Getting to know you (mentally insert melody)…”cellars”
I’ve been SUPER busy today, so I’m going to keep today’s post REALLY brief…This is an audience participation number…It occurred to me the other day that I know very little about most of the folks that read my ramblings, so I thought that it might be both fun and interesting to talk about our repsective “cellars”. Now by cellar, I don’t (necessarily) mean a damp cellar carved from living rock with a 50,000 bottle capacity. I’m not even talking about a fancy 1000-bottle Franco-Tank wine cabinet (though don’t feel guilty if you’ve actually got one - I wish I had one). No, I’m talking about those special bottles that you may have laying down in your basement or in the closet under your stairs…What, how many, most valuable bottle, and favorite bottle…Let me be clear with this idea too - this is not a bragging session, but rather a “meet and greet” with wine…
OK, me first…
I’ve got about 300 bottles spread out over 1 30 bottle Haier wine “cooler”, 1 60 bottle of the same, a BIG wooden rack that holds about 130 bottles that rests up against the coolest wall in my basement, and the rest of the bottles divided between a crawlspace under my basement stairs, and my mom’s “sub-basement” (it’s fully underground).
Of these roughly 300 bottles, I’d say about 85% are Italian - mostly Barolo and Barbaresco, some Brunellos, and some old oddities like a 1985 Schioppettino from Ronchi di Cialla, and a couple of 1995 Antonelli Sagrantinos. The remainder of the wines are French, Portuguese, and a few CAREFULLY selected Californians. Zero Australia, Zero South America. I have only a couple of large format bottlings…
My most valuable bottle is undoubtedly a single bottle of Giacomo Conterno Barolo “Monfortino” 1995 which is going for roughly $250 per bottle these days…this wine will be ready when I’m about 150 years old…
My most favoritist bottle(s) is a tie, and for the same reason - neither are made any longer, and never will be again:
1) Casa Ferreirinha Douro Reserva 1989 (Portugal) - This is the bottling just under the now defunct producer’s legendary “Barca Velha” cuvee`. Though this wine is still available, supplies are low, and as I said, the Ferreira as a house is now defunct. The vineyards still are being farmed, but for my palate, the “magic” is gone…
2) This is going to come as a real surprise to those who know me and/or have followed the blog for a while…
Ridge Petite Sirah York Creek 1999 - The York Creek vineyard is owned by one Fritz Maytag (of, among other things, the Anchor Steam Beer Co., his vineyards in Napa’s Mayacamas Range, as well as Maytag Dairies which makes one of The United States’ best blue cheeses, Maytag Blue, etc.).
Not only was 1999 a spectacular Cali vintage, Ridge is one of may favorite California houses. Further, York Creek’s Petite Sirah vines are among the oldest in the state, and for many, the vineyard is one of the best sites in the state for growing Petite Sirah (and Zin with which the Pet shares the space). But what makes this a real gem is that this is the last vintage that Ridge made, and probably will ever make, from this vineyard. Paul Draper (Ridge’s chief cook and bottle washer) had arranged a long term contract with Mr. Maytag that expired with the 1999 vintage, and it is unlikely that this will EVER be renewed, so once these bottles are gone, they are GONE FOREVER. full stop…sniff, sniff…
OK, now you show me yours…
TOM CIOCCO
Sugar (da da da da da da), Oh, honey, honey - The Story of Chaptalization
Chaptalization is a real wine geek word, yes sir. Apart from the fact that the word’s meaning cannot be inferred by etymological means, the very thing itself never fails to spark an, ahem, “discussion” amongst those who are familiar with the process. To some chaptalization is an unmitigated abomination and to others it’s just a dervish in a decanter.
