These wines were samples for review.
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The Manzoni Home Vineyard Pinot Noir 2010, Santa Lucia Highlands, is an individual but not eccentric rendition of the grape, one that embodies pinot noir’s innate balance between elegance and power. The color is dark ruby with a tinge of magenta at the rim; seductive aromas of melon ball, rhubarb and black cherry with a hint of cranberry are woven with cola and sandalwood, earth and leather, rose petal and camellia. You could stop right there and just smell this wine, except that you would miss a lovely satiny texture that robes slightly spiced and macerated black and red fruit flavors beautifully poised and integrated with a subtle, supple oak influence and enough tannins to give the wine a firm but unobtrusive framework and foundation. 14.2 percent alcohol. Production was 441 cases. Drink now through 2014. Excellent. About $26.
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What a pleasure to try a syrah that doesn’t think it has to grab your tongue, plow your palate and run over you with a Harley to make its effects known. What I first want to point out in respect to the Manzoni Home Vineyard Syrah 2009, Santa Lucia Highlands, is that its tannins are beautiful; I don’t think I have said that about a wine in almost 28 years of writing about the subject. These tannins feel as if they had been sanded with very fine sandpaper and buffed with chamois; they fill the mouth, formidably yet softly, almost cloud-like yet with a particular intensity of purpose and integration. These tannins are married to piercing minerality in the infinitesimally-grained granite and graphite range, all of this subject to the authority of lively acidity and deep mossy earthiness. Red and black currants, blackberries and blueberries form the core of the wine’s fruit aspects, permeated by notes of lavender and licorice, smoky potpourri and bittersweet chocolate and, in the finish, a slight bite of wet fur and ash. Absolutely classic. I would rather drink this wine than a thousand over-ripe, over-oaked, high-alcohol blockbuster syrahs. 14.2 percent alcohol. 494 cases. Drink now through 2014 or ’15. Excellent. About $26.
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As is the case with these “Friday Wine Sips,” I go straight to the brief review and offer no technical, historical of geographical data. What you see is what you get. Unless otherwise indicated, these wines were samples for review. Image from 123rf.com.
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Alamos Red Blend 2010, Mendoza, Argentina. 13.5% alc. 40% malbec, 18% tempranillo, 14% bonarda, 14% cabernet sauvignon, 7% petit verdot, 7% syrah. Very tasty; robust, hearty, deep, dark and spicy; ripe black and blue fruit scents and flavors permeated by briers and brambles, dense and chewy tannins and sifted mineral elements, all bolstered by vibrant acidity. Not a blockbuster, but definitely a bruiser. Very Good. About $13.
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Zanthos Zweigelt 2009, Burgenland, Austria. 13% alc. Black as the night that covers me from pole to pole, this one radiates tarry, earthy spicy black currant, boysenberry and plum fruit edged with leather, graphite and wild mulberry jam. These boots were made for drinking. Very Good+. About $14 and Worth a Search.
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Liberty School Cabernet Sauvignon 2009, Paso Robles, California. 13.5% alc. Miles better than most cabs at the price; loads of character and integrity; weaves the requisite strands of vivid, fresh black currant, black raspberry and plum aromas and flavors supported by spicy oak and clean, tightly-drawn acidity, all spread over a bedrock of earthy, graphite-like minerality and a bit of forest. Delicious intensity and simple purity. It’ll ring yer bell. Very Good+. About $14, a Real Bargain.
