John Szabo, MS

February 4th brings a ray of sunshine to Ontario, in the form of the sun-drenched wines of California and Greece. Yet despite the perceived similarity in climate, the wines of these two places are worlds apart for reasons explored below in my mini Greek Wine Symposium. Two distinct style streams of California wines are neatly exposed in this thematic, with a thick line drawn in the sand between the just ripe and overripe styles, which I’ll examine briefly here. For those looking for a quick fix, jump straight to the top ten smart buys.

A Greek Symposium

A symposium in ancient Athens was quite unlike the modern version we’re used to. Contrast the image of an auditorium, a panel of speakers with their bottled water and a quiet audience with pen and notebook in hand, with that of the sumptuous interior of a wealthy Athenian’s villa, gentlemen lounging in togas vigorously discussing matters of importance, a lavish banquet feast spread before them, and a large amphora of wine generously ladled into chalices with regularity until the moon set. Symposium derives from the Greek verb “to drink together”; these were drinking parties, during which men of society would discuss important matters of philosophy, politics and war. One wonders if international politics and economics wouldn’t be just a little better off today if our forums, summits and symposiums were conducted in the ancient Greek style (but with far more women involved).

The ancient Greeks were nothing if not wine connoisseurs. The world’s first appellations of origin for wine evolved within its borders, and trade in wine throughout the Aegean and Mediterranean was big business. Yet despite nearly 7000 years of wine history, Greece today is as young and developing as any new world country in the modern business of fine wine. The image of rustic, pine-scented wine served in rough-hewn copper pitchers in a seaside taverna still lingers, and bottled wine is a relative novelty. But for wine lovers seeking to broaden their range of familiar flavours and lengthen their lists of food-friendly, regional specialties, Greece is well worth some investigatory drinking.

February 4th sees Greece in the spotlight at Vintages for the first time, with a well-chosen selection of some of the country’s strongest export-ready grapes and regions. I will be charged with a bias towards Greek wines, having done considerable trade education on the subject on behalf of the Greek government (I’ve even been part of a film on Greek wines), so of course it’s true. I’m always drawn to distinctive wines with unique flavour profiles, and am happy to share these discoveries. I was intrigued by Greek wines from the very first moment I tasted a glass of Santorini less than a decade ago, captivated by the fascinating mix ancient and modern, distinctiveness, and sheer deliciousness. Out of 300 or so indigenous grapes, this release highlights four of the most established. Here’s the order in which I suggest you serve wines at your own symposium:

1. 2010 TSELEPOS MOSCHOFILERO MANTINIA PDO $16.95  Moschofilero is the grape, a pinkish-skinned, fragrant, floral variety vaguely reminiscent of Muscat on the nose. Mantinia is the region, essentially a plateau located in the central Peloponnese at an average of 650m elevation. Believe it or not, grapes struggle to ripen regularly here. Typically Mantinia is a crisp, light-bodied white (or slightly pink-tinged) with crisp acid, low alcohol, 11-12% and bright citrus, sweet herb and floral aromas. It’s just about the stylistic opposite of what one would expect from a Mediterranean country. Fans of pinot grigio, dry riesling, albariño, lighter sauvignon blanc and really any dry crisp whites will feel at home with moschofilero.

2. 2007 PAPAIOANNOU SINGLE VINEYARD AGIORGITIKO AOQS Nemea $19.95  Nemea is Greece’s largest red wine appellation, a hilly zone in the northwestern Peloponnese near the town of ancient Nemea. Agiorgitiko, or “St. George” is the only permitted grape. It’s what the Greeks would call a polydynamic variety, capable of being rendered into any style from crisp rose at higher elevations (up to 900m abs.) to sweet styles from raisined grapes grown on the valley floor. It reminds me a little of merlot or tempranillo, fairly round and plush, with soft tannins and sumptuous mouth feel. But Papaionannou’s version, with its fresh strawberry and raspberry fruit is more like pinot noir or light grenache – ’07 is one of his best vintages to date.

3. 2010 SIGALAS ASSYRTIKO SANTORINI AOQS $21.95  Now that you’re a little more comfortable with Greece and haven’t run screaming to the nearest bottle of chardonnay or merlot, it’s time to go a little further. Santorini is the appellation, a volcanic island in the Cyclades – you know the postcard image of Greece, with the white washed houses, pale blue domes and deep blue sea beyond? That’s Santorini. Assyrtiko is the grape, widely acknowledged to be not just one of Greece’s, but one of the Mediterranean’s most distinctive white varieties. It’s far from easy going, more like a sommelier’s pet grape: powerful, stony, both relatively high in alcohol and acidity, with vaguely fruity-grapefruit aromas. It can smell like a matchstick, after all, it grows in volcanic pumice. If you like top Alsatian or German Riesling, gruner veltliner from the Wachau, premier or grand cru Chablis, and other similar, singular, minerally wines, give this a try.

4. 2008 KIR-YIANNI RAMNISTA XINOMAVRO AOQS Naoussa $19.95  Xinomavro is the red equivalent to assyrtiko: a decidedly tough, non-cuddly grape, with fierce tannins, juicy acids and complex range of generally non-fruity aromas. It grows in several appellations in northern Greece, but Naoussa is easily the best known. There is a striking parallel between xinomavro (which means literally “acid-black”) and northern Italy’s nebbiolo. Both are pale garnet-coloured, with high acid and firm tannins, fruit in the sweet red berry spectrum augmented by a range of savoury, floral, licorice, resinous herb and pot-pourri-like aromas. Kir-Yianni’s is a more concentrated, ripe and modern version, while the 2004 BOUTARI GRANDE RESERVE AOQS Naoussa $16.95 , obviously more mature, is also more old school in style. Both are delicious and well priced, especially if you are used to paying for Barolo and Barbaresco. But before you try either of these, a nice segue into the category is the 2007 TSANTALI RESERVE RAPSANI PDO $15.95 . Rapsani is further south on the western slopes of Mt. Olympus, and xinomavro is blended with equal parts krassato and stavroto (1/3 each). The latter two varieties used essentially soften the texture and deepen the colour of xinomavro. Tsantali’s example is delicate and strawberry-scented, with light, dusty tannins and bright acidity, resulting a juicy, food-friendly wine. Serve with a light chill for maximum enjoyment.

If you’re interested in learning more, visit: www.newwinesofgreece.com .

The Two Faces of California

California is the main theme of the February 4th release, which will certainly build further on their current domination of Vintages sales. But far from complacent, as one might expect given their success, my most recent trip to California last December revealed a region in a fervent state of evolution. I observed a growing experimental, counter-culture side to the California wine industry, driven, I believe, in large measure by the growing divide over the issue of ripeness. To anyone on the outside of the industry, timing the harvest to pick ripe grapes would seem a straightforward decision. But the precise timing of the harvest, and an individual producer’s definition of ‘ripe’ has a dramatic impact on wine style, to the point where regional, or even varietal character, can be overridden.

I spoke with many Californian sommeliers who expressed a similar weariness towards the style that has dominated the market for the last 15 years: super ripe, raisined, big, thick, highly extracted and lavishly oaked reds from the bigger-is-better school. Many winemakers, too, bemoan the late harvest style that has become entrenched at the upper end of the market, which require a significant amount of manipulation in the winery in order to render them stable. It became clear from talking and tasting that the increased alcohol levels of California wines in the last two decades (and of many other regions around the world) is purely a cultural and stylistic decision, removed from any discussion of global warming. In other words, it is a conscious choice to make raisin and fig-flavored wine. One need only point to the many excellent California wines harvested at a less extreme degree of ripeness to make the point. Yet there’s still evidently a place for raisined wines in the market, as the sales keep churning and the prices reach consistently into triple digits. Plenty of consumers, and wine critics, like these wines.

And that’s fine – diversity is what makes wine more interesting than soft drinks – I’m just reporting on that diversity (peppered with my uncontainable personal opinion). And so I was delighted to discover the emergence of a small but growing number of tiny wineries purchasing top quality fruit and transforming it, often in old warehouses, industrial parks and other makeshift facilities, into wonderfully individual, eccentric wines. I tasted a wild range ‘indie’ wines such as long skin contact white (orange) wines, crisp and vibrant reds from old vines and unpopular varieties like carignan and mataro, sulphur-free wines sold only locally in re-useable Kleen Kanteens, even a cabernet franc that was a dead ringer for a cool vintage Chinon from the Loire Valley. Yes, the spirit of innovation is alive and well in the Golden State. And I suspect that these small operations, tuned into the sub-currents of wine culture, will exert increasing influence on the industry as a whole, given their direct and simpatico connection with the gatekeepers of wine sales: sommeliers and wine shop owners. At the very least, they make the California landscape vastly more interesting.

Whether your preference is big or balanced, there are wines to satisfy both style streams in this release. My three favorite California wines are the exceptional 2007 DUNN VINEYARDS CABERNET SAUVIGNON Napa Valley $87.95, an arch-classical estate, the 2007 BEAULIEU VINEYARD GEORGES DE LATOUR PRIVATE RESERVE CABERNET SAUVIGNON Napa Valley $89.95, a wine with a long pedigree of quality and ageability, and the organically/biodynamically farmed 2009 FROG’S LEAP CABERNET SAUVIGNON Napa Valley 90 $58.95 *1/2. All three are naturally well-balanced, delicious wines.

If big flavour impact is what you’re after, then you’ll be more drawn to the 2007 ROBERT MONDAVI RESERVE CABERNET SAUVIGNON Napa Valley $139.95, or the 2009 CAYMUS CABERNET SAUVIGNON Napa Valley $69.95. Just don’t ask me to have a glass, even if you’re buying.  But it’s only fair to illuminate both faces of California wine.