So to formally define the word, chaptalization is the process of adding sugar to a fermenting wine to boost its final alcohol level. In the past, cane and beet sugar was extensively used, but for the purposes of both “appearences” as well as fiscal practicality, many producers have taken to using grape must or concentrated grape musts to effect the action. The derivation of the word “chaptalize” is attached to one Mssr. Jean-Antoine Chaptal who is often credited (or saddled) with having invented the process, but another French chemist named Pierre-Joseph Macquer is the real culprit. Why the process took Chaptal’s name and not Macquer’s, I don’t know but I’m guessing that Macquer’s family isn’t arguing …
The word “chaptalization” should bring to mind chilled, damp stone cellars in northern Europe, and vineyards only just drizzled with peek-a-boo flashes of pale sunshine. These sorts of conditions are what often forces a cellarmaster’s hand to do the deed in the first place. Essentially, chaptalization is a post-harvest path to a “ripeness” that was not freely given by mother nature. To put the process in a “time-lapse” context, long hours of sunshine mean higher ripeness levels (sugar) which means more alcohol ,and therefore a bigger, burlier body. For growers in hot and sunny climes like Greece, Italy, California, etc., chaptalization is totally uneccessary, and gives the growers and winemakers there something to point to to show how growers in Germany, Burgundy, etc., that they are in only marginally practical regions to make wine. And while this is true (though less true every day as the planet warms), it in no way NECESSARILY means that growers from more northerly regions make inferior wines.
So, when chaptalization is properly utilized, it is nigh on impossible to tell that the process had been employed in the first place. The risk exists however (and there always does seem to be a “however”, right?) that if cellar temperatures are too low (which they often are in chilly northern Europe) after the sugar has been added to the wine, a fermentation can “stick” or become “stuck”. This aberration is caused by cellar that reaches a temperature just low enough to send the yeasts that cause fermentation to go dormant, and therefore stop turning sugar into alcohol (plus CO2). “Well, then just raise the temperature, and you’re back on the road, right?” Well, the answer is “sometimes”, but in just as many cases as not, raising cellar or vat temperatures doesn’t “wake up” the yeasts. Now if a winemaker has gone ahead and chaptalized, and then runs headlong into a very stubborn “stuck” fermentation, he or she has a real problem; if the winemaker cannot “unstick” the fermentation process, he’s got a vat (or maybe 5 or 6) full to the brim with half-fermented, semi-sweet wine…make some “adult” ice pops, maybe?
But besides the practical pitfalls of chaptalization, there is the perhaps even stronger deterrent of pride or peer pressure. There is, among many winemakers who farm areas in which chaptalization is permitted (many regions expressly FORBID it), a subtle and sometimes not so subtle pressure to go au natural and not chaptalize. Some winemakers strictly self-police and would rather make no wine at all if a vintage does not measure up. Either way there is a certain notion that chaptalization = inattention or laziness in the vineyard, and that in some cases might be so, but many who level this criticism agianst their peers have sunny south or west-facing vineyard sites that rarely if ever don’t fully ripen, so these criticisms are often unfounded and unfair.
But as I’m sure you’ve likely figured out by now, chaptalization can be a dirty little secret in the regions that allow it. Many winemakers who will swear on their mothers’ graves in public that they don’t chaptalize, will admit, after a few pops, that they sometimes, or even ALWAYS chaptalize. And because there is no requirement to label chaptalized wines as such, those that do it can do so regularly without ever running the risk of being exposed as “adulterators”.
So what’s wrong with chaptalization anyway? The stock beginning of this response normally would be: “Theoretically there is nothing wrong with chaptalization…” but in this case there is nothing PRACTICALLY wrong with chaptalization provided that the process is handled properly. The rub here is indeed rather THEORETICAL or philosopical. The argument goes that honest winemakers that truly and freely embrace the variable conditions that their terroir gives them from year to year accept that in some years they will have to work a bit harder in the vineyard, make less wine or none at all to remain true to themselves and their region. The thinking is is that chaptalization “levels” the vintage variations often seen in chilly-weather zones eliminating the kind of seasonsal variations that make this or that wine what it is year to year, even if this means making a “lesser” wine. The argument goes that taking the first step toward cahptalization is a slippery slope that next allows for acidification, tannin reduction, alcohol reduction, artificial color enhancements, and eventually even to the heartbreak of psoriasis. Those who actually DO admit to using the practice claim that it simply levels the playing field by allowing them to make “good vintage” wines that winemakers in Puglia or Provence can make nearly every year…
This debate rages on, and it is unlikely that any clear correctness or error will ever be definitively assigned to the actions of either camp, but hey, at least we now all know what chaptalization means, why it is used, and perhaps most importantly, that winemaking is not NEARLY as romantic as it might first seem…just ask the world renowned vigneron as he dumps 5 pound bag after five pound bag of granulated Dominos sugar into the 70-year-old-vine juice that he’s been selling for 11 successive vintages for over $60 a bottle…
TOM CIOCCO
Lambrusco - Yes, you’re reading this right - Lambrusco
I’ve been projecting the triumphant return of Lambrusco for a couple of years, and I think that it just rode into town (though I’m still waiting to hear the actual fanfare). This is a wine whose time has come, and we’re going to see why.
