Happy Thanksgiving!

Greetings from the City of Brotherly Love, home of your 2008 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies, Lipitor-inducing cheesesteaks, and, well, me.

Pennsylvania is a state with puritanical alcohol laws, so we had to go to the aptly-named “Wine and Spirits Store” (a state-run store) last night to pick up wine for today. Washington was fairly well-represented, with lots of Ste Michelle, Columbia Crest, and Hogue on the shelves. L’Ecole 41 had a few entrants as well.

We picked up a few bottles of 2007 Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling Cold Creek Vineyard, which ripped it up during our recent Riesling tasting, along with one bottle of 2006 Hedges Family Estate CMS and one bottle of 2006 Airlie Winery Pinot Noir. The CMS is a little big for dinner but might work as a cocktail wine, and the Airlie is unfamiliar to me but was the only bottle of Oregon pinot on the shelf.

My dad also picked up whiskey and sweet vermouth at the state store, so I see Manhattan-fueled tasting notes in my future.

If you’re in Washington and looking for last-minute suggestions, Sean Sullivan has good lists here, here, and here.

In the spirit of the day, I would like to give thanks for family, friends, good wine and good food, fellow bloggers, readers, commenters, Jamie Moyer, classmates, professors, our cat Smokey, Alexia and Pierre for hosting us in St. Hilaire-du-Rosier, the magical Restaurant Le Chamois d’Or in St Etienne de Tinee, the city of Seattle, and brunch at Sunflour Cafe on the weekends. And mom’s blueberry muffins.

2006 Ross Andrew Winery Syrah Boushey Vineyards – $28 @ McCarthy & Schiering

Rating: 4

I tasted this at a Saturday McCarthy & Schiering tasting and was intrigued enough to buy a bottle. Boushey Vineyards is a top-notch Washington site, and their Syrah grapes are highly sought-after. Serious Washington producers like Betz (his La Serenne is 100% Boushey fruit) and McCrea make Boushey Syrahs. Usually the price points on Boushey designates edge into wallet-burning territory, so I was certainly struck by Ross Andrew’s $28 price point.

For me, this is an absolute buy at $28. On the nose, wonderful Syrah funk that I usually associate more with Walla Walla than with Yakima Valley. The nose brings damp earth with hints of the dark fruit to come. On the palate, a pure expression of black cherry fruit at the core, framed by hints of ferrous minerality. Really tasty juice, and I will look to get my hands on more.

If you want to learn more about the vineyard that produced this gem, Wine Peeps recently made a visit. Also, Paul Gregutt writes about Boushey Vineyards in his wonderful book, Washington Wines & Wineries: The Essential Guide. That book is an invaluable resource for learning about the people and places behind Washington wine.

Jargon Central: Acidity

I still consider myself in the beginner-intermediate range when it comes to wine knowledge. Part of what makes the subject fairly intimidating is the sheer amount of jargon and terminology. As I learn more and hear definitions that resonate with me, I will post them in the Jargon Central category.

I have referenced acidity on numerous occasions in my tasting notes already. To me, it is one of the four critical elements in tasting wine (flavor, body/mouthfeel, acid, tannin). The best way to think about acid in wines is to compare it to seasoning in foods. The miracle of salt is that it makes foods taste more like themselves; it makes a steak taste more, well, steaky. It increases the inherent broccolanity of broccoli. Altogether, it enhances and strengthens flavors.

When salt is absent, even good, well-prepared food tastes dull, and it is the same for acidity in wines. When you see wines described as “dull” or “flabby” you can bet that wine has a dearth of acid. The right amount of acid makes a wine taste bright in your mouth. It enlivens berry flavors and makes them shimmer across your palate. Of course, much like with salt, acid can be over-done. Typically, too much acid leads to wine whose tartness is actively unpleasant. In white wines, this comes across to me as aggressively-tart Granny Smith apple flavors; in reds, I get Ocean Spray cranberry juice.

When drinking wine with food, good acidity is especially important, because acid also has the magic ability to cleanse palates. After you have swallowed a forkful of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, can-shaped cranberry sauce, and gravy, do you really want to fatigue your palate with another bite of the same? Instead, try washing that bite down with a high-acid Riesling. Then your next bite will be as exciting as your last (as exciting as turkey can be, anyway).

2006 Cayuse Syrah En Cerise Vineyard – $25/glass @ Cellar 46

Rating: 4

Cellar 46 had a few dozen bottles of various 2006-vintage Cayuse for sale yesterday, and they were pouring the En Cerise Syrah by the glass.

