Domaine Marcel Deiss Pinot d’Alsace 2010

After the Rhône, Bordeaux,  Languedoc Roussillon, and Burgundy, I’m wrapping up this week of French wines with Alsace.  While it is a classic wine region of France, I must admit it’s not one that normally does much for me.  The varieties for which it is best known, Riesling, Gewürztraminer, and Pinot Gris, are easily found elsewhere in both the Old and New World, and the lesser varieties such as Pinot Blanc, Chasselas and Sylvaner are often impossible to source in Australia.  However, I couldn’t pass up today’s wine, the Domaine Marcel Deiss Pinot d’Alsace 2010.

Pinot d’Alsace is not a new variety, but rather a blend of the various Pinots found in Alsace.  I guessed Blanc, Gris and Noir, which earns only partial credit.  This wine apparently also has components of Pinot Meunier and Pinot Auxerrois, which is more widely known as just Auxerrois outside of Alsace.  In terms of covering all the bases, this wine does well, missing out only on Pinot Teinturier and Pinot Noir Précoce.  While none of the grapes are new to this blog, it’s certainly the first time Pinot Blanc and Pinot Auxerrois have turned up in a blend and since I have the new Wine Grapes book, I can tell you a bit about how it says they are related to one another.

While people generally talk about different varieties within the Pinot family of grapes, recent DNA profiling has shown that they are in fact all mutations of the same variety.  When a variety emerges, it is typically through pollination of a flower from one variety with the pollen of another variety, resulting in a grape with seeds.  If one of the seeds then grows into a vine it will be a new variety, distinct from either of the parents.

However, vines are traditionally cultivated through clippings, whereby a small piece of a vine is cut off, planted and grown into another vine.  That it how you can have a vineyard of thousands of essentially the same Chardonnay vine.  However, changes do happen to vines through random mutations.  While they are small, for instance colour, over generations of successive clippings and cultivations, you may end up with vines which have distinct properties but which in terms of DNA are virtually identical except for the accumulation of mutations.

That is exactly what you have in the case of Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir, Pinot Teinturier and Pinot Noir Précoce. They can be identified in the vineyard or in the bottle as different, but at a DNA level they differ only very slightly.  What about Pinot Auxerrois?  Despite the local Alsatian name, it’s not actually a Pinot.  Instead it is the offspring of a Pinot and Gouais Blanc, much like Aligoté, Chardonnay, Gamay Noir, Melon de Bourgogne, Romorantin and 16 others (at least).

This is the third wine of Alsace to grace these pages, and some information about the region generally can be found along with my notes on the Domaine Mittnacht Freres Riesling I had back in May.

As to the producer, the Deiss family has winemaking roots in Bergheim, Alsace going back to 1744.  The label takes its name from Marcel Deiss, who following 18 years as a professional soldier, returned to his family’s homeland after World War II.  With his son André, they built the family holdings into a company which is now run by the grandson of Marcel, Jean-Michel Deiss.  Wines are organized into three lines, with varietal entry level wines and wines made of late picked grapes being their Vins de Fruits and Vins de Temps respectively.  However, the domaine is best known for its Vins de Terroirs, a range of largely single vineyard wines.

Many people in the wine trade like the expression “wine is made in the vineyard” and while my experiences in both vineyard and winery do not support such an aphorism, the wines of Domaine Marcel Deiss do go a step further than most.  Typically blended wines are the result of separate cultivation and vinification, with Port and some Syrah / Viognier blends being notable exceptions.  The best wines of Marcel Deiss are field blends, meaning vineyards are planted with a number of varieties, which are picked and vinified together.  While many of the varieties in their blends would ripen at different times under other circumstances, Diess believes his ripen together in the vineyard due to a combination of dense planting and deep root systems that make them less influenced by climate and vintage.

This is fairly atypical.  Alsatian wines are frequently varietal, and unlike most of the rest of France, they traditionally feature the grape variety on the front label.  In that context, Jean-Michel Diess had campaign to have the rules of the appellation changed such that he would be able to bottle his Grand Cru designated vineyards as field blends with just the vineyard and appellation on the label.  His vines have been grown organically for 35 years and have been biodynamic since 1997.  Winemaking is with minimal intervention, slow pressing (18-24 hours for a run), natural yeasts and fermentations that can take months, with lots of time on lees and only a very small amount of SO₂ at the end.  Wines are filtered, but at very low pressure taking many times longer than conventional filtration.

