The King’s Ginger and The Beef Stew – a match made in Heaven.
We have been mooching around here lately waiting for spring! In between restless sorties to make more coffee we have been visited by a number of wine-guys and surprisingly the wines tasted have been pretty good. Forecasting what will happen this year in winepedia though is like figuring out how the Concordia hit a rock. Theoretically the prices of European wines should come down; the dollar has strengthened, oil has slackened off a little and consumption demand in Europe is falling…rapidly. But then again I have never seen a gas station lower the price of gas after the oil markets lose 5% but they do increase the price 10% when the market rallies $1.00. Maybe gas and wine have the same monopolies behind them – is there a Halliburton in the wine industry? Greece will probably want to throw more wine at the west – anything that might be exportable will be offered, and in fact yesterday we tasted a couple of Greek wines that were extremely palatable. Not cheap – but then again Greece announced last week that in the light of their austerity measures taking effect they would increase the pension checks of certain criminal elements including pedophiles, kleptomaniacs and arsonists (I kid you not – a reader even sent me the media clipping!) I guess that’s why wine is still expensive. This may be the year that Riesling makes a significant move; being that Germany is the only country where people are rich enough to go out and eat – hence more visibility for Riesling wines in restaurants. Bordeaux prices will again defy gravity and Sarkozy. But the key here is that the quality of cheaper Bordeaux wines is soaring and there is plenty of really good wine at the $15.00 level. Spain will revert to being the principal European nation for providing high quality to value ratios – already we have tasted a bevy of excellent Spanish wines at very reasonable prices. Spain got out of sync a few years ago when depravity and greed took over, but now that half the country is unemployed and the other half are in hock to Germany, Spanish wine producers are scaling back their prices and improving their quality. And my big forecast for the year – we will see British sparkling wine on these shores – even if I have to bring it in myself. I will be back in the UK next week and I shall make it my mission to find and buy a ‘Britling’ wine.
I have been talking to a few sages in the wine industry lately and discussions have been set in motion about creating a new way to critique wines. I personally have been so anti any mass media criticism of wine for so long and I am beginning to see a shift away from the inflated 90+ rating game – it reminds me of the backlash against Californian chardonnay – over-priced, over-oaked and rubbish. We think there is a market for the honest to goodness written word. No rating stuff, but a jury of five independent writers each writing, in their own words, about the same wine. Edited in such a way that each critic is assigned the same ‘spot’ in the editorial but the critics are anonymous. The benefit, we believe, is that a reader will be able to read five separate and objective criticisms of the same wine, each written in a manner that speaks to the tasting characteristics of the writer. You won’t have to rely on a single critic who just spent 5 seconds tasting the wine; nor the aggregate of a bunch of tasters tasting the same wine over a period of time but being edited by a single writer. We believe that the time has come to allow the consumer to make his or her own determination based solely on the superlatives (or not) scripted by five writers. As I have often said in the store – all ‘pedanticism’ aside you either like the wine or you don’t – it’s just a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Simple.
As an experiment I am going to write about a wine that we tasted yesterday afternoon. I bought five cases for the store and we’ll see how many are sold after this blog has been read. There are two versions of the ‘description’ – the first I took straight off a web site and it is the typical wine critic descritpion of any-named wine; the second is my tasting notes the way I felt about the wine and what I felt needed to be know about the wine: remember, it’s an experiment!