Lambrusco, like some other (especially) Italian varieties, is actually a FAMILY of grapes that are native to the eastern half of the Emilia-Romagna region (Emilia) primarily in the provinces of Modena, Parma, and Reggio Emilia, though small pockets of the grape can be found in Romagna, Piedmont, Trentino, and even in the deeply southern region of Basilicata. The names of these subvarieties are many (over 60 by some counts), but some of the most common are Lambrusco di Sorbara, Lambrusco di Grasparossa, Lambrusco Salamino, and Lambrusco Reggiano. The Lambrusco familiy of grapes is EXCEEDINGLY ancient, and there is even a certain amount of evidence that the Etruscans were cultivating Lambrusco grapes in what is now Emilia-Romagna and northern Tuscany hundreds of years B.C., which suggests to some that the Lambrusco family might be 100% native to this area, and not descended from other vitis vinifera that are known to have come from Greece or the Caucasus.
The first modern rise and eventual fall of Lambrusco dates back to the 1970s with brands like Riunite and Opici. The ’70s witnessed Americans discovering wine, but very few folks at that time jumped right into Premier Cru Burgundy or Brunello or Tokaji, so it was thought that the spritzy, easy nature of Lambrusco was a fine entry into the wine world both in terms of taste and price. Unfortunately, too many producers saw Coke and Pepsi as their targets as much as they did decent Chianti or Beaujolais, so as people began to discover still, fully dry wines, Lambrusco was the obvious target to snob, and so it went…And as it went, it damaged the reputation of REAL Lambrusco, the stigma from which the wine is only beginning to emerge.
Lambrusco was developed, like nearly every old world wine with ancient roots, for a specific cuisine, in this case the rich, complex cuisine of Emilia. La cucina emiliana is famous for dishes like tortellini alla bolognese which is indeed is BIG food - rich, complex, bold, yet still somehow elegant. The initial wine pairing one might seek out for this sort of fare would be a BIG, powerful red, but this match was not to be for two basic reasons. First, the climate in Emilia does not support the cultivation of grapes that produce massive, strapping reds. Second, at some point, the stylistic choice to not try to beat these huge dishes into submission with even BIGGER wines (this was believed to be a sort of palate punishing lily-gilding approach), so rather than “fight fire with fire”, the locals thought a light, bubbly, rustic, red would not seek to compete for the diner’s attentions, but rather provide a certain foil for the food.
Lambrusco in the vineyard is a bit different from many other varieties. The first thing that one would notice about a Lambrusco vineyard is that they are DEAD FLAT. Though this is just a fact of the terrain around Modena, Reggio, and Parma, Lambrusco seems to be happier in the rich, flat earth of the pianura padana (the ancient floodplane of the Po river) than in the mountains or hills. Second, because this region is quite humid, with fairly high rainfall levels, Lambrusco vines are trained high onto pergolas 8 or 9 feet high to keep the fruit away from the damp ground. Lambrusco vines are harvested standing under the pergolas, looking UP at the bunches which are cut and allowed to drop into small “basket” that is more like a deep pie plate with a straight handle sticking out from the bottom center of the whole affair. Harvesting Lambrusco is more of a pain in the NECK than a source of lumbar distress.
So what does good Lambrusco actually taste like? First, let me dispel the myth once and for all that ALL Lambruscos are sweet. Not true. SOME certainly are (these are often labelled as “abboccato” or “amabile”), but just as many are BONE dry, and ALL Lambruschi (The Italian plural - pronounced “lam BROO ski”) have a razor sharp acidity that serves so well to cut throught the fatty Emilian menu. But, because Lambrusco rarely even reaches 12% alcohol, and can often be slightly to moderately sweet, Lambrusco makes an excellent partner for spicy foods from Mexican or Asian kitchens. Lambrusco’s flavor and aroma range can vary quite a bit, but most Lambruscos show a chalky minerality mixed with chocolatey, dark berry aromas, a VERY dark color, and a rich and full body that is balanced by a prominent acidity, and of course the fine bubbles and the COOL froth that gathers at the top of the glass like a violet-colored head of a good Belgian beer.