 
From the February 4th, 2012 Vintages release:

Top Ten Smart Buys
Great Greek Wines
Top Californians
All Reviews
Cheers,

John Szabo, Master Sommelier

Robert Burns

On January 25^th lovers of scotch and Scotland around the globe hold Burns Day festivities to celebrate the birthday of Scotland’s most famous poet Rabbie Burns. Whether the party goes whole hog or should I say sheep with the Address to a Haggis and pipers a piping or everyone just raises a few drams to their lips it’s all seeped in good spirit thanks to the lovely amber whiskies of Scotland. I think peaty scotches go best with haggis and strong Scottish dishes like blood pudding. Here are some ideas of where and what to toast in spirit or in reality.

Nicknamed the “whiskey coast”, Scotland’s west coast is tailor made for a malt whisky adventure tour. History is everywhere on this windswept, isolated part of the UK with castles dotted about and sheep grazing some of the oldest golf courses in the world. There are several misty islands where scotch is distilled here but Islay (which means Island in Gaelic) boasts the most distilleries and the peat-smokiest drams of the lot. It’s a two and a half hour boat ride from the mainland on a Caledonian MacBrayne ferry that’s most comfortable with a cafeteria and spirit bar well stocked with scotch.

Bowmore Distillery

All of Islay’s eight distilleries offer tours and several such as Bowmore have a premium tour option. The charming little seaside town of Bowmore is the capital of this small island with the sweet historic Harbour Inn and Bowmore Distillery Cottages for accommodation. With a resident population of only 3,600, Islay can be sleepy quiet at times. The Machrie, its classic links golf course circa 1891, stays open year round thanks to the warming golf stream but the distilleries don’t see much action from late fall until the last week of May. That’s when the Fèis Ile Festival of malt and music happens. For a week the distilleries hold open houses with special activities while ceilidhs, dances, recitals and children’s workshops are held elsewhere on the island.

Laphroaig Distillery

Laphroaig has been making whisky for over 200 years – illegally at first and then legally. They offer a “Friends of Laphroaig” program where people can own a square foot of the nearby land. Just put on the size 12 wellingtons available in the visitor’s centre, walk out to the Friends field and stake your claim with a flag. Prince Charles owns plot number one. Sean Connery is another fan and friends member. Vintages offers four versions of this peaty, smoky, briny malt: Ten-Year-Old, 18-Year-Old and 25-Year-Old as well as a bargain priced Quarter Cask for $69.95.

Ardbeg Distillery

Ardbeg Distillery serves tasty traditional Scottish dishes such as leek and potato soup and smoked mackerel at their attractive Old Kiln Café and some of the smokiest, most peaty scotch in Scotland. Ardbeg 10-Year Old ($99.95) delivers that omnipresent peat with a vanilla, butterscotch edge. Bruichladdich Distillery is special for the fact that it is Scottish owned (most are owned by large multinationals) and employee owned. They have a whole range of interesting scotches aged in former French wine barrels (Petrus $99.95, Latour 16-Year-Old $114.95 and Latour 16-Year-Old $114.45 available in Ontario) and the Octomore which takes your breath away with its peat levels – the highest in the world.

The Bowmore Craftsman’s Tour which was lead by head distiller David Turner when I visited is an unforgettable experience. Bowmore, established in 1779 is one of Scotland’s oldest distilleries. Turner let me touch and taste everything in the place. I stood on the malt floor my feet deep in germinating barley and turned the grain with wood shovels used since the birth of scotch. I smelled the sweet scent of the malt as it underwent the conversion of starch in the grain to sugar. I walked about the kiln room, ankle deep in malted barley that was being smoked by a peat fire below and tasted the crunchy nutty smoked taste of the grain. I stoked the fire with chunks of dried peat.

Then Turner took me outside to taste the cold soft fresh water from the River Laggan that passes through seven miles of peaty, mossy ground on its way to supply Bowmore with water for whisky. I sipped the sugary juice that’s hot water and crushed barley called wort and sipped again after it had fermented into a beer-like beverage around 8 per cent alcohol called wash. After it had been distilled into “new make” spirit I sniffed that rubbing it into my hands as Turner showed me to get the malty sweet aromas. Finally I sampled a selection of aged Bowmore scotches in the tasting room including an awe inspiring 25-Year-Old ($395 in Ontario). Bowmore’s full bodied, smooth and peaty 12 –Year-Old is available until January 29^th for $48.55 (Limited Time Offer).  The complex, rich, toffee and brine 18-Year-Old ($116.35) is being discontinued so buy up now. If you have lots of dough and like old drams, there’s still a bottle or two of Bowmore 40-Year-Old for $14,895. Cheers! Or in Scottish Gaelic “Slàinte Mhath!” (good health).

John Szabo, MS

In addition to the usual Top Ten Smart Buys, this week’s report picks out the best “discovery grapes”, one of the themes for the Vintages release on January 21st. And speaking of grapes, I’ll also take a brief historical look at how we have come to identify wines by both grape and place together, the most useful way of considering wines in my view.

Grapes vs. Places: How Do You Identify Wine?

When you’re immersed in the world of wine, it’s easy to lose perspective. There’s always the risk that one forget that for most consumers, wine is a functional beverage, not a way of life. For most of wine’s 7,000 or so years of history, that’s the way it always has been. Food was prepared and wine, if there were any, was served. It likely came from yours or your neighbor’s or Uncle’s vineyards. Nobody fussed about farming practices, rootstocks, provenance of oak barrels or wild vs. cultured yeast fermentations. The only discussion might have been about where the wine came from, as some wines were of course better than others, some more highly prized and more expensive, hailing from regions that had achieved a reputation for their special qualities. But by and large, wine was simply wine, a safe beverage to accompany your meal and induce a pleasant mood.

Which Grape Variety?

Grape varieties and “varietal character” are likewise recent topics of discussion. Until reliable and widespread methods of studying and classifying grape cultivars came about in the middle of the 19th century, most vignerons likely didn’t even know what was growing in their vineyards. Frequently it was a field blend of several, perhaps even dozens of different grapes growing in the same plot of land, and new vineyards were planted or old ones re-propagated with whatever local grapes had always been around. There were no vine nurseries with their catalogues of cultivars and characteristics from which to order. Certainly monastic institutions like the Cistercians and Benedictines studied grape growing and did their part to spread some of the more productive, tastier or disease-resistant grapes among their communities in Europe, and even share some winemaking secrets, but beyond that, wine was always referred to, if at all, by its origins, never by its grape composition. There was no other way. European nomenclature for wine appellations is still geographically rooted to this day.

Changing Ways of Identifying Wine

But two things conspired to change the way we identify wine. First was phylloxera’s debut in Europe in the mid-1800s, that insidious little root-sucking aphid from America that destroyed most of Europe’s vineyards within a generation. As vineyards were replanted en masse, for the first time in history, considerable attention was paid to exactly what was going to be replanted. Not all vitis vinifera (the European vine species from which almost all the world’s fine wine is made) took well to the anti-phylloxera solution of grafting onto native American vine rootstock, and thus couldn’t be replanted. Not all native varieties had been particularly successful in the first place. Attention was paid to terroir suitability, productivity and wine style, and grapes were consciously selected for re-establishing vineyards, rather than following the former habit of taking whatever happened to be growing nearby. Estimates vary as to how many indigenous grapes were lost during this period, but it’s safe to say that many hundreds of grapes disappeared from cultivation, never to return. It’s at this stage in wine’s history that specific grapes became associated with certain regions. Wine would continue to be called by it’s place of origin, but the insiders now knew which grapes were responsible for that regional profile.

The second big development in the shift towards varietal awareness occurred during the opening up of viticulture and winemaking in the New World. Huge tracks of land from Chile to Canada, Argentina to Australia were planted to grapes. But which grapes? Again, in the absence of native species of grapevines, a conscious decision had to be made as to which types of cultivars would be planted. Promising grapes were brought by European traders and immigrants; perhaps those from their native regions, perhaps those available at the port from which they set sail. In any case, the varieties’ link with their native region of cultivation had been severed. From this point on, grapes would have their own identity, beyond that of where they were grown. It would be still be several centuries before the names of grapes would become the primary form of identification and marketing of New World wines (witness “California Chablis” or South African or Australian “Port”), but the die had been cast.

How Best to Identify Wine?

So this begs the question: which is the more useful way of identifying wines, by grape composition or by region of origin? The answer, of course, is both, at least in my view. The principal purpose of labeling is to provide the consumer with some information on what the wine will taste like. There should be naming consistency, much in the way that a brand image is built up. I.e. Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, once you’ve had it, conjures up a flavour profile. Chardonnay from Chablis does not taste like chardonnay from Sonoma County, so grape alone is not sufficient to provide useful and consistent information for consumers. But neither would Chablis taste like Chablis if it were made from riesling or chenin blanc or sauvignon, so region on it’s own doesn’t give the full picture.

The ideal labeling scenario is thus the combination of grape(s) and place, with some production guidelines to ensure that even when multiple wineries operate within a region, there will be some consistency, even family resemblance, between wines under the same appellation name. The Old World evidently has a head start in this process, though the New World is working hard to develop its own classic regional combinations of grape and place. Given the technology and techniques of analysis available today, it will surely take less time then it did in Europe. Things are happening fast. New World regions are understandably reluctant to officially hamstring producers into growing specified varieties and using particular production techniques just yet, but everything is currently pointing in that direction. It’s just a matter of time; in fact it has already happened, unofficially, in some areas.

Within another generation or two, all a consumer will need do is taste and explore the many successful combinations of grapes and places around the world and remember which appellations they prefer. The rest is just shades of difference. Glad I could clear up the obvious. Now we can get back to fussing about those delicious little nuances.