“Faillenc Sainte Marie is a small property, with only eight hectares of vineyards stubbornly clinging to the rocky foothills of Mont Alaric. The vineyards are buffeted by the northerwesterly Tramontane wind which blows over Alaric and by the southerly Autan breezes coming off the nearby Mediterranean, creating an extremely dry climate. Syrah, Grenache Noir, and Cinsault are the red grape varieties raised here. A small vineyard (1 hectare) is devoted to white grapes: Roussanne, Macabeu, Bourboulenc and Clairette. The terroir is composed of inhospitable, rocky limestone terraces. Only vines, olive trees and some scraggly brush survive under these harsh conditions. As a result, yields are naturally low. The grapes are strongly marked by their environment and this powerful character shows through in the wines. The charming, quirky personality, sense of humor and creativity of Dominique Gibert, as well as the sensitive and diligent vineyard work of his wife, Marie-Therese Gibert, also mark these wines, both in their style and in their names and labels (all designed by Dominique who is a practicing architect as well as vigneron).” (Description from Rosenthal Wine Merchant – importer)
Domaine Faillene Sainte Marie 2009: As an initial example of what I mentioned above, this wine could not have been a more stupid choice. It is brazenly different to anything I have had in ages and I would have to strongly warn against any vegetarian drinking it. Unzip the cork and just wrap your nostril around the hole; breathe in sharply and savor a nose full of venison, merguez sausage, sage, back-room rugby stalls, and beef broth. You know what the kitchen smells like when you are cooking up a really potent beef stew – initially you brown the bones in the oven, bring them topside, deglaze with a bit of sherry and pour in the stock to make a really rich base for the stew. That’s the opening line with this wine – roasted beef bones, hint of sweet sherry cask aroma, and broth. Be patient with the wine, just like the stew. Let the aromas blow off, swirl the bottle, stir the stew, taste the wine, test the broth. Unlike the stew, this wine isn’t going to burn you. Even though it’s 14% alcohol there is so much going on inside you don’t even think about getting sloshed. First taste is still all about the meat – huge chunks of fall-off-the-bone beef. Swirled around the mouth you pick up the herbs – sage is abundant, rosemary definitely in the mix, even a hint of cinnamon and as the wine trickles toward the back of your mouth you get the burst of energy – like popping a cherry acid drop in your mouth (not the stuff from the 60′s, the stuff from the corner candy store!). Your mouth is overwhelmed with black and blue cherry flavors, raison, mocha, coffee – reminds me of a Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut bar without the Monty Python. This is probably going to be the wine that haunts me all year. It had so much structure and complexity and it evolved so many times during the brief period it was in the bottle (I think we drank the entire contents in less than 20 minutes), and even though there is a lot of unusual stuff going on with it it’s not a difficult wine to fall in love with. In lay terms it’s rather like a zinfandel meets Goldilocks, brazen fruit with a dewy soft cherry, blueberry and blackcurrant overtone. Goldilocks wouldn’t have bothered with the porridge after drinking this. I loved it and I bought it and what little I got arrives tomorrow. Price will be $18.00 on the shelf. Accept the inevitable and buy it buy the case – I think you will love it too. (My notes)
On to more pragmatic stuff, I tasted a bunch of spirits yesterday as well. Another forecast here for 2012 – the run-of-the-mill spirits that we have all bought for the last 15+ years will comee under attack from limited, small batch, artisanal spirits that capture the essence of the spirit without adding all the blin-bling. For example, No.3 is a gin made to a recipe from Berry Bros. & Rudd, probably the oldest wine merchant in the world. The name No.3 refers to the street address of BB, 3 St. James’s Street, London, the HQ of BB since 1698 (and briefly the site of the Embassy of Texas to the Court of St. James!). It also refers to the simplicity of the recipe – 3 fruits and 3 spices distilled in traditional copper stills. The stuff was amazing. Before we moved over here I had a farm in Berkshire – small holding is probably a better description! On this farm there was a little cottage and in the cottage lived an elderly couple who we adored. Especially since David introduced me to the King’s Ginger – a concoction of god knows what brewed by the aforementioned wine merchants. Together, every Sunday at noon David would bring out the King’s Ginger and I would arrive clutching a bottle of aged whiskey. He would do the honors and by lunchtime we were smashed. Memories! I brought a single bottle with me to the States and lovingly raised a glass to David for as long as there was liquid left in the bottle. Yesterday all the memories came flooding back because there in front of me was Berry Brother’s King’s Ginger. Drinking it with a splash of Scotch is one of life’s most satisfying moments. Rounding out the spirit tasting I tried an English Harbour Rum distilled in Antigua since 1932. No added caramel, this is the real McCoy. Very smooth, rich, slightly sweet with lovely toffee and nut flavors – I’m not a big rum drinker but this was extremely good. And of course since we were tasting the King’s Ginger we needed to crack open a bottle of whiskey and very fortunately the beautiful sales rep had a lovely bottle of Springbank 15 yearr Single Malt. If you are into whiskey this is the Holy Grail – one of the oldest, if not the oldest independent, family owned distilleries in Scotland. The scotch is barrel aged in not just sherry oak barrels but also oloroso barrels and blended just before bottling. It’s one of the most sought after whiskies from Scotland and now available in the US.
Yesterday was a great day! It’s amazing how quickly wine and spirits can put a smile on your face! I’m off to the UK again next week so no stories until the following week. Have a wonderful weekend, and remember, stay thirsty.
CP.
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