Pinot Gris, Sweet Domesticity

What is it about off-dry wine made with the Pinot Gris grape that automatically makes me think of domestic work? Some wines need food pairings and sweet Pinot Gris can compliment spicier, asian influenced foods really well. More often or not Pinot Gris manifests itself in the market as a ubiquitous white wine to which one should drink very very cold, and preferably complete with clattering ice-cubes.

But do you independently choose to drink an Alsacien Grand Cru Pinot Gris with food? This is the kind of wine that I find leftover in the fridge. It was opened (probably last night) when we had guests. It was likely tasted, discussed, appreciated… and then surpassed by drier, cleaner, less cloy alternative. The dinner party continued, the Grand Cru Pinot Gris garnered official status as a curio. Perhaps the bottle was misunderstood? Perhaps it didn’t suit the food. It’s back palate is heavy with residual sugar, the texture has signature oiliness, the finish is more than a little bitter… yet the structure is there, mineral & unfolding complexity.

Finally, 24 hours past the first taste, in between washing loads and ironing baskets I find Alsacien Pinot Gris! EUREKA! I see the variety clearly for what its region wants it to be, what it should be… and even understand how it’s internationally commercial interpretations have become thus! All hail the ever-flexible Pinot Gris!

Yet, even after finding peace with the 2007 Florian Beck-Hartweg Grand Cru Frankstein Pinot Gris, I still prefer the style dry. Complete with the natural pink colouring the grape was born with!

I love the way Kevin Kelley is fermenting his at the N.P.A in Santa Rosa, California – all whole cluster!  Pax Mahle is also keeping the colour with a no-fuss all-skin fermentation in his Wind Gap Pinot Gris from Forestville, California.  At the other end of the world Neil Prentice is making his Pinot Gris under the Holly’s Garden label with skin contact from a high altitude vineyard in the Whitlands, Victoria.

There ought (and IS!) a wine suitable for every occasion. Until now, I never realised the flavours of a little sweetness and Pinot Gris paired so well with domesticity, but there it is. Try it for yourself if you don’t believe me!

In the weeds

Why do vignerons apply chemicals to manage weeds?

Perhaps to improve machine accessibility in the vineyard?  It is easier to walk through if the grass is short.  Pest management is aided by removing the protection of taller grasses.  Aesthetics is a huge reason.  No, seriously (doesn’t Vouvray look beautiful?).  The majority of grape growers are applying petrochemicals to their soil (and ecosystem) to keep the vineyard looking more like croquet lawn than an explosion of knotty grass.

Mowing the mid-row alone is a possible alternative.  Mulching under the vines helps keep the weeds down (just like Hill of Grace above).  Yet physically cutting back weeds does not have the long lasting effect that poison does.  Plus, it requires more machine passes throughout the growing season which has a high labour cost and can cause compaction issues in the soil.  Alternatively, vineyards can run sheep during the winter to keep weeds down rather than apply poison to the soil.  Even Casella, in Yenda N.S.W., manage their largest vineyards with rotations of grazing sheep.

Tilling the soil is also machine intensive.  Most farmers will turn their soil at least once during the year.  In fact, most vineyards in Sonoma County have turned their winter grass into the earth in the last few weeks.  Why not leave the grass grow naturally during winter and turn it in Spring like Quivira (above) has?  Poisoning the under-vine growth during winter seems a waste if the soil will be turned a few months later.

The herbicide manufactures (and the growers who use them) will insist that they are safe to use and have a short half life.  I do not believe a chemical that can cause the death of one living thing will never have an unintended toxic effect on other plants, insects, water sources, animals or people.  The potential longterm harm is not worth the perceived short term gain.

There is a pure beauty found in the chaos of vineyards coexisting with local weeds and grasses.  It may be more labour intensive to harvest a vineyard buried in undergrowth, but not impossible.

Some chemical uses in the vineyard is necessary with regard to regional pressures, but is applying poison for weed management one of them?  I merely wish that there be only prickly burrs and no irritating chemicals for those who brave entering organised rows of vines or live within their watershed.

Negroni

The classic Negroni has long been a favourite cocktail of mine.  The combination of gin, sweet vermouth and Campari is an exceptional year round drink, no matter what time of day.

