Posts Tagged ‘Under 13 percent’
Nice gneiss
Am taking a short break from Prince Edward County to give me more time to hunt for technical information on the wines. In the meantime…
Muscadet-Sèvre et Maine 2009, Expression d’Orthogneiss, Domaine de l’Écu ($20.40, 10919141)
100% biodynamically farmed Melon de Bourgogne (aka Muscadet) grown in a vineyard with a thin, gravelly top soil and an orthogneiss subsoil. Fermented with indigenous yeasts at 15–17ºC (59–63ºF). The winery uses gravity, not pumps, to move the must and wine. 12% ABV.
If wines were paintings, this would be a watercolour. One of the most minerally noses ever: quartz and chalk along with dried lemon. Richer and smoother than usual – surely the vintage speaking – but still subtle and nuanced, possessed of ample acidity and perfect balance. Starts off tasting of green apple- and lemon-flavoured rainwater, turns drier, quartzier and even a little bitter-herbal with a hint of paraffin lingering through the long finish. Beautiful Muscadet. The cork is long, usually a sign that a wine is ageable, and this one certainly is (the estate’s recommended drinking window is 2014–2017).
Though I didn’t take notes, I recently tasted the same producer’s 2010 Expression de Gneiss ($19.95, 10919150). Classic Muscadet, less weighty than the 2009 Orthogneiss (millésime oblige) yet every bit as pure and balanced: a tracery of minerals draped over waxy fruit and lit from within by glowing acidity. While the SAQ may spurn Muscadet’s other leading lights (most notably Domaine Luneau-Papin and Domaine de la Pépière), having regular access to Domaine de l’Écu’s three top cuvées is no small consolation.
See also The Rodney Dangerfield of Wines.
MWG July 13th tasting: report (3/5)
Chardonnay 2010, Unoaked, VQA Prince Edward County, Rosehall Run ($20)
A blend of Chardonnay (65%) and Chardonnay Musqué (35%). Fermented with the light lees in tanks at 10-12ºC. Aged on the lees for about 8 months. Malolactic fermentation kept to a minimum. 12.7% ABV.
Oddly floral but fresh nose with lemon, minerals and a hint of wax. Light textured and dry. Faint fruit (apple, pear, lemon), lots of minerals and a hint of bitterness. Crisp acidity and good length. Clean and refreshing. (Buy again? Sure.)
Chardonnay 2010, County, VQA Prince Edward County, Norman Hardie ($35)
Fermented in temp-controlled stainless steel tanks with gentle stirring of lees. Aged in French oak barrels from various coopers and with various levels of toast. 12.2% ABV.
Muted nose: lemon, apple, minerals and a hint of camphor. Richer than the Rosehall but not heavy. Attractive from the get-go with a minerally attack. Tropical fruit and oak emerge on the mid-palate, then segue into an ashy, lemon-pith finish. (Buy again? The wine has appeal but the QPR is whacky when you can get an excellent premier cru Chabis for less.)
Chardonnay 2009, Unoaked, VQA Prince Edward County, Casa-Dea Estates Winery ($16)
Fermented in stainless steel tanks. Five months’ aging on the lees. 12.9% ABV.
Canned Niblets corn, gaining some tropical fruit. Very dry. Rich, bordering on flabby texture. Little acid backbone and not much follow-through. (Buy again? No.)
Chardonnay 2010, The Blessed, VQA Prince Edward County, Exultet Estates ($35)
No technical info to be found other than a mention that the grapes are “ultra-ripe” and a reference to new oak barrels. Chances are good that it undergoes malolactic fermentation too. 13% ABV.
The nose? “Aunt Jemima’s butt – a happy, fun thing,” to quote one taster. Tropical fruit, butter, ashy oak, vanilla and a hint of caramel. Winey texture. Less than bone dry, though the sweetness and extract are balanced by firm acidity. Good length. In terms of New World style, goes right up to – but not over – the edge. (Buy again? Not my cup of tea – and that’s setting aside the in-your-face religiosity.)
MWG July 13th tasting: report (2/5)
Rosé 2009, Method Traditional, VQA Prince Edward County, Hinterland Wine Co. ($37)
75% Pinot Noir and 25% Chardonnay. Aged two-plus years on the lees. Disgorged and dosed in batches as stocks run low. 12% ABV.
