I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before that this was lacking.
Well, problem solved: the new Guide to the Wines of France is out in English. It’s by top wine critics Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve, who have both been prominent in their field for several decades. They have published this volume in French for many years; finally, we get to read it in English.
When I first started going to France a lot (about 10 years ago) I would run into Michel Bettane everywhere. In Alsace, in Bordeaux, in Champagne… He was always there at the winery, had just left, or was about to arrive. Luckily for me. I knew if he was around, this was a winery worth covering. And later, when I got up the nerve to talk with him, he actually answered my questions.
When you start reading Bettane and Dessauve’s new guide to French wines, you realize this isn’t about whether or not French people would favor their own wines over other countries’. It’s about men who have grown up in France, know the history of the wine regions, and can provide context for each winemaker as well as current evaluations of the wines.
One of the best parts of this book is also the worst part. It’s the front section of the book, where the authors talk clearly about wine in general and French wine in particular. This includes everything from wine labels and grapes to “How to Use this Guide.” Unfortunately, these pages were given to a designer who slapped these fascinating paragraphs into large, unreadable blocks of text: they look good on the page, but are impenetrable to a reader.
Design in the rest of the book is much more user-friendly. Divided into wine regions, each page contains short, pithy paragraphs about each winery’s history and how it fits into the region. These descriptions are followed by brief wine tasting notes, along with guidelines on when to drink both current and recent vintages.
This is a great book to pick up, after you’ve introduction to wine. Assuming the design flaws are corrected in future editions, I would recommend the Guide to the Wines of France as a great source for anyone who wants to delve a bit deeper into one country’s wine.
Bettane & Dessauve’s Guide to the Wines of France. By Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve. New York: Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 2011. $35.
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Tags: French wine, Guide to the Wines of France, Michel Bettand and Thierry Dessueuve, Michel Bettane, Thierry Desseauve
The Macallan. Why does “the” sound so pretentious at first? And now it just rolls of my tongue. Actually, I haven’t had any tonight. Recently I sampled several (again), from ten- to 25-year-old.
My favorite? The 17-year-old, which was elegant, smooth, with good body. I’d prefer to sip that one in the evening with its hints of flowers and fruit, whisps of peat and smoke.
The Macallan is single-malt, which means it’s all made in one distillery. Sort of like estate-bottled wine. At that tasting I also learned that the US is the #1 market for The Macallan. The second is Taiwan, which surprised me. And, apparently every country has their own preferences for aged scotch. In Italy they drink 5-7 year old with tonic. The UK likes 10-year-old. In Japan it’s 17-year-old, which I think has something to do with the symbolism of the number. And in the US, our favorite is 18-year-old.
That same day I met the new Northeast Brand Ambassador, who was just being broken in – I mean introduced – to the market. His name is Charlie Whitfield and he’s British, which means we love his accent. Actually, he’s Scottish. Or is he Scotch? Anyhow, we were in Boston that day and though he’s based in NYC, he had sense enough to talk about the Red Sox (though he mentioned he thought NY had a baseball team too).
Whitfield got to do the ice trick at this event. Somehow, he took a large block of ice and compressed it into the shape of a ball with a special copper machine. It doesn’t take long, maybe a minute or less, and it’s a great bar trick. If I had a bar, I’d get one of those machines from The Macallan people.
What you end up with is an ice sphere that fits perfectly into a glass, and melts slowly to create the perfect melding of The Macallan and water at a cool temperature. I wonder who in Boston has an ice ball machine?
Tags: Charles Whitfield, ice ball, Scotch, single malt, single malt scotch, The Macallan
For me, it’s fascinating to see a wineglass, a decanter, a wine bottle that sat on a dining table hundreds of years ago. It might be plain and thick and unevenly shaped. It might be thin and delicate and rimmed with gold. At the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York, I was fascinated by their elaborate collection of glassware, ranging from ancient through medieval to modern times.
