...I'm out of ideas for the moment.
Besides, I needed an excuse to put this picture up anyway.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
I know this is a lame excuse for a post, but...
...I'm out of ideas for the moment.
Besides, I needed an excuse to put this picture up anyway.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Tabling The Discussion
One of the more obvious questions I got when I first started working the tasting room at the winery was "What does 'table wine' mean?" (We have three, two white and one red.) I was lost for words, because my take on table wines was that, while they print "Table Wine" on the label, it's sort of a subjective interpretation. The standardized definitions (I use "standardized" loosely, I got 'em off Wikipedia. Sue me.) score pretty high on the vague-o-meter:
"In the United States, the official definition for table wine is a wine that contains a minimum of 7 percent alcohol and a maximum of 14 percent. This definition does not define quality in any way, although some connote table wine with lower-quality, inexpensive wine. That's a mistake because many wines that simply say "Red Table Wine" or "White Table Wine" are excellent and not at all inexpensive."
So, basically, it's an inexpensive and lower-quality wine. Or it's not! Take-home message: the important part is, it's stronger than Natty and lighter than Aristocrat.
Really, though, what IS a table wine? It's a good question and deserves more than a blog post (and has recieved more; if you don't believe me, Google "table wine"). There are several details, facets, of table wine that I have noted whilst touring and tasting. They include:
1) Blending. Not all blends are table wines, but most table wines are indeed blends (enough for me to generalize, anyway). Usually this allows the winemaker some flexibility. In Virginia, in order to be a varietal (i.e., named after a specific grape like Chardonnay, Riesling, Merlot, etc.), the wine has to contain 75% or more of that grape. Using blends of grapes (the classic Bordeaux blend of Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc/Malbec/Petit Verdot being one of the most popular) means that the winemaker is not subject to restrictions or percentages. As long as he accurately lists the amount of wine somewhere (usually on the label, though not always), he is under no obligation to deliver the same amounts or even varieties of grapes on a given blend. Thus, one year he might put Seyval and Chardonnay together as a specific table wine; the next year, the same label might contain Riesling and Vidal. This is especially handy when it comes to fluctuations in the supply and availability of certain types of grapes.
2) Vintage. A lot of times table wines will be listed as NV (non-vintage). In order to qualify as a vintage, 95% of the wine has to come from grapes picked in a specific year. With the advent of stainless steel tanks, it is possible to keep wine for longer with no change in quality--the wine is the same coming out of the tank as it was going in. Thus the NV doesn't have to carry the stigma of "old, low quality wine the winemaker is trying to get rid of." It also means the winemaker can keep coinage (leftover, smaller amounts of wine that aren't enough by themselves to bottle) in variable capacity tanks, for blending purposes.
3) Variety and innovation. I've seen some pretty interesting blends so far on the trips I've taken to local wineries. Jefferson Vineyards does a red table wine called "Terre Rouge", which is a blend (I believe) of 90% Chambourcin and Cabernet, with an incongruous 10% white wine (I want to say Pinot Grigio was one) thrown in. Plenty of wineries release Bordeauxs or Clarets--usually blends heavy on the Merlot and Cabernet Franc. White blends can be surprisingly creative (when was the last time you saw a white blend in the wine section at Harris Teeter?), throwing in old European favorites like Chardonnay, Viognier, and Riesling with American hybrids like Seyval, Vidal, and Traminette.
Table wines are far too often sold short. They're dubbed "easy drinking" or "unassuming" and a variety of other things that damn them with faint praise. Part of this is due to, basically, reliance on straight varietals--French Chardonnay, Italian Pinot, etc. In America we're used to buying wine where the grape we're drinking is on the label. However, blended table wines can sometimes have more complexity in their taste and aroma by virtue of the simple fact that you really can't predict what a blend is going to do. Will flavors cancel each other out? Complement each other? Create new flavors heretofore unexplored? It makes blends a lot more exciting, in my opinion, and a lot more novel. Perhaps that's part of the reason Virginia wines are branching out so much into this exciting area.
Whatever the case may be, I say pull up a chair, pour yourself some Chateau Chunder, and table this discussion.