In the glass this wine is clear and bright, with a medium gold colour that has a hint of orange and slow thick legs.  On the nose it’s clean and developing, with medium intensity and notes of stone fruit, pear, minerality, and a hint of vanilla.  On the palate it’s dry, with medium plus body, medium plus intensity, medium plus alcohol, medium acidity, and a medium length.  There are notes of slightly candied pear, a hint of saltiness, sandalwood, some apple – red and green, and a little lime on the finish.

This is a good wine, but a bit weird.  It doesn’t lack for complexity of flavour, and they are certainly distinct but not especially in tune with one another.  I’m not sure if the grapes fit as well together in the glass as they do in the vineyard.  Also the alcohol feels a bit strong, though not completely out of balance.  Certainly worth a try in terms of a somewhat unique offering.

Haute Cabrière Chardonnay Pinot Noir 2009

I’ve visited South Africa twice so far, and while the two trips had very little in common, they were both awesome in their own way.  The more recent was for the World Cup in 2010 and I was based around Johannesburg.  While I did carry home a mixed case and a half of some excellent wines (including the Ross Gower Pinor Noir Brut 2007, as well as this one), I didn’t visit any wineries.  However, on the first trip, my honeymoon in fact, my wife and I had the pleasure of a tour of the producer of this Haute Cabrière Chardonnay Pinot Noir 2009.

I’ve been wanting to write about Haute Cabrière for a while, and have mentioned the producer a few times, either by name as with the Louis Bouillot Crémant de Bourgogne Perle d’Ivoire post, or just by reference as with my Christmas Recap, because it was there that I saw a sabrage demonstration and have been fascinated by the practice ever since.

Haute Cabrière is a producer of still, sparkling, and fortified wines, as well as a potstill brandy.  Established in Franschhoek in 1694 by a Pierre Jourdan, a French Huguenot farmer, it was completely replanted in 1982 in the style of Champagne with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines.  The company is led by Archim von Arnim, who is something of a character.  I remember him very clearly from the tour, when a foreign tourist asked if he could call his sparkling wine Champagne.  He replied “No, but the Champenois can’t call their wine Pierre Jourdan”, implying that he got the better end of the deal.  He personally gave the sabrage demonstration at the end of the tour, which involved picking three volunteers to join him on stage who were, coincidentally, the three prettiest women on the tour.  (Yes, my bride was one of them.)  His personality is as the forefront of the brand, with his name on the front label of the bottle and his poetry on the back.  Since I’ve been there however, Takuan von Arnim seems to be stepping up to his role as heir, if the tasting videos are anything to go by.  I’ve enjoyed their sparkling wines, but today I’m writing about another wine style that they produces that is very interesting.

Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, classic grapes of both Burgundy and Champagne, enjoy cool climates and even in the New World are often found planted in close proximity.  However, while it’s not unknown for red and white grapes to be combined in the same wine, particularly in the Rhône, and Chardonnay and Pinot Noir combine to form some of the best sparkling wine of Champagne, they are rarely found together in still wine.  This wine is one of those rarities.

The first reaction among winemakers when I poured it for some last year was “oh, a sparkling base.”  Yes and no.  Yes, in a still, white wine, these two grapes are most typically a blend destined to go through another fermentation.  However, in more important ways this is very much not a sparkling base.  Grapes for sparkling wine are typically picked earlier than grapes for still wine.  That way they will have higher acidity and lower sugar levels, resulting in that particular crispness required of sparkling wines, and can allow for an increase in alcohol and/or sweetness through dossage or a softening through malolactic fermentation and/or extended ageing on lees, depending on the house style.  The resulting sparkling base is often thin and overly tart by the standards of still wine.  That is absolutely not the case for this wine.

But before I talk about this wine in more detail, a word or two about Franschhoek, which I will try desperately not to misspell throughout the course of this post.  It’s one of the oldest towns in South Africa, established in 1688, which makes Pierre Jourdan one of its early settlers.  Its name means French Corner in some flavour of Dutch, and it was essentially an enclave for Huguenots who fled France after their right to practice their religion was revoked in 1685.

