'88's and no heartbreaks; far from slumming it in Oakland

This past Sunday in the burgeoning Temescal neighborhood of Oakland, a few of us kicked it Oakland style: basking in the east bay sun, drinkin' outdoors and, of course, barbecuing. Thanks to chemist/ Burgundy lover Arjun Mendiratta, data cluster protector/ bon vivant Slaton Lipscomb and software dude/winemaker Eric Lundblad for hanging out and sharing some terrific bottles of wine.

In order of consumption we drank:

1988 Veuve Cliquot RD

Delicious. Nutty , succulent, and really deep, bright, palate filling flavors with gutsy, real deal acidity. Loved it.

1988 Michel Esmonin Gevrey Chambertin Clos St Jacques
Woodsy, deep sous bois nose lead to a very savory, dark cherry and hoisin inflected palate, with some meaty and decaying notes. Though I enjoyed this for its maturity, I must admit that initially I preferred the Chevillon NSG below, only to reconsider my position after taking the last sip of this very good wine.

1988 Robert Chevillon Nuit St George Les Perrieres
Good wine. Very fresh, primary, red cherry aromas. Deep, intense, fresh and vibrant red fruit flavors with a hint of orange peel. Is this 20+ year old burgundy I'm tasting?? Very impressive for its vivacity and youthfulness. Q-tip might refer to it as a viverant, vivrant.

In addition to the '88s we drank a very decent bottle of '00 Fevre Chablis Bougros that was in a good, chalky mineral yet open-knit spot. There was an 01 Eric Texier Cote Rotie (didn't even know he dabbled in Cote Rotie) which was pretty, relatively lighter weight and actually reminded me of a richer Pineau d'Aunis a la Domaine de la Belleviere. '99 Drouhin Beaune Clos de Mouches was toasty, fat, a bit sweet and not really enjoyable without food - don't know if even the right food would have redeemed it's ripe, oaky qualities. '96 Fleury was fine, softer, not as wound up and less intellectual than my last few experiences with the wine.

Good drinking and hangout session, gentlemen. Special thanks to Arjun for hosting, providing the red burg and cooking delicious salmon.

Paris/Champagne 2009: Highlights for now and a taste of what's to come

So I'm back, possibly still somewhere between East Coast and GMT time zones, but otherwise doing quite well. Six days does not quite do Paris and Champagne justice; either place alone merits much more time and exploration. Nevertheless, you still can see and accomplish a lot in six days.

One thing I realized is that Champagne just might be the easiest to visit wine region that is proximate to a large city in the entire world. 70 minutes from Paris Gare de l'Est to Epernay. Only 45 minutes if you head to Reims and take the TGV bullet train. Beautiful countryside, picturesque older villages, sleepy towns (even the larger ones like Epernay are really quiet this time of year). And of course there is the champagne. My suggestion is to go. Especially if you're lucky enough to be employed and have some paid time off as I am...now is the time to go. There are probably still great flight deals, and the dollar is relatively strong against the euro. Not to say it's a cheap trip, but if you're smart, stay in modest hotels, eat some bread and cheese occasionally for lunch, you can do the trip for cheaper than you might have thought possible.

I will have plenty of posts to look forward to from this trip, which will most likely including four winery profiles and a few meal re-caps. For now, here are a few trip highlights:

- Berthillon ice cream (pistache and caramel, both excellent)
- Large quantities of delicious, inexpensive cheese
- '07 Dard & Ribo Crozes Hermitage Blanc at Le Verre Volee
- Quite randomly running into Robert Camuto at Le Verre Volee
- Creative cuisine and friendly folks at Le Verre Volee (yes, many highlights from - this terrific wine shop and bistro - thanks Guillaume for the rec!)
- Waiting in line for 30 minutes at La Duree for $3 macarons (ok, one snarky jab allowed)
- Driving in the Marne valley, from Ambonnay in the east to the beautiful village of Oeuilly just west of Epernay

Oh, thanks for your patience with the lack of new stuff up here. To make up for it, I plan a busy week coming up - updates should be fast and furious.

Happy rest of the weekend.

Back in the Old World Again - OWOS soon to hit Paris & Champagne

Recently I received an email from a major airline, advertising really low fares to various cities in Europe. I couldn't resist - a brief excursion seemed a terrific idea and Paris was calling. Once before, nearly a decade ago, I stayed briefly in the city of light. I was traveling amongst a group of friends during the millennial craziness, and needless to say there was much partying. A lot of the city's magic was either virtually impossible to access or neglected by our large, party hearty group.

