, Russian River Valley. $47. Where to buy?
2006 Domaine Serene Evenstad, Willamette Valley, OR. $58. Where to buy?
2007 Failla Occidental Ridge, Sonoma Coast. $60. Where to buy?
2006 Fort Ross Pinotage, Sonoma Coast. $32. Where to buy?
2007 Freeman Vineyards Akiko’s Cuvee, Sonoma Coast. $52. Where to buy?
2006 Hirsch, Sonoma Coast. $60. Where to buy?
2007 Jim Ball Signature, Anderson Valley. $45. Where to buy?
2006 Keller Estate El Coro, Sonoma Coast. $52. Where to buy?
2006 Morgan Double “L″ Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands. $62. Where to buy?
2006 Morgan Rosella’s, Santa Lucia Highlands. $85. Where to buy?
2006 Scherrer, Sonoma County. $35. Where to buy?
2006 Scherrer, Russian River Valley. $40. Where to buy?
2007 Woodenhead Humboldt County, Mendocino. $34. Where to buy?
2007 Woodenhead, Russian River Valley. $40. Where to buy?

WINES WITH A SCORE AROUND 9
2007 August West Graham Family, Russian River Valley. $50
2007 Auteur Manchester Ridge, Mendocino Ridge. $60
2007 Auteur Shea Vineyard, Willamette Valley, OR. $60
2007 Balletto Burnside Road, Russian River Valley. $36
2007 Belle Glos Clark & Telephone Vineyard, Santa Maria Valley. $45
2007 Bjornstad Hellenthal, Sonoma Coast. $40
2006 Calera Ryan, Mt. Harlan. $40
2006 Calera Mills, Mt. Harlan. $45
2007 Chasseur, Russian River Valley. $40
2007 Clos Saron Home Vineyard, Sierra Foothills. $45
2007 Dain Savage Juliet, Anderson Valley. $45
2005 Domaine Serene Winery Hill, Willamette Valley, OR. $75
2006 DuNah Estate, Russian River Valley. $45
2006 DuNah Sangiacomo, Sonoma Coast. $45
2007 ENO The One, Santa Lucia Highlands. $35
2006 Expression 44 Degrees - Zena’s Crown, Willamette Valley, OR. $48
2006 Failla Vivian, Sonoma Coast. $120
2006 Fort Ross Symposium, Sonoma Coast. $32
2005 Fort Ross Reserve, Sonoma Coast. $49
2007 Freeman Vineyards, Russian River Valley. $41
2006 Gary Farrell Starr Ridge, Russian River Valley. $50
2006 Gary Farrell, Russian River Valley. $40
2006 Goldeneye, Anderson Valley. $55
2006 Inman Family Vineyards OGV, Russian River Valley. $52
2007 Jim Ball Booneville, Anderson Valley. $50
2006 Keller Estate La Cruz Vineyard, Sonoma Coast. $42
2006 Keller Estate Preciosos, Sonoma Coast. $$75
2007 Ketchum, Russian River Valley. $38
2007 Ketchum Estate, Russian River Valley. $48
2007 Ladd Moore Ranch, Russian River Valley. $??
2007 Le Cadeu Equinox, Willamette Valley, OR. $47
2007 Le Cadeu Rocheux, Willamette Valley, OR. $47
2006 Louis Latour Marsannay, Burgundy, France. $20
2005 Louis Latour Les Chaillots — Aloxe-Corton, Burgundy, France. $45
2006 Lynmar, Russian River Valley. $40
2006 Lynmar Hawk Hill, Russian River Valley. $70
2007 Macrostie Wildcat Mountain, Sonoma Coast. $40
2001 Michaud, Chalone. /a
2007 Miner Family Vineyards Garys’ Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands. $55
2007 Morgan 12 Clones, Santa Lucia Highlands. $31
2007 Perception Orsi Vineyard, Russian River Valley. $53
2006 Pey-Lucia Frisque, Santa Lucia Highlands. $39
2006 Pey-Marin, Marin County. $39
2004 Pey-Marin, Marin County. /a
2002 Pey-Marin, Marin County. /a
2006 Roesseler Ridges, Sonoma Coast. $50
2007 Rusack Reserve, Santa Rita Hills. $40
2006 Scherrer Big Brother, Sonoma Coast. $50
2006 Skewis Bush Vineyard, Russian River Valley. $48
2005 Stonier Reserve, Mornington Penninsula, Australia. $45
2005 Varner Picnic Block, Santa Cruz Mountains. $40
2006 Woodenhead Troika, North Coast. $120