Yours To Discover

In the spirit of both grape and place, here are some combinations worth looking for:

2009 DESCENDIENTES DE J. PALACIOS PÉTALOS DO Bierzo $21.95
Place: Castilla y Léon in Northern Spain, on the border with Galicia. The Bierzo DO is situated in topographical bowl, protected by mountains on all sides. The climate is cool by Spanish standards, and soils range from slate on the hillsides to richer alluvial soils on the valley floor.
Grape: mencía. Native to northeastern Spain and Portugal (where it’s called jaen)
Style: Bright, fresh, floral and minerally reds, with soft tannins, bright natural acidity and plenty of immediate appeal.
This Wine: suave, delicate, fresh and vibrant black berry/raspberry flavours, with a notable dose of slate/schistous minerality and firm, fresh acids. Lingering finish, with barely detectable wood influence. All class and finesse.

2010 MICHEL TORINO CUMA ORGANIC TORRONTÉS Cafayate Valley $12.95
Place: Cafayate Valley in Northern Argentina. High elevation is the key here to maximizing the fresh aromatics of the grape.
Grape: torrontés. A crossing of muscat of Alexandria and criolla chica.
Style: as the relation to Muscat would imply, this is a highly floral, aromatic grape
This Wine: a fun wine with gorgeous aromas of orange blossom, tropical fruit, pineapple, mango and honey. The palate is medium-full, still firm, slightly salty (which enhances the fruit), with a fine, lingering finish.

2010 PUKLUS PINCÉSZET TOKAJI YELLOW MUSCAT Tokaj-Hegyalja, Hungary $14.95
Place: Tokaj-Hegyálja (Tokaj at the foot of the hill”), a relatively cool, humid, volcanic soil-based region in northeastern Hungary. The region is most famous for the sweet botrytis-affected wine tokaji aszú, though significant quantities of dry white wines are produced each year.
Grape: sárgamuskotály, aka yellow muscat, muscat blanc à petits grains. One of the world’s oldest grapes.
Style: extremely aromatic with intense floral aromas.
This Wine: Open and fragrant in the typical muscat style, with honey, orchard fruit and wildflowers dominating. The palate is off-dry, quite bright and crisp, with characteristic minerality emerging on the lingering finish. This punches above its price category in terms of complexity and depth.

2010 MORGENHOF ESTATE CHENIN BLANC WO Simonsberg-Stellenbosch $16.95
Place: Stellenbosch, South Africa. A warm growing region just inland from Cape Town, better known for red wine production.
Grape: chenin blanc. A native of the Loire Valley but widely planted in South Africa, where it was frequently used for brandy production. The country has a wealth of old chenin vineyards, whose potential for dry whites is really only now starting to be exploited wide scale.
Style: chenin is known for it’s brisk acid and aromatics of honey, lanolin, wet hay and binned apples.
This wine: A superbly flavourful and intense example of South African chenin from 40+-year-old vines with notable but well-integrated barrel influence. The palate is dense, rich, almost creamy, yet with the characteristic fresh acidity of the variety.

2010 WEINGUT ZAHEL RIEDENCUVÉE GRÜNER VELTLINER Vienna, $15.95
Place: Vienna. The only major European capital city to have any appreciable vineyard plantings, nearly 700ha. Vineyards overlook the Danube and the city centre.
Grape: grüner veltliner. The most widely planted grape in Austria, representing nearly 1/3 of all vineyard acreage.
Style: ranges from light, crisp and frivolous to full bodied, dense and age worthy, with a characteristic turnip root, lentil and white pepper aroma.
This wine: a light, fragrant, lightly peppery and citrus-flavoured example well suited as an aperitif or sipping wine.

From the January 21st, 2012 Vintages release:

Top Ten Smart Buys
All Reviews
Cheers,

John Szabo, Master Sommelier

Janet Dorozynski, Ph.D. Global Practice Lead, Canadian Wine, Beer and Spirits

I’m very excited to become part of WineAlign, one of Canada’s leading wine websites after only three short years. Having spent the last fifteen years in and around the wine industry – tasting, studying, traveling, writing, working, teaching and judging – it has been quite a journey and I am keen to find out what lies ahead.

Flash back to late 1994 when I moved from Montreal to Brussels as a trailing spouse. I was working on a doctorate in social demography from Concordia University when I landed smack dab in the middle of one of Europe’s gastronomic havens. Belgium has among the highest per capita number of Michelin-starred restaurants and a corresponding number of specialized wine stores. I was fortunate to be living between a neighbourhood (now Michelin-starred) bistro with an eccentric wine list and a superb New World wine shop that offered tastings every Saturday.  It was there that I discovered the great wines of Brian Croser, Thelema, Te Mata Coleraine, Hunter Valley Semillions and oh yes, a quirky new wine called Cloudy Bay. Labels did not impress me then, and still don’t now, but I was keen to taste the half-dozen wines on offer each week and often ended up staying to talk about the wines, the regions they came from, the colorful characters that helped produce them, and why they were all so different and special.

With more time and money at my disposal than during my student years, I began reading a local wine column and buying and tasting the wines that were recommended each week. To my surprise, I liked few of them and couldn’t figure out why the columnist – who I since came to know and like – kept recommending such ordinary wines (which weren’t always so cheap!). Rather than being put off by the recommendations and experience, and curious to know if I was missing something, I continued to buy and taste.  As I tasted more,  I became more thoughtful about what I was tasting and – being an academic at heart – eventually signed up for several wine tasting courses with said columnist/sommelier, if only to find out first-hand what made him tick (and why I still didn’t like some of the wines he was recommending!).

The weekly tasting classes introduced me to the basics of tasting, sensory analysis, wine making and regions and countries. Most importantly, they helped me figure out that appreciating wine meant getting out of your comfort zone and tasting as many different wines as possible, both in-class, at tastings and while traveling through many of the world’s great wine regions.

I soon became consumed with wanting to know ever more about grape varieties, the production of wine, the history, the producers and the business of wine, reading and watching everything I could get my hands on. In Belgium, this meant Decanter, La Revue du Vin de France, Jancis Robinson and other British writers, BBC “drinks” shows, and that indispensable reference brick, the Oxford Companion to Wine. Living in Brussels also meant being close to the great wine regions of France and Germany, with Italy and Spain just a short hop away. In retrospect, I clearly didn’t realize how lucky I was, especially as a beginner, to be tasting wonderful and wacky wines from (and with) producers such as Vega Sicilia, Le Vieux Telegraphe, Alain Brumont, Marcel Deiss, Selbach-Oster, Alois Kracher, not to mention the sherries of Lustau and grower Champagne that you rarely see outside the region. I had discovered a new world and not surprisingly it took me several more years to complete my Ph.D. (though complete it I did!).

Travel and tastings took me deeper and deeper into wine and I remember the exact moment, when reading Jancis Robinson’s autobiography  on the Eurostar deep under the English Channel (where she describes the Wine and Spirits Education Trust Diploma as indispensible for anyone who wants a serious career in wine), that I decided if I was going to turn this fascination into a career, I needed to equip myself with the requisite tools and credentials. So off to wine school I went! I completed the first levels of WSET in London and wrote the final exam for the Diploma in Wine and Spirits in Toronto, when my son was barely two months old (and safely ensconced with my spouse back in Ottawa). This, after literally thousands of hours of study and tasting thousands of wines, with a copy of the Oxford Companion always on my night stand.

Before heading back to Canada from Brussels, I took a detour that led me to Wines of South Africa (WOSA) in Stellenbosch.  My job at WOSA was to work on a wine tourism project, as well as with producers and to tour around foreign media and trade in the wonderful South African wine lands. This didn’t really feel like work at all, as I spent my days meeting wine writers like Michel Bettane and Anthony Rose, as well as the talented and dynamic South African producers.  And as before, I tasted loads of wine, many of which never seemed to make it out of the country, and took more courses at the Cape Wine Academy.

Once back in Canada, I began writing and reviewing wines for WineTelevision and later Vines Magazine. I also held a day job as as Director of Government and Public Relations for the Canadian Vintners Association, which meant being thrown head first into a Canadian wine industry that had become unrecognizable after years away. One of my first duties was to organize a tasting of Canadian wines for decision-makers at Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT), in the hopes of convincing them that Canadian wines could and should be served by Government representatives abroad and at high-profile official events in Canada and around the globe. This tasting led to others and eventually, the creation of a position to promote Canadian wine within the department itself.

I successfully applied for this position which is still mine today. I spend my days assisting Canadian Embassies to serve and promote Canadian wine, beer and spirits at official events internationally, which also includes many of the events hosted by the Governor General, the Prime Minister, and other high-level officials.  I also work with the wine, beer and spirits industries on business development in international markets, which means I am in touch with the international wine trade, keep a close eye on the global wine business and trade issues, as well as what producers throughout Canada are doing, and have arranged tastings for folks like Jancis Robinson, during one of her visits to Canada.

Every year, throughout the course of my work, at tastings and while judging at wine competitions in Canada and abroad, I taste thousands of wines from Canada and elsewhere. I have a pretty good idea of how  Canadian wines stack up against their foreign competitors and can say with confidence that our wines have improved dramatically. I have little patience with those who write off Canadian wine as bad, or entire regions from anywhere for that matter, because there is good and bad wine made everywhere. I  believe that wineries cannot expect consumers to buy wine out of patriotism and that consumers want and expect more than novelty, clever packaging or anything less than value for money. Good wine, in my book, must bring enjoyment, allow you to have more than one glass, and can be as complicated or as simple as you want it to be. In the end, life is too short to drink the same wines or varieties all the time.  I for one, am especially interested in trying “odd-ball” varieties or wines from lesser-known regions and want to continue exploring and discovering what this vast and varied world of wine has to offer.

