So it was with a little trepidation that Tris and I headed to Valentino Restaurant in Santa Monica for a horizontal tasting of 2006′s hosted by the legendary Leonardo Frescobaldi.  We’re fans of the man’s wines, we think he’s genuine and he put on a nice tatsing for us here at the store the night before, so we were feeling a little warm fuzzy when we walked in. 

We saw the competition on the table: Opus, Dominus, Cos d’Estournel, Haut Brion and Sassicaia were going to go head to head with Frescobaldi’s 2006 Mormoreto.  This could get ugly.

But then Old leo threw us a curveball.  We were going to taste all the wines non-blind!  Leonardo wasn’t looking for a ‘winner’, just a ‘placer’.  He was only interested in seeing if his boy could hang with the big dogs…and hang it did.  It was honestly pretty fun tasting all these wines without the pressure of the ‘bags’.  The people were relaxed, the room was relaxed, and there was a lot more dialogue back and forth about the wines.

General consensus?  Mormoreto held its own.  It’s a delicious wine, insanely fruity and well-balanced.  But the winners this day were Sassicaia and Dominus.  Check out the tasting notes (don’t look for a ‘number’, as we ain’t much for ‘scoring’):

Dominus 2006-  This one started off tightly wound then cedar and mint aromas began to emerge, along with the classic old school Napa curranty fruit.  Very ‘south side’ of the valley (read Yountville), as the wine opened a more prominent floral character emerged and the wine juiced up a bit.  We love what Moueix is doing at this property since he started to make a “Napa wine in the Bordeaux style” as opposed to a “Bordeaux wine in Napa”.  Gorgeous, really…

Opus One 2006-  Coconut, vanilla, dust, black fruits, this wine is more obvious than the Dominus, more overtly oaky.  More of those grippier, chewier 2006 tannins here, which the Dominus seemed to avoid.  The wine’s a bit hot on the finish and the wood program seems to dumb it down.  Least impressive wine on the table today, but we think this program is miles ahead of where it used to be…

Haut Brion 2006- Chewy, but certainly the most elegant wine on the table.  Classically chock full of minerals, gravel, tobacco.  It was a shame that the wine seemed to detonate with air and triple in fruit just as the tasting was winding down (isn’t that always the case?) and they wouldn’t let us take our glasses to lunch! Dagnabbit!

Cos d’Estournel 2006- Not an elegant wine by any stretch, today the house style of Cos seemed to be bumping heads with the terroir.  Impressively concentrated, but the wine seemed to be in a bit of a funk, a battle being waged between the wine’s St. Estephe ‘road tar” attributes and it’s tannic backbone.  Some dark fruits and cocoa emerged with coaxing but the wine was a bit of a jumble today…

Sassicaia 2006- This is pretty ripe and pandering.  In a blind tasting I’d call this one from California at the start but the Tuscan coast terroir started to amke some headway at the end.  Just a delicious wine, it was shocking how deeply fruited this wine was.  Very Cabernet, a deep cassis edge to the black fruits, with a nice little cedar thing going on, this iwne was the omst generous of the afternoon and picked up complexity as it sat, kind of a reverse Haut Brion…

Frescobaldi Nippozano Mormoreto 2006- Insanely fruity, with a little mint popping up.  This is really ripe Merlot, with the underpinning of the classic 2006 vintage putting in an appearance but getting swamped by all that fruit.  If this and the Sassi are any indication 2006 looks like the pick of the litter since 1997.  Outstanding wine.  Not the best on the table today, but certainly not the worst…

Lunch afterwards was pretty darn good, actually.  Seems as if Piero Selvaggio has a new chef from Sardinia manning the stoves that has the ‘nonna touch’,  all three of our courses hitting the spot as if grandma were in the house cooking them.