WINES SCORING BETWEEN 8.5 AND 9
2006 Albiouness Stanley Ranch, Carneros. $42
2006 Albiouness Hudson Vineyard, Carneros. $48
2006 August West Graham Family, Russian River Valley. $48
2007 August West Rosella’s Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands. $50
2007 Balletto Winery Block, Russian River Valley. $36
2007 Belle Glos Las Alturas, Monterey County. $45
2006 Bjornstad Hellenthal, Sonoma Coast. $
2007 Calera, Central Coast. $24
2006 Calera Mount Harlan Cuvee, Mt. Harlan. $30
2002 Calera Mills, Mt. Harlan. $55
2007 Cargasacchi Cargasacchi-Jalama, Santa Barbara County. $??
2007 Cargasacchi, Santa Rita Hills. $??
2007 Chasseur, Sonoma Coast. $40
2004 Clos Saron Home Vineyard, Sierra Foothills. $45
2006 Clos Saron Texas Hill Vineyard, Sierra Foothills. $45
2007 Coterie Fairview Road Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands. $35
2007 Dain Amber Ridge, Russian River Valley. $45
2007 Dain Savage Juliet Reserve, Anderson Valley. $45
2006 ENO Never Say Never, Santa Lucia Highlands. $32
2007 ENO The Brilliant Mind, Santa Lucia Highlands. $32
2006 Expression 44 Degrees - Willakia, Willamette Valley, OR. $48
2007 Expression 39 Degrees - Annabella, Anderson Valley. $48
2007 Freeman Vineyards, Sonoma Coast. $41
2007 Freeman Vineyards Keefer Ranch, Russian River Valley. $46
2006 Freestone Vineyards, Sonoma Coast. $75
2006 Gary Farrell Ramal Vineyard, Carneros. $50
2007 Goldeneye Migration, Anderson Valley. $34
2007 Grochau, Willamette Valley, OR. $24
2007 Grochau Cuvee des Amis, Willamette Valley, OR. $36
2007 Hirsch M, Sonoma Coast. $45
2006 Inman Family Vineyards Thorn Road Ranch, Russian River Valley. $52
2006 Lynmar Quail Hill, Russian River Valley. $60
2007 Lynmar Terre de Promisio, Sonoma Coast. $70
2006 Mac Forbes Coldstream, Yarra Valley, Australia. $50
2007 Macrostie, Carneros. $30
2007 Martinelli Zio Tony Ranch, Russian River Valley. $60
2007 Miner Family Vineyards Rosella’s, Santa Lucia Highlands. $55
2006 Morgan Garys’ Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands. $62
2007 Papapietro Perry 777 Clone, Russian River Valley. $70
2005 Pey-Marin, Marin County. /a
2003 Pey-Marin, Marin County. /a
2007 Rusack, Santa Maria Valley. $35
2003 Skewis Floodgate Vineyard, Anderson Valley. /a
2006 Tondre, Santa Lucia Highlands. $43
2006 Varner Hidden Block, Santa Cruz Mountains. $40
2005 Varner Holly’s Cuvee, Santa Cruz Mountains. $40