I tend to clump Franschhoek together with Paarl and Stellenbosch, as they form a small triangle of wine production, but the official structuring of overlapping wine Geographical Units, Regions, Districts and Wards in South Africa is more than a little complicated.  Franschhoek is officially in the Paarl region, but a popular choice of indicators on the label if nothing more specific is used is Coastal Region, which includes the above, as well as Constantia, Durbanville, Cape Point, Swartland, and Tulbagh.  The climate is Mediterranean, though the intense sunshine is a big factor.  Fortunately, so is proximity to False Bay to the south, and a wind known as the Cape Doctor which clears the air, reducing disease pressure and humidity.  The soil types vary greatly, though decomposed granite is often found on the hillsides with alluvial and sandy plains below.  Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are not the most commonly found varieties in Franschhoek, but the area is home to some soaring hills, and the Haute Cabrière vines are planted at either end of the valley to take advantage of the cooler temperatures afforded by the altitude.

This wine is clear, bright, and a pale lemon/gold colour.  When the glass is swirled, it shows a quick thin film on the inside of the glass that doesn’t turn to legs before it settles back into the wine.  The nose is clean, with medium plus intensity, and a developing character, with notes of butter, lemon, sunflowers, and some oak.  On the palate, this wine is dry, with medium plus acidity, medium plus body, and showing some signs of oak and/or development.  It has medium alcohol levels with medium plus flavour intensity, and flavours of lemon curd, toast, honeycomb.  With 60% Chardonnay and 40% Pinot Noir, I want to say I can taste the Pinot Noir, and so there’s a bit of sour cherry on the finish, but I can’t say if it’s in the glass or in my head.  Also, the notes suggest there may be some residual sugar, though I think with the acidity it came through for me more as palate weight than sweetness.

This is wine of very good quality, though not expensive (roughly $10).  Unfortunately for me, they only ship within South Africa, so I consider it nearly priceless as I have to factor the price of an airline ticket into the cost.  As I mentioned earlier, this is absolutely not a base wine.  It is more full bodied and rounded, with more alcohol and less acid.  As a 2009, it has flavour development that sparkling wine will only get after many more years on lees.  It’s a shame that this wine is nigh impossible to obtain in Australia, as it’s both enjoyable and very affordable.  However, I look forward to having another bottle the next time I’m in a country in which it’s available.

However, there is one issue with this wine which I hope will be addressed soon – do you serve it in a Pinot Noir glass, or a Chardonnay glass?  I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until Riedel comes out with a special glass just for this blend.

Krug 1998 (and caviar)

I’m not sure if I mentioned this or not, but I passed my exam.  Really.  I think I may need to start each post with that reminder for the next year or two, because it’s going to take that long to sink in.  And as with a few other excellent episodes in my life, I celebrated with a very nice bottle.  In this case, Krug 1998.

There are a few points in my life I can tell you exactly what I was drinking.  I remember my first taste of Port Ellen, my favourite single malt whisky, back in 1996.  I proposed over a bottle of Sassicaia, and then celebrated my engagement the following night with a bottle of Cristal and an Esk Valley The Terraces.  For studies though, it’s been Krug, with a bottle when I was accepted into graduate school, another when I had completed my Masters, and now one to go with the WSET Diploma.

This is actually something of a difficult post because Krug is so iconic.  However, lest I be accused of posting exclusively to draw attention to the fact that I’m drinking Krug, I suppose I should stick to the format.  First off, the basics.  Krug is Champagne, and indeed it’s been said that Krug is the finest of all Champagnes.  Unpacking that a bit, it’s a sparkling wine made in the Champagne region of France, under a certain set of rules regarding grape varieties, vine density, yields, winemaking, maturation, and release.

Actually, I can’t be asked to talk about the region, the grapes, and the winemaking because if you don’t already know all about that, I’m not going to be able to convey what a special bottle this is.  Instead I’ll talk a little about Krug, the 1998 vintage in Champagne, and what was inside this bottle.