I love clarity, bitterness and dark brooding flavours in my cocktails.  Tempus Fugit Spirits base production of their Gran Classico Bitters on an original 1860′s bitters recipe that has served inspiration to many modern red bitter aperitifs.  I love the Gran Classico as an alternative to Campari for it’s heightened aromatics, deep flavour and bitter (not saccharine) finish.  It’s natural flavour and colour come from a blend of 25 different herbs.

Working with Scott Beattie to develop the cocktail and wine program at the new Spoonbar! restaurant in Healdsburg,  Ross Hallett came up with this Negroni recipe using Gran Classico Bitters.

Tempus Fugit Negroni

3/4 oz Ransom ‘Old Tom’ gin

3/4 oz Gran Classico Bitters

3/4 Carpano Antica Vermouth

2 dashes Fee orange bitters

Stir together over ice and serve up with an orange twist!

Thank you to Ross Hallett for allowing me to share this recipe!

Vini Estremi

“This sign is an indication of wines coming from vineyards situated in zones particularly inhospitable from the point of view of climate, of sustainability of life, of altitude and latitude, and/or of an environment in which it is characteristically hard to vinify wine.”

The most interesting wines come from places where all the elements are against the vines right from the start.

Thank you to the Vini Estremi for a plain talking back label, I Vigneri for preserving tradition and to Salvo Foti for producing this bottle of extreme wine.

Shochu

Shochu. The geek-spirit of 2011.

I recently stopped in at Ippuku for an early dinner in Berkeley. Taking respite in the subdued interior, away from the ruckus that is weekday evening traffic in the East Bay.
Initially, our intention was to merely to try the increasingly infamous chicken tartare. Raw chicken? Hell yes! But before we could begin to fathom the menu we noticed a little advertisement on the table declaring that Ippuku was Shochu School from 5-6pm. 50% off all shochu by the glass. Indeed! We had stumbled upon a happy hour of education-(fermented)!

The centerfold of the Ippuku drinks menu is dedicated to their Shochu selection. They must have one of the most extensive selections available in the USA. Shochu is a Japanese distilled beverage and can have many different base ingredients. The common barley, sweet potato and short rice spirits have the largest holdings on the Ippuku shelf, but there are also selections based on black sugar and long rice. They offer a preset Shochu tasting selection of one of each barley, sweet potato and short rice but we opted to design our own and order by the glass.

All Shochus we tried are listed below with alcohol content, base ingredient and price by the glass. They were tasted without the addition of water or ice.

Heihachiro 25% (sweet potato) $10. Smelling like a fresh, unscrubbed sweet potato it also gave a hint of ripe peach. Green asparagus and melon dominated the delineated palate presence of this comparitively simply Shochu.

Enma 25% (barley) $9.40. Sporting a more overt floral nose of lifted violets and vanilla. This spirit was creamier on the palate yet still light with honeydew melon fruit. Although round and complete, it gave only a two-dimensional impression.

Yaoki 25% (short rice) $10. Smelled of dried heather, cold pressed nasturtiums and the contents of your lunchtime bento-box. Structurally the lightest of the first three shochu we tasted, it lacked some fullness yet was the most persistent throughout the palate (which lent itself well to food pairings). It was more comparable to the flavours present in Sake.

Sasayaki 28% (barley) $9.30. Sage and jalapeno fusel aromatics jumped out of the little tumbler glass. This is a complex shochu with mint and chartreuse green on the palate. Seemingly octagonal in structure, albeit a touch cloying. Joint favourite with the Shiroyutaka.

Shiroyutaka 34% (sweet potato) $12. The extra alcohol helped to give this Shochu more depth and breadth than the others we tasted. Aromatically it was spicier with musk, red chili and cinnamon red hots. It had softer pillowy presence on the palate without being disappointing. It was lush, creamy and finished with a good dry bite.

As with any great food and wine combination, for every dish there is a complimentary Shochu. In the following paragraphs is a selection of the food tasted and what we favoured to pair with it. (More about the food from Bauer or Yelp – including pictures of the menu)

A great warm way to start was with the jidori gyoza paired with either of the barley Shochus. The texture of mountain yams is not for everyone but the yamakake yellowfin brought out a lovely raspberry characteristic in the Sasayaki shochu and was an all around amazing dish.
The sweet potato Shochus went perfectly with the tori yukke (spicy chicken tartare). Never mind the hype, this is a controversial dish well worth seeking out.
The delicacy in the short rice Shochu paired beautifully with most dishes, but especially with the bright clean flavour of fresh Uni. Isobe maki – grilled mochi with nori had a great soy seaweed flavour which expressed fully when paired with the short rice Shochu.
The agedashi tofu was so light in texture and the beautifully flavoured dashi was flexible with all our Shochus. We found the chrysanthemum leaves steeped in shoyu to have a quirky earthy characteristic that made for a good palate cleanse between plates and tastes!

