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So Much Wine, So Little Time, So What?
| Thursday, 20-11-08
Earlier this week I took a few bottles of wine to a friend--actually, she is my teacher but explaining the exact relationship would be a distraction from my point--who had expressed a fondness for both syrah and sangiovese. When I gave her the package of wine she plopped down in the middle of the studio and began examining each label, a look of delight on her face. She reminded me of a child on Christmas morning, excited, eager, grateful.
I felt a little sheepish.
It is so easy, here in Sonoma County, to take wine for granted, especially if you work close to it, as I do. Samples arrive on my doorstep almost daily and sometimes I think, sheeesh, more wine.
It is easy to feel overhwhelmed, especially when storage space is limited, as mine is. And then there’s the recycling that the packaging requires, no small thing. And I have twice broken a toe rushing from one room to another and failing to see the cache of wine bottles behind the couch. Ouch!
And so the look on my teacher’s face slowed me down a bit.
Have I grown jaded, cynical?
Maybe just a little but only temporarily, I promise.
How lucky we are to live in this wonderful place, where the land gives us such an extraordinary bounty. I will never be able to drink all of the wines that find their way to me but I will never again take them for granted, not even briefly.
And speaking of sangiovese, I have in general been disappointed with the varietal’s performance in California. But a couple of weeks ago I tasted DaVero’s It is delicious, smooth, full and easy to drink, the best example of sangiovese I’ve seen in California.
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You Say Chardonnay, I Say Sauvignon Blanc
| Tuesday, 28-10-08After I mentioned that I loved the Pellegrini 2007 Sauvignon Blanc in my Mouthful column last week I got a note from its maker, Kevin Hamel, thanking me for the comment. Sauvignon Blanc, he said, is still a hard sell in the market.
This surprises me. Sauvignon blanc is one of the most refreshing white wines there is. It is generally a bargain and it goes well with a broader range of foods than the best selling white wine in the United States, chardonnay.
This underscores how irrational wine preferences can be. I think so many people drink chardonnay because they are familiar with it and because it is easy to pronounce. It can be good, certainly, but too often it’s like sucking on acube of butter. A limited number of foods are enhanced by it.
I was talking with John Ash the other day and he mentioned that he almost always prefers a bright white wine with good acidity.
“Just like so many foods are improved by a little squeeze of lemon juice,” he said, “sauvignon blanc enhances almost everything.”
It should be no surprise, then, that John is a partner in Sauvignon Republic, which just released its 2007 Potter Valley Sauvignon Blanc, the fourth wine in their international line up. The first release was from Russian River Valley
. Next came Marlborough, New Zealand, followed by Stellenbosch, South Africa.
The plan is to identify those regions around the world that produce the best sauvignon blanc and incorporate as many as possible in their line up. The team has been working on Sancerre in France but it seems the French haven’t quite grasped the concept yet. I hope they get it soon as I am eager to see what the Sauvignon Republic does with what is considered by many wine lovers to be the single finest spot for this varietal.At $18 a bottle, these wines won’t break the bank, either.
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The Pellegrini, at $15, is an even better deal.