So I'm excited to be returning to Paris as well as visiting Champagne six weeks from now. What do you have to look forward to in this reportage? Well, probably a few notable Parisian wine bars, at least a day's worth of pedaling across arrondissements via Velib, a few detailed reports on visits to Champagne producers, some rich, fatty regional Champenoise cuisine, and perhaps a few photographs showcasing interesting sights in Paris, looking all the more tempting in that famous diffuse, grey-ish Parisian light.

Though I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on food and wine stuff in Paris, I'm welcoming any ideas for restaurants, bars, shops, or any other sites of interest worth discovering. Many thanks for the suggestions.

Protecting the brand, Champagne Style

What do you think of the above full page ad that the Vignerons et Maisons de Champagne are currently running in the New Yorker (and elsewhere?) A few initial reactions:

Which US sparkling wine producers persist in labelling their product as Champagne (other than maybe Korbel, J Roger, or other cheap fizz makers)?

The rather significant, recent price increases in champagne might also be legal, but are they fair?

Advertising in a high brow publication such as the New Yorker, wouldn't the US office of Champagne realize that they are sort of preaching to the choir, or at least to a readership that, if they care enough to buy a bottle of bubbly that in fact is real champagne, would know the difference?

Seems like a waste of money here. But then again, when you're wasting money on all manner of fertilizers, herbicides and other products to grow your grapes, as well as wasting money on perceived 'luxury' packaging, what's a little extra wasted money on a poorly targeted advertising and PR campaign?

Celebrating 30 years of me at the wine bar

I spent yet another great evening at Terroir (from here on out I'll refer to it as 'the wine bar,' since I really don't go out drinking wine anywhere else). This time I was lucky to share the good times and natty vin with friends, family (i.e., my brother Michael - yes, wassup Michael!) former and past co-workers, a few tasting group members, and even a few readers of this blog. Yep, two of you actually came out and celebrated with some random blogger. So a special thanks to frequent commenter Steve L (great to finally meet, thanks for your continued feedback and contributions on this site) as well as fellow blogger Cory Cartwright of Saignee. Given Cory's enthusiasm, knowledge and facility with writing literate, down to earth wine prose, I had thought that he was in the wine business. If you ever were to need a break from your current gig, Cory, I suspect you'd be able to find a wine job in no time. It was wonderful to meet Cory and his wife, who also happened to stop into K&L yesterday on their way back to San Jose. Hope you two enjoy the Hauth Kerpen.

And les vins? To start, my co-worker and K&L Champagne buyer Gary Westby bought a bottle of Larmandier Bernier Terre de Vertus Blanc de Blancs. No dosage, native yeast, biodynamic, 100% chardonnay based champagne here from two vineyards in the 1er cru rated village of Vertus. It was bright and classy, though a lot more ripe, soft and playful than I remember it. Very little of the austere cote des blancs acidity and chalkiness, just a delicate, but full flavored, blanc de blancs from this southernmost 1er cru village in the CdB. Maybe this is based primarily on '05 juice? (just checked the Polaner website, and it is in fact all '05)

I really enjoyed some La Cigarrera Manzanilla. This is a producer previously unknown to me, but making some serious manzanilla. A bit fleshier than the La Gitana (my,and most sherry drinker's benchmark for everyday manzanilla), but still with terrific saline tang and satisfactorily savory walnut flavors on the finish. As usual, not many people were drinking sherry which left much of the 500ml bottle for me. No me quejo - no complaints!

Kiralyudvar's '06 demi-sec Tokaji was its usual stunning, vivid, fruity, precise self. 11.8% alcohol, 19.1 g/l rs, 7.6 g/l acidity - I like these numbers. In a pretty strong line-up of wines this was probably my favorite. Think of something akin to cantaloupe and lime juice, with the sort of purity and sugar/acid balance that only a drink made from top quality white wine grapes fermented into wine can deliver, and then drop that thought and just buy a bottle to experience yourself.

2006 Alice & Oliver de Moor Chablis Bel Air was pure and kinda tasty, if a little bit unexciting, overly soft, lacking in acidity and missing something. Oh yes, it's made from chardonnay grapes. Oh chardonnay, yet again you show your deceit.