Very tight, young nose on this. After enough swirling to dislocate my wrist, the wine opened up to reveal cooking cabbage, green bell peppers, green olive brine, and peppercorns. The funk on these Cayuse noses is truly remarkable. On the palate, more vegetables with some red fruit to round it out. Nice acid and mild tannins.

The Cayuse mailing list might be the most difficult one in the state to get onto (I have been on the waiting list for awhile now), so I try to take advantage of opportunities to buy or taste this wine. Last night I managed to buy Cellar 46’s last bottle of the 2006 Bionic Frog, which has really become Cayuse’s flagship Syrah. I’m pretty excited to try it, but given my notes above, I think I will resist the desire for immediate gratification and sit on it for a few years.

Three Washington Syrahs

Bob Bullock, a rep for a number of good Washington wineries, was pouring a bunch of wines at Cellar 46 tonight, and I decided to try the three syrahs that he had open. I didn’t buy any of these wines; these are approximate retail prices:

2005 Whitman Cellars Syrah Walla Walla Valley – $30 @ Cellar 46

Rating: NR. Straightforward red fruit, and the acid was a little too tart for my palate.

2004 JLC Winery Syrah Columbia Valley – $25 @ Cellar 46

Rating: 4. Big, funky nose of fresh dirt, with hints of cherries. I could smell this wine all night. Lovely, juicy palate with easygoing tannins and bright acidity. This is an absolute steal for the price. Buy this wine wherever you can find it.

2005 Russell Creek Syrah Walla Walla Valley – $35 @ Cellar 46

Rating: 3. Lovely nose of dark fruit and hints of black pepper. On the palate, more dark fruit and the biggest tannins of the flight, closing to a chocolatey finish.

Daggerleaf?

One of my intrepid readers sent me a Google chat message during yesterday’s Macroeconomics class (one can only listen to so much doom and gloom before turning to IM programs to ease the pain) asking “why the name Swordfern?”

I chose the name because I wanted something that was evocative of the Pacific Northwest, and swordferns are among the most abundant plants in this region. That said, the irony has not escaped me that where swordferns grow, wine grapes generally don’t. I also like the plant aesthetically and thought it would make for a nice logo.

While it’s fine for a blog name, I’m not positive that it’s the name I will choose when I launch my business plan. There seem to be some associations that I’m not sure I like. One is the Lord of the Rings, fantasy element. Now I like Frodo, Gandalf, and the rest of the Fellows as much as the next guy, but teenboys are not my target demographic.

Another, bigger problem is that the sovereign nation of New Zealand may have beaten me to the punch in terms of locking up the swordfern imagery. This is the New Zealand wine industry’s current logo:

And while I thoroughly enjoy Kiwi wine, I don’t plan to sell Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs or Otago Pinot Noirs, so the name swordfern could be a little misleading.

So I might need a new name, and I am always open to suggestions (real or ridiculous). Leave them in comments.

Blind Tasting #9: Riesling

If I had to pick one white varietal to drink for the rest of my life, it would probably be Riesling. Why? Well, for starters, in my experience it is the most terroir-expressive white wine grape. Terroir is a dicey French word; dicey because it does not have a direct translation in English. The best definition I have heard is that terroir is anything that’s outside the control of the winegrower and winemaker. Friends of terroir are soil, weather, and geography. Enemies of terroir include over-oaking and over-ripening. Further, Riesling makes delicious wines in a number of different styles, from dry to sweet. Riesling is able to make sweet wines that are not cloying due to its high natural acidity.

Riesling is the most common grape varietal in Germany and in the Alsace region of France. These two areas tend to produce the Rieslings with the most renown and ageworthiness. Reading German wine labels can be tricky. I have found this Wikipedia article to be a good resource for decoding the difference between kabinett, spatlese, auslese, and all the other iterations.

While we waited for everyone to arrive, we had a cocktail of 2006 Chateau Ste. Michelle & Dr. Loosen Riesling Eroica – $24 @ QFC. CSM makes a number of different Rieslings, and this is their highest-end version that is not a dessert wine.

Rating: 3. Lovely nose of creamed figs that reminded me more of Semillon than of Riesling. On the palate, juicy pineapple flavors and huge acidity that for me ventured into the realm of tartness. Nice, long finish.

Then it was onto the blind tasting, where we tried 4 Washington Rieslings and 1 German:

2007 Charles Smith Wines Riesling Kung Fu Girl – $13 @ QFC

Rating: 3. Muted nose that, with vigorous swirling, revealed hints of candied pineapple. On the palate, screaming pink grapefruit on the attack and in the middle, followed by a green apple finish. Lots of bright, tart acidity.

