MWG May 16th tasting (1/5): ABCs
ABCs = A British Columbia sparkler.
Brut, Méthode traditionnelle, Okanagan Valley, Blue Mountain ($28.30, 11881907)
Pinot Noir (57%), Chardonnay (37%) and Pinot Gris (6%). Manually harvested and sorted. Each variety is whole-cluster pressed and fermented separately. The wines are then blended, re-inoculated with yeast for secondary fermentation and aged on the lees for 24 months before disgorging, followed by another six to nine months after disgorging. Retails for $23.90 at the winery. 12.5% ABV.
Leesy lemon and apple. Thick foam and tons of tiny bubbles. The pure, clean fruit shows some residual sugar on the attack and turns sourish, dry and a little toasty by the finish. Sugar levels aside, a soft, glyceriny undercurrent runs throughout – like mild honey I thought at first before settling on almond syrup. Also, the wine starts out like a sparkler but, the bubbles notwithstanding, ends up tasting like a still wine. Odd but not unpleasantly so. The initial sweetness makes it better as an aperitif than a food wine methinks, though the weight and texture might argue otherwise. (Buy again? Could be pushed to by national pride and the wine’s curiosity value, but better crémants and cavas can be had for several dollars less.)
oenopole’s Greek spring workshop (6/6)
Italians claim vin santo (aka vino santo) as their own invention. After all, they say, the name means holy wine. That no one can offer a convincing explanation of the wine’s holy connection is conveniently overlooked. Greeks tell a different story. They claim the name is a contraction of vino di Santorini and that the style is basically copied from the Greek island’s legendary sweet wine that was first brought to the Italian peninsula by seafaring traders.
Despite the similarities – both wines are made from partially dried grapes, usually white – there are plenty of differences: different grape varieties, drying methods, maturation methods, aging requirements and sweetness levels, with the Greek version almost always being quite sweet. The spelling of the name is also different: Italian vin santo, Greek vinsanto.
Vinsanto, 20 years, Domaine Argyros (NLA. When last sold at the SAQ, the price was north of $100 for a 500 ml bottle.)
A blend of Assyrtico (80%), Aidani (10%) and Athiri (10%) from very old vines, some in excess of 150 years. The grapes are dried in the sun for 12 to 14 days, pressed, fermented with ambient yeasts and aged 17 years in French oak barrels and another three years in the bottle. 14% ABV.
Clear brown with orange glints. Complex, fresh and lifting nose of raisin, fig, caramel and orange peel. Rich and dense in the mouth, sweet but, due to the huge acidity, not saccharine or heavy. The mouth-filling flavours echo the nose and have a savoury edge. Astoundingly long. Big yet a sipper, not exactly subtle yet a vin de contemplation. Impressive in so many ways. (Buy again? If the budget permitted…)
oenopole’s Greek spring workshop (5/6)
The last two wines of the tasting were served without food.
IGP Letrini 2008, Domaine Mercouri ($19.75, 11885537)
Refosco (80%) and Mavrodaphne (20%). Fermented with native yeasts in stainless steel vats. Matured 10 to 12 months in French oak barrels, 40% new. 13% ABV.
Red fruit and a herby almost ferny greenness. Swirling brings out an iodide note. It’s like standing in a seaside raspberry patch. Medium-bodied and dry, the fruit ripe but held in check. Dark minerals, light velvety tannins and bright acidity round out the picture. The savoury finish leaves an impression of purity and freshness. Even better than the bottle tasted back in March. (Buy again? Yes.)
> A wine this elegant and balanced is by definition food-friendly. At the tasting, I had no trouble imagining it as an accompaniment to a veal or pork roast or stew.
And speaking of revisiting Greek wines tasted back in March, I recently opened a second bottle of the Achaïa 2011, Kalavryta, Domaine Tetramythos ($15.45, 11885457). Though I popped the cork a few hours in advance in case it was still in that “weird reductive phase,” I needn’t have bothered: on the nose and in the mouth, the wine was clean, pure and savoury, a pleasure to drink and a fine pairing for pork chops in a sage-flecked tomato sauce.
oenopole’s Greek spring workshop (4/6)
Served with veal tartare studded with cranberries and made almost fiery by shallots.
Naoussa 2011, Jeunes Vignes de Xinomavro, Domaine Thymiopoulos ($17.50, 11607617)
100% biodynamically farmed Xinomavro from ten-year-old vines. Manually harvested. 80% destemmed, 20% whole cluster pressed. Very gentle pressing. Fermented with indigenous yeasts with no pump-overs. Macerated about one week, then aged nine months in stainless steel tanks. Bottled unfiltered. 13.5% ABV.