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Lee Family Farm Silvaspoons Vineyard Rio Tinto 2009, Alta Mesa, Lodi. 13.4% alc. Made from Port grapes: tinta roriz 34%, touriga nacional 28%, alvarelbo 19%, touriga francesa 19%. Blackish ruby-purple color; spicy oak, spicy black currant, black raspberry and blackberry fruit; did I say spicy yet? Deep and dark, yet placid, smooth, despite grainy tannins and elements of underbrush and earthy graphite; then, a whiff of violets. Manly but not muscle-bound. 400 cases. Very Good+. About $16.
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Lenore Syrah 2008, Columbia Valley, Washington State. (Corvidae Wine Co., by Owen Roe) 14.4% alc. Big, shaggy, juicy; black currants, blueberries and blackberry jam infused with Port; smoke, ash, roasted plums, furry tannins set amid earthy, glittering iron filings-like minerality. A fountain of fortitude. Very Good+. I paid $16, but you see it around the country as low as $12.
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Modern Wine Project Malbec 2007, Columbia Valley, Washington State. (Sleight of Hand Cellars) 14.5% alc. 100% malbec. A Rough Rider of a red wine, robust and rustic, a bit shaggy in the tannin arena, but bursting with dark, smoky and spicy black currant, blueberry and black plum flavors — a little fleshy, a little meaty — framed by polished oak and dusty graphite. Neither bashful nor apologetic. Very Good+. Prices all over the map, but look for $19 to $22.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Anka 2008, Maipo Valley, Chile. (Vina Pargua) 14% alc. Cabernet sauvignon 57%, merlot 16%, cabernet franc 15%, carmemère 7%, syrah 4%, petit verdot 1%. Wildly floral and berryish; black and red currants, mulberries; licorice and lilac; smooth but dense, chewy texture, full-bodied, sleek and sculpted yet vibrant, something untamed here, woolly and roguish. Luaus and late dates. Very Good+. About $20.
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Maquis Carmemère 2009, Colchagua Valley, Chile. 14% alc. Dry, dusty and earthy; blatantly spicy, earthy and mineral-laced; very intense and concentrated; the blackest and bluest of fruit, spiced and macerated, a little roasted and fleshy; lots of stones and bones, bastions of fine-grained tannins. Needs a bowl of chili to unleash its testosterone. Very Good+. About $20.
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Vale do Bofim Reserva 2009, Douro, Portugal. (Symington Family Estates) 13.5% alc. Mainly touriga nacional grapes. Fresh, spicy, another wild, uninhibited wine; penetrating and poignant aromas and flavors of blackberry, black currants and plums with clear tones of blueberry and mulberry, etched with floral elements and leather, vivid acidity and polished tannins; dry, dense, chewy. Excellent. About $23.
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Owen Roe Ex Umbris Syrah 2008, Columbia Valley, Washington State. 14.1% alc. If deep purple had a smell and taste, this would be it. Rich, warm, spicy, enticing bouquet; black currants, black raspberries and blueberries; deeply imbued with leather, underbrush and forest floor; hints of wet dog and damp moss; ripe, fleshy, meaty; dusty granite and a touch of rhubarb and boysenberry. Cries out for barbecue brisket, ribs, osso buco. “Ex Umbris” means “from the shadows.” Excellent. About $24. (I paid $30.)
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LL brought home a piece of wild sockeye salmon from Whole Foods, and we smoked it over loose lapsang souchong tea, which turned the salmon deeply smoky and richly succulent. She made a three “bean” salad with edamame, blackeyed peas and black beans, chopped red onion, celery and cilantro, and with the salmon, that was our simple and delicious dinner last night.

