Archive for September 2010

Home Archive for September 2010

“There is no love more sincere than the love of food” George Bernard Shaw

As a self-confessed wine enthusiast and foodie, it is hard to argue with such a declaration. For me, there are just a handful of things in life that I’m more passionate about than good food and good wine except maybe GREAT FOOD with GREAT WINE! In my little universe, the intersection of these two loves is about as wonderful as it gets.

Just as any dedicated winemaker will reason that a superior wine depends heavily on the quality of the grapes at harvest, a devoted chef would also tell you the greatness of any cuisine ultimately boils down to the excellence of its ingredients. In both worlds, craft and technique alone (while certainly very important) will get you just so far.

Spanish chefs surely have access to an abundance of quality ingredients. One of the pillars of regional Spanish cooking is their Pimientos (peppers). Spain was the first country in Europe to import peppers from the New World and as a result many species of pimientos are grown throughout the country. There is one pepper in particular that is most revered however: Pimiento del Piquillo de Lodosa.

Piquillos are unlike any other pepper. Small, red, triangular in shape, with a little “peak” at the bottom, they’re slightly picante and have a firm flesh. Grown in the small village of Lodosa in the region of Navarra, they are designated and protected under their own Denominacion de Origen (DO).

Piquillos are harvested by hand and roasted over embers in wood-burning ovens which intensify their flavors. The peppers are then peeled, seeded and canned without any preservatives or chemicals. Every can bears the official DO stamp ensuring its authenticity.

In Spanish cuisine, Piquillos can be stuffed with meat or fish, sautéed in garlic and olive oil, or pureed and made into a reduction. When accompanying beef, they’re a match for medium-bodied reds like a Rioja Crianza. If paired with fish or filled with goat’s cheese, serve them with crisp, fruity whites. A good choice would be a Viura based wine from the Rueda DO. An Albarino from the Rias Baixas DO will also fit the bill.

Best of all is that you don’t have to travel to Spain to sample these delicious pimientos. They can be found in specialty gourmet shops or purchased on-line. Any authentic tapas restaurant worth its salt will have them too. There’s a terrific tapas restaurant in downtown Naples called IM Tapas that features them stuffed with salt cod drizzled with a Piquillo Pepper Coulis (more on this place in a future post).

Jim Greeley

Wine Supervisor SW Florida

Have you ever noticed how many times things have changed in the world you live in? Just when you get comfortable, along comes a new invention or technique that we have to adjust to. Wine bottle closures are no exception.

As early as 500 B.C.cork was used as a wine jug stopper in ancient Greece. Since the 18^th century, cork has been the preferred choice, following Dom Perignon’s success in bottling champagne. The secret to the success of cork: the airtight seal.

The most traditional closure, cork, has one disadvantage: the possibility of a bottle of wine to be corked. A corked bottle has a musty smell and taste. Cork, which is a natural product made from the bark of a tree, is prone to developing mold. The mold creates a chemical infection known as TCA, or cork taint. The wine results in a flat fruitless flavor and aroma. There are a small percentage of wines that are corked. So, why not use alternative closures? Mainly, because alternative closures diminish the drama and romance of opening a bottle with a cork. Also, many traditionalists feel the cork has some involvement in how the wine tastes, evolves, ages.

Cork comes from the bark of the cork oak tree. These trees live approximately 200 years. Once a tree is 25 years old the cork is stripped from the trunks every nine years. The first two harvests produce poor quality cork. Portugal produces approximately 50% of the cork harvested annually worldwide.

Synthetic corks are made from plastic. It has been determined these corks work best on wines that are meant to be drunk young and not to be cellared. They, as well as the screw cap (Stelvin) are used on the lower to medium priced wines in most cases.

Stelvin closures or screw cap closures are made of aluminum sides and top. Inside the top is a polyethylene liner covered with a special tin foil. The Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) found screw tops are the best at preserving wine.

Glass closures are equipped with an inert o-ring to provide a sterile seal, preventing contamination or oxidation.

OK……Here’s the newest change in wine bottle closures. The Zork closure. This was invented in Australia, featuring the convenience of a screw cap and the “celebration” of a cork, without the corkscrew. You remove the tear tab to break the seal and pull out the Zork which “pops” like a cork and can easily be resealed after use.

Personally, the type of closure wouldn’t influence me when buying wine. It’s all up to you!

--Marie Griffin, Wine Supervisor, North/West Florida

(The vineyards of Ch. La Tour, Pauillac, Bordeaux)

Have you ever wondered, as you mulled over a fine weighty Cabernet from Napa Valley, or watched the sunlight glint through a glass of Sancerre, or enjoyed the estimable flavors of a manzanilla sherry, exactly why certain areas of the world have become famous for making wine?

Have you ever wondered why, as you’re driving through the Haut-Medoc in Bordeaux, the chateau on one side of the road can command $700 a bottle while the chateau across the street – a matter of maybe twenty feet away – can only command $40?

Well, the reasons are multitudinous – having to do with such things as soil, climate, topography, winemaking techniques, science, history, socio-political cause and effect, and culture among much else.

But a lot of it has to do with terroir. Terroir is one of those French words that wine people bandy about all the time. Literally it means dirt – soil to be more precise – but in winespeak it has to do with soil, climate, topography, and all other facets of the environment that makes a grape vine grow and produce great wine grapes.

Soil is important. When the first Benedictine monks began planting vines in Burgundy in the Middle Ages they literally tasted the soil everywhere they went to decide which areas were best for good wine.

Some soil is better for one grape variety than another. The perfect example for this is in Bordeaux. The soil on the Left Bank of the Gironde River is largely gravel carried down from the mountains by a retreating glacier toward one of the Ice Ages, and is perfect for growing Cabernet Sauvignon which flourishes there. But the glacier didn’t touch the Right Bank of the Gironde, and so the soil there is largely chalk and clay – perfect for Merlot.