Don't table your glass, though. At least not till it's empty.
"In the United States, the official definition for table wine is a wine that contains a minimum of 7 percent alcohol and a maximum of 14 percent. This definition does not define quality in any way, although some connote table wine with lower-quality, inexpensive wine. That's a mistake because many wines that simply say "Red Table Wine" or "White Table Wine" are excellent and not at all inexpensive."
So, basically, it's an inexpensive and lower-quality wine. Or it's not! Take-home message: the important part is, it's stronger than Natty and lighter than Aristocrat.
Really, though, what IS a table wine? It's a good question and deserves more than a blog post (and has recieved more; if you don't believe me, Google "table wine"). There are several details, facets, of table wine that I have noted whilst touring and tasting. They include:
1) Blending. Not all blends are table wines, but most table wines are indeed blends (enough for me to generalize, anyway). Usually this allows the winemaker some flexibility. In Virginia, in order to be a varietal (i.e., named after a specific grape like Chardonnay, Riesling, Merlot, etc.), the wine has to contain 75% or more of that grape. Using blends of grapes (the classic Bordeaux blend of Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc/Malbec/Petit Verdot being one of the most popular) means that the winemaker is not subject to restrictions or percentages. As long as he accurately lists the amount of wine somewhere (usually on the label, though not always), he is under no obligation to deliver the same amounts or even varieties of grapes on a given blend. Thus, one year he might put Seyval and Chardonnay together as a specific table wine; the next year, the same label might contain Riesling and Vidal. This is especially handy when it comes to fluctuations in the supply and availability of certain types of grapes.
2) Vintage. A lot of times table wines will be listed as NV (non-vintage). In order to qualify as a vintage, 95% of the wine has to come from grapes picked in a specific year. With the advent of stainless steel tanks, it is possible to keep wine for longer with no change in quality--the wine is the same coming out of the tank as it was going in. Thus the NV doesn't have to carry the stigma of "old, low quality wine the winemaker is trying to get rid of." It also means the winemaker can keep coinage (leftover, smaller amounts of wine that aren't enough by themselves to bottle) in variable capacity tanks, for blending purposes.
3) Variety and innovation. I've seen some pretty interesting blends so far on the trips I've taken to local wineries. Jefferson Vineyards does a red table wine called "Terre Rouge", which is a blend (I believe) of 90% Chambourcin and Cabernet, with an incongruous 10% white wine (I want to say Pinot Grigio was one) thrown in. Plenty of wineries release Bordeauxs or Clarets--usually blends heavy on the Merlot and Cabernet Franc. White blends can be surprisingly creative (when was the last time you saw a white blend in the wine section at Harris Teeter?), throwing in old European favorites like Chardonnay, Viognier, and Riesling with American hybrids like Seyval, Vidal, and Traminette.
Table wines are far too often sold short. They're dubbed "easy drinking" or "unassuming" and a variety of other things that damn them with faint praise. Part of this is due to, basically, reliance on straight varietals--French Chardonnay, Italian Pinot, etc. In America we're used to buying wine where the grape we're drinking is on the label. However, blended table wines can sometimes have more complexity in their taste and aroma by virtue of the simple fact that you really can't predict what a blend is going to do. Will flavors cancel each other out? Complement each other? Create new flavors heretofore unexplored? It makes blends a lot more exciting, in my opinion, and a lot more novel. Perhaps that's part of the reason Virginia wines are branching out so much into this exciting area.
Whatever the case may be, I say pull up a chair, pour yourself some Chateau Chunder, and table this discussion.
Don't table your glass, though. At least not till it's empty.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Exploring the "Anything But Chardonnay" Phenomenon
(Obligatory bias alert) I have to admit, my position in this situation isn't entirely neutral. In the short time that I've been drinking wine and developing an interest in the subject, I've had my fair share of Chardonnay. In doing so, I've noticed two things: 1) there's a lot of it 2) not very much of it is enjoyable. It's curious to me why this is the case. Usually when you have such a large amount of any kind of product, there are roughly equal portions that are excellent, acceptable, and poor. Why, then, with the glut of Chardonnay on the market, is the distribution tails-heavy towards the "poor" end of the spectrum?
