Grape 70: Trepat

April 15, 2012 in red wine, rose wine | No comments

Wine with a Warning
Trepat came with a warning from the waitress. “It’s really light, are you sure you’re ok with that?” We had just sat down at Boqueria, site of Spanish fried tapas, boisterous conversations from every table and pitchers of repeatedly-delicious sangria at many tables. But Trepat was on the menu, and it seemed just plain weird. Knowing nothing about Trepat, I said “Yes.”

Warning Received
Turns out, I wasn’t ok with it being really light. At first and without any food to accompany it, Trepat tasted too light, like somebody had thrown some H2O into the Barbera bottle. But with the arrival of the fried food, the Trepat managed to play off the different tapas plates we ordered fairly well. Still not sure it would rank on my Top Light Red list but with the right combination of green onions and lighter fare, Trepat could be a pretty understated and surprising pairing. Particularly for summer.

Warning Ignored
Apparently though, Josep Foraster – the producer of this wine – is one of only two producers to make a 100% pure bottle of Trepat. Because Trepat is typically used for cava, red cava. Strange on a number of levels, this Trepat opens its own rabbithole within another rabbithole. So, yes – there is red cava (who knew?). And Trepat is regularly grown for that purpose in the Conca de Barberà DOC in southern Catalonia, the area where the cava plants grow. Would definitely be up for trying a red cava someday (called “Rosado Cava”), and possibly trying out the Trepat once the weather warms up even more. Crazy how much you can learn from ordering one wine… and ignoring the warning.

Taste
Notes jotted down at the time of tasting – Extraordinarily light, smell of cherries and some raspberry. Hardly any finish. Pizza pizza. Barbera’s weaker brother. (And then, a few minutes later) Much better with food – like a chameleon wrapping around the food.

Detail Up!
Josep Foraster 2010 with 13% alc. from Conca de Barberà DOC in Catalonia, Spain

Random Googles:
* 1,100 hectares of Trepat grow in the world. 1,000 of them are in Catalonia. No idea where the others are located. Random guess – France? California?
* Rosado cava is made from four grapes: Garnacha, Monsatrell , Pinot Noir and Trepat
* Trepat is apparently #200 on the list of most commonly grown grapes. Seems remarkably high in my opinion.

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Grape 69: Baga

March 13, 2012 in portugal, red | No comments

Snobby Veneer
Knowing lots about wine and grapes can certainly have its downsides. Snobbery and know-it-all-ism might just be the force of the wine world and, despite all the efforts of next wave wine nerds to disperse that perception, that perception lingers and wine remains in the realm of the experts. Fortunately, as an amateur, I’m not often troubled by that particular deficiency of knowing too much. And in the case of this wine it’s a really good thing.

Baga Who?, Baga What?
Had I known more about Baga, I would have thought that the wine was going to be extremely high in tannins, making it extra puckery and causing the tongue to become glued to the top of the mouth. In my mind, that’s the kind of wine that only becomes drinkable after a dozen years of shelving and in my household, where wines rarely make it a year, it just means the wine tastes “ick.” Fortunately, I knew nothing about Baga and jumped right into the bottle.

Taste of Ignorance
Like a truthful Pinocchio, the wine has almost no nose. Plenty of taste though, with blackberry and black cherries leading the charge and oak backing up the blackberry cavalry like a stout, noticeable infantry. Color is way darker than it tastes, which says a lot with the black fruits on the tongue. Medium to light body with a long smooth landing reminiscent of clear skies at JFK – drink now through Thursday.

Image h/t: http://www.luaazul.com

Detail Up!
Quinta do Encontro 2009 of Bairrada DOC from Beiras, Portugal

Random Googles:
* Bairrada isn´t the only famous DOC wine region in Beiras. Dão, maker of some of Portugal´s finest rustic reds, also hails from Beiras.
* Winemakers usually blend their Baga (presumably, because it’s so highly tannic) with mellower grapes like Merlot or Touriga Nacional.
* Baga became famed as the “Fake Port” before the British got pissed and demanded the pulling up of all the vines. Only in 1979 did Bairrada become part of the system of the DOC, making the wine Bigger and Baga.