WINES WITH A SCORE AROUND 8.5
2006 Albiouness Stanley Ranch Pommard Selection, Carneros. $55
2006 August West Rosella′s Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands. $48
2007 Auteur Ophelia, Oregon and California. $38
2007 Balletto Estate, Russian River Valley. $20
2007 Bjornstad Van der Kamp, Sonoma Mountain. $40
2006 Brokenwood, Beechworth, Australia. $25
2000 Clos Saron, Sierra Foothills. /a
2007 Coterie Saralee’s Vineyard, Russian River Valley. $28
2006 Derby, Central Coast. $42
2007 Hirsch Bohan Dillon, Sonoma Coast. $40
2006 Inman Family Vineyards, Russian River Valley. $45
2006 Kendrick, Marin County. $33
2007 Ladd, Sonoma Coast. $32
2007 Ladd, Russian River Valley. $32
2007 Ladd Cuvee Abigail, Russian River Valley. $??
2007 Le Cadeu Cote Est, Oregon. $47
2005 Louis Latour Chanfleure Pinot Noir, Burgundy, France. $15
2003 Michaud, Chalone. /a
2005 Michaud, Chalone. $35
2007 Olsen Ogden, Sonoma Coast. $42
2007 Olsen Ogden, Russian River Valley. $$32
2006 Olsen Ogden, Russian River Valley. $32
2006 Penfolds Cellar Reserve, Adelaide Hills, Australia. $45
2007 Perception, Russian River Valley. $42
2007 Spell Barton, Russian River Valley. $47
2005 Springvale, Tazmania. $29

WINES SCORING BETWEEN 8 AND 8.5
2006 Le Cadeu Cote Est, Oregon. $47
2006 Mayro Murdick, Carneros. $35
2004 Tamar Ridge, Tazmania. $27

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

If you aren’t yet aware of the fact that fake wine is a big deal, you will be soon. It’s coming to a theater near you.

Billionaires getting swindled by fake bottles of wine purportedly belonging to Thomas Jefferson aside, as the world’s greatest wines continue to climb in price, wine fraud continues to increase in frequency and in value.

At this point, the fakery of wines has become a big business. No one knows just how large, but some wine experts say the real figure is probably shudderingly large: millions of dollars worth, to be sure, and perhaps even tens of millions. Wine Critic Allen Meadows told writer Michael Steinberger that he believes perhaps 10% of the pre-1960 wines he comes across these days might be fakes.

And it all may be due, in part, to things like this:

3 x RED WINE BOTTLE LABEL SCREAMING EAGLE GRACE ..Empty

A bottle of 1994 Grace Family Vineyards Cabernet, a bottle 1995 Tignanello Red Blend from Tuscany, and a bottle of 1996 Screaming Eagle, all empty, of course.

Together they may sell for between $10 and $60 on eBay. Filled up again with some red wine, re-corked and re-foiled, these three wines would sell for a total of about $2224 according to WinePrices.Com.

And that, of course, is the problem.

As mentioned last week in the New York Times Freakonomics blog, a recent paper by a member the American Association of Wine Economists (see the PDF abstract) suggests that online auction sites like eBay may be significantly contributing to the problem of counterfeit wine.

The logic presented in the paper is quite simple: after watching a bunch of sites like eBay, it’s quite clear that the sale price of empty bottles directly correlates to the price of that bottle were it to actually be full. In short, those willing to pay $100 for an empty bottle of Petrus must be getting some value from the bottle that is completely out of whack with its real value in the marketplace (as a glass container with a paper label on it).

While eBay certainly can’t be held responsible for people doing illegal things with innocuous items that they buy perfectly legally online, I wonder whether it might be in everyone’s interest for them to prevent people from selling bottles that are particularly prone to counterfeiting.

This wouldn′t be easy, of course, and may be unreasonable to ask, but they’ve got a lot of controls in place already to make sure that people don′t break the law in a million other different ways (like, for instance, selling dangerous chemicals online). How hard would it be for them to pay a little more attention to the empty bottle problem? It certainly would be good for the wine world.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

By Matt Krantz, USA TODAY
Looks like coffee is starting to perk up on Wall Street.

While the broad market is struggling to hold its recent gains, shares of five of the largest publicly traded coffee companies are on a high boil.

Shares of Diedrich Coffee (DDRX) are up 4,525% this year, Green Mountain (GMCR) has doubled and even Starbucks (SBUX) is up 50%.

That shows that investors think

Original post by Robert

by Baruch Gordon

(IsraelNN.com) We all know why Starbucks puts boxes of breath mints close to the cash register. Your morning latte can create a startling aroma in your mouth, strong enough to startle your co-workers too.

But intriguing new research from Tel Aviv University by breath specialist Prof. Mel Rosenberg finds that a coffee extract can inhibit the bacteria that lead to bad breath. New

Original post by Robert

Get a FREE issue of Roast Magazine today with any order including beans or equipment. One magazine per order, while supplies last.