2006 OS Winery Riesling Champoux Vineyard – $20 @ QFC.

Rating: NR. This nose smelled like I just pulled into a gas station; all rubber and gasoline. As I read up on Riesling, I found that petrol notes are actually considered a sign of quality and ageworthiness by some, but I found it off-putting. By far the most restrained palate of the night, with some fig and herbal notes coming through.

2007 Long Shadows Wineries Riesling Poet’s Leap – $20 @ Metropolitan Market

Rating: 3. The most tropical nose of the bunch. This smelled like a mango lassi, with hints of canned peaches and marshmallows as the night went on. The palate was rich with pineapple and orange, and the finish was spicy. This was tasty, linear (quick definition: linear wines bring consistent flavors across the beginning, middle, and finish of your palate), and uncomplicated.

2007 Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling Cold Creek Vineyard – $13 @ QFC

Rating: 4. Completely different aromas than the bottles I tasted over the summer. No fruit on the nose; instead entrancing saline aromas that reminded me of the Jersey shore – some combination of seashells, jetty rocks, and salty air. The palate, on the other hand, was full of rich, generous, delicious fruit (pear and citrus) and gorgeous acidity. This was the wine of the night for me and remains a steal at $13.

2007 Mönchhof Robert Eymael Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Kabinett – $21 @ McCarthy & Schiering

Rating: 4. Wow – huge, floral nose on this wine; smells like an orange blossom overflowing with nectar. On the palate, the most notable element for me was the acid, which was absolutely perfect. It gave a brightness to the grapefruit and floral flavors that I loved. This also had a long, intriguing finish of green melon.

Some of my readers were at this tasting, and I invite them to add their thoughts or tasting notes as comments.

Cure for Your Case of the Mondays

Beginning next November 24, I will be working at Cellar 46 from 12-6 on Mondays. Cellar 46 is a wine shop/wine bar/wine storage/restaurant just off Exit 7A of I-90 on Mercer Island. Their wine shop specializes in Washington wines, so it’s a great fit for me.

If you visit, we can talk about wine, taste wine, and you can even buy wine from me (have no fear; I don’t get paid on commission, so I won’t be pushing $75 bottles on you).

I also should have a lot more opportunity to taste wine, so expect an uptick in the number of tasting notes.

Other Regions 96, Washington 4

Each year around this time, Wine Spectator releases its Top 100 Wines of the Year, and the 2008 version just came out today, with 4 wines from Washington making the list:

#25 – 2005 Andrew Will Champoux Vineyard Horse Heaven Hills (Red Bordeaux Blend)

#42 – 2005 Amavi Cabernet Sauvignon Walla Walla Valley

#48 – 2005 DeLille Doyenne Aix Columbia Valley (Cab-Syrah Blend)

#61 – 2005 Januik Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley

I am surprised to not see any Washington syrah on the list, although I’m not shocked to see a Cab-Syrah blend make the list. I think Washington, because of the quality of both its cabernet sauvignon and syrah grapes, is uniquely situated to craft these kinds of blends. I have talked about my love of the Rulo Syrca already, and I have actually tasted the 2005 Doyenne Aix and found it absolutely delicious. K Vintners makes three Cab-Syrah blends: The Creator, Roma, and Ovide. Other Washington blends of this type include Buty’s Columbia Rediviva and Rediviva of the Stones, Gorman’s Evil Twin, and Hedges Two Vineyard.

I’m also surprised to see Washington cult producers Quilceda Creek, Leonetti, and Cayuse absent from the top 100. Quilceda made it all the way up to #2 in the 2006 list with their 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon, but no sign of them this year.

I recommend taking a look at today’s post from Sean Sullivan at Washington Wine Report. He had an interesting experience with the Amavi wine on the list (#42).

Scenes from a Startup: Data Entry II

With Kelli out of town for the weekend, I hammered away at the data entry and have now finished my initial list. Out of my initial list of 86 wineries, 4 were too big to be considered boutique, 3 turned out to not be in Washington (oops), and 6 don’t seem to be in business anymore. With those 13 removed, I ended up entering wines for 73 wineries and wound up with a total of 653 wines.

Of red wines, the most common type was Syrah, with 113 wines averaging $38.78, followed by Bourdeaux-style blends (104 wines averaging $39.76) and Cabernet Sauvignon (99 wines averaging $42.11).

The most common white was Chardonnay (29 wines averaging $24.76), followed by Viognier (23 wines averaging $22.17).

There’s lots more data to chew on, but one clear realization for me is that most of the wines from the wineries I want to target are not cheap. Only 17% come in under $20. I am going to need either wealthy customers or different wineries.