Medium salmon pink with a faint bronze cast. Fine, lazy bead. Muted nose: bathpowder and a hint of nectarine and yeast. Dry and minerally. Good balance between extract and acidity. Only lightly fruity until the finish, when raspberry swells. As the wine breathes and warms, it turns sweeter and less integrated and gains a faint metallic edge. (Buy again? Maybe, though a QPR winner it’s not.)
3630 Bubble 2008, VQA Prince Edward County, Barnyard Wine Co. ($39)
A tiny winery. The wines are made at Hinterland’s facilities. The 3630 refers to the number of vines per acre. For the 2008 vintage, the estate’s entire crop was used for this bubbly, a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. 11.6% ABV.
Red berries, nectarine and a whiff of brett. Sourish and odd at first but coming around. Quite dry and never very fruity. Racy acidity it has in spades and lots of minerals on the finish. (Buy again? Maybe if it weren’t so expensive.)
Dea’s Cuvée 2008, Méthode cuvée close, VQA Ontario, Casa-Dea Estates Winery ($16)
A blend of Chard and Pinot Noir, with at least some of the fruit coming from elsewhere in the province. Made by the less labour-intensive cuvée close method (aka Charmat process). 12.5% ABV.
Yeasty, sour apple and silage with a metallic edge. Facile, fruity and sweet. Compared with the other wines in the flight, it tasted artificial and cheap. (Buy again? Nope.)
Cuvée Peter F. Huff 2008, VQA Prince Edward County, Huff Estates ($45)
A blend of Chardonnay (65%) and Pinot Noir (35%), the winery’s “all-county Blanc de noirs” claim notwithstanding. Traditional method vinification. Spent 30 months on its lees. 600 cases made. 12% ABV.
Delicate on the nose and palate. Rich effervescence. Light lemon and red berries. Quite dry and long with a toasty/yeasty note surfacing on the finish. Very elegant and the standout in this flight. (Buy again? Maybe, though excellent Champagnes can be had for less.)
Les Étoiles 2008, VQA Prince Edward County, Hinterland Wine Co. ($39)
A 50-50 blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir made using the traditional method. Aged on the lees for more than two years. The name likely refers to Dom Perignon’s apocryphal cry when he had his first sip of sparkling Champagne: “Venez vite, je bois des étoiles !” (Come quick, I am drinking stars!). If so, the winery is throwing down the gauntlet 12% ABV.
Electrum with a fine but plentiful bead. Toast and lemon on the nose. Minerals, lees and faint yellow stone fruit on the palate. A little funky and disjointed on both, improving only slightly as it breathed. Good balance between stuffing and acidity. Showing some depth, breadth and length. Still, it was hard to shake the feeling that the wine was “unsettled,” as one taster put it. An off bottle? Unfortunate because you could see the Champagne-like potential. (Buy again? To give it another chance, yes.)
Torrette syndrome
(Pardon the pun. I made it so Nick won’t have to.)
The next Prince Edward County post won’t be up for another day or two. In the meantime, here’s a note on an obscurity.
Vallée d’Aosta 2010, Torrette, Grosjean Frères ($25.55, 11660645)
The Aosta Valley is the narrow alpine corridor that connects northwest Italy to France over the St. Bernard pass and, these days, through the Mont Blanc tunnel. Torrette is one of several areas within the larger, but still small, Valle d’Aosta DOC. Torrette wines must be at least 70% Petit Rouge but may also contain Gamay, Dolcetto, Pinot Noir and/or any of several local red grape varieties. At a minimum, Torrette must reach 11% ABV and be aged six months (12% ABV and eight months in oak for Torrette Superiore). Grosjean’s version is 80% Petit Rouge and 20% Vien de Nus, Fumin and Cornalin, all from vines planted between 1975 and 1995. The grapes were destemmed, then macerated on their skins for seven or eight days, with pumping over three times a day. Maturation took place in stainless steel vats. This is stoppered with a plastic cork and clocks in at 12.5% ABV.
Odd nose: dried cherries, leaf mould and earth until you swirl, then dried blood and a hint of vinegary fish sauce. Medium bodied and dry. Not very tannic, though the understated fruit does nothing to hide the fine tannins, meaning there’s an astringent undertow that lingers long. Light, supple, sweet cherry quickly fades to a tart, faintly bitter finish with leaf tea and dried wood notes.
Pricey for what it delivers today. Torrettes are said to improve with up to ten years of cellaring, but you wouldn’t want to test that claim when the closure is a syncork.
This goes well with charcuterie, including lightly smoked meats. The winemaker also recommends it as a pairing for Valdostan “soups,”* a role I can see it playing supremely well.