My affection for this wine is well documented (see here, here and here) and this encounter only confirmed the love. Cherry and fired minerals with sappy/stemmy, dried herb and licorice notes. Medium-bodied and fluid. Dry yet remarkably fresh. As minerally as fruity with a cranberry-like tang. So drinkable – there really is a Beaujolais cru-like quality to the wine. Joy. (Buy again? By the case.)
> A pitch-perfect pairing. The tartare’s mild meatiness backdropped the wine’s fruit, the respective mineralities echoed each other, the “cranberry” and cranberries sang a duet and the briny capers presented no issues thanks to the wine’s acidity, savour and low tannins. Genius.
oenopole’s Greek spring workshop (3/6)
Served with scallop ceviche garnished with mandarin sections, green apple, citrus zest and, surprisingly, a drizzle of simple syrup.
Santorini 2011, Estate, Domaine Argyros ($22.95, 11901091)
100% Assyrtiko from old vines (average age: 150 years). Fermented with selected yeasts. Matured six months in stainless steel tanks (80%) and new 500-litre French oak barrels (20%). 13.2% ABV.
A crystalline nose, if that makes sense; it’s like breathing quartz along with whiffs of lemon, kelp and volcano. In the mouth, not a lot of fruit per se but plenty of extract to take the edge off the coursing acidity. Above, below and around all are minerals, here fine and delicate. The long finish has a salted lemon note. Such balance, elegance and sense of place are rare at this price point. (Buy again? Imperatively.)
> You wouldn’t think a wine this savoury and acidic would work with a sweet dish but wow! It blasts through the sugar, dances with the mollusc, does acrobatics with the lime zest. Grilled fish, grilled octopus and fried squid, not to mention oysters on the half shell, make less unconventional but equally delicious pairings.
oenopole’s Greek spring workshop (2/6)
The second dish was albacore sashimi.
Vin de pays de Markopoulo 2012, Savatiano, Domaine Papagiannakos ($15.90, 11097451)
100% Savatiano. Manually harvested. Fermented with selected yeasts in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks. Matured on the lees for three months. Filtered before bottling. 12.5% ABV.
Candied sour lemon, overtones of tropical fruit (mango, banana, papaya), dried hay in the background. Fruity, almost sweet, on entry, though make no mistake: this is a dry wine. The clean flavours evoke lemon and quartz. The extract balances the solid acidity. A faint bitterness lingers after the fruit fades. Not profound but delivering real bang for the buck. (Buy again? Yes.)
> The wine was synergistic with the cilantro and cucumber garnish. It amped up the fishiness of the albacore (not unpleasantly so) while the fish brought out its fruit. oenopole also suggests squid stuffed with spinach and feta and/or shrimp sautéed with garlic and parsley and served with lemon wedges. It’s all good.
oenopole’s Greek spring workshop (1/6)
A group of wine and food geeks, several of them writers or bloggers, were recently invited to oenopole world headquarters for a second wine and food workshop, titled printemps grec. The wines this time around were entirely Greek but the food most definitely wasn’t, the idea being to see how Greek wines work with non-Greek dishes. Guest chef Noam Arieh Gedalof, formerly of The French Laundry and Kaizen, turned out a succession of beautiful small plates, a feat made all the more impressive by the HQ’s complete lack of a kitchen.
While waiting for the tasting proper to being, we were offered glasses of a sparkler.
Amalia Brut, Méthode traditionnelle, Domaine Tselepos ($23.00, 11901103)
Formerly available only on a private-import basis, this 100% Moschofilero traditional method sparkler will go on sale at the SAQ on September 26 and not a moment too soon. 12% ABV.
Light straw-yellow with fine persistent bubbles. Fleet yet present on the palate, pure and quite dry. The fruit tends to lemon and is accompanied by a crystalline minerality and a telltale hint of Moschofilero’s floral aromatics. The acidity and effervescence keep things lively. The clean finish brings a faint saline note. Can hold its own against any cava or crémant at the price point. (Buy again? Can’t wait.)
The first dish was a lightly dressed salad of mixed greens, planed root vegetables and herbs.
Mantinia 2012, Moschofilero, Domaine Tselepos ($17.85, 11097485)
100% Moschofilero. The grapes are macerated eight hours at 10ºC, then pneumatically pressed. Fermentation with selected yeasts and in stainless steel vats is at 12ºC and lasts 20 days with regular stirring. 12% ABV.
Lightly fragrant nose – grapey and floral (honeysuckle?) with white mineral notes – evocative of Muscat and Gewurztramner. Dry and bright in the mouth with an appealing tautness. The fruit is citrusy (lemon, white grapefruit) and, again, the finish is clean and faintly salt-crystally. Straightforward and fresh, this makes an excellent aperitif but also has enough heft to go with food. (Buy again? Yes.)