The topic is pressure, barometric pressure to be exact, and its impact on how wines taste.  We’ve ‘seen’ it with our own palates, just how different the same wine can taste when its cool and sunny outside (good) as opposed to wet and rainy (bad).   It’s something that for years we never even considered.   Rain or shine, we thought that the wines we tasted on a particular day were just the wines and that was that.  But over the last few years we’ve been proven wrong.

The first time we noticed?  Actually, we didn’t notice but an importer friend whose palate we admire was holding a tasting that we attended and remarked on what a great, bright, fresh sunny day it was!  He was literally rubbing his hands together like Snidely Whiplash knowing that sales of his Barolo and Barbaresco wines (which are particularly sensitive to this phenomenon) were going to skyrocket.  He remarked that the wines were fresher and tannins sweeter under high pressure.  We didn’t make much of it at the time, but boy, those Nebbiolo wines were rock stars that day!  We did buy a bunch, filed his comments in the back of our minds and moved on.

Fast forward to the 2005 Bordeaux tastings in Los Angeles sponsored by the Unions des Grands Crus.  Same deal, the tasting was at the beach, the weather fresh and breezy, the air light, and the wines showed even better than they had at our En Primeur tastings; powerful, lifted, with sweet tannins.  It was more than just the supernal quality of the vintage, many Bordelais remarked on how lucky they were the weather rocked.

Next occurrence, a rainy, cloudy day in San Franciso for the annual Zinfandel (Z.A.P.) tasting.  The air was heavy, the wines were heavy, it was unbelievable just how much tannic, blah Zin we tasted that day, the wines were even more rough and tumble than usual, the alcohols accentuated, the tannins roughed up (like Zin really needs it…).  We walked away tired, bitter, in need of cold beer.

Now back to Bordeaux.  The 2009 vintage has ended up being a bit more polarizing among the wine press than usual.  All indicators pointed to a vintage of the century, but we’ve been seeing mixed signals at best among the pundits who have tasted the wines thus far. 

Examples?  Jim Suckling from the Wine Spectator tasted the 2009 Ch. Larmande St. Emilion and gave the wine 92-95 points commenting the wine had, “Blackberry and sweet tobacco on the nose follow through to a full body, with soft and silky tannins and a very pretty finish. Balanced and refined. Nicely done.”  Neil Martin, Wine Advocate’s Bordeaux reviewer-in-waiting, tasted the same wine and gave it 83-85 points, noting, “Prune notes on the nose that is lacking definition and is far too ripe. The palate is quite tannic and seems rather over-macerated, the finish lacking freshness and definition.”

Wow. Quite the difference.  And when you consider that the difference between ’83′ and ’92′ is more seismic in its impact than a mere nine points you get the picture.  The question.  What was the weather like on the days these two gentlemen hunkered down and had a look at this suddenly controversial wine?  Quality of samples aside (considering that critics tend to get freshly drawn samples at the times of their tastings), could it be the weather that accounted for this drastic variation in scores?  We know from our own Tristen Beamon who was in Bordeaux around this time that the weather was horrible: cold, windy, rainy, dreadful.  He remarked it had a definite impact on the wines.  Neil was in Bordeaux at the same time as Tris, and Suckling had in fact tasted many of his wines earlier when the weather wasn’t so bad and the barometric pressure much higher. 

After doing a bit of research on the internet (for what its worth) we did discover that two symptoms of wines tasted under low pressure are a flattening of the wine (prune notes?) and accentuation of tannins, both commented on by Martin during his tasting.  Not to say anyone is right or wrong, but it would be interesting to find out just what the weather was the day both pundits raised their glasses. 

 Food for thought.

So, the next time it’s muggy, heavy and raining outside, you may want to pull a page from the biodynamics handbook and give the wine you’re drinking the benefit of the doubt.  It could be a victim of old Mother Nature.

Or just drink on bright, sunny days.  But that would mean folks in Seattle would have to give away all their wine…and we wouldn’t want that.

