On a personal note

If you have not heard by now, I am recently engaged to an intelligent, talented and beautiful girl from California. Indeed, I am a lucky man.

Now if anyone out there has ideas for a tasteful outdoor venue for a wedding ceremony and reception in the Bay Area, I'm all ears. In exchange for a good, inexpensive venue, we will bring one of the best party DJ's I know, food, and lots of good wine.

There will be many Jews at the wedding, and as you may or may not know Jews don't drink that much (of course there are exceptions; I am one). So there will be plenty of wine. Think about it....

On Bartolo Mascarello Barolo and wanting to like stuff

Until quite recently, I had never tried a wine from Bartolo Mascarello. An egregious omission in anyone's drinking experience, it was recently corrected when I happened across a bottle of 2005 Bartolo Mascarello Barolo for a very decent price at work. Looking forward to finally having the opportunity to taste this Barolo, I also began to question my ability to objectively drink it. In other words, this has the potential of being one of those "I really should like this wine" type of wines.

These days I feel sufficiently independent and experienced to determine a wine's quality most of the time, and more to to the point to determine whether or not I like a wine. In this case, though, I think that I wanted to like the wine because of the elaboration itself: long skin maceration, ageing in very well used botti, nothing more than natural temperature control, a slow and patient, old-fashioned elevage. These are things that I have learned I often like in wines.

Away from method, and the reassuring feeling of validating one's taste, the most important lesson I took home here is that 2005 Bartolo Mascarello is a delicious wine. Generous, soft for a young Barolo, and really expressive with tiny berry fruits and minerals which shift place in prominence on day 2 (i.e., minerals followed by tiny berry fruits). I imagine the 05 Mascarello will be very tasty for another decade, during which time I want to drink a lot more of this and find out for myself.

La Cigarrera, makers of manzanilla, amontillado, palo cortado in Sanlucar de Barrameda

[This will be the last profile of a sherry bodega that I write for a while. I'm not sherried out, not in the slightest. However, it has taken a good bit longer than I had anticipated to conclude this slowly unfolding series of visits, all of which took place a few months ago in March. I hope that you enjoy the post and continue to drink plenty of good sherry.]

If the town of Jerez is like a country club, full of self assured, relaxed, people, possessed of a confidence that is the product of success, money and blue blood, then Sanlucar de Barrameda is the local dive bar: full of character, characters, charm, and perhaps some scrawled graffiti every now and then. To offer another analogy, if Jerez is East Hampton, then Sanlucar is, umm...Jones Beach? OK, so I don't know either of these places other than by reputation. Let's try another one. Jerez is to Sanlucar as Rehoboth Beach, DE is to Ocean City, MD.

If you're not from or well familiar with the mid-Atlantic, then let's just say that coastal Sanlucar feels completely different from the slightly more inland Jerez. People do not take themselves as seriously. They dress less formally. You get the sense that folks are content to munch on french fries and a simple ración of chorizo, washed down with a cold Cruzcampo (this sort of lunch would NOT work for many Jerezanos).

All the above may be a sweeping generalization (one based on just a few days spent in the region, at that) but things just seemed that way. I think that the wines bodegas in either town specialize in is also pretty telling: Sanlucar's manzanilla is easy to drink, thirst quenching, and to be enjoyed in robust quantities. Jerez' amontillados, olorosos, even the more serious of their finos, are contemplative and intellectual, serious wines to be respected, perhaps even revered, and taken seriously.

I learned that La Cigarrera, as do the rest of Sanlucar's top bodegas, excels equally at thirst quenching manzanilla as well as more serious manzanilla pasada,amontillado and palo cortado. Located in Sanlucar's prime barrio bajo district, an especially humid part of town (humidity in the bodega varies between 80-90% most of the year), La Cigarrera has been an almacenista since 1758. Their manzanilla is arguably the most delicious around: salty, almondy and savory, but also showing a tangy yellow fruited quality, the purity and expression of which is not always a given in other manzanillas, even examples of other brands which are fresh and recently bottled. This must have something to do with the elaborate solera system, consisting of 8 criaderas. The bodega is clean (showing its age, but tidy), barrels are in very good shape, and one senses the pride and dutiful yet low-key stewardship of this place.

