Laurel Glen Vertical

Today I was fortunate to have the opportunity to taste a large vertical of cabernets from Laurel Glen. Sixteen different vintages from 1982-2003. Proprietor and winemaker Patrick Campbell is undoubtedly one of the early pioneers of mountain viticulture in California, and at Laurel Glen he has consistently crafted some of the finest, most long lived bottlings of California cabernet sauvignon.

According to the Laurel Glen website:

"Vineyards are sustainably farmed and winemaking is traditional and non-interventionist. All Laurel Glen wines reflect their vineyard origins, and are consciously made to favor depth and complexity over fruit-forward expression."

Before moving on to the tasting notes, I thought I'd pick a few of my favorites, and reach a couple of conclusions about the wines, for those of you who, like me, would prefer not to read successive TN's without much else.

Favorites (in this order): 1984 (mag); 1988; 1987; 1995

Conclusions:
1.) The wines up until the 1995 vintage were all 12.5% alcohol. Lots of fruit intensity, in some case tannins, and still - just 12.5% abv
2.) The '99 and '00 were 13.5% alcohol. While they are well made, they are not necessarily more intense or concentrated than the wines above. More extracted, yes.
3.) The '01, '02 and '03 were all 14.5% alcohol. Yes, bigger wines and a bit high in alcohol for some people. But with the exception of the '02, these are wines that have the proper balance of acidity, fruit and tannin to age gracefully for 15+ years.

And why not throw in a question while I'm at it:
How has Patrick Campbell's harvesting decisions and winemaking style changed over the past three decades? I've got my own guesses, but it would be great to hear it from the man himself. Stay tuned.

And for the complete blog reader, some tasting notes.

1982 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
Lots of meat on the nose, with some barnyard funk as well. Mature cherry fruit and grilled bread on the palate, which was showed reasonably classy if fully mature. An auspicious beginning…

1983 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet (1.5l)
Corked. Tough to give notes based on a compromised bottle, but still it did seem considerably more dilute and lacking in character when compared with the ’82.

1984 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet (1.5l)

A complete wine and my favorite of the line-up. The full package, replete with concentrated dark fruit, meaty savor, and iron minerality.

1986 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
Interesting red fruit confit nose, with a touch of ripe tomato well. Possibly the highest acidity of the bunch, but also a bit tannic on the finish. Not as expressive or expansive on the palate as I would have liked.

1987 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
Big, bold black fruited nose, with the barest hint of green vegetal notes. A big wine on the palate, lots of savor and even some chewy tannins after 20 years. Good wine.

1988 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
This led off with a distinctive, more exotic nose. Spice rack aromas set the ’88 apart from the more typical, straight ahead dark fruited nose of the other wines. Very tasty, savory dark cherry fruit with good acidity. Gutsy and stylish, one of the better wines here to be sure.

1989 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
Whoa – brettanomyces. Not sure if it’s a bottle by bottle issue here or if Patrick Campbell had some real brett issues in ’89. Still drinkable, but lacking the fruit and nuances of the best of the others.

1991 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
This one seemed a bit corky on the nose, later confirmed by a few other co-workers. Not a consensus corked bottle, but a few people seemed fairly certain that this was corked. Nonetheless, the palate was rich and complete, with a sweet mouth filling dark fruit.

1992 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
Intense dark fruit and black pepper aromas preceded a very rich palate - more juicy dark fruit, balanced acidity and savory flavors. Also some assertive tannins, showing a bit tough on the finish. Very tasty though.

1994 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
Big dark fruit and more noticeable oak on the nose. This is by far the biggest wine up until this point, and perhaps a year representing something of a stylistic change?

1995 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
A more perfumed and better balanced version of the '94 above. Loads of blackberry and cola on the nose, with, once again, that hint of greenness sneaking in there. Beautiful balance of dark fruit and savory flavors on this one.

1999 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
A real softie, this one. Soft, juicy texture. Low acidity. Tasty enough for some palates but really lacking in complexity when compared with most of the lineup.

2000 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
Dark currants on the nose, with a grippy, brambly blackberry quality to the palate. Still a bit tannic on the finish.

