Watches, Chocolate, Banking, and…Chasselas?
“Do they make wine in Switzerland?” I’ve heard this question more than a few times over the years, and considering Switzerland’s exposure outside its own borders, a fair question it is. The Swiss drink a LOT of wine, and are fiercely proud of their native production which is quite low, so not much Swiss wine gets out of the country. And, because the production costs in Switzerland are so ridiculously high, even when one does come across them.
But as far as native white grape varieties are concerned, Chasselas is probably the leader of the pack. The grape’s origins are still mysterious and contoversial. There seems to be a strong notion that the grapes has its origins in the Middle East (Egypt in particular) while others support its origins in the eponymously named town in the Macon region of southern Burgundy, though strangely, there is not a trace of it left there. Not surprisingly the Swiss claim it as their own. The variety is surprisingly well diffused outside of its “sweet spot” in the southwestern Valais, Vaud, and Neuchatel regions of Switzerland where it is known as Fendant. The grape is found in neighboring France but it is roundly reviled there as a wine grape, but is fairly well-esteemed as a table grape, though a bit of it goes into Alsatian Edelzwickers (the traditional Alsatian “kitchen sink” field blends) with a bit of being grown in Savoie and parts of the Loire valley, though in none of these areas is the grape considered to be either very important or very noble. In Italy, the variety makes some cameo appearances here and there under the name of Marzemina Bianca and in Germany under the moniker Gudetel , as well as in patches in Romania, Hungary, and Austria, but again, the variety is considered a minor player at best in all of these regions.
In the vineyard, the variety tends to bud rather too early which can be a real problem in particularly cold Springs. Additionally, the vine is very vigorous (lots of foliage), so to fully ripen Chasselas in sometimes chilly Switerland requires lots of leaf-thinning to get some sunlight onto the bunches. These two hurdles alone surely contribute to the variety’s less than stellar reputation in the minor growing zones listed above.
In the glass, Chasselas often shows flavors/aromas of sundry citrus peels, yellow fruits, and a certain rich spiciness. It typically sports a beautiful golden color.
In my opinion, Chasselas takes a little more stick than it deserves, but in all fairness, the grape only reaches better-than-average quality in the regions of Valais, Vaud, and Neuchatel. Not surprisngly, the wine pairs very nicely with local cheeses like Raclette and Gruyere, as well as all manner of poultry dishes, especially braises and stews.
Below are links to the two Chasselas wines we now carry. Now these are definitely not the sort of wines that will change your life, and they are also not the world’s best values, but they are always well made, and are very evocative of their Geneva lakeside home. As always, if anyone picks one of these up, please post you tasting notes here as commentary…
TOM CIOCCO
Cover your assets - “weeds” in the vineyard
Like our own desks and houses, every vigneron has a certain look about his or her vineyards. And just like desks and houses, some are neat as a pin, others look like someone set off a mess bomb in their midst, while others still are somewhere in between. So the obvious question here is “why”? Are some growers anally retentive while others are just slovenly housekeepers? In some cases, the correct answer is an unequivocal “yes”, and it’s just as simple as that, but in MOST cases, the decision to allow a vineyard to go “wild” is a conscious one.
The technical term for this phenomenon is “cover cropping”. Cover crops are best defined as non-vine plant species that are allowed to grow, or are actually consciously planted, and to some degree, cultivated within a vineyard as aids to improving vineyard health and/or fruit quality improvement.
Cover crops can take many forms. In quite a few instances, cover crops encompass nothing more or less than “weeds” that grow where they will, and that are simply not “weeded out”. Stuff grows will-nilly, and god bless it - in non-cultivated areas around vineyard sites, in the spaces between the vine rows, and even directly under the vines themselves. The other sort of cover cropping comprises specifically selected plant species that are consciuosly planted in certain areas in the vineyard, but often in “off” times that do not interfere with pruning, harvest, etc. There are also “canaries in coal mines” plants that can serve as warnings for pending difficulties for the vines themselves. For example, roses are often planted in more humid vineyards or alongside vine varieties that are particularly susceptible to maladies brought on by excessive humidity because roses will succumb more quickly to the advances of a disease like downy mildew than the vine will, thereby allowing the grower to take preventive rather than curative action.
