Prugnolo divino

The 2004 Fattoria del Cerro Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is a real charmer, with its tart cherry and raspberry palate, mineral nose and green notes of asparagus and green beans. This is the ultimate enoteca sipping wine, but it's tannic concentration and bright acidity could slay the tomato in a food pairing. There is a garlicky finish and a graphite minerality to this wine which delights.

Zesty Saumur-Champigny

Thierry Germain, Bordelais by birth, began producing Saumur wines in 1991. Pushing the envelope of Cabernet Franc production in the Loire, the stainless steel fermented, biodynamic "Domaine de Roches Neuves" Saumur-Champigny 2006 is a racy, multilayered wine. The nose is wet earth, and while the mouthfeel might call a Beujolais cru to mind, the emphasis in this wine is on the herbaceous rather than fruit, with its notes of sage, rosemary and anise, and an almost resinous quality. The finish is full of sour cherries and brightly tannic, with a winning acidity that lingers on the palate. There's a charred meat quality to this wine which lends it richness, a certain raspberry vibrancy, and an almost mentholated quality in the finish which provides an extra note of complexity.

Break-up Wines

Last night I cracked the third Montes Cabernet I bought at Sam's new location in the South Loop. This 2005 is a blend of Cabernet and Carmenere, 70/30 percent. Unlike the 2005 hundred percent Cabernet, this blend is rich in forest fruits, with an aftertaste of Vick's Cherry Coughdrops. There are green notes too. This is an easy-drinking fruit-forward wine, with the Carmenere element adding a gamay-like fruit.

This afternoon, C. and I enjoyed the 2006 Louis Jadot Macon-Villages Chardonnay. There's citrus on the nose, and a restrained lime and tangerine bouquet with a custard mouthfeel right through the finish. Without oak influence, this could pass for an unoaked New Zealand Chard, except for the subtlety of the fruit, and the bone dry finish.

Having caught the Montes bug again, I decided to compare the Alpha Montes 2005 Cab against the 2006 Classic Series I enjoyed last night. The 2005 Alpha certainly has more assertive tannins than the 2006 Classic Series, with opposing fruit acidity of black raspberries and plums. One detects cocoa, nutmeg and oak char in this wine, even a slight flavor of barbeque with a vinegar-rich sauce. The vegetal quality in this Cab is lemongrass and artichoke, a mix of astringent green anisette and rich, buttery mouthfeel. While the more fruit-forward 2006 is all green beans and milk chocolate, the 2005 is avocado and dark chocolate. While the 2006 presents a palate of lingonberry syrup, the 2005 is sour cherry and a a port-stewed bartlett pear studded with cloves. While the Alpha's aggresive fruit is definitely New World the finish is actually more reminscent of a St. Estephe.

Chilean Values

I've long held the Montes winery in high esteem, and their Cabernet Sauvignon Classic Series, Colchagua Valley, 2006, the most economical Cabernet they offer,still has an evocative caramelized fruit nose and a palate of plums, prunes and cinnamon-laced chocolate. The tannins are well integrated, there's a hint of oak aging and a long and satisfying finish. Wines like this lay the market forces behind cabernet distribution bare. Take the word "Chile" off the label, and this fruit-forward wine, with its bright, sensual mouthfeel, would command far higher prices. Certainly it is a New World styled wine, but a toasty, balanced example of New World winemaking. I can see pairing this with any rich white meat, such as pork or veal, with its evocative wild mushroom quality, and I can even see it paired with a rare steak with minimal saucing. Like South Africa or Hungary, Chile is a wine-making region still recovering from the mediocrity-fueling conditions of despotism, but this wine, as much as the first Casa Lapostolle Cabernet I tried almost ten years ago, is both a stand-alone wine and a promise of wonderful things to come.

Crisp White Wines

Spending an extended two day thanksgiving with C., it's been forty eight hours of drinking the light, crisp white wines he prefers, and feverish note-taking for me, as well as the general feverishness that results from overconsumption of light, crisp white wines.

