Aging: Don't Do It!

Likely the most common misconception about wine is the notion that it improves with age. Well I am here to tell you that is entirely false.  If you're a true wine novice I'd be willing to bet you have never purchased a wine that would improve with age - that's right, never.

Only the top 7% of all red wine and only the top 3% of all white wine, produced in the world, will improve with age.  Generally these top bottles will only improve after aged 5-7 years.  And it is only the top 0.5% of all wines that will become more pleasurable and interesting after aging more than 8 years.  Take a step back and re-read that; it is a dauntingly small number.  This means that the vast, overwhelming majority of wine is meant to be enjoyed within a year of purchase.

To help prove my point about aging, I'll have to open two different bottles (poor me).  The first, a 2011 Georges Dubœuf Beaujolais Nouveau from Southern Burgundy - exemplifies the purity and youthful flavors of a wine never meant to age.  Beaujolais Nouveau is always excepted to be consumed immediately (1-3 years from date on bottle).  Light and charming enough to win over the staunchest blancophile, Beaujolais is charactorized by fruity flavors and zesty acidity with none of the bitter tannins that turn off some people. 

The second, a truly exceptional 1990 Chateau Musar Red from the Bekaa Valley is a masterful example of both a wine maker's skill and the perfection of depth and complexity that can only come with age.  Musar follows traditional French techniques which makes this wine very similar to other red from Languedoc-Roussillon region in Southern France.  I've had the misfortune of opening a 2004 Chateau Musar recently only to discover it was far too bitter and tannic to drink - what a waste!

Of course no one truly knows when man first began to age wine, but it is safe to say it likely came about by accident - much the same way canning and preserves were first discovered.  The earliest example of intentional aging comes from the Latin poet Horace around 65 BC who described the Roman's appreciation for finely aged wines.  Although the bible does mention that Luke understood that old wine was finer than new wine, and there has also been some evidence in Ancient Greece.  After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the art and appreciation was lost for a millenia.

How do you know when a wine will improve with age?  Those comprising the minuscule 3-7% of ageable wine have one commonality: noticeable levels of tannin that gradually diminish over the years, leaving greater range of aromas and flavors in their wake.  They also tend to have ample acidity and flavor concentration.  Whereas some reds require aging because they are so bitter in their youth, such as the finest Bordeaux, aging white wine is not done for necessity but simply to achieve greater complexity in the wine.

Traditionally, the best ageable reds include the famously long-lived red Bordeaux, Barolo, California Cabs, Burgundy, Brunello, Super Tuscan, Northern Rhone, and Chateauneuf-du-Pape.  Ageable whites are few are far between but include the best Gewurztraminer, German Riesling, Burgundy, and Bordeaux.  Even if you have a traditionally ageable wine type, the million-dollar question confounding and titillating connoisseurs everywhere is when to drink of maturing wine. There are no easy answers; much depends on the vintage, producer, storage over the years, and bottling.  To gauge the age-worthiness of a wine, start with its grape type.  For example, wine from the tannic, thick-skin Cab grape takes longer to come around than that from the more fragile Pinot Noir grape. So while the finest Cab-dominate Bordeaux needs 15 years of rest or more to reach ideal maturity, an ageable Pinot Noir base Burgundy is ready in eight.  In these cases, expert reviews and vintage charts come in handy.  I personally love www.cellartracker.com; their user generated reviews include experts and recommend years a particular wine should reach maturity.

If you do consider trying your cards at aging wine, remember to buy at least three bottles so that you can taste how it develops over the years and truly build your palate. But remember this incontestable fact: many serious collectors and wine snobs, forgetful of their treasures or afraid of committing "infanticide" by drinking a wine too early, end up waiting to long to enjoy their wine.  By the time they open a bottle, the wine is already limping into senility with faded, fruitless flavor.  If you're going to err do so by trying wine on its early side.  Seize the day by seizing your glass!

If you'd like to learn more about when to drink your special bottle, look over the vintage chart at  www.eRobertParker.com and peruse the reviews of other vinoholics at www.cellartracker.com.