Krug is of course a Champagne house, based in Reims, established in 1843, and now part of Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH).  It’s a négociant-manipulateur (NM) meaning that like most larger houses, they make their wine from grapes not exclusively from their own vineyards.  They produce two non-vintage wines, vintage bottlings in particularly good years, and two single vineyard vintage wines.  Their house style is based on fermentation in barrel, extended time on lees, but no malolactic fermentation, so there’s oak, nuttiness, but more zing in the acid than cream.

The 1998 vintage in Champagne is at present well respected, though apparently had something of a slow start with limited expectations that have been exceeded with the passage of time.  Krug beautifully supplies notes with their vintage Champagne that detail the vintage, and they describe 1998 as uncertain in August with alternating heat and rain, but perfect by harvest and yielding “particularly fine quality wines”.  The notes on Berry Bros. & Rudd suggest not everyone was so certain at the time but that the consensus now is that it is a vintage from which the wines continue to improve.  Speaking of which, I just had a quick look at the BBR listing of maturity of the eleven 1998 Champagnes that they stock and only one is listed as “For laying down” – Krug.  So yes, of the many 1998 Champagnes available, I picked the one that might have been better with a few more years.  To be honest though, they’re almost certainly right – while I’m a Diploma graduate, they in fact seem to employ the majority of MWs, including Simon Field as a Champagne buyer.

I will put in a small word about the grapes themselves so I don’t completely lose my form.  As everyone knows, the main grapes of Champagne are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, and as far fewer people know there are actually a good handful of others permitted such as Petit Meslier, Arbanne, Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc.  Of the three main grapes though, Pinot Meunier is the least noble (whatever that means) and is generally less prominent in the literature of Champagne to the point of many houses making no mention of it as a component of their wines.  I can’t find any sources to back this up, but I was told that for the longest time many houses denied that they were using any Pinot Meunier at all until someone with Krug spoke up and said that Pinot Meunier was an important component of their blend and that they absolutely relied on it, at which point others were less hesitant to admit that they likewise were making great use of it.

In the glass this wine was clear and bright with a pale gold colour.  The bubbles were amazing – not the restrained fine bead that is typical but more a tornado in the glass.  Small bubbles but with an intense energy, particularly immediately after being poured.  The nose was of slightly burnt toast, of sesame seeds that are just about to go from being slightly off white to black.  (I have a hard time toasting sesame seeds – really, the do seem to instantly transition.)  There was something else on the nose – almost maple syrup.  The nose as a whole had a medium plus intensity, and was very developed.  The palate was dry, with high acidity.  The body was a medium, which in the context of sparkling wines is fairly heavy.  The alcohol was medium minus and came in at ABV 12% on the label.  I picked up lemon, lime and bitters on the palate with a bit of sea shell.  It was very fresh and crisp.

This was a beautiful wine, and the perfect way to celebrate graduating with the Diploma.

Sorrenberg Gamay 2009

Looking at the map, there’s been no shortage of Australian wines in this blog, but they’ve all been rather lazily from South Australia.  (To be fair, I did write about a Hunter Semillon but the producer is based in South Australia.)  While it’s true that South Australia does produce the most wine of Australian states, there’s plenty of great wine coming out of the rest of the country.  Today we’ll try an interesting one from Victoria.

I’m having a look at the Sorrenberg Gamay 2009.  They’re based just outside of Beechworth in Victoria, which is a bit over 200km to the northeast of Melbourne, pretty close to the New South Wales border.

Victoria has more than its share of fine wines and wine regions, with Bass Phillip of South Gippsland, Giaconda of Beechworth, and Mount Mary of Yarra Valley all featuring as “Exceptional” in the Langton’s Classification of 2005.  The climate in general tends to be cooler than that of the regions I’ve covered in South Australia, and Beechworth is no exception.  It’s a small and relatively new region, with modern viticulture only going back to the 1970s, and only merits a single line in the OCW.  The climate is described as sub-alpine, that is, quite cool.  The town of Beechworth  itself is at an altitude of over 500m, with some of the surrounding vineyards being higher still.  The soil is varied, with alluvial flats and less fertile but better drained slopes.  Sorrenberg describes their particular patch as granitic.