Several answers spring to mind.
The first is that Chardonnay is inherently an inferior grape. I find this pretty unlikely. White Burgundy wines like Chablis and Pouilly-Fuisse stand up to the test any day of the week. Therefore, we need to focus less on the grape itself, and more on how it's being produced.
Here in Virginia, pretty much every winery you visit has a Chardonnay. Some have several--there are all kinds of experimentations being done with oak aging versus storage in stainless steel tanks. However, overall you'll find a tendency towards the drier, oakier, more buttery Chardonnays and less emphasis on the crisp citrus and fruit notes that are also inherent in the grape variety. Why is this? My guess is that old chestnut, "that's the way it's always been." Think of all the cheap storebought Chardonnay you get these days. Odds are good it tend towards the dry, oaky, etc., etc. style rather than the stainless-steel fermented style. This is brought on laregly by attempts to ape the French style of aging in oak barrels, which is just the way Chardonnay is done in France.
However, the dumbed-down, simplified version of aging done in oak (which is the only version I know at the moment, sadly) is that French oak adds more subtlety and nuance, while American oak adds more body and texture to the wine. (This difference is due in part to the fact that the French have, for some time, been growing oak with a tighter grain specifically for the cooperage of wine barrels, whereas here in the States we use straight white oak with a much looser grain.) This tends to add a lot of character to red wines, but in the case of even a medium-bodied white like Chardonnay, it overpowers the natural flavors innate to the fruit and imparts a distinct, often unpleasant, woody and bitter taste.
So what does this do? It gives rise to the mistaken notion in the American mindset that Chardonnay is a strong, buttery, often pungent wine whose showing is often poor enough that it's safer to skip it than take the chance that you've got an exceptional one on your hands. Thus, in the tasting room, I am often privy to the words, "I'll try the white wines--but skip the Chardonnays."
How do we break this cycle? A good first step is probably to give the stainless-steel fermented/stored Chardonnays more press. A lot of white wines benefit from never seeing the inside of an oak barrel. This isn't to say that we should do away with oak entirely--it's always been my position that there's a place for tradition even in the midst of innovation and breaking old rules. However, I have found (in the past few months) that drinking non-aged vintages has given the lie to my long-held belief that trying to find good Chardonnay wasn't really worth the effort. Perhaps more "ABC" people would feel the same way if "that's the way it's always been" ceased to be the determining factor in how a wine is produced.
Several answers spring to mind.
The first is that Chardonnay is inherently an inferior grape. I find this pretty unlikely. White Burgundy wines like Chablis and Pouilly-Fuisse stand up to the test any day of the week. Therefore, we need to focus less on the grape itself, and more on how it's being produced.
Here in Virginia, pretty much every winery you visit has a Chardonnay. Some have several--there are all kinds of experimentations being done with oak aging versus storage in stainless steel tanks. However, overall you'll find a tendency towards the drier, oakier, more buttery Chardonnays and less emphasis on the crisp citrus and fruit notes that are also inherent in the grape variety. Why is this? My guess is that old chestnut, "that's the way it's always been." Think of all the cheap storebought Chardonnay you get these days. Odds are good it tend towards the dry, oaky, etc., etc. style rather than the stainless-steel fermented style. This is brought on laregly by attempts to ape the French style of aging in oak barrels, which is just the way Chardonnay is done in France.
However, the dumbed-down, simplified version of aging done in oak (which is the only version I know at the moment, sadly) is that French oak adds more subtlety and nuance, while American oak adds more body and texture to the wine. (This difference is due in part to the fact that the French have, for some time, been growing oak with a tighter grain specifically for the cooperage of wine barrels, whereas here in the States we use straight white oak with a much looser grain.) This tends to add a lot of character to red wines, but in the case of even a medium-bodied white like Chardonnay, it overpowers the natural flavors innate to the fruit and imparts a distinct, often unpleasant, woody and bitter taste.