So back to the original question of “why”? All cover crops accomplish certain things no matter what the species, and where they are found:
- SOIL STABILITY - Depending on soil type, and even more importantly on rain patterns and vineyard steepness, soil erosion can be a major problem on certain sites. A cover crop’s root system provides a structure to which soils can cling, thereby reducing simple erosion difficulties.
- INCREASE IN ORGANIC MATTER - Weeds, crops, etc. attract insects, worms, etc. These organisms do their respective “jobs”, and leave their waste, and eventually, their remains, as well as these organisms’ predators who in turn leave their “leavings”, attract their predators, and so on, and so on, and so on, and this is not to mention the dead matter that emanates directly from the cover crops themselves in the forms of pollens, dead foliage, etc. …those growers that espouse organic and Biodynamic viticulture argue that these sorts of “living” vineyards produce more complete and expressive wines than sites that have been “pesticided” to within an inch of their lives.
- WATER RETENTION - In exceedingly dry growing regions, every drop of water is precious, and “bald” vineyards have much greater difficulties in holding this precious commodity. Cover crops in many cases can relieve the grower from the expensive and time consuming process of irrigation, and in some cases, cover crops can be the very reason why the vineyard exists at all for regions that do not allow irrigation in any shape or form.
- WATER STRESS - With lots of other plants in a vineyard, each of which drinks a bit of water each day, a certain amount of water deprivation to the vines can occur. Clearly in EXTREMELY arid conditions, crop covering must be carefully studied and judiciously employed, but water-stressing vines can effect two important vine behaviors. First, water-stressing vines causes an earlier onset of ripening which under certain conditions can be a benefit to the grower. Second, depriving vines of water “stresses” them, causing them to push their roots deeper into the earth to look for water, which also means further into the poorer, more inorganic matter-rich soils that are said to be a huge part of what constitutes “terroir”.
- NITROGEN ENRICHMENT - Certain specifically cultivated cover crop species like particular species of winter legumes, though they can reduce soil nitrogen in the spring, when they are ploughed under in the late fall, can RETURN large quantities of nitrogen to the soil at a time when the soil wants to give it up.
But as has been alluded to above, there can be some downsides to crop covering, or least potentially so. Using cover crops to regulate water obviously requires that one also tends these plants to meet one’s growing needs. For example, if one is growing cover crops to RETAIN water in a vineyard, one has to be sure that the crop chosen is not a particularly “thirsty” species, and if one is simply allowing for spontaneous weed growth, that these weeds do not overgrow and begin to rob precious water from the vines. Further, heavy cover cropping can increase the chance for frost damage in the cooler months because heavy cover cropping helps to retail the coldest air that settles on the ground in a vineyard. Even too much or the wrong cultivated cover crop can deprive a nitrogen-challenged plot just when the vines need it the most which can lead to stuck fermentations (the unwanted slowing down or even cessation of the fermention process) after crush.
There are indeed quite a few growers that overtly DISCOURAGE the growth of anything but vines in their vineyards, but the current of opinions now seem to be flowing in the direction of more rather than fewer cover crops, but with the job of viticulture already rated at the “brutally difficult” level, for some the added work of tending weeds or lupin beans is simply unconscionable, perhaps both physically as well as financially. But those who embrace cover cropping argue that those who don’t may be stealing from Peter to pay Paul, and therefore costing themselves time and money in the long run.
The cover crop controversy will surely continue, and most candidly, there are vineyards for which this is decidly NOT a good idea, but with the advance of knowledge about biodiversity on every level, and the free and unseen benefits of promoting it, it seems that the employment of the technique will continue to proliferate.
TOM CIOCCO
Fer Servadou - Southwest France’s Iron man
It’s a shame that France has become known for only a small percentage of its wealth of grape varieties. Certainly France does not possess Italy’s or even Portugal’s vinous diversity, but there is far more to be found growing in the French viticultural landscape than the boilerplate, “gold standard” like varieties Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, and Syrah…
So it’s time to give a little love to some of these lesser known varieties, and one such variety is Fer Servadou…Also known as just Fer, as well as Mansois (in the Marcillac zone), Braucol or Brocol (in Marcillac), and Pinenc (in Madiran), the grape is quite widely planted, but only throughout the southwest. In addition to Marcillac and Gaillac, the variety can be found in varying concentrations in Bergerac as well as in the Aveyron department zones of Entraygues and Estaing. Marcillac is the only zone in which Fer is the sole variety permitted; in Gaillac, Fer (there known as Braucol) shares the stage with Syrah and another southwest rarity called Duras. In Madiran, Fer can be a minorty blending component with the larger players namely Tannat and the two Cabernets.