During the course of a long, drawn out, delicious lunch, we drank a lot of sherry. We also had ample time to relax, become better acquainted and spend time in one of the most ideal settings I can imagine taking in a leisurely Sunday meal: inside a beautiful, weathered, centuries old sherry bodega.

Nady Foucault visits Oakland

Well, not exactly, but two months ago I was lucky to have participated in a vertical tasting of Clos Rougeard at a friend's house in Rockridge. It's safe to say that much has been written out there about Foucault and his wines. Here is a good overview. Try Neil's post for a different take. I will stick to tasting notes as opposed to focusing on the specifics of elevage or vineyard site. Anything in quotes that is not otherwise attributed is something I wrote that, in retrospect, I either find revealing, witty, ridiculous, or perhaps some combination thereof.

A huge thank you to Michael Sullivan of Beaune Imports (Clos Rougeard's CA importer)for putting this together.

The tasting was divided into four flights:


Flight 1

2003 Clos Rougeard Saumur-Champigny

Ripe red cherry aromas. Pretty. Savory underbrush scents as well. Pure and intoxicating. On the palate, the wine was delicious. Elegant, red fruited, with good acid and a silken texture. A revelation (not in my original notes, but that it certainly was)

2002 Clos Rougeard Saumur-Champigny

Savory red fruit aromas have a more apparent green/herbaceous aspect. Maybe a bit stemmy smelling? Initially reserved, but opened up and revealed increasingly more elegance aromatically. Flavors were elegant, mineral and less defined by fruit as the wine above.

2001 Clos Rougeard Saumur-Champigny

Macerated cherry aromas, a warmer vintage stamp to be sure. More fruit forward than the 03? I seemed to enjoy the flavors a bit more though. Darker cherry fruits, quite mineral and sturdy flavors. Plum skins.

2000 Clos Rougeard Saumur-Champigny


Elegant (underlined in my TN's). Burgundian. Stem smells are pleasant and not dominant. Pomegranate seeds. Similar flavors as the aforementioned aromas, with perhaps a bit more of a bitter snap to the fruit.

For this line-up, I learned afterwards that grapes used in the 2003, 2002 and 2001 were actually 100% de-stemmed.

Flight 2:

2004 Clos Rougeard Saumur-Champigny

Rich cherry aromatics. Red and dark. Great fruit. Pure, tasty and very lithe tannin structure.

2005 Clos Rougeard Saumur-Champigny

Smells of liqueur scented dark cherries. BIG. "A big, bad, delicious drink." Once again, I'm impressed by the fine tannins.

2006 Clos Rougeard Saumur-Champigny

Cooling, root beer-ish/menthol driven aromas. "Not quite the purity and freshness of others, but what do I know. A touch bitter."

2005 Clos Rougeard Les Poyeux Saumur-Champigny
Completely something other than the Clos wines. Big dark fruits, with a nicely ripe quality. "I could sniff this all day." Assertive dark cherry and plum flavors, with tannins that are definitely more prominent but still very balanced. MINERAL. Where is this headed?

Flight 3:

2004 Clos Rougeard Les Poyeux Saumur-Champigny

Deeply perfumed dark cherry. And pits. Rich, ripe round on the palate.

1996 Clos Rougeard Les Poyeux Saumur-Champigny

INTENSE aromas. A bit leafy dark fruit. Hint of dried tomato. On the palate, lots of presence. Mineral. Life. REALLY TASTY. Wine of night?

2003 Clos Rougeard Le Bourg Saumur-Champigny

A bit toasty smelling. Red fruit, espresso grounds, savory leafy aromas. Very big, very savory, very mineral. A tenuous balance of intense flavors. "Like the best Leoville Barton you could hope for in the modern era."

