STATS

I've been doing this for a little over three years now, and have seldom been inclined to check out things like page views, traffic sources, you know, the type of information that may be of commercial interest if I were doing this to make money. Information that may be reassuring if I were trying to be the most popular wine blog on the internets (I'm not), or indicative of a steady upward tick in readership (tough to tell, I cannot seem to access page view stats for anything further back than May 2010). You get the picture, when it comes to this blog I guess I'm not much of a numbers guy.

That does not mean, however, that I cannot mine the "stats" link on blogger for some pretty interesting factoids about the readership, popular posts and the like.

MOST WIDELY VIEWED POST

Old School Funk - TOP 10 songs in the rotation at work

Apparently many folks viewed this, which even elicited one slightly vexed comment:

"Do you mean to tell me that the original shuggie otis song [Strawberry Letter 23] is superior then the Brothers Johnson Version? You must ate [sic] shit when you said that. The Shuggie Otis version is weak and Brothers Johnson totally remade the song which made the song popular around the world. you need to check yourself."

Why, yes! Perhaps I SHOULD check myself, lest I wreck myself. Anyhow, the next two most widely viewed pages were this one involving a night at Terroir, followed by my Top 10 of 2010. Though it has less than half the views of the old school funk playlist post, it is encouraging that one of the top 3 is also a more recent post.

TOP REFERRING SITES

Google by far takes the cake here. A distant second is Facebook, though hot on the social network's heels is actually one of my favorite blogs devoted to wine and food, that of the indefatigable Brooklyn Guy. Thanks, Neil. Now keep that link up, would ya? Sneaking in at the bottom of the list of referring URL's would be the Dog jacket site. Huh?

PAGE VIEWS BY COUNTRY (most views first, fewest last)

United States
Brazil
Germany
United Kingdom
France
Netherlands
Canada
Spain
Russia
South Korea

Of course US views outnumber the others by a lot, nearly 20 times. What I cannot quite grasp is...why Brazil? I know there are 150+ million people there and all, but I did not think it to be a huge wine consuming (and by extension, wine blog reading) populace. At any rate, obrigado, Brasil! With all the mention of wines from Spain, I'm surprised that there are not more views over there? Spain, why you sleepin' on Old World Old School - DORMIENDO, os digo! Finally, while I am pleased to see Russia and South Korea rounding out the list, I am disappointed to not get a single view from Italy or Japan (could that be correct?) Maybe I should use this as motivation to drink more Italian wine (wines that I admittedly do not drink very often) and, for Nippon (maybe that will work, use their country name instead of ours), expand the coverage on natural wines and Opus One.

Orange Wines, La Cucina di Sardegna at La Ciccia - PT. 1

This is the first in a two part post about a recent orange wine tasting held last week. As I don't have many good pictures of the evening and try not to subject you to too many in-depth wine notes at once, I'm dividing this post into two. Enjoy.

So, how'd I arrive at the 'Clockwork of Orange' tasting? It comes back to two great connectors of people: Cory Cartwright's insightful, innovative 31 Days of Natural Wine series on his blog Saignee, and San Francisco natural wine merchant/bar Terroir through which I finally met Slaton, a cool, knowledgeable wine drinker who occasionally comments on this and other blogs. He invited me to tonight's west coast version of Levi D's New York City orange wine tasting, and I was all in.

Here's how it went.

Before we begin, though, a brief definition of 'orange wine' is probably in order. Wine made from a grape traditionally used for white wine production, which when fermented with extended skin contact with the juice (as is the case for red wines, anywhere from 15 days to eight months), obtains a darker color than is usual for white wine, an appearance which may be a clear or cloudy amber, occasionally with reddish glints. Sometimes this wine is aged for an extended period of time in clay amphorae. It may likely contain the barest minimum of added sulphites, or as in the wines from Stanislaus Radikon or Franck Cornelissen, none at all.

We starting the evening with a relatively young, fresh white wine, an 06 vermentino from 6 Mura, and enjoyed a few terrific appetizers, my favorite being a spicy, calamari based seafood sautee, which had some terrific olive oil which I think really elevated the level of this dish. Paper thin, delicate slices of smoked raw tuna were also quite good, as were the sardines if you're into strong, oceanic/fishy flavors.

On to the orange wines. For each of these I will include personal tasting note, as well as some winemaking notes provided by event organizer Slaton L.

Flight 1, "California does Zin, California does chard, but can California do orange?"