Lunch yesterday included a few glasses of the bone-dry, refeshingly tart Oxford Landing Sauvignon Blanc 2006 from Southern Australia. Oxford Landing is a big producer that usually gets it right, and this sauvignon was no exception, with a clean finish, citrus notes and a stinging, green quality that they rightfully describe on their website as bringing to mind nettle leaves.

After lunch, we stuck with the South Pacific and finished off a bottle of Whitehaven Sauvignon Blance from Marlborough, NZ he had in the fridge while I started chopping onions for the stuffing. With its grassy, slate nose, and bouquet of anjou pear, clementines and candied ginger, and pleasant mouthfeel, this was a more sophisticated antipodal sibling to the Oxford Landing.

As chopping continued, we opend the Domiliano, Langhe Arneis, Cantine di La Morra I'd bought to accompany our Thanksgiving dinner preparations. This was a delightful sipping wine, yellow straw in color, with a champagne-like-crispness and flavors of fresh grated ginger, green apples and fresh lemons that finished as cleanly as the first wine of the day, but with richer mouthfeel.

Thanksgiving festivities began anew this afternoon, with toasting glasses of Gruet Blancs des Noirs to start off a day of cooking and feasting on the right note. Gruet's sparklers, from the New Mexican town of Truth or Consequence, and the family behind Gruet et fils, constitute perhaps the dirtiest industry secret out there. With its "aggresive mousse (in the words of the winemaker), toasty mouthfeel and assertive fruit and acid, this sparkler would dazzle at twice the price. Notes of cloves, asian pear and ripe peaches only add to the sophisticated layering of depth and flavor in this wine.

Then it was time for something a little more fruit driven and off dry, the always reliable Nino Franco Prosecco. While the nose was mineral overlayed with baking spices, the palate brought to mind clove and molasses cookies, chopped hazelnuts and candied lemons.

We followed this up with Huber's "Hugo" Gruner Veltliner 2006, a simple crisp effort with a locker-room aroma, and a palate of lime, coconut, allspice and dill. Far more interesting was the Can Feixes Penedès Blanc Selecció, a blend of Parellada, Macabeo and Chardonnay, which displayed a focused citric quality, a palate of Anjou pear and wildflower honey, as well as a slight mousse.

Wine authorities often suggest an off-dry white with turkey and its traditional accompaniments, and the L'Ecole No. 41 Semillon 2006 came out during the meal. Like the Can Feixes, this wine tasted of nuts and spices, but with a lanolin creaminess, and bouquet of kiwi, papaya and honeysuckle. My father used to make a condiment for strawberries with sour cream and a swirl of brown sugar, and this wine reminded me of that, but with a dice of walnuts.

After dinner, the Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, NZ 2007 dazzled, washing away the rich flavors of gravy, tater tot casserole and semillon with it's sweet basil nose and bouquet of lime, anise, eucalyptus and ginger. At this point, a sturdier wine drinker might have continued, but it was time for lemonade and soda water for me, and a late supper of veggie burgers and a single glass of Gruner much later in the day.

The Sori Paitin Serra Boella Barbera d'Alba 2006 is a minx of a wine. Its nose is stewed fruit, but the palate is green and sweet, with strawberries, blueberries and sour cherry. There is citrus, notably grapefruit, in the acid notes of this wine. The aftertaste is both clean like haricots verts and savory like bacon. Only the tannins give away the fact that this Piedmont Red is not a brisk, vivacious white wine. With a level of acidity almost effervescent in its intensity, and a complicated bouquet indebted as much to the berry patch as the vegetable garden, this lively Barbera has a quirky personality and a balance between fruit and grip that delights.

There are two categories of wine consumers, those who can afford it and those who can't, and those of us who earn all or part of our incomes selling wines we can't afford to people who actually can have to find wines that satisfy our palates sufficiently enough away from work, without bankrupting us simultaneously. Living in Edgewater, my supermarket wine is Aquinas Cabernet Sauvignon. The current vintage is 2004. Like a guileless child star, this wine is a triumph of vibrancy over depth. The bouquet is all cassis, licorice, thyme and green herbs, but this inky wine has balance. Dark in color and yet light in body, this wine can harmonize with red sauces, and drink easy on its own. In certain ways this is cotton candy-Cabernet, all fruit and wilingness, and little finish, but a Cabernet with friendly fruit, a vegetal quality and balanced tannins is not the easiest thing to find under ten dollars.