I opened the terrific Lee Family Farm Silvaspoons Vineyard Verdelho 2010, from the Alta Mesa sub-appellation of Lodi. The Lee Family Farm label is a personal project of Dan Lee, owner of Morgan Winery in Monterey County. The verdelho grape is found in Portugal’s Douro Valley, where because of its high sugar and acid levels it’s generally made into white port, and on the island of Madeira, where it is both the name of the grape and the term for a style of Madeira. Experiments at making verdelho into a table wine in Madeira have not been successful; perhaps the producers there should follow Dan Lee’s lead and lend the grape a little softness and subtle spice by aging four months in neutral French oak barrels, “neutral” meaning that the barrels have been used enough times that their influence is mild and nuanced.

The Lee Family Farm Silvaspoons Vineyard Verdelho 2010 is a pale straw-gold color, while the bouquet feels fresh, clean and wind-blown, spanking brisk with apple skin, fennel and thyme, roasted lemon and lemon grass, ginger, lilac and camellia and an off-shore whiff of sea-salt and flint; I call it irresistible. In the mouth, the wine displays gratifying tone and presence, balancing crisp acidity and modest austerity with the languor of softly ripe lemon, melon and peach flavors, lightly spiced, and a hint of dried rosemary, with that slightly resinous quality for which the herb is known; the bracing finish teems with limestone minerality. 13.2 percent alcohol. Drink through 2012 or into 2013. Production was 387 cases, so mark this Worth a Search. Excellent. About $15, representing Great Value.

A sample for review.

I love the simplicity and elegance of this label and the understated by-play among the typefaces.

Peterson, a clinical microbiologist, grew up in a household devoted to food and wine, though both of his parents were scientists. He made his first zinfandel wines — from single vineyards in Sonoma County — in 1976, and in the next five years the wandering winery moved five times. While making wine and trying to build a winery, Peterson worked nights and weekends in the laboratory at Sonoma Valley Hospital, a job he kept until 1992, when the success of the Ravenswood Vintners Reserve brand finally enabled him to become a full-time winemaker and winery owner. Industry giant Constellation Wines acquired Ravenswood for $148 million in 2001; Peterson remains as the winemaker and is a senior vice president at Constellation Wines US.

There are six single-vineyard zinfandels in the Ravenswood line-up. I recently tasted two of them from 2008, the Dickerson, from Napa Valley, and the Belloni, from Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley. One is high-toned, elegant, distinctly fueled by tannin and minerals; the other is more approachable, definitely more spicy and fruit-driven, though not decadent or over-done. You’ll see which is which. Ravenswood also makes a “County” line of zinfandels from Lodi, Sonoma and Napa, the expanded Vintners Reserve label, and several limited edition wines.

These wines were samples for review.

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The Ravenswood Dickerson Zinfandel 2008, Napa Valley, feels balanced and harmonious from start to finish, though after 30 or 40 minutes, you feel the well-knit oak and tannin begin to assert their spicy, slightly woody and grainy influence. The wine, 100 percent varietal, aged 20 months in French oak, 30 percent new barrels, 28 percent one-year-old, the rest older. This is a zinfandel that feels warm with ripe fruit and spice and cool with graphite-like minerality. Notes of lavender, licorice and cloves highlight black currant, black cherry and plum jam scents and flavors in a package that’s sleek, polished and elegant, though tugged by the persistent gravity of those earthy, briery-brambly tannins; a few minutes in the glass bring in hints of bittersweet chocolate and black tea. 14.8 percent alcohol. Production was 755 cases. Drink now through 2016 to ’18. Excellent. About $35.
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The oak regimen for the Ravenswood Belloni Vineyard Zinfandel 2008, Russian River Valley, is close to the process for its cousin mentioned above; 20 months but with 32 percent new barrels and 32 percent one-year-old. The more important difference is in the make-up of the wine. While the Dickerson 08 is completely zinfandel, the Belloni 08 is a blend of 78 percent zinfandel with the balance of petite sirah, carignane and alicante bouschet grapes. For whatever reason — geography, climate, composition — the Ravenswood Belloni 08 make an immediate impression of size, ripeness and succulence, though it avoids anything sweet, jammy or over-ripe. Still, the tannins here, though certainly an influence on the wine’s dimension and structure, are softer, leaning a bit more toward the sanded graphite-in-velveteen camp. The wine is rich and warm and generously endowed with black currant, black plum and blueberry flavors dredged in cloves and allspice (with a touch of the latter’s faint astringency to lend complexity) and a strain of fruitcake that lingers provocatively through the finish. 15 percent alcohol. Production was 535 cases. Now through 2015 to ’16. Excellent. About $35.
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Consumers may receive up to $21 even if they do not have receipts from purchasing the wines mentioned above. I know that I certainly saved my receipt from the bottle of Red Bicyclette I bought in 2007. For details of the settlement — and to see if you are entitled to a few bucks — visit frenchpinotnoirsettlement.

