A few weeks ago I was invited to a dinner with Jillian and David at Chez Kate et Rahul.  As I mentioned in my previous post, it’s been hard for me to quench my thirst for interesting wines lately.  So, in addition to being pleased to be able to see my good friends Kate ‘n’ Rahul and Jillian ‘n’ David, I was pleased to have an excuse to bring a bottle of Chenin Blanc recommended to me by Phil over at MacArthur Beverages (at left):

The Saumur appellation is located in the Loire Valley of France.  The Loire Valley–especially the region of Vouvray and to a lesser extent Montlouis-sur-Loire–is known for its Chenin Blanc.  I think Chenin Blanc is one of the underrated great grapes of the world.***  The best examples of Chenin Blanc have great acidity and taste of honey, almonds, and flowers.  Like Riesling and Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc can be aged to great effect.  I’ve had Chenin Blanc from 1983 and 1989, and when aged these wines take on low, nutty, waxy notes that are just incredible.  Best of all, just like old Rioja blanco, aged Chenin Blanc can be relatively affordable.

Phil, knowing my love of older white wines, sold me on the 2002 Château de Fosse-Sèche Saumur Chenin Blanc.  I was expecting great things but was, unfortunately, underwhelmed.  Rather than having pure honeyed notes, the Fosse-Sèche tasted a bit like stones washed with acid.  The acid was so high as to be bitter.  It did have some of the nutty quality that I love, but it was not part of a cohesive, beautiful whole.  The wine improved with some time, but overall it was disappointing.

Fortunately for me, Kate and Rahul decided to open up two more bottles of wine for dinner.  The first was the 2007 Antoine Arena “Carco” Patrimonio, a Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant selection and featured on the DC Wine Buyers Collective, and the second was the 2006 Gourt de Mautens Rasteau, imported by Ansonia Wines:

The Gourt de Mautens was a special wine.  I had given it to Rahul as a birthday present in 2010, but subject to one condition: that they drink it with me in 2011.  Selfish, I know, but what is wine without good friends, eh?

Thank you to Kate and Rahul for having the discipline to honor this condition!

We opened both wines but drank the Carco first.  The Carco is a Corsican wine from the Patrimonio region, which was the first to receive AOC status, in 1968.  I am not well-versed in Corsican wines, but they are supposed to  be terrific values and feature some unusual varietals.  The Carco was not an unusual varietal–it is made of Sangiovese–but it was a terrific value.****  It had nice light acidity and bright red fruit, sort of like you would imagine a Sangiovese to taste like if it were grown on a Mediterranean island.

By this point I was salivating for the Gourt de Mautens, which is mostly low-yield Grenache and comes from very old vines.  I’ve had a few glasses of this now and then, and I had gotten hooked on its dark, tannic, nearly-Herzogian power.  This bottle did not disappoint.  I had a glass of it and could have no more because it was so concentrated and so intense.

Normally, I prefer wines with greater acidity (like Chenin Blanc, or Sangiovese).  My palate has turned away from high tannin blockbusters (like much Australian Shiraz).  However, once in a while a big tannic wine ceases to be merely big or tannic and becomes something more: an experience, a big, brash woman who takes no quarter.  The Gourt de Mautens is such a wine.

Which did I prefer as between the Carco and the Gourt de Mautens?  Hard question.  I liked both of them equally but for different reasons.  The Carco I could drink forever and drink with food, drink as an aperitif, drink just for the hell of it.  The Gourt de Mautens requires you to gird your loins and steel your palate.  Both, however, are extremely well made, and both serve their own purposes.  Having them together was a good reminder of why I love wine so much.

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* The wines of Bandol are a prime example of wines that, to me, should inspire a little bit of fear.

** Then again, I do enjoy some good gulping wines now and again.  Beaujolais nouveau, chilled down, is a guilty pleasure, as is drinking red box wine with ice cubes as an accompaniment to Italian sausage and pepper sandwiches!