David Lawrason

As 2011 comes to a close WineAlign has begun to approach the numbers I envisioned when I joined with Bryan McCaw and my esteemed wine writing colleagues three years ago.  We end the year having had 106,984 unique visitors in December, peaking with a daily record of 7,547 on December 23^rd.  We are the busiest wine site in Canada not run by a liquor monopoly, and busier than the websites of eight monopolies.  Undoubtedly January will bring us back to Earth, and a slower pace of growth – but grow we will, numerically and geographically.

In 2011 I experienced a bit of a career rejuvenation, and it came through extensive travel.  I got out of the tasting room more often and became fascinated all over again with wine places and wine people. It happened in seven regions of Australia; at the Vancouver Playhouse Wine Festival; in the southern Rhone and Burgundy where I hosted Canadians touring with Gold Medal Plates; in Niagara where I met global producers at the International Cool Climate Chardonnay Celebration; in Prince Edward County where improbable new wineries continue to bloom; in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley while judging the Canadian Wine Awards; in the emerging appellations of Rueda, Toro and Bierzo in northwest Spain; and finally in Argentina with visits to wineries, vineyards and restaurants in Patagonia, Mendoza and Buenos Aires.

Kim Ayliffe with soil lab

Through all this two ideas were reaffirmed – and they have huge implications for where I think wine is headed in 2012 and beyond.  One is that the passion for wine among those who make it is now firmly global and mushrooming, and so is the knowhow.  People not places create wine quality, and the over-arching implication of the globalization of quality is that no single country or region or appellation owns or deserves quality bragging rights, or price entitlement.  Think of the commercial impact when all the world’s wine consumers figure this out too.  It will be apocalyptic democratization of the established world order of wine – in fact I think the process is well underway. And those who labour under their own delusions of grandeur, or conversely, those who underestimate their station, will be the ones to suffer the most.

This doesn’t mean however that place is not important, indeed place shapes wine character and makes wine such an individual and changeable commodity.  Again and again during my travels I met people whose passion was rooted deep the soil they owned, and cared deeply about how they were expressing that soil, while preserving the environment around it.  In Australia’s McLaren Vale I spent a fascinating morning sifting through the amazing complexities of soil science with Rosemount viticulturalist Kim Ayliffe – two hours which have forever changed how I view where wine character comes from.

Ricardo Perez

In a verdant corner of northwest Spain called Bierzo I met a most remarkable was young winemaker named Ricardo Perez of Descendientes de José Palacio, who is who is making wine biodynamically and in the process re-introducing his neighbours to an agrarian way of life they abandoned generations ago.  In Patagonia, Argentina, a very wordly European couple – Countess Noemi Marone Cinzano and Danish winemaker Hans Vinding-Diers – have found solace and challenge at Bodega Noemia in the other-wordly remoteness of the desert of the Rio Negro, where they too farm biodynamically. They have made some of the best wines I tasted in 2011.  And I predict they will be, and perhaps already are, the models of future generations.

Countess Noemi Marone Cinzano & Danish winemaker Hans Vinding-Diers

Closer to home,  I would love to predict that in 2012 Ontario wine will finally be unshackled from its government’s outdated policies around wine retailing – and that we will finally see independent stores selling 100% Ontario-made wines – not just VQA wines.  (I believe VQA needs to be a pure appellation structure that is not tied to financial incentives or disincentives for the producers). At the same time I would also like to see an equal number of private stores selling imported wines – again in a truly democratic fashion. There is mounting political pressure for Ontario’s outmoded alcohol retailing system to change, and it has been proven by Premier McGuinty’s own hand-picked review panel that the LCBO is not the best financial model for the people of Ontario. In other words Ontario would make more money from alcohol revenues without the LCBO.  But change will not likely come in the next 12 months because the current regime lacks the will to take on the unionized public service. Still, any incremental movements toward privatization will be welcome.

And finally, for 2012 I predict a tough economic year for wineries everywhere which will be swimming against two tides – global recessionary pressures and huge global competition. Even right here in Ontario one wonders how so many small and mid-sized wineries can compete with each other, but throw in massive new projects that I saw around the world this year and the mind boggles.  Of course this does mean a great year ahead for consumers who care about value. Which in turn should mean it will be a great year for those of us whose job it is to taste and write about wine, and sort it all out.  I look forward to that task with renewed vigour.

Thanks for all your support in 2011, and stay tuned in 2012.

David Lawrason
VP of Wine

John Szabo, MS

While early January may be a time for reflection on the year to come, there is little to contemplate in this first Vintages release. Out of a rather thin field I’ve listed my smart buys out of the LCBO’s smart buys theme here. Unsurprisingly, many of the top values originate from regions already well-known to value seekers: Casablanca Valley in Chile, South Africa’s Western Cape, and most impressively, the southern Rhône Valley. Just check out the 2009 DOMAINE DU GRAND MONTMIRAIL VACQUEYRAS AC  $24.95  and the 2007 DOMAINE SAINT ANDÉOL SÉDUCTION CAIRANNE CÔTES DU RHÔNE-VILLAGES AC $17.95 for a look at how satisfying, and warming on a winter’s eve, these Grenache-based wines can be.

Most of the wines in the European World Discoveries theme were disappointing and will do little to encourage drinkers out of the tried and true, but for something a little different try the 2010 CHATEAU KSARA BLANC DE L’OBSERVATOIRE Lebanon $15.95, an intriguing white blend with nutty, oxidative but highly stony character. If the comfort of familiarity is the order of the day, the 2009 DOMAINE DU CHARDONNAY CHABLIS AC  $19.95 is a strikingly fine example of minerally, oak-free chardonnay, and fine value, too.

Looking Back To 2011 And Forward To 2012: Some Observations On The Wine Scene:

Natural Wines

You’ve heard about sustainable, unfiltered, organic and maybe even biodynamic wines. And in 2011 yet another category started to slip into the mainstream: natural wines. Judging by the startling amount of press to date (especially given their microscopic share of the wine market), I’d prepare to hear a lot more about them.

That’s not to say that other wines are somehow ‘unnatural’, as the term implies (vinegar is the only truly ‘natural’ outcome of fermenting fruit), but there are degrees of more and less manipulated wine. Though the fine details vary, most adherents to the natural wine movement can agree on the broad strokes: grapes should be grown without synthetic pesticides or herbicides (like organic or biodynamic wines), and then treated with minimal intervention in the winery. See the charter on the website of the Associations des Vins Naturels for a definition.

While some of the so-called natural wines I’ve tasted are downright faulty, by and large these are intriguing, sometimes extraordinary expressions with a real sense of place. It’s a backlash against, even the antithesis of industrially made, formulaic commercial products. I for one welcome the resurgence in diversity, which can only be good for humanity.

Grower Champagne

“Récoltant-Manipulant”

Yes, I’ve been on this subject before, and it’s hardly radical, but the buzz on the streets among sommeliers and the agents who represent small family-run champagne estates is reaching fever pitch. Ontario, a rather conservative market for champagne historically, is embracing the individuality, even idiosyncratic character, not to mention the pure value for pleasure & money equation offered by grower champagnes like never before, and stocks are moving fast. When you’re ready to spend again for champagne, look for the letters “RM” in tiny print on the label, meaning “récoltant-manipulant”, i.e. made by someone who grows his own grapes (as opposed to purchasing fruit).

California Central Coast, and the Illusion of Overripe Grapes

David Hopkins

A trip to California last November revealed America’s largest wine region by far is quite literally bubbling over with excitement and innovation. Spurred on by booming sales (exports to Canada are up significantly), a sub-group of wineries are operating outside the status quo and diversifying the vinous landscape. But it’s not just the small, fringe operators. I visited one winery in Santa Barbara owned by no smaller a giant than Gallo, Bridlewood Estate. I expected the worst (dull, corporate, formula wine), but instead I met David Hopkins, a wonderfully ebullient winemaker defiantly refusing to toe the corporate line (well, he makes a couple of wines for head office). David is testing the limits of his Santa Barbara grapes, experimenting with concrete egg fermenters and harvesting early to make naturally balanced, fresh and elegant wines. This is but one representative example of how the Golden State, and the Central Coast region in particular, is reinventing, or continuing to invent their wine story – all very positive.

On the them of ripeness, this last round of visits, lengthy heated discussions and tastings proved conclusively, at least for me, that the necessity of harvesting grapes at ludicrously high levels of ripeness to achieve so-called “phenolic maturity” is a pure illusion concocted by winemakers chasing scores from a small handful of decreasingly important wine critics. It has nothing to do with global warming (just ask Napa vintners about the 2011 harvest), and everything to do with a stylistic choice.

Harvesting grapes at 17%-18% potential alcohol may develop that beloved (by some) ‘jammy’ character, but then requires significant manipulation (watering down, acidifying, adding powdered tannins, etc.) to actually make a stable wine. This is a caricature in my view. Thankfully, a growing number of producers are moving away from this model, and some, even big Napa names such as Montelena, Heitz, Dunn, Grgich and Corison, and other high profile estates like Ridge, Bonny Doon and Mount Eden in Santa Cruz, and Tablas Creek in Paso Robles and many more never went there in the first place. I think we’ll begin to see greater numbers from California and elsewhere returning to reason, in the name of drinkable wine.

Emerging From The Dark Corners of Europe: Georgia & Croatia, With Others to Follow: Hungary, & Crete?

On the note of World Discovery, a few countries made their first big impression on the Ontario market in 2011, most notably Georgia and Croatia. Judging by the quality I’ve seen so far, they are definitely on my radar for this year. Other obscure, but potential great regions such as Hungary and the giant Island of Crete (Greece) have really yet to hit their commercial stride. Will 2012 be their year to emerge from the shadows?