Whether you like to think of yourself as a former king or a former peasant, you’ll be enthralled with this collection. All the more so, because it’s glass, and there are so few glass items in the world that have lasted this long.
Bonus: take a workshop and create your own glass piece. This photo is the interior of the pulled-glass flower I made one afternoon — with plenty of encouragement from a patient teacher at the museum.
Tags: Corning Museum of glass, glass flower, wine, wine glass
In London they have a Champagne Grand Tasting every year. Why is this the first time it’s come to the US? This year the New York Champagne Grand Tasting was held in a beautifully decorated, small ballroom at New York’s Plaza Hotel.
Here’s a snapshot of some of the finest champagnes I sampled:
Alfred Gratien Brut Rosé Classique, tons of acidity
Ayala Brut Majeur NV, with good acidity and not overwhelming
Ayala Blanc de Blancs 2004, still needing some more time to develop
Besserat de Bellefon Cuvée des Moines Brut, very restrained
Boizel Brut Réserve, classic balance with a nice floral touch
Boizel Brute Millesime 2000, light and well integrated
Boizel Brut Rosé NV, also very well balanced
Bollinger Special Cuvée NV medium light, lighter than I remembered
Bollinger Rosé NV, similar in profile to Special Cuvée NV
Bollinger La Grande Année 2002, lemony and light, more yeast than agar
Gaston Chiquet “Tradition” Brut NV, complex and medium-light
Gosset Brut Excellence, smoothly excellent
Gosset Millésime 2000, spice from lees, baked yeast nose, not too huge
Gosset Grande Réserve, round flavors structured, lemony finish
Henriot Brut Souverain NV, a good, hearty mouthful
Henriot Brute Millésime 1998, astonishingly light, age felt mainly in the finish
Lanson Black Label Brut NV, lots of toasted oak
Lanson Brut Rosé NV, gold-red salmon color, would be good w/ smoked salmon
Philipponnat Grand Blanc 1999, smoky, yeasty, asks to be served with dinner
Pierre Gimonnet et Fils 1er Cru Brut NV, honeyed, finish so dry it’s almost chalky
St. Chamant Blanc de Blancs Brut NV, medium body, easy to drink
Stephane Coquillette 1er Cru “Carte d’Or” NV, well-made on the dry and lemony side
Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs 2000, elegant with toasty yeast, orange
Thienot Rosé NV, nicely dry
Vilmart & Cie “Grand Cellier” Brut NV, complex aromas and flavors floral to salty
Tags: Alfred Gratien, Ayala, Besserat de Bellefon, Boizel, Bollinger, Champagne, champagne grande tasting, Gaston Chiquet, Gosset, Henriot, Lanson, Philipponnat, Plaza Hotel, St. Chamant, Stephane Coquillette, Taittinger, Thienot, Vilmart & Cie
After a week tasting the great 2010 vintage Bordeaux wines en primeur, it’s no wonder I look like this!
Click here for a preview of the wines of:
Sauternes + Barsac
Graves region
St.-Emilion and Pomerol
The Medoc
Tags: 2010, 2010 vintage, Barsac, en primeur, Graves, Medoc, Pomerol, Sauternes, St.-Emilion, wine Bordeaux
Sort of a cliché, but on St. Patrick’s Day while waiting for our corned beef and cabbage dinner to finish cooking, I got out the Irish whiskey. In this case, a special bottle: Bushmills 1608, created to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the original license to distill in the Bushmills area.
It’s a smooth whiskey (due in part to the “crystal malt”) that evolves in the glass. First you notice the spicy wood and sweet caramel which continue from the nose into the flavor of the tangy whiskey. A bit of water added to the glass emphasizes the aroma’s sweetness and caramel.
Drop an ice cube in, and the drink tastes smoky.
Smoothness and wood spice dominate in the finish.
This limited edition whiskey was available in the US in 2008; now you can only get it at the distillery — yet another reason to visit Ireland.