At some point mid-late evening, Cory generously poured me some Antoine Arena Vermentino. Very dry, very textural, very mineral on the palate.

Now a pair from 1979. Heitz's Napa Cabernet Sauvignon (no vineyard designate, just a Napa bottling) was fading. Ripe napa style cherry fruit with some green vegetal hints, a bit of green peppercorn, and a fairly hollow mid-palate. Not much of a finish to speak of. As promised, I opened one of my most memorable from '08, a magnum of 1979 Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon. According to their website, this one is a drinker indeed. The site recommends that you 'create a special dinner around this one.' Maybe one day I will, provided that the French portion of the ownership at one natural wine bar in the city by the bay are not present. Cabernet from a particularly ripe vintage in sunny California would be two strikes against this wine for these two particularly discerning palates. I enjoyed drinking this. It tasted just how I remembered, of sweet, ripe dark fruit. And hoisin sauce. And cola. Now what decent, God fearing, red blooded American doesn't like the occasional cola? Though a few folks enjoyed various aspects of this wine, I did not enjoy it as much as when I first tasted it six months ago. Definitely not a repeat purchase, though SCMV's library pinot noirs could well be worth further exploration.

There you have it. Five hours of steady drinking at the wine bar. Now the various birthday celebrations are officially over, and there is much work to be done. Will keep up things on this here site and hopefully even add a few new wrinkles in the coming week, probably including more original photos and maybe even some audio/video.

Peace and out.

Older wines drunk in the past week, with an emphasis on '79

Alright, enough with the birthday and New Year stuff, it's time to catch up on some good old-fashioned tasting notes. Some wines I drank over the past week:

2000 Tarlant La Vigne d'Antan Chardonnay non-graffe

As you might surmise from the title, this comes from a single vineyard of ungrafted chardonnay. There is the trademark Tarlant austere chalkiness, with the extra intensity and focus of a blanc des blancs. I have a sneaking suspicion that this bottle was slightly corked. Not enough for me to detect on the nose, but the wine was not nearly as expressive as I had anticipated. The finish also seemed a bit clipped. Something of a let-down, but I am all the more curious to try another bottle. Does blanc de blancs from ungrafted chardonnay really show an entirely different set of flavors then just a good quality, grower blanc de blancs?

1988 Domaine Mussy Beaune 'Montremenots' 1er Cru

Due to the provenance of this bottle, which from what I had heard was particularly pristine, as well as the fact that the back label said the wine was selected by American Burgundy legend Becky Wasserman, I figured that this would be a well calculated Burgundy risk. Well, unfortunately, the wine only struck one note, a flat middle C on an untuned, neglected upright piano. The development was very poor: minimal bouquet, no interesting secondary/tertiary flavors, just some slightly warm red fruit. Not maderized, but possibly heat damaged? Who knows, I have no experience with the producer, nor wines from the Cotes de Beaune in the '88 vintage. I find it fitting that this and the Tarlant were drunk on New Year's Eve, a holiday known to disappoint those who do not set their expectations a bit lower.

1979 Mount Eden Vineyards Pinot Noir Santa Cruz Mountains

Could it be...another disappointment? '79 was a warm vintage in California, and you really note it here. The acidity is lower than usual for SCM pinot noir. Very woody nose and palate. Redwood (redwood barrels were commonplace in California winemaking until they eventually fell out of favor) type woody. The foresty dark fruit was hanging on for dear life, really drying out. Though the wine did improve slightly in the glass, it was not enough to entice me to try a second bottle should I come across one. Drunk with a similarly lackluster meal at one of my neighborhood's more popular eateries, The Liberty Cafe.

1979 Charles Krug Hearty Burgundy Napa Valley

Peter Mondavi's (the feuding brother you hear about when you tour the Robert Mondavi Winery) Charles Krug label actually made some decent wine in the '70s. And I had a sneaking suspicion that this would be holding up fairly well. After all, the wine is hearty! I have no idea of the varietal breakdown here, but I would guess cab, zin, gamay, merlot, and others. My hopes were confirmed, this wine tasted terrific. We enjoyed it last night with some split pea soup, salad, bread and garrotxa cheese. It tastes incredibly fresh, with very pure, darker berry and black cherry fruits. Excellent balance of fruit and acidity, with tannins that are completely resolved. It reminded me of a simpler, slightly plumper good quality cru beaujolais. Not bad for $5 in the closeout bin.