Nova Scotia – The Rightful Home of Hybrids 

And finally, there’s nothing like a little first-hand experience to kill prejudice. I was an outspoken anti-hybrid grape activist (European vinifera x local variety) until spending some time in Nova Scotia this summer while judging at the Canadian Wine Awards. Aside from warm east coast hospitality, what struck me most is the regional suitability, and quality, of varieties like L’Acadie Blanc, Ortega and Seyval Blanc. A surprising number of Nova Scotian wines were awarded medals, even gold medals. Clearly, it’s working. Note that these are all white grapes; the jury is still out on the red hybrids….

From the January 7th 2012 Vintages release:

Top Ten Smart Buys
All Reviews

Cheers,

John Szabo, Master Sommelier

The wines of Champagne were originally rose tinted, stained by the dark skins of the Pinot Noir grape.  Another striking difference from the product that we are familiar with today was the absence of bubbles. Effervescence was actually an unwelcome surprise to the French winemakers and the subject of great concern.

In cooler years, the harvest and the cold winter air arrive almost simultaneously in the north of France which restricts the potential for fully ripe fruit.  At the time, the greater unknown was that low resultant temperatures within the cellars also caused the fermentation in the great wooden vats to cease.  Ever determined, the Champenois bottled their light-bodied and pungently acidic wine; a product certainly not worthy of boasting about to their Burgundian neighbours.  But with the arrival of spring, the temperature within the same bottles began to rise and unexpectantly, the fermentation continued.  Sealed beneath the cork, the wine started to bubble and froth.  And while no one understood why, they were also unable to prevent the reaction from occurring.  As the pressure increased, glass containers by the dozen began to explode and corks ejected like projectiles.  Those bottles that remained intact would later detonate in the cellar or worse, at the table – “le vin du diable!” they exclaimed – the Devil’s wine.

Sparkling wine is the product of nature and for the longest time, the source of frustration and embarrassment for the people of Champagne.  Unable to rival their Burgundian counterparts, many felt that quality wine production in the north of France was simply not possible.  Enter historical figures: Dom Perignon and English scientist Christopher Merret. Independently, these men conducted research and experiments on the wines of Champagne, over time gaining insight and understanding.  Eventually, they were able to safely manipulate, and contain the seemingly volatile potion.

“Come quickly, I am tasting stars!” – Dom Perignon

Legend says that Dom Perignon exclaimed these words upon discovering sparkling wine, but contrary to popular belief, Champagnewas not invented by the Benedictine monk alone; that was nature’s accomplishment. Truth be known, it was Dom Perignon’s intention to prevent the bubbles in Champagneand to create a superior still wine the courts would prefer over their famed Burgundy. Irrespective of his intentions, Perignon’s efforts were instrumental in the development of Champagne by blending different grape varieties.  He was also the creator of the collar system used to hold the cork in place.  That system, originally a piece of string is known as a muselet and is still in use today though modern technology has replaced the string with a wire cage.

Christopher Merret’s area of expertise was the second stage of fermentation that occurs after bottling wine in the presence of residual sugar.  As an advocate of the bubbles, he discovered that secondary fermentation increased the degree of alcohol in the wine which counterbalanced the level of acidity and added complexity.  More so, Merret found that the volatility could be controlled by regulating the level of sugar and yeast.

For Perignon and Merret, their efforts were simply to make the wine drinkable, and it would be another 100 years before sparkling wine would reflect what we know and enjoy today. If only these men could have foreseen their magical bubbles becoming the most celebrated of all wines.

The byproduct of secondary fermentation, as Merret discovered, is a layer of unsightly dead yeast cells which settle at the bottom of the bottle.  Prior to serving, the wine needed decanting but this of course caused the bubbles to go flat, defeating the process entirely.  In 1818, an employee of the widow (veuve) Clicquot discovered that by angling the bottles upside-down and slowly rotating them (called rémuage or riddling), the sediment would settle in the neck against the stopper.  Then, by freezing the neck of the bottle, the block of sediment was easily removed, the bottle topped-up with a small amount of wine and sugar (dosage) to dictate the final sweetness, and the cork inserted and secured.  While less labour intensive methods yielding more rapid results do exist, this traditional process known as méthod champenoise is the technique used to craft all high-quality, crystal clear sparkling wines that we enjoy today.

When serving bubbly this New Year’s Eve (or any other occasion) and contrary to common practice, the cork should be removed with care and without a great froth of bubbles.  Simply put: a great deal of effort went in to putting the bubbles into the wine – they should not be wasted on the ‘pop’.

“Champagne! In victory one deserves it; in defeat one needs it.” – Napolean

Tyler blogs at NorthOf9FineWine, you can find his reviews on WineAlign here.

Julian Hitner

The highs and the lows:

On Tuesday 13 October, the 21^st annual TSO Fine Wine Auction was held at Waddington’s auction house in downtown Toronto. Organized by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra Volunteer Committee (TSVC) to raise money for one of Canada’s most illustrious orchestras, a full house of eager collectors were in attendance to bid on 233 separate lots of (mostly) premium wine.

'75 Château Figeac

So much for the basic information. Chances are, most people are probably just interested in the highlights and lowlights of the evening. Fair enough, but first it should be noted that this wasn’t your typical fine wine auction. Because all money raised was meant for charity, bidders were not required to pay any taxes, such as a buyer’s premium, on their purchases—a direct contrast to other wine auctions, where bidders are usually faced with all sorts of fees when collecting their winnings. A case in point: I attended the Vintages Fine Wine Auction about a week after this one, bringing along a few friends. They successfully bid on an eleven-bottle lot of ’01 Palmer, and it wound up costing them almost a thousand bucks more when the additional fees were tossed in. Makes you think …

‘99 Château Talbot

Now for the highlights of the TSO auction. Come to think of it, there really weren’t that many wines that sold beyond the expected bidding range. Checking my auction catalogue, which I’d retained for purposes of writing this column, the only serious highlights were: a twelve-bottle lot of ‘99 Château Talbot (est. $1,000-1,400) that went for $1,700—ridiculous when considering the mediocrity of the vintage; a two-bottle lot of ’72 and ’75 Château Figeac (est. $150-250) that fetched $400—unbelievable considering how bad a vintage 1972 was; a bottle ’88 Cristal Rosé (est. $300-450) that sold for an astounding $1,100; and a salmanazar (9 litres) of ’88 Pol Roger (est. $400-600) that logged in at an equally steep $1,100.

Cristal Rose

Looks like a few bidders in attendance had their hearts set on these two bottles of dazzling champagne. For my part, I think they paid too much for both.

As for the lowlights, there were too many to count. Either the estimate ranges for most of the lots were greatly exaggerated, or bidders were simply unwilling to write large cheques in this current economic climate. Personally, I am inclined to accept both explanations as plausible: there is no question in my mind that estimates were too high, and with the economy as bad as it is, it should come as no surprise that collectors would be a little less willing to part with larger sums of their (hopefully) hard-earned money.

Chateau Lafite

All the same, I would be negligent in my commentary if I were to omit some of the more shocking lowlights of the auction: 4 bottles of ‘99 Lafite (est. $5,000-7,000) at $3,250; 3 bottles of ’00 Haut-Brion (est. $2,650-3,750) at $2,000; a case of ’82 Léoville-Las Cases (est. $7,500-10,500) at $5,500; a case of ’93 Mouton (est. $7,250-10,500) at $5,000—an extreme example of overestimating; 3 bottles of ’01 Le Pin (est. $6,000-8,500) at $5,000; 6 bottles of ’01 Lafite (est. $7,000-10,000) at $4,500—one of the ultimate steals of the night; 3 bottles of Domaine de la Romaneé-Conti ’86 Grands Échezeaux (est. $2,000-3,000) at $1,400; 2 bottles of Beaulieu ’68 George de Latour Reserve (est. $600-900) at $350; and 5 bottles of Jim Barry ’93 The Armagh (est. $1,100-1,600) at $350. I can name a dozen more if you like.

Still, when adding up the money earned by all 233 lots of wine, the TSVC, one of my favourite volunteer organizations in the city (I always make a point of mentioning this when I write about good volunteer groups), our beloved Toronto Symphony Orchestra should hopefully be well looked after for the next while. Coming up in 2012: Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’ Symphony (no. 41) at 6:30 p.m. on 11 January; Roy Thomson Hall, of course.

Click here for a few gems

John Szabo, MS

It’s not the sort of invitation I usually accept: “come taste my wine against the recognized category leaders”. But today I did exactly just that. The invitation came from John Carlo Meli of Natural Vines importing agency to taste the ultra-luxury champagne brand he represents called Le Prestance, by Maison Vendôme, against the latest releases of Môet et Chandon’s Dom Pérignon and Roederer’s Crystal in a blind tasting challenge (actually the blind part was my idea). This type of guerilla marketing has been around since the big Paris tasting of 1976 pitting top Bordeaux and Burgundy against the upstarts from California, and probably much longer than that. My issue is that is a rather pointless exercise, at least for the taster. For the marketers, however, it’s golden, since you can’t really loose: coming in second place to the best is still pretty good, and if you win, well, you win.

On top of it all, I am naturally repelled by super-expensive, designer wines created to dispossess the wealthy and bask in the glow of famous stars and fashionistas of all stripes (Le Prestance is the official champagne of the Cannes film festival, to give you an idea), so admittedly, I expected the worst. I knew that as the wines were revealed and my reviews examined, there’d be that awkward moment when I’d have to admit that Dom Pérignon and Crystal were much better wines then this parvenue champagne at $350/bottle, and suggest that he return to the world of real wine and stop chasing ephemeral dreams.

