Essex County Wine Society

THE WINE PRESS

                              ESSEX COUNTY WINE SOCIETY

December 13, 2007 

Dear Friends and Fellow Members:

On December 6, 2007 member Jonathan Sibley led us through a tasting of a special selection of wines from Southwest France.  Our venture to this area of France outside of our usual visits to Bordeaux, Burgundy and Rhone was a society first and our tasting included wines, white and red, dry and sweet. Jonathan led off with two dry white wines from the Jurancon, a 2005 Charles Hours, Jurancon sec Cuvee Marie made from the gros manseng grape and a 2005 Domaine Cauhape La Canopee made from the petit manseng grape.  Both had fullness and a good acid-base balance.  The latter wine developed a honeyed taste as it sat in the glass. 

The first red wine of the evening was a Gaillac, 2005 Plageoles Le Duras.  The wine was unusual and somewhat bitter having been made from the local duras grape.  Perhaps one had to be from Gaillac to better appreciate the wine.  We then had three wines from Cahors all made by J.L. Baldes:  2003 Clos Triguedina; 2003 Prince Probus; and 1998 New Black Wine [really its name, eds. note].  All were inky, somewhat tight, and tannic (even the 1998).  The 2003 Prince Probus was the group’s favorite of the flight.  The last two red wines were from Madiran and were made by Alain Brumont.  We had the 2001 Montus Prestige and the 1995 Montus XL.  Both were rather chewy and tannic and of the two the group favored the Prestige.  The red wines seemed well suited to the cuisine of Southwest France, foie gras, duck magret, and almost demanded that they be served with food to show their best.  The members also felt that they preferred the Madiran over the Cahors based on the red wines tasted. 

The society then had three sweet white dessert wines:  1998 Chateau Richard Saussignac Coup de Coeur; 2001 Domaine Cauhape Jurancon Noblesse du Temps; and 1996 Domaine Tirecul la Graviere Monbazillac Cuvee Madame.  All were superb.  The first and third of the dessert wines showed evident botrytis while the middle wine from Cauhape had perhaps a raisiny quality having been allowed to dry on the vines before picking.  Foie gras would have been wonderful here as well to accompany these luscious wines.

Our next tasting on January 3, 2008 will be 2004 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon presented by member (and recent winery owner), Ken Brady. The vintage of 2004 is excellent and is rated 90-94 in the Wine Spectator.   According to Matt Kramer in New California Wine (Running Press 2004), in recent years winemakers have apparently gone from a “mechanistic view of grape growing and winemaking . . . almost [ignoring] the land.  The effects of soil types were of little or no concern.  [Now] the task is about matching just the right root stock to every soil type in the vineyard”.  Kramer has stressed that one should look for “somewhereness in a wine . . . revelation of place”.  In the forthcoming tasting we will see if we can make this place distinction from four areas of Napa Valley: Calistoga; Howell Mountain; Stags Leap; and Oakville/Rutherford.  Will the differences in the taste of these wines be related to the site of origin or will the taste be obscured by winemaking or is this “somewhereness” just a convenient fiction imposed on us by Burgundians who are really the “terroirists” of the wine business.

The wines we will taste tend to be from small producers and, except one, were obtained directly from a Napa Valley wine shop.  Some may become the next cult wines. Will we find the next Screaming Eagles?  Many of the wines have not been reviewed in Parker’s Wine Advocate (WA), Wine Spectator (WS) or in Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar(IWC)  and if there is a rating, we will note it.

To differentiate the tastes of one area from another Matt Kramer finds in Stags Leap Cabernet “a distinctive style . . . soft luxuriousness of the fruit . . . a corseted voluptuousness”   We will taste the 2004 Baldacci and the 2004 Husic.  The best known wine from this area is Warren Winiarski’s Stag’s Leap, the winner of the famous 1976 Paris tasting.  Oakville/Rutherford wines, according to Kramer, have a “dusty, gravelly scent’ and show a sinewy mintiness and muscularity.  This area has been a source of Heitz Martha’s Vineyard, Beaulieu Private Reserve and Mondavi Reserve, the latter from the famed To-Kalon vineyard.  We will taste the 2004 Mondavi Oakville (92 IWC 93 WS) which is mostly (64%) taken from this vineyard.  Tamber Bey (89 WS) will be our other Oakville wine.  Howell Mountain is said to have “firm tannins and unyielding fruit when young. . . a certain spiciness . . . absence of pungency . . . earth and chocolate notes” compared to other mountain grown wines in Napa.  The wines from Howell Mountain are 2004 Serdonis and 2004 Ladera (91 IWC 91 WS).  Calistoga is the northernmost area in Napa and lacks much of the cooling effect of San Pablo Bay to the south.  Some of Calistoga is flat and some of the terrain is more elevated.  The Calistoga wine will be 2004 Shelter and 2004 Jericho Canyon.  The latter is recommended by Parker for “renowned Cabernet Sauvignons”.

The February 7, 2008 tasting has been changed.  The 2005 Bordeaux are not yet available and the tasting will be postponed until 2008-2009.  The substitution will be an interesting one- 1985 Red Bordeaux from wine society members’ cellars.

The cost of the January 3, 2008 tasting will be$59 for members and $73 for guests.

PLEASE NOTE: THE MAILING ADDRESS FOR THE RESPONSE TO THIS TASTING ONLY IS : ECWS  P.O. Box 45, Livingston, N.J. 07039-0045      . 

If you send the reply to Dana Bolton, it will not be opened until after the tasting date and you will not be able to attend the January tasting.

In vino vertas and a votre sante

Bob and Howard

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