2000 Clos Rougeard Le Bourg Saumur-Champigny

Intense red fruit, pomegranate seeds, a hint of a stemmy and herbaceous quality similar to the 2000 Clos. Intense but mellowing red fruits on the palate. Elegant. Also similar to the 2000 Clos on the palate, with much more mineral and less bitterness. "In a transitional stage" - Michael Sullivan, importer

Flight 4:

2003 Clos Rougeard Breze Blanc Saumur

Smells like quince. Sparkling, pure tangerine scents. Ripe and pure. Yellow skinned fruit on the palate. Tasty, perhaps a bit short.

2002 Clos Rougeard Breze Blanc Saumur

A bit more honeyed smelling? Orange fruits, smells like a less sweet marmelade. Intense, with stronger presence and acidity on the palate. Quite tasty. This should drink well for a long time.

Sherry comes from grapes

Forgive me for stating the obvious, here but the wines of Jerez, El Puerto de Santa Maria, Chipiona, Sanlucar de Barrameda - they all come from grapes. Of course, we all know this; sherry comes from grapes. Given the elaborate production process, though, one tends to forget that sherry is in deed a wine made from grapes, grown in a specific type of soil (ideally consisting of 60% chalk) in a fairly strictly defined zone of Andalucia, Spain. From the initial fortification of a young sobretabla, to the biological ageing underneath a layer of flor, to an extended oxidative ageing in barrels or perhaps a combination of the two, there is much to learn about the production of sherry. Along the way, it is easy to forget that vineyards were farmed, palomino (or pedro ximenez or moscatel) grapes were harvested, fermented into wine, fortified, and sold to almacenistas and shippers. Vineyards matter.

Vineyards matter, and yet, barring a few exceptions, most bodegas do not own any vineyards. This brings to mind a simple question: how much better could sherries be if more bodegas owned (and carefully farmed) their own vineyards?

That having been said, I was able to check out a vineyard owned by Curo Balbas. Curo sells fruit to Bodegas Grant, as well as some other folks as he has 50 hectares of palomino vines in some prime real estate: the pagas bibainas sub-zone of Jerez. While I do not remember exact yields, I do remember that they seemed on the high side (even for the higher production numbers I expected in this region). Vines here vary in age from 15-25 years. As it had rained recently, a walk in the vineyards was amply rewarded with a full clay cover on the sole of my shoes; imagine the top of a large muffin draping over the waxed paper liner underneath. At the winery was a simple set up for fermenting grapes. There were also some policia nacional hanging out, playing cards maybe, enjoying what was surely an out of the ordinary event here, a visit from a group of wine professionals.

A few other non-vineyard related anecdotes are worth mentioning. Curo Balbas' hands and fingers are some of the most serious vineyard worker mitts I have yet to see. This guy has done some serious pruning in his life. Also, Curo does a wonderful "curo" (sorry I couldn't resist) of olives. A terrific blend of tiny, firm olives and larger, softer ones, full of garlic and bay leaf driven flavors, were by far the best I ate all trip. Spanish gourmands agree that iberico ham is best enjoyed in Andalucia, though if you do not eat ham you can at least take comfort in the fact that other Andalucian specialties are also first rate. One of these is the olives, which in neighborhood bars are almost always free.

One more reportaje in this sherry focused run, and then we'll move on. For now, a pictorial re-cap of the visit to Curo's vines.

El Puerto de Santa Maria, featuring Gutierrez Colosia and Bodegas Grant

If Jerez is home turf of the the landed gentry, or "señoríos," and Sanlucar de Barrameda is where the drug runners live (this is occasionally the explanation you'll get from residents of either town), then El Puerto is where well heeled families from all over this part of Andalucía spend part of their summers. Walking the town, there are attributes that speak to El Puerto's status as a popular resort town: fancily built out restaurants along the water, sweaters draped along the necks of "pijos" in said restaurants, and sparkling clean streets all around.

As it relates to Sherry El Puerto de Santa María is by far the smallest town in production terms in all of the sherry triangle. Most bodegas here are almacenistas, selling their stocks to larger houses. A few recent exceptions to this rule would be Gutierrez Colosia, which has been an independent shipper since the late 1990's and Bodegas Grant, an almacenista which more recently has begun to sell their own production.

