Vino View

Dry Riesling Wines

Riesling has an unfortunate reputation in the United States for being a sweet dessert wine. Riesling is in fact an incredibly versatile grape variety that is used to produce the full spectrum of wines from dry and semi-sweet to sparkling and dessert. It is the high acidity, perfumed nature and terroir-expressive quality of the grape that results in some of the most exciting, complex and affordable wines in the market today.

Cracks have begun to emerge in this dominant perception with the growing popularity of food-friendly dry Riesling wines.  Dry Riesling most often carries the designation, "Trocken," which has between 4 and 9 grams residual sugar per liter versus the 50 to 80 grams per liter you can find in late harvest Riesling often served as dessert wines. Trocken wines are not be as bone dry as expected by American consumers in a dry white wine, but the high acidity results in well-balance characteristics that definitely fall on the dry end of the spectrum. 

While the flavor profile of the late harvest Riesling often includes peach, apricot, melon and nectarine, Trocken wines are citrus with lime, lemon, orange, apple and minerals.

I recently had an opportunity to sample two dry Riesling wines that exemplify the balance and complexity that makes Trocken wines so attractive:

• Weingut Affentaler, Baden, Germany ($14.99) - this 2006 Trocken has a distinct nose including lemon, peaches and hints of lime, apple, honey, some minerality in the mouth, with a nice medium length finish.
• Weingut Lucashof, Pfalz, Germany ($18.00) - another 2006 Trocken that had strong citrus nose and taste with grapefruit, lime and kiwi, stronger acidity and a floral finish that lingered. 

If you're new to Riesling, give it a try and explore the full range of wines Riesling provides. Serve the Trocken wines chilled, but not too cold. And match with spicy food, especially Thai and BBQ.   

The Perfect Summer Wine

Great rosé wines are crisp, refreshing, bone dry and food friendly - perfect summer wines. Unfortunately, rosé wines also suffer from the baggage of the sweet, mass-market blush that was popularized in the 1970s (e.g., White Zinfandel). In recent years, however, perception is turning thanks to the growing popularity of dry rosé wines from southern France.

The rosé revolution has new allies in other parts of the world who are producing wines that are as good, if not better, than the rosé wines you expect from places like southern Rhône. For example, Green Point Winery in Victoria, Australia, has produced a gem that embodies all the qualities that make rosé wines so great and is a must-try this summer. Their 2007 Pinot Noir rosé ($15) is a beautiful rich pink color that results from a winemaking process that involves letting the grape juice soak for one night with the skins, then pressing the juice off the skins for transfer into stainless steel tanks and French barriques for fermentation. The process brings rich color, but also adds texture. The Green Point rosé has a floral nose with ripe red berries and herbs. Crisp and dry, the wine is well balanced with lush cherry, strawberry and currants all brought together with quenching tartness. This is anytime wine - try it with spicy seafood BBQ. 

San Antonio's Maddalena Sauvignon Blanc & Cabernet Sauvignon

The only Los Angeles winery still in operation today, San Antonio, has just released a couple gems that are high-value, high-quality, and worth snatching up: Maddalena Sauvignon Blanc 2006 ($11.95) and Maddalena Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 ($13.95).

San Antonio's Riboli family winemakers have a long history of producing quality wines - actually, a history that reaches back to 1917 when Santo Cambianica moved from Italy to Los Angeles and founded the winery. In 1938, the winery was entrusted to Santo's nephew, Stefano Riboli, and four generations later the Riboli family is still at the helm.

From Maddalena's vineyards, San Antonio's Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon benefit from warm, dry days and cool nights typical of Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara Counties.

Their new Savignon Blanc has the expected citrus and grassy nose, but lacks grapefruit in the mouth. Instead, accents of mineral, apple and melon infuse the wine providing structure and balanced acidity perfect with seafood and summer salads.

The Cabernet Savignon packs a punch with ripe raspberry and cherry flavors - thanks to the full maturation of the grapes resulting from the long, warm days in the region - combining nicely with pepper and some earthiness, and very soft tannins. Barrel aging gives the wine nice caramel and vanilla notes, making for a perfect partner to grilled meats and tomato-based stews. At $13.95, this wine is a steal! 