This year is the most attended en primeurs tasting in history and Bordeaux is at capacity.  Due to the crowds,  more time  (which I didn’t have, doh!) was required to wade throughn the throngs ana arrange appointments to see chateau owners and negociants as well as tasting all the wines from  petits chateaux to the Grands Vins.  After tasting over 500 barrel sample es,  I can honestly say this has been one of the most mentally draining two weeks I’ve experienced . But it was well worth every minute, because 2009 is an exciting vintage.

2009 is the perfect end to a wonderful decade in Bordeaux.  It is a combination of the beautiful fruit of 2000, the wonderful structure of  2005, and the freshness of 2008.  For all you technical data geeks, alcohol and tannins have never seen such high numbers in the history of Bordeaux (since they have been keeping records).  The tcp numbers (that measure tannin) have been consistently over ’90′ (trust us, that’s a lot) and alcohol levels around 14%, with some Right Bankers even over 15%!  But, the wines are incredibly balanced and don’t fatigue the palate.  I remember, in the 2005 vintage, after 4 days of tasting my palate was completely shot because of tannin build up, but with ’09 , after tasting more than twice as long, my palate is fresh as a daisy.  So sometimes technical data does not reflect what you actually perceive. In general it is a very uniform vintage and all appellations  showed beautifully.

I have four pads full of tasting notes that I need to enter, but for  now I will do a simple breakdown by classification.

Petits Chateaux:
This is an extremely strong, if not one of the best, showing for this 
class. From Cabernet-based wines in the Medoc to Merlot-based wines in 
the satellite regions of the right bank, these wines showed extremely 
well, with tons of fruit, lots of freshness in the mid-palate, and 
beautiful silky tannins. There will be many great bargains to be had.
The Hits: Clos Manou, La Fleur de Bouard, Joanin Becot, La Dauphine, 
Gigault Cuvee Viva, Bouscat La Gargonne, Mejean, Fougeres “La Follie”, 
d’Aiguilhe, Haut Carles, Grands Marechaux, Les Cruzelles, Mont Perat, 
Courteillac, Grand Village, Croix Mouton, Beaulieu Comtes de Tastes, 
and many, many more…

Pomerol:
As good as the wines were in Pomerol in 2009, this is the only region 
where 2008 is giving it a run for its money.  There were rains in 
September which Pomerol received the brunt of, and because it is the 
earliest ripening of the appellations, some estates picked perhaps too 
early and over extracted to compensate.
The Hits: Le Gay, La Violette, Providence, Hosanna, Vieux Chateau 
Certan, La Conseillante, Feytit Clinet, Clinet, Lafleur, Trotanoy, 
Petrus, Lafleur Petrus, La Croix St. Georges, Le Pin, Montviel, Clos 
l’Eglise, l’Eglise Clinet, l’Evangile.

St. Emilion:
This appellation had me scratching my head. It had some of the best 
showings, and some of the worst. Perhaps it is because of the huge 
hail storm they received last May that was very localized and damaged 
certain vineyards, or perhaps some farming and winemaking techniques 
didn’t show off the vintage to its full potential. Again some wines 
are over extracted where others nailed it with incredibly intense 
fruit, but with perfect balance and big, but refined tannins.
The hits: Ausone, Pavie, La Mondotte, Tertre Rotebeouf, Bellevue 
Mondotte, Troplong Mondot, La Gomerie, Beau-Sejour Becot, Angelus, 
Cheval Blanc, Figeac, Magrez Fombrauge, Fonplegade, La Confession, 
Pavie Macquin, Larcis Ducasse, Canon, Canon La Gaffeliere, Clos 
Fourtet, Grand Mayne, La Couspaude, La Dominique, Fleur Cardinale, 
Moulin St. George, La Clotte, La Gaffeliere, Le Dome, La Fleur 
Morange…

Pessac-Leognan:
White wines – Personally, for me 2009 is a solid white wine vintage 
but doesn’t capture the freshness and acidity as both ’08 and ’07 did. 
That being said, 2009 will have many fans, because the fruit is very 
ripe and flashy and many are drawn to that specific style. Though the 
top estates made exquisite blancs.