I'd much rather savor the juvenile delinquecy of a young Aquinas or Gallo of Sonoma than pay top dollar for a Cabernet like Silver Oak. Taking a stand against Silver Oak on the basis of it being blowzy or over-oaked is a cliche, but opening a bottle of muted, cocoa muddy boots-tasting Alexader Valley Cabernet 2003 was a terrible dissapointment. It drank like a merlot, with a dusty, muted fruit quality. Nothing against merlot, or a hesitancy in the fruit; Chateau Petrus is merlot-based, after all, and an older vintage would display reticent fruit, but that is not the same as absent fruit, and California cabernet should offer a power and vibrancy which this bottle failed to display.

The virtues of certain wines are not immediately available to the transitional palate. I took to La Mission Haut-Brion 2002 like an acolyte on first sniff, but a spätlese-styled Zind-Humbrecht Pinot Gris 2003 left me wanting some lemon-water to wash away the taste of a reckless tango between fructose-sweetness and overly assertive acid. Some wines just don't grab you, regardless of price, and I'm consistently far less dissapointed by a serviceable wine made with some intention, than a highly -plotted name-wine without moxie.

Bubbles or not

K. and I opened a bottle of Mumm Cordon Rouge NV tonight. In white wines I value a certain acidity and freshness, and there is nothing more refreshing than champagne. Mumm Cordon Rouge manages a a delicate balance between body and brightness, with a subtle layer of apricots and white peach atop the more assertive citrus flavor. This is a wonderful aperitif champagne, even if the menu only encompasses Chessmen cookies. The bottle was soon gone.

The bright, acidic wines that produce the best sparkling wines can be elegant without bubbles, and the Raventos i Blanc "Silencis" 100% Xarel-lo 2005 is a prime example. While Champagne wouldn't think of bottling a still wine from the base wine they blend, the Spanish irreverence prevails in this wine, from a native Penedes grape usually destined to round out Cava. Xarel-lo has a not-quite-ripe melon ripeness best exemplified by the pale green honeydew, and this wine, from a member of the Codorniu family, is posseesed of this same subtle melon richness, along with green apple, green herbs such as dill and scallions and a certain sour cream tang. The nose is all minerals and greens, but the palate is round for such a pale, bright wine, with a hint of mint. When we opened this wine last night, CP insisted I throw out his whiskey, and pour him a glass of Xarel-lo. With all due respect to Jim Beam, any white with the brightness and personality to seduce the palate after Bourbon is far more than a base wine, but a charmer in its own right.

Italy Again

I stuck out my leg in the air at Anteprima tonight, and pulled up the leg of my jeans to point out Piedmont on the northwest of my motorcycle boots to C. We had just ordered a bottle of Domilano Arneis 2006 from Langhe, and we were disputing the location of Piedmont on the big boot. With all the beguiling piemontese reds out there, it is easy to forget that the Piedmont produces quality whites. The bracing acidity of the Arneis made a great start to the meal, and cut through the richness of the deep-fried Sicilian olives without losing its lychee nose and palate notes of blood orange, lime and ginger, and a wet minerality that tasted of river rocks.

A. picked the second wine, a Vinosia Greco di Tufo 2006 from Campania. I detected a slight fizz to the wine and its bright acidity carried us through the main course of tuscan style steak with arugula, displaying a similar palate to the Arneis, but composed of key limes rather than ordinary limes and galangal rather than ginger, as well as a certain vanilla creaminess.