So Gamay is actually one of my favourite grapes, which makes it strange that I haven’t properly written about one before.  I’m still embarrassed I didn’t pick out the one we were served blind in the tasting section of the WSET Diploma Exam, but such is life.  Gamay is a red, thin skinned grape, best known as being the heart and soul of Beaujolais.  It has been all but cast out of the rest of Burgundy (though generally comprises the bulk of Bourgogne Passetoutgrains), but can certainly be found in the Loire and Savoie.  Outside of France, there are smatterings of it to be found, with California, Canada and Australia have very small plantings, though it is found in Switzerland, frequently blended with Pinot Noir.

Gamay suffers from being unfashionable, for a number of different reasons.  First off, it is a light red.  Obviously there are fashionable light reds, with Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo springing to mind.  However, generally the trend of late has been toward heavier, more full bodied reds.

The second problem is Pinot Noir.  I love Pinot Noir, but Gamay will always be in its shadow.  While they’re both Burgundian, they’re very different grapes, and are generally made into even more different wines, with Pinot Noir heading in the direction of finesse and sophistication capable of extended cellaring, while most Gamay is made into fruity, accessible wine meant to be consumed immediately.  It’s not helped by the fact that the non-Beaujolais part of Burgundy looks down on Beaujolais.  I have a map of the region that I picked up when I was staying in Nuits-St-Georges last year titled La Route Des Vins De Bourgogne.  It stops at the bottom of Mâconnais, as though no one would want to go further south than that, though to be fair it does mention Mâconnais-Beaujolais wine route at the very bottom.

The third problem is Beaujolais Nouveau, a wine released the third Thursday of November, just scant weeks after vintage.  It’s a pleasant enough wine, fruity, light, and aromatic, but not very serious.  However, it was at one time hugely popular, and still makes up a large percentage of Beaujolais production, overshadowing other, more serious Beaujolais.

Despite all this, Gamay can be used to make very fine wine.  Above the basic appellation is Beaujolais-Villages, with the grapes coming from the northern part of the region, and finally there are wines named after specific villages, such as Moulin-à-Vent and Brouilly.  Instead of being rushed into the mouths of consumers at the first opportunity, these wines are made more gently (and expensively) and benefit from ageing.  For their quality, they are typically very good value.

Someday, perhaps in a vintage or two, I would very much like to source a ton of Gamay and try my hand at making some.  No one in my region (that I know of) makes it except for a rosé in McLaren Vale, and while I’ve been involved with a few different styles of winemaking, carbonic maceration would be a new one for me.  I even have a pretty good idea as to how much work it would be and how much it would cost, but I think I’ll be better off waiting another vintage at least before I try.

Sorrenberg is a small producer that traces its family roots back through 500 years of winemaking in the Mosel region of Germany.  They make a handful of premium wines – a red and a white Bordeaux blend, a Chardonnay and this Gamay.  Being a fan of both Gamay and novelty, it is was drew me to them, and I have not as yet had an opportunity to try their other wines.

They apparently do their fermentation in barrel, which left me scratching my head for a few minutes.  With white wines, that’s easy enough as you’re fermenting juice (which I’ve helped do) and you just put an S-shaped bubbler on top to let the CO₂ out.  With reds you’re typically fermenting crushed berries, or sometimes whole bunches.  I was trying to imagine how you get berries or bunches efficiently into a barrel when I remembered that when you ferment reds in barrel, it’s typically a barrel turned on its end with the head taken out.  I’ve only helped with red ferments in tanks or tubs, which is why it took me a minute to think that through.

Their website says they also grow Pinot Noir which in their most recently released vintage (2010) constituted 10% of their Gamay, sufficiently small so as not requiring a mention on the label.  While I have had blends of Pinot Noir and Gamay before, I see that as something of a novelty.  I think in general, certainly in Burgundy, Pinot Noir commands such a higher price than Gamay, it rarely makes economic sense to blend them.  With Sorrenberg I would think it’s a matter of wanting to make the best Gamay they can, and that supplementing it with Pinot Noir is more about getting the character they want more than economics.