1979 Niepoort Colheita

I'm not a big port person. It's got to be really special to grab my attention, and unfortunately this was not a really special bottle. I do like a good colheita, especially a white colheita (rare, but you might occasionally see one from Krohn). Colheita ports, or port from lesser vintages which are aged in barrel as opposed to bottle (as are vintage ports), can be a rare treat, combining the bright fruit of vintage ports and the oxidative, dried fruit and nut notes of tawny ports. This Niepoort showed more of the former, but in a fairly simple, straightforward manner. Another advantage of colheitas, though, is that they can be opened and enjoyed over a period of several months, so I have plenty of time to see if this wine eventually wins me over.

The Art of unselling KRUG.

I am proud to make a consistent effort dissuading people from buying Krug this year. Why am I doing this? Because like many other champagne fans, I have noticed that the past few times I have tasted it, it in no way resembles the rich, golden, mouth filling elixir I remember from as recently as a few years ago. And at over $130, the wine ought to be mind blowing and memorable, right?

So here's how it works. There are so many superior champagnes we sell for even a third of the cost of Krug. I spot someone with Krug in hand or basket, ask them if they need any help finding anything, and then whether the answer is yes or no, gently suggest if they mind receiving an alternate champagne recommendation, one that I believe to be a superior wine and better value than Krug. Then I find another champagne. Recently it's been Tarlant Cuvee Louis, but most anything we sell is more interesting, tastier bubbly than Krug these days.

Two bottles of Krug un-sold month to date, and counting.

A Tale of two LVMH champagnes

Recently tasted some champagnes, mainly grower ones, though there were a few products sold by big bad Luis Vuitton Moet Henessy. I thought it might be fun to write brief notes on two of these, as each portrays a telling snap shot of a company's reputation (LVMH in the first instance, Veuve Clicquot in the second) at a particular point in time.

Ruinart is marketed, from my understanding as a step up in quality from your basic NV champagne. At least the $59.99 price tag on the Ruinart Blanc des Blancs I tasted would suggest this. What an awful wine. There is no shortage of much less expensive sparkling wines, both bottle and tank fermented, that I would rather drink than this. Don't believe anyone who says that even lesser champagne is, after all, still champagne, and therefore worth the price. This was very reductive, with the tell-tale sulphurous nose lacking any aroma of fruits or anything other than sulphur. Sweet on the palate. And thin. Coarse. Billed as 12g/l dosage but it has to be more. No purity, nor grace, nor any flavors that I would ever want to re-visit. Shite.

On to another LVMH brand - the incredibly successful Veuve Clicquot. Now I am simultaneously as impressed and confounded by the orange driven power of the aggressively marketed and branded Veuve Cliquot as any other wine professional. Nonetheless, it is worth pointing out that Veuve Clicquot wines, the vintages and La Grande Dame in particular, used to be quite good! At least that is what I have heard - I have not been a drinker long enough to have experienced this first hand. So I truly was looking forward to tasting the 1988 Veuve Clicquot Rare Vintage (recently disgorged) champagne. It lived up to the promise of Clicquot's former reputation, and the reliability of the 1988 vintage in champagne (thought by some to be superior to the other great vintage of the '80s, 1985). Very complex on the nose, a bit sherried as one would expect, but in a good way. Deep, broad flavors on the palate, with recently browned apples and nuts. Amazingly silken texture, a gentle, lazy bead and simply terrific length and acidity. First class all the way, and for less than the price of a bottle of the recently mediocre Krug Grand Cuvee bottling, this one is absolutely worth it.

Funny how things change. And how a little (ok, a little more than a little) ambition to grow your business can detract from what made your business great in the first place.

Leave the '81 Cote aux Enfants, take the fried chicken and vitovska

Last night my girlfriend and I, along with SF by way of Nîmes natty wine supporter/ California wine troublestarter Guilhaume Gerard and his lovely wife Claire, were treated to a delicious dinner hosted by our friends Josh and Catherine. A diverse group representing Baltimore, Philly, San Francisco, Sacramento, Southeast and Northeast France, we ate and drank quite nicely for a bunch of twenty somethings making a living selling wine, art and fancy desserts in a seriously downward trending economy. Food highlights included an amazing cream of celery root and parsnips soup, topped with a fried sliced fingerling potato and a drizzle of truffle oil - so simple and delicious. The 'fried chicken salad,' as coined by Josh, was a terrific mix of baby spinach, perfectly fried strips of chicken, crumbled blue cheese, lardons, sliced apple and persimmons.