*** Shea from Just Grapes declared a Chenin Blanc from the Loire one of his top 10 wines of 2009.  But my Chenin Blanc love is not universal, and for good reason.  Much of it can be insipid or bleh, as noted by David Fang of La Cave de Fang.

**** The Carco is an example of a vin de soif, or “thirst-quenching wine.”  Very appropriate.  This would also be good chilled down and eaten with things like bruschetta, summer pastas, or grilled fish.

And now I might very well be older than they were at the time.

(My torts professor summed it up quite nicely when he quipped, “It’s a strange feeling when both the president-elect AND the chief justice are younger than you are.”)

Now that I’m a quarter century old, I feel as if I should be an adult.  I certainly feel adult-like at certain moments–for instance, when I cook dinner, or when I go to the Ritz-Carlton for drinks (that one time!)–but sometimes feel as if I’m a child playing grownup. I think many of my peers feel the same way.

All that aside, it IS nice to get together and do grownup stuff–like hold wine tastings.  My roommate and I decided to throw a wine tasting; I decided also to throw a wine tasting before that wine tasting to get the feel of things.

I’ll spare you (and myself) the details of the parties.  The first coincided with the arrival of Margie’s friend Ruth from Michigan and Alisa’s friend Kami from Arizona.  The second coincided with Margie’s birthday.  All in all, fortuitous timing.

This was the first wine tasting event I hosted, so I was anxious to do it right.  To that extent, I went to the Wine Specialist and talked to J.C. (their Spanish wine buyer) for over an hour, picking out wines.  The combined wines over both tastings were:

• 2007 | Visión “Cono Sur” | Sauvignon Blanc | Casablanca Valley, Chile
• 2007 | Verget du Sud | Chardonnay | Vin de Pays du Vaucluse, France
• 2007 | Mulderbosch | Chenin Blanc | Stellenbosch, South Africa
• 2006 | André Lorentz | Riesling | Alsace, France
• 2007 | Jean Descombes | cru Beaujolais | Morgon, Beaujolais, France
• 2007 | Maipe “Rosé of Malbec” | Malbec | Mendoza, Argentina
• 2006 | Domiciano de Barrancas “Cosecha Nocturna” | Malbec | Mendoza, Argentina
• 2007 | Oracle of the Stars | Pinotage | Western Cape, South Africa
• 2007 | Thorn-Clarke “Shotfire” | Shiraz | Barossa Valley, Australia
• 2007 | Cueva de las Manos “Bonarda Old Vine Reserve” | Bonarda | Mendoza, Argentina

I bought a few repeats, as well.

There was also a Chilean cabernet sauvignon that I wasn’t intending to serve (and so didn’t write down) but ended up serving after the first tasting; we also went through a few other bottles from my own “collection” and from others.

The theme for both tastings was “1.5 Generation Wines: Between the Old and New Worlds.”  Many of the varietals–sauvignon blanc, syrah/shiraz, and malbec, especially–have had great success after being transplanted to different parts of the world.

The first tasting was a bit more improvised–I didn’t have any food to go along with the tasting, but we more than made up for that by drinking a lot of wine.  The second tasting was more planned–Alex and I made appetizers such as pork sausage fried with apples and cider, lox with chevre and green garlic on melba toast, roasted Hungarian peppers with Greek goat cheese on sliced baguette, hummus, dark chocolate drops with raspberry, etc.  Daphne brought some spicy tuna rolls and vegetable rolls, as well.  Delicious.

I won’t comment on all the wines, but only the notable ones.

The Visión “Cono Sur” is an excellent sauvignon blanc–midway between the Old World (minerals, concentrated) and the New World (lush, grassy) styles, this was a real crowd pleaser.  The Maipe “Rosé of Malbec” was an intense blood red, almost as dark as the Beaujolais or a pinot noir.  It had a bit of a rubber boot nose, but this gave way to some nice berry fruit that ended on dried notes of raisin.  The Oracle of the Stars pinotage was a favorite–smoky, nice acid–and a steal at $7.99.  It’s definitely a wine I’d keep around for dinner or easy drinking.