What tickles my admittedly perverse funny-bone is the idea that the buyers at Sieur d’Arques, Gallo and Constellation had no idea that they were purchasing bottles of merlot and syrah with perhaps a bit of pinot noir blended in. Perhaps they should have followed the advice on how to tell if a wine is pinot noir from the folks on the website of Sunset magazine, quoted by Jill Krasny writing for Business Insider:

Check the color. Pinot grapes should be nearly transparent.

Scrutinize the weight. Pinot should be delicate and silky, not full-bodied and “dramatic.”

(Olives and espresso? Those qualities seem rather anomalous for pinot noir.)

‘Scuse me while I fall off my chair laughing. When was the last time you tried a pinot noir wine whose color was “nearly transparent”? (I assume that the intention was to say “wine” rather than “grapes.”) When was the last time you tasted a pinot noir that was “delicate and silky”? I’m talking particularly about pinots from California and Oregon, where alcohol levels of 15 percent or more are common, where the wines are deeply extracted for opaque, brooding color and super-ripe, syrah-like flavors, where “full-bodied and dramatic” pinot noirs are as reckless as deductions on Mitt Romney’s tax return. Every week I taste purported pinot noirs that display all the character of a syrah or zinfandel in their darkness, richness, extreme spicy qualities, extravagant textures and burdensome tannins. I recently came across a producer of limited edition, high-end pinots whose motto is “Bold Decadent Daring.” Whatever happened to “Reticent Elegant Balanced”?

No wonder the noses and palates at Gallo and Constellation couldn’t tell that the “pinot” they were buying was actually mostly merlot and syrah. (We have to assume, of course, that they cared. Would I be cynical enough to suggest that the big deal for Gallo and Constellation was not that they bought fake pinot but that they were bamboozled by the French?) What’s a nose and palate to do when so many pinot noir wines, even made from 100 percent pinot noir grapes, carry all the effects of merlot or syrah or zinfandel? And if the result of farming the vineyard and tinkering with the wine is a pinot noir that resembles syrah, why bother with making pinot noir in the first place? Just make freakin’ syrah and be done with it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it today and probably in the future too. Winemakers who do not try to bring out the best qualities of their grapes, that is the character inherent in the grapes grown in the most sympathetic and advantageous soil and climate, are making wine in bad faith. A high-alcohol, deeply extracted, super-ripe, excessively spicy pinot noir of which one is compelled to say, “That certainly is a syrah-like [or zinfandel-like] pinot noir,” does not have the right to the name pinot noir. I’m not saying the all pinots not made in Burgundy must slavishly follow the Burgundian model; obviously geography, latitude, elevation, climate and soil will impose their subtle or not-so-subtle influences. The pinot noir grape, however, performs at its best when it is allowed to assume its gratifying and paradoxical blending of elegance and power, of delicacy and sinew, nuance and structure, transparency and luster. Winemakers should pay heed to what grapes know best about themselves and want to express most eloquently; everything else is an exercise in ego.

By the way, the composition of the Red Bicylette Pinot Noir 2009? 86 percent pinot noir, 7 percent syrah, 7 percent merlot.

The engraving that decorates the labels of La Follette wines is derived from a rare 19th Century French winemaking manual, though for this purpose the implement the vigneron was holding has been supplanted by a magic wand.