Well, there’s nothing like a little dose of blind tasting to crush your cherished pre-conceived notions. Le Prestance was more than good. It was extraordinary, clearly the best wine on the table, in a line up of obviously very good wines. I did my best not to try and guess which was which during the tasting, but I certainly wasn’t pegging wine #2, my clear favorite, as Le Prestance, which is what it turned out to be.

While the 2002 Dom Pérignon was still strong, it was a relative disappointment. I was pleased that my review, and score, posted in May on WineAlign was identical – at least I’m consistent. See both December’s note followed by my earlier review for context. The 2004 Crystal was nothing short of excellent (both original WIneAlign and December’s review below again), but Le Prestance had an extra gear, and extra dimension – a pleasant surprise.

I still dislike the designer hype around the wine, and it can hardly be considered a ‘good value’ (the entire notion of value leaves the arena long before you hit $100 in my view) but it’s a lovely surprise to find out that there’s a whole lot of substance on the inside – gives me a little more faith in the glamour world.

(96) Maison Vendôme NV Champagne  Le Prestance Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs

Maison Vendôme selects the lots and packages this exclusive Blanc de Blancs champagne, produced by Lancelot-Royer. This particular bottling is based on the 2007 vintage (these notes added after the wine was revealed). The nose is quite explosively aromatic, evolved and complex, with a fine range of toasty-yeasty-biscuit, fresh brioche and panettone aromas mixed with hazelnut, toasted almond, green apple and candied lemon-lime-orange. On the palate the wine is superbly intense, rich and dense, powerful, with expansive, mouth-filling flavour and terrific length. Top notch – a complete wine. Tasted December 2011. Available through private order; contact John Carlo Meli jc@naturalvines.com

(93) Möet et Chandon 2002 Champagne Dom Pérignon

Original note:

The 2002 Dom Pérignon, a fine champagne vintage, shows a relatively mature flavour profile, with wet hay, toasted almond and grilled peach-type aromas and flavours. Flavour intensity and depth on the palate are impressive enough, though this vintage seems to lack brightness and the streak of acidity needed to lift this in to the top category, not to mention length and degree of complexity. Certainly very good in any case, but for this price, one expects near perfection. Tasted May 2011. (93)

December 2011:

Moderate intensity aromatics, with considerable yeast autolysis, verging on reductuve character; this is a champagne that requires some aeration. Subtle biscuity notes, caramelized citrus-orange, and ginger mingle together, with some hazelnut and white chocolate emerging on the palate. The palate is crisp and dry, with modest flavour intensity, though the finish lingers on impressively. Deceptive power and length-this really hangs on, though lacks some vitality and freshness in the final analysis. Tasted December 2011 (93)

(95) Roederer 2004 Champagne Cristal

Original note:

Roederer’s luxury cuvée, from the top vineyard sites owned by the company, is generally a half and half blend of pinot noir and chardonnay. The 2004 is a wine of outstanding complexity and class, a little more forward and powerful than the typically finessed and elegant Cristal profile, though impeccably balanced. Almond, brioche, meyer lemon, cherry blossom and honeyed orchard fruit weave around a tightly wound core of bright acidity. This is clean, pure, precise and riveting. Tasted May 2011. (95)

December 2011:

A little more subtle and reserved aromatically than the other wines on the table today, with a fine streak of oyster shell/wet stone minerality and delicate floral and biscuit notes. The palate picks up the intensity considerably, revealing a wine that is currently tightly wound, with excellent tension and superb length and intensity. This clearly needs a few more years in the cellar to develop its full potential-even as it sits in the glass it begins to open, and the flavour expands in retro-olfaction. Tasted December 2011. (95)

For those of us behind the scenes, WineAlign remains an exciting project and we continue to grow, rapidly.  We now have over 26,000 users.   In 2011 we’ve been growing at an average rate of almost 6% per month.   In December we will have over 100,000 visitors to our website.

Monthly Visitors Growth

In the last month we have had almost 70,000 different people visit our site.

Source Alexa.com, Dec 10th, 2011

Tonight I’m going to celebrate with a glass (who am I fooling… a bottle) of great wine!

Cheers!

- Bryan

David Lawrason

I experienced a secret pleasure while spending twelve days in Argentina recently. It was not the perfect mid-summer temperatures, nor the surprisingly good food (beef and otherwise), nor those rich creamy malbecs. No, it was missing twelve days of pre-Christmas hype and circumstance here at home. There was virtually no Christmas razz-a-mattaz in the streets of Buenos Aires, Mendoza and Patagonia. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas. I am from a very large family for which Christmas was a fairy tale of fun, food and frolic. And it still is when our clan, that now numbers almost forty siblings and their off-spring, get together. But nowadays I find the banal consumerism of Christmas just too much, and it starts way too soon. I saw my first Christmas TV commercial while I was doling out Halloween candy!  Christmas should start right about now, December 10. Those who need more time to shop and prepare are perhaps doing and buying too much.

Escaping to Argentina

So if you want to escape Christmas, even for a little while longer, join me in a glimpse of Argentina. It’s a nation almost completely populated by Europeans, mostly from Spain and Italy, who at one point or other saw this vast land of plains and mountains as an idyllic escape themselves, not from Christmas but from poverty and persecution. There were several waves of European immigration in the 19th and 20th Centuries, with the latest being at the beginning of the 21st Century, as Argentina came out of a disastrous period of financial crisis. The latest wave is most evident in the burgeoning wine industry which has been hauled into the modern world and pushed onto the global stage by financiers and oenologists from Europe and elsewhere, who saw cheap land and endless potential for improving wine quality and value in this vast, warm and arid land. Wineries in new regions like Patagonia, Salta and the Uco Valley in Mendoza are monuments of modern, lavish architecture (Napa has nothing on these guys), and in stark contrast to the shoddy villages and crumbling roads encountered en route. But it is exactly the wealth, allure and global attraction of the wine industry that one day could be the engine to pull the rest of the country along, or so the government and banks hope having provided container loads of easy credit.

Mendoza, Argentina

Argentine is the planet’s fifth largest wine producing country with endless amounts of arid, semi-desert land available for vineyard growth, as long as water from the Andes or deep wells can be economically applied. (Water is the only thing that is expensive). There are about 1,200 wineries in Argentina and most of them are very large. The size of the vineyard holdings of some of the largest would almost consume most of Niagara or the Okanagan. The smallest winery I encountered was at about 20,000 cases almost twice the output of the largest in Prince Edward County. This economy of scale, plus cheap labour, combines with large yields per hectare, and growing conditions easily controlled by irrigation to make the wine dead cheap.

But value of course is a two-sided coin, and cheap wine alone would not sustain Argentina in the world for long. The oceans of $10 malbec do provide bang for buck, but I was bored by them before I arrived, and still was as I tasted them in their own backyard. They are fruity and rich but often simple, short and coarse. The real strength of Argentina now, and the point of the massive upgrade in technology and winemaking talent, is to make wine that still does not cost very much – $15 to $30 – and that completely over-delivers on quality. The wines in this category were the revelation of my journey. One after another – whether malbecs, cabernets, merlots, syrahs, petit verdots, tannats or blends thereof – I found myself swooning over their texture, complexity and depth – routinely posting scores of 88 to 92 points, or more.  To the point that the so-called “icon wines” over $30 and as much as $100, simply didn’t supply that much more gratification or much better quality.

In Saturday’s release there are two great examples of terrific mid-priced Argentine reds. I did not visit the Mendoza winery (bodega) that made CICCHITTI 2008 EDICION LIMITADA MALBEC ($23.95) but this lush red from organically tended vineyards scattered at various elevations from 800 to 1200 metres is a great example of the current state of the art, and Argentine wine history. It is an Italian family winery founded in 1928 and very recently expanded and upgraded to catch the export wave.

BENMARCO 2008 EXPRESIVO, also from Mendoza, is pricier at $36.95 but it was one of few that I would personally have no qualms buying above $30. It is a very cool, rich yet refined blend of five Bordeaux grape varieties, a common practice in Argentina where the majors like cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cab franc – as well as more difficult petit verdot and tannat – can each be planted at altitudes most suitable to their growing season, then blended after. Altitude blending is Argentine’s secret weapon. Benmarco is not a winery by the way, but a brand produced at an excellent winery called Dominio del Plata, based in the important sub-region of Agrelo.

The winemaker at Dominio del Plata is Susanna Balbo, who I consider to be one of the great talents of Mendoza. I was not able to taste her SUSANA BALBO 2010 SIGNATURE CABERNET SAUVIGNON ($22.95) by press time, but I will add my note shortly after the release on Saturday. Likewise with CLOS DE LOS SIETE 2008 ($21.95) which I will re-taste after a disappointing experience last spring. Everyone seemed to like it but me. This is one of the most famous “foreign invasion” brands of Argentina, created by Bordeaux oenologist Michel Rolland who began consulting in the region in the early nineties, along with California’s Paul Hobbs. This pair, along with local hero Nicolas Catena, are largely responsible for where Argentina sits today.  And Argentina is sitting pretty!

B.C.’s  Big ‘O’ Icon Reds

During a seminar on wine in Canada that we guests did for the Argentine wine industry in Mendoza, I mentioned that British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, especially south of Oliver, was very much like Argentina, only at a latitude 15 degrees cooler (the Okanagan lies from 49 to 50 North, while Mendoza is at 30-32 South). Eyes opened and jaws dropped when I told them that B.C.s little desert was producing syrah, malbec, merlot and cabernets. I would have loved to be able to pour them the two B.C. icon wines being released Dec 10th -OSOYOOS LAROSE 2007 LE GRAND VIN at $45.00, or MISSION HILL 2007 OCULUS at $70.00. They would have experienced fine merlot-based blends crafted with attention to complexity, finesse and depth, if still a bit leaner than in hotter regions like Mendoza..