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*For example: In a baking dish, alternate layers of sliced, butter-toasted country or black bread, Savoy cabbage braised with onion, and slices of fontina cheese. Ladle meat broth over. Top with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and a little nutmeg, if you like. Bake in a medium oven until the cheese melts.
MWG July 13th tasting: report (1/5)
The Mo’ Wine Group met on Friday the 13th to taste its way through an assortment of wines from Ontario’s up-and-comingest wine region, Prince Edward County, located on a peninsula jutting into Lake Ontario, about five hours by car from Montreal. Parallels having been drawn between the county’s cool climate and limestone soils and those of Champagne, we were especially interested in checking out the sparkling wines. Many thanks to members M and L for selecting and transporting the bottles.
Ancestral 2011, VQA Prince Edward County, Hinterland Wine Co. ($23)
A wine inspired by the sparkling Gamays (sometimes with a little Poulsard thown in) from Bugey Cerdon in France’s Savoie region. The name refers to the rarely used (outside of Savoie and Gaillac) méthode ancestrale of sparkling wine production, whereby the wine is bottled before fermentation is complete. Fermentation is then allowed to continue in the bottle and the carbon dioxide that is a byproduct creates the effervescence. (Like those of far too many Ontario wineries, Hinterland’s website is stingy with production details. One sentence found there – “Using the Ancestral method, the bubbles of this wine was [sic] achieved by capturing the carbon dioxide produced during the primary fermentation” – and the lack of a deposit in the bottle suggest that they may also be using some form of the transfer method.) In any case, this is 100% Gamay Noir and 8% ABV.
Pale strawberry pink with cotton candy glints. Foam disappears quickly; occasional small bubbles remain. Come-hither nose of yeast, strawberry and rose. Light on the palate with a fine effervescence. Fruity and off-dry, though the sweetness is tarted by bright acidity. Turns drier on the finish as minerals and a hint of earthiness emerge. Not quite up to Bugey Cerdon standards – this is simpler, more superficial, a bit more soda poppy – but not terribly far off and certainly enjoyable in its own right. Serve chilled as an outdoor sipper, an aperitif, with not very sweet stawberry- or rhubarb-based desserts or, possibly, as an accompaniment to Indian food (Bugey Cerdon works, so why not this?). (Buy again? Yes, a bottle or two for an all-Canadian dinner or picnic.)
Gauby’s 2008 Vieilles Vignes blanc
Vin de Pays des Côtes Catalanes 2008, Vieilles Vignes, Domaine Gauby ($44.50, 11225184)
A blend of organically farmed, low-yield Macabeu (40%), Grenache Blanc (30%), Chardonnay (15%), Grenache Gris (10%) and Carignan Blanc (5%) from 50- to 100-year-old vines, except the Chardonnay, which is from 30-year-old vines. Direct pressed, low-temperature settling. Fermented with no additions, including of yeast. Aged seven to eight months on the fine lees, 65% in barrels and 35% in vats. Bottled unfiltered and unfined. 12.5% ABV (according to the label; SAQ.com says 13.5%, though that may be for a different vintage).
Served at the October 2010 MWG tasting, the 2007 had everybody swooning. Served at the October 2011 MWG tasting, the 2008 (no published notes, alas) seemed less swoon-worthy. Yet a bottle of the 2008 opened at Raza two or three weeks ago held the three of us in thrall from the first sip. What a difference nine months makes? Proof that there are no great wines, only great bottles? Or that context is everything? Your guess is as good as mine.
Anyway, the nose of the June bottle was an appealing mix of under-ripe pineapple, Meyer lemon and rainwater. On the palate, a nuanced and layered mouthful of crystalline minerals, delicate fruit (pear, quince) and soft but penetrating acidity. Beautifully balanced, with everything in place, and possessed of a long, elegant finish.
That it was able to serve as a deluxe aperitif and accompany dishes as varied and challenging as scallop ceviche with hibiscus gélée, a citrusy salad with slices of rare, chile-accented duck breast, and an empanada filled with pulled pork, apple compote and foie gras shows just how versatile a wine it is.
Wines like this and Rouge Gorge’s all-Macabeu cuvée argue strongly that the Côtes catalanes region is the source of some of France’s finest whites these days. As such, the Vieilles Vignes is hardly overpriced. Unfortunately, ours was one of the last bottles available in the centre city, though there’s still some to be found in far-flung outlets. Worth seeking out.
Just drink it!