Jordan and Margie donated a bottle of 2005 Bodegas Arrocal tempranillo from the Ribera del Duero region of Spain.  We poured it in a decanter and swished it around.  I happen to love tempranillo from Ribera del Duero (Tinto Pesquera, anyone?)–they’re intense and dark, with earth and tobacco.  “This is going to be evocative of a dry, dusty riverbed,” I announced drunkenly as I poured out tastes from the decanter.  Yup.  It WAS like a dry, dusty riverbed.

Overall, I really enjoyed the process of hosting a wine tasting, and people seemed to like it.  Then again, who wouldn’t like to pretend they’re adults and get drunk off of good wine?

Jonathan L., my erstwhile LegalZoom co-worker, poet, historian, and future Columbia grad student, was in the neighborhood. We’re both fond of wine, so we decided to have a bit to drink together before we again went our separate ways.

Where else than Lou?

Now keep in mind that we’re both going to be grad students in the near future; not only that, we’re both going to be living in rather expensive metropolitan areas. Personally, I had enough money that day for wine tasting or dinner but not both. Oh well. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

We met up at Lou at around 7 pm. The place was dead. There were, including us, seven patrons at that time. No matter. We had a job to do.

He had the 1989 Domaine Brunet chenin blanc I wrote about in a previous post. Then he moved on to the 2006 Coturri “Albarello”, which was a field blend of a number of different old vines. I had a nice, light verdejo from the Rueda region of Spain: the 2006 Garcia-Arevalo “Tres Olmo”. Then, I sampled the 2005 Giusti Lacrima di Morro and finished off with the 2004 Puiatti cabernet franc.

As for food, we got Lou’s “fish plate”, which consisted of smoked baccala, albacore confit, smoked trout, and house-cured wild salmon gravlax. It was tasty and a pretty good foil for the wines (the fish wasn’t too fishy… it was savory, salty, and good).

Jon’s Albarello was good (ha, simple enough, right?). He insisted that the taste of the wine changed in his mouth to reflect potentially the 11 different grapes in the blend. Some post-quaffing online research on the Coturri Winery website yielded the definition of both “Albarello” and “field blend”:

Albarello is Italian for low or head pruned vines. This wine is made from a “field blend” vineyard in the southeast corner of Sonoma Valley. A field blend is a vineyard that has a number of different varietals planted at random. The idea being the wine was blended in the vineyard rather than in the winery.

What an interesting concept! The Albarello field blend consisted of nine grapes, six reds and three whites. I didn’t get too good a taste of the wine, but from what I did taste it did seem like a pleasant, well-integrated wine.

My verdejo was crisp, dry, and refreshing. It wasn’t terrible complex, but then again, verdejos aren’t supposed to be terribly complex. Nonetheless, the Tres Olmo was delicious, well-built, with bracing acidity and clean minerality. Notes of citrus. Good.

The cabernet franc was served chilled, just like beaujolais. It was very light-bodied, with a low tannin-to-high acidity ration. The nose yielded cherry, and the taste yielded berries. This cabernet franc may just give beaujolais a run for its money in my book!

I wanted to focus a bit on the Lacrima di Morro. I mean, how cool is that name? Tears of Morro (Morro being the commune of Morro d’Alba in the Italian province of Ancona, which is on the Adriatic coast).

Lacrima di Morro is a wine whose grape (Lacrima di Morro d’Alba) is of an ancient and confusing origin–so ancient and so confusing, in fact, that its precise genealogy may never be determined.

This wine blew me away because it was like no other wine I’ve ever tasted. Sure, there are other wines whose nose may approximate flowers, but the Lacrima di Morro actually SMELLS like violets. It’s unmistakable. It’s incredible. And when you take a sip, those violets morph on your tongue into petals of rose. The aftertaste is evocative of rosewater–Turkish Delights, anyone? Light body, low-to-medium tannins, and medium acidity make for a playful, idiosyncratic wine.