This is the July /August ‘09 issue.

Here’s another great issue. If you’re interested in how green coffee is chosen by buyers and makes it to your cup, part one of Signed, Sealed, Delivered discussed the process.

Designer Coffee poses the question of how an

Original post by Robert

From the There I go, there I go, there I go, there I go department:

Has this ever happened to you? You are visiting a winery and the guide takes you through the stainless steel tank room, and then a barrel room or two and maybe the bottling room or even the board room. Have you ever been in that situation and someone said,” You’ve seen one stainless steel tank room, you’ve seem them all?” And then as you go into the tasting room as the first wine is poured all those tanks and barrels and executive tables and chairs didn’t seem as important as that tiny little precious liquid that you were getting ready to taste?

Somewhere between the spirit of wine and the soul of humankind there is a connection. It is different for some people and maybe others just don’t get that sense. But with a little imagination those little tastes can take one on amazing trips in time. Think back to the oldest wine you ever had. If it was 30 or more years old, most likely someone involved with the wine has passed on. For one brief moment we can connect with the work and life of a soul who is on the other side. Isn’t that a wonderful benefit of immortality? At least for those of us who remain. I think this often, whenever I open an older bottle of wine.

Sometimes one needn’t wait that long, unfortunately. The wines of Gravner have the touch of the young son who perished this year.

I think of the time I was in Pio Cesare’s cellar, way down below the ancient Roman wall and we came to the end. There, staring at me was a wine as old as I was. This wine, made by someone my father’s age was long gone. But we met, for that brief moment, in front of the wine he had given birth to. How can one not love this business?

In truth, we descend the staircase daily, looking to bring up wines from the past. Wine is really all about a moment in time, frozen and preserved for people in the future to enjoy. It is a confluence of the ancient with the modern, the dead with the living. It is a mystical connection to souls beyond life.

I have a friend who passed away four years ago. In a linen closet I found a bottle he must have left when he was staying here. It was a simple Sangiovese from the Marche and it was marked in his handwriting as a sample to try. That is probably one of the most precious wines I have in the house. It is a connection to the life and work of a soul who gave everything to wine and the business of wine. Just like those ancient Chaldean winemakers 4500 years ago. These are markers in the life of the spirit of wine that renew my joy for this calling.

Somewhere a colleague is shaking his head if he even reads this. Last week I recited a Bukowskian soliloquy on why the business is like a battle. I know the poor guy thinks I’m bonkers. I was off on my riff of:

Tell me why baby why baby why baby why
You make me cry baby cry baby cry baby cry

I wonder if he could ever know why I felt that way. Aside from the deep belief that we must bring forth the vital energy of the fields to the new lands, it goes into an even deeper section of the cellar. It is because when you do have those beyond time and grave experiences with wine you really do get signed up to an ancient army of the wine god. And then there is no turning back. From the ancient winemakers in 2500BC all the way to the importer in the 21st century, we have burned the boats. There is no alternative to anything short of carrying out the wishes of the spirit of wine and the souls who have gone before. There is no direction home. You have arrived to the Promised Land.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

Because of our deep history with wine, the standards by which we judge today’s efforts must be placed within the context of tradition. While we can judge California Pinot Noir on its own merits, we cannot understand or evaluate it completely without reference to Burgundy, its ancestral home. Burgundy will always be the benchmark for Pinot Noir, as it has been for centuries.

Just as there exist regional benchmarks for grape varieties or wine styles, there also exist some individual wine producers, and even individual wines, that manage to define the uppermost limits of quality or the epitome of a regional style.

The wines of Giacomo Conterno can all too easily be defined purely with superlatives. They are arguably the finest wines made in Italy’s Piemonte region, and are often described as the best wines made in Italy. Undeniably, they rank among the top wines of the world regardless of the criteria used to make that assessment, whether by reputation, critical accolades, marketplace demand, or resale value at auction.

Over time Giacomo Conterno has become the standard bearer and even the definition of what “traditional” means in the context of Barolo wines.

