On wine (10) Fall 2014

          After our return from Maine we found an ever larger selection of "Manager Specials" in the State Store as the Liquor Control Board favors a quick turn over rather than improving the quality of its selection of French. Italian, etc. wines. By the end of the year some aisles with racks had been replaced by rows of stacked cartons offering wines from every wine producing region of the world, nearly all of them unknown to me. Pushing one's cart through the narrowing lanes becomes a stop and go experience that has made  me plan my shopping for the first hour on Mondays or Tuesdays when I am alone with the few staff.
          My adventurous son who only has a passive knowledge of wine, selects those that sound familiar or come from a recognizable region in Italy (preferred) or France, on the basis of how many $$ discount per bottle at $15 or less. Of those he buys one or two "to try out." My own picks are more narrowly regional, for. ex. Chiantis from Siena rather than any Chianti (this is becoming an art as labels seemed designed to hide the precise origin and I check Google) or Spanna, Barbera and place for the Piedmont. As a result we have had at least twenty totally new wines, nearly all of them drinkable and some very agreeable. But the overall impression is one of "sameness" which probably results from decisions made by university trained market specialists, all of whom have bought into the formula "raised alcohol levels hide possible imperfections, avoid lightness and guarantee quality;" 13% has become the minimum and with it the flower labels of Georges Duboeuf constitute false advertising about "flowery" which reminded me of spring afternoons and a first lunch on the balcony.
          One of my son's finds led to a return trip to buy up the remaining 5 bottles of a 2009 classic Riserva from Coli that was 40% off, probably because it was too old to continue to take up storage space. '09 was a pretty good year and Riservas tend to be in the 13%  range. This one had the color of a Brunello and tasted as almost entirely made from Sangiovese. It had a nice robe and was a bit woody, not very crisp, it had to be drunk as it did not last long on the palate, but obviously worth the return trip. I may have said so before, but I think that the prohibition to use white wine grapes has eliminated the source of Chianti's traditional fruitiness and create a certain sameness as climate is not a significant differentiating factor in Tuscany.  Another of his finds was a Bouchaine Pinot Noir that he thought was from France as he did not read the label carefully. It came from Carneros, which is not a bad California area for "French-type" wines. We did enjoy it with Colette's rabbit thighs in a mustard and garlic sauce. My notes: "dark ruby, light robe, not complex and perhaps chaptalized with a sweet aftertaste. Its chief asset maybe the environmental management practices but Colette thought its 13.8% was really too much."
          Nearly all our "daily" drinking consists of staple wines that usually are not on sale as "Manager Specials," the exception being the Cetamura form Badia di Coltibuono (12.5%) that we have found very reliable for the last five years or so when we got it at Sherry Lehman. It's not a regular feature here so we keep an eye on it and try to get as many bottles as possible  when they have it. It's a wine made from grapes outside the estate, but it's as good as quite a few classicos from lesser growers and it allows the fruit to come to the foreground. For a Spanish wine we have come t settle on Viejos Campos "Temporanillo" and for France on a Beaujolais Villages from Drouhin or Jadot, or a Cote de Ventoux or C. Du Rhone Villages, the latter, from Perrin, was fruity as if lacking in mourvedre (which I find rather flat) and I wonder how much cinsault, hard to believe when my son read that it was 14%.  All of these are around $12. One other unknown Chianti among these "daily" wines, was a 2011 Riserva from Renzo Masi. This is a Rufina rather than a Classico, made of 95% sangiovese and 5% colorino (to add a darker color).  It was not very complex, but well rounded and although typically modern at 13.5% it appeared less heavy and had a flowery bouquet with a vague taste of dark red cherry skins that didn't break down. Colette especially like it, which is saying something.
          Fortunately the end of the year has a few special days like Thanksgiving with my birthday and Christmas. This year also Colette brought home her new colleague (and successor) with whom we invited and old (gourmet) friend. Such days call for some special stuff from the not yet depleted cellar, though these particular bottles I had bought in a moment of the Calvinist sobriety that occasionally surfaces from the depths of my childhood when the aftermath of both the Great Depression and WWII made frugality a virtue. For her colleague C. made her always very tasty filet de porc au moutarde with little white potatoes and filet beans (from the garden) in parsley butter. With that we had a 2005 Nuits St. Georges (13%) from Laboure-Roi and a 2006 Haute C. de Nuits (12.5%) from Mongeard-Mugneret. Both bottles were in the $25 range. The guests preferred the Haute Cote that I served after the N.St.G. It had a lighter color with a whiff of raspberry and C's colleague thought it less threatening "or rather more welcoming. I had bought the L-R before I read about their manipulations and interestingly enough our gourmet friend detected a hint of "Rhone" though the excellent 2005 burgundies would hardly need any  help.
          The two best wines of the fall were a Pernand Vergelesses, Clos de la Croix de Pierre, a premier cru from Jadot, at 12.5% which we drank twice (for Robert's birthday and for mine). As Marijke was also there we had 2 bottles at each occasion and they were much appreciated for their aroma of mulberry, their lasting bouquet of red fruits, the ruby color and slow robe. But surprisingly a Chambolle-Musigny 1999, also from Jadot, at 13.5 % was proclaimed "the best ever" even if only a village wine. Of course 1999 was an outstanding year; it was darker and fuller bodied than the Pernand. Incidentally, I received the "shock of my life" from a recent auction ad in which 1999 Grand Crus were estimated at $3500+ per bottle. Mine are gone, but there are still a few 1st growth and this village Ch.-M. Great wines, but such prices have no longer any relation to the quality of the wine.
         With the traditional Christmas cassoulet we had 2 bottles of Vincent Girardin's Santenay La Maladiere, a 2005 1st growth; an excellent year but still a bit harsh. A lot of promise! Earlier, for no special reason we had a 2005 Santenay, single vineyard, from Rene Monnier that was already near perfect but both wines were not "light" as typical of the southern Cote d'or, a quality that had made Santenay, especially the one from Bachelet, our favorite to accompany the roti de veau at Les Pyrenees when we went to N.Y. for a Saturday Matine in the 80s and 90s. What memories!