As for wine, my favorite was an '03 Vodopivec Vitovska. Truly interesting, long maceration on skins Friuli-Slovenian type wine. It was so complex and continued to evolve until the last sip. Fresh stone fruit aromas, pronounced truffle, then some marzipan, a suggestion of acacia honey. Flavors on the palate were orchard fresh and unbelievably fleshy. Nectarines. You can really sink your teeth into this wine, it's so fleshy, but combine this with terrific acidity and vivid fruit, and you get a completely satisfying drinking experience, natural wine style. It was also cool in that this is, from the flavors anyway, much less oxidative style winemaking than Radikon or Gravner. I would guess a shorter maceration on the skins as well. This wine and the aforementioned soup - phenomenal.

On the other end of the spectrum, a bottle of 1981 Bollinger Cote aux Enfants, which I had happened across at work and purchased, with discount, for a modest $40, did not show too well. Very simple mature pinot noir flavors, a lack of acidity, and aromas which Guilhaume compared to wood floor cleaner just didn't make the cut. Guess that this rare bottling of pinot noir from Ay should be enjoyed in its first 10-15 years of life. In fact, a bottle of 1981 central coast pinot noir I drank last year absolutely would have killed this much fancier much higher pedigreed, northerly champagne in a head-to-head tasting.

In between the Bolli at the qualitative low end and Vitovska at the high end, there was some '06 Verget Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons (reductive and then gradually better, if a bit lacking in excitement), '98 Fonsalette CDR reserve (primary, chewy grenache, ok, but fruity and not a whole lot else, what do you expect - it's grenache) and an '07 Domaine de Reuilly rose of pinot gris (which was its usual, understated, subtle, elegant self).

Considerably less eclectic and fancy wines will feature for turkey day, which I'll hopefully get around to posting tomorrow prior to the flurry of prep which feeding 14 people in a small, minimally equipped kitchen entails.

Cheap Charles Ellner and a little Thelonious

As I sit at my desk and recover from a dude's night out to the Leatherneck steakhouse and karaoke, a night which began with Old Overholt rye whisky, ended with corona, and had some awful private label cabernet, decent new york strip steak, creamed spinach, iceberg salad with bleu cheese crumble and irish coffee in between, I am thinking that a blog update is in order. Don't worry, I'm fine. Not 100%, but well enough to write about champagne.

Recently David D commented inquiring on a bottle of closeout champagne we had lying around from a recent cellar acquisition. It was champagne for $5.99 so I bought it. Ellner is a larger vineyard owner and negociant-manipulant (NM), owning 54 hectares of vineyards from the Aube in the south to the Montagne de Reims in the north, which supply 70% of the juice for their champagnes. This bottling, the Carte d'or, consists of 75% chard and 25% pinot noir. The PN dominated the aromas and flavors of the champagne, with lots of red fruit and buttermilk biscuity notes. After some time opening up, marzipan notes emerged on the nose as well. I'd be curious as to what vintages were included on this bottle and when it was disgorged, but since it was not Tarlant I could not find this information on the back label. I would guess '01 and '02 formed the basis of the blend, given the texture, decent acidity and depth of flavor. As for the disgorgement, maybe sometime in '05? All that is secondary to most folks out there, what really matters is that the champagne, while somewhat simple and direct, is certainly better than most grand marques' basic NV efforts. Not quite as interesting as many grower champagnes, but still a decent deal if it were to cost around $35 (no idea on pricing, I've yet to see this brand in the market).

Here's some Sunday Thelonious from 'Straight no Chaser.' Just like my Old Overholt, straight no chaser. This one's much more complex though, and probably more enjoyable for many of you out there.

Champagnes tasted and enjoyed recently

Most of these (with the exception of the Drappier, tasted at Terroir) are champagnes I sell at work. So I'm selling my own hooch here, but it's been a while since I've pitched the K&L wares. Sorry if you're not on the west coast and can't find many of these. If you're on the east coast, it probably only makes sense to ship if you mix a case, in which case it would be roughly $4 per bottle to ship via Fedex 3day.

Drappier Zero Dosage NV -

A really impressive blanc de noir here. Classy, pure cherry fruit with a fine structure, indeed. Intense, elegant, crystalline structured, and long finishing, this is one of the most enjoyable non-vintage champagnes I have drunk in the past few years.