The Giacomo Conterno story begins in 1908 when Giovanni Conterno opened what we might these days call a wine bar in the little town of San Giuseppe. In those days if you wanted to have some place where people sat around and drank wine, you had to make the wine yourself. So Giovanni bought grapes from various farmers, and made Barolo, which were kept in small wooden barrels with spigots attached to them next to the bar.

Business kept up during the first World War, but Giovanni had to make do without the help of his son Giacomo who was sent off to fight. When Giacomo returned in 1915, he got right back into the family business, albeit with some new ideas. Giacomo had decided to start experimenting with making wines that were designed to age for a long time rather than the bright, fruity wines they were making for easy and immediate drinking.

That early experimentation quickly lead to a complete dedication to making the slow aging, complex and nuanced wines that Conterno still produces today, including the practice of taking the best grapes every year and making them into a special wine called Monfortino, which he began in 1920.

Giacomo was eventually joined in the business by his two sons, Aldo and Giovanni, though these two would end up having different philosophies about the future of Barolo winemaking. Giacomo’s estate was split in two for his sons, and Aldo went off to start his own winery which has become a standard-bearer in its own right for a more modern style of winemaking in the region.

Giovanni Conterno along with his son Roberto, who continues to make the wines today, would steadfastly continue the family’s traditional methods of winemaking, with one exception. While Giacomo Conterno achieved fame for the quality of his Barolo wines well before the middle of the century, these wines had always been made from purchased grapes. In 1974 Giovanni Conterno decided, reportedly on the advice of his wife and others, that the way to make better wine was to farm the grapes himself. And so Conterno purchased a 35 acre vineyard site named Cascina Francia planted to Nebbiolo and little bit of Barbera. Since that date, every Giacomo Conterno wine has been made from their estate vineyard.

The Cascina Francia vineyard rises steeply up a hillside to a height of more than 400 meters above sea level in the hills of the Piemonte region. It is farmed painstakingly by hand, and if you ask Roberto Conterno about the key elements of his winemaking he will insist that most of his most important decisions are made while the grapes are still on the vine. This includes the annual decision of which blocks of the vineyard will be made into the Monfortino reserve bottling (if one is to be made at all).

True to his word, when the grapes are harvested, Roberto Conterno does very little to them after they are stripped from their stems and dumped into barrels for an extremely long (sometimes up to five weeks) maceration and fermentation using their native yeasts. While the fermentation for the Cascina Francia wine is temperature controlled, the Monfortino wine is always left to ferment at its own pace and its own temperature, sometimes reaching levels that would cause less strong-willed winemakers to panic. But with three generations of family tradition informing his work, Conterno knows exactly what he’s doing.

After fermentation, the wine is poured into barrels where it sits for a long, long time before bottling. But these aren’t just ordinary barrels. In fact, they are perhaps better described as ancient oak oak swimming pools than barrels. The largest of them hold more than three thousand gallons of wine apiece, and are more than 50 years old. These monstrous vats impart literally zero oak influence on the wine and merely allow the wine to develop and mature with a tiny bit of oxygen exchange for the four to ten years that the wine remains in them before bottling.

Conterno’s wines are often considered timeless in every sense of the word — they age effortlessly for decades and they represent a purity of traditional winemaking that has remained remarkably consistent for almost a century.

While I have had one or two Conterno wines before, a tasting at the 2009 Aspen Food &amp Wine Classic provided me with the opportunity to taste a number of them side by side. Here’s what I thought.

TASTING NOTES:
2006 Giacomo Conterno Barbera d’Alba, Piemonte, Italy
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine smells of orange peels and forest floor. In the mouth it is highly acidic almost, almost too much so at first, but once the mouth settles in it offers lovely orange peel, pine duff, and red fruits in a long, smooth, silky package with virtually no tannins. The flavors linger in the finish but more remarkable is the memory of the texture of the wine. Score: around 9. Cost: $45. Where to buy?

2001 Giacomo Conterno Barbera d’Alba, Piemonte, Italy
Medium ruby in the glass this wine has an incredible nose of wet conifers in the rain mixed with the wet earth and green pine needles at their bases. In the mouth it is amazingly smooth, with a beautiful silky texture and a complex set of flavors that include cedar, orange oil, leather, and redcurrant. The wine has a fantastic finish. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $45. Difficult to find online.