The name “Fer” (meaning “Iron” in French) is derived from the vines famously hard, tough trunks. The vine’s precise origins however are not as clear as the roots of its name, but there is some indication through some preliminary DNA analysis that it may be a distant relative of Cabernet Franc, but this is still unclear. And as is the case with so many of these “marginal” varieties, especially in France where there is a clear, hard and fast hierarchy of varieties from “noble” to “local curiosities”, Fer’s future is uncertain, since with the exception of the Marcillac AOC, the variety is only an optional component in the respective blends in every other zone in which the grape is cultivated. The total acreage of Fer in Madiran and Gaillac for example, has diminished significantly over the last decades in favor of the more “marketable” permissable varieties.
In the glass, Fer’s wines are quite deeply colored (purplish), more tannic than acidic, with a medium to full body. The variety often shows flavors and aromas of dark fruits (especially berries), meat juices, smoke, and a certain black peppery character. Varietal bottlings of Fer are usually best consumed within 3 to 4 years of the vintage date.
By the way, the pictures I’ve been posting for each of the grapes that I’ve profiled are photos of the actual variety under consideration, not just some generic “bunch of grapes” pic…I hope that you all find the actual “look” of the grapes, leaves etc. as interesting as I do…carry on…
And in case you’ve gotten curious enough to lay down a few skins to try some Fer wine, here you go:
Do you smell what I smell?
Back in December, I wrote a piece in the blog called “The Inner Life of the Wine Review” in which I discussed some of the finer, more “philosophical” points of evaluating and drinking wines, with much of the discussion focusing on the differences in sensory perception of a wine in “critical analysis” mode versus those perceptions obtained in a simple drinking mode. This little number strikes me as a similar sort of discussion…
The issue at hand here, stated directly and plainly, is “When a highly experienced wine professional and a wine novice taste a given wine, do they actually PERCEIVE the same sensations?” Now this may at first sound philosopical/oenological hairsplitting, but I’d argue otherwise…Maybe a clearer way to state the problem is via this question: “How closely is actual PERCEPTION linked to EXPERIENCE in wine tasting”?
Here’s an illustrative example:
Dick and Jane are tasting a series of 5 wines - 5 Saumur-Champigny reds (Cabernet Franc). Jane is a prominent sommelier (humor me here) and Dick is an intermediate student of wine. The first four wines are made by large concerns that use some estate and some bought-in fruit, none of which is sourced from vines any older than 15 years. The musts are fermented with commercial yeasts, and the producers use as many pesticides and commercial fertilizers as they need to to maintain their large production numbers. The 5th wine is a bit of a ringer. This winery’s production never exceeds 500 cases per vintage. Their farming is 100% organic and all fruit utilized in the wine is estate grown. They use only natural yeasts, and the average age of their vines is 60 years.
Dick and Jane begin tasting the wines and making their respective notes. And as the omniscient narrator I can see that though Jane’s notes are quite a bit more standardized and sophisticated, most of the comments from both tasters are fairly short and perfunctory. And then they reach the 5th wine…Jane goes, frankly, apeshit. She waxes poetic about the gorgeous mouthfeel, the wonderful purity of fruit, and the amazing balancing act the wine performs between perfect expression of terroir and demonstrating the winemaker’s unique fingerprint.
Back to Dick. Dick clearly perceives a difference between this wine and the four preceeding, but he can’t clearly articulate it, and frankly, is a bit envious of Jane’s effusive reaction. And even when confronted with Jane’s copious and detailed notes on the wine and his glass, he can STILL only perceive SOME of what she has written down, even when he goes looking for that note of half-melted honeycomb on a mortarless granite wall.
So on to the big crux…What exactly is afoot here? Obviously, the central objects of attention, the wines were EXACTLY the same, and though Dick is not a wine professional, he is a well-educated, perceptive man with a working olfactory system, with some experience in wine-drinking, so why did he fail to perceive and or be able to describe what was SO OBVIOUS to Jane? Why did wine #5 fail to elicit the response that it did in Jane?