Red wines- A very consistent line-up where the famous graves terroir 
showed its stuff; sweet blue fruits, with wonderful minerality, 
captivating tannins that danced on the palate into a pure silky 
finish.  Wonderful, seamless wines.

The hits: (Blanc) Haut Brion, Pape Clement, Malartic La Graviere, 
Domaine de Chevalier, de Fieuzal,  Haut Bergey, Smith Haut Lafitte
(Rouge) Haut Brion, Haut Bailly, La Mission Haut Brion, Pape Clement, 
Malartic La Graviere, Smith Haut Lafitte, Le Carmes Haut Brion, 
Branon, Haut Bergey, de Fieuzal, Le Thil (great value play)…

Margaux:
My impression for Margaux is that it is the most improved appellation 
for overall quality.  Some estates which did not produce great wines 
in the past shine this year.  I can think of one (Durfort Vivens) which I never thought 
highly of, that has now turned the corner and for ’09, made its best 
wine ever. The wines of Margaux are the epitome of what one thinks of 
for the region. Wonderful blue fruit, with that famous floral 
character. The wines have power but  are balanced with sheer elegance. 
I could not find a dog in the bunch.
The Hits: Margaux, Malescot St. Exupery, Palmer, Giscours, Brane 
Cantenac, Cantenac Brown, Durfort-Vivens (huge improvment), Ferriere, 
Rauzan Segla, Prieure Lichine, Lascombes, l’Aura de Cambon, 
Marojallia…

St. Julien:
Like Margaux, a very consistent appellation, with some serious 
surprises. The wines are concentrated, with a juicy core of ripe 
framboise and black currant fruit.  Big, but with supple tannins and  
big-time length.
The hits: Ducru Beaucaillou, Leoville Poyferre, Leoville Las Cases, 
Gruaud Larose (big improvement), Branaire Ducru, Leoville Barton, St. 
Pierre, Gloria, Beychevelle, Lagrange…

Pauillac:
While the three first growths that reside in this 
appellation made stunning wines in ’09, the playing field was quite 
strong for most Pauillac estates. The wines ooze with black currants, 
deep inky colors and the wonderful mineral characteristics that define 
this highly touted region.
The hits: Latour, Lafite Rothschild, Mouton Rothschild, Pichon 
Lalande, Pontet Canet, Lynch Bages, Pichon Baron, Haut Bages Liberal, 
Grand Puy Lacoste, Clerc Milon, Duhart Milon, Pedesclaux (really!), d’Armailhac

St. Estephe:
Like 2003, St. Estephe is the one region that shows remarkable 
ripeness for a region that is normally quite cool and whose wines tend 
to be on the lean side. 2009 wines, not only from the stars of the 
appellation, but also from the “up-and-comers” show incredible  berry 
fruit with the famous road tar and lead pencil shavings that give the 
region its notoriety.
The Hits: Cos d’Estournel, Lafon Rochet, Montrose, Le Crock, Lillian 
Ladouys (yes… really), Calon Segur, Cos Labory, Meyney.

Medoc/Haut Medoc:
As with all the other major appellations, the Medoc & Haut Medoc were 
strong. There will be so many great values to choose from in 
these regions, perhaps even more than in 2000 and 2005.
The hits: Poujeaux, Chasse Spleen, La Tour Carnet, La Lagune, 
Cantemerle, Belgrave, Clarke, Fonreaud, Cambon La Pelouse, Belle-vue, 
Charmail, Lamarque, Clement-Pichon, Lousteauneuf and many more…

Sauternes/Barsac
Let’s not forget about the sweet wines of the region, and for good 
reason… they’re also great!  It was the fastest harvest most can 
remember as the botrytis exploded in the middle of October. The wines 
are packed with lots of orange, citrus, honey and tropical fruit with 
snappy acidity, pure botrytis notes and long finishes.
The hits: de Fargues, Climens, d’Yquem, Coutet, Nairac, Suduiraut, 
Rieussec, La Tour Blanche, Doisy Daene, Guiraud, Bastor-Lamontagne