2004 Giacomo Conterno Barolo “Cascina Francia,” Piemonte, Italy
Light ruby in the glass with orange on the rim, this wine has an amazing nose of wet stones, hints of dried apples and dried apricot aromas. In the mouth it is bright and juicy with fantastic cherry and floral flavors wrapped in soft, suede-like tannins. Complex with hints of spices, exotic woods, and flowers, the wine has an incredible texture and incredible length, soaring, wheeeee, through an airy finish that goes on literally for minutes. Score: between 9.5 and 10. Cost: $145. Where to buy?

2000 Giacomo Conterno Barolo “Cascina Francia” Piemonte, Italy
Light ruby in the glass with hints of orange, this wine has an otherworldly scent of anise, fresh bubble gum, and a sweet quality that eventually resolves to rose petal. Sweet on the palate, with an incredible weightlessness, the wine tastes of silky redcurrant, dried flowers… and…. there’s fruit there, but what the hell is it? Dragon fruit? Something exotic, and incredible aromatics. Light tannins grip the edges of the mouth light a velvet glove as the wine soars through a finish that seems without end. Tasted from a magnum. Score: between 9.5 and 10. Cost: $175. Where to buy?

2001 Giacomo Conterno Barolo “Monfortino,” Piemonte, Italy
Light ruby with orange at the rim, this wine smells of wet stones, old wet wood, and a bright green fruit smell like a ripe guava before it’s cut open. In the mouth it is an unusual combination of power and grace. Brightly acidic with tangy raspberry, redcurrant, and sour cherry flavors, the wine also has a deep resonance and tannic structure that show like a body builders bulk under his clothes. On the finish the wine is airy, and expansive, and oh-so-delicious. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $395. Where to buy?

1997 Giacomo Conterno Barolo “Monfortino″ Piemonte, Italy
Light ruby in color with orange on the rim, this wine at first has a faint nose, which over time develops into a compelling combination of floral and mineral aromas mixed with wet wood and dandelion stems. In the mouth it is mineral driven and slightly austere, with flavors of wet stones, wet wood, and a granitic fruit that seems to seethe beneath the surface. This is a brick house of a wine, broad and expansive, but possesses less fruit than I might like at this point. The finish tastes the way my deck smells after a rainstorm, which is to say, excellent. Tasted from magnum. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $300. Where to buy?

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

Lone Trees
Every week, Photographer Andy Katz sends me a new image to post here for your viewing pleasure. I never know what I′m going to get, but I do know that it’s going to be good. This week, when I opened his e-mail, something different happened. Everything got quiet, and I smelled freshly cut grass, bee pollen, and felt a warm breeze….

Amazingly, we are not lost, but I wouldn’t care if we were. Just as I give up and decide we have no idea where we are, another road sign appears that tells us indeed, we are on our way to Montepulciano. It hardly matters, though, because it is one of the most beautiful days I’ve ever experienced in my life. I have a gorgeous woman sitting next to me in this little rattle-trap of a rental car, and moments ago, as we snapped our picture standing in a field of orange poppies that stretched out across a Tuscan field behind us, I realized that this was the woman I needed to spend the rest of my life with.

“Yes!” Ruth says, triumphantly, “we’re going to get there!” And so we are, winding our way from the walled city of Siena to the picture perfect hill town of Montepulciano where we will wander the cobblestone streets, drunk first with love, and then later with Vino Nobile de Montepulciano.

Suddenly we round a bend and on our right, the hills roll up and away towards the horizon like the frozen surface of a turbulent green sea, undulating and chaotic except for a single oasis of calm. There, amidst the pitching waves of new wheat is a little gem — a tiny island populated by perfect cypress trees that we recognize instantly as the quintessence of Tuscany.

Ruth and I both immediately have the same longing: to photograph. In the emotion of the moment we naively believe that by fixing this image onto film we will preserve this feeling that runs through both of our veins, and capture this beauty that we have been swimming in for more than a week together.

“Oh my God,” she says. “We gotta stop and take a picture of those trees!”

I look at my watch, torn.

“We’ve gotta be close to Montepulciano by now,” I say, anxious about getting there in time to do some serious wine tasting.