These wines were samples for review.
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The Van Der Kamp Vineyard, farmed on organic principles, lies at 1,400 feet elevation on Sonoma Mountain. My first note on La Follette Van Der Kamp Vineyard Pinot Noir 2009, Sonoma Mountain, is “This has it all.” The color is dark ruby with a violet-magenta rim; aromas of smoky black cherry, beet-root, cola and cloves, cranberry and rhubarb are layered over new leather and dusty graphite — a bouquet one does not easily forget. In the mouth, this pinot noir is seductively supple and satiny, supporting ripe and spicy (but not overly luscious) black cherry, mulberry and plum flavors in balance with a definitive smack of acidity for liveliness along with subtle, gentling shaping oak from 10 months in French barrels; through the finish, slightly dense tannins stir something earthy and almost tarry. 14.6 percent alcohol. 429 cases. Drink now through 2014 or ’15. Excellent. About $40.
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The Mendocino Ridge AVA — American Viticultural Area — established in 1997, is not contiguous, rather it encompasses three similar but disconnected mountain slopes along the coastal range in Mendocino County. It’s a huge region, but fewer than 100 acres are planted to vines, all above 1,200 feet, higher than the fog line. From one of these peaks, located at 2,000 feet, comes La Follette Manchester Ridge Vineyard Pinot Noir 2009, Mendocino Ridge. One senses the mountain-side origin of the grapes in the wine’s distinct briery, brambly and leather qualities, in the foresty presence that inhabits the finish, in what I have to call tremendous tannin. Fruit is red with a black undertone — red currants and red cherry, rhubarb and mulberry, a hint of black plum — all deeply spiced and macerated, all permeated by cola and cloves and a hint of fruitcake. (It spends 10 months in French oak.) This is, by my lights, frankly large for pinot noir, densely structured, chewy, not exactly syrah-like but pushing the grape to the extreme; still, what can I say? It’s pinot noir; I pretty much like it. 14.7 percent alcohol. 494 cases. Drink now through 2014 to ’16. Excellent. About $50.
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La Follette Sangiacomo Vineyard Pinot Noir 2009, Sonoma Coast, is characterized initially by striking freshness and purity, followed by waves of smoke and exotic spices that imbue aromas of ripe black cherry and blueberry, mulberry and rhubarb. At 15.5 percent alcohol, there’s a lot of power here, and as the wine spends time in the glass it begins to yield evidence of the alcohol and the oak to the detriment of its other virtues, and the first impression of freshness and purity is subsumed by heat and a general sense of imbalance. Perhaps a few years aging, say, through 2013 or ’14, will smooth this wine out and bring integration, but my money would be on the two previous wines. Very Good (for potential). About $40.
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These were samples for review.
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Uvaggio Vermentino 2009, Lodi, is about as lovely and appealing as vermentino gets. The color is pale straw; aromas of lemon and lemon balm are woven with hints of almond and almond blossom, lime and cloves and a slight astringent note, a sort of breezy sea-salt briskness. The wine is made in stainless steel, except for 10 percent that’s aged briefly in neutral — well-used — oak barrels, a device that subtly influences the supple texture and the touch of spice in the melon, pear and stone-fruit flavors. This suppleness is buoyed by crisp acidity and just a smidgeon of limestone-like minerality that lends the wine a bit of snap. The finish is sleek and a little spare. 11 percent alcohol. We drank this quite successfully with a risotto with kale, roasted parsnips and sage. Now through the end of 2012. Very Good+. About $14.
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At first, I thought that the Uvaggio Primitivo 2009, Lodi, was simple, tasty and enjoyable, and there’s not a thing wrong with those qualities, but I came back to it about four hours later to find that it had unlimbered a pleasing arsenal of dark and spicy traits. The color is a limpid ruby-purple; scents of raspberry and black cherry are highlighted by intriguing notes of rhubarb and sandalwood and a slightly earthy undercurrent of briers and brambles, all of which conspire to give the wine a touch of wildness. The wine ages 9 months in 15 percent new Hungarian oak barrels and 85 percent once-used French oak; there’s a dollop (2.5 percent) of barbera. Uvaggio Primitivo 2009 is robust but not rustic, intensely flavorful in the spiced and macerated range of black and red fruit, zesty with vibrant acidity and savory all around. 13 percent alcohol. Now through 2013. Very Good+. About $16.
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