What is Zinfandel?

Chances are, if you're reading this blog, you've had more than one close encounter with a dashingly handsome Zinfandel. For this week I am treating myself to a good friend, a

2008 Ridge Top Reserve Zinfandel from Brochelle Vineyards

in Paso Robles, California. Unlike a lot of other wines I write about, I know quite a bit about this varietal and this vintner in particular. It was their 2006 Zin that first captured my attention and started my love of wines.

The name Zinfandel was created in California and is viewed by many to be the unofficial national grape. This is as American a wine as it gets.

According to my history books, it was discovered only a few years ago that Zinfandel was part of an ancient lineage originating in Croatia. Now nearly extinct in it's homeland, it is grown almost exclusively in California. And get this, the grape was exported to the Southeastern regions of Italy where it was renamed yet again and become a staple of the region's wine production.

For those extreme wine novices, it is important to point out that I am not referring to White Zinfandel, which is created mostly from the remains of grapes and stems that have fallen to the floor of vast processing warehouses and pumped out to the blind masses for consumption.

No, no, no! Zinfandel is a wondrous varietal that easily contends with the heavy hitters like Pinot Noir, Cabernet, and ~ dare I say ~ Bordeaux. It is the underdog of the wine world and parallels perfectly with the American story.

Zin goes well with any meal but it's quick to satisfy elixir pairs well at festive occasions like family bbqs, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. This versatile red is best described as dry with spicy, fruity attributes. Vanilla, blackberry, cherry, black pepper, and cloves are typical flavors and aromas represented in most Zinfandels today, though they can very widely depending on regions and method of production.

My personal favorites are more California's Central Coast, Paso Robles being ground zero for prime zin fields. Although in truth there are probably just as many good zins in every wine region of California. Brochelle Vineyards is a small family vintner that tediously oversees each and every aspect of the wine making process. They produce only a few varietals and at very small batches; typically no more than 1,500 cases each year. And unlike 99% of others on the market, their Zinfandel is made to last; they can easily age for a good 15-20 years. It's very important to note that most zins do not age well and are expressly made for immediate enjoyment (1-3yrs).

If you'd like to learn more about Zinfandel, visit the Zinfandel Advocates & Producer's (ZAP) guide here.

Educate Your Nose

"How do strawberries get into the wine?"

When one of my friends asked this question as I was describing Pinot Noir, her naiveté generated snatches of snickering. But I thought it was a reasonable question, because to the uninitiated the vocabulary of wine appreciation seems less about grapes and more about the inventory of a fruit stand.

As you embark on your wine journey, be assured that it takes experience and dedication to BEGIN to see what the pros perceive in wine. As when learning French or the piano, you need discipline, concentration, and faith that it will eventually get easier. You have to want to detect the subtleties in wine - they don't come to you. The payoff is that even just a little bit of effort will push you light-years ahead of most casual wine drinkers and turn the daily obligation of eating into a ritual of pleasure and fascination.

Much of the initial difficulty of wine tasting is that we're not used to thinking while we smell and taste. When we eat, we're frequently like cows grazing in a pasture, glassy eyed and oblivious to the nuances of what is in our mouths. If we like a steak, we think it's "good" or "delicious" - not that it's juicy with funky, charred, minerally character. We're especially unfamiliar with using the nose to make more detailed discrimination, which makes scrutinizing wine much more difficult, because most of taste is in fact smell.

Moreover, we're not accustomed to homing in on specific components in wine such as distinguishing the grass from the grapefruit in Sauvignon Blanc or the earthiness from the berry aromas in red Burgundy. It's like listening to music: if you're not trained to look for the twang and guttural growl of the bass guitar, you may never notice it. But if someone demonstrates what the bass sounds like by itself, that element becomes infinitely easier to identify when layered into the whole.

Even if we do detect aromas and flavors in wine, we don't necessarily know how to express those sensations. Think about it: there are innumberable ways to describe what we see, hear, and touch - but where is our vocabulary for smell? It usually doesn't venture far beyond "good," "bad," "sweet," or "Who's smoking the Mary Jane?"