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Grape 68: Arneis

February 13, 2012 in white | No comments

Biodiversity Beginnings
There’s something of a biodiversity movement starting, which might just be the most lasting legacy of foodies the world over. Interest in food, where it comes from, its historical and cultural narrative, is increasingly center stage in mainstream media, even as mainstream media has come to encompass far more than it meant even a decade ago and people spend more time discussing their food values, a concept that simply didn’t exist until recently (exception: Margaret Visser). Along with the food focus comes the desire for exploration, a very human trait that’s easy to identify in such code phrases as the Bering Strait, Magellan and Dr. Livingston I presume. Where once “a tomato” was enough to answer the question of “what’s that vegetable?”, it’s no longer such a simple task of identification. Vocabulary for food has proliferated into a thousand different directions and taken on a fractal life of its own.

Vocab Expansion
Free-range, organic, natural, pesticide-free all show up on the increasingly-lengthy fruit and veggie identification cards at supermarkets. Restaurants that want to signal their upscale classiness sport proper names and link their products to specific geographic sources (Bayley Hazen Blue Cheese from Greensboro, Vermont anyone?), and adjectives – actual adjectives! – now appear before the names of fruits and vegetables. Cherry tomato, beefsteak, cherokee purple, green zebra, black pear, oxacan jewel, purple russian and dozens of others, and that’s just for the tomato.

Smart Biologist Wilson
Really, it seems like a tiny drop in the struggle to preserve biodiversity as economic forces and globalization push to open new markets, exploit new resources and convert the global population into a very interlocked consumer/producer system. E.O. Wilson, a biologist who I had never heard of before last week, has all kinds of great quotes about the importance of biodiversity but the one that stuck with me is this:

The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.

Problem with Eons
Not sure exactly how you tackle that problem in one bite but I think he’s right that it’s not a problem that should be talked about in terms of generations, centuries or even tens of thousands of years. Millions of years is the right time frame to be thinking about the problem. And a group of foodies advocating greater choices in their diets won’t be the answer to solving a problem of that magnitude. But the values they advocate can be part of the solution or, probably better said, those values can be part of the turn away from the cause of the problem. More diversity of plants and more acknowledgement of and discussion about the food we eat will hopefully turn more people to find names like Margaret Visser and E.O. Wilson. Worked at least with one blogger.

Detail Up!
2009 Damilano Langhe from Piedmont, Italy

Taste
Full body bit of oil smell, little acidity, round, medium body, peach.

Generally though, Arneis is known for its pear and apricot flavors. Two other Arneis bottles are described here by noted oenologist Fringe Wine.

Random Googles:
* Arneis nearly went extinct in the 1970s after several hundred years of growing in Italy’s northwest Piedmont region, and only two producers (Vietti and Bruno Giacosa) still made anything with Arneis during that decade. Since then, it’s come back with limited productions in Australia, California and New Zealand. Really though, Piedmont in Italy is where it’s from and where it’s principally grown.
* Arneis means “little rascal” in Piemontese, an actual language from Italy’s Northwest. Why? Well, it’s really hard to grow apparently.
* Traditionally, Arneis was called “Barolo Bianco” (white barolo) since it was blended with red Nebbiolo grapes into that pricery Barolo wine. Once 100% Nebbiolo grapes became the norm, Arneis lost much of its popularity, which contributed to its near-extinction.

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Grape 67: Gamay

January 25, 2012 in red wine | No comments

Wine Importing Fantasies
Amateurs might fantasize about opening their own importing company, one where they enjoy a life of tasting amazing wines (for free!), traveling to all the best vineyards and bringing exciting new products to the market that eagerly awaits the next big thing in the wine world.

Few Importer Fanboys
Sadly, I get the sense that the day-to-day of wine importing is far from the fantasy. Not knowing any industry insiders, this is all speculation but have a look at the “List of Wine Personalities.” Zero wine importers listed for the US, and only one wine importer listed anywhere (Englishman Pat Simon, RIP). Fame and fortune? Maybe fortune, not fame.

Importing the Right Way
And yet, wine importers deserve respect and sometimes even receive it. Last year, the wine importer Joe Dressner (of Louis/Dressner) passed away and the outpouring of grief came from some of my favorite names in the wine industry: see here and here (and how he rocked my world with Vouvray). He was apparently a pretty atypical guy who cared enormously about the quality of his wines and cared a great deal about putting his name on wines, which is really what every importer should be striving for.

Stentor Lynch
Typically though, importers have their name in tiny font on the back label, underneath anything else that people will actually read. Surgeon general warning, alcohol content, long and boring description of the wine – oh, there’s the importer, right after all that. But then there’s Kermit Lynch. He’s an importer who’s not afraid to throw his name front and center on the FRONT of the bottle and announce with stentorian charm that “This bottle is approved by Kermit Lynch.” Kermit Lynch is a name worth paying attention to, not just because bloggers loved Kermit, but because he shows surprising, sometimes shocking wines.