“We can get a photo on the way back….” I hesitate for a moment as the urge to stop nearly becomes overwhelming.

“It won′t take more than a minute,” she says, almost pleading.

But my brain wins over my heart, and the hesitation never completes, and even at the limping pace that our little car can keep, the trees are passing behind us now, and the landscape continues to unroll in front of us, and soon the perfect day fills in the gap and smooths over the little seam that is left in our memory for lack of an image.

And the day was perfect. And the wine was good. And we were in love.

And by the time our little tin can of an automobile rounded that bend in the road again, it was dark. We were sated with yet one more fantastic meal, but not enough to avoid exchanging a glance as that little stand of trees swished by in our mind’s eye, and in the darkness outside.

We all carry with us many images, but some seem quite indelible, fused like vertebrae to create the spine of our experience — the bright line we can trace back through our lives without fail.

Ruth and I will always remember that moment, wistfully, and definitely with a bit of a chuckle. She says “that proves you should always listen to your wife, even if she isn’t your wife yet.”

And I say that I will never really need that photograph, which is the honest truth. It could never hold what I hold in my mind’s eye and in my heart.

But just the same, I know that she is absolutely, positively, right.

And now, thanks to my friend Andy, we′ve got a photograph of those very same trees.

INSTRUCTIONS:
Download this image by right-clicking on the image and selecting “save link as” or “save target as” and then select the desired location on your computer to save the image. Mac users can also just click the image to open the full size view and drag that to their desktops.

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Original post by Alfonso Cevola

There are wine tastings, and then there are wine tastings. And then, there are experiences that completely transcend a bunch of tables with vintners standing behind them pouring their wines. I’ve been to a few “destination” wine experiences, some of which have been great, but none of which have been better than the International Pinot Noir Conference that takes place every year in McMinnville, Oregon.

Scheduled over a long July weekend every year, IPNC is one of the most relaxed and intimate wine tasting experiences I’ve had the pleasure of attending, not to mention the fact that it also involves some extremely high quality wines in a gorgeous setting.

One of the top draws of IPNC, apart from the idyllic nature of the program, is the heavy representation of Burgundy at the conference. Too many events in the San Francisco Bay Area that are focused on Pinot Noir might as well be subtitled “With a California Focus.” But despite taking place in the heart of Oregon’s Willamette Valley wine country, IPNC draws some top Burgundy producers, and occasionally, top Champagne producers as well.

This will be my second year attending IPNC, and I′m very much looking forward to it. If you’re interested, you can check out my coverage of the 2007 event:

Submerged in Pinot Noir: IPNC 2007
Wine Jeopardy at IPNC
Dinner Wines Day One
The Secret Life of Pinot Noir
Grower Champagnes
Al Fresco Tasting Notes from IPNC
Tidbits and Gossip from IPNC

This year’s program includes many of the highlights that made the 2007 program so impressive, including the rosé tasting, the al fresco tastings on the lawn, lunches in wine country, the grand dinner (one of the most impressive large scale catering jobs I’ve ever seen), the famous salmon bake, and more. Jancis Robinson will be the master of ceremonies this year, and will be joined as a speaker by David Schildknecht from The Wine Advocate, along with top winemakers.

If you′re looking for a compact vacation that includes some truly exceptional wine tasting, a beautiful setting, a mellow atmosphere, and fantastic camaraderie, you can’t go wrong with IPNC.

I’m not sure if it still applies, but for a while they were offering to give you a six pack of wines for $0.01 for each full weekend ticket you purchased. Give them a call and see if it still applies.

International Pinot Noir Conference
July 24-26, 2009
Linfield College
900 SE Baker St.
McMinnville, OR 97128

Tickets for the full weekend is $975, and always sell out. This year may be an exception, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t grab your ticket as soon as possible. On its face, the price is pretty inexpensive, and all the more so knowing the proceeds support a charity focused on offering health care to vineyard workers. You can register at www.ipnc.org.

The weather is generally perfect for this event, warm or even hot and sunny during the day, and cooler at night. Casual dress, sunscreen, and a sun hat and you’re set.

See you there?

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

By W. Blake Gray

One of the main characteristics of Japanese is its vagueness. Language is culture, and Japanese helps people get along in crowded, resource-poor cities by preventing hard feelings in conversation.