I was about to write it’s a nice wine for a date, but on second thought it’s not. Despite all the flowers and mention of Turkish Delight the Lacrima di Morro does not strike me as a sweet wine, though it is not dry. There is a bit of funk below the waving blossoms, as if the winemakers had deliberately left some dirt and leaves on the petals when stuffing them into the bottle. =)

Now, what did Jon and I do about dinner? After tax/tip, we paid about $27-$30 each (keep in mind the glasses were not full glasses but two-three ounce tastes). I had like ten bucks in my pocket at that point.

We went to Flaming Patty’s, a hole-in-the-wall burger joint right next door, where he got a banana shake and a grilled cheese sandwich and I got a Coke and chili cheese fries. My bill? $7.00, after tax/tip. Not exactly as high-quality as 20-year-old chenin blanc and house-cured wild salmon gravlax, but hey, grad students are grad students, right? Thank God I wasn’t on a date.

Luckily, no one coming out of Lou spotted us sitting in our booth at Flaming Patty’s!

I really like the blue and white tile. (Thanks to the Times for the picture!)

At any rate, Intelligentsia’s space was designed by a woman named Barbara Bestor. I found that she had also designed the interior of a quirky wine bar / restaurant called Lou, which happens to be in a seedy strip mall–sandwiched between a Thai massage parlor and a 24-hour laundromat–off of Melrose and Vine in Hollywood.

I did some more reading on Lou and liked what I read: a fair-sized and eclectic wine selection? Check. Hip interior? Check. Good food? Check. All I needed was to actually go.

A friend and I went earlier today and, man, the outside was as seedy as I had read online. The marquee sign in front of the strip mall has the names of each establishment therein, and for the restaurant the sign was all of three letters: LOU. We thought the place was closed on account a full-length floral curtain that covered the entire front side of the restaurant; luckily, it was far from closed.

(Thanks to Lou for the pictures!)

We sat at the communal table in the middle. The only negative is that it’s a bit cramped, though this turned out to have its charms as it’s easy to strike up simple conversation–as I did–with some neighbors. Found out that the roasted fresh figs with Tilston blue cheese, almonds, and grapes were a good bet, as was the salad of farro, heirloom tomato, Dante sheep cheese, Bermuda onion, and pistou. To be safe, we also ordered a bowl of sweet corn and avocado soup.

I think the best part about Lou is the wine. They had two beer selections and twenty-nine wines to choose from. Each of the wines were available by the two-ounce taste, glass, or bottle. The bottle prices were pretty darn reasonable, with the most expensive bottle going for $64 and the majority falling within $40 – $50. Tastes were average $6 and were surprisingly generous.

The menu had different categories of wine: for instance, it started with “Sparkly” and went on to “Fresh, light-bodied whites” and a few others, then ended with “Fuller-bodied, meaty, and earthy reds”, “Sweet muscats”, and “Other sweeties”. The varietal or appellation was listed first for each wine, then the prices, the country or state, winemaker and vintage, then brief a description.

And, for you health- or environment-conscious out there, Lou lists identifies “organic” and “biodynamic” wines on their menu!

We started off with tastes of the 2006 Beausejour cabernet franc rosé and the 1989 Domaine Brunet chenin blanc. I like the setup of the menu in that it lists a few descriptive words on each wine. For instance, the Beausejour was described as tasting like “white peaches”, whereas the chenin blanc was advertised as a “fabulicious aged chenin, mellow-sweet but not sticky, perfectly balanced.” The rosé was decent enough–I’ve had better–but the chenin blanc, a demi-sec from the Vouvray appellation of France, was truly “fabulicious.”