Gutierrez Colosia enjoys a prime location, proximate to the Atlantic, and as a result makes one of the freshest tasting, most saline and delicious finos around. You do not need to enjoy it at the winery, or even in Spain, to fully appreciate its immediacy and pristine flavors. Not only does the flor survive here year 'round, but there may be even more of a maritime influence here than in Sanlucar. Typically bodegas maintain humidity by employing dirt floors and occasionally watering them; here the 18th century bodega boasts beautiful stone floors.

We had the opportunity to taste many interesting wines here, including a fino fortified to 16% (1 degree above the normal) which showed a very soft and elegant character. Cool stuff. Also tasted was the fino solera in various stages as well as the solera for the famous "Sangre y trabajadero" Oloroso - as dry, classic and elegant a young oloroso as you are likely to encounter. One thing that was interesting about the fino criadera tastings was their volatility: lots of VA and weird kombucha-y stuff going on right up until we tasted the finished, final blend product, which was completely fine and perfectly representative. Flor consumes volatile acidity in a process that still seems to offer little in the way of clear cut explanations. Lots of research continues to go on about flor and its role in winemaking, as well as other applications and implications yet to be discovered.

Across town at Bodegas Grant, the scale is much smaller and the wines very interesting indeed. From the very start, I noticed that the fino has a real vinous (and some might even say 'unfinished') quality for this style of wine. The entry level amontillado, La Garrocha (named for the famed choreographed dance performed by pure-bred Andalusian horses, performed with a little human direction), is also softer, a bit fruiter and more generous than others, not as tense either. We tasted a delicious, spicier, richer and older amontillado, as well as a very pungent oloroso full of rancio quality, and a rare, tasty palo cortado (as large as our crew was, and as good as everyone was feeling, we joked and later felt bad about drinking our would be "allocation" of this wine).

Welcome to Jerez! Now let's go to Chipiona!!

Sometimes, to get a little bit closer to the truth, you need to step away from the intensive research and just drink a shit ton of sherry in situ during a small town carnaval. And then soak up the alcohol with fried seafood, especially some baby shark fried with cumin and vinegar.

While this may not be established knowledge, it certainly served me well last month while in Jerez. I'm going to backtrack a bit. A group of wholesale, retail and restaurant clients of De Maison Imports (myself included) had recently arrived in Jerez for a three day sherry "boot camp." Seeing as it was carnaval season in Andalucía, the time during which young and old folks alike party all night, into the morning, and deal with the consequences the next day, I think that it was certainly the right call to visit Cesar Florido, a producer based west of the sherry triangle in Chipiona. Incidentally, Cesar did everything in his power to dissuade us from coming to his little town during the craziest time of the year.

Cesar Florido is a specialist in moscatel, someone who has owned moscatel Alejandria (muscat of Alexandria) vineyards in the sandy soils outside of Chipiona (he has since sold most of them off) and who vinifies moscatel to produce under his own label. These are sweet wines which quickly ferment and reach 2% abv before being fortified to about 15%. 180 g/l sugar and fairly low acidity makes them quite sweet, but they are also floral and, depending on your taste for sweet stuff, well balanced. These wines are what Florido is commercially best known for.

Cesar Florido is also an independent bodega owner. He has various soleras: fino, fino amontillado, oloroso, manzanilla (provided by a cousin of his), very old palo cortado (at least 50 years). On one particular barrel of one criadera, you can see someone's cell phone number (maybe a soccer teammate who wants to buy a bota?) In addition to his moscatel winemaking facility and his old bodega, Florido is also putting the finishing touches on a new tasting room. This is where we wrap up our visit, eating cheese, chorizo and jamon, drinking his sherries, and settling into the wine culture of what is Spain's most original and important contribution to the world of wine.

After the visit, Sr. Florido suggested a spot that serves some of the best pescadito frito in town: Bar Franchi. He was right. This was by far the tastiest fried fish I would eat while in Sherry country. Teenagers and twenty somethings dressed in costume were all around us, as were locals snacking on tapas, older folks strolling through the street, and plenty of outsiders there to enjoy carnaval (here, outsider might mean from Cadiz, El Puerto, Carmona, Sevilla - all places in Andalucía outside of Chipiona).

Enough prose. For this night, pictures are best.