Bourgogne 2010, Sœur Cadette, Domaine de la Cadette ($18.05, 11460660)
100% organically farmed Chardonnay from both the Saint-Père–sous-Vézelay estate and nearby grape-growers. Slow pressed, fermented with indigenous yeasts, allowed to undergo malolactic fermentation and aged five months (according to Kermit Lynch) or 12 months (according to oenopole), all in stainless steel vats. Lightly filtered before bottling. 12.5% ABV.
Lemon, minerals, oats and whey on the nose. In the mouth, zingy lemon over a peach nectar substrate, the ripe fruitiness rounding the sharp acidity. There’s a vaporous lift, felt but not really tasted, like you get from citrus peel oil or turpentine (but in a good way!). Long, sour-chalky finish. A lip-smacking wine, straight and to the point and guaranteed to perk you up on a sweltering day. Understandably popular with sommeliers and restaurateurs (for their personal consumption as well as their wine lists), this is selling out fast.
Gauby’s 2010 Les Calcinaires rouge
Côtes du Roussillon Villages 2010, Les Calcinaires, Domaine Gauby ($24.50, 11222186)
Organically farmed, 10- to 20-year old Syrah (50%), Mourvèdre (25%), Grenache Noir (15%) and Carignan (10%). Destemmed. Macerated two to four weeks. Traditional, non-interventionist fermentation using ambient yeasts. Aged ten months in vats (80%) and barrels (20%). Bottled unfiltered and unfined. Relatively small production of 5,000 bottles. 12.5% ABV (!) according to SAQ.com (don’t have the bottle to check what the label says).
Smelling primary at this stage: plum, spice, leather, slate. Smooth with velvety tannins. Quite extracted yet fluid. Lush fruit (black cherry) and some bittersweet chocolate, sleek acidity and a long drying finish. Not particularly deep but pure, savoury and delicious. A food-friendly wine that paired well with several nuevo latino dishes at the outstanding, newly BYOB Raza.
Barn owl and salmon
Looking for a wine to pour with Indian-style salmon brochettes (recipe follows), I popped the cork on this. It worked.
Coteaux du Loir 2010, L’Effraie, Domaine Bellivière ($27.45, 11495467)
Effraie is French for barn owl. 100% biodynamically farmed Chenin Blanc from vines under 50 years old. Fermented with native yeasts and aged 12 months in second-, third- and fourth-use barrels. Depending on the year, the wine can range from dry to demi-sec. 12.5% ABV according to the label (13.5% according to SAQ.com, though that may refer to an earlier vintage).
Complex, if subtle, and constantly evolving nose: yellow apple, melon rind, summer savoury, chalk, preserved lemon and honeycomb. Off-dry (sec-tendre according to the winemaker), the sugar softening the acidity and augmenting the somewhat viscous texture. Mild white and yellow fruit dissolves dryly into minerals, ash and a light citric tang. A faint aftertaste – more a fresh, mint-like sensation – haunts the mouth for minutes after a sip. A natural with white fish or scallops in lemon cream (the estate suggests tartare preparations), this also goes well with not-too-spicy Asian fare like the dish you’ll find after the jump.
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Raisins gaulois
This was released today and has already disappeared from several Montreal outlets. No mises de côté allowed, so if you want some, drop by your favourite outlet on your way to work tomorrow morning. You have been warned.
Vin de France 2011, Raisins Gaulois, Domaine Marcel Lapierre ($17.65, 11459976)
In vintages before 2009, a Vin de pays de Gaules but now a generic Vin de France following a decision by Beaujolais authorities to eliminate the former designation. Nevertheless, most of the grapes used for this wine come from the Morgon AOC. 100% organically farmed young-vine Gamay. Semi-carbonic maceration (with no added sulphur) lasting around five days. Fermented with native yeasts. Aged two months in vats. Bottled unfiltered but with a squirt of sulphur dioxide. 12% ABV. The wine is also packaged in 5L and 10L bag-in-boxes, not that we ever see them here in Quebec. Conventional wisdom is to serve this lightly chilled but I found it more faceted and nuanced at room temperature (about 23ºC/74ºF this evening).
Exuberant, gumdroppy nose of red berries and peony with a ferrous note. Light, fleet and fresh in the mouth, the fruit sweet and juicy, the tannins soft and supple. High-toned rose flashes on the back of the palate before giving way to a tangy, mineral-edged finish. Pure and delightful, a celebration not so much of terroir as of Gamay. Way too easy to down, the very definition of a vin de soif.
Brett happens 