Lambrusco is not “regular” wine, but nor is it meant to be. Lambrusco can be a sort of gap-spanning wine - a wine that can tackle jobs that would vanquish many other seemingly worthy contenders. And because Lambrusco is always served chilled, and is low in alcohol, and rarely ever exceeds $15 per bottle, Lambrusco makes a great alternative to beer or sparkling white “patio” wines.
Yes, Lambrusco is fun, but by the same token, don’t take Lambrusco too lightly either. It is, as the English say, a very “useful” wine, and for those who put off by the hype, snobbery, and prices that go along with cult wines, Lambrusco is a sliver bullet. Below, I’ve linked to the two Lambruschi that we currently carry. Both are made by artisanal, family-owned concerns, are REAL, WELL MADE wines, and are DRY. Try one for yourself and see just how much fun and versatility a bottle of wine can hold.
TOM CIOCCO
Verjus - Making “lemonade” from “lemons”
You’ve almost surely had it many times, and just didn’t know it, and the “it” that I’m talking about is verjus (ver ZHOO). I’m sure that some of you have encountered bottles of this on the shelf of a gourmet shop somewhere in its unadulterated form, but for those of you who are unfamiliar with verjus as a stand-alone product, it is via Dijon mustard that you have almost surely tasted this pungent liquid.
Without any further beating around the bush vine, verjus is the juice derived from the pressing of unripened (usually white) grapes. In many vineyards worldwide, an operation called “green harvesting” is practiced early in the Summer. Green harvesting involves cutting off a certain percentage of yet unripened grape bunches from the vines. This practice is utilized to channel the full “force” of each vine into fewer bunches to bolster sugar concentration, and in the case of red grapes, color as well.
In some cases, growers simply let these unripened bunches fall to the ground where they eventually rot and where they become a de facto and convenient fertilizer for the vines. But in France, where green harvesting was first practiced, some clever and frugal farmer now lost in the mists of history nibbled a nub off a green bunch and likely winced at first from the sourness, but appreciated the unique flavor and saw an opportunity to make a few Francs from what had been deemed to have almost no economic value. Verjus can and is often made from bunches that remain unripened at harvest as well.
And though not all complicated, the production of verjus must be handled in such a way that the verjus remains verjus and does not combine with natural, airborne yeasts that will do the do, and turn this juice into vinegar. The most common way to retard acetification is the addition of salt to the sour juice in which the salt serves to kill off the yeasts that effect this change.
So you might now be asking “Why verjus and not vinegar”? Very good question. The first and perhaps somewhat obvious answer is taste. While verjus is probably about as sour as many vinegars, it does not TASTE like vinegar - since verjus has never been acted upon by yeasts even once (vinification) much less twice (acetication) it tastes like very sour JUICE, which is not surprising since that is precisely what it is. The second and perhaps more important reason to use verjus over vinegar or lemon juice is unlike these last two substances, VERJUS DOES NOT CLASH WITH WINE (HOORAY!), making it far more versatile than either vinegar or lemon juice.