I brought the glass to my nose and took a whiff: I could smell the oxidation–heck, it was almost 20 years old! It was off-dry, for sure, with hints of honey and toasted almond, and a viscous mouthfeel. It almost had a port quality to it. It truly was mellow, though with a plasticine pucker that skirted dangerously to unpleasantness. It avoided this pitfall with really nice green apple acidity that basically saved this wine from itself. The acid was not overbearing at all; there was fine balance, as advertised, between the acid and the sweetness, the texture and the body. Tremendous, and well worth the $7 taste and even $56 per bottle price. It complemented the figs, grapes, and almonds, which were cooked slightly in what I felt was a port or balsalmic reduction.

For our second round of tastes, she had a Beaujolais (made from the gamay grape) cru, the 2006 Piron Chenas to be specific. This was billed as having hints of “black cherry”. I’m a fan of Beaujolais, so I was all for it. I tried a strange Austrian varietal, the blaufränkisch, a varietal I had been meaning to try ever since Eric Asimov profiled it and its cousin, zweigelt, in the Times. The specific wine I tried was the 2005 Moric blaufränkisch.

To be honest, I was a bit disappointed with the blaufränkisch. As Mr. Asimov notes, blaufränkisch can make full and delicious wines, but many examples of this varietal are clumsy and poorly executed. I felt this to be the case with the Moric. There was a fair amount of acidity and a bit of a tannic bite, which could have been balanced with some good body–but the body never developed. It felt a bit flabby and overly acidic at the same time, which is not a combination one should ever see in a wine.

But I was quite happy with the results of the wine “tasting”. I got to try a 20-year-old chenin blanc–one of my favorite white varietals–and blaufränkisch, a strange wine I had been meaning to try now for a while. I also got acquainted with a nice rosé from a varietal–cabernet franc–I had never before experienced as a rosé, and got reacquainted with a lovely, light Beaujolais.

Lou: a hidden gem. Wonderful service, wonderful atmosphere, and a serious, serious wine list that has something for everyone. A must-try for any budding oenophile!

But who could have imagined that every sip was imparting more than just terroir?

Given everything else that is wrong with the world, it is perhaps unsurprising to learn about the presence of pesticides and other chemicals in wine. Recently, Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN Europe) reported a study in which 35 out of 40 bottles of European wine were found to have pesticides–four different pesticides on average but as much as ten in one particularly unfortunate bottle. One of the six organic wines tested also contained trace pesticide residues.

Then again, lest we get too alarmed, it should be noted that a sample set of 40 wines is NOT very large at all. This study from 1999 suggests that no to very little pesticide residue could be found in wine after the vinification, fining, and filtering processes.

(The PAN Europe website does provide citations, so one can do more detailed research if one is so inclined.)

Regardless of whether pesticides are present in many wines–and if present are in concentrations that are harmful to humans–there have always been winemakers that have adhered to natural, “organic” methods of growing grapes. Then again, there are those growers who subscribe to biodynamic farming, where “the farm is viewed as a self-sustaining, self-regulating eco-system.”

Eric Asimov of the New York Times wrote a thought-provoking article on organic and biodynamic wines and the stigma they face. From the article:

“That’s the stigma left over from 15 or 20 years ago, when wines were marketed as organic and weren’t very good,” said Gregory Dal Piaz, the director of customer development for Astor Wines & Spirits in NoHo. “I don’t think it’s the best way to market wine. You market wine because it’s good.”

Recently, there has been a slow, small, but noticeable shift in consumer tendencies towards wines that marketed as organic:

“When I first opened three years back, people did not ask about the wines the same way they asked about the food,” she [Francine Stephens, proprietor of Fanny's Pizzeria in Brooklyn] said. “It’s definitely changed in the last year. People seem to have made the leap that it’s an agricultural product, which is a big leap, I guess.”

I for one was never really a big fan of organic wines. Early experiences left me with thinking that organic wine was the alcoholic equivalent of Tofurky: a tasteless, New Age, inferior substitute for the real thing. Then I tried wines like the Clairette de Die from Jean-Claude Raspail and the offerings of François Chidaine.