1. Frank Cornelissen 2006 "MunJebel 3 Bianco," Sicilia IGT

Personal notes - Controversial to say the least. This is wine from someone who is said to produce the most natural wines in the world. Acetyl, dirty, and uniformly disliked by the crowd, this was my least favorite wine of the evening. It may well be delicious when drunk close to his vineyards around Mt Etna in eastern Sicilia. Maybe, as someone suggested, it gets better after 10 days in the fridge (if that's the case then I certainly didn't see it). But at the moment, this particular bottle tasted like band-aids mixed with cider vinegar -not a good combination.
Wine notes: Carricante, grecanico dorato, coda di volpe. Vinified like a red wine, with long skin-contact.

2. Paolo Bea 2006 "Santa Chiara," Umbria IGT

Personal notes - citric, with orange and sweetened red grapefruit flavors that struck me as direct to the point of simplicity, though the wine did open up nicely and improve with air.
Wine notes - Grechetto, malvasia, chardonnay, sauvignon, garganega. 16 day fermentation on skins, finished in stainless.

3. Monasterio Suore Cistercensi 2007 "Coenobium Rusticum," Lazio IGT

Personal notes - as good a showing of this wine as I can remember. Many other tasters also quite liked the wine. Very distinctive and one of two wines which I fairly easily guessed, probably owing more to the fact that I have drunk it within the past 6 weeks than anything else. Pure, appley and pleasantly tannic on the finish. It showed less bitter chestnut honey than when I had last tasted it, a good thing in my book.

Wine notes - Trebbiano, malvasia, verdicchio, grechetto; 15 day fermentation with
the skins, extended lees contact. Yes, as we all know by now this is harvested by nuns....

4. Movia 2005 "Lunar"

Personal notes - this was my wine of the evening. Cloudy amber hued, the wine showed a good amount of red fruit and fetching oxidative aromas. Also a hint of washed rind, stinky cheese on the nose. A terrific, spicy, cidery balance bolstered by good acidity on the palate makes this a strong bearer of orange style.

Wine notes - Ribolla gialla, 65 yr old vines. Whole grape clusters are placed in barrels. The wine is never pressed off the skins or racked, and after 7 months the free run juice is bottled unfiltered.

5. Cowan Cellars 2008 Sauvignon Blanc "Silver Pines Vineyard," Sonoma Mountain (Barrel Sample)

Personal notes - Indeed this was very SB-like on the nose, with a touch of a grassy quality, which seemed to border on stronger vegetable root aromas with a hint of mintiness as well. It tasted like it has received the least amount of skin contact of this grouping, though it is still fun, bright and not at all boring. Probably the wine that best complemented our seafood as well.
Wine notes - For those of you who know him (and I suspect many of you out there do), Florida Jim makes this wine. Sauvignon blanc. 13 day cold soak with no sulfur, followed by 15 day alcoholic fermentation before pressing off skins. Full malo.

6. Natural Process Alliance 2008 Chardonnay "Skin Fermented," Sonoma Coast

Personal notes - Another wine which I had a pretty good idea of what it was. An interesting twist on New world chardonnay flavors: clean, pure, noticeably riper than its burgundian counterparts, but also a whole lot more textural, balanced and interesting than 99.9% of other California chardonnay. I'd be curious to see what would happen if these guys were to use less ripe grapes and increase the amount of time on the skins.
Wine notes - Chardonnay. 18 days on the skins (entire alcoholic fermentation) w/ 2x daily punchdowns, then pressed off to neutral barrels.

While going through this flight, I devoured a plate of fregula pasta in a sea urchins sauce. Rich, subtly powerful, deeply satisfying flavors and textures made this my favorite dish of the night, and good sustenance to ready me for the second flight.

to be continued....

Finally, sangiovese that I like. A first time experience with Montevertine

I have heard tell that as it relates to really good, genuine, true school, real producers based in Chianti, there is now only one name: Montevertine. Granted, now that I think about it these words might have first registered while reading Reflections of a Wine Merchant by Neal Rosenthal, the gentleman who imports Montevertine. So yes, he may be necessarily biased, but the fact remains that I have not been as excited about any other wine from Chianti in a long, long time.