You can’t (or shouldn’t) put verjus on your pancakes, or use it as a mouthwash or eye bath, so what DOES one do with it? Verjus should be used in the same way that one uses either vinegars or lemon juice: primarily to prepare dressings, sauces, or marinades when being able to match each and every dish with wine is of paramont importance. Verjus is not always easy to find, but it can often be found at large, fine gourmet food shops, and you should seek it out if just to make the comparasin with it andthe more common kitchen acids…If anyone gets a hold of a bottle, and takes it out for a drive along the highways and byways of a Sunday dinner, let us know what you think…
TOM CIOCCO
One easy step to a “greener” wine experience…
It seems that the environmental movement has officially become part of the world’s everyday consciousness, and I for one applaud it enthusiastically. Fashions can be funny things and can indeed make for strange bedfellows, but in the last several years, those who many of us thought were irredeemably anti-ecologically minded (you know, the guy who eats his 4-plastic-container lunch in his car with the engine running and the AC on, and throws each non-recyclable piece of garbage into the shrubs near where he parks) have begun to understand that conservation, alternative energies, etc. are no longer optional or even advisable, but imperative as the Earth warms, the landfills fill, and the air blackens…
So what can a little old winedrinker do about as daunting a problem as total global destruction? I say lots. Clearly, supporting such activities as Organic and Biodynamic winemaking is an obvious (and important) action, but making this choice can at times be difficult. Due to the red tape involved, many organic winemakers or those that are far “cleaner” than many others opt out of the classification. At other times, finding a wine that is both organic as well as the best match for what you’re eating can be a tall order to fill.
So here’s a way that you can go “green” with your winedrinking with every single bottle you drink: AVOID WINES MADE IN NEW BARRIQUES! There are many ways to ferment and age wines that come in all shapes and sizes from all corners of the globe, but none are as wasteful or as expensive as new barrique aging.
One could argue that the “greenest” winemaker both ferments and ages in stainless steel tanks. Yes, there is the initial cost and “tax” on mother earth in extracting the iron to make the steel, and the subsequent energies required to work the raw material into the actual winemaking tool, but once done, this tool can be used a nearly infinite number of times without further major pollution emissions.
What might be termed as half-step down from 100% steel production is the use of LARGE, re-usable wooden barrels like those that make up the standard in winemaking regions like the Rhone (where these huge barrels are known as “foudres”), or in many parts of Italy (where these casks are known as “botti”). Clearly, if a barrel is used and re-used tens or even scores of times, lots more beautiful, air-scrubbing trees are left breathing and in situ...
So not only do most barriques NEVER get re-used (which requires that new barrels be made every year, which then clearly and directly means more tree-chopping) if you press the investigation further, the hits just keep on coming! Barriques are also a fraction of the size of every steel or large cask (barriques typcially hold 225 liters of wine, while foudres, botti, and steel tanks often exceed 10,000 or even 20,000 liters of capacity), so to contain the same amount of wine, literally scores more trees must be felled to make enough barriques to hold what a SINGLE larger container would hold. Then multiply this phenomenon over literally THOUSANDS of wineries that tend HUNDREDS of barriques - That ain’t nothin’!
In taking the next step in this line of thinking, the energy expended in making SO MANY barrels, not only the materials themselves, must also be factored into the equation. How many more passes of the saw are required to make hundreds of barriques compared with one botte? I’m not a cooper, but the extra fuel burned in the course of this production cannot be discounted. Further, most barriques are delivered with a level of “toasting” (botti and foudres are rarely toasted, but rather the staves are air-dried, and clearly stainless steel gives one nothing to toast to begin with) that the winemaker specifies in his or her order to the cooper. Toasting essentially involves a type of controlled burning of selected woods to which the finshed barrels are exposed. The fire/heat/smoke from this process melts and then caramelizes the saps in the barrels which lend those “toasty oak” notes to certain wines aged in them. But clearly the price paid for toastiness is yet more energy (and pollution) expended in the burning process, as well as even MORE wood cut as the fuel for those fires…
Those of you who know my tastes also know that I fundamentally LOATHE wines made in new barriques (there are exceptions though) and might accuse me of using this ecological argument against barrique PRODUCTION as a lever against my real target, oakey-chokey wines. Well, (partly) guilty as charged, but the thing “is what it is” too: no matter how you slice it, there can be no denying that those winemakers that insist upon renewing their barrel stocks for every vintage are far less “green” than those who use large, re-used barrels and/or stainlees steel tanks. Period.
As is becoming very clear to all of us who care about the world in which we live, the spector of dangerous global warming trends, air and water pollution, etc. cannot be defeated by the single, massive, “silver bullet” approach, but rather by EVERYONE doing little things on multiple fronts - a sort of a “death of a thousand cuts” approach to vanquishing the greatest threat to humankind in recent memory. So raise your glass to not only “greener” but “cleaner” wine - kick the barrique!
TOM CIOCCO