De Meric Grand Reserve Sous Bois NV - $34.99

80% pinot noir from Ay, Mareuil-Sur-Ay and Mutigny, 15% chardonnay from Cramant, Avize and Oger and 5% meunier from Cumieres. It is vinified half in old oak barrels and half in stainless steel tanks. Clean berry fruits and a bit of challah bread dough on the nose lead to a very fruit driven palate. Very Pinot Noir. Length, purity and acidity are all nicely balanced.

Marguet Rose NV - $34.99

Light coppery pink color. Composed of 70% chardonnay and 30% pinot noir. Marguet is a small negoc house based in Ambonnay. The quality of Benoit Marguet's pinot noir really show here; there is a real Burgundian pinot noir savor to this champagne. It's red berry fruited, but also brawny and masculine - not a simply fruity, cheerful rose champagne. I quite like it and plan on buying some soon.

Louise Brison 'Cuvee Tendresse' Blanc des Blancs' 2001 - $59.99 on pre-arrival

A rather obscure producer working in the Aube (where Fleury is also based) who farms organically , this is one of several delicous champagnes I have tasted from Mr. Broulez. 100% chardonnay, matured in oak for a short time (5 months), without malolactic fermentation. Substantial, with nicely advanced, savory notes balanced by excellent acidity. Distinctive. Drinking great right now.

Louise Brison Cuvee Germain 2001 (1.5l)- $79.99 on pre-arrival

50% chard, 50% pinot noir. Creamy on the palate, with orange blossom notes and an unusual density. Also, a very nice decomposed marine organism (ok, I guess you could say 'chalk') minerality is underlying beneath all of the fruit. It tastes sort of pinot blanc-like, with bubbles.

Louise Brison Brut 2002 - $39.99

There is a similar richness, roundness and persistence here, though with more pronounced acidity. Tasted a second time, the acidity really jumped out even more so, in a good way. I like this quite a bit, it will probably be my house champagne for when the occasion calls for a good quality bubbly.

Leclerc Briant 'La Ravinne' NV - $41.99

Pascal Leclerc only makes single vineyard champagnes: the chalky 'les crayeres,' juicy, mineral and easy to drink 'Les chevres preuses,' the blanc des blancs 'la croisette,' an amazingly (and almost illegally) dark rose champagne named 'cuvee rubis' and this, his single vineyard pinot meunier. It might be my favorite of his wines which I have tasted. La Ravinne has a spicy nose, with a palate of pithy red grapefruit, showing great intensity and a refreshing bitter snap to the finish. Modern meunier here, but of a flavor profile I have not yet encountered with the grape.

Leclerc Briant Cuvee Divine 2001 - $39.99

This is composed of 50% Chardonnay and 50% Pinot Noir, blended from estate vineyards in the valley of the Marne villages Dizy, Cumieres, Damery and Hautvillers. I have tasted one older vintage of this wine ('89, I believe) and, while it aged well, I prefer this young wine from a much less heralded vintage. Very chablis like chalky minerality.

More champagne and other sparkling wine notes to come....

This wine drinker is celebrating...Barack Obama is our next president!

I need just a brief moment for gravitas, here. Growing up, I remember discussing the prospect of a female or black president in the US - when would it happen? Would it be in our lifetime? Honestly, I did not believe it would, almost right up until Barack Obama announced his candidacy a few years ago. When that happened, and as he gained momentum, I came to believe that not only would we have an African American president in our lifetime, but it would be Barack Obama taking oath as the first black president in 2009. And sure enough, the polls have closed and that is what the news networks are telling us: Barack Obama is our next president. Obama won Ohio, he won Pennsylvania, he won Florida, he won Virginia (as some of you know it has been 45 years since a democratic candidate won VA). Well, the man is speaking right now, so I will keep it short and simply state that I am inspired as I hope that anyone reading this is equally inspired.

So, what to drink to savor and celebrate the moment? How about, while the champagne chills down, a glass of La Gitana manzanilla, bright, salty, and full of fruit, with uncommon depth and complexity. Then, when the champagne is nice and cold, crack it open. Perhaps it will be a bottle of Tarlant Brut Zero, a blend of 2005 and reserve wines, and of all three major champagne varieties. It is bone dry, poised, classy champagne, showing a serious character and lots of promise for the future, ready to usher in a new era in American history.