Sometimes the same type of soil can be beneficial in different areas for different reasons. The chalk soil of the Champagne region is beneficial there because there is a lot of rain in Champagne and the chalk allows proper drainage around the vines. (Also, because Champagne has a cool climate the chalk reflects the sunlight onto the vine providing that much needed warmth to ripen the grapes.) In the sherry region of southern Spain, the chalk soil (or ‘albariza’) is advantageous because there is little rain in the area and the chalk holds on to whatever moisture there is, allowing the vines to survive.

(The chalky albariza soil of Jerez – the home of sherry.)

Expert wine tasters can often tell you what kind of soil the grape vines grew in just by tasting the wine. A famous example would be the wines of Rutherford, which many tasters will tell you stands out from other Napa Valley wines because they can taste the ‘Rutherford dust’.

So why does the chateau on one side of the road in Bordeaux sell for $700 while the one across the street sells for $40? Well, in this case a lot of it has to do with drainage and elevation. In the 18^th century a series of drainage ditches were dug out leading to the river, and for some reason it seems that many of the best first and second growth chateaux are located near one of them. Also, these great wineries have a slightly higher elevation – sometimes even a matter of a few feet can make all the difference in the quality of the vines.

But that’s getting into topography, which will have to wait for some future blog.

If you really want to think about wine in relation to the soil, here are some wines you might want to try ---

Champagne – Moutard Brut Cuvee (with 90 points from Steve Tanzer it’s a steal at $34.99!)

Burgundy – Rene Lequin-Colin Santenay Premier Cru ‘La Comme’ 2005 (Pinot Noir with beautiful fruit and earthy flavors, and only $23.99)

Bordeaux Left Bank – Ch. Belle-Vue Haut-Medoc 2006 (90 points from Robert Parker and only $18.99. Who says Bordeaux has to be expensive?)

Bordeaux Right Bank – Ch. Larmande Grand Cru Classe Saint-Emilion 2006 (88 points from Wine Spectator. Subtle and complex for $32.99)

Sherry – Hidalgo La Gitana Manzanilla (try this with olives and almonds and shrimp, or any of your favorite tapas for that matter. Only $11.99 for a 500 ml bottle).

(Still ploughing the soil the old fashioned way in Burgundy.)

One of the great perks of our job here at ABC is the chance to travel to the various wine areas of the world, which is crucial to a better understanding of the terroir (soil, climate, topography), the grapes, the winemaking process - in fact all those things that contribute to the magic of that glorious liquid found in a wine bottle. It is also often a chance for us to meet and talk with the owners and winemakers. One thing you learn very quickly is that these people are a thoroughly dedicated and even obsessive group of men and women, and that there are almost as many theories about making wine as there are winemakers.
    But sometimes, even within such a devoted group of professionals, there are some individuals that stand out.
    One such person, to me, was winemaker and consulting oenologist Jean-Luc Colombo, who we met last year (I was traveling with my colleague Atanas Nechkov) at his home in Cornas, in the northern Rhone Valley.
    Believe me, when you do a number of these winery visits you see a lot of fermentation tanks, barrel rooms, and bottling lines. But the first thing Monsieur Colombo did - what was obviously most important to him - was to get us right out in the vineyards.
    Cornas has traditionally been the forgotten area amongst the more famous appellations of the northern Rhone - Cote Rotie, Condrieu, St. Joseph, and Hermitage - but not so any longer with the revolutionary figure of Jean-Luc Colombo around! The prime vineyards of Cornas are on the side of the mountain, often at an angle of 60 to 70 degrees, with spectacular views of the Rhone River far below. We took Jean-Luc's car as far along these precarious slopes as we could. The rest had to be done on foot.
    Listening to Jean-Luc Colombo talk, it was soon apparent what made Cornas so special to him - here was a man deeply involved in the entire ecology of the area. Winemaking, to him, is not simply about the grapes - winemaking involves the subtle workings of the entire environment. With immense joy he revealed to us not only the grape vines, but also the woods, the flowers, the herbs, the animals, even the insects of the area. This, to him, is what makes the Syrah-based wines of Cornas unique. Other appellations in the northern Rhone simply grow grapes. But in Cornas the grape vines are only a part of the local ecology - it is not only the grapes but everything else that so subtly affects them that makes the wines of Cornas unique.
    I remember him standing slightly above us on the slopes and saying "I hate, hate, hate irrigation! Irrigation," he said, "is good for potatoes, not for wine. How can you say that a wine represents a certain vintage when it's artificially irrigated?"
    Later we had the pleasure of joining the Colombo family for dinner at their home near the top of the mountain. Jean-Luc prepared rack of lamb on the huge old stone fireplace in the dining room, which he served with local fresh vegetables, and man! did his wines - both those from the Rhone and from his vineyards in Provence - taste good! As well as Jean-Luc and Madame Colombo creating a relaxed and entertaining atmosphere, we also had the pleasure of meeting their daughter Laure (who plans to follow in her father's footsteps as a winemaker - she had been studying at Ch. Haut Brion) and her friends who were visiting for the weekend. I must say that they made us feel like members of the family. We finished the evening with Cuban cigars and Lapsang Sou-chong (which happens to be my favorite tea and whose smoky flavor works very well with a good cigar).
    Before we knew it midnight was gone and we had a hotel to get back to, not to mention a 6 a.m. train to Paris to catch. For myself, looking back on this memorable day with a master winemaker, I must admit that I will never again drink Jean-Luc Colombo's wines without thinking about the smell of the herbs, the sound of the birds, and the breeze in the trees that are all part and parcel of the wines that he makes.