Did these two people actually smell the same things? How could they NOT have? Does EXPERIENCE actually highten PERCEPTION, and if so, how does this come to pass? Or is this whole example just a false dichotomy? Maybe Jane just has a better “professional vocubulary” with which to describe what she’s experiencing? Or is it something else again?
What say we try to uncork a really good debate on this one (sorry).
TOM CIOCCO
Petite Sirah - One of California’s original varieties
If the topic of California red wine comes up, the lion’s share of the conversation will almost surely revolve around Cabernet Sauvignon. There is no place in the entire world that is more closely associated with this variety, and in my opinion this includes Cabernet’s homeland of Bordeaux where it is never bottled unblended.
California Cabernet can, and in many cases, does make world-class wine in in the Sunshine State, but Cabernet, though it has been in California since the 1880s, has only become California’s most favored son since the 1960s. Before Cabernet Sauvignon, there was our hero, Petite Sirah (or Petit Sirah, or Petite Syrah, etc.).
What is Petit Sirah? By now, Petit Sirah’s convoluted origins have become the topic of many ampelographical arguments, and though there is far more agreement than disagreement on where this variety comes from, suffice it say that Peteit Sirah’s PRECISE familiy tree is still not fully settled. Here is what is clear…Petit Sirah is a crossed (and re-crossed) variety. Petit Sirah (often affectionately called “Pet” by growers and drinkers alike) seems to be the result of some series of crossings of:
- True SYRAH (a.k.a. Shiraz in Australia) which by most accounts is native to the northern Rhone
- PELOURSIN which is a very obscure southern French variety that is almost completely extinct in its native land.
- DURIF which itself had been frequently misidentified as Petit Sirah. What is interesting is that DNA profiling tests done on Durif have revealed that Durif is an offspring of Peloursin.
- A cross of just Peloursin and Durif that had in many cases been identified as “pure” Petit Sirah.
But even though now that Petit Sirah’s family tree is well documented, there are undoubtedly still quite a few vineyards that are populated with some (or even all) of Petit Sirah’s parents directly alongside with “full blooded” Petit Sirah. This may in part explain why Petit Sirah wines can vary quite widely in style.
Much of the Petit Sirah in California is found in Napa, Sonoma, Amador, and Mendocino counties (currently totaling about 3,500 acres), and even though there are no Italian cultivars in Petit Sirah’s genetic history, most of the plantations of Petit Sirah are found in the old vineyards that were orginally planted by California’s earliest Italian immigrants, though in many of these same vineyards there are (or at least were) rows of Barbera and Sangiovese too. Aside from California’s quintessential grape variety Zinfandel, which are surely the oldest vines in the state, Petit Sirah plantings are likely next in line in terms of age, with a fair number of 100+ year old vines that are still producing fruit and wine. These old vine Petits yield the most balanced and complete wines, and they are are true California viticultural treasure.
Before producers like Foppiano and Guenoc had done extensive research on PS’s clonal variations, soil and site preferences, etc. the results from which have allowed producers to tame PS’s wild, rough side, Petit Sirah was (and still is) a perfect blending partner for Zinfandel (the first varietal bottling of Petit Sirah was made by Concannon in the 1961 vintage, by the way), with Petit Sirah providing a stiff backbone and certain “pebbly” texture to the often thick, soft, and flamboyant Zin fruit. The “problem” with Petit Sirah is an abundance of both acids and tannins, both of which can be said to be “coarse” or at least “rustic” if not properly cropped (limited yields) and planted on the right sites (Pet’s cultivational “sweet spot” seems to be found on the steep and dry hillside sites in Sonoma and Mendocino counties), and even when Pet gets all that it wants, it’s still definitely not a wine for those who like New World Pinot Noir or even Aussie Shiraz. Petit Sirah is a decidedly “masculine” grape with a formidable, sometimes “scratchy” structure and mouthfeel, deep, black/purple color, and moderately to very high alcohol with a flavor/aroma profile of black fruits, cracked pepper, coffee, smoke, and sap.
Petit Sirah pairs exceptionally well with BIG foods - the bigger the better - especially marinated and grilled red meats, furred game, well-spiced stews, and hard, aged cheeses, especially those made from sheep’s milk.
Here is a complete list of all of the Petit Sirah wines currently in stock at Wine Library. As always, if you pick up a bottle or two, feel free to post your tasting notes here if you’re so inclined.
TOM CIOCCO