Kermit Lynch Approved this Wine
Beaujolais is the wine of the day, and I’m convinced it will take years before I’ve mastered the art of spelling it correctly. Beaujolais is also a wine that Kermit approves, at least the kind of Beaujolais wine made by Domaine Dupeuble Pere et Files (Dupeuble Wine Estate, Father and Sons).

Taste
Light body, almost no tannins to annoy, round cherry taste, fun and fruity without being too sweet, slightly spicy on the end.

Detail Up!
2009 Beaujolais Domaine Dupeuble Pere et Fils from Beaujolais, France

Random Googles:
* Gamay’s full name is “Gamay Noir a Jus Blanc,” which means “Black Gamay with White Juice.” Surprising to no one, the grape is black and the juice it produces is white.
* Sparkling Gamay exists and is just as polarizing as the regular Gamay (h/t Beaujolais Nouveau hatred).
* Dukes are allowed to just flat-out ban grapes for being “a very bad and disloyal plant.” Imagine what they would do to disloyal duchesses.

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Grape 66: Perricone

January 16, 2012 in Uncategorized | No comments

Wino Confession Time
Ordering wine at a restaurant is awful. Just awful. And the thicker the book, the more awful the decision. Hundreds of choices, maybe thousands, and you’re the one who’s going to choose what people are drinking for the meal. Spicy shrimp for the lady, pear salad for the other lady, and t-bone steak for the gentleman. Now, what wine will we be having tonight?

Ambient Wine
Plus, in all likelihood you’re going to have a 10 second conversation with the waiter about the wine, maybe the waiter has tried them, maybe they just want to sell you something and move on. And honestly, we all want to move on. We’re not dwelling on the wine. We want the wine to be there like we want ambient music, in the background, maybe triggering a memory, but not overpowering the real business of the night – talking over each other.

Yet another reason that couples should date
But, confession time – it’s amazing when you’re at a restaurant with your loved one and you can actually read the wine menu. When you have time to parse through it like summer fiction, unhurried and enjoying every word. You can talk about certain wines you know (possibly 1 out of 100), get excited when there’s a new grape or a new region, or just something funky on the menu, and actually enjoy the process of looking through the wine list without the pressure of executive decision-making ticking off the seconds in your head. It’s letting the inner geek out for a run in the park and knowing that however long it takes, it’s fine. You’ve got all the time in the world.

Strange Grape
Such was the date night on a recent frigid weekend when Chica and I went to Uvarara for the first time. Uvarara (translated “strange grape?”) sits out in the car-friendly part of Queens, which means the next time we’re going is when we next rent a vehicle. They’re all about strange, Italian grapes and had all kinds of regional grapes on their short but fascinating wine list.

Bottle Doubles
Perricone is the grape we chose and when the owner brought over the bottle for inspection, it became immediately clear that we both recognized the label. Not one week before we had bought a wine by that same producer because it was a new grape and was under $10 (an exciting, rare fine) and we had the bottle sitting at home, still untouched. Now this thing NEVER happens to us. We don’t have a ton of wine and we usually know what we have so surprises at restaurants don’t occur at the moment the bottle shows up at the table.

Feeling Old
But in that instant, I knew the quizzical look on Chica’s face, knew what it meant and thought the same thing. It felt old. Like octogenarian, front porch, married people old. Like how old is supposed to feel when you know someone for an extremely long time and have all kinds of shared experiences from living together for so many decades. So, Perricone became the old people, long memory wine even before the first sip.

Taste:
And the first sip lived up to the hype, I’m happy to report. Dusty, medium body, blackberry, plum, non-spicy, long non-fruity finish with more dust on the end. Nothing offensive to it – mild, smooth, subtle wine, little violet too. Great value for $9 retail.

Detail Up!
Colle del Mandorlo 2010 Perricone by Feudo Montoni from Sicily, Italy

Random Googles:
* Perricone might be related to Barbera (or even the same thing – DNA test pending), another light-medium Italian grape that crafted really positive family memories with Sister Consueldo in the past. In a parking lot.
* Perricone is really bitter to eat as a grape and not that popular for growing, even on Sicily where it’s one of the Top 11 indigenous red grapes. Not sure how it shows up in NYC for sub-$10 but buy it if you see it.
* There’s a Dr. Perricone (no relation to the grape) who has been hyping the benefits of certain foods for several decades. Wine’s on his list in the pro-heart category and his best interview is this Wine Library interview from a couple years back.

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