So what does this do? It gives rise to the mistaken notion in the American mindset that Chardonnay is a strong, buttery, often pungent wine whose showing is often poor enough that it's safer to skip it than take the chance that you've got an exceptional one on your hands. Thus, in the tasting room, I am often privy to the words, "I'll try the white wines--but skip the Chardonnays."
How do we break this cycle? A good first step is probably to give the stainless-steel fermented/stored Chardonnays more press. A lot of white wines benefit from never seeing the inside of an oak barrel. This isn't to say that we should do away with oak entirely--it's always been my position that there's a place for tradition even in the midst of innovation and breaking old rules. However, I have found (in the past few months) that drinking non-aged vintages has given the lie to my long-held belief that trying to find good Chardonnay wasn't really worth the effort. Perhaps more "ABC" people would feel the same way if "that's the way it's always been" ceased to be the determining factor in how a wine is produced.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Grape of the Month: Petit Manseng
So I've been learning about a lot of new grape varieties on my visits to wineries in the Central Virginia region--new to me, that is. Virginia's climate lends itself to an interesting blend of grapes; we've got the Bordeaux favorites--Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc--as well as that famous white grape of Bourgogne, Chardonnay. There's also a duke's mixture of French-American vinifera/labrusca hybrids like Norton, Chambourcin, Traminette, Vidal, and Seyval thrown in, which leads to a lot of interesting blends and tastes that are definitely distinct from the old European styles.
With that in mind, it's interesting to see more obscure European varieties popping up and becoming popular in this great state. Case in point--the Petit Manseng grape. It hails from the Southwest region of France and is used to make the famous wine Jurancon. Now wineries such as Veritas and White Hall are bottling it as a straight varietal.
The bottle I currently have shelved is the 2005 vintage from Veritas (an absolutely spectacular place, if you have the chance to visit rural Afton, Virginia, in the heart of the Central Virginia wine country). It displayed flavors that I've never experienced before in a white wine--a lot of tropical citrus flavors like mango and pineapple, with hints of cinnamon and--it took me a while to figure this out--persimmon, of all things. It tastes sweeter than it really is, actually qualifying only as semi-sweet in terms of residual sugar. Even at $25 for a 500 mL bottle, this wine is definitely one you don't want to miss. (Though with a serving that small, I'd reserve it for a special occasion, when you know ahead of time that only two people are going to be drinking it!)
Overall, I'm interested to watch the success of Petit Manseng in this state. I'd say it's safe to be sanguine about its future, especially as a choice for late harvest dessert wines. Keep an eye out for it.
A New Venue
First off, greetings. Maybe you wandered in here from my other blog, the musings and ramblings of the adventurer, Gryffilion Darkblade. If so, I promise that this will be a bit more focused, if still sentimental and borderline pretentious. Or perhaps you stumbled in here courtesy of the quirky and oft-capricious whims of a search engine. Either way, welcome. Pull up a chair, pour yourself a generous glass of wine, and hopefully enjoy.
This whole thing isn't meant merely for wine connoisseurs--although if you are one, more power to you; your comments and knowledge will be welcome here. The journey into learning about and appreciating wine isn't one that starts with a single path and ends at the same place. Like any other journey, it's not where you're going but how you get that's the worthier part. And like any other love, it's more about the depth of passion than the breadth of knowledge on the subject.
That being said, breadth of knowledge is totally awesome and is welcome here. It's a personal habit of mine to immerse myself in a subject so thoroughly that my sermons on said subject annoy even the most patient of my friends. So let's get started, shall we? There's a world of wine that awaits.
This whole thing isn't meant merely for wine connoisseurs--although if you are one, more power to you; your comments and knowledge will be welcome here. The journey into learning about and appreciating wine isn't one that starts with a single path and ends at the same place. Like any other journey, it's not where you're going but how you get that's the worthier part. And like any other love, it's more about the depth of passion than the breadth of knowledge on the subject.
That being said, breadth of knowledge is totally awesome and is welcome here. It's a personal habit of mine to immerse myself in a subject so thoroughly that my sermons on said subject annoy even the most patient of my friends. So let's get started, shall we? There's a world of wine that awaits.
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