What I first noticed about the 2006 Montevertine IGT Toscano Pian del Ciampolo was the beautiful, translucent ruby color. It reminded me of a Cerasuolo di Vittoria, a young poulsard, or any other similarly bright colored, lighter vibrant style of wine. After nosing the wine, my hopes were confirmed: this would be young sangiovese the way I like it. Floral (really floral), red fruited, refreshing, slightly earthy, crunchy. None of the astringent, puckery tannins or lack of freshness that most of the sangiovese based wines I taste often show. Interestingly enough, I preferred drinking this wine on its own, as opposed to with my pasta dinner (wine without food, a decidedly un-Italian notion, I know). It probably had something to do with the tomato sauce, which always makes for tricky wine and food compatibility. That wine though! What a terrific bottle. I think I paid about $25 for it. Some specs on the wine: 90% sangioveto, 5% canaiolo, 5% colorino. Alcoholic and malolactic fermentations are in cement vats, followed by 18 months in used slavonian oak barrels. Hand harvested, gravity flow winery, non filtered, etc, etc. Git some!

Another busy Tuesdsay tasting

As is so often the case with Tuesdays, today was quite a full line-up of wine tasting. About 50 wines tasted by day's end, almost entirely Spanish and Italian. Rather than cull the tasting notes for wines which were particularly good or bad, I thought it might be interesting to state a few disparate thoughts on wine which were solidified throughout the course of the day. To complement these observations, I will include a tasting note on a particular wine for each one.

MOST RIBERA DEL DUERO WINES ALL TASTE THE SAME

So much wasted potential in this DO. Old vines, premium grape variety (tempranillo), great terroir. And for what? Largely for super jammy cooked black cherry/blackberry, vanillin dominated, technology and media influenced wines that truly taste very similar. Why? Because they are all aged for similar amounts of time in largely new French allier barrels, with similar toasting levels, from the same coopers. That's why. Method is defining the quality and taste of the wine more than any other factor which, unless we are speaking of Sherry, Madeira, Vin Jaune and Vin Santo (notice the absence of red table wines on that list) cannot be a good thing. That having been said, my favorite wine of the day was a 1996 Arzuaga Gran Reserva. It was delicious, complex and positively claret-like. Sort of a cross between the terrific power, intensity and acidity driven structure of '96 Bdx and the herbal, spicy savor of many wines from the early maturing '97 Bdx vintage. This illustrates how good Ribera can be (oh, and byu the way it doesn't have to be a pricey Gran Reserva to be distinctive and good - check out Valduero and Pesquera, for instance).

THE THEORY OF WINE RELATIVITY

Today I tasted a 2007 Arzuaga 'La Planta' Ribera del Duero. It is their 'joven' or 'cosecha' wine. Not enough oak or bottle aging to be called a Crianza, in other words. It struck me as a bit oakier, coarser and more lacking in nuance when compared to the last vintage I drank of this wine, the 2005. The smoke tinged cherry fruit was still there, but a bit more obscured by smoke than I recall. In other words, a bit of a let down. After tasting through three Chilean wines (Carmenere, Merlot, Cabernet) from Armador, I poured myself a bit more of the Arzuaga 'La Planta' about an hour after initially tasting it. Relative to the Chilean wines it tasted like friggin' Burgundy.

In a similar vein, what I thought to be a very pure, honest, multi-layered elegant expression of sangiovese in the 2005 Vecchie Terre Chianti Classico, somehow seemed more of a mid-palate dominated, monochromatic wine compared with the 2007 CRB Pineau d'Aunis I drank tonight alongside it. The CRB really is a finishing wine, a bit strict on the front and mid-palate (especially when first opened), but very pretty and well-structured when you start drinking more than just a taste.

BALANCE IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

Poggiarellino, a Brunello producer, sure makes some rustic, funky, brettanomyces dominated wines. There are really coarse, unruly tannins that expand all over your mouth - I've seldom had tannins cover so much surface area. Also, the wines show that weird, nutty savor of a minimally or unsulphured wine that has been open for a bit as well. At least two of my co-workers really enjoyed these wines, though, one of whom bought a case of their '06 Rosso. Upon quizzing Jim (who also happens to be a longtime winemaker and former vineyard owner) why he liked the Poggiarellino so much, what with all of the Brett and, to my palate, bacterial issues, he replied that it seemed interesting and balanced to him. 'But Jim,' I said, 'You love fruit, enjoy California wine, and preach about the importance of clean, modern practices in the cellar.' [ok, I did not say this word for word but that was the gist] 'Why do you like this Bretty, funky wine.' He basically replied that he hates brett in California wine, because there is not enough acidity and other characteristics to offset, or add interest to, the funk. In other words, California wine should be full of bright, juicy fruit, and it is ok for European wines to be teeming with brettanomyces and other bacteria, provided the acidity is high enough and the terroir is decent. Hmmm....

That's enough for tonight, hopefully some food for thought for all of you out there.