Tags: Bushmills, Bushmills 1608, Irish, Visit Ireland, whiskey
One of my favorite things about Bertani, the Amarone producer, is that they make available their vintage Amarones from just about any year in the last half-century. Anyone can order one through the distributor, and the prices are in the $$ hundreds, not $$$ thousands – great for celebrating special occasions.
Recently, soft-spoken Bertani winemaker Cristian Ridolfi stopped in Boston for lunch, on his way back to Italy. Bertani produces a total 1.5 million bottles (125,000 cases) of about a dozen different wines all from their own vineyards. They don’t buy and they don’t sell fruit, emphasized export manager Stefano Mangiarotti, who was also at this lunch. But they could easily produce more than twice this amount of wine from their vineyards, if they weren’t so highly selective.
Bertani has not made any major changes in their winemaking since they started producing Amarone in the mid-twentieth century. Ridolfi still dries the grapes for 120 days, not just the required 90. He is convinced that this is what accounts for the longevity of the Bertani Amarone wines. Incidentally, he has also found that the anti-ageing compound resveratrol doubles in these grapes in the 120 days.
He is doing one bit of experimentation, this with the large wooden casks the Amarone matures in for six years. The winery is in trials with chestnut, acacia, and possibly more cherry wood, all sourced locally.
Ridolfi brought several Bertani wines, and several vintages of Amarone della Valpolicella DOC: 2003, 1998, 1980 and 1967. His favorite, he admitted was the 1967. Mine was the 1980. Bursting with life, this 30-year-old wine had huge fruit aromas. It actually smelled young. There was some minerality, a hint of bitterness to show that there was some structure here. The wine’s fruit flavors were well developed, continuing with prune and plum into the finish. Later, I found fresh herbs and a bit of eucalyptus coming out. Suggested retail price is $230.
The most astounding thing happened at the end of the meal. We had just finished our espressos when someone called for a toast. After raising a glass, a sip from it is required, so I did. And this wine from 1980 flashed out its flavors, firm with fruit, even after the coffee. I was impressed.
Tags: 1967, 1980, 1998, 2003, Amarone, Amarone della Valpolicella, Bertani, Cristian Ridolfi, Stefano Mangiarotti, wine
Having just returned from the annual Sicilia en primeur event, I find myself swimming in impressions about what’s happening on this island. Or is it a continent on its own? The further from the mainland you get, the more you feel you’re on a separate continent, a crosswind of cultures set out in the Mediterranean Sea, the center of the ancient world. Every province has its own character, and the wines are no exception.
The newest standout is Etna, the province around the volcano, where wineries are springing up in this unique terroir, the winemakers lured by altitude, independence and potential. With red wines, producers make a range from international to modern unoaked to ancient styles.
The white wines of Etna really stood out to me, their aromatics, crispness and minerality providing a vivid expression of the volcanic soils the grapes are grown in.
Nearby is Sicily’s only DOCG: Cerasuolo di Vittoria, the wine a blend of nero d’Avila and frappato, two indigenous red grapes. The DOCG was created in 2005, and the wines I was tasting were well thought out, and well made. Nicely balanced. This blend is traditional to this part of Ragusa, in southeastern Sicily, but now that’s been made official, it’s changing – inevitably, I suppose.
From a native wine that was on the light side, ready to drink within a year, with the “cherry” notes its name evokes, the gravitas of the DOCG label is beginning to weigh the wine down, causing producers to think and rethink, to work on making it bigger and heartier. Instead of a wine that may age, pretty soon we may find this wine requires ageing.
Is this a good idea? Not necessarily. But it might be necessary if producers want to charge more now that they have that DOCG label around the neck of the bottle.
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Tags: Cerasuolo di Vittoria, DOCG, Etna, frappato, nero d'Avila, Ragusa, Sicilia en primeur, Sicily, wine