So to summarize, 2009 has many wines to select from in most likely all 
price ranges.  Unfortunately, I think prices for the classified wines 
will turn out to be a game of chance as there will be game playing 
like in no other vintage. The Bordelaise know we’re still in a 
financial crisis but must find the highest price the market can 
stomach without completely screwing up.  In the meantime, the 2008’s 
I’ve tasted are really good and trust me, the prices in 09 will be 
higher so do not let the top 2008′s (and they are ‘top’) pass you by.

Tomorrow is my largest sit  down tasting so far with over 200+ wines on tap.  It will give me a 
chance to taste new wines as well as re-evaluate ones I’ve tasted….Stay tuned.

For years we’ve been huge proponents of the screwcap.  Ever since my first forays down to Australia in the mid-90′s, I’ve been fortunate enought to try many older examples of Australian white wines that had used this closure.  The Rieslings and Semillons from the 70′s and 80′s that I had the opportunity to sample (drink) were fresh as daisies, almost strangely fresh given my experience with cork-finished examples of the same wines for the same time frames. 

A few years later, the New Zealand wine bureaucrats came along and said they were openly endorsing and promoting Stelvin (screwcap) closures for all of their wines, high and low end, as the research results had been to obvious to ignore.  These closures were met with only the smallest amount of skepticism that we could see on a retail level, people (other than those that actually put their corkscrew throught the middle of the cap) seemed to glom on quick enough and generally didn’t seem to care if they’re wine had a screwcap or not, just as long as it was good.  This was refreshing to see.

Now we’re a few years into the whole screwcap thing and it has obviously taken hold.  True, there have been some setbacks, most noticeably the lack of education and knowledge among red winemakers as to how to handle the sulfur levels to accomodate for potential reduction or shutting down of  red wines (resulting in tight, compressed, pinched, lean flavors) bottled under screwcap.  But they’re working it out.  For whites it is a boon.  Our white wine returns are minimal now, and everyone’s happy as clams.  They’re actually getting what they paid for, and what the winemaker and grape grower had envisioned when they crafted it.  And they’re easy to open, and easy to re-seal.

Recently, Wine Spectator’s Harvey Steiman posted a blog concerning a 10 year study put on by the Australian Wine Research Institute with regards to not just the TCA effects of traditional cork closures but also the more pronounced results of bottle variation that come with this imperfect seal. The researchers used, ”thousands of bottles of a 1999 Clare Sémillon made at Leasingham and sealed with 14 different closures. Once a year, researchers opened, analyzed and sampled the wines in the lab.”  The romance of cork aside, the picture is startling:

The screwcap is on the left, all the rest are the cork-finished models. Amazing!

Take a look at the cork-finished bottles compared to the lone screwcap on the left.  Enough said.  The level of oxidation and bottle variation in the other bottles should not be what the winemaker or consumer is looking ofr when they make and/or sell the finished wines.  Haut Brion Blanc under screwcap?  Sacrilege I know…but I can’t wait.  That being said, we are seeing many ‘little’ wines from both Burgundy and Bordeaux now utilizing this closure, with Chateau owners anxiously awaiting the results of their own research. 

And this isn’t to say that screwcap is the be-all and end-all.  Great results have been had with DAIM corks, as well as crown seals (like you find on beer bottles) as well as the vino-lok glass top closure being used by wineries like Calera and Sineann.  In the end, modern technology has given us the opportunity to rid ourselves, through a numiber of means, of the cursed duo of TCA taint and bottle variation in one fell swoop.   The old world charm of cork is just that, old world.  At $500+ for a bottle of Lafite or Musigny, I’d feel more than comfortable taking the alternative seal plunge in a few years once winemakers have worked out all the bugs concerning red wine.  But for the whites, the time has come.