Geeking out (again) at Terroir SF

It was a celebratory evening last Wednesday night, as my friend Paul was in town and decided to have an assortment of friends - mainly wine business types - meet at Terroir. This makes sense as Paul has been a vocal advocate of naturally made wines for at least the past several years (longer, perhaps?) Though a bit under the weather, Paul clearly was in his element, staring slack jawed at the selection of wines from the Jura, remarking excitedly about what a ridiculous list the three man crew at Terroir have assembled, and clearly happy to catch up with old friends and share some great bottles. Which, of course is what it's all about. And, as anyone who reads wine blogs should well know, it's also all about trying to remember these various bottles and inform the masses on what one thinks is good (and not). So, in rough order of consumption, here are some quick (and I do mean quick) TN's.

Gros Jean Cremant de Jura 2001 - super earthy and funky, not very fresh nor charming.

Luc Massy Dezaley Chemin de Fer Chasselas Grand Cru 2001- a repeat from a few weeks ago. Found it more delicate, pretty and floral this time around

2000 Movia Puro - Disgorged by yours truly. Tart bitter cherry, maybe a bit lambic like? 50% Pinot Nero, 50% Ribolla. Cool wine, my first puro experience.

2006 Chidaine Rose sparkler - Sweet, one-dimensional and not as good as my favorite bugey cerdons. My disdain for sparkling Chidaines continues....

Bruno Michel Blanc de Blancs 1er Cru - Fun, bright, somewhat simple BdB.

2004 Thierry Puzelat 'in KO we trust' Cot - pure cot deliciousness. Floral, dark fruited, intense, fresh.

2005 Courtois 'Racine'- Fairly bright, high toned berries with some SSF (that's 'sans soufre funk,' see here for a related post)

2005 Freres Grosjean Fumin (Valle d'aosta) - Dark, penetrating, not fresh and alpine until the finish. Slowly grew on me.

2000 Montborgeau Cuvee Speciale L'etoile - nutty, bright, great intensity, nuance and depth. WOTN!

2006 Dard et Ribot Crozes-Hermitage - sweet, smoky, savory.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention...

Tasted the 1999 Philiponnat Clos de Goisses. Very little to enjoy about this wine right now. Unless you like highly sulphurous, closed, single vineyard champagne. Clos de Goisses is supposed to be amongst the most long lived of champagnes, requiring every bit of 25 years before it starts to reveal its true character and pedigree. I don't have any other experience with the wine and this was only 1 oz. of a single bottle - but man, was it ever underwhelming.

It’s a champagne type of week

Funny thing, I basically drink no champagne for a few weeks, maybe a sparkling wine or two but that’s it. And then a week like this one, where we tasted a bunch of direct import champagnes at work, I enjoyed a bottle of Elisabeth Goutourbe with some sushi, and have plans to drink a few more bottles with my parents up in Calistoga this weekend. No, I’m not complaining, just observing my tendency to neglect champagne and then go on something of a binge.

Though we tasted quite a bit, the champagnes that stood out to me most were Bruno Michel’s. Juicy, succulent and seemingly impossible not to enjoy. In a self-imposed effort to limit the pimping of my wares, I’ll just put down a few TNs for Bruno Michel’s tasty champagnes. .

Bruno Michel Blanche Brut NV
Enamel and old oak fermented 50-50 blend of Chard and Meunier. Bright, clean white grapefruit with a drier finish than last year’s batch (which had some ’03 in the blend).

2000 Bruno Michel Clos Cuvee Clement Blanc de Noir
100% Meunier (70 year-old massale selection vines) from the 9 Arpents plot of their vineyard in Moussy. Fermented in oak. Nice Meuni damp forest floor aromas. Intense black cherry and that amazing ability of Meunier to stick to your palate and not go anywhere, while still showing loads of freshness. My wine of the day.

Bruno Michel Premier Cru Blanc de Blancs NV
Clean, bright citrus and sparkling Clementine tangerine, the type of intensity of flavors as well as delicacy that few (if any) wines deliver like good Blanc de Blancs champagne

UPDATE: Just wanted to dispense a bit more info about Mr. Michel (or Mr. Mayor - he is the mayor of Moussy). He is Jose Michel's son, so he learned from one of the best, and certainly one of the most successful champions of the Pinot Meunier grape. He farms organically. The blanc de blancs is actually from a single vineyard in the 1er cru village of Pierry, Les Brousses, from massale selections planted in 1964.