Your mission, then , is to construct your own sensory vocabulary for wine. Begin by becoming familiar with the descriptors that experts use. This terminology relates primarily to the aromas and flavors that naturally spring from grape juice after it undergoes fermentation. For example, fermented Cabernet Sauvignon grapes yield wine that is usually aromatic of blackcurrants and plums, while Sauvignon Blanc is often described in terms of lemon and herbs. Wine terminology also describes nongrape essence such as vanilla (from wine's contact with oak barrels), baked bread (from yeast used in the fermentation process), and leather or mushrooms (from the secondary aromas that develop as certain wines age). To provide common vocabulary for these kinds of words, one enterprising expert - retired viticulture professor Ann Noble - fashioned them into something called the Wine Aroma Wheel. Long a favorite tool of wine-tasting classes, the wheel includes more than one hundred popular descriptions, helping narrow down impressions from the general (like "fruity") to the specific (like "blackberries," "raspberries," or "strawberries").

Winespeak isn't limited to the concrete, of course. Wine is often associated with gender ( an aggressive, muscular Barolo or a gentle, perfumed Volnay), class (a well-bread Bordeaux verses a rustic Primitivo), and plenty of sex ( a "lush," full-bodied," hedonistic"). Such associations are limited only by your imagination.

Knowing these classic descriptors is only the beginning. You'll need to figure out which of these words makes sense to you and educate your nose to recognize those aromas. This is as simple as smelling the real article - a lemon, a jar of black currant preserves, crushed pepper on your salad - and then looking for those aromas in the wine itself. Become a student of smells, paying attention to everyday aromas like the fruit you eat, cedar in the closet, or the smell of pavement after it has rained. Do so you will more easily isolate the individual components in the wine - like the bass guitar twangs in our music analogy.

Another helpful technique is to smell different wines side by side, noticing the subtle aromatic differences among, say, a Cabernet Sauvignon, a Pinot Noir, and a Beaujolais. Finally, it's valuable to compare your own impressions against hose of the experts. How do the descriptions of seasoned tasters and editors match up with your own? Eventually your own sensory repertoire will take shape and you'll be able to describe your wine taste with precision and flair.

Say NO to Pinot Noir!

Tired of picking the safe choice at restaurants? Consistency turning to palette boredom? Just looking for something new?? Well look alive, have I got an ace up my sleeve for you! They call it Pinotage - an original varietal from South Africa that has been getting better every year. We'll be using a

2009 Pinotage 'Petit' from Ken Forrester Vineyards

in South Africa as today's example. In 1925 the vines of Pinot Noir were crossed with the roots of Cinsaut, then commonly called Hermitage in South Africa and hence the contradiction Pinotage. Although it wasn't until the 1960's when the varietal became popular and the Pinotage label appeared in South Africa. Cinsaut is a centuries old grape from the Languedoc region of Southern France much like Grenache: light, soft, aromatic, and charmingly fruity. The result is a truly unique variety commonly described as fruity, refreshing, and earthy. Cherry, Banana, smokey wood, and blackberry are typical tastes and aromas.

Some wine snobs may chide you for choosing any South African wine, citing the recent spout of Brettanomyces (yeast contamination) that caused virtually all vintages to taste of chemical-like band-aids. But that problem has come to an end with the first few vintages of 2008 and have remained healthy ever since. Good thing as South African wines have some of the best bang for your buck.

Other, primarily European, wine drinkers will also shun South African wines for their lack of terroir. And while I agree somewhat that South African wines can lack that familiar finish or 'minerally' undertone we've come to expect from certain varietals, it is not valid to ignore an entire countries viticulture simply because they taste different. If you're looking for quality-consistent wine producers to appease all palettes, stay with Spier and Ken Forrester Vineyards.

It's true that Pinotage goes in and out of fashion, but each year new techniques such as the introduction of French and American Oaks, help to tame and cultivate this misunderstood grape variety. Go ahead and stray from the familiar; you'll be surprised how much you enjoy it.