Here’s a good example of how this works: In a business meeting, everyone sits around the table vaguely feeling out each others′ position until eventually everyone realizes what they′re expected to say. Thus the first and only vote is almost always unanimous.

Here’s a more frustrating example: I think this sake is named “140″ (hyakuyonju) because it’s the 140th attempt at crossing Aomori’s native Hanafubuki rice with the more famous Yamada Nishiki, which doesn’t usually grow so far north.

However, I can’t confirm that; the Japanese describing it is just too vague. All I know is that in the crossing experiments, somehow this rice got the number “140.” Maybe that’s the number of wins Aomori native Daisuke Matsuzaka expects to pile up in Boston. Maybe it’s just a mellifluous number.

As a journalist, I hate that vagueness — it makes reporting anything from Japan a challenge, as you get notebooks full of quotes that, translated, essentially mean, “Maybe so.” I can’t help but wonder, as I struggled to get information on this product, how much Japanese exports would benefit from a trade export organization with English skills.

Oh wait — there is one. I went to JETRO, the Japan External Trade Organization, where I learned the following about Aomori rice:

“The value that is delicious by the security that only the person who ate understands.

Please enjoy it in your mouth.”

OK, at least we know where to put it. Let me tell you what I do know.

Aomori prefecture is the snowiest in Japan — even more so than Hokkaido. Aomori is at the very tip of Honshu, and even in summer it’s foggy and windy.

The prefecture is 66% covered by forest, and the rest mostly by farmland, such that a visiting English teacher posted somewhere on the web, “There’s nothing but rice paddies here.”

Aomori is fairly poor and has been losing population since it peaked in 1983, because young people don’t want to pursue the number one industry — agriculture. When they get to Tokyo, they have to relearn how to speak, because Aomori is famous in Japan for its unfashionable rural dialect. They also have to learn to have fun, because all there is to do in Aomori at night is carve artwork in the rice paddies — which they’ve gotten quite good at.

Aomori grows 75% of the garlic in Japan and 52% of the apples. It also grows more yam and burdock root than any other prefecture. But we didn’t come here to talk about garlic or burdock root (though we can talk about Calvados if you like).

Nowadays we believe that the best wines come from marginal growing areas — areas that are too cold to guarantee a crop every year. Could it be true for sake as well? There are so many factors in creating great sake that it’s hard to tease out the influence of cool climate.

But Aomori prefecture, with only 1.5 million people, has 45 sake producers. Nishida, maker of this sake, likes the area so much that it uses the Denshu brand just for junmais, and has a second brewery in Aomori where it makes its more famous brand Kikuizumi. And it’s not the only famous name from Aomori, because Momokawa, which has an outpost in Oregon, has its home base there.

Nishida’s Denshu Junmai is one of the most popular junmai sakes in Japan, regularly making local lists of top 10 junmais. The 140 is a more recent product, created in 2003.

Nishida claims over and over that all their Denshu sakes are “handmade.” Here we get back to vagueness — what does that mean? The rice can’t possibly be polished by hand (down to 40%, hence daiginjo) in this day and age. But what the heck, it’s good sake. When it comes my turn, I might prepare to possibly express an opinion in the direction of approval.

In any case, remember to follow the official instructions, and please enjoy it in your mouth.

Tasting Notes:
Aromas of fresh cream, peach, white chocolate and orange pith. There’s plenty of fresh fruit (peach and apricot) up front. You taste a jolt of alcohol (it’s a hefty 17.0%) in your first sip, but then it turns quite smooth, with a long creamy finish. It’s not the most complex daiginjo ever, but it’s rich and smooth and crowd-pleasing.

Food Pairing:
In Aomori they would drink this with seafood stew, but I think it’s fine with miso-glazed cod or other dishes where the creaminess would match the food’s texture.

Overall Score: between 9 and 9.5

How Much?: $45 for 720ml

This sake is difficult to find online. Look for it at your nearest specialty sake retailer.

W. Blake Gray is a former Japan resident whose first wine book in Japanese will be published in August. Please enjoy other writing from him at wblakegray.blogspot.com.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola