2006 Chateau Rayas La Pialade Cotes du Rhone

I stumbled across this at Bauer Wine and Spirits, it was the last bottle and there was a hand-written shelf-talker stating that it was "peaking".  Add to this situation the producer and I knew I had a bottle for the evening.  As it turns out, this was a wonderful find.  It's some seriously good juice with deft aromas of fruit, spices, intermixed with earthy elements; even lavender-like, aromas on the second pass.  Superb on the palate: light-bodied, well-balanced; nice acidity, depth, and finish.  A grown-up, seductive Cotes du Rhone and a display of the pedigree one can expect from such an esteemed producer.  

The holidays are approaching

Are you ready to truly connect with those who help you out on a daily basis this holiday season? Thank them for all that they do in a way that makes both of you look good.

“Wine is one of the few presents that makes both the giver and the receiver look good. You look like you spent a bundle on the gift (even if you didn’t) and the recipients are happy that you think they know something about wine (even if they don’t).” says Natalie MacLean, author of the bestseller Red, White and Drunk All Over.

Here's an exclusive generalized segment for you, beloved reader. If you'd like specific suggestions, please go here. Natalie's Top 10 great wine gift ideas (my suggestions are in bold):

1. Hairdresser: For the person who combines humor and optimism every time she styles your mop. Go for a light, gulpable wine like a dry rosé. It’s versatile and fuss-free—a great quaff for your coif. 2009 Château d'Aqueria

2. Psychiatrist: Of course, he’ll analyze whatever you give him so choose a wine that’s all about balance. Easy-drinking pinot noir is medium-bodied yet packed with flavor. Surprise him with a large-format bottle, like a magnum. Big thinking means big progress for you. This wine also works for psychologists, marriage counselors and bartenders. Penner Ash or Shea Wine Cellars

3. The Boss: Pick too pricey a wine and your boss will think your last raise was too much; go cheap, and she’ll think you lack judgment. Focus on a label with a lot of white space since that makes the bottle look more expensive. A castle in the distance also works, but avoid fluffy animals.


4. Personal Trainer: Think a muscular, robust red would work? Hold that position. Instead, try riesling: this light white wine pairs well with a health-nut diet of salad and seafood, plus it’s low in alcohol. You can also give it to Pilates instructors, yoga masters and Tai Chi coaches. 2009 Loosen Bros. Dr. L

5. Financial Planner: You and he both know it’s going to take decades before your portfolio recovers after the crash of 2008. With that long-term view, vintage port makes the perfect gift. This fortified wine from northern Portugal, with its long aging potential, will be around for both of you into your retirements.  Taylor Fladgate 2007 Vintage Port

6. Travel Agent: She’s been everywhere and seen everything, so go local with your choice of wine. Even better, if you live close to the winery, get the bottle signed by the winemaker.

7. Teacher: If you can’t find a suitably obscure wine with a Latin name, there’s always cream sherry. It’s the tipple of Oxford dons, not to mention the centerpiece of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short story The Case of the Amontillado. Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry

8. Mail Deliverer: Go for a winery that’s consistent year after year in producing a wine that can be enjoyed in snow, rain, sleet or hail. Try an Australian shiraz or Argentine malbec.

9. Mechanic: Yes, there’s a wine called Red Truck, but try to be more imaginative. Why not give a wine made by Mario Andretti in California or Ferrari in Italy?  Randy Lewis makes wine too! (Napa)

10. Online Date: So you’re on your second or third rendezvous with the person you met on eHarmony or Dating.com. If you’re not sure yet whether marriage is a possibility, try something middle-of-the-road, like merlot. Yes, it’s the soft jazz of wine, but until you know, play it safe. Columbia Crest H3 Horse Heaven Hills

And after all that shopping, don’t forget yourself: even Santa’s little helpers need more than milk and cookies. Try something with high-alcohol like Italian Amarone or Rhone syrah: these big reds easily drown out tone-deaf caroling and pair beautifully with tired feet.

1999 Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia

This was awesome! Proof that Bordeaux varietals have great potential in Bolgheri. Great fresh fruit aromas upon opening; so robust that they engulfed the room and those next to the bottle while decanting commented on the "lovely" and "sensuous" aromas wafting from the bottle. Mature, with harmonious balance between acidity and tannins, with a nice impression of both fresh and dried fruit; utterly smooth, with a caressing finish that lasts for minutes.

Eric Ripert prefers that his fridge is empty.

Gourmet Live is quickly becoming one of my favorite websites when it comes to food. Here is an interview with Eric Ripert, the acclaimed chef of Le Bernardin, who recently celebrated a couple of rare events: earning 3 Michelin stars and 29 from Zagat.

Gourmet Live: What 10 ingredients are always in your fridge?

Eric Ripert: Honestly I don’t think I have 10 ingredients in my fridge, but I always have butter, yogurt and marmalade. We buy for the day and almost nothing goes into the fridge. I like to buy the right amount of food so there’s no waste. I just bought an apartment and it came with a very big fridge, but I gave it back to the building and asked for a smaller one because I don’t want to store a lot of things. I want to eat fresh, so really, the fridge is empty.

Gourmet Live: What 5 ingredients are always on your shopping list?

Eric Ripert: Shopping or not, I make sure that I always have salt, pepper, olive oil, butter and Herbes de Provence.

Gourmet Live: How would you describe the perfect dinner party?

Eric Ripert: When the host and guests are equally having fun. When the food and wines are delicious and ultimately at the end of the night everyone has a smile on their face. I think it’s always important to have a mix of things you can share. And very often when I throw a party, I break the ice by having drinks and intermezzos to share. Or I mix guacamole and everyone is dipping, so everyone’s sharing. And when we sit down, I plate individually.

1995 Château Léoville-Poyferré

Unfortunately I tasted this only after it had been decanted. That being said, it was very aromatic upon opening and still held a deep reddish-purple core with only mild signs of age at the edges. A smooth, well-balanced, and mature wine. As for pedigree, In Frank Schoonmaker's eyes, Poyferré is the best vineyard in St. Julien and "perhaps a little fuller-bodied than the other Léovilles, and generally brings a slightly higher price" (1976). If you want something more like Pauillac, go for Léoville Las Cases which is near Château Latour on the border of St. Julien and Pauillac. This leads me to some words of wisdom I picked up along the way, if you like a particular winery and don't want to pay out of the nose for it, it'll pay to find one of their neighbors. Perfect example: Provenance of Rutherford gets a significant amount of their grapes from Beckstoffer's Georges III vineyard, which happens to be adjacent to Caymus. Try out the Provenance if you like Caymus and tell me I'm wrong. I have to credit this snippet of advice to the man who also recently shared his opinion about the 1995 vintage in Bordeaux. Frankly, the point was that 1995--while a notable vintage--is perfect with food due to their unique structure and notable acidity. So, if you're dining out and want to splurge on Bordeaux, 1995 Bordeaux is definitely a good choice.

P.S. I thank the accidental billionaires for making it possible for me to taste this wine.

Jancis Robinson rediscovers Savennières

I caught her link on Twitter (@JancisRobinson) this morning. The article can be found here and has a few suggestions for you to try. Sadly, she does not note the prices for the wines; one particular wine, Joly's Coulée de Serrant (apparently meaning, "Casting of Tightening"), was recently listed in Wine Spectator's advanced newsletter as retailing for $100 (2007). To put that into perspective, a particularly renowned French restaurant in Boston's Back Bay (@LEspalier) carries the 2005 vintage (reviews) for that price! By the way, it's currently my favorite white wine and it has retained its #1 ranking for well over a year now.

Value hunting does pay off; foodies and their friends can enjoy a bottle at Silvertone, and also if you frequent this seafood giant at any of their Massachusetts locations, you'll find it there for a even better bargain. If you find it retail, try it out with a Margherita pizza (I recommend Regina's, medium basil, with a crisp crust).

I once purchased a bottle of the 2005 Nicolas Joly Coulée de Serrant at an undisclosed location of the aforementioned seafood giant and after having a glass with a good friend, I took the remainder of the bottle home. It lasted me over the course of 7 days and was stored at room temperature throughout the entire time. I tasted the wine every day at approximately the same time on each day and recorked it immediately after pouring; by the 7th day, the wine was still showing nicely. Additionally, I had another enlightening experience tasting the 2005 Coulèe de Serrant with a group of French winemakers and Erik Johnson, a person I consider as one of my many mentors in the industry and the one who first introduced me to the term Cork Dork. The wide range of opinions that emanated from that group amazed me, some went so far as to say that the wine was oxidized. Ultimately, that moment demonstrated the beautiful, completely subjective nature of wine in general. After all, subjectivity is fundamentally based on one's taste and I always try to stress the subjectivity of tasting notes and emphasize the use of them as a supplemental guide in developing your own palette. Think of it this way, if wine professionals can adamantly disagree over the characteristics of a wine and how one could realistically achieve such results via the winemaking process, this proves subjectivity because it ultimately relies on the winemaker's taste. This is one of the many reasons why everyone can and should enjoy what merely amounts to fermented grape juice.

Joly actually disputes the oxidation claim:

Chenin gets its complexity only when it is fully ripe – deep yellow. And only healthy, sustainable farming can guarantee this without grey rot.

For this reason, all our grapes are picked in four or five passes as each parcel begins to raisin and form botrytis - thereby allowing the mineral flavors of Chenin to achieve their fullest intensity.

Once opened, wines made in this way continue to improve – and are in no way oxydized.
To be sure that the color is not oxydation you can make the test yourself by tasting each day a glass over several days without putting the bottle in the fridge just recork. You will see the wine improving the first days even sometimes over more than a week. If the wine would be oxydized it would be undrinkable.

Snooth.com provides this bit of information on chenin blanc:

Classic descriptors for the flavors of Chenin Blanc include peach, honey, lanolin, marzipan, and quince jelly though the dry style from South Africa, where the wines are known as Steen, often exhibits more tropical fruit notes that recall pineapple and guava.

1997 Giacomo Borgogno & Figli Barolo Classico Riserva

This wine is drinking beautifully on day 3. A stellar vintage makes this effort quite the success as it is deftly aromatic, with scents of flowers, spice, and dark fruits. The back label actually provides you with this little gem about where the grapes come from:

Judicious blend of Nebbiolo grapes from the finest hillside sites in the commune of Barolo (Liste, San Pietro, Cannubi, Cannubi Boscis and Brunate. It has great substance and is intended to age for many years to arrive at the ultimate goal of balance and harmony. Alcohol, acid and tannin fuse together to form a ful-bodied (sic) structure and the bouquet shows great complexity. An elegant Barolo with true presence: an important wine for important occasions.

Upon opening the bottle a couple days ago, it showed brilliantly with a meal of monster-sized steaks; specifically a porterhouse and a bone-in New York strip, accompanied by sauteed broccoli, a medley of sauteed mushrooms and onions, and some onion rolls. I added some 2005 Barolo to the medley and used the rest of the juices to make into a sauce with more wine and butter to serve on top of the steaks and also added some to the broccoli. A nice little trick I learned from years in the industry is to add some of the wine (same varietal, ideally from the region) you plan on drinking to your sauce.

This is so well-balanced and food-friendly it's making me hungry just tasting the wine, a lovely dance between acidity, fruit, and tannins. A steal at $60. Wine Spectator ($) gave it 94 points in 2007 at a 1997 retrospective tasting:

Ruby-garnet. Aromas of strawberry, lilies and plum. Opens up beautifully. Full-bodied, with very soft and round tannins. Viscous and tannic. Still needs time to polish the tannins. Very concentrated.--1997 Italian blind retrospective. Best after 2010. –JS