The Clairette de Die is an intoxicating sparkling wine from the Clairette de Die AOC of France made from the muscat blanc à petits grains and clairette grapes. It is sweet, fizzy, and refreshing. It doesn’t taste cheap or saccharine, however–it has a clean sweetness that lends itself well to Thai or, say, to the upcoming hot spring and summer days.

I’ve written many times in the past of François Chidaine. He works in plots of land along the Loire River, primarily in the Montlouis (pronounced “Moh-louie”) but also in the Vouvray (“voo-vray”) appellations.

I love this. He writes: “Wine is born from the vine, not from artificial skills of re-creation in the winery. It is sufficient to start modestly by working the soil.”

To that extent, he doesn’t use chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Rather, he uses goats to eat weeds and keep pests at bay. (They make excellent Easter dinner, so I’ve read.)

I’ve written about his chenin blancs, so I want to end this post with a few notes on his outstanding Touraine sauvignon blanc (retail: $11.99). It is straightforward: extremely bright, pleasantly mouth-puckering, high acidity. Less of a herbal character and more of a citrus character–grapefruit, something tart. A little bit of mineral. Not too tangy, very gentle. Reminded me of another great white, the Pie Franco Rueda verdejo from Blanco Nieva.

As long as I can continue finding delicious, satisfying organic and biodynamic wines, I should be able to drink without having to worry too much about my liver, immune system, or easily-worried Korean parents!

WHERE TO FIND IN SoCAL | You can find the sauvignon blanc at Mission Wines in South Pasadena or Monsieur Marcel at the Los Angeles Farmer’s Market.

Philosophy and semantics aside, I’ve thought a lot about the symbolism inherent in wine. There’s a lot: the land as woman, the farmer as man (I know, I know–some might object to this rather antiquated system, but it’s there, and I’m sticking to it); the grapes as the land; the vineyard as the soul of the land. Etc., etc., etc.

Quite a few posts back I wrote about how one of my earliest experiences with wine was with an older, beautiful junior transfer of Spanish extraction. Her skin was tanned and smooth; her eyes dark, her lips full and sensual. She held a bottle of syrah and offered me a glass. It was as if she was offering me the essence of life.

Sometimes–luckily? unluckily?–I would find myself punch-drunk in love, holding someone close against me, my head spinning and heart beating in a way no substance could ever duplicate. The taste of lips–strawberry, raspberry… cherry… the vanilla of lip balm… the honey of her skin…

Before I complete this piece of erotica, I want to list a few people in my life and compare them to the wines I’ve had. I’ll only list them by their initials:

(1) S. P. | A wine from the Languedoc–possibly l’Esprit du Silene: beautiful, seductive, loads of flavor. This is not a simple wine; nor was it a simple woman. One taste left you wanting more. Or, conversely, she could be like a nice champagne–Veuve Clicquot–effervescent, fun, and extremely classy. Or maybe the Ampelos Rosé of Syrah: refreshing, thirst-quenching, lively, and strawberry blonde.

(2) E. Y. | The Montlouis chenin blanc from François Chidaine: smooth, supple, honeyed, and slightly sweet, though this sweetness is offset by a bit of acidity. One of the few whites I absolutely love.

(3) A. B. | The Sea Smoke Southing pinot noir: refined, graceful, and yet, possessing a whollop!

(4) K. Y. | This new Pleiades XVI from Sean H. Thackrey. I opened it yesterday–my mom loved it!–and finished it off today. It stood up to everything, even fried chicken and oranges. Awesome wine. Fiery, intoxicating aroma, beautiful color. Delicious, long finish.

(5) J. C. | A malbec–maybe the Maipe malbec from posts past. Dark, velvety. Tight grip of tannins that open to a full, voluptuous body.

(6) S. H. | A shiraz: loves Australia, loves chocolate. Smooth, easy-drinking, great match for almost any situation. Probably like the Thorn Clarke Shotfire Ridge.

(7) Me! | Dunno. Probably the Charles Cimicky Trumps grenache / shiraz: mouth-filling, delicious, memorable, and short finish!

Any thoughts? What sort of wine would YOU be?