2001 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
Built for the long haul. I tasted this wine twice - once in the beginning and a second time after I had gone through much of the lineup. Earlier on this showed terrific sweet dark fruits balanced with a real savory quality. After tasting a bunch of more mature mountain cab, though, the savor took a back seat to young, primary fruit and serious tannin structure. Maybe it was the tannin buildup on my palate? Either way, I enjoyed this wine each time and it has a long life ahead of it.

2002 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
Similar to the '99. Less aromatically complex, rounder and sweeter on the palate, with lower acid. Comparatively simple when judged against these other beauties.

2003 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
A return to the more familiar, higher tannin and acidity, gutsy style. Deep currant, blackberry and cola aromas. Good acidity balanced with dark fruit and a touch of graphite. Classic mountain cab.

It was a real pleasure (and quite the education) to taste through such an extensive vertical from one of California's longest running and highest quality wineries. Thanks to Arya Campbell for her time and expertise, as well as to her father Patrick Campbell, for, well, for making the wines and offering to taste out such a broad collection of vintages.

Seeing MILK at the Castro

Sunday afternoon my family and I went to see Gus van Sant's biopic on Harvey Milk the only way it should be seen if you are a San Francisco resident: at The Castro theater. It's a 1500 person theater and, from what I hear, each of the three screenings (1, 4 and 7pm) were sold out. It was yet another terrific example of how San Francisco supports the movies like few other cities, as well as a fitting tribute to Harvey Milk's work and legacy, though with the recent PROP 8 result there is still lots of work to be done here in the supposedly liberal bastion of California.

Tasteful, understated, well acted, and deeply moving. That's how I'd describe the film. There were very few dry eyes in that crowd. I did not grow up in San Francisco during the tumultuous 1970s, nor am I gay, but seeing the movie in a roomful of folks, many of whom could lay claim to one of those two facts, made an immediate and lasting emotional impact on me. That, I suppose, is the power of a good story, the power of cinema, and the power of the larger than life persona of Harvey Milk.

Go see MILK.

Oh, and for all the California residents out there...NO ON H8! Let's all do everything we can to make it a short lived piece of ultra right propaganda/propositioning.

Back to the regular program next time....

Thanksgiving recap

We pulled it off. 14 people, a first time heritage turkey cooking experience, Spanish vs French wines. Somehow it all worked. We started with 2004 Francois Pinon Vouvray Brut (1.5l), progressed to some whites, worked our way through cru beaujolais and Rioja, and finished with a 1990 Gordon & McPhail Glen Grant bottling. Some things I learned:

- Truffled may not be the only way to do Thanksgiving mashed potatoes, but it's surely the only way I plan on doing it in the future. Here's a recipe for 15 (with some leftover): peel, cut and boil 8 lb of russets for 20 minutes, drain, mash with a pint of half-and-half, a stick of butter, 2 tbsp white truffle oil, salt, pepper. Transfer into a baking dish, grate some parmeggiano on top, throw under the broiler to make a crust, take out of oven and douse with more truffle oil. A crowd pleaser, and incredibly easy.

- Thanksgiving is a white wine affair. The right cru beaujolais may do the trick, but not as well as the right whites.

- Spanish wines can work great. True, I'm a fan and write them up fairly often here, but the right Spanish wines work every bit as well as anything else for Thanksgiving. In fact, the '07 Carballal Sete Cepas Rias Baixas, with its terrific phenolic ripeness, moderate alcohol and bright acidity, was the best wine with dinner. Rich enough for the meatier than usual heritage bird, very receptive to the earthy savor of mushroom stuffing, and somehow equipped to even handle the sweet-tangy cranberry sauce. As far as reds, I wish I had had another bottle of 1999 Campillo Rioja Reserva. Why drink CA pinot (or moderately priced Burgundy, for that matter) when you could have this? It's a perfect compromise between softer, plumper new world fruit, and more old world acidity, terroir and savor. Perfectly balanced, traditionally styled Rioja with a bit of bottle age.

- Just about everyone loves the Beach Boys. As is usually the case, Dad was happy to be the itunes DJ, striking a chord with our Swiss guests when he played California Girls ("Udo, that's what was playing when we first met in Paris in 1968!") A few of us then reminisced about the video for the version of this tune which my generation perhaps knows a bit better:

Thanksgiving with friends, frenchies and family.