Which is the better Big O? Osoyoos-Larose or Oculus? Well I have not tasted the 2007s side by side but I have scored Oculus one point higher. At $25 more however that puts the “best buy” question on the sidelines. More importantly, I think that in both cases the 2007 vintage is among the strongest yet produced by both companies, with Mission Hill having a head start with its first bottling in 1997, and Osoyoos-Larose in 2001. The Okanagan Valley is indeed vintage sensitive, much more so than Mendoza. The 2007 vintage started poorly but finished hot, creating a lighter year with some catch-up ripeness. Both wines seem to have a bit more refinement, and in general among B.C’s often burly and unbalanced big reds, this is a very positive trait. I think the real reason is that the winemaking is simply getting better (which implies a better understanding of and adaptation to the vintage conditions).

By the way Osoyoos-Larose in the 750ml size is a Vintages Essential with the 2007 vintage now taking over from the burlier 2006. The magnum bottle(1500ml) of Osoyoos-Larose 2007 is being released Saturday at $99.95.

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Ep 2.3 - Keint-He Pinot Noir 2007

No, I am not refering to the Leafs. I am talking about my performance in the latest episode of So, You Think You Know Wine, the video of WineAlign’s blind tasting tournament that pits we critics and guest sommeliers against one, taunting, humiliating gold foil wrapped bottle of wine set in front of us in a darkened studio. In this episode the wine was Keint-He 2007 Pinot Noir from Prince Edward County. As soon as I nosed it Prince Edward County leapt to mind, as it should given that I have devoted much time and energy to this fascinating region in the past decade. As a rule I believe in the blind tasting principle that “the nose knows”. But I failed to do the proper analytical diligence when the palate texture took me in another direction. It was wonderfully elegant and almost creamy – very New World in feel – so I took the easy route to New Zealand instead of properly asking myself what conditions in PEC might induce this. Elements like maturity (it looked mature), a warm vintage (2007 was such a vintage), and excellent, low yield, natural winemaking (which is the stock in trade of Keint-He winemaker Geoff Heinricks). So I blew it under pressure, plain and simple.

You can get to know PEC pinot noir with a very good example being released December 10th. CLOSSON CHASE 2009 CLOSSON CHASE VINEYARD  PINOT NOIR ($39.95) is one two pinots made by winemaker Deborah Paskus in 2009. This one is from the most mature vineyards (still only 10 years) on the original property. I have tasted it at least four times this fall, and I really like its taut, tart cran-raspberry County authenticity, but I would still age it a year or two to soften the edges. At the moment I am preferring its younger but more expensive sibling, the first vintage of CLOSSON CHASE 2009 CHURCHSIDE PINOT NOIR($49.95), from hilltop wines planted beside the little white church atop the northern slope across from the big purple barn. It has a bit less depth perhaps but I do prefer the more obvious barrel complexity and suppleness of texture. And it too should age well, at least for three to five years. It is available only at the winery. www.ClossonChase.com.

A Pair of 92 Point Reds 

KANONKOP 2008 PINOTAGE ($39.95) from South Africa’s Simonsberg-Stellenbosch district is a great example of pinotage, the grape hybridized in South Africa in the 1920s by crossing pinot noir and cinsault (a Rhone variety). Due to uneven ripening, a distinctive, often unpleasant flavour in some older examples, and a confusing array of styles pinotage is en route to extinction. But Kanonkop winemaker BeyersTruter made it is mission to embrace and elevate pinotage. I urge you to try what is one of the most intriguing wines on the release, if even only to try it once and say you did before it goes the way of the dodo.

BODEGAS ALION 2007 ALION TINTO from the Ribera del Duero region of Castilla y Leon in Spain, is pricier at $78.95, but again a terrific wine. This is a modern bodega founded in 1992 by the Alvarez family (owner of Vega Sicilia, Spain’s region’s most famous wine). It makes only one wine, from one grape – tempranillo locally known as tinto fino. It is aged in new French oak. I was blown away by the aromatics here!

And two Whites Steals Under $17

CHÂTEAU DES CHARMES 2008 OLD VINES RIESLING Niagara-on-the-Lake ($16.95) has been wowing critics and competition judges all year, including WineAlign colleagues John Szabo and Sara d’Amato as we judged it the Best Wine at the Toronto Gold Medal Plates culinary competition in November. Prior to that it won White Wine of the Year at the Ontario Wine Awards and a gold medal at the Canadian Wine Awards. When a wine is this decorated and only $16.95, you just have to try it.

PODERI DEL PARADISO 2010 VERNACCIA DI SAN GIMIGNANO$14.95 was an unexpected charmer. I had largely lost interest in the whites from Tuscany’s most famous, touristic town because they had modernised to capture brightness, losing some individuality in the process. From a historic property at the foot of the hill, this is remains very well made but it is a stylistic return to the richer, honeyed and floral vernaccia’s of yore. This has been achieved by fermenting 20% in small oak barrels then ageing six months, as well as through long lees contact for the other 80% in tank.

And so it goes for the last Vintages release of 2011. We return with Vintages previews prior to the January 7th release, but keep watching for special holiday features and updates and Picks of the Day on The National Posts’ The Appetizer.

And a fun, frolicking Holiday season to all!

Check out reviews on over 120 wines from the December 10th release here.

Cheers and enjoy, David

- David Lawrason, VP of Wine at WineAlign

John Szabo, MS

The last VINTAGES release of the year focuses, sensibly, on holiday gatherings. But like buying a gift of wine for someone (see my last report on the subject), different types of gatherings require different beverage selections. Read on for some advice on what type of wine to buy for three different parties, and importantly how much, with specific recommendations from the December 10th release. The other theme is fizz, but stay tuned for my year-end champagne and sparkling picks coming your way in time to ring in the new year. Click here to jump to the Top Ten Smart Buys.

Hosting the Party: Why We Drink, and How much we Should

It’s not a stretch to assume that mood-altering substances have played a role in social gatherings since such substances were first discovered. But most of these, with the major exception of alcohol, are now considered illegal. Despite many past and ongoing prohibition movements, alcohol has probably maintained its above-board status due to it’s close ties with major world religions (except Islam, of course). Wine consumption is advocated in dozens of passages in the bible, both the old and new testaments, as in: “A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry” Ecclesiastes 10:19. There’s plenty of empirical evidence to support this claim.

But why does alcohol play such an important and common role in our social gatherings? Undoubtedly it has much to do with the fact that we are programmed to seek pleasure, not pain. “One of alcohol’s agreeable effects is body relaxation, possibly caused by neurons transmitting electrical signals in an alpha waves-pattern; such waves are observed when the body is relaxed”. [1]

It could also well have something to do with our inherent shyness and lack of self-confidence. It has been well demonstrated that a blood alcohol content (BAC) of between 0.03 to 0.12% can cause an overall improvement in mood and possible euphoria, and increase self-confidence and sociability. Most would consider these positive developments, especially in a social setting.

There’s plenty of recent scientific evidence showing that moderate wine consumption has some health benefits, validating such ancient statements as “Wine is at the head of all medicines; where wine is lacking, drugs are necessary” found in The Talmud. But since drugs, prescription or otherwise are outside our societal norms and are not part of your average office holiday party, let wine be our medicine. Indeed, according to Italian religious philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) “If a man deliberately abstains from wine to such an extent that he does serious harm to his nature, he will not be free from blame.” [2]

Of course, the scale can tip to far. “Wine was created from the beginning to make men joyful, and not to make men drunk. Wine drunk with moderation is the joy of soul and the heart” Ecclesiastes 31:35-36. Wine, in moderation, not excess, has a role to play in joy and health.

The party is likely to break up when BAC levels reach 0.09 to 0.25%, at which point lethargy sets in, followed by shortened attention span, impaired memory and comprehension. Above these levels, when BAC reaches 0.18 to 0.30%, the senses become impaired and profound confusion sets in. [2] Time to go home. In a taxi.

Blood alcohol content varies greatly by individual and depends on such factors as gender, weight, rate of consumption and type of drink. For example, two 5oz glasses of champagne within one hour puts me in the euphoric zone, while a third, puts me over 0.05%, at which point it’s illegal to drive in Ontario. To calculate your approximate blood alcohol content, use the CAA’s handy calculator.

Holiday Gatherings: What & how much to buy; how to make the most of your Budget

So, to keep guests euphoric and un-impaired for your party, count on half a bottle/person generally for sit down dinners (over a couple of hours), and a little less for stand up affairs (less food = faster absorption of alcohol). It’s better, however to have too much than too little; you can return any unopened bottles to the LCBO for a refund. During the coldest months, the split is typically ¼ white to ¾ red. To maximize the impression and minimize your budget, spend a few cents less on wine and a few more on the glassware, if renting. Nothing ruins the experience of a decent wine like those thick-rimmed, old-style balloon glasses, while even an average wine tastes better in a classy glass. For casual affairs, count on 1.5 glasses per person, and encourage reusing/rinsing. More formal, multi-wine events require one glass/person/wine.

What to Serve

As for the specifics of what to serve, the appropriate, style and price will change with crowd. Here are some guidelines on three types of parties:

Lots of Strangers or Distant Acquaintances in a Room

For large affairs, corporate events, office mixers, big weddings and any other type of event where you can’t remember half the guests’ names, play it safe and stick with the mainstream: nothing idiosyncratic or overly dramatic. The more character the wine has, the less likely it is to appeal to everyone; well-known regions and grapes are best. Err on the side of more full-bodied, warm climate reds (cabernet, shiraz, merlot, malbec, GSMs), and widely appealing low or un-oaked chardonnay, dry or off-riesling, pinot grigio and sauvignon blanc. For Bubbles, Cava or Prosecco will do. No need to spend more than $15 or so per bottle.