For more information on Pinotage, visit www.pinotage.co..za.

The French terror!

Or rather, terroir. A quintessentially French term with no English equivalent. Scared yet?

It is impossible, I've come to learn, to have a conversation about French wine without the use of this term. And more impossible still to discuss wine with the French without a basic understanding of terroir. A brief and exceptionally inadequate description, terroir is considered to be the holistic combination of soil, local topography, and the interactions between the two which determines each sites unique terroir reflected in it's wines consistently from year to year regardless of variations in methods of wine making - or "somewhereness." Founded on the conviction that there is a perfect place for making wine, where the soil and the weather and the knowledge of the ages (tradition) combine to produce truly great vintages. The French have taken this notion so literally they have divided France into 450 different wine appellations (legal wine districts) based upon terroir.

Now, why do we need to know what terroir means? Well, it helps to explain why many French wines (or any wine for that matter) can taste ever so slightly distinct or unique in aroma or taste from other wines of the same varietal and region. Or maybe it's so you can learn a fancy new word to throw into bar conversation to make you appear très intelligente. It's also a great way to justify the abasement of a detestful wine - "...it has no terroir!" *spit in disgust*

Now, at this point I had intended on taking a wine and describing how terroir related but I just cannot stand long blog posts. And if you're like me your attention span cuts off at paragraph three. Stay tuned next time when I take a classy Châteauneuf du Pape and (attempt to) demonstrate it's terroir. What is Châteauneuf du Pape??? Read my next posting and find out!

To learn more about terroir, read the comprehensive philosophical writings of Dubos and Laville. If you're feeling lazy, refer to this wine forum of experts who contend to explain this centuries old term: click here.

P.S. I love you

Now many of you may be expecting me to start off with an elequent Pinot Noir or a nice safe Zin. But to show my determination to learn the ins and outs of wine world I am starting off with a complete unknown: Petite Sirah.

Sure, we've all had Sirah in the past. But what the heck is a petite sirah and why does it scare me so? To kick things off I've chosen a

2006 Reserve Petite Sirah from Running with Scissors

from California's Central Coast. It was a very inexpensive bottle that I bought a few years back because it was just that, cheap. I've been too scared to try it until now.

As it turns out, I'm not the only one who doesn't know what Petite Sirah is. According to the wine world, the name was attributed to no less than four different vines in California in the mid 1990s. Why would one rename their varietals? Well apparently when the grapes could not be identified, this new name was given to several old growth Italian vineyards, composing of Durif, Sirah, Peloursin (a parent of Durif), and Pinot Noir vines. Talk about inbreeding!

Today, Petite Sirah is used mostly as a blending grape and rarely seen as a stand alone wine. I cannot understand why not! It has a well balanced, very distinctive flavor entirely it's own. It is unlike any other wine I have had to date.

In fact, I enjoyed it so much I attempted to find another bottle only to discover is was a two year run varietal for this vintner and no longer in production. I will have to try my luck with another winery. It's good to hear that PS has seen a resurgence of popularity among others who have discovered it's unique flavors. I've seen a P.S. by Bogle I will have to test - stay tuned!

For more information about Petite Sirah, check out P.S. I love you.

Let the journey begin!

Hello and welcome to all vinophiles who happen about this humble blog.

Since this is my first posting I think it's only appropriate that I begin by stating my intentions. I hope to expand my simple wine knowledge and go from novice to supreme wine-o extraordinaire. Muah, ha, ha!

Modest goals are overrated. Why not set goals you truly desire? And maybe one day I will have enough knowledge to confidently start my very own wine business.

To accomplish this monumental feat, I'll begin by reporting on a different vintage every week and slowly weed out the overrated from the exceptional. Exploring the newest and most traditional of varietals as I get down to the nitty-gritty of how these fantastic libations are made.

So if you're a geeky-wanna-be-wine-o like myself, follow me on my journey. It's sure to be a great time!