> The wine’s acidity handled the vinaigrette with aplomb. The root vegetables brought out the wine’s minerality, the bitter radicchio its sweetness and fruit. The fresh mint leaf achieved a surprising synergy. Theo Diamantis mentioned that the first local non-Greek restaurant to put the wine on its list was Toqué!, where chef Normand Laprise paired it with wild asparagus, a combination I intend to put to the test now that local asparagus season is upon us.
And speaking of printemps grec wine and food pairings, oenopole and SAT Foodlab are joining forces this evening for a Nuit greque au Labo culinaire with four visiting winemakers. If last year’s event is anything to go by, it should be epic.
A BV with pretensions
This is a Beaujolais-Villages but one in which the actual village name, in this case Leynes (northernmost Beaujolais, southernmost Burgundy and also the operations base of Jean Rijckaert), replaces the “Villages” (along the same lines as what’s allowed for certain Côtes-du-Rhône villages like Cairanne and Séguret). The Bien-Venu is a vestige of the first vintages, the producer’s way of getting around the AOC authorities who declassified the wine and forced it to be labeled as a vin de table, not a Beaujolais.
Beaujolais-Leynes 2011, Bien-Venu In X-Tremis, La Soufrandière / Bret Bros. ($29.75, 11904611)
100% organically farmed Gamay from 65-year-old vines. Manually harvested. The whole, uncrushed clusters are macerated two to three weeks, with light pump-overs and occasional punch-downs. Matured 18 months in Burgundy barrels. 12.5% ABV.
The staff at my neighbourhood SAQ store opened a bottle of this when it arrived back in February and found it off-puttingly bad, so bad that they decided to give it a second chance after the shipment had had a couple of months to recover from suspected travel shock. A good call, as it’s now a textbook Bojo, albeit one in a rich style. The texture is dense enough to have you thinking velour instead of silk. There’s lots of red fruit, some vine sap and minerals and an unsweet floral note (iris?). The acidity is cranberry juice bright, the tannins are light and the fruit lasts right through the finish. While cru-like in terms of body, it falls short of that level in the depth department. In fact, it seems kind of one-note, unexciting and, above all, poor value when set aside true crus like Lapierre’s Morgon ($28 though NLA) or Brun’s Moulin-à-Vent ($24) let alone some of the private import Bojos. Maybe it needs more time, but I wouldn’t bet on it. (Buy again? Unlikely.)
Get your Cab Franc on
Anjou 2010, Mozaïk, Pithon-Paillé ($23.30, 11906457)
100% organically farmed, non-estate Cabernet Franc from 30- to 40-year-old vines. Fermented with indigenous yeasts. Matured ten months in second- to sixth-vintage oak barrels. No chaptalization and minimal sulphur dioxide. 13.4% ABV.
Classic Cab Franc nose: red fruit and mulberry, turned earth, slate, a hint of green tobacco leaf. I got a whiff of barnyard too. Medium-bodied but dense with juicy tart fruit. Dimension is provided by light, tight tannins, lively acidity and a minerally undertow. The sustained finish ties everything up nicely. Not a keeper – a wine for drinking now and in the next couple of years – but if you’re in the mood to get your Cab Franc on, this’ll certainly do the trick. (Buy again? Yes.)
Brett happens 
The case of the missing Noilly Prat
with 21 comments
Ask people to name the different types of vermouth and most will probably answer red and white. Actually, vermouths are divided into three main styles: Provençal, Savoie and Italian. (In fact, it’s even more complicated than that; see here for details.)
The first of these styles, the Provençal, is generally considered the most complex. And the last remaining representative of the style is Noilly Prat.
Straw-coloured Noilly Prat Original Dry is arguably the quintessential ingredient for a classic dry martini. Many martini recipes specify it by name while leaving the choice of gin up to the mixologist. As the New American Bartender’s Handbook says, “No martini should be made without a splash of this.” What’s more, Noilly Prat Original Dry is a key ingredient in several Provençal dishes, especially fish dishes. T. S. Eliot even named one of his cats after it. The lighter, more delicate Savoie vermouths can be delicious but they lack Noilly Prat’s heft. Italian dry vermouths tend to be sweeter, heavier and less refined. The bottom line: Noilly Prat is both an icon and an essential addition to any self-respecting liquor cabinet.
And it isn’t available in Quebec or Ontario.
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Written by carswell
May 25, 2013 at 12:28
Posted in Commentary
Tagged with LCBO, SAQ