• CARLES ANDREU BRUT NATURE CAVA DO, Conca De Barbara, Spain $15.95
• 2008 CHÂTEAU DES CHARMES OLD VINES RIESLING VQA Niagara-on-the-Lake $16.95
• 2010 PETER ZEMMER PINOT GRIGIO DOC Alto Adige $15.95
• 2009 CHÂTEAU ROCHECOLOMBE CÔTES DU RHÔNE AC  $14.95

The Intimate Gathering of Friends

Toss all safe picks out the window and dazzle your friends with your latest WineAlign finds. Arm yourself with a few reviews (if anyone questions you, you can deflect the blame). You’ll be looking for insider’s picks well off the beaten path where quality/value=smart buy, i.e.:

• 2008 MARKUS MOLITOR RIESLING SPÄTLESE QmP, Ürziger Würzgarten $24.95
• 2009 PIERRE AMADIEU DOMAINE GRAND ROMANE CUVÉE PRESTIGE GIGONDASAC, Vieilles Vignes $27.95
• 2009 ARGIOLAS COSTERA DOC Cannonau di Sardegna $17.95
• 2005 KATOGI & STROFILIA XINOMAVRO AO Naoussa $17.95
• 2010 DOMAINE DE VAUGONDY DRY VOUVRAY AC $14.95
• 2007 INURRIETA CUATROCIENTOS DO Navarra $15.95

The Wine & Cheese Party

Supposed to be the easiest type of affair, wine and cheese is in reality a minefield. So many fine wines are dashed by the deadly combination of fat, salt, and pungent flavours of cheese. To make matching worse, a typical cheese board contains a range of cheeses (as it should) from mild to stinky, so no single wine will work, and the logistics of getting the right wine in the right glass with the right cheese is complicated. But here’s how to do it: set up stations, each with a different cheese and wine combo. Guests mingle, chat and make their way around the room; at each station they can stop for a piece of cheese and a fresh glass of the right wine, so be sure to have enough glasses on hand: Number of guests x number of wine/cheese combinations, + 20% extra to be safe. Here’s a classic set up:

Table 1: Fresh goat’s cheese + crisp, dry white:
2010 ASTROLABE VOYAGE SAUVIGNON BLANC Marlborough, South Island  $21.95

Table 2: Brie or Camembert + rich, buttery, (lightly) oaked white:
2008 G. MARQUIS THE SILVER LINE CHARDONNAY Single Vineyard Niagara Stone Road, VQA Niagara-on-the-Lake  $16.95

Table 3: Hard cheese, i.e. parmiggiano reggiano, Monforte Toscano + full-bodied red wine:
2010 CASA LAPOSTOLLE CUVÉE ALEXANDRE CABERNET SAUVIGNON Colchagua Valley  $24.95

Table 4: Blue cheese i.e. Roquefort, Blue d’Auvergne, Gorgonzola + sweet wine i.e. port, sauternes, Icewine:
RAMOS-PINTO QUINTA DA ERVAMOIRA 10 YEARS OLD DOC Douro  $35.95

And that’s all there is to it. Wishing you safe, happy, mirth-filled holidays.

From the December 10th Vintages release:

Top Ten Smart Buys
All Reviews

Cheers,

John Szabo, Master Sommelier

Sources:
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-term_effects_of_alcohol
[2]: http://www.theworldwidewine.com/Wine_quotes/Religious_wine_quotes.php

It was a career- defining one-two punch, and both the Niagara and Burgundy have fed off each other, and are responsible for each other’s success.

Moray Tawse

When I first met Moray Tawse on Toronto’s tasting circuit about 15 years ago he was a Burgundy man to his pips – and not interested in Ontario wine. But like anyone who loves pinot noir and chardonnay he became aware that Niagara had potential with these varieties, and soon enough he met up with a young Canadian-born winemaker working in Burgundy named Pascal Marchand, who visited Niagara and saw the potential too.

At the turn of the millennium Moray Tawse took the plunge, and with Marchand at his side as a consultant, he opened Tawse Winery in Beamsville. In his first vintage 2001 he made 200 cases. The original intent was to focus narrowly on Burgundy varieties, with high density plantings of organically farmed chardonnay and pinot. But he bought some old riesling vines too, and as he acquired other plots – both adjacent to the estate and other sites on the Bench like Quarry Road – other varieties came into the mix.

With 25,000 cases Tawse now has one of the broadest and deepest portfolio’s in Niagara, with several single vineyard bottlings of some varieties. And as a result his wines have become a study in Niagara terroir, partially because they are extremely well made by Niagara College oenology grad Paul Pender, and assistant winemaker René Van Ede.

Tawse Winery

That combination of breadth, depth and quality earned Tawse the Winery of the Year honours, the first non-British Columbia winery to take the title since the awards began in 2001. Tawse won six golds; the largest gold haul in the history of the competition. And because wineries are ranked by the medal weight of the top six wines they entered, Tawse took the crown with ease. No matter that he took another seven silvers and eleven bronze, and that his under $20 Sketches of Niagara Riesling (see below) was White Wine of the Year.

As they were building toward success in Niagara Tawse and Marchand began plotting their partnership in Burgundy. Marchand had been making wine for others for several years, including the prestigious Domaine de la Vougeraie, an ambitious company assembled by Jean-Charles Boisset in the ‘90s. It proved an inspiration for the outward looking Marchand, who not only wanted to make his own wines in Burgundy but also in Niagara and Australia.

The arrangement in Burgundy is a bit complicated. Only Marchand’s name appears on the labels, but the company is called Marchand-Tawse. It makes wines from over 30 single vineyard plots in the Cote de Beaune and Cotes de Nuits, with Moray Tawse recently purchasing vineyards in the hallowed Chassagne-Montrachet appellation (mostly chardonnay).

Like the Niagara wines, the Marchand – Tawse Burgundies are top drawer. I had a sneak peek at the 2009 whites in France last spring, then a good run through of the 2009 reds at Le Select Bistro. There is a wonderful sense of refinement and appellation accuracy in all the wines. And, even though they are expensive, we should be thankful that Tawse’s local connection should make them fairly easy to acquire here down the road.

Here are a handful of some of my recently tasted favourites from both Niagara and Burgundy, with reviews, ratings and prices at www.WineAlign.com.

Marchand-Tawse Morey Saint Denis 1er-Cru-Les-Faconnieres 2009

Marchand-Tawse Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Feussolottes 2009

Tawse Quarry Road Vinemount Ridge Chardonnay 2009

Tawse Sketches Of Niagara Riesling 2010

Tawse Grower’s Blend Pinot Noir Niagara Escarpment 2009

Tawse Laundry Vineyard Lincoln Lakeshore Cabernet Franc 2009

The top five wine sites in Canada are:

1) SAQ.com (Canada Rank: 1,141)
2) LCBO.com  (1,164)
3) WineAlign.com (4,260)
4) BCLiquorStores.com (6,449)
5) Vintages.com (7,770)

Below are the top 43 sites in Canada.

Canadian Web Wine Ranking 6Dec11 - Source Alexa.com

Julian Hitner

Chardonnay only: – Crafted solely from Chardonnay, Blanc de Blancs is my favourite type of champagne. Built around the well-established notion that Chardonnay contributes finesse, delicacy, freshness, texture, and style to the blend—remembering that most champagne is a combination of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier—Blanc de Blancs, while perhaps not as richly structured or fruit-oriented as some might prefer, constitutes the greatest features I adore in champagne.

Pol Roger Blanc de Blancs

So how should top quality Blanc de Blancs taste, of which the best grapes hail from the Côte des Blancs, just south of Épernay? While generalizations are easier to summarize than specifics, most experienced champagne drinkers will often detect aromas of profound yeasty biscuits, or even French toast if they’re fortunate enough, at the outset. Typically, in Blanc de Blancs, this should gently subside to reveal a vast array of different notes related to green fruits, citrus elements, exotic spices, and delicate nuts, also sometimes truffles—all extremely pure yet agile at the same time. Indeed, the greatest examples of Blanc de Blancs should always be immensely complex, yet present themselves to the taster in such a way that makes their most important aromas, such as those previously mentioned, easily discernable. In my experience, such is the mark of a truly great Blanc de Blancs.

Salon Champagne Brut Blanc de Blanc

On the palate, these same aromas, like any other type of wine, should be clearly repeated in the form of detectable flavours. In the case of Blanc de Blancs, however, the main differences to watch out for, such as when comparing it any other type of champagne, are finesse, delicacy, freshness, texture, and style. Perhaps a comparison will add light to the issue: Salon versus Krug.

Krug Grande Cuvee

Compared to the Krug Grande Cuvée, which will often taste weightier, deeper, and ever-so slightly more fruit-driven (courtesy of the Chardonnay being typically outweighed by the two Pinots), and rounder—the result, among other things, of being a multi-grape blend—a glass of Salon will typically possess a greater degree of purity and expression from being crafted solely from Chardonnay. Such characteristics, I would submit, are best discovered when analysing the features previously mentioned.

As for aging potential, a bottle of premium Blanc de Blancs should have little trouble keeping for several decades, depending on the preference of the collector. Like other types of champagne, an old bottling of Blanc de Blancs will often remind one of an old white Burgundy, perhaps even (still) slightly effervescent. Seriously, what could be better?

Click here for a few gems from the 26 November 2011 Vintages Release and other items