What foods should you prepare, and which wines should you serve when hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for fourteen people? I'd normally say that, as host, you serve whatever you damn well please, so long as you enjoy what's being served. However, when there are serious Thanksgiving traditionalists (one of whom is your mom), a vegetarian, and a French family experiencing their first Thanksgiving who will all be attending, the meal planning and wine selection perhaps require a bit more thought. I am proud to be serving the following menu along with some French and Spanish wines which should (hopefully) accompany the food well.

Crudite and assorted other hors devours (2004 Francois Pinon Vouvray Brut 1.5l, 2006 Rhedon Marin Domaine des Niales Macon Villages)

MAIN COURSE

Frisee salad with roasted fennel, clementines and shaved parmeggiano reggiano
Roasted Heritage Turkey
Cranberry sauce
Mushroom stuffing
Truffled mashed potatoes
Sauteed green beans
Roasted Sweet potatoes

WINES

2007 Grange Tiphaine 'Bel Air Sec' Touraine Amboise
2007 Carballal 'Sete Cepas' Albariño
2005 August Kesseler Riesling Kabinett

REDS
2007 Señorio de Peciña Rioja Joven
1999 Bodegas Campillo Rioja Reserva
2006 Georges Descombes Brouilly
2006 Jean Tardy Bourgogne Passetoutgrain

DESSERT

Pumpkin pie
Pecan pie
Ice cream

If people want dessert wine, I have some leftover Grange Tiphaine l'equilibriste from last year.

Well, it's off to Wednesday before Thanksgiving wine shop insanity followed by prepping and last minute house cleaning.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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.

Joe likes Bordeaux...Joe hates bordeaux!

I taste a whole lot of Bordeaux every month. Yesterday we tasted through a line-up of mainly Haut Medoc, with some St Emilion/Pomerol satellites and a few commune wines thrown in. The results were, umm...predictable. Some perfectly sound, technically well made wines, many boring wines, a few plain bad wines. There were some fruit forward $20 Bdx values, if that's your thing, an '05 Reserve de la Comtesse, which was textbook Pauillac with the black currant, lead pencil and in full effect (though is $50ish dollars for a well-made but otherwise fairly ho-hum 2nd label worth it?). Then there were the three wines from the Barton family: 2000 Langoa Barton, 1997 Langoa Barton, and 1994 Leoville Barton. As I anticipated, the Langoa Bartons showed much more nuanced, more interesting flavors, for a whole lot less money. The '97 in particular was great - all of that famed Bordeaux elegance which you read about in wine textbooks was on full display: cherries, roasted meaty savor, terrific velvety texture. While the '00 was good, it come with a 2000 bdx price tag, and is still showing a good bit more primary. The '97 is definitely the way to go for drinking now. And the '94 Leoville Barton? At first sniff, it was the most ripe, manipulated, simple, new worldy classified growth I have ever had the displeasure of tasting. As it opened up things got slightly more interesting, but there was still something really unagreeable and metallic on the finish. Just weird, heavily manipulated wine.

Further proof that the more ambitious the wine in Bordeaux (1st growths excepted?), the higher the pricing, the more often a chateaux increases its pricing, the worse wine you'll get. Hmmm, sound familiar? Do you see any correlation to other cab growing areas in the world?

Is it just me, or does it seem like Napa initially took the best of Bordeaux to inspire their winemaking, and Bordeaux has since taken the worst of Napa to inspire theirs?

Sort of reminds me of the relationship between hip-hop and reggae. I mean, would you rather listen to the Treacherous Three, or to Sean Paul?

Here's my vote.



UPDATE 11/23 - Speaking of poor quality, overrated red bordeaux wine, a bottle of 1990 Cos d'Estournel was opened in the store yesterday. Decanted for what I believe was an hour. Verdict? The wine was dead. Lifeless. Not closed, nor dumb, just not good. I'm not just being hard on Cos because I have disliked anything I've tried from them in the past. In fact, I really wanted to like this bottle, but did not enjoy it one bit. 1990 was a terrific year in Bordeaux, and at this point many of these wines should be showing pretty well. What's the problem here?

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!