Returning home, I chose to open the Azienda Agricola Monte Del Fra Corvina 2004 from Lake Garda I'd picked up earlier. Before I'd ever traveled in Italy, an Amarone was my first Italian red, and I thus have had a long affinity for wines made with the corvina grape, dried or not. With it's rich color and mouthfeel and medium body, this particular corvina is a balanced, fruit-forward charmer, with notes of sour cherry, black raspberry and bitter greens. The tannins suggest some wood treatment, but the evocative fruit carries this wine.

In Love with Loire Cabernet Franc

Having sampled my second bottle of Loire Valley Cabernet Franc, I think it's love at first sip. Frédéric Mabilieau is producing a subtle, nuanced St. Nicolas de Bourgueil with his Les Rouilleres bottling. With a light body, slight tannins and a mysteriously long finish, this cabernet franc recalls a "torta della nonna" with it's spice notes and slight nuttiness, which is reminiscent of almond flour on the palate. There are suggestions of mint and sage, but this is all fruit, not bubblegum fruit, but stewed fruit, perhaps a compote of the fruits of the woods. A bouquet of geranium gradually emerges as you make your way through a glass of this understated wine. If a blockbuster Napa Cabernet like Grace Family Vineyards is like Catherine Deneuve, this wine is like Rachel Griffiths. A different animal.

Demure Chinon

The 2004 Domaine Razon Chinon "Cuvée Alexandre" is a demure and subtle Cabernet Franc. Coming from the siliceous soil of Chinon, the palate nonetheless carries a whiff of slate, along with raspberries, cassis and hen of the wood mushrooms. With a mouthfeel reminiscent of Gamay, and a slight but determinative tannic structure, this is an engaging, slender wine which one can imagine enjoying at the Bistrot table. With notes of baking spices, most especially nutmeg, and a nose of candied violets and lilac, this is a wine one can see enjoying with a rich chicken dish, or even a white-meat game like quail. Not destined to please the American palate, this is all the same a delightful wine, which piques my interest in making further incursions into the world of Touraine reds.

Last night's 2005 Infinitus Viura/Chardonnay from Tierra de Castilla was perhaps a less pleasing choice, but its pairing of convenience with a selection of raw and deep-fried maki was an ill-considered match, and it certainly showed better before being paired with the sushi CP and I ordered for dinner. After a selection of rolls, its palate was reminescent of nothing so much as ice water with lemon, but on its own it had a subtle bouquet of lemon curd, a slight oxidized quality I associate with Viura, and a light but refeshing acidity which was subsequentky overpowered by the fish and soy sauce. In an ideal world, we would have enjoyed a fragrant off dry wine with our dinner, but such is the curse of the limited cellar.

Murphy's Law

Owen Roe is known for producing robust Oregon pinots, but the grape composition of winemaker David O'Reilly's "Murphy's Law" 2005, Columbia Valley Red Blend presents a different level of robustness. The counterman at "In Fine Spirits" told me Mr. O'Reilly delights in combining odd combinations of grapes for this line of wines, but the possible cepage of this wine is terribly elusive. The nose is hot and packed with black raspberry, while the palate presents strawberry, lilac and black plums, with a touch of bramble. While the tannins are eclipsed by the alchohol content, it is rustic, untamed and dries out the mouth. My best guess was that this wine was an Oregon-styled SGM, the typically Australian combination of Syrah, Grenache and Monastrell (Mourvedre) which tends to be a more fruit forward version of the Rhone wines that might utilize these same grapes.

As it turns out, I was two thirds right, Blaufrankisch rather than Mourvedre rounds out this trio. The Hungarian wine Egri Bikavér(Bull's Blood) is the only wine I know of that combines Syrah and Blaufrankisch, and the grenache, which softens the tannins and adds a dose of fruit on top of the more tannic Syrah and Blaufrankisch, is clearly an addition of Mr O'Reilly's own devising, even though the Syrah/Grenache combination is also classic.

I think it might be good with deep dish pizza. On its own, it's a sweating, untamed stallion, with a certain balance and also a certain imbalance, at least to my palate. The spiciness of the Blaufrankisch and Syrah are charming, but in an ideal world, I might have chosen to soften the wine with a little viognier, not that O'Reilly's asking.