The wine itself is a treat.  It’s much darker in the glass than I was expecting, though I spent last week working with 2011 Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir so I may just be expecting everything to be pale.  The nose is fragrant – cherries and herbs.  Not a trace of bubblegum or banana that can be evident on lesser Gamays.  I haven’t had enough Gamays produced in this style to have been able to identify it blind – I would have guessed Pinot Noir I think.  On the palate the fruit is very fresh, and the herbs of the nose give way to spice, slightly peppery.  The body is just under medium, as you’d want from a Gamay, but the acidity has zing and the cherries carry through a long finish where they are joined with a bit of dark chocolate.  This wine lives up to the intentions of the winemaker.

And a quick meta – I had this niggling notion that the titles on this blog weren’t quite right.  It turns out they have been completely screwed up for probably quite some time.  I think I did something wrong when I added a plug-in, but it’s fixed now.  Here’s hoping the site gets re-indexed relatively quickly.

Also, I’ve enjoyed the most recent wines a great deal, and rated them highly.  If it seems I haven’t had an ill word for a wine in the past week or two, keep in mind that I’m not tasting a random selection.  Fortunately for me, I get to pick and choose what I’m having, and more often than not it’s drinking, not tasting, so I can get pretty picky.  I try not to spend money on bad wine, and while sometimes I’m happy to throw the dice and take my chances, most of the recent entries seemed reasonably safe bets that all turned out well.  I’m also somewhat insulated in that most of the recent wines were purchased from local wine merchants that likewise have little incentive to stock or recommend bad wine.  If there are aspects of a wine that I think could be better, I’ll certainly point them out, but I’m just pleased to have had a recent string of good performers.

Villa Jolanda Prosecco

Just a quick update to keep things moving along, with a charming sparkler from Italy. Tonight we opened up a bottle of Villa Jolanda Prosecco, and it absolutely hit the spot.

First, the facts.  I know pretty much nothing about this producer, Santero.  Their website suggests they make a wide range of wines in the north of Italy, but it’s not clear exactly where in their hierarchy this wine sits, in their carved range.  Best I stick with general information about Prosecco.

Prosecco is a white grape, and is typically used in the regions of Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia to make sparkling wine.  A somewhat funny thing is happening, or has happened with regard to the name.  Apparently the producers are trying to change the name of the grape to Glera, such that Prosecco will only refer to the wines made within the DOC(G) areas of Italy, and when used anywhere else it must be called Glera.  On the one hand, I can see a region trying to protect its interests, and Prosecco has become a brand on it’s own.  However, I think this is a pretty bogus effort, in that it’s a grape name, and grapes are transportable.  Italy is so difficult with regard to region versus grape name, but this is just silly.  You can protect and maintain, say, Champagne, because it is the name of the region, but trying to protect Chardonnay because it’s one of the grapes used is going too far.

A quick update from months later – I had originally assumed this to be a varietal Prosecco, which means of course I was wrong.  It’s 85% Prosecco, but the remainder is some mix of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Bianchetta, Perera and Verdiso, the last three being native grapes that were unknown to me until I went back to update my data on past posts.

Anyway, Prosecco is generally light and sometimes slightly sweet.  It’s secondary fermentation is done in tank, instead of the traditional method where the secondary fermentation takes place in bottle.  That makes it much cheaper to produce.  This wine is a non-vintage, which usually means it contains grapes from more than one year.  I’m not sure if it is common to blend across vintages with Prosecco in the way that it is with Champagne, but this wine was young and fresh.

Yes, about this wine in the glass – it was just right.  Normally I try to write about the qualities of the wine that one might expect should it be encountered, and so I have to give a few such descriptors.  It was fairly pale, a bit lighter than straw.  It had medium sized bubbles, which persisted through the meal.  The nose was light and fruity, the palate the same.  Not quite delicate, but crisp and light, despite a hint of sweetness.  It was of good, possibly very good quality.

However, this wine was perfect tonight.  It was a hot, muggy day, and for dinner we had sushi.  The wine went well with the fish, was refreshing in the face of the weather, and at under 12% alcohol wasn’t overbearing.  There are times when a wine is great in a vacuum, but this wine was perfect in context.

Pin is the address of the producer, alas some distance away from the origin of this wine in Veneto.