Portugal's Douro Valley Wines

When people think of Portugal and wine, they think port. But, the primary port-producing region, Douro, is now bursting onto the winemaking scene with a wide range of exciting new reds. It's also on the leading edge of wine tourism with boutique hotels and tasting rooms popping up along the Douro River.

According to Food & Wine's Ray Isle, Douro's wine renaissance is due to a variety of factors - an influx of investment and talent pouring into the region, a 250 year winemaking history (Douro is the oldest officially demarcated wine region in the world), and the recent switch in Portuguese wine laws which until the mid-1980s forbade bottling in the Douro region (read more from Ray Isle on Douro wines). These factors are contributing to the production of a slue of new medium and full-bodied, well-structured red wines, especially in the under $20 range, which are calling attention to the region.

Two standout wines representative of the trend include Lavradores de Feitoria's Vinho Tinto (2005) and DOMINI's Douro DOC (2003). Both are blends made from the dominant varietals used for port production - Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, and Tinta Roriz.

Lavradores de Feitoria was founded in 1999 by 15 Douro-based winemakers who moved recently from selling their grapes to other producers outside the region, but are now focused on wines that capture the characteristics that make Douro wines so compelling. Their 2005 Vinho Tinto ($15) is a great example, medium-bodied with deep ruby red color, moderate tannins and big cherry fruit, making a fantastic partner for roast pork and chicken.

Also founded in 1999, DOMINI is a joint venture between Domingos Soares Franco of Jose Maria da Fonseca and Cristiano van Zeller, a leading port producer. DOMINI's 2003 Douro DOC ($18) is intense, full-bodied with strong blackberry, plum and vanilla set off by soft and velvety tannins, pairing up great with grilled meats.

In this price range, Douro wines deliver big value with quality characteristics that make the recent attention to the region well-deserved.

Chilean Wine Exports on the Rise, and for Good Reason

Wines of Chile, the major trade association for Chilean wine producers, has recently reported that global wine exports from Chile have increased 52% in volume and 37% in value in 2007.

What's triggering the increased demand?

It looks like a perfect storm of quality, price and perception. Chile has long had a reputation for red wines that offer a good bang for the buck. But the past two decades of investment, technology and expertise focused on winemaking in the region have introduced a new dimension to Chile's reputation, one focused on high-quaility wines which are as interesting and complex as they are affordable. The trend is demanding attention and generating buzz.

Some of the wines leading the charge include Carmenere and Cabernet Savignon from regions such as Aconcagua, Maipo and Colchagua, which all span the coast along The Andes Mountain Range. These wines embody the fruit-forward and spicy characteristics you'd expect from Chilean reds, but with interesting structure and well-defined tannins. Below, I have listed a few representative examples, any of which would make a great addition to this year's Thanksgiving dinner.

• Carmenere (a grape imported from Bordeaux in the 19th century) is Chile's signature grape, in the same way Malbec is for Argentina. Carmenere has a number of distinct characteristics such as tobacco and pepper notes, especially in wines produced in Aconcagua, which is a region that benefits from long, dry summers. A great example is the 2004 In Situ Carmenere ($15). This purple red wine provides rich cherry aromas, an extremely powerful first sip, long finish with notes of dark berries, earthiness and is great to pair with red meats and cheeses.
• Down the coast from Aconcagua and just past Chile's capital Santiago is the Maipo Valley which is home to the Carmen winery, which Ray Isle from Food & Wine recently noted was the first Chilean producer to identify Carmenere in its vineyards. Carmen's 2004 Carmenere Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve ($17) provides an exciting aromatic profile with blueberries, chocolate and mint. This well balanced full-bodied wine has additional density and structure from dry tannins, which rounds out this blend making for a very solid young wine.
• Continuing still further south past Santiago and the Maipo Valley is the Colchagua wine subregion and Casa Lapostolle, a winery established by the Marnier-Lapostolle family of France in the mid-1990s. Casa Lapostolle's winery is located in Colchagua's Apalta microclimate where they have found ideal conditions for growing Cabernet Sauvignon - thick sandy soil and controlled irrigation, with an orientation that limits the number of hours of direct sunlight. Their 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon ($14) is a case in point. This wine is a concentrated red with aromas of cherries and spices, hints of toast and sweet ripe tannins which produce a very nice finish.
• Another Colchagua wine to look for is Estampa's 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere and Cab Franc Reserve ($12). Estampa has actually based their winemaking philosophy on blends and don't make any single varietal wines. This particular blend results in a complex wine with herbaceous notes, luscious red fruits and dark chocolate and spicy accents, and well developed tannins that provide an intense long finish.

Two Spanish Whites for the Summer

I was lucky enough to be the guest of Andre Tamers of De Maison Selections last month on a whirlwind tour of most of the major wine regions of Northern Spain. I laughed, learned, ate, drank and enjoyed my way from Rioja to Rias Baixas. Please tune in over the next weeks for my notes and memories of a wonderful and satisfying experience. In the meantime, her are a couple of whites for the summer for you perusal:

Garciarevalo 2005 Casamaro Rueda What do you feel makes the perfect summer wine? We might say that here in Minnesota that the summer can be hot and sticky, so we like our summer wines to be cold, bright and fresh. The white wines from the Rueda region in Castilla y Lyòn, Spain are par for the Minnesota summer course. Made from the grapes of Verdejo (ver-day-ho) with a small bit of Viura (like-it-looks), this Rueda Blanco is irreverently named Casamaro and the young, skilled hands at Garciarevalo make it. The vineyards at Garciarevalo are very, very sandy which is unique within the Rueda region. This gives the vines great drainage and the soil a bigger contrast between day and night temperatures resulting in a wine with fresh acidity and a dazzling purity of fruit. “Believing that the key to a good wine is in the raw materials, Garciarevalo strives to make a wine that is as true to the fruit as possible. The utmost care and latest technologies are used to extract a juice that reflects the hard work and special attention given in the fields. This juice is then put through temperature controlled fermentation to create a wine of the highest quality.” This wine is so darn tasty that I won’t even suggest a food pairing. It is a wine for happy times and friendly company .

Parés Baltà 2005 Blanc de Pacs Penedes Bear with me on this path of wine information. The French, they have their Champagnes and they do Champagne best. In fact, the only country that I know of that tries to ride on the success of Champagne by theft of identity is America. The wines from America, at the cheapest levels, still call themselves American Champagne, for what it’s worth. The Italians, they do Prosecco and Franciacorta, the Germans have their Sekt and the Spanish they have their Cava, but these are meant to be what they are; great sparkling wines with unique identities. Spain’s Cava is a wonderfully charming wine that can occasionally be a very impressive and serious wine. Most Cava is composed of the grapes Xarel-lo, Parellada and Macabeo and, just like many sparkling wines throughout the world, when taking the base wine and making a still wine from it you can have some very cool results. This is the case with Blanc de Pacs from Parés Baltà. This blend is made of 22% Macabeu, 31% Xarel-lo and 47% Parellada. The Spanish say that the Xarel-lo grape provides the body, the Macabeu the fruit and the Parellada the delicate freshness of its flower notes. This wine is an organic selection and is actually dedicated to the sheep that nibble on the ground cover in the vineyards and contribute to the nutrient wealth of the soil.

Lake Sonoma Winery (Alexander Valley) Cabernet Sauvignon 2002

Stumbled across this beauty over the weekend from Lake Sonoma Winery. A very nice Cabernet Sauvignon with a deep red color, bright, fruit-forward cherry and plum flavors, with a warm caramel and black currant nose. It also has interesting tartness with a oaky and peppery finish. The color and tartness may be due to the extremely mild and long growing season I've heard about 2002, in particular Alexander Valley and Russian River. Apparently the fruit was able to hang longer on the vine developing a more intense ripe berries with deep colors.

A few interesting notes from the wine maker: "The grapes for this wine were crushed and fermented warm, pumping juice from the tank bottom over the cap of floating grape skins on a regular basis.  The wine was pressed off the skins at dryness and allowed to settle in a stainless steel tank.  The clear wine was then racked to 60 gallon French and American oak barrels to finish malolactic fermentation.  The wine was barrel aged a total of 28 months." 

Overall, a very enjoyable purchase at $25.00 (USD). I'll look forward to sampling other wines from this vintage in the region. I've heard it's a knock out for Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc too.