My only gripe about Ippuku is that the servers were a not forthcoming with knowledge and information about the spirits available. We were shooting in the dark selecting things to try while our waiter shuffled suggestions back and forth from the bar. I value confident guidance from my server regarding illumination of any unfamiliar menu items.
What Ippuku lacks in competent service it makes up in delicious food and interesting spirits (in shovels and spades). If you are in the East Bay it is not to be missed! Head there during happy hour and geek out on Shochu for 2011.

Here is a list of Japanese Breweries and their Shochu.
I really like the Blushing Ambition post about Ippuku from just after the restaurant opened in July, 2010.

Shelf talking in the USA

Australian wine exports to the USA are slowing. The dollar is strong, the competition is stronger and our product just isn’t good enough to keep hold.  So surplus wine is flooding the local market.

You might have been told that in order to remedy this situation you need to improve marketing in the USA.   You might have been advised on how to market Australian wine to millennials and on how to increase the perception of your premium product?

Why do US wine consumers assume Australian wines are always high alcohol, semi-sweet, bowl-you-over labelled with cartoons? Because below-par wines are all that’s available on US shelves. It’s like Australian consumer judging the entire US wine industry on the Beringer White Zinfandel for $6 at your local Dan Murphy’s.

So without gloss or optimism here is a Californian report of the state of Australian wine in the US market;

Everyone’s favourite Left Handed shiraz.  A floor stack discount embarrassing the community of McLaren Vale wine producers. (Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa, California)

Alice White pinot noir “Juicy and fruit-forward with a silky texture, bright cherry and plum flavors, and a soft, lingering finish with hints of toasted oak spice.” Sounds delicious.  At $2.97, down from $6.99 this 750mL bottle is cheaper than a takeaway flat white. I am left wondering who benefits from this product.

Here’s the brand we all love to hate [yellow tail].  Bless it’s cotton socks for doing so well and exporting 80% of their turps.  Casella has done a great job putting ‘South Eastern Australian’ fruit into the glasses of wine-drinkers worldwide.  It carved the way so that others might follow.  Unfortunately, at prices this low, it only wedges open the market at the goon-in-glass level of production.  That’s a Magnum Fail.

These 1.5L bottles were spotted for $9.99 at CVS Drug Store in Healdsburg and (between magnums of Soave and Sake) for $10.99 at Whole Foods Market, Coddingtown Mall, CA.

The Whole Foods Australian shiraz trifecta? In 750mL bottles; there is [yellow tail] $5.49, Trackers Crossing $6.99 and The Stump Jump at $9.99. This (generally) high quality supermarket chain is not doing any justice to Brand Australia.

For those attempting to market wine to some young punk millenials; take one badass word, like ‘witchcraft’ and then make it even more badass by using the spanish translation (Brujeria).  Put a zany label on and you have another great wine blended from the finest (I’m sure that’s what it says somewhere in the fine print) grapes grown in South Eastern Australia.  Reportedly the Misfits Productions reject all convention, “doing whatever it takes to make the best product possible“.  Accordingly, these ‘wine souls’ keep their 66% Shiraz, 17% Cab, 11% Grenache, and 8% Tempranillo separate before blending to bottle.

I give a Big Woop Red Wine that Australian producers are represented by a $15.99 one litre lab blend.  Adding insult to injury is the Boarding Pass shiraz sporting the gaudiest packaging ever exported.   How are unique Australian wine growers going to get a foothold in a market filled with blended bulk wine sold at 4 times the price? (Whole Foods)

For the record, I am not taking aim at the Australian wine industry. I am Australian. I grew up on Weetbix, Vegemite sandwiches and classic Australian shiraz. I think semillon might just be my favourite grape and I get confused when riesling doesn’t have a fusel component. I am entirely optimistic that as an industry we are finding new ways to express ourselves, and our land. But it breaks my heart to see our national diversity represented in any market the way it is here on shelves in the USA.

I want to see Margaret River Cabernet, Tasmanian sparkling wine and Canberra District Riesling.  I want to continue to see local US winemakers surprised (impressed) at pinot noir from Whitlands, confused (impressed) by old cabernet from the Hunter Valley and to embrace the unique flavours of really old riesling from the Clare Valley.  

I don’t want to see cheap wine by chimps or dogs or native animals anymore.  

Enough is enough.

Wine? Mull It.

Regard!  The following meditation was inspired by an inquiry as to which the best way is to make mulled wine and spurred on by the entirely too frosty conditions experienced so far this holiday season!

I struggle to find a place for hot wine in my short (or extended) list of favourite beverages.  However, will all due respect, there are times, places and weather conditions when it is entirely appropriate for wine to be ‘ameliorated’ with sugar, spice, cheesy mugs and heart-shaped handles.  Take for example, the German Christmas markets in Heidelberg where one can walk around (Glühwein in hand) at the feet of ancient castles, ice-skate under twinkle lights and shop for lace or fresh bagels!

I’ve come to the conclusion that the old ways to make mulled wine are the best ways. It is, after all, an old-fashioned beverage more popular in days gone by when the quality of wine available was not what we take for granted today!

I had a little giggle when I came across this passage found on Wikipedia from Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management dating back from 1869;
TO MULL WINE.
INGREDIENTS.- To every pint of wine allow 1 large cupful of water, sugar and spice to taste.
Mode.-In making preparations like the above, it is very difficult to give the exact proportions of ingredients like sugar and spice, as what quantity might suit one person would be to another quite distasteful. Boil the spice in the water until the flavour is extracted, then add the wine and sugar, and bring the whole to the boiling-point, when serve with strips of crisp dry toast, or with biscuits. The spices usually used for mulled wine are cloves, grated nutmeg, and cinnamon or mace. Any kind of wine may be mulled, but port and claret are those usually selected for the purpose; and the latter requires a very large proportion of sugar. The vessel that the wine is boiled in must be delicately cleaned, and should be kept exclusively for the purpose. Small tin warmers may be purchased for a trifle, which are more suitable than saucepans, as, if the latter are not scrupulously clean, they spoil the wine, by imparting to it a very disagreeable flavour. These warmers should be used for no other purpose.

In the 1934 edition of ‘Book of Punches and Cocktails’ by Charles of Delmonicos I found a recipe for Mulled Muscatel in the ‘Fancy wine drinks’ chapter with the description that these drinks be “For the Pink-Jowled, Round-Paunched, Side-Whiskered Lover of Red, Gold, Purple and Plain White Wines”. Charles recommends boiling a suitable quantity of cloves, cinnamon and grated nutmeg in a pot of water.  When the flavour becomes pungent to the nostrils you double your water with the same amount of Muscatel wine and a few teaspoons of dissolved sugar.  You now bring the whole thing back to the boil and are instructed to serve it piping hot with crisp dry toast.

I didn’t find any modern recipes that sounded quite as warming as the golden oldies. Surprisingly though, I did find a few including egg (either the yolk only, or the whites and yolks) to create a creamier texture in your drink.

The 1956 edition of the Esquire Drink Book gives this recipe for mulled wine with egg;
2 pints (~1L) red wine
1/2 a nutmeg
sugar to taste
Yolks of 4 eggs
Grate nutmeg into 1/2 the wine, sweeten to taste. Bring to boil, then set aside for a moment. Beat and strain the egg yolks, adding them to the remaining cold wine. Mix the cold wine/yolk mixture gradually with the hot spiced wine and pour back and forth between pan and cup half a dozen times. Put the total mixture back on the stove (or you could use an open fire!). Heat slowly till piping and thick. Ladle the liquid up and down. Serve in mugs with laths of toast on the side.

In response to the original question as to what mulled wine I can recommend, I heed Mrs Beeton’s advice that “the exact proportions of ingredients… as what quantity might suit one person would be to another quite distasteful”.
So, as the wind becomes sharper and the rain belts harder on your windows, I encourage you to develop your own family recipe at home!  You can use any wine, port or even madeira and any combination of spices you like.  Ensure that you taste your wine before cooking with it as some cheaper table wines have significant residual sugar. For deeper flavours you can try roasting off your spices before adding them to the wine.  An infused simple syrup or vanilla sugar can also bring delicate flavours into your wine as you sweeten.  But remember boil your wine gently so it doesn’t get reduced or burned!

